Thought Terrarium

Hello to my long lost blog. My hiatus has been a real disservice to my vast and loyal readership.  I owe you an apology.  For all the times you've sat in front of your screen refreshing in the vain hope that a post would reveal itself, I am sorry.  It's been thirteen years.  That's a lot of refreshes. I was a young man thirteen years ago.  I like to think I am still a young man, but young with a hint of middle age.  Like a ripe cheese.  Mature, but not past due. Since my last post I've moved to California, back to Washington, and back to California again.  I've gotten married, and have a sweet 7 year old niece.  I don't have any kids of my own, or a dog.  Also, no cat.  I've become a much better cook.  My closest friends are all the same people. Is this helping? I think maybe I'll start blogging.  It's sufficiently out of style now, I feel fairly certain that no one will ever read this (if I'm wrong, leave a comment). Why don't we

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/04/061204fa_fact

Congratulations to Rita for completing her first backpacking trip. A loop from Obstruction Point, over Grand Pass and then back via the Cameron Creek drainage and Deer Ridge.

Somehow it's finished. I'm spending my last hours in Peru before heading home. It hardly seems like so much time could have passed so quickly. C left this morning early. Her flight departed at 0630 this morning, so she was up and about before 0400 getting ready. I got up for a minute to see her off and went back to bed. That's too early for me. But now I'm up and wandering around Lima by myself for the first time. I walked to el Mercado Central, to Chinatown, aka Barrio Altos and explored the commercial district there for a bit. The market was not very exciting. I was hoping for something like the markets that we saw in other cities but much larger. This is the main city. What I found was much more concrete and modern than I had expected. It was large and square, with the decorative exterior steel grid-work that I think was very popular in the early sixties. There were two levels. Everything was very organized. It was almost like a big Peruvian mall bu

We flew out of Cusco to Lima, and then from Lima to Tumbes near the Ecuadorian border after a four hour layover. At the Tumbes airport we opted against the 100 sole taxi fair to Mancora and caught a small bus going into the city of Tumbes. The bus waited for a couple airport employees, and because of this, we all suffered in dense clouds of mosquitos. My feet are still covered in bites. In Tumbes we discovered that the taxi fare wasn't going to change, and I, determined not to be ripped off by the taxis took the invitation of the bus conductor to find us a cheaper ride. He took Cassandra's bag and walked us through town and to a weird little garage full of American sedans from the late seventies and early eighties. This would be our ride. A thirty foot long black Lincoln with no regard for speed limits or reasonable passing. This particular mode of transport is called a ¨collectivo.¨ Like any ride in Peru, one feels in a collectivo that safety is perhaps not the highest priorit