The End is the Beginning...

 Whoa. Two months since my last post.

Here’s my excuse:

I have no excuse.

But if I did, here’s what it would be:

Travel has spotty internet. My last post (on winter solstice, from our hot and humid Thai island) barely crawled across the electronic universe. I was afraid it was going to get stuck in The Void, and I would forever be chasing it around, wondering where my life had gone wrong, wondering where that bit of me had ended up. Sorta like Voldemort. Stressful.

Travel is tiring. Bus rides in Thailand, for example. Four bus trips of ten hours each – for you math challenged people, that’s FORTY hours of sitting comatose (not counting the hours of just waiting for the bus to show up), except for the hurried and harried 20-minute stops to chow down rice and curry at some ungodly hour of the night. (Free food at two in the morning? Heck yeah!) Then there’s the after bus ride aftermath: figuring out how to get OUT of the behemoth bus station (twice), haggling for taxis (usually), figuring out routes (mostly), finding food (always and forever amen). Oh yeah, and all the while hoping the hotel we paid for online was, in actuality, a place, and not how someone was funding their drug habit. Stressful.

And FYI, Thai busses are very different from Nepali busses. There would be no sitting comatose on a Nepali bus.

Travel is mentally taxing. Reading every section of our guidebooks (Lonely Planet) over and over again. Perusing the internet over and over again. Logging into the internet over and over again. Losing the internet over and over again. Downloading maps and guides when we DO have internet. Downloading them again when it doesn’t work. Reading our guidebooks yet again. The dearth of things to read in English is obvious. This is Thailand. And sometimes Germany. Perusing the bookshelves of our guesthouses for outstanding reading material: romance novels in German, political thrillers in German, Harry Potter in German, local guidebooks (from 1998) in Thai and German, Buddhism in Thai, unknown books (no pictures) in Thai, and one Ancient History of the Tsetse Fly People, in English. Okay, that’s not a real book. But it could have been. And I would have read it. We kept our minds sharp.

Travel is physically taxing. Hiking eight to ten miles per day on a tropical island, in heat and humidity, constantly vigilant for danger: territorial dogs, beach crabs, falling coconuts. Coordinating walks to accommodate the best snacking locations. Swimming, kayaking, more walking. More danger: one beach had signs warning of stingrays and jellyfish. “SHUFFLE INTO WATER TO ALERT THE STINGRAYS, AVOID THE JELLYFISH.” Okaaay…

Travel is weather we aren’t used to. Hot and humid equals sweaty, tired, and lethargic. Possibly cranky. After the cold of Nepal, the heat of Thailand sucked the life right out of us. Then we discovered Bangkok’s fifty-cent iced lattes…

Travel is busy. Even when it’s not. Like waiting for buses, waiting for planes, waiting for the tide to come in (our boat transport, stranded on the mud flats). These are good times for learning to deal with tedium and stress. And the odd burst of chaos. And learning to keep my writing notebook handy. I wrote many FABULOUS blog posts in my head, then promptly forgot them. Just believe me, they were outstanding.

Travel is so many questions. Where shall we eat? What shall we eat? Is it time to eat? Is that edible? How do I eat this? Do we have any snacks? Is this eating place open? Why is no one accosting us?

Travel is stressful. Navigating scams, cultural norms, language, money. Pretty much EVERYTHING is FOREIGN. Crazy. We couldn’t get a taxi to take us to the skytrain in Bangkok in the wee hours (I could say something terribly sarcastic here, but really, we had it so easy, but come on, REALLY?). Stressful. Maybe I even got a teeny bit crabby once. Or twice.

We spent months without much news, mostly living outside, seeing spectacular sights, using our bodies to the utmost, immersing ourselves in other cultures, other people, other landscapes, other universes. We were so close to the equator in southern Thailand that even the crescent moon is crazy. Looks like a U, rather than our slouching C. And Orion was lying down. The chickens wore bedroom slippers. Okay, just feathers, but hey, foreign chickens. And foreign cats – look like ours, but do not speak English. Announcements on our Thai busses were just high pitched, chattering noise. Writing was indecipherable. We were aliens from another planet.

Travel warps time and space. This is obvious and self-explanatory. Right? I mean, right? Hello?

Travel means you are on another planet when things happen, and it takes your mind away.

So there you have it. Just another way of saying, “I’m an expert and skilled procrastinator, easily distracted. But nice. Usually.”

A few highlights from Thailand

But first, correction/addition to my last post. The banshee bugs. I said there were millions. Maybe. I didn’t count. But we did notice that whenever (what sounded like) one bug abruptly stopped making a racket, the entire jungle din went down 50 decibels. The few, the proud, the deafening. I looked them up, and according to my quick perusal they are most likely cicadas, whose calls, close up, can be up to 120 decibels. That’s like an airliner taking off. Just google “loud bugs in Thailand” and you can hear them for yourself.

Note to self: get hearing checked.

Our little Thai island was the perfect place to recuperate from Nepal. Sea level, oxygen, warmth. Pretty much everyone we met was from Germany, or some place that spoke German, and they were all chain smokers. What? We became adept at sussing out subtle air movements in order to be sitting upwind at the time of the inevitable light-up. It was ubiquitous and slightly bizarre. Happily, we were always outside. Even inside, you are outside.

And recuperate we did. Even though we complained about the heat, were bitten by big mosquitoes, and had sand in EVERYTHING. At least I didn’t open my bag after leaving the island and have a cockroach crawl out of it (happened to a fellow traveler). Poor little guy (I’m talking cockroach here), probably freaked out by the motorbike taxi ride, long-tail boat ride, tuk tuk ride, then being tossed into an unfamiliar environment away from family and friends, unable to understand what had happened.

Oh, sorry, that was us most of the time.

I do hope the little cockroach found a new and pleasant home.

To be honest, the mosquitoes only came out for about an hour each evening. And a few in the morning. And sometimes during the day. But we had a mosquito net to sleep under, and we’d leave the door and windows wide open to the tropical breezes (and sometimes cats, always geckos, and once a very large lizard).

The jungle was stunningly beautiful (if somewhat noisy at times), the ocean was WARM, the beaches mostly empty. The hornbills would visit the railings of our bungalow and also the railings of the eating area. We could never figure out what to call our guesthouse’s “restaurant.” It was set on a steep hillside, so, basically a treehouse with a few tables, and places to lounge. Made out of wood, with bamboo floor, thatched roof, lots of plants, no walls. Hornbills.

Food was pretty much Pad Thai all the way, with a few ginger, curry, and basil dishes thrown in. And in northern Thailand, lots of sticky rice, my favorite. You eat it with your fingers and dip it in a salt/sugar/chili powder mixture. Oh yeah, and green coconuts. We got into the green coconut habit in Cambodia last trip. Cheap and refreshing and so tasty. They are also called “young” coconuts, since they are mostly water (coconut water) that you drink with a straw, and a bit of coconut to scrape out (slimy goop, but good, if they are really young, harder coconut as they become more mature). We noticed that many people just drank the water and left the coconut inside (it was a bit of a chore to get it out). It was all I could do to not grab their “garbage” and finish it off.

Monk Chat

There are Buddhist temples (wats) everywhere in Thailand. Amazingly beautiful, ornate, and SPARKLY. And clean. Well cared for. We avoided the touristy ones (mostly) and found many quiet, peaceful spots in the midst of chaos. Plus clean and free toilets.

One of our favorite encounters was “Monk Chat.” Fourteen years ago we thought we were going to a lecture on Buddhism where we could lounge in the back and listen, without too much effort on our part. When we got there they whisked us to separate tables and a bunch of monks gathered round and we chatted. A little stressful for us introverts, but so worthwhile we thought we’d try it again. This time we both got to sit at the same table, and we had one monk to chat with. Whew. Less stress already.

“Our” monk was young, (he had just finished his studies at the Buddhist university connected to the wat), friendly, intelligent, and spoke good English. We chatted about many, many things: Covid-19, Buddhism, families, vegetarianism, use of technology, “a day in the life.” Their brand of Buddhism is flexible – you read the texts, try it, and if it doesn’t work for you, you let that go and try something else. They are vegetarian, but can eat whatever is gifted to them, even meat, although they cannot eat meat if it was killed for them, and they cannot ask for meat. He said a monk’s life is easy – no work, no stress, no family to take care of – “but regular people have hard life, so don’t add stress by so much rules.”

He had Covid five times. He saw his illnesses as an opportunity for growth and reflection, and used those times to practice his Buddhist mindset – being calm, meditating, connecting to his body, letting his body heal. Reflecting on the uncertainty of the future.

When he talked about “Loving Kindness” he reminded us of Daschi, back in the Himalayas, very sincere and kind, believing in the importance of love, the importance of being kind.

I was a little exhausted afterwards – you’re dealing with another culture and customs, language is sometimes confusing, you have to be “on” and focused – but we went away feeling like, wow, that was a lovely experience. It lit our way that evening when we were walking and walking. When I get cranky (huh?) I want to remember kindness.

And speaking of walking, there is some insane traffic in Chiang Mai, not at all pedestrian friendly. You know you’ve graduated to some higher plane when monks follow YOU across the road (rather than the other way around, our usual modus operandi).

Elephant Sanctuary Update

Fourteen years ago, we did a volunteer stint for two weeks at Elephant Nature Park, an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center in northern Thailand. Its goals: to improve and protect the lives of Asian elephants, while educating visitors about the plight of these creatures. They want to show that tourists will come to see elephants doing elephant things; who wouldn’t want to see elephants frolicking in the river, wrestling and playing in the mud, hanging out with their buds? Being their elephant selves?

Elephant Nature Park has been showing that you don’t need to have them paint, or play soccer, or give rides, (activities that involve much abuse of the animal, both in the training and the ongoing business), and tourists will still come. As we walked around Chiang Mai, most of the advertisements we saw for elephant encounters specified “no riding,” whereas 14 years ago that was a high priority activity. And the sanctuary has grown and is thriving. So their efforts seem to be working. I won’t go on about this, but since it is such an important idea – the fact animals deserve to be seen for who they really are, creatures with feelings and lives of their own – I wanted to bring it up, even though it didn’t work for us to go there this time. And if you are wondering what in the world you are going to do with that big windfall you got downsizing your castle and selling your Ming vases, consider donating to this amazing place. Or going there.

Their website is: elephantnaturepark.org

Return of the Jedi (oops, that title’s taken, maybe Back to the Future? Return of the Living Dead?)

We popped back into the “western” world in sort of a weird sideways slide, first into tropical rural America (Molokai, and yes, rural America it truly is), followed by a brief pause in chilly urban America (Seattle). We have just now returned to our life in boxes. We were so ready, looking forward to the “easier” life of returning, but I find myself missing all the walking, missing the simplicity (where will we sleep, what will we eat?), missing the adventure, missing even the hardships, in exchange for a clear mind and healthy being.

That’s what our brains do – they forget hard things. (Otherwise women would never go through childbirth more than once.)

My travel journal ends mid-sentence on the day we flew from Bangkok to Hawaii. I’ve started lists of what I must do, want to do, want to be. We have moved through the world in a privileged way, and we are different creatures than first set out months ago. Our hardships were not all that hard. Our stresses not all that tense. But travel changes you. It lives inside, stretching now and then to encompass and embrace you, widen your horizon, deepen your breaths. Remind you of kindness.

We are grateful to have experienced and gotten to know, even if just a little, other peoples, other landscapes, other worlds.

And as a popular musical says:

Because I knew you

I have been changed

For good.

Of Cold and Chaos, Heat and Hornbills

So. We’ve moved on from the COLD and CHAOS of Nepal to the HEAT and HORNBILLS of Thailand!

But first, let’s finish our Nepali trip:

Did I really whine that much in my last blog post about how hard it was?! I don’t know what that was about. Though in Kathmandu that last week, whenever we’d see a poster of the high Himalayas, we’d get this queasy feeling in our stomachs!

Our last few days of trekking (in the lowlands of 9,000 feet), we DID have to go UP quite a lot (and down and up and down), and by the end, when there were GIANT steps up to our guesthouse, I had to DRAG myself up the last bit. But the good news, YES, we CAN go uphill again (which I’m sure our boss at the Forest Service is happy to hear)!

We got filmed at least twice on our last couple of trekking days (maybe more, it’s such a blur). People going UP (many people from India, but also some Nepalis too) would ask our age, notice we’re carrying our own stuff, no guide or porters, and they’d shake our hands and give us thumbs up, and say, “You’re strong!” We felt like celebrities! I think they thought it amazing that people who looked as old and decrepit as us could do such a thing! In December! (Just FYI, I am 68, Marc is 59.) 

And they don’t ask to film you and do a little interview, they just do it, but they are so very nice and enthusiastic about it all. Several different guys (at different times) from Bangladesh gave us hugs! We're like, are we on a reality TV show or something? Kind of fun to feel like something special!

So we FINALLY made it to Lukla, the place with the tiny tilted airstrip, where we had tickets to fly back to Kathmandu (safer, we figured, than another 10-hour wild jeep ride).

And THEN we went out for coffee! 

Well, actually, it was the next day, but really, nothing important happened until we had our first coffee in six weeks! And not just any coffee, but COFFEE at "The Place Formerly Known As Starbucks Lukla," now known by some less than exciting name like, “Fresh Coffee.” It wasn’t a real Starbucks, back 14 years ago. They just "borrowed" the name. The logo, though, was absolutely incredible – looked like a real Starbucks logo, but instead of the mermaid in the middle, it had Ama Dablam (as drawn by the barista’s husband), one of the most beautiful mountains anywhere – and the mug I bought at that time is one of my most prized possessions. BUT, the coffee (as the barista assured us), was JUST AS GOOD as before, and so we each had TWO lattes, and spent hours in their sun room (since there’s no heat anywhere, places arrange their spaces to take advantage of the sun). 

So. Flying out of Lukla back to Kathmandu:

Our little 18 seater plane backs up to the wall at the top end of the (short, steep) runway. This is after the pilots have been delivered their tea/coffee through their cockpit window, and then the glasses retrieved after drinking. The motor revs. The brakes are released. The plane careens down the runway. You imagine the plane getting to the end of the runway and just tipping off over the cliff! But NO! It actually lifted off BEFORE getting to the edge!

THEN, we’re heading up through a layer of cloud. Wait a minute – can this plane fly in a cloud? Do they have instruments up there in the cockpit? Do they know where they’re going? Don’t they need to SEE to fly this thing? Don't they realize there are mountains EVERYWHERE? 

Suddenly we pop out above the cloud layer – WOW, sun on clouds and BIG mountains floating on the sea of clouds. The plane rattles and shakes and sounds like it’s going to shake apart! I can just about see screws and various pieces flying away. But then, BACK down through the cloud layer. 

REALLY, CAN THEY FLY IN THIS? 

I wait impatiently until we’re through and below the clouds again. Then of course, I notice the TURBULENCE as the rattling and shaking gets worse. I stare at the houses and rivers and fields below, imagining how hard the landing would be.

BUT, FINALLY we land SAFELY at Kathmandu! Whew!

When we got off, I heard another passenger saying to his friend, “At takeoff, I thought I was going to die. And then I didn’t!”

Yeah. Exactly.

A few days later, the newspaper reported that the VERY NEXT DAY after we flew, a plane flying IN to Lukla (mainly cargo) lost a window mid-flight! (See article below.)

Our last week in Kathmandu was spent wandering the narrow streets and alleys of the Thamel district, breathing a lifetime’s worth of vehicle exhaust, as well as cigarette smoke (even though smoking and selling cigarettes are supposedly banned in Kathmandu).

Visited the famous “Monkey Temple” (Swayambhunat Stupa), and made sure to AVOID any kind of eye contact with the monkeys – and certainly brought out NO FOOD – the monkeys will jump on you for it and amazingly some tourists are oblivious to this fact. We just did not want to spend our last week in Nepal getting rabies shots.

One benefit of spending a week wandering Kathmandu – there got to be a sort of familiarity with some of vendors and people that we saw daily (they with us, and us with them) which made for lots of smiles and laughing (at us and our weird ways) and joy:

The “donut” guy – he made deep fried goodness. Not really donuts, as they weren’t very sweet, and they weren’t shaped like donuts, but they WERE very greasy and delicious – good for us since we’d lost weight trekking. He always had a lovely smile when he saw us coming (even when we woke him up at his stand one day).

The woman at the “half-price-after-8pm” bakery. She greeted us each evening with a brilliant smile as we bought our half price goodies for the next day (but usually ate them that night). These are not bakery treats like you imagine – much less sweet, and much more dry and poofy, but fabulous for snacking.

The shirt embroidery guy in the alley near our hotel – even though we were never in his shop, he always had a smile for us as we went to and fro, to and fro, to and fro.

The owner of “Chef’s Burger,” where we ate dinner several times and had COFFEE several times. It’s way back in an alley, so we were usually the only customers – but it had excellent coffee, and excellent Asian food. Terrible name and logo (straight out of a strip mall in the States), but lovely, lovely people. (And I think you COULD get some kind of burger there if you really wanted to.)

The samosa guy – his stall was about three feet wide and maybe four times that deep – we bought his amazing samosas regularly.

The yak-wool woman, in her stall near our hotel. 

And of course, our lovely hosts at the Hotel Acme Inn in Thamel.

And several somebodies somewhere said they recognized us by my hair – gray, not exactly common in Nepalis.

Of course, there were always lots and lots of hucksters and hawkers (and we got asked if we wanted a “smoke” – drugs – many, many times). But the smiles and friendliness of all these people we saw regularly (and more) made all the chaos in Kathmandu manageable, and even enjoyable.

AND NOW, THAILAND. 

Just when we get used to one country and a little of how things work, and who a few people are – whoosh – off to somewhere else! 

Different money (what? This is a BANK. You can’t change dollars into baht, even though you advertise it in your window?), different ATMs (it worked, and didn’t eat our card!), different customs, different norms, different language (still incomprehensible writing - but beautiful).

Different weather! Now we are sweltering! You in the midwest will think nothing of it, but to us it feels like we’ve just bathed in Coca Cola! One upside – my hair is FLUFFY, and I don’t really have to comb OR wash it!

We’re on a small, quiet island south of Bangkok on the Andaman sea just across from Myanmar. Ten-hour bus ride, two hour boat ride (which left an hour late because the boat was stuck in the low tide mudflats), 20 minute WILD motorbike ride across the island, each of us on the back of a different motorbike hanging on for dear life…I didn’t really want to offend the guy driving by clinging to him like a freaked out cat, so I held on tight to the seat and managed not to bounce off!

The island is pretty low-key. We’re staying in a little bungalow in the jungle above the beach. You basically just leave your door and windows open all the time. (The walls are just bamboo mats.) Mosquito net over the bed (I love mosquito nets, so exotic, AND useful.) Breeze blowing off the ocean. Hornbills and banshee bugs.

So Hornbills. They are the coolest birds! They have huge, weird beaks (see photo), and make a racket, but they actually seem quite gentle – we watched one eat some watermelon that had been placed on a shrine by our bungalow. It took pieces very gently, and continuously eyed us for signs of danger. Not at all like the chaos of crows, seagulls, and pigeons! Their eyes are like “googly eyes,” the kind you buy at the craft shop to put on your homemade projects. And the noise they make is somewhere between LOUD squeaking wheels, LOUD squeaky toys, and LOUD monkeys. 

There are also some bugs here WE call Banshee Bugs. They seem like some kind of beetle, and sound like banshee grasshoppers. They all go off at sunset, like, millions of them, raising such a din you can barely hear anything else. In Cambodia we heard “chainsaw” bugs (again, OUR name) – a tiny bug that sounded just like (and as loud as) a chainsaw. These must be the Thai equivalent. For those of you who are shop nerds, Marc says they sound like the "screeching, buzzing noise of cutting a thin piece of wood on a table saw, but much, much louder.” These are beetles on steroids, but we’ve only seen ONE, when it flew off its branch and stopped making the noise. But really, they are deafening, but amazing!

So, here for a couple of weeks (to recuperate from Nepal), swimming, walking all over the island – there aren’t “roads,” just paths (and yes, we are going UP and down and up and down!), eating Thai food (which by the way has a lot of meat – different types of Buddhists have different rules for meat eating I’m learning), getting used to the heat. 

Humans, we have such a narrow comfort zone. 

So glad to be one. 

Of course, being a hornbill doesn’t seem too bad either.

               Swayambhunat Stupa

                       Lukla airstrip 

                    Making samosas

                      Boat to island 

                         Hornbill

                 View from our porch.

Return From the Land of Yak Dung Fires

Today we saw our first tree in weeks! And now the yaks are mostly dzopkyos. And we can breathe again! 

Actually, we zipped down to lower elevations two days ago to a lovely teahouse in Pheriche that we’d taken a break at 14 years ago – sunny tea room, clean, friendly, they light the yak dung fire when the sun goes behind the mountain, they have a small shelf of books you can read while there - most are in other languages, and Marc rated his pick as a 1.5 out of 10, but hey, it’s not zero out of ten! (We do have some books on our phone, but that takes power.) – AND the guy running the place is incredibly hospitable and nice, AND has cool hair reminding us of our kid and their spouse, who both have cool hair!

So we pampered ourselves and bought TEA for the first time in a while (it gets more expensive the higher you go – a small pot can cost as much as your dinner).

We’ve been up in the Chhukhung Valley (15,500 ft.) and Gorak Shep (just over 17,000 ft.), the village just before Everest Base Camp. Climbed up from these to over 18,400 ft. And how did that make us feel? TIRED! A bit miserable, actually. Okay, a LOT miserable. Like I never want to go uphill again in my life. No altitude sickness, just no air, so we are the slowest turtles in the world, plodding endlessly. Walking that slowly, some say, can be very meditative. I bet those people were walking at sea level. On a warm tropical beach. With papayas and coconuts in abundance. And a quick dip in a warm ocean to switch things up. 

For me, it was endurance. Frankly, really, three hours of miserable, cold, slow, tedious plodding to get to a viewpoint? Or an iconic spot? But then you stop, cinch your hood against the wind, breathe frantically for several minutes, and look around.

It's absolutely stunning. But more of that shortly.

We saved the Everest area for the end of our trek, in case we didn’t have time, you know, been there, done that, but shucky-darn, we DID have time, which meant MORE up up up, LESS of that essential ingredient, oxygen, MORE turtle’s pace. 

But I’d forgotten how incredibly, fabulously, stupendously, knock your socks off STUNNING that area is. (But it’s also an ice world, so keep your socks on!) The Khumbu glacier is unbelievably HUGE. And it’s not nice and smooth. It’s broken into enormous chunks and seracs and there are ice cliffs and ice lakes, and ice, ice, ice. And of course there’s Everest, big chunk of rock that it is.

There’s one peak up the Chhukhung valley, Island Peak, that is about the height of Denali in Alaska, but it sits in a cirque surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world, and anywhere else it would be HUGE, but here, the Denali wanna-be looks puny, just a tiny chunk of rock and ice.

It was cloudy much of the time we were up in the Everest region. And it did snow on us a few times. Woke up one morning to socked-in white stuff. Our immediate thought (since we did not want to hike higher into who knows what and who knows where in this inclement weather): “ACKKKKK” (yes that was the exact phrasing), “we are now going to have to spend ANOTHER freezing day and night at the WORST teahouse ever!” (Don’t ask.) But mid-morning things started to clear off, so we high-tailed it out of there and made RECORD time from that village to the next (these turtles were really moving!) – we did NOT want to have to turn around and return!

So there’s been some misery – mainly fighting the ubiquitous COLD, lying under sleeping bags and quilts waiting for the yak dung fire to be lit, feeling like we are enduring more than anything, barely able to breathe.

So why do it? When sometimes I can hardly wait for it to be over, when the memories are often sweeter than the actual doing?

There is something about being out here (whether here, or the North Cascades, or the canyons of the SW, or any remote area really) that infuses your being with something unique, something magical, that puts you in touch with the universe, the uncaring immensity of the universe; and that makes me profoundly connected, and profoundly privileged to witness some small part of its beauty, its harshness, its endlessly varied and amazing manifestations.

And you learn things.

Like how to make one roll of toilet paper last a month and a half.

Like not caring how your hair looks when you haven’t washed it in five and a half weeks.

Like how hard some people’s lives really are.

Like how friendliness and hospitality can transform an experience.

Like how to find water when they don’t give out tap water - one lodge at 17,000 feet where we stayed three nights, and it’s four degrees out and everything is frozen. (It’s understandable. But they want you to buy bottled water, which everything you ever read says NOT to, due to the huge problem of plastic garbage.) So water, HEY, there’s huge barrels of water in the toilet for flushing (Mom, you didn’t read that). We did sterilize it three times!

Like which dogs are okay to pet, and which to stay away from (and yes, we did get our rabies vaccines, but even so you still have to get more shots if bitten).

Like the incredible beauty people can create, and the messes they can cause.

Like how amazing are VEGETABLES.

Like how amazing yak dung is, and without those yak dung fires the world is cold, icy, and unrelentingly trying to kill you.

Like how Western graffiti has come to Everest Base Camp.

Like how napkins don’t need to be the size of a tablecloth. Many tea houses now provide “napkins” – basically two squares of T.P. And it’s enough.

Like how people have all kinds of beliefs – but if they are based in kindness and goodness and respect, that’s what matters.

Like the amazing, indifferent beauty of the universe, from mountains and glaciers, to stars and galaxies, to fluffy dogs sneaking in to curl by the yak dung fire, to the glittering rocks and sands that look as if someone has dropped a whole load of craft glitter (think costume glitter, or hair glitter, or face glitter – yes, I am a glitter expert) over the landscape, to the IMMENSENESS of it all, a sparkling, brilliant, incredible universe.

And we are specs, so happy and amazed to be here, now.

To be alive.

To be.

Oh, just a couple of other things: We saw some Himalayan tahr, a type of mountain goat I think. But to us they were straight out of a fantasy novel: part lion, part goat, part hyena, and part wart hog. They have these big fluffy ruffs that billow in the wind, and weird bodies, and one followed us for a ways – probably waiting for us to pee so it could have a delicious, salty snack!

We also saw a Himalayan wolf (pointed out to us by a yak train driver). And some snowcocks (a type of pheasant), Himalayan chuffs (a bit like crows), and a Himalayan pika! AND some beautifully ornamented yaks – little red wigs, colorful ear tassels, beautiful Tibetan rug packs.

So we continue to learn, and grow, and hopefully become better people for it.

And yeah, we have a new appreciation for the sun!

Khumbu glacier, Everest (center, in clouds), Nuptse (right), Tibet (left, over the pass)

                      Pumori on left.

                       Ama Dablam

That small mountain on the right is Island Peak (same height as Denali). That's Lhotse on the left (fourth highest mountain in the world).

Into the Land of the Yak Dung Fires

Great title, huh? I WAS going to title this post "Into Thin Air," but then, someone already used that name and made millions of dollars. That could have been me! But in a flash of brilliance, I came up with something even better: "Into the Land of the Yak Dung Fires"! Ol' J.K. could have used that tack as well and titled his book, even more descriptively, "ABOVE the Land of the Yak Dung Fires" - after all, their mission was to Boldly Go Where No Yak Has Gone Before. Yak lovers around the world would have snatched up the book!

And while we're on the subject of yaks, we are truly in the country of the yaks (and yak dung fires). The creatures we've called yaks down lower are mostly dzopkyos, a mix between yaks and Tibetan cows. (These names - yaks, dzopkyos - are the males, females have other names - so you never eat yak cheese, you eat NAK cheese!) Yaks are huge, shaggy, insulated, move-aside-for-nothing creatures that are extremely CUTE! One morning behind our teahouse was a herd of yaks, all with frosted backs. Brrrrr! And they leave behind a lot of good fuel for burning. The yak dung fires pervade the teahouse, and the whole area, with their particular acrid (but not unpleasant) smell. Does make the eyes burn a bit.

Yes, it's COLD here in Yak Dung Fire Land. (Nothing is heated except the tea room for a few hours at night - yay yak dung fires!) And there's basically no air. And you have to choose whether to walk or talk, definitely no walk AND talk! As Walter Mitty said (in that fabulous movie) while climbing in the Himalayas: "I have to make oxygen choices."

Over the past weeks we've plodded our way up and down and up and up, higher than Mt. Rainier, higher than Yertle's pile of turtles, higher than low earth orbit - oh, sorry, getting a little carried away here, and yet, there are still these peaks WAY above us. We just spent five days in Gokyo, a little village at 15,600 feet, on the edge of a sacred lake whose color is a brilliant, sparkling turquoise, a stunning spot. (The Gokyo Valley is one of the side valleys off the Everest Base Camp route.) We climbed to 17,700 ft. Renjo La (la means pass) where we could see Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Nuptse, and more. And Cho Oyu (6th highest mountain in the world) was right up the valley, in fact right out our room window!

A sign in one of our teahouse rooms, on our way upwards, said (among other points): "Please kindly show your positive attitude in altitude." I guess altitude, besides making it hard to breathe, or giving you AMS or HAPE or HACE, or killing you, can also make you cranky. Which I NEVER am. Just ask Marc. Actually, we've been feeling fairly chipper up here, in our hypoxic state. Every now and then you just have to breathe fast to catch up. Like after strenuous activities such as brushing your teeth, or rolling over in bed.

Important questions often on our minds these days:

When will the yak dung fire be lit? How much will they stoke it? Will they give us seconds on dal bhat? How much dal bhat can I eat? How long can I lie beneath my quilt before I have to get up and pee in the icy darkness? Is that trekker's hack contagious? What's our elevation? Dal bhat is HOW MUCH now? Asian toilet or western toilet? Will the western toilet have a seat? A tank? Did I bring enough warm clothes? (The answer, definitely yes. I look like the Pilsbury Doughboy.)

And observations:

Look, a yak! Look, a musk deer. Look, a Himalayan pika. Look, HOOKS in our room! Look, humongous, gigantic, immense, massive, spectacular, ice covered, sheer mountains. They ARE BIG. Really big. And they continue to be mind bogglingly mind boggling!

The area we're hiking through is mainly Tibetan Buddhist. One of our teahouse hosts, Daschi, spent time with us one morning telling about the beliefs and traditions. He was so sweet and earnest and knowledgeable (he looked to be about 20, but really I have no idea). He had been playing music we recognized - a beautiful chant that every shop in Namche played constantly 14 years ago (so much so that we bought the CD, and just last year when I heard it in a little Tibetan shop at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, I just felt good).

Anyway, the chant. Om mani padme hum. Daschi told us a LOT about it, but what I remember is that it's a chant for peace and goodness for all beings, so it brings kindness and goodness. He talked about one of the deities with "kindness eyes" (nice image, huh?). The incence burner he swings around the lodge every morning and evening (again, his explanation was very detailed) basically cleanses wherever the smoke goes - chases away bad things and makes it clear/clean.

He said beauty is important. And kindness. In a world that is often hard.

He said that "you should always try to bring happiness to others, and if you can't bring happiness, do not bring sadness."

He also gave us a gift of an orange. We were very touched.

We've met so many interesting people, both foreign trekkers, and Nepali teahouse hosts. And a few amazing guides from some small trekking groups (the large groups tend to mostly interact with themselves). So many different and unique accents. So many different cultures and experiences and ideas.

So we've mananged to survive yaks, mules, ponies, stairs, suspension bridges, cold, wind, sun, rain, other trekkers, rocks, rocks, rocks, language barriers, in good health and happy. We are truly grateful.

The village of Gokyo on the lakeshore, with (left to right) Everest, Nuptse, and Lhotse above.

Our "guide" Lhotse, with the mountain named after him behind. Oh yeah, Everest too.

Three Million Mud Mules, Two Gompas, and One Earthquake

Okay, so it’s not REALLY 3 million mud mules. And they’re not REALLY mud. They just MAKE the mud. A lot. Plus poop. A lot. Just had to get the alliteration going for the title!

But first, a few random observations. We are Stairmasters! Yes, we are getting back into shape after a month of sloth. After our summer of Wilderness rangering in the North Cascades we were ready for anything! Actually, we were tired. But we’re back. Climbing the stairs of the Himalayas! And descending. And climbling. And descending. You get the picture. The trails are mostly rocks, stairs – some a foot tall, some neat and tidy, some all a jumble, some covered in mud. The rest of the trail is angular embedded rocks. Or just erosion gullies. Or jeep roads. Or frontyards of people’s homes. 

Here in the foothills (where the passes are at 10-11,000 feet), it’s STEEP. And it’s FARMLAND. Some of the terraces are a mere four feet wide! They mostly grow barley (I think), and we’ve seen kiwi trees (yes, kiwi, we ARE at the latitude of Miami), bananas, beans, amazing vegetable gardens, bamboo, giant poinsettia bushes, tall rhododendron TREES (50 feet tall? At least!) though not in bloom, marigolds and more marigolds. It’s chilly though, and we’ve had a lot of clouds, and one thunderstorm (during which we were happily ensconced at a tea house).

It's been quite peaceful. 

Except for all the new roadbuilding.

And thus the big lineup of jeeps and loud music as we came around a peaceful corner.

And there was the teahouse that had a TV on in the dining area (a TV!). They channel surfed, so we saw bits of everything from Nepali music videos, soccer (Bangladesh vs. Sri Lanka), World of Wrestling Smackdown, to a Nepali horror movie. Part of our cultural education!

Porters on telephones. Mule drivers on telephones. Kids on telephones. Our own phone has been exceptionally handy for helping us navigate through all the mishmash of roads and trails!

Okay, enough bits. On to mud mules.

So, one day, we’re exhausted. Yep. It's the stairs! And then more stairs. And WHAT? MORE STAIRS? Finally on the last stretch. The Nepalis ahead of us suddenly turn and head straight up the hill. Huh? Turns out it’s a “detour.” There’s a washout ahead and we can hear machinery. There’s no sign for this “detour,” but we clamber up, and meet a porter coming down who motions that yes, this is the right way. It’s a STEEP “trail” of mud and rocks, DEEP mud. We can see a mule train above us, heading up. We go up and up and up, and suddenly another mule train is coming down. We climb through mud to get out of the way, hanging on trees, while the mud mules pass. This happens at least 15 times in the next few hours. We, the Stairmasters, are ready to keel over. We went very slowly, so as not to fall and injure ourselves, or WORSE, get our clothes and packs muddy! We did finally make it to a lovely, if not all that clean, teahouse, and really enjoyed our evening dal bhat! Whew! The mud mules deserve a lot for all their hard labor. I hope they got extra special treats at the end!

We’ve been invited into two gompas (Tibetan Buddhist monasteries). One was empty (no services at the time) and we could wander and take pictures, and sit and absorb the beauty. The nun who showed us in placed a knotted maroon string thing around our necks. It was an absolutely spectacular place, so detailed, ornate, beautiful, clean, lovely, peaceful. Butter lamps, intricate designs and paintings, brass horns and bells and pots, all with carved designs. Outside there were beautiful water powered prayer wheels, lots of prayer flags, a fabulous view (we were over 10,000 ft.), and barley drying on tarps and cheese drying on woven trays.

The other gompa was having a service. We were invited to sit up front. There were chants and horns and cymbals (just like in “Seven Years in Tibet”!), readings, and about 40 monks sitting in their maroon and yellow robes. It felt like we had stepped back a thousand years, except for the monk with a high tech camera, and the multicolored LED string lights that flashed in rhythm with the chanting. We were served milk tea, and when a monk came around with the big tea kettle, we got MORE!  And there we met the mother of a Nepali who had climbed Everest 10 times, and set a record in 1999 of 21 hours on the summit. Don’t know the story behind that, but will look it up when we have better connections. 

And finally, the earthquake. Last Friday night, November 3. We were the only guests at a little tea house in Ringmu, run by a woman with a 15 month old on her back. She didn’t speak much English, but she did teach us the Nepali word for snow leopard (since we had our little stuffed animal that goes everywhere with us). It’s “him-chit-u-wa.” To bed early, but we awoke just before midnight to creaking and shaking. I first thought it was a wind blast, but then we’re, like, YIKES, an EARTHQUAKE! It didn’t go on for long, but it was enough to make us a bit worried. The next morning the woman said her kid fell out of bed. You could tell she was somewhat shaken by the whole thing (and no, the pun is not intended, but I couldn’t think of a better way to put it). It was a bit scary for everyone, and I’m sure it reminded people of the devastating quakes in 2015. We had a bit of internet later, and learned the epicenter was maybe 300 miles west of Kathmandu. We are to the east, 10 hours by jeep to where we started hiking. Or course, the jeep was crawling along much of the time over the worst roads ever, except for the high speed exit from Kathmandu in the dark, wee hours, and the ensuing winding road corners taken at lightspeed, all the while blasting Nepali music at high decibels. No seatbelts.

So we are happy to have survived thus far! We have seen amazing sights, met amazing people, eaten amazing food, learned an amazing amount. We are the lucky ones. Truly grateful to the universe.

              A few monastery pics:

                       cheese drying 

Kathmandu: Coffee, Cats, and Chaos

Okay, let’s get this straight right off. We have NOT had coffee, though it is UBIQUITOUS here now. And it’s not just the slightly coffee flavored tea I had once, trekking 14 years ago. It’s espresso, lattes, cappuccinos, latte art (even found a latte art school). 

I’ll admit, 14 years ago I succumbed after 7 weeks of trekking and no coffee (except the one tea/coffee mentioned above) to a REAL latte at “Starbucks” Lukla. Most folks trekking in the Everest area fly in and out of the tiny Lukla airstrip with its tiny tilted runway in tiny little planes where you watch the pilot getting his tea through the cockpit window before takeoff. We had hiked into the area, flying out at the end (taking off being the safer option here, Mom), which is what we’re doing this time as well. So, “Starbucks” Lukla here we come (though only on the way out!) For an extensive and riveting discussion of this historic event, see my blog post from December 10, 2009, titled “3,286 Cups of Tea and 3 Cups of Coffee…”. Hmmm, I don’t really remember that 3rd cup. I’ll have to go back and read up!

Anyway, what this is all getting at is that here in Nepal, for us it’s tea all the way! And not just any tea, but Nepali milk tea (black tea with spices, milk and sugar). ‘Cause where’s our cred in a foreign culture if we’re eating and drinking like Westerners? 

So it's also been dal bhat (which I love) for me every day. It’s the national dish, basically rice, lentils, and curried veggies when available. Here in the lowlands (Kathmandu is at 4,300 ft. elevation) it’s usually surrounded by an array of stuff to mix in – hot spicy things in various shapes and sizes, spicy pickled somethings, yogurt, maybe some pappadams (chiplike). AND they bring you SECONDS! Marc’s palate has been more varied: had something similar to dal bhat (though no free seconds) which included beaten rice – sort of a cross between regular rice and Rice Krispies… hmm…. interesting. We then generally head off to the half-price-after-7pm bakery to stock up for the next day. So yes, the food is pretty spectacular.

On to Cats (remember, the title of this post: Coffee, Cats, Chaos…just so you remember what you still have to look forward to).

I just read somewhere that Nepali families have more pets these days. We did see some happy, healthy cats in a number of shops – they have perches, litter boxes, and everything – they run between shops and seem at home and well loved. There are many felted-wool shops that sell cool felted-wool kitty houses (beds), a round, cozy, enclosed soft space that our two grandkitties would love. But carrying around two of these things is just not going to happen (sorry Persy and The Void). 

Oh, and when I say “shops” it’s probably not what you are picturing (unless you’ve been here or someplace similar). The shops endlessly line the narrow streets and alleyways (which are like canyons amongst the buildings), ranging in width from 4 feet (yes, four) to an expansive 8 feet. These tiny shops have so many colorful offerings: clothing made with sparkling cloth, meticulously fine mandala paintings, brass bells and Buddhas and singing bowls, prayer flags, felted yaks, embroidered shirts, beaded tapestries, sizzling food, and mountains of knock-off outdoor gear, tiger balm, flutes, and weird violin things (which we actually own from last time). Then you get past the tourist area to shops with pots and pans, meat out in the open, vegetable markets, and Western clothing. 

Which brings us to Chaos (remember the title).

All these streets are awash with swarms of motorbikes, cars, taxis, rickshaws, a weird tar “truck” belching smoke that looked like it was built out of a coal fired rototiller and spare bike parts, dogs, people, more people, more people. The vehicles do not have emissions control, and there seem to be no traffic rules, and there are hawkers of every type everywhere, dirt, noise, grime.

But still, it’s Kathmandu. Just the name is exotic.

A few days ago we were at Asan Tole – supposedly the busiest square in the city. Lonely Planet says that Cat Stevens wrote his famous “Kathmandu” song “in a smoky teahouse in Asan Tole.” So there you have it.

We do know how incredibly privileged we are, as Westerners. This area of Kathmandu (Thamel), so colorful and chaotic, is not the slums. We can walk into an expensive Western hotel and use the restroom, or just escape the clamor. We don’t get stopped because, well, we look like we belong in a Western hotel. The inequity is overwhelming. 

There is such a range of life here. 

We head off at 4am tomorrow for a 12 hour ride in a cramped jeep/SUV to Phaplu, where we’ll start our trek (we’ll be trekking for 40 days or so). We’re excited to get to the mountains. The Himalaya, the Land of the Snows. Phaplu is at 8,200 feet. So up, up, up we go!

So far we have internet. We even have a Nepali phone number (so we could get data). Such modern conveniences. It boggles the mind. 

Until next time, here’s a few pics.

                         Dal bhat

       Holden utilities job opportunities 

Circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula

Okay, I just think it's never amiss to start with flowers.
We'll get to the circumnavigation momentarily.

But first...

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION!

Littlewolf took us climbing and exploring. (Here he's saying, "What's with the pictures? Time's awasting!")



Went to Emin Muil.
(Luckily, Littlewolf has an in with Tolkien, so we only had a little trouble getting there.)

It looked a lot like Mt. Hinman in the central Washington Cascades.


(That's Rainier in the background.)


AND OUR TOMATOES (some of them) FINALLY GOT RIPE!

Yum.


AND NOW: ON WITH THE CIRCUMNAVIGATION!

THE BOAT (Lady Washington)


(The following was written in August, after crewing on the Lady Washington...)



CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA

(THAT'S IN WASHINGTON)

It’s been two weeks. Two weeks since “the boat.” Changes are afoot. Or, I should say, afinger.

My fingers are peeling. The underneath side. Two weeks ago I had no fingerprints. None, I’m sure of it. My fingers were soft and smooth as sea foam, as polished brass, as a dolphin’s back. Palms the same. They had been sandpapered daily, by the minute, every time I touched a rope, coiled a line, hauled a brace or sheet or tack or bunt or leech or clew or halyard, or even, I think, just came near to a rope or a line. (By the way, they are almost all lines, rope being the stuff lines are made from). I might have just sat down at a rotary sander each day. Ow. They were SO SMOOTH, it was just plain unnatural. They were at that stage where all excess had been sloughed off, fingerprints and all, and the underlying calluses were just starting to think about growing their protection business into an actual corporation, in which case, they would soon become like many a good corporation: rough, hardened, and difficult to remove. Two weeks ago, my fingers looked like sausages, and my hands were red as lobsters. Today, I can get my rings off (barely), but the color is a warm pink. I’ve managed to remove the tar from beneath my fingernails. And when I wake in the morning, my hands no longer tingle when I curve them around my coffee cup, and they uncurl on command, rather than remaining cramped in a claw-like imitation of an impatient, sea-faring T-rex just about to grab a snack.

My head spun for weeks, not on the boat, but once I got off. My body kept trying to anticipate the tidal forces, to catalog and counter each lurch and roll, each pitch and yaw, but the land doesn’t lurch, it’s pretty darned stable, and my lumbering brain took a while to catch up.

Ah vacation.

We’re back from our circumnavigation, by bus, boat (I mean THE boat of course), and bus again, of the Olympic Peninsula, that part of Washington State that schmoozes with the Pacific Ocean. The bus parts got us to Aberdeen (on the west coast) and back from Anacortes (north of Seattle, near the San Juan Islands) and were exciting only in that the little puddle jumper buses out in the toolies were just that, out in the toolies, and either free, or cheap enough that you could spend your money on important things like coffee and cinnamon rolls at a Mt. Vernon café. (The Greyhound station in Seattle, however, should be an embarrassment to the city – remember Obi Wan’s line from Star Wars, “You shall never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”? We found it.)

So, the boat part. “THE boat” is our term of endearment for square rigger Lady Washington. I know “the boat” is pretty pitiful in terms of creative zing, but you must admit, it is descriptive in the fact that of all the boats in the world, of all the boats that ever were, it is THE boat, and that tells you something. And as for creative naming, I grew up in a family where straight out description was valued and highly utilized – our cats were all named “Kitty,” “Little Kitty,” “Other Kitty” (“O.K.” for short), “Stubby” (yup, no tail), and so forth. Sometimes you just have to call it as you see it.

So (I repeat), the boat part. We crewed on Lady Washington this year. You may remember Lady Washington in her starring role as the Interceptor in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (the COOL boat that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom steal and sail around in, and that is blown up later on in the movie). You may also remember (especially if you scroll down to previous blog posts) that we learned all our crewing-on-a-tall-ship skills last summer on the Hawaiian Chieftain (these two boats are best buddies and are usually hanging out together). The Lady is a replica of a 1700’s boat, right down to its six miles of hand-abrading line (including more than 150 individual lines of running rigging coming down to the deck – the Chieftain, on the other abraded hand, only had about four miles of line, and newer rope much easier on my tender extremities).

We spent a few harried days in Aberdeen doing battle sails, adventure sails, a fireworks sail, all the while learning the ropes and sanding off our fingerprints, and dressed in period costume to boot. Plunged into a new universe of hardy souls and fast-paced action, I was more than a little tired (okay, my arms were Jello), so when the word came that we were being allowed to watch the fireworks from atop the yards (the yards being the wooden spars that hold the square sails and make a square rigger square) – truly a privilege, considering you are never allowed to just hang out in the rigging, or even go aloft for anything other than required and requested work, and then for never longer than necessary to get the job done – so even though it was this big privilege and CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, I now found myself following the rest of the crew somewhat reluctantly, after all it was only my second day of being in the Lady’s rigging, and I was not quite proficient at climbing upside down like a monkey (I can do pretty much zero pushups – I’m talking guy pushups here, not girl pushups of which I can do at least two). Besides, it was LATE, it was DARK, and I was TIRED. But I was also determined to not show myself as the zero pushup weakling I was, so I CLIMBED the rigging, YANKED myself up over the futtocks shrouds that do this little overhanging sort of thing, and sat panting and shaking on the “top” – that’s a platform midway up the mast – wondering throughout the fireworks display how I was getting down. I noticed Raina up on the fore t’gans’l yard (the highest one on the foremast) lounging like she was born there. Marc was right over my head on the main tops’l yard. Me, I tried to control my breathing with steely mind control while star spangled showers of blue and red burst overhead. I did get down, of course, with no embarrassing catastrophes. And later on, climbing the rigging did become a treat, but really, I do need to get back to my Mr. Universe body building program.

6:00 A.M. “roll and go.” Finally, time to head for open ocean. We left Aberdeen in a thick fog, the early morning quiet pierced by the clanging buoys and our foghorn blasts as we peered ahead looking for shadows that might materialize into logs, boats, buoys, and the Black Pearl. (I couldn’t help humming the pirate song from the very beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean. Remember the fog? Remember the music? It was JUST like that!)

Crossing the bar (where the river meets the sea), our calm water became rough and exciting, and as we motored up the coast (the wind was against us – in the old days, you’d just have to wait for a favorable wind), the swells came from one direction, the waves from another, and the wind from another. Waves were inviting themselves aboard and sloshing about like annoying party guests who’ve overstayed their welcome. The main deck was awash with each pounding jolt. The first couple of 4-hour watches were a trial to just make it through: we hurled our breakfast contents, and then our intestines over the side. Okay, so that’s a little gross, but I now know where the term “hurling” came from. Very descriptive. (I was happy to see that even a few of the regular crew had difficulty with this.) We put up the main stay sail to try to stabilize the bucking bronco ride, to no effect. At one point (I don’t even remember if it was night or day) a wave poured into the main hold where we were sleeping, and Raina was almost thrown off her bunk. Exciting, to say the least.

Finally (at about the halfway point), we turned east, into the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Now the wind and swells were at our back. We raised all the sails, and made 10 knots (almost top speed under sail for the Lady). The seasickness had subsided enough that I could go below for boat checks (checking the bilges to make sure the boat is not sinking faster than it’s supposed to, as well as checking various gauges in the engine room) – still carrying a plastic bag in my pocket JUST IN CASE. I could take my turn at the tiller without needing to be relieved to go hang over the rail for a few moments. (You may not remember the tiller from the movie. That’s because they covered it and put in a fake wheel – can you imagine Captain Jack standing by a TILLER? No, I thought not. Thus the wheel.) In rough seas, the tiller was another wild carnival ride, and it would take all you had just to keep it at the proper angle to keep the boat going in the right direction – you would sit and lean your entire weight on it, holding and releasing the locking mechanism, pushing and pulling, to keep your course, watching the compass to make sure you weren’t drifting. The compass has a big bubble in it named Rolf, for apt reasons. If you watch the bubble bounce all around, you have to head to the rail. Of course, in the beginning, I had to head to the rail anyway.

So it went, day and night, for two days and two nights. On our way down the Straits we were chased by squalls, but never had more than a sprinkling on deck. Still, during our watches we were bundled in most of our clothes and rain gear (this is July?), and once, at the end of my watch when I went back down to my bunk in the main hold, I threw myself immediately horizontal (the nausea was threatening to breach the sea wall at any moment), and lay comatose in all my gear until my next watch.

I tried to imagine life in the late 1700s, men sailing a boat identical to this out on the open ocean, in any kind of weather, miles and months from any kind of comfort. Identical yes, except, of course, they had no diesel engine, no GPS or accurate maps, no Coast Guard certified watertight compartments, no automatic bilge pumps, no safety harnesses for working aloft, no running water or electricity, no heads (meaning toilets – the “head” was over the rail at the head of the boat), no option to run back to their nice warm, safe homes after a week. I tried to imagine a life where speed is counted in literal knots (a special, knotted line is tossed over the stern, let go for a 28-second run of sand through a glass, the knots counted with the extra noted as fathoms and there you have it ), a life where the sextant is a new fangled device, workman’s comp unheard of, and your low paying job potentially fatal, whether from weather, disease, accidents, or people (including fellow shipmates, pirates, privateers, or the folks you are trading with). Hmmm. I’m a lucky sea dog indeed.

On our third morning, we sailed into Anacortes. Dropping sails and pulling into the marina felt like a time warp. We were suddenly confronted with million dollar yachts full of plastic and vinyl, ladies in fancy (clean) clothes walking small dogs along the docks, and diners spending more than I can imagine to eat miniscule portions of unpronounceable food while enjoying the view of million dollar yachts and small dogs.

Another few days of battle sails with the Hawaiian Chieftain and it was time to bus back to Seattle. Raina stayed on, crewing for another week through the San Juan Islands. Can you believe we left our sixteen year old daughter to fend for herself among a bunch of tall ship sailors?

Now, (as Captain Jack says), bring me that horizon.

And the final question: What would you do?

Hmmm....still thinking....