Sustainable Adventure

Favorite Photos from 2011

2012-01-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

I want to replace my aging mountain photos hanging in our office reception area so I went through my photos from 2011 and picked out some of my favorites.

You can help me choose which ones to put up by "liking" your top choices. (You have to be logged in to Google to do this.)

click to view photos

Note: I've posted all of these photos previously in various albums.

Cumbersome Regulations

2012-01-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

God forbid that coal-fired power plants should be saddled with "cumbersome regulations". Obviously they should be allowed to trash the planet in whatever manner they find most profitable.

"Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia – which rely most heavily on coal for electricity – have received assurances that Ottawa will not saddle them with cumbersome regulations"
- Globe and Mail

Having dropped Kyoto, and busily dropping regulations for coal and oil, Canada is on a shameful trajectory.

Sunrise

2012-01-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

The fantastic view from my home office window this morning.

Winter Lights

2011-12-31T06:34:00.000-08:00

I stopped on the railway bridge on the way home to try to capture the view. We complain about the short winter days and going back and forth to work in the dark, but sometimes the dark has its own appeal.

After loading these onto the computer, I was surprised to see that the camera hadn't used a higher ISO than 800. Then I realized that I still had the camera fixed at 800 from using it diving. Oops! Pretty slow shutter speeds (.6 seconds), but I could rest the camera on the railing. (And take advantage of the articulated display.)

Stark

2011-12-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

I went out for a walk today, just to get outside in the fresh air and away from the computer. It had been a cloudy gray day, but the sun broke through late in the day. With little or no snow, winter seems more drab than usual. Didn't even see many birds, just a magpie and a lone chickadee. These trees against the sky were the only thing I got motivated to photograph.

Rock Paper Sun

2011-12-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

After writing yesterdays blog post on my new solar system, I realized I had completely forgotten to credit the company that did a great job on the system - Rock Paper Sun.

I actually contacted another company first, Solar Outpost, but they took a long time to get back to me, and then after an initial call (where I stressed I was serious) they never called me back. I think they're a good company, but they dropped the ball this time.

I had seen Rock Paper Sun in connection with the VerEco home, and then ran into Brent (one of the owners) at Green Drinks. We met and Brent explained the issues and choices. (I took it as a good sign when he arrived in his Prius.) Brent and his partner Phil then did a great job of installing the system. The work is neat and well done. There were no surprises or mishaps. It took a while to get everything done, but they had warned me that it would, so it was expected. And they've also been helping with applying for the various rebates that are available. (See Solar Energy for Your Home)

If you're looking for a solar system in Saskatoon, I would definitely recommend Rock Paper Sun.

PS. If you're a techie (which you probably are if you are installing a solar system at this point) then you probably want to also get something to monitor how much energy you are using. The solar electric system does a great job of telling you about what it's generating, but to make that meaningful you want to compare it to what you're using. So I'm planning to install a TED 5000.

Solar Powered

2011-12-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

I finally got my solar electric panels inspected and turned on. It's taken several months to get everything ordered and installed and approved. The solar thermal (hot water) was a much quicker, easier process to get installed and turned on. It still had to be inspected, but that was after it was already turned on. (The solar thermal panels are the two on the right, white because of frost.)

Of course, this is the worst time of the year for a solar system - the days are short and the sun is low. And the cold temperatures slow down the solar hot water. On the positive side, I'll now be able to watch the output increase as the days get longer and the sun higher.

Amazingly, the solar hot water system did come on the other day, partly because it was an unusually warm day (for winter), and partly because the temperature of the water in the holding tank is low, so the panels don't have to be as hot to get the required 10c temperature difference.

Frustratingly, we haven't had a full day of sun since the solar electric system was turned on. It's a 5kW (kilowatt) system (20 x 250W panels) but the highest output I've seen so far is 1.6kW and my best total day was only 3.2kWh (kilowatt hours). I'm not sure what my maximum output will actually be since the slope and direction of the roof is not ideal and I do get some shading from trees. (Some trimming might be in order.)

In case you're wondering - the economic story for solar panels is not great (yet). They are expensive and our electricity and gas are cheap. At current rates it'll take a long time for the system to pay for itself. Of course, the reason electricity and gas are cheap is because we're not accounting for the true costs, like climate change and environmental damage. And we're not taking into account the fact that we're using up a finite resource that will eventually run out.

There's also the question of embodied energy. Although the solar panels are generating (capturing) energy, they also took a lot of energy to create - mining the materials, manufacturing, transportation, etc. This embodied energy unfortunately negates much of the benefits.

So if it doesn't pay, and they take almost as much energy to manufacture as they produce, why do it?I guess for me it came down to wanting to lead and to be an example. If enough people install solar systems, the costs will come down, and the manufacturing will get more energy efficient. If no one installs them because they're not good enough yet, then there's little incentive to improve them. They also serve to make people think about energy and alternatives. We've already had a lot of interest from neighbors and friends.

Check out the live monitoring from the solar electric system

See also: EcoFriendlySask - Solar Energy for Your Home

Winter Scenes

2011-12-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

From my recent train ride from Montreal to Saskatoon.

Disclaimer - taken from a moving train, through a dirty window.

Homebrew Underwater Camera Weight

2011-12-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

When I got to the Bahamas with the new underwater housing (WP-DC34) for my Canon G12, I realized that it was really buoyant (floats). I knew Canon had a weight kit for the underwater housings, but I hadn't needed one with my last camera/housing, so I hadn't really thought about. But the new housing is quite a bit bigger and has more air inside (e.g. around where the telephoto comes out).

I managed to borrow a bolt and some pieces of metal but the bolt was too long and the pieces of metal were large so it was quite awkward, but it was better than nothing.

When we got to Providenciales (in Turks and Caicos) we found a hardware store and I bought a bolt closer to the right length, and a bunch of washers for weights. I needed the extra nut because the bolt was a bit too long.

In case you want to try something similar, camera tripod mounts take a 1/4" bolt with 20 threads per inch (tpi).

This arrangement worked pretty well. With 15 washers the camera was almost perfectly neutral (not sinking and not floating).

I didn't bring my homebrew weight kit home because we were overweight on our luggage as it was. I'll probably order the Canon DC-1 weight kit for next time (although it's $55 as opposed to a couple of bucks for the bolt and washers).

Overall, I was pretty happy with the G12 and housing. A couple of times I had a few drops of water get inside the housing, not enough to cause any problems, but still troubling. I'll order a new o-ring and see if that solves it. If I didn't like having the G12 for other purposes, I'd be tempted to go with the Canon S-95 (or the upcoming S-100) which has virtually identical specs, but in a much smaller size. It doesn't have all the manual controls or the articulated screen of the G12, but those aren't important for underwater.

Check out the photos. Related posts: Diving Photography

Nassau

2011-12-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I wasn't too thrilled by Nassau - too touristy and dominated by the cruise ship hordes who descended on the town in their thousands every day, seemingly for no other reason than to buy junk souvenirs or expensive jewelry.

However, it did have a nice little zoo that we ended up visiting twice. (The second time because the botanical gardens next door were closed.)

So for a change from underwater pictures here is a batch from the zoo.

click to view photos

Nassau Diving

2011-12-11T16:02:00.001-08:00

We had a few days in Nassau at the end of our trip so we did three days of diving with Bahama Divers. The diving was good, but a much more mixed bag of dive masters and divers, compared to Small Hope Bay and our live-aboard.

This is the last of the diving photos - there were a lot, but then we did a lot of diving - roughly 40 dives in 20 days (up to 5 a day on the live-aboard).

2011-11 Nassau Diving

Travel Teaches

2011-12-10T07:24:00.001-08:00

Travel can teach you a lot, if you let it.

When you're sitting on a plane or train that's late and you're going to miss your connection, there's no point getting all worked up, you might as well learn to stay calm. When your truck breaks down in the middle of nowhere in Tibet, you might as well break out the snacks and enjoy the scenery.

When the way things are done in a new place annoy you, you need to be tolerant. It seldom gets you anywhere to yell or get upset. No matter how homogenized the world becomes, or how much you think the way they do things at home is the "right" way, the fact is other people do things differently.

An area where I struggle is with my overdeveloped sense of fairness. (Research indicates this is hard-wired into our brains.) When someone does something like cut in line in front of me, it really pisses me off. But things aren't always fair, and there's often nothing you can do about it. Might as well get over it.

One of the most important things travel can teach you is simply to see, to look at what is around us. At home, we don't really pay attention, everything is familiar, and we're too busy anyway. Traveling, especially long trips by train or bus, supplies plenty of time when there's nothing to do but look around.

Last, but not least, travel gives you time to think. Time we often don't have in our hectic home lives. And it supplies plenty of material to think about. Sometimes I think we unconsciously get afraid to listen to our own thoughts, afraid of what they might tell us. So we pack our lives with distractions - cell phones, music, chatter. But how can you ever be at peace if you're afraid of your own thoughts? Travel can be a form of meditation if you are open to it.

You can learn all these things at home, but travel tends to present a lot more learning opportunities. And because things are new and different, we may be more willing and likely to think we need to learn. Travel can bump us out of the ruts of our comfort zones. That can be stressful, but it can also open you to learning new things.

But all travel is not equal. You won't get much of this kind of learning on a tour of umpteen countries in 7 days, with a guide organizing everything so you don't need to think, rushing you from place to place and yammering in your ear the whole time. Nor will you learn much by lying in the sun in some homogenized resort. If you want to grow, it helps to get off the beaten path.

Of course, like any kind of teaching you have to be willing to learn. You can refuse to learn during travel just like you can refuse to learn in school.

All or Nothing

2011-12-08T09:33:00.001-08:00

When it's hot outside you freeze on the train or bus.

When it's cold outside you roast.

Do air conditioning and heating really have to be full blast or nothing?

What happened to the idea of a thermostat?

I don't mind putting on or taking off a sweater. But I don't carry long underwear when it's hot, or shorts when it's snowing.

At first I thought I just had bad luck, but it happens so consistently and so many times that there's got to be some underlying design flaw.

Auberge du Vieux-Port

2011-12-08T08:01:00.001-08:00

The Auberge du Vieux-Port is where I've stayed in Montreal, four times now (only two trips, but I've stayed on the way out and on the way back each time.)

I chose the hotel from the Internet. It looked like it was in an interesting area (old part of the city) and it was within walking distance of the train station. (But don't try to walk it with a suitcase, it's not that close.)

It's a nice hotel - small, not a chain, nice old building. It's a little pricey, but this is the big city, few hotels are cheap, and the ones that are, you probably don't want to stay at.

The restaurant is also nice. It's not too fancy, no white table cloths, but it's a comfortable place and the food and service are excellent. There are lots of great restaurants in Montreal, but when you arrive late and too tired to go out, it's nice to have a good restaurant right in the hotel. They also have a nice roof top terrace lounge for the summer time.

But what has really made me enjoy coming here is the staff, especially the restaurant manager, Zach Suhl. The first time I stayed here I was sitting at the bar having my free welcome drink (a good way to get people into the restaurant) and he came over and introduced himself and chatted for a few minutes. Every time he's seen me since then he has made a point of saying hello. And amazingly, he remembers who I am and makes a point of mentioning something personal. For example, one time he mentioned they had some new vegetarian menu options, and another time mentioned that he had recently had some other guests from Saskatchewan.

I don't like it when staff force an artificial friendliness, pretending to be your buddy even though you can tell they really couldn't care less. But at the same time I don't like being treated totally impersonally, like a cog in a machine. To me, Zach strikes a perfect balance - he remembers me, chats briefly, but doesn't pretend to be my "buddy". This last time he sent over a free drink because I'm a regular customer.

He also acts like I think a restaurant manager should act - he's actually in the restaurant rather than just the back office. And he doesn't just observe or greet people. He'll seat people, take a drink order, even help clear a table. And while he talks to people, he doesn't get carried away at it, he keeps it brief and returns to watching the restaurant.

The hotel staff are also good - for example, as I was checking in this time, the concierge said "You are in the same room as last time. Are you happy with that room?" (Each of the rooms is different.) I don't think he remembered me like the restaurant manager. He probably had a list of arriving guests and heard me give my name as I was checking in. But it's still impressive that his paperwork showed that I'd been there before and which room, and that he made good use of that information.

Of course, nothing is perfect. At the same time the concierge was impressing me, the woman checking me in was just going through the motions. She either didn't pay attention to my having been there before, or she didn't care. She just gave the standard spiel for new guests - where the restaurant was, where the elevator was, etc. She probably thought she was doing her job well, but unfortunately, she was doing it without thinking.

Once more, I find myself wondering how I and my staff at Axon measure up. Are we doing as good a job as Zach and the concierge? Or are we just going through the motions like the woman who checked me in?

If you're looking for a place to stay in Montreal, I'd definitely recommend Auberge du Vieux-Port. And say hi to Zach for me!

Train Security

2011-12-05T11:54:00.001-08:00

I was sitting in the cafe car on the train in the section where the staff hangs out. (The presence of the staff tends to keep the drunks and other obnoxious types away.)

A lady brought a bag to the staff, saying it had been "left unattended". (Someone had been listening to the airport security announcements.)

The response from the staff was: "Don't you be bringing that to me, honey, it might be a bomb, it might explode on me."

She was joking, of course, but it was a little shocking to those of us that have been repeatedly told that you never ever make jokes about bombs.

Another example of how train travel differs. Or conversely, how anal air travel has become.

An Excess of Gadgets

2011-12-05T09:39:00.003-08:00

I tend to agree with minimalism and simplicity. And in some respects I manage it - I'm traveling for six weeks with a relatively small backpack. (Admittedly, only because Shelley hauled our dive gear.) But I fail miserably when it comes to gadgets. Here's what I'm traveling with:

- 13" MacBook Air
- external USB hard drive
- iPad
- iPhone
- Kindle
- Pentax K7 SLR camera
- Canon G12 camera

I need the MacBook to download and process my photographs. I guess I could wait to process the photos till I got home, but I enjoy posting them as I go. And I'd still want some way to back them up - I like to have two copies. On previous trips that was on the MacBook and on the external hard drive. But I have enough memory cards now that I don't need to reuse them, so I didn't end up using the external hard drive.

This is the first trip I've had the iPad. I debated bringing it since it definitely seemed like overkill to have MacBook, iPhone, and iPad. But partly I wanted to see how it worked out for traveling. I ended up using it a lot. It's lighter and easier to carry than the MacBook, but nicer for browsing and writing than the iPhone. In some ways I like it better than the MacBook because of all the apps I have - Go game, bird guide, offline Wikipedia, star gazing, and offline maps. It's easier to find apps that work offline for the iPhone/iPad than for the MacBook.

I could probably do without the iPhone, but in Canada it's great to have 3G Internet access so I can look up places and use maps while I'm out wandering around. I wish I could do this outside Canada, but roaming data charges are ridiculous. I do use the iPhone as a phone occasionally, but usually with Skype (if I have wifi). But I could probably use Skype on the iPad with earphones/mike.

Although I could read my Kindle books on the iPad, there are two main drawbacks - battery life and reading in bright light. If you're going to go somewhere warm, you want to sit outside, but it's hard to read on a regular LCD display in bright light. The Kindle's eInk display works great. (Although you have the opposite problem at night, where you need light to read the Kindle, whereas a backlit LCD provides its own light.) The battery life is a big factor - the Kindle will go a week or more without recharging. Power is usually available on most trips, but if you're not careful you end up running out somewhere where there's no power. (Or you don't have your charger with you.)

If I didn't need to process photos I would skip the MacBook and just bring the iPad. But I think I'd still bring the Kindle as well. If I had a data plan on my iPad I'd probably skip the iPhone.

Two cameras is mostly due to wanting the G12 for underwater, and the Pentax for the rest of the time. I have done trips with just the G12 which is much smaller and lighter to carry, and still good quality. But I miss the longer zoom on the Pentax (a Tamron 18 to 250, equivalent to 27 to 375) especially for wildlife like birds or lizards.

One concern when traveling with so much gadgetry is the risk of theft. I don't like to put expensive stuff in my checked baggage due to the risk of it getting lost, so my carry-on bag ends up pretty heavy. And then I have to keep a close watch on it, because of all the expensive stuff in it. One factor that helps is that I don't think I look particularly rich. Of course, it's hard not to look like a tourist when you're walking around with a camera and a backpack and your skin is nothing like the local color. Another drawback to so many gadgets is that I seldom carry them all at any one time, which means leaving some in the hotel room, not always the safest, depending where you are.

Maybe I should try a trip with no gadgets. Nah, that's too crazy :-)

Turks and Caicos #3

2011-12-05T07:05:00.001-08:00

The last batch of diving photos from the Turks and Caicos.

2011-11-24 Turks and Caicos

2011-11-25 Turks and Caicos

Flying

2011-12-04T04:29:00.001-08:00

I don't mean all the crap that surrounds flying - queuing up, security, waiting, crappy food, cramped seats.

I mean the actual flying. The acceleration of takeoff, watching the ground dwindle, seeing the landscape go by, flying through and over the clouds.

For a kid raised on Apollo moon landings and science fiction, it's the closest thing to spaceflight I'll likely experience.

Not having flown for two years, the experience seems fresh again. Sadly, I still don't think our current profligate use of fossil fueled air travel is sustainable. And biofuels are unlikely to be the solution. Unless we come up with a cheap abundant source of power like fusion we may have to change our ways at some point.

Diving and the Art of Seeing

2011-12-01T14:52:00.001-08:00

Scuba diving is an interesting activity. There is the initial thrill of overcoming your fears of being underwater. And some people continue to push the thrill and fear by diving deep or in caves etc. But most people dive to see the amazing life underwater. That surprises me. In this age where the most common activities seem to be talking on your cell phone and shopping, it surprises me that so many people will spend hours underwater not speaking and just observing nature. Maybe there's hope for us yet.

When you start diving you're fully occupied with yourself and your gear, trying not to suck your air too fast, trying to control your buoyancy, trying not to lose your companions. You have to remind yourself that you are supposed to be looking around.

Once you get more comfortable (an ongoing process) you start to see more. A coral reef is an amazing place. There's really nothing like it on land. A rain forest might have as much diversity, but it's much harder to see and nowhere near as colorful. The backdrop of coral and sponges is an amazing array of shapes and vibrant colors - bright reds, greens, yellows, purples, blues, etc. And the fish are everywhere. Imagine if you were bird watching and you could glance around and see 20 different kinds of brilliantly colored birds all around you in large numbers.

The more you dive, the more you see. Partly that's a result of getting better at the skills. At first it's like you're blundering and crashing noisily through the forest. Not surprisingly, things tend to run away when you do that! But as you get better at moving more smoothly, you don't scare everything away. And once you get better control of your buoyancy you can swim closer to the coral without worrying about crashing into it. Being closer lets you start to see smaller stuff.

The huge range of scale of underwater life was brought home when I was listening to people talk about a fish they had seen. They were describing its shape and color and behavior. Then they mentioned that it was the size of a grain of rice!

Of course, there's also a large factor of luck. On one of the few dives we skipped they saw a manta ray, a rare and exciting sighting. But you also have to notice what's around you. At one point the group was playing paparazzi to a turtle and missed seeing the eagle ray that glided silently by right behind them. That turned out to be the only eagle ray seen during the week.

Another example - I swam over to look at a sponge, then noticed that there were some brittle stars on it, and then noticed there was a scorpion fish right beside it. It would have been easy to swim right by thinking it was just another sponge.

Other times you notice something exotic looking and get excited about it, only to subsequently realize that it's everywhere.

This is the first trip where I got good looks and even some photos of the "cleaning stations" where bigger fish go to get "cleaned" by shrimp or smaller fish. It's funny to see a grouper sitting still on the coral with its mouth wide open, and then as you get closer see that there are a bunch of spindly little shrimp scurrying in and out of its mouth and gills. It's a good deal for both of them - the big fish gets its parasites removed, and the shrimp or little fish get to feed (without getting eaten!). Other divers always used to talk about the cleaning stations but I never saw them, no doubt because they swam away when I blundered by.

In the past it was always the dive masters pointing out stuff to us. That still happens (they obviously have way more experience than us) but at least now we also spot stuff on our own. One of the challenges is pointing stuff out to each other or to other people. First you have to get their attention, which isn't easy when you can't just call to them. If you have to swim over to them to grab them, half the time you lose what you were looking at. Things either swim away or simply disappear via their camouflage. And even if you can still find it, it's often hard for the other person to figure out what you're pointing it.

A lot of people get most excited about the sharks. Sharks are amazing creatures, and even when you know they're safe, there's still that undercurrent of fear. But there's so much more to see that's just as interesting and often more colorful and exotic.

Turks and Caicos #2

2011-11-29T11:26:00.001-08:00

More photos from our diving in the Turks and Caicos.

2011-11-22 Turks and Caicos

2011-11-23 Turks and Caicos

A Lizard Came to Lunch

2011-11-27T11:51:00.001-08:00

When we were at lunch today a lizard visited the patio. Of course, I had to take photos of it :-)

Turks and Caicos

2011-11-26T14:39:00.001-08:00

Here's the first batch of photos from our week long diving live-aboard boat trip on the Turks and Caicos Explorer II.

2011-11-20 Turks and Caicos

2011-11-21 Turks and Caicos

Diving Photography

2011-11-26T12:50:00.001-08:00

Taking decent underwater photographs is a challenge. This post is about my experience this trip. Warning: it gets technical.

I was surprised on our diving live-aboard boat trip how many people had elaborate underwater camera setups. I'm used to being the keen photographer in a group, but I was definitely outgunned this time.

I have a much better camera now than I used to - a Canon G12 instead of the little Powershot. It has much better low light abilities and can shoot raw which allows a lot more adjustment afterwards.

The big difference with the more sophisticated setups was the lights. It's dark underwater and the colors get washed out. I don't use the built-in flash on my camera because flash on camera like that is harsh unnatural lighting, and the little built-in flash isn't very powerful anyway. A better setup is to have multiple (two or more) separate strobes (powerful flashes). But this kind of setup is heavy and bulky and awkward (not to mention, expensive).

You can get underwater cases for SLR's but if the case leaks that's a lot of money down the drain. One of the people on our trip had borrowed a fancy underwater camera and it flooded on the very first dive - ouch!

Because I don't have lights I prefer to take photos fairly shallow where there is still light and color. But most of our dives on this trip were around 20m (70ft). For this, shooting raw and using software like Lightroom is key to getting some color back.

I started the trip shooting fully automatic, but the G12 tries hard to use a low ISO (light sensitivity) because that gives a better quality photo (less noise or "grain"). The problem is, that means a slow shutter speed. But underwater, everything is moving - you're moving and the fish are moving and the only way to "freeze" that movement is with a fast shutter speed. (Another reason why flash is better - it also helps freeze the movement.)

Next I tried shooting at the G12's maximum ISO of 3200. That resulted in faster shutter speeds and less motion blur, but a lot of noise. Next day I tried 1600, and then the next 800, where I left it for the rest of the trip. It seemed the best compromise between sensitivity and noise. Part of it is diving skill - how well you can "hover" in one spot and hold steady while taking a shot. I'm gradually getting better at that but I still find it a challenge. Sometimes you can find a spot to put a finger against which helps a lot.

At shallower depths, like 10m, when the light is relatively bright, I was finding the highlights were often burning out. You can recover some of this, especially if you're shooting raw, but not if it's totally white. In these conditions I found it worked better to override the exposure to be darker by one stop. This is where the G12 is nice because it has a separate dial for exposure adjustment, rather than having to poke around in the menus (especially underwater!) There's also a separate dial for ISO. The downside of forcing the images to be darker is that it increases the noise. But I'd rather have more noise than have totally burnt out areas.

Although other people on the live-aboard had better cameras, or at least better lights, they didn't seem to be as familiar with adjusting the photos on the computer afterwards. Using software like Lightroom or Aperture is the modern day equivalent of having and using your own darkroom. Just accepting the default processing that the camera does is like accepting drugstore prints in the days of film. (And if you're going to adjust them you really need to shoot raw, assuming your camera is able.)

In Lightroom my normal adjustments would be: Clarity +50 (sometimes all the way to 100, although that can look unnatural), Luminance Noise 50 (depending on ISO), Strong Contrast Tone Curve, sometimes increased Vibrance, sometimes Recovery. If one side or corner is too bright I'll use an exposure gradient to adjust it. Other than parts that get too bright, the images almost always look murky and washed out and I'll increase the Black and Exposure settings to improve the contrast. (I should probably directly adjust the tone curve more, but I haven't got to that point yet.)

If there's something neutral in the image, like a black wetsuit or (relatively) white sand, I'll try using that to set the white balance. If not, or if that doesn't look right, I'll adjust it manually. Underwater photos taken with natural light are very blue. Getting rid of that and bringing back some reds often requires extreme white balance adjustments, pushing Temperature and Tint to the max. But it really is blue underwater, so sometimes it looks better to just let it be blue and not try to remove it all.

I always smile when people claim their photos are "unprocessed". There's no such thing as an unprocessed digital image. All it means is you are keeping the default processing your camera (or computer) does. That processing isn't necessarily any more "true" than when you adjust it manually. Of course, you can push the processing to extremes and end up with something unreal. The closest thing to an "unprocessed" image would be a raw image with all the settings zeroed. But that looks awful and won't be anything like what it "really" looked like. Unless I'm deliberately trying to achieve some abstract artistic result, I try to make the images look as close as I can to how it "felt" to see it in person (with, admittedly, variable results).

Of course, apart from all these technical issues, the subject and composition are still critical. No matter how technically excellent an image might be, it still needs to be interesting and pleasing to the eye. And there's still a lot of luck involved in being at the right place at the right time.

Photos from the week coming soon, as I select and process them.

PS. You can see why so many computer geeks get into photography - there's plenty of technical details to obsess over!

Bahamas #2

2011-11-18T06:12:00.001-08:00

We had a great five days at Small Hope Bay Lodge on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Exactly our kind of place - small, low key, quiet, nice staff, like minded guests, great diving. Conditions weren't perfect for diving - a little too windy and therefore not so good visibility, but still excellent dives. As long as you're not looking for shopping or night life we'd strongly recommend this place, either for diving, or just for a relaxing place to hang out.

Since we were flying today we didn't dive yesterday. Probably could have, at least in the morning, but we're conservative and we wanted a chance to explore anyway. In the morning we rode bikes to the Androsia batik factory. Small, but interesting. It's connected to the lodge and the staff all wears their clothes, and the curtains and bed covers etc. are from there. Very colorful and great designs.

In the afternoon we biked and hiked to the Rainbow Blue Hole. Blue holes are water filled caves, often connected underground to the ocean. We had a refreshing swim to cool off. We took our mask and snorkels, but there wasn't much to see. This one was almost a perfect cylinder of rock dropping straight down into the black. Still have no desire to go cave diving!

We took the early morning flight from Andros back to Nassau and this afternoon we head to Providenciales in Turks and Caicos to start a week long live-aboard dive trip. Between flights we took a taxi into Cable Beach to hang out in Starbucks and use the wi-fi. Thankfully we found somewhere to leave our luggage at the airport. That's almost impossible in "civilized" countries now because of security issues.

More photos (click to view). These are from back in Nassau at a National Trust site called the Retreat. And yes, I like lizards :-)

2011-11-12 Bahamas

A few photos Shelley took. We picked the British Colonial Hilton in Nassau because it's a historical building, and it is a neat building. But otherwise it's just a big Hilton, nothing special. Close to downtown, but that just means it's surrounded by tourists when umpteen huge cruise ships are in. (Note to self: avoid places where cruise ships visit.)

2011-11-13 Bahamas

And more diving photos: (a lot, but I love all the underwater life)

2011-11-15 Bahamas

2011-11-16 Bahamas

And finally, some pictures from our last day of exploring. Thanks to decent wifi at Starbucks that brings us up to date on photos. I don't imagine we'll have internet on the boat so we'll no doubt have a bunch more to post when we get back to civilization.

2011-11-17 Bahamas

Bahamas

2011-11-17T05:34:00.000-08:00

A few photos from when I arrived.

2011-11-11 Bahamas

From our first day of diving. Still trying to figure out how to best use the G12 underwater - did a bit better later days.

2011-11-14 Bahamas

More diving photos to come (probably more than you want to look at :-) when I get a chance to upload them.

See also: Shelley's blog post - Spirit and Adventure: Eyes on the Horizon

Not So Smart

2011-11-11T05:34:00.001-08:00

I got to Fort Lauderdale after a relatively painless 12 hours on the train. Interesting scenery - forests, orange and lemon orchards, lakes. Saw a few birds - bald eagles, turkey vultures, great blue herons, white ibis. I think I spotted a few turtles and a couple of lizards on a wall but hard to be sure when you're zipping by.

The train was freezing again. I'm sure engineers think that thermostats and heating/cooling systems are a boring solved problem. Obviously they've never ridden the bus or train much! Eventually the attendant noticed that everyone was wearing all their jackets and wrapped in blankets and turned off the air conditioning briefly. (My theory is that because it was too cold they had opened the door at the end of the car to let some warm air in. But I suspect that the thermostat was near the door, so it got the warm air from outside which kept the air conditioning running full blast.)

I was expecting a main train station, but it was more like a commuter stop. I figured out how to buy a ticket from the machine to take the local train to near the airport and my hotel. I'm glad I got my ticket right because a train cop handed out two tickets in my car to people with incorrect tickets! (The ticket machine was poorly designed - one of the too common systems with a row of buttons beside the screen and labels on the screen, where it's very hard to tell which label goes with which button.)

I wasn't quite sure where my hotel was relative to the train stop but I knew it was close. I went out the front and looked around. Sure enough there were a couple of hotels and one of them was a Marriott. The trick was to get there since the train stop was surrounded by freeways. (This was the airport stop and most people were just getting on the shuttle bus to the airport.)

I managed to play frogger across the freeways and get to the hotel. I was a little tired and hungry at this point, but feeling pleased with myself for navigating another day of travel (not to mention, 10 days of train travel from Saskatoon to Florida). One of the reasons I like taking the road less travelled is that it's more of a challenge and therefore more rewarding. But pride goeth before a fall. When I went to check in, they couldn't find my reservation. But I was prepared, I showed her the confirmation number on TripIt on my iPhone. That didn't work either. But being a belt and suspenders kind of person, I was prepared with another fallback - I had a printed copy of my confirmation email. I'm feeling a little smug, obviously tempting fate. I joked, "This is the Marriott, isn't it?" What I didn't realize was that there were two Marriott's and I was at the wrong one. Damn!

I asked how far the other one was. She said it's just across the street. I breathed a sigh of relief since I had started to wonder if I got off at the right train stop. "But," she said, "you can't walk there from here." I'm normally pretty suspicious when non-walkers (i.e. just about everyone) tell me what is walkable. But given that we were in the middle of a bunch of freeways I make the mistake of believing her. She said she'd get a shuttle to take me over. So I sit and wait for 20 minutes.

When the shuttle finally comes, it takes me back to the train stop! The other Marriott was about 100 yards behind the train stop, across the parking lot. If I'd looked around a bit better when I came out I would have seen it. Doh! Luckily I wasn't in the Amazing Race or I would have had to face Phil telling me I was the last one to arrive and I'd been eliminated.

Savannah Photos

2011-11-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

I've enjoyed Savannah. There are a few too many Ye Olde Candie Shoppe's and you have to be careful not to get run over by the tour trolleys, but the history and old buildings are interesting, and I love all the squares with big trees draped in Spanish moss. (actually an epiphyte in the bromeliad family)

click to view photos

Tomorrow I continue on the train to Fort Lauderdale, and then a short flight to Nassau in the Bahamas where I meet up with Shelley to do some diving. I'm almost happy to have a day sitting on the train again - my feet are getting sore from all the miles I've put on them walking around Savannah!

PS. For what it's worth, I think this is my 1000'th blog post (between this and my computer blog).

Savannah Encounters

2011-11-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

It's the middle of the night on the train to Savannah. I'm squirming around for the umpteenth time trying to find a semi-comfortable position. I notice that the seats behind me are empty - they must have got off at some point. The guards, I mean attendants, aren't around so I decide to move back and give myself and my basketball player sized seat-mate a little more room. A few hours later we make a stop and the attendants reappear. I pretend to be asleep in hopes they'll leave me alone. No chance, they make a point of coming over several times and telling me that they're going to need that seat. (Which is a stretch since the car is only half full.) For some reason it always pisses them off if you don't behave like a good school kid. I've been chewed out about it and seen other people get in trouble over it as well. It's not like it's hurting anyone, or causing any trouble. A while later they can't stand my impertinence any longer and they order me back to my assigned seat. The seat behind stays empty for the rest of the trip. I try not to get too worked up about it. It's demeaning to be treated this way, but there's not much you can do. I don't imagine arguing with them would be a good move. It's not so much the comfort issue, I'd have no problem if the train was full, it's the irrationality of it that gets me. I don't think it has ever occurred to them that their job is actually to make the customers happy. Instead, they seem entirely focused on keeping the unruly inmates under control.

I was organizing my pack in the Savannah train station when I realized there was someone standing beside me. I had noticed him and his pack when he boarded the train and wondered if he was a backpacker and if so, what trail he was headed for. I said hi. He said "I noticed your backpack. Mine is over there", nodding towards his pack. I asked where he was headed. He said "Here. This is Savannah isn't it?" He asked "Is there an 'occupy' here? Or some other campground?" (Shelley will relate to how "occupy" is morphing from a movement to a campground.) I said I didn't know, I had a hotel. Suddenly I was no longer his bro and he wandered off.

Train stations are often conveniently downtown, but not this one. It was miles (literally) outside town. I could have taken one of the waiting taxis, but after sitting for so long I felt more like walking. I had downloaded some offline maps to my iPhone but I hadn't got a big enough area and I didn't have around the station. But I knew the river was north and downtown was east, so I headed for the rising sun. It took about an hour and a half of walking to reach downtown, but it was a beautiful sunny warm morning. (My sympathies went out to everyone at home in snowy Saskatoon!)

Almost everyone on the train with me was African-American. (Although that probably wasn't the case in first class.) As were the people I saw in the poor neighborhoods on the way into town. (Except for one white guy jogging down the street smoking a cigarette!) But once you got downtown the situation reversed and almost everyone was white. Sadly, some things take a long time to change.

I was pretty happy that the hotel (Planters Inn) had a room ready, even though it was only 9am. Refreshed after a shower and a change of clothes, I headed down the elevator. (Annoyingly, the stairs are emergencies only.) Four middle aged tourist looking women got on the elevator with me. They eyed me up and down and one of them said "We caught you!" Huh? I had no idea what they were talking about. "You were out late partying and you slept in and now you're going for breakfast." she explained. Sorry to disappoint their imaginations I said, "No, I just got in from the overnight train." I probably should have made up a good story about my wild night, I'm sure it would have made their day!

Schenectady

2011-11-08T08:07:00.001-08:00

On the move again, I took the train (Amtrak now) from Montreal southward. Daylight savings changed overnight, making me a little nervous about getting to the station at the right time. An hour early would be ok, but an hour late would be bad.

There was the usual delay crossing the border, not a big deal when you expect it. And you get to stay in your seat on the train. The customs person asked me where I was born. I said "Arusha" and he gave me a blank look. "Sorry, Tanzania." Still the blank look. "Africa." His eyebrows elevated. "What nationality were your parents?" he asked. "British" seemed to satisfy him and he gave me my passport back. I like the quirk of being born somewhere "different" but in today's political climate I'm also very glad it wasn't somewhere like Iraq.

This train goes to New York which is where I need to switch trains to get further south. But one of the advantages of trains (in my opinion) is that they stop at more places, unlike airlines, which tend to just go from hub to hub. I'm sure there's lots of cool stuff in New York, but it's a huge city and likely a challenge to find somewhere to stay that's nice without being ridiculously expensive.

So I stopped in Schenectady, as I did on my way to Boston in the spring. Small towns are nicer stopovers - they're more walkable and hotels are cheaper. I'm staying at the Stockade Inn again - a small place in a historical building.

Having had sufficient wining and dining in Montreal I opted for the Moon and River Cafe for supper. Another funky place (but friendlier than L'Escalier) They don't serve alcohol and they don't even have an espresso machine OMG :-) Good vegetarian food though. I was tempted to hang around for the live music but I decided to read my book by the fireplace back at the inn instead.

It's fun to explore new places, but it's also nice to revisit places and know your way around. Last time I was here I had quite a search for a decent coffee. This time I knew exactly where to go - Villa Italia - only a short detour on the way to the Amtrak station :-)

I change trains in New York and travel overnight to arrive in Savannah in the morning. It's still cool here (frost on the cars this morning) I'm looking forward to putting the heavy jacket away once I get to Savannah, although I'm sure I'll need it again in on the way back.

It's nice to have wifi on the train now, and power outlets at every seat! On Via Rail from Saskatoon to Toronto there's no wifi and a single power outlet for all the passengers to share!

Too many people seem to regard travel as a necessary evil, getting stressed and irritated. Occasionally I find myself falling into the same trap, but for the most part I love the journey as much as the destination.

Penn Station was as big and busy as I expected, but it was also clean and bright and more modern than I expected. I looked for somewhere to have lunch. There was lots of fast food down in the station but it would be nice to find somewhere a little better. I made my way up to street level. At which point I was reminded that I'm really not a big city person and retreated into the known world of the station :-) I managed to get a sit down lunch at Fridays.

Next challenge was coffee. I asked the waitress if there was a Starbucks in the station. Her eyes lit up and she said "No, but there's Tim Hortons". As a Canadian, I'm happy for Tim Horton's international success, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I wandered around the fast food places looking for an espresso machine. I found one at a place called Chickpeas, not exactly where I would have looked first, but I'll take what I can get!

Unfamiliar transit terminals are always a challenge to figure out. There are never enough signs or instructions for newcomers and they all have their own unique inscrutable procedures. Penn Station was no different. Even for the long distance trains, they didn't announce the track till 15 min before, at which point there's a big scamble for everyone to get in line.

One common point on longer Amtrak trips is that the conductor assigns seats as you get on the train, according to some unknowable process. And regardless of how full the train is, they always pack people together, leaving half the car empty (or even entire empty cars), rather than letting people spread out. I hope there's at least some benefit to the staff, because it certainly wouldn't be the choice of the customers.

At least I managed the scramble well enough to get a window seat :-) Now it's just a matter of sitting back for the ride to Savannah.

(I planned to post this yesterday, but there was no wifi on the New York to Savannah train.)

Canal, Market, Sphere

2011-11-06T04:13:00.000-08:00

click to view photos

It was a beautiful sunny day today, although still quite cool. It is November after all.

From the hotel I walked along the Lachine Canal to the Atwater Market, quite a distance, but a nice path. The market itself wasn't that impressive - more shops than a "farmer's market". Probably there's more outside in the summer.

After a coffee break at the market I took the metro downtown and went to the McCord Museum to see an exhibit of Edward Burtynsky's "Oil" photographs. Great photographs and worth seeing full size. And it happened to be the first Saturday of the month so admission was free.

I had lunch at the museum restaurant (quite nice) and then took the metro to the Biosphere. The geodesic dome was built for Expo '67 and is now a museum for the environment. They had some interesting exhibits and the sphere is cool, but overall it was a little disappointing. But I walked around the island for a while enjoying the sunny fall day.

Supper was at Barroco and it was excellent. Even booking the day before, all I could get was sitting at the bar. But that was entertaining as cocktails are a specialty and the bartender was kept busy preparing them. I left it up to the chef to come up with something vegetarian and I wasn't disappointed. I got a platter with arugala and grape salad, risotta, and wild mushrooms and roasted vegetables.Very tasty. I had the squash soup to start - served in a hollowed out pumpkin. And at the bartender's recommendation, the apple tart for dessert. I'm afraid I didn't try the cocktails and had a French Malbec instead.

Domes, Bugs, and Carrots

2011-11-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

Had a good first day in Montreal. Breakfast at the hotel (Auberge du Vieux Port), coffee at Equi-Tasse. Then walked over to Berri-UQAM station to take the metro to the Biodome and Insectarium. (Not to be confused with the Biosphere.) Managed to figure out the metro without too much trouble, although it definitely seems to be aimed more at locals than tourists - few maps or instructions, and scant ticket machines.

The Biodome is next to the Olympic stadium, both are pretty amazing structures. The Biodome is split into four sections. First, the tropical section. I immediately saw some monkeys up in a tree and pulled out my camera. Big mistake - bringing a cold camera from barely above freezing outside into a hot humid tropical atmosphere inside immediately fogged it up totally. No photos for a while!

I smiled when I saw the capybara. The last time I saw a capybara was in the wild, beside a rain forest river in Peru. The river otters were entertaining as always. The beaver came out of the water to grab some food (half a potato?). There was a porcupine up in a tree.

Scuba divers were feeding the fish in a huge tank. At the surface, sea birds were paddling around. In the polar area puffins and penguins were entertaining. The penguins were fat little torpedoes in the water.

From the Biodome it's a short walk to the Insectarium in the Botanical Gardens. It's not very big, but it's well worth visiting, if you enjoy the wonders of nature. It's a mix of dead and live bugs. Both are amazing!

Back at Berri-UQAM I hunted for a late lunch. I had recommendations, but they were all a long way away. Yelp showed a vegetarian restaurant, L'Escalier, with a good rating just a block away so I gave it a try. It turned out to be pretty funky as you can tell from the front door! (Maybe a little too funky for my liking!) I ordered soup and a sandwich. Somehow I only got the soup. It could have been my French, but I think they just weren't paying attention. The waitress was in the process of leaving and the cook was trying to have his own lunch. Oh well, the soup was good.

I'm not sure if I'm looking more like a local this trip, or if people don't expect tourists this time of the year. Whatever the reason, people keep trying to talk to me in French. And not just talk to me, but ask directions, including a kid on a skateboard! Previously, it seemed like everyone would switch to English as soon as I opened my mouth. Thankfully, I can usually figure out enough words to guess what they're asking, and give a finely crafted and exquisitely pronounced monosyllabic response :-)

I stopped at Equi-Tasse again for my afternoon coffee on the way back and started checking the internet for somewhere for supper. Of the recommendations I had collected, the only one that was nearby was Restaurant 400 Coups. But when I tried to make a reservation on-line, I could only get 9pm, and nothing available tomorrow. But I stopped by the restaurant and they offered me a spot at the bar at 6pm so I took it.

Supper was excellent. A glass of Canadian Gamay wine. A cucumber, grape, and goat cheese salad. And a main course of roasted carrots with whipped ricotta and mushrooms. Considering most chefs can't imagine a main course without meat, it's pretty amazing they would offer something centered on such a humble vegetable as the carrot. It was, of course, very tasty. And last, but not least, I had an exotic chocolate dessert that was scrumptious.

Those of you that don't know me so well probably won't believe this, but as much as I enjoy staying in wonderful boutique hotels and eating at fabulous restaurants, I'd really be just as happy freezing my butt off, feeling like crap at high altitude, sitting in a cramped tent in a storm on the side of some mountain. Somehow I've ended up in a situation where the former is much easier to do than the latter. Obviously took a wrong turn somewhere :-) And environmentally, there would be much less guilt on the mountain than in the hotel. Oh well, can't dwell on that right now, I have to get back to my hotel and get ready for my dinner reservation!

Here are some photos from the Biodome and Insectarium: (with the usual indoor low light challenges)

click to view photos

The Rational Optimist

2011-11-04T06:52:00.001-07:00

"It is the long ascent of the past that gives lie to our despair" - H.G. Wells

I just finished reading Matt Ridley's recent book The Rational Optimist.

I was prompted to read it by his Long Now talk. I find it hard to be optimistic these days, but I try to read a variety of viewpoints. One of the problems with today's abundance of information is that it is all too easy to only read material that you agree with. Not a good plan if you want an open mind.

It's an interesting book, that makes a lot of good points. There have always been people forecasting disaster and it makes good press so it tends to get amplified. And often they turn out to be wrong. By many measures the overall trend of the human race has been upward.

I would like to point out that when people raise the possibility of a disaster and then it doesn't happen, that doesn't mean there was never a danger. Take Y2K for example. Look at all the fuss there was, and look at what a non-event it turned out to be. But if no one had made a fuss, if all the preventative work had not been done, maybe there really would have been a disaster. Sometimes when you cry wolf, there really is a wolf.

My biggest complaint about the book is that it is overwhelmingly people oriented. Although the non-human environment is mentioned, it is definitely secondary. It's natural for people to be people-centric. But the history of mankind is one of expanding horizons, from family to tribe to race to all of humankind. I'd like to think that the natural continuation of that is to expand our empathy and concern and attention to our whole environment, not just the human part.

The book seems to assume that the measure of "success" is economic growth. Even within the human sphere, I have my doubts about the value, wisdom, and feasibility of unending growth. Contrary to popular belief, more is not always better. Obviously, poor people can benefit from a higher standard of living. But those of us in rich countries may already have gone too far. Depending on which study you pay attention to, more money doesn't even make us happier. Having more income to spend on more stuff to fill up our ever larger homes has little redeeming value and likely does more harm than good in the big picture. And to further complicate the story, our "growth" in the last few decades has almost entirely gone to the already rich top few percent. Do the billionaires really need more billions? I guess it gives the other 99% something to dream about. But is that much more productive than dreaming about winning the lottery?

Still, it was an interesting read, and a nice change from doom and gloom even if you don't agree with all of it.

Outgoing

2011-11-03T07:18:00.001-07:00

I remember sitting in an airport one time thinking that the travelers could be divided into two categories - the ones heading out, and the ones heading home. And that this categorization cut across most other groupings - it had nothing to do with race or gender or education.

Right now, I'm outgoing, headed away from Saskatoon on the train again. I find my mindset is quite different at the beginning of a trip than it is at the end. The beginning is a process of letting go, of breaking free from normal life. The end means looking ahead to reentry into the regular routine, back to all the issues you temporarily left behind.

We just passed one of my favorite parts of the train trip east from Saskatoon - the section along the Qu'appelle valley near the Saskatchewan / Manitoba border. In the spring when I passed through it was green and wetly flooded. Now, the leaves are all gone, the water has retreated, and dry browns predominate. Unlike the prairies there are hills and trees. Unlike the seemingly endless boreal forest, there are still open views.

I also like the lakes, rivers, rocks, and forests of northern Ontario. They make me wish I had my kayak with me! (Although it doesn't seem right to call it "northern" Ontario when it's actually in the southern half of the province.)

Nine of us got on in Saskatoon, more than last time I rode the train. Less foreign tourists this time, they mostly travel westward through the mountains and in the summer. Quite a few people are traveling all the way from Vancouver to Toronto. A few are switching trains to continue on to Montreal or Halifax. I don't imagine too many are taking trains all the way to Florida the way I am :-)

When you fly, you jump over countries and continents. Taking the train or bus, you are, instead, immersed in the country. You cannot escape the size of the continent, or the variety of the terrain.

Another aspect of riding the train is that you are surrounded by other people that take the train. That sounds self evident, but in any other group, taking the train is an oddity. This sense of being with people that share a certain common ground doesn't really happen with flying, since flying is so common, and you have little time or circumstance to mingle with the other passengers.

When you are in "sleeper" class on Via Rail meals are included. This helps pass the time and also forces even introverts like me to meet some of the fellow travelers. On many cruise ships you have an assigned table and sit with the same few people every meal. Here, you are seated at a different table with different people at each meal. Last night I had supper with a pair of cute young girls 2 and 3 years old. My main fear was that I was going to end up wearing some of the food they were waving about! As usual, the food was excellent and there was always a good vegetarian option.

I have a few days in Montreal and a break from the train before continuing south.

Black Hills

2011-10-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

We recently took a road trip down to the Black Hills. The plan was to climb, although I was worried whether the weather would cooperate. As it turned out the weather wasn't the problem. Shelley hurt her back just before the trip. She thought she'd be able to climb, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Of course, the weather was perfect!

We did manage to hike up Harney Peak (the high point in South Dakota) and visit Wind Cave. I've always avoided the caves because I thought they be too touristy, but this one is a national park and was quite interesting.

We haven't been down here for a few years and never this late in the fall. We were surprised how much stuff was closed for the season. And two of our favorite places in Custer - The Songbird Cafe and the Bank Coffee House were not only closed, but up for sale. We did find a couple of good coffee shops (Common Ground and Green Bean) and a nice restaurant (Bay Leaf Cafe) in Spearfish.

The Mickelson Trail (by bike) and the Centennial Trail (on foot) looked interesting. Might have to go back and do those one day.

click to view photos

Rules are made to be broken

2011-10-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

I recently booked the train from Saskatoon to Montreal. Literally a few hours after I booked, Via Rail announced a 50% discount. I was in the middle of a road trip, but when I got home a couple of days later I called Via Rail to see if they would do anything.

I navigated the usual maze-like computerized phone system (I really hate those things - I can only think they are designed to discourage people from calling.) When I finally got to talk to a human being they pointed out that I had 24 hours to cancel my booking and re-do it with the discount. I explained that (a) I wasn't aware of this, and (b) I was travelling and wasn't able to do this. They "helpfully" pointed out that if I had read my reservation email I would have seen the 24 hour cancellation. I checked, and it's there, at the bottom, buried with all the other terms and conditions that no one reads.

They said it was too late. I asked if there wasn't something they could do. They passed me over to "customer support" (which raises the question of who I was talking to initially?).

I went through my whole story again, and got pretty much the same answer - "there's nothing we can do". That may be true in terms of the powers of that individual, but in terms of Via Rail, it's patently untrue - they can do whatever they want. It's not like it's illegal to bend your own rules.

The final explanation was that even if they did allow me to cancel and rebook, I wouldn't save much money. Huh? It turns out that the 50% is off some hypothetical "regular" price that is higher than what you would normally pay. (I also hate sleazy marketing scams.)

I gave up, it isn't worth trying to fight this kind of bureaucracy. There's not much joy in trying to deal with people that are just going through the motions. Of course, by the letter of their rules, they are perfectly in the right.

(On the positive side, I had only booked one direction so I was able to get the discount on the return trip.)

I can only hope my own staff understands that there are times when it pays to bend the rules. And that rules shouldn't be an excuse not to care about and look after your customers.

Overheard

2011-09-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure it's a good idea to eavesdrop on the guys doing work on your house:

"Oh my goodness"

"I don't know if this is going to work."

"Don't worry, s**t happens."

"That's in the wrong place!"
response: "Too late now."

"Hey, I'm fixing up your f**kups, so you don't have to worry about it."

(but as far as I can tell, it all ended up fine)

Back on Wheels

2011-09-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

It's a "hybrid" Giant Seek 0 - Shimano Alfine 8 speed internal hub, hydraulic disk brakes, 700 x 32 tires, from the Bike Doctor.

My previous bike was a Cannondale F600 mountain bike - quite a different beast. But the fact is, I'm not riding off pavement these days so I decided I might as well get a bike that's more suited to the riding I'm actually doing - which is getting around town. I even put fenders on it - so much for my image!

Without the front shock and with skinnier tires, it's definitely a "harder" ride. You notice the bumps in the road a lot more (and avoid them more!) But it also feels fast and responsive. The internal gears shift smoothly and easily. (Although I'm still getting used to the shifting being "backwards") The range of gears seems ok. I think I would have preferred the range a little lower - I haven't found myself using the top few gears so far. But the lowest gear is still pretty low so it's ok.

I'm not sure how it'll be in the winter - that can be a lot more like "mountain" biking. I can still put studded tires on, albeit skinnier ones. And most of the time in the winter I ended up riding with my shock locked out because it had gone flat. And when it got really cold, shifting often didn't work reliably. From what I've heard the internal hub should still work ok when it's cold - we'll see.

I've been interested in the internal hubs for a while. The straight chain path and internal gears should (in theory) be nice low maintenance, especially in the slush and grit of spring and fall. Shimano has a new 11 speed version which sounds even better, but the Bike Doctor didn't have any yet. In fact, the Seek 0 was the only bike they had in stock with internal gears. Fall might be a good time for deals but not so good for selection. (and of course, this bike wasn't one of the ones on sale!) MEC has a bike with the 11 speed hub which looks pretty good, but I'd rather buy locally. Especially when you want to get good service. (And MEC was out of stock anyway, eliminating any temptation.)

It's a fairly nondescript gray which suits me. (Even the branding is subdued.) I figure it's less likely to get stolen if it doesn't look too flashy. Although the disk brakes are a bit of a give-away if you know to look for them.

I think Shelley is just going to get another mountain bike. Not because she's riding off pavement any more than I am, but more because that's what she's always ridden and is used to. (And I have to admit, the mountain biker "image" is more appealing than "commuter"!) Although I've been riding mountain bikes for quite a while, before that I rode "ten speeds" for many years, so this style of bike isn't as alien to me.

I reinforced the door of the shed so it won't be quite as easy to break into. But it's still just a flimsy metal shed so it's never going to be that hard to get into. I'm locking my bike up inside the shed as well - I would really be pissed to have the new one stolen. And I wouldn't put it past the thieves to come back in hopes of finding new bikes.

I'm happy to have a bike again. I hate to drive, so without a bike I'm reduced to walking, which is ok, but nowhere near as quick to zip around or go longer distances.

Sprinklers & Freezing

2011-09-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

Our first overnight freezing temperatures a few days ago, but the sprinklers had still come on in the park.

Taken with Canon G12

Paddling into Autumn

2011-09-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

With the weather still holding I couldn't resist heading north with my kayak. Had a great paddle around most of the Bagwa Loop although I didn't do the portages. (I'd rather paddle than slog through the mud.) Instead I stayed both nights at the Pease Point campsite and on Saturday I paddled through Bagwa and Lily Lake, walked across the portage to have a look at Clare Lake, and then paddled back. Quite a long day with meandering about, and of course with the wind inevitably against me going back.

I didn't see any moose this year, but saw a few bald eagles reasonably close. And there were ducks and the odd Canada goose, a pelican, and a few Snow geese. The loons were making their iconic cries. Not many people around.

As forecast, the weather started to turn Sunday morning. It was clear and calm all night but the clouds gathered and the wind picked up as I paddled back. I seem to get rougher water for the paddle back. The waves were getting to be about three feet high in the worst parts, leading to a bit of a roller coaster, and the occasional splash in the face. Even with the spray skirt on, water still tends to get inside resulting in a wet ride. Thankfully a few of the bays were sheltered enough to take a breather. When I got to the end I was lucky to have a cart waiting at my end of the rail portage. And the rain held off until I was just about back to the car :-)

I haven't been out paddling much this summer so my arms and shoulders was pretty stiff and sore by the end. But it was a good kind of tired. And it was great to get out and enjoy our wonderful northern lakes.

(click to view photos)

The Grackles Come to Visit

2011-09-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Someone coming to the door said they thought they were in the Hitchcock movie "The Birds". A flock of Common Grackles that has been hanging around the neighborhood the last few days discovered our bird feeder. There were a lot of them - maybe a hundred. It was hard to get good photos, every time I came to the window they would all fly away. They're probably on their way migrating south. Often when you see them they just look black, but in the right light they are actually quite colorful. They seemed to be going after the bigger food that the sparrows don't eat like the corn and peanuts.

(Click on the photos for a larger version.)

Along the River

2011-09-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've been kicking myself all weekend for not getting out on a kayak trip or something on this last bit of beautiful summer weather. So I took a hike to Waneskewin and back to at least spend some time outdoors.

It's not exactly wilderness, but it's always nice along the river. I came around a corner and four great blue herons took off from a sandbar, gangly but gracefu. An owl (long eared?) rose up out of the underbrush in front of me and perched on a branch eying me suspiciously. A hawk circled low around a coulee. Canada geese called from the river. Grasshoppers exploded up out of the grass all around me. Frogs jumped off the bank into the river. A muskrat dived in and swam away. Fish disappeared in a swirl of water. Clam shells and crayfish claws littered the shore. Ants feasted on a caterpillar. Bees and butterflies enjoyed the last flowers of the summer. I enjoyed the last of the summer!

click to view photos

Photos taken with the G12 this time.

Fall Feast

2011-09-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Beautiful black and yellow wasps feeding on a half eaten crab apple.

taken with iPhone 3GS

Amazing Riding

2011-08-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Climbing Weekend

2011-08-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

Shelley and I just got back from a quick climbing trip to Kananaskis. We left Thursday after work, climbed Friday at Barrier Bluffs, and Saturday we did Joy on Mt. Indefatigable. Sunday, somewhat sore and worn out from the long day on Joy, we had a leisurely breakfast and drove home.

Joy is an easy climb but a long one - about 10 pitches on the face and then three pitches or so of loose exposed ridge scrambling, followed by a long steep hike down. We had some trouble finding the right way down and ended up getting the rope back out to rappel a final cliff band. We'd done Joy before, quite a few years ago, but selective memory had edited out the ridge and descent.

It was great to get out, and the weather was beautiful as you can tell from the blue skies in the photos.

click to view photos

Dragonfly in the Grass

2011-08-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

One morning a few days ago, I found this guy in the shade on some dew soaked grass, not moving. I wasn't sure he was alive but when I carefully picked him up he grabbed onto my finger. I carried him home and set him in the sun while I ran inside for my camera. I took a few shots quickly, but the grass wasn't the best background so I picked him up to move him. He must have just been cold and was warming up now. He started to vibrate his wings, which I've read insects do to help warm up, in the same way we might do some jumping jacks. Before I had a chance to set him down for more photos he must have warmed up sufficiently and off he went. So this is the best shot I got:

There have been a lot of dragonflies around this summer. No doubt the result of several wet years. I'm happy to have them around eating the mosquitos. They are amazing fliers and hunters.

Climbing Gym Reaches for Sustainability

2011-08-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

Britain's Biggest Indoor Climbing Gym Reaches for Sustainability : TreeHugger

This Culture Is #/?*#-+

2011-08-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

An article by Derrick Jensen in Orion magazine. I wasn't familiar with Orion but Candace Savage recommended it and it looks excellent. Even if you don't want to pay to subscribe, they publish a lot of content on line for free. If you're not familiar with Jensen, this is a mild introduction.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6350/

iPhone Photos

2011-07-31T07:13:00.000-07:00

It does surprisingly well, considering this is an older 3GS, not the 4 with the better camera.

Peppers

2011-07-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

I love the profusion of produce at the farmers market this time of year.

iPhone + Lightroom (click for larger view)

Patagonia Time Lapse

2011-07-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

Beautiful time lapse video of Patagonia by Adam Colton.

As usual, it's worth viewing it larger size.

Happy Birthday Mendel

2011-07-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Cute Google graphic for Gregory Mendel's 189th birthday:

Growing is Forever

2011-07-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

Watch it on Vimeo to get a larger version.

Urban Friends

2011-07-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

I went for a run this morning and even within the city it's great to see other creatures besides humans.

The pelicans were out cruising the river. They are such beautiful flyers, although a little awkward looking taking off and landing.

A Northern flicker was out in the grass. They are the only woodpeckers that feed on the ground, often on ants. They are even known to crush ants and rub the resulting formic acid on themselves to kill parasites. I've seen quite a few of these this year.

A couple of Yellow warblers were hopping around in the bushes and trees. Such colorful little birds.

After my run, when I was sitting on a bench watching the river go by, a short-tailed weasel (aka stoat) ran across the path in front of me. It didn't seem to notice me and stopped under my bench for a moment before running a bit farther down the path and disappearing into the underbrush.

Life is good.

Fern Meadow

2011-07-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

A beautiful meadow carpeted with ferns. This was from our recent Appalachian Trail hike. The video is not the greatest quality but I hope you get a feel for how beautiful it was. The music is, suitably, Copland's Appalachian Spring. (I thought I was using a short enough clip of the music to be legit, but it got detected and can't be played in Germany because of copyright.)

For a bigger version, click on the Vimeo button at the bottom right.

Shot with a Canon G12 and stabilized with iMovie.

2011-07-07 Update: The video quit working on YouTube, probably because of the copyright issue, so I switched to Vimeo.

Spreading the Word - EcoFriendly Sask

2011-07-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

For some time I've wanted to do something to help the environment, but it's hard to know where to start. I have this blog where I sometimes talk about environmental issues, but I doubt whether my rants really do much to help the environment.

And so EcoFriendly Sask was born.

My sister Penny has a blog as well (Wanderlust and Words). I really liked the way she told the stories of people and their passions. She also has a weekly Flavourful Saskatoon post about local food happenings.

What if we were to start a blog (and Facebook and Twitter, of course) to talk about local environmental stories and happenings?

At first we were both a little sceptical as there are already so many environmental organizations and websites. But there aren't any websites focusing on the local environmental news and issues in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. No one was gathering the news from all the different organizations, each with their own focus. And no one was telling the stories of the local people and their passions.

Did you know that Saskatchewan's newest national park, Grasslands, was recently expanded? Did you know that the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives has a Saskatchewan office that recently released a report on Sustainable Power Options to Complement Wind and Solar? Do you know which businesses are out there if you want to install solar panels or geothermal? Do you know what events are going on this month related to the environment? That's the kind of information we wanted to share.

The more we thought about it, the more it made sense. I was already following the environmental news, and Penny had already developed a reporting style that we thought would work well.

We brainstormed for names and ended up with EcoFriendly Sask. We're not sure where we'll end up, but we're going to start by gathering the news and stories on the environmental front in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan and passing it on via blog, Facebook, and Twitter. We hope to raise awareness, educate, and encourage.

I hope you'll join us at EcoFriendly Sask, and please Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Pike Lake

2011-07-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

A few photos from kayaking this morning at Pike Lake.

(click to view photos)

Pool of Possibilities

2011-07-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

I stopped by the Mendel today for coffee at Museo and to check out the Pool Project exhibit of Courtney Milne's photographs.

If you get a chance I would definitely recommend having a look at the exhibit - wonderful photographs.

My father went on photography workshops with Courtney and was always envious of his photographs and his success. I also wish I could take such beautiful photographs.

A nice video about Courtney and his pool project. Best full screen.

Complete Streets

2011-07-02T16:15:00.001-07:00

Complete Streets: It’s About More Than Bike Lanes - interesting video on the issues of bike lanes, pedestrians, and traffic in New York.

One thing I noticed in this video is that not only are the bike lanes inside the parked cars, but there is also a space between the parked cars and the bike lane so you don't get wiped out by someone opening their car door.

Unfortunately, this also reminds me about how minimal our biking infrastructure is in Saskatoon. If you want to get wiped out by a car door in Saskatoon I suggest biking south on the downtown part of Spadina. Although this is nominally a bike route, you're squeezed between busy traffic and people frequently getting in and out of parked cars. If someone does open their door in front of you, you'd better be able to stop since your only other option is to swerve out into the traffic. Saskatoon's idea of bike infrastructure is to paint a few sharrow chevrons on traffic lanes and fantasize that somehow that makes it all better for bikers. Sorry, but that's pathetic. A recent study doesn't show much benefit to cyclists. (Their conclusions are the opposite, but aren't supported by the data as far as I can see.) I guess they might be better than nothing, but not by much.

Prairie Skies

2011-07-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

The living room faces the sunset so when I see colors like this through the trees sometimes I have to grab my camera and try to capture it. The mosquitoes also enjoy the opportunity to feast on me while I'm standing in the driveway taking pictures!

Conservation in the Real World

2011-06-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Kareiva began by recalling the environmental "golden decade" of 1965-75, set in motion by the scientist Rachel Carson. In quick succession Congress created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act---which passed the Senate unanimously.

Green influence has been dwindling ever since. A series of polls in the US asked how many agreed with the statement, "Most environmentalists are extremists, not reasonable people." In 1996, 32% agreed. In 2004, 43% agreed. Now it's over 50% who think environmentalists are unreasonable.

Peter Kareiva: Conservation in the Real World - The Long Now

Some interesting points in this summary of his talk.

Reflections on Water

2011-06-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos I took wandering around the waterfront of the old town in Montreal. The blue and yellow tents are Cirque du Soleil. Some of the reflected color is from graffiti. I find water and reflections fascinating.

(click to view photos)

Note: These are all quite tweaked in Lightroom - boosting the contrast and saturation a lot. Here are the before and after versions of one of them:

China's Unthinkable Population Problem

2011-06-23T11:55:00.001-07:00

China’s Unthinkable Population Problem - Long Views: The Long Now Blog

We struggle to lower the birth rate, and then as soon as we do, the economists panic because their myth of infinite growth is threatened. You get, OMG, an aging population that isn't as good as consumer fodder and actually wants services back from the economy.

Countries, like Italy and Malaysia, try to increase their birth rate by giving financial incentives. And if they succeed, then what? About face and panic about the population problem?

I applaud China for not giving in to the economists and for maintaining their one child policy. It's those same economists that got us into our current bind.

Great Places don't have bottled water

2011-06-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the Spacing Road Show event put on by Great Places Saskatoon. It was an interesting discussion.

But I was disappointed to see the speakers / panel with bottled water. Here's the email I sent them:

Thanks for the event last night, it was interesting.

One small suggestion - don't use bottled water for the speakers and panel. Even if the bottles are recycled/recyclable/compostable there is still a lot of energy involved in manufacturing and transporting them. All to get water that could just as well come from the tap. (and hopefully not served in disposable cups)

I realize that Great Places focus is not strictly environmental, but obviously the environment plays a large role in great places.

People attending these kinds of events look at them as good examples. If they see you using bottled water, they are going to think it's ok.

Chebeague Island

2011-06-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

I love the ocean. Maybe it's something to do with living on the prairies, after all, I love the mountains too. Or maybe it goes back to childhood summer holidays on Vancouver Island with many happy hours on the beach.

To see a little more of New England and to get to the ocean, Shelley and I took the train from Boston to Portland (Maine) and then the ferry to Chebeague Island where we stayed at the Chebeague Island Inn. The inn is expensive, but we figured it balanced out with our (free) nights of camping.

It was a nice quiet contrast to the hustle and bustle of Boston. The inn is a lovely place to stay. It has a great verandah to sit and look a the view, an attractive lounge, and a great restaurant (the only "fancy" restaurant on the island). The menu doesn't have any vegetarian main courses, but we threw ourselves on the mercy of the chef and he created wonderful meals for us. The deserts were also great, especially the homemade gelato and ice cream.

The island isn't very big, just four or five miles long. The inn provides bicycles and it's an easy ride around. There isn't a lot to do or see. (There is a small golf course right next to the inn, but we're not golfers.) But if I've got the beach, I don't need much more - I can spend hours poking around finding shells and crabs and watching the birds. When the tide was out we walked over to Little Chebeague Island. (Where you can camp.)

We didn't have much time in Portland, just enough to have lunch as we passed through to and from the ferry. On the way there we ate at the Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro, and on the way back at the Olive Cafe. Both were good. (Thanks to Yelp and its iPhone app for helping us discover them.)

(click to view photos)

Pedestrians and Falcons

2011-06-15T07:09:00.001-07:00

On my way home I stopped in Albany instead of Schenectady. Due to track maintenance I had to take the bus from Boston, rather than the train. That's fine except the bus terminal is in Albany, and the train station is in Rensselaer, on opposite sides of the river. There is a bridge, but it's a freeway with massive cloverleafs (cloverleaves?) either end. Shelley and I had come this way heading for our hike. Google maps had shown a walking route across the bridge, but its walking info isn't always accurate. The bus terminal is under the freeway overpasses and we couldn't see any way to get up there. And it wouldn't surprise me if there was no allowance for those pesky pedestrians. After all, they just get in the way of the supremely important traffic. I asked if there was a way to walk across the bridge and they said no, you had to take a taxi. Which we did, but the taxi had no meter and charged us $15 for a two minute ride. To add insult to injury, from the taxi we could see what looked like a walkway across the bridge.

This time I had time to explore and found the entrance to the walkway just a short distance from the bus terminal, connected, logically (for a change) to the paths along the river. As it turned out, google maps was accurate.

In case anyone googles for this, here are some directions: from the bus, head towards the river, past the Holiday Inn. Take the underpass at the end of Broadway. The walkway starts just on the river side of the underpass. On the other side of the river (Rensselaer) you need to make a u-turn off the end of the ramp to get to the small bridge across the train tracks to the station. It's an easy 10 or 15 minute walk.

On my way across the bridge a pair of Peregrine falcons were swooping and circling, making alarm cries. I'm not sure what they were upset about, but there was some construction on the bridge. Maybe it had disturbed or was close to their nest on the bridge? I stopped to watch their flying skills from up close for a change. Beautiful birds and one of the (rare) conservation success stories since they were almost wiped out by DDT and other pesticides, but have since made a good recovery.

Six Days on the AT

2011-06-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

Our first day of hiking had a little bit of everything. We started by taking the bus from Rutland to Manchester. Then we had to find our way a couple of miles through and out of town to the start of the trail. I was glad to see the trail actually existed since all we had to go by was a line on on outdated topo map. The morning was already hot and humid with towering thunder clouds on the horizon. We were glad to get off the sunny streets and into the deep shade of the forest.

We didn't see any other people except a couple coming down the trail - a lucky meeting for us because they told us the trail we'd been planning to use to connect to the AT (Appalachian Trail) was impassable. (A windstorm had blown down an area of trees and the beavers had built damns that flooded it.) Luckily, there was another alternative trail we could take.

As the afternoon progressed, the distant rumbles of thunder gradually grew closer. When the rain finally arrived it was light and we were too hot to put on rain gear. But it turned into a downpour and we had no choice. Through the worst of it we huddled under the biggest tree we could find (not very big) as marble size hail fell. Once it slowed down we continued hiking. Needless to say we got pretty wet. But it turned out to be the only rain we'd get on the hike, so we can't complain.

We considered stopping at Bourne Pond but decided to continue on to Branch Pond. It had stopped raining by then and we found a good campsite by the pond. Unfortunately, the black flies liked the site (and us) too so we retreated inside the tent. It was still hot enough that we just hung out in wet clothes and gradually dried out.

Day two went smoother except for an annoyance that plagued me for the rest of the hike. Soon after we started hiking my left knee started to feel a little "funny". I thought it would be fine after warming up. But instead it started to give twinges of pain if I moved it the wrong way. It got steadily worse. Eventually I told Shelley I didn't think I wanted to walk on it any more that day.

Of course, I'd planned our hike to be away from roads and towns so at this point it was 20 miles to the next town and 20 miles back to where we started. Not a pleasant thought if my knee got much worse. On the positive side, I'd had a similar problem on my Lake Superior hike and it had improved after a few days. And it wasn't the joint - I could put my full weight on it - it just hurt to bend/lift the knee. It seemed like a tendon/ligament issue.

The next day I took some ibuprofen and borrowed one of Shelley's trekking poles and we started hiking. It still hurt but it didn't seem to be getting any worse so we kept going. As long as I could keep the leg straight it was fine. That was easy when the trail was smooth and level, but most of the time we were going up or down, over rocks and fallen logs. My good leg definitely got a workout compensating. Thankfully the knee gradually improved and by the end of the hike was much better. We went a little slower, but we still did the 20 km per day that we had planned.

A lush green forest overflowing with life is one of the most beautiful sights. And the green of new leaves with the sun filtering through is one of the most beautiful colors. I'm amazed at how much forest there is here (in the Appalachians). Above the populated valleys, the hills are totally covered with trees. Of course, it's all been logged before, multiple times, so the trees are relatively small - the big ones were 12 or 18 inches in diameter. In the towns you can find some older trees that are 3 feet or more in diameter. The original old growth forest must have been impressive.

Although you don't get many views hiking through the forest, we were glad of the cool shade since it was quite warm and humid. And the occasional views were all the same anyway - rolling hills covered in trees!

We saw a variety of wildlife - deer, beaver, porcupine, salamanders, garter snakes, tadpoles, frogs, and various birds (mostly heard but not seen). A porcupine visited our campsite the last evening just as it was getting dark. He approached with a rolling gait, stopped a couple of times to eye us, then continued on to a tree that grew at an angle. He climbed up the tree to where the leaves and branches were, about 50 feet off the ground and stayed there all night - munching away, judging by the sounds. He was gone by the time we got up in the morning. The salamanders were Eastern Newts. We saw a bright orange terrestrial juvenile "red eft" and several olive green aquatic adults.

The AT itself is well marked with white "blazes" (rectangular paint marks) on the trees. The trail is even marked when it goes through towns. We didn't run into many people on the trail, a handful each day, but there were usually people at the campsites and shelters. We tried to find campsites away from the standard spots but it was harder than expected in the thick forest.

Overall it was a great hike, definitely recommended if you're in the area.

(click to view photos)

* A lot of these photos are by Shelley

Heading for the Appalachian Trail

2011-05-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we head out of Boston to where we're going to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail.

The trail is 3,510 km long - we're only hiking about about 120 km of it over six days. (From Manchester, Vermont to Pittsfield, MA)

For summer trips we've stopped carrying a stove and our formula for food is simple - granola and milk powder for breakfast, trail mix for lunch, and bars and crackers for supper. (In this case we've also added peanut butter, dried fruit, and tofu jerky.) It might not be everyone's favorite diet, but it's simple and easy to obtain almost anywhere. We tracked down a local Whole Foods in Boston to do our shopping, but almost any grocery store would have been sufficient.

Since our trips have mostly been under a week, and us older types have slower metabolisms, about half a kilo (roughly a pound) per day per person works for us. Your mileage may vary.

In colder weather it's nice to have hot drinks and we might carry our Jetboil. But it's a hassle traveling with stoves and pretty much impossible to carry fuel on planes so it's definitely simpler to do without.

Franklin Park Zoo

2011-05-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

This morning we went to the Franklin Park Zoo and then walked back on the Emerald Necklace walking tour through Frederick Law Olmsted parks. We didn't quite make it through all the parks because we got too hot and hungry. Nice parks though.

(click to view photos)

New England Aquarium in Boston

2011-05-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the aquarium. We enjoyed our visit - it's a nice aquarium, despite the holiday weekend crowds.

(click to view photos)

Montreal to Schenectady

2011-05-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

It was raining so I took a taxi to the train station. My taxi driver was an angry young man who cursed at everyone and everything that got in the way of his taxi while he alternately stepped on the accelerator and/or stomped on the brakes. I'm glad it was a short trip!

An announcement that it was a holiday weekend in the USA and the train could be crowded had me worried. But despite the holiday the train was mostly empty.

We had an hour and a half delay at the border. Crossing from Vancouver was better since they only stopped long enough for the border guards to get on and did their inspection while the train was moving. At least we didn't have to get off and queue like you do crossing by bus.

It's a scenic train ride with lots of lush greenery. Much of the way is alongside Lake Champlain. I saw bald eagles, great blue herons, the ubiquitous red-winged blackbirds, and lots of turtles. There were stretches where every log in the water had at least one turtle on it and sometimes six or ten lined up in a row. They were all sizes from two to ten inches. One had climbed out to the very end of a branch about three feet above the water. I could see a bellyflop in his future! It was nice to see such an seeming abundance of them.

As in many places this spring, the water level was really high and many cabins by the water were flooded out. It wouldn't take much more before the water would be over the train tracks.

I got off in Schenectady and found my way the few blocks to the Stockdale Inn where I was staying. It's a historic building and there are only 11 rooms. My room is very nice with a big four poster bed. The sun was pouring in the windows.

I went for a walk through the park by the river where there were a couple of canoes out. The town was first settled (by Europeans) in 1661 and there are lots of historic buildings and attractive old houses. Thomas Edison had his Machine Works here.

The hotel has a well rated restaurant but it looked full and the atmosphere seemed a little "stuffy". So I decided to try out the Moon and River Cafe. How can you resist a place with a hand written sign in the window saying "stop the freaking fracking". Predictably, it was a funky little place with only half a dozen tables. (Even their web site is funky!) But they had good vegetarian options and a band was just setting up for some great live music while I ate.

Tomorrow, the final leg to Boston to meet Shelley.

Parlez vous Francais?

2011-05-27T15:07:00.001-07:00

For years the foreign language I've been dealing with the most is Spanish. I haven't used French much since high school (classes and a summer in Europe).

So here in Montreal I keep finding myself saying "si" instead of "oui" and "gracias" instead of "merci". At least "no" is close enough, but even then I have a tendency to say "no, gracias".

My brain obviously knows to not speak English, it just hasn't managed to remember it should be French.

Although I don't think of them in time to use them, I'm surprised that bits and pieces of French are coming back to me from so long ago.

Luckily no one seems to be bothered by my faux pas and they just talk to me in English :-)

iPhone Antics

2011-05-27T05:30:00.001-07:00

In the bar at my hotel a couple are disagreeing about some question. She's in the classic little black dress with perfect hair and makeup. (People seem to dress up more in Montreal.)

Finally she says "fine, I'll settle this" and pulls out her iPhone and brings up Wikipedia :-)

Unfortunately, I think she must have been wrong because she then pulled out her wallet and handed over a twenty dollar bill.

What's the big deal?

2011-05-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

For a change I'm not being sarcastic - I mean this in the literal sense. The world has a lot of problems - what is the "biggest"? If you wanted to choose one thing to focus your efforts on, what would it be?

Population / Consumption

These two go hand in hand. Our 7 billion people very likely exceed the carrying capacity of our planet. But it's not just the number of people, it's how much each of them consumes. 100 primitive jungle tribesman consume a tiny fraction of what 100 affluent Americans consume - in terms of food, oil, energy, land, etc. Americans consume a lot more than Europeans for much the same standard of living. Although our population growth has slowed down*, consumption is set to go through the roof as countries like China and India try to match American standards of living. Unfortunately, we did too good a job of marketing our consumptive lifestyle. China is following up its one child law with a one dog law. Makes sense to me. We need to both reduce our consumption and reduce our population. Of course, neither is a popular suggestion, or very likely.

Side story: An older gentleman was asking if I had kids. I said no and of course, he asked why. I gave my standard answer - Shelley and I are too busy with work and travel. Usually people are satisfied with that, but he pushed for more of an explanation so I admitted the other big reason is that there are already too many people. He was quite taken aback. All he could say was "Too many people?!" Yeah, too many people - 7 billion of us on this bus and we're running out of gas.

* Making a big deal out of the fact that population growth has slowed is like making a big deal out of the fact that your debt isn't growing as fast as it used to. The bottom line is that it's still growing.

Climate Change

I think it's horrendous that we (humans) have managed to pollute the earth so badly that it is changing the whole climate. But I suspect this is more of a human problem. In geological time, the earth has seen hot spells and cold spells (ice ages). Even if we managed to flip the earth into one of it's hot spells, Gaia* will likely be fine. It'll just cause a whole lot of havoc for human beings. Of course, in the short term, a lot of plants and animals will go extinct and the ecosystem will shift drastically, but that's old hat for Gaia. Out climate has been altered in the past by giant meteorite impacts or huge volcanic eruptions. Although I'm not sure I find it reassuring that human effects are "no worse" than global disasters like meteors.

* When I say "Gaia" I'm not talking about anything magical or mystical, I'm just using it as a convenient way to refer to the gestalt of the earth's systems - biological, chemical, and geological.

Loss of Biodiversity / Habitat

In many ways this bothers me the most. If we just left a good chunk of the planet alone, the ecosystem and biodiversity would be ok, despite almost anything else we did. But as human population and consumption (e.g. land for McMansion acreages) rises, our human infestation spreads to every corner of the planet. We plowed up all the prairie grasslands. We're doing our best to cut down all the forests. We are trashing the oceans. Once these habitats are destroyed, and the species that live in them die out, it will take a long time to come back. The damage of the last hundred years will take thousands or even millions of years to repair itself.

Peak Oil

Peak Oil is not a sudden disaster, it's more like crossing the halfway point in a holiday. Likely we've already passed it and our oil production will slowly decrease from now on. Of course, we all still act as if consumption will continue to increase indefinitely. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to see that decreasing production and increasing consumption don't fit together very well. Something's got to give. We live on a finite planet folks.

The problem is, our whole civilization is based on oil. We humans hit the jackpot when we found oil, and like most lottery winners, we've been on a spending spree ever since, with no thought to what will happen when it runs out. Without oil we can't produce the food we need. Without oil we can't meet our ever increasing energy needs. Without oil we can't have all the consumer goods we've become attached to.

I used to think that science and technology would save us. There's a small chance we'll get fusion and nanotechnology etc. before the oil runs out. But I no longer hope for that. It would simply prolong our delusion of infinite resources, without changing the fact that we live on a finite planet. We'd simply expand to fill the earth entirely, wiping out even more of the ecosystem.

My current fantasy of technology saving us is if we can make a smart enough artificial intelligence that it sees how bad a job we're doing and takes over for our own good. It wouldn't be ruled by greed and corruption and delusional short term thinking like we are. Alternately, the AI might see how much damage people are doing and simply get rid of us. Another possibility is the singularity, which by definition we can't see beyond. But I don't think these scenarios are too likely.

In the long run, running out of oil will probably be a good thing for the planet. Unless we hit another jackpot like fusion, we will be forced to reduce our population and consumption. The bad part is that the transition won't be pretty. The death throes of our oil empire are liable to be ugly. And it's likely to be a long slow painful death.

Time Frame

Many of our problems our caused (or at least exacerbated) by our short term thinking. Corporations focus on the next quarter, politicians on the next election. Most of us, both personally, and as a culture, seem more than happy to borrow from the future to have what we want today. Who cares if oil is going to run out in the future, I want a big gas guzzling vehicle today. Who cares if I can't afford the mortgage, I want a big McMansion today. Our whole civilization is on a "buy now, no payments till …" binge.

But most of the big problems are on the timescale of tens or hundreds of years and are impossible to solve with short term thinking.

On the other hand, if you take a long enough view, any problem disappears. Don't like our civilization? Wait a few thousand years and it'll change. Worried about species going extinct? In a few million years, almost all the current species will be extinct regardless. The sun will burn out some day, the universe itself will probably end. So maybe none of these current problems are worth worrying about.

Or to be totally selfish, most of these problems won't really cause big trouble till after I'm dead, so why should I care? The standard answer is that we should care what we're leaving for our children. But I don't have any children, and from what I see of people with children, they don't seem to care any more about the future than anyone else.

If your house starts falling down, do you say "no problem, I'm moving next week" (short term thinking) or "no problem, eventually it would be replaced anyway" (overly long term thinking). Or do you say "this is a good house, we might as well maintain it"?

And so the question becomes, what is the right timeframe to think in terms of?

Conclusion

Honestly, I don't have one, I wish I did. I can imagine an earth with a much smaller population, consuming much less, powered by sustainable energy, with an undamaged ecosystem. But I can't see how to get from here to there.

So my question remains, if you had to pick one big problem to focus your efforts on, what would it be?

PS. Wondering about the conspicuous absence of "human" problems in this list? It's not that I don't care about starving kids in Africa, income inequality, human justice issues, worker conditions, cruel dictators, etc.. I do, I'm human, I empathize. It's just that, to me, the destruction of the earth's ecosystem is a bigger issue. Of course, I'm all for people working on solving human problems as well.

PPS. Yes, being on the train gives me too much time to think! (Especially if I'm also reading books like The Long Descent)

Riding the Rails

2011-05-24T19:55:00.001-07:00

I left this morning from Saskatoon on the train, headed for Montreal and then Boston.

I like traveling on the train - lots of time to gaze out the window at the scenery and think about life, the universe, and everything.

Saw some wildlife - ducks, muskrats, a coyote, red winged blackbirds, and coots (both birds and humans).

There is a lot of water around and the Qu'appelle valley near the Manitoba border was really flooded. And the water is high in Winnipeg.

I'm traveling "sleeper" class in an "upper berth" this time. Meals are included so I'm eating in the dining car for the first time. So far the food has been good. My fellow passengers seem to mostly older retired people.

On the bus back from Banff the other day I was sitting beside a couple of young guys who spent the time talking about strippers, beer, unemployment insurance, and cars. In the dining car at lunch it was all about politics. I didn't participate much in either conversation but one was more entertaining than the other!

At supper I had a fascinating conversation with an older retired gentleman who was finishing a seven month trip around the world solo, by train and ship (no airplanes) - something I'd love to do.

The train stops for three hours in Winnipeg and the the train station is close to the Forks area. (A little nicer than the area around the Saskatoon train station!) Shelley and I were here in the winter. Then, the lower path by the river was closed due to ice, now it's under water. After stretching my legs wandering around I ended up at the lounge at The Inn at the Forks for a glass of wine. It's a hard life :-)

Walkabout in Kelowna

2011-05-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

The two days Shelley was at her conference in Kelowna, I mostly walked - probably 40 km in total.

The first day I walked north from the hotel and then east up Knox mountain, through the park, and back through town. The next day I walked south along the lake to Mission Creek and then up the Mission Creek Greenway to near the Orchard Place mall where I caught a bus back.

I had just finished reading The Idiot and the Odyssey, and started reading Three Hundred Zeroes and The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation so I was in the mood for walking!

(click to see photos)

Mind Games

2011-05-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

by Shelley

At work I’m always dealing with crime issues. I also deal a lot with peoples’ perceptions of crime, safety and fear. I walk down the same streets as everyone else and the panhandler, the drunk, the mentally challenged, the young kid with the baggy pants and his boisterous friends . . . they don’t concern me; I know I’m safe even if they ask for money, stagger in front of me, yell obscenities, or try to look tough. I know the facts and figures and it’s a rare occasion that anything more than that happens; and if it does, I’m confident I can handle myself.

But sometimes a person’s imagination can get in the way and make things larger than they are. For me, climbing is a case in point. And climbing is almost always about pushing out of one’s comfort zone. Especially at a place like Skaha with an abundance of routes well within my capabilities and above.

We’ve just spent the past three days climbing here and I’ve been trying to up my grade level and get more comfortable on the old classics.

Dryathlon is a one-pitch trad (natural gear, not bolted) route. It starts off fairly easy, with the crux about half way up where you start by standing on what I remembered as a thin pointy rock shaped like a dagger. I had it in my head that if I fell from a few moves above this I would land with the sharp end of the rock sticking out my back or my chest, depending on how I landed. Sort of like movies where the good guy’s sword runs through the bad guy and there’s an end sticking out the other side. I was surprised when I got there. I’ve been on this route many times before. In reality, it’s not a pointy rock at all! It’s long and narrow. It still made me nervous though as I hung leaning backward, stemmed across an awkward corner a few feet above it trying to place a piece of gear. But it was a solid placement! As Andrew so eloquently put it afterwards, “That nut (protection) you put in while you were hyperventilating was hard to get out!”

Double Exposure is another trad route that always makes my palms sweat. It’s a beautiful route with two steep corner ramps (hence the “double”). The trick is getting from one ramp to the other. It’s next to impossible if you don’t get your hands onto a certain under-cling; and to do that, you need to get your feet up high enough on the rock. The gear placements below you aren’t the greatest; and as many times as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to get a good gear placement to protect the move up and over. So if you fall from here it’s a long slide down the first ramp. Not nice! But I know exactly what needs to be done, I’ve done it before, so the fear is somewhat irrational!

The classic route at Skaha is Plumline. A 35m long sustained sport route on a steep cliff face; one of the first you see as you arrive at the bluffs. It’s always spectacular to see someone moving gracefully up the route. I’ve climbed it many times over the years and now can do it with relative ease. The holds are (mostly) really positive. The neat thing is that you so often look up and wonder where the heck the next hold is – or you can see it but can’t reach it. The trick is to look down at your feet. You’ll find more holds, move your feet up and suddenly the handholds are within reach and visible. The scary part is at the very top. Suddenly the positive holds disappear and you have to deal with slopers to get over the edge at the top. It always makes me a bit nervous. I’m well aware I can make the move so, again, irrational fears.

It’s all mind games. The rock plays with my head a lot! But when I take control of the game and do the moves and climb the route anyway . . . wow, what a great feeling!

(click to view photos)

Road Trip Interrupted

2011-05-08T06:58:00.001-07:00

We left town with Starbucks in the coffee holder and Tim Hortons breakfast bagels in our laps.

Lots of water in the fields and ducks and geese in the water.

Had a good lunch at Olive R Twist Bistro in Cochrane.

As we left Cochrane I noticed a big new Toyota dealer amongst all the other development - Cochrane is growing fast.

As we merged onto the #1 highway the car suddenly turned sluggish and then the dashboard lit up with warning lights. I pulled off onto the service road and turned off the car. When I turned it back on we still had an engine warning.

So we turned around and drove back to the Toyota dealer in Cochrane. Luckily they were able to look at it fairly quickly.

The staff here were great, very friendly and helpful. When they finished looking at it the mechanic came out and went over what he'd found. There had been three errors - lean upstream, lean downstream, and loss of power. The lean parts could be faulty sensors but the loss of power was a little more troubling. Maybe the fuel pump? And it probably doesn't help that it's a complex hybrid Prius.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much more they could do right then. If we wanted to wait around till Tues. they could get parts in and replace the (expensive) sensors, but they weren't even sure that was the problem.

We decided to cross our fingers and continue. We had planned to get to Revelstoke today but after losing two hours and with doubts about the car we decided to camp in Banff. No problems with the car that far.

On our way to supper we ran into Greg from the Bike Doctor at their new Soul Ski and Bike shop. Supper was a cheese plate and pizza with Okanagan Pinot Noir at Bison Lounge.

Light snow falling steadily greeted us when we woke up. It's still coming down as we have breakfast at Wild Flour Bakery. Hopefully the roads aren't too bad over the mountains. And hopefully the car won't die on us in the snow in the middle of nowhere!

By the River

2011-04-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I went for a walk after supper. I had been glued to the computer all day and hadn't been outside at all, and the sun was shining as it dropped. Almost as an afterthought I grabbed my camera. I'm glad I did.

2011-04-28 By The River

(click to see the photos)

Taking pictures of wildlife in low light, with a long lens, hand held is when you can never have good enough camera gear.

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie

2011-04-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Just when I told people I was sure our mouse was gone because there'd been no sign of him for months.

(All the seed on the ground is fallen from the bird feeder.)

Easter Rabbit Visiting Innovation Place

2011-04-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

Rootstrikers

2011-04-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

Sawing off the branch you're sitting on

2011-04-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

7 Science-Education Battlegrounds of 2011 from Wired Science

Do these people not realize that the science they are attacking is what supports their modern lives?

That if they succeed in killing science, they will destroy their own civilization?

We couldn't feed our billions without science.

Do they deny science when they or their families get sick and need a doctor or a hospital? *

Of course, they would say it's only certain parts of science they disagree with, like evolution. But science isn't a buffet. It makes no sense to say, "I believe in addition and multiplication but not division".

Science is a process with demonstrable results. It's not an infallible process. It's not foolproof. But we talk on cell phones that are a result of that process, we fly in airplanes that are a result of that process, we eat food that is a result of that process, we take medicines that are a result of that process. If you undermine and destroy that process, then you will lose the results of that process.

What's the goal? To go back to being ignorant sheep herders? All seven billion of us? And where would the lobbyists be then?

* There are a (very) few people that would refuse doctors and hospitals. And that might be happy to destroy civilization. But those aren't the people making anti-science legislation.

New Blog Views

2011-03-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

Blogger has added some new view methods.

http://sustainableadventure.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

Try the other choices using the pull down at the top right

Alternate Realities

2011-03-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I think travel is worthwhile is that it reminds you that there are other ways of life. Living in Canada or the USA it's too easy to think ours is "the" way of life.

It's pretty cool to see there are kids out there that are ploughing their fields with oxen in the morning to grow their own food, and rock climbing in the afternoon. Despite the Cuban government making climbing illegal - what's up with that?

Great photography as always from Renan - watch it HD and larger sized to get the best view

Cuba Chapter4_The Life of Leo from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Spring Slowly

2011-03-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Despite the cold (-15c yesterday) and snow still everywhere, spring is slowly arriving. The days are longer and the sun is stronger. And the honking of the geese is heard once more.

Museo Slips a Notch

2011-03-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

I was biking by the Mendel yesterday and I decided to stop at Museo Coffee. Recently I've been hearing about Jimmy (the owner) roasting his own coffee and Collective Coffee using his beans.

Normally I'd order a latte or an americano, but I thought I'd check out their other coffee. I asked what kind(s) they had. Neither of the staff knew what kind of coffee they were serving!? This is a place that claims to have the best coffee in Saskatoon and they don't even know what kind they're serving? Eventually they found the bag of beans and told me it was "Kenyan" - not very specific. But I saw the bag and it was the Nyeri Ichamara that Museo had just blogged about. I was interested to try it so I ordered a cup.

I was a little surprised (and disappointed) when they poured a cup out of a big thermal dispenser. Museo's web site says "drip coffee is made fresh by the cup". Not any more I guess. The coffee wasn't hot, a sign it had probably been sitting for a while. It was still good, but I can't help think it would be better if it was fresh.

It was a little ironic because one of the reasons I order a latte or an americano is to ensure that it's made fresh. But I (mistakenly) thought I didn't have to worry about that here. Maybe they still offer individual brewing as an option, but they didn't ask.

As a business owner myself, I know that there is always a gap between the owner's ideals and the practical running of the business. All you can do is try to pass on your values. And the staff turnover in a coffee shop must make it tough to do that. That might explain the staff not even knowing what coffee they were serving. (Although at least one of the ones who didn't know has been working there quite a while.) But switching from brewing by the cup to brewing big batches was presumably a management decision. And no matter how much you think you'll keep the batches fresh, staff that doesn't even care what kind it is, isn't going to be motivated to throw it out and brew fresh as often as they should.

Probably the staff complained that it was too much work and too slow to brew by the cup. But it can't be any more work than a latte, and they still serve those. Maybe some non-aficionado customers complained about the wait. But you can't try to be the "best" AND be quick and cheap.

Maybe part of the problem is that Jimmy is now focusing on the roasting and not so much on Museo.

Note: Coffee Collective isn't brewing individually but at least in very small batches (in home sized french presses). Hopefully they won't devolve into brewing by the bucket.

Don't get me wrong, Museo is still a great place and the coffee is still really good. I'll continue to go there. It's just too bad that their initial ideals are fading a bit.

Frost and Fog

2011-03-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for frosty foggy mornings. The funny part was that just this morning I had taken my G12 camera out of my pack (where I usually keep it, just in case) thinking that I was highly unlikely to be taking pictures when it was this cold (-25c). But I was listening to a podcast on my iPhone so it wasn't too bad to take my mitts off, pull it out, snap a few photos, and then quickly put my mitts back on before my hands froze. Perversely, if my better camera had been in my pack I might not have taken any photos because I wouldn't have wanted to dig it out.

Alamar

2011-03-05T10:33:00.000-08:00

I watched the film Alamar (To the Sea) last night on Netflix. (Filmcritic.com review) It's slow and there's not much plot or action. But there's a friendly cattle egret and a neighborhood crocodile, beautiful ocean scenery above and below the water, and a glimpse of a simpler life. I liked it.

At one point the grandfather says: "Those who live at sea live happily. You have to love the sea, otherwise you'll be unhappy. It's beautiful here at sea." How many of us "more privileged" folks love where we work, love where we live, call it beautiful?

The film is set in Banco Chinchorro a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve off the coast of Mexico.

It's in Spanish with English subtitles. I even managed to catch a few words of Spanish :-)

Netflix may not have the latest Hollywood hits, but it has a lot of other good films that you won't find in the video store or on iTunes.

To Go

2011-03-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

"For my part I travel not to go anywhere, but to go; I travel for travel's sake. And to write about it afterwards, if only the public will be so condescending as to read. But the great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of life a little more nearly; to get down off this feather bed of civilisation, and to find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

The Dirtbag Diaries

2011-02-28T18:19:00.000-08:00

On long drives I like to listen to podcasts. I recently discovered The Dirtbag Diaries podcast by Fitz Cahall and we listened to a bunch of episodes on our recent road trip. The podcast is sponsored by Patagonia and you may have seen it mentioned on their blog, The Cleanest Line. You can subscribe on iTunes.

The podcasts cover lots of different outdoor activities including skiing, climbing, kayaking, and conservation.

One of my favorite episodes so far is No Car, No Problem.

If you listen to podcasts and you like stories about the outdoors, give it a try. I really enjoy them.

Fun Kindle Ads

2011-02-23T13:03:00.000-08:00

Great ads (even if that is somewhat of an oxymoron). And I do like my Kindles.

A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow

2011-02-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

"Do these shoes go with this dress?" "Do my shirt and tie clash?" We're so timid when it comes to fashion. Instead we should learn from Mother Earth. She's beautiful because she's bold. At Bryce Canyon National Park, where she's applauded daily by an endless crowd of international critics, she sashays in a florid, orange-and- pink designer original by Dr. Seuss. -- WOW Guides, Utah Canyon Country by Kathy and Craig Copeland.

Leaving Zion we had just one more day to play before getting serious about heading home. We arrived at Bryce Canyon about 11:00 and again did a popular hike (Navajo Trail and Queen's Garden) which, being off season, was fairly quiet. Of course, the best times for photos are sunrise and sunset but I think we still got a few good ones and even at noon and into mid afternoon the funky spires and rock shapes and colors were absolutely amazing to look at. I won't even begin to try to describe them -- you'll have to look at the photos! We saw Thor's Hammer, Cinderella's Castle, the Flame, and Queen Victoria. I'm sure people's imaginations allow them to see much more!

The same guidebook points out that "this crazy, colorful land . . . was named after the region's first white settler, a Mormon farmer -- Ebenezer Bryce -- who was neither crazy nor colorful." However, I suspect Mr. Bryce had a dry sense of humor. According to a sign in the park he remarked of the canyon, "It's a hell of a place to lose a cow." I thought my Dad would get a laugh out of that one -- and also be able to sympathize with him!

Bryce Canyon

Zion National Park

2011-02-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

We hit the road and left Vegas early in the morning to make our way over to Zion National Park in Utah. We've seen lots of photos of the area in climbing magazines so we wanted to have a look for ourselves. It was too cold for rock climbing and we just had time for an afternoon hike. We chose one of the more popular and scenic trails -- it's the off season and not busy so we didn't have to worry about it being crowded.

The trail up to Angel's Landing is rated as "strenuous" and although it's relatively steep, the vast majority of it is paved in order to prevent erosion. An interesting feature is the 21 switchbacks in the trail called "Walter's Wiggles" (named after some guy named Walter who designed them).

The great views just got better the higher we went. Utah is known for its amazing shades of red rock and Zion didn't disappoint. We looked at the sheer walls around us and wondered how many climbing routes there were. Surely, no climber could look at this place and not wonder what the best route might be.

The "for bad ass hikers only" part of the trail was the last 1/2 mile. It's narrow and very exposed! Although there are intermittent posts and chains to hang on to along the way and a few steps carved out of the rock, there are definitely some sharp edges with long vertical drops down to the canyon below. Our guidebook agrees that it's exposed but says that a stumble wouldn't do any harm. Well, we would certainly not want to be the ones to test out that theory! This part of the trail is definitely not for the inexperienced or faint of heart! The few people we did pass looked nervous. Especially on the sections that had ice on them for added excitement.

Once back at the car we did the scenic drive to the end of the canyon and got some better views and photos of the sheer cliffs below Angel's Landing.

2011-02 Zion

Winter 2011 Roadtrip

2011-02-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

Our travels were a little confusing, so here's an overview:

View Winter 2011 Roadtrip in a larger map

Back at Red Rocks

2011-02-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

We knew we had a couple more good days before the weather started to get cool again. Back to Red Rocks we went and onto another 3-star multi-pitch trad route called Birdland, located in Pine Creek Canyon. It was one of the warmest days yet as it was one of the few where we didn't have to put on an extra layer at some point. The route was 5 pitches (well, actually 6 but the 6th pitch is runout and not recommended). There were two guys from Milwaukee on the route ahead of us but they'd started far enough ahead that we didn't have to wait long for them and they were accommodating in sharing belay stations.

There were two harder pitches, rated the same, so Andrew and I each took one. I think Andrew got the hardest of them though, as it involved an unprotected traverse as opposed to a thin crack which allowed for lots of gear placements. Traverses are psychologically the worst. Not only could you take a big fall but a big swing as well!

It was a fun climb, we did it in good time and all was going well. The descent was to rappel the route and with one rap left to go, we thought we had it in the bag. Until one of our ropes got stuck as we pulled them down. Unfortunately, we hadn't thought to move around to the outside of a large crack system and pull the ropes from the front of the rock face. As we pulled we could see the rope land on various ledges within the crack system and go back in behind some rocks. Andrew tried flipping the rope, pull, flip, pull, flip. At one point I thought it was going to come but no such luck.

Since I had all the gear, Andrew put me back on belay on our other rope and I climbed back up (about 30 feet) to get the rope un-stuck. It was no easy task as the rope was wedged firmly into a thin crack between two rocks. I poked and prodded for quite some time. It's the first time I've ever had to use a nut tool to get a rope unstuck! I thought for sure we were going to have to cut it but eventually, after much cursing and knuckle bashing, it came free. We'll have to have a close examination of that rope before we use it again!

By this time, two other guys who had climbed another route but were using our descent route, came rappelling down and graciously allowed me to rap back down using their rope. Much easier than down climbing! One more rap and we were back down to the ground.

These two other guys were locals and asked us what our plans were for the following day. When we said we had just one day left in Red Rocks and would do some sport climbing they asked what grade we were looking for and recommended a new area that one of them had developed. Civilization Crags, at the first pullout of the scenic drive loop, isn't in any guidebooks yet but they told us a website to get the information.

We had a fabulous time! A bunch of one-pitch sport climbs that were well within our leading ability and a few that were a bit harder that we could top rope before deciding if we wanted to lead them. We did 11 pitches each which was definitely our most productive day and also the day we led the hardest routes of the trip! A great ending to the climbing part of the trip.

Our bodies, hands, and fingers are sore again . . . what a wonderful feeling!

2011-02 Red Rocks

Joshua Tree National Park

2011-02-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

We left snowy Silver City, New Mexico (-11c !) and drove all the way across Arizona to try to find some sun and warmth in Southern California - and to check out the climbing area of Joshua Tree.

We entered the park on the south side, stopped at the visitors center and purchased a climbing guide book Since it was already noon and most of the climbing is on the north side, we decided to do the hike into Lost Palms Oasis. It took us about 3 hours round trip (~ 8 miles / 13 km) along a relatively flat trail. There were a surprising number of people trail running. At the end of the trail the reward was a wonderful little valley full of huge palm trees. It was still a little cool but good for hiking.

Joshua Tree has the largest number of climbing routes of any area in North America. It's also notorious for sandbagged routes (i.e. the routes are actually much harder than the grade would indicate). And we learned that for people climbing here for the first time, trying to find the route you want to be on can be equally as daunting! (Even to a climber, one rock looks much like another!)

Our first climbing day we started at Johnson Canyon near the Indian Cove campground. We first decided to stay away from the campground because "ownership" rules apply. If there's someone staying in the campsite where the route you want to do starts or finishes, you have to ask permission.

Little did we know that the Canyon presented its own challenges! Things always look so nice on a benign map without any elevation markings. Just go and meander your way up and find something to climb. Yeah, right! Meander up and over, around and under boulders of various sizes up to car and small house sized! We managed to find the first sport climb we were looking for as it was on "split boulder" which really was a boulder split in half. We then hiked further up the canyon trying to find a couple more routes but it was near impossible to figure out what was what. They were supposed to be trad routes and we did find a couple bolted routes which didn't look too bad from the bottom so Andrew started up one but quickly decided this was out of our range.

We headed back down to the campground and found an area away from the campsites which had a few doable routes and we spent a very pleasant rest of the day there. As one local climber said to us, at Joshua Tree you just have to forget your pride and climb routes that are a couple grades easier than you would anywhere else.

The second day saw us over at Atlantis Wall at Last Horse Canyon, leading and top roping several fun climbs until it was time to head out. We drove back to Red Rocks via scenic back roads through the Mojave Desert arriving in Las Vegas to a beautiful sunset.

2011-02 Joshua Tree

Silver City

2011-02-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

After a couple days hiking and climbing around Phoenix, we got rained out and decided to head further south and east to the Gila Wilderness. The original plan was to do a multi-day hike around here but the weather forecast was lousy. We decided to check out the area anyway for future reference. The last 45 minutes of the drive to Silver City was in the dark and through a snow and wind storm. Visibility was nearly nil, it got icier and icier and the only way we could see where the road went was by the reflective posts at the side of the road.

But we arrived safe and sound and booked into the Palace Hotel. Built in the late 1800's it has a lot of interest and character to it. We asked the receptionist about places to eat and she first pointed out Isaac's across the street, highlighting the great bison burgers. When we said we were vegetarian she immediately said "Oh, you have to go to Shevek's." We did and it was awesome! Immediately upon entering, you pass through the small bar area and past the display full of handmade chocolates and desserts. The menu has three sizes of each dish -- tapa, mezze, and entree. We asked the waiter for vegetarian recommendations and almost half of the large menu was suitable. In order to try more things, we had the mezze size of the salad and tapas sizes of the other dishes:

Spinach, Cabrales Blue Cheese and Walnut Salad
with an aged sherry vinegar and walnut oil dressing.

Eggs with Fromage and Wild Mushrooms
soft scrambled eggs finished with freshly made fromage and topped with wild mushroom "caviar."

Spinach Briouats
traditional Moroccan street food. Spinach and herb-stuffed phyllo dough "cigar." Served with tzatziki on a bed of greens.

Grilled Stuffed Portabello Mushroom
with roasted red pepper pesto on a bed of greens.

Spicy Chickpea and Eggplant Stew
spiced with garlic, red pepper flakes and cooked in a sauce of roasted tomatoes and fresh herbs. Served over cous cous confit.

Accompanied by a nice Luna Rossa Shiraz, made locally at Deming, New Mexico. (We were impressed that the waiter recommended a local and quite inexpensive wine.) And followed by dessert of yummy chocolate cake with peach and raspberry filling. There were only a few people in the restaurant and the chef came out and chatted with us. Even the background music was good.

We might have to go back again tonight to try a few more of the options!

This morning after the included breakfast at the hotel we had coffee, tea and reading time at the Javelina Coffee House which is also in the Palace Hotel building. It's large and funky with an eclectic crowd. The doors are set deep into the building and there are raised window seating areas. The place is filled with assorted mismatched tables, comfy chairs, and couches, mostly of quite old vintage. There were people on laptops (free wifi), some seated at the in-house computer terminals, a group of women that appeared to be a conversational Spanish group, and a couple guys that I can only describe as "rubby dubs". It was an interesting mix!

We wandered the downtown area for a short while and since it was sunny decided that we should try to get out for a hike. We drove just 6 miles up the road to Pinos Altos only to find ourselves once again in the middle of snow, wind and icy roads. Ok, maybe we won't hike after all! We wandered some more, this time going into several of the art galleries, art shops and the museum. It's a very historic area with lots of old buildings and interesting architecture. There is lots of art around - as one of the locals told us, "Silver City is full of starving artists".

This is a really nice town and we definitely look forward to coming back when it's warmer and doing some hiking in the Gila Wilderness.

2011-02 Silver City

Apache Junction

2011-02-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

After leaving the Grand Canyon we stopped in Apache Junction, just outside of Phoenix, for a couple days to visit my dad and stepmom. They have a winter home there just a few minutes drive from the Superstition Mountains. Since dad went hiking in Peru with us last year I wanted to get out with them for at least a short hike. We headed to Gold Canyon and hiked the Hieroglyphics Trail up to a waterfall. Unfortunately there wasn't much water running and it was a very popular trail (including an entire scout troop!) Lots of people were out on a warm, sunny Saturday morning. (Question - shouldn't it be "Petroglyph Trail" rather than "Hieroglyphics Trail"?)

By the time we did the hike and had lunch, it was a bit late for Andrew and I to get any climbing in but we headed over to Lost Dutchman State Park (only a few kilometers from Apache Junction) to check out the approach to a route we planned to do. But when we arrived the next day there were three people there getting ready to head up. Rather than wait for them to get far enough ahead of us and then be behind them all day, we headed off to find something else to do and ended up climbing "The Hand", a classic route in the Superstitions. It wasn't difficult but a nice climb up an arete (ridge) with lots of airy exposure! Andrew belayed from the top of the first pitch with one leg on each side - and I had to carefully tip toe around him, using his shoulders as "holds" to start the second pitch. One very long two-rope rappel brought us back down to the bottom.

We also did a one-pitch climb on "The Pickle", another interesting shaped spire near the Hand. A fun couple of days!

2011-01 Apache Junction

Contrasts in Hotels

2011-02-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

We started off in Las Vegas at the Palms Casino Resort. We ended up there because it was one of Expedia's "unpublished deals" through Hotwire. We've never had any trouble booking hotels through Expedia, but this time when we arrived they had no record of our reservation. We showed them the confirmation from Expedia but that didn't help. We called Expedia and got an extremely unhelpful person. First he tried to tell me it was the wrong date. I've always had a recurring fear of booking stuff on the wrong day so I had a moment of panic but no, I had the right date. Presumably the call center is on the other side of the date line. I got nowhere with the Expedia guy so I handed the phone to the Palms clerk. She didn't have much more success. She wanted him to fax the booking to her. He said he couldn't fax but he could email. But the Palms didn't seem to be set up for staff to receive email.

We didn't resolve anything, but the reception person gave us a room anyway, and even upgraded us to compensate for our trouble. Our room in the "Fantasy" tower was very nice, with a great view over the city (see photos). But typically, the more expensive the hotel, the more they try to add on extra charges - like $15 per day for wifi (which we didn't pay). The other downside was having to go through the noisy, smoky casino to get in or out of the hotel.

We went from the Palms to a much more mundane La Quinta. It was the weekend, with less deals available and we paid almost exactly the same price. The hotel and the room were nowhere near as fancy, but wifi and breakfast were included, and it was about 10km less driving through traffic to get to Red Rocks. (The weather was good enough to camp, but the campground close to Red Rocks is an unappetizing dust bowl.)

And now we're at the historic Palace Hotel in Silver City, New Mexico. The hotel is over 100 years old - a long way from either the Palms or La Quinta! If you want a spotless modern hotel, don't come here. But if you want a small, local, quiet place with character, it's great.

Grand Canyon

2011-01-29T20:35:00.000-08:00

[by Shelley]

“Getting to the bottom is optional. Getting to the top is mandatory.”

The exact opposite of this is true for climbing mountains but it's certainly a suitable saying for hiking down into the Grand Canyon. We caught the shuttle from the Backcountry Information Center at 9 a.m. and were at the start of the South Kaibab trail and on our way about 20 minutes later.

The South Kaibab follows a ridgeline down, one of the few trails that does not go down one of the side canyons. Therefore, you get an excellent and wide open view the whole way down. Although it didn’t feel like we were “meandering” we certainly stopped a lot to take photos and enjoy the view. Near the top it was cool and windy but got much nicer the lower in altitude we went. The trail was wide, well maintained and very gradual descent of 4800 ft over 12 km. Much easier on the knees than I had expected it to be!

There weren’t a huge number of people on the trail. This is the off season so we just showed up and hiked. During high season, people book months, if not a year in advance to hike into the Canyon.

We booked into a cabin at Phantom Ranch. I know, I know! Very decadent of us not to carry tent and sleeping bags and stay at the campground! It was rustic but quiet. The ranch, campground, ranger station and mule pens are set in a very beautiful side valley. Meals at the ranch are served “family style” with everyone passing dishes around the table. We had a very yummy vegetarian chile with salad, cornbread and a humongous piece of chocolate cake for dessert.

The next morning we had a quick but filling breakfast and were on the trail by 7:30. We headed up the Bright Angel Trail, an ascent of 4400 ft (yes, the altitude of the rim at Bright Angel is 400 ft lower than Kaibab) over 15 km. The first hour of the hike is along the Colorado River so no elevation gain. Within a couple hours we got to the Indian Garden campground and passed most of the people who'd had an earlier breakfast sitting and had started out ahead of us.

Again, great views on the way up although more enclosed in the canyon until we got higher up. The trail was quite good, although a bit icy as we got closer to the top (in the shade). We plugged along at a steady pace and made it to the top in 5 hours (guidebook estimates 6-10 hours). The trail was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Both Andrew and I felt our legs were tired but not sore. Having said that, the Grand Canyon is not to be taken lightly. There are lots of people who have died over the years from heart attacks and heat stroke in the summer.

The next day we drove out of the park via Desert View and stopped at several of the scenic overlooks as well as the historic lookout just before the park exit. We ended the day at my Dad’s place just outside Phoenix at Apache Junction.

2011-01 Grand Canyon