On the Train To Cardiff, Finally.

[I wrote this on Tuesday. While in Cardiff, the hotel didn't have Internet access, so the only net connection I had was my breakfast at Starbucks. Because of how much it sucks over here that Starbucks won't open until 8am and then closes at 7pm (the same hours as the conference), I spent my precious few minutes of net access doing work. I'm now home and can sit down and post this, which I wrote three days ago.]

Yesterday, the rain came down in buckets. In 24 hours South Yorkshire received as much rain as they normally do in all of June, about 50mm (2") in most places and 75mm (3") in some. The train I was on made it half way to Derby, a small city about a one hour drive south of Sheffield, and then had to reverse due to flooding on the track. It's spelled D-e-r-b-y, but it's pronounced "Darby". At least the way my ears hear it.

I spent most of the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get to Cardiff. The train station provided buss es to Derby where you could make your way south from there, but they strongly advised you to simply not travel if you didn't have to. I spent part of the afternoon standing in the rain with an umbrella that was beginning to lose its battle with the wind and a water resistant coat that had resisted as much as it possibly could. I was asking around, trying to figure out if there was a bus headed to Derby soon and what my chances were from there. No, and not good.

By early afternoon, routes north and east were also cancelled due to flooding. At that point, the only place you could get to from Sheffield was Manchester, but you apparently couldn't get south from there either. By evening the train station was evacuated and closed when the river burst its banks and flooded the station (I was back at the apartment by then). It is expected to stay closed until later this afternoon.

So I decided to spend the night in Sheffield, wake up early and drive to Derby, which was as far north as any trains were going. I awoke at about 3:30 (morning twilight) and was out the door at about 4:15 (just before sunrise, this is still weird to me). Even getting to the train station was a bit of an adventure. I had to divert around some flooded roads in Chesterfield, and ram my car across a flooded interchange when I got to Derby. Scared that despite the highway cone in the puddle to judge by, it was deeper than it looked and I would get stuck. First gear and I was across, barely. It was stupid to try, and I should have found a way around. Little 100Hp cars and big puddles don't go together. My Focus hatchback is not my Murano, that's for sure.

I got to the station about 5:30 and found a train that was headed straight to Cardiff at 6:35. I went over to the Best Western across the street, had a cup of coffee, and then got on the train. Since Derby was the starting point for the train, I got my pick of seats and I have a nice single seat with a small table.

Today the sky is crystal blue with only a few clouds on the horizon and the train is speeding across the English country side. It's fast and comfortable. Much better than driving the distance. I should get to Cardiff in time for presentations.

Ugh.

Two weeks! I haven't put up a post in two weeks. It's been a fairly laid back two weeks, and a wet two weeks.

Of course, during that time I was back in St. Louis. My interview went well enough (I haven't heard anything official, but I'm not worried). The interview was "round one" so to speak, and presuming I passed will make another trip back to St. Louis in August or September for the final interview. I think I had beef for nearly every meal while I was in town. It was fantastic. I very much enjoyed seeing family and friends. While we are having a great time in the UK, being home reminded me of how much we really do miss America.

The only down side to the trip was Sir Walter, as some of you have read on Amanda's blog. He is on antibiotics now, but not responding as well as the vet would like to see. Hopefully, he will get better soon. He seems to still be losing weight.

Last weekend I went rock climbing at Stanage with a mate from work. Some photos are up on Flickr. There were just the two of us, so no free hands for taking photos of either of us actually climbing. One of the photos is a composition of two photographs so that I could get a decent sky (under-exposed) and a decent rock face (over-exposed). It's been a long time since I did any real photo-editing beyond a bit of histogram tweaking and unsharp masking. I really had fun doing it, and I like the results. It took me way too long though. I killed most of an afternoon playing in Gimp.

Other than that, we did a bit of car shopping for Amanda and not much more. It has been raining fairly steadily since I came back from America which has put a damper on planing outdoor activities. The Monday that I was back South Yorkshire was more or less under water. Flooding in most of the low lying areas. It was a lot of rain even for the UK.

Tomorrow I leave for a conference in Cardiff, Wales. I'm really looking forward to it since its on one of my main areas of research. I'm not presenting, so that makes it double-plus-good because I don't have to worry about my own paper, I can just go and see others.

Anyway, Amanda and I are watching 28 Days Later right now, and I'm going to get back to all the blood and gore. I'll probably write a bit more on the train tomorrow.

Homeward bound

I’m writing this from Manchester Airport at 8:00. My flight is delayed a bit, and I’m mostly killing time. I got a taxi service from my apartment to the airport, so that was easy. I’ve about an hour until I need to board. Breakfast this morning is a bowl of Special K and a cup of coffee in the lounge. The very wierd part is that blogger thinks I'm in Germany, and all the buttons have German labels.

I had a good day yesterday, mostly. In the morning I went for a ride in the peaks. For whatever reason, my body just wasn’t up to it. I spent most of the ride feeling like I look in the photo on the left. However, there were a few good times when I looked like the photo below. By the way, that determined look on my face is me concentrating my mind through fear. A fast bumpy downhill on loose rock makes me wonder why the hell I do this stuff. The guys I ride with wear full downhill protection (pads on arms and legs). Mostly, it gives them a psychological edge, less fear of getting hurt. They also have full suspension bikes. My hard tail bounces all over the place, and I never feel in control on decents.

When I got back to the apartment, I showered up and took the kids to a museum much like the St. Louis science center. It was great, and the kids had a fun time playing with the exhibits. We stayed until the museum closed at 5. As we were leaving, the Girl had to go potty. So we detour back to the toilets and explain why we have to go in the boy’s toilet (Amanda stayed at home, well deserved). And then, as we were leaving the toilets, I left the Girl’s camera hanging on the coat hook. Damn! After explaining to her how careful she has to be not to leave it anywhere and take good care of her camera, I leave it.

Fortunately, we were the last ones in the museum. Amanda is going to call first thing this morning and see if we can recover it. I know exactly where it is at, and that is a bonus. I am really hoping that the Girl can get her camera back. If it truly is lost, I will replace it while in the US.

I still haven’t fixed the mirror on Amanda’s borrowed car, but I think I’ve located the part now. ₤144. That’s without a shell or indicator, so I’ll still need to get an indicator (the shell is fine). And I’ll have to figure out how to extract the guts from the shell. Benz parts are crazy expensive.

New Link

I've added a new link on the right. It goes to my very primitive home page, which has a growing list of Google Earth paths and placemarkers of places I/we have been.

Camping at Wasdale Lake

Yesterday, we got back from camping at Wasdale Lake in the Lake District. By the time you read this, the photos should be uploaded to Flicker. The family went on one hike (about 4 miles) and then that afternoon I went on another. I've made Google Earth maps of the hikes for download (Hike with Family and my Hike up Scafell Pike). These were not done with some fancy GPS device in my pack or anything, just me drawing a line in Google Earth and then saving the file. They are only as accurate as I could make out the trail from Google Earth and draw with a steady hand. I just figured out how to do this, so if there is a "better" way, let me know.

The weather was perfect. It rained just a little bit the first night we were there. Neither night was cold enough to be bothersome (a light jacket outside the tent was all that was needed). The mornings were bright and sunny enough to require sunscreen. We got some cloud cover each afternoon, but nothing major.

Everyone enjoyed the camping (or so they tell me). The kids found other children at the campsite to play with, and had a great time playing tag and football. It was a very family friendly campsite, and I think we will return at some point. One of the parents asked how we knew to pick this site, as they felt it was the best site of the three run by the national trust. More remote, less crowded, and beautiful surroundings. More remote is what I liked.

The family hike was frustrating for me. Little Girl didn't really want to go, and that made it hard since she would decide to just sit down and not move. She wanted to stay at the campsite and play with the other children. She didn't understand that during the day, no one is at the campsite. They are all out doing something. Amanda and I wore our packs with light loads just to try them out and test ourselves. My goal was to make it to the tarn (small mountain lake), about a mile further on from our turn around point. I think the boy and I could have made it. Amanda was wearing out, and the girl was being stubborn.

So, because I still felt like taking a hike after we got back, I made the trek up Scafell Pike, the highest point in England at 978 m. I put myself on a time limit (for Amanda's sake) and made it up in 2 hours and down in 1.5 hours. I'd like to go again and spend more time at the top (the view is fantastic). This was a steep and very strenuous hike. Like climbing stadium stairs that go for 2 miles. Today, my legs hurt.

The other interesting thing from camping at almost 55 degrees North, was that I never saw it get dark. Officially, sunset was at about 9:30, and sunrise was at 4:40. I was up past 10:00, and it was still light. I woke up a few times during the night, and could see the tent glowing with some light. At 3:30 one morning I woke up and stepped out of the tent to look around. I could see a very distinct dusk-like glow in the North. The sky was clear, but you could only see bright planets. The sun was below the horizon, but there was still enough light to read by. I don't think it ever got dark enough for the stars to come out, but maybe I just wasn't awake at the right time.

We ate well enough. They didn't allow any open fires, so we cooked everything on a small camping stove. We made smores for desert, sort of. The marshmallows here don't brown right. They start to melt, and then you have to scorch them a bit to get some color. They seem to have a sugar coating that goes from white to black almost instantly. After some practice, we were able to get acceptable results. Also, we weren't able to find any graham crackers. We got some biscuits that were close, and used those with acceptable results. One of the other children came over while we were cooking our marshmallows and clearly thought we were nuts.

It was a good first go. Amanda and the kids did say they would do it again. I had a great time overall and look forward to doing it again.

Coming to St. Louis

I have some business in St. Louis in a few weeks, so I'll be home briefly. I fly in on the 10th and leave again on the 13th. Have your people call my people and we'll do lunch.

Also, I've put up a batch of photos taken by the little girl (LG set) on Flickr. I think she got the best slug picture! It's almost a story just to flip through them. The trip to the grocery store with mommy tells quite nicely.

Camping

We went and bought some camping equipment this weekend. The weather is crap, but I'm excited.

Everyone got a new sleeping bag. Only the boy and I had a sleeping bag before. And even then, I'd bought them for summer camping in St. Louis. They would be too cold at night here. So now we all have light-weight three-season sleeping bags. GBP 110.80.

For our first camping trip, we will go car camping. We have an air mattress that the boy and I use for camping. Amanda and I can use that. Bought two backpacking air mattresses for B & G. 39.90.

The backpack I liked was on sale. A lot. I think it's last years model, and they were dumping it for clearance. So I bought my new backpacking backpack. 60L capacity (3600 cu. in.) internal frame backpack. While we were at it, we bought a 50L for Amanda. I had her try on the "Mens" model, because she does have a longer torso (plus if she hated backpacking, I'd have a 50L pack also!), but the "Womens" model fit her hips much better. The waist belt does have a different shape to it and that made a big difference. So we have our packs! 94.90.

I also looked at tents. My thought was that if we really did go backpacking, we would need a backpacking tent. A four person backpacking tent is a bit of an oxymoron, since "real" backpackers try and keep the load down, and don't carry more than a two person tent. I had weighed the camping tent that I had, which is really a three man tent, but could fit two adults and two kids just. It came in at 5kg (about 10 lbs), which was not much heavier than the larger 3 man backpacking tents that I've looked at, but my tent's bag is this monster canvas job. When I got home, I unpacked the tent from the canvas bag and looked at how it might pack tighter. I was able to re-roll the tent and fly into a nice tight sausage. For this I bought a new stuff sack. The tent poles fit nicely on the side of the backpack and the stakes can pretty much go anywhere. 3.95

We also picked up some other miscellaneous stuff. Little flashlights for the kids. A backpacking stove and mess kits. inflatable pillows. Stuff like that. 35.55

I very clearly remember camping with my family growing up. I know I have memories of it from when I lived in Colorado, so that makes me not much older than the girl at the time. I've had a great time camping with the boy, and the girl really wants to go too. So, (I know you saw this coming) camping with the family, Priceless!