Mar's Request and Happy Birthday Sid

Mar requested a picture of the happy father reunited with his son...so here are a couple :) No new news... just birds and tourists in Barrow. Headed off to Pt. Lay tomorrow for the beluga hunt collections. I am including an honorary picture SID, since it is his birthday today. Happy birthday Sid!

Gage checks out the vette

Here is a quick picture from our return visit to Norwell. Gage got to check out the corvette and seemed to really enjoy being in it! I think it must be genetic ;)

We had a nice, quick visit in Massachusetts- spent time in Norwell and Chatham. Gage got to visit Provincetown and walked the beach (with mom carrying him) at Chatham Light. It was his first visit to the sea and he seemed fascinated by it-- very quiet and contemplative...he stared out at the ocean for quite a while.

As for us, we are now back in Barrow safe and sound after many hours in the plane. Phew! A very long, but nice and successful trip!

The artisan market and Valparaiso

We went to the artisan market at Las Dominicas on Sunday- it is a collective of artists huts in an area next to a really old church. We then took the bus 1 1/2 hours to the coast (only $6...and a nice bus!). We had some dinner and headed back...with the same bus drivers that brought us over. I think they thought we were crazy, but it was a pretty ride--- looks very much like the coast just north of LA. During the ride, the bus had a video of Mr. Bean on-- the one where he ends up with a baby...and there is a dirty diaper flying around a carnival (from ride to ride). It was hilarious-- and we were dying laughing...especially as we had changed a particularly poopy diaper just as we go on to the bus! Yikes!

Valparaiso itself was not as I expected...much bigger and more commercial (less quaint). It is a HUGE port (I had been expecting Monterey). I have pictures but they are all from after dark and are not the best... Cannot believe we will be leaving Chile the day after tomorrow. The time has gone by quickly and we have fallen into quite a routine...but we miss Dad!!! And can't wait to get home :) Happy Father's Day Kenny :)

New Teeth

Well, the first one must have been lonely, because now the second lower incisor is poking through right next to the first. This isn't the greatest of pictures, but he wouldn't sit still!

Just paid $20 for a bar of soap...cetaphil, because the Aveeno has wreaked havoc with his skin and I know the cetaphil is hypoallergenic...Anyhow, that is all for now. We are off for a day of artistisan region and maybe a trip to Valparaiso.

wash out..

so i've been taking fisher for drives lately and the past few nights i've gone out gaswell road, either all the way out or stopping along the way and letting fisher out to wander around a bit. these are not anything terribly exciting..just a drive with the dog and a little looking at birds. and this picture is fisher looking at a bird..right before he went into the water to try to catch it..then i had to go into the water to keep him from going in too much further. and i proceeded to turn him around and in the process he tipped over and was laying in the water..i had my boots on at least.
















tonight i went out to the end of gaswell and on the way out as i went past a narrow section of road with a bunch of culverts underneath i thought to myself "..there's an awful lot of water flowing through these culverts.." and then proceeded on to the end to let fisher out..i was driving slow and taking my time..was out of the car with fisher for maybe 15 minutes at the most. then put fisher back in the car and headed back toward home. in the back of my mind while driving back i was thinking about just how much water and potentially washed out road i would dare drive the subaru through...and when i got to this...















decided that this was too much water to drive the subaru through. this is looking towards town..and home. what you can't see here is another section of water flowing on the far side of the culverts. so...i started thinking about how i was going to be able to get comfortable for the night in the subaru and how this would be a good excuse for missing work. but after maybe an hour the water started coming down and a couple guys started walking towards me from the other side..the one guy had hip waders on and was walking to the edge on both sides to see if there'd be enough room to drive. the water wasn't more than ankle deep when i drove through, but the edges of the road had been pretty washed away. anyhoo..the whole thing only took about three hours, i didn't need to sleep in the car and both fisher and the subaru made it home too...and if you look closely in the background of both photos..no andes.

Our Andes Adventure

Well, we are just back from a quick day and a half adventure out into the Andes. We started out at 10am on June 10th. Took the subway to almost the end of the line (south), then a taxi up to San Gabriel (de Maipo)... we then convinced the cab to take us all the way up to the refugio (Lo Valdes), which was quite a feat, since the road was in pretty bad shape. Lo Valdes is a wonderful alpine cabin that houses mountaineers (and adventurous neices, aunts and babies ). It is a lot like Deetjens inside (for those of you that have been there) and is powered by generator (that goes off around 10 pm). They have great food- and after lunch and a dinner of argentinian beef, we hit the sack...only to be awakened early in the morning by two cats that decided to check us out...we were apparently on their play route, as they ran over both of us several times while they were chasing each other. One actually came and sat on Gage (he didn't seem to mind...unlike me!). Gage was up early wanting to play and talking... I set the headlamp on the bed next to him and it was really cool watching him first notice the shadow his hand was making, then learn to move his hand around and entertain himself with baby shadow puppets... Breakfast was yummy and we spent another gloriously sunny morning on the terrace. The rufugio has two dogs that were both very nice-- one of them was very attentive to Gage. Any time he made a sound, she was up and right beside him, making sure all was ok. He didn't seem to mind. One big event for the trip was the sighting of 10-12 Andean condors on the way up to the refugio. The area had gotten over 3 feet of snow a few weeks ago and some livestock had died in the fields (that was kind of creepy). When we approached, I initially thought-- ostrich? emu? The birds were GIGANTIC. Apparently, after feeding heavily, they need to rest for a while, as they are too heavy to fly. They were all just sitting there, kind of spaced out evenly on the field... looking like big statues. It was really cool. The refugio was (thankfully) run by an Englishman, which made life easier for us (no, my espanol has not improved). Altogether, it was a super cool trip - and Gage really seemed to be knocked out by the mountains. He just kept looking around and around...and he loved the subway! He thought the doors opening and the people coming in and out of the train was hilarious...I will publish some short movies to the blog in the nextday or two. Now it is time for some rest...

Mercado Central

Here are some pictures from our outing today. As requested, there is a picture of "Nanny Gin" included. Gage was captivated by all the sights and smells of the fish and vegetable markets. It was amazing- if we had something like this where we live, I would eat fish and fresh vegetables every day!!! Finished the morning off with a lunch of "pulpo a pil-pil" - spicy octopus with garlic. It was wonderful! Now it is off to work for report review. Enjoy the pictures!

A cute picture

Just a quick picture of Gage from today. I think he must have gained a couple of pounds because he is starting to hurt my back just lifting him! I explained "mall face" to Ken today = Gage's face when he is all serious- no expression and just looking all around... Gin thinks he's pretty sick of the mall...The activity mat that is worth its weight in gold is also included here!

ROLLIGON...

rolligon at the gas handling facility out cakeeater road. i heard a new explanation of how cakeeater road got it's name last weekend..from a ship...like titantic..apparently a few roads in barrow are named after ships...?
















long billed dowitcher. took fisher for a drive tonight and checked out the snow melt status...it's melting. there are big lakes where in a few weeks there will only be tundra and little puddles. while more photos were taken of other birds..this one was close to the road so it made it onto this thing. tonight i saw king eider, stellar's eider, a tundra swan, red phalarope, plover...a few other little sandpipers.. semipalmated?

and the snow buntings hanging out by their house. i hung another bird house on sunday evening and monday after work, there was already grass in it..so now we've got two bird houses that are being used.

Putting the fun in funicular

This is what happens when you dress your child up in a big purple bear suit!

This is a suit given to Gage by his aunt Gin. It is incredibly soft (I want one.) but he HATES getting into and in this picture, he really wanted OUT of it!

Chile is going well. Gage got to go to the Scientific Committee reception this evening. It was great. You meet so many more people when you have a child- and of course, everyone adored him and he was on best behavior. We had a big day today: I had the meeting in the morning, but in the afternoon we walked to what we thought was the zoo. It was actually a tram that took you to the top of a mountain with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary. Then there was a funicular that you could take down to the zoo. Gage got hungry at the Virgin Mary statue and was not in the nicest of moods for the funicular ride. We then saw that the zoo was terraced up the mountain and involved staircase after staircase of old cobblestones...(Chile seems like a bad place to be in a wheelchair...). So, alas, we decided we were not brave enough for the zoo (which smelled kind of bad as we passed by on the funicular...). We took a cab home and I DIDN'T get Gage's picture taken on the llama with the hat on cos' I figured it would be germs galore. I am adding in a couple of pictures of the apartment and from the apartment as well...

PS- The outfit with the apples is my new favorite. I cannot believe that he fits in it (12 months)!