"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell
Full-time work at Backcountry will resume at the end of the month, but in the mean time here are two more photos from the recent La Jolla trip:
I spent yesterday and today in La Jolla attempting to photograph birds since it’s a good time of year for animals, hotel rates are distressingly low, I am at least temporarily my own boss, and an occasional trip to La Jolla is just plain old good sense. After about three hundred photos of seabirds in flight my talent for taking pictures of headless, blurry birds has been re-affirmed; call if you are in need of that skillset.
Having never been to La Jolla expectations were limited, but the town is now high on the list of places to visit regularly. Between seals, sea lions, pelicans, cormorants, gulls, and even a peregrine falcon there was a massive amount of wildlife on display. The photographs below are a handful of the keepers from the trip. Special thanks to Phillip Colla, someone I’ve never actually met but whose guide to photographing pelicans in La Jolla inspired the short road trip.
Following a recent and disturbing annual tradition, here are the predictions for the year to come. Based on past history, anyone with any sense should assume that the vast majority of the predictions below will be so utterly wrong as to shame a man with any dignity into never again putting in writing his thoughts on the coming year.
2010: 10,841 downloads
2009: 9,191 downloads
2008: 11,146 downloads
2007: 7,898 downloads
There they are, the fearless and (likely) completely wrong predictions for 2011. Check this space again in a year for the retrospective, and add your thoughts, predictions, and insults via the comments link.
Following a massive number of incorrect predictions for 2009, here’s the wrap-up of my predictions for 2010; clearly no one will ever mistake me for Nostradamus.
The rocket launched successfully in June, and a second launch took place in December. This is a big deal for anyone interested in space, and, even though I was off by a month on the launch date, this scores as a correct prediction since I’m doing the scoring.
When this prediction was made there was near universal agreement that the bill was dead, yet it passed about a month later. Two out of two so far for the prediction game, but it’s all downhill from here.
He was back for the Masters, then didn’t win a single tournament. Historically I think my record for sports-related predictions stands at something like zero-for-ten…
Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times says this is happening in early 2011, but that doesn’t make my prediction any less wrong.
Another rare correct prediction. It rose from about 10,200 at the beginning of the year to close at 11,577 at the end of the year.
The program has effectively been canceled, although budget wrangling is keeping some aspects of it alive. While this scores as a correct prediction, in fairness anyone who is a big space dork would see this as a very safe prediction given the public pronouncements prior to the actual cancellation.
The Beatles came through for me, but Garth held out.
I don’t want to talk about this one.
Nope, didn’t happen. 2011 may be a different story though.
This prediction was spectacularly wrong. Democrats now have 53 Senate seats and 193 House seats, so I was only off by… A LOT.
They did do a very successful IPO, and the Model-S has slipped to 2012, but the new plant will be in Fremont. Two out of three ain’t bad.
…and it hasn’t changed. Things have been relatively quiet in that corner of the world after a very noisy 2009.
This is a prediction that probably should have waited until 2012. Oops.
Another prediction that would have made a lot more sense for 2012. When they do finally announce it I’m definitely going to want one.
Although Jane says China is already selling cars in Asian markets, I’ll be surprised to see them in the US for another 2-4 years. My prediction batting average continues to fall into the “scary bad” range.
While 2010 tied for the third most named storms and second most hurricanes in history, they mostly stayed out to sea or weren’t very severe when they did make landfall. Given the potential for damage, this is actually a good one to be wrong about, even if it is another blemish on an otherwise ugly prediction scorecard.
Nailed it! That’s right, for every month of 2010 there were at least two entries in the journal, even if many of them did come on one of the last days of the month.
The game will continue with predictions for 2011 coming soon, and the comments link is there for anyone who wants to join in the pain fun.
For those keeping score at home, the final stats for the Banjo Tour:
A lack of internet access and free time over the past couple of days prevented journal entries. Here’s the recap:
Monday
The 500 mile drive from Greensburg, Kansas to Vail, Colorado led through Dodge City, past the slightly-odd Monument Rocks in west-central Kansas, and on to Denver for a quick visit with Scott & Anna of Accenture, San Francisco and Galapagos fame. Following Scott’s house tour (“we don’t even use this room”), a demo of his Evel Knievel Halloween getup, and some bemused looks from Anna, I headed off into a snowstorm and the pants-crapping drive on dark and snowy I-70 through Vail Pass at an elevation of 10,666 feet.
Tuesday
Vail is a ridiculously good place to ski. It’s been about six years since the last time I was on the slopes so I wasn’t quite prepared for what was about to happen, but this resort was insane – the runs were more than twice as long as anything I’ve ever done before, the skiing conditions were outrageously good, and with Aaron’s employee discounts the costs were tolerable. I managed to mostly not die, even though at one point our attempt to ski the “In the Wuides” trail resulted in a wrong turn that actually took us in the woods; navigating trees and boulders in three foot deep powder is a bit more than this novice was prepared for, but in the end we emerged alive and my quads should be recovered by some time in mid-2011. A tremendously good day by any measure.
Wedneday
After breakfast with Aaron I left Vail at 8AM – LA was 934 miles away, and, since weather on this trip has been an ongoing challenge, it was only fitting that flooding was taking place in the parts of Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California that I would be driving through. It was a bit surreal hearing national news stories on the radio about flooded areas, only to be passing them as I was driving – the trees in New Harmony, Utah were under 10-15 of water as I went by – but overall it was a mostly uneventful drive that ended after fourteen hours with a return to Culver City and an end to a very good trip.
Yesterday in brief:
The tiniest bit of sun would have made today a great photo day – the tallgrass prairie is really pretty – but unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. Despite the overcast the day was a good one for hiking, and eight miles of roaming allowed tons of time for reflection. A resolution for 2011 may be to make an effort to do at least one long hike a month, ’cause it’s a mighty good way to sort out what few thoughts my working neurons generate.
After a day on the prairie enjoying the scenery and the company of hawks and eagles, the plan is to do more of the same tomorrow across the border in Oklahoma. It turns out that the Nature Conservancy owns most of the land on which the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve sits, as well as a larger preserve in Oklahoma, so it’s encouraging to see where support for this organization is going.
The great expedition of discovery to Kansas was pushed back a day – instead I spent a chilly and icy morning slipping on the walkways near the Gateway Arch and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, followed by a drive across the rest of the Show Me state. After a mid-morning departure from St. Louis the state’s backroads led to the capital of Jefferson City, so I detoured and explored what turned out to be an amazing Capitol building that was almost completely open to the public – maybe it’s because the state government is on holiday break, but there were no security checks and no one seemed to mind that a slightly hairy, fairly smelly 35 year old was roaming the halls.
The afternoon led on a roundabout tour past the distressingly touristy Lake of the Ozarks – I quit counting after the fifth go-cart course and ten millionth houseboat – and this journal entry is being made from a Starbucks at the state’s western edge, just outside of Kansas City. The plan for the rest of the night and tomorrow includes heading into Kansas to try and find a place to park the Subaru for the evening, followed by a morning visit to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. After that it’s anyone’s guess what other wonders the amazing Sunflower state might have to offer.
Before yesterday the trip’s direction generally led away from home, but starting today the distance from Culver City will begin shrinking. At the farthest point I think the Subaru was 2050 miles from his home, although at the moment that distance is down to just 1852 miles (“1 day 7 hours with traffic”). Kansas, Oklahoma, and a visit to Aaron in Vail lie in between. For the more immediate future, I haven’t quite figured out tomorrow’s plan. A quick visit to St. Louis seems like the leading option since, despite two visits to this city during college, all that I’ve seen is the track on the campus of Washington University and a park that they use for cross-country meets.
Looking back at the past two weeks, this trip started without a real plan aside from trying to visit some new places and to get out on the road. Unlike some trips, I didn’t try to stay anywhere long enough to get to know it – this trip ended up being more about constantly experiencing something new, and I think that has worked out for the best. Driving along and seeing the landscape change, talking to different people, eating different foods, and all the while recognizing that despite the differences it’s all part of the same country has been revitalizing. While it has its faults, the US really is an amazing place, and seeing so much of it in a short time provides a good reminder why I wouldn’t really ever want to settle down somewhere else.
It turns out that weekdays in December are a ridiculously good time to visit Mammoth Cave. The Frozen Niagara Tour and the Historic Tour had “participant limits” of 36 and 110 people, respectively, but only five people were on each tour today. According to the ranger who led the first tour, they get 5000 people a day during the summer, and the day after Labor Day that number immediately drops to 300 per day. Today there were perhaps 30 people in the park.
My love of spelunking is well documented, and today continued that proud tradition. I probably would have spent more time underground, but the requirement for visiting Mammoth Cave with a ranger and an imminent winter storm limited the options. That said, the Frozen Niagara Tour (which I remembered from a trip when I was eleven) and the Historical Tour (which I’d never done before) were both awesome – while Carlsbad has bigger rooms and more decoration, Mammoth was carved by underground rivers and as a result has hundreds of miles of passages, some the size of highway tunnels. During the two tours a handful of very creepy cave crickets and cave spiders appeared from the shadows, and a very cute pack rat and tiny bat also made appearances. Some interesting facts:
Tonight I’m in Bloomington to visit Audrey (she’s on a job at the University of Indiana) then, weather permitting, it’s off in the direction of Kansas and Oklahoma for some further exploration.
Last night was spent in a hotel – $40 for a bed, a shower, and the opportunity not to sleep in the back of a car in 18°F temperature was well worth it.
The earlier experience on the Natchez Trace Parkway was so good that I decided to detour 80 miles back to it and traverse the remaining 150 miles. Unfortunately the road was closed due to icy conditions (I assume) thirty miles from its terminus, but until then I enjoyed more birds, deer, turkeys, history, hiking, and life in general. The opportunity to drive across three states without seeing any stop signs, businesses along the road, or anything but forest and farmland is one that I don’t think is available elsewhere in the country, and it was greatly enjoyed.
Tomorrow the plan is for more caving in Mammoth Cave National Park, then it’s up to Bloomington to harass Audrey for an evening. After that Kansas and Oklahoma are on the agenda, although Mother Nature apparently decided that a massive cold front offered insufficient hardship and is now also whipping up snow & ice storms, so hopefully the roads will remain open in the coming days.
Anything on the map that in any way relates to spaceships tends to be difficult for me to avoid, and thus it was that today’s destination was the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. After a cold (temperature: 19°F) pre-dawn wakeup followed by another thirty or so miles of the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Subaru and I set off across Northern Alabama in search of rockets. At about ten o’clock the top of a Saturn V became visible on the horizon, and from that point onwards my mood was of the sort that usually leads Audrey to disavow that she actually knows me.
The space center is home to a museum that features a Saturn V rocket that was never sent into space. It’s the largest and most powerful space vehicle ever produced by man, with each of the five first-stage engines measuring twelve feet in diameter, and a total rocket height of over 36 stories; I was giddy. In addition to the Saturn V, the actual Apollo 16 command module, tons of mockups from other missions, and a “Rocket Garden” with everything from full-scale models to test vehicles were all on display. Since it was a Monday in December the staff seemed to outnumber visitors, so there was plenty of space to take it all in. While I generally try to keep him at bay, today the inner geek ran wild and free.
It’s snowing. The day started at a balmy 38°F and has dropped since – the moment it hit 32°F snow started flying horizontally in the brisk wind. While this hasn’t stopped the exploration along the Natchez Trace Parkway, it has forced the appearance of a very scratchy wool hat that I bought many years ago from an tiny Indian woman in Ecuador; I love this hat, but the wool combined with the lack of recent haircuts have led to much head-scratching.
After waking up at six I got back on the parkway, and alternated driving, hiking, and stopping to read about early American and Indian history along the way. Thus far I’ve stopped at three different Indian mound sites, three different swamp hikes, and too many nature walks and early settlement sites to count. Overall the Natchez Trace has proven to be a great find, and one that I could recommend to anyone who likes history and nature. Other notable sights have included a tree that was filled with at least thirty vultures, a giant pileated woodpecker, turkeys, hawks, deer, and even one owl who visited my campsite last night.
Life is more exciting with thunderstorms in it.
Much like New Orleans, the state of Mississippi has thus far defied my expectations. Before arriving here the preconception was of an impoverished state full of cotton fields, but the reality has instead been forests, small towns, and rural character. A random dirt road along the Mississippi River led to lakes filled with hundreds of egrets, and the Natchez Trace Parkway has been an amazing find, home to deer, Indian mounds, and really pleasant scenery.
The present moment finds me sixty miles along the 444 mile long parkway, camped for the night in the back of the Subaru with rain pouring down, thunder blasting, and lightning flashing. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for cold and windy but sunny, so further exploration will definitely take place.
