good weekends and great friends!

Since we have returned, life has abruptly returned to “normal”. The lawn is growing richly and densely… the food is flowing from the CSA (veggies and eggs and chickens, oh my!), curt has been grocery shopping… I have been working in Indianapolis and Louisville quite a bit.

It has been good.

The current work schedule has me off for 3 weekends this summer (but with many, many Sundays in addition to that). One of them was this past weekend. So curt and I had to make the most of it: imagine… 2 days off with the hubby! WHOOPIE! Curt pulled some major strings at work, gave up his 3 day weekend to move the call schedule, and vwalah! Suddenly the future was wide open!

We took off on a 3.5 hr cruise south into the middle of Tennessee. The Obed is a lovely river with some nice cliffs on it. We got in after midnight Friday night (there’s a homestead there that lets you camp on their property. It is really quite nice there . On Saturday we climbed some of the easier sport routes; it is all nice sandstone like the red river gorge. Ever since I started getting ready for the Slovakia trip I have been leading more sport routes (instead of just cleaning up after curt). I’m getting my lead head back and it feels good.

The nice thing about the Obed is that when you’re done climbing you can jump into the river at this awesome swimming hole. About a year and a half ago we were there and got Leeloo to jump into the water with us, and ever since then she has not liked the water…. Wonder why, it was only October when she jumped in! so she found some other dogs to play with on the shore while we cleaned up with the fishes.

Sunday we were really sore (really, really sore), so we decided to try our hands at the trad climbing there. I lead an infrequently climbed 5.6 (soft and fuzzy route!) in my new shoes and had a blast (before my new shoes, my previous view of trad climbing was closer to “yelch!” ). We walked a little further down the trail and found a famous trad route called alpine dihedral. It is 2 pitches (it is so tall that the rope isn’t long enough to go to the top and get back down, so you have to stop halfway, have the other climber join you, and then continue up the wall to the top.) This is a 5.8 climb which is at the edge of Curt’s comfort zone for trad… and he climbed it like a pro! It lived up to the fame… it was a wonderful, open climb… just a joy the whole way up… and the VIEWS! YOWZA!

And when we got down, Leeloo and tipsy (one of the dogs who lives at the campground and likes to tag along to the crag…. He made a good choice with us, as he got cookies whenever Leeloo did, which happens frequently enough to be worthwhile on these trips) were very happy to see us. Took another quick dip and headed home… and slept like the dead… I love my bed. I LOVE sleeping in my bed. It is so comfy 

After a couple more days in Indianapolis, I came home excited to see LORI AND BRIAN!!!!!! WOOT! They were driving by on their way from one family to another and we haven’t seen them in YEARS! I miss having them in my life. They are a breath of fresh air and just a joy to talk to… and play Euker with! No one knows how to play in Kentucky. No one. We have only played once since we left Lansing. It was great night and Lori and I beat the pants off Curt and Brian twice! Hehehe he *snort* hehe… No, really, Lori beat the pants off them and I happily went along for the ride. They are great friends that remind me about what is important in life. They are good for my soul, and live entirely too far away.

The other thing that happened last month was that Carrie came to visit!!! We did EVERYTHING while she was here: pet expensive racehorses at the track, hike in the gorge with the dogs, found a poisonous snake when both dogs were off-leash… went to the bars and danced all night at pride… made fun of the saddlebred horse museum, ate out a whole heaping lot and saw a vineyard… and of course introduced carrie to the look of disgust when she tasted bourbon at a tour! Hehehe. We even found the Kentucky ren fest and listened to baudy stories of seafaring weenies while drinking hard cider. I need more weekends like this!

Since then, I have been up in Indianapolis almost non-stop and we got a third weekend away in Tennessee. This time we headed down to the Devil’s racetrack which is right off of 75. we had to stay in a campground, but it was a nice one with trees and shade and grass. Saturday we put on our packs and hiked out to the wall… and missed the turn-off and had to bushwack back down the mountain… and found the stream… and spent about another hour looking for the turn-off… and then found it around 3pm that day! We did a multi-pitch climb and called it a day as all 3 of us were exhausted! After some really good food we were out for the night… we went back and climbed a few routes the next day, drove home, and I took off for Indianapolis again.

In other news, we did get to see harry potter this week!

Hiking and Scrambling and Eating, oh my! aka: the rest of the Slovakia trip!

Our train ride to Poprad from Bratislava was uneventful. The scenery was gorgeous and the hills grew as we traveled farther east. We caught a commuter train deep into the High Tatras as a steady rain fell. Naturally, this meant that there wasn't that much of the Tatras to see, as it was covered in clouds.

So, the original plan was to get a bus ride to Podbanske so that we could hike a path called the Tatranska Magistrala across the tallest mountain range in Slovakia. In the summer this bus runs 3 times a day. In the second week of May, it doesn't.

Plan B: take a bus or a train into the High Tatras to a town near our first night's stay. This worked well, but due to set- backs, we didn't get into town until around 5:30 pm. The hiking information office was closed, and we couldn't start hiking without a map (and who would want to, in the rain), so we got a room for the night with a plan to continue on the Magistrala in the morning, once we had our map.

That night, we discovered the best bar ever... The hostel manager, cook, and their friend were all just hanging out in this bar decorated with several boar skins, small stuffed rodents, and more Antlers than you could shake a stick at. We don’t speak Slovak, they don’t speak English, so we communicated in broken German that we all learned waaay back in high school (I see no potential problem with this… do you?). These kindly, and already tipsy, gentlemen decided it was their obligation to teach us about Slovakian liquor! (You can imagine how much fun our German conversation was, as it became increasingly drunken as the night went on) … and I became increasingly aware that the friend guy was hitting on me…

So... In the morning we went to the Forestry Information Center and learned that the Magistrala trail was closed until June 17th. So the rain and trouble with the Bus schedule was Providence!

Plan C: Day hike to a wonderful waterfall above tree line and less than 1 Km (1/2 mile) from the Polish border, gourmet lunch in tourist central around a beautiful alpine lake, then hike up to a chalet for the night! The High Tatras are 6- 8000 feet tall and very similar to the White Mountains but they are much younger and have more dirt. So I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised that the trails were closed due to snow... In fact, we rather enjoyed post-holing through the snow (there is not nearly enough snow in Kentucky) on our way to the waterfall and up the Chalet. We even took a trip further up a pass as far as the trails were open to get an amazing view of the valley below and Slovensky Raj on the other side. We “skied” down the trail until we were post-holing again. There’s a lot to see in these mountains, but we were too early. We’ll just have to go back sometime…

From there we headed back to Poprad to catch a bus for Slovensky Raj. There is a direct bus. We knew there should be one. But the “helpful” little lady behind the informacie counter gave us one with a connection. Which we tried to take; instead of listening to our guts and applying ourselves to the foreign bus schedules with funny little symbols. Oops. Lesson learned. Second lesson: pay attention and don’t fall asleep on the bus! You might miss your stop and get off 10miles from where you wanted to be… In an urban suburb stop nowhere near interesting… but Providence struck again, and we found that there was a bus that went from the stop we were stranded at all the way to where we were going! I kid you not! No sweat! We stocked up on Kofola (have I mentioned we LOVE this stuff?) and hiked out to find a hostel.

And find a hostel we did! A little piece of heaven on earth! The girl working the front desk spoke (what in Slovakia is considered) impeccable English, there were real mattresses on the beds (have we mentioned that in other hotels the mattresses are made of 3 cushions with particleboard sandwiching some leettle springs like old Studebaker cushions: one for your head and shoulders, one under the butt, and the last to get the gangly end), and the food was fantastic! We also got to watch tv from bed in our room! In SPANISH! Well, we watched a little of House, MD in Slovak then switched to the “international news” which was in Spanish. Then Friends started in Spanish… very weird…

In the morning we set out to hike the beautiful gorges of Slovensky Raj. Of all the outdoorsy things we did, this may have been my favorite! Those who know my childhood stomping grounds know my love of the Polarbear Caves in New Hampshire, or Mahoosic Notch or the Beehive Mountain trail in Maine. All the platforms and narrow areas to squeeze through and metal added to the rock to make it easier… this is of the same ilk, only on CRACK! There are 8 gorges in the park and the trails are one way heading uphill. We managed to cover enough ground to hike 2 of the gorges and found some lovely scenery and views along the way. We had some lovely views of the High Tatras, capped in clouds and lost in thought. Then we happened into some old ruins of a monastery! We explored around the ruins, enjoying the signage (actually in English!) describing how it had started early in the 1000’s and had been used until it was ordered destroyed and abandoned sometime in the 1400’s! Very cool stuff to walk around and peer into their cellars and kitchens… oh, so while climbing the second gorge we passed a nun! Major props to the nun in her blue summer habit (read here full length dress and veil that went down to her waist) hiking up what we considered a fun clamor, but definitely to be done in PANTS… and she was making GOOD time too!

We sped back to the hostel for a last, wonderful lunch of Slovakian fare (this was the only place where I trusted the English enough to determine that the potato latkes were gluten free- and OHHH SOOO TASTY!!!!) The best part about Czech and Slovakia is that the traditional foods all involve cream sauces NOT thickened with flour… yummmm. I’ve been craving cream sauces since we got back and since I have been traveling for work and haven’t been out to the store yet in any real capacity, it means Indian and Thai foods that are rich and delicious… but back to Slovakia… delicious and decadent cream sauces. So glad I don’t eat kosher, because this is some FABULOUS eats!

We got the direct bus back to Poprad, and took a night train back to Praha. Night train left at 720pm and arrived in Praha at 4am (groan!). We had 3 conductors rotate through while on the train, so they kept entering our compartment (imagine a slightly run-down and aged version of the compartments on the Hogwarts express [complete with red pleather seat covers] if you haven’t ridden second class on a European train!) to check our ticket. This meant getting up every hour roughly and handing them our tickets AGAIN. By around 230 they figured it out and stopped bothering us. But what we didn’t expect were the police. We had seen LOTS of police both in the cities and on public transport all through our trip. Their presence is visible and much more pervasive than in the US, but we had never had any reason to give them any more than a passing thought. They were just that friendly police ociffer… I’m not as think as you drunk I am… you know, someone else’s problem but not ours… WELL. Here’s the audio (at least my memory of it) of events as they unfolded:

-Whoosh! Slam! BROINNNNNG! (those were the sounds of the door being opened more forcefully than necessary and the lights being turned on. The conductors were at least kind enough not to turn the lights on….)

-Squeek, Squeek, Squeek (me rubbing my eyes)

-“ZBRZSKTRISKA BRZRTISTAZBRTITSKY DRZBRIATSKA!” (police officer trying to communicate briskly and authoritatively with us… as if that hadn’t been established by turning the very bright light)

-“Prosim, English… oder Deutsch?” (me, requesting politely a language I might possibly understand)

-“NO!”

-Curt hands the little man our train tickets in his half-asleep state. (this is what he has done every time we’ve been woken up on this ride and it had always worked before…)

-“NO!” the little man hands the tickets back

-grind grind grind (cogs turning in little man’s head) “passport.”

-“OH!” (duh, why didn’t we think of that…) rumble rumble (we get out and hand him our passports. He procedes to look at them and punch our id codes into his little handheld electronic doo-hicky thing)

-*silence*

-*ominous silence*

-I blearily blink a few times, trying to clear my head and wake up enough in my sleep-deprived state for a conversation I know I can’t understand in Czech when well rested…

-clomp clomp clomp (2 other police officers come over to see what is taking our little man so long and does he need back-up?)

brzasejrqntbkfasdiotrjt ska (whispers between police officers)

-slink slink slink (other officers moving away)

-flip, flip, grind grind grind (officer flipping through our passport stamps looking for our stamp of entry [which he can’t find, mind you, because the idiots at customs in Amsterdam stamped it over the 30 other stamps opposite the India visa and it is all a blur there now] and thinking very hard.)

-ffft, ffft (officer fingering his handcuffs with the caress of a lover, contemplating how much fun it would be to arrest us, but not worth all the paperwork??? This is pure speculation, but HONESTLY, he was starting to freak me out a little)

-“Next Apache!” (I have no idea how that is spelled, but that’s what it sounds like and it means “here you go” in Czech)

-STOMP stomp (as he moves to the next compartment). Whoosh! Slam! Broinnng!

So THAT was exciting… and harmless… THANK GOODNESS! And led to much quiet contemplation about the police and our desire for security and how that might differ given the political upheaval in these countries vs. the US… and how the huge numbers of police may or may not be comforting to all the czeck people in the way that traffic cops may or may not be comforting in the US…blah, blah, blah, did I mention he was fingering his HANDCUFFS! So, when we were returning to the US, I asked the nice lady behind the *very tall* (woot!, go height advantage!) customs desk to stamp a *different* page, she LAUGHED at me and went right on ahead and stamped it over all the other stamps again anyway, and I sighed, because no one is going to try and arrest me on the other side of the gate in the airport… and if they had wanted to, at least they probably would have been able to speak english…

Anywho, back in Praha, we checked back into the clown and bard, slept until 8 or 9 in the morning (mmmm) and got up to tour the jewish district on a cloudy overcast day. There are about 8 museums in old temples and you can’t take any pictures… but the best part is that in the one working temple there is supposed to be a GOLEM that lives in the rafters. He’s made out of clay from the river by one of the old rabbi’s (whose gravestone can be seen in the graveyard… part of the museum tour) of the temple and he is supposed to protect it. COOL! I WANT A LITTLE GOLEM TO PROTECT MY HOUSE! Well, I wasn’t willing to buy one of the little overpriced clay golems they had for sale (most were made in china anyway…) so I am still trying to decide if a Batman or Spiderman action figurine would be equal to the task… No, I’d better hold out for wolverine. He’s the best American equivalent for non-Jewish households…

The Jewish museums are a MUST if you are going to Prague, though. Seriously. It is incredibly moving (and depressing) to see all the history there. And a cloudy, overcast, drippy day sets the mood for sadness and contemplation like none-other. I don’t really have words for all the thoughts in my head in relation to that day, but yowza… just go if you ever get the chance…

Our last night in town we ate dinner at the lesbian Mecca in Prague. Then we headed to the bar for one last shot of absinth (which we had avoided since our first encounter of not-tasty-ness) and the bartender actually spoke English and taught us a better way of drinking it (it involves a sugar cube and a metal spoon and lots of FIRE!). this is a much improved beverage now….

And had a fairly uneventful flight home. So that was the second half of our trip! TADA! Our lawn was up to my waist when we arrived in our driveway, and Leeloo is still a little stuck to my side. Poor girl. I’m ready to go back! pictures to follow soon!

beautiful bratislava

okay, so apparently typing while buzzed is a bad idea in that i don't explain things well and i can't type... oops! important things that were missing from the last post... did i forget to mention that the climbing book is in czeck? so when we got out to the rocks we were trying to decipher the little drawings and line them up with giant pillars based off of a little chicken scratch english and tiny pictures with czeck writing! so much fun!

absinthe update: i was "drunk" ALL NIGHT. I would wake up, think "yup, still not normal" and go back to bed. made for very interesting dreams. also, if you are going to drink absinthe, add LOTS of sugar. we put in 2 cubes and stirred for a good 20 minutes and that improved things greatly :)

but on to more important topics!

we are LOVING bratislava! sean picked us up from the busstop and we went home to the 6th floor flat to SHOWER and do LAUNDRY!!!! eep! anne got home and we all went out for PIZZA. my bestest friends in the whole wide world found me GLUTEN FREE PIZZA in the foreign lands of bratislava and it was SOOOOOO TASTY! honestly, it was a superthin crust with yummy toppings and everything! from there we went to visit friends and eat fruit salad. and tried slovakian wine and sodas.... good night with good people!

friday started with a bang! we had polenta pancakes and BACON and chai and lots of fruit. fantastic bacony bits. then it was off to vienna! we visited the graveyard and the musician's graves and the fabulous church there and toured around the market where we ate all manner of fabulous things from thai food and sushi to candied cumquats to lychee soda and both vianeese and italian coffees... yum yum yum... so we are again eating our way through the country we are in.

vienna was beautiful and all, but home was calling and we were beat so we came back and had a bbq with SCALLOPS AND SHRIMPIES and raosted marshmallows and bananas. oh! and vinea, a grape soda that is very wine-like. yum! the weather has been fantastic here with ne'er a cloud in the sky!

oh! oh! on the train back, we got to watch the countryside and it was sooo pretty! and there was a windmill farm! and these kids who were travelling were playing that game where you name things under a theme while clapping your hands and they were great fun! they were doing european capitals and got into an arguement about istambul... it is IN europe but is not a european capital! i only wish i was so fluent in another language that i could have a conversation like that... i am also going to refer to soccer as "american soccer" from now on!

today was busy with devin castle in the morning which was wonderful! it is a castle ruin with lots of great views of the danube and an archeological museum and beautiful walks by sculptures with fields of queen anne's lace behind us...

ate lunch at a grill that made wonderful kolbassa and drank kofala on tap. it is a dark soda made with the water left over from decaffinating coffee... it is not as sweet as most soda, and tastes a little like dr. pepper and is WONDERFUL stuff that packs a kick!

on the way home we walked through old town, enjoying the crazy statues and beautiful sights, and climbed st. michael's gate with weaponry museum, saw a reproduced pharmacy from several hundred years ago, stopped off at a few art galleries (and more coffee of course...) and then up to bratislava castle to walk the grounds, which also has wonderful views. this castle is under major reconstruction now, so we couldn't get inside.

we made it to the mall to see everyone and their dogs and enjoy all the sexy underwear shops... no really, we went to see the movie startrek which was awesome! the movie wasfun, the assigned seats were plush and comfy, the screen was huge, and you can buy wine and beer!

cabbage soup for dinner has left me a little gassy, but it was soo tasty and worth it! and i haven't gassed anyone out yet, so so far, so good! one more day here, and then we head out for the high tatras and slovensky raj (slovakian paradise). the only problem is, i don't want to leave!

love!

chesky raj

climbing in the czech republick is AWESOME! we started by taking a 2 hour busride up to cesky raj (czeck paradise) and asked the lovely lady at the info desk (who spoke english) about getting from jacin to the national park... she replied that we were already IN bohemian paradice, and where would we like to go specifically... so was got out hte map and dutifully got the bus schedule. the we headed over to the climbing store where we bought a book on climbing in the area. the helpful little man there told us the best places to go, helpfully explained that the bolts there (metal peices in the wall) were spaced 5-15 mters apart (yowza!), and that the sandstone was very soft, so no chalk or nuts (metal trad gear) in the rock, if you please.... yeah, yeah, yeah...

2 hours later we were hiking to the hostal. no such luck, they are not open for tourist season yet. so we hiked to the petrovsky skale (the pinnicles) and tried to find the routes the little man recommended. found some and realized that there are no bolts if you can place gear (to try and preserve the rock)... and that meant maybe one bolt if it was below a 5.10... so to climb something reasonable meant throwing trad gear in the wall... but no trad gear allowed... only rope knots! headed out to ponder this and find a place to sleep. hiked about 5km looking for a hostel and found a hotel room around 930pm.

in the morning we returned to the wall, climbed a friggin' 5.10 called "emporer's hat" to the top of a pinnicle (AWESOME view with lots of tourists taking our picture), and enjoyed being about as close as you can get to god without falling off a small roacky perch... curt estimates the top to be about 21 square feet...with commanding views...

clibed some other suff, placing rope instead of metal in the wall. "this knot is not a nut". the sandstone was so soft that we walked on sand on the ground, sand crumbled into our palms when we climbed, and i lost a foothold and scraped my shin on what felt like sandpaper! no wonder no metal!

we had a great time, and hiked 7km out to jicin this morning in the rain. the countryside is beautiful!

back in prague for the night where we are enjoying the buzz from our first absinthe... can accurately tell you that absinthe = drunk + happy!

tomorrow we head out for bratislava to see annie and sean! oh boy! we are leaving REALLY EARLY!!!! so now, i think, it is time for bed! hope you all are well!

PRAHA, CZ

we are safe and sound in Prague (Praha here)... it is absolutely georgeous! will add pics later! the old architecture is astounding, the former communist housing block where we are staying particularly mind numbing, and the food is suprisingly fantastic! i was a little scared!

for all those who know us, YES, we are consuming many fantastic and weird foods that are oh so tasty... and full of eggs, cabbage, strange meats foreign to our digestive tracts, and other gas producing items useful for propelling us up and down hills!

yesterday we hit the castle, many other bohemian landmarks, saw cz period dancing and art exhibits, and really enjoyed a stroll down by the river. this city does it right! and, had we been awake, it even has a great night life. recession, prague laughs at you! hahahahahahaha. that and the fact that we went over 36hours with no sleep. zombie tourists! waahoo!

on another note, the keyboards here are easily navigated, the facebook webpage is very funny looking in chesky, and in trying to find english we have both changed our pages to pirate! my status was update 2 grains of sand ago! hehehe

off to rockclimb in Jic(h)in at Cesky raj (pronounced chesky rai- means czech paradise) for the next few days... that and find out what the locals eat for breakfast! see yas!

and we're off!

so it is derby weekend... and we have left the state! for some reason, horseracing seems to be lost on us!

so instead, we are in michigan with the kids. haveing a tumble before our flight to slovakia. the bags are packed, the climbing gear is sorted and stowed, the backpacking gear is downsized (amazing how little you need when you aren't sleeping in a tent!), and most importantly, the *CAREPACKAGE* is finished for annie and sean. deet nestled in plastic far far away from the peanut-butter chocolates i spent yesterday dipping.

so my stress level has plummetted in the last 12 hours! AND my sleep schedule is soooo screwy right now i think i am subsisting on caffeine and sugar, but that will only help my jet lag, right?! AND, curt hasn't killed or disowned me for being a tad on the short side lately... a fact he passes off as "well, you haven't even been home, so how could I?" hmmm. there's some truth to that!

so, we will be gone for 2 weeks. we will have shady e-mail access during that time. we will not have phone access. we will not be speaking english even! should be exciting! i can't wait!

i will update if we get the chance, but don't hold your breath!

love!

all shiny and new!

The Garage picture I promised! Isn’t it gorgeous! Amazing, how getting that one house issue out of the way changed my whole perception of our house and the neighborhood… I feel like I got an extreme make-over!

Actually, there have been a lot of changes around here lately… I went from 6 days a week at work back down to 4 and already feel a renewed sense of calm and anti-craziness settling on me. I keep taking deep breaths and realizing that my stress level is not as high as I expect it to be…

Christmas and New Years were wonderful this year! We did not make it back to New England again (boohoo), but we had a wonderful time making the most of what we did have! We went up to MI to visit the Dyer clan again, and had a wonderful time monging and unwrapping. Ashley went to the climbing gym with us for the first time and showed the big kids how it's done. It was a most wonderful trip. Leeloo discovered how to open presents! On New Year's we went out to see the movie MILK, you know, a date... at the theatre. Great movie, a must see.

We had to replace the transmission in Annie, our 2003 Corolla. The repair had to wait because of the costs of the garage. Grr. And after doing that, the battery died. Not that we are complaining about that, it did last 80,000 miles and was original to the car. So, while we waited for it to be installed, we drove a couple of the other cars that were on the lot around… and found this nice little 2001 corolla with only 60,000 miles on it….

And Curt’s car needed a lot of wear and tear replacement parts (tires, struts, brakes…)…

So we traded it in and got a new-to-us car! A new car! She is so pretty! We’ve named her Carina. She is pretty basic- no cruise control, we have to roll our windows and manually lock the doors. But she is in excellent shape and will be a more practical car than the rapidly aging Saturn. It has been raining like none other here, so the picture is a little dank, despite our spirits!

For Christmas this year, Curt and I got tickets to Wicked in Louisville. We headed out there today and it was awesome! We haven’t been to a show since we moved to Kentucky… we really needed this date. When we got back we reconnected with our friend Erin, who’s been traveling a lot lately like me. We had sushi. SUSHI. YUMMY SUSHI….

I think I am in heaven now. Pardon me while I ooze.

whirl of a week

what an awesome week we've had!

it all started with drinking liberally 2 weeks ago... had some of the greatest conversations there to date and met lots of cool people. but especially one of them...we found a new friend at drinking liberally and she is fabulous! she has wine nights and likes to do out-doorsy things and is spiritually in touch with herself and smart and has no filters to what comes out of her mouth... PERFECT! and her schedule is about as crazy as curt and mine are, so no worries there! and she's also fairly new in town, so we can go check out town together...

so we went to wine night and met her fabulous friends

and then we bbqed on our new back patio and got to know each other... and curt got really drunk... it was hilarious! tra la la

i had such a good weekend... even though i worked both days... i got to see my old friends up at florence and curt cleaned the whole house (except for the bathrooms which i had already tackled) and i have been social and life is FABOO. i have the greatest husband ever... EVER EVER EVER!

curt and i have joined the uk fall into fitness challenge which means that we are trying to do some exercise-like activity 4 days a week. so far so good. we're starting to do yoga again at home, and yesterday evening at the gym 2 poeple doing a piece on the climbing wall for the school newspaper asked curt and i to have our pictures taken while climbing... we're posterchildren for the climbing wall, who knew?! i'll see if i can get a copy of the pics to post. so we both are starting to feel better physically, too.

now if only i could get my work-life to be as good as my social and home life... because i have transferred hospitals i have lost my e-mail account, lost my 401K and health/insurance, and even my electronic abilityto punch into work. so much fun! there have also been problems with my state licensures that i have to work out on my time off... ah well. life can't be all fun!

curt is enjoying work as well, he is trying to get into good study habits, is leading some meds students, is still working on traumatic brain injury, and is looking for a clinical study to help out with for the year.

hope all of you are enjoying yourselves there in the real world... or at least having as much fun as us.

the grand canyon was... GRAND

it is so hard to wrap my finger and my thoughts around this trip... but here's a go.

i went to the grand canyon in high school on a girl scout trip. we had wanted to do a camping trip below the rim. so we started planning, but we weren't allowed to take a troup of 3 girls. so after doubling the size ofour troup, the backpacking was out as none of them knew how. so the trip was very touristy and not what i had wanted.

THIS was my dream grand canyon trip. something i was not prepared for a decade or so ago...

mom picked us up at the airport with the exciting news of a new condo! we spent a wonderful night at the rim and she dropped us off at the trailhead. first warning you are in for an adventure... when the description of the trail is "the new trail a crazy old miner made when the old native american trails washed out." second clue... when the directions to find the trailhead are: go a mile past the outlook and look for a no parking sign. this trail (the new hance trail down red canyon) was amazing. curt and i got lost twice and it was like grand canyon desert meets rockslides in the white mountains... the drop-offs were incredible! we made it down to the colorado in about 6 hours and set up camp on a dune (i know, i cringed too, but there is one dune set aside for camping and the others are ecologically sound).

the real issue with the grand canyon is that it is one mile deep and 10 miles across. this means that the perspective you get from the top, the middle, and the bottom are all completely different. and to make it more interesting, each individual tributary further amplifies the canyon with their own lead-ins. so... if you start down from one of the tributaries and end up at the colorado, you cannot see the actual top from where you came down. it is too far back. it is a maddening trick of perception similar to, but more intense than the false summits experienced when climbing mountains.

the next day we went up to a plateau about 1000ft above the colorado to a trail called the tonto trail and headed west to hance creek. it was freezing above the rim, but it got into the high 90's every day down at this elevation. so spring was in full swing. all the plants were flowering... yucca, cacti, desert rose... EVERYTHING! desert flowers are such a contradiction in terms that it is constantly startling and brilliant. finding the creeks running is an added benefit... and you know you're getting close when you see green cottonwoods. color perception is weird in the canyon. the first day we looked at so much red rock that when i looked at my skin (slathered in as much sunblock as it could hold), it looked blue! so these cottonwoods were GREEN. we camped in a box canyon with a fabulous waterfall and the sounds of frogs.

from hance creek we left the tonto trail for a day and went over horseshoe plateau. we got to see a spring (tainted with especially heavy levels of arsnic), and found an old mineshaft. well, we're crazy, so we got out our headlamps and headed in... wow. mines of moria has a whole new meaning now. man-made holes are frightening. 200years is not a very long time when you think of rock formations, and it wasn't long before the heebie-geebies set in... but we found a couple of branchings, saw the old iron rail and enjoyed what we could with our feeble light. can't wait to look online and see what we can find out about the depths of this mine! from the debris pile, it looks like it was a copper mine.

continueing to the top of the plateau, we could see other mines that were started, as well as the remains of their old camphouse and tin can trashheap. very cool. we had heard from a park ranger when we were planning the trip that there was a cave on top of the plateau and we set off to find it. we were not disappointed! the cave of domes, which we later saw from our campsight on the other side of the plateau, is literally on the side of the plateau, and goes in far enough for us to find a caver's box (sign in and out if you want to go caving there) and has some great features in the rock. there is apparently some graffitti from the 1800's but our headlamps were not strong enough to find it. in fact, only one was strong enough to navigate by at all, and i was taking pictures with the flash in order to see what was in front of me! needless to say, we could not explore too far without the caving gear necessary, but boy was it ever an awesome sight! made doubly strong by eerging from the cave to views of the grand canyon... some cosmic sense of humor that was!

we rejoined the tonto trail and followed a level path westward towards the more touristy area of the canyon. this course gave us amazing views as we wound in and out of tributary canyons and got to see slit canyons, box canyons, and astounding drop-offs as well as some amazing sandstone features! the rocks change depending on how deep in the canyon you are and it is common to see petrified shells and such in several of the layers...

in our free time we followed the creek beds in several areas. at this time of year, it was easy to find springs and areas where the streams come up above the ground for a while... loads of tadples, frogs, and other creatures we associate with water (even mosquitoes) having a lovely time... and every night our camp was somewhere completely different. we found antlers and deer jawbones, and lots of feces (deer and small mammal) everywhere we explored... and there were TONS of lizards.

our last night was the only dry campsite we had, and so we loaded up on water at a spring a couple miles from boulder creek and hauled 12 liters around the dry cremation creak to a camping spot out on the plateau. this was the only night we were not sheltered from the wind. for some unknown reason, i did not expect it to be as severely windy as it was. which is really silly if you think about it, as there are channels to funnel the wind, and the wind is responsable for many of the features that make the canyon so extraordinary... so. it was windy the last night, but the view was INCREDIBLE. and because no one wants to haul heavy water around, the trail was barely used and sometimes difficult and fun to follow. we also got some solitude in the best sense of the word. we thought there would be fewer people than there were, but due to the season and the easy availability of water, we found 10-15 people camping near us every night the first 3 nights! from the afternoon of the 4th day to the evening of the 5th day, we saw noone. amazing.

the last day we had 4 liters of water each (what was recommended, but nearly twice as much as we needed) when weset out. after 1.5-2 miles of well travelled trail from dayhikers staying below the rim, we hit the tip-off point, where the south kaibab trail intersects the tonto trail... 4.4 miles from the top and 2.5 miles from the colorado. we resisted the urge to see the river again, wanting to be sure there was enough time to catch our bus... and headed out of the canyon. the south kaibab is one of the most heavily used trails... even used by donkeys to restock phantom ranch at the river... so it was an abrupt change from what we had been doing. there was trail maintainance and stone edging nearly the entire way up, and we could walk side by side when there was no traffic. i was sad not to meet a donkey team, but there was plenty of fresh feces to go around... and we flew up the trail, admiring the areas of cobblestone and built-up embankment made by the ccc boys during the depression. this is one of the rare trails that goes up the butt, instead of following a tributary, so the views were a consistant inspiration and the breeze very welcome. we got to the top before 11am, having made such good time that we were laughing and giggling about it. we had time to shower and refresh and embiggen ourselves with food before meeting our van to return to the world of the living. spent the night in an old hotel in downtown flagstaff, enjoying local entertainment and antique elevators and fabulous thai food... and caught the van back to the pheonix airport in the morning.

THE TRIP

Monday, the holiday, was another day at work with no computers. Tuesday morning was more of the same, but our new server came Tuesday morning and was working before our afternoon appointments. I never want to do that again. Things seem to have settled down since then. Freezing rain/ice storms will do that to a place.

So, after debating the stupidity of going camping after an icestorm blew through town, curt and I decided our trail-fever was worse than the cabin-fever we would feel if we tried to stay warm and cozy at home. That, and I really wanted to put that backpack of Leeloo's to good use.

So we packed up and headed down to the red river gorge for Leeloo's first backpacking trip. She was ever so proud at the trailhead, all spiffed out with her pack and her z-rest, milking all the attention from the other hikers that they could muster.

It was beautiful out, and there was plenty of time to enjoy it. The ice melted through the afternoon in a beautiful fog. We set up camp, and gave Leeloo her first dinner (I think the extra meals alone are incentive for her, I have never seen a dog so food motivated). Then, we headed out to explore the area a little. Found some beautiful caves and cliffs and trails others have started… the fog wore off in the late afternoon and we got some good views before heading back to camp to make dinner (#2 for Leeloo, oh boy!).

I have needed a trip like this for a while. The winter this year was unpredictable, an freezing rains are not something to get caught in, so our rare chances to get out were often spoiled before we could even hit the trailhead.

After dinner, we all curled up in the tent. Historically, this is where Leeloo tries to bring the tent down, or otherwise explores her environment as a plaything in all manner of inappropriate ways. She also is notorious for not sleeping through the night, but readjusting every 20 min, and when she finally does settle down, snoring vociferously. Last summer, we would camp near the car and when we couldn’t handle it anymore, would merely put her in her kennel next to us; problem solved. But, and this may be due to the fact that she walked 7-8 miles with us…who knows, this weekend she graduated to a full night in the sack with mom and dad. She crashed amazingly well, and a decent night of sleep was had by all (I never sleep well the first night out).

The next day was a wonderful mix of ridgeline, walking by the stream in the gorge, and crossing a loooooong suspension bridge. Leeloo was scared to cross the first time (imagine much crawling and encouragement with gentle pushing from behind, but once we crossed it and she received her victory treat (TREAT?!? Treat! Treat, treat, treat!!!!), she went back across it with no issue what-so-ever. On the way back to the car, we all enjoyed slipping about in the mud and crossing streams. All I can say is that all small dogs should come with a handle. Ingenious!

Once we were home, Curt and I seriously got to business and made a chicken-pot-pie. I have been fiending for one of these for ages. AGES! It was ever so tasty. We are geniuses. Mmmmm. Pot-pie! I will be eating the left-overs for a week! I am so excited.

beutifully productive days

ahh, monday was just peachy-perfect. an early morning jump-start to the day... then i had an appt with a blown insulation guy over the sad and pathetic insulation situation in our attic (no wonder the old owners payed almost $300/month to heat this place). learned some good stuff, although it was too expensive and we will probably just tackle this one ourselves too...

then, i cut matting for framing pictures and reduced the size of that project. my desire to actually finish the project has been reduced since anne and sean are no longer visiting (but at least they will be loving a new bundle of joy that they are the proud godparents of!), but now the large mat-board isn't the main attraction of the living room. success in smaller packages!

then, i finalized the roof contractors and the windows. the new roof should be on by friday (in fact, they just dropped off the new tiles today... better than getting a new toy!). the windows, however, will take 5-7 weeks to order and come in. so... no new windows until dec., but at least all my little ducks are in a row.

i did laundry and dishes, played with the dog... THEN i went to the garden center and got bushes for the front of the house. which i brought home and finished the landscaping. i pulled out a small tree and moved boulders... grrr, i am powerful woman, hear me roar! and now the house has a facelift! baby bushes... so nice to have it done...

i started patching the insulation on the heating ducts, then met curtis when he got off of work and we went climbing then out to eat. what a great night... actually sitting down and talking with my husband and eating fabulous dosas at the southern indian restaurant. hmm, heavenly ending to a perfect day!

yesterday, well, that was just work and puppy class... poor leeloo, learning how to behave herself... so sad. teeheehee.

today will be decidedly less productive, although i will be visiting home depot AGAIN.

desk destruction!

it was too hot to go climbing, so we moved all the books out of the study and began trying to dismantle the built in desk that the previous owner built with his limited skill. we need the space for shelves for our fun books (to keep them distinct from our medical books, which are not exactly a sure-fire fun read...) and the desk is really an eye-sore. after much fun with our fabulous powerdrill, and a small amount of prying and pushing, and only very minor wall demolition, we regained a part of the office that had been screaming for freedom! no more oddly sized desk for you, little study!

we are now repairing the wall and shopping for shelves that match our medical book shelves.

i cleaned out a lot of old notes and books from undergrad... who knew i would not actually need my beef management notes in the real world? or british empiricism... honestly, i can be such a pack-rat! reading through some of my old notes, though, i realized that i used to be quite smart... and funny! i wonder where that part of my brain went. medicine and philosophy work so differently in my little mind. ah well, off to find more buried treasures...