RAGBRAI Week Three Training

Date	Destination/Comment (round trip unless otherwise noted)	Distance
May 25	W. Seattle/Bainbridge Island (one way; stayed night in Winslow)	25 miles
May 26	Bainbridge Island/W. Seattle (1-way) Mathews Beach/Woodinville	28 miles
May 27	Mt. Vernon/La Conner Loop	29 miles
May 29	W. Seattle Hill Loop	16 miles
May 30	Mathews Beach/Redmond	33 miles
May 31	W. Seattle/Vashon Island	31 miles

RAGBRAI Week Two Training

Date	Destination/Comment (round trip unless otherwise noted)	Distance
May 18	Mathews Beach/past Ste Michelle	30 miles
May 19	Ballard/Log Boom (post ride Happy Hour libation at Hale's Brewery	29 miles
May 23	Mathews Beach/Redmond	33 miles
May 24	W. Seattle/Kent	35 miles

RAGBRAI Week One Training

Date	Destination/Comment (round trip unless otherwise noted)	Distance
May 11	Mathews Beach/Gas Works Park	15 miles
May 12	Mathews Beach/Woodinville	21 miles
May 14	Mathews Beach/Woodinville	21 miles
May 15	Fort Dent/Auburn	25 miles
May 17	West Seattle/Fort Dent	27 miles

Summer 2008 Plans

Since our return from Australia and Antarctica, we've been tending to personal matters and haven't done any significant travel. We are actively trying to sell our current boat and are not planning on cruising on it this Spring or Summer.

The one thing on the docket, though, is riding our bicycles in RAGBRAI. This 7-day ride across Iowa is the oldest and largest cross-state bicycle rides. This year it will have about 8500 riders moving en masse across the state.

The route, which changes every year, is 471 miles and, shockingly from our perspective, 22,500 feet of elevation. Being a native "left-coaster", I assumed that between the Rockies  and the Appalachians was nothing but flat. Where did those hills in Iowa come from???

Its time to start training and get some serious "seat" time.

Antarctic Photos Posted

I have posted 70-80 photos from trip. I used the album feature rather than simply posting them inline in a blog post. I’ve broken them into seven albums based on a category. 
I tried to add some useful comments and descriptions so that you can understand what the image is and get some background information.
When you click on an album or “View Full Album”, by default you will leave this blog and be taken to the Microsoft site hosting the photo albums.  To return to this blog post, you’ll have to navigate using the “go back one page” button.
Alternatively, you can open the album in another tab or window (your options will depend on the browser you are using) and keep this tab/window showing this page.
Once at the Microsoft photo album site, you can view the photos individually or as a slide show.

• Animals that we saw along the way 
  
  

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• Australia images (i.e., pre & post cruise)
  
  

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• Birds (excluding penguins) that we saw 
  
  

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• Cruise related images (mostly of ship life) 
  
  

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• Flowers that we saw
  
  
  

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• Ice - centric photos

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• Penguins that we saw

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We're Back

We arrived today after flying from Brisbane to LAX on Qantas (12 hour flight), then from LAX to Seattle on Alaska Airlines. One of our two checked bags went MIA on the LAX-SEA leg of the trip. Fortunately, Alaska found the bag and dropped it off at the house this evening.

I've copied the 785 pictures from the camera's memory cards to our computers. With digital photographs that only exist electronically, I take great care to protect them. They are stored on three separate devices. That should be safe from virtually all software and hardware problems. I still worry about a fire or break-in, though.

I'll try to get more photos posted this weekend. Until then, here is one photo I took, a pair of cute King Penguins.

"But it's a warm rain"

To ease us back into PNW weather, it is raining today in Brisbane. It isn't a torrential tropical rain but more of a Seattle misting.

The natives seem to have decided you're better off ignoring the rain and wear your normal summer time attire of short sleeves and sun dresses than trying to beat the rain by using rain gear and perspiring underneath it.

We rode the "City Cat", a fast catamaran ferry that runs up and down the Brisbane River. It took us nearly two hours to make the complete loop. After lunch at a downtown food mall, we called it quits for the day because Marcia still feels under the weather on account of her cold.

Brisbane & Expedition Mode

We're in Brisbane now, our final leg before we head back home. The trip has been wonderful but I'd say we're both ready to be home.

Don McIntryre, our friend who was the Antarctic expedition guide for the cruise, would often end his near daily briefings to the ship's guests by telling everyone to be in "expedition mode." For Don, this meant that you had to always be ready for changes in plan based on conditions. In a sense, our entire trip, even the non cruise portion, has been "expedition mode."

The Antarctic cruise was very expensive (although not one we regret).  The airline tickets, on account of the last minute booking during peak season, the most expensive we've ever purchased. To compensate we've economized on our in-country touring by staying in hostels and taking public transit whenever possible.

This means that when we arrive in a city Marcia has to fuss with finding how we get to the city while I retrieve the baggage. Also, because we are hauling gear we needed for the Antarctic cruise, our baggage is more than what it would have been if we were simply traveling in Australia. Hauling our gear from air terminals to bus stands or bus stations to hostels becomes a bit tiring at times. Expedition mode can be fun but it does wear on you after a while.

Lastly, Marcia has come down with a cold. It isn't a bad one but a summer cold (we are in the Southern Hemisphere after all), always drags you down on account of the heat and humidity.

Now to our Brisbane touring. Today was a short day, we walked the mile or so to the botanical gardens (we've seen the gardens in every city we've stayed in). They are right next to the Brisbane River and are bordered by a grove of Mangrove trees.

Tomorrow we're buying a day pass which will allow us to ride the "City Cat" ferry which cruises the river up and down its length, boarding and reboarding as we choose. The river is tortuous through the city so a lot of river covers only a short distance as the crow flies.