"Americans? Like, from America?!"

The best way to travel is to visit someone who lives there.  The next best method is with someone that knows the place well.  By necessity we chose "B."  

So, off to Germany, Austria and Italy for three weeks with my brother and his wife and their friends who know the place well.  What about COVID?  We are now two of the most thoroughly jabbed and swabbed people we know, and where we were headed had lower rates than where we were coming from.

(Is that thing, like, in his brain?)

Anyway, once there, folks were reassuringly serious about the pandemic; we had to show vaccination proof to be admitted to restaurants, hotels, stores, etc., and masks were universal indoors.  At every restaurant, we had to register our presence for contact tracing if needed.

But the great outdoors were great and allowed us participate mask-less.  Luckily our friend is in to hiking, so we did lots of that.  This guy isn't my friend, he's my brother.  I guess he's both, come to think of it.

This one is definitely my friend.  And my wife.

At times, it got a bit on the tricky side,

with chutes and ladders and cables anchored to cliffs.

Several nights were spent in "mountain huts," whose name implies more basic accommodations than were provided.  

We were lucky to spend nights in several inns far off the beaten path

with better-than-average views.

We could - usually - find someone that spoke English, though several in our group spoke German.  In one of the "huts," a young woman on the staff said that we were the first Americans she had seen the whole season.  In the beautiful inn above, the proprietor's wife said that she couldn't remember ever having an American stay there, and that her English was mostly helpful for folks from Slovakia or the Netherlands as a common way to communicate.

OK, so it sounds like we just skipped around the mountains communing with marmots and Ibexes (Ibecies?) all day.  Au contraire!  With crummy weather the first couple of days, we ascended to an ice cave,

and checked out churches and castles.

And of course there were lots of times where we had to pile in the van and travel a bit, but we were enthralled by the scenery on the way.

It was a nice reset of perspective before coming back and being Americans in America.  We certainly admired much about where we visited, but it was good to be back home.  That is, until we opened the suitcase and realized that the bomb/drug-sniffing dogs would have choked on the dirty clothes therein.

We hope that your hikes are also enjoyable.

Dave & Paula

Hansel & Gretel, Part 2

In the original, the crummy parents took the kids out in the woods and tried to lose them, and they were nearly eaten by a witch.  What a heart-warming story to tell your kids at bedtime, no?

As you're aware, seven of our dozen grandkids live in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and only make it back to the States once a year.  They've been here for almost a month, visiting their dad's family out west, and then attending the Henderson beach reunion a couple of weeks ago.  

We also try to do something fun with them and their cousins from Jacksonville, North Carolina while they're here, such as rafting or camping or hiking.

This year we decided to try to lose them in the woods.

We took them to the mountains of Virginia and rode bicycles down the Virginia Creeper rails-to-trails path.

They had a lot of fun, 18 miles of gradual downhill following the route of an old limited rail line.  However, try as we might, we weren't able to ditch them.

Perhaps you're aware of the hazards of playground equipment.

We couldn't find any that was very scary.  

Figuring that the freezing-cold pool at the motel would slow them down, we tried that.  They figured out how to get back in the motel and found their way back to their rooms.  Great.  

Next, we found a Dominoes Pizza that was so cold you could see your breath.  Maybe loading them down with pepperoni and making a break for the van would throw them off our trail.  No such luck.

So we tried again, this time hiking up the trail to Mt. Rogers, the highest mountain in Virginia.  

We saw them trying to leave a trail of candy wrappers to find their way back, and one of them reminded the others of Park rules and they picked them up.  Our big chance!  

We re-oriented the trail markers to lose them.  No luck.

The Creepy Cave That Probably Has A Bear!?  He was apparently on holiday.

Speed on our part turned out to be a no-go.  They were usually way ahead of us.

How about one of the oldest tricks in the book - The Poison Berries Gambit?  That ought to work!

Turns out they were blackberries and were actually delicious.  Aaargh!

Our last chance was the feared Wild Horses of Mt. Rogers!

Yeah, well, they turned out to be the Placid Ponies of Mt. Rogers, more interested in whatever snacks we had than devouring our grandkids.

Driving their cholesterol levels up eating fast food on the way home was going to be waaayy to slow.

In the end, we gave them back to their parents, who had enjoyed a couple of quiet days back in Raleigh and were ready to tackle the horde again themselves.  

So, just as in Hansel & Gretel, Part 1, everything came out OK in the end.  We wished the Uzbek gang a good trip back to Tashkent as we left them (safely) at the airport early this morning.

We hope that your grandkid adventures are as much fun and that you can't lose yours either.

Dave & Paula

The Awesome Spectacle In Our Own Backyard!

Gladiators in the Coliseum?  Spartans at Thermopylae?  They have nothing on the battles taking place nearly every evening in the water in Paula's garden.

The pond has been there for 30 years now, after it was dug by a backhoe and rocks were placed by guys stronger than me using a Bobcat.  

Together with lots of other critters that have wandered in there is a whole squad of Lithobates clamitans or Eastern Green Frogs.  They and the tree frogs make a wonderful racket in the spring and summer evenings, and the neighbors swear that they like the sound.  I am unaware as to whether or not there is further swearing concerning the amphibian chorus when I'm not present.

There are usually about eight or nine adult male frogs in the pond, and each has his own fiefdom of about ten to fifteen square feet to which he invites the curvaceous, cute and slimy females of the species, calling to them from the rocks around the edge of the pond.

These macho denizens of the not-so-deep bravely defend their miniature kingdoms from incursions of the other guys, swimming out to patrol the borders.  They then engage in what have become known as the Friday Night Frog Fights©.  

So what do frogs do when they fight?  They don't have any teeth, they really don't have claws and they can't drown each other - they're frogs, after all.  So they just kind of wrestle and flop around for a minute or so, then return to their respective corners, satisfied that they have proven their valor and repelled the invader.  

Have we descended so far in our retirement years that Friday Night Frog Fights© seem worthy of our attention?  A believable argument could be made to that point.  However, it's very pleasant on a warm summer evening to sit quietly and talk as the soft evening comes on and the watery warriors gird up their froggy loins for what to them are crucial confrontations.

We hope that you find things to do with your time that are half as enjoyable.

Dave & Paula

The Three Biggest Hazards...No, Make That Four.

As previous posts have mentioned, I've been doing some kiteboarding over the past dozen years or so.  If you are not aware of what that means, it's a sport in which a large kite on long lines pulls the participant across the water on something that looks like a wakeboard, all powered by the wind, under some degree of control. 

It is very picturesque, and experts can perform incredible maneuvers, including jumping over a hundred feet vertical, doing all sorts of flips, speeding at up to sixty miles per hour, etc.  Note: I am not an expert.  However, even at my low-intermediate level, it's lots of fun.  Many people believe that one has to have great upper body strength to participate.

Note: That is not a recent picture of me.  Or even a non-recent picture of me.  Instead, the kite is attached to a waist harness, and steering the contraption requires no great strength.  

Unfortunately, anyone who can type "youtube.com" has seen horrific videos of what are known as "kitemares," in which someone messes up with bad consequences.  

Fortunately, with anything close to adequate instruction and some respect for the whole proposition, such things are much more rare than "youtube.com" would make it seem.  

However, as my brother has pointed out, who is far more expert than me, there are three big hazards in kiteboarding.

The first is an innocent-appearing device called a Woo.™ 

Using accelerometers and clever software, a Woo attached to your board can document the height of your jump, its duration, how many G-forces are generated on landing and a bunch of other information.  This data can all be uploaded to your Apple watch or phone and then to the internet so that everyone can see it and you can brag about it.  How could that possibly be dangerous?  What could possibly go wrong?

That is correct.  The hazard of this device is clear.  And by the way, the "I'm" referred to above is not me.

The next major danger is a camera.  As the old saying goes, "If there's no picture/video, it didn't happen."  Again, what could possibly go wrong?

And the third hazard is a crowd.  Even at my baby-steps level, I have felt the unmistakable, massive pull to "do something cool" when people are watching.  More people = more impetus.  Put a couple of thousand spectators on a beach in Capetown, South Africa, and you've got the King of the Air competition and what could possibly go wrong?

And so there you have it, the three most dangerous things about kiteboarding.  

OK, OK, one more.  

My brother Mark and I had a great time kiting on a small bay on the Chesapeake last week.  At the end of the session, I was near the shore in shallow water, bringing my kite down to land when I tripped on something and fell.  I reflexively put out a hand, and came down on a broken bottle or an oyster shell, at least something sharp.  It was awful - I got blood on my kite.

The good news was a) it was at the END of the session and not the beginning, b) CVS has tetanus shots, c) my brother and I are both ex-doctors, and d) I didn't cry.  That much.

So, what's the fourth hazard?  It's the one about being a klutz and falling down in shallow water, and I wasn't even trying to chew gum at the same time.

In all seriousness, the biggest risk of this actually-nice sport is probably driving the car to the site.  My hand is healing well, and chicks dig cool scars, right?  And I can't get the stains off the kite, so that's cool, too.  

We hope that wherever you go kiting has less sharp stuff on the bottom.

Dave

Oh, THAT's what they meant!

As you know, I love to ride my bike.  However, I have never been in a race, and I harbor no delusions about my speed or endurance.  But anyone that has not suffered a Rip van Winkle for the past 20 years has heard a lot about bike racers doping in various sneaky ways to increase their performance, Lance Armstrong being the poster child for such things.   

So, I was reading an article about "blood doping," and it said that racers will sometimes surreptitiously drain off a unit of their blood.  Well, hot dang!  The local blood bank had sent out a piteous plea for donations just the other day!  So, off to The Blood Connection office yesterday with Paula.

Things went very smoothly, except for my getting dizzy watching Paula's blood draining into the bag. 

That's a funny thing, a former doctor who saw a lot of blood for a lot of years getting dizzy, but I guess it's different when it's your wife.  The only time it ever happened before was watching the hand surgeon explore Laura's finger which had been badly sliced in a pumpkin carving incident.  The nurse, a friend, ordered me to sit on the floor as she perceived that I was going to arrive there soon voluntarily or otherwise.  Like I said, it's different when it's your own kid or wife.  

So, I did a rigorous bike ride today, including all the good hills in the area and trying to hit it hard.  I did worse than usual, which isn't saying a whole lot, but I really did feel puny.

So I went back to the article on blood doping and discovered that I had quit reading too soon.  It turns out that "blood doping" was not just taking a unit of blood off, but the athlete is then allowed to build his blood back up for a month and the stored unit is put back before a competition!  This would raise his blood count and result in greater endurance.  I had only done the first half!

All kidding aside, I can agree that neither part of blood doping is good.  I'll plan some wimpier rides after donating in the future.  

Dave

The Queen of the Swamp! And more!

One of my favorite trips as a Scoutmaster was to Merchants Millpond State Park, an ancient cypress swamp in the northeast corner of North Carolina.  We camped on an (almost) island deep in the swamp, which could be reached only by canoe.  The last time we went, I even spotted one of the alligators that live there; the Park is their northern-most limit at present.   

I finally convinced Paula that taking her there was a good idea.  To remind you, she was a Youth Leadership major at BYU, which included courses such as Waterskiing 101, Whitewater Canoeing, Backpacking, etc.  And while we have hiked the Swiss Alps together, cycled the South Island of New Zealand and dove the Great Barrier Reef, her tastes as of late on overnight lodging have 'matured' if that's the right term.  

We had a blast!  The swamp is "other-worldly" in Paula's description, "like something out of Tolkien" with the twisted trees and hanging moss.  

We spotted only three other humans, and about 300 times that number of turtles, geese and other varmints.  The frog chorus that night was divine.

And her nails were perfect!

I have learned during the last 44 years that Paula must be fed on a regular basis or things don't go well.  Things were starting to get tense as I fixed dinner. 

In the end, a great trip to a unique place.  

However, on the drive from Raleigh, Paula had noticed a sign indicating the direction to Hassell, NC.  That's her maiden name, and her genealogy goes through the eastern part of the state.  On the way back we let Google do the directing, and ended up in the town of Hassell.  No kidding  

It would have been easy to miss.  The pleasant voice of Deb, our Google Maps assistant suddenly announced, "You have arrived."  Huh?  Then I spotted the telltale landmark - a tiny post office!

We looked it up, and the census of Hassell peaked in 1930, when there were 169 residents; the 2000 census counted 84 persons, up from 72 in 1990.  The town is 0.3 square miles in size, "all of it land."  The median income is quite humble, with a significant portion of the folks considered to be below the poverty level.

From North Carolina, the Hassell ancestors went on to Georgia and then Florida.  Paula's great grandfather joined the Church in that state, was widowed, then served a mission and eventually remarried and headed west.  They finally settled in the Mormon Colonies in northern Mexico, from where Paula's mom and her family immigrated to New Mexico when she was twelve years old.  This caused a kerfuffle when her  mother applied for a passport later in life.  She was told that while she seemed like a nice lady, she was actually a Mexican citizen.  Though it was all finally straightened out, there have been several times when Paula has misbehaved that I have threatened to call ICE and turn her in.  On the most recent occasion, she reminded me of an unpaid parking ticket on my record in Havertown, Pennsylvania and we called it even.     

We hope that your trips to the swamp go as well, and that your family history occasionally pops out at you also.  

Dave & Paula

Another problem solved, but too late

I was a Scoutmaster on and off for about fifteen years.  During that time I gained an unfair (in my opinion) knack for attracting bad weather.  This was the usual picture for whatever Friday night I had chosen for the monthly campout because of my call schedule.

To my chagrin, what I thought to be an unfair reputation turned out to actually be true.  A member of our congregation looked at the history over a two-year period and the likelihood of precipitation on one of my campouts was over 90%.  You name the form of water and it was going to fall on us that many times out of a hundred.  

But didn't my troop take the Boy Scout Motto seriously about being prepared?  Nope.  Not even close.  I became adept at helping them rig tarps and pick campsites, but it was very likely that when I checked a tent full of guys in the morning there would be standing waves in the water in their shelter.  Sleeping bags wick that water up very nicely, but luckily humans themselves are waterproof, mostly.  

Suggestions were plentiful from the snickering dads.  "Ever consider scuba gear, Dave?  Heh, heh."  And the moms.  "Oh, dear, can't you do something about the weather, Dave?  I'm tired of scrubbing the mold out of his uniform," or, "How did a fish end up in his sleeping bag, Dave?"

With a different Church assignment, my camping trips are far fewer.  Being retired, I can also pick the weather.  Mostly.  And then I saw this!

Oh, man!  This solves a bunch of problems!  Who cares about the rain?  You could just paddle back to the car!  I can imagine the whole troop with these things.

OK, there might be a few teensy, weentsy problems.  Like the $1,275.00 price tag.  Each.  And backpack-able?  Uh, they weigh 75 pounds.  Each.  Which was roughly twice the weight of many of my Scouts.  And while freeing up the group in terms of needing dry campsites, the wildlife problem took on a whole new aspect.

OK, and the middle-of-the-night 'nature calls' could be problematic.  Explaining how a kid almost drowned going to the bathroom would be 'twisty.'  But hey, there are still advantages to be considered.  Canoe trips without the canoes?  No problema!  No room at the oceanside camping areas?  Just camp in the ocean!

Sadly, and probably for meteorologic reasons, I no longer serve with the teenage young men.  When I raised the possibility of a floating tent with Paula, she dope slapped me and told me to quit surfing the Web, and reminded me that there was no need for such things at nice hotels.  Nice, dry hotels.

I hope that such innovations come to your attention while they could still be useful.

Dave