Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

So, as alluded to yesterday, TJ and I were craving an overdue hike and while visiting her daughter, we were given the recommendation to check out Marshy Point Nature Center. It turned out Marshy Point is planted between the Essex and Bowley’s Quarters/Oliver Beach regions where I once lived as a child. It’s also where my grandparents resided for much of their lives and where both my mom and stepfather grew up.

It was a kick just to go back into the area I’d been a deep part of in my own right, still today a culture clash of old school Post World II Americana, modest Cape Cods and ranchers still standing with fresh coats of paint, in defiance of four-to-five-bedroom Craftsman, Victorians and Tudors dwarfing them. I was delighted to see much of the area looked and felt the same, given I hadn’t been down those roads in decades. The post office that’s been there since the dawn of time is there and in full swing, a beautiful oddity against a hard-fought push into the contemporary.

Oliver Beach is from which my family roots on my mother’s side stem and I was astonished to see my grandparents’ modest Cape Cod, in which we’d squished up to 17 people at a time for a gathering, now expanded, bricked over and fenced into a mini estate I am still marveling at this morning. A beautiful makeover, as had happened to many of the homes in a private beach burg I’d spent a considerable part of my younger life walking all over, though swimming in the Middle River flanking the neighborhood had become prohibited in light of toxicity to the water. I miss that, actually.

I felt like a complete stranger driving through Oliver Beach, gaining stares and a couple of stink faces from people who wouldn’t know I’d spent nearly a quarter of my life there as a regular. Moreover, I less the interloper given all the stories I had collected from the people of the Fabulous Fifties who’d built the community into what it’s become. Blue collar waterfront crabber folk evolving into a patriotic red territory unabashedly touting its money with mega horsepower on their outboard motors, boating for pleasure instead of sustenance. Even the Oliver Beach Inn, a former dive my grandfather liked to drink at, had become an unexpected upscale pub house, even while maintaining its original shack-style framing.

It was with all this nostalgia and glee of seeing a holdover respect for the country vibe the area still possesses, blowing a proverbial raspberry from the outskirts of Baltimore’s industrializing (there is still an operating drive-in movie theater, Bengie’s, which both myself and my parents haunted for much of our lives) which gave me hope when TJ and I swung into Marshy Point Park and Nature Center. It being a channel into the grand expanse of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, Marshy Point is the best of both worlds with its forestation and open water for fishing and kayaking.

As far as Marshy Point being a road lesser traveled, that’s only relative to whatever trail you can grab away from the central attractions which lures a lot of families and elderly day trippers. The nature center itself was booming with activity and children being taught about local vegetation by the on-site rangers. Surrounding them were birds of prey pens, which TJ and I found a gorgeous snow owl no doubt “over it” being on display for visitors. There is even an old boat that I know by local crabbers and fishermen of the past, was retired from pragmatic use and morphed into a small playground which amused the 2-6 age bracket.

Opening in 2000, Marshy Point has become a hub for earth science and conservation and especially a hot spot for osprey sightings. Its connector bridge on the 0.6 mile Katie and Wil’s Trail offers a splendid view of the tributary and the circumventing reeds. When I showed my pictures to my mother yesterday, she immediately laughed and went into reminiscence mode. She and her friends had long blazed these paths and trails before us through the 1950s and Sixties and she said the original bridge had been far more treacherous to navigate in her day. She gave me her promise to share all the stories she has of the park region before it became this investment of love by the Weiskittel and Zielinski families. One of the trails is named for the former.

Our mission was to find the least traveled of Marshy Point Park’s ten trails, keeping in mind a few are short connectors to the longer ones. The longest trail onsite is the 1.5 mile Greenway Trail, which we took on, along with a few others.

While we sighed over the floral fragrances and blossoming ferns on the White Tail and Weiskittel Trails, we groaned by the “overlook” baited on the Weiskittel, as it was nothing more than a lead to a local road. Regardless, we positively geeked to spot a patch crow’s feet on the White Tail Trail you’d miss if you’re not scouting the ground for anything of interest. We were also visited by three frogs, which was ironic for TJ, who’d narrowly avoided hitting three frogs in her car the day before. In the esoteric community, there in the principle of the power of three. As a totem animal, the frog is a proponent of letting your voice and spirit be heard as emphatically as possible.

After getting a taste of the bridge and water inlet, we swung back onto Dundee-Saltpeter Trail which skirts onto the Greenway Trail, and here, is what we decided, was Marshy Point’s road lesser traveled. Though the Boy Scouts have markers from footbridge erections in a couple spots, much of the wooden walkway splicing through a prominent section of the Greenway was gulped by overgrown forestation, as much as the reeds overpower the planks taking you out to a muddy view of the water back at the White Tail Trail. Greenway does dump into a residential area near the park before getting back into the conservation, and it was even less blazed than the wooded section.

Normally I would conquer an entire park in a day, especially since Marshy Point’s trails are flat. Warm caveat to those who prefer less stress on the knees or need to build up their cardio for more rugged terrain. Much tamer than Palmerton, Pennsylvania, where I’ve done two ferocious Spartan Trail 10Ks up and down the ski resort’s mountain slopes.

Aside from me getting squishy in the swampy parts and TJ doing her best to capture me doing Spiderman leaps off tree stumps to no avail, we decided to leave the rest of the park unexplored for a return visit. I look forward to that, but nowhere near as much as hearing Mom and Pop’s stories of the same ecosystem from fifty-plus years ago.

Watch yourself out there, TJ…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

TJ and I have been champin’ at the bit to get through the move and weekends gobbled up by responsibilities and obligations to get out there doing what we love most…hiking and finding roads lesser traveled to share with you.

Where did we end up this time? Stay tuned, friends. The answer will be revealed next post, but let these shots serve as a teaser…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Voivod, May 13, 2023 Photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

You may recall the name Voivod from one of my Five From the Shelf editions here at Roads Lesser Traveled a few months back. I have many all-time favorite musicians and bands from all genres, but if there’s one band I feel like they’ve been a part of my DNA since discovering them in 1987 with the mind-blowing progressive thrashterpiece, Killing Technology, it’s these guys.

A lot has happened to the French-Canadian metal legends throughout 40 years of their Morgoth Tales, as the band is touting their current live run, which I was more than pleased to catch last Saturday at Baltimore Soundstage. In-and-out personnel changes, the tragic death of guitar wizard Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, a near crack at breaking into the mainstream with a masterful cover of Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine.” Nearly dead twice, revived both instances.

This is a band whose technicality demands the highest pedigree, so much Voivod once hosted a tour for their exceptional Nothingface album in which they were supported by future titans of heavy music, Faith No More and Soundgarden. I was in attendance to that outrageous show in 1990 at The Bayou in Washington, D.C. and most people who were there agree; it was one of the all-time greatest live spectacles ever assembled and still Voivod won the day. I’ll never forget standing beneath former bassist Jean-Yves “Blacky” Theriault and feeling the pummel of his vibratum, his own innovated “blower bass” sound almost no one can match. Blacky’s otherworldly bass pitches added to the rich, cybernetic tones Voivod carried through their music after evolving from straight-on thrash-punkers to, in my opinion, the most daring sci-fi-based, sociopolitical prog metal units the metal genre’s ever known.

I could gush about the playing prowess of Voivod all day and all night, but what’s more important to me is to convey how deep a bond I feel with the band over the course of 36 of their 40 years. This is a band I was so enamored with I wrote a review of Nothingface along with a companion op-ed segment for a column I wrote in my college newspaper, Spectrum called “Musically Speaking.” I declared, with my balls swinging, with full certainty that Voivod, circa 1989, was the “Band of the Future.” I’d already been playing Killing Technology and its successor, Dimension Hatross, on repeat more than any other metal album, save for anything by Iron Maiden and Megadeth’s Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?

Nothingface was such a game-changer of its time, its roundabout time signature changes forever molded the heavy metal genre. The fact Michel “Away” Langevin could roll twice the amount of fills beyond the familiar thrash patterns, the way vocalist Denis “Snake” Belanger conveyed his windy namesake through spellbinding lines followed, note-for-note by Piggy and Blacky, yeahhhhhh. They were the Band of the Future.

I got it in my head back then to mail a copy of my Voivod articles to their label, Mechanic Records, a subsidiary back then of MCA. You can’t imagine what a 19-year-old going on 20 felt like, receiving a care package from the label a month later, filled with band promotional photos like the one above, a stack of Voivod stickers filled with Away’s wonderfully lunatic drawings, a Nothingface poster which hung on my bedroom wall until I moved out of my parents’ house and a CD copy of the album. This considering CDs were still emerging in the market. Though I already owned Nothingface on cassette tape and vinyl, the CD cemented my fate. It was that promo CD which compelled me to buy a new stereo with CD player and yes, I rebuilt my collection from cassettes to compact discs, holding on to my vinyl for much of my life until recent downsizing. To this day, though, I still have my Voivod CDs through their current album, Synchro Anarchy. I’m so much an uber fan I went and got Nothingface and the band’s follow-up album, Angel Rat, on Japanese pressings.

After the Nothingface goodie box from those kind folks at Mechanic, I started doing the same thing with other bands I reviewed for “Musically Speaking.” Caroline Records sent me a glossy pic of the Bad Brains after I sent them my write-up of Quickness. Word got around in the underground in a hurry this post-teen college kid was writing up metal and punk acts and soon I started getting unsolicited demo tapes sent to me and more of those care packages. What a rush.

Though “Musically Speaking” only lasted a couple years while I became the Assistant Editor of Spectrum before graduating to the second of my two colleges, my fate as a music journalist was sealed. Later in life, I began writing full force in the music industry while working a full-time job. Those stories can hold for another day, but you can imagine the pain I felt when I had to report on the passing of Voivod’s Piggy. Bad enough Snake had left the band for a spell to deal with personal issues, along with Blacky’s first departure between the Angel Rat and The Outer Limits albums. Eric “E-Force” Forrest took both Snake and Blacky’s positions when Voivod went as a trio as bombastic as their early years on Phobos and Negatron, albums only the true diehards know. Even I had to sit in wonderment what had gone wrong with “The Band of the Future.” This before Piggy’s tragic death, which had even me believing The Iron Gang, Voivod’s dubbed fan flock, would have nothing else to cheer for.

Interview with Denis “Snake” Belanger, Voivod, by Ray Van Horn, Jr. Pit magazine

The name Voivod may not be familiar to you, but no doubt the name Jason Newsted, former Metallica bassist (also of Flotsam and Jetsam fame) strikes a chord. For a short spell, Newsted, who gained the in-house band brand “Jasonic,” since all Voivodians have prerequisite nicknames, brought Voivod back to life. The bass position in Voivod has been in such a flux over the years (they’ve even had four session bassists), Newsted’s arrival following the rocksteady pumps of Metallica’s Load albums had a similar effect on Voivod’s straightforward self-titled and Katorz albums. Snake had also returned to the fold as the latter album came post-mortem from guitar parts Piggy reportedly recorded prior to his death for his bandmates to build around.

It was during the Katorz promotional cycle when I was offered an interview with Snake for Pit magazine. All the royalty of heavy metal I’d interviewed prior to, I felt my heart leap with joy getting on the phone with Denis Belanger to recount his path back into Voivod and to keep Piggy’s memory alive in word. It was one of my proudest articles. A year later, I would interview Away in split time promotion of Voivod and his former side project, Kosmos. As one of the most rapid-fire and precise drummers on the scene, I was quietly geeking, the same way I did with Dave Lombardo, still with Slayer at the time. My own drumming aspirations were riding high, though I went nowhere in my percussion pursuits.

Voivod, May 13, 2023 Photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Which leads us to the now. Following the death of Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, Voivod selected Dan “Chewy” Mongrain to play a handful of tribute shows. I was following Mongrain’s other band, Martyr, at the time, and made comment in my review of his work that he had likening to Piggy in his playing without ripping the latter off. Sure enough, Chewy became so meticulous in his replications of Piggy’s parts, he, and his mountain of hair, was hired into the band permanently. Even better, Jean-Yves “Blacky” Theriault reclaimed his spot on bass as the revivified Voivod dropped their impressive comeback album, Target Earth.

Dan “Chewy” Mongrain, Voivod, May 13, 2023 Photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Unfortunately, reported disagreements between Away and Blacky tore the two apart and Blacky once again departed Voivod. These days, Blacky has been focusing on his own music in partnership with Monica Emond as Coeur Atomique and Twin Adventures-Renaissance Synthetique. Voivod themselves carried on with current bassist, Dominic “Rocky” Laroche to drop an unexpected latter-day masterpiece in The Wake while soldiering into the future. Like their own song edicts, the unknown knows…

Over the past few years, I have developed a long-distance friendship with Blacky and we have ramped up our correspondence of late. I can say he and Monica seem happy in the DIY life they have built for themselves and it’s been surreal the two of us sharing our life details between each other. Of the friends I’ve made in the music business, my still-developing buddyship with Blacky is one of the most meaningful. It’s a goal we have to travel up to Quebec to hang with the man himself and Monica. It’s a profound thing, this love affair I have with Voivod and where’s it’s taken me.

Meanwhile, the current inception of Voivod tore Baltimore Soundstage apart last weekend and Blacky told me he wishes his former bandmates all the best and says he is happy for them. The set I saw was mostly deep cut tracks the most devout Voivod fan would know like “Obsolete Beings,” “Rebel Robot,” “Rise”, “Macrosolutions to Megaproblems,” “Pre-Ignition,” “Holographic Thinking” and “Fix My Heart,” ending by way of curtain call with the band’s signature thrash salute with their own namesake, “Voivod.”

I stood beneath Snake and Chewy relative stage right and just had a blast watching them act like kids onstage but dropping it on the dime when it was time to be serious. It felt awkward taking the live photos you see here from a cell phone behind the barrier instead of with a professional camera on the inside of the photo pit like I did for 16 years. Not too shabby what I got, though. At 53, I found myself headbanging quite often like I did in my teens, shimmying and dancing, pogoing and singing along with Snake every time he dropped down in front of us. Right after the completion of a two-week move, this old dog was ecstatic for such stamina.

Even as I write this, I still marvel at Away’s rhythmic bashing and couldn’t believe the band could drop the title cut from “Killing Technology” only a click slower than the original recording. As Voivod themselves sing, we carry on…

All live Voivod photos, May 13, 2023 by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

One of my favorite nights in the music industry ever was actually a night off instead of a work. Yep yep, that time in 2011 hanging with Hank Williams, III, best known to his fans as Hank III.

I had a buddy at the time, guitarist David McElfresh, who was playing in Hank’s band and who also has a terrific band of own which I gave a lot of press love to, Moonbow. Referred to as “Davey” from backstage, McElfresh and I had a good rapport to the point he’d invited me down to Hank III’s gig on the guest list. Davey took good care of me all night.

Let me tell you, Hank Williams, III puts on a marathon show rolling, kicking and screaming for more than four hours that night and he splits the sets by genre. The longest set, the first one, is naturally pure country as his grandfather, Hank the Elder, as I call him, would’ve rolled with back in the day. Hank III has long made it a crusade to see his grandfather reinstated in the Grand Ole Opry and he had no problem mincing words about the fact in his country set. Rebel yells and PBR were flowing during that portion, but Hank III also had no problem letting go half of his audience which wouldn’t know Superjoint Ritual from a beach spliff party with a caveat the remaining segments of the gig were anything but country. He politely gave those who didn’t apply a friendly warning to roll out, lest their eardrums take a savage beating.

As expected, less than half of the urban cowboys in Baltimore took off, leaving the venue to be peeled apart by Hank III, McElfresh and his team of hellraisers, slamming through a punk set of Hank’s own music and his grind-punk affiliates, Assjack. Afterwards, the final two sets delved into blasting roars of doom and grind metal culled from Hank III’s side projects, 3 Bar Ranch and Attention Deficit Domination. The final set being played as trio with all wearing bandanas as bandit mask facial coverings. Just wild, from start to finish.

It was after the show where I hung out on the band’s touring bus with David McElfresh and the rest of the group, and I was deeply impressed watching Hank III work an endless line of fans who’d migrated to the bus in hopes of meeting the lineage of country music royalty. He shook hands, gave out autographs and took selfies with every single person while I shared beers with the band. Afterwards, I had a few minutes to hang with Hank III and David McElfresh and the dude is legit. We talked more about his grandfather than his father, a legend of country deep fans call Bo Cephus. No surprise if you’re familiar with the family business. Hank III is as tall as he looks, as both McElfresh and myself were dwarfed in the shot above, tossing not an expectant metal-styled horns-up, but a three-finger salute to a man with sheer wherewithal and his rowdy-ass music. Boom.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

A few years ago, I took a series of solo trips to recharge my head and especially my soul. I visited numerous cities and got together with friends in their home areas, many getting to meet in-person for the first time. All of it was necessary and all of it was exhilarating.

On my way to Pittsburgh for hangs with two different sets of friends over the weekend, I got going early and took a seven-mile jaunt of more than 80 through a pristine mountain trail in the western-central area of Pennsylvania, the Laurel Highlands. It was a beautiful, if sweaty side trip ahead of dinner with my friend and her family at the famous Premanti Brothers in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, followed by a Pirates-Dodgers game that evening.

Here are handful of shots I grabbed from the Laurel Highlands, wondering when I’d ever get back to see more. Turns out they connect to the gorgeous falls and trails at Cuyahoga, which I hiked another time and another trip with the same friend. Funny how it goes, right?

–All Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

I’ve been enjoying a lot of Yellowstone love out there amongst many blogs I’ve visited in the past month. It makes me happy to see so many people having their chance to enjoy this spectacular ecosystem still holding on despite mankind’s intrusion and the constant threat of volcanic engulfment. I went there in 2020 for my 50th birthday and I hope to visit once again with TJ, who has yet to see the vast riches of the American west.

Below is a hefty set of pictures I hope will enlighten and inspire you to see this ecological wonderland for yourself. Just don’t be that idiot, the one who thinks just because a bison or antelope are within reach of the road you have all the time in the world to scooch up to them for a closer shot. Keep inside your car if you see a buffalo roadside. They have the right of way, not you, always keep that golden Yelllowstone rule in mind. I’ll never forget the terrible excuse for a father who took his two young children far into the open prairie close to a grizzly cub wandering about. The mass gathering sticking to roadside were all hollering at this lunatic, while I kept asking everyone in sight to be on the lookout for the cub’s mama. I was panicking for that reason, since there would’ve been no time for the stupid clown to hightail back to safety with his kids should the mother griz emerge, as she soon did. Fortunately, the park rangers were put on alert and got the humans to safety as the cub darted away once his mama found him.

I’ll remember that, plus getting into a little bit of heat of my own with the local constabulary for leaving the rental car far away in my haste to search for the mother bear. Those things, plus the second finest steak I ever had at Bullwinkle’s on the west gate of Yellowstone. As outrageous as them having one of my all-time favorite beers in the world, the Montana-based Moose Drool, on tap. I was even able to get the restaurant to sell me two of their Moose Drool pint glasses for my Pop and I, and driving my family nuts chasing down all the Moose Drool six packs I could bring home to Maryland, since the brewery at Big Sky doesn’t ship that far. Skipping rocks with my son at all the lakes and rapids we could find became a happy reoccurrence since it was one of the few things to engage him away from his all-encompassing cyber world. May he grow up later to revisit and rediscover the riches of an encompassing real world.

Enjoy, my friends…

Yessssss, I know you’ve been waiting for it… Old Faithful…

–All Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Inflation is an American indisposition these days, it’s no secret. There used to be a joke in these parts, and it’s died off after a couple of generations: “You can’t buy anything for a dollar anymore, save for a cup of coffee.”

Laugh if you like, I’m doing that very thing while writing this post. Starbucks has always been astronomically overpriced and yet java hounds if are hooked on their brews, ditto for the sugar addicted. A simple Grande size (which anyone knows “Grande” is the biggest misnomer in our nation’s entire commerce) cup of Pike Place Roast coffee will drop you for $2.19. That’s just an ordinary cup of coffee to those who need fancy lattes or double shot espressos. Hit any small-time gourmet or boutique coffee shop out there, the song (and pricing) remains the same. I’m a coffee connoisseur and trained by the best, my pot-a-day drinking stepfather who once had to drink coffee in Vietnam with hot water run through a jeep radiator. He taught me the difference between sludge and true Kona Hawaiian blend, the latter being the finest coffee around.

Positioned maybe a hundred springs from a jackelope out of the famous Badlands in Wall, South Dakota is the equally renowned Wall Drug Store, or simply, Wall Drug. Dropped right off the wide-open Route 90, if you miss Wall Drug, that’s your fault entirely. There are an easy hundred billboards planted along the interstate, similar to South of the Border signs scrolling down the east coast slide of Interstate 95. Wall Drug’s cutesy and often hilarious signs are a way to escape the monotony of the rolling plains until you hit the more scenic slopes and gulleys leading into Rapid City.

The genius of Ted and Dorothy Husted in putting together an American treasure, or to some people, a tourist trap, is a story in economics that should be taught at the university level. Yet the simplicity and flat-out ballsiness to pimp your drug store, the only of its kind for countless miles back in the Great Depression era to offer “Free Water” for a stopover…you can still see those giddy signs and shake your head at them. Naivete? Absolutely not. Wall Drug has you hooked, each billboard whooshing by at 80 miles an hour. At top speed, you’re gonna see every one of them, and you’re gonna stop, I promise.

Seriously, if see the above sign and you love coffee or you’re driving a long haul with need of a spark to carry on into Wyoming, how could you possibly resist the novelty (and practicality) of a cup of coffee costing you a mere nickel?

It’s no joke, you can get a cup of coffee at Wall Drug for five cents. A silver, smooth-edged Jefferson. It’s brilliant marketing. Free water, nickel coffee. Once you swing into Wall Drug, they have you, and you likely won’t leave for a while, especially not without something else. Food, toys, Badlands souvenirs, western wear, boots, and yes, there is still an actual pharmacy. There’s a whole lot more at Wall Drug to do than just buy things, especially if you have young children. It becomes an investment of time stop, so plan accordingly. Yes, it sounds preposterous, but yes, you will hang at Wall Drug for more than a spell. It’s no fair to you if I spoil things, but do be on the lookout for animatronics, dinosaurs, and saloon-styled decorations, if not actual saloon-styled imbibing.

Okay, bean freaks, so you want to know how Wall Drug’s five cent coffee tastes? Well, my friends, you be the judge. If you’re expecting Peets, Dunkin, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme or even Kung Fu Tea, abandon all hope. Five cents gets you a ceramic cup like you might have had at an old Woolworth’s Five and Dime planted at their cafe counter, and the taste is about the same. You gotta do it just to say you did it.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

A few summers ago, I celebrated my 50th birthday on a blowout trip out west, hitting prime targets such as Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, the Grand Tetons and Rapid City, South Dakota. The latter came inclusive of Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, the amusing tourist trap, Wall Drug (you’ll see their most wonderfully corny billboards for hundreds of miles) and the spectacular Badlands.

After hitting all the local highlights in Rapid City, I not only took a four-mile run on one of the local trails through a beautiful mist in the Black Hills, I also spun around the way flat Rapid City, coming home with a huge haul of Red Sonja, X-Men, Cerebus and other comic books from The Storyteller.

I then drove back into the Black Hills to check out a couple of breweries I’d spotted, Firehouse Brewing Co. and the bodacious Sick ‘n Twisted Brewery, where the owner’s dog kept me company on a couch while I pulled down a pair of dark and amber ales. All that time with some mighty fine hops, I had on my mind, Prairie Berry Winery. Having nearly pissed myself spotting their roadside placard, I simply had to bring home a bottle of their Red Ass rhubarb wine. Unless you don’t like wine or you don’t imbibe at all, how could you not?

The Prairie Berry estate, as you can see above, is dropped into a rustic mountain splendor. Sadly, I only went in long enough to fetch two bottles of Bad Ass, as I had just gotten an emergency ping on my cell phone about a tornado warning within miles of our hotel. Suffice it to say, I bolted back as fast as I dared, getting back just in time to catch these pictures of a super cell whirling with reach of us. The storms out west pack as much of a punch as their commercial trade…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

From back in November, my son and I standing in the shadow of legacy and discussing the importance of MLK.

Eternal rest in power, Dr. King.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.