From New Zealand to Nebraska!

Sand Hill Cranes cruising to their night-time haven on the Platte River, NE

I suppose it has been a minute or two since I've written here. Write back! It encourages me to write more when I get to read too! So, here is an attempted FF catching up with my journal here... Hang on tight! Half a dozen entries all at once!

From New Zealand to Nebraska!

Angie and I left NZ together for the wide open sunsets of her home town Lincoln. Tickets in hand (expressively speaking), we realized I was leaving a day earlier - to meet Ang's parents for the first time, in a state I've never even been to before! Luckily, they are some wonderful folks and I got on with them immediately. I even ended up moving a couple hundred bails of hay before Angie even got back in the country! My first time in Nebraska – my first Runza (sandwich), my first Old Time (beer), and my first time to see the great migration of Sand Hill Cranes on the Platte River. This is an amazing migration that recurs every year in farmer's fields and river flats. Millions of birds. Everywhere. The book end of my Midwest visit included dozing with my new Nephew and running on and around a bunch of big Trains at the Transportation Museum with his big brother!

Big Boy, always a crowd pleaser, but the highlight as ever is the lady!; My nephew - clearly following in a long lineage of engineers.

Following NE, I made the pilgrimage home to family, friends and familiar places along the mid-atlantic (PA, VA, and NC). Farming, swimming, building, bicycling, and cooking and sharing food is always the highlight of my time and sharing this with the people I have known and loved the longest is the best. Keep warm and healthy this winter! I'm thinking of you!

Roadtrip!

Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming. The ten states I had not been to got whittled down to six this year. Partly through necessity, and partly for the sights, Angie and I made our way back to the summer hunting grounds of Lummi Island this year by automobile. We made stops at the world's largest hot spring, my first real live moose and buffalo, and a dinosaur my father slept under in his youth!

OK..., my father isn't that old. The dinosaur is a model; Sand Hills Beautiful

Yellowstone

On Island

Angie, Stew, and Loren keep Pig company on the beach before a day of fishing.

Ahhh. Yummi Lummi Island. Time moves so much slower on the island. 1 store, 1 speed limit (25), 1 restaurant, 1 Inn, and of course the last surviving culture of reef-net fisher-people.

Flying in the face of the Lummi pace, Angie and I began the season, with loads of help from the older fellas, setting up a gear start to finish. We hung most of a new net (a once in 25 years activity) , got the boats in the water, winches working, built the reef, and managed to do some Major repairs to a new cabin in order to move out of our tent! Craziest week in recent memory!

Here I help the Pacific Salmon Commission measure, tag, and sample a sockeye. They take readings on where each fish goes and how far upstream they make it; Another day on the fishing boat waiting... But waiting with my new wide angle lens! One of our several Bobs watches the fish TV under the sun protection of Umbrella. This is the latest and greatest Reef-net Technology!

The Sockeye Salmon run was amazing this year. The nets were heavy. The Pacific Salmon Commission increased the run estimate over and again, and some fishermen went home rich (for fishermen). In our spare time during this busy season... Angie and I bought an Airstream!

With a little love and some pruning equipment, we removed the coating of blackberry brambles and did a preliminary gutting. Next - the real deal of renovating a 1961 Airstream Camper! ()

Roger Granger gives a filleting lesson on the beach to a newbe; Angie wielding her pruners.

There she is! 28 ft long and tires still up to pressure!

All in all it was a great summer on Lummi again, although a short season for yours truly – this year I signed up for the winter flight to Antarctica – and though I pushed myself back onto the last flight, I still had to leave a couple of weeks before the season was through. Se la vie. I got to cheer on my reef-netting companions from afar as I made my way to the southern continent yet again, this time for the changing of seasons from dark to light.

Antarctic Ends / Kiwi Friends

Antarctic parting
Caves, fjords, sweet corn, paua, beach camp
Sought after home coming

Rewinding the memory a couple of months brings me back to Antarctica. At this point I've written and perhaps you may have read quite a bit here on the topic of great southern continent, but come the end of the season I'm left with heaps of untold stories and events. As it should be I suppose. Thought I now find myself two months off the ice and in the landscape of Raymond Nebraska, I still can't part with at least a couple of these events here.

the view from the Lake Bonney helipad; a stroll on Lake Hoare

The dry valleys. One last trip to this amazing place yielded exactly what I was desiring - a chance to explore. The dry valleys are an amazing landscape of mountains, glaciers, ice-covered lakes and just plain dirt. Not too many places down here supply accessible dirt. Tasked with removing some temporary buildings from the quickly melting lake ice, we planned for one night camping at Lake Hoare.

beautiful though it is, the melting lake ice top can make for some treacherous trekking

Due to difficulties resulting from the unstable lake ice on lake Fryxall, we garnered an extra night out of town, some wet overalls (mostly mine) , and a chance to take a stroll up the Taylor valley with some of our down time.

The hike was amazing and something I'll never forget. Across a frozen lake, up over a defile (the terminal end of a glacier butting into a mountain) and then up a steep track to a huge bench full of some of the most interesting rocks I've ever seen.

at the edge of life and along the way: native lichen and moss


beyond the edge: an 800 year cured mummified seal in it's final resting place; atop a wind hewn sculpture


rock imitates wind

As a finale to the season, I couldn't have asked for a better trip. Back to mactown for the busy season when the ice breaks up. Combine this with the annual visit from Oden - a Swedish icebreaker - and a channel is open all the way to McMurdo, allowing for our single resupply vessel and an oil tanker to make their deliveries.

helicopter's eye view of the sea ice breaking up, soon after these several foot thick chunks will blow out to sea and either melt or refreeze into the next round of annual sea ice; oil tanker in port delivering the jet fuel that most vehicles run on.



farewell! icy continent! from the flight deck of the Australian Antarctic Airbus






hello sunset in the NZ bush!

The end of the season is long awaited and we are all glad to find sunset and decent drinks on tap waiting for us in Christchurch. This year I also found a very special woman named Angie waiting at the airport for me! All the way from Lummi Island and Nebraska, for many months we kept in close touch and decided to meet in NZ and have a holiday here together.

We bought a car and hit the road, touring the south island, first beach hopping all the way down the east coast with a surfing finale in the Catlins. An amazing time relaxing and learning to surf. I rode waves more often than i went into the drink (Maytag-ed), and narrowly escaped the killer surfing sea lions (best surfers I've ever seen) at curio bay.

castle hill - a great place to walk hang your jaw out at some amazing rocks and maybe even scramble around climbing them!; trees imitate wind

Myself, Angie, and Phil. We were a traveling trio. Phil, a great friend and my roommate in McMurdo, provided and enabled all surfing activity. thanks Phil! ; Parakanui bay, where the surfing began for me under huge cliffs, surrounded by bush, kelp and even a few endangered yellow-eyed penguins.


Paua - a great New-Zealand native shellfish, traditionally shredded and fried, we sauteed them gently over our camp stove at Parakanui bay

The beach party ended with a rash of Sea Lion interruptions and friends headed homeward. Angie and I decided to head up to Fiordland National Park and then on to central Otago to visit another friend on the way to the west coast.

West Coast beach art - thousands of kirin and loads of driftwood sculpture - a truly amazing scene by the side of the road, easily an entire kilometer packed to the gills; the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival, and the answer is yes with ample imbibables



Hayden and myself just after he tried to kill me by letting ride his "custom" motorbike.

Finally in our story of traveling New Zealand, there is the Mapp family. My friend Hayden worked down on the ice with me as a deep field mechanic. In our time in New Zealand we managed to meet his entire extended family. In addition to his wife Jane and two boys, Angie and I stayed with his folks Lloyd and Val on their sheep farm in Marlbourough, visited with his brother on his 5000 acre high-country station, and spent a couple of days getting back in touch with urban living with his sister in Wellington. All in all the family really imprinted in me a sense of some real kiwis making their country what it is everyday. Reaching back only three generations, they have as close a connection with the settling of the young country as anyone. Together they are involved in sheep, cattle, and deer farming; eco-tourism; back country guiding; and the art and housing markets. From the hippest city to far off and rough valleys, they were able and excited to show us a great deal of what New Zealand has to offer in culture, place, and politics. Thank you Mapps!

Lloyd and myself on Mt Patriarch; family lorakeet who occasionally came inside for breakfast on a shoulder!


the bird really loved Angie's hair; on top of Mt. Patricarch

Sunday drives are a bit different in in the hill country. Try as he might, Lloyd only just missed getting the truck's clinometer up to 40 degrees incline - this is just how they drive in the back country here: don't wear your seatbelt because it might get in the way if you need to eject quickly!



Aukland - a city comprising an entire quarter of the population of NZ. And home for one night before the longest flight I hope to ever subject myself to. Atop a volcano in the middle of the city, a wonderful way to end a trip arm in arm with an amazing traveler and my love, Angie.

Back in Mactown

Ok, ok this is wishful thinking. I took this shot back in October when the sun wasn't in such a high horizon all the time. Re-entering the world that is McMurdo was an amazing experience just the same. Landing at the permanent runway (the sea ice had gotten too thin to land on), again we get to greet the amazing view that is Ross Island with it's two large volcanoes, Mt. Discovery, an old inactive volcano and the range of mountains that no picture I have ever taken does justice to: The Royal Societies.

Back in the Carp shop, warm greetings make the experience come close to family. We've all been out at various camps and slowly we all trickle back in, and then back out again to close said camps. Morning meeting includes updates on our folks in the field and their trials and tribulations getting airplanes to land and bring them home.

Being in Mactown means a lot of different things for me. It means I will miss the wonderful cooks and other folks out at Byrd, as well as the space and the quiet that can be had few if any other places. It also means I can go to yoga class, go on hikes with friends, meet and greet the resident wildlife,

Adelie penguins and their footprints!

attend the annual art show, make my way back to other closer camps, and when inspired work in what is probably the nicest shop i've ever worked in. We have a very well set up shop full of all the necessary tools and plenty of scrap material laying around to satisfy the creative bug in all of us. Lately we've been using not only some hardwood, but also a great deal of old Jamesway tent arches and the ever present plywood. You would be amazed at what some folks make with plywood. Here are a few projects I've been working on.

It all started with a piece of graph paper and some scraps...

A little glue, patience, chisels, mineral oil and a lathe, and it's done!


Cherry pestle with maple/cherry/walnut mortar.




Some interesting ideas about how to stack scraps...


Turned out way cooler than I could have guessed! It's a bit on the small side, but I think this pin will roll well just the same!.




One of my longest standing projects. It has looked like a hundred different things, but finally I think this table is in it's final shape at the very least. Half sculpture on the wall, folding down to a small table. Detail still being worked out! This is made of old Jamesway arch.


Plywood bowl! Cut, built, and turned. Awaiting some finishing touches.


Coffee Table I am also working on. Also Jamesway arches.

I seem to have more inspiration than time, so unfortunately I am currently working on seven projects! Here's hoping they all make it out! I gotta go!