Two weeks ago, I came back from Big Bend and was catching up on work. When chatting with Nicole on Friday night, I realized that she would have some data discussions in London the week after. I just decided that I should go to London and join these discussions and bought a flight ticket for Sunday. Guess I still had plenty of desire to travel after Texas.
On the way to London, my phone showed me I visited London in the same week five years ago. The weather was ok on my last visit, but apparently this is not a great season to visit London as it’s often rainy and gloomy. This time I wasn’t so lucky, it was rainy throughout the whole trip. And I noticed lots of people in London wear waterproof clothes, often plastic and flashy. It reminded me of people in Tokyo often wear masks even before the pandemic.
Another different impression I had on London was the food felt better. It might be due to the neighborhood I stayed at, Shoreditch. Last time I was underwhelmed by food in London. On this trip I had several legit Asian meals, like Chinese Biang Biang noodles and Vietnamese pho. Also had an excellent Indian dinner and some decent European meals. The breakfast at the hotel was amazing; I was impressed by the scrambled eggs on the first morning. Even the fish and chips I had this time tasted better than I remembered. Shoreditch is a pretty hip area on the east side of London. Lots of graffiti, lots of bars, and lots of nightclubs. It’s easy to connect it to Lower East Side in NYC.
Right after landing, I learned there would be a “tube strike” from Tuesday to Thursday during the week of my visit, aka. most subways were not running for three days. People were mostly working from home these days, and the tube strike just made it an obvious for most people to stay at home this week. So I was facing a huge and mostly empty office most of this week. Good thing is there are still some people in the office, who either live nearby or use other transportation ways. But still… I wish I had known about the strike before booking the tickets.
The whole week was largely filled with meetings. On Friday night I went to watch a musical, Cinderella, and found there were quite a few little girls dressed as Cinderella in the audience, lol. It was a pretty entertaining show anyway, and it felt good to go back to a theatre after these years. On Saturday I had a lunch with a colleage, then went to the British Museum to see a Stonehenge exhibition. Triangle Strategy went out on Thursday night this week. So I poured quite a lot of hours into this game in the later nights and on the flight back.
Oh, covid. Yes, London is basically “100% back to normal”, just like Texas. No one wears masks anywhere. It’s not hard to forget about covid after staying there for a few days. It’s kind of funny that airports and flights still require masks and everyone switches to mask mode there, but once you’re out of airport, forget about it.
I started coughing two days after I’m back from London on Tuesday. I took an at-home covid test and it was negative. So I thought it was just a cold and thought I got it from Wen. But on Thursday I was still coughing pretty badly, which felt too long for a cold. I took another at-home test and it showed positive this time… the coughing was mostly gone on Saturday so the symptom lasted for about 3 days. On Monday I went for a PCR test to confirm it was indeed covid, and it came back as positive, too. So now I finally got my “covid badge” I guess. And it was probably omicron since the symptom is quite mild. Wen also started coughing since Friday or Saturday, and it last two or three days for her as well.
Big Bend在遥远的德州西部,被称为far west Texas的区域。离任何一个大一点的机场都很远,飞到El Paso要再开五小时,San Antonio要开六小时,Austin则是七个小时。考虑到纽约到San Antonio有直飞,我就选择飞San Antonio了。无论怎样,都是个单程就要花一整天还多的行程。从San Antonio开到Big Bend可以走I-10,也可以走90号公路,时间相仿。我来回各走了一下,强烈推荐走90号,车速略低但是车少很多,并且风景也好一些。走I-10唯一的好处是可以经过一些小城镇,如果中间想歇脚的话选择比较多。
Big Bend大致可以分成三部分:西侧主要是Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive,尽头有Saint Elena峡谷可以徒步看Rio Grande河;中部是Chisos Mountain,山地主要都在这里,有很多徒步线路;东侧可以从Boquillas过境去墨西哥的小村,恐龙化石展览,以及一些徒步线路。
年初去Utah看了一堆红石头之后就有些想念高山冰川蓝湖的景色,便开始在美国西北那边找。风河山脉(Wind River Range)便这样进入了我的视野。风河虽说是荒野(wilderness)地区,不是我常去的国家公园系统,但在徒步方面还是比较有名的,资料众多,步道系统也很完善。中文资料里面张诺娅的文章很有用,我也很同意她说的一点:黄石和大提顿虽然很有名,但周围的地方其实景色和体验更好。
Indian Basin的景色和Titcomb Basin其实差不太多,有了前两天的感官轰炸,这一天前半程并没有感觉怎样。然而这条路徒步的人比Titcomb Basin还要少很多,我们一天可能只遇到了两三拨人,于是中间偏离了trail开始在野地里边走边找路,就这么走了大约得有一英里,终于遇到了一个ranger才找回正确的路上。这一段路线hikingproject上标的就完全不对……而且地形复杂trail也不明显,有时候离trail就几米远都会由于植被看不出来。感受就是走野地真的很累,还是trail好。。
Day 6: 背包出来之后我们在Pinedale休息了一天,参加了一个钓鱼的tour钓了半天儿鱼。向导很给力,在Green River上划个小船带我们顺流而下,每人钓到了七八条。而且路上还看到好多动物,我第一次看到了野生白头鹰,车上还看到一家子驯鹿。还有一个地方有好多草垛,每个草垛上都停着一只红尾鹰,跟黑帮开大会似的。向导说这些鹰是在等着抓草垛里钻出来的老鼠。
Day 7: 大提顿。Jenny Lake和对面的Cascade Canyon。从风河出来之后看这个着实无感。。
Day 8: 黄石。大棱镜举世无双。
Day 9: 大提顿。Taggart Lake and Bradley Lake Loop,还可以。下午开始往盐湖城开,夜宿小镇Afton。
Day 10: 开回盐湖城。一路上山火烟气弥漫,太阳都变橙色了。不禁感叹徒步要考虑天气和蚊虫已经很难了,现在又要加上山火。这次算是真的很幸运。
When I came to the States, I stumbled upon a site called Frommer’s Travel Guide that uses “experiences” to describe travel destinations and their attractions. So instead of “a beautiful waterfall”, an experience is “jump into a clear pool under a beautiful waterfall”. It struck me how proper this way is. You can know a mountain pretty well from a photo or a Wikipedia page, but you can only experience a mountain when you go there. Weather, companion, food, activity, animal, random encounters, all these define your particular experience with that mountain, and it’s your unique memory.
Some experiences can be easily copied, some cannot because of rare elements. Experiences gained from efforts (e.g. long hikes) tend to be more memorable, but some easy experiences can also be very appealing.
I want to write about national parks because I really love the national park system. It’s one of the best aspects of the United States we can experience and enjoy. Especially in the era that so many other things feel so messed up, we can always seek serenity, order, peace, and civilized behavior in national parks. I’ve been to 34 of them and they covered most of my best travel experiences.
10. Petrified Forest: Devil’s Playground
Petrified Forest NP is such a secluded national park that when I walked into their visitor center, there are only two rangers and zero visitors, zero. One of the rangers welcomed me: “Welcome to Grand Canyon!”
Without little hope, I asked, “do you still have permits for Devil’s Playground?” It’s an area that they only issue 3 permits each week. To my surprise, they still have!
It was a 4-mile-ish hike, starting with finding your own way to descend into a dry riverbed and ending with one of the most untouched lands I’ve ever seen. Those elephant-skin surfaces look like they have been there for thousands of years, so otherworldly yet so fragile.
On the way back I saw an amazing desert sunset with a light pillar at the horizon. It looks stunning.