Puppy Therapy!!!

The Atlantis

If you'll recall from an earlier post, I had just driven back from Flagstaff, AZ and arrived in San Diego to help Shannon offload some science gear from the research vessel (R/V) Atlantis. She had been at sea several months earlier, doing research at the hydrothermal vents of the East Pacific Rise at 9 degrees North of the equator. Often in oceanographic work, you can't take all the gear you need with you, so you end up shipping it to the R/V ahead of your arrival. Then you unpack and assemble it once you're aboard. But then what to do when you disembark? Usually, you pack it back up and leave it on the ship. Then, when the ship puts into a suitable harbor, you either arrange for them to send you the crates, or you meet the ship and offload the gear yourself. Since both Shannon and the Atlantis were in San Diego, she opted for the latter.

Shannon's husband, Gavin, works on the Atlantis as part of the Deep Sea Operations Group - he's a pilot for the manned deep submergence vehicle, Alvin. They're quite a husband-wife team! Anyway, we met them at the ship to offload the stuff and have a look around. Pie Girl has only seen photos of this stuff, but I spent 28 days at sea in 2002 on a research cruise similar to the one Shannon completed a few months ago. It was fun to see it all again. Ah, memories.

Hey baby. Did you miss me?

View of San Diego Harbor from the 3rd level deck.

Here is a stock photo of Alvin and the Atlantis, its mother ship.

The orange bit is called the sail, and it leads to a 6' diameter sphere that houses the three crew: one pilot and two science complement.


This diagram is inaccurate in that a normal human can't really stand up inside the sphere. The positions adopted by the other two guys are pretty close to reality. Anyway, most of the rest of the space inside Alvin is consumed by batteries, ballast, electronics and hydraulics. Here are some additional specs on Alvin for those of you interested in building a duplicate in your basement.

Here we are inside the sphere, looking up through the sail hatch.

Here I am, assuming the role of pilot. Fire torpedoes!

Alvin has been involved in many exciting missions, from the discovery of life at hydrothermal vents to the exploration of the Titanic wreck. Alvin, the Atlantis, and their crews, have also been featured in a 1999 PBS Nova special and an IMAX movie. I'm just a soil scientist from the 2nd smallest state in the Union. So I feel very privileged, indeed, to have had the opportunity to work aboard the Atlantis with the dedicated people who make this type of research possible.

We accomplished our mission and transported Shannon's gear safely to the lab. After that it was Miller Time! It had been a long day for yours truly, and I was looking forward to a hot shower, a cold brew, and my own bed. All in a day's work for your friendly neighborhood Dirt Doc.

Do you need help little man?

I'm sorry, but this is the funniest thing I have seen in a really long time.

Trip to Arizona

I have been updating the blog quite a bit, but I don't want you to get the impression like I am giving you our activities in real time... a lot of this stuff happened weeks ago and we are just getting round to putting it up. A friend just asked me today, "Where do you get time to go to Julian and do all this stuff AND blog about it in between work?" The simple answer is that I don't work. But the nuanced answer is that the stuff you see here on the blog is pretty spread out over time - and the interstices between blog entries is pretty much filled with your normal everyday activities. Digging up tubers. Shinnying up palm trees to gather coconuts. Laying in the hammock. You know, much like your own life.

But this latest post is pretty close to recent, April 28/29. I took a drive through the desert to Flagstaff AZ to visit my old friend Matt. It's a 7 to 8 hour haul, but long drives never bothered me much. I took I-8 most of the way, which runs out of the city, through the Laguna mountains, and then drops you down into the desert. The worst part of the drive is getting through Phoenix, but then it's a clear shot, about 3 hours to Flag.

We chilled at Matt's place the first night and I relaxed from the drive over burgers and beer. The next day we got a fairly early start, laying in provisions and making the drive up to Page, AZ. Page is right next to the Utah border, and the Glen Canyon Dam that forms Lake Powell. Basically, Glen Canyon used to be a dry canyon (and was breathtaking by all accounts). Then someone got the bright idea of diverting the Colorado river to fill the canyon and setting up a hydroelectric dam at the far end. So they flooded the canyon. We'll never get to see what it looked like in those antedeluvian days, but as a lake it's still pretty scenic.

We pitched our tents right on the shore of the lake (which would have been the edge of a mesa if it were still a canyon).

Views of the lake:

Meanwhile, back at camp...

Matt spent about a half hour gathering stones to make our firepit. A true outdoorsnerd. And he's available, ladies.

Our enjoyment of the surroundings was dampened by these two ass-hats who rolled in after dark. They camped right on top of us and proceeded to crank the boom box. Why is it that people take all this needless junk with them when they camp? Are they trying to assert their dominance over nature by playing crappy music in the middle of nowhere? At first I took small solace in the fact that they were at least playing some Zepplin... until jackass #1 started dropping all of his arcane Led Zepplin knowledge on jackass #2. There is nothing the world need less than classsic rock scholars. I missed this little tidbit, but apparently Matt overheard one of them proclaiming that he was glad to be here: he just had to get away from people. Irony!

The next morning, we caught sunrise on the lake.

OH GOD MY EYES! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!!!

After a leisurely breakfast, we went to obtain a pass to hike into a slot canyon called Water Holes, located nearby. This canyon is on Navajo lands, so we needed to get permission to go in.

Hiking down into the canyon. Matt is indicating the wind direction so I can stay up-wind of his horrible farts.

At the canyon floor.


One of the canyon denizens.

We started climbing through this narrow branch...

And ended up back on top of the mesa.

Back down in the canyon.

We also found out why this canyon was called "Water Holes." As we progressed along its length, we were presented with increasingly challenging obstacles, water-filled depressions, to scramble over.

Matt pauses to drop a deucer in the hole. But not really.

Soon after the hike, we loaded up and drove back to Flagstaff. That evening we had an awesome Mexican dinner and then saw the movie Hot Fuzz. Good stuff! Then I tried to get some sleep - I would need to wake up early the next morning and get on the road by 6:00 for the drive back to SD. I promised Shannon I would help unload some science equipment from a research vessel docked in the harbor (the Atlantis) and I like to keep my promises.

I got up and underway without any problems. You may recall from a previous post that Phoenix is home to the closest Dunkin Donuts. This fact did not escape my notice, and I made a detour into town specifically to pick up a box for Pie Girl. It cost me dearly in terms of time and sanity - Phoenix is a godforsaken wasteland full of traffic - but I got the goods.


I arrived back in SD around 2:00 and we met Shannon and Gavin at the harbor - but that is a story for another post. This one is already long enough!

EKTORP

When we moved to SD, it was a great opportunity to get rid of all the hand me down, medium density fiberboard, cinder-block-and-2X4 furniture we had been carting around since undergrad. And so we did. As a result, we had very little in the way of home furnishings when we arrived here - but not to fear! Pie Girl soon made up for that with repeated trips to the local IKEA and our home is now more like a model showroom in one of the stores than an actual dwelling for human beings.

Among these furnishings is the cheapest couch known to man: the Ektorp. Many thought that the $500 barrier would never be broken for a three-person couch. But they should have known better than to use the word "can't" around Swedish furniture designers. In spite of its highly economical price, the Ektorp is reasonably well built and comfortable. It also has a companion chair, by the same name, designed to go with it. We did not buy said chair when we bought the couch. Needless to say, the couch just sort of moped around our house since we brought it home. We got the ottoman, which was some consolation - but Ektorp couch was not to be consoled.

Being addicted to Craigslist, Pie Girl found an Ektorp chair in good shape, not too far from us: in Temecula. The couch sat up in anticipation - would the triumvirate of couch, chair and ottoman be reunited at last? We cleaned out the car, made some measurements to ensure the chair would fit, and headed up to Temecula. We found our way without any troubles and easily loaded the chair into Grover, our trusty CR-V. Afterwards, we checked out a little of downtown Temecula, which seemed to be made up of a repeating chain of antique stores, souvenir shops, and wine outlets. We went to the local farmer's market and enjoyed the people-watching it offered, as well as all the free samples of fruits, cheeses, confections, and drinks. Afterwards, we headed east to see Palomar Mountain, which was only a few miles away.


Since there is no good way to convey what the road up the mountain was really like, you'll have to settle for how the road looked as projected on the GPS system:


Can't wait to come back here on the bike! As we make our way closer to the top, the fog just closes in around us and the ground is covered with snow.




I left my gimp suit at home, so, having no chains, we had to turn around at this point. We backtracked a few miles to a crossroads we had passed, and a restaurant called Mother's Kitchen. Pie Girl was reluctant to check it out, "It sounds like a place where everything comes with gravy." But I insisted. It turned out that it was a vegan paradise! Pie Girl enjoyed a grilled cheese while I had some veggie chili. Our bellies full, we set out looking for a way back down the mountain that would be less tortuous. By heading further east and then south, we would find just such a route - and it would take us past San Ysabel which has a Julian Pie Co.

Coming down out of the fog.

The view east of Palomar.

Ahhhh.... Ektorp.

Did I mention that our route home took us past a Julian Pie Co.?

We finally arrived back home and, after washing the slip cover and cushion covers, the Ektorp trio was happily reunited. Happiness and harmony reign supreme!

The Search for Donuts

Pie Girl and myself like to live the healthy, crunchy lifestyle: organic veggies, tofu, free range eggs, twigs, jute twine... however, we do have our kryptonite. Obviously, pie is one form. But pie usually contains fruit (in our case organic fruit) which makes it marginally nutritious. Also, as Bill Cosby would agree, the crust contains wheat and eggs (and also butter and sugar, but whatever). Another form of kryptonite for us is DONUTS. Note the lack of any "ough" in this, the correct spelling.

The nearest Dunkin Donuts is 355 miles away in Phoenix, AZ.

Total Est. Time: 5 hours, 22 minutesTotal Est. Distance: 355.11 miles

And while I do appreciate the fact that giant chains seem to have less of a presence here, at least in the SD area, Dunkin has a special place in our hearts. We found out about a local chain called Sunny Donuts which was supposed to be a local buyout of what would have been Dunkin outlets... Interest piqued (and pancreas cramping in anticipation of all the insulin it would soon be producing) we set out to find a Sunny Donuts.

We recently found a kindred spirit here in SD: Rich Clavin. Besides having awesome hair, Rich is a Honda mechanic and CR-V owner, rides motorcycles, and loves donuts! It was destiny. Rich also grew up in New Hampshire (among other places) and also understood our cultish dedication to the pink and orange. Naturally, he wanted in on this plan, and we were all too willing to oblige.

At the helm of his CR-V, Rich bites his nails in anticipation of sweet goodness.

Sure enough, we find a Sunny Donuts a few miles north of SD. But would they live up to Dunkin standards??

The promise of fried dough, 24 hours a day

Once inside, the offerings look promising - all of the usual Dunkin varieties, even the fonts are identical!

Pie Girl weighs her options. Oh, come on, we all know you want the vanilla kreme!

Having obtained our goodies, we rushed back to the comfort of our Fortress of Solitude to enjoy the sugar rush of our sweet, sweet vice. Later, as we struggled to fall asleep well after 2 am, we vowed that next time we would go in the MORNING. All told, Sunny Donuts were pretty close, but not quite the real deal. Not quite...