Tuesday, May 08, 2018

The Month That Was - April 2018

A couple of trips this month, so travel, travel, travel below. It was, in a way, nice to get on the road again. That and house prep are about the sum of my activities for April. Winter has passed and I'm quite happy about that. It wasn't the coldest or the most snowy, but it did manage to rear its head at the most inopportune times.

I am still struggling health-wise. I brought some sort of desert bug back from Moab that I am fighting. I believe I have been battling congestion on and off for about most of this year, and even when I'm not I don't feel at full strength. I'm having a terrible time getting my endurance back up. And I've taken to feeling dizzy when I stand up. I strongly suspect I have some sort of mild virus that's draining me and my immune system can't seem to rid me of it. Time will tell. (And don't tell me to go to the doctor. I have. The doctor can see nothing, but all that means is that I don't have a commonly observable ailment. The doctor isn't going to do anything for me except give me a preventative round of antibiotics -- useless against a virus -- and treat the symptoms. I can do that myself.)

With any luck. I will get back to writing in May. I did get through a revision of my latest manuscript so I haven't totally wasted April.

[Travel,Rant] Vacation Life
[Travel] Marco and the 'Glades
[Travel] Again to Moab

[Travel, Rant] Vacation Life

There is always a certain stress to travel. There are so many systems to keep track of: the system that gets you to the airport, the system that allows you to park your car, the system that gets you through security, the system that gets you on the plane, the system that gets your luggage loaded, the system that gets your biological needs attended to in the air, and then all that in reverse at your destination. Then comes the system that gets you lodging, the system that gets you transportation (car rental for newbies, ugh), the system that keeps you fed and entertained while you're gone. For the most part these can be mastered through experience, but I would hate to have to try to master them all from scratch. There is so much to know (much more than when I was young) and only so much that signs, warnings, and instructions can clue you in on. A young, pliable mind of average intelligence can probably handle it, but to an old or substandard intellect, less prone to quick and accurate observation and inference, it must be horrifying, especially when so much of the process is filled with strident commands from punitive authorities and dire warnings about the failures to comply quickly. And let's not forget the ever present impatience of the skilled travellers you might be holding up. I have friends who are knocking on the door of 60 and never travelled significantly. I cringe at the struggle they are facing when they decide to finally take that dream trip. Even if they manage to adapt to all the norms, the rush-and-wait rhythm is exhausting until you are used to it. Inexperience both in the planning and performing of vacationing will almost certainly swamp that dream with disappointment.

But even if you have all this down pat, like Yours Truly, there are unknowns. In part or whole, all these systems involve humans in some capacity and that introduces random variables. As a result, these systems can change subtly and without warning -- one plane leg might be enforcing the carry-on limit and another may not; one security line might tell you to remove your watch, and another may not; one hotel might let you check in early, another may not or try to milk you for money to do so; one tour guide may be brilliant, another full of shit.

Even more uncontrollable is your personal situation. Are you travelling in a pair, or a group? If so, then every decision on what to do is a negotiation. There are people who are very happy ordering room service and watching pay-per-view movies in their room in paradise. There are people who will fly thousands of miles and then go to a mall and eat at Red Lobster. There are people who will pick fights with everyone in the service industry and believe they are being cheated at every turn. There are people who will happily sit on the beach for twelve hours a day. There are people who will plan everything down to the minute. There are people who madly rush to see everything they possibly can for 30 seconds, as if they are bagging sites like coins in a video game. There are people who wander aimlessly and settle for the entertainment comes to them. There are people who are prompt on the dot, and people who linger and wallow in minutiae until you are late for everything. (In my experience nothing is more dangerous to enjoying a trip than an incompatible group of personalities.)

Maybe you should travel on your own, you say? It does have its benefits, not the least of which is doing what you want when you want without explaining yourself. That said, are you prepared to join, say, a catamaran snorkeling tour with nothing but families and couples and you on your own? How about asking for a table for one? You must realize that often, when you travel alone, the people you encounter regard you with a mild form of pity -- will that bother you? More importantly, can you live inside your own head, with your own thoughts, for extended periods if you need to? To many, this challenge is insurmountable.

What I'm saying is that vacationing, like life, is a complex activity, and needs practice to get right. Bad trips are learning experiences, both about the external forces and yourself. In time, it can become a great pleasure; your vacations can form some of your most treasured memories and can mark the phases of your life, but if you push it off and wait until you are older to take that one dream trip -- your sense of optimism will be tested, even on something as innocuous as a Caribbean cruise.

[Travel] Marco and the 'Glades

I have been to Florida more times than I can count. There is little new there for me. I used to wander all around, but now I pretty much stick to the southwest Gulf Coast, anywhere from Anna Maria Island all the way down to Key West. I used to like Miami Beach, but I'm too old and too straight for that scene. Going north from there are some wonderful places but there is a preponderance of glitz that I am not comfortable with. Most of north Florida, from say Orlando north is fine, and there are some especially nice places in the panhandle, but a lot of it seems to be trying too hard to be something special. The southern Gulf coast is special, they don't really have to try. Or maybe it's just that I feel so comfortable there that everywhere else doesn't quite measure up. Who knows?

This trip started with a couple of days in Sarasota visiting my brother. Then a couple hour drive down I-75 targeting Marco Island. On the way I took a short detour through Bonita Beach and up through Estero. Once again, I found a new and lovely beach area I had never known about. It has the same beach town vibe as the rest of the area, with a large state park and a huge expanse of beaches. The sight of the beaches and boats and blue water surrounding the gulf islands was heady. There appear to be plenty of rental properties and beach bars; I need to do a little more exploring here in the future.

Marco Island is about the final point on south on the Gulf coast before you have to turn east and swing across to the State to catch A1A to the Keys.The island itself is almost entirely covered in buildings -- homes, shops, condo towers, there are canal like estuaries where folks can have their boats docked at the back of their homes, but there are no open or wilderness areas per say, except the protected areas by the beach.

It sounds like ugly sprawl, but it's not. It's really quite nice. The homes are in tasteful neighborhoods, there is no obnoxious signage, and one of the benefits is that you are much more self-sufficient on the island rather than having to cross back to mainland for a grocery store or other conveniences like you do on other Gulfside keys. If it sounds like I am scouting for retirement properties, I am. I have been for years. Marco moves high on the list. It appears to have a strong combination of infrastructure and beachy goodness. It is, however, like all these other towns, not cheap for real estate.

The beach itself is exceptional. It has the standard powder soft gulf coast sand and extends up and down the southwest coast. The killer Gulf sunsets come along for the ride. But Marco's beach seems much broader than many of the others I have explored. That gives it a sense of being less populated (even though it probably is just as busy others).

Marco's positioning gives it a couple of advantages. First, there is no fee to access the island, like there is on Sanibel/Captiva or Boca Grande. Being as far south as it is can insulate it from the occasional cold snap that occurs every few years in the middle and north of the State. I know that sounds lame, but if it happens to coincide with your long-planned beach vacation it becomes a sign that God is angry with you. There is a shuttle ferry from Marco to Key West. That means anyone living here has easy access to a quick getaway down to the Conch Republic. Also, the heart of the Everglades is a couple hours down US-41.

I have been to great number of national parks, and when comes to viewing wildlife, Everglades takes the prize. The Shark Valley entrance is in the heart of the swamp off US-41 in the untamed land between Marco and Miami. Here they have installed a paved 15-mile loop that runs deep into the 'Glades, the midpoint harbouring a large modernist spiral observation tower. There are a couple of ways to travel the loop. One is to take one of their tour trams where a guide will give you the low down on the Everglades and everything in it. The other is to rent one of the beat-to-hell bikes they have available. (I suppose a third would be to hike the whole thing.) Any way you do it, you are going to get up close with gators. Some really big 10-12 footers. They will have pulled themselves up out of the water, and occasionally right on the path, to bask in the sun. You will be within 10 yards of some seriously toothy wild animals. You might wonder, given that this is not Disney, if anyone has been eaten. The answer is no. There is only one record of an attack, and that was when some kid apparently ran his bike directly into one some number of years ago. It is remarkable that no one has been eaten, but then I am reminded the most creatures will flee from humans, and the gators will too if you approach them. Most gators will bolt at the first sign of people. The ones in Everglades NP have never associated man with food so they really have no attraction to people, on the other hand, they have never been disturbed by people so they really have no great fear either. Humans are just random objects to them. It's only when you seem to be getting too friendly that they take off into the swamp.

In the course of biking the loop, I bet I saw 30 gators of varying size, many within a few yards of me, ignoring me as I rolled by. You become so acclimated to them that it's easy to forget this is not a zoo. You are in their domain. And even though they don't eat you, they could.

Beyond the gators you will also get close up with turtles of various species, huge fish in the deeper wetlands, and more cranes than you will see in the rest of your life. If you want to view wildlife, the Everglades is the place.

Back to Marco. As I mentioned it is almost fully developed but a walk on the beach will remind you how close nature is. I came across a poor puffer fish, dehydrated and sitting serenely at the high tide line. Gulls dived. Geckos dodged. Clams ducked. Even in a place as developed as Marco you must realize that Florida is a veneer of civilization over the primal swamp. I just hope the veneer holds up well enough for me to retire there.

[Travel] Again to Moab

My third trip to Moab. If I could fly directly into Moab, I would probably visit every year. Instead, the closest major airport is Salt Lake City, yielding about a four hour drive to get in. Since it's also a four hour flight, it pretty much kills a day for travel on either end of the trip. Too bad, because Moab has so much to offer I could spend weeks. There are two National Parks within shooting distance, one just outside town, so hiking is de rigueur. It is a mountain biking Mecca -- I am barely a dilettante mountain biker but on my second trip there I spent multipole days on the trails to the point of exhaustion. You can rent those ATVs (or they call them OHVs now I think) or jeeps and barrel or crawl around some very remote backcountry. Rock climbing -- you bet. Moab correctly bills itself as America's outdoor playground, and they ain't kidding.

That's not to say it's without issues. A visit to Arches National Park highlights just how busy it can get. Arches is one of the most popular National Parks, and visitors have doubled over the last few years. By late morning, waits to get into the park are over and hour. Wait times in excess of 2 hours have been clocked. It's easy to see why. Arches is chock full of 1-3 mile hikes to, well, arches, of all shapes and sizes. Magnificent red rock formations everywhere. It is paradigmatically beautiful and something you can do without any particular skills or athleticism. Families abound. The flagship hike is a three miler round trip to Delicate Arch (uphill there, downhill back). It's a wonderful hike, but you will not be alone.

When a National Park starts to get too busy, something has to be done. At Zion, once the season starts, they institute a shuttle service. You can drive in the park, you have to park your car and take the (free) shuttle anywhere in the park. It sounds inconvenient, but it works very well. Arches is planning on taking a different tack. They are going to have scheduled entry windows. You will have to reserve your entry window ahead of time. It will be interesting to see how this will work out and how behavior will change to accommodate it.

I will make an unpopular statement. Price would be another way to modify demand. Some of these parks could use surge pricing of some sort to smooth the demand curve. That would be grossly unpopular, but it would almost certainly work in an economic sense. For the time being, most parks are in the $20-25 range for a three-day pass. The deal of a lifetime is $80 for an annual pass that gets you into any park, anywhere for a year. I picked one up in the Everglades and I intend to use the hell out of it.

Politically, the Park Service itself is peopled by folks who wear their Progressivism on their sleeves, thereby righteously alienating half their customers with the tone and tenor of their displays and discussions. On the other hand they take hits from the Left because there are not enough black people as either rangers or visitors. They make enormous land grabs against the wishes of State and Local interests because they see themselves as a bulwark against evil corporate polluters, yet they can't afford to manage the land they have and can't raise prices without making the parks even richer and whiter. In short, they are a thoroughly contemporary institution.

And yet, despite the crowds and the controversies, they are wonderful. Spending time in a good cross-section of them should be on your to-do list for life. I'm glad I have been able to to that and hope to continue. If they want to charge me to line-skip like Disney, I'd happily pay the cost.

Like they ask at the beginning of every Tough Mudder, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Well for me it was the next day, when I went whitewater rafting. The Colorado river is the essential water source for the entire Southwest. I have seen it in various places -- Lake Havasu, Lake Mead, through the Grand Canyon, Lee's Ferry, Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam, through Canyonlands and Moab -- but this was the first time I would actually ride it.

For a daily whitewater trip from Moab you generally have two options. One is the Fisher Towers stretch of the river, maybe 20-30 minutes out of town. This has Class II-III rapids and is a great family adventure with opportunities to swim and picnic lunch. A bit more intense is a trip through Westwater Canyon, which Class III-IV. The Fisher Towers trip can be done on a half day basis, but Westwater is a full day affair. Of course, I chose Westwater. You will take a bright and early tour shuttle nearly to the Colorado border to put in. The first half of the day is generally easy floating along with some light rapids. You stop on the banks for lunch and once you put back in, you get to the bigger stuff. You will get wet. You might fall in. It's like a series of short choppy roller coaster segments in a water park.

River rafting is truly a good time, although guide-dependent. To navigate among the rocks takes skill and experience. Using oars, the river guide directs the raft to the most propitious channels. He (they are exclusively men as far as I saw) is also you tour guide, and social director. There will be 8 people in your raft and for the course of the day you will be close friends. The guide needs to manage the personalities as much as the river. If you had fun, you should tip big.

I got a big kick out of rafting and I hope to do it again, maybe an overnighter down a more challenging river. I'd also like to try a paddle raft where everyone is involved in maneuvering. It goes on the list for future trips.

The last day in Moab was a jeep tour up through the backcountry of Canyonlands National Park (CNP). The first time I was in CNP, nearly a decade ago, I remember as I was leaving the park looking off to the left and seeing a steep jeep trail of switchbacks going down into the canyon and thinking how cool it would be to take that back to town instead of the highway. Well, I finally got to that trail (called Shafer trail) but this going up instead of down. From just outside Moab there is a road called Potash, which, not surprisingly, runs past a Potash plant. It runs, like many things in the Southwest, along the Colorado river for a while, passing a huge red rock wall on one side with elaborate petroglyphs, then turns into the a canyon jeep trail.

Interesting story: Along the way you note and enormous excavation site. This is the location of a former uranium mine. Many years ago, when the price of uranium dropped, the mine shut down. In time people came to the conclusion that the leftover dust from the mine was getting into everything everywhere and potentially responsible for a number of cancer cases. So there is now a 300 million dollar effort underway to literally dig up all the dirt, load it on to trucks and ship it out in railroad cars to a place 30 miles north, where it will be dropped in a hole and covered with some concoction of shale and sand that will prevent it from contaminating the planet. The things we get ourselves into.

Alrighty. Further up Potash Road you come to the actual potash plant, which given the state of affairs, has to be one of the most closely environmentally monitored facilities imaginable. After that you come to the trail proper. The first thing to note is that however high you think you are you can still go higher. You can inch your way up the trail to magnificent overlooks (including the spot where Thelma and Louise went into the "Grand Canyon") only to realize you've got a long way up to go.

Another thing you realize is how astonishingly stupid people can be. This is a real 4wd trail. In dry weather I might attempt it with 2wd, but I would at least want a high-clearance vehicle. You will however, encounter people taking their rental cars through -- just your basic Chevy Malibu -- causing untold stress and damage and, if you do get stuck, you might be looking at a couple of grand to get your car out. Also, if your rental car had a GPS tracker or you did any damage that was obviously from off road, it may be even more expensive than a tow. That rental agreement specifically forbids you from taking the car off road.

It is not hard to imagine how people get themselves into this. I am given to understand they are often foreigners who just think it's a dirt road until they get in too deep. Admittedly the only posted warning is a sign that says "High-Clearance, 4wd recommended" but there is no policing whatsoever. But the rock crawling is real, and the heights and cliff edges can be knuckle-whitening. You would think folks would turn back when they realize this, although maybe they just keep thinking the worst is over. It isn't. Whatever the case, if you make it through, there's a real sense of accomplishment to it.

And that was that, yet there is still more to do and see in Moab. Three times is not enough. I can't wait to go back.