Lately, the only pictures that I have been sharing with the internet are the ones that I take with my iPhone. I have a pile of photos left to go through from our trip to Chile in December, and then another set of photos from a trip to Big Bend in January.
BUT, I also got a kindle a few weeks ago and every night I just want to come home and read and I don’t even turn on my computer.
It wasn’t the first day of our trip, but our first day in the park was the first day that I really started taking pictures. It was hard to go through pictures from this day and delete the unecessary ones (I try not to keep 7 pictures that are similiar, even if they are all good, because ultimately… one is enough), because this lake is just so seriously gorgeous.
We arrived the park, rode a catamaran across the lake, and arrived at our destination around 1 pm. After getting settled in, we headed off on a trail that bordered the lake… then turned back around after a couple of hours. It was a nice easy hike and an excellent pain:beauty ratio.
Still getting back into the swing of being not-on-vacation, with a billion pictures to go through and figure out what to keep (and post-process) from our trip.
Luckily, there was still a bit of fall color left in Austin.
So, as many have already heard, Rosie and I will be embarking on an adventure in South America in mid-December. Initially, we wanted to do a survey of Chile, but eventually found that there was way too much to see and do to cover it all. So we decided to focus on one area for the trip and hope to make it back to see the rest at a later date. After much planning and booking, we finally have the outlines of our trip. We’ll be flying to Patagonia via Santiago, Chile and spending most of our trip in Torres del Paine National Park.
Now we have spent a lot of time trekking throughout North America in various National Parks. However, this will be our first visit to a National Park in another country. For most of our trips we car camp (camping in view of the vehicle) and hike during the days. For this trip, we wanted to experience a little more comfort (one of the requirements for doing the expedition) and opted to stay in refugios which seem to be a mix of B&B and hostels. The neat thing about this particular park is that the main circuit is rather long and punctuated by a number of the refugios along the way. So it’s entirely possible for one to hike from one site to the next, staying in cozy bed with warm meals all along the way. This is exactly what we plan to do.
Lately Rosie and I have been training for the forthcoming trip. After making all these plans and reservations, a realization dawned on me. This will be the most extensive hiking trip I’ve ever done. The park is huge and has a main trail that circles a mountain range at its center. The main circuit is approx 150km however, we will only trek a portion of this circuit. In the map below you can see the full circuit, as well as a “W” etched out of the Southern half of the full circuit, that’s us.
Torres del Paine - Trail Map
We plan to start in the Paine Grande Lodge, and do Grey Glacier and back on the first day. The second day we’ll attempt to reach campsite Britannico, then return to Paine Grande lodge. The third day we’ll hike to another location, Refugio Cuernos (Los Cabanas) and move on to Refugio Chileno on the fourth day. The fifth day we’ll hike up to Torres campsite then down to Refugio Las Torres Norte. Finally we’ll rest for a day before taking off to Puerto Natales. All in all, we’re looking at approx 45 miles or so of hiking over a little under a week. That should be interesting…
This weekend, Josh’s sister Jeannine came back to Austin to visit with her husband (also named Josh). Unrelatedly, Uncle Donald was in town and stayed with us. It was nice to have a little get together at Christina and Steven’s house.
I’ve started using Camera+ to take pictures on my iPhone. I like the idea of instagram, but honestly, Camera+ just has better filters. I like the triangle that the road makes in this shot and how it’s off-center.
(overheard on campus)
Student 1: Are you a freshman?
Student 2: She’s a junior.
Student 1(in the tone of voice reserved for compliments): Wow, you don’t look like it!
Student 3: Grrrreat…..
(part 1)
From the start, Dexter wanted to be an indoor/outdoor cat. I guess it’s not surprising when you consider the fact that when we found him, he was already outside. At various times, we tried to keep him inside and he hated it, which he conveyed to us with lots of sad meowing and by scratching the heck out of our furniture.
But the outdoors, he loved the outdoors.
For a lovely but brief period of time, he hadn’t figured out how to get over the fence in the back of the condo and we could let him out to play without him being able to roam out of our sight. But then he realized that he could jump from the AC unit to the top of the fence and come and go as he pleased.
We developed a system. He was allowed outside, but once it got dark outside we would call him back in and not let him out again until it was daytime. During those early days, I feel like he didn’t spend as much time outside as he did later, and there were plenty of great photo ops:
Then we moved from our condo to the house that Josh grew up in. When it came to cat safety, this was not as good of a location as the condo because we were two houses away from a very busy street. Again, we kept him inside for a little while, but eventually we relented and let him go outside again. He also had to adjust to living with Dade the black lab, but that went fine after a bit of a nervous start
So we were back to our normal routine, but gradually Dexter seemed to want to stay out more and more. And sometimes he just wouldn’t come when I called for him at night. I hated it, but I didn’t feel like there was much I could do about it other than go out repeatedly and call for him, hoping that he would come back in. We got to the point where if he came inside and it was even remotely close to getting dark, we wouldn’t let him back out. Most of the time when he stayed out all night, he would come inside right away when I got up in the morning, and be extra affectionate. But sometimes he wouldn’t come right away in the morning either.
When you get down to it, I feel like I was completely unprepared emotionally to lose him. And it feels a little naive because it was so obvious that we were in a dangerous place to let your cat roam outside. But there were so many times when he didn’t come home, and I worried about him every single time, and every single time he eventually showed up. When that happens over and over, there is a little voice in your head that says, “he must be okay.”
This time he didn’t come home (just like the night before, and the night before that), and I went to bed relatively early for a Friday night because I had a bad headache. I woke up early because I had work to do, and I worried but I wasn’t especially alarmed when he didn’t come. I just went back outside every so often and called for him.
But after a while it began to get warmer outside as the day progressed and he still didn’t come and it started to seem much more unusual. After I finished my work, I took a walk around the neighborhood and looked up and down S. 1st (the busy street). I didn’t find any squished cats, and I came back home.
The thing was that whoever hit him (or someone shortly thereafter) had moved him from the road to the grass beside the road. I was so focused on checking the road for dead cats that I didn’t notice him in the grass. Eventually our neighbor came over and asked if that was our cat in his yard. We brought him home in a box and Josh dug a grave for him that night in our backyard.
The thing that breaks my heart about all of this is the he was SO close to home when it happened. He wasn’t out of earshot. If I had just been lucky enough to go outside at the right time and call him, maybe he would have come inside instead of trying to cross S. 1st.
I’m also sad that I didn’t take more pictures near the end of his life. I have so many pictures from when he was smaller but the last pictures that I took were with my iphone and were from June 18th. Partly this was because I just haven’t been using my camera as much lately and partly it was because the lighting in this house isn’t as good as it was in the condo, so more of the pictures didn’t come out as well.
I really can’t bring myself to feel like we should have kept him inside though. He really would have been miserable in that situation.
I miss you, Dexter.
Last weekend, we lost our sweet little kitty cat, Dexter. By the vet’s estimate, he was approximately three and a half years old.
He came to us at a time when we weren’t particularly looking for a cat. It was fourth of July and we were hanging out in our friend Rob’s backyard after coming back from watching fireworks downtown. A young orange cat showed up and alternated between getting pettings from us, jumping up into Josh’s lap, and running around Rob’s backyard. We hung out there for a few hours, exclaiming over what a friendly cat he was and resolving that if he left Rob’s yard, that would be that, but if he had still stuck around by the time we were ready to leave, we would take him home with us. A few hours later, he was still there. My SLR camera was having issues that night, and this was one of the few pictures that I got before it died.
He did not like the car ride home, but once we got there, he chilled back out and started to explore. I got a few more pictures with my older digital camera (which was on it’s way to dying, which is why these pics look a bit odd).
He began to settle right in to his new home. It’s hard to explain what was so great about Dexter. Some cats are standoffish, and it takes an excessive amount of patience and cajoling to get them to let you pet them just a little. Other cats are so into being petted that they are just completely non-discriminating in their desire to get attention. Any person who comes along is met with the same level of harassment, which can get a bit annoying after a while. Dexter was the perfect balance between the two; he was happy to accept affection but laid back enough that he rarely demanded it. He was also surprisingly okay with being held, more than any other cat that I have ever encountered.
He also loved to just be near us as we went about our day. This led to a few favorite hangout spots around the condo where he could keep us company as we went about our daily routines:
He wasn’t perfect, he would bug me when he was bored and I was working on the computer upstairs (usually by batting at my hand on the mouse), and he destroyed a few of our (and his) things:
But overall, he was just such a joy to have in our lives.
(continued in part 2)
Denali from 150 miles away
We visited Alaska a few years ago and one of the highlights of the trip was going to Denali National Park. The park is named after the largest mountain in North America, Denali (a.k.a. Mt. McKinley) and it is quite an impressive sight. You can actually see the mountain from hundreds of miles away, in Anchorage, assuming the weather is agreeable. On this trip, we had an opportunity to travel deep into the park and decided to camp out in front of the mountain, at the closest campground possible: Wonder Lake. We retired early that day and woke up early enough to enjoy a break in the weather. This is what we saw when we peered out of our tent.
As the years have passed, I have often thought of that day. It was one of those experiences that both humbles and inspires and something I will never forget. I understand why native cultures consider it a deity. The mountain is more than mere rock, it has a soul and consciousness of its own. It watches the Earth move and shape itself over the millennia; it witnesses the rise and fall of untold species; it controls the weather for hundreds of miles in all directions. Standing near it, I could feel its gravity pull me closer. I wanted to stay longer; to remain in its presence and learn its secrets. 
As we left the campground to head back to our RV, I felt as though I was saying goodbye to a good friend, one I had known for ages. The time we spent together was fleeting and seemed too short. While packing up, I had only one thought in my mind: we will return one day and visit “The High One” again. Until then, these photos will have to do.
