Out and About with Scottley

London transit

2006-08-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

1:37 am, Radisson Hotel, Stansted Airport, London Outskirts.

Not a bad place to hole up for several hours to wait for my 3am shuttle to Heathrow.

Iceland is behind me, ending with a spectacular weekend trip with Karl around the south coast. The pictures should be up and commented by the time you read this. Thanks, Karl- it was great to see you.

By the time they're awake in NYC, I'll be inbound for Dulles. I'll be at my folks house on Long Island by 5pm.

My trip isn't over. I'll just be in the USA for a while. I think a more internal, introspective phase is due to begin. It will be nice to have a home base.

Around the world. Fuck me.

Iceland is funny

2006-08-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

You can buy vibrating cock rings at the grocery store checkout stand (right next to the chewing gum and tabloids), but they don't have knockout combo cold medicine like NyQuil.

Dinner tonight. . .

2006-08-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

. . .consisted of smoked puffin breast as an appetizer- followed by two succulent rare minke whale steaks, with a lovely pepper sauce. After a bottle of Spanish Rojia, don't even ask what that cost.

What catches you off guard is the fact that whales are mammals. You expect fishy seafood and wind up with what amounts to super tender, slightly gamey, delicious, floating cow.

Long live the moral management of our oceans' resources.

Iceland

2006-08-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

I made it. Much coolness. Heathrow was a bitch.

Went with Karl and his buddies to see Miami Vice. Probably the best looking piece of crap since The Hulk. What a shitty movie.

More later, I'm on Moscow time, still.

This should be interesting

2006-08-10T04:05:00.000-07:00

Jeeze. Couldn't they wait just one more month to try to blow up planes?

I'm due into Heathrow on Sunday. I'm due to fly out from Stansted on Monday for Iceland.

I have no idea if my flight is going to go ahead or what the situation will be like at the airport. My chances of finding a room for the night of my layover are also now probably nil from all the people who will be stuck in Lonon. Maybe I can call in a favor from some contacts I have in London-- if I get there.

On the bright side, I'm finding Moscow to be completely pleasant. The tourists have annoyed me away from the otherwise impressive Kremlin area, but the rest of the city and the museums all seem very chill. The subway is by far the best I have ever travelled. Collectively, the system's stations are works of art to rival the tourist traps at the Kremlin. My average wait time for a train is one minute. I've never waited more than three. Classy.

The city is busy and bustley, but it has a nice hushed quality to it. The cars are generally in good repair (the traffic noise is low), and there's plenty of room for everyone. Maybe they're all out in Siberia on vacation.

Correction

2006-08-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, July 20 was posted the following statement:

Yesterday ended with a teary farewell between Jen and I as we finally found the proper platform at the Beijing station, after nearly an hour of frantic running around. Saying goodbye wasn't easy, Jen's been my constant companion for over a month now and it's odd not having her easy company around.

Looking back, it seems that the moniker "constant companion" had already been assigned to Isabel on June 27.

With that and with the true nature of our time together in mind, I would like to issue the following correction:

Yesterday ended with a teary farewell between Jen and I as we finally found the proper platform at the Beijing station, after nearly an hour of frantic running around. Saying goodbye wasn't easy, Jen's been my Mongol-Sino flame for over a month now and it's odd not having her easy company around.

The staff at Out and About with Scottley apologise for any misunderstanding.

Русская викторина! Russian Quiz

2006-08-06T01:19:00.000-07:00

Привет моий друзыа! Сечас Русская викторина!

Hello, my friends! Time for the Russian Quiz!

I head to Moscow on Tuesday. While I head there, try this:

Describe three characteristics of Russian toilets.

A Roiser Russia

2006-08-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

Within an hour after my last post, everything turned around.

I arrived at my homestay to be warmly greeted by Galina and Alec. They're a cheery couple in their mid fifties who own a 3 bedroom house that they rent out. I would be having the whole place to myself. Galina showed me around, while Alec went out past their lovely garden to prepare their баня for me. Many Russian country houses have a banya, or as we would call it back home, a sauna. Rashit, my travel fixer, and my hosts all assured me that a good banya and a home cooked meal would make me feel a lot better. They were right.

After I made myself comfortable, I went down and Alec showed me how to use their banya. He had a hot fire stoked in the oven and the room was already at 48C (115F). He showed me the cold water tank that I could use for a cold water shock and how to add eucalyptus oil to the steam rocks. He also showed me the bundle of leafy birch branches that I could flog myself with "to make me strong". Alec left me to my banya and I alternated between oozing sweat and bracing against the cold water I would pour over myself. The house has no hot water, but that's okay, because you can shower in the banya. A little soap and some water warmed on the oven and you're clean in no time. Of course, it's 50C throughout your shower, so you emerge a bit sweaty, but it's a good clean sweat that dries to make your skin feel soft and fresh.

Leaving the banya at peace, I entered the house at the kitchen to find Galina cooking up a storm. Before me was laid a banquet. Alec and Galina sat and chatted with me as I ate. Every time I paused from my eating for more than a moment to say something, they both chimed in with a gently urging "kushit, kushit" indicating that I should "keep eating". When I was finally too full to continue, I had devoured two omul cutlets (a local delicacy fish, prepared by "babushka"-- Alec's mother), half a roast chicken, a cucumber, half a tomato, two helpings of mashed potatoes, a slice of omul filled pastry, a glass of fortified wine, a slice of cake (also a la babushka), and two lettuce leaves.

Unlike the blokes on the train, I found talking with my hosts to be easy and pleasureable. While the meal wound down, I looked at my watch to see that I'd been having a complete conversation purely in Russian for over an hour. Galina was especially great to talk with, she had great patience as I disjointedly constructed my sentences, letting me speak while occasionally adding a polite correction. When she spoke, she spoke clearly and slowly and took plenty of time to explain words that I didn't understand.

It was about 10pm and my belly and heart were near overflowing with homecooked goodness. I went upstairs and fell promptly to sleep.

The next morning, Galina was there and at the ready to stuff me again over breakfast. Under her steady kushits I packed in 5 blini (wide, thin pancakes served with smetana, sour cream), 2 fried eggs, several slices of salami and cheese, a big bowl of hot kasha (grain porridge, in this case wholemeal barley), topped off with copious cups of black tea.

The extra blini went in a tupperware container as snacks for my trip. After we finished breakfast, I had just enough time to crap out my dinner before Tollik arrived to take me down to the docks.

The boat trip was fun, of course you'll have to wait for the captioned pictures for most of the story. I decided to cut it short after one night, we woke up to steady rain that seemed like it would last for a while. We packed up camp and headed back-- I was happily greeted with yet more food and a cleansing (and core warming) banya. The weather didn't improve until this afternoon, so I'm happy we didn't stay out in the wet for another night.

Tomorrow, I get to hang around here for one more day, waiting for the boat to take me to Irkutsk. I may go swimming, or perhaps go chat with a kindly local artist I met the other day. I'll just hang out.

Irkutsk sounds like a decent town, with lots of fellow travellers and facilities. I don't think I'll linger too long though. I'll have to see what the flight to Moscow situation is when I arrive.

Derailed

2006-07-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of the train. I've put in my time, it's all very interesting, but it kills me to see the world rolling by while I go stir crazy and have to have the same monosyllabic conversation with yet another drunk russian miner.

So I'm here in Severobaikalsk, on the banks of the world's deepest lake. I've met a travel agent who can fix me up with a 4 day tour via hiking and sea kayak, a bit pricey but it sounds good. It comes with a guide who follows me in a motor boat and cooks for me and everything. In fact, this guide is sitting right here with me now as I type it. He seems like a good dude, he just brought me doughnuts and a coke.

I have to decide in the morning if I really want to go on this trip. The thing is, being alone with no one to speak with (my guide has really no english), out for four days in the wild sounds depressing right now. My understanding agent agreed that I can call things off in the morning and get my money back, he's being very understanding.

In the meantime, I'm moving this afternoon to a private home that I'll have all to myself in the nearby town of Nizhneangarsk, a small settlement on the north tip of the lake. Tonight a local woman will set up the banya (sauna) for me and cook me dinner. Hopefully some private relaxation tonight will point my way.

Chugging on

2006-07-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

Written on 29.07.2006 at 10:55am

Posting from a dial up connection at the train station in Tynda, on the Baikal-Amur Magistral line.

Decided to leave Khabarovsk two nights ago, to take the 31 hour trip onward up here. While I'm gone, Tatiana at the fantastic Dalgeo Tours is looking into apartments and Russian instructors for me back in Khabarovsk. If I see something I like, I may go back.

On the other hand, I just bought my ticket to go tomorrow morning for the 24 hour ride to Seiveralbaikalsk, where there's lots of boat and mountain activities waiting for me. It's possible that something there will tickle my fancy and I'll stick around.

-- just got my email from Tatiana. Khabarovsk will be too expensive to linger in. I guess I'm moving on.

The train trip was easy. I had mixed bouts of contentment and stir-craziness. The 1 year old kid sharing my cabin was both amusing (sometimes), annoying (other times) and unbearably bawly (often enough!)

Arrived last night in the middle of the night. Dodgy place, a train station in the middle of the night. A few stories there. As usual, no time to write them now. The kid's mother, 28 year old Lena, has offered to drive me around today to see Tynda's sights. We're due to meet in 5 minutes.

Ciao.

Wandering Jew Hopes Renew

2006-07-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

Got thrown for a loop today. I visited the capital of the Russian Jewish Autonomous Region, Birobidzhan. The Region was set up by the Russian gov't in 1938 as a "homeland for the Jews" before Israel was anywhere close to being founded. The Russian gov't was trying to entice Jews to move to there so that they wouldn't have to deal with pogroms (some of which they had a hand in). It a decent arrangement, as the Jews were allowed to run the local government and establish a relatively untampered life, despite the fact that officially the synagogue and Hebrew schools were closed.

Birobidzhan is a lovely place, lots of trees, a beautiful riverside area and a general tranquility. Of it's 90,000 residents, only about 4,000 Jews remain, some 18,000 having left for Israel after the Soviet Collapse. Still, the main street is named Shalom-Alechem Blvd and all of the food stores in town are called "Tzimmes", written in Hebrew and Hebrew styled Cryrillic letters. The town's mayor is Jewish and the area seems proud (jew and gentile alike) of it's special heritage.

After investigating the city and synagogue, my wonderful tour guide, Galina arranged for me to have a personal meeting with the 81 year old director of the Jewish Society, Lev Gregoryevich Toytman. He shook his fist at me in humourous dissapointment when he told me that if only I had contacted him first, my trip to Harbin would have been VERY different. It turns out I missed everything.

In Harbin, there's a new synagogue. There's an active Jewish museum. There's lots of records. There's many people there who would have been happy to host me and show me around and take care of me as their honoured guest. Lev Gregoryevich is very connected with the Harbin community. Just last week, while I was there, was an international gathering of Jews from Harbin which he attended. All this, right under my nose with no way of knowing.

So I'm stuck. A large part of me wants to return to Harbin to finish what I started. Already here in the Russian far east, I've found a taste of the trail to one of my ancestors. If I go back to Harbin, I feel like I might really find something special-- not to mention the fact that it sounds fun to go there and be the guest of the local community. I could go down there, stay for a bit, then return to the US via Beijing.

On the other hand, this means leaving Russia and I can't return since my visa only allows one entry. That would mean giving up on the language study I've been cultivating for months now. It also means giving up on seeing the rest of the country by rail, stopping to meet Alex in St. Petersburg, and seeing Karl in Iceland this season (of course, I could just as easily fly there from NY after Velma's wedding).

A compromise has popped into my head. If I can rent a flat here in pleasant Khabarovsk for a few weeks and find a Russian teacher, I can stay immersed here, relax and chill out for a while and then go down to Harbin. That way I could get my Russian experience and still get to visit Harbin properly. I'm going down to the travel agent first thing in the morning and see if this is something they can set up.

Other options include a shorter loop on the Trans-Sib (although I don't really see the point), popping off to Sakhalin Island (as suggested by Rich), or maybe even Japan.

Mmmmm, Japan. I could really go for some sushi about now.

Коля в Россие

2006-07-25T02:08:00.000-07:00

Sitting in an Internet cafe in Хабаровск (Khabarovsk), waiting for some software to download that can hopefully unformat my camera's memory card which used to contain a months worth of pictures from Mongolia, China and my entry into Russia.

Karl, I know you're going to post a comment asking how I managed to format my memory card. It was a stupid accident on my part-- leave it at that.

Last Saturday, I arrived at the Chinese border town of Suifenhe. Getting off the train, I was trying to get some Russians to help me, but they were all travelling in an organized tour so that they didn't have to worry about things like how to find the border and how to get a bus to Vladivostok.

I was on my way to ask a taxi to take me to the border when I heard, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" Turning around, I met Alex, a Belgian

Thank Gods for Hong Kong Kung-Fu

2006-07-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

While on the bus to Beijing, on the train to Harbin, in my hotel room last night and this morning, entertainment salvation in China comes in the form of Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies. You're really lucky if they bother to add English subtitles (we're at about 50-50 at this point).

Doing some research, I've managed to find the titles that I've seen

"Fong Shi Yu II: Wan fu mo di" or "The Legend 2" -- starring Jet Li in 1993
"Hak Hap" or "The Black Mask" -- also starring Jet Li in 1996
"Du shen xu ji" or "God of Gamblers 2" -- starring Chow Yn Fat in 1994

I also saw another awesome one last night, but it didn't have any famous (that I know of) actors for me to search on. I'll keep looking. In the mean time, if you manage to find any of these flicks, check them out, they're great!

Now is sooner than never

2006-07-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Big progress!

With a lot of time to kill here in Harbin, I've managed to finish the audio and captioning on my Bangkok photos. Go take a look!

Harbin

2006-07-20T02:26:00.000-07:00

What's left of the former synagogue here is now now the home to a fast food pizza restaurant and a chinese holistic medicine center. The exteriors are impressive, but there seems to be nothing left of the jewish community that once lived here in the first half of the century. If I spoke Chinese, it might be possible to find out a bit more, but Harbin is not Beijing and there's a lot less English going on.

Yesterday ended with a teary farewell between Jen and I as we finally found the proper platform at the Beijing station, after nearly an hour of frantic running around. Saying goodbye wasn't easy, Jen's been my constant companion for over a month now and it's odd not having her easy company around.

As it was, I made it to the train a moment before it cast off. I dashed on board in the wrong compartment and had to wait 10 minutes panting for the train to get fully underway before they opened the doors to my car. Eventually, I found my berth and settled in to what might be the poshest train in China. The "Z15-16: National Youth Model Train" was a big step up from the creaky (but comfortable) train we took down from Ulaanbaatar. It looked like it was on its maiden trip, the interior was modern, electronic and spotless. I stayed in a 4 berth "soft-sleeper" cabin, which I shared with a chinese man and his two travelling teenagers.

Stepping out to use to toilet, a display indicated that we were cruising at 149kph, about 90mph. Not too bad.

My only complaint was that our cabin didn't seem to cool down much through the night, the air conditioner switch may have been broken. Other than that, the service probably spoiled me for the rest of the trip.

I'm leaving Harbin tomorrow night, there's really not much for me here. I'll come back and do China "right" one day, but without Jen to help arrange things here, my head's just not in it.

I booked my train to Suifenhe tomorrow night with the help of "Chris"- a 21 year old Harbin native who's studying English business at the local university. He approached me while I was investigating the synagogue cum pizza shack and offered to take me around. After Haiti and Bangkok, I'm getting really leery of the "local wants to practice English and show good hospitality scheme", but he told me he didn't want any money and he was trying to set up a guide service for the summer. He offered to help me book my train ticket and I accepted. True to his word, we got the ticket sorted in no-time, in time for it to start pouring. We waited out the storm at the nearby beer garden, had a drink and chatted about jazz, The Doors, The Velvet Underground and ideas to promote his business. At the moment, he's sitting next to me at the internet cafe, playing an anime knock off of Mario Kart. The dude seems trustworthy, so if you're in Harbin and looking for a guide or translator, give Yang Gui Xu (Chris) a call at: 13845053457.

I'm about the get kicked off, so let me go. I'll have more time tomorrow to do stuff. Maybe I'll even finish my Bangkok photos. Jeeeze, that was like 6 weeks ago.

Poached in Peking

2006-07-17T04:01:00.000-07:00

Third day now in Beijing. Checked out the Great Wall of China today-- very touristy, but also way cool.

Lots happening, but not much interesting to write about. I'm heading to Harbin on Wednesday, I'll have a more detailed report filed from there.

Last post from Mongolia

2006-07-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

The train leaves in 4 hours, Jen and I are in the CBD tying up some last business. I have a 3 kilo package to mail home that's going to cost me $45, not too happy about that, it it has to go.

Naadam was interesting. They oversold tickets to the opening ceremony so Jen and I were forced to wait outside for 30 minutes as mobs of angry locals banged on the gates and scuffled with the cops. Just as things looked as they would get out of hand, we snuck in with a tour group of cranky westerners who had paid a lot more than us to come to Mongolia and see the show.

In the end, I felt sorry for them. The ceremony was pleasant, but not terribly exciting or moving. The other events also fell short of grand spectacle. Naadam is essentially a state fair without the rides, cotton candy and hype. It's not designed to be the Olympics or Commonwealth games-- basically, the locals show up to their event, compete without much fanfare and then leave. After the opening ceremony, most of the fans left as the wrestling matches began. It all happened so quietly that we didn't know if they were just warming up or if the competition had started. For us, it was an interesting bookend to our time here, but I was feeling very sorry for the westerners who paid big money to tour operators to come to Mongolia with Naadam as the central focus.

Better was yesterday's horse racing event, held outside the city in a nearby valley. Even though we arrived at te wrong time, between races, there were lots of locals hanging out, picnicing on the hillside and enjoying the country. We walked around, checking out the horseriders and kiteflyers. In the end, we wound up at a ger restaurant serving really tasty, greasy khoshoor (fried meat pancakes stuffed with mutton), chatting to a local guy who had started his own real estate development company. A very pleasant morning.

The train today heads to the border, we arrive tomorrow morning. Then, we cross via taxi into China and spend the whole day hanging around waiting for the plush sleeper bus to take us overnight to Beijing to meet some of Jen's friends who have done us the favor of booking a hostel room already. More updates from there.

Mongolia has be most excellent. I didn't expect to spend a month here, and now I fear that I'll have to cut short some adventures in Russia and Europe, but there's no regrets. Indeed, this is a place that I'd like to come back to, to travel for long distances in the countryside by horse, bike or self-driven 4wd.

Nice to know that some things are still sacred

2006-07-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

such as the Mongolian reverence of their traditional annual festival of Naadam, this year celebrating the 800th anniversary of Chinngis Khaan's rise to power. Big deal.

So big in fact, that the Mongolian border office in Zamiin-Uud is closed, preventing any tourists (ie., me and Jen) from crossing into China until the 14th. We were planning on getting on the train this afternoon, which would have deposited us at the desolate border town tomorrow morning, stuck for two days with nothing to do but dodge the local drunks. The new plan is to leave UB on the train on the 13th, winding up in Beijing on the morning of the 15th.

Originally, we wanted to leave to avoid the hassle of dealing with accommodation and crowds during the festival. Instead, with no effort on our part, we're getting sucked in. Examples:

Our guesthouse is a great find. Four fellow travelers let us in on their secret spot in UB on our way back from Tsetserleg. Helena and her husband opened their 8 bed guest apartment a few weeks ago. She speaks English fairly well and is an eager host. The place is quiet, spacious and in a nice neighborhood near the train station. A big improvement over the crowded, noisy and impersonal UB Guesthouse.

Helena was working on buying our train tickets today when she found out about the border closing and wisely decided to ask us before proceeding. We didn't have much choice but to stick around for the festival, but her guesthouse was booked up starting tonight. Ready to help with our predicament, she offered her parents' apartment for us to use for the next two days, since her family has moved out to their country home for the summer. There's no beds available in town due to festival overbooking and Jen and I are about to move into our own private apartment. Not bad.

Next thing, Helena's aunt calls. She has extra tickets for Naadam's opening ceremony tomorrow morning, would we like them? At $30, she's making a tidy profit on us, but again, we're all too happy to get a chance to sit in on the best part of the biggest celebration in recent Mongolian history-- all without having to plan anything in advance.

Walking around UB last night, after a most luxurious meal at the bizarrely classy Indian/Mexican restaurant (sipping a margarita while nibbling samosas, chicken tikka and nachos), we realized that this is a pretty cool little city. We hung out with the locals in the enormous Sukhbaatar Square, enjoying the late sunset light and energetic atmosphere heralding tomorrow's fete. We were getting ready to leave today but lamenting that we wouldn't have a better chance to explore UB's cozy corners.

Not twelve hours later and it's all the opposite.

Mogol Quiz Conclusion

2006-07-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

Alright! Back in Ulaanbaatar for a day or two, just enough to get train tickets to Beijing, eat some бүүз, and finish off the Mongol Quiz!

If you recall, the question was:

What common courtesy is inexpressible in Mongol?

The answer that I was looking for was:

"please"

but in this case, your answers were so brilliantly inventive that there's heaps of points to go around. Well done, everyone. As an aside, "thank you" is only inexpressible by westerners, because transliteration is incapable of capturing the proper sounds. Here's my attempt: "buy-arrrl-[abrupt hissing sound produced in the pockets behind your teeth along with the ejection of saliva specks]-aah". My lonely planet phrasebook gives up and instead just puts the letter "l" there.

Here's how the points go out:

Rich: Actually, there's no way to say that statement, since there's no way to say please. Chinngis actually prefered not to pillage villages, but since no one bothered to ask him not to, he just figured it's what they wanted. For exhausting American humor on mongolia, you get 6 points.

Glen K.: Close. Mongolians have become accostomed to westerners extending a handshake, especially in the cities. Out in the country though, you will get a moment's confused hesitation when you offer your hand before they remember our custom. Regarding "thank you", see above. You probably have heard them say it, but you mistook it for a cat in heat in a nearby alley. 8 points.

Lizzle: Suprisingly, horse rape isn't very common. But, considering how every drunk on the streets of Tsesterleg stops you, produces a half-empty bottle of $1.50 vodka from his half-zippered pants, shakes your hand and tries to pour a shot down your throat as you back away using every mongolian word you can think of to placate his misguided generosity without having to actually touch any part of you to any part of his proffered potion-- hmm, actually theses dudes might just rape horses. Or tourists that they mistake for horses. Or, most likely, horses that they mistake for tourists. Oh, and you're right about "please". 12 points!

uslennar: Actually, you don't need to ask. It is custom, along with bland cheese, fresh sour yoghurt, dried curds, salty milk tea and dumplings, to be offered a steaming cup of wife. If you visit at the right time of the month, they serve it with a peculiar curdled ketchup.... 10 points, for giving the best LOL answer.

Dad: Can't wait to join you in the hot tub for some durhang. As for farting while milking the cows (yaks, actually), I wish someone would tell that to the yaks-- and the yak milker's older drunk brother. 7 points.

gnuheller: Interesting point. The Mongolians don't seem to clap much. As for the elbow action, they must really think I'm great considering how often I get shoved in the kidneys when trying to join a Mongolian queue (picture a bank teller in the middle of a rugby scrum). 7 points.

And the standings:

Lizzle 19.5
Lenny 19
gnuheller 18.1
Dad 16
Velma 11.5
Mom 8.5
Glen K. 8
Rich 7
Karl 6.4
Matt 5.5
Jessie 4.5
Steve 3
Jason 3
Mark 1
Guru 1
Mike -3

The points are going up, so be sure to play. Weak turnout this time around-- time to catch up in the bonus round!

Tstill in Tsetserleg

2006-07-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

Life here is good and relaxed. I've taken two more horseriding trips with the same guide, I'm really getting the hang of it. Our guide, Gaige, told me that I was riding like a "sain Mongol" the other day. That means I'm good.

The third day of riding was unintentional, but necessary because my backpack flew open on the second day and released my money belt somewhere in the valley. We were racing across the valley ahead of a huge thunderstorm that was bearing down on us. It was an amazing moment to be cantering across the field, looking left to see Darren doing the same, framed by the green hills, towering stormclouds and lashes of lightning. We made it back to Gaige's ger moments before the storm was upon us. Somewhere in the dash, I lost my moneybelt. With the weather getting worse, I decided to forget it for the moment and to enjoy the energy of the day.

After the storm passed, we got back on our horses for the 1:30 ride back to town. We didn't get a half hour out before another, meaner storm was swirling around us. Shouting and gesturing at me to hold onto my hat, Gaige turned and we followed him into the wind toward another family's ger across the valley. The horses understood what we wanted and gallopped unwhipped across the field. Reaching the ger, we quickly tied up the horses and dashed inside, just as the marble-sized hailstones began to rain down.

Nara, our suprise hostess was unfazed and began the now familar ritual of plying us with all sorts of nomad fare. Hot sultay tsai (warm, salted milk tea-- my favourite), fresh soft cheese, bread and airag (the alcohoilic fermented horse milk that tastes like sour liquid cheese yoghurt and makes your tummy funny). While we started drying off, the horses were untied so that they could run off and take shelter beneathe the trees lining the opposite side of the valley.

Eventually the storm passed and while we waited for the local boys to find our horses, our hostess served hot buuz and more sultay tsai. The sun poked out from beneath the clouds and we began riding again under a gray sky, lit from below, towards the perfect double rainbow that now straddled the valley back to Tsesterleg.

Returning the next day with Jen, I found my belt without too much trouble. This was good luck, considering that my passport and hard earned visas were contained within.

I'm planning on leaving here at the end of the week, and I'll probably wind up in Beijing sometime around the 12th. Only a month and a half before I need to head back to NY. Seems like nothing.

So the UFO. Right. It was real and scary. Elin, Isabel, Ken and myself were sitting on the ridgetop, camping for our last night together as a group. It was about 12:30pm and the last little glow of the sun's light was still visible on the horizon. We were all gazing straight up, watching the satellites glide through the bright starfield when Elin shouted, "What's that?!"

She was pointing toward the horizon where the sun had gone down. Looking over, our coccoon of sleeping bags contracted as we flinched together in fear and suprise. We noticed two things: The first was that the glow of the dying sun had expanded. The left side of the glow had grown along the horizon to the left and two large fingers of light were now reaching up into the sky, curving like a spiral to the right above the spot where the sun had set. Elin, who grew up in far north Sweden, assured us that this wasn't the aurora borealis (the northern lights). We might have dismissed this as some other atmospheric phenomenon if not for the other thing we saw.

About 10 degrees from the horizon, in the spot where the glowing fingers ended, it was a very bright light, seemingly far away, but moving fast. It was surrounded by a glowing halo quite similar to the light that had formed on the horizon. The halo's size was initially about the diameter of the full moon, and it grew as the object approached. It was much to bright to be a satellite, too big and not blinking to be an aircraft, too long lived to be a meteor.

We gibbered nervously as the light grew brighter and the halo expanded, making it seem as if it were approaching us. Over the course of a few minutes, it became apparent that it was coming closer, but was also going to pass us on our right. We watched it as it reached its closest point to us and then continued sliding across the sky to our right, parallel with the horizon the whole way, until it grew more distant and faded near the spot where the sun would be rising in a few hours. As it dissapeared in the distance, so faded the glow that had appeared at its origin. The sky returned to near blackness as we caught our breath and speculated, excitedly nervous.

I have never seen anything like that in my life. I have no easy explanation. So much going on there at the same time to seem natural, but I'm not blaming the LGM either. Still, it was the first time in years that I was genuinely shocked by anything. Watching it, we all felt like children. Quite a gift.

How to shit in Asia

2006-06-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

Two notes about toilets in this part of the world:

Squat toilets are great, once your muscles adjust. Since there's no seat to contact your bum, even the ickiest toilet is hygenic. Gladly, most of the outhouses and toilets we've used have been clean and low-stink. As a bonus, it seems that the squatting posture makes for a straighter bowel path, thus easing the excretory exercise.

When you do have a flush toilet (squat or throne), the local plumbing almost never accepts toilet paper. Instead, there's a trash bin in the room in which you deposit your stained paper. You'd think this would lead to a smelly bathroom, but for some reason it doesn't. I guess it just dries up and doesn't smell, so the situation is actually perfectly fine.

Tsituation update

2006-06-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Still hanging out here in Tsetserleg, having a great, relaxed time. Two nights ago, Isabel (my constant companion) and I walked up one of the mountains that looks over the town. The hike was similar in scale to Mission Peak and with the sun setting around 11pm, we sat up there quite late watching the scenery in peace before walking down. I've been starving for a hearty meal of buuz (pronounced bose), mutton packed steamed dumplings. Unfortunately, the late sunsets have thrown off my sense of restaurant opening hours. We got off the mountain at about 10pm, but everyone had closed up at 9-- I think it's silly that a restaruant could close for dinner while the sun is still up! Instead, we ate salami and instant noodles back at the hotel. Life goes on in the third world.

Yesterday, I finally got on a horse. The trip was set up by Marc, the British owner of the Fairfield Bakery, Cafe and Guesthouse. The Fairfield is the only western establishment in Tsetserleg, and this serves as a haven for expats and travelers looking for a real cup of coffee and a sandwich. It says a lot about the variety of food in Mongolia when British cuisine is sought after as a rare gourmet meal.

Anyway, Mark has an agreement with a nice local horse-raising family, headed by one of the brothers, Ghazghan. His name was not pronouncable, so I dubbed him Gaspar. We spent 6 hours with him and his horses, riding from his ger back into Tsetserleg, about 12km total. The ride was fantastic. My horse, who I named El Guapo, was very cooperative and always eager to run. On several occasions, I got her up to a blissfull gallop across the grassy plains. At one point, we came upon a group of Mongolians on their race horses who were practcing for the Nadaam festival competitions. They were racing at top speed through the valley floor and my horse caught the sprit and we flew together for a magic moment before I turned her around and caught up with the group.

When we weren't racing around the steppes, we liesurely rode through serene streamside glades with short wildflowered grass and shady happy trees. I could have spent days in those meadows, which if you hadn't known better, would have seemed to have been hand designed and manicured. Magical.

We rode back into town tired, saddle sore and starving. I was really ready to finally sit down for a heaping pile of buuz only to be thwarted again by the scheduled power outage that had the whole town in a blackout. At least the restaurant at our hotel had a gas burner and served some tasty soup (but couldn't make a pot of tea for some reason). After dinner, we sat in our hotel rooms snacking, playing cards, drinking vodka and watching the tremendous rainstorm flood the muddy streets.

Was supposed to meet a local woman today for a Mongolian language lesson at 10am today- an hour for $3, why not. She never showed up, which was fine because after the horse trip and a very late night, I wasn't feeling all that internationally curious. All the better to get some writing done.

To the lake and back, part 1

2006-06-25T05:52:00.001-07:00

Arrived at Tsagaan Nuur to find that Хишгээ wasn't there, he'd gone off for a few days to the city. As it turns out, actually, there's not much at the Great White Lake except for a few simple ger camps.

The guy who ran our camp seemed nice enough, and the food and ger furnishings were above par. The lake is lovely and we spent three days there.

If you remember, the plan was to meet Хишгээ, get in with his horse operation and learn all about horsemanship. That idea quickly fell apart. Our host could arrange for horses for a several day trip, but there was practically no English to be had at the lake.

The four of us who had wanted to stay at the lake decided to spend a few days there and then head back to Tsetserleg instead (the comfy mountain town we were in a few days ago). Since the other two had wanted to go back to UB, we decided to have our driver change the itinerary and return to UB via Tsetserleg instead of Ogii Lake. Based on our agreement with Bobby (our tour organizer) we were supposed to be able to change our plans at will (so long as we agreed to pay for any extra days or petrol). Someone forgot to tell this to our driver, Baatar.

He steadfastly refused to return via Tsetserleg. He actually didn't even know that we were scheduled to spend 2 nights at Tsagaan Nuur. He refused to amend the schedule in any way. Saturday morning, we spent about an hour arguing with him and our ger host-- they both insisted that the road to Tsetserleg was washed out by last nights heavy rains and that the town was completely inaccessible--- for another week.

Suspicious, Jen and I decided to spend the afternoon walking around the other ger camps by the lake. At the first camp, we met a very nice Mongolian family who assured us that they could take us that day or any of the next to Tsetserleg for a reasonable fee, the road was fine. The wife spoke excellent Russian, which made the discussion quite a bit easier.

Walking away, we met a group of Mongolian youths in a swanky Mitsubishi 4wd van who no only told us (using gestures and since words from my phrasebook) that the road was good, but they could take us the next day for 50,000 togrog (about $42), a good deal. We told them that they should come by at 9am the next morning and if we wanted to go with them, we would go then. They agreed and we walked on.

At the next camp, we met two French couples who were traveling together with a personal chef and a guide/interpreter. When I introduced us in French, they invited us into their ger for some hot tea and fresh biscuits. Jen sat there in shock as we carried on a fairly easy and interesting conversation in French for about a half hour. Our hosts were very gracious and patient with my small vocabulary- staying in French but dropping a few English words here and there to help me out. By the time we left, their guide had assured us that there was no problem with the road and I had an offer to meet the couples at their homes in Toulouse if I ever pass through that way-- et pourquoi pas?

Lastly, we found a group of Dutch travelers camped out with their guide along the lakeshore. Again, the story was the same- indeed they were leaving the next day themselves for Tsetserleg in their (alas) fully loaded vans.

Jen and I walked back, trying to piece together the motivations for the deception. It was clear that our host wanted us to stay and spend money at his camp and on his horses, but why our driver was going along with it made no sense when we considered that he would likely be fired when word got back to Bobby.

In the end, we decided to take the Mongolians up on their offer of a ride and we spoke with them to confirm. A slightly English speaking girl had turned up in their entourage and she told us that they would absolutely, definitely be there at 9am margaash (tomorrow).

That night, Isabel, Ken, Elin and I decided to take our tents and gear up for a little backpack trip to the top of the ridge. We walked up there for about an hour, picked a camp with a view of the lake and the sunset and sat outside. The sun went down around 10:30 and there was still light in the sky well past midnight. It was around then that we saw the UFO.

To be continued. . .

Mongol Quiz

2006-06-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

Real quick, here's the long awaited Mongol Quiz:

What common courtesy is inexpressible in Mongol?

Good luck.

Big Yak Attack

2006-06-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Out of the Gobi and into the wooded grassy steppes. Amazing vastness everywhere, but it's good to have a hint of civilization here in Tsetserleng.

This is definitely the nicest town I've found in Mongolia so far, up in the hills with more trees than dust. If I were to settle here, it would be in Tsetserleng. Hmm, hard to write, I'm a bit shellshocked and a bit hyper from an overdose of caffiene. Lunch was at the only "western" style restaurant for hundreds of Kms, Fairfield, a charming cafe owned by an expat British couple. Cold Coca-Cola a real lattes lead to a bit of a binge. 7 days of rice filled dumplings, water and fermented mare's milk will do that to you...

Despite the jitters, I'm fine: happy and healthy and looking forward to the next leg. We arrive at Tsagaan Nuur (the Great White Lake) tomorrow. That's where I hope to hook up with the horsey dude to find out my equine destiny. I'm feeling confident that I'll be able to find a niche there for a little while. Probably no internet access, so you know the drill.

Yesterday we were invited into a family's ger to share in their homemade cheese and the national drink araig (pronounced air-ak). It's served by the bowlfull, with about the same alcohol content of beer. It tastes like sour alcoholic yoghurty liquid cheese. It tastes better than it sounds. While we entertained our guests with digital cameras and Jen's guitar playing, I downed a few bowls-- which was better than our driver who downed about five. After we left, and after about 20 minutes of sprited driving, he pulled over by an idyllic mountain stream and promptly lay down. We used that opportunity to make our lunch for the day.

Last night was solstice, we celebrated by buying a tasty bottle of $2 vodka and dowining it at sunset with another group of 4 dudes who were staying at the same guest house as us.

Time to set up the Mongol Quiz.

Three Sheeps to the Wind

2006-06-17T03:48:00.000-07:00

Day 3 in the Gobi Desert finds our team in the dusty outpost town of Dalanzagad, about 500k south of Ulaan Baatar. The past few days have been incredible, some of the most affecting of my trip. The desert is boundless and empty and hypnotic. Past few nights have been spent with Vodka straight from the bottle, watching the shooting stars and satellites spin overhead.

Last night, we stayed with a family in their guest ger. Sunset was spent practicing English with our host, Nanona, and playing basketball with her 10 year old nephew. Besides the family's four gers, there was no other civilization in sight.

The locals are universally interested in my hairy arms.

Yesterday, while we stopped for lunch, another 4WD stopped beside us and disgourged two older Mongolian men who stopped to meet us. We invited them to join us and offered our food and water. They also spoke Russian! Before long, we were chatting in simple sentences-- my first actual practice and it worked great. The rest of my team just watched on in curiosity as we babbled back and forth in Russian. They passed out cigarettes and I passed out the vokda and we spent an hour in the afternoon shade of the truck making friends and getting tanked.

Just had a shower at the public bath house and we popped in to the rudimenary internet center. Have to get back to tonight's ger now, our hosts are making us dinner. Last night was homemade noodles and potatoes with mutton. Yummy!

Gobi bound, don't wait up

2006-06-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

Ahh, what a difference some good sleep makes. I'm tired as a write this, but the good kind of tired that comes with a long day of accomplishment.

First, I haven't forgotten about Bangkok. Stuff has moved so quickly that I haven't had time to write it up. I'm going to save those stories for later, when my photos are uploaded and commented, since I pretty much captured the entire trip with pics. They'll be up in a bit, but it might take a while because:

I'm headed out of civilization for a while. The team I was talking to yesterday and I have reached an agreement for a 4wd trip to the countryside. Isabella, Elin, Jennifer, Ken, Gail and I have booked a 10 day tour into the Gobi desert. We have a native driver who will take us about, spending most nights with local families in their ger (yurt) camps. The situation is very above board, the arrangements are made through Bobby, who runs the guesthouse with her husband Kim. They organize several of these trips each week and have their own trusted staff of drivers on contract. In addition, they have scouted out the families and locations in which we'll be staying and can vouch for our safety and customary comfort.

Most trips end back here in Ulaan Baatar, but we've opted to end the trip in an area called the Great White Lake, several hundred kilometers west of here. Most of the other travellers on the trip are independent minded like me and didn't want to just "ride around in a car for 16 days," so we've decided to split up at White Lake, thus getting a trip through the Gobi and transportation to a good remote staging area. For me, Bobby told me about a fellow named Хишгээ (Khishgee) who runs a horse tour company out at White Lake. Apparently he and his staff speak excellent English and it should be possible for me to spend some time with him learning about the art of horsemanship, from riding the animals properly to taking care of them. Like Airlie Beach and sailing, this sounds like a unique opportunity to take advantage of the local scenery and expertise.

Of course, I've never ridden a horse for more than a day before, I might find that I don't have an appetite for it after all. No problem, there's lots of hiking and other things to be done out there. When I'm all done, I can get a ride back to UB without too much trouble.

So, here's where it gets interesting. There's internet out there, but it's unreliable and sporadic. White Lakes probably doesn't have any and I might stay there for over a week. The town near it, Tsetserleg has internet and phone service, so I should be able to provide an update in about 10 days when we arrive there. I'll hopefully know more about my plans at White Lakes by then, too. If I do decide to stay for a while in White Lakes, a periodic trip back to Tsestserleg should be possible, but I'm not sure yet.

The short of it is that I'm going to be out of contact for a while. Please don't worry about me, there's nothing dangerous out there and I'll have a good driver and friends along for the next 10 day stint. It's possible that I'll make it to Tsetserleg and White Lakes and stay a while longer and still be unable to send a message home, so don't be suprised if I don't update in 10 days. If there is an emergency, I can best be contacted through the UB Guesthouse in Ulaan Baatar. Their website has their phone number: www.ubguest.com.

So that's it. I'm heading out. I can't wait to see the night sky away from the city. I'll post again as soon as possible, maybe I can send a postcard via carrier yak.

Mongolia at last. Now I sleep.

2006-06-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

Very overwhelmed and spun out by travel snafus. Flight from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar was supposed to leave yesterday morning at 9am. I would get in at noon. Instead, flight was delayed until midnight last night. Air China was nice enough to put us in a hotel to clean up and relax and have free meals. Spent the time with a very interesting group of international travellers, all headed to UB for reasons as various as architechtural heritage preservation to Christian missionary work to the USA National College men's wrestling team. Interesting but not very restful. Finally got in last night around 2am. Hostel is cramped but clean and very friendly. Slept about 4 hours before the hubub woke me up. Seems like everyone is trying to team up into groups of 5 ot 6 to hire a Jeep and a guide to take a 10-20 day trip throughout the country. I've been propositioned to join a group headed out tomorrow. I'm so tired I can't think straight, and I'm not sure if this is the way I want to travel. I see many up and downsides and still need to consider other options. If I don't go with this team, there's people coming and going every day that I could recruit later.

I'm going to try to make it to about 9pm tonight, then it's ambien and hopefully the sleep I need to get back to usefulness. It's been 48 hours since I've had a proper rest. I'm optimistic, but this isn't the way I wanted to arrive. Blah.

Bang-rocks!

2006-06-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

No need to worry, everything is fine. Great even, I just haven't had much time to sit in front of the PC and write it all up-- and who could blame me for preferring to explore this fascinating city instead of sitting inside the internet cafe. Lots of great stories after two days jaunting. All is happy and healthy.

Pics and stories soon.

Back to the city.

Bangkok

2006-06-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Slept the whole way on the flight, very nice. Shared a cab with an English traveler chick to the guest house, which is very clean and comfortable, if a bit sterile. Still, having just arrived, I'll take sterile over dissapointingly shabby for now. I have a private room with a huge bed and an ensuite shower with hot water.

9:30am here and I'm feeling fresh and a bit hungry. Time to go find some tasty street food. On the list today is to get a haircut, explore the local markets and book a massage for tomorrow. I also have to break in my new journal by finding an interesting place to sit for a while.

BK has an odd charm to it, from what I've seen so far. Bustling, but cozier than Seoul, HK or Shengzen.

Poshity posh posh

2006-06-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

Ahh, I love flying business class. I love it more when it's called "Royal Executive Silk Class". I got to check in ahead of about 150 people on line earlier. I also get to chill out here in the Thai Airways Executive lounge, eating gourmet snacks and boozing it up on nice wine and liquor. I also get free internet access with which to gloat about it all.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting to sit on THE UPPER DECK of the 747. I never dreamed that I would one day sit on the upper deck. My imagination runs wild picturing the scene that awaits me as I ascend those stairs.... leather brass tacked chairs, cigars, cute stewardesses pouring wine and giving foot massages, your choice of million dollar business deals, a spitting-cherub fountain, a sushi boat aquaduct bringing fresh ngiri at regular intervals, palm trees, fruity drinks served in pineapples, sheepskin rugs and a crackling fire. . .

Whoa! Gotta go, they just broke out the cocaine!

Ocker Quiz Conclusion

2006-06-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang,

These are my last hours in Australia, I've got everything set up. So before I leave for the airport, I thought I would finish off the Ocker Quiz.

The last question asked: What is unique about the Australian Coat of Arms?

Many of you grazed the answer, but no one got it completely correct. You were on the right track if you mentioned the Emu and Roo, but the real meat of the question lies in the uniqueness of those particular animals appearing on a coat of arms. Indeed, you'd need to be familiar with Australian dietary habits and have a hunch about those of the rest of the world in relation to their own coats of arms.

Indeed, the full answer that we were looking for is:

Australia is the only country that habitually eats the animals depicted on its coat of arms.

In fact, people have been known to throw "Coat of Arms" dinner parties featuring Emu and Kangaroo.

So how shall I award the points?

Dad: Hmm. Not even close. Although I'm glad to see that you decided to keep the Z and forget about the TT. 3 points.

Jessie: Large folded passages. . . covered in mucus no doubt! The yabbos eat the emus, they don't fornicate with their orifices. That's what all the sheep are for. Bad girl. 3.5 points.

Lizzle: see above explanation. 4 points for being on the right track

gnuheller: interesting tidbit, and the right track. 4.5 points

uslennar: thank you for pointing out the gross misuse of wikipedia and google. On the other hand, you obviously have never been to Melbourne in June. I'm wishing I had a down insulated Gore-tex Coat of Arms sometimes. 4 points

mom: The kiddies were right about the emu and roo--- I wish I could be there to tell them that they taste delicious. I'd send a roo home for the landing. Wouldn't Buddy look cute with his head sticking out of the pouch? 4.5 points

Velma: vegetarian animals on the coat of arms. Very insightful. How many carnivores do humans eat anyway? Crocs, I guess, but that's very Aussie, too. So maddeningly close. Half a cigar! 5 points.

Okay!

Here's the final standings for the Ocker Quiz:

Velma 11.5
gnuheller 11.1
Dad 9
Lenny 9
Mom 8.5
Lizzle 7.5
Karl 6.4
Matt 5.5
Jessie 4.5
Steve 3
Jason 3
Rich 1
Mark 1
Guru 1
Mike -3

So Velma's in the top spot as the Ocker Quiz concludes. But we're not done!

Gird thyself for The Mongol Quiz shown here:

All very sudden

2006-06-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

With my flights all sorted out, my time in Australia is rapidly coming to a close. It's caught me off guard as I'm suddenly nostalgic for all the little bits that I've been assimilating and taking for granted. I've become quite at home here, which while it's sad to go, is all the more reason to hit the road again.

So Monday morning, I schlepped up to the airport to finish my flight bookings. I'm using my Star Alliance miles to get to Beijing on Thai Airways and then flying on Air China to Ulaan Bataar. There were no eligible flights for coach seats on my way to Beijing until the end of the month, so I got business class (actually known as "Royal Silk Class" !!) instead for only 25,000 miles more. Bargain.

As an unexpected bonus, my flight to Beijing has a stopover in Bangkok, which I was able to extend for a few nights, so I'll actually get to punch my passport in Thailand. I don't know what I'll accomplish in Bangkok in such a short time, but I'm happy for the opportunity.

Here's my official flight information:

June 8 Thai Airways flight 994 departs MEL at 00:15, arrives BKK at 06:35

June 12 Thai Airways flight 674 departs BKK at 00:35, arrives PEK at 06:15

June 12 Air China flight 901 departs PEK at 08:50, arrives ULN at 12:35

I'm off to book my room in Ulaan Bataar, while I do that, check out the pictures from my travels around Victoria.

The Van is Dead, Long Live the Yak!

2006-06-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

Happy times. Sold the van today. Got $4000 for it, which is $1 more than I paid for it. After my repair and maintainance costs of about $1300, it would up costing me about $325 per month. Not a bad deal compared to renting or bussing it.

So I'm here at the internet cafe ready to leave Australia, just a soon as I can get a flight. Ulan Baator, here I come.

Wrapping up

2006-05-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

My Russian visa arrived. There's nothing between me and Mongolia besides selling my bloody car. I knew it would come down to this. Now I'm itching to get rid of it. The bad news is that I don't feel like hanging around for the time it would take to get what I really want for it. The good news is that compared to renting or taking the bus everywhere, I'll come out on top even if I sell it at quite a loss.

So I've decided to make "done better than better" and get the sucker on the fast track to a new owner.

Anyone want to buy a panel van?

Ocker Quiz #5

2006-05-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang.

Back from a great week in the Victoria countryside. I'll recount my tale of the Great Ocean Road, the Grampian Mountains and Mt. Arapilies tomorrow. For today, boggle your brain with the next Ocker Quiz.

The above photo depicts the Australian Coat of Arms, rendered in metal above the entrace to Parliament House in Canberra.

What is unique about the Australian Coat of Arms?

(in general, not just the particular Coat of Arms in the photo)

Melbone Shabbat Shalom

2006-05-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

Arrived today in Halls Gap, visitors' heart of the Grampian Mountains. I arrived here via the Great Ocean Road that runs along the southwest coast of Victoria. The week prior to that was spent in Melbourne, my last of Australia's major cities.

I really like Melbourne. It has real neighborhoods with unique character. It has excellent ethnic restaurants. It has bars and pubs of all sorts, you've got more choice than VB swilling blue collar pubs and eurotrash plastic leather teenybopper pisspot lounges. Melbourne has the MCG (more on that next time). Melbourne has the highest Greek population outside of Greece. Melbourne has Italians. Melbourne has Jews (more on that shortly). Melbourne has Irish. Melbourne is at once happily familiar to this NY/SFer and still utterly Australian.

Last Thursday morning, I finally spoke to Louis on the phone. It was great to talk to him, he never fails to put me in touch with the sublime spirit of my travels. After our chat, I was feeling invigorated and excited about the trip ahead, so I decided to do some research. Since Melbourne is the heart of the Jewish community in Australia, there's an excellent Jewish Museum, genealogical society and library. I thought that they might have some resources on Jewish migrations from Russia and Asia, the same path that my mother's side of the family took.

So I went down to the Jewish museum in St. Kilda. St. Kilda is the first suburb south of downtown Melbourne, right on the water. It's known to be the heart of the Jewish community. I stayed there my first few nights at a very cozy hostel (with free parking!) called "Jackson's Manor" before I wanted a change of scenery and moved to the YHA in North Melbourne (much more expensive, but has all the mod-cons).

So I went down to St. Kilda to visit the Jewish Museum. They had a special exhibition on the Dreyfus Affair going on, it was excellent. Later, while browsing the other exhibits on Jewish history and modern Judaism, I met one of the volunteer guides, Zara. We chatted for a while about the museum and local community and Zara took my contact info so that she could reply with some more information about the Genealogical Society in which she had some friends. At this point, the museum was closing, according to the Russian security guard. On my way out, I bounced some of my newfound Slavic off of him and he seemed to understand what I was saying. At least he smiled, anyway.

The next morning, I was just getting up when my phone rang. It was Zara. Her younger sister, Lee and her husband Ron were making a Shabbat dinner that night and I was invited. Warmly honored, I accepted. After thanking Zara and saying goodbye, I found myself a bit nervous:

"I don't have a kepah,"
"all I have are my corduroy pants and this nice long sleeve t-shirt,"
"what if they're really orthodox (Zara had mentioned that she belonged to the Orthodox shul),"
"I haven't been to Shabbat dinner in years!"
"I guess I shouldn't drive. Is taking the train okay?"
"Should I bring something? Of course! But if they're Orthodox, it might be inappropriate to carry anything to their house"
"I don't even remember what is allowed or not on Shabbat! If I get up to use the bathroom, am I allowed to flush the toilet, or is that considered 'operating a machine'"

In the end, I decided to relax, smile a lot and just go with the flow. Trying to be in the spirit, I left the car at the YHA and took the train down to St. Kilda. I thought I would try to find the Jewish main street in town (Jackson's Manor was on the goy side of St. Kilda), maybe pick up a bottle of Kosher wine to bring and then walk to the train to Brighton, the neighborhood a bit farther south where Zara's sister lives.

So I bummed around Acland and Carlisle Sts. for a bit, never really finding the Jewish part of town or a good bottle of Kosher wine, but I did find a very nice flower shop with some lovely bouquets. "Tov!" I thought. "Kosher wine is shit anyway," and bought my host some flowers. Who cared if the sun had set and I was exchanging money. I wasn't going to arrive empty handed. (definitely channeling the imparted wisdom of my Mom and Grandma at that point. What would they do?)

So I walked to the train station at Balaclava and caught the next car to Brighton. The irony here is that the Jewish neighborhood starts on Carlisle street the block after the Balaclava station. I'll get there eventually.

It was a solid walk to and from all the train stations, but I still arrived with a few minutes to kill, so I checked out the shoreline at the end of the block. Nice neighborhood, Brighton, and I was in the nicest part of it.

Being afraid to ring the doorbell on Shabbos, I knocked on the door. No reply. I don't think they heard me, so I knocked again. Movement inside, this time, but still no answer. I knocked again and waited, and again a few more times before I was finally cheerfully greeted by Ron. "Why didn't you just ring the doorbell?" he asked, adding "we're not Orthodox, you know." with a smirk.

Greatly relieved, I entered their lovely home and was swept up by Lee and Zara's middle sister, Naomi, to be introduced to the whole mishpucha. I met niece Tamara and her boyfriend Ryan, both a little older than me. Soon, we were joined by Lee, who loved the flowers (good idea, Mom and Grandma!) Then, in a flurry, niece Naomi (yes, that makes two) and Julian arrived with their 3 year old Amy and 1 year old Joshua. I was in the middle of it smiling and basking in four generations of Jewish family goodness.

After kibbitzing in the living room, it was time to eat, so we made our way to the dining room. Amy helped Aunt Lee say the blessing and light the candles and then Ron led us in the Hamotzi and the Kiddush. Bread was broken, wine was poured and we settled in to a leisurely meal featuring stimulation conversation and Lee's excellent cooking. Ryan runs his own computer system and networking consultancy, so we had a lot to talk about and got on great. Julian, Naomi Younger and I chatted about traveling and their trips to the US, including the time that he and Naomi wound up staying in a "hostel" in New Orleans that turned out to be a drug infested flophouse. I commiserated with my "flat tire under the bridge on Tchoupitoulas amid hostile gunfire and resigned cops" tale.

The conversation drifted to politics, we were all on similar ground, so there was a lot of "if you think that's bad, in our country...".

Eventually, the yeladim got tired and the evening wore down and it was time to go. Ryan, Julian and I exchanged contact info, so as to perhaps meet up for beers when I get back to Melbourne. My belly was full, my head was a little buzzed from all the wine and most of all, my heart was happy for the generous evening-- a reminder of happy memories with my own family on the Jewish holidays-- and a reminder of the bigger Jewish community that I'm a part of anywhere I go in the world.

There was one moment, though, that really reminded me of our common roots, despite being with another family on the other side of the world. It was after we'd said our goodbyes and I was headed out the door to catch a ride from Ryan that Lee called out to me. I turned around and she stepped close, "Please don't tell me that you came out tonight without a coat...."

Chronicles of another state (and a territory)

2006-05-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

Big gallery post today.

Go check it all out.

Ocker Quiz #4 Results

2006-05-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, over a month and a bit and still no Ocker Quiz results. I think time must be passing quickly for me. It seems like only yesterday I was posting pictures of rock vaginas on the web where vulnerable children might see them.

So yes. The answer to the previous Ocker Quiz question is: vulvae, vaginas, yonies, sandstone clams, aboriginal unmentionables, petroglyphic poontang, lithic lobster, fossil furburgers.

And yes, Velma got it right. No one knows why the ancestral aboriginal people carved these symbols in the rock. Perhaps they were masochists? As Gnuheller points out, some are at hip height after all... Or I can just hear some aboriginal parent shouting "Don't carve yourself, you'll go blind!"

Here's my judgement on the answers you provided.

Velma: 6 points. 'muff said.

Steve: You're right. Hagar is crazy. I haven't thought about Hagar in years. 3 points. Welcome aboard, bro.

Dad: Steady on. Did you dream that up in the hot tub? 3 points and something to ponder: the aboriginal concept of Dreamtime.

Mom: Actually there are lots of little fossils in the sandstone all over the place. And yes! those are aboriginal "stencils". Exactly what they're called. 3 points

Matt: Hah! That explains the ancient aboriginal art of plaster censorship. You should write a paper on that theory. Cite the blog. 3 points

Karl: That defeatist attitude will get you no where! You're totally correct dude. I fully expect you to chime in on the next round with gusto! (or whatever passes for gusto in Iceland) 3.5 points.

gnuheller: Gnetts it right, with gnood colour commentary to boot. Not sure if that last paragraph is BS or not, but gnood on ya-- I too was wondering about the orientation. 5 points

uslennar: What are you trying to say? Obviously I can't afford a CAT scan with this two-bit travel insurance I've got. If that is a picture of my liver, then they got it the old fashioned way. Now that I think about it, where did that festering scar come from? 2 points!

Jessie: "shockers?" jeeze. My Mom reads this. Heck, my Grandma reads this. Fortunately, I have no idea what you're talking about--- but I'm assuming it's dirty. Sheesh. 1 point, just so Mom and Grandma at least think I'm generous.

gnuheller again?!?: WTF dude? You don't get two tries. I grant that your answer was actually pretty interesting and imaginative, not to mention your tie in with Midnight Oil and Australian Politics. I also grant you -2 points for your impertinence.

Lizzle: Vaginas yes. And you should know! 3.5 points.

And the rankings:

gnuheller 6.6
Velma 6.5
Karl 6.4
Dad 6
Matt 5.5
Lenny 5
Mom 4
Lizzle 3.5
Steve 3
Jason 3
Jessie 1
Rich 1
Mark 1
Guru 1
Mike -3

Quite the battle we've got going on here! Gnuheller holds on to a microscopic lead. Velma leaps into second place with Karl at her heels. Dad's steady play keeps him poised to hit sneak into the top three.

The next quiz also has a pictoral element. It will be up in a few days when I get my NSW and ACT pics up there. They're almost there. Melbourne has excellent internet cafes that are letting me catch up on all this stuff.

Hallmark be Damned

2006-05-14T02:05:00.000-07:00

This poem is for my Mom
and my Grandma, too.
All my adventures in the world,
I dedicate to you.

For all my miles travelled,
down here they call them klicks,
At each turn I think of you
as I go find my kicks.

It will have to do for now,
as I opine and shrug,
no better way to send my love
than this 'lectronic hug.

Happy Mother's Day!

----------

I'm in Melbourne now, my last major Australian city. I like it here so far, just like everyone I've met said I would. Staying in the beachside suburb of St. Kilda, a popular little district of mostly restaurants. Haven't spent too much time exploring the city yet, mostly trying to finish of my book. With that out of the way, I'll probably use Melby as a base of operations into the surrounding Victorian countryside. There's the Great Ocean Road to cruise, the Grampians to hike and the Arapalies to climb. Also on my agenda is getting the car up to snuff so that I can sell it. Initial signs in the market are that I have a pretty good chance of at least breaking even.

Went shopping yesterday in Fitzroy. Decided I was tired of schlepping around in grubby jeans. Time to go out and test the new wardrobe...

Hillary Hearts Rupert

2006-05-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry to get political here, folks, but I need you on the home front to shed some light.

The Australia Broadcasting Company (like NPR in the US) gives hourly radio news updates that last about 3 minutes. Yesterday, amid everything else that is going on in Australia and the world, the ABC news took a 30 seconds to report that Rupert Murdoch was throwing a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Interesting turn, no? So interesting that the ABC reported on it- odd, no?

So when I get online today to check out the state of the left wing blogosphere and the newspapers, I find zilch. Zero. No one talking about it. Google news pulled up a few articles, but where's the chatter? The analysis? The concern?

What have you heard?

The last of the Queensland pics

2006-05-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

Whew! Finally got them up and commented. There's a slew of NSW pics to post that I'm still working on, but at least I can finish up that gallery. See them here.

I know there's a lot of updating to do, blog wise, too. I'm trying to catch up. My free time has been spent in my Russian textbook and dialog CD and listening to Neko Case's new album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. It's beautiful, but not striking the emotional chord with me that Blacklisted did. There's that part after the break on Deep Red Bells that always gives me a flutter and tear.

Oh, I also picked up "The Bonehunters: Book Six of the Malazan Tale of the Fallen" I've got 800 pages of reading to do before I can possibly be productive again. Then it's back to another painful 2 year wait for the next installment. Why do I do this to myself?

Oh, and driving back and forth to Thredbo.

You can tell Canberra is a new city, it's designed completely around an automobile scale, making walking anywhere tiring and boring. Bicycling, on the other hand is most appropriate.

Bluey Not Fooey

2006-05-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

5:30pm, a bit tired, a bit hungry, a bit cranky. No worries, it's beeroclock. The hostel here in Canberra is serving free drinks and fried snacks and suddenly the wear of the day is forgotten.

Leaving the Hunter Valley toward the Bluies on Monday yielded a spectacular drive. The scenery got more and more, errr, scenic as I twisted down along side the Hawkesbury River. The Hawkesbury runs wide and slow all the way from the ocean north of Sydney up into the Blueys. The melange of riverside maritime towns, the building mountains and autumn mood gave made me giddy. There's not enough traffic to need a big ugly bridge, so upon reaching Wiseman's Ferry, I crossed the Hawkesbury on a cable-pulled ferry. How charmingly quaint. From Wiseman's, I drove up into the hills, making another ferry crossing before taking the Bells of Line Road across the northern section of the Blue Mountains. I wished my bank account was fatter, there were several choice ridgeline properties around Kurajong that overlooked the river and wooded hills.

The sun was setting and the clouds were shedding heavy drops as I finally pulled into Mt. Victoria at the Imperial Hotel. Getting out of the car, I was quite suprised to discover that the temperature had dropped considerably during my drive. It was cold! Invigoratingly so. About time.

I stopped at the Imperial because the LP guide suggested that they had some very cozy backpacker's dorms for a good price. Upon checking in though, the nice lady at the front desk took pity on me and insisted that the backpacker rooms were much too primitive to allow anyone to sleep in them. She then proceeded to give me a double bed room in the main hotel for the same price as the backpacker's dorm. She even went out of her way to provide a breakfast tray of toast and cereal for me when I told her that I wasn't interested in the $15 hot breakfast option.... "the poor boy needs to eat something."

Room set, I decided to drive down to Katoomba, the main town of the Blue Mountains. After doing some checking for local climbers (none found, in the end...) I was suprised by a well timed call from Karl! We chatted for about a half hour, catching up and discussing things to do in the Blueys. We both agreed that the region is simply awesome. The autumn colored trees everywhere, the quaint villiage feel of Blackheath and Leura, the proximity to Sydney, the amazing rock climbing-- I'd suggest you just pick up and move there.

The Imperial Hotel didn't really hold up to its promise, however. The room was nice, but right over the TV in the bar below, which was blaring until all hours. Also, the room had no heat, not even an electric blanket, so I was cold. Lastly, my room looked out onto the main highway, just after a traffic light, so I was lulled to sleep by semi-truck diesel engines accellerating their way through the night. I thanked the staff profusely and checked out in the morning.

The next day started leisurely, just enjoying town and the air. I caught up on some phone calls, then headed to the Ivanhoe Hotel pub for lunch and a Tooheys Old Black. Karl was right, it was quite tasty. That afternoon, I started my exploration of the Blue Mountains with a drive to Govetts Leap, a lookout onto the Grose valley. Excellent.

After getting directions from HQ to Hanging Rock, I walked the 40 minute trail out there and spent the rest of daylight with my feet dangling across the void, letting my mind wander into the hazy distance. The pictures I'll post eventually can tell the rest of the story.

After the hike, I went over to the YHA in Katoomba: quiet, modern and warm. After checking in for the next two nights, I met two English girls from Essex who were on a college gap year holiday. The three of us went down to Katoomba central for a nice meal and a bottle of wine. We called it a night after I got twice spanked at the pool table (that's at, not on).

The next morning, I was intent on doing a bit of a longer hike, so I selected the Evans Lookout -> Grand Canyon -> Neates Glen loop. Ruth Palsson was nice enough to lend me her Blue Mountains bible guidebook with my promise to post it back when I was done. The book was a great help in finding just the right walk. Thanks, Ruth!

While signing the "send a search party if I don't come back" register at the front desk, I met British Polly, who was also looking for a hike. I suggested she join me, which she did happily, considering I had wheels and an idea about where to go.

We set off. It took us less than 3 hours to do the whole circuit. A lovely walk with a variety of scenery and terrain-- and pretty much constant, engaging conversation to boot. Thanks to the guidebook, we took the 20 minute side spur up "The Slot" an easy but particularly pretty interlude before hiking back up the the rim-top. Lunch at Govetts Leap before we drove down the road to check out Wentworth Falls. The falls are aparently some of the highest and most spectacular in Australia. They certainly were impressive, although the flow rate was pretty measly. In the wet season, after a rain, they must be especially (insert a superlative for pretty... I'm running out!).

After the walk to the falls and back, it was beer-o-clock, so we headed back to Katoomba and to the pub. Some beers, some pizza and wine for dinner and we called it a night. The next day, Polly and I met for breakfast, continued our excellent convo and then it was goodbye and off to Canberra.

That's where I am right now, having arrived last night. I'm staying at the YHA, also modern, quiet and warm. I had a busy day around town today. So busy that I'm tired and I'll write all about it tomorrow.

Southward bound

2006-04-30T17:20:00.000-07:00

Port Macquirie was a bit disapointing at first. The town was not nearly as quaint as I imagined, very built up and touristy. Also, the "sailing club" raced dinghies in the river, not yachts on the ocean--- no thanks.

Nonetheless, I spent a pleasant afternoon on the shore doing some writing and practicing my Cyrillic. Met up with German bloke Adrian, we got on and cooked dinner together. After, it was a bottle of wine and a walk down to the beach with lovelies Mimi and Regina. Happy times after all.

Yesteday was an easy drive south a bit, headed towards the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney. I wound up in Cessnock, gateway to the Hunter Valley wine region, just in time for a sunset wine tasting at the stunning Tallavera Grove vinyard. Joined by an Australian couple, Shane and Matthew (visiting from their home in Beijing), our host, John, poured several tastes along with sharing some great vintner info. The 2003 reserve Semillon was excellent: crisp, acidic, but not harsh. I also liked the 2005 Semillon/Verdelho blend, similar to the Semillon but with a bit more body. The 2005 Chardonnay was too buttery, but the 2005 Joker's Peak Sauv Blanc was very nice with a burst of passionfruit in the middle. A lovely way to spend the late afternoon.

After the tasting, I drove up to find the Blue Tongue Brewery for dinner and a tasting. I tried the Blue Tongue alcoholic ginger beer in Mission Beach and really liked it, so I was keen on visiting the brewery. Their different beers were very good, the natural taste of the ingredients was very prominent in each one. The food was a bit over-priced and just so-so in flavor, and the ambiance didn't really suit a brewery... and the beer was expensive, too! I'd suggest skipping the brewery and picking up a six pack at the bottle shop instead.

This morning, I got up early and attended to some more consular matters. I'm going to hit the road now and try to make it to the Blueys!

Coonabarabran parting shot

2006-04-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

So where was I? Ah yes, bedding down in Tenterfield.

Next day, I pressed on through the still lovely countryside, trying to get to Coonabarabran in time for the 8:00 showing at the Skywatch Observatory. With an hour to spare, I rolled into town and checked into the Imperial Hotel. It's the nicest pub/hotel place that I've stayed in. Charming, cozy immaculate and a steal at $25 a night. Who needs backpackers? The air is getting quite cold at night, so it was great to amble into the pub for a quick meal, sit down by the wood burning stove and enjoy a Coopers Pale after the road. Did I mention that I really liked the Imperial Hotel in Coonabarabran?

After scarfing my food, I drove up the road to the Skywatch Observatory. Upon arrival, I was a bit skeptical when I saw the putt-putt course skirting the base of the telescope dome. Hmmm. The gift shop was obviously prominent, but the "museum" of questionable science had me nervous that I was going to be looking through a viewmaster instead of a telescope. Not to worry though, because we were shortly escorted to the dome by the manager of the Siding Springs Observatory, Peter. Peter proved to be very knowlegable about all things astro and gave us a great tour of the galaxy. Through the main 12" reflector telescope, we looked at the Orion Nebula, Saturn (the rings are awesome!), Jupiter and moons, and the Omega Centauri globular cluster.

Then, we went outside and checked out the lovely Jewel Box in the 8" cassagrainian and Alpha Centauri in the 8" reflector. The Jewel Box was particularly pretty. My stomach still gets a tingle when I ponder for a moment the fact that a photon has traveled for thousands or more years across such a distance, narrowly missing space dust and the like-- just to plop down into my retina. Awesome.

We also talked about constellations, even the Aboriginal type. Did you know that the Aboriginals use the dark patches in the sky to form their constellations instead of the stars? There's a big emu up there that's really easy to spot. The night was really chilly and the sky was perfectly clear and I wound up back in the pub writing postcards and enjoying one more Coopers before sliding into bed with my electric blanket! Did I mention that the Imperial Hotel in Coonabarabran was very cozy and comfortable?

The next morning, I showed in their delightfully country/art deco showers. The steam from the hot water had that old timey whiff of old pipes and wood smoke. Primally luxurious. Did I mention....

Anyway, after wasting enough precious water, I got out and went up to the Siding Springs Observatory, home of Australia's largest telescope at nearly 4 meters. The tour there lasted for over two hours, guided by Peter, the fellow from the night before. Up on top of the observatory, the view of the surrounding Warrumbungles is fantastic. I'll have photos up soon that will give a better detail of my time spent up there.

After the observatory, I went back down the road to the Warrumbungle Glass House cafe, had a tasty late lunch and wound back into town. I was weirdly tired at this point and not ready to leave town, so I checked back into the Imperial, got some dinner and watched the finale of Australian Biggest Loser. Adro won. I knew he would weeks ago. Good on ya!

So now we're caught up. Russian visa is taking longer to get rolling than I thought. Not surprising though, and I've still got time. All the better to practice my Cyrillic.

ДO CBИДAHИЯ -- CKOTЛЙ

Coonabarabran: It's more than a mouthful.

2006-04-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

Left Byron on Tuesday morning, after my last post. Made it halfway to Nimbin before I remembered that my camera's flash card and my usb stick were still in the computer back in Byron. Drove back to Byron. Finally made it to Lismore and the road up to Nimbin where I picked up hitchhiker Sonny, a 40 something dude looking for a lift to heaven in the hills. Cool guy, we chatted all the way up, zipping past some very pretty hills.

Nimbin is a trip, and suprisingly charming. I was expecting a lot more schlock, but the town has a heady relaxed feeling, sorta like when you walk into a massage therapist's office and the smell of essential oils hits your nose and the sound of a little fountain hits your ears.

Sonny gave me the lowdown on Nimbin's, er, economy. The hippies never left after the 60's and the authorities actually turn a blind eye to the open circulation of "bush weed" and associated products. There's the Hemp Embassy, a museum and shop dedicated to legal issues, and an adjoining coffee bar where you can actually, a la Amsterdam, light up in public without fear of harrassment.

I spent the afternoon poking around town and then drove back down the hill, pointed west. As the sun set, I pulled over the Great Dividing Range and into the oak lined streets of Tenterfield, one of the first in a series of towns I visited in the New England region of New South Wales. The oaks were all turning colours everywhere and it made me happy and comfy. Felt like home.

They're closing the internet cafe! I'll post the rest of the story later.... stay tuned.

ANZAC Day

2006-04-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I'm back on the road again, so I expect posting frequency to increase again.

Invigorated, in fact. It was about a month in Brisbane total. A lot of that time was spent recovering from the two months of travel before I landed there. The last week or so was spent in self involved reflection-- readying my heart for the journey ahead. Pictures from some of my last adventures in Brissy should be up in a few days.

I left B-bane yesterday afternoon, saying goodbye to Ant, Jason, Michelle and Hugo who were gracious enough to have me in their home for so long. Taking my time, I wound down the coastal route, ending up in Byron Bay for dinnertime. I stayed last night at the Arts Factory Lodge, a busy but very chill hostel on the outskirts of downtown Byron. Blaz is supposed to be working here, but I couldn't find him last night. I'll have to see if I can locate him before I leave today.

Went to bed very early last night so that I could get up at 4:30 this morning. Today is ANZAC Day in Australia, sort of a combination of the USA's Memorial and Veterans days. The Australia New Zealand Army Corps were "volunteered" by the British in WWI to take the Gallipoli from the Turks. The loss of life was massive and to this day, the ANZACs don't really forgive the Brits for using them as cannon fodder. Interestingly, there's actually close kinship with the Turkish soldiers, with whom the ANZACs established great respect. The grandfather of my sailing instructor, Lachlan Wilson, (same name) was an ANZAC brigadier general of some reknown.

So anyway, the ceremonies today started at daybreak with a service at the local memorial park , which I attended. A few prayers were said before the crowd of 80 or so, then everyone went back to the RSL Club (think of your local Veteran's Hall only with a public bar, restaurant and video poker) for a beer and brekky. So yes, by 5:30am, I'd had my first beer of the day. I stayed at the RSL for a bit and chatted with young Obie, just out of the service himself at 24, now a personal trainer here in Byron.

After the ceremony, I took advantage of the quiet and early hour to call my grandparents at home. It was great to talk to them-- they've both got colds at the moment, so send them a happy thought! They were also the first to hear about my new travel idea that I started in motion just before sitting down to write this entry.

I'm applying for visas to China and Russia, my intention is to spend May in Australia, make my way to Beijing in early June and then take the Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Siberian Railroads to Moscow, arriving sometime around the end of July. At that pace, August can be spent in and about Eastern Europe before I set back to NY in time for Dr. Michaels' wedding.

In order for that to all happen, though, I need to get my hands on a Russian Visa, not a completely easy task. I've contacted a travel agency in Russia (recommended by Lonely Planet), for the first bit, which it to get an invitation letter. That will take over a week or so. Then, I have to bring my passport and the letter to the Russian consulate in Sydney and wait another week or so to get the visa. After that, I still need to get my Chinese visa, which can take a week or so, too. The point is that if I'm to leave Australia by June, I don't have much time to waste. I've submitted the request for the invitation letter today, so hopefully by next week, I can get the visa going. I'm getting a certain excitement from dealing with all these logistics. Wheee.

I'm not going to linger here in Byron. I want to make some headway into different territory, so I'm going to start driving out west again. Goal #1 is to have a snack in hippy haven Nimbin and then make it out to see the big optical and radio telescopes near Coonabarabran. Then, I've got to decide whether to head down to Sydney first or to hit up Melbourne and then finish up in Sydney. Details to be figured later.

Ocker Quiz results soon!

Picture updates

2006-04-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

I've finally caught up with all my pics.

First, I've fixed some of my Canarvon shots. This one has an audio clip added. This one has been repaired from the damage inflicted by the auto-levels.

Second, I've put up my pictures from my recent adventures around Brisbane.

Lastly, I've also published the pics from Kasen's Buck's Party. They aren't commented, but they're interesting.

Ocker Quiz #4

2006-04-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang,

Before we get to the next quiz, I have a correction to make. I accidentally left Guru out of the results of OC#3 (it was his fault). I've updated the results, so please scroll down and have a look at the updated score.

As I mentioned, this quiz has a visual element. Here goes:

What do these Aboriginal rock carvings (as found at Carnarvon Gorge NP in Queensland) represent?

Click on the thumbnails for a closer view.

I give Velma inside odds on this one.

I miss Gary Cohen

2006-04-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

The new guy is okay, but Gary had a rhythm. Mets' home runs don't seem nearly as cool without his unrestrained "IT'S OUTTA HEEER!"

Ocker Quiz #3 Answer

2006-04-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

Wow. Good effort, team. We'll have these Aussies licked at their own culture in no time.

The answer to:

You're walking through a Queensland supermarket, let's say Coles. You're looking for a sign that says "Manchester". What are you looking to buy?

is:

Sheets and bedding and linens and stuff.

which means that Karl got the answer right! Mind you, he should, being from Queensland and all. Which is better than Mike, also from Queensland, who's been living outside of his native Oz for so long he's forgotten. For shame. Mike didn't even play, but he gets -3 points.

Karl, you would get 3 points for the correct answer, but Jason answered first, and I think he was alluding to the correct answer, too. So Jason gets 3 points. Karl, you get 2.9 points.

Matt got the answer correct, too. But he, like Jason, cheated and used wikipedia-- which is fine, but the difference is that Matt admitted to cheating. Bad Matt. Next time make up a story about a long lost Australian half-cousin. Matt gets 2.5 points.

What gnuheller doesn't know is that while the supermarket (Coles) here in Queensland doesn't sell machetes, the supermarket in the middle of Santiago, DR does indeed sell them and an accessory leather sheath. The sheath at $6 cost more than the machete. Very thorough answer, gnuheller. You get 2.5 points.

Lenny (uslennar), you took Jason's answer to heart-- I'm guessing it reminded you of that night we got really drunk in Chinatown and wound up sharing a bed together at your hotel. No wait, that was with Dan. How did you find out about that? You get 3 points if you agree not to tell anyone else.

Mom (prblmslvr), hmmm. Good guesses, but very wrong. I love you and all, but I can't show favoritism. Fortunately for you, being in Australia, I can show favouritism, so you get a point.

Dad (Dad)--- you worked in a Seinfeld reference. Excellent. 2 points.

G-Dawg (Guru)-- did you patent that? Put it through CPOL and make me a co-inventor. Here's 1 point-- you'll get 20 more when the check comes through.

Mark (espd) said cheese. No. But I like cheese. Thanks for reminding me. 1 point. Next time remind me of something more animate, with a nice backside, and earn more!

Whew. Who knew that all these extra responses was going to create so much snarky work for me. One more thing, the current standings:

gnuheller 3.6
Dad 3
Jason 3
Lenny 3
Karl 2.9
Matt 2.5
Mom 1
Rich 1
Mark 1
Guru 1
Velma 0.5
Mike -3

The next quiz will be up in a day or two. Get your optics polished, it's going to be a picture question.

It just looked wrong

2006-04-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

Mike Piazza hit a home run in his first AB of the season today. I went online and watched the video clip. I was very happy for the dude but when they zoomed in and showed him rounding the bases in a Padres uniform, my eyes got misty.

A fan abroad

2006-04-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Now I know how all those Aussies and Brits feel when they live in the US and the rugby/soccer/footy game is on at an ungodly hour. It's 2:12am here. The Mets' opening game starts in under an hour now. I've decided to stay up to listen. If you're online and watching/listeing to the game, pop me an email!

So I'm still in Brisbane. I like it here. I'm going to stay for a bit. The Easter holidays are coming up and it's a terrible time to be on the road, so I'm going to weather the storm here in Ant's garage. At least for another couple of weeks. I'm starting to get a picture for the rest of my trip, too. I'll give the whole play-by-play shortly.

Need to go close eyes for a bit. Let's go Mets!

Dang, that feels good to say.

Scottley in B-town

2006-03-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Ant's generosity, I've got a comfy place to crash here in Brisbane.

Left Noosa on Sunday, busted down to south Brisbane to pick up Dan Roe, a good climber guy who volunteered to take me out for the day to some projects he's been working on. We drove down an hour and a half south of Brisbane to Mt. Greville, near Frog Buttress. Dan's been putting up some first ascents on the blocky cliffsides around the waterfall gorge. First, we warmed up at "Little Springfield" on a grade 14 sport route. 14 is about a moderate 5.8 in the YDS. Not having climbed in a few months, I was a bit leery about busting off onto a lead straight out, but I got the onsight, no problem. After that, we toproped an 18 next to it.

Then, we hiked up the canyon to check out Dan's route. He's climbed it once since he and his buddy set it a year ago, but I was probably the next to climb it. "Lobster Boy and the Purple Krabs" is a fun two-pitch trad ramble up the cliff side. I lead both pitches, I would have put it at about 5.6. There's heaps of rock out here-- it amazes me that even in the year 2006, there's actually decent climbs still awaiting their first ascent. After we scrambled out in typical Karl-would-be-proud-bush-surfing fashion we took the long way back to Brisbane.

The countryside around here is really lovely. If you replaced the stands of gum trees with Oaks, you could claim it as California. On our way back, we stopped at a cafe in the tidy country town of Boonah, had a milkshake and enjoyed the evening air in the hills. A lovely day.

Since then, I've been getting my act together here at Ant's. Went out on the town for dinner on Monday night. Afterwards, Ant took me downtown to see the famous "Down Under Bar," but it was early and not too busy. Mostly a backpackers crowd that I've been with the whole trip thus far. Still, I could see how things would get crazy later in the week, later in the evening. If I needed to recruit some rail meat, that would be my first stop. After the DUB, we went over to the big casino where I watched Ant loose $11 on roulette and keno in five minutes, then we left. On the way back to the car, we stopped for dessert at an old school real cool restaurant called "Pancakes Pancakes!" It's inside an old church. Tasty chocolate pancakes.

Yesterday, I borrowed Ant's bike and took a trip around the river. Rode from Toowong up to Kangaroo Point. KP is a large rock cliff right on the river's edge, facing downtown Brisbane. It's lit up at night and is best described as an outdoor climbing gym. The locals are very privileged to have such a "facility" right in the middle of their fair city. Met Brett and Andrew, chatted with them while they worked on a grade 21 sport climb that looked fun. Got some good info about the local scene and rolled on. I biked across the Story Bridge, dodged rush-hour traffic in Fortitude Valley and rolled back on the north side of the river to Toowong and Ant's house under a pink-grapefruit sky.

Brisbane is giving me a good feeling. I'm going out exploring again today, but first I'm headed to the UQ acquatics center for a swim. Have to keep those surfing muscles in shape....

Oh, the latest set of pictures is now up and captioned.

Ocker Quiz #3

2006-03-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, on to Round #3. Points awarded have tripled for this round, so get ready!

Question:

You're walking through a Queensland supermarket, let's say Coles. You're looking for a sign that says "Manchester". What are you looking to buy?

Anyone? Anyone?

Ocker Quiz #2 Answer

2006-03-21T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, the trip to Canarvon shall be told in the smugmug gallery that I'm cooking up now. Give it another day or so.

Current situation is that I've been in fair Noosa for the past 4 days, surfing every morning. I finally found a surfboard that I'm going to buy first thing in the morning. It fits my swank rack perfectly. Pics of that to come, too.

So, the answer to:

Here in Queensland, what direction does the water swirl in as it drains from the toilet?

is: Trick question. Toilets in Queensland don't really work the way they do back in the US. Instead of a swirly design, the water just sorta barfs en masse into the bowl and dissapears in a quick gulp-- no swirling. One cool feature of local toilets is the two flush buttons. One gives a little half flush (when it's working properly and it seems that many of the toilets don't), suitable for removing any yellowness in the bowl. The other button gives a full-on, poo removing flush.

And so, despite the trick, we have several points to give out for this round:

Rich, you earn one whole point for getting the closest. It is inherent in the design. Good on ya.

Karl, you copied Rich's argument and also happen to be from Queensland, so you get zero points, considering you could have used your authority to make up something much more imaginative.

Velma was also almost close and she's also recently engaged, so you get 0.5 points. Mazel tov!

Gnuheller had the funniest response, from a nerdy perspective. Normally that would be worth a hearty 0.5 points as well. Considering that I don't know who the hell this chap is though, makes me nervous. Therefore, I give Mr./Ms./Thing gnuheller 0.6 points. Please don't hurt me.

Stay tuned. The next quiz is ready and will be released shortly. Please keep playing! No one really has any serious points yet, and the point value for future questions will surely increase-- so join in the fun!

Standings after round 2:

gnuheller 1.1
Dad 1
Rich 1
Velma 0.5
Karl 0

Yom Huledet Same'ach!

2006-03-19T23:16:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Today is my Dad's Birthday. Every year, Mom beats him to it and this year is no different. She always seems to get her birthday in a few weeks before Dads...

So anyway, Dad. Happy Birthday. I had this great idea of getting some topless girls at the beach to hold up a sign for you and taking a picture of it and posting it to my blog. Unfortunately, it rained on my plan and the topless girls weren't out today. So instead, I offer you this greeting from two crazy German guys:

Dashed upon a foreign shore

2006-03-19T23:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the big delay. I've been out of internet range for a few days and I haven't settled down here in Noosa long enough to get a breather to write.

Huh, the trip out from Airlie Beach was a week ago already, a lot's happenened. Left from Airlie and drove up into the scrubby highlands of the gemfields region. Lots of mining and ranching going on out there. Spent the night in Clermont, which a week later, I can barely remember it.

Rolled the next day to Carnarvon National Park, home of Carnarvon...

damn. Too tired to keep writing. I'll get back to this later. Time for a quick anouncement, dinner and then chilling out. Sorry folks.

Ballast Beauties, Inc.

2006-03-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday night, back at the sailing club, Skipper Collin had invited me back for yesterday's race and I accepted. He was also lamenting that we didn't have enough weight on the boat to balance her out when she leaned over in the strong winds. So I suggested that not only could we easily get more weight, but we could do it in style.

So I went back to the hostel that night and asked the first three friendly and pretty girls if they would like a free sailboat ride the next day. Marie Helene, a Quebecois lass I had me the day before and had become friendly with and Tanya and Celia, two Norwegian gals who had just arrived were game and excited for the opportunity.

So it was with great pride that we went down to the dock at noon yesterday. The rest of the crew was quite happy to see that we now had the weight we needed to balance the boat and that the weight wore bikinis.

We all had a great time sailing the race, a simple 4 laps out and back from windward to leeward. The gals did great, hopping like jackrabbits under the boom as we tacked and clambering up the other rail to lean out for balance. On the downwind legs, I got to be the pole again as we got the most out of our jib by goosewinging it out opposite the mainsail. After the second lap, Jason and I managed to rig up a metal pole to do the same job with a lot less effort and chaos.

Collin and his senior crew sailed the boat great and we crossed the finish line very happy with our effort. The gals all had a great time and appreciated the unique opportunity to be in the middle of a rather exciting yacht race. Because each boat has a handicap, we wouldn't know the actual results until later that evening at the sailing club. So I dropped off Tanya and Celia, who wanted to go swimming at the lagoon and Marie and I went over to the club to meet the rest of the racers, have a drink and wait for the results.

My reputation preceded me, apparently how I wrangled up those beauties was becoming a popular story. After a while of schmoozing and drinking, they served a BBQ sausage snack and we all gathered around to hear the results of the race.

First they announced the results of the previous day, we came in 4th, which was great considering that we were expecting to finish 5th or 6th. Lochie and Felicity came in 1st in their division, and everyone cheered heartily for him and his crew.

Then the announced the results of Sunday's race, starting with last place. We waited as they announced each boat, each time hoping it wouldn't be us. We all got quite excited as one by one the names of our toughest competition were read off, leaving only us at the end. Sandpiper won first place! Big high-5s all over and everyone was very happy. The bonus was that this race was the last in a 4 week series and our victory had also secured Collin 3rd place in the series! Lochie had also cleaned up and taken first place in the race and the series. We were all smiles as we congratulated each other.

And so, after another beer and a drink from the rum bucket, it was a weird sad moment when I realized that I'd be leaving Airlie and this crowd behind in the morning. I've been here two weeks now and I was really starting to get into the flow of the town and the people. I can see how picking up and leaving all the time is going to get tiring. Collin and his crew were great guys and all offered me a berth the next time I come through. Lochie extended an open invitation on Felicity as well. Marie and I made our farewells and I took my leave of sailing in Airlie. For now.

After leaving the club, we were a bit tipsy and not in form to drive the 1 km back to the hostel, so Marie and I walked down to the lagoon for a moonlight swim. After getting the yayas out, we called it a night. I probably would have rather spent my last night in town partying, but instead, I asked Amand, my new Norwegian friend if he would put on some of is Norwegian electronic music like Rokksopp and I zoned out on the hammock for a while... then went to bed and was out by 10.

So now my tale of Airlie is done. I'm going to go grab a gyro from the shop across the street and head off towards Mackay and then Carnarvon National Park. I might not have net or phone service for a few days, so please don't panic if you don't hear from me. I'll probably crash in the town of Emerald tonight, I doubt I'll make it all the way to Carnarvon today. It's about 600km from here.

One more lap

2006-03-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

The race today was quite a trip. Wind at 25 knots with gusts up to 35. Got a ride with Sandpiper and her Skipper/Owner Collin. We raced out to Hayman Island, about 11 miles, around the west side of Armot island and then back to Airlie Beach in a big triangle. It took 5.5 hours for us to complete the course, quite a long race. Collin said it was the strongest winds he's ever raced in, he was working the mainsheet and helm pretty hard. The weather varied from bright sunshine and fast planing to complete whiteout downpour in 4 foot rolling swells.

I spent most of my time as rail meat, helping to balance the boat as she leaned over. My duties also included spotting wind gusts coming at us and notifying the helmsman, I earned the nickname "Gus" from yelling "Gust!" so often. Downwind, my right arm got to be a mini-spinnaker pole as we goosewinged out the jib. That was quite comfortable, ahem.

When it was time to tack, I was down in the pit relasing the leeward winch and helping Jason tail the opposite winch as he took in the jib on the other side. I love winches. Wenches aren't too bad either, unfortunately we didn't have any of them aboard. We do need some extra weight for tomorrow's race, though, so I've promised Collin that I'll try to recruit some from the backpackers around town.

So yeah, there's another race tomorrow and Collin was more than happy to have me back on again. Can't quit now, so I'm staying one more night.

Can't type much more, I have to go fall on my face.

Ending not so Airlie

2006-03-09T23:22:00.000-08:00

I think I'm leaving here on Sunday, first thing in the morning. Of course, I've been amending a plan to leave here since I arrived. . .

Last night, while sitting around the hostel, playing the nightly quiz, I found myself partnered with Matthew from Nantes. Mon ami et moi actuallament avons une victoire. Le prix et a half price offer from the folks at Ocean Rafting, a 1 day speedboat tour of the Whitsundays. This was perfect, since I had today to kill and hadn't actually managed to get out to see the reason for most other people coming here.

So Matthew and I booked for today and we left this morning. Being the low season, the boat only had about 10 out of a possible 25 passengers, so we had plenty of room and attention. These little boats have 450HP of outboard behind them and we were quickly and smoothly planing along at 25 knots. We stopped first at Nara Inlet on Hook Island for a short walk up to some simple Aboriginal cave paintings, followed by an hour of snorkling at Dumbell Island. The snorkling was great, it was the first time I've actually done it, I've always just scuba dived. Saw another giant turtle and I had great fun poking at the giant clams. Without the noise of the scuba gear, I could actually hear the many varieties of parrotfish biting chunks out of the coral.

After snorkling, we headed to the famed Whitehaven Beach for lunch. Whitehaven is one of the hallmarks of Whitsunday Island, a mile of perfectly white sand with the consistency of fine powder. It looks lovely in the brochures, but of course the brochures don't show the enormous tourboats that are also parked there disgorging a horde of tourists. The beach was lovely, but as I suspected, not the secluded paradise they might lead you to believe. Private boats can visit the northern shore of the beach which was empty-- part of the problem seems to be that all the commercial operators park down near the south side where the toilet facilities are.

After lunch, we swam around, played frisbee in the water and then packed up to head back. The island scenery on the south side of the Whitsunday group was a lot more rugged and interesting that the northern section. I would love to come back on my own some time and explore them. The sea back there was very choppy and our skipper entertained us by launching the boat off of the swells. By 4:30pm, we were back. I'm glad that I got to see the Islands this way. No muss, no fuss, no crazy drunk parties, just get out there, get a flavor and get back with a minimum of touristy schlock. One day, when I can skipper my own sailboat, maybe I'll come back and indulge.

Tomorrow, Lockie has promised to get me on as crew for the all day race around the northern Whitsundays. I have to call him tonight to see what he's cooked up. The forcast is calling for 20-30 knot winds over the day, so it should be pretty exciting. I hope Lochie comes through, I would love to get out for one full day sail before I leave Airlie.

Assuming I don't get any other offers to sail for next week, I'll head out on Sunday for Carnarvon Gorge NP. Karl has given me some good ideas for an overnight hike and the kit I need to do it. It seems that I have to stop in at Mackay to buy a hutchie.

Everyone, help a dude out!

2006-03-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

And give a big "Happy Birthday" shout to my Mom, who I love very much.

Happy Birthday Mom. Wish I could be there to tell you in person. . . as a poor substitute, please accept instead my latest batch of photos, recently uploaded and commented just for you!

Back from the bush

2006-03-03T23:12:00.000-08:00

Excerpted from the private diary of Scottley:

Mar 3, 2006 ~7:00PM
Jaxut Campground, Cathu National Forest

Jaxut - Cathu

Even the names are bizarre in this alien place. The wallabys are always watching me, they move with the thump sound of logs falling in succession like velvet covered bone dominoes. Starting a fire was a welcome chore, from gathering the fuel to getting it going on 1 match. It helped to take my mind off the bouts of sweat and heat that come quite often. I was feeling cooled off during and after dinner, but now I am dripping again, almost as if the humid air moves through the forest like a silent, stagnant wind- rolling waves of moisture thrown off by a deeper, damper section of forest. Most of the bugs have left me alone, is it all the garlic I've been eating?

The inchworms liked my food box, the blue Dairy Farmer's crate that I nicked in that town south of Mission Beach. Can't tell if the ants avoided the chilli flakes I put down; they seemed to but one was spotted carrying off a flake.

Footsteps. A shuffle just behind me. I think. I can feel it watching me but in the near dark gloom, I can't see it. Time to tend the fire.

* * *

Back, and no further sound from my visitor. In general, I'm pretty comfortable besides the sweat and stick on my skin, which along with my second complaint: the fact that the underside of my car is plastered in cow shit and smells the part, has me wondering about the quality of sleep I'll get. I feel like a wus [unintelligible] I'm also concerned about flies and spiders and mozzies and such in my sleep. Tending to the fire just now and two have already buzzed my ears.

* * *

(100 words omitted) I wonder if the temperature will drop much tonight. The fire has reached that wonderful point of silent glow burning that can last for hours. Remembering camping our with Dan & Tom at Indian Creek. I miss that. . . (18 words omitted)

* * *

More nearby footsteps. Going to try spotlighting it.

* * *

Possums! Not scared of me much, and don't seem to be threatening, either. Spotlighting worked perfectly. Quiet fuckers. I'm a bit afraid that they'll go for my trash bag-- one made it on top of the table before I shooed it away. Big hopping frogs, too.

Like living in a zoo, my wallabys, my ants, my spider, my possums, my frogs, my dingo, my grub, my fire, my bat who visits now and again. I make my rounds and check on them all.

The fire, the stars. The simple satisfying beauty, yet I can't drink it deep. The breath stops a bit too shallow. My mind starts to slip away into it, but just like that moment before you fall asleep, you look too close, think about it for just a second, and it's gone. It is possible to fall into the beauty or peace or happiness of a moment [like one falls into sleep]? Am I a ?spiritual? insomniac? (1 word omitted)

The almost certain feeling that there is more to this moment, close by, or visibly ghostly, tangible and yet there is no way to know how to grab it, to breathe deeply enough to fill yourself with it. (rest of entry omitted)

Ocker Quiz #2

2006-03-03T23:02:00.000-08:00

Hands on your buzzers for the next question:

Here in Queensland, what direction does the water swirl in as it drains from the toilet?

Please leave your answer by clicking on the comment link below.

To play a pirate or to be a pirate

2006-03-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

As any of my friends in SF will tell you, my SF friends really like pirates. It seems that SF in general really likes pirates (and not just the butt kind). Thanks to that piratephillic atmosphere, I too, have come to like pirates.

It is in that eyepatched spirit that I am remaining here in Airlie Beach to learn to sail. I have a long way to go, as the topics of plank building, booty burying and whoremongering still escape me. Nonetheless, I feel happy that I have taken the first step.

I found my instructor's card at the tourist info desk, and I was impressed by it's message. The rest of the sailing schools here in Airlie Beach are run by the tourist charters and spend as much time sightseeing as they do in education. Also, it is impossible to meet with the instruction staff, as you have to go through the tourist booking agents, who while very nice and pretty, don't know much about the actual course. Instead, the "Wind Skills Sailing School" card says this:

"Wind Skills is a Sail Training Centre. We do not include paying tourist passengers with students, nor do we visit popular tourist destinations as part of the course. Tourism combined with Sail Training downgrades valuable instruction time and reduces the certificate to having little worth.

Your choice is basically whether you want to learn how to sail and are serious about it or whether you wish to receive a certificate but never have the confidence to use it"

Serious instruction with a very healthy dose of anti-tourist snobbery? I love it. Awesome. I gave them a call.

On the line was "Lochie" who informed me that the "Sail Training Centre" was actually just him, and his "office" was actually his boat, docked at the Abel Point Marina, berth B14. I walked over there and knew I was in the right place. We chatted about the course and various logistics for about an hour. Based on talking to Lochie and other marina regulars, it became clear that the man is a local legend, both for his superb sailing skills and his beer-fueled good natured attitude.

The class doesn't start till Monday, so I've just been killing time here around Arilie Beach. Wednesday evening, Lochie invited me on board his boat, "Felicity," as a passenger for the twilight races. We sailed out into the harbor and met up with all the other local boats and had a great time racing around the triangle for a few hours. If you've never sailed before (like me), it's quite striking when the motor is turned off and the sails go up and suddenly you're moving, but quietly. A real pleasure.

After the races, we all went out to the Yacht Club and drank it up the the other skippers, crew and yachties. Lochie was starting my education early by giving me a lead on the social aspects of sailing, which, I've discovered, are paramount. Time on the boat is actually pretty chill as there's only work to be done when you change direction. The rest of the time is spent sipping a cold one and telling dirty jokes.

The real side benefit to all of this, as some of Lochie's former students have attested, is that with my "Competent Crew" certification from his course, any skipper would be happy to have me aboard as a volunteer to crew their boat (taking into account, of course, my enthusiasm and general affableness). After I get done with the class, for example, I can sign on as crew on one of the tourist boats and get a ride around the Whitsundays for free.

The rest of my time has been spent exploring the local area. Yesterday, I drove inland and spent the afternoon all alone at the picnic ground on the shore of massive Lake Proserpine, watching the birds and insects, reading and snacking and relaxing. Spent more energy than I though I would, I was blasted when I got back to town, checked into a new hostel (BBtB was full up), shared a beer with my roommate Johannes, ate dinner and was sleeping by 11.

This morning, I got up early, had brekky and visited the Queensland Parks office. Got a wilderness permit to drive around in the state forests west of here and I'm headed out there now to do some walking and camp for the night.

I just have to rememeber to buy a lighter before I go-- my pasta dinner will be a little crunchy if I don't.

Ocker Quiz #1 -- Answer

2006-02-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

Hey Gang,

Thanks for playing. I must say, the participation of the first quiz was pretty poor. The winner of the most quizzes will win a special prize!

Before we get to the next quiz, here's the correct answer to Quiz #1 (provided by a very elegant and eloquent local):

"ROAD PLANT AHEAD -- This is a spelling error on the Council sign, should read ROAD PLANNED AHEAD, which loosely interprets as don't be surprised if you hit gravel for a while - as they haven't got round to finishing the road seal work from last June, cause it's far to humid to do any real work up here."

Thanks, gnuheller (you are awesome, whoever you are) and Dad for playing. gnuheller was closest, so he gets 0.5 points. Dad was wrong, but very creative, and he did help raise me for all these years (and I still don't know who gnuheller is--- if it's you, Mom, sorry) so Dad gets 1 point. Thus the standings are:

Dad 1
gnuheller 0.5

yay.

Beach hopping

2006-02-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

Finally left Mission Beach yesterday morning, three days after my intended departure. There's absolutely nothing to do there, but I got caught up in it nonetheless. Something about the relaxed atmosphere of the town and the friendliness of the hostel was infectuous. The fun culminated on Sunday night with a beach BBQ hosted by all the hostels in town -- a perfect evening playing ball, chatting and drinking on the shore.

Spent last night in Townsville, there's not a terrible lot going on there. The most interesting thing was the Great Northern Hotel where I stayed. My room was spare, the bed uncomfortable and my neighbor had his TV on at ungodly hours and volumes... still the place was completely charming. With nothing else to do for the evening, I sat with the other gents in the downstairs bar, drinking VBs and watching a TV show on Australia's Top 20 TV Comedic Personalities or something. I took lots of notes on Uncle Arthur, Con the Fruiterer, Sir Les Patterson and Collin Carpenter to name a few. In all, a solid evening of Australiana.

So now I'm in Airlie Beach, the sailing captial of the east coast and the gateway to the famed Whitsunday Islands. I'd like to explore the Whitsundays, but if I do it, I'm going to take a 3 day sailing course. Just cruising around on a big party boat doesn't sound as appealing as going out with 5 other students on a smaller boat and learning amid the scenery. The boat doesn't leave until Thursday, so I have tonight to think about it.

My hostel, The Backpackers by the Bay, is quiet, clean and has a lovely view of the harbor from the pool deck-- and free use of their gas grill, upon which I think I'll grill up something tasty tonight.

Oh, and the Panny is doing much better on fuel. I'm up to about 15mpg on LPG and 20mpg on Petrol. Based on their relative costs, the price per kilometer is about the same. LPG can get a lot cheaper than I've been finding it though, so it seems like the right choice.

Oh, and why do Australians insist on using the word orientated?

Something to look at

2006-02-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

This should tickle your optics, chockloads of pictures freshly uploaded and commented.

Sorry about the delay. Getting socked in by rain today (and the next few days is likely, as well) has given me lots of time to get this done, even with a dreadfully slow uplink.

One more night here in Mission Beach, and then heading south some more. I'd like to stop in at Ayr to dive the Yongala, but the weather might not be cooperating and I certainly don't want to wind up in Ayr with nothing to do. We'll see.

Ocker Quiz #1

2006-02-24T01:05:00.000-08:00

Leave your answer to the quiz in the comments.

1) While driving along, you see a sign on the side of the road that says:

CAUTION:

ROAD PLANT AHEAD

What should you be looking out for?

There will be more quizzes to come. The winner gets a kookaburra flavoured lollie.

Back in the sweat

2006-02-24T00:47:00.000-08:00

Well, the Tablelands are behind me and I miss them already. Blaž and I left the Wallaby this morning. Speaking of the Wallaby, I forgot to mention a big thanks to Rich for pointing it out to me in the first place. It seems rare that everyone at a hostel has an inviting smile and "hello" for you when you walk in, the Wallaby was a glad exception.

The drive down was very pleasant, got some sausage rolls at the "Highest Bakery in Queensland" -- no they don't make pot brownies, the town of Ravenshoe sits at the highest elevation in this fair state. After that we checked out the short walk down to Little Millstream Falls, which provided a lovely view and a bit of fun rock hopping along the banks.

Cruised back down to the coast, through the town of Innisfail-- and spent an hour there stretching our legs, doing some minor shopping and admiring the rare (for Australia) Art Deco architecture. Innisfail also made me realize a real benefit to Australia's lack of freeways: a thriving downtown. Innisfail isn't a tourist destination, but the town centre was all a buzz with locals doing their shopping and going about their business. This is what most of the USA must have looked like 40 years ago.

Finally rolled into Mission Beach and found that our intended hostel was all booked up, but the Treehouse, up the road had plenty of beds. The Treehouse is a YHA hostel a bit back from the beach in the rainforest, constructed open-air style like a treehouse. It's very pretty, but a little aged around the edges. A quick dip in the pool when the lack of welcoming smiles made me decide to head into town to find some dinner and some solo time. A prawn, bacon, mushroom, garlic pizza later and some ginger beer later, I'm at the internet cafe-- again trying to write down everything before they close up.

Got my general plan down now, I'm much happier about my ability to stick with the good weather. It goes from here clockwise around the country, all the way around, until I hit the northern road to Alice Springs, at which point, I strike south again, winding up my trip in Melbourne where I'll sell my car (what's left of it) and fly out.

Uplinks really suck here, it might be ages before I get to upload my pics.

Oh, and Lou, you can bite me.

Oh, and Mike, you can bite me, too.

Oh, and Mom, yeah, that porn thing, just kidding.... he he....

Hanging in the Highlands

2006-02-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Spending most of this week in Yungaburra, in the heart of the Atherton Tablelands. About 1.5 hours west of Cairns, the Tablelands sit at about 3000' elevation comprised of rolling pastures and beautiful lakes and waterfalls. It's also much cooler and less humid than Cairns, with no mozzies either. The best part is that the region is also largely devoid of the mania touristica of the coast.

So I've been happily staying at the "On the Wallaby Backpacker's Lodge", an immaculate and intimate hostel in here in Yungaburra. The proprietor, Paul, leads various local nature trips, and I've been canoeing with him twice so far. Last night, we went for a night paddle on Lake Tinaroo, sublimely gliding along under a perfect starry sky. Using our torches, we spotlighted animals in the adjacent trees-- I managed to bag a very rare tree kangaroo. Awesome!

Got the car mostly kitted out now, waiting on the metal shop to finish fabricating some brackets so I can install my surfboard shelf in the cargo bay. I've got the mattress and linens all sorted out, so I slept comfortably in there last night for the first time. The car is great, the only downside being that it seems to be getting only about 10mpg at the moment. I'm going to have to keep an eye on that.

Each day, a small group comes to the hostel for the various tours, spends the night and leaves the next day. Each night has been spent with a different set of interesting people, sitting around, drinking beers and chatting about our various adventures. I've befriended one resident, Blaz the Slovenian, (pronounced Blosh), he's been here for some nights as well. We both want to head down to Townsville via Mission Beach, so he's going to hitch a ride with me and we'll go down there tomorrow.

Still have lots of pictures to upload, sadly the uplinks here aren't very good. I promise to get them up soon.

Oh, and there's been some requests for amateur porn. Working on that.

The pools at the base of Alexandria falls are lovely. . .

2006-02-19T01:15:00.000-08:00

. . .at least according to our guidebook.

The guidebook also mentioned that the falls were inaccessable in the wet season (i.e., now). Undetered, Mike, Anthony and I endeavored to reach them last Wednesday.

We drove up to Port Douglas on Tuesday in my new '95 Ford Falcon LongReach GLI Panel Van. It is bitching. Port Douglas was a welcome quiet respite from the tourist-prepackaged schlockfest that is Cairns. It gets quite busy in the dry season, but right now it was hot and damp and peaceful. Dinners were spent at the local community club overlooking the river, eating steaks and fish and drinking pitchers of VB (despite their boozy nature, Australians brew generally horrible beer). Evenings were spend lazing in the hostel pool and chatting with the other guests into the evening (Anthony got crushed on a cute but cold Dutch girl).

Just north of Port Douglas is the Daintree Rainforest, a World Heritage site and a very diverse and unique biome. We drove up there Wednesday from Port Douglas looking for a good bushwalk to get us some rainforest action. In perfect style, nothing quite worked out the way we would have planned. Acorrding to the book, the trail starts on the grounds of a forest resort, you're meant to check in at the front desk for clearance to get through their property and onto the trail. No dice. "That's being changed in the next guidebook, besides, the trail is blocked," said the proprietor. Instead, we're told to go back a bit down the road to a pullout, drive down to the creekside, park there and hike up the stream past their property and back to the trail.

What followed was several hours of slow daylight progress, sloshing up the chest-deep-at-times creek, following side trails into nothingness (save deadly brambles, mosquito clouds and leech breeding grounds). After having just too much fun and not enough progress, we realized that we'd never make the falls before dark, much less before we got hungry. We sloshed back down stream, happy to return to our car and find some grub.

We managed to explore a bit more of the Daintree from our car, including a few deserted stormy beaches.

Internet cafe is closing now. Pics will be up when I find a good uplink. Just got back from a 3 day overnight scuba trip, probably leaving Cairns tomorrow for the Atherton Tablelands. More to come. . .

S.F. memories

2006-02-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I love S.F. so much is the license to be silly. It's a feeling I don't get anywhere else, and maybe why I don't feel as attracted to NYC.

Case in point:

Cairns if you do, plans if you don't

2006-02-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

February 11, 2006
Internet Cafe and Didgeridoo Shop
Downtown Cairns, actually
~ 11:45am

Sydney finished up just fine. Hit Bondi Beach on Wednesday (easy on the eyes in every respect). I really liked Bondi. Good natured attitude, not too touristy, beautiful beach. Thursday, I went over to Manly Beach, supposedly more authentic for the locals and a bit more upscale. Instead, I found it to be much more commercialized, due in part to it's proximity to the tourist center in downtown Sydney. Getting to Bondi is a haul on the train and a city bus, but you can hop over to Manly on the scenic ferry ride.

Thursday night I met up with Mike back in Bondi and we stayed up till 5am at the Bondi Hotel drinking, carrying on and dancing. Met Fizz and Deed, two lovely British sheilas who kept us on our toes all night. They were still going strong when we limped out to catch the last bus back downtown at 4.

I also Spent Wednesday learning about the buying a car, in preparation for a purchase soon. It's pretty daunting at first, but I think I'm getting a feel for the market. The scary bit was the Kings Cross Auto Market in Sydney. The market is really just the second underground level of a parking garage in Kings Cross. Descending into the gloom, your eyes adjust to see a mini community of grubby backpackers sitting in the darkness, tossing frisbees and hackysacks, waiting for fresh travelers to come down and take their vehicle off their hands. Apparently it works, but the whole affair is pretty dodgy. You get a lot of folks sitting down there for days with their visas' expiration and flights home looming. Not a fun looking way to end your trip. The thought of ending up like a Gollum/car salesman hybrid nearly put me off from buying a car completely. Coming to Cairns yesterday, however, has convinced me that I need my own wheels.

Our hostel is clean, it is not expensive, it's not even too rowdy. It is however glossy with the backpacker culture. Prepackaged tours, "specials" at the bar designed to ply more money from you, pub crawl busses to the hottest nightclubs in town.... well and good, but not why I came here. It also occurred to me that I haven't actually been traveling solo the way I wanted. Between being back in NY, down in the DR and Haiti with Lou and Sydney with Mike, I've had the luck to travel in good company. Time to go it alone for a while.

Speaking of Haiti, I noticed that Rene Preval is in the solid lead in the election counting, but might not get the 50% required to avoid a runoff. Already, business-interest candidate Charles Baker is asking for an investigation into fraud. I'm all for clean elections, but there's definitely people with an interest in maintaining confusion. Preval is the popular candidate with the nation's poor and we saw lots of people on the streets campaigning for him in Cap-Haitien. Many Americans look at a poor nation like Haiti and blame the Haitians for their plight: "If they just wanted it bad enough, they could have peace", "If they just worked hard enough, they could have an economy", etc. What they don't realize is that for the past century, the Haitian people have been desperately trying to get themselves together, only to be undermined at every turn by the policies and direct action of the USA-- beholden to the industrialist minority elites that benefit from Haiti's poverty.

pardon me.

Up in Cairns now, the central city on the north Queensland coast, Great Barrier Reef country. I'm looking into booking a 3day/2night liveaboard diving trip out on the reef. You stay out on the boat, they prepare all your meals and provide all the gear. While I'm out there, I want to score my PADI Advanced Open Water cert, which includes a whole slew of specialist dives like photography, naturalist, bouancy control and night diving.

On top of that, I think I may have found my car. It's a 1995 Ford Falcon Panel Van. There is only one word and that word is bitchin'. $3995 and it can be mine. Oh, and Lou, it has an extra fuel tank-- that takes LPG!! I'm going to sleep on it.

A brochure for a 5 night liveaboard sailing course crossed my path lastnight also. Curiouser and curiouser.

A long time gone

2006-02-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Feb 8, 2006
Internet Cafe
Chatswood, Australia
~9:35AM

This isn't exactly roughing it.

Late Sunday, before heading to SFO to fly down here, Mike emails me to say that he's in Sydney on Cisco business for the week, he's staying in a 4-star hotel north of town, and he's got an extra bed I can crash on for the first three nights. Maybe it's not in the backpacka spirit, but this sure beats a hostel.

The flight was dead easy. Departed around 10pm, I slept overall about 7 hours or so and I was out of customs by 8:00am feeling pretty well rested. So far jetlag hasn't been a problem.

On the flight, the first of several odd thoughts began to sink in. Normally, on a 13 hour flight, I find myself thinking about the second ordeal that the flight back will present. This time, my thoughts on that line stopped when I realized that I don't have a flight back anywhere. It is entirely possible that I won't be back in the US for at least 6 months. That much time changes my perspective in interesting ways.

Since Mike was working all day and wasn't checking in to the hotel until the evening, I had the whole day to kill. On the way out of the terminal, I asked a fellow passenger, Lisa if she knew of a good neighborhood I could visit just to chill and get settled. When I asked about King's Cross, she laughed and said "Nah, that's where all the tourists go!" Instead, she recommended the suburb of Balmain, a relaxed upscale community two harbors west of Circular Quay (downtown, by the Opera House). Further, she recommended that we share a cab together and that I get a shower at her place to freshen up after the flight. Done deal, thanks!

Lisa and I headed back to her place and we cleaned up, chatted with her roommate and played with her spunky dog, Cougar. After the shower, we went into downtown Balmain for a coffee and long chat about travels and lifey stuff and then parted ways. The trip was off on a good omen.

Spent the next hour or so in Balmain attending to the logistics of getting an international phone card, calling home and eating lunch. Ready to move on, I walked down to the Balmain East ferry terminal where I met a nice British couple and their son and grandson who live in Balmain. Together we took the ferry to the Rocks, providing a beautiful view of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House as we came in; a right proper way to enter Sydney.

Phoned up Mike and by his suggestion, I decided to get a cell phone. Took the excellent city train from Circular Quay to the Town Hall stop on George St, a central business and shopping district in the heart of Sydney. I was looking for a travelers' centre that supposedly would let me ditch my heavy bag for a few hours as I walked around. When I eventually found the travelers' Checkpoint, I stayed only a minute before deciding to give up and suffer with my bag for a few more hours. The place was packed with young travelers from around the world clamoring for package travel deals on backpacker busses and free email checks. Ever since I started traveling in NZ 6 years ago, I've always sort of disdained the organized backpacker culture, not sure exactly why. Too contrived I think. Not in the spirit of a proper wander. I did get some good info from the travel medical clinic next door, I may stop in there before I leave Oz to make sure I have the right vaccinations for Indonesia, etc.

Back on the street, it was time to start learning about cellphones. Things are very different on this side of the pond. Instead of minutes, you get dollar credits and you have to calculate the amount of minutes you get based on the cost-per-call. After researching through several stores, the nice guy at the Telstra store told me that I would actually get a better deal at the Vodaphone shop down the street. Indeed, Radhika took good care of me. She explained their service plans, answered all my questions and after a short trip to the internet cafe to research my phone choices, I wound up with a Sony Ericsson K300i, SIM card and $30 credit for AUS$189. Calls cost $0.40 a minute, very pricey compared to the US, but a pretty good deal for my needs. Unlike the US, though, I don't pay for incoming calls. I don't in tend on talking that much anyway, but for making reservations and getting in touch with climbing/traveling partners, it will be invaluable. If you would like the number, just send me an email, as I don't want to publish it out here in the open.

Phone in hand, it was time for a break, so I walked back south along George St. to one of the only pubs in the neighborhood, The Three Monkeys. Julie, my bartender was very nice and helped me choose a good NSW brew, the Tooheys New, which is my favourite so far. Some garlic bread and spicy wings and an hour of relaxing later, and it was 5pm and I was ready to go out again until Mike called. Julie helped the cause immensely by agreeing to hold onto my pack in the bar's office for me until I was done with my shopping. Load thus lightened, I set out.

Shopping in Sydney is good. The best part is that the clothes fit me here. In the US, shirts and pants are cut so big, that unless I shop at a fancy store, I'm either swimming in or stretching out most clothes. Australian fashion follows the European style with a much slimmer cut that suits my body a lot better.

So I need a good polo shirt, something that is easy to care for and that I can dress up or down. There's been several candidates so far, but I'm just not convinced yet. Either way, it was fun going from shop to shop, chatting with the clerks and trying on nice clothes. Gerard, the owner of "Urban Myth", was particularly friendly. We chatted a bit about his planned trip to the USA and style trends in Australia. He recommended his friend's shop for a haircut, which I took him up on and wound up with a great cut for AUS$10.

Finally Mike called and I took the train up to Chatswood, a posh suburb 25 minutes ride north of Sydney. We met up at his suite in the hotel, took a quick swim in the hotel pool and met up with Sal, one of Mike's buddies who I've met a few times before back in Cali. The three of us hit the streets of Chatswood looking for a good dinner, but the town was asleep so we took the train back down to Sydney and wound up eating at an Italian place along the Darling Harbor strip. It was a lovely evening, sitting outside, eating and drinking and looking out over the water and hotels. With one more beer in us, we walked over to George St, had a drink at the quiet but boring Cheers pub and caught the last train back to the hotel.

Slept fairly well, got up and I've got heaps to do today. I'm on a mission to get my daypack fixed-- the zipper of the main accessory pocket came undone on Sunday. I've been bounced around this morning, but I've got a good lead for a shop in Sydney proper, so I'll head there after I'm done with here. I also have to call some dive shops up in Cairns. Mike is planning on flying up to Cairns on Friday for a week and I'd like to join him. My only concern is that the weather and box jellyfish (or boxies as I'm calling them) are supposed to be bad this time of year. If I can't dive or swim in the ocean, and it's pouring the whole time, I'm not too psyched about going up there just yet. Still, I could start in Cairns and start working my way down the coast back to Brisy (Brisbane).

Oh, I'm also considering the best way to acquire a car. I think bussing/training it about is going to get old.

If I get some time the afternoon, I'm going to try the 2 hour coast walk from Bondi Beach down to Coongee. Time to jump in the water.

Flying till Tuesday

2006-02-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

About to leave for the airport. Next post will be from Oz.

Haiti pics are up and uncaptioned.

Here for out again

2006-01-31T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-21T17:31:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

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

Colediggy's Corner: Evite Responses

2005-12-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

Preaching to my choir! Go, Colediggy, go!

Colediggy's Corner: Evite Responses

Actually, the more I read of this dude, the more I am hooked. He definitely speaks for my inner asshole.

Two months too late

2005-12-12T21:12:00.000-08:00

From the Giant Sand website:

Yeah, sure, they play New Years, but not Halloween? Humbug!

(Giant Sand is Howe Gelb's band and the progenitor to Calexico. Club Congress is where I stayed Halloween weekend in Tucson)

In and around with Scottley

2005-12-11T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hey All,

FINALLY got the pics posted from the Meadowbrook Expedition. I've worked in several audio captions that you might also find interesting, so keep an eye out for the audioblog controls that pop up in the image captions. You'll need Flash Player to hear the clips, but you probably already have it.

I've been up to a lot of other stuff, too. Lots of drinking in the NYC with Jason and Jessie et al. Hanging with Matt and late night pizza with Lou. Saw Calexico, Iron & Wine and Friends last Tuesday. I like Iron & Wine just fine but their music is too chill for me to be standing to for 2.5 hours. Calexico rocked the house, but the real treat was the unusually engaging opening act Tim Fite. Think of a combo of bluegrass, hip hop, electronic experimental revivalist. . . picked up his CD, which is great, but these guys really put on a show-- really got the audience into it.

Thursday was a great day at my Grandparents'. Grandma and I made a ham and cheese quiche for lunch and then she showed me how to bake her super secret cheesecake. While it was baking, the three of us finished up the NYT crossword puzzle for the day. I think I'm hooked. My attempts to assist on Friday's edition were not nearly as successful. It was so nice to spend some easy time with them. I'll probably go over there again tomorrow-- there's still some cheesecake left.

Carter is probably coming to town next week sometime. It will be nice to have a hanging partner about.

Not much else to report. I spoke to Mike briefly tonight about making the plans in Oz. I also have to think about a recent trip proposal by Louis that might intervene-- options, options. . .

Suburban expeditioning

2005-12-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

Beat, tired, sore, sleepy.

Had a great day today, I hiked up the Meadowbrook from my grandparents house up past Nassau Community college. At that point, the brook enters some big storm drain tunnels and seems to head out under the Parkway and Eisenhower Park and I couldn't proceed without a flashlight (I shall return!). Nonetheless, I got to do some great bushwacking and tunnel crawling and I discovered lots of interesting wrinkles in my old neighborhood that I never knew about.

I'll post the pics tomorrow, I want to put in good captions for them. I also experimented with audio recordings on this trip.

Must sleep now.

Till tomorrow.

Post Thanksgiving spin out

2005-11-29T02:36:00.000-08:00

It's only been a day or so (and one long night) but I'm worried about a big rut that may be looming here.

Going to bed at 3 or 4am (or not at all as would seem to be the case today-- 5:37am and I'm still up). Waking up late. Sleepy through the day. Too much HDTV and TiVo and easy internet access. Maybe I'm just vegging out, but this could get dangerous quick. I have emails to many friends that I need to catch up on (Egg!). I have friends in NY that I need to get together with. I have phonecalls to return. I have travel plans to make. I have to tell David about all the interesting wool and yarn contacts that I've made. I have to buy health insurance. I have to fix my parents' computers. I have blog entries to write and photos to publish.

This same thing happens every time I come home to NY. My old house is like a black hole for motivation. My brother feels it too; neither of us know what causes it. It was excusable during the long holiday weekend. Now, something needs to be done. Just because I grew up on LI doesn't mean that I can't have adventures here.

I think I'm going to hike the Meadowbrook on Thursday. The recent story about a certain urban river in St. Louis has me curious.

Audio recording (as suggested by Velma) is also on my mind lately: the PMD-660 and the This American Life illustrated guide to radio are giving me lots of exciting ideas.

Home stretching

2005-11-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

Sorry kiddos for the lack of posts this past week. I kinda got burned out a bit and I've been doing a lot of travelling, I'll post the whole story soon.

In the mean time, let me thank everyone who leaves comments on my posts. It really inspires me to keep writing; it makes me feel like we're all still in each other's lives-please keep it up!

Also, the frequency of posts will probably decrease. For one, I'll be in NY for the next month or so and I'm expecting less travelly stories to pop up. Also, once I'm out of the country, I'll be leaving my laptop behind, so I'll have fewer post opportunities. So please keep checking for updates and commenting, just don't be surprised or insulted if things sit for a week or so.

Anyway, I'm at home in NY at the folks place today-I arrived yesterday, after 753 miles of driving. Mostly through the great Kansas of the East, Pennsylvania.

Out of the country, going to college

2005-11-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

So, I'm an hour outside of Jefferson City on Monday, when Velma's Dad, David gets me on my cell phone:

"When you come through Booneville, get off and stop in at the Walmart. It's easy to find," he says. He continues, "Go on in there and get yourself a deer tag and a hunting license, then go on down Hwy 87, stop in at the farm, Dad's waiting for you to go out," referring to Velma's granddad.

Following his instructions, I went on into the Walmart, feeling very out of place, and the nice fellow at the hunting rack didn't blink when I asked him for the tag and license in my best Missourian accent. We had all the information filled out ready to go when he asked to see my "Hunter Safety Card". Uhhhhh. No deer tag and hunting license for me. Alas.

I went down to the farm anyway, slightly nervous about seeing Velma's grandparents on my own. I had spent quite a bit of time with them years ago when Velma and I were together, but I wasn't sure how I would be received on this visit. Gratefully, they welcomed me warmly back into their home. After a quick chat, they outfitted me with the necessary hunting arrangement and Harold and I drove up to a hill out on their property line. Even though I couldn't hunt myself, I was still happy to go along with Harold and enjoy the experience.

The hunt turned out to be very interesting but far less dramatic than I had been romanticizing it on my way to Walmart. We got out of the truck and walked a minute to a blind that Harold had set up overlooking a small field and milo patch. The blind was a fancy tent-like structure in camo fabric with netting windows. Inside, we had a pair of seats, a portable propane heater and a pee-bottle. Very plush indeed. Harold generally prefers bow hunting and nature videotaping to rifles, but he brought the gun along anyway, just in case we saw something worth bagging, I could get the complete exposure.

We sat out there for about two hours as we kept an eye on the field and I listened to the sounds of nature and to Harold's incredible repertoire of stories and knowledge. By the time is was dark, we hadn't seen but a small doe way out in the milo patch that wasn't worth bothering. Still, I was both fascinated and relaxed by my time out there.

After heading back to the farm, I stayed and chatted a bit more with the Gentzsch Elders and then headed into Jeff City to see David for the first time in years-- again, I was needlessly nervous.

Incidentally, I had a bit of a revelation as I left the interstate and drove down through the rolling foothills and curvy roads that make up most of rural Missouri. In the past two and a half weeks, I'd driven across some spectacular country, from 11,000' mountain passes to red rock river gorges to autumn wooded desert canyons. None of it affected me more than the Missouri countryside. There's a simple and elegantly accessible beauty out there that compels me. I'll add that to the unofficial collection of stuff I'm learning about myself.

Dodging down the backroads, I made it to Jeff and David's house. I was greeted by warm smiles and a hot wood stove and felt immediately at home. David, his new wife, Terri, and I stayed up late chatting about everything as we all caught up on our various progresses over the past years.

The next morning, David and I got up for a run through the freezing rain out to the Capital Building and back. Returned, soaked in the hot tub, cleaned up and then went down the the wool shop. In the past year or so, David has resurrected an old trade of his in the form of Ozark Handspun. He's now in the business of dying and spinning high quality yarns to feed the insatiably popular knitting boom. He showed me his whole process and I even got to help out packaging skeins.

Time for lunch, we headed over to meet Terri at Central Dairy for ice cream, yaay! The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting with David about everything from philosophy to real estate investing. That evening, David and I went out to the farm together with a bucket of fried chicken in hand. Harold and I went out to another blind for an hour or so before dark and returned leaving behind a 35-point buck that was too beautiful to shoot.

Back at the house, we were joined by Velma's 18 year old cousin Jason, with whom I'd spent some fun times with in the past. Marie cooked some tasty accoutrement for the chicken and we sat and ate and talked along for several more hours before David and I took our leave and headed back into Jeff. That night, Terri, David and I enjoyed each other's company till nearly 2am.

David and I ran again this morning, after which I cleaned up and took my leave. My heart is still gladdened by the clan's generous welcome-- it was the first time I felt at home since I left Menlo.

The drive to St. Lou passed quickly as I spent most of the time on the phone with Velma giving her the complete low-down on my visit. After she hung up, I got of the highway in Clayton and rolled towards the Wash U campus, the giddy feeling of nostalgic homecoming bubbling in my chest.

I parked my car near Mallinkrodt Center and walked through the campus to the Engineering School. Lots of interesting thoughts here. For one, I felt old and out of touch when I was here a year and a half ago. This time, though, maybe because I'm a happier and carefree, the campus energy feels comfortable and refreshing.

Second and happily, the Engineering School was festooned with posters for student activities that saw big change during my tenure here, ten to six years ago. The Verigo party that we founded was the best ever this year and featured a lighted dance floor built by the IEEE. Humph, we never did actual engineering for Vertigo when I was in school. Back in those days, all you needed for an Engineering dance party was a few kegs and "You Don't Know Jack" on the projector.

I'm also glad to report that the advertising for Cheap Lunch seems to have continued its creative omnipresence.

Walking around campus, I'm amazed at how small the quads feel. I remember those distances to be a lot longer to walk. I haven't seen the Brookings quad yet, but I'm already recalibrating my memories.

I'm here in the rejuvenated Olin Library now (a place I never went into as a student), scamming a computer terminal. I have to jet and meet up Andrea Heugatter, one of my favourite professors. Then, it's off to a Wednesday night beer bash at the Sig Ep. Hah.

Deer season

2005-11-14T07:03:00.000-08:00

Good Morning from Lawrence, Kansas. It's flat here.

The past few days have been a blur of a lot of driving. Friday, I left Moab later than I expected, it turned out to be hard to leave town. I spent a lot of my "extra" days there, if not for my Thanksgiving destination, I may have been sucked in completely. I started heading off toward Colorado Springs around noon and about an hour later, entering Colorado, it was obvious that I wasn't going to make it very far. I wound up driving through some serious breathtaking mountain scenery, though-- the drop from Hwy 90, out of the high La Sals into Paradox, Colorado was particularly stunning.

Late afternoon, tired from the night before and not used to the road again, I decided to take advantage of my weariness and stop in Ouray, Colorado, only 160 miles from Moab. Ouray was of particular interest to me as the ice climbing capital of the USA. Nestled at 7800' against the north slopes of some serious mountains, Ouray is probably on my top 10 list of beautiful towns in the USA. Indeed, I just noticed that their website calls it "The Switzerland of America." Cheesy, but a fair comparison.

Despite the prime location near lots of popular other ski towns (Telluride, Purgatory, etc), Ouray itself is generally quiet in the winter. With the ski resorts still closed, it was dead. I found an open restaurant to get a late lunch. Over lunch, I met a cool bloke who's house was washed away in the Katrina floods and so found himself starting over in Ouray of all places deciding to become a snowboarder (as of Friday, he had yet to actually snowboard).

After lunch, I ambled down to Ouray Mountain Sports, one of the only shops in the USA that stocks more than one or two proper mountain boots. I indulged in the knowledge and friendliness of Bill, the proprietor and spent an hour or so there trying on lots of boots and generally talking about gear and the town. I finally found a pair that fit me properly in the new La Sportiva Nepal Evo GTx-- big, bright yellow, dead sexy. At an -ahem- great price, I was seriously tempted but decided to wait on a buying decision. Seriously, though, Bill had these for a lot less than most other shops (linked above), was willing to throw in free shipping and there's the no-tax benefit of ordering from Colorado. He doesn't have an orderable website, but for any purchases that I need to make in the outdoor arena, I'm calling OMS first.

Bill suggested the Riverside Inn for a room and the Bien Tiempo for some food and local drinking action. The Riverside was very comfortable and clean, with real log furniture and a steal at $45 a night. They have some affordable 3-bed suites that would be perfect for an early-January ice climbing trip to Ouray. Anyone interested in joining me?

After a nap and a call to the family I ambled down to the Bien for dinner and drinks. Tasty enchiladas, a few glasses of the always excellent New Belgium 1554 Black, and chatting with the friendly natives. Met Tim and Sherri from Ridgeway. Tim's in construction, and if you ever need a haircut in SW Colorado, go hit up Sherri's salon. There are both fugitives from the SFBA and were quite happy to tell me about how happy they were out there. . .

Wound up ready for more, so Kim, the bar manager at the Bien and I headed to the Silver Eagle down the street. Switching to Vodka (and a whisky shot imbibed on a bet...) things got smasho quick. Along the way, Kim was telling me about the Ice Festival and how it screws over the local restaurants and bars because the sponsored hospitality tent has free food and beer, only releasing the revelers when they're really drunk and ready to piss off waitresses and bartenders in their search for more. We also met Duane, a hunter from Mississippi who, in his second complete sentence, informed us that he was glad to be away from Jackson because the black people down there don't speak to him in a "friendly manner". Anyway... wound up at Big John (a Mets fan from NJ) and Chris' house after the Eagle closed for a bit and then finally headed back to the hotel around 3am.

The next morning, I got up pretty slowly, sore in the muscles from a funny high-altitude hangover. I finally made it down to the internet cafe and chocolate factory (ate a 'scrap cookie', a cookie made with all the leftover bits from the chocolates they make: creams, nuts, chocolate, toffee, etc. Seriously good cookie).

After that, I went back over to OMS and chatted with Bill about crampons and ice axes. If anyone has been thinking of a good Chanukah present for me, give him a call. Nepal Evo's in 43.5 size, a set of PetzlCharlet Aztarexes and a set of Grivel G14's (with Cramp-o-matic bindings-- no I'm not even kidding). Better make sure he throws in the Black Diamond Android leashes, too. Heh.

Finally rolled out of Ouray noonish. My time there had me thinking about what it would be like living in a very small town. Out of 800 or so people, you get to know everyone very fast and they know you. Just walking around, I saw two complete scenes of a specific local drama unfolding, the right folks just happened to be where I turned up each time. I wonder if the tight social circles would be stifling, or if the small sea would give me a chance to be a big fish. The idea of giving it a try for a year or so at some point is very appealing.

Around 4PM on Saturday, I crossed the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass (11,312'). I got a bit teary as I left the Pacific drainage behind and started my way down the big ramp to the Mississippi. That night, around 7:30, I rolled into Colorado Springs, got a room and a very large Italian dinner and crashed out.

Yesterday morning was spent emailing and contacting the folks that I hope to visit on my next phase here in the Midwest. Colorado Springs provided an appropriate gateway; as you drive out of town into the flat prairie and farmland, Pike's Peak fills up your rear-view mirror like a wall. I tried to continue my theme of staying off the interstate, but after 30 minutes on Hwy 94, I realized that it was going to all look the same whether I was going 60 or 85, so I moved up to Interstate 70 at Limon (I didn't actually stop to ask them how they botched the pronunciation of their town-- I'm guessing LIH-min).

Big thanks to Jill, Carter and Rich for together talking me through two of the ten hours that I spent numbing my way to Lawrence. I have to go now and make my way to Jefferson City today. Velma's dad has invited me to stay with him and his message on my voicemail informed me that it's deer season. . .

Time to move on

2005-11-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

Autumn is over. Let us welcome the cold, wet and gray.

Here at the Mondo for the last time this trip, it's time to leave Moab.

Yesterday, took a lovely slow ramble along the old south river bed of the Colorado River to the west of town. It was cool to have no destination and just wander instead of trying to book it fast toward a goal (a la Mission Peak). Afterwards, I drove over to Wall St. and met Ian, RJ, Brandon and the friendly young family of Evan, Maureen and their precious child Kenobi. We hit it off right away and they very generously let me jump on their ropes.

First up was Moki Crack (5.9), which has a tricky roof that foiled me into hangdogging before I figured it out. Then I got a shot at Nervous in Suburbia (5.10a), a brilliant face climb-- no problems. It reminded me of the precarious lead on the first pitch of A Little Nukey on Power Dome.

My first time in Moab a few years ago, I lead 30 Seconds over Potash (5.9) with no worries. This time, for some reason, it made me a little nervous, so I was quite happy to toprope it. The last time, I remember making lots of funky moves to take advantage of the various face holds, especially on the second half. This time, with my mad hand jam 5ki11z, it was dead easy.

Finally, Ian lead the rest of us on Eat the Rich (5.10c), a small fingers-small hands crack in a small right facing dihedral. Getting tired and with bad finger technique, my style here was not nearly as trick. I made it up to the crux okay, but the odd handhold placement along with my sloppy feet forced me to hang.

The day over, I broke out the beers and butt rock for my new friends and we packed up and headed into town for dinner at a terrific Mexican restaurant The Hacienda. The plan for today was for Ian and Evan to go climb Castleton while Maureen and I (and Kenobi) cragged some more on Potash. I was excited about getting some more climbing in, but frankly, I was feeling the need for a rest day.

Fortunately, Mother Nature intervened and I awoke this morning to thunder and rain. Met up with the crew here at the Mondo and said our goodbyes and now I'm finishing this entry up before I hit the road. The rain and some annoying late night commotion at the hostel last night convinced me that I'm done with Moab. I don't know what the road conditions are like up in the Rockies, but I'm going to head east and see what happens-- right after I finish my breakfast and take a dump.

Moab max-out

2005-11-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

Still here in Moab, drinking coffee at the Mondo. Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been spending my energy on the layout roll-out that you're seeing this morning.

Quick update:

Tuesday morning, I took a hike up the Mill creek canyon. Worked my way up for a few hours and found some time to relax and do some writing that had been evading me for a while. Maybe I'll publish some of it soon when I get it cleaned up. Later, I took a drive down to Castle Valley, a beautiful high area underneath the La Sal mountains and Castleton Tower's mesa. There's 5 acre subdivisions out there that are going fast. Uslennar, remember that land you were looking to buy. . .

Yesterday, I returned to Castle Valley with a hired climbing guide and we went up the classic Kor-Ingalls route (5.9) on Castleton Tower. The climbing was fun-- I've never really tackled off-widths before and I learned a lot. Matt, my guide was verry mellow, but a cool dude overall. I didn't really have much trouble in any of the many manky sections of the climb, but a few moves sure scared me. Karl did the same thing last year (North Chimney) when he came through; I can only imagine the adventure the two of us would have had if we tried to attempt it on our own. That said, I would probably be willing to lead it now that I've climbed it once.

Not sure about today yet, chatting online with Karl at the moment. Prolly go back to the Creek for the afternoon and then leave Moab tonight or tomorrow morning. They're calling for rain and snow. Maybe I should wait on this side of the Rockies until it's done.

I'm sure that the answer will be embarrassing

2005-11-07T19:12:00.000-08:00

. . . but who is this "gnuheller" person who keeps leaving comments on my blog? I love you dude, whoever you are.

In other news, TJ apparently still can't keep the spokes on his bike. Karl, in a moment of evil undoubtedly sabotaged the rear wheel hoping to send my ex-roommate off a cliff somewhere. Dude, time to buy a new wheel. I hear Bontrager has a great model for only $900.

Also, uslennar, did you see Karl's response to your comment on my last post or so? He's calling you out!

Oh, and isn't it interesting that Blogger's built-in spell checker thinks that "blog" isn't a word?

This afternoon I met with a real estate agent and got the lowdown on the Moab property scene. Afterwards, I went down to the local crag, "Potash Wall", and met a group of climbers who were discussing how Moab real estate is getting too pricey for the locals thanks to outside investors.

Unsettledness gives way to all good

2005-11-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

Coming to you this morning, slightly drowsy, from the Mondo Cafe in Moab, UT.

After my last post in Durango, I tried to set out to Indian Creek but failed. It was getting late and I would have arrived after dark, which for some reason sounded sub optimal. So I found myself in Durango in the late afternoon, feeling lazy and unsettled. After an hour or so of rut wallowing, everything picked up again when I met Sequoia and Alison at the bar at the Carver Brewery (my favorite Durango haunt). They are both energetic local artists and they invited me to join them in visiting a series of local gallery openings. We spent the rest of the evening touring the galleries, drinking wine and exploring the prolific art world in Durango. Seems to be a theme of my trip thus far.

The next day, feeling much better, I headed out for Indian Creek. Stopping along the way for some roadside coffee in Cortez and a nap at the Dolores Canyon overlook (pictures start in my new smugmug gallery).

The drive to the Creek was beautiful, as everything seems to be around here. Arriving around 4pm, I drove around the valley to get my bearings and find a place to camp. Dan and Tom were the first people I actually talked to, asking about the local situ. Quite generously, they offered to climb with me and invited me back to their spacious campsite as well. I set up my tent next to theirs, broke out the ceremonial beer offering of friendship and sat with them by the campfire joking, telling stories and quoting Seinfeld until bedtime. All was good in good company.

The next morning, we woke shivering to find our water bottles frozen over and frost on the ground. It had been cold in the night. After finally warming up over breakfast, we headed out to the walls. Tom wanted to go check out Pistol-Whipped Wall, expecting the main Supercrack Buttress to be crowded, despite the early hour. Dan and I were both eager to have a go at Supercrack, and to our luck there was no one on it when we drove past. We quickly parked and I ran up ahead with my personal gear to secure the route while Tom and Dan racked up and joined me a few minutes later. No sooner did they arrive, a few other parties showed up on their heels. Klimbing karma was shining on us as we stood, first in line, under the ultra-classic climb that defines Indian Creek.

Tom racked up and lead above Dan's belay as I taped and psyched myself up. After Tom cruised the route, Dan announced it was my turn. I tied into the top rope that Tom had left and started up. The first section is the 5.10+ 20' pillar corner with small hands and a manky bit at the top before a big ledge. Being on toprope, I just laid back and cruised straight up in style. Had I been leading, it would have been tougher as the gear was fiddly and I probably wouldn't have laybacked-- then again, I may have just run it out and called it bouldering.

Above the pillar is a 20' section of perfect Scott-hands to a mini-roof/bulge. That section went really solid and easy. After the bulge, the crack widens to big hands and got much harder. Using cupped hands tired me quickly and I had to hang-dog several times to make it to the top. In retrospect, I could have done better if I relaxed more and used the bomber feet to rest before each move. Considering that I flail up the 25' 5.8 at the gym, I was pretty fucking happy to get to the top of Supercrack. After he lowered me down, it was my turn to belay Dan who charged up to the wide section and then very generously rested on the rope a few times to make me feel better.

After Supercrack, we moved down the road and found the lovely Chicks on Crack camped out beneath the other famous-classic Incredible Hand Crack (5.10c). Not wanting to pass up a chance to embarrass ourselves in front of the ladies, we decided to climb it. IHC follows a Scott-sized perfect hand crack for 95' along a left facing dihedral. The crux is a gentle 5' roof about half way up. Tom lead in sweet form and soon enough it was my turn to follow. This time, the hands were perfect all the way through and I took it a bit easier. By the end, I was thinking and moving more deliberately and I really felt the difference. I did hang once, after I flubbed the start of the roof, but I took a good breath and started over and went right up. The top section has some really cool face holds, too that added a fun dimension-- right hand and foot in the crack, left hand and foot on the face.

After I was done, I belayed Dan, and this time he went straight to the top with no trouble, making the roof look easy. With long drives home awaiting them, Dan and Tom decided to take off. We exchanged emails and talked about the possibility of doing some ice climbing when I come back through the area in January. I am uber-appreciative of those guys for taking me under their wing and giving me the quintessential Indian Creek Experience.

With one more climb in me, the Chicks on Crack were generous enough to let me use their rope and Victoria of Denver belayed me up Twin Cracks (5.9). It's a short route which can be climbed using either or both of the two cracks that lead 40' to the anchor. I tried both cracks, thanked Victoria for the belay and called it a day.

I hitched a ride with some friendly Colorado Springers back to my camp near Newspaper Rock, packed up and hit the road. I had been considering camping out in some of the desert canyons to the southwest of Indian Creek, but I was beat and not looking forward to another frozen night outside. Seeking a more social atmosphere, I drove an hour north to Moab, checked into the Lazy Lizard hostel (for a bargain $9 a night!) and headed to the brewery for some meat and beer.

Today is cloudy and chilly and chill. I'll probably spend a night or two more here before I set out to the Rockies to visit Greg.

My first real autumn in six years

2005-11-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me, as I sat this morning, eating my breakfast on the banks of the Animas River here in downtown Durango, that this trip has gifted me with my first proper autumn since I left St. Louis. The trees are turning and the leaves are falling and the breeze leaves you cold when the sun isn't directly on you.

I spent Tuesday night camped out above Jacks Canyon and woke the next morning to find no fellow climbers. Partnerless, I decided to go down and check out the canyon anyway at least for the hike and scenery. As is ridiculously common for me, I completely botched the approach and wound up bushwhacking (i.e., massively contributing to erosion) into the canyon. Disoriented, I wound up hiking the wrong way through the canyon, along the river bed. Along the way, I was cursing Jacks Canyon as just some BS backwater climbing hole for folks that can't be bothered to drive to a proper crag. I worked my way along, from wall to wall,fighting thorny plants that leave microscopic tines in your skin that I named Deathbush, and many varieties of bristly stuff that left my fleece covered in brambles (I collectively named those Crapplant).

After getting fed up at finding cliffs with no recognizable routes or bolts, I decided to climb back out of the canyon and work my way back to camp. I had hiked up the canyon pretty far so it took me a while to find camp again, all the while still completely turned around. When I got back, I check the clock and found that I had been out for 3.5 hours and probably covered 5 miles or so.

I had a nice lunch back at the car and consulted the guidebook. I realized my error and this time found the much more obvious trail that I had completely missed earlier. Much to my embarrassment, the rim of the canyon was literally 1 minute walk from the campsite, where it had taken me 10 minutes earlier. I walked down into the canyon on the good trail and 5 minutes later found myself amongst some really quality rock. Not having a partner, I just checked out some routes, and bouldered a little bit on the starts. I found some of the 10a, 10b starts to be manageable for my level.

I should mention that the conditions in the canyon were perfectly in line with my autumn theme. The trees were peaking yellow and orange and the air was crisp and breezy. I sat in the canyon for an hour or so reading and writing, soaking it all in. Pictures are up on the smugmug gallery, I need to adjust the contrast at some point, but I think you'll get the idea.

Leaving the canyon, I decided it was time to move on, so I packed up and headed out to Albuquerque. The drive went smoothly and scenic-ly and I rolled up to Rob's house around 7:30. Rob took me and his GF Erica to dinner at an excellent New Mexican restaurant and I found myself really enjoying the company of a familiar face for the first time in a week. The next morning, after a slow start, Rob and I got breakfast and tried to take the tram up Sandia Peak, but it was closed. Instead, we had lunch (and the best Mac and Cheese I've ever had) and chatted until it was time for him to go to work. I took my leave very grateful for his hospitality and headed to the climbing gym in ABQ to get a workout. Climbed for a few hours and then hit the road for the easy drive up to Durango. Rolling into town, I got that giddy happy feeling of coming to a familiar place after a long absence. This is my fourth trip or so to Durango and I keep finding myself happily back here. This feeling is keen in my mind as I consider where I might wash up when my travels are over.

This afternoon, I'm going to start driving up to Indian Creek. Matt at the climbing shop said that there should be plenty of friendly climbers out there this weekend for me to hook up with. I'd like to get in this evening so that I can get a campsite established and be ready to go tomorrow. After getting thoroughly spanked on the cracks there for a few days, I'll think I'll go out to some of the desert canyons nearby and get some hiking in while my mangled hands heal. After that, it's up to Moab, which will be my next opportunity to contact the outside world.

Till, then, then.

Blogging on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

2005-11-01T18:03:00.000-08:00

I got seven empty days on my mind.... I started driving north on Sunday, and later that day, I finally mapped out all the destinations I want to hit before I arrive in NY for Thanksgiving. I found out that I had about 7 extra days! So I'm still here in Arizona, taking my time.

Saturday night, I hit up the Halloween weekend action of Tucson. I finally settled at the goth club Asylum where the music was good for dancing and I fit in the best in my velvet vampire costume (the best I could do considering my limited wardrobe.) I danced a ton and met some locals and wound up at 3am at their house playing Playstation, eating rice and drinking Schlitz. I finally made it back to the hostel at 5am, only to be woken up at 8:30 by the breakfast commotion. I was a bit tired. . .

Got my act together, did some laundry and made it out of the hostel just in time for the mandatory checkout at 11am. After finally rolling out of Tucson, I tried to avoid the interstate by taking Route 77 north. I was contemplating how tired I was when, as if in a magical vision, a sign came over the horizon. It was small, green and said simply:

Biosphere2 20 miles

A forgotten childhood dream of visiting the Biosphere reemerged! The miles melted as I approached the facility-- fully expecting to be completely disappointed. Thankfully, the tour proved to be more than I expected. Turns out that research was suspended 2 years ago when the grant money ran out. As sad as that is (and it will be sadder still if they don't get new funding and have to shut down the facility), the upside is that visitors actually get to tour the inside of the Biosphere2. I was glad to see that they didn't shy away from explaining the Biosphere's controversial history, and awed by the behind the scenes tour of what makes the facility run. If you're ever near Tucson, go.

After the Biosphere, I was elated but pooped, so when I rolled into the grubby mining town of Globe and found a relatively clean motel room for $21, I decided to call it a night-- having traveled just 100 miles from Tucson. I spent a few hours eating dinner and beer at Kelly's Broad Street Brewery in the derelict downtown strip (interestingly, I don't think they actually brew beer at the brewery). Dinner, however, was very good and Kelly, the owner was friendly. I passed the time learning Spanish from a Michel Thomas kit that Rich gave me. Holy crap, I can speak Spanish! His course actually lives up to the hype.

Crashed out back at the motel, actually watched an episode of Smallville for the first time. It's a soap opera for geeks that aren't nerdy enough for Star Trek, complete with scenery melting dialogue.

Woke up yesterday semi-refreshed from a sleep lulled by the soothing sound of interstate commerce a mere 10 feet from my room window. Grogilly, I had breakfast at the local elderly infested diner and set off toward Jerome. Ohhhh, Jerome!

Coming up from Cottonwood, you don't expect much, but then as you come around the bend, a small mountain side town appears a la Italy. Jerome is known for its resident artists, and didn't disappoint from my first moments in town. I pulled off at the first gallery, the enormous old hospital that now houses the studio of Robin John Anderson and his wife Margo Mandette. While I was wandering around (and looking at 12' paintings going for $12,000), Robin found me and invited me upstairs to watch him "bite his new etching". An hour later, we concluded our teriffic conversation about his art and my travels and I left feeling very welcome in Jerome.

Next, I popped in to the old high school that had been converted into a set of open studios and found a similarly engaging experience with the artists there (who will please excuse me if I'm forgetting their names at the moment. I'll update this entry when I get it sorted out).

With the sun setting across the valley on the red towers above Sedona, I wound up into downtown, enjoyed a great burger and margaritas and relaxed into the evening. Fed and full, I headed up the hill to the forest service roads to pitch my tent on the slopes of Mt Mingus amongst the pines at about 7500'. I went back to town and checked out the big Halloween party at the Grand Hotel for a few hours before getting tired and going back up to my tent and my first good night's sleep in days.

This morning, I took a little autumnal hike to the Mt Mingus peak and enjoyed the perfect crisp weather-- the breeze would have been too cold if not for the bright sun on my skin and clothes. Back in Jerome, I visited some more local galleries, and while particlarly admiring some striking works at that artists's co-op, the artist himself wandered into the gallery. R.V. Lovelace was very friendly, and again I found myself talking for 30 minutes or so with the actual authority. Jerome affords unique oppotunities. I purchased some of Lovelace's prints and a painted agave Paho mask for my folks.

Finally, on my way out of town, I stopped in at the outfitter's shop and asked about local climbing areas. Morgan, the proprietor (in what had become typical Jerome fashion), spent the next 20 minutes with me divulging all sorts of secrets on climbing areas and hidden camping spots throughout the region. On his advice, I decided to call Rob and postpone my arrival in ABQ so that I might spend the next day or two at the acclaimed, yet still unpopular climbing area of Jacks Canyon. 30 miles south of Winslow, AZ where I sit now, having spent waay too much money on a splendid meal of perfectly cooked Elk loin, roasted southwest vegetables, bean and corn soup, perfect vanilla ice cream and a double Grey Goose on the rocks. Shortly I'll drive down to the camp at the Canyon, pitch my tent and start the process of bartering cold beer for climbing partners. Life is tough.

A train rolls by here every few minutes

2005-10-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Not fake commuter trains either-- trains of commerce. Long trains that rumble by for minutes.

Made it in to Tucson yesterday afternoon. All is good. Went out on the town last night, drank too much, met lots of friendly locals, heard some good local music in the form of Bob Log III, The Voodoo Organist (Tucson seems to have a thing for alternative one-man bands...), and Peachcake- all of whom were quality and energetic.

Tonight are the big Halloween parties and concerts. Arriving in town without a costume, I stopped by the local quirk shop and picked up sufficient goodies so that I can prowl the streets of Tucson as a lounge act vampire.

The numbness of the old routine is still wearing off, but I haven't really settled into my traveling groove yet either. I need to be patient for inspiration.

Otherwise, it's been a good day. Ate a yummy creamcheese and lox omlette for breakfast, got a haircut, hit the climbing gym. I'm chilling out now at the hostel before I go cook dinner (seasoned pan seared chicken and yellow rice). Maybe I'll also get a nap in before I head out tonight.

That's it for now. Tomorrow, I'll either go climbing locally or start driving north. I may stop in Jerome. I hear it's nice. Oh, I've also probably posted some pics of my trip down by now. They're on my smugmug account.

Last post from 689 Roble Ave #3B

2005-10-27T00:46:00.000-07:00

Sleeping on the couch tonight, everything else is gone or packed. Tomorrow, I think I'm heading down to San Diego. I'll call Steve in the morning to see if he's up for company. Friday morning, it's off to Tucson, AZ and I'm excited about staying at the Hotel Congress, it seems like just the quirky kind of place to begin my adventures. It's funny, I wasn't really excited about my trip until I found the Hotel. I think all of the packing these past weeks has really kept me isolated from the emotions of leaving. The odd "this is my last time to xyz" moments have been there, but I haven't been feeling particularly mushy. I'm guessing it will be like my trip to Burning Man-- a few hours out of the Bay Area and all the possibilities will be opening up in front of me, along with the emotional spigots.

Once in Tucson, the plan is to stop by the local independent record shop, maybe one of these places. Some of my favorite music (Gelb, Calexico, Reubens) has come out of Tucson and this first stop is sort of a pilgrimage. I'm hoping that the fellows at the record shops might recommend some good local bands to check out while I'm in town. Sadly, I missed Calexico here by a few weeks. Not sure if I'll actually find good music, but it seems like a worthy quest to begin my journey-- I've never used music as a traveling motivation before.

Wow. 1am already. Time to shut down, read for a bit and get some sleep. Tomorrow I return Dave's truck, put the last things in my car, and drive away.

I bid you goodnight.

PS: One last thing-- the pics from the Karaoke and Wrestling Leisure Club are up on my smugmug account. Sorry about the lack of order and captions. Maybe I'll get around to sorting them out one day. Thanks to dpd, Damien, Jill, Bryan and Liz for providing their pics.

Last post from Cube G1-7

2005-10-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Almost done packing. This is fucking surreal. To all my Cisco compadres who are visiting for the first time, I leave you with this one last nugget of our great fun together.

Am I still blogging?

2005-09-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

Yes! But golly! my mind is full up and it's all coming out in my personal diary right now. Not for public consumption, alas.

The short of it is:

A lotus-eater counter-offer from my bosses that would have sent me to work for a year in Tokyo (all expenses paid) was narrowly dodged.
I'm still leaving Cisco on Oct 7, I'll be on Leave of Absence until early April.
I am feeling more confident than ever in my decision.
Burning Man has given me great new tools for figuring out my shit.
I have accepted an offer to start my international journey mid-december in France for an ice-climbing expedition; to be directly followed by a rock climbing trip in Morocco; tentatively to be followed by skiing in the Alps with any of my friends who want to come along; somehow to be followed by six or so weeks in Australia, surfing, scubaing and hanging with Mike and Anastasia.

Dreaming of Hindustan

2005-09-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

Back from BRC. My eyes are open again. I hope to write more soon. For all of my playa friends who might come along, please drop me an email at:

bloggoscottley.500.scottley@spamgourmet.com