Bishop

We got in just as the sun was setting over the sierra and darkness was falling. After filling up on Mexican food, food for the next day and another ridiculously overpriced climbing guide, we drove into the climbers campground. Chloe was initially put off by the fact that the campground is called "The Pit", but warmed up to it as soon as she saw that it was not literally a fetid pit. We started a fire as soon as the wind died down, roasted marshmallows, and then settled in for a luxurious night in the back of the truck. It turned out to be a lot less cold than I expected, and we both slept a little before the sun came up. The air was so dry that by the morning the truck was filled with condensation which had turned into sheets of ice and mini-icicles. The ice melted as the sun came up and dripped refreshingly onto our sleeping bags and foreheads

We got up, enjoyed the spectacular view of the Sierra and Panamints, jammed all of our gear neatly back into the truck

And headed to Jacks for a warm breakfast. We stopped on the road to enjoy the view again for a few minutes.

After pancakes etc, we drove up to the Pollen Grain boulders. On the walk in, we saw a large herd of deer running away, spraying crap on the trail as they ran. We spent most of the rest of the day on the boulders

and then on to the Get Carter boulder, which is just amazing


By this point, our skin was shredded, and we both decided that it was a good time to drive back to berkeley. I was a bit scared by the prospect of another nightmare driving experience on icyhellroad (395), but it turned out to be clear, and we got some beautiful views of Crowley Lake

and Mono

before we drove back on 50 to 80 and home.

Miles: 362
Total: 1200 miles or 1930 kilometers

Death Valley

ok, this will be a photo intensive entry, so modem people: give up now.

We took 95 north past the federal prison

and its warnings not to pick up hitchhikers (duh! I suppose they should add an especially strong caution against picking up people with metal balls attached to their legs who try to pay you in cigarettes as well), up through all the stark and beautiful desert basins until we reached Beatty. We were orignially planning on going north and across the mountains through Westgard, but decided to take the much more scenic route through Death Valley National Park, some of my old lizard catching stomping grounds. I had always wanted to see "The Racetrack", but the ranger told us that we needed 4wd with good clearance, so it will have to wait for some other time. Instead, we took 374

To the Sand Dunes near Stovepipe Wells. We parked on the road and walked to the second highest dune, passing some truly spectacular scenery


At the base of some of the dunes were mud flats

and eventually we ended up on at our destination


We ate lunch, then started walking back

and on the way decided to do some dune jumping




and ended up with a little sand in our shoes

and a sickening grind in the focus motor of my Fuji rangefinder. I did manage to get some nice transparencies though!

We continued on to Mosaic Canyon

which is surrounded by water sculpted cobble walls

The whole way up I was picturing what a flash flood woutld be like.

Finally, we continued on through the park, resisting the temptation to frolic at the Panamint Dunes, and on to Bishop.

Miles: 289

Vegas

We've been climbing for two days at Red Rocks, just west of Las Vegas. We went to the Gallery at the second pullout, and tried out some of the warmups,Yaak Crack (just left of this guy on the Gift)

and then on to Fear and loathing

but got a little shut down, and found the moderates short and uninspiring (sacrilege!), compared even to the modest local crags near Grenoble. The natural beauty of the surroundings makes it all worthwhile though:



and we were happy to hang out and watch the throngs climb, get spastic about onsighting .10c's, and watch the sun come down


The next day, we went to the much better Sunny and Steep crag, which has a beautiful canyon flanked by polka dotted and striped sandstone



and longer routes with fewer people.

Two days later we are firmly ensconsed in the breakfast-buffet, climb at red rocks, play slot machines trying to win BMW Z4(worlds better than the Z3 IMO), look at craps table, eat overpriced and bland meal cycle. Tonight we were taken by surprise by the statuary that comes to life in the Caesars Palace fountains, and stepped off the excalator to the Bellagio walkway just as the final triumphant water jet ended... impeccable timing as always! As we walked sadly away from the Z4 after our final try, I overheard two guys talking about Pretzels: "You've never had an Italian Pretzel, man? See, an Italian pretzel is like... a dual layer pretzel".

Tomorrow we leave for bishop.

back in the usa

On friday we were on a very uncomfortable flight from frankfurt to SFO. I'm not sure where we were flying over, but the only redeeming part of the experience was the view: ice fields and floes as far as the eye could see, we the occasional cluster of lights in the middle of it all.



As soon as we got in, we began ticking off the restaurants that we've missed. So far, this has consisted of Ch'Am (thai) and In-N-out. We spent saturday getting ready for our road trip, and drove down to Vegas on sunday. It took a really long time, due to our somewhat euro-minded missing of the fact that sunday was the end of thanksgiving weekend. There were huge traffic jams on I-5

We continued on SR58, past the ominous looking Rocket Propulsion Laboratory and a big complex at the interseciton of 58 and 395 that we couldnt figure out the purpose or name of. The traffic continued, but thankfully in the opposite direction and at one point we even saw some people get fed up and drive their SUVs offroad on a dirt track than ran parallel to the road


(it was probably the first and only off road experience for most of them). I didn't think it was possible to improve upon the ridiculousness of the situation until I actually saw one of them try to pass a slower car on the dirt road!

565 miles driven

Oxford

I went to Oxford on monday to give a job talk at the Wellcome Center. Actually its a little outside of Oxford itself, but part of the university. It was kind of a hectic two days, and I am writing this in the airport right now: my first chance to de-stress. I still get pretty agitated before talks, particularly when presenting new material (as I was this time), but things were heightened by the fact that this was Oxford, and I would be talking to a group that just published back to back Nature papers.

I got into Heathrow at 7:30 PM, and experienced the wonderously welcoming immigration area, where you are required to have a card filled in with various information, but there are no pens or pencils to enter the information (exactly like in the US, only with less hysteria). One amusing difference from the US is that there are dozens of signs stating that physically or mentally abusing the immigrations officers is a crime. Signs like this are unnnecessary in the US, because if you even think about stepping out of line, you will wake up in Guantanamo the next morning, naked except for duct tape underpants and Kiss music playing at 105 db

After almost getting run over because I was looking the wrong way for the cars, I found the X70 bus to oxford and walked to the Cladagh guest house in Heddington. It was late and I hadn't eaten, so I found a kebab joint and avoided the english hooligans who asked me "Wheres your lunch, mate?" while weaving in and out of the middle of the road on their bikes.

The next morning I escaped horribly Dull and bleak Heddington, and went to the Center of Oxford. Along the way, I managed to get another taste of the whole "wrong side of the road thing" when I missed my bus because I was waiting on the wrong side of the road.

I got off the bus in the center, and after several more exciting street crossings (although I would start looking in the right direction, force of habit usually made me look the wrong way by the time I was across the street), I found myself at the Bodleian library



A few steps away is the St. Mary the Virgin Church, which you can climb the tower of. The views are nice, and the light was beautiful.

All Soul's College:


Back down in the chapel itself, I was a bit surprised to see that people were buried ounder the church floor. Maybe they do that elsewhere, but I certainly hadnt noticed it before!

The highlight of Oxford for me was Christ Church College, which I stumbled upon by accident when I walked down King Edwards St. and found the exit of the tour. I walked out to the meadow,


in through the official entrance (4 pounds), and up to the Dining hall


which has a strong (almost tacky?) affiliation with Lewis Carroll and his weird obsession with the deans daughter. I found it silly that they made a stained glass window of Alice in Wonderland, but thats just me. The famous fireplace-thingy was cool, though

The really wonderful thing about the hall is the sense of continuity and tradition that it evokes; it is still very much in use, almost five centuries after its construction. Of course, there are some modern additions, like ye olde coffee maker

and ye olde Heinz ketchup

YEAH BRITISH PIGDOGS, LOOK AT WHATS IN YOUR ELITE POLITICIAN FACTORY: AMERICAN KETCHUP! HAHAHA
or wait, maybe Heinz is owned by Unilever? I smirked at the sign warning the young imperialists to "dress smartly", that "shorts are inappropriate for both men and women", and if they should wish to dine less formally, they should go somewhere else. I was so impressed by the dining hall that I left, hesitated and then walked back in again for another round of photos. Incidentally, this is where they filmed the dining hall scenes from the Harry Potter movies.

I followed the signs to Tom quad,

and into the cathedral. The cathedral has some beautiful stained glass windows,

but is otherwise unremarkable. Then again, I'm not really a conoisseur of churches: after a while they all start to blend together for me.

The last thing to see was the Peckwater quad


Which, like the dining hall, is still in use by the cigarette smoking, sometimes barefoot future leaders of the British Empire. I'm very jealous that they live and work in such a beautiful place. I dont think Ive every worked someplace where people had to pay $7 to take a self guided tour of. Then again, Williams was pretty picturesque as well, as was the Salk. I ended up at a map store on High St. to look for something for chloe. The woman who worked there was American, so we commiserated over the election for a bit, and then I started rooting through their selection of French maps. To my amazement, they had a very good selection of the first Atlas Nationale after the creation of the Departments, which are not that easy to find in France. Also, the prices were very reasonable. I guess there's not much demand for French maps in downtown Oxford! The lady gave me a good deal on a 1751 map of the Dauphine in beautiful condition


Another funny thing was that she saw my middle name on my credit card, and turned and asked "You're not related to THE Harunobu, are you?". Of course I'm not, but thats where the name comes from, and it was actually the first time in my life that anyone has known the significance of it. Kudos to mom and dad for coming up with the most obscure middle name on the planet.

After finding a place to buy chocolate and 1.5 kilos (almost $30) of wonderful English Cheddar, I headed back to the bed and breakfast to obsess over my talk a few more times.

I arrived at the Wellcome Center a bit early, and got a WEP key for the WiFi network, sent some stress filled emails to chloe, met the interviewers, and setup the projector. I was put much more at ease when I saw this on the bookshelf in the seminar room.


These were my kind of people.

After some rounding up of people by martin and bob, I gave the talk, which went well, and I think the interview did as well, but you never know. Afterwards, I got taken on a tour of their new protein production facility, and got to see their impressive crystallization tray imaging and storage machine.

They also have a tabletop mass spec for QA etc in one of their back rooms. Swanky. We ended up at a pub, where I of course ordered the fish and chips.

When I got to the airport this morning I wandered around, looking at the overpriced single malts and nice looking food that Harrods sells, when something in my brain woke up. Here is my unedited stream of consiousness: mmmm... caviar... mmmm shortbread.. hmmm.. foood? I have food. I have 1.5 kilos of three of my favorite english cheddars........ WHICH ARE IN THE REFRIGERATOR AT THE B&B. My only consolation is that I'll be going home to berkeley at the end of the week, where I will be able to get some more Neals Yard. I'm sure it wont go to waste, but damn. It made me want to cry.