The company we keep

Why do we vacation in the same spot every year?

Well, primarily it's to see Grandaddy Canada, but in addition to that, it's to enjoy the magnificence of the place in which I was fortunate enough to have been born.  For the third year in a row, Cape Breton has been voted the top island destination in North America...

Screengrabbed from:
http://travel.justluxe.com/travel-news/feature-1609344.php

...and the third-best island destination in the entire world, out-ranking places like several Hawaiian islands and the Galapagos:

Screengrabbed from:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/2011/islands 

Of course, that's just one travel magazine's vote tabulation, but it doesn't stop there.  National Geographic named it as one of their "drives of a lifetime" and the list of awards goes on, if only I had the time to tabulate it, which I don't.

Anyway, when I see things like that, I marvel at my own statistics, and wonder how any one person could have been so cumulatively lucky in life.  I grew up on one of the most beautiful islands in the world, was educated in the second-highest ranked undergraduate university in Canada and then the thirteenth highest-ranked university in America (depending on whose compilation you listen to), and moved into prosperity here in greater Houston, assembling a limitless career and the greatest possible family.  Last week, Lawrence was asking me if I feel yet like I've given back sufficiently to the world that spawned me.  Answer:  an emphatic no.  I'm not sure what I could possibly manage to give back that would be on par with all that I have been lucky enough to receive.
:-)

BBRSP

That's a funny acronym in the title, isn't it??  Almost looks like a belch - "Brrrrrp!!" 

But really it stands for Big Bend Ranch State Park, which is where the Lawral subcomponent of Caylawral journeyed last week. 

View looking across the Chihuahuan desert
from the Cinco Tinajas trail.

I must do a travelogue of this one, but I thought I'd burp up a few pics here to start with. 

My favorite pic of the trip:
Nyx in Closed Canyon,
waiting patiently for me to catch up,
like the good (Australian) shepherd that she is.

On the subject of those travelogues, people usually respond with something like, "They are absolutely stunning - but how do you find the TIME to make them?!"

I reply, "Well, if you notice, I only do one or two each year!!!"
:-)

Anyway, here's two thirds of this year's backcountry team:

It was abnormally hot, 100 degrees F in the shade, and Lawrence served as Nyx's water valet, hand-carrying her blue bowl down the canyon, for the frequency of water stops.  Despite the substantial environmental stresses, she looks like a happy dog, doesn't she??  She was an EXCELLENT trail animal, taking to both her backpack and the demands of the trip with aplomb.

Now journeying through the fourth year of our relationship, Lawrence and I are evolving out of the self-absorption that characterizes every new relationship, and instead we are experiencing the natural inclination to be more inclusive in our activities.  While it is certainly still necessary and enjoyable to spend some "alone time", we really missed Cayley on this trip (she was in Hawaii with her bio-Dad). 

Initially we didn't know whether or not the dog would adapt well to the demanding travel circumstances that characterize our west-Texas wanderings, but she did, and we were glad to have her along - she helped fill a void.  As we were en route back to Houston, my summary lament was, "Well, we just had this wonderful bonding experience with the dog, but I really would have preferred a wonderful bonding experience with the child."  So we know what our goal is for our next camping trip.  And in the meantime, stay tuned for the travelogue on this one.
;-)

L showing off canyon-walking skills gained from a winter's worth of working out.

A job especially well done!

QUESTION:  What do all of these educational institutions have in common?

1. Dallas Independent School District (ISD; multiple subsites)
2. Kentucky Department of Education
3. Boston University
4. Amarillo Region 16 Education Service Center
5. Arlington ISD
6. Plano ISD
7. St. Johns School
8. Collin County Community College District
9. Trinity University
10. Texas Tech University (multiple subsites)
11. Spring ISD
12. Hanover College (Indiana)
13. New York City Public Schools
14. Center ISD
15. Lampasas ISD
16. Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board (Ontario)
17. Jefferson County Board of Education (Alabama)
18. University of Kansas
19. Austin ISD
20. Fairfax County Public Schools (Virginia)
21. School District of South Milwaukee
22. Incarnate Word College
23. Grand Valley State University (Michigan)
24. Missouri University of Science and Technology
25. University of Colorado Denver
26. Region 18 Education Service Center (Monahans, Texas)
27. Washington School Information Processing Cooperative (DC)

 ANSWER:  They all have users who have accessed Cayley's mammoth tooth informational page within the past three months.

The truth about the tooth:
www.envirosteele.com/media.htm

• That's a list of just the standalone self-identifying educational systems (not educational users piggybacking on commercial carriers)
• Just within the past three months
• Accessing an informational page that is two years old.

*** WOW! ***

I stuck a Statcounter on that page a long time ago, not really expecting anything noteworthy to be revealed by it.   I accessed the results of that counting for the first time just a few days ago, after noticing that the page hits have curiously continued to climb even after all this time (shouldn't this story have become stale news a long time ago??). 

Because I use the free version of Statcounter, it saves only limited info, and there's only so far I can look back - nowhere near the last couple of years.  But even the results for the last couple of MONTHS are amazing to me.

The only explanation I can find is that the URL must have been more widely rebroadcast than I was aware of.  Either that or the widespread traffic was stimulated by the ABC news coverage, which on a hit-basis has put Cay in Google's pole position for this topic (even more popular than a similarly-themed NatGeo post!):

We all like to hope that we will be able to do something in our lives that leaves some kind of lasting positive contribution to humanity, however small that positive impression may be. 

I wonder if perhaps we actually accomplished that with the mammoth tooth story.  If so, then I'm very happy, because we could not have picked a better set of values to promote:  the importance of children, the power of science, the wonders of the world right under our noses, and the value that can come from an active lifestyle that includes a healthy dose of unconventional exploration (thinking outside the American consumer box).
:-)

Longitudinal longings

I have not yet produced a travelogue of our 2010 trip to Nova Scotia (what will become Long Journey Chapter 3) in part because I wanted to expound upon 2008's and 2009's creative efforts by showcasing this one from a longitudinal perspective, and to do that involved waiting.   

It's hard to explain, but I just had an overwhelming sense that this effort had to be all about TIME:  the nature, passage, and effects of it - our relationship with it as we struggle through it in our humanity.

At no point was this feeling stronger than when we visited Dominion Beach, which was opened this past summer for the first time in a long time - five years (public access had been prohibited following pollution by untreated sewage).

Cayley takes her leaping littorally, with the Lingan thermal generating station silhouetted in the background.

The beautiful boardwalk in particular reminded me so strongly of the arrow of time, which only ever points toward the future.

We're all moving thataway, straight ahead, full steam.

She's still so young... Lawrence is ahead of her on his journey through spacetime, and I'm significantly ahead of them both, but sometimes I see things as if I'm actually living in multiple moments, which is perceptually the same as living in no discrete moments at all.

Most of Dominion Beach, including this boardwalk, was destroyed by a massive storm that hit right before Christmas.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/12/29/ns-dominion-beach-a-disaster-zone-councillor.html 

The newspapers don't yet have photo coverage, but of course someone posted a timely video on YouTube:

Same thermal generating station, very different day.
Screengrab courtesy of 1996beardeddragon's crude but revealing video as embedded below.

Time has passed, and the beach is now essentially gone, leaving a rocky erosive scar in its place.  I don't know what the future will bring, but this is the way things are in this moment.  As usual, there's much metaphorical fodder in all this, which I will continue to contemplate as the journey unfolds.

"At one time, thousands of people visited Dominion Beach every day during the summer, making it one of the most popular beaches in Nova Scotia."
-From the newspaper URL cited above.

"The past is right here, all around us - it's just that we can't access it."
-Researcher being interviewed on a TV science documentary produced earlier in 2010.  I didn't catch his name, but it might have been Sean Carroll (if I could go back in time, I'd find out for sure).