On our way to Bali

We are stuck in the airport in Makassar waiting hours for our flight to Bali....but we managed to find a cool place to chill out with an ancient computer as a way to kill some of the time. I figured I'd upload a few photos from our time in Toraja but, alas, I can't seem to plug my cameras into this computer. So a few decent (in my snobby opinion, phone photos don't cut it for a place like Toraja) photos from Jay's phone will have to do for now.

After spending a ton of time in the sun and in the water in Papua, I was excited (Jay not so much but he came around) to spend time in rice fields and mountains. We had to fly through Makassar in order to get back to Bali for our flight back to the States....so it was my chance to finally visit Tana Toraja. I had heard about Toraja three years ago when we started researching the island of Sulawesi as part of a vacation we took to dive and hike in that area (go to blogs from November 2012 to read about that trip, sorry I can't deal with links from this computer right now). But Sulawesi is massive and we never made it south of the northern tip of the island on that vacation. Enter our vacation in Papua and suddenly I was going to be landing right in Makassar, the only real gateway from the south to Toraja. So we spent the night in Makassar, ate an amazing Christmas dinner at a tasty Indonesian restaurant, and stuck our asses on a bus for 11 hours to get to the town of Rantepao in the area known as Toraja.




















It doesn't take much more than one or two photographs to figure out why I wanted to come here. The tongkonans (these unique houses and rice houses) are gorgeous, the Torajan people must be the nicest  people on the planet, and the rice fields and mountains were stunning and WAY bigger than I expected. The Torajan culture is very unique in that most of their life seems to be spent preparing for death (or saving money for it).... their funeral ceremonies are very elaborate and they welcome guests to the week-long events where over 1,000 guests may attend. They, in fact, seem to want tourists to come, take photos, pay respects to the dead, eat their food, and watch their water buffalo fight. So we attended a very large funeral and it turned out to be one of the most amazing cultural experiences of my life. Jay took lots of video, but only one shot of one of the many processions of family members coming into the funeral.



More stories will follow - this should give you a good taste of the fun adventures I will describe in blogs to come. We fly to Bali tonight, have two days there, and then we are off to Vancouver and our house on the 2nd. Can't wait to snuggle with Darwin and Lester....

Happy Holidays from Papua!

As many of you know, Jay and I took off from America about two weeks ago to spend our holidays in Papua and Sulawesi - we can't seem to leave Indonesia alone and each island is so different from the next! We have been in a very remote corner of the world in Papua called Raja Ampat. We went for the diverse coral reefs, diving, and a kayaking and camping trip. We just finished that and are enroute to a unique place in southern Sulawesi called Tana Toraja. I've been wanting to go there for YEARS and I'm stoked it is finally happening. Here are a few photos - we will see how uploading them goes.... but this is a start to longer blogs that will follow.

Happy holidays to all. Jay and I do wish we were with our families on Christmas Day.... I want to watch Scrooge with my parents (a Barber tradition) and Jay wants to be by the fire at his mother's house or skiing at Jackson with his father....  so we are thinking of them a lot right now. But sometimes the tropics call and you must follow. Ya know?

We did something crazy and booked a week of diving in Raja Ampat. Ths our dive resort..... unreal. Unlimited diving and snorkeling right from the pondock (this is what over-the-water bungalows are called in Papua).

 Millions of anemones and clownfish

A shellfish biologist meets the world's largest giant clam ever. Well, I don't know about ever but seriously - this thing is MASSIVE. Made my day, even over the manta rays we snorkeled with. I'm not kidding. Clams beat mantas!

 A coral biologist meets a massive coral. Large things abound in Raja Ampat.

 So many damn small fish that I don't know.

Papuans LOVE to sing as we discovered. Our dive guides dragged guitars out on the dive boats and sang on every surface interval.

 Fam Islands

Ummmm...I'm feeling a lot like David Attenborough right now. We got out of bed at 2am, took a boat in the dark with bioluminescence in our wake, hiked an hour uphill in the dark jungle, and watched the birds wake at dawn. This is a red bird of paradise!!! YES!!! We also saw a Wilson's bird of paradise, but you will have to stay tuned to see photos of that bird along with all my other awesome (I hope) bird photos. These birds are all about impressing females and this male is displaying and trying to out display the other males in the area.

We rented kayaks for a five day paddle - camping or staying in homestays in the islands. Avoiding the sun was tough and it was HOT but it was an awesome experience.

 Yup. 

 Snorkeling from our boats

Jay with the jungle hammocks we rented for camping. I started calling them torture chambers - so hot and damp and muggy and not great if you are tall. But everything else about camping was fun and it was worth it to have white sandy beaches all to ourselves.

Much more when we are back in the USA. We love all of you. Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! We will be in Bali for that... woohoooo! Best food in the world!!
Love you... J+J

Apple cider and pink Cadillac golf carts

I spent the first weekend of November visiting my family in MA and NY. I flew into MA and was greeted by my sister at the airport (and an awesome take-out dinner of a falafel pita). The plan was to spend the weekend with Christina's family and Monday-Wednesday with my parents before flying back to WA. Even  though we were all together in August, it just didn't feel like we spent much time together - so this weekend was needed and just wonderful.

 Jackson and Henry leading the way up Mt. Sugarloaf

 Quintessential New England right at the end of the peak colors

Christina and Sara had Sara's parents babysit Henry and Jackson one evening so the three of us could eat out on the town. We went to Hope and Olive, a favorite restaurant of theirs I've been hearing about for YEARS. Finally, I was able to go! I wish Jay could have been there too! The fried brussel sprouts really are the best thing ever and I ordered a cocktail called "FeelTheBern" and they donated $1 to Bernie's campaign. That is my kind of cocktail!

Christina and I spent one morning together exploring the fun of the Franklin County, MA CiderDays. We went to Clarkdale Fruit Farms for a cooking demo and cheese tastings. I ended up buying pear cider, two different cheeses, and making apple pickles when I made it back to WA as a result of this awesome hour in my life.

 Cider sisters

 Worshiping squash and apples in the fall 

Christina's turn!

Those crazy awesome nephews of mine finally dragged me out on their trampoline. I never advanced beyond the up and down jump - but you can see they have no problem with crazy flips and moves.

On Monday we met up with my parents at the Smith College Fall Chrysanthemum Show. It was like walking into The Lorax - awesome! 

Such a rare and wonderful treat to have all four of us together...and it looks like we are in the tropics! Ha! Fooled yah! Just western Massachusetts.

My parents in our lovely town of Kinderhook with the old school (that my sister went to) which is now converted into an art gallery.

While I was visiting my family back east, Jay took off for Carrie Bow Caye in Belize - a Smithsonian research station he has been conducting research at (for other projects) for over a decade. It was pretty neat for all of us to know that he was there, after all these years, to do his own research for his PhD! Woohoo! This is a rare, rare, rare photo of Jay at work in Belize sorting corals into different bags for, I think, transportation back to the States. He made a video of the work he has been doing there, I posted it here if you want to see it.....

While Jay was in Belize our friends Scott and Nadine paid me a visit in Anacortes. Boy, I like to spoil guests rotten when they visit.....but Scott and Nadine flipped that switch and spoiled me rotten! Great wine, great restaurants, great food, great farmer's market, great hikes, great beaches.....shoot. You name it and it was great!

Wow! Talk about a big change in scenery! Now I'm in Florida! Jay and I met in Miami at the airport (after a terrifying flight from Seattle for me) and drove up to Vero Beach to spend Thanksgiving with his father and stepmom. Only in FL do you find pink Cadillac golf carts.

 Charlotte wanted one.

While we spent more time at the pool in the neighborhood they live in, we were thrilled to get in one beach day!

The boyz going for a swim in the big surf. It was way bigger than it looks, I promise. I joined them and it took some time to get out into the water without getting smooshed first.

 

 Gopher tortoise! Cool! 

 The girls enjoying their time in the sun! 

 Jay and I went for a jog down Vero Beach and hung out with this rockin' ghost crab for a bit.

I also dragged him on a buggy hike in the FL scrub forests. Is that what they are called? They are awesome. I love habitats I know nothing about - I still have much to learn in this life.

Photos from November are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/November2015?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJzQ8fHF1cKHugE&feat=directlink

Stay tuned! The next blog will be about our vacation in Indonesia Papua! Leaving on Wednesday!