four little higgs

hello loyal blog fans (i'm aware that we will have to alert the four people who actually read this blog that a new one finally has been posted so even they will take a look...)

happy fall! though still six days away, it definitely feels like we're well into winter here in chicago.


we (i) have been very bad bloggers. we've been very bad everything except student/intern for the past several months, in fact. our respective programs have become so grueling that any spare time we have we must use to sleep...even eating has taken a backseat. fortunately, i polished off quarter number two the day before thanksgiving and have been relishing in a much needed vacation since. sadly, i can't say the same for david, who is topping off what he believes is the worst three-week stretch of his whole program.

currently, david is working in the cardiac intensive care unit, and while the concept is interesting, he feels more like a gopher than a doctor. on top of being somewhat useless in terms of medical decision making, he is on call every third night! imagine if you can a schedule that goes 30 hours, 8 hours, 30 hours, 8 hours, over and over again. it's no wonder he falls asleep at 8, wakes up at 2, never knows the day of the week, and actually forgot what city we live in a few days ago. next week he will switch to the pediatric intensive care unit which has a more forgiving schedule (only call every fourth night), and hopefully he will have more responsibility as well, which always makes things more interesting and thus, bearable.

with the end of my second quarter came my swearing in to the profession...while i'm far from being an actual nurse, i now apparently have the skills and knowledge to largely manage patient care, which starts when i return after the first of the year. i'm eager to leave the classroom behind (though i'll still have many hours inside it) and do some heavy lifting on the floors. i'll be consumed with adult/gerontology as well as psychiatric nursing next quarter, with three days on the floors divided between post-surgical adult patients and psych patients. i have requested a position in child psych because frankly, i like child patients more than adult patients (this may reflect my maturity level...i relate better to the kids!), and with my background in nutrition i'd like to have some exposure to eating disorders. apparently they really push us out of a moving vehicle next quarter, which had to happen at some point, so it's very exciting and intimidating!

anyhow, now that you're mostly caught up on our lives (strangely, our lives are very boring despite being so busy), i'll begin on the real purpose of this blog--filling you in on the awesome roadtrip we took this september. as you may recall, despite our best laid plans, david and i were only able to coordinate one common week of vacation between us for the entire year, which is sadly already behind us! but, we really made the most of it. having literally perfect weather the entire time certainly helped. we essentially made a loop around lake michigan, traveling up the michigan side of the lake first to traverse city, then into the UP, and back down the wisconsin side through madison. i have a ton of pictures posted here to help tell the story...

our first stop was in traverse city, a great town in northern michigan. our very good family friends, the sneeds, kindly opened their beautiful home to the vagabonds and let us use it a base for trips to the beach, downtown (we actually rode by tandem bike, how cool is that?), and a mini road trip up the old mission peninsula to check out the amazing scenery and taste some michigan wine.

here we are on a beach in traverse, ironically despite living on lake michigan, this is our first visit to its shores the entire summer, and not even in chicago.


this is the view from chateau chantal winery on old mission peninsula. beautiful!


certainly one of the highlights of traverse city was some exposure to dogs. david was so excited to be in the company of dogs again that he invited them into bed...notice which side of the bed he put them on.


we then left traverse city and crossed the mackinac bridge into the UP. our next stop was at my godparents' farm in engadine, michigan. the farm has been in their family for longer than any of us have been alive, and the house is a really neat combination of old and new...the original structure still remains, and much has been added on. carol is a really amazing cook, and prepared us wild caught salmon, homemade bread, and blueberry crisp from berries she just picked that morning. here is david having a romantic candlelit dinner with my little cousin maria:


the next morning we were off again to the tiny town of munising on the northern shore of the upper peninsula. munising is so far north that it virtually shuts down completely in the winters, and winters start in september. in fact, we were there the last fully functioning weekend. munising is the only town located near miles and miles of pristine lake superior shoreline with tons of hiking and camping. most notably, a portion of this lakeshore entitled "pictured rocks," boasting huge cliffs that look painted due to different mineral deposits leaking out of the cliffs after centuries of rainfall. the pictures hardly do justice, but are pretty spectacular.

our first day on lake superior, we hiked in about three hours to camp on the beach:



when we found this odd structure, we decided it was a cool place to set up camp.

fortunately, david is an eagle scout. perhaps more fortunately, he had some friendly advice on how to set up tents created within the past 20 years...tent technology has come a long way...


after setting up camp, we went to explore the beach below the trail.

we discovered the rock structure is actually even cooler from the front! it looks like a skull with a tree growing out of it.

we spent a few hours reading on the beach, and went to sleep at night fall to rest up for a long day of kayaking the lakeshore the following morning. we awoke to find we had only one hour to hike out what had taken us three the previous day...this resulted in many, many, many blisters on wet, sandaled feet, but we managed somehow to sprint out with time to spare.

we began our kayaking adventure with some on-shore instruction. i did not enjoy this part of the experience.


however, it really was worth it. the control you have over a tiny kayak allows you to explore all the nooks and crannies of the shoreline in a way you never could on a larger boat. not to mention the lake was glass without a cloud in the sky or a single gust of wind...our instructor said he had never had more perfect conditions in 20 years.



this picture is particularly interesting...you'll notice a dead tree washed up and got wedged in the rocks...over time it has earned its stripes so to speak and become a part of the landscape.



david celebrated a job well done with his first pasty, a meat and potato hand pie traditional in the michigan UP. he's pictured here at falling rocks cafe, the sounding board of the entire town of munising. this is where we ate all our meals, brushed our teeth, got advice on our travels, and were welcomed into the community (literally, the owners knew us by name and embraced us when we left town again).

here is our campsite on our last night in michigan, actually taken at daybreak.

we departed michigan for our last stop in madison, wisconsin. david had traveled there for an interview last winter on possibly the coldest day of the year. apparently, despite walking around a barren landscape with buggars frozen all over his face, he absolutely loved it and has since been talking about making it back sometime when temperatures are above freezing.

about a month before our trip, we learned we'd be traveling to madison on a very popular weekend; a home football game and the ironman triathlon fell on the same dates. consequently, the only hotel we could find with a room stank like a bowling alley and wasn't exactly located in madison proper. however, after living in the woods the previous few days, a bed and running water were quite a treat. we put on our sunday best our first night and dined al fresco at madison's premier farm to table restaurant in the heart of downtown. delicious!


the next morning, i agreed to bar-hop with david all day to view numerous football games under the condition that we first visit madison's famous farmer's market. allegedly, it's one of the nation's ten best and i've been dying to go (i plan to check them all off the list before i die...only six left!).

en route to the farmers market which spans a full city block surrounding the capitol building, we stumbled upon a crepe place where we decided to have breakfast. these were the absolute most delectable, incredible crepes i'm sure we'll ever eat. i actually took a picture of the menu (which changes daily, based on what fresh ingredients have arrived by way of local purveyors) because it was so creative and delightful.


the farmer's market, like the town itself, truly lived up to the hype. it even puts lincoln park's green market to shame. it was HUGE, bustling, and so diverse we didn't even buy anything because we didn't know where to start. but it was a blast to walk around!
'
this was certainly a highlight:

david was kind enough to sacrifice some time midday to take a walking tour of madison. what a great town! it is absolutely beautiful with the lakeshore and the capitol building, and the streets are full of cozy coffee shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars...it was so reminiscent of ann arbor i felt homesick for the first time since moving. given it's such a short drive from chicago, i'm sure we'll be back.

on our last morning, we took a wonderful jog through the arb. chicago is a great city, but has far too few trees for my liking, so i spent a large part of this trip soaking in deciduous goodness as much as possible. i will always remember this run, not just for its beauty, but because i became so oddly exhausted at the end of it i almost collapsed. i thought i might have been dehydrated, but as it turns out, there was a tiny zygote already stealing all of my nutrients and spare energy. little did i know how much she would make her presence known in the following months...


after some more delicious crepes, we stopped on our way out of town to cheer on some people who can run more than 30 minutes without falling over and needing iv fluids...below is one of the very first triathletes arriving at the third and final leg of his race--the full marathon. these people truly were inspirational, though definitely not normal!


and that about sums it all up! it was all in all a fantastic trip...a perfect combination of relaxation and exertion, family and alone time, enough stops to keep it interesting, but not too many to wear us out. we really nailed this one. hopefully next year we'll be able to plan more than one vacation together!

we hope you are all doing well and staying warm this winter (unless you live in southern california, in which case, we hate you). have a wonderful holiday!

ash&david

maintaining my status as a devout and committed blogger (that makes one of us), i am using the earliest hours of my first vacation from school (insert hallelujiahs/hosannas as needed) to post some long overdue pictures and video of our costa rica trip. with the advent of facebook and how scarily connected it's becoming every day, it's easy to forget you strong and sturdy folk who have somehow managed to resist the urge to join. while all our pics are posted there, we know many friends and family have yet to get a real glimpse of the trip other than what we hurriedly posted on the trip itself. i will caption them to the best of my fading memory (compounded by partial brain deadness from finishing finals hardly more than 24 hours ago.).

it's nothing short of a miracle that for the next 365 days, david and i have overlapping vacation for 7 of them (and not a second more). that long overdue week begins this saturday afternoon, when we'll be taking a much needed roadtrip up the beautiful michigan coast to visit family and do some camping before the arctic chill sets in again (since when is it september?!). we promise to be back for our monthly update after that! hope everyone is well. enjoy!

olla de carne (meat stew), one of costa rica's national dishes. VERY TASTY. this was one of our favorite things to eat in costa rica. like most peasant food, it's extremely hearty but inexpensive to make, and uses less expensive cuts of meat/starchy vegetables (many of which i'd never heard of before, and i know from starchy vegetables) that cook for a long time and get wonderful and mushy and flavor infused. i don't think you're allowed to claim costa rican citizenship unless you can make this dish. it's so common, ironically you can hardly find it on a menu at any restaurant...you just have to know who to ask and they will make it for you.


our failed attempt at the summit of irazu volcano...this is a farmer we met on the bus (juan miguel?) who lives a meager 17k from the entrance to the park. he told us it would be a nice afternoon walk to get there. about two hours/one kilometer/second degree sunburns/hypoxia from the elevation (depending on how you want to measure it later), we headed back downhill.

in the small town (population 18) we crossed through in our descent of defeat, we stumbled into this bar amid the 1:2 house:church ratio and drowned our sorrows to some 80s tunes.


a week later, we did summit irazu. the smart way. on a bus. it was chilly up there, but absolutely beautiful.

this is just before the entrance to the park...as you can see, we're above the cloudline. exactly where i'd like to spend an afternoon walking for 17k with my below sea level acclimated lungs/erythrocytes.

costa rica is full of plate techtonics. there are many volcanoes we simply couldn't find time to visit, but the "must see" volcano on any trip to cr is the big boy, arenal. or maybe big girl. regardless, this monster still spews lava daily, so you can't actually climb on the rock itself (many tourists have died from unexpected lava belches, so now it's just off limits). the next few days were spent getting as close as possible...

above, the view of arenal from our hostel on a very rare clear day (the only one during our stay there).


you may remember david's awesome blog about cerro chato, which he still believes was a life changing day for him. cerro chato, or "sleeping indian" is arenal's younger brother. we know this one's a boy because the range of mountains actually looks like the profile of a sleeping indian:
above, from left to right, you see his nose, lips, chin, stomach, and then the extra bump that determines his gender. unlike his volatile older sibling, cerro chato blew his top several years ago, leaving a large crater that eventually filled with pristine forest rain water. if you're willing to endure what was the most grueling 4 hour hike of my life (2 hours each way), it's very much worth the site, the swim, and even the 5 days of semi-paralysis that ensue.

here is where our journey began. at the base of the range, the land is relatively flat, grassy, and very hot.

here is one of many cows we became acquainted with in costa rica. she and i shared a very special connection (i love cows), and david will attest that when we again emerged from the jungle, this pretty heifer was very concerned because i was in a world o' hurt and not being quiet about it.

this is about as high as we got, halfway through the ascent, before we entered the legitimate jungle for the first time on our trip. it was truly thrilling...to be continued.

*two comments. first, the pictures are decidedly ash heavy because, as you'll recall if you follow the blog, my whole life got stolen the day we returned from our arenal excursion, including but not limited to the camera *i* was carrying around and photographing daveed with. bummer.

second, i had forgotten (read, repressed) what a royal pain in the arse it is to load pictures and then caption them on this blog server. i've gone about it all wrong, and am going to have to continue in a new window or i'm soon going to throw my laptop off our balcony.

whew! that's plenty for now...it seems that every time i work on this blog i wrap up never wanting to sign into it again...