ken zirkel

I found myself headed for the in-laws house over Columbus Day weekend; they live in Nassau County, Long Island. My wife agreed to let me take an overnight lighthouse trip, and I decided that, starting from Nassau County, a tour of coastal New Jersey lights would be just the ticket. My timeframe was short: just [...]

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During my recent Cape Cod trip, I got up around sunrise one morning to paddle Stage Harbor, which is in Chatham, in the “elbow” of Cape Cod. My reference for this paddle was AMC’s Discover Cape Cod book. I noticed one little error in the book: the paddle put-in for this trip is on the [...]

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Columbus Day weekend is my favorite time to visit northern New England, especially Maine. I’ve been to New Hampshire or Maine on Columbus Day weekend many times, whether with my family, with the AMC, or with my friend JB. This year I decided to try something a little different. I would attempt to photograph as [...]

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I happened to be free this weekend, and my friend JB told me about a special event at New Yorks’ Governor’s Island. It was “City of Water Day”, and paddlers were invited to visit the island under their own power. So I packed the canoe on top of the car and drove to Red Hook, [...]

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This weekend I did something a little different. The wife was out of town visiting her parents. Lately, when she’s done that I’ve tried to take the time to work on my photography. It occurred to me that there were two outstanding lighthouses on Block Island that I had not photographed yet. An overnight trip [...]

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Acadia trip with JB
10/4/07 to 10/8/07 (Columbus Day Weekend)
I had suggested this trip to my old friend JB as kind of a reliving of our younger days. We hadn’t travelled together in a few years, and I hadn’t been to Acadia since 2003. A young person I knew spent a weekend in Acadia in late [...]

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TO MONTAUK: Sept 6
I left the house with an ambitious plan: after closing on the house I would make for Montauk Point to photograph the lighthouse there. But first, I wanted to stop by my old favorite bagel shop and stock up. Not only do I like to stock up on bagels for my freezer [...]

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Overnighter in Franconia Notch with Daughter

Daughter and I enjoyed a short (overnight) camping trip to Franconia Notch. I introduced her to my favorite kind of outdoor travel, with a taste of hiking and bicycling. We tented in the Fransted Family Campground, which was nicely quiet in October. We toured some of New Hampshire’s beautiful natural [...]

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Cape Cod with college friends, September 13 and 14, 2003
This year’s trip got off to an inauspicious beginning. The date proved to be a poor choice (for which I take responsibility), as MN had to withdraw due to circumstances related to an unexpected job change. My Wife, too, experienced a welcome but unexpected job change, [...]

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Hiking and bicycling in Acadia with the Appalachian Mountain Club
My wife had been planning for some time to take the kids and visit her family, several states away. I idly scanned the AMC “Outdoors” magazine looking for something to do while they were away. Bingo! A 3-day bicycling weekend with the AMC for a dirt-cheap [...]

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