Machu Picchu Milestone

It was 100 years ago today --- July 24 --- that the Inca settlement of Machu Picchu was brought back to light.

The 15th Century site, located above Peru's Urubamba Valley, was abandoned during the Spanish Conquest and forgotten.
Then in 1911, an expedition led by Yale professor Hiram Bingham III discovered the overgrown ruins.
It is now a popular tourist destination and United Nations World Heritage site.

For cool old photos of Machu Picchu shortly after it was found, check out this National Geographic gallery .

Photo: Tree

Tree on lower roof of abandoned meatpacking plant.
I like the "nature reclaims the city" look of this shot. The old plant had been one of the larger employers in the city decades ago. Some of the buildings have found other use, like a cold storage facility. But this structure has been vacant for some time. Notice the shattered windows. The shot I missed was the pigeons taking to the air from the windows when they were startled by my car door shutting after I pulled up. You can see the birds perched on the roof, keeping an eye on me.

Sounds of summer

Cicada husks on parade during our camping trip. The campground horseshoe field was full of them.
The sound was always elusive.
The rhythmic buzzing cut on in an instant. Curious about what made it, I tried to triangulate the source of the noise.
Somewhere in the backyard, or was it the neighbor's backyard? Sometimes it seemed to blare from the front yard.
Something that loud had to come from something big, but there was never anything big around.
Then it would come to an abrupt stop.
One day I narrowed down the sound's location. It was coming from somewhere up above. I took to one of the large trees in the backyard, trying to concentrate on navigating the tangled series of limbs while peering through the leaves and tracking the buzz.
Finally, as the branches began to narrow to the point they were barely able to support my grade-school frame, I came eye-to-eye with my first cicada. It looked part grasshopper, part dinosaur-era insectoid. I dangled from the free bewildered.
Then it flew off.
My kids' introduction to cicadas was different. they began finding shed shells left behind following the bugs' molting outside. Not easily grossed out, they have no problem picking them up and carrying them around.

Rough Water

The Cedar River at Charles City, upstream from the whitewater course.
We planned to spend the day tubing on the Cedar River at the new whitewater course in Charles City. It was 90+ degrees outside with a heat index north of 100 and getting wet sounded like good relief. But we neglected to check the river levels, and when we arrived it was obvious the water was too high.
The river was even too swift for the kayakers who were hanging out. People from Prairie Rapids Paddlers, who spearheaded the course, and outfitter CrawDaddy Outdoors of Waverly were there getting filmed for Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Outdoors" program. The crew also had a boom to lift a camera over the water. I'll have to check the listings to see what the episode looks like.

Instead of tubing, we walked down the river and found a spot to spend time wading and tossing rocks into the current, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

Next time, I'll have to check the conditions at the whitewater course's webcam.

Here's another link to the course ... http://ccwhitewater.com/

Video: Hovercraft

Test footage of Israeli AirMule.

No, I didn't shoot this myself. I found this video on Wired's Danger Room showing a test flight ... or test hover ... of the AirMule made by Urban Aeronautics in Israel. It looked kind of interesting, so I thought I'd pass it along.

It's not exactly AirWolf, but it looks like part of the answer to the age-old question: It's the future, where is my flying car?

Photo: Sunrise haze

1. Sunrise, haze and trees
   I got called out for a 4 a.m. assignment. There was plenty of fog on the rural roads during the drive. On the way back, the rising sun was starting to burn off the haze. I pulled over and snapped a few shots of the sun coming up.

July 4th