$25 jar of jelly

The jelly experience started off innocent enough, in the end, however, it was quite a fiasco. On Sunday night Sasha and I stayed at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadoro, CA. There happens to be a restaurant in Pescadoro called Duarts, which is known for 2 things – in addition to being the only restaurant for 50 miles or so – cream of artichoke soup and olloliberrry pie. I had the soup (which was delicious), but by the time we got to dessert I was awfully full and so instead of having pie I bought my mom and Sandor each a jar of Olloliberry Jam. I ended up having it the next morning on toast (seeing as how it was as mentioned before the only restaurant for miles around and we had to kill time until the hostel opened up for us to check out) and it was delicious. I was quite happy with my purchase until the airport people decided that jelly is a matter of national security and I couldn’t carry it on the plane. Now seriously people – can we PLEASE do a reality check with airport security? What am I going to do with a jar of olloliberry jelly that will put my flight in jeopardy? I have a major problem with entire institutions overreacting to things and never doing any kind of gut check to see if maybe, just maybe, they are being idiotic.

Anyway, so instead of continuing onto my terminal as intended, I had to stand for 10 minutes while they checked my bag – even after my telling them exactly what was in it and how much it was and letting them know that I was certain it was more than the ‘liquid’ amount I was allowed to carry so if jelly counted as liquid I was going to have to go back. Apparently the definition of liquid has in fact changed since I was in school and so, I had to turn around and go back to departures and ask them to check another bag. Now of course I had everything that was semi-breakable in this bag, so I had to remove anything that was definitely breakable and find some way to fit it in my backpack, and then I had to make my sweatshirt that was in that bag go a long way and wrap up everything in there. I was afraid to use the vest I was wearing as well, because apparently airlines are not worried about saving money when it comes to air conditioning the airplane.

They are, however, worried about saving money when it comes to checking baggage. I had to pay $50 to check that stupid bag! At the point when I found out this ridiculous charge I had already invested about 30 minutes in teh process of getting to that point and I had stopped caring about the fact that my credit card statement is going to be a disaster, and so Sandor and my mom will be each getting a $25 jar of jelly. The olloliberries better be pretty darn delicious!

Still walking

The book totally lies about this distance - i do not believe i will be on the bridge very long before i need to turn around. At least its a pretty walk!

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Now I Remember

Sitting in traffic in San Francisco reminds me why I spent the last week out of cell phone range. I guess I had to come back to reality at some point, although I think I may have needed a less severe dose!

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My Thought for the Day

"Be afraid to die until you've won a victory for humanity." - Horace Mann

Election Results

Since I had to finally check work e-mail yesterday I didn't get to actually do a blog post, so here is my official post election post. I obviously am very happy about the results, and feel inspired after sitting with a group of about 75 people to watch McCain's concession speech and Obama's acceptance speech (both of which were very good by the way). We don't have phones or TV in our rooms here, so everyone has been cut off from the world since Sunday. Tuesday night they brought a TV in for us to watch election results, but we had been out at the reserve until 8:30 our time, which is obviously very, very late east coast time. So as we walked in from the bus McCain had just begun his speech. It was kinda surreal after having been cut off from the election hub-ub all day!

So this is my only comment is those who did not vote for Obama. Choose to hope that good will come to the world rather than assuming it won't just because a different party is in office. I've had a lot of political meditations this year and when it comes down to it, Americans have a choice whether to support their leadership or not - for good or bad. Over the past 8 years people have chosen to support of our leadership less and less, and I for one am excited to have a president in the office that can inspire hope rather than fear. In the end that is why I voted for Obama, because I believe what this country needs above all else is hope. Choosing to support leadership, does not mean agreeing with them, it means respecting their position and working within the system to impact the issues rather than attack the person. It's not a common way to understand politics in our society that likes scandal and sound bites, but it is they way God has told us to act. It is the way I have chosen to act for the past 4 years, and I appreciate those who will choose to act that way for the next 4.

On Monday, our plenary speaker said something that I felt was very profound. In the world of environmental issues there is a whole lot of doom and gloom out there, so this particularly stuck with me. "Knowledgeable people care, and caring people can change the world."

Yes we can!

Coastal Meanderings

Ok, so back to the updates! I had a meeting on Sunday morning – which really wasn’t all that bad, although the last hour was getting to the point where I wanted to leap across the table and strangle anyone that felt the need to continue conversation on a point already run into the ground with conversation (I have a low tolerance for people who like to say their point even when their point was very clearly made, just by someone other than them). And add to it that it was an absolutely gorgeous day outside and we were not outside enjoying it! So, as soon as the meeting was over I headed back to Pacific Grove to meet Nicole, Steve, Matt and Jen for lunch, and after dropping Jen off for the afternoon meeting (which I thankfully did not have to attend), the 4 of us headed out on a little bike tour of the coast.

We rented bikes and rode down the 17-mile drive, which is this awesome stretch of road that runs along the coast south of Monterey Bay to Carmel. If you are driving you have a pay a fee to get in (the richy riches don’t like people seeing their houses and golf courses without getting something in return I guess – this is where Pebble Beach is by the way), but bikes are free, so onward we headed. The view along the way was absolutely incredible and there is something soothing about riding a bike on a sunny Sunday afternoon taking in all that is glorious about our world.

I was a little concerned that these little lowcountry riding legs were not quite up to the level that was going to be needed to climb the hills involved, but they did mighty well. There was one hill that both Nicole and I gave up on and walked our bikes up, but other than that, slow and steady did in fact win the race and got me to the top. Between the sound of the surf, the barks of the sea lions, the smell of the salt water, the views of the Monterey cypress against the blue sky, and the feel of the wind in your face it was a glorious day to be alive!

Here are some pics from the trip...


apparently Nicole and I didn't notice the HUGE 'do not go behind this sign' sign...oops









Our world is pretty amazing!

My morning walk

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Early Morning Riser

So I hope you have enjoyed my early morning posts - they began at 5:30 West Coast time. That is the very handy thing about moving back in time zones - morning people can be really early morning people :) I don't have time to do another post of our bike ride down the coast on 17 mile drive, but I shall post later. Presently I'm getting up from beside the fire and will attempt to make myself actually productive this morning. I'll leave you with a few pictures of our conference area - which provided me the glorious sound of the ocean in the dark as I walked down to where I could get internet access. Happy Monday!

So that's why the call them Kelp Forests

Saturday I did my first cold water dive and it was AWESOME. It's an impressive statement to say that it was well worth submersing my body in 55 degree water for almost an hour to see what I saw on those dives. It was truly incredible. As I sad on the bottom looking up at the kelp I realized why they call it kelp forests. It looks like trees. They are so tall (they were all the way to the surface when I was sitting at 60 feet) and they were everywhere, just like a forest. It was incredible how the light filtered down through them. We had really good visibility and could see 30-40 feet clearly, although you could see the surface if you really looked hard. The bottom of was it's own world of sea stars, and crabs, and huge anemones, and fish. A harbor seal swam right underneath me (I'm talking touching distance underneath me) on the second dive, and we saw squid eggs (which Steve explained to me what they were underwater and I got it - how's that for pictionary!)

I definitely was cold - but I figured I could deal with freezing my butt off as soon as I saw a little bit underwater of what I was going to see. As always the way down to the bottom was the worst with my mask slowly filling with water from an unknown hole (I really need to get a new mask), my ears being annoying with clearing, the water slowly filling in your wetsuit with it's glorious freezingness, and your hoses floating all over the place. Once you get into it though everything comes back and it all seems second nature. I did learn that in cold water diving rather than waiting to run low on air to surface, you surface when you are cold. Steve and I did a 50 minute dive the first time and my feet were numb (it was worth it by the way), and the second dive was 40 minutes (we were a bit colder from the start on that one). In between dives the boat has a hot water hose that you can stick down your wetsuit (truly a glorious experience), hot chocolate and soup in the galley, and with the air being warmer than the water you slowly start to get feeling back in your extremities.

It really was an awesome experience, and I am SO glad that I went! 55 degree water has nothing on kelp beds!

Here we are getting ready to go...

And here are some pics of below for your viewing pleasure (compliments of Matt):

Travel Day

I'm in California! And man was it a process. As far as flights are concerned it was one of the less annoying actually, but the process of going to the airport, checking in luggage (and paying for it), getting through security to the gate, boarding, flying (with no water unless you want to pay $2 for it), deboarding, finding your way to the next gate (which in Atlanta is a process in itself) while lugging everything you didn't want thrown around the bottom of the airplane through the airport (which in this case was quite substantial), sitting for 3 hours while you flight is delayed (thankfully I had my computer so I could entertain myself), boarding again, flying (this time you got water), deboarding again, finding your way to baggage and getting your bags (which amazingly enough were actually there).

Then the fun began. As I was walking out of the gate in San Francisco I was spinning my rings on my finger because my hands were cold and I thought 'oh, I need to remember to leave these at the hotel when I go diving tomorrow because my hands are going to be super cold then and I don't want to lose them', then I thought ' I hate taking my rings off because I inevitably have a moment where I panic and wonder where they are, and if we don't change at the hotel I won't be able to get them again', and then I thought 'I'm sure we'll change at the hotel, I don't want to have to pack all my diving stuff and pack clothes to change into and try to keep them dry on the dive boat', and then I thought 'oh, my God, I didn't pack my swimsuit'.

Now that may not seem like a scary thought to some people, but to someone who it supposed to dive the next morning, it's a bit unsettling. Before I could really do anything about it I had to go find my luggage and get my rental car. So, off I went, got my luggage and followed the signs to the rental car place which involved going, down a set of stairs, across a parking lot, up an elevator, across a road, up a set of stairs, down a loading area, into a train, and then into the rental car terminal. All the while I'm thinking of all the various ways I can deal with the fact that the next day I'm going to be diving with people from work, which means I feel a little more self conscience about what I'm wearing, and I don't have a swimsuit.

Once I finally got my car, I then needed to maneuver my way out of San Francisco and south to Monterey. At one point as I was trying to follow faded green signs to 101 South I started hysterically laughing at myself because I'm sitting at a stop light after having made one U turn already in my trip, wondering if I can make a right turn on red in California, and wondering if I'm even going the right way. I finally get onto 101, which for those of you who have not been there is a 12 lane highway. YES, 12 lanes people. So, I'm driving, and of course it's dark and it starts to rain. And all I want to do is a) find a swimsuit, b) find something to eat and c) get a map of California. I feel better when I have a map, even when I have directions, it's just not the same as actually seeing the road that I am on listed on the map. I figured I would wait until the road narrowed down and became less busy and then I would find a place to stop...right, then I remember I was in California. About an hour later when it was still an 8 lane highway I gave up on waiting for it to narrow down and started looking in earnest for things on the side of the road. Eventually I saw a Target and the off ramp looked pretty easy, so I took my chances and exited.

If you want to make someone laugh, go into a Target in November and ask them where their swimsuits are. Of course they don't carry them, why would they! So, I made my way to the exercise section of Target and picked out the most unrevealing lycra sports bra I could, and then to the underwear section to pick out some lycra boyshort underwear. There weren't even running shorts or pants so, underwear it was. So, yes the next day I got to stand in front of two guys I work with on a regular basis in underwear. Sweet. At that point I was over caring. So I found myself some food in the grocery section, looked for a map, but they didn't have one, paid, and headed back on my way.

I got to Monterey in one piece, found the hotel, dropped my stuff in the corner and went to bed. Granted it was only 9:00 there, but it was midnight as far as my body was concerned and I had just had quite the day!