Outdoors

Mosquito Coast

After watching the tower come down, Anna and I continued on to our real adventure planned for the weekend -- bike camping along the lake shore. On our way out of town we stopped at the public market to pick up Katie, Jake and Tom, and went on from there to route 101, and about a 40 mile ride to Sodus Point. Our destination: Beachwood State Park, a newly acquired property that was once the boy scouts' Camp Pioneer (which would be replaced in 1951 with the current Adirondack site), then the girl scouts' Arrowhead Camp, before closing around 2000.…

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Who Are We But Albatross?

As many of you know, two weeks ago, on June 23rd, I was hit by a car for the first time. Well, sort of hit anyway, the car just clipped the back wheel of my bike enough to send me careening into and over a guard rail, and landing in a lump on the shoulder of 490. The bike was a wreck, basically totaled, after having it for all of 10 minutes; I'd just bought it from Jason at a Euro 2012 soccer party. I didn't know I was a wreck yet. It didn't hurt *that* much for some reason,…

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Lost Art

Rochester is lucky enough to have four huge, legal graffiti areas. This is one of them, the abandoned water tanks at the top of Cobbs Hill. The art changes completely about every three months or so; on any sunny weekend there are a few painters around the towers making their art. It's one of the few places that one can actually see graffiti in action, since there is no fear of being caught at the legal walls. ...and one stray shot from another of these legal walls: the abandoned subway Plenty more graffiti shots here

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Once More To The Lake

I never thought I'd be able to say it about this spot, but it came painfully clear from the first night: the glory days were over. Far from living up to its name, the 3rd½ Annual UR UrbEx Semi-Cold Sesqui-Awesome ExploroCamping Extravaganza felt like hollowly going through the motions of something that once was special. Gone are the hipsters and artists, here are the new order, the engineers. Even when it comes time for the traditions from old Concrete, the sausage roast, the pomegranates, tetherboating -- the rules are what they are, and rule us in our time of freedom…

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Rico Cave

Does it still count when you can just tell they only met me out of pity? A cool spot but not much of an explore, which is probably the only reason two real explorers could be trusted to take me there. As expected, it wasn't much but awkward, Yield and CuriousGeorge curiously didn't want to be anywhere near me, being far above my level and loath to waste their time on someone so useless, in such a pointless place. I only took one photo worth saving (and experimenting heavily with HDR)

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