In the Skytop Quarry again

060809 Quarry 2 Wednesday, August 9, 2006, 1:14 PM
    I am in the quarry that Sara and I went to on Sunday morning.  Mary Nicky is very happy.  Mary Nicky, for those infidels who haven't met her yet, is my inner child, usually around age 10.  Or 11 or 12.  Mary Nicky LOVES to explore, its one of her favorite things to do (she has lots of favorites, but clearly exploring is one of the best.  And this quarry is HUGE with LOTS of trails all over, many layers, old abandoned buildings and ruins, interesting f flora and fauna.  Mary Nicky would like to spend the day here wandering around but some big meany (Big Mary) says we have to go back and get to work.  Mary Nicky is particularly unfond of working.  She's rather play.
    Mary Nicky loves the many hidden places, the twists and turns, the piles and cliffs (she loves the cliffs!).
    We just saw one of those giant wasps, the cicada eating wasps, and we took as good a look at it as we dared, MN and I (I'm big Mary today, sad to say.)  And we decided that it is NOT golden all over, it just looks that way from the rapid wing beats, and that it is indeed one of those Cicada eating wasps Sara sent us the link to.  That solves that question, at least tentatively.  We might be wrong, but it sure looks like it.
    Eeyore isn't working, at all.  We're carrying tons of lenses and equipment that we can't use.  And Nikki is essentially useless out here with no viewfinder.  Nikki is an indoor camera, worthless outside.  When I try to look at the screen, all I see, literally is my own face.  UGH!
    What I am doing is point Nikki in the general direction of whatever I want to capture and pushing the button.  There's NO framing involved at all. 
    Some guy, young guy on a mountain bike just rode by carrying a shovel. His whole body was covered with tattoos and his black hair was sort of ratty looking.  He had a pleasant face, but he avoided looking at me and rode into the rough stuff off the trail even though I stepped to the side to let him pass.
    The cicadas are going crazy.  It was wonderfully cool last night, but it's supposed to be 88-90 this afternoon.
    I parked in the lot that goes with the building where Erin works and walked over here past the SU research center parking area etc.
    I am on my way back even though Mary Nicky wanted to stay longer.  I promised her we'd try to come again, maybe many times when we visit Mom and explore the area more fully. 
    Now I am out in the questionable area between the quarry and Erin's work.  I feel a little less concerned now, because if they tell me to leave, I'll just leave, which is what I want to do anyway.
    It turned out to be easy to get here from Loretto.  I'd come up this way before, but when I saw the guardhouses and street closed signs, I got nervous and left.  This time, I kept coming and no one stopped me.  So, if I make it safely back to the car and the car has not been ticketed or towed, I can try it again next time.
    YAY.  Mary Nicky says, "Can we visit Mommy tomorrow? And then go explore?" 
    "No, I tell her, "we have too much work to do."
    "Yuck!" she says, I'd rather play."
    So would I of course, since Mary Nicky is a big part of who I am.  But I want to be with Keith and Graham, be moved, be done at the house. So I have to bit the bullet and buckle down.
    But first, dang it, I have to have lunch, shop, take care of the garbage etc etc.  Then I have to work on my State Fair pictures. 
    I have ONE mostly done, one partly done, and two not done at all.  AK!  After all that, they may not even get accepted.
    1:38  I am back to my car which has not been towed or ticketed, and that's good news because it means I can do it again.
    I walked 48 minutes, which is not bad.  Only 3 extra minutes over unfamiliar ground.
    I HATE the spacebar on Psions!
    I was just thinking of the things that my narration probably does not even begin to convey:  the brilliant inescapable sunshine and reflected light at the quarry (Keith might not like that), the green and yellow greens of the vegetation, the expanses of rock and gravel, the painted abandoned buildings brilliantly colored in the somewhat sterile landscape, the intersecting trails and the terraces of rock and gravel.  Old quarries are such interesting areas.  The rusted machinery, the old power lines and old signs.
    Old quarries are not necessarily healthy environmentally, but they are interesting.