Jun 27 2010

Mt Wrightson hike

When we bought our house in Tucson while we were still full-timing in the Airstream, I explained to everyone that we never intended to spend summers here. Now, three years later, here I am in ARIDzona in June, when daytime relative humidity runs in the single digits and every day is 100 degrees or hotter.

But I really don’t mind, as it turns out. Yes, it’s hot, but I don’t spend my days standing in the direct sunlight. And in Arizona there’s always a cool respite at the top of a nearby Sky Island, high above the desert floor.

Brett is in town for a few days. We have to head out for business this week, but it is traditional that when he comes to town I abuse him as much as possible by taking him on a tough hike. He lives in Florida you see, and as such he is altitude-deprived. No mountains. Last year I took him up Picacho Peak, which is a short (2 mile) but challenging trail, especially when the temperature is above 100 during the hike, as it was that day.

He survived that and came back again, so this time I brought out the big guns. I’ve wanted to hike Mt Wrightson ever since I first read about the trail to the summit. It’s about 30 miles south of Tucson, not far from Green Valley. The hike starts at 5,400 feet and ascends rather steeply and steadily up to 9,453 feet. In addition to being a hike that “everyone should do once,” according to one hiking guide, it would also be the first time I’ve climbed a mountain over 6,000 feet. Brett, for his part, was game for anything.

Being at relatively high elevation, the temperature at the trailhead was only about 80 degrees when we started, and for the rest of the hike things never got much hotter, since we were ascending most of the day. That was the good news. The bad news was that the dryness of the air only gets worse as you go up. We both consumed about 100 ounces of water, and ran out about halfway during the descent. All of that water went out through the pores and we were never sweaty, thanks to immediate evaporation.

Mt Wrightson was almost my undoing. I haven’t spent much time at altitude lately, and I haven’t been hiking much lately. At about 8,500 feet I started to hit the wall, and the problem was simply that I couldn’t get enough oxygen. My rest breaks become more and more frequent. Suddenly, I felt rather old, and it didn’t get better when the 20-something hardbodies from the local university started passing us like we were geezers. It worse when, during a gasping break around 9,000 feet, a woman passed us on her second complete ascent of the day. Now that’s just wrong.

As people always say at the end of a brutal hike, “the view was worth it.” But I’ll be honest with you. The view was spectacular in every direction, but it wasn’t worth it. What made the strenuous 10.6 mile hike worth doing was simply the feeling of achievement. Now I’ve hiked to nearly 10,000 feet. Now I’ve seen a hundred-mile panorama from the tiny summit of Mt Wrightson: Tucson to the north, Patagonia and Sonoita to the east, Green Valley and the copper mines to the west, and the mountains of Mexico to the south. Now I don’t ever have to do it again.

Hiking down again, of course, is much easier. But I could have done without running into the woman who was on her way back up for a third complete ascent in one day. At that point Brett and I were both feeling every bit of the late-40s man, complete with twinges in the knees and muscles begging for Advil. The uber-hiker woman didn’t look too happy either, on her way back up again, but she at least had the excuse of being (A) about 22 miles into it; and (B) obviously, completely insane.

When we landed back in Tucson, it was about 102 degrees but we were told we missed the real heat of 109 earlier in the day. So I guessed we picked the right place to be on Saturday. The rest of the evening was recovery: showers, re-hydrating, a quick trip to Bookman’s for cheezy paperback sci-fi novels to read during evenings of our business trip, a pair of burritos from Nico’s Taco Shop, and a really early bedtime.

Jun 22 2010

Take a walk in the sun

I once read in National Geographic of an experiment involving a French scientist and a deep cave. He was left in there with all the comforts of home, except for a clock. He found that without the natural signals of daylight and night to cue him, he gradually evolved to very long periods of being awake, followed by proportionally long sleeping periods. Basically, he worked like a crazed squirrel and got a little loony in the process.

This is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.

I came back to Tucson alone with the primary goal of getting a lot of work done, and that part is going well. Every day I wake up about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. (trying to stay close to Eastern Time, for convenience) and air out the house for an hour or so while the morning temperatures are in the low 70s. Work starts immediately, even before I dress or eat. I work steadily through about 3 or 4 p.m., mixing in a little housework just so I’m not at the computer all day. If things are busy, I’ll work right until 6 p.m., four hours after the east coast has left the office. I drink a lot of water to combat the very dry air (typically single-digit percentages of relative humidity), and eat very little.

The problem is that I’m in the house alone all day. So each day I also build in a little time to go do something, anything, that get me out into the Tucson sunshine. This is probably why I don’t mind the intense heat of the day. Every day this week it has been between 100 and 105 in the afternoon, and I like how walking around in the sun recharges my mental batteries. Of course, minding Bill Doyle’s admonitions about sun safety, I wear my broad-brimmed hat and light colored clothing, and slather plenty of sunscreen on the exposed parts. (I only go out in my full-coverage hero costume if heroic measures are required.)

On the other hand, it is turning out to be a pretty fun arrangement for me. Eleanor and Emma are with me via telephone and occasionally video chat on the computer, so although I miss them I get to see them regularly. The rest of the time I’m free to do whatever I want. For example, yesterday I broke free of work at 3:30 to go shopping at the local hiking store and then see a screening of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (very well done, intense, thriller, foreign language with subtitles). It’s amazing to experience the complete freedom of Temporary Bachelorhood: no consideration of other people at all, no worries about schedules, eat when I want, sleep when I want, etc.

In other words, the good and the bad of this situation are the same: solitude. I still wake up at night looking for Eleanor in bed. There are times that the house is too quiet. And there are times when in a moment of boredom I find myself doing things I wouldn’t normally do, like shopping.

The shopping in particular can be dangerous to one’s wallet. Normally I’m fairly immune, but lately I feel rather vulnerable to suggestion. On Sunday Fred sent over a link to a limited edition Pendleton blanket featuring what we call The Man In The Maze icon, and the next thing I knew, I’d bought it.

The symbol is properly known as the I’itoi Ki, the sacred symbol of the Tohono O’odham, who live near here in the southwestern Arizona desert. The blanket can only be purchased through the Tohono O’odham (they have outlets in Tubac, AZ and Sells, AZ). I love the blanket and it will definitely travel with us in the Airstream next winter, but I think I should probably try to avoid eBay for the next few weeks.

I did don my TBM costume to do a few minor manly tasks. I dealt with the weeds in the yard, swept off the back patio, cleaned the bathroom (in a very manly way, I assure you), etc. The dishwasher had a sort of residual stink after washing the three moldy plates that had been “stored” in there since early May, but I resolved that in a classic TBM way: I ran it again. Problem solved.

Since Brett is coming here on Thursday, and he is planning to sleep in the Caravel in the carport, I plugged it into 30 amp power and fired up the air conditioner for a test. That AC unit hasn’t been run since 2004, so there was a legitimate question of whether it would work. It did, so well in fact that the interior of the trailer was soon meatlocker-cold despite outside air temperatures of 99 degrees at the time. (Of course, that was in the shade of the carport; it wouldn’t do so well in full sun.)

It is still a challenge to have a list of things to do outside the house, so that when I’m ready to break from work I have something to do in mind. I take about half an hour each day to browse the local Events calendars and collect possibilities. There’s a certain discipline involved in not becoming a shut-in. A computer is a great communications tool, but eventually you have to go outside and walk in the sun, too.

Jun 19 2010

Temporary Bachelor Man!

There’s a new superhero in town …

… a superhero for modern times …

He’s TBM! (Temporary Bachelor Man)

Superpowers include the ability to make manly fires, type 100 words per minute, and hike tall mountains slowly. Note the details of his costume: A torch symbolizing his ever-readiness to do “guy stuff”; Wrist protectors look cool and guard against Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Yin-yang symbol indicates his constant quest to balance work and play; Sunglasses protect against desert sun (shade hat not shown); Khaki jeans hide dust and sand; Hiking boots protect feet on long trails; Belt with the symbol “T”.

Yes, this is what a superhero looks like at age 46. (Actually, his musculature and hairstyle are just slightly exaggerated.) If I don’t look like this in photos from Alumapalooza, because I normally hide in my secret identity as a mild-mannered magazine publisher.

Although I am separated from Eleanor and Emma, there is plenty of sunshine and heat to keep me energized, and lots of stuff to do. In fact, my “to do” list is so long I wonder if I’ll work through it before Eleanor arrives in 19 days (noooooo, I’m not counting). I have house stuff to do, light yard work, and tons of magazine work. I also have a new bike that is just begging to be ridden in the cool early mornings, so I’ll try to stay on Eastern Time and get up at 5 a.m. with the dawn. It’s reliably 69 or 70 degrees every morning, and stays cool until about 8 a.m., so the cycling is primo for early risers.

Tucson is just loaded with interesting things for a TBM to do. One great perk of being here is that we have Saguaro National Park just 15 minutes away. When we are traveling we always gravitate to the National Parks, so why not visit them when they are right in our front yard? Last night a volunteer was leading a night hike through the park, which is a relatively rare offering. A small group met in the Visitor Center and then walked down one of the popular loop trails as the sun set.

If you’ve never done a sunset hike in the Sonoran Desert, this might seem sort of crazy. After all, it was still 100 degrees at 7 p.m. last night, and all the critters come out at night (scorpions, snakes, gila monsters, bats, etc.) But that’s exactly what we were hoping for. Our group was equipped with water bottles and flashlights — even a few blacklights to spot scorpions, since they fluoresce under black light. Also, the views from Saguaro National Park at sunset are absolutely stunning. The Rincon Mountains turn pink, then purple as the sun goes down. The saguaros make fantastic silhouettes against the twilight glow. A sunset walk in the desert is one of the “must do” activities when you’re out here.

We heard fledgling elf owls calling to each other from their nests inside tall saguaro cactus. We saw numerous bats flitting over our heads. We saw a pair of Lesser Nighthawks chasing each other. We talked about the traces of ground squirrel activity, and packrat houses along the trail. The two-hour adventure went very quickly. It was a shame we didn’t spot any snakes and found only one scorpion, but it’s still early in the season. As the monsoon gears up in July and August, the tarantulas will start to get active, too. There are a lot of interesting creatures that live here, and believe it or not, it is rather rare to see them (except scorpions, which get into people’s houses in rural areas).

According the the weather service, it is going to get hot by Wednesday. Since our back porch thermometer indicated 104.7 yesterday, I am not sure how only Wednesday gets the designation of Hot, but perhaps the delineation is at 105 degrees. Those three-tenths of a degree might make all the difference. But the difference I’ll feel is probably in the overnight lows, rising to mid-70s. That means no more cool mornings to open the windows and chill the house.

In cases like this, TBM seeks higher ground. I’ve got a hike planned for Friday or Saturday, starting at about 5,400 feet and ending just below 10,000 feet. The “Sky Islands” of southern Arizona always provide a cool getaway when you need it.

But in the meantime, I’ve got to don my costume and grab my torch. It’s time for TBM to do manly errands around town. Adventure awaits!

Jun 18 2010

The Bachelor Zone

… episode #1

Imagine, if you will, a man, torn from his beloved family and Airstream and sent to a strange land where nothing is as it used to be. Food no longer magically appears on the table, ready to eat. Uninterrupted naps are possible at any time of day. Things left out, stay out. Working by day in one’s underwear, and venturing by night to the local art cinema, become the norm. You’ve entered … the Bachelor Zone.

I have never been separated from Eleanor and Emma for the length of time that now lies ahead of me. Three weeks of complete bachelor-hood is the program for June, as I live in the Tucson house while they spend the summer in New England. I will survive only by my own skills (and those of Eleanor’s via telephone link, more on that later). I will pace the house wondering why it’s so quiet. I will buy my own groceries. I may get to a level of loneliness experienced only by prison inmates on remote desert islands in French novels, and end up giving names to the cockroaches. But I will persevere, because this is all part of the grand adventure of Temporary Bachelor Man.

On Wednesday Eleanor and I drove down to Manchester NH for a night in a hotel, so that I could catch the 6:20 a.m. flight to Tucson this morning. It was cool and damp in Manchester, the way June has been consistently in the northeast this year. Two easy hops, and by 10 a.m. local time I was stepping out in the morning sunshine of Tucson, with the temperature at 86 degrees and rising rapidly toward 103. Even without the three hour time change, the change was disconcerting. I had left Manchester wearing warm socks and a fleece, feeling like mold was going to grow on my skin from the relentless humidity, amidst the gray industrial/commercial wilderness that is so common in the northeast. Back at home base, I had the strange sensation of having never left, because out here in the desert the seasons are subtle and things always seem to look approximately the same. It was just like the day we pulled the Airstream out, back in May, except hotter.

The house has survived well without us. A thin layer of dust covers everything outside, of course, since it hasn’t rained in a long time. Inside, a few plants died and there was the unfortunate discovery of three dirty plates in the dishwasher, but otherwise the house just seemed empty. (The food on the plates has baked on in the sealed environment of the dishwasher, and the smell is … unpleasant. Fortunately,Temporary Bachelor Man — TBM — knows how to turn on a dishwasher.)

Despite being seriously jet-lagged, I attacked my first task — groceries — almost immediately. Right off the bat I needed Eleanor’s guidance. She left the freezer packed full of pre-cooked dinners for me, but I had no idea of what the house might be missing for my other meals. As it turned out, the house had been mostly stripped of the really useful food items, e.g., those which can be prepared easily and quickly. All the good stuff was in the Airstream, 2000 miles away. We consulted on the phone for a few minutes (the first of many telephonic consultations), and with a short shopping list in hand, I headed off to the grocery store.

But let’s not get our priorities mixed up. A car left outdoors in Tucson quickly becomes unconscionably dusty. It wouldn’t do for TBM to be seen in a filthy car, so I hit the local car wash first. Once the car was appropriately shiny again, I felt it was safe to attempt the grocery store.

There are mostly two types of people in a Tucson grocery store on a 100 degree afternoon on a weekday: Moms, and old folks. And me. I felt a bit out of place, but then it wasn’t a comfortable geek-land like Best Buy. This was a place full of mysterious packaged items, none of which plugged into anything. I was definitely out of my element.

Although I had been in that particular store many times, it was still a battle to find the Bachelor Essentials, such as prepared guacamole and salsa. I never paid attention to where things were, before. Eleanor was not answering her phone at that time for some reason, so your hero was left to his own devices, but I maintained my composure and came out with everything I went in for … plus a few things that seemed critical to bachelorhood once I saw them on the shelves.

Ask Eleanor the definition of an “ingredient,” and she might mention examples like paprika, eggs, and butter. My view is that the ultimate bachelor ingredient is the “Spice Packet,” as mentioned on the side of a box. (“Empty contents of Spice Packet into bowl with 2 cups water and contents of box…”) Ah, the miraculous Spice Packet. It’s right up there with the amazing Sauce Packet used to complete the premium-type macaroni and cheese. Who knows what’s in it? It doesn’t matter, it’s darned convenient. When the Spice Packet is around, a pair of scissors are the only cooking implements needed.

My first cooking attempt went well, involving two microwaving experiences and one Spice Packet. Sure, it was easy, but it’s best to ease into new routines. I also made a salad, although “made” is sort of hyperbole when the process involves a pre-mixed tray of salad greens into which I sliced a couple of mushrooms.

Once these domesticities were completed, I realized two fatal mistakes: (1) No entertainment; (2) No ice cream. See, the house lacks a TV. When we are here in the winter, we watch movies on the laptops (streaming them over the Internet via Netflix or on DVD). We don’t have cable or satellite. If we want a larger screen, I unhook the Airstream’s TV and haul it in to the living room. But the DVDs and TV were still in the Airstream back in Vermont, and I had forgotten to remove the vacation hold on the house’s Internet. Mindless video entertainment is a staple of bachelorhood, but for one night I was happy to make an exception and continue re-reading “The Count of Monte Cristo” on the Kindle.

The ice cream problem was more solvable. There are three large grocery stores within 3 miles of the house. So I’m now set for the next hot quiet evening with Klondike bars and fruit pops, streaming Internet videos and, once the mail arrives, DVDs from Netflix. Already the house feels more bachelor-like. By the time Eleanor gets back here, I might have fully converted it …

Jun 15 2010

Notes from the camera

Quite often as we go, I use the camera as a notepad, snapping shots of things we see so that later when I’m writing the blog I’ll remember the little things that happened during the day. This works well except when I borrow Eleanor’s camera and then forget to download the photos that evening. By the time I remember, the blog has been written and the photos are obsolete.

But sometimes they are just a little too interesting to toss away. So today I present to you a little compendium of misplaced images from the past couple of weeks, as retrieved from Eleanor’s point-and-shoot digital camera today. These are the “little moments” that made up our days.

Item #1. You can still buy the wrong diesel fuel if you’re not careful. It is commonly believed that all diesel fuel now sold is the newer “Ultra-Low Sulphur Diesel,” (ULSD) which is required to protect the emissions systems of 2007 and later engines. In California that is true, but other parts of the country still have until this fall to switch over.

Putting the wrong fuel, confusingly named “Low Sulphur Diesel,” (LSD) in a late-model diesel such as ours can be an expensive mistake. We recently found the LSD stuff at a highway rest area along I-90 in New York. There’s always a label disclosing it, but you have to look closely.

Another tip-off: LSD is about 5-10 cents cheaper than the going price for ULSD, so it looks like a great deal, double-check that it’s the right stuff. This station didn’t sell ULSD, so we had to go elsewhere. Diesel owners beware!

Item #2: yogaFLIGHT can be good for your health. We were stressed out, sweaty, hungry, and grumpy after Day 2 of Alumapalooza. I had just spent most of the day parking trailers in the hot sun, between thunderstorms that threatened to send us all to the Land of Oz. And then slaDE insisted we go do their yogaFLIGHT deal, which was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment.

But then it occurred to me: what better test for yoga than to try it when you feel at your worst? So I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes, and let slaDE do his thing. Suddenly I was floating in the air, listening to his incredibly calming voice, feeling completely safe and wishing it wouldn’t end. Stress gone. I’ll be joining their yoga class next year when we do Alumapalooza again.

I am hoping we can cross paths later so that they can teach us their style of partner yoga in a private session. Maybe in Tucson this winter.

Item #3: Three genuises are better than one. This image demonstrates guys doing guy stuff. In this case, meticulously setting up a camera for a group shot outside The Spot To Eat diner in downtown Sidney, Ohio. slaDE offers useful advice, I scrutinize, and Sean does the positioning. It took less than five minutes for our combined Dream Team to set up this shot atop a newspaper box, without benefit of a tripod. Ladies, keep in mind how useful we are.

Item #4: Your GPS doesn’t know everything. I’ve mentioned in prior blogs how you can’t trust the GPS when towing — especially when you get close to state parks! Follow the official brown signs instead.

This shot shows our Garmin advising us to get back to Route 8 in the Adirondacks. According to it, we were wandering around in the forest somewhere.

Fortunately, we made it back to Route 8 quickly, as evidenced by our current speed. Note that the GPS has us traveling at 554 miles per hour. I don’t normally tow the Airstream that fast, but we were in a hurry.

Item #5: Eleanor continues to cook. No shocker here, but since she hasn’t done a video lately I thought you might want to know that we are still benefiting from Eleanor’s culinary treats. The latest is a rhubarb-raspberry bread pudding, seen here. Lou gave us a bunch of cut rhubarb from their patch last week. We used to have a rhubarb patch of our own, and have missed it over the years.

Normally she makes a rhubarb crisp or pie, but there wasn’t quite enough so she came up with the idea of a bread pudding. We happened to be in the Christmas Tree Shop over the weekend and Eleanor picked up a few things to make the pudding interesting. The rhubarb sauce was the kicker: pour it over the pudding and … well, I shouldn’t say too much because it’s too late for you to try ours. But trust me, it was a very successful experiment.