It begins! It began like 2 days ago actually.
Anyway, I landed at 3:30 this morning. The airport was super nice and their floor was really comfortable. Stephen and I had McDonald's when he met me, and they have "chilli" and ketchup dispensers at a 2:1 ratio. The chili goes great with a sausage McMuffin. After a wait, we had a leisurely boat ride to the island and got through customs really quickly and easily. We took the long route to their house and saw a lot of the surrounding community. I sat in the driver's seat and Stephen drove from the passenger side. Their guesthouse is great.
Tonight we broke ground on a greenhouse in Stephen and Carree's backyard. It's a project that they and some student interns have been planning for a while, and today it went into action. I didn't know when I first planned to come that this would be the main activity the first few days here, but it turns out to be a great way to overcome jet lag - just stay busy, and keep moving. I'm going to be plenty tired when "night" comes (I've always called this time "day" on the other side of the world).
We carried a bunch of banana trees up a hill, macheted them to bits (they are being worked into the soil to add minerals), hauled a bunch of dirt up the hill to level the ground, measured and cut pipe and rebar to provide a foundation and structure for the greenhouse. More of it will go together tomorrow. This is a great group of folks to be around and work with, and I'm glad there's a fair amount I can help with even though I wasn't around for the planning.
-- I broke to visit, sleep and have breakfast and take a motorcycle ride. --
My efforts to adjust to the time difference in advance are working beautifully so far. I stayed awake until 9:45 and slept till 6:30 with no sleep aid. I had slept about 10 hours total in the previous three days, so it was welcome. I'm sure I'll feel tired at some inconvenient times today, but it almost feels like morning right now, which is good since it is morning here.
I had my first motorcycle ride in going with Stephen to retrieve the one bag that didn't make it here on the same flight as me. The airline arranged for it to be brought to the entry port here, and we needed to bring it the last few km to home. The trip out was an adventure since it was my first ride period, and I the trip back would be an adventure for me even if I were seasoned. I had the 50 lb bag across my lap, separating Stephen and me by a full English foot, and my fingertips barely reached over the top of his shoulders. World travel!
More greenhouse work going today, which started during our ride. I'm going to help. You all have a good night.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Head into the Heavens
From Friday to Sunday my friends and I backpacked a trail at Cumberland Gap. Trenton and I drove from Louisville, Johnathan from South Carolina, and Wimer from West Virginia. We left vehicles at one end of the trail, drove to Pinnacle Overlook, and geared up to begin our hike in on Friday afternoon. I quickly realized it would be a demanding hike, as my calves burned after less than a mile as our trail sloped upward onto the ridge. We had a 5mi hike to our first campsite at Gibson Gap.
The first spur we followed off the main trail was to Skylight Cave, shown below. It was very reminiscent of a scene from Temple of Doom, in case you can't tell from the picture. And in the second picture, the dark little dot on the cave ceiling is a bat. I thought it was cool to be right next to a sleeping bat.
Gibson Gap provided an ideal campsite for us; there were no other people around and we had plenty of flat space to set up camp. It was a great and relaxing site.
Our second day was split up into two main legs: from Gibson Gap to Hensley Settlement, and from Hensley to the White Rocks. On our way to Hensley Settlement, we shot off the trail to find water to replenish our dwindling supply. It was a Godsend to find a stream that was not dried up like the one near our first campsite. Below you can see Johnathan and Trenton pumping water through the purifiers they brought, and me looking thirsty.
Hensley Settlement was a grouping of farms and houses, along with a small schoolhouse. We ate lunch here, including apples picked off the trees, and checked out some of the wood and stone buildings. We thought they were a lot older than they actually are. Some of them were restored or rebuilt in the late 1960s to reflect the original construction. Below is an old furrow (or whatever it might be called), and my attempt at an artsy photo of a graveyard there at the settlement.
On our way from Hensley to the White Rocks campsite, we followed another spur down, down to Sand Cave. This cave was more impressive than Skylight Cave -- there is an acre and a half of sand sloping up from the floor of the valley to an enormous rock overhang that forms the cave.
We covered a little more ground and then made camp near White Rocks. On the way we saw a doe ahead, and tried to be really quiet as we approached, but we found that she was not alarmed by our presence at all! We got 15-20 feet away from her, with her staring right at us, and another doe walked casually up and joined her!
White Rocks campsite was a little more crowded. We saw one or two people at most during the day as we hiked in, but there were three groups that had made camp there before us. They likely started from the other end of the trail, where we would finish the next morning. We found the flattest remaining spot that we could, which was tight between some trees. And we made the first hot food we could (chicken-flavored creamy rice for me), since at this point we had water to cook with.
Sunday morning Trenton read to us from Proverbs after we had packed up, and we headed out on the final leg. We had an immediate detour planned -- the White Rocks overlook, which was about a half mile from camp. This was the highlight of the trip. The view was beautiful. May the applicable cliche be here noted: the pictures don't do it justice.
Here at the overlook, the climax of the story I'd been ruminating on for much of the weekend appeared. I looked forward to this trip as all people do. It was a great opportunity to get away, to remove distractions, to unencumber from the stream of noise that fills most other days. A temptation for me was to try to completely capture the experience through photos and through looking into every nook that I could, counting steps and granola bars and tenths of miles until I had preserved it in my mind to carry with me out of the gap.
What came to mind was (as usual) from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. It's tempting to quote the whole chapter to give context to the point he made, but this will suffice:
By luck I ran across another cool tidbit when searching for the Chesterton quote. "Sagarmatha" is the old Nepali name for Mount Everest, which literally means "head in the heavens". White Rocks was no Mount Everest, but the name still fits.
The first spur we followed off the main trail was to Skylight Cave, shown below. It was very reminiscent of a scene from Temple of Doom, in case you can't tell from the picture. And in the second picture, the dark little dot on the cave ceiling is a bat. I thought it was cool to be right next to a sleeping bat.
Gibson Gap provided an ideal campsite for us; there were no other people around and we had plenty of flat space to set up camp. It was a great and relaxing site.
Our second day was split up into two main legs: from Gibson Gap to Hensley Settlement, and from Hensley to the White Rocks. On our way to Hensley Settlement, we shot off the trail to find water to replenish our dwindling supply. It was a Godsend to find a stream that was not dried up like the one near our first campsite. Below you can see Johnathan and Trenton pumping water through the purifiers they brought, and me looking thirsty.
Hensley Settlement was a grouping of farms and houses, along with a small schoolhouse. We ate lunch here, including apples picked off the trees, and checked out some of the wood and stone buildings. We thought they were a lot older than they actually are. Some of them were restored or rebuilt in the late 1960s to reflect the original construction. Below is an old furrow (or whatever it might be called), and my attempt at an artsy photo of a graveyard there at the settlement.
On our way from Hensley to the White Rocks campsite, we followed another spur down, down to Sand Cave. This cave was more impressive than Skylight Cave -- there is an acre and a half of sand sloping up from the floor of the valley to an enormous rock overhang that forms the cave.
We covered a little more ground and then made camp near White Rocks. On the way we saw a doe ahead, and tried to be really quiet as we approached, but we found that she was not alarmed by our presence at all! We got 15-20 feet away from her, with her staring right at us, and another doe walked casually up and joined her!
White Rocks campsite was a little more crowded. We saw one or two people at most during the day as we hiked in, but there were three groups that had made camp there before us. They likely started from the other end of the trail, where we would finish the next morning. We found the flattest remaining spot that we could, which was tight between some trees. And we made the first hot food we could (chicken-flavored creamy rice for me), since at this point we had water to cook with.
Sunday morning Trenton read to us from Proverbs after we had packed up, and we headed out on the final leg. We had an immediate detour planned -- the White Rocks overlook, which was about a half mile from camp. This was the highlight of the trip. The view was beautiful. May the applicable cliche be here noted: the pictures don't do it justice.
Here at the overlook, the climax of the story I'd been ruminating on for much of the weekend appeared. I looked forward to this trip as all people do. It was a great opportunity to get away, to remove distractions, to unencumber from the stream of noise that fills most other days. A temptation for me was to try to completely capture the experience through photos and through looking into every nook that I could, counting steps and granola bars and tenths of miles until I had preserved it in my mind to carry with me out of the gap.
What came to mind was (as usual) from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. It's tempting to quote the whole chapter to give context to the point he made, but this will suffice:
"...Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination... The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite... To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."
By luck I ran across another cool tidbit when searching for the Chesterton quote. "Sagarmatha" is the old Nepali name for Mount Everest, which literally means "head in the heavens". White Rocks was no Mount Everest, but the name still fits.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
test
Before I draft an entry of any significance from my fancy new phone, I'm going to test the app's (AndroBlogger) uploading with this. It doesn't allow me to save drafts.
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