What's ET up to now?

 

 

Scotland,   Antarctica,  Puffins and More,

  Alaska_2016,   Joshua Tree NP,  Puerto Rico_2019,   New Zealand,   

East Africa,  Nepal,  SW--USA_2008, Argentina,

 Svalbard_2008,  Norway-Iceland_2008, Camino de Portugues_2015

 

2024

 Well, as usual, I have packed in a bunch of stuff this year.  There have been some reoccurring themes, so this year will be a bit more theme and location oriented than exactly chronological.

So, a big event was that I paid off my house.  All mine now!! Here is the living room from the balcony on a sunny winter day.

 Still working at the Snowy Range ski area- and continue to do so this winter.

I continued working on the UMRB (Upper Missouri River Basin) project installing weather stations in Wyoming (if you want to see the data and field sites, click on the UMRB link).  However, after the field season wound down in September, I started a new job, also at University of Wyoming, as a grant development manager for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.  I just started that in November, so still figuring out how to do the newly created position.  But it does look like it will be super interesting and pretty fun.

 

 

a few nice shots

     Here are some photos from the field work and the travel around  NE    Wyoming this summer.  

     I also spent a few days in SW Wyoming doing some field work in April.

 

  

Alanno, Italy

 

 Went off to Alanno, Italy for a week in January. My great-grandparents came from this small town in East Central Italy.  I found some information about their births and the births of their first 2 children.  My grand mother was actually born in the US, after the family emigrated.  However, I could not find any information on either of the relatives' relatives, but both Assetta and Julianetti are very common last names in the area.  I also made a stop in Rome, coming and going and visited friends there. 

 

 

 

Summit County

Near the end of February, I spent a few days in Summit County doing some day trip back country skiing with friend Matt.  Plus, we spent one night at the 10th Mountain Hut, part of the 10th Mountain Hut Association in Colorado.  The way in was pretty easy, packed trail, and lovely weather.  But a serious snow blow came in overnight and the way out was a lot more route finding, or not, and deep snow!!

 

 

At the end of March, I visited with brother Jeffrey and family at Snowbird for a few days of snowboarding/skiing.   

Then visited a few Wyoming State Parks on my way home. I had won a State Park Pass and found out that if I visited all the parks, I could get a free pass for the next year.  I hit 20/37 this year and plan to hit the rest next year!

 

In late April I took a weekend trip to western Kansas to check out a couple state parks, Little Jerusalem Badlands, Monument Rocks, with cool rock formations.  I stopped at one of the last battlegrounds for the Cheyenne, plus a few other private areas of cool rocks.  Keystone Gallery was a great fossil shop as well.  It was also exciting to see that I was directly in the path of incoming tornadoes, that fortunately never quite formed.  But exciting nevertheless.  I had brought a SUP board to use on the little lake where I camped in Lake Scott SP, but decided that paddle boarding during a tornado was not a wise choice. 

Kansas Parks

In May a science tech working for US Fish and Wildlife moved in for the season.  It was great to have someone to occasionally share a meal with or chat.  Jo, not to be confused with Jo the cat, also helped out a bunch with house and cat sitting while I was gone.

 

At the end of May, Caroline, also trying to hit every state park, did a bike race in Sheridan, and I joined her for some state park visits. 

 

In July, I spent a weekend in Lander, hanging out in Sinks Canyon and visiting friends, hiking and camping.

 

 

In late July I won a free entry to the local EPIC mountain bike race.  A 30 mile loop or 2x loop.  I opted for the "1 and done" option.  It started out OK, but about 7 miles in I managed to catch a pedal on the trail and fly through the handle bars.  Pretty impressive contusion / hematoma on one elbow, that I actually did not notice at first.  However, the really impressive part was the 8 holed chain-ring impression left in my right calf.  Pictures only by request  😀

 

 

Wyoming Sr. Olympics

Two weeks later I headed to Cheyenne to compete in the Wyoming Sr. Olympics.  Unfortunately, the chain-ring bruise was not yet healed so I did not do the running events, just the shot put and 3 swimming events.  I got a bronze in shot put after coaching a competitor to a much better put.  Oh well, she was pretty happy!  Then, another bronze and 2 silvers in swimming.  Apparently, getting 3rd or better gets you an invitation to the Nationals!  Of course all my places were "last", there just happen to be only 2-3 people in each event.  😆 So, not planning on attending, though I have been trying to actually go swimming regularly, so maybe.

   

Over the course of the spring-summer-fall, I took several hikes in the general Laramie area including Vedauwoo, Sheep Lake Trail, Pilot Hill, and Medicine Bow Peak.  Here are some choice photos from those trips.

hikes near Laramie

At the end of August, I took a group trip to 4 of the 'stan countries in Central Asia.  It was with Atlas Obscura.  It was a really well run trip, excellent logistics, great trip leaders and guides.  I think I would call it a "suburban" trip.  We spent most of our time in cities or on the road to the next site, but we also did a bit of nature with a great overnight at a high altitude herder camp.  The mosaics and tile work, not to mention the amazing mosques and associated madrasahs, were pretty amazing.  Really a fun trip.

Kazakhstan

 

 

We started out in Almaty, Kazakhstan which was a bit of an adventure getting there for me as my first flight from Denver to Dallas got delayed.  So an overnight in Dallas then off to a quick layover in Doha, then Almaty at 2 or 3 am...  We spent a day or so in Almaty, then traveled to a lovely National Park, Charyn Canyon, on the east end of the country then over the border to Kyrgyzstan.

 

 We spent more time in Kyrgyzstan, including the lovely overnight at the summer yurt camp on Song Kul where I got a ride a horse for an hour or so.  We started on the east end of Issyk Kul, a large lake with  mountains both North and South of us, and continued our travels along the southern shore, check out small towns, and Soviet monuments and even a few iconic bus stops.  We eventually headed all the way to Bishkek, the big city, then flew to Tashkent, which is the capital of Uzbekistan.  We had to fly there as the border crossing we were going to use to get to Tajikistan was closed.  We spent only a day or so there, before heading into Tajikistan. 

Kyrgyzstan

 

Tajikistan

Tajikistan has some really cool ancient (12-15th C) --restored-- ruins and lovely scenery.  It also has really high mountains, like 25,000', though we did not get that far south. But we did see some very pretty lakes and great open air markets!  I hope to get back to check out the mountains a bit closer. 

Uzbekistan

We then returned to Uzbekistan, by a road crossing.  All of the ground border crossings were interesting, with long no-man lands between customs on each side.  And they seemed to prefer open land, where it would be hard to sneak across.  I am glad it was not raining anywhere as we had longish walks dragging our luggage.  We went to Samarkand and Bukhara, both old Silk Road cities with amazing architecture.  Samarkand is working on attracting more tourists and has done an amazing job of renovating many of the mosques and madrasahs to the "original" tiled glory!  Bukhara still has much of the ancient city center full of amazing buildings, but not quite as much restored tile work. Both were absolutely stunning! 

 

Bookfest and Zoo

 

In late September, right after leaving my weather station job, I visited with 2 folks who I met on the Central Asia trip for the Brooklyn Bookfest, Brooklyn, NY.  The day before the Fest I visited the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island.  The Fest was pretty neat, bought some books, got very wet as it rained all day, listened to a talk in a lovely church. Then before I left, had a very tasty breakfast, then headed over to Prospect Park.  I was disappointed that the Botanical Gardens were not open, but Prospect Park Zoo was open, so I wandered around. I got a short video of a Sand Cat and saw some other cool critters.

 

 

Tetons

In early October, I joined friend Matt in Jackson Hole for a lovely dinner at the historic Jenny Lake Lodge and a great hike the next day.  Unfortunately, the day after that the wind shifted and blanketed Jackson Hole with all the smoke from the Pack Trail Fire.

Spent a couple days in Summit County in November, snowboarding at Breckenridge to get my CEUs to maintain my snowboarding certification with AASI.  

Grand Canyon R2R2R

The first week of December I joined Tanya, Tish, and Tage for a 4 day R2R2R (rim to rim to rim) hike of the Grand Canyon.  We headed down the South Kaibab Trail, which was in pretty rough shape, and it totally kicked my butt, to the Colorado River and  Phantom Ranch,which was closed due to a water pipe break.  We then hiked to Cottonwood Canyon Campground, during which my legs felt much better.  The next day we hiked up to the North Rim and back down, over-nighted again at Cottonwood.  Next morning, we headed back across the canyon towards Phantom Ranch, which was still closed.  We side tripped to Ribbon Falls, which are just lovely!! Got to see another water pipe break with a huge spray! Then we started up the South Kaibab again to get us closer to the top before nightfall and shorten our final hike out the last day.  The weather was terrific the entire time, blue skies and lovely temperatures.  I did not curate, so lots of photos--even one of me.

Did a bit of cross-country skiing in mid-December with Caroline and Cindy, back in Summit County:  Frisco Nordic Center and Keystone Nordic Center.  Really like the trails along Dillon Reservoir; the Keystone trails were a bit more up and down.  We were all pretty tired and headed home.

more cats photos than anyone needs

  And my cats Amy, Beth, and Jo, of course.

   Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for an awesome New Year!

       🎄🎉🎊⛄