Sunrise 11: Ault Park (Misty Mountain Hop)
Early this morning an intense thunderstorm rolled through the area. It woke Amanda and I up several times, although I have no idea when. My phone actually died rebooted in the middle of the night at some point. This is the first time I woke up on my own before sunrise without an alarm, but expecting the alarm to be functional. To me, that means that project sunrise is working. It is changing me, for the good. In the back of my mind I can jump out of sleep when the birds start chirping. Who needs an alarm clock anyway? 🙂
Now that I think about it, however, I’m not even sure it was my phone’s fault. Ive been known to do strange sleep walking activities. I never know or remember unless there is some evidence left over the next morning. Waking up in a different bed than I went to sleep in, for example. Last week I sent a “sleep text message” to my twitter account that I still haven’t exactly been able to account for. Earlier in the previous day I signed up for a twitter account. In the process you can add your cell phone number so that you can post to your account by a text message sent from your phone. They give you a randomly generated word (my word was “GO”) that you have to send from your handset to prove that you have access to it. I took care of that and moved on with my day. Sometime early the next morning, my brain floating atop a river of melatonin, I must have had a dream in which “confirming” my twitter account was high on my priority list. Your guess here is as good as mine… Apparently around 3:20am that morning (a full three hours before I actually got up, and a full three hours after I went to bed), I went into my phone, found the automated message from the twitter-bot (which meant I had to scroll down through several other messages in my inbox), and replied “go well” to it. I didn’t find this out until later that day when I noticed there was a rogue twitter post on my profile. Why did I add the “well” to the message? I imagine it made perfect sense at the time.
Anyways, this morning was gloomy and wet, but pleasantly warm. I biked up to the overlook and was met with patches of misty fog.
The atmosphere was a dark gray on the misty mountain top, and I was alone in the park. Even the park crew didn’t show up until later. Fortunately for me, it didn’t rain much more than a drizzle, and the haze made the lights of the incoming planes stand out nicely.
I’m not sure if the street lights are on a timer or if they use an ambient light sensor. I would think they were on a timer like the rest of the city lights, but they were on all morning (at least until 7:40am, 40 minutes after sunrise). (More after the jump) (more…)
Sunrise 10: Ault Park (Overcast, Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk)
After all the excitement from Saturday’s sunrise, I took it easy today. The weather this morning made the decision even easier. The morning was dry and overcast. It was calm and gray, and the birds and squirrels made for relaxing entertainment.
Otto Armleder Park (and Dog Park) is still under water. I’ve noticed that I’m starting to get google hits for people trying to find out if Otto Armeder is still underwater, so I’ll try to continue to take a picture every morning so we can watch the water levels.
After my coffee, which I drank quickly, I took a quick stroll through the arboretum. The trees have officially started their burst into new leaves.
The grass looked a vibrant green in the overcast light, and the trees that were blooming only one short week ago show only worn out remains of their floral coats.
I was about to head home and make a quick morning of it, when something catches my eye overhead. A red tailed hawk! I’ve never seen a hawk in the park before. I hopped on the bike and rode in the direction that he was flying. The thing about big hawks is that you don’t have a hard time finding them once you know they’re in the area.
This juvenile red tail impressed me with his size. Although that isn’t saying much when I’m used to looking at the robins, blue jays, and cardinals! I’d say the top of his head was a good two feet off the ground, and while it is hard to judge his wingspan, it seemed to be at least a meter in width. His tail was a rich rusty red but unfortunately I couldn’t get a good picture of it.
I found him perched on top of a small tree, looking around. He didn’t care that I was watching him, but he also didn’t stay in one spot long enough for me to get a close picture. I will say, he was intimidating. Those talons don’t mess around.
One of the park crew said they thought he was about a year old or so. We joked that he was a terrible hunter. He made lots of noise and kept fidgeting around in the branches of the trees. He did take a couple of half-hearted swoops at a squirrel.
He stayed up on his pine perch for awhile before heading over to Heekin Overlook. After a few minutes in the oaks above Heekin, he hopped up and glided out over the river valley.
Stats from this morning:
Sunrise: 6:58am EST
Visibility: 10mi
Temperature: 55F / 13C, not much wind at all
Sky: Dry and overcast. I thought the sun would burn through the clouds, but no such luck.
Sunrise: Non-existent.
Bird Chatter: Lots of song this morning, and the red tailed hawk made an appearance.
People: One or two runners, and some teenagers walking around through the arboretum, perhaps before school started.
Sunrise 9: Alms Park (Barge Races, Earth Day, Downtown Cincy)
It’s official, I’m addicted. I had every reason to sleep in this morning. I was up late and didn’t have any morning plans. I didn’t even set an alarm. But when the birds started chirping at 6:18am this morning, I awoke from my slumber. I even tried to go back to sleep but it didn’t work. “Fine”, I thought to myself. Let’s go see if that cold front has broke yet.
I took the opportunity to switch it up a bit. I have been curious about whether Alms Park, which is the Yin to Ault Park’s Yang, is set up appropriately to see the sunrise. There is a western facing overlook that makes for a beautiful sunset, but I haven’t noticed any particularly eastern-facing points.
The central overlook in Alms Park looks right down into Lunken Airport and provides probably the best vantage point to seriously watch the planes land and take off from 250ft above the basin. I biked around the small loop in the park, and even went down into the off-the-normal-path reserved area where there is a small shelter. More after the jump
Sunrise 8: Ault Park (Atop the Pavilion)
Amanda and I had to run some errands at 8:00am this morning, so this trip up to the park was nice and quick. 8:00am was no problem – one of the many positive side effects of my involvement with this project. The ride up to the park was beautiful, and I’ve noticed that I’ve started to break into the time period (around 6:45am) where kids are getting ready for school. I passed several high school students waiting on the bus, and said my morning greetings to a handful of parents walking to the local elementary school. By the time I got to the park, I was left with a whole 15 minutes before the sunrise to stake out my spot. I decided to switch it up a bit and see what the view looked like from the top of the pavilion. I’ve noticed that the pavilion sits squarely aligned with the eastern sunrise, something that I will devote an entire post to later on (regarding how the entire park seems to be designed with the sunrise in mind. Think a along the lines of StoneHendge 🙂 ). I parked my bike at the base of the pavilion and climbed up the four or five sets of stairs.
View from atop the pavilion. The dawn morning looked beautiful, lots of pink and orange. There was a slight haze from the clouds that scattered the morning light nicely. (More pictures after the jump)
Sunrise 7: Ault Park (Japanese Maples and the Cincinnati Observatory)
(Sometimes you just get lucky. A small commuter jet coming into Lunken AND a set of Canadian geese flying north for the summer).
This morning was another beautiful day in Cincinnati. The sunrise was similar to yesterday’s: clear, vibrant, and warm. I arrived at the overlook with 5 minutes to spare, taking time to get set up for the show. Lunken airport was fairly busy this morning, and I actually “accidentally” caught a couple of sunrise pictures with airplanes coming in on approach.
There were these thick pockets of fog scattered through the valley. This is the first time I’ve seen these since I started this project. Typically the fog manifests itself as a smooth mist evenly distributed through the air. Lunken had several pockets hanging out on the runway, interestingly enough.
(More pictures after the jump) (more…)
Sunrise 6: Ault Park (Mushrooms, Tulips, Coyotes?)
I almost couldn’t wait for my alarm to go off this morning. After the past two gloomy mornings I was ready for a clear, crisp, beautiful sunrise. We checked the forecast last night and realized that there was supposed to be nothing but clear skies this AM. When the alarm went off at 6:20am, the skies were already starting to lighten up. The birds were in full-on chirping mode, and I was starting to get that familiar nervousness that maybe today the sun would break the laws of physics and come up a half hour early. I was also excited because Amanda said she wanted to come up to the overlook this morning! Before we left the apartment she even commented on how bright the sky was, it seemed like the sun was already coming up a full 20 minutes early. In hindsight, I ended up taking a lot of pictures – way more than I probably should have. I imagine I had some pent up energy after sitting through two rain storms 🙂
I arrived a bit early and caught the ambient atmosphere before the sun crested the hills. I rode my bike and actually beat Amanda, who came by car. It was a chilly morning for sure, we brought hooded sweatshirts and our breathing left thick clouds of moisture hanging in the air. The air was crisp and clear, and down below in the valley you could see a thick patch of fog to the east.
(More after the jump) (more…)
Sunrise 5: Ault Park (Cold, Wet, Dark)
As I rolled out of bed this morning, my overwhelming mood was… uninspired. I cheated last night and checked out the weather forecast (one of the wonders of the modern world that I never got in the hang of using). I saw that this morning was supposed to be gloomy with thunderstorms, 70% chance of precipitation. Not exactly an ideal sunrise situation. Fortunately, however, there were no thunderstorms by the time 6:45am rolled around. The atmosphere was dark, gray, wet, with a light drizzle. In other words, project sunrise was a go.
I pulled another rookie mistake this morning. In my drowsy snooze-induced haze (who wants to jump out of bed to go sit in a thunderstorm? hah) I forgot that I charged the camera battery last night. I didn’t realize this fact until I was up at the park. Of all days to forget to bring the camera battery, I’m glad it was a day like today. I’m lucky to have remembered to bring my trusty LG 9900, so once again please forgive me for the quality.
The sunrise was literally non-existent. The ambient light increased a bit over the 20 minutes I was sitting out at the overlook. The rain was light but persistent. After the warm rain yesterday that seemed almost pleasant, today’s rain was downright freezing. The nice thing about it though was that it made me think about that beautiful sunrise from day 1. I thought about how necessary these spring rainy days are, and how beautiful the park will be in a few weeks when the storms pass and the sun comes out more often than not.
(More after the jump, including pictures that I didn’t put up last week) (more…)
Sunrise 4: Ault Park (Caught in the storm)
I got out of bed this morning, bruised and aching. This was one of the toughest mornings yet, physically. Yesterday morning I went on a ride with a friend, Andy, through the rolling hills in the Kentucky countryside. It was absolutely beautiful, quiet, and scenic. Along the way I noticed that my left pedal was starting to act up again. Last fall I had put a lubricant on the bearings, thinking it would be helpful, but somehow the lubricant managed to break the seal on the pedal. I had forgot all about this until yesterday morning, because the problem doesn’t typically show up unless I start moving at a fast pace (all my sunrise rides have been typically in first gear only because of the steep incline). About 45 minutes into the ride I noticed that the pedal had seized up and was starting to unscrew itself from the bike. I stopped twice to screw it back in and free the bearing. I kept eye on the pedal as we cranked up and down through the farmland, trying to plant a firm mental reminder to get it fixed.
About an hour and a half into the ride we’re cruising along on a flat stretch of road. Then it happens (at this point I’m really not surprised). I suddenly hear a loud crack as the threads on the pedal that hold it in place strip and send the hunk of metal skittering across the road. My balance is thrown off to the left, I overcompensate and lock the handlebars to the right. I remember a clear and lucid moment right before impact, looking down at the aphault, thinking to myself “well, this was inevitable I suppose”. Let’s just say that if I was trying to throw myself at the ground and miss, well… I didn’t miss. I haven’t had such an intimate encounter with the pavement since I was 10 years old and learning to rollerblade. At any rate, because we weren’t going too fast and my bike turned into a sled, I didn’t end up getting too hurt. My elbow took most of the impact on the 40-foot skid, and my tailbone hurts a bit. Nothing broken, just bruises and cuts. Another lesson learned: Don’t ignore your hardware when it is diligently trying to tell you that it needs fixed.
This lead to an interesting dilemma this morning. My bike is now pedal-less (bike shop was closed on Sunday), so I borrowed the wife’s bike for the trip up to Ault Park. She did just fine, although because it isn’t a road bike, going up the hill was slow. I’d say it was painful, but that might just be because of the bruises! In the end, I am definitely glad I was able to muster up the motivation to see the sunrise. Although I never actually saw sun due to the cloud cover, the view was beautiful. This was the warmest morning yet, it was downright pleasant out.
I also ended up meeting some of the local forest inhabitants just before the sun came up.
“Offical Sunrise Picture for Sunrise #4”.
(More pictures after the jump)
Sunrise 3 (Columbia Tusculum, Rookie Mistake, and Flying Pigs)
This morning turned out to be waaay better than I first imagined. I hadn’t planned on getting up early this morning, thinking I’d take the weekends off so I could sleep in. Amanda already had plans to get up early and go to her running club meeting (they’re all training for the flying pig half and full marathon) so I decided to take advantage of this and get up as well. Since I had the entire morning open (uhh the weekend is awesome!), I thought I’d try and go to Lunken Airfield and find an advantageous spot to see the sun rise, after all the airfield is in the valley and generally points east. Saturday Morning Exploring, if you will. The airfield is in the river valley that Ault Park’s Heekin Overlook looks down into. As I started on my way, however, I started to feel a bit rushed because I didn’t know exactly where the best spot would be and I was kind of afraid of missing the sun rise. One thing I didn’t really expect before starting this was exactly how pink the sky gets about 15 minutes before the sun rises. It really opens up in beautiful colors. Even if you’re staring at your watch, knowing you’ve got 15 minutes to get to Lunken Airfield, the sky’s colors can make you think your watch is slow! I ended up exploring the culs-de-sacs along the eastern hills to get a feel for where the eastern facing ledges were, afraid of missing it if I made the entire trip to Lunken. Most of the pockets are actually west-facing, so they have absolutely breath taking views down the Ohio River, with the city skyline on the horizon, and of the sunset. Views of the sun rise were surprisingly difficult to find. It really made me appreciate how awesome Heekin Overlook is.
I found myself looking down a heavily wooded winding, quiet, and steep road. I go to grab my trusty camera to document this sight, and what do I find? I find that my camera’s battery is dead. I left it plugged into my computer and forgot that cameras are the one thing that still hold onto their ancient roots by not charging over usb (they remain a “camera” primarily with a stand-alone battery, and it just so happens that they allow usb access. No charging over usb allowed!). Frustrated by my rookie mistake, I at least felt relieved that I could still document the sun rise with my camera phone on my 4-year old LG 9900. Quality isn’t that great (especially in low light), but it does the trick. In the top picture and the one below, it may look like the sun is up but thats just the atmosphere playing tricks with my head.
(More after the jump; be sure to check out mr. snail at the end) (more…)
Sunrise 2: Ault Park (in the mist)
This morning was interesting. After almost missing the sunrise yesterday, I made sure to be up at the overlook 10 minutes early. In contrast to the clear skies yesterday morning, however, the sky this morning was overcast and gray. Last night we must have had a light shower; the roads were wet and slick, the sky was dark and gray, and the ambient light seemed to be lagging behind by about 25 minutes. I honestly couldn’t tell when the sun came up. I took the opportunity to relax and drink my coffee, and think about the direction I want this project to go. Without the distraction of a beautiful sunrise, planning the day is much less stressful! Lunken airport had some light traffic, including a small commuter jet that took off in a hurry right after the supposed sunrise time.
One of the things I’m figuring out is coming up with a list of locations that I’d like to consistently take a picture from. The point of this will be to document the seasonal change of the park. I’ve decided that this spot fits nicely because it captures the Heekin Overlook and the valley below as well as several pieces of local fauna. The trees that don’t blossom and aren’t conifers haven’t started putting on their green show yet, so this spot should change over time. (Why do flowering trees blossom so early and always before full leafy non-flowering trees? Hmm.) I also have to remember that everything I see today I take for granted. During the summer you can’t see through the trees at all, and the overlook seems snug and crowded, in contrast to the panoramic view we get to experience today. More pictures after the jump.
Sunrise 1: Ault Park
Welcome!
Well, here we go! I’m going to try and hammer out the format of all of this as I go along. This is going to be a wordy post, but most of the later posts will be substantially smaller. Welcome to my project! The purpose of this blog, at least right now, is to document my ongoing attempt to wake up with the sun every day for the next few months (starting today), brew a thermos of coffee, grab my notebook (the analog kind), hop on my bike, and make the thigh-burning, wheeze-inducing, 12 minute trip up to the top of Ault Park (did I mention I’m miserably out of shape?). This will of course involve me getting up 2 minutes earlier every day until the middle week of June, at which point the sun rise time will hold steady for a few days (at 6:11am EST) before starting its retreat back to more sane times. One of the hardest things for me to do is get up early. I realized something recently, and that is that I never regret when I actually do get up and active before 8:00am. So thats what I’m going to try and do. Start off every day with an accomplishment of great magnitude. It is all down hill from there!
If you’re more curious about why on earth I’d do this (even I think it is crazy), I’ve got some ideas written out in the manifesto (which will probably be changing daily). I’ll also be exploring various other areas around eastern Cincinnati (at least as far as I can get on my bike), including Ault and Alms park, Armletter Park, the Cincinnati Observatory, Lunken Airfield, East End and down by the Ohio River, the marina / boat club, and who knows where else. I’ll probably take a break on the weekends, but I’ve also found that early Saturday mornings offer some of the best time to explore on a bike without having to worry about traffic. Along the way I hope to find myself becoming more proficient at writing, having more productive and inspired days, and discover more amazing things about the history of the area I live in. There are so many markers, plaques, cornerstones, and ruins hidden away in the local forest from the late 1800s and early 1900s that I’m sure I can only remember a small percentage of them off the top of my head. I also have a lot of pictures from the last two years of exploring the area (and finding those hidden ruins, markers, etc), so I’ll throw those up on here in time. I’m definitely going to be making a post for every sunrise I see (daily if I keep up the motivation), and hopefully I’ll find a few other pictures along the way that I’d like to share. This project doesn’t just represent a new way of looking at my life for the next two months, or as a way to savor every detail out of the early hours of the day, but it also serves as a way for me to create a historical log, with pictures, that I can look back on for the rest of my life and say “Hell yeah, I’m really glad I did that”.
So now it is official; I decided to make today the official start of the project! I got in late last night (I was at the reds game, we won!) and grudgingly decided to get my butt out of bed at 6:30am this morning. It was pleasantly warm out, probably a good 15 degrees (F) warmer than a few days ago when I did my second morning “test run” to Ault Park. The most surprising thing to me was clear the sky was, and how that affected the lighting around me. There were very few clouds in the sky which meant that I could see the sun crest over the ridge line. Earlier in the week it was cloudy after a storm, which meant that I had to wait about 10 minutes to really see the sunrise (and I couldn’t exactly tell where the sun was). I’m hoping to see another sunrise like that in the coming weeks, it was absolutely beautiful and didn’t really peak until the sun found a break in the clouds at about 15 minutes after sunrise.
Here is a picture of the Heekin Overlook, where I will be spending a majority of my mornings waiting on the sun. I don’t want to talk too much about it yet, I have to save some information for future posts! 🙂
More pictures after the jump.
Ault Park Sunrise 