Farwell Canyon

I'm not posting trip excerpts in any sort of order as Farwell Canyon was on day 4 (?), but I liked the video thus this post gets preference. We drove over this Canyon on our way to the put-in so we scouted it a few days early (photo 1). Photo 2 is my Aunt Candy and Uncle Ed. Ed introduced me to the sport of kayaking when I was a wee College student; much to my mothers chagrin (Ed's her brother). Ed then helped to encourage me to spend my student loan on kayak gear...don't know that my Mom ever knew that...


Farwell Canyon is one of the more lively runs we encountered, so I took a little footage from the back of the raft. (Olivia this is one you may want to watch from your shower, just to get the right effect). Oh, and those people you see flash by on the side of the river, they're fishing. Apparently a few fisherman die each year because they tie themselves to the bank and fish with a net. If you fall in the water in a place like say...Farwell; your hosed. Were not sure why they don't wear PFD's. We tossed around the idea of starting a non-profit to distribute PFD's to native fisherman (and get a government paid river trip out of it on the side).

Enjoy Farwell; because I did.

Newsweek Takes on Crocs

I had to share these articles from Newsweek; just in case there are those among you who are not subscribers. I had a good laugh.

The first article was from the August 11th issue Make. It. Stop. The Second was a follow-up article in the September 1st issue that was even better called What a Croc of Shoes.

I thought of Ellen.

Sorry for the digression, more on the river soon...

Canadian Bribes

Ok, finally a post about my Canadian vacation (it's been a busy week). I'm going to start off with our first great adventure; Getting Into Canada.

There were 7 of us on this trip. Lacey (sister), Chad (her husband), KC (a friend), Ed (Uncle), Candy (Aunt), Steve (friend). We all got ourselves to Canada in different ways; some drove from Utah, Wyoming, or Washington, and some flew. We all met up at the US - Canada border; and it was at the US - Canada border that we would spend the next few hours (photo to the left me standing in line with a few other criminals clutching their crack cocaine filled teddy bears).

None of us (three cars of people) made it through the checkpoint, we were all asked to go inside. Once inside we were asked to hand over our keys and passports and were asked a bunch of questions over and over again. I've heard stories of this happening to everyone who's ever tried to cross the border in VW Van, but I've never had problems at a border crossing. I think we were suspicious for three reasons:

1. None of us really knew how to explain where we were going; the put-in to this river is literally in the middle of nowhere!
2. We had a bunch of river gear and KC is a professional river guide so they thought he might be making money off us.
3. We were all a little slap happy; you know how you get when you don't get much sleep and your with friends you haven't seen in awhile; apparently in Canada if your too happy that means your acting "suspect." (example: photo below KC and I practice our criminal stance).

They searched one or two of our vehicles (photo below) and ran all our passports through extensive background searches; we sat around, stood around, stood around some more, answered more questions and finally they gave everyone back their passports...expect for two. Those two were called to the desk and asked about some "issues" they had on their "record." Trip member G's issue was over 25 years ago so G got off BUT trip member X had a class B misdemeanor from 12 years ago and was apparently not suppose to be let in the country. BUT, for a fee they might let him in. You can imagine our reaction when X told us this and the whole group just gasped and immediately we all started to complain at once. We started telling X not to pay the money that we would go somewhere else when really ornery desk woman (she was truly the orneriest woman I have ever encountered) immediately told us to STOP and called the eldest members of the group to come to the desk for a little talking to. She explained to them that we can't act like that (apparently in Canada you can't be appalled by stupid laws) and that she didn't HAVE to to offer us this but for a fee she would grant X with a permit to enter the country. For a fee! If your a criminal you can get into Canada for a fee...and they don't have to offer that to everyone! Can you imagine what it would cost if you had a full on felony!

After we all calmed down X decided to pay the $200 fee so that we could get out of there and on with the trip. X was granted a "permit" and we left. Apparently X's passport is now flagged and X will have to pay a fee (aka bribe) (if they decide they want to "let" X pay the bribe) OR X can go to an embassy and pay a fee to be "rehabilitated." The rehabilitation fee can range between $200 and $2,000 but after you pay it you can come and go as you please; as if paying a large sum of money makes you any less of a menace...and all this for a Class B Misdemeanor 12 years ago. Anyway, it made for great conversation for the rest of the trip.

180 Miles of Bliss

I'm back from 180 miles of whitewatery bliss in Central BC Canada. Ahhh, it was nice. I of course have lots of photos and stories to post; I'm just having a hard time re-adjusting to real life after spending the week like this...

Nicaragua Part 2 (finally)

Sorry for the delay in posting this second and final Nicaragua story, as you know by now I am not a very good blogger. It is difficult to be motivated when Lindsey's posts are so entertaining and frequent. So, we left off with me and Kevin getting through one week of Nicaragua in the dry forest. Our second week was to be on the other side of the country (the Atlantic/Caribbean side) directly across the river that forms the boarder between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. to save travel time we our travel to this new location consisted of an in-country flight, followed by a three hour boat trip down the river to our lodge. This first picture is the airport where we landed, the building to the right is the terminal, the field to the left is the runway, and if you look close you can the the airport security in the background (an armed military person with a machine gun). The second picture is the boat we took down to the lodge, the picture is actually the day we left and the boat was having some problems, as you can see. I included this picture because it gives you some idea about the river we were on, the far side of the river is Costa Rica.

This lodge was much nicer than the accommodations in the dry forest the previous week. There was a really nice sitting area that you can see in pictures 3 and 4. We spent most afternoons here because it was usually raining. This site, the humid forest, had a lot more kinds of frogs including 2 species of poison arrow frogs and tons of tree frogs. We also saw one boa about 4 feet long. The last picture was taken just outside of our room. Like the lodge in the dry forest, this place had mosquito nets over our beds and here there were no windows, just shudders. This frog is just under our shudders and made its way into our room that night, thank goodness for mosquito nets.

There were also a lot of bugs but I have decided to only post a few pictures of them. First is a stingless bee nest that was inside of one of the logs the supporting the roof over the sitting area. The next picture is a grasshopper that I thought looked cool. Kevin and I both collected one of these huge beetles, this picture was taken right after Kevin and I caught the first one. To kill these we used a syringe to inject ammonia directly into the beetles mouth, it killed it instantly. I know that sounds mean but it was the most humane way to collect and preserve them.

So, let me tell a few stories to liven this post up. We collected a lot of velvet ants (one of our goals of going to Nicaragua) in the dry forest. For the first 4 days or so in the humid forest we collected ZERO velvet ants. We finally started seeing them on days when it didnt rain but almost as soon as we would spot them, they would run under the leaf litter that covered the ground and we would loose them. My strategy for collecting velvet ants in the leaf litter worked pretty well, as soon as I would see one, I would grab at it and the leaves that where in its immediate vicinity and quickly throw the handful of stuff into my net. I would then slowly sift through the leaves and twigs in my net until I found the velvet ant. One of these times I was searching through the leaves in my net and I was down to one or two leaves left and I had yet to see the velvet ant. I picket up one of the dry rolled up leaves and unrolled it. Inside I found the velvet ant and a mother scorpion with babies on her back. It is kind of scary to think that I grabbed that leaf and threw it in my net. This picture is not the exact one I grabbed but it gives you the idea.

One more brief story. Kevin and I decided to take a trail that was supposed to go to an old abandoned farm that was 3-4 km away. We hiked for a while maybe 2 km and got to a river that was too big to cross so we decided to head back. We were told that all of the trails at the lodge were loops so we decided to take another way back. We followed the trail for a while and it began getting smaller and obviously less traveled. In Nicaragua it gets dark quickly, at 5:30 it is light and by 6:00 it is dark, there is very little time that I would call dusk. Anyway it was about 5:00 and we were pretty far out into the jungle. I felt like I had a good idea which way we were supposed to go so I was leading the way. soon the trail was blocked by a big fallen tree. rather than try to get around the tree and find this little trail we decided it would be best if we went back the way we came. Kevin was totally lost, he could tell which way the lodge was, or even if we were on a trail we had already been on. I can see where he was coming from because the jungle is pretty different than anything either of us has spent a lot of time in (like the desert). I was walking pretty quickly so we could get back before dark and we were forced to stop and rest quite a few times (Kevin was not really used to long hikes, especially in the humidity). So we finally made it back to our original trail, and I took this picture of Kevin, you can tell he is tired, sorry it is grainy but It was really dark so I lightened it with photoshop so you could see. This place where I took the picture is where Kevin was afraid he would fall into "quicksand" just below him in the picture was a small stream bed with a muddy bottom, I put some sticks in the mud so I could cross but kevin is a bit heavier than me so he sunk up to his calves. Not true quick sand but pretty intimidating for a tired, semi-lost gringo. The other pictures below are me and kevin going off trail following a creek bed. I thought it would be really fun to follow the creek rather than the trail, I thought we might see more cool stuff if we got off the beaten path. We only made it about 300 yards then we decided to turn back when kevin slipped into the creek and filled his boot with water. I want all the readers to know that Kevin wasn't just being a wimp on this trip, even though that may be how I am making it sound, this was his first time out of the country and I was not making it very easy on him because of all of my harebrained ideas. He actually did really well and I was quite impressed. The last picture is me relaxing in a hammock while it is raining, again. If you look really close you can see the lodge's pet monkey sitting in a tree in the background.

Hot Stuff

Today Ari discovered that he had pockets. He thought he was pretty hot stuff; so here he is being hot stuff with his Dad...who is also hot stuff.

Struggling Netflix Member

I'm a struggling Netflix member.

I've had the video "A Philadelphia Story" sitting on my bookshelf unopened since mid May. Everytime I'm in the mood to watch a video I'm not in the mood for that particular video (yes, this is the problem with netflix). BUT, it's not just netflixs fault, I'm in a movie slump in general; so I'm looking for suggestions. Anyone seen anything good in the last...oh...60 years?

Bees and Pan Traps and Such

Here we are. Joe's third publication.

It's hot off the press this month in "The Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society." Ohhhh, and look who's third author! Way to go.

Wilson et al - SAMPLING BEE COMMUNITIES (HYMENOPTERA APIFORMES) IN A DESERT LANDSCAPE ARE PAN TRAPS SUFFICIENT - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Wilson et al - SAMPLING BEE COMMUNITIES (HYMENOPTERA APIFORMES) IN A DESERT LANDSCAPE ARE PAN TRAPS SUFFICIENT

Pioneer Day

OH ya....Pioneer Day.

My enthusiasm has been low regarding sharing photos from our Pioneer Day festivities; that's what happens when you don't really have good photos to show for it. BUT, since we actually celebrated a holiday by participating in community organized events I figured if anything that would be worth the post.

For me Pioneer Day was one of those days where I just couldn't sit still no matter how hard I tried. We biked to the parade and back; went for a hike up the canyon, then biked to the Pioneer Day Festival and back. I was mostly trying to find excuses to ride my sisters road bike (insert purrr sound here). It was a great day. PLUS I snapped a few photos of Joe and I in the same photograph, that's pretty rare too; also worth a post.