Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

I'm pretty tired today after an amazing trip to Pinnacles National Park yesterday. The hike was about 4.5 miles with 1300' of elevation gain. I've done the hike many times before but I'm out of shape right now so it's hitting me harder than usual.

Writing about this hike is going to have to go on my backlog, as today (Monday) it's back to work, and I have over 200 pics and video clips to sort through from the hike. For now here's one quick photo:



Basically we hiked from the bottom here, Juniper Canyon, to the top and around the High Peaks Loop, then back down.

Up at the top we saw a lot of California Condors. That was amazing because the huge birds were nearly extinct not too many years ago. Like, down to the last few left on earth. Yesterday we saw several on wing in the sky. And no, it wasn't just one bird several times. At one point we saw 5 simultaneously. At the end of the day we saw what might have been ten simultaneously... but it was hard to tell if they were all condors or if some more common birds, Turkey Vultures, were mixed in to the circling formation.

Well, as this trip now goes into my blog backlog, it's a good thing I cleared our Georgia trip from my backlog. In fact I posted my last backlogged blog about Georgia yesterday morning just before leaving for the Pinnacles! ...Though it's not really the "last" because I do still have a few more things I'd like to write about that trip, including a retrospective. Well, I can see how I'll be busy with blogs for the next week... until whatever adventure I go on next weekend!

Panama Travelog #23
El Valle, Panama - Thu, 26 Dec 2024. 4pm.

I see my blog backlog growing huge with this trip in Panama. For example, the hike to La Dormida wound up spanning 5 entries— which will fill most of 2 days if I maintain my pace of 3 posts/day, longer if I don't. (Ed: It took 4 days to finish.) Thus I'm going to shift gears and start posting one-a-day summaries. I'm leaving space to fill in later with detailed entries including photos and such. One benefit of structuring my blogs this way should be a clearer narrative for our trip.

An Easy Start to the Day

Our day started off with breakfast in the usual place, with the usual foods, at the hotel. After breakfast we rested a bit; I'm still getting over achy legs from overexerting myself with the La Dormida hike two days ago. Today's better than yesterday. Going up the stairs is only slightly tough now. Going down the the stairs, though... ouch, that's still painful. My stabilizer muscles are wrecked from the uneven, steep, slippery trail at La Dormida.

Mid-morning we noticed that the sky was clearing overhead. How fitting that now, on our last full day in Anton's Valley, it looks like it will be sunny. Rather than just shake our fists at the sky as it mocks us, we decided to take advantage of Mother Nature finally taking pity and smiling on us a bit. We pulled together our hiking bags and headed out in the car with a list in mind of many things we could do while the sun is shining.



Also seeming to mock us is that today we could actually see La Dormida. The vantage point for this photo is not ideal, in down with electric and telephone wires running above us, but it's the clearest view I've seen. If you squint you can see the form of a woman lying on her back in the mountain. Her head is on the right, her next to the left of that, then her chest further left.

Hiking Cerro Gaital... Or Not

First on our list was hiking Cerro Gaital. It's part of the rim of the volcanic basin the valley lies in, and it's the mountain just behind our hotel. Of course, getting to a good trailhead to reach the top meant driving all the way around to the other side. I mean, we could have just walked straight up from the hotel... but that'd be a monster hike even more monster than La Dormida. So we drove.

Driving around to the upper trailhead on the other side of the mountain brought us up into the clouds. I knew it was possible, even likely, this trail would be socked in with clouds. While the sky was mostly clear from down in the valley there were places where low clouds were sticking around. And Cerro Gaital was one of them. This is where it was critical we planned a list of many things we could do today. We opted to nope out of hiking Cerro Gaital and instead go to the next spot on our list.

The View from Cerro La Cruz

Bailing out of hiking Cerro Gaital was absolutely the right choice. I had misgivings, strong misgivings, when we decided to get back in the car at the trailhead rather than hike. All those misgivings melted away as we came back down around the mountains and saw that our next destination, Cerro La Cruz, was clear. Beautifully clear.



We parked the car in a few places up on the ridge to explore different areas and see different views. I'm including just one photo here because, like I said at the top, I want to actually catch up on my backlog with these one-a-day entries, not fall further behind.

I picked this photo out of my collection for two reasons. One, it shows the spread of Anton's Valley below us. And two, that far mountain in the middle? The one with the clouds on it? The only one with the clouds on it? That's Cerro Gaital. Once I got to this spot around midday I knew that pulling the plug on hiking Cerro Gaital was 110% the right decision. Coming here I got the beautiful view I would not have gotten there, and it was much easier here with a super-short trail instead of a steep slog I would have been miserable doing.

Waterfalls at Las Mozas

I did stretch my legs at our next stop, the Las Mozas trail. It's just down the hill from from Cerro La Cruz. A short trail leads into a stream canyon with a few waterfalls. The short trail was surprisingly primitive. Any semblance of a constructed trail disappeared after about 20 meters as the route simply traversed the rough, volcanic rock next to the stream. With my weak ankles I was concerned I'd slip on the wet, very uneven rocks and stopped about halfway. Then I decided "Fuck it, I'm only here once" and pushed on to see the main waterfall. I'm glad I did.

Update: I've posted a blog with photos of Las Mozas waterfalls.

Lunch & Butterflies

Next up on our agenda was the butterfly sanctuary in town. But first was lunch. We stopped at a pizza spot in town we'd eaten at a few days earlier. Their pizza sucked but their empanadas and fries were good. So today we ordered just empanadas and fries. I washed mine down with a Panama beer. Usually I'm not a day drinker, but at these local restaurants a domestic beer is almost the same price as a soda. For an extra 20¢ I'll enjoy a beer.

The butterflies were... huge. There's this one species in Panama that's at least 6" across when it opens its wings, and it's brilliant blue on top. The butterfly sanctuary uses a double-door system so visitors can get right in with the butterflies. Some people in there with us had butterflies landing on their fingers. I couldn't get them on my fingers, but they sure loved my shirt and kept landing on my collar and shoulder.

Sharing photos and video of the butterflies is definitely a thing that would backlog my blog worse, so I'll leave those to post later.

A while back we found a pair of snap-together kits of wild animals at a national park. We bought a bighorn sheep and a peregrine falcon.



And when I say "a while back" I mean two years ago. We bought these on a trip in Colorado in July 2022. At the time we thought we'd put them together within a few days of getting back home. I even wrote that in the blog linked here. Now it's two years later and we're just putting together the first one!

Part of the fun in buying these— and now putting them together— is that I loved, loved, loved Lego sets when I was a kid. These aren't Lego, but they're the same idea.

I used a slightly different process, though, from when I was a kid with a new Lego set. Hawk and I laid out all the tiny pieces, sorting them by type, and compared it to the parts list in the instructions. As a kid I wasn't that disciplined. Or patient. Call it the benefit of an engineering education. And Lego sets never had parts lists when I was kid, anyway.



I wish I'd started taking pictures of our project when we had all the plastic blocks sorted into piles on the table. Alas I didn't think to start documenting what we were doing until after we'd gotten partway through. I'm disciplined about doing it; I just still don't have the natural habit of, "OMG, I'm doing a thing! Quick, take lots of pictures for social media!" 😂

The first few layers of the sheep were hardest. They involved the most pieces, and there was no clear overall shape to help us with the context of what we were building. But then the sheep started to take shape.



Once we snapped together enough layers in the body and got up to the neck we could clearly see the sheep start to emerge from the blocks. Before that we weren't sure if the white blocks we were snapping on at the edge of the brown were the ram's head or his rump.



At this point there were just a few finishing touches. We'd build his horns, his legs, and put him on the base.



Surprisingly there were a lot of extra pieces in the set. We knew there were extras when we started, because we inventoried the pieces and compared them to the parts list. Otherwise we might have gotten to this point and worried we'd skipped a step and left off part of the sheep.

It's ironic because my point in starting with an inventory was to make sure nothing was missing. I guess this company's quality control tilts the other way; they overfill the boxes to make sure there's no mistake. 



Finished!

Alaska Travelog #9
Seward - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 9am

Today we're embarking on one of the centerpiece activities of our Alaska trip: a cruise through the fjords to see Northwest Glacier. Friends and relatives who've been to Alaska all tell us that the view of glaciers is so much better from aboard a ship, that you really can't see much of them while touring on land. So here we go.



After a stunning day yesterday, with brilliant sun and temperatures up in Anchorage reaching the mid 70s, today is a letdown weather-wise. Kenai is all fogged in, and the temperature today may not break 60. Of course, here at 8am as we boarded it was closer to 50.

"It's actually a sunny day today," the ship's first mate told us.

"Yeah, the sun is always shining, just today we can't see it," I snarled. That was a joke one of my high school teachers made every day the weather was cloudy or rainy. Every. Single. Day. The students all loved Mr. Rumberger... despite that overused joke.





We saw a fair bit of wildlife as we motored out into Resurrection Bay. The first, this bald eagle (above), we didn't even have to leave the harbor for. It was perching on a breakwater.

As we motored out further into the way we saw various other birds (though no more eagles) and a few sea otters. I noticed this group of 4 otters playing together and got my fancy camera up with a long zoom lens in time to capture it.


Link: Watch video on YouTube

A few fun facts about sea otters: First, they grow up to about 100 lbs., so even though they often look small at a distance they are the size (and weight) of fairly large dogs. Second, they stay warm in the chilly water because of their extremely dense fur. They have upwards of 1,000,000 strands of hair per square inch (150,000 per square centimeter). The average adult human has just one-tenth as many hairs on their entire head. Third, sea otters are members of the weasel family. Thus we really should call them sea weasels. 😅

Stay tuned, more (much more) to come!

As we walked through a leafy residential neighborhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin on Sunday we saw— and heard— cicadas. These insects only come out once every 17 years (or 13; see below), and it had been more than 2x17 years since since we adults in the group had experienced their swarm.

At first we saw just a few cicadas in a tree next to us. As we lingered for a few minutes looking at them, the cicadas seemed to get more bold around us. They started flying around us, bumping into us, and even landing on our clothes and skin. One landed on my brother-in-law's shoulder, for example:



Bugs bouncing off and landing on our bodies was disorienting at first. I mean, the natural response when an insect buzzes around your face or lands on your skin is to swat it away. But the cicadas were kind of mellow. They weren't trying to bite us; it's like they were just resting. Or maybe exploring. Or maybe looking for a ride. Plus, swatting at them was kind of... ick... because they're so big they'd make a big splat if we squished them. 🤢

As we walked toward the house where roleplaying games and D&D were created the cicadas got thicker. Here's a quick video showing the swarm growing around us:



Prior to this spot my brother-in-law and I were already joking that we were exercising every horror movie trope, walking into danger with a swarm about to devour us. In the video you can hear me joking that I can practically hear the scary horror movie soundtrack rising around us. ...And BTW, the sound you actually hear in the video is the drone of literally thousands, maybe literally tens of thousands, of cicadas around us. 😨

Cicada Facts

If you're wondering why we're seeing cicadas in 2024 when you saw them last year or a few years ago, the reason is that there are a number of different regional broods that emerge in different years. There are a number of articles and diagrams about this you can find online. Here's a map I found in an Encyclopaedia Britannica article:



A similar chart is in this article on Vox.com from May 2024.

We're in southern Wisconsin, in the dark brown region of this map. The area is part of Brood XIII, which was predicted to emerge this year (2024). You can see from the map coloring and legend that other broods emerge in different years. Most broods are on a 17 year cycle, though a few emerge every 13 years.

Curiously the map shows a square in the very southeastern corner of Wisconsin with no cicada brood. That aligns to our observations as that's where my sister and her family live, and there are no cicadas in their town or nearby towns.

During the packed day of our visit to New Zealand's Tongariro National Park we made time to visit the visitor center. We always like stop by park visitor centers to get information on conditions, seek recommendations, learn a bit about the area and its history, and see if there are any cool souvenirs to buy. Generally we try to do that first... though here at Tongariro we did it almost last in the day because the park's visitor center is buried so deep within the park. I mean, we didn't even reach it until we'd been there 6 hours. Better late than never.



The park had a banner proclaiming a desire to rid New Zealand of predators. We'd seen similar things in other parks over the previous week. A variety of predatory animals were introduced by European settlers, some because they wanted their furs, some because they thought they'd control pests. Well, possums, ermines, etc. found it easier to prey on New Zealand's native species of flightless birds than pest animals. These imported animals ate some of the native animals to the brink of extinction. Now for several years New Zealand has been working to reduce the invasive species' numbers and threat.

So far, so good. NZ is hardly the only place to have a problem like this and try to correct it. But it was amusing that their "Predator Free" banner was right next to this display:



That's a Kārearea, a falcon that's native to New Zealand. It's... a predator. It eats birds. And it's endangered. And they're trying to save it. And the display that explains that (minus the "It eats birds" part; that was me) is right next to the banner proclaiming "Predator Free".

By the way, the karearea is the bird we bought a stuffed animal toy of the week before. Since we already had the toy— and had already named her Te'Anau— we weren't going to buy another. But I did buy this postcard of a karearea:



The visitors center had one of those almost-obligatory relief maps of the park. It didn't help us much in the moment— we'd already spent most of a day there and had figured out the lay of the land— but I'll include a pic now to help you (and me, when I look back on this in the future) get the context of the park:



Mount Ruapehu is the big mountain in the display. It's a cone volcano. As you've seen in my photos it's not quite as snow-capped during our visit. We were there in April, which is early autumn in New Zealand.

The visitors center is along the road (red line) somewhat below the Whakapapa Ski Field marked on the map. I shared photos from our drive up there in my previous journal entry. Kind of north of the visitors center is Taranaki Falls. I've posted two blogs about our hike there. Earlier that morning we visited Turoa, which is at the top of the road that approaches the flank of the mountain from the right side of the map, and hiked Mangawhero Falls from that road.

New Zealand Travelog #36
Hamilton, NZ - Fri, 19 Apr 2024, 5pm

We're back to our cozy apartment in Hamilton atfer another day of adventure. Today's adventure was a stitching together of a few paid tours plus a few completely self-guided things:

• We visited the Ruakuri Cave (vendor link) with a guided tour. On the trip we heard about a few of the features in limestone caverns, the history of the Maori people, and glowworms. The cave features part was the least interesting (to me) as those features are the same around the world, this was hardly our first cave tour, and this cave/guide wasn't the best for highlighting features. I mean, anyone can tell you what stalactites and stalagmites are. I think I learned that in 4th grade science class.... But learning about Maori history was really interesting. Our guide was Maori and descended from the chief of the tribe that settled this area 750 years ago. He really personalized what it meant to him. Plus, we were among a small group that was all adults, so we asked lots of questions about Maori language, culture, and history.


• Next we visited the Waitomo Glowworm Caves (vendor link) nearby. This one focused more on the glowworms, though we'd already learned the basics at the other cave: The "worms" are the larval stage of a species of insect— so technically they're glow-maggots, not glowworms. They grow up to a 3cm long. They glow through bioluminescence, which they use to attract other insects for food. They drop sticky lines, sticky similar to how a spider web is sticky, to catch those insects. Again, this info was all a repeat from the previous tour. That's a risk with cave tours: once you've done one you've done most of all of them. The standouts on this tour, though, were that a) there were a lot more glowworms-maggots and b) we toured part of it on a boat through an underground river. I've never done an underground boat tour before!

After these tours we were on our own and visited 3 short hiking trails in the area.

• The first of these was Mangapohue Natural Bridge. A short trail led into a beautiful stream canyon to a large overhead arch. We had the area mostly to ourselves. That's always nice when outdoors, and was doubly nice after a morning spent on paid-for tours where buses pulled up to disgorge tourists by the dozens.


• Next we hiked to Piripiri Cave. A short but steep trail leads up to the entrance to a large, single-room cave. How large? I estimate it's 80' deep and 50' across. And, yes, 80' deep because you enter it near the top. Wooden stairs descend to the bottom.


• Finally we hiked to Marakopa Falls. The weather had been crummy all day but wasn't really a factor up to this point. I mean, it almost doesn't matter if it's cloudy and drizzling outside when you're in a cave. And cloudy-and-drizzling helped with the atmospherics at the natural bridge. But here at these falls it started to be a real minus. Marakopa Falls is large, which is a big plus, but the last part of the trail to it has been washed out due to floods, and with today's rains what was left of it was too slick to traverse safely... even for experienced hikers. (And by "safely" I mean "without getting covered in mud from slipping a few times".) So we viewed the falls from across the canyon.

New Zealand Travelog #14
Te Anau, NZ - Thu, 11 Apr 2024, 8pm

I almost forgot— a new bird joined our nest today! As the check-in desk for our fiords cruise today we perused the gift shop. Hawk was looking for a better rain poncho while I was looking for a packable lunch more compelling than a protein bar. 😅 Then I spotted a bird in a basket of bird toys that had the characteristics of a raptor: large, powerful beak; ceres (the nostrils behind the beak); wide mouth; large eyes. It's a Karearea, a falcon native to New Zealand.



Her tag says Karearea normally prey on small to medium size birds, which they catch on the wing— typical for falcons, and very impressive to see happen live— but will also prey on rabbits and other small mammals. I guess it depends on how hungry they are— and whether they have to feed a nest of chicks.

The Karearea is one of actually very few native predators in New Zealand. Unlike Australia where seemingly everything is trying to kill you, it's like New Zealand has been defanged for your comfort. A few predators were brought here by Western colonizers, and they cause no end of trouble even though they're relatively small. Possums were brought over for their fur. Apparently when combined with wool it makes a durable and comfortable material. And rats were brought over because, well, you basically can't not bring rats on a ship. Both are a big threat to a number of native New Zealand bird species— including the Karearea, whose eggs and chicks they eat.

On Saturday we hiked Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont. It wasn't quite our tradition of hiking on Superbowl Sunday— it was a day early— but the weather was surprisingly clear so we figured maybe we'd hike both Saturday and Sunday.

The drive out to the park is easy. We've visited a few times now. Sometimes we drive across the Dumbarton Bridge on CA-84. From that direction the turnoff for the park comes before you even reach I-880; basically it's as soon as you hit solid land on the east side of the bay. This time we drove up I-880 through Fremont because we wanted to stop for lunch beforehand along the way.

This Saturday the park was busy. We had to wait in a very slow line to enter via a payment kiosk. After that parking was scarce, but we were able to find a spot without having to circle.



We anticipated the hiking trails might be muddy so we packed boots in the car. From the trailhead things seemed pretty dry so we wondered if maybe we'd be happy sticking with our hiking sandals instead. A hiker returning to his car next to us heard us wondering aloud and urged us to wear our boots. "The trails are saturated," he advised.

Indeed there was a huge muddy area less than 1/4 mile in from the trailhead, right where a dirt tracked forked off from the compacted gravel. The photo above shows it. But ironically that was the only area of mud we encountered in over 3 miles of hiking.

We angled up the hillside along the fork to the left in the picture above. After a bit it turns hard to the left and goes up over a saddle between hills with views out over the San Francisco Bay. The best views, though, come as you climb the hills to either side. But before I share those views, it's... turkeys!



There's a gaggle of wild turkeys that I believe live on this hillside in the park. They were here last time we visited, about 2 years ago, too. Though that time there were about 20, while now there are only 3. Maybe that's the difference between visiting before Thanksgiving vs. a few months after. 🤣

In the video you can see the steep climb ahead of us. That's Red Hill, the tallest of the Coyote Hills. The top is a bit shy of 300 feet elevation, which normally wouldn't seem like much— but these hills rise abruptly out of the bay at basically 0 feet above sea level. Standing atop it feels like you've climbed a mountain.



In this view from atop Red Hill looking to the north you can see downtown San Francisco and Oakland. SF is about 30 miles away straight across the water.

There are views across to the South Bay, as well, with peaks like Mt. Umunhum visible in the distance.



It's a great 360° view up here atop the hills. You're surrounded by the SF Bay on three sides, north, south, and west. To the east is... also the bay, basically.



These hills apparently used to be out in the bay. Man-made changes with dredging and levees have created some bits of dry land between the main part of the East Bay and this park. Though even right up next to the park (see picture above) there's not a lot of dry land.... Much of that yellow/brown you see mixed in among the water is reeds and rushes.

Australia Travelog #7
Afoot in Sydney - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 8:30am

Our morning sightseeing on Monday began with some of the things we wrapped up walking past Sunday afternoon. It was gloomy then and starting to rain, plus we were tired, so we'd lost patience for taking things in. Today, though, we're fresh, and the weather's better.



Two streets over from our hotel is Hyde Park, a fairly large urban park in Sydney. On the far side is St. Mary's Cathedral, as you can see in the photo above. St. Mary's is where there was "No room at the inn" yesterday. In the foreground in the photo is Hyde Park's Archibald Fountain.

Archibald Fountain is named for J.F. Archibald, a publishing magnate who donated the funds to have it built. Isn't that often how monuments are? "This is monument honors the wealthy person who spent the money to build this monument with their name on it." 🙄

Well, okay, Archibald didn't commission it just to honor himself, he commissioned it to honor the French for their association with Australia in World War I. He insisted the art be sculpted by a French artist, and the French artist they chose dug deeply into French history to depict... Greek myth. Yes, apparently the French consider that French history.



The fountain depicts the classic Greek French figures of Apollo, Diana, Pan, and Theseus. In the scene above Monsieur Theseus kills Le Minotaur. Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus!

From the park we walked north by northeast, angling toward a different part of the city than we visited yesterday. Soon we reached the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It wasn't a place we planned to visit. We're not big on art galleries. We're also not big on giant spiders.



Yes, there's really a 20' tall spider in front of the NSW Art Gallery. And yes, that thing under it is an egg sac. And yes, there are eggs in the egg sac. Actually they're rocks as best as I could tell from looking up from underneath. They're big rocks, 6-8 inches across. I guess that's the size of giant spider eggs.

So far this morning has felt like instead of a tour map I need a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Thus it's not surprising when we saw this bird all over the place in Sydney...



...Our first thought was, "Ha, ha, that looks like a stirge!"

Stirges in D&D are bird-like creatures that suck blood from living beings. They fly at victims, clamp on their shoulders with their big talons, and plunge their long beak into the neck to suck blood.



It's not a stirge, of course. It's an ibis. Specifically, it's an Australian White Ibis. And it uses that long beak not to plunge into hapless low-level adventurers' necks and suck their blood but to root around in loose ground for bugs and grubs and stuff.