The Oasis

“This is what I love about life” I told SnowDave as we were was driving in the desert lighting the road to a man in kilt on his bike “Its randomness. You never know what life brings you”.

That same morning we were having breakfast in Death Valley National Park, deciding on what to do for the day. A guidebook described Saline Hotspring as “one of the most isolated, unpopulated, and foreboding regions in California, a trip to the Saline Valley is an expedition”. What a bite for SnowDave. The ranger at the information desk warned us different times not to attempt the drive (but then he was also lowering his voice saying “but it would be the experience of a lifetime” as to say “it is my job to tell you not to go there, but you should”). The day before, SnowDave bought a “fix-a-tire” spray and extra chocolate in the case of a flat, or two… after all, we have been in worth, just a month ago we were hiking in extremely cold temperature, lost in a storm, in the dark, with wolves howling, this could not possibly be worth than that. Rattlesnakes, black widows and scorpions did not worry me that much; after all we would be in a car all the way. So we left the paved road…

The drive was not that bad (I think, I actually slept most of the way). The hotsprings, an oasis in the desert, were quite developed and we felt our “expedition” did not turned as adventurous as we wanted. SnowDave left for his 12 miles run, while I wondered where should I strip and with which guys should I bath.

That is where I learned of the real spell of the hotsprings. Same way as a house is just a house until you find something special that makes it a home, the hotsprings were just hotsprings, until we meet the characters that frequent this place. People like MayorTom, ScorpionCary (I gave him this camp name because he was so eager to find a scorpion to show me), the Cowboys, the other Tom and others, make this place unique and special. And these characters truly made me feel home and spoiled me. I was shown a movie about KillerCane, an usual of these hotsprings: showing lots of nudity and funny sketches, the movie introduced me to the uniqueness of this place. I felt in love for the place, the people. We discovered “the beach”, like in that movie with Leonardo Di Caprio, the ultimate place.

We originally planned to leave the next morning to hike a canyon in Death Valley, but it turned impossible to turn down an hike offer form MayorTom into his secret canyon. Turned out to be a great idea. The Canyon, away from mass tourism, was a natural chatredal, with smooth high marble walls an carpets of green musk. We, MayorTom, ScorpionCary, John the cowboys’s kid, SnowDave and I entered the canyon, climbed waterfall, gained elevation, got a good taste of a good adventure!

(well, we did started with 2 wheels off the road... we just had to built a bridge... old times!)

("easy as a piece of cake" MayorTom looks just like Shon Connery here! Not to mention the kilt!)
(That waterfall was not climbable without harnesses... what a day! My guys from left to right: MayorTom, ScorpionCary, John of the Cowboys, SnowDave)

A sand storm kept us from leaving that night too… maybe it was a sign we had to stay there longer… ScorpionCary's wife prepared a great dinner for us, and soon we headed to the springs. I will miss Marik and his sand proof goggles!

"Show your boobs!!!"

Apparently this is what wild girls do during spring break. And apparently Las Vegas is a popular spot for spring break, and I happen to be in Las Vegas just right during spring break. That said, I admit I did not like this place at all when I arrived.
Slot machines welcome you as soon as you step out of the plane, or they are there to take the last change you did not spend yet.Last Vegas is the least eco-friendly place on Earth. Tons of electricity and water wasted every day and night, and people just come here to spend money and be crazy.
On my first night in Las Vegas I was asked to show my boobs and I was invited to an erotic toy conference (well, the lady told me she brings “romance” to women. I though she meant romantic books or something like that…).

Then I decided to embrace Las Vegas and go with the flow: I am having a blast!(In this pub the waitress would actually spank you after drinking...)

The first day of conference was not too exciting. A couple of speeches were interesting, but other would just make you ask yourself “why am I not at the romantic conference instead?”
The nights came and Las Vegas transformed itself. I attended a number of parties, which included free drinks, pool tables, spanking, Texans, Europeans… guys, guys, girls, girls (all geographers of some sort).
Next day, I meet lots of cool and interesting people and attended great speeches. I am happy to be here now! I also checked out the “romantic” conference… I am kind of speechless, certain things you just need to see with your own eyes. It was very intimidating when I saw a couple of very big handsome black guys checking out some toys. I ran out from the emergency exit door and returned to the better-known and safe world of geography.
Nights in Las Vegas start early and end late. Hotels are traps designed to get you lost. Floors are incredibly ugly and that is a way too to kept you from looking down… “Focus, focus, you are here to play, look up at the playing table…” everything seems to send that message. The atmosphere is cheerful. People are here to have fun, to meet people. Guys check out girls all time, girls are more discrete but efficient anyway with their tiny dresses. The only sad faces are at the hotel lobbies, those getting ready go home, usually broken, tired, and smelly of cigarette.
I got 2 wonderful body guards (SnowDave and John), partied, danced, salsa… I am exhausted, hangover, ready to hit the desert for the weekend.

Sausalito

I survived my long day in a coffee shop in San Francisco. Quite well, indeed, spending all day catching up with friends, I felt like I was never alone.
Tylor worked on his boat until late, and, terrified of being alone at nigh on a city roads with my backpack, i meet with Tylor's girlfriend and hang out with her for a while. At first I knocked at the wrong door; an old lady opened up and said she knew no Elly. "Oh, sorry to disturb you so late at night, I must have gotten the wrong address". She replied "Don't worry, I am actually happy it is you, I though it was the pervert again"....
Luckly Elly was next door and I did not meet the pervert. I instead met a group of young feminists, which can be quite an experience as well. And saw many many weird people on the street walking to Elly's house. I asked a coop to walk with us for a while. I saw a different San Francisco that night. Still fashinating, but I missed the old one.
I slept in a soft pinkish and fluffy bed that kept me prisoner until late next morning, and I started my new life chapter in this way.

The weather was great, so Tylor and I ran to Sausalito, which is a nice village on the bay, and it is where Tylor lives, on his boat. Gale, that means too much wind to go sailing, but a bike ride in town was great as well.(San Francisco on the background)

(How long does it take to equilibrate rocks on top of each other? ~5 minutes for this guy!)

(Tylor paddling away from his boat)

(sailing to shore next morning. Tylor's boat on the background)

Next morning the wind died, and we just hang out on the boat, getting ready for my next flight: Las Vegas.
I fighted Vegas for my first 2 days, but I am starting embracing it and actually having lots of fun. This is going to be interesting, I assure you!!!

Beginnings in San Francisco

"Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most".

Wow, how much I loved the middle! James Bond left this morning for one of his missions. We had a wonderful early weekend eating hiking, mountain biking and eating (one of my favorite activities with him, especially in San Francisco, where you can food from nearly all the world), but I am now all alone in a coffee shop working on my Power Point for the conference in Las Vegas next week :-(.
But, don’t worry, I am meeting with Tylor this evening.
I am laughing because I feel like one of those girls at the start of the movie in “50 first dates” with Adam Sandler. What to say? He made me so happy and brought so much sunshine in my life, what a good addiction! But addictions are always bad on the long term and time as arrived for me to quit.

I am so sad, scared, happy and excited at the same time. What a cocktail of feelings to have in a coffe shop far from… where is home now?
Good news is that coffee shops in San Francisco have wireless and that on you can still find Vasco Rossi, Battisti, Celentano and Eros, and songs like “io vaganbondo”, “Todo que eu te dou” and “So What”. All song speak of me.
And good news is that there is skype and the chats in facebook and gmail and that I am blessed with the best friends in the world and there is always somebody awake for me! Thanks Samu for the good chat!
“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” (Elisabeth Foley).

(In San Francisco banks have coffee shops (bars) inside! Here, Well Fargo and Starbucks)

(Also, hang glider occupies the same environmental niche as sparrows and have their own National Park sign)

(Also, the Golden Gate is not JUST the name of the famous bridge. More importantly THE Golden Gate is the name of the small passage that connects the Pacific Ocean with the safe San Francisco Bay. Believe it or not, it seems like the name "Golden Gate" actually was inspired by the ancient name of Istanbul in Turkey).
From Wiki:
"On 5 August 1775 Juan de Ayala and the crew of his ship the San Carlos became the first Europeans known to have passed through the strait, anchoring in a cove behind Angel Island which is now named in Ayala's honor. Until the 1840s the strait was called the "Boca del Puerto de San Francisco" (Mouth of the Port of San Francisco). On 1 July 1846, before the discovery of gold in California, the entrance acquired a new name. In his memoirs, John C. Frémont wrote, "To this Gate I gave the name of "Chrysopylae", or "Golden Gate"; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium (now Istanbul) was called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn."One more curiosity. The name "California" comes from a book that told stories about Amazons (I learned it from a movie called "The king of California", which I loved).

Karin

Today, at Alaskan time 8:31:12, Karin crossed the line indicating the end of the Iditarod trail in Nome, finishing in position 40.
It took her 12 days, 18 hours, 31 minutes and 12 seconds to cover the 1,150 miles separating Wasilla from Nome working together with a loved team of 16 dogs. She ran by herself in the Alaskan wilderness in temperatures as low as -30'F (-34.5' C, not considering the wind!), mushing along frozen rivers, frozen sea, woods.... Bears are sleeping at this time of the year, but moose and wolves are not.
She is awesome. She kicks asses!!!

Airports and thanks!

I start enjoying airport waits. Airports are interesting places, people from all over going all over. I often always end up taking a drink (chocolate for me please) with a stranger, and it is always so fascinating. Schools should have field trips to airports to interview travelers and then share in the school the stories they collected.

Alaska was awesome. Even better than last time. Alaskans are within the friendliest people I ever met. The policeman that stopped 3 nights ago for speeding was friendly and showed me where I could buy ice-creams even if I did not have a valid insurance (Dave, where do you keep it???). The man at the shop used his friend’s phone number to give me a discount. The waiter at the Moose’s Tooth learned few phrases in Italian because he knew I would come back and he wanted to impress me. Not to mention the hospitality I received all these days!!!

Thanks Dave for the adventures a warm place to stay!

Thanks Dug, Rene', Zack and Sam for the fun and warm and tidy place to stay!!! ;-)!

Thanks Karin, Varan and Irene for being so cool and a warm place to stay together with the friendliest pitbull ever! ;-)!!!

You said that Alaskans are bears?

Varan, Irene, Greg, Theresa, Kristin and new comers Kassy and Arthur (he looks just like il conte Carlo!) all came with me at Moose’s Tooth for dinner. Thanks for the warm good bye! And the weekends! And thanks Greg for driving me around too!!! Alaska is cold place to live, but the atmosphere is surely always warm!

As for the Iditatod, while Lance Mackey won the gold (again!) with 15 dogs, my friend Karin is still on her way.(Karin at the Iditarod start. This picture was taken by Leanne Quirk, with sells them at http://www.onceinabluemoose.com/leanne/leanne.htm. Check the website out for more musher's pictures! They are so nice!!!! Thanks Leanne for sharing them with me and Karin!!!)

Varan and Irene kept me updated on her location and health. She is now on her way to White Mountain. One more stop in Safety, and then she will be in Nome as well. feel so proud of her, and it has been such an honor to be a little part of it… GO KARIN!!!!! (Photo by Leanne Quirk)

ready to go!

The backpack looks like half the size of when I left from American Samoa. Maybe it is because I am wearing half of it...

Cozy Alaska, Wild Alaska

As somewhere else in the world and in another moment in my life, Father Time seemed to have casually scrolled along my life hand in hand in Morpheus, here in Alaska He surely was in a hurry to just pass by.
My ~ 3 weeks vacation in Alaska is coming to an end, and on Wednesday I will be flying down to San Francisco to fuel on my biggest addiction: James Bond.
After Karin left on the Iditarod Trail, I moved into Doug’s home for a 4 days full immersion into wetlands ecology and policy. I had a term paper to hand in last Friday, my final exam is this Wednesday, and I have been procrastinating a bit on my on-line class with all the moving, packing and traveling I went through the last month.
Doug is the funniest Alaskan I know, and his family is not second to him. Rene, Doug’s wife, is super hospitable, and Zack (the Z-man, 4 years old) and Sam (1 year old) are just so adorable that it really makes you think that having kids can really be fun.

(I can totally do it!)

I took over Zack’s room, but after his detailed description of the nature and behavior of the monsters (mainly dinosaurs with very shiny teeth) that inhabit Zack’s room, I wondered if I should go to sleep in Sam’s room as well. Not only. Hanging from the wall behind the bed, overlooking me, there were the heads of 2 stuffed teddy bears and 1 stuffed teddy moose. Who could be so cruel to do such thing? This view would have terrified any other kids (and sensitive young women like me), but Alaskan kids grow to be rough since a young age.
Luckily Zack gave me Ally the alligator to protect me in my sleeps.

When I told about the framed teddy bear to Theresa (keep on reading) this weekend, she laughed and said “what a good idea! I could hang a teddy bear skin on my wall, it would be funny!” That gave me the chills.

I felt so cozy and happy, embraced in the warmth of such a nice family after so much moving (plus the spell of the fast internet connection that still amazes me) that when Dave phoned me to go back to Fairbanks for the weekend I truly hesitated. Sitting cross-legged in my favorite spot right next the fireplace, flashbacks of the freezing hike only 2 weeks ago ran across my mind and thousands of excuses came across my mind not to go.

But a little voice in my ears told me I should go (or maybe that was simply Dave’s voice on the phone)… Dave withdrew me on Friday afternoon from Doug’s home. Sight, sight.
Fairbanks is about 350 miles (570 km) north of Anchorage, and THE road to get there run along spectacular valleys and mountain chains, but it is also long and icy. As you get in it, a sign indicated the number of mooses killed like the billboard of a lottery “346 mooses were killed on this road since April 16”. I heard that you can put your name in a special list and every time a moose is killed the next name on the list will be called and you can go and pick up the remaining to feed the family for a while. Nothing wasted.
Many cars and trucks laid up-side-down along the street 2 weeks ago on our way back from Fairbanks, like if a bored Gozilla played with the traffic for a while… “tzzz…. People do not know how to drive with when in icy and windy” was Varon’s comment, apparently this view is common on weekends (“But how can they all land up-side-down??” was my thought). This said, I was not eager to go back into a truck for so many miles.

We were in a group this time. In addition to Dave, Suka and myself, Theresa (works with Dave), Greg (another dog handler I met during the Iditarod), Sara (fresh to Alaska as well) Kristin and Cuervo (the latter is another big dog) were following us in another car. It felt more like a road trip!!! Friday night we abused of Creg’s friend cabin, about half way between Anchorage and Fairbanks. While temperatures outside were well below zero (both F’ and C’), the cabin was warm and cozy and snacks were available. And soon enough the aurora came borealis dancing on the mountain and on the lake. Drapes of white lights were forming, shifting and disappearing to the north of the cabin, and we comfortably watched the show from the cabin couch.

Seeing the Aurora for me is a proof that “Will is power” (“Volere e’ potere”). Since I was 10 years old I knew that, one day, I will be seeing one with my own eyes, and somehow I did made my way up here to experience it.
We arrived to the cabin in full night, and waking up the next morning was another pleasant surprise, when the view of the white peaks and the frozen lake appeared to me in its entire splendor. After a rich breakfast, the group left for some backcountry skiing, while Suka and I went for a walk around the lake, chasing caribous (alas the wild reindeers; they do not fly and do not have shining red noses).

(caribous crossing the lake)(Our cabin)

(and the restroom...)

(frozen enchilada and rice and bean... the leftover from the previous dinner that I forgot in the car... frozen solid)

We arrived in Fairbanks around 8:00pm and drove straight to Chena Hot Springs for a healthy San Patrick bath. Chena Hot Spring is entirely ran on geothermal energy, which is used for the hotel electricity, to keep the ice hotel frozen even during the summer, for a greenhouse… amazing place!
I never practise a lot running half naked on slippery ice when the wind lowers the temperature to –30’F (-34’C), but I can say be pretty darn good and fast at it! Soaking in the hot springs while anything else exposed freezes (including the eye lashes) is kind of nice too.

(Theresa, Dave, Sara, Kristin, Greg)(Greg: happy Alaskan with frozen hairs in hot spring).

We soak in the very hot hot spring until the walk back to the cloths in the freezing wind actually felt nice and regenerating and then we headed to Chena’s pub where there was live music, cold beers and hot chocolates. Perfect.

(Dave, Greg, Theresa, Kristin, Me, Pete (the singer also snowmobile teachear...) and Sara)

Chena is about 60 miles away from Fairbanks, alas another long drive before getting to the hotel room. But can you imagine any better drive than under a clear starry sky while the green Northern Light are dancing all around you? This time we had to stop the cars and get out, pack together as penguins in a storm and dance a waltz together with the Aurora. No comments, just “wow, wow, WOW!” It wasn’t just over the horizon; it was all over around us! And it was big, bright, wild. We packed, hugging, sharing each other heat until the aurora disappear (“let me cover your hear, ahh.. your armpit is so warm, that is not my hand, no, I won’t put my hand into your pants ;-)”), ran to the car (correction: at this point running in not possible… it is more of a sloth run) and drove some more until the Aurora re-appeared again. Stopped the cars, opened the door. Somebody shouted “Formation!!!” and we all ran to regroup in a human ball. It was very cold even for Alaskan. What a show. The warmth of the fireplace is great, but this is even greater.

On Sunday we had a tour of the ice sculptures before driving back. In art (as in many other cases), a picture worth 1,000 words, so here you go (see next post)!