Kite Aerial Photography

There is a guy named Dave, who recently posted this photo he took of the Morton Peak Lookout using a kite mounted camera.

Looking at Dave's album, it looks like it'd be a lot of fun to make our own version of Google Earth for our favorite camping locations.

Charles C. Benton, Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, has created a terrific website on Kite Aerial Photography. I might have to try some of this out someday.

By Special Request

By special request, this photo shows the luxury accommodations of the Lookout Cab:

• The photo is taken in the northwest corner, near the head of the twin bed.
• The door would be just off to the left in the northeast corner.
• The stove doesn't work for anything but storage so the microwave is the only cooking appliance in the cab.
• There is an under-counter refrigerator between the sink and the director's chair.
• The sink drains but you have to haul up your own fresh water.
• The radios are in the southwest corner on the right of the photo.
• The bed and the stools are on glass insulators for lightning strikes.
• The ceiling is low so I drag my knuckles across the boards whenever I stretch my back.
• We're the only lookout in the San Bernardino Forest with a phone, but I've only used it once so far.

As you can see, the place is utilitarian, but the joy comes from the time spent in the "Timeshare Treehouse."

Bad Feng Shui

We had to cancel our camping trip this month due to some business travel, so the only trip to the Mountain this month was spending the night in the Tower again this past weekend. I really like doing an afternoon shift, relaxing overnight, and then wrapping things up with a morning shift.

I also like to putter around, so this time around, I removed an abandoned water heater from under the sink. There hasn't been running water in the tower for over a decade and so the water heater was just wasting cupboard space. Now there is plenty of room to store the bird seed out of sight. Of course it is probably bad feng shui to have a house without water, but the drain still works.