(On top of Anderson Peak)

A general cheers to holidays in honor of hardworking souls that give us all more time to play. Spent the weekend before working up a proposal and will spend next weekend in Pasadena, so I took the whole thing, guilt-free. Yay! My friend Paul, of Colorado hutness-fame, came down and we joined Kena, Hwakong, Mike and Robert for a long weekend in Benson hut in the North Lake Tahoe region. We had excessive amounts of sunshine and got in lots of turns. And of course ate a lot of food. Even some extreme sledding. Fortunately my tailbone weathered this round a little better than last year's round of extreme sledding. It helps that the snow was pretty slushy (see the comment about sunshine). And Paul, being of public policy ilk, admirably put up with the rest of us engineering/sciency types.

Gearing up for the first turns of the day

Check out our handiwork!

Bagging the peak

Paul "saving face"

We've decided that he has a future in male modeling. The instinct on his impending face plant was to "save face," resulting in a turtle-style stomach slide instead. Way to look out for your career, Paul! Anyway, while my arms may lack the strength to pull myself up the ladder to bed, I feel rejuvenated and set for the week (and coming weekend).

Fruits of the storm

Given that the storm dumped 10+ feet of snow in the Sierras, I couldn't turn down a chance to swap my Sunday for Friday, and headed to South Lake Tahoe for some skiing. No sense in letting those hard-earned ski boot calluses go to waste! We spent Friday at the resort practicing our turns (thanks to some free/discounted passes) and successfully found those lost thigh muscles. Saturday, we skied up Waterhouse Peak (or faux Waterhouse peak to be completely honest), and the skies cleared at the top just enough to see beautiful views of the Sierras and Lake Tahoe. And a couple solid face plants at the bottom helped me find rarely-used neck muscles. And I got one more chance to hang out with Kena before she heads to Kenya, then Laramie.

The lake is the flat blue patch...

Happy Skiers (Kena, Mike and Robert).

Lots of mountains. Lots of granodiorite.

Conveniently enough, the trip also helped me with my homework. We're supposed to make up one question for each assignment for my order of magnitude estimation class and then solve it and in the course of conversation, the minimum thickness of ice needed to support human weight came up...Perfect!

Stormy Weather

Just to spice things up, I'll tackle the holidays in backwards order, starting with the flight home from Anchorage. I left Thursday morning, with the original itinerary including a long stopover in Juneau, a flight to Seattle that was supposed to leave me sleeping in SeaTac and an early Friday AM flight from Seattle to San Jose.

What REALLY happened was a "free" rountrip flight from Anchorage to Juneau and back, and nearly a second roundtrip from Seattle to San Jose and back. In Juneau, our plane never arrived due to mechanical trouble, so they stuffed us on a flight back to Anchorage, and then on a direct flight at 1:00 Friday AM from Anchorage to Seattle and got in with 45 minutes to spare for my final leg to Cali. All was calm until we tried to land in San Jose. Turns out I managed to fly in during the worst storm we've had since 2002. Good timing. We circled, we attempted to land, and then the captain said, "we'll give it one more try, otherwise it's back to Seattle." Fortunately (?) we landed, and then the adventure to get back to Santa Cruz began.

Original pickup bailed since Hwy 17 northbound was already closed. Second driver, a friend making the trek from Oakland, bailed due to high winds blowing semis over. As luck would have it, I ran into my next door neighbor, who was there to pick up his sister. After her adventurous landing, we stuffed into the pickup and crawled over Hwy 17 home. Sometime after that, they closed Hwy 17. Needless to say, I was relieved to get home. Spent the rest of the weekend cooking, eating, and sneaking out during breaks in the weather to run and peek at the surf.

I spent post-Christmas/New Year's in Alaska, skiing with Tomas, Eleanor and Luc, who are friends I know through Bryn and Louis. Got some turns in, ski toured to some huts along the Resurrection trail system for a few nights and even got some skate skiing in, so I got a solid dose of winter. Also, lots of laughter and plenty of bruises from the rounds of Euchre (mental bruising only), Semi-Awesome Ball (still a little fuzzy on why it isn't Awesome ball, but I was told clearly it was NOT), crab-walk kickball and Nail 'Em. Sorry no pictures. I forgot my camera. And the other pictures are likely of folks demonstrating the concept of "see food" or a poor beany baby chicken way out of his element.

Spent Christmas in Seattle with the family and Carla (old friend from Minneapolis) came and spent the holiday with us as well. We got a light dusting of snow so I can say we had a white Christmas.
I was pleased to see my 2.5 year old niece has taken to the pumpkin hat I made her when she was born.
Since I've designated myself the aunt that will make knitted projects she'll grow into, all seems to be going according to plan. We'll have to wait another year to see the red jacket I make her LAST year for Christmas. Right on schedule.

Christmas pics: Carla trying not to laugh at my attempt to read upside-down

OK, she is really cute!

The whole clan embracing unrestrained eating

So, let Winter Quarter 2008 begin. And the official New Year's Resolution is to eat as much chocolate and cheese as possible. Or to put my money where my mouth is (literally and figuratively). Or both?

Summer's last hurrah

Ok, I feel like I can let go of summer, now that I had one last gorgeous weekend outside. I'm TA'ing for the field geology class this fall and we had our first field trip Saturday, to the exotic locality known as the "campus meadow." We wandered all over campus, and our brave students learned how to accurately locate themselves on a map while avoiding common field hazards. These included the meat cleaver, the random exercise equipment from the weight room, the temptation of the harvest festival at the campus farm and disgruntled cows. You know, the usual fare.

Geidy picking up some mad orientation skills Trying to get a little extra respect through sheer intimidation (ie, the cleaver in action)
I spent Sunday in San Francisco, where I caught one day of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. I can't say enough about this show; every year, Warren Hellman (of mayonnaise fame) spends a bunch of money and puts on 3-day bluegrass festival in the middle of Golden Gate Park, with some incredible acts, entirely free to the public. We planted ourselves in front of the Banjo stage and enjoyed Hazel Dickens, David Grisman, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and of course, Emmy Lou to finish out the day. It was sunny, we had cold beer and free music.

Kena, Hwakong and I are hardly strictly happy! When you find two empty PBR cans and a free CD waiting on your windshield, you know you had a good day.
Just in time; we had the first real rain Tuesday and they're calling for more.....

The Oregon Coast

I spent a long weekend with my parents on the Oregon Coast. They rented a place in the town of Yachats (pronounced "ya hots"). They're looking for a replacement for the north shore of Lake Superior, and I think they enjoyed the coast. I gave them a hard time about dressing alike, but I guess that's what happens when you've been married for almost 40 years. My friend Jean visited from Portland for a couple of nights and we reminisced about rugby songs and caught up on the last couple of years.

Vacation time with the parents always involves seeing things so we drove up and down the coast,stopping for cool coastal views/phenomena, lighthouses,
bird watching and stopping to smell the flowers.
Good geology too; I liked how the basalt at Cooks Chasm weathered back in rectangles because of the parallel-trending parts of the rocks that were composed of slightly different basalt. They would break first, dictating the initial fracture that the surf would slowly chip away at.

I bored mom and dad at Seal Rock with an impromptu game using cross-cutting relationships to put together a story about the coastal sandstones, Columbia River flood basalts and some conglomerates. It would be a fun little field exercise for a geology class. Now, if someone wants to give me a job in Oregon.... Even a nice little lake along Hwy 101 that reminded me of northern Minnesota. Good weekend.

Home!

Got back to SC yesterday afternoon in enough time to unpack, have a fantastic gnocchi dinner with fresh, home-grown veggies (yes! I haven't missed all of the California prime time!) and unpack a little. It was great to wake up to familiar sun through the skylight and hear the sea lions again. It's good to be home!

All roads lead to Denver

My faithful field assistant Tracy flew back to Santa Cruz from DIA on Wednesday morning (the 25th), so we hightailed it back across I-70, and again camped out at the Governor's mansion. I had intended to take off quickly for the midwest, but found out that a major convergence of CC geo/annual hut trip (aka WIFNAC) folks were all going to be in town late in the week, so I stuck around for a couple of days of computer/planning time and and catch up time with many old friends. Deborah Roth (who I haven't seen since my college graduation) and Nate and Chrissy Williams were all in town, and Ben had friends arriving, so I've logged some quality summer fun, including disc golf, an incredible happy hour thunderstorm (who needs TV when there's lightning?), and a few good hours of lounging and catching up on everyone's lives; new jobs, getting married, residency stress, making exciting new wordworking puzzles or just the same old.
So, fun and games are done, I've put the internet and phone to good use calling USDA soil centers and will be taking off tomorrow morning for the Midwest. The best image for this next leg is probably an old Family Circus cartoon, where Billy maps the most convoluted route possible to his neighbor's house. I'll be doing that in a car between Nebraska, Iowa, southern Minnesota and South Dakota. For folks in Minneapolis, I think I'll be there in a week and a half??

Sample Happy in Utah

I've got a little catch-up to do. We finished up in Utah; after about 10 days of getting up at 5:00 and staying out for about 10 hours each day, digging lots of pits and collecting a ton of samples (almost 70 from Utah alone! My rubbermaid bin is nearly full), we headed to Denver for the next leg.

It was a little sad leaving our little valley in Utah; we were used to the sights. The two guys always leaning against the back of their pickup chatting on our way back to camp, the crazy bearded guy riding down the canyon road everyday, and friendly people everywhere.

The drive from central Utah to Denver is, of course, a geologist's heaven. Interstate 70 is pretty amazing, and this is the first time I've done that drive with another geologist in the car and the "roadside geology of Utah" book. The San Rafael Swell (shades of my sed/strat class in college), the Morrison formation and tons of dinosaur localities and then Glenwood Canyon and views of the Great Unconformity heading into Denver. Tracy had never been on I-70 through Colorado before and had her face pressed to the window, oohing and aahing the whole time.

We're now living the high life in Denver, and sampling the Denver basin, which is east of I-25, between Denver and Colorado Springs. We're staying at the Governor's Mansion in Denver (aka, Ben Hamilton's house), and coordinating the sampling effort with folks from the Denver Natural History Museum and some of my previous collaborators from other projects, so it is fun to be in the field with a group again. We've also been able to sleep in a little, and it isn't so hot, so we finish the day feeling tired, but not quite so trashed as in Utah.

Tracy and I had fun digging a big trench in THE paleosol in the Denver Basin yesterday, and more of the same today. Tomorrow we'll take a day off, and then Tuesday sample the big core they dug a year or so ago in the basin and maybe check out the Museum. Likely we'll head back to the west for one last week before Tracy heads home and I head to the Midwest. Hope all is well with all of you!

Pictures:
early morning on the outcrop
Apparently Ephraim is a scandinvaian hotspot. Every store is an Anderson's, Olsen's, Jensen's or Larson's.
How did they know we needed a backhoe? The forest service left this for us in our campsite in UT one day.
Rare photographic evidence that I'm actually on this trip. Beautiful Navajo cross-bedded sandstone in the bottom right of the picture.
The San Raphael Swell, looking east.
Nutella and Brownies give small women the strength to dig deep pits.

In a rut....

This one is for Mom. Mom's small obsession with wagon wheel ruts became clear during multiple family vacations driving out west. We stopped at all kinds of Oregon Trail sites and saw ruts in corn fields, sage brush, as a part of highway rest stops, you name it.

I came across this Oregon Trail site on the Snake River plain in SE Idaho during the drive to Powell yesterday; the Massacre Rock historical site. Apparently about 10 Trail goers from 3 or 4 different wagon trains were killed during attacks here over the course of a couple days. Despite the slightly macabre association, there ARE nice rocks to look at, with Snake River canyon volcanics as the backdrop.

The top of the ruts was about even with the top of my head.
Just up the road is another site, called Register Rock, where many Trail goers carved their names in the rock; this is nicely surrounded by a giant chain link fence, in the middle of a picnicking park.
I've been told there are ruts here in Powell and that we may see them during the workshop field trip in the Big Horn Basin on Tuesday....

Ganbei!

Here in Golmud, the jumping off point for field work. Yesterday (the 1st) I flew to Dunhuang, met the crew (Pete, Brian and Brad, and our drivers and interpreters), got in a jeep, and we drove to Golmud.

Today, we celebrated my er-shi-chi (27th) birthday with a trip up to Kunlun pass (there is a big monument to the Kekexili nature preserve and the man who spearheaded the effort to save the Tibetan antelopes from poachers - if your curious, see the movie Kekexili, Mountain Patrol, it is filmed in the area I'm in now).

Highlights:
I logged my highest elevation ever: ~15570 feet, set in India in 2001. Kind of cheating since we drove most of the way to that elevation, but nonetheless, the slow, slow slog the additional way up was suitably wheeze-inducing. I guess that is to be expected going from sea level to 15000+ in less than two days. Mostly feel fine, minor headache and thats about it. Diamox is useful....

Second hike of the day (the theory being we would get our blood pumping high and sleep low for one more night - Golmud is ~8000 feet) sent us up a nice glacial outwash valley, and there was plenty of great geology for us all to geek out on, including the glacier.


Dinner and Piejo (beer) - we had special birthday dumplings, a number of great dishes, a goat leg for each person (yum!) and batter-fried eggplant with sweet & sour sauce with sprinkles for my birthday cake. And many shouts of Ganbei (cheers!. I also learned my chinese numbers (well, only 0-7 and 27) playing a table game involving toothpicks.

We're off to the actual plateau tomorrow to get started so there will likely be no posts until I get back to Golmud or Beijing (~10-12th). Although, now that the amazing Lhasa-Golmud train is running, who knows. One constant in China is how rapidly things change.

Minneapolis!

I had a great weekend back in the old hometown. The guise was my high school friend Sarah Swenson's (now Wineke) wedding. Somehow, the timing on this trip worked out better than I could have planned; Lundi's sister's wedding was this weekend so she was back from LA and Alison and Jon were in town visiting so I got to see the whole Anders clan as well.

Highlights:
Seward garage sale days - Growing up in Seward is a little like growing up in a small town surrounded by a city. During garage sale days anyone in the neighborhood with stuff to sell has a garage sale. Think of it as one-stop shopping for frugal treasures while running into people whose kids you went to school with for years. Ilana did an admirable job haggling (although, the reality of haggling is a little weird in Minnesota); I should take her with me to Tibet since I’m pretty terrible at it. I used the sales as an excuse to wander through the old neighborhood, and voyeuristically case my childhood home, now under new ownership. Dan asked me a couple of weeks ago if it is weird to go back with no home to go to; he hasn't been back since Mom & Dad moved to Seattle. I'd say yes, but it is nice to think of a new set of kids hanging from the rafters in the attic and leaving hand prints all over the stairway.

BBQ'ing at the Anders' - complete with the usual Rudy comments about mudballs and "that red-headed kid", Mattie the dog trying to kill the neighbor's cat and just generally, spending a beautiful May evening out in the back yard.

First project samples! – I picked up a whole selection of mussel shells from the Bell Museum collections this morning. I had hoped this would mean a free trip to the Bell Museum on the U of M campus, since I haven’t been there in years. Instead it meant a free trip to the invertebrate collection in the basement of the ecology building on the St. Paul campus.

The Wedding of course – Sarah looked happy and terrific, and there was plenty of dancing and bowling; the reception was in Coffman Union (U of M) and the downstairs has bowling lanes, a few of which were reserved for the wedding. It was nice to hang out with folks I don’t get to see much. I’m not sure how it works, but though we are rarely all in the same place at the same time, we manage to just pick up where we left off.


Umm, looks like we had fun....

Fat and happy

Once in awhile, you wake up on the right side of bed, and are completely happy with your life. I woke up on the punchy/feisty side of bed, which is always a good way to start. The best is when there is nothing in particular that makes the day this way; on days like this, I feel like I wake up and put on a different pair of glasses and just see my life a different way.

I had a wonderfully productive day, got things written, went out on a limb with my ideas and it went well. The days are longer, and Mel and I went for a 7:00 PM run in the redwoods behind campus; it reminded me of the after-dinner runs I'd take between trips at camp. Everything smells great, and the air has just a touch of cool weather but is still warm. Then I rode down the hill from campus, and remembered as I rode through the meadow and looked out on Monterey Bay, that someone pays me to work on a PhD in this place. It is also biking season so I get excited to ride everywhere, just because it smells good outside, and the night isn't so cold, so I enjoy the night time rides home when the stars are out. I finished off the day at Sora's house for a giant dumpling dinner. Nothing beats riding into the driveway of a friend's house, seeing a kitchen full of friendly faces and smelling Dai's fried Japanese dumplings wafting out of the windows. He is taking off this weekend for 3 months of field work, so the house was bustling, making dumplings and sushi with lots of eating and drinking and laughing. Home now, fat and happy and ready for sleep.

Intro, I guess

The immediate goal for this blog is to keep track of the next five months or so; I've got a lot of travel and field work, so I thought I'd try this out as an alternate option to mass emails that I usually don't end up sending. After that, I guess we'll see.

I've discovered I like keeping track of my friends through their blogs (a very handy procrastination tool), so maybe this will help me reciprocate some.

So, to start with, I got back from Alaska a few days ago, where I was a part of a group of six doing an Easter ski traverse. The original goal was to get to the top of White Princess, a peak in the Delta Range, which apparently is in the easternmost part of the Alaska Range. We didn't make it; strong winds and some snow took the peak out of reach, but we laughed a lot, had chocolate easter bunnies and managed a fun day ski in the area, up a gully and down an alder grove.

I came home with a very tan face (to which I get the frequent response: "wait, I thought you went to Alaska..."), and poison oak (?). I'm still a little puzzled about that last one. The most likely option is some of the evil itching oil traveled with me from Santa Cruz, but the alternate idea is I'm just allergic to alders.

Next up on the calendar is Pasadena; I leave tomorrow to run some samples and if all goes well, I'll take those results to Germany at the end of August.