Bike Cycling

Dear Everyone,

Sorry for the lack of posts! We still do fun stuff but we haven't kept up with the blog lately. We'll try to do better since I know you all are checking in regularly.

Here's a photo from Bryan's recent 65 mile bike ride!

Bryan & Aly

Hooray, SNOW!

Last night we went to bed smiling as the Who Dat Nation celebrated the Saints' victory in Superbowl XLIV. This morning we awoke to a snow covered yard.

Really? Did hell freeze over because of a football team?!?!

Who cares? We finally have enough snow to play in! Mandy and Bryan built a snowman (Bryan's first-ever) then they had a snowball fight and built a snow fort which, fortunately, didn't see any action. I drove to work but didn't stay long; I did a perfect donut in the parking lot (right in front of the surveillance camera) and was home for lunch.

The snow came down in big, fat, heavy, wet flakes and the weather oscillated between rain and snow most of the afternoon. We took a nap and then built another snowman before suppertime. The roads are ok tonight but will probably freeze over, and Bryan and Mandy already know they're staying home again tomorrow.

Sometimes you just need to camp

It's been a long, icky sort of week, so we decided this weekend to camp at Lake Ouachita State Park. We planned to stay in the campground and go for a couple of bike rides from there. Mandy's had a bad cold, though, so the 25-mile route Bryan had planned for Saturday was scrapped in favor of just exploring the state park.



Since the park's mostly oriented toward fishing and watersports, it's very quiet in the wintertime. It was nearly deserted on Super Bowl weekend. We took the outermost walk in tent site, on a little peninsula, and had the whole place to ourselves. The water was glass-smooth and the woods were completely silent. It was almost like backpacking, but with a lot less work, and a warm bathhouse.



We call this 'Still Life with Camp Shoes and Kleenex.'



Mandy spent a pleasant, chilly evening sniffling and poking at her campfire. We had grilled brats and chips and beer and cream soda, which felt like a special treat compared to our usual fare of freeze dried backpacking dinners.



The low overnight was around freezing, and the morning didn't warm up as expected. This, combined with Mandy's persistent cold, meant that we cancelled our Sunday ride and rested after breakfast instead.



It wasn't a weekend of high adventure, but we enjoyed the quiet lake and the winter woods.

Go, Mom, Go!

All week, the weather forecast has indicated that yesterday we'd get a half inch of ice topped with up to several inches of snow. We were tremendously excited. We were all off work/school on Friday, but all we got was a very disappointing half inch of frozen rain and stupidity. Which we were determined to sled on. Before breakfast, I sanded, waxed, and resanded the runners of my old sled.



After a few test runs in our neighborhood, we drove to a nearby subdivision with a good quiet hill, complete with a good ninety degree turn at the bottom.



Here's the SleddinCam Bryan set up, because he's cool like that. And yes, it obstructed the pilot's view just as much as you'd think from this photo. But I didn't care. Check out the video from that run down the hill...



Below are some ice-covered pretties that Bryan photographed while waiting for me to walk back up, because I got waaaay farther than he did due to my superior skill at hurtling down hills. Remember, I was raised by teenaged boys. Sometimes it shows.

They fly?

Here is a photo of the type of "squirrel" we've been dealing with in our attic. This one appeared in our living room tonight without any invitation, probably due to the cold weather we're having again. It (and the others I've removed over the last few months) are apparently southern flying squirrels.

Our cat Jose chased him into the kitchen and we thought he would take care of everything. Except all he wanted to do was play with the stupid thing. I was called to the scene to dispatch the squirrel and save the women folk and in short order peace was restored to the homestead.

Unicycles on Ice

On Friday, there really wasn't enough snow to play in, but enough sleet had fallen that the streets in our neighborhood were pretty slippery. So we thought a good idea would be to see if Mandy could ride a unicycle on it. I'm hard pressed to make this sound like a responsible parenting decision.



I think that up to now she has had the impression that she rides the uni in a straight line; this afternoon's tracks in the snow prove otherwise.



And yeah, in retrospect, we probably should have had her wear a helmet today.

Be sure to note the noise made in this video by the still-falling sleet. It was a good day.

Roof vent goopy-goop

With the eight inches of rain we received in two days back at Christmas time, we became aware that the ~23 year old house had a leaking roof vent.

So we took a clear afternoon and got out the ladder, some roof vent goopy-goop, latex gloves and proceeded to smear each vent with a layer of sealer.

We're hoping the sealer does the job and when we wind up replacing the roof (original to the house) we'll replace all the vents outright.

Lynn Rides Again

Lynn Brucker rides a unicycle at CRF Hamilton Valley. Also in the photo (l-r) are unknown, Lynn Brucker, Mandy Harris, Matt Goska, Joyce Hoffmaster, and Mike Carter (the one from Arkansas).

Mandy brought our unicycle to Hamilton Valley at New Years to show off her new found unicycling skills and in conversation with the Bruckers, Mandy found out that Lynn used to be able to ride a unicycle.

So on the last morning of the Expedition, Lynn tried out Mandy's uni on the sidewalk in front of the bunkhouses. I was loading up the car when Aly tapped me on the shoulder and told me to grab my camera so as to document the moment.

I shot the scene with my Pentax K10D shooting away at 3fps, hoping to catch something but not knowing if it would be success or failure. Lynn made two short but successful rides and the image shown above is a composite from this second ride. Remember to click on the image to see it larger.

If anyone can identify the guy on the left, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Jellybean Storage Epiphany

I'm pleased to report that with this past weekend's hike, I've perfected my jellybean routine. Really, this is such an important point that I've removed mention of it from the actual backpacking blog entry and made it an entirely separate post. That's how important it is that you understand.

For years, Jelly Belly beans have been a sort of ritual for me. I always hike with a baggie of them, and I eat them one at a time and make a note of what flavor they are. For years I've fought ripped jellybean bags and been frustrated by floppy Ziploc and sticky beans spilled out in pack pockets and left to fuse themselves together in the damp darkness.



I recently had a Jellybean Storage Epiphany and bought this fabulous rectangular Nalgene from the Container Store. It fits perfectly in my hipbelt pocket and makes me very happy. I cut out the 'flavor guide' or whatever it's called, cut it in half, and stuck it to the sides of the bottle with packing tape.



And then I asked Bryan to take these excellent photos of my Jellybean Bottle. That's how important it is that you understand. (Thanks sweety!)

Ouachita Trail, Section 3

I wanted to start out fresh, west to east, to see if we could hike the whole 220-mile trail in a year or two. I even bought the newest edition of the Ouachita Trail guidebook, just for the occasion. We'd intended to take Martin Luther King's three day weekend to do section one. The 90% chance of rain on Saturday changed that, though, because none of us wanted to start out a January backpacking trip with a day of rain. The revised two-day hiking plan called for section three instead, starting from Queen Wilhelmina State Park.

In the parking lot there, we met a dayhiker from Texas. "How long have you been making HER do this?" he asked, gesturing toward Mandy, next to the car, fiddling with her hiking poles. I understand that most twelve year olds don't think carrying a 20-pound pack seventeen miles is a great weekend, but we assured him that Mandy was in the woods because she wanted to be.



Before long we left our dayhiker behind, doing a pencil sketch at a pretty overlook. Some time after lunch, we picked up a cache of water we'd left near the FR 516 road crossing, and pumped our bottles and platys full, too, since day two's hike will be along a 'razorback ridge' with unreliable water supplies.

We camped in the creek bottoms past the crossing. Bryan and Mandy enjoyed their Mountain House freeze-dried beef stew, and Mandy expressed great disappointment that tomorrow night we'd be off the trail, so she wouldn't be able to eat the macaroni and cheese she'd picked out. I'm glad they like this stuff, but I still can't find freeze dried food I like. I'm going to start eating oatmeal for supper, too, I guess. We dutifully hung our food and toiletries from the trees. Since we found evidence of a previous fire we built a small one, too, though it was chilly enough that it really didn't help a lot.



There are plenty of evident camp spots on this section of trail, many with fire rings. We saw one right next to an old, old stone wall mentioned in Ernst's trail guide. I can't help but wonder what story the wall could tell. Who lived here, way back when this narrow road trace was the way to school, or to the store, or to the neighbors'? How far away were those things? What was life like, in these woods, all those years ago? We run across evidence of people living here seldom enough that, when it happens, it's worth spending some daydream-time on.



Day two's hike was similarly pleasant and uneventful, except for sore feet and tired hips. The weather was nice; quite warm for January, but still pretty chilly in the wind. Bryan, with his Adventure Watch, pointed out that we were finding the mile markers exactly a half-hour apart: we were still making two mph, even on this very rocky section of the trail. Just at dusk, we arrived at the Highway 71 road-crossing. We loaded up the truck and headed back to pick up the Subaru, and some supper, and to start the long drive home in the dark.

2009 Activity Summary

Click on the image to see it larger (i.e. readable!)

In January 2009, we set some goals for ourselves to make sure we kept participating in the outdoor activities that we love instead of sitting on our arses getting fatter. The chart above shows the goals we set as well as what we actually achieved.

We decided on three categories to track last year: nights spent sleeping outdoors (bag nights), miles hiked and miles biked. The hiking miles and bag nights were educated guesses whereas the cycling mileage was a totally made up number... which may explain why we didn't achieve that goal!

But it's good to set goals that make you stretch a little, eh?

For 2010, we've bumped up our bag nights by two or three nights but we left the hiking mileage at 100 miles. We've set a more realistic cycling mileage (600 for Bryan, 300 for Mandy and Aly) and we hope to have another active year.

PS - As far as the not getting fatter... "Ha!" and "Yeah right!" I'm (Bryan) the fattest I've ever been and that isn't a good thing. Maybe I need to add a year end weight goal to my portion of the chart? (c:

Crocheting 101, with Shirley Fox

Mandy decided, more or less out of the blue, that she wanted to learn to crochet. I showed her a chain stitch.



She had a scarf half-finished by the time she arrived at Hamilton Valley. Shirley Fox helped her along with advice and encouragement, and she declared the scarf finished. I think "finished" means "I'm tired of this" and I think that point arrived somewhat before the scarf was actually the width that it should be. No matter. She was taught a better stitch and started on a hat.



Shirley's been sending Mandy encouraging emails and links to patterns for spiffy slippers, too. We'll see if we can figure out those patterns on our own. And after that, stay tuned for macrame. Or tatting. Or, hell, auto mechanics, for all I know.

New Years at Mammoth Cave

On Thursday morning, we left for Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It's Mandy's and my fourth straight New Years at Mammoth. Bryan's spent six of the last seven New Years in Kentucky. We enjoy the company there as much as we like the caving.

As usual, the New Years' party was, well, subdued. There was beer and wine and orange Koolaid. I had made several kinds of crunchy breadsticks to share, and they were set out on the table in clear glass jars along with the things others had brought. But as the evening wore on, more and more cavers filtered off to bed. By midnight there were only a half dozen of us on the Watsons' old yellow couches in front of the fire, to share Mandy's bottle of sparkling juice and toast the new year.



Bryan caved on Friday, with Lynn Brucker, Joyce Hoffmaster, and Jeremy Reedy. They went up Snail Trail to survey in a crawl. He'd just gone to the Goodwill store for expendable clothing, and so was caving in a purple dress shirt and a pair of houndstooth plaid pants. He was sad to find that his cuffed pants had to be tucked into his rubber boots. And he also learned that Snail Trail's not a great place to wear a button-front shirt. It's too bad he's worn out his yellow Meander suit.



After the cavers were out of camp, Mandy and I hiked with Charles to the Salts entrance. The park has changed all the cores in the locks, and asked CRF to try out the new keys to confirm that everything's working. It was cold, in the mid-twenties, and Mandy broke the ice in all the puddles along the road. Below the trickling waterfall the big cage of a gate was breathing out a great cloud of warm steam. We walked back to camp and then spent the rest of the day on our usual minor aboveground projects (lunch, the visitors' center, the gift shop, and Floyd Collins' grave) before heading back to Hamilton Valley for a nap and to help in the kitchen.



On Saturday, it was my turn to cave. I went with Ed Klausner's group to work on a survey in Belfry Avenue. We entered through the arched doors of the Carmichael entrance and hiked down past the Snowball Dining Room, down El Ghor, down Silliman Avenue, then to Cascade Hall (where we got to see the "tourist trail handrail" from the connection between Flint Ridge and Mammoth!)



From there we continued on to Stephenson Avenue to Opossum Avenue (where there is a set of directional arrows in the ceiling carved by Max Kaemper) and then to Belfry. The passage we surveyed was a close fit, but dry and sandy: curving question marks cut by water into the cool stone.



And then we walked, for miles and miles, in the longest cave in the world, past our own history. And then we were back out in the cold night, where it was starting to snow.

(The caving photos in this post were taken by Nicole Bull.)

Christmas (Observed)

Since Mandy is always out of town on the 25th, in Tulsa, we manage to drag the holiday out for several extra days. This year, because I work for the university, I had a week and a half off for Christmas. We slept late every day, and I made something yummy for breakfast, every single day.

On Christmas Eve, Bryan made a holiday meal of homemade moo goo gai pan with our favorite cheap white wine.



On Christmas day, we took extra naps and went out for a traditional Christmas Dinner at the local Chinese buffet restaurant. On the day after Christmas, I discovered that the afternoon squares of sunshine appear on the living room floor just as I get sleepy. Trust the universe.

And today, Sunday, Mandy's home, and now it's really Christmas! We went out for Chinese food again, and then we put on our pajamas, which she insists we wear while opening holiday gifts. We opened our presents and drank Bryan's eggnog and watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on the laptop.

True Grit?

The Coen brothers are doing a movie based on the novel "True Grit" by Charles Portis. They're looking for a girl who is "tough and tells it like it is" to play Mattie Ross. Debbie Hope, who really only knows Mandy by reputation, emailed me to say she thought of Mandy when she heard about it. I mentioned the casting call to Mandy and she decided that it was an interesting idea.

So Saturday morning, she and I went to the Peabody (along with every other young teenage girl in Arkansas) to interview for the part. I had to find a photo to take along, and Tom Riley at my office said we couldn't do much better than this year's rather practical-looking school photo.



While we waited, Mandy read the coverless paperback copy of "True Grit" that I've had for years. The casting people did group interviews, with twelve girls at a time. In Mandy's group, the casting director asked "what do you like to do with your friends?" Everyone else in Mandy's group said that they liked to go to movies and send text messages. Mandy said she liked to backpack and cave. Everybody else got sent home. They kept Mandy.

They gave her three pages of script from the movie and an appointment to come back that evening to read for the part. Once Mandy confirmed that we could do that and still have supper with our friends Britt and Debbie, she practiced her scene, in which she was supposed to tell a stable owner that he should pay her back for a horse stolen while in his care. After pasta and salad and a unicycling demonstration at the Thompson's, she and I went back to the Peabody for her audition.

The other girls were called in, one by one, and we heard murmurs behind the door as they practiced the lines once and then recorded their auditions for the camera. Mandy drew a reindeer on the back of her script.



Then Mandy was called in and the door closed. And if what they are looking for is a little blond girl with green eyes who is PISSED that her horse was stolen, then folks, that's what they found. No quiet murmurs behind the door for this one. I heard her yelling all the way in the next room. "THAT HORSE was stolen while it was under YOUR CARE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!"

So that's how things ended. We went back to Britt and Debbie's for cupcakes and board games and then headed home. None of us thinks Mandy has any chance to get the part, since this is a multi-state thing, and just here in Little Rock they had a whole herd of girls coming back to film auditions. We'll know for sure when a month goes by and we haven't heard from them.

But it's fun to think about, and it will make the movie fun to watch when it comes out, won't it?

She's Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas

Mandy tried out for a cute little part in the choir's Christmas program: "My favorite things" from the sound of music, I think. You know, the "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" song. The teacher gave those parts to quiet, sweet girls with ribbons in their hair. She had our daughter sing "I broke my bat on Johnny's head, somebody snitched on me."

It's almost as if the choir teacher knew about that incident in which the classroom bully-boy got a black eye. Which was of course an accident. Or the time when Mandy accidentally stepped on Hunter's head. It was purely coincidence that he'd just said something mean to her.

The high school auditorium was packed; I'll bet there were two thousand people there. Mandy wore a hat and sang on key. We enjoyed the program and were proud of her.

Here's the solo part to Mandys Christmas concert/song... thank me later for just putting up the solo and not the whole two hour concert (complete with a song about Santa in camo... I hate Saline County sometimes).

Installing our Christmas Tree

This year we decided we'd try a time-lapse video of the tree decorating. The video is long and honestly not very interesting, so you probably shouldn't actually watch it unless you're really having a slow day. The high points include trying to trim the lower branches with a giant lopper thing without bonking somebody in the head with the hugely long orange handle, and Mandy dancing with the cat.

Several days later, the tree still looks beautiful with its mix of red balls and silvery snowflakes and sparkly icicles and family ornaments. It keeps leaning much farther toward the kitchen, though, as if it wants a sandwich.

Christmas Tree Hunting

Last year, our first family Christmas, Bryan and Mandy declared it imperative that we buy a real tree, from a real farm. We found a great place complete with healthy trees, a good selection, a brisk business, and a cheerful older couple who informed us that they were retiring.

So this year we had to start from scratch again. On the advice of an acquaintance we headed toward Sardis. Three farms later we finally found a tree big enough for our living room that wasn't overpriced and overgrown. The best part? We can go there next year too.

Thanksgiving in New Orleans

We arrived in Metairie at a completely normal two in the morning. Because that's just how we travel.



On Thanksgiving morning, after a trip to Morning Call for beignets, we helped put together a big dinner. This is the first year in memory that the meal's been at Bryan's mom's house instead of his grandmother's. This year our contributions were a turducken and Bryan's lemon-snow pie. The turducken (a conglomerate mass of stuffing inside a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey) was okay. The pie was wonderful.



After lunch, Mandy put on an impressive unicycling demonstration. (Over the course of the afternoon she taught herself to ride off an 6-8" dropoff.) And then we went to Bryan's Aunt Lynn's for Thanksgiving supper. And then his Uncle Edgar and I conspired to break a lovely decorative serving plate by flinging it across the driveway. This is something Uncle Edgar and I hope everyone forgets about before next year.

On Friday, after a trip to Morning Call for beignets, we picked up Bryan's grandmother and headed into New Orleans. We parked at the end of the streetcar line and rode all the way down Carrollton and St. Charles, past the park, past Tulane, past all the interesting houses, past history.



We got off at Lee Circle and walked to the National World War II Museum. (Mandy had chosen this spot from a list of possible Friday activities, based entirely on the fact that she knew nothing about WW2. I was proud of this reasoning. Most of us choose based on things we know and like, things we've already filled in somehow; Mandy chooses based on blank places.)

The museum is EXCELLENT. It's well put together, with a great mix of physical artifacts and printed-on-the-wall stories and little alcoves with continually playing movie clips about different small pieces of strategy and destruction and sadness. It's put together chronologically and makes sense. After eating lunch we saw the movie in their new "4-D" theater, which was stunning. I think we all learned a lot, from Mandy all the way up to Bryan's grandmother, who clearly remembered getting shoes with ration stamps. And we enjoyed the streetcar ride back to the Subaru.

On Saturday, Mandy got up early to go fishing with Bryan's dad and his brother Kevin. This time not only did they catch actual fish, but she managed to stay in the boat. (Last time she'd fallen out while peeing off the side.) After a trip to Morning Call for beignets, Bryan and I had some rare quiet time to visit with his Aunt Dot. During this "quiet time" Bryan and I demonstrated our skills on the Rolla Bolla we had recently constructed. Bryan is able to do a "jump mount" onto the Rolla Bolla and then juggle three balls while continuing to balance.



And in the evening we ate what fish our fishermen had caught, along with Bryan's rice pilaf and some cauliflower withbeachamel sauce.



After supper we had a little birthday party for Mandy, complete with the now-traditional birthday doberge cake. And there were presents: some clothes and games, a neat book, cards with money, and the real prize: a new pocketknife from Mister Grandpa JD!







On Sunday morning we met up with our friends Beth and Jeff in order to say our first hello their new baby, Lucy. (Don't worry, I still got my beignets. We met at Cafe Du Monde.) By the time we got back to the house, Bryan's dad had my old broken sled all torn apart. He was replacing the splintered deck with new white oak slats. After a trip to Lowe's for bolts for the sled, and a trip to Dorignac's for groceries we can't find at home in Arkansas, and a stop for poboys at the gas station, and goodbyes all around, we loaded up and headed home.



The trip home went well, though we drove in and out of rain. At ten pm, in Dumas, we stopped to get a snack at McDonald's. In a downpour, we turned back onto the highway and started driving again. Our conversation was tedious and involved, as it always is when there's nothing pressing to discuss but there's a need to keep words flowing, on a drive, late at night, just for something to hang in the air, just to keep eyes open and on the road. I think we were talking about skydiving. The rain came down in sheets. About an hour later, expecting to be near Pine Bluff, Bryan remarked that it was odd to see a lake, there, on the left-hand side of the road. A green road sign that it was just 16 miles to Greenville. And that wasn't good, because we'd crossed the Greenville bridge hours before.

We'd turned the wrong way, in the rain, in Dumas. And we'd driven south for an hour before noticing. We couldn't be mad--as driver, Bryan should have had the sense to know which way to turn, but as the copilot, I should have had the sense to notice something was wrong. There was nothing to do but turn around. It was still raining at midnight, and as we drove past the McDonald's in Dumas again, the light blinked off.

We got home at two in the morning. Because that's just how we travel.

On One Wheel

The answer is: one week. It took her one week to learn to ride a unicycle. Bryan still can't ride more than ten feet. I barely even get up on the seat. And the child orbits us in big, sweeping left-handed circles, smiling, held up by the wind.



All cavers, it seems, have a bat sticker on the rear of their vehicle and this caver is no different.



Here's a short video taken on Saturday afternoon, in the parking lot of a nearby church. There's still lots to learn, some priorities being how to get on by herself, and how to turn RIGHT (not left). But my daughter may now be the best unicycle-rider I know.