Random Acts of Whimsy

Around 4:00 today, it was absolutely down-pouring. Thunder and lightening off in the distance, close enough to make an impact; absolute summer thunderstorm, the kind I loved watching from the porch as a kid. I was at the office, not-working. I'd been working earlier, of course, but had hit that afternoon slump where your brain doesn't really feel like functioning anymore, so you either need to do something mindlessly productive, get coffee, or give up. I looked out the window, and watched the rain for a while, laughed with officemates about this and that, and idly wondered how bad it really was outside.

I work on the 13th floor on a 14 floor building. The astronomy and physics building. We have a dome on the roof and multiple telescopes - all the grad students know where the keys are for the roof, and are free to get them at anytime in case they fancy a bout of star-gazing. So I thought... I could check this out. I could just stick my head out, see what it's like out there. So I got up, went upstairs, and grabbed the keys. Went to the roof. Took off my sandals, rolled up my jean legs a bit, and walked outside. It was POURING. I could tell immediately if I stood outside too long, I'd be absolutely drenched, and I'd be dripping over the office. Or....

I rushed back to my office, packed up my things, and ran home through the pouring rain to drop off my computer, my bag, and everything except my keys.

Two blocks away from where I live is Morningside Park - a lovely place for a run, full of pathways through and around big boulders, trees, and stretches of grass and plants. And there I went, tromping through the rain, laughing and yelling out at the thunder and counting the seconds between lightning and thunder. No one was around - the rain was hard enough that anyone who wasn't already out was staying in, I think. As the rain died down and the storm moved further away, I climbed onto one of the large granite boulders which are scattered around the park, and just sat there/lay on my back for a while. I got some strange looks when people did start walking through the park again, when the rain had stopped, but I was quite content on my boulder - I've always loved mucking about with rocks. I used to have a rock collection, even. Technically, I still do, since it's still sitting in my bedroom in my parents house in Baltimore - I never got rid of it, packrat that I am.

Sitting in the rain is something I haven't done in ages. Not counting 'getting caught in the rain' here - though even including that its been a while for that type of downpour. The last time I specifically remember deliberately going out in the pouring rain... might actually be on my gap year, five years ago. I'm sure - I hope - I've done it since then, just no specific instances springing to mind at this moment, as I write. When I graduated from undergrad, I knew (had known since high school, in fact) I was taking a full year off to travel, to work, to volunteer, and, most importantly, to HIKE. I spent three months hiking on the Appalachian Trail (a 2000+ mile trail spanning Georgia to Maine) - I hiked from Georgia to the half-way point in Pennsylvania, stopping there in preparation for my trip to Japan in July. It was a wonderful trip, and a wonderful year in general, and I'll have to expand on it in another blog entry at some point. But it was an extremely RAINY spring the year I went - when I went through later, I figured out that I saw rain approximately one third of the days I was hiking. Some of those days, just a sprinkle, of course. But other days I was absolutely drenched. Hopefully usually only ME - I kept my gear drier than I was, generally, and my REAL criteria for being drenched was getting my socks soaked through - which only happened three times (yes I counted) throughout those three months. 

The worst rain I remember hit one afternoon in... early June? Late May? I'd have to look it up, I kept a journal almost obsessively on a day to day basis. Late afternoon. I was hiking with Hellbender (a friend on the trail, everyone had trail names) that day, and it just CAME DOWN, a three mile hike from the shelter we'd been intending to stay. After a while I stopped, told him to go on to the shelter, I was just going to camp where I was and catch up tomorrow, since it was getting late. I'd camped on my own before, that wasn't a worry. But it Just. Kept. Raining. And the place I had chosen didn't exactly have a camp site available, and despite the numerous vegetation, was actually a lot more rocky than it appeared. I couldn't get my tent up. My tarp was doing nothing against the rain, my tent stakes wouldn't stay in the ground (my tent wasn't entirely freestanding, for all that it was light and for all that I loved it). And I was getting more and more wet by the minute, until I finally gave up, threw everything back together and buckled it to the outside of my pack (too wet to go back inside without getting the REST of my gear wet) and grimly set back onto the trail towards the shelter. It was dark by the time I got there, the shelter itself was packed, and most people were in their bags, sleeping. But Hellbender had saved me a spot and waited up for me, as he realized that the rain was not letting up. I met a lot of good people that year, and made good friends. When I got off the trail after three months, most other people kept hiking on to do a complete thru-hike. So the last time I remember deliberately going out in the pouring rain was about a month after I got off trail - I went outside and stood there for a while and missed the trail and my 'fellowship.' I should do things like that more often.. randomly going outside in the rain, or dancing around my apartment singing to my favorite album, or even just going downtown someplace and trying a new restaurant on my own, for fun. Life is better with a bit of whimsy.

Travelogue: A Week of Cape Town Tourism

More snippets!

SALT/Sutherland tour: The after conference tour was an outing to the site of SALT and other telescopes, in the Sutherlands, a few hours north. Such an AMAZING view of the sky, I don't remember the last time I had a sky that nice - there was no moon out (always a bonus) and although the clouds had been hovering about all day, they disappeared as night fell. Plus, we were at a telescope, near no towns, and with all local lights off, so there was pretty much minimal light pollution. So I was able to identify the LMC, SMC, Milky Way, Southern Cross Orion (Upside down), the Pleiades (again, oriented the wrong way round), a satellite, and a lightning storm way to the North. Plus, honestly just enjoyed laying on my back on the ground staring up for a while. The telescope tour was also pretty cool, got to see the giant mirrors and domes moving about.

Peninsula tour: I purchased an all day bus tour to see the peninsula - it seemed like a good idea, as the only way to get down there is by tour bus or car rental, and I'm NOT ready to rent a car for myself for a day, and drive on the wrong side of the road. This was much simpler. So we went to Hout Bay, and took a boat ride to a small island where seals flock; then we went to a beach where there are African penguins galore (including, I might add, a few babies, and I happened to chance on a mother lying on an egg, which I was happily able to photograph - AWESOMELY ADORABLE!). This was followed by a drive down the coast, and at one point, we got out and were issued bikes and helmets, and so biked a few kilometers to our lunchen spot. After that, we hit the Cape of Good Hope, where we were able to hike out and about the point, a nice little walk. Throughout, the helpful guide gave background about the area, of course. A nice day indeed.

Climbing Table Mountain:  Of course, I had to hike up the picturesque mountain that provides a backdrop to Cape Town - Table Mountain. I got an early start, arriving at the mountain by 9:30 (Hey, I'm no early bird, that's PLENTY early, considering the bus ride there....). I was a bit paranoid about water (it being a particularly hot day) and thus brought 1.5 liters with me - but realized as I climbed I forgot to bring a snack. However, it didn't take me the trip up the mountain to realize I had more water than was strictly necessary to get to the top, and when another girl (hiking with friends) revealed she was running QUITE low on water, I was happy to offer her some of mine. Which we turned into a trade as she gave me a Cliff Bar she didn't need. But she was so grateful for the water, she bought me a bottle at the top as well - which was unnecessary, but nice of her - I offered my excess water outright with NO offer of trade initially - not having water on a hike like that can be killer. Anyway, at the top I bought a piece of pizza, and ice cream for lunch, then hiked down the back of Table to the botanical gardens on the other side. I also discovered that the way down was a bit more challenging on the way up. It was a more difficult hike in general, and rocky and steep enough that I had to tread quite carefully to prevent slippage. But beautiful. And it ended in the botanical gardens, which I hung around for an additional hour or so until my bus was scheduled to arrive. Very nice, though not as fully in bloom as it might be in other parts of the year.

Sunset: After climbing the mountain, the day ended with a bus tour, up Signal Hill, to watch a lovely sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. I admit, it was odd watching the sun set over the Atlantic... that's supposed to be where it RISES! The bus tour also gave commentary about the area - I was particularly amused by two factoids: first, that they were recently delighted when a pair of black eagles returned to nest in the area. Second, a fact stated much later in the tour, was that, alas, the population of a certain rabbit-like (?) creature (small and fuzzy, anyway) has recently been in decline - this is suspected to be due to recent fires, and the return of their natural predator, the black eagle, to the area. You win some, you lose some, I guess!

Round about the City: Whenever you travel, there must be time for some souvenir shopping - little markets abound in this city. Admittedly, most of the souvenirs look the same where-ever you go. But I was able to pick up a few nice items for myself and others. Most notably, and I hope that it gets back to the States in once piece, I got myself an ostrich egg, carved carefully so that you can use it as a lamp, of sorts (if you get a small tea light or similar), with a simple design of a giraffe with the moon and stars upon it. Quite pretty, and very neat, I thought. I also discovered in the harbor (or rather, had been recommended) a food market, with lots of samples, where I had lunch. The rest of the day, I simply wandered around - I had a bus tour pass (I'd gotten a 2-day one, which entitled me to the sunset tour, the busses to and from Table mountain, and a few other tours) which I took around the city, trying to absorb history and local info with - and ended up by the bay in a lovely sea food restaurant where I had a delicious seafood platter for dinner. Yum! By that time, it was too cool to lay on the beach, but I had a table with an ocean view, which was plenty for me at that point.

Safari: On my last day based in Cape Town, I decided to try and actually see some wildlife. While I saw penguins and some ostriches on my peninsula tour, those AREN'T the animals one thinks of, as much, when you think of Africa. So I booked a tour to a local game reserve (well, 2 hours away, but they provide transport), where they give different sorts of animals a lot of space to run around in. Not a fully free park type area - the lions, for example, are in a separate (large) enclosure and are NOT fed live prey - but sufficiently large that they can't guarantee you see any particular animal - we didn't see the leopards, for example (which do feed on the springbok running wild), as they were up in the hills somewhere and tend to stay away from the jeeps in which people take tours. However, I did see 2 elephants, many zebras, ostriches, rhinos, water buffello, wildebeests, springbok, eland (a type of antelope), lions (in the separate enclosure), and waaaaaay off in the distance, a giraffe one could barely make out. We also stopped by the animal rescue center they hosted, where we saw some encaged animals which they were trying to rehabilitate before releasing - a leopard, two cheetah, three lions, and some decidedly non-local crocodiles that a local farmer had been keeping as pets, before they grew too big. The leopard, for example, had been rescued from a cage hunting factory - people raised big cats so that people could 'hunt' them, after tranq'ing the cats and putting them behind bars (hardly sporting). They're going to release him on the game reserve as soon as he gets a little more used to people (and doesn't actively go after them, as he was NOT treated well), to mate with the two females they already have. A really interesting experience overall, and the animals were all gorgeous and super cool.