So I’ve just arrive back from “the Field,” a local pub that has a pool table. My taxi arrives in 2 hours to take me to Logan on my way to Peru via Miami. See y’all in a few weeks!
Monthly Archive for August, 2007
So in the aftermath of my Chicago trip I was in need of a new phone, and started trawling eBay for something. I quickly found the super fancy Nokia N95, a device that does pretty much everything, and is also a phone…
Next I found that some persons had a number of these phones, and were seemingly eager to move them at “fell of the back of a truck” prices. Thinking I could get a few, and sell them off I did the ol’ google on the supplied email address, and found that the phones probably didn’t fall off a truck, and probably don’t even exist. As outlined here and here, these are scams where people steal reputable eBayer’s accounts and then use them to steal your money.
Instead of a super flash phone, I settled for a repeat of my stealthy-yet-high-tech Nokia 6230i, hopefully I didn’t get scammed…
I’m exhausted. My weekend trip to visit Amanda in Chicago turned into a tour of some of the local drinking establishments… with a little sightseeing thrown in on the side. I also left my mobile phone in a shuttle, so am phoneless.
I arrived slightly later than planned on Friday. My flight out of Boston was delayed by some gum on a seatbelt, and I consequently missed my connecting flight by a few minutes (despite running and skipping the security queue). I was put on the next flight about ten minutes later thankfully. I caught the Omega shuttle down to the University of Chicago’s area of Hyde Park. Being on the south side, Hyde Park is something of an oasis of middle class surrounded by poor/rough neigbourhoods. There are certain streets one just doesn’t go past…
We started the late afternoon with free post-doc beers (one), and a few greasy fries. The evening saw us off toward Wicker Park, a popular eating and drinking area. We first sat outside at a bar for a pre-dinner drink (two), and then had some pizza and beer around the corner (three). We only got the medium size pizza, since the large ones were about the size of a table. Following dinner we met up with some others at a generic loud bar with lots of televisions (four), before moving on to a German place (five). This was one of those places that serves 1 liter steins. More curiously it had aussie rules footy on one of the tv’s.
We were eventually kicked out (at closing), but since we weren’t done we went on to a blues bar (six) until they finished up too. Don’t ask how we got home, well to where we stayed anyway since we didn’t make it home…
We headed back to Hyde Park via town, using the “L” for a tour around the town loop. Being a few floors off the street, the train is a great way to see some of the buildings in the middle of the city. The Chicago River runs through the middle of town, and looks very cool with skyscrapers rising from right next to it, and being crossed regularly with old iron bridges.
The next evening started quietly, with good food and a beer at a restaurant (seven). We then started our tour of some more local bars, hosted by local Ken. He first took us to what looked to me like the American “idea” bar (eight), where we started on some of the incredibly cheaply priced midwestern beer. Next was a very local feeling place (nine), where we sat outside on plastic chairs at plastic tables and drank margaritas from plastic cups. After that was a place with lots of Elvis stuff on the walls (ten), but also other junk. Apparently there was another New Zealander, but my Flight of the Conchords tee didn’t draw them out… The last bar of the evening (eleven) had $3.25 gin and tonic. We made it home after giving a taxi driver blow-by-blow directions, which is a little odd in a city set out like a grid with numbered streets.
Sunday started slowly, but we eventually made it toward town, and walked up to some beaches. Hunger drove us to a bar (twelve!) for some meat and a beer. We went to another local person’s house for a bit of a wine tasting party after that, before heading home much in the same manner as Saturday night (i.e. giving directions to a Taxi driver).
Thanks Amanda for an awesome weekend!
A few more photos are here. There are also some from drinking wine on Sunday night here.
Man life is busy. I’ve had Julie visiting this week, on the tails of my trip to New York, and tomorrow I go to Chicago for the weekend. I’m still not sure I’ve recovered from NY or the Adirondacks! We went to my local, the Thirsty Scholar, for a few beers last night, and to the famed Neighbourhood Restaurant for brekkie this morning. I highly recommend it as a weekday breakfast place. The pace is still relaxed, there’s noone else there, and the grape vines are covered with bunches of grapes hanging down. They’re open from 7am…
After five months here I finally made it to the big apple. Leaving at about 6pm after relaxing at Shay’s for a few hours, Halv and I arrived (via a crazy buffet place) around 10:30pm in Chinatown. We met up with our kind host, and had some quiet drinks, not wanting to ruin the rest of our weekend…
Saturday was really quite hot, so we thought we’d spend all of it walking around… we wandered up through Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Central Park. Between Times Square and Central Park there was some kind of street fair. Probably a mile of junk for sale…
We also dropped by FDR’s Natural History museum and the Guggenheim. The lobbies of these places seem to be very popular, perhaps as much for their air conditioning as for the attractions themselves…
The latter was shrouded in scaffolding for refurbishment unfortunately. We headed back down to the bottom of Manhattan Is, thinking of catching a ferry. However, the lines were so long we thought our time would be better spent at a bar.
Three or four hours later we left in search of Brooklyn and a friend’s dog’s cousin’s party. We spent most of the rest of the evening there, leaving for home in the East Village sometime in the wee hours. Unfortunately a lost phone meant we had to go back to Brooklyn to sleep anyway. The late night excursion was broken up by a bar that had Master of Puppets on rotation so we didn’t feel too bad getting to bed at 5am…
The next day started nicely with some food and recovery of Halv’s phone, followed by a walk over the Brooklyn bridge back to Manhattan
More walking up to the East Village, and then back down through a crowded SoHo and Chinatown found us at the (in)famous Chinatown bus again. Home by 10pm Sunday night, badly in need of a shower. I’ll be going back… in the meantime there are some photos here.
I was renewing my ACT Drivers license from overseas, when I found this page. It shows all the speed camera locations in Canberra!
It’s kinda funny. A shot in the arm is a good thing right? This obviously ignores the half day or so or slight ache that follows an actual shot in the arm, of which I received five today, spread over two arms. If I had three, the nurse would have used them. Thanks for MMR, Tetanus, Typhoid, Hep A, and Yellow Fever… which one can get at Mt Auburn hospital in Boston. There is a list of places on the CDC website if you’re looking for one of these near you in the USA.
(this theme has a “asides” category for mindless crap, which this is… so I’m trying it out)
Despite having been there for three days, I still feel an urge to call the place the Adrionacks. I have no idea why.
So on Friday I picked up my rental, which I called my Sega Saturn, since it felt rather like a small toy. However, the kind people at Alamo have scored 2/2 with places to plug my ipod into the stereo, nice!
I drove off toward upstate NY a bit after lunchtime, in the hope of catching a few covered bridges in Vermont on the way. I was quickly rewarded, seeing one (number 1 in fact) in New Hampshire before I even got near Vermont. I picked up another before leaving covered bridge country for some state park in the bottom left of Vermont. I found my way up towards Ticonderoga, where I thought I’d have a quick look at the fort there, before heading on to my campsite.
Unfortunately I hadn’t checked things out, and my map was none the wiser (if I’d looked closer I would have been fine). One can’t actually drive across Lake Champlain to get to Ticonderoga. There is a ferry! Not being accustomed to these things I wasn’t expecting it… It turns out I’d also arrived 15 minutes after the ferry closed for the day so missed out there, and drove another half our to go the landlubber’s route.
Fort Ticonderoga was closed, being a 9-5 kind of fort, so I took some pictures of the moon and the lake instead. I then went on to Rogers Rock campground, situated on the shores of Lake George and near the top end of the beautiful route 9N. Nothing much eventful happened at the campground. I saw a firefly which was cool.
The next day I drove along the lake down route 9N, hoping to see as much as possible before the forecast crappy weather set in. I made it all the way up to Newcomb for a walk near the Visitor Center before it started to drip. I was constantly harassed by bugs on that walk, and covered my silly straw hat (see here) in DEET, and wore it, from that point on. I had lunch at Long Lake, and continued up to Lake Placid (I didn’t see any crocodiles), proud home of two (count ‘em) winter Olympics.
The town itself is a typical American tourist trap, but there are some cool things nearby. Whiteface Mountain has a ski field on it, so I thought I’d go have a look. I was astonished at the size of it, mainly since I knew it is about the same height as the peaks I was planning on scaling the next day. Feeling a little shaken, I thought I conquer this one by driving, after my nice Mt Washington experience of peaks with roads.
I paid my $9 (Mt Washington = $20) and cruised up. There are nice views of Lake Placid and the general area, but the coolest things are a castle at the top of the road, and an elevator the rest of the way! Being a typical mountain in its geometry, the elevator base is a hundred meters or so into the hill. Very cool. Unfortunately it was very cool and totally cloudy at the top so all I saw was a sign saying how high Whiteface Mtn is.
By now the day was waning, so I drove towards my campsite, stopping past the Ausable Club to check out the starting point for the next day. I stayed at Sharp Bridge for the night, the highlight being sitting in my car with a few beers listening to the pouring rain.
Sunday started all foggy, and off I went to bag me some peaks… (which is another story).
The drive back after my epic trek was rather long, slow, and boring. I took some photos of a nice sunset somewhere along the 2East, and got back about midnight.
Excellent trip, the rest of the photos are here.
These three words pretty much sum up my High Peaks experience.
Having found a site that showed some trails, the peaks they scaled, and some approximate distances I decided that I’d have a go at walking over Gothics, Armstrong, and perhaps the Wolfjaws. The height of 4700ft didn’t sound like that much until I saw Whiteface Mtn near Lake Placid, at which point I realised it would be quite a hike.
With directions on how to get to the Ausable Club trailhead, I started bright and early at about 7am on Sunday. The first 4 or so miles was supposed to be rather uneventful, walking to the top of Lower Ausable Lake along a private road. A few miles down the road I was surprised to look up and see a bear looking at me. It was off the road, and looked curious rather than imposing. My first though was “phew! it’s not too big”, and my second thought was “oh shit, it’s not too big!”. Thankfully it appeared to be alone and I backed off and switched camera lenses. The bear went back to its foraging, and I sauntered past, taking a few pics as I went.
Having seen a bear in the first hour of my trip, I wondered how I could possibly top the experience, and whether the rest of the day would just be a lot of walking up hills. At the start of the real trail my question was answered by a mummy and baby deer. I surprised them, and was readying my camera since I wanted a shot before they ran off. How naive of me. Instead of fleeing, the mum came towards me… and I hastily continued up the trail. She crossed the trail behind me, and when I looked back again, she did a little charge towards me. This rather surprised and scared me so I again hastily carried on up the trail, with many furtive glances back to see that I wasn’t about to be… well whatever attacking deer do to curious hikers. I only got one photo, and it looks like trees and no deer unfortunately.
From there it was onwards and upwards, mostly upwards. The trails were again much more rugged that I’d expected, and I found myself scrambling up sheer rock and hanging onto trees many times throughout the day, thus completing the third part of my alliterative title. My first proper stop was the top of Gothics (here’s some ideas about naming the high peaks), where I hung out with John and a mouse for a while. I declined John’s offer to take a photo, and did a silly one myself…
At 4736ft, Gothics was the highest peak of the day, the rest was downhill (on average), but with some significant scrambling in places to get up Armstrong Mtn, and Upper and Lower Wolfjaws. Thus bagging me 4 out of a total 46 Adirondack high peaks (the high peaks are all over 4000ft). People who climb all 46 get to join a club and get a badge, or 10/10 and a Koala stamp as Philip Adams would say. Though it’s a bit hard to see, this photo looks back over the all the peaks I climbed, aside from the distant one at the far right, from the last one, Lower Wolfjaw.
I enjoyed the rest of the walk, though was getting sore knees by the end, and started singing to myself for fear that I’d come upon more large animals that took exception to my presence. I walked with a fellow from New York city for a while, grateful for some company, and got back to the car around 5pm, ten hours after I’d left it.
The rest of the photos are here. Along with a story about the rest of the Adirondacks trip, and associated photos.
