Hong Kong - Bangkok

...met up with rachel in Hong Kong, and we are on our way to Bangkok!!! let the r&r trouble (I mean adventures) begin. :)

the work week FLEW by!

landed in Hong Kong last Tuesday morning... and from the moment I hit the ground, the week was packed full of factories, printing, looking at QC documents, socializing with vendors and coworkers... and eating. so many different animals and parts. ha. 

our vendor ordered "fish" with fewer bones.... which turned out to be soft shelled turtle. good flavor, interesting consistency. 

it was a really successful week of work, followed by some "relaxation" in Hong Kong with coworkers... which consisted of going out for dinner and coming home after the sun came up. ha. 

after a fairly unproductive Saturday (recovering from our night out) I sprinted to the finish line of getting as many work things wrapped up as possible by last night (Sunday), and sent my "work" suitcase with my laptop back to CA with a coworker. 

and now I'm officially on vacation! :) 

Monday Nov 10, you are dead to me.

...or rather, you simply don't exist. flying out of SFO on the 9th, and arrive in Hong Kong the morning of the 11th. take that Monday. :P Thursday December 4th and I are going to spend A LOT of time together tho. 

one more adventure for the year...

When I started to dream about my epic 40th year trip, I kept being drawn to explore the Himalayas. When you think big, that is about as big as it gets. I have talked to many folks about exploring this region, and was thinking bout an Annapurna trek, or rafting the river that come down from the mountains. Once I set my mind on the birthday party, I decided to let planning for a trip like this roll for another year or so... but it seems I planted the seed in Rachel's mind along the way. 

After sharing some of the expedition ideas with her, we thought about "potential" dates. dates lead to itineraries, itineraries lead to finding some other people to go with us... and other people lead to booking the trip. Slippery slope, and here I am. About to board a plan to China (1 week of work), and then we are meeting up in Thailand to fly to Bhutan to explore the rivers, mountains, valleys, and sacred Dzongs of the region for two weeks. 

I gotta go get on the plane... but I wanted to share the plans for this last adventure of the year before I left SF. 

More to come, so check back and stay tuned.... :) 

where oh where did the year go?

as always, it's been far too long since I have posted anything. it was not because it was a boring year. not by a long shot. I've logged more travel miles in the past year than I have ever before, as well as crossed the milestone of turning 40 years young. I say it that way because I truly feel I am just finally settling into who I am, and I'm still having a blast. 

in the last year, I have been to southern china for work 8 times (counting the plane I'm about to get on). it's been a whirlwind of a learning experience, and. I feel like it has set a path for my career that I have many years yet to grow into it. the factory towns of southern china aren't terribly sexy and we don't have a tin of time to explore, however, i've spent several weekends in Hong King, and I really love it there. it is a world class city that reminds me a lot of San Francisco, while still having the history and flair of old world Asia. 

2014 started big with an amazing Shel's pals ski trip for a week to Chamonix, France. Dragged Szmytty with me for his first trip outside the US / CA, and it was AMAZE-BALLS! 1 village surrounded by 7 world-class mountains, and 40+ people on the trip to play with. so much fun! 

As winter faded quickly (because there was very little snow in CA this year), I dove into planning myself a weekend-long 40th birthday celebration. My original thought for my 40th was to plan an epic vacation somewhere, but the more i thought about it, the more I realized that the true gift of my life is the amazing people I know and love, and I wanted to be surrounded by them as I rang in this big milestone. plans came together, and I had one of the most memorable birthday weekends ever... it was a 3-day BBQ pool party with friends and family. so much love. After the birthday bash, I spent another week with Christina for our annual Auntie Robin's summer camp. We were pretty pooped from the birthday celebration, so we didn't venture too far this year... but it gave us plenty of time to dream big for next year! (Arizona /Utah national parks loop anyone?) :) 

Looking back, I am not sure how or when, but i did manage to get out to Yosemite and on the Tuolumne and American rivers for some boating fun. In my 13th season as a guide, I love river time more and more every year... especially now that the lil orange crush is part of my tool-box of toys! 

In between the China trips and birthday parties, I picked away at another "little tattoo". this one was really conceived with the idea of continuing on my nature theme, and trying to clean up and tie all the pieces I have together. As always it is a work in progress... taking just enough time off to forget the pain. It seems that I managed to schedule tattoo appointments right before many of my trips, so I spent endless hours on planes and in hot sweaty China with itchy peely skin. ha. 

And rounding out the summer, the SF Giants went big this year, and won the world series! I happen to fall between trips, and I had a blast joining my "home-town" in cheering on and celebrating. The icing on the cake was very unexpected ticket to watch Game 5 in person! Opportunity of a lifetime. :) 

It was indeed a big year, and this little summary doesn't do it any justice... but all I really needed to do was set up for this next trip... have just enough time to fit one more in this year. ;)

travel day down to the kenai peninsula

Tuesday was a travel day from talkeetna, back down through anchorage and onto the kenai peninsula. we did a little grocery shopping to restock our supplies. 

stopped back in girdwood for lunch at the chair 5 brewpub. I've definitely been enjoying the brews of Alaska! there are so many. a little sad I can't bring any back on the plane. oh well, enjoy them while I'm here. 

back to talkeetna

from the trailhead, we headed back to talkeetna... directly to the Denali brewery for a late lunch and celebratory beers. sooooo good! 

after lunch, we checked into the meandering moose cabin, dumped out all our gear, did laundry, and took much needed showers. gorgeous backpacking trip, body achy but satisfied! 

went back into town for dinner, and tried to go elsewhere, but ended up back at the brewery. ha. go with what works. thought we might go out for a little nightlife, but turns out there was not much going on in town on a Sunday night... fine with me, happy to sleep in a bed with a pillow!! 

...as if it could get more beautiful...

we woke up in the morning to not a single cloud in the sky... stumbled out of the tent with cameras in hand. the day was warm and clear as can be. the amazing and warm weather took us all by surprise a little. not quite what we had pictured for Alaska, we have been totally lucky!! 

the maps had been a pretty poor gauge for time and distance in the trail, so we kinda gave up on them, and just hiked. the trail down was an hour farther than we expected... but super clearly marked when we finally got to it. so gorgeous, there were a good amount of photo stops along the way. 

down wasn't too brutally steep, but as with the end of any hike, the anticipation of being done makes every ache worse. below tree line, we crossed a swamp full of mosquitoes, and we just hauled. poor heather had to speed walk to keep up with our pace determined to be done. ha.

 

made it down to the car by mid-afternoon... and we're stoked to drop packs, and change into flip flops!!! 

evening sun that goes on and on...

by evening time, we were done with dinner, cleanup, and water filtering... and the bugs came back so we retreated to the tent to wait out the sun high sun. heather somehow had cell service, so she was able to touch base with her boys back home. 

the sun eventually won. we finally settled in and read ourselves to sleep. I kept waking up in the night, and was curious to see if it ever got dark. by 2am, there was still glow if light behind the mountains (way lighter than the picture shows), and I gave up. turns out that our headlamps were our most useless piece of gear on the hike. ha. 

lazy afternoon of r&r&h

we had planned to stop just shy of the trail down for the night, but by mid-afternoon, we were achey, and decided to call it. found another awesome little spot to pull out for the night, and we busted out the wine and snacks.... and chilled for hours in the sunshine, reading, napping and chatting. by then we had just enough wind and distance from water that the bugs were gone for a bit. :)

 

warm & clear afternoon hiking

the fog cleared out by noon, and we walked along the ridge line gaping at the Denali range. it was also super still, however, so we has to pull our head nets out for the first time for a very quick lunch stop! 

along the ridgeline

woke up the next morning to a bank of fog hanging over the valley in front of us, covering all the mountains. it was cool and peaceful. nice way to start the morning. knowing we had tons of daylight, and only 8-10 miles to hike, we took our time that am. 

the trail along the ridge line was rolling and a pleasant walk. pretty much what I expected of the hike. we wove from front to back and front of the ridge, over rolling hills. 

midnight sunset

our first night we enjoyed a yummy Mac and cheese with peas dinner, topped off with wine (in "real" camp wine glasses!). the breeze kept up, so we had almost no problem with mosquitoes. 

we turned in to the tent to wind down around 9pm with sun still up and full daylight. there were a few clouds on the mountains, but generally a great view. 

the girls passed out in no time, but I was a little antsy to see the sunset. I crawled out of the tent around 10:30pm to a clear view of Denali, and the sun just starting to tuck behind the mountain range. 

I hung out watching the sunset for over 45 minutes... the sun went behind the range, but it never did get dark. ha. amazing beautiful and peaceful. finally went to bed when my toes got cold. ;)

up up to the ridge line

it took us a couple of hours to drive to the trailheads and leave the car at the end trail. we were all geared up, and on the trail around 3pm. we really lucked out, it was a breezy day, so the mosquitoes were minimal as we made our way up through the trees. we had some maps and trail descriptions with us, but they were all a bit misleading on the distance and elevation gain to the ridge line. first day with a 40+ lb pack on is always slow, but we slogged on. the first half of the ascent was pretty moderate, and as we got above the tree line, it went up at a steeper grade. not a lot if switchbacks in AK... just up. 

we stopped at a river crossing at what we thought was the ridge line to fill water.  through the next saddle, turned out we had more up to go. ha. 

all the efforts paid off, however, because we scored and amazing place to camp on a little plateau overlooking the entire Denali range. 

north to talkeetna and Denali

up and out if the hostel early, we drove north on a drizzly morning towards Denali. uneventful drive, and the weather was clearing up as we drove into talkeetna around 11am. heather had arranged for us to leave all our extra gear and food at the lodge we were staying in after the hike, and a taxi service to help us shuttle our car to the end trailhead of our hike. 

our shuttle driver was running a bit late, so we walked the entire 3 blocks of downtown talkeetna, and rounded out at the Denali brewery for pre-hike tasters. yum. gave us something to look forward to after the hike, fo sho. 

the birthday girl arrived in ak

rachel and I got all our gear sorted and packed Thursday evening, then hit another brewery for pizza and beer (mooses tooth) while waiting for heather to arrive. we picked heather up at the airport around 11:30pm, and our traveling crew was finally complete! :) 

blast from the past

met up with an old friend from elementary school in anchorage, lisa mills. haven't seen her in 20+ years since high school. it was really cool to do the hour+ recap of life in the last 20 years. lisa is still super down to earth, and was super excited to give us some tips and loan us bear spray for our adventures. 

 I'm not a huge Facebook user, but I am thankful that it allows us done of these long lost connections. nice to see a familiar face in far away places. :)

day 1 day hike

the morning of our second day, we took care of all our errands renting gear and grocery shopping for our backpacking trip, then decided to do a little hike in the anchorage area. 

we headed to the south corner of anchorage and up to flat top mountain lookout. we thought it was a 2-mile loop... but turns out it was 3 miles each way to the peak. we had lunch and plenty if water in our packs, so hiked up. good little training hike for us, and beautiful lookout 360° around anchorage from the top. :) 

bird point bore wave

making our way back along the turnagain arm, we pulled out at bird point to snap a few pics. the tide was super low, and the inlet was practically drained. 

there were a bunch of people hanging at the scenic point. at first we couldn't figure out why, and it was awkwardly quiet. on the way back to the car, we read a plaque, and realized that everyone was collected waiting for a bore wave to pass the point. the few days around the full moon, the tide changes are so drastic in the arm, that a standing wave travels up the arm as the tide changes, and we just happened to be there at the exact time if month and day. some waves can be up to 6'+... but this one was probation only about 1'. still pretty cool to see! I'll have to post pics from my camera with the zoom lense when I get home. 

glaciers!

after Whittier, we wandered out around the portage glacier loop and stopped to walk out to Byron glacier (1 mile stroll). it was unbelievable how sunny and warm it was out. 

after the glacier, we continued back in the direction of anchorage, and took a little side road up to girwood (at the base if the ski mountain) for lunch at chair 5. yummy beer and pub food.