Morocco, part deux

Sun, surf, and sand…  what else could you want?  Climbing, of course!  Tafroute was about 5hrs from Taghazoute, and we’d heard that it was full of “tasty boulders” – who could resist?  We stocked up the safari van for an adventure and were off!

It was a neat drive out through the anti-Atlas, we passed kasbahs, fortress towns, and desert oases.  The anti-Atlas were also full of Argan trees that were, in turn, often full of goats.  Goats in trees!!  Jon and Resh were particularly excited about this.  They're still waiting to see a goat on a cow...

Tafroute is a great town, I can easily say one of my favorites of all the places we went.  Friendly people, clean streets... 

and a really cute souk where they even sell crashpads! 

ok, a foam mattress, but once you cut it in half...

We also made it out to the painted rocks, where a Belgian artist painted lots of boulders all sorts of colors in the 1980s.  It’s kind of a trip to drive out along a desert trail and suddenly come up on giant blue and pink rocks scattered in the sand.

So if you're looking for an out of the way bouldering get away, Tafroute is the place!

Morocco Surfing!

After Paris, a little surf safari was in order!

Jon and I rolled into Taghazout, Morocco, in early November to meet up with our friends Rick, Tanya, and Suresh.  It was a blast – generally two surf sessions a day, with beach merriment between and after.

There were great beginner spots for me and T, with plenty of bigger sets for Rick and Jon.  Even Suresh got in on the action! I graduated from the whitewater, learned how to turn (well, most of the time...), and caught an awesome long right on an outside set.  Jon’s biggest challenge continues to be even sunscreen application...

 Plenty of sun, surf, food, and memorable Moroccan massages with friends...  all in all a great time!

vive la Paris!

Jon and I are on our way to Morocco to meet up with our friends, Rick, Tanya, and Suresh, to do a little surfing and hanging out.  We had a layover in Paris on the way and figured, well, why not stretch that out into a few days and check the city out?

We made the most of our two full days in Paris!  The food has been amazing.  Croissants, bread, and coffee everywhere you turn!  Here's our standard breakfast - fresh squeezed orange juice, cafe au lait, bread, croissant, and a different jam every time.

We did the classics on our first day: the Louvre, Arc de Triumphe, and up the Eiffel Tower.  It was great!  The Louvre is incredible.  No matter your taste in art, they have it.  We did a cruise through most of the sections, and made a point to see the three most popular pieces, the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory.  A few of my favorites were a really neat ancient egyption sarcophagus cover (the surface is flat and polished, with an incut figure):

and aphrodite:

I'm generally way more into sculpture and other tactile sorts of art, but, for sheer scale, the "grand tableau" (aka BIG paintings) were a trip.  Seriously, these things were huge.  Jon and I were talking about where the heck you could ever put something like this.  Our question was answered on day two when we went to Versailles - a palace.   

After the Louvre, we walked over to the Arc de Triumphe at the start of Champs de Elysees.  One of the largest triumphal arches in the world, Napoleon had it built to commemorate his battles and it's also now the home of Frances Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I don't have any super-great Arc pictures (they're all cut off either at the top or bottom), but wikipedia does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe

We took the stairs to the top to check out the view.  Notably, the horror of Paris traffic in the "star," where twelve streets dump into a circle with no discernible traffic laws.

and who could spend a day in Paris without a trip up the Eiffel tower?  A perfect way to end the day!

Today, day two in Paris, we took the train out to Versailles, which was amazing!  It was a trip to spend the day wandering around where Marie Antoinette, Lois XVI, and Napoleon hung out.  Gardens that went on forever, trimmed into geometric patterns with fountains and statues.   

The biggest surprise for me in touring the Grand Palace and the Trianon were the colors - the palace was filled with bright fabrics!  Here's the Queen's bedroom, with the little door to the king's room Marie Antoinette used to escape rioting mobs during the French Revolution.

And, in the Grand Trianon, cheetah print carpet with bright pink furniture!  These folks had style!

Yellow Iron

I'm pretty sure everyone has a secret (or not so secret) desire to operate heavy equipment.  Me included.  So I was pretty excited when Jon and I headed to Chickaloon this past weekend to prep our cabin site, excavator in tow!

We've got a little lot, ~1/4 acre, and plan to put up a cabin within the next year or two.  So this weekend's task was to clear off our building site and driveway.  Man, equipment makes moving dirt so easy!  Jon did most (ok, all) of the clearing / leveling / general dirt moving, but I got to dig a big hole!

Hooray for excavators!  We've got a building site!

Powerline Pass!

Last time I was in town, Libby and I talked Jon and Todd into going with us on a favorite near-town bike ride: Powerline Pass to Indian!  Here are a few pics from Libby.  Not a sunny day, but a great time nonetheless!

The view from the pass...

snack time!

smiles before starting the steep bit...

Jon is headed to Indian - turnagain arm pit barbecue, here he comes!

Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge

My friend Allison and I had a great opportunity in Louisiana - to ride along with the Refuge Manager of Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge as he went about a few errands he had to run.  It's an amazing little refuge, right in Houma, Louisiana with more birds, alligators, and plants than you can see in a day!  Plus we had the chance to see it with someone who could answer all of our questions about the plants, birds, and ecology of the area (and we had lots of them).

The ride involved an airboat, and I wasn't sure at first what to think, but now...  I'm sold!  I love airboats!  Not the greatest for seeing wildlife (it's really hard to sneak up on anything), but a great way to get around and see some country that you couldn't see on foot.  Even though the water's pretty shallow in most places, the bottom is mostly unconsolidated organics and your hat would be floating if you tried to take a walk. 

Coastal Louisiana has three types of marshes: freshwater, brackish, and salt water.  This was a freshwater marsh, I'd love to go see the others someday. 

We headed through saw grass, marsh mallows, sedges, and scirpus. Beneath wax myrtles, tupelos, and cypress trees, and over water celery, lilies, and lotus.  The lilies and lotus were amazing.  We passed through two lakes that were each nearly 3/4 full of American lotus, and they were in bloom!  One thing you can't get from the picture is the smell... as soon as the boat came close, the air was thick with the sweet smell of lotus blossoms!  They're big blooms (~6" across), each with lots of acorn-sized edible seeds (imagine a sunflower with really really big seeds).

  

Other lakes and ponds were full of yellow lilies.  I don't have a great picture of them in bloom, but trust me, they were pretty!  They're also great for wildlife habitat, since they have big, edible tubers.  So I love the lilies and lotus because they're pretty, they smell great, and they're great wildlife habitat.  But also, they help keep out invasive aquatic plants.  Giant salvinia and water hyacinth are two invasives moving into a lot of freshwater marshes.  These thick stands of lotus and lilies act like barriers, blocking them out. 

Scirpus californicus with...

dragonflies

and least bitterns!  can you see him?  There was a pair, only about 10 feet away!

The least bitterns were a highlight, but we saw tons of other birds, too.  Great blue herons, little blue herons, green herons, snowy egrets, common moore hens, purple galinules, and anhingas.

Coastal Louisiana is truly a beautiful place.

Mobile, Mississippi, and New Orleans

I'm just back from a 2 1/2 week trip down to the gulf.  This was the first time I'd been to the southeastern U.S., and it's beautiful!  Downtown Mobile is filled with these big, antebellum buildings that have gourgeous wrought iron balconies.  Lots of parks, tree-lined streets, and super-neat architecture, definitely worth checking out!

Coastal Mississippi is beautiful.  (and hopefully, with all that's going on, it stays that way.) White sand beaches that seem to go on forever.  I used to know a woman from Louisiana, she and her fiance had just bought a coastal lot in Mississippi.  Now I understand why she was so excited about it!  Here's a pic of Dave, we were checking out some brown pelicans on a barrier island out in the gulf.

Dave flew out before I did, and so we checked out New Orleans the night before his flight.  Bourbon Street is completely over the top!

I took a few hours the next day to check out the french quarter - great food, beautiful buildings!

Definitely need to get back and see more of the city, and eat more beignets!

House Remodel!

I've been hard at work on my thesis this spring (my defense is in 3 days, yay!), which doesn't really make for an exciting blog post.  So, on the bright side, Jon has been working on the house the past month, and I can show you that!  

Last spring, we made it to the top of AHFC's energy rebate program.  A guy came out and did an energy efficiency rating of our house and put together a list of things we could do to improve our rating. We'll get reimbursed for a portion of it!  pretty great program.   All the big stuff for us - insulation (apparently they only believed in vapor barriers in the 1950s?  it's like our house was wrapped in tin foil, and that's it), windows, doors, all of that.  So, last fall, we stripped off the asphalt shingles and put foam insulation on the outside of our little 2x4 framed house. We stuck with the "under construction" look until this past month, when Jon got to work on windows, doors, and siding.  Seriously, you won't even recognize the place, it's looking pretty great.  A combination of metal (same stuff as our roof, but blue) and cedar shakes.  the best part?  it smells like cedar when you go outside.  

so here are a few pics of the evolution of our house.  Our first summer, when we pulled out all of the grass on the south side, and put in raised perennial beds.

Then the pond on the north side.

It's really worth the effort to just throw up a gallon and see how a color looks before starting in on the whole house, and dark trim can't really "tone down" lemon yellow.  

48 hours and a few trips to home depot later...

and now...

Robin helped with the new big window.  It was flattering that Jon thought I could help him carry and install it, but really...

warm, snuggly polar bears!

I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to head out on a few polar bear den surveys this winter.  That's right, polar bear den surveys!  Super-exciting.  Just imagine how excited I'll be when a survey I'm on actually locates a den! 

It's pretty neat technology, you're basically using a very fancy infrared camera to look for heat signatures in snow drifts that indicate a bear.  I picture them all warm and snuggly, a white hot dot in the middle of a dark gray drift.  So far I haven't seen any dens.  No sign of bears at all, actually.  Bummer for me, but good for the bears and anyone who would possibly have to re-consider their plans due to a bear den. 

OK, so no bears, but what have I seen?  tons!  Check this IR photo out - so you know how snowmachine tracks setup after a day or so and make a nice, hard trail?  Well, as I understand it, the heat from all the little snow bits mashing against each other when you drive over them generates heat from friction.  This heat is enough to transform the snowpack, they all bond, and voila, nice hard trail.  The infrared camera used for this type of survey is sensitive enough to pick up this heat.  Here's a pic of snow that's been pushed around by a dozer making an airstrip out on the sea ice.

Just about everything is fun to look at through in infrared camera.  Here's our tucker operator.  Zip up your coat!