Boulder Colorado Part 2: Mooching

Since I was staying with Erin for almost two weeks, I needed to make sure I did a proper job of mooching.  I guess Erin would be the final authority on the success of my mooching, but I think it went fairly well.  Here are a few of the techniques I used:

1. Repair broken things: I'm relatively handy, so whenever I saw something around the house that was broken and easy to fix, I pulled out my toolbox and did some repairs.  The toilet was running constantly (and Erin said that last month she had a high water bill for the first time ever) so I put in a new float/ball cock assembly.  Then I noticed that neither the tub nor the sink was draining well.  So one afternoon I went on a hair ball hunt and cleaned both of those out.  Now, it's not just about fixing broken things, it's also about advertising.  Erin didn't know the toilet was running, so might not have noticed a fixed toilet if I had not left the old parts near her bedroom door.  And with the shower, I did some prompting to encourage her to notice how quickly the water disappeared.  Finally, with the sink I used one of the oldest tricks in the book - I was still midway through putting the drain trap back together when she got home from work, and had the contents of the cabinet arranged in the hallway.  

2.  Appear helpful: I emptied the dishwasher a few times, and picked up some cereal and milk while I was at the store.  It's true that this doesn't make up for all the food I ate or the inconvenience of having me around, but I hope it helps! 

3.  Make yourself at home: I needed to do laundry, so I found a time when the washer was free and just went for it, with an announcement, "I'm going to do a load of laundry, is there anything I should toss in with it?"  But at the same time, I try NOT to do some of the things I do at my own house - that laundry was out of the dryer as soon as the buzzer rang, rather than waiting until the next day.  Same thing for my dirty breakfast dishes... 

4.  Have things to do, but be flexible: Like most people who haven't just quit their jobs and packed up all their belongings, Erin works during the week and has a lot of other commitments.  So I went hiking.  I asked for a few pointers and suggestions, and then tried to hit the ground running.  And if Erin had something cool to do that I could join in on, great!  Sign me up! 

5.  Most importantly, find a good moochee: I am the moocher, this week Erin has been the moochee.  And like all the people I have mooched from thus far, she has been fantastic!  Various moochees on this trip have fed me, taken me to shows and art museums, and introduced me to new friends.  Everyone has made me feel welcome, clearing time and space for me in their busy lives.  It's a moocher's dream! 

Boulder Colorado, Part 1: hiking

So apparently once I stay in a place for more than two days my posting schedule goes out the window.  I've been in Boulder for a week and a half, and haven't posted a thing!  Let's see if I catch up.  This post will be about hiking. 

If I'm counting back correctly, I think there have only been three days here in Boulder that have not included either a hike or a bike ride.  Let's see if I can list the places I've been so far...

Thursday: biking around Louisville, got lost and ride ended up a bit longer than expected.
Friday: Zero Day (toilet repairs)
Saturday: Lily Mountain, just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park
Sunday: somewhere in Rocky Mountain National Park
Monday: Clear Creek Canyon in Golden
Tuesday: Mount Sanitas in Boulder
Wednesday: Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park
Thursday: Walker Ranch south of Boulder
Friday: Zero Day (sink and bathtub repairs)
Saturday: Mesa Trail in Boulder
Sunday: Zero Day (festival in Fourmile Canyon)

Not too shabby!  Rather than go through each hike in detail, I think I'll just throw a few pictures down and see if I can create a summary of the general area...

This is at the base of Mount Sanitas, and shows how brown the grass is everywhere (fire danger is extremely high, and less than a month ago a fire near Boulder burned over 6000 acres, destroying over 150 homes).  Up at the top of this hike, I had a view looking over the Boulder area.  One of the amazing things about the front range of the Rockies is just how sharp and sudden the change between flat plains and steep mountains can be. 

Yet once you get past the front range, there are lots of rolling hills.

 

But it is still incredibly dry.  The panoramic below shows some fire damage from ten years ago.  Dead trees are still standing.  Let me just mention that this hike was also extremely windy.  I was fine down in the protected valley, but as I hiked up and around the corner, it was like hitting a wall!

 

In choosing a hike in Colorado, it's very important to consider the elevation.  I went up to the Continental Divide for one hike, and while it was in the 70s in Boulder that afternoon, I saw snow...

 The picture below is right before the snow...  I was hiking too fast (my hands were cold!) to get any good pictures once the flakes started to fall. 

Most of the time I was hiking by myself.  But on the weekend, Erin and friends joined in on the fun.  I thought I might be nervous or worried or just generally not have fun hiking by myself, but other than a few moments of vividly imagining what I should do to get help should I need it, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  No doubt, hiking with friends is more fun, but hiking solo leads to some truly quiet moments (and you can go slow and no one will know).  Here's a picture of Erin at the top of Lily Mountain.

 And, of course, one of the highlights of any hike is the wildlife.  I saw lots of strange, almost iridescent blue birds, black squirrels with big ear-tufts, a moose, two foxes, and a bunch of elk! This bull elk has over 30 in his group, and we watched him chase off another bull who was eying some of his ladies. 

 

 We also saw one fox up really close.  Hiking along the Mesa Train, this fox came around the corner, saw us, and just kept coming!  Maybe fifteen feet away it stopped, looked at us, pooped, then continued on by!  I was a little nervous - wild creatures shouldn't come that close, at least not in the day.  I'll skip the pooping picture, and share one as it left:

Overall, I have to say that the Boulder area is awesome for outdoors activities.  There were lots of people on the trails in Boulder proper, even during the work week, so this is a place where it seems like everyone loves the outdoors.  On one hike, I was passed by an older lady in hot pink yoga pants.  Very embarrassing!  There were also rock climbers, mountain bikers, and runners everywhere.  But there are so many trails that I also had a few hikes where I didn't see anyone for miles.  What a beautiful area! 

Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska Part 2: Fossils

While I was in Columbus, Ohio I got very excited about fossils.  Really, I'm always excited about fossils, but I was reminded of them and saw some maps of where they can be found in the US.  So I decided to make fossil hunting one of my goals for the trip across the Midwest. 

For a little background, here is a chart of Geologic Time (thanks National Park Service!)

First stop was the Fossil and Prairie Park Preserve in Rockford, Iowa.  This is an old abandoned brick factory where they dug up Prairie clay and baked bricks.  In the process of digging they found a lot of not-so-great clay that was full of sea shells from the Devonian Period.  When they closed up shop, they opened the area for fossil hunting.  It's unusual in that it's free and you can keep anything you find, which is exactly what I wanted! Here's the old clay pit and the kilns. 

I found a bunch of brachiopods (think miniature scallops) and a few pieces of coral.  Nothing too crazy, but I definitely had a good time hunting around. It's neat to think I was finding things that were alive over 300 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs, when land-based life was essentially a few salamanders!  Unfortunately, the high-end washing station (water spigot) was closed, so I stuffed my fossils in my pack and headed west.  I'll have to post more pictures once I get them cleaned up. 

My next stop was a bit of a detour, but I was excited about it.  Ashfall, Nebraska is a spot where a whole bunch of volcanic ash choked a bunch of animals, and they all died intact within a matter of weeks or months.  This was only 12 million years ago (in the Tertiary Period) so there are horse, rhino, and camel relatives in the fossil bed.  It's an ongoing research site, so you can watch scientists excavating the fossils in a big shed they've built over the site.  Did I mention that I was excited?  Unfortunately, this is what I found when I got there:

I was 15 minutes too late!  They were closed for the day, and not opening again until the afternoon the following day.  I couldn't justify hanging around that long, so very sadly I continued on my way. 

Still determined to see some large mammal fossils, I next headed to the Fossil Freeway in South Dakota and Nebraska.  This time I planned ahead and checked park hours.  It's after Labor day, so a lot of places are closed.  One website claimed that the park was open, but when I arrived, I found that the hours had been changed: 

I was starting to fall into despair!  Luckily just down the road I found my last real hope still open.   The Agate Fossil Beds in western Nebraska.  Similar to Ashfall, the fossils here are from the Tertiary period, roughly 20 million years old.  Early rhinos, a big dog-like thing, plus a giant wild boar and some creatures that are even weirder all died around a small dried-up pond during a severe drought.  And across the valley there are giant corkscrew fossil casts from the dens of ancient beavers who lived in colonies like today's prairie dogs. The excavation is halted for now, but they've left some fossils in place, so beyond the visitor's center, I was able to go up to the bluffs and see bits of bone sticking out.  Super cool!

Here's a picture I took by laying on my belly and wiggling into a small cave in the cliff face, to get really close to one of the fossil bones.  I wonder if this is a rhino? 

Next over to the beaver dens:

And finally, a picture just to show how truly desolate this area of the country is.  The cornfields are long gone here in the very western part of Nebraska! 

All told, I'd call my fossil hunt a success!  But I'll still be looking for more as I head into Colorado and Utah...

Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska Part 1: Farms

Rather than talk about the drive across the midwest in chronological order, I thought I'd break it up into themes.  After all, on long trips most of what is happening is thoughts running through the brain while scenery flashes by.  Makes for a boring story afterwards - "then I thought about silos for 20 miles, and wondered how the grain on the bottom doesn't get crushed..."

For a quick background, I drove across Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska on the "blue highways" (actually black and gray on my map) running between I-80 and I-90.  It took a little longer, but not really that much, considering all the roads are straight and the speed limit is 55 or 65. 

The first theme is farms.  I was expecting the huge, perfectly flat corn fields that I have seen before, driving across I-80.  While I did see that for about an hour in eastern Nebraska, most of what I saw was rolling hills with smaller farms (still huge by New England standards) and wooded valleys with clusters of farmhouses.  I got really excited about old barns, so have a bunch of pictures of them.  One advantage to the blue highways is the lack of traffic, so I could pull over as often as I wanted for a quick snapshot.  Here are some samples. 

I think the farmland that surprised me the most was western Illinois.  Near the Mississippi River I started hitting more valleys and it reminded me a lot of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  I could see myself living in some of the medium -sized towns, like Elizabeth or Galena.  Here is some farmland near Elizabeth, Illinois: 

Now compare that with Iowa:

And then, more flat, Nebraska

But Nebraska has hills, too: 

It's mid September, so everywhere I go I see harvesting.  One radio report I heard said that the Nebraska corn harvest is two percent complete, which means there are a lot of fields of golden corn, and lots of work to be done in the next few weeks.

Chicago!

For the drive from Columbus to Chicago I tried to avoid major highways for the first time.  I have my brother's GPS to get me back on track, but mostly I ignored it, since I didn't want to take the fastest OR the most direct route.  I wanted to try out the small roads.  Overall, I'd count the experiment as a success.  I drove west and north, and took a few interesting pictures of tractors. (These are for you, Charlie!)  In the end, the GPS led me through the chaos of Chicago to Ann and Dan's house. 

Saturday morning Ann bounded out of her room and said "let's go for a run!" so I put on shorts and a t-shirt, and off we went.  This is something I should do more often - a 20 minute run first thing in the morning is good for me, and not too difficult.  Yet somehow self-motivation always fails me. 

Since it was raining, we spent some time playing with Ann and Dan's son Dax, then Ann and I snuck away for a trip to the museum and Millenium Park.  Here's the obligatory Chicago picture of the giant reflective bean.

Sunday we rented bikes and rode along Lincoln Park, and then in the late afternoon, Dan and Dax and I went for a walk, where we found an awesome tractor in a cemetery for Dax to play on. 

On the way back we found a playground.  Not having kids of my own yet, I really like watching the interactions between little kids and other little kids, parents and kids, and parents and other parents.  What do you do when your toddler makes another toddler cry?  When your toddler is crying?  All the kids were super cute, even when crying, but there was this one girl who really struck my fancy.  She was probably three, and running around in a no-nonsense outfit of shorts and t-shirt (unlike the cute but not-so-practical dresses most of the little girls seem to wear) but she had added a pair of fairy wings.  She was galloping up the slide, over the sand pit, etc at high speed with her little wings flapping behind her.  That's how I want to be. 

Columbus Ohio

Very early Thursday morning I crept out of Audrey and Aaron's house in Amherst and drove west.  Google Maps put Columbus, Ohio about 12 hours away, whether I took I-70, I-80, or I-90.  I chose I-80 for its lack of tolls and major cities.  Pennsylvania greeted me with a rainbow, while Ohio had a very nice sign.   I'm hoping that this is my hardest driving day for a long time. Twelve hours of nothing but interstates gets old fast. 

In Columbus I stayed with Amanda and Jeff for a night.  We met Karl and Adam for ice cream at a place called "Jenni's", which was absolutely fantastic.  I had salty caramel ice cream, but only after sampling sweet corn, blueberry, blue cheese, and a couple other flavors.  It was a tough choice! 

The next morning Amanda gave me a quick tour of campus, then left me to my own devices for an hour or two while she got started at work.  My own devices led to me drooling over the fossils in the geology building and gave me a new goal for this trip: to see as many fossil sites as possible, and hope to find a trilobite fossil worth keeping in the process.  I don't know why I love trilobites, but I do.  Of course, I had already passed up the primary trilobite sites in Ohio, so I'll have to wait until I get out to Colorado and Utah before I can start hunting. 

In Columbus I added two more items to my bread crumb list of things left behind... I think my shampoo is at Amanda's house, and I know my straw hat is sitting on the passenger's seat of Karl's car.  Such is life...  

Amherst, my old stomping grounds

For all my talk of leaving, my first stop was barely two hours away, and very familiar.  I visited Audrey and Aaron in Amherst.  Before meeting for dinner I took a quick tour through town, driving past two of the three houses I stayed in during my five years at UMASS.  Then for my first stop, I stepped into Rao's coffeehouse, and promptly left my camera.  Fifteen minutes later I came back in, frantic and frustrated, and retrieved the camera from the nice lady behind the counter.  Not a good start.  I'm a little worried that I'm going to leave a string of belongings behind me, like breadcrumbs strewn across the country and leading back to New England...

Dinner was with Audrey and two of her professor friends.  While I'm not an academic, I feel very strongly about education, particularly in the sciences.  So I was interested in hearing their concerns about attracting students to the sciences, how to introduce liberal arts majors to take science courses, and how to approach students who are only in classes to meet a distributive requirement.  I worry when I think of how little a lot of people understand the technology that they use every day.  More than not understanding it, but feeling like they won't ever be able to understand it.  I don't mean that everyone should be able to talk about the communication protocols that cell phones use to talk to cell towers, but more generally, how do cell phones work?  How does it happen that when I dial your number, your phone rings?  Why does pushing the gas pedal make a car go faster?  How does Facebook know who to suggest as people I might know?  It seems like more modern devices are packaged so nicely that we can't see inside them, and it's easy to never think about how they work.  Hopping off my soapbox, dinner was good, and the conversation was definitely lively, and I started to feel like I'm heading off into an adventure!

The final goodbye

Back from New Hampshire Tuesday morning, I had one more night in the Boston area before the final goodbye.  In the end it was harder than I expected, leaving so many friends and family.  I had lunch with friends from work, then spent the evening with Erin and Brian and Zoe.  Here's a picture of Zoe eating applesauce.

Next was a final visit with my roommate Vicky, where I picked up some chocolate to sustain me on the road.  Finally, I spent the night with my grandparents, doing final packing, rearranging, and worrying about the trip.  Wednesday morning we went for a long walk with the dog then I hopped in the car and drove off.  Here are my grandparents, posing for the camera:

And here's me, with the car that still has no clue what's about to happen, though she's starting to get suspicious, with all the camping gear, tools, and winter clothes packed in the trunk:

Did I have any great thoughts upon leaving?  I'm afraid not.  I was anxious to get on the road, wondering whether I had packed way too much or way too little stuff, and more than a little sad to be closing the Boston chapter of my life.  I had one little thought - you know how we mark major events with ceremonies?  Graduations, weddings, birthday parties, etc?  I've decided that moving is a ceremony in itself.  The sorting, packing, repacking, cleaning, final checking, and turning in of keys is part of mentally preparing to leave the old home behind.  This is the first time I haven't followed that ceremony with the immediate moving-in ceremony of populating a new closet, hanging pictures, buying a new trashcan, but instead I got a new cushion for the driver's seat and a new radio, and carefully packed things so that every-day stuff would be most accessible.  So I guess I'm now moved into my Civic!

The warm-up trip: New Hampshire

Sunday and Monday I spent visiting college friends in New Hampshire.  I got to practice my mooching skills on my friends Amanda and Gordie and their new son Willem.  One of the secrets to successful mooching is to bring a gift, so I baked a blueberry pie (warning to future mooch-victims - I will not always have access to an oven before visiting) and hit the road.  Amanda cooked an amazing dinner for a whole herd of visitors, including three children all under the age of nine months.  Here's a picture of Amanda, Gordie, Willem, Andrew, Jess, and Tyler, and their new onesies, courtesy of our college friends (mooch tip - when you have no gift of your own, try to be the delivery mechanism for someone else's gift). 

On Monday, Amanda and Gordie and I took Willem on his first hike.  He seemed to like it. At least, I think that's an expression of enthusiasm...

On the drive back to Massachusetts Tuesday morning it really hit me that I'm leaving New England.  I'll confess that I'm not a huge fan of the big city, but New Hampshire reminds me of everything I love about the Northeast.  Fall is in the air, and the small towns, open fields, and mountains feel like home.  I wish I could shrink our country, so that New Hampshire would be right next to North Carolina and Virginia, and why not throw in Colorado and the West Coast as well?  Then I wouldn't have to choose between living near only a few of my family and friends at any given time, and could have a mix of all the landscapes on hand.

Goodbye to my belongings

Sunday morning my father and I did the final packing of his van.  It's full, but all of my stuff did fit, and there was still room for his tools.  And by tools, I mean across-the-bed pickup toolbox, chop saw, and air compressor.  He was going to bring his shop vac until I told him that I already had one (yay shop vac!) that he could use, since he would be taking it home for me.  Then I left for a quick trip to New Hampshire.  I won't see my stuff again until I reach North Carolina sometime in November.  My brother Joe, on the other hand, is not so lucky.  He happens to be visiting my parents this week, so when Dad gets home, he'll get to help with unloading.  Now that's what I call mooching from a distance!  It takes talent to mooch off of a sibling without actually seeing him, from 800 miles away...  Sorry, Joe!  And Dad, I can't thank you enough.  I guess we'll just have to add this to the infinite list of things you've done for me, above and beyond the call of fatherly duty.

Wait a minute... something's wrong with this picture

This is me on my first day of unemployment.  I'm relaxing, Horrell-style.  We don't go to the beach or hit the movies.  Nope, we find peace and contentment in scraping paint.  Honesty compels me to admit that I did more relaxing than my father.  While I had spent the last three days in an air-conditioned office, doing the last minute things one does when leaving a job, he spent his days on the roof at my grandparents' house, putting up new gutters.  Oh, and he fixed two lawnmowers, a snow blower, and the drain on the kitchen sink.  I just scraped a little paint in between sorting through my belongings. Here's Dad up on the ladder.

I'm homeless!

As of yesterday at noon, I officially have no home address!  My father came up from North Carolina with the van, and we loaded everything in.  It all fit, which means the campaign to get rid of stuff has been successful.  I wonder if my neighbors will miss the daily additions to the "Free" box?  Dad and I are now staying with my grandparents.  Since I'm still going to work everyday, I'm definitely freeloading.  Dad, on the other hand, is earning his keep.  Besides driving 800 miles to haul his wandering daughter's stuff across the country, he's already started replacing the gutters and fixed two lawn mowers for his in-laws.  And who knows what's happened today while I've been in my air-conditioned office... 

My brothers have named my adventure "Moochfest 2010", and since I'm now staying with my grandparents (and eating their food) while I complete my final week of gainful employment, the mooching has officially begun.

I've found it surprisely complicated to stop being a responsible adult.  I've had to find alternate health insurance.  Then there is the sticky problem of mail.  What's my address now?  I thought I could wait a few days to decide what to do, but of course, yesterday after turning in my keys, I went to work and was asked to fill out some end-of-employment forms.  Permanent address?  Current address?  I panicked and put in my grandparents' address.  Guess that decision is made now... 

I'm down to two more days at work.  I've been so busy that it doesn't quite seem real yet.  Today I cleaned out my office and handed all case folders over to other people.  Tomorrow I'll sort through the electronic mess of my work computer and try to organize and distribute that as well.  I'm very excited about my trip, but will definitely miss my office.  I feel very tied to all the projects - they are MY projects, and it's hard to give them up, especially for the areas where I have very strong opinions about what step is next (particularly if that next step would involve me doing fun math).  But they'll survive without me, and I'm sure I'll find new things to calculate and test... and right now the road is calling!