Glacier Travels

For the remainder of our stay at the park, we only covered a few short trails. After completing the hike down from Sperry Glacier, we checked into the Apgar Village Lodge, where we had a tiny room not much larger than a modern walk-in closet. It was clean enough, and I had brought earplugs because I knew the walls would be thin. We showered up, then drove to the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk nature trail through old growth forest. It was absolutely lovely, lush, green, moist. It included a view of a stream chasm too. The people there were certainly different from the fit hikers with their hiking poles at the chalet.

In the morning we checked out of the lodge, moved into only my friend's car, and drove over Going to the Sun Road, stopping only briefly to take in a few overlooks and another stream chasm. We grabbed lunch just outside the park, then re-entered the park for the Many Glacier area. My friend wanted to see Many Glacier and wanted to take a boat ride, so we combined the two and took a boat ride from the Many Glacier Hotel. The boat tour covered two small lakes, and it included a guided nature walk to Grinnell Lake. Except for my aching feet and hindquarters, it was quite enjoyable. We learned to identify a few plants, and we heard some of the history of the area.

That night we arrived late in East Glacier, where I had made us a reservation at the Mountain Pines Motel. I liked this motel; the room was spacious and included a queen-sized bed, the bathroom had a skylight, and the price was lower than I paid anywhere else in Montana. We ate at Luna's restaurant, which recently opened where Restaurant Thimbleberry used to be. Although my friend's meal was only passable (lame French fries), my meal was my favorite restaurant meal of the whole trip, and the service was friendly and prompt. I had the Indian taco salad, which is a fairly common offering in the area. It consisted of Indian fry bread, chili, a few pieces of lettuce, sour cream, and salsa. It was flavorful and filling.

The next day we visited the Two Medicine area of the park. The nature trail to Running Eagle Falls is both informative and short, and the falls were one of the great sights of my park visit. They were named for a woman warrior who had the good fortune to be interred there by her respectful tribe. We visited a couple other places in Two Medicine as well, then took the southern route around the park back to the west side and drove back to Kalispell. Kalispell has a convenient La Quinta Inn with reasonable rates and guest laundry facilities, so we were able to clean up our stinky hiking clothes, and in the nick of time too! Cold air came in that night, so in the morning I needed my hiking clothes.

We had planned to go rafting on Labor Day, but temperatures were chilly, and there was a short hike my friend very much wanted to take, so we did that. We took the shuttle up to Logan Pass Visitor Center, where the wind blew fiercely and it was snowing, and we hiked 1.5 miles each way on the most popular trail in the park, the trail to Hidden Lake Overlook. I welcomed the cold, though I was sorry I had forgotten to bring my gloves. I kept my hands in my pockets except when I was taking pictures, but it took a couple hours to regain warmth in them after the short hike.

Hidden Lake Overlook trail had a climb and a brief descent to a wooden viewing platform. Sometimes we were out of the wind, and it was comfortable. The viewing platform was the most exposed spot, and we could not remain there for long! We took a couple pictures and scrammed. The picture shows the wind blowing right up my pant legs and making me look like the Michelin Man.

Once down the mountain, we continued to Polson for a late lunch that doubled as supper too. Nearly everything was closed for the holiday, so we ate at a family diner, the Driftwood. I had a buffalo stew special with fry bread and a traditional native sauce made from wild berries. It was good comfort food. We stayed in Missoula for the night, then parted company, my friend driving west, and me driving east.

Sperry Chalet

I met up with a friend from college in Kalispell, Montana, and we traveled together in Glacier National Park. Our first stop was Apgar Village inside the park, to buy him a hooded sweatshirt. Although I wore layers of lightweight clothing, we were not camping, and the weather was pleasant, so we did not worry about the old "cotton kills" saying in picking up something warm for my friend to wear. I had also brought a water resistant windbreaker for him.

We parked at the Apgar Transit Center and took the free park shuttle to the trailhead. Although the weather could have been cold, it was in fact hot. I quickly switched from my long-sleeved shirt to my wicking tank top. Later I even soaked the tank top in a cold stream to cool off; it dried quickly. It was the only tank top I had brought; I had intended to use it for an extra layer of warmth. I ended up washing it nightly and wearing it every day on the mountain.
The hike to Sperry Chalet was not terribly rewarding! It was seven miles long, was very steep, and was surrounded by trees so we could not see the mountains for most of the climb. It was also very hot and sunny; we were glad I had insisted on bringing a gallon of water to use to refill our water bottles. We drank almost the whole thing. We were grateful that the chalet staff meets its guests with glasses of lemonade. I ended up asking them for coffee too since I was so wiped out. Altitude may have had something to do with it, but the heat was probably the main cause. My body does not care for heat.

Sperry Chalet is a fabulous place to spend a couple of days. It costs quite a lot per night considering there is no electricity or showers, but it is worth every penny. The views are splendid, the rooms are neat as a pin, and the price includes all meals plus afternoon drinks and snacks. They cart supplies up the mountain by mule train twice a week.

There are two paths to reach the chalet, both of which involve the Gunsight Pass trail. You can take the 7-mile route from the Lake McDonald trailhead either on foot or on horseback, or you can take the 13.5-mile route from the east, which goes over Gunsight Pass. Both days when we were there, somebody ran into trouble on Gunsight Pass and did not arrive until late. One woman's hiking boot fell apart, and she also had not brought enough water. Some kind campers got her additional water and taped her boot together, but in the end the park rangers transported her down the mountain because she seemed to have altitude sickness. She did not make it to the chalet. Her group stayed, though one of them opted not to join the rest of the group for their Sperry Glacier hike the next day. The group on the second day simply ended up hiking slowly; the chalet still provided them with dinner when they at last arrived. That evening we enjoyed a highly entertaining presentation on park wildlife from the husband of the head woman at the chalet.

Dinner at the chalet is a multi-course meal. They have a rotation of three menus. My favorite was a salad of field greens, roasted tomato soup, fresh multi-grain bread, roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, and huckleberry cake. They bake using whole grains, so the texture of their baked goods is very similar to what I bake at home. Breakfast also includes whole grains. Guests choose from a menu: 1-2 eggs cooked any style including poached, bacon, ham, pancakes, oatmeal, coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Apple juice is also included. Breakfast is fortifying, and after we eat we pick up our sack lunch. The first day they sent us off with us two sandwiches apiece, and I was so impressed and pleased, but I later found out it must have been a mistake. They normally only provide one sandwich per person. I loved having two sandwiches!

The 8-mile hike to Sperry Glacier was less demanding than the 7-mile hike to the chalet, because it was half up and half down. That said, it was more difficult. The trail was less even, a lot more rocky. Toward the end there was a climb up stairs through a narrow chasm that created a wind tunnel, but there was a rope installed to hold on to, so the passage was not too dangerous. After one finished negotiating the stairs, a sign said it was one kilometer to Sperry Glacier. This kilometer involved following cairns over rocky outcrops and across snow fields. After a while I got nervous that maybe we had gone too far, there was no one else around, and what would happen if one of us injured an ankle since neither of us was wearing boots... so I talked my friend into turning back, and then later we found out there actually _was_ another sign where the foot of the glacier was, so we should have kept going. More hikers showed up as time passed, so the area was not so devoid of people as it was earlier in the day. Probably the others stayed at the chalet to watch the mule train before leaving for the hike, but I did not want to hike in the heat of the early afternoon a second day.

Anyway, we did reach the glacier, just not the _foot_ of the glacier. The glacier area was spectacular. The whole hike was lovely, passing by stones of many colors, various small waterfalls, and three tarns. Even so, the glacier area surpassed it. We could see so many peaks spread out before us, and the mountain's stones were exposed with some alpine tundra flora. It is not surprising that this hike has the reputation of being one of the best in the park.

My friend got the idea to take Gunsight Pass back down, but I argued against it. I had a bad plantar fasciitis flare-up in July and August, and I felt I was lucky to have made it as far as I had. If I tried a really long hike, I might have sore feet for the next month. Sometimes it can take a full month of wearing nothing but Doc Martens to recover from a bad plantar fasciitis incident.

It was good that we took the short route down. My feet hurt agonizingly the next day, but they recovered quickly, and now they are only very mildly sore.

Wind Cave National Park, Black Hills, SD

Wind Cave National Park is a wonderful place for stillness and reflection, and there is no fee to enter the park. The Elk Mountain Campground in the park offers a large number of campsites but was nevertheless quiet and peaceful. A number of us enjoyed the evening campfire presentation on the country's national parks system, after which we repaired to our respective tents and trailers for the night.

The campground provides numerous bathrooms and water sources, but not showers. There is no source of food in the park, but I had brought tea and oatmeal from home. I cooked breakfast using an Esbit stove, which I bought on the cheap, figuring I would upgrade later if I camped much. Given that I purchased the stove two years ago and this was my first time to use it, my decision seems reasonable. Lesson learned: bring instant oatmeal. Do not cook regular oatmeal over the stove. I had to use three Esbit tablets (one to warm the water, one to make the water hot enough for tea and to add the oatmeal, and a third one to finish the oatmeal). It took ages to get the pot clean, too. An Esbit cube burns at full force or not at all, so when the oatmeal is almost cooked, it gets burned. Flames shoot everywhere, and the fire is not very efficient, also scorching anything under the stove, so it is important to put the stove in the firepit.

At any rate, I did at length enjoy St. Isaac's Blend tea with fully cooked rolled oats flavored with fruit bits and cinnamon. I spent about two hours cooking breakfast and breaking camp, so I did not go see the sunrise over the glorious plains of Wind Cave park. The above-ground area truly is magnificent. It is a wildlife preserve supporting 300 head of bison, as well as a herd of pronghorn antelope, at least one gigantic prairie dog town, and some black-footed ferrets that feed on the prairie dogs.

Rather than exploring the glorious prairie and accumulating inglorious deer ticks, I went to the cave and took a tour. It was the Fairgrounds tour, the most extensive one you can take without going on a specialty tour. The specialty tours are the Candlelight tour and the introduction to cave exploration. The Fairgrounds tour is named for the large room that they call the Fairgrounds; I was never entirely certain when we were there. However, I did get to see several examples of the cave's famous boxwork. Wind Cave was formed by standing water and condensation, rather than dripping water, so it has very few of the usual formations found in limestone caves such as flowstone or stalactites. It does have less common formations such as frostwork, popcorn, and boxwork. Boxwork appears when cracks in limestone fill with harder mineral deposits, and the limestone gradually weathers away, leaving the box-shaped mineral deposits behind.

Day in the Badlands

This fall I finally set aside two weeks for a driving vacation. I left on a Saturday morning, and returned on a Thursday afternoon so I could have a three-day weekend at home before going back to work. I drove 700 miles on the first day, all the way to Badlands National Park. After such a long drive, I did not feel like pitching my new tent for the first time, so I found a cheap and smelly motel room, opened the window, and headed back into the park.

I thought I had seen badlands before because I had seen a few buttes from the interstate. Badlands National Park blew me completely away. It is continual "bad lands to travel across," a fur trader's living nightmare. The landscape goes up and down, undulating like a 19th-century seascape, and much of it is sandy and treacherous besides. In addition, there are prairie rattlesnakes. One sign noted that if we were careful and hiked very quietly, we might have the privilege of hearing the warning rattle before the snake struck. O, the joys of communing with nature!

On that first evening I walked the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, where I saw some extremely habituated wildlife, breathed in the juniper, took in the views, and watched for prairie rattlesnakes. It was quite relaxing. As the sun set, I drove up to a scenic overlook and took some night pictures, and then I attended a ranger presentation on the night sky. The Badlands are, fittingly, a "dark place," and if the moon is not too full, one can see a lot of stars. On this night the moon was nearly full, but there were still a few constellations visible to the naked eye. They had telescopes available for visitors, which was a wonderful thing for them to do for people, but I left early. It was late, and there were a lot of digressions in the presentation, and I decided to go away and sleep.

I got up for a sunrise hike but slightly misestimated the time of the sunrise. I was at the trail at 6:20, but 6:00 would have been better. At any rate, getting up early was the best thing to do. Temperatures were unusually cool in the Badlands, but it was still hot, and it was still dry. I hiked on the Castle Trail only from 6:30 to 8:15, but by the time I returned, I was quite warm, and I could not have gone much farther without packing additional water. If I return to do the Castle Trail/Medicine Loop hike, I will pack along more than a gallon of water, no matter how early I start.

The slanted rays of the morning sun allowed me to see the colors of the Badlands formations more clearly. Later in the day the sun is so bright that the cliffs seem almost white. In fact, I took an evening photo of a cliff that I thought was white, and I was surprised to see several different shades of tan when I opened the image up later.

The Castle Trail is a marked walkway in which you follow posts, not a groomed trail. When you reach one post, you look for the next one, and you follow whatever path looks best to get you there. Jumping around on the rocks is genuinely great fun; of course I wore heavy boots in case of rattlesnakes, but I could still jump around pretty well anyway. There are a few sinkholes that look like prime rattlesnake habitat, and I avoided those. Since there is so much erosion, you can see all kinds of different layers of rock, and you can often see the root systems of the prairie grasses. The very tippy-top of the Badlands formations is where ground level once was, but so much has eroded away through the work of ancient rivers and the ever-present prairie wind, that now the ground level is significantly lower.

After my hike, I went on a geology walk with a ranger and a group of smart-alecky older travellers much like myself. I am not sure whether we learned more or laughed more, but I suspect the latter. I learned that to prevent plague, South Dakota parks have been spraying flea powder into prairie dog towns, right into the tunnels, and that this process makes the prairie dogs highly indignant and aggravated. I learned that an early park geologist (Ferdinand V. Hayden) was known to the Sioux as "Man who Picks up Stones while Running," because he would see them coming and try to run away, but he could not bear to leave his fossil finds behind so he would stuff them into his bag as he ran. The Sioux actually left him alone because they thought he was completely crazy for being out there without food or water, and after all, crazy men are touched by the holy spirit.

When we finished talking and laughing ourselves silly, and hiked out to the end of the Door Trail and checked out yet another phenomenal view of seemingly endless badlands, I headed on out. I scooped the rest of the main drive through the park, stopped at a few overlooks, and drove up to Wall for lunch. (Later I also found women's jeans without spandex at Wall Drug, so Wall proved useful to me on this trip. Most department stores no longer carry 100% cotton women's jeans.)

I decided to drive down to the south end of the park to see the visitor center run by the Oglala Sioux. Although it was a good visitor center and I enjoyed visiting it, I would not have gone if I had had any idea how long it would take to get there and to get back out again. The roads were in poor condition, and it took simply hours. I thought it was interesting that the visitor center was located in an area so far from the rest of the park, and I wondered whose idea that was. I did not reach Wind Cave National Park until nearly 6:00. Luckily, my tent assembled easily, and I spent some time lying around staring vacantly until it was time for the evening ranger presentation.

Lava Beds National Monument

On the Fourth of July we drove to California's Lava Beds National Monument. This was a very cool place, and I wished I had ditched my travel pillow to make room in my luggage for heavy pants for the lava tubes. I have been to a lot of limestone caves, and crawling around in them means becoming extraordinarily dirty. My friends warned me to bring clothes that I could get dirty, but they did not warn me about the rocks being sharp. The dirt was negligible compared to limestone caves, but since I was wearing lightweight summer pants, I felt uncomfortable climbing around very much. I don't like cutting up my legs.

I steered my friend away from the lava tube cave loop, where he normally goes exploring, and we went to see pictographs at Symbol Bridge, which had some good pictographs and also a welcome spot where cold air blew out of the ground. We looked in Big Painted Cave too, but as far as we could tell, this cave was not painted by Native Americans, only by mineral deposits and guano.

We went to the bottom of Skull Cave, which is a massive ice cave, and you can see the ice at the bottom. I was impressed with the size of this cave, formed not by thousands of years of water erosion, but by a volcanic eruption. I never once needed to bend over.

At that point I was running out of steam. I had been constantly on the move for a week, and my right knee was giving out, and I was falling asleep in the car. We stopped at the edge of the park to see petroglyphs, and then we headed to R.'s house, where we did not go out to see Fourth of July fireworks, but instead purchased salads at a grocery store, ate in, drank wine, and watched "Babylon 5" episodes on DVD.

Petroglyphs are a curious thing to me. We believe they may have had great spiritual significance, but they often remind me of teenagers who get drunk and paint bridges. Some are artistic, and others look to be on the lines of "Tony + Lisa."

On Saturday we breakfasted in Klamath Falls and drove back to Portland. R. was very kind to drive me such a long distance. Our Portland friends cooked us a wonderful dinner and bought us marionberry pie, which was so good that I had a second piece, when normally I only accept dessert to be polite.

In the evening we rounded up my friends' son, and we all went to Oaks Park, a little grouping of carnival rides. My favorite part was racing the other grown-ups down the super slide. The children's roller coaster was actually scary because it felt like we were going to fall out, and it banged us around quite a bit.

Sunday was Powell's City of Books, and then I flew back to Chicago. My car was still there, I got home fine on the spare, and I ordered a new tire in Iowa City.

Crater Lake and Upper Rogue Gorge

Crater Lake was a highlight of my trip, though I must advise never planning a trip to Crater Lake before mid-July because earlier than that is not yet "the season." Outside of "the season," very little is open. The boats do not run on the lake, the roads are all closed on the east side of the park, and only three miles of hiking trails are available to visitors. They had two of their blue tour boats moored tantalizingly near shore, and they were conducting research trips and training new guides, but we tourists were not allowed in the boats.

We hiked two of the three open miles of trails; the third followed the road we were driving on, so we felt it was unnecessary. The first trail ran up the side of Garfield Peak until it reached a spot where the snow hadn't melted yet. We got some very nice views of the lake, although everything was hazy because of the California wildfires. The Rim Village is at 7,044 feet, and the full 1.5-mile hike up Garfield Peak would add 1,010 feet of elevation.

After the walk, we ate lunch at the park restaurant, which was pretty good, though not worth going out of one's way for. They keep limited hours, and they only serve breakast during official breakfast time, so R. did not get to have eggs Benedict. It would be a good idea to call ahead for their hours, which appear to vary.

We took Cleetwood Trail down to the shore of the lake. Crater Lake is typically about 37 degrees, which made it surprising to us that the mosquitoes were both numerous and ravenous along the entire trail. If it had not been for the mosquitos, we might have stayed another hour or so.

Since the water is so cold that no one can stay in for very long, the park service does not restrict swimming, and many people took the plunge into the icy waters. We merely dipped our feet and hands in, however. It's also interesting to know that unlimited fishing is encouraged in Crater Lake. No fish are native to the lake, but some years ago, someone decided it would be cool to add fish. These days the prevailing thought is that turning a national treasure into a stock pond is not desirable, and the park service would like to get rid of the fish. The fish continue to thrive, and people continue to eat them.

Many posted signs warn people that Cleetwood Trail is "strenuous and steep," so I was expecting at least some scrambling over rocks, but it was nothing except highly civilized switchbacks. It was exposed and hot, and we took a lot of stops for me to take pictures, but even small children had no real trouble with the trail.

Since we did not spend the full day at Crater Lake, I talked R. into driving the long way home so we could see the gorge of the Upper Rogue River. We both liked that a lot; the Rogue takes its rushing seriously and has carved an impressive little gorge. Our last stop was Mill Falls; at that point we were both hungry and wanted to go straight to dinner, but instead we went to Mill Falls because we each thought the other person wanted to go there. Later we could not agree on whose idea it was. However, the falls were lovely.

Oregon: The Coast

R. and I drove the short distance west from Portland to Astoria, where we checked into the Crest Motel. It was very basic on the outside, and I wasn't very pleased that our deck door did not lock, but the inside was quite nice, and as promised, they had an outdoor hot tub in a gazebo. This came in very handy that night.

From the Crest, we drove down to Fort Clatsop, which was where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1805-1806. There was one particularly knowledgeable ranger who dispelled our confusion about the construction of the rooms in the replica fort; the expedition would have built them a different way, with the fireplaces in the middle so they would let less heat escape, but the replica was built for tourists so they put the fireplaces along the walls. This same ranger later gave a rifle firing demonstration that was absolutely fascinating. I don't know anything about guns, but I love hearing someone tell me all about how complex instruments work. They had all kinds of live demonstrations at the fort, and they were all terribly interesting. I had to pry R. away from a weaving demonstration because it was 6:00 and I wanted to leave and get dinner.

We drove up to Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, which separates Willapa Bay from the Pacific Ocean, so that we could try the famous Willapa Bay oysters. To me they tasted like oysters anywhere. I ate two, and then I had fried razor clam for dinner, which was tough and rubbery. Well, with dinner you win some and you lose some. Those are the breaks.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was chilled and could not get warm, but the hot tub turned out to be well heated, and I eventually felt warm and comfortable again. We slept late, and in the morning our first stop was Josephson's Smokehouse. The salmon jerky was actually quite fantastic, and they also sold cans of high quality salmon, tuna, and oysters. After stocking up at Josephson's, we drove to the Astoria Column at the highest point in Astoria, which commanded a sweeping view of Young's Bay and the Columbia River. Unfortunately, the column turned out to be closed for repair, so we couldn't climb up to the top like we wanted to. Instead we went to the Columbia River Museum, which R. wanted to see. I did enjoy it very much. We heard the stories of many shipwrecks, and we were particularly impressed by a life-sized display showing a river rescue with the boat nearly at 90 degrees across a wave. The particular boat was a self-righting vessel that proved nearly indestructible but was finally retired and set up in the museum.

We ate lunch at Baked Alaska, a restaurant on a pier over the river. I ordered sea scallops over fettuccini, and this time my order was a winner. I found out later that the area has particularly tasty scallops, which mine certainly were. I love scallops that just melt in my mouth.

Finally, after lunch, we started driving down the coast. We stopped in Seaside to see a replica of the equipment that the Corps of Discovery used to get salt from the sea water, and I was pleased to get to see that. We made a lot of stops to check out sea stacks and other viewpoints. At one point we took a random trail down through berry bushes taller than our heads, eventually emerging at spectacular sea cliffs with birds soaring around. It was splendid, and it was all ours.

We took the Three Capes Scenic Loop and got out to walk around at every cape, so it was already starting to get dark when we stopped in Pacific City on Cape Kiwanda for a tasty dinner at the Pelican Pub and microbrewery. McPelican's Scottish Ale was the best beer we tried; for some reason I was not a fan of their award-winning stout. The view held a particularly engaging sea stack, pictured with this post.

It was quite dark by the time we finally arrived at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, which I selected. Each room has a theme of a famous writer. We slept in the E. B. White room because it was the only one with separate beds, but there are many other rooms. The Oscar Wilde room features garish Victorian wallpaper because they say Wilde's last words were, "Either this wallpaper goes, or I go." Besides the themed rooms, they have an upstairs library area with coffee and tea, and mulled wine after 10:00, and they serve a great breakfast including a hot dish that varies daily.

The tides were unusually low in the mornings, and the people at the Sylvia Beach Hotel kindly alerted us to this fact, so we went down to the beach and checked out some tide pools before breakfast. Breakfast was German pancakes, and we dined with two English/ESL teachers and a museum curator. Before leaving town, we spent the morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which was a nice facility, though somehow I was expecting it to be bigger. Still, I always love to watch sea lions, and I think my favorite part was the sea birds. The puffins splashed around and showed off.

After a stop for pizza, we hiked up Cape Perpetua, another of my ideas foiled by Mother Nature. I did not really realize how high we were going. We rose above the fog, so basically we completed a tedious 800-foot climb in high humidity in order to see ... NOTHING. That took a while, and after the hike we did not make many more stops. We turned off the coast at Florence and drove west, stopping only for dinner and gas.

Dinner was at a promising-looking restaurant called Our Daily Bread in Veneta, Oregon. Unfortunately, I happened to be in the mood for a hamburger because the restaurant offered free range beef. They did not ask me how I wanted it, which was a bad sign; and while R. dined on a pasta dish that he wholly enjoyed, I got a dry, overcooked piece of something that used to be beef but was no longer entirely identifiable. They were busy and never stopped by the table again after bringing us our food, so eventually we gave up on dessert, went to the cash register to pay, and left. I bought us a couple cookies at a gas station later that evening as we drove late into the night to Klamath Falls.

Oregon Vacation Part 1

My summer vacation occurred early this year due to time constraints at work. Despite the fact that I had a good trip, in hindsight this wasn't a very good time to go to Oregon; Mother Nature dogged me the whole trip.

I left not long after the Iowa floods. The roads were open, but it was still raining, and there was stuff on the roads. I was halfway to Chicago's Midway airport, which is about a 235-mile drive, when something sharp pierced the inside of my tire and I had a blowout on Interstate 80. I pulled all the way off so my right tires were on the grass, zipped up my rainproof jacket, and started changing my ruined tire. Several cars drove by without pulling over to the left lane, and one truck splashed a wall of water all over me. My blue jeans got soaked and filthy. Luckily, my can-do attitude resulted in good karma, and before I could even get the tire off, a handsome DOT worker stopped and changed my tire for me. I was dry by the time I got to the airport, although I was still pretty dirty.

I had driven that distance so that I could fly Southwest, the one airline that still seems to be nice to its customers. My direct flight was inexpensive and included an ordinary baggage allowance and inflight snacks, and Southwest also had the best terminals, equipped with wide seats with electrical outlets for laptops. Southwest doesn't have reserved seating, so when I boarded the plane, I looked for people who seemed nice and were not too wide. I saw a couple of genial men and asked if I could sit between them, and they steered me to the window seat, which was even better. They were flying to Portland for the weekend to visit some old friends, and let me tell you, they had come prepared. They had more free drink coupons than they could use, and they had brought their own in-flight movie, Sideways of course. They were delightful.

In Portland I had reserved a rental car. The West Coast traffic was a bit of a shock at first, and I white-knuckled it until I got out of the city. It was a long drive to Pullman, Washington, where I had a reservation at the cheap and comfortable Pullman Hotel. Unfortunately, the effort was wasted, except as a fact-finding mission showing me that I really liked Pullman. Winter had brought a record snow pack, and all the forest roads around Mount Saint Helens were still closed, which was highly unusual and a huge drag.

Deprived of my hike, I drove back west, stopping for a huge breakfast at a diner. I think an entire potato went into my hashbrowns. While I waited, I watched the short-order cook like a hungry wolf, and every time she brought out someone else's order, I looked disappointed and involuntarily dropped my shoulders. Although the waitress brought everyone else their orders, the short-order cook handed me my food directly with an understanding smile. I ate every last speck of food, left a 30% tip, and took off.

I visited the lowest visitors' center at Mount Saint Helens, where I learned a great deal about the 1980s eruption, and I took the walking path along Spirit Lake, which I had hoped to observe from a great height at Norway Pass. Then I took off driving toward the innermost visitors' center and Johnson Observatory. I never made it there because I started to worry about running out of gas, but I saw some great views. I'll go back some time in August.

After dropping the car at the Portland airport, it was easy to hop on a commuter train into town. I opted to walk about 1.5 miles toward my friends' house, until the sidewalk ran out and I called my friends to rescue me. We visited several Portland parks, and I was really impressed with the city.

In the evening we decided to take our chances at Apizza Scholls, New York style pizza limited to three toppings. They only serve pizza until they run out of dough, which generally takes 2-3 hours. The pizza was pretty decent, though I have to admit that I preferred Nick -n- Willy's, a New York style pizza chain that started in Boulder; they recently went out of business in my town. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do for pizza now. However, I think back on the Apizza Scholls beer list with great nostalgia. I may have to start eating pizza at the Sanctuary, which is several miles from my house but has a great beer selection.

Apizza Scholls started out in a small town, where they did spotty business until they decided to pack up and move to the city. Now they are so popular that they only open for a few hours a day. I remember Delfino's Pizza in my Iowa home town, which made such fantastic Chicago style pizza that they did hardly any business and they closed up shop and moved to the West Coast. I think I have located them in Seattle, so I'll be going out there some time to check them out. At Apizza Scholls we ordered two pizzas--a sausage, mushroom, and olive pizza, which was my idea, and my friend's choice of pepperoni and basil, which was better.

The next day was Sunday, and we visited the Portland Art Museum, which was absolutely huge. I had a great time there, and afterward we stopped at Voodoo Doughnuts, which also made me very happy. Voodoo Doughnuts is the coolest doughnut shop in the entire world, and I think no one could dispute that in a way that would carry any weight with me. They offer weddings that are "100% legal, unless you don't want them to be. The service is performed by ordained ministers beneath the holy doughnut and a velvet painting of Isaac Hayes. It doesn't get more legal than that!"

Voodoo Doughnuts offers several inventive specialty doughnuts. I could only try a few, but I particularly liked the dirty snowball: a chocolate doughnut with pink marshmallow frosting and coconut sprinkles, and a peanut butter dollop in the middle. It sounds gross, but it was so good that I ate the whole thing and did not share. What I thought would be delicious was the evil doughnut, all chocolate with a frosting pentagram on it, but it tasted boring. Maple glaze is something they do very well. We ordered both a maple log and a maple frosted bismarck, and they were irresistible.

In the evening we went out for Vietnamese food, and in the morning I left for the coast with college friend R.

Business Trip

Iowa has been a bit stark most of the time this winter, as you can see. The other day I was driving to work after another storm, and the road was icy, and I thought to myself, "You know, I hate everything." I'm not the type to stay cranky, though, and I mellowed out. Still, given the unrelenting cold and storms, I can't say I was terribly enthused about my business trip to Minnesota. I wondered why they couldn't send me to Florida.

Within a day in Minneapolis, though, I realized I could even go so far as to vacation in Minnesota in winter. It was great. I was there for five days and it never snowed once. The hotel had a swimming pool and a hot tub, and my coworker turned out to be an even bigger foodie than I am. We went to the Good Earth on the first night, where I had a Japanese udon noodle soup with bok choy and other vegetables. The next night we ate at Fasika Ethiopian restaurant; Ethiopian is one of my favorite cuisines. Then we ate at India Palace in Roseville, where we received truly professional service, and the food was perfect. Finally, we went out for Tibetan and Nepali food at Everest on Grand restaurant in Saint Paul, and everything was divine there too. I ate jak dumplings.

I dragged my coworker to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which was free and turned out to have a tremendous and varied collection, though usually just one or two works on display by any particular artist. They had something for everyone; my coworker likes the Dutch Masters, from whom there of course were some selections, as well as Chuck Close, and they had a huge work by him. I was thrilled to find three Edward Weston prints, and I also for the first time encountered the work of George Tice, which I found very exciting. In addition, the Tatra car took my breath away.

I was sorry to leave, and when I approached the Iowa border I was even sorrier. When I got about 25 miles north of the border, it started to snow. As I neared the border the wind picked up, and by the time I crossed into Iowa I wanted to turn around and go back. However, the driving was more or less safe, and I didn't have any trouble getting home. I did spot one motorist sitting, unmoving, in his car with both hands on his steering wheel, at the bottom of a deep median. He appeared to be meditating on how he could have possibly ended up at the bottom of the median. I called 911, and in less than five minutes I saw a police car headed in that direction.

Rafting the Poudre

That Friday I did laundry and ate breakfast in Estes Park, then drove to Fort Collins for an afternoon of whitewater rafting on the Cache La Poudre river. The river is designated Wild and Scenic, which restricts development and incidentally makes it a cash cow for the five river outfitters that were already established before the river became Wild and Scenic.

A-1 Wildwater offers a choice of two half-day rafting trips, both of which cover the exact same stretch of river, except that the #1 family trip pulls out and skips a couple rapids, while the #2 Wild and Scenic trip goes over those two rapids. We had five boats taking the #1 trip, and two taking #2. I took trip #2, which said we had to be strong swimmers in good physical condition, willing to paddle hard,... Maybe it's because the river was low and we had an excellent guide, but those strictures were laughable. We only paddled when our guide told us to, and there was almost no exertion involved at all.

On the other hand, there were still opportunities to mess up. I'm a big river snob with little patience for other people's dopey behavior on the water, but this time I made the one big goof-up on my raft. Our guide called for us all to move to the middle of the boat fast, but I could not hear the command well enough, so it took about a second before I processed the command and moved. That was long enough for me to see a large rock very nearly slam into my right side extremely hard. I got out of the way just in time, but the suddenness of the large rock appearing in the space I had just vacated freaked me out for a second, just long enough for me to forget about my paddle and lightly smack the guy in front of me on the back of the head. Luckily, he had a helmet on and was unhurt and unflustered, but I certainly felt like a putz.

The canyon was just gorgeous, and the water felt wonderful. The day was hot, and it was fantastic to get repeatedly drenched. My raft held six grown people and our guide, in whom I placed complete and unquestioning confidence. He was the senior statesman of the river guides, perhaps 25 years old, and more reserved and mature than the others. He never seemed to exert himself, but sat confidently in back and directed, in full control. I know the signs of someone who's having a good time comfortably in his element.

We six tourists took our part rather seriously, and we leapt to follow every command. Thus, while all the other rafts seemed to be spinning around and getting stuck on rocks, we moved cleanly down the river and often pulled off to wait for other boats. Once the guy in front of me helped someone out of the river after she got knocked out of her raft. She was moving swiftly, and I wasn't sure what to do, but he calmly held out his paddle, she grabbed it, and her guide scooped her back up into the raft. She was a really good sport about it; she joked that her guide yelled "Bump!" and she thought he said "Jump!" so she did.

I was surprised at how stable I felt in the raft. I always thought it looked precarious to be perched on the side of a raft, but actually the space is wide, and there's a place to secure a foot. With the foot secured, you have to hit a pretty good bump to fly out of the raft.

The raft itself is incredibly stable, too. It's not at all like a canoe or kayak. You can climb in and out in any clumsy fashion you can think of, and the raft won't even wobble. Another difference from a canoe or kayak was that my back felt very comfortable the whole time, because I was always moving. After two hours in a canoe or kayak, I am very stiff. After three hours I can't fully straighten up when I try to stand.

What I loved most was just cruising down that river and feeling the water below me and around my feet and splashing onto me. I am definitely booking a full-day trip on a future vacation.

Chasm Lake

On Thursday in Estes Park I bought myself a cup of hot tea and drove to Longs Peak trailhead, arriving just after 7:30 a.m. It was August and the first completely clear day in a while, so the parking lot was already full because of all the people going for the summit. I had to park about a quarter mile down the road, lengthening my hike a little. I left half the tea in the car to finish after my hike, and I headed up the road.

After chatting with the rangers, I signed the registry at 8:20 and pointed myself up the mountain. The trail was wooded and shady for quite a good distance, though it climbed steadily. I immediately realized I should have brought more than 1.5 liters of water, although I rationed it and made it last the whole hike.

One complaint I have about hiking books is that they never mention toilet facilities. To me the presence or absence of a toilet on a crowded hiking trail above treeline makes a big difference in my planning. I had to assume there would not be a toilet, so I drank only a minimal amount before starting my hike, then drank frequently as I walked, so that all the water would be used by my body and would not be wasted. It turned out that this caution was completely unnecessary, as there were not just one, but two, composting toilets on the trail, neither of which was marked on the park map. However, I did not need either, because I had made sure I would not. If I ever write a hiking guide, I will mention toilet facilities for those who would rather not go in the woods if they don't have to.

After a couple of miles I reached a sign announcing the beginning of alpine tundra, and the trees became stunted and quickly went away altogether. The rest of the hike was exposed, and the sun was bright. I took short steps and tried to use as little energy as possible to lift myself up the stone steps. After only 3 miles I was exhausted and wanted to turn back, but instead I sat down, rested, and kept going.

I was frequently passed by trail runners, which was demoralizing. Even when I was moving at 2 m.p.h., which seems pretty brisk for walking up a mountain at 10,000 feet the day after one's arrival, I stopped for a swig of water and got passed by two older men from Minnesota who told me, "Keep drinking that water!" I congratulated myself on refraining from flipping them off.

When I got to the juncture where the hardcore hikers turned off to the Longs Peak summit, and there was only .7 mile remaining to Chasm Lake, I perked up and headed down the cliff-hugging trail to an alpine meadow, still being passed by multiple hikers. I think I was the second slowest person on the mountain. The slowest guy was traveling with a group, and at one point his female guide decided to encourage him, within earshot of any passing hikers--"I'm so proud of you, you've really pushed yourself, I'm really proud of you for pushing yourself that way." I was glad I was hiking alone, so I could stumble and groan without anyone embarrassing me with condescending praise.

Anyway, the alpine meadow was lush and glorious. A stream ran through it, then tumbled over a high cliff to form a lake below. Above us was the east face of Longs Peak. When I reached the end of the meadow, it was a while before it dawned on me that I had not seen Chasm Lake yet. I still had to climb the rocks in front of me. I thought, "This is sick."

However, there was no way I was turning back a quarter of a mile from Chasm Lake, so I climbed up that big rock slide. After I reached the top of it, I climbed an easy rock face and crossed a few boulders, and I was there.

Chasm Lake is surrounded by big boulders, and it backs up against cliffs. Sometimes you can watch climbers ascending the east face, but I didn't see anyone climbing, though there were a lot of people at the lake, including several children who were also tougher than me. I took in my view, ate Plainfield Pistachio trail mix (delicious!), drank more of my water, and turned around for the descent. It was easier than I expected, although this was when I witnessed the emasculation of the one hiker who was slower than I was.

I climbed on out of there, then descended carefully so as not to put too much stress on my knees, still continually being passed. Pretty soon my ankles hurt, my knees ached, my butt burned, and I basically felt like everything below the waist was mush. I didn't mind, though; I would have been disappointed if I hadn't hurt that much. I had a great time, and relished being quasi-alone in the mountains.

Lake Haiyaha

When I arrived in Estes Park, Colorado, I stopped briefly at my hostel, the Colorado Mountain School, then drove on to Rocky Mountain National Park, making it into the park by noon. I took the shuttle to Bear Lake trailhead and hiked up to Lake Haiyaha. For the first mile, as far as Dream Lake, the crowds were really dense, but after that the path was sometimes so deserted that I sang songs to warn bears of my presence. I chose “Peter and the Wolf” and “Going to a Go-Go.” With any luck no one heard me.

Dream Lake is one of my favorite places, and aptly named. The water is clear and green, and there are rocks under the lake’s surface near the shoreline, providing an interesting brown and black contrast to the emerald green water. Most people continue from Dream Lake to Emerald Lake, but there’s also a narrower and less-trodden path up the mountainside to Lake Haiyaha. The trail is no more difficult, and the lake is prettier. There’s also a gnarled tree whose wood is an absolute riot of colors.

Unfortunately, I left quickly due to a cloudburst. I really need to get a better rain jacket.

This was my first day at high altitude, although I had overnighted in Limon, Colorado, which helped. I walked slowly, taking 4 hours to cover only 5 miles. I took long stops to shoot pictures with an antique Argus C-3. I’m not sure whether I like the views best, or the smell of the trees best, but the two put together are intoxicating.

In the evening, back at the Colorado Mountain School, some exhausted climbers and I all put in earplugs and slept for over 10 hours.

Trying Out RAGBRAI

After three years back in Iowa, I finally rode a little of RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). I signed up for Friday, July 27, and I dreaded it all summer. It was a 64-mile day, going from Independence to Dyersville, and it might be hot, there might be large crowds of people, it might rain, or there could be almost any sort of unpleasantness, not to mention excessive sweating.

I set up a reasonable training schedule for myself but wound up not keeping it. I had to travel for work three times, and one of my colleagues had to be hospitalized, which forced me to work on two projects at the same time, cutting my riding time substantially. Also, I found out that spending more than three hours at a time on my bicycle tended to result in back pain. Finally I realized that Friday’s RAGBRAI included Manchester as a “meeting town,” only 42 miles into the ride. I arranged for my parents to pick me up in Manchester, which was more convenient for them than Dyersville anyway, and I stopped worrying about being in good enough physical condition for the ride.

The day turned out to be beautiful, not oppressively hot or humid at all. In addition, the hills were very moderate, and even when there was a headwind, my group was traveling at such a slow pace that the wind scarcely mattered. Finally, even when there was a big crowd of bicycles and we were all on top of one another, such as when a Team Skin pace line caught up to me, it wasn’t aggravating. It was fun.

To my surprise, I hardly seemed to notice the hills. I live near Iowa City, and if I want to ride more than about 3 miles toward town, I have to cross a ridge, which means going up and down some hills that are just progeny of dogs. There was nothing on RAGBRAI that remotely resembled those hills. Back on my home turf today, about 2/3 of the way down one of those puppies, I decided to let go of the brakes and see what would happen, and I hit 29 m.p.h.

Another great thing about RAGBRAI is that you never go more than a few miles without a place where you can stop and buy something to drink or eat. There are a number of local organizations that earn money by selling food during RAGBRAI, and also, vendors follow the route. Pastafarian has great-smelling grilled salmon, and they play reggae. This is the last year for Mr. Pork Chop, which apparently is an institution. Rumor has it that Lance Armstrong stopped there for a pork chop, and some lady asked if he would move out of the way so she could have her picture taken with Mr. Pork Chop.

The varied teams are a highlight; people choose a theme for their team, and it can really be just about anything. Team Spin, for instance, is a group that revolves around the color purple, and flipping people upside down and placing stickers on their behinds.

I rode with my old friend Linda, who was a member of the Lance Armstrong team, and I got to meet some of her teammates, who were very interesting folks. We didn’t ride with very many of them, though. There was a team photo, and then several shouts of “Who’s got Lance’s bike?” followed by an assembly in the parking lot. Linda and I got left behind on the first block out of the parking lot, when Linda dropped her camera case. We rode like crazy to catch up, but we couldn’t make it. I had my first near-asthma attack since the age of 22, and eventually I wound up way ahead of Linda and had to stop and wait for her in the first town. We settled on a group of four of us, and we stayed together until I peeled off in Manchester.

It only took me two hours to figure out that RAGBRAI was the best place in the state to hook up with somebody, and I’m annoyed that I lived here three years and nobody told me. I really should have set aside more vacation time for this. I already have all my vacation time booked up for next year, but I’ll at least ride on the final day.

Planning My Summer Vacation

I am making plans to take a friend to the shores of Lake Superior this summer, including a three-night camping outing on Isle Royale. Isle Royale is the largest island on Lake Superior, and it's a wilderness area where no vehicles are allowed. Campsites are first-come, first-served, but I hope that won't be too much of a problem since we plan to travel during the shoulder season, late August. By that time there are fewer people, but even more importantly, fewer mosquitos.

My friend is no stranger to pit toilets and needing to boil water to kill parasites (in this case, tapeworm). Still, we will take a car camping trip some time this summer just to make sure our traveling styles are compatible. She has left all the Superior planning to me, which is a great way to ensure my happiness, since I love to plan vacations.

I have backpacked before, but only when someone else was in charge and told me what to do. I went on a weekend group trip to Lost Maples in Texas, where a third of the group whined incessantly about having to postpone their morning shower until the evening. I camped in a quiet backcountry spot in Colorado with a boyfriend who was unsympathetic to my recent arrival from sea level, but he did do all the work so I can't complain. I walked the Pennine Way in England for a week with a dear friend, and I got heat exhaustion on the second day so we had to hitchhike on the third, and then we resumed our walk.

I bought a new backpack that's probably larger and heavier than it ought to be, but it's incredibly comfortable, and my summer bicyclist legs shouldn't have too much trouble with it. My Coleman tent is also somewhat big and heavy, but there will be two of us, and we can divide the tent and the cooking supplies between us. I will be buying a tiny camp stove, and borrowing other cooking supplies from my parents' cabin. I attended a backpacking workshop this month and collected some clever tips, the most amusing of which was to bring along single-serving packets of instant oatmeal, pour boiling water directly into the packet, stir it up, and eat it without a bowl. One of the workshop participants asked if you then needed to take special precautions to dispose of the wrapper in a hazardous waste container. (No, you do not.)

For food I was planning to bring some finger fruits like kumquats, cherry tomatoes, and grapes, my own blend of instant oatmeal, my homemade cookies with protein powder, beef jerky, dried bean dishes, tortillas, chocolate, some packaged Pad Thai just so we could say we made Pad Thai on Isle Royale... We won't starve. My friend mainly requires coffee and supper, and I mainly require lots of food. While we're car camping, we'll probably drink organic Guatemalan Vienna Roast coffee from some co-op where the workers receive a fair wage, but I'm guessing we'll make do with instant Folgers while we're on Isle Royale.

Pie Times My Radius Squared

This week I drove down the Flat Tops Scenic Byway in north central Colorado. There were plenty of mountains and scenic vistas, and it was all very lovely. I started in Yampa after a quick visit to the Finger Rock fish hatchery to feed the trout. As we drove the three-hour route westward from Yampa, my traveling companions and I began to get hungry. We were on a gravel road with no towns nearby, and we had not thought to pack a picnic, which was a bit of a shame since there was a perfect picnic spot at the overlook by 10,300-foot Ripple Creek Pass.

After a couple of hours we were mostly down from the pass but not yet to the first town, Buford. Just as our tires touched asphalt, I spotted a cafe. When my stomach calls, I hate to let the phone ring off the hook, and we hastily pulled off the road. The place was Fritzlan's Cafe, and we were just in time to eat lunch before they closed for a couple hours at 2:00.

I expected the food would be good. The place was clearly frequented by locals, and the decor wasn't the type of stuff that people just pack up and move: antiques, antlers, even a moose head they acquired when somebody from Nebraska shot it by mistake, thinking it was the biggest damn trophy elk he'd ever laid eyes on.

What I did not expect was that when I ordered hot tea, I would be able to choose blackcurrant tea from London, which I would steep in freshly boiled water. Water hot enough for tea is a treat nearly impossible to find in restaurants not specializing in tea. I've even had lukewarm tea water at one place that called itself a teahouse. Here the menu was simple cafe fare, and the special of the day was a chicken-fried steak sandwich accompanied by crunchy, pickly potato salad topped with paprika. I appreciated the attention to detail shown in the paprika sprinkle. Also, the service was fantastic.

I was so impressed that I ordered dessert, guessing I might be able to get a good slice of homemade pie. In fact, their only desserts turned out to be pie: peach, apple, cherry, or blueberry. My hopes rose higher. My pie's cherry filling was very ordinary, but the crust was nice and flaky. Although I very often eat dessert to be polite, there are few ways to tempt me with dessert I will actually want. One of those ways is to offer me pie.

Autumn is just settling in, which means that soon I will be compulsively baking pies. I bake apple-walnut pies, dark brown from the molasses I sweeten them with; chunky, spicy squash pies; pecan pies with bubbling maple syrup; custard pies that bake for hours and are so rich they have to be eaten in small slivers with a cup of black coffee; buttery peach tarts with almonds; savory pies with tender carrot slices. I like pies.

Upper Iowa River

Last weekend I canoed the Upper Iowa River for the first time, with an assortment of people from various canoeing clubs and the Sierra Club. It was a beautiful river, and I had a good time with the "Class 1 Riffles." I'd like to go back and canoe down more slowly so I could see more of the bluffs. Canoeing with an unfamiliar partner is always inefficient, and my partner and I had entirely different philosophies about steering, so the two of us had to work pretty hard to keep up with the others.

It was funny to be with a group of nice and likable people with whom I had a lot in common, but to feel like we had little in common. Our similarities included a political orientation somewhere in the left wing, enjoyment of good food and beer, love of the outdoors, love of rivers, and a propensity to pick up litter. I think that our differences are most conveniently summed up by our choice of T-shirts: They all wore canoeing T-shirts, food co-op T-shirts, environmentally focused T-shirts, and I wore an angry-looking samurai.

Be that as it may, I had far more in common with the friendly river cleanup squadron than with the drunken mob inhabiting most of the commercial campground where we pitched our tents. Even the employees were drunk, driving around at 10:30 at night noisily collecting canoes from people's campsites. One night I slept with my 10-inch heavy steel flashlight next to me in my sleeping bag after some lout who could barely stand invited me to make out with him. I asked around later, and apparently not all women are routinely propositioned by drunken louts; I'm just special that way.

It was a pretty spot and would be fantastic on a weeknight. The smoke from the fireworks and campfires hung around the bluffs and somewhat obscured the stars, but we could still see some of the Milky Way belt, so there was very little light pollution.

Hiking Sampler

Hiking in Iowa is an uncertain enterprise, not for the easily deterred. There are usually surprises. (Occasionally there are no surprises, but that is rare enough to be surprising.)

I have found no surprises on Eastern Iowa's Heritage Trail, where I go bicycling. It is a straight shot trail rather than a loop, which I consider a disadvantage for a walker, and there's a fee. However, it is quiet and lovely, there are benches and a couple of toilets, and strong animal smells are few and confined to the area between Dyersville and Farley.

Iowa's state parks are free to visit, which is one of the many very cool things about Iowa. Backbone State Park offers a number of excellent trails, particularly the short loop along the Backbone Ridge. Here the surprise came when I sat down to watch the sunset: tiny, ferocious black insects that crawled all over me and bit every area they could access.

Insects are a common problem here. I remember a late summer hike to which a friend showed up wearing shorts. My heart sank because I knew my hike would be cut short. My friend would not last ten minutes before being driven away by mosquitos. That day I had my socks rolled over my lightweight batik pants, and I wore a baseball cap, and my mother asked me, "Do you have to look stupid to go on a hike?" Nonplussed, I eventually gathered myself enough to respond, "Why, yes, it is sort of a prerequisite."

Indian Creek Nature Center has an absolutely wonderful little network of trails with an abundance of wildlife, but hikers should wear long pants, because there is one small place where poison ivy has overgrown the trail and you cannot walk around it. Even though I knew the ivy was there, it was so tall that I accidentally touched it. Whoops!

This past weekend was the last weekend before deer season, so I observed the occasion with a hike. I chose the Sac and Fox Trail, Iowa's oldest national recreational trail. The Sac and Fox is another straight shot trail, but short enough that you can park a car at each end of it and walk the whole 7.2 miles. It is located on the south end of a genuinely charming and likable city with a lot of recreational opportunities, but no area is perfect, and this particular pleasant community bears the unfortunate informal nickname "City of Five Smells." The wind was unfavorable that day (normally it blows the other direction), and one of those five smells, a sewage treatment facility, followed me for half my hike. Surprise!

One place to hike without surprises--unless you include startling visions of people caked head to toe in mud from crawling around in caves--is Maquoketa Caves State Park. I highly recommend it for its clearly marked trails, caves, and plant life.

Effigy Mounds National Monument has only a short trail, but it's a good one, with awesome views of the Mississippi River. The first section is a mildly steep walk up a bluff, and I always find it entertaining to hear people's complaints about the rigors of the climb. They warn me to take it slow. Once my hiking partner asked some kids if they thought he could make it all the way up, and they all hollered "No!"

Okay, it's not Colorado or New Hampshire, but it's not all cornfields, either. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Alpine Tunnel

On my third day visiting my Colorado friends, there was finally no rain, but Elantu did not feel well, and Harold can't ride in the Land Cruiser because his back is worse than mine. Mike and I were both positively itching to go somewhere, and it was likely to rain again the next day, so I took Mike up on his offer to go on a Land Cruiser adventure.

We drove up Old Monarch Pass, a well maintained dirt road with a lot of very long switchbacks, and then we went over Blacksage Pass and Waunita pass, so we bagged three dirt road passes on our way to our ultimate destination, Alpine Tunnel. We occasionally had to stop for various animals in the road: cattle, marmots, and one female blue grouse. Finally we passed through the town of Pitkin and headed up the road to Alpine Tunnel. This road is listed as a Class 1, but we've got a couple of substantial cowboy hats that we'll eat if that was an appropriate designation. It's an old railroad bed clinging stubbornly to the mountainside because if it lets go, it will plummet over a dizzying distance all the way down to the valley below.

We drove past one place where there used to be a town, but it was buried in a landslide, and pretty much everybody died and they never rebuilt. There is no longer any sign of the town. At another spot farther up, there was a former town where there were still a few beams remaining here and there.

We passed the entrance to Hancock Pass and continued up to where our road got really narrow. Since we were going up, we had the right of way over the Palisades, an area where the railroad workers seemed to have built the road out from the mountain instead of cutting it into the mountain. The road is supported by the stones that the workers cut and fitted themselves. It's narrow, so a full-size vehicle can drive along it, but two full-size vehicles would be hard-pressed to pass one another even at a pull-out.

We drove on by Williams Pass, which is a pile of very sizable rocks that someone refers to as a pass. It is only open from August 1 to August 30 each year.

We arrived at Alpine Tunnel 3.5 hours after leaving the house; we were at 11,600 feet. There was some rain and hail, but we walked out into it to see the old railroad depot, which has been partially restored through volunteer labor. It was quite interesting; I liked it that I could still see the depot's archway in the pattern of the fallen stones. There were some marmots sunning themselves on the restored engine turning area.

Alpine Tunnel caved in during the early 20th century. It has since been sealed to prevent fools like us from peeking in to see what it looks like in there, so of course we were disappointed, but we went ahead and hiked up to 12,000 feet through the rain and hail. The weather cleared up when we reached 12,000 feet. Mike stopped to rest and enjoy the view, and I scampered on for another 10 minutes down the Continental Divide trail toward Tunnel Lake, through an absolutely divine Alpine meadow full of wildflowers, little birds, and chipmunks. There were two stream crossings as well. I felt like Julie freakin' Andrews crossing the Alps, even though I hate that movie. It was perfect, and I hated to leave, but I knew that since it took us so long to get there, we really needed to be heading back. We had told Elantu we'd be back by 7.

On our way down, we had to pull over to allow a full-sized pickup to pass, and we thought we might have to back up the road to find a wider spot. Mike teased me for the rest of my visit because I kept telling him he had more space to pull closer to the edge of the cliff. However, the pickup's driver was extremely bold--you should have seen how he pulled to the very edge of that scary road to let a bunch of four-wheelers drive past him. Mike moved some rocks down from the cliff onto the road so that the pickup could drive at an angle with his right tires on the cliff, and he cruised right past us. After that we hurried down the road with no further incidents.

We thought about bagging another pass, but Mike decided to spare my back by returning over modern, paved Monarch Pass, and it was a good thing we did that, because we got back at 10 minutes of 7. Elantu was about to roust Harold and come out after us!

The four of us had dinner and a movie at the house, and retired for the night.

The King of England

Long ago and far away, in 1995 in Moscow, I was having a far grander time than I have had since then, up until this very year, when I finally had a truly, deeply good time once more. This is a story of a legend, and also a museum, and some truly epic bad breath.

There are museums that every foreign tourist in Moscow visits. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is not one of them, although its star is rising, and it no longer seems to be virtually ignored in literature for tourists. Nevertheless, the core tourist sights in Moscow are the Kremlin, the Tretyakov Gallery, Arbat Street, and McDonalds. The Pushkin is part of the next tier, one of the secondary sights. Originally designed to house copies of great Classical and European artworks for study, the Pushkin is now a major museum, albeit an eccentric one. While the Tretyakov Gallery is known for its collections of icons and twentieth-century Russian art, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg is known for its impressionist paintings and the sheer vastness of its collection, the Pushkin houses an eclectic collection of extraordinary ancient artifacts, reproductions of Classical and Western European art, and original Western European art from the eighth century to an exceptional twentieth-century collection, making this museum difficult to package for the weekend tourist. The eccentricity of the collection may even attract eccentric patrons, as I learned during my visit to the Pushkin.

I was utterly enthralled by this museum. I started out on the first floor, checked out their special exhibit of engravings by a man named Hieronymus Cock, a Flemish artist who lived from 1510 to 1570, zipped through a few rooms, marveled at the size of David's ankles in the room of reproductions of Classical statues, stopped to examine the Byzantine icons more closely, was particularly fascinated by the cuneiform tablets and seals, looked at every last goddess figure so I could report back to my friend Debbi, and was pondering the Egyptian art and hieroglyphs when, there in the Egyptian room, a dishevelled old man approached me with a bunch of papers in his hand. The top sheet bore a drawing of a dragon. The man asked me something unintelligible in Russian. I don't think I caught a single word. Despite all my years studying Russian, this year is the first year that I made any headway in understanding street Russian. I shook my head and peered intently at an artifact, hoping he'd give up and leave.

He did no such thing. He repeated his query, as rapidly and as incomprehensibly as he had asked it the first time. Again, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I responded in Russian, "I don't know. I don't even understand. I'm not Russian." This was Error #1. I had only excited his interest: "Where are you from?"

Reluctantly, I answered, "I'm an American." Here was Error #2. I immediately resolved to start answering that question with "I'm from Finland."

The man began speaking to me in English and asked me if I understood him. I did. Great: "I am king of England." (He pronounced it as "kink of England," but I knew what he meant.) Without being asked, he explained that he spoke English with an accent because of an unfortunate speech impediment. Apparently someone less trusting than I had attempted to disprove the origin he claimed for himself.

Well, okay, I thought, this was certainly mildly entertaining, but not nearly as entertaining as what came next. He attempted to prove his lineage by reciting his own version of English history in verse. It was quite long, and he knew it all by heart, although he did have a typed version in his sheaf of papers. In Russia it is common to memorize large amounts of poetry. I have to tell you that I was suitably impressed, but the woman guarding the collection was not. She stalked over to inform him sternly, "No lecturing without a permit." She was a dear woman with a good heart. Nevertheless, the King of England was undeterred. His poetry was all perfectly metrical and rhymed, although there were some strange enjambements, as though it was British history as told by Tom Lehrer.

Despite my interest, too soon I began to reel from over-exposure to his breath and became desirous of escape. I was grateful for the return of the guard and the forceful repetition of her admonition. The man who would be king protested, "I'm not lecturing, we're only chatting!" but she would have none of it, and I interjected, "I need a drink," and made my escape.

I was reminded of this episode a year later in the Japanese garden at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where I saw posted the familiar admonishment "No lecturing."

Collecting Intangibles

In the morning of my first day in Colorado, Elantu took me to a favorite spot of hers in the San Isabel National Forest. A couple weeks earlier she had taken a writer from Backpacker magazine to that spot, and they spotted a grizzly (and the grizzly spotted them too!), the first one in that area in decades. She showed me where the bear was. She was sad that the rangers reported his departure back to where he came from, but I was openly delighted to know that I would definitely not be meeting any grizzlies. I practically danced with joy.

Elantu showed me where she always went to watch beavers, but there were no more beavers anywhere in the area. The grizzly ate them all.

We drove to Salida, walked along the Arkansas River, and visited some galleries, including a really intriguing little gallery run by Barbara Flynn. Her gallery is packed with little goodies, so no matter how long you stay, you keep running into something you missed the last time you looked.

That evening Elantu, Harold, Mike, and I went out to eat at Country Bounty, where we saw a rainbow and ate scrumptious elk meatloaf seasoned with juniper berries. We drove across Poncha Pass to Joyful Journeys hot springs, and the sky was absolutely incredible. There was a "sun dog" over the mountains: like a small spherical rainbow. We enjoyed the hot springs as well. Joyful Journeys had three soaking areas, one at 99 degrees, one at 104, and one at 108. Only Harold ventured into the hottest one. The rest of us soaked, looked at the mountains and the sunset,... An owl flew directly over us in hot pursuit of some prey.

We met interesting massage therapists who were in the area for a workshop. One guy was a little sanctimonious about not eating anything with a nervous system, and I think he made Elantu's whole evening because she could torment him with tales of plants screaming when harvested for food.

Mike and I both collect intangibles, things that don't clutter up our living spaces. He collects visits to hot springs; I collect memories of people.

By the end of the evening, all my crankiness had dissolved into the mineral water, and even Elantu was no longer remotely cranky, and she's legendary! (In a good way, of course.) She actually features as a cranky character in someone's science fiction novel.

Back at the top of Poncha Pass, we pulled over to admire the night sky, where the entire belt of Milky Way dust was visible in a wide arc across the center of the sky. It was heart stopping. I had never had such a good view of the Milky Way before, and I could have stayed a lot longer than we did.

On my second day we made plans to visit St. Elmo, a historic ghost town. Elantu and Harold were taking some time to get ready, and Mike and I got antsy and took off in his 1965 Land Cruiser, of which he is obscenely and charmingly proud. Elantu had given me a copy of Sibley's bird guide, so on this day and every day after that, I busily identified every bird I saw, and was absurdly pleased with this exercise.

On the way to St. Elmo we saw a Stellar's Jay, which is a brilliant deep blue with black markings. It is a very elegant bird, and I suggested to Elantu that she draw a person as a Stellar's Jay, but I don't think she takes the idea seriously! In St. Elmo we saw a Western Peewee, which is a small, hyper gray bird that appears to be sporting a crewcut.

Elantu and Harold eventually showed up, and we looked at the houses in St. Elmo, which are still preserved and have people living in them. However, we spent most of the time sitting around feeding sunflower seeds to plump, greedy little rodents: chipmunks, squirrels, and ground squirrels. Harold took several pictures of Elantu covered in chipmunks, musing about what dishes she might cook with them now that she had gained their trust.

Mike and I decided to drive up toward Hancock pass, while Elantu and Harold rested and read books for a while. We didn't have time to drive all the way up the pass, but we saw some mining ruins, including a building that had broken clear in half as it slid partway down a mountainside. Now, one of Mike's books rates back roads in Colorado on a 10-point scale based on roughness, exposure, and difficulty. 1 is the easiest. We were on a 2, which is bad enough that although I could drive my Camry on it, I wouldn't want to because I would worry about screwing up the alignment. 6 is about as rough as Mike ever likes to drive on.

Completely innocent of what was in store for us, I made known my burning desire to drive up to see the Mary Murphy Mine, which was the chief source of revenue for the old town of St. Elmo. Mike obligingly turned onto the one-mile road to the mine, which looked like about a 3 in roughness, but which quickly transformed into a 5 (we looked it up later). There was nowhere to turn around for about half a mile, so we bumped and bounced up this pile of rocks that qualified as a road only in the sense that there were no trees in our path. My head was banging against the headrest, and I was laughing, and I had to say that this road had the most beautiful view we had seen all day. We were looking down a steep dropoff to a narrow streambed and some ruined wooden buildings. The roof had caved in on one building so that it looked like it was upside down. I wanted to go ahead and drive or walk all the way to the mine, but we really didn't have time because we had to meet Elantu and Harold at the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.So we lurched and lumbered back down that outrageous excuse for a road, and we headed on down to the hot springs.

Mt. Princeton Hot Springs has two full-size swimming pools, one of which is quite hot, probably 102 degrees. The other pool is actually for swimming, and it's about 90 degrees. In addition, there's a river that runs right past. You can walk down to the river and settle into a pool near a spout pouring runoff from the hot pools into the river, and you arrange rocks and sand to admit only as much freezing river water as you want, to set the temperature of your rock grotto to whatever suits you. Then you settle down to watch the rapids dance past at eye level while you stay comfortably warm and cozy.