Hard to say which was the most spectacular phenomenon Monday afternoon: the moon blotting out the sun or the event itself blotting out everything else.
For a couple hours on Monday afternoon we were all focused on the awesomeness of nature. Some made a holiday of it, ignoring dire warnings from the NCDOT about driving to the Zone of Totality. Some simply stepped out into their backyards when the time came. But we all joined in the experience of the eclipse. As a friend put it, “Facebook hasn’t been this politics-free since before there was Facebook.”read more
A dull, distant whirring, an intrusion of industrial origin that should have been distracting at the least. Instead, it was curiously reassuring.
I was walking a stretch of the Eno River upstream from Durham, downstream from my home in Hillsborough. More rural than urban, but not entirely detached. I’d been faintly aware of the thrum of tires rolling down I-85 a half mile distant, fading in and out, of the occasional chirp of a truck backing up closer by. Then, the low, constant buzz of a plant of some kind powering along, the heartbeat of the world I was trying to shake. I should have been annoyed. And yet … .read more
We like to ward off the beginning of the work-week blues with a thought about life on the outside.
When I was in my late 20s, I worked as a technical writer for a military contractor. I liked the work; trouble was, because it was a military contract, there were long stretches where there was no work to be done while we awaited approvals.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
