Dechsendorf, and the glorious hike

I set out, on a rain interrupted Saturday, to visit a nearby lake. I was partly dragged, party pushed, but mostly worried about finishing work on time- but I daresay the lake at Dechsendorf is a nice place to sit by and learn about Gaussian distributions.

Nearby, of course, has its meaning subject to the mode of travel. A hostel-mate and I missed the bus, and decided to walk. And boy, was I glad I did.
Nothing says the story better than pictures, of course, and I have plenty of them.

The off-highway road, about a hundred yards off where I live looked inviting enough when I set off- as long as you don't mind slugs and grasshoppers littering your path.















We walked by, into and subsequently past the woods, and I saw sights I'm not likely to forget soon.

This completely desolate field, for instance, with the dreary silence punctured only by chirping grasshoppers.





























If you've ever wondered where those fancy wallpapers you see floating on the internet are from, rest your worries. I know.


I avoid appearing in photos as a general rule- why spoil the background with my bulky, ungainly self? This time, though, I will make an exception. I was there, ungainly self and all.





















Some more walking past wheat fields, woods, and the occasional timber yard (highly reminiscent of Caesar III) brought us to a place that was - not - the lake.






























And that's when the rain broke out.
Earlier experience has revealed that trips to lakes are always accompanied by rain. This time, I won the battle against Murphy's law. I don't suppose this bonfire will ever see the light of flame, though. (This was at Dechsendorf.)















Besides, there are a few advantages to days that are simultaneously sunny and pouring.
A fully featured rainbow is one of them.















More wallpaper material:
It was suggested to me that I should label this picture "Solitude".
I hereby christen it "Sawed_off_Tree_stump_by_lake". (I like to stay objective while I can.)

A considerable amount of time that could have been spent in taking photographs was spent in examining standing waves in the lake and determining whether neutrally buoyant objects would tend to move to the nodes. (I claim that this is possible only in principle- far too many perturbations.) I did manage to take a couple of videos of quasi periodic waves at the shore that kept beating, but I'm unaware of any way of putting them on this website. (EDIT: Video added here. Go feast your eyes.)

Moving on, though, the lake was pretty enough for me to punctuate photographs by appearing in them.















As with all visits to lakes, a few unexpected encounters are mandatory:
















The clouds parted, and there was much rejoicing (Narrative Interlude 3). Indeed, the celebrations were cut short when the mysterious absence of any buses on the timings list for Saturdays was discovered. So we hiked our way back. More snails, grasshoppers, fields, trees and power lines later, I reached home. Not much was accomplished as far as the Gaussian distributions are concerned, but the standing waves were a sight to behold. :)

I sign off with another punctuation. (I trust the pun is not lost on the reader.)