What We've Been Up To -- December 2005

The last change to this page was dated a year ago -- it's time for the holiday newsletter! Details of our Antarctica trip are still available by request, but this account starts with our vacation in May. . .

Last Spring

Our second big trip of the year, on the pretext of acquiring continuing education credits, was a European cruise, starting in London and with a few extra days in Venice for us. Cannes is pictured here, just before the film festival. For those with fast internet connections, Alex's 18mb PowerPoint slide show is available by following this link.

Summer

At the end of August, a long-anticipated hiking trip, starting with a few days in the Tetons and then a camping trip to the Wind River mountains.
	We stayed a night at the lodge at Big Sandy Opening, then accompanied some of their horses up to Donald Lake, where they left us off for a few clear, chilly nights. That's Alex at left with our friend Roger (and the beautiful Cheyenne and plucky Chief).
Below is a panorama from the summit of the little unamed 11,000-foot peak across the lake from our camp -- click for a much larger image.

Our New House

These days we spend most of our time thinking about our planned new house near Loreto, Mexico, and here is a page with a couple of sketches and some third-party information about the project.

We note with sadness the passing of Markie the Fish, a/k/a Markie Marisco, f/k/a Market Price, faithful guardian of our lily pads. Until his death this September, Washington was the only Western state without a confirmed case of West Nile Virus, a fact we attribute to Markie's appetite for mosquito larvae. At the time of his death he had attained the age of three and a half years, and a length of nineteen centimeters.

Our favorite pair of crows is still with us though, and one of their two babies has stayed with them since last spring, giving them an advantage over their rivals from up the street. We anticipate a noisy new year.