Christmas in Utah

We've been here almost a week and had a very nice, low-key Christmas with my brothers. Most of our days play out like this:

We wake up late (about 9:30 or 10:00) due to what happens at the end of the day and wander upstairs to rouse Carl from his futon/living room bed. Paul usually sits in front of the TV/computer and does his daily internet searches while Keith makes us all an espresso. We then take our bowls of cereal (or eggs or pancakes if someone got ambitious) to the couches while a round or two of Far Cry* is played. Then the boys move out to the garage and work on the van, I stay in and clean up the kitchen and then wander out to see if I can help. When I get bored of trying to help (or get too cold), I might head in and fix lunch or do some drywall work for Paul, or go for a walk. Then it's everybody in for lunch and a "Far Cry break". Back to the garage, or to the parts store, or even more exciting....a test drive around the block. Then I make dinner, and they all come back in and we eat. After which, maybe we'll watch a TV show or two to appease me, then it's back to Far Cry. They are playing it now, and they swear they've almost got it licked. Yeah, right. One night I had to come upstairs and retrieve Keith at 3:00AM! Thus, the waking up late. Unfortunately for me, Heidi, Paul's girlfriend, and Tory, Carl's fiance spent the holidays with their respective families, leaving me as the sole female to nag/gripe/complain/make fun of the vast amounts of time spent on the game.

*Far Cry is the video game of the year. See, the Bauers don't have many traditions, but almost every year during Christmas a new video game is purchased (or in the old days, given as a gift), and large portions of the remaining holiday are spent mastering the game. They are inevitably long, convoluted games with ever-thickening plots that therefore take FOREVER to finish. It becomes a bit of a sickness/obsession with the younger males of the family.

A typical scene around the 'center of the living room universe':


Carl and I got out for a short bike ride from Paul's. Paul gets to look at these mountains every single day.


Progress on the van is going well. Paul and Keith are doing an excellent job troubleshooting some minor problems, but of course in the process find a few more things wrong. Today was a milestone, in that we drove down to the emissions office for the big exam. We failed. So close. We did pass the safety inspection which we were a bit worried about due to a temperamental fuse, but the actual emissions part was a no go. We have two more tries to get it fixed, or else we have to pay again.

Are they happy to be in that ice box of a garage? Hard to tell. Keith did have a good idea in aiming the heaters at a row of tools. The hardest part about working on the car is lying on cold pavement and handling cold tools. Have I mentioned it is cold here?


It's out of the garage and the top is popped! Our home for the next 3 months or so.


Christmas was nice. Gift giving for us has gotten pretty low key. Pretty much nonexistent this year except for a few cute things my mom sent us. I cooked a yummy turkey dinner for Christmas Eve and we shared it with a friend and co-worker of Paul's, Jake, which was followed by, of course, some more "Far Cry". They were excited to have Jake here because he is in the Army and he could tell them all about the different kinds of guns they were using in their game. Great.

It's always exciting to get a Burts Bees product!


I am trying a new feature with the blog now. Video! The easiest way was to use the ever popular You Tube as my medium. Here are some not so interesting videos.

Typical fun for us (well, mostly my brothers) has been things like building rockets out of 2 liter pop bottles and lighting things on fire. This year it was fire:


Ahhhh....Far Cry.....

Storms, Cars, Jobs and More Storms

We’re back online. I can hardly believe that it is almost the end of the year. I don’t know how many times I said to myself, “I should go type up a quick blog, or post some pictures”. Apparently it never happened, and here we are coming rapidly up on Christmas. I am writing this on my old rickety laptop sitting in our new (to us) Honda Civic barreling along highway 20 (where the radio stations are getting very marginal) on our way to Ogden, Utah to spend some time with my brothers. What have we done with ourselves the past two months other than mooching off people? Well, let’s see….

After doing a lot of running around and visiting with friends and family, we actually grew a bit weary of house hopping so we both settled in with our respective parents for a while. Keith stayed down in Coos Bay and spent the next two weeks working like crazy with his parents to tile the kitchen of their small rental house. They did a fabulous job, and were so sweet to have it all done and ready for my family to use for Thanksgiving. I on the other hand, went to my parents’ place in Gig Harbor and didn’t do anything nearly as ambitious. I did get some more quality time with my long lost friends and their new children as well as with my parents.

While we were both in Eugene, we took Corrine and the kids on a well-deserved weekend away to Belknap Hotsprings just an hour outside of Eugene. While the weather wasn't great, the cabin was cozy and the springs were hot!

Look at these two rugrats. They had a great time running around the amazing grounds of this place:


This photo cracks me up because it looks like Keith and Corrine are trying to sneak off with the kids. They look hurried and guilty.


Kiel circling the fountains at Belknap:

Celebrating Sarah's birthday at her home in Cle Elm:

Hanging out with Amy and her new son, Jacob. What a cutie!

Thanksgiving is generally spent down with Keith’s family and is usually a large, crowded, and lively affair. This year, it was going to be a much smaller gathering, so my parents agreed to come down and spend it with us (coming from a VERY small family, my side tends to shy away from other families’ large gatherings). That then prompted my brothers to drive out for the occasion. So the families were officially merging for a holiday. Even though the weather absolutely did NOT cooperate, we still had a great time. After hearing stories of Keith’s day out crabbing and catching 43 crab(!) my brothers (coming from landlocked Utah and Colorado) were quite excited to get out on the bay and catch some crab of their own.

Gale force winds did not stop us from going out every single day in a ROW boat and trying to trap a few innocent crustaceans in a wire box. We didn’t come close to getting 43, but after 3 attempts and lots of soaking wet clothes and numb phalanges, I think we landed about 10 total. They were very much enjoyed and Paul and Carl split the granddaddy and took him home to share with their significant others. Other activities for the week included scaling an eroding cliff in the pitch black to gather 5-gallon buckets full of muscles, walking on the sand dunes, digging for clams at 11:00 PM, and enjoying walks along the Shore Acres cliffs in between and during rain storms. And of course we also enjoyed lots of good conversation, laughs and thanks to Melody lots of good food.

There were three digital cameras in use full time during Thanksgiving, so it was well documented. There were so many good photos, I had a hard time refraining from putting up too many....

The first day all the Bauers were there, we took a long walk down the beach to the New Carissa. We came across huge piles of kelp such as this one. It turned into hours of entertainment as we walked.


You always need a good shot of the dog fetching.


Nice lighting. Notice the mysterious piece of kelp far above our heads. How come no one is looking at it?


Me and Gracie in the back of Dwayne's pickup:

The whole family together again:


Too much wind and rain, so we had a go at the crab from the docks. Not much in that basket...


A walk along the Shore Acre cliffs:


The boat (and rowers) that took a beating out in the weather.


A cold day. And the water really was a lot rougher than it looks.


The big one.


Gracie attacking:


Circles in the sand.


Descending into the abyss in search of muscles:


A bounty of muscles:


Cleaning the muscles:

Then it was to Eugene, where Keith spent the next 20 days laying a flagstone path for a friend (and getting paid for it, which is kind of a foreign concept for us). I spent some more quality time with Corrine and the kids and John and Jenn while starting the search for a car. A word of advice – it is much easier to shop for a used car via private party when you have a) a phone and b) a home. In other words, it wasn’t a very productive search.

So I left Keith to his work and went back up to Gig Harbor, where I spent my time painting about half of the walls in my parents’ house and continuing the car search. After some long days at the lots and meeting with some less than admirable people, I did finally buy a car. And then the storm hit. Everyone in the NW was felt the impact, and Gig Harbor was no exception. As I write this on Dec 20, my parents are still without power. We think this might be the reason:

It kind of put a cramp in all of our plans. It’s always kind of fun and exciting to lie awake all night listening to branches hit the roof, wondering if a tree is going to land on the car you brought home yesterday (actually I slept through it all, but I would have marveled at the irony of walking out to a smashed car and no collision insurance the next day) and have the power go out for a day. But after day 4 of no shower and trying to stay warm and having to make the most of the daylight, you start to get a little grumpy. When you add that to the fact that you are trying to pack for 1) a wedding in LA 2) two weeks in snow-covered and freezing Utah and 3) 2-3 months in Central America for not only yourself but for your absent husband, fix things your dad is finding wrong with your car, and do all those other things you had tons of time to do earlier but decided to save for when there is no power and no time left, you start to get even grumpier. I didn’t get to buy a new bathing suit or a dress for the wedding, but after two solid days in the driveway with my dad, we did get the car fixed and I did manage to get everything packed and crammed into a very small car (including the dog) and was off back south (only one day later than planned) to reunite with Keith, leaving my parents huddled in their one lighted room (thanks to a generator).

More images from the storm:
You can see how many trees fell on the road overnight. By the time we got up and out to the road, people had already come and cleared them.....lots of firewood gatherers.


Dad felt bad that he got up so late and missed out on the major action, but he still found some choice logs that he was happy with.


Resulting in one of two nice loads:


Our own yard is a mess, but no major trees down or damage done.

I have no idea how, but we managed to get not only Keith but also his two suitcases into the car (Gracie wasn’t too happy with her drastically shrunken space) and got to Coos Bay last night. We rounded up a few more necessities for the trip and sadly (oh, so sadly) left Gracie behind again (why is that so hard for me? She’s just a dog, right?) this morning as we work our way over to Utah.

And just what the heck are doing and packing for? Well, we haven’t completely figured it out yet, but here’s what we’re thinking. My brother, Paul (the one in Utah), owns a 1980 VW vanagon. We are going to Utah to not only spend Christmas and New Years with Paul and Heidi and Carl, but also to get the Vanagon up and running. Why? Well, we’re going to drive to Costa Rica. We’ll stop in LA for Carl’s wedding then just carry on south from there and see how far we get. Nothing is final as we are running into some logistical problems with border crossing technicalities and ownership of vehicles, so we’ll see how the next week pans out.

Here's a fun fact. Keith’s cousin, Keri is going to be on the show “What Not to Wear”. She just got back from filming and it should air in March sometime. Pretty funny – she is going to be a riot on that show. We'll let you know a date when we find out.

That’s it for now. We’ll be at Paul’s for about two weeks, where technology reigns, so maybe I’ll at least get some more pictures up in the next week or so.

What Next?

We've been back for over two weeks now, and one of the most frequently asked questions (after "What was your favorite place"....which, by the way, is unanswerable) is, "So now what are you going to do?". Great question. We're still working out the answer to that one. Yes, we have a little bit of money left that would give us about 4-6 months of budget travel in Central and South America, so we're pondering. It also sounds kind of nice to start looking for a new home and settling down. What? Really? Is that normal? We're leaning toward the travel thing as this is the last opportunity to do something of that kind (again), and the hardest part about leaving (besides kissing our beautifully remodeled bathroom and deck goodbye) was quitting our jobs. So as not to have to go through all that pain again, we will likely explore a little bit of one more continent. We'll see how we feel over the next month or so.

In the meantime we've spent the last two weeks based at my folks place in Gig Harbor, and visiting friends in the area boring them to tears with our travel stories and our 500 picture highlight reel. I love the glazed looks as we get to picture #262 and people realize what they have gotten themselves into....hey, you asked to see them! We warned you!

Here I am meeting my dog again after one year. Does she remember us? Hard to say. She is a golden, and you know how they love everyone, but I like to think she has fallen back into her old habits with us rather quickly and that we got a warmer than normal greeting. At least it makes me feel better to think that!


We like to stay busy, so we've put ourselves to work at my folks' place first off with making some homemade apple cider and then heading out to their little lake cabin and pushing a bunch of dirt around. Keith's dream come true....driving a bobcat. You can hardly call that work for him. The Indian Summer continues here, and we also got in a day of sea kayaking around the harbor as well of some nice walks around the homestead.

Running the cider press at my folks' place:


After a hard day's work of Bobcat driving:


After a sweet welcome-home party put together for us by Amy and Zack, we headed further north to Bellevue and east to Cle Elm for more quick visits. I tell you, there were a lot of babies born or conceived since we've left, and the reality of a year really sets in when you look at how much those kids (or the mom's bellies) have grown. Thank you everyone for your hospitality. This is the life. You go away and be totally delinquent for a year, and what do you get? Lovely dinners each night cooked by your mom, parties thrown in your favor, and free room and board wherever you show up. A well thought out strategy if I do say so myself.

My friend, Sarah's property out in Cle Elm. What a beautiful day and what a beautiful family.


Keith and Sarah's son, Kaden. He looks like an angel up there, but don't let him fool you! :)


Yesterday was one more round of apple cider and now we are in Coos Bay where Keith finally gets to see his own parents. That probably wasn't too fair for us to stay up north for so long, visiting friends that got to see Keith before his folks did! But now they have him back, and boy are they happy.

Being home has been very nice, and at times we can hardly believe we even went on a trip at all. It sinks in more each day, the immensity of what we did and the fact that it is over. It is a sobering thought. I don't know if people will be following this blog anymore or not. And I'm not sure how frequently I will post to it. We will start using our flickr account more to post our pictures of day to day life, so if you are curious, you might check there instead if it seems this blog is drying up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emkeith/

The next couple of months will see us actually split up for a while. Yes, after 365 days and 24 hours a day together, we are still happily married, but are going to spend some time apart. After a longer visit to Eugene, Keith will return to Coos Bay and I will go back to Gig Harbor where we will give each of our parents some quality time and try to pay them back for all the help they have given us before and during our trip. Then it will be Thanksgiving in Coos Bay and Christmas at a to be determined location followed by a New Year's outside of Las Vegas and then my brother's wedding in California. Good times ahead! If anything interesting happens, maybe I'll post a blog.

In the meantime, I will end with a list I started as our days were winding down in Africa:

Things We Will NOT Miss About Traveling:

• Crap pillows & mattresses
• Fumbling through our clothes bags
• Wearing the same, tired, unflattering outfit over and over...
• "Gimmee money! Gimmee food! Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!"
• Sticking out like a sore thumb
• Riding public transport
• Reading guide books
• Wondering if you've been ripped off with every single purchase you make
• Telling people where we are headed and where we've been
• Packing and unpacking backpacks
• Figuring out which knob is really the hot water
• Crap shower faucets
• Travelers diarrhea (sorry, had to be said)

Things we WILL miss about traveling:

• Buying food out of bus windows
• Trying to learn new languages
• Riding motorbikes to new and remote places (truly some of our best times)
• Seeing something new everyday
• Not knowing where you will be tomorrow
• Waking up whenever the heck you want!
• Riding public transport (yes, really - some of the best and worst times)
• Figuring out public transport (a challenge, but always an interesting one)
• Meeting interesting, annoying, weird, funny, etc. people
• Trying new foods
• Eating at local food joints where no other Westerners are or would dare to go
• Bargaining
• Asian markets
• Having amazing experiences like swimming with monks. Wow.
• Feeling like the center of attention everywhere you go

Back Home

Here we are. Back where we started. Living and mooching off my folks in Gig Harbor. It's hard to believe it's been a year....in a lot of ways it feels like we never left.

The rest of our stay in New York was fantastic. The amazing weather continued, and we hit the fall colors head on. We spent a day and evening with my aunt in Poughkeepsie, and saw my one and only cousin for the first time in ages along with his four children whom I had not met yet.

My aunt at her cozy place in Poughkeepsie:


The following day, my aunt drove us five hours north through the Adirondacks to Canton, New York where one of my best friends from college is living. We spent a lovely 5 days there on their upstate, country 'estate'. While Sam and Brian were working we would spend our days mowing their immense, vast lawn, playing with their dogs, relaxing, and walking around the area. We had some good downtime while they were working, but as soon as they got home, they made us play hard taking short walks to local waterfalls and to the university climbing wall to get an intro to rock climbing as Sam and Brian have become avid climbers over the past two years.

The weekend activities turned into all day affairs. On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast of pancakes (and a hide and seek game with the dogs and their pancakes), we headed out to a day of canoeing on the Raquette (?) river which was so beautiful. It was a pretty flat river - so we were able to go upriver first and then back down after reaching our destination without having to deal with all the shuttle logisitics that come with faster downriver expeditions. Of course the downside of canoeing on flat water is that you are paddling all the time, so by the end of the day we were all a bit tight and sore.

On the Raquette River:


Day two of the weekend took us out to Azure mountain where we planned to do some beginner rock climbs. It is not a highly traveled rock climbing spot, but it was closer, and we had the climbing guide in hand so we figured we'd be climbing by noon and back before dark. Things turned out a little bit differently as the climbing sites were not as easily identifiable, and we needed a spot that we could drop a top rope from as none of us are experienced enough to lead climb. Thus started the search for a do-able route for Keith and I that had an accesible trail to walk around to the top. Easier said than done. While Brian and Keith scoped out all the faces reading over and over the description from the book, Sam and I started bushwacking and scrambling looking for a way to the top. After much effort we did reach the top of the mountain. However, with lots of yelling to the guys below, we discovered that we weren't above the proper section of cliff, and it would be a lot of effort to do that climb all again to get the ropes up, so we decided to go back to the first wall we discovered that is not listed in the book and was considerably shorter. So three hours after arrival, we started climbing. It was a fine place to climb - maybe a bit hard for a first climb for Keith and I - but fun nonetheless.

Heading out to Azure Mountain:


There's me grunting my way up.


And Keith:


And Sam - considerably more graceful and talented:


And Brian - also quite impressive:


Our last day was a lazy one for Keith and I, but the evening brought one more bout of climbing. A well established climbing route closer to home, but it was a late start, so by the end, because we had to have just one more go at the thing, we were climbing in the dark. A fun start, and we had some great teachers helping us learn the sport. Maybe Paul will let us use his gear and take us to Joshua Tree over our Christmas break in Cali???

The family (minus Hazel, the other dog who stays home):


Tuesday, we had a long travel day home. We had to take the early bus from Canton to Syracuse where we took Jet Blue to JFK in New York City, where we had a six hour layover. Rather than sitting on the benches in the very crowded Jet Blue terminal (you can tell that Jet Blue is doing well as the line to all the ladies' restrooms are interminable all day long!) we hopped on the subway and went out to Coney Island. We had a Nathan's hotdog (which are apparently famous), walked around looking at the rides then took a short power nap on the beach. Then it was back to the airport and 7 hours later we landed in Seattle where my parents were waiting for us all smiles.

One last comical travel story to share....
As we were waiting for our baggage to come out at SeaTac,I noticed a wet substance on someone's suitcase. I thought it was odd as there hadn't been any rain in either New York or Seattle, but dismissed it. Then the lady next to me picks up her bag that has some of the same wet stuff on it and starts carrying on, saying things like, "What is this on my bag? It's all sticky and sweet like syrup! Look it's all over everyone's bag! Oh, this is awful! Can you believe this?!", as more and more bags come piling out with the same sticky substance on it. By now, I figure out what is going on and am instantly mortified. Being in New York, we thought it would be nice to bring home some local, homemade maple syrup, so we bought a gallon of it. Being as you can't bring liquids on the plane anymore, we checked it in our baggage. Hey, we thought it was a good seal! As our bags came out, we quickly grabbed the sticky things hoping no one would notice us as the culprits who ruined everyone's luggage and loaded up and headed out of there. Hilarious but slightly humiliating. Out of the gallon we started with, we ended up with only 1 tablespoon left...

Leaving Africa....To The Big Apple

Here we are. Back on US soil. Our last days in South Africa were pretty noneventful. Lots of organizing and cleaning of all that great stuff John R. let us use for our Land Rover expedition. And a pretty good cleaning of the Land Rover itself. It was a bittersweet day the day we handed it all back to John. Sorry to see it go, but at the same time excited to be heading back to home.

Here I am trying to figure out where the heck to start.


After getting the Land Rover and gear taken care of, it was on to getting our own stuff packed and organized in such a way that the airlines wouldn't reject us. I left that job mostly to Keith as he is an expert in packing, and even if I had tried to help, you know he would have redone it anyway.

Here's all those trinkets....packed away - how many will break on the plane?


And then we were off on the epic 24 hour trip to NYC. 8 hours from Jo'burg to Dubai, then 14 to NYC. It's a bit of a blur, but to sum up the flight, I think I watched 5 movies and ate 5 meals and slept about 5 minutes. We do have to say that Emirates is an amazing airline. Fantastic service and facilities - they make us lowly economy folks feel almost like first class (minus the leg room).

And then we landed in New York City and after getting past the grumpiest immigration official yet on all our travels, we were happy to see Grace's smiling face waiting for us on the other side. Grace is my mom's best friend from back in their Stonybrook college days, and her and her family still live in Brooklyn and were our very gracious hosts over the last four days. Despite not sleeping for the previous 36 hours, we went ahead and headed out to do a few sights taking a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and around the waterfront on the Manhatten side of the bridge. After the torrential downpours we landed to, we actually ended up with a beautiful day. At about 4:00 that afternoon we finally gave in to the weariness and slept for the next 16 hours. A relatively quick and painless recovery from the jet lag.

The Brooklyn Bridge.


Day two in the city, navigating our way around via the quite efficient subway system, we took in the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. They don't let you in the Statue of Liberty anymore, but we had a nice walk around it, and the Ellis Island museum is quite powerful, especially to think that several of my grandparents very likely came through there. This was followed by a look at Ground Zero where they have lots of pictures posted, and construction of the new memorial underway. The day ended with a quick jaunt through Times Square.

Lady Liberty.


Times Square.


That night we were treated to a lovely dinner, conversation and reminiscing of the good times Grace and Jim had with my parents before us pesky kids were around, back when they all lived in Albany, Oregon of all places!


The next day was more wandering the city seeing Central Park, Greenwich Village, and more of Times Square trying to get ourselves into see the David Letterman show. We were successful even though it took up most of our day. The show was a good one, and it was a fun experience even though we were two rows from the back. And no, we didn't get any TV time except the one camera pan of the balcony.

Today we left our nice Brooklyn neighborhood, and headed north via subways and trains to Poughkeepsie to stay with my aunt. After lots of sightseeing and walking we are happy to just hang out today visiting, baking bread and catching up on some computer time. Tomorrow we head further north to catch up with some college friends of my own.

The Brooklyn street that was our home for the past four days. We really enjoyed it here - it has a very neighborhoodly(?) feel, and have been pleasantly surprised with New York City. There is an amazing amount of hustle and bustle, yes (people walk VERY fast at all times), but everyone is nice, the streets are clean, and we feel very safe - not on guard like we felt in the big cities of Africa.