New Job at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO

 So I got a random email one day from my friend and former colleague Carolyn, who had received an email from Jamee (Palmer Station science manager) about a job in Crested Butte. I assumed it was a seasonal job, and I didn't even know if I was qualified, but I had reached out anyways. Turns out it was an 18 month contract with pretty decent pay and living in a cool place. But there were a lot of unusual things about the job (schedule, living situation), so it was a very tough decision whether to take it or not. Elisha and I definitely struggled with decision, kept going back and forth. Plus it would mean the super difficult action of telling my boss Ryan and colleagues (Sky and Brianna) at Arizona Game and Fish that I was quitting after only 1 year. In the end, after much back and forth, many yes's and no's, while in Mexico we decided to take the job and leave Phoenix and Arizona Game and Fish.

The new job is a contract job working for Hamelmann communications. They are contracted out by the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) group, which is part of the US Department of Energy.  The ARM group has several permanent research facilities set up across the globe (Alaska and the Azores for example) and then several mobile facilities (known as AMF--ARM Mobile Facilities). These sites contain a whole myriad of instruments that measure various properties of the atmosphere and climate. You have your standard MET (meteorological) instruments (temperature, humidity, windspeed, direction, precipitation), your gas monitoring instruments (for CO2, water vapor, Ozone, and CFS-Chlorofluorocarbons), your particle and aerosol measuring instruments (measuring dust, carbon (like soot), and other particulate), and then a whole suite of radiometers, which measure the radiation from both the sun (direct and scattered) and from the ground: this radiation can be solar or thermal. Also, they have instruments studying the upper atmospheric winds, the clouds, and the various water derived particles and gasses (like ice crystals, water vapor, water droplets). All of these things are important for the earth's energy (heat) budget. 

And scientists are using these measurements to improve on their earth system models, including climate change. We know, for example, that CO2 causes a warming of the planet due to its greenhouse gas effect, but in order to make as perfect as a model as possible, you need to include EVERYTHING that affects the earth's energy budget. So things like water vapor are important b/c water vapor can act as a greenhouse gas and can also disperse and reflect solar radiation, so it plays an important role. The earth's own, upwelling radiation plays a role as does the solar radiation reflected from ground. Of course the albedo effect of snow in this area plays a big role.

Long story short, we have good climate models, but they can be better, so the purpose of all of these instruments is to narrow down and improve on these climate models by using some of these less studied atmospheric measurements. We know really well how things like CO2 affects climate, but we know less about other less studied factors. 

The cool thing is that all the data we collect is totally open sourced. Any scientist (and ANY person) can access the data and can thus analyze it for themselves. This not only creates total transparency but allows a huge range of researchers around the globe to be able to use this great data to work on climate models and other research. For the mobile facilities, which are usually at a site for 1-2 years, researchers write proposals describing why they would like the mobile facility in area X. If that researcher's proposal is accepted, the mobile facility is moved there. But the data collected in the spot doesn't just help that researcher, other researchers have total access to the data. So it's really cool.

The mobile facility (SAIL: Surface Atmospheric Integrated Laboratory) here in Crested Butte is being used by the proposing scientist to study the hydrology of the area and how it relates to the changing climate. A really good and short description of the campaign can be read here:  https://sail.lbl.gov/about/

And here is a really good article by the Crested Butte News that probably explains it all better than I can

https://crestedbuttenews.com/2021/03/major-atmospheric-study-to-be-conducted-in-valley/

The SAIL project has two locations. The main site is in Gothic: a ghost town turned research station (RMBL: Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory). Gothic is 8 miles from the town of Crested Butte and 5.5 miles from Mount Crested Butte. During the winter, it is 3.8 miles from the end of the paved road. The other location is up on Crested Butte Mountain Resort and can be accessed by taking a couple of ski lifts and skiing to it.

There are 3 of us: the head technician (Wess from Alaska), James (from the east coast somewhere), and me. Though James just got accepted to grad school at Dartmouth so is leaving soon. We work a rotating schedule where we spend 4 weeks up at Gothic and 2 weeks in Crested Butte. They provide us with a nice cabin in Gothic, which has 2 rooms. So 2 techs are up there. Then they have a trailer house for us in Gunnison for when we're doing the Crested Butte portion. Since Elisha and I are renting a place in Mount Crested Butte, I'll just stay there. 

In the winter, the road to Gothic is for non-motorized traffic only, but we have a special permit to get one snowmobile resupply per week. Otherwise, what I have been doing is just skiing in and out and pulling a sled behind me. The 3.8 miles takes me about 1 hour, plus or minus 15 minutes depending on how heavy my load is and how deep the snow is. Also, when conditions are right, they have given us a pedal assist fat tire bike, which is faster.

Due to the lack of resupply and also the chance that we could get snowed in without resupply or travel to and from Crested Butte due to high avalanche danger, we try to have about 4 weeks of food supply with us in the cabin.

There are 3 other people that live in Gothic over the winter: 2 winter caretakers for RMBL (Ben and Frank), and the famous billy barr (though he hasn't been there this spring because he's getting a total hip replacement. You can watch a video to learn about billy barr here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0JHpGst84U&t=16s    (Denver 9 news)

and here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L72G8TLtTCk&t=74s  (National Geographic)

In the summer, Gothic will be bustling with researchers from undergrads to grad student to professors. Gothic is a collection of old and cool looking mountain cabins from a bygone era. There are also a couple high tech lab buildings that they have designed in a way to match the ghost town/mining town architecture. 2 little creeks converge in the town and if you were to continue on the road up and out of Gothic you would go over the 4WD schofield pass to Marble (and the Aspen area). Although it's at least a 5 hour drive, we are only about 18 miles as the crows flies to where we lived in Snowmass a couple of years ago.

Besides Frank and Ben, we have a couple of neighbors. A mama moose and her yearling calf are seen almost every day in the area.  There are also 2 foxes: Red Lady:...named after the Red Lady bowl) and Red Flyer (named after the sled). that we also see almost daily. And with spring coming, we've seen a couple marmots coming out of their hibernation under the cabins.

We have an incredible view of Gothic Mountain from our dining table out a big window. The cabin is a two story cabin with 2 bedrooms upstairs reached by a spiraling staircase and modest kitchen, dining table, and small loveseat downstairs. We have a nice deck and a covered back porch. This year they added a flush toilet and shower so we don't have to use the outhouse. The whole Gothic area is a wintry wonderland right now and is surrounded by high peaks. The Gothic area itself has a mix of wildflower meadows, Aspen forests, and conifer forests. If you follow one of the streams up you reach a waterfall and much further up an alpine lake. Gothic sits at 9,525 above sea level.

Elisha will be living in Mount Crested Butte. We are renting a room in a nice ski condo with a gal named Hillary. She's been in the CB area for a while, but she recently broke up with her long-time boyfriend so she had to move out. She also has an old dog named Driggs. She's originally from Florida, but has been in the Colorado Rockies for quite awhile, including Aspen. The condo is very nice, decorated like a ski chalet, and it has very nice views of the snow-capped peaks. It's within easy walking distance of the ski resort and it's an easy walk to my brother and Mary's place as well. And we can see their house from our deck. The condo is 3 floors. The basement has a garage and storage and laundry. The middle floor has a nice living room, small kitchen, our room, and a bathroom. The upstairs is where Hillary's room is, as well as a guestroom and bathroom.

During the summer I plan to live with Elisha in Crested Butte, but during the winters, one thing that was going to be tough would be being away from her for such long periods. But I think I've worked out that I can ski into town after work and then back the next night, or even early in the morning the next day if I don't have the early balloon launch

Red Lady

Heading up to some instruments

Snowmobile resupply

Research Center

Our Cabin

the SAIL sight

Me checking on some instruments

Wess fixing an power supply

fat tire bike and precip monitors

Moose

Hopelessly stuck

biking in supplies

Red Lady

Pulling Elisha on the Bike

Frank's Cabin

buried outhouse and other building

Gothic

View from our window

Gothic town and Gothic Mountain

Radiometers

shoveing off the radar

our cabin

skiing in supplies

 

Volcano trip to Hawai'i to see Pele!

3/24/22 

When we were in Baja, we heard from someone that Kilauea was erupting again, and it got me thinking...Then I was switching jobs and due to when I had to stop at AZGF due to pay periods, it gave us an extra week free, so we figured, let's just check flights to Hawaii. Across the board it was $500-600 roundtrip, except for 1 week, it was $200 roundtrip, which as crazy as it was, was the week that we'd be free between jobs, so we took it as a sign and bought the tickets! 

 Flew PHX to HNL then to Kona. We picked up our rental car, which was a turo rental (it's like air bnb for cars). We then drove to Hilo and straight to a bar to watch the UA sweet 16 basketball game. After that we drove to the main street and ate some takeout Hawaiian curry before driving to our Airbnb. The air bnb was in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. It was a decent drive on an rough dirt road to get there. It was a tiny, cute little place with everything we needed (shower, microwave, tiny refrigerator). It was off grid, using solar power, so the power (for most things) was off from 11pm to 7am. It was 2 stories with the bed and toilet being upstairs and a table and shower downstairs. The stairs were super steep, basically a ladder. At night the frogs sang us to sleep in a great chorus. 

 3/25/22 

We drove to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park in the morning. We did a few short walks for views of the crater and to see the steam vents. We then drove the Chain of Craters Road to the coast, going through all the recent lava flows and checking out aold craters, until reaching the ocean. We hiked through the lava flows to a view of a sea arch. On the way back up the Chain of Craters Road, we did a cool book guided hike of a recent eruption and up to the top of an old crater. For dinner we had take-out pizza in the town of Volcano. 

We then walked about 1.5 miles in the dark to a viewpoint into the crater to see the active lava lake and some eruptions in the crater. So awesome! The frothing lava and orange glow of the gasses, plus the crazy sounds of the erupting earth. Very powerful! I just love watching the lava as it oozes and churns around. 

 3/26/22 

 Drove to Pahoa and Kalapana and saw where very recent flows had bured a town. People are rebuilding right on top of the fresh lava. We visited a guy (Gary Sleik: hotfootphotography@yahoo.com) who has a gallery of lava photography. He would go out everyday during the several years long eruption to take photos. Eventually his house burned down, and now he has rebuilt an off-grid house on his property that is now covered with new lava. He had really cool stories and photos, very fascinating. We then drove along a scenic coastal road, stopping at some ocean viewpoints. We visited a new black sand beach that is forming, and right in that same area are 2 hot spring pools on the beach. We also stopped by a place that used to have a black sand beach and a little park, but they were covered up by lava. In this part of the island, roads often just end, completely engulfed by a lava flow. 

It's really crazy how roads and places are just covered up by lava. We continued along the scenic road, traveling on a road built over new lava. The narrow road also went through some forests where the dense trees bascially formed a tunnel over the road. We visted a cool state park where trees that had been covered by lava as it flowed through formed these cool stalagmite type structures--they are appropriately called lava trees. 

We then visited a couple of waterfalls near Hilo, including Rainbow Falls. After visting the falls, we hiked through a non-toursitic (no lights or path) lava tube. We enjoyed a yummy Thai dinner in Hilo. 

 3/27/22 

 We woke up early to watch the lava before sunrise and then watch the sunrise over the crater of Mauna Loa. After our sunrise lava hike, we drove back towards Hilo and did a scenic drive where we took a short hike down to a picturesque beach area in the jungle. We then continued driving the scenic coastal raod to the Waipi'o Valley overlook, which was very stunning. We had hoped to hike down to Waipi'o Valley, but it was sadly closed for dubious reasons (safety...but I think it had to do with keeping tourists out). 

Since we couldn't hike down and do the further hike we had hoped to do there, we drove a pass over to the other side of the island, to Pololu Valley overlook. From there we hiked down to a beautiful black sand beach and then continued hiking up to another stunning viewpoint. On the way back to Hilo, we stopped at Akaka Falls for the short walk to the beautiful and tall waterfall. We had dinner at a Hawaiian BBQ fast food place. 

 That evening I went out to see the eruption at night one more time. I went to several viewpoints. As I was there so late (midnight), we (A Canadian couple I was with) got permission to continue past the normal viewpoint and walk along the old rim road, which is now rather destroyed from earthquakes and fissures. It was an eerie walk along this road that at times had 6 foot wide crevasses that plunged deep down and had to be negotiated by taking paths around them. All the while the orange glow of the volcano was to our right and ahead of us. We made sure to tread slowly and carefully and to have our flashlights on high beam power. Eventually the road abruptly ends as the rest had fallen into the crater. From this point, we had a super close up view of the lava lake. Purely AMAZING!. Wow! I felt so lucky to have been able to get so close, and you could really feel the volcanoe's power (and even a little bit of heat rising up). 

 3/28/22 

 In the morning we drove back to the national park and walked through the lava tube that they allow visitors to explore. From the national park, we drove to the Punalu'u black sand beach where we saw lots of sea turtles, including one really close in a small pool where it was warming itself up. 

Next we drove to the southern tip of the island (which is the southernmost point in the US) where there was some cool cliffs. From near there we hiked to the Green Sand Beach (Mahana Beach), which is a picteresque little beach that has a hint of green due to olivine crystals. We did some body surfing there, which was fun. After the hike back we drove--through a fair amount of rain--to Kona where we stayed at the University of the Nations campus. We had a rather nice room with a much appreciated welcome basket. We went out to Ramen for dinner. We tried unsuccessfully to go get ice cream at McDonald's. 

Interestingly, in Hawaii, we found that the lines for the drive throughs were insanely long (the indoor dining was closed) and that the McDonald's all closed very early, which meant that we didn't get as many $1 ice cream cones as we would have liked, haha. 

 3/29/22 

After breakfast at the cafeteria on campus, we drove north of Kona and then hiked to Makalawena beach. It's a beautiful beach, and we were the only ones there! We did some snorkeling and then hiked back and rushed in order to make the lunch hours at the campus cafeteria. After lunch we drove to Kahalu'u beach where I snorkeled and Elisha met a random Hawaiian guy who gave her some ukulele lessons. We had dinner at the campus cafeteria.

In the evening, we went to do the manta ray night snorkel, which was an AMAZING experience! They use lights on the boats to attract plankton, which also attract manta rays; therefore, the mantas come right up to you, often even doing a belly roll right in front of you. They sort of glow under the bright lights, and it very much reminded me of the manta ray scene from Moana where the manta ray appears to glow. So cool!  And a couple interesting facts we learned: Manta rays can sense electrical pulses in the water, including our heart rates. They can live to be over 100 years old, and they are one of a few species in the world that can recognize themselves in a mirror, and in fact they can recognize themselves in a mirror at a younger age than humans can.

3/30/22

Flight from Kona to HNL to Phoenix

Baja México: Tacos and Whales (but not whale tacos)

Mark and Sue had always inspired us to go to Baja del Sur, and we had hoped we could visit them down there sometime. But alas, they stopped visiting, and we found ourselves in the perfect position to go (short vacation from work and quick flight from where we lived), so we headed down there. We had a couple of goals: to see lots of whales (me) and to eat lots of tacos (Elisha). The winter is when the whales tend to be down there, so it worked out well for us to go when we did. Dr. Walser will be leading a course down there for C of I students, and he had recently gone down, so we also talked with him for some information. Baja has both beautiful landscapes and beautiful waters and as Dr. Walser put it "Baja is like Tucson with an ocean". 

A car camping trip down the length of Baja would be amazing, but we only had about 12 days, so we ended up booking a flight to Cabo and renting a small car. Reading up on Baja for the trip, I hadn't realized just how much of an underwater aquarium it was, and so close to us, so I was really excited to go! 

 2/10/22 

 We flew from Phoenix to LAX to San Jose del Cabo. We picked up our rental car after we arrived. It was a bit of a scam (as all renting in Mexico is, as we had read beforehand) b/c they make you take a certain mandatory liability insurance, even if your credit card covers it. So it takes the car from about $10/day to almost $50/day. But we were more or less expecting this. After picking up the car, we drove to San Jose and grabbed fish tacos from a popular place. We then checked into our air bnb (a nice little apt) and drove down to the beach where we took a walk along the long (and wide) sandy beach of San Jose del Cabo. The beach was empty and we watched the sunset and saw some whales. Afterwards we checked out the artwalk in the plaza central of San Jose. We ended the night getting some very local tacos. 

 2/11/22 

I sent an email early in the morning accepting a job to work in Crested Butte helping with climate modeling. In the morning, we joined a whale watch tour out of San Jose with Salty Cabo tours (captain Roland). It was really great!! We saw so many humpbacks, including 2 full breaches, fin slaps, spy hopping, and tail dives. The force and power as they breach is stunning. It almost reminds me of an erupting volcano. Wow! After the tour we drove to Cabo San Lucas. We walked a bit along the beach. The water was a nice turqoise color. We had tacos at a local joint just off of the beach before we drove to Todos Santos. 

Todos Santos is a cute little town that has a hippy/artsy/van-lifer vibe. We had a beer in town and then went to the beach to watch the sunset and to watch Olive Ridley turtle hatchlings be released. Volunteers in the area collect the eggs to protect them and watch over them in a sanctuary area. Then when they hatch, they collect them up and let us watch the cute lil guys as they move so slowly towards the ocean. So cute! We had delicious tacos in Todos Santos (Elisha's very, perhaps, of the trip) and then drove at night to La Paz to our little air bnb 

 2/12/22 

We had early morning street breakfast burritos on our way to the pier. There we did a whale shark tour with Jay or Whale Shark Diaries (Jay is a conservationist who helps with research on Whale Sharks. On our way out to the spot the sharks usually hang out, we saw some dolphins. During our tour we got to swim with several whale sharks!! Really cool! So huge and gentle creatures. There was one other person on the tour, Inron, from Hawaii. He told us that Kilauea volcano was again erupting and had a lava lake. (This will become important later if you read my next blog). 

 We walked around town after the tour and got some street tacos. We then walked along the malecon checking out the art (murals and statues), the ocean, and getting some icecream. We had dinner at a taco place. It was pretty funny because they actually sanitized us with spray as we walked in. Seemed like a bit overkill, but we had a good chuckle about it. Everyone in Mexico really enthusiastically wore masks, even outside. 

 2/13/22 

 In the morning we went shopping for food and then got some street tacos. We were scheduled for a boat tour that was delayed--"Mexican time"--they old us, but it was quite delayed. We then headed out to a little island to snorkel and swim with cute sea lions. Along the way we followed 2 humpback whales, who came up very close to the boat. As we continued on, the propeller on the boat broke, so we landed at a pretty beach and switched out boats. Our first captain was a really nice guy. He was deaf, so communicating all of that was interesting, but he was such a nice guy. We then sailed across to Espiritu Santo Island. The island is full of beautiful water bays with cliffs and mountains. We landed at a beach to relax, drink beer, eat ceviche, and swim. It was rough (and fun!) water to get there; the waves were big and we all got soaked. On the boat ride back (far less rough), we stopped at shallow Balandra Bay (calf deep) to watch the sunset and take pictures at the iconic mushroom rock. We watched the end of the super bowl at our airbnb and then went out for yummy tacos and margaritas. 

 2/14/22 Valentine's Day! 

We had breakfast burritos at our favorite street breakfast place. We then drove to beautiful Balandra Beach. We hiked around to some hidden beaches, then we hiked up in the hills for stunning view of turqoise waters. From above, with the shallow sandbars, the water looked like auroras. So beautiful! We waded a bit in the clear lagoon. They only allow a certain amount of people at the beach and so you can only be there for a half day in the morning or half day in the afternoon. So when the 1/2 day is up, they come with police sirens to clear the beach. Pretty funny. We then drove to Tecolote beach, and then we hiked up to another nice viewpoint. We had tacos for lunch at our favorite La Paz taco place. 

We then rented rollerblades and skated the entire Malecon (about 8 miles of smooth path along the ocean). It was my first time ever rollerblading, and it was a lot of fun. After returning our skates, we had happy hour cocktails overlooking the bay from a rooftop restaurant. We then watched the sunset while eating ice cream. After than we walked around admiring more murals before going to have fish tacos at a fish place. We walked around some more before finishing the Valentine's day off with some margaritas. 

 2/15/22 

We went to the mercado central in the morning and had burritos and empanadas for breakfast as well as some fresh smoothies. We then drove to Puerto Chale and took a boat to watch grey whales. They were everywhere! Seriously everywhere!We saw a few breach and spy hop, and we hung out for a while with a mother and calf who were very friendly. They hung right by the boat, so close that we even got to touch them. You realize just how big they are when they were right next to us and our boat. We also even got wet from blowhole spray. 

After the tour we had fish tacos before heading on the road to Adolfo Lopez Mateo. At ALM, we saw a nice sunset over the water and went to a street taco stand for dinner. Adolfo Lopze Mateo is a very tiny fishing community. There aren't many places to stay or eat, but we stayed at a pretty large house (from airbnb) that was very cheap (like all our Mexican air bnb's). 

 2/16/22 

We went on a grey whale tour from ALM. While waiting for some other people to share a tour with, we enjoyed some huevos rancheros at the port. We boated past some cool sand dunes. Lots of whales here too. We got really close to a huge grey whale and saw some mating activity. And we saw another mom and calf. We had fish tacos at the port for lunch. We just kind of hung out at our place and walked a bit around the small town in the afternoon. We had fish tacos at a cool beachside taco place. 

 2/17/22 

We joined another grey whale tour. We saw *so* many whales!! And lots of them spyhopping. We also hung out with a couple friendly whales who spy-hopped around us and let us pet them. So amazing! Afterwards, we drove to Loreto. We had to go over a little mountain pass to get to Loreto and the Gulf of California. After checking into our cute and tiny little air bnb, we drove up a a winding road into the Sierra Giganta mountains to the San Javier mission, an old Spanish mission. We had tacos for dinner at a taco stand and then went for some paletas (real fruit popsicles) as we walked around the plaza central. 

 2/18/22 

We walked around the plaza central and malecon in the morning. We had breakfast burritos from a taco truck on the malecon and got chai teas as well. We then went on a time share tour to Villa del Palmar in order to get a much reduced whale watch tour (the blue whale tours were very expensive for some reason) and a free fancy brunch. The place was very fancy and in a beautiful location, but we of course said no. 

We took a hike on the Hart trail from Rattlesnake beach (near Tripui) to a nice viewpoint over the ocean and islands in the area. Really nice views within the rugged desert and with cacti in the foreground. We then took a hike up Tabor Canyon, also known as Steibeck Canyon because he hiked it and wrote about it in his book "Log from the Sea of Cortez". The canyon was really cool with some crazy rocks and geology, a little bit of slot canyoning, and some little pools of water. At times, you had to climb up ropes to continue. We had dinner at a delicious local pastor taco joint on the outskirts of town, and then we went to the plaza central for more paletas. 

 2/19/22 

We got breakfast burritos by the malecon again and then went on a blue whale tour. We saw several blue whales, the largest animal to ever live on earth (100+ft long). We also saw some fin whales. We had a cool interaction with a mother fin whale and her calf. She left the calf near our boat and went off (to feed we think), so the calf just swam around, very close to our boat, for awhile, so we got really good looks at it. We could even see it underwater. 

We had lunch at our favorite taco place in Loreto, then we drove all the way to Cabo San Lucas. On the way we stopped at Todos Los Santos for Elisha's favorite taco place in Baja (the one we had eaten at before when we went to see the turtles). We had planned one more night in Loreto, but we had been tipped off to this cool "marine safari" in Cabo during our travels. We had booked to do the trip on our last day in Cabo, but the weather forecast looked bad for that day, so the marine naturalist called us up and asked if we could move a day forward. This was going to be a once in a lifetime experience, so we said yes! We cancelled our airbnb in Loreto and book one in Cabo San Lucas. It was a nice little one, in more of the local area (not the touristic area).

 2/20/22 

 Today was our full day Marine Safari with Fernanda of Latitude Encounters. It's a day out in the ocean, far from the rest of the tours, looking for whatever we can find (humpbacks, orcas, dolphins, marlin, rays, sharks), and then jumping in with them if it's appropriate and we're able. On the tour we saw sea lions, bottlenose dolphins, an olive ridley turtle, a mobula ray, marlin, fin whales, and humpback whales. We saw several humpbacks breaching and doing other behaviors like fin and tail slapping. There was a report of orcas in the area, but we didn't see any. We got to swim with the dolphins, but the highlight was swimming several times with the humpbacks!!!!! Such an amazing experience. I already want to do it again. They're so big and smooth and graceful under the water. 

 Once we were back from our tour we went for drinks along the marina strip and had a caricature drawn of us. Then we drove to San Jose del Cabo where our next air bnb nights would be. Our airbnb was super nice. Large apartment with a courtyard and windows overlooking the plaza central, so that we could watch all the goings on down there. For dinner, we broke out of the local taco mode and went to a fancy artisanal taco place downtown. Definitely unique and delicious! We then had churros in the plaza for dessert. 

 2/21/22 We drove to Los Barilles and walked along the beach for a bit before having drinks: mango margarita for E and a mango/passionfruit smoothie for me on the beach. Los Barilles was a weird place. Too many gringos and side by side vehicles. We felt like we were back in Quartzite. Not a local around. We even looked at a real estate place and it was a gringa running it, and prices were American expensive. Although the water was nice, I was happy we didn't stay too long. On the way to Los Barilles we stopped at the Tropic of Cancer demarcation line. We then drove to historic Santiago village, a cute village at the foot of the mountains with old-time Mexican charm. Next we drove to Cabo Pulmo, which is home to a marine park. Snorkeling and diving are supposed to be really good here, but the season had just ended as the water had turned "green". This time of year the water gets cloudy, due to water temperature and currents I think. When the water is "green" visibility isn't very good, so we didn't try snorkeling. To get back to San Jose, we drove a back, coastal road on a rough dirt road. We had a dinner of tacos and then ice cream in the plaza central 

 2/22/22!

 Last day in Mexico, so why not due a whale watch!? We did an early morning whale watch out of Cabo San Lucas. We saw *lots* of breaching humpback whales! A great way to end the trip! We had tacos for lunch and then had to finish our left over coronas before going to the airport, haha! We had no fines from the rental car company despite being backed into by gringa van lifers from Canada in Todos Santos while parked, getting some scratches from cacti in Loreto, and getting scraped by a car while we were parked in Cabo. Direct flight from Cabo to rainy Phoenix. 

 whale count: too many to count 

whale species count: 4 (plus whale shark, turtles, and dolphins 

taco count: unknown 

number of meals with tacos: 31

Arizona Spring

It's been a while since I wrote anything into the blog. We had a nice spring in Arizona. The weather was perfect! I really enjoyed the cool/warm days and chilly nights. We didn't do a whole lot of camping trips with our 3 days weekends as I had thought we might, but I did mountain bike a lot. Elisha also got a new mountain bike,so she often came along as well. 

We visited Tucson a couple of times to see grandma and to see the musical Wicked. We skied twice up at Arizona Snowbowl in Flagstaff, which had surprisingly good snow. I also took a Wilderness First Responder recert in the snow up there. We went to one of the First Friday artwalks in downtown Phoenix and discovered the "hip" part of town. We visted Mark and Sue in Quartzite one weekend. We did a really cool hike near Tortilla Flats called the Boulder Canyon trail that we did as a loop including La Barge Canyon. It was super beautiful and came across some cool pools in a steep canyon. The views from up high were spectacular, including of the weaver's needle. A good portion of our spring included a trip to Mexico and to Hawaii. Also trying to make job decisions and packing up to move. 

I also had been having some ball of foot pain (metatarsalgia) as well as pain on the sides of my feet (bunions and bunionettes), so I had been trying to deal with that seeing some doctors and trying to figure out treatment as well as dealing with a nagging hamstring issue. The winter and spring were writing "season" at AZGFD, so I worked a lot on writing up my reports from the previous summer. It felt like the spring really flew by and that we weren't as active as normal. We did do a lot of biking on the weekends and on the weekdays we did a lot of walking after work and then chilling watching shows, movies, or basketball. I remember always having a feeling of "oh no, this nice cool weather is going to end and then it's going to get miserable", which made me try to savor the moment more. It really was a great time of year to be in AZ.

Christmas in Colorado

 

12/18/21

I had a very early (6am) flight to Denver. Mom picked me up, and she took me to a big breakfast in Denver. On our way to Boulder we stopped by Nate Dub's house to say a quick hello. In Boulder, mom and I went to the Buffs basketball game at Coors Events Center

12/19/21

I took a hike up to some of the frozen lakes in RMNP (Mills and Loch Vale, and made it home in time to head to the Stanley Hotel for happy hour drinks with mom and dad. After visiting the Stanley and checking out their Christmas decorations we went home for a delicious meat fondue meal. After dinner, I took a night hike with Lisa up to Gem Lake in the Twin Owls area. She was leaving the next morning at 4am for the midwest, so it was my only chance to catch up with her.

12/20/21-12/22/21

I worked remotely from home (finished my draft report for the threatened and endangered species along the Bill Williams watershed). I did go ice skating one evening at Dorsey Lake out by the Y. And mom and I watched various Christmas movies each night, with the exception of 1 night where we watched 'Hamilton'

12/23/21

We left Estes Park to falling snow. It would then continue to snow the rest of my time at home (past the time I flew back home). We drove to Crested Butte and managed to find some take-home Covid tests in Gunnison (they had been completely out in Boulder, Golden, and Bailey). Zach had mentioned that he wasn't feeling the best, so we thought it would be good to take precautions, especially since my parents are at the higher risk age, my dad's health isn't the best, and they needed a negative covid tests in a few days in order to catch their flight to the Caribbean for their long winter vacation.

We arrived in CB to heavy snow. We were staying at a quaint little European style hotel. The kind with very tiny rooms and no TV in the room, which promotes conversation amongst guests. It also had a yummy breakfast with fresh-baked goods in the morning, various fresh-baked cookies in the afternoon for aprés ski, and tea, cocoa, and coffee available 24 hours by the fire. After arriving, I went out for a quick xc ski.

Zach tested negative with the take-home test, so we all decided to hang out for dinner. We had shrimp bisque at Zach and Mary's house for dinner and watched my dad's favorite Christmas movie: 'Love Actually'

12/24/21  Christmas Eve

After breakfast, mom and I took a nice walk through the snowy downtown. There was so much snow, that it was like a living Christmas Village! I then used bro's season pass to ski the powder at Crested Butte. 

Zach started feeling worse that day with his sickness. He took another take-home covid test and was still negative, but my family made the tough decision not to eat dinner with him and Mary. (The take-home tests aren't super accurate during early stages of being sick). It was obviously a tough decision that didn't come without tears. So Zach and Mary had the cheese fondue and champagne at their house, and mom, dad, and I had take-out Secret Stash pizza. A 'blue blue' Christmas as my dad would say. We then watched 'Home-alone' on the TV in the lobby. When mom and I went to pick up the pizza, we did a nice Christmas light tour of Crested Butte.

12/25/21  Christmas Day

We did a pass swap so that Bro, Mary, and I could all ski the mountain today. Because of the fresh-air, skiing is a covid friendly activity. Normally we would have done some backcountry skiing while in CB, but with Zach not feeling very good and the avalanche danger being rather high, we stuck to the ski area. There are of course avalanche safe slopes, so the main factor was that Zach just wasn't feeling very good. He and Mary only skied a portion of the day--again because of not feeling good--but I skied the whole day. Mom and dad went cross-country skiing

That afternoon Zach tested positive for Covid, so of course we couldn't hang out for Christmas dinner. But at least after he tested positive we felt better that we weren't getting together without for sure knowing whether he just had a cold or not. We had take-out Sherpa Cafe (Nepalese/Indian) from town. And we did a zoom opening of the gifts that night with Zach and Mary

12/26/21

Mom, dad, and I drove up to Mt. Crested Butte and walked around the base area looking at the ice sculptures and going into some of the fancy hotels. It was a very blizzardy day! In one of the hotels we played some ping-pong and cornhole. 

After lunch I headed out to the CB nordic center to do some xc skiing in the blizzard conditions.

We had reservations that night (for 5 people) to the magic meadows yurt for dinner. It's a yurt that you have to ski several miles up to by light of your headlamp. Once at the yurt, they have a roaring fire, live music, and unlimited cocktails to warm you up, not to mention a 5-course meal (appetizers, salad, soup, main, dessert). Unfortunately, Zach and Mary couldn't come because of covid and dad also decided not to go b/c of the blizzard conditions. But mom and I decided it would be an adventure, so we of course were game to go.

It was actually a pretty nice ski in, and we had a lot of fun that evening, eating and drinking for 5, haha. We asked to have some of the extra meals (for example, I had Mary's salmon, and we ate everybody's appetizers). So the wait staff was funny b/c they were always asking if we wanted extra food. The singer was good and he played the whole night without a break. After the dinner, the storm had died down to a light snow, so mom and I decided to take the long ski back to the car. It was such a great ski with the fresh fallen snow, being more downhill than up, and a warm cheer in our bellies.

12/27/21

I took one last walking loop around the snowy town, before we loaded up and drove to Estes. But, actually, first we had to go pick up 1 ski and pole of mom's that we had accidentally given to the nordic center the night before. Mom had to do a blood test in Longmont that evening, so dad and I went and got fancy tea/coffee at a local coffee shop. That evening, the 3 of us had cheese fondue since we had missed it for Christmas Eve.

12/28/21

It was very blizzardy condition, but I still decided to do a couple of backcountry ski laps up at hidden valley. Really good skiing with all the recent snow. It was then off to Longmont so that we could all take covid PCR tests (my parents needed one specifically to go to the Virgin Islands). Luckily we all were negative. After a quick taco bell, I was off to the airport.

When I landed, Elisha picked me up with a surprise of 'gangsta' lights under my Subaru. It was pretty funny and a good gift! We then went out to Mod pizza for dinner

12/31/21

We had a rather boring New Year's eve compared to what we have been used to over the previous years (McMurdo and ski resorts). We took a hike in the rain near Piestawa Peak in Phoenix and watched Hamilton on Disney. We then rang in the New Year watching a Will Smith nature documentary. The episode we watched featured the Yasure Volcano in Vanuatu that we had visited right after he filmed there, and even had our guesthouse owner, Jackson, in the show.

1/1/22

For the first day of the year, I did a really nice, about 50 mile mtn bike ride out at McDowell Sonoran Preserve. There was even fresh snow on the peaks in the distance

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Christmas Poems redux

When I had read my Christmas poem at the branch meeting, our branch chief had really liked it, and bumped it up the chain. So then I was asked to read it in front of a green screen with fancy cameras and microphones so that they could make a presentation of it to share with everyone. If you want to see it, this youtube link below will take you there. Skip ahead to about 4:00 minutes where it starts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRJDSuQYeyA

And when I arrived home, I found out that Elisha's poem had won the grand prize ($500!!) at her company.