Spring Break 2018 - England

Why do rich people's lounges always
have so much free food and booze??

It's Spring Break, and this year I'm back in Cambridge at Anil's. We're going to drive around southwest UK -  Cheddar Gorge, Wookey Hole, Bath... dream locations. I somehow finagled my way into a Business Class ticket, and O. M. G.  (I think I'm a really posh person trapped in a poor person's body...)!

First off, I was ushered directly into the Executive Lounge, where I could eat and drink to my heart's content. Sadly, I wasn't hungry so I only partook in some very expensive tap water. I should have stocked up on random snacks, but I was too lazy to carry them. sigh. The lounge was nice and quiet, shut away from the airport hoi polloi. We even boarded the plane directly from the lounge, so I literally never had to look at the poor saps flying cattle class.

That panel at my feet? A footstool that folds
down to create a full lounger/bed!

On board, I found my little personal pod. It was long enough that my stretched-out feet couldn't touch the seat in front of me. Below me on the side of the adjoining seat was a little drawer where I could store my personal items needed for the flight - my water bottle, my crossword puzzles, my earphones. The two seats to my right, what would be the center seats to my aisle seat, faced the opposite direction with a moveable partition separating us. But the two center seats were unoccupied, so I took an extra pillow and used the seat to store my random things.

And holy cow, people. Real silverware. Steak. A thick, comfortable blanket. A bed that, while not quite 180° flat, was long enough that I could stretch all the way out.

Now I know how business travelers and frequent flyers do it... SO COMFORTABLE!!!

This is not good, people. I'm not sure I can ever go back.
I need to win the lottery. (speaking of which, I bought a mega lottery ticket on the way to the airport - half a billion jackpot! This coulda been my life. There was genuine disappointment when I didn't win...)

The nearly-overflowing Cam

Anyhow, after a lovely flight, I landed in London, got fast-tracked through customs, and made my way to Cambridge to Anil's. We attempted to keep me awake - had a nice walk down to the river Cam (which was almost overflowing - it's been cold and really rainy lately). Later, we went to see Pacific Rim 2 in the theater in the hopes that the action would keep me up (didn't work; I fell asleep in the middle, but enjoyed what I saw!)

Anil's first Easter Egg Hunt!

Sunday, April 1 (Easter)
This morning I woke up late and met Lizzie for brunch. Then Anil and I went to see our friend Tom for an Easter Egg Hunt with Tom's family. Tom's dad is the former Master of Christ's College and a famous mathematician - he's a Fellow of the Royal Society and Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He also lived in Palo Alto as a visiting prof, and spent time at UCLA, so I could actually keep up in conversation!

That's one of the things I love about hanging out in Cambridge - I always end up meeting the most interesting people!

Monday, April 2

Nice job, Hot Numbers - no plastics!

We left this morning from Cambridge for our week away - Me, Anil, Gemma, and her kids Zia and Benji. We first stopped off at Hot Numbers, the little neighborhood coffee shop that we always go to. According to Anil, the patrons asked if the shop would switch from plastic to paper, and the owners readily agreed! So their straws and utensils are all no longer plastic... gotta love them!

The thatched roof of The Fox

We drove out through the rain to the Cotswolds, where we stopped for lunch at The Fox, a cozy pub in a tiny village called Denchworth. In the Cotswolds you can find lots of thatched-roof buildings, and The Fox was one of them! Just as we parked, we heard a piercing screech... turns out there are several neighborhood peacocks that roam around the village.





After a leisurely lunch, we continued on through to Bristol. We didn't really know what there was to do, so Anil quickly got on Tripadvisor and decided on a new museum called Brunel's SS Great Britain. To get there, we navigated the tricky streets of Bristol - many of their roundabouts go back and forth over the River Avon - a strange and meandering way to get around. We finally made it to the museum, which was actually quite good - the SS Great Britain was the first iron steamer to have a screw propeller, and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic. It was the most technologically advanced ship for its time, and the restoration and museum were really interesting - they set up really interesting tableaus and gave a good glimpse of life in the 1800s.

The Dry Dock of the SS Great Britain

It was also interesting to see the ship in a dry-dock... the dock was originally built in the 1830s and still had original cobblestones. Plus, they made a glass-ceilinged roof that made it appear as though the ship was in the water, and we felt like we were underwater.  All in all, a surprisingly interesting find! And Bristol was an interesting town - reminded us a lot of Inverness, with colorful building reminiscent of beachside cottages.

Bristol, along the banks of the River Avon

Tonight, we're in an AirBnB in Bath - will tour around the town tomorrow!


Tuesday, April 3
Today was chock full of Bath museums...!

New King Street, Bath
down the street from the Herschel Museum of Astronomy

The Roman Baths

We started the day going to the Roman Baths - a large hot-springs complex built around a temple (originally Celtic, for the goddess Sulis) and built up by the Romans for the goddess Minerva. The temple was built around 60-70AD, but fell into disrepair when the Romans withdrew from Britain in the 5th century. Visiting the baths isn't just seeing the large main pool - there are lots of ruins and artifacts that they've found through the years, and the complex has multiple sections and smaller pools as well.

Bath Abbey

After a quick takeaway lunch of burgers, we went to Bath Abbey - the large church in the square by the Roman Baths. It would have taken too long to take the tour to the top, so we decided to leave (and possibly try again tomorrow) and we headed to the Postal Museum. This was a tiny museum under the Bath post office, with information about the history of the British Postal System and samples of the Penny Black - the world's first postage stamp - issued in May of 1840.

With Mr. Darcy at the Jane Austen Center

From there we went to the Jane Austen Center, where we learned about the author and her time living in Bath. She was influenced by her stay here and many of her novels have characters that either visit or were from the area. Upstairs in the center is a Victorian Tea Shoppe, where we had a proper cream tea with scones and clotted cream - yum!







Finally, we went to the William Herschel Museum - an unexpected small museum the we all loved. Herschel and his sister Caroline lived in Bath, and in their backyard is where he discovered Uranus! What we didn't know what that Caroline had never married and spent her time as her brother's assistant, but was a noted astronomer in her own right. Also, Wm was an accomplished musician before being paid off by King George III, who gave him 200 pounds a year to focus on astronomy. He made several reflecting telescopes, he discovered infrared radiation, and figured out that coral is not a plant. Cool guy, and a museum that was out of this world (haha)!!

Wednesday, April 4
Left Bath this morning and headed out in the rain to Wookey Hole, an amusement park-like crazy attraction near Wells in Somerset. Wookey Hole is built up around a limestone cave system, where the skeleton of a woman was found in 1912 near a 'crystal ball' (actually a limestone ball, but that doesn't sound as witchy).

Cave-aged cheddar in Wookey Hole Cave

Legend has it that a monk chased the witch deep into the caves, then splashed her with holy water which turned her into stone. (Which really doesn't make sense if there were also bones attributed to her. huh.) But the place is a crazy amalgam that just can't decide what it is. There are a bajillion themes and attractions going on - a witch cave, dinosaur village, a paper mill, a circus, pirate themed golf, fairy garden, mirror maze, and on...

Wells Cathedral

From Wookey Hole, we went to Wells - known as England's Smallest City. It did have a small-town feel, but also features a huge cathedral in the center of town. Built between 1175 and 1490, it has one of the world's oldest medieval clock faces. It also had a cool circular chapter house, whose inside looks a lot like a palm tree.

The steps up to the chapter house - so
well-worn that the stones are grooved

We then walked across the street to see the Wells and Mendip Museum, where we saw the remains of the Witch of Wookey Hole. They also had an interesting WWI exhibit.

The area where we're staying is green green green!

We then decided to head to the AirBnB, by Milton Clevedon between the villages of Evercreech and Bruton in Somerset. It took a while to find - we're in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, but it's beautiful and the surrounding area is like a postcard. Definitely what you think of when you think of the English countryside! Had a lovely dinner of fajitas made on the Aga, then relaxed before bed.

Our country farmhouse

The kitchen, with a Rayburn (Aga-like)
stove. That means it's always on, and it
heats the whole house!

Thursday, April 5

The view out our kitchen window

Woke up this morning to a beautifully sunny day. The AirBnB provided us with eggs, bread, and bacon, so we head a hearty country breakfast before starting out for the day.






We made our way to Cheddar Gorge, a limestone gorge carved from glacial meltwater during the ice age. We climbed up the 274 steps of Jacob's Ladder on the west end of the gorge, and hiked up towards the east along the top. There were beautiful views of the surrounding countryside, all the way to Weston-super-Mare (the Bristol Channel). It was a gorge-eous (haha) day, and we hiked up to the far end of the gorge before coming back down for lunch.

Since we were in Cheddar, I had to have a Cheddar plowman's lunch, quickly followed by a cream tea. Double yum.

The lane outside our farmhouse

When we got back to the farmhouse, I had enough time to go on a walk around the area to see some of the fields and hedgerows.

We also went down to the pond, where Anil, Benji, and Zia took out the little rowboat.


We're now having difficulty making dinner - apparently, an Aga shares heat with the rest of the house and it's actually really difficult to boil water... and we're trying to make pasta. The stove won't get hot enough, so it won't cook. So now I know what the problem is with an Aga... many people actually have both the Aga and a traditional cookstove. Imagine how big your kitchen would have to be to have that!

Sunset in the countryside

Friday, April 6
Ahh, the country life. It means you can't actually cook anything in the morning because the Aga automatically turns off, and you have no clue how to turn it back on again... and even if you did, it takes min 30 minutes to heat up. So after a hearty breakfast of microwave porridge (which was actually really good), we drove out to Stonehenge (listening to the Hamilton soundtrack along the way, in preparation).

Stonehenge is so strange because it is literally in the middle of an empty field, next to a pretty major road. It's also smaller than I expected, but nicely laid out so that you can circumnavigate it and get close enough to get photos, but stay far enough away that people won't mess it up (as you know people are likely to do). I thought I'd feel more of a spiritual connection or some kind of reverence, but there are so many people and it is so bustling that it was just something to gawk at and a place to take a few photos. We did spend a little time in the museum, and I learned something about neolithic peoples (like how they were lactose intolerant so they ate yogurt and cheese that was low lactose).

Westminster Abbey

Like the rest of the world, Big Ben
is under scaffolding

The London Eye

From there we drove to the outskirts of London, where Gemma dropped Anil and I off in Egham so that we could catch a train to Vauxhall. Made it to the Grange Rochester and relaxed a bit, then walked through Westminster (past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and across the Westminster Bridge by the London Eye) to get to the Westminster IMAX. We watched Ready Player One on the big screen in 3D, which was really good and definitely kept me awake!

Saturday, April 7
On my last full day in England, Anil and I wandered around and saw a bit of touristy London. In the morning, we decided to make a late start and sit in a coffee shop to work for a bit. I have a presentation for the CA State Assembly on Wednesday, and notes for my talk are supposed to be submitted ahead of time so I needed to get something in writing. We worked until around noon, then headed off to Chinatown for dim sum.

We took our time walking over, passing Buckingham Palace and St. James Park along the way.

After lunch, we took the tube to South Kensington, and went museum hopping. At first we wanted to go to the Natural History museum, but the line to get in was ridiculously long. Instead, we went across the street to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which surprisingly I'd never been to. Wandered around for a while, then went to the Science Museum. Spent most of our time in the Illuminating India exhibit, which showed many early photos of India during the revolution against the British. It was interesting to see some of the older pictures of places that I went to two years ago - some places looked exactly the same, and others were completely different.

We came home to shower and rest up before meeting up with KC and Gemma - then went to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see Hamilton. I was really wondering how the UK audience would take it - but everyone seemed to understand what was going on (several people were talking about reading up on Hamilton in preparation for the show), and apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda changed three lyrics for the London production - mainly to clarify things that American audiences would have understood but would have been confusing for the British. Otherwise, it was exactly the same, and it was just as well received here as it was in San Francisco.

After the show, we walked over to the Clarendon Cocktail Cellar for an after-theater drink, then took a cab home. Overall, a lovely night!

An idea germinates...

If you know me at all, you know I'm a fairly upbeat person. I'm generally in a good mood, and I try to stay positive. So about a year ago, I didn't know how to handle myself because I started getting really depressed.

I'm not going to get too much into politics, but let's just say that every week or so, something else would get me all upset. I got riled up about things that I never really paid attention to. For the first time in my life, I would spontaneously cry. Every day it was something new - a stupid wall, a ban on Muslims, an anti-education education secretary. It got to be too much. I stopped listening to NPR. I donated a ton of money to organizations like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the NRDC, the Trevor Project... causes all across the spectrum. Even though pretty much everyone I knew felt the same way, it didn't help to talk to anyone - we were just all depressed together. And the worst thing of all - I was starting to loose hope.

Then, in the spring of 2017, I went on my annual trip with my Cambridge friends. One night, I stayed up late talking to Anil, who was lamenting the state of the UK and their recent Brexit vote. And he gave me some really great advice. He told me that it was fine to care about all these different causes, but to keep from becoming overwhelmed, to think about that ONE THING that I was really passionate about, and what I should focus my attention on. From this, I could figure out what it was that I could actually DO to help out.

Something that really bothered me was the direction our country was going in regards to the environment. Having recently been to the Arctic, as well as to Glacier National Park, I saw first-hand the impact of climate change. And being a reasonably rational and intelligent human being, I know that humans can affect the environment - in both positive and negative ways. Yet the US pulled out of the Paris Accord, appointed a science-denying fossil fuel lover to head the EPA, and wants to shrink and take away protections from National Parks. I can't understand how people in power can ignore hard science. (That wa$ a lie - I know exa¢tly how.) But how can so many citizens think that's OK?

Then I started thinking. If citizens felt more connected to the environment - if they felt a sense of responsibility for and pride in their natural surroundings - then they would respect it and honor it they way that they should. And you know who already believes that? The US National Park Service. If we could just expose more people at a younger age, maybe they would grow up respecting nature, then ours will become a society with a culture of environmental responsibility.

While I wish it was a part of every family's tradition, I know it's not possible to expect every kid to get the opportunity to visit a National Park. Many of my kids, for example, are in isolation at the hospital and may never get a chance to experience nature. But maybe I could do something to help expose these underrepresented kids.

So an idea began to form, and I asked National Geographic for help. And last June, I got the notice - I was awarded an Early Career Grant for my project, "Virtual Field Trips." This coming summer, I'll be going on a 5-week long road trip with my classroom aide Dave and our LABScI grad student volunteer Julie. Depending on the response from the parks, we'll be going to 20+ sites - National Parks, Monuments, and Historic Sites - and writing lesson plans to help kids understand their importance. We'll be taking 360° photos, and hopefully the Anil's help from his Cambridge lab, we'll look further into not only VR, but AR experiences to mimic the experience of being in a park. I want to let kids who can't go to nature still have the opportunity to experience nature.

It's sad to think that National Parks are out of reach for so many Americans. Many are remote, but talking to National Geographic's Geo Bee director, I hear many kids from Fresno - Yosemite NP's backyard - never get the chance to go. And talk these days about raising the individual fees for some of the most visible parks will make the National Park experience only in reach for the wealthy elite.

We're still in the planning stages, and I don't really know yet what the end product will look like. Message me if you have any thoughts or ideas! I'm excited for this project and excited for the summer. I can't wait to expand my National Park Junior Ranger Badge collection. And most of all, I can't wait to share this experience with my students!

America the Beautiful... part II

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

I was really excited for the opportunity to spend time at Glacier, particularly given the dire predictions about climate change and the loss of actual glaciers inside the park. It was great not only getting to see one of the glaciers, but to learn about the science and culture of the park.

For the few weeks leading up to my visit, I was on pins and needles waiting for the Going-To-The-Sun Road to open. One of the great AND terrible things about Glacier is its inaccessibility - it is over 1 million acres of pristine wilderness, and there are very few ways to actually drive around the park. GttS Road is only open for around 4 months each year, and plowing the road in the spring is notoriously difficult. 

Jackson Glacier

My initial plan was to drive across the park from the St. Mary entrance to get to West Glacier (where the seminar was being held), but the day I arrived, about 37 miles of road was still closed.

Nevertheless, I set out from St. Mary's up the GttS Road as far as I could go. Because it led to a dead end, there weren't many people on that side of the park. I first drove straight to the end of the road, at the Jackson Glacier overlook. Jackson is the 7th largest of the 25 or so remaining glaciers in the park - and one of the only ones visible from a road. Over the past 50 year, it lost almost a third of its size, and scientists think that by the year 2030, all the glaciers in the park will disappear.

I made my way slowly back to St. Mary's, stopping first at Sunrift Gorge for a quick hike to Baring Falls, but I was edgy the whole time and quickly headed back. I'm not normally a nervous hiker, but I was by myself and without bear spray, and grizzlies are a very real threat in that area. In fact, for the few days before that, the very popular Avalanche Lake hike was closed because there were too many bears in the area.

See that tiny island with a few trees? That's Goose Island - famous for being the opening shot in The Shining...

St. Mary Lake

With my Pals, Jason and Britnee

I decided to make my way to West Glacier and pick up Britnee, another teacher who was sharing a hotel with me before our seminar started the next morning. On my way to pick her up, she ran into another teacher at the airport who asked to join us. As long as he was OK with cramming into my tiny Toyota Yaris, the more the merrier, I thought. And the Road Trip Trio was formed...

The lobby (and trophy heads) of Lake McDonald Lodge

Britnee (middle school science from North Carolina), Jason (outdoor educator from Wisconsin) and I decided to drive up the GttS route from the west side, as far as we could go. We stopped to see Apgar Village and listened to a ranger talk, had huckleberry ice cream, and visited the Lake McDonald Lodge before getting to the end of the road at the Avalanche Trailhead.

The color of the glacial melt in every body of water we saw was absolutely mesmerizing. The water is so incredibly clean and clear, and the rivers almost seem to glow with their practically neon turquoise color.

We had a nice dinner in Kalispell (tried the elk sausage - good!), and the next morning we checked into the Glacier Institute Field Campus to meet the rest of the teachers. The seminar was a great blend of science and culture, highlighting the Indian tribes that once thrived here (interestingly they call themselves 'Indians' rather than 'Native Americans,' like I had always been taught). The Blackfoot, Kootenai, Salish, and Pend d'Oreille tribes all still have a presence in the area, but sounds to me like they were basically cheated out of their lands and aren't able to use it for their traditional ways of life. We were lucky enough to meet with Blackfoot tribal members for a welcome blessing and to hear about their way of life as well as preservation initiatives.

We took a short hike with Helen, a member of the Blackfoot tribe and a professor at the local college, who told us about native plants. She took us to Running Eagle Falls, also known as "trick falls" because there are actually two waterfalls in the same place. When the water level is low, the falls only come from the lower opening, halfway up the cliff. If the water level is too high, the upper falls obscures the lower falls and it just looks like one big waterfall. We were lucky - the water level was just right, and we got to see them both.

Getting to do hands-on research was one of the highlights of the week. We helped with a huckleberry monitoring project using GPS to find specific plants, watched a plankton tow to check for invasive mussel species, and helped monitor and pull invasive plant species.

Into the field we go!

Before...

... and after!

Pulled weeds in my moose socks...

Plankton tow to check for zebra and quagga
mussel larvae in the waters below Lake McDonald.

Perhaps my favorite activity of the week was our hike to Avalanche Lake. The week before, this popular hike had closed for a few days due to heavy grizzly bear activity, so we were lucky that it was open on the day of our hike. And it was truly breathtaking.

Avalanche Gorge

At the start of the hike, we crossed a footbridge and got a look at Avalanche Gorge - a lush, fern and moss covered area with sparkling turquoise/teal water. No joke, the place had to be enchanted - I kept expecting fairies or gnomes to come popping out.

Dipped my feet in... holy cow was it
 cold! The lake is fed by Sperry Glacier.

At various stops along the hike, Laura gave us a great overview of the region's geology (from the precambrian stromatolites, to evidence of thrust faults, to hundreds of trees downed by avalanche, to glacial erratics). And then we reached Avalanche Lake. Unreal.

Throughout the week, I was amazed by the quantity and diversity of the wildflowers. They were all over the park, and there were so many different kinds, in so many different shapes and colors.  Even though we learned about how some were non-native invasive species, it was still beautiful seeing them!

They were all over the
trails!

The abundance of beargrass
was particularly impressive -
they don't normally get as much
as they did this year, but it was
EVERYWHERE.

I feel like there were so many times on the trip that we "got lucky" - with perfect timing for different hikes and activities. But by far the luckiest was the opening of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which finally opened the day before our workshop ended. So that night, right after dinner, we all took off to see the sights. Rather than going on the bigger shuttle, I went with Steph, Bethany, and Megan in Steph's car, so that we could get a better view. It was definitely worth it - the road has spectacular scenery, and we got to take our time and stop along the way.

At the summit of the mountain is Logan Pass - the Continental Divide, where one side of the mountain drains to the Pacific Ocean, and the other feeds into the Atlantic via the Gulf of Mexico. (Interestingly, I also saw Triple Divide Peak on the St. Mary side, where a watershed leading to the Arctic Ocean is also present.)











Going after dinner was also great timing, because it meant we got to watch the sunset through the pass. The colors were spectacular - and it really wasn't that scary driving in the dark!



On our final day of the workshop, we did some hands-on activities that we could bring to the classroom, such as creating glaciers and modeling soil erosion. We also had a talk on climate change and the loss of glaciers, and learned about the new methods of tracking glacial melt using satellite imagery.

The Groovy Glacier Group - a great group of amazing teachers!

A few of us were staying an extra day, so we took two cars back up GttS Road to try for a final hike. We made it to St. Mary Falls and Virginia Falls - and even saw some crazy kayakers plunge around 15 feet down into the water. A fun way to end a great hike... and a great week!