I got Torsten off to a good start on settling in to his new home in New York City. Now it is time to get home! This was the solo drive – so I was both able to go a bit farther/faster and also got to make a few detours. I’ve never been or Oak Ridge – so I stopped for lunch with Bob and Colleen there. I have had a visit to Heavener, OK on my list for a while, so I spent the night there. Hot Spring National Park wasn’t too far out of the way, so that was a great place to stop for an hour or so and get a bike ride in. Mom recommended the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis (the Lorraine Motel) – which was an amazing stop and very worthwhile. I had wanted to pack in several more stops – a night in Cumberland to visit with Heavner family (where the spell and pronounce it correctly! ;), a day (or two) in DC to work and catch up with folks. But I was ready to get home! I did stop through Lubbock, replacing all the thermostats with fancy smart ones. The trip home looked something like:
I spent the nights in Christianburg VA, Nashville TN, Heavener OK, and Lubbock TX. I got some good bike riding in each day along the way – a good way to break it up and get some physical and mental sanity in there.
The visit to the National Civil Rights Museum was fantastic – I can’t recommend it enough. An amazingly powerful museum and great display and journey. Seeing Dr. King’s room was beyond words.
A stop through Hot Springs National Park was fun. This national park was quite different from any other I’ve visited – the history here was interesting and visiting the old baths was wild. It felt a bit more “disney” than other parks (even Yellowstone), but there was a nice bike ride through:
The visit through (and overnight at) Heavener was fantastic. I loved it. The Hodler Hotel was great. Heavener is very much a railroad town and was fun to visit. I found a good alternate place to spend the night:
I visited the Heavener Runestone park – whether or not the Vikings made it to Oklahoma, the park was nice and a good morning bike ride (plenty of up! but a good place to enjoy my donuts from the Donut Palace).
Heavener is a train town (reminded me a bit of Cumberland!) – even though they spell and pronounce it (Heavner) incorrectly), this was still a good place for a pleasant bike ride.
I stopped by the library – they were so friendly and fantastic! It was great to get a little insight into family history. Heavener roots in Bedford PA. The first mayor of Heavener was Mat – I’m just making up the story that he swapped a “t” (in Matt) out for the “e” (stuck in the middle of Heavener)… 😉 The documents I found in the Heavener library indicated that there was some misinformation that Mat was the first postmaster, but actually his wife was the postmaster and he was the mayor. The folks at the library were awesome – but they tried to correct me on the pronunciation.. It was a Saturday, so their boss wasn’t around – and she was a true Heav(e)ner. I’d like to go back and visit the area some more – great place and more history to explore.
After (not enough!) time in Heavener, I went to Oklahoma City to visit Prairie Brewing for lunch – also on the life list to visit. There was good food (but the Hot Chopsticks just barely got my order done before they closed early for Lunar New Year – thank you!) and good tasters of beer and good beers to take home.
with a little taste of Escher for the IKEA instructions earlier on this trip… ?
After a (too short!) visit / overnight in Lubbock, the only real weather of the trip hit – a nice winter snowstorm (it was really coming down when I left Lubbock) meant that I went a bit south (via Roswell instead of the normal Clovis route)..
But… I made it home! Great drive and great to be home:
After the epic drive with Torsten, I spent three days in NYC helping Torsten and Alexander move in, find furniture, (begin to) explore the neighborhood, and even got to enjoy the big city a bit. Critical facts: 4th floor. No elevator.
We started to unpack and took a stroll around the neighborhood – found ice cream/waffles/smoothies and laundromat all on the same block:
We made one run to IKEA to get a few essentials, got them setup, and then were all exhausted. I did get up early to I could ride all the way down the River Trail (super nice! From 168th down to Battery Park and on around a bit, then back), and had to see the little red lighthouse!
Parking in the city was both not totally horrible and also totally insane! Here’s our car (in the middle) –
We did the serious IKEA trip (yikes!) – started out and paced ourselves:
Ended up completely (over)stuffed in the car and exhausted – success!
We did some unpacking, lots of assembly – IKEA directions are great:
It was an epic road trip to help Torsten move to New York City (Manhattan, specifically Washington Heights). We all helped Torsten prepare and pack. We took the seats out of the Pilot and packed it full. There was a tiny bit of space on top for my bike, no way we could fit anything or anyone else, so Carrie and Aven couldn’t join in on this epic road trip.
Day 1 and we made it to Lubbock, a nice easy 6 hour drive. Nice weather, good driving, and good chatting – off to a good start and we got to stay with Grams!
We drove, stopped for tacos, Thai food, burgers, a few other meals, gas, and … that was about it! We had several ideas of interesting stops, but Torsten was ready to get to NYC. I wanted to take a break in St. Louis to go up the Arch, but the fog didn’t cooperate:
We spent the nights in Lubbock, Joplin MO, Greenfield IN, and Bethlehem PA. We did do a slight detour and stopped at the Flight 93 memorial near Somerset PA (really good stop). Our drive looked something like this:
And really the only pictures I got were when we filled up the gas tank:
We did get a picture at each state border to text to Carrie to keep her up to date. But we made it to New York City and found Alexander and Torsten’s new home!
RIP Suka. Today was her last day with us. What a great adventure over the last 16+ years and what a great part of our family. A small part of the adventure at Suka’s photo memorial.
Aimee, Steve, Maya, and Ian Price suggested going over to Chaco Canyon on the Long Indigenous Peoples / Columbus Day weekend. We’ve been wanting to do that trip, so this sounded perfect! Manesh, Drew, and Aimee’s folks were also part of the trip.
Chaco Canyon is truly amazing, we recommend it (and would love to go back with you!). The recent High Country News article “We traveled 2,000 miles to save Chaco Canyon” is a good reminder that more of our heritage needs protecting.
We left Los Alamos as soon as school was out on Friday. We drove out NM-126 past Fenton Lake, through Seven Springs, and out NM 126 into Cuba – the road was a bit rough for a few miles, but overall it was in great shape. And a beautiful drive!
We drove on out NM-550 and had no problem finding Chaco Canyon (plenty of road signs). The final couple of miles of road were pretty rough (~ 5 miles of dirt road, maybe 1 mile of really washboard road – no bad ruts). We pulled into the campground and were happy to see our friends. We setup camp and got settled in. We brought the hammock (and hammock stand – no trees…) and that was quite the hit. We had a good campfire and enjoyed the amazing stars. We did bring bikes – other than Aven riding around the camp area a bit, we didn’t use them much. Biking could have been fun, but we ran out of time! Here are a few photos from around camp:
Camp panorama and some nice sunsets:
We enjoyed camp in the morning, but rallied for a group hike. We had several good adventures exploring the area – what an amazing site. I’m really glad it is a UNESCO World Heritage site! The ruins in the area are simply fantastic and well worth exploring. We love Bandelier and Mesa Verde, but this is a different scale / experience.
Amazing ruins:
We had several good hikes. Here’s the hiking gang:
Heading up the stairs / crack behind Kin Kletso to be up on the canyon. Look for the crazy kids (and crazy adults!) charging ahead:
And… up on the canyon and hiking to the Pueblo Alto Complex.
The next day we went out towards Casa Casita and Penasco Blanco. The rain clouds on the horizon did end up raining on us. We split off from the group and turned back to head home.
Rock love – could Aven be a future Geologist?
On the way back out, just in front of Kin Kletso
We were all packed up, but had some time and decided the rain wasn’t too threatening, so we went back through the Lybrook Badlands (amazing, highly recommended, but also, be prepared/warned! I recorded our drive and hike with Strava and we drove a 30% grade, single-wide, dirt road that would be unpassable (slick clay) in rain. We had no problem in our Honda Pilot, but we were close to the edge of too much.
Danger!
And two badland panos:
We drove on out, got back on NM-550, and then decided to take NM-96 back north of the Jemez (instead of through) and enjoyed the scenery of La Jara, Galena, Coyote (and of course, a stop at Bode’s in Abiquiu). Great weekend adventure, and just a taste of exploring the area!
Los Alamos asked me to go up to Fairbanks to help represent the lab for the DOE National Lab Day. When purchasing tickets, I found it was only an extra $20 to go up a few days early and spend the weekend in Juneau. It was a fantastic visit in all ways except two – Carrie, Torsten, and Aven didn’t also come, and I didn’t get to see everyone that I’d wanted to reconnect with.
I always love flying across the Western United States on a clear day – looking out over beautiful geology and scenery is a great way to think about deep time and reconnect with the beauty of the planet. I got to Seattle and managed to squeeze in a nice lunch and catch-up with Ben – bonus and a great start to the trip! (And it was Seattle, so we had to find a Starbucks logo..)
I got into Juneau and met Chip at the airport. After a brief settling in, we went over to Hot Bites for some chow – fish and chips and an Atomic Fireball Shake at the Hot Bite!! YEAH! We caught up with Sherry and plans started clarifying.
There was a whale watching fundraiser (for the Alaska Society for Marine Mammalogy Student Chapter) so Chip and I went out – nice small boat and WOW, what a welcome to Juneau. We went out to Favorite Reef in some clouds and drizzle, but there were between one and two dozen orcas out scattered around. Young, older, and just swimming around. One younger orca even treated us to a quick spy hop. And there were a number of humpback whales around as well. Great crew – a bunch of science nerds and Juneautopians.
What a nice welcome! The next morning I caught up with the Kleins at GonZo (since GonZo doesn’t open until 9am, first I had to go by the valley Heritage coffee shop!). GonZo has amazing waffles for breakfast and it was so good to catch up with friends and see how Garret is growing up! From there it was down to Breeze Inn (ahh..) to pick up a sandwich and then go get a tour of the UAS marine bio research facility (thanks Sherry!). Sherry, a few folks from her research team, Chip, Missy, Adelie, and I then went out the road to do a hike out to Cowee Creek cabin. The waterfalls were all going off – a great sight for someone from the arid southwest and a great memory from living there!
Then we stopped to watch another humpback swimming around Sunshine Cove! Great drive out. The hike was a bit wet, but most of us had all the right gear (a few folks had to put up with wet feet..). Laura Hosey was part of a group staying at the cabin (great to see friends all over the area!!) and we did the hike out to the south end of Berner’s Bay and sat down to have lunch on the big beach log there. I saw bald eagles in the trees and then.. we saw a brown bear just down the beach!! I think Sherry had the fancy camera to get a few good photos, but she hasn’t shared those yet.. We decided not to hike around Point Bridget (in the direction of the bear) to go over to Blue Mussel, but had a wonderful hike out (and saw a porcupine on the way out!).
What another fantastic power-Juneau day, but not over yet! First I had to go wander around by the Mendenhall Visitor’s Center, just in case the visit got away from me – change is obvious, especially looking at the pictures from when we first moved up there in 2004!)
Definitely not the same angle, so hard to compare – but the change in Torsten is obvious! 😉
I went downtown to meet a few friends for dinner, but first, before dinner, walking around downtown Juneautopia, I ran into Adrienne and Ganesha – a good catch up over some good Heritage coffee. (And got some scoop from Adrienne on her work at the brewery – there’s more on this great Juneau afternoon interview! ) Then I went over and met Cathy (Tide), Brian, Cathy (Connor), and Rod for dinner at Deckhand Daves (yum!!!) and more good catching up. Then we went up to The Narrows – fancy, fancy and not the Juneau I remember! What a hip spot! Then it was getting late and time to hit the sack.
Another day, another adventure. boating, crabbing, or hiking were all options, but the water and weather weren’t especially promising. The crabbing got delayed, and the boaters were sleeping in, so I went to Breeze Inn (yum!) and then went out West Glacier trail – what a change! There is much more traffic out that way – the trail is in great shape. And the access is a bit of scrambling, but really good to get back around. The early part of the hike is the familiar lovely rainforest.
I didn’t go all the way over to it, but it was great to see the old seamonster glacier front weather station and camera location! It has changed – much greener!
Then I hiked on up to the ice – it was amazing to seeing the changes. The glacier is almost out of the lake…
Here is the strava route – downloadable gpx if you really want.
After a good Mendenhall adventure, I caught up with Chip and Missy a bit more and then went back downtown, first for some tea and more catching up with Cathy and Rod. I stopped by Alaska Robotics (sad/great postcard “Mendenhall Glacier – it used to be bigger”) and then went over and enjoyed some fantastic salmon with Eran, Sonia, and the girls. More catching up with Chip and Missy then time to hit the hay. An early morning airport departure from Juneau and … on to Fairadise!
Monday was beautiful – I decided I definitely needed a bike for the week, so went over to Alaska Canoe to rent a Kona Wu fatbike. (Goldstream doesn’t start renting until June 1, the UAF Green bikes was closed, and Beaver Sports doesn’t rent bikes..). After getting the bike, I explored some trails, went by Hoodoo (they were closed..) then went out around Goldstream Valley (ran into friends, Dave and ) buying a new bike. I went on by Ivory Jacks to pick up some beer to take over to dinner at Bob and Rachel’s – fantastic food and catching up with friends! And then a bike ride over Goldstream back to Don & Anne’s for a good sleep.. Here’s the strava link for D/A’s to B/R’s – the long way (and via Hoodoo).
It was time for Lab Days to kick off. It was a good event, with lots of good presentations from all the involved folks – policy/legislation (Sen. Murkowski), the labs (14 lab leaders on a big panel about “What is a lab?”) and then the best panel ever (I co-chaired it with Bob McCoy), UAF faculty and administrators, native corporations, locals, Alaskan small businesses.. (And, during a lunch break, the best lab booths ever!! Cathy Wilson and I were working the table and had good discussion with several UAF folks and a few small business people. No pictures…) Lab Days was fun, there were friends from other labs and also out from DC (great to finally catch up with Chris in Alaska – we talked about trying to do that the whole time we were at OSTP together!) who were all good to catch up with, along with all the UAF friends.
After all the Lab Days fun, we did go out to the Army Corps/CREL Permafrost Tunnel – a really amazing look at what permafrost really looks like below and why, as it melts, there is some much collapse of the land around Fairbanks. It is large ice wedges and lots of silt – not much structural integrity in that!
After a fantastic dinner/reception and catching up with UAF folks, I ran by and got to catch up w/ a few Talus types – no Peter, but great to see Sara and the kids!!!
How did it get to be Friday already?!?! I had a few UAF meetings to follow up on Lab Days, but got those all taken care of in the morning, so I took the afternoon and did a bike ride around Goldstream, “lunch” at Ivory Jacks, then on up Murphy dome. I found snow (June 1, biking on snow – success!!!!) and some Aven flowers popping up – wahoo!! Lots of fun, some scattered rain (but nothing bad), plenty of good bike leans (below) and I got back to Don & Anne’s house for a fantastic dinner and catch up with Martin, Dana, Don, Anne, Curt, Alice, Bob, and families. Fun to see everyone!
Finally, ready to be home but also sad to leave – what a fantastic week! It is 1 am on Saturday morning and time to liftoff.. Thank you for a real good time!
We were looking for a Spring Break adventure for our last spring living on the East Coast. After looking at several options, we’ found two free tickets, and one cheap mileage ticket on Iceland Air through their partnership with Alaska Airlines. It was less expensive than going back to New Mexico! We got recommendations from Jessica, played with different options (road warrior tour around ring road / the whole island?) – we decided to explore the area around Reykjavik and keep our plans loose. We had a hotel reservation in Reykjavik the first night, a rental car reserved, but otherwise used airBnB and followed our nose (and the Lonely Planet guidebook). We had a fantastic visit! First, here’s a map showing some of the spots we visited. We want to get back to explore more, but again – it was a perfect (first) visit.
We had a direct flight from Dulles (~8pm) to Keflavik (~7am). We picked up bags, cleared customs, picked up the rental car, and hit the road – first to breakfast in Keflavik. Then we drove around the Southwest corner of Iceland, went by the Blue Lagoon briefly (but it was booked solid), explored the geology, and then went to Hafnarfjordur for lunch (at the Bike Cave) and then to the public pool for a soak – this was perfect!
One fun stop was at Midlina, where the North American and European techtonic plates meet – we enjoyed a quick hike and exploration there:
We went over and met Tolly for dinner – it was a fantastic reunion with a friend from Fairbanks / grad school! It was so good to catch up, and over a delicious, home cooked salmon dinner!!!
What a fantastic first day!
On day two, we ran a few errands (car snacks, warm rain gear for the kids, …) and saw a few highlights of Reykjavik-the Saga Museum was a great history and we enjoyed dressing up:
We loved visiting The Living Art Museum in the Marshall House.
From Reykjavik we went East – our first stop was at Laugarvatn Fontana – an amazing resort hot springs on the side of the lake. We all enjoyed the soak and the meal. Aven & Matt jumped in (and quickly got out of!) the lake.
Next, we went to the AirBnB provided house – with a perfect cubby/attic/bed for the kids. It was so comfortable to explore the farms in the area, Geysir, and more hot springs.
We fell in love with the Efstidalur farm – fresh ice cream, lots of animals, friendly people, fun pets (parrots!) – we visited several times!! I’m a little surprised that Aven isn’t still there at the farm!
We went out to Geysir (the one from which all others are named?) – it was a fun visit and Aven and Matt walked around so they got drenched – it was one of many fun moments! We continued our tour of rivers, waterfalls (both Gullfoss and Seljalandsfoss), more hot springs (Secret Lagoon hot spring in Flúðir), and our final evening was at an (airBnB) farm stay with a horse ride!
We visited Sólheimajökull which really reminded us of Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau – ah, fond memories.
We went to Vik and as soon as we turned the corner we were in a blizzard and a taste of winter weather. We stopped for lunch and turned around.
We had so much fun getting a small taste of Iceland. We definitely want to go back for more!!
After we landed in Keflavik (near Reykjavik), our first stop was at Hafnir.
The sign struck my fancy:
But upon returning, I became even more curious. There are some ruins of a settlement at Hafnir that date to between 770 and 880 – the earliest indication of settlers in Iceland. See the 2011 article at the Iceland Review.
Hafnir was also quite close to the bridge over the North American and European continents, so we enjoyed exploring that geological rift. A tiny bit more info is at this page.
Uncle Ron – have you run into any Hafnir’s in the family ancestry??
Last Sunday, I got the message that I was off the waitlist and into the White Mountains 100 race. This is one of my favorite events in one of my favorite places. I took a look at the weather and found a mileage plane ticket up for less than $20. I check with Carrie who said go for it (awesome!!) and how could I refuse. Don/Anne offered up a place to stay and car to borrow, Bob offered the use of his bike (same one I used for the last two WM100 rides). It was all coming together. I was most worried about my lack of cold weather acclimation. (Adam gave the good advice – come back with 10 toes, all attached and working.) I got everything together, enjoyed the flight up, got a pick up from the airport from Curt and then gathered fuel and chemical warming packs (along with special heat foot liners, etc). I was as ready as I was going to get (without shelling out significant $$ for fancy footwear, etc.). Here I am lined up for the start (it was around 5F, I think):
The start was festival, everyone staying warm and rarin’ to go. Just to prove that I am not the only crazy psyched-up person at the race (I’m in the background right of this photo):
You can see that I was proudly representing the Tarik Saleh bike club (zoom in on the handlebars if you can’t see it):
The trail was great, the sunrise and then blue skies were fantastic, and I love seeing everyone out there ready to enjoy the White Mountains. I felt great, adjusting (removing) layers — except my feet were getting chilly. I stopped, put in some chemical warmers, threw on gators/layers, which helped, but not for long. I enjoyed the ride but was beginning to worry. The challenge is that the true requirement to finish the race is mental, so I couldn’t let myself start worrying too much. But I also did not want to loose any toes. The scenery was beautiful but as I got closer to the first check point (~17 miles in) my feet were too cold for so early in the race – I was already reaching into my bag of warm tricks. And with my pace, I was looking at the lowest elevation overnight – potentially -30F. If I were out on my own, I would have turned back. I was happy to see Bob, Jill, Patrik, Larry, and Michael at checkpoint 1 – I put on my heavy over-boots and warmed up my feet for almost an hour. My feet were warm to the touch, but I could not feel a few of my right toes. The temperature was still rising (it was about noon now, and my mental plan was to charge on through checkpoint 1 at about 10am..) I went back about half a mile to the cabin, put a new log in the fire, and decided to give it more time. After almost another hour, I decided that I would try riding out on my own, so as the checkpoint crew came to eat lunch and pack up the cabin, I went out.
Here is where the story takes a (very minor) “bad decision tree” (ala the Mountaineers disaster stories). A large group of snow machiners had come by after the race was all through and tore up the trail – I cruised along, let out more and more air of the tires, and was eventually pushing the bike back up the hill towards the start line/exit. Was I in that bad of shape and didn’t realize it? I didn’t think so.. Then along came Jeff, Greg, and Josh – they said the trail was torn up for a long while, and I should turn and follow them on the short cut across to the trail shelter cabin – much better riding and just a bit longer back to the start. Who am I to think for myself and ignore Jeff?? (not just any Jeff.. this Jeff). And the checkpoint 1 crew would be coming over to the trail shelter cabin to setup the final (optional) checkpoint for the racers. It made total sense. Anyway, after a mile or two down the Trail Shelter cutoff, I started realizing the bad decision – the race support didn’t know my plans.. They did have my GPS spot tracking at least, but what would they make of it? And perhaps the checkpoint 1 crew would go the “long way” over to the the trail shelter – my original path, to keep an eye on me. Well, I was quite relieved when Patrik (from checkpoint 1) caught up with me!! We loaded up my bike, I hopped on the snow machine, and I thanked him for getting me out of a potentially bad spot/situation. It was all fine, but one or two minor/”reasonable at the time” decisions could have been worse. We cruised along over to the trail shelter cabin and I tried to be helpful in setting up the final check point / support station. We cheered the race front runners coming through. Bob and Larry came over – they had gone the other way, but they were getting low on gas and wanted to meet up with the race sweep/snow machine to refill (and I suspect also keep an eye on me). A little unnecessary drama that all turned out fine (phew). After help Susan and Amanda get all set with the Trail Shelter, Bob, Larry, Patrik and I went on to the start. A few minor trail adventures, including digging snow machines out of the deep off-trail snow, and we were back. I enjoyed a finisher burger and some HooDoo IPA and was happy to see several folks cross the finish line. It was not the day I expected or planned, but it was still a fantastic day in the White Mountains.
I am very appreciated of all the support – Carrie, Fairbanks friends, WM100 staff and volunteers, all the racers, and Adam (for good advice).
I went out to Chena Hot Springs for the healing waters. Ahhhh
And in case you wonder – my feet have no black (or even white) spots. (Three years ago, I had black on the tips of my toes and lost ~3mm off my big toe – likely part of the reason I was more susceptible this year..). It still feels like I have a small rock embedded in two of my toes – I don’t really have feeling back yet in them, but I’ll take good care of them (more hot springs!). I’ve enjoyed catching up with many Fairbanks folks (but I’m sorry I missed so many more!!).
And a final thought from lots of time on the bike seat to think it over – it is often hard to know if you made the right decision but it can be immediately obvious if you made the wrong decision. I didn’t lose any toes and I think that I made mostly all the right decisions.
In a fun coincidence, I just caught up on these NYT and Nature articles about some writing from Winston Churchill on alien life and more generally Churchill’s interest in science. I love the quote from the NYT piece that Churchill “complained to a friend of having to draft the budget instead of reading a book on quantum physics.”
But what makes this really sweet – we’ve recently been on a Doctor Who kick. We started with Season 5 (the internet told me that was a good one to get kids hooked, so far, that’s been true). The third episode of season 5 features…. Winston Churchill!
Extra, extra bonus? After the daleks make the first appearance in season 5, episode 3.. We went to the Lego Batman movie and both kids loved the daleks! (just like the kid in this youtube clip)