Here for out again

Jan 31, 2006
John F. Kennedy International Airport, Terminal 6
New York, NY
~3:45 PM

The flight boards at 5pm to take me to SJC. Louis was kind enough to take me to the airport, but I think he needed it too. After our time in Haiti together, it was great that we could see each other off.

For the first time in a long time, I'm heading away from home. These past two months in my Parents' house have been wonderful; it was great to indulge in my family like it used to be. It was very hard saying goodbye to everyone here, a vague uncertainty has suffused these past few days. Nonetheless, it is time to confidently move on with my journey with the best wishes and excitement of my friends and loved ones at my back.

On the plane today, I'm going to start chronicling my Haiti trip. It's bound to be somewhat more of a long term project than I'm used to, so please have patience. I'm going to start today by writing an outline.

As for the rest of the Haiti pics, there's been a temporary snag. The few pics that I did upload were done in Santiago at the Hotel Aloha Sol's internet room. It was late, I was tired and we were rushed off the machines when our time ran out. In the commotion, I left my CF card and adapter attached to the back of their computer. There it sat until I frantically called the hotel this morning and the manager retreived it for me. He's UPSing it up to NY tomorrow, but the card will have to catch up with me in SF or Oz. There lesson is to be extra vigilant in the moments when I'm tired and open to distraction. Take it easy, old man.

Time to get a snack. Catch you from Cali.

Home stretch

Back in Santiago now, spending one more day here before we fly home at 3:30am Saturday morning. The first pics are up on Smugmug now, these cover our stint in Sosua, a resort area on the DR's north coast. These pics are cool, but the real story has yet to be told. Stay tuned.

Pa gen pwoblem

Sorry about the smugmug, the PCs here aren't cooperating. I'll post the pics when its possible. There's some doozys.

The past 36 hours have been some of the most intense of my life. I'm carefully keeping track of what's going on, and I'll write the story soon enough, as soon as I figure out how.

For now, all I can say is that Louis and I are relaxed, fed, dry, warm and happy. So much more to tell.

Simon y Luis su la Calle

Hard to imagine that it's been less that 24 hours since we left JFK, this has been a very full day.

Brain is so fried, I don't have the resources to write proper paragraphs and details, the narrative will have to wait until later. Here's an itemized mini recap:

• Jet Blue flight 731 at 9:40PM to Santiago, Republica Dominica, landing at 2:55AM.
• Befriended Juan-Luis and Angie, two a brother and sister pair who introduced us to their family and helped us get out of the airport in with a bargain taxi fare.
• 2 hour taxi ride from Santiago to Sosua in the pouring rain and rotten roads
• Lou's first experience with an LPG powered car: "Scott, is this safe? Should we step out of the vehicle?"
• No one in Sosua has heard of our hotel, nor can they or our driver read a simple map. It doesn't help that "Hotel Koch" is nearly unpronouncable en español.
• Finally giving up on the hotel and having the driver let us off at nearly 6am next to PJ's 24 hour restaurant and bar. Somewhat sketchy.
• No sooner do we leave the taxi does a pimp and his prostitute ride up on a motorcycle. "Sa kafe," she says, a Creole greeting that means "What's up". Hatians. Cool.
• Antionio, our waiter at PJ's helps us get comfortable. We have a tasty breakfast of huevos con queso. Luis calls and locates our hotel.
• We check into the hotel, a spare but clean bungalow on the top floor with an enormous balcony patio overlooking the pounding surf.
• Luis and I get some serious sleep for two hours. We wake up to clear skies, a pleasant Carribean humidity and inviting waters.
• Chatting with the daughter of the hotel's owner, Felix Koch. Gisella and her father are part of a very small Dominican Jew population that came here fleeing the holocaust when most other countries (including the USA) we're refusing refugees. Mr. Koch is 89 years old and fading fast, but he's lived his adult life here and enjoys a quiet peace on his property by the sea. Gisella speaks fluent English and tells us all about the Jewish population and helps us get our bearings. Too bad the synagogue and Jewish museum will be closed until after we leave here.
  
• Walking around Sosua, mostly dodging Hatian shopkeepers. They love it when I say "Non, mesi!" (Creole for "Non, merci!"). We pick up a tube of Peroxicam cream from the local pharmacy. I plan on getting some more, who wants one?
• Lunch at the Austrian owned place next to the hotel. Luis charms the pants off our waitresses while I practice my spanish.
• Negotiating a taxi (20 pesos, about $0.80 total) to take us 1 mile down the road to the Caribe Tours bus station, from whence we'll depart tomorrow afternoon to back Santiago.
• Avoiding a rip off of $5 to get a ride on a motorcycle back that same mile.
• Picking up supplies at the Super Mercato. They have the individual sized UHT milk here. The best travel snack! Peanut butter and various breads for snacking along our travels. Luis doesn't trust my choice of a German dense black bread. He sticks with the all-wheat white.
• A short nap and then a stroll down to La Playa Sosua (the beach). Along the way we get caught in a rainstorm and duck into a bar for something to drink. I have a Brahma beer and Luis has a chilled glass of coconut milk, hacked from the fruit right in front of us.
• Back down to the beach. Dissapointing, there's lots of people and the water isn't very warm and instead of sand below the waterline, there's cratered concrete. We can do better. Oh yeah, it starts pouring on us too.
• Back to the hotel to dry out and shower up for dinner. Luis and I sit on the patio and watch the sunset, chatting about whatever.
• Wandering around for dinner, finding finally a very good smelly Italian restaurant run by real Italians. The carbonara is up to snuff! Dinner conversations with Rob, the British stock broker.
• Internet cafe to write this blog.

Tomorrow, we're going to get up early and enjoy the beach before the afternoon rains come. Then, it's down to Santiago for the night before we head off for our next destination. All is well, all is spent. Stay tuned. There should be some pics up on smugmug now by the time you read this.

Buenos Noches!

Dispatch

Jan 11, 2006
Little Tokyo Sushi Bar at Charaktors Night Club
Ludlow, VT
~10:08 PM

I love it when you stumble into a locally owned establishment, eat surprisingly good food and get to chat with the patrons or better yet the owner. After a long drive through miserable rain and fog, the unexpected fresh fish, the tasty beer and the hot tea have returned me to happiness. Part of it also, is just being on the road, feels good to shake of my stay-at-home laziness and be out again.

Normally, I'd be taking advantage of the quiet midweek here in ski country to get in some private time on the slopes, but thanks to some overeager moshing to popular Eastern European dance music at the Bulgarian Bar in NYC two weeks ago, followed by some overenthusiastic Karaoke this past weekend, my ankle is shot. I can limp on it pretty good, but anything more than that sends it twinging. Need to behave so I can be back on my game before I really ship out.

Speaking of which, the time for shipping again is fast approaching. Crazy Dr. Lou and I are hitting it up down in the Dominican Republic from Jan 20th to the 28th. After we get back, I get a few short days back in NY and then I fly to San Francisco on the 31st. I have no idea how I'm going to fit in seeing everyone in that short time, but I can promise you that it will not be in the form of a gigantic warehouse shennanigan. I'll promise instead to do the best I can with the short time we'll have.

On the 5th, I fly off to Sydney, Oztralia and then start my way up the coast to meet Mike. That's as far as I have planned right now, excepting my need to be back in NY for Eric's wedding next September. Since I'll be in the US anyway, I might also plan on going back to Burning Man. The first flyer for this year's event arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm stoked. I'm thinking of getting a small camp together and dragging everyone along, so start thinking about coming.

The ankle and rainy weather also prevented me from finishing up on the Meadowbrook via the tunnels, but I've learned a lot in the meantime. Firstly, I took to watching the water level based on rainfall over several days. The water level rose about 4 inches one day after a major rain. During the next big rainstorm, stood in the pouring rain and observed that the water had risen about 6 more inches. This is good news because it seems to indicate that there is little risk of getting hit by a drowning flash flood while exploring the tunnels. As to where they go, I'm not sure at all anymore.

While Carter was in town, we tried to find out more about the historic course of the Meadowbrook. The nice lady at the East Meadow Library suggested that we try the Hofstra university Center for Long Island Studies. Unfortunately, they were closing for their winter break at the time we called them so we didn't get to visit while Carter was still here.

Last week they reopened, and I went down there to see if I could find out any more information. I found a map showing the brook circa 1860, a Hagstroms atlas of Nassau County from 1960 and a waterways survey from 1970 by the USGS. Loading these maps into photoshop, I was able to scale them to match the Google Maps hybrid that shows the modern course and where the brook disappears into the tunnels today. When I overlaid the three maps, I was amazed to find that they all show the Meadowbrook ending (well, starting actually) in roughly the same spot, just south of Stewart Avenue.

Click the map for a larger and more detailed captioned version.

There are some minor variations that could be due to measurement inaccuracies or changes in the brook's course, but the overall I think it is fair to say that I hiked to the historic "headwaters" of the Meadowbrook. In the past, that point was probably the culmination of several more minor runoffs and tributaries that are uncharted. Today, the flow comes from those tunnels, which, I'm now guessing, are aggregating storm drains to capture surface flow in much the same way the old runoffs did.

The only sad point is that there probably isn't much farther to go in those tunnels (which is not to say that I'm not totally in there just as soon as circumstances allow). The USGS survey, though, did show me a different inspiring option. The Connetquot River flows south to the Atlantic from the middle of LI, right near the terminus of the Nissequogue River that then flows north to the LI Sound. It should be possible to hike from the mouth of the Connetquot, along the river, across the Island to follow the Nissequogue up to its mouth. A rough estimate shows about 14 miles to cover, although routefinding might add quite a bit more. One day perhaps.

Tonight, I'm staying at the Trojan Horse Lodge hostel here in Ludlow. It's a clean and cozy place that offers the lowest cost beds near some serious ski slopes. If you can make it up here during the week, the place isn't booked up and you can hit up Okemo, Stratton, Killington or Bromley for $23 a night.

Tomorrow, I'm driving up to Lebanon, NH to visit Country Woolens, a yarn and knitting shop. I'll be representing Ozark Handspun, the wool dying and spinning company founded my Velma's dad, David. It was amazing visiting with him back in November and seeing his whole operation. His business has been growing like crazy and I'm excited to be helping him out.

That's it for now... oh... pics from the Karaoke night are posted on my smugmug account. Party on.

-=Scott