Tom Crean Book, South Pole Pub

Tom Crean: Unsung Hero of the Scott and Shackleton Antarctic Expeditions: Michael Smith: 9780898868708: Amazon.com: Books:

I finished the linked book and enjoyed it very much.

On our trip to the Dingle peninsula in Ireland we visited the South Pole Pub in Annascaul where I had a pint of Crean's Irish Lager and bought the glass.

Crean made three voyages to Antarctica.

1. The Discovery with both Scott and Shackleton. 
2. The Terra Nova voyage with Scott in which Scott lost the race to the South Pole to the Norwegian, Amundsen and then lost his life on the return from the pole along with his team of four. 
3. The Endurance with Shackleton, where the ship was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea and through many feats of great risk, skill and luck, all hands returned! 

The book "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" is in my opinion the greatest true adventure tale ever told. It is in one of the two greatest "successful failures" in history, the other being Apollo 13. Although on the human endurance front, the length of time, the isolation, and the self-reliance to get out on their own, Endurance stands alone. The ship was named with such foresight it defies belief! 

If you are only going to read one book about the golden age of arctic exploration, read Endurance, but if you are reading two, this one has a lot to suggest it (especially if you have any plans to go to Ireland!). It gives you an overview of that time when people thought of exploring the poles in the same way as we thought of exploring the Moon in the '60s. It gives you an overview of the British being stuck to the "man hauling" technique while the Norwegians used dogs and skis and accomplished much more with much less loss of life. 

The item I enjoyed the most that I think I had heard hinted at somewhere, but I don't recall being covered in "Endurance", relates to the crossing of South Georgia Island by Shackleton, Crean, and Frank Worsley (the greatest navigator in the history of the world). The route that they took was not crossed again until 1955 by a group of explorers with full gear over a week of time. Given the fact that Shackleton, Crean and Worsley had no tents, so were forced to do it before they fell asleep and died of exposure, comparisons are questionable.

The highly interesting aspect of the crossing is that each of the men, interviewed separately in later years with no communication with each other, each said that "there was something odd about the journey ... multiple times I was certain there were four of us". For the believer, an explanation is pretty easy -- it is very hard to imagine everyone surviving the Endurance voyage without divine intervention. But as always, it COULD be explained by "skill, luck, great personal strength and will, ... or possibly space aliens". Those that are certain there is no divine intervention tend to find space aliens more likely.

That was my FAVORITE part -- it is far from the only great part. Crean has a number of exploits including a solo 18 hour 35 mile hike when food had run out and the men could no longer move that saved the lives of Edward Evans and Bill Lashly. Evans went on to become an Admiral in the Royal Navy and never forgot Tom Crean.

The best way to get some perspective on these guys is to think of them as the astronauts of the day. Humans always had heroes for 1000s of years -- real heroes. Soldiers, explorers, musicians, artists, etc.  The polar explorers were major heroes of 100 years ago. Those of us alive in the '60s knew what it was to have special heroes in the astronauts.

Given a lot of the response to "American Sniper" perhaps at least in N America and Europe, the astronauts  might be the last heroes before we "progress" to a world of "equality of result"?

Tom Crean had very few if any equals in polar exploration. I rather enjoy a world of actual diversity -- of gifts, skill, result, thought and a million more aspects. Perhaps I was born too late. 

'via Blog this'

Loving Progressives, 277 Miles

http://www.progressivesuspension.com/

Readers of this Blog may believe that I'm biased against "Progressives",  but only in the concept of history, definitely NOT in suspension!

I put the Progressive fork setup on the Wing June of 2013 and loved it. I had ordered the rear spring that went with it winter of '14, but it got back ordered so it missed the rear tire replace for the big spring trip last year and I didn't get it installed until after we got back from our Ireland trip this spring. I had really only rode it a short distance since, so didn't have much to say until now. 

A progressive spring is more compliant (soft) than stock at the top of it's range, but is constructed/treated in such a way that the more it is compressed, the former it gets. It is like the Incredible Hulk -- the greater the force applied against him, the stronger he gets! (which is why a battle between the Hulk and Superman would be such a cataclysmic event, but I digress).

In the real world, this means that you have an overall better ride, and as the bike is pushed in corners the suspension is firmer. Much like a stainless steel prop on a boat (better hole shot, better top end), the result is a rare engineering WIN WIN!

Anyone that has done any form of engineering knows how rare this is -- the typical situation is TRADE-OFF. You add power but it increases weight and reduces mileage, add speed to a chip but have more heat to dissipate, etc. etc.

Indeed, in both the stainless prop and the progressive spring, the trade-off is still there, it is COST.  My opinion on motorcycle suspension is that the cost is FAR outweighed by the benefit, but as in everything in the real world, THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH! Which is one reason why "progressive" politics fail, but this isn't about politics!

My verdict is that the front suspension change made a far bigger change than the rear in handling, but the rear is maybe of greater import on long rides / rough roads. It REALLY makes the bike ride nice. It perhaps adds another 3-5 MPH of confidence speed in curves as well. Which means that overall it is an upgrade that does tend to put a smile on your face!

My guess on the cornering aspects are that more aggressive riders would see more benefit because of the progressive aspect of the springs -- they push them harder, so they are firmer yet in their perception. Besides, I'm most often limited on my speed in corners primarily by either the speed limit on looser ones, or by how far ahead I can see on tighter ones -- in the moose brain, there is ALWAYS a big piece of farm equipment just beyond my line of sight!

No question I'm on the conservative side of the bell shaped curve of conservative to aggressive cornering, but based on the "catching up with riders vs  being passed" sample, probably very close to the middle. As always!  I'm generally the exact center of all bell shaped curves, although unlike the kids in Lake Woebegone, I'm VERY slightly BELOW average!

It was a superb day to be out for a ride. The roads seem to have all  been cleared of remaining winter sand on the route from Rochester up to Barron and back. My Dad was in a talkative mood, enjoying the "Last Lion: Defender of the Realm" book that I passed on to him and remembering that WWII history that he observed as a young man. His blood pressure kept him from going over, but his two brothers served. I had a nice visit and lunch that lasted a bit over 4 hours, made it back in time for the gun club meeting and still a little fire-pit time with Marla to end the day.

Spring AND "springs" are very nice.

Coke, Bud, Jack, KFC

Some observations from Ireland and England -- may be applicable to the continent as well, dunno. It is just an observation ... nothing meaningful.

Coke is everywhere, Pepsi is pretty much MIA.

Every Pub has Bud ON TAP! **AND** people sit in Irish Pubs with Guinness, Murphy's, Beamish, etc and drink BUD! They also have Heineken in every Pub we saw ... so two taps pretty much down with beer that I don't want to drink when I'm across the pond. Fortunately, many places have a good number of taps, and the Guinness there is heavenly -- positively creamy, and the US Tenders really need to learn to put a shamrock in the foam!

Oh, I do drink Bud in IA when the choices are Bud Lite,  Coors Lite, Bush Lite, Miller Lite and Nite  Lite  ... or Bud!

And JACK! Every pub had Jack Daniels -- and sometimes Makers Mark and usually Canadian Club -- which was enough for me to look up the list -- Jack, Johnnie Walker, Jameson, Canadian Club (that explains it!) ... interestingly, Ballantines, Japanese brands I'd never heard of, plus Jim Beam (expected it to be higher on list) as well as Crown and Black Velvet appear in top 10.

McDonalds is there of course -- isn't it everywhere? But I was shocked by the prevalence of KFC -- both in Ireland and England. Apparently the folks on the isles find it finger lickin good!

Oh, and at the Jamison distillery, Marla, who just isn't into even triple distilled ultra smooth whiskey neat, went for the Jamison, Ginger Ale and a lime twist ... Now THAT could get a person into trouble! Smooth Jamison with it's little appleish-citrus tang accentuated by the lime, plus the Ginger Ale light ginger sweetness ... very nice! But possibly a little TOO subtle!

Winchester, Guinness, Jamison

This is mostly a marker post -- I intend to put some pictures in and edit it after I return.

The general thought though -- the "nugget".

We did Jameson Whiskey in Cork, Guinness Storehouse in Dublin and this evening walked through Winchester Cathedral.

When I was over here in '89 -- first time across the pond, major business trip, excitement, anxiety, jet lag and a lot of other things. I woke up early and went over to the cathedral at like 6:30 AM and was completely awed by the size and the scope in time. Winchester was finished in 1093 and contains bones brought over from the old abbey -- built around 600. It puts me in my place -- tiny, a speck in space and time next to the majesty of God.

While I very much enjoyed our tours of Jameson and Guinness, it is hard to go through them and not say; REALLY??? You have GOT to be KIDDING!!!

The canonization of John Jameson and Arthur Guinness is along the lines of "forget Plato, Greece, Rome, Christ, Da Vinci, Newton ... or whatever name one wants to insert, it is the IRISH on which the "spirit" of Western Civilization rests in the form of Guinness and Jameson and the heroics of their founders!

I'm afraid that when one stands in Winchester Cathedral the soul feels just a wee bit more than even walking through the hall with 1000 private oak casks of Jameson, or standing in the largest Guinness pint in the world! There are actual foundations of Western Civilization, and then there are products -- certainly well crafted products with great traditions that can bring a lot of pleasure to millions, but still products. Consumables.

The pillars are BIG!

One other little point to ponder -- The Rock of Cashel is great to visit, but it is a RUIN -- it dates from just a little LATER than Winchester, yet all the old stuff is purely a ruin.

The simple, no doubt flawed, but still worthy of some thought point is "winning is better than losing". Were the Brits "bad" -- certainly they were at least sometimes, but building a giant empire was also not "easy", took some motivation and gained long lasting rewards for the nation.

Fail to "win" and priceless things like Winchester Cathedral fall in and are piles of rubble with maybe a few walls still standing rather than what you see if you go to the link, or better yet come here. There **IS** a difference!

I Hold On

I may have overdone it a bit. Finally getting this done Wednesday AM after my 3-day burst home from LA ... 2K miles over 3 days. I pulled in Monday evening at 9PM. I'm very stiff this AM.

After 5K miles in 8 days, the Wing is now officially Wendy ... and on this trip often WINDY! Her navigation skills are questionable ... she didn't know about hwy 20 being 4-lane across most of IA, so was blissfully navigating through space after valiantly trying to navigate us to Ft Dodge. Maybe she just wanted to help get over 5K! Oh well, my "jump on the bike and punch in a city" approach to trip planning could use a little work too. She was reliable smooth and powerful through snow, rain and hail (just a little), plus a lot of cold and wind.

I launched out of Gallup NM Sunday AM at 7ish with 30 degrees on the temp, about 20 mi later I was freezing and checked it again ... 25 degrees, I was going UP!  It turns out that while I need 45 to be "reasonably comfortable", this trip forced me to discover that the "UNcomfortable" doesn't get too much worse at least down to that 25 or so ... the combination of the heat exchange with the engine being "open", the grip heaters, the "hand wings" deflectors off the bottom of the mirrors, and just the general excellent wind control make it it "survivable". Future spring trips will have better planning on long range weather / altitude !!

Going through Albuquerque NM the drink holder on my right bar loaded with my trusty Dew, departed. Must have just loosened up and there it went ... ought to be an easy fix, but it was sorely missed for the rest of the trip. Somewhere like 30mi past Albuquerque it hit my "minimum desired" 45 degrees. I rode 40 over to Tucumcari NM and then retraced my steps out up to Liberal KS, then turning N for Great Bend where I spent Sunday night. 740 windy and chilly miles. I kind of like the great plains two lanes. Seeing the farming, huge cattle lots, the change or that area to what must already be closing on a Hispanic majority.

The descendants of the European explorers that "conquered" North America came to the conclusion that having children wasn't important, nor was having borders, nor was having European descent offspring do "low income" jobs -- meaning jobs / lifestyles that would have made royalty jealous in the 16th to even 19th centuries. Queen Isabella could not have believed a flat screen TV, internet, let alone a low-rider with fuzzy dice! Civilizations rise and fall, but I think the plains ... and solo riders on horses, motorcycles and ??? will survive.

Monday I took off and headed cross country up to 80, then over to Omaha, then up 30 and eventually to 20 and on home via interstate. Just into IA on 30 I had the treat of watching a jet ranger chopper "surveying something" ... I'm guessing it was power lines from the height and position, but he was going down the road a little higher than the power lines at something like "30 MPH", usually sideways to the road. The moose "limited good judgement in very tough for moose attention control situation indicator" was flashing orange-red. Having a few miles to watch a chopper right in front of me was GREAT, but of course I knew that the chopper was a huge distraction not just for me, but for oncoming traffic as well. Although the thought crossed my mind that 99% of the oncoming found it to be WAY less interesting than I, but anyway ...

I got a couple miles in before a truck came up behind me and I took off. I'm guessing the pilot had done that before ... it was pretty windy, but I could actually see him operating things ... he WAS swiveling his head a lot, which seems like a good idea about 50' up moving in a sideways direction!  I know, the SMART thing to do would have been just "take note and go, or pull over and watch for a bit" ... and then skipping Prescott, Pagoda Springs and probably the whole trip would also have been the most "prudent".

Lots of time alone on a bike for 5K miles, lots of it on flat or mildly undulating roads where the road and the telephone poles recede into the horizon like grade school drawing class. They must have been driving in New Mexico when they made up those classes. The decision to get married, settle down and have kids -- and how MUCH one makes that an "all the way" thing. 34 years at IBM, giving up the motorcycle to "be responsible" and a few other such decisions were likely over on the personal side of "nuts" in the same way as a solo 5K ride in the mostly cold.

But then what is wisdom? One can't really get the summary of a 34 year career or 26 years of having been a parent from reading books and thinking about it. Sometimes you just have to ride.

"I Hold On" (very hot current country song that will likely always bring this trip back to my mind),  is who we are something we are wired with, decisions we make, character we develop, or a gift from God?

I'm guessing it is yes ...

89, Prescott, 89a, Sedona

Took off early from San Bernadino. Very pretty views of Mt San Jacinto with the sun coming up and a cloud deck partially obscuring the mountain. Made great time on I10 and then veered off on 60 and wound my way up to 89 in the "Congress" area. 

Shortly after Congress there is a section of 89 where the lanes are split so there is no oncoming traffic. I had a Ferrari ahead of me  with a bunch of local Harley's ahead of him that knew how to ride the road. Not having oncoming traffic was a HUGE help for me ... one of my biggest weaknesses cornering is backing off the throttle as soon as oncoming traffic shows up (my snake brain isn't very trusting of oncoming drivers!). 

The ferrari had to be a V12, it had an unearthly screaming howl like a pack of wounded coyotes on rock concert amplification. I saw like "20ish" different exotic cars, mostly high end Porche, but I definitely IDed the Ferrari symbol on the one that was ahead of me ... and then let me by. In Prescott I pulled up next to a Lamborghini, but I'm too bummed after the WI loss to keep trying to figure which one it was. In the early stages of that lane split section out of Congress a cop had what I'm pretty sure was a Countach pulled over -- I bet that was a nice conversation! 

I'm too conservative to really enjoy going fast on curves ... but with the front suspension work on the wing and just Harleys rather than crotch rockets ahead  holding back the Ferrari, I was fine ... did a little grinding on the bottoms of the boards a few times, and since I could keep up, I did. I'd say that run from Congress to Prescott has to be way up there in the world for corner speed daemons. 

Somewhere in that section before Prescott I went by Yarnell ... here the group of top notch firefighters died a year or two ago. 

89a up to and beyond Sedona was a lot more sightseeing ... I had traffic ahead of me for most of both. WOW, the Jerome mining town hacked out of the side of the mountain would be a geat place to spend some time in! 

I think I was in a bad mood the only previous time I was in Sedona since I was driving a chevy pickup with a camper on and  sick of "rocks". It was damned pretty this time. Would be nice to come out and spend some time there with the bikes. 

Me and Flagstaff just don't get along! The temp dropped back down to 48 as I went up there from Sedona, and there were some flakes of snow in the air! THIS TIME though the bad stuff looked to be JUST to the NW and I scooted to the east on 40, making it here to Gallup NM, 600+ mi for the day, 1500 miles or so from home ... a hard day and an easy one to go the way I look at it!

Viva Las Vegas

After a dismal day yesterday I launched at 9:30 from Flagstaff. 35 degrees again, took a shot at 89a route, but there was ice in shaded areas and I realized that I would not be enjoying the ride even if it DID get better -- scardy moose always thinking that on some shaded canyon turn there could be that patch that would be "invisible". Yea, I know, "it could be anything", but it was going to prevent enjoyment no matter how good the ride was. 

So, I chickened to I40 and sputtered along in the right lane in the wheel tracks that were pretty much dry and watched the bridges like a hawk. It was dropping down out of the Kaibab area at like Williams before it cleared 40. In the current Wing config, I need 45 degrees to get to the "edge of comfort" ... hours of riding without deep freeze. The vents pulling heat off the engine, the grips, etc make 45 OK in "reasonable wind". Today, I was nearly to Seligman before that happened. 

Had a nice breakfast at the "Road Kill Grill" there, warmed up, gassed up, and took the old Route 66 to Kingman. Really enjoyed the ride, saw quite a few bikes. Seligman and a couple of other holes in the wall gave a hint of how hoppin 66 must have been before the interstates took all the tourists. EVERYTHING has it's unintended consequences!

93 from Kingman up to Vegas was funny ... 65 MPH speed limit, slow traffic doing 85, plenty of folks at 90-95 and LOTS of bikes going the other way .. Harleys, in groups, often loud enough I copuld hear the thunder in my lane. When I popped the ridge prior to the Colorado River I once again wished I had a helmet cam set up! Very nice scenery from there over the new bridge above the dam to where I stopped and gassed up at Boulder City and shot the pic with Lake Mead in the back. Had to be upper 60's by then. 

To top my bad day off yestday I discovered that my iPad had not been charging ...  so I had my snazzy new phone route me to the Apple store. Right down town, big cool malln called "The Fashion Show" on Las Vegas drive, right next to a huge Wynns Casino. Bad cable ... cats DO have "some issues".  Vegas reminds me of the Lords Prayer ... definitely, it is LOADED with temptaion "Gentlemens Club, topless this and that, this kind of girl, that kind of girl ..." not to mention gambling and enough beverages to tempt an LCMS guy during Lent! Oh well, it is remarkable how many big buildings temptation can build. Lots flashier than DC, but not NEARLY as much money actually! 

Looking forward to riding down to LA tomorrow and then I will be turning for home by a more southernly route! Sure felt nice to drive around town with the big jacket in the saddlebag and just the kevlar shirt on for a change!

Snowed!

Today was a reminder how easy it is to focus on our own situation and to be FAR too believing of "the common wisdom".  A big part of the reason that I set out on this adventure in this direction was the cold temps in MN all winter and into spring. Even though I'm often a skeptic, I'm ALWAYS a human! The media regularly said "oh, the midwest and east is a LOCAL weather phenomenon, the South West is having an extremely warm winter and spring". Yea, right!

So I believed them. The AVERAGE high for April 2 in Pagosa Springs is 50 degrees, the average high for Flagstaff AZ is 52. I'm sitting in the Days Inn at Flagstaff right now because the temp is  currently 32 degrees, and when I hit the area at 3ish it was 35 and snowing so heavy I had to limp in and stop.

East of Durango, this AM my temp read 37 degrees ...  1 degree lower than when I left Rochester. YES, I understand altitude, but the SW is having above average warmth this winter and spring. Remember?

Everyone,  definitely me, has an agenda, a very limited focus, and even in the best of circumstances, is EXTREMELY fallible! ALWAYS! Especially large organizations like Government and Media!

It is MY fault, my own grievous fault -- I ought to have gone SOUTH and forgot west!

Other than snow to start and snow to end (the start was not as heavy and not sticking), COLD ... mostly 45-50 degrees, with my new record for the trip being 35 degrees and heavy snow at Flagstaff, I did get in 425 miles including some nice rock formations along NM 491.

The elusive Monument Valley remains a quarry for another day and my guess is that the return trip will be SOUTH rather than through Idaho.

Frozen Moose Finds El Dorado (KS)

Marla took a shot of me as I took off at 8aAM Sunday. The Wing read 38, and even with the vents drawing engine heat and the grips on high, I ought to have had long underwear and the liner in my jacket ... good for future reference. I need at least 45 or maybe calm, there was a 20-30MPH headwind the whole day ... noisy, and enough to keep a bit busy on the bars at bridges or when semis were around, but otherwise no problem.

Anyway, I was uncomfortably cold by Austin, toughed it out to Albert Lea and stopped into the truck stop and REALLY enjoyed having a very generous and nicely finished ham steak with eggs and hash-browns. They had a wood fired rotisserie doing chickens, I basked next to that for a bit. 

When I got out, it had warmed to 44 and that made all the difference. I saw 3 loud Harley's, heading S on  35 as I was getting on the bike. Not a lot of bikes to be seen until Ankeny IA or so, but by Des Moines and certainly Kansas City there were quite a few. I got about 150 mi each tank,  and other than breakfast, those were my stops until 8PM when I pulled in here

I did take a couple curvy road interludes ... I went west on 80 a bit at Des Moines, then turned off and picked an "avoid highways" mode with a town on  I35 ... so it gave me some curves and then I just picked up the old route ... did the same just N of Kansas City to avoid downtown ... it put me on a pretty cool road with lots of big houses, a flowage, and a good number of crotch rockets. So after a bit of a rocky start with the Wing guidance maiden the last couple years, we can get along after all!

Other than the wind, it was quite nice once I hit Des Moines. The last of the snow in ditches was N of there, but VERY little greening even down into KS. I still love the Flint Hills area. In 2012 early August it was under a long term drought, and looked terrible, but now other than being probably a month  later than "normal", the little ponds are full, and quite a few cattle were around. I saw one LARGE grassfire ... at least a mile or so fire line, but it was going away from the road, and while there were a couple of trucks out there, they didn't seem very concerned ... multiple signs that "this is a prairie fire area, don't drive into smoke". 

35 SW of Kansas City is a 75mph toll road that everyone is running 85 on. Went by a couple of groups of 2-up Harleys running 75ish and looking like they didn't enjoy running that fast -- shorty windshields, loud pipes, but I think they might have been struggling a bit 2-up with the headwind, besides the wind factor ... even on the Wing there was some evidence of a "breeze".

I'm smitten with the Indian, but on days like today, it would be A LOT tougher! Yea, yea, I know those V-twin riders are just tougher than the old Moose, but lots of smooth power and superb wind handling is going to be awfully hard to part with! Kinda like my giving up my blanky from childhood. Like all Wing riders, we know we need to give it up , SOON! 

There are well attended sessions on leaving your blanky behind every year at WingDing!

Infinity and Beyond

Cruise

Sitting in the cabin on the Celebrity Infinity still on the dock at Port Everglades, Ft Lauderdale. We should sail at 6PM on our 14day cruise through Panama. Got on board, got settled in, had lunch, toured the ship and plan to do dinner and show this evening as we head out. Day at sea tomorrow.

Ships At Duluth Canal

On our trip north we got a chance to watch a few ships go through the canal into the Duluth/Superior Harbor under the lift bridge.

Ships Through Duluth Canal

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Finally California Pictures

Ok, I'm a bit behind schedule, but I've finally organized a set of shots from our trip to California the first week of April.

Muir Woods on CNN

After having just been out to to Muir Woods, it was interesting to see this out on the web. I found Muir Woods to be a great little place, but my recollection is that the Redwoods up around "The Avenue of the Giants" further north was that they were even more impressive and that we will want to return there.

Muir Woods celebrates a century of conservation - CNN.com

Monterey and San Francisco

Yesterday we launched fairly early from the Hearst Castle up the very beautiful but a little challenging to drive highway 1 past Big Sur and on into Monterey. It was a gray rainy day, but we decided to go out whale watching anyway. We saw 3 humpbacks at relatively close range, but they seemed to be a bit cagey and the lightly loaded whale watch boat didn't seem to be very interested in ranging any farther to find any other subjects. Oh well, I can understand them not wanting to burn too much fuel on a 100' boat with only 10 folks or so at $35 a head.

We drove on into our hotel that is right off Fisherman's Warf in San Francisco and went out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe -- loud with expensive glasses with drinks, but kind of fun and the food was fine. On the way home we stopped by some street painters doing pictures of the golden gate with spray paint. They were fun to watch and did them very fast with a lot of loud music to listen to, we ended up with two of them at $10 each. Not great art, but a fun memory.

Today we slept in a bit and toured San Francisco via cable car, bus and lots of shoe leather. Keenan wanted to see the Haight Ashbury area since so much of the rock history came out of there, so we went up there, Golden Gate park, and then walked most of the way across the bridge. Three large container ships went under the bridge during the time that we were out there, so that was fun to watch.

We picked up dinner on the pier - bread bowl clam chowder, shrimp cocktail and a crab sandwich, and then brought our sore feet back to the hotel.

La Brea Tar Pits, San Simeon

Sunday we got a little later start and went down to Uncle Bill's Pancakes in Manhattan Beach. The buckwheat blueberry cakes that I had were excellent, as were the buttermilks and the fried potatoes, but the omelet wasn't up to our high CA standards. The homes along the beach were very nice, I suspect that they are priced in the millions, but they didn't all LOOK that way, and it was really fun to imagine settling down to one of those for a few weeks in the cold part of the year. Maybe no quite warm enough for some in the family though!

We had hopes of doing the Getty Museum but discovered it was closed on Monday. We ended up going over and standing in line for only about an hour at 2:30 to get a Pink's Hot Dog!
We saw them on the hotel TV the first night in and thought we had to try them out--they were right, it is almost always well over an hour wait. We stopped in on Saturday, and waited for about 45 min before we realized how slow the line was going and that it was going to interfere with too much to wait then. They are good hot dogs, not that expensive by Hollywood standards, but in no way "worth the wait", although it is clear that the wait is part of the experience!

We saw the La Brea tar pits, which I've been impressed with ever since I was a small kid reading the encyclopedias. They make much the same point that I've heard a few times that most of the large mammals-ground sloths, north American Mastadon and Mammoth, north American Lion, Sabre Tooth "tiger"( cat) etc, all went extinct in a short period around 10-11K years ago. Caused by man? Climate change? Something else? Nobody seems to have the answers, and compared with a lot of geologic / paleontology mysteries, not that ancient. Interesting place, right in the middle of the city now.

Keenan was a bit under the weather with some sniffles, so he retired to the hotel and Marla and I headed down to the beach to watch the sunset, downtown Santa Monica for a little shopping, and then to Lares Mexican Restaurant for dinner. It was very highly rated, nice place, valet parking, but the food was only "very good"--would rather eat at a couple places around home.

We launched at 8:30 with Keenan feeling better. Stopped and had breakfast at Paradise Cove in Malibu. Great view of the water and excellent food. Hit the road and booked it north up Hwy 1 to the Hearst Castle. Lots of beautiful strawberrys being picked out of huge fields along the roads. Amazing farming in California.

The Hearst Castle was more that I expected it to be. 5 miles away from the ocean and 1,600' up, it sits atop a hill where the Hearst's had a hunting camp when WR was a child. His mother took him to Europe for a year and 1/2 when he was 10 and he was impressed with the great homes, cathedrals and ruins. He wanted it all brought together, and he enjoyed "projects". He hired a brilliant woman Architect, Julia Morgan and they created together without an overall plan ... a number of false starts and do-over's including three rebuilds of the amazing Neptune Pool.

The thought I had in walking through it was that today's rich lack imagination. Hearst was the first leading Newspaper man with an empire that ran from coast to coast, centered on his San Francisco Chronical. He was a congressman three times as a Democrat, and considered himself a progressive/populist Democrat. I suppose today, Rupert Murdoch might be somewhat of an equivalent, but I don't see him building the modern equivalent of the Hearst Castle. Maybe that time is past, or the wealthy are simply too busy to spend time and money in the construction of great projects.

It is interesting for one in their 51st year to note that he didn't get started until he was 56 in 1919, and worked on it continuously until his health would no longer allow it in 1947.

Reagan Library and Griffith Observatory

Day 2 in CA included a trip up to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, and then up to the Griffith Observatory, high above Hollywood. A little time was remaining for a run down to Redondo Beach Pier for a great seafood dinner at Tony's.

As is normal on early vacation we have been going so hard that there isn't a lot of time to spend writing about all the details. Here is the start of the photo album.

California 2008

Winnie

I'm sitting in the Hilton Austin now on business, but last week I was up at Williams Narrows Resort on Lake Winnibigosh in NE MN on the annual fall fishing trip. Fishing was "fine" from Saturday through Monday night with a reasonable number, some keepers and some in the slot at 17-20", but just average. The weather those first few days was GREAT though, so it was a lot of fun to be away from work and outdoors having fun.

Monday PM the cold front came through and there was rain, but as sometimes happens in the fall, it turned them on and the action picked up for Tuesday and Wed. Most of the fish were on bars in 15-20', but some were caught up to 30' deep and as shallow as 5'. Some action on the N shore of the main lake, but most of the action was in Cutfoot Souix.

My new 80lb thrust trolling motor worked GREAT. I've never felt that my Tyee was controllable in wind with my old troller. This one plays with it and I can put the boat exactly where I want when I want it there ... and I can pull it around to troll cranks. All agreed it was the best upgrade that I've ever put on the boat in it's the 15 years I've had it. In combination with the onboard charger and the glass mat batteries, it just worked completely like a charm.

Very odd to be out fishing from Saturday-Thursday, home Thursday night and Friday night, and now out on the road and not getting back until Friday evening. Guess I'm getting to be a homebody.

DC to Home

We finished our MN -> Gettysburg -> DC -> Air and Space at Dulles -> Raleigh NC -> Air Force Museum at Dayton OH -> Rockford -> MN jaunt. Little over 3K Miles, watched the 2000 Chev Suburban roll over 100K at Gettysburg. I like to see the country by road, it gives a lot better flavor.

Much like government anywhere, DC looks to be in great shape. Lots of big stone buildings with inefficient thermal and space designs. Big pillars, lots of windows. Governments way of tell the rest of us "we don't have any competition and we don't have to make a profit ... if you cut our funds, we will just do things like let give soldiers sub-standard pay, but we will stay in our lifetime union jobs with full benefits when you retire ... and complain that the rest of you don't pay enough taxes".

It was a lot of fun to take in all the "free" airplane museums to see Apollo 11, Space Shuttle Enterprise, the X-1 that broke the speed of sound, the Spirit of St Louis, the original Wright Flyer, the Concorde, a B-36, the 707 that was Air Force One from '60 - like '90, the only remaining XB-70, 2 different X-15s, a B-52, a B-1 ... and too many other cool planes to mention. Yes, it costs a lot of money to keep all that running, but hardly enough to be a footnote in a 2.7 Trillion budget of which 1.7 Trillion are entitlement spending.

Oh well, it is tax weekend, we certainly do way more than our part in paying for all of it, so we might as well get a little enjoyment out of it once in awhile. The Raleigh NC area seems to be going gangbusters ... lots of businesses going up, new roads, houses. It reminded me of Austin Texas when I used to go down there. Surprise surprise, both TX and NC are low tax business friendly places. MN just elected a bunch of Democrats and thinks that a lot more taxes are the way to improve the state. In three short months they have turned a billion dollar surplus into a 1.5 billion "deficit" that simply MUST be "taken care of" by the "wealthy". My youngest has 3 more years of HS; we may be tax slaves, but last I checked we aren't INDENTURED ... we may just have to move out and let the fine people of MN do some more study on how economics works in our absence.

We returned to cold and now snowy MN that is on it's way to the coldest April on record. The name change from "Global Warming " to "Climate Change" seems to have been a required marketing change. Now this cold weather can be blamed on the awful carbon producers as well!

DC to Raleigh

We have completed the Gettysburg and Washington DC portion of the trip and made it down to Raleigh North Carolina to visit the old friend that introduced my wife and I. We are checked in at a Residence Inn; very nice digs for a couple nights before we sprint for home.

The weather the last few days in DC was in the 70's, sunny, really summer for us folks from MN. Looking at the temperatures back home with below freezing highs makes me realize that it could be a bit of a chill when we get back. We saw "all the sites", for those interested see if you can access some pictures here.

Some Notes:

• I could spend a couple more days at Gettysburg. I'd like to read a couple more battle books as well as review the Burns series. There are an amazing number of monuments and battle scenes. I need to do some full Blogs on the subject, but the Civil War, and thus "The High Water Mark" at Gettysburg bring some fundamental issues to bear. What does "freedom" mean? Was the South free? We have only two political parties that we need to map the sum total of our ideas to at any time. Should we have 3? (potential for House/Senate/Executive to be split). More? What were the main idea mappings prior to the Civil War? After? How many switches between then and today? What are the key ideas today? At the time of the Civil War, MANY people felt those ideas were worth dying for ... to the tune of over 50K men in three days alone, and 600K over the course of the war.
  
• It is very hard to do DC without a TON of walking. Huge space, the Washington Monument is one of those things like the Saturn V that was bigger than I expected.
  
• There is a certain depression about the city. Thousands and thousands of faceless union bureaucrats in 100s of generally fortress like buildings going about their union protected tasks day in and day out with next to no chance for anything creative to happen. There are elements of this in any large organization, certainly including corporations, but the market creates a lot more real diversity in those environments than exists in DC.
• The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown was way more moving that I expected. It drives home the thought that the universe is designed. The forces of the left and chaos would LOVE to corrupt the transcendent honor present in the military. HOWEVER, no matter how much the left may wish to escape the idea of transcendence and "powers beyond reason", they know that their pursuit of "if it feels good, do it" relies on protection from others that might find their soft outlook to be an invitation to end the chaotic party desired by the left. The soldier will not give his life for meaninglessness, so the military holds to order, command, honor, tradition, duty ... all the thoughts that the left hates. They hate the military, yet they dare not destroy it. Checkmate.
  
• But at the Vietnam Memorial, we see the "High Water Mark" of the left in the World to date (and say a little prayer that we don't return). Just names and dates ... no battles, no locations, no meaning. The personal names, but no divsions, branches of service, etc. War as just a meaningless individual loss, and loss only. Contrast this to WWII, with the theatres of combat, the states and the battles, but NO individual names. The CAUSE was greater than the individual ... the lives were given for something greater than one person. The stars represent the sacrifice and show the magnitude, but they were ALL Americans. That was more important than their name.
  
• I was struck by the paintings, statuary, and inscriptions in the Capitol and the Memorials or how much work needs to be done with chisel or covering to remove "God" from Jefferson, Lincoln and the host of quotations around the city. Worse for the forces of the left, the profiles listed around the chamber in the house would seem to give many of those members pause were they to look at many of their works: Justinian, Moses, Pope Innocent III, Lycurgus, Napoleon, etc. It seems that at least at the time of the construction of the Capitol there was the distinct idea that positioning the nation in the stream of western civilization, including of course Christianity, was a VERY good idea. The American mind had not yet closed, and it was well understood that ideas do indeed have consequences.
  
• I could spend a lot more time at both the Smithsonian Air and Space Museums. I sure enjoyed the time I did get to spend.
  

Enough for now. In general, DC isn't what I would call a "great city" in the NYC, San Francisco, London, or even Chicago sense. It seems to be too "sterile and segregated". Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shake due to only a couple of days there, but I've not even spent that amount of time in London. Scarcely more in Chicago, and only a few days more in NYC and San Fran.

Glaciers

Woke up just after docking in Ketchikan around 6am local time with the clocks being set back one hour overnight. Low clouds, little sun peeking through now and then, very much like it looks in here quite often it sounds like. Sitting out on the balcony after a nice breakfast on the ship and a little shopping tour of town. In one respect, it seems that all ports are alike, Alaska or Caribbean; lots of T-shirts, jewelry, art galleries, and local foods. Salmon here, rum cakes and other seafood in the Caribbean.

Nice little stream that had a few remaining spawned out salmon milling about that were fun to watch for a bit, Three cruise ships sitting at the dock right now, ours, a Holland America, and a Celebrity. Ours is full to capacity, the other two certainly don’t look empty, so the terrible Bush economy must be one other thing that the unbiased MSM hasn’t been able to get exactly right. Strange how they can be so interested in “truth”, yet somehow miss something that would see to be somewhat easy for valiant reporters to ferret out. Most likely they wouldn’t even need to resort to some secret source in order to figure out that number of things are humming along very well.

While this post started in Ketchikan, it is ending out in Glacier Bay. For some reason I was just able to get my first post of the trip up, so thought I’d try another. The weather has been “ok”. Plenty of rain, fog, some very nicely arranged points of glimpses of sun and relative clear that have allowed us to see some of the great scenery, but not enough to just sit out and bask in it. The high latitude means that the distance up to the tree line is only a few thousand feet, so we commonly sail by peaks that have a good deal of snow on them even though we are of course at sea-level. The combination of the peaks with the steep inclines of the valleys cut by glaciers with the water makes for very pleasing scenery almost everywhere.

News at 11, these glaciers have been receding for 2500 years now; faster in the 1800s than in the 1900s. Yes, this would indicate “global warming”, but major surprise, a quick check for continental glaciers covering North America could clue in not even the very geologically sophisticated that we are likely between ice ages. Given the glacier data from this trip, it would appear that we are still in the warming phase, and likely have thousands of years left until the next cool-down which will move us into the next ice cycle. How much effect did the humans have to cause the glaciers to recede faster in the 1800’s than now? Probably none, although one might conclude as scientists did in the 60’s and early 70’s that we were speeding the turn to global cooling.

My analysis of Princess vs Carnival is that for the extra money one gets a less crowded ship, better fit and finish and higher quality food and food service. Kind of like shopping at WalMart though, Carnival is plenty good enough for me, although it would be hard to cruise without a balcony after cruising with one.

Well, we are getting close to what is supposed to be the prime whale watching area, so I guess I better head out to do that. We have seen humpbacks and killers so far, but only 2 pods of the humpbacks and one of the orcas so far, so it would be nice to see some more