Traveling to Portland, Oregon always guarantees some incredible sights, but I wasn’t prepared to gaze down the length of the Columbia River Gorge, all roads and forests and vista points and cliffs and sailboats. This is the Pacific Northwest!
Author: adohertyh
Old and New Fermenters
Sour mash whiskey begins in these massive, cypress wood fermenters—and a bit like ice bergs, there’s a lot more happening below the surface. (This is the second floor; the fermenters are more than a story high.) In this century-old limestone building, the output of carbon dioxide from fermentation was enough to (almost) make visitors dizzy.
Kentucky Porch
Last week’s trip to Kentucky included a trip to Woodford Reserve, home of some tasty Bourbon whiskey and this lovely porch. The view does a lot to cement my idealized view of central Kentucky hills.
Infinite Fences
The Kentucky Horse Park (particularly at Pony Finals) is a Mecca for pony-obsessed folks around the continent. Even this tiny corner of the facility, all paddocks and fences and barns, begins to show how that came to be the case.
Flood Alignment
When the waters come loose from the dam above and run through the trees, the fallen limbs and detritus arrange and align.
Technogothic
Wandering around Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, I kept waiting to find a security checkpoint and guards with assault rifles; I guess I never got far enough before I had to swing back to my chemistry conference. The combination of Gothic architecture with the modern buildings of Ottawa’s skyline, and with the tiny technotouches of modern security systems, made for a delightful combination. This is our science-fiction present, I suppose.
Carriage House in America
A trip down to Lexington, Kentucky for Pony Finals has us staying in a converted carriage house. “Cozy” describes the place well, with its rough, wooden surfaces and mid-twentieth-century-rec-room aesthetic. The juxtaposition of the modern TV and the old roof beams is more charming than awkward.
Water’s-Eye View
Hiking the Raquette River made me constantly aware of the water that produced these geometries—and that was a bit intimidating. When the dam upstream opens, I would imagine that this is just about the “view” of that the enormous surge.
Vernon Street Night
“Lights so bright they turn night into day!” Vernon Street, home of the Greek organizations of Trinity College, is a place where the time and the activities rarely seem correlated. On a night during the summer, however, the world was quiet and empty.
Canal Escape
The heart of Ottawa clusters Neo-Gothic architecture around Parliament Hill and the canal. Whether hosting a Lupin-III-esque heist or serving as the perfect setting for a James-Bondian escape scene, it’s hard to shake the imagined adventures of speed boats and thugs on motorcycles negotiating the steps of the lock system
Torrent
This torrent of water is, if you can believe it, the Raquette river at a low point. (The gates of the dam up-river would be opened a week or so later, burying this area under an extra blast.) The primal force of a waterfall just calls for you to stick your hand in it—if you’re brave enough.
Canadian Death Star
The Ottawa Convention Centre’s fantastical facade of fenestration is a lovely example of the way a pattern of triangles can be assembled to form all sorts of other surfaces with complicated geometries. From the standpoint of symmetry and group theory, it’s quite elegant; from the standpoint of a passer-by on the street, it seems a bit sinister.
Whydah in Thorns
Though I have a creeping suspicion that I’ve misidentified this lovely little African bird and his breed-season plumage, I nonetheless really like the juxtaposition of avian delicacy with brütal thorns.
Resilient House
The North Country is green and lush at this moment, but it’s worthwhile to look back on the recently-thawed saltscape that was spring. I still feel a certain sense of amazement at the number of fierce winters homes like this have survived.
Morgan’s Ice House
Summer means ice cream! There’s no more fitting place for a crowd to be during the Dairy Princess Festival than crowded around the local ice cream stand. The contrast is strong and the setting is familiar in that “classic Americana” kind of way. Even the edge of the house next door adds that bit of small-town welcoming spirit. A scene of Norman-Rockwell-esque friendliness.
Decaseconds 