Influence

I've spent the last several minutes studying a picture on the July page of a calendar on my wall. It is a portrait of Town Lake in Austin, Texas with the night sky lit up by fireworks. The focal point is a statue of the great Stevie Ray Vaughn.The late virtuoso guitarist is universally known for reviving blues music in the 80's during a time when synth pop, hair bands, and punk rock dominated the air waves. He helped shine a light on his hero, Albert King, by displaying his music for a new generation of blues fans. In the same way that studying Eric Clapton turned me on to Robert Johnson, reading about SRV made me an Albert King fan. The picture is moving to me because it illustrates how cool and original Austin, Texas is. There are not very many statues that I've seen that really stick out in my mind, but I'll never forget the one of Stevie, in his trademark Mexican poncho and Josey Wales style cowboy hat, sitting on the waters' edge of town lake. Although I would not make the discovery until well after his death, Stevie had a lot of influence on one of my passions.

Before I started writing, I quickly took a glance at ESPN.com. I try to do this on a regular basis to keep up with news in the world of sports, but it ends up happening quite infrequently. I was stunned to see that George Steinbrenner had passed away. Here is another man who had great influence on another one of my passions. As an owner, I think most fans generally loved or hated Steinbrenner. But the one quality he commanded from pretty much everyone in baseball was respect. Like Stevie with the blues, George breathed life into an American pastime: the New York Yankees. But George succeeded where so many other owners have failed: in longevity. Whether or not you supported his brash methods, his overbearing attitude, or his perceived irrational decision making, you really can't deny his success over 37 seasons. I'm sure George will be missed in the yankees community.

My progress as a snowboarder came to a grinding halt last Tuesday. One of the skills I had been working on improving was riding straight. I had gotten pretty good at riding down the hill at an angle and making long sweeping turns. But when I reached the narrow sections at the end of the run I struggled to just ride straight ahead at a slower speed. At the same time I had gotten into the habit of taking two actions when I fell on my heel edge. The first was to roll my body a little bit so as to not fall straight onto my backside. By rolling or twisting a little on the way down, I could kind of hit the snow on my side, instead of my tail bone. The second was to stop putting my hands down to try to brace myself from falling. I've been told that the most common injury for novice snow boarders is broken wrists. It was ok to fall on my hands a few I weeks ago when I was riding cautiously slow and thus falling to the ground slowly as well. But last week I was riding with significantly increased speed, meaning the falls occur quicker and there is much more impact going through my hands and arms. These two subtle changes in my falling techniques would later come back to bite me in the butt. I took a nasty fall on Monday. With my twisting hands off maneuver I managed to land squarely on my left glute. Every ounce of energy I had achieved was transferred squarely into one small section of my body. After a few seconds of crucial pain, I got up and finished off a pretty good day. As luck would have it, I performed the exact same fall to the T, the very next day. I mean composed a mirror image of what I did Monday, on Tuesday. Once again, it hurt like hell, but I got up and rode out of there and went home feeling alright. That was 8 days ago. Currently, I have a bruise that covers the entire left side of my bum and a good portion of my left hamstring. I've never seen anything quite like it. This thing is massive and it's a shade of purple that deserves a new stick in the crayola box. I experienced severe hematoma in my leg after being pinned under a Mardi Gras float in 2003. This bruise makes my mardi gras leg look like a paper cut. When I went to see the physio the first thing she said was "Oh is that it right behind your knee cap where your leg bends?" I responded no as I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. She showed me a new bruise forming down the middle of my leg. She realized a few seconds later when I showed her the actual bruise that what she was looking at was drainage from the original. There is so much blood caught under the skin that it is actually flowing down my leg when I stand for a long periods of time and forming new bruises. Pretty good stuff. Anyway, no snow boarding for me until the swelling goes down. It's not the worst thing in the world. The New Zealand school holidays had the slopes overcrowded with people anyway.

To my delight some Americans opened a proper sandwich shop in Queenstown. Johnny Barr's probably would be considered mediocre in Texas or Louisiana, but in Queenstown it's a top notch hoagie joint. The pulled pork sandwich brought back fond memories of cooking Boston butt in my dutch oven back home. I had it served on a wheat baguette with coleslaw as the dressing. The defining characteristic of the sandwich was the BBQ sauce. The only BBQ sauce I have ever had in New Zealand is the same industrial slop we put on our BBQ pizza at Winnie's. It is the color of Hershey's chocolate syrup and is nearly as sweet. It bears no hint of smoke or hickory flavor. When I inquired about the origin of JB's bbq sauce I was informed that they make their own and the recipe was a secret. Whatever it is, it's legit and light years ahead of anything else available in Queenstown. For as long as I can remember, good submarine style sandwiches have been a staple of lunch for me. It's really nice to have a quality sand which option again.

And with that I think I've covered the most random topics I can think of and will sign off for now. Peace.

I see dead people

I should not be able to see my breath inside my house. If I'm outside, that's fine. If I'm inside my van just getting it started, OK. I should never see my breath in my bed when I wake up in the morning. But this is the situation I'm starting to find myself in. I'd like to think I look as cool as Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense.

It is a huge mystery to me why New Zealand contractors have built an entire country of residences without insulation and central heating. The only thing that I can speculate is that it saves the builders money during the development phase. But these savings are just translated into extra costs for homeowners whose power bills are absolutely outrageous due to the use of heat pumps and small (but inefficient) electric heaters. As I sit typing I'm running an electric heater in my closet in an attempt to get my clothes dry. I also continually toggle off and on a medium sized heater next to my desk to knock the chill out of my room. It's 28 degrees outside right now. During the day, it is colder inside of my house than it is outside. I've visited Chicago a few times and always really enjoyed my time in that city. I also got up to the Grand Junction area of Colorado two years ago and thoroughly enjoyed that trip as well. On both occasions I left those cold weather climates acknowledging that while I liked the locations I could never live in either one due to the brutal winters. I think if I make it through this winter I'll be completely open minded to trying a cold city in the states.

As it turns out, Voodoo, in all his glory, is not a good transport for getting me up to the ski slopes. I drove him up there a few times last week and made it to the parking lot just fine. But the first day that there was a hint of ice and grit on the roads he starting slipping and sliding all over the road well before I had reached the steepest sections. I had bought snow chains the week before, but I've never used them before and don't really have any desire too. They are not half as cool as they sound. Instead I opted to put the chains up for sale in the weekly bulletin and buy a season bus pass instead. This allows me to listen to music and sleep while being transported to the mountain instead of worrying about my icy road driving skills. It also gives me motivation to get up early and catch the first bus up the hill. And today I did just that. Being first on the mountain was quite an amazing experience. The cloud cover was low today and sun was coming up slowly. With hardly anyone around so early I rode the chairlift up alone. The peace and quiet really allowed me to take in the beautiful mountain views. Then I rode down freshly groomed snow without worry of colliding with 12 year old ski school students. It was great...while it lasted. By 11 a.m. I had been knocked down by two skiers and taken out a few of my own. By noon the place was a complete cluster and hardly worth dealing with anymore. On several runs I had to abandon whatever I was practicing and just focus on not hitting people. But I continue to make small improvements from day to day and continue to have a blast. I also continue to take some vicious falls but I think I have even started to fall better than I used to. All the traffic on the beginner slope has motivated me to progress to the next level where I can ride a little bit more freely. So over the next few days I'll be getting on a longer trail lift and heading up to a blue level run. Yikes!
Here's some pics I took on the lift and one of a snow covered Voodoo from last week. Don't be scared of the mustache. It's only temporary amusement.

Compare and Contrast

I haven't seen much of the world cup. I watched about 15 minutes total last Saturday night in a crowded bar in Dunedin. The sound was off and replaced by a three piece cover band who was actually not half bad. I'd probably be lying if I said I was giving the match 50% of my attention. I had every intention of trying to follow the world cup, until I realized the logistics of it. The matches that I would be interested in watching air at either 2:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. here. We don't have the cable service to watch them at home so it's not as simple as just watching them in bed, or on the dvr. I can't even get the highlights at home. This means I'd have to be fully dressed, functional and in a bar in town to watch these games, more than likely spending a lot of money in the process, not to mention losing a ton of sleep. I'm just not that big of a soccer fan to make all of that worth while. I find it very difficult to get excited about soccer. I definitely appreciate the athleticism, but it's not enough to hold my attention for any significant length of time.

I kind of felt the same way during a rugby match I attended last Saturday night. About a month or two ago, I learned from friends that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team would be playing an exhibition match against Wales in Dunedin. This was thrilling news as Dunedin is about three and half hours from Queenstown and by far the closest city to me that the All Blacks would ever be travelling to. Attending an All Blacks match is generally on every traveller's "NZ to do list", including mine, so I immediately bought tickets and tagged onto my friends trip plans. The match was to be of special importance as it was to be the last rugby competition held in Carisbrook Stadium. The stadium is set to be demolished (or closed I really can't remember) in favor of a new modern indoor stadium.

The drive to Dunedin was not as scenic as my previous excursions through the south island. Upon arriving I quickly found that 4 lane highways, billboards, traffic lights, and buildings over three stories tall had become completely foreign to me. Dunedin is a true city and I realized that it was the first one I've visited in over six months. My appreciation for Queenstown's small size grew. After rounding up the crew, having dinner and pre-game drinks we made our way to the stadium. While locating the correct gates, I noticed that not many fans were sporting their teams' paraphanelia. It was difficult to distinguish between NZ fans, Wales fans, and casual spectators. This is usually not the case back in the US. Merchandising allows every article of clothing we adorn to bear the logo of our favorite team and most avid sports fans take advantage of this. (I still think LSU crocs on full grown men looks pretty ridiculous) We hurried to our seats in time to catch both the Welsh national anthem, the New Zealand national anthem and the Haka. In one of my first posts to this blog I posted a youtube link showing a Haka. It was exhilirating to see live. It really sucks for the other team to have to just stand there and stare as the All Blacks do a taunting dance right in front of them. They don't really get a chance to answer the battle cry.

With all the pre-game festivities in the books, the match began. I watched intently. I've picked up some basic rugby knowledge and terminology and I can follow what is going on. I quickly realized that I was having trouble paying attention to the action on the field. I was talking to my dutch friend Roos on my right. I was talking to a stranger on my left. I was watching the strange looking ginger security volunteer who stared eerily into the crowd with his back to the field, oblivious to the athletic competition going on only a few feet behind him. I watched the wave circle the stadium. I found myself focusing on everything but the game. This frustrated me as I truly wanted to enjoy the experience and get excited about what was happening. I began to compare what I was watching to an american football game, specifically a Saturday night game in Tiger Stadium. Here's what I came up with in no particular order:

• Music and Huge Screens- Obviously these teams were not travelling with full marching bands, but the stadium also did not play any kind of music. I realized that the music played in a stadium sets up a rhythym for the game. Certain songs and tunes are synonymous with results from play on the field. Also, jumbo screens give instant replays for effect and also can be used to energize the stadium with "Get Loud" and "On your feet" messages. This element of stadium interaction was completely lost at the rugby match.
• Cheers - No organized cheering!!! This is the best part of being a football fan. I know I've been to a great game when I leave with my throat starting to get a little sore and my voice getting raspy from all the yelling I've done. There was nothing of the sort going on at this match. Probably because there was no cheer leaders to get the crowd going.
• The Clock - The clock counts up......To 90 MINUTES!!! I couldn't really get a sense of urgency with 85 minutes left to play. No play clock, no quarters, no timeouts. There was never an intense moment in the match where somthing needed to happen quickly. Clock management in football really contributes to the excitement I feel when watching the game. Once again, this doesn't translate into rugby and for me, it made the game seem extremely long.

These were just a few of the obvious differences between rugby and football that I committed to memory. I don't want to downplay the athleticism I witnessed on the field. The rugby players are extreme physical specimens and definitely in tip top shapes. They are superior athletes who showed great speed, agility and physical strength. I think rubgy is more like a moving wrestling match than an American football game. A guy at work once implied to me that rugby players were tougher than American football players because they don't wear pads. This could not be further from the truth. The rugby players generally don't hit each other from more than 6-8 yards away. They follow a ball and have an open view of most anyone who is going to make contact with them. There is no equivalent in rugby for a 230 pound linebacker plowing into standing quarterback with the momentum of a 20 yard sprint. Basically, i believe there are a lot more football players out there who could cut it at the professional rugby level. But I seriously doubt there are many pro rugby stars out there that could transfer into the NFL.

In the end I had a great night at Carisbrook Stadium and New Zealand really stomped Wales. I think the final score was 42-9. I'll keep trying to find ways to be a more enthusiastic rugby fan, but I don't think it will ever hold my attention the way the pig skin does......

My invitation to the cult

There's never any shortage of irony in my life. This makes reflecting on my past quite an amusing activity. On Tuesday I got up early and put on a layer of thermals followed by pants and jacket, both heavy duty and waterproof. I drove up to the Coronet Peak Ski field and laced up the most ridiculous pair of footwear I've ever owned. A pair of completely white Burton Snowboarding boots, US sized 14. They are massive and look like something Missy Elliot might have worn in one of her late 90's music videos. I strapped these monstrosities into bindings on a snowboard and awkwardly boarded a chair lift. To my astonishment I successfully exited this chair lift without falling down and began making my way down the beginner's run, also known as "the big easy". I wouldn't say that what I was doing was actually snowboarding, but there was definitely snow, and a board involved. I haven't had as many bruises as I do now since I played football in middle school. After my tailbone and knees could take no more torture I headed back home to squeeze in a quick 3 mile run before going to work.

It was on my to work that I smiled a little bit about the irony of morning. 5 years ago if I would have viewed my recently completed activities with a fair amount of disdain. For as long as I can remember I've been an uncomfortably cold person. I might find it chilly in a well air conditioned room where most other people were indifferent to the temperature. On a breezy day where most of my friends wore a long sleeve t-shirt, I'd be sporting a mid-weight jacket. Naturally, I've never thought to highly of snow. Other than a few freak appearances of snow in Baton Rouge in the last 25 years, I have absolutely no relationship with snow. It's fairly obvious what I thought about snowboarding back then. An activity that is generally considered dangerous that I would have to travel to a cold snowy place to participate in was about as appealing to me as flying to the moon. The idea of me snowboarding was ridiculous. I thought even less of running. Back then, I thought running was incredibly boring and painful. How could people enjoy running? The concept was beyond the scope of my imagination. I think my imagination has grown exponentially in the last five years.

So why not include snowboarding on my list of new activities? Well there's tons of reasons why not to snowboard, but I couldn't resist accepting my invitation to the cult. Snowboarding, or skiing, in Queenstown, has a following like I have never witnessed before. I think I might know roughly 40 to 50 people in Queenstown if I include loose acquaintances. Of those people I know 3 people who aren't snowboarding or skiing this season. Everybody is doing this. And they aren't just doing it, they are absolutely strung out high on it. The mountain talk dominates all conversations I partake in. My buddies at work are pretty much certified meteorologists. They can tell you the weather predictions to a T for up to a week in advance. People plan their entire days and weeks around getting "up the hill". A once coveted opening shift at work is now absolutely dreaded by most who much rather be riding all day and working at night. The energy that people exhibit when talking about snowboarding is undeniably strong....and it's infectious. After a couple of extremely rough days and a change in board and bindings I was jumping on the bandwagon with the rest of the cult. I don't know all the terminology yet and I definitely don't think I'm on my way to being a sick boarder, but I'm having a blast playing along. My first day was brutal. I can say with a heap of certainty that snowboarding is absolutely nothing like wake boarding. Have both immobilized is extremely scary and I spent most of my first couple of days building up a little speed, getting scared, and promptly falling on my butt. Some snow is soft, but most snow is pretty unforgiving to fall in. However, I've continued to make improvements, however small they might be, from day to day. And most importantly, I'm laughing and having fun. I'm sure that I'm pretty funny to watch, so I'm also entertaining others.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a great weather day on the mountain and I can't wait to see what kind of bruises and I can get after in the morning......

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?

Let's start with the short circuits first this time. Don't ever go into Queenstown Barber, or qt barber as the modern font on the trendy looking sign displays on 62 Shotover street. I've been to this place three or four times before just to get my hair cleaned up and had found a stylist who I was very happy with. When I arrived yesterday afternoon my usual red headed hair cutter was no where to be found and I ended up with a young blonde. While she was pleasant and friendly she absolutely BUTCHERED my hair. I explained to her, as I've explained to every hair dresser/stylist/barber for the past four years that I'm letting my hair grow. That all I need is a very small trim, about a half inch in the back and even less than that in the front. That my hair is very deceptive and that when its dry it curls up and is not nearly as long as it looks when it's wet. That my real purpose for being there is not get a noticeable hair cut, but to get the areas around my neck and ears cleaned up. She in turn took all this information, threw it out the window and promptly cut destroyed about 8 months of my hair life. Yesterday morning I could put my hair in a pony tail and then measure about 3 inches from the rubberband. This afternoon I can't even get all of my hair into pony tail. It's a monumental screw up. It would be like someone asking me for a small cheese pizza and me producing a large thai chicken with extra anchovies. And to add insult to injury I had to pay 27 New Zealand dollars for this debauchery. I feel violated.

I'd like to think that I'm fairly knowledgable about films but apparently I let a very good flick slip under my radar back in 2008. I've recently received a 1 terabyte external hard drive from home and had several friends load it up with movies, music and South Park and Family Guy Episodes. The other night I laid down planning to watch about 10 minutes of a movie before going to sleep. Not finding anything that immediately grabbed my attention, I chose the first movie in the folder that I had not seen: Bigger Stronger Faster*. My 10 minutes passed and I knew I wasn't going to sleep anytime soon as I was wide awake and in tune. The movie is a documentary by Chris Bell intertwines his life story with the anabolic steroids phenomenon in the United States. If you haven't seen it, you need to go rent this movie tonight. I'm not going to fire up a big steroid conversation because that could take ages but I do like one of the more powerful questions the movie invokes: When congress called in the baseball players to answer questions about steroid use, why did they not ask Govenor Arnold, an admitted former steroid user, to come answer some questions as well? And as far as Barry's concerned, I don't really care what you think about him but people should recognize that with or without steroids, Barry Bonds is one of the greatest baseball players to ever lace up a pair of spikes. PERIOD.

Take me to see the voodoo queen, let her put a spell on me

I'm a natural born procrastinator. In fact, if you asked me to name one thing that I think I could do better than anyone else I know, I would have to go with procrastinating (although I'm pretty sure I can out eat just about everyone I know). Most self proclaimed procrastinators actually just never do the things they say they are going to do. I get my tasks done....EVENTUALLY, and usually after it's too late or the task has become irrelevant anyway. I keep the proverbial "to-do list". Everytime I cross an item off, I add five more. So this morning I decided to pick some tasks that I could complete by the end of the day. So I went through my list and scribbled down 6 activities that I would attempt to get done in no particular order:

• Taxes
• Insurance Claim
• 5 mile run
• tattoo
• spreadsheet for mom and dad
• blog post

And to my delight, by the time you read this, I will have crossed out all six items. The taxes aren't exactly complete, but I reached a stopping point and have to wait until America wakes up to try to find a 1099-R form (FUUUN!). 5 mile run got done with ease. I ran 16 yesterday, my longest run to date. I'll run 8.5 tomorrow to bring me up to 40 miles total for this week. Next week I will start to taper off my mileage and basically try to stay loose and rest up for the big race. I mailed an insurance claim to my travel insurance agency that I should have mailed in mid-February. Got the spreadsheet completed and sent to mom and dad and I'm working on the blog post now. And I got a tattoo. I'm the last of the Romero children to get inked, but that's alright because my tattoo is better than any of my siblings. And if you want to know where or what I got tattooed, then you'll just have to bring your ass to New Zealand and find out.

Before the Mt. Cook road trip there was another. The destination? Wanaka. Wanaka is commonly described as Queenstown's little brother or sister. It is eerily similar to Queenstown, only smaller and more tranquil. Wanaka, unlike Queenstown, pretty much shuts down after the sun sets. If Queenstown's nightlife is the main strip in Vegas, then Wanaka is Bingo Night at the 1st Presbyterian Recreational Hall. But that's not important, because that is not what me and Ben headed down to Wanaka for. Ben, from Scotland, is another proud employee of Winnie's kitchen. We made the hour long journey to Wanaka from Queenstown looking for the Big Nige Canyon.

Canyoning is one of those warm weather activities that I got really anxious to partake in again when the weather started to change here. I had also heard good things about Wanaka and a trip down there was on my to do list. The canyoning in Wanaka was rumored to be a little bit more intense than the Queenstown area. So we asked the boss to let us off on the same days, threw our bikes in Voodoo and headed down. The Big Nige canyon lived up to it's reputation, and it's hefty price. From the deep canyon website:

"With spectacular views out to the alpine scenery, it is particularly beautiful and hugely enjoyable. It features exciting abseils in strong water flows. The situations are dramatic and the abseils often take you into and behind spectacular waterfalls – visually sensational and very dynamic. Big Nige is a longer day – be prepared for around four hours of continuous descent (and the walk up the hill takes 40 minutes). As we descend we link into Niger Stream with its many jumps and slides – so you get in a lot of everything…
Group sizes are small and personal (max of four in a group). This trip is for people who want a bigger day of hands-on action and enormous amounts of fun….

As with all my New Zealand excursions, we got lucky. We had a small group, just Ben, myself and two others. We also had a great guide, Richard, who was an accomplished canyoner, mountaineer and climber. I'm always taken aback when I meet people like Richard. The
y are absolutely crazy. They take huge risks that could end in unfathomable injuries or even death, and yet they are the most down to earth people you will ever encounter. Luckily, Youtube was onsite to capture a few of my finer moments in the canyon, including the worst summersault in the history of summersaults. And I'm wearing a pink helmet, to add insult to injury.












We made it back to Wanaka in time to get checked into a hostel and hit the bike trails for a couple of hours. We learned just how quickly Wanaka shuts down when went out for dinner around 10:30 and found only two options available. We were the last customers to be served at the thai takeout joint we chose and they weren't happy about our arrival. Later we met an American at the only bar that stayed open past 11. The guy was wearing the exact same STS9 t-shirt that I picked up at ACL last fall and happened to be one of only six t-shirts I brought to New Zealand. Small world. The three of us completed the Rob Roy Glacier walk the next day right outside of Wanaka. I never would have guessed that frozen pieces of snow and ice would be so dazzling to look at. I've been fascinated with the handful of glaciers I've seen here and I still haven't seen the big ones (Fox and Frans Joseph) yet. I enjoyed my time in Wanaka and hope to get back there soon. There's a lot to explore there and apparently they have a really nice ski field as well.

Easter came and went without much fan fare from me. I opened on Easter Sunday and I think I worked a solid 10 or 11 hours that day. I tried not to think about the crawfish boils my family and friends were indulging in. But I did get a fabulous easter egg from my fabulous roommate Melissa.

Homemade and personlized, this egg was composed of chocolate over pink marshmellow and it was magnificent. The larda chefs at Winnie's are now all properly trained to bring me every bowl of icing, whipped cream, butterscotch, caramel and of course chocolate before they take it to the dishwasher. Between them and Melissa's steady stream of cakes, cupcakes and afgans; my chocolate addiction never goes long without being addressed. It's a good thing I'm running 40 miles a week.

Short Circuits

• Let's go back to the Easter weekend for a second  to have a look at what I think is a strange regulation in New Zealand. Good Friday and Easter MONDAY are public holidays, or days in lieu, in New Zealand. This means they are simliar to federal holidays in the states: kids are out of school, government offices are closed and on and on. Here's the interesting part: the New Zealand goverment says that if you are open on a public holiday, you have to pay your employees time and a half on that day. This creates a tricky situation for the food service industry. They respond by imposing a 20% surcharge on their customers. So if on Good Friday you take your kids to church and then want to go have some pizza at Winnie's afterwards, you'll pay 20% more than if you did the same thing on Holy Thursday. The restaraunts are up in arms about having to pay their people time and a half. Most of them are trying to get through those days on skeleton crews to keep costs down. The customers are up in arms about the surcharges all over town. It's more money for me, so I'm happy about it, but every public holiday stirs up this huge debate and argument about that regulation.
• A fellow Baton Rougean has arrived in the Queenstown area. Emily took a job in close-by Arrowtown and just happened to be travelling with lots of grits which she was willing to share with me. I enjoyed a delicious breakfast of grits and eggs the other day. Still haven't figured out how to describe them.....
• If I hear "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn one more time, I'm going to cut my ears off with the pizza knife.

I got that green light baby, I got to keep movin on

I tallied up some interesting figures a few weeks ago while sending an email to my sister. From that email: "I just did a mental count and the bedroom that I'm sitting in now is the 8th room that I have called mine since 2005. Those eight rooms have spanned 2 countries, 2 states, 4 cities, 2 apartment complexes, 4 houses, and 9 roomates." I've never considered myself a restless person, but the stats don't lie.

Mt. Cook

Last Wednesday night, Nate and I loaded Voodoo down with camping gear and food and started our journey towards north towards Mt. Cook. It was late when we left, after 10:00 if I remember correctly. With the knowledge that neither of us are "morning people" or particulary speedy at getting packed and moving, we decided to drive to Mt. Cook through the night so that we'd wake up there and be ready to rock and roll in the morning. I quite like driving at night. I spent a lot of time on Interstate 10 between Austin in New Orleans and everywhere in between over the past few years. I always found that highway to be easier to traverse at night. Having both spent the past few months working night jobs, there was no way we were going to get to sleep before 12:30 anyway. However, we realized along the way that we were missing all the scenic views of approaching Mt. Cook in the day light. We shrugged this small loss off and tried to slip quietly into our bunks at the hostel without waking up the six sleeping travellers in the room. We were out of the hostel and in the DOC office by 10:30 the next morning.

The DOC agent booked our beds in the Mueller Hut for a hefty $35 per person. She then advised us that the 1000 meter climb to the hut was alpine walk (above the tree line) and we should be prepared for snow, rain or both. She suggested waterproof boots, gaiters, and trekking poles. This caused a little uneasiness as I looked down at my worn out New Balance trail runners. We stopped into the local outfitters and rented gaiters. This provided a little bit of reassurance until I saw the 65 plus year old couple that had booked right before us heading out on the trail. They were decked out in full blown mountaineering gear: beanies, boots, poles, and packs about half the size of ours. I questioned whether I had the proper hardware to get this job done. We stopped back by Voodoo, filled the camelbaks up, layered up and chucked our overloaded packs on.

I've had startling good luck when it comes to weather and long walks and this day would be no different. The sun was shining bright and there was nice drafty breeze kept the mountain air swirling about us. We walked on a flat graded trail for about 15 minutes before we started climbing. At the this point our path ceased to be a guided trail and became a route. A trail is simple and easy. You are either on it or you aren't. Routes are a little bit more complex. A route is a series of markers, usually orange in color. There is a somewhat obvious path between each marker, but it's basically up to you to get from one to another. Routes are more technical. The rocks are bigger and there is some hand climbing involved. We quickly realized when we moved from the trail to the route that we misguided the warming power of all of our layers. Once I took my mid-layer shirt off I was surprised to find I was perfectly comfortable in a base layer thermal and a snow jacket shell....as long as I kept moving. When we stopped at the top with all the snow and wind it didn't matter how many layers I had on I was eventually going to get cold.

We encountered a quirky little hiking group on the way up consisting of two guys, a Russian and a German, and an Israeli girl. We continued walking with them for most of the way up. I eventually got seperated from the group as we encountered more snow. I became very conservative with my footing and I guess this really slowed me down as everyone else appeared to be confidently stepping through the snow covered rocks. At one point I became truly concerned that my shoes wouldn't hold up against the terrain. But a few minutes later I watched a guy walk down the steepest the stretch of snow on the walk and was overjoyed to see him wearing a pair of nikes. He smiled at my shoes and assured me that if I could keep them from getting too wet I would be alright. This was encouraging, but slowed me down even more as I began to obsessively avoid any sign of water.

We made it to the hut right at 3 hours and 45 minutes, about 15 minutes over the suggested time. The hut sits on a plateau (I think) surrounded by mountains. This plateau was covered in snow as pictured below.

Most of the pictures leading up to the snowy ones are either looking behind us into the Mt. Cook Valley where we started, or they are views of Mt. Sefton, which is due east of the hut if I'm not mistaken. We were the second group of many to follow that were arriving at the hut, which sleeps 28 and must have been near capacity that night. I found that the hut provided a perfect mix of simple comforts while still maintaining a very rugged feel. It is constructed completely of wood and contains no sort of mechanical heating or cooling system. Large windows are found on all walls to allow sunlight to warm up the hut during the day. At night the hut serves as nothing more than a shield from the wind. However we had no problems sleeping as there were about a dozen of us in a space no larger than a small garage. That's a lot of warm bodies to draw heat from. There is neither running water in the hut, nor power outlets. But there are sinks, gas burners and water tanks outside. There is ample lighting that runs off of some sort of battery system. I did not to think to ask about this, but there were definitely no generators running. Everything is on a timer in order to prevent overuse. The gas lines are on a 30 minute timer and the lights were on about an hour cycle. There are no bathrooms inside the hut, but an outhouse about 40 ft. away whose path was quite tricky to navigate once it got dark.

We checked in with Rod, the hut warden. Rod is a kiwi who works in Australia as a paramedic. He is part of a volunteer program that keeps the Mueller Hut manned 24 hours a day. He arrived at the hut, carrying all of his own gear and food and a few supplies for the hut last Sunday. His service calls for him to stay up there for a full week. It's a quite a committment when you think about it. From a very strategic location outside the hut he can get a cell phone signal and he also has a radio that he talks to the DOC with twice a day. Other than that, no communication with the outside world for a week. Rod turned out to be a really interesting character and later provided us with some dried onions for our pasta.

Throughout the afternoon we were awarded several great views of Mt. Cook as the clouds played peek-a-boo with the faces seemingly carved into the snow. Everytime the clouds lifted away from the mountain the entire hut would run outside with their cameras to take pictures. Rod claimed that it was the best weather day he had seen all week. Nate stayed close to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of a falling avalanche, which are common. We ate better than most of our fellow hut travellers that night. They were carrying the basics: dried noodles and powdered sauces. Not us. We realized that one of the reasons our packs had been so heavy during the day was due to the amount of food we were carrying which included a pound and a half of ground meat, pasta, hummus, peanut butter, jelly, sliced bread, pita bread, a roll of salami, trail mix, banannas and about a dozen Nature's Valley bars. We also brought our own frying pan and pot. The hut has no waste disposal system. It's pack in, pack out so even though we ate most of what we brought up there, we had all the rubbish to deal with as well.

Two Americans arrived later in the afternoon and taught us an interesting new card game called Yannif. They had learned it from some Israeli soldiers. Apparently the game is immensely popular in the Israeli army, where it originated. It's a pretty simple play and discard game but moves much faster than gin rummy or 31, which we play quite frequently. So after a 500 point game of Yannif in which we polished off Nate's flask full of scotch it was time for bed. I slept well in the hut, being the last one to rise out of his sleeping bag.

We enjoyed breakfast and an intense game of scrabble with our hiking friends from the previous day, before setting out to descend down the mountain. We took our time going down, snapping plenty of pictures along the way. We left the Mt. Cook Village smiling with content at a great road trip.