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!!

a day for the birds...

i took advantage of what might be the last day of good weather in auckland before i leave on friday to visit tiritiri matangi, a predator-free haven for native birds. i visited the island about ten years ago and had such a great time that i wanted to go back. today's trip was just as great! native birds galore...takahe, saddleback, whitehead, stitch bird, fantail, pukeko, bell bird, kakariki, fern bird, tui, kereru, robin...and even a kokako! in addition to the birds, tiritiri is awesome because the department of conservation has been working to re-vegetate the island with native plants. at one point during my hike i stopped near a manuka bush...it smelled SO good, just like the honey! a lesson i relearned today: song birds are really challenging to photograph, especially when they are flitting about in dense vegetation. here are a few gems...

 bell bird

 kakariki (parakeet) on flax

 kereru (about 3x bigger than a standard pigeon)

 a lovely day at the beach

 tiritiri matangi lighthouse

 stump from a tree fern

 a lovely pukeko

 north island robin

 my favorite shot of the day - a saddleback in flight

 a more sedentary saddleback

 an acrobatic stitchbird

 a conservation success story - the takahe

and last but not least, the bird with
some serious vocal acrobatic chops - the tui

the last of croatia - plitvice lakes

our last main stop on our trip was to plitvice national park. a friend had recommended this place after her visit, and it was immediately apparent why. we arrived in the area in late afternoon and found our brilliant bed and breakfast. we spent a full day exploring plitvice enjoying the hundreds of waterfalls and lakes that dotted the landscape. the infrastructure itself was amazing...miles and miles of boardwalk leading around the features. we didn't catch any glimpses of the celebrity bears and wolves. but nonetheless, andrew and i may have taken a few photos during the day...

 such a beautiful place!

and there you have it...six months after our trip...

mostar, bosnia

we decided to take a detour from the coastal walled cities (after dubrovnik, really, what could be better?!) to inland bosnia. mostar is just a few hours from dubrovnik and afforded us a new view for our drive north. and yes, there was one world heritage site in waiting and one official one to cross off the list. pete enjoys crossing things off lists and now that he has all the continents, we are in search of a new list. despite our success on this trip, i am not certain the world heritage site list is attainable in one person's lifetime...

our crossing into bosnia (a different crossing than our coastal drive-through) was quite interesting. for those of you who have crossed from san diego to tijuana you know the starkness of the change. we went from well-to-do coastal croatia into poverty-stricken bosnia RIGHT NOW. the contrast was so drastic. but the countryside was beautiful and included a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, tobacco farms, and lovely vistas. we made a quick stop at pocitelj, a historic ottoman city (tentative world heritage site #1). 

bosnia countryside views

tobacco drying shed (we think)

pocitelj, bosnia

we arrived in mostar, found a room above the shops in the old city and set out to explore the town. unfortunately for me, bosnia is quite a meat-y country. but the food was the best we had had on our trip. we told our server at the restaurant that the food was much better in bosnia than croatia, to which he replied, "yes, of course." who would have thought. 

mostar was the site of many battles during the croat-bosniak war and many building and landmarks were destroyed, including the mostar bridge, stari most (world heritage site #6). stari most was build in the 16th century during the ottoman empire. it was destroyed in 1993 during the war but was rebuilt in 2004. the old city is a collection of shops and restaurants and spill into the streets from sun up to sun down. 

 the restored stari most (old bridge). the building on the right
housed a museum with photos from the war - a sobering view

 the old city on one side of the bridge

 the bridge surface was really slippery and the marble steps were well 

worn, seeming like they had been walked on since the 16th century

 a bar with a view...

 evidence of the shelling in the 1990s

 some of the shops in the old city

the meat-y menu in mostar 

coastal croatia - by land

our first stop after getting off the sailboat was one of the most beautiful cities by the sea i have ever visited - dubrovnik, croatia - world heritage site #4 for the trip. dubrovnik is in the very south of croatia on the adriatic sea. on our drive there we learned that bosnia has a coastline - a whole 5 kilometers of one - making for four passport checks and stamps (croatia - out; bosnia - in; bosnia - out; croatia - in) in a very short amount of time! 

the old town of dubrovnik is a massively walled fortress that gently slopes to the sea. it has many features of the other "old towns" we visited, but the scale of dubrovnik was so much larger that it was enthralling. we spent part of an afternoon and evening walking the streets of old town and getting lost in the narrow alleys and corridors. we spent the second day circumambulating the walls of the city (with a throng of other tourists), enjoying the views and color combination of the red tile roofed city against the backdrop of the blue adriatic. 

fortress walls and the monastery at night

 marble streets and a left-over guillotine

 the city early in the morning

 the perks of being an early morning runner -

beautiful places with no people

 walking on the walls overlooking the city

 narrow streets and our walking adventure

 seaside wall; and just when you had forgotten that real people

live in this idyllic place, some well-placed underpants

 beauty abounding

 despite the mono-color from afar, the roof tiles were beautifully varied

 fortress walls 

 another view from the fortress walls

 andrew, jenny, & pete

dubrovnik from the belvedere - gorgeous!

from dubrovnik we made a deviation from our planned route - but that is for another post. finishing out the coastal croatia series is world heritage site #5, split. split is quite close to where we started our sailing adventure and is famous for being the roman emperor diocletian's retirement locale. seeing split after dubrovnik was a bit anticlimactic, but there were some cool features such as the egyptian sphinx from the 15th century bc, the beautifully carved features in the cathedral, the cathedral bell tower, and an early morning fish market. 

driving was an adventure to be had in split - tiny streets, many one-way, lots of impatient drivers who are willing to come within an inch of your vehicle to maneuver around, and parking shenanigans for breakfast entertainment. 

diocletian's palace

 one of two sphinx from egypt (the other still has its head)

 cathedral of st domnius (second sphinx on far right)

 the city from the bell tower of the cathedral

 one of the intact temples (minus the roof) - 

men would occasionally come into the temple and sing for the 

tourists. the acoustics were amazing and the sound floated up and out

 early morning fish market (another running find)

parking entertainment from our breakfast perch. there was clearly

a parking hierarchy here and a known language of honking that

required certain people to move their cars for others. fascinating!