515 Crew

Done a couple of fun little trips this year.
Late Feb hiked a good portion of the Ozark Highland trail. Not a very photogenic time of year.

Specifically looking for salamanders, camp, and hike.




Headed west last month and spent some time hiking in SE Colorado.


Looking for snakes.

what kind of work do you do, josh? i think i remember you posting something about it on the mediafirebomb board. looks pretty chill.

crumpty, was that cabin on the west side of the park? onahu trail facing a large meadow? we passed a couple like it on our way in.
cool pics, btw.

Nah we were over on the Northeast side. North Fork Trail... trailhead was a few miles north of Estes Park. We hiked in and camped about 4 miles from the trailhead, then dayhiked past that with hopes of being able to summit Stormy Peaks but we weren't equipped for the snow. It was still a rad time though.... That area of the park is super secluded.

Looks like you got to see some pretty sweet wildlife... It was all foliage for our trip.

Anyway, backpacking rules.

inx515xhell wrote:what kind of work do you do, josh? i think i remember you posting something about it on the mediafirebomb board. looks pretty chill.

Survey public lands in Iowa to see what sort of animals inhabit certain habitat types. I do bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, butterfly, dragonfly, mussel, fish, etc. etc. etc. surveys. I have lots of great pics of native wildlife.

Josh wrote: Survey public lands in Iowa to see what sort of animals inhabit certain habitat types. I do bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, butterfly, dragonfly, mussel, fish, etc. etc. etc. surveys. I have lots of great pics of native wildlife.

That sounds like an awesome job to have!

Josh wrote:

inx515xhell wrote:what kind of work do you do, josh? i think i remember you posting something about it on the mediafirebomb board. looks pretty chill.

Survey public lands in Iowa to see what sort of animals inhabit certain habitat types. I do bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, butterfly, dragonfly, mussel, fish, etc. etc. etc. surveys. I have lots of great pics of native wildlife.

That sounds sweet. Mind asking where you work? Sounds exactly what our Office of Environment and Location at the DOT does. They have to do huge studies on the impacts new roads will have on local wildlife (among other things) before the projects get finalized.

DNR

Josh wrote:DNR

Werd. I almost got took at GIS job with the USGS over in Iowa City like 4 years ago.

GIS is fucking boring!
that sounds like a fuckin' rad job though.
how does the dot measure impact? we do pellet plots (shit areas) to see how trails impact wildlife. so that means i'm guaranteed a few all-staff days where i'm picking up poop, counting it, and identifying it.

What did you guys study in school?

i didn't go to school. i'm just a grunt for an division of the city who works with forest restoration, trails, invasive species and shit like that. i work on a wildfire mitigation crew.

jessep wrote:What did you guys study in school?

Majored in Geography with an emphasis on GIS. Minored in Environmental Science. I am currently a Cartographer for the DOT.

Here are a few more from my Boundary Waters trip in June.

Cooking bacon, eggs and biscuits:



Admiring bacon, eggs and biscuits:



Devouring bacon, eggs and biscuits:



Paddling:

im in new hampshire now, going to maine for the weekend. hope to snap some good pics

miss u duuudes

Just got back from Wales a few days ago.

Hiked to the peak of Mt. Snowdon.


Mt. Llewellyn from Mt. Snowdon


Church and graveyard, St. Fagan's.


The town with the longest name in the world - oh yeah, I went there.
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y295/E ... G_0632.jpg

Beddgelert


Tintern Abbey

i really like that last pic.

El Rhino wrote:Beddgelert

Man, I'd be a fishing fool off my back porch.

Those pictures rule. Looks like a fun trip.

Almost looks like your avatar braaa, sweet trip/pix.

El Rhino wrote:
Mt. Llewellyn from Mt. Snowdon

Thank you. Those mountains aren't that high compared to the Rockies (3,500 feet or so) but I guess it's pretty common to be above the clouds on top of Snowdon. That would've been sweet if I could've recreated my avatar painting. I guess when it's not cloudy you can see as far as Ireland and Liverpool from the top.

3,500. shit man, i poop at a higher altitude on a daily basis.

Did Ouchita Trail in Oklahoma and Arkansas about a month and a half ago. Too much rain for any good pictures.


RMNP this last week




Amazon on Saturday.

Before we go any further, if you get any ideas of quoting a They Might Be Giants concerning the name of this city, just stop right there, fag. It was barely clever the first time, let alone the tenth, eleventh or twelfth time.


With that said, I was recently in Istanbul (or Constantinople, if you're Greek and/or refuse to legitimatize the Turkish occupation of said city by referring to it by the Turkish name) , Turkey. Interesting place. The only city in the world that spans two continents with lots of influence from both continents. Lots of historical Greek, Roman and Ottoman stuff to see there as it's one of the most important plots of land in history. Modern day Istanbul is Western-leaning in attitudes and style but still very Muslim. It's not as developed as North America and Western Europe on a whole, but they're doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things. Matter of fact, as far as third world countries go Turkey probably tops the heap (or maybe Mexico) as far as what they have going for them.

Although the Turks are high on the list of universally-despised people (they're not liked by Europeans, especially Orthodox Christians and the Arabs don't trust them), pretty much everyone I dealt with was cool, even the few that didn't have a financial stake in dealing with me. They know how to cook there, too.

Anyways, on to the photos...

Hagia Sofia, or Aya Sofia if you're Turkish. One of the most impressive buildings of the ancient world built in the 300's by the order of Justinian and pretty much the focal point of the Byzantine empire. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks invaded the city after a long battle. The Greek priests were still giving the divine liturgy when they knocked down the doors and started slaughtering/enslaving the occupants of the church. They hauled the priests off and immediately had an imam declare it a mosque. They threw a few tacky minarets and decorations inside over the years. In the early 20th century they turned it into a secular museum in an effort to reach out a bit to the West.


Swastikas in the interior! This one is a restoration, but I can assure you there were a ton of them.



Inside Hagia Sofia


A mosaic inside Chora Church, just right outside the (still standing in some parts) city walls. It's an old Greek Orthodox church that managed to survive in ok shape through hundreds of years of neglect and usage as a mosque. Lots of amazing mosaics and frescoes in this small church.


This is one of the lower-middle class neighborhoods. Shitty by our standards, not too shabby by world standards.


The street my hotel was on, in Sultanahmet, the old part of the city.

Wait, muslims turning a church into a mosque? Surely that's an isolated incident as it's well known and documented that it is and always has been a religion based on peace on tolerance.
I'm sure you won't run into any more of these "church-turned-mosque" mosques on your adventures in that part of the world.

Yeah, the Religion of Peace did a number on the Christians there, be it the Greeks or the Armenians. They had a huge riot in the 1950's where they went and ransacked the Greek neighborhoods, tortured priests, raped/killed Greeks, etc which pretty much ran everyone off except for a couple thousand.

Strangely enough, the Greek Orthodox Church is still headquartered there after all of these years, which was kind of tolerated by the Sultans/Turkish state since the fall of Constantinople. There's still some friction between the church and government there in the way of property confiscation and the fact that the government doesn't recognize the Patriarch there as the HMFIC of the Orthodox Church but apparently it's not as bad as it used to be.

Nick, I don't have pictures handy, but I go to Rainy Lake a couple of times a year, and may be buying a lot up there (on an island, no less).

Where were you guys?

Wurzer, stop doing coke, you look like something from A Nightmare before Christmas.

Just sayin...................