Blog on There B and B

Rafting the Pastaza River

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Baños is often called the “Adventure Capital of Ecuador” and all sorts of adrenaline spiking opportunities abound in this city and the surrounding area. Yesterday we had biked parallel to the Pastaza river and saw all of the impressive waterfalls along it, and today our adventure would be going rafting on the Upper Pastaza, a section about five miles downstream¹ of the Pailón del Diablo, that was made up of Class III-IV rapids.

We went with Geotours, the same company that we had rented bikes from the day before. The cost was $30 per person, and included lunch, and that seemed to be the going price for rafting in this area. Their bus picked us up from our hotel that morning, and we drove about half an hour to their equipment outpost to get decked out with wetsuits, helmets, PFD’s, and shoes, and for them to pick up their raft. According to the guides, we’d be on the upper section today as it was just low enough to run. If it were any higher, we’d have gone a bit further down stream to a more tame section of the river.

There were five rafters including Scott and I, plus our guide. The other guests were two Australian women and an Israeli man that had just finished up his military requirement a few weeks before. We would also have a kayaker alongside us that would serve not only as our safety boater, but our photographer as well. This was a nice touch and not something you usually see on commercial rafting trips in the U.S.

When we arrived at the put-in, we got the standard safety briefing and then carried our raft to the water. Scott and I were up front across from each other and the other guests were behind us. The guide had us practice paddling and listening to his instructions and then we paddled to an eddy. He then instructed us to put our paddles down on the floor of the raft and on the count of “3” to jump in the river. We diligently followed his instructions and all jumped in. Then he had us practice pulling ourselves back into the raft. I liked what he did there because for some of the folks that had never rafted it quickly got them over the fear of being able to get back in, and getting submerged in the water right off the bat made everyone less squeamish about really digging in when he told us to paddle hard.

I am turning the keyboard over to Scott, the resident whitewater expert, to give you a rundown on our river trip:

“After the safety swim, we pulled out of the large eddy to hit the main flow. The boat was small and maneuverable, and we had the perfect number of paddlers, who also followed instructions well, which let us navigate the boulder gardens with ease. It was almost a downer that we were able to hit all of our lines perfectly, because otherwise it might have been more wild². We easily skirted many of the large holes and were able to perfectly hit huge wave trains that reminded us of the Table Saw rapid on the Middle Ocoee in Tennessee.”

A little ways past the halfway point we beached the raft and got out onto the shore. We walked a short distance to a creek that fed into the Pastaza and were able to jump in and float down it a bit. The creek banks had been prepared with rocks and anti-erosion engineering to make a swimming hole of sorts for the upcoming Carnival season (mid February).

After the swimming hole we launched the raft and embarked on the final leg of the trip. We had a few more long rapids with those giant wave trains and hit them perfectly. In the blink of an eye we reached the takeout. The whole trip took about an hour and a half and covered 4.25 river miles.

We changed on the riverbank, helped load the raft, and all got back into the bus to be taken to lunch. We went to a small restaurant in the village of Rio Negro. We relived the highlights of the raft trip with our fellow paddlers and enjoyed getting to chat with them about their adventures. We told them all that if they ever found themselves in the Carolinas, to give us a shout, and we would show them some Appalachian whitewater.

After lunch we got dropped off back in Baños. Scott and I made our way over to the bus station to inquire about getting tickets to the next town on our trip- Cuenca. Unfortunately we discovered that the booth to the bus line that serviced Cuenca was unmanned so we weren’t able to get them and made a note to venture back over later that evening.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Mercado Central to take a peek. It looked like most markets with produce, flowers, and food. Scott got a juice/smoothie and I was dead set on ice cream, so we went in search of that… and were pretty disappointed with the shop that we chose.

When we got back to the hotel we took a quick shower- Fast Fred had joked the day before that the cleanliness of the Pastaza rivaled that of the French Broad… in other words… not that clean.

Our last adventure that we needed to accomplish while in Baños was to head up the mountain to Casa del Arbor to take a spin on the “Swing at the End of the World.” We took a taxi and on the half an hour ride up the grade had a fun time practicing Spanish with our taxi driver. We got dropped off and paid the $1/each entry fee and went to see what it was all about.

It is a park on top of the mountain with views that were incredible. It was threatening to rain when we arrived and we could hear thunder in the distance and saw moody clouds obstructing the view of the nearby Tungurahua volcano. Eventually the sun peaked through though and it made for some fantastic photos. We took turns swinging off “the end of the world,” and I will leave it up to you kind reader, to guess who swung higher, Scott or me. Similar to the Mirador Miramera it almost felt like a location designed with Instagram in mind. We enjoyed wandering around taking in the views and posing for pictures before needing to head back down to the main road to catch the city bus back into town.

The drive down took a little longer and we noticed a lot of tourist attractions that seemed like their heyday might have been in the 80’s and 90’s and now looked in various states of disrepair. (Later that night I Google’d about this- evidently Baños’ tourism took a hit during the late 90’s and early 00’s when Tungurahua erupted and the town had to be evacuated for about three months.) Eventually we hopped off when we were near our hotel.

Our raft guide had plugged his bar earlier in the day and we wanted to go check it out. Unfortunately we are boomers though and were too early. Sadly we discovered that it didn’t open until 8 PM. So we settled for dinner at a random pizza joint we came across. While waiting on our pizza Scott noticed the most dramatic sunset that was unfolding outside and went to get some pictures- I can’t remember ever seeing such intense pink and purple clouds in the sky.

After our dinner we checked out another bar instead and had a quick drink. We sat at the second story patio and were able to look down onto the streets and people watch and ended up chatting with some other Americans, gaining travel advice for the next time we are in Ecuador. We were spent, so we headed back to the hotel so we could pack up as we were heading on to the town of Cuenca the next morning.

This map shows the exact section we ran. ↩︎
On our Amazon trip, while at lunch on the first day, Scott met a safety boater for a commercial company, and they were chatting it up. The kayaker shared a video taken earlier that day of a raft trip where one of the rafts got stuck in a hole and everyone in it ended up swimming when the raft flipped. ↩︎

Baños de Agua Santa

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We were finally going to be able to go check out Baños de Agua Santa in depth now that we had returned from the Amazon. The thermal baths that are one of the town’s claims to fame were first on our list.

The close proximity to the volcanoes means lots of thermal activity which makes for lots of hot springs in the area. These specifically are heated by the nearby Tungurahua volcano. We walked over to the closest one to our hotel, Termas de la Virgen Antiguas, which is located directly at the base of the iconic and picturesque Cabellera de la Virgen waterfall. We paid our $4 entry fee, bought the required $1 swim caps, and went in to see what it was all about.

There were a few pools to choose from, all of which are filled multiple times a day with the natural water, and due to the high concentration of minerals and iron, are all a somewhat offputting murky brown. We figured out that each bath was a slightly different temperature. We started off with the most popular pool and enjoyed a relaxing soak in water that felt like what you would run a bath at home with, before working up the courage to attempt the hotter one. Dipping just our toes in at first, we quickly found out that it was only doable to enter this bath if you first doused yourself under the ice-cold water that was being pumped out of waterfall-like spouts right next to it, otherwise you felt like a lobster being lowered into a boiling pot of water!

In this hottest pool we started chatting with another American, asking and answering the standard “Where are you from?” and discovered that we were speaking to none other than the man…the legend… of whitewater kayaking and rafting fame, Fast Fred, who is essentially a neighbor of ours. He lost his house in Saluda, NC during Hurricane Helene and has since spent part of the year traveling around, and is partial to Ecuador. I had heard of him but had never met him, and here he was, right here in the same pot of people-soup as us in Baños. We chatted with Fred a bit and continued soaking before needing to head back to our hotel.

Today’s adventure was biking the Ruta de las Cascadas (waterfall route). We rented bicycles for $10/each from a local travel agency who told us about the route, and brochure/map in hand, set out on the 25 km downhill route that would take us by approximately a dozen waterfalls, including the most famous one, the Pailón del Diablo (Devil’s Cauldron). The ride would take all day and once we were at the Machay waterfall, we had instructions to find a truck from a company that would bus you and your bike back to Baños for a small fee.

I was initially nervous about biking along the busy road but once I got my “sea legs” and saw that unlike at home in the U.S., these drivers all seemed to give cyclists a respectable berth, I started to chill out, although Scott still kept leaving me in the dust and would have to stop and wait for me. We were glad that we timed our bike ride for a weekday because the weekend traffic would have made it absolutely terrifying (see our Amazon Lite: Day 1 post where I recount how the truck we were riding in got passed in a TUNNEL by a BUS).

At the first major waterfall, Cascada de Agoyán, we dismounted and locked up the bikes so we could check it out. It was pretty darn impressive and we quickly noticed that there was a zipline running across the gorge. We watched a few people do it, and then quickly ignoring our general travel rule of “we don’t zipline in foreign countries,” went to figure out how we could take a trip¹.

We got kitted out in helmets and harnesses, breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the inspection certificates proudly displayed in their equipment shed, and each opted for the “superman” pose for our trip across the chasm. Soaring across the gorge was wild, and it might have been the best $10/each that we spent on the trip, although my actual favorite part of the whole thing was really the return trip in the tarabita where the owners’ dogs joined us, just another day in the office for them, no different than a car ride. I know exactly zero American dogs that would have been ok with this!

Adrenaline fully pumping we hopped back on our bikes and continued along the waterfall route. We quickly realized that we had made the correct zip line choice. The farther out of Baños we got, the sketchier and more derelict they became. There was one zipline park that actually looked legitimate but all the others were essentially mom-and-pop type operations that looked suspiciously decrepit. We saw no one opting to zip on these. One of the zip lines was so desperate for a paying customer that the old couple who must have owned it came eagerly out of their shack as we peddled by and asked if we wanted to buy a trip across the gorge. Looking at the rusty cable, we smiled and politely indicated that we were not interested. Evidently at one point, tarabitas were a common way of crossing the gorge here.

There was only one tunnel we had to go through, all the others thankfully had a parallel bike detour, and blessedly, we somehow timed it to have the tunnel all to ourselves as we peddled through it. The rest of the waterfalls were cool to see and eventually we made our way to the small village, Rio Verde, that was home to the most famous, the Pailón del Diablo.

Before entering the park to hike down to the waterfall, we stopped at a small “hueca” to park and lock our bikes and get a quick snack. The proprietor, a sweet abuela straight out of central casting, made up some chicken, cheese, and veggie filled empanadas for us. Similar to the chocolate shop abuela we had met in Mindo, she patiently and sweetly gave us a mini Spanish lesson as we ordered. As we were leaving she summoned us over to pick out some little handmade yarn friendship bracelets as a souvenir (I was nervous that we needed to pay for them but she assured me that it was a gift).

We knew that there were two entrances/sides to the Pailón del Diablo and we figured we would check out both². On both sides you could feel the deep rumbling power of the water as it came out of the small opening in the cliff high above. On both sides you had the option to get up close and personal and quite wet! We agreed that it was a good name choice because the power of the water at the base of the waterfall as it crashed into the narrow bowl-like formation that it had carved out really did resemble a bubbling cauldron.

The story of the waterfall having two access points is because… capitalism. Each tract of land is owned by a separate family and they each wanted to charge admission. The back of the waterfall is walled off with stonework so that you cannot access the other side.

After soaking up as much of the Pailón del Diablo as we cared to (literally!), we hiked back out and collected our bikes. Our hotel manager had suggested we check out their “sister” hotel, Miramelindo, which was just a few minutes walk from the waterfall, in the small village of Rio Verde, to take advantage of their spa. We weren’t sure if we would want to do that or not but had brought bathing suits in case. We felt like we were sufficiently “waterfalled” at this point and opted to check it out rather than continuing on to the Machay waterfall.

We found it and let them know that we wanted to use the spa and the manager went to open everything up for us and get everything heated up. We changed and grabbed a drink while we waited. The hotel was lovely and decorated in the same similar colorful and whimsical style as the Hotel de mi Pueblo that we were staying in. Eventually he led us back and showed us the spa.

We were delighted to see that in addition to the steam room, hot tub, and indoor pool, that there was something we had never seen before: a steam box. You were supposed to sit inside it, pull the cover up around your neck, leaving just your head exposed. There were eucalyptus branches in the box that were supposed to have therapeutic properties. We spent the next hour enjoying the spa features, and got a big laugh out of seeing each other in the steam boxes because it looked like our heads were being served up on a platter.

Once we felt super relaxed from the spa experience, we changed and went out to find the trucks that would transport us and our bikes back to town. We were lucky and found one that was driving around making the rounds looking for cyclists and piled into the back of the military style truck. We joined several fellow cyclists- some Americans we had run into earlier in the day and that had actually suggested the bike rental place that we went with, some French girls, and a German guy. As we got jostled and bumped along, we chatted about the waterfalls and our Ecuadorian adventures. It is always fun to hear about others’ travels.

We delivered our bikes back to the shop and then headed in search of dinner. Today was Monday and we were sad that the town appeared much more sedate than the night before. Sadly there were no neon dino-trains blaring music, zipping around the town and running redlights.

We found a small restaurant in the city center whose grill was giving off yummy smells as we walked by and advertised a dinner special for $3.50. We decided to give it a go and were happy with our choice. Scott got the pork chop and I got chicken and they both came with the standard soup as a first course and plantains as a side.

We had one last stop before we retired for the evening. After dinner we walked back over to the bike shop that also offered river rafting to sign up for a rafting trip for tomorrow. When we got back to the hotel I was happy to see the hot tub waiting for me in our room after a long day of biking and adventure!

Note: All told, the Ruta de las Cascadas bike ride and Pailon del Diablo hike(s) covered about 18 miles and took 6 hours, and that was without visiting the Machay waterfall which is the last one. We did not realize until renting the bikes from the shop that it would be pretty much an all day event. Definitely do this on a weekday as the traffic would make it dicey on a weekend.

We had our second “small world” story of the day here. A tourist that was already on the other side of the gorge just happened to video Scott as he was zipping across, and when we realized she was American, we started chatting with her and learned she was from outside Charlotte, NC. She sent the video to Scott. My mom loves a good “small world” story so of course I had to pose for a picture with her so I could send it to my mom! ↩︎
At the first park we had our third small world story of the day. Two girls asked Scott to take their picture and we did the standard “Where are you from?” It turns out they were missionaries from Simpsonville, SC, my hometown! ↩︎

Amazon Lite: Day 2

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I awoke a new woman! The meds had helped and whatever bug I had picked up had seemingly run its course. Lo and behold, I had actually experienced the best night of sleep to date on our trip. Poor Scott however, had not. Something had nibbled on him overnight and he awoke covered in bites on his legs. We were in the Amazon afterall, and despite the bug net, something had feasted on him.

We hung out on the bungalow porch and took in the views. Our bungalow was perched on the edge of the Puyo river which was shrouded in a dramatic layer of fog this morning. As the sun rose higher, the fog burned off and we were treated to stunning views of the riverbanks around us. We rendezvoused with Carlos at 8 AM and headed off to the local cacao farm, El Paraiso Cacao Farm, to see how chocolate is produced.

When we arrived, Carlos took us around the cacao orchard and we plucked off a few of the football sized bright red pods that were ripe and ready to be picked. He cut into one of them and had us sample the white pulpy seeds. They tasted literally nothing like chocolate, and instead had a tangy and almost citrusy or mango-like taste. We were instructed to eat the flesh but not the hard beans inside and to spit that part out and keep it. These beans go on to be laid out to ferment and dry for several days.

Carlos walked us over to a fire on a stove that was being tended by the orchard owner. The orchard owner handed Scott a wooden spoon and instructed him to stir the cacao beans around the pan. Once roasted, they were removed from the heat, and we were then shown how to crack them and remove their outer covering and to save the interior portion. At this point they closely resembled, as well as smelled like, coffee beans. At this stage these were considered “cacao nibs.” We were told to sample them and I already knew I would not be a fan since I am not a huge chocolate lover and certainly do not appreciate dark or bitter chocolate.

The next step was to put the nibs in a hand-cranked grinder and Scott was shown how to grind them down. The powder was collected in a banana leaf and was then processed through the grinder two more times. At this point it was ready to either be briefly frozen so that it formed a patty of sorts, or could be added to hot milk with some cinnamon to make Ecuadorian hot chocolate. Half of the powder was put in the freezer on the banana leaf, and Carlos took the other half to make the hot drink for us. He had snapped a twig off a cinnamon tree in the orchard and then used a knife to scrape off some of the bark into the saucepan as he stirred the cocoa powder into the hot milk.

Once the hot drink was ready we sat down at a table in the open-air kitchen and the orchard owner’s wife brought over what was essentially Ecuadorian eggs-benedict; eggs sunny side up served over homemade plantain tortillas. It was divine.

As breakfast was wrapping up we heard squawking from the trees nearby and saw a trio of green parrots. They were actually pets. We wandered over to look at them and one of them, Pepe, became instantly fixated on Scott’s shiny divewatch. His body language conveyed his desire to be lifted off his perch so that he could get a better view of the watch. He parked himself on Scott’s arm and proceeded to gnaw, peck, and pry at the watch. He was absolutely obsessed with it and refused to go back on his perch, biting Scott every time he attempted to get him to hop back up on it. Scott eventually freed himself of Pepe who continued to stalk him wanting another go at the watch. It was pretty funny to observe!

We thanked the orchard owners for the visit and for the delightful breakfast and headed out for the next phase of our Amazon jungle tour. We would be returning to the Hola Vida reserve today for another hike. What I kept hearing Carlos say was that we were hiking to the “heated waterfall” and I was like “Hell yeah, a heated waterfall sounds amazing. I will definitely enjoy being splashed by that.” So off we went.

It was a true bushwhacking experience and Carlos used a machete to chop and slash a path. It was treacherous to reach it and more closely resembled a mud run. It took over an hour to reach the river and we had to carefully pick our way down the rocks into the canyon. We stripped to our bathing suits and then had to swim the rest of the way.

The waterfall was hidden until we swam through the canyon and then it finally came into view. The water was pretty darn cold so as I was swimming I was looking forward to getting to the heated water of the waterfall that had been promised to me. I bravely swam up to the waterfall and then positioned myself below it on the rocks at the base of the pool, and… it was cold. What the hell? I had been promised a heated waterfall and this one felt cold. Quite cold actually.

Well, it turns out Carlos had been calling it a “hidden” waterfall, not a “heated” waterfall, but with his accent I kept hearing “heated.” So that’s how I came to be pummeled by a regular ol’ waterfall because otherwise I probably would have hung back, not wanting to get cold. (Insert lol emoji here!) When I told Scott he really did laugh out loud and asked me how the heck a waterfall would be heated. I shrugged and said “I don’t know, I guess I thought it was warm because of all the thermal springs in the area.”

It had started to rain at this point and Carlos wanted us to get out of the canyon as quickly as possible because the water can rise fast with rain upstream. So we hustled out, grabbed our clothes and started the hike back out. We took a different route that was mostly downhill, and while it required less machete action, was even muddier than the hike in. He gave me a walking stick which was helpful but I still managed to have one wipeout which covered my whole backside with mud.

We eventually reached the road and walked on it a ways, laughing at what we must look like- clad in rubber boots and swimsuits and covered in mud. Eventually we reached the same restaurant where we’d eaten our other meals. Carlos told us to hang out while he went to get the truck. We cleaned up as best we could and waited on him and for our lunch to be ready. Carlos eventually returned and we had lunch. Scott had tilapia again (fried) and I was finally hungry again and had chicken.

The last phase of our Amazon experience was a trip to visit the village of an indigenous community, the Amazonian Kichwas. No offense to the Kichwas, but the experience felt much like visiting the Oconoluftee indian village in Cherokee, NC. A little contrived. There was a song and dance exhibition where their village grandpa was told to go out and bang his drum for a bit and march around the thatched roof hut for the tourists, followed by a girl that made the rounds passing out community hooch, or chicha from a wooden bucket.

I was the first person that she had come to on my side of the building, and I suppose I hadn’t really been paying attention when she served the other side, because before I really thought about it much, I accepted the little wooden bowl of hooch she offered me and put my lips to its edge and drank it down. And then I watched her take the same cup that I had just drank from and dip it into the bucket and offer it to Scott, who while still laughing at me, shook his head aggressively, declining her offer, and then she moved on to the next person. So that happened.

And so help me God, that chicha better not have been made in the traditional manner where the tribal grannies chew the yucca and spit it into a bowl where it ferments for a few days before being served to guests. I am going to tell myself that this was commercially prepared chicha and if you hear otherwise, you best keep that little tidbit to yourself.

We declined the offer to eat the fat, wriggling and writhing chontacuro grubs that were offered to us next, but did partake in the traditional face painting. Evidently Scott’s pattern was meant to protect him if he were to head off into battle and I missed hearing what my pattern meant. We were offered the chance to hold a macaw and a monkey (Scott pet the monkey which made me mad because I object to them being bred for pets and I warned him that they bite, and if bitten he would have to have post-Rabies exposure treatment but he did it anyways) and then got hustled for donations and then were sent to the gift shop. I did buy a cute beaded bracelet.

Our time in the Amazon had finally come to an end and Carlos escorted us back to Baños. The drive took quite a bit longer this time since it was Sunday, and Baños’ traffic is notoriously crowded on the weekends. Carlos wasn’t quite as patient on this drive but we eventually arrived back safely at our hotel, bid him adios, and went to check-in.

This time we would be staying for three nights at the Hotel De Mi Pueblo, and I had booked a rooftop room for us that promised views of the waterfall in town. Our room was incredible and we loved seeing the panoramic views over the city and of the surrounding mountains.

The proprietor suggested her favorite restaurant for dinner, a Mexican place a short walk away, and we took her suggestion. Dinner was lovely and on our stroll through town we were entertained by how wild and lively the city was this evening. Our favorite thing we saw were the little themed trains covered in neon lights and blasting music that were parading visitors around the city, paying zero attention to any sort of traffic laws.

We had joked earlier in the trip that Scott should get a haircut like he had done in Thailand, and the universe served up the perfect opportunity this evening. As we were headed back to our hotel we passed a barbershop that more closely resembled a rave than a hair cutting establishment and they summoned Scott in enthusiastically when he asked how long the wait was. We enjoyed the party-like atmosphere and he got the best daggum haircut of his life, and everyone posed for a photo op at the end.

We finally made it back to Hotel De Mi Pueblo and called it a night, exhausted from our last few action packed days.

Amazon Lite: Day 1

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We started referring to our Amazon jungle tour as “Amazon Lite” for a few reasons. Puyo was located fairly close to Baños relative to some of the other towns that offered Amazon tours which required 6+ hours of bus rides and extensive water taxi transportation. Baños is often referred to as the “gateway to the Amazon.” Most of the tours offered roughly the same experience: some hiking, some chocolate tourism, some sort of zoo experience, a canoe ride of varying lengths, local cuisine, lodging, a “night hike,” and a visit to an indigenous tribe. Based on this, we decided that we did not want to devote multiple days and multiple nights, and found the two day-one night itinerary the most appealing option for us. Another contributing factor to this moniker was that the whole thing, though it definitely qualified as “do the thing you are supposed to do in the place you are supposed to do it,” felt a little canned/staged/contrived; in that tourists got marched up and down this one road on the outskirts of Puyo, stopping for visits to each of the aforementioned activities.

Remember how the high elevation had been affecting our sleep and that we were desperate for a good night’s rest? Well, it didn’t happen this night either because during the middle of the night I awoke because of some sort of stomach bug.

I nursed myself along for the first bit of the morning, silently praying that this was nothing, and sent a mental thank you note to my doctor who had sent me to Ecuador with Zofran just in case this exact thing happened.

Scott had gotten up early and had gone to walk around and explore the town of Baños. When he got back he reported that he had walked over to the nearby thermal springs and iconic waterfall. We wouldn’t have time today to soak in the thermal baths because we needed to be at the travel agency by 9 AM to embark on our two day-one night Amazon jungle tour adventure, but we planned to visit it when we got back to Baños.

We repacked and walked the few blocks over to the Imagine Ecuador travel agency where we were introduced to Carlos, our personal guide for the trip. We loaded into his truck and headed to Puyo.

Despite having taken an arsenal of meds this morning, I was feeling puny still and was hoping that I would cope ok during the 2.5 hour drive. Blessedly, Carlos was a sane driver because had he driven in the typical Ecuadorian manner, I think that would have sent my delicate stomach over the edge. Speaking of Ecuadorian drivers, it was on this drive that multiple cars, including ours, got PASSED in a poorly lit narrow two-lane TUNNEL by a full-sized city-to-city BUS! Scott and I looked at each other with astonishment, with looks of “Did that just happen?” on our faces.

We eventually stopped at Mirador Miramera, which we quickly surmised was a viewpoint overlooking the Pastaza river, and essentially an Instagram park. We were able to gaze out over the wide river and it was interesting to see how much it had changed since its headwaters in Baños. At its origin it was narrow and raging as it sliced its way through the narrow volcanic rock canyon, but as it came out of the mountains and made its way towards the flat Amazon, spread out and slowed down to a lazy and sprawling body of water. We took some pictures at the overlook, and I was able to buy a Sprite to attempt to continue soothing my stomach.

We continued on a bit to our next stop, the YanaCocha Rescue Center, a center “dedicated to the rescue, protection, and conservation of wildlife species that have fallen victim to illegal trafficking in the Ecuadorian Amazon.”

The 20 acre center has 40+ species and we got to see many of the ones that you often think of when you think of the Amazon: caimans (South American reptiles similar to alligators), tucans, capybaras (essentially giant guinea pigs), macaws, anacondas, piranhas, several types of monkeys, coatis (related to the raccoon), poison dart frogs, and boa constrictors. The capybara was my favorite and Scott’s was the red macaw.

As we were about halfway through our visit to the rescue center I felt my stomach getting progressively more and more unsettled. I asked where the bathroom was and barely had enough time to form the question when it revolted and I had to attempt to get off the path to vomit. Unfortunately there wasn’t really anywhere for me to go and I ended up yakking several times onto the steep embankments on either side of me. I took more Zofran and then messaged one of my clients who is a physician to see how frequently I could take it. She was sweet and responded quickly, and also suggested that if I had a Z-pack, that I could take a single dose of that, as that is the protocol for treating Traveler’s Sickness.

Guess what we actually had?! Our friend and neighbor, who also happens to be Scott’s father’s pain doctor, gloriously had sent us with a Z-pack!

Thankfully I started feeling a little better and we were able to carry on with our zoo visit. On the way out I got another soft drink to see if that would help, and made sure to have some plastic grocery bags that thankfully I always have stashed in my bag handy in case I needed them for the car ride.

Our next stop was lunch at a small family owned roadside restaurant. Scott had decided to try the tilapia. It was prepared by wrapping it in a banana leaf and then steaming it which is a popular South American dish and Carlos had mentioned several times how flavorful and moist the fish comes out. I had originally told Carlos that I would like chicken for lunch but decided instead to just drink the broth from the chicken soup that was our first course and then ate some of the savory plantain and rice that had come as sides. I was hoping this would help me feel better.

After lunch we drove down the road to embark on today’s main event, a hike to the Cascada Hola Vida. We donned the rubber boots that he had brought for us and off we went. The hike also served as a narrated nature walk and Carlos showed us various plants and taught us about their properties and uses in indigenous culture. He was quite skilled at identifying bird calls as well and could tell what sort of bird we were hearing and then would show us a picture of it from an app on his phone if we were unable to see the actual bird itself.

He had taken us on the “off the beaten path” trail so that he could show us certain plants, and perhaps to also add to the idea of the allure of the Amazon jungle, and we laughed when we connected with the main trail that was much easier to navigate than the route we had taken.

A few minutes later we arrived at the waterfall. In typical Scott fashion, he stripped down (thankfully just to his swim trunks since Carlos was chaperoning this adventure), and hopped in the water, headed for the 21 meter waterfall. I stayed on the shore and perched myself on a boulder to watch since I was still feeling off. He enjoyed getting pummeled by the strong water for a bit before coming back over to the edge of the pool and redressing.

We made our way back to the truck and changed out of our rubber boots. The next adventure that lay ahead for us was a canoe ride on the Puyo river. Carlos took us to the put in where a dugout canoe and guide awaited us. We were instructed to put on PFD’s and to climb in. Scott was bummed that we weren’t handed paddles and instead would just be passengers.

It was fun to see the Amazon from the middle of the river and we could see the Sangay volcano ahead of us in the distance when we rounded one of the bends. As far as canoe rides go, it was pretty sedate, but it was still enjoyable and my stomach actually calmed down for a while, probably because I was distracted. Seemingly, we blinked and then we were at the takeout with Carlos standing on the shore to help us out of the canoe.

We thanked our canoe guide and then followed Carlos back to the truck. He then informed us that we were heading to another “mirador” (viewpoint). We would be watching the sunset over the Pastaza river basin from this overlook.

Once there, Carlos and Scott opted for the steeper climb and I took the more looping trail with switchbacks and met them up at the observation platform. It was an incredible view and you could see miles and miles of the Amazon jungle spread out below with the Pastaza river running widely through it, and way beyond that, looming over the jungle, several of the famous volcanoes; Tungurahua in Baños being the closest.

I parked myself in a hammock and looked out at the lovely scenery in front of me and Scott enjoyed taking pictures of the sunset. He showed Carlos his “PeakFinder” app which identifies the mountain peaks that you are seeing.

When the sun had dipped below the horizon we descended back down the trail and returned to the same restaurant for dinner. I was feeling better but was still cautious and stuck to soup while Scott went for tilapia again, but this time opting to have it fried. Carlos had the same meal as Scott and put Scott to shame in his ability to harvest every fleck of meat from the fish’s body, leaving just a clean skeleton at the end.

At this point I wanted nothing more than to just be able to sleep, so we headed to our accommodations for the evening so I could get dropped off before Carlos took Scott on the “night hike.” It was the most basic bungalow imaginable, and I didn’t care what it looked like at that point. I only cared about climbing under the mosquito net above my bed and sleeping, which is exactly what I did.

The night hike consisted of a walk around the grounds looking for some of the nocturnal Amazonian species. Scott said they encountered leaf cutter ants, and then when they got to a pond and shined their flashlight out over the water, saw a dozen pairs of eyes reflecting back at them… eyes that belonged to caimans!

After the night hike was over, Scott came back to bed although I barely heard him come into the bungalow. He crawled under the mosquito net over his bed and tucked in for the night. We didn’t even bother playing white noise in the background this evening because the Puyo river right outside our open windows was an even better white noise backdrop.

Horseback Riding at the Base of Cotopaxi

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On January 16 we had the best view yet of the Cotopaxi volcano when the sun rose. We could actually see it through the picture window from our bed in the “Birdhouse.” Today was our last day here before we moved on to the town of Baños and we were sad that our Secret Garden Cotopaxi time was drawing to an end because we had fallen in love with the hostel.

We hadn’t visited the llamas yet so that was our priority as soon as we were finished with breakfast. We grabbed a few handfuls of banana peels that everyone had saved for them and went out to their pasture. Just like the manager had said, the peels got their attention and the bossier ones made a beeline for us demanding to be fed. There were a few “crias” (baby llamas) that were absolutely adorable. They were much shyer though and although I wanted nothing more than to go snuggle, squeeze, cuddle, and pet them, I gave them space because I could tell we were making them nervous. Clearly they hadn’t learned about banana peels yet.

We hung out with the herd for a while and took advantage of the perfect clear morning to get pictures of both them, and the iconic volcano. I got a kick out of seeing the glacier on Cotopaxi, knowing that we had hiked up to its edge yesterday.

Our adventure for today was to go horseback riding near the Cotopaxi National Park as part of an excursion organized by SGC. I have never done this as part of a vacation for a variety of reasons typically boiling down to welfare and safety concerns, but everything I had researched and heard about this particular experience gave off “green flags” so I decided we should do it.

We got bused out to the farm with the other folks that were riding today and got to experience the same rough ride as we had yesterday to get to the hike. There were seven of us in total. Scott and I were the only Americans and on the bus ride we got to know the others- two Dutch college students, a recently retired Québécoise, a German college student, and a small animal vet from the UK who was traveling around Central and South America after doing a veterinary mission to Panama. I tipped my hand and told them that I was a horse person and mentally vowed not to be that person today. (Scott said later that I was successful and that they all seemed to appreciate my knowledge and input and that I wasn’t obnoxious. Hopefully that was the case!)

We had a guide that spoke very little English so I was able to fill in the gaps and help give a briefing that covered very basic safety (don’t get kicked) and how to stop and steer. We got assigned to our mounts. The scrappy herd was a mix of colors and all stood about 14 hands, appeared to be Criollos, and were in good weight and condition, aside from some long toes. We mounted from the ground¹ (yikes) and off we went.

We rode for about two and a half hours and covered a lot of varied terrain. We started in scrubby pasture land and made a gradual uphill climb before heading back downhill and into a rocky river bottom area. We crossed a river and then encountered a herd of cattle. Some of them were surprised to see us and took off.

About halfway through we were instructed to dismount for a snack break. Our guide Omar tied our horses to trees while we stretched our legs. He served us warm tea from a thermos and passed out SGC banana bread and most of us took advantage of the break to go duck behind a tree for a quick bathroom break. We remounted and carried on.

I had wanted to ride alongside Scott, both because I enjoy his company, and to help keep him safe, but he was on a slowpoke and couldn’t consistently convince his little bay to muster any sense of urgency, and my guy was a forward little thing who got irritated anytime I asked him to slow down to wait. I eventually just decided to play tourist and not micromanage, acknowledging that these horses did this day in and day out and didn’t need any input from me. I was proud of Scott because the handful of times that his horse would break into a trot, Scott was able to post right along to it! (Although he did tell me that posting in the Western saddle had consequences that the English saddles of mine he had ridden in before did not and he quickly had to figure out how to protect himself…!)

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was mild and sunny with just enough clouds to add some character to the sky. Unfortunately we never got a great view of Cotopaxi itself though because of cloud cover surrounding just its peak. I was thankful that we had this weather today because while climbing a mountain in bad weather wasn’t much fun, riding in it would be even less fun.

Towards the end of the ride the guide decided to take off cantering without any warning² and a few of the more forward horses automatically followed suit to keep up. My little paint had a smooth canter and it was fun to be zipping along through the picturesque Andean grassland. Scott’s horse gave him a handful of trot steps so that was the extent of his speedy grand finale.

Our guide untacked the herd and then drove us back to SGC. Because checkout was at 11 and we were scheduled for our ride this morning, we’d had to pack up and vacate the “BH” and store our things in storage lockers in the SGC equipment garage. Because we are inexperienced hostel-users we were a little surprised to find that we were not provided a way to lock the lockers, so we did the best we could- using zip ties, and Scott made a note to add little travel locks to the packing list. So when we got back we fetched the bags, changed, and then had lunch- you guessed it, another hearty and delicious soup.

We would be taking a SGC shuttle to Baños but it didn’t leave until about 3 PM so we had some time to relax. We made our way over to the yoga/hammock room, discovered that most of the hammocks were occupied, so we decided to hang out on the nets outside that resembled catamaran style trampolines. We enjoyed basking in the sun and looking out over the gardens and at Cotopaxi in the distance.

We bid farewell to our new found traveling friends and boarded the bus. Eventually we made it to smooth roads and the majority of the journey was on the highway. It seemed to take forever but eventually we made it into Baños, and after a little uncertainty about where exactly we would be dropped off at, mostly due to the language barrier, we were able to request that our driver drop us off at our hotel and he happily obliged. When I saw the neon lights illuminating the famous Baños waterfall I knew that we had to be quite close to our hotel since I had picked it because of its proximity to this landmark.

We made our way into the hotel and checked in. We would be staying just one night but would be returning to the same hotel the night after, as we were scheduled to do a two day- one night Amazon adventure that departed the very next morning. Deciding it was too late to bother with finding dinner we just ate some snacks instead and I took advantage of the giant hot tub that took up an entire corner of the small room for a much needed soak. We fell into bed with high hopes that we would finally get some decent sleep since we were now out of the Andes and were back at a much lower elevation.

In the States we seldom mount from the ground anymore because it is quite hard on the horse’s backs, not to mention that mounting from the ground requires more athleticism and finesse so it seemed odd that a trail riding outfit intended for novices didn’t use a mounting block. ↩︎
Ack! Trail etiquette and good trail leading dictates that you ask first before just taking off to be sure everyone wants to and is ready… Also, you can create quite the problem if you always let the horses run back to the barn… But when in Ecuador… ↩︎

How to Prepare for Your Hike Up to the Cotopaxi Glacier: An Instructional Guide

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for coming to my “How to Train for the Cotopaxi Volcano Base Camp/Glacier Climb” discussion! With my detailed plan you will learn how to tackle the hike up to the glacier at one of the tallest active volcanoes in the world and how to make the 2.6 mile round trip that takes you from 4,600 meters elevation to over 5,000 meters elevation.

First off, you are going to want to buy a StairMaster. Next, you are going to want to somehow attach sandboxes to the StairMaster steps and fill them with deep beach sand. I don’t know how you are going to do that, but you’ll figure it out. This way you will be prepared to not only climb up the mountain, but also through the loose and deep volcanic scree that comprises the majority of the hike.

Alternatively, you can use a treadmill. Crank that bad boy up to a 40 degree incline to mimic Cotopaxi’s pitch, and not gradually either. It is straight up from the parking lot to the José Rivas Refuge base camp and eventually the glacier.

Now put this StairMaster into either a walk-in refrigerator, or you could buy a refrigerator truck and set it up in there. It ain’t warm on top of the volcano and you need to get ready.

Then, you are going to need to put on a n95 mask. This will help you train yourself to get accustomed to having less oxygen- ideally you need to only be able to have access to half the oxygen you normally would because that’s how much you’ll have on your actual climb.

Next you’ll need to get someone to hold a leaf blower during your training sessions. Have them aim it at you and turn this sucker on full blast. They can alternate blowing it directly at you, or sideways into you. Have them switch around to keep things interesting.

For the second half of your workout session you need to recruit another person to aggressively fling nugget ice at you (you can buy this from your local Chick-fil-A) and bonus points if they focus on your face. Alternatively, you can set up a wood chipper and have them feed blocks of ice into it. You want to be pelted directly and forcefully so that you’ll be conditioned to the rain, sleet, snow, and driving wind that you’ll experience on your hike.

You’ll want to dress warmly for this workout session (remember, you are in a reefer truck after all). Lots of layers, longjohns, waterproof jacket and pants, hat, and bulky gloves. Strap on the backpack that you’ll be wearing when you climb Cotopaxi too and don’t skimp out on the weight- don’t forget to pack your water bottle. Now, put a single quarter somewhere on your body. This can go in any of the pockets that you are wearing, or in your backpack. Now forget about it for a little bit- just try to put its location out of your mind.

Ok, now do your workout! You can choose your speed. (Don’t forget about the incline!)

Ok, now you need to hydrate. It is very important to hydrate to avoid altitude sickness. So every so often stop and figure out how to get your water bottle out of your bag. This will probably involve having to take off your gloves. This will also serve as a welcome little break. Ok, now repack your water bottle and hit “resume” on the StairMaster.

Do you have to pee yet?

If not, stop and drink more water. You probably aren’t hydrated enough. If you don’t feel like you need to go, this means you are dehydrated.

Ok, if you are about 30 minutes into your workout and you need to pee, you may stop for a few minutes. Now is the time to pee. But first, remember that quarter that you stashed somewhere? You can’t go until you locate it and then give it to someone (have a friend fill in for the role of the potty patrol outside the bathroom). Have fun getting undressed with all your layers! Now, layer back up and continue on.

The next part of your workout should be done over rocks. Practice scrambling around and over them. Just for fun, you can make the ground wet and slick. Also practice walking over and through some muddy streams. Is your n95 mask on still? Go ahead and put another one over top of it. Practice getting even less oxygen.

Have someone hold a block of ice and then about 20 minutes after you stopped for a bathroom break, you may touch the ice and take pictures next to it. Practice looking happy, proud, and accomplished!

Ok, now hit “reverse” on your StairMaster, this way you can practice going down. Also, set up some marbles on a hard surface and try to walk over those every once in a while because you’ll want to practice this for getting experience for navigating the volcanic scree.

Walk for about 45 minutes in this manner.

Ok, workout completed! Aren’t you proud of yourself?! Now do it as many times as needed until you feel proficient.

Follow me for more helpful training tips!

So that gives you an idea of our Cotopaxi base camp hike. We made it to the glacier. I don’t know that I have ever felt a greater sense of being alive or a greater sense of accomplishment than I did that day and it was a rush. Scott called it summit fever.

We went with a group of nine other hikers plus our guide that was hired by Secret Garden Cotopaxi. He picked us up early that morning and we made the hour and a half drive over those insanely rough roads to get to Parque Nacional Cotopaxi, and it felt like it took another half hour of driving to get from the entrance of the park to the parking lot.

It was a “zero to 60” type scenario. Our guide asked us if we wanted do the easy or hard route, and I did not offer up an opinion, but someone must have because we did “hard.” This means we went straight up that 40 degree incline rather than taking the route that involves looping switchbacks. And you know what? It was fine, it really was.

There is a woman in her 60’s that we see every day at the YMCA when we are working out and she seriously spends nearly two hours a day on the StairMaster. As we were huffing and puffing our way up, I kept thinking about her, and thinking that if she can do that, then so could I.

The weather was just as I described. It was insanely windy and alternated between rain and sleet. Thankfully we had our sunglasses on which helped protect our eyes.

Scott deserves a shout-out here. One of our fellow SGC hikers was a Dutch woman in her late 50’s, and it became apparent quite early on during our ascent that she was struggling with the steep slope and the altitude. Our guide hung back with her to be sure she was ok, and Scott offered to take her backpack to lighten her load as much as possible. She was able to make it to the base camp but it took her quite a while and she had to stop often.

We made it to the base camp in about 45 minutes, and in hindsight, I wish that we could have just kept on going at this point (after a potty break of course, and the whole pay-to-potty scenario played out just like I outlined), because I got cold while we hung out in the base camp. It was not particularly warm inside, and aside from offering a respite from the biting wind, it offered no comfort and just killed the rhythm.

The base camp to glacier leg was pretty intense because the footing changed. It was more hard- packed but with loose rocks over top that caused your feet to slide out unexpectedly from underneath you. There also was a little bit of rock scrambling that we had to do. I also learned something. I knew that mountain climbers strike out early on their hikes, and I never really thought about why that was until I got to experience it firsthand on this hike. It is because the sun’s light causes glacier melt and causes little streams and creeks to appear so the going gets sloppier and potentially more dangerous as the day goes on. (It also makes snow bridges more likely to collapse as the day gets warmer, although that didn’t apply to us.)

The descent was pretty easy once we got back near the base camp (aside from having to take another potty break- this one was NOT at the actual bathroom and rather occurred on the exposed mountain with the 30 mph winds whipping me) and Scott and I ended up taking some of the switchbacks for a bit.

When we got back to the van, we all piled in to warm up and wait for our Dutch friend. While we waited, someone spotted an Andean wolf that was hanging out in the parking lot and we were able to get surprisingly close to it and get pictures. I loved seeing it!

When our group reconvened we then made the long and bumpy ride back to Secret Garden Cotopaxi. On the drive out of the park we saw some Andean condors. Their claim to fame is being one of the largest flying birds in the world, with a wingspan of 10.5 feet, and they are the largest bird of prey.

Once back at SGC we were thrilled to see lunch awaiting us and dug in as soon as we had changed into dry clothes. Hiking up to the glacier had burned some serious calories and we quickly figured out why the SGC daily lunch offering was a hearty soup.

We figured there was no better time to go try out their thermal hot tub so we went and changed and headed to find it, hoping that it wouldn’t be too crowded. We were pleasantly surprised to find just one other person in it when we arrived, an Israeli woman that we had spoken with the day before. She was an army nurse that had been serving in Gaza for the last two years and she had understandably gotten to a point where she needed a break. She was traveling around Ecuador for several weeks as an antidote to everything she had witnessed over the last few years. We soaked and chatted and enjoyed swapping travel stories.

The hot tub was located in its own room that was a greenhouse of sorts, complete with all types of native tropical plants. SGC had placards posted that mentioned that if we heard a certain unusual and high pitched noise, that it was most likely their resident Andean marsupial tree frogs. Towards the end of our hot tub session we heard it. While they are admittedly cute, my frog/toad phobia isn’t that discerning, so this was my cue to wrap up my soak.

We showered, donned our complimentary ponchos, then parked ourselves on the loveseat near the fire. Just when I thought life couldn’t get any better, the invasion of the wiener dogs happened. The SGC owners had two Dachshund puppies and they jumped through the doggy door in front of us and came bombing into the building chasing each other. I was able to scoop up the male and have a brief snuggle with him before he wanted to be let down to keep chasing his sister.

Snack time came and more people started filtering into the common area. We enjoyed hearing about everyone’s adventures. Some people had summited Cotopaxi today and it was wild to hear about the low success rate (only 2 of 30) because of the conditions. They looked tired! Eventually it was dinner time and we chowed down on our hamburgers that had been cooked over the woodfire. I was equal parts high-on-life from reaching the glacier, and exhausted, so we decided to call it a night and shower then retire to the “BH.”

Secret Garden Cotopaxi

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When we were planning our trip Scott used generative AI to help with some of our itinerary planning. He would give it a prompt, refine it, and run it against multiple AI models. Time and time again, AI was adamant that when we were in the Cotopaxi area, we should stay at the Secret Garden Cotopaxi, a hostel at the base of the famous volcano. We dug further and loved what we saw. It promised stunning views of the snow-capped volcano and offered an affordable several day package that bundled together transportation, housing, meals, and some excursions.

So on January 14, we packed up and checked out of the “Hotel & Rooftop King Experience by David” and strolled a few neighborhoods over to reach the Secret Garden Quito and catch the shuttle from their Quito location to their Cotopaxi location. We had enough time to check out the hostel and wandered all the way up to their rooftop bar and restaurant and enjoy the views of Quito. It was time to load up and about 20 of us handed off our luggage to their driver and piled into their small bus.

The drive took about two and a half hours- the first part of the drive offered smooth sailing on interstate type roads. About an hour and half in, we turned off and were treated to an authentic Ecuadorian experience. The roads were paved, but with rocks the size and shape of soccer balls, and despite the driver carefully nursing the bus over them, it still gave us the roughest ride we had experienced to date. We eventually came into a village and started seeing cows, donkeys, and llamas tethered by halters and grazing on the lush steep embankments that lined the road. As we bumped and bounced our way by them they barely acknowledged us and just continued on with their grazing. Finally we reached the Secret Garden Cotopaxi.

We spilled out of the van and were directed into the building for a briefing and lunch. We received warm welcomes from the staff and were shown to the long tables and instructed to take a seat. One of the managers, a woman from Holland, introduced herself and gave us a run down of what to expect during our stay as other staff made their rounds serving up demitasses of mulled wine.

All of our meals were included and she spelled out when each was served. We were told to help ourselves to the unlimited banana bread and bananas, but save the peels for their resident llamas. The iconic alpaca wool ponchos that we had noticed being sported by most of the staff and other guests that arrived prior to us, were ours for the wearing for the duration. We should help ourselves to the various amenities such as hammocks, catamaran-boat style trampolines around the property, yoga room, and hot tub that was filled with water from the nearby volcanic spring. We were encouraged to visit the llamas and should come bearing the aforementioned banana peels to entice them to be friendly.

She then listed out our various excursion options, passing out an activity menu of sorts. Of the hikes that were available, Scott and I chose to do the Cotopaxi base camp/glacier hike the following day. It had been on our radar and I felt fit enough to tackle it. When she came around later in the evening to see what we had chosen, I felt butterflies when we told her because I knew it would be challenging.

A waterfall hike was one of the included activities and would be departing after lunch. We were advised to go to their equipment garage if we wanted to participate, and to select a pair of tall rubber boots as the hike was muddy and parts of the trail included wading through the creek.

A hearty soup was served for lunch and we all dug in. As we ate we chatted with our neighbors and learned where they were from. We were seated near a Brazilian woman who had quit her job to travel for several months (this was a refrain we heard time and time again from various travelers), and a nurse from North Carolina who was spending a few weeks traveling before starting a nurse anesthetist program. On the bus we had sat next to an Austrian couple that were doing a six week long South American journey. The husband worked at the Austrian embassy in Washington DC in some sort of finance role¹.

One of the things that we fell in love with during our stay at SGC was getting to meet travelers from around the world. At the next night’s dinner I counted, just at the end of the table we were at, folks from eight different countries. And here we all were- gathered together, conversing, eating, drinking, playing cards, and enjoying hearing travel tales from like-minded wanderers.

After lunch, we were directed to collect our bags and were shown to our accommodations. We had wanted to stay in one of SGC’s iconic “hobbit homes” but there were only three of these kitschy dwellings and sadly, they were all booked, so we had settled on a “birdhouse.” SGC is a hostel and as such, offered some group housing, or dormitory style sleeping, and while Scott and I were on board for the big picture idea of the hostel, and had no trouble with a shared bathroom, we felt way too old to fool around with any sort of group housing situation.

The Birdhouse, or the “BH” as Scott dubbed it, was a single small heater-less room on stilts. It was little more than four walls, a floor, a roof, and a giant picture window that gave you a perfect view of Cotopaxi. To get inside it you had to climb up a series of pylons, scaling them as if you were a mountain goat. We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it. We love weird and eclectic hotels and this was exactly that.

Soon it was time for our waterfall hike so we went to find our rubber boots. This would be the first of many rubber boot occasions that we would have in Ecuador. SGC had several resident dogs and one of them, an older hound mix, lived for her daily waterfall hike. When she saw the group getting booted up, she ran around excitedly, nipping at the dangling straps of hiker’s backpacks.

A group of about 20 of us set off on the hike, led by two of the SGC staff, all of us clad in rubber boots, and we clump-clumped our way through the pasture to reach the trail. We eventually made our way into the woods and then had to drop down into the creekbed. The woods looked out of this world, and were covered in the same layers of plantlife similar to what we had seen the day before in the cloud forest ecosystem of Mindo. We picked our way over boulders and through the running water, sometimes climbing up the steep and muddy banks to get out of the creek for a short bit before scrambling back down the muddy banks and going back down into it. Some of the hairier portions had ropes strategically placed to assist, and the SGC staff lent a hand in a few of the tougher spots.

It took us a little over half an hour to reach the waterfall and it was well worth the muddy and wet hike. The creek was about 20 meters above our head and it spilled over a cliff creating an impressive waterfall that dumped into a swimming hole at the base. A few brave souls stripped down to their swimsuits and went for a very brief swim. We were told the water was 8℃ or about 46℉, aka frigid!

When the brave swimmers were done and bundled back up, we turned around and headed back to the hostel, doing the hike in reverse. I was pleasantly surprised by the boots- they were much grippier than I had expected them to be. We took a slightly different route on the way back, spending more time in the pastures than in the creekbed. We made our way back to the hostel and all had to walk through a series of water nozzles to hose our muddy boots off. The whole hike took about an hour and covered about 2.5 miles.

We had been told that snacktime was at 5 PM and dinner would be at 7 PM. We had some downtime and we went to clean up and get settled into our “BH.” We unpacked and changed and decided to take a little nap. We were unsuccessful. We had noticed that we had been sleeping poorly the whole entire time we had been at Quito, and based on how hard it seemed to be able to nap, we finally pieced together that it was the altitude that was affecting us.

It turns out that high altitude, can in fact, affect sleep. That was really the only symptom that either of us ever experienced from being at 8,000+ feet thankfully. My doctor had sent me with medication for altitude sickness and Scott’s doctor friend had prescribed it for him as well. Neither of us ended up taking it but were glad that we had it because we both ended up giving it away to fellow travelers towards the end of our SGC stay who were experiencing altitude sickness. (It is a prescription medication in the US but in Ecuador does not require a prescription, so we didn’t feel too naughty sharing it.)

We finally abandoned the nap idea and went back to the common dining and lounge area to sit by the fire. A gregarious German girl approached us and some other folks, looking to put together a group to play a card game. We agreed and ended up playing “Asshole” which I am still unclear as to what exactly the game’s rules are, but we had fun chatting with her, a Canadian guy, and a Bostonian. The game petered out after a few rounds and Scott and I donned SGC alpaca ponchos and found a loveseat near the fire that on a clear day would also offer a perfect view of Cotopaxi. It had clouded up and become rainy so we had to guess what it would look like.

Snacks were served, as promised, at 5 PM, and we were treated to “arepas,” which were little corn cakes filled with some sort of yummy and savory filling. We continued hanging out and chatting with various travellers until dinnertime. Dinner was similar to lunch, in that we all sat at the long tables and got to know our neighbors. We sat near the Austrian couple again and learned more about their trip and shared what we had done so far.

We hung out and socialized for a little longer after dinner and then decided to wrap it up and head back to the “BH” so that we could get to bed at a decent hour and attempt to have a good night’s sleep so that we would be well rested when we tackled Cotopaxi the next day. (Spoiler alert: We slept terribly again because of the altitude but at least we tried.)

I almost forgot to tell you about the outdoor bathrooms at SGC! Both the toilets and the showers were elevated so that you could have an unobstructed view of Cotopaxi as you were doing your business. You entered the stall, shut the door, then climbed three stairs to reach either the throne or the shower and the strategically placed windows allowed an unobstructed view of the volcano. It was certainly unique and might have provided some of the best views on the property!

We were speaking to him the same day that our president served Jerome Powell, Chair of the US Federal Reserve, with grand jury subpoenas, threatening him with criminal indictment as a way of lashing out at him for not cutting interest rates further. Before our new Austrian friend knew how we swung politically, he tactfully danced around the topic but laughed nervously and said that the whole European Union was hoping the US wouldn’t and shouldn’t lower interest rates any lower because it ran the risk of crashing the global economy. ↩︎

Our Visit to the Cloud Forest

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Up until this point on our trip I was naively under the impression that Ecuadorian taxi drivers were a more dignified and refined breed of taxi driver- safer, more sophisticated, and less risk-taking than their Thai taxi driving brethren. Today I discovered how wrong that thinking was.

We were taking a taxi from Quito to Mindo, a roughly 100 km trip that would take about two hours, and our taxi driver decided to treat the ride as if he was personally auditioning to take over Vin Diesel’s role in the Fast and Furious movie franchise. I was petrified and tried not to look as he passed trucks and buses despite the existence of double yellow lines and in blind curves, and at one point nearly buried his sedan underneath a large bus that was in front of us, and kept chanting to myself in my mind helpful and soothing mantras like “he is a professional driver” and “he probably doesn’t want to die today.” Meanwhile, Scott slept.

We somehow arrived unscathed in Mindo a little while later. Mindo’s climate is considered a “cloud forest” which is defined as a “high-altitude tropical or subtropical evergreen forest characterized by persistent, low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level.” This type of ecosystem is somewhat rare and sets itself up to be incredibly biodiverse and often hosts flora and fauna that can only live in that specific type of environment. Mindo in particular is known for some of the best bird watching on the planet and attracts serious “birders” and ornithologists.

While we didn’t have time to participate in an actual bird watching tour (first thing in the morning is ideal for that), we were going to be able to go to the Nathaly Butterfly Garden, or Mariposario Nathaly Mindo. We got our tickets and seemed to be the only visitors there that morning so we got our own personal tour and discussion (en espanol) about the life cycle of butterflies. We were shown exhibits of each stage of the life cycle before being invited inside the butterfly habitat.

It was incredible! The room was essentially a 30x50 foot screened in area that was teeming with butterflies and moths. They were everywhere. You had to be careful as you walked so that you didn’t accidentally step on any that had landed on the ground. At first we just stood and watched them as they flew and flitted from food station to flower, all busy and in the pursuit of nectar or sugar. We eventually sat down on a bench and watched them and tried to decide which species were our favorite. I was obsessed with the Daring Owl butterfly which can resemble either an owl as its name implies, or a snake/lizard when viewed from a slightly different angle, both as a way of preventing becoming food for other birds. Scott’s favorite was a blue winged butterfly that proved rather hard to photograph.

When we had reached peak butterfly fulfillment we decided to go see what else was at the Mariposario. We found hammocks in a pavilion that were near several hummingbird feeder stations and we enjoyed watching the hummingbirds jet around frenetically from feeder to feeder for a while.

We decided it was lunchtime and headed to the center of town. We found a place where the food was decent but probably overpriced and while we ate decided on what to do next. We wanted to go to the Tarabita y Santuario de Cascadas Mindo to do the highly recommended six waterfall hike and needed to figure out how to get there, and Scott also wanted to figure out getting bus tickets for our ride back to Quito. While we were at the bus station we chatted with some Americans that we ran into and they shared a taxi driver’s WhatsApp number with us to take us up the mountain to the tarabita. We reached out to him and he picked us up and shook-rattled-and rolled us up the extremely rough road to reach the waterfall hike. Scott remarked that these Ecuadorian backroads must be hell on the suspension and steering of these poor cars¹.

The tarabita ride was exhilarating! It was an open air cable car high above the canopy that took you 500+ meters across the gorge to the trailhead and it is strung about 150 meters above the jungle floor. Looking down onto the canopy below us was wild and I tried to stay calm and take it all in and not think too hard about the structural health and status of the machine that was carrying us across.

When we were delivered safely to the other side of the gorge we got a quick lay of the land from the guy running the tarabita, took a picture of the trail map, and struck out on our walk. It would take about 35 minutes to reach the first waterfall called Cascada Ondinas, then about 5-10 minutes for each subsequent one: Cascada Guarumos, Cascada Colibries, Cascada Madre, and Cascada de los Maderos. At the second or third one we came to, Scott felt compelled to take a swim and shucked off his clothes and jumped into the icy river. I did not feel similarly compelled and just observed his shenanigans from the comfort of the shore. When he’d had enough river time, he climbed out, put his clothes and shoes back on, and we carried on.

One of the characteristics of a cloud forest ecosystem is the presence of epiphytes which are plants that grow on another plant but are not parasitic, and seemingly all of the trees we saw were covered in layers of epiphytic ferns, bromeliads, orchids, and other air plants. It was stunning to see how much life was packed into a single square meter of space and I enjoyed seeing that as much as I enjoyed seeing the waterfalls themselves.

We were pressed for time because we needed to catch a taxi back to town and the bus back to Quito, so we had to skip out on seeing the final waterfall. The hike back up out of the gorge was rather strenuous and felt like an intense stairmaster session. The tarabita ride across the gorge was equally as thrilling heading home as it was the first time- imagine riding across the Green River gorge like you do on Interstate 26 but in a small and swaying open-air cage suspended from a thin cable…!

We had another bone-rattling taxi ride that took us back to town. We had some time to kill before the bus departed back to Quito, and as we were walking around the small town we were tempted inside a small chocolate shop by not only the tempting smells wafting out from it, but from the kind and friendly proprietor who waved us in. Once she had ushered us inside, she proceeded to give us a little lecture that was one part Spanish lesson and one part chocolate lesson on every variety that was then accompanied by a sample. Domestication of the cacao plant, from which chocolate is derived, originated in Ecuador, so chocolate and chocolate “tours” feature heavily here. We ended up buying a few bars of our favorites and thanked her for taking the time with us. She was one of many kind “abuelas” that we would encounter on our trip that went out of their way to enrich our experience.

Sweet tooth activated by the chocolate, we decided we needed some ice cream and went in search of a “heladeria.” We found one and treated ourselves. We wandered around the town a bit more before heading to the bus station.

It had been easy enough (and cheap) to buy the bus tickets. We had opted to take the bus back for two reasons. The first was that we weren’t quite certain that it would be easy to find a taxi or rideshare app driver to want to make the two hour drive to Quito later in the day (usually going big city to small town is easier to find a driver than the reverse), and secondly, we were treating this bus ride as a fact finding mission for future bus rides later in our trip when we would need to go from city to city. We found our seats and settled in. The drive was uneventful and only stopped a handful of times right at the start of the ride² and then it seemed like we made fairly good time getting into Quito.

We had originally planned to get off at the Mitad del Mundo, or “the middle of the world” monument located on the equator, on the way back into Quito, but sadly, it turns out that the equator has regular business hours that did not coincide with our travel plans, so that was out.

The bus dropped us off at the bus terminal and we now needed to fetch a cab back to our hotel. This added nearly another hour to the trip because we somehow found the only slow driving taxi driver on the planet. Initially I was mentally praising him for his seeming lack of any sense of urgency but then this praise soon turned to irritation when I noticed that we were getting honked at at every single traffic light. Neither of us understood why he was in tortoise mode but we started to get suspicious as the ride went on.

This came to a head when we made one of the final turns to get into the historic center where our hotel was located and he couldn’t get up enough steam to make it up the admittedly steep, but not unconquerable, hill. He tried and tried… and continued to try. Each attempt only got us about halfway up the hill before he would stall it out and we would start to rolllll back down the hill. At this point I was embarrassed for him and wanted nothing more than to jump ship and just walk home. Scott yelled at me and said “No! We paid for this ride and he is going to get us to our door. Stay put.” So we stayed put.

Finally he was able to back down the hill, but not before nearly mowing down a parked motorcycle, and was able to get enough of a running start to squeal, smoke, and fishtail his way up the hill. Scott hypothesized that first gear had ceased to exist. Blessedly he nursed it to the hotel and we jumped out, relieved to be done with that experience. I am still unsure if the language barrier made it more or less awkward.

Little did we know what was to come! The roads to Cotopaxi would make this one seem like a smoothly paved interstate. ↩︎
Contrast this with some of our later bus rides where it seems like we would stop every few minutes to pick up or drop off which made the ride drag on.

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Quito

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Quito Day 1

We slept well and were anxious to see what our first Ecuadorian breakfast experience might be like so we headed down to find out. I was delighted to see a bowl of popcorn on the buffet, having seen videos about popcorn as a common side dish in Ecuador. I decided to try the ceviche and it did not disappoint- in fact, three weeks later and I am still thinking about it, its marinade tasted like a rich and creamy gazpacho.

We repacked and headed to catch the hotel shuttle/taxi back to the airport for our flight to Quito. The hotel was only a few kilometers from the airport so we didn’t get to see much of Guayaquil on the drive and arrived quickly. We were sharing the taxi with another passenger and our driver stopped to let him out first at the International Terminal and also unloaded our bags. Scott used a combination of english/gesturing/and Google translate to convey to the driver that we needed the Domestic Terminal, not the International. He gave us a befuddled look, shrugged, reloaded our bags into the trunk, indicated for us to get back in the taxi, put the taxi in reverse, backed up about 75 meters… and stopped at the entrance of the Domestic Terminal. Oops! We hadn’t realized that they were directly next to each other. Laughing, we tried to tell the driver that we didn’t know they were so close. He probably thought we were just typical lazy entitled Americans, but we got a good laugh at ourselves.

Guayaquil is the typical jumping off point for travelers heading to the Galapagos and it was fun to see all the people headed to San Cristobal for their Galapagos adventures while we waited on our flight to Quito. Our short Latam Airlines flight was thankfully unremarkable and we both were able to catch a nap on the hour long flight. In no time we found ourselves inside a taxi in the highest official capital city in the world¹, at nearly 3,000 meters (9,350 feet), with the Andes mountains soaring up and around us as we made our way to our hotel in the Historic Center of Quito².

Our driver had no problem squeezing down the impressively small alley where our hotel was located and dropped us off at the front door. The Hotel & Rooftop King Experience by David (a rather long and lengthy name if I do say so myself) welcomed us with open doors and allowed us an early check-in which was much appreciated. We were shown to our room and it was just as over-the-top as the pictures on Booking.com had promised- its decorative style best described as Hobby Lobby and Liberace’s lovechild in a cool colonial building. We both lol’d when we saw the bathroom inside our room- it was essentially a glass cubicle!

We decided to go tackle the historic district and we also needed to go in search of a market to buy jugs of water since the tap water in most of Ecuador is not potable (and annoyingly, this was the only hotel that we stayed in that didn’t offer complimentary potable water so on principle we didn’t want to buy it from them). When Scott mentioned the market that we were intending to go to, the front desk clerk suggested we go to the one closer to the historic center, as the one Scott had in mind (the Mercado Central) wasn’t very safe. I was thankful that he offered up the suggestion.

We found the historic center which was a quick walk from our hotel, and enjoyed walking around the square taking in all the sights. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and the locals were out in droves visiting the cafes and various vendor stalls that surround the stunning Iglesia de La Merced, which serves as the anchor of the square, or just sitting around and relishing the lovely day. We struck out at the first cafe we stopped at- none of the menu items we chose were available, so we kept walking until we found another. We successfully ordered sandwiches and drinks and people watched while we ate.

We decided to head to the Basilica del Voto Nacional,the iconic cathedral, which was just a few kilometers away. It was easy to get to because it rose up and above the historic center and the main street led straight to it. We arrived and figured out where to purchase tickets, then headed inside to take on the famous climb to the top of its impressive towers, which involved a few hundred steps that eventually narrowed into a climb up a ladderlike spiral staircase. When we reached the top, feeling only slightly winded³, we were rewarded with the most incredible panoramic views of Quito which spread out below us and crept up the surrounding steep mountains. It was incredible to look down onto the church as well as the city from this viewpoint.

We made the trek back down and walked around the cathedral grounds for a bit, stopping to admire their Pope-mobile⁴, an 80’s model Chevrolet truck complete with a lifesized Pope mannequin in its glass cubicle in the truck bed.

We wrapped up the cathedral tour and then went in search of the market to get our water. We found it and enjoyed walking around looking at the various food and drinks which is always fun to do in a foreign country. We got our water with fairly little trouble and were even able to use a credit card- one of the few times we actually were able to while in Ecuador, and I was glad that Scott paid more attention in Spanish class than I had because I still can’t count to ten en espanol without some serious concentration and thought.

We took our water haul back to the hotel and spent some time figuring out where to go for dinner. We settled on a restaurant that was in one of the fancy hotels in the historic center- Cafe Plaza Grande Restaurante. We had a lovely dinner and ate some of the “things you are supposed to eat in the place you are supposed to eat them” such as tostado (roasted corn), popcorn, plantain and sweet potato chips with various dipping sauces, potato and cheese soup with avocado, more ceviche (I was still thinking about my breakfast ceviche and couldn’t get enough), and empanadas. It was way too much food but it was all delicious and we went to bed with full bellies.

Quito Day 2

Our big activity today was to take the Teleferico Quito (chairlift/gondola) from outside the city up to the Cruz Loma lookout. So after breakfast at our hotel, we took a 20 minute taxi ride to the ticket office and got tickets. The teleferico ride took 18 minutes and ascended what felt like a nearly vertical at times 2,000+ meters. Scott had strategically put us on the correct side of the shared car so that we could look over Quito as we made the ascent and it was wild to see both how far up we were and how widespread Quito is.

Once we got to the top we walked around and took pictures for a bit and then went to investigate what else there was to do up here. Scott suggested we do one of the hikes. I foolishly assumed that the gondola had done the hard work of climbing the mountain for us and that we were already at the top, and envisioning a leisurely and flat stroll, something akin to a nice amble along the Swamp Rabbit Trail, I happily agreed. Once we got started, I quickly discovered by reading the posted placards en espanol, that this is the jumping off point for summiting the Pichincha volcano or for doing the other hikes that lead to some of its peaks. I also learned later that it is considered a good acclimatization hike when preparing to summit other volcanoes in the area (Cotopaxi, Chimborazo) because the altitude is 4,000+ meters. (Some people even experience altitude sickness at the Cruz Loma viewpoint because of its high altitude.)

And yet, here I was hiking myself up and along the Rucu Pichincha trail, and better yet, surprising myself by being able to do it without absolutely dying. Scott surprised me by agreeing to wrap it up and turn around when we were a little over 2 miles in and thankfully didn’t suggest that we continue on and try to summit it (who was this guy??). We enjoyed a little picnic snack when we got up as far as we wanted to go and took advantage of his packable picnic blanket so that we didn’t have to sit on the ground that was wet with fog and dew. The clouds actually lifted for a bit when we were up here and we could see the surrounding mountains rising up around us as well as Quito below us.

Going down was easier on the lungs but harder on our legs and mine felt like Jello by the time we were down. When we got back to Cruz Loma we spent some time on the swing that made you feel like you were soaring out and above Quito. I’ll let you guess who swung higher. When we were satisfied with our Pichincha experience we made our way back to the gondola station and rode one back down, getting to savor the views again.

We summoned a taxi from one of the rideshare apps and when we got back to the hotel enjoyed a well earned nap. We awoke to a torrential downpour a short while later which caused us to reconsider our dinner plans which had originally been to go to one of the rooftop bars in the city. Instead Scott found us a nearby pizza place that came highly recommended. It was tucked inside a nondescript building and took a little work to find but we had a nice dinner while looking out at the famous angel statue, or the Virgin of El Panecillo⁵. As we ate we got to see her gradually become lit up as day turned to night and she became illuminated from the lights below.

Ok, so La Paz, Bolivia is often cited as being higher, but it is the administrative capital, not the constitutional capital, so technically speaking it is accurate to say that Quito is the highest constitutional capital city in the world. ↩︎
This was the first UNESCO World Heritage City in the world, and is recognized as being the best preserved colonial center in Latin America- representing the crossroads between Spanish and indigenous traditions. ↩︎
Right before our trip, I somewhat foolishly remarked that I would be missing out on runs while we were in Ecuador because I should be training for the Cooper River Bridge Run that is the last weekend of March. Ecuador, along with Scott and our AI friend “Google Gemini” said “hold my beer” and served up the most athletically intense 2.5 weeks of my life. ↩︎
Some additional research leads me to believe that this is a shout-out to Pope John Paul II, or as they call him in Ecuador, Juan Pablo, which makes me think of a drug lord, not a Pope. ↩︎
She is the tallest aluminum statue in the world and is actually the highest statue in South America, topping even the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil.

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Travel Tuesday

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Travel Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in which the travel industry typically offers significant discounts on hotels, flights, and cruises, and it is touted as one of the best times to book travel, especially if you are somewhat flexible in your plans, and Scott and I are just that. So for our big trip this year we decided to wait (quite impatiently) until Travel Tuesday to roll around to see where the Travel gods would be sending us. Early on the morning of December 2, 2025 we eagerly booted up our computers, opened up various major airlines’ websites, eyes peeled for flight deals to countries that would have pleasant temperatures sometime in January/February. Spirit Airlines had flights into a city in Ecuador called Guayaquil from Atlanta for $200 a person. Sold! We would be heading to Ecuador.

Now we needed to begin our research because we were less than six weeks out from our departure date. Part of the fun of traveling for us is the research leading up to the trip. With such a short lead time we definitely felt like we didn’t get to spend as much time as we normally do leisurely watching YouTube videos to help plan, and instead had to make a more concentrated and strategic approach.

This is where AI came in. I begrudgingly admit that ChatGPT was quite helpful here (I am normally a reluctant AI user, horses being about as opposite from technology as it gets), and Scott’s incredibly specific and detailed prompt is what helped. It made for a wonderful starting point that we then were able to work from. One of the most helpful things it does is suggest where to stay in a city, because otherwise it can be quite overwhelming to decide on a hotel, especially in a decent sized city.

Once we had the basic outline of the trip in place, I went to work finding our accommodations while Scott worked on being our logistics officer and fun planner. For a country that is roughly the size of Colorado, it is surprisingly difficult and complex to get from one place to another, on account of the little mountain range that makes up the spine of the country, aka the Andes mountains.

Our research revealed that while most of Ecuador is fairly safe to travel to, Guayaquil was, to put it politely, not a place where one should stay for very long, or stray that far from the airport once there, as it is currently under a Level 3-4 US State Department Travel Advisory because of high crime and gang-related violence and the resulting increased risk of kidnapping, robbery, and armed conflict. ChatGPT helpfully suggested we stay at an airport hotel and I heeded its advice, rather than choosing an independently owned/non-chain hotel like we normally do. Our plan was to arrive, stay a night, and then get the heck out of dodge and to the capital city of Quito as quickly as we could.

At a Christmas Eve party a few weeks before our trip we met a fellow party-goer that was from Ecuador. He was initially stoked and excited when we told him that not only were we going to Ecuador, but would be flying in and out of his hometown of Guayaquil. He assured us that it was safe and everything was fine. When his wife walked up and we were telling her about it, she turned to him and said “Wait a second Eddie! You won’t even take me to Guayaquil because you said it’s too dangerous!” and then he sheepishly and reluctantly admitted to saying this and agreed that it was best to limit the amount of time we would be staying there.

Scott must have “practiced packed” at least three times leading up to the trip and was excited about using his new Osprey backpack - Packing List, the same one that I have, for the first time. Packing for this trip would be a little trickier than others because there are so many different climate zones in one small country and we would be visiting most of them in our two and half weeks there. Essentially we needed to pack for both the Amazon jungle, climbing to a glacier in the Andes mountains, and everything in between.

Speaking of the Amazon jungle… one other wrinkle that presented itself was getting vaccinated for yellow fever. It is not a commonly available vaccine we soon learned and required a visit to one of the two specialty clinics in our area that carry it. The travel clinic/tropical disease clinic that is part of the Prisma health system had it and it would end up being a little under $200 for the appointment and the vaccine but they were not open through the holiday season, nor did they have any available appointments until the end of January… so that left us with having to use the specialty travel clinic in the area. They were able to see each of us so we went that route, but to the tune of $500+ each. Scott’s health insurance will cover his, but my plan did not cover mine. (This means we will need to travel to yellow fever endemic areas now to get my money’s worth for the vaccine… Hello Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela!)

It was finally departure day! So vaccinated, packed, and loaded up with small US bills¹, we kissed Andi goodbye and drove to Atlanta, parked at Scott’s office to avoid paying for airport parking, and headed to the Marta for a 30 minute train ride to take us to the Atlanta airport. We had uneventful travels from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, although the gate agent in Atlanta did make Scott turn sideways to inspect the size of his backpack that he was claiming as his “personal item” before eventually deciding it passed muster and letting him pass onto the jet bridge.

Our Fort Lauderdale to Guayaquil leg was delayed nearly an hour which meant we would be arriving well after midnight. I was able to message our hotel to let them know this and they assured us that it was not a problem and that the airport shuttle driver would be waiting for us and holding a sign with our name. Once we landed we easily cleared Ecuadorian Customs and the agent I encountered even sang a few lines of “Sweet Home Alabama” to me as he handed me back my passport when he noticed that I was born in Alabama. We exited Customs, saw the shuttle driver with the sign as promised, and were driven a few short minutes to our airport hotel where we were able to easily check-in, then shower and sleep for a few hours before we needed to head back to the airport and on to Quito.

Ecuador has used the US dollar as their currency since 2000. Credit cards are not widely accepted and most transactions are done in cash and our research advised that we bring primarily small bills so we went with mainly $1’s, $5’s, and $10’s. We have become so accustomed to using our cards everywhere that it felt a little odd to be travelling with cash though we planned to use ATM’s once we were there as well. ↩︎

Key Largo Wedding

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

August 30, 2025

Today was Holly and Bradley’s wedding day! Because the ceremony and reception weren’t until 5:00 PM, Scott was planning on diving and I was looking forward to a relaxing morning on “our” boat at the marina. The Airbnb proprietor had come by and replaced our glitchy coffee machine the day before so we now had a fully functioning one. Scott left around 7 AM and I slept in until the indulgent hour of nearly 8 AM which is unheard of for me now in middle age- usually I am lucky to make it to 6:30 AM.

I poured myself some coffee and heated up a cinnamon roll and had my breakfast on the upper deck of the boat, thankfully remembering to spray myself with mosquito repellant before venturing up there because the little blood suckers were already out-and-about searching for unsuspecting victims. I hung out and read a bit before heading back into the boat and treating myself to a few episodes of a Netflix show, something I hardly ever do.

Scott got back a little after lunch and told me about his dive. The dive shop was about 20 minutes away from our boat, and was called Key Largo Dive Center. They did two dives and it was just Scott, one other customer, several staff and guides, and one student diver. Both of the dives were at Molasses Reef- the first spot was called Winch Hole and the second was called Aquarium. At the first he saw a barracuda, several interesting schools of fish, and the coral-encrusted winch that was the namesake of the location. At Aquarium, he saw a number of parrot fish, a 7 foot reef shark, an old Spanish anchor, and he enjoyed swimming through some cool coral caverns.

We had a little time before we needed to shower and get dressed for the wedding so we decided to take out one of the kayaks that we had access to with our rental. We decided on the tandem kayak and I was surprised when we were able to both lower ourselves down into it off the dock successfully without capsizing it. We (and by “we” I mean mostly Scott) paddled our way out of our marina’s channel and into the bay. The bay was protected on three sides by mangroves and made a protected area for anchoring boats. We paddled around the area for a while and observed some of the boats before hopping out of the kayak and taking a little float next to it. The water was surprisingly shallow and the sand was unpleasantly squishy, reminding me of Lake Hartwell’s muddy base as it squished between my toes so I didn’t spend much time out of the boat. We decided to head back in and we were now paddling against the current so I actually helped Scott paddle this time. We disembarked from the kayak and climbed back up onto the dock surprisingly easily, again not capsizing the boat.

We arrived fairly early to the wedding venue, The Key Largo Lighthouse Beach, so we had some time to walk around and admire the property and its waterfront views. They had picked the most idyllic spot to get married. Holly was a beautiful bride and her brother Gus served as the officiant and was his typical goofy self which was perfect. I cried happy tears as she and Bradley said their vows. Holly’s brother-in-law was in charge of FaceTiming Holly’s father who unfortunately was not able to travel to the wedding due to an emergency abdominal surgery a few days prior. They kept the ceremony short and sweet and then we were sent to the pre-reception cocktail hour that featured a tiki-hut bar right on the water.

Scott and I were tickled to see that they had a photobooth, and not just any photobooth, but a fully restored 70’s model Volkswagen bus that was stocked full of all sorts of over the top accessories and props. We made a beeline to it, picked out our kitschy attire from the selection, and hopped in for the first of three sessions. Not to brag, but we are basically photobooth experts and take ridiculously ridiculous pictures and love every minute. (Fun fact, Scott is using the picture below with me cropped out as his work profile picture now and I think someone has commented on it in every single meeting this week- it has created many laughs and is so incredibly on-brand for him.)

Dinner was lovely and I was able to introduce Scott to the O’Leary family, longtime friends and boarders of the Torsilieri family. I had met them when Gus and I went to Hong Kong on the Interpacific Exchange in 2010 and coached their daughter Quinn at a few United States Pony Club events over the years. I hadn’t seen them in nearly ten years since they had come south for a winter in Aiken and it was nice to reconnect. Tom, the husband, had flown for Michael Bloomberg as his personal pilot while he was mayor of New York City and continues to fly for him. Nancy brought me up to speed on what Quinn is up to as she unfortunately was unable to attend the wedding.

After cake and toasts the crowd moved out to the sand dancefloor and we were blown away by the dance moves of the youngest Torsilieri children Willow and especially Remy, who danced their little hearts out for hours. It was Ben, of The Last Bison fame, that stole the show when he broke out The Worm- he gave it his all and we were all suitably impressed (although he paid for it the next day, visibly stiff and limping his way into breakfast). Scott was relieved that there were no slow songs so he wasn’t forced to dance with me. We called it a night around 10 PM and headed back to our boat.

Right before we had left for the wedding an error message had come up on the main air conditioning unit in our boat and it shut off. This was not good. I had sent a message to the Airbnb proprietor who said she would send someone out. When I looked at my phone back in the car on the way back to the boat, I saw her message. The a/c unit was broken and since it was both a weekend evening and a holiday at that, no one could come out to fix it, but not to worry, they had turned the two fans on to help circulate air… I probably do not need to tell you how hot it is in the below deck V-berth of a boat cabin in south Florida in August. The fans were woefully underpowered and we both just laid on top of the covers marinating in our own sweat and unable to sleep until about 3 AM when it finally cooled enough for us to doze off. (She did give me a partial refund for that night when I asked for one…)

August 31, 2025

We were zombies the next morning because of the air conditioning situation. Coffee helped a little bit but we were worn down after only getting one good night’s sleep out of the three. We packed and did the necessary tidying up of the boat and then headed out to meet the Torsilieri clan in Key Largo for breakfast. The outdoor restaurant was also a nursery and while it had a cool vibe, it was also a $50 breakfast for the two of us, but it was good to chat with everyone again before we headed out.

We hit the road and headed north into Miami for some sightseeing. Scott wanted me to see Wynwood Walls, a famous outdoor street-art and graffiti district downtown. We arrived about two hours later and it was already 95° with typical Florida humidity so rather than checking it out on foot, we just drove around to take it all in. Since it was a Sunday this wasn’t a bad plan since there was very little traffic. No doubt we didn’t get as rich an experience as we would have on foot, but we were exhausted and the thought of traipsing around in the heat was quite unappealing.

Next we headed to the famous South Beach in Miami Beach. Scott was patient and found us a parking spot in a crowded public lot right at the beach and we walked the short distance to the beach. The beach was crowded since it was a Sunday but we claimed a little spot to put our stuff down and waded into the water. The water temperature was reminiscent of a bathtub but it still felt good and we floated around for a little and enjoyed people watching. Scott eventually got out to go lie on the sand and bask in the sun and I opted to stay in the water. A few minutes later storm clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped, and rumbles of thunder could be heard. Not long after that the first few fat raindrops started to fall. This was our cue to pack it up and head back to the car along with every other beachgoer.

Scott had gone to get the car while I stood in line for the outside shower, praying I wouldn’t get struck by lightning in my attempt to wash the salty Atlantic ocean water and sand off my body prior to having to board an airplane. The poorly organized cluster of people waiting for the shower was an introvert’s nightmare and I bided my time before bravely taking my shot at a turn under the water, and hoped I wouldn’t get in a catfight with one of the scantily clad Brazilian booty lifted beachgoers who didn’t believe in waiting in lines. I survived the ordeal and ran back through the rain to the car. In hindsight, I could have just stood outside the car and let the rain accomplish the same thing without the awkward queuing (or lack thereof).

Getting out of the parking lot was a nightmare, as the mass exodus of people from the beach meant that we were all trying to exit the parking lot from a wildly bottlenecked single entrance onto roads that were now gridlocked with traffic and rather significantly flooded. This little experiment was not a ringing endorsement for the future of humanity. We watched several bouts of road rage, people threatening to use their vehicles as battering rams, and other insane levels of acts of sense of entitlement play out all around us as we inched our way towards the light. About 90 minutes later as we finally made it out of the parking lot and onto Ocean Drive I announced that I never wanted to come back to Miami. One out of five stars. Do not recommend. Much too peopley.

The interstates weren’t much better and we creeped along in the heavy rain. We stopped to refuel our rental car when we were close to the airport and then headed towards the rental car location to drop the vehicle off, unfortunately having to unload the car and repack our wet beach clothes in the downpour. The rental car shuttle took us to the terminal and we killed time before boarding our flight back to Asheville. We were excited to see my parents when we got out of the airport and I offered to drive back home since it was dark. We regaled them with tales of our trip and caught them up on life updates for all the members of the Torsilieri clan. We picked up our car at my parent’s house and then drove back to our house, finally getting to bed sometime after midnight.

Florida Keys

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

August 28, 2025

I was invited to the wedding of the youngest of the Torsilieri sisters, Holly, on Labor Day weekend in Key Largo, Florida, and I asked Scott to be my wedding date. After some initial grumbling and brainstorming of other people that could potentially go as my date in his place since he does not particularly care for weddings, he finally agreed to come along with me. We found direct flights from Asheville to Fort Lauderdale on Allegiant, and the slightly longer drive to the Asheville airport was worth it because they were quite affordable.

My parents generously agreed to take us to the airport and we flew out Thursday morning. We were pleasantly surprised by Allegiant and had smooth sailing on our flight. The only travel snafu that day that we ran into was some confusion on how to connect with the off-site rental car shuttle bus. Poor signage and bad intel from airport workers caused us to waste an hour or so but eventually we figured it out and arrived at Easirent to pick up our bright blue Nissan Sentra. Scott programmed his map app to avoid tolls and we headed south, skirting along the desolate looking Everglades once we got out of the city.

We stopped in Homestead for groceries and a much overdue lunch that was now bordering dangerously into dinner territory, and even though I had tried to strategically snack earlier to avoid getting hangry, I still got hangry. Scott was a trooper like always and put up with my hanger cheerfully.

The Airbnb we had rented was the “Reef Dreamer,” a vintage cabin cruiser boat docked at a marina slightly north of Key Largo, and we found it easily. We put our bags in the boat, took a quick tour of it, taking note of the strong smell of diesel inside it that we would be enjoying for the next few days, and then wandered around checking out the marina.

Like most marinas in the Keys, this one had orderly linear channels cut into the coral and mangroves to make a multitude of waterway lanes to optimize for getting as many boats docked in the small space as possible. At the end of our lane was a commons area that overlooked the mangroves and after dousing ourselves in Off! we were able to sit in the area and enjoy the view over the water, and eventually were treated to a stunning Keys sunset that cast a surreal orange glow over the entire area.

Sleep that night wasn’t great because a luxurious Tempurpedic mattress it was not. Rather, it was a simple piece of custom cut foam overtop plywood to fit the V-birth of the boat. I have become a princess of the Princess and the Pea persuasion as I have gotten older and hard mattresses wreak havoc on my body, so the next day I got creative and raided the small closet for any blankets and made my own mattress topper with what I found. We also gave Scott his own blanket so that his sport fishing blue marlin-like flopping about during the night wouldn’t wake me up. That and we dosed ourselves with Unisom and both slept like babies the second night.

August 29, 2025

Our plan for Friday was a day trip to Key West which is a little over two hours south of Key Largo. We also wanted to time the drive so that we could catch the sunrise at Seven Mile Bridge. So at an insanely early hour Friday morning we hit the road and headed south. We had to stop at a McDonald’s on the way for coffee because despite our attempts to get the coffee maker in the boat to work, Scott was only able to coax a few meager ounces out of it after fiddling with it for nearly half an hour.

We arrived at the bridge in Marathon a few minutes before the sun was slated to make its appearance. However, the weather had other ideas and instead of seeing the sun, brooding clouds awaited us instead. We walked a ways down the pedestrian portion of the bridge despite the skies and even though we never saw the sun, we got some dramatic shots of the bridge backlit by the threatening sky. Satisfied with our attempt, we headed on towards Key West.

A little ways north of the city we hit major traffic and inched along for nearly an hour making seemingly little progress before it eventually cleared. Because the Overseas Highway is the only route through the Keys, traffic is easily snarled if there are any incidents along it. We were getting the authentic Keys experience.

Eventually we reached Key West and easily found parking. Part of the reason for leaving so early was for exactly this- parking becomes progressively trickier to find as the day goes on. Scott’s YouTube research had emphasized the parking issue, and it’s things like this that make me appreciate his thorough online probing prior to our trips.

He had put together an informal walking tour for us and we headed off first in search of more coffee. We found the Caribbean Coffee Roasters and both got some sort of sweet and creamy iced concoctions before carrying on in search of Mallory Square, the central waterfront plaza of Key West. We found benches and sipped our coffee while looking out over the water and some of the smaller Keys in the distance. Although shy and illusive earlier this morning, the south Florida sun had finally made its appearance and was now boldly doing its job heating up the town despite the early hour.

After we finished our coffee we strolled along the pier that ran parallel to the water at the seaport. Fishing charters and tour groups were gathering for their day’s adventures along the docks and on the boats. I spotted my first Key West chicken and had to take pictures. I feel like chickens had featured prominently this past year in our travels, Hawaii and St. Croix were teeming with them, and Key West didn’t disappoint. In fact, they are known for them, and feature heavily in the local art, souvenirs and knicknacks. (One shop we went in even had a sign posted on the front door asking customers to please shut the door behind them so that the rooster wouldn’t come inside.)

On Duvall Street, Key West’s version of Bourbon Street, we found the Sculpture Garden, and spent some time exploring the busts of famous and influential Key West citizens, most notably Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. Just a few blocks away was the Hemingway Home and Museum. We opted not to purchase tickets for the tour but still got our polydactyl cat fix as there was one lounging right outside the ticket booth that we got to visit with and count his little kittycat toe-beans (6 on each front mitten-like foot rather than the standard kittycat 5).

We continued down Duvall Street, passing the “Little Whitehouse on the way,” Harry Truman’s winter home, as we made our way to the dead-end at the water and the famous buoy that marks the southernmost point in the continental US. We were somewhat unimpressed but needed to say we had been here, especially since earlier in the summer we had visited the easternmost point in the US when we went to Point Udall in St. Croix; so instead of waiting in the long line to get our picture taken standing next to it, we got close enough and took a selfie. Doing the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it. Check.

After laying eyes on the famous southernmost buoy we found a nearby beach and waded in. That was short-lived because the sand was grossly squishy and the area stank of sulfur. However, there were beach chickens, and I was captivated by them going about their chickeny business along the shore, so we found some Adirondack chairs and sat in the shade and observed them (or at least I did- Scott is not usually as enamored by feral chickens as I am). He was more interested in the iguanas that were basking on the seawall and wandered over to take some pictures of them.

Next we headed in search of a restaurant called Blue Heaven for lunch that had gotten rave reviews online. It didn’t disappoint. It was all outside seating and sprawling oak trees provided a shady canopy over top that along with well placed fans, made it quite nice despite the day’s high temps. The patio’s funky decorations were entertaining to look at, as were the free ranging chickens that strolled by pecking the ground and eating crumbs dropped by diners. Scott and I shared their daily special- a lobster grilled cheese sandwich on their homemade bread and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We opted not to have their version of key lime pie, and opted instead to go to get slices from Moondog Cafe down the block which the internet claims to have the best key lime pie in town. We paid $25 for two slices and had them box them for us to take with us since we were still stuffed from lunch.

We were now hot and tired from walking all day in the 95° heat and high humidity, but we had one last sight to see before we could head to the car. We needed to go find the “Mile 0” sign on US 1 and take a picture with it. We walked several blocks to it and asked a passerby to take our picture. It turns out that they were originally from Laurens, SC, and now live in Myrtle Beach. My mom has taught me to love a good small world story, so this was the small world story for our Key West adventure.

We found our electric blue Sentra, immediately cranked up the a/c, and headed north back towards Key Largo. Scott had me look up directions to Bahia Honda State Park, alleged to be the best beach along the Overseas Highway, and we decided that a swim and possibly a nap in the shade would be nice about now. When we got there we decided that our first order of business was to eat our key lime pie so we found a parking spot and chowed down. It was good- the right amount of tang and creaminess and the slices were huge (thankfully, considering the price…).

Scott was disappointed to learn he couldn’t hang his hammock in the trees since it was a state park, so the chances of a nap were diminished, but we still had a nice soak in the water, although it felt more like standing in a hot tub than being in the ocean since the water was as smooth as glass and the water temp was 90°. It was better than not soaking at all though and we spent some time relaxing in it. A portion of the original Flagler Highway had been restored and now served as a viewing area over the water and eventually it started calling Scott’s name so he went to climb up it. I opted to stay in the water. There weren’t any decent shady spots for a nap so once he was done exploring we decided to head back to Key Largo.

Traffic was thankfully tame on the trip back up north and we decided to stop at a waterfront restaurant in town for an early dinner. The meal was somewhat unremarkable, the live music was laughably bad, but the views over the marina were entertaining. Charter fishing boats had just made their way back and we watched the crew cleaning the boat and dressing the day’s catch. The most exciting part of dinner was watching 4-5 nurse sharks gather round the dock expecting to receive the bits of fish that got thrown back into the water as the crew processed it. They must know the routine because they looked well practiced and would gobble up the fish as soon as it got tossed into the water. When we tired of watching them we drove back to our boat and called it a night.

Cruzan Summer Camp Comes to an End

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

June 20

I blinked and the last day of Pony Club camp was here and I was sad! I had enjoyed the week and getting to work with the riders and didn’t want our time on the island to end.

Scott and I started our morning off with our usual coffee time from atop the Hilltop House hill before it was time for me to head to Sprat Hall and for him to light out on his adventures for the day.

While I was teaching the morning sessions he went on his last dive at the Fredriksted cruise pier and it turned out to be his best and favorite one of the week. He was out for a little over an hour and came across a puffer fish and a little sea turtle that was perched atop some coral on one of the pier piles sleeping. His most exciting discovery of the dive was a trio of octopuses and he was able to watch them for a few moments, fascinated by their ability to change their color on demand to correspond with their surroundings as they glided around the seafloor.

After my lunch break Scott dropped me back off at the Pony Club grounds so I could teach the last session. We did some mounted games as our grand finale. The kids loved the various games and it proved highly entertaining for everyone watching. Watching them do the “egg and spoon” was my favorite since it is the most telling test of balance and independence (the ability to isolate a body part so that it doesn’t bounce when you go to kick or steer for instance- think of getting groovy on the dance floor while holding a drink that you don’t want to spill) and the horse’s cooperation was starting to waiver by day 5 of camp and they didn’t always want to go/stop/steer. After we finished and the horses were taken care of we all reconvened for awards and a goodbye. The kids had made me the sweetest thank you card and had adorned it with sea glass, not actually realizing my new found passion of searching for it!

Scott picked me up from Sprat Hall for the final time and we headed straight to Rainbow Beach. While I searched for sea glass he told me about his afternoon. He had taken Ms. Bettye’s car to get it washed and then after he hung his hammock at Rainbow Beach. While he was lounging he had seen the popular “Cruzan Cowgirl” tourist beach ride come through.

All week he had been complaining about us not being able to ride on the beach. I had been the “bad cop” as usual and explained that just because there were horses at the STXPC, it didn’t mean that they were available or appropriate to use to ride on the beach. I tried to explain all the ways this could go wrong, the least of which is the fact that it is actually illegal to ride them on the coral but I don’t think he heard me. I had told him that he was welcome to book a ride with the Cruzan Cowgirl but he never did…

When I had collected sea glass to my heart’s content we headed back to Hilltop House to shower so we could head into Fredriksted for our last dinner on the island. When we got into town we were surprised by the hustle and bustle because all week it had seemed so sleepy. It turns out that they have a Rhythms at Sunset, a street festival with “live music, local vibes, and good company,” the third Friday of every month, and we had stumbled right into it.

We went into the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, a gift shop/art gallery featuring works and pieces from local artists that I’d spied earlier in the week but never got a chance to visit since it had always been closed until this evening. Scott asked the clerk about the festival and she also told him about the “Free Flow” session they were hosting upstairs. Participants were invited to “unleash your inner CREATOR” and try their hand at art. She hadn’t even gotten the words out of her mouth before Scott was bolting up the stairs, leaving me in a cloud of dust. I trailed after him trying to see where he had gone and found him upstairs talking with the volunteer docent.

Tonight’s medium for the public was oil pastels and she sat us down at a table with some other budding artists and handed us paper and directed us to the crayons. Scott brainstormed with her about what he should draw, and he decided to depict one of the octopuses he had spotted on his morning dive. He jumped right into it. I thought for a moment about what I wanted to draw and settled on a purple and teal parrotfish I had seen on our Buck Island snorkel. As we sat drawing our chosen sealife, I was reminded of a similar festival art experience we’d had when I painted a paper umbrella at the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival outside Chiang Mai in Thailand.

A gregarious little girl took the seat directly across from me and sat thoughtfully staring at her blank paper before finally looking up at me, making eye contact, and asking if I would mind if she drew me. I gave her my blessing, amazed at her confidence. I had Google’d a picture of a parrotfish¹ and set about drawing it as Scott worked on his octopus. We both eventually finished and I reluctantly informed the girl that we were leaving. She assured me that it was ok because she knew what I looked like and would be fine and showed me what she currently had before we told her goodbye and headed in search of dinner.

We decided on Flyer’s where I’d had dinner while Scott was doing his night dive. We sat looking out over the street and enjoyed people watching while we ate. We savored our last dinner in STX and talked about all of the fun things we had done over the last week.

June 21

While my summer camp might have officially drawn to an end, Scott still had one last half day at his “summer camp.” Jane Coles, one of the STXPC volunteers, had connected Scott with her husband William who works for US Fish and Wildlife and runs an archery program for them. William had invited Scott out to shoot on Saturday morning before we flew home and Scott leapt at the opportunity.

So after enjoying one last coffee time on the hill overlooking the Caribbean, Scott dropped me off at Rainbow Beach with my beach bag, colander, and the hammock, and headed to William’s field to shoot. I spent the morning floating and glass hunting, savoring the last few moments of island beachtime before we would head back to SC.

He came back to Rainbow Beach and found me scouring the water’s edge for the dark blue glass pieces that were my favorite. We waded into the warm water and he told me about his morning of archery.

It had been probably ten years since he had last shot and he had never received any formal instruction, so today was enlightening to have the rigor that William’s instruction brought. They worked on posture and the shot sequence and refined those details. While William was working with Scott, eventually another couple showed up so he went over to work with them. The program is free and serves to get island residents interested in the sport of archery. It seemed fitting that Scott end his “summer camp” experience with such a quintessential summer camp activity.

After lounging in the hammock for a few minutes it was time to get back up to Hilltop House to shower and pack so that we could meet up with Jane, William’s wife, who was taking us to the airport. We dropped off Ms. Bettye’s car back at Steve and Becky’s and enjoyed the drive with Jane as she served as our tour guide, highlighting points of interest along the way.

When we got to the airport we said goodbye to Jane and then tried to figure out how to check Scott’s dive bag. The STX airport is mostly open air prior to customs and security and when we figured out the baggage check situation the agent informed us that our bag was 8 lbs over. We had packed the dive weights in the bag so we grabbed them out to help make weight. This brought the bag into an acceptable range. She tagged it and then instructed us to carry it over to the customs line ourselves. In a moment of sneakiness I decided that no one (aside from the guy that had to lift the bag into the airplane) would know we put the weights back into the bag since it was already tagged as “acceptable” so I did exactly that. I am one rebellious rebel.

Our flight home was uneventful and we had the whole row to ourselves which made for prime napping. My parents were waiting for us at the Charlotte airport when we arrived and as they drove us home we regaled them with tales of our Cruzan summer camp experience. When we got into Greenville, we stopped at Sabroso’s, my parent’s favorite restaurant, before going to their house to get our car. When we finally got home Andi was beside herself after not seeing us for 10 days and she leapt and jumped around as she showered us with wet kisses.

When I proudly sent my mom a picture of my summer camp artwork masterpiece and awaited to be showered with her adoring praise, I am an only child after all, she pointed out that my depiction of the fish made it seem as though it had legs, and once you see that, you can’t unsee it. I didn’t immediately respond to her and then she sent an apology text, worried that she had dashed all my artistic hopes and dreams. I assured her that I am more resilient than I appear. ↩︎

Point Udall

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

June 18, 2025

Today marked the halfway point for camp and I was amazed at how much progress the riders were making over the course of the week. It was nice to have two sessions a day to drive home some of the corrections and principles so that they could really make some fundamental changes and improvements in their riding.

While I was teaching in the morning, Scott had decided to take the borrowed mountain bike out for a spin. He started out from the Pony Club grounds and headed into the Sprat Hall Nature Preserve that he had hiked earlier in the week. He covered 11.5 miles in a little under two hours and had fun exploring an abandoned Coast Guard station (he loves abandoned buildings) and an old lighthouse. He hung out at the lighthouse for a bit and took in the panoramic views of the island that it provided. From that vantage point he could see the Anallay Bay tidal pools and all of Cane Bay. The trail to the lighthouse was quite steep so he said that the way back down was much easier and faster!

He got back to the STXPC grounds and watched me teach for a while before heading over to nearby Rainbow Beach to hang out in his hammock until I was done and ready to be collected. He scooped me up when my morning session was over and we headed back up to Hilltop House for lunch and our now customary midday siesta.

After he dropped me off for the afternoon camp session and evening lessons with the Sprat Hall boarders, he headed to the north end of the island to do one last dive at Cane Bay. On his 40 minute dive he saw a lobster, a black tipped reef shark, and the biggest sea turtle that he had seen yet on his dives in STX.

When he was done diving he picked up dinner for us from the famous La Reine Chicken Shack. When it was his turn to order he asked them what their most popular items were and used their suggestions to order that meal for each of us. He stopped at Rainbow Beach on the way back to kill time before it was time to get me from Sprat Hall.

We ate at our favorite spot at Hilltop House and looked out over Butler Bay as the sun set. The chicken plates he got us came with a few classic Cruzan sides like rice and beans, and also came with “johnny cakes” and I was hooked once I tasted them! They weren’t as sweet as a doughnut, but came pretty darn close and were absolutely delicious.

June 19, 2025

We woke up obscenely early this morning and hit the rough Cruzan roads by 4:30 AM to make our way to Point Udall, the easternmost spot in the United States, to catch the sunrise. It took us every bit of the hour we had allotted, and we arrived just in time to join the crowd of 50 or so other people who had gathered there before us to watch the sun make its way up, emerge above the horizon, and eventually break through the clouds. After we had done this “thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it” we headed back toward Christiansted in search of breakfast. We were initially puzzled that many of the breakfast spots that had come recommended in Scott’s research weren’t open until we remembered that today was a holiday: it was Juneteenth. We eventually found a breakfast spot in downtown Christiansted that was open and sat outside on their patio and had breakfast before returning back to Fredriksted for me to teach.

Scott had a quiet morning at his “summer camp” after several action packed days and just lounged around at Hilltop House until lunchtime when he came back to get me. I told him that everyone at camp had been impressed that we got up so early to catch the sunrise at Point Udall, have a relaxing breakfast in Christiansted and make it back to camp in time to teach. On our way back up to Hilltop House he pointed out something funny: a man driving a pickup truck had stopped earlier at a series of epic potholes along our route that we had been diligently avoiding all week, and had emptied out some construction waste directly into the holes that were apparently chips of concrete; a DIY civic improvement. To his credit, it was a vast improvement from its previous state and was a rather resourceful way of disposing of the concrete.

Scott dropped me back off at Sprat Hall for the afternoon sessions and then headed to Rainbow Beach for the afternoon where he strung his hammock between the trees right at the water’s edge and enjoyed looking out over the bay and occasionally taking a dip in the warm Caribbean. When he picked me up that afternoon we headed straight to Sandy Point to spend the rest of the evening.

Earlier in the week he had bought me a colander and I used it in my hunt for seaglass. I was now on the quest for vibrant blue sea glass since it was the least common color I had come across. The colander made it easy to scoop up quite a bit of sand and be able to capture the glass that had caught my eye rather than having to spot it, and quickly make a grab for it before the next wave rolled in and the glass got away.

When I was somewhat cross-eyed from my glass search and my back was starting to complain from being crouched over, I headed back to the hammock where Scott had positioned himself. He poured me some of our Cruzan pina colada mix and we enjoyed watching families celebrating their holiday at the beach, swimming and picnicking. From our hammock we bore witness to the sunset over the Caribbean, the day made special by having said both “hello” and “goodbye” to the celestial body around which our planet revolves before we called it a day and headed back to Hilltop House.

Sandy Point

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Monday, June 16

Today was the kickoff for the weeklong Saint Croix Pony Club camp. Scott and I stayed true to our routine and enjoyed our coffee time overlooking the Caribbean but this time there was added excitement. A cruise ship was scheduled to arrive this morning so as we sipped, we also scanned the horizon for Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas to make her appearance. We first spotted her a little after 7 AM and watched her inch along toward the pier. Her arrival meant that Scott would not be able to dive at the pier today, as diving isn’t permitted when ships are in port.

Eventually it was time for Scott to take me to the STXPC grounds at Sprat Hall. He dropped me off and then went back to Hilltop House to kill time before he would be joining Steve, the co-owner of the PC grounds, to tag along on a nature walk/ecotour that served as a cruise excursion option. I met the Pony Club members that would be attending camp this week and we jumped right into the morning lessons. The weather was pleasant, much more reasonable than at home, and the morning sessions flew by. One of the PC moms was in charge of my lunch and it was waiting for me when we finished. Scott collected me and we headed back up the mountain to our house to eat and have a quick siesta.

Scott had enjoyed Steve’s nature tour and gave me a recap of the experience. It had lasted about an hour and half and they had started at the STXPC grounds and then worked their way up into the forest, eventually reaching Creque Dam, built by the US Navy in the 1920’s to provide water for the residents of Fredriksted. Along the way Steve pointed out various flora and fauna and gave interesting and informative tidbits. Steve had cut the trail himself, sometimes working through rocky areas with a pickaxe and only making a few feet of progress a day. The whole endeavor had taken him over a year. Scott said the cruise patrons seemed to enjoy the roughly 3 mile hike, and they all seemed to especially enjoy the Cruzan rum punch that Steve offered at the very end before they got taken to the next phase of their excursion, beach time at Rainbow Beach.

I got dropped back off at Sprat Hall for the afternoon sessions and Scott dove the wrecks at Butler Bay, right off the beach near Sprat Hall. My afternoon lessons were jumping lessons for those that were capable and I had a very Cruzan experience when I discovered an iguana basking at the base of one of the jumps! After the Pony Club day ended I stayed on to teach a few private lessons to some of the boarders at Sprat Hall. Scott picked me up and we headed a short drive down the road to Rhythms at Rainbow Beach to redeem another generous STXPC gift card for dinner.

We sat on the patio and looked right out over Butler Bay, and sipped on drinks while we waited for our dinner. The sand flies, similar to our no-see-ums, also decided to join us, though our waitress had warned us about them and thankfully had directed us to the restaurant’s stash of bugspray. After defending ourselves against the obnoxious biting insects, Scott told me about his dive.

He had done the Coakley Bay, an oil refinery tugboat, and the Suffolk Maid trawler first. The buoy that served as a landmark for the wrecks originally hadn’t seemed that far out, but it was deceptive, and turned out to be a 20 min swim, thankfully the current wasn’t bad. After investigating those two and seeing the vibrant sealife that they hosted such as sponges, schools of fish, angel fish, and stingrays, he decided to swim over to the Northwind tug. It was a long swim however, and by the time he reached it he was low enough on air that he needed to call it a day, so wasn’t able to spend much time exploring it. His dive had been 43 minutes, and his max depth was 78 feet. He said that if we get to go back to STX then he will plan to spend more time at this site and will plan on doing one tank per wreck so he has more time to spend on each one.

The sun set as we ate dinner and we enjoyed watching it from our front row seats. I was ready to call it a day at this point, tired from a long day of teaching, so we headed back to Hilltop House and enjoyed a Cruzan rum pina colada nightcap before falling asleep.

Tuesday, June 17

Day two of STXPC camp! My day looked very much the same with morning lessons on the flat and jump lessons in the afternoon. I was proud of myself for remembering all the horse and rider names today and we picked up where we had left off yesterday, working on various exercises and techniques to improve their positions and aids.

Scott’s morning session at his “summer camp” as we had taken to calling his vacation, consisted of a dive at the Fredriksted pier- off limits yesterday because of the cruise ship, but fair game today, and a recon mission to Sandy Point beach. He had been anxiously awaiting going to Sandy Point because it was the iconic location where the final scene of his favorite movie, the Shawshank Redemption, was filmed. The scene is supposed to take place in Zihuatanejo, Mexico but in reality was filmed right here. The area is a national wildlife refuge, and as such, was closed this time of year due to the nesting sea turtles, but he was still able to enjoy the public beach access area where he spent some time in his hammock before it was time to come collect me for my midday break.

My lunch was again provided by one of the STXPC parents and before we took our standard siesta, Scott relayed his morning adventures to me. He was looking forward to taking me back to Sandy Point when I was done for the day and told me what to expect, mainly that it was just as beautiful as it had appeared in the movie, but that it was also a wonderful place to look for sea glass. He took me back to the PC grounds in the afternoon and also picked up the mountain bike that Steve had left for him to borrow for his stay. Steve had offered it up yesterday while they were chatting during the cruise excursion eco-tour, and Scott gladly accepted.

While I taught in the afternoon, Scott hung out and relaxed back at Hilltop House. He picked me up when I was done for the day and we headed to Sandy Point. I was thrilled with the abundance of sea glass at this beach! I enjoyed scanning the water’s edge for the colorful pieces and collected a handful in just a few minute’s worth of searching. When I grew tired of collecting the glass I went and joined Scott in the hammock that he had strung between the trees. We swung in the hammock and gazed out over the water and I cracked open a Carib beer. We heard the Jolly Mon before we saw it- the beats of the live music reggae band’s instruments making their way to our ears first. It was fun to see it from this perspective since we had sailed aboard her a few days prior and it brought back fond memories of a lovely evening.

As the sun was dropping lower in the sky we packed up the hammock and headed back into Fredriksted for Scott to do a night dive at the cruise pier. He had diligently checked all his equipment earlier in the day so that he would be ready for this adventure, but when he went to re-check his flashlight, one of the most important parts of his night dive, to his dismay, he found that the battery was dead. I had parked myself on a bench that overlooked the bay, and he walked sadly back over to me to tell me the news that he wouldn’t be diving. Then, on a whim, he decided to run over to the closest dive shop to see if they were still open. He found them closed, but happened to run into the owner of the Cruzan Adventures Divers dive shop who was closing up, but who graciously loaned him a light, just on his word. Scotty B was back in business and the night dive was back on!

We walked over to the pier and waited for the sun to finally dip below the horizon. Once it had, he jumped off the pier and into the water to start his adventure. I headed back across the street in search of dinner. I decided to try Flyer’s and was intrigued by one of their specials: a bleu cheese cheesecake appetizer. It was delicious and was filling enough that it was all I ordered for myself. I ordered Italian sausage meatloaf to-go for Scott for when he done and ready to eat. The island being so small, I actually recognized the hostess and my server from previous interactions. The hostess had been the first mate on the Jolly Mon and my server had been our server at dinner the previous night at Rhythm’s.

Scott finally reappeared and as we drove back to Hilltop House he told me all about his dive. He said that it was quite eerie to dive alone in the dark. He had startled a few sea turtles who were sleeping on the sea floor, and when his light streaked across them they scurried away and out of its reach. When we got home he ate his takeout and then we headed to bed, having had another wonderful day in the Virgin Islands.

Beer Pigs and Catamarans

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After the Pony Club certification ended on Saturday, Scott picked me up from Sprat Hall and we headed into the rainforest in search of the Mount Pellier Domino Club, combination bar and grill/domino club/roadside attraction/quasi petting zoo, and most importantly, home of the famous beer drinking pigs. As Scott carefully nursed Ms. Bettye’s Escape over the impressively potholed Mahogany Road into the jungle, he excitedly told me all about his morning dive at the Frederikstead pier. He saw such abundant sealife, the most noteworthy being a pair of eagle rays, stingrays, and several sea turtles.

When we reached the club we went inside the rustic open-air building to get a lay of the land. We were told to go ahead and order lunch and once we finished our meal it would be time for the pigs to get their next round of drinks. Evidently it is hard work being a beer swilling swine and they need some down time between rounds. We ordered from the sparse handwritten menu board and sipped on our own drinks while we waited. Our burgers came out, and as we ate we struck up conversation with some other folks that were also divers. They were using STX as their jumping off point for a British Virgin Islands sailing expedition with friends and Scott picked their brain about their trip since that is also on our radar in the next few years. Our waitress then announced that it was time to go see the pigs and gave us a rundown of the pricing for the experience: you paid a small fee to go see them and then paid for however many cans of non-alcoholic beer you wanted to give to the pigs. We each got one and followed the group to the pigpen.

We got brief instructions for how to give them their beer cans and were then allowed to go to whichever of the pigs we wanted to give it to. I chose to give mine to “Hammy,” the outlier of the group. Unlike the other pigs who were already standing on their hind legs with their front feet on the stall doors eagerly awaiting their brews, Hammy needed to be shown the goods first before she would hop up on the door. As instructed, I walked over to her stall, showed her the can, and then she jumped up to receive it. I held it as she nimbly grabbed it out of my hand, pierced it with her tusks, spraying beer everywhere, and then proceeded to tilt her head back and chomp-chomp-chug-chugged it to get every precious drop of brew. These pigs put frat boys to shame- they can consume a 12 oz beer in a matter of seconds and their pens showed the evidence of today’s bender. It was now Scott’s turn to get sprayed with beer and he chose to give his to Chester, who did nearly an exact repeat of Hammy’s performance except that Chester was already eagerly clamboring over his stall door for it. We enjoyed watching the pigs routine for a few more minutes as other visitors gave the pigs their drinks before deciding to wrap it up and head out.

We were now headed to the north side of the island, to a spot called Cane Bay so Scott could do another dive. He suited up and after asking instructions for where to head to see the “North Star wall”, he walked into the water, dipped down to put his flippers on and started walking out into the surf before finally ducking below the surface and out of sight. I set up my beach towel in a partially shaded spot on the beach and hung out, alternating between sitting and reading, people watching, taking in the sights of Cane Bay, and then wading chest-deep into the water when I would start to get hot. He was gone for about 45 minutes and finally I happened to see him pop up out of the water.

He got out of his scuba gear, and then we hung the hammock between two trees on the beach and he told me about his dive. He had been a little nervous because the wall drops off over 2,000 ft and so was a little conservative, but he saw a barracuda, lots of schooling fish, unique coral, and the sand trenches along the way that led down to the wall. Someone had told him that if you banged on your air tank with something metal it would attract Caribbean reef sharks who associated this sound with the sound of spearfishermen hunting for invasive lionfish and they would appear in hopes of getting a tasty treat, but he was not successful in summoning them. (Only Scott would purposefully try to conjure up sharks while diving…)

We enjoyed laying in the hammock and going into the water some before deciding to wrap up our beach day and walk just across the street to the restaurant here at Cane Bay where we would be having dinner. The STXPC had given us a gift card for The Landing, a popular open-air beach bar that overlooked the bay. We sat at the long bar and gazed down over the beach and water.
Dinner was wonderful and I was tickled when I discovered that they carried Duke’s mayonnaise which is made in nearby Mauldin, SC and is the world’s best (and only acceptable) mayonnaise.

On the drive home we passed a common STX island scene- a few horses tethered via ropes around their necks, grazing by the road, the common way of containing them while also allowing access to grass. They often get loose and if they don’t get reunited with their owners, or if the owner decides not to reclaim them, they end up at the public impound auction. A few of the horses at the STXPC were the products of this- essentially strays that were picked up by the dogcatcher/horsecatcher. Many of them bear the scars of having been restrained via tether, sporting white scars around their necks and legs, evidence that they’d been tangled up in the rope and injured at some point.

When we reached the west end of the island where our homebase of Frederiksted was, the sun was quickly setting and we were treated to the most spectacular sunset of our trip with fiery oranges, pastel pinks and lavenders splashed boldly across the horizon. We stopped at the aptly named Rainbow Beach and got out to savour it, relishing in the dramatic and shifting colors.

The next morning we headed to the Christiansted marina as we had booked a full day catamaran trip to Buck Island, a nearly 200 acre protected island that has National Monument designation. It became a National Monument during JFK’s presidency and received that status because his family frequently visited it and he wanted to preserve it for perpetuity. Its most unique feature is the underwater snorkel trail which is a marked “path” through the elkhorn coral and grottoes.

We parked in downtown Christiansted and had a minor domestic spat as Scott insisted on parking in a handicap spot, deploying Ms. Bettye’s handicap tag to make it legal. I was horrified by this but couldn’t convince him otherwise so I spent the next hour or so pouting over his sleazy and socially questionable decision.

We had chosen Big Beard’s as our tour company and found their outpost and checked in. Once we boarded the boat, I recognized a former STXPC member, Charlie, who was serving as first mate on the 42’ sailing catamaran. I had met her on my first trip to the island and Pony Club grounds in 2023. We spent a few minutes chatting and reconnecting before she had to get back to work. We got the mandatory safety briefing and then finally set sail towards Buck Island.

When we finally reached the island and got close to the shore, they anchored the boat and we all got off to test out our snorkel gear and explore the island. The snorkelling wasn’t great here but it served as an opportunity for beginner snorkelers to get acquainted with their masks, flippers, and buoyancy vests in a more tranquil body of water before we tackled the snorkel trail.

Scott and I snorkeled for a few minutes and then swam the short distance to the shore to investigate the island. We were amazed at the white sand and insane amount of conch shells on the beach. I spent some time reading the placards (I love reading placards) and learning about the ecosystem and history of the island. Hurricane Hugo had hammered STX in 1989, and Buck Island in particular suffered its wrath; the reef crest on the south side of the island was shifted by an astounding 90 feet in some spots and the damage to the coral is still evident today.

We were eventually summoned back to the boat via conch shell horn which sounded remarkably similar to a foghorn. We then set off for the snorkel trail and were sorted into three groups and received instructions for once we reached it.

Once we reached it we followed our guide into the water and headed out in search of the trail. I loved that I could read placards and snorkel at the same time and got a kick out of following the signs and learning about the various fish I was seeing. The underwater grottoes were impressive and made it feel like we were in a cave. The reef protected us from the rougher water outside its borders and it was remarkably calm and easy to swim within it. We followed along our guide for a bit before peeling off and exploring on our own. I was proud of Scott for staying somewhat close to me because sometimes he disappears and goes off and does his own thing. The most impressive sealife we saw was a 7 foot juvenile bull shark that had been notoriously hanging around the grottoes the last few months. I was proud of myself for staying calm when I spotted him, and honestly was more startled by the huge and intimidating looking barracuda that we spotted lurking under our catamaran when we made our way back to the boat.

We boarded the boat and it was now time for the Mutiny vodka punch to start flowing and the crew made their rounds handing out cups of it. Scott and I sat on the front of the catamaran and enjoyed the views of Buck Island and the mainland and another couple snapped a cute photo of us (reminiscent of the sunset cruise a few nights ago). We chatted with the crew a bit before they needed to start sailing us to their hidden beach for our barbeque lunch. When we reached the beach we disembarked and had to swim in to reach the shore. They prepared hot dogs and hamburgers for us and as we waited I made friends with the island kitties that were eagerly awaiting our arrival because they knew we would all share our lunch with them. Scott and I talked to some of the other passengers while we ate and learned where everyone was from.

Eventually it was time to swim back to the catamaran and set sail back to the marina. When we arrived back in Christiansted and got off the boat we spent some time walking around the downtown area. I had hoped to get one of the famous and iconic Cruzan “hook” silver bracelets that are popular but sadly both the jewelry stores that came highly recommended were closed for the day. I was glad to see that Ms. Bettye’s car was still in the handicap spot where SCOTT had left it and we hadn’t gotten a ticket or been towed despite the tag hanging from the rearview mirro. I had imagined that the parking authority would have somehow known we were imposters but thankfully they hadn’t. We headed back towards Fredriksted and stopped by Napolean’s pizza on the way in to redeem another one of the gift cards that the STXPC had given me before making our way back to Sprat Hall and our Hilltop House.

Cruzan Pony Club Camp 2025

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things I love most about being an equestrian clinician is getting to see how people do horses in different parts of the world. Being from the horse friendly east coast of the US, it is easy to lose sight of how relatively easy it is to house and care for a horse here; we have an embarrassment of riches compared to the Cruzan horse community. While you pay more now than ever for it, hay and grain are easy to come by and the sheer amount of choices for these products can be overwhelming at times, farrier and vet care are straightforward to access with an abundance of options, and riding/boarding/competition facilities (despite disappearing at an alarming rate due to development) are still plentiful.

Compare this to horse-keeping in Saint Croix. No hay is grown on the island so it must be shipped in, however, you must be cautious with buying too much volume because you never know when the next hurricane will come and wipe it out. The feed stores can only sell what they receive from the ship, and if your brand of feed doesn’t come in this time you might find yourself having to find the next best alternative. While there is a large animal veterinarian on the island now, for a while the only large animal practitioner was the USDA vet for the US Virgin Islands that traveled between Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, and Saint John, and who saw pet horses as a courtesy. Should you have an emergency, you better hope that she was on your island that day. Having witnessed an equine emergency on my first visit to St Croix I can attest to the hopelessness of the feeling of having such limited options. Even though there is now a fulltime private practice large animal vet, access to medications is not always straightforward and requires jumping through some creative hoops as there are complex laws for having certain drugs shipped to the island even for a DVM.

To do horses in STX takes some serious love and commitment and to see the members of the STX Pony Club do it is inspiring. The club was formed in 1966 and achieved it’s official status with the United States Pony Club in 1967. It is part of the Sunshine Region which includes Florida and the other US Virgin Islands. One of the founding members of the STXPC is Bettye Skeoch who still plays a role in the club today. Bettye is an institution! I have two USPC friends that are the product of the STXPC- Sali Gear and Kelly Smith and it is fun to know that this club has so much history.

The grounds where the club meets and keeps their horses is owned by Becky Merwin, and is called Sprat Hall. The grounds are a stone’s throw from the Caribbean and Rainbow Beach and they are absolutely beautiful.

The first activity I was asked to do on this trip was to act as an examiner for the club’s bi-annual club level certification on Saturday June 14. I would be conducting a D-1 test for two candidates and I was excited to do so since the D-1 is the initial level in USPC’s certification structure and is a no-fail test. Compared to the other certifications where examiners’ ability to coach is limited as well as discouraged, the examiner for the D-1 can offer as much assistance as needed to help the candidate demonstrate the required skills. As a coach and teacher by profession, it is hard to act as an examiner and not to coach! The D-1 is a fun certification because it is so straightforward and it is the first milestone in their USPC journey.

I arrived at the STXPC grounds that morning and conducted the certification. At the end of the test STXPC had two proud newly minted D-1 members! I hope to see them at other certifications over the next few years as they progress.

The main reason for my visit was to act as their guest clinician for their annual summer camp which started on Monday June 16 and ran the entire week, ending on Friday. The current DC (district commissioner) is Rosanne Boyan. Running a pony club is a fulltime job, and running camp is a huge undertaking as well. She was helped by Jane Coles who is the instructor for most of the pony club members. There were seven riders participating and they ranged from kids that had never ridden prior to camp all the way up to C-1 level members. (At the C-1 level members jump a little under 3 feet and are starting to do basic dressage.)

The riders would each receive two mounted lessons daily as well as participate in unmounted horse management sessions and crafts throughout the day. The riders were split into three groups and rode once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Typically the morning sessions were “on the flat” which meant no jumping, and we focused on riding in the dressage arena, learning basic dressage schooling figures and working on establishing correct basic balanced positions that would allow them to better communicate with their horses. The afternoon sessions were jumping lessons for the more advanced riders and for the lower-level riders we added in work over ground poles and learning some mounted games. The game “Around the World” where riders pivot around the horse, kicking their up legs to sit sideways and then backwards before returning to their original position, much like you would see a gymnast do on a pommel-horse proved popular for riders of all levels, and I had to keep an eye on our sole boy rider because if I turned my back to him even for a moment he would be spinning around like a top!

I would teach from about 8:30 until 12 and then we would have a lunch and midday break. Each day a different parent was assigned to bring me a lunch which was nice to enjoy a variety of different meals. Scott would drop me off in the morning and head off on whichever adventure du jour he planned and would pick me up again at lunchtime. We would head back up to the Hilltop House to eat, cool off, and usually take a quick siesta. He would then bring me back to the grounds at Sprat Hall and I would teach the afternoon sessions. A few evenings during the week I was scheduled to teach private lessons to other boarders and riders at Sprat Hall who wanted to take advantage of a guest clinician. Scott would then pick me up at the end of my workday and we would either head out for some beachtime if time and daylight allowed (it got dark about 6:30 PM) or we would go get dinner.

The STXPC had done a wonderful job procuring perquisites for me. They had gotten us gift cards to three restaurants, as well as the sunset catamaran cruise, a BOGO dive pass, and a certificate for renting jet skies at an outfitter at the nearby Rainbow Beach. While we never did take advantage of renting jet skies or the diving (Scott dives but I do not so he did his own thing), we did use everything else and appreciated the generosity of the club as well as the businesses that donated the perks.

Teaching at their camp was incredibly rewarding. Being able to have so many back to back lessons meant that riders rapidly progressed and watching their progression from Monday to Friday was exciting. I was honored to have been asked to come teach and hope that I will have another opportunity to do so in the future!

Tidal Pools and Sunset Cruises

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I cannot imagine that there is a better spot to enjoy one’s morning coffee than the one that we had during our stay in St. Croix and we got our first taste of it this morning as we gazed out over the Caribbean, Frederiksted, and the pier from atop the clearing at our Hilltop House. When we finally got our fill we got dressed, packed up for the day, and headed out towards the north side of the island to hike to the Annaly Bay tide pools.

We enjoyed seeing the other side of the island on the drive which took quite a while, not because of distance but because it was such slow going as the potholes became increasingly larger and more crater-like the closer to Carambola that we got. We were entertained by the fact that the Cruzan solution to the potholes appeared to be highlighting their perimeter with white spray paint rather than fixing them. At some point, either from apathy or practicality, the STX roads and highway department must have just admitted defeat and decided this was the best option for dealing with them since everytime they got fixed another hurricane just ransacked the island and wreaked havoc on their handiwork.

A guard at the gated entrance of the Carambola Beach Resort laid out our parking options when we arrived at the trailhead to the tidal pool hike. None of them were ideal but Scott did a good job nimbly and carefully navigating Miss Bettye’s Escape into the best of the bad options as we drove up a road better suited to a rugged 4x4, following the guard’s instructions to park in the field that “doesn’t look like it is a parking lot but it is.” We got out and began the two mile hike through the rainforest to the pools.

The hike was hot and steep but the views of the Caribbean that we were teased with along the way when the trees would thin enough for us to catch sight of it made us push on. When we finally arrived at the rocky shoreline we were rewarded with stunning views; the mountains rose up around us, the turquoise water before us, and the sound of the surf moving the rocks around as the waves crashed against the shore all around us. We saw some people crawling over rocks a few hundred meters away and figured that was the way to the pools. When we got to the group, they indicated that we were on the right track and we climbed up the rock face and over the giant boulders to reach the first pool.

We put our stuff down and stripped to our bathing suits and waded in. We were glad we had kept our shoes on because it was rocky and there were sea urchins perched between rocks that would not feel good to step on. I did end up tangling with one when I put my hand down on an underwater rock to navigate my way through the pool and got pricked, and a few minutes later noticed that the heel of my hand didn’t have any feeling, the sea urchin’s venomous spine had numbed it. After that I was much more careful at scouting for them.

The pools were teeming with aquatic life, a micro-ecosystem at play, and we saw several species of fish and sealife, but luckily didn’t see the venomous sea snakes that some people have reported spotting in the pools. We enjoyed swimming and exploring and made our way to each of the pools in the series. We stopped at one that had the most clear opening to the sea and sat on the boulders and periodically got soaked by waves as they crashed against the rocks spraying surf that rose up several meters into the air and deposited more water into the pools. It was reminiscent of our trip to the Queen’s Bath in the Mokes in Oahu.

When we were satisfied with our tidal pool exploration we decided to head back to our stuff for lunch. As we retraced our steps I decided that the best way to get back into the final pool was by jumping off the 10 foot rock face rather than trying to climb down and I bravely leapt in and Scott followed. We had lunch sitting on a rock in the first pool taking in the sights around us and watching other people discover the pools. We then packed up and hiked the two miles back out. I took Scott’s advice to wear my sneakers that I had brought just in case my Teva sandals became uncomfortable and was much more surefooted on the hike back out.

We decided it was naptime when we got back to Hilltop House because we wanted to rest before the sunset catamaran cruise out of Fredriksted that was booked for the evening with Lyric Sails. It was one of the perks given to us by the STX Pony Club and we were looking forward to it. We love a good catamaran trip as much as we do sunsets and sunset cruises!

We arrived at the Fredriksted pier early and killed time by sitting in the shade and reading until it was time to board. We were given the standard catamaran trip briefing but also a little history on the 63 foot vessel we would be sailing on. Though she now sports the name The Jolly Mon, the boat has a storied past and used to be named Che Cje. In her previous life she was the fastest catamaran of the 1970’s, setting several transatlantic racing records. She was then purchased by an enterprising ~~businessman~~ drug czar who took advantage of her sleek engineering and speed and used her for drug running in south Florida throughout the Don Johnson/Hawaiian shirt/Miami Vice era until being intercepted by the US government in the 90’s. She was auctioned off and now in her golden years, finds herself giving leisurely sails through the Frederiksted harbor several times a week to tourists, set to the gentle beats of live easy-listening Reggae, never having to look nervously over her shoulder to see if the Coast Guard or DEA are in hot pursuit.

We boarded and grabbed seats at the front near the catamaran’s trampolines (the nets at the front). While waiting to board, we had noticed a woman furiously hacking away at the biggest rat’s nest of a tangle on her head with a hairbush, and now she sat a few feet away from us, still hacking away, making seemingly zero progress. We found this a little odd and guessed that eventually she would stop once we set sail. Nope. She continued to attack the snarl throughout the entire cruise. We finally pieced together that she had been snorkeling with her hair loose and this is how she got the impossible tangle. She battled it so ferociously that eventually the captain of the boat came to offer her some sort of detangler or hair oil, which although she accepted, seemed to do little to convince it to let go. I imagine her back home almost a month later still working on this thing.

Where were we? Oh yes, the sunset cruise. We enjoyed getting front row seats and chatted with the family behind us- a group of siblings that had met up in STX from around the entire US. The rum punch started flowing¹, and as always once I start drinking, I start telling Scott all the reasons he should marry me. And as this always goes, he tells me all the reasons we shouldn’t get married. It was during this passionate “Request for Proposal phase of the evening” (that’s what Scott calls this) as we were standing along the boat’s railings looking out over the dramatic colorscape that the sunset offered up that evening, that the siblings we had met took the VERY BEST photographs of us that I have ever seen. We had no idea that they’d taken them and when we eventually sat back down they said “I hope you don’t mind but we wanted to snap some pictures of you guys because it looked like you were enjoying yourselves so much.” We thanked them profusely and assured them there was nothing weird at all about them having done so and they shared the photos with us. I am so thankful of their kind gesture because it captured candid snapshots of an incredible evening for us and the shots so perfectly capture and sum up our relationship.

We chatted with the crew some, learning how they came to be in STX and the captain and first mate of the Jolly Mon. I needed to take a trip down to the “head.” The entire time I was down there I was remembering the instructions we had received in our briefing and was reciting them in my head chant-like as a reminder as well as seeing them reiterated artistically in needlepoint on a sign directly across from me: “If it wasn’t in your body, it doesn’t belong in our potty.” I had the best intentions of putting the toilet paper in the trash can next to the loo, I really did, and then just out of sheer muscle memory and habit, I promptly dropped it into the bowl. Instantly discovering the error of my ways, I panicked and in a split second decision, decided that maybe the same 3-second rule that applies to dropped food on the floor also applies to dropped T.P. into the water and snatched the just dropped wad of T.P. out of the potty. It must have been marine T.P. because it was already starting to disintegrate, but I gamely fisted what I could and threw it away in the correct spot, assuring myself that my bravery saved the ship from certain doom. And then I spent the next five minutes washing my hands.

And then sadly we were back at the pier and the cruise was over. We decided to walk across the street into town to find some dinner, taking the suggestion that our server from the previous night’s dinner had offered of The Lost Dog, a dive bar nearby. Three-rum-punch Janna is very chatty and I proceeded to chat up the bartender, who as it turns out, is probably the most traveled human being that Scott and I have ever encountered, having been to over 40 countries. He entertained us with tales of his travels as Scott and I shared a pizza. Other locals came and went and I may or may not have inquired about their life stories as well. (I am glad Scott doesn’t get tired of my obnoxiousness.)

By this point enough time had passed that Scott could safely drive us home and we were in bed before 10 PM. One nice thing about STX being so close to the equator is that it’s not hard to go to bed early since the sun sets so early.

As the captain of the sunset cruise we took in Waikiki once famously said, “Let’s get boozey, let’s get cruisey!” ↩︎

Caribbean Adventures

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This seems to be my season of Pony Clubbing in exotic locales! Saint Croix Pony Club in the US Virgin Islands invited me to be their clinician for their annual summer camp in June and I jumped at the opportunity. With their enticing promise of lodging, many meals, a car, and various excursions it took very little convincing to get Scott to agree to tag along as well. So, at a ridiculously early morning hour on June 12, my parents, graciously acting as our Uber drivers, shuttled us to the Charlotte airport for the start of our adventure. They hugged and kissed us curbside and then we were off to Cruzan Pony Club Camp!

We booked our flights using credit card points, and as it often goes when booking them that way, were not originally able to get on the same flight from Miami to STX¹. Scott would be taking the earlier flight to STX and I would have a two hour layover in Miami and would join him a few hours later. The travel gods were smiling down on us however, and I was able to fly standby on his flight so that we both arrived in STX on the same plane. The travel gods were not smiling favorably upon Scott’s dive bag however, so this meant that while Scott and I were on the same plane, the bag was not. It ended up flying on the later flight and we had to collect it later that evening.

Rosanne Boyan, the DC of the STXPC, picked us up and took us to Sprat Hall so that we could get the car we would be using for our stay. STXPC legend and founder Bettye Skeoch had generously offered her Ford Escape up for our use as she was still stateside convalescing from eye surgery. At Sprat Hall we were met by Steve Scott, fiance to the owner of the STXPC grounds, Becky Merwin². Becky and Steve owned Hilltop House where we would be staying and Steve escorted us to the house.

We got our first real taste of Cruzan roads on the mile drive from Steve and Becky’s to Hilltop House, encountering pot holes that would eat the Escape for lunch if you weren’t careful. Following Steve, with the Caribbean lapping at the hillside on our left, we dodged and weaved our way through the pothole minefield before turning to head up the mountain. We passed Estate Mount Washington on the way and then began the ascent- both of our ears popping as we climbed the 10% grade. And then we made it to the clearing at the top… and lo and behold, there was the Caribbean way below us. We could see all of the town of Frederiksted laid out beneath us, including the famous cruise ship pier where Scott would be diving. Before even showing us the inside of the house, Steve made sure that we saw the cafe table and chairs that sat under the lone tree in the clearing, suggesting we have our morning coffee from that spot. (We followed his advice and enjoyed morning coffee time each morning of our ten day trip overlooking the turquoise bay.)

Steve showed us around the house, opening up windows and doors as he did to help get a breeze going through the house since there was no air conditioning. Green lizards scurried out of our way as we got the tour and I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm despite their presence inside the house. It turns out that they were pretty adept at staying out of our way and I learned to look for them on the inside of the screen doors and door frames so I wouldn’t be startled when opening the door and scream. By the end of our trip I was able to mostly ignore them.

After the tour Steve said goodbye and left. We quickly unpacked and then needed to head back to the airport to collect the scuba bag before the airport closed at 5 PM. Scott bravely got behind the wheel of the Escape, giving me instructions to remind him to stay LEFT, and away we went, ready to tackle left-side-of-the-road driving. We arrived at the airport with just a few minutes to spare and as promised, the scuba bag was waiting for us, riding along the open air luggage carousel. We loaded it up and then ventured into Frederiksted for dinner. We parked near the cruise ship pier and enjoyed looking out over the Caribbean for a bit, marveling at the fact that we would get to explore this area to our heart’s delight for the next week and a half.

Many of the restaurants didn’t open until 6 PM so we found a rooftop bar to have the signature Cruzan cocktail- the Painkiller, made with Cruzan rum and topped with freshly grated nutmeg.
Six Nine, our restaurant choice for the evening, was now open so we headed that way which was located in the same plaza as the bar. We had the best brussel sprouts of our lives (truffle oil was the magic ingredient according to our North Carolina born server) and split an entree. The whole dinner experience was splendid, made even richer by the company of a friendly neighborhood stray cat, Frank, who kept us company throughout the meal.

After dinner we needed to grocery shop to stock up for the week, mostly to get supplies for our breakfasts, and for Scott’s lunches. My lunch each day while I was working would be supplied by the Pony Club and we had several gift cards for dinner at various spots around the island. To say we experienced sticker shock at the grocery store would be a gross understatement- food was stupendously expensive which makes sense when you consider that it all has to come over via ship from either Puerto Rico or the mainland. The farther it travels, the more expensive it becomes.

Being so close to the equator it got dark quickly and Scott did a great job driving us home on the “wrong” side of the road and only messed up a few times- mostly when having to dodge a pothole and forgetting to go back to the left side. He got us safely back to Hilltop House and we put our groceries away and finished unpacking (not hard when we both were one-bagging it- with the exception of the scuba bag). The house’s position atop the mountain meant that it caught the wind and air moved nicely through the building keeping it at a comfortable temperature. We went to sleep with the sounds of the Caribbean wind and crickets as our white noise.

I will henceforth be referring to Saint Croix as “STX” as the locals do ↩︎
Becky was the owner of the now deceased Calypso, the unfortunate horse that suffered the tragic ending on my first visit to STX in 2023. ↩︎

Foothills Paddling Club Chattooga Fest 2025

Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This recap of Chattooga Fest 2025 was written by Janna for Foothills Paddling Club and was posted on their website:

The first weekend of May is a special one for Foothills Paddling Club members and is marked in each of their calendars at the beginning of the year with permanent ink because this is when the club gathers at the “crown jewel of the Southeast:” the National Wild and Scenic Chattooga River, for Chattoogafest. This year marked the twelfth time that this iconic event has taken place, and just like each Chattoogafest before it, it was characterized by great paddling, camaraderie and fellowship amongst the FPC paddlers, camping, great food, and… rain. This is a hardy group however, so although rain may dampen their camping gear, it absolutely cannot dampen their spirits and the 2025 event was another enjoyable occasion for 90+ members.

Planning for this annual event starts as soon as the last one has ended and FPC members are lucky to have an organizing committee that is devoted to making Chattoogafest a fun-filled and memorable weekend. The committee this year was made up of Kendra Hathway, Patrick Walsh, Chris Grey, Don Belock, Russell Dutta, and Hope Simpson. Without these folks working tirelessly to secure donations for the silent auction and raffle, book the campground, provide dinner opportunities both nights, and all the other million details that go into planning the event, there’s no way it would happen. So the next time you see any of these people, please let them know how much we appreciate their efforts!

Members started arriving at the Chattooga Sounds campground Friday around noon. The weekend’s forecast called for scattered thunderstorms and the sky was threatening so everyone that was tent camping quickly scrambled to set up camp before the storms started. About 15 paddlers headed out for a trip on section 3.5. Remarkably the weather held for them while they were on the river, although those back at camp were treated to some serious thunder and lightning. Members continued to trickle in throughout the afternoon and early evening Friday and those that were unable to hit the river hung out and chatted.

When the 3.5 paddling group arrived back at camp they regaled us with stories from their trip, led by Patrick Walsh. Hope Simpson had a successful PFD (personal first descent) down Bull Sluice and Felicia Friesen ran the Bull in style, going down it backwards. Patrick and Scott Manley were twinning (and easy to spot) in their banana yellow Liquid Logic Torques. Francesca Budd had a redemption run for herself on 3.5 on Friday and absolutely crushed every rapid on section 3.5.

The Chattoogafest planning committee had arranged for pizza from Humble Pie for dinner that evening (16 pizzas!) and as soon as it arrived the members converged on it hungrily. Humble Pie’s pies always hit just right, and if there is better pizza somewhere, I sure haven’t found it yet! As they ate, members hung out chatting and catching up with each other. After dinner, reluctant to have a repeat of the exploding fire ring from last year, a fire was started in the far fire ring within the group camping corral and a few folks gathered round it and caught up and talked about paddling plans for the next day. Overnight we were all treated to a steady rain which put all of our camping gear to the test.

Saturday morning Scott Bouchard and I took advantage of the kitchen at the campground (one of the best parts of Chattooga Sounds!) and got the electric coffee pot started to brew coffee for anyone that might want some. Those tent camping in the group camping area started trickling in to make their breakfasts and Tim Alexander very generously offered to share his cans of “Beverly’s Bulk Sausage” with anyone that might be interested. No one was brave enough to take him up on his offer.

It was finally time for the morning meet up and Patrick was the MC for announcing the various trips that would be happening. These trips at Chattoogafest couldn’t happen without members volunteering to be trip leaders and we are so appreciative of those that offered to lead: James Johnson, Joey Geiger, Adam Mobley, and Mary Pedrick, and Patrick Walsh.

Sir Mike had brought his fleet of rafts and Russians again this year and he very generously offered his 14 foot raft to be used as the FPC vessel. (Scott and I had brought our 16 footer, the Big Pig, and I was convinced that Sir Mike’s raft would be lighter to carry so we took him up on his offer to use it. Fun fact, it was not. His 14 footer was just as hefty as the Big Pig.) Clayton Burton had agreed to captain the raft again this year and everyone that got to join in (Gary and Stacey Mobley, William and Hope Simpson, and me, Janna Bankston) appreciated his services because there would be no raft trip without a raft guide.

The raft trip put on the water about the same time as the 3.5 trip and Scott Bouchard and Adam Mobley were our safety boaters. Thankfully we never put their skills to the test because Clayton’s expert guidance kept us all safe and in the raft. I got a crash course in rope throwing from Sir Mike and I took up position at the base of the Bull in case any of his raft passengers got ejected. Thankfully I didn’t have to test my skills either! We got to watch several FPC members run the Bull which is always fun. Ellen Walsh’s run was my favorite!

One of the best parts of Chattoogafest is reconvening Saturday night and getting to hear about everyone’s adventures. One notable adventure came from our brave Section 4 paddlers. We got to see Dane Newman’s battle scars on his face that he sustained in a rock-to-the-face adventure on his run, and got to hear about his long swim at Corkscrew and a resulting boat rescue when his boat was stuck at Crack-in-the-Rock. Luckily, aside from Dane’s abrasions everyone else that was on the trip (Patrick Walsh, Russell Dutta, Scott Manley) had a good day.

Dinner Saturday night was provided by FPC and was fantastic. Chris Grey cooked up some of the best barbeque pork again this year and we all enjoyed it. We appreciate him taking on that task and feeding the hungry FPC masses! After dinner it was time for a few words from our new FPC president Mel Ailiff who welcomed us all and thanked the FPC planning committee for putting on such a fun event. It was now time for the raffle and silent auction! FPC was auctioning off a few of the club boats so everyone had an opportunity to bid. The raffle prizes were outstanding and we all need to be sure to thank the donors and sponsors who donated items, experiences, and trips: Over $2000 was raised! Tim Alexander donated handcrafted pieces again this year, a charcuterie board similar to last year’s featuring Sasquatch at Bull Sluice, and a river themed live-edge wood table. Both were beautiful and unique and got to go home with lucky new owners.

Unfortunately the rain started back up again right as the raffle and silent auction were wrapping up which made it hard for much socializing. Many folks called it a night and headed for the cover of their tents but a few committed people found shelters to continue the evening, not letting the rain take away their opportunity to hang out with friends.

Soggy gear awaited us all Sunday morning and we reluctantly put it on but the excitement of a day on the river made us quickly forget. We had the usual morning meet up and members gathered round the volunteer trip leaders for the various trips.

Joey Geiger introduced a group of us to the West Fork of the Chattooga river and it may be a new personal favorite for me. It was beautiful and mostly calm and had just enough challenging class 2 rapids to make it exciting without being overly scary. Joey’s two young boys are naturals on the water and we all enjoyed watching them confidently navigate this section of river.

The only downfall to Sunday at Chattoogafest is that we don’t get to reconvene to rehash our adventures. From what I heard though, Sunday was a high water day, and according to 3.5 trip leader Patrick Walsh, it made for a few exciting lines at Screaming Left!

When members got off the river they packed up their camping gear and headed home, already marking their calendars for next May for the next Chattoogafest.

A very special thanks to the companies and outfitters that made donations and contributions:
Chattooga Outfitters
Humble Pie
Foamie Friends
Headwaters Outfitters
Immersion Research
Liquid Logic
NRS
Pyranha
Smokey Mountain Meadows
Sunrift Adventures
Whitewater Center- Charlotte
Watershed Dry Bags

Forest Gumping Our Way Around Bangkok

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We knew in a vague sense that we would be in Thailand during the Chinese, or Lunar, New Year, but we didn’t fully grasp the scope of what exactly that meant. Scott, our itinerary and planning guru, had planned for us to go to Chinatown for the celebration. This very much was a “do the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it” as Bangkok’s Chinatown, aka Yaowarat, is the largest Chinatown in the world. So us deciding to just stroll over to it on Chinese New Year was roughly equivalent to wanting to just pop over to Times Square on our New Year’s Eve. In a word, nuts. And very very crowded.

We started off the day by sleeping in so that we would be rested heading into the festivities and the long haul flight home early the next morning, as well as to let Scott get as much rest as possible since he wasn’t feeling 100%. It was now his turn to take a soak in the balcony tub and for a guy that isn’t into baths, he sure did seem to enjoy it and was more than happy to pose with all sorts of props I threw his way.

He got out of the tub rejuvenated and we decided to go to Lumphini Park for a picnic and to hopefully be able to see some of the “lumphini lizards” that it is home to. Lumphini lizards are actually Asian water monitors and are close relatives of the Komodo dragon. We had seen them referenced in a lot of the YouTube videos about Bangkok that we had watched during our trip planning and were eager to see them in person; the idea of alligator sized reptiles roaming casually around a city park piqued our interest.

Our walk to the park took us through the beautiful Chulalongkorn University campus, or Chula University as it is more commonly known. The largest university in Thailand, its campus reminded us of a stateside school with its tree lined walkways, carefully tended gardens and lots of student activity. It hosts a medical school and we are hypothesizing that it’s because of this that the on campus outdoor food market that we visited gave the most nods to food handling safety that we had witnessed to date in Thailand. There might not have been any plastic gloves or hand washing going on but the vendors had erected a very crude sneeze-guard with saran wrap so there is that. Since this was our last day in Thailand we went a little crazy on buying Thai foods to try and got a little bit of this and a little bit of that from several stalls (all for just a few US dollars) to supply our picnic. I was hoping for some roti but unfortunately didn’t find any.

Armed with a boatload of food we then made it to Lumphini Park and had just crossed through the entrance gates when we spotted the first several foot long water monitor. We walked another few hundred feet in search of a picnic table and came across a whole group of the large lizards who were embroiled in a heated tussle over some sort of carcass. It was impressive to watch and I knew that I didn’t want to tangle with them. If they came for our picnic I knew that I would slowly back away and happily relinquish it to them. The longer we watched, the more lizards we saw. They seemed to be as common as squirrels and in fact, we saw no squirrels, probably because the lumphini lizards had eaten them.

We had our picnic and only ate a fraction of the food we had purchased but enjoyed sampling it all. We strolled around the park and saw several more lizards. Watching them swim in the ponds in the park reminded me of watching alligators swim and I knew that I had zero desire to ever swim or kayak in a body of water that they might also be occupying. When we’d had enough of the lumphini lizards we decided to retrace our steps through the Chula campus. We stopped for what would be our very last Thai smoothie and we sat on benches in the shade of giant sycamore trees savoring every sip. We headed back to The House of Papa and relaxed for a bit before we headed out for the evening’s festivities.

I would like to pause here and ask that if you ever hear me say that I would like to do some huge and iconic popular event in a crowded big city that attracts thousands of people, to please slap me upside the head and tell me that’s a terrible idea and that I’ll hate it. Also remind me that although I might think it’ll be fun and may even qualify as the thing to do in the place to do it, that I’ll probably find it too peopley and will be miserable. Especially if it’s in a country or culture where the idea of personal space doesn’t exist. Ok, let’s carry on.

So we went to Chinese New Year in Bangkok’s Chinatown. Us and tens of thousands of our closest Thai friends. It was about a 30 min walk and the closer we got to Yaowarat the more crowded it became.

Along the way it was fun to see all the teenage girls dressed in a modern take on Chinese style dresses posing for Instagram photoshoots in alleys, hundreds of red and yellow Chinese lanterns strung from building to building creating a dramatic decorative ceiling overhead, or near other picture worthy Chinese New Year symbols that were adorning the neighborhood. It was reminiscent of being in a downtown Greenville park or garden during prom season. Some phenomena are universal.

When we reached Yaowarat we joined a crowd that was gathered round a Jumbotron, some sort of livestream on its huge screen. After watching it for a few minutes we surmised that it was broadcasting some sort of ceremony and we eventually pieced together that it was members of the Thai royal family that were in a procession or formality of sorts. We then quickly realized that we were standing just a few meters away from where this exact ceremony was taking place and a few moments later we spotted who we would eventually learn was the Thai princess¹, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the King of Thailand’s sister.

It turns out that the ceremony we were watching was the opening ceremony and was not only celebrating the Lunar New Year, but also 50 years of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China. We had front row seats. We were DOING THE THING YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO IN THE PLACE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO IT. We had Forest Gumped our way into seeing Thai royalty while in Thailand.

This was novel for about five minutes and then it started to get more and more peopley. It turns out that the buffet experience from the dinner cruise yesterday was just a warmup for this crowd. I could have gone home a happy girl at this point, but oh no, Scott wanted us to press onwards and into the thick of things. And by “into the thick of things” I mean, he wanted us to cross through the slow moving 20 car Royal Thai Family Police vehicular procession so that we could continue our immersive Lunar New Year in Chinatown experience. The Royal Thai Family police detail didn’t think tourists should be doing that, and as several people darted in between the souped up Mercedes sedans and SUV’s they indicated (very clearly and universally) NOT to do that. By that point Scott had already run the gauntlet and darted through, leaving poor little rule following me on the other side of the procession with hordes of people pressing into me and jostling for position. We were now separated. Eventually I found an opening when a Thai guard turned away and I nervously made my move. Thankfully reuniting us. To be honest, I’m not sure Scott even knew I was gone (he says yes, he was aware).

The most enjoyable part of this paradish situation was watching the vibrant and iconic Chinese dancing paper dragons. They are thought to bring good fortune and happiness and are an integral part of the Lunar New Year tradition; the longer the dragon dances the more good fortune he brings.

And now Scott wanted us to go further into Chinatown… because he wanted to see Chinatown. The crowds became thicker and thicker. There wasn’t much to see other than a sea of people. We eventually found spots along the road to wait to catch another glimpse of the Thai Princess. Human bodies squished and bumped into me and I could suddenly see how people have panic attacks. I wanted space! I eventually adopted a widened stance with my legs, hands on hips, and elbows sticking out, in an attempt to protect my personal space, and… it didn’t work. I then just refused to budge when people would try to push into me and this worked better. My American sized frame gave me a distinct advantage. But I still couldn’t see much. Scott, at six feet tall, stood nearly a head above the other Thai parade goers and we later joked that he could simply stand up tall, or “deploy his Bouch-scope” and be able to have a clear view of the surrounds.

At this point I must have been whiny enough that Scott finally listened and agreed that we could leave the epicenter of the celebration. We headed back out of the chaos and towards our hotel with the intention of finding somewhere to eat dinner. (I had nixed his idea of having dinner in Chinatown- that would be like deciding to have dinner in Times Square at 11:45 pm on December 31st.) I was still holding out for roti, but sadly we never found any, and instead found a Korean chicken sit-down restaurant. They supplied plastic gloves for you to don to consume your fried chicken neatly and this pleased me greatly. Greasy chicken aside, Asia being the favorite spot for a good global pandemic to pop up and all that.

We were now in the final stretch of our Thai adventure and decided that our last real Thai food here should be mango sticky rice for dessert. We had no trouble finding a place that had this common treat and popped inside. It was glorious and we savored every bite. Bellies uncomfortably full we walked the last little bit back to the House of Papa and packed up in preparation for our flight home tomorrow (after showering of course since we had been around such a huge crowd and we know what a germaphobe I am).

I booked a Grab for an insanely early time in the morning and it seems like we had just laid our heads down on our pillows when the alarm was going off. We stumbled out of bed, got dressed, packed our last few belongings, turned the light off, and reluctantly walked down the four flights of stairs. We knew that our trip was over and we were sad to be leaving such a magnificent land filled with some of the friendliest people on the planet; the land of smiles.

A funny aside- when Scott and I first saw the Thai princess from afar, I was sure that it was, in fact, the King of Thailand, just wearing a dress and sensible shoes. Scott disagreed and said no, that was a woman. It turns out he was right. It was the Princess.

↩︎

Back in Bangkok

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After the balcony bath (divine) and a quick nap (also divine) we decided to head to a well known artsy district that Scott had read about since it was early afternoon and we weren’t due at our dinner cruise for several more hours. Google maps thought it would be funny to take us through some of the sketchier parts of Bangkok, but we survived and made it to the Talat Noi neighborhood which was close to Bangkok’s Chinatown.

We stopped at a pharmacy along the way to pick up some cold medicine for Scott. He was starting to feel a cold coming on and because we had pared down our belongings to make one-bag travel easier I didn’t have my usual arsenal of drugs that I typically carry because we had reasoned, somewhat correctly, that we could always go to a pharmacy. In Thailand very few drugs are available over the counter, and instead you consult directly with the pharmacist, telling him or her what ails you, they then write you a prescription and you buy the drugs. He received some sort of cold medicine and we chatted briefly with the husband and wife pharmacist/proprietor duo. They asked us about the US and referenced what a wild and zany time it seemed to be politically in the US. We both acknowledged that yes, it was a real great time to be American, and made a note to perhaps start introducing ourselves as Canadians in the future. They were excited about the Chinese New Year celebration that would be happening tomorrow and gave us suggestions of where to go to experience it: Bangkok’s Chinatown, not that far from where we currently were, and was actually already on our itinerary.

We threaded our way through Talat Noi, dodging all the other tourists, locals, and Instagrammers and saw lots of cool murals and sculptures, elephants in particular featuring heavily as subjects. The streets and buildings were all adorned with red and gold Chinese lanterns in celebration of the upcoming holiday and they added a whimsical and festive feel to our walk.

We then made our way to the Chao Phraya river to the unbelievable monolithic behemoth that is the IconSiam Mall. This is where our river dinner cruise would be leaving from shortly. Since we had some time to kill we went into the IconSiam to check it out. No one does malls like the Asians and this one might top them all. Our first mission was to find the bathroom (harder than you would think) and we wound through the most elaborate food court known to man and past the river (yes, river) that flowed through the interior of the mall and was meant to depict a traditional Thai floating market, before finally correctly deciphering the hieroglyphics that indicated the toilet’s location.

Bathroom mission accomplished, our next task was a visit to the Hermès store. I wanted to show Scott that despite the fact that they are known as a luxury goods store now, they have stayed true to their roots and actually still carry some equestrian goods. It wasn’t all that long ago that you would still see the occasional Hermès saddle. We had to pass muster to enter the store and once we were deemed to be apparently trustworthy enough by their security detail, the doors opened and we went in (reminiscent of the time that we went into the Rolex store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris). Sadly this store only had a few horsey items and I was somehow able to resist the temptation to not drop $260 US on a rubber curry comb ($6 US from Tractor Supply Company if you were curious).

We exited the mall and went to check out the celebration that was happening right outside on its plaza. There was a Chinese New Year concert going on and we grabbed seats and enjoyed (somewhat cluelessly) the song and dance entertainment. We then surmised that we should move over to the Bellagio style fountains that were on the plaza and watched the elaborate choreographed waterworks show.

Finally we made our way over to the melee that was the apparent queue for the river cruise and pushed our way through the mob to the attendants to figure out where we needed to be. It was then a lesson in hurrying up and waiting and poor Scott was wilting. I know he doesn’t feel well when he loses his smile, and the smile had disappeared somewhere inside the IconSiam. We found a curb to sit on while we waited to board. When it was finally time to board the White Orchid, there was a mad dash up the gangplank and onto the boat… an ominous foreshadowing of what the buffet line would look like.

Attendants escorted us to our seats on the upper deck and we both made the mistake of sampling the “chips” that were on the table. They were fish flavored taro chips and were unbelievably offensive to our Western palates and we both ended up spitting them back out.

I had steeled my little germaphobe self for the buffet experience and was armed with our bottle of hand sanitizer to douse my hands with after visiting the buffet and before eating. I gave myself a little pep talk and we walked bravely up to the buffet.

It was an absolute rugby scrum. A bloodthirsty mob swarmed and jostled and fought for morsels and bits of foods on the buffet table that were mostly unidentifiable to Scott and I. I am generally a rule-following and polite person but this demeanor was quickly abandoned. I am not proud of my behavior, but all bets are off at an Asian buffet, and I had to change tactics. I found myself shoving my elbow into the ribcage of a four and a half foot tall Thai granny who was trying her darndest to fight me out of position and into the same chafing dish that I currently had possession over. When I wouldn’t budge she cheerfully moved on to another vat of food, not even a little bothered by the interaction. Me, quite bothered.

Scott and I reconvened at our table, drowned our paws in hand sani, and ate our hard-won dinner while cruising down the Chao Phraya, the night lights of Bangkok’s skyline that impressively illuminated the busy waterway by far what would be the best part of the experience. As we ate we were regaled by a group of glamorous befeathered ladyboy singer-dancers who crooned and sasheed their way up and down the aisles amongst the diners. The emcee informed us that it was a Chinese New Years tradition to sing Happy Birthday to the New Year and thus began a ten minute long ballad of the HBD song in every single language that was represented on the boat that night. Every. Single. Language.

The singing and dancing was not only happening on our deck, but was also happening on each of the two decks below us, and it quickly turned too loud and annoying and poor Scott looked pretty miserable. The boat cruised up the river and under the rather impressive Rama VIII bridge that was a sight to behold at night and from below before turning around and heading back to the IconSiam dock. The amount of boat traffic on the Chao Phraya was astounding- in addition to the usual boat traffic that this waterway hosts at any given hour; ferries, water taxis, commercial boats, longtail boats etc, a congested and steady stream of other dinner cruises marched their way up and down the river bow to stern, like some sort of maniacal carnival carousel ride; the music from each passing boat creating an unintentional and cacophonous discordant dueling banjos situation that would have been funny if Scott was feeling better. We were relieved to finally reach the dock and disembark, both agreeing that of all the boat adventures we had taken together, this was probably the least enjoyable. I needed to get Scott to bed because he was pitiful and he meekly agreed to take a Grab back to the House of Papa rather than the one hour walk, so we took the river taxi across the river to meet our driver and headed home so that Scott could hopefully fight off his bug and I prayed that we hadn’t caught any additional bugs at the buffet… an airplane ride home while battling Bangkok-belly was not something either one of us wanted to experience.

Last few days in Koh Lanta

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Our “vacation from our vacation” in Koh Lanta was much needed and was a way of recharging our batteries before we would head back to the hustle and bustle of Bangkok for the last few days of our trip and we were enjoying the quiet pace and relaxed atmosphere of the island.

Scott was able to get a dive in on Sunday. Since I do not dive I was on my own for the day. After breakfast and a leisurely walk on the beach, I strolled down to the beach shop that was part of our villa’s complex and bought myself an inflatable inner tube and a 6 pack of Chiang beer and spent the majority of the day perched atop a watermelon floatie, drink in hand, getting merrily bobbed along with the gentle waves of the bay. A nap back in the air conditioning was in order, and when I awoke, to relieve the stress of such a demanding day, I popped over for a massage and was treated to a similar experience as our first Thai massage except this time this massage therapist kept her feet on the ground the whole time and never climbed me like a jungle gym. She did however, still inflict the same levels of pain, and I winced and writhed as she assaulted my muscles and contorted my body into pretzel like configurations.

When Scott got back from his dive he gave me a full rundown of his trip:

“My expedition to Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, Thailand’s famed “Red Rock” and “Purple Rock,” was a lesson in expectations. Opting for a speedboat with Lanta Diver was a wise decision; they run a tight ship, and it condensed the 75-mile round trip into a swift, sub-six-hour day. The real challenge, however, came before I even hit the water. Despite my extensive experience—over 170 dives and certified since age 12—securing a guide was surprisingly difficult due to my lack of an Advanced Open Water certification. The site’s reputation for powerful, potentially dangerous currents makes operators cautious. Our guide, Non, was experienced and capable. Ironically, after all the fuss about the currents, they were incredibly mild on the day of our dives. While this made for a relaxed dive, it meant the main attraction—the large sea creatures drawn by the strong flow—were absent. The vibrant coral walls were still a sight to behold, but the legendary manta rays and whale sharks remained elusive, a reminder that nature always has the final say.”

For dinner this evening we decided to wander down the beach a bit and settled on a beach front pizza place. It was a similar get up as our hotel’s beachside restaurant and we ate pizza while sitting at a table on the sand and enjoyed the sight of the water with the night lights of the small beach town casting their glow upon its smooth surface.

Monday was a close repeat of the day before, minus Scott diving. We strolled, floated, swam, napped, and I got a massage. This time I opted for a place that was actually on the beach- it was a simple open-air structure that consisted of a wooden platform under a thatched roof and I lay half naked on the cot just a few meters away from the water (and several strangers) while my muscles were tormented into submission. We had dinner again at our hotel’s beach restaurant and caught the sunset while eating.

Scott again was our logistics whiz and had figured out the best (of the rather limited options) for us to get back to the Krabi airport for our flight to Bangkok on Tuesday. The early morning van ride was a similar reenactment of the trip from Ao Nang to Koh Lanta and involved the ferry again, except this driver was thankfully less psychotic so it was much more civilized and blessedly, no one got carsick. At the Krabi airport we had to pull out every layer we had packed because it was so cold in the terminal. Our flight was uneventful and we landed in Bangkok just after lunchtime.

Scott, ever one to want to experience every adventure that the universe has to offer, had decided that for funsies we should take public transportation to get from the Bangkok airport to The House of Papa, the hotel that would be home for our final few days in Thailand. How fun! What an adventure this would be! We would be making the journey via the Bangkok Transportation Authority bus system. I pouted for a bit because this seemed like an annoying thing to do when Grabs or Bolts were so inexpensive and Scott responded by telling me that I was welcome to do that but that he would be taking a bus.

The bus adventure required a transfer. At the designated stop, we hopped off and waited the 20 minutes for the next bus to arrive. While we were waiting, Scott found a piece of fruit at a street vendor while I hangrily pouted still- I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough for any of the street food vendor’s offerings at this particular alley. The adventure ended with us taking a Grab after all, when the designated bus flew right by us leaving us both confused and choking on its exhaust as we watched its tail lights disappear. Apparently you have to flag a bus down to tell them to stop. This is accomplished by flinging your body in front of the oncoming bus and this is how they know to stop. Worth it to know that for the next time.

We eventually found the House of Papa and I was thrilled to discover that we would indeed be getting the specific room that I had booked… the room whose gimmick was the soaking tub on its fourth story balcony. I wasted no time running a bath and hopped in, only giving a cursory thought to how effective the wooden screens and large potted plant would be at hiding the view. From the tub I could hear the sounds of our busy Bangkok neighborhood below and I steeled myself for the next few days in the big city.

A Vacation From Our Vacation

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In our trip planning we had planned our visit to Koh Lanta to serve as a “vacation from our vacation” and we nailed it. We had been going pretty much non-stop since we arrived ten days earlier and although we had spent a few days on the beach in Ao Nang and Railay, the idea of a sleepy island town where we could walk out our hotel room door onto the warm sand and have the lazy waves of the Indian Ocean lapping at our ankles a few steps later sounded quite appealing at this point.

But first we had to get there.

Scott had proven to be a whiz at sorting out the logistics of getting from point A to point B in Thailand so far, so I gladly let him take the reins again on getting us to the island. I naively thought it would be as simple as summoning a Grab or Bolt and getting picked up and dropped off. The 100 km span between the two somewhat secluded areas meant that this wasn’t going to be a reliable option and we would need a different plan. Over the last few days in Ao Nang he had been investigating various options at travel kiosks and comparing prices and details. He had decided that our best option would be to take a van which would then take us to the ferry onto the island and would drop us off at the hotel. This sounded doable and pleasant¹ so we bought our van tickets and were told that our van would pick us up at 9 the next morning.

We unfortunately didn’t have time for breakfast at Nim’s but I had a backup plan in mind. There was a small food court near our hotel that, amongst other offerings, had a roti stand. Roti is a thin crepe-like pan-fried pancake with Muslim origins that is simultaneously chewy and crisp, and just like crepes, can be made savory or sweet² depending on the toppings. I headed over to get us some while Scott hung at the hotel finishing up packing. I stepped up to the roti stand and told the woman who was dutifully oiling some roti dough with her bare hands on the counter what I would like (one chicken curry roti and one banana and nutella roti please) and without missing a beat she reached out to take my money, made change from her pocket, handed it back to me, and went right back to kneading the dough. I decided to suspend my traditional and stuffy American principles on food handling safety and go with the flow, asked a silent prayer to not get Bangkok-belly from this transaction, and happily accepted our breakfast in carryout containers a few minutes later. And it was delicious. Bonus points, we didn’t get GI upset. When in Thailand, and all that.

Roti eaten, we sat on the front porch of the hotel and waited for the van. It eventually arrived to collect us. We handed our luggage to the driver who stuffed it into the only available space in the very back and climbed inside, taking the two last available seats. Off we went! And then we stopped for more people. We were not sure who’s lap the bearded thawb-clad Imam would be sitting on until the driver deployed a hidden jump seat up front and shoehorned him into it.

This driver did not disappoint and threw the hammer down and raced his cargo as quickly as possible to the next stop which was a surprise to us. We were confused when we reached a little depot of sorts and were asked to get out of the van and go into the office to be sorted and labeled- it turns out this was some sort of transportation hub and all of us would get put onto the correct van to take us to our intended destinations. Our stickers dutifully stuck to our shirts, we were told to be back in 20 minutes to catch the next van. We wandered around for a few minutes, found a pay potty and hung out as instructed.

When the time was up we reconvened and waited for further instruction. We were then shown to another van and verified that our luggage was loaded into it as well. On this van we met another American- a 70 something year old traveller from Chicago. She had retired from O’Hare and was now seeing the world. She had been in Southeast Asia for several months and still had a few weeks to go, wisely not planning to return to the Midwest until the weather was warmer. We shared travel tales and tips and bravely endured the our new driver’s Mario Kart antics as we whipped and weaved through traffic, seemingly oblivious and immune to any traffic rules and laws.

And then it got very hot inside the taxi van. I had noticed earlier that when the a/c was turned on, a few moments later there was an alarming warning beep that the vehicle made and then the driver would turn the a/c off. This went on for a few cycles until he stopped turning the a/c all together. The wild driving hadn’t let up and a few turns later the sole child in the van puked. The Dutch father politely asked the driver to be less insane with his van driving as the family tried to mop the vomit up. Although I felt bad for the kid and the family having to deal with a carsick child on the Thai Taxi version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, I also felt sorry for myself and at this moment could not handle smelling someone’s vomit in this hot enclosed space and I lunged for my bag and frantically searched through it to find a mask. (Scott was smart and had donned his prior to getting inside.)

We somehow arrived alive to the ferry terminal just in the nick of time and the driver drove us onto the vessel which was basically an industrial pontoon boat that belched black smoke from its huge smokestacks. We were thankful to be able to get out of the van and get some fresh air even if it meant inhaling diesel particulates. We chugged across the small strait and soon reached the island of Koh Lanta. We reluctantly loaded ourselves back into the van and off we went. Thankfully our hotel was on the north end of the island and we were the first people to be dropped off. We burst out of the van, grabbed our bags and headed onto the grounds of the Klongdao Sunset Village in search of the reception area.

We received a warm welcome as well as an orchid adorned welcome drink as we checked in and a bellhop came to take our bags and show us to our room, and we were excited to see that our room was just a few steps away from the beach. The hotel’s footprint was compact but contained everything we would need for the next few days- a convenience store with a small grocery and liquor section, beach shop, massage hut, and a full and open-air restaurant and bar. The best part was that the restaurant’s seating was directly on the sand of the beach under some shade trees. I couldn’t wait to check it out and immediately headed there as soon as we had checked out our room and unpacked. Scott was tired and opted to nap so I ate by myself looking out over the tranquil Andaman Sea and admired and befriended the stray dogs that were enjoying the shade and hoping for scraps from diners (I of course obliged).

After my lunch I ventured out onto the beach and picked a direction to walk. I was delighted to see that Koh Lanta was as promised; a super quiet beach town, a welcome respite from the raucous and rowdy Ao Nang; a Thai Edisto Island of sorts, free from the hustle and bustle and garish neon lights, and the shore was lined with villas and hotels just like ours- all low slung and sleepy but each containing their own shoreside restaurants so we would have all sorts of options for dining over the next few days. I waded into the warm water for a bit and was thrilled to discover hermit crabs swimming and scurrying around in the water. I would catch them and watch them for a few moments as they threatened me with their tiny but furious little pincer claw before releasing them back into the water. None of our research had told us that Koh Lanta was the Hermit Crab Kingdom³ but I was here for it!

I wandered back to our hotel room and joined Scott for a little nap. When we were sufficiently rested we decided to stroll into the small town (although “town” is a generous description for what it was) to hit up the ATM and see what sort of shops they had. They had the typical beach shops that you would find at any seaside resort area plus a dive shop, dispensary, and travel agency. We got our cash, checked out some of the stores and then mosied back to our hotel.

By then it was nearly dinner time, so after relaxing for a few minutes in our room (and taking note of the mosquitos that seemed to be pouring into the room from underneath our door) we headed to the hotel’s beachfront restaurant to check out the BBQ and fire show that their advertisement had promised. The BBQ consisted of a small salad bar and your choice of chicken, beef, pork, or fish, and veggies that they then grilled for you. I was an old pro at dining in Thailand at this point and didn’t bat an eye at the flies landing on the various meat choices and cheerfully pointed to what I wanted.

We grabbed seats in the sand just 50 yards from the water’s edge and ordered drinks. It was happy hour so I took advantage and got some fruity concoction, and as always, it came sporting a pretty orchid. What it did not seem to be sporting however, was any sort of liquor. I ordered another in the name of research and was pretty sure that my hypothesis was correct. (No wonder their happy hour prices were so good.) So I turned to the tried and true Chang beer, which hit the spot. Our dinner came out to us just as the sun was setting and we ate as the sun dipped lower and lower until it was out of sight, coloring the sky with some pretty pastels on its way down. With the sun gone for the day, it was time for the fire show. While not as over the top as the one we had witnessed in Ao Nang, it was nonetheless impressive, suitably entertaining, and the pungent and alluring smell of lighter fluid lent a certain, but not unpleasant, je nais c’est quois to our BBQ dinner.

Sufficiently BBQ’d we decided it was time for a walk along the beach. We enjoyed a stroll along the hard packed sand of the water’s edge with the waterfront hotels and restaurants as a backdrop, casting light our way. We made it back to our room, showered, and went to war with the mosquitos, who apparently found our room just as hospitable as we did and who hoped to have us for their very own BBQ dinner.

Now, why I would be as naive as to think that the van company would send a safe and well qualified driver is beyond me. Remember that in Thailand professional drivers are most assuredly not hired on the merits of their stellar driving record and adherence to high safety standards. What are they hired for? That my friends, I am not actually sure of. But I do know that they like to live on the edge and are not afraid to take some chances. They are thrill seekers that are excited to have some captive ~~passengers~~ hostages accompany them on their wild ride. ↩︎
Yes they can. ↩︎
That is a sly play on words making a reference to North Korea often being called the “Hermit Kingdom.” ↩︎

Another Day in Railay

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We had been pretty lucky so far weather wise during our trip but the forecast today looked just questionable enough that instead of booking another island hopping tour we opted to stay local so that if the weather turned dodgy we would be close enough to easily make our way home or to somewhere safe to ride it out rather than being several miles out into the Andaman Sea on a tiny boat. Unfortunately Nim’s restaurant The Happy Porcupine wasn’t open yet when we started our way towards the beach to catch a longtail taxi to Railay so we settled on another place that the only memory I have of it is that it was overpriced. One of the things we had quickly learned during our trip was that we could pay Thai prices or American prices for things and breakfast that morning was definitely American prices.

Scott had wisely brought along ear plugs for the longtail taxi and donned them as soon as we boarded the boat. We shared the longtail with a family of Canadians and made small talk with them and gave them the skinny on Railay, considering ourselves experts now that we had extensively explored the area a few days before. We arrived a few minutes later, the longtail driver beached the boat, threw out the anchors, and we climbed down the sketchy ladder into the water and waded to shore. We made our way through the little village of Railay so that we could get back to the beautiful beach on East Railay and Phra Nang. Along the walk there was an impressively steep trail that went straight up the mountain that Scott had noticed a few days prior. He had researched it and learned that it led to an impressive lookout. I told him that as long as he promised to be careful that I didn’t mind if he hiked up it but I would not be joining. He decided to come back in a bit to explore it.

We were one of the first ones on the beach and we immediately went and claimed the perfect hammock spot as our basecamp. We knew how crowded the beach would become as the day drew on. We set the hammocks up and sat in them for a bit before Scott couldn’t stand it any longer and went off on his scenic overlook climb. I enjoyed the view of the beach and the huge karst in the bay in front of me from my hammock and settled in to read.

A little while later Scott made his way back and excitedly relayed his adventure. According to Scott, the hike started off as “a muddy bouldering exercise” that required scrambling about 200 feet straight up the mountain before it leveled out and he was able to follow the trail about a tenth of a mile through the woods to the overlook. The overlook was worth the effort and offered a spectacular bird’s eye panoramic view of Railay and East Railay. He soaked it up for a bit before carrying on down the trail towards the lagoon. The trail started to descend and he followed it for a bit, using the ropes that had been put in place to help his descent but eventually he decided to turn around and head back up because it became nearly vertical and his Rainbow flip flops were not the ideal footwear of choice for such an endeavor. (I would like to add that I am quite proud of the choices he made as he is not usually one to be deterred by such things, especially when adventure calls…)

We spent the next few hours swimming, lounging and napping in the hammocks, and laying out on the warm sand of the beach and soaking up the sun when we had enough shade. It was turning out to be a beautiful day despite the forecast and Phra Nang is one of the loveliest places on the planet. Mid afternoon we decided we had gotten our beach fix and decided to go in search of lunch. We found a place overlooking the backside of East Railay and sat and watched a steady stream of longtails and speedboats dropping off and picking up tourists. Scott had a coconut smoothie and was excited when this one came in an actual coconut. I had a Chang beer and we split a mediocre pizza. On our way back to the longtail pickup point we were treated to a raucous group of macaques that were chattering and scurrying around on the power lines and roofs above our heads. I could have sat and watched them for hours as they are infinitely entertaining, but alas Scott summoned me to come along.

We caught a longtail back to Ao Nang, this time sharing it with a Russian family (Thailand is a top vacation destination for Russians) and that’s when our weather luck ran out. As soon as we started the several kilometer trek back up to DeLoft the downpour began and we had to trudge up the hill in the rain. We laughed it off and just kept trekking along in the warm tropical rain and eventually it stopped, although we were soaked. We made it back to DeLoft and got showers and relaxed for a few minutes.

Dinner was at Nim’s and we tried her Italian dishes this time. We discovered that they were equally as good as her Thai fare and we got to chat with her briefly, telling her about our catamaran trip the day before. The Happy Porcupine was packed this evening and she was busy being an attentive hostess and she fluttered from table to table checking in on all her customers.

We bid her farewell after dinner and wished her well in her restaurant endeavor, and walked back to nearby DeLoft. We began packing up as this was our last night in Ao Nang. Tomorrow we would be embarking on a transportational adventure that involved buses and ferries so that we could reach our next stop, Koh Lanta; close on the map, but in reality not quite that easy to access. Ao Nang and Railay had been fun but we were ready for the little vacation from our vacation that was waiting for us in Koh Lanta.

Sailing The Andaman Sea

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Scott and I had an all day catamaran cruise planned for today and couldn’t wait to see the famous and iconic Phi Phi Islands that we would be sailing around. The company we chose was called Meka Catamaran. They would be providing lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner, a live DJ, and provided all the equipment/toys/gear for entertaining us at the various stops. The highlight of the trip would be a stop at Koh Phi Phi Ley, where the 2000 movie The Beach was filmed. The company offered pickup and drop off service which was nice and would be picking us up this morning to take us to the boat.

The pickup time was later in the morning so we decided to check out a nearby restaurant just a few doors down from DeLoft Hotel. The place that was calling our name that morning was called The Happy Porcupine. It was a small restaurant with open air seating and it was their slogan handwritten on the sandwich board outside that piqued our interest: “Only happy people!” Little did we know what a lovely meal and experience we were about to be treated to.

After receiving our coffee from our attentive server, the owner came out to check on us and introduce herself. Her name was Nim, and she treated us to her fascinating story. She was one of those people that you feel like you’ve known a lifetime the moment you meet her. The Happy Porcupine was a life’s dream realized for her and you could tell how passionate she was about her endeavor and sharing good food with visitors as well as regulars. Our meal, (Thai style omelettes) in addition to the company, was lovely. We had to peel ourselves away eventually so that we could go rendezvous with our excursion driver.

The red truck taxi-esque vehicle finally showed up to pick us up, after being delayed just long enough to cause me anxiety that we had somehow been forgotten. We piled into the back of the truck and snagged the last two remaining seats on the wooden benches in the truck bed. It was about a 20 minute ride to the Ao Nam Mao Pier and thankfully, this was one of the less wild taxi rides we had taken yet, and our motley crew of travellers from around the world¹ arrived all in one piece, ready for a day on the luxury catamaran.

After some confusion about having to pay the National Park fees (we thought our tickets from the previous day when we had visited the caves were good for this park entry fee as well, but it turns out they were not) we were set and headed to the pier to get loaded onto a longtail boat to be tendered to the catamaran. Along the way we were chatting with the only other American couple on the tour who ended up being from Charleston, SC of all places!

The catamaran was just as luxurious as the promotional materials had promised and we were escorted to our assigned seats that were perfect for lounging and soaking up the sun (or shade if you got too hot) and given a welcome drink. The cushions and pillows and color scheme added a level of poshness and made for lovely photos… especially with the dramatic limestone karsts of the Andaman Sea in the background. We settled in before going to check out the rest of the boat. It had an upstairs that was similar to our deck and the front lounging area had several types of comfy seating in addition to its “trampolines,” and even had bean bags that could be taken onto them.

There were several stops planned for the day, and at most we would be able to get out and play in the water or take some sort of craft (stand-up paddleboard, clear kayak, rubber ducky inflatable, etc) to get to the island. The first stop was quite a long haul from the Pier so we sat back and relaxed and soaked up the Indian Ocean sun. Scott even dozed for a bit in our comfy booth. Eventually we arrived, to join what seemed to be the entire rest of the tourists visiting Thailand that day, at Viking Cave. Words do not do justice to the amount of boat traffic that was milling about in this area. The din of longtail boats was louder than at Ao Nang beach; an impressive feat. This was just a drive-by and photo-op stop, and we would not be getting out here. We hung out long enough to admire the towering karsts, take some pictures of the cave entrance, and marvel at the sheer volume of traffic floating and buzzing around us, before heading on to Maya Bay.

Lunch was served and we both enjoyed the offerings, and soon after we were at Koh Phi Phi Leh, home to Maya Bay. The catamaran dropped its anchor in the deep water and we were allowed to swim, snorkel, or paddle around. The limestone karsts rose up around us like highrise buildings which was impressive. The iconic half of Maya Bay was roped off to prevent traffic (boat and human) from getting too close to the beach, as its popularity due to the movie The Beach, had caused over tourism and the health of the reefs, water, fish, and entire bay had suffered. A revitalization project had been started in 2018 which actually closed off the area entirely to tourists while the area could be nursed back to health, and it was eventually reopened in 2022 with much stricter rules and regulations about its access in place.²

Even though we weren’t able to splash around in the same area that the movie was filmed, we were still able to appreciate its beauty from afar. We both attempted stand up paddleboards (this was my first time!) and took them to an accessible cove and beach nearby. I mostly paddled it on my knees, but with a little assistance from Scott was able to successfully stand up and paddled almost all the way back to the boat before my legs got too shaky to remain stable and I went splashing face first into the water. This is so much harder than I had imagined and I am in awe of the people that paddle them down whitewater! We spent the rest of the time floating around on huge rubber duckys before heading back in. (We appreciated the fresh water shower that was on the back of the catamaran and took advantage of it each time we reboarded the boat.)

When everyone was back on board the crew lifted the anchor and the catamaran set sail to our next destination- Monkey Bay (Phi Phi Nui Bay). As the name foretold, there would be monkeys and we were excited to see them. The crew warned us of sea urchins in this bay and instructed us not to wade in the water to avoid stepping on them. Scott and I jumped in the water and swam the 150 meters to the beach. When we arrived at the beach we were greeted by a troupe of aggressive macaques that were busy shaking down tourists for food and drink. There was one poorly behaved tourist that was taunting some of the monkeys with a bag of chips and he was acting big and brave until a large male macaque ran up to him and bared his teeth, exposing his terrifying and fanglike canine teeth, and demanded the chips. The tourist shrieked and dropped the bag and the monkey grabbed it and took off with it into the woods line, eventually settling on top of a boulder to eat them. The other monkeys continued to shake down other tourists despite a multitude of signs warning not to feed the monkeys. The image of monkeys squatting on rocks and holding beer bottles and cans in their hands and tipping them up to drink from them will forever be seared into my memory. (One poor monkey had snagged himself an unopened bottle and diligently kept tipping it bottom up hoping for beer and each time having no luck… I wonder if he is still there trying… it was both hilarious and sad.) Scott and I quickly figured out that all the trash in the forest was not necessarily due to tourists but from the monkeys themselves after they’d stolen food and would take it away to eat. We decided that we should swim back and get our camera so we could document the monkey mayhem.

We got our phones and then got into one of the clear kayaks to paddle back to the island to get pictures of the monkeys. This time when we reached the island there was a park ranger with a slingshot in his hand to help ward off the macaques. His presence had caused the monkeys to retreat up into the jungle- obviously they knew what the slingshot meant. Unfortunately we didn’t get any good pictures. We waited for a bit to see if they would venture back down but eventually had to paddle back since our boat was soon departing.

They served us an afternoon tea as we sailed on to Chicken Island, passing Bamboo Island on the way. They timed it so that we would be able to watch the sunset near Chicken Island. Their timing was perfect and we were treated to one of the best sunsets of our trip as the sun slipped dramatically down the horizon right over top of the Phi Phi Islands and cast a soft orange glow over the karsts and eventually seemed to lower itself gently into the Andaman Sea.

Once the sun had disappeared it was time for dinner and the DJ went to town spinning tunes for people to dance to. With full bellies we sat back and enjoyed the sail back to the pier. The longtail boats were waiting to transport us back to land, and the truck taxi was waiting to take us back to the hotel. By the time we got back to DeLoft Hotel we were exhausted but aglow with a fun day filled with adventure and incredible sights.

Postscript: We had originally considered doing a speedboat tour of the Phi Phi Islands and we are so thankful that we chose the catamaran, even though it was a bit more expensive. It was well worth it to have the amenities that the catamaran provided as the speedboat appeared to be much rougher and have zero creature comforts and more closely resembled a bus than a cruise. We paid $80/each plus a few drinks and this included the National Park entrance fee.

On our shuttle alone the following countries were represented: Australia, India, France, and the US. Scott discovered he had ties to one of the Indian women- he noticed a bag that she was carrying with an Accenture logo on it. Scott used to work there in the early 2000’s and this woman currently worked there, also in IT. ↩︎
Sites around the world have been dealing with similar issues as global travel becomes more accessible. The environment often bears the brunt of the over tourism and local governments are faced with the task of balancing tourism and ecological responsibility. Thailand in particular has struggled with this as it is a top destination to visit and attracts record numbers of tourists. ↩︎

Ao Nang

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today we were headed south to Ao Nang! This meant an early morning flight and an early wakeup. We packed up and checked out of our hotel before sunrise and walked a short distance to the nearest 7-11 to get one of their famous “toasties” for breakfast which is basically a pre-packaged grilled cheese panini. Our Grab picked us up from the 7-11 and we munched on the toasties and drank coffee as we were driven the short distance to the airport.

We had a connection at the smaller airport in Bangkok (the one we had flown out of to come to Chiang Mai) and strangely, even though we were on the same carrier for our flight from Bangkok to Krabi airport, we had to leave the secure area, and go back through security to get to our gate. Luckily the connection time wasn’t super tight so we were fine but it was a bit perplexing and took us a few minutes to figure out what we had to do since it was a rather atypical experience on a domestic flight.

When we arrived in Krabi, we were positively swarmed by aggressive cab drivers and transfer services standing in the arrivals lobby and we had to thread and shoulder our way through them. We had summoned a Grab and he was waiting for us. We put our bags into his car and then were treated to the ride of our lives. He was a risky chance taker and had some arbitrary and only known to him, time to beat for the drive to Ao Nang. It was hair-raising and wild. He was not one to wait in a line of traffic and would routinely just bypass a line of cars patiently waiting their turns to make a turn by just simply going around them, making his own lane and choosing his own adventure. I finally had to stop watching and just start reading on my phone because it was too nerve wracking to witness, so I chose the “ignorance is bliss” method instead.

Despite all odds, we somehow arrived alive and were dropped off across the street from the DeLoft hotel where we then had to play Frogger, and bobbed and weaved across the four lanes of traffic without dying. We survived this as well and then were able to check in. The room was spartan but functional. By this point in the trip I had come to the realization that all beds in Thailand were very hard and had reluctantly accepted this fact, and this bed was no exception. We stuck our hammocks in our daypacks and headed out in search of Ao Nang beach which was just 1.5 km away.

We could hear the beach before we could see, or rather, we could hear the infamous longtail boats whose repurposed automotive engine motors created an obnoxious din as the boats taxied tourists from one island to another. We hung the hammocks in trees near where the beachfront met the road that led to the resorts and we each took turns¹ taking a dip in the Andaman Sea.

The beach was absolutely packed which made for interesting people watching and the longtail boat traffic was wild. There was a steady stream of them constantly coming and going, and while we had learned from YouTube travel videos that they were prolific in their numbers and in their racket, we didn’t get a true sense of it until we saw it in person. They would pull up onto the beach and throw their anchors at the water’s edge, deposit some passengers who then waded to shore, wait a few minutes, then load their next haul of passengers and take off across the horizon to some other place- most likely Railay Beach which was close by.

We hung out on the beach and in our hammocks long enough to catch the sunset over the bay and then decided to go in search of some dinner. Scott had read about a food market near the beach so we went in search of it. As we walked through the beachtown of Ao Nang we quickly sensed that we were in the Thai equivalent of Myrtle Beach, just with better scenery, with the iconic limestone karsts as a charmingly redeeming backdrop and antidote to the seediness of the town. I might have been hangry by this point so it felt like we walked for miles, but we finally found the food market and picked a stall to order from. The food was good and refueled us for the walk back up the hill to our hotel.

The next morning we got up early so that we could be on one of the first waves of longtail boats transporting travelers to Railay Beach, a nearby peninsula that is only reachable by boat. (If you see Scott in person, ask him to say “Railay.” It has become his favorite word; “Ao Nang” is a close second, and he now says “Ao Nanggggg” when “Aw, dang!” would be an appropriate response.) Taking an early boat turned out to be a good idea² because it was less crowded when we arrived about 10 minutes later in Railay. The towering karsts were impressive to finally see up close and gave the impression of kudzu covered highrise buildings jutting straight out of the ocean and looming large overhead. We knew to head through the center of the little village of Railay to get to the other side for the famous Phra Nang beach that was home to a rather, um, titillating point of interest, the Phra Nang Cave, that has somehow come to be a shrine to fertility, and um, has a lot of, uhh… You know what? Just click on the link I included, just not from a work computer.

On our walk to Phra Nang, we encountered one of the many caves on the island that are part of the National Parks system. Thankfully the employee had on a National Parks polo shirt because otherwise we would have declined paying to go inside it, thinking that paying some guy admission to this place was a “common scam in Thailand.” He was legit, as was the cave, but the boardwalk that wandered through the cave system was not. It was a hot mess with missing boards and a patchwork of materials, all bonafide and significant tripping hazards. The cave itself was interesting and had a loud and noisy bat colony that lived inside it.

When we had seen the extent of what the cave had to offer, we worked our way back out and headed towards Phra Nang beach. We somehow took an alternate route that took us along a precarious sidewalk and through a trash dump before abruptly ending at the edge of a retaining wall with a 10 foot drop to the path below. Scott had already hopped down the drop while I was still complaining about it and running through a cost-benefit/danger analysis of it, and he told me to quit whining and just do it. I made him help me down, somewhat inelegantly, but I did it.

This path split and we Scott decided we should take it to the end before heading back to the beach. Along the way, we figured out that this end of the island had all the restaurants, hostels, souvenir shops, and eventually resorts. When we reached the terminus of the pathway, Scott ventured up the hill to see what lay up there (a resort), and I plopped down on a resort lounge chair for a rest. We were hot and sweaty by this point and decided to actually go find the beach now.

We retraced our steps and eventually reached an intersection near a floating dock and another spot where longtail boats and some other larger boats were dropping passengers off. We saw several areas where rock climbing lessons were taking place and while watching that, had our first monitor lizard and monkey spotting! The macaque monkeys would jump out of trees and land with a huge “thud” on the rooftop of the bathroom, before scrambling into the overhanging trees and climbing up the mountain. (Being inside the bathroom building while they were doing this was rather interesting and quite loud!)

By the time we finally reached Phra Nang Cave and beach, it was pretty crowded. Luckily there was not as much boat traffic on this side of the peninsula so it was much quieter. We took a brief peak into the cave to see all of the, um, unique offerings that had been left in it, took the requisite pictures, and then ventured off in search of a good place to hang our hammocks along the beach. We had to take turns swimming again since this beach was a prime spot to have your stuff stolen. The water was a clear turquoise and was stunning. There was a sandbar that you could wade waist deep along that led you to one of the huge karsts that had its own sandy beach. We spent several hours enjoying the beach, thoroughly soaking in both the sun and the surreal scenery, before deciding to eat a bite for lunch overlooking the bay, and then catch a longtail boat back to Ao Nang.

Along the pathway as we were heading back from lunch, we encountered an entire rowdy troop of macaques. I was thrilled to see them and even more thrilled to witness the moment that one of the rowdiest of the bunch plucked just-purchased food right off the plate of an unsuspecting tourist while baring his teeth at her, daring her to fight him off. The signs that were posted all over the island warning of aggressive monkeys were not put there just because. They were indeed aggressive. It was entertaining (and slightly unsettling) to watch them climb and swing on the electric utility wires above our heads. We saw one monkey that was perched atop a fence gnawing on part of a chicken carcass be chased by a mother monkey, her infant clinging tightly to her chest as the chase ensued. I could have sat there for hours and watched them but Scott summoned me and we headed through the shops of Railay (bustling and alive now that it was later in the day) and to the water’s edge for our water taxi.

We headed back to our hotel for a shower before venturing back into town for dinner at a spot near the beach. (We walked so much this day- it was our record for most steps taken during the whole trip at almost 25,000!) On our way to the restaurant we booked a catamaran trip for the next day at a kiosk in town. We then enjoyed a sit-down dinner and after, picked up some cold Chang beers³ to sip while sitting on the beach while we were waiting for the fire show that was hosted by a local beach club to start. While waiting we actually saw that another fire show was happening further down the beach so we strolled down to watch and were suitably impressed. When that one finished we headed back up the beach and we got front row seats on the lawn and were thankful that we had, because what a show it was! These guys were unbelievable and took their fire show to the next level compared to the warmup act that we had watched a few minutes before. I even got to hold one of the props while one of the performers held the other end of the spinning ring of fire. When it ended we made the 1.5 km trek back uphill to our hotel, exhausted from all the walking but also from all the fun that we’d had exploring Ao Nang and Railay.

In our research prior to our trip we had read about how common theft on crowded beaches is so we almost always took turns swimming when in areas that we thought might be questionable. ↩︎
One of the many helpful pieces of advice we had learned during our research leading up to our trip. We love YouTube travel channels for picking up information like this. ↩︎
And quickly discovered that they required a bottle opener. One of my party tricks is being able to use the edge of a picnic table, fence post, (even a car door- ask and I’ll show you sometime!) or similar surface to pop the caps off but these would not budge. I had to go in search of a bottle opener at a local bar and then made a mental note to pick up a bottle opener the next time we were at a souvenir shop. What a rookie move Janna! Forgetting to bring a bottle opener, geez! ↩︎

A few days in Chiang Mai

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The elephant interaction was only a half day activity so we still had plenty of time to explore Chiang Mai the rest of the day. On our itinerary was a list of wats and a street market to check out. We headed off on a mission to see everything on our list.

As I have said a few times already, by this point in our trip, we were pretty much watted out. Again, no offense to any Buddhists out there, but they all start to blend together unless they have some particularly interesting distinguishing feature so I will just focus on the ones that stood out to us.

Wat Chiang Man: This one might have been my favorite because it was quite old (built around 1297), and it had large stone elephants that gave the appearance of them seeming to emerge from the building. This one also had bright white and rather elaborate dragons with elephantine trunks guarding the bridge to a smaller nearby wat.

Just like the rest of the wats, they all seemed to be built on a complex so there would be lots of other out-buildings and other lesser wats. At one point I had remarked to Scott that it was amazing how many of these buildings there were on the grounds and he replied “Where else are you going to put all the monks? They’re not going to live in the temple. You have to put them in a monkhouse.” The idea of a monkhouse bunkhouse made me laugh.

Wat Phra Singh: This one was interesting because the main wat was all gold, including the elephant statues that were similar to the ones at Wat Chiang Man. Also, there was a cat chilling at the base of the wat, so of course, that made me happy.

Funny story: Most of the temples had gongs outside of the many buildings and most of them had signs indicating that you should not bang on the gong which went largely ignored. Inevitably at each wat there would be some tourist gonging on a gong. Chiang Mai is also a jumping off point for many hippie boho travellers as they work there way around Southeast Asia and there were plenty of dreadlocked, barefooted, grungy 20-somethings to be found walking around in a cloud of body odor, patchouli, and marijuana smoke, loaded down with giant backpacker’s packs on their backs. In other words, they looked and smelled like raft guides. At one point I quipped to Scott that everytime a gong gongs in Thailand, a raft guide is born.

Wat Chedi Luang: This one might be my favorite because it had an asymmetry that gave it character- the top of the tall structure was missing, lost to an earthquake in 1545. It also had stone elephants around the temple. It was impressive because of its height and the grounds were decorated with elaborate colorful fabric lanterns.

We came across a popular and crowded street market as we were working our way from wat to wat, and we strolled through it and found a few snacks. Most notable was the coconut ice cream that was pleasingly served in a coconut half-shell, and little individual serving size lasagnes. I also found a cute little faux leather elephant keychain and some pajama pants, and shockingly, Scott found a fun button-down shirt with a palm tree print. (He very seldom buys clothes and certainly not on a whim!)

The market was fun until it wasn’t, and then it suddenly felt like we were trapped in an impossible labyrinth of pushy people and never ending market- in fact, at one point, I turned to Scott and said that I was pretty sure that the road to hell is lined with Asian street markets. It just stretched on for blocks and there was no order to the flow of foot traffic and no concept of personal space. Finally we somehow successfully completed the maze that seemed to be the street market and emerged from it triumphantly and then hightailed it home for the evening.

The next day’s adventure was a trip up the mountain to Doi Suthep. After a non-Thai breakfast that cost considerably non-Thai prices, we were ready to head that way. We assumed that summoning a Grab or Bolt would be an easy and straightforward way of reaching the popular and famous wat that sat atop this mountain since it was less than 20 km from Chiang Mai. This very much turned out to not be the case, and we ran into our first “common scams in Thailand” that we had learned about prior to our trip. The driver from the app would accept the trip but would then message to say they needed more money because it was so far out of the city. We got as far with one as to be sitting in his car as he was trying to negotiate for more fare. This went on for a bit with several drivers before I had a minor little freakout and demanded we use the “red truck taxis” that were abundant in the area because I like not being a victim of extortion and/or kidnapping. (To which Scott said I have “no sense of adventure.”) We had been hustled several times earlier in the morning by red truck taxi drivers who were trying to solicit business. In fact, Scott had haggled with one earlier but felt like he could get a better price with Grab or Bolt which is why we tried to go that route.

We made our way back to a street corner where many of the red truck taxis were gathered to see what sort of price we could secure for a trip up and back, and had the good fortune of timing our arrival to the taxi rank with a family of three from South Korea that was also haggling out the details of a trip to Doi Suthep. The red truck taxis can fit about eight people and the cost per person is lower the more people are inside it, so we asked the family if they wanted us to join them. They were happy to have us and we quickly made friends during the ride.

The wife/mother was a teacher in South Korea and spoke good enough English that we were able to communicate. We each inquired about the other’s time in Thailand thus far and found out about their occupations (she was an elementary school teacher and had the same elementary school teacher vibes of every American teacher- we quickly discovered that this energy is universal and has no ties or allegiance to any one particular country). We shared information about what part of our respective countries we were from, as well as the weather back home (they were also escaping the cold). She told us that her family’s favorite part of their Thai vacation so far was the cheap massages and they each had gotten one a day during their trip. Scott and I got a kick out of this authentic interaction and the family seemed to as well; in fact, we took selfies along the route with them and had our taxi driver take a group picture of us when we reached Doi Suthep.

Part of the deal that we had reached with our red truck taxi driver was that she would wait for one hour once she dropped us off so we could explore the wat atop Doi Suthep and would then take us back into Chiang Mai. We took a picture of her license plate and made sure we knew where to find her in an hour and set off to climb the famous steps of the temple.

We saw a somewhat homemade looking sign to Doi Suthep and followed the path it was indicating, but we noticed that there weren’t many (and eventually, any) other people on it. For a moment we thought that we might be falling victim to another “common scam in Thailand” where an enterprising con artist has their own entrance to a temple or other point of interest and charges admission, when it turns out that there is actually no admission charge. But we carried on because Scott spied some derelict and somewhat looking abandoned steps in the distance that appeared to go to the temple. We survived the stairs, huffing and puffing our way up the steep ascent, and then all of a sudden we were inside a monastery and saw that we were at a side entrance to the temple. The monk who we surprised did a double take and then gave us a smile and a thumbs up; evidently he approved of our backroads sneak route to the temple.

We went and found the actual ticket booth, bought admission for two and went in to explore Doi Suthep. It was pretty watty. And looked like most of the other wats. There were some Buddhas and lots of gold. Its gimmick just happened to be that it was on top of a mountain. So we went to find the observation deck that we hoped would give us a great view of Chiang Mai down below. And… it was too smoggy to see anything. The city of Chiang Mai was obscured by a thick cloudy haze. So we had to guess what it would have looked like had there not been air pollution. There is a chance that we were seeing the effects of the “burning season” when farmers in the northern part of Thailand burn their fields to prepare the land for the planting of the next crops.

Disappointed by the inability to see anything exciting, we wandered off to see what else lay on the temple grounds. Not seeing anything particularly captivating other than some stray temple dogs, we decided to start our descent, this time opting for the 306 stairs of the Naga Staircase. At the base there was the typical Thai collection of souvenir shops and snack stalls and we each got a coconut smoothie for the return trip. We soon found our South Korean friends and the correct taxi and headed back into Chiang Mai.

After our new friends were dropped off, Scott and I asked to be taken to the nearby Wat Sri Suphan, or the Silver Temple. We paid our admission, read the placards at the entrance, and then went in. I couldn’t tell you what the inside of the Silver Temple looks like because “SILVER BUILDING ONLY MAN INSIDE WOMAN WALK AROUND AND SEE PICTURE ON MOBILE. ONLY MAN BECAUSE MAN IN THAILAND BECOMES MONK. WOMAN DON’T BECOMES MONK ITS FORBIDDEN. THINK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION AND RESPECTATION.” I didn’t bother looking it up on my mobile and sat outside and took pictures of Scott who was cheekily posing with the “Only Men Inside” signs. (His report: “It looked like all the other wats. There was a buddha and pssst… it wasn’t even silver, it was gold.”)¹ We did happen to see a woman trying to go inside the forbidden temple and an apoplectic employee quickly intercept her as he chastened her and explained to her the error of her ways.

We headed back to our hotel. I decided a nap was in order and Scott decided that he wanted to explore more of Chiang Mai. He wandered northeast where we hadn’t ventured yet and first ended up in an area with several clothing stores. He decided to see if any of them carried the “Made in Thailand” Woolly brand merino wool shirts (Amazon) that he wears and specifically picked for travel due to their quick drying properties and their ability to repel odor. No luck. So he continued along and found an art gallery, the local Muay Thai boxing arena, popped into a McDonald’s to see how their prices compared to back home, saw the night bazaar being set up, and then got a lime smoothie. He reported that the lime smoothie made for a rather “puckering experience.” I eventually texted him inquiring as to his whereabouts and he started heading back to Fang Chiang Mai, walking along the canal.

We had decided to try out Tikky Cafe for dinner, based on the recommendation from American travellers that we had met on our first night in Chiang Mai. We chose to walk the 3.5 km there to see more of the city. Along the way we passed a “Women’s Massage Center by Ex-Prisoners” and were perplexed as to what the heck that meant. Massages only for women? Or by women? Women “ex-prisoners” I suppose? So many questions. (Ahh, a quick Google search reveals that it is staffed by women who were formerly incarcerated and received vocational Thai massage training in prison.) We reached the restaurant and sat outside to wait for a table because it was quite crowded (always a good sign).

Dinner was superb. The food was excellent- I had green curry and the rice that came with it was shaped into the form of a teddy bear. It was so cute that I didn’t want to scoop into it to eat it. Scott had pineapple fried rice with cashews, and it came served in an actual pineapple that was cut in half. For dessert we had mango sticky rice for the first time and were immediately hooked. It is a common Southeast Asian dessert and we realized why it is so popular the moment we had our first taste. Too stuffed and exhausted to walk home, we opted for a cab and headed back to Fang Chiang Mai.

Funny story that we will refer to as The Thai Sock Incident: The first day that we had arrived in Chiang Mai, I had sent my laundry out to be done, orchestrated through the hotel front desk. I had asked Scott if he wanted any of his clothes washed and he had reluctantly contributed a pair of shorts and a pair of Darn Tough merino wool socks (Amazon). His reluctance is an important detail here, as is the brand of socks; they cost about $20/pair. Another pertinent detail is that he had strategically only brought two pairs of socks on the trip. So, the laundry came back the next day, all nice and neatly folded. Except that Scott’s socks were missing. He became quite distressed and we went through it all to see if they had somehow gotten folded up with the other clothes. Nope. Scott immediately wanted an APB put out on the socks stat. This was not ok. I messaged the hotel manager to see if he would inquire with the laundry service and have them hunt them down. Somehow Scott was able to fall asleep that night, but he was NOT OK. The next morning as we were headed out on our adventure he went to touch base with the manager to get a sock location progress report. He even showed them a picture much like you would show someone a picture of your dog had it gone missing. The manager said that the laundry service looked but couldn’t find them. Unacceptable Scott said. Tell them to look again. Fast forward to a stressful day. Scott inquires again, and is told that they found one of the socks. Still unacceptable. What on earth is he supposed to do with just one sock? These are $20 socks he tells the manager. The manager scoffs at this and says “how can a pair of socks cost $20?” Scott pulls up an internet link as supporting evidence. Tell them to look harder. Fast forward to that evening. As we are walking down an alley on our way home to the hotel, Scott sees some laundry drying on a clothes line and begins rifling through it, desperately trying to find his socks. I have to tell him to knock it off and get his hands off other people’s laundry. We walk into the hotel, and the front desk worker leaps up as soon as we enter the lobby, triumphantly holding up both socks in their hand. Scott runs to the socks, scoops them up into his arms, cradling them lovingly to his chest and murmuring to them about how much he missed them and that he’ll never let them out of his sight again. Thus bringing a happy ending to the Thai Sock Incident. The next two times I had laundry done I didn’t even bother asking him if he wanted any of his done.

When I was looking up the link to include for Wat Sri Suphan, I did learn something interesting. One of the temples on the grounds was used as a field hospital by Japan in WW2. ↩︎

Elephant Jungle Sanctuary

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today was Elephant Jungle Sanctuary day! A minibus from the sanctuary picked us up bright and early from our hotel and we piled into it, introducing ourselves as we climbed over people and made our way to the empty seats in the back. There were people from several different countries¹ already on the bus and we were all headed about an hour and a half southwest of Chiang Mai to the sanctuary. The bus stopped about halfway along the route for everyone to have a 7-11 and toilet break before continuing on.

When we finally arrived at the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary facility in Mae Wang, we were instructed to make our way to the pavilion and to put on “traditional Karen wear.” Karen wear turned out to be colorful woven tunics named after the Karen tribes of the area, and they would protect us from getting muddy² while we first fed and interacted with the elephants. We donned the tunics and then admired the herd of elephants from afar before sitting down to receive our briefing. We were given a brief informative session about Asian elephants- diet, habitat, anatomy, how they differ from African elephants, gestation, life expectancy, etc., that I of course ate up and did some follow up reading on later. The next part of the briefing focused on how to stay safe in our interactions with them. Finally it was time to make our way into their grassy pasture to feed and meet them!

Scott and I, along with some other participants, helped carry the tubs of fruit and vegetables down to the elephant shed where the herd was anxiously waiting to be fed. The elephants were standing somewhat patiently on their side of the post railing and we were allowed to hand feed them pieces of watermelon and squash. Some of them took it with their “finger” at the end of their trunk, while others would wrap their entire trunk around the slice to take it. They definitely had individual preferences.

All of the elephants at this sanctuary were all female and were rescues of some sort or another, rescued from riding camps, logging, or circuses. There was a baby elephant³, although at three years old, she was still quite a bit larger than a draft horse, and she was quite cheeky and full of sass, still learning how to interact politely and appropriately with her herd mates as well as humans. One of the elephants was pregnant and evidently she came to the sanctuary already pregnant⁴; in the world of elephant sanctuaries, allowing their herd to breed is frowned upon. One of the elephants seemed to be more anxious and high strung than the others and exhibited a stress behavior that I would have considered “weaving” if she was a horse, and it turns out that that’s exactly what she was doing.

When the food was all gone it was time for the elephants to wander back into their grassy pasture and graze on piles of plant stalks. They expertly picked up the stalks with their dextrous trunks and moved the plants to their mouth where they would spend time carefully chewing before reaching to grab the next.

We were then allowed to interact with the elephants and pet their shoulders as they ate. It was mesmerizing to be up next to them and to feel their thick skin and course and prickly guard hairs that cover their body. They went about their business of eating as we took turns petting them and posing for pictures with them, seemingly nonplussed by our existence. There were four adults and the baby, and with our small group size it was easy to take turns interacting with them.

The elephant that had been weaving while we were feeding her earlier didn’t seem as settled as the others and seemed more apprehensive of people. Each elephant had an assigned “mahout,” or caretaker, and I noticed that her mahout was on higher alert than any of the others. I was petting her and something about her body language subtly told me that she was displeased and I should back off, because unlike a horse that can be corrected, there would be no correcting a 5,000-8,000 lb Asian elephant if she decided she was irritated. I gave her a wide berth the rest of the day.

Scott happened to be near the baby elephant when she decided she was thirsty. He was able to get a video of her going over to the running water that was coming out of an irrigation pipe, take long draws of it through her trunk and then transfer it to her mouth to swallow.

The leaders then told us to head back up to the pavilion so that we could do the next activity. We then gathered round a table and were shown how to make vitamin and mineral enriched elephant treats to supplement their diet. We took turns mashing up the pellets, tamarind beans, and bananas with a huge wooden mortar and pestle, balling up the resulting mash, and then wrapping the mash balls with banana peels. We were then sent to change into our bathing suits.

The next interactive phase was a trip down into the river with the elephants, but first they lined up at the railing in their shed to devour the treat balls we had prepared for them. The baby had decided she was tired and needed a nap and had laid down along the railing. While down, her little trunk sneakily snaked its way into a bag of feed that the mahouts had brought down. They gave her a gentle correction and she decided her nap was over.

As soon as the treat balls were gone the elephants marched down to the river with the mahouts and with us trailing along. We were given bowls to splash the elephants and were told to be careful if they laid down in the river, not to get entangled with their legs, or else we would get squished when they went to stand up. Some got into the river and immediately dropped down to wet their bodies and others stayed standing. Water was flying everywhere as the group went about the business of dousing the elephants. When they were thoroughly wet, a group picture and water fight (with just humans) ensued as the mahouts guided the herd out of the river and up to the giant mud puddle for their mud bath.

The purpose of the mud bath was to act as a sun and bug protectant. Only about half of the group participated in this phase as it required wading barefoot into ankle deep squishy mud, taking handfuls of the mud and painting it by hand onto the elephants’ hides. (I had made sure that we didn’t have any open wounds on our legs or arms before agreeing to do it because there is no telling what sort of parasites or organisms might have been lurking in the quagmire.) The mahouts fed the elephants watermelon while we did the mud bath phase to help keep them quiet and still. When they were all thoroughly coated in a layer of mud they nimbly climbed up the embankment to exit the puddle and it was amazing how elegant and light on their feet they were; nothing about their gait or movement was clumsy or labored and was remarkably, actually quite the opposite.

We were sent back up the hill to the pavilion for a (clothed) group shower and to change back into our street clothes, and the mahouts and the elephants headed back into their pasture area to graze, browse, and forage among the bushes, trees, and shrubs. Elephants require 10% of their body weight a day in food, which is significantly higher than other large herbivores that only require 1-2%. I started thinking about the amount of land that it would take to sustain a herd of elephants and quickly had my mind blown.

The last phase of the experience was lunch and we were treated to a spread of traditional Thai dishes- massaman curry being one of them, that Scott actually liked. (He typically doesn’t like any sort of curries but during our time in Thailand he started to come around to them.) We sat around and talked to some of the other participants and I made friends with the sanctuary’s resident cat who helpfully cleaned my plate for me when I had finished. After lunch we were escorted back into our minibus, although this time with a different driver. Our driver was out to give us an authentic experience and drove like any good professional Thai driver worth his salt would- with aggressive use of the horn, taking wild chances to pass in curves and double yellows, and tailgating anyone in front of him who dared to be attempting to share the road with us. Thankfully I had packed some Tums⁵ and munched on them furiously and continuously throughout the whole ride back to our hotel.

Author’s note: I had to pick my battles here. Through my research prior to our trip, I had learned that truly ethical elephant sanctuaries are touch free and do not let participants touch the elephants, only watch them from a comfortable distance. This means no feeding, no bathing, etc. While there has now been a movement to end elephant riding in Thailand, it is still technically legal, and many unsavory companies still offer it. However, there are many other ways that elephants are exploited for the entertainment of humans: logging, circuses, and even the activities that we did with them such as the feeding, and bathing. Elephants don’t need us to bathe and mudbathe them, and in fact, would probably prefer we not.

Scott was dead set on being able to go to a place that allowed you to touch and interact with elephants, and I knew it was important to him. One of the hard lessons I feel like the universe has been trying to teach me over the last few years, is how to have my own personal set of animal care standards and ethics while at the same time accepting that while those standards and ethics may be recognized as industry or professional best practices, they might be not embraced by my loved ones, and how to exist, cope, and deal with the dissonance that that creates. As Scott likes to remind me, and I am trying to embrace, “you can be right, or you can have friends.”

But it is a fact that the interactions with the Asian elephants in captivity causes stress to them. I took comfort that the sanctuary we chose had mostly happy looking elephants that were acquired (I am hesitant to use the word rescued here) from lesser circumstances and now live a life that seems better than the one they had before. Perhaps if the interactions that visitors to these sanctuaries experience create awareness about elephant welfare, conservation, loss of habitat, and the risk of the species becoming endangered, then the existence of these sanctuaries can be justified, and that is what I had to tell myself to justify my own visit.

New Zealand, Germany, Brazil, and Italy ↩︎
A little ridiculous since part of our experience later in the day would be to literally give the elephants mud baths, but it added some flair to the experience and made for great photos. ↩︎
They are considered babies until about the age of 5 when they stop nursing ↩︎
Asian elephants have a gestation period of 18-22 months ↩︎
Or the Thai equivalent, Gaviscon, which annoyingly you had to go into an actual pharmacy to request from the pharmacist ↩︎

Chiang Mai and the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We were scheduled to fly to Chiang Mai today, a mountainous area 700+ km north of Bangkok, in one of the most northern provinces of Thailand. We had a relaxed morning because our flight wasn’t until lunchtime, and Scott was on a quest to get some fried chicken from a street vendor. He left me at a coffee shop near our hotel while he went on his search and he returned a few minutes later with fried chicken in hand. We enjoyed sitting on the patio sipping coffee (American prices) and Scott eating his chicken (Thai prices). I made friends with a stray cat that was also interested in the chicken and snuck it a few bits once Scott was done with it.

Our Grab picked us up and took us to the airport, although not the one we had flown into originally. There are two airports in Bangkok, and we were flying out of Don Mueang International Airport today rather than Suvarnabhumi. I made sure to verify this detail with our driver as soon as we got into the car. When we got to the airport and got through security I saw a sign advertising airport massages, and unlike in the US where you would pay a premium for such a thing, these were the same price as the ones outside the airport… dirt cheap. I was intrigued and Scott encouraged me to do it since we had time to kill. My muscles had finally recovered enough from our initial Thai massage we had gotten on our first day in Bangkok. Up until today I hadn’t even considered getting another one because I was still sore from the experience, and the thought of more abuse¹ was quite unappealing.

So I got my first airport massage. It was a hybrid of a chair massage and Thai massage, required no goofy pajamas, and I must say that it was much more relaxing than the first one and more similar to the ones I am accustomed to receiving in the US. I opted for the one hour option, and when it was done paid my $12, added a generous tip, and a bit loopy with relaxation, went to find Scott at our gate.

When it was finally time to board we were ~~loaded~~ crammed onto buses, standing room only, and bussed around the airport long enough that for a brief and horrifying moment Scott and I both wondered if we had mistakenly signed up for a bus ride to Chiang Mai rather than a flight. It turns out that they were taking us to the airplane rather than having the airplane come to our gate. We were on a budget carrier, and aside from their policy of no outside food or drink² (?!?!), it was not much different than any other flight we had experienced and we landed uneventfully an hour and half later in Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai, despite being Thailand’s second biggest city, is quite small, with a population of about just over one million, compared to Bangkok’s nearly 11 million. The airport felt more like GSP’s and was easy to navigate. I was thrilled to find a little Moo Deng replica in the lobby and of course had to stop for a photo op. We were easily able to get a Grab to our hotel. We passed along the ancient brick city walls on the way in, and after snaking through a labyrinth of seemingly impossibly narrow alleyways, we were dropped off at Fang Chiang Mai a few minutes later.

Fang Chiang Mai was just lovely. It was clean and quaint and had a lush outdoor garden area with fountains and decorations. The proprietor personally escorted us up to the third floor to show us the room and its features. He asked us about our trip thus far and told us about some of the highlights of Chiang Mai. Thailand is often called “the land of smiles” and it was interactions like this that proved how the nickname was earned.

We unpacked and rested for a few minutes and then it was time to summon a Grab to take us to the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival, about 10 km away. Scott has a cool habit of searching for festivals and events when we are researching places to go and things to do and this was one of the things that popped up. I am glad it came across his radar because it was one of the highlights of our whole trip.

When we first arrived it seemed a bit sleepy and we weren’t quite sure what to expect. The intel that Scott had found on the internet implied that the activities ended at 5 pm. This turned out to not be the case, but it would take us a while to figure this out, and that the festival’s activities actually started at 5 pm.

We started off by checking out the Umbrella Making Centre- part store, part museum, and home to artisanal umbrella makers busy weaving, webbing, assembling, and painting the delicate paper umbrellas, not a single one of the craftswomen less than the age of 75. After investigating the center we wandered into the festival proper which was still being set up. As the afternoon turned into evening the foot traffic increased and it became impressively crowded. The amount of umbrellas on display was splendid and they made a spectacular decorative backdrop, colorful and creatively themed. My favorite of all was the Moo Deng themed umbrella.

The food vendors were out in force and we enjoyed grazing our way down the street festival, sampling a wide variety of Thai food. I had paused to look at a booth featuring little plant bundles with something wrapped up inside them. A local Thai woman that spoke English helpfully told me about them. It turns out that it was “pandan rice,” a traditional Thai dish. Jasmine rice had been wrapped up in a Pandan palm leaf and steamed. I decided to try one and it was nutty, aromatic, and flavorful.

There were interactive opportunities scattered throughout and Scott found an umbrella that was there for the crowd to paint/sign/decorate and he painted our names on it. We then found a little side street with a stage and decided to sit and sip some Chang beers, and unlike festivals back home where it is a giant production to verify your age with your ID and then get or buy a wristband at a dedicated booth before you can then use tickets to buy stupidly overpriced beer, there was none of that monkey business here and the beer was cheap and easy to buy from vendors. We were sitting at a table outside of a building when a monk came out of the building and offered us each an orange which we happily accepted. And then I saw a puppy. It turns out that we were sitting outside a monastery (to be fair, they’re everywhere) and this one had a sleeping puppy on its stoop. I asked the monks for their permission to pet it, pantomiming my intentions, them indicating that it was ok, and then I proceeded to make friends with it.

Refreshed from the beer, oranges, and puppy kisses, we headed back into the main part of the festival. I would love to know how many kilometers of street the festival included because it seemed to stretch out indefinitely. We continued to snack our way down the length of it and stopped at various interesting stalls and stores. Scott popped into a hardware store to look around- a Home Depot it was not, but it was interesting to see what all they carried. The beers eventually caused a need for a toilet and Scott had the smart idea of walking around a small school grounds to see if there were restrooms, and sure enough there were. We encountered our first squatty potties³ here but opted instead for one of their Western counterparts that were thankfully available in neighboring stalls.

We came across some more interactive booths and Scott was able to swirl his choice of paint colors onto water and a festival volunteer then dipped a folding paper hand fan into the water. His fan came out with loops and splashes of red, purple, and yellow. They stuck it in a plastic bag for us and we carried on. We then encountered a station where you could paint your own umbrella. Scott suggested I do it and I was resistant at first, for the very practical reason of not wanting to get paint on my clothes. He harassed me until I gave in. I picked out a lime green umbrella and sat down at the table. I painted some vines and flowers on my umbrella and was actually pleased with how it turned out. I carried it around the rest of the evening and was careful not to touch the wet paint and was proud of myself for not getting paint on myself.

The festival hosted a beauty pageant for several ranges of ages and the Little Miss Bo Sang Umbrella Festival Pageant was scheduled for this evening, so as it got later we started seeing more and more little contestants, all dolled up in traditional Thai costume dresses with elaborate buns and makeup. Toddlers and Tiaras, Thailand edition. One of the parents of a contestant even had her little one walk out and pose for us to take pictures when they noticed us admiring her costume. It was a cute and authentic moment.

We were making our way back out of the festival to start thinking about summoning a car to take us back to Chiang Mai when we came across a caricaturist. I pointed out to Scott that we hadn’t accomplished the relationship milestone of having a caricature of us made and that we should do it, especially since it was less than $6. He agreed and we sat to have ourselves subjected to the artist’s whimsical interpretation of us. Our noses caught hell, but it was a cute representation of us and we got a laugh out of it, and we carefully carried the drawing around Thailand for the rest of our trip.

It was a bit of a struggle to find a Grab or Bolt back into town and I felt the same sense of nervousness that I had felt the night before when we were so far out of a big city and unable to readily find a ride. We did eventually find one and I would like to send her an apology, wherever she might be, because we had bought an item as a gag gift to give to a friend that we mistakenly left in her car, and I hope that she got a laugh out of it when she found it.

We were exhausted but had received a recommendation to go to a rooftop bar in Chiang Mai, called Rise⁴, and tonight was realistically the only night that it would work out. We rallied and had the driver drop us off. We were rewarded with a stunning view of the city lights and an elaborate mirror tile mosaic covered elephant statue once we got up on the rooftop. We had drinks (very much American prices) and rehashed our fun evening. We stopped at an ATM on our way out and an American couple from Montana noticed our caricature and stopped to admire it. They had been coming to Chiang Mai for years and they ended up giving us a restaurant recommendation for a place that would turn out to be one of our favorite meals of our trip. A quick Bolt ride later we were back at Fang Chiang Mai and were happy to see our (hard) bed waiting for us.

The initial massage was the only time we encountered any paperwork or signing of any releases. That is a required protocol in the US where you have to essentially give a complete medical history and release them from any liability. I did happen to notice on their release/medical questionnaire an inquiry about whether you might have osteoporosis, and if so, it was advised that you not receive a massage… I didn’t think much of it until the Thai massage therapist was literally on my back and climbing up my spine that it became quite clear why osteoporitic bones might not take kindly to Thai massage. ↩︎
Just to be a sassy rebel I drank some of my own water. ↩︎
I had used squat toilets when I was in China several years ago, otherwise I would have opted for this option just for the experience, lest you think I am unadventurous. ↩︎
In hindsight, catching this at sunset, or even during the day, would have made for better views, but this is how it worked out for our schedule

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Do You Want to Go on a Boat Ride

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Scott somehow came up with the idea that he wanted to get a haircut when we were in Thailand and had been gleefully looking forward to a Thai barbershop experience since before we even embarked on our trip. Today was finally the day. After breakfast at a cute bakery in our little neighborhood, we wandered around in search of a barber. We had to kill time before they opened so we strolled around a Japanese food market and Scott got a smoothie as a second breakfast.

The barber ended up being a barbess, and as expected, spoke little English, so I had to pull up pictures of Scott with the intended haircut to convey his wishes for this new do. Evidently this was Scott’s first wash, cut and dry experience, and he got a straight razor shave as well. He felt thoroughly pampered and the haircut turned out pretty well, but he did lament that the straight razor shave didn’t feel as smooth and comfortable as he had expected it to, as it seemed that it pulled the hairs more than a regular razor does. Regardless, he felt like a million bucks and was now ready to take on more of Bangkok.

We were actually headed 80 plus kilometers southwest of Bangkok today. Our destination was Maeklong, the smallest of the Thai provinces, and home to the Maeklong Railway market, the Amphawa floating market, and the famous conjoined “Siamese twins” Chang and Eng, although we would only be seeing the markets, and not the twins, since they died in 1874. We took a Bolt to Maeklong and amazingly it only cost about $25.

We started off by touring the Maeklong Railway Market which is nicknamed the Siang Tai (life risking) market. The market is, as the name suggests, along a railway. And by along a railway, I mean quite literally, along a railway; the awnings hang over the tracks and the various wares being peddled spill over onto them as well. What this means is that visitors to the market stroll down the actual railroad tracks, trying their best not to break ankles as they peruse the various stalls (seafood is the market’s specialty). What this also means, is that four times a day, a real-ass train strolls through the market. This means four times a day the vendors have to roll in the awnings, and scoop up their fish and racks of elephant pants so as to not get plowed down by the train. Tourists are on their own to hopefully be smart enough to tuck inside one of the stalls as the train passes.

We had time to kill before witnessing the train so we found a restaurant in the market for lunch. Scott had fried rice and another smoothie¹, and I had my first Leo beer and Tom Yum soup. I noted to Scott that this Tom Yum tasted much more vibrant and intense than what I’d had back home, and that I detected very strong notes of Lemon Pledge. A quick Google search helped me figure out that the big and tough leaves floating in the soup were kaffir (Thai lime) leaves, hence the Lemon Pledge taste. But in a good way. Just like bay leaves, they are there to lend flavor and not meant to be eaten.

Finally it was time for the train to pass through so we made our way out into the market and picked a tiny storefront to pop into to safely witness the event. A few minutes before it was scheduled, we watched all the vendors prepare for its passage. It was much more crowded now than before lunch since large tour groups tended to show up just before the trains came through to watch. Finally we saw the train and it made its way slowly through the tight alley, the passengers on board reaching out to high-five the people in the market below. As soon as it had passed, the vendors went about reconstructing their storefronts.

We now needed to get to the Amphawa Floating Market and decided that now was the time and place to take a tuktuk ride. We found a cluster of tuktuk drivers and Scott haggled with one to get us a reasonable price for the seven kilometer trek. We climbed into the back and off we went. I took a timelapse video of it to record the experience for posterity. Of all the taxi rides we took, it was not the most hair-raising and we arrived alive and ready to see the next market.

Floating markets are a uniquely Southeast Asian feature and harken back to when boats were a part of daily life. Now they are geared mostly to tourists but they’re still interesting to see. We were starting to get our first sense though that if you’ve seen one Thai market, you’ve seen them all, but the location along the river and all the resulting boat traffic made this one quite unique. Here, the street food was cooked on boats in the river, rather than on the street, and we saw vendors in boats with woks, sitting and cooking inside their little vessels.

As we were wandering through the elevated platform and storefronts along the river, we saw a local man hawking what appeared to be a boat ride. With a selfie stick, he whacked a poster depicting various points of interest that were too grainy to decipher, and held his hand out demanding 50 baht (less than $1.50), and much like excited Labradors being offered a car ride, we eagerly handed him the money and climbed aboard the boat with only a rather vague sense of what we had signed up for. But it was a boat ride, and we love boat rides, so life was good.

He continued hawking the tour(?) (was it a tour we had signed up for?) until he and the boat driver decided that the boat was suitably full, and we were instructed to put on life vests, and off we went. We went along the Maeklong river for a bit and we enjoyed seeing the riverfront houses. He then pulled up alongside a dock and he barked something in Thai and pointed at a wat (remember what a wat is?) that sat along the edge of the river and indicated we should all get out. We disembarked and went over to the wat to check it out. This one looked mighty similar to the ones we had seen thus far, and after a cursory investigation, we made our way back to the boat so we wouldn’t be left since we hadn’t the slightest clue when he had told us to be back. As we were waiting to board, I jokingly said to Scott that this was the first of the 10 wats on the tour, since I had no clue what sort of tour we were on.

Well, I’ll be darned. We quickly discovered that we had indeed signed ourselves up for a 5-9 temple tour. We groaned under our breath when we discovered what the boat ride actually was, much like dogs who were initially excited about a car ride, only to discover that they were now headed to the vet.

But we were captive, so tour the wats we did, diligently getting out at each one and poking around before hustling back to the boat. Each seemed to have some unique schtick. My personal favorite was the one that was part temple, part Koi farm. Scott’s favorite was the temple encapsulated by a looming Banyan tree, located on the grounds of some sort of bizarre junkyard collection of lifesize animal figurines, lifesize soldiers, concrete and plaster dinosaurs in various states of disrepair, WW2 era US planes, and a monastery-run petting zoo with the most ill kept and emaciated looking animals I’ve ever seen in my whole life. (You can imagine how the rest of the boat ride went after I saw that.)

We rejoiced when we seemed to be making our way back to the market and we were deposited back at the Amphawa dock, not quite as excited about the boat ride as we had been a few hours previously. It was time for another coconut smoothie before we began the process of finding a Bolt or Grab driver willing to make the 1.5 hour trek from Maeklong back to Bangkok. It took us a while, and I was just starting to get nervous that we would be stuck here, when a driver accepted the trip and showed up a few minutes later. We had an uneventful ride home and were happy to see our little Sakura Sky Residences waiting for us a little while later.

I should have counted how many he had on our trip. And they were ridiculously inexpensive- costing usually around $1.50. ↩︎

There are a lot of Wats in Bangkok

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Fueled by 14 hours of sleep, we woke up ready to tackle the 14th largest city in the world, determined to see and take in all it had to offer. Scott went on an early morning 7-11 run to get us bottled water¹ and coffee while I was getting dressed, buttt their coffee machine was broken; reminiscent of McDonalds and their notoriously malfunctioning ice cream machines.

He was on his way back to our hotel when there was a huge boom that we each heard and the neighborhood went dark.² Who knew that the movie The Hangover II that is set in Bangkok and that we had watched right before our trip would serve as an instruction manual? Because of it, I immediately messaged him to be sure he wasn’t stuck in the elevator. Thankfully he was not, although had it happened about one minute later, he would have been, and he had his handy dandy powerful pocket flashlight that he had received from his parents for Christmas (although he did have to climb the six flights of stairs up to our room). Aided by the bright light that it cast we were able to pack up for the day and head out.

We headed to the Ruam Sap market again in search of coffee and breakfast. I felt braver this morning and got the egg and pork noodle dish that Scott had tried yesterday and Scott had a coconut smoothie as well as some of the more mysterious bits of meat from my noodles. We bought a bunch of teeny bananas from one of the fruit stalls and were happy to discover that they tasted similar to the varieties that we had experienced in Hawaii³.

From the market we headed to catch the Bangkok metro to take us to see Wat Pho, better known as the Reclining Buddha, and the Grand Palace, former home to the Thai royal family and government until 1925. While Google Maps does make it fairly easy to figure out which lines to take and where to transfer if needed, I am always thankful for Scott’s willingness and ability to be our de facto navigator when we are in strange lands. When we popped out of the station and onto the street we were immediately swarmed with loud and pushy tuktuk drivers offering us rides to wherever we might possibly want to go. We shouldered through them in search of Wat Pho.

Wat Pho, the Reclining Buddha, is a sprawling Buddhist temple complex featuring a 46 meter long, 15 meter tall, reclining Buddha as the name suggests. While the Buddha in repose was admittedly impressive, I was more captivated and excited by all the cats that were wandering in and around the temples and the surrounds. (This would be a theme for the entire trip, just like it was in Hawaii.) It was in Wat Pho that we experienced our first coconut smoothie⁴ that sparked our obsession with them.

Coconut smoothies in hand, we wandered around the expansive 80,000 square meter complex and all its various temples and gardens. Our favorite was the Crocodile Pond (sadly no live crocodiles live in it anymore, just a brass statue representing the monastery’s crocodile that once lived there) which was a walled garden with an elaborate pond and abundant orchids and moss cloaked amongst the trees. The fountains within the pond featured misting systems amongst the greenery which gave dramatic flair. It was a mighty fine spot to sip our smoothies.

The next stop was the Grand Palace, which was just a short walk away from Wat Pho. Once there, there was an underground walkway to transport you safely to the entrance which was similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, to keep pedestrians from attempting to cross the busy road and getting hunted down by drivers; a favorite pastime enjoyed by drivers both in France and Thailand. The Grand Palace was indeed grand, as well as incredibly and unbelievably crowded. The main attraction (at least for us) was the Emerald Buddha but for whatever reason, it was closed that day. We went into another large and popular temple within the Palace featuring another elaborate Buddha instead (not sure what this particular Buddha’s gimmick was- neither of us can remember, sorry to any Buddhists that are reading). Edited to add: Upon further research, it seems that it was the Phra Ubosot, or The Chapel, that we visited. To be honest, they really did all start to blend together unless they had some remarkably distinctive architecture or distinguishing Buddha feature. The one we most hoped to see, but never found, was Wat Pariwat, which is adorned in Marvel movie characters.

It might have been at this point that we decided we had seen enough wats. We were watted out. So we headed in search of lunch. We were quickly learning that you could pay American/Western prices for food, or you could pay Thai prices for food, and the restaurant that we found that was right on the edge of the Chao Praya river, and directly across the river from the famous Wat Arun⁵, definitely had American prices, but the food was good and the meat distinguishable. We dined looking at Wat Arun and then decided to make our way back to the hotel, this time deciding to take the BTS skytrain.

We took our first water taxi in order to reach the train station, and got to watch the woman that was taxed with getting tourists onto the correct boats. She was mighty similar to a TSA or DMV worker as she bossed and sorted tourists where they needed to go, barking at them in broken and rather angry sounding English, commanding people to “Sit! Stay!” as if they were naughty puppies, and when it was time for them to make their way to the boat she would shout “You go away now!” From this water taxi, we got a view of downtown Bangkok from the Chao Praya that more closely resembled a freeway than a river, and got to catch our first glimpse of the iconic gold domed Lebua skyscraper that Scott recognized from The Hangover II.

We made it to the skytrain station, and as we were trying to figure out which direction we needed to go on the train, we must have looked a bit confused because a very kind American man asked us if we needed help. He was heading more or less the same way we were and told us to follow along with him. We enjoyed talking with him on the train and he gave us a helpful Bangkok public transportation tutorial. Thanks Derek from San Diego! We made it successfully back to the hotel and took a quick nap and set multiple alarms to be sure we wouldn’t pull another accidental 14 hour long nap like we did the day before.

We obeyed our alarm and headed out for a night of Muay Thai, or famous Thai boxing, at the purpose built Rajadamnern Stadium a few kilometers away. We were attempting to take public transportation there and the first leg of that plan was successful. We took the skytrain to where it wanted us to get off and go find a bus. However, once we found the bus station, the bus that ran to the stadium ended up being delayed indefinitely so we decided to get a Grab or Bolt (the Asian equivalent of Uber).

We got our tickets and were escorted to our seats which were in the top row of the bottom deck and actually provided a pretty good vantage point. A concession worker personally came and found us and handed us menus (quite a clever strategy, I might add) and we got Chang beer and popcorn to eat and drink while we watched wiry and lithe 115 pound Thai men try to pummel, punch, and kick the living daylights out of each other until one got knocked out. There were some warm up rounds with the B-team boxers and then it was time for the main event. There was a female DJ that Scott couldn’t keep his eyes off of spinning the tunes to pump up the crowd and an entertaining emcee/hype-man who thankfully dual-cast his hype both in Thai and English. There was also a live Muay Thai band that provided the rather dramatic and iconic backdrop to the fight, called the Sarama, that plays in the background during the pre-fight ritual and while the boxers fight. It absolutely added melodrama. There was an impressive pre-show sound and light celebration that played on the towering interactive ceiling above us that told of the history and story of Muay Thai. (Essentially it was the style of fighting used by the king’s warriors who were taxed with protecting their army’s elephants.)

And then it was time for the main event… There was lots of kicking, punching, bleeding, grappling, wrestling, that sometimes ended in knock outs. If there was a point system, and I imagine that there was, it was lost on me, but I appreciated the cultural significance of what we were watching, although I might add that my Muay Thai observation face is remarkably similar to my rodeo observation face. It was one of those “do the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it” sort of events and I’m glad that we went.

In lieu of attempting public transportation so late at night we opted to summon a Grab or Bolt back to the hotel and we promptly passed out once there.

You don’t drink the tap water in Thailand as it is not safe to do so, mostly due to heavy metal contamination ↩︎
The electric utility wire situation in Thailand, and especially Bangkok, is wild. Several foot thick bundles of wires are jumbled on top of eachother haphazardly and electrical outages are quite common. In this particular case, a transformer exploded. ↩︎
The Cavendish bananas that are available on the US mainland are designed for their shipability, not their taste, and it was refreshing to taste the complexity of flavors that some of the unfamiliar varieties possessed. ↩︎
While called smoothies, they more closely resembled slurpees or milkshakes, depending on how they were made. Each place made them a little differently but they were mostly a combination of coconut meat, coconut milk, sometimes sugar, and ice, blended to a smooth consistency. ↩︎
Fun fact, Wat Arun is short for Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan. Try saying that three times fast.

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Bangkok, Oriental City

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So here we were, finally in Bangkok, albeit in a daze from 30+ hours of travel, red eyed and cotton headed, synapses not fully firing. But we were here! Luckily airport signage was also in English along with Thai so we were able to get ourselves through Customs and Immigration (they were so sweet and not yelly and gruff like the ones in the US are) and find an ATM machine. Some travel intel and advice we had picked up in our planning was that cash is king in Thailand and that we should plan on withdrawing Thai baht rather than relying on credit cards¹. Armed with this information we planned on using our Charles Schwab checking accounts because this bank reimburses your ATM fees². This was prudent because the withdrawal fees averaged about $7.50 a transaction.

Wallets stuffed full of baht we headed to figure out the metro system that we were planning on taking to the neighborhood that we were staying in- the Sukhumvit Road area. And then we promptly had to turn back around and head to the money exchange booth because the metro system only accepted small bills… So now, armed with small bills, we were able to buy our tokens for the metro. We were successful in navigating ourselves to Sukhumvit Road and then popped into our first 7-11 to experience the Thai cultural phenomenon that is 7-11. 7-11 is extremely popular and serves as cheap coffee shop and breakfast/lunch/dinner spot in Thailand. There are nearly 15,000 7-11’s in Thailand. That is how popular and prevalent they are. We successfully ordered coffee drinks for the much needed caffeine and then headed to an off the beaten path food court that Scott had learned about.

The food court was in the Ruam Sap Market and was part typical Asian market and part food stalls. Scott went first in search of food while I stayed at a table to babysit our bags and he came back with some sort of spicy egg and pork sausage noodle dish. I wasn’t feeling particularly adventuresome yet and settled on some fried bananas but did eat the leftover noodles and broth from Scott’s dish that he shared with me, carefully eating around the meat. (The walk to the market had left me feeling suspicious of meat thanks to all the street food vendors and ~~questionable~~ non-existent food safety practices we encountered along the way.)

Bellies full we donned our backpacks and headed towards Benchakitti Park to kill time before we could check into our hotel. It is a beautiful green space amidst the urban madness of Bangkok. Along the way we passed the infamous Soi Cowboy. Scott had hoped to hang our hammocks in the park so we could take a much needed siesta but he was quickly shot down (verbally, not literally) by the park guard who barked a stern “NO!” in his direction as he unfurled the hammock and started stringing it up between two trees. Hammocking denied, we opted to just lay in a shady spot on the grass and rest.

I eventually went in search of a bathroom and was thrilled to witness my first native Southeast Asian “bum gun.” Click here for a fun and humorous tutorial on bum guns. I also remembered that I had forgotten to bring my packet of tissues with me, as toilet paper is not a given potty commodity in Thai bathrooms. Nor is soap we would soon learn.

Recharged enough to now be bored of the park, we decided to head to the hotel to drop off our bags and go in search of a massage. Thailand is known for its massages, both the ones that are therapeutic and respectable, annnd the ones that are maybe not as decent and innocent and are staffed with ladies of the night and women of ill repute. This was a tall order since our cute little hotel, the Sakura Sky Residence, was smackdab in the middle of the nuru massage district. (I will not be linking directly to that, Google it at your own risk.) Thankfully I was able to suss out one of the few non scandalous establishments in the area (phew) for us to get a massage. The clue is tunics. Look for the employees wearing tunics. If they are wearing skimpy three sizes too small cocktail dresses and high heels at lunchtime and verbally hustling the men that walk past the massage parlor with calls of “masssagggeeeee?”, that is a pretty good clue that you’re in the wrong one… Or maybe the right one, either way, no judgement from me, just wanted to share what I learned.

This is how we came to be wearing funny pajamas for the second time in 24 hours. We were told to strip and put them on. They were about as Thai as you can get with the classic elephant print that is ubiquitous with Thailand. And then an eighty pound Thai grandmother climbed up my back. Using every single part of her body to inflict pain and pummel my body into submission. She used her fists, her elbows and her knees. It was part Muay Thai boxing (she was kicking my ass), part goat tying (I was the goat), part yoga (ouch I don’t bend that way), and part horseback riding (I was the horse). Just when I would think I couldn’t take it anymore she would move her wrath to another body part of mine and start unleashing her fury upon it and she would giggle with delight when I squealed. Utter delight she would giggle with.

In between bouts of pain I would sneak glances at Scott who was laying on the mat next to me and enjoying a similar experience. According to him, he would always have hopeful anticipation that the next body part would be sweetly caressed and gently massaged but it usually was more of the same pain inflicting wrathful strokes that were incurred.³

Bodies now beat into submission, we staggered out of the building in search of some lunch. We ended up at a large mall (one of thousands it seemed) near our hotel, called the Em Quartier. The malls in Bangkok were just unbelievable- several stories tall, chocked full of luxury goods stores (Hermes, Fendi, Dior, Louis Vuitton, etc.) and extravagantly decorated with waterfalls and live plants. We had heard that the food court here was worth checking out so we scouted out our options. We settled on a pizza place and split one while people-watching and admiring the ostentatious surroundings.

We headed to the hotel as it was finally time to check in. We showered and decided to lay down for a nap before we needed to leave to head downtown to have dinner and drinks on top of the MahaNakhon Skyscraper. I knew this was risky business so I set an alarm for an hour and half.. and when it went off I hit snooze… and we slept until the next morning.

Just so that you can have the song stuck in your head too…

This absolutely proved to be true. We only used our credit cards a handful of times the whole trip. ↩︎
At the time of this writing, I had already received the reimbursement! ↩︎
For this 90 minute massage we paid about $15. The equivalent in the US would be well over $120.

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Siamese Dream

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The seeds were first sown for our journey to the Kingdom of Siam¹ in October of 2023. We had the travel bug and we had it bad. We had just returned from our European adventure and Scott and I both realized how easy globetrotting was and we were hooked. We knew we wanted to travel internationally again but hadn’t narrowed down yet where exactly we wanted to go. We were at my parents’ house for dinner one evening, joined by their neighbors, and the topic of travel came up. We shared some of the highlights from our Europe trip and the husband told us about a trip he had taken to Thailand that involved bamboo rafting and elephants. Say no more! We decided that evening that our next trip would be to Thailand.

Thus began an intense year plus travel planning mission, aka, our very own Siamese Dream. We started by watching YouTube videos to get a lay of the land (Thailand is roughly the size of Texas) and to figure out the must-see spots for a roughly two week long trip. As soon as we started watching the videos we were mesmerized and it was hard to narrow it down to just a few locations- the whole country looked exotic and intriguing. The timing would work out perfectly for us to go in January which is the “dry” season in Thailand and historically, the month I teach the least because of cold and wet weather.

The big picture itinerary that we settled on was to fly into Bangkok, spend a few days there, then catch a flight to the northern part of Thailand and visit mountainous Chiang Mai, then fly south to the beaches of the Andaman Sea on the western side of the southern peninsula, and experience both Ao Nang as well as spend a few days on the island of Koh Lanta, then head back to Bangkok before travelling home. The flights within Thailand were surprisingly inexpensive which made it feasible for us to move around as much as we did. However, the advice that we had received time and time again was that you essentially lose a day every time you fly and that absolutely proved to be true.

I used roughly the same parameters for booking hotels that I had in Europe, except that it was ridiculously easy to stay under $100/night for lodging, in fact, I think we averaged about $35/night for non brand name 3 star hotels. The US dollar goes a long way in Thailand which is part of its appeal for international travellers and part of which made it the world’s most visited city in 2024. Where it was applicable I tried to make sure we were near public transportation. Karla Birkel, a friend and client of mine, has a friend that lives in Thailand half the year and he was a valuable resource to ask about all things Thailand. He gave us recommendations for neighborhoods and areas to stay in in Bangkok.

We all know that one of Scott’s favorite things to do is to research travel hacks and gadgets so that he has the right amount of stuff- no more, no less. Always the outfitter, he enjoyed kitting us both out for the trip and we both had all the power banks, cords, converters, etc that we might need. We made good use of the Japanese pencil cases (Amazon) that he had discovered a few years ago and I even bought another package of them. They are lightweight and come in various sizes and are nice to make little “kits” of things such as electronics, makeup, first-aid, medications, snacks, etc. The compression travel packing cubes we both have came in handy and helped save space.

Scott always travels minimally but this would be my first time truly “one bagging” it² and I had researched and bought a 44 liter Osprey clamshell backpack (Amazon) to use. It was quite spacious and comfortable but I was concerned about being able to stay under 7 kg (~15 lbs) which is the requirement for all the various budget airlines we would be flying on our inter-Thailand flights. Another one of Scott’s favorite things is packing, or practice packing, and I swear he must have begun this process in December for our January trip. He would do it, congratulate himself, wait a few days, dump the whole bag out, make a little tweak and do it again. He had me practice pack and I took notes of what I packed so I could replicate it when we actually were packing for real.

Finally it was January 13! My parents were sweet to drive us to the airport and they bid us adieu at GSP. The GSP to Chicago flight was smooth and we got settled into our seats for the next leg, the flight to Tokyo. It turns out that this flight was not full and a very nice flight attendant asked the man occupying the aisle seat next to me if he would like to move to another row, also an aisle seat, but with no one in the middle seat next to him, AND HE DECLINED. HE DECLINED. THE MAN DECLINED. Who does that? Scott leaned over and told him to expect that we would both be getting up several times because we go to the bathroom a lot³ and he shrugged and accepted his fate, quite nonplussed. So for the next 13.5 hours, anytime either one of us had the slightest inkling of a tinkle, you better bet we woke him up and told him to let us out. WHO DECLINES?

We had a long layover in Tokyo, but not long enough to leave the airport and go into the city. We had learned via a YouTube video that the Haneda airport had a “capsule hotel” where we could shower and attempt to catch a little sleep after the 13+ hour flight from Chicago. The capsule hotel idea was intriguing so I booked each of us a room (they are single occupancy and separated by gender) and it was nice to know that a spa and bed awaited us when we landed in Japan, only slightly delirious from the long day.

We were able to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji at sunset as we were landing which kind of, sort of, qualifies as doing/seeing the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it so that acted as a little consolation prize for us not being able to venture out into Japan. Once we were on the ground we made our way through Customs and Immigration, got to experience Japanese toilets in Japan for the first time (truly a 5 star experience) caught the shuttle to the terminal that housed the hotel, checked in, and had to part ways for the night with plans to reconvene around 11 pm to get back over to the other terminal and do the whole security shebang for our flight to Bangkok.

This would be the first of two occasions in which we would wear goofy pajamas in the next 24 hours. The capsule hotel provided toiletries and pj’s so we took advantage. The shower and the spa were the best parts of the experience it turns out. Very little quality sleep occurred. The paper thin accordion doors did little to insulate against sound so you could hear travelers coming and going and the beds were extremely hard⁴. He and I reconvened at the agreed upon time, Scott quite bleary eyed and exhausted looking. Me, just as tired, but with fresh makeup.

All Nippon Airways was a dream to fly with. The flight was long but smooth, the Japanese airline had Japanese toilets onboard, and our fellow seatmate was fairly normal (although vegan and I wondered periodically during our trip how her veganism was holding up in Thailand because I am not convinced veganism is an easy row to hoe there from what I experienced) and we eventually found ourselves in Bangkok, Thailand at 5 am on January 15 after about 36 hours of travel.

Ok, so it’s been known as Thailand since 1948, but it is fun to call it Siam. ↩︎
Technically I travelled with just a carry-on to Europe, but since it was a big unwieldy rollaboard bag that we (Scott) had to lug and tug across the cobblestones of the Old World, I don’t think that should count as “one bagging it” ↩︎
Not a weird amount but we both try to hydrate while flying AND we wanted him to find us as unappealing seatmates as possible ↩︎
Hard beds are the norm in Asia it turns out. These stood out as the hardest and most uncomfortable of all that we would encounter.

↩︎

A Hui Hou Oahu

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

“Time flies when you’re having fun” is the old adage and it’s quite accurate isn’t it? Suddenly it was our last full day on Oahu and we were sad that the trip was almost over. I had a half day of lessons scheduled on the North Shore so we headed north that morning and unfortunately had to forgo our usual morning beach walk because I had an early start time.

Scott played Uber driver for me again and hung out and waited in the car while I was teaching at my first location which was Dillingham Ranch. He then took me to nearby Kawailoa Ranch where I had quite a few lessons lined up and wouldn’t be done until a little after lunchtime. He dropped me off and then headed to do a more in depth hike at Ka’ena Point. He had done a quick “reconnaissance” hike there a few days before while I was teaching and he was looking forward to being able to do the full hike this time.

My lessons all went well and were all people that I had met and taught earlier in the week. It was fun to be able to build on what we had worked on previously. I gave everyone “homework assignments” to do after their lessons for continued improvement and talked with several of them about how to reach their Pony Club goals and be successful at their next certification. I fully expect to see this promising batch of riders signed up for national certifications in the upcoming years. One of the rider’s moms got lunch for us all and it was from Seven Brothers where Scott and I had stopped a few days prior. I had a delicious burger and their signature home fries and we all shared some of their famous banana bread that was topped with toasted coconut and chocolate sauce.

Scott picked me up and told me about his Ka’ena Point hike. It was 7.5 miles and it took him about 2.5 hours. The surf was much calmer today although it was still quite windy. When he finally came up on the actual point he encountered a fenced in area that was initially perplexing. It became apparent when he saw some other hikers that entered the enclosed area via a gate that this was a way to protect the wildlife and ground nesting birds from the invasive species (cats, mongoose, etc) that might threaten them. He came across a napping monk seal and chose this spot to stop and eat his lunch. He then exited the western exit of the enclosure to determine if there was another path that went around the point outside the fenced in area. He saw more nesting birds and it was stinky because of their presence. He continued along that trail until he came to a washout and then realized he had missed a spur that went around this impassable area. He took the spur for a bit before calling it quits and turned around since he had to come collect me. On the hike back he saw some off-road vehicles, some people fishing, and a few campers. I was glad that he had been able to do something fun while I worked and I enjoyed hearing about his hike.

A side note about Ka’ena Point: This is the area where there are no real roads which makes it so that you cannot truly drive around the perimeter of Oahu. We had been on the westernmost edge of the Point the day before when we were exploring that side of the island. I had opened up Google Maps and put in directions for Hale’iwa Town (the nearest town to the east) and it was funny to see that while it was just a few miles away, to reach it via car would require going back into the interior of the island before going back up towards the North Shore. Evidently at one point in the past there was a railway line that ran along the Point to connect Honolulu and Kahuku to transport sugarcane (and later during WW2 troops and supplies), but was destroyed in 1946 by a tsunami. The Ka’ena Point hike parallels the old railroad bed and Scott saw some remnants of the railroad along his way.

Karen and I were scheduled to conduct a “Standards and Certifications” clinic and talk at a dinner on the North Shore hosted by the Hawaii region later in the evening so Scott and I had some time to kill before heading there. We walked right across the street from Kawailoa Ranch to Laniakea Beach, or “Turtle Beach” for some beach time and for hopes of catching a sighting of the endangered Hawaiian green sea turtles that are known to hang out there. (Parking was a nightmare here so it was nice that we were able to stay parked at the Ranch and just walk over!) While we didn’t see any turtles, we were able to hammock for a bit, and Scott was able to take a quick swim. It was overcast and chilly at times and we packed up and headed out when rain showers started. We were treated to a brilliant rainbow on our way out.

We headed north into Hale’iwa Town to explore. We found a surf shop and stopped in and I was floored when Scott said he wanted to check out their swim trunks. This boy hates buying clothes and usually I have to fight him to get him to add anything to his wardrobe, so I was rendered nearly speechless by this declaration. They had quite the selection of board shorts, all on sale, and he got several pairs to try on. As he walked into the dressing room, he turned to me and asked: “So what am I evaluating here when I try them on?” I had to explain to him all the things you’re looking for when you try on a potential new article of clothing such as fit, feel, the general vibe you get from it, etc. Both I and the clerk that was helping us got a laugh out of his inquiry. He found a pair he liked and I found a hat that was calling my name.

We walked through the town some and stopped to watch some locals jumping off the bridge over the Anahulu River. We then drove to the park in town that was right on the beach. I was able to change and get ready for my presentation and dinner that evening. It was now sunset and this was the perfect spot to watch it and we were treated to a stunning light show before we headed to the Standards and Certifications talk.

The talk was well attended and I thought Karen and I did a good job tag-teaming it. I had quickly pulled up some videos on my phone to be able to show examples of riders at the D-1 through A levels and luckily one of the girls that I had taught several times this week was willing to be my tech help and walk me through how to pair my phone and the TV so they could be shown. I used a video of Scott riding Walter from a few years ago as my example of a D2 rider and everyone got a laugh. Normally I am observing Scott do his job since he works from home so this was a fun change of pace for him to be observing me do mine. When it wrapped up we took Karen back with us and dropped her off at her Airbnb since she had returned her borrowed car to its home on the North Shore so we wouldn’t have to do that tomorrow.

Our last day was finally here, and while we were sad about having to leave, we had one last fun half day of adventure planned since our flight wasn’t until that evening. We packed up, said goodbye to our Airbnb that had served as our home during our trip, dropped Karen off at the airport, and then headed just a ways east of Waikiki to hike Diamond Head Crater. Diamond Head Crater is probably the most popular hike on Oahu. You start at the crater floor of the ancient dormant volcano and hike up the paved (and crowded) pathway up to the top of the mountain. It took us a little over an hour and a half to do the 4.5 mile round trip hike. At the top we had 360° views of Honolulu, Waikiki, and the ocean. We got to check out some more of the WW2 era bunkers and it was obvious why this peak was used as a lookout by the military. All in all our consensus of this experience was that it was beautiful but very peopley.

Scott has a serious aversion to paying for parking and we had parked outside the park and walked in. On the way back to our rental car, I as usual was enthralled with all the roaming wild chickens and remarked that it was unusual that we hadn’t seen any nests or eggs, despite the thriving avian population. Scott then reminded me that it was the mother hens that were hiding their eggs, not our mothers hiding them for an Easter morning Easter egg hunt. I suppose he had a point.

We found a pancake house to have lunch at, ate way too much, and remembered why big meals pair poorly with adventure when we felt bloated and lethargic after. We decided to make one more visit to Waikiki Beach for a final hammocking before we had to headed to the airport. Scott jumped in the water for a farewell dip in the Hawaiian surf and we napped and digested. Sadly it was time to pack up and head to the Honolulu airport and we did so reluctantly, not wanting our trip to end. We did one final pack and repack of our stuff so that we were ready to grab our bags and go when we dropped off the rental car, and jettisoned any of the food that wouldn’t be allowed through customs (apples, sandwich meat, etc.). We dropped off the very sandy rental car, having put close to 900 miles on it during our 10 day stay, and headed to our gate. As the plane lifted up over Honolulu we were treated to one final and stunning Honolulu sunset as we bid a hui hou to Oahu.

While “aloha” is used both for greeting and goodbye, A hui hou is used as a form of goodbye. It means “until we meet again,” and I sure hope that is the case because we fell in love with the island and hope to see it again someday.

Epilogue:

Remember when I told you that I had turned down the role of chair of the National Testing Committee back in September? Well, they pleaded with me again in October to serve. Feeling somewhat guilty about accepting the Hawaii certification and trip, in a moment of weakness I accepted. I am now one of the co-chairs of the National Testing Committee which means that Christina K. and I will be the ones leading our fellow examiners, helping rewrite the Standards of Proficiency for the upper level tests during the upcoming revision, conducting the annual national examiner seminar, and putting out the fires and snafus that inevitably pop up during certifications. Wish me luck.

Leeward Oahu

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

It just happened to work out that I didn’t have any lessons scheduled today, so Scott and I decided to spend the day exploring the leeward, or western, side of Oahu. Our homebase of Kailua, as well as Honolulu, are both on the windward side of the island where the climate is wet and breezy and everything is lush and green. The leeward side of Oahu is sheltered from the Pacific trade winds so it is noticeably drier¹ and less verdant.

Scott’s research had revealed a few renowned snorkeling spots and our plan was to do some snorkeling as well as stop and check out some other intriguing natural features in the area. The first stop was snorkeling at “Electric Beach” (actually called Kahe Point). Its nickname comes from its location- the beach is located right across from an electric power plant and the water that is used to cool the plant is discharged via huge pipes into the ocean. The (clean) discharge water is quite warm and because of that, attracts abundant sea life. It was about a ⅛ mile swim out to the pipes and you could see where they ended because the water appeared different there- you could see it swirling and moving. Scott had bought us snorkeling PFD’s and I was happy to have them, because, while he is quite comfortable in the open ocean, I am not so much. The pipes are in about 30 feet of water and the water is super clear so it was easy to see schools of fish. Some of the fish seemed to enjoy riding the current that the pipes created and would go for a little fishy roller coaster ride. When we had had enough snorkeling we made our way back to the beach² and packed up for the next stop.³

The Mermaid’s Cave awaited us next and it was just a short drive from Electric Beach. You wouldn’t notice this spot if you weren’t on a mission to find it. It’s a little ways away from the Kalaniani’ole Beach Park and is quite literally in someone’s backyard. The cave was formed by the turbulent ocean waves eroding away at the porous lava rocks over time and forming the hollows. It is only accessible at low tide and lucky for us, our timing was correct. On the walk across the lava rocks to the cave we were amazed by the thick crystalline salt rinds that had formed in little depressions in the rocks where ocean waves had deposited the salt water and the sun had evaporated the water leaving only the salt. They looked similar to ice crusts that form on puddles. When we found the cave we were thankful to see that other people that were exploring it already had brought a ladder which made it much easier to drop down into the cave (and get out of it when we were ready to leave). The cave floor was covered in chunks of lava rock and coral, very little sand to be seen, and when the waves would enter the cave, the noise of the waves rushing into the enclosed space, as well as the rock and coral being pushed around, was quite loud. We hung out in here for a few minutes to take it all in. It seemed surreal, especially to my east-coast-Atlantic-sandy beaches-eyes. Scott swam out of the cave and then back into it, just because. Once we were out of the cave we encountered a lifeguard that rode up on an atv. He told us to stay out of the water because a 10 foot long tiger shark had just been spotted swimming right up along the shore of the beach. He hypothesized that this beach would be closed for a bit because of the sighting.

I didn’t want to be anywhere near where the tiger shark might be so we kept working our way up the west coast of the island, this time stopping about 10 miles away at Makaha Beach for more snorkeling. (I didn’t let myself Google about tiger sharks to see what its range might be and if we ran a chance of encountering him or any of his family members. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.) I was a little more nervous than usual for this snorkel but rallied and followed Scott out into the ocean and to where we had been told there were lava tubes. We found the lava tubes which were big cavernous formations and were a perfect spot for fish to hang out. We enjoyed seeing all the fish popping in and out of them. This beach seemed less sketchy than some of the ones we encountered earlier in the day and had decent trees, so can you guess what we did? We ate lunch in our hammocks, took a little siesta, and enjoyed people watching⁴.

Next on our westward exploration was a visit to Ka’ena Point- the westernmost point of Oahu and basically the end of the road. (Literally. There is no way to go around the entire perimeter of the island of Oahu.) This was some of the most rugged coastline that I’d seen on the island with the huge lava rock cliffs on ocean’s edge and waves crashing dramatically against them. We saw lots of stray cats⁵ at this spot and I was curious where they found fresh water in such a dry and desolate place. We got out and walked around and watched some people fishing from the lava rock shore. On the drive back out we saw a Space Force satellite tracking station that was located here. Nearby was a huge cave formation (Makua Cave) and we stopped to check it out. Scott snooped around it for a bit and I was proud of him for showing self restraint and not going too far in. We got back in the car and started heading back the way we came.

Electric Beach was calling Scott’s name as we drove back by it on the return trip, so we stopped for him to snorkel again. I opted out this time and chose to sit on the beach and enjoy the sights and sounds of the ocean. He was glad that he snorkeled because he got to see a sea turtle up close and personal. He had been watching fish and as he was heading out towards the pipes he encountered some scuba divers that gave him a heads up that there was a sea turtle in the vicinity. With this information, he was surveying the water as he swam, and sure enough, a few minutes later, what appeared but the sea turtle about six feet away! He was able to swim next to it and observe it for a minute or so before it swam down towards the ocean floor. He tried to follow it but didn’t make it very far before giving up his pursuit, outpaced by the animal. Meanwhile, up on dry land I was hanging out gazing at the ocean, and lo and behold, what did I see but a spout of water appear on the horizon line. Doubting at first what I had seen, I kept my eyes peeled to see if I would see it again, and a few minutes later, saw the same poof of mist transpire a few hundred yards away. I was seeing whales! I kept watching and saw one breach ever so slightly, the shape of its huge round back making a brief appearance and breaking above the water briefly before disappearing again into the ocean. I had read that migrating humpback whales can be seen in Oahu starting around December, attracted by the warm southern seas to breed and give birth to their calves, so I am guessing that is what I witnessed. Scott emerged back onto dry land a few minutes before sunset, so we decided to watch the sunset over the Pacific from this spot, and we were treated to a splendid show as the bright sun seemingly lowered itself carefully into the ocean and out of sight. That was our cue to pack up and we headed back to Kailua.

So dry, in fact, that we saw a wildfire on the brown mountainside along the Farrington Highway near Electric Beach as we were driving. We saw the local fire departments heading there to battle it and witnessed some units already there fighting it. By the time we passed back by on the way home it was extinguished thankfully. ↩︎
Typically we would have hammocked right about now but this beach lacked suitable trees and was in a fairly sketchy area with evidence of homeless camps so we skipped this activity. ↩︎
We were happy to see our car still in the parking lot, and even better, not vandalized. Crime on this side of the island is rampant and everywhere we parked there were signs warning against leaving valuables in the car. ↩︎
An old Honda Civic with loud bass bumping pulled up near our hammocking spot and parked. The inhabitants of the car hung out for a while inside the car enjoying their tooth rattling jams but when they were ready to leave they found themselves stuck in the deep sand. The passenger in the backseat hopped out to give the car a push, and when he did, the front bumper fell off. Car freed, but now bumperless, the passenger retrieved the bumper and hopped into the backseat with the bumper on his lap. I managed to get most of this vignette on timelapse video which had become an entertaining thing for us to do. ↩︎
This was the one and only time I played Paw-Patrol on our trip. I gave water and cheese to some stray kittens. One looked like a purebred Siamese. The stray cat population on Oahu is significant. ↩︎

Exploring Honolulu

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

I had today off so we were free to explore however we chose and didn’t have to be back at any particular time for a lesson which was nice. Karen had expressed interest in visiting Pearl Harbor so we invited her to join us for the visit to the USS Arizona memorial. We met her there and were treated to a brilliant rainbow over the harbor as we waited our turn for the tour out to the USS Arizona.

I can’t do justice to explaining how somber and emotive the memorial site was so I won’t try and instead, I’ll leave it up to you to imagine. While we were at the site I tried to read each of the 1,177 crew names that were etched into the marble wall. After the boat brought us back from the USS Arizona we spent quite some time walking through the museum that highlighted the Pacific action in WW2. The multitude of displays were both informative and chilling. The highlight was the framed first draft edition of the “Day of Infamy” speech given by Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 8, 1941. On it you can see the handwritten edits. The original speech had the line “a date which will live in world history” and “world history” was crossed out, and handwritten above that is “day of infamy.” What a hell of an edit.

Karen stayed on to see more of Pearl Harbor and Scott and I headed out to explore Honolulu. Our first stop was Chinatown and we walked around for a bit taking in the sights and smells of the markets. We treated ourselves to Guava smoothies and Scott tested out his Charles Schwab atm card as practice for our upcoming Thailand trip, to see if they truly will reimburse the atm fee (they did). It turns out that I am a terrible security guard, because as he was at the atm getting his cash I wandered off in search of the smoothies… oops! He was fine and didn’t get mugged so he was able to enjoy his guava smoothie. On the way out of Chinatown we drove by the Iolani Palace, the only royal palace in the United States. We stopped for a brief walk around its grounds and were most impressed by the unbelievably sprawling banyan trees. Scott scooped up a banyan seed with the intention of planting one of these iconic behemoths back in Easley. He was sad when I googled it and discovered that the soil has to be 70-85℉ for it to grow so he tossed it out.

Next we headed to Waikiki beach. Scott had wanted to rent a surfboard and surf but the waves were too tame today on this side of the island, so he settled for swimming and hammocking. We enjoyed floating around in the water and then heading to the hammocks for a nap. The beach at Waikiki was perfect for hammocking because it had palm trees just a few yards from the water and they provided just enough shade. (While I was lounging in my hammock an apparently schizophrenic homeless man wandered alarmingly close to my hammock and began wildly gesticulating. I was cocooned in my hammock and oblivious. Scott happened to notice, and instead of shooing him away from me, whipped out his phone and started filming the gesticulations in time-lapse mode so he would have an entertaining video for perpetuity.)

We wanted to watch the sunset from atop Tantalus so we packed up the hammocks and gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the famous lookout spot that sits on a former macadamia grove on a mountain overlooking Honolulu. It was just a 25 minute drive and we were lucky to snag a parking spot at the park. Lots of other people had our same idea and as the sun sank lower in the sky more people appeared. The view was brilliant because you could see downtown Honolulu, Waikiki, Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head crater, and the entire Mamala Bay. Some of my favorite pictures of our whole trip were taken from Tantalus that night.

We had one last thing scheduled for the day and that was dinner at a kitschy spot that Scott had found online. The restaurant was called La Mariana Sailing Club and it was the set for the tv show Hawaii Five-0. Never in a million years would you find this place if you weren’t specifically looking for it because it was tucked back in an industrial park right along the harbor. It was a classic tiki bar with all the gloriously tacky decor that goes along with that. We delighted over umbrella drinks and seafood as the tiki-gods watched us. It was very much a thing-to-do in the place-to-do-it and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. By now you can probably guess what we did next, right? We drove back to Kailua and were asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

Combining Work and Play in Oahu

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

When I had originally spoken to the organizer of the Hawaii region certifications about staying on and teaching, I was envisioning several days of traditional “mounted meeting” type clinics where I would be teaching back-to-back lessons at a facility from morning until late afternoon. However, what actually transpired was very different, and I was not at all sad about it because it meant I had lots of time to play and explore on the island! Had we come to Oahu at a time when kids were off of school this might have been different but the timing of our visit meant that I was somewhat limited to teaching the adults that had flexible work schedules and the kids after school. Today was one of my busier teaching days and I was scheduled to go back and forth between two barns on the North Shore for several lessons.

That morning Scott and I changed up our beach walk habit slightly and went for a run to Kailua Beach instead. I had brought running gear because we were signed up for the Beaufort Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving and knew that I had to run while we were in Oahu, otherwise I’d get to gobble until I wobbled… right into a face plant on the 5k route, and not get to eat turkey and all that. It was an enjoyable route to run and we were treated to views of Kailua Bay and its beach along the way.

We took our time travelling up to the North Shore and stopped for a few photo ops along the way. I taught my first lesson at Kawailoa Ranch and while I was teaching Scott hung out at the beach across the street. When it was finished, he picked me up and we headed to Dillingham Ranch.

The organizer of the certifications and clinics had generously invited Scott and I to go on a trail ride while we were at Dillingham and we were excited about the opportunity. Her daughter Minnie was our trail guide and we all rode their family’s horses. We didn’t get to go on the beach but we got a nice tour of the sprawling Dillingham Ranch and it was fun to see Scott get to ride. He was on a big Belgian warmblood mare named Sadie that had come over at some point from Virginia. She was quiet and steady and they made a nice pair. Scott looked right at home and remembered everything I had taught him from his previous rides. When we were walking along some of the more wooded paths his steed decided she was in need of a snack and started grabbing leaves from the trees along the way. Scott asked if this was ok and Minnie said yes. Sadie then took this as an opportunity to turn the ride into a full blown buffet and we had to explain to Scott how to keep her walking as she grabbed bites instead of letting her just stop and munch to her heart’s content.

When our trail ride finished, I hopped off and hustled over to the arena to teach a few lessons. Scott helped take care of the horses and then headed out for a quick 2.5 mile hike at nearby Ka’ena Point State Park until it was time to pick me up and take me back to Kawailoa. (While it was a lot of travel back and forth, the facilities were only about 10 minutes away from each other so it wasn’t terrible.) The hike paralleled the rugged North Shore coast line and he got to see huge surf along the way, as well as remnants of the old railroad that used to run the perimeter of Oahu.

I wrapped up the work day teaching a group lesson at Kawailoa and was thrilled with the quality of riding that I saw. These riders had the classically correct “basic balanced positions” that USPC tries to instill in all its riders and it was exciting to see. Often in geographically remote areas, riders lack access to quality instruction and you see this come through in unbalanced, weak, and incorrect positions. This was absolutely not the case here and it made my job a breeze because I could just give them tools and exercises to layer on skills and further develop their effectiveness, rather than having to fix bad habits. I had a “Pony Club proud” moment during this lesson, pleased that the USPC system and standards were correctly reaching and influencing riders in Polynesia.

Scott, my faithful Uber driver, picked me up when I was done for the day and we headed in search of dinner. We stopped for takeout at a place called Seven Brothers across from Shark’s Cove. We walked across the street and had our dinner sitting on a brick wall overlooking the beach at the snorkeling spot (which was closed that day due to dangerous surf) and while we were eating we noticed some people on the beach playing with fire. Literally. A local fire dancing troupe were taking turns twirling fire sticks and “poi” (poi means “ball on a string”) which was mesmerizing to watch and was right up Scott’s alley. When we had watched our fill of fire dancing we headed back to Kailua, and as had become the norm, fell right into bed.

Lanikai Pillbox Sunrise Hike and Kayaking to the Mokes

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Today was one of our busiest days on the island. The alarm clock went off at an insanely early time this morning so that we could put on our hiking clothes, don headlamps, and head to Lanikai in order to hike up to the Lanikai Pillbox to catch the sunrise from atop the mountain that overlooks Kailua Bay and the bird sanctuary islands of Moku Nui and Moku Iki (commonly referred to as “the Mokes”). This was to be my first in-the-dark sunrise hike and I admit to feeling a bit apprehensive, hoping that it was something I could do and that I’d be able to keep pace with Scott which is hard enough during the daylight, much less in the dark.

Our destination, the “pillbox,” was one of several old WW2 era bunkers that were built into the mountains, and it sat atop the peak. It wasn’t a very long hike (a little over a mile round trip) but was steep, as you would expect. The first bit had ropes which made it easier to gain purchase on the smooth and muddy slope, and I was thankful for them. We got beyond that section and it became quite rocky and it was slow going since the headlamps only illuminated the area a few feet ahead of us which made picking the right path tricky.

We made it to the first pillbox much quicker than we had anticipated so we had time to kill before the sun cast its first light. In the pitchblack it was neat to see the town in the valley below us waking up- lights in houses starting to come on and car traffic coming to life as the morning inched on. We climbed around on top of the graffiti covered concrete fort for a bit but the wind was insane and was whipping all around us. We climbed back down and the rain started up. We hunkered down on the side of the bunker for a bit waiting for the rain to pass and the sun to come along. Soon, other like minded people started appearing from the trail. Finally it was sunrise and we watched the sun slowly peek up from the horizon near Honolulu and start to shine its light on the hillside of Lanikai and Kailua.

We walked another few hundred yards to the adjacent pillbox and checked it out. It was similar and also was covered in some rather impressive and quite elaborate graffiti. (My favorite artistic adornment on the pillboxes was a whimsical mosaic tiled image of a bandana-clad octopus that some enterprising person had affixed to the roof of one of them.) Scott dropped down inside this one to investigate and explore.

The hike back down was easier in the daylight and I was impressed that we had navigated the ascent in the dark now that I could actually see it. The only tricky thing about the descent was learning to look closely for loose pebbles- you were toast if you stepped on any of them because they would roll underneath your feet and you’d lose your traction on the ground and go down. Scott had a near miss and had a cartoon-like few seconds of pinwheeling his arms as he slid and tried to stay balanced, thankfully catching himself and staying upright. We made it back to the car and headed back to the apartment to get ready for the next phase of the day- the kayak trip to the Mokes.

The tandem sea kayak we rented came with a foam block system so that we could strap it to the rental car that didn’t have a roof rack. We figured it out and got it strapped onto the Mazda and we headed the short drive to the Mokes. When we arrived at the parking lot it was still attached to the roof so we patted ourselves on the back. The put-in for the trip was at Kailua Beach and we launched without incident although I admit to feeling a little nervous about having to paddle through the waves without getting toppled. (I remembered our Capers Island paddle in the canoe and how careful we had to be about hitting them perpendicularly to stay upright.) I was thankful to be in a tandem kayak with Scott rather than on my own. Scott had researched the approximate route to take which was to stay parallel to the Lanikai beach until a certain house before starting to cross the bay to the islands. The paddle each way was a little over two miles and took much longer on the way out than coming back where we had the surf and current assisting us. It took us about 90 minutes to reach the beach landing at the larger Moku Nui (smaller Moku Iki is off limits as it is strictly a bird sanctuary). We beached successfully which I was also worried about because the waves here were much bigger than where we launched and while there was a sandy landing, it was narrow and surrounded by huge rocks jutting into the water.

We hadn’t even climbed out of the kayak before we spotted a Hawaiian monk seal¹ that was sunning its chunky grey body on the beach, seemingly oblivious to our presence. We dragged the kayak out of the water, giving the seal a wide berth, and took some pictures of it. Periodically it would wiggle around and reposition itself to a more comfortable position in the warm sand.

Our research of the Mokes had revealed that there were some rather impressive tidal pools situated within the cliffs on the backside of the island so we headed in search of them. We encountered a few other paddlers on the island and they pointed us in the right direction and gave us some suggestions for the best route to take over the craggy cliffs. We reached the pools and they were fascinating because they were their own unique habitat inhabited by little sea snails. The waves would break powerfully on the backside of the island, exploding water way up into the air where it collected in depressions created by the ancient lava flows. The water in the pools was warm and extremely salty. Scott wasted no time hopping into the deepest and most well known tidal pool on the island called the “Queen’s Bath.” After evaluating the safety of such an act (literally me with every single adventure with Scott) I decided it was acceptable and popped into it for a float. (Unfortunately when we were on this side of the island it had become cloudy and overcast and was threatening rain so we actually made a second trip back over to it before we left so we could take better pictures.)

We did some more exploring where Scott did his best impersonation of a mountain goat, scaling some of the cliffs and rock faces, and I watched (nervously). We went back over to the kayak and had our picnic lunch while we watched the still sunbathing monk seal and the various ground-nesting seabirds. Scott had heard that there was some incredible snorkelling right off the island so he donned the snorkeling gear we had brought along and swam out to see what sealife he could find. There was a lot of current but he saw many schools of fish. Again, having your own gear, for the win!

We went back over for a last visit to the Queen’s Bath now that the sun was back out, then bid adieu to the monk seal and launched the kayak to return to Kailua because I was scheduled to teach in Waimanalo that afternoon. The surf here was much bigger than in Kailua but we stayed upright. Along the way back we had a few moments when waves caught us just right where we were actually surfing down the face of the curlers and we were rocketed across the water. On one of these surfing moments we actually flew over a sea turtle! We made it back safely and put the kayak back onto the car and headed home. The trip was just over 4 miles round trip and 2 hours of moving time. We included a GPX file with the route and the Strava activitity details if you’d like to enjoy the trip.

We made it to Waimanalo in time for my afternoon lessons at Malu’Olu Ranch. I had actually met one of the co-owners of the facility back in my mid 20’s when I was a budding C3 examiner at an examiner’s seminar in Kentucky. It was fun to reconnect with her and to be able to teach some of her students. This is where I met the horse that had just come over from Ireland. The riders were well prepared and both had confirmed basics which always makes my job more enjoyable and the lessons more productive. I was thankful for the opportunity to be able to work with Angela’s riders and enjoyed seeing her facility.

While I was teaching Scott was just a few miles away at the Waimanalo Beach. He hung his hammock and enjoyed the beach until it was time for him to return to collect me. He had spotted a hole-in-the-wall restaurant along the way that had a line out front so he suggested we check it out for dinner. The restaurant was Keneke’s and is an Oahu institution. This one in Waimanalo is the original and is 35 years old. Fancy by no stretch of the imagination, the food was cheap and beyond plentiful, in fact, Scott made several meals out of his leftovers. We both had a version of “kalua pig” which is a Hawaiian island staple and closely resembles the pulled pork barbeque of the South. We got our Keneke’s order as takeout and drove south down the scenic highway in search of a scenic overlook to pull off at and eat. We found one near Halona Cove and watched the ocean as we ate our dinner. Stuffed and exhausted we called it a day and headed back to Kailua.

They are one of the most endangered seals in the world, and it is estimated that there are only about 1,600 of them left so it was remarkable for us to have seen one. ↩︎

Honolulu by Sunset Catamaran Cruise

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

This was the final day of Pony Club testing for Karen and I. We were starting late enough in the morning that Scott and I were able to get in a morning beach walk which had now turned into a bit of a beloved routine for us. The weather was looking a bit suspect so we drove, rather than walked, to Kailua Beach which was a smart move because less than ten minutes into our stroll, the skies opened up. We ran back to the car and drove back to the apartment. We had gotten a Dole pineapple earlier in the week (it may or may not have been grown in Hawaii) and Scott cut it up for us for breakfast.

Karen and I did the last bit of our testing at Maunawili Farms before parting ways. We had both agreed to stay on and do some lessons and clinics for the next week and she was scheduled to teach at a barn in Waimanalo once the certification wrapped up and I was scheduled to stay and teach at Maunawili. I taught an adult beginner and gave her my “blessing” to go for her D2 Dressage certification and I suggested that we see if her club would let us make that happen while we were in Oahu. I was pleased when they said yes and Karen was able to certify her later in the week.

After my lesson was finished Scott came to pick me up at Maunawili and we headed “home” to our apartment for a bit. He had spent his morning on the beach and then met the kayak rental guy when our sea kayak got delivered. We took a quick nap before we needed to head into Honolulu for our sunset catamaran cruise which we were both excited about.

This was my first real foray into Honolulu and I was treated to a vivid rainbow when we got near the city. Scott had found a reliable place to park in Waikiki and we spent some time walking on the beach and the beachfront park on our way to the catamaran. This was my first time seeing the unusual and sprawling banyan trees up close and personal and I was mesmerized by their unique “accessory trunks” which sprout off the main trunk and allow the tree to seemingly spread out indefinitely. They looked like they came out of a fantasy movie and the amount of birdlife housed inside them was remarkable.

We made it to our catamaran that was beached on the sand in front of the Waikiki highrise hotels and waded through the surf to climb aboard. In no time we had their signature mai-tai drinks in hand. The crewmen ran through the rules of the vessel (no pooping allowed in their toilet as they were sailors, not plumbers) and asked if we were ready to get boozy and cruisey, and our catamaran set sail. One of the crew blew a conch shell that sounded exactly like a ship’s foghorn to let surfers know to make way for the boat. The sky was brilliant with just enough clouds to give dramatic shadows with the waning light. We made our way out into the open water and watched the sun drop lower and lower until it dipped below the horizon. Once we were a little ways off the beach they unfurled the colorful sails. The boat was heading north towards Diamond Head and we eventually got into some bigger surf. Scott and I had positioned ourselves at the bow and we had all been warned by the crew that we might have some waves crash over the boat. Duly warned we took our chances, fully expecting to get doused. Sure enough, a few moments later we encountered the first huge wave and got drenched but thankfully the water was warm. The sea water that made its way into our mai-tais actually enhanced their flavor, as well as the overall experience and we laughed every time another big wave hit us. I love catamarans and sunset cruises and this one checked all the boxes and it was one of the best experiences of the whole trip, certainly qualifying as a “thing to do in the place you’re supposed to do it.”

Scott’s sister had inquired about food costs in Oahu, specifically the cost of a Big Mac Meal. After we got off the catamaran we spied a McDonald’s and popped in to research an answer to her inquiry. ($10.79 which seemed pretty par for the course on the mainland but we did find food costs in general, especially at the grocery store to be quite a bit higher, which was to be expected since everything has to be shipped or flown in.) We made it back to the car and were on the hunt for a dinner spot. We found a local drive-in type place called the Rainbow Drive In, that was reminiscent of the Beacon back home. From Honolulu back to Kailua was about a 30 minute drive and we headed back to our place with the heater cranked up to help warm and dry our sea-soaked but happy bodies.

Horses and Pony Club in Hawaii

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

It was finally time for me to do some horse things in Oahu. Karen and I were the examiners for two small national certifications: a two candidate Dressage C3, and a two candidate HB certification. The Dressage involves riding and the HB covers unmounted horse management topics. I was the “PIP” for the Dressage certification and Karen was the “PIP” for the HB. “PIP” is latin for primus inter pares which translates to “first among equals.” In Pony Club terms, this just means that as PIP you are the one that is in charge of setting the testing schedule and dealing with any unusual circumstances that may occur. We were to start off with the C3 and we had two adult candidates. This testing would take two half days and once it finished we were to transition to the HB which would also take two half days. Splitting the certification up over two days is more user friendly and candidates typically have better outcomes this way.

The certification didn’t start until nearly lunch time on Saturday, so Scott and I were able to get in a nice morning walk to and along the beach. This time we headed north from Kailua Beach and made our way to Kalama Beach. Along the way we were treated to a colorful sunrise and a stunning rainbow.

Both testings were about ten minutes away from our Airbnb at Maunawili Farms. Maunawili was a beautiful facility and Karen and I enjoyed testing there. The arena was picturesque and was shaded by giant “monkeypod” trees, which looked like an overgrown and more impressive sprawling Mimosa tree, with the same delicate and feathery pink flowers (and of course they are invasive, just like everything in Hawaii it seems). The property manager, who was also one of our Dressage candidates, told us that she and her son had planted them 30+ years ago.

It was fun getting to learn about horsekeeping in Hawaii. Seeing how horses are done in various places is one of the things I most enjoy about being a Pony Club examiner and clinician. In particular on this trip I enjoyed hearing how and where the horses had come from- many were imports from abroad and from the mainland, fewer it seemed were bred on the island. One of the horses I would meet later in the week had just been imported from Ireland and had arrived only about two months prior, and I was curious what was going through his mind as it must have been quite some culture shock.

On the first day of testing Scott planned to hike Mount Olomana or Three Peaks (the hike that the Airbnb owner had warned him about) and it turns out that its trailhead was less than a half mile from Maunawili Farms. In fact, I had a view of it from the farm while Karen and I were testing. He both survived and enjoyed the hike and thankfully only did the first two peaks, avoiding the third and most dangerous. It was fairly steep and slick with mud (so much that when he got back to the Airbnb he got into the shower fully clothed to wash off his clothes!) and there were permanently affixed ropes along the way to help navigate the trails, but the spectacular panoramic view of Oahu at the top made it worth it. At the second peak he was even able to hang his hammock and enjoy a siesta atop the mountain.

When Karen and I were finished testing we headed home to write up some of our test sheets and then we connected with Scott and we all headed to dinner. I of course had spotted the local brewery- Lanikai Brewing Company, and wanted to check it out. On the drive into Kailua we were treated to a blaze orange sunset as the sun dropped behind the moutains. When we got there we saw that it had a food truck outside and I gave Karen and Scott the option of going somewhere else. They were good sports about it and said they didn’t mind. All the brewery’s beers were their own and we each got something different. Scott wandered across the street and found a taco truck to order his meal from and while he was over there also found a local artisan selling bouquets and arrangements and he bought one to give our Airbnb hostess which I found quite sweet. Poor Karen had forgotten her reading glasses so we got a good laugh over me having to read her the entire drink and food menu though, and she somehow ended up unintentionally ordering a flight of spirits that she shared with us. Scott regaled us with stories from his Three Peaks hiking adventure.

The next day, Sunday, our testing continued on and when the C3 Dressage was finished, Karen and I changed gears into horse management testing and began the HB. We continued to learn about horsekeeping in Hawaii and the similarities and differences that are entailed with keeping horses on an island. Hay has to be shipped in from the mainland and because of that the cost is astronomical as you might imagine. We also learned that they do not have to vaccinate for rabies in Hawaii as thankfully it is not present on the island.

While I was busy conducting the certification, Scott was off scuba diving, so I’ll hand over the keyboard to him to tell you about his dive.

Scott here! After much research, I found a dive shop in Honolulu called “Island Divers” that was much closer to Kailua that had a dive charter package that worked with our schedule. It provided three dives on one charter, all in nearby Maunalua Bay. The first dive was at a crashed Corsair airplane at about 115 fteet. The plane had gone down in the 1940’s (the pilot was ok). The water was warm and the visibility was good so I was able to explore the decayed and coral covered wreck for about 40 minutes and saw lots of schooling fish that were attracted to it. The next dive was only about 15 minutes away and we sat around talking and waiting until we had an appropriate surface interval before we dove again. The second dive was called New Barge and was eventful because we saw a six foot long whitetip reef shark swimming along the ocean floor. It was another short boat ride to the next dive site which was a drift dive which means the boat drops you off and you let the current push you along. We drifted along a shallow coral ledge at about 40 feet and saw two moray eels and some puffer fish. We got back early afternoon and from there I headed to Waikiki where I did a little hammocking and walked along the beach. While hammocking, I called a small kayak outfitter that I had found and arranged to rent a two-person sea kayak so that we could kayak later in the week. On the way back I stopped at China Walls and jumped off of its cliff and swam. I’m handing it back to Janna now.

For dinner that night it was just Scott and I and we ended up just going to California Pizza Kitchen in Kailua because it was nearby and easy to get to. We typically try to avoid national chains as a general rule, especially when travelling, but we were both exhausted and the idea of researching to find an intriguing local place was more than I could handle because the HB testing that day had made my brain tired! It was about what you would expect but it hit the spot and we headed home.

Jurassic Hawaii

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

In June of 1993 a twelve year girl went to the movie theater with her best friend and her best friend’s brother and his best friend to see a critically acclaimed Steven Spielberg summer blockbuster that had just been released- Jurassic Park. The girl had no clue what the word “jurassic” meant and was just there because it was the movie that the best friend’s brother and his friend had chosen. Within the first thirty seconds of the movie the girl was captivated and spent the next two hours and seven minutes on the edge of her seat. She spent the rest of the summer drinking in everything Jurassic Park and dinosaur themed that she could, utterly enthralled with the idea of velociraptors, Tyrannosaurus Rexes, Michael Crichton, paleontology, Robert Bakker, the evolution of birds, DNA, chaos theory, Ford Explorers, Costa Rica, the music of John Williams, and Tonya Harding¹. The next week she got her hands on the 399 page novel and devoured it within days. She even dragged her mother to a music/movie store in the mall to preorder the VHS tape of the movie and then when it finally arrived, proceeded to watch the movie nearly every day for the next few months, being able to quote just about every line from it, which I am sure her family just loved and found quite charming. For Christmas that year there would be gifts of model Tyrannosaurus Rexes, and books about the making of Jurassic Park. The girl was obsessed. That girl was me.

Parts of Jurassic Park were filmed in Oahu at Kualoa Ranch so when I found out that we were going to Hawaii, a tour of the 4,000 acre ranch was one of the first things I booked. I picked the “Jurassic Adventure Tour” for us, so on Tuesday, November 8, that was the first order of business for Scott and I.

We arrived, checked in, and wandered around the visitors center area while we waited for our tour to start. This was the staging area for their trail rides so we got to see their string of horses (they all looked healthy and in good weight) and watch tourists get outfitted and acquainted with their steeds. There were pictures of the various movie stars and other famous people that have visited or filmed at Kualoa, as well as movie memorabilia from the many films that have been shot at this beautiful and sprawling ranch and it was fun to walk around and take it in. Some of the most well known movies/shows that have been filmed there are: Jurassic Park franchise (especially the Jurassic World installations), 50 First Dates, Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Pearl Harbor, Lost, Jumanji, and Hawaii Five-0.

Unfortunately it was raining during our tour, which is par for the course on the windward side of Oahu, but we were good sports and spent the next two hours being driven around the ranch in an open-air truck, stopping at various notable sights where Jurassic Park was filmed. The land itself is beautiful and provides a stunning view of the Kaneohe Bay and the Ko’olau mountain range soars up seemingly from the middle of the property, creating an incredibly dramatic scene. During the World War 2 era, the ranch was an airfield, and defensive structures were built into the mountainside overlooking Kaneohe Bay. Post WWII, the land was returned to the family but the structures remain and have now been turned into a film museum of sorts with actual movie props. Getting to go inside the bunker was fun and also gave us a little break from the rain.

My Jurassic Park itch scratched, we left the ranch and headed across the street to Kualoa Beach Park. We set up hammocks and dried out in the sun while staring across Kaneohe Bay to the island called China Man’s Hat. Just as we finally got dry the rain started back up so we quickly packed our hammocks up and headed to get lunch (Teddy’s Bigger Burgers).

Remember our coffee situation at the apartment? It was a nice machine but the little pods were quite expensive and Scott is more of a volume consumer rather than appreciating the complex notes and flavors so we decided to pop into Target and buy a regular drip coffee pot for our stay. We figured that we could get a cheap one to use and just leave it at the Airbnb at the end of our trip. We found one for less than $20 but the real highlight of this Target trip was when Scott discovered that a feature of this particular two story store was a shopping cart escalator. He went and grabbed a shopping cart just so that he could try it out. There was a security guard posted near the escalator (probably for the Scotts of the world) and Scott asked him if he could ride along inside the shopping cart while it rode up the escalator, to which the security guard zanily quipped back “No children allowed.” Good one Mr. Target security guard!

Later in the day we decided to venture out and go south to explore the area from Kailua towards Honolulu along an area called the Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline. We stopped at Waimanalo Beach first and sipped some local beers that we had picked up the day before while overlooking the ocean (they were a miss- I typically like nearly all beers, but these were too bitter even for me which meant that Scott certainly didn’t like it). Scott took a dip into the ocean before we packed up and carried on (bringing more sand into the rental car). We pulled off at the Koko Crater Arch trail and this was where I first discovered all the stray cats on the island, and shifted my obsessive attention off of feral chickens and onto wild cats. In the parking lot there was a sign announcing that you were prohibited from feeding both chickens and cats. We had only taken about ten steps when I spotted the first kitten and then when we got to the overlook I saw more climbing on the steep rocky cliffs rising above the ocean and declared this to be a terrible spot for kittens to be living. (Quotable quotes from Scott: “It’s like a kitty…. cathouse here” and “No Janna, you cannot take any of these kittens with us.”)

Continuing along the route we stopped at the Halona Blowhole at Halona Cove, Halona Cove being the beach made famous by the passionate love scene in the 1953 movie From Here to Eternity. Scott scampered out onto the rocks and down the slope to the beach while I watched safely from the overlook (in my defense I had on flip flops and didn’t want to break an ankle the day before I was supposed to start the certification- not that I want to break an ankle any other time, but in particular didn’t want that to happen this day). From there we ended up getting into the outskirts of Honolulu right at sunset and from the inside of the car while stopped in traffic, I caught one of the most iconic shots of our trip, palm trees along the water backlit with dramatic orange light from the setting Oahu sun.

Scott opted out of dinner and I found a takeout sushi place in Kailua. I made sure I had all my paperwork in order to start the certification the next day and we crashed, exhausted from another day of soaking up the sights of the island.

Ok, this is an odd one, but there’s a connection, I promise. Tonya Harding, the infamous ice skater, during the midst of her Nancy Kerrigan scandal, represented the US at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. She used the dramatic Jurassic Park theme song for her routine (this was also the time that the lace on her ice skate broke). So captivated by both this song and Tonya Harding, this was the year that I received both rollerblades AND the Jurassic Park soundtrack on cassette for Christmas, which then led to me and my neighborhood friends rollerblading around the cul-de-sac for hours at a time with the Jurassic Park theme song blasting out from our boombox. I’m sure the other neighbors loved it. Everyone is weird when they’re that age. ↩︎

Getting to Know Oahu

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Although the alarm clock was set for before 6 AM, Scott and I were already awake when it went off because of the five hour time difference. We are very basic in regards to our coffee demands and preferences and had a bit of a learning curve figuring out the fancy and elaborate Nespresso machine in the Airbnb. It produced little squirts of espresso one expensive pod at a time and we had to get creative to get it to produce enough go-go juice to fill our mugs for our predawn walk to Kailua Beach. Mugs sufficiently filled and Google Maps deployed, we headed out.

It was a 15 minute walk through a residential area to get to Kailua Beach, and despite it being dark still we enjoyed seeing all the different trees and tropical plants. We got to the beach, ditched our shoes and walked at the water’s edge. It was cloudy and overcast that morning so the actual sunrise wasn’t much to revel in but we enjoyed our stroll, stopping along the way to get a lay of the land. Because we had done such thorough research leading up to our arrival we were able to suss out various landmarks in the distance: the “Mokes” which are two bird sanctuary islands off the coast and the Ko’olau mountain range, both of which we were planning to visit in the upcoming days. Along our way we found a washed up bottle on the shore, but sadly, there was no message in it. Kailua Bay is a popular spot for windsports and we watched various iterations of wind sportsmen enjoying the wind and water in the bay. We wandered all the way up to Lanikai Beach before turning around and heading back to our apartment.

Our plan for the day was to take Karen up to the North Shore to get the car she would be using. A pony club family had generously offered one of theirs for her to use for her stay. We collected Karen and drove to Kalapawai Market, a cute and popular market and breakfast/lunch spot that Scott and I had passed on our morning walk to the beach. We got our breakfast sandwiches and coffee and took them to Kailua Beach to eat so Karen could see the beach and the bay.

We decided to take the Kamehameha highway, the scenic route that ran parallel to the ocean to get to the North Shore instead of the “interstate.”¹ It took longer but was well worth it, as it offered nonstop scenic views of the mountains and Pacific. It was a great way to get our bearings and become acquainted with Oahu. We found the pony club car family’s home and got a little tour of their incredible estate that was perched on a mountain overlooking Waimea Bay where we would be snorkeling later. Now that Karen had wheels, we parted ways and Scott and I headed off to continue exploring.

Lunch was at Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck, an iconic spot in Haleiwa town, and we had their signature scampi plate. It was both messy and delicious. Thoroughly stuffed, we washed off as best we could and headed to the first beach of the day, Sunset Point Beach. We enjoyed watching surfers in the distance and Scott took a quick dip into the water before coming back to lay in the sand. (The sand that was still attached to his body when we got back into our rental car was the first pound of about 50 pounds of sand that would be deposited in the car during our trip…)

Our next stop was to Sharks Cove in Pupukea to snorkel. It is an ideal snorkel spot (when the waves are tame) because it is a natural tidal pool and is fairly protected from the famously huge North Shore waves. We enjoyed the snorkeling as well as seeing the waves crash against the wall of coral which created impressive cascading waterfalls of water down into the tidal pool. We picked a good day to visit because when we passed by this spot several times later in our trip it was closed due to high surf. Utilizing another signature play from the Scotty B: American Adventure Boy Playbook, Scott and I had brought our own snorkel gear with us and we were thankful that we did because it made it easy to just pop into the water for a few minutes here and there. Had we rented gear it would have been more hassle and we would have felt obligated to spend several hours doing it to get our money’s worth.

After snorkeling we headed to check out Waimea Falls but only made it to the ticket booth. It was $25 to walk the .75 mile paved trail to the waterfall and there were several tour bus groups that had just been dropped off. Deciding that this wasn’t really our scene, we turned around and headed back to the car. (On the road into and out of the park Scott was complaining about all the speed bumps and I told him that they were there to help protect some of the endangered birds that live in this park. He of course hadn’t noticed the road sign explaining this and said something to the effect of “Well, they shouldn’t have been there.”)

Continuing on, we passed a sign for “Organic Fresh Coconuts” and were intrigued. We stopped in and for $10 were given a fresh-from-the-coconut-tree coconut that we watched get macheted out of its outer husk, then drilled into, have a straw inserted, and then handed to us to drink the coconut water out of. The proprietor, a native Hawaiian and professional coconut tree trimmer, explained that these were older coconuts (although “picked” earlier this day) and that the water would have a slightly fermented taste to it. Scott and I shared it and both enjoyed it. As we drank it he shared that the street that we were on had some of the highest dollar real estate on the North Shore and some famous actors (Christian Slater) and musicians (a guitarist from Metallica) have houses here. The next step was to hand the coconut back over to him and he would split it and harvest the flesh out of it for us. He did this and bagged it and sent us on our way. We both ate a little but decided there was something about the texture that wasn’t super appealing. Its consistency reminded me of fish although the taste certainly did not. We agreed that we preferred the coconut water and dried coconut.

Next order of business was to find an alleged “Pineapple diorama kiosk” that Scott had read about online. It supposedly was an exhibit that showed pineapples in various stages of growth and was located near the Dole plantation. (We were personally invested in this since Brooke planted a pineapple two years ago and we have watched it grow. We are anxiously waiting for it to produce a pineapple.) It eluded us despite Scott valiantly searching several roads. We finally gave up and carried on our way and found a coffee/smoothie/ice cream spot.

While we waited for our smoothies to be made we wandered around their gift shop which was interesting and had information about the coffee industry as they grew their own coffee at this location. I have a new appreciation for coffee now; I really had no idea how involved the process of growing, harvesting, preparing, and roasting the beans actually was. As we mosied around the shop I was also very intrigued by the wild chickens that roam around everywhere on the island. There was a flock here at the coffee shop and they would just stroll in and out of the building, pecking the ground for food, ducking under counters, and just in general making themselves at home. Scott would soon come to grow annoyed by my obsession with the wild chickens of Oahu.

We got our fruit smoothies and carried on, this time hitting the more direct, but not as pretty, highway to head back to Kailua. We found a Mexican restaurant in Kailua (yeah we did) for dinner. It was a great first day in Oahu!

We noted that we couldn’t really call their interstates “interstates” since the only state any of their “interstates” passed through was Hawaii, and instead of referring to these “interstates” as “I-whatever number”, they just called them the H-1, H-2, H-3. ↩︎

Would you like to go to Hawaii

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 04:00:00 +0000

I got a phone call from one of the co-chairs of the National Testing Committee in late September. I had been dodging her calls and texts for a few weeks because I had been asked to be the incoming co-chair of the committee and had decided not to accept the position but was feeling too guilty to confess my decision yet. I listened to the voicemail that she left and she assured me that she wasn’t calling to harrass me just about that, but that they needed an examiner to go do a Dressage C3 and HB certification in Hawaii in early November. Was I interested? I immediately called her back and said heck yes (and sheepishly divulged to her that I was declining the role of co-chair). I immediately started plotting the feasibility of Scott coming along and us turning it into a serendipitous vacation. I talked to the organizer of the testings and she asked if I would be willing to stay on after the certifications to do some teaching- also yes! The region agreed to house us and provide us a car so Scott was on board and we booked our flights for our 10 day trip to Oahu and began one of our favorite things to do which is trip research.

Up until recently we had been using the world’s most elaborate and quite impressive spreadsheet for trip research and planning. Scott recently upped our game by introducing Google My Maps which allows you to create a custom map of locations of interest. He had been using it already for our upcoming Thailand trip (January of ‘25) planning but this was the first trip we would actually get to implement it. It makes it easy to visualize where your personal points of interest are in relation to each other and draws on the power of Google maps. By the time we were done with our Hawaiian internet surfing and YouTubing our map of Oahu was positively covered with icons of things to do and see on the island and we started counting down the days until embarkation.

I’ve heard that the peak satisfaction with a vacation actually occurs prior to the vacation itself in the lead up to it and I can see how that might be the case, especially in the day and age of YouTube because it is exciting to see and think about all the places you’ll get to experience. It’s been said that you experience a trip in three phases: the planning phase, the actual trip, and the reliving of the trip after the fact. We enjoy the planning and the research that goes into it and spent many nights watching videos and finding neat things to do in Oahu- many of which were off the beaten path (or as far off the beaten path as you can get in 2024 with so many travel vloggers documenting every inch of the globe).

Finally it was trip time and we were off! We were scheduled to have a rather tight connection in Detroit but that ended up being a non-issue because instead we actually had a three hour delay. Delays are better than cancellations and we toodled around the Detroit airport to kill time before finally boarding the 10 hour flight to Honolulu. I considered it practice for our Thailand trip where we will have two 10 hour flights. At least on the long haul flights they still wine you and dine you and Scott always gives me his wine rations.

We landed right after dark and rendezvoused with my co-examiner, Karen Marcotte, who was waiting at our gate to greet us. Karen is from New Hampshire, just outside of Boston, and has been a National Examiner as long as I have. In fact, she was one of my co-examiners at one of my very first C3 testings I ever was an examiner for (circa 2008) and we have been on panels together multiple times since. She has been a mentor for me and I always enjoy testing with her because she is down to earth and has a respectful and professional way of relating with candidates even when it is necessary to deliver bad news to unsuccessful candidates which can be very challenging and is never enjoyable.

Bleary from the long haul flight, we found our way to the rental car desk, signed the necessary paperwork ¹, found our car and hit the road in search of our Airbnb. Actually, it wasn’t that simple. ² We took in as many sights as we could on the drive there considering it was already dark out. The highway that we took from Honolulu to Kailua where we would be based, the scenic Pali Highway, was perplexing to Scott because it was a 6 lane divided highway, yet it had speed bumps and a 35 mph speed limit. I am fairly sure it was designed with Scott in mind…

Scott and I had a unit to ourselves and Karen’s housing was right across the street which was convenient. We dropped Karen off and went to unpack and get settled in. A few moments later the Airbnb owner checked in to familiarize us with the apartment. She was a horse owner and member of the local Pony Club and kept her horses at the facility where we were holding the certifications. Scott told her our plan for the morning which was to get up before sunrise and hike the Mount Olomana trail, also known as Three Peaks. Her eyes widened and she looked at him like he had two heads. She warned him that it was a highly challenging and notoriously dangerous hike and advised him to be careful, and under no circumstances should we attempt the third peak as it is the most dangerous and people have to be rescued via helicopter from it periodically.

Once she left we revisited and revised our plans for the morning and decided to do a more sedate and much safer walk to the local beach instead and to observe the sunrise that way. (I was shocked, pleasantly surprised, and thankful that Scott actually heeded her warning!) Scott decided he would do the Three Peaks hike on one of the days I was testing. We set the alarm for 5:45 and immediately crashed, exhausted from the long day of travel but excited about the upcoming days of exploration that lay ahead.

Our 2024 Oahu Hawaii Google My Map

An entertaining aside about the rental car… One of the plays in Scotty B’s Adventure Playbook is to upgrade his insurance coverage prior to a major trip because the circumstances are wildly different compared to daily driving, and in regards to a rental car it’s more economical to use private insurance coverage rather than paying the exorbitant fees through the rental company. Having recently changed insurance companies, when he called to do this two days prior to our trip, he was informed that changes took five days to take effect with this company. So with this news we decided to use my insurance. Janna (me) then revealed to Scott that he was actually specifically excluded from being a covered driver on my policy. This came as news to Scott who aside from Janna, is the only other driver of the 4Runner. When Scott (rightfully) said “what the hell??” Janna tried valiantly to explain how the insurance agent she spoke to when procuring coverage tricked her into admitting that there would be other drivers, and somehow explicitly excluding Scott. Thankfully we managed to sort out the situation and Scott was added successfully to Janna’s policy (and it added a whopping $0.09/month). We have now come to refer to this as The Rumpelstiltskin Event. ↩︎
Remember how we said we were exhausted after our long flight? Well, when we got up to the rental car desk we promptly declared Scott the primary driver, and when we went to add Janna as an additional driver, the daily price skyrocketed. Playing it cool and all, we huddled and came back to the agent and declared that ONLY Scott would be driving. Proud of ourselves for saving a few hundred bucks, we took the keys and marched out toward the car corral. Then all of a sudden it dawned on us that we were back to square one, realizing that since Scott paid for it and was listed as the driver, we wouldn’t have the necessary coverage. We aboutfaced, marched back into the office and announced that Janna would be the only driver. We then had to go through the whole paperwork rigamarole again. Then, finally properly covered we hoofed it to the corral in search of our rental car. ↩︎

Foothills Paddling Club Chattooga Fest '24

Sat, 04 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000

This recap of Chattooga Fest 2024 was written by Janna for Foothills Paddling Club and was posted on their website:

Another May, another memorable Chattooga Fest in the books! Foothills Paddling Club’s 10+ year tradition of meeting up at the National Wild and Scenic Chattooga River the first weekend of May came together again this year to give about 80 members an enjoyable weekend of paddling and camaraderie despite a bit of rain. The resounding theme for the weekend was community, and we saw it play out several times throughout the weekend. The experiences at Chattooga Fest served as a powerful reminder of how special and unique this organization is and how lucky we are to be a part of it.

Friday afternoon several members braved the rain showers and met up at the Chattooga Sounds Campground to coordinate river trips. The rain graciously stopped for a bit, and the sun even made its way out. There was a Thrifts to Bull trip, and a few brave paddlers took on section 4. The Thrifts to Bull trip went smoothly and everyone enjoyed a nice afternoon on the river. The section 4 trip was a bit more eventful when Scott Bouchard injured his shoulder in a routine roll at Corkscrew (not that there is anything remotely routine about rolling in the Five Falls section of the Chattooga River). Thankfully, his fellow paddlers were able to help him to shore and collect his boat and gear before he began the 2+ mile hike out of the gorge on foot and back to the road. They were kind enough to portage his boat through the rest of the rapids and tow it across the two miles of Lake Tugaloo flatwater and back to the takeout. The help Scott received from the FPC members and some other members on the trip perfectly illustrated the sense of community that FPC creates and fosters.

The second annual Chattooga Fest pizza party on Friday night at Humble Pie was a hit and about 30 hungry FPC members chowed down on pizza as they hung out and enjoyed each other’s company. There were several new faces in the crowd, and they were welcomed to the club. New this year was a shuttle bus that took members from the campground to Humble Pie and back again at the end of the evening. The rain decided to start back up which took away the usual sitting around the campfire late evening activity.

Saturday morning slightly damp campers rolled out of their tents and were eventually joined by other (drier) FPC members who were either camping in RV’s or who drove in for the day, for the morning meetup and trip planning. The neat thing about Chattooga Fest is that all trips, with the exception of the raft trip, are coordinated and led by members. This is mostly because the Forest Service caps the number of participants in a trip/group due to the river’s National Wild and Scenic distinction. The importance of group leaders is especially critical given the Chattooga’s water level variability since it is not dam controlled making trip planning far in advance rather tricky. FPC members volunteered to lead trips both on various parts of the Chattooga as well as a trip to the Nantahala. Huge thanks to all the trip leaders who stepped up and kept the members on their trips safe. Cade Puckett led a section 4 PFD trip allowing first-year attendee Don Belock his first taste of Chattooga Section 4 glory. Clayton Burton graciously offered up his expert raft guide expertise for the third year in a row and expertly guided a group on section 3.5 and caught a perfect line down double drop at Bull Sluice. He shared valuable information about rafting safely, navigating whitewater, and hydrology. Mike Barnes, a new member, brought his 14 foot raft and took several of his friends who are new members on a section 3.5 rafting trip. Dennis Owens led a group of brave paddlers on the beginning of section 3 from Earl’s Ford to Sandy Ford.

Saturday afternoon several things happened that demonstrated the core value of community in the club. The section 3.5 kayaking trip and rafting trip converged at the end of their runs and ended up at Woodall Shoals at the same time. One of the kayakers was having her PFD on section 3.5 and she encountered trouble at Woodall. which is a very long and technical section of the river. She unfortunately became separated from her boat, finding herself more or less stranded in the middle of the rapid. Thankfully Adam Mobley, Garrick Taylor, Kenny Anderson, and Clayton Burton jumped into action and helped get her to shore and Clayton piloted her boat down the remaining stretch of rapid. While Clayton was helping with that, the members of the raft trip started the long trek back up from the river to the parking lot with the raft. The raft somehow seemed heavier at the end of the trip than at the start, and it certainly wasn’t light at the start! We carried it just a few yards at a time before having to set it down to rest and regroup. When we were about halfway up the hill and rapidly running out of steam, down the trail came about four of the members from Mike Barnes’ raft to help us with our raft. They grabbed onto it and relieved our burden despite having just made the same treacherous trip a few minutes before with their own raft. A few minutes after loading up the rafts onto the trailer, Clayton appeared from the trail carrying Kendra Hathway’s kayak after he had heard that she had a compromised shoulder. Those stories are just the ones that I personally witnessed, I can guarantee that there are tons that I didn’t see or hear about and demonstrated what FPC stands for, which is members helping members.

Chris Grey, BBQ King of SC, along with his family members Beth, Christine, and Eric handled the Saturday night barbeque dinner again this year, and it was as delicious as ever. After dinner and prior to the raffle, outgoing FPC president Adam Mobley gave a heartfelt speech about what the club means to him, what FPC has done for him in his life, and what he wants to see the club do in the future so that other members can experience the sense of community that it provides. We are so appreciative of Adam’s service and his vision. We were then introduced to Dennis Owens, the incoming FPC president, and we are looking forward to his tenure as our next fearless leader.

The prize giving/raffle was the next phase of the evening and proved exciting and entertaining. Something new and fun this year was recognition for trip leaders. They were able to choose an item from the “trip leader gratitude box” which contained items such as hats, tees, and beanies. There was also recognition for PFDs (personal first descents), and members who experienced a PFD over the weekend were able to choose items from the “grab and go” prize table.

There were many great prizes this year and we are so grateful to the board members that did the legwork to procure them, especially Kendra Hathway. FPC is sincerely thankful to the donors of gear, trips, and even a boat for their generous contributions and donations (see list). FPC’s own Tim Alexander graciously offered two handmade contributions to the raffle: a charcuterie board featuring a whimsical river scene with Sasquatch at Bull Sluice, and a live edge coffee table with a detailed laser cut map of the Chattooga River and all of its tributaries. The winners of both items were ecstatic to receive them! (From the audience, a questioning voice piped up, “someone gave Tim a laser?!?!)

The grand prize was a blue Liquid Logic Powerslide and the drawing of raffle tickets for it was quite entertaining! Adam’s dad Gary was the lucky winner, but he graciously said to redraw so that someone else could win it. The next ticket to be chosen was none other than John Franklin, who he or his wife Susan Donkers, have won the boat or grand prize at the Chattooga Fest raffle for the last 3-4 years. He graciously declined and asked for it to be redrawn. His name was then drawn AGAIN. Again he declined and asked for another ticket to be drawn. Scott Bouchard was the next and final lucky winner! He gladly accepted the boat and looks forward to paddling it once his shoulder has healed.

Still riding high from winning the Liquid Logic boat, Scott Bouchard made funnel cake for anyone who wanted it in the camp kitchen. Members who were camping hung out and recounted the highlights of the day’s events, all while a few members made a campfire. The campfire ring was newly remodeled this year and now features a brand-new concrete base. While many members were standing around eating funnel cake a huge booming explosion happened just a few yards away at the campfire, sending flames and sparks several feet up into the air. Thankfully no one was injured, and it turns out that as the concrete heated up it caused the moisture still remaining within it to expand and explode. It made for a memorable campfire for sure!

Sunday morning, again slightly damp after the overnight rain, members convened for trip planning. The sun came out providing club members with another beautiful day on the water. Mike Barnes had a few spots remaining on his raft that some new FPC members were able to snag for his group’s section 3.5 trip. There were Thrifts to the Bull, section 3, section 3.5, and section 4 trips that came together. Some members didn’t go on the water at all on Sunday and instead took advantage of the good hiking in the area and hit the trails and a few hung out at Bull Sluice watching the kayakers and rafters come through.

Special thanks to the FPC board members, Chattooga Fest committee members, as well as all the other members who volunteered and stepped up in some capacity to help pull off this monumental and unforgettable event: Hope Simpson, Calvin Slota, and Felicia and Bryan Friesen. It takes a village, and what an incredible one we have!

Honorable mention funny story: On Saturday morning we were treated to an entertaining master class on how to break into your car if the keys are seemingly locked in it. Tim Alexander had pulled his car into the crowded campground parking lot, blocked no less than eight vehicles, and then locked his keys in the car. He recruited Scott Bouchard (who was still down an arm, his right arm useless after his mishap on Friday) and Clayton Burton to help him. At one point Scott Manly wandered up to see what was going on and Tim asked him if he had a coat hanger on him. Scott M patted his pockets and said “Nope Tim, I’m afraid I don’t.” Scott B had a wooden wedge that they were able to insert far enough into the door jamb with the help of a NRS strap to get the door open enough to insert a hot dog roasting stick into the car to pop the lock. This of course caused the car alarm to go off. Tim rummaged through the car hunting for the keys, only to realize they were not actually in the vehicle. He then had to go in search of them (car alarm blaring still) and found them on the table in the camp kitchen. It was an entertaining illustration of creativity and teamwork.

Cooper River Bridge Run

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Scott and I put on our running shoes before sunrise on a chilly morning in early April and got dropped off in downtown Charleston to board a bus that would take us across the river and to the starting corrals in Mount Pleasant to que up with 26,736 other excited runners for the 47th annual Cooper River Bridge 10k Run.

My training for the run started in January and I used the None2Run training app to prepare. I had used the app last year and felt reasonably prepared for the 2023 race (completed with a chip time of 1:08) and my goal for this year was to be under 1:07. The plan spanned 8 weeks, culminating in race day. I started early enough to account for any time off due to minor injury or sickness (I had a cold last year that knocked me out and caused me to miss almost a whole week of the prep). Thankfully I didn’t really have to miss any major runs and was actually able to repeat weeks 3, 5, and 6 which made me feel quite prepared this go-round.

We headed down to Charleston on Friday late morning and stopped at the Coliseum in North Charleston for the race expo and bib pickup. This race expo is often said to be one of the best in the US and rivals expos for major marathons such as Boston. They have lots of vendors offering various degrees of swag and free samples, drawings, prizes and promotions. The energy is infectious and although I don’t consider myself a super serious runner, it is fun to feel like part of a community, and, at that, one that I certainly wouldn’t have ever thought myself a part of until just a few years ago.

Bibs, race tee and bags collected, we then roamed around the expo. Scott ate about 14 Jonny Pops popsicles (I had one and forgot how much I don’t enjoy popsicles since I have sensitive teeth) and we collected more than our fair share of Liquid IV packets. (I love them for after my long runs, during the summer when I am out in the heat and humidity all day, and maybe for the occasional morning after a night of excessive fun and over-indulgence.) Part of my training plan was to abstain from alcohol for the week leading up to the race so it was hard to pass by the Tito’s booth and all the other various beer and wine vendors offering samples but I mustered up the self control. Part of your race entry includes a free drink at the Beer Garden at the expo and our drink tickets went unused. Yay us!

My cousin Becky was once again generously hosting us and seems to be our de facto hostess for our adventures occurring in the South Carolina Lowcountry. It is always good to see her and catch up with her and hear about her adventures. We were greeted enthusiastically* by her dogs BooBoo and PJ when we arrived. (*Boo was genuinely happy to see us and PJ enthusiastically wanted to gnaw her way through our Achilles tendons one Chihuahua sized chomp at a time and then maybe move on to our throats, but she was enthusiastic none-the-less.) We went to a local Thai restaurant for an enjoyable dinner, but both Scott and I had them go easy on the spice level not wanting any spicy surprises on race day.

Saturday morning Becky graciously got up early with us and drove us as close as she could get us into downtown Charleston near Marion Square where the shuttle buses were lined up taking people over the bridge into Mount Pleasant. (We queued up quite near Mother Emmanuel AME church and while standing in front of it I reflected on the unbelievable evil that had occurred there in 2015.) The sheer logistics of putting this race on are mind boggling- there were easily over one hundred school buses running bridge repeats (see what I did there?) to take people from Charleston to Mt P. Driving in the area on race day is tricky since a good chunk of the roads in downtown Charleston are closed off and the bridge closes from 7 am until 11 am, hence the buses. We aimed to arrive for a bus about 6:15, which was later than last year and the majority of other bus riders had the same idea so we didn’t board until nearly 7 am. It was chilly and we wished we would have remembered the mylar blankets my mom had scored for us at BinTime that I had totally forgotten about until I stood shivering in just my t-shirt. Scott added them to our race gear packing list thankfully so we will be prepared next year.

We arrived in Mt P with just enough time to walk past all the holding corrals and up to view the start (we were assigned corral D based on our estimated completion time and the corrals stretch nearly a mile and went all the way back to K I believe) and for one last potty stop where the lines for the banks of porta potties were purported via one of my Facebook running groups to be less crowded than the ones towards the back corrals and I think that was accurate. (Observation: I seem to talk about bathrooms a lot in this blog.)

With just a few minutes to spare, we slid into the front of our corral and listened to the announcer and DJ hype up the crowd to see off the competitive wave of elite runners who would be finished with the race before we even reached the summit of the Arthur Ravenel bridge (the winner this year was a 22 year old Ethiopian runner named Ali Abdilamana who ran a smoking 27:53, and the top female was 25 year old Kenyan runner Sarah Naibei with a time of 31:41. I should note that her 10k time is my 5k PR time…). It took us about 13 minutes to work our way up to the start line because there were that many people running and the majority of them were behind us!

Finally we crossed the start, started our watches and apps, and away we went. I needed to hit 10:45 minute miles to make my goal time and was able to easily make that and actually had mostly negative splits for all 6 miles.

The first two miles in the residential area of Mt P are so crowded and you have to thread your way through the crowds- some people are already walking here so that is especially annoying and takes time and energy to dodge around them. Residents sit out on the curb watching and sometimes holding signs which is fun to see. It was around mile 1 that Scott told me I should run faster and I yelled at him and told him I had a plan for my race and to stop harassing me. This is usually how it goes when we race together but I love having him next(ish) to me (sometimes he goes rogue but then eventually looks around to see where I am and joins back up with me).

The 5.5% incline of the cable stayed bridge confronts you at mile 3 and I was especially happy with how I felt with that one- so much easier than last year where I had to walk for about 30 seconds. I was thankful for the 6-8% hill repeats I had logged on the treadmill the last few months as part of my training plan. Mile 4, the downhill on the bridge, was my fastest at 9:42.

The last two miles feel the hardest because you’re tired and mentally are expecting to see the finish line around each city block you turn onto as you wind your way through downtown but they are the most inspiring too. So many spectators and businesses are there cheering you on with funny signs and enthusiastic cheers. My favorite is the bike spin gym that takes their spin bikes out in front and the spinners are cycling and cheering for everyone. I look for the dogs in attendance as a way to distract myself!

My last quarter mile was one of my fastest times, also at 9:42 and I finished at 1:04:45, a few minutes under my goal time of 1:07. I was not much fun to be around at the end as we wandered our way around the finish line Festival in Marion Square because I was tired, cold as soon as I cooled down, and I needed a porta potty (again with the porta potties, Janna?). We mosied around for a bit, metals proudly around our necks, then worked our way out of the melee of the festival to find a rendezvous spot for Becky to collect us. Thanks to Google maps she was able to easily connect with us despite all the road closures and took us back home where we showered, snacked, and then took a little nap.

We lounged around the rest of the day, snacked on some of the junk food and beer I had bought for the occasion, and dodged attacks from PJ who is always scanning the room for a bare and unattended ankle to chomp. Becky took us to Frothy Beard again for pizza (and beer for me) and we devoured it. I think we were in bed by 8 that night.

Sunday morning we said our goodbyes and Scott and I went to check out Isle of Palms. As we drove over the bridge it was fun to revel in our accomplishment from the day before and despite a very tired and sore body I was elated with how I had run and how I felt while doing it. It was nice taking a leisurely barefoot walk on the cool wet sand and seeing the Bridge in the distance. We were treated to a dolphin show and hung out and watched them feeding for a few minutes before heading back to the car. We drove through Sullivan’s Island to check it out and then went to Shem Creek for an early lunch, stopping at a restaurant we enjoy, Red’s Ice House. Full, tired, a little sore, but very content, we drove back home to Greenville, already thinking about the 2025 Bridge Run.

Juniper Springs

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 06:00:00 +0000

It seems as though every time Scott and I explore and paddle a new-to-us clear water river in Florida for the first time we declare it our new favorite Florida river. Juniper Creek, formed by the famous Juniper Springs, was no exception, and to date, is our favorite Floridian body of water. We were able to explore it on Sunday November 5, 2023, the day after Alex’s birthday bash. We left Gus and Alex’s and headed to the expansive Ocala National Forest to find the Springs. The Juniper Springs Recreation Area turned out to be less than an hour from their house which was convenient.

The website for Juniper Springs had claimed that no disposable containers are allowed on the river so I was nervous about how to carry along our standard canoe fare (granola bars, crackers, trail mix, string cheese, sandwiches, etc.) that we typically bring. Ever the rule follower, I found one of the employees at the visitor’s center to inquire about this. They looked me up and down and declared that I didn’t look like the type of person that would litter and deemed me trustworthy enough to be able to take our rations along and responsibly pack our trash back out. This made me beam with pride! (Just like the time that I saw a kitten on the side of I-385 and stopped to rescue it and then ended up surrounded by both Greenville County Sheriff deputies and Greenville City police who after doling out some initial grumblings and chastisement about my decision to play Paw Patrol declared that I didn’t look like the typical person that walks down the interstate. Look at me winning at life!)

We loaded up our now-not-illegal snacks into the canoe and set sail for great adventure. Actually we put the canoe and our gear on a little canoe dolly cart that the park provided and wheeled it to the canoe launch which was a little bit of a hike from the parking lot. Then we set sail.

The creek here and the canoe launch made us feel like we were getting into a ride at Disney World. The creek banks were so close that there was just enough room for the canoe to slip between them, the thick subtropical forest made an arching canopy overhead, and the water was impossibly shallow and turquoise colored. It made it feel like we were launching our canoe into the water of It’s a Small World.

Juniper Run has been listed as one of the top 25 canoe runs in the US and is a seven mile run that starts right below the springs which has been turned into a park and popular swimming hole. It was interesting to see mile markers along the waterway as we went. The creek changed several times as we made our way down the waterway. It started off incredibly shallow- so shallow that it seemed like our canoe would scrape the bottom but there was enough depth and current to push us along. The turquoise water eventually turned darker at times and the depth would increase and would then suddenly clear up again and become more shallow. Several times we had to lay down on our backs in the canoe, limbo style, one at a time- me first because I was in the front, and then Scott who was in the rear, to be able to slide underneath fallen or low hanging branches and trees. There was a time or two I wasn’t sure the canoe could fit but it somehow managed to slip underneath them. A few times we encountered trees where we had to make what felt like an Austin Powers style 100 point turn to shoehorn the canoe through but we managed. It was an exercise in team building.

Because of the narrow width of the river, the thick vegetation surrounding the waterway, and the steep banks on either side, there weren’t many spots that made for easy stopping. We finally found one and we ate our lunch and Scott took a quick skinnydip (one of his favorite things in the world to do). We hadn’t passed or encountered that many other paddlers but I was the self-appointed lookout (not that he cared) while he frolicked about in the clear water.

The bird and aquatic life wasn’t as robust as the day before at Silver Springs but we still saw some- mostly trout and turtles. As we got towards the last ⅔ of the run the creek broadened out and we startled some deer that were drinking from the waters edge. We also saw a dead and decaying Gopher tortoise along the shore and that was how we finally knew we weren’t actually on a water ride at a Disney theme park.

Towards the very end of the run, out of nowhere appeared a little rapid. Bull Sluice it was not, but it sure sounded intense as we were paddling up to it and was quite exhilarating in a canoe! (For a good time, look at TripAdvisor reviews of this river… “1 out of 5 stars: The river was too rivery.”)

When we finally arrived at the takeout we were treated to an authentic Florida-man vignette playing out at the landing. A real live Florida man was standing knee deep in the water bathing his pitbull. (One of the reasons this river is so pure and clean is that the spring and most of its run is located in the Ocala National Forest which means it is protected from runoff from fertilizer and livestock that has affected and polluted most of the other clear rivers in Florida.)

Scott left me at the takeout and caught the shuttle back to the put-in to retrieve the car. I was left to guard the canoe and observe Florida men as I waited for him, but as promised, he reappeared with the car about a half hour later and we loaded up and headed back to Gus and Alex’s.

We were exhausted from the last few days but joined the rest of the crew to watch the Torsilieri’s beloved Eagles defeat the Cowboys in a close game that evening. In the afterglow of their win, we all sat out on the screened-in patio enjoying some various libations. The sliding glass door of the house must have been cleaned quite well in preparation for guests because Jon, Alex’s brother, walked right into it, nearly knocking him down and leaving a forehead impression on the glass. We were all supportive and laughed like hell until we were all nearly crying and rolling on the ground, watching poor Jon clutch his head as he saw stars. It wasn’t half an hour later that Scott did the same thing! The next morning they both had sore foreheads.

The following morning we broke down our backyard camp, gave lots of hugs and said our goodbyes and headed out. The last river that we were going to explore was the Suwannee which we would pass on our way back home.

The Suwannee is a swift moving black water river, its water getting its rich dark stain from the tannins released by trees along the riverbanks of the 250+ mile long waterway. We had decided to do an upstream paddle and float back of only a few hours but we quickly abandoned this plan because it was exhausting paddling up the shoals against the current. The black coffee hue of the water was unnerving- especially contrasting it with the clarity of the rivers we had paddled the last few days. We floated back down to the takeout and called it a day, loaded the boat and gear and headed back to South Carolina.

Silver Springs in the Fall

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 06:00:00 +0000

We were invited to Ocala, Florida in early November for a birthday bash weekend honoring our friend Alex turning 40. We had so much fun on our last visit down to them so it was a no-brainer for us to say yes, so we loaded up the canoe on top of the truck and drove down to central Florida.

Part of the appeal of the trip was that almost all of the Torsilieri clan would be down there for the occasion and I was excited for Scott to meet everyone. The clan consists of: Gus’s parents Dean and Chris, his adult sisters Holly, Geneva and her husband Ben, and his youngest siblings Remy and Willow. The only one not in attendance was his sister Piper and her husband who lives in Washington state and had just welcomed their new baby.

When we arrived at Gus and Alex’s house most of the clan was already there and it was a whirlwind of hugs, enthusiastic greetings, and introductions as soon as we walked through the door. Scott did a pretty good job of remembering names and figuring out who was who. I hadn’t seen most of them in several years and it was fun catching up and getting life updates from everyone. Holly was still a teenager living at home the last I saw her and she’s now a doctoral candidate! Geneva is a lawyer in D.C. Willow was about four years old the last time I saw her and quite shy, and now she’s in high school, quite talkative and outgoing, and is a proud member of USPC in addition to about five other hobbies that she is pursuing. Scott fit right in and started to get to know everyone. He was excited to be reunited with his Florida dog-friend Elwood, or “The Wood” as he has nicknamed him, and petted and scratched him some.

Because there were so many people, Scott and I had decided that it would be easiest for us just to tent camp in Gus and Alex’s backyard. I was excited that we were able to bring our cushy tri-fold mattresses for this trip since they had been understandably jettisoned from the packing list of our last camping trip, the canoe camping trek to Capers Island. We set up our tent in the backyard and the herd of dogs were all quite confused over its presence and barked their heads off at it.

Gus made dinner for everyone that night which was quite a feat since the clan had grown even bigger with the arrival of one of their friends, and Alex’s father and brother. Alex’s party was planned for the following night and we all finalized the details of the trip to Silver Springs that we would be making the next day. Gus had rented tandem kayaks for everyone except us (we would be in our canoe) and we would paddle the clear river in hopes of seeing manatees, and if we were lucky(?), monkeys.

The next morning we somehow got the whole group together and onto the road in a somewhat timely fashion and got to the state park for our paddle. The portion of the river at the canoe and kayak launch at the park looked like it was part of Disney world. The river was unbelievably clear and quite narrow with tropical forest towering above us and we could hear the monkeys somewhere off in the forest. We were less than five minutes into our paddle when we saw something fall from a tree on the left bank, followed by a big splash. My first thought was that it was a monkey or an iguana but as we watched the source of the splash swimming and then scramble up onto the bank and back into the tree, we saw that it was just a squirrel. I can’t say that I had ever seen a squirrel fall out of a tree and into a river before!

Sidenote: The macaque monkeys that inhabit this area were intentionally released in the 1930s by an enterprising glass-bottom boat tour owner who wanted to make the boat ride more “jungle-like” for tourists, except that he had no idea they could swim. They spread throughout the area and multiplied fruitfully. Like most introduced species they have had a negative impact on the local ecosystem and they have the added bonus of carrying a strain of Herpes that can cause brain damage and death in humans. They have also become quite food aggressive since tourists have been feeding them. Hoorah! Also…should you want to know how to pronounce the word macaque you’ll enjoy this helpful tutorial :)

This initial portion of the river quickly opened up at the namesake main spring and we spent some time paddling around it. You can see clearly all the way down to the bottom which is over 30 feet deep. We were able to find the three submerged statues that were leftover props from the filming of the TV show “I Spy” in the 1960s. Just after we moved on down the river from the main spring and glass-bottom boat launch, we saw the first manatees of the day. Watching them never gets old. They seem so nonplussed by the paddlers and just go about their business.

We made our way further down the river and were entertained by the abundant bird life, fish, and turtles that we saw. When we were about halfway down the river we saw the first alligator of the day, it was basking atop a floating island of lily pads, and was big enough to make me nervous (probably about 6 feet long) and Scott of course wanted to paddle us closer for a better look at it. Throughout the paddle we saw about four more alligators, all spotted by Geneva’s husband Ben, who has a knack for finding them evidently. They don’t typically inhabit these clear rivers and springs, and usually prefer the darker and murkier bodies of water since it makes hunting harder if your prey can easily spot you stalking them. We continued to see manatees as we made our way down the six-mile stretch of river, and even saw some mother and baby pairs.

At the takeout, to the horror of about half of the group, Scott hitchhiked his way back up to the put-in to get our truck. I had to explain that this was normal behavior for him and he hasn’t been abducted yet and it is quite a common practice in the kayak world. When he got back with his truck, the shuttle for the rest of the group still hadn’t arrived so he ferried them back up to get their vehicles. When he got back we packed up the canoe and gear and decided to string up the hammocks in a sunny spot under some palm trees. We had an enjoyable siesta before heading back to the house.

The party that night was fantastic and we enjoyed celebrating Alex’s birthday. Gus had gone all out and had it catered. The caterer set up an incredibly elaborate charcuterie spread before transitioning to an equally elaborate taco bar. Alex was adorable in her pink tutu, radiantly happy, and enjoyed ringing in her 40th birthday surrounded by friends, clients, and family.

Scott and I got to quiz Dean about the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree that his company is responsible for procuring, transporting, and setting up every year, as well as the other projects that he has done. We enjoyed hearing Ben’s tales about having a chance encounter with Matthew McConaughey (Ben’s dare caused Matthew to break his nose…), then another chance opportunity that led to Ben teaching Matthew how to play his band’s song “Quill” in an upcoming movie, and then actually getting to play alongside him in the film.

After we sang Happy Birthday to Alex and had some cake, the party slowly dwindled down. We helped clean up the backyard once most everyone left. We all chatted a bit longer before the rest of Gus and Alex’s family dispersed back to the nearby houses that they were staying in and then Scott and I headed back to our perfect little backyard camping spot.

Lowcountry Paddle

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 06:00:00 +0000

We traded out our usual whitewater boats in favor of a canoe on a late October weekend for an enjoyable paddle out to Capers Island Heritage Preserve, a barrier island off the coast of the South Carolina Lowcountry. My cousin Becky Shannon was kind enough to host us the night before since she lives in West Ashley, only about a half hour from where we would be launching.

On the way down to Charleston and Becky’s we stopped to visit Beidler Forest, an 18,000 acre nature preserve owned by the Audubon Society. I had always wanted to see it but had never gotten the chance. We spent about 2 hours walking along the boardwalk that passes over top of the old-growth cypress-tupelo swamp forest and enjoyed learning about this unique ecosystem and looking for the birds and animals that inhabit it. We had been lent binoculars at the visitor’s center and were thankful to have them because it let us zoom in on a sun basking alligator in a pond. Immediately after we saw the alligator a barred owl landed just a few feet away from us, its lunch, some sort of rodent, in its talons. It was seemingly unphased by us and chowed down on its meal right next to us before flying off to a nearby tree to rest and digest. Its wingspan was impressive!

On our way back to the visitor’s center an employee appeared on the boardwalk about 50 yards in front of us and very calmly but firmly announced for us to stop because there was a water moccasin somewhere between us and him. We didn’t have to be told twice and stopped in our tracks, heads on a swivel. Snake stick in hand, the employee inched forward along the boardwalk in search of the snake. What he found (about 10 yards in front of us) was a nonvenomous, shy, and very common, brown water snake. A visitor that had passed by her previously had made the common mistake of misidentifying her. He invited us up to her and pointed out the features that often get them confused with water moccasins (a long mouth which enables them to grip onto fish gives them more of a triangular head which people mistake for a venomous snake as well as their shorter and wider body). She seemed nonplussed by our impromptu nature class and lay politely coiled so we could learn about her. The employee decided she was fine where she was and didn’t need to be shooed off the boardwalk since the center was about to close for the day. We headed back to the car and plugged in Becky’s address into the GPS.

We made it to Becky’s without much trouble which was surprising since it was a Friday afternoon in the Charleston area. When we arrived we were greeted (?) by Becky’s dogs. One of them, BooBoo, the sweet little mix, is always happy to see us, and the other one… well, not so much. PJ is a seven pound Chihuahua with anger management issues so she spends the whole time shrieking at us to get out of her house and to never come back. The only thing that calms her down is when Becky puts her in the wearable baby sling and she is swaddled tightly against Becky’s body.

We thoroughly enjoyed getting to see her and hear about her culinary trip to Italy that she had taken over the summer as part of a program with the community college where she is taking culinary classes. (Becky is a full time database administrator at the Medical University of SC but manages to also take the culinary classes and man oh man has it paid off! Anytime we have gone to her house there are delicious baked goods galore.)

We decided to get dinner at a nearby sushi restaurant and it was fantastic. We got a spicy tuna dumpling appetizer that came on top of jalapeno guacamole, a handful of sushi rolls, and a chicken and vegetable tempura platter to share. We all shared stories of our European adventures from the summer and had fun comparing and contrasting experiences. Becky’s depiction of Italy made Scott and I want to put the country on our short-list of countries to visit on future trips. We made it home and Becky served us cake that one of the culinary students had made in the “Advanced Cake” class. It was a checkerboard raspberry cake and was covered in thick sweet buttercream icing. It was delightful. We chatted a bit more and then went to bed to hopefully get a good night’s sleep since we both knew that the beach camping the next night might not make for the best rest.

Saturday morning Becky fed us breakfast (bacon, homemade bread/toast, and eggs) and made sure we had plenty of coffee before sending us off on our canoe camping adventure. She sent us with pieces of cake from the night before and I joked that that’s what would get me through the return paddle- knowing I had tasty cake awaiting me in the cooler in the car. We made the short drive over to the put-in and parking area which was a straight shot down the “Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway,” aka Highway 17, where a 7 mile stretch of road is dotted and lined with huts that are home to, as the name suggests, sweetgrass basket sewers. They set up along the highway in hopes of selling their beautiful handwoven baskets, a passed down Gullah tradition, to tourists.

Once we arrived at the Gadsenville Road put-in and parking lot, we didn’t have to wait long. Joey Geiger was the trip leader and pulled in right after we did. Scott and I were happy that he would be leading us and could impart his expertise to navigate our way through the complex labyrinth of tidal creeks and marshes on the 3.5 mile outbound paddle to the island where we would be camping that night.

Packing for this trip was a new experience for me. I am accustomed to the convenience of car camping where you can basically squirrel away as much food, clothing, bedding, camping equipment, frosty beverages, and creature comforts as you wish, constrained only by the vehicle size. To spend a night on an island that is only accessible by boat is a whole nother story. And we would be in sea kayaks and/or canoes… no party barges or cabin cruisers for this crew. So some thoughtful packing was necessary. Scott and Joey both have backpacking experience and that is essentially how you had to treat it: pare down your gear to the barest necessities and be mindful of the weight.

I probably drove Scott crazy leading up to the trip since I lacked a frame of reference for how much would fit into our canoe and my moment of realization came on our test packing run earlier in the week. What do you mean I couldn’t bring the big cooler we normally camp with? And wait a minute! I hadn’t even considered the idea of sleeping on anything other than my cushy trifold mattress, what is this nonsense about a measly Thermarest blow up sleeping pad?

So only the barest of necessities got to come along and it still amounted to a whole lot of gear that still had to fit into the boats. Joey takes the cake on packing though because he managed to bring an entire bundle of firewood in his sea kayak.

We loaded our boats and were ready to depart. The paddle out to the island took just a little over an hour to make because the tide was outgoing and carried us helpfully along with it. Right after crossing over the Intracoastal Waterway channel (we had to paddle swiftly because there were commercial shrimp boats trolling this watery interstate) we were treated to a dolphin sighting. It breached just a dozen or so yards in front of us- so close that we could see its dark eyes, the shimmer of its smooth gray skin, and hear the expelling of water and subsequent intake of breath through its blowhole as it glided through the water and up to the surface.

Once we got close to the island the breaking waves of the Atlantic ocean greeted us. Joey was able to keep paddling through the breakers in his sea kayak but Scott and I opted to get out of our canoe and “leash walk” our canoe along the shore until we were closer to the area where we would be camping to avoid the risk of getting flipped and swamped. We made it to the designated camping part of the island and pulled our boats up onto the beach (they were heavier than you would think considering how little we were able to bring). It was time to explore and set up camp!

We had been advised by some campers already on the island to avoid the wooded area because the mosquitos were worse there because of the vegetation. Scott and I picked an area that was above the high tide line and not too close to the woods and Joey found some trees a little outside the woods to hang his camping hammock. We did a quick camp setup and then went to check out the “boneyard” beach which is an area of the island where the shore has been eroded away by the tides, winds, and hurricanes and have left dead trees on the shore. Some are still rooted and are in varying degrees of uprightness, and some are driftwood. At high tide the waves crash dramatically into the trees. The overall effect at either tide is a little eerie and looks like an abstract art exhibit.

After doing some island exploration and a quick swim, Scott and I hung up our hammocks in trees we found on the boneyard and Joey continued exploring. After an enjoyable nap and some downtime in the hammocks Joey made his way back over to where we were and asked if we had moved his stuff. Specifically, if we had taken his camping hammock down and moved his bag of clothes, sleeping mag, and mosquito net. We definitely had not done that but strangely, someone had. Thankfully (but also strangely) the bag with his wallet, keys, and marine radio were untouched. We were all perplexed by the disappearance of his equipment and started hypothesizing about what might have happened and who might have done it. We couldn’t really come up with a reasonable or logical explanation but the theory we decided on was that someone packed it up thinking it was either theirs or their friends. But most importantly, where was it now and what should we do?

We all started off down the beach to talk to the other island campers and see if they had any clues. We were guessing that it must have been one of the guys that was in the camping spot that Joey had taken over once they left so we were in search of them or anyone that might have seen them (one was on a jet ski and one was on a standup paddleboard). While we were speaking with the other campers Joey received multiple phone calls from an unknown number. He finally answered and lo and behold it was the guy that had mistakenly grabbed his stuff. He was still on the island and was actually just a few yards away from Joey. They connected and the guy apologized profusely- his friend had asked him to bring his gear bag to him since he was on his SUP fishing on the other side of the island and he had mistakenly grabbed Joey’s stuff in addition to his friends. Thankfully they discovered it before they left the island but the guy assured us he would have come back with it as soon as they realized the mistake. The guys gave Joey a pound of bacon as a consolation prize and we all got a good laugh out of the experience. I was quite impressed by how composed Joey stayed- I think I would have been in panic mode!

We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, entertaining ourselves with hammocking, dips in the ocean, and strolls down the beach. The mosquitos that we had been warned of appeared about 5 pm and Scott and Joey set up the Nemo Bugout tent that Scott had brought to give us respite from the little vampires who were relentless in their pursuit of our blood. From our safe haven we were able to make our dinners and still enjoy the beach and waves. We made a little campfire outside the tent which in theory helped deter the mosquitos, but in reality I don’t think they were discouraged one bit. Despite the mosquitos we were still able to enjoy the sunset and the changing colors over the ocean and island as the sun retreated were beautiful. After the sunset, we retired to our tents and hammocks, tired but satisfied after a fun day.

Once in our tent, Scott and I started off the night enjoying the amazingly bright and full moon directly above us, as we had opted to keep the fly off the tent. However, a few hours later after we were awoken both by one of our camping neighbors’ drones rudely buzzing overhead at 1 am, and the dripping condensation that had formed inside our tent and was now sporadically plopping down onto us (also rude), Scott had to grab the fly and put it over the tent so that we could actually sleep. (Joey reported later at breakfast the next morning that he had been sleeping well until the drone woke him up- he at first thought it was a dramatically bright shooting star until it took a hard right turn and buzzed away.)

The brightening sky awoke us the next morning and we were all outside of our tents to witness the sun break spectacularly over the Atlantic ocean horizon. Seeing the sunrise through the limbs and trunks of the dead trees of the boneyard was quite a sight. Once it started to rise it dramatically climbed higher and higher. The mosquitos were ready and waiting for us again so we escaped into the Bugout tent again for our coffee and breakfast. After breakfast it was time to break down our camp and pack up because we needed to catch the high tide for the paddle back out to the mainland.

Everything was covered in sand and the mosquitos were still out in full force which made packing less than enjoyable but we got it done. We decided to hand walk our boats to the end of the island to avoid the breakers that were assaulting us as best we could which was still quite the task. The waves were determined to knock us off our feet and swamp our canoe and Joey didn’t have that much of an easier time. When we got around the corner of the island to the calmer channel, we beached the boats to bail them out. Thankfully both Joey and Scott had good bilge pumps and we were able to get enough water out to make them usable again. As we were pumping out the boats we spotted a bald eagle on a telephone pole near us, seemingly gazing down on us and watching what we were doing. A few minutes later another one flew by it and they vocalized to each other. (They don’t sound like TV and the movies make them sound like- they are much more high pitched and whistley. Fun fact- usually the sound you hear them making on TV, commercials, or movies is actually a red-tailed hawk call dubbed over their own calls.)

We got into our somewhat free of water boats and started the paddle back to Mount Pleasant. Joey had pointed out a red roof on the shoreline the day before that would be a helpful beacon and we used it to guide us through the maze of marshes and tidal creeks. Just a little ways into our paddle we were treated to another dolphin show, this time it appeared that an entire pod was nearby from the looks of it. We stopped for a bit to watch them, just as mesmerized as we had been yesterday.

With only a little bit of directional challenge we found the routes through the marshes and over the Intracoastal Waterway and back into the creek that led to our take out and awaiting cars (and cake). This paddle, because of the route that we took, was closer to 4 miles and took us nearly 2.5 hours because of the tide. Thankfully there was no wind which would have made it quite treacherous and that’s what Joey had experienced on his previous trips to Capers Island. Once we were back to the takeout we unpacked all of our wet and sandy gear into our vehicles, loaded up the boats, said our goodbyes, and headed home. Scott and I enjoyed such a different type of paddling experience and were so appreciative that Joey was there to lead it. I highly recommend the trip to anyone that is considering doing it in the future, just bring your most potent bug spray!

Epilogue: The cake was patiently waiting for us in our cooler just as it had promised us it would and we devoured it on the ride home. We were famished, or at least I was, after the paddle home, and the cake hit the spot. So to whichever talented Trident Technical College culinary student so kindly and expertly made that sweet sweet raspberry treat and passed it along to Becky, we salute you and give you an A+ on your advanced cake.

Foothills Paddling Club Eastern Tennesse Pilgrimage '23

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

The Chilhowee Recreation Area located in the Cherokee National Forest near Benton, TN was host to the Foothills Paddling Club’s 2023 EastTennessee Pilgrimage. It was an ideal location since it is so close to two notable rivers in that area- the Hiwassee and the Ocoee. The winding drive up the Chilhowee mountain to the campgrounde offered several stunning panoramic views. FPC had about 15 members who camped at the campground’s group camping site and several members who stayed off site.

Friday Middle Ocoee group, 2023 East Tennessee Pilgrimage

On Friday a small group of FPC members met up to do a lap on the middle Ocoee. There is no warm up when you put in here at the dam- it is a zero to 60 because Grumpy’s is a class III+ rapid and the roaring wall of water created by the dam adds to the drama and amps up the adrenaline. Everyone had a successful trip and it was fun to hear their stories later that evening around the campfire.

On Saturday we had about half the FPC members take a trip down the beautiful, wide, and shoaly Hiwassee with its class I and II rapids. This 5.5 paddle is located within the stretch of the river that has a State Scenic River designation meaning that development is severely restricted so all you see when you’re on the river are trees, mountain tops, and water. (And if you are lucky like we were that day, a bald eagle!) Patrick Walsh was the trip leader and was in charge of about a dozen FPC paddlers. He did a fantastic job and was patient and helpful when there was some spillage. The highlight of the trip was when Nicole Jones rolled (nearly successfully) Janna Bankston’s “Freya” the sit-on-top kayak. She was successful in righting the boat but she came loose in the process- the thigh straps only hold the paddler in place to an extent. The group was torn as to whether it counted as a successful roll or not…

The other FPC paddlers spent the day on the middle Ocoee. Several of them put their combat rolls to the test, and poor Russel Dutta found out that it is hard to successfully combat roll with a raft over top of you. They soaked up the sun and enjoyed a lunch break at Goforth Creek, enjoying the waterfall at their backs.

Saturday Evening Cookout, 2023 East Tennessee Pilgrimage The club hosted a cookout on Saturday night and the group reconvened in time for that. We even had some members that were paddling elsewhere that weekend join up. Our FPC president Adam Mobley manned the newly purchased griddle with ease and turned out some burgers and hotdogs for the hungry group. (Thanks Patrick Walsh for doing the shopping.) Joe Kager treated the group to a campfire dutch oven cherry cobbler.

On Sunday most of the group headed to the Ocoee again. Many of those that were kayaking it were able to put in two laps and many of them spent time at the last rapid on the river, Hell Hole, playing in its giant surfing wave. The remainder of the group (about ten people) was lucky enough to be connected with one of Scott Manley’s friends, a private boater who runs three rafts down the Ocoee as a family trip every Labor Day. Dennis, Scott’s friend, said that he has been running the Ocoee since the 1980’s and has easily made 300 trips down it, possibly closer to 400 trips. He knew every ripple and rock in every single rapid on that river and knew the effect it would all have on the raft. He expertly guided us down and frequently shared fun and interesting facts about the river. His family treated us all to a picnic lunch between laps which was both delicious and appreciated.

By Sunday afternoon most everyone was exhausted but happy and said their goodbyes and then headed back home, having spent a most enjoyable Labor Day weekend on the river with great company.

You can check out and purchase photos from the Ocoee trips here: http://ocoeephotos.com/Home They will be in the folder labeled “Private Boaters.”

The Day We Fell in Love with Paris

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Dear Paris, I take back all the unfavorable things I wrote about you in my previous post and would like to say “I’m sorry.” You are a lovely, albeit bustling, city that has so much to offer in the way of history, art, beauty, culture, and fashion. But you need to work on your bathroom problem before you host the Olympics next summer.

The very last day of our trip was one of our favorites. Scott’s YouTube research paid off and one of the travel vloggers he had come across had clever suggestions for things to see and ways of beating the crowds at various monuments and points of interests. The YouTuber advised checking out the 18th arrondisement of Montmarte which is a tall hill on the northern side of Paris. It is home to the Sacre-Coeur Basillica (the Basicallica of the Sacred Heart) as well as to the Moulin Rouge.

By this point in our trip we were public transit pros so our travel of course went off without a hitch. Just kidding. The Paris metro ticketing was ridiculously complex and not at all user-friendly, so much so that they had actual human attendants stationed at the ticket kiosks to help guide your ticket procurement. A kind human attendant helped us buy the proper tickets and pointed us in the right direction of Montmarte. From there it went off without a hitch and we arrived in the beautiful and quite hilly neighborhood.

First order of business- potty time. I found a small cafe that allowed the use of its facilities and was fully prepared to buy something in exchange but they just had a jar near the bathroom and suggested leaving some change but stated that it was not mandatory. I dropped a euro in and was thankful for the generosity of the little cafe! Next order of business- finding a market or grocery store to buy things for the picnic lunch we had planned in a little-known park on the backside of Sacre-Coeur. We found a few things to put together for our picnic as well as a bottle of French red wine. We were accustomed to having free disposable utensils at our beck and call back home so we were strategic in our picnic purchases to find finger foods since disposable cutlery wasn’t offered and we would have had to purchase it. Luckily they sold cheap corkscrews that were roughly a euro. Scott lamented the fact that we didn’t have travel cutlery- he keeps a set of plastic plates and cutlery in his truck for occasions just like this. (He made a note to find and order travel approved sporks for us to keep in our backpacks and they were waiting for us when we got home!)

Picnic purchased, we climbed up the steep road and 300 steps that deposited us at the base of Sacre-Coeur. The basilica was positively crawling with people- tourists, panhandlers, and obnoxious street vendors selling the same cheap tacky light-up Eiffel tower trinkets in the middle of the sidewalks and walkways that we had encountered the previous day. With the basilica at our backs we took in the expansive view in front of us and it was breathtaking to see all of Paris spread out below us. The city seemed to go on forever. We walked around the outside of Sacre-Coeur for a bit and admired its architecture and statues. The outside of the basilica is a distinctive and stark white color, owing to its construction out of a certain type of limestone that when exposed to rainwater exudes calcite giving it its characteristic appearance.

We made our way around to the backside of Sacre-Coeur to find the tucked away little park that the travel vlogger had recommended and it did not disappoint. It was secluded and had very few people which was amazing considering the throngs of people swarming around directly on the other side of Paris’ second most visited attraction. We found benches under vine-laden arbors and unpacked our picnic. The first snack we decided to try was a bag of chips that were “saveur chevre et piment d’esplette” flavored. When I had bought them I had surmised from the label and the wording that they were cheese and pepper flavored which sounded intriguing. They surely were intriguing as well as disgusting. It turns out chevre is French for goat cheese. Neither of us were fans and Scott ended up leaving the bag out in case any homeless people perhaps wanted them. I bet no one did. The rest of our picnic choices were yummy and drinking a bottle of French red at a Parisian picnic at the base of Sacre-Coeur certainly qualified as doing the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it. The soft green lawn of the park called for us to nap on it and we enjoyed a post-picnic and post-wine siesta under the watchful eye of the Sacre-Coeur that towered in the background.

(Sidenote: Something fun to do in foreign countries is to look at all the different flavors of chips they have. When I was traveling in Asia a few years ago, I discovered that they had an affinity for zany seafood flavored crisps which I found hilarious and I brought back several tubes of Pringles in wacky varieties such as shrimp, crab, and seaweed to give away at my family’s Dirty Santa gift swap.)

The only downside of our indulgent Parisian picnic was the side effect of the red wine- it meant we (mostly I) were in need of a potty. Lucky for us there was a Sanisette in the park. Sanisettes, as I mentioned in the previous post, are France’s elaborate answer to a portable toilet. They are large and hut-like, big enough for an entire family to occupy, and have automatic doors. Inexplicably, they have an automatic wash cycle that occurs after every single use, evidently triggered by sensors in the bathroom floor detecting that no one is standing inside. However, there are horror stories of lightweight people, mainly children, being hosed down when they were trapped inside the contraption because they were too light to register on the sensor. While I can appreciate clean facilities (who doesn’t like to go inside a freshly emptied and hosed down Porta-potty rather than the alternative… day 3 Porta-potty at a horse show in August…) the whole process is quite inefficient because the cleaning cycle adds about a minute and it is not as though there are a whole bank of these things- festival style, so the queue becomes quite backed up and when you gotta go, well, you know the rest. I might have been an ugly American while standing in line for the Sanisette and informed everyone that Scott and I both would be going in together NOT because we were up to any funny business but to help everyone else out to speed up the rather inefficient process that is the clean cycle of the Sanisette. Thanks for coming to my toilet tirade TED Talk. Should you see me in person you are welcome to ask me about bathrooms in Europe but I advise you don’t. You’ll get an earful.

We decided to walk through Montmarte and use a different Metro station on the way back to get a feel for the neighborhood and I’m glad we did. Especially because it was downhill. We enjoyed taking in the sights and flavors on the way back- the macarons that we got were fantastic. This time our Metro navigation was actually pretty smooth and we made it back to the hotel for a shower before dinner and our Seine night cruise.

The dinner that we had was perhaps the most memorable of the entire trip. The service was outstanding (I made a point to find the manager before we left to tell him how pleased we were) and the menu was a comprehensive guide of “what to eat in Paris.” We had French onion soup, cantaloupe and ham, beef bourguignon, the most beautiful apple pie we had ever laid eyes on, and creme brulee. The restaurant overlooked the Seine and the colors that were created by the sun starting to dip lower in the sky cast a surreal light over the city. It was the perfect last meal to have on our trip. (The owner’s roving little white Westie terrier that stealthily prowled around under the tables accepting any morsels diners were willing to share was the cherry on top of our dinner experience, or at least mine.)

It was just a short walk to the dock that our Seine night cruise would be departing from and we hit it right during “golden hour”- the light was stunning and gave the city a nearly magical feel. Again, the perfect way to end our trip. We got tickets for the last boat cruise of the night and hopped onboard, eager to see the city from the vantage point of the Seine, and to be mesmerized by the illuminated Eiffel Tower sparkling which happens for the first five minutes of every hour on the hour.

The views didn’t disappoint. We were able to see the intricate details on all the bridges that cross the Seine and hear their history; each bridge was unique in its architecture as well as its origin story. Seeing many of the monuments at night was enjoyable, as we have learned from our friend Rich that usually the best way to appreciate a monument is at night, and he is spot on. I am not typically a sappy or overly sentimental or romantic person but there was something about being in Paris, on the Seine, and watching the sparkles glittering off of the Eiffel Tower, alongside my favorite person in the whole entire world that made me feel some feels. I had thought I was impervious to the appeal and romance of Paris, but it turns out that neither of us could resist her evocative charm.

We felt a little less romantic about our 4:30 am wake up the following morning and our taxi driver who we had scheduled for a 5:30 am pickup had none of the appeal of the sparkling Eiffel Tower. The cab ride to Charles de Gaulle took nearly an hour as the airport is located quite a ways outside of the city. The international terminal was nice, if not a little pretentious and over the top (the stores in the terminal read like a list of who’s-who’s of luxury brands), and we were excited to find benches that allowed us to actually lay down fully and take a nap prior to boarding. The flight back was smooth and Customs was mostly uneventful although for a nerve wracking moment I thought that the beer cheese that I had bought in Amsterdam was going to be pried from my tight grip by the Customs agent, but it turns out it was fine. I would have eaten the whole damn wheel of it right on the spot had he told me I couldn’t take it. When we landed in Greenville, we were thrilled to be met and picked up by my parents. We talked their ears off on the way home, regaling them with tales from our memorable adventure.

Paris Part 1

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Paris was the last stop for our grand European adventure and it involved the most complex travel logistics. We left Dinant in the afternoon on August 8 and had to go back to Brussels to catch the Thalys Train that would take us on to Paris. That was smooth and we enjoyed the comfort, novelty, and efficiency of the high speed train just like we had when we had gone from Amsterdam to Brussels at the start of our trip. We had a little time to kill in Brussels before we departed for Paris so we decided to try out the luggage storage rental locker- not necessarily because we had to but because it seemed like a good tool to try out for future European adventures. (It was handy but somewhat pricey and luckily played nicely and gave me my luggage back when we were ready to retrieve it.)

To kill time we went outside the Brussels train station and walked around the area. And very quickly returned right back to the station. The train station is in a very sketchy area of town and many of the buildings were condemned and “housed” a large homeless population. While making our way back to the restaurants around the train station we had our first scary interaction with a bad actor. Scott had done his research leading up to the trip about the various ways scam artists and pickpockets operate, and while I don’t think this particular whacko was trying to rob us it was still scary and I was glad that Scott was with me. The guy came at us from across the sidewalk and tried to bump into Scott who was ready and deflected him. We ducked inside one of the nearby restaurants and decided to kill time that way and to stay off the streets. We enjoyed some last Belgian beers and some dinner before making our way back into the station to fetch the luggage and board our train.

Once we got into Paris it was nearly 10 pm and I was thankful that my travel buddy was so adept at using Google maps to navigate us around because once we exited the high speed train station we then had a good distance to go still to get to our hotel. The train station is in a rough area and luckily it was just a short walk and a short wait for the bus that would take us to the 5th arrondissement (neighborhood) where our room in the Libertel Austerlitz Jardin des Plantes awaited us. We rode the bus without incident and arrived safely at the hotel and checked in without incident.

Even though it was late, I insisted we shower since we had been on so many forms of public transportation that day and Scott begrudgingly agreed. (People germs creep me out.) This was a pretty average sized room and the only interesting thing about it was that the shower was on a raised platform without any sort of handrail so getting in and out required you to be very careful so wet and naked you didn’t wipe out and bust your naked head open on the slick tile floor.

By the next morning we were well rested and refreshed and ready to tackle the city of Paris. Our plan for the day was to get tickets for the Hop-On Hop-Off bus to get a lay of the land and hit all the highlights. We decided that just for kicks we should try out a McDonalds. We popped into the one that was just a block away from our hotel and discovered that all ordering had to be done from the computer kiosk. We spent a solid 2o minutes fighting with the machine to be able to select coffee, and finally after we were both irritated enough with it Scott went to find a human to inquire about this lack of coffee because… how could they not have coffee? This was France after all! Well, it turns out that their coffee machine was broken and that’s why it wasn’t an option. The kiosk automatically disallowed the ordering of it when the machine was down but didn’t convey that to the user. Luckily there seemed to be a McDonalds on every street corner just like at home so we found another one. (They gave out potty coins for you to be able to use their restroom and we pocketed our unused one in case I needed it later.)

After our breakfast at McDonald’s we walked a ways towards Notre-Dame and located one of the HOHO stops and bought our tickets. (In preparation for the 2024 summer Olympics that Paris is hosting, Notre-Dame was being worked on around the clock to repair it after parts of it burned in 2019. It was amazing the amount of work that had already been done and the amount of manpower devoted to its repair.) I had done HOHO buses before in big cities (Barcelona and Toronto) but this was Scott’s first time. I was nervous about what he would think because he usually eschews en masse tourist attractions designed for the slovenly and lazy in favor of extreme and human powered adventure. It turns out, he loved it! Neither one of us truly understood how spread out and big Paris is until our bus ride so this was a perfect way of hitting the important landmarks and getting a lay of the land.

From the double-decker comfort of our HOHO bus we were able to see and learn about the following Paris icons: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Champs-Élysées, and the Arc de Triomphe. We enjoyed seeing block after block of iconic Parisian book sellers (bouquinistes) that deal their old books, vintage posters, engravings, and artwork from their Seine-side permanent wooden boxes. I wished we would have had more time to peruse the offerings and could have found a print that spoke to us. After our initial scouting of the city, we took another spin on the HOHO to get off at the locales that piqued our interest. (We opted out of going up inside the Arc, the Tower, or going inside any museums because there were such long lines. We didn’t want to spend our whole time in Paris standing in line. Maybe next time, and only if we go during an off-peak month.)

Scott wanted to play Frogger and run across 84 lanes of roundabout traffic to get to the Arc de Triomphe but I kept a tight leash on him and made him use the pedestrian tunnel under the roundabout so we would arrive alive. The traffic zipping, zooming, and orbiting around the Arc was astounding and to this day I still have no idea how drivers navigate it without having massive multi-car pile ups because of both the sheer volume, but also the lack of lanes. We did watch a few groups of people dart out into the traffic circle, witnessed no casualties thankfully, and watched a Parisian cop tell people to get back out of the road and use the pedestrian tunnel.

We spent some time around the Eiffel Tower and the people watching was interesting. The tower did not initially impress either of us (don’t tell any French people) but we would change our minds the next night when we took a night time cruise on the Seine and were treated to the Tower light show that happens every hour after dark. The unsanctioned street vendors that roved around peddling their wares, or worse, set up their tacky Chinese Eiffel Towers souvenirs on a towel right in the middle of the sidewalk, were irritating. So much so that Scott kept threatening to kick the haphazard display of knick-knacks if he found them set up in his path. So that meant I had to continue to keep him on a tight leash to avoid that scenario.

Bathrooms, or more accurately, the lack of readily available public bathrooms, was a whole thing and I don’t want to derail this post by hashing out all the issues I have with how Paris handles its pee, but suffice it to say that they are: hard to find, there are not enough of them, you have to pay to use them once you do locate one, and are ridiculously manned (or womanned?) by an attendant whose sole job is to collect payment for the use of the facilities. Madame Pee-Pee is a real occupation in Paris. What is the city going to do when they host the Olympics?

See, I totally derailed this blog post and I am complaining about European bathrooms again. I didn’t want that to happen but here we are. Some research says that Paris has the most public restrooms of any city in the world, and to that, I say BS. If they do, I am not sure where they were hiding them while we were visiting. Well, look at their lovely and technologically advanced Sansinettes that the city offers Janna! France’s rendition of the porta-potty, the yurt-like Sansinette, are the most over-the-top ridiculous solution to public bathroom facilities that a city could come up with, but here we are. I’ll address that in the next post.

But I digress. I don’t want you to think that I spent the whole trip complaining about the bathroom situation, because I didn’t. Only about half of it. Scott can vouch for that.

Anyways, after spending much too long waiting in line to use the bathroom at McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées only to find out that my token that I had snagged earlier that morning from the Notre-Dame McDonald’s wouldn’t work and having to pay actual money to use the toilet, we were ready to venture back to our end of town to have dinner and go back to the hotel. We picked a cafe with indoor/outdoor street seating and were immediately reminded that smoking in restaurants is still legal here. Scott also had to use our water bottles to go fetch tap water from the toilette so we would actually have something to drink (we weren’t making the mistake of paying for sparkling water again, no matter how much I love my La Croix and Perrier). We realized that Paris’ solution to bathrooms is that by limiting everyone’s water intake, you also limit their subsequent pee output. Voila! Problem solved.

Sidenote: The hydration and bathroom issue were a real issue though. We both are used to drinking lots of water throughout the day and feel so much better when hydrated but between the lack of bathrooms, as well as lack of suitable places to refill water bottles, we were both chronically dehydrated throughout the trip.

Anyways, dinner was ok (we shared a pizza) even though the service was slower than the line at a Parisian Sansinette which I know, I know, is a European thing. We decided to push our Seine night cruise to the next night because we were spent, and we went back to our hotel, showered, and tumbled into bed.

Dinant

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Much appreciated sunshine awaited us on Monday morning when we awoke. The city of Dinant in the Walloon Region of the Belgian Ardennes was our destination today and on our way to the train station we spent a little time taking in some more sights around Brussels that we hadn’t wanted to do in the dreary weather the day before. The area of the city that we were in was absolutely sparkling with color that we hadn’t been able to fully appreciate without the sun. We found a “Scott’s Bar & Kitchen” so of course had to have the requisite photoshoot with Scott posing by its “Scott’s” signage. The Royal Quarter was near the train station that we were departing from so we made a stop by it again for better views and sunnier pictures which was well worth it.

Dinant had been recommended to me by a German client of mine. She and her family had visited it a few years ago on a trip to Europe and they liked its small town nature and off the beaten path location as well as its history and landmarks. She painted a pretty compelling and charming portrait of the town and we thought it would be worth checking out.

The city is located on the banks of the Meuse River and its most notable feature is the ancient stone Citadel that is perched on a steep cliff overlooking the city and river. The city has been inhabited since the 10th century and has WW1 significance. Its most notable citizen was Adolphe Sax, 19th century inventor of the saxophone, and the city devotes homage to him and his now famous instrument on the bridge over the Meuse with 28 larger than life saxophone statues, each uniquely colored, decorated, and themed, and each representing a country in the European Union.

Our train travel went smoothly, and as usual now that Scott had the benefit of live Google maps and cell service, he figured out all the necessary train transfers and stops without any trouble. The only thing of note during our travel was that when we crossed into the Walloon region of Belgium, the primary language spoken turned to French instead of Dutch.

After reaching the small train station in Dinant, it was a short stroll across the charming Sax bridge spanning the Meuse to the main part of the town where our hotel/apartment was located. It was quite easy to find as it was located on the main street in the tiny town and by its distinct mural of Adolphe Sax on the outside. The city center was small enough that we could pick out our bright blue hotel from any pictures of Dinant that we saw. Once we made it inside Les Voisins De Mr Sax and into our appointed room, we decided that this might have been our favorite housing so far. Our room, although plainly appointed, overlooked the river and steep green hillside and was separated from the waterfront by only the narrow road that passed in front of the buildings. Plus, not to be outdone by the themed saxophones on the bridge with their elaborate murals and wrap around graphics, the toilet seat in our bathroom was Times Square themed. That’s pretty hard to beat.

Now that we were a little over halfway through our trip at this point, Scott had learned that I am happier if I get fed regular meals. So lunch was in order. We picked a little cafe/bakery just a few doors down from our apartment and enjoyed a lunch that I ordered in my stilted and mangled French. The waitress was thankfully cheerful and patient with me. Despite taking three years of French in high school, I was even worse at speaking it now than I had been then, scraping by with C’s and D’s. (Also, for the record, I was disappointed that I never got the opportunity to use the two vocab terms that I did remember: lapin (rabbit), and moutard (mustard). Although, maybe that is a good thing because I certainly would not want to eat mustard rabbit.)

Subsequently fed and satiated, we were now ready to tackle the Citadel. We bought our tickets and stood in line waiting to board the cable car that would hoist us up to the top of the mountain, bypassing the 408 steps. While in line, and nearly on cue, Scott started eyeing up the 408 steps and informed me that while he would accompany me up to the top in the cable car and we would do the tour of the fortress, but that when we were finished, he was planning on climbing the steps back up. The cable car ascent reminded me of the one that we had done in Palm Springs and I got the similar butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling that I get from looking out and seeing how high up we were and feeling the swaying of the car.

Once up top of the Dinant Rock we enjoyed looking out over the city and seeing the Meuse river valley that spread out below. It was obvious to see why this location was chosen centuries ago as a defense outpost because the sentries stationed here would see potential invaders from miles away and the city would have ample time to prepare. We were able to look down onto the iconic 13th century cathedral at the base of the mountain, Notre-Dame de Dinant. It has a very distinct bulb shaped bell tower that gives it a Russian look and lends a recognizable and notable silhouette to the city. We saw the historical exhibits that explained the 1914 WW1 attack by the Germans, toured the models of WW1 trenches (one was modeled to mimic a damaged and bomb stricken trench and it was tricky and disorienting to navigate), and saw a few other war related exhibits.

It was now the stair phase of the tour. I (carefully) followed Scott down the 408 narrow and unevenly pitched and spaced steps so that he could return back up them. I suggested he take a timelapse video of his climb which he did. Not to be completely outdone by him and have him accuse me of being a couch potato I started to climb too, although I was content to just do about ⅔ of the climb and met him on his descent.

The tickets that we had bought for the Citadel tour also included a Meuse river boat tour so we went to inquire about that. We decided to wait until the next day for that tour and went off in search of the famous Leffe Abbey Brewery for some historic Belgian libations. Belgian monks have been brewing beer here since 1240 and I, as always, was excited about drinking Belgian beer, especially in Belgium.

It was a short walk although quite hilly and when we arrived I was excited to see hundreds of hydrangea bushes surrounding the old building. We were happy to see that the serving area for the brewery was located outside on a manicured lawn with lots of outdoor seating overlooking the Meuse river valley and happily sipped our Leffe while enjoying the views. We coined the brewery “Belgian Community Tap” as a shout out to my favorite taproom back home. Scott quickly spied “castely shit” on the opposite hillside and was intrigued.

After a few beers we mosied back down the hill to the town and decided to look for a spot for dinner. We found a place right on the river with outdoor seating and clumsily navigated our way through the menu and ordering. Our poor young server didn’t speak as much English as many of the others we had encountered so far but we finally were able to communicate enough through my broken French and his small grasp of English, as well as with some assistance from a neighboring restaurant patron, to put in our order. This same neighboring patron asked me where I was from and I told him that I was American. He told me that I spoke very quickly and I laughed and told him that I am from the South and we speak… very… very… slowly. He laughed at this. Dinner was enjoyable (there were frites) and we enjoyed our walk back to Les Voisins De Mr Sax in the setting sun. We had one last task for the day and that was to go check out the Sax bridge and see the city in the dark with everything all lit up. It was well worth it and Scott got some pictures that were worthy of being featured in promotional material for the city.

Tuesday morning I went on a pastry mission and found some fresh croissants just a few doors down from our apartment. We ate them with coffee in the little kitchen that overlooked the river and we were entertained by the morning activity alongside the riverbank. The town was a popular stop for cabin cruisers and one of the boaters that was docked beneath our apartment had a kitty and we enjoyed watching her stroll confidently around the decks of her boat as her owner went about his business of cleaning the boat. The river was bustling with electric boat rental traffic as well and it was amusing watching the slow boats go up and down the waterway and even more amusing watching the amateur captains trying to eventually dock them.

After breakfast we made our way a few blocks down river to where our tour boat was docked. We were on the upper deck and the morning was still cool. The boat went a few kilometers down the Meuse before turning around and an audio recording informed us about points of interest along the banks and pertinent historical facts about the ancient city of Dinant as we went. Scott once again spied the “castley shit” from the day before and the boat had barely docked back in town before he jumped off of it announcing to me over his shoulder that he was going to bushwhack up the hillside to go check it out and he would meet me back at the apartment after lunch.

So I was on my own for lunch. I found a cool spot called Le Cerf Vert right on the “Croisette” (the street alongside the river) and had lasagne and Chouffe beer this time which is brewed nearby in the Belgian Ardennes. I tried not to worry about Scott venturing into the Dinant wilderness on his own- I figured he had done things like this his whole life and thus far had lived to tell the tale. I checked out the ancient cathedral at the base of the Citadel on my way back to the apartment.

He rendezvoused at the appointed time thankfully and excitedly told me about his adventure. The “castley shit” hidden on the opposite hillside that we had seen from the day before turned out to be part of an abandoned theme park and he was able to make his way up through the woods to its perimeter fence. He was deterred by the appearance of some locals who were working on their broken down car at the closed front gate and didn’t make his way into the derelict park to explore further. I am grateful for this because otherwise he might not have ever come back… Our last “must do” in Dinant was to get some of the famous Dinant cookies (couque de Dinant) before we made our way to the train station and onto Paris that night. Luggage in tow we stopped at the same bakery I had visited that morning. I had admired the intricate and quite elaborate designs of the gingerbread-like cookies when I was there earlier. Some of them more closely resembled artwork than baked goods. When we placed our order in broken French, the clerk gave us a warning in her broken English, the gist of which was do NOT bite into these cookies because you’d break all your damn teeth off. We were to suck on them, like candy, and not chomp into them like they were a run of the mill Chips Ahoy. Warning in mind we tentatively nibbled the cookies once we were out of the bakery. They were just as she had advised and were more like hockey puck than cookie but had a nice gingery flavor. Local legend states that the cookies date back to the 15th century and after the Liege Wars the citizens had hardly anything to eat and cobbled together honey and flour to concoct them. The dough was so stiff that they made patterns in it. We decided that we liked them for their designs more so than for their flavor but it was still fun to have eaten the thing you’re supposed to eat in the place you’re supposed to eat it. (See: Janna’s travel motto)

We said goodbye to Adolphe Sax’s hometown and the sax’s along the bridge and made the short stroll back to the train station. We were bound for Paris tonight!

Brussels

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Traveling wasn’t quite as serendipitous or difficult with our newly purchased eSim so we ended up in Brussels, at the correct station, and on the correct day that our itinerary had called for. We had gotten a late start to the day, tired after the fun wedding festivities and high jinks from the previous night. It was a yucky day- overcast, unseasonably cool, and drizzly, but one of the first sights we spotted after disembarking from the train station put a smile on my face- it was a Smurf statue, and it was a tribute to the Smurfs creator, Peyo, who was a Belgian comic artist. (As aside: When researching for our trip I pointed out to Scott that the Smurfs were a Belgian cartoon, to which he replied “I never really got into those little **ckers.” So that is how Scott feels about the fictional little blue humanoid cartoon creatures that live in mushroom shaped houses in the forest.)

As we made the 15 minute walk to our city center lodging, the Hotel Floris Arlequin Grand-Place, we enjoyed seeing that each of the side streets had been extensively decorated and each had their own individual theme. Evidently they had been installed to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the famous Belgian painter Rene Magritte. It was elaborate and gave the city a certain charm and whimsical feel. Some of the ones we saw: flowers of every variety and iteration, umbrellas, bicycles, and birdcages. https://www.brusselstimes.com/573353/city-of-brussels-decorated-with-magritte-inspired-motifs

We were excited that our hotel room was ready for us when we arrived but that there was also room for us to pass each other inside it, it was about twice the size of the Amsterdam room. After dropping off our stuff and a quick nap we were ready to venture out into Brussels. We were less than a ten minute walk from Grand-Place, the famous historical square that is a UNESCO World Heritage spot and from Mannekin Pis, or the famous peeing boy fountain. We had lunch near Grand Place at the equivalent of a Belgian Subway (even the colors in the logo were the same) and later had a late afternoon deluxe Belgian waffle at a waffle shop.

On our way to see the famous and iconic Atomium we stopped in at the 17th century Church of Notre-Dame de Bon Secours and were surprised to see that it had a webbed nest swing hanging from its ancient rafters. Scott, not one to ever miss an opportunity like this, plopped down on it and had a swing. We are still not quite sure why it was there. The 100 meter tall Atomium, centerpiece of the 1958 World’s Fair, was a bit of a train ride outside the city. We opted not to go up into it, figuring that the views would be anti-climactic because of the dreary weather, so instead walked around the base of it for a bit admiring the shiny steel tubes and spheres that are assembled to resemble the structure of an atom.

By the time we made our way back to the hotel room we were tired, both from the wedding the day before and the day of sightseeing in the rain. So instead of venturing back out into the city to find some dinner, we decided to do a very American thing and to order pizza from Domino’s. It was easy enough to do online and within about 20 minutes we got a call that it was awaiting us at the lobby. Scott went down to fetch it and tried to give the bicycle delivery boy a cash tip, thoroughly flustering him. He ended up handing it back, saying that he couldn’t accept it and that this was his first day. The pizza hit the spot, even though it was less doughy and saucy than the Domino’s we were accustomed to. After our pizza we watched a movie in our room before calling it an early night.

The next morning we were excited to see the sun and enjoyed seeing the city under rays of sunlight instead of through raindrops. We walked around for a bit to see some more of the iconic sights and take some pictures before heading to the train station to make our way to the small town of Dinant in the Walloon region of Belgium.

Wedding Day in Ghent

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

On the day of Sara and Joey’s wedding we had planned to see the sights and highlights of Ghent. We started our morning with the croissants we had bought at the market the day before (Scott had Nutella on his and I had the cheese we had bought) and then ventured out and about.

Our apartment looked directly down on an interesting Ghent feature: Graffiti Street, so that was our first stop. Graffiti Street is a short alleyway where graffiti is both allowed and encouraged and the only rule that applies is the “rule of the spray can” which evidently means you shouldn’t paint (paint? Or would it be draw? Maybe spray?) over works that are better than yours and don’t be noisy late at night and disrupt the local residents. It was a wild thing to see and we enjoyed seeing the creativity and talent of some of the artists. The paint that has accrued on the buildings in the alley since Graffitti Street was born in 1995 must have been close to an inch thick.

After Graffiti street we went to see Saint Bavo’s Cathedral which is both the oldest and probably most famous church in Ghent. The church is built on the site of a 10th century church and this particular building was started around 1274. It was as grand as you would expect and we spent some time walking around looking at the art and the ornate interior design.

This cathedral is home to the magnificent Ghent Altarpiece which is also called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. It has many claims to fame including being considered one of the great masterpieces of European art, being the first major oil painting, and its creation is considered to be what marks the transition from Middle Age to Renaissance art. It has a tumultuous and storied past and has been stolen multiple times from its conception in 1432 and up to WW1. During WW2 it was removed from Ghent and was supposed to be taken to the Vatican for safekeeping but while en route Italy declared themselves an Axis power so the Altarpiece ended up staying put in France for a bit. Hitler then seized it and it stayed in Bavaria until fighting ramped up in that area and it was moved to a salt mine in Austria. While safe from bombs the salt mine wreaked havoc on the painting and damaged the paint and varnish which meant it would need extensive restoration. The search and recovery mission for the masterpiece was a major plot point in the 2014 film The Monuments Men. It is certainly worth a Google search to see it and learn more about it. The line to go into the room where the Altarpiece is housed was quite long and we had things to do and places to see so we didn’t end up seeing it in person.

The next stop was to see the Ghent Belfry, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built around 1300 and is one of the three tall buildings that gives old town Ghent its distinct look. Scott loves a chance to climb a tall tower so this was right up his alley- it is 91 meters tall. The view of the city was incredible at the top and well worth the steep climb. My favorite part of the tower tour was the iconic copper dragon that has protected the tower since its conception and on special occasions has breathed fire.

The nearly 850 year old Gravensteen Castle was next and I don’t know that I have ever seen Scott quite as excited as when he was touring the castle. As an aside, the in-person line for tickets was a mile long. Fortunately, Scott purchased cellular data service that morning, allowing us to purchase tickets online. The eSIM was about $25 and enabled us to have data access throughout the EU - a godsend from the navigation perspective. Unfortunately, it cut down significantly on the prospects of ending up at another beach town by mistake. The tour included a very well done, highly engaging and slightly cheeky audio tour which informed us of the history of the medieval castle and highlighted interesting features. It was when we were in the dungeon portion of the castle tour that Scott turned to me and with a straight face said he thinks he could have been an executioner. I’m sorry, what? Seeing the horrified look on my face he clarified it by explaining that he didn’t think that he could be the one to sentence someone to death but if he had been hired to be the guillotine guy then he thinks he could do his job without any tears or sniffles. So that happened. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour and must have taken one thousand pictures- my favorite one is of a sign asking visitors to kindly refrain from using the medieval latrine that emptied directly down into the Lys river below. (Side note: Scott likes to give things nicknames and his pet name for the Gravensteen Castle was Ass-grabin-steen and he used it every chance he could. I think he is actually a middle school aged boy and not an adult.)

As we headed back to get ready for the wedding that evening we were struck (not literally because I was watching out for the both of us since we were walking on cobblestones and we know how Scott doesn’t respect them as a road surface) by the juxtaposition of the medieval Gravensteen and the modern world that had been built up around it- specifically watching the trolley cars, cars, motorcycles and bikes whizzing around its base. On our walk back we stopped at one of the candy stalls to get some of the famous Ghent cuberdons, or Ghent noses, which are conical purple raspberry flavored jelly candy that look like little noses. They were ok but I can see why the waffles and frites are more famous.

Scott was excited to check out his shower laundry experiment as soon as we got back to the apartment. Leading up to the trip he had researched what sort of laundry detergent was the best option for travel and settled on a bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap. Determined to pack as light as possible (I was lucky to get him to bring a wedding appropriate outfit and also thankfully talked him into bringing his gym shoes rather than just walking around Europe in his dress shoes that he was bringing for the wedding) he figured that he needed the ability to do some laundry. The night before he went into the shower fully clothed, Fels-Naptha in hand, and proceeded to scrub-a-dub-dub the clothes he was wearing. He then strung the length of paracord that he had packed for a drying line up in the apartment and hung the clothes on it, hoping that they would dry in a somewhat timely manner. He was happy to see that the socks and shirts were dry and that just his pants needed more time. (This then sparked a whole quest-for-the-perfect-travel-tee event when we returned home.)

Freshly showered, performing anti-rain dances, and ready to celebrate the union of Sara and Joey, we took a short walk over to one of the picturesque canals outside the Marriot where they would be getting married. The walk in heels on the cobblestones was dicey and I had to constantly rein Scott in and remind him to slow down and wait for me. We made it without issues and the weather was polite and the rain held off.

The informal and intimate ceremony was like something out of a movie, and Sara and Joey were the Hollywood star couple. Since it was outside and along a canal several canal tour boats stopped to watch, the tourists snapping photos and taking in the sweet vignette unfolding on the bank. I sobbed happy tears when Sara first made her appearance and they continued all through the ceremony.

After the ceremony we had been directed to go take pictures around the old town area of Ghent or enjoy a drink at one of the million bars or tap rooms while the couple and their families took their wedding photos. We ended up at a small little tap room and each had a Belgian beer before making our way over to the event center. We had time to chat with Wim and Nadine before the brunt of the guests arrived and we enjoyed meeting the other guests and learning how they were connected to the couple.

Sara and Joey arrived via a boat in the canal and made a grand entrance into their wedding. Wim and some of the couple’s friends gave some highly entertaining and heartfelt speeches and then we were sent to the buffet. We had the option of the American or Belgian buffet and we sampled from both. The dance floor stayed active all night long and one of the most fun parts of the wedding was the photo booth. I love a good photo booth, do I ever! Scott knows how to work photo booths now so we both had a hoot taking some fun turns in it. (The secret is to have all your props lined up because each picture gets taken pretty quickly one after the other.)

It was a magical evening honoring such a lovely couple and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I was thrilled to have been invited and so happy for us to be able to accept and witness and celebrate Sara and Joey’s big day.

Actual Bruges

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Hall pass in hand we boarded the correct train and managed to get off at the correct stop this time… actually in Bruges. It was only a short walk from the train station to Old Town Bruges and it was astounding how many medieval buildings were concentrated in one small area. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and it was easy to see why it has earned that classification.

After a quick frite-stop, we strolled around admiring the fairytale-esque town and saw many of the highlights such as: the Belfry of Bruges, Quay of the Rosary, Minnewater Lake, the Basilica of the Holy Blood, and Saint Salvator’s Cathedral. We made it to the main plaza of the city, Burg Square, and were mesmerized by the medieval era Bruges City Hall (built in the 12th century). While Scott was busy taking in all of the “castley-shit” I was busy taking in all of the carriage horses and ponies that were busy taking tourists on sight-seeing treks around the old city. (They all looked sound, fit, happy, and confident navigating the hustle and bustle- the equines, not necessarily the tourists who all just looked full of waffles and frites.)

Fun fact #1: Bruges was where, after I had to physically and forcibly drag Scott out of a road because of an oncoming car (or in this case, horse drawn buggy) for the umpeenth time, he revealed to me that he “doesn’t take cobblestones as a road very seriously.” So while this was helpful information to have, it made me even more vigilant about making sure he wasn’t going to get run over on our vacation. I had to explain to him that although Bruges did indeed look like a fairytale town, it was in fact, actually a real town, and not Disneyworld or Colonial Williamsburg, and that we did actually need to look out for traffic. And as a general rule the taxi drivers we encountered on our trip were ruthless and seemingly out for blood and carnage. I kept my head on a swivel. In his defense, in some of the cities and towns we encountered, cobblestone sidewalks blended nearly imperceptibly into cobblestone roadways. For the record, I did return him alive to the US.

Fun fact #2: Bruges is where Scott “took a pee.” Meaning, he stole it. From the McDonalds. He was tired of hearing me complain about the lack of free toilet facilities thus far and he was guessing that you could pee for free at a McDonalds, so he went to test out his theory. He strolled up to the third floor of the medieval building that housed the Mickey D’s, and waltzed right into the bathroom right as another patron was vacating it, and went about his business. Only when he was leaving did he notice the previously vacant, but now manned, station of Monsieur Pee-Pee, whose job it was to police the potty and collect potty payment. Oops! Having stolen the pee, he waltzed back out to me, a free pee having been scored.

After the pee theft, and our walk around the highlights of the town, we took a break and went to the Duvelorium, a bar devoted to just Duvel beer, located in a stunningly beautiful medieval building, overlooking the market square. The outdoor balcony offered incredible panoramic views and the vantage point made for extraordinary people watching. The beer, like most Belgian beers, was simply divine; strong but smooth. We got a flight of beers and I tried hard not to take more than my fair share but I’m not sure how well that played out.

Thoroughly beered, our next adventure was a boat ride on the canals that Bruges is so famous for. It was fairly inexpensive and had unusual seating- the small boats had standard bench seating on both sides that faced inwards but had a row running down the middle only one person’s width that faced forwards. Scott and I got seated in this unusual middle row but it turned out to be ideal because we had great views. The tour guide gave information about notable sights and bridges that we passed. We both agreed that this was a better boat and canal tour than the one in Amsterdam and this method of sightseeing provided some of the best views of the “Venice of the North.”

We were thirsty again after the canal tour so stopped into a local beer shop that had hundreds, if not thousands of different varieties and brands of bottled European beers. Imagine a highly concentrated Total Wine devoted entirely to beer from small breweries located in a small store inside a medieval building in a medieval town. They also had about ten beers on tap so we sat down to enjoy another one. Scott discovered earlier in our trip that he liked a Belgian beer called Delirium Red, a strong but fruity and slightly sour beer, and they had it on tap here. We sat out front of the store and watched the foot traffic, as well as the occasional car and horse drawn buggy traffic that tried to plow over the foot traffic, because evidently many people are in the same boat as Scott, and don’t take cobblestones as a road very seriously. After we finished our beers we walked around the town some more and popped into a grocery store where I bought more Delirium beer for both of us- heavy bottled beer, and we took turns carrying it for the next several hours.

Thoroughly frited, beered, and having reached our “castley-shit” quota for the day, we decided to head back home, confident that we wouldn’t botch our return train trip. We made it into Ghent, very confidently jumped off the train at the Ghent station, high-fived each other because of our navigational success, walked down the stairs, and… Wait. Why is there construction? There wasn’t construction going on this morning when we left. Hmm. That’s weird. Well, whatever, let’s try another exit, maybe we’re turned around. And that is when we realized that we were at the first of the three Ghent stations, rather than the third that we should have gotten off at. Not wanting to potentially screw it up again we decided to just make the 5k walk back to our apartment. The bag holding the beer started to feel heavier and heavier as we walked the long way home but we got to see parts of Ghent that we hadn’t seen yet at least. (Our first impression of Ghent was that it was a tiny little village but in daylight, and from the central train station we realized we had grossly underestimated the size and scope of… Belgium’s third largest city.) It was on this long walk, with the heavy bag of beer, that the mighty Gravensteen Castle came into view. It turns out that our apartment was only a block away from this historic and notable sight but because of the way we kept getting to and from it, we had no idea it was virtually at the doorstep of the Gravensteen.

Our Oostende oopsie earlier in the day meant that we got back too late to make the meet and greet cocktail hour that the DePape family was hosting that evening which was sad. When we got closer to our apartment we stopped in to a local restaurant for dinner and we both had the famous Flemish stew with the obligatory side of frites. Our server was curious about where we were from (he originally guessed England which I found hilarious since I have a southern accent) and generously jotted down some places for us to check out when we were in Ghent. When we finally made it home we were ready for bed having had an enjoyable day wandering around both East and West Flanders.

Lost Travelers End Up at the North Sea

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Remember the luggage struggle I mentioned in the last entry? The one where Scott ended up having to begrudgingly schlep my rollaboard around Europe even though he packed lightly and just had his backpack? Well, he was especially thrilled when we arrived in Ghent at almost midnight (we missed our local train after getting into Antwerp on the Thalys train and it was too tight of a connection) and had to walk about 3 km in the dark in an unknown town dragging along the rollaboard over the medieval cobblestones- announcing our presence with every single step as it bumped its way over every single stone. Scott, who is normally cool as a cucumber, likened it to being a wounded gazelle on the savanna- or easy pickings.

We still didn’t have cell service at this point (we had opted to just download Google Maps for the areas we would be visiting and to attempt to rely on Wifi) which was fine except that you had to keep your eyes glued on your phone to stay on track because without cell service or Wifi, Google Maps wouldn’t give you live course corrections if you went astray. Being in a strange town, and being in the dark, this was not ideal.

So with just a little trouble we finally found and turned down the dark alley where our lodging awaited us, and as instructed by the proprietors, rang the doorbell to the main house, and… nothing. No response. We both looked at eachother. Nervously. Scott asked me again if I had let them know we would be late getting in. Yes, of course. I had reached out to them about 6 pm to let them know that we would be pretty late arriving, but that we were in fact coming. No problem, they informed me. So here we were, standing at the door and holding our luggage, but with no cell service and not quite sure what to do. After what seemed like a lifetime, the owner’s voice came through the speaker and asked if we were really checking in at midnight… well, yes we were and here we are. He informed us that he needed to put clothes on but would be down shortly. Phew!

Another narrow and winding spiral staircase awaited us and we were on the third floor. The proprietor showed us the apartment, gave us our keys and other pertinent instructions and wished us a good night. I had asked the age of the building and he told me that it was originally built in the 1700’s. He also informed us that it had been owned by 1911 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient, Maurice Maeterlinck. Hence the building’s name: Huize Maeterlinck. Huize Maeterlinck was quirky but adorable and perfect. (It also came with cats! Two of the proprietor’s cats would periodically come up to the apartment and meow at our door asking to be let in, would snuggle for a bit and then would go on their way.)

An information sheet posted in the apartment gave us suggestions for local restaurants and points of interest. One of the suggestions was to visit the Vrijdagmarkt, or the Friday market in the historic town square where vendors would be set up selling fruits and veggies, cheese, meat, baked goods, etc. Lucky for us it was just a short walk from the apartment and we were able to visit it the following morning getting some cheese, croissants and other pastries which we were able to enjoy for the next few mornings.

The highlight of the market trip was when we encountered a Belgian beekeeper that had a booth set up selling his honey and beeswax products and Scott chatted with him about bees for a while. I enjoyed listening to them talk about beekeeping and it turns out that Belgian bees are just as temperamental and finicky as our American bees. The Belgian beekeeper told us about the Asian hornets that are a problem for European bees- evidently they popped up in France in the early 2000’s and have now spread all over France and into Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the UK. They are a problem because they are a significant predator of the honeybee.

After the market field trip our plan was to make our way to Bruge, the “Venice of the North,” thusly named for its intricate and picturesque canals, and a city that in addition to looking like it is the inspiration for every Thomas Kinkade painting, or might be the setting for any number of fairy tales, had its first castles appear in the 9th century. Scott, who would go on to coin the term “castely shit” was stoked to go see some castles and some “castely shit.” Equipped with our downloaded Google maps, a decent understanding of how to get there, and plenty of snacks in our backpacks, we headed off to the train station.

The walk to the train station was much more inviting in the daylight and we were able to take in the sights of Ghent- the beautiful Lys river, the canals, and catching glimpses of the medieval Gravensteen castle which is a notable landmark of the city. We took a quick detour into Sint-Jacobskerk, a 12th century cathedral, as we passed it. It is hard as an American to wrap my mind around and grasp just how old some of these buildings are. Most of these buildings would require a feat of engineering even in today’s age to construct, and to imagine them being constructed without heavy machinery and modern technology is simply mind-blowing.

Once on the train and en route to Bruge we were entertained by watching the pretty countryside. We had a rough idea of how far away it was and what station we needed to get off at but neither Scott nor I speak Dutch and evidently both of us weren’t paying that close attention because when Scott pulled up his Google maps he saw that we were well outside and past Bruge and he keenly noted that “trains don’t typically circle around a city for an approach.” It turns out he was right and we were now at the end of the line, at the lovely Belgian seaside resort town of Ostend. Oops.

We went into the train station in search of someone that could help us figure out what we did wrong. We found a nice train station employee that told us that we had simply overshot the stop (by chance we had missed seeing the sign that said “Bruge” at the Bruge station) and she wrote us a nice “hall pass” for us to carry with us when we got back on the train explaining what we had done. The rough translation amounted to “lost travelers” which we got a good laugh about. Since we were now in a lovely seaside town we decided to take advantage of our travel miscalculation and to go dip our toes into the chilly North Sea.

The whole time we were in Belgium everyone we came across kept lamenting how unseasonably cool and rainy it had been the past few weeks and this day was no different. We encountered brief periodic showers that day which kept the potential beachgoers at home and it seemed like we had the whole expansive beach to ourselves. Scott took off like a rocket to go wade in the sea and I spent some time watching the seals in the “seal only” section of beach before going to join him. In this section no people are allowed and have to stay at least 30 meters away from the seals. I am not sure if I was seeing harbor seals or grey seals but it sounds like both species have just recently made a return to Belgian beaches due to conservation efforts after being away for the last 20+ years.

After we dusted the sand off our feet we took a stroll through the town. It was a strange juxtaposition seeing the magnificent Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk cathedral situated right among your typical beach shops and shoreside highrise hotels. We made our way back to the train station, hall pass in hand and got on a train that would supposedly take us to Bruge.

All Things Amsterdam

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

We were lucky enough to have the middle row of the widebody Airbus 330 to ourselves on the flight to Amsterdam which was a happy little perk and we arrived in The Netherlands about 9 hours after leaving Atlanta, not very well rested but at least well fed. International flights are nice because they still serve meals which is a welcome diversion and helps break up the flight. Prior to leaving for our trip someone had warned me about Amsterdam’s famously long runway (~3 miles long) and they weren’t kidding- it seems that we taxied for almost half an hour before finally reaching the airport.

Customs was a surprisingly pleasant experience as the officers were much friendlier and less gruff than in the US. We popped out of the airport terminal and into the train station and took a minute to figure out how to get into the city center where our hotel was located. That was easy enough (one quick Metro ride) and we soon found ourselves in the heart of Amsterdam taking a very short walk to the Hotel Manofa.

Our room in the Hotel Manofa was laughably small, much like a dorm room, but we expected that going in and realistically we just needed somewhere to shower and rest our heads at night and hadn’t planned on spending time lounging around the accommodations. The steep and narrow staircase that had to be traversed up four flights to reach the tiny room proved entertaining and Scott took advantage of that moment to remind me that had I not brought a carry-on*, the staircase would have been easy.

*Leading up to the trip the topic of luggage had been a source of struggle. Scott likes to pack light and carried everything he needed and not a single item he didn’t in a backpack, and while I am not opposed to the idea and can readily admit that I am a chronic over-packer, the fact that we would be attending a wedding meant that a dress, fancy shoes, and hair product were required… all of which would take up room and would necessitate me having a fair amount of stuff to cram into a roll-aboard carryon. I was actually proud of myself for accomplishing this and not needing to check a bag. He got lots of mileage throughout the trip ribbing me about the roll-aboard, but at the end of the day he typically was the one lugging it along ancient cobblestones and hoisting it into overhead compartments for me, so I suppose it was only fair that he be allowed to give me a good spirited hard time about it.

Procuring lodging had been my job and I used the following criteria: price (tried to stay around $100 US/night), proximity to a metro station, proximity to the sights we wanted to visit, and relative safety of the area based on Booking.com ratings. Throughout the trip we would stay in a total of five hotels/apartments and while each had quirks, none of them disappointed. We were pleased with all of them and appreciated that they were all so unique and not the typical run-of-the-mill corporate chain hotels. Scott and I are lucky that we are compatible in our outlook on adventure lodging and agreed that my matrix for choosing seemed to be a good one.

We took a quick shower (careful not to bend over to wash our feet, lest we pop the shower door open with our behinds, and instead very carefully lifted our feet up to our hands in a yoga-like sort of fashion to wash them instead) then a quick nap to get refreshed and be able to go out and tackle Amsterdam. Feeling somewhat rejuvenated and human again, we left our hotel room- the first order of business was to go get some frites (aka french fries).

Frites are a hugely popular snack food and side dish in the part of Europe we visited, owing to the fact that they originated in Belgium, and were one of the must-do’s on our travel list. We had been told to expect to have them with mayonnaise and not ketchup so when the frite stand attendant asked what sauce I wanted, I of course asked for the “fritessaus.” It turned out to be tasty, albeit less fatty and more sweet than a typical mayonnaise. In Amsterdam and Brussels there seemed to be a frite stand on every corner and the lines would extend out into the road and would be packed at all hours of the day, even first thing in the morning. This particular frite stand that we visited was called Mannekenpis and it’s mascot/logo was the peeing boy of the famous Manneken Pis fountain/statue in Brussels.

Having consumed the frites, we then wandered around the city. We explored many of the side streets and then made our way to the canals. We were amazed by the sheer amount of bicycles that we encountered- it seemed that the bike traffic may have outnumbered the foot traffic and you had to keep your head on a swivel to avoid veering into the path of speeding bikes hurtling at you. The episode of Ted Lasso that depicts a team trip to Amsterdam captures this chaos perfectly when Rebecca ends up in a canal dodging bikes! The bridges over each of the canals were decorated with flowers in pretty planters and were adorned with even more bicycles- those that were not currently being ridden around the city. We enjoyed seeing all of the different flavors and styles of houseboats docked along the canals and sat for a bit and watched the boat traffic inside the canals- its own little highway.

As we walked we took in the distinct architecture. Most of the houses lining the canals are tall and skinny which has to do with the tax system hundreds of years ago- the more canal frontage a house had, the higher the taxes. It was not unusual for the buildings lining the canals to be a bit askew and to list, pitch, tilt, or lean one way or another. This was a result of them being both old, their wooden pillars not able to maintain their integrity for several hundreds of years , but also being built upon wet and sandy soil which is bound to shift. It adds to the effect and gives a certain character to the houses- much like charmingly crooked teeth in an otherwise lovely smile.

We made our way to the Anne Frank house, just observing and reflecting from outside. We did not go on the tour. It was sobering to see in person the house where this young girl, her family, plus four other Jews, hid out from the Nazi’s for two years in a space of about 450 square feet, before finally being discovered and sent to concentration camps. (Of the group of eight, only her father survived and he would go on to fulfill Anne’s wish of being a writer by eventually publishing her diary.)

We were scheduled for a canal boat tour (with Dutch cheese, wine and beer!) later that evening. There had been on again/off again rain showers that afternoon and evening so the boat had it’s clear plastic curtains let down to protect us which made for a little difficulty viewing the sights, however we were still entertained by throwing back a few Heinekens and chowing down on gouda and edam cheese while gliding along the canals. Our tour guide was a little lackluster but the overall experience was enjoyable- it certainly ticked the “do the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it” box.

After the canal boat tour we took an obligatory stroll through the Red Light District although I had briefed Scott earlier to not take any pictures unless he wanted to find himself being tossed into a canal by a bouncer. It was about what we expected it to be and is such a cliched part of the Amsterdam experience that we had to do it.

The next morning we were on a mission to rent bikes to trek out of the city to the village of Zaandam to see windmills- a very Dutch experience for sure! I was a nervous wreck peddling in Amsterdam but once we got out into the smaller suburbs and quaint villages and then into the parks I calmed down and was able to enjoy the sights. The wind was fierce (not quite sure why I was surprised by this since it is advantageous to build a windmill in an area that experiences wind) which made the ride feel hard but the sights were well worth it once we got there. We had a quick picnic lunch and walked around the windmills for a bit before venturing back. This time we took a more direct route and it was easier since the wind was at our backs. We had to take a free ferry both going and coming and it was entertaining to see the bikes outnumber the cars nearly 3:1. All told, our bike ride was about 25 miles and was definitely the longest bike ride I have ever done and my rear-end would remind me of that for the next few days, although it was a fantastic way to spend a day.

Post bike ride we had some time to kill before we needed to catch our Thalys high speed train to Antwerp (and then catch a local train onward to Ghent where we would be basing for the next few days) so we decided to visit an Amsterdam “coffeeshop” so Scott could get some “coffee” in the city where one consumes “coffee” in “coffeeshops.” I watched while he had his “coffee” and then had to tow him like a little puppy on a leash* around the city the rest of the evening while he smiled and giggled, taking in and enjoying the sights and sounds of Amsterdam in a new light. (*Scott says that this post “coffeeshop” tour of Amsterdam lasted for hours and we traversed the city and train station for hours and logged several miles of walking, but in reality we only took a short walk to the restaurant and then the train station. His judgment might have been impaired by the “coffee” which he admits was quite strong.)

We hit up a little bar, getting a preview of the Belgian beers that we would get to experience shortly, then headed over to a tapas restaurant called “Joselito.” This has been Scott’s nickname for Cody since he was about five so it seemed as good a reason to choose a restaurant as any. We picked a few plates, and aside from me having a Spanish sausage explode hot grease all over my raincoat, had a nice meal. We then headed over to the train station, found the correct platform, boarded our train and then hurtled toward Belgium at about 200 mph, excited to see the land of the DePapes!

What Even is There to do in Europe?

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Last November, an email arrived in my inbox from my previous student and dear friend Sara DePape, announcing a save-the-date for her upcoming wedding in Belgium in August. I excitedly shared it with Scott* and thus began a nearly 9 month trip planning feat that would culminate with an unforgettable European adventure.

*I would be remiss to not mention that when I first pitched the idea of us going to Belgium for the wedding and turning it into a European vacation, Scott’s first response was, and I quote: “What even is there to do in Europe?” He was serious when he asked me this. I got lots of mileage out of this quotable quote over the next several months when I would share it with friends and clients- those from Europe found it especially funny.

The DePape family played a pivotal role in my professional success and I will be forever grateful to them for trusting me, at the time, an aspiring equine professional in my mid 20’s that didn’t know what I didn’t know, with their lovely daughter, her horse(s), and their truck and trailer- turning us loose to horse show and play in the Southeast. Sara was 12 when I first started working with her and I would continue to coach her throughout her early college years until her last competition horse retired.

Sara was the first student I ever coached at the Preliminary level of eventing, was the first United States Pony Club member that I would ever prep for the B certification, and was the first student I would have to make an International Exchange team. All of these successes in Sara’s riding journey were much more a result of her ability and aptitude as a rider and the fact that she is an amazing human being- not so much a result of my coaching.

It was Sara’s mother Nadine who introduced me to the Pony Club Interpacific Exchange when she first asked if it was something Sara should apply for, and if so, would I be willing to write a letter of recommendation for her? Heck yes she should do it and heck yes I would write a letter, and oh, look at that! They need a coach for the team… maybe I should apply, because how much fun would it be to get to go to China and Hong Kong!? Even though I was quite involved with USPC and was aware of most of the international exchanges I had somehow never heard of the IPE. Unsurprisingly Sara was chosen as a team rider, and somehow I was lucky enough to be chosen as the team coach. We would spend 2 weeks in Asia on a trip that would be life shaping in that it would introduce me to people that would go on to become not just friends but more like family (the Torsilieri family) and would kick off my decade-long involvement with the IPE which would eventually send me to 5 countries and 3 continents.

Sara’s parents are from Ghent which is in the Flemish region of Belgium, hence the Belgian wedding. I always enjoyed their stories of their homeland- a country rich with world class horses, beer, history, WW1 and WW2 significance, chocolate, countryside, and castles. The idea of being able to experience these things was captivating and the idea of getting to witness Sara’s special day filled me with love and pride.

Nadine and Wim still live in the Anderson area so Scott and I met them for lunch one Sunday to ask for their advice and guidance on planning the trip to Europe. I was tickled for them to meet Scott and they all hit it off immediately. When we were done catching up they mapped out a suggested itinerary that would have us starting our trip in Amsterdam, making our way to Belgium for the few days surrounding the wedding, and then ending in Paris. They offered guidance on train travel as well as things to do in each of the areas that we would be in.

With that rough outline of an itinerary in mind we got down to trip planning…

Scott is a planning master, and trip planning is an especially strong suit for him. He found the most thorough (as well as most intimidating and overwhelming) spreadsheet for trip planning and travel that exists and that was our template. We learned lots about each other during the planning process and I am fairly sure that I drove him crazy during it. I have traveled internationally a good bit and have organized my fair share of vacations and events but my own vacation planning style tends to be a lot more open ended and vague than his and involves lots more handwritten notes and random emails scattered throughout my overflowing inbox. He is much more strategic, detail oriented, and is very good at consolidating information in one place.

Over the next several months we managed to get all of our travel ducks in a row and found ourselves sitting on an airplane bound for Amsterdam on August 1st with only one roll-aboard suitcase, two backpacks, and a bag of snacks in tow. Europe here we come!

Foothills Paddling Club Chattooga Fest '23

Sun, 07 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In what has become a 10 year long tradition, on the first weekend of May 2023, over 80 members from the Foothills Paddling Club met up in Long Creek, SC for Chattooga Fest. The weekend consisted of camping at the Chattooga Sounds campground and enjoying various ways to have fun on one of the most beautiful and unique waterways in the US, the National Wild and Scenic designated Chattooga River. This river is often referred to as the “Crown Jewel” of the Southeast, so it is easy to see why FPC gathers here year after year for fellowship and to revel in the adventure that this special river provides.

The majority of participants arrived on Friday and a few were even able to squeeze in a lap on the river. The t-shirt commemorating this year’s event was unveiled at the check-in and was designed and illustrated by FPC’s Nikki Jo Fair. It featured a whimsical cartoon representation of the notable rapids on the Chattooga, complete with an Echo the dog cameo (she was representing the Sock Em Dog rapid on Section 4). Many members met up at the pizza party offered by the club at Humble Pie, which was just a short drive from the campground. Over pizza and drinks, old friends got to catch up and new connections were made. The pizza party was a hit and will hopefully continue to be a staple of future Chattooga Fests. Once everyone reconvened at Chattooga Sounds, a campfire was started up (thanks to Blake!) and many members gathered round to chat and connect. Several of them entertained and thrilled us with ghost stories as we sat in the dark. Amidst the soothing sounds of rhythmic and melodic snoring in the group camping site, tired campers drifted off to sleep, excited about their impending river adventures the next morning.

The first few campers started stumbling out of their tents at dawn and went about the business of making coffee and breakfast. Scott and I learned from last year that Chattooga Sounds is a very upscale campground and has a well equipped kitchen complete with running water, a sink, a stove, a fridge, and a microwave. What this meant was that we packed our Mr. Coffee, so solving for the coffee situation was incredibly easy- much easier than at any other campground! By 8:30 most everyone convened for the morning meet up and briefing and trip plans were made. The trip planning felt very efficient and official thanks to the printed and laminated signs. So instead of vaguely appointing someone to be the organizer and saying to go meet up with “that guy standing over there,” the appointed leader was able to hold a very official looking sign to designate their intentions and organize their followers. It seemed that the group as a whole was much more timely and organized at this event- sometimes this process feels a little like herding cats or nailing jello to a wall. The group gets an A+ for cutting down on the amount of hurrying up and waiting that typically ensues.

FPC members had no problem deciding how to have fun on the Chattooga river on Saturday. Ross McSwain led a well attended trip on Section 2 with about 17 members. Some paddlers tackled Section 3.5. Cade Puckett, Adam Mobley, and Andrew Dahl led a trip down Section 4 in which two paddlers had their PFD, and two others ran it who hadn’t done it in quite some time. The raft was expertly guided by Clayton Burton and he was kind enough to give me (Janna) some practice and some coaching so that I can hopefully guide it in the future. Members of the First Family, Adam’s mom and sister, did a Lake Tugalo paddle, and a few others (Susan Donkers and Lee Purcel) explored Lake Rabun on their stand-up paddle boards.

By Saturday afternoon, exhausted but happy paddlers started to trickle back into camp, all filled with tales from their day and ready to share and swap stories with other paddlers. It was fun asking everyone about their day and hearing how it went- the gist of it was that a day spent on the water in a boat was a great day. We were treated to a delicious barbeque dinner, courtesy of Chris Gray and his twin daughters, and everyone devoured it. After dinner the raffle began and against all odds, John Franklin was the recipient of the brand new fire engine red Jackson Gnarvana kayak, and although this was his first time winning the grand prize, his wife Susan Donkers, had won the boat two previous times (her second time winning it was from the purchase of a single raffle ticket!). Camp fires were started up after the raffle and content and tired folks gathered round, still talking about their day on the river.

Sunday morning only about half the attendees remained so it made for smaller group trips. The night before, Adam had announced that I (Janna) would be the raft guide for a Section 3.5 trip on Sunday, and I must admit that I was relieved that no one wanted to do a raft trip. I will be prepared to confidently guide the raft next Chattooga Fest; I promise! There was a popular Section 3.5 kayak trip and it was fun sitting on the rocks above the Bull, watching everyone run it. There was a four person Section 4 trip, in which no one swam! By Sunday afternoon, it was a wrap on another fantastic Chattooga Fest- memories having been made, new friendships having been formed, and the beloved Chattooga river having been celebrated and enjoyed once again.

Washington D.C. Birthday Trip

Sat, 22 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In what is now becoming somewhat of a tradition, we took a trip over my birthday weekend. This time, instead of going to Southern California, we visited Washington D.C.

En route to D.C. we stopped in Richmond, VA and checked out Belle Isle, a park in the middle of the James River in downtown Richmond. We enjoyed boulder hopping from one side of the James to the other. Scott was fascinated by the old abandoned hydroelectric station on one of the shores and we spent some time checking it out, although it put off some serious murder vibes and I wouldn’t have wanted to be snooping around there after dark.

Scott’s longtime friend Rich, who he used to work with at AllState, has an apartment in Arlington, ideally situated just across the Potomac and only 10 minutes or so from the National Mall, and we were lucky enough to stay with him and visit. From the balcony of his apartment you can see the Washington Monument. Rich is a fascinating character who takes his job as amateur tour guide very seriously, giving any professional tour guide a run for their money. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Rich and the best moment of the trip was him singing Happy Birthday to me. Rich used to be a member of an elite all men’s choir and has the voice of an angel so it was incredibly special.

We did all the typical D.C. things and the highlights were:

Waiting in line on my birthday to get our hands on hard to get day-of tickets to go up into the Washington Monument, only to find out that the employee whose job it is to open up the ticket booth/gift shop for the Monument forgot his keys and watch him skedaddle in somewhat of a panic back to his house to get his keys, in what would be, at best, a 90 minute long roundtrip. We were equal parts irritated and amused but made the best of it and enjoyed a 3.5 mile long run around the Washington Mall.
Visiting:
- The newly remodeled and just now opened back up Air & Space Museum.
- The Botanical Gardens. Neither of us had been before and the warm and humid greenhouses felt wonderful on a chilly day.
- Natural History. Janna loves learning about animals and reading every. single. placard.
The only thing that rivaled being serenaded by Rich was Rich’s nighttime Monument tour. He knows his stuff and knows that city like the back of his hand, and there is something magical about Washington D.C. at night.

Worth mentioning… The only buzzkill of the whole trip was listening to Rich recount his experiences of January 6, 2021, the day of the Insurrection, which he told us while we stood looking at the illuminated Capitol Building, which is now surrounded by ballards and security fencing, which didn’t exist until recently. His story brought chills.

Chicago in the Fall

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I got the opportunity to take the Scotty B origin tour in late September! We took a road trip up to Chicago and spent several days seeing the sights and catching up with Scott’s friends. Scott, as well as his friends, kept reiterating that we were catching Chicago at its best in regards to weather, as the brutal cold and gloomy gray would find its way to the city in just a few short weeks.

Our first stop was outside of St. Louis, in O’Fallon, Illinois, where we detoured to see Scott’s college roommate Mike Lobstein. He hosted us for the evening and it was fun seeing his house (across from the obligatory Midwestern cornfields) and all his woodworking and computer projects. He and Scott have many similar hobbies and interests and it was fun watching the longtime friends catch up. We went to dinner at a local brewery and restaurant that was in a beautiful old mill building. Our after dinner field trip was to Menard’s, a monolithic superstore of superstores, that combines elements of Costco, and home improvement giants Lowes or Home Depot. I was mesmerized by the scope and vastness of the building and its inventory. We came out of it lugging giant bags of various candy, me starry-eyed from the experience.

The next morning we headed out to see the Arch and to do the Anheuser-Busch brewery tour. I was in heaven with both the beer and the iconic Clydesdales. It also brought back fond childhood memories of the Busch Gardens theme park when I lived in Williamsburg, VA… when I was too young to appreciate the overwhelming yet delicious smell of beer being brewed but was obsessed with seeing the Clydesdales! The Arch was more impressive in person than any picture can do it justice and we marveled at its engineering, design, and stature. On our way north to the Chicago suburbs we stopped by Edwardsville, IL for me to see the Southern Illinois University campus, the college Scott went to.

Buffalo Grove, IL, home to Scott’s longtime friends Al and Bobbi Lisse, was our next stop. I had met Al several times before but this was my first time meeting his wife Bobbi. They were so welcoming and I felt right at home and enjoyed watching Scott pick right back up where he last left off with them. They are more like family than just friends.

We ventured into the city of Chicago via commuter train the next day, me getting to experience a taste of the commute that Scott had once routinely done. I can see the appeal of the train after I saw what traffic was like and Scott’s cat nap as soon as we sat down seemed like another perk of this form of transportation. I was filled with questions about the city and it’s sights as we got closer to it and Scott’s reply to many of my inquires was “I don’t know, Google it”, and that response soon became a running joke in which I said he was a crappy tour guide and I was going to leave a “one out of five star” review for his imaginary tour company.

Big cities are simultaneously fascinating and overwhelming to me and it was nice having someone so familiar and so confident at navigating within this big bustling metropolis. One of our first stops was to the Shedd Aquarium, an important part of the Bouchard history and story since Scott’s dad, Don, once was a volunteer scuba diver there. I had been told stories about his time at the aquarium and one of my favorite was of Scott’s children and niece and nephew getting to watch their “Pepe” feed some of the different fish in various exhibits, submerged within the tanks. I can only imagine how exciting that must have been for them! Poor Scott has been to the Shedd more times than he can probably count but I was fascinated by all the elaborate and award-winning exhibits and was sure to read every. single. placard. in the aquarium. The highlight for me was finding a random stick-on googly-eye that someone had affixed over the eye of a photo of a Blackstripe cichlid (a Mexican freshwater fish) on a placard.

We know that my travel motto is “do/see the thing you’re supposed to do/see in the place you’re supposed to do/see it” (thanks Kristin Newman, author of “What I was Doing While You Were Breeding,” for that motto) so naturally we visited the Buckingham Fountain (featured in the opening to 80’s sitcom Married With Children), the giant metallic “bean” in Millenium park, walked along Lake Michigan, and ate Chicago style hotdogs (delicious).

One of the must-do’s that Scott’s mom Wendy had suggested for our visit to the city was to go up to the top of the John Hancock building for drinks. She said that the best views of the city were to be had from the window in the women’s restroom of that restaurant and she was right. From that vantage point I got a true appreciation of just how congested the traffic leading into and out of the city was but also was able to enjoy seeing how beautiful a city it is.

The finale of our day was a sunset cruise. We had watched the movie The Breakup (starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston) in preparation for the boat tour. It departed from downtown Chicago, near Trump tower, and made its way via the Chicago River, through the locks (an interesting but time consuming experience), and out into the cold Lake Michigan harbor. I do believe that this city is most beautiful at night, the lights of the buildings were spectacular to see. Despite ribbing Scott about his aptitude as a tour guide, he was a wealth of trivia and information and pointed out interesting and meaningful buildings and features. Scott had sagely advised that we pack lots of layers for this adventure and he was spot on and we donned them all, thankful to have them as the wind off Lake Michigan whipped around us. Seeing the city this way was probably my favorite part of our day and was a perfect ending to a wonderful day, Scott’s tour guiding easily earning him a full five star review as he expertly guided us through the passages of the city back to the train station so we could commute back to the Lisse’s house.

Our visit was timed so that it would coincide with Brooke’s birthday and we picked the kids up in Crystal Lake on her actual birthday and I got to experience the institution that is Chicago deep dish pizza at the iconic Lou Malnotti’s pizza. It was different but good, seemingly more like a rich tomato and sausage casserole than the cheese, sauce, and toppings on top of bread version that I’m accustomed to.

We picked them back up the next morning for a trip out to Richardson’s Adventure Farm in Fox Lake for a full day of corn mazes (Brooke is amazing and if I am ever lost I hope I have her with me because she is a whiz at navigating her way through paths of tall stalks of cereal grain cut into the fields to resemble various James Bond actors from over the years) and other various farm themed outdoor fun. My favorite feature was probably the piglet races, followed closely by the hayride. We wrapped up the day with dinner at Portillo’s, another iconic Chicago restaurant chain, featuring their famous Italian beef sandwiches and to-die-for and equally famous chocolate cake. It was a fun day spending time with the kids.

The last few days of our Chicago trip were spent in Crystal Lake with the Petrelia family. Bob and Scott used to mountain bike together and Bob and his wife Virginia were gracious hosts and I enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them. Their daughter’s artwork was featured prominently throughout the house and it was fun hearing about each unique piece. I enjoyed getting to see the town where Scott grew up, including his old houses and the schools he went to.

We went with Bob, Virginia, and their son to breakfast on our last morning and I had a “Dutch baby” pancake that was the feature of the restaurant that we went to- it was the size of a tire! It was also delicious and had a lemon juice and powdered sugar drizzle on top. I wasn’t able to finish it but enjoyed the experience. Fully stuffed from our extravagant breakfast we met up with Scott’s friends Matt and Jenny for lunch. Scott and I just watched them eat because the thought of eating anything else was out of the question. We finished our day, and trip, by hiking in Sterne’s Woods and Fen, a popular county park in Crystal Lake.

The whole trip was fun and it was nice being able to put names and faces together, as well as to see and experience in person, places that helped shape Scott and make him the person he is.

Nantahala Outdoor Center Guest Appreciation Weekend

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

During the last weekend of September we attended the Nantahala Outdoor Center’s Guest Appreciation Weekend in Bryson City, NC. This is an annual event that they host and they have vendors, lots of freebies, contests, live music and a big gear sale.

We camped at a campground a few miles from the NOC and Scott paddled both days. I was still feeling nervous about boating after my mini meltdown on the Hiawassee so I just hung out at the NOC while he was on the river. I enjoyed watching kayakers play on the slalom course at the NOC and walking around the trade fair. There are dozens of used-gear sellers that set up at the festival and I was on a mission to find a decent waterproof jacket. I was successful and snagged a Gore Tex jacket for $30 (Scott haggled the seller down while I watched- this introverted, people-pleasing, rule-followin’ Southern girl finds haggling very stressful).

The most interesting part of our weekend came on Saturday night back at the campground. Foothills Paddling Club had a group campsite and everyone gathered round the campfire after having dinner to relax, drink, socialize, etc. Two random fellas joined our group which was fine since we usually take on a “more the merrier’’ sort of approach when it involves campfire activities. One of the men was Irish and I offered my sincere condolences to him since Queen Elizabeth II had just recently passed away. He took that as an opportunity to curse her name, and unload about all of her shortcomings. It was a bizarre response to a seemingly innocuous comment. He then proceeded to try and fight a giant Kayak Georgia paddler who is also an MMA fighter, and then sat down in his camp chair and wet his pants.

On Sunday, Scott and a group of FPC kayakers ran the Upper Nantahala and I was both Shuttle-Bunny and photographer. The Nantahala river runs right next to the road and it makes it easy to drive along, park and then wait for the kayakers to come down. The river is narrow here and has class III+ rapids in quick succession which makes it entertaining to observe especially since there were so many people on the river this particular day. Scott had a picture perfect day on the water but had to help a fellow paddler in his group when he took a spill at a rapid. The paddler was banged up but otherwise ok.

Eastern Tennessee Pilgrimage

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Foothills Paddling Club hosted their annual East Tennessee Pilgrimage on Labor Day weekend. Eastern TN/Western NC have an abundance of whitewater rivers within a close distance so it is a perfect location for a paddling get-together since there’s a river for every skill level. We packed up the raft and kayaks and headed to Murphy, NC for an enjoyable long weekend of camping, paddling, and socializing.

We set up camp at the same campground we had stayed at last year and got a prime spot since we were one of the first ones to arrive. Scott joined a few of the hardcore FPC’ers and they ran a lap on the middle Ocoee. I was their “shuttle bunny” that day and helped drop them off and would meet them a bit later at the takeout. While they kayaked I set up the hammock at the Olympic section of the river- site of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic whitewater canoe and kayaking events. The dam was closed that day but I still enjoyed seeing the rocks and rapids. I find it interesting how the 500 meter stretch of river was narrowed and modified, and had rocks strategically altered, placed, and engineered to create Olympic level features and rapids. (Unfortunately the Olympic Center building burned down in April of 2022.) I picked them up at the agreed upon time and they re-lived their day’s adventures while we drove back to camp.

The next day we went to the middle Ocoee again- this time I was in the raft. We were guided by the very competent Cade Puckett, a former professional raft guide on the Ocoee. He knew every rock, line, eddy, and ripple of this river and I found it helpful to hear his thoughts on guiding. He gave me an opportunity to guide and gave me some instruction and feedback. I would eventually like to guide our raft by myself and this was an invaluable experience. We had a textbook perfect run! Scott kayaked alongside us and had a wonderful day on the river.

We took a trip to the Hiawassee on Sunday. This time I was in a kayak! The Hiawassee is a wide and shallow river and has lots of shoals. The section we kayaked was mild and only had Class I-III rapids but the sound that the shoals create is rather impressive. That noise combined with my lack of familiarity with the river caused me to have a minor meltdown and panic attack about ⅓ of the way down the river. I am appreciative of all the fellow paddlers on the trip that offered me support and kind words while I was scared and stressed. Despite my freak-out, I actually had a successful PFD but was quite thankful to be back on dry land and back at camp later that evening! Dinner was hamburgers cooked on the mountain-man grill. Scott’s camp dinners are to die for and this one didn’t disappoint.

Rain started that night and on Labor Day morning we packed up a soggy camp (I made a mental note to bring a pair of rubber boots the next time we camped) and headed back to SC. The plan was for some of the Greenville area folks to run Twelve Mile Creek which was at a runnable level because of the rain. It is in Central, SC and has a two mile run of Class II-III rapids. It was only about 15 minutes away from Scott’s house so that was nice. I played the role of shuttle bunny again and got to watch the boaters over the first rapid. We made it home in time for a Labor Day get-together at the Bouchard’s house.

https://www.gopaddlesc.com/waterways/trail/twelvemile-creek

My Riverbend Journey Comes to an End

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

My contract to run/lease Riverbend Equestrian Park ended on August 31, 2022. I had been at Riverbend for 12 years so the transition was bittersweet but it was definitely time- for the first time in my life I experienced true burnout and was hearing it in my voice while teaching. Handing it over to another horse professional has allowed me to focus solely on teaching which I love, and I feel like I got my teaching mojo back when I’m not having to also run a barn.

In May of 2011 when I began my Riverbend journey, I never could have imagined what incredible people it would attract and that I would get to form relationships with. I have been continually amazed and uplifted by all the love and support that each of them showed me during my time at that special place. It was fulfilling and rewarding to be able to play a role in so many special people’s horsey experiences.

With this chapter ending, that meant for another huge change: I would now be a boarder myself! Scott and I moved Elliot to a wonderful farm in Anderson that has huge pastures and grass year round. So much grass that poor Elliot finds himself in a grazing muzzle even during the winter now but what a wonderful problem to have. He settled in and seems quite content with his new living situation.

I am enjoying being a boarder!

Summer 2022 Highlights

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Cody and Brooke arrived in early June. Cody came down a week earlier than Brooke who had stayed in Illinois to perform in a dance recital before coming to South Carolina. We took Cody to watch stock car racing one evening at the Anderson Motor Speedway which is only about 15 minutes away from Scott’s house. I had never watched car racing and found it entertaining. We all got into it but all were frustrated by the stop-and-go nature of it. Every time there was a spin out or wreck the cleanup crew and tow trucks had to come out and clear the track then the cars would start again. I was glad Scott had thought to bring hearing protection because the noise of the car engines was uncomfortably loud. The people watching was certainly interesting!

Scott enrolled the kids in a week-long kayaking camp that took place on the Green River. They got lots of paddling experience and instruction and even got to work on their rolls. Scott and I hit the lower Green one afternoon prior to picking the kids up from their camp and I got to experience the Green from inside a kayak for the first time rather than in a tube. I am working to get comfortable kayaking and building my skills.

It had been a long time coming but in late April I finally announced my decision to relinquish my Riverbend contract and step down from leasing it and doing the day-to-day management. I took Scott and the kids riding one last time to take advantage of having access to horses before the Riverbend era of my life wound down. Everyone swapped around onto different horses. Scott and Walter hit it off and they were cruising around the arena trotting and cantering. Walter is notoriously bouncy but Scott had no trouble staying balanced on him which was pretty darn impressive. Mocha and Brooke made a good pair and she was able to trot around on him. It was funny watching Buttons and Cody. Buttons typically doesn’t like jumping but kept making beelines to little jumps and walking over them. The funniest part of our ride was when Scott got on Buttons- Scott’s feet nearly reached the ground!

In the middle of June we did a beach day trip down to Folly Beach with the whole family. It makes for a long day but can be done because Folly is only about 3.5 hours away. It is one of the closest beaches to Charleston. The set up was impressive (a huge tent, table, beach chairs, boogie boards, copious amounts of snacks) and made for a comfortable day of lounging around on the beach and enjoying the water. We ended up making another Folly day trip with just Scott’s kids in mid July. Scott rented a surfboard for the day and they took turns surfing. The summer before they had taken a day of lessons and everyone did a good job remembering how to do it this year.

Afterwards we took the kids on a quick tour of downtown Charleston. We walked through the historic Charleston Market on Meeting Street and I bought some famous benne wafers for the kids to try. Benne wafers are rich thin sweet toasted sesame cookies with a cracker-like consistency. Their heritage traces back to the 1700s when slaves brought the sesame (or benne) seeds over from the Caribbean and they became an integral part of Gullah and Lowcountry cooking. Brooke liked them so much that she experimented with making them on her own after we got back. She made a few different batches and we all devoured them.

https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/benne-wafers

The benne wafer experience inspired me to introduce the kids to more Southern dishes and I decided to try my hand at making tomato pie. It is one of my favorite meals but I had never made it on my own. I was pleased with the outcome and they were very well received despite everyone’s insistence that something called pie should be sweet and therefore be a dessert… I tried to remind them that chicken pot pie, and shepherd’s pie are famous dishes and are savory, not sweet, but I’m not sure my point got across. We routinely have the same discussion about crepes- I stand by that they can be both savory and sweet, but the rest of the family insists that only sweet ones are acceptable and savory ones are an abomination. Facepalm Anyways, I made one tomato pie with bacon and one without. I feel like the secret is in using Duke’s mayonnaise, heirloom tomatoes, and copious amounts of basil. I also introduced Brooke to caprese salad and we enjoyed playing around with various iterations of that over the summer.

https://www.annebyrn.com/recipes/2019/8/11/homegrown-tomato-pie

In late June we packed up the raft and headed to the Chattooga with the O’Connell family for a day of rafting on section 3.5. We awkwardly humped the heavy raft down to the put-in and felt like Minions again doing it- we all got underneath it and put it on our head/shoulders and stumbled blindly down the trail. We had a great day on the river and stopped to play on the rope swing about ⅓ of the way along the trip. We beached the raft prior to the Bull and scouted out the rapid and ate a lunch that Kathy had brought. Aside from getting the giant raft wedged between rocks on our approach to Double Drop it was a perfect run. We had a lovely day on the river with great weather and company. The trek back up to the parking lot with the raft on our heads was the least enjoyable part of the day but was comical nonetheless.

In early July Scott rented a pontoon boat and took the whole family out to Lake Jocassee. Scott and Pepe dove at the diving “playground” on the lake during the first part of the day. The sun came out and we then toured our way along the lake to find all the various waterfalls that flow into Jocassee. Many of them were quite impressive and a few of them created perfect swimming holes which we enjoyed. We found Jumping Off Rock and anchored there for a bit and enjoyed leaping off the rock into the lake. We tubed some and spent lots of time just floating on pool floats in the lake. It is such a pretty lake and has very little development which is nice.

The paddling club hosted a day on the Nanthahala river during the middle of July and we participated. The kids did their PFD (personal first descent) on the lower Nanny and aside from Brooke getting tipped over at a small rock and taking a swim, they had a great day. I had rented a ducky (an inflatable kayak) and got tipped over within the first 5 minutes of my trip at the notorious Pattons rapid and took a very scary and ice cold swim down the river. Luckily Scott was downriver and rescued me and my equipment. The Nantahala is about 48 degrees year round and is famously cold. We had a potluck lunch after with the Foothills paddling group and then headed home.

A few days after our Nanthahala trip we took the kids to Gorges State Park on the SC/NC border to see Rainbow Falls and to slide off of Turtleback Falls. The Horse Pasture river runs through this park and has some spectacular whitewater and waterfalls. I hadn’t slid off Turtleback Falls since college and worked up the courage to do it a few times. We all had fun and took turns holding the dogs at the base of the falls while the others slid. We ventured down to Rainbow Falls after and enjoyed sunning ourselves on the giant boulders at the base and swimming in the pool below it. It made a spectacular backdrop for photos.

In late July we took in a Greenville Drive game downtown. None of us are huge baseball fans but it made for an enjoyable evening. The following day we took the kids to Furman University. Scott had booked a photo shoot for Brooke as an early birthday present and Furman is so picturesque so it was the perfect spot. The photographer is someone I know from Pony Club and she captured a lot of beautiful shots. Scott, Cody and I wandered around the campus while they were taking their pictures.

The kids headed back home in late July and we were sad to see them go. We had enjoyed the time with them and had a fun and action packed summer. The kids had gotten attached to the dogs and were sad to say goodbye to them.

Scuba Diving and Falls Tour on Lake Jocassee

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Since we had a hard time finding details as to the location of the Chinese Junk Sailboat and diving playground area, I thought I’d include a map and GPS coordinates, 34.96874, -82.91462. If my memory serves me, the deck of the boat was at 53 feet.

*** Update *** We enjoyed the opportity to celebrate Janna’s Dad’s birthday by doing another combined lake tour and dive trip in late September. The weather was perfect.

What We Did This Summer, Part I

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

After Chattooga Fest we had several fun outings and adventures prior to Brooke and Cody arriving for the summer in early June:

In late May as a date night, we took an introductory pottery class one Friday evening in downtown Greenville. It turns out that making clay behave in a manner in which is necessary to become recognizable as some sort of vessel (vase, glass, mug, bowl, etc.) is much trickier than it appears. We had a fun time learning how to make little vases and after we formed them we picked which color finish/glaze we wanted and the pottery fired them in their kiln and we picked them up a few days later. They are currently sitting empty but are patiently waiting to be filled with soil and to become little planters. The Wandering Bard is in the same complex as the pottery and we went over there to try mead afterwards. Mead is alcohol that comes from brewing and fermenting honey so it seemed apropos to try it. It is quite sweet and while interesting and worth a try, didn’t really appeal to either of us.

Friends that are part of the paddling club invited us to the Marietta Rodeo on the last weekend of May. Some rodeo events are entertaining to both man and beast and I could get on board supporting those and cheering along with and enjoying them. Some rodeo events are entertaining for man but the beasts that are forced to participate aren’t having as much fun and I made sure to let my opinion be known to all that were fortunate enough to be seated around me (sorry y’all). A PETA member I am not, and I can appreciate the functionality of some of the skills that the rodeo tests but some of the events seem downright cruel and quite unpleasant for the stock participating: chute doggin’, mutton busting, and an event in which a rabid horde of enthusiastic children descend upon an unsuspecting goat in an attempt to remove a ribbon tied to its tail, all come to mind. I forgot how much I don’t like rodeos until that night and am still apologizing to Scott and the friends we went with but I can’t help feeling dogmatic and highly principled about some things. The people watching and the local color of rodeo night in Marietta made up for it though. And Scott got to eat some pork rinds, so there was that…

The Saluda river is right in between my apartment and Scott’s house so we took advantage of its proximity and enjoyed a few canoe trips to “Ant Island” with the dogs and a few trips down it on tubes. The dogs have turned into excellent canoe passengers and get excited about paddling with us. Ollie likes to bite at the water coming off the oars and Andi likes to stalk things from the comfort and safety of her vessel. It can be squirrely when they both decide to move around the canoe at the same time but the more often we take them out, the better they are getting at being still and sometimes will even lie down. Andi’s confidence level swimming has increased since we got her a doggy life vest. Although she still needs some coaxing, she is now more comfortable swimming back and forth between Scott and I. She enjoys investigating the little island and Ollie loves standing in the water, smacking, splashing, and barking at it.

Towards the end of one of our tubing trips we had a blowout on one of the Aldi rafts that we were riding down the river which meant we had to bushwhack through the woods in an attempt to find civilization. Luckily we were near the house of a very nice couple that offered to drive us to Dolly Cooper park where one of our cars was parked.

I am amazed by this waterway and can’t believe that I hadn’t ever played on it or taken advantage of it until just recently. A friend of mine has an 8 acre farm with river access near the Saluda river dam and has been generous in letting us park there to put in because Greenville County makes it very difficult to access it and has no public access points. Anderson County gets several gold stars for its access to the Saluda- with its inclusive put in/take outs and tubing loop at Dolly Cooper Park as well as its inclusive access at the Lyman Street Landing in Piedmont.

https://andersonscliving.com/anderson-county-towns/pelzer/wheels-to-water-inclusive-recreation-on-the-saluda-river-blueway/

Foothills Paddling Club Chattooga Fest '22

Sat, 07 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

The famous “Wild and Scenic” Chattooga River is nearly in our backyard, so Scott and I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the Foothills Paddling Club’s annual Chattooga Fest tradition. A weekend of paddling on the historic river that is considered to be the “Crown Jewel of the Southeast” and camping with friends and other members of the club in early May sounded ideal. The amount of equipment and stuff that was required for the weekend adventure rivaled the amount of gear taken to a horse show and luckily we had a trailer we could use to schlep it to the Chattooga Sounds campground in Long Creek, SC, a little over an hour away.

Trailer in tow, we left Easley Friday morning under ominous threatening skies and during the drive there I was nervously watching my weather app and radar- the forecast was calling for severe storms and possibly tornados. Not exactly ideal camping conditions… (Fun fact, even though Scott has camped probably hundreds of times more than me, about a quarter of my tent camping experiences have involved nearby tornados.) We arrived at the campgrounds and decided to hang out and socialize for a bit and put off setting up camp because of the weather threat.

The official group paddle that had been organized for Friday was canceled due to the forecast, but after monitoring it closely for a while, a small group of kayakers decided it was safe enough to go run section 3.5, Thrifts to Woodall. Scott was part of the group and before he headed out to hit the river, set up the tent so I could start setting up the rest of camp and have a place to nap and relax while he paddled. The weather ended up being fine despite some showers and I enjoyed a restful afternoon of reading and lounging around camp.

Scott and the rest of the kayakers arrived back to camp late in the afternoon, full of excitement and stories about their trip down the river. Scott got a campfire going for the group and set up the mountain-man grill so we could cook our wood fired steaks and baked potatoes. This meal was just as good as when we had done it a few months before- there’s just something about the flavor of steak cooked over the fire. The beer was freely flowing and all the paddling buddies sat around the campfire for the rest of the evening socializing. We eventually called it a night and retreated to our tent where I slept in absolute luxury and comfort because Scott had brought a little fold up mattress for me.

Saturday morning we got up, made a quick camp breakfast, and gathered with the group to talk about possible trips to take that day. Scott had been asked to bring his 16 foot river raft so that a raft trip could happen because the raft owned by the club had a hole in it. I would be on the raft, along with a few other FPC members, and we would be captained by a FPC member named Clayton. Scott and some other kayakers would be our “safety boaters” and would boat alongside us as we navigated section 3.5.

Section 3.5 of the Chattooga culminates with the notorious Bull Sluice rapid, and owing to its easy access from the highway, attracts many spectators. We had a few hours on the raft to get used to each other and learn how our captain commanded the raft before we tackled The Bull. Before we ran it, we beached the raft and got out to go look at the rapid and come up with a game plan for navigating it. Clayton told us what the plan was and we all knew what was expected of us. We got back into the raft and shoved off the shore and into the mainstream. My heart rate was through the roof and I was both nervous and excited. We took basically the line we wanted to but somehow got pushed sideways during the first part of the two part descent (this is not ideal) but managed not to lose anyone during the second drop. Lots of cheering and high five’ing happened after we ran the rapid and the ensuing adrenaline rush was intense!

At the base of the rapid, once the adrenaline rush had subsided, we discovered that the raft had popped its laces in several spots. The lacing connects the floor of the raft to the body and allows it to be self-baling. We were able to cobble together a repair out of some straps and carabiners that would work to get us down the remaining portion of the river. (Sunday morning before we took the raft out we had to restring several sections which proved to be rather awkward with the inflated craft!)

On Saturday night we had a barbeque cookout and enjoyed campfire time again while the club raffle went on. Over $6,000 of items and activities had been donated to the club for the event. Scott won a trucker hat donated by Appalachian Outfitters and gave it to me. Scott had a dessert trick up his sleeve… he had brought everything to make funnel cake over the fire. It was a hit and he cooked up funnel cakes for anyone that wanted one. (Several weeks later, FPC members that we run into are still talking about it!)

The plan for Sunday was to get a group of paddlers together that wanted to raft and Scott would be the captain. This was his second time being the guide. His first trip was last summer with his whole family on the French Broad in Asheville and he used the oar rig. This time was without the oar rig and with a raft full of kayakers which probably made his job harder since there were four other people trying to steer and direct the craft!

We had another enjoyable trip down section 3.5. Scott did an excellent job of reading the river and telling us what to do to put the raft where it needed to be. When we got to Bull Sluice we did the same as the day before and got out to scout and come up with a plan. The plan worked and this time was even smoother and more textbook than the day before. The same adrenaline rush and cheering occurred this time!

Part of Chattooga Fest is doing some river cleanup. We saw some trash on one of the river banks and made a detour to go pick it up and take it with us. All of the members had been instructed to take trash bags and to find opportunities to clean up put-in’s, takeouts, and anywhere else we saw trash to help preserve the tranquility of this special river.

Our only mishap of the day happened at Woodall Shoals. This rapid is deceptively dangerous due to a large and strong hydraulic so its best to portage around it rather than run it. When we put the raft back into the river below the hole we didn’t paddle strongly enough to be successful in our ferry attempt and got pushed down into an impassable section of the rapid- too many boulders made it impossible to navigate. We had to fish the raft out of the river and back up to the base of Woodall and try again. This time we were successful and had a good run.

At the takeout we had a quick snack before hoisting the raft back up the hill to the parking lot which proved to be both comical and exhausting. The takeaway is that there is no great way to carry it and you just have to take your time and carry it a few hundred feet and then put it down and rest. After catching a ride back to the put-in to get Scott’s truck and trailer we then deflated the raft and headed back to the campground to pack up. It seemed that our equipment had multiplied over the weekend and it didn’t pack quite as neatly as on the way to the river. We made it home in time for Sunday dinner, tired but content after an enjoyable weekend on the river with friends in a beautiful wilderness.

Here is a link to fellow Foothills Paddling Club member Fhay Dohaney’s recap of Chattooga Fest 2022: https://www.foothillspaddlingclub.org/news-feed/chattooga-fest-2022-recap-7-6-2022

Ichetucknee Springs

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

40 miles northeast of Gainesville, Florida, in the small tucked away town of Fort White, there exists a 6 mile river named the Ichetucknee. A tributary of the Santa Fe River, it is created by nine springs that pump out 200+ million gallons of crystal clear water a day, and has some of the most surreal and stunning scenery on the planet. On Friday, January 14, we said goodbye to Gus and Alex, and headed north to Ichetucknee Springs to set up camp to be able to canoe this unique river on the last day of our trip. We had originally planned to spend two nights in the area on our way back home, but an impending huge snowstorm was rudely headed towards the East Coast, and would eventually dump 8+ inches of snow on the South Carolina Upstate.

There is no camping within Ichetucknee Springs State Park so we set up camp at the nearby Ichetucknee Springs Campground. This was the second time I had camped with Scott and the first that I had been there to help with the setup. He has it down to a science and it was fun to watch and help with the process. The campground was small and oddly also hosted a petting zoo. Our wooded campsite was well kept and somewhat secluded although we could still hear the resident donkey when he got to braying.

Since it was a weekday, Scott was still working while we were setting up camp and my job was to start the campfire for us to have our baked potatoes and wood fired steaks for dinner. I was given a tutorial on fire starting and fire tending and then attempted it. Unfortunately we discovered the firewood was pretty wet so it was a struggle to get it going. Luckily Scott has a small portable fan he keeps in his camping kit that helps oxygenate the fire and it worked like a charm.

Our dinner was fantastic- the wood fire gave the steaks incredible flavor and I was surprised by how easy it was to cook the potatoes (wrap them in foil, throw them in the fire and turn them every so often). We made s’mores and enjoyed the fire until the temp dropped and we called it a night and retired to the tent. The low that night was supposed to be in the upper 30’s which is pretty chilly for camping- I slept bundled up in the mummy sleeping bag that’s rated for -20℉ with my winter jacket and beanie on and was comfortable.

We slow rolled it the next morning, not wanting to get out of the tent while it was so cold. Eventually we got up and Scott brewed cowboy coffee for us, then made scrambled eggs and bacon. I’ve discovered that there is something special and extra tasty about camp meals that makes them more delicious than their cooked-in-a-kitchen counterparts.

Late morning we broke down the campsite and headed to the Ichetucknee- I was so excited for Scott to see it. The main canoe/kayak launch near the headsprings was under repair so we had to put in at Dampier’s Landing which was about halfway down the short river, and meant for an upstream paddle the first half to the headsprings, then a downstream float on the way back. The trip was about 5 miles and it took us about two and half hours to paddle.

We had been been on the river for no more than a minute when we saw our first manatee- it was nonplussed as we glided right over it and watched it slowly swimming its way along upriver. It was a foreshadowing of all the huge sea cows we would eventually encounter on our float that day- the cold temps in the Gulf had sent them all inland, searching for warmer water.

The area around Dampier’s Landing has a swampy feel to it despite the unbelievably clear water. The river is narrow here and the Spanish moss laden cypress and live oaks form a dark tunnel over the water effectively blocking out sunlight. Every log was covered by turtles and they were also easy to spot swimming underneath our canoe. Eventually the river widens out and becomes more marshy and the bird life here was stunning- both in it’s variety and abundance. We saw wood ducks, great blue herons, and egrets, and heard (but never spotted) barred owls. Prehistoric looking alligator gar swam along beside us and despite looking like they could easily devour you, evidently they are harmless to people.

We came around a bend in the river and saw lots of paddlers hanging out in a lagoon. A kayaker we had passed early on told us to be on the lookout for a family of manatees so we guessed that’s what everyone was watching and we paddled over to join them. Sure enough, there were several manatees- there must have been about eight of them and there were a few babies. This group was more boisterous than the ones we had encountered on the Crystal River and some of their “aggregation” (that’s the official name for a group of manatees- you can file that away and thank me later when it shows up as a question on trivia night at your local bar) rough housed and played with each other.

After our Crystal River manatee encounter I was curious about the unusual animals and did some Googling. I will spare you from telling you everything I learned but I will share the things I found interesting. Manatees of course are herbivores and unfortunately are facing challenges as their environment is affected by climate change and human encroachment. (Unfortunately record numbers are dying due to starvation and the state of Florida is working to come up with successful programs to save them and to turn this trend around.) They eat a very specific type of marine grass and are “hind gut fermenters,” as are horses. This means they rely on a part of their large intestine, the cecum, and its billions of beneficial gut flora inhabitants within, to do the main slow digestion of the fiber that they eat so that they can use it for energy. One of the byproducts of that fiber digestion is gas, and they use that gas to help regulate their buoyancy. You’ll notice little bubbles floating their way up to the surface when you see a manatee… that’s manatee tooty gas. I love to nerd out on animal facts and Scott likes to tease me.

After enjoying observing the aggregation we continued upstream and began to encounter many of the springs that create and feed the Ichetucknee. Most are roped off to protect the fragile spring ecosystem. We made our way up as close to the head spring as we were allowed and then turned around. The paddle back was much quicker since we were now going with the current.

When we reached Dampier’s Landing we took the canoe out and Scott impressively hoisted it over his head and we made the quarter mile walk back to the parking lot. We packed up the paddling equipment and then drove to the other side of the state park to have our picnic lunch (I remembered to put the turkey on the turkey sandwiches this time!) and to go have a quick peak at the main headspring as well as the Blue Hole, a popular cave diving spot which of course intrigued Scott. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to spend at these spots since we were racing against the snow storm that was stalking it’s way towards the South and we wanted to get safely home before the weather turned bad.

Sidenote: We arrived safely back to SC, albeit quite late, before the snow started. Scott had wisely suggested we stop by his parent’s property in Easley to collect cold weather/snow gear and equipment. The next morning he came to help me feed the horses in the snow and I was thankful we were well equipped and had the tow straps and shackles when the 4Runner slid off the road into a ditch. We were able to go fetch the tractor and easily pull it out. I was thankful that he didn’t ever have to use the chainsaw- typically with the winter weather we get in the Upstate, the freezing rain happens first which downs trees and powerlines and makes it nearly impossible to drive anywhere. This particular storm was snow only which was a pleasant change.

Paddling some Floridian Flatwater Near Ocala

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

The highlight of our trip involved getting to play on three different clear water rivers in Florida. An incoming cold weather system in the Gulf had caused the manatees to seek warmer temps inland which worked out for us since the rivers were nearly swarming with them! Here is the story of two of the rivers:

Our first river adventure was a canoe trip on the Crystal River on January 12. After Scott was done working for the day we made the hour drive to the river and put in at Hunter Springs Park in the small Gulf town of Crystal River.

It took us about half an hour to paddle to the springs where manatees notoriously gathered. We spotted our first few manatees as we were making our way to the Three Sisters Springs. When we got to the popular spot we were able to float and observe them as they made their way into the protected sanctuary area where the warmest water was. We then tied the canoe up and donned snorkeling gear. I imagine it was comical watching me squish into a shorty wetsuit while balanced on a piece of coral! Scott’s sister Tiffany generously loaned me her snorkel gear and I enjoyed being able to get up close and personal with these docile sea mammoths. They are as large a horse but much more graceful and it was incredible to be so close to them- they would swim within inches of us and didn’t seem to be frightened by our presence- one even swam up to our canoe and booped it with his sweet sea creature nose!

Once we were thoroughly chilled from our snorkel we got back into the canoe and kept going up the inlet. The Crystal River is highly developed and it was a strange juxtaposition seeing these federally protected animals amongst densely built waterfront properties. We stopped when we were at the end of an inlet to have lunch- I had made sandwiches and somehow forgot to put the turkey on them, which caused quite a laugh- and were able to observe two canoodling manatees while we dined.

We explored a bit longer and then made our way back to the launch, paddling by a handful of manatees on the way back in. We packed up and then decided to watch a Gulf sunset nearby so headed to Fort Island. Despite it being cloudy, we enjoyed the approaching dusk as we sat on the ubiquitous loveseat eating popcorn and overlooking a bay on the Gulf.

Our next river adventure was the following day when Gus rented a pontoon boat for us for an afternoon trip on the Rainbow River. After he and Alex were done coaching at the horse show for the day we loaded up and headed to Captain Bob’s marina in Dunnellon. Carrying scuba and snorkel gear, we loaded up the boat and headed upstream- first taking a detour into the blackwater Withlacoochee river to see if we could spot the notorious giant alligator. Sadly, he/she was hiding that day. We then backtracked back to the Rainbow River and it was wild how the two rivers converged- a clear delineation between the crystal clear water of the Rainbow and the black water of the Withlacoochee.

We went upstream on the Rainbow, observing the strict no-wake ordinance and eventually made our way into a cove where we dropped anchor for Gus to fish and for Scott to scuba dive. Despite Gus not catching anything, we still had fun- Alex and I tracking Scott’s progress along the lagoon via his bubbles. Once Scott was back on the boat we went upstream a bit farther, enjoying the scenery of the clear river and admiring the beautiful houses lining the waterway, before turning around and heading back for a seafood dinner at the marina’s riverside restaurant, the Blue Gator. I finally got the scallops that I had been craving the whole trip and they didn’t disappoint!

January Florida Getaway

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 05:00:00 +0000

In early January Scott and I left South Carolina and headed south for a week to take advantage of the sunshine and balmy temps of central Florida. Longtime friend August Torsilieri (Gus), and his girlfriend and business partner Alexandra Hird, both show jumping professionals, generously invited us down to stay with them in Ocala. They winter in the Ocala area and were in the process of purchasing their first home, a beautiful Florida style ranch house they had rented for the previous two years and that was just minutes away from the lavish and immense World Equestrian Center.

As usual, Scott was the outfitter for the adventure and strapped as many modes of adventure as were physically possible onto his truck so that we could bike and canoe while we were down there. I always get a kick out of seeing how much stuff he can attach to the truck- it is quite impressive.

It was enjoyable seeing Gus and Alex and despite our arrival coinciding with the closing on the house, Gus cooked up an elaborate taco dinner for us the night we arrived. I was excited for Scott to get to spend time with them and get to know them. Gus and I first met back in the mid 00’s when he was assigned a horse I had contributed to the horse pool for the USPC International Tetrathlon Exchange in which he was a competitor. Then in 2010, I was his coach when the USPC Interpacific Exchange Team competed in Hong Kong. That once-in-a-lifetime trip created a long lasting friendship with his family, and all 3 of his sisters have at some point come down to SC to stay with me and ride with me. Fun fact: Gus’ father Dean owns the company that is in charge of procuring, transporting, erecting, and lighting the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree every year.

On Monday we took Scott for a golf cart tour of the World Equestrian Center. It’s expanse and attention to detail is almost incomprehensible. According to their website, they are “nestled in the Horse Capital of the World” and I just want to take a moment here to discuss their choice of words. While there is little doubt that Ocala is a significant horsey area, there is no discrete “nestling” of this facility. It is bigger than some villages in eastern Europe and could just about have it’s own zip code. This facility stretches over 380 acres at the moment, with plans for development of another 300 in the works. By definition, if you are the “largest equestrian complex in the United States” and you have your own gas station (they do), you are not nestled anywhere, you are a modern day Holy Roman Empire. (Also, another sidenote… can we just stop using the word “nestled” in regards to real estate? It is overused and we just need to stop.)

The facility just opened in 2021 and has already changed Ocala. New highways are being built to accommodate the traffic it creates. The facility has an astonishing 15 outdoor arenas and 5 heated/cooled indoor arenas, over 3,000 stalls, and 8 restaurants. We enjoyed getting the tour and seeing Scott’s response to the attention to detail and opulence of the facility.

We had dinner at one of the on-site restaurants, The Yellow Pony, (complete with valet parking for the golf cart) and I was tickled that long time student, Emily Thomas was able to meet all of us for dinner. She is a senior at Clemson and was in Ocala on her winter break working and training with an upper level Eventing professional. It was ironic that it took both of us being hundreds of miles from home to be able to get together. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and having a collection of some of my favorite people all together at a dinner table.

Thanksgiving 2021 in Beaufort

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Immediately after the Pickens Glow Run that we ran in October, Scott and I signed up for another 5k- this time it was a turkey trot in downtown Greenville to benefit Trees Upstate, a non-profit devoted to “planting, promoting, and protecting” trees in the Upstate. When I picked up our race packets on Thanksgiving Eve I was able to get a tree for each of us as well and came home with two Eastern Redcedars that we will plant. They are supposed to grow 30-60 feet tall!

Thanksgiving morning we got up early, finished packing for our trip down to my Aunt Deb and Uncle Floyd’s Riverhouse in Beaufort where we would head after the race, and went downtown for our turkey trot. Our festive racing outfits attracted the attention of a Fox Carolina news anchor and she asked if we would be willing to be interviewed live for the network’s coverage. Scott was a little hesitant but I enthusiastically agreed to the opportunity and we got to talk about how we came to be in downtown Greenville before 8 AM on a chilly Thanksgiving morning sporting a turkey tutu (Janna) and unicorn shorty shorts and a LED backlit blue tutu (Scott).

The race turnout was great- about 4,500 people showed up for it and the energy was high. The route went through Main Street then down into Cleveland Park and then a steady uphill climb back into town, finishing at the Greenville Drive stadium. My goal had been 30 minutes but I ended up at around 32. I was pleased to have a top 20 finish for my age group. Scott actually ran the 8k and averaged 7:22 miles and had a top 15 finish in his age group. We headed back to his family’s house to shower and have breakfast so that we could get down to my family’s Thanksgiving festivities in Beaufort by early afternoon.

Traffic heading towards the Lowcountry of SC was thankfully sparse and we ended up arriving right on time to Chisholm Island where a Cajun injected fried turkey and smorgasbord of Thanksgiving side dishes and desserts awaited us. Scott got to meet my extended family and immediately established that he and my cousin’s husband Matt had a mutual acquaintance. Scott’s best friend Al has a son that been a graduate student in Matt’s microbiology program at the University of Missouri Rolla campus, outside of Saint Louis. It’s a small world out there.

After our Thanksgiving feast I showed Scott around the Riverhouse and the island. It was fun showing him one of my favorite places and sharing what I love about the area: the tunnel of gothic looking live oak trees heavily laden in Spanish moss that opens up to the vista of the endlessly outstretching tidal zone marshes of Wimbee Creek. We sat around the marsh side firepit with my family and chatted for a long time. I enjoyed catching up with everyone since Covid meant that we hadn’t gotten together since 2019.

Aside from the relentless pestering of the no-see-ums (the teensy biting gnats that are unique to the coastal South), the only unpleasantry of the day was when Andi snagged herself one of the neighbor’s beautiful free ranging chickens. Luckily I was able to extract it from her mouth and when I was evaluating the damage to the hen it hopped up and skedaddled into the bushes, the only apparent damage being a loss of some plumage and some emotional trauma. Sorry little hen!

The Riverhouse was at capacity since everyone except my Grammy and Uncle Geary had come for the holiday, so Scott, my parents, and I stayed at a dog friendly hotel in Beaufort, close to it’s downtown. On Friday morning Scott and I took the dogs for a walk at the waterfront in Beaufort and then found a swinging park bench to enjoy our coffee, the sunshine*, and to take in the view of the iconic Woods Memorial Bridge, the swing bridge that was featured in Forest Gump as a stand-in for the bridge over the Mississippi River and that connects Beaufort to the sea islands beyond. (*During our trip a popular refrain from Scott that I enjoyed hearing was that he couldn’t believe that it was Thanksgiving- being in the mid 60’s and sunny. He said typical weather in Chicago this time of year is in the 30’s and grey.)

After some photo ops (“Beeautiful Beaufort” and Scott Street) we took the dogs back to the hotel and packed up for our canoe adventure to Hunting Island, a 5,000 acre state park. We had thought about taking the dogs with us and our trial canoe ride with them on the Arends’ pond had gone well but ultimately we decided to leave them behind this time. The idea of them capsizing us into icy water wasn’t very appealing.

Prior to our trip Scott had talked to a local canoe/kayak outfitter and was advised that the Russ Point landing near Fripp Inlet was the best way to reach Hunting Island. We put the canoe in there and paddled under the fishing pier and into the lagoon that ended at the “Boneyard” of Hunting Island. The Beaufort County website has this to say about the Boneyard beach of the island: “With Hunting Island being a barrier island, erosion has taken a toll on the beach for a very long time. This erosion with the intrusion of saltwater has cut into the maritime forest on the island bringing down trees and creating a maritime ‘graveyard’ of sorts.”

When we reached the Boneyard, we beached the canoe and went about exploring the beach and it’s fallen trees before setting up our picnic. Scott’s foldable camping loveseat yet again was a win! During our picnic we spotted a pod of dolphins and we enjoyed watching them while we had our lunch. It was the biggest pod that I had ever seen and they stayed in the area for quite a while apparently having found a good feeding ground at the barrier island.

After soaking up the sun, and sights and sounds of the beach, we packed up and began our paddle back to Russ Point, this time a little harder, going against both the wind and the outgoing current. When we reached the dock I asked for advice from the resident paddle master Scott on how to best disembark from the canoe onto the dock. His instructions were sound and I safely stepped back onto dry ground. Scott then went to get out of the canoe and while stepping up his bare foot slipped on some marsh pluff mud in the bottom of the canoe and he ended up taking an unintentional bath in the cold brackish water of the Fripp Inlet. He was a good sport about it and rode back to the hotel in a towel and a jacket.

We went back to the hotel, changed, collected the dogs, and headed back to the Riverhouse for Thanksgiving leftovers and some socializing with my family. The next morning we had breakfast at a popular Beaufort café and Scott and I debated as to which meal, breakfast or lunch/dinner, shrimp and grits were most appropriate. (My vote is for any meal, including breakfast; Scott votes strongly for lunch/dinner.) After heading back to see my family at the Riverhouse we then headed back home- stopping to see the eerie but beautiful Sheldon Church ruins on the way out.

Traffic was much thicker heading back to the Upstate and we got back to his family’s house in time for dinner with them. I got to have some of the coconut cream pie baked by Scott’s sister Tiffany that I had been thinking about since I had seen it on Thanksgiving morning and it proved to be just as good as I had imagined it would.

The day wasn’t over yet though because the Saturday following Thanksgiving is a South Carolina state holiday… this is when the Clemson vs Carolina football game is played. Being a staunch Clemson fan as well as Clemson grad, I felt obligated to watch it even though I haven’t been as devoted a fan this year since the Tigers aren’t having the roaring success that they’ve been accustomed to the past few years. I made it to half time before calling it a day and crawling into bed, content with yet another fun trip and adventure filled few days.

Some November hikes

Sun, 14 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

The mild weather in November meant that we were able to get some good hikes in and we were able to do some exploration of the Highway 11 “adventure corridor.” We coined the name because this is the highway that runs through the “Dark Corner” of SC, from the border of Georgia to the North Carolina border, crossing over the 3 major lakes of Upstate SC- Hartwell, Keowee, and Jocassee, and there are quite a number of parks, swimming holes, gorges, waterfalls, and hikes in the area that make for fun exploring.

I was excited for Scott to see Gorges State Park for the first time- a park that I had frequented quite often while in college when I would go with friends to slide down Turtleback Falls. We took the dogs with us and Scott spent most of the drive explaining to Andi that he was impervious to her relentless whining, huffing, and impatient pawing and tapping at the window to try to get him to roll it down for her to stick her head out. He attributed his resilience to having two kids and I’ll admit that she did eventually give up and settle down.

Gorges State Park is right on the NC/SC border and is near Lake Jocassee. The Horsepasture river is fairly unimpressive and more like a creek until after it flows over Turtleback Falls, speeds up and then dramatically spills to create Rainbow Falls. The river below Rainbow Falls is fast and crammed with huge boulders. The interaction of light and the mist created by the waterfall creates a rainbow, hence it’s name and in the summer the slope across from the falls is filled with wildflowers that flourish in the lush microclimate created by the falls.

After hiking in and taking in the views of Rainbow Falls, we ventured on to Turtleback, just a few hundred yards farther up the trail. After Scott and Andi explored some of the boulders at the base of Turtleback, we set the hammock up in some trees amongst them and soaked up the sun for a bit.

The following weekend we took a trip to Table Rock to do the trail that goes to the top. At the halfway point we stopped to have our picnic lunch on the bald granite dome that provided a panoramic view of the lakes and forests below. I often joke that Scott is actually a lizard because he suns himself any chance he gets, and true to form, he spent some time sunning himself on this rock. We had the dogs with us and while Andi was going strong and could have made the hike easily, poor Ollie was starting to tire and slow. The constant need to jump up the steps on the trail was pretty taxing to his old arthritic body so we made the decision to just enjoy the halfway overlook and do the rest of the hike to the top another day.

Green River Narrows Kayak Race 2021

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

On a cold blustery day in early November we bundled up and headed up the Saluda grade to Hendersonville, NC for the annual Green River Narrows kayak race. I had always wanted to attend, having heard tales of the hair-raising event since I started visiting the Green river in college. The official race website which calls the event the “largest extreme kayak race” in the world, has an interesting way of marketing the event to competitor participants- the gist of which is that under no circumstances should any kayaker sign up for the race because of the extreme rapids, extreme risk, and extreme difficulty in reaching and evacuating a participant should something happen. Their message to potential spectators is just as pleading and dire. Naturally we were not deterred and downloaded maps, packed a lunch and the hammock, donned hiking boots and set off.

The race takes place in the Green River Game Lands and the hike in was nothing to sneeze at. The first half of the hike was easy, albeit unusual because of the volume of the crowds hiking in along with us. The last part involved half sliding, half climbing down a steep muddy grade to reach the river. Thankfully there were ropes to help assist with the descent but it was slow going and reminiscent of standing in line at the DMV as hundreds of people carefully picked their way down one step at a time into the gorge.

To spectate the race, observers line up along the stretch of river and stake out a spot on a rock or bluff. 2,000+ spectators were there and it was standing room only and space at the more popular rapids fills first. As soon as we were at the river’s edge Scott started scouting for a spot to hang the hammock. With a little climbing we were able to string the hammock up in a prime spot at a series of rapids near the end of the course below the iconic and intense Gorilla rapid which gave us an ideal view of several rapids. Our vantage point was excellent and it was entertaining to have every person that hiked past (or underneath us) comment on our superb choice of seating, including race participants once they started hiking back up after their runs to watch other competitors.

There were 170+ racers and they were spaced 1-2 minutes apart so it meant non-stop action. The energy level on the river banks was high and I can only imagine the nerves and adrenaline rush that the racers felt as they challenged their skills against one of the most intense and punishing stretches of river in the world. Spectators screamed and cheered as kayakers navigated each rapid, encouraging them on. It was incredible to watch their level of skill.

Watch Dane Jackson’s winning run

Sidenote: At one point while we were watching the race, Scott and I both commented to each other that we smelled funnel cake which was odd since we were in the depths of an extremely remote and hard to access river gorge. On our hike back out of the gorge the smell intensified and we spotted the source- a young guy perched on a boulder in the middle of the Green river with a backpacking stove and a bottle of Wesson oil was frying up funnel cake. We laughed and commented to the guy on how amazing this was and he offered us some… not quite sure how we would have gotten it from across the river, but nonetheless got a laugh. Scott and I have an ongoing joke that funnel cake should be a mainstream dessert so it was especially funny.

Yosemite in the Fall

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Once my USPC certification wrapped up on Sunday afternoon Scott and I were free to head to the next phase of our adventure - the Yosemite phase! Scott had actually been able to venture up there the day before while I was testing since it was only about 90 minutes away. His excitement was infectious when he was telling me about his hike and the sights that he encountered while he was there so I couldn’t wait to see the park for the first time.

We entered the park in the late afternoon through the Wawona Tunnel and my first view of the National Park was the same view that photographer Ansel Adams made famous. We parked and went to the overlook and I think I just stood gazing dumbfounded for about 10 minutes, mesmerized and astounded by the panorama before me. From this view you are treated to a few of the Yosemite icons: El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Fall. Any of the features on their own would be impressive enough, but to have them all together in the same vista gives you the feeling of being a visitor in some strange and foreign dreamland and words simply cannot do justice.

We ventured further into the park and decided to walk around the valley floor for a bit. We found a spot that had a bridge over the Merced river and were able to have a fantastic view of the Horsetail waterfall. Typically this waterfall would be dry this time of year but the rainstorms that had pounded the state a few days earlier had brought it back to life. Hopeful photographers lined the bridge over the river trying to time their shots to get a “firefall” shot- at certain times of the year (February mostly) the sun shines through the mountains at just the right angle to make it look like a river of lava rather than water is pouring down the mountain. Having this occur in October is quite rare since the waterfall is usually dried up in the autumn and despite not witnessing the firefall, it was fun to know that we were seeing something special. Scott scouted out a prime hammocking spot and we sat and took in the views.

I feel like I am often reaping the benefits of Scott having adventured his way across the country multiples times in his life- he had gone shopping for our dinner while I was testing that morning. Having no frame of reference for how remote Yosemite is, I was glad that he had planned ahead. The menu wasn’t fancy by any means but the store bought bean burritos cooked over the coals on a grill in Yosemite may have been the best one of my life- it doesn’t get much better than listening to the Merced river and staring at the face of El Cap while eating a dinner lovingly cooked by your American Adventure Boy* boyfriend. (*My silly nickname for Scott).

I had been in charge of finding lodging for us while we were in Yosemite and a peculiar yet charming place called the Yosemite Bug piqued my interest. It didn’t disappoint! We had a little one room cabin with an Indian theme (tigers featured heavily) built into the side of a mountain. More importantly, we were happy to discover that there was a firepit and we joined a small crowd around the fire. One of my favorite parts of travelling is the chance encounters with other interesting travelers. We chatted with a fascinating retired contractor for the National Parks System and I took some of his advice* regarding Riverbend to heart and am storing it away for future use- the gist of it being that I am just a temporary caretaker for it. (*Disclaimer: the California gummy bears that I had eaten may have meant that I thought he was an oracle sent by the universe to deliver a symbolic message to me about my career and my future and in reality he was probably just a well traveled and friendly old guy with a white beard from New York. Only time will tell.)

On Monday morning after a quick breakfast in the Yosemite Bug restaurant we headed back to the park. I enjoyed being able to take in all the views of the mountains and the Merced river in the daylight since we had left Yosemite after dark the night before. Our Yosemite adventure for today was to hike up the Mist Trail to Vernal Falls. We were about 5 minutes into the walk when we* (*Scott) chatted with a group of fellow hikers, and because of a Clemson beanie, discovered that their whole group was from Greenville. A husband and wife pair were the owners of Clemson Eye where both Scott’s dad and my dad are patients, and they both knew one of my boarders who is an optometrist. Wherever you go, there you are.

The hike up the Mist Trail was a 7 mile round trip hike with a 2,900 foot gain. I was glad that we had been running and were in good shape because it was a “moderate to strenuous” trail. It followed the Merced river for a good while and we got some great views of the river- some of the boulders within the river were easily the size of houses. We encountered some park employees doing trail repair on our way up and as we passed by, the foreman told us he had a question for us- he asked if Covid had affected our daily work lives. We responded accordingly and chatted with him for a bit. Before moving on he told us he had one more question for us before we could carry on up the mountain. We waited in suspense… and he asked if either of us knew what linen was made of. I told him that linen was made from flax and he accepted my answer so thankfully we were able to carry on our merry way up the mountain. Thanks Colonial Williamsburg for teaching me that!

At the top of the trail we were able to see Nevada Fall and had a great view of Half Dome. We hammocked and had lunch here before starting our descent. I read later that if you only have time to do a single hike in Yosemite, this is a good one.

After our hike we still had time to see some more Yosemite highlights. Scott kept remarking that usually it would be bumper to bumper traffic so the fact that parking was plentiful and easy to find was uncharacteristic and made the experience much better. We walked to the base of Yosemite Falls and on the way to it saw a black bear!

The final mission of the day was to find a spot to set the hammock up in to watch the sunset. We decided that the base of El Capitan would suit quite nicely. It wasn’t until the sun set and the dark moved in that it became obvious that there were tons of climbers on the face of El Cap- you could only spot them because of their headlamps. That gave me a tremendous appreciation for the scope and scale of the massive granite structure since I had been unable to spot any climbers during the daylight.

When we got back to the Yosemite Bug that night, we opted for purchasing spa passes rather than sitting around the campfire. Our muscles appreciated both the hot tub and the sauna after the long day of hiking and adventuring. It was a nice way to unwind and we reflected on all the memorable experiences and fun we’d had on our trip.

Many more photos of Yosemite

Central California Coast

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

On Wednesday when Scott was done with work we took a trip up the coastal highway towards San Luis Obispo. We were on the no-plan adventure plan which proved to be a win. We stopped at a beach in Cayucos and enjoyed watching the huge Pacific waves dramatically crashing onto the beach. We ventured northward from there to Cambria and were intrigued by the discovery of a beach called Moonstone Beach.

We were thrilled to discover that Moonstone Beach was a “shingle beach” which meant that rather than having sand, the beach was made up of only pebbles, stones, and rocks; all polished impossibly smooth by millions of years of wear. The variety of colors, textures, and types of stones was astounding. Intrigued by the strata of the shore as well as all of the people that we saw hunting for rocks, Scott struck up conversation with some beachcombers to see what they were looking for. It turns out that they were all looking for the beach’s namesake- moonstones.

The sun began to set as we sat on the driftwood littered Moonstone Beach and we watched the sun drop lower and lower until it dipped out of sight on the horizon. It was amazing how quickly it disappeared once it began to set. We made our way to the car and drank red wine from a Buellton vineyard as we watched the last bit of the light. As we were watching the sky we both witnessed a shooting star which was the cherry-on-top of what had been a fantastic day.

Meandering Adventure Day - Buellton to Fresno

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

On Thursday we packed up and left the Hartenburg’s house in Buellton and began the trek to Fresno because the main purpose of this trip was that I was scheduled to be an examiner for a C3, B, and A Pony Club certification taking place at the Fresno County Horse Park in Fresno, CA. We ended up having the whole day for adventuring our way through the state because the other examiner’s flight had been rescheduled for the following day and we took advantage of it.

Our first stop was to Pismo Beach, a beach town just south of San Luis Obispo, known for its good surfing and for being a stop for migrating Monarch butterflies. We enjoyed walking through the coastal town and then out onto the 1,000+ foot wooden pier where we watched a dozen or so surfers catching waves.

When we were at Moonstone Beach the previous day Scott had gotten a recommendation to visit Piedras Blancas Rookery. It is a beach located in the southern range of Big Sur where you can observe elephant seals year-round. We were amazed to see hundreds of elephant seals when we got there and enjoyed watching them lounge around in the sand and learning about them from the docents that patrolled the crowds. Evidently this beach in particular is attractive to the huge sea mammals because of the kelp forest that protects them from Great White sharks. At this time of year we were seeing only juvenile elephant seals (still unbelievably huge) as they hung out on the beach for their “catastrophic molt.” (Fun fact: Young elephant seals who have been weaned and are nearly ready to take to the water to begin hunting on their own are sometimes called “superweaners.”) Scott immediately noticed the electronic and telecommunication equipment on the observation deck and a docent told us that it was for the live-cam for observing the seals. Here is a link: http://elephantseal.org/live-view/

Our plan for the day had originally been to meander our way up Highway 1 that parallels the coast and go as far as Big Sur or Monterey, but we discovered that a rock slide had closed about 40 miles of the highway above Ragged Point. The elephant seal docent that we had chatted with told us about a cute restaurant at Ragged Point so off we went.

We were thrilled to discover dramatic views of the Pacific and the cliffs of the Santa Lucia mountain range from the Ragged Point Inn’s restaurant. The inn and restaurant were perched high up on a cliff right at the water’s edge and the waves that we got to watch were stunning in their size and power. Being from the east coast, and being accustomed to the somewhat tame and soothing waves of the Atlantic, the Pacific awes me with its mighty intensity and herculean force. We spent time after lunch exploring the grounds of the inn and taking pictures from the incredible vantage point. We decided that our next stop would be somewhere nearby with trees capable of hanging our hammocks where we could enjoy these views.

Scott is always scanning his surroundings for places to hammock and he scouted out what might be the very best hammocking location to date- a scenic overlook right on the land’s edge and the Pacific ocean 100 feet below us. We decided that there was no better place to witness another Pacific sunset and we set the hammocks up, lounging and napping and enjoying the sound of the waves crashing below us. We were treated to another dramatic sunset light show and when it was done we packed up the hammocks and began our journey inland to Fresno, content with another wonderful day of adventuring.

More Pictures from the Day

Exploring Central California from the Back of a Horse

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 07:00:00 +0000

Jet lagged and operating on extremely minimal sleep, I managed to pop up out bed when my alarm clock went off at its ungodly hour so that I could embark on today’s adventure: foxhunting with the Santa Ynez Valley Hounds as Allyson’s guest. Caffeine was made for just this reason although I was mentally calculating when a nap might be possible!

Allyson, and my longtime USPC acquaintance Katie Graham and her husband Jeff, both Masters of the hunt, had very graciously found me a mount to borrow for the hunt. His name was Billy, and I had gotten a giggle out of the bio of him that Allyson had sent me- that he was “alleged to be a good boy.” It’s always a crapshoot when you’re riding a borrowed horse, heck, it’s always a crapshoot when I’m riding my own horse, so I was a little apprehensive about how the hunt would go- me on a horse I’d never ridden, and hunting over the rugged terrain of the California coast, characterized by chaparral, canyons, and steep mountains and hills. Territory so incredibly foreign to me than what I am accustomed to riding over on the East coast.

It turns out I didn’t need to worry. 6 year old Billy, a flunked out former professional bucking horse, was a perfect gentleman and didn’t put a foot wrong the entire four hour hunt. Foxhunting can be mentally hard for me- as a dressage rider it’s tempting to want to micromanage and be constantly balancing and correcting, so letting go and trusting the horse to sort out his own footwork and balance is challenging. Going through some of the tricky terrain, specifically the thick and forbidding looking chaparral, I finally just told myself that Billy had so far proved himself to be quite self sufficient and that he didn’t want to stumble or fall, so I should trust Billy to safely carry us through. By the end of the hunt I was confident cruising along and going over or through whatever came our way.

The hunting conditions that day weren’t ideal for scenting. It was windy, warm, and quite dry. Despite the hounds not striking on much it was enjoyable to watch them work. Santa Ynez Valley Hounds uses a mix of hounds but the majority are Grand Gascon Saintongeois hounds, much more robust in build than the typical foxhounds (American, English, and Penn-Marydel) I’m accustomed to seeing on the East coast. These Gascon hounds are bred for hunting the rugged Santa Ynez Valley territory. They looked almost like Bloodhounds in their build- thick boned, quite stout and tall, and with fleshier, jowlier faces.

During one of our checks which was on top of a mountain that overlooked vineyards and farmland as far as the eye could see below, I had a moment that caused me to wax reflective. I owed it to United States Pony Club for being able to enjoy the scenery I was currently witnessing through a horse’s ears. I owed it to USPC for bringing so many incredible friends and people into my life. I owed it to USPC for allowing me to travel around the world and experience so many incredible adventures.

After the hunt finished we had a 30 minute hack back in to get back to the barn and trailer parking. The sheer vastness of the property that we had just hunted was mind boggling to me. Kick On Farms, home to the Santa Ynez Valley Hounds, is 12,000 acres and was previously owned by Chevron. It is subdivided into 600 acre parcels with easements that allow the hunt and hounds access to it all. The owner, Steve Lyons, is a huge proponent of land conservation for equestrian use.

Allyson and I enjoyed a hunt breakfast after our horses were tended to. It was fun meeting some of the other members and enjoying the picnic Allyson had brought for us. She said that we could officially change Billy’s bio from “alleged good boy” to “confirmed good boy” and I agreed!

After dropping off the horse that Allyson had hunted (Argentinian Sport Horse and former polo pony Nelson), we headed home to meet up with the boys and see what they’d been up to. Scott and Alex had a chill Saturday morning and then visited a local brewery and beer garden. Allyson had joked that Alex and Scott were the same make and model so she was confident that they’d hit it off and able to entertain themselves for the day despite never having met. (Poor Alex was already asleep when we arrived late Friday night, trying to sleep off a migraine.)

The next phase of the day was wine tasting at Kalyra Winery in Santa Ynez. The winery is owned by a Pony Club family and clients of Allyson’s and looks exactly like what you would envision when you think of a wine country vineyard- fields of grapevines in a bucolic valley with the foothills and mountains in the background. (Fun fact: the winery made an appearance in the 2004 movie Sideways, a rom-com that took place in Santa Barbara wine country.) We each tasted four wines (all were delicious so it’s hard to pick a favorite) while enjoying looking out over the vineyards and fields.

Our next stop was to Dos Carlitos, a tequileria and restaurant, for dinner in the small cowboy town of Santa Ynez. Scott and I both enjoyed the chance to get some authentic Mexican food and the house margaritas that Alex and Allyson recommended were fantastic- fresh squeezed lime juice for the win! At this point I was bleary from jet lag, nearly no sleep the previous night, and the margaritas, so we called it an evening and headed back, but I was satisfied knowing that we had extracted every possible molecule of fun and enjoyment out of the day.

A Few Fun Days

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000

We felt right at home when the much needed rain moved in on Sunday night. This area is in a drought so everyone was happy to have it. Scott had to work anyways so it didn’t affect any of our plans.

The rain was done by midday Monday so we decided to hike up the mountain behind Allyson and Alex’s house. Allyson had warned us that the mud was fantastically sticky and slick and she wasn’t kidding! Carrying several pounds of mud on the bottom of our shoes made the hike up the mountain interesting and we got quite a laugh over it. It was surprising to me to see live oaks covered in Spanish moss on our hike, a sight you’d expect to see in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. The views at the top of the mountain were unreal and looked like a painting- vineyards, orchards, and cropland laid out across the foothills as far as the eye could see; the air unbelievably clear after the rain.

On Tuesday Allyson and I were able to hunt with the Santa Ynez Valley Hounds again. Allyson and I played horse taxi to pick up the horse she was going to hunt and I was able to ride Billy again. Billy was a little fresher for this hunt, having had an uncharacteristic day off the previous day because of the rain. He was still a good boy and despite being a little fresher and strong at times, he was perfect when the going was dicey and it really mattered.

The hunting conditions were nearly perfect for the hunt since there wasn’t any wind, it was cool, and it had rained a few days ago. The hounds struck immediately after being cast and got a coyote about 10 minutes in. I had never witnessed such fast action. It was incredible to watch them track and see how excited they got over their kill.

The next few days involved involved some yummy dinners and drinks at the Hartenburg’s- Alex cooking one night, bartending both nights, and Scott making dinner for us another night. Allyson and I both joked that we liked not having to be domestic!

We also got to spend lots of quality time hanging out with Tupac, the Hartenburg’s 80 pound pet Sulcata tortoise. Scott and I both found him endlessly entertaining. The Hartenburgs inherited him as a pet when he kept escaping from a neighboring home and the owners relinquished him to them so that he wouldn’t get hit and killed while on his illicit walkabouts. We were both surprised at how much ground he could patrol in a day and were fascinated with feeding him whole heads of lettuce.

Vandenberg Space Force Base

Sun, 24 Oct 2021 07:00:00 +0000

It’s not often I get the opportunity to visit an active military base so when Janna mentioned that her friend Alex works at Vandenberg Space Force base I immediately asked if we could get a tour. We spent the better part of Sunday touring the base. During the meandering tour, We saw a number of smaller launch pads which are used for smaller rockets and payloads.

The larger pad, SLC-6

\[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_Space_Launch_Complex_6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_Space_Launch_Complex_6 "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_Space_Launch_Complex_6")\]

, was originally developed for Space Shuttle launches but was never used for such. Today, it’s used to launch Delta-5 rockets. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one on the pad. Nevertheless, we were able to walk around the immense facility. The sheer size of the facility is hard to describe. Without the aid of pictures, because it was a no-photo-zone, you’ll have to trust me that the place is HUGE!

Alex did a fantastic job as a tour guide - 5 of 5 stars!. We drove all over the base, seeing some of California’s magnificent coast with SLCs (Space Launch Complex for you space nerds) as a backdrop.

You might notice in the pictures that the fog rolled in. Apparently, even though we had beautiful weather inland, the base experiences many days of fog and rain. Ewwwww.

We also got to experience the commissary, which was a first for me. Apparently, they stock numerous international delicacies because when abroad members of the military grow accustomed to them. I felt the need to purchase a German snack that consisted of a thin waffle cookie smothered in chocolate. Yummmm.

California Adventure - Day 1

Fri, 22 Oct 2021 07:00:00 +0000

I cannot imagine a better way to have spent my 41st birthday then to start off on a cross country adventure with Scott. My dad drove us to Charlotte and took us out to a birthday brunch- we found a cute restaurant in McAdenville called the Spruced Goose. We had uneventful flying and arrived into LAX, found our rental car, grabbed some dinner once traffic thinned out when we were out of LA, and then headed north up past Santa Barbara to Alex and Allyson Hartenburg’s in Buellton.

Flying from the east coast to the west coast meant that I gained 3 extra hours of birthday which also meant that we were able to pack more fun into the day. We got to the Hartenburg’s about 10 pm, dropped luggage, changed clothes (putting on rain gear since strangely enough, it was raining in southern CA!) and then headed to Santa Ynez for the final adventure of the evening… harvesting grapes at Newcastle Vineyard & Winery, a winery owned by Danny Masterson (“Hyde” from That 70’s Show) and his wife Bijou Phillips (Hollywood actress and singer and daughter of John Phillips of The Mommas & The Poppas), clients of Allyson’s.

I had to give myself a little pep talk on the drive over to act cool and not act weird… the pep talk turned out to be unnecessary since Danny was quite down to earth and was a fantastic host. He fixed a plate of jerk chicken and shrimp stew made by Bijou for Scott and I that we ate while having a quick sampling of various wines and meeting the other (quite colorful) folks helping out with the harvest that evening. He spoke fondly of Greenville and told me how much he enjoyed the area when he had visited for the BMW Pro-Am golf tournament, and like most everyone that has visited Greenville, complimented the downtown. I’ll admit to feeling proud of my hometown!

Scott, Allyson, and I all have a newfound appreciation for the harvesting of grapes and what goes into wine production. I don’t think any of us will be quitting our day jobs to pursue a career as field hands at a winery or vineyard. We each picked about 30 lbs of grapes and called it a night at about 1 AM, Allyson and I both trying not to think about how little sleep we were about to get since we had another adventure planned for Saturday that of course required an ungodly wake up time.