This part, right here

i'm mostly ready to go home, yet i feel reluctant to leave. the pull of home includes our bed and the cats. ("the bed" is not metaphorical. i love that actual mattress, those specific sheets, the pillows, the bedside lighting.) i want to ramble around in my own kitchen. i need to be sure that everything in the house is shipshape - a quick peek would do, a tour through all the rooms to be sure our tchatchkas are still arranged the way i like them, the wireless is working, birds are still frequenting the backyard, nothing's happened in the spare room. i miss the intellectual stimulation of everyday life: reading the newspaper, talking to friends/colleagues, teaching. i want to live the heather-and-mo life again. i want to be dry.

on the other hand, there are many things i'll miss about being here. for one, the breakfast pastry run. i typically head out around 7:30 to walk the four blocks to zermatt's. some sellers are opening up, but most shops are still shuttered and sleepy. police officers lean on the town square's walls, chatting. locals hail each other on the street while their dogs check out the action. at this hour, you hear mexican radio as trucks unload wares at the back door and municipal streetsweepers prepare for the day.

another thing i'll miss is the magnificent frigate bird. you look up in the sky and there is the most incredible creature, elegant of wing and long of tail. when the frigate bird sees something intriguing, she forks her tail to hover in one spot until she's satisfied. on the windward beach the other day, i hoped and hoped and hoped - and feared - she was looking at me.

also, i'll miss her opposite, the stout workaday pelican. with their big waterbird wings they cruise just over the waves. when they see a fish they fancy, they divebomb with the force of a kid's cannonball, swallow, then sit on the waves quite proud of themselves.

i will miss bare feet that are never cold (as they are in edmonton, even in the summer). i will miss being able to walk out of the house at any hour of the day or night wearing...whatever you happen to be wearing. i will miss the sight of the ocean just two blocks down the road. i will miss the walkable city. i've thought a lot about scale, these last few days, what it means for a road to be a single lane, how great it is to live within five blocks of the mercado municipal, with its mounds of papayas, peppers of every kind, and beans. you don't have to shop like you live in the suburbs; you can just buy what you need that day. i realize this is a trite observation, but it really matters.

so: as the lovely jen has said: i hate this part, right here. i'm mentally prepared to move on, but it's not quite here yet. especially given certain recent (international) events, there will be a whole lot of agony between leaving and arriving. so for today, let the beach - sun, sand, fish, quiet - be enough.

How to eat in cozumel (for nat)

1. go to del sur and order a couple of bacon, cheese and plum empanadas. the owner, rene, will cook them for you while you wait, and marvel. how many ways are there to crimp an empanada? at least 13. throw in a dulce de leche empanada for dessert.
   
2. don't lose heart when the rainstorm means you can't barbecue the steaks. redirect the pecans and pomegranate for the salad toward an ersatz persian chicken dish. no butter/oil in the kitchenette? good thing the coffee cream is so thick you have to serve it with a spoon.
3. cross the street from your hotel and give sabores a try. the owner serves lunch in her own living room from lunes to viernes. first, she brings you a big jug of jimaica juice. then, hot chips with a couple of hot salsas. soup is next - say, carrot cream. by the time your chicken tacos in mole sauce come, you wonder how you'll do them justice, but the mole's thick chocolate smoke makes it easy. no, really, you really can't have dessert.
4. buy gelato/helado in the middle of the afternoon. after all, you didn't have dessert with lunch.
5. go to kinta. order one of everything. mahi mahi in guajillo sauce? yes please. red snapper and cream cheese rolled in panko and deep fried? crunchy on the outside, dreamy on the inside. potatoes smashed with truffle oil and garlic, served under mayan pulled pork? scallops and prawns skewered with fresh local chilis and served with a cranberry-pineapple salsa? three-milk bread pudding with banana ice cream and mexican chocolate? well, you get the idea.
6. look for the biggest plate you've got. nope, that won't do. bigger than a dinner plate. a serving plate: yeah, that's the ticket. pile it high with shrimp, fish and conch steeped in lime juice and onion. fan a perfect avocado on top, serve it beachside, and call it an appetizer on the menu.
   
7. ask for guacamole with everything.
8. go back to del sur and try the chorizo and cheese combo. add a quince empanada for dessert. if you must, say they're for your housebound parents.
9. get up early enough that zermatt's bakery is not sold out of the buns con queso crema, or the damp whole wheat biscuits, or the cuernitos. have an espresso on the patio.
   
10. take a pineapple to the beach.
    

Playa del carmen

the idea for our current trip to cozumel started back in april when i was visiting dear NY friends with a new baby. elena is a sweetheart of a girl. as is always the case with little babies, though, you might set out to do something first thing in the morning, but after the feeding and the napping and the bathing and the changing and the feeding and the napping and the changing, you generally leave the house at the crack of 4PM.

i'm not complaining. it was a wonderful trip for many, many reasons, the least of which is that elena's dad being from puerto rico and elena's mom being a former NACLA editor made me think, briefly, that we should spend christmas in playa del carmen.

boy did we dodge a bullet there, or so i feel after having spent the day across the water in playa. it's definitely the maya riviera, complete with too-good-for-you attitude. i felt like a slovenly dullard, the way i always do in such places - think laguna beach, pacific heights, chelsea (UK or US). if i can be permitted a cheap imitation of tolstoy, it would be that rich people are the same the world over, or so i learned years ago in dalkey. after the disorienting north-of-the-liffey train stations, where bruised, middle-aged women stared down beer-swigging irish louts, we landed in a completely different, yet completely recognizable milieu of bottled water, white walls, blue skies and sangfroid. for playa del carmen, add women with beautiful, sandy feet in platform flip flops and buff boys in everything quiksilver.

finding myself in the magical land where everything is organic, charming and chic unearths wealth-dripping fantasies and a delicious meanness. i look around and think: chanel sunglasses with the logo on the arm? did you really think we wouldn't know otherwise? i wonder why that woman doesn't hire a trainer - and, for that matter, a new esthetician. honey, just because lady gaga wears white spandex doesn't mean you can. as for that guy over there, does he think being rich gets him off the crocs hook? and OMG what were they thinking with that house? i know african slate costs a lot, but it is absolutely hideous in that quantity.

making fun of rich people is one of my favorite sports. if my moral centre quavers momentarily, i remind myself that owning a vehicle that runs on the blood of the spotted owl must take the edge off being mocked by the likes of me.

of course, what yearns behind this nasty little commentary is the conviction that i would make a better rich person. i really do believe i would make a fabulous dowager. i would be trim, generous, tasteful and carefree, not to mention truly stylish. i would throw fabulous parties. i would eat fabulous food. i would have a fabulous body, a carefully cultivated icon to exercising well, sleeping deeply, and medicating appropriately. if i were rich, i would make the world a more beautiful place, starting with me. i want the opportunity to be the folks i see, but improved. when you think about it, it's kind of a generous pedagogical impulse. right?

unfortunately, playa del carmen did not open this satisfying avenida to me. i wanted to be that principessa (but with a wrinkleless brow and a better handbag) - or, rather, i wanted to want to be her - but instead playa unleashed the sniffy inner cheapskate that i hate. what makes a bathing suit worth that many euros? even if it's directly from florence, at that price it should come with a gorgeous italian lady! and are they serious: a matching cover-up? puh-leeze. although it is true that nobody wears white linen like the rich (oh, the look of white linen against a caribbean sea!), it is also true that big bucks make for big mistakes, at least judging by senora frumpy's baubles.

why didn't playa let me play out my rich girl fantasies?: not rich enough. there's a certain number of galleries, sure, but there's also a few too many wholesale-priced yucatan souvenir stands and 50%-off-silver touts. who wants to eat at a white-tableclothed restaurant if your gaze lands on seven minimum-wagers hastily ironing boxes of textiles from guatemala? no. i like my rich places to be well and truly rich, so rich it hurts all the way down to the core where your self-esteem should live.

My newest self-improvement project

yeah, yeah, lose ten pounds and get out of debt - but the real 2010 challenge is to be less misanthropic, more generous, less pissy, more forgiving, less impatient, and more indulgent.

and i'm going to start by liking cruise ship people.

i have a ways to go. cozumel, it turns out, is the second most popular cruise ship destination in the world. not that that came up in any of the research i did before coming here. "hotel people" and "cruise people" are separate species. we all use the www, but don't frequent the same sites. it's like the other side of facebook. (don't believe me? go explore hard christianity in fb.)

cruise ship people walk down the san miguel seafront wearing balloon animals on their heads. they give strip restaurants high reviews in trip advisor. they carry ginormous drinks in ginormous receptacles from places called "fat tuesdays." they use words like "ginormous." cruise people move like a swarm of goatfish from recommended activity to recommended activity. they like activities to be cheap and predictable, thrilling yet safe. cruise people like senor frog's and carlosncharlie's.

or so i grumble, mashing my way down avenida melgar after a big boat disgorges.

but that kind of misanthropy is easy. the harder task is to imagine why people would go on a cruise in the first place. and a good place to begin that project is with the unsettling admission that the largest concentration of locals we've seen has not been in the town square or on the windward coast or at a devotional meeting, but at mcdonald's.

money matters. cruises offer you 15 nights for $1800. you can't be an "independent traveler" for that.

then there's the family aspect. several of the families we've seen around the cruise ships are multi-generational. how else can you travel with built-in childcare?

then there's the ease factor. you get on the boat and for the next two weeks someone else makes all your decisions. you move from bed to buffet waylaid only by the pleasures of kingston, cozumel, miami beach. the older i become, the more attractive such not having to think about it sounds.

plus, people are different. not everybody is like me. some actively like disney, seek out casinos, prefer large groups, feel safer in herds. see cultural studies 101.

to appreciate people who are just like me is easy (not that i've accomplished that either). the real task is to throw my imagination across the widest cultural gulf i can imagine, and smile indulgently at the white folks with a three-hour jet-ski rental on my quiet playa.

i'll let you know how it goes.

Christmas with the Ps

in this case, P stands for predator:

we ran into a shark while we were snorkeling. there is no photographic evidence, but i bet there's a trace of one kind or another out there in the water. sharks are big.

then, on the way out of parque punta sur, we saw these fine fellows:


one of the strangest aspects of being here is realizing just how mammal-centered i am. we've seen birds, dragonflies, iguanas, fish, butterflies, rays and slugs, but apart from one raccoon-like coatimundi on the side of the road, no mammals to speak of. there aren't even many cats or dogs on the island.

it's disorienting in general, but particularly rattling when it comes to possible dangers. i've read grizzly attacks: their causes and avoidance. i know how to respond t0 a black bear. i avoid rutting season in the mountains, and i know what to do if i run into a coyote in the river valley. but i have no concept how to navigate around a predator in its 360-degree aquatic comfort zone.

so today, i think we'll visit some mayan ruins instead.

Lizards laze

our iguanas love the sun. they crave heat. they choose the top of the wall at the back of the property, where they can look down on the little deck lizards and, i suspect, on us. they look like rocks. they ignore the turkey vultures that make the little lizards scamper. they can move fast, but they'd rather not. periodically they do a series of fast lizard push-ups: the better to smell? to show off? to communicate? just because they can?

they taste the wind with their tongues. they loll their heads about sluggishly, then hold them high. every now and then one snags an insect, but not a dragonfly. too much trouble, you can hear them thinking. every now and then, an insect appears to snag them: gowdy, the iguana on the right, just scratched her head with a scaly toe, then circled around to face the other direction.

these iguanas don't sleep, exactly. these lizards laze.

23 Dec, Cozumel

rosie's morning snorkeling tour really is all that: first el cielo, the heavens, where we drift over a sandy firmament dotted with star(fish). then the columbia shallows, with una tortuga - smaller than the honu in hawaii but every bit as moving: you simply have to believe in the future of the world when you see a turtle swim so fast with those ruddy little fins. finally we snorkeled the palancar reef, where we saw a porcupine fish the size of madge, with its bashful long eyelashes - and, to close off the event, a barracuda.

afternoon spent lounging by the pool, my new insight being: nobody really cares if you act the good girl and run the household errands, and nobody really cares if you're bad. barbara gowdy, the resident iguana and i lazed around the back yard with mo while the Ps slept.

dinner at kinta, an inventive mexican bistro with exquisite creations: shrimp-stuffed avocado, mahi mahi in guajillo sauce, and three-milk bread pudding with mexican chocolate and cajete. afterward the square was full of famillies - 23rd the last day of school, perhaps? everybody has their virgen spruced up with christmas lights, and some have santas too. one particularly exuberant display has inflatable santa visiting the inflatable creche. there are candles burning near the big shrine in the square, with photos of people's loved ones. bring health, prosperity, recovery...

on the way home we pass a small storefront packed with worshippers so numerous they added rows of chairs well into the street. a pinata hung goadingly over the devout, who were listening to what, a sermon? a peroration? a set of prayers? children retreated down the street to race paper airplanes.

you can feel the "feliz" in feliz navidad.

What they look like in the sunshine

In which i come clean and describe my penance

gentle reader,
i have not been entirely honest with you. though it is true that we are on a caribbean vacation, and though it is true that we are in a tropical paradise, it is decidedly not true that we are sunning ourselves silly. in fact, we have barely seen the sun since we arrived last wednesday. wednesday was a hot day. i know that because wednesday is the day we arrived, first in toronto, bleary from the red-eye, and finally in cancun, where it took 100 minutes to retrieve our luggage. after an hour-long drive to playa del carmen, our cabbie dropped us at a cobblestone maze with a vague "alli" and a toss of his head to indicate where the ferry terminal might be. at least, we hoped that's what he was indicating.

we bumped our suitcases over cobblestone cuartos looking hopefully past the senor frog'ses and the carlos'n'charlie'ses and by and by we found the terminal. around that time, so did an entire cruise ship. they filed by us in approximately 15 groups of approximately 24 passengers who were approximately inebriated, until the pier was chockablock with human beings. we looked at each other in dismay, but what to do? once the wind was in our faces and the sun - still up at 5pm - was in our eyes, we lost all sense of tribulation.

however, we found it again, forcibly, on the san miguel side, where we schlepped our bags several more blocks to the hotel. gentle reader, though it pains me to reveal my unworldliness, let me admit that the charms of cozumel were initially hard to discern through the rivers of sweat and the sleep-deprived shakes.

this is the context for the relief we felt at thursday's cloudiness. "we couldn't ask for better weather for acclimatizing," said brian. "no," agreed mo, "and it means my sun allergy isn't acting up either."

on friday's drab we putzed around town, shopping and eating. saturday we moved from the hotel to the villa and spent the rest of the day marveling. sunday we gave in and just moped. (you're wondering just how deep my dishonesty goes: the ray, you're thinking, didn't you see a manta ray yesterday? yes, gentle reader. from the car.)

today we summoned all of our canadian can-do and soldiered to the beach in spite of the wind and drizzle. you know those guys who break out the shorts on the first day in march that the temperature goes above minus 10? today, we were those guys. we packed snorkel gear, rashguards, fins, books and sunglasses and headed for chankanaab national park.

it was not the most auspicious outing. first, mom slipped on the weedy steps and fell ass over tea kettle into the drink. i sprinted over as fast as i could, knocking japanese tourists heedlessly out of my way and diving straight in, without a thought, to rescue brand new fin #2. (oh, and mother, of course.) hence we both started the day out cold. with great care, the four of us selected the single windiest palapa in all of chankanaab, where we shivered for a while, making a show of reading our books. but we were really there for the fish so we headed in.

i got immediately swept into a sea of plastic garbage and swallowed a pint of dirty seawater.

dad's equipment didn't work (again). neither did the backup equipment.

mo got separated from the herd and headed back to shore, getting well bashed on the way.

we broke for lunch, which we ate shivering under sun shirts and sarongs, and then we gamely headed back in for a somewhat shorter dip. how cold was it?: the frigid outdoor shower was a positive relief. we huddled back under the palapa to debate our next move - the botanical gardens? a little browsing in the tourist stands, perhaps? - when i looked up to the godless black heavens and said, "uh oh."

we barely made it to our little chevy four-banger when the deluge began. and by deluge, i mean hurricane-force rains and a cold brisk wind. storm sewers regurgitated. cyclists were up to their bottom pedal in it. shopkeepers had gone home for the day.

and speaking of home: when we arrived at our lovely villa, we discovered that the roof leaks. and the lanai doors leak. and the air conditioning units leak, sending water coursing down the kitchen walls. the pool has overflowed into the yard. as i key these words, we have 21 bath towels and 3 bathmats pressed into service - we soak 'em, wring 'em, put 'em back down - and still the water is trickling past my feet.

so this post is for those of you who have been thinking of me malevolently this week. edmonton, i'm lookin' at you. you too, new york/philadelphia, with your five-foot blizzard. and don't try to look innocent, ottawa, you know you've been muttering under your breath.

oh yeah: here's a taste of what we saw.


kinda makes you wonder what it's like in the sunshine.

Swim vs fly

you know that old question: if you could fly like a bird or swim like a dolphin, which would you choose? today i saw the answer, a manta ray cruising the caribbean turquoise under a soft december sky.

Redeemed

seven years ago, i booked a two-week trip in kauai for mom, dad, mo and me. we didn't know then that it would become a triennial tradition, of which cozumel is the latest iteration. it tends to go the same way every time: i get antsy about booking something and spend the month of may scouring the internet for independent places that offer something the average tourist never gets to see. i corral my travelling companions, lay out options a to j and ask for their opinions. "they all look lovely, heather," my mother will say. mo knows better, but sometimes picks the wrong one or two. my dad will typically ask something like, "are we going to mexico?" result: heather gets in a huff and books exactly what she wants. everybody is happy.

for the kauai trip, i thought it would be swell to spend one week on the touristy coast and one week in the rain forest. "they all look lovely, heather," said mom. "i like this place," said mo. i gave her the stink eye and she stopped opining. dad said, "kauai: is that the big island?"

the rain forest cottage might have been just as advertised, but it was not at all what we had expected. for one thing, it really rains in the rain forest. every day. nothing ever dries. ever. as for "charming": mo and i slept in a loft six feet above the kitchen and two feet below the thatched ceiling, while mom and dad slept on the sofa bed which extended into the same kitchen. there was a hammock; the moment mom sat on it, it collapsed. there were geckos; they seemed particularly fond of our little loft. (candor compels me to admit that, to comfort mo, i told her geckos had tiny little pads on their feet - true - that meant they would never walk on bedding - not so true.) we took advantage of jim's homemade trails. imagine slippery red mud through ravines overgrown with kudzu and other relentless greenery. add the rain trickling down your neck. add bright white ked's (mom's). miserable, right? now add the twist: wild boars chasing us back to home base.

the week on the coast was a little better, though i learned that "isolated" is not always synonymous with "desirable." mo and i walked in and laid immediate claim to the only double bed in the property, leaving my parents the twin beds across the hall. everything in the coastal house advertised the "jerry jones discount," which was the same everywhere: a measly five percent if it was recognized at all. the beach was across the street, as advertised; what was not so clear from the internet is that this was the beach where the american navy boys drink.

oahu/maui three years ago was better.

but cozumel this year is definitely the best.

we started at las anclas, a chic boutique hotel run by the kindly pedro and his gay son ayal. if you have time, click through that link and look at the photos. perfectly located, it's close to everything you'd want nearby (markets, restaurants, beach promenade, ferries to the mainland, taxis) and far enough away from undesirables like the cruise ship terminals and the air-conditioned mall. you can't help feeling cosmopolitan and superior at las anclas.

this morning we relocated to casa tropicale, which is further from the downtown core, closer to the airport, would require us to do our own cooking, and might not match the description on the internet, which among other things refers to the property as a "villa." i was relieved by las anclas (we return there next week) and a bit apprehensive about casa tropicale.

i needn't have worried.

i am writing this post from the kitchen;s breakfast bar, which is four feet by eight feet of bright white tile. this gives onto a dining room table set for eight but that could easily accommodate ten or twelve. beyond that is the living room, which gives onto the courtyard with fountain and pool. out the side door - sorry, one of the side doors - is a carport, a screened sitting room, a sand sink, an outdoor shower and a gear room. over near the maid's entrance is a laundry room and a powder room done, like all the bathrooms are, in mexican tile. there are two principal bedrooms here, each of them the size of a typical hong kong apartment. each bedroom has its own terrace. there is a kids' bedroom we are not using, but if you want to use it, please know that it comes with its own giant bathroom and its own giant lanai. there is another common lanai on the second floor, making a total of three on that level alone. the entire third floor is a rooftop terrace with areas for lounging, areas for eating, areas for sunning, areas for reading, areas for drinking, areas for getting away from each other should more than one of you be on a given level at any given time. did i mention the (non-collapsing) hammocks? the six-burner stove? purified water on every level? the fridge stocked with beer and soft drinks?

i am hereby redeemed.

Running goat creek

the only lasting effects appear to be the blister on the bottom of my right foot and a bruise in the middle of my back. otherwise, running 19km is a lot like running any other distance, only it takes longer.

i set out like the kid in a brain bucket at the playground, with a litre of water, snacks, a rain shell, fleece and my iphone in a backpack, a garmin on my right wrist and a canister of bear spray in my left. at the goat creek trailhead, the wind persuaded me to add a windproof vest and change to yoga pants. (i changed back to the original outfit within 750m.) mo kissed me goodbye, i turned kate's garmin on, and within seconds -- stepped into a deep mud puddle. hence the blister.

the first 7 km were good and strong, with a perfect downhill grade. it was all sunshine and mountains, good tunes and no bears. the next 6 were tougher. at km 14-15 i thought the garmin must be broken. 16-17 were easy, and the last 2km were physically hard (i was astonished at how tired i felt) but mentally easy (no question of quitting now).

i used the running room's 10-and-1 system, loosely -- which probably means i didn't use it at all?: i find it hard to stop when things are going well, and i make any number of excuses to avoid starting again in the middle of an uphill grunt, my favorite excuse being that my sports physician last year cautioned me to "avoid hills." (i'm pretty sure he meant downhills.) anyway, i didn't have a goal beyond the curiosity as to whether i could do this run or not, and i didn't exactly train for it. i went in prepared to walk as much as i had to. i would estimate honestly that i walked 1.5 minutes for every 10 minutes that i ran, which is okay for a first run at that long a distance. i was slow (3 hours to run 19km, at 6.5 km/h on average, or a pace of 9:11) - but i guess that does include changing my clothes, digging around for a powerbar at km 8, eating a fruit bar 2km later, texting mo around km 13, and running with a pack.

at the end, i felt strangely flat. i thought i would feel elated, depleted, proud, amazed, high or ... something. i was definitely tired, nauseated, and migrainous, but emotionally blank. i shuffled through the banff springs parking lot and stretched my calves while i waited for kate and mo to take me to the hot springs.

Roughing it at lake o'hara

by the third night i could stick my feet all the way down to the bottom of the sleeping bag without flinching.

what can i say: it's a phobia. i can't put my hand or foot anywhere i can't see. when most people lose something under the driver's seat, they reach down and retrieve it. me, i go to therapy.

so it was no small accomplishment, getting used to the sleeping bag. and it did make the rest of our rough life seem easy by comparison: pulling water from a stream, sleeping in common quarters, using the stinkiest outhouse in tarnation, cooking for a dozen, going without electricity, without showers, without email, facebook, twitter, wikipedia or blogging.

from 21-24 june we stayed at the ACC's elizabeth parker hut up in lake o'hara. although EPH's popularity means that most people enter a lottery for a chance to stay there, we have an in through family friend al hunter, who's been going there regularly since 1959. every year he puts together a ragtag group of campers including, for the last four years, my folks. also along: al's son craig and two of his colleagues from BC social services, al's daughter jody and her 23-year-old son sam, and our friend katherine. it was a shockingly good group, generous and fun and easy to be around, with the right combination of together and alone -- and fantanstic food: blueberry pancakes and ham for breakfast, fresh chili for dinner, dried meats and hummous for lunches, along with organic vegetables and penticton fruit, single-malt and st andre cheese at 5. most importantly, the ear plugs worked.

what people love about camping at lake o'hara is that you start at such high elevation that it's easy to get to the wiwaxy gap, or the yukness ledge, or up to abbot pass. even with the weather pissing rain, or blowing snow or, on wednesday night, hailing, we had some great hiking. and mo's pictures can make anything look beautiful:






nothing like chilly hiking to make even a sleeping bag feel cozy.

Jiggedy jig

after we've been away in "the little house," so dubbed by darien and laura four years ago, i'm always struck by how very big our "big house" is. it has a room entirely devoted to my computer, for instance. there's another room for sleeping, a choice of indoor bathrooms, a kitchen you can stand up in, and several different reading lairs. how can this place seem so small by february of every endless winter?

so we are back, and it is cold and rainy here, but greening up. we have not missed a thing: not the daffodils, not the tulips, not the crabapple blossoms. all of that is yet to love, and loving it will take all my attention, and i will forget about many of the things that seemed, just hours ago, unforgettable. so in between putting away the camping gear and putting in the laundry and putting out affection for princess and the hen, i want to spend a few minutes putting down some wonders and oddities, the kind of jumble you have in the back of your car and the back of your head at the end of a road trip.

under the heading remarkable campground sights: two blue-rinse ladies in matching mauve sweatsuits walking matching white bichons at 6 AM.

under the heading sounds that make you wonder: the campground that played XM radio "love songs" constantly ... in the bathroom. i shaved to "the first cut is the deepest." billy joel crooned "i love you just the way you are," but i showered anyway. modesty compels me to stop there, but you can imagine other odd pairings.

startling things: all the US national park bumph uses the phrase "geologists say..." to introduce FACTS -- FACTS, people!!! -- concerning natural phenomena. also: the lingua franca of bryce canyon is in fact french. and: nanton alberta is totally gay.

under the heading freeway signs that cause you to wonder:

• Young Family Living Farm, next exit
• Action Wood Waterbeds
• BJ Services, Ltd.
  
• Dirty Jo Punsters in Spanish Fork, "spicing things up since 1990"
• Pot Roast to DRIVE for, 17 miles ahead

things that made my heart glad: the fields of purple crocuses in the blackfeet indian reservation. being buzzed by a black-chinned hummingbird in zion. highway 287. learning that the california condor, having been declining in number since prehistoric times, is making a go of it in monument valley. seeing my favorite alpine flower with the excellent new name "revel paintbrush." mo's Authentic Western Style.

things to covet: trailers by safari condo.

and a random prediction: iceberg lettuce will make a comeback.

there. really home now.

Old lady road trip

i notice my advancing years most starkly when traveling. for one thing, i can't drive like i used to 20 years ago. back then, i would do a 38-hour drive (san francisco to edmonton, for instance) in about 43 hours, stopping on the side of a nevada two-lane for a wee nap or two. now, if i was so foolish as to "nap" on the side of the road, i would fall immediately into a deep yet fitful state complete with snoring and drooling. the state trooper would find it hard to so hard to wake me he'd just leave me there for the next shift to rouse. then, i would spend all day griping about how my back hurts, and my neck is kinked, and i slept funny on my arm.

so when we don't camp, we stay in motels.

but not just any motels. i used to be of "the chaper the better" view where motels are concerned: why overpay? and then there was the kitsch aesthetic. i would thrill to the bedspreads you can slide right off of, the plastic-wrapped plastic cup. now, i think of things like the quality of the mattress. hampton inn is a good chain, we've discovered -- a chain! -- because of their special serta bed. (don't worry, we're not quite going to order one for home yet, though if you want to....)

and what about noise? used to be, i could sleep through anything. now: well, one morning in moab i shushed the frat party next door with a single teacher-look. old lady! back in yakima two years ago, i reached in through the truck window where a younger version of myself was napping and switched the radio right off. we're in room 214 now, but we were first checked into 208. i had us moved somewhere quieter.

the finickiness of old age extends to road food. no longer for me the big greasy spoon breakfast. i will burp all the way to the next town. also, it makes me sleepy. and the last thing i need is an order of hash browns on my hips ... forever.

driving itself is more tiring now, and more stressful. it takes more effort to keep my eyes on the road. my eyes tire faster. my neck cricks and my back aches. i know more than i did two decades ago, know that i make mistakes and that others make mistakes, and that mistakes are always worse at 60 miles an hour. saddest of all -- i will admit this here, once, and then go back to pinning our routes on mo -- i understand the attraction of the interstate.

of course, there are compensating virtues. for one thing, i've woken up at 6am this fine sunday morning, without an alarm. even after blogging i should be able to make it to smitty's for the senior breakfast special.

Bryce

Ellen Meloy, on Utah desert:

"I am not that presumptuous to think I could speak or paint or write the natural history of my home colors. I know only that they are to blame for intent and motion, for an asymmetrical journey of wonder and of trouble. ... An aesthetic sense, an intuitive link between a chromatic band and emotion can grow as strong as a fingerprint, defying logic and inviting the helpless surrender of a love affair. Intoxication with color, sometimes subliminal, often fierce, may express itself as a profound attachment to landscape. It has been rightly said: color is the first principle of Place."
-- "The Deeds and Sufferings of Light,"
The Anthropology of Turquoise

Biking thunder mountain

mountain biking is, in a word, fucking awesome. it's fast, it's aggressive, it's technical, it's demanding, and it's dangerous. in other words, perfect.

i wrote those lines before biking thunder mountain. if you don't want to read through the whole story that follows, here's a video of the ride that i made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knReQUMSqdA. make sure you don't miss the 3-minute mark.

oh, wait. that's right. i didn't make that video, some 19-year-old boy did. which should have been my first clue. but it wasn't my first clue; my first clue was the witless ranger at red rock canyon visitors' centre. mo and i walked in the other day all eagerness and cute, saying, "tell us everything! we want to mountain bike, and we hear it's good here. 'zat true?" even at the time i didn't think the fat sheriff behind the counter was terribly convincing as a ranger, but he pulled out a trail map and said, "thunder mountain trail's nice." it was clear that that was the end of the conversation. his impassive face left no doubt that i'd have to take up my why-is-the-river-in-zion-so-grey question somewhere else.

even after hiking 10 miles of bryce yesterday, i was curious to see this trail. in fact, i was curious to see a few of them. i figured i'd bike thunder mountain first, then toodle around up in butch cassidy country. losee canyon was supposed to be good, though i noted it was rated "strenuous." something to keep in mind. i double checked the trail guide, which describes the thunder mountain trail, in its entirety, as follows: "The upper section of the trail travels through a ponderosa pine forest, while the lower section features spectacular red rock scenery. Moderate to strenuous."

here's one thing the trail guide might have indicated: the 6-mile, 1200-foot uphill to get to the trailhead is in addition to the 9 miles of single track. but no matter. there's a paved bike trail next to highway 12 for much of it, and i fell into conversation with a guy named dave who's riding across the USA. we talked mileage and muscle groups, regular snacking and the ups and downs of nevada, and the ratio of money to miles ("i can't spend more than one dollar per every two miles," he said, "all in," suggesting that he'd been alone too much of late). why is he riding now? "timing's pretty good," he said, "i just got out of the navy and i'm heading to college in the fall." his business card, which advertises his blog, reads: "we will all die but very few of us live."

we parted ways at the fremont ATV track, and i headed up to the trailhead. by the time i arrived i was feeling limber if a little tired. it had been 65 minutes of uphill since i left the car.

and what's in the trailhead parking lot? a silver lexus. and getting out of it, That Guy: early 60s, short grey moustache, super nice bike, nice wife, and a full kit of high-end, matching gear. his tight black shirt was bulging a little over the too-much-good-living pot belly. he looked like the kind of guy who'd buttonhole you to explain how the economic downturn is actually good. meaning, good for him. meaning, he didn't mind that he'd lost his job as an investment banker because his quality of life was so much better now.

i pedalled on.

and almost straight into a threesome of horses. "afternoon ma'am," said the leader. "hi there!," i said, "party of three?" "yep," said the wrangler, "you a party of one? how'd you manage that?" i smiled. "long ride up from the visitors' centre. turns out that part isn't figured in the 9-mile trail distance." "no ma'am," he said soberly, "it's not."

i pedalled on. this must be the ponderosa pine forest described so fulsomely in the trail guide. the trail is really narrow, maybe a third of a typical hiking trail. i'm wondering how horses can manage such a narrow trail, and i'm wondering how there can be yet more uphill -- when all of a sudden the trail disappears into a sweet moment of downhill relief followed by a sharp turn. somewhere in the middle of that first hairpin turn i discovered what it meant to share a trail with horses.

let me put it this way: if you careen downhill on a narrow path barrelling toward a hairpin turn, and if there is a pile of wet horseshit right at the crucial spot, you will wipe out. and it will not be pretty.

and what's this? more horses. 20 of them, in fact. i pull off the path as i'm told and report that there's one more biker coming. the women in the group are agog. "how often do you do this?," asks one. "oh, every day," i joke. "actually, i'm from canada. if i'd had any idea what this trail was like, i'd never think of trying it." "oh, well, then. that makes more sense," says one rider. the rest of them laugh in agreement. what is that supposed to mean? "are you really doing this alone?" "sure," i say. "isn't it a great day for a ride?" "well, you just go for it!," says a third woman. am i imagining that she shoots a meaningful glance at the rest of the riders?

Investment Man is now beside me. "so!," he says. "yeah," i say. "you been riding this area long?" "oh, not really," i say. "we did a little up in moab, but -- " "yeah, it's hard to find good single track," he says. "if you like sliprock, you should try gooseberry mesa. it's great. it's pretty level, not even an uphill as long as this, but there's a whole bunch of trails up there, about half sliprock. yeah, and i've ridden some moab trails too." there's a minute pause before, "you know, i'm only wearing this safety gear [elbow pads, knee pads] because i spent more time on my elbows and knees than i wanted to, there on gooseberry mesa. that rock isn't too forgiving! so, that's what that's about. where you riding next?," he presses. i tell him we're going home, then, to be polite, ask "you ride solo, mostly?" "yeah," he says. "the wife has a comfort bike, but..." he shrugs. "...but she drops you off at the trailhead in the lexus," i finish, in my mind. i indicate that i'm going to have my lunch, and he should go ahead. "oh okay!," he says eagerly, "that way you can pick up the pieces of me later. heh heh heh."

"single-track," i ponder, "comfort bike."

when i remount i can feel my legs -- the hiking, the uphill -- and start to wonder whether i really will do those other trails today. but no need to decide yet. i still have the best part of an hour on this trail.



make that the best part of three hours. 'cause here's what they don't tell you in the trail guide. the path doesn't just "travel through ponderosa forest," it goes up, and i mean up, the outside of a ravine to a sharp left turn so it can rush downhill into the cleft of the next, hairpin right turn to climb out of that ravine -- and so on.

it does this roughly 142 times over 2 miles.

that's the ponderosa forest bit. so you can imagine my relief to hit the transition to the red rock canyon bit. "this must be the moderate part," i thought.






hah.

for one thing, the trail is mostly sand and scree.

for another, it noses precipitously near the edge.

for a third, the uphills and the downhills are really really steep. the hairpins are really really sharp. and the horses, it turns out, aren't bothered by kicking large rocks into the middle of a six-inch "single track." they do just fine. but look closely at these pictures and you'll see that mountain bikers routinely pitch over the edge.

also, the trail is long. like, really really long. way longer than it's supposed to be. way longer than i was expecting. when i saw how far the trail stretched out in front of me i was so gobsmacked i stopped dead -- just stopped pedalling so that i wouldn't run over my own jaw lying slack on the scree. which means that i immediately went ass over tea kettle sideways downslope, until the abrupt and thorough penetration of a petrified branch into my left heel brought me to a halt.

by this point i am walking, dragging, cursing my bike more than i am riding it. i would give anything for a conversation with Investment Man. i wonder whether navy dave has made it to escalante. i can only remember the first part of his motto.

did i mention that the wind howls across the ridges until it's all you can do to keep your balance?

if i'd had any idea what this trail was like, i'd never think of trying it.

walking down a hairpin turn, i lose my footing, lose my bike, and then lose the skin over my knee. i learn another thing: dust helps blood clot.

i round another corner and OH MY GOD IT'S INVESTMENT MAN'S TORSO!

or, wait, maybe it's just a big lump of red rock.

i skip the side trip to inspiration point, since the only thing i would find remotely inspiring at this point is the sight of the jeep.

cross my heart and hope to die, if i make it out of this alive i will never mount a bicycle again as long as i live.

it is pretty, though.










well, i'm keying this blog so you know how the story ends. ever so gingerly i make my way out of the canyon. when it seems that the path is well and truly level, i stop under a tree for a granola bar. two agile 40-somethings happen by. "hey," they ask, "are you okay?" "oh, yeah, sure," i say, "it's just a flesh wound." one of them peers at me more closely. "you're not wearing removable clip shoes, are you?" "nope," i agree, "i'm remarkably ill-equipped for a ride like this." "how was it?," asks the other guy.

"fucking awesome."

Cycling the desert

i'll admit, when mo got the notion we should get a bike rack to carry our bikes down to the desert, i didn't pay much attention. knock yourself out, i thought, it don't matter a whole helluva lot.

boy was i wrong.

having our bikes down here has transformed the trip. you know how it is, you get tired of walking day after day. it's slow, the pack is heavy, your thighs chafe and your feet hurt. you're always hot. if the hike isn't great, the misery is all you can think about after a while. but mix in a little cycling, and it's a whole new experience. there's always a breeze, it's easy to carry extra water, and you use different muscles. best of all, the world unfolds at 15 km/hour. driving has its pleasures, but they are transitory. as soon as you see something you like, it's gone. cycling, on the other hand, is the perfect pace for seeing a canyon wind or watching a river wend.

we rode ten miles up the colorado from moab:



we did some off-road riding at dead horse point:



best of all, we bicycled zion. brilliantly, zion canyon is closed to private vehicle traffic. closed, to private cars. in america! its 1950s two-lane road had become a virtual parking lot by the millennium, so they implemented a free shuttle that goes up and down the canyon every ten minutes and into the village beyond, stopping at each trailhead and leaving the roads of zion free for cyclists.



i'd rave some more, only i have to hop on mister bike right now, to get us some provisions.

Hiking horseshoe canyon

to get to horseshoe canyon from moab, you head back north up the 191. hang a left onto I-70, but before you hit the san rafael swell (say, 30 miles or so), turn south down 24. a couple dozen miles down that two-lane asphalt you'll see a dirt road leading east to hans flat ranger station. now you need the topo maps. after about 30 miles on increasingly rough roads, you hit the five-mile access to horseshoe canyon. wonder whether you should have a vehicle on this road at all. persevere. and park in the overview parking lot that gives nothing away.

the hike is marked with cairns over slickrock, and it goes down down down for 750 feet. you're not surprised to see dinosaur tracks on the path. every step down gets a little bit hotter, until you're down on the breezeless canyon floor. by early afternoon it's about 32 degrees down there, with the sun glinting off desert-varnished rock.











you walk the wash for a few miles, looking at various petroglyphs and pictograms along the way.


























finally, you get to the great gallery, with some of the finest rock art in the world. it's a pilgrimmage for many anthropologists, a mecca for art historians. you sit, awed, in the blessed shade, and you're right: you will never forget this feeling.



















on the way home, even though it's in the opposite direction, stop at goblin state park. why not?