sabbatical

I took a little sabbatical from posting on my blogs this past month. I'm looking forward to sharing more experiences when I return. I hope you're having a great summer!

The one that got away

We had been preparing for weeks gathering just the right fly rod, a light weight standard reel, and specific lures along with trying to under- stand the complex fishing regu- lations of the state. We had been walking several rivers to pick good spots for access and to spy any unsus- pecting fish. We knew right where we wanted to go.

It was to be our first real warm weekend of the year and so that Friday night we got our all species season fishing licenses. It might as well have been our first driving license because we were so giddy about it.

Early Saturday we packed a lunch of homemade hummus, spicy tortilla chips, pulled BBQ pork, and fresh bakery bread into the cooler we would surely be bringing home fish inside. We included a few Heinekens and were good to go.

The weatherman did not disappoint and soon we were casting freely into a nice pool at a river’s bend on an empty river bank basking in the sun. Forty minutes had passed with no nibbles but we were having a great time none the less.

Then it was over.

“Scott” was outfitted in full fisherman garb: chest high waders, special vest, baseball cap, and tackle box. I notice him walking down the trail sans rod. He talks a little bit to my friend before approaching and tells me that my whole set up is wrong but that he can help. He also says he’s been fishing this hole for five years. The guy is surely 20 years our senior so we allow his sage advice out of politeness.

He is giving us instructions when our other rod gets snagged on a small limb in the bottom of the river. Scott immediately reaches for it and starts to yank while calling back to us orders on how to change my lure arrangement. He tells us to never leave a line in the water and how he’d been fishing that hole for five years.

&*$#^* C R A C K !

My friend’s rod is in two pieces; Scott with a dumbfounded surprised look on his face, now apologizing profusely. My friend goes to the water’s edge to inspect the damage and Scott pulls only on the line now to snap off the snagged portion. (Note that in our following fishing expeditions while we have infrequently snagged a limb, we’ve always been able to retrieve our line and rods intact.)

One pole down.

We’re not sure what to do next. It was an accident surely but the rod is destroyed, our fishing weekend over. Scott spies the ORVIS stamp and starts apologizing more realizing the damage to us was more than to just a $20 dollar rod. He insists on helping with the set up of my lure and we allow this as a way for him to save face. He chats away the whole time respacing my weights, moving the bobber, tying on a smaller hook, poo-pooing the orange fish egg sack we had just purchased the day prior, and telling us he’s fished this hole for five years.

Handed the pole, I am instructed to cast into a pool on the opposite river bank –where we’d been casting initially. My first two tries fall short and Scott’s impatience leads him to insist that he take my rod and do himself. I allow this out of politeness slowly passing him the rod glancing to my friend. Within a few tries Scott has landed in the pool though is allowing the lure to float too close to a downed tree and brush.

“Bring it in, bring it in, you’ll snag,” I say quickly. “Bring it closer.”

I am ignored. Within seconds he is snagged. He mumbles to himself and starts to yank on the rod to release the lure. I see second thoughts cross his face as he thinks better handing the rod to me and then yanks only on the line. He snaps the line and our lure set-up remains caught in the river.

Two poles down.

Scott insists on setting my pole back together with goods from his tackle box, but now we decline and pack up our small camp. Only ten minutes have transpired since Scott came on the scene; Scott from Pontiac wearing a red Doug’s Tree Service sweatshirt. Fishermen be weary.

winter bicycling escape

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found was really going in." -John Muir, 1913.

Driving into Arizona is breathtaking in that you feel to be but a tiny spec on a very large desolate land and your views take you far away looking at only cactus and distant mountains.

The large single pillar cactus that often has arms reaching out from it, is the most interesting. I had only seen photos of such cactus before and was puzzled when I started to see them supported as if a newly planted deciduous tree along the highway. Later I learn that this Saguaro has an incredibly shallow root system and are easy to topple over. They only grow once inch per year but like the trees of the great Pacific Northwest, they grow quite old.

I drove my bicycle out to Tucson as it was the warmest place I could think of where I would find empty roads, hot sunny days, and low chance of rain in the middle of winter. I was not disappointed. I watched a few cyclists start the long journey up Mt. Lemmon, however with my Jeep struggling at most turns and signs insisting I have snow chains even though it was sunny and 70 degrees, I kept my cycling on more relatively level ground to the south and west parts of town.

Every day I rode a few times around a small eight mile loop in Saguaro National Park where I would spy many different variety of cactus and 200 year old Saguaro cacti. The loop is one way which makes it a popular place for cyclists and runners alike trying to best their time at each turn. This story could be much more interesting of course if I had experienced the many anticipated flats to my skinny bicycle tires had the rumors of sharp cactus needles on the roads bore any fruit. Of course peddaling by the many wash outs and warning signs of impending doom should it start raining 100 miles away I was surely grateful that the weather was so nice.

Grand Cayon

Growing up, the Grand Canyon to me was always a place for a family vacation we would take at some later date. As I got older it became more of a joke as well as something I might do later in life with my own little family.

Then there I was driving through Arizona with a plan to ride my bicycle all over Tucson when I saw a sign that read, “Grand Canyon 40 miles”. Within a week I had picked up a friend from the Phoenix airport and we were driving north to the South Rim.

When I saw the canyon for the first time, my breath got caught in my throat. The vast distance of canyon in my view was more than my mind could compute, the colors warm with a hue of green, and an enormity that minimized my life.

John Wesley Powell, the first known explorer of the Colorado River who got through the canyon described succinctly in 1869, that “each canyon is a composite structure, a wall composed of many walls, but never a repetition. Every one of these almost innumerable gorges is a world of beauty in itself.”

Our days started out at 23 degrees with snow and we’d find ourselves basking in sunshine and 70 degrees deep within the canyon at lunch time. It was also a great reminder of choices we make in regard to food and waste. Policy or personal decision, we packed out what we brought in and thus chose to leave the canned salmon for our return snack.

This is certainly a place I yearn to return again and again during the cold months when so few people are there to be in awe of the silence, to be overwhelmed with the beauty, and to have the joy of meeting great people along the trail and having the luxury of companionship for that day. One can't help share this wondrous place, though likely we all keep its secrets hoping that in our next visit, it remains unchanged.

This last photo gives you a glimpse of how hard it is to go back.. up.

Getting lost in Amsterdam

I lived in Amsterdam for four weeks in the old city. Perhaps four weeks is considered only visiting but as I was working a fair share from my hosts’ home via the internet and tele- confer- encing, helping to renovate an office space across the Het IJ, and cooking in quite often, it felt more like a home away from home. I donned a rusty beat up old bicycle and a heavy chain lock taking to the streets every day commuting like everyone else though with less importance on where I would go.

I had visited the city before and had an idea of the landscape and where I’d like to concentrate. I found a wonderful chocolatier whom I visited at least six times, a fantasical store of ribbons, a store specializing in only cheese, and of course beautiful tree lined canal streets that I found myself lost within each outing. Luckily the water is all encompassing so you can’t go very far in one direction.

"Weet u Vaer..?" and "Bedankt hoor"

These words went a long way in getting me back on track. 750,000 people live in Amsterdam and own some 600,000 bikes. Bicycling to work is the preferred means of transportation, but it’s not lycra that the professionals are wearing but suits, dressy casual attire, and yes, dresses. The bicycles aren’t going very fast perhaps 12 mph tops. Consequently I never broke a sweat, nor would you want to of course dressed for your arrival. The bicycles and cars got along much better than in the US. The bicycles have the right of way here –like in the US, however they are much more respected and treated just like any other form of traffic.

My last day in town I left the bike home and walked most every wear to visit the more famous museums. I was pretty well oriented as you can imagine however had yet to find the Oude Kerk, the old original church built when Amsterdam was first founded, in 1260. I’d seen it from a canal tour but haven’t been able to find it on the bike or on foot. Keeping my map tucked mostly inside my purse I ventured towards its general vicinity and found myself smack dab in the Red Light District. That plain clothed women dressed as myself were leaving from glass doored buildings as if done working for the day, was not a comfort to me. It was a beautiful historic part of town but I was more worried about getting out and abandoned my search for the old church. It was then I found it, realizing its grandeur as I literally walked around it!

I would definitely recommend a long layover when flying through Schiphol and taking a cab to the old city to enjoy a canal tour, visit a chocolatier, and to find yourself temporarily lost in the beautiful canal streets.

Citroens abroad

One of my most favorite things to do when on vacation is to spy my favorite Citroëns and bring home the memory of them. Here are images from both France and the Netherlands. Click here for a great video on the history of this vehicle while they keep it posted.

lesson learned for traveling

I found myself in the south of France celebrat- ing a friend’s wedding and wanted to explore the coast a little bit. I drove from the small town of Antibes west along the shore staying as close to the coast as possible stopping for coffee in Marseille and lunch in Mont- pellier. I toured the old castle of Carcassonne, Cathedrals of Toulouse, visited new friends in Toulouse, stayed in a wonderful little resort hidden in the hills above Nimes, and for two nights slept by the Sea in the tiny little town of Collioure.

My guide book brought me there as a special beach town not unlike St. Tropez before it got commercial. Granted, now was not the season for lying on the beach as you can tell from my photographs but it was beautiful none the less.

I had booked a hotel with my French speaking friend back in Antibes but as the day was drawing to a close and I seemed lost in the endless barrage of round-a-bouts in Perpignan, I was about to give up and seek shelter elsewhere. Sometimes my stubbornness pays off as it did that evening pushing for this hidden gem of a town taking my skeleton key from the innkeeper and walking along a narrow aisle of stone built up over rocks on the Mediterranean as the sun set. My small room only fit a tiny sink mounted to the wall, a molded chair, and a queen size bed facing the shutter like doors that took up

almost the whole wall overlooking the Sea. There were two sets of doors, one made o

f glass panes that latched without locking, and an inner set made of solid wood with a sturdy lock.

The light hung in the sky providing a calming vista of the rolling waves lapping the shore below me. My eye lids grew heavy as I

watched the waves roll in. How special it would be to awaken in the

morning with this same view? I was traveling alone and didn’t quite feel comfortable to

sleep with only the glass door unlocked as it was.

Shutting the inner doors would completely obscure my view. It was a quandary. I searched

the room for some sort of barrier or rope to secure the door. For a few minutes I found myself following the telephone cord to see how easy it might be to pull up and wrap over the door knobs. I wasn’t planning on using the phone, but of course if someone were to try and break into the room so easily spied upon, I just might need the phone. It was this experience that leads me to pack 10 feet of twine on every trip because you just never know.

xc skiing in Oregon

I was driving to a remote trail head using directions drawn on a bar napkin by some locals I met the night before while I ate dinner sitting at the bar in Bend. Little did I realize as I drove through the blizzard on empty snow packed central Oregon roads that my 4WD was kaput.

I got behind a Subaru that seemed to know where they were headed with cross country skis strewn in their way-back. I followed them down a steep hill over a river unfrozen into a small turn-about that had become a haphazard parking lot. There were no spots to be seen, but as I tried to turn around to head back to the top of the hill, my Jeep wouldn’t budge. I got several looks from fellow skiers wondering what I was up too and why I wasn’t moving from the center and only navigable area of the turn-about; I was driving a Jeep after all.

This is when the true color of Oregonians shown through. A man walking to the trail head took pity on me and after determining himself along with three other friendly souls that my 4WD was indeed not working, installed his tire chains to my vehicle and got me to the top of the hill. I should note here that I wondered into Oregon unaware of this compulsory law that tire chains must be inside the vehicle at all times no matter the weather or road conditions. I became the proud owner of a pair the following day.

The kindness of strangers always touches my heart the most. On to the skiing. I could go on and on to tell you how epic the cross country skiing was, that it was perfectly dry, packed hard enough to glide and yet soft enough to float, how skiing down the mountain on the curvy forested trails was frightening in that I didn’t know the trail nor when it would end as my speed quickened the sides providing a two foot drop beneath your skis should one.. fall, and that the silence of the forest was deafening, but I’ll let the pictures do most of the story telling.