the great frozen tundra

my nephew kieran and his new train (made by his great-grandpa!)

i recently returned from a trip to the frozen tundra that is minnesota. it never seems to fail that it is really, really cold whenever i go home...january, may, august...it doesn't matter. the day i flew in it was -5F. when i woke up the next morning it was -25F. let's just say i didn't venture out of my parent's house very much. the trip home was to celebrate our annual belated-christmas get together. almost everyone (we missed you david and pete!) was able to make the trek and it was great to spend a few days with my whole family. my nephew is 20 months and has changed so much since i saw him in june. he babbles up a storm and RUNS everywhere. i don't think walk is really in his vocabulary. my niece is 9 years old and nearly as tall as me. i am having a hard time believing that she is a third grader. everyone else in the family is doing well and the three black labs (ages 6 months, 18 months, and 10 years - cass's sister) kept everyone entertained. on our way back to minneapolis for my flight, i got to have lunch with my dear friend tenley and play with steian for a bit. my flights back to california made for a good adventure...it's a bummer when the landing gear is problematic and you're in the air... hmm.

brother matt and niece madeline

back on the home front there is good news. i have a more than temporary place to live! i don't move in until march 1st but at least i don't have to look anymore. for the time being i am staying with friends mark and jen. they are really wonderful people and i feel so grateful that cass and i are able to be here.
my peru trip is fast approaching which means that i will get to see pete soon. i feel like a little kid at christmas these days...i can hardly wait. as soon as we get back to the states we start our separate travel schedules again so i am really thankful that we will have two weeks together before we are apart for another three weeks.

a new year...

happy new year, everyone! it has been a busy month here. at the beginning of december pete's parents took us and his sister to cirque du soleil (kooza!) in san francisco for christmas. this was the first show for pete and i and it was amazing! we were in the front row...which means we were messed with my the performers a bit and had a little sweat flung our way, but had incredible seats. there was a woman who could lay on her stomach and walk her feet all the way around her head. go ahead...try that one at home!
the day after that outing i headed up to corvallis, oregon, for a conference. The conference was put on by PISCO, which included researchers from 4 west coast schools. since i have either worked or studied with that group for the last 10 years, it was great to see so many wonderful people. i also got to catch up with some friends who are still in corvallis, which was great.
as soon as i got back from oregon, pete and i took a short weekend and went to yosemite. we did some hiking and a bit of snowshoeing but missed the big snows by a couple of days. we stayed at a really cool little resort outside the park that cooked great food and had a wonderful sauna/hot tub facility.


and then...i had to move...to nowhere. after 7 weeks of searching, cassie and i are still homeless. i have been able to stay in pete's room since he is away, but it is not a long term solution because cassie is not supposed to be here. cass is utterly confused, but has been a champion of going with the flow. the longest we have been in one place since the 21st is three days. being settled would be lovely... i have to tell you all this because it paints a beautiful picture of what house searching has been like. a couple weeks ago i had two days of searching that set the bar at a new level. day 1 - living with a 50 year old man and his 78 year old mother. i am sure they are really nice people but...psycho anyone?? day 2 - bitten by chihuahua in the morning and dinner with a registered sex-offender in the evening. cool, eh?
christmas was wonderful. we spent three days with pete's family in oakland. we had family friend christmas, immediate family christmas, and extended family christmas. it was nice to relax for a few days and forget about housing and everything else for a bit. unfortunately for me, pete had to get on a plane in the early morning on the 26th. he is now sailing the seas around antarctica in his yearly gig as a marine technician for the u.s. antarctic program. he'll be there until mid-february and then we'll meet in peru for a two week adventure. his absence is especially felt this year as it feels like the only stability in my life is now thousands of miles away. however, as friends continue to trickle back into town from the holidays my days get a little brighter.
i hope all of you enjoyed family and friends over the holidays!

old rocks, crocs, a year with a new leg, and housing hell

xunantunich mayan temple

the latest trip to belize started off with three days in the western part of the country a stones throw away from guatemala. i stayed in san ignacio town and largely explored the mayan sites in the area. i made it out to caracol (the largest site in belize) - which included a military escort to and from the site, xunantunich (second largest in belize), and cahal pech - a small site just outside san ignacio. it was neat to see the sites and to learn about how they were built and why they were abandoned. like most ancient societies, the amount of labor they used to build their cities is incomprehensible. and i have to say that the stone slabs for beds looked a little uncomfortable... :)

12 foot crocodile named jack - he lives behind the field station

after three days of exploring, i met up with sadie and collin in belize city and we headed out to turneffe atoll for a week of research. we had a bit of a rocky start with a puncture wound to sadie's foot (stupid mangroves) and some rough weather that prevented us from diving. we did, however, get many opportunities to see the resident crocodiles (jack and jill) that live behind the field station. we didn't see them in july, but this trip they were pretty active. they are big...and ancient looking...and scary. actually seeing them added a whole new level of terror to crawling around in the mangroves. both collin and i were pretty happy when we finished our last mangrove monitoring site and made it safely back to the boat. despite the rough start, we did manage to complete most of the research. we couldn't complete everything at a couple of the sites due to bad visibility. that site also seemed to have been hardest hit by the hurricanes that blew through the area earlier in the summer. one of the sites was unrecognizable to any of us...it looked like someone had dropped a bomb under water and left nothing but coral rubble. this adventure was sadie's last monitoring and collection trip for her master's thesis. it is unfortunate that the logistics associated with this project are difficult as it would have been great to keep the project going...

miss cassie mae

in other news, yesterday marked the one year anniversary of cassie's new leg. a year ago we were both miserable and crying at the vet, but today she continues to astound me with how well she has recovered. i took her for a run today and she was tearing up the trail like she was a puppy (she will be 10 next month). it is so wonderful to see and i am excited to have my running buddy back a couple days a week.

finally, life has been a little unsettled for the last couple of weeks as we just found out that our landlord is selling the house. i have been in my current spot for the last 3+ years and am really sad to be leaving our wonderful home. ken gave us until 1 february, but for some reason unknown to me, two of my housemates decided that it would be best to try to find a place immediately before the holidays. can you tell how excited i am about this?? as it stands now, i have to be out by december 20th....and there is nothing available...especially with cass. maybe my standards are too high, but these are the things i am not willing to live with:

$800 rent for a 10x10 room (mom, i told you you would be able to get good money for your closet out here!)
someone else's children
pot heads
a house full of 19 year-olds
sharing a room with another person (or 2 or 3)

call me crazy, but those are the standards. and as it turns out, those things are pretty hard to avoid in this town. grr. so i'll probably be living at the marine lab camped out on the couches in my lab for the foreseeable future. there's a kitchen and a shower here so it might not be too bad... damn this town and its unaffordable living situation!

anyway, i hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving. pete, cass, and i are heading up to oakland tomorrow for dinner at grandma's and then family fun day with his mom, dad, and sister on friday.

the travel report

to give my body a break from sitting in front of my computer for long days, i headed up to british columbia to see roly and christine and to meet their new little ones gabriel (human) and bugaboo (dog). we had a great time catching up, cooking, hiking around, visiting with family, and watching some local hockey. i miss them all already...

pete and his sister made it back from italy safely (bags included) - they had a great time. pete really enjoys history and connecting place to knowledge, so rome was his favorite part of the trip. i think his favorite moment was when he stood on the spot where charlemagne was crowned the first holy roman emperor in 800ad. and then there was the bridge that had been in use since 62ad. stuff is OLD around there.

i'm leaving this afternoon for a return trip to belize. i have a few days to travel to the western side of the country to see some mayan sites before heading out to the atoll for the research part of the trip. pete leaves for orlando (dive conference) tomorrow. but once we both return we will be in santa cruz for a whole month together!

alaska

my parents and i had a fantastic ten days in alaska! to say the whole trip was amazing would be an understatement. we had great weather, beautiful scenery, amazing fall colors (the trees looked like they were on fire!), and good company. we started our adventure by picking up a motorhome. yes, that's right, i drove a motorhome (at least it was a small one). we headed north first to denali to try to beat the snow and the closure of the park road. the road was still open, but we did get snowed on pretty good. what would a trip to alaska be without a little snow, right? we also saw the most enormous moose i have ever seen... i could have easily fit within the span of his antlers...laying down. on our way back south we were treated to a most spectacular view of denali herself. that is one impressive mountain, by the way. our next stop was the kenai peninsula. we toured around homer and seward mainly. while in seward we went on a boat tour of the kenai fjord national park. it was amazing! we saw orcas (killer whales), stellar sea lions (endangered species), dall's porpoises, sea otters, dahl's sheep, lots of glaciers, and a nearly cloudless sky. we headed back to anchorage after the peninsula and were treated to beluga whales on our way back. it was so cool! i nearly made my dad crash the rv because i was so excited. oops. we had a couple days in anchorage before flying home. we were lucky enough to be hosted by my childhood piano teacher's daughter, which was great fun. having 10 days with my parents was one of the best parts of the trip. i have been away from minnesota for 10 years this month and not a day goes by when i don't miss having my family close.

i am going to try to hold onto this feeling of enjoyment as i go into proposal writing hell for the month of october. pete left for italy yesterday for a two week excursion with his sister. i am sad he is gone again, but i will get lots of work done without him as a distraction.

we have had a bought of high drama at the bellevue house. cassie got into a scuffle with some raccoons while i was gone and got a little scratched up; one housemate is now going through rabies vaccinations; another housemate was hit by a car on her bike yesterday. she is soooo lucky and walked away with a broken hand, sore neck, and bruises. i am hoping the drama ends there...

denali - what a sight!

holgate glacier - kenai fjords national park

orcas!

exit glacier

out of the deep blue sea

moon jellies abound in big sur

my field assistant kate and i just got back from another field adventure in big sur. not exactly the smoothest trip we've ever had...but nothing a little duct tape couldn't fix. today we were boating back from one of my sites and the ocean was full of jellies. they were everywhere and as deep as we could see. fortunately these are not the stinging kind... what a beautiful and rare sight (climate change, i know, i know, but i did enjoy the moment).

last week we were out on the national marine sanctuary boat doing some other work in big sur. big lesson learned...i don't think i'm cut out for government work. efficiency is not the name of the game so you can imagine my frustration. grr. i think working at rei just moved up on the list of options if this science thing doesn't pan out...

pete and i finally made it back to the stanislaus river after a two year hiatus. his family has a little piece of property up in the mountains that is absolutely lovely to visit. we went up to celebrate pete's sister erin's 30th birthday. we swam lots, cooked a turkey in the dirt, hiked around, and generally enjoyed ourselves. cassie, or course, chose the day of departure to eat 10 oz. of dark chocolate mint creams...no chocolate toxicity but her insides were unhappy!

cooking in the dirt...that's the turkey at the bottom!

belize adventures

sadie, collin, and me - hard at work!

our trip to belize was an adventure but great! the trip started off with collin and me stalking sadie in the airport until we were sure it was the woman we were looking for. we were then whisked away from the airport by a cabbie that drove like a crazy man to try to get us to the dock before the boat for turneffe left. we just made it...
all of the research went smoothly...although i am not a tropical convert yet, i must say that 85 degree water was a treat. diving on the reef itself was a little depressing - there was dead coral everywhere. a lot of that is due to the warm water temperature...the corals just can't hack it at sustained temps above 86 degrees. there has also been disease that has come through and over-fishing of the grazers that keep the reef clean and healthy. we saw some cool spots, but it was undeniable that the reefs are in big trouble. in the mangroves, the potential for salt water crocodiles was a little disconcerting, but fortunately we only had one close call with a log look-a-like. i am certain, however, that we provided lots of entertainment for our boat driver with all the hooting and hollaring we were doing to scare away any hungry crocs.
since we finished our work earlier than expected we had the opportunity to do a few things for fun. the boat was going into belize city to drop off some guests and pick up another group so we went along for the ride. we had a few hours before the boat left again so we went out to a place called the community baboon sanctuary. the belizeans call howler monkeys 'baboons.' it was cool to see them, but our guide had bananas to feed them, which turned me off a little. he also got the dominant male really worked up so he would howl out of aggression...again, cool to hear the incredible sound that comes out of one monkey but not what i had anticipated. another day we went out with the dolphin reaseacher, katheryn, and drove one of her routes. we didn't see any dolphins, but it was a beautiful day to be out on the water. our last day in belize we snorkled the blue hole and explored half moon caye. the blue hole was a trip...the fringing reef is 1-10 feet deep and then it drops off into oblivion. it was a little creepy to swim to the edge and look down into this massive deep, dark hole. half moon caye is a little island near the blue hole that has a population of nesting red-footed boobies and frigate birds. cool stuff!
hopefully i'll be going back in october for another round of monitoring, but it is funding dependent at this point. it would be great to get back and follow up on the study, but i feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to go on this trip.

red-footed booby on half moon caye

black howler monkey

reef

turneffe atoll (oceanic society field station)