Some of my best adventures have been volunteering for a cause I care about deeply (Habitat for Humanity) or penguin viewing. Catherine’s adventure combines her love for turtles and volunteering with Conservation Volunteers Australia. Thanks for the guest blog Catherine!
One of my favourite holiday/volunteering experiences was volunteering for a turtle tagging programme at Eco Beach Resort (about 180km south of Broome, Western Australia) with Conservation Volunteers Australia .
My friend, Alice, and I were met in Broome by Lauren and Anna, our guides, before joining the other volunteers on the road trip south to Eco Beach Resort.
The outdoor area overlooking the ocean at Eco Beach Resort
Alice and I chose the resort’s villa accommodation option. Some of the other volunteers chose the eco tent which, whilst fun, wasn’t airconditioned, so they found it hard to sleep during the day.
At our arrival briefing on Tuesday afternoon we were told the resort was closed until Thursday, which meant our group of eight volunteers and two guides had the whole resort to ourselves for a couple of days before an influx of guests arrived for the weekend.
With only 2 days until the start of the Tour de France 2015 on July 4, it is time to get serious about the apps and other tools you need to watch every stage. I need multiple platforms and options for tracking, since I am going to be in Portland, Oregon and riding RAGBRAI (Iowa) for half the stages.
First I need a way to stay on top of the Tour when I am riding my bike, so I need an app for my Android. Cycling News Tour Tracker. The basic app is free but they are asking for a small donation of $1.99 to GoPro and get more features to help cover the cost of building the app. I am willing to do this for $1.99. I opened the app and it defaults to the info page and already I am getting psyched: “Utrecht Individual Time Trial Starts at Saturday, July 4, 5:00 a.m. Welcome to our live mobile coverage of the 2015 Tour de France. While we await the start of the race, you can find previews of each stage…”
Teams will be introduced in a ceremony tonight. Let’s see if Utrecht can do as good a job as Yorkshire in making the teams feel welcome. I’ll check back with Cycling News Tour Tracker and see how quickly they load the names of the riders.
Phil Liggett with American Julie
Next up is my iPad. I could download the official Tour de France app from NBC Sports on my Android for $19.99 but if I am going to spend that kind of money I want to be able to view it on a larger platform. I again have the option of the Cycling News Tour Tracker for free or GoPro and a couple of other options that are free. None, including Cycling News, of the others are rated yet. NBC Sports has 3.5 stars with 9 reviews. When you open the app, the splash page is the official logo of the Tour de France, which entitles them to the camera feeds from Tour helicopters and motorbikes.
Everyone once in a while I see a snarky comment from a cycling fan who tracks the Tour from a European channel with different announcers. I discussed this with fellow avid fan Brian Lovell and we both agree that Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett are the voice of the Tour and we cannot imagine a July without their commentary. It is like the attachment you get to the home team baseball announcer for your favorite team. Once I heard them criticize Paul for giving us so much information about the French chateaus. Guess what? If you watch the race in Norwegian or French you get those too. I am pretty certain that the Tour organization requires it as part of their boost for tourism. I meant to ask when I met them but forgot in the excitement.
Paul Sherwen with kids in London after stage.
Finally, I do not own a television. I have Comcast but refuse to figure out how to watch television on my computer because I really do not want the temptation to watch more programming than I already do on websites like Comedy Central, PBS and Netflix. Still I want to be able to get up early in California and watch as much of each stage as possible. Even if it means my morning ride starts a little later and I catch more heat.
The web application costs $29,99 for the Full Tour Access. Single Day Access is $4,99. I am opting for Full Tour Access, which allows me to watch all 21 stages for the entire distance of 3,360 kilometers. I used this method 2 years ago when I was not watching the Tour in person and my only disappointment is that you do not get the color commentary with Bob Roll and others. This year NBC is adding Jens Voigt to the team. So I will check out Capitol Dime bar, although you can never hear what the announcers are saying in a sports bar. Or hang out at my daughter’s house to watch a couple of stages. When I am in Iowa I will have to use my hot spot and watch it on my computer or find it on in a bar?!
Back in the day when the Tour was on Versus cable channel, I used to watch it 3 times a day!
Let’s talk. What is your experience shipping your bicycle for a special ride by plane or delivery service?
Thule bike case allows you to ship your bike safely.
I am flying to ride RAGBRAI via Southwest Airlines to Des Moines. They allow 2 checked bags to fly free. I read somewhere that this includes bikes in a case. I was checking a bag through to LAX today so I asked the Southwest employee handling my suitcase if there is a fee.
Als, they do charge $150 each way for “oversized luggage”. I asked if Southwest charges for golf clubs. No. I smiled and lightly protested sports discrimination. She said she would pass my comment along to management.
I was planning to rent a Thule case from Mike’s Bikes for $50 a week or approximately $100 with my travel time tacked on to the 7 day ride across Iowa. So this would be $100 plus $300 Southwest luggage fees or a total of $400.
Versus $110 each way shipping with FED EX with my bike in a box. The helpful FED EX representative in Davis gave me that quote and encouraged me to bring it to them because they have a lot of experience shipping bikes. Say it is slightly more expensive, shipping with FED EX is still $250 compared to $400. I will probably ship my bike to my Cousin David in Des Moines and save the box for the return shipment.
Any advice?
Let’s talk. When is Homeland Security going to review the rules around what we can bring through security?
As a seasoned traveller you would think I would know better than to try to bring a small jar of very thick, premium chocolate sauce through security. TSA confiscated it.
I would say “bring on board” instead of through security except I am sitting on the plane a vente ice tea that I bought at the Starbucks in the terminal. Why my jar of chocolate sauce from Ginger Elizabeth so thick it doesn’t move until you heat in the microwave is more dangerous than all of the liquids I can purchase after security, I fail to see.
I offered to pop the seal and show them how solid it is. The security person and the supervisor declined to investigate and just said no. I confess in my frustration I accused them of just wanting my chocolate sauce. She said it will go straight into the garbage. Sure, but will it stay in the trash?
How many of us want to speak up about the many indignities that are now a regular part of air travel but do not out of fear we will be put on the No Fly list? Are we really any safer because TSA daily confiscates thousands of dollars worth of expensive hair gel or chocolate sauce or jam that exceeds 3.5 ounces?
Maybe you can tell by my slightly snarky tone that am experiencing a horrible, no good, very bad day. I want to go to Australia.
I pedaled to the Avid Reader in Sacramento–the only bookstore left between Arden Fair Mall and Elk Grove where new books and magazines are sold. I was looking for a specific book and browsing for new fiction to read this summer. Much to my surprise and delight the Velo Tour de France 2015 Official Guide was on the newsstand!
Ultimate 2014 winner Vincenzo Nibali heads to the starting line wearing the yellow jersey.
I read this issue from cover to cover every year. The Velo Guide cover traditionally features the winner from the previous year. Vincenzo Nibali dominated and ultimately won the 2014 Tour de France. The reporters had an irritating habit last year of saying “Nibali retains the yellow jersey…” and then adding “after Froome and Contador crashed out.” Ignoring that Nibali wore yellow before they crashed out. And that not crashing is one of the objectives of the race, essential to winning.
This year the sportswriters are salivating because Froome, Contador, and Nibali are all starting this year. I am excited because Nairo Quintana returns after a year off. He took the 2013 Tour de France by surprise placing second overall. His team Movistar bet on Alejandro Valverde last year and sent Quintana to win the Giro and was on his way to winning the Vuelta when he crashed out. It should be an exciting battle.
The race leaders run the gauntlet of news reporters after each stage.
The Velo editors rank their favorites for the Tour each year. The magazine is written several months ago so it does not reflect the spring season. They rank the leaders in the following order: 1. Alberto Contador, 2. Chris Froome, 3. Vincenzo Nibali, 3. Nairo Quintana, 4. Thibaut Pinot, 5. Tejay Van Garderen, 6. Andrew Talansky. Contador just won the Giro. How will that impact his performance at Le Tour?
This issue also features profiles of each of the teams. For the first time, there will be an international team from Africa: MTN-QHUBEKA. It is helpful to track the changes in names as familiar teams change names as sponsors change. My favorite team is much easier to call out as their name is shorter: Etixx-Quick-Step.
Peter Sagan fine tunes his bike before a stage. He is wearing his “second skin” the green jersey.
They spend much less time handicapping the other jerseys. I was disappointed with the feature on the green jersey. At one time the green jersey point system made it the sprinter’s jersey. Then they changed the scoring system with more emphasis on intermediate sprints that perfectly suited new rider Peter Sagan. I love watching this exciting cyclist. He has completely dominated the green jersey in the last three years. The writers did not have the advantage of seeing Sagan win the Tour of California before they wrote this article and they cast a shadow on his chances. The bigger miss though was a clear explanation of how the green jersey point system has changed to reward sprinters more.
“The changes favour stage winners and will only be in place for the nine flat stages of the race. The winner of the stage will score 50 points, 20 more than the second placed rider, who will score 30 points, boosting the stage winner’s points total and rewarding stage winners more than rider who place consistently.
The jersey leaders at stage start.
The first 15 riders to cross the finish line to be rewarded with 50, 30, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 points respectively on the nine flat stages. The remaining 12 stages will continue to award points in the same distribution from 2012 to 2014 when the classification was last changed with 45, 35, 30, 26, 22, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 points to the first 15 riders across the line.”
I will be interested to watch how this changes the competition for this jersey. And I will be watching the continuing evolution of major talent Peter Sagan as a racer.
The issue also features a stage by stage description of the race. It changes ever year. This year it moves counter-clockwise around France after a time trial in Utrecht and a second stage in the Netherlands. If you look at the profiles of some of the stages you might think the Tour is not as hard as its reputation. Exhibit A. It is not the challenge of any one stage, it is the relentless pounding day after day, kilometer after kilometer. With hundreds of other nervous riders. On narrow European roads including cobblestones. Exhibit B. The mountains–Pyrenees and Alps. Just ask Secretary of State John Kerry who recently broke his leg riding one of the Tour de France routes.
The French have a term of respect for the humble cyclist – “chapeau”, meaning ‘hat’, as in, “I tip my hat to you”. The best thing is, in my experience they love to tip their proverbial hat to you at the very moment – halfway through some grim battle with a Pyrenean gradient, for example – that you need it.
A couple of years back a riding companion and I were on the French side of the Pyrenees for a few days of glorious sun-kissed cycling. On this day we skirted the Spanish border and reached the town of Prats-de-Mollo – the perfect location for a coffee and lemonade prior to tackling the Col d’Ares; a long stretch of sweeping Catalan tarmac climbing to over 1500 metres in height.
On Sunday November 2, 2014, Nik Wallenda walked a tightrope between these two high rise buildings and over the Chicago River.
You cannot see the wires. They are there, because I was there. I saw the crowds gather. I heard fellow guests in the Club Quarters elevator discuss watching it–pros and cons. What if he falls?
I sat at the outdoor cafe at my hotel and ate a pizza while waiting for him to walk. Finally it was just too cold and it was not clear when it was going to happen. So I went up to the 38th floor where hotel staff said there was a window. Management made a maid stay there and shoo guests away. I got another view but not a good photo. Still no Wallenda.
I went to my funny triangular shaped room on the 34th floor. Unfortunately it looked out a different direction. So I watched it on the Discovery Channel. http://www.skyscraperlive.com/ I liked hearing Nik’s commentary. He walked across then returned and walked the same direction again only blindfolded. Whew. Glad he made it.
Every time I go to Chicago there is something fun and cool happening–the Taste, a stunt like Nik Wallenda’s, the cross town rivalry game between White Sox and Cubs. This is one of the reasons I love Chicago.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio museum in Oak Park, Illinois
I have long wanted to go to Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park (just outside Chicago on the green line). I thought I had to rent a car to get there. The beauty of Google Maps (click train option) and I made plans to visit at last.
Getting there on the green line actually was a little more complicated because I was trying to get on in Bridgeport instead of downtown. I had made a 2:00 p.m. tour reservation and after a bus ride to Roosevelt station it still was not clear when the train was departing. I pulled the “quick release” and called Lyft. The driver Caroline lives in Oak Park so I not only got there in plenty of time, I learned a lot about this first suburb of Chicago (all for $23).
Frank Lloyd Wright was just starting his career as an architect and getting married when he bought a piece of land on the edge of town and built his family home. At that time his home looked out on the prairie and he was able to draw inspiration from nature for his work. I thought about the interesting things I observed in his home and found these 5 inspirations.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home was built on the edge of the prarie.
1. Marry wisely if you plan to use your home as a place of experimentation.
The family home evolved over the 20 years they lived there. They raised 6 children in this home. FLW worked out many of his ideas in his own remodeling projects. Lucky for him he seems to have chosen his wife well as she let him design not just the architecture but the furnishings as well.
2. If you are going to be a prick-ly person, then you better be a genius or super talent.
Stories abound of FLW’s very particular vision and his disregard for others feelings in his pursuit of this vision. Our docent did not sugar coat why he got fired–he was designing homes behind his bosses’ backs. Moonlighting is frowned upon when you are keeping business to yourself and not sharing the fees with the partners. In college I had the honor of going to a conference at Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin. Wingspread is a prairie home (mansion) that FLW designed for the Johnson&Johnson family. They told stories of him returning to visit and staying up all night rearranging the furniture and generally being an eccentric and demanding house guest.
3. It is fun to be creative and design special things for your own living space.
FLW designed many decorative elements of his home (such as the skylight in the photo below). He must have enjoyed it.
4. You have to be willing to stand out and risk ridicule if you are an original thinker.
Frank Lloyd Wright made a huge impact on American architecture because he was willing to take risks.
After the tour I walked about 4 blocks to main street Oak Park through a beautiful neighborhood contemporary to his home. The docent said we would be able to see several of his homes on our walk. He was absolutely correct and they were easy to spot. The homes of the period, when he was developing his unique vision, were Victorian. Stately yes, but not very interesting.
Compare this to the lines of one of his early designs. This is a clunkier version than the clean modern lines he eventually made popular, but already it is a big departure and a risky choice for both the homeowners and FLW.
5. If you are going to think outside the box, it helps to be short.
The piano that he inset in the wall to save space in the interior of the “playroom” is suspended and hangs out over the staircase. This is fine if you are 5’9″ or shorter.
Chris Guillebeau’s newest book, The Happiness of Pursuit, is all about finding meaning in life through a quest. A quest is bigger than an adventure; it is a series of adventures with a clear end goal. It is challenging and requires a sacrifice of time or treasure. The CTI Co-Active Leadership program ends with designing a quest; however, there was very little information about what form a quest might take. This book fills that void.
The book is full of people’s quest examples. I compared their experiences to my own. 5 years ago I needed a change in my life. The stress and the work treadmill were making me physically sick. Knowing that I needed to make changes was not enough to sustain the redesign needed–like expecting to lose weight while working in a donut shop.
I started with a couple of adventures with Habitat for Humanity, Global Village program. This was a normal extension of the travel volunteering I had done before. I focused on Northern Ireland and, based on other volunteers’ stories, I wanted to do a Jimmy Carter Build. Then HFH selected five countries along the Mekong River for the JC Build and I had friends in Cambodia. So I went on a Jimmy Carter Build in Cambodia hoping that the next step would reveal itself.
Set of Hobbit in New Zealand; Lord of the Rings and Hobbit are both quest movies.
This is the real challenge of a quest figuring how much you need to do and how much you need to leave unplanned for the Universe to fill in the blanks. Much of quest begins and moves forward on intuitive hunches.
While I was on the Cambodia build I met a group of really great New Zealand volunteers. This led to taking a group of Canadian and US volunteers to a build in Wellington. By this time I had more than an inkling that my quest was leading me to live overseas.
New Zealand was love at first sight. My quest began to focus on moving to New Zealand. I spent a year “leaving well.” As far as sacrifice, does selling everything you own count? The thrill of fulfilling a life long dream of living in a foreign country for longer than 10 weeks (my previous stretch) was so exciting that it carried me through the wrenching process of leaving family and a house I had lived in for 25 years.
Once I arrived in Auckland, New Zealand lots of things fell into place—a place to live in St Heliers, a kindred spirit bf, and so many great things. Except a job. Eventually my money and Visa ran out and I found myself flying back to Sacramento on Christmas Day, 2011.
This is the end of the third act of a screenplay called “the all is lost moment.” I really felt confused about my quest. I thought it was about creating a new life overseas and yet I was not able to stay. Within a few months I had a new consulting business and still enjoying a lifestyle that included writing. (Much of this quest is chronicled in my first blog http://redesigning49.com.)
My life is largely redesigned. Yet my quest feels unresolved. I continue to plan adventures and stay open to what comes next.
Best coffee in the world is found in New Zealand. Don’t call a Flat White just another latte.
Quest Fiction
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Post-modern tale of a mediocre man’s quest to find a special sheep in the mountains of Japan. The magical realism emphasizes the mystical aspects to a quest. It is the yin and yang of quests: doing and being.
The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Wind and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. This Swedish version of Forrest Gump is a tall tale that illustrates how one thing in life can lead to another in a good way if you retain your basic optimism and do not over think situations.
One of the highlights of my time in Stuart was riding a giant combine with Cousin Leo. Everywhere we drove in Iowa we saw corn stalks drying in the field or soybeans dropping their leaves both awaiting harvest. The rain had delayed the schedule a bit.
Leo was anxious to get the combine out and try it out a bit on his own place. I jumped at the offer to go for a ride. The tires are bigger than me and you have to climb up a steep ladder to the cab. The machine is very complex and powerful. The cab is designed with a floating lumbar seat for the driver and relatively quiet.
Leo and Geri make a great team and they were getting the cutter heads onto the front and checking the machine to make sure it was ready for its maiden voyage for 2014. Both of them drive it at different times and they are both knowledgeable about its operation and maintenance. The big red Case International Harvester tractor costs half a million dollars, so it is important to keep the thing running as many years as possible.
Leo and Geri make a great team.
We clampered into the cab and began driving down to the bottom of the first field. Alas one of the chains broke on harvesting part of the machine, so we had to abort our mission. I was impressed that this machine uses a chain much like my the chain on my bike, albeit much bigger. Unfortunately, the parts store sent the wrong size connector so in spite of everyone’s best efforts, we did not get to harvest. Another visit because I am not waiting so long to return to Iowa.
Notice how big the tires! Leo, Jeanette and dog Onyx
When they send me the video of them harvesting, I will post it here.
The outdoor area overlooking the ocean at Eco Beach Resort 
americanjulie.com 