I launched a new site a few days ago to combine my passions for running and travel. It’s called The Runner’s Trip, and the tagline is Run Long, Travel Far, Discover More. The first post and about page describe its mission. In many ways it’s an outgrowth of this blog and my first running blog. I’m mothballing Away Together and encouraging readers here to subscribe to the new one.

I greatly appreciate all who followed our family travel blog and shared their comments on our posts. I look forward to traveling more with my family and blogging about the destinations on The Runner’s Trip.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this. I hope you find the new blog inspiring, motivating, informative, and entertaining.

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Our Curry Village tent cabin

I was carrying my bag into Yosemite’s Curry Village, about to check into a canvas-sided, one-room shack that’s a hybrid of a tent and a cabin, when suddenly I came within an inch of stepping in one of the biggest piles of poop I’ve ever seen.

I know dog doo, cat scat, cow pies, horse manure, deer droppings, feral pig dung and, of course, human feces, and I knew this cake-sized coiled turd was none of the above. Barely disguised with dust, and resting a mere 10 feet or so from our door, it looked frightfully fresh, thick, dark, and flecked with something nutty and grainy — a hapless hiker’s granola bar, perhaps?

“A bear did that!” I said out loud to no one in particular. Then I found Morgan to show him, and we in turn showed it to a man we had just met in the neighboring tent cabin.

“I’m not surprised,” the man said. “You should see the patch job on my cabin,” and he held up his hand and mimed a menacing scratching motion while describing a large ursine claw mark still visible underneath a patch on his unit’s flimsy excuse for a wall.

“Well,” I said to Morgan, “We’re not in The Ahwahnee anymore.”

Once upon a time, when we were newlyweds and my in-laws occasionally traveled with us and very generously picked up the tab, I discovered Yosemite while staying with them at the national park’s historic and top-rated Ahwahnee Hotel. We would gather for drinks in the Great Lounge (every public room at The Ahwahnee is so special that each has its Own Name), and we’d marvel at the stone fireplaces that are tall enough to stand in, at the Native American designs stenciled on the beams, and at the floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase the valley’s 3000-foot-high granite cliffs, which are streaked black with lichens and white with waterfalls.

Morgan took this shot of The Ahwahnee in 2004, the last time we stayed there.

I fell in love with Yosemite Valley then, and also with The Ahwahnee. Built in 1927, it remains one of my favorite hotels in the world — a magnificent example of understated luxury that fits in beautifully with the natural environment.

There’s only one problem with The Ahwahnee: a standard room, which is quite cramped for a family of four, goes for $443 a night. The nicer rooms range from $500 – $1000+.

When Morgan and I decided to spend almost a full week in Yosemite without our kids (who were at a wonderful sleep-away camp), there was no question that The Ahwahnee was beyond our budget, and we didn’t really want to stay there anyway. We planned to spend entire days running and hiking, so a fancy room would feel like a waste and the dinnertime dress code a burden. We wanted to stay somewhere cheap and rustic, but not do full-fledged camping, since we also wanted a hot shower and a safe place to secure our things during the day while out on the trail.

Thankfully, less than a mile away on the east end of the valley, lies Curry Village, a sprawling, dusty collection of some 500 barracks-style canvas cabins. We had never spent time in Curry Village in spite of visiting Yosemite Valley numerous times over the past two decades. I wrongly assumed it didn’t have much to offer beyond low-cost lodging that looked, during the crowded peak season, like a happier version of a refugee camp.

A typical row of Curry Village tent cabins.

Did I end up liking it? As my dad always used to say rhetorically to indicate the obvious affirmative, “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

We rented an unheated, 8′x10′ cabin for four nights. Our cabin could sleep three, but others accommodate up to five (extra guests are $10 each). And what did we get for the summertime rate of $109 per night?

Inside our tent cabin.

Two cots — one double, one single — with sheets and Army Surplus-style wool blankets, a couple of well-worn towels, a metal shelf equipped with a safe, a single bare compact florescent bulb hanging from the ceiling, one chair, a padlock on the squeaky door, and a bear-proof storage locker outside. That’s it — no plumbing except in the communal bathrooms and dining area, and no outlets except in the public lounge. But it was comfortable, cozy, and we found the communal areas to be a great place to hang out each day after we finished long runs and hikes to three of Yosemite’s summits. (For a guide to recommended runs/hikes in the area, see my running blog.)

A cafeteria, taqueria, pizza and burger place, store, lounge and amphitheater are clustered in the village core, housed in buildings little changed since they were built in the early 1900s. In August, the village is packed with a diverse mix of people dominated by college-age backpackers from around the world and families with kids who zoom around on bikes or splash in the public pool. The mix makes Curry Village feel like a cross between a youth hostel and a family camp. It somehow manages to maintain a laid-back vibe in spite of peak-season crowding that makes finding a free table on the dining patio as challenging as climbing the cables to the summit of Half Dome.

Hanging around the Curry Village lounge.

No matter, you can eat in your lap while sitting in a rocker on the veranda of the shingled lounge, which is decorated with black-and-white photos depicting the village’s early days when the founders, David and Jenny Curry, managed it.

The Currys were part of the first wave of tourists to explore Yosemite in the 1890s, drawn to the extreme beauty of the wilderness that was depicted in articles by John Muir. But the couple balked at the $100 stage fare and couldn’t afford $4 per night for a hotel, so they established Camp Curry in 1899 to provide affordable lodging for Yosemite visitors. It was no-frills but high in spirits, with a dance hall, lounge and pool. It remains that way today. Park guides stage energetic shows for wide-eyed kids on the amphitheater stage, re-enacting Teddy Roosevelt or, more bizarrely, a slow-moving glacier, while across the way at the dining area, beer flows into pitchers and ice cream is scooped into cups all afternoon long. Squirrels run underfoot while placid deer munch on bushes along the walkways, almost as tame as lazy dogs.

Comparing The Ahwahnee to Curry Village is like comparing apples to oranges, or a giant sequoia to a lowly oak, but if I had the choice to stay at one or the other regardless of cost, I might actually pick Curry Village. Unlike a resort that encourages visitors to lie around and be pampered, the tent cabins — noisy and chilly enough to feel like a real campground — prompted us to wake up early, get outside and hit the trail. The communal areas bring strangers together for conversation. And the deer, squirrels and bear poop (which was never removed during our time there) remind us that we’re really in the woods, barely insulated from nature, and isn’t that the reason to go to Yosemite?

If you go: Make reservations at least six months in advance, and pack these not-so-obvious things:

• a padlock to secure belongings in the bear-proof storage locker
• earplugs to block the sound of other residents talking, laughing and snoring at night
• rubber flip-flops to wear in the public showers
• towels to supplement the small ones provided
• sleeping bags for extra warmth at night
• groceries and a cooler, to be kept in the bear-proof locker. Groceries from the village store are quite expensive, so it’s better to stock up on snacks and drinks ahead of time, and buy ice from the store to cool drinks. No cooking is allowed — not even camp stoves to heat water — but you can get free hot water from the village coffee bar, which is useful for making instant oatmeal for breakfast. Dining options are relatively affordable in Curry Village and pricier at around Yosemite Village.

Hit the trail for views like this of Sentinel Rock (on the left) and El Capitan (on the right) cleaved by Yosemite Valley.

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Colly does the bungee jump trampoline against the backdrop of the Brighton Pier.

Like cotton candy, Brighton is a brightly colored swirl of sweet temptation that’s tantalizing to taste but leaves you sticky and queasy.

We went there for a couple of days for the same reason we make an annual pilgrimage to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk or Santa Monica Pier — because rickety amusement rides on the beach are guaranteed family fun — and we did indeed love to watch the kids on the spinning rides.

On the pier, the world travelers became hurled travelers.

But, good grief, I haven’t seen so many drunk, swearing, sweaty and scantily clad young adults since the time we spent New Year’s Eve on the Las Vegas Strip. Brighton certainly lives up to its party-hearty reputation.

At least it has cleaned up its reputation for seediness. (I don’t mean to sound like such a schoolmarm, but having my kids see a guy puke on his shoes and hear fights erupt in the middle of the night outside our window makes me wary of the place.) The businesses around the central pedestrian area known as The Lanes are cute and well kept. We also enjoyed the park around the Royal Pavilion, a palace built in the early 1800s in a wild style known as Indo-Gothic.

A detail from Brighton's Royal Pavilion, with architecture influenced by the empire's colonialism in India.

So here’s my main tip for families traveling to Brighton and anyone else seeking to cure the beach mecca’s hangover: leave after a day or two, and go explore the quaint Sussex towns of Seaford and Alfriston a half-hour east.

We went to Seaford for the sake of a half-marathon trail race in an area known as the South Downs. Hiking trails crisscross bucolic sheep pastures, connecting a valley formed by the River Cuckmere with the white chalk cliffs overlooking the sea. One segment of the unspoiled coastal cliffs, a series of vertical formations called The Seven Sisters, is part of a large regional park. It’s gorgeous!

On the edge of the South Downs cliffs and shore, running toward the finish of the half marathon.

We checked into a sweet, pet-friendly B&B on Saturday called The Silverdale and ate at a quality family-run Italian restaurant called Diella’s, where the owner clued us in on the coolest little zoo in England, on a quiet country road outside of Seaford: Drusillas Park. Then we walked to the start line of the race on Sunday morning and joined over 500 other runners for a hilly 13 miles. I’ve slowed down quite a bit since I’ve been substituting pub crawls for track workouts, but I still ran my bum off, helped along by the scenery and swift competition of the Seaford Striders.

Runners head for the hills around Mile 2 in the race.

It was the eighth and final running event on our journey, and during the 1 hour and 48 minutes I was on the course, I reflected on the places we traveled for the sake of participating in an event: from the Imogene Pass Run in Southwestern Colorado, to the Buenos Aires Marathon and Patagonia trail marathon in Argentina, to the Croesus Crossing in West New Zealand and Dirt Fest triathlon near Melbourne, to the 10K outside of Venice and the 40K in Tuscany, and finally to here. One piece of travel advice I like to repeat (and wrote about on my other blog) is to design an itinerary around a hobby, be it art history or hiking or whatever. Our passion for running turned out to be a wonderful travel guide, leading us to lesser-known destinations and connecting us with locals in a way that typical travel planning rarely does.

My favorite kind of date: running a race in a new place together.

The race course crossed the main street of Alfriston, a storybook village full of centuries-old Tudor inns.

On the main street of Alfriston, an idyllic and historic town. The half-marathon course crossed this block.

We took the kids there in the afternoon, on our way to Drusillas zoo, and had lunch at a pub that now ranks as one of my favorites in England: The George Inn, established in 1397. As we walked by the bar under a low-slung ceiling, I paused to study the blackened brick fireplace and gnarled wood beams and imagined what it must have been like to gather there in Elizabethan times. Then we took a table in the garden, and I indulged in my favorite British drink: a snakebite (hard cider mixed with ale).

Drinking and dining outside The George Inn.

From there we spent a few hours at Drusillas, which is worth a day trip for any families traveling around this region. The zoo specializes in smaller animals such as tamarins, lemurs and meerkats, with lots of hands-on educational exhibits.

A baby tamarin catching a ride from its parents at Drusillas.

It also has a sprawling play area with all the super fun play structures we don’t have in the States because they’re deemed too risky; e.g., spinning table-top merry-go-rounds without railings and circular treadmills that work like a hamster wheel.

Speaking of spinning, that’s what my head is doing after running around Brighton and its back roads, and transitioning through so many places in such a short time with too many stomach-lurching round-abouts along the way. I’ve described only a fraction of the sights seen and things done in our final week abroad. Suffice to say we’re feeling pooped and resigned to flying back to California in less than 48 hours, with very mixed feelings about ending our time abroad but nonetheless ready to re-establish some routines back home.

But I’m so glad we ended our time in England down here, on the edge of the cliffs and winding around country roads that distill what we love about England.

A quiet Sussex back road.

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Sunrise on the Matterhorn

I’m sitting on my balcony of the Hotel Perren in Zermatt, Switzerland, listening to the church bells ringing out the day as the sun sets over the sheer 5000-foot cliffs to my right, which look like a crashing wave of rock and green pastureland clinging to roiling waters. Sarah and the kids are relaxing in the room after a great day of hiking, running and sightseeing.  In front of me, the sun surrounds the jutting peak of the Matterhorn in a soft yellow glow. The lucid sky, without a cloud in sight, provides the perfect blue background for the rough, snow-covered and angular structure of the Matterhorn itself. The sunlight falls down over the valley mountaintops to my left, as the sun secrets itself from view behind the peaks but still illuminates the town of Zermatt below.

As I sit here, Kyle comes up behind me and puts an iPod earbud in my ear and starts to play one of my favorite songs ever: Beautiful Day by U2.  I ask him what made him come and play this song for me, and he says, “It reminds me of today.”  I almost get teary.

Words cannot describe — at least mine can’t — how much I have enjoyed being in this part of Switzerland. We almost did not get to experience this sublime place for a couple of different reasons that show how travel can create some of the best experiences out of the most unpredictable ones.

Afternoon sun on Zermatt Valley

We came to Switzerland only after we pulled the plug on the logistically difficult visit to Turkey.  It was my idea to come here since I just always wanted to see the Matterhorn, which I guess is left over from years of riding the Disneyland Matterhorn ride and thinking that if the ride was that cool, then the real thing must be amazing.

Barns on hillside by trail leading up the Matterhorn

Unfortunately, I didn’t really know where it was or how to get here.  So, I found the Matterhorn on Google Earth and saw the town of Zermatt next to it, and saw that it looked like good hiking around the area. But when we arrived in Southern Switzerland, it was pouring rain and snowing in Zermatt. We were worried about driving mountain passes without tire chains and arriving in blizzard conditions with no snow clothes, so we scrapped plans for Zermatt in favor of lower-elevation areas. However, last week while staying near Lake Geneva, we saw the weather improving so we put Zermatt back on the itinerary and made our way here. In short, we almost did not get to see the entire reason I wanted to come to this county.

This morning, I started the day with a run up the Matterhorn trail, which goes up the steep sides of the canyon in front of the Matterhorn and passes 17th-century barns with sheep grazing on the hillsides. Zermatt is filled with barns and structures from the 16th and 17th centuries that are little houses with huge slate tiles for roofs, perched on stone foundations that raise them 4 to 5 feet off the ground.

Example of historical barns and buildings from 16th-17th century

A crazy patchwork of ladders and stairs allow access for the gnomes who must have lived there at some time in the past.

Ladder and door on a 16th-century barn

The trail is almost impossibly picturesque. I was allegedly running (the high-altitude air and steep terrain made me take a lot of walking breaks), but I couldn’t help stopping every few minutes to take another picture with my little camera. The sky in this valley is intensely blue and clear, due largely to the fact that the city banned all motor vehicles many years ago to avoid air pollution that would obscure the views of the Matterhorn from town. Instead of cars, little electric shuttles buzz around the town center like bugs, ferrying people to various parts of town (although, in truth, you can easily walk to anywhere in this small town).

View of Southern Alps toward Italy

I ran up toward the base of the Matterhorn and was surprised to see a little settlement called Z’Mutt. (Zermatt, Z’Mutt … I detect a pattern here.) Numerous historic barn-like structures, which look like troll houses, contained a few restaurants. Not many were open when I ran by, but I just loved the idea that you could hike a couple of miles up this steep trail and be rewarded with a beer and a pizza. I think I’ll try to force-march the kids up here tomorrow. (We were going to take the train to the base of the ski area for a view, but I found out that the train ride, like everything else in Switzerland, is absurdly expensive. The cost is about $70 per adult and half off for kids. The idea of spending $210 to see a pretty view that I can pretty much run up to see was not too exciting.) Besides, the forced march will do the kids good, I tell myself.

When I came back to the hotel room after my run, the sun was still shining and I couldn’t help but say to the kids over and over while pointing out the window to the great snowy horn-shaped peak in the sky, “It’s the Matterhorn!” When that wore out, I started on the song (the theme song to my Venice video), “Whassa matta-you” but changed it to, “Whassa matta-horn.”  The kids found it funny, or at least put up with me. At least I know they were happy since I was so goofy happy.

Kyle (and Colly below) getting ready for the ascent on the Matterhorn in the background

There are not too many days that are so special you know you will remember them the rest of your life, but today was one of those days.  Had we been here a week ago, it would have been snowing and cloudy and we would not have even been able to see the Matterhorn.  Sometimes, things just have a way of working out, and we have to remind ourselves that they do.

Kyle making friends with rodents in the town square.

We started this 11-month trip in Telluride, which is also a stunningly beautiful part of the word and similar to Zermatt, and it seems to make cosmic sense that we are winding down the trip in Switzerland. I will miss days like this when we return, but know that the days like today are special because they are rare, precious and beautiful.

Nighttime in Zermatt

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Our view of Lugano, Switzerland, from the hills of Campione.

“This is one of those days,” I said on our first full day in Switzerland as rain fell in sheets outside the window, obscuring the Alps.

We were sitting cross-legged on a hotel room floor and eating lentils out of a can for lunch while making innumerable Skype calls to apartment managers, hotels and the One World airlines ticket desk. While the kids gloomily plugged away at their math lessons, Morgan and I busied ourselves with research to redo our itinerary to avert freak Swiss snowstorms and British Airways strikes. When I needed a break, I washed clothes in the sink (“No laundromats in Switzerland,” the hotel clerk informed us, “everyone have their own washer”) and blew them dry since it was so cold they wouldn’t dry on their own.

I'm drying a sock, not intending to air my dirty laundry

But my spirits didn’t sink too low, because I know full well that unpredictable swings from great days to frustrating ones are inherent in long-term travel. Just two days earlier, on our last full day in Italy, I had declared, “This is the best day.” I ran across mountains in Tuscany for a 40K (24 mile) trail event, from the small town of Prato to the tiny village of Montepiano.

Italy and neighboring countries have a vast network of trails connecting remote regions, with this symbol to guide the way. This trail was part of the Prato to Montepiano run in Tuscany.

Along the trail, I paused to snack on incredible buffets laid out by the friendliest volunteers. I had never seen anything like it: Out in the middle of nowhere, near 4000-foot summits overlooking rolling green hills, teams of sweet gray-haired Italians handed out bruschetta, roast meats, pasta, cakes and cookies, cheese and red wine to runners and hikers. They all fussed over me when they learned that I’m American and that it happened to be my birthday. I can’t imagine a better taste of Tuscany, or a better birthday present.

At this aid station halfway through the trail marathon, these volunteers poured me red wine and dished up penne pomodoro.

An adage that I repeat while racing marathons also applies to travel: “There will be good times and there will be bad times, and neither will last very long.” That means it’s wise to savor any mid-race rush of positive emotions but exercise restraint and not pick up the pace too much, because fatigue and pain surely lurk around the corner; and on the flipside, don’t despair and give up when feeling lousy, because a second wind surely will come soon. So it goes with this journey, as shown by the contrast between our magical days in Cinque Terre and nightmarish arrival in Florence: Savor the good days and don’t sweat the disappointing ones. The four of us often cope with the down days by repeating the last line from the classic children’s storybook Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: “Some days are like that, even in Australia” — changing “Australia” to whatever country we’re in.

Our travel day from Italy to Switzerland also alternated between funny and frustrating. We loaded up Mario (the nickname for our rental car) and found our way onto the autostrada, which anyone who’s driven in Italy knows is a white-knuckle experience. First you have to find the on-ramps (which are few and far between), each of which has a stressful electronic toll booth to figure out, and then you have to merge with cars going 80 mph in the slow lane. I used the GPS on our iPhone to navigate, but the little blue dot showing our position often was delayed, so more than once I missed telling Morgan to exit and we got stuck going on miles-long detours. We must have circled the outskirts of Milan four times and spent an extra 10 euros on tolls due to these inadvertent “longcuts.”

Hungry from the longer-than-expected drive, we decided it was time to experience Autogrill, which is the Italians’ answer to fast food and rest stops.

Autogrill: Way better than Taco Bell or Subway.

This is a special chain of restaurants and minimarts literally straddling the autostrada — like a bridge with the cars zooming underneath, with parking right next to the highway — so travelers can get off and on the freeway without having to go through a toll exit. The kids had been asking to go to one the whole time we’ve been in Italy, but we always said no because we wanted to avoid fast food and sample local establishments. Well, we should have listened to the kids, because the Autogrill rocks! Leave it to the Italians to serve affordable fresh dishes for “fast food” such as risotto, grilled meats, gourmet fresh panini, and a salad and antipasti bar with delicious grilled vegetables and tabouli.

We crossed over into Switzerland and immediately noticed that people drive slower. The snow-capped mountains became progressively higher and more picturesque, and we were dazzled by the views in spite of the overcast sky. We arrived at a nice but not particularly memorable hotel in the small lakeside town of Campione, about five miles from the popular city of Lugano. (By staying on the outskirts rather than in the center of major destinations, we’re cutting our lodging costs significantly.)

A chapel in Campione.

The rain cleared enough on one afternoon for us to explore a lovely tulip-filled park in Lugano and window shop at stylish stores with prices as steep as the Alps.

Cheap thrills: The kids love these rocking horses found in Lugano and elsewhere in Switzerland ...

... and so does my rockin' husband!

Yesterday we climbed back into Mario and drove two hours north to Lucerne, a place as perfect and precious as the carved cuckoo clocks for sale in the souvenir shops. The route took us through the 10.5-mile-long Gotthard Road Tunnel, the third-longest road tunnel in the world (the first being in Norway). It’s so long that I drifted asleep shortly after Morgan entered it, and when I woke up, we were still driving through the dark! If not for my nap, I surely would have freaked from claustrophobia.

Our plan was to get lunch as soon as we got to Lucerne, so I searched TripAdvisor on the iPhone and found an out-of-the-way pseudo Mexican diner called Crazy Cactus, which supposedly was good and relatively cheap. We got there and ordered one small chicken fajita plate to share, one half-portion of nachos for Colly, one appetizer-size quesadilla for Kyle, two drinks for the four of us to split (a Fanta and a large sparkling water) … and the bill came to $55 Swiss francs, or almost US$50! Oh how we missed Baja Taqueria on Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue at that moment.

Lucerne is lovely in spite of (or because of?) its cost of living. We checked into a fun and fairly affordable hotel called Cascada and set off to walk across the 14th-century Chapel Bridge, rebuilt in 1993 after some bozo dropped a cigarette and set the span on fire.

A view of Lucerne's Chapel Bridge showing its tower ...

... and the view of Chapel Bridge with the waterfront where we ate at Pickwick Pub.

The bridge leads to the Old Town square, full of Alpine architecture with flag-topped turrets and gold-rimmed clock faces that must have inspired the designers of Disneyland’s Fantasyland. We discovered well-priced pub grub along the waterfont there at Pickwick’s, and for the second time that day (the first being at Crazy Cactus) I heard wait staff speaking both Spanish and German — such a cool combination! This polyglot culture inspires me to study language more.

Lucerne looks lovely even in the rain.

Today, with rain still pouring down, we headed to the Verkehrshaus, aka Lucerne’s Museum of Transport, where we enjoyed seeing a model of the interminable Gotthard Road Tunnel mountain we drove through and a National Geographic documentary in their IMAX theater.

My Swiss miss and her little bruder at the transportation museum, in front of the model of the mountain with the looooonnnnngggg tunnel.

The road trip resumes tomorrow; next stop: Interlaken. Our itinerary changed quite a bit because we’re sticking to lower elevations to avoid the snow. We also extended our stay in one place (Montreux, on Lake Geneva) long enough to rent an apartment, since it’s becoming unbearably expensive to stay in hotels and dine out. But the biggest change to report, which I’m sad but relieved about, is we canceled our short trip to Athens. Going there this month ultimately seemed too risky and stressful, especially since we’re flying British Airways and they plan strikes on both days we were scheduled to go in and out of Athens. Greece now joins Turkey, Kenya, Costa Rica, Peru and too many other places to name on our “someday” list.

Meanwhile, we’re truly looking forward to seeing more of Switzerland and England, and if another May snowstorm sneaks up or an Icelandic volcano gets cranky or locusts fall from the sky, we’ll take pictures and try to laugh about it.

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3. Snapshots of Venezia and Treviso

A view from the Cinque Terre coastal trail, with the town of Vernazza coming into view.

Last night I read Goethe and ate divine pesto, and this morning I ran across a mountain and climbed back into bed with Morgan.

It’s all about life, Italy and the pursuit of happiness.

(Bear with me while I explain what Goethe has to do with it …)

I didn’t expect to pick up 18th-century German Romanticism more than twenty years after my last college lit class. I’ve been eating up delectable novels and memoirs like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and told myself I should ingest some historical fiction or classics (similar to how I reach for bran flakes and skim milk to balance out the pasta and wine).

Then, around the same day, we serendipitously stumbled upon Goethe. His name was everywhere. We were in the town of Malcesine on Lake Garda, a giant drop of blue in Northern Italy hanging like a bead off the skirt of the Alps, and were spending five nights there for no better reason than because three months earlier, in New Zealand or somewhere, Morgan had looked at Italy on Google Earth, saw the splotch of blue and the steep topography around it, and said, “I wanna go there!”

Kyle on a snowy ridge in the Alps above Lake Garda during a hike he took with Morgan.

As we drove the freeway up from Verona and the steep mountain pass down through Turbole, we started noticing inns and restaurants named after the German literary great.

Once we settled into our lodge, Morgan logged on to research why Goethe was such a big deal in this neck of the woods. “You gotta read this,” I soon heard him say.

We found ourselves following in Goethe's footsteps.

I looked over his shoulder at a newspaper article from 1986 about local bicentennial celebrations of Goethe’s sojourn to Lake Garda: The 37-year-old Goethe set off for Italy from Weimar at 3 A.M. on Sept. 3, 1786, in the midst of a full-blown midlife crisis. Impulsively, he took a short leave of absence from his post as the right-hand man to the young duke of Saxe-Weimar, jumped into a coach without a servant or much luggage, assumed the name Filippo Moller and left for what turned out to be almost two years of renewal in the Mediterranean. … In Italy, Goethe experienced what he called a rebirth, living a life “exactly like a youthful dream.”

I wound up entranced by Goethe’s early novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and learned more about his Italian journey while touring the 6th-century Malcesine castle, a place he explored after docking his boat there due to bad weather.

The castle and town of Malcesine, which Goethe visited 224 years ago.

Ever an artist, Goethe pulled out his sketchpad and settled in to draw the castle. An exhibit at the castle detailed how the stress of Goethe’s job left no room in his life to pursue artistic interests, and how by radically changing his circumstances, the poet hoped to get closer to the meaning of his existence.

It will come as little surprise to those who know us that Morgan and I could appreciate the motives behind Goethe’s odyssey, much as I could relate to Elizabeth Gilbert’s decision, detailed in Eat, Pray, Love, to spend a year of self-inquiry through travel. It’s trite but true that the most satisfying kind of travel involves contemplating the meaning of life, and discovering and pursuing new interests along the way. It’s part of what we’ve been doing, and with a mere six weeks remaining until we return to California, we’re spending more time reflecting on where we’ve been — not just in the past year, but in the two decades we’ve been married — and what we might do next.

The topic came up again over dinner on the patio of the apartment we’re renting this week in Vernazza, one of the five impossibly beautiful villages that make up the coastal region known as Cinque Terre.

The town of Vernazza, with our apartment in the corner of the building on the far right, directly above the cafe umbrellas (that's our laundry hanging out the kitchen window).

The patio has a staircase that leads two flights down to the small town square and harbor, so the kids periodically ran from dinner to the beach. We opened a white wine harvested from the hillside outside our window, and served a rotisserie chicken and baguette from a deli downstairs. For the side, we cooked fresh pasta, covered it with locally made pesto, sautéed green beans and sliced an heirloom tomato (which isn’t labeled “heirloom” here — it just is). An outdoor restaurant sits right on the other side of the apartment terrace, and at one point a waiter, who had been observing our family meal with some amusement, came over and handed us a giant bowl filled with a couple dozen garlicky steamed mussels garnished with lemon wedges, compliments of the chef, just to be nice.

We lingered over the plates covered with mussel shells and chicken bones and looked across the water at the steep hill, where innumerable layers of dark gray rock stretch across in diagonal lines and then curve, dip, and rise again, as though charting geologic time, and we wondered how many millions of years it took the hill to push up from the sea. Then we looked over to the 14th-century church, so pretty against the pastel-colored buildings around the town square, and peered down to check on our kids, who were climbing on boulders protruding from the water, and we heard their giggles float up on the wind.

The church and hillside vines across from our apartment at sunset.

It was in so many ways the most satisfying dinner, and the potency and transience of the moment made me teary.

It’s not just that packing up and leaving home — and in the process leaving the security that comes with a familiar routine, a generous income and a solid reputation — forces change and exploration (of self as well as of surroundings) in a way no amount of therapy ever could. What moved me is the way in which this journey has delivered constant reminders — in the form of spectacular natural history as well as human artifacts such as Roman ruins and medieval castles — of the brevity of our time on Earth and the degree to which we’re microspecks in the millennia, so what can we do but seek happiness through relationships and experiences, and do the best we can with our greatest gift and trace of immortality — our children — during the limited time that we do have?

Kyle and Colly hanging out at the harbor after dinner while we watch from our apartment above.

I paused after that paragraph for a two-hour run. While Morgan and the kids slept in, I climbed the narrow coastal trail linking the towns of Cinque Terre.

I’m running more these days in part to prepare for a 35K trail race on my 41st birthday two weeks from now, which will be through a valley outside of Florence. Morgan is caring for the kids and arranging transportation so I can do the race, which is really giving me the gift of all the drama and endorphins that go with a tough mountain run, and what can I possibly give him in return on his birthday in September, after all he has given me? I smiled at the passing idea of a Rembrandt hat and cape so he could dress up like Goethe for Halloween.

But the main reason I’m running more, just as I’m letting myself eat and lounge around with Morgan and the kids more, is to soak in the sensations of these destinations and explore them as fully as possible before we head back home.

Kyle and I make a toast to each other with gelato cones.

As I navigated the rocks on the tapering trail and glanced over the edge to the ocean below, I considered something several people have said in casual conversation: “You must be sad the trip is coming to an end.” Oh yes, I really am, I automatically reply. But as I ran that cliff edge, I realized that assumption is only partly true; more than sad, I’m fundamentally grateful we’re heading home in mid-June.

Our days like this are numbered.

I’m thankful the trip has an endpoint because it is that very ending that enables me to so fully appreciate these numbered weeks. It’s that return date on the calendar that made Colly reach for my hand and squeeze it as we walked along the lakefront in Malcesine, and prompted her to say with maturity and tenderness beyond her 12 years, “I’m going to miss this so much.”

Along my run, I met an Italian man on the trail who had a creased face and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was carrying a gardening tool and looked stooped over as he walked toward a row of vines on the steep terraced hill. Generations of families have carved out a living by working the soil in this remote corner of the country, and it’s a safe bet he was carrying on a family tradition. I said buongiorno as I ran toward him, and he smiled and raised his eyebrows, a look of admiration crossing his face as he paused to study me and perhaps imagined what it must be like to run for fun. I wish he could have known how much I admired him at that same instant; he might be surprised that in that moment, I wanted to be less the fleeting, carefree passerby and more the local with a harvest to reap.

Morgan and I have talked over dinners and during runs about how we really can’t see our family joining the growing ranks of modern-day gypsies who travel indefinitely and call themselves “digital nomads” as they work and homeschool via the Internet wherever they might be (though anything is possible). We want to go back for the kids’ sake. This trip has been undeniably beneficial for their personal growth and education, as well as for our family bond, but they yearn for the friendships and familiarity that only their school and neighborhood can give. And we want to get back to aspects of life that we put on hold: maintaining a home, reading the local news, lending a hand to help in the community, socializing with friends, developing and finishing projects, earning the satisfaction of a job well done. Those things all really matter. The challenge, we know and vow to remind ourselves regularly, will be to preserve as much as possible the values and visions, and the rhythm of life and closeness with each other, that we rediscovered between Argentina and Italy.

Morgan took this shot of me near the north end of the Cinque Terre trail near Monterosso before we turned around and headed back.

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2. 83 Places, 5 Continents, 10 Months
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Whereas Venice’s charm began to wear off after two days — due to inflated prices, hordes of tourists, and the sense that most everything there is preserved for show rather than for real — I would gladly spend many more weeks here in the Treviso area. We have two wonderful hosts to thank — Berkeley transplant Serena and her Italian husband Luciano, whom we met last summer at a running event — for showing us their home and taking us to a trail race today. Molto grazie!

Two restaurants any traveler to this area should try: Al Covo in Venice (one of Anthony Bourdain’s recommended hideaways) and Toni del Spin in Treviso. While I can’t recommend our Venice apartment, I definitely recommend our relatively affordable little Treviso inn, Albergo il Focolare.

This past week, while I became hopelessly stalled writing a longer post describing our arrival to Venice, Morgan became ever more inspired to take exquisite photos (and to produce a silly short video, which is at the end of this). I don’t want to hold back his photos or delay an update on where we’re at, so consider this a sample and a promise of more to come. Meanwhile, I’ll endeavor to whittle away at my long-drawn-out, only-my-parents-would-care-to-read-this longer draft.

Kyle and Colly peak out of our Venice apartment, which was on the waterfront about a quarter mile from Piazza San Marco. The location was great, but the interior was not so great.

Quintessential Venezia! Just about every alleyway leads to a canal view like this.

Morgan shot this right outside our apartment. I couldn't help smiling and spinning around this lamppost.

The kids and I peak over Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge spanning the Grand Canal. (It was rebuilt in 1591 -- hey, that's relatively modern!)

Then we transitioned to Treviso, where more than anything else we wanted to do … laundry!

It's amazing what passes for fun sometimes.

A typical scene in Treviso's town center -- mostly closed to cars, it hums with shoppers in open-air markets. This is right around the corner from our hotel.

We met Luciano and Serena in their hometown of Mareno and explored wineries and castles around small towns such as Follina.

We woke up at dawn to go with the kids and Luciano and Serena to a 12K trail race in the tiny town of Refrontolo ...

... and were rewarded by this race course, which meandered through vineyards. A lot of the course was much steeper and muddier than this stretch! Best of all, the race organizers gave participants bottles of wine instead of T-shirts.

If you’d like to get a feel for our Venice gondola ride, check out this video — and blame Morgan for the choice of background music.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Now Daylesford is making a concerted effort to broaden its economic base by marketing itself as “an outdoor adventure destination” for mountain bikers, campers and trekkers — which is what lured our family to spend four nights there.  We took part in a trail run/mountain bike/triathlon “dirt fest” in Wombat State Forest, on the edge of town, and you can read the details and see pics from it on my running blog.

It’s remarkable that Daylesford is still standing, given the deadly bushfires that swept the state of Victoria in February 2009. The fire came dangerously close to town and burned the forest where the dirt fest was held. Morgan and I expected to find a wasteland of blackened tree stumps and ash, but it was amazing — and beautiful — to see how much the forest had regenerated in just a year. The burned bark of the eucalyptus trees is peeling off like a layer of skin, revealing strips of new, light-colored bark sprouting little branches with tufts of leaves.

We had a couple of great meals in Daylesford at La Finca tapas bar and Frangos & Frangos wood-fired pizza café, both on Vincent Street, but we spent almost all our time at the Jubilee Lake Holiday Park (where the dirt fest was held) and consequently don’t have photos to show from town — except for a couple below, which show the worst, not the best, that Daylesford has to offer.

Aussies must love mini golf because every town we visit has a course, but Daylesford’s tourist guide boasts “the only Australian-themed mini golf course” with each hole designed around an Australian icon (e.g. the outback, the Opera House, sharks, the Great Barrier Reef). We decided to treat the kids to a round, thinking it would be a silly and fun way to get an overview of the country. What a mistake! We found ourselves in the most decrepit and depressing excuse for a tourist attraction we have encountered yet. We were the only ones there, and the place felt haunted by a Waltzing Matilda soundtrack and the numerous faded dime-store mannequins propped up to illustrate the Down Under displays. Worst of all, the warped mini golf tracks had us hopelessly frustrated by the third hole.

Bottom line: Daylesford is delightful — just skip the mini golf!

Morgan on the fourth mini-golf hole: "Get me out of here!"

The Australian-themed mini golf even featured a family flying on Qantas. We fit right in!

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On the road between Queenstown and Glenorchy (click to enlarge).

On a run with Morgan this morning, I wistfully said goodbye to New Zealand and its intoxicating, idyllic landscape. We headed out from our friends’ home near Queenstown, where we stayed for over a week, and took a trail that showcased so much of what I’ll miss about New Zealand: ragged peaks that rise up sharply to cut the sky, and blue lakes that spread out to make the mountains appear even larger. Soft pastures and tangled bushland that reflect so many shades of green, and trails that lead past communal huts and over bridges carefully covered with a no-skid surface. New Zealand apparently decided early on in its short history as a country to make hiking (or “tramping,” as it’s called here) a national priority.

This trail leads to our friends' home at Closeburn Station.

And the sheep — it wouldn’t be New Zealand without them. We inadvertently cornered a big flock against a gate and had no choice but to run right through. What a sendoff: a chorus of sheep at my feet, a group of alpacas to our left, and three fat and sassy horses to our right. This isn’t the Queenstown most people know — the Queenstown of bungy jumps, ski slopes and the famous Shotover Jet — but I highly recommend a taste of life on a station (what Kiwis call sheep or cattle ranches).

Here are a few other recommendations and final reflections from New Zealand to frame Morgan’s photographs:

As we transitioned from the South Island’s West Coast to Queenstown, ever more big and beautiful mountains and lakes kept bursting into view like the grand finale in a fireworks show.

Mount Cook, NZ's tallest mountain (3754m or 12,316ft), as seen on our drive next to the brilliantly blue Lake Tekapo.

The rivers flowing on the Southern Alps, like this one on Arthur's Pass, have the color and clarity reminiscent of a gemstone.

Before we left the West Coast, we stopped at Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki (between Westport and Greymouth). The “pancake” stacks are columns of limestone with almost perfectly thin, horizontal layers fantastically carved by the wind and sea, which rushes into the columns and spews through blowholes.

One of the Pancake Rocks blowholes that fills up and churns like a giant washer.

One of the water- and wind-sculpted figures at Pancake Rocks.

Turning east and quickly gaining altitude, we drove over Arthur’s Pass and found ourselves gazing at mountains above timberline on a road barely clinging to the shale sides and flanked by steep drop-offs. It reminded me of the San Juan Skyway in Southwestern Colorado, and it felt as though we had driven from Big Sur to the Rockies in only an hour or so.

Along Arthur’s Pass, we spent a couple of nights at Flock Hill Lodge, a beautifully landscaped retreat with comfortable cabins and a tasty restaurant on the edge of seemingly endless open space. Rock outcroppings on the green mountainsides look so magical that filmmakers decided to shoot The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe near here a few years ago. We headed out on a trail called “The Narnia Track” and saw why this area is a mecca for mountain bikers and trampers.

The view out our window at Flock Hill.

Colly and Kyle pretended they were characters from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as we hiked toward the film location.

Kyle got a spring in his step when he found a fossil toward the end of our Flock Hill hike.

Then we bombed down to Queenstown, the home of our high school friends The Kirkpatricks (the same family we kayaked with). Entering town, I suddenly felt as though we were back in the Patagonia Lake District, but the lakes and sky reflected a brighter, clearer blue. Lake Wakatipu, shaped like a lightening bolt, zigzags through craggy glacial peaks aptly named The Remarkables. If you look in the sky almost anytime, any day, you’ll see splashes of color from adventure seekers in parachutes swooping around and wafting down.

There's always someone floating overhead above Queenstown.

Colly struck a pose on the chairlift to the luge overlooking Queenstown.

There is so much to do in Queenstown — it’s a playground of adventure sports, similar to Rotorua in the North Island, plus a winter ski destination — but we didn’t do anything notable in town except swoosh down the luge. All we really wanted to do was soak up the pleasures of country living. Ahhh … the joys of being in a real home, with a real kitchen and washing machine and two wonderful boys to play with our two kids. Who needs TV or a Wii when you’ve got “chooks” (Kiwi for “chickens”) to care for? Long-term family travel really benefits from built-in downtime like we had last week, preferably at the beautiful ranch home of a dear friend. Being on the road for months heightens appreciation for and pleasure in the opportunity to do ordinary things, such as baking pumpkin pie, playing marathon Monopoly games and finding a dentist to clean our teeth.

We had dinner and spent a night with our friends in a communally owned "hut" (a small, rustic house) near Moke Lake outside of Queenstown.

Since I’ve been going on and on about New Zealand’s natural environment, I’ve neglected to say much about the people and customs I’ll miss as well. People who call ice cream cups “pottles” and breakfast “brekkie,” who wear wellies (rubber boots) with skirts or shorts, who still dry their clothes on a clothesline, and who sometimes say “hooray” or “cheerio” for “goodbye” seem predisposed to be extra nice and welcoming. This is a country that still relates in an old-fashioned, Midwestern way: telephoning with impromptu invitations, ringing the doorbell to chat, smiling and wishing strangers “g’day.”

Another thing about New Zealand: flashy cars are few and far between. We fit in with our third-rate, 12-year-old rented station wagon. I’m actually going to miss that car, because of all the time we spent in it and the places it took us — even though it made one of my biceps ache whenever I drove because the wheels are so out of alignment that I had to grip the steering wheel to keep us going straight. We named the car Dink because its license plate letters are DNK, and we laughed about how we’ve managed to turn the DINK acronym (Double Income No Kids) on its head (double kids, no income).

Goodbye, Dink!

So cheerio, New Zealand, and thanks to our friends and hosts from the past two months. Your country is brilliant and we’ll miss it heaps.

Want to see more photos? We finally updated the gallery with additional South Island shots.

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2. The Wild, Wild West Coast
3. In the Backwoods of Blackball, Not Your Typical Hilton

A recent 24-hour period gave us that kind of experience in a remote corner of the South Island’s West Coast region — in part because I was gullible enough to fall for a joke.

A vintage advertisement for The Blackball Hilton, "Cheapest In the West" (click to enlarge).

Many months ago, when I was mostly ignorant about New Zealand and starting to plan our itinerary here, Morgan and I heard of a mountainous trail race that finished at The Blackball Hilton and decided to sign up. The Hilton was part of the draw. What a treat it would be, I thought, to stay at an upscale, familiar hotel chain after so many budget motels and campgrounds — and convenient, too, since it would be right at the finish line. I can still recall the mental picture I had of a typically plush Hilton lounge and lobby.

Only after we registered for the January 16 race did I google Blackball and discover the “Hilton” is a creaky Victorian inn and pub built in 1909, located way off the main road in a dying mining town with only one general store and a couple hundred residents.

“I would never stay here again,” shouted out one TripAdvisor.com reivew. “The rooms had layers of dust and dirty carpets.” Another detailed, “There are many quirky things about this hotel — the dolls staring at you as you turn round a corner upstairs. The poetry in the toilets and washrooms. The gallery in the middle of the upstairs with the drawings and paintings of ladies of the night. The monkeys looking in at you as you sit on the loo.”

In 1992, the Hilton Corp.’s lawyers demanded that the hotel drop the trademarked Hilton name, and the rebellious innkeepers responded by changing the official name to “Formerly The Blackball Hilton,” which it  has been ever since.

Hmmm, I pondered, more curious than appalled — maybe it was meant to be that we stayed there. Perhaps part of the adventure of running the remote race would be staying in a historic hole in the wall. I contacted the owners, Chris and Viv, about our babysitting quandary (initially I erroneously assumed “the Hilton” would have a kids’ club or childcare to supervise Colly and Kyle while we ran the race), and they told me no worries, they’d keep an eye on the kids and let them have the run of the pub. I took a deep breath and had faith it’d all work out.

One of the dilapidated buildings on Blackball's main street, with the mountain range in the background that our January 16 trail race traversed.

Driving to Blackball is like driving back in time to the early 1900s, to the kind of one-store mining towns you can still find on back roads of Colorado. There is no cell phone coverage, no Wi-Fi. The Blackball Hilton looks as though it was lifted straight from an old Western flick. When I first looked up at the second-story balcony, I half expected to see a floozy lady of ill repute looking busty in an off-the-shoulder pioneer dress.

Instead, I saw a mix of fit-looking runners and working-class barflies milling about. Newspaper clippings and old photos hung on the walls, detailing Blackball’s colorful history as the proud birthplace of New Zealand’s Labour Party. Coal miners went on a three-month strike here in 1908 for a half-hour lunch break and ultimately prevailed.

Morgan on the balconey of the Blackball Hilton.

Kyle takes notes on the Blackball Hilton's role in the mining town's history as the cradle of the country's Labour Movement.

The Blackball Hilton today is a cross between a museum and vintage boarding house, each room sporting a different color theme and wall paintings that look inspired by Romper Room. When I crawled into the creaky, collapsed bed and stepped on the spongy floorboards near the communtal shower and toilet down the hall, I tried not to think about all the people over all all the decades who had used them before me.

I checked out our room (lucky number 13) and tried to make sense of the sponge-painting art, which resembled mold. "We're sleeping here?"

One of the fanciful dorm-style rooms at The Blackball Hilton. Notice how some are old hospital beds.

Overall, though, it wasn’t so bad. We had a great meal (veggie lentil burger for me, chicken curry for Morgan, burgers for the kids — yum) with friendly service, and we got to chat with some of the other visitors from throughout New Zealand who were there for the trail run. The kids thought it was cool and made themselves at home. The following morning, while we gutted out the trail run, they played in the pub and garden with other kids hanging out at the finish line.

The Blackball Hilton's pub is rarely empty like this. Each piece of memorabilia on the walls has a story behind it.

As for the race? Well, we survived and my time was a PW, which is short for “personal worst.” I wrote a race report for my running blog with details. (Here’s an excerpt: “That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, no question about it,” Morgan said matter-of-factly as we shuffled along. His eyes looked sunken, and dried sweat and sunscreen gave his face a ghostly pallor. Did my husband really age 20 years in about four hours?)

Most people reading this will never find themselves near Blackball, off of Highway 7 on the South Island, and I wouldn’t recommend an overnight there — though it is worth a stop for lunch or dinner. What I do recommend, though, is seizing opportunities to stay in unexpected, unfamiliar and even uncomfortable surroundings. Our overnight at The Blackball Hilton, coupled with the strenuous trail race, goes down as one of the strangest and most challenging days of this trip. Getting to know this weirdly wonderful and gritty corner of New Zealand definitely deepened our understanding of the region and its people, and it made us more seasoned as travelers.

I’ll never stay in a real Hilton without remembering the one in Blackball and reminding myself that creature comforts are luxuries, not essentials, and sometimes the most memorable learning and living takes place when stripped of them.

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2. A Typical Atypical Travel Day
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Trails like this (which is part of the Oparara Valley Track) crisscross the wet and wild West Coast.

I knew very little about the West Coast region of the South Island before we spent a week here, except for its reputation as rainy, buggy and rural. The average rainfall is 2575 mm (8.4 feet), and a sign at Abel Tasman National Park said, “You think the sand flies are bad here? Wait ’til you get to the West Coast!”

“At least you’ll miss the crowds over there,” a tour-guide type mentioned in a look-on-the-bright-side tone.

We detoured to the West Coast to participate in a low-profile trail running event (which I’ll write about next time), and we’re so glad we did. We have been blown away by the West Coast’s landscape — and not just ’cause it’s windy. This swath of New Zealand is gorgeous, authentic, unspoiled … and, yes, wet. Perhaps nowhere is New Zealand’s remarkable commitment to preserve open space and make it accessible with well-maintained trails more concentrated than in this region, which has five national parks and more “tracks” (what Kiwis call trails) than I could keep track of. For trail runners like us, it’s paradise.

The West Coast region covers some 375 miles of coastline, and its biggest district, Greymouth, has a population of less than 14,000. Almost half the West Coast residents live in and around Greymouth, while the others live in a sprinkling of sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it towns populated mainly by coal miners, pub owners and shopkeepers. Imagine if you drove from Los Angeles to Santa Cruz and the biggest town were about the size of my hometown of Piedmont, and you begin to sense how sparsely populated the region is. Here are highlights from our far-flung tour:

Karamea

Oparara Arch, a 200m-long limestone tunnel carved over eons by the river, is one reason to visit Karamea.

Way, way out there, at the north end of the West Coast’s main road, is the funky farming community of Karamea, famous for caves in the Oparara Basin and gateway to the Kahurangi National Park and its 78K Heaphy Track (the longest of New Zealand’s amazing Great Walks). We drove up on a rainy day that obscured the views, wondering where the hell we were and what we were doing, and checked into The Last Resort motel, where the decor is dorm-room-circa-1985. (The lounge and restaurant are quite nice though, with a woodsy Big Sur kind of vibe.) The next day we put on our windbreakers and drove up a 10-mile dirt road with not another car in sight. The slick mud made the car fishtail, and again we wondered where the hell we were and nervously joked that it looked like we found ourselves in the place where Jurassic Park was filmed.

Finally we reached a trailhead with a brand-new picnic area surrounded by museum-quality informational boards describing the colorful history of logging and mining here. It also explained the science behind the cave and arch formation, and answered perplexing questions such as, Why is the river here the color of an amber ale? (Answer: tannins from the foliage stain the water, as though all the water were passing through a giant teabag.)

The river runs reddish-brown near Karamea, stained by tannins in the forest.

The kids took it all in and enthusiastically set off on a hike among fuzzy-green trees that Colly said looked Seussical. We all marveled at the porous mountain that drips like a sponge and the natural arches that sprout stalactites and stalagmites. (Roadschooling doesn’t get much better than this.)

One of the "Seussical" trees along the trail.

We had to crane our necks all the way back and look straight up to get this view of a natural limestone bridge over the trail.

Morgan and I didn’t make it onto the Heaphy Track, but we took turns running through rain forests and over bouncy suspension bridges along the 8-mile Oparara Valley Track, which opened in late 2008 after years of work and fundraising by local volunteers. I actually got teary eyed when I reached a hut in the woods midway on the trail, which the volunteers built as shelter for hikers and adorned with informational boards showing pictures of the crew building the track and camping in the woods. Someone had taken the time to carve a chair and matching ottoman out of a giant stump. The hut was so special and so secluded, so lovingly constructed, that it struck me as an unintended monument to Thoreau in that it invited anyone who had the spirit to delve into the woods to sit back and spend as long as possible contemplating Nature.

Charming Creek and Granity

Colly and Kyle learned about coal mining history along the 10K Charming Creek Track, which follows an old railroad bed through tunnels and past waterfalls. Rusted mining equipment is left along the way.

We stopped for a few nights in a place about an hour south of Karamea that’s a speck on the map, Ngakawau, which is next to Granity (which isn’t saying much). Our little inn, the Charming Creek B&B, was a great spot to stay — right across the street from a blustery beach — but only if you don’t mind being in an isolated area (we didn’t). We spent the days homeschooling and hiking along the beach and the Charming Creek Track, which follows the roaring Ngakawau River.

A piece of old iron along the Charming Creek trail by Mangatini Falls.

The West Coast tracks feature numerous suspension bridges like this one over the Ngakawau River. I found them scary, but Kyle and Colly loved bouncing across them.

The Charming Creek railroad tracks, which transported coal and logs for decades, now make a path for hikers and runners.

Westport

Cape Foulwind next to Westport (click to enlarge), as seen from The Bay House restaurant.

Westport is the only “big town” (pop. approx. 3000) in the north half of the West Coast. It’s a working-class community with the basics we needed (market, laundromat) but not much to offer in town itself. Outside of town, however, are more natural playgrounds.

We checked into a forgettable motel and then drove toward Cape Foulwind (which doesn’t actually smell bad) and stumbled upon the surprisingly sophisticated, Thai-influenced Bay House restaurant with an incredible view of waves crashing against the rocks at sunset. Anyone who’s anywhere near Westport should have a meal and walk around here.

The Bay House restaurant behind the big rock the kids climbed.

Westport sits at the base of the Buller Gorge, a spectacular river valley. (I know I’m overusing superlatives in this post, but I can’t help it!) We got up close to the river on horseback during a two-hour ride with Buller Adventure Tours. Having suffered through numerous nose-to-tail guided rides on bomb-proof horses, I was pleasantly surprised to find rental horses in good condition with high-quality tack and a guide who let us trot and canter. At one point, we forged a sizable creek (not Buller River itself, which is much bigger than the stream in these photos).

Kyle manage to ride English by himself and guide his reluctant pony through the creek.

Colly took her horse through the deepest part and got her jeans soaked!

Now we’re headed to the southern half of the West Coast — between Westport and Greymouth — to explore places like Pancake Rocks and the Croesus Crossing before heading over Arthur’s Pass to Queenstown. Today marks the five-month day of our journey, approximately the halfway mark of our trip if we return in June as planned, and I can’t believe how far we’ve come.

Thanks to Morgan for taking these great photos ...

... and thanks to the kids for being great hikers!

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2. Cheerio, New Zealand
3. Playing Around Rotorua

A slice of beach and blue around Abel Tasman National Park.

New Zealanders use the term “adventure” loosely to market pretty much any activity under the sun. I was skeptical we’d experience a true  adventure here, especially if it were safe enough to involve the kids, but then my lifelong friend Carolyn, who moved to the South Island two years ago, booked a three-day kayak trip for our two families along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. I had never kayaked before (unless you count an hour in a hotel lagoon in Hawaii), but how hard could it be? I had visions of paddling on glassy blue water and sipping wine with old friends while our kids played on a beach. Besides, we’re all old pros at camping. We were game.

Three days at sea and camping in the forest together seemed like a reunion too perfect to be true. We arranged to meet them on the Sunday after New Year’s.

Day One: “I’ve made a bit of a boo-boo …”

We drive from Nelson an hour and a half north to the tiny town of Marahau, at the gateway to the national park, and arrive at Abel Tasman Kayaks before 9 a.m. The sky is gray and the forecast calls for wind and rain, but we’re optimistic. It’s like Hawaii, right? The weather always changes and never gets too cold.

Carolyn and her husband Doug drive up shortly after, and Kyle, Colin, Liam and even Colly start goofing around (Colly’s wariness of playing with boys quickly evaporates). I’ve known Carolyn since preschool and Doug since high school, so seeing them feels like reuniting with extended family. We meet our guide and busy ourselves with gear.

Our friends the Kirkpatricks -- Liam (11), Carolyn, Colin (9) and Doug -- meet us at Abel Tasman Kayaks and start getting gear ready.

The kids immediately find ways to have fun.

Our 25-year-old guide is named Chee and strikes us right away as friendly and competent, but a tad quiet. “Have you heard the forecast?” he asks. We shrug and look hopeful, as if to say, how bad could it be? He says something about “25 to 30 knots” which translates to about 30 mph.  I also notice he looks a bit surprised but keeps his cool when he realizes that four of his eight clients appear under 5 feet tall and younger than 12.

Pretty soon a supervisor — a bronzed woman with muscled arms, an over-sized straw visor and a squawking walkie-talkie — comes to us with a big smile but a serious message. “So here’s the thing,” she says, “your children are much, much littler than we expected.” Carolyn reminds her that she informed the kayak company that the youngest are 8 and 9, and we got the go-ahead. “Yes, but …” the woman says, “ordinarily we would not take children this size out on the kayaks.”

Clearly there has been some confusion, but it’s not clear why or what we should do. Chee tells us later that they book family groups with teenagers but have never had kids this young go out, especially not for a multi-day trip. The woman just wants us to be clear about the risks and aware that Chee may determine that it’s not safe enough for us to be on the water, which we’d have to respect. Of course, we say. We figure that if worse comes to worst with the ocean conditions, then we’d stick to hiking and get a ride back with a water taxi.

With that sobering message and clouds gathering overhead, we proceed to pack all the gear we’ll need into dry bags and load the kayaks to go to the water taxi station. As I try to budge one of these kayaks, which I guess are 15 feet long and take four strong adults to lift when loaded with gear, I get an inkling of why it may be a problem to have a novice adult and child navigating it. Imagine a beginner cyclist and child on a tandem bike fully loaded with panniers, then put them on a rough coastal route with headwinds and tell them to bike for several hours straight for three days. The child realizes he or she doesn’t need to pedal if Mom or Dad is doing most of the work. Mom and Dad realize they’re in for quite a ride.

Morgan, Colly, Kyle and I are packed and ready to head up the coast to start the three-day trip.

Chee makes his first call: No way we’re going on the water in these conditions. We’ll set up camp, hike and attempt to kayak tomorrow. Sounds good to us.

A slice of the Abel Tasman coast as seen from the Coast Track.

We squeeze into a water taxi with our kayaks stacked high and piles of gear at our feet. “First day on the job!” announces the skipper, and I’m not sure if he’s boasting or warning us. He zooms northward into the ocean and brings the coastline into view.

The Abel Tasman park (named after the mid-17th-century explorer who was the first European to site New Zealand) crowns the top of the South Island with lush green mountainsides that sprout tree ferns everywhere. Its coastline curves out and in around points and bays, protruding like gnarled knuckles on a fist, and several islands with seal colonies rise up in tree- and rock-covered humps.

I only catch glimpses, however, because I’m gripping the speedboat’s side as it cuts through waves, rising up and slamming down with a force that sprays water over the sides and compresses every disc in my spine. About a half hour later, the boat finally slows and pulls into Onetahuti Beach, where the kids hop out and begin exploring caves and tidal pools. We set up camp quickly to pitch the four two-person tents before rain hits, and Chee makes a roof over the picnic table by suspending a large tarp with ropes and two upright paddles.

Then it’s time for a hike along a couple of miles of the Abel Tasman Coast Track, and Chee, who’s of Maori descent, describes natural history and Maori legends along the way. The kids tramp along, genuinely impressed by the aquamarine color of the water and rope-like black vines that hang and tangle around the shafts of giant ferns called mamaku.

We hike through intense green ...

... and meet a seal too.

We stop at a beach along the way where a fat seal scratches himself, indifferent to his visitors, and the kids explore more caves carved by waves. No one minds that we’re on the land rather than kayaking at sea.

The kids keep going butts-up to dig whenever we hit sand.

The wind is gusting and rain starts to sprinkle by the time we get back to camp. We’re all hungry and eager to help Chee cook dinner, but first he asks us to gather around for an announcement.

“I’ve made a bit of a boo-boo,” he says. It seems he didn’t notice that the cooking gas was not packed, so we’ll be having dinner a bit late. But he has a plan: radio the water taxi to catch a ride to another camp about 15K (9 to 10 miles) down the coast, where a canister of gas is stored in case of such emergency. The water taxi, done for the day, will not return him to our camp, but no worries, he says — he’ll run back on the trail (in Keen sandals, his only shoes).

Morgan, who hasn’t run in a couple of days, eagerly volunteers to go with him. It’s about 5:30 when they depart, and we estimate they should be back before 7:30. We huddle over the picnic table with little to do but play cards and eat snacks. Carolyn and I, ever so slightly tense about the weather and the unexpected turn of events, decide it’s time for wine.  Doug sticks to beer, and soon “remember when” stories from the mid-1980s start to flow too.

Two hours, one bottle of wine, one bag of corn chips and a couple of cans of beer later, we’re looking at our watches and speculating about where Morgan and Chee might be. The rain goes from steady drizzle to sideways-blown downpour, and we grip the upright paddles that hold up the tarp each time a gust hits. Damp clothing and towels we hung on a tree branch to dry are fully soaked, as are most of the supplies piled on the ground.

The kids manage to entertain themselves no matter what the weather.

I’m amazed that the four kids, fully bundled, don’t seem to mind the circumstances much — they’re happy enough sitting around, talking and eating — so I take inspiration from them and act like everything’s fine. Carolyn and I let off nervous laughter as we swap stories about the crazy things our parents did when we were growing up together. I try not to dwell on the distinct possibility that Morgan and Chee discovered the gas isn’t there and are stuck struggling to come up with a Plan B (or would that be Plan C?), or that one of them fell while running back on the slick trail. And what if they fell while clutching gas canisters? Ka-boom!

Chee and Morgan make it back from their epic rainy run.

Finally, around 7:45, Chee and Morgan burst out of the forest panting and drenched, as wild-eyed and triumphant as hunters returning with fresh kill. I guessed right: There was no gas canister waiting for them; they somehow borrowed a couple of small ones from somewhere else, but those lacked the attachment valves they needed, so they had to borrow the other parts from who-knows-where. (None of this ever made any sense to me.) Late hitting the trail, they ran the hilly 15K as fast as they could.

Morgan is high on adrenaline and endorphins, and Chee casually admits it’s the farthest he has ever run. This calls for a drink! We open another while the rain starts coming down in sheets. Chee fires up the stove burners and whips up some chicken and vegetables over rice. We don’t have much appetite after all the snacking and drinking, but the hot food tastes good and we eat quickly so we can get the kids and ourselves into sleeping bags and pass out as soon as possible.

The photos get increasingly blury as the crazy rainy night wears on ...

Day Two: “Turn back!”

Our campsite dries out in the early morning of Day Two.

I wake to the sound of birds, not rain, and peak out at sunshine. Everything around me is damp and fresh, but I’m dehydrated and heavy headed. I grope around for clothes to run in, force my feet into wet shoes and sneak out of the tent around 6, before Morgan and the kids wake up. I run for over an hour along the Coast Track while the sun rises. I’m dazzled by the water’s color, the varied shades of green in the forest and the waterfall that gushes over moss-covered rocks at the turn-around point.

Another bend in a remote stretch of the Abel Tasman Coast Track.

It’s all business back at camp as we pack everything up and load the boats. Chee gives us a quick lesson in kayaking essentials: how to paddle, how to put the rudder down and use the foot pedals to work it, how to attach the spray skirt to form a tight lid between our waists and the boat’s opening, and — most important — how to detach the skirt if we capsize so we can swim free. We should remember to face waves head on, not sideways, and if a wave hits the kayak parallel instead of perpendicular, then lean into it.

I hop in a kayak with Kyle, and Morgan sets off with Colly. All the grownups sit in the back of the two-person boats so we can work the pedals that control the rudder. (Chee is in a one-person kayak, darting between us and showing us the way.)

Kyle and I launch our kayak for the first time.

Morgan and Colly make a good team.

We all get the hang of it pretty quickly. Kyle looks so cute sitting in front of me, his body dwarfed by a big floppy hat and life vest, his little hands clutching a big paddle that barely skims the water. It doesn’t take him long to figure out the kayak will keep going whether he paddles or not.

Twenty minutes into it, I realize that this is a workout — I’m putting muscle into every stroke — but we keep at it and get into a rhythm until arriving at a beach about an hour and a half later called Bark Bay. We’re all relieved to have that first leg behind us, so we enjoy a feast of a picnic and try not to worry as the wind picks up.

Colin and Doug cruise through the calm waters of a lagoon near the lunch break.

Chee gathers us around for another announcement, map in hand. We’ll need to get around a couple of windy points to reach our campsite at a beach called Anchorage. The wind itself isn’t a problem as much as its direction. A pressure system has cooked up an atypical swath of south-westerlies, which means wind will hit us head on and blow us away from the coast. Stay near the coast, he warns us — but watch out for rocky reefs. Suddenly the lunch in my stomach doesn’t feel so good.

We say goodbye to Bark Bay and paddle through a lagoon that in just a couple of hours will be completely empty because of the dramatic ebb and flow of the tides. Morgan and I switch kids, so now I have Colly seated in front of me.

Colly paddling up front (seen here on the glassy waters of a lagoon. The sea was never this smooth).

Having her as a partner makes my job easier, since she paddles more than Kyle and her heavier weight balances the boat better. (Later — belatedly — we realize we need to store heavy gear at Kyle’s feet so his boat is properly balanced.) Out we go, heading south to get around the next point, when slam! the wind hits our face with a blast that makes us feel as though we’re paddling upriver.

“Colly, I’m gonna need you,” I tell her, and she gamely starts paddling as hard as she can. The waves pick up, too, so we’re bouncing up and down as much as gliding forward. The swerving up-down rocking motion reminds me of the time I rode a mechanical bucking bull at the county fair. I focus on a point in the distance and muscle forward as best I can, trying to use the rudder to keep our nose pointed into waves, which are looking big enough to body surf. I don’t want to lose my concentration by looking around, but I’m concerned that our group has spread out. I shout at Colly so she can hear me over the wind, “Honey, please look back and tell me where your dad is.”

“He’s way far back!”

I look over my shoulder and catch site of both Morgan and Kyle paddling rapidly while their kayak’s nose points upward and starts to spin like a weather vane. A wave hits them on the side and tilts them to a 45-degree angle. But I can’t keep watching because I’m feeling our kayak turn beneath us, too. I step on the rudder’s right pedal and paddle only with my left to get it back around clockwise, facing the direction we need to go in. “Colly, paddle right!” I yell, meaning left, but my right foot is on the pedal so I have my directions mixed up. She starts to paddle on the right side and I scream, “No, other side!” She doesn’t know what to do and pretty soon I’m yelling at her to lean right, lean into the waves, and just when I wonder what else could go wrong, my hat blows off and the strap strangles my neck.

“Turn back!” I hear someone call over the wind. Morgan can’t turn his boat around and neither can I; we’re pointed back toward the bay where we had lunch. “Morgan, paddle!” Chee suddenly calls out, raising his voice to a commanding tone we haven’t heard yet, and we realize that a good-sized wave is cresting over the back of Morgan’s boat. He paddles ahead just enough so the wave doesn’t break over his body.

A classic line from Scooby-Doo comes to me and I shout it out loud: “Yikes, let’s get out of here!”

We all paddle away from the point and back toward Bark Bay, our job now easier with the wind on our backs but the ride still rollicking from all the waves. I finally catch up to Morgan and Kyle, who have caught their breath and are reassuring each other that everything’s fine, everything’s fine, good job, good job. I don’t know what to say to them or Carolyn and Doug, except for, “I think Bark Bay sounds like a great place to camp tonight!”

Liam and Carolyn take a breather near Bark Bay. We're relieved to spend the second night there even though it's a fairly long way away from the intended destination.

Chee agrees, “Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” We’re not getting around that point in these conditions.

Bark Bay is a beautiful, peaceful place to spend the afternoon and evening, even with the wind. It feels luxurious to set up camp in dry weather, to play by the beach and to eat burritos. The kids hole up in a tent and play Uno for two hours. We go to bed early, warned by Chee that we have to wake early to beat the wind and paddle extra long to make up for today’s shorter leg.

Plus, to make it home tomorrow, we have to get through the roughest stretch of coastline: the Mad Mile.

Day Three: “We’re making great time”

A British twentysomething camper near our group feels the need to chop wood at 5:30 a.m. and in so doing wakes us all up. My back, shoulders and arms ache, and my hands look puffy and sport blisters at the base of each thumb. Thankfully, Chee is up already and has coffee made for us. The kids get moving and help break down tents and pack dry bags, their experience and helpfulness seemingly doubled in a day.

We’re all spooked by the wind and eager to paddle past the point that got the better of us yesterday. But our departure is slightly delayed by low tide; we have to heave all the really heavy kayaks at least a hundred meters to where the water starts. Then we’re in and begin paddling at 8:50 a.m.

The sea has a sunnier personality today and welcomes us to and through the windy point, but I keep my guard up because the Mad Mile — the stretch we heard other campers comment on being so rough — looms ahead. Chee directs us toward an island on the way so we can admire the seals, but while the others ooh and ahh, I’m thinking seals, schmeals — I just want to keep moving forward.

The Mad Mile gets its reputation for risk from wind patterns, ocean currents and a lack of beaches at which to seek safe haven. But there’s nothing mad about it this morning. I keep expecting waves and wind, but I begin to feel cautiously optimistic that this mile is downright mild. It seems we got lucky for once and paddled through during an hour of optimal conditions. I let myself look around and absorb details of the sculpted rock formations protruding from the coast. The landscape’s beauty has so much depth and mystery, with so many crevices carved by the elements and colors that change with the light.

Carolyn, Doug and I linger over our break, not wanting the trip to end too soon.

“We’re making great time,” Chee calls out — so much so that we need to pace ourselves or else we’ll get back too early. We stop for a snack and time to play on the beach, followed by lunch not long after. The home base of Marahau comes into view and we linger at lunch across the bay, surprised to be done sooner and easier than expected and not wanting the trip to end. The kids play an impromptu game of cricket with some other kids on the beach, and pretty soon the guys join in.

A couple of hours later at the kayak company’s base, after we’re finally done unloading and saying good-bye to Chee — our superb guide who now feels like a friend — we all head to a funky backpackers’ campground and hostel called The Barn for one last night together.

Our box of a cabin at The Barn.

I feel more beat up and worn out than after any long-distance running race or camping trip I can recall. My hands ache if I try to form a fist, my calves and ankles feel on fire from the itch of some twenty sand fly bites, and my entire upper body feels stiff and out of whack. I watch the four kids amble along together and feel the comfortable, tired silence that Morgan, Doug, Carolyn and I share, and I look at the tip of the Abel Tasman coastline and marvel at how far we came.

Was it worth it? Definitely.

We did it! And we'd gladly do it again.

p.s. Morgan has additional landscape photos of Abel Tasman and I shot footage for a mini movie. We’ll try to post them in a few days when we have better online access. We’re headed to the West Coast for the coming week.

Related posts:

1. Tips for Touring Abel Tasman National Park
2. Playing Around Rotorua
3. Christmas in a Manger at Nelson, New Zealand

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Rotorua Tourism Board will probably be upset to hear me say these activities generally seem overrated and overpriced. Our best times around Rotorua involved spending free time for free. We rented a low-cost cabin outside of town at one of the best “holiday parks” we’ve come across yet (a glorified RV park and campground), on the edge of Blue Lake by a vast forest preserve, and passed the time reading, homeschooling, running, researching, cooking and playing with the kids. Morgan and I took turns doing long solo runs through the Whakarewarewa forest, aka The Redwoods, which seemed like a fairy-tale hybrid of Hawaii and California because it had the ferns, dampness and fragrance of an island rain forest amidst groves of century-old redwoods.

Then we experienced Kiwi hospitality firsthand when a mutual friend of some Northern California runners, Paul Charteris, invited us to his hometown of Kawerau near Rotorua and took us on a hike to Tarawera falls.

Tarawera Falls near Rotorua, where we hiked and picnicked.

The double-barreled waterfall shoots out of the middle of the volcanic mountain, from a fissure created by lava, rather than cascading over a cliff. The kids didn’t mind hiking uphill for an hour because the reward was so great: first the falls, then a sky-blue swimming hole with rope swings.

Colly and Kyle couldn't get enough of this rope swing at the Tarawera swimming hole.

Paul then hooked us up with his friends, Mike and Sarah van der Boom and their two school-age girls, in the beautiful Bay of Plenty beach town of Whakatane. Their family hosted us for a couple of nights, gave us a barbecue and took us trail running. Believe what you hear: New Zealanders really are that nice!

At our hosts' house, the kids just played and played.

Morgan and me on a run above Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty with Sarah van der Boom, who took this picture.

All of this — not just our time in New Zealand, but the ways in which our lives have changed through travel –  has made me think more about the subject of play and the choices we make about how to spend time and money, particularly as a parent. Forgive me as I digress and risk sounding simplistic or superficial as I try to condense a big topic into a blog post.

We’ve been away from home for four months now, and I’ve noticed that Colly and Kyle are playing more than they have since preschool, which has been a profound and unforeseen benefit of this long-term travel. By “play” I mean filling their time imaginatively and physically, making use of whatever is around them. After we’re done schooling or sightseeing, they still have hours of unscheduled free time to fill up, and TV or the Internet are limited because of our circumstances (few TV channels, shared computers and limited WiFi). So they wander outside, often to a play structure or trampoline, but they don’t just swing or bounce. They make up a game or start playing characters. They get in arguments, work it out or forget about it, and then start something new on their own, or they might meet other kids from other countries and start talking to them. And they constantly are together, so much so that they joked they’re developing twin telepathy.

The kids keep exploring and trying new things together.

I really didn’t appreciate how much our family life has changed until the other day when I opened my calendar from seven months ago and literally shuddered when I saw the lines and lines of daily scheduled activities and obligations, much of which involved the kids. Well-intentioned parents (like me) sign children up for sports and recreational programs because we don’t want them to “miss out.” We want them to have fun and develop their hobbies (and to be honest, we want them to stand out as stars on the stage or on the field), and we want someone to watch them and keep them safe while we go about our lives during the day. We also are susceptible to the marketing of many extracurricular “enrichment programs,” believing our kids need the help of tutors and other professionals so they can reach their potential. Ironically, all this scheduling and transporting kids to programs often makes families more stressed, more financially stretched and less available to spend time together.

Kids become so accustomed to being told what to do, and when and how to do it, that they complain about being bored if they suddenly find themselves with free time. Parents admit to looking forward to summer or winter holidays ending so they can get their kids back on a schedule and in those programs.

That was how our family was before this year away — and it may be us again when we get back. I hope not, because we were not a terribly happy bunch back then, but those real-world dynamics of our community and demographic are incredibly hard to resist. Of course we’ll plug back in to it all on some level, but I’m already trying to envision a middle ground that will preserve the kind of play and togetherness we’re rediscovering.

Before this trip, I was familiar with  studies touting the importance of play and warning about the downside of kids’ over-scheduled, over-hurried lifestyles — but it took a genuine change of circumstances and simplifying of our lives (what travel blogger Christine Gilbert has called a lifestyle redesign) to make me fully appreciate the importance of free time and family time.

This is us on an impromptu roadside hike.

I watch Colly in particular as she revels in being a kid. Yesterday she spent most of the afternoon with Kyle doing nothing more important than digging in beach sand to build castles, and when we went inside she became absorbed in a book. Her sixth-grade friends back home, meanwhile, are managing a mountain of homework and other responsibilities while preoccupied about their appearance, friendships and who’s dating whom.

What a gift, I realize with gratitude, that this year away has extended her childhood by a year, and given us more time to enjoy her — and really get to know her — as a goofy girl who’s content to play with her little brother. It may be we’re just delaying the inevitable and that she’ll turn into a teen overnight as soon as she’s sucked into the vortex of seventh grade. I hope, however, she’ll be better equipped to navigate the pressure of adolescence fortified by this year — a year of living more simply and becoming more self-reliant while seeing how people in other parts of the world make do with less; a year of  just being herself and being incredibly close to her family.

The same could be said for all four of us: I sincerely hope we will re-enter life back home permanently changed and fortified by this year.

Sometimes you just gotta let go and go for it.

Related posts:

1. When It Rains…
2. Happy Campers Touring North NZ by RV
3. Our 3-Day Kayak Adventure Around NZ’s Abel Tasman Park

Sarah and me in the crowd waiting for the start of the K42 Salomon Adventure Marathon.

I’ve now been running just over half my life.  Well, that’s if you count as running the two laps I would jog around Curtis Park in Sacramento with my sweet, now deceased Labrador in the early 1990s.  Although my running has increased from this early start, I can honestly say that I’ve never contemplated writing a race report. It seems somewhat absurd, given my running abilities, to subject others to stories of how many power gels I consumed along the race course or what my mile splits were. However, I realized while running the Salomon K42 Adventure Marathon in Patagonia, there’s a first time for everthing and I should write about why this race was so great, and since I haven’t written a blog post yet, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

To give away the ending, I did not win the race, which was done by some guy who never runs mountains and did this insane course is 3:07.  But I am happy to say that I was just about average.  Before this race began, in a fit of inner geek escaping out, I took last year’s race results, imported them to Excel and determined the average finish time of all runners together was about 5:15.  Therefore, I am close to average — not really the stuff of a great race report.

But as you can probably tell, my placing in this race had nothing to do with why I wanted to make this my first race report, and first blog post.  What made this race great was that I enjoyed it more than any other marathon I have ever done.  I’ve now done six marathons since my first in 2005, and all have been different, with some more difficult than others.  I remember being so dehydrated and lacking electrolytes in Vermont that I was not sure I could finish the last 500 feet of the race.

But this marathon gave me a number of firsts: (1) I have never done a marathon, or any run in my life, that had over 10,000 feet in vertical gain and loss (or “an accumulated unevenness of 3,100m,” as the Babelfish translation of the Salomon race FAQ page states); and (2) I have never been on my feet for a single run lasting almost five and a half hours; and (3) this run was the first real trail run that I have done since breaking my big toe in August.

Beyond the statistics of running more elevation and for longer on my feet than I ever have, this race really reminded me of why I love running: being able to run though some of the most beautiful places on earth, with other people who share the same passion, energy and excitement about the event and the feeling of tremendous personal accomplishment for finishing the race.

The view of the start line and Lake Espejo, which is one of seven lakes in the region (click to enlarge).

This event, in particular, removed any competitive aspect very early on and allowed me to purely enjoy the personal aspects of it.  It began with us all huddled in the cold morning air by Lago Espejo (“Mirror Lake”) waiting for the start. The lake is about three miles from the little ski resort town of Villa La Angostura. It’s off a street called Siete Lagos because there are seven lakes, this being the lake district in the Andes foothills, and the border to Chile is just 26 miles east. Sarah and I moved up as close as we could to the starting line, but there was still about fifty feet packed with runners in front of us. Sarah commented that it would be a slow start, and she was right.

Starting off on a tight dirt road, the 1200 marathoners and the 800 15K runners were forced like water into a funnel. There was little or no running on this road, only moving the same jumpy-walk/jog with the crowd. The conditions only got more compacted as the road gave way to a small dirt trail where the runners further compressed and slowed. I quickly realized that large sections of this race would be run at whatever pace everyone else was going, since passing anyone on these narrow trails was not possible.

Runners funnelling onto the dirt road right after the start (photo courtesy of the race website).

After the first mile of running, mostly up a pretty steep single-track hill, the course did mercifully open up to more of a wide trail where two could run alongside each other, and it felt a bit less claustrophobic.  At this early stage I still had some vague idea that maybe I could do this course in the 4:30 that I ran the Catalina Island Marathon in a few years ago.  After all, they both have what looks like two major uphill climbs, the biggest being about 2000 feet from bottom to top. I quickly realized that the elevation chart on the website was quite misleading, in that it only showed the big highs and lows.

The elevation profile shows what appears to be a smooth course with two major hills.

What it failed to indicate is that almost no single stretch of this course was flat.  Unlike Catalina, or any other race I have ever done, this course was always either going uphill or downhill, rolling hills, straight up, or straight down the sides of mountains. With the combination of realizing that I was on the hilliest course I have ever seen, including more single track where you can’t pass, I soon gave up any real care about time.

After realizing that I would finish at precisely the moment that I finished (whenever that would be), I started taking in the scenery and taking pictures. The other thing I could concentrate on was the wonderful crowd that came to watch and cheer the runners.  Much of the early part of this race was along rolling dirt roads with picturesque houses where the owners, their kids and their big dogs would sit in the front cheering.  Knowing almost no Spanish, I don’t really know if they were cheering me or telling me that my pants were on fire.  However, I did keep hearing the word “chica,” so they might have been telling me that I run like a girl.

Early in the race with Lake Nahuel Huapi in the background.

Of course the most amazing aspect of this race is the location, which was confirmed at almost every turn.  Other than a 100-yard stretch along the highway that leads to town, this course was along dirt roads with views of the snow-capped mountains and beautiful Lake Nahuel Huapi. The single track and trails were through dense forested regions, with mountain streams that were luminescent blue from glacial runoff.  All the trees were heavy with green moss from the constant rain and snow that blanket this area for most of the year.  This area has the feeling of Alaska with the wild undeveloped rainforests that are simply stunning.

The forest surrounding a major uphill section of the course.

One of the big features of this race that concerned both Sarah and me greatly in light of the cold weather and snow leading up to the race was the riving crossing at Mile 8.  We had visions of waist-deep glacial water and stepping on a rolling submerged rock, only to float down the river and arrive at Lake Nahuel Huapi days later.  The anticipation of this moment was only heightened by the fact that we ran near the river for quite some time and could hear the sound of the rushing water, while climbing a steep hill before the crossing.  I also heard shouts up ahead of me, and had visions of people taking the aforementioned headfirst accidental plunge into the unforgiving spring runoff river.  Of course, the shouts were in Spanish so I have no idea what they were saying.  Perhaps, “Oh for God’s sake help me,” or maybe “I’m being swept away.”

Runners behind me crossing the river.

As I turned the corner on the trail, I saw a line of people, some splashing through and some tip-toeing, through an ankle-deep stream.  It was not exactly the terrify-me-to-my-core river crossing I feared and kinda hoped for.  Nonetheless, it was fun to jump into the river and feel some measure of being an Adventure Sports person.

After that river crossing we started our first major hill, where the 15K runners split off toward town and their finish.  The entire hill was basically un-runnable single track that just went up and up through a dense forest of primarily straight pine like trees with no sun breaking through the canopy.  It was quite fun to get to the top and do a nice downhill all the way back toward town, although some of the runners around me insisted on doing crazy-man-losing-total-control running on the downhills, with arms flying in all directions and legs pumping into the air.  I named one guy “The Bombadier” since he would always bomb down the hills like crazy, only for me to repeatedly pass him on the uphills.

After running above town on trails, we hit the main highway for about 100 yards and then quickly turned off onto a dirt road that started up the ski mountain Cerro Bayo.

"Runners" ahead of me climbing mud- and snow-covered ground.

We hit a section that was steeper and muddier than the famed connector at the fire trails above UC Berkeley.  Many sections required holding onto plant life to climb up the unstable, muddy trail.  However, numerous more macho men than myself were determined to get up these sections without using the brush and would attack the hills like trying to climb a vertical slippery slide, only to turn all those around them into bowling pins as they inevitably slid back into the others.

Mud on the steep climb up Cerro Bayo.

Early on the climb up this hill I searched for a walking stick to help with the straight-up march. I wanted one that was really light and small, and I was lucky to find one just the right size, and as this climb intensified, I was so happy to have my little stick that I started having thoughts of wanting to keep it forever.  “I could pack it in my suitcase and bring it home,” I thought.

View from the top (almost) of Cerro Bayo.

As we approached the top I was extremely excited to emerge from the trail onto a runnable dirt road that looked like a Cat track for the ski area, until I immediately realized we still had a long trek up through the mud and snow before we could come down again.  When we finally reached the top of Cerro Bayo, I really was attached to my little stick and did not want to discard it, but I started having visions of Tom Hanks in Cast Away with his soccer ball that he named and would talk to.  I decided the little stick made it all the way to the top of Cerro Bayo from the bottom and that it should rest there, so I sadly discarded it.

Soon after I let go of my stick, we started on the downhill, which consisted of running down a ski run on loose-pack, large-grain sand and rock. I heard a guy shout “SHIT,” and hearing English, I asked what happened.  He said as soon as he started down and hit this loose sand, both his shoes entirely filled with the pebbles and sand, and he could not run.

The ski "run" down Cerro Bayo.

(I later learned that this also repeatedly happened to Sarah.)  I took to surfing down the sand as best I could, while “Bombadier” flew by me.

The run down was silly and fun, and a really nice break from the monotony of the climb up Cerro Bay.

I’ve never run down a ski run before (another first). After reaching the bottom of the Cerro Bayo trail, we were dropped right back on the highway, which was the only miserable part of run (and luckily it only lasted a few hundred yards). It was bright, dusty from cars flying by, and exhaust filled the air.  Mercifully, this stretch was over quickly, and we went back to a beautiful dirt road and then a trail above town.  I could hear the blare of the loudspeakers at the finish line in town and was very happy to see the 40K marker, which meant I only had a little over a mile to go.

The final half mile was on the main street of the little town of Villa La Angostura, which we have made home for the last week.  The crowd was wonderful and still relatively excited and cheerful even though the elite runners had finished over two hours before.  Little kids loved to stand in the street so they could get “low fives” as you ran by to their extreme pleasure and giggles.  I got lots of cheers, and as I ran down the chute to grab my 5:20 finishing time, I heard my name being shouted. I was so happy to see Sarah right past the finish line, who was calling my name and smiling.

Me finishing the race with a big smile.

I told her I enjoyed this race more than any I have ever done, and she was just so happy to see I had not bonked, quit or died on that difficult course.  We both talked about how we really wildly underestimated the course and the need for calories (I had four “GUs” with 100 calories each, and she had five, to put in some obligatory race report information).

Although Sarah had a difficult race, with about eight stops along the way to fix shoe and sock problems, she still managed to pull off a win in her age division and tenth female overall.  She found this fact out by hearing her name repeatedly shouted over the loudspeaker while waiting and worrying about me.  She said it sounded like “Saaarrraaaaah Smeeeeeeeth,” “Saaarrraaaaah Smeeeeeeeth!”  I’m sure that in her catastrophizing she assumed she was being summoned to be informed that I had careened off the side of a hill or worse, but she was happily surprised to find out the insistent calling was to get her to the awards podium. With that, the race was over.

Well, I didn’t win my division (I was 70th out of 171 in the men’s 40 – 44 group), but this moment in Patagonia is one that I will always remember and cherish for how lucky I am to be able to run a course like that (at all), and to be in a place as beautiful and different as here. Events and times like these are what I dearly hoped my year-away trip would provide, and this, so far, was one of the best.  This event really put us into the life of this small town, and we were surrounded by people from Argentina and across South America (I think there were only two or three other Americans total). Even though I can’t really speak to the Latin Americans and don’t understand what they say, I have a much better understanding of this part of the world than I did before.  Mostly, I am comfortable here even with the language barrier, and events like the 42K just deepen that level of comfort and the realization that although there are major differences between different parts of the word, there are even more similarities.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Patagonia, Where Paradise Packs a Punch
2. Gnome, Sweet Gnome In Villa La Angostura
3. Branching Out on Lago Nahuel Huapi

Arriving at our cabaña, we discovered that "los gnomos" are part of its charm.

Our arrival to Villa La Angostura, about an hour north of Bariloche, set the tone for a wacky week. Driving the windy road on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi thrilled us with views of snow-capped Patagonian peaks but made poor Kyle throw up all over himself in the car. When we eventually reached our cabaña complex, called Guardianes del Bayo, we probably looked as bad as we smelled because an icy rain and wind left us bedraggled and shivering.

The living room decor includes antlers and this little gnome.

As we unloaded our belongings and cleaned up the mess, my eyes took in a babbling brook that cut through a well-kept lawn and a cluster of wood cabins, flowing past a play structure and under several arched footbridges. Then my ears caught a tune from long ago that was piped in from speakers somewhere — The Carpenters’ “Top of the World.” Karen Carpenter’s saccharine voice singing “I’m on the top of the world, lookin’ down on creation …” floated through the breeze and became a tape loop in my brain.

Then I began to notice pointy red hats on little bearded figurines inside and outside our cabaña. And then the sign with our cabaña’s name: Los Gnomos.

With a mix of shock and awe — uh-oh and oh, wow! — we realized we had booked ourselves into some kind of fairy-tale lodge where everything seems a little bit off.

It’s not just our cabaña — these wooden creatures are everywhere. Just as varnished burl bear carvings decorate the landscape in the backwoods of Northern California, so do fanciful carvings of mythical spirits on these roadways.

I met this elf on the main road into Villa La Angostura.

Morgan did "I'm a Little Teapot" by this wood carving.

This part of Patagonia has a distinctive, Disneyland-esque style of mountain architecture that I hereby dub Gnome Home. We got our first hint of it in Bariloche, at a restaurant called Tarquino that we nicknamed the Hobbit Hole, which has an exterior that belies a surprisingly sophisticated menu.

Tarquino restaurant in Bariloche is a prime example of "Gnome Home" style.

But Gnome Home truly flourishes in this smaller, quainter tourist hamlet of Villa La Angostura. Large, heavily lacquered logs, all gnarled and knotted, frame every door and window, and over-sized, lumpy-looking rocks form the foundations and chimneys. Some of the dimensions of doorways and furniture seem designed for trolls — low and wide — while other doorways and stairways seem unnaturally narrow.

The kids are enchanted by the place and seem more elfin with each passing day. All they want to do is read, play make-believe and run around. They’re probably inspired in part because Morgan is reading The Hobbit to Kyle and helping both kids draw hobbit-like creatures. Another book we’re reading together, Lois Lowry’s classic The Giver, motivated them to spend hours creating a fictional community. They seem to have moved past their homesickness — at least for the time being — and Morgan observed the other day that it’s been weeks since we’ve heard either of them complain, “I’m bored.”

The kids are having fun just being kids, especially when playing outside this kid-friendly cabaña complex.

But just as every fairy tale has something frightening, so too did our week. We had to cope with a dental emergency when a crown on one of Morgan’s molars popped off, leaving the tooth underneath painfully exposed. We had no choice but to seek treatment — and very limited options. Hence we found ourselves two days in a row in a small office that specializes in cosmetic dentistry for the tourist trade. It had a waiting room decked out as though designed to appeal to twentysomethings from West LA. The kids and I spent a few hours sitting there on an oddly curved couch with faux fur trimmings, surrounded by neon accent lights and multiple video screens that played MTV videos from twenty years ago. We had noticed in Buenos Aires that American pop from the ’80s and early ’90s is big, playing on radios and in stores everywhere, but this dentist office showcased retro flashbacks as much as any late-night VHI marathon.

Video screens playing hits from the 1980s helped Morgan take his mind off his tooth pain and made the trip to the dentist slightly surreal.

Morgan, meanwhile, seemed to be disassociating while watching four music video screens that surrounded the dental chair. When the dentist (a fashionable and relatively young woman) prepped Morgan’s tooth, he discovered that she skimps on Novocain, and he later described the process as excruciating. The good news is that after back-to-back appointments, everything seems fine.

Perhaps you’re wondering, after all this, why we’re here as opposed to somewhere warmer and not quite so weird, such as Mendoza (where we’re headed next week). We came to Villa La Angostura, which has a population of around 7,000, for this weekend’s Salomon K42 trail marathon that traverses the town’s main peak, Cerro Bayo. Some 2000 runners and their families have arrived for the 42K and 15K races, so the town’s three-block center permeates an athletic vibe. We’re two of only three participants from the United States registered for it, but the event draws runners from all over South America.

To my dismay, I saw more fresh snow outside our window a few mornings ago (not what we need in advance of the trail marathon). The gnome on the windowsill seemed to mock me.

Earlier this week it seemed the weather would play a trick on us all, as fresh snow coated the ground and deepened the frigid knee-high river that runners have to cross, but the sun came out yesterday and everyone is cautiously optimistic it’ll hold. Nonetheless, I’m admittedly nervous about this event. But Morgan is game for it, and so am I. If I find myself plagued by doubt, exhaustion or hypothermia, I’ll just keep singing that Carpenters’ tune that’s been stuck in my head all week: I’m on the top of the world …

The shores of Lago Espejo by Villa La Angostura will be the starting area of Saturday's Salomon K42 trail marathon. I am dazzled each time I discover more peaks and lakes like this!

The marathon goes up and over this peak, called Cerro Bayo. We probably really will feel "on top of the world."

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Patagonia, Where Paradise Packs a Punch
2. When It Rains…
3. Branching Out on Lago Nahuel Huapi

Morgan and I spent a lot of time last week doing travel research and making reservations while the stormy weather kept us mostly inside.

Before Morgan and I left in mid-August, we talked a lot about how there will be times when traveling gets tough, when we feel fatigued and worried about the myriad consequences of uprooting for a year, and when we second-guess our choices. We knew we’d feel homesick not just for home per se, but for friends and familiar routines, and we might feel pangs of regret. That’s why we added the “no regrets” phrase to our tagline — not because we’re blithely traipsing off in the world with nothing weighing us down but our backpacks, but rather because we knew from the start that doubt might haunt us, just as first-time home buyers flirt with buyers’ remorse when the repairs pile up and bills come due. “No regrets” is shorthand for “no turning back, so let’s make this work, and in the long run we’ll look back and be so glad we did it.” Or in Spanish, vale la pena. It’s what we say to each other and to ourselves to bolster confidence and commitment, because what we’re doing takes an occasional pep talk.

Last week was one of those weeks.

This may come as a surprise, since the previous post about arriving in Patagonia was so effusive. As my brother noted, we seemed besotted with the landscape. We still are, but we had, for lack of a better word, a moody week, exacerbated by a steady rain and cold that limited our ability to get outside and explore. Cabin fever and my head cold infected the cabana’s coziness.

A tour of Bariloche's chocolate museum lifted our spirits one afternoon and also gave us all an interesting history lesson.

Nothing terrible happened — no accidents or thefts — just minor disappointments, annoyances and parenting/sibling flareups. For example, a close call on a run (described on my running blog) made us dwell on worst-case scenarios and the extra steps we need to take to avoid them. Then there was a fiasco involving the Kindle, in which something that should be simple — shipping a defective Kindle back to Amazon.com and receiving a replacement — turned into a weeks-long abject lesson in navigating international customs, taxes and language barriers, which took more money, phone calls and cab rides than I care to relate. Morgan, with the help of his dad back home, eventually sorted it all out.

We experienced a higher-than-average number of travel planning snafus, such as when I screwed up and booked some wrong dates for New Zealand and couldn’t simply change them back. Then, more hours spent speaking and emailing in broken Spanish to make a reservation for lodging we really need next week, and finally getting to the bank to make a deposit to secure it (because a lot of these places require cash deposits, not credit cards called in) — and then discovering, as the rain fell and cab drove away, that the bank closed an hour earlier. Now we know that banks close at 1:00 on Thursdays.

And then there was the case of the bored, clever 8-year-old gremlin named Kyle who kept changing passwords and other settings on IPhones, IPods, laptops, in-room safes and any other device with a button and a silicon chip, in spite of repeated reminders and warnings, which led to technical difficulties and parental reprimands. And a laughably bad daytrip, which Colly described on her blog better than I ever could.

Kyle has grown very attached to this dog, which belongs to the groundskeeper. He loves playing with her, but then gets sad when he remembers our dog back home and realizes he'll have to say goodbye to this dog, too.

Meanwhile, I struggled to put more than two sentences together on this blog, briefly contemplated a pitch for a freelance writing assignment and then abandoned all efforts for several days, convinced that no one would ever care to find and read my long-winded prose since I’m apparently the only one in the over-saturated travel-writing universe who has decided not to Twitter.

All four of us, at various times, argued over how best to spend our days and how best to homeschool. We tossed and turned at night over long-term plans and got teary about missed friends and holiday traditions.

I’ve probably lost a lot of readers at this point who have no patience or sympathy for this sad sack. I hope you understand my main motive: to document some of the down days along with the good times, so that we don’t forget them when we wax nostalgic a year from now, and so anyone contemplating a similar journey gets a more complete picture.

Colly, bless her heart and mind, channeled our collective mood into her blog post linked above and created a pro/con list about long-term travel. Thinking about what I might list, I realized almost everything would be a “pro” but could also be a “con.” For example, “more family time” — definitely a positive, until you grow tired of finishing each others’ sentences all day long and yearn to socialize with others. “Flexible schedule and more free time” — wonderful, except on days when you struggle to prioritize and feel adrift. “Homeschooling” — so far so good, but when for whatever reason the process backfires, it’s a painful double-whammy: you’re a bad parent AND a bad teacher. “Experience new cultures and simpler ways of life” — always good, and I’m so grateful to see the world from outside of the Piedmont bubble, but feeling like a fish-out-of-water occasionally wears thin.

Halloween 2009: The kids were blue because they knew from friends' emails that they were missing parties, school costume parades and trick-or-treating. Argentina doesn't celebrate Halloween, but Morgan and I surprised the kids with some candy and we all had fun taste-testing the Latin American brands.

A couple of days ago, for example, I grew frustrated at the grocery store by my inability to decipher the strange brands and felt helpless to cook anything decent for dinner since I don’t have any spices or proper cookware. As I fruitlessly looked for frozen pie crust, canned pumpkin and condensed milk, I thought, Can it really be this hard to make a pumpkin pie? Yes, when you’re the only one in the country who craves pumpkin pie in October, it is!

But these lows don’t last. I knew this one wouldn’t, and it didn’t. Like in a marathon, as a favorite piece of advice I once heard goes, “There will be highs and there will be lows, and neither will last very long.” The same is true with long-term travel. Appreciate the highs and ride out the lows. Look up and around and think, We’re really doing this, we’re really seeing all these parts of the world together. Hallelujah!

Several factors pushed us out of last week’s funk: Morgan’s good advice and dark humor, a momentary lifting of the clouds for a fantastic day trip (details and photos in a post to come), the hatching of bird eggs outside our window, and — as is so often the case — running. If I have one piece of round-the-world travel advice to share this week, it’s this: Nurture a hobby as you go. It can be hiking, art history — anything that adds more meat to the skeleton of an itinerary, motivates you to explore more of the landscape, and makes you feel better when you get stalled in one point. Thanks to running we toured Buenos Aires on foot, and now we’re altering our itinerary to fit in some more races (such as the Nov. 14 Salomon K42 trail marathon in Villa La Angostura).

Cause for celebration: The eggs outside our window hatched! All week long we watched the mother guard her eggs and squawk at anything threatening. Yesterday, Morgan rescued a chick that fell down a drainpipe.

Running takes us places not found in any guidebooks. For example, I experienced a sense of accomplishment last week when I booked a room in the middle of Nowhere, New Zealand, following a string of travel-planning setbacks. We’re going there so Morgan and I can both run a trail race the weekend of January 16 — the first race we’ve ever registered for that requires runners to carry a whistle and safety blanket — and I think I even managed to find a babysitter (broadly defined) to watch the kids during the event.

The race ends on the West Coast of the South Island in a tiny hamlet called Blackball, at a roadhouse called the Blackball Hilton (the use of “Hilton” appears to be a long-running joke). We wanted to stay there since it’s the only place around, even though the most recent review on tripadvisor.com warns, “The rooms were tiny, dated and not to mention dirty. The room had layers of dust in it, dead flies and dirty carpets. The bathrooms were at the end of a corridor, and were also very dated and had flimsy locks.”

I placed an international call through Skype to the proprietor and had a lovely chat with a lady who seemed to come from Kiwi central casting, who punctuated each sentence with “right-oh!” and “no worries!” She told me she would be delighted to keep an eye on my kiddos during the morning of the race, and Colly and Kyle could have the run of the pub and help her manage the festivities as runners crossed the finish line. This was all oddly reassuring, not alarming, to me. Sometimes you just have to go with a gut feeling. I reserved the night before the race in the Blackball Hilton’s “family room” (who knows what that room classification means exactly), and I hung up very happy and grateful to know that we have a date in New Zealand two-and-a-half months from now in a backroad tavern with 100 other trail runners to keep us company.

Related posts:

1. Playing Around Rotorua
2. Essential Gear For Long-Term Travel
3. Welcome to Patagonia, Where Paradise Packs a Punch

Our first view from the hotel by Lago Nahuel Huapi. We were struck dumb as we took in the view (which extended in all directions beyond this IPhone snapshot); all we could say was, "Wow."

Another shot of the lake from our first day near Bariloche.

I wish I knew what to call these beautiful creatures. They're everywhere.

The weather goes to extremes, too, like a toddler whose sunny disposition changes without warning to a tantrum. We arrived to an intensely blue sky and refused to believe forecasts that hinted at possible snow flurries. Snow? Slushy rain, maybe. But yesterday, we woke up to blizzard conditions and were transfixed as snow covered tulips and left white layers on all the trees.

It's spring down here. At least, we think it is! It's hard to tell.

When I woke and saw these snow-covered forests, I felt a split-second flutter of excitement about the onset of winter before remembering that this is an anomaly and summer is around the corner.

We heard the storm was called a nevada de tonto (or something like that), meaning a fool’s snowstorm, because it took everyone by surprise, and another person mentioned it snowed harder yesterday than any day in winter. Colly called it a “swinter wonderland” (for spring + winter).

We were enchanted — and woefully under-dressed. When it crossed my mind last week that I might need warmer clothes for Patagonia, I bought a pair of tights in Buenos Aires to wear under my sleeveless dress. A blizzard? So we piled on layers under our thin windbreakers and kept warm enough (sort of).

"Can you say, 'está nevando'?" "No, but we can say, 'We're freezing!'"

If you’re wondering where we are exactly, we’re about 1000 miles west of Buenos Aires, near the border of Chile, in the Rio Negro province on the Andean range. We’re in the midst of a vast national park called Nahuel Huapi (which I still can’t pronounce!), and the main town, Bariloche, is a ski destination. We spent part of the week about 13 miles west of Bariloche at the Llao Llao Hotel — which, like its surroundings, is over-the-top in scale and grandeur. (Pronounce it like Zsa Zsa’s name ending in “ow,” as in “Zsow Zsow.”) Opened in 1940 and rennovated in the early 1990s, it was reborn as a world-class hotel after being shuttered for lack of funds and neglect for nearly two decades, starting in the mid-1970s (not surprising, since that time coinscides with the country’s Dirty War). It reminded us of Yosemite’s Ahwahnee with rustic yet luxurious hunting-lodge architecture and decor.

The view of the back of Llao Llao and its grounds from our room. Believe it or not, we were in the most affordable "non-view" room. I'll take this view any day!

Click to enlarge and see Morgan's series on how the weather changed in four hours.

We went there because so many people recommended it, and we wanted a short stay in a hotel where the kids could swim in an incredible indoor-outdoor pool and do other activities organized by the hotel (it’s a very child-friendly resort) while we got the lay of the land and figured out longer-term accommodations. Getting the lowest-level room at off-season rates made Llao Llao almost reasonable in terms of cost — but still, I’m wincing at the bill. It was a guilty pleasure to be there for three days, but we were quite ready to leave, feeling bloated from the obscenely lavish breakfast buffets and gouged by prices for drinks and other services. Our happiest memories from the place involve swimming at the heated pool in the storm and eating dinners in the lounge, where we played nonstop games of Uno and five-card draw, using peanuts for poker chips.

The Llao Llao lounge, where we ate dinner a couple of times.

Affordable cabañas to rent are available all throughout the region — especially in these non-holiday spring months, when tourists are few and far between — so Morgan did a lot of research to sort through the options. We ultimately decided to stay close to Bariloche for a couple of weeks since the town, which some criticize as too touristy, has more to do than some of the more quaint and far-flung other towns. He found a cozy little place with a deck overlooking the lake. It’s part of the Villa Huinid hotel, so we have access to the hotel’s pool and gym, but it’s a separate condo-like one-bedroom cabin with a kitchen so we can cook meals. We adore it and are grateful to be in a place that feels like a home.

Morgan in our cabaña. The sofas in the background convert to beds for the kids.

My kitchen for the next two weeks.

The kids were thrilled to discover a play structure, chicken coop and several free-roaming dogs right outside our cabaña.

As for what we’re doing — besides transitioning, exploring and studying with the kids — we’ve spent a lot of time researching the area and deciding where to go from here. After much deliberation, we decided to stay in this region for almost a month and then drive up to Mendoza, rather than fly or take 18-hour bus rides on side excursions to places such as Iguazú Falls on the East Coast or El Calafate glacier down south. There is so much to see and do right around here, but it’s hard to tune out those who advise we can’t pass up the chance to see other parts of Argentina. Imagine being a foreign visitor to the United States and hearing people say, “You absolutely have to visit Yosemite and Niagara Falls and …” — which entails a lot of air travel and expense. We’ve decided to stick to our original plan of settling into a region and getting to know it. We plan to rent a car a few days from now for day trips, and in a couple of weeks move to a cabaña about an hour away near a town called Villa La Angostura. We recently signed up to run a trail marathon near there on November 14.

Speaking of running, Morgan and I got in one good run before the weather turned. We headed out on a trail that passed through a tunnel of bamboo, fern and cypress tress. Slowly we climbed as the vegetation thinned and the lakes came into view. I’m at a loss for words to adequately describe the feeling of being up there and taking in that view — feeling so small, so remote, so full of life and gratitude, disbelieving where we were and what we were seeing. Thankfully, Morgan brought his camera.

Morgan and I went on one trail run before the stormy weather hit. It started with a couple of miles through thick bamboo.

We made it to the top of one of the peaks.

This is heaven! (in spite of the cold)

Morgan's pano from our trail run (click to enlarge).

Related posts:

1. Branching Out on Lago Nahuel Huapi
2. Gnome, Sweet Gnome In Villa La Angostura
3. A Mountain Marathon in Patagonia That’s Way Above Average

Lots o' packing yesterday and today ... we had to put a bunch of stuff in storage, give away outgrown kids' clothes and pare down to the true essentials.

I’m rushing to write this blog post while packing for tomorrow’s departure to Argentina. We traveled through Arizona less than a week ago, yet it feels more like a month has passed. We arrived in LA for a few days to take care of some business, reorganize all our belongings and — most difficult of all — say goodbye to our dog Teddy, who will spend the next ten months in the care of my in-laws. Teddy will be in very good and generous hands, but oh, it’s hard to leave him!

Our journey is shifting to a more challenging and exciting phase as we go abroad, and I’d like to say we’re ready but I don’t think I’d ever feel completely prepared. We realized today, at the eleventh hour, that some travel logistics have not been arranged or confirmed, so Morgan and I found ourselves scrambling and then consciously taking deep breaths, concluding, “Oh well, it’ll work out, or we’ll figure it out when we get there.” I have spent the weekend trying to adopt a true traveler’s mind — i.e., embracing rather than fearing the unknown – and doing my best to maintain an outwardly positive attitude for the kids’ sake. Their tears started to flow last night as the prospect of missing Teddy magnified a bout of homesickness (or rather, “friendsickness”). Thankfully, a trip to the beach with their grandparents today made everything feel better.

I had a lump in my throat all weekend because we have to say goodbye to Teddy. He is a fantastic dog, and we loved road-tripping with him the past six weeks.

Before the memories of the past week grow more distant, I want to document our last special destination: Sedona. Funny thing is, when I paused to reflect on it this morning, an image of Kyle on a Colorado trail a couple of weeks earlier crossed my mind. He had randomly picked up a small rock and discovered a quartz crystal under the dusty surface. His eyes grew large and a smile broke out on his face, and as he clutched his little treasure, he headed down the trail with new energy.

Like Kyle bending down to pick up that rock, we made an unexpected and enchanting discovery on our way to Sedona that renewed our energy. I should be careful when talking about “energy” in the context of Sedona, however, because I don’t want to be mistaken for one of the New Age crystal-gazers who are drawn to Sedona’s red rocks and attest to the power of  “energy vortexes,” which supposedly spiral around certain points on the landscape and resonate good vibes. Then again, I did feel particularly good while there, so who knows whether I felt the vibes of a vortex or a placebo effect or just a buzz from a beer?

We met the Flintstones and had a yabba-dabba-doo-dah time.

Certainly our slightly addled states of mind upon entering Sedona primed us for fun and come-what-may adventure. We had no expectations, no plans, save for a last-minute booking at a hotel. We had decided only about a week prior to go there for a couple of nights in lieu of a detour to Vegas, our forethought limited to, “It’s only 30 miles south of Flagstaff? Might as well check it out, I heard it’s nice.” We had spent the night outside the Grand Canyon in the fleabag Red Feather Lodge, which is notable for its very un-P.C. retro Indian Brave motto and its inedible breakfast buffet offerings. (But, they take dogs — the only motel in the area to do so.) I was disoriented from insomnia and the belated discovery that we had crossed a time zone and gained an hour. Plus, we all felt punchy from a brief stop at the Flintstone Bedrock RV Park, where a two-story-high Fred Flintstone appears like a bad-trip hallucination in an armpit corner of the desert.  At that point, we didn’t know what to expect next.

After our stop at the Bedrock RV park on our way to Sedona, we weren't sure what to expect.

Meandering from Flagstaff on Route 89A, which is a windy road through a forested canyon, Sedona revealed its magic like the dusty treasure in Kyle’s palm. We had a hard time driving because we kept looking up and around to take in the grand sculpture garden that is Sedona’s landscape. Sandstone, carved and polished smooth by water and wind, rose up randomly in lumpy and jagged formations that perched precariously on the canyon’s hillsides, shaped like giant sand-drip castles. Horizontal stripes of color formed by ancient sedimentary layers — from nearly white limestone to black basalt — highlighted the canyon’s red and blond hues.

Sedona at sunrise on one of our early-morning runs.

We passed a sign saying Slide Rock State Park was ahead. Another sign for it mentioned a swimming area. We decided to check it out and change into bathing suits — and I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story. Suffice to say the kids couldn’t get enough of sliding on those rocks and swimming in the frigid water. At one point one said, “This is better than the Grand Canyon!”

A series of natural pools makes up Slide Rock State Park near Sedona.

Colly takes the plunge.

Kyle slides into the frigid waters at Slide Rock Park.

Then it was time to get settled in Sedona proper — an odd town that’s a bit like Sausalito in the desert (ticky-tacky tourist shops juxtaposed with upscale resorts and artists’ retreats). As luck would have it, we got a room at the dog-friendly and always-booked El Portal, thanks to someone else’s recent cancellation. It bills itself as a boutique “luxury hacienda” with only 12 rooms, each designed differently but all reflecting Sedona’s earthy and artsy aesthetic. The splurge was worth every cent — the lodge was exquisite in terms of comfort and service, and we all kept repeating, “This is so nice.”

Pausing to welcome the new day on the Munds Wagon Trail in Sedona.

We spent the majority of our two days on local trails, running in the morning while the kids slept in and then taking them on hikes before the sun rose too high, then going out again at sunset. Thankfully, Morgan’s broken toe is on the mend and he started running again. We had a spectacular two hours on the Munds Wagon Trail at sunrise. As if the visual feast weren’t fulfilling enough, the wind carried strains of “Amazing Grace” from a wooden flute played somewhere on the rocks by someone also was welcoming the day. With the kids, we explored the West Fork Trail of Oak Creek Canyon, which I learned was made famous by Zane Grey’s 1924 novel The Call of the Canyon (which I hope to read someday now). The kids soaked themselves at the creek crossings and splashed around with other kids who happened to be there on a field trip.

Sedona's Oak Creek Canyon viewed from West Fork Trail.

The book Sedona’s Top 10 Hikes by Dennis Andres was an indispensable guide during our time on the trails.

And now it’s time to end this post abruptly and go to bed to get up early for our flight to Buenos Aires, with a stopover in Miami. We’re in an airport hotel next to LAX. Estoy muy cansada (I’m very tired). Adios!

Colly and Kyle with our luggage checking into the airport hotel tonight. We reduced our luggage to four packs for clothing, one small suitcase for our "mobile office," four carry-on backpacks, one camera bag and one purse.

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2. Glimpsing the Grand Canyon
3. Good “Car-Ma” For Long Car Trips