• Tag Archives South America
  • A Puzzle

    Winter                                 First Moon of the New Year

    Here’s a puzzle.  Tuesday night is trash night here in Kadlec Estates so I trundled out both the regular trash and the recycling.

    The moon, at about 3/4’s full, was there, the lesser lamp, but the greater in aesthetic impact; Orion had risen in the eastern sky, now his usual upright self after his disturbing Southern Hemisphere headstand; and, there, on the western patch of lawn, the portion that abuts the driveway and goes down to the street, were regular bare patches, about 6-8 inches wide, then a much broader band of icy snow, a pattern that repeated several times as the yard slopes up toward the garage.

    What could cause such regularity?  Baffles me.

    Soon I’ll have several more chunks of photographs posted about the cruise at www.ancientoftrails.tumblr.com .  Going through them brought back a lot of the trip, its diverse geography, flora and fauna.  This trip will take a long time to settle in.  My eventual goal is to post my ancientrails entries in tandem with the photographs, but that may not happen for months.


  • Cruise Diary: April 29

    Spring                                                                                          Waning Bee Hiving Moon

    October 16th.  That’s, let’s see, 5 and 1/2 months from now.  On that day, Kate and I will set out, from the port of New York, for Rio de Janerio by way of Colombia, the Panama Canal, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, the Falklands, Uruguay and Argentina.  We arrive at Rio on November 22nd, flying home from there.  My idea of preparation for a trip of this kind is to read, as I already have, a book about the Andes and one about Patagonia,  a book about Chilean glaciers and an environmental history of South America.  I have also read concise reports about each country we will visit, trying to get a feel for their contemporary politics.  There are, too, websites giving cruising tips, reviews of ships, information about ports of call and, of course, more information about countries and destinations.  There, is, as well, that fat Oxford History of South America, in which I will read essays about certain aspects of South America that seem interesting to me.  That’s all now.

    Before the cruise, and probably as soon as I’ve finished The Monkey King’s Journey to The West (which will be a while, it’s one of the four Chinese classics, all characterized by being very long), I’ll start reading South American novelists.  On the cruise itself I have the Voyage of the Beagle and the Origin of the Species already downloaded to my kindle.  This preparation is one of the things I love about travel.  Kate says she doesn’t need to do it, because she’s got me.

    My attention to a trip waxes and wanes over the time before departure, but it’s never entirely gone.  I suppose many of you must be similar, hoovering up information, not sure what’s of use, but allowing it all to seep in, coagulate into a whole somehow.


  • Path of Most Resistance

    Spring                                         Waning Bloodroot Moon

    I have a new round of resistance work underway in addition to the Tai Chi.  This work I got from Brad at the Y.  It involves squatting on a balance board while doing curls, then shoulders followed by a second round, also squatting, focusing on the chest and triceps.  Every other day I do crunches, too.  That plus the aerobics and the Tai Chi, plus the Body Flow I attend with Kate should be quite enough for now.  My goal with the Tai Chi is to learn it well enough to practice it while on the cruise.

    (in case you couldn’t tell, this is not me.)

    As to the cruise, I’m buying books, reading, talking to friends who’ve been to various spots, trying to figure out the logistical possibilities for trips other than the usual shore excursions.  At Stefan’s suggestion I’m going to look into a day flight to one of the Galapagos Islands as well as the potential trip to Aerquipa.  Part of travel’s allure for me lies in this preparation, the ingestion of different places, cultures and histories, different natural and environmental histories, different literature and art.

    Meanwhile we work at the legislature, the Sierra Club and the committee for which I am responsible, the folks keep coming to the MIA, the Woolly’s meet and talk, the Latin continues to flow and Kate and I learn more and more about retirement.  The novel?  Well…  Not so much right now.  You see, there’s the garden, too, and next will be the bees.


  • Mindfulness

    Imbolc                                                      Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    We’ve begun the slippery, muddy slide into the growing season, though I understand some of the parking lot snow piles, many well over 8 feet high and some much higher than that, will take a long time to melt.  Maybe months, into the summer.  The snow always pleases me as it falls and as it covers our world, now over 120 days straight with snow cover, but there is a time when it becomes a nuisance.  The snow went beyond nuisance this year and became a definite hazard as it has become impossible around the piled snow at many city intersections.  When driving the Celica out of the garage here, I’ve not been able to see traffic on 153rd since late December.  In that regard I will be not sorry to see the snow melt away.  On balance, though, I get far more pleasure from the snow than I do hassle, so when it’s time again, I’ll be ready.

    Leslie’s mindfulness presentation this morning was wonderful.  We drew mandalas, did a guided meditation and ate a strawberry, a grape, a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread with intention and attention.  We washed it down with water and tea.  Each bite was an adventure.  Made me aware of how unmindful I am when I eat.  Also brought me into the present.  It was a Be. Here. Now. time.  Gotta get back to the meditation, discovered I missed it.

    South America.  A lot to learn in the next six months plus.  In addition to scoping out the ports, already somewhat begun, I’ll read at least one comprehensive history of the continent, an ecological history and a natural history.  I want to find a reasonably priced geography, too.  The ones I have found so far are damned expensive.  One of the values of traveling is its ability to make the distant, close and the abstract, real.  There’s a definite gestalt to lengthy travel in a part of the world unknown.  At some point, a point uncertain, an understanding snaps into place, a combination of prior experience, preparation and that small market in Manta, Ecuador, the smells of Santa Marta, Colombia, the sight of glaciers around Punta Arenas.  Then, like the Velveteen Rabbit, South America will become real for me.

    Often, I take along some literature, too, perhaps some Allenda, Losa, maybe I’ll just take take a Hundred Years of Solitude and read it again.  The phrase book, too.

    Grocery store now.


  • A Third Thing

    Imbolc                                         Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    We went to the St. Paul Grill tonight for our anniversary dinner.  Our first date was coffee there after a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Concert.  I learned Kate was a physician and she learned I was not a lawyer, but a clergyman.  Both surprised.

    Tonight the place was hopping, full of an odd mixture of opera buffs and hockey fans.  The state high school hockey tournament is in town at the Excel Arena and the Opera is at the Ordway Theatre, both next to each other only a block away from the St. Paul Hotel, location of the Grill.

    In addition, just across the block on the diagonal is the Landmark Center, where, in 1990, on this day, Kate and I tied the knot and stomped on a glass in a silken napkin.

    Over the meal tonight (lamb chops, medium rare for both of us with a creme brulee for dessert) we talked about the South America cruise to which we committed yesterday.  37 days, an Inca discovery theme, with ports of call all along western South America and up the east coast as far as and including Rio.  This is a retirement present for Kate, a thank you for all her years of hard work as a doc.  I’m just going along for the ride. (Ha.)

    Marriage has a palpability, is a third thing in and of itself.  When two come to anniversary, the thing they celebrate is not themselves, but this third thing they have made together.  It is, in every way, as precious and significant as a child, as difficult and rewarding, too.