J&J's

Gay rights!

2012-02-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yeah Washington!

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/connelly/article/Make-History-Gregoire-signs-same-sex-marriage-3312315.php

Now we just hope the jerks that want to get it on the ballot can't find enough support.

Chocolate-making class AND the best of Vietnam

2012-02-10T15:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I've done it. Forget eating healthy. I had to sign up for a chocolate-making class, and boy oh boy, did I learn to make chocolate everything!!

As you can see, we didn't mess around in the class. Not at all! We learned how to make truffles, how to temper chocolate properly, how to wrap chocolate in thin foil for presentation (not as easy as it sounds), and how to dip and decorate all kinds of good things. Yummy. Watch out for your bellies - I've got a new hobby!

And in the middle of all the chocolate fun - I finished going through our photos from Vietnam! Yeah! Here are a few of my favorites from the country. The link to the rest of the "best of" is at the bottom of the post. Gotta love winter evenings with kitties!

Lychees and street vendor in Saigon

Mushroom bags (no mushies yet, but they will be there)

Paper lantern store in Hoi An

Incense burning at a temple in Hanoi

Two images of junks in Halong Bay

Sapa rice and corn terraces

I blew up this terrace shot to give you an idea of how steep the valley is where Sapa is located (NW Vietnam up by the Chinese border)

Vietnam summed up in a photo

Happy days - Julie and Black H'mong hill tribe women, Sapa

This was a normal-sized load. We saw much more than that on one motorbike!

Black H'mong girls

Chau Doc

Yum.

We got engaged in Na Trang.... good times!

https://picasaweb.google.com/103045486528969944500/BestOfVietnam

2012-02-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

Mt. Bachelor, Oregon ski trip

We had an awesome long weekend in Oregon with our friends Erik and Mike - and now a ton of new friends from Corvallis too! It is too late for me to go nuts and write out stories so here are a few photos and links to more. Enjoy!

Julie and her new skis, boots, and helmet!

Brian, Mike D., Julie, and Jay at the top of Bachelor

Erik and Britton with their pal Mister Gray Jay who wants our food - we offered snow. He shit on Britton's pole to let them know he (or she?) was hoping for more than snow.

Cross-country ski day

Gray jay

Erik on cross-country skis pulling some nice downhill moves

Julie and Mike's photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/FebruaryAndMarch2012

Erik's shots:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110196290566346808397/20120203SunriverBachelor?authkey=Gv1sRgCNi0gMeLo4DTFg&noredirect=1

Antarctic sponges in San Diego!

2012-01-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

I spent the holiday weekend working on Antarctic data collection down in San Diego at Scripps Institution of Oceanography with Paul Dayton and his graduate student, Shannon. If you remember, I was in Antarctica with Paul and just LOVE this guy because he is an amazing scientist and a super fun person. Shannon and I had never met before, but we had chatted a lot over email when I occasionally helped with data collection from all the photos divers or SCINI took under the ice. This was supposed to be, and it was, a long weekend of measuring Antarctic sponges, bryozoans and other neat marine critters in the photographs. Maybe not the most awesome sounding weekend to many - but we had fun! Plus, it was fun to see Paul's office which is loaded with many plastic pigs (he is sort of obsessed with pigs), the ancient SCUBA gear he used (pictured above), artifacts from various expeditions to Antarctica, voodoo dolls, books galore, and animals - of course. Paul loves animals. I liked the three pet cuttlefish the best because they were so smart and totally gorgeous.

Although I was there to help out Paul, I really spent the vast majority of my time with Shannon (I was, essentially, helping her too because now she has less photos to deal with!). We had a great time together! One afternoon we walked out onto the pier at Scripps to take in the gorgeous low light and I grabbed a few shots of the lab and the beach.

The sun!!

We were even treated to some far off views of dolphins. Ahhhh..... don't look too hard, they are not in this shot.

The best treat of the pier walk was the osprey that was used to people hanging out on the pier. We had to walk by him/her to get to the end of the pier and some work Shannon needed to do for her job, but this bird really didn't seem to mind. I was thrilled to get so close without seeming to bother it - although it checked me out as much as I checked it out.

I crashed at Shannon's great place with her husband and son each night. Shannon, basically, took a total stranger (me) into her life for the weekend and I think we had a darn good time with it. I loved her family, cats, bunny, waffles, and wine!

And in case you get the idea that I only played - here is a shot of some of the stuff we were doing. This is a photo that was taken by SCINI (the cool robot that could go deeper than divers in Antarctica). If you look really closely there are two red dots from lasers in the photo; we know those lasers are 10 cm apart. So using some neat software, we can set the scale using those lasers and then measure everything we want to measure in the photo. This allows us to calculate percent cover of sponges, bryozoans, or whatever Paul wants us to measure! The three big white things in this photo are a cool sponge species while the perfect round circles are a different sponge species. All the lines drawn into the photo are the lines I drew to gather measurement data from the photo. I'll shut up now in case you are bored but I think this is neat stuff!
Here are the photos from the weekend:
https://plus.google.com/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/5698671635140890113?banner=pwa

I flew back to Seattle last night and left the land of flip-flops and palm trees and came back to snow! Whoa! I wasn't expecting that in soggy Washington. To make things even more fun, I had a snow day from work today! Washingtonians don't really know what to do when it snows because it is such a rare occurrence on the coast. So everything shuts down, including my office. An inch of snow here is equal to about a foot of snow in places like New England. Panic! AH! No really, they only have one plow or no plows for many towns, so the roads are typically quite crappy. Jay and I barely made it up the hill to our house last night. Good thing we had chains in our trunk for our tires - just in case. I'll end with a photo of Cranberry Lake - a short walk right from our house. Happy snow!!

Final post from 2011

2012-01-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

The year of 2011 was fantastic! Here is our annual collage of photographs we took during the year (click on it for the large version). Among our highlights were a visit to Glacier Bay and our dear friends in Gustavus, many hikes in the mountains, tasty wild mushrooms, snow in Anacortes, Mount St. Helens wilderness, visits back east to friends and family, and our kitties always providing warmth, laughter, and love at home.

Speaking of trips back east - we had the most wonderful time with our families and friends over our two week visit. It was especially nice not to rush around in one week trying to see everyone! This time we had a nice chunk of time with both families and we even managed to sneak in a few hours with friends. I already gave a brief summary of our time on the Cape with Jay's family - so here is my summary of the rest of our trip, completed with the help of photos!

We celebrated Christmas on Boxing Day with the Barbers and Barber-Justs! Jay and I decided to do an "all-homemade" Christmas this year. Part of the gifts included a homemade blackberry liqueur - made from berries we picked right here in Anacortes. Here are the girls tasting the liqueur in two different cocktail varieties. Yummy.

Jackson strikes a pose with Aunt Julie.

Boy pile! Gramps, Jay, Henry (orange) and Jackson (green).

The Barber-Just family headed back to eastern MA on Thursday. This gave Jay and I some one-on-one time with my parents which was really nice too! We went for a hike to High Falls, the highest waterfalls in Columbia County. Photos of the falls are in my Picasa album.... they were gorgeous!

My old friends from high school were able to come to my parent's house for a homemade pizza lunch! Allison (on the right), and her husband Brian, just recently had a cute little girl, Kenzie! We were excited to meet her after seeing many photos; she was totally chill and really sweet! Sarah (on the left) is also doing great (she stuffed us with tasty "chubby hubbies " for dessert) and we were thrilled to get updates on what both friends have been up to lately.

We left my parent's house on New Years Eve and headed to my sister's house in western MA. They had a few friends over for a fancy New Years Eve party (after Henry and Jackson hit the hay). We drank delicious cocktails, feasted on fantastic hors d'oeuvres, and brought in 2012 with a bang (literally - Sara's parents live next door and they set off some fireworks!). Henry and Jackson slept through it all and still managed to wake Christina and Sara up at 6 am the next day, although they sort of let them sleep past 8 am.

We went for a family walk up Rattlesnake Gutter (or glutch?) on New Years Day. It was a gorgeous spot right in their town, Leverett.

Icicles!

On the 2nd, we had a nice breakfast with Christina, Sara, Henry, and Jackson and then said our goodbyes (my least favorite part). Then we drove south a few miles and met up with Lee and Daron! Lee is in nursing school at UMass Amherst and she and Daron recently rented a place in South Hadley. We were proud to be the first family members to see their sweet spot and sleep in the guest room! Before we went to their place though we headed over to Mt. Tom and did a freezing but gorgeous little hike up to the top!

The lovebirds.

I had no clue how cool Mt. Tom was! Really neat geology and topology. Here are the nuggets on top of Mt. Tom with Easthampton (I think) in the background.

We had a lovely dinner out in Northampton with Lee and Daron and then crashed at their place. In the morning they were kind enough to take us to the airport (Bradley) so we could head home. Actually, I should take this chance to thank my parents too.....they loaned us their small truck for the entire time we were here, saving us a ton of money and time! So we dropped their truck off at a spot where they could pick it up later in the day, and then Lee and Daron swept us off to the airport. I'm already looking forward to our next visit back east, although that may not be until August for the annual Barber-Lockman Adirondack pilgrimage and a trip to the Cape for summer (since it doesn't really exist here).

Arriving home = undying love from kitties that were so happy we were back they meowed non-stop for days. They are bit more normal now. =)

Photos are posted!

2012-01-05T21:41:00.000-08:00

All of the photos we took over the holidays are posted here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/HolidayVisitToNYAndMA

This also includes photos that my family took - I noted which photos were theirs. A longer update will follow this one - perhaps tomorrow?

Holidays on the Cape (holidays from NY are coming soon!)

2011-12-30T18:31:00.000-08:00

Here is the first of the holiday update told by photos- this one mostly involves stories from our time on the Cape with Jay's family. My family update will follow!

Jay's sister, Allison (Lee), and Daron celebrated their recent marriage with friends and family on the Cape a few nights before Christmas. They are a wonderful couple, it was a wonderful evening, and love was in the air. =) We are very happy for both of them!

We went on a chilly walk to the beach near Allison's house and enjoyed a lovely sunset (until the cold wind blew us back into the protection of trees).

Time with friends is always rare, but very important to us. We were able to meet up with some of Jay's buddies from the Cape - Geoff, JR, and Geoff's fiancé, Stef.

Here is the entire family all together! Allison, Jim, Jay, Julie, Allison (Lee), and Daron

We left Cape Cod on Boxing Day and celebrated Christmas on the 26th with my family in NY. Our nephews, Henry (right) and Jackson (left), continue to entertain and delight with their energy and funny antics. I can't wait to tell more stories..... they will come when I'm not about to get my butt kicked by my parents in a game of Mexican Train. Happy New Year everyone!

December days

2011-12-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

I'll update you on December stories with photos. I've been working a lot with the geoduck fishermen again, and this time around I was able to bring home a siphon (the "neck" of the clam) for Jay to try because we were both curious about the geoduck hype. After all, the fishermen make $25 per lb. off of geoducks. Remember these are huge clams, each weighing an average of 1 1/2 lbs.....so these clams are like gold. If a guy brings in a couple hundred pounds a day, well...do the math. It is an insane amount of money! But if the siphon is broken off the shells, they can't sell the clam. So, I get to go home with a siphon for Jay to try. Apparently Jay didn't think they were worth all the hype....I guess it was really rubbery. We found out later that he may have cooked the meat the wrong way. Oh well!

Jay was able to head south to Belize again last week. He spent a week at Carrie Bow Cay (a Smithsonian field station) studying how marine reserves affect reef health. He is the coral dude who identifies and counts all the coral species (this is not a simple task). When he came home he suffered from some serious jet lag (or was it the rum?). Lester decided he had jet lag too and they took a nap together.

We didn't get a real tree this year, since we will be heading east tomorrow. So I made a "tree" of lights and we hung ornaments off of that. Not bad eh? Darwin liked it - see him at the bottom of the picture?

Lester and Darwin are the best gift ever. So is Jay.

Uh oh.

Olympia oysters and Thanksgiving

2011-12-02T10:59:00.001-08:00

All oyster shots were taken by Derek King.

Jay and I spent Thanksgiving Eve out in the intertidal with an awesome woman, Betsy Peabody. She is the Executive Director of a wonderful non-profit called the Puget Sound Restoration Fund. I'm collaborating with her and our friend Dr. Paul Dinnel in Anacortes on a native oyster restoration project on the Swinomish Reservation. So what was the goal of a few nutcases going out late at night on a low tide hours before Thanksgiving? To collect a bunch of happy adult Olympia oysters and bring them back to a hatchery where technicians would convince them to spawn. The "seed" (think tiny baby oysters) will then be brought back to the Reservation this summer and "planted" (this means you just throw down oyster shells with the seed attached to the shells) at specific spots on the beaches.

Betsy, Jay, and Julie

Why bother with all of this? Aren't there a ton of oysters in Puget Sound? Well, yes....but the vast majority of oysters in Puget Sound are non-native. That's right - all the oysters grown and harvested here are actually from Japan. Olympia oysters are special because they are native to Puget Sound. But (here is a quote from the PSRF website) "pollution, habitat loss, and overharvesting have taken their toll; it is estimated that less than 4% of historic core populations...remain in Puget Sound." So Betsy has been working on restoring Olympia oysters at various sites throughout Puget Sound. Last year, Betsy and Paul approached me because they were interested in restoring a few spots on the Reservation and I jumped at the chance to work with them on such a cool project. Furthermore, Olympia oysters served an important role in Native American traditions throughout Puget Sound, and restoring their population on the Reservation will hopefully bring back more than a healthy ecosystem...it should help restore some of the Tribe's connections with their history and culture.

Olympia oysters are much smaller than the Pacific oyster most people associate with Puget Sound. There are about 500 individuals here, all going to the hatchery for some lovin'.

After harvesting all those oysters, we went down to Kirkland (just north of Seattle) and hung with Ralph and Jackie at Jackie's parent's house (they were off on a cruise) for Thanksgiving. Ralph and Jackie had gone up to a turkey farm a few days before the holiday and picked out a free range turkey. Then they slaughtered and dressed it themselves and served it up! I didn't eat it because I'm a veggo, but I was proud of my friends and their healthy, sustainable choices.

We had quite the spread! Everyone brought stuff, Cleo the pooch tried to eat all the stuff, and we had a great time! I brought a potato, garlic and smoked mozzarella strudel as well as a homemade apple pie and rustic homemade bread. Leo and Melissa brought tasty brussel sprouts and pumpkin pie (with fresh whipped cream mixed with rum). Jackie and Ralph had the turkey, mashed taters, gravy, and a great veggo stuffing with chanterelles! We all played mad-libs while cleaning up the kitchen....this should become a tradition as it makes Turkey Day clean-up much more fun.

Note Cleo the pooch....

The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend was kinda lame because I worked the entire time for the geoduck fishery! But one day involved bad weather and Jay came down to where I was staying (in Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula) and we spent the day wandering around the very cute town of Bainbridge.

Tis' the season for cookin'

2011-11-19T21:48:00.001-08:00

Well, Jay and I love cooking. But I don't talk about it too often because I usually have lots of other interesting activities to blab about. But with cold weather and dark nights, we don't get out as much as I'd like. So I take photos of our meals and feel proud of our healthy and tasty food! Yum!

This weekend we did hit the forests for some more chanterelles (as if we needed them after OR, but mushrooming is addicting). This is a photo of Sauk Mountain with fresh snow on the top. Jay and I actually hiked to the top-ish of this mountain back in June (or July?). There was snow on it then too - but nothing like the amount of snow on it now. Gorgeous!

Jay's birthday was back in the beginning of November. We had a great weekend! It started with a tour of the Boeing Factory (Boeing, if you don't know, builds many of the commercial airplanes you fly on). Jay loves flying and he loves airplanes, so it seemed like it was about time we took a tour of the factory. We couldn't take photos on the tour though - so just use your imagination. A giant building with a giant assembly line of...yes...giant airplanes. Cool stuff. Then we went and had a unbelievable dinner at a well-known organic restaurant called Tilth in Seattle. I didn't want my meal to end....

Some of the birthday fun happened the day before Jay's real birthday. For his real birthday we cooked up a real Indonesian classic - gado-gado. We whipped out our cookbook from the class we took on Indonesian cooking when we were in Bali and we made our own peanut sauce. This is not your average peanut sauce made with peanut butter. Nooooo. We took raw peanuts with their skins on them and deep fried them, like good Indonesians, and then pureed them with a ton of yummy spices and stuff like lemongrass and wham - Indonesian peanut sauce. This is traditionally served warm over greens, beans, boiled eggs, spring onions, and/or grilled chicken or tempeh. Oh my.

For dessert we made another Balinese classic - coconut pancakes wrapped around shredded coconut (the good stuff, not the plastic-like junk in most stores...you've gotta go to Asian markets for the real coconut shreds) tossed with palm sugar. In Indonesia these pancakes are actually bright green in color because of a leaf that they soak the coconut milk in; sadly, we did not have this leaf so our pancakes were a normal color. But they tasted almost as good. It would have helped to be in Bali.

This weekend we headed to the "holiday" farmer's market and spent a ton of money on local organic farms. Spending money never felt so good. We are stocked up on organic squash, garlic, leeks, potatoes, brussel sprouts, and apples. Yummy yummy yummy. I couldn't resist the gorgeous braising greens at one of the farm stands - and here they are cooking on the range and below as a finished product. We had them as a side with our chanterelle risotto (behind the greens in the photo). The greens were served with crispy fried garlic and strips of red chili. The risotto was cooked in a bolete stock we made from the boletes we collected in OR and the chanterelles were just collected today!! Needless to say, we are very happy right now.

Sydney and Indonesia

2011-11-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

https://picasaweb.google.com/103045486528969944500/BestOfAustraliaAndIndonesia2008

Can you believe that we have been back in the United States for almost 3 years now? In many ways, I feel like we just got back. But one look at all the photos I've taken since we came back and it becomes clear we have been back for a while. In fact, I take so many darn photos that I haven't put as much time into going through all the photos from our big trip. Well, I've finally made it through two more countries! Australia (this was easy because we were only there for a couple days) and Indonesia (much more time consuming due to all the underwater photos). The link to all the photos is at the top of this blog. I've given you some hints of the photos below with captions. Enjoy!

Barong dance - Ubud, Bali

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can beat the food in Bali

Komodo dragon - Komodo National Park

Pygmy seahorse

Clownfish and anemone - Komodo National Park

Happy Jay and happy coral!

Some kind of leafy sculpin - near Nusa Lembongan

Seraya Island - Jay and I stayed in a little bungalow on this tiny island. It was just us and the Indonesians running the place. We stayed for a few days snorkeling around the reefs and the mangroves (pictured here). This was truly paradise.

Rice harvest in Ubud

Wow.

Tiny Julie at Gunung Agungand - Bali

King boletes, chanterelles, and grand friends

2011-10-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

We spent a wonderful, sunny, and warm weekend in Oregon hitting up the mossy forests for some serious mushrooming. For some reason the traffic gods were with us and for the first time ever (?) we drove straight through Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia without stopping. This is rare people. Very rare. Our first stop was Corvallis. We met up with Erik and his good friend Dan and headed straight out to dinner for some tasty Indian food. Corvallis also has a few damn good bars that Erik wanted to expose us to, including the local brewpub called Block 15 and another tasty bar (I forgot the name) with an amazing espresso stout on tap.

The next day was Friday and all our friends in OR had to work, so Jay and I headed to a nearby local hiking spot to try and find some mushrooms (after all, this was the goal of the weekend). We found mushrooms everywhere without even covering much ground including the scaly pholiota in the bottom photo above (you can't eat these but they are are gorgeous). Once Erik was finished with working we all piled in his car and drove west to Newport, OR where our friends Mike and Jennifer live.

Julie and her perfect little king bolete

Our first stop was Jennifer's place - right on the freakin' beach! It was gorgeous! Her parents were visiting and it had been a few years since we had seen them, which leads to long and lovely conversations. Plus, Jennifer had scored on a bunch of boletes for dinner! Once we had gorged on mushroom burgers and wine, Jennifer's parents headed off to bed and we hit the beach for a late night walk. The walk turned into tossing a glowing frisbee back and forth which took a short break when Jay, while chasing the disc, tripped over a log he couldn't see in the dark. After we confirmed he was O.K. we mostly laughed at him and continued playing. Fun stuff.

The next day we woke up to a stormy coast and misty weather. Our breakfast was incredible - duck eggs mixed with boletes and rustic homemade bread. Jennifer headed out after breakie to chill with her parents and we took off to visit our friend Mike. It is great having so many friends in close proximity to each other in OR! Aside from the obvious fun of chillin' with friends we don't see very often, we still had the mushroom goal. We all decided that we wanted to find boletes for our daytime activity and Mike knew exactly where to take us. Hee hee hee.

You can see that Mike knows where to go to get the king boletes! We spent hours walking slowly through the forest and meadows, looking for the elusive bolete. I performed so many squats to look under trees that my legs were a tiny bit sore the next day. Awesome! But the time and patience paid off and we left with a ton of boletes for dinner. Before we headed back to Mike's place though we stopped at the Newport bridge to have a beer and watch some loons chillin' out in the water.

Loons in winter plumage

Here is the product of a tough day with friends in the forest. You can tell we were pretty stoked about our catch. Mike, on the right, is demonstrating what a perfect king bolete stem looks like. One thing I have not mentioned about these mushrooms yet is that humans are not the only animals that enjoy mushrooms. Flies like them too.....and boletes seem to be their favorite. So if it is warm out and the boletes are poking up, special treats are commonly found in the boletes that humans typically don't like to see in their food. If you cut open a bolete and see lots of holes in it, well, someone else is probably living in there as well. So Mike has this grading system that made us laugh, but it does help him figure out if he wants to eat the schroom in a damn tasty and fancy meal or if it should be pureed in a soup or used as stock. In this goofy photo he is showing off the "grade A" schroom. I should note, in case some of you never want to eat a wild mushroom again, that we toss the badly infested schrooms. I'm not so interested in them.

We stayed up until 2am processing mushrooms and having a bit of non-mushroom related fun too. It is easy to see how happy Jay was this weekend!

For dinner Mike had prepared some gourmet pizza dough and we processed pounds and pounds of boletes. The pizza was thick in boletes....and very tasty.

The next day we had to drive home, but we were addicted to mushrooms and decided to try and get some chanterelles. Can you see how many we found in this photo above? You can practice your mushroom skills - there are a ton in this photo..... at least nine. Yummy.

Without putting much effort into it - we all filled our bags and baskets. Mike was lounging in the forest while I, the slowest hunter of all, tried to finish filling my bag. He is showing off the best chanterelle I found - we called it the "goblet" for obvious reasons.

Forty-five pounds and way later in the afternoon than we expected to leave, we were happy mushroom hunters. Erik served up his fantastic homebrewed porter and we celebrated wild mushroom heaven.

Jay and I came home with just under 20 lbs. of chanterelles that needed to be processed. But we went straight to bed! So the next day we were up until 1am (or 2am??) dealing with all the chanterelles. I made a cream of chanterelle soup and a rustic bread with spent grain from brewing. We topped it off with an oaky chardonnay, although I'm thinking a red wine like a pinot noir might have been a better pairing. Feel free to tell us what you think!

Since the big hunt, I've been in Vancouver, B.C. at the Salish Sea Ecosystems Conference. I just got back to some very happy kitties and Lester is currently occupying my lap. I was glad to see all of my men!

If you want to see a ton of photos of mushrooms, go here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/October2011 and scroll toward the bottom of the month.

Mountain Loop Road and the lack of mushrooms

2011-10-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Before I describe our mushrooming (or lack of) trip this past weekend I thought I would reflect on attempting to grow tomatoes in Washington. Tomatoes hate Washington. It is just too freakin' cold in the summer for tomato love. So I had this tomato plant... It grew into a giant and produced nothing. Until mid-August when Jay's mother noticed, during her visit, tiny little tomatoes growing. Just this week, I picked them because it was dropping into the 30s at night. So I ended up with a bowlful of almost ripe or fully green tomatoes. But lucky us! They like the gorgeous glass bowl (wedding present!) and are ripening in our house. The moral of the story - I only buy cherry tomatoes for next year.

Now onto the mushrooms - I'm sure that is what you really want to hear about anyway! Well, there isn't much to say! We found tons of mushrooms that were new to us and we were not willing to eat any of them without some expert around to tell us we wouldn't end up on the toilet all night. But I think a bunch of them were edible! Like this lovely purple mushroom to the left. We think this is a blewit and they are supposed to be good to eat, but we were not brave enough. It was fun to see them though! I also found tons of milk caps and russulas. Many of these are supposed to be tasty as well, but some can make you sick. Again, we left these behind too. *Sigh* Finally, we did find some edibles! The Pig's Ear below is a gorgeous mushroom that is good when it is young except for one problem. Our guidebook says "often riddled with maggots".....so we left those alone too because these were not "young" looking specimens.

So we stuck to what we knew! Our friends Ralph and Jackie had joined us for the day - which made finding nothing even more fun. At the end of the day we had chanterelles, hedgehogs, and oyster mushrooms. The best part? There was enough for each couple to go home with for one meal. We got skunked, but not totally skunked!

Pig's ear!

Scaly pholiotas, I think, on this big old tree.

Jackie, Jay, and Ralph pretend that we got a ton of mushrooms! Yup.

Old friends, new friends....and pesto bread

2011-10-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! Our dear kitty, Darwin, had to have his massive canine tooth pulled on Friday. So we were in the house on Friday evening, kitty-sitting a toothless fluff. On Saturday we chilled with the fluff again in the morning and then headed to the Anacortes Oktoberfest to sample brews from many local and far away breweries (within WA and OR). My grand scheme for next year is to volunteer for the event and get in free! Hee heeee.

On another totally random note.....
Thanks to Jay's family reunion back over Labor Day and a cousin's informative partner, I have finally found a bread recipe that seems to work for me! Ahhhh.....the only bummer is that it doesn't use sourdough starter. But at this point, I don't care. We will use our sourdough starter for our yummy pizza crusts and the bread dough recipe for artisan breads. I used the dough the other day to make a pesto bread. We ate tomatoes from our tomato plant on the bread (yes, the tomatoes are just starting to ripen and die here all at the same time....too damn cold for tomatoes).

Cool eh?? I suck at making artisan bread, but I'm not feeling so crappy anymore.

Jay, Kat, Jenni, and Finn

On Sunday we drove to Seattle and scooped up Jenni and her tiny son Finn. Jenni was down from Alaska visiting family in the area and we were able to sneak in a visit too! At this point you could also start singing "it's a small world after all" because that kept happening to us today! A friend of mine from Antarctica, Jordan, had introduced me to his friend Kat who lives in Seattle. Jordan understood that I was searching for more friends in WA and thought Kat shared a lot of similar interests with us. He was right! Kat and I emailed back and forth a few times, but had not actually managed to meet yet. Next thing I know, I find out that many years ago, Kat and Jenni did research together at Shannon Point Marine Center - where Jay now works. So we ended up all getting together for Thai food and a walk in Seattle. What fun! But it gets better! Just as we pulled into the small parking lot at the Thai place, I looked into the little outdoor seating area at the coffee joint next to the Thai place. I stared a bit at the dude in the hoody and realized that it was our friend Ralph and his girlfriend Jackie! So random! Jackie and Ralph had been in Vietnam over the entire summer (as part of Ralph's MS work). Long story short, after lunch and a walk with Jenni and Kat, we headed over to UW's campus and scooped up Ralph. A few beers were consumed as we caught up on life, Vietnam, and such.

Another lovely weekend. We have a good life.

Sucia Island

2011-10-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

Harlequin ducks (note the lucky girl to the right)

We have been waiting for the right weekend to paddle over to Sucia Island from Orcas Island (in the San Juans). The crossing is supposed to be sketchy if the weather is not good. This is easy to deal with when the San Juans are in your backyard - we just waited until the forecast was on our side. The 2-mile crossing to the island was like paddling over mercury. It was flat calm, overcast with funky light, and just plain gorgeous. The harbor porpoises around our kayaks were an obvious thrill too! When it is as quiet of a day as it was when we crossed, you can even hear the little marine mammals taking a "poooof" of a breath. Sweet.

The sandstone rock formations on Sucia Island were an unexpected treat. It was so cool to paddle right up under the lips of these walls. Jay, as you can see below, even caught a sandstone wave. In a skirt! A spray skirt that is.

This is our campsite in Snoring Bay (Sucia Island); you can see our little tent on the right of the photo. We camped on a spit of land that connected two little islands to one another. Despite the rain that day, we even managed to have a fire and play a game of chess on our travel set. I won. I never win and that produced many interesting tidbits of thoughts from Jay. =)

Our sunset that night was out of this world.

We woke up in the morning to a ton of fog - not good for a 2-mile crossing in open water. So we waited for the fog to burn off while hiking around part of the island. We found this awesome area of sandstone cliffs with these odd head-like balls coming out of the walls. It was fascinating and it really reminded me of the Moraki Boulders we saw in New Zealand a few years ago.

We don't plan on going too far this upcoming weekend - there is a beer festival right here in Anacortes. Obviously, we must attend.

All the photos can be seen here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/October2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLrPvL7T2JrR8gE&feat=directlink

Dagger Lake, North Cascades National Park

2011-09-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

We headed off to the mountains this weekend for an overnight hike into the lovely North Cascades National Park. The forecast wasn't grand for Sunday, but we didn't care because it was gorgeous on Saturday! We grabbed a backcountry campsite map from the Park Service and just randomly picked a spot that sounded cool - Dagger Lake. Anything with a name like that is bound to be lovely. We also liked the sounds of it because the backcountry camp site was just about 7 miles into the park, and then a mile beyond that was Twisp Pass. That meant we could ditch our heavy packs at the camp and jump on up to the Pass for great views. We were not disappointed.

This is a photo from Twisp Pass of Stiletto Peak and Dagger Lake (where we were camped).

The hike started out along the Pacific Crest Trail and then turned east to head up toward Dagger Lake and Twisp Pass. Along the way we passed so many thimbleberry bushes that we didn't move very quickly. These were some of the largest and most yummy thimbleberries ever. Yeah! We spent most of the hike in the forest, which many backpackers dislike. We do not fall into that category. We love the plants, the big trees, the blueberry bushes that were turning into their fall red colors, and the mushrooms that poke up under the brush. We were also treated to many lovely views of mountains along the way thanks to avalanches! Avalanches clear large swaths of the forest, opening up the land to primary succession and long views of craggy peaks. And thimbleberries. Yum.

At the top of Twisp Pass we were treated to a new bird we had never seen before! Mountain chickadee!

Julie takes in the view of Stiletto Peak

At night when we were cozy in our sleeping bags we heard a loud rumbling that at first we thought was thunder. Then it got louder and I started to hear cracking sounds of trees falling. And loud noises of hard things hitting hard things. We soon realized that we were listening to a rock slide, probably on the other side of the basin we were camped in. A very humbling sound, no doubt. And a real reminder that we were in a wild place. While cooking dinner I heard another call of the wild - a thump and crack of something landing in the tree over us. This no-so-graceful whack was followed by some really lovely hooting. Soon, there were probably three owls hooting around us. Awesome.

The next day came with short intervals of rain, but high clouds that still gave us open views of the North Cascades. Here you can just make out Jay in the avalanche clearing.

The blueberry and huckleberry season wasn't the best this year. But the blueberry bushes get a 100% for awesome fall colors.

At the end of the hike, I passed off a homemade blueberry muffin to another hiker we had met on the trail. We got in our sweet car and drove off, in a downpour, to the other side of the mountains where we found some sun to cook our lunch in. I ended up having a conversation with folks in the parking lot that were feeding gray jays human food. I tried to make light of it saying "look at what human food does to US, imagine what it does to a tiny little bird". They were receptive to my gentle scolding and asked lots of questions. Why do so many people feel the need to feed our crappy food to wild animals? It drives me nuts.

Jay motivated me in the pouring rain to go mushrooming along Bacon Creek (odd name for a gorgeous spot) just outside of the park. We are ready for mushies! But it hasn't actually been that wet....and the downpour of the day wasn't likely to spring up chanterelles that fast! But we searched anyway and Jay found a few! Enough for a pizza.... and I found a new shroom called a lobster mushroom (it is bright red). It is a parasitic mushroom that grows off of other mushrooms and it is supposed to be very tasty - except a few other residents had already taken up the space inside this particular mushroom. I decided to leave it for them. Until next time!!

Lazy September weekends

2011-09-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

September has been quite lazy since we got back from our trip back east, although "lazy" may be a relative term. We have not gotten in our car and driven insane distances to go kayaking or hiking. We have really just stuck around the Anacortes area. The weekend after we got back from the east coast we stuck to our house. We felt horrible about leaving the kitties for many weekends in a row (in July and August AND Labor Day). Based on the photos of Darwin below, you can tell they were happy to have some love and attention too.

Happiness is measured by how far Darwin's tongue sticks out when you pet him.

Here you can see that Darwin was REALLY happy. Man, that is cute.

Our Anacortes weekend consisted of biking to the farmer's market, biking along a bike trail and picking blackberries, biking to the new hot dog place in town with veggie dogs, grabbing a beer at the Rockfish/Anacortes Brewery, and then biking home. We went for a local hike in the forest lands on Sunday - exploring trails we had not been on yet that were gorgeous!

We were supposed to spend this past weekend backpacking with our friend Erik (from OR), but the weather forecast made us whimp out - lots of rain and chilly temperatures up at elevation. So, Jay and I spent a day doing something I've wanted to do for a while - bike around parts of Lopez Island. Lopez is one of the San Juans, and it is one I have explored very little. I wanted to taste wine at the local winery and to get ice cream at the local creamery. Priorities.

Here is the vineyard! The wine was surprisingly good!

That little biker dot is Jay....

We biked down to Shark Reef Preserve and took in some great views of San Juan Island (in the distance). And in the photo below, we found a giant isopod in the intertidal! Cool stuff!

I don't have to work next Monday (it is Native American Day, so we get it off). Jay and I have been thinking of all the possibilities of fun. Maybe a kayaking trip in the Canadian Gulf Islands? Maybe a trip to John Day Fossil Beds in OR? Maybe backpacking somewhere? Maybe diving off Vancouver Islands? Ugh. Too many awesome choices. What is your vote?? =)

2011-09-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Jay and I just got back from a wonderful visit to the east coast to see our families (and to visit summer). Lucky for us, the planes were flying only a few days after the hurricane and we were able to arrive when we expected! One week doesn't give you much time when you split the time into two for each family - but some time is better than no time! Our first three days were spent in unbelievable weather at my parent's house in Valatie, NY. Christina, Sara, Henry, and Jackson came for the entire time (although Sara had to leave a bit early to start teaching again). It was awesome to spend some quality time with the little nephews and to beat my parents at various card games in the evening. =)


Sara and Christina

On Kinderhook Lake!

We had some fun with kid activities during the day - including a visit to the Columbia County Fair in Chatham. The Barber-Justs went on all the rides and those of us that didn't want to pay to ride on county fair rides (i.e. me and Jay) watched and laughed at the expressions on Henry and Jackson's faces. We also spent some time at my parent's lake house, which was lovely. Jay and I took H&J out on a paddle in my parent's canoe and I taught them about the importance of hugging trees. Jay tried to explain the concept of "wilderness" to them too - Jackson asked "but are there cities nearby"? It was cute - we will get them out in the wilderness someday....perhaps when they are a bit older.

Here we are at the Columbia County Fair. It was like old high school days, except now I didn't care about how I looked.

Spinning in the dragon's belly at the fair - Christina, Henry, and Sara. Jackson is in there too even though you can't see him.

And we finally got to play in a pool! Jay and I love the pool at my parent's house and we were stoked to swim around in the warmish water and hot sun. Here is a great video of Henry and Jackson telling us jokes from the pool side: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/September2011#5648892525706792754

After leaving NY early in the morning we drove to the Cape - but stopped in Narragansett, RI along the way to meet up with our dear old friends. I had not seen many of our RI friends since Jay and I got hitched exactly two years ago! Crazy. In that time period all of them had babies turn into kids! It was fun to meet slightly taller versions of their kids that now walked and talked!

Jeff, Jay, and Jane - RI beaches

Microfriends! Max, Zach, Ryan, and Cormac. Yup - our friends all had boys!

I wish we had gotten a picture of all the grown-ups too! But this photo cracks me up because it is fun to see all of their kids. Our time was short with our friends - but it worked out perfectly with nap times and such. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to the local ice cream joint that we frequented in graduate school. Yummy. Summer never fully arrived over in WA - and I always celebrate the arrival of summer with a hot fudge sundae. So, finally, I got my "start of the summer" hot fudge sundae.

After sitting in traffic on the Newport Bridge for a long time we were able to breeze to the Cape! We didn't spend much time chatting with Jay's family in the kitchen when we arrived - instead we headed straight to the beach together! It was windy and the tide was low, giving us excellent body surfing conditions in Buzzards Bay. Jay, Lee, Lee's significant other, Daren, and I all played for a long time in the surf. The funny part was that we all took the beach home with us after we got out of the waves. There was a ton of wrack in the water from the hurricane and it was stuck in our hair and in our bathing suits. The shower looked like the beach when we were done - it took some cleaning to get it back to normal!

Allison and Jay heading to the Inlet

Each day we wandered off to the beach. And each night we had a wonderful gathering of most of the White family. Jay's mom hosted 18 people at her house for the first big dinner (tasty fish and roasted veggies) and then Jay's uncle hosted all of us at his place the next night (yummy Spanish paella). Our last night on the Cape was a real treat - Jim and Allison took us out to dinner to celebrate our second anniversary at The Glass Onion, an amazing restaurant that didn't exist in Falmouth when we lived there. The dinner was lovely, the wine was fantastic, and the company could not have been better. We are very lucky people.

Daren, Lee, and Jay - at the Inlet on a sort-of chilly day

Here we all are trying to pretend that we were super warm after a swim at the Inlet. It was windy and not-so-sunny this day, but we went for a dip anyway!


Jay's extended family on a warm summer day....

All of Jay's cousins were here except (sadly) Kate, Brett, and Laura (+ family). We thought of them often.... As usual, our time spent with the White family was filled with laughter, stories, wine, and good times. We miss everyone already.

Photos of all the fun are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/September2011#

Sunny weekend fun with friends!

2011-08-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

Way back during our more nomadic lifestyle, we met an amazing couple. Anna and Jan were traveling around Indonesia and we ended up on the same boat (above) together for three days while moving from the island of Flores to the island of Lombok. We slept outside on the deck and spent our days snorkeling or wandering islands in search of Komodo dragons. It was a magical three days, and by the end of it we were great friends. It just clicked. Too bad they live in Chicago and may even go to Belgium one day (Jan's home country). But we got lucky because they decided to visit the Pacific Northwest! So we scored on a weekend of fun with two wonderful fellow travelers!

Here we are in Indonesia....warm, sunny Indonesia. Jay, Julie, Anna, and Jan

We searched and found the awesome Komodo dragon

Jay and Jan played together a lot in Indonesia - I love these photos of the two guys going off a rope swing. I went too, as did Anna. I wasn't nearly as graceful... Anna also had better style than me. So I decided to be the rope swing photographer, something I'm much better at!

Enough of flashback photos..... we are now a few years older and still little kids that want to play! So when they came, we played! We spent a day hiking near Mt. Baker and a day out on San Juan Island.
Here we all are on San Juan Island waiting for the ferry to come and take us back to Anacortes. Jan and Anna went on a kayaking tour (great sounding tour but no orca) and Jay and I biked to a beach and lazed in the sun.

A cute marmot whistled and let us know he/she was there. I don't think Anna or Jan had ever seen one before. This dude/dudette has some funny teeth and we all got a kick out of watching it whistle.

Wildflowers were still in full bloom at Mt. Baker

Here I am frying myself in the rare sun. Don't worry - I had sunblock on.

We leave tomorrow night for a fast visit back east - three days at my parents house and three days on the Cape for a reunion of sorts with Jay's family. Everyone we know back east seems to have done O.K. with the hurricane minus some flooding in basements. I am thankful for that....and thankful that our flights seem to be on time tomorrow night. Can't wait for some family time! We don't get enough of it.

Mt. St. Helens backcountry

2011-08-25T21:36:00.001-07:00

Last weekend, Jay and I escaped to the backcountry in a place I've wanted to visit ever since we moved here - Mt. St. Helens! Every torturous minute on I-5 was worth it because this was one of the coolest places I've ever seen. We did an overnight hike into the Mt. Margaret Backcountry, which is right next to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument (where no one is allowed to spend the night). It was hot, there was no shade, there were wild strawberries everywhere, wild flowers were all over the mountains, and we were shocked to find out that we could see four volcanoes from our backcountry camp site. It couldn't have been a better weekend.

We started our hike from the Norway Pass trailhead and immediately started a climb (we went uphill all day, but it was a nice grade that didn't kill you). If you were the type of hiker that wanted to get from A to B really fast, you would have hated being with us. I had to stop every two seconds and gape at the views. And Jay and I both had to stop and eat wild strawberries whenever we saw them. As we climbed, the views just got more and more incredible. It was crazy to think that had the mountain not erupted, we would have been hiking in a forest! But instead of a forest, we were hiking in ash, stumps, and downed trees. Wildflowers ruled here, not trees.

The strength of the 350 mph ash blast are obvious. The trees were knocked down in a second. If we had been camping here when the eruption occurred, we also would have been flattened. It was humbling to see evidence of this kind of force.

Mt. Adams was the first volcano we got a great view of - with Meta Lake in the foreground. Before we started hiking, Jay asked me if I thought we would see other volcanoes. I suggested that we might only be able to see Mt. St. Helens. I couldn't have been more wrong. This view was only the beginning.

We had lunch at Norway Pass with this lovely view of Mt. St. Helens, the crater, and Spirit Lake. What looks like ice in the lake is actually a giant raft of logs.....the remains of the forest that was blasted into the lake on the day of the eruption.

Here is the crappy view from our campsite (the tent is right behind Jay). We could see Mt.Rainier right from our tent door. Turns out that we could see all Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens all from our campsite. Bliss!

A short walk from our tent at sunset and we got great views of alpenglow on Mt. Adams.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Jay and I both woke up in the tent to the sound of something large walking over the snow fields that surrounded our camp. Stupidly we thought they were mountain goats. We had seen huge tracks in the snow and for some reason we assumed they were a huge mountain goat. How silly of us? The noise outside our tent was not going away, and there were some high-pitched whimpering noises too. We started wondering what bear cub noises sounded like....or if mountain goat kids made noises. We kept sticking our head out of the tent, but could see nothing. Whatever it was, it was behind our tent and we were too warm and lazy to get out and inspect. Finally, we heard a telltale sound - an elk bugling. And we had a good laugh at ourselves for thinking the elk tracks were mountain goat tracks. That would be a massive mountain goat!

The view of the elk herd in the early morning confirmed our thoughts that we had an elk herd next to the tent in the middle of the night.

This was a lovely view to have in the morning.

On the way back, I stopped to marvel at a force so strong it could flip a tree upside down. Wow.

More pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/August2011
(scroll down to the stuff past North Cascades NP pictures)

Allison visits Anacortes....

2011-08-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Allison came to visit and spent a wonderful week with us in Washington. To make things even better we spent a lot of time with cousin/niece Sophia (who lives in Seattle). Sophia joined us on our weekend trip to Mt. Rainier National Park. Just look at that gorgeous family below...

We hiked up to Snow Lake, but the snow (literally) stopped us from getting to the lake. It didn't matter because the hike was loaded with wildflowers and wonderful views. We took our time and tried to identify numerous plants and trees. It is fun being a biologist with other liked-minded people.

Grove of the Patriarchs in Mt. Rainier NP. Here is the family with a huge red cedar.

Just last year Jay and I did a nice long hike in the same spot. This year there was so much snow you couldn't even see the trail!

We spent Sunday at the Anacortes Arts Festival. Here we were watching a giant roller thing create giant block prints. It was totally cool. Allison's photo below (she also took the roller shot) is of one of the many lovely booths in town. I loved this artist even though I couldn't totally afford those awesome vases.

We love taking people to Deception Pass State Park, so we stuck with that tradition during Allison's visit. Here we are soaking up the sun before firing up the grill for an evening BBQ.

The thimbleberries were ripe! We had to harvest everyone we saw. After a long foraging session we made a thimbleberry sauce and served it over vanilla ice cream. I was the happiest thing around.

Jay took a day off and headed to Orcas Island with kayaks and Allison. Here she is - her first time in a kayak! They paddled for a few lovely hours on Mountain Lake in Moran State Park.

View from the viewpoint near Diablo Lake - North Cascades National Park.

Allison sadly left us for the east coast on Thursday night. Over the weekend we headed to the mountains for an overnight and a nice long day hike. We always feel less lonely in the mountains....

We found huckleberries! Ohhhh yum. Here is Jay foraging.

Beautiful North Cascades

All the photos can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/August2011

Whistler, Vancouver, and Paddle to Swinomish

2011-08-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

More stories from Christina's visit! And here is a link to her photos of the trip:
https://picasaweb.google.com/cbarberjust/WashingtonCanada2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCKSPzI6eloueWg&feat=email

Christina loves raw oysters, so I took her to a good little market so she could pick out "small" oysters for sampling at home.

Here are the two sisters near the top of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, BC. We love Canada! We spent the day taking in the sunshine at the base where it was hot....and then we took chairlifts to the almost top of the mountain where we hung out in the snow and watched skiers and riders play in the big sno-park. I couldn't believe how different the top looked compared to the area we skied in this February. The spot we loved to ski in was a massive playground for people that love going off jumps and landing on soft giant pillows! It was super fun to watch!
I love this photo of Christina because you can tell that she wasn't so sure about the whole Peak 2 Peak gondola experience. It is pretty nutty when you start to learn all the crazy facts about the gondola....like it has the largest unsupported span of cable in the world...ya know. Stuff like that. In either case, we survived the trip and made it over to Whistler mountain from Blackcomb. We promptly got beer or wine and sat outside to take in the view and the sun.

The last day that Christina was here was also the start of a very important and special week at the Swinomish Indian Tribe (where I work as a shellfish biologist). Each year a different tribe in the Puget Sound region hosts all the other tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest - but they don't arrive by car. They arrive by traditional canoe. It is a really unique experience to be able to see the arrival of all the canoes. Throughout the rest of the week each tribe performs songs and dances to the other tribes. It basically is a way for tribes to bond with one another and reinforce their unique and wonderful culture. Christina was here for the first day when all the canoes arrived, so she was able to take in some of the sights.

All employees of the tribe were gathered up to work the various jobs of the Canoe Journey week, regardless of our "real" job for the tribe. I signed up to work for the recycling group that was trying to make the huge event (hosting and feeding more than 10,000 people) a reduced-waste event. Right up my alley! Well, I spent the week happily dumpster diving with a few other hardy souls to sort lazy people's trash for them. That's right. I pulled recyclables and compostables out of dumpsters to keep the stuff out of landfills. My boss took a photo of me and a few other hard core women in the dumpsters. I'll post it if I ever get my hands on it. After last week I'm convinced there is no hope for the human race. But aside from that everything is fine, just fine. I will say that it was fun to dumpster dive but I'm glad that it isn't my full time job.

We didn't go away this past weekend - we were content to chill in Anacortes on Saturday. We rode our bikes to town on Saturday and had a warm, sunny breakfast at our favorite restaurant, Adrift. Then we bought out the local farmer's market (berries are so good in Skagit County). We spent the rest of the day doing who knows what around the house - but mostly we sat outside in the sun. After five months of March, we did have summer this week. On Sunday we finally did a day hike that we have heard about for ages. You can see the image of Jay above on Sauk Mountain, along the Skagit River Valley.

Sauk Mountain

Julie at the top of Sauk Mountain. You can tell that it was a huge snow year for the Cascades and many of the hikes we would like to do are not possible to hike yet because of all the snow!

Avalanche lilies pushing up through the snow

My photos of the month of July are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/July2011Washington

Christina visits! Oh...and Alaskan pictures are up!

2011-07-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

Go here for all the images and video from our Alaskan vacation:
https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/2011GustavusTrip#

Jay and I had an AWESOME time this past week with my sister! I don't have those photos posted yet to my Picasa account - but here is a preview of the fun stories that will be posted after this slightly nutty (and fun) week of work.

We went to Whistler! And stood in snow at the almost top of Blackcomb mountain.

I took Christina on a foraging trip in Anacortes. Here she is with some tasty wild salmonberries.

We ate really well every day. Here we are at the "Flying Pig" restaurant in Vancouver, BC.

Alaskan log #1

2011-07-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

There is so much to discuss about our trip to Alaska that I don't know where to begin! And we are so busy right now (I'm teaching another online class for some extra $ and fun) that I haven't had much time to deal with my photographs or even upload all of them. I'm finally in the middle of that process right now and will put up a link once they are all on Picasa. In the meantime, posts for the next few weeks are likely to be out of order because my sister is visiting tomorrow and she will take priority on blog posts!!

This trip came into existence for two reasons: (1) I missed my friends and I wanted Jay to get to know them and Gustavus better and (2) there is no place in the world as awesome as Gustavus and Glacier Bay. It was time to go back. So I rallied a few other friends from the old days and we met up in the airport in Juneau and flew over together.

We spent our first night in Alaska with friends Chris and Ebett - we even managed to sneak in a hike with them and my friend Tom (now in Juneau but I knew him from Gustavus). Then Tom, Jay, and I went on a crazy/insanely fast shopping spree for booze and food before meeting up with Jennifer, Jenni, Richard, and baby Finn at the airport. I think Jennifer, Jenni, and I were all teary-eyed when we approached the runway in Gustavus because it was so wonderful to see this place we all know and love so much. The photo below shows the approach to Gustavus - you can see the Gustavus Flats in the picture. I didn't know who we would see at the airport aside from our friend Lewis (and son Rowan) who was planning on picking us up. So it was a wonderful, wonderful treat to see Sean and Janet and their family arrive to greet us, along with Marylou, and Jim, Lisa, and baby Cooper (with wild strawberries as a welcoming snack).

Our first few days were spent mostly taking in the town and visiting with dear friends - many of whom now have kids that Jay and I had not met! Jay and I were staying in a sweet guest cabin on the property of a friend Jenni and I knew from the park service. Lewis and his son Rowan (Ellie was out of town) were awesome hosts and we had the best time visiting with them and staying in their spruce(?)-smelling cabin. Our first morning involved a mellow walk on a new Nature Conservancy trail that our friend Sean had helped build. It was great fun to hang with Sean and Janet's daughter Téa on this hike because she is spunky and full of hilarious chatter. The lupine was in full bloom, and the wild strawberries were just starting to get ripe. Yum.

Sean, new baby Skyler, Richard, and Jenni (Finn on her back)

After our morning walk and a tasty lunch with Lewis and Rowan, we headed to the park! It had been six years since I had been back. Jay visited me back in 2003 when I worked for the park, but he spent most of his time up bay with me on a long paddle around some of the glaciers in the park. So Jay didn't really get to know Gustavus or see other parts of the park. This week was exciting for me because I know that he has a better understanding of how special this place is now.

Anyway - Jenni and I were excited to see the old park service sign so we pretended to be tourists. Oh wait - we were tourists this time! Jenni and I lived together one year with two other wonderful women - Jessica and Marylou. Jessica couldn't make it to Gustavus this year, but we thought of her many, many times. Marylou still lives in Gustavus and works for the park! We caught her working and managed to arrive in time for her lunch break. Catch-up time was spent on a soggy bench overlooking a small lake and hermit thrushes provided our background music.

Old housemates! Julie, Jenni, and Marylou

July 4th is a real Gustavus experience and it was a great way for me to find old friends that I had not seen in a while. This is real, honest, fun stuff with burlap bag races, slow bike races, pie-eating contests, egg tosses, etc. In the photo below you can see Jay in the slow bike race. The goal is to come in last....he came in second to last! Not bad!

Janet, Téa, and Skyler strut their stuff in the parade!

Julie and Jennifer (with friends in the background too) watched the slow bike race. We didn't want to burn too many calories.

After all the July 4th fun, we headed to Marylou's yurt for a lovey, warm dinner.

Marylou blowing bubbles for Finn

I'll post more stories later! Stay tuned for stories of our three-day trip to the outer coast of the park - a wild and rare treat! And boy do we have wildlife sightings to talk about from our one-day trip up the bay. But before any of those get up on the blog I get to spend time with my sister! Yeah!! Sleepy now...

Back from bliss

2011-07-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

We are back from our vacation in my favorite place in the world, Gustavus. It may be Jay's favorite spot too now....although he still loves the tropics. The trip was amazing and I can't wait to look at our photos and tell you all about it. Alas, this has been a super busy field week for me and our weekend isn't looking too open either! Jay and I are going to participate in a mud run (ha ha ha) on Saturday at the Bivalve Bash. Doesn't that have my name written all over it? Well, Alaskan adventure stories will have to wait. I will say this though - going to Gustavus feels like going home. Coming back to Anacortes feels foreign (minus the fluffballs Darwin and Lester who make it easier to come back). I like Gustavus a thousand times better despite the fact that I really like Washington. *sigh*

Missing a train leads to great fun

2011-06-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

Our friends Steve and Catie came to visit us in Anacortes on their way to a wedding in Vancouver. Steve and I worked together at MA Marine Fisheries and we always had a blast together - so Jay and I were pretty excited to have them at our house for two nights. We actually met them in Seattle at a Taj Mahal concert at the Woodland Park Zoo. That was great - but we missed half of the Taj concert because of a misunderstanding from the website. Boooo. All was well though - we still had fun and enjoyed a super sunny and warm evening in Seattle. After the concert, we hit up Hales Brewery and then headed back north to Anacortes.

Jay and I had to work on Thursday, but Steve and Catie took our kayaks out on what sounded like an epic adventure around the islands near the Swinomish Reservation. In the evening, we took them out to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Anacortes (Adrift) for a wedding celebration...they are getting hitched in September!

The next morning, we got up early and had a mellow breakfast before leaving to take them to Mt.Vernon to catch the train up to Vancouver. Despite the fact that we had given ourselves enough time to get to Mt.Vernon (not a ton of extra time, but we should have been fine) they missed their train! I was floored - but it didn't help that the train left early. What the heck is that all about - leaving early ain't cool. And we hit every light and got stuck behind super slow trucks the entire drive out there. But, no one freaked out and all was well! I don't usually work on Fridays (I do the 4 10 hr weeks usually) and I actually had the day off. Suddenly, I was going to Vancouver! Steve and Catie did not actually have any plans set for the day, so we got to play together in the big city. It worked out to be a damn fun day, despite crappy Vancouver traffic.

We decided to go for a hike somewhere near Vancouver. We looked at a few Provincial Parks, but picked Cypress because it looked like the most sunny. This was actually the area where some of the Olympic events were held, so that was kind of fun to see. We hit the trail as soon as we finished lunch at a lovely viewpoint. There was still a lot of snow and this ended up cutting us short on the idea of a longer hike (the fact that we were stuck in a downpour also helped cut the hike short). We still had fun anyway!

Steve and Catie with a "snow pole" that shows the height of the snow. There was still a fair amount of snow around - but it would be sweet to see this pole in January! Maybe Jay and I will go back - these trails would be great for cross country skiing.

After saying our goodbyes in Vancouver, I drove back to Anacortes. Jay and I had a mellow weekend filled with lovely hikes around our town. We even scored on more oyster mushrooms. If we only had a ladder, man, we would have really hit the jackpot. Those mushrooms escaped us though....

Here are some pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/June2011

We head to AK on Friday for an awesome vacation in Gustavus.....we can't wait to see all our dear friends and to feel the wild air on our skin. I can almost smell the forest right now.... Ah.

Yahoo for New Yorkers!

2011-06-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Yipee!!! Cheers for everyone out there who wants and deserves equal rights. This is a great victory!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html?ref=nyregion

James Island, James, and the raccoons

2011-06-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

We brought out our lovely kayaks last weekend for an overnight paddle. It is real tough living right by the San Juan Islands. Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves that we live by such an awesome playground! Each weekend we try to take advantage of this unique place, but it doesn't always happen. Last weekend it did though and we headed out on a paddle to James Island. Every time we take a ferry to one of the islands in the San Juans, we stare at James Island. It is a state park, it has campsites designated for paddlers only, and it looked like a gem to us. Finally, we decided to go for it!

It was a short paddle from Lopez Island (our launch spot) to James Island - only about four miles. It was a gorgeous paddle though - with views of Decatur Island, the iconic WA ferries, and their wakes.... The minute we arrived on the kayaker-only beach and campsite at James Island, my very own James (Jay) had his shirt off for some much needed Vitamin D. The beach was protected from the wind that blasted through the other campsite on the island and was HOT. It was awesome. Note that I'm even wearing shorts! Wow.

We had a lovely evening cooking dinner (you can see Jay cooking in this image) on the beach and enjoying the sunset. A late evening walk brought us right under a tree with a bald eagle chillin' and doing its thang. We also saw tons of deer - no predators on this island!

And then we finally headed to bed....or so we thought. Shortly after dozing off in my warm bag, I heard a loud shriek and scream. I bolted up in my sleeping bag - what the heck!?? Jay remained half asleep - clearly not in defense mode. More screams. I managed to get Jay to move and we poked our heads outside the tent with our headlamps. Raccoons. They were everywhere and they were fighting with each other. I had no idea they were capable of producing such blood-curdling screams in my life. If we didn't know it was just a raccoon, I might have been terrified. It didn't take us long to realize that we might not be getting much sleep tonight. My favorite memory of this not-so-great night was Jay running around in boxer shorts and sneakers throwing anything he could find at the little bastards in the trees. Many rocks, branches, twigs, etc. were thrown. Princess Julie would come out with her defender Jay, but always retreated to the tent and sleeping bag quickly because she was cold. Eventually the fight was won by the raccoons. They couldn't get to our food in the kayaks (we had carefully stowed and flipped the kayaks) but they could fight right over our heads. And fight they did. The whole night. Despite the heroic efforts of Jay.

I'm not sure when they decided to let us sleep - but it wasn't for very long. We had planned to get up early to paddle around Decatur Island and back to Lopez. We had a ferry to catch to meet my buddy David (from Antarctica) back at our house. But we slept through the time we would have needed to start that longer paddle thanks to the coons. So we had a quick breakie and took off on the short paddle back to Lopez Island.

On our way back we were treated to some views of scavengers in action. A dead deer on the beach had attracted a ton of bald eagles! They were everywhere. We tried to count and figured there were at least six - plus a bunch of buzzards. We didn't want to get too close and disturb the eagle that was happily chowing down, but I did manage to get these shots (cropped....we were not this close). Yummy.

Back in Anacortes, David (one of the SCINI pilots from Antarctica) came to visit for the night. It was great fun to have him here. We talked about international travel, drank some good beer, and ate a yummy Asian dinner. He had just gotten back from teaching engineering in Vietnam - so we had much to discuss. It is always lovely to have friends in your house.

More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/June2011

Giant mushrooms and sore bums

2011-06-06T21:03:00.001-07:00

The weather in Washington has finally turned to the sun. It has been very cold and rainy here since ummmm.....forever? January? I can't remember the last time we had multiple days of sun and in the past, even when it has been sunny it has still been freezing. Well, not this weekend. We hit the low 70s, I broke out my favorite Patagucci skirt, and life was so damn good.

We spent Saturday hanging out with friends! A rare treat in this land of not too many friends. I was friends with a couple, Lisa and Jim, back when I lived in Gustavus, AK. Lisa and Jim moved to CA awhile after I left Gustavus, and spent a ton of energy trying to get back to the town we all love. Lisa just landed a great job with the national park and they are moving back! So they stopped in Anacortes, with their kid (who I never met until now), Cooper, and we headed out to the Rockfish Grill/Anacortes Brewery to celebrate their move. Cooper was a riot - we loved him! And it was great to catch up with Lisa and Jim. We will see them again soon in Gustavus when we head north for a vacation in my old home town in July. When they left to drive to Bellingham to catch the ferry to Alaska, we headed to our friends Kerry and Jens house for a BBQ dinner. We stayed outside as long as possible until it got too chilly and then we headed in. I kept my skirt on all day; I was determined to pretend it was summer.

Shaw Island

The next day Jay and I took full advantage of where we live. We rode our bikes to the San Juan Island ferries and took a boat to Shaw Island. Shaw is the least explored of the four islands that the ferries service in the San Juans and we had been meaning to explore this island for a long time. What a great day to do it! It was hot (for WA) and sunny. What a great playground we live in! We got off the ferry, grabbed two cold beers from the tiny store on the island, and biked to the county park. We nestled into the warm sandy beach and fried ourselves like good sun-deprived nuggets. After a while we realized we were not going to see any of the island if we didn't peel ourselves away from the warm beach. So we finally got on our bikes and spent two hours biking all around the island. It isn't that big of an island and we managed to see most of what we could from the public roads. It was hilly. My bum is sore! Wow! And life is good. Real good.

Jay loves his bike!

The quintessential Washington view - the green and white ferries and the Olympic Mountains

Ohhh and last weekend - we found these gigantic and tasty oyster mushrooms. Boy oh boy!

Antarctic reunion!

2011-05-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a long weekend in California where I was visiting my pals from Antarctica! Team Ice Aged planned a reunion only a few months after we left the ice; it was great to see everyone again! We met at the Kenneth S. Norris Rancho Marino Reserve right next to Cambria, CA on Thursday and stayed until Saturday. I flew down on Wednesday night and crashed with Kevin and his wife, Lisa, at their awesome house near Santa Cruz. After hitting up the huge Memorial Day weekend sale at the Patagonia outlet (hee hee) we all drove south to the reserve and soaked up the view! It is gorgeous there! And despite the chilly wind, I was thrilled to see some sun. We took advantage of our time together to chat about building databases for all the data (dating back to the 60s) and to go over some of the data I've collected for Paul from SCINI photos. But we mostly played - walking around the reserve, taking photographs, drinking wine/beer, and watching slide shows of old and new photos from the Antarctic.

The stars were pretty incredible at the reserve

Part of the team - Kevin and his wife Lisa (and Puka), Jennifer (and Denali), David, and Julie

Gorgeous - if you blow this up and look all the way to the right you can see the buildings we stayed at. Most of us camped though and used the buildings to eat and escape the chilly wind.

Kevin, Puka, Julie, and David

Paul, Stacy, Lisa, Kevin, David, and Gordy (Paul's dive buddy way back when and another great scientist)...Julie and Jennifer on the bottom

DJ and Tina didn't make it out to the reserve, but we got to see them in Santa Cruz!

When I arrived back in WA yesterday, Jay and I took advantage of the opportunity to visit SAM's (Seattle Art Museum) outdoor sculpture garden. Then we hit a brewery we had been hearing about for a while called Elysian. And it gets even better! Jay searched around and found a Nepali restaurant in Seattle called Annapurna - we went and drank hot chai and ate yummy Nepali food and remembered our great time in that place. Ahhhhh.

More photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/AntarcticReunionCalifornia2011#
and here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/2011May#

Morel season!

2011-05-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

Spring has arrived in Washington (this means it is still freezing but Washingtonians put on shorts) and that means it is morel season! Now, Jay and I are not very seasoned mushroomers. In fact, we are super beginners. But, I knew that morels grew in areas that had recently been clearcut or dealt with a forest fire. So, I'm a dork. I found some GIS layers of recent burns and I was able to map out where recent burns had been in WA so we could drive to one of those burns. It turned out that this particular burn was too high in elevation - there was still too much snow! But lucky us - just by driving along the road we found another burn and off into the woods we went. I'm not sure either one of us expected to find a single mushroom. Everything we have read about morels tell you that they are impossible to find and that many mushroomers become "demorelized". Well, we were in the burnt forest for about 1/2 hour when Jay announced his sighting of our first morel! I was so excited I think I took a million photos of one little mushroom. Yipee!

Here is Jay with a bunch of morels! All those tiny dots are morels. They are small, but bigger than they look here.

After a not-so-hard tramp through the woods, we found this awesome lake to camp on. The view sucked.

Dinner was grand for campers. Morels with potatoes, shallots, and sheep cheese. Not bad for not planning on a dinner involving morels.

We went back to the same spot the next day and found more! Here I am with what I think is a white morel (everything else we found was "black")

The drive back to Seattle (and then north) was awesome. We were blown away by the cool geological formations along the road between Rainier and Yakima. Gorgeous!

Our last morel dinner was tonight. We stuffed the big morels with shallots, garlic, pecans, and goat cheese. The garlic and shallots were tossed in a sherry while we cooked them to make things even more tasty. All of that was served on top of really good pasta that was also tossed with smaller morels and good olive oil. Happy Julie and Jay.

Details on the Barber visit!

2011-05-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

Jay is still in Belize and I'm having a rainy weekend here in WA on my own. I've got tons of plans of things I want to do, as usual. And one of those things was to update this blog! I'll tell stories through our photographs (some of these pictures are my mom and dad's). If you just want to see pictures, here is the link to my album with all the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/April2011PortlandMomAndDadVisit# All the Barber family visit photos will be below the Portland, OR photos, just scroll down.

The tulips were in bloom along with the daffodils. I had to work some of the days my parents were visiting so they spent two days visiting the gorgeous tulip fields without me or Jay. When we finished working though, we went out together in the evening and froze our butts off to get some great shots of the flowers.

Happy Dad! What a trooper! Despite dealing with a never-ending broken leg, my father had a great attitude and still got out and around to see the flowers. We did a lot of driving this week to keep him off his leg, but at least he was still able to see the sights!

Sunset over Mt.Erie from the Skagit Valley

The first weekend my parents were here we headed over the Cascades to Leavenworth. It is always warmer and dryer on the eastern side and we were happily looking for the sun! We found it! The views of the mountains were awesome and it was relatively warm! This is the little cabin we rented for two nights. The outdoor hot tub was grand after each day and we had some great shooting star sightings! We may have even seen the space station (you may think I am nutty, but I had just heard on NPR that the space station would be visible as the second brightest thing in the night sky that weekend). We saw a really bright light, traveling quickly across the sky, and it didn't blink (like a plane). WOW!

We went to a great place for dinner called Pavz Cafe Bistro that specialized in crepes. I had a great crepe dinner, but check out the dessert! Chocolate gelato wrapped in a crepe with a warm berry sauce and ohhhh the whip cream!

One day we took a boat all the way up Lake Chelan. This involved virtually no walking for my Dad and yet it gave all of us great views of this huge, narrow, lake and all the big Cascades surrounding the lake. Here we all are in the small town of Stehekin at the northern end of the lake.

On our way home we passed a farming field in the Skagit Valley that was loaded with snow geese. I know I already posted one photo of this, but here is another! This was a real treat because the snow geese are usually gone from the Skagit Valley by this time of year. However, we have had such a cold spring, the poor geese are confused and have not left yet for their summer stomping grounds up north.

I had to work again after our weekend trip to Leavenworth. I was walking along a beach mapping the upper clam boundary (to run a beach survey the following week) and this river otter walked right past me. That was a real treat! I could even smell it!

My second weekend with my parents was spent without Jay because he had already left for Belize. So we drove down to Whidbey Island and checked out Coupeville and Admiralty Head Lighthouse. Another day we took the ferry over to Orcas Island and drove around to a bunch of places I had never been to before on the island, including the cute little town of Deer Harbor.

It was a bit lonely at first to have my parents leave and Jay in Belize....but I've kept busy! I had a totally crazy week at work (fun, but nutty), I'm teaching a course online that keeps me busy at night, and I'm cooking, cleaning, gardening, making soap, knitting, reading, you name it. Each night I tackle a different project. Today I've got big plans to analyze more photograph data from Antarctica for Paul Dayton. I'll be heading down south at the end of the month to CA for an Antarctic diver/science reunion. I think we will be building a database for all the data that the team has collected over decades. I can't wait to see the crew again! But I want to get more data from Paul's photos before I head down. Lucky for me - all it does is rain here. I have little incentive to be out riding my bike or playing in the backyard. I will go for a jog, make a giant cup of tea, and collect sponge and broyzoan data for the most amazing scientist around, Paul Dayton. Sounds like a plan right!?

Jay is in Belize!

2011-05-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

I will write a long post about our great 10 days with my parents soon!

But in the meantime, you may be interested in knowing that Jay is in Belize right now as we speak. Yup! Our friend Randi needed an extra diver at Carrie Bow Caye at the last minute and Jay was able to fill the spot. He has worked a number of times with Randi in Belize and I am so glad that he was able to make this happen. Not only does he get to do some cool science, but he gets some quality time in with Randi (who is a dear friend as well as a colleague). Randi is a research scientist at the New England Aquarium and has a blog that she updates on her work. This means you can follow what Jay is up to....I keep hoping she will post a picture of him on the blog....but not yet. =)

Here is the link: http://explorers.neaq.org/search/label/Belize2011

In a few days I'll post more photos and stories of the Barber visit!

My parents are here!

2011-04-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Jay and I have been having a lovely time with my parents here in WA. We have been so busy having fun that I haven't put up a single photo. So far we have marveled at the blooming Skagit Valley tulips, spent a weekend in Leavenworth (a Bavarian-style town) in the Cascades, taken a boat ride up long Lake Chelan, and scored on a great view of snow geese on our way home! More stories to follow..... and certainly more photos! It is lovely to have them here!

The Barbers!

Mom, Jay, and Dad in Leavenworth
Leavenworth

Snow geese!

Portland, OR

2011-04-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last week was super busy! We had two sets of friends visit during the week and then we took off to Portland for the weekend. We had never explored the city before and we had a serious reason to head south. Jeff, an old friend of ours from URI, was in Portland for a conference and Erik lives relatively close by in Corvallis, OR - so we had a little RI reunion. Too bad all our friends in RI couldn't attend. Don't worry though - we had a few toasts in their honor!

On Friday night Jay and I met up with a friend I had made in Antarctica - Isaac. He is working on his PhD at Portland State and knows the area well. We met up at a Japanese restaurant where I had one of the best veggo sushi rolls ever. Then we headed to this totally amazing bar called "The Gilt Club" where we ordered bizarre and really tasty cocktails. It was great to meet Isaac's wife, Sandra and chill with some new buddies. They are awesome, I hope we hang out together more often.

Erik arrived the next morning and we went to a great breakfast joint called "Gravy" where your stomach needed to be about double the size to fit in all the breakfast food. Good thing there was a lot of food, I was starving!

We scored on spring flowers! The cherry trees were blossoming along the Willamette River. We wandered through these trees to the Portland Saturday Market.

I scored on fried dough (a downfall of mine, I love the stuff) and Nepali chai! A random combo, but hey, you can do whatever the heck you want in Portland.

After leaving the market, we headed to the northeastern part of town to start some brew tasting. Portland has a shitload of breweries, more per capita than any other city in the USA. Ahhhh. Erik had done his research and off we went. I can't keep up with the boys without dying, so I had baby glasses while they had big boy glasses. This place had an amazing barleywine.

Jeff arrived later that night and we scooped him up at the airport. We ate at a Vietnamese place called "Silk" and then headed to the last brewery of the evening, the New Old Lompoc. It seemed to have only amazing beers. We played scrabble, listened to Jeff's stories (it had been way to long since we had seen this dude), fought over words in the scrabble game, and had a grand time.

The next morning we went to this breakfast joint Jeff found on the good ol' internet. It was a classic old dinner complete with a classic diner menu. Their sign outside said "eggs...things". I never saw the "thing" on the menu, but I was intrigued. Jeff had to leave us at this point for his conference...far too short of a gathering, but better than nothing! Jay, Erik, and I headed to Forest Park for a nice hike and then we split up and headed home.

Good times! Photos can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/April2011Portland#

Halibut

2011-03-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you get lucky when you work as a fishery manager. Last week the halibut fishing season opened for the tribes and I was able to get some halibut for my lovely husband at rock bottom prices even though I don't eat the stuff. Now it seems we have enough halibut for a lifetime. My parents are coming to visit soon and will be excited to reap the benefits of this one fish. Anyone else? =)

Here are some of Erik's shots that he took with his smart phone thingy on the mountain last week and around Whistler Village.

Cougar Milk was really the name of this trail. It provided lots of laughs and nasty humor.

The fact that the Olympics were here was quite evident. Mike and I even hit the women's downhill run. I was too scared of the men's run. =)

https://picasaweb.google.com/julie.barber1/WhistlerBC2011#
More photos at the link above....

Whistler Blackcomb

2011-03-20T17:57:00.001-07:00

We had far too much fun in BC with our friends Mike and Erik. Those two guys drove all the way up from Oregon to play in the snow with us - and boy did we play!
We arrived at our hotel (The Edgewater Lodge) in the evening and headed right off to the hot tub (which we had some trouble finding in the dark). The view from the hot tub looked out over a small lake and Blackcomb Mountain. Whistler was a bit hidden behind the trees, but we could also see that mountain. We couldn't believe our luck - the mountains had apparently been hidden in clouds for the past few weeks. But when we arrived the sky was clear, the moon was almost full, and you could see the trails and the snocats grooming all the lines of snow in the mountain. So, as we drank some good beer in the hot tub we watched the snocats groom under moonlight. Gorgeous!

The view of Blackcomb Mountain from our room!

Goofy faces after an awesome day on the slopes

As far as the skiing goes, it was potentially the best skiing I've ever done. The two mountains were massive - I can't imagine even covering the trails in a week and we only had two days! We stayed up in the higher elevations, including tons of time above the treeline. The snow was better and the views were jaw-dropping from up top. The trail map was deceiving, the trails always looked shorter than they were. They kept going and going and going. I think it probably took us about a half hour to get from almost the top of the mountain down to our car when we finished for the day. We were all so tired, sore, and exhausted by the end of the day because we all skied so hard. But it was a great feeling.

In terms of the skiing, Mike and I tried out our Olympic legs and took off down the women's Olympic run on Whistler. Jay and Erik spent lots of time popping in and out of the trees. And, of course, there were some pretty epic wipe outs that involved a lot of laughter (only one wipe out was concerning for a few seconds, but all was well in the end). Eric takes the award for the most entertaining face plant - when he surfaced his beard had turned completely white. And Mike D. took off like superman in slow motion on the easiest trail on the last run....face planting and sliding down the trail while laughing the entire time. Awesome.

After a hard days work

We didn't want Jay to drown

Funny series of photos of goofy friends

The Coast Range from the road. It was a crappy drive home with horrible views.

I'm thinking Jay and I might be spending more time in BC.

Hopefully some more photos from the mountain will follow - Erik was the man with the camera.

Whistler!

2011-03-16T21:25:00.001-07:00

We are off to Whistler tomorrow night for a long weekend of skiing on some Canadian snow. Can't wait! We are especially excited to have our friends Mike and Erik from Oregon joining us. Fun will be had! Yipee!!! Bring on the snow!

Cross-country skiing and paddling in the Hood Canal

2011-03-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

What great fun we have had the past few weekends. I love snow and even though the snow we received was short-lived, it was a sweet time. We drove up north two weeks ago and hit the cross-country trails at the base of Mt. Baker. The most exciting news is that we stopped in Bellingham along the way and I got a new pair of cross-country skis!!! I kept looking online on Craigslist to find a used pair, but felt like giving up because everyone was selling their crappy gear. Well, I already had a crappy pair of skis and boots. In fact, I think I've had those skis since middle school? I have good memories associated with those skis and boots - Lake Placid ski trips in high school with our dear friends the Lockmans, skating down Narragansett Beach with my friend Erik at night, many solo trips into the woods behind UNH while I was in college, and even playing in the apple orchards behind my parent's house either with or without my parents. So I send those skis off to a thrift shop with a fond farewell. I will miss them. But my new skis are totally cool and my boots are silver! I love silver! And we got a good "end-of-season" deal....

What a day!

Well, you can't really see the new stuff - but it is there and I was happy (but beat by the end of the trail - we were out for hours and it was awesome).

The Nooksack River and Jay relaxing

Last weekend was fun too! Instead of hitting the mountains, we hit the water. I had to go to a conference on growing shellfish on WA beaches - and it just happened to be at a swanky resort along the Hood Canal. Jay and I both went down on Sunday....he got up early and headed back north early Monday morning to work and I spent two more days at the resort. We brought the kayaks and went for a paddle at the mouth of the Skokomish River. We saw a new bird!! The canvasback duck!!! I don't have pictures, but it was a treat to see a new duck and it was a beauty. Actually, "it" was a whole big flock.

After our paddle we hit up the swanky resort - the Alderbrook Resort. Normally rooms are all over $200 a night. But for the conference they were only $77 and we didn't have to pay a dime because I was there for work. We got there early to take advantage of the place. It was a really beautiful resort with a great window seat in our room, a big pool and hot tub, and even two saunas! We hit them all up. We also ate at the yummy restaurant for a treat - and although they served Chilean sea bass (a real pet peeve of mine) the veggos options were tasty.

Barrows goldeneye

Paddling the Hood Canal

Alderbrook Resort

Snow days in Washington!

2011-02-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

Anacortes has been hit with some snow and it is just awesome. We had a snow day on Wednesday and I had a late start on Thursday. This is basically because coastal WA rarely gets snow and they have no clue how to deal with roads! I was shocked to see that Anacortes even had a plow, but it was an ancient yellow Cat that didn't look well-suited to the job.

We took advantage of the wonderful snow day and went for our favorite walk around Cranberry Lake. It is like a totally new place in the snow and it was gorgeous.

I didn't finish blabbling about my awesome visit to NY. It was really hard to leave my family and come back to Washington. But I have great photos and memories of all my time with Henry and Jackson and family! The day I waas supposed to fly out we got snow! So we were out playing as soon as we could get H&J dressed and ready to get outside. We dragged them around on the old toboggan that I remember using with my family when I was little! Dragging a big old sled through deep snow was great exercise for the adults!

Jackson the gymnast?

I couldn't help but think of Antarctic explorers when we were dragging H&J around. We had 100 pounds of weight and two people hauling the kids. The explorers had almost 170 lobs. per person on their sledges that they man-hauled to the pole. Wow. I felt like a wimp after that thought.

Christina, Sara, and I headed out on a date while Gramps and Grams watched H&J. We went to an awesome Mexican restaurant called "Mexican Radio" in Hudson. And we went to Olana, the home of Fredric Church (famous American landscape artist). You can see Christina outside his home (Olana) before we went inside on the tour. I have been here several times, but it had been years since I went inside and on a tour of the home. I didn't appreciate it before (too young probably) and I loved it this time around. Church had traveled a lot and his house was designed to reflect his love of Persia and Persian architecture. What a wonderful time we had. Sara also blew the house down with her knowledge of all the American presidents during a "presidential quiz" on the tour. Whew. Glad someone knew how to answer all the questions!

And finally, we were treated to a visit from the Freda family (my uncle etc.). It was great to catch up with David, Connie, Lynn, and Kurt - the last time I saw them was at our wedding! It had been too long....

Happy winter!

NY Visit

2011-02-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

I have been having an awesome time with my family in NY. Christina, Sara, Henry, and Jackson have been here almost the entire time as well. I'm still in NY, so I'll save stories for later. But here are a few photos from my time here so far! I'm off to play in the new snow with Henry and Jackson! I am loving being back in winter.....it is lovely.

Mom on Kinderhook Lake

Christina and Sara in Hudson

The Barbers

Henry "surfing"

Jackson hangs ten

Mt. Baker was empty.....

2011-02-13T22:36:00.000-08:00

We have had some amazing sunsets lately from Anacortes. Here is our new house in a nice pinkish glow from the sunset.

This shot was taken from the street in front of our house.... not bad for a view eh?

Last weekend we shunned the superbowl (we don't really care about football anyway) and hit the slopes. We predicted, correctly, that Mt. Baker would be completely empty and we were right! We felt like we had the mountain all to ourselves, although there were a few other smart folks like us out there. =) The other two times we skied here, we had to contend with fairly crowded slopes. But not last Sunday! The weather wasn't exactly perfect, which also may have accounted for the empty trails. The snow was wet and we were pretty drenched by the end of the day. We stopped at a great brewery on our drive back to Anacortes called the North Fork Brewery, Pizza Shrine, and Wedding Chapel. You know it must be cool with a name like that eh? They must have one of the best barleywines in the world - it is called the Hair of the Frog. Yummy.

This weekend we were quite lazy. We had friends over for dinner on Saturday so we spent the day in the kitchen prepping. We have a winter farm share here and thus, we have lots of winter veggies to deal with like sunchokes and potatoes and leeks. We also have tons of apples and pears! Washington is a great state to live in because you can eat fairly locally even in the winter. We are trying! But we need some more help in the sunchoke department.

We took a hike today in the forest lands of Anacortes. This hike was a 10 minute drive from our house. Anacortes is a gem to have all these trails in our backyard. The view below is of the Swinomish Reservation; I get to spend a lot of time on those beaches!

We had heard that there were some stands of old-growth forests in the area we were hiking in. We have spent many other days looking for big trees - and today we think we finally found the stand of biggies! Massive cedars were towering around us when we ended up on this trail by accident (we were "exploring"). It was lovely!

Funny kitties and the birds

2011-02-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

Our lives have been quite boring lately because we are tied to Anacortes while the geoduck (pronounced goo-e-duck) fishery is going on. I have to be there at the end of a fishing day to weigh their catch in order to keep track of their quota....so if they fish I have to be here. But weather is fickle, as are fishermen. So sometimes they can't go when they planned on it and Jay and I lost two potential fun weekend days last week to canceled fisheries. Oh well - that is life I guess. These guys wouldn't dream of fishing on superbowl day though...so Jay and I are going to hit the slopes of Mt.Baker (we figure it will be empty and we don't care about football).

I've had some gorgeous drives to work this week. I get to work by 7am and the sun is just beginning to rise now during my drive. It gets even more fantastic at my desk.... I have a great view of the water from my chair. These gorgeous mountains are part of North Cascades National Park. I love seeing them every clear day.

Mt. Rainier and lights from La Conner

The other big entertainment of the week - we finally put our bird feeders back up! This has provided endless entertainment to the kitties (and me). As I sit here there are birds fluttering back and forth and feeding. The birds don't seem to notice the two kitties in the window chattering away at the birds with tails flicking back and forth. I am waiting for a cat to hurl itself into the window (Darwin did this once at our old house) but that hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, this is super fun to watch.

Tons of updates

2011-01-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

We have been busy with normal stuff like unpacking (we are almost done!) and with some play. Last weekend we headed up the Skagit River to see some bald eagles along the river. We actually see bald eagles on a daily basis right around Anacortes, but hundreds of them congregate along the Skagit in January for a steelhead run. But it was pouring and the river was too high for lots of good feeding. So we saw a lot of rain and not many eagles. Oh well - we went for a walk in the rainforest instead and that was gorgeous.

Common merganser

Jay eating lunch along the Skagit River

Neat moon halo over our house (Jay's pic)

Here are some photos of our new house and rooms in the house. We are 99% done with the inside and just have to deal with our junk in the garage (kayaks, camping gear, ski stuff, grill, etc.). I just painted an ugly bureau I got at a thrift shop for the guestroom. Jay and I love buying used stuff! After all, sometimes it just needs a new coat of paint. We managed to get the following stuff used for the house: a almost new mattress for the guest room, the guestroom bureau, a bureau for me that didn't need a paint job, a futon for movies in the office, and an end table for the family room! We scored and so did the planet. It feels good to reuse.

Our bedroom

Jay loves the kitchen!

Office (Darwin on the futon)

Where you get to sleep if you visit us! All under the warmth of my Grandma's quilt

Today we had planned on going skiing up at Mt.Baker. But our alarm didn't go off and Jay and I are experts at sleeping in. At 8am we realized we had missed our window to get up to the mountain and still have a decent amount of time to ski. So we decided to hold off on hitting the slopes for another week. Instead we broke out the kayaks! Yipee! It was a gorgeous day - no wind and small tides. A perfect day to cross some open water and check out Saddlebag Island. This island has a campsite for boaters on it and the sites looked awesome! We had an interesting encounter with duck hunters that I won't go into. I didn't enjoy it though. It is fair to say that the hunters blended in so damn well that Jay and I didn't know what we were paddling into. Ergh...we had no clue there were hunters out on Padilla Bay!

Padilla Bay

Saddlebag Island and our boats

Geoducks!

2011-01-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

If you have never met the lovely geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck"), now is your chance to greet an excellent clam! First of all, I know what you are all thinking. And you are correct to think so. Yes, this clam looks like (I'll quote a family member) a "horse's penis". Ha ha ha! I think it is actually quite cool looking and I am proud to be a geoduck scientist-in-training. I have much to learn.

First of all, these lovely clams are ancient. They are very long-lived. Eating one of these clams is like eating your grandmother. Yup. In fact, there are a lot of sea creatures that we eat that are long-lived. Rockfish, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, etc.... are all examples. This typically means that the species cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with our hungry appetites and eventually we overfish the species. Geoducks, lucky for them, are not too popular in the USA. They are, however, super popular in China and this popularity drives the fishery here in WA. And this fishery, by the way, brings in the money. Commercial divers collecting the clams were fetching (just a few weeks ago) $13.50 a pound. One clam can weigh over two pounds, so the fishermen were pulling in $5000-$6000 from one day of diving. After seeing them get handed those checks I thought it was pretty obvious why fishermen fish. Of course, with money comes regulations. I am out there for a reason. I am supposed to observe the Tribal fishermen and make sure they follow the rules. I also weigh the catch, record the take home, make sure they don't go over the catch quota, and collect the taxes the Tribe makes off the fishery. All for a lovely clam!

Erine showing off a nice biggie

Ernie hauling in a bag of geoducks

Other news from the Barber-Dimond household is quite boring. We have moved. We are unpacking. We are hoping to go skiing next weekend and *maybe* ignore unpacking and go for a paddle tomorrow. Life is great.

New home

2011-01-10T17:05:00.000-08:00

Lester (black) and Darwin (gray) enjoying the Christmas tree and fire. Our new house has no fire for the kitties, sad. But we think we have warm laps....

After a very complicated week, we have moved into our new rental house in Anacortes. We were sad to leave our other house, but our landlord decided to move back in, so we didn't have much of a choice. Jay found a great looking house in the woods while I was in Antarctica and we were super excited to move into a private spot overlooking Puget Sound. But the mold gods said otherwise. I have a very keen sense of smell and the minute I stepped into the house for the first time, I could tell there was a mold problem. Indeed, we found mold growing on some spots on the walls in the house. So, the make the complicated part of the story short - we backed out of the lease and got all our money back.

But in the midst of backing out of one lease, we still needed a place to move to this past weekend (when we had to be out o f our old house). Jay had checked out another house literally just down the road from our current house. We looked at that house together and at another house that was listed on craigslist. We liked the other house on craigslist a bit better, but he was no where near ready for people to move in. So, we took the more boring home in the burbs because we could move right in. My friend Nickie told me we can give it personality. So, we are in the same neighborhood as before, still right by Cranberry Lake, still within biking distance to work for Jay, and still in the burbs. Some day we will escape and live in the woods - but that time just hasn't happened yet.

Although we had to give up the lovely fruit trees in our other backyard, our new backyard is way more private and has huge conifers! We actually heard two great horned owls the first night we slept over and we think they were in our backyard. That is very cool!

To make things even more fun, I have managed to get an awful cold and was pathetic in terms of helping with the move. Good thing Jay is strong cause he did everything.

I'll post pictures of the house when we have found it among all our boxes. But here is the new address:

3817 W 4th St.
Anacortes, WA 98221
phone #'s are the same as always.....

Maui pictures

2011-01-01T23:12:00.001-08:00

Maui pictures are up!
Go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jdimond/2010HawaiiMaui#

Much to tell about our upcoming move, but I'll wait until another day..... Happy New Year!

2010 in pictures

2010-12-26T20:47:00.000-08:00

Here is our year summarized in a few tiny photos. If you click on the picture, you can see a larger version of the image!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T11:57:00.000-08:00

For those who celebrate this holiday - Merry Christmas!
For those that don't celebrate Christmas - Happy Holidays!

We are back home and I'm loving being back with my kitties and my man. Life is good. Enjoy it!

Diving in the tropics is a piece of cake

2010-12-22T01:19:00.000-08:00

Sunrise from the dive boat

We have been having a blast the past few days - despite all the attempts from the nasty rain gods to cramp our style. We have been diving, snorkeling, beach bumming, driving on crazy narrow roads, waterfall searching, blowhole watching, and bird watching. Now I'm going to bed! But here are a few pictures from our holiday in rainy Maui. More stories will follow when I'm not falling asleep. But I will note - it is awesome to wear 12 pounds instead of 46 pounds of weight when diving. And one thin hood (to try and stay warm in these not so hot waters) instead of two thick hoods and a latex hood on top of that. I could flip upside down in a second here and listen to whales singing. But I could only see maybe 100-150 ft. In Antarctica I could see forever.

See the frogfish?

Julie inspects an artificial reef

Jay discovers the 'Iao Needle

Rocky coastline of West Maui

Pale white Washingtonian

J&J back together again!

2010-12-17T21:14:00.000-08:00

Finally - J&J have started up adventures together again. =) I loved Antarctica, in fact the only thing that sucked about it was being away from my man. So we are happy to be together again on Maui! Yesterday and today we just sat on the beach and did nothing at all. It has been fantastic. Tomorrow we are ramping up the tourism and going to check out some cool places in Maui. We booked ourselves for a dive on Sunday with a dive shop that seems really interested in biology. That sounds pretty exciting to us!
More stories to follow....

Oh yummy passionfruit how I love thee

View of Diamondhead from my flight to Maui

Dunedin

2010-12-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

Two albatross bid me farewell! A great way to leave Stewart Island....

The train station in Dunedin

Breakfast with Heather at a lovely cafe called "the good oil"

I leave lovely New Zealand tomorrow and head to Hawaii to see my man! I can't wait!! But I have been enjoying my time in this awesome country. I spent last night with Heather, a friend of ours who just moved from Auckland to Dunedin. This worked out well because I would not had have time to get to Auckland to visit her and our friend David. (If you go way back in the blog to around March or April 2008 you will find our blog posts about staying with David and Heather)

I haven't done much except ride buses since I last posted! But some more photos from NZ are posted under my older picasa account - the link is on the right side of the screen - click on the link that says "globalscents"

I have big plans for tomorrow. I still get US postage rates as a polar program participant. So I am going shopping! I plan on buying a ton of vegemite and shipping it home to last me for years in America, land with no yeast extract spreads. I might get some manuka honey while I'm at it. Yum.

KIWI

2010-12-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Well people. It finally happened. I saw a kiwi in the wild. Not one kiwi, but TWO. And we saw the same male twice. So three sightings in one awesome awesome evening. I love Stewart Island. This is such a cool place to be if you are a birder. I've seen albatross, mollymawks, one yellow-eyed penguin, little blue penguins, two kiwis, tuis, kereru (NZ pigeon), tomtits, kakas (a big parrot) and just wait because the list will get longer tomorrow! I'm heading back to Ulva Island. Jay and I visited this island when we were here over two years ago. There are no rats, stoats, cats, etc.... on the island. Hence the birds, which did not evolve with mammalian predators, thrive here. I plan on spending the entire day staring at birds.

I've gone hiking every day in the forest. I love listening to the birds, especially the tuis. I've also heard kiwis twice (imagine a woman screeching and you've got a kiwi noise). It is magical being back in these strange and ancient forests. I knew I loved New Zealand, but now I know how much I loved it because hearing, seeing, and smelling the forest is like a homecoming. What a place!

Buller's mollymawk

Lee Bay

Here he is! My second kiwi sighting (I didn't get an image of the female we saw first)

Tui

Of bubbles and birds

2010-12-07T23:27:00.000-08:00

Just before leaving Antarctica Kevin, Kamille, and I scrambled up Observation Hill for one last view of McMurdo Sound and McMurdo Station. It was a clear day and the views of all of the mountains were fantastic. But mountains were not the only treat we received on the climb. While climbing up Ob Hill, I noticed some bright white dots moving quickly over the top of the hill. We all wondered if those fast moving dots were snow petrels, but dismissed it because they are a rare sight to see around McMurdo. But when Kevin and I were chilling out at the top and taking in the view, a snow petrel flew by! And then another one! And another one! They kept coming….. our jaws were on the rocks beneath our feet. What gorgeous birds and what a fabulous way to say goodbye to the Ice.

Snow petrel

Julie on top of Observation Hill with Henry and Jackson's water drop!

Our flight back was scary, as usual. But landing was interesting because it was warm and raining and almost dark in Christchurch. These were all natural things we had forgotten about temporarily. It felt awesome.

I put all my stuff into storage at the US Antarctic Program office that I didn’t need for traveling around New Zealand. Then we all headed off to the bar. We (Paul, Kamille, Kevin, and I) had a crazy last night together in Christchurch. That story will be told in pictures below. Holy moly.

We had only been in the bar for a minute or two when I started talking to a Kiwi. He noticed that I was talking to Paul about getting a bottle of bubbly to celebrate a great season in the Antarctic. This Kiwi didn't approve of the bubbly that the bar had to offer and told us so. Then he said, "hold on, let me go to my place and bring you some real champagne." O.K. So he returns. He returned holding a box with a 2002 bottle of Dom Perignon! Ummmmm. I am not kidding. Next thing I know we are all sitting around a small table in the empty bar with this guy we just met (nickname = "Grumpy"), the bartender ("I can't believe I'm serving this"), and four scientists from the Antarctic. The photo above shows how unhappy I was about having to try this champagne from Grumpy.

In case you don't believe me here is the bottle. So we have great conservations about how awesome Kiwis are and Grumpy tells us how awesome Americans are, although we all have a good rant about Republicans. Next thing we know, the champagne is all gone. Damn it was good. Grumpy says - "would ya like another bottah?" Silence around the table.... of course we do, but do we dare say yes? Grumpy takes off to his place - just one building over, and reappears with ANOTHER bottle of Dom Perignon, same 2002 vintage. And not only does Grumpy appear with the super expensive champagne, he is carrying a life size cardboard cutout of Obama. He just wanted to make his point to us that he loves Obama. He should know, he got loaded in the US owning some big transportation company named Target (not the superstore). I have a great image in my head of Grumpy walking down the sidewalk with a box containing Dom Perignon in one arm and Obama in the other.

Here we are! Grumpy, Julie, Obama (he needed a drink more than any of us), and Paul

Paul cracking up

Obama, Kamille, and Kevin. Taking in the night.... sooooo after we hung out with Obama and drank our second bottle of crazy expensive bubbly Grumpy invited us up to his pad next door. He had been telling Paul about some of the artwork he owned and wanted to show us. Next thing we know we are in a lovely apartment (suite?). Rich folks in NZ don't go and buy the biggest house possible and waste tons of energy in the process. This place was small, very tasteful, and filled with warmth. We loved it. The artwork was amazing.....and I recognized one piece in particular that made the night even more unreal. He had a piece hanging in his kitchen that had been painted by an Asian elephant. I recognized it because Jay and I have been to Chang Mai (Thailand) and watched elephants painting. Pretty neat. Turns out that Grumpy loves animals (this got Paul really excited). Grumpy bought an African elephant and rescued her and brought her back to a happy and healthy elephant. She lives on the North Island. Pretty neat eh? So Grumpy gave all of us printed out pictures of his pet elephant. Then he walked us all the way back to our B&B before saying goodbye. I'm pretty sure Kiwis are the most generous, honest, fun, and loving people in the world. The next morning Kevin said to me "was that real?". Or maybe Paul said that...we were all in a daze. How cool is that story?

I got up early the morning after that awesome night and said goodbye to Kevin. I missed Paul and Kamille and I was very sad about that. I hope I see all of them again. What a great team. I hopped on a bus to Invercargill with plans to catch a ferry the following day to Stewart Island. I don’t have a ton of time in New Zealand, so I have opted to spend pretty much all of it on Stewart Island. I loved this island when Jay and I came a few years ago and I dreamed of coming back. This is one of the few places in New Zealand where you can try to see a kiwi in the wild! You know me and my birds. After two long days of buses and a ferry ride, I’ve arrived on this gorgeous dot south of the South Island. How suiting that an albatross greeted me. I left Antarctica on the wings of the snow petrel and arrived on Stewart Island escorted by an albatross. I could only be happier if Jay was with me. This island is grand.

Heading off the Ice and back to New Zealand!

2010-12-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

Team IceAged
David, Bob, Kevin, Stacy, Julie
Kamille, Paul, Jennifer, Tina, DJ

I am leaving the Ice today! We finished our work early, packed up our stuff, analyzed data, and had a lot of fun these last few days.

Here are a few funny pictures from the last week of work here! I'll write more once I get to NZ! Yipee! Only 10 more days until I see Jay in Hawaii.

Jennifer, Julie, and Kevin near Little Razorback Island after a dive

Speak, See, and Hear no evil - at Bratina Island

Antarctic hat!

2010-11-29T02:02:00.001-08:00

I finished (almost) knitting my Antarctic hat! I wanted to make a funky hat with the shape of Antarctica on top of my head. And I finally managed to finish it, almost. I have some fleece I was thinking of sewing into it to make it warmer. In these photos it wasn't quite finished - I had some geographic problems to finish. I made two peninsulas (whops) and the Ross Sea is way too big. I have since fixed these and will have to post more photos of that once I'm done with the fleece lining. The hat is awesome, if I do say so myself!

Much news to report! We are all leaving the ice early. We finished our work and are getting booted because it is too expensive to keep us here to simply play. My plans to go home can't change in terms of dates because I am meeting Jay in Hawaii on the 17th (maybe the 15th). So I will just have to bum around New Zealand (oh damn) until my flight to Maui. I am really going to miss this place though. Antarctica is gorgeous and I have appreciated every view I get of the mountains and the ice. I love the skuas, I love the diving, and I love most of the people down here. What an experience! But, I can't wait to see Jay!

Here is a picture from the inside of Shackleton's hut. There are husky prints on the wooden beam here. Their dogs must have left their prints on the wood before it was used as a shelf. The photo below is a piece of wood with Shackleton's signature on it. Wow.

Skua barf. A whole fish!

The Barne Glacier in gorgeous light

Cape Royds

2010-11-23T01:27:00.001-08:00

Finally! I was able to see some penguins here in Antarctica! Yipeeeee! And, to top things off, we visited Shackleton's Nimrod Hut and stop by the Barne Glacier. Things got even better when we arrived back in Mac Town because the store finally restocked the beer. That's right, a serious emergency had occurred - McMurdo Station had been out of beer for a WEEK! Eke. We all survived, but we are happy to have some beer back on the station. Now, on to other important information.

We spent hours in a lovely Pisten Bully (snocat) driving very slowly over the sea ice to get to Cape Royds. We had to cross some wide cracks in the sea ice, but the Pisten Bully can handle that stuff just fine. We stopped in front of the massive Barne Glacier to take in the very blue view. I can't believe how close you can stand next to glacier here - but they are frozen solid and are very stable. We were practically on top of the glacier and it was very imposing and gorgeous.

The Barne Glacier

We continued on past the glacier, over some really bumpy ice, and eventually made it to Cape Royds. This spot became famous because of Ernest Shackleton but it also happens to be the home of the most southern population of Adelie penguins. I am sure many of you have heard of Shackleton's famous Endurance journey that occurred in 1914-1917. But many of you may not know that Shackleton had visited the Antarctic as the leader of the Nimrod Expedition starting in 1908. During this time his crew built the Nimrod Hut at Cape Royds. From here the crew split into various parties and did an amazing amount of totally dangerous things - like climbing Mt.Erebus, trying to get to the South Pole, getting to the Magnetic South Pole, and reaching and studying the geology of the Dry Valleys.

Somehow they survived all of this - here is a great quote that means so much more to me now.

“For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a winter journey, Wilson, for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.” Apsley Cherry-Garrard, ‘Worst Journey in the World’. British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition 1910 – 1913 led by Captain Scott.

Inside the Nimrod Hut

Mt. Erebus and the Nimrod Hut

Everything in the hut is unique and interesting. I felt like I stepped back in time....

After walking through the hut, which was being renovated by a group of Kiwis, we headed out to the Adelie penguin colony. This is a special site that is visited a lot by people, so we stayed outside of the marked boundaries to give the penguins some space. But we could smell and hear and watch everything that was going on just fine. What funny animals! Man, I could watch and laugh at them all day.

Watch this video I took: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaNovember#5542659464809446290

Or this one: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaNovember#5542665355577895730

Look at my egg!

Julie and the Adelie penguins

Lots more in video and photographs are here, just scroll to the bottom for the newest images: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaNovember#

Evans Wall - Ice Wall

2010-11-21T16:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our Sunday, so we got to sleep in and then play! Our work is going really well, so I think work stress and tensions are easing and we are being given some free time to explore this awesome place. Kamille arrived late because she replaced John when he was sent home with kidney stones. So she missed our fun dive out at Evans Wall. Well, this just wouldn't do! She had to go on the coolest dive in the world! So Jennifer and I volunteered to go out and be her dive buddies and this time we took a camera. It was an awesome day. We puttered out on the Tucker to Evans Wall, jumped in the water, and stared at a huge wall of ice and rocks for 45 minutes. It is such an awesome dive. Sadly for the camera, the sun was blocked by the glacier above, so we were diving in a shadow - making the dive a bit darker than it was when we were there over a month ago. So there are some spots in the video where the camera doesn't know what it is looking at - if it is all blue and hazy - that is an ice wall. You will get the idea once you watch the entire video (go here to watch: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaUnderwater#5542097865579051250). We ended the day by stopping at the ice caves again because they are so beautiful. And the entire time, of course, Mt. Erebus was smoking and dominating the view.

Tomorrow we are going to Cape Royds to visit Shackleton's hut and hopefully see some penguins! Cross your fingers that the wildlife behaves. Speaking of birds, I love the skuas around here. When we are underwater we are surrounded by gorgeous living critters. But above the water, there isn't as much going on in terms of living organisms. Except for birds! And the skuas have arrived! These are a big gull with gorgeous markings on the wings. They love to eat and they appear to be very good predators (killing penguin chicks) and scavengers (eating anything dead around like seal pups, placentas, etc). I think they are totally cool birds.....

Skua!

Carnivorous sponge (the long white lines) at Evans Wall

Jennifer on the ice wall

Check out this link to see the ice bottom too: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaUnderwater#5542087190521661234

Little Razorback dives and Erebus Tongue ice caves!

2010-11-13T17:20:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh....this has been a great week. It will get nuts again tomorrow because the rest of the crew will come back from New Harbor and we will dig into finishing sites here. We have about three weeks of hard core diving time left and a week to pack everything and then we are done! Jeez.

Yesterday Kevin and I decided to do a fun dive in the morning and a work dive in the afternoon. How lucky for us that this involved a two hour drive north towards Cape Evans. We passed the Erebus Tongue (a funky glacier) and stopped to checked out some ice caves. Then we puttered along in the Tucker (an awesome snocat) to Little Razorback Island. Be sure to turn up your volume with the video - I put in a bunch of video for you and in some the audio is more interesting than the video because you can hear the Weddell seals vocalizing!!

Julie heading into the ice caves

Hee hee - isn't this place AWESOME?? More ice cave pictures can be seen here (scroll to the bottom): http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaNovember
or here (these are Kevin's pictures, ice cave shots are at the bottom):
http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/2010_10_AntarcticaKevin#

We were diving right under this ice at Little Razorback

Kevin and a big crack in the ice

During this dive we heard tons of Weddell seals chattering back and forth - really neat sounds to hear while you are diving. We also headed up into a shallow spot (this was a first for us, we are usually down at 90 ft!!) and checked out brine tubes under the ice, ice cathedrals (Kevin swam in, I watched), and the best part - we saw a seal fight underwater! And I got it on video...so be sure to watch that one! There are a lot more videos from the dive here: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaUnderwater# Video seems to do much better with the low light than still photos. =)

Brine tubes under the ice

Kevin heading into the ice cathedral

Julie happy

Listen to this video! You can hear Weddell seals!

You can watch a seal fight here!

Weddell seals and great dives!

2010-11-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

Kevin and I have been having a grand week back here in McMurdo. We have been diving at a site we will spend a lot of time at next week and mapping out the location of all of Paul’s old experiments (cages and transects and settling plates). The dive is awesome! I love the huge volcano sponges, you can see why in the photographs.

Nudibranchs mating

Here I am with a big volcano sponge!

Yesterday we took a break from the dives to head out to a spot called Turtle Rock. Stacy and Paul have both worked there in the past and we needed to drill two dive holes out there to start working. Turtle Rock is also totally surrounded by tidal cracks in the sea ice. These can be dangerous to cross, so we had to be very careful. Lucky for us, the driller that came with us is very experienced with sea ice conditions and we just followed behind him the entire time. BUT – with tidal cracks in the ice come seals. Turtle Rock was covered with mamma seals and their damn damn cute little fluffy pups. What an experience! And because Weddell seals have no predators on the ice they don’t care about you wandering around. The other fun sighting was a bird! I have finally gotten some great views of skuas – the one I saw was eating the placenta from a seal birth. Yummy! Sounds like a skua to me!

In the end we were not successful at drilling holes (we drilled a hole down 22 ft. and never hit water because the ice was so thick and there were too many dangerous cracks to get close to the other spot to drill). But the day was gorgeous and it was a real treat to spend some time with the seal pups. Be sure to turn on your volume up to watch the seal videos.

All those dark spots are seals!

New Harbor - Antarctica

2010-11-08T01:27:00.000-08:00

My week in New Harbor was simply amazing. We worked so so hard, but the payback was awesome. Paul Dayton is a joy to work for, he is so excited about the work we do for him that you finish the day feeling like you did something awesome for him. Plus, who could complain about having to work in a place so gorgeous you can't believe your eyes? I loved waking up to views of Mt.Erebus smokin' everyday. Ahhhh....

A typical day might start with a 3am run on a skidoo out on the ice to fuel and check our generator that runs the "hotsy" (a machine that melts a hole in ice for divers and SCINI). Back to bed for a few hours and then grab some oatmeal before heading out for a morning dive. There was only one hut here and we were not doing much work out of it. We didn't do a ton of dives here because SCINI was doing most of the diver's work. SO I would either dive and collect stuff for Paul off of his old experiments OR I would be the scientist for the SCINI crew. I would record the waypoints of interest and help guide the SCINI pilots around experiments. If we were lucky there would be a break at 6 or 7pm for cocktails on the ice before we would head to dinner. Then we would work after dinner to clean up photos, draw underwater maps, bicker (this would be the chiefs), and maybe check email. The days were long and hard, but they felt good.

Typical transportation to a dive site

Kevin and Jennifer get ready to dive on a gorgeous day

Paul and Stacy having fun

Team meeting - David, DJ, Jennifer, Stacy, Bob, Paul, and Julie (Kevin took the pic)

On our last day in New Harbor, Kevin and I did a morning dive for Paul. When we finished the dive we headed off on a hike for a few hours to the Commonwealth Glacier. WOWWWW. This was a huge glacier that you could walk right up to (frozen solid compared to glaciers in Alaska). This hike was one of the best treats yet during my time here. You can see why from my photos....

The Commonwealth Glacier

Mt. Erebus

Kevin and I left New Harbor today, trading places with Tina and Kamille (they were in McMurdo last week). The rest of the team stays out there until next Monday. Kevin and I have some tasks to accomplish here - in fact we will be diving tomorrow at Hut Point (right by Discovery Hut). But the week will be fairly mellow with just the two of us here. I think we are both looking forward to that.

My pictures from New Harbor are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaNovember

Happy Birthday to my man

2010-11-05T02:10:00.000-07:00

Happy almost birthday to my love! I wanted to post that early just in case the internet died again out here. You are the love of my life and I miss so.....

New Harbor field camp

2010-11-04T02:28:00.001-07:00

The sea ice!

The camp

New Harbor is gorgeous! And now I've set foot on the continent of Antarctica (remember that McMurdo Station is actually on Ross Island just off the coast of the continent). The email here is super slow, so I'm not going to write much until we get back from the camp. I am supposed to be here through Monday.... we have views of Mt.Erebus from the camp, the sea ice is super knarly and it makes it fun to walk out to dive sites. SCINI has been doing most of the diving, tomorrow will be my first dive in New Harbor to look for some of Paul's old experiments. Today I mostly built roads through the ice for skidoos, marked possible sites for diving with flags, checked depths, drilled holes through the ice, fueled the various bits of equipment, and helped collect GIS data and photos from SCINI during a SCINI dive. Lots of work.....and lots of fun.

Halloween and other such fun

2010-10-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

McMurdo from the top of Observation Hill

We keep so busy that I have such little time to write this blog, I am super sorry I can't keep on top of the blog. This is a bummer because each day here is a neat and unique experience that deserves tons and tons of writing and photographs. We dive almost everyday here, but we have had a few days off from diving this weekend because all our gear is packed up! Yup - tomorrow we take off in a helicopter and fly to New Harbor. This is an established field camp on the other side of McMurdo Sound. I'll be there for a week (maybe two depending on various things). We are supposed to have access to email, but I'm not expecting that to work.

We did a couple great dives at a spot called Cinder Cones - you can see the Tucker (our tracked vehicle) and the dive hut below.

After the dive we walked up the nearby hill to get some great views of McMurdo Sound and goofed off a bit in our dive underwear. All 4 divers are pretty hot eh?

Last night was the big Halloween party. This is a huge deal in McMurdo and some people spend a lot of time making their costumes. Jennifer and I had been working a few hours here and there on our costumes too! You can read about the big night here: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/antarctic-seafloor-ecology/journals/october-30-2010-halloween-in-mcmurdo

The entire crew of B200

I was a jellyfish - there was even a flashing light that went off into my bell head

If you want to know more about the diving you can read this journal: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/antarctic-seafloor-ecology/journals/october-28-2010-the-world-under-the-ice-pictures-inf

And if you want more information on the historic huts that I've uploaded tons of photos of you can read this: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/antarctic-seafloor-ecology/journals/october-26-2010-the-terra-nova-hut-a-refuge-scott-an

Today was our second full day off since we arrived a little over a month ago. We celebrated by sleeping. And then Jennifer, David, and I walked up Observation Hill and slid down the hill like penguins. Then we walked all the way around the hill and almost got blasted off the hill by the super powerful winds. Whew!

Jennifer and David penguin sliding down Ob Hill

Let's hope for good flying weather tomorrow when we take off! New photos can be found here, just scroll to the bottom: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaOctober#

Terra Nova Hut and Ice Wall Diving

2010-10-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

I think I did one of the most incredible dives I've ever done in my life yesterday. We went to Cape Evans on our day "off" for a fun dive on a wall of ice (really a grounded glacier underwater). I am not sure how to explain how cool this dive was. Probably over 1000 ft. visibility, tons of light (the ice is only 4 ft. thick there and there is not a lot of snow) and a wall of ice 150-200 ft. high! We just swam along the wall, watched a big Weddell seal swim, and then came back along a rocky wall next to the ice wall....and looked at soft corals, anemones, carnivorous sponges, sea spiders, and fishes! It was unreal. I hope to paint it one day.... I didn't bring a camera so I could just take in the views. But Stacy had a small video camera, so I may be able to share some underwater photos of this place. Our diving safety officer calls is the best dive in the world. He may be right.

We dove right along the ice wall and rocky wall that extend above the sea ice here

Here is the glacier from above.... I will remember what it looked like below forever I hope

After the dive we all went to visit Scott's hut from the early 1900s called the Terra Nova hut. I dream of having time to research this history more and write a blog about it, but it is 8pm and we are still working so I have to make this a short blog. I haven't even uploaded my photos from this hut, but it was amazing. Everything is intact including seal blubber they used for burning to heat the hut, to penguins, to oatmeal and their reindeer sleeping bags. Amazing.

Here I am in the lab....they came for science and exploration and it was really neat to see the old science tools here.

Underwater in Antarctica

2010-10-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

I am still adjusting to diving under ice here, but I am getting better and better at diving each day. This is good because we are diving pretty much every day now! Right now we are diving on a spot called Dayton's Plateau. We go through a hole of 10 ft. thick ice (some of the ice is over 20 ft. thick, so this is "thin" ice). Then we head to the bottom at about 60 ft. and swim over to a wall. All along this wall from 60-200 ft. are cages that Paul Dayton put out in the 60s and 70s to exclude predators from eating sponges. He didn't get good results from the predator experiment because ecological processes happen too slowly in this cold water. ut the cages acted like open bottom space and Paul is now studying what species grew on the cages through the decades. The divers can't go to the deeper cages now which is why the team has SCINI (the cool ROV). So SCINI does the dep stuff and the divers go to the cages that are above 130 ft., take photos of the cages, collect interesting species that might not be described yet, and bring it all back to smiling Paul. I don't know of anyone who smiles more than Paul. It is a delight to work for him and bring him treasures (sponges and bryozoans) that make him happy.

See the cage?

Our hole from under the ice

Jennifer looks up at the hole (is there a diver in there or a seal??)

This was grabbed from a video - so it isn't super clear. But you can get an idea of how clear the water is. I've never seen anything like it. It really is like flying through air..... you could forget you were underwater with ease here.

OK marine bio nerds - this is COOL! This is a sponge that has been eaten and this is the remaining spicule skeleton. The sea stars that ate the sponge are still there scooping up the scraps. Yummy. Neat eh?

This is a huge volcano sponge with some anchor ice growing on it (look for long spiky ice)

There are more underwater photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaUnderwater#

Hope everyone is doing well - I really miss Jay and my family and my cats...... but I am also happy to be here in a place I've dreamed of for so long......

Busy!

2010-10-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

Mt.Erebus (active volcano)

We work long days here in the Antarctic and every time I think I will have time to write a blog, I don't! So it is late now and I want to go to bed...... I've posted more photos in my Picasa account and those tell stories on their own. Life is good here though, it is gorgeous. I'm slowly getting used to the cold and the diving and enjoying each day more and more!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a treat - we didn't dive or work! So we went for a hike around the base...here are some photos from that!

See how warm I am?

Jennifer and Stacy

Me, chipping ice from a dive hole with a Weddell seal in the background

This is a real treat - this is a huge sea spider (pycnogonid). Normally they are so small you can rarely find them on dives...here they are giant! This one is in a touch tank....

Stacy and her buddy in the hole

Sunset colors on the sea ice

More photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099

More pictures

2010-10-08T22:19:00.000-07:00

More pictures are posted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaOctober#

We are officially done with training now and ready to start some science!

First dive!

2010-10-07T02:51:00.000-07:00

I did my first dive in Antarctica today! It was pretty incredible and totally totally freezing. I am, without a doubt, the cold wimp on the team. It sucks being the wimp, but you are what you are and I am not warm under there. That said, I think there are some simple things I can to to keep my body a bit warmer in the 27 degree water. I'll need to dive again (Saturday) to see if that helps! We are working from 7:30am until about 10pm so I am exhausted and will leave these pictures to tell the story so I can go to bed.

My good luck charm - a sweet juvenile Weddell seal was using our dive hole for a breathing hole right before our dive. Damn cute.

Getting geared up (me in blue and black, John in black and purple)

That is my head in the hole! Just about to go down....

This is the TUCKER - the cool tracked truck that we get to drive around on the sea ice. Henry and Jackson - I get to drive this! Am I am cool Aunt or what? =)

First round of photos

2010-10-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the first round of photos from Antarctica!

http://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/AntarcticaOctober#

And here is the web site for the live webcam of McMurdo!

http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm