Category: Uncategorized

Shower in the Drake

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, Uncategorized1 Comment

The Drake Passage is the water between Argentina and the Antarctica Penninsula.  It is where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet near Cape Horn.  It is supposed to be some of the roughest water in the world, if not the roughest.  We have to cross the Drake Passage to get to Antarctica.  We are lucky and have pretty good conditions for the almost 2 days it will take to cross.  They said it was a 2 on scale of 1-10.  The boat is rocking side to side significantly.  Walking is difficult, but not impossible. You kind of have to plan your walking with the movement of the boat.  Stairs are daunting, but again, not impossible.  They have rails on the beds so you don’t fall out of bed.  Since I’m on the bottom bunk and I get out of bed often in the night to go to the bathroom, I took the rail off my bed.  So far, I have not rolled out of bed although at first, it was shocking that I didn’t.  I got a cold while were in Ushuaia so I feel horrible.  I haven’t showered since before we left Ushuaia.  A warm shower sounds amazing as the warm water and steam will help my stuffed-up nose and my hair was in need of shampoo.  So, I decided to risk it.

There was a large grab bar in the shower, so my plan was to just hold on to that.  There was a small opening to the shower stall with a shower curtain to close it off.  Like most things on a ship, you had to step over a threshold to get into the shower.  I got the temperature just right and stepped in.  The shower curtain is immediately all over me as the ship rocks to the side.  Yuck.  Then the ship rocks the other direction and I hold on to the handle.  All right, I got this.  Wait…. How do I get the shampoo out of the bottle and into my hair without letting go of the handle?  This is a two-hand job.  I did not plan far enough ahead.  I let go and get the shampoo bottle in my hand, but then almost get flung out the tiny opening to the shower.  I manage to grab the edge of the opening just before I became a fish out of water flopping on the bathroom floor.  I’m still covered in shower curtain.  Ok, time for a quick change of plan.  Now the plan is to stand in the back corner of the shower and bounce back and forth between the metal walls, just barely missing the opening.  This means you get to hit the shower knobs every once in a while, but that seems a small price to pay considering the terror of the shower opening.  I managed to get some shampoo in my hair, but I probably only got 60% of my hair clean.  That seems clean enough.  I got soap on my upper body and figured that the legs and feet got clean by way of gravity.  Of course, the basin at the bottom the shower didn’t drain fast enough so there is a small lake of water splashing around.  I couldn’t quite handle the bin they had put up high to hold your toiletries, so all my toiletries are all splashing around at my feet.  Scooping up the right one at the right time was a game in its own right.  When I was done with each one, I’d throw them out the shower opening and hear them rolling around out there.  And, of course, at several points in the shower, the water temperature would change drastically and suddenly.  The shower stall is so small there is no escape.  My right shoulder and left arm are now scorched and bleeding.  Ok, it didn’t burn enough to bleed or even blister, but it feels like it burned that bad.  At some point in the middle of the shower, there was no giving up.  I was going to win this battle even if winning meant partially clean.  I came out with a couple of battle wounds, but I did win.

Last Toast of the Year

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, Uncategorized2 Comments

We left our luggage by the boat and walked up the scary bridge to the boat.  It’s not a luxury ship by any stretch of the imagination.  It looks like all business and just enough comfort to get by.  We lined up in the lounge area to check in.  Tears just came and overwhelmed me.  I’m on the ship.  I’m actually finally going to Antarctica.  This is it.  I’ve wanted this for so long.  This isn’t the way I wanted to go, but this is way life brought it to me and in that, it is perfect.

In 2014 I applied for about 30 jobs in Antarctica and heard nothing.  In 2015, I applied for 53 jobs.  I got one interview.  It was a great interview, but the job was for an alternate position and I had already decided to move to Thailand.  I had two weeks to make a decision.  I decided on Thailand and I never heard back from the interview, so I chose correctly.  I had another Antarctica job call me to set up an interview, but when I called back to set up the interview, no one responded.  That was the job I was best suited for – it was a construction management job.  Then in 2017, I applied for about 15 more jobs.  Silence.  At some point I felt tired and old and decided to stop trying.  As my 50th birthday approached, I decided I would go as a tourist and it would be a birthday thing.  It is very expensive and with buying a new house, I was not able to save the money I needed to go.  It also seemed weird to think I was going to travel alone on my 50th birthday.  Not that travelling alone is an issue for me, but am I energetically accepting my aloneness by doing this?

This is the last continent that I have to visit.  It is also the last continent I have to take my late husband’s ashes to.  This is more than just a birthday.

I have always been so fascinated with snow and ice.  It might be because I grew up in Florida and never experienced either or is it something else?  I spend more time hiking and snowshoeing in the winter than I spend hiking in the summer.  I love seeing everything blanketed in white.  I love the sound of it as you walk through or slide over it.  So many sounds it makes.  At the same time, I also love the lack of sound as it insulates and quiets everything around it.  Ice and snow come in so many shapes, consistencies and gradations of color from bright blue to shades of grey, black or bright white.  Most people think I am crazy for liking the cold or wanting to go to a place with only rock, snow and ice.  What an amazing experience Antarctica would be to see a place most people can’t even fathom.  Plus……penguins…duh.

Then I meet and start dating Richard.  He actually wanted to go to Antarctica and wanted to go with me.  His desire to go helped me to get over the fact that I can’t actually afford this. This is no longer a statement of aloneness.  It’s a goodbye to a previous life, several previous lives actually.   It is the final grieving of those lives, a process that seemed to have no end.  It is the welcoming (with open arms) of a new life, a new relationship and a new maturity.  None of the new would have been as deep if the old had not been experienced and learned from.  But, at 50, it’s time to be free.  I have worked so unbelievably hard emotionally to have the life I want and to see life clearly for what it is.  This is my time now.  This is the trip that ceremonially claims this as my life!

So, I stand in line to check in, crying.  Richard asks if it is tears of joy.  I say that it is although it’s really tears of everything.  No one particular emotion, tears of finality, tears knowing some sort of waiting is over, tears knowing it’s not the Antarctica experience I wanted, but the one life wanted for me, tears that my bank account might never be the same, tears of relief, tears of relaxing and some tears of joy.

After we have all checked in and settled in to our rooms, we all meet back in the lounge again to talk logistics of the trip and to have a toast to the end of the year.  Oh, yea, it’s not only the end of my 40’s and the end of a few lifetimes.  It’s also the end of the year, and the end of a decade.  It’s the end of everything and the start of everything.  Off we go!

Throwing Rocks at Ice

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have decided that my new favorite pastime while hiking is to throw rocks at ice.  The rivers and lakes are trying to freeze over so ice is forming in some places.  Sometimes it’s thin enough to break through and splash the water below it.  Sometimes the rock just skids across the surface.  Rarely does the rock go where I want it to.  It often takes a few tries.  I had seen a video about people that like to skate on thin new ice.  If the ice has covered the whole lake, but is still thin, it acts like a drum and makes other worldly sounds.  We went for a hike to Columbine Lake and found it frozen.  I didn’t realize we had come upon it at just the perfect timing in its freezing process to be able to experience these sounds.  But, since throwing rocks at ice is what I do, I found a rock and threw it.  It skidded across the ice and pinging sounds radiated out from where the rock landed.  I was instantly reminded of a video I had seen about this and became very pleased with this good fortune.  We should have been going back so we wouldn’t get back to the car in darkness, but it was so much fun that we stayed for 20 minutes or so throwing rocks and icicles at the ice and delighting in the various sounds that the frozen lake gave back to us.

Post blog note:  Throwing rocks at ice is only a fall activity (it might be a spring activity, but no research has been done on this yet).  Once the snow starts falling and the temperatures don’t freeze and thaw, the rocks become frozen to the ground or buried under feet of snow so you can no longer get rocks to throw at ice.

Here is the video where I first heard these sounds of thin ice:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3O9vNi-dkA

And here are my pictures and videos:

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Ice Lake

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Ice Lake is a very blue lake near Silverton.  I tried hiking to it in the summer but didn’t even make it half way.  It was a very steep trail and was a longer hike than I had time for.  I did make it to Ice Lake Basin which was an amazingly beautiful basin.

In the fall 4 of us hiked up to Ice Lake.  The hike went by multiple waterfalls and a couple lakes.  When we got to Ice Lake Basin, I almost backed out of doing the full loop.  The hike had already been difficult for me and there was so much more to go.  But I pushed on.  The first lake we got to was Island Lake.  It was an unreal deep green like an emerald.  It was very windy and cold up there so we hid behind some rocks for lunch.  At this point we were done with the steep uphill so at least I knew I was going to be able to make it now.

Then the trail traversed over to a higher portion of the Ice Lake Basin and off in the distance I could see the bright blue of Ice Lake.  It seemed to be glowing from inside the lake.  It looked like the blueness of the lake was just a trick of the lighting as it was a richer blue than the sky.  As we got closer, the shade of blue did not change as I expected it to.  I’ve never seen a lake that color before.  It’s not the blue of glacial water, but a richer darker blue.  It looked like blue Kool aide.  It’s from the minerals in the area.  The creek coming out of the lake was a combination of silver and white.  The rocks near by were covered in a white chalky looking mineral.  As you looked off in the distance the creek snaked through the basin like a silver ribbon.

The hike down was steep and rocky until it got to the bottom of the Ice Lake Basin and then caught back up with the trail we took up.  There was a small waterfall where the creek came down from the lake.  When we were about to cross this portion of the creek, the couple in front of us stopped.  The guy was quite excited to dip his water bottle in the creek and take a drink.  What?  The rocks are all a ghostly white and you just saw the unnaturally colored lake above.  Why would you drink that?  His girlfriend asked how it was and he said “It tastes likes rocks”.  We stood there in disbelief unable to move.  How does he know what rocks taste like?  Is he going to be sick later?  We will never know.

The rest of the hike down was just as beautiful as the way up.  Overall, the hike was a bit more than I was physically prepared for and I was feeling beat up by the time we got back to the car, but I’m very glad I did the whole hike.

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Silverton Again

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When I went to Silverton this summer, I had a great time going four-wheel driving, but there were so many people on the trails that it was a little disappointing.  I thought it might be great to go back in fall when there were less people out and about and the fall colors would be at their peak.  I had some friends that wanted to go as well so we planned a fall trip.

The town was so much quieter than it had been in the summer.  It was almost deserted and it was real nice.  We had a beautiful day exploring the jeep trails and only saw a few other people on the trails.  We were able to drive a big loop that took us to the tops of some amazing mountain passes, down into Lake City and back to Silverton.

We did another day where we drove over Ophir pass.  I remember years ago when I found this great backcountry camping area by accident.  As we were leaving the small town of Ophir, I wondered if we could find the camping area again.  I saw a road turn off that looked familiar so we took it.  We drove through a rural residential area for a little bit.  It all looked familiar.  When we came to the ghost town of Alta, I knew we were close.  The camping area I was looking for was Alta Lakes and we found it.  We explored Alta Lakes for an hour or so.  We had lunch in Telluride and then did a short hike up to Bridal Veil Falls.  The falls were really cool and we spent quite a bit of time throwing rocks at the ice near the bottom of the falls.  We finished up the day in Ouray for dinner and some time at the hot springs.

This is such a beautiful area of the state.

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Sandbox

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

There is a small area of sand dunes in northern Colorado called the North Sand Hills Recreation Management Area.  I had no idea they were there.  They are only an hour and a half from where we live.  Three of us took atv’s up to play around in them.  On the way there, we had another cow traffic jam.  This seems to be becoming a thing that we run into everywhere we go.  It’s uncanny how many cow traffic jams there have been this year.  I should do a photo series of cow traffic jams.  It was a very windy day and the fall coolness had settled in the air.  This probably helped us to almost have the place to ourselves.  I imagine it is very busy in summer.  It is a giant adult sandbox.  It is such a foreign landscape of sand and small trees.  Our atv’s were not set up for sand so we had to be careful to not get stuck.  The sand was so much fun to play in.  It was beautiful to watch how it moved and shifted.  And of course, the photo opportunities were many.

The videos are far from professional and might even be considered bad, but they give you an idea of what it felt like.

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Fuck You Lake

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When I first moved to Granby I bought a hiking book for Grand County.  The book is horrible.  Almost every time I’ve tried a trail in there, it gave me old or false information and the whole hike I wondered if I was on the right trail.

The worst one of these was a trail that went along Stillwater Creek up to a lake.  The lake was not named in the book.  It wasn’t named on google maps or in my gps either.  The first time I tried the trail, I barely found the start of the trail.  It was winter so the trail was not obvious.  I hiked for about an hour crawling over logs and shuffling though the deep snow.  I thought I was on the trail, then I wasn’t, then I was.  Is this a trail?  It was one of the most beautiful winter forests I’ve been in, but maybe not a trail.  I gave up after an hour.  I tried two more times in winter, but never got near the lake.  The trail must only be visible when the ground isn’t covered in snow.

 

So I tried it twice in fall.  The second time I went, my roommate came with me.  Almost immediately we had to climb over downed trees.  Where did the trail go?  Then we’d think we found the trail again only to come to a place where there was so much dead fall that the trail was lost.  Then it got steeper with a drop off on one side hundreds of feet down to the river.  We kept the river to our right.  I was on hands and knees crawling over and under downed trees.  We were both concerned with falling toward the river, but the slope above was too steep to hike.  We crawled and fought our way through the mess of trees for about an hour and a half and both my hand and my face were bleeding.  We gave up and turned around to head back.  Obviously, who ever wrote this book never actually did this trail.  It probably was a trail at some point, but no one has hiked it in 5 – 10 years (except me).

I took a closer look a map when we got home and it looked like we could reach the lake from a different direction even though there did not appear to be any trails in that area either.  But no trail couldn’t possibly be worse than the one I had been trying.  At this point my roommate was about as obsessed with finding this lake as I was so we headed out to wander around in a different part of the wilderness.  I parked the car near an atv trail.  Good thing I didn’t try to drive down it.  I would have gotten stuck with no way to turn around.  It was so rough with huge convolutions in the ground that I couldn’t even imagine how you would drive an atv down it with out tipping the atv over.  It was a short trail that ended abruptly at a cliff.  Below the cliff was a valley that probably had been carved by the Stillwater creek.  The creek was not visible.  It was all marshy and wetland like.  This was the upper part of the creek that would flow into the lake.  We couldn’t get down the cliff and it looked like a trail went to the right along the top of the cliff so we followed that.  It was one of the steepest trails I’ve ever been on so we got quite the workout.  When the trail mellowed out it looked like it was going away from the lake so we left the trail to head downhill again toward the lake.  It was steep and there were more downed trees than the other day.  The trees were bigger and almost impossible to crawl over.  About an hour of this and my roommate was cussing up a storm.  There was no turning back now, though. We were both determined to find the lake. Then we could see a clearing in the distance that had to be the lake.  Just 10 minutes more and we’d be at the edge of the trees.  There was no lake.  You can tell there might have been a lake a long time ago.  Now it was just brown marshy land.  I am all scratched up for this.  I bled for this.  And I still have to hike back up through the steep forest of twisted unforgiving dead trees.  I don’t know what the name of this dead lake is, but I’m naming it Fuck You Lake.  We both yelled at it for a little bit.  And then cried a little when we realized there was no easy way back to the car.  We had to go the way we came in.  It was a tough hike out, but we will never wonder what Fuck You Lake would have been like if only there was a trail there.

Bear and Beaver

On By rrainefioreIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Driving home from Denver, almost to Winter Park, I looked out the window and saw a bear walking by a pond. We pulled the car over and got out to watch the bear.

There was a small Beaver den on the pond. The bear was walking around the Beaver den sniffing at it and pawing at the logs. At the same time we could see at least two Beaver swimming around the pond. It took a few minutes for us to realize what was going on. The bear wasn’t interested in something near the den, the bear was trying to get into the den.

It didn’t take long for the beavers to know what was going on. They swam out into the middle of the pond and slapped the water with their tails. If you weren’t standing up high where we were, it might look like a fish jumped out of the water. It worked. The Bear’s attention was drawn to the water and he started swimming out into the middle. They kept slapping and the bear kept swimming. The bear did three or four laps around the pond. Eventually, the bear got out of the pond and wandered off until we couldn’t see where he went. The beaver den was safe for another day.

Aspen

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I think Aspen trees are wonderful.  Their trunks are great looking, especially in the winter in a grove of all white and black.  Aspens with leaves are even more wonderful.  The leaves seem so thin and small that the light just runs through them like they are opaque.  This makes the leaves look like they are lit from within.  When there is a breeze, they flutter like tissue paper, like they are barely holding on.  They shine and shimmer as they shake on the tree like glitter.  The sound is a soft shaking sound that doesn’t quite sound like rustling leaves, but a soft murmur.  And then fall, magic.  Most aspen trees turn a vibrant yellow.  As you look out across the mountain, you see a sea of dark green and glowing gold.  Some years the conditions are just right and some of the aspen turn orange and a few turn red.  The landscape is on fire.   Aspen trees are wonderful.

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3 Lakes

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The guy I’m dating skis at least once a month.  He asked me to go skiing with him in August.  It was also his birthday.  I have no desire to ski in August, but I wanted to celebrate his birthday with him.  So, the plan was for him and another friend to ski Skyscraper Glacier and I would hike up and down with them.

The hike up was a little rough for me, but only for a little while.  The top of Skyscraper Glacier is at about 12,000 feet so I was huffing and puffing a bit.  I can’t quite imagine doing it with skis attached to my pack.  There were quite a few cool looking rocks along the way.  As often happens, I did end up with a pocket full of rocks by the end of the morning.  It was beautiful being up at what appears to be the top of the world, especially since it was a Wednesday and working was the other option.

After they left me to ski, I headed around the glacier to pick a path down the steep slope and them meet them at the bottom.  I met a really nice marmot on my path.  He stood up on his hind legs and watched me.  We had a little conversation, but it was a pretty one-way conversation.  I spoke and he listened.  I was off any trails that existed at this point and chose a path down the steep slope.  It was steep enough that I had to make switchbacks every few feet.  I thought I might fall many times, but I didn’t.  But the views were great.  I could see three different lakes at the same time – Lakes Betty, Bob and King.  There was also this great boulder field below me.  I got to the boulder field and wow the boulders were huge.  It took quite a long time to get through the boulders as I was on both hands and knees crawling over them for a lot of it.

I finally got through the boulders and was able to take some pictures of them skiing.  The hike out was so beautiful.  There were wildflowers, the lakes and even a small waterfall.  How beautiful the continental divide is.

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