Ice abstract

A week ago (March 13) I stopped by Rideau Falls here in Ottawa as I was passing by.

Very cool ice formations at the side of the falls!  Reminds me of the caves in Virginia.  I guess these would form the same way, only in the course of a season instead of over thousands of years.

Here is a pile of the river ice sitting in the Ottawa river at the bottom of the falls- looks like cut stone:

Here's the Ottawa river:

Wildlife encounter

As I was hiking in Baldwin Park in L.A. at the end of February, I ran into this little guy taking his own hike on the trail:

What a cutie!

This one's a bit blurry, but show's a snail's eye view of his natural habitat:

I'm glad I didn't accidentally squish him.

Clogging your arteries, with a cosmopolitan twist

This fast food sign on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles caught my eye:

Unfortunately, it was the day before I left so I will have to wait until my next visit to pay a research visit. Jollibee seems to be a burger joint from the Philippines.  That's something that's interesting in L.A., you get chain restaurants from other countries too, not just the American stuff.  The Yumburger and / or Chickenjoy is on my list of things to try.

Elysian Park

Just a few photos taken at Elysian park in February.  It's a beautiful park in a hilly area not far northeast of downtown L.A.  There are lots of big trees in this park, I loved it.

View of downtown:

This beautiful trail looks so peaceful, but scroll down to see the highway (Interstate 5) right below it:

Infrared me

I went to the science museum in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.  They had an infrared light camera.  My fingers look gangrenous.  I've always said the blood doesn't go into them very often.

One of the temporary exhibits was on human reactions to fear.  In one station, they strap you to a padded table and then drop you backwards.  They then play your reaction on a video screen for visitors to watch.

Yep, I reacted.  I must say, most of the others who went before me were super cool, and just smiled and laughed as they dropped.  Reminds me a bit of those photos they take of you on Disney rides.  I'd be in a group of 8 or so in a roller coaster photo: the others would all be laughing and I'd be screaming.

Banksy

I still have some photos and stuff to show you from my trip to L.A.

This tank had been sitting beside the Pacific Coast Highway for some time.  Recently, the British "underground" artist Banksy has been doing some street art in L.A.  You may remember Banksy from the dark intro he did to the Simpsons last year.  The tank was one of his recent targets:

Back to the Great White / Greater Whiter North

I head home to Canada today, on a plane this time, my car having made it's own way back (I hope!) without me.

Then, in a few weeks, I am off to one of my favourite places to work... Grise Fiord!  For April, May and June.  I'm really looking forward to it, but I have so much to do to get ready, having been out of the country for almost six months.

I took the photo below of Grise when I flew out the last time I was there.  See the authentic window smears.  It was a spectacular day for flying, I hope my next trip in is a smooth one too.

Choppers, choppers! M*A*S*H hike part 2

So here is the site of the outdoor set where they did the exterior scenes for both the M*A*S*H movie and TV show.

This mountain was in the backdrop of many scenes in the show:

See?  (Internet screen capture from M*A*S*H movie opening credits):

This is a replica of the signpost:

This is one of the ambulances from the show.

It would have looked like this back in the day (Internet screen capture from M*A*S*H movie opening credits):

Here's one of the jeeps:

This is looking down on the tent site from the helicopter pad.  If you enlarge the photo, they have the site of some of the tents marked out with rope behind the ambulance.  The dip in the foreground would be around where the steps were that Hawkeye and company used to run up to meet the incoming wounded:

This is the helicopter landing pad, taken from above it.  The road the ambulances took is out of the photo to the left.  It's still there, but couldn't get a photo of it due to it being in the shadow.

Here's an aerial shot of the area from the opening movie credits 40 years ago:

This is the path up to the helicopter pad from the camp.  It was backlit so it's a crummy photo.

A reasonable facsimile of Korea: M*A*S*H hike part 1

The outdoor scenes for M*A*S*H were filmed at the 20th Century Fox ranch, which has since been combined with other land previously owned by Ronald Reagan (his ranch) and Bob Hope to create Malibu Creek State Park.

You can hike to the site of the M*A*S*H camp.  I've been meaning to do this since last year and finally got around to it.  I finally did on Feb. 21.

This park is beautiful.  Here are some photos from the trail.

Can't you imagine Klinger coming around the corner here driving a jeep?

These are the mountains the helicopter flies by in the opening credits:

The clouds were beautiful the day I hiked:

This is pretty close to the site:

... and, if you want to see the photos from the site itself, you'll just have to wait until the next post.   I take so many photos on these hikes, it takes me a while to go through them all!