All posts by Chris

"L.L. Bean" Basket

February 19, 2012 Chris 2 Comments

I’ve already told you about how I did this, but here are some pictures showing the progression of the basket 🙂 I need to sand it to smooth out a lot of places and then I might stain it. But its 95% done right now. In this picture you can see what I did with the wire on the other side of the inner end piece. You’ll notice how I cut off the piece that connects all these ends so that I could bend them over the wood and then HOT glue it. This way hopefully the wire will never pull out of the wood.

This is my work table. TADA! I want to make a nicer table to work on, and really want to clean up the entire basement workshop area, but its all my dads stuff so I don’t know if I will or not.

I used the circular saw to cut the “U” into the outer end pieces, that way I could get the two pieces of wood to fit together nicely.

Left: This is WOOD glue!

Right: You saw this when we were skyping, but here’s a pic of the setup all clamped together.

DONE! I should put a picture of the one from the LL Bean catalog next to a picture of mine for comparison. Their handle was attached differently, and I’m guessing they attached their wire differently but its impossible to know. Also, their handle is a more drastic curve which makes it easier to get things into and out of the basket. If I make another, I will make a bigger handle like theirs, use solid wood for the end pieces (as opposed to plywood), and maybe get a little more creative with how I attach the handle or what I make the handle look like. 🙂 So far I think it’s come out pretty well though. I’ll take a picture when I’m completely done with it for you.

Hiking

Mt. Monadnock!

January 2, 2012 Chris 5 Comments

Miscellaneous

Riding 10.22.11

October 27, 2011 Chris 3 Comments

I just thought of something kinda funny. When I talk about dirt biking, I say “riding” and when I talk about mountainbiking, I say “biking.” That will help you differentiate between what I’m doing maybe. But anyways, I didn’t get any action pics bc its a pain to stop and take out my camera, but maybe next time for you! We did have a really nice day though and here are the two pictures I did take, besides the one that I emailed you previously when we stopped to check out the old stone building.

This picture was when we were just about ready to go after loading up Casey’s quad at his house. Lookin’ cool huh?

This was just before we left to go out on the trails (in BEARTOWN!). There was a guy out there with his girlfriend that we saw (also a bunch of beaners with brand new bikes which is funny), but they were having problems. The guy was leading and they came up to a hill which was kinda tough with big rocks and a little steep, and he got stuck or something so Casey and I passed them and went on our way. Someday I’ll let you ride my dirt bike. I would prefer you try the quad first just because its a little less intimidating, but same sort of shifting, you just dont need to worry about balancing and dealing with a heavy bike that could fall over.

But if you do a good job riding around, maybe someday I could take you for a little ride 🙂

Hiking

Bigelow Loop

August 14, 2011 Chris Leave a comment

This was me the morning of our hike, at about 5:45am. I was a tired, but it was really nice out. The next was the view of the dock and out onto the pond that morning. It’s always a little hazy out on the pond in the morning, even on nice days, and then it burns off around 9 usually.

These next pictures are of part of the trail when we were approaching the first summit and it got pretty steep. It was the Appalachian Trail that went along all the peaks, mostly along the ridges between all of them, which made it fun. On the left was a cool looking section and on the right was another steep section (notice how I was ahead of my marathon-running brothers as I mentioned to you before haha).

This picture is of Casey taking a picture at the first peak. We could see Sugarloaf, all the other peaks we were planning on hitting, and Flagstaff lake(one of the biggest lakes in Maine), and a wind farm off in the distance on the Canadian border. I’m gonna work on patching together a bunch of pictures I took at the peak to make a panoramic of almost 360 degrees from the summit. The next was a view looking down from near the 3rd peak. The two off in the distance right next to each other were the first two. Those were the two shortest ones (both under 4000ft. just barely) They were called North and South Horn, and from there we hiked along the ridge that you can faintly see in the picture and at this point we were nearing the treeline and the top of the tallest mountain.

This next picture (left) is the same view, but from a little higher up on the mountain. The picture on the right is of Corey and Casey in the distance, approaching the peak. This was still on the AT and it was cool up here because they had lined the trail with little rocks the whole way up because they didn’t want people going off the path and killing the vegetation.

When we were near the highest peak, we passed a group of probably 12-15 girls that have been a few years younger than us. Maybe they were doing some sort of program like Liz had done because they all had big packs and said this was their 10th day in a row hiking, and they had just finished a 2 week bike trip prior to hiking. You can see some of them in the background of my self portrait.

The picture on the right is of the three of us at the peak of the last peak, just before we began our descent, which only took 1.5 hrs because we hurried and then even ran for a mile and a half. At this point, the clouds were starting to roll in so it was a little chilly, but it was a really good day for the hike. It was clear when we reached the summit, but not too hot.

Camping, Cycling, Hiking, Miscellaneous

Tim Pond Scenery

August 14, 2011 Chris Leave a comment

This is one of the gates that you have to get through to get into Tim Pond. It is at the top of the hill where I called you from. As you can see, I took this while I was up there on my bike to talk to you, but I thought it would be a fitting picture to start this post off with.

These next two pictures are pretty self-explanatory. On the left is K-lee in the pond just down a little path from our cabins, so it can give you a little perspective on the size of the pond and what the view is like. On the right is a hammock which is also near our cabins. I took my book and read in it one nice day. With a pillow its a perfect spot for reading.

The next picture is of my book, “Alaska BEAR Tales” It is really good, I’m only half way through it, but hopefully I will keep going and finish it at home. It spooked me a little bit when I was up late reading it with my headlamp after the lights went out at night. It made me keep looking around all the time I went out biking on the dirt roads alone. The picture below to the right is of me at the shale pit. It was about a 4 mile ride to the bottom of the hill that goes up to the pit, which as you can see overlooks the pond and the surrounding area. Its a little off-kilter because I put it on a self timer on a loose rock on the wall. But it worked out pretty well, and then I rode down the wall and down the big hill and back to camp which in the larger version of the picture you can make out. The left grip on my handlebars covers up most of it though, and it is pretty tough to see.

This is the view of camp from the boat, one night we went out fishing. This was before harvey (one of the owners of the camp and the owner of the plane) left. And I missed him leaving, because I like watching planes take off and land, especially on the pond. And he always buzzes the camp after he takes off. Anyways, I thought it was a good picture

This blurry little picture is of the coyote Casey and I saw while fishing one night. It was really dark and the shore was pretty far away, but you can make out its figure. Casey thought he was hunting some birds on the shore or something. He hung out for a while while we fished.

This picture I took from my bike while Casey and I were biking around the pond. I had an opportunity to get a better picture of her when we first saw her, because we were pretty close and she was facing us, but I didn’t have my camera out. And she got a little bit ahead of us while I was getting my camera out, but I managed to get this picture of her running ahead while I was riding.

As you can see, we all had a really good time relaxing, eating well, and doing a few outdoorsy activities. Even the dogs had a good time together, especially Clarke and Grover this day!!

I don’t know why this is all underlined..

This last picture on the left is of me on the phone with you at the top of the hill, looking the other way. On the other side, it was finally time to leave :(. That’s a picture of Willy and Grover waiting to leave in the back of Jon’s car.

I have plenty of other pictures I will post about the hike we did, and then just other randoms hanging out at camp. I will show you the rest when you are here.

CHRACHEL