The Answer, My Friend

Continuing our story from yesterday...

Saturday morning we woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and ready for a fun day of visiting Anza-Borrego State Park. We had breakfast in our room (since it was a suite, it did have a kitchen, and we did have food for camping), and then drove over to the Visitor's Center. Since we would be camping that evening, we talked at length with a Ranger about some of the back country camping sites around. We were far too rustic to want to camp in the improved campground at the park that would have people who 'camp' in RVs with their satellite TVs and quadrophonic stereos. We wanted a place without picnic tables or water. Cause we're outdoorsy.

We decided on the Culp Valley site, and drove up to pick a site. The campsite sits in a pass at about 3400 ft elevation. When we got there, the wind was blowing pretty steadily at probably about 10 knots or so. We tried to figure out a) which site would give us the best protection from the wind, b) where we were supposed to build a fire (since there was a sign saying you could only build fires in metal containers and there didn't seem to be any metal containers at the campsites) and c) exactly where the heck the campsites were. (It turns out in the desert a campsite looks a lot like a patch of ground with no vegetation.) Finally we chose a site where we could set up our tent next to a tree which we thought (ho HO!) would give us some shelter from the wind. We set up and hurried back down to the Visitor's Center so the Things could participate in the Jr. Ranger program.

For the Jr. Ranger program, they had the kids learn about owl pellets (sort of like cats' furballs, but with bones), and then each kid got to dissect their own pellet, mounting all the little mousie bones on a sheet of card stock with glue. It sounded like a lot of fun, but parents weren't allowed in. Sweetie and I browsed the museum and watched the short film while the Things Rangered. They emerged about an hour later with a shiny metal badge and their mouse bone collage (which we were quite sure would not survive the trip home). Thing 2 was particularly pleased because he found FIVE shoulder blades.

After a quick picnic lunch, we headed out on the Borrego Palms Canyon hike, which Sweetie has covered quite nicely in her hiking blog, so I won't go into detail, other than to say it was quite pleasant, and we did meet our goal of seeing many desert wildflowers.

It was with some tired Things that we returned to the car and headed up the rise to the campsite. The wind had picked up some, so now it was probably around 15 knots, and it was getting dark and chilly. We didn't have a table at the campsite, so we cooked in the back of the car (with the hatchback open). We did a ground turkey lettuce wrap, which was pretty good, but sand was starting to blow around, so sometimes a little crunchy. We decided to just head into the tent after dinner. Having neglected to bring cards, we ended up reading and the Things played with their new puppets they bought at the Park, Hootie (an owl) and Jake Fuzzy Nelson (a coyote). About 8pm we decided to call it a night.

The winds were howling. The tree was not much help. Some of the tent stakes were pulled from the ground. It was loud. I was having trouble falling asleep, as was Sweetie and the Things. The Things were worried the tent would blow away. Sweetie was concerned how the morning would go. I, on the other hand, tried to construct in my head a scenario in which we would need to evacuate during the night: a tear forms in the tent (maybe from a branch of the tree?), the wind proceeds to tear the tent to shreds, and there we are trying to pack our gear in the dark in the wind to find shelter elsewhere. That didn't come to pass, but it was fun to worry about while my sleeping pad (which didn't hold air) deflated. At one point I thought to myself, "well, maybe it's close to dawn and this night is nearly over." I looked at my watch - 12:40am. The wind was still howling (the next day I looked it up - 20 knot sustained, 40 knot gusts), my pad was flat, and I was worried the boys were either cold, or had snuggled into their sleeping bags because they were cold and were slowly suffocating. I get this from my father. Finally, around 1:30, the winds died down some and I got some sleep.

I'll quit here for today and finish up tomorrow.

A Simple Plan

I don't know how many of you have seen the movie A Simple Plan, but the story goes something like this: three guys find airplane wreckage in the woods with a bag full of cash. They decide to sit on the money until spring, and then split it and move away from the small town they live in. Unfortunately, the 'simple plan' goes wrong because, well, people are greedy and stupid, and $4M makes you kinda paranoid. In the end, everyone is either dead or unhappy, and the money is up in smoke, so it was all for nothing.

Now, what does this have to do with our camping trip to Anza-Borrego State Park? Well, we did find a plane wreck full of cash... No, not really. We did have a simple plan for a nice weekend, which sort of spiraled down into a suburbanite survival adventure. Let me explain.

Sweetie thought it would be nice over Spring Break to head out to the desert while the flowers were still blooming to see, well, all the pretty flowers blooming. Being the hardy variety of suburbanite, we decided it would be fun to camp. I should note that the last time we camped in the desert, it was 118F when we arrived. We cleverly were planning our trip in a cooler period of the year, so we did not anticipate a repeat of that experience. The plan was to go over to the mainland on the Friday boat (arriving around 2pm), drive out to ABSP, camp Friday night, see the park Saturday, camp Saturday night, do a longish hike Sunday, camp Sunday night, drive to the Salton Sea Monday morning to do some birding, and then drive back to San Pedro.

Logistics for a camping trip, when the first part of the trip is 'Get on a boat', are a little more complicated. While we would be car camping, the car would be our tiny Prius, which doesn't hold much more than the four of us and a cooler. So we pulled the car topper we used for our Trek Across America (see my July 2007 blog postings) out of the shed, filled it with camping goodies, and we were on our way.

The boat trip was uneventful. I spent most of it talking to some colleagues who had been out on the island for a meeting I had organized, the Things were in the wheelhouse learning how to use the radar, sonar and AIS software. (Capt Trevor was very patient.) We arrived, hauled all our gear to the car, and managed to squeeze it all in. We had two stops to make before leaving, one to the apartment to drop off a bag for the post-trip activities (doctor and dentist appointments for the boys) and the other to REI to pick up our new GPS unit. So we got a later start than planned for.

We took the 91 east, not running into serious traffic until we were approaching Riverside. I don't know why there's always such bad traffic around Riverside. Who in their right mind would want to live out there? (And commute into LA, I mean.) This reminds me of the people who live in Hagerstown and commute to DC, except there's like a million more of them. Anyway, we had dinner in Corona, hoping some of the traffic would clear up, which it did, some. We then headed south on 15.

When we hit Temecula, I had no idea it was the last bastion of civilization, so I neglected to fuel up. Forty minutes later, with at least forty minutes still ahead of us to get to the park, we were on our last bar of gas, and in the middle of nowhere. Sweetie and I began to get anxious, which started making the Things anxious. Night was now falling, and we were feeling less and less enthusiastic about camping. After passing through one 'town' (Santa Ysabel, which, to my knowledge, consists of one 'Resort' and one gas station that closes at 6pm), we were losing the last of our optimism. Fortunately, a few miles down the road we ran into Julian. Not some guy, a town named Julian (elev. 4200 ft). They had an open gas station. Hooray! Crisis averted. We could now get to someplace to sleep for the night.

Wait a minute. We were in a cute little town (in some creepy fog that had rolled in). Why not stay there? So we browsed around for a hotel. The one hotel on the main street was full, and the other 'inns' appeared to be more of the bed & breakfast variety that don't appreciate last-minute arrivals. So we took an absolutely insane road (Rt. 78 - more like skiing slalom (and dropping like a stone) than driving for the first 4 miles and then straight as an arrow for the next 4 - after that I guess it's creativity is spent and it turns into a normal road) down to Borrego Springs (elev. 600 ft). On the plus side, Sweetie and I spotted a spotted skunk, which was gorgeous; on the minus side, the Things were extremely anxious about not finding a hotel. At this point it was about 10pm. Finally, we did find a room at Staunlands Resort Inn and Suites, which was reasonably cheap, but stretched the definition of both 'Resort' and 'Suite' (and perhaps 'Staunland'). It had beds though, so everyone in our car was happy.

Well, I'm exhausted, and we haven't even really started yet. More tomorrow!

What life on the island can be

Frequently, I feel like I talk about the struggles or downsides of living on the island. Today I want to talk about a Good Weekend.

For me it started Friday afternoon, drinking a few beers on a good friend's deck which overlooks Big Fisherman Cove. It was a perfect, clear, sunny day, the beer was cold, the conversation was satisfyingly interesting. Very nice.

Saturday, the Things and I worked on building these treasure chest kits they got for Christmas (thanks, Aunt T!). We'd been painting the pieces all week, and finally were at assembly stage. After some gluing and hammering, they were mostly together by lunchtime. That evening, we got a neighbor, PK, to look after the boys for an hour so Sweetie and I could have dinner out by ourselves. We went...to the restaurant, but it was still nice to not have to deal with kid issues. When we got home, PK stuck around for wine and conversation, which was also quite pleasant.

While we were at the restaurant, we ran into a friend who invited the Things over to play with her son on Sunday. Sweetie and I decided we'd do some Thing-free hiking on the West End while they were there. So Sunday morning we had breakfast, got our hiking stuff together and drove out to Howland's to drop the boys off. It was another gorgeous day - warm in the sun, but cool in the shade, with crisp clear skies. We drove on to Emerald Bay, and walked past Parson's Landing and on towards Starlight Beach (soon to be a blog posting on ). We didn't have time (or energy) to make it all the way to Starlight, but, after an initial ascent, the hike was quite pleasant, relatively flat with nice views of the Channel and mainland. My knees didn't even start hurting until we were descending back to Parson's. (Darn knees!) When we got back to Howland's, we found the boys having a wonderful time. Our friends invited us in for some drinks and food, and we had a nice visit with them.

So we had it all this weekend, time alone, social time with adults, a nice hike, a nice dinner. Sometimes it's pretty nice living out here.

Winter weather

We have had quite a wet fall. Someone today was telling me this was because it is a la Nina year. I hadn't heard that. But we picked up over an inch of rain in October, another 1/2 inch in November, and now we have a 'pineapple express' pounding the Southland. They're calling it a 'storm of the century' around here (which is funny to those of us from the East Coast who experienced the Storm of the Century that occurred in 1993) (but not to those people whose houses are now filling with mud). So far in December, I think we've gotten close to 2 inches. This is a lot of rain for us, especially this early in the wet season; the storminess is just starting.

We had a bloody awful crossing today, which was entirely unexpected. I tend to be quite obsessive in the winter about sea conditions, constantly checking the channel buoy to see the swell height and period and looking at the wind vectors. I had been reading the latest marine forecasts from the National Weather Service (4 to 6 foot swells with <2 ft wind waves, 10 to 15kt winds), and the buoy was looking reasonable (3-4 ft swells at about 9 seconds). In the morning, the wind was calm and the sea looked pretty calm. But at noon, the wind started howling, really howling. I was hoping it was just the tunnel effect we get at the Isthmus, and the the boats in the harbor didn't seem to be bouncing around on any big swell. So we board the boat at 3:30 (the wind's been going for about 3 hours now). I say something to the captain about how "it shouldn't be that bad out there", and he just smiles ruefully and shakes his head. I get the dread sense I have miscalculated somewhere.

The captain decides to hug the coast heading west before cutting north across the channel. When I've been on boats doing this before, it was in high seas and the captain was trying to put the boat in the trough of the swell for the crossing. In this case it was so we could get the wind behind us. This worked out pretty well, although the captain seemed to be working pretty hard to keep the boat surfing straight down the front of the swells. I didn't think the ride was too bad at that point. The captain and mate were talking about how the swell was coming from a different direction than was typical. This led to the complication of us being pushed much further west on our course than planned, so when we got to the other side of the channel, we needed to cut east, which put us sort of side-on to the swell. The mate was sent below to the main cabin to tell the passengers that the ride was about to get rougher, and it did. It was only seven miles, but it was a hard seven miles. Several of the people downstairs got sick (including half of my family), but we made it. Thank goodness it's only a 90 minute trip. Everyone was feeling a little wonky getting off the boat.

Angry, angry ocean. No fun.

Grand Canyon

This year for Thanksgiving Long Beach Schools had the whole week off. Why? Furlough days. The state's financial crisis led to budget cuts which caused the school district to decide to lump three of the mandated 5? furlough days onto Thanksgiving break. Not a bad idea, really, unless you have a real job. Fortunately, my time is a bit more flexible, so we decided to take a mini-vacation that week and spend Thanksgiving at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Arizona. We planned this out in advance, for once. Actually, funny story there. I was in NH for my grandmother's memorial service (no, that's not the funny part) and I was talking to my parents and sister about Thanksgiving, and Aunt Sh was standing nearby, so, just to be obnoxious, I said, "we can all meet at Aunt Sh's house," and she said, "That's fine with me! The more the merrier." So we quickly agreed to this plan before she thought better of it. Sweetie thought it would be fun to drive out (and cheaper) and then we could also do some sightseeing at some National Parks.

We decided to leave the Sunday before Thanksgiving and drive to Barstow to get a leg up on the drive to Arizona. It was very windy and even a little rainy, which for Barstow, is kind of unusual. Also unusual was the notice they handed us when we checked in at the hotel. Recent water tests had found unacceptable levels of chemical contamination, so none of the local water was to be consumed (you were still allowed to wash in it, but...yeah). The desk clerk gave us 10 bottles of water. I felt very bad for that community. Can you imagine not being able to use the water that came from your tap? Anyway, the next morning we were off to the south rim of the Grand Canyon!



From Barstow, we took I40E, following the path of historic Rte 66 ("...Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino..."). It was a long drive across the Mojave Desert, and while this might be entertaining for a while to an adult, the landscape gets rather monotonous to two young boys. So we have a DVD player in the car for them to fight over. Calvin almost instantly broke his headphones, so Sweetie and I got to listen to, but not watch, several movies. We also had arguments over who lost the remote, who was pulling out the chord that connected the two monitors, the ever popular what-are-we-going-to-watch-next, and who's turn is it to control the player. Finally we crossed the Colorado river into Arizona. Northern Arizona, if you haven't been there, is very pretty - much more forested than I thought Arizona would be.

The weather had been sort of gloomy - plenty of cloud cover - but we'd only had a few snow showers that didn't really amount to anything, so we were feeling pretty good about dodging a weather bullet, since we were driving a Prius with bald tires. We got to Williams, and turned north on 64 to get to the park. We stopped to get gas before we got into the park, and then the snow started. Deceptively light at first, but then it started sticking to the road. At that point, Sweetie noticed that all the cars coming south were covered with snow. We briefly weighed abandoning our plans, but, I argued, "we're only 20 miles from the park; we're practically there!" So we pressed on as it started snowing heavier and heavier, and blowing. Eventually we were crawling along, having seen at least one vehicle that had slid off the side of the road, in near whiteout conditions. (Sweetie claims this to be an exaggeration, however I maintain that we NEARLY DIED.) We got to the park entrance at which we were asked if we were staying in the park that evening. "Who," I thought to myself, "would be arriving in the snow in the dark and not staying?" However I politely informed the nice young ranger that we were staying at the Yavapai Lodge, and could she do something about the weather.



We slipped and slid our way to the hotel and checked in. The snow had stopped and we realized that we were now at the Grand Canyon in the snow at night with a full moon. This was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we decided to drive over to Yavapai Point and look at the snowy canyon in the moonlight. This was when we discovered we couldn't find Hobbes' brand new winter jacket that was bought expressly for the cold weather we would encounter on this trip. We had it in the hotel the night before, but now it was nowhere to be found. Emergency jacket rearrangements were made (Hobbes wore Sweetie's fleece over every article of clothing he brought, while Sweetie wore her rain jacket over every article of clothing she brought), and we ventured out. Well, I should note that there was fresh snow on the ground, so we couldn't go anywhere (from the car to the room, from the room to the car, etc) without a five minute delay while the boys consumed snow while getting their gloves soaking wet. I tried several times to explain the concept of wet gloves=cold fingers, but the temptation of the snow was too strong. But we did get down to the point. There was no one there, and the wind was fierce, so I kinda parked at the bus stop, thinking we'd just be there a few minutes. We got out and walked to towards the rim. Hobbes immediately announced that he was freezing to death and had never been colder in his life and was miserable and wanted to go back to the room. We coaxed him to the rim so he could be amazed at the beauty. He was still freezing "to death". The new fallen snow (not that much really, maybe 3 inches) clung to the horizontal surfaces near the top 1/4 of the canyon. The bluish tint of the moonlight reflected off those white caps. It was lovely. But it was also about 25° with a 25mph wind. We didn't stay long. When we got back to the car, there was a Ranger pulled up behind our car. We waved, sheepishly jumped in the car and drove off.

Back at the room, summer was still in full swing. The thermostat was a bit touchy, and decided that it needed to be 85° in there. I had trouble sleeping, waking up finally at 4:30am unable to fall back asleep.



Around 7am we all got up, dressed as warmly as we could (long underwear, sweaters and sweatshirts, wool socks) and headed out for a day of exploring. The temperature was in the high teens, I think at that point. We went back to Yavapai Point (being careful to park legally) and did the morning Ranger talk on the canyon's geology. We learned the Canyon was formed by DUDE - Deposition, Uplift, Defenestration and Erosion (I'm not sure I remember that third one right). The Things earned Jr Ranger Badges which they pinned to the front of their fuzzy hats. Calvin made a snow angel. Then we took a hike along the Rim Trail up to Grand Canyon Village. It was still cloudy, which gave the Canyon a very dappled appearance. Different peaks would catch the sun at different times, and with all the canyons colors, it was rather kaleidoscopic in effect. Being appropriately dressed (although still with wet gloves) the Things really enjoyed the Canyon. At the Village we had lunch. There were quite a few people there (unlike the area in which we were staying), and when I saw the line at the restaurant I thought "this is going to take an hour", but we were seated very quickly and had a great lunch!

After lunch we decided to take the bus out to Hermit's Rest. To get to the bus stop we had to walk down past the head of the Bright Angel Trail. We saw several groups of hikers going down, and the Things were amazed at the concept of hiking down to the river. The bus stops at several overlooks on the way out to Hermit's Rest. We got off at a few stops to get some fresh views of the Canyon. The clouds had cleared away, and the temperature was now above 30°, so it was getting quite pleasant. Hermit's Rest was beautiful and remote. We hiked a very little way down the Hermit Trail, and then thought about getting back for dinner and some well-deserved rest. On the way back, the bus passed a small herd of elk. We had seen some mule deer and squirrels earlier in the day, but these were our first elk. We got back to our car, did some souvenir shopping, made sure we had all our NP stamps, and went back to the hotel.



That evening I turned the thermostat down until the heat clicked off, not knowing if it would click back on again. It did, keeping the room a much more comfortable temperature. When we woke up the next morning, this really strange frost, I think it was hoarfrost, like snow flakes standing on edge, was coating our car. It was time to leave the Canyon and head south to Aunt Sh and Uncle Ch's house near Tucson. I was a bit worried about how the roads would be since the temperature had never gotten much above 30° during the day and was down in the teens at night, but they were all perfectly clear.



We drove down 64, and took I40E to I17S. The landscape started to change. From Kaibab forest we turned to Sonoran desert. We started seeing the famed Saguaro cacti. To continue our sightseeing, we stopped at two poorly named sites, Montezuma's Well and Montezuma's Castle National Monument. These were poorly named because Montezuma never set foot near them, but the explorers who found them didn't know that. The well is a sinkhole that formed when acidic spring water dissolved a limestone cave. The lake is recessed because a hole in the side of the sinkhole drains it into the Verde River. The Sinagua natives used the location for a long time, then left. The water is highly carbonated (from dissolving all that limestone) and poorly oxygenated, so there are no fish. A unique ecosystem involving amphipods, water scorpions and turtles has evolved there. The castle is a large cliff dwelling that was constructed in several phases. It is in a nice cliff facing the Verde River valley, with trees all around. It must have been a nice place to live. We spent much more time here than we had originally planned, but Hobbes did get another Jr Ranger badge out of it (Calvin's still working on his.) We grabbed a quick lunch at a local casino (it was our only option), which was fascinating for the Things, and continued on to Tucson.



Part II coming - Saguaro National Park East and West!!

Fall

I was realizing I haven't posted in a while - nothing since vacation. So here's a bit of catch-up to where we are.

Calvin had a blast at camp. I saw him in between his two sessions (they take the hold-overs into Two Harbors for a day at the beach and ice cream). There was no hint of home-sickness. He was excited to see me and equally excited to go stand in line for ice cream. So things were going well there.

Sweetie had a great, yet tiring, time on her cruise. (I'll try to get her to post about that adventure.) She had to follow that up with 10 days of educating, which only added to the exhaustion. She was quite glad when it was over and she could catch up on her sleep finally.

School has started. We have a new teacher this year. She is younger than our last several teachers, but seems to have an even temperament and good control of the kids and the curriculum. The Things have both said they like her. Homework has begun, which means daily struggles with Hobbes to get his done in a timely manner (and correctly). I'm sure my mom is smirking about this, but Sweetie takes the brunt of that whining. The school is down to seven kids this year (including a couple kindergarteners), but we are open. In order to stay open next year we need to raise at least $50k, and maybe more. Which brings us to...

PTA has started up again. Again, since we're such a small group, pretty much everyone is an officer - I'm President, and Sweetie is Treasurer. It's much harder to do things because if we want to do anything EVERYONE has to be involved or we don't have enough people to do it. So that's going to be a struggle, since everyone (us especially) are so busy with other things like...

Cub Scouts has started up. Hobbes is a Webelos 2 this year, and Calvin is a Wolf, and I'm the Wolf Den Leader. So far we have one other Wolf Cub, although I'm hoping to get at least one more. I'm trying to keep the Wolf meetings on the same day as the Webelos meetings, since it's $10 in gas for every trip across the island. Our first meeting was this week and the boys had a good time running and jumping and somersaulting. Hopefully they'll be equally enthusiastic about flag ceremonies.

Work has also been a bit of a distraction. I was invited to go to Yonsei University in South Korea to lead a workshop on microbial genome annotation (something I know quite a bit from my TIGR days). Preparing for the trip took up much of my spare time. Then I arrived to find they wanted a second 90 minute workshop on the Manatee annotation tool. I'll do another post soon just on the Korea trip (with pictures!). Another interesting work-related item was the Wrigley Advisory Board meeting that happened last week. They allow the local faculty to sit in on the meeting and attend the dinner. The Board is populated with some very interesting and nice people. Sweetie and I enjoyed having dinner with them (and having an evening Thing-less).

The weather has finally turned summer-like, just in time for the official "season" to be over. Although along with the warm weather, we've also had some rain. Yes, rain! In October! A little early, but welcome. Perhaps this means we'll have a wet winter. I'm not looking forward to my annual obsessive preoccupation with the sea and swell reports, but at least Buccaneer's Day is behind us.

One last note: We finally got back our pictures from our water-proof camera we got on vacation, so I posted some new photos to Vacation Day 8 and Vacation Day 11.

Vacation's End - CA here I come!

Today, I got to shepherd two Things back to CA all by my lonesome. They were very good, which was appreciated, especially due to my high stress level.

When I took Sweetie to the airport, it took about 40 minutes. But today, we got on I-4 and it was a parking lot. (Beach traffic? It's Saturday for god's sake.) I hadn't left enough time for I-4 to be a parking lot, so I scrambled about with the GPS and found an alternate route. I think we got on 417 to the FL turnpike to 528. It was much emptier that way, but I still didn't have time to fill up the rental before turning it in.

Entering the airport I saw that American only had something like 4 check-in spots open, and the line was ridiculous. We stood there for about 10 minutes (with the line not moving) when someone came out and said, "Anyone for LA?". Off we went to the front of the line. Ten minutes later we were in a huge line for security. My stress level was still pretty high. But we did make the flight. We even had a chance to pick up some food before we boarded. Tasty, expensive airport fast food. Mmmmm.

Like I said, the Things were excellent. No whining at all during the entire stressful journey to the plane. They've both reached ages where that's possible, thank goodness. The movie on the plane was How to Train Your Dragon, which is funny and entertaining, although the Things had seen it before. They continued their good behavior all the way to the apartment in SP.

At that point, everyone collapsed into a heap. A successful vacation. We have a day of shopping ahead of us, and then Calvin goes off to sleep-away camp for two weeks. Hobbes will be awfully lonely. About the time Calvin is back from camp, Sweetie will not only be back from the cruise, but done with the class, and then it's just a few weeks until school starts, and life returns to normal.

Or at least as normal as life ever is around here.