Compound Meter: A place to park your car that requires two dimes.

The newest Riverwalk park project officially opened today. The Curtis Hixon Park was a $45 million dollar revitalization of the old site of the Tampa Museum of Art. A few years ago the museum was closed down and much of the area was razed. I once had a virtual geocache (goecaching spot that did have a physical hidden container) called 'All the world's a cache' at this location that had to be archived for a while since it was unknown if the amphitheater would be saved, however it was fortunately spared as part of the new park. The new museum will open in a few weeks, but the park itself will get immediate use since it it the termination point of the Gasparilla Pirate parade next weekend.

Olympics: Official Sports Marketing Division of Coca-Cola

Day 27
Seattle, Olympic Peninsula

I was up relatively early to get a few pictures and head out before weekday traffic got too bad. I took a few shots of the Freemont Troll and then the art district for a few pics around the statue of Lenin. I headed north and then got my ticket for the auto ferry ride to the Olympic Peninsula on the Edmonds Ferry. While waiting I was able to find a nearby geocache and get in a couple of shots of some passing Boeing airplane fuselages being carried by train. After getting back on land I drove through Port Gamble and some of the other old small company timber towns. After going over the Hood Canal floating bridge, kind of cool in that much of the bridge does indeed float on pontoons and the span retracts to allow for traffic, I headed towards Port Angeles and the Olympic National Park visitor center. I made a quick stop at the Dungeness River Bridge Park for a few pictures. After getting my park stamp, I took a hike to Hurricane Ridge in the park before also checkout out one of the side roads for some pretty stunning vistas. I was able to enjoy watching some of the deer population walk around and get in some decent shots. I wish I had more of my camping gear with me as this park would be an astounding place to visit for a week and do some more serious hiking. I doubt I'll ever really have the chance to come back, but it was worth checking out.

People who want by the mile but try by the inch should be kicked by the foot.

Day 13: NYC - DEN
Denver

After the early morning flight I landed in the mile high club-city of Denver to begin the next adventure. After picking up the car (which was a pretty good distance via shuttle from the airport), I headed downtown to take a look around. I wanted to get in a good run, so fortunately the local hash had one scheduled that afternoon, so I meandered around the city parks a bit taking pictures of some of the nice scenery and even searching for a geocache or two. After a while I made it to the hash start and chatted with folks as they showed up. This, like Portland, was definitely a running hash and trail was a leisurely 4.5 miles, not counting false trails and count backs. The altitude didn't really get to me, but it was the extreme dryness that I forgot was a big part of Denver's climate. I enjoyed meeting the different folks and was fortunate to find the after-party at the hare's home which included a nice cookout. I hung out until it got fairly late and then just car camped at the park near the start.

A home, where the buffalo roam, is messy. When all the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.

Day 5: BUF - BOS
Niagara Falls
Buffalo, NY

After getting up early we visited the Whirlpool State Park to get a few of the gorge. I had heard and saw a picture of a cave at the bottom, so Mike and I took the several hundred steps down and finally found it after a long hike, however we were severely disappointed to find that it only went in about 30 feet. There was some going passage, but it looked like it would require a ladder and some climbing gear to get to it. after climbing all the way back up, we headed towards the airport. Mike decided to direct us to Duff's in Buffalo due to their 'history' with wings. Although they are said to have been invented as a normal food dish at the Anchor Bar, Duff's is said to have perfected or, at least, best marketed them. Since he had an earlier flight, I dropped Mike off at the airport and then headed back into Buffalo to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site (official site). I got my NPS park stamp and then was able to timely join a tour that had just started after flashing the annual pass and jumping in just before the door closed. This was the home in which Roosevelt was inaugurated after the death of President McKinley. We were provided with a history of the events and view of the rooms in which they took place as well as a timeline of his precidency and forthcoming works after the events in Buffalo took place. I even allowed myself to take part in the cheesy 'be president for a day' interactive station about which the rangers (BTW, all of whom made themselves to look like TR), were so proud.

After the tour I headed over to Naval Park to get in a few pictures. I love exploring old Naval ships after having grown up near Patriot's Point in Charleston and really wish I had the time to visit the ships berthed here, but unless I nearly literally ran through the exhibit, I simply didn't have enough time. I did walk around for a while to the waterfront and got a few decent pictures while snagging a couple of geocaches. I also had the chance to sit in on a tea party rally taking place on the waterfront as speakers discussed local tax and restoration issues while other groups nearby got ready for a Saber's hockey game, while yet another group was having a music appreciation event and thought it great that there were so many great uses and chances to share space and ideals.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, however this was my first chance to really test the mapping abilities of my iPhone 3GS. The road directions worked incredibly well when driving through New York and Maine (though I had my normal GPS as backup), but dealing with public transit can be another beast. I loved the features and abilities that the Google Map application for the iPhone provided. A few days prior I coordinated with a hasher in Boston that graciously allowed me to crash on her couch for a few days. Normally finding ones way from the airport to Cambridge via a series of buses, subways, and walking would be a pain, however the application made everything so easy. I merely entered my location, airport, and the address in Cambridge that I wanted to target and the application immediately gave me directions and time tables for every step of the way. It told me to walk to a certain airport exit, take the silver line at a particular time to some point, switch to another line, exit at a particular station, and walk a few streets to arrive at my destination. The application was able to consistently get me exactly where I wanted to go and was able to predict the arrival time within 3-5 minutes in every instance. Thank you Google Map team. It was pretty easy to find my destination, especially since the 3GS has a magnetic sensor and can determine the direction in which I am facing and provide feedback as to where I need to start walking. Way too cool.

I got to my hosts place and after plugging in a few things, she made some phone calls and coordinated with some local hashers to coordinate an impromptu pub crawl to show me around. We ended up staying out until we shut down the bars and had a great time! After an experience like this I was thinking that Boston was definitely a place I could live if it was not for the frigid weather 6 months out of the year, however I seemed to have been able to visit at a time of perfect weather just before the first big chill came through.

No matter how bright your lighthouse may be, darkness still reigns at the foot.

AYCJ Day 1: TPA- NYC, NYC - PWN -
Portland, Maine

My first flight had me leaving Tampa at 6AM through to Portland, Maine, with a quick layover at JFK. When I arrived at JFK, I got a twitter message from Chris Butz, some with whom I was planning on traveling in about a week in Oregon. Apparently he had a quick layover in JFKas well for about 20 minutes, checked my TripIt itinerary, and met me at my arriving gate to say hello. This would be the first of many AYCJ related meetings; some random and some planned. We chatted for a little while about the upcoming trip together, squaring away some details, before he had to take off. When in the terminal I saw, as would be the custom for the next month, someone had sent out a Twitter message basically saying "I'm here, who else in in the area?". After a few days, most people figured out to add the hash tag of #aycj to their messages to make it easier to filter posts related to those using the pass. Coincidentally, this person also mentioned that they were heading to Portland ME as well. I looked around but didn't locate them before I had to head to the gate and board the plane. Just by chance that same guy was seated next to me. He lived in NYC and was going to use the pass today simple to go to Portland for lunch, do some work for a while on his laptop, and then fly home later in the evening with some fresh lobster to take home. He was just planning on taking a taxi, but I offered to drive him into town for lunch since I was planning on heading downtown anyway. After walking the docks and fish market for a while, we headed over to Three Dollar Deweys just in time to make their opening to enjoy a scrumptious lobster roll and some local seasonal beer. While eating it was a great feeling to realize that just a few hours prior I was waking up in Tampa and now having a fresh lobster lunch at the waterfront of Maine.

After eating, Eric headed off to work for a while at a local cafe and I headed to the coast to take some pictures and enjoy the scenery. I headed over to a famous local landmark, the Portland Head Lighthouse. I got a few pictures for a while and sat out on the rocks enjoy the sea smells once more before decided to find a couple of geocaches nearby. There is a geocaching iPhone application that has made the hobby much easier than it used to be. Then the hobby first started, one had to load geocache coordinates into a GPS using serial cables and then print out cache info and descriptions. Later I got a Palm PDA just to load up cache information for paperless geocaching, but still had to make database queries every few weeks to get updated cache information to upload into the GPS device. Now everything is done in real-time using one application. Since the 3GS has integrated GPS and a magnetic sensor, finding caches is much easier. I can now search for local caches, get descriptions/logs/hints and then make a log entry once it is found. Often when I went out caching, I'd carry my phone, GPS, camera, and PDA as separate devices, now it is all contained in one unit! sometimes being a geek is fun and useful.

After making a couple of finds, I headed over to a vista overlooking the coast for some more pictures. I was taking a few shots when I started getting some error messages regarding communication with the lens and camera body. This did not bode well for me. After another dozen shots I started to hear a whirring and the lens would no longer focus. Apparently the drive motor for the focusing of the camera decided to finally give up the ghost such that even manual focusing didn't work. Unbelievable. The first day of a 31 day trip and the camera lens that had been working perfectly well on even recent events had now completely quit functioning. This very same thing happened when I was in Sydney in March of 2008. Just as I first arrived and took a few shots there, the camera lens I was using locked up completely without any prior indication of a problem. At that time, I had someone back home that I relied upon to graciously overnight their personal, identical lens, so that I could take pictures on the trip. This time I really didn't have many options, so I used the iPhone to locate a local Canon dealers and to provide me with specific directions to get to the store across town. I tried looking through Craig's List with a local search (using a convenient app), but could not find any used Canon lenses for sale. The iPhone Google Maps app became a lifesaver many times on this trip, overwhelming exceeding my expectations. I headed to the camera store and ended up purchasing a new Sigma 18-125 3.8-5.6 lens and mailing back home the carcass of my old lens. I certainly wasn't expecting to spend this kind of money, but I was in a bind with no other option available to me, but did end up getting a decent deal since the lens was on sale and it was technically better than my old lens since it had a better zoom for the same speed. On the way back through downtown Portland I picked up Eric once again to drop him off at the airport since I had to meet up with another AYCJ traveler. On the way there I mentioned that I was going to be in New York City in a week or so and was going to find a hostel in which to stay and Eric simply said "Well, I'm going to be out of town that weekend using the pass, you can just stay at my place". And just like that I had a free apartment in which I could stay.

Mike G and I had communicated over the past few weeks through Facebook and would be traveling together through Maine and Buffalo/Niagara and later in the month on another trip. I hit another couple of local caches since I had time to burn before Mike came it. Since the flight was pretty late due to a missed connection, I was able to get a little sleep before he finally came in late in the evening. We immediately hit the interstate to head north so we could get to Bar Harbor and Acadia NP as early as possible. We ended up driving for a few hours before getting pretty tired and then pulled off on an exit and drove for a short while before finding an empty field in which to throw up the tent. The first day ended up being pretty eventful (and expensive due to having to purchase a completely new lens), but it was overall a decent start.