Bus bombs in Beer Sheva

So, you might have heard the news about the two buses in Beer Sheva that were bombed today. We're still making phone calls, but so far, no one we know was involved. I was (as usual) safely in front of my computer in Sede Boqer - about 40 minutes away. I'll fill in more details later today, as I hear more news. Thought I'd post here to get the word out quickly.

one rock

one rock
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This rock struck me. It was sitting alone on a pure white bedrock. So I thought I'd try a black and white photo.

gimpy gecko

gimpy gecko
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This guy has been around for over a year, with the bad leg and all. It is completely useless, and just hangs down wherever he goes.

Male Ibex

Male Ibex
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

Here's a closer (but blurrier) view of the little blobs I posted earlier.

Company

This week Berry showed up, well, he showed up on Thursday anyway. He has been away at a meeting in South Africa. Hopefully we'll start making some progress on things here next week. In the meantime, I got to haul rocks around. Yup, had to work on the cages for the lizards (Uromastyx aegyptius). They are realatively large (1 or 2 kg), like to be hot, and like to dig. We're fixing up an old aviary for them - it has pavers on the floor, so we should be safe from the digging. I'm told that their burrows can be 10m or more long. This from someone who spent several days digging out a burrow in very rocky soil. If you haven't dug around in a rocky desert, it's quite unpleasant. If you'd like to experience it, get yourself a pile of bricks, throw them in a parking lot, cover them with a bit of sand, and then go at them with a shovel. Oh, and it would probably be good to take some mirrors to reflect sunlight onto you to warm things up a bit. But I'm digressing here. Today I hauled rocks around to simulate burrows for the lizards. The good thing about being in a rocky desert with lots of construction going on is that there are plenty of blocks, pavers and rocks around for doing such things. Somehow, though, they all seemed to be a long way from where my cages are. After taking several 30kg loads from the nearest scrap pile (300m or so from the cages), I decided to call it a day. Maybe I'll build burrows tomorrow.

So, after being very excited about chasing the fan-toed gecko around the wadi last week, I found out that they are very common here in the midreshet. So common that one student here actually has a study site on the field school building. We went out one night last week and saw about 30 of them, including one with one completely useless leg. Apparently it had a close encounter with a bird early in life, but survived. Now it has one hind leg that just flops uselessly at its side. I have a photo that I'll post soon.

Um, not much else to report this week. I spent most of my time either staring at my computer screen, hoping that briliant prose would magically appear to replace the manuscript that I've been struggling to re-write, or watching olympics with a group of students from various African countries. The five of us seem to be the only ones here interested in watching the various track and field events. Got to say, those guys seem to know all the top athletes in all the running events, especially the ones from anywhere in Africa. And they seemed very interested in the medal count. I don't quite understand the fascination with the medal count, but it seems to get a lot of coverage here. There was a big cheer that could be heard throughout the campus when Israel won its first ever gold medal - in windsurfing. I have to say, living in the middle of the desert, it seems like windsurfing would be an unlikely event for someone from here to excel in, but hey, he got the gold. And there is certainly plenty of wind here.

fan-toed gecko

gecko
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is the star of the gecko chase story, and the last photo I took before my camera died. He led me on a rather comic chase for about 20 minutes or so. See that crevice? He liked going in there. See that 'rock' he's on? It had a consistency a bit like chalk. Every time I tried to grab this gecko, a cloud of pale powder would explode into the air, and then fall into my shoe.

Quiet week

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon... er... in Sede Boqer. Yup, that about sums it up. Quiet. I've managed to do most of the things I can do here without permits, and without the collaborators around. I've still got a bit of setup for lizard housing that I can do, but I've been procrastinating on that as it will probably involve a lot of digging.

In the meantime, I've been trying to make some progress on writing. Not writing on this thing obviously, but writing up papers from my research. I've got one that's been hanging over my head for over a year now. Actually, it's the revisions that have been hanging, the paper is about research from 1999. Got to get this on back onto someone else's desk. I will say that the quite atmosphere here (particularly when Berry and others are gone) is conducive to writing. On the other hand, the boredom of being in a very small place with not much to do, isn't.

I did manage a good walk in the wadi this weekend. That was fun. The walk into the wadi is nice, though it's a bit steep getting in and out. It's a couple hundred feet down (and up), and the path is not one for people afraid of heights. the bottom of the valley is nice and hot, and surprisingly humid. It is also very pale, which makes for a lot of reflected sun beating on you.

I saw a fair number of interesting critters, including a very cool gecko that seems to be pretty common around here. I have no idea what it is because I haven't managed to get my hands on the field guide to Israeli reptiles, and even when I do, it will be in hebrew. I'm pretty sure i saw 4 species, but maybe only 3. Catching the gecko was a comedy of errors. It posed for a photo, then dove into a crevice about head high on a crumbly rock face. I used a stick to convince it to come out, which started a comic run along the wall for about 30 feet, with me slapping at it the whole way. Every time I touched the wall, I was showered with white dust and rocks. At one point it ran right in front of my face and then disappeared - poof. I still don't know where it went, but it did show up again and I managed to catch it. that was when I realized that my camera had died. I couldn't even get it to retract it's lens. (it seems to have healed itself since yesterday though) So I got a good look at the little guy (yes it was a male), and let him go. There was another lizard just above him in another crevice, but there was no way to get to him. I tried climbing up and ended up mostly buried in a pile of dust and rocks. I don't recommend trying to climb out of this wadi.

there is a fair bit of vegetation in the wadi, but once you get out of the stream bed, there really isn't much of anything. it's really barren. and hard to walk on because it's just rocks. The soil is interesting - it's basically layers of clay loam and rocks. When you look at the banks of the wadi, they look like a wall of rocks held together by dust, and that's what they are. If you rub your hand against them, you get showered with a pile of rocks and dust. there are also a lot of ibex in amongst the vegetation. I saw a group of about 30 on this walk.


So, in case you're wondering about the project I'm doing while here, I'll do a quick summary. It's part of a big project on nutrient uptake in the intestines of vertebrates. The idea is to look at a lot of different species of birds, mammals (mostly bats and rodents) and reptiles (mostly lizards), and see how important a particular nutrient uptake pathway is. The paracellular pathway is a form of passive absorbtion of nutrients that hasn't been studied much. The idea is pretty simple. many nutrients are actively taken up by the gut by transport proteins on the intestinal surface. this takes energy, but can move nutrients and concentrate them inside the intestine tissues (as opposed to the lumen, which is the space in the tube). Then nutrients get passed out of the intestinal cells into the bloodstream and the fluid between the cells. This means that there is a concentration gradient, with high concentrations inside the tissue, and lower concentrations in the lumen. Water flows along this concentration gradient into the tissues, by going between cells (paracellular), and it drags small molecules with it. We're looking to see how much gets in by this pathway and what sized molecules can come in.

Okay, that's pretty technical, so I'll stop now. Maybe later I'll talk about how we go about doing all this.

Sede Boqer football field

Sede Boqer football field
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is the playing field for football, frisbee, etc. I don't think I'll ever complain about the Madison summer league fields again. At least they have grass for a few games. On the bright side, this field is quite flat...

Nubian ibex

Nubian ibex
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

The local youth gang, carefully chaperoned by Dad and his harem. These guys will eat just about anything that grows around here, and it shows. They're pretty good at getting around too - good enough that you want to make sure you're on a person trail when you go for a hike in these canyons.

My new apartment

S-B my apt
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is all the rage in modern desert dwelling.

Zin valley

Zin valley
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

This is the view from the edge of the Sede Boqer campus. There are some advantages to being in the middle of the desert.

Bank adventures

This week I had the joy of setting up a bank account in a place where I don't speak the language. This is not recommended. I went into the bank and found what looked like the part of the bank with people who could open an account. I indicated to the group of people waiting that I wanted to be in line, and we somehow worked out a queue, which was mostly ignored anyway. After about 20 min of waiting, a spot opened up, and there was much jostling for who got to talk to the woman behind the desk. Somehow she indicated to me that I needed to see the woman at the next desk over, so I returned to the 'queue'. After another 20 min of waiting, there was another discussion of who's turn it was, and the woman behind the desk indicated that I needed to see the woman in the next desk over. (are you sensing a pattern here?) After 20 min of discussion, I managed to jostle my way to the front, and the woman behind the desk smiled, said she didn't speak english, and pointed to the last desk in the row. Afte only 20 more minutes, and what seemed to be a civil discussion in 3 different languages about who was next, I finally asked about setting up an account.

This is where the language barrier really became key. Apparently, Israeli banks require that you sign each of 100 pages of contract before they will let you open an account. And they're in hebrew. i asked for english, and the woman said something, indicating that I should just sign. Then she answered her cell phone and disappeared for about 10 minutes. After that, and after I'd signed about 10 pages, she handed me another copy of the contract in english and threw out the hebrew one's I'd signed. Those of you who've had to deal with sending a gazillion thank you notes for wedding, or graduation, etc. will appreciate it when I say that after about 35 signatures, my hand hurt, and my signature started looking like it was written in hebrew, with bad handwriting. I haven't written that much by hand since I learned how to type in 7th grade, and all of it was my name. After all of this, I was asked to produce my passport, and another photo ID. Since I've been accumulating drivers licenses from different continents, this was not much of a problem, though she did look at me funny when I produced my UW Madison student ID, which has been falling apart since 1998 (pride wouldn't let me replace it until after graduating, and I've had no reason to since). She then told me to come back in 3 working days to get my checkbook and debit card.

So, after just under 2 hours, I had a bank account, and was able to take a number and wait in line to deposit my paycheck. This was surprisingly easy (except for endorsing it - my hand was still terminally cramped). When I asked for some cash (to pay for my bus ticket home), they said, "no. come back in 3 days." It's a good thing the UW credit union still likes me.

The next day, I got a phone call from the bank. They'd lost the copies of my ID's and could I please fax them another copy. And it would now be another 3 days before I could get any money, checks, or debit card. In the meantime, the folks who had let me have the nice new apartment were asking about rent. "3 days," I said. They were not nearly as cheerful about that as the bank tellers were.

I still don't know what the 35 pages of hebrew I signed were all about. I tried reading the english version and fell asleep (call it jetlag). If you don't have to, I'd really recommend not opening a bank account here.

Sede Boqer

After a bit over a week here, I thought I'd give some impressions of the "town" that I'm living in. I put it in quotes because there isn't really a town here - it's really more like a campus, where people live on campus. It's a bit hard to explain really. There is a university research center here, and there are a number of graduate students of various stages, but there are no undergrads, except the rare few who are involved in a research project. There are a number of departments here - ecology, social sciences ('man and the desert'), anthropology, hydrology, geology, architecture, and a few others. Each has a small building, with a seminar room, and offices. There is also a high school here, and a field school, though these seem quite small. I think there may be an elementary school here too, but I can't tell. There is also a kind of pre-army school for teens. My understanding of this thing is that it is for teens who are about to do their mandatory army service (at 18, all Israelis must spend 2 years in the army). Apparently this camp is set up to teach kids, many of whom are immigrants, what the army will be like, including learning various commands in hebrew. I hear them doing counting out pushups a couple times a day, and they are often seen along the road digging holes or filling them in.

There are probably a couple hundred people who live here. There is a small cafe, a small (and expensive) grocery store, a post office that is open a few days a week for a couple hours. That's about it. Oh, and a swimming pool.

So, it's a pretty sleepy little academic compound. It is located on the edge of a large area of relatively undeveloped desert, which is pretty rare here. The campus is on the edge of a deep canyon over a wadi (dry river). There is not a lot of vegetation there, except right in the wadi. It makes for a spectacular view from that side of the campus. I am living in the new student apartments, which just opened a couple of months ago. They are quite nice, but are located on the growing edge of the midrasha ('learning center'; what this campus is called). I am on the end of a row of apartments that are 2-story blocks of stone. the main building material here is stone, at least on the outside. They use a strange cement block to actually build the walls - it looks like a regular cement block, but has a lot more air in it. So what looks like a solid, 1x1x2 foot block, only weighs about 15 pounds. the idea is that all the air in the block makes for good insulation. It seems to work pretty well too. then they cover this with nice looking stones. (I'm still working on the photo thing, be patient). There are a lot of interesting architectural experiments here, some more successful than others. the windows all have metal shutters on them to keep out the sun during the hot times. Everyone has solar hot water, which may or may not work, depending on individual whim.

There is a fair amount of wildlife here, given that it is in the middle of a pretty dry part of the desert. There are a lot of ibex roaming around - they sort of like a cross between a deer and a goat, and can climb the most ridiculous cliffs. There are also a fair number of birds. Israel is famous as a migration corridor for birds, and bird fanatics descend on the area during spring. This time of year is good too, although the real concentration is about 40km away in the rift valley (where the dead sea is).

As I said, it's pretty dry here - they get about 100mm of rain per year. It is also relatively trashed habitat, by N. American standards. Most of the desert here has been overgrazed for a few thousand years, and in recent years, cars, bulldozers, and the odd tank have spend a lot of time around here. There are some relatively less disturbed places, but nothing is 'undisturbed'. It's still pretty though. And you do get to see Bedouin camel trains from time to time.

Sede Boqer is pretty isolated from the rest of the world, too. We are about a 50 min bus ride to the nearest town, Beer Sheva. That makes it a bit harder to make a midnight run for ice cream. Or to go to a movie for that matter. it is also relatively expensive to make that trip (21 new Israeli shekels each way - about 5 dollars). Actually, this is an expensive place to live in general. Food isn't cheap, rent wouldn't be cheap if it weren't subsidized by the university, gas is outrageous (not many oil producing countries will sell oil to Israel). Add in the low salaries, and things get pretty tight. I'm actually making less here than I did as a graduate student in Madison.

The social life here is pretty cozy, as you might imagine in such a small, isolated community. There are students from all parts of the globe, and english is spoken in a bewildering array of accents. The funny part about that is that the one student here from the UK is the least understood by the rest of the crowd because of his accent. So much for the empire. Folks get together on Friday night for dinner, and the students have a lounge where they show movies each weekend. Seems like a generally good group, and everyone seems to know that I'm the new ecologist.

Unfortunately, ultimate has fallen by the wayside in the last few years. Apparently there used to be a group that played here once a week, and also went to the nearby kibbutz once a week to play a big round of pickup (2 fields going at once, I hear). sadly, the field here has gone to dust, literally, and no one plays anymore. I'll have to figure out some other way to keep my belly on the right side of my belt, especially since my morning commute is about 2 minutes, on foot... if I take my time.

Israel - the first week

I've been here almost a week now (hard to believe), and here is a bit of a rundown of what's happened so far. When I arrived, I had the usual long wait at security. I was the lucky one picked out of the line on the tarmac between the airplane and the shuttle to the terminal. The first of what I expect to be many interviews with security.

the Israeli passport check is notorious, and for a reason. it takes a long time. they ask a lot of questions, and then they ask them again. It doesn't really matter what you say, they still ask a lot of questions. They seem well trained in doing that.

when I arrived at Sede Boqer, the fun started. My first trip was to see someone about housing. That was much more difficult than it needed to be. I had arranged by e-mail to have one of the new apartments. They decided that since I was going to be gone around New Years, I needed an old apartment, or at least a different one. After several trips back and forth between administrators, and putting a whole lot of BS in writing, I got the original apartment.

The new apartments are nice, though they do resemble a very affluent tomb at certain times of the day. they are all in stone (or stone composite of some sort), and have been carefully arranged to minimize some sort of sun exposure, or maximize something or other. they have very substantial metal rolling covers on all windows to keep out the sun during the day. the one I'm in is a two-story, single bedroom unit on the end of a row. (if I can figure out how to post photos on this thing, I will show you what it is like.). the downstairs has a studio living room/dining area/kitchen with a bathroom. Upstairs is the bedroom area, which is just big enough for a single bed, a built-in closet and room to walk to the balcony. On the landing of the stairs is a desk (with a nice, high-speed internet connection). Unfortunately, I am on the edge of the community, so my balcony view is of the construction of the new residential neighborhood.

The place is absolutely new - they had to bring some of the furniture in while I waited - and I'm the first to live here, which is nice. Actually, I quite like the place, though cooking with only a 2-burner hot plate (and a single pot, which I hope will change soon) will take some getting used to. The place is terminally dusty, which I suppose should not surprise me. There is an ever-present afternoon wind here, and because I'm on the edge of the neighborhood, I get the brunt of it. The windows are good, but the dust is fine enough that it gets in everywhere. I just hope it doesn't kill my computer.

So, on day 2 I went to Beer Sheva to arrange several things. I should mention that there is only a small grocery store in Sede Boqer and it is pretty expensive. There is also one little cafe, a post office that is only open a couple hours a day for about 4 days. In Beer Sheva, I wanted to set up a bank account, which isn't all that easy when you don't speak the language. There were 4 people behind desks that seemed like the place to set up an account. After waiting in each line in turn, I finally got to one person who could open an account and spoke a few words of english. she printed off about 35 pages of contracts in hebrew which I was supposed to sign. I have no idea what I signed. I probably pledged my life and a bazillion shekels to her first born. This process took about two hours, at the end of which I was allowed to deposit my first paycheck, but I was told that it would be 3 days before I could get (1) a checkbook, (2) a debit card, (3) any cash. I'm still waiting for those things.

If you haven't taken a public bus in Israel, you may have a skewed view of what it is like. They are usually full of soldiers. Apparently, there is not enough money in the government coffers to pay to transport troops back and forth across the country, so they take busses. They have priority on the busses. And they carry their weapons with them. That is one thing that still makes me do a double-take - seeing an average youngster carrying a military weapon around while, for example, getting an ice cream at the grocery store.

The next several days were pretty slow. It has been a bit of a challenge getting things going here because most of the people I will be working with are away until the end of next week. Makes for a slow start. I'm hoping to make some progress on writing and setting up some animal cages.

Journey beginnings - part 5: Europe

London was an expensive mess. Apparently there was some sort of terrorist threat there while we were trying to land, so they closed the whole bloody airport for 2 hours. We spend an hour circling before they let us land. then once we were on the ground, there were planes everywhere and nowhere to park them. So we spend another hour sitting in some corner of the airfield. When they finally let us off the plane, I spent 45 minutes wandering around in a maze of underground tunnels, hopping on a tube here and a tube there, trying to get to the shuttle. Around 11:00 pm I finally emerged into the open air, only to find that the last shuttles, busses and trains had already left. So I had to take a taxi to my 'airport hotel', which was apparently a mile outside the 'airport boundary'. That made the cab fare a standard £48! That's more than it would cost me to take a 2 hour cab ride halfway across the country once in Israel. So I missed the friend I was supposed to meet in London. And, since my flight left at 7:30am, I got to spend a grand total of 5 hours in the hotel, which also cost me £65. Argh.
The trip to Sweden was smooth, except that they lost 3 of my 4 bags. Actually, this worked out okay because they shipped them to my friend's parents' house down by Copenhagen a couple of days later. We spent a day in Uppsala (where my friend lives), a day in Stockholm, and a day near Båstad on the beach on an island national park (I have no idea of the name, but it was very nice). All in all a nice trip, though I think my enthusiasm was a bit subtle because of jetlag, and which I think resulted in the impression that I was bored, even though I had a great time.
Next I took the train to Copenhagen, dropped my pile of luggage at the airport and promptly got lost downtown. I spent the afternoon milling about in an amazing crowd on a crazy walking, shopping street downtown. I'm not sure if it was unusually full because it was Saturday, and the weather was beautiful, but it was completely jammed. I was most impressed with the number of bicycles around. Actually, I guess I was really impressed that there were roads for cars, roads for bikes, and roads for pedestrians. Seems entirely civilized to me.
On to Israel from there (by way of London, of course).

Journey beginnings - part 4: Washington

the next leg of my trip was to Washington DC. I haven't been there since I was in high school. It's still hot and humid, though not really as bad as Darwin. I spent some time with some friends from Madison and their terrible-two year old, who wasn't particularly terrible. As one who doesn't have kids, it has been interesting to see how parenthood has changed my friends. Some are predictable, some aren't. Most aren't surprising.
I'm still not sure whether I eventually want kids or not (I suspect that will depend a lot on the woman I end up with), but I do appreciate my friends staggering their own reproduction so I can see several years of the journey in a single trip across the country. All in all, it seems to be everything that people say, and I'll leave the details of what that means for you to figure out.

Another early morning departure and I was on my way over the Atlantic. I'd really appreciate a flight that took place entirely between the hours of 9am and 9pm... not going to happen anytime soon, though.

Journey beginnings - part 3: Madison

My visit to Madison started with the first major travel woes of the trip. I don't really like O'Hare any more. When I got there, I went on the obligatory long hike to my connecting flight, which was delayed by about 45 min (not that they told us that until well after the plane was supposed to have left. When they finally let us board, we sat around for another 15 min or so before the captain announced that the brakes didn't work and we were going to wait for a mechanic to come check them. A half hour later he told us that the airplane was broken and that there was another airplane waiting for us at a gate at the other end of the concourse.
Of course, when we arrived, there was no plane there. After about 20 min, a plane showed up, and someone came over the intercom saying that it was now out of service, and our flight had been cancelled. And the remaining flights to Madison were full, so we had to get on a shuttle - would we please go get our luggage and get on the bus.
The baggage claim was more of the same. Our luggage was not there. An hour later, after the shuttle had left, our luggage was still not there, and no one would tell us where it was, or even who knew where it was. Another hour later, after the security guards had been called in to contain the rather upset business flyers, our luggage finally showed up. I managed to hitch a ride with a couple of women who decided to rent a car and just drive to their ultimate location north of Madison, in exchange for giving them directions. Heck of a deal.
At one point during all this, i tried to call my ride home, to let her know that I was delayed. I tried a phone card, and was rejected. Then i tried coins, and those were rejected. finally, in the car on the way, I used a cell phone to arrange to meet my ride at the frisbee fields, as we both had games that night.
I and my large pile of luggage were dropped off at the frisbee fields, ready for a game. Fortunately, my game was a late one, so i had time to change and get warmed up before sleeping my way through the first game I'd played in almost 2 years. All in all, a good start to my stay in Madison, once I got there, that is.

While in Madison I stayed with Darwin and Jane, who I still haven't convinced to visit me in Darwin, Australia. I don't know why - I've been to Tracy, California. Actually, I haven't been able to convince anyone to visit me in Darwin at all. Or Israel, for that matter. Come on folks - where's your sense of adventure?

Well, to summarize 3 weeks of Madison in a few key phrases:

- 6 mile bike ride to school. perfect distance, especially on the bike trail and with pleasant company in the morning.
- learned how to draw blood from pigeons (easy)
- learned how to draw blood from the retro-orbital sinus of lizards (hard, especially without lizards). If you don't know what this is, it seems a bit gruesome, though is harmless. It involves putting a capillary tube into the eye socket, behind the eyeball. Even hardened physiologists get queazy at this one.
- 6 games of Madison Summer League frisbee on Snarf. good fun. go snarf!
- caught up with old friends. really good.
- saw a former girlfriend for the first time since breaking up - not so good. still too close to that one. I do wish you well, though
- bought my first cell phone. I'll admit that they are useful and convenient, but they are bloody annoying. especially since I'll have to buy another one in Israel.
- Accumulating more luggage, as if I didn't already have enough...

I'm sure I've missed some important points, but you don't really want to hear about all of that anyway. On the way out of Madison, I got delayed going through O'Hare. Big surprise.

Journey beginnings - part 2: Colorado

My time in Fort Collins was spent catching up with my Mom and Jose, several old friends, and Mexican food. Mom and Jose are doing fine - still trying to find the time to keep up with a middle-aged house. Somehow, once a house gets past a certain age, all the problems have been solved, and it seems to just accumulate years, without any major problems. Theirs hasn't quite made it there yet.

Most of my time in Fort Collins was spent trying to catch up with several friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, and in some cases who'd had big changes descend on their lives. One pair, who usually manage to flee to New Hampshire when they hear that I'm coming to town, had just had twin girls, after an epic battle trying to have kids. Now they are kept quite busy by "the big one and "the little one, both as cute as can be. True to form, the girls were starting early in creating sleepless nights for their parents by having nearly independent bouts of screaming till they turned a shocking shade of crimson. You'd think that having them unaffected by each other would make life easier, but in fact it results in nearly continuous mayhem. Needless to say, Mom and Dad looked very tired when I visited.

I caught up with another friend, who had managed to avoid my last trip by getting herself shipped out to Bagdad for 15 months. I was fascinated by her stories from inside the war. It was everything that war usually is - ugly, confusing, disorienting, gruesome, triumphant, loud, dirty, boring, exotic, etc. She left me with several vivid images, but the one that stuck was one that I could relate to personally, at least at some level - the fact that home changes in strangely subtle ways when you're gone for a long time.
It is a strange experience being away for a while, because when you return, things are just a little different when you return. You don't realize your own changes over time, and you don't know about how other things change at home. The result is something that feels like it should be comfortable, familiar, but isn't... quite. It would be easier to adjust to something quite different - that is the same as ending up in an entirely new place. But when you try to fit back into an old slot, it doesn't quite fit. It's a bit like shelving an old, comfortable pair of sneakers for a while. After breaking in the new ones, the old ones never quite fit the same as they used to. all in all, it's a surprisingly uncomfortable situation. things that should be familiar and comfortable aren't, relationships aren't quite what they used to be, new places arrive, old places fade. this feeling struck me several times on my journey across the US.

While in Colorado, I had a chance to hike in the mountains with an old girlfriend. That was nice, both to catch up, and for the hike. I miss mountains.

On the way out, I imposed on another friend to drive me to the airport at some ridiculous hour of the morning. awkward flight times seem to be the theme for this trip.

Journey beginnings - part 1

My travels started on July 4 at 1:30am. Not really an ideal time to start a long trip, but that's when flight's leave Darwin. I think I managed to sleep for part of the flight to Sydney. I had a 3 hour layover in Sydney - too long to be comfortable, but not bad - then started the 12 1/2 hour flight to LA. Somehow, I managed to get on a flight that had exactly zero good movies to watch.

At first, it looked like I would have an entire row of seats to myself, which was surprising because the flight was actually pretty full. Then a flight attendant moved someone into my row. So much for that. Actually this turned out okay, the woman sitting next to me was friendly and interesting, and seemed to fall asleep at about the same time I did, which wasn't much or often enough. Turns out she is from Mexico City and had been in Australia doing missionary work though a group called CharacterFirst. My understanding is that the group emphasizes 'strength of character' building workshops (integrity, honesty, self-image building, etc.). Anyway, we had a good conversation, and exchanged business cards at the end of the flight.

Surprisingly, there were no real delays going through customs in LA, which meant that I had a full 6 hours to enjoy the hospitality of LAX. That's about 5 1/2 hours longer than LAX hospitality is designed for. I was asleep before my flight to Denver had left the gate, and didn't wake up until the plane made a rather bumpy landing.

I made it to Fort Collins by around 6:00pm on July 4, approximately 36 hours after leaving Darwin on July 4. Strangely, I didn't feel any younger for getting an extra day back when I crossed the international date line.