What Noam and I Have Been Doing . . .

2008

blogging saddles

Big Basin, May 24-26, 2008

On Sunday, we redid last year's "I Hate Rachel" ride, in reverse. We rode up Clark Connection to Westridge Trail to Chalk Road to Canyon Road to Gazos Creek Road toward the park headquarters. Here are some big trees on Gazos Creek Road (or little plastic toy horses near normal size trees, whichever you prefer):

A cool rock on Gazos Creek Road:

We headed back to camp on Hihn Hammond Road to McCrary Ridge Trail down the hill, then a few miles on the flat on Skyline To The Sea Trail back to camp. This year, Joann had her nifty GPS wristwatch, which informed us that our path was just over 23 miles. No wonder it took so long!

Glamour Shot, May 2008

Bear!

Tevis trail fun ride, May 10, 2008

Noam and I have recently been dabbling in the sport of endurance. You ride over a course of 25, 50, 75, or 100 miles (25 miles only for me, please), and a vet checks your horse periodically during the ride and at the end. The first horse that finishes the ride that is fit to continue is the winner. It is a good way to spend a Saturday morning, the people are nice, and you get to see some pretty country on the trail. The grand daddy of all endurance rides is also one of the longest running modern endurance rides, the Western States 100 Miles One Day Trail Ride, more commonly known as the Tevis Cup. Competitors have 24 hours, 5 AM to 5 AM, to complete the 100 miles. The Tevis Cup trail runs from near Squaw Valley ski area by Lake Tahoe, to the town of Auburn, near Sacramento. This ride has it all: 17,000 feet of elevation gain, 22,000 feet of elevation loss, treacherous mountain passes, narrow trails on the edge of deep canyons, blazing hot weather, swift water crossings, choking dust, the troublingly-named "No Hands" and "Swinging" bridges, and a spot ridden in the dark known to riders as "the black hole of Calcutta." Sounds like fun, eh? The closest we are likely to come is riding in the Tevis trail fun ride, a fundraiser for the 100 mile race, where we rode six miles out and back from Foresthill to Michigan Bluff, through beautiful Volcano canyon. Here is Volcano creek:

A Juliet-cam shot of the trail out of Volcano canyon:

Noam on the edge of the canyon:

This water trough has a plaque that reads "Dedicated to the good horses of the Tevis trail." But only the GOOD ones. Not these two jokers:

Guest Blogger, coming soon!

Point Reyes National Park, April 26-27, 2008

The drive to Point Reyes with the horse trailer is easy, but really annoying. About two-thirds is hideously potholed and patched. We found Stewart Horse Camp, parked, and were headed out on the trail by about 11 AM on Saturday. We rode the Olema Valley Trail to the Bolema Trail to the Lake Ranch Trail, along the Coast Trail to the Ocean Lake Loop Trail to Wildcat Camp, where we played on the beach. From Wildcat, we rode up the Stewart Trail then down the Greenpicker Trail back to camp. Here is Noam somewhere on the Bolema or Lake Ranch Trails:

On the Ocean Lake Loop Trail:

At the beach at Wildcat Camp:

Sunday we rode up Greenpicker Trail, had a nice second breakfast at Firtop, then rode Alamea Trail to Ridge Trail, down Bolema trail, then back on Olema Valley Trail back to camp.

Bay Meadows Race Track, April 13, 2008

Though Bay Meadows has been in "it's closing, no it isn't, now it is again, now it isn't" mode for years, it looks like this is finally it. The track must be resurfaced after 2008 with an artificial surface that is safer for the horses, and there is no interest in spending the money to do so. Noam and I went to the Indian Hills Ranch day at the races to watch racing there one last time. The barn tour was fun. I think being a racehorse is a pretty stressful job. There was a lot of weird, frustrated horse behavior in that barn:

Picturesque pile of saddles:

Cool, ancient sign about avoiding and reacting to barn fires:

In front of the grandstand. Please note my excellent day-at-the-races straw hat, courtesy of Yehudit (thanks!):

I don't pretend that horse racing is a wonderful thing. Still, I'm not sure I'd rather see this torn down in favor of yet another endless sea of condos, Starbucks, and other evidence of death-by-suburbia.

Shine and Shine Only Limited Distance Endurance Ride, Grant Park, April 12, 2008

Lukka is such a great horse, it is hard to stay off of her. She isn't afraid of anything, she never misbehaves under saddle, and she never does intimidating things like leap in the air and twist sideways so you go flying, like some horses we know who shall remain nameless (Juliet). In fact, she is so lacking in the normal crap you have to put up with to ride horses, we think she might actually be a robot. The only problem: like many microchips and other items of high technology like robots, Lukka has a heat problem. Her fur is creepy thick, even in the summer. (Hannah and I went to Iceland in July and I nearly froze to death, so I understand why.) Noam decided to give a 25 mile limited distance ride a shot, so we clipped the fur off of Lukka's belly, sides, and the underside of her neck in preparation. It was not enough. Long story short: it was unseasonably warm, and we nearly killed her. There were two loops, the first 13 miles, and the second about 11 miles. The first loop we rode from 7 until about 10:30, so it was still fairly cool. Noam and Lukka on the first loop:

When we came in to camp for the break between the two loops, Lukka was panting and hot, but we drenched her with water several times to cool her down, and despite his concerns, the vet blessed us to go on. (Insert Hill Street Blues "Hey! Hey! Hey! Let's be careful out there" speech here.) We started out on the second loop just before noon. The first maybe two miles of trail were up an unrelenting hill. It was hot. About halfway down the big hill, Noam realized that Lukka had not sweat at all since we left after camp after the break. Not one drop. He got off of her, we took off her saddle and tossed it on Juliet (who was doing great), found a short cut on the map, and walked her back to camp, worrying the whole way, and stopping at a couple of streams to drench her with water. Juliet, on the other hand, decided this was the best endurance ride EVER! No one was sitting on her or asking her to go fast, and there was a lot to eat. Lupines taste good:

Poppies are pretty good too, but not as good as lupines:

Look at this, the lupine highway, isn't that awesome? It looks like something that guy on PBS would paint; you know, that "happy little tree" guy?

By the time we made it back to camp, Lukka was fine, her heart rate and temperature were normal and she looked pretty good. She didn't sweat another drop that day, though. It got cool and windy on the days after the ride, so I am not sure yet if this non-sweating is a permanent condition we will have to deal with. One old-timer remedy I found discussed online is dark beer. Hannah pointed out: "beer is definitely not the intuitive remedy for over-exertion. Was she staggering around, telling you she loved you, and making big plans?" As soon as she does, you can read about it here.

Ride from Del Valle to Sunol, April 6, 2008

From the barn where we board Juliet and Lukka, you can ride through Ed Levin Park to Monument Peak, from Monument Peak to Mission Peak through the Mission Peak Regional Preserve, from Mission Peak into Sunol Regional Wilderness, through the Ohlone Wilderness, then to Del Valle Regional Park. I don't know how far it is, but it is at least 30 miles. Joann and I rode the section from Ed Levin to Sunol last year. I have been talking for years about riding the 19 mile stretch from Sunol to Del Valle. We finally got organized enough to do it, I talked a friend into meeting us at Del Valle and driving the empty horse trailer back to Sunol. What a great ride. From the horse camp at Del Valle, you enter the Ohlone Wilderness, climb up and over a first ridge, cross a stream, then climb up a single-track trail with switchbacks to the highest ridge on the trail. Here are Noam and Jeanne cruising through a valley between the two ridges:

It was cold and windy up there! There were a surprising number of hikers for it being such a long, steep trail. Well maybe it isn't so long and steep. I have obviously gone soft on hiking after years of horseback riding. We skipped Rose Peak in favor of a trail that went past a porta-potty, did a good deed and picked up some trash left over from a raccoon party, then dropped down off the ridge toward Sunol. Here's a nice rock chunk, maybe called Goat Rock, just before you get to Sunol.

Tons of flowers, everything was green, the weather was brisk enough that the horses didn't overheat, it was a great ride.

Hiking at Henry Coe State Park with Nicole, March 29, 2008

Yay! Nicole was in San Francisco for a conference and stopped by for a visit. The governator has proposed closing several state parks due to budget shortfalls, and Henry Coe is on the list. We went hiking there, in case it really does get closed. From the Hunting Hollow entrance, we hiked up the Lyman Willson Ridge Trail, across on the Bowl Trail, then down the Middle Steer Ridge Trail. Holy wildflowers! There were dozens of different kinds. The park was absolutely carpeted with them.

A nice view:

We all have our photographic weaknesses. Noam's is birds-soaring-through-the-air pictures, which I delete by the billions after every trip. My weakness is lichen pictures, which Noam deletes by the billions after every trip. I cannot resist a rock with lichen all over it. We decided it was time for a picture that shows my true feelings:

Sonny discovers he is not retired, Harvey Bear park, March 21, 2008

Maureen graciously let me borrow her trailer to take Sonny to the vet for some shots, then for a ride. Sonny can be a pain to catch, so smart kid that I am, I went out and caught him (bribed him with treats) BEFORE I started clunking around and hitching up the trailer, so he wouldn't have a chance to put two and two together and decide not to be caught. I tied him to the trailer as I got my stuff ready to go, and I could see his expression change as he watched me and figured out what was going on. Those of you who are thinking "he's a horse, how much righteous indignation could he possible experience?" obviously do not know Sonny very well. He grunted and moaned and did his "only an evil person would ride such a poor, suffering old soul as me" routine, but after I shouted "you are NOT retired! Get it through your head!" at him many times, he became resigned and we had a fine ride.

Shine and Shine Only Limited Distance Endurance ride, Quicksilver park, March 15, 2008

Noam and I have ridden a lot of scary trails in a lot of cool places, and as far as I can tell, have lived to tell the tales. In spite of that, I would not call Juliet "a good trail horse." What, then, is "a good trail horse" you ask? Remember that scene in The Man From Snowy River where they are chasing the brumbies and the bad guy Curly rides up next to Jim and pulls Jim's horse's bridle over its ears? Jim pulls up the horse, who stands still while Jim fixes the bridle, as hundreds of horses go thundering by at a full gallop. THAT is a good trail horse.

So, how to make Juliet into a good trail horse? Take her to 25 mile limited distance endurance ride, alone. Horses will come and go all day and she will eventually just get over it and not be upset, right? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Actually, in the end, it went pretty well. I arrived on Friday, parked the trailer, then reasoned if I was too chicken to get on and ride alone up the trail on Friday afternoon, what chance did I have on Saturday morning for the actual ride? I saddled up and headed out. On the trail I met Janet, a tiny, pretty lady on a tiny, pretty gray Arab mare, and we agreed to ride together Saturday.

Saturday, Janet and I had hoped to start near the back of the pack of 25-milers, so we could have a nice quiet start. We accidentally started near the middle of the pack, so in the first 20 minutes of the ride, probably 18 horses went roaring past us, including one bearing a white-faced rider at a dead gallop. Harmony and Juliet wanted to GO! to catch up with these horses. At one point, Ms. "getting-up-in-the-morning-is-so-hard" Juliet was galloping sideways as I tried (eventually successfully) to disengage her back to the trot. The course was two identical 12ish-mile loops, with a vet check back in camp between the first and second loops. After about an hour on the first loop, Harmony and Juliet eventually settled to a nice ground covering trot. Janet and I agreed that the first 2 miles felt like about 20, and the first 20 minutes felt like about 2 hours. As we started the second loop, Harmony was tired, but I was surprised to find I had a lot of horse left. After walking up the first big hill, Harmony found some energy, and we settled into a nice trot. It hailed(!) for a few minutes. As we turned back toward camp on the second loop, one of Harmony's easy boots broke, so with Janet's encouragement Juliet and I trotted off and left her to walk the rest of the ride. We quickly left Janet and Harmony behind and were by ourselves, trotting down the trail. I heard nothing but her muffled hoof beats on the damp trail. Trees passed on the left, a reservoir on the right. I flexed my wrist to ask Juliet to stretch her neck down, then I felt her powerful hindquarters nearly launching me out of the saddle as her back lifted and her hindquarters came under her and pushed us down the trail. Her ears, her mind, her entire body yielded to thousands of years of genetic hard-wiring that told her FORWARD! It is difficult to describe; I was euphoric. It was an amazing experience. We cruised through the second loop in no time. She eventually DID get used to horses leaving her, so the ride was a success. At the final vet check:

And now, to get it out of my system, an avalanche of the best "Man From Snowy River" lines, in no particular order: "You can bid the mob good day." "Jim, the gelding!" "That's not why I rode." "You bastard!"

Skiing, February/March 2008

I still wear the jacket and ski pants from when I was chubby. The pants are pretty funny, if I don't have a belt I can pull them off without unsnapping or unzipping them. Me at Heavenly:

Shanghai, February 14-18, 2008

We arrived in Shanghai Friday evening and took a cab to the hotel. The hotel's website listed a range of cab fares from the airport that was reasonable, so we knew to get out of the first cab when the guy quoted us a fare that was three times too much. I love the Internet. Saturday morning we took our walking tour of Jewish Shanghai. The tour guide, Dvir, is Israeli and has lived in Shanghai for several years. We started on the Bund, where we sat and watched boats on the river while Dvir told us some history and about some prominent Jewish families in Shanghai. Random passers-by would come up, stand about two inches away, and stare at us, it was pretty funny. Jews immigrated to Shanghai in a couple of waves, the first wave was wealthy Iraqi jews who came around the turn of the last century. The second wave was a few thousand refugees who got transit permits from a Shanghainese diplomat in Vienna in the mid-late 1930s. This is the ghetto where those refugees lived, known then as "Little Vienna:"

The ghetto was not fenced and closed, as in Warsaw, but the poor, Ashkenazi jews who came from Europe were required to live there, while the wealthy Iraqi jews who had been in Shanghai longer were not required to live there. I found this interesting, the reverse of the stereotype that European, Ashkenazi jews are wealthy and educated, while Middle Eastern, Sephardic jews are poor. Also in Little Vienna, would you want to wear these underpants after they dried on the street below the lamp post?

As far as its relationship to jews, Shanghai is pretty different from the usual places that would have Jewish walking tours (I'm thinking of Europe). There isn't really any anti-semitism in China, probably mostly due to the fact that there are not many Christians in China, so unlike much of the world they aren't upset about the whole Jesus thing. Dvir is working on a project to recover grave markers from four Jewish cemeteries in Shanghai, all gone now, and turn the grave markers into a Holocaust memorial. In Europe also Jewish cemeteries have been destroyed, but in Shanghai there is nothing sinister about it; they were destroyed because the Jewish community largely moved to Europe or other points west after the war, so there was no one there to be upset about it, and Shanghai loves progress and seems to lack nostalgia, so cemeteries gave way to high rise buildings. Dvir took us to a recently-restored synagogue and attached museum, which he thinks despite being one of the smallest and crappiest museums in Shanghai, is also most expensive museum, because the local government believes that jews are all wealthy. But as another example of Shanghai as opposite-land, this is meant as a sincere compliment; it does not flow from any angry insistence that the jews manipulate the purse strings to the detriment of the rest of us. The walking tour was very cool, many of the elderly Chinese people in the neighborhood recognized Dvir. He took us in to an apartment building that was owned by one or more Jewish families, then sold to a Chinese family after the war, who got to enjoy the building for just three years before all privately-owned property was confiscated during the communist revolution. The apartment was small, dark, cold, and awful, but it is still inhabited by Chinese people, and is thus more a reflection on the standard of living of poor people in China today than on conditions in the Shanghai Jewish ghetto during world war 2. A star of David over the door of a dwelling in the ghetto:

After the tour, we needed a break, so we stopped at a Shanghainese-food restaurant on the Bund. Yum! The Bund:

After lunch we walked down Nanjing Road, a major shopping street, to People's Square. The Shanghai Museum at People's Square looks most excellently like a giant wok (or maybe I was just hungry). We stopped for a break at a bench at the park. It is not a great insight to say that out-in-public culture in China is different from here. I could really do without the spitting and public peeing (Sidenote: At one huge, metal statue in People's Square, there were actually orangish urea crystals right at crotch height. God, it was foul. I have no idea how Noam stood next to it long enough to take a picture), but one cool aspect of the lack of personal space is that in addition to including you in bodily functions (the spitting and peeing), people also inadvertently include you in some touching, personal moments. To wit: as we sat on the bench in People's Square, despite the availability of other, empty public benches, this dragon-lady, grandmother type sat next to me, so close that she was touching me, while she coached this little girl on how to jump rope. Cute!

Saturday evening we went to Xintiandi, this two-block area with a bunch of trendy bars and restaurants, to Visage Patisserie, for dessert. The fancy French chef there coaches the Chinese team at the Pastry Olympics. (This is not relevant to anything, it is just a shameless attempt to get some hits from people googling "pastry olympics." But they were damn good desserts.) Sunday we walked through an antique market and a pet market in Old Town Shanghai. This neighborhood is full of old, two story brick buildings, which are quickly being leveled by the block-full, presumably to make way for more high rise buildings. We walked in the direction of the Yuyuan gardens, and found ourselves in the middle of a kind of shopping mall that was absolutely mobbed with people. Near the gardens is the Huxin Ting teahouse, on stilts in the middle of a tiny lake, reached by the zig-zagging "bridge of nine turnings." This was the end of the Chinese new year holiday, so the bridge and the lake were decked out for new years. The colors were so bright they sort of made my teeth hurt:

There was a highly-recommended steamed bun restaurant near the lake, but after looking at the crowd inside, Noam and I figured we would never make it out alive, so we went to the awesome tea house nearby instead. The place looked and smelled like nothing had changed since the 40s, it was fantastic. Noam, with his tea, his quail eggs, and his chrysanthemum balls in some kind of fermented rice liquid:

We circumnavigated the shopping mall twice looking for the Yuyuan gardens, then when we gave up we stumbled on the entrance. The gardens were cool, but I was kind of overtired by that point. The most fun part was searching for the source of some yowling we heard from the grass in one spot in the gardens:

After the gardens, we walked back to Xintiandi for a late lunch. It was an interesting contrast: from the old style tea house with the quail eggs to a hipster restaurant without a single Chinese dish on the menu. After lunch, we walked around the French Concession a bit. It was way different from Old Town: big villas with big lawns, really colonial-feeling. When I finally wilted after walking around all day, we took the subway back to the hotel and headed up to the top floor of the hotel to drink free booze. Aces! Monday morning, we went to the Jin Mao tower, a huge skyscraper that is a landmark of the Shanghai skyline. The Shanghai Financial Center, a building that promises to be even more huge, even more sky-scraping, and even more landmark-y, is being built literally right next door to the Jin Mao. The lobby of the Grand Hyatt is on the 54th floor of the Jin Mao, where we went for a coffee to take a look at the view. Here is my art shot of the coffee and the view:

New York, January 26-27, 2008

Noam's mom was in New York putting on an exhibit at the UN, so we flew to New York for the weekend. The weather at home was bad enough that our red-eye flight Friday night was canceled, but we managed to race to the airport in time to catch an afternoon flight. Saturday morning we went to the New Museum of contemporary art in Soho. According to the website, the new building is the "first art museum ever constructed from the ground up in downtown Manhattan." The new building just opened December 1, 2007. I particularly liked the rainbow-colored bubble letters on the front of the building that say "hell, yes," which you can see from blocks away as you approach. The view from the patio on the top floor:

Hannah and John arrived from New Haven just as we finished at the museum. Given that the New York Times had reported the Wednesday before that recent laboratory tests found dangerously high levels of mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants, sushi seemed appropriate for lunch, so we found a restaurant nearby. Mmmm, mercury:

After lunch we shopped for a computer for Yehudit, then retreated to the hotel room before heading out for dinner. John needed some time alone after an afternoon of intense Leiterman-Shendar interaction:

We had drinks and some chow at a restaurant called Grayz, then went to see Spring Awakening, a raunchy musical based on an 1891 German morality play. I enjoyed it; I think everyone else, less so. (Yehudit took a robust nap during the second part of the first act.) Noam noted that the level of applause from the largely pre-teen-appearing crowd seemed to depend on the number of swear words in each number. (They went crazy for the second-act anchor "Totally Fucked.") After the musical, we walked back to the train station, Hannah and John bought their dollar-off Sunday New York Times, then got on the 11:22 train back to Connecticut. Sunday morning we found breakfast, then walked to Columbus Circle to see a building there:

After a coffee and an hour at the hotel setting up Yehudit's computer, Noam and I took the train to JFK, where we caught our (delayed, of course) flight back to San Francisco.

Sedona, January 16, 2008

Mom, who was in Phoenix for work, and I met Kitty and Randy in Sedona, where they stopped on a road trip celebrating Kitty's 60th birthday. Noam rented a Prius for me to drive to Sedona, and I fell in love. I met everyone at the Verde Canyon railroad depot in Clarkdale. The train ride through the canyon was cool: per the website, it took us by "towering red rock pinnacles and clean, green waters, past Indian ruins, through a 680-foot man-made tunnel, over old-fashioned trestles and under clear azure skies." It was the perfect thing to do with Randy, who, as a geologist, either knew or convincingly made up interesting things about the rocks we were looking at. He gamely rode with me through the tunnel on the outdoor car they called the "gondola" even though, as he predicted, the stink of diesel near the end was pretty choking. Here is the train going past a fault between two types of rocks:

We saw bald eagles! One took off, flew about ten feet, then landed as the train approached. It appeared to have a wing span about five feet wide, beautiful! Here is that eagle after it settled in a tree (look hard, its really there):

After the train, we went to Sedona and had dinner. Mom and I left for Phoenix the following morning before the sun came up. I'll have to go back to see Sedona's famous red rocks in the light!

Pebble Beach, January 1, 2008

We left Rancho Oso a bit before 8 and drove to Pebble Beach to meet some friends. There are miles and miles of beautiful trails there, many that run behind huge houses and through neighborhoods. The route of the paths lent a slightly voyeuristic feel to part of the ride, which I greatly enjoyed. We eventually go to an overlook with a view of the Pacific ocean:

On the way back, we rode through the golf courses. It was novel to ride right next to the fairways where they hold world class tournaments.

The day was beautifully sunny and warm. We had dinner with our friends who live in Pebble Beach, then headed home.