I have the very good fortune to have spent the formative summers of my childhood and youth at almost precisely the midpoint of the Pacific Crest Trail. That would be in the Warner Valley, the southern gateway into Lassen National Park in California. In 1964 my parents rented an acre of land (sic! We were able to buy that ground a decade or so later) bordered on two sides by the park.
Three or four miles up the road (mostly dirt) from our place there’s the Warner Valley Campground. The PCT cuts through it, heading a half a mile’s walk pretty straight up to the top of Flatiron Ridge and cutting through the park just east of Lassen Peak itself.
That’s the view from where the PCT cuts through Lower Kings Creek Meadow just before it hits the main park road.
It’s glorious country, and I’ve walked pretty much all of the trail in the park, and odds and ends in the Sierra. But ever since I first heard of through hikers walking from Mexico to Canada, I’ve been intrigued, and over the years I’ve met plenty of people who stop for a swim and beer and a cooked meal at the little dude ranch just past the campground–kind of a ritual celebration for making it (just past) the half way point.
I’ve chatted with some of the geezers among those folks, and have toyed with the idea of trying the hike myself in retirement. That said, I haven’t backpacked seriously since my 20s, and I’m aware of my limitations. What I really hope to do is hit several of the most wonderful sections of the trail in roughly week long jaunts, and see where I go from there–and I’ll need to find a hiking buddy as neither my spouse nor son have shown any interest in more than day hikes.
All that’s by way of preamble for this outburst of glorious madness:
In June 2019, hiker Rue McKenrick left his home in Bend, Oregon, and headed into the Three Sisters Wilderness to then walk south along the Pacific Crest Trail. When he hit the end of the Sierras, he turned east, walking across the Mojave Desert in California through Death Valley. He’s kept walking and, in the last year, has averaged 20 to 30 miles a day, notching more than 8,000 miles total.
20 to 30 miles a day, most days, for more than a year, with, I’m guessing, 20 or 30 kilos on his back, across terrain that includes freaking Death Valley and the mountains around it? I couldn’t do that in my teens, and it ain’t going to happen in my seventh or eighth decade. Just no.
But wait.
There’s more. This odyssey is in service of a larger goal:
But McKenrick isn’t on a casual cross-country hike: He’s scouting and mapping the American Perimeter Trail, informally considered the newest and longest hiking route in the country. Conveniently, he also created it…
[The project came to him] after through-hiking the “Triple Crown” of the Appalachian (2,190 miles), Pacific Crest (2,650 miles), and Continental Divide (3,100 miles) Trails. When he couldn’t find any other similar long trails to hike, he sketched out one that connected the Pacific Crest Trail to the Appalachian Trail via the states in between, and the 12,000-mile American Perimeter Trail was born.
I love the idea. I love the fact that I’ll get to read tales and see photographs of stronger and/or more driven folks than I chasing sunsets through a hike that will hold them for years. I love travel. I love the high country. I love the quiet and–especially in times like the ones we’re living through now–I require the solace that connection to a world vastly larger than and indifferent to my own sorry self brings with it. And yeah, I’ll hold your coat while you put 12,000 miles beneath your boots.
So: what bucket list goals do you have–and what ones will you enjoy vicariously?
Open thread.
Proudgradofcatladyacademy
Hike the Superior hiking trail in one long haul. Set up as a legacy A U.S. based medic group like Free Burma Rangers, maybe without the God spam, but the basic principles.
joel hanes
email [my first name]554 at comcast dot net
and I’ll send you directions to a good place in the Sierra to get back into backpacking
Pretty good trail, not marked on most hiking guide maps, good water all the way,
immediately beautiful, and you’re in real wilderness within two miles or so.
None of the grades are heinous — we took my so there when I was 42 and he was 5,
and he walked a good part of the trail himself.
Bishop Bag
I did the Pacific Crest Trail in 1982. Lots of snow until we came down to the Columbia River from Mt. Hood. I lost 50 pounds and was in the best shape of my life doing the trail.
Baud
Here’s a trail map.
https://americanperimetertrailproject.weebly.com/
Yutsano
One of mine is different: one Christmas in Europe. Obviously not this one, but since it looks like Europe isn’t going anywhere (hopefully, there is that 76 day gap in there) maybe next year. Or for my 50th birthday so I can hang out with friends and go to different places and such.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Speaking of email, did you get mine yesterday?
Van Buren
I would like to sail to Europe some late spring, spend a few months roaming around, and sail back in the fall.
I think the window has closed for me on long distance backpacking, I feel great after doing 10 miles, but the next day my knees ache. Plus, the thought of sleeping on the ground is no longer no big deal, as it was in my youth.
Louise B.
I’ve done plenty of backpacking, but never aspired to hike the full PCT. Some beautiful spots, but too much walking in buggy woods, especially as you go north. I’m with you, Tom. Weekly jaunts are the way to go.
We took a day hike on the PCT last summer – early August – just south of Ashland, Oregon, and picked up a pair of through hikers and drove them into Ashland for a few days of rest. They were struggling with blistered and bloody feet, a result of having picked up new boots a few days before. (Apparently, through hikers go through five or six pair of boots during the hike from Mexico to Canada.) They had had some very interesting adventures. We had a cold, wet Autumn last year, and I think they probably abandoned the hike somewhere in Central Washington.
Gin & Tonic
For years I had a bucket list item to build a kayak. A few years ago I had the good fortune to do that. I’ve now been thinking of bicycling across the country. I am planning to retire in first quarter of next year, so I’ll be riding more (assuming no major health issues) but probably not enough to do this next year, but maybe the year after. At any rate, before I’m 70.
Kent
I’ve done a lot of backpacking, but I can’t contemplate being on any trail for more than about a week’s time.
My own bucket list (which I share with my wife) is to buy a cruising yacht and explore the Inside Passage from Puget Sound to Glacier Bay and points inbetween like Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). fishing, crabbing, clamming, and collecting seaweed for our meals along the way.
But that means we gotta save more money and get the kids through college first. I lived in Alaska for a decade and owned a series of boats up there and worked on fishing and research vessels in Alaska for a portion of my life. But I’ve never done the Inside Passage.
After that there is the Great Circle Loop which is the boaters version of the Pacific Crest Trail where you boat down the Atlantic Coast along the intercoastal, up the Mississippi, through various rivers and canals until you get to Lake Michigan and then pass out through the St. Lawrence back to the Atlantic
My next backpacking trip I wanna do is one of the Llama packing tours that they do in the Wallowa Mountains in NE Oregon where you hike a circle route in the mountains accompanied by llamas who pack your supplies. And the outfitters have nice comfortable spreads laid out at each campsite so you can eat and sleep in semi-luxury (by backpacking standards). I can appreciate actual normal backpacking, but none of my daughters or wife want anything to do with it.
debbie
@Baud:
I’m surprised he doesn’t hike closer to the East Coast. I gather that’s the Appalachian Trail he’s using.
Ruckus
Stopped in Lassen National once.
Beautiful place. Very quiet and mostly deserted when there. I’d like to go back some day and see how much it’s changed, if at all. Planning to look around when I retire and move back up north.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
One bucket list item is to see the northern lights. I’d have to talk the wife into going to Scandinavia in winter and deal with the cold and dark.
And the other pole is on my list too: I want to go to Antarctica.
prostratedragon
Even a rail trip would be a challenge to me because of respiratory issues, but I’d like to make long rail trips. The first would be the Empire Builder to Seattle, with a stop of several days in Glacier National Park. If I could do one per year, then I’d also include a trip to/through the Canadian Rockies and another on the California Zephyr, which I rode out to Denver years and years ago. If I could both stop in Denver again and tool about the Bay Area for several days (I have some family there), that would be fun.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Me too.
nalbar
I was just starting the journey to fulfill the only thing on my bucket list when the virus closures hit and everything shut down in March. It’s to do the Catalina Channel crossing in a 6 man out rigger canoe. Training and couching had started for the 2020 racing season, then canceled. It might be gone for a long time, there is no way to do it safely with COVID out there. The crossing was scheduled for Sept 13. The Ladies would have crossed from Newport Beach to Avalon on Sat, the Men teams bring the boats back Sunday.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
Maybe not.
Last email I have from you that I did not answer says that yeah, Aerons are great.
Resend?
joel hanes
@Baud:
That one’s really hard to plan.
prostratedragon
@Louise B.:
Apparently, through hikers go through five or six pair of boots during the hike from Mexico to Canada.
Wow. I guess I’m not surprised after thinking about it. So, what: break in several pairs before hand, take a couple and have more mailed to re-provisioning sites en route?
Ruckus
@Van Buren:
Don’t wait too late in the year to sail back.
Destroyer I was on left the very north Atlantic at the end of November one year, down to the Azores for fuel, due to a storm we ended up almost at the Saint Lawrence before we could turn back south to Charleston. Days of high seas with green water breaking over the bridge. Amazing to go up to the bridge and see the waves and what it actually looked like going up and down 24 hrs a day over what it felt like.
joel hanes
@Ruckus:
Lassen’s nice. I’m a little afraid to go back because there’ve been so many big fires up that way. Back in 1990, I hiked up to the summit in the afternoon, when most everyone else was headed down, was alone in the crater for almost an hour, and then descended during sunset. As close to a religious experience as I’m ever likely to have.
Redshift
I’ve always hated the bucket list concept; I’m quite capable of having “things I’ve always wanted to do” without “before you die.”
Off the top of my head, Egypt, a round the world trip, New Zealand, visit Pompeii for longer than a half-day student tour, and as long as I’m dreaming, visiting the International Space Station.
Redshift
@Baud: Oh, yeah, that too. There’s a hotel in Finland where the rooms have glass domes so you can watch the Northern Lights from the comfort of your room. Want!
piratedan
waaaaay tooo much hiking and too little bucket list so far in this thread…
so for right now, my bucket list, politically speaking, is to outlive the likes of Donald J Trump, Mitch McConnell, Attorney General Barr, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and piss on their interred remains.
I consider it the Fuck You tour of dreams….
Louise B.
@prostratedragon: Yes, that’s exactly what they do, except that these hikers didn’t do the “breaking in” part, so they were brand new boots. Ouch.
tom
Two items at the top of my list are the Orkney Islands, and a return trip to Iceland.
OT: I’m about 1/3 of the way through Money For Nothing, and thoroughly enjoying it. Extremely informative, very engaging.
A Ghost to Most
We’re hoping the political situation moderates in the next couple of years, so we can pull the string on a move to Ouray County, CO (near Telluride). Then we will spend our summers banging around the San Juan Mtns, with occasional trips to Moab and SW Utah.
Just One More Canuck
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: There’s a lot of places in Canada you can see them – Jasper National Park, Mont Tremblant are two good places where you can see them pretty consistently
orsonk
Really appreciate what you’ve said here. As a fellow hiker, but with very short hikes as my norm these days, I remember the couple of times I went to the top of Lassen (along with many folks — very popular hike). And what that hiker is doing is amazing!
I remember this one place I could stand at the top of Lassen, kind of hugging a rock jutting up vertically in a way that made me the tallest thing for — it seemed — hundreds of miles around. Lots of folks did this, and it was cool to be able to stand there for a few seconds as a sort-of human mountain peak.
Van Buren
@nalbar: Yeah, I did a lot of couching in the 2020 season.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: I sent you a preview of the post for you to review. Did you not get it?
Sent 1:35pm central time. YESTERDAY.
prostratedragon
@joel hanes:
Only if you’re in southern Michigan, kind of near Ann Arbor.
I recall one February night well into a rather hard winter about six of us piled into a car so old it was amazing that it still drove, and rode out to where a city road turned rural to try to see them, as the astrophysicist in the group had heard they should be visible at our latitude. As our eyes dark-adapted, we realized that we were seeing the lights of Chelsea off in the horizon.
I put the whole thing up to a mass case of cabin fever.
Since then, “going to see the Northern Lights” has been code in some circles for wild goose chase program activities.
Steeplejack
@Van Buren:
?
RaflW
A family friend is the PCT North Cascades unit something. I know he works for the Pacific Coast Trail Association. His wife is the connection, and we’ve met him a few times – he’s a great guy.
He has, of course, done the whole shebang. The not-yet-wife-then and he apparently hiked the entire south and north islands of New Zealand a year or two before getting married (well, she bowed out of some parts due to not being quite as obsessive and sturdy as he, but anyway – they are into it.)
I can barely be bothered any more to go car camping where I have to wheelbarrow in my stuff about 300 yards and set up my glamp for the week (though once I do, I love the particular spot in the Finland State Forest. I’ve gone most every year since 1995).
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I applied for duty in Antartica when I was in the navy. I had to reenlist for 6 yrs to even apply and might not have gotten to go, so I declined.
Van Buren
@Ruckus: Sometime in the mid 50s, my father rode out a hurricane in a minesweeper, and I have the distinct impression that that was the least enjoyable experience of his 30 years in the USN
divF
The last time Madame divF and I took a long (two-week) vacation was 1992, when we went to Paris to celebrate her finishing medical residency. We stayed at the Lenox Hotel (now gone, alas) in the 6th arrondissement, had morning coffee every day at the Cafe de Flore with a friend who was a visiting professor that spring at the College de France, and otherwise spent our days hanging out in museums and reading MFK Fisher. After I retired last year the plan was to go Paris for the same kind of vacation, but COVID has pre-empted that. We still hold out hope…
Another trip we would like to take is in the northern tier in Europe (Scandinavia, Ireland, the UK). There is a regular car ferry that runs once a week from Copenhagen to Iceland, that looks like an attractive option.
Another Scott
My grandfather and grandmother took their airedale terrier on a road trip to Fairbanks starting from Delaware sometime in the early ’60s, I think. A trip up there has been on my list for a long, long time. Some colleagues have taken cruises up there and have recommended it, but we’re not really sea people. My dad and step mom went up there and did a bunch of things on a vacation (we heard the stories about the bulletproof windows on the trains…) and really enjoyed it. Of course, it’s huge and the “season” is kinda short so it’s kinda impossible to see everything in one trip. Too many choices!
A colleague went to Iceland to see the northern lights last year. He raved about that trip, so that might be another place to consider for those who have that on their list.
Cheers,
Scott.
Poe Larity
Have sectioned hiked parts of the JMT – not well documented but if you want to get into Yosemite in August, Thru Hikers are exempt from the permit counts. But you have to have the right paperwork.
First hike up Lassen, slid down the snow on my ass back to the parking lot. Apparently the kids bring snowboards now.
Shasta was dry last week, save small parts of the north slope.
NotMax
Reminded in some ways of Matt Green.
And his predecessor, who succumbed to COVID-19 this spring.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rome, New Zealand, an African safari, Vietnam and Cambodia
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus: I don’t think Lassen has changed much. They shut down the Alpine ski park about 25 years ago. But Mineral, CA is still tiny. No big resorts or such have sprung up.
Steeplejack
Monterey Pop coming up on TCM at 8:00 EDT, followed by the director’s cut of Woodstock at 9:30. Dessert: A Hard Day’s Night at 1:30 a.m.
NotMax
@Reshift
Doesn’t occur very often but saw the Northern Lights in the night sky over the Poconos, once.
West of the Rockies
@Redshift:
I’d love to summer in Santorini and/or Tuscany.
Edit: Why, no, watching the 1982 blockbuster// Summer Lovers with Daryl Hannah has nothing to do with it.
JMG
@Yutsano: Do Christmas in Alsace! Makes Christmas in Manhattan look like Christmas in Kabul. There’s a town named Riquewehr which was used as the model for the village in the animated Beauty and the Beast. So beautiful. Also, much wine.
Mr. Kite
I want to go see wild elephants. I’ve been following Sheldrick Wildlife on Twitter. Their operation rescues and hand raises orphaned baby elephants and others. They are introduced back into the wild. Apparently many of them come back to visit and show off their own calves after living in the wild. I want to hang out there for at least a week.
Redshift
@Ruckus: A friend of mine spent a season in Antarctica as part of a research team. He has lots of great stories about crazy Russians and stuff. It’s probably the only place I would consider taking a cruise to.
dm
I’m pretty lazy.
The 88 temples of Shikoku: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikoku_Pilgrimage
Climbing Mt Fuji to see the sunrise from the top.
Ruckus
@Van Buren:
Out of 300 there were 5 or 6 of us who didn’t get seasick. The looks I got up on the bridge taking pictures or on the mess deck eating were priceless.
And that always reminds me of the moron who did his tour and 2 weeks later reenlisted. He would get sick when the lines were untied from the dock. It takes all kinds.
Minesweepers. Good duty on a small ship but those things are tiny compared to even a DDG. Can not imagine what being on one of them in that storm would be like. Maybe a cork in a paint shaker.
We had to tow a DE for a bit till we met up with an ocean going tug that would take it to harbor for whatever it was that was broken. We were a twin screw, 450 ft ship, a DE was a single screw about 400 ft. An unpowered ship wallows in the water rather badly while being towed. It looked very uncomfortable.
Another Scott
@dm: I’ve been to Japan a couple of times for conferences (mostly around Tokyo/Nara). An amazing place.
Fuji is apparently almost always shrouded in clouds. Plan carefully! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
No.
Please resend with unique subject line; everything I have to/from you uses “from water girl ?would you be willing to ”
But I suspect that my fershlugginer ISP is probably suppressing it somehow. I’ve checked my spam folder and don’t see it.
Probably best to assume that I’ll approve whatever you’ve done and go ahead.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: When I sent the one I am talking about, it was with a new title, something like “for your review”.
Forgot to say that I sent it YESTERDAY at 1:35pm, not today.
re-sending now.
Scout211
@Van Buren:
Mr. Scout211 was in Vietnam on a minesweeper in the late 60s. His current focus in retirement is volunteering and serving on the board for a restoration project of the USS Lucid MSO 458 In Stockton CA. They are also trying to build a Historical museum for mine surface warfare and developing an oral history of sailors who were on minesweepers. Your dad may be interested in checking out their website and Facebook. If he could tell his story, they would definitely be interested. He could also tour the ship and see the restoration.
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
I checked one item off my list a few years back — rode around western Norway for a couple of weeks on a solo motorcycle trip. Didn’t see the northern lights, though, so I still have that to do.
I’d like to visit Nosalin, Poland — a number of my ancestors came from the area.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Looks like I sent the message yesterday from my personal email account, rather than watergirl. Same with the forward I sent a minute ago. Now I have also forwarded from watergirl account, so you should get two.
dm
Also, watching the aurora borealis from the public pool in Hofsos, Iceland in mid Winter:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g3226251-d4371656-Reviews-Thermal_bath_Hofsos_Iceland-Hofsos_Northwest_Region.html
joel hanes
@prostratedragon:
Summer 1971 we were wilderness canoeing in western Ontario, about 80 miles NE of Sioux Lookout, which was then the end of the road. Laying on our backs on a sloping rock, the campfire died down to embers, and the sky turned so clear one almost felt one had to hang on to the earth lest one fall off into the void. An hour later, a little ball of glowing green to the NE, that broadened into a waving curtain, and then a second curtain almost right overhead, horizon to horizon, then a red curtain above and between. We stayed up for hours, watching. Utter silence, except for an occasional loon far away.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
I may have inadvertently purged, then; I’m deleting over 300 fundraising emails each day.
Delk
I’m celebrating 35 years! I’ve posted before about testing HIV+ when I was 23 and the doctor said I had 18 months at best. Never thought I’d see my 25th birthday.
Today I turned 58. Happy Labor Day!
Origuy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: If you ever end up doing this and decide to go to Whitehorse, Yukon, I can recommend a really good AirBnB. Whitehorse is in the shadow of mountains to the west, so has better weather than some places.
Jay
https://mockpaperscissors.com/2020/09/07/louis-dejoy-one-man-crime-wave/
Van Buren
@Ruckus: I have no doubt I would be one of the seasick ones.
My dad was a few years out of OCS and was the only officer who could stay on the bridge. After that the skipper let him handle all navigation and shiphandling.
And he was a farm boy from Wisconsin.
MagdaInBlack
@joel hanes:
In the mid 60’s, my fathers summer vacation was to drive as far north in Canada as he could, and camp. One summer found us on the shores of Lake Nemeiben, Sask, northw of LaRonge. I remember the northern lights, over the lake, and it being so quiet you could hear them hiss.
Also Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, same thing.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
First time in Antwerp an elder gentleman came on board one Sunday and offered a walking tour of the city. 4 or 5 of us took him up on his offer and it was amazing. We stopped at Ruben’s house which had been turned into a museum. We saw the red light district, where the prostitutes sit in windows, so a wide cross section of the city. We walked miles that day and this man did it every Sunday.
Xavier
I’ve often thought of picking a highway and RVing it end to end, or border to border. Travel writer William Least Heat Moon talks about US Highway 50, which runs from Ocean City MD to Sacramento past the White House and across Nevada as ‘The Loneliest Road’ plus much more.
Van Buren
@Scout211: He would have loved to, but he passed away in 2014.
He was very active in reunion groups for several of his ships. He had command of a destroyer in Vietnam and loved to tell the story of taking it up the Mekong using 30 year old French navigation charts.
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@Delk: Happy birthday! I’m glad you’ve had more than your doctor expected, and I hope you have many more after this one.
Kent
@Baud: I lived in Alaska for the better part of a decade so I’ve seen them a bunch. The best viewing is always on bitter cold extremely clear winter nights. We rarely got those where I lived in Juneau because the climate was too maritime and overcast. But once in a while during a really cold clear winter night they would pop out and cover the sky. Something that only really happened about once a year. When you see them in person what strikes you is how much they move and throb and shimmer and change colors. Something that still photos never capture. And neither does video because the frame is too limited unless you are filming Imax or something.
The better viewing is in more continental locations where it is always cold and dry with clear air in the winter like Fairbanks. Or the towns in northern Scandinavia that build ice hotels for northern lights viewing. Those locations are always in the interior, well away from the ocean for maximum atmospheric conditions. I spent several years working winters on the Bering Sea and don’t ever remember seeing them out at sea. At least not in dramatic form.
lowtechcyclist
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Ha! I knocked that one off my list a dozen or so years ago. From my next-door neighbor’s driveway. And I live in southern Maryland.
Wouldn’t mind seeing them again, though.
I’ve spent a few vacations in Glacier NP, and besides a few hikes I’d like to repeat, there’s three longish hikes I haven’t done that I want to do.
Somehow I’ve never been to Yellowstone. I need to rectify that.
I want to go to Greece. I want to visit Israel. And I want to take my son to Samara, Russia, where he was born and where we adopted him from, back when one could still adopt children from Russia.
OzarkHillbilly
No bucket lists for me anymore. I want to travel to places* I have never heard of. Unfortunately, my wife wants to go to Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. I’ll take her and on the way we will stop at a lot of places nobody has ever heard of.
*Albatrossity recently talked of one I have been wanting to see for a long time and that is the sand hill crane migration. Not so much a place, as it is an event.
Scout211
@Van Buren:
Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. They would have loved to have heard his stories
They have so many former sailors coming to see the ship, some in their 90s, with so many great stories to tell.
MagdaInBlack
@Xavier:
Two of my friends and I have a similar idea, for when we win BIG $$ on lotto. We call it our “Never Ending Road Trip.” Just go, where ever we want, for as long as we want =-)
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: A friend of mine did a winter backpacking trip in YStone. From what he said? I can’t recommend it enough.
tom
@Delk: woohoo! Happy birthday, and congrats on your 58th!
Inspectrix
Post-pandemic dreams…
I’d like to go to a dark sky site like Cherry Springs State Park and maybe catch a star party.
In Toronto, I would like to sing with Choir!Choir!Choir, preferably doing a song that gives me the chills to learn it with a few hundred strangers in one day.
also see a concert at Royal Albert Hall or Red Rocks.
Plus a lot of the places already named.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
I’ve crossed the Atlantic several times and been way above the Arctic Circle and almost to the equator, seen the Med from the water. I crossed from the north island to the south island of NZ and back while touring both islands on motorcycle. I owned a 30 ft sailboat and have been on it to the Channel Islands a number of times, have raced a 36 ft catamaran and sailed it single handed and what I’m saying is that the sea has been extremely interesting but I think I’ve had my fill.
Now I would like to return to NZ, a most beautiful and interesting country. I want to do the train from CA to Vancouver to Montreal and then to DC to see the wall, the Smithsonian and the African American Museum. That’s next on my bucket list. Possibly then a return to Norway and see Finland, France and Denmark again. Not sure at this time if any of that will happen.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The kid’s headed to Alaska on Friday.
OzarkHillbilly
@Xavier: I have several highways picked out Us Hwys 61*, 50, 41, 60, 1, 17…
* I’ve already all but about 50 miles of 61, and a fair amount of 50 which is just a few miles north of me.
joel hanes
@OzarkHillbilly:
on the way we will stop at a lot of places nobody has ever heard of
On the (circuitous) way to Yellowstone, you might like the Ten Sleep Canyon, leading down to Thermopolis. Google images will show you what parts of it look like. The river is gorgeous, with many campgrounds along its banks.
joel hanes
@MagdaInBlack:
so quiet you could hear them hiss
We had that, and I’m glad to have corroboration that it was the aurora hissing. I’ve never been sure, so I left it out of the comment.
Xavier
@OzarkHillbilly: I live along the Rio Grande which is a major Sandhill crane flyway. In the spring they form into flocks and circle in thermals until they are thousands of feet up, but you can still hear their croaking calls.
Dan B
@Delk: Happy Birthday! It’s great to hear of your good fortune and health. I lost about 40 friends and boyfriends but dozens more are alive and well thanks to science.
Ruckus
@Delk:
Some days are always better than others.
Learning this and surviving this was amazing back then and I’d bet terrifying. Congrats on being here, enjoy.
James E Powell
Places I’d like to go:
I would like to see Ukraine and Russia again. I was there in the final days of the CCCP and I’d like to see how things have changed in Kyiv, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.
And I’ve never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music.
joel hanes
The International Crane Foundation and the circus railway museum in Baraboo WI are worth a visit.
MagdaInBlack
@joel hanes:
Google-fu tells me we’re not crazy. About that at least =-)
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
at the ranch/farm where we no longer live, we always saw the Sandhills, coming and going. First sign that spring was “sticking”, first sign of winter coming. They used our upper meadow as a pit stop/rest station. Loved the sound, loved the glints as the flocks wheeled, riding the thermals, higher and higher. Loved how entire flocks could immediately disappear from view when they banked into the sun. Perfect camouflage. Would sit in the tree line of the upper meadow for hours, morning and evening, enjoying them arriving, then leaving. Flock after flock after flock, for weeks on end.
joel hanes
Those of you reminiscing about sandhill cranes may enjoy Richard Powers’s novel Echo Maker, especially if you’re familiar with the Platte
Ruckus
@Van Buren:
Cool. I served with an E7 electrician who’d served on minesweepers and he liked it because the line between crew, lifers, officers was a lot narrower than on bigger ships, a lot less formal, a lot less bullshit. And he landed on a ship where that line was broad, firm and Bullshit. I served on an even bigger ship for about a month the line on that ship was a mile wide, very firm and BULLSHIT. Good times.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh, I know the Big Horns well. Practically grew up in those mountains. Been all over them. Hiked from West Tensleep Lake up to Helen, Mirror, Marion, Misty Moon, and more. Did the Solitude Trail twice. (if you can, hike up Florence Canyon and down West Tensleep creek. (watch out for the Misty Moon Monster*) )Damn… What a place.
* a looooonnnngggg story about a beaver way above timberline
I lived in Sheridan for 4-5 months working on a ranch in ’78. Have you been to the Mint Bar in Sheridan? It is worth the travel all on it’s own.
OzarkHillbilly
@Xavier: I want. My MN sis planned on doing it this past spring (never told me) but covid intervened. Gonna try and talk her into a 2nd try for this spring.
Mr. Kite
Auroras, well, I grew up with them, so they are kind of meh. Gorgeous sometimes sure, and I did put them in almost every landscape drawing I did as a kid, so obviously impressed me enough ;)
OzarkHillbilly
@Delk: Damn. Here’s to many more.
Jay
@Ruckus:
apparently, corvettes were the worst ships ever to be on, in the North Atlantic.
zzyzx
I twice was able to see the Northern Lights in college and they freaked me out both times.
I was driving from Las Cruces, NM to San Diego one night and stopped at a rest stop on I-8 in western Arizona to sleep for a few hours, and the stars. THE STARS!
I had a similar experience driving from the Bay Area to Telluride along I-70 in Utah. The Loneliest Highway is a pretty fun drive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay: I didn’t know it when we bought this place, but we are directly underneath one of the major snow geese flyways. Every spring and every fall I’ll be working in my garden and I’ll hear the honks of a passing flock. I will stand there for as long as it takes to finally spot them. Sometimes they are just a couple hundred feet above, other times they are a couple thousand feet above and little more than specks to my old eyes. As bad as my hearing is, I am amazed that I am still able to hear them, even if I can’t locate them by sound.
NotMax
@Delk
Happiest of celebratory wishes.
Origuy
I’d like to take a few weeks and travel England and Wales by train. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos of people riding the rails there. Maybe stop at some of the places where my ancestors lived.
Ireland, too, of course. Maybe do a little cycling. I’m not much for backpacking though. I have a few bucket list items related to orienteering. Just once I’d like to do the O’Ringen in Sweden. They get over 10,000 people for a week long series of events. Canceled this year, of course and I have a conflict for next year. Probably wouldn’t go then, anyway. Still too risky, even if there is a vaccine by summer.
I’d like to go to South America and see Machu Picchu.
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
comes with practice. We lucked out in our place. Geese, Ducks, Geese, Raptors, Buzzards, all migrate through our meadows, along with bears, deer, wolves, cougars, ( not the older female kind) and moose.
did a bonfire one night, ( clearing slash), and the following morning, discovered that 3 moose, ( mom and 2 calfs) had spent the night, bedded down by the fire.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ruckus:
I had a ride like that, as a civilian aboard an Aegis Cruiser trying to stay ahead of a hurricane as it left the Pascagoula shipyard to go to its new home port.
Was watching waves crash over the bow and seeing the spray hit the windows of the bridge. In answer to my question about how high the waves were, an officer shrugged and said, “not high, maybe 20 feet”.
On my job I’d done a lot of studying of wave data and remember there were places in the North Atlantic that AVERAGED over 30 feet some months in winter. I suddenly had a whole lot more respect for what that meant, and no desire to actually experience it.
On the plus side, I learned that I don’t get seasick. Being a new ship, it was also a new green crew many of whom were literally green.
Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
SWIMBO would get seasick in a float tube. When I had the sailboat, I learned that if she spent one night, sleeping onboard, tied up to the dock, she would have her sea legs the next morning.
Me, I never get seasick, even in the worst conditions, but the teacup ride,………..
Kristine
A friend is currently weathering Covid in France for Reasons. Every day, she posts a photo of whatever dessert they’ve had that day. Sometimes it’s from a shop, other times, from an outdoor market. She also posts photos of whatever town they’re staying in, the countryside, and sometimes the cars that get stuck in the oh so narrow medieval lanes.
My dream is to rent a house in either France or northern Italy for several months. I would use it as a base of operations for short trips throughout Europe. I would also visit local markets, cook up a storm, and putter all over the place.
Another friend did something similar for a landmark birthday. She rented a house in France for a month. If you wanted to visit, you could stay with her. All you had to do was buy food and cook.
That’s my idea of a vacation. The cruise ship/tour bus thing doesn’t appeal to me as much.
mali muso
I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of the world in my short 41 years, all the way to Timbuktu and back) but one thing on my bucket list is to see the Pyramids of Giza. I’ve been fascinated by them since I was a kid.
OzarkHillbilly
35+ years of screaming saws, demo hammers, jack hammers, etc say it’s too late for me. I really wish I hadn’t been so dumb when I was young.
lowtechcyclist
@James E Powell: Well I’ve never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma.
But only because the KS/OK line was literally within walking distance (~2 miles) from my uncle’s ranch in Kansas.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kristine: My wife is from Mallorca. Visiting her parents was exactly like that. Just wonderful.
frosty
Bucket List: Hawaii. I had all the other 49 in 1978 and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long.
Other than that, as many National Parks as I can see hauling a trailer. I think that’s about 50 of the 61. I’m not quite halfway.
Delk
Thanks Everyone! Just had a slice of cake my husband made. Tasted way better than it looked, LOL.
Mike G
Some big-name tourist locations are now (or were before Covid) so overrun as to negate the experience — Macchu Pichhu, Vatican/Sistine Chapel, Venice, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty to name a few. 90% of the experience is fighting the crowds and it totally turns me off.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Mike G: Sometimes you can find quiet spots even in the craziest places. We were in Italy once, and spending a few days in Florence. The popular attractions like you say were mobbed, it was beastly hot, you couldn’t even get a reservation to the museum housing the David, etc. Finally we cut the visit short and spent that time in nearby Pisa instead.
Pisa was lovely and not at all crowded. Even the most famous thing, the tower, had very few people because you have to walk up to get to the top.
Talking to Italians later they told me I was crazy. “How could you not love Florence, the most beautiful city in the world!” But it was the right decision.
Lapassionara
@Delk: yes. Happy Labor Day to you.
Jay
@OzarkHillbilly:
same, but 20 years ago, I got “shooter earplugs”. With the pins installed, full earplug. With the pins removed, everything below 90db you can hear, so workplace conversations are possible.
my hearing came back some.
but it’s more about hearing the calls, then locating them. The cranes call echo’s, so with practice, ( 20 years of spring and fall, 4 weeks each, min) you get good at spotting them.
Kent
Wow. in the last few hours an absolute thick pea soup of smoke has descended on the Portland area. Or at least over here in Camas. I could barely make it up to the mailbox and back with the dog. It’s worse than anything I saw driving the length of CA and back two weeks ago. Apparently there are major fires all over the cascades that are all blowing over here.
So you folks in CA are in good company. Everything is catching on fire up here too.
The Moar You Know
@Yutsano: Done it twice. Would do it every year if I could. You will be hooked.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The waves on that trip were in the 40-50 ft range, some a tad higher. I’ve since seen pics of similar ships claiming 45-50 ft waves and they didn’t show near as much water at the bridge level. Here’s the ship I was stationed on.
In the middle is a big box on the main deck, that’s the ASROC launcher, (there is a pic down a bit of the lead ship, the Adams, in the class of ship I was on firing the ASRO)C, between the two stacks and at the front of that area there was a slip seam, a place that the ship could move back and forward rather than all the stress feeding into the structure. Over a wave the deck would move approx an inch in each direction as the ship went over the crest of a wave. That shows the stress of the sea on the hull of a ship in that kind of weather.
scav
@Yutsano: Oh, Christmas can be about my favorite time to visit Europe — the events scheduled are mostly oriented toward the locals (concerts, etc), reasons to potter around in stores and any available festive markets and everyone is making a real effort with food and desserts. Plus, the bulk of any piped in Christmas music is absolutely 100% unfamiliar. (Petite Papa Noel, Quand tu descendras du ciel . . )
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Mallorca is a beautiful place. I had some good times there.
Kent
I’ve never been in the Navy but I’ve been in some absolute furious winter storms on the Bering Sea on crab boats and pollock trawlers with seas in the 40+ foot range. What makes storms especially scary is the steepness of the waves not the overall height. And especially when you get confused seas and waves coming from more than one direction. What really makes it scary is when it starts to freeze and you get sent out with baseball bats to chop off the ice and keep the scuppers cleared of ice so the boat can drain when you take a wall of water over the bow.
Fun fact. Average wave height in the world’s oceans has been steadily increasing in the past several decades. Likely a consequence of climate change and increased convection-driven winds. The oceans are still a place where giant ships disappear without a trace every single year. The oceans haven’t lost all of their mystery and fury, even in this modern age
Worst Bering Sea storm I was ever in was as a fisheries observer on this trawler in January 1990: https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/8315724 Storm took out some wheelhouse windows and ripped part of the rear shelter deck off.
Mike in NC
We stopped for a few days at Mallorca for liberty and to refuel on the way to the glorious Persian Gulf. My biggest memory is putting on a fresh new khaki uniform, and five minutes later it got ruined by spray from an oil leak (just a tiny one, we assured the commanding officer).
J R in WV
@Mike G:
We ( two V close friends and me ) visited the Empire State building in November, after Thanksgiving, was nearly deserted. We stopped at each level, took photos, wandered around. Was really nice.
NYC in not quite winter was just fine. We were able to book great seats for a long running Broadway show etc, had a great time without crowds.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ve a few things on my list but I’ll just mention couple of them from the same thematic part of the list. Driving in the 24 hour race at Le Mans and driving in the Mille Miglia.
Jay
Right now, my bucket list, consists of being able to retire, someday, rather than dying at work in my 80’s.
scav
I’m somewhat open as to where, but I’d love to go to somewhere very very dark at night, very isolated. Probably several wheres: I’d rather like some auroras and some phosphorescent seas as well.
joel hanes
@MagdaInBlack:
Wow, Cranberry Portage is way up there.
Have you read Eric Sevareid’s Canoeing With The Cree?
Recommended.
Wag
A little late, but my bucket list includes climbing all the Centennial peaks in Colorado, the 100 highest peaks. I’m at 50 now, most of which are 14ers, peaks over14,000 ft altitude. Once I finish the 58 14ers, hopefully next summer, I’ll be able to concentrate on the less crowded lower peaks. There are some intense peaks on the rest of the list.
joel hanes
@scav:
The Christkindlmarkt in Nurnberg, in the plaza in front of the cathedral, is a gorgeous experience.
Mike in NC
@joel hanes: Eric Sevareid was a national treasure and one of the finest journalists of 20th century America.
Another Scott
@frosty: Go to the big island if you can. Volcanoes National Park is amazing.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
@Mike in NC:
Strong agreement.
That book is a recounting of a canoe trip he and a friend took from Minneapolis to Hudson’s Bay, when they were both under 25 years old. Again, highest recommendation.
The diction is simpler than in Sevareid’s TV news commentary, and the narrative matter-of-fact. But they did amazing things.
Shortly after Sevareid was forced into retirement, SNL did a sketch of his parting statement. Made me weep.
frosty
@Another Scott: The
Hawaii National Parks are a must-see for any visit there.
Ruckus
@Kent:
All of my navy trips happened in 71-72 in the Atlantic. Storms of the level of the on I described did not happen every year. As I’ve said before I crossed the Atlantic several times and we did two NATO cruises above the Arctic Circle, one in winter and I never saw anything like that one before or after.
Xavier
@OzarkHillbilly: US 191 (Douglas, AZ to Loring, MT) should be on your list.
Dmbeaster
I am 64 and have bacpacked in the Sierra every year since the 80s. I have also loved mountaineering, which I still want to do, but its sadly not as prominent on my agenda. My last attempt was Ritter with family member 2 years ago on Labor Day, and it was 25 degrees with a non-stop 30 mph wind at 5 am when I started the climb from Thousand Island Lakes. It did not get better as the morning broke, and I quit 2/3 of the way up as the cold was debillatating – I did not have my winter gloves, and my hands got so cold that I could not safely do the class 3 rockclimbing for that route. Oh well, I have done Banner.
Backpacked Young Lakes outside Tuolumne Meadows this year (been there before, led family for the short trip) (I took beautiful pictures if anyone is interested in my home movies). Going again with my old crew in mid-October, though where is undecided.
My current dream trip is Evolution Valley on a week long backpack, which I would do tomorrow if I had a companion. So sign me up for something interesting. [email protected]
UncleEbeneezer
For anyone who wants to enjoy the scenery from the comfort of your own home, we’ve been enjoying a couple great YT hiker/film-makers extended videos of multi-day hikes.
Check out NorwegianExplorer and Kraig Adams. Both get some really spectacular footage and don’t talk too much. They let the nature speak for itself. Great for when you just wanna chill and unwind.