Schadenfreude

Like a Sienfeld episode, I have nothing to blog about, so I am going to try and create something from nothing - my improv training should come in  handy here - and I've also decided to further challenge myself by entitling this posting first with a gorgeous word that was chosen simply because it looks and sounds magnificent, and not based at all on anything going on in my life that has its elements. But by the end of this tome-ette, hopefully I will have lynch pinned my thoughts somehow to justify the post title. Perhaps the musings will concatenate in a way to suggest the German "loanword" with the bittersweet definition.

This photo was taken with my laptop internal camera. I was eavesdropping on this incredibly surreal conversation going on behind me, and even though I've always wished I had those spy glasses where you can see stuff behind you that were always advertised in the back of Mad Magazine, I usually just turn around & check it out, not having any kind of pride about those sorts of things (and because of where I am, chances are I know these conversants). So I got the clever idea of launching the camera application & pointing it in their direction (my back still to them); but I soon lost interest in the conversation as the photo became more compelling to frame (ooh - industrial, B&W, and Eraserhead-ish!), made more interesting as I'm doing it backwards, while hovering the laptop in the air. I'm sure it was obvious to the other 40 people in here with the exact same laptop what I was doing. (This could have been "schadenfreude"-ish if I would have been delighting at some talk around someone's pain or misery, but a homeless guy was asking a gal for her knit cap (it is, after all, under 85 degress here now), and it was sweet because she gave it to him, and it was safety orange, and he didn't just want any hat, he had to have hers. He said he had been looking everywhere for one. I guess when you're homeless, "looking everywhere" doesn't mean the same thing to you or me - as you can't swing a dead cat around here without finding orange beanies for sale....)

ok, next:

In 4 days I will celebrate sixteen years of abstinence from alcoholic beverages, and two weeks after that I will turn 48 years old, an age that I never would have considered would rock this goodly - and aside from how old my neck looks, everything about late forties kicks butt. I am fit and healthy and it is Autumn: my season of uber happiness. The knowledge that my life is half over is making me dig deep into my psyche to discover those one or two dreams (knocking around in there with the 50 or so others) that I want to start working on before I relax into my extended dirt nap. I just saw the film "Outsourced," and once again India is on my radar as someplace I'd like to spend several months. I also want to live in the Gaeltacht in Ireland to learn Irish. There's also a rumbling (yet disturbing to me) desire to resurrect an anciently wanted "Cinderella Dream," though before those of you who know me start laughing I have spun it into a version I can handle: think the 60's movie version with Leslie Ann Warren, but with some "Sid & Nancy" touches, the costuming and the music, not the drugs. And a with a Gripfast 8 hole steel toe instead of a "slipper." Get the picture? Though, really, if I were deeply honest, I've already gotten to live that one out...(no schadenfreude here, unless the reader is laughing at my Cinderella Dream, which I've never confessed to having as it seems super uncool, in which case, I'm laughing with you, so I'm not miserable (unless I'm laughing just to keep from crying), so it doesn't count).

Still with me...?

At some point during this time of trying to come of with something worth blogging about I read a story about some American tourists who got on a bus in Africa, and at one the stops a man got on with a rooster, didn't have bus fare, & tried to pay his fare with the rooster. The Americans bought the rooster from the man so he could pay for his trip and when they all got off at the same stop the local man invited the tourists to his home for a meal. He was a widower who lived in a small hut with his two children, was very poor, but scratched together a meal for all of them. The Americans had a wonderful time, and when they left, gave the man back his rooster (I was wondering how the hell they were holding this thing the whole time! I wouldn't have any idea how to hold a rooster - I mean, was in a sack, or were they holding it upside down by it's (what I'm assuming are) scary feet?). I heard Johnny Lydon (one of my personal heroes) tell Conan O'Brien that the Garden of Eden wasn't in the bible or in the sky but in Africa instead. I have experienced first hand the incredible graciousness of people who have very little (usually in "emerging" countries)...I don't think they sit around and wonder what to do with their months of free time like I do. The reason I tell that story is because it struck me how I used to live my life thinking there was so little for me (which wasn't true) and I had to hold on tightly to whatever stuff, money, love (insert...anything) I thought I had - and this story shows a generosity without clinging - a way of living I aspire to, and have moved slightly closer to in my 16 years of not trying to change the way I feel with chemicals, which was based in a feeling of never having "enough" (which was false). But I don't have to travel around the world to see this sort of non-clinging to stuff - I just talked to the gal who gave her beanie to the homeless guy - she is homeless too. She is singing loudly while listening to music on her laptop. Homeless people with cell phones and laptops...what a crazy place.

I have run out of finger power & have not justified the title of the post so I'll just pull something from the random stack of topics in my brain, in a "use this word in a sentence" style: "the last time I experienced schadenfreude was was seeing the governor of Alaska being interviewed by Charles Gibson. I enjoyed her discomfort & awkwardness." I'm sure my karma is coming soon.

Limbo Beyond Limbo

A lot of people are surprised to find out I have a filmmaking degree. I think they thought I majored in Art or English or have some random Liberal Arts degree, but I was one of a handful of kids in the early 80's doing incredibly involved technical and creative 16mm film making at the University where I am currently a wage serf - which I now would not be able to get into as the requirements are so much stricter, and the film progam is recognized as top notch, as it was even then when there were just a handful of us doing it. The technical parts were incredibly arduous, but the chaos of shooting and editing and sound synching suited my nature. I partied so much in college that it is a miracle I got through, but we all seemed to be able to do that while we were making films, which I don't think is uncommon even today. I mention me having a film degree because about two months ago I was called for an extra role in the new HBO biopic about Temple Grandin, one of my personal heroes. I had stood in a cattle call line about two years ago for a big Hollywood pic being shot here, & the local film casting folks still had my picture. The reason they called me was because I was, at that time, 118 pounds, and they wanted skinny girls to fit into the 50's & 60's clothes for the period piece. I told them I weighed more than that now, sent them a pic of me in a bikini & never heard from them figuring that extra 5 pounds knocked me out of the running. Last night they finally called (around 8:30pm), and asked if I could show up the next day for a role that was bigger than an extra, so it would be a more intimate scene, where I would actually be seen in the movie for a few minutes. I thought this was cool & said I would do it, then told them I had a recent dye job-they didn't like this & told me I'd have to dye my hair before I came in, and have it set in "hot rollers," and bring pantyhose. I said I didn't have any hot rollers or pantyhose & thought it might be too late to go buy hair dye and they started asking me if I was really "stoked" or not for this role and that "they had held it special just for me" (???). I didn't ask why, then, they were calling me the night before for this special role just for me, because I would actually like to work on a film before I croak (actually, I am quite proud of the short film Will & I made in Antarctica for the film festival). The phone call became more bizarre as I talked to three different girls & they kept telling me their names and they were different than the first time they told me, and there was lots of noise in the background and that sounded like they were calling me from a crack house. I was still planning on going to the set when I reminded them that I had some small tattoos - and the girl on the phone asked where they were & I told her & she said "sorry we won't be able to use you..." & kept apologizing & acted liked I deceived them as she said she couldn't see them in my mostly naked picture. I said that's because they are not so obvious...anyway, I got off the phone relieved not to be dealing with these bozos..until I walked over to the shoot today (they happened to be shooting near campus and I know the secret signage that indicates where a big film is being shot) and saw all the teamsters & giant generators & millions of dollars of equipment & amount of bodies needed to pull of a production. I am a big fan of HBO made programming, so was curious about the incredible unprofessionalism of the talent people I'd dealt with on the phone. Anyway, it was a micro-drama that gave me something to write about. And because writing always opens the floodgates for stacking more topics...I was thinking about conversations I'd been having recently about the state of being in limbo versus being tethered and how that means different things to different people. I, right now, am in limbo beyond limbo. I am not on the Ice, have  a job I am quitting in two weeks, am moving out of my room in early November, going to Hawaii for 3 weeks, and after that have no idea what I'm going to do. I usually "tether" myself by some non-negotiable trips I have to do during the year: Taos in March & May, San Francisco in June...and usually the Ice for half the year - but the Ice, my singleminded focus of the last four year, is not happening this year. I am so free it's ridiculous. Getting this full time job has been great for my sanity & tethered me to life somewhat, but I am only enjoying it because I know it's going to end. There's always such a relief I feel when I know something is ending or changing. So starting in May I went from having a job at the South Pole for austral summer, to not having one, to working the ski season in Jackson Hole, to not doing that, and then asking for a job at South Pole for winter, and being immediately rejected (!). The problem I'm having now is not the fear of being in utter limbo, it's not knowing what I want to do. I worked so hard to get myself into this position of not being chained to a job, city or mortgage...so I should just enjoy the fact that I'm in this luxury position instead of worrying about it. Sometimes I wonder if I'm squandering my creative energies, but it takes so much energy to manage this lovingly chosen limbo, that maybe that is the creative act. And nothing makes me more certain than I am living the right life for me than working at UT again, where I'm surrounded by people who don't have the choice to quit & run off like I do. It is so easy for me to see tethers as chains...

the next day...

In the airconditioned comfort of my favorite new coffee hangout in Austin, Epoch. What makes a local coffee shop great? Old blown out comfy couches, super groovy new down-tempo music played at a volume where you can still type & read, and a band of locals you eventually form a "tribe" with. This one also has excellent pizza. It's mid October & still in the 90'sF here in Central Texas, but I have made peace with my heat hating side as the mornings & evening are blissfully nice. I got an e-mail from a friend at McMurdo this morning....I worked with her in the Heavy Shop three seasons ago and though I have accepted I gave up my job on Ice this season, I was not prepared to be stricken like I was when I saw the photos of her in one of the big red South Pole Traverse tractors. My heart seized up, as if something very very important to me was no longer mine - tears streamed from my eyes as I scrolled down to the pics of the pristine mountains across from the butt-ugly but lovable station. For a variety of reasons I decided to not go back to the Ice this season, and despite my grieving not being there, I have found reasons to appreciate being stateside. But I was not prepared for how deeply the Ice is woven into my blood, body & cells: any opportunity to talk about it sparkles me. No matter how much I stand by my decision that is ok for me to take a season off, there is a hole in my soul in the shape of my friends & the lifestyle of Mactown. 

But while I sit here torturing myself, the world is unfolding around me in subtle & interesting ways...I get to be here for this incredibly bizarre & epic presidential election. I get to experience a temperature that is somewhere comfortably between 100F & not -40F (the extremes I've been in the last 4 years). I get to have deep & intimate conversations with wonderful people. I get to see tableaux like the one pictured, that someone lovingly created on the bar at Epoch, and reminds me that I could never live anywhere that did not have these sorts of fringe places peopled by fringe characters. I am so comfortable with them.

Faced with the prospect of no trip on the horizon until November (Hawaii!), and two more months of potential triple digit temps here in central Texas, I did the most logical thing any adventurous, cold-air loving soul would do: got a temporary job spending most the day walking around outside at a place I worked at for 14 years in  my pre-Antarctic life. I was going to go to Ireland for a few weeks, or drive to northern New Mexico again, but I was gripped by my ancient, ingrained work ethic persona (even though I was born in Austin and dress like one, I am not a "slacker" in my soul!) & decided I needed to be busy & spend the day doing something I'm being paid to do instead of trying to dream up ways of passing the days. I also wanted a sort of work solidarity feeling with my peeps on the Ice, as it was "time" for me to go back to work. So I got a temp job at the University of Texas, (which I also graduated from 25 years ago) walking around tracking down professors and grad students to tag newly purchased inventory. I have tagged mostly brand new computers, some strange lab equipment that apparently does something with live frogs that I probably don't want to know about. I have a giant binder of millions of dollars of stuff purchased for UT Athletics so I'll be spending lots of time at the stadium tagging everything from racing sculls to batting cages. An immense, state university is a fascinating place to work - I could never work at an office park or in some environment where you don't have a rich environment to balance out the soulless work going on in the cubicles. When I first took this job I was angry at myself and wondering if I did the right thing, as "going back to UT" (as we've always referred to it) turned the knife that was in my heart about not being on the Ice this season. I felt like a puppet that someone else was pulling its strings - why am I staying in this oven city for two more months working 8-5, missing yoga, travel & sleeping in, doing this grueling work? After 3 days of work I know why: because life is more interesting when it surprises you & doesn't follow your own script (who was it that wanted a job?). Something in me knew this was the right thing to do for now even though it's not "exciting!" or in a "foreign locale!" After 3 days of hard work I am not complaining  ceaselessly like I was about the weather - I don't have time to navel gaze as I'm so busy organizing how I'm going to do my day. I interact with people so much that a huge contact void is being filled. I thought I knew what I wanted but like I heard Bob Dylan say "getting what you want is just getting what you want." And he also said something about the state of being happy was not as interesting as other states one might be in. I get that. And some good people I hang with have a great saying: you may not get what you want but you always get what you need. Having a regular job dials down my neurosis to a very low hum, whereas endless hours of free time will have me in a mental tailspin derived from self absorption. I have experimented with this for years: quitting jobs I hated & trying time after time to "self-structure" so I can make art, but it never works. I need structure. And I need external structure, preferably by a large institution. I've had jobs with small employers and it always made me nervous - I like the womb like feeling of the massive employer (UT has 25,000 staff members). So, like an adult, I have made peace with my decision, and tomorrow will happily run around all day applying little silver stickers on laptops, frog cleaners and centrifuges...because right now, I need to be identified with the tribe of the "employed." My identity was so tied up with being "that chick who works in Antarctica," that I've been lost for a few months knowing I wasn't going back. But I still am that chick, because I will go back, just not for now....

It Began with Bruce

Thirty three years ago I was riding home from high school with a friend & her brother in a car, which was significant for me as I almost always rode the school bus, and was envious of people who didn't have to ride it. I remember what I was wearing, that I was sitting in the center of the back seat (I don't remember who the other two riders were), and that my friend's brother turned up the radio volume knob and said "hey listen to this new song, it's really cool," in his understated math-geek style. I then heard something that exploded in my soul and electrified every nerve in my being. I felt what all the gurus & mystics talk about when they describe a spiritual experience in regards to there being no awareness of time, space or separation of bodies. I felt new blood & life rushing into me & a confidence that my life was going to be greater, wilder and more adventurous than my 14 year old self could possibly imagine at that point. I had a fleeting glimpse that the universe was going to unfold for me in outrageously abundant ways and I'd better hold on  for the ride. This feeling can still overcome me with the opening bars of certain songs, but it began with this one (see t-shirt in photo). I saw Bruce for the first time in 1980 at the former Summit in Houston on "The River" tour. I still have the $8 ticket stub (it was also the only time *I think* he played "Drive All Night," my all time number one Bruce anthem tune). I was deeply entrenched in the punk rock scene in Austin at the time, but would always return to Bruce in the wee hours - and all my non-Bruce friends would roll their eyes, like all non-Bruce people have always done. "I don't get it" they say. Or "all his songs sound the same." I made a few converts, usually by talking them into seeing a live show, or by forcing them to participate in late night "lock-ins" where I would play his albums over and over. There is nothing so beautiful as seeing an ambivalent Bruce person transformed after a show. After that 1980 show, which was nothing short of transcendental: the parting of the audience as he strolled into the center of the hushed bodies, as if the Pope himself were coming through - I didn't see a show for a while. I sort of lost my enthusiasm after "Born in the USA" came out (that embarassing dance training!). I lived in New York City when that tour started in 1984, knew a live show would be a heartstopper, stood in line all day & bought 10 tickets, went to Ireland and fell in love, ditched my return plane ticket & didn't get back in time to see the show in Jersey (I still haven't seen Bruce in Jersey, man!). I felt really bad as some of those tickets belonged to other people who didn't get to see the show either. I saw a couple of solo acoustic shows in the '90s but didn't get that fire back until the E Street band reunited in 2000. After that first Texas show in Dallas I wasn't sure I would be able to return to "normal" life again - I have never seen anyone give that much. I don't know what my expectations were but not that a middle aged man would come out as blisteringly raw, powerful and inspiring like he did in the '70s. I went on to see the Austin & Houston shows, and then in 2002 tour did the "GA line" (which is an epic journey in itself) & stood leaning on the stage as he held my hand for half a song while starting into my friend's eyes. My hearing was ruined from that show, but being that close to Bruce & Li'l Steven was worth the fascinating and surreal process known as the "GA line." (for short: spending four days of 24/7 ritual to be one of those people who are all standing near the stage). This past April, I saw Bruce in his most recent tour in Houston. As usual, I held my breath in the beginning knowing I was in for a ride - and this show was epic among shows. I was trying to pin the right words on it & finally read them in one of the reviews of the show: "a brain meltingly good show." That's exactly what happened: my brain melted, and like I do after every show, I race home & get online & plot my life path to go to every show possible & then don't do it. The one show that looked really good was his last one - at something called "Harleyfest" in the Midwest, but I didn't bother with trying to get tickets as they were really expensive and I couldn't get my Bruce-pal Kate to go with me.

So last Saturday I'm riding back from the shores of Green Bay (where this photo was taken) to Chicago. En route we encounter thousands of Harleys near Milwaukee and then get stuck in a massive traffic jam. My friend said this was a big annual music festival that is really prestigious & has great acts. Being from Austin I usually take these comments with a grain of salt - and it was blazingly hot out so I was not tempted as I would otherwise be to follow the rumbling bikers into town. I found out a few days later that Bruce had played his last & longest show of this tour that very night in Milwaukee at that music show known as "Harleyfest." I kicked myself for a little while for not knowing that I was just blocks from the Boss, but regrets don't do me a lick of good.

A good friend told me I suffer from a deep case of "the grass is greener" syndrome. I've been thinking about this a lot as it is playing itself out like a giant Technicolor psychodrama in the part of my brain that makes decisions. I had to make a very difficult choice this year: whether to go back to the Ice, or spend the ski season in Jackson Hole with Will. The first time I went to Antarctica was exactly like that moment in that car 33 years ago: like waking up from a dull tired dream into a new and exciting world, full of romance and creativity and living on the razor's edge. I did have a job on Ice this upcoming season, and the whole time I knew I could go, I felt tormented about what I would miss out on by not going to JH. When I finally said no to the job and yes to Will, I mourned not going back to the Ice and am torturing myself over what I am missing out on at McMurdo! I watched me put myself through this exhausting and self-defeating ritual, and with what tiny bit of middle aged wisdom I have finally had to just tell myself that there is NO wrong decision, and that whatever I choose will be good no matter how it pans out. And what I finally realized was giving me so much heartache about this decision was that I was having to decide between two things I really wanted - whereas I'm usually trying to escape some yucky situation by replacing it with something that seems better, but that usually ends up yucky too. So to be in a situation where all the choices are good? Wow - now that's something new -I realize the enviable situation I am apparently in. The best part about the decision I made was that I'm doing something different, something that involves a lot of unknown and risk taking, something that will present new challenges, yet living someplace where I know I'll like the weather! 

What I learned from Bruce is to keep asking myself  "is anybody really alive in there?" And to follow the path that feels most alive. And sometimes, life is so abundantly alive, you have to choose one path over the other...a condition I like to refer to as "luxury problems."

"Talk about a dream...try to make it real...."

Door County, WI

It's been a while since I've written, but I've been away from wifi & cell service for the past two weeks. I'm staying in an enormous old house in Door County, WI (top of the peninsula), specifically in Egg Harbor. The house is right on Green Bay, which is great for swimming, sunsets, and goose watching. I'm with my oldest & dearest friend, her family (which includes two great kids) and a variety of friends & family members who drift in & out for various lengths of stays. The summer heat is not brutal up here, so it is livable, and my favorite town here, Sturgeon Bay, has very affordable housing. These are my favorite photos so far (taken a few steps from the house), as they come at my favorite time of day: when the sun starts to set and I heave a hugh sigh of relief....thank goodness summer is almost over!

Made From Corn

I was just about to toss this plastic cup last night when I decided to read what was written on it. I would love to tour the plant that makes corn into plastic cups. I don't know if you can read the back but it says "fully compostable." Interestingly enough, I just read an article in "The Sun" magazine today about a 90 year old Nicaraguan woman who made corn tortillas from 4am to midnight for the Sandinistas-to give them energy to fight the Contras; Esperanza says "corn is the strength that we subsist on...a person cannot work, cannot think, cannot exist without our corn." This stirs up all kinds of thoughts, like how much Reagan was hated on my college campus during the Nicaraguan conflict, heated talk over beer & cigarettes about the SNLF, and the idea of taking a raw material & turning it into something unexpected. It's interesting that this cup looks exactly like plastic, like did they have to take the "cornness" out of it so it wouldn't freak people out (because it's more reassuring to drink out of petroleum by-products), or does processed corn look like plastic anyway. Did this cup use 20 times the resources to make as a plastic one? Or, even more intriguing, did some Banksy influenced guerilla artist just print this on there, making an urban hipster hoax, to give people like me something to blog about...

Go See "Man On Wire"

The Frenchman profiled in this documentary lives the Helen Keller quote: "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."

Even More Remote

This place I went to in Way West Texas isn't even on the map. The road to it is marked by a short black line that turns into a long grey line. From now on I will always know what the "grey" line on a map means: do not drive a low-rider Ford Taurus on this road! For 2 hours I twisted through the mountains on an unpaved & obviously rarely traveled "road." Thank goodness the scenery was jaw-dropping, otherwise I would have had only my abject terror to focus on. I drove across giant boulders praying my tires wouldn't get punctured. One section of the road was 90 degree drops into dry creek beds while in my panic I thought I heard the faint strains of the deliverance theme song, saw some Hills Have Eyes types darting my periphery, & the standard cliche: circling vultures. Fergus was bouncing so much in his seat I had to strap him in. I mentally inventoried my water supply (1/2 a hot bottle & a rapidly emptying dog dish), wondered if I had a flashlight, and started to remember than the reason I had never come out here was that it required a "high clearance" vehicle. I only remember being this scared one other time: driving on another "grey" road about 10 years ago looking for a scenic route to Jerome AZ. I cried like a baby on that trip, but on this one I just focused on breathing and going 2 miles per hour. When I finally saw the sign for my destination I was so releived, but incensed enough to let the owners know they need to warn folks like me on their website. This is a part of Texas that makes comfortable regular, paved road West Texas seem soft & easy. This is hardscrabble "No Country For Old Men" country. The worker at the Springs said "I've never heard of a Taurus making it through Pinto Canyon." I thought he was perhaps new to the area, but later found out he was a native Terlinguan (wiki it-makes Luckenbach look like the Taj Mahal). Yikes. Now that my driving adventure was over, I could focus on the resort: small, funky, relaxing. Fergus running wild with packs of hounds, nude toddlers everywhere, and, unfortunately, their skidmarked tiny undies. After a quick once over of the pools & grounds, I power napped (my energy sapped by my death defying canyon adventure!), but was harshly awoken by one of my two most hated sounds: lawn equipment! I swear, as much as I hate California, I would move there in an instant if I could afford to live in the town (I believe it is Carmel) the has outlawed all motorized/gas powered lawn equipment. I almost had to laugh though, that at his remotest of remote places were one would expect nothing but quiet, I was subjected to an obsessive maintenance guy with his weedeater that you could tell he was in love with. His other tool of the trade was a medieval looking machete, so I'm sure the weedeater was a huge energy saver to him. One of the naked toddlers was fond of screaming loudly for no apparent reason, but hey, we were one big happy family by nightfall, all swapping stories in the communal kitchen, bonding over the unspoken fact that it is no small feat to get out to a place like this. There was one other lady travelling by herself, and I'm always pleased to see this as we are a small, but significant tribe. I have become that sort of woman I always secretly hoped I would be: middle aged, fit, dressed sloppily but not un-hip; not asexual, but definitley not enticing, and with a wee precious dog that shows a commitment to having a lovable companion to share the adventure with. The only other male guest there was named Fergus too. Wow. Two Irish-named mammals at Chinati Hot Springs on the same day. And he was all the way from England. The next morning my city persona took over & I bolted from the Springs in hope of good black coffee at the town at the bottom of the road. After a wrong turn (into a dry creek bed), I backtracked & finally made it to the town of Ruidoso - population "zero" it would appear. There were no buildings, certainly no coffee shops, and I even forgot about the coffee when I saw the giant wild boars racing along the road with me - wow again. I realized I was in a part of the country that has more animals than people. Wild burros & horses were spotted too, and the burros came up the the car & were very freindly. (If these are donkeys, forgive me, I don't know the difference).  There was something surreal about the road from Ruidoso to Presidio: it bordered Mexico & you could see the canyons and all sorts of unidentifiable...lodging was all I could figure it must've been. Really put things in perspective for me. I live in my self-abosorbed, luxury problem filled life here the coddling bubble of city life, and a 10 hour or so drive to the deserts of my own state show me a lifestyle that I know nothing about - I wont try & guess what sort of living they eke out, but I admired them for putting togehter a home base, especially the ones out of scavenged materials. I once read a New Yorker article about the floating slum of Lagos Nigeria where everything is made of scavenged metal. I saw that today on highway 170, and it was nice to see that a lot of homey touches went into it. I feel that I am city girl in my soul, but there is something about ultra remote locations with nothing to do but visit with people that will have me put everything else on hold. When there are no places to go or things to do, people sit around and talk - about 10 strangers who are no longer strangers by the end of the evening.  Can't believe I waited this long to come out here. Next time I'll bring Will.

West Texas

It may look like Tucumcari, but West Texas has a whole different vibe. These photos were taken in Alpine, Marfa, and Fort Davis Texas, the gateway to the Big Bend Park. I've been coming out here since '92 and consider this my "runaway" place (or "run to" depending on what's going on in my life). It's very isolated and a long, long drive from a big city. There is no Wal Mart and almost every business is locally owned. About 10 years ago I secured a contract on a house in Alpine as I was convinced I was going to move here. Now that house has tripled in price and it is still only about $120K. I have to resist looking at real estate out here because it IS so affordable, but life in this small a town I'm not sure I could swing. Alpine is the biggest of the cities (pop. ~5000), where I stay at a 1940's lodge with my dog (bottom photo). Fort Davis is probably the prettiest of the towns as it has the McDonald Observatory nearby & lots of interesting mountains & rocks. The "Sleeping Lion" rock (also pictured) was something I wanted to climb, but when I drove up to it there was a fence around it. Marfa is the most interesting of the towns - with a population of just about 2000, it has become a swanky artists' mecca - and not your dreadlocked slacker coffee shop artist, but big name NYC artists with loads of cash fixing up the derelict buildings and filling them with cutting edge art, which juxtaposes sharply with the low income local adobe dwelling population. The best part of this trip this time is that it has rained a lot - at 85 degrees F it is twenty degrees cooler here than in Austin. 85 is still way too hot for me, but that's as good as it gets for a seven hour drive. There is no traffic. There is no noise. The sky is so beautiful that I got tears in my eyes watching the violent thunderheads rolling west last night. The relief I felt getting out of Austin was overwhelming. I had gone through a couple of weeks of "negotiating" my salary with the Antarctic folks which left me feeling empty (they said "no" but I keep my integrity), so I knew I'd be recharged out here. I miss my daily yoga class, but I brought a dvd & am trying to do it in my tiny room without knocking a decoration off the wall. I also recently finished a climbing class in a bouldering gym in Austin, and I'm itching to get back to climbing, and to try it outdoors. I know this post is uninspired so I'll keep it short. This blather is just padding for the photo of the grain elevator with the dark cloud above it, which I drove the wrong way down a one way street to get a shot of before the sun came back out. Actually, the other Marfa photo (with the water tower) has a dark sky as well. As far as my personal photographic ambitions, I live for this sort of shot. When I was taking photojournalism in 1980 in college, I raced out on one of the 10 cloudy days I have witnessed in my life, and did about half my assignments. Even before the professor told us, I knew the power, beauty and color saturation of a sunless photo. I guess my second favorite type of photo is crumbling buildings, so I got photo goodness on this day.

Gaaak! I found out I accidentally removed my stat counter from my blog - I just thought no one had looked at in in a month, which would be unusual, as someone inevitably at least happens upon it by accident through a random Google search (an interesting one: "mohawk, pictures, smooth"). I've had this blog for two years before I installed the counter & now I don't know how I survived without it (remember before they invented caller ID: horrors!). I am not currently on a retreat or vacation of any kind so I don't know if I can blog about my life in Austin and still sound like a dynamic and interesting person. Let's see, I drink coffee for a couple of hours in the morning while surfing the net and inquiring with various travel companies if they have an opening on their tour of Labrador/Arctic Circle/Greenland (plotting my escape from the sticky Texas heat), and then decide I don't want to spend the 5-10K. I take my dog for a walk, though it's a short one as it's already boiling hot. I go to yoga, which makes me feel terrific, then hone my rock climbing skills at the Rock Gym I just started taking classes at. Like the skiing, it is very challenging & lots of fun. I ride my scooter as my primary form of transportation as it gets 100 mpg, and I have notice that this is turning into a scooter town. 4 years ago I didn't see too many scoots, now you can hear us beeping thru the night in moped solidarity. Another thing about nightfall in Austin - it is glorious. I fall in  love with the city again. It is the one time I feel content to be outside. Riding after 9:00pm when it falls just under 90F degrees with a slight cool breeze is joyful. But since I've owned the scooter I've always felt really sad when I have to leave Fergus at home as he loves going to coffee shops with me but I never want to take my car. I've investigated different ways of trying to transport him on he scooter in the past but always decided I would be too nervous with my "precious cargo" if I dropped the bike. Well, for some reason a few days ago I just marched into PetCo  & bought one of those front baby-holder type things & brought it home & when I stuffed him in it & walked out to get on the scooter for the first time he acted like "why did you wait so long?" So now we have been going on evening jaunts & he loves it (look closely at the blurry photo & you can see his wee fuzzy head). The looks I get from people in cars & one the streets is hilarious (I'm hoping it's not a "that poor woman is using a dog as a baby-substitute" look - but no, this is Austin, where you hardly ever see a white person with a baby). I always complain about my life when I'm at "home" but it reads like it seems like it should be really great. I guess it's as great as it can be for being in such a bad climate. I recently read in an Eckhart Tolle book that there is a type of person who cannot be happy unless they are travelling to unfamiliar places. I must be one of them. I can be "happy," doing my routine here, but not ecstatically living out the dictates of my daimon. I don't feel fully alive until I see that road stretched out before me into the unknown (or have hit that "make purchase" button on the airline website!).

I have a decision to make & it will be difficult: I've been offered a job at the South Pole that sounds really fun, but if I take it I won't see Will for 4 more months (and seeing him will be fun too!). How do you decide between love and....love?

Frisco, Fog, and even more Fun

I went to San Francisco to do the Master Class version of the painting workshop I've been doing for years. This retreat is different from the one in Toas, as it is for seasoned process painters so the teacher pushes us to greater depths of creativity. But the best part is that I get to be in this awesome city, which I'd move to in heartbeat if I was rich. The photo from Chinatown was taken halfway through the workshop, on our 1/2 day off. We were just giddy from the process & the over-the-top-ness of Chinatown was the perfect place to spend the afternoon. I am lucky enough to have met my fabulous friend Gwinn at a workshop in Taos in 2003, and her mom has a house in the Potrero Hill neighborhood in SF (worth moving there for Farley's alone! World's coolest coffee shop). So I get to stay in one of my favorite American cities (and the most expensive) for free. Gwinn's nephew stayed with us for most the week and I was forewarned that I would have to play Monopoly every night until my eyes burned with fatigue. I said I didn't know how to play & hid in my room pretending to be "writing," so I wouldn't have to get my ass kicked by a 10 year old at a board game. Well, I was ordered to play by Gwinn's mom as she was cooking dinner & someone had to take her place - and lo & behold - my super competitive, greedy persona kicked in and I discovered I loved playing Monopoly with a kid. The last time I had played I was probably 10 also, and my dad, a gifted businessman, left my sister & I  homeless & penniless within the first hour - so my memories of Monopoly was that it was very for skilled businesspeople only. But everyday I bolted from the painting class to rush home so could play with this darling boy. Its was one of the gorgeous treats from the universe that I could have never asked for. 

The other photo is the 2nd one I have in my Entire Photo Collection that features actual real live fog! My other fog photo was taken last year in the Highlands of Scotland, with Will (my darling boyfriend currently residing at the South Pole), and that fog was hard to find, as my frenemy Mr. Sun followed me Everywhere else in Supposedly Cloudy Countries. Anyway, I promised not to rant anymore about the sun (currently 100 degrees in Austin Tx :-)), so aside from the fact that I can wear a sweatshirt in June, SF has too many good qualities to name - but some of those are: Walkable! I lost 5 pounds just walking everywhere. Adults! There's grown ups everywhere, hardly any kids or strollers, and no giant waddling people like you'd see, say, on the Wisconsin peninsula (it's be tough to walk these streets if you weren't fit). Gorgeous architecture, friendly people, Alcatraz and other cool touristy stuff, and Farley's: a coffeeshop I could live in.

Crabby Old Mexico

It might seem strange that someone who becomes semi-hysterical when it is above 70 degrees and sunny, who goes all stabby at the thought of "swimwear" "tank tops" and "shorts", who would rather have a sharp stick in the eye than go to a sunny beach would go to a resort in Mexico in June, but that's what this icy-wind, arctic-cold loving blogger did. I went to a yoga retreat for 7 days in a jungle eco-resort outside of Sayulita, about 40 miles north of Puerta Vallarta. Eco-retreat means no electricity which means no air-conditioning. It must also mean tiny portions of food: vegan, vegetarian, ayurvedic (?) healthy food. Translation: no Tex-Mex. Despite all this, and for what has become a theme with this year's travel, I had a very very good time. I did almost no yoga! I laughed & hooted it up with my new friends while we climbed through the jungle from our palapas, squealing past the horror movie feel of what we were told by our hostess was the "crab migration" (imagine thousand upon thousands of defensive & noisy crabs rushing away from humans like a stabby, moving carpet ala the parting of the Red Sea. Imagine the foliage next to you crackling & shaking with hundreds of crab bodies as you stroll by trying to gaze out at the ocean while trying not to feel like you're in a movie adaption of a Stephen King novel). Reeling from the information we received that these critters would come inside our cabanas, we stumbled the sheer verticals to coffee in the am, drenched in sweat from our aerobic climb. The resort itself is fabulous: hand built in the jungle without the aid of earth movers (maybe they rolled the logs in over the crab bodies?); all palapas completely private and open air. As you can see from the picture, you could sit on the pot AND be tickled by local fauna (or was that... - no it WAS a palm frond), without having to go camping. The no electricity part didn't really hit me til it was dark & there was no lighting along the steep path to the cabanas or beach (that's when the crabs really gave you the heebee jeebies: backing up into a defensive stance, waving that one macho (or so they think) jumbo claw menacingly, black beady eyes hyper focused on the giant foot about to smash it). Luckily I had a flashlight, which I read by, and we had oil lamps in our cabanas - but life took on a magical quality with no wifi, cell phone, and the crab invasion that kept us alert. I honed my rock-scrambling skills on the big boulders lining the Pacific coast, did some jagged-rock-dodging, deep-water swimming, walked through the jungle everyday to visit the colorful town, giggled with all the new gals I met as we all met up for dinner every night to tell of our daily adventures. Some hardcore types took all the daily yoga classes (the classes were held in a building too high up for the crabs), but I was having so much fun not doing yoga that I didn't pressure myself to do it - and I was getting used to the crabs! It rained 5 of the 7 days so I was deliriously happy about that (that's why the crabs were out: their homes were flooded). Or course, a lot of the retreatants felt their vacation was "ruined" by the rain, but they eventually confessed in "closing circle" that the rain had made things more intimate between us (hello!). [warning! "reverse SAD" rant ahead: the seeminngly common notion that only cloudless blue skies with relentless sun is the preferred weather condition for every single day has always baffled me. Do these unimaginative sunburnt masses not know the heart pounding excitement of a violent thunderstorm, the soulful melancholy of dark clouds hanging like a mysterious grey curtain hung by a wizened old poet-god, the bracing and hope-filled day of promise provided by an icy breeze. I go on this rant under several aliases on several forums so I'll spare my Way Down Under loyal readers]. And these people were all Texans for pete's sake - you'd think they'd like something different than back home. I expected a yoga retreat to be all serious & PC, but it was like silly summer camp for post-menopausal women; and filled with crassness, irreverence, and barking spiders. There were two newlywed couples, which was really nice to see (aren't they on the endangered species list?), and of course the dependable warmth and hospitality of the locals, which is one of the bright spots of Mexico. Having been in Oaxaca and Chiapas on my last trip, I had forgotten how gringo-ized Jalisco (super touristy state I was in) was. Even the prices this far north were about the same as they would be in Texas. The street dogs were fatter and there was much less trash strewn around, but we didn't have those super cheap and delicious meals that were found closer to Guatamala. Oaxaca and Chiapas really felt like you were in a foreign country, whereas Sayulita was more like San Antonio. As far as travel destinations, Mexico is not high on my list - it is (relatively) convenient to get to for me and I really wanted to go on this yoga retreat-plus I have been many times. It is not far enough away for this Texan to get excited about. I have realized that the farther away, the more I yearn for it (unless it is some blank, buildingless pristine island in the middle of nowhere). So my next trip was to San Francisco, which is really as close to paradise as one can get for a large American city. I was so looking forward to the groovy coffee shops, the intelligent looking adults everywhere, more dogs than kids, Chinatown, pearl tea, and mainly mostly & with uberglee: fog!

Taos: almost Heaven

I have been going to Taos for 7 years now and my heart still starts beating with happiness as soon as I start the ascent into the mountains...it is the only place I've been to in the states that feels like a foreign country - it's so weird and beautiful and laid back. I used to go and spend my time only at the historic Mable Dodge Luhan House (pictured), which is insanely cool, doing this painting trip, but now I have two reasons to go, as nearby is Taos Ski Valley where I go skiing in March. I always make friends with all these incredibly rich and successful and really interesting people. I spent 10 days with all these great women and on our last evening we raced wild & free sans clothes (not pictured) during a long, glorious, blue & gold sunset at the penitente church area. Parts of me that lie dormant all year emerge during my days in Taos: I buy extravagant things (note the trapper hat) whereas I am usually painfully frugal with myself, I feel in love with myself like I do at no other place (well, one other place), I feel gracious & generous & full of life. I think about moving there, but it just hasn't felt right yet. And it's so cliched but it's true: the light and colors of the sky and shadows all seemed to be infused with some sort of spiritual essence. You don't see the billionaires & movies stars that supposedly live here...just dusty trucks with broken windows & rangy dogs spilling out the back. Lots of old and new hippies who work the ski valley in winter & do odd jobs the rest of the time. It was kismet that I ever ended up here: I was in an Austin bookstore in the art section. Picked up a book with a wildly colorful cover ("Life, Paint and Passion" by Michele Cassou), read it one sitting & KNEW I had to meet this woman. Looked her up on the web & called and got in last minute in a February workshop within a few weeks of finding her book...so now I've done 9 of her workshops and the experience of doing the process painting is equal to the jaw dropping splendor of Taos. It's almost too much yumminess in one experience. Aside from going to Antarctica, nothing has ever felt so right.

Tucumcari

Fascinating in its desolation and brimming with American detritus, Tucumcari (could it's sister city be Oodnadatta, South Australia?) is a visual feast for those who like the offbeat, but there's no need to spend more than one night in this derelict town. It's a ghost town with boarded up buildings, scraggly locals and nothing going on. It is devoid of bodies except for the odd stream of Route 66 fetishists passing through. The Blue Swallow provided spotless, comfy lodging with personable owners, and a communal vibe that contrasted sharply with the shady characters that pestered me when I tried to take a sunset walk. I ended up getting a wee bit scared when 3 locals on Harleys were following me down the sidewalk trying to engage me in conversation. And I am not usually scared of much. So much cool rehab potential in all these funky old buildings- someone with money could turn this into an artists' mecca - and beautiful murals painted on everything. Scored a 9 on the funky-meter, yet had a spooky, "opening shots of 'Andromeda Strain'" vibe...

Cadillac Ranch

I'm embarrassed to say I've been a Texan all my life and have never been to the Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo (it IS a two day drive from Austin for you tiny state dwellers), but I finally made it. It made me swell with local pride & I wished the cows would have stuck around (for the photos) but they always bolt when gawkers arrive (I read that on tripadvisor.com).

I had stayed overnight in a wonderful B&B I found online, with extensive garden ponds where giant koi fish ate out of my hostess' hand like hungry puppies. I stayed in their beautiful Victorian home and lounged around like some obscure relative who rarely visits but is warmly welcomed. After a sumptous breakfast I headed out to New Mexico to stay at an old Route 66 Motel in Tucumcari. I will hopefully post some fab fotos of the strip that I plan to take tonight when all the neon is winking. I realized I had the key still from the B&B in Amarillo, and it is now in the possession of this cool Belgian couple I just met who rode into the motel on a Harley, who said they would drop it off on their way through Amarillo tomorrow. They flew to the states to do all of Route 66 on a bike - they were sunburnt and shaken by the brutal wind out here - I wish them luck. I met another couple here who have seen more of the US than I have - she is Kiwi & he is Irish and they are driving around the entire country. Being from two of my favorite countries, we had much to gab about. Also had a long fun chat with my hotel neighbor, Lisa, who is from the east coast and likes to travel the same way I do. It's great to run into a kindred spirit in this incredibly spirt-infused place...it is so rare I run into solo women travellers who are "winging it"! Hopefully we'll inspire other women to do this too...

Tomorrow I head to Toas & begin the journey into the psychic abyss that is labelled a "painting workshop"...I will be staying in the Mabel Dodge Luhan House adjacent to the Taos Pueblo, listening to coyotes howl at night, painting 8 hours a day in silence surrounded by a powerful and unnamable energy that pushes us into the unknown.

I'd better go, as the famous New Mexican sunset is about to start ;-)

Road Trip - Texas Legs...

What the Heck did we do before the internets as far as making travel plans? I was researching places to stay on my road trip from Austin to Taos, NM & stumbled across this B&B (in Lubbock) that had a restored caboose in the backyard. I hit the "reserve" button so fast I didn't even look at the price - I'm realizing more & more that unique lodging is a big part of road trip fun. It was so much funkier & luxurious than pictured. It's perfect for one person, and from reading the diaries, it is primarily used for a honeymoon night. Lubbock itself was a surprisingly cool town. The big University there was directley across the street from my caboose, so I spent a lovely evening hoofing around the really pretty campus, bathing in a famous 2 hour panhandle sunset. It was a long drive from Austin, but my next travel day was a short one to Amarillo, which is where I am now, lying in a 100 year old victorian house, where I just watched a movie on TV with the hosts - funtimes! The drive from Lubbock was so easy & the landscape so interesting: I'd seen bits of farms & farm equipment before but never on this level. I was looking for clusters of tall buildings to indicate "downtown" while approaching Amarillo, but there were only enormous and imposing grain elevators and jumbo sized heavy equipment everywhere. There cannot possibly be a job shortage in this part of the state as I've never seen so many trucks, tractors, train cars and highwaymen - possibly a hundred miles of cotton crop and tons of edgy & ominous looking cotton gins. I also spent half the day at Palo Duro Canyon State Park - it is stunning, and like everything else around here, I'm the onlly one at it! I went to this cool WWII Glider Museum outside of Lubbock, which was really fascinating, and I was the only visitor so the elderly volunteer gentleman walked me around & was so happy to see a solo woman there I think. No expense was spared for this museum showcasing these fascinating planes. Travelling alone can be challenging: a burst of anticipation when hitting the road in the a.m., followed by the comedown (turning into ennui) of hours of highway time that you tell yourself is interesting because you've never seen it before (and usually IS interesting); the afternoon dip in mood after the day's activities are squared away and you have a long evening in your lodging to contend with (I usually walk in the evenings, or read), the yearning towards bedtime so you can turn tourist mode off & research on the internet stuff to do for the next day...but I also feel the courage & chutzpah that is required to daily confront one's aloneness on the road, and the very obvious knowledge (acquired after 7 hours of driving) that one's attitude is completely a choice - and the delight that every person I've encountered has displayed a saintly level of cordiality - but this is Texas, so it's to be expected :-). Tomorrow is day 3 of my trip and I will be out of my home state by afternoon & into cooler mountain temps. I'm travelling on old route 66 to Tucumcari so there should be plenty of hokey picture ops.

Working Hard at 12,000 ft.

It seemed fated that I would get the same ski instructor as last year AND have private lessons all week after paying for group ones - but the ski gods must be on my side. If you read last year's post I won't have to go into how amazing it is to do something this challenging in middle age - so I'll just say "it is amazing to do something this challenging in middle age!" I was nervous as hell riding up to the lodge thinking it was going to be a disaster as I hadn't skied at all since last year, but after my first tentative 1/2 hour or so on my rented skis Smitty flew down the hill to welcome me back and promptly took me to the top of the mountain for our first run of the week. I had lessons every day from 9:30 to 12:30 and would pass out in a death-style nap after lunch. I was emotionally & mentally exhausted the first couple of days. Some friends I had made last year returned & we had joyous 4 course dinners together every night. I was being pushed at a much higher level than I would ever push myself. I would dread the next morning's class. I would be relieved when lunch came & I was on my own in the afternoon. Sometimes after a big wipe out I'd ask myself why I was doing this? My natural state is lying flat on my back reading a book. So why am I doing this? Because anything that I have this much resistance to is worth doing - anything this hard is worth doing. And it's how I feel at the end of the week - or how I felt at the end of last year's week that made me sign up again: I felt like I had grown; not just as an athlete or a skier but as a person. I had risked looking foolish and awkward doing something that feels so unnatural and discovered the joy of acquiring just the wee-est amount of skill. In the past, I've learned things that came easily to me, and have practiced things I have natural gifts for, but the challenge of learning something that does not come easily and I have no gift for (Smitty will vouch for that) seems to have a more profound effect - it's made me see that natural ability makes for ease of learning, but for someone like me, nothing short of grunting hard work is going to make me a skiier. I could not have done this alone though. I had massive amounts of support, attention and love from the ski school and my fellow skiers at the lodge. My instructor said I'd made HUGE progress this week, and I knew he wasn't just fishing for a bigger tip - I felt it. I knew in my bones when I was doing it right & when I was doing it wrong. We tried a few things that were too ambitious, resulting in some pretty ugly tumbles and pulled muscles. This week I gained enough speed that falling was slightly more dangerous. One fall I slid so far that my skis & poles were nowhere in sight. My friends that ski with Jean Mayer, the owner of the lodge and director of the ski school (and former Olympic skier), say that "falling is not an option." He reports they are going 55 mph. So now I am back in Austin, doing easy non-challenging activities, pining for that fulfilling camaraderie of ski week. The skiing is about 1/2 of the joy, the other half is Jean's disarmingly intimate hotel, where we are all pushed out of yet another comfort zone (emotional distance) and forced to bond with each other. After the first night, there is no resistance as we gleefully greet each other in excited anticipation of discussing the day's skiing. I spent entire 3 hour dinners discussing nothing but skiing, which was amazing considering how little time I've spent doing it - but having missed out on sports my whole life, I finally see how it bonds people. I also discovered that skiing is unforgiving to a mindset of negativity, self-pity and inner whininess. I know because I've tried it (this is my natural state around things I am afraid of) and your skiing will reflect the mindset you carry! I got into the habit of "acting as if" I was bad ass & unafraid, and sometimes it worked! But ultimately, the juiciest experience is that very still moment when I'm facing down a steeper drop that I'd faced before, where there was no world except for me poised on an edge of snow with plastic sticks on my feet, my eyes looking at the point where I would make my first turn (not at the bottom), remembering to aggressively throw myself down the hill (this part is purely an act of faith), and that miraculous moment where I go for it & bypass the voice that says NO. I say YES with a new part of me, and I'm beginning to trust this "yes" more. This week was all about the bravado of me not being afraid of steep...at this rate, I could see this sport providing unlimited learning challenge...and this year, I'll get a lot more days of skiing in if everything goes as planned :-)

My New Zealand

It is usually blazingly sunny & warm in New Zealand when I redeploy in February, but this time we had some "weather" courtesy of some Antarctic storming (I thought that sharp cold wind felt familiar!). I was so happy to be in Christchurch I spent 5 days there running around, doing tours, eating Indian food, walking, enjoying my own company - then it was time to head to the West Coast, and a special town that is my soul's home in NZ. All the guide books say to skip it - that it's gritty, boring, and too much of a "working town." I overheard some English tourists on my beloved quay, where I watch the sun go down every night, complaining that the tour bus had brought them to this "ugly" place for an overnight. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (the building is the backpackers I stayed at-big single room, 16 ft ceilings, ocean views, $40/night). I'd rather slink anonymously amongst the weathered fisherman tending their creaking boats and wander aimlessly on the deserted grey beaches of this unnamed town that oozes soul than mingle with the loudmouthed teenaged masses I saw everywhere in the highly touted Akaroa. There isn't much to do in this offbeat working class town (that also happens to have the coolest coffee shop on South Island), but that's one of its gifts - the obnoxious tourists stay away & it's character remains unchanged. How lucky was I to have my beloved dark clouds, so comforting to me, who experiences what others refer to as "gloomy" as something that fills me with extreme glee & for some reason the promise of excitement to come. And I experienced the "barber" early one morning (another reason the guide books say to stay away): a frigid fog rolling in off the river and enveloping the hills - fog is just majestic to me! Even though I wasn't too keen on Akaroa, I had my best experience there of the whole trip: swimming with the Hector dolphins. The little guys are so adorable & playful, it was worth getting borderline hypothermia for. I also did some challenging cave rafting, an ATV mud drive, hot springs soak, and saw a Maori performance. I missed my travel buddy Will, but because of having logged many miles with him, I travelled much better on my own this time. I didn't cheat myself of doing stuff by being cheap, I just did what I wanted and had one of the best trips ever. I had to get out of my comfort zone of not spending money, and it was really freeing: nice B&B in Chrischurch-$500 for 6 days, 2 hour ATV thrill drive-$140, Tandoori Palace "palace platter" - $16.50 (three nights in a row), having around 20 tiny, almost extinct dolphins encircle you and be close enough to gaze into their tiny black eyes - priceless.