scotland highlights

i had a conference in glasgow in august and pete decided he would come along and make a vacation of it. we had five days together before i had to go to my conference and then we had a day at the end of the trip before we flew home. neither of us had an extensive "travel goals" list...in fact, there was really only one - go to the highland games. 

we crossed our lone travel goal off the list on day two. we went to the perth highland games, which included many pipe bands, dancing, cycling, running, and games of strength. throwing a caber in the rain looked hard! we listened to so many pipe bands that the sound of bagpipes and snare drums was ringing in my ears for hours after we left. 

 dancers' kilts

 lone bagpiper

pipe band playing for the judges

 caber toss

from perth we headed northwest along the lyon river, around loch tay, through glen coe, and ultimately to spean bridge. the following morning we backtracked a bit to hike to a place called glen nevis. friends had told us about this spot - the highlight was the cable bridge. it is so fun to see what sorts of things other countries allow that would never happen in the u.s. there was a sign at the start of the trail warning that death was possible...

 the lovely town of fortingall

 and the 5,000 year old yew tree

magical glen lyon (there should be a hobbit on that bridge!)

vista south of loch tay

 majestic pete in glen coe

 beautiful glen coe 

 the hike from glen nevis to steall falls had a few water hazards

 and it was rainy (and no, we don't usually match)

 which made the cable crossing a little more interesting...

trying really hard not to fall into the river

we spent the next few days touring around on the isle of skye. what a lovely place! it was definitely the highlight of my trip...and a place that i could spend many more days.

 eilene donan castle and fishing pots

 the remains of duntulm castle - what a spectacular view these people had!

 the basalt pillars and cliffs of the quiraing

 pete enjoying the view

 another basalt feature - old man storr

 the lovely church just down the road from our b&b

 intertidal at elgol with a glimpse of the cuillin hills in the distance

 scottish algae! :)

intertidal sheep on our way to elgol

my conference was in glasgow. unbeknownst to me until i got there, the world pipe band championships were happening that weekend. i may have missed a few talks in favor or seeing the world champion pipers from belfast. who knew that bagpipes could sound so good?! while i was working, pete continued north into the highlands enjoying the beautiful scenery, castles, and scotch. ok, he didn't enjoy the scotch, but he said the tour was really interesting. we met back up in edinburgh at the end of the trip. it was august so the fringe festival was in full swing. we got tickets to a couple of shows, but pete scored the ultimate prize and got us tickets to the royal edinburgh military tatoo. neither of us had any idea what that was other than a show that sells out six months in advance. as it turns out, it is a showcase of military bands from former british colonies and takes place on the promenade of the edinburgh castle. it was spectacular! 

 into the highlands - pass of the cattle

scotch making in progress at glenfiddich

edinburgh was filled to the brim for the fringe

 tartan making in progress

 the ceiling of st. giles cathedral

 edinburgh castle

 malaysian military and dancers

 military band and dancers from trinidad

 all the dancers

 the full military ensemble. i think pete counted 140 bag pipers!

summer on the elwha river

most of my field work these days is on the elwha river in western washington. i am usually up there every five to six weeks from april to october for two to three weeks at a time. yes, the red lion hotel and i are quite familiar with one another and most of the restaurant servers know me by name... 

my work on the elwha is exciting and always changing. in 2012, the two dams on the river started to be removed. a month ago, the final chunk was blasted from the upper dam. the river is free for the first time in 100 years and salmon have already made it past both dam sites...a sight that has not been seen since 1912. incredible! i work in the estuary and the nearshore and am trying to understand how those systems respond to a VERY big pulse of sediment. 

 one of the estuaries i work in. it is really muddy these days!

colleagues from seattle and i just received a grant to do work at sites throughout the watershed, so i got to see more of the river this summer while we were testing some new sensors. 

deploying one of our sensors at the diversion

(i am tethered to the railing and trying not to fall in

or drop the sensor into the river while i attach it)

 mama bear! we got a very close look at her and her cub

while we were hiking out to a site. we turned around quickly! 

(and of course my camera battery went dead after this photo

so i didn't get one of the incredibly cute cub in the tree)

one of the former dam sites.

one of the other things i do every summer on the elwha is scuba dive in the ocean to count algae and invertebrates living on the seafloor. we are interested in knowing how the abundance of these critters has changed since dam removal began. 

 hanging out at a safety stop

heading out to our sites

in addition to my field work, i was training for an ultra-marathon so i was doing a lot of running on the trails in the area. the blackberries and thimble berries along the trail were delicious and the wildflowers were in full bloom in july.

 columbine

 mix of wildflowers

 indian pipe - a VERY cool plant that lacks chlorophyll

field work is not without its challenges, however. shortly after i left port angeles in august a beaver ate through one of my instruments in the estuary! grr! 

family fun in nebraska!

the end destination of our western road trip was seward, nebraska, where we met pete's side of the family that we see much less often. the neukirchs have spread themselves from california to massachusetts so getting everyone together in one place was quite an accomplishment! other than hanging out together, the main driver for our reunion was uncle paul's new barn/workshop/house. it was also the fourth of july - and seward is the small town 4th of july capital. 

we had a great time! paul gave us a tour of the corn field and his new high-tech irrigation system. we went to the 4th of july parade (where we saw many interesting things...i'm not sure if there were more politicians or czech queens). we played a round of 4x4 croquet on the south 40. and most importantly, we blew up a lot of things! it actually felt a little bit weird to the crew from california...if we had lit anything on fire here the whole state would have burned down. thanks family for the fun weekend!

paul giving pete a tutorial on corn

the leaders in the croquet game battling some rough terrain

parade watching in some HOT weather

 pete and eva lighting snakes

 sparkler fun!

erin won our sparkler drawing contest

the whole lovely group

western road trip

pete and i did not have a lot of time together this summer. when we did, we made the most of it and spent LOTS of time with each other...in the car or in an airplane. 

our first trip of the summer was a road trip from spokane, washington, to seward, nebraska. essentially we were traveling from one (foley) family gathering to another (neukirch). we only had four days to drive 1600 miles so we set some travel goals and were on our way. our first stop was chico hot springs, montana. chico is just north of the northern yellowstone entrance and is a place i was introduced to in 2006 when two dear friends got married. and there are hot springs...what else could you ask for after six hours in the car? 

mammoth hot springs

we spent the next day making our way around yellowstone. for such a short time in the park, we managed to cross nearly every large mammal off the list - black bear, bison, grizzly bear, elk, bison, moose, coyote, and bison. the moose we saw had her calf with her...pete thought that might be our chance to see a pack of hunting wolves, but no luck. i wish we had three more days to spend there.

 juvenile male bison "play" fighting

 a beautiful coyote prancing through the wildflowers

 mr. elk, in full velvet

 upper yellowstone falls

 grizzly bear rooting around for food

marmot!

moose (look for her calf in the grass behind her)

 geysers! 

 thermal pools and geysers!

pete tracking a black bear in the valley below

on day three we drove through big horn national forest, which was beautiful! wild flowers abounding and geologic features that even two biologists could appreciate. we ended day three with a walk through mount rushmore and delicious indian food in rapid city, south dakota. (who knew?!)

 wildflowers in big horn national forest

 the fifth head... :)

the men of mount rushmore 

on our last day we drove through the badlands, inaugurated pete to wall drug, enjoyed the sand hills of nebraska, and arrived safely in seward for more family fun!  

 the beautiful but foreboding badlands

 the saddest sheep ever!

 a parliament of owl babies!

 plague-carrying prairie dog

jackalopes and donuts for breakfast at wall drug

we had lots of quality time in the car listening to podcasts, but we had fun seeing such beautiful and diverse places. definitely better than a fly over!

the upside of my ridiculous travel schedule...

...is that i get to see friends who have scattered around the country, explore cool places, and log running miles on many random dirt trails. 

i've been getting lots of quality time with this crew in seattle:

 morgan and melina at the ballard locks

 tish, melina, and i at the seattle center

i managed a stop-over in boulder on my way to and from fort collins and got to see two friends who used to live in santa cruz - 

 hiking with yuri to see the flat irons

i spent five days in fort collins for a science working group and was completely surprised by the city - great food, fantastic bike paths, and great dirt trails close to town. (there was also a lot of country music to be had, though.)

 a hike to grey rock with science colleagues in fort collins

we hiked all the way to the top of this promontory (you can just see the trail that we started from just beyond the rocks in the center of the photo) - and then quickly got off as the afternoon thunderstorm approached!

at the end of june, pete and i started an epic adventure in spokane that eventually ended in seward, nebraska (more on the in-between later). part of my family rendezvoused in spokane to cheer my sister on in the coeur d'alene ironman. and we got to visit with some of my favorite people... 

 a long anticipated visit with roly, christine, and kiddos in spokane

 time with madeline and my mom in spokane
and coeur d' alene (above the spokane river)

 cheering on my sister sarah in her 4th ironman!

 she wasn't waving to us by the end...i think she
only had eyes for the finish line!

a fully restored shoulder!

ten years ago, pete went head to head with a 10 cm x 10 cm post in new zealand in the midst of a motorcycle crash. the result was a draw...the post was broken but so was pete's collarbone. pete could tell that the bone didn't heal properly (i'll save you the gory details of how he could tell) but he couldn't find a doctor that would believe him and/or shoot an xray from an angle that would show what he could feel. until a year ago. in one last exasperated attempt, pete saw his third osteopath and was rewarded with, "yes, your bone is still in two pieces" even before the xray was taken. eureka! it only took nine and a half years...
pete had surgery in november to join the two pieces of bone back together. a steel plate, seven screws, and a bone growing machine later, the man is back in business! he had lots of restrictions along the recovery trajectory, but one of the main ones was that he could not ride his bike (outside) because the odds of falling were high, which could result in dislodging the hardware in/on his bone. six months was the magic number for returning to biking. after four months on the indoor bike trainer, pete was ready to get outside and asked to go bike riding for his birthday in may.
unbeknownst to him, i booked us a room near yosemite for the weekend after his birthday so he could try things out somewhere lovely and relatively flat. we spent one day biking around the valley floor in yosemite (which is pretty fantastic) and another day along the merced river. pete did great - no shoulder pain at all! he had his six month xray and check-up a week after our adventure and was given the official medical blessing to start biking again! he has jumped back in with both feet and is bike commuting to work almost every day. hooray! 

 mariposa lillies along the merced river

 fuzzy caterpillar

 first day of biking and all is well!

 yosemite falls

hooray for being back on the bike!!