Antarctica Blog

This was one of the best days on the bike. The road winds down the coast of the Gulf of Argolis and then turns inland and narrows. I found myself saying many times on this trip that I was glad to be on a motorcycle and not in a car. There are so many roads that are virtually impassible because of their narrowness. On a motorcycle, when you meet a car coming in the other direction, you can just barely squeeze by. In a car you have to back up until you find a spot where you can both pass. The road from Leonidio to Geraki is one of those roads. It winds up and over a range of sandstone mountains, the likes of which I have never seen outside the US Southwest. In Geraki we passed the Belgians who had gotten the camper stuck trying to get though the town narrow streets.

After lunching in the courtyard of a chapel on some memorable Greek salami and cheese with a herd of sheep nearby, we continued to Monemvasia. Monemvasia, another WHS, means “one entry” in Greek. It is built on the side of a large rock mesa at the end of a peninsula formed by an earthquake around 300ad. Two sides of the town are walled by rock, another by the sea, and on the fourth is a gate with a single entry. Possession of the town has flip-flopped between occupying forces and the Greeks and is now being restored and re-inhabited. We drove right up to the gate and spent the afternoon walking around and having a frappe (iced coffee) before setting up camp. The campsite was really nice with clean, new facilities. The Belgians were there, too. After dinner I was feeling energized so we went back into Monemvasia to get some night pictures before turning in. There was a wind that night and I had a fitful night of sleep (I think the frappe had something to do with it).

Free Day! I have become preoccupied with the possibility of getting a flat. If we are inland on some dirt road and get a flat it would be very difficult to deal with especially considering we don’t have a center-stand on the bike to prop the wheels off the ground. So, first thing in the morning we went in search of a fix-a-flat device. We were lucky and found one on the first attempt. We took advantage of Modern Corinth’s shops to stock up on our food supply before heading south.

Once we were all squared away we began our free day with Ancient Corinth. Though the surviving monuments are mostly Roman it was still impressive; of particular note are the temple and the baths. Next we took the bike (and ourselves) up the hill to Akrokorinthos, a medieval fort overlooking ancient and modern Corinth. Its inaccessibility is imposing. We would like to have been able to explore more of it but we had to hit the road if we wanted to make it Mycenae before closing at 3pm.

By the time we got there I was getting tired and bored stiff of ancient sites. We got in free, took a picture of the Lion Gate, walked around and got out before they kicked us out. Then, we pointed our front tire south and rode to Astros where we camped at an expensive site with an attack goose and a mean dog that made noise all night.

From Mycenae we skipped down to Tiryns; an older contemporary of Mycenae. Its massive fortifications are indicative of the state of politics at the time. From there, we drove down to Nafplio, a nice little port with an amazing Venetian fort on the hill over looking the town. Of all the historic sites we visited, the Venetian ones were always my favorite.

After lunch overlooking Nafplio, we rode to Epidavros, one of the highlights of ancient Greece. The road sides on the drive there were littered with ruins from Ancient Mycenae: a bridge here, a storehouse there. Really amazing! The centerpiece of Epidavros (a ceremonial center and Hellenic health spa) is its amphitheatre. The site was occupied under the Romans at a later date and it was they who built the upper levels of the theater. Even today the acoustics are quite astounding and concerts are still held at the site on a regular basis. We ended our day with a winding ride high above the Saronic Gulf to the Corinthian Canal which effectively makes the Peloponnesus an Island. We did some laundry and camped for the night.

We started the day not too sure of our plans. After studying the map, we realized we could make it to Mycenae (a World Heritage site) that afternoon if we went a different way. This different way took us high up into the forest flanking Mt. Helmos, one of Greece’s highest mountains. It also took us on dirt roads for the first time. Great fun! And I only NEARLY dropped the bike.

After descending the other side of the Helmos pass we found ourselves in the Nemea Valley. Those of you who know your mythology know that one of Hercules’ 12 tasks was to capture a lion that once terrorized this valley. Today it is one of Greece’s premier wine producing areas and wine is for sale all long the roads here. We found that some of the best Greek wines are sold in plastic 1.5 lt bottles similar to spring-water bottles. From Nemea to Mycenae I tried to take a shortcut which, by the time we found the right way, took much longer than if we had just gone the right way. One of the most difficult things about driving in Greece for non-Graecophones is that road signs fly past before you can even speculate as to what they say. This is why and how we drove in circles looking for Mycenae. Eventually, we found the campsite near the dig and set up camp.

We met a retired Belgian couple there who we kept running into the rest of our trip. I don’t know if it was due to the season but it seemed like almost all the other tourists on the Peloponnesus were over the age of 65, in campers, and usually German.

In this part of the Greece (Akadia and Aecia) there is a large concentration of very old Archeological sites. Most of them are classical or pre-classical making them roughly 3000 years old. I am not going to go in depth about the history as that is Luci’s forte. We arrived too late in the day to see the site a Mycenae but rode up to the gate to see the entry fee and opening times. We discovered that in two days entry to all Greece’s Archeological sites would be free. Back at the campsite we found out from the Belgians (who had already been to all the sites) that Mycenae was the most expensive. So we made a plan to go see more inexpensive sites the next day and hit the expensive ones when they would be free. It would all make a nice loop and save us some Drachma in the process.

Our first day of really touring Greece on the moto. After spending a good part of the morning getting out of the City limits, we decided to turn around when it began to rain. We had no interest in getting soaked on our first day so we checked back in at the same hotel. Of course, after an hour the sun was out and looked like it was going to stick around. We decided to try the unthinkable; ask for a refund at the hotel and try again to get out of town. By some stroke of luck we were successful and were soon on our way. We got on the “highway” which was very odd indeed. It was the only one lane highway I have ever seen! And it was a toll road! When a fast car comes flying down the single lane (often), the slower car just pulls over into the breakdown lane to let it by. I could only deal with a few miles of this and got off at the first exit.

This road took us down the tranquil shores of the Gulf of Corinth. We thought of taking the rack and pinion rail road from Diakofto up into the mountains to Kalavrita where the Greek war for independence began. To get to the campground you had to cross a foot deep stream so we decided to just continue driving. We spent our first night camping on the beach at Akratas a little farther down the road with the idea of driving up to the town the next day.

Here begins a day by day account of our trip to Greece:

Day 1: Luke’s 30th birthday! We spent my first day of “being old” (as Luci kindly puts it) riding from Milan to Verona. We had a beautiful day on the secondary road that pass by the southern bank of Garda Lake. In Verona, we walked around the city seeing the sights like Juliette’s Balcony and the Roman Arena. We went for dinner for my birthday and ate Filet and Veneto’s most revered contribution to viticulture; Amarone.

Day 2: Having enjoyed the secondary road to Verona so much, we decided to do the same to Venice where we were to catch the ferry to Greece. It was ugly. After about 2 hours in traffic and construction we realized we were going to miss our ferry. So we jumped on the highway and I tested the upper limits of what our bike was capable of. We made it to Venice in time to set up camp in a nice spot on deck where we could see San Marco as we passed
with the ferry. We had a beautiful Adriatic sunset from the deck of the ship before turning it.

Day 3: Woke up on the deck of the ship after a surprisingly sound night of sleep to an over-priced breakfast. It was very surprising to find that aside from the crew, a couple of Greek truckers, and two Italians most of the passengers were German. The ship made its scheduled stops at Corfu and Igoumenitsa before finally letting us off at Patra at about 7pm. We had the foresight to reserve a hotel before we left Italy. There was some sort of Greek superstar wedding and there was mad traffic, people honking their horns, and booked hotels and restaurants. Patras is the biggest city on the Peloponnesus. Nothing pretty to look at, but lively. We were planning on making a big loop and taking the midnight ferry back to Italy, so we left seeing the city sights until our return.

Busy week getting the bike (and ourselves) ready for our trip to Greece. On Saturday we took at trial run today south of Milan to the foothills of the Apennines. We loaded the side boxes with tent and cooking kit and with some personal gear just to see how it handles. Beautifully, I might add. The bike is a Honda XL600v V-twin engine. I just fitted it with a 12V ciga-plug for charging camera and phone batteries. I am equipped to run our little tiny Sony laptop with our Nokia Cell phone for internet connection but I don’t think I am going to bring it with this time because we’ll only be going a couple of weeks, not long enough to miss it. Plus, it would just be another thing to worry about.

I have been putting together a tool kit. I have been doing my best to compromise between variety and maximization of space but ultimately I ended up packing more than I probably need. This week I changed the air filter. It was obvious that the last person to check/change it kind of bungled the replacement. I also changed the oil and filter and cleaned and gapped the spark plugs. This model has a model-specific spark plug key that we had to have special ordered because the trans-Alp tool kit that comes with it new didn’t come with it used. Being my first motorcycle and being used to working on cars, I found it strange to see that this two-cylinder has 4 spark plugs. I am not sure that is a normal thing. Luci helped me flush the brake system and find a place to get rid of the old fluids.

We go to Luci’s parents mechanic for our mechanical favors. Her mother says they over charge her so we don’t feel bad asking them for help from time to time. I have to say, they have saved us more then once. Most recently with the motorcycle. One of the side bags was missing a piece of the mounting hardware which is no longer available from the company that no longer exists. We knew we were going to have to have it made to order and spent a week looking for a machinist. Ultimately we went to the mechanic who hooked us up with his personal machinist. Plus, he took our old fluids.

All in all a very sound machine as far as I can tell. Sounds tip top aside from a slightly irregular idle when it is cold, which I attribute to either the carbs being a little out of synch or the valves out of adjustment or both. There is also a little bit of brown varnish oozing round the front carb that bothered me at first but after tightening a mounting screw it seems to have stopped.

Tomorrow, we drive to Venice and hop on the ferry for the 31hr trip to the Peloponnesus area of Greece. A deviation from our original plan of going to Sardinia but the Aegean beckons (plus Greece is cheaper than Italy). As some of you are avid bikers, any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

As promised, here is a story about motorcycles and sailboats.

Busy week here in Milan. Luci and I did our medical and dental exams which involved running all around the city to different offices getting signatures and talking health. Luckily we found a doctor who speaks English so we didn’t have to translate all the paperwork given to us by Raytheon.

To add water to our bureaucratic swimming pool, we bought a Motorcycle. It is a 1991 Honda TransAlp XL600V. We have been talking about getting one for years but never had the time to go through the process; and believe me it is a process. We are really spoiled in the states when it comes to changing the ownership of a vehicle. In Italy, to first make up a contract between the buyer and seller agreeing on a price. Then you make an appointment at the driving school to transfer the ownership. Both parties must fax a copy of their identity card and social security card to the office of the driving school. Then both parties meet at the driving school and wait in line to see a registrar to have another contract registered. The change of ownership costs differ from school to school so it is best to shop around. We got a good price at about $250. And to think, all we have to do is scribble a couple of lines on a piece of paper.

Anyway, we have a motorcycle now. It is fun. A little less maneuverable in city traffic than Luci’s mother’s Aprilia Havana 50cc that we were using before but it is much more comfortable on the cobble stoned streets of Milan’s old city. We were originally planning on taking it on a camping trip to Sardinia and southern Italy but I think we have decided to take the ferry from Venice to Greece where the weather is more favorable this time of year. We plan to leave when we get our work stuff for next year sorted out.

In the meantime, we organized a little sailing trip for Luci’s parents and us for the weekend on the largest lake in Italy, Lago di Garda. We got us a Beneteau 212 for 2 nights and 2 days on the lake. A little boat, it is prefect for lake cruising though a boat a couple of feet longer would a been a little more comfortable. On Friday afternoon, after Luci and I got our PPDs checked and the Pandolfis got out of work we left for the lake; them in the Fiat and I on my new bike. The plan was to get the boat in the afternoon and spend the first night at the marina.

In the morning I awoke with a slight headache from the grappa at dinner the night before and from Renato’s thunderous snoring. After breakfast we were ready to get underway. There wasn’t much wind so we motored for an hour or so until the wind picked up. Then we sailed up the lake with moderate winds, past a sailboat race, to the town of Malcesine. A nice little town on the Veneto side of the lake with beautiful castle and a friendly town center; or so it seemed. Because we didn’t want a repeat of the morning headaches we laid off the grappa after dinner and turned in relatively early. We bought ear plugs to help us sleep.

At about 3:30 in the morning I heard what I thought was Ida going to the bathroom. When I rolled over and saw that she was still in her berth I knew immediately what the noise was: someone stealing our outboard! Luci was awake at this point and agreed with my summation. Knowing that something had to be done, I got up and stuck my head out of the curtain that hung over the hatch. There was a rather tall lanky skinhead messing around with the clamps on the motor. I yelled something at him, surprising the shit out of him, and he briefly looked from me to the motor as if he was trying to decide whether he could get the motor off and run before I got to him.

The next thing I knew I was falling to the floor of the boat after taking a blow to the head from another thief on the deck above me. By now everyone in the boat was awake and they all screamed in unison and ran out onto the deck. The thieves had run off and the motor was still there. Renato stood watch until it got light and then got a couple more hours of sleep in and I woke up with a headache in the morning.

Despite the strange events of the night before everyone was in a pretty good mood in the morning. We had favorable winds so we made the best of it and got underway as soon as we had had breakfast. We sailed along the cliff side which makes up the NW bank of the lake and watched the second day of the sailing race. We really had a great day sailing and I got the Pandolfis involved in the sailing with Renato at the helm and Ida at the sheets.

We got back to the Marina by mid afternoon and I took the back roads back to Milan. The end of an odd weekend, indeed.

This is the first new post I have put up in a while (with the exception of the one from the 4th of April which I wrote then but posted today) on account of computer problems, interior decorating, and parental visitations.

We had a short and eventful 5 days in Maine. A junction in our season, it was filled with a lot of packing and unpacking. We had a mountain of mail and boxes from the past 6 months. The largest of which we sent from McMurdo. The funny thing is that the bulk of them we repacked in another box to send back to Antarctica in the fall. The second bulkiest of the mail was from Raytheon. Mostly benefits junk but we also had all our paperwork for next season. We expect to have some news of next season’s work tomorrow so I am not going to get into it in this posting. I will mention that we found an “American Medical Center” here in Milan where we can do our medical exams which is a great relief for us. Otherwise we would have been faced with a mountain of translations.

For the weekend that we were in Maine, my mother had organized a party with all my brothers and their families, so we were pressed to get all our packing/unpacking done before then. I successfully rebuilt the battery pack on my little Sony computer with cells I ordered from Malaysia when I was at McMurdo. I also began to experience the first symptoms of a breakdown of windows on my Dell. Since, amongst the piles of boxes I also had a new hard drive from the Sony I put of further mucking about with computers until I got back to Italy.

When my brothers arrived we were all put to work chopping and stacking wood, raking leaves and getting the yard and house ready for the summer. We had a great time together. I went out and made a potato gun to celebrate spring with. There was a strange absence of auto repairs at this gathering with the exception of one flat tire change.

On Sunday Luci and I returned to Italy and were welcomed with rain and an extra room in the Pandolfi apartment. The winter, the neighbor lady moved out and Luci’s parents bought her apartment and had a door put in between them. They then proceeded to clean out and redecorate the walls and bathroom. When we arrived we were faced with another stack of boxes. This time of furniture from Ikea waiting to be assembled. With my Parents scheduled to arrive in under a week, we had our work cut out for us. In fact we barely got around to unpacking our bags by the time they arrived.

For Christmas we got my parents tickets to come visit us for a week. It was my father’s first time to Europe and my mother’s first time out of the country. They were also greeted with rain and a half empty room smelling of pine wood furniture fresh out of the box. After they had a few hours to settle in and a massive Italian meal, we took them straight out to see the sights. We went into the city to see the Castello Svorzesco and see a mass at the Duomo. They got to witness the nomination of a new pope while they were here in Italy.

On Monday we took them to Venice. We got really lucky with the weather because it was sunny the whole time. I think they were really blown away (as to be expected by such an amazing place). We drove from Milan to Mestre on the Veneto coast and parked and rode a bus to Piazza Roma, the only place where cars are allowed on the island of Venice. We walked across the main island; over the Ponte Rialto to Saint Mark’s Basilica. From there we bought our 24hr Vaporetto (water bus) tickets and crossed the lagoon to our hotel on the island of Lido. It was a really elegant place right across the street from the vaporetto stop.

In the afternoon, we took the boat up to Burano; an island in the lagoon that is know for their lace works. Then we walked around the streets of Murano (known for its blown glass. We had dinner in the Canereggio borough of Venice and took an evening cruise down the Canal Grande back to our hotel. The next morning we took the boat back to Murano to see a glass blowing demonstration and then spent the rest of the day either riding the boats or walking the narrow streets of Venice. When we saw the dark clouds arriving from the west late in the afternoon we took it as a sign to start heading back to Milan.

On Wednesday, Luci and I had arranged a viewing of Leonardo Davinci’s “Last Supper” at the church of Santa Maria della Grazie in the center of Milan. We took the opportunity to see some more of the downtown and, miraculously, the rain held off. My mother was particularly impressed when we went up onto the roof of the Cathedral to see the thousands of statues that decorate it up close. We then hopped on a trolley car and rode down to the Canals where we ate at the best pizzeria in Milan. After viewing the ”Last Supper” we did some shopping for teaching aids for my mother’s international cuisine section of her home economics curriculum (amongst other things).

On Thursday, we drove west to Valle d’Aosta to the valley where our Hut is. Because the season is still very early and the trail is a challenge even when it is not covered with snow, we did not go up. Instead, we ate large typical lunch at a friend’s hotel at the trailhead. After lunch, we drove through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Chamonix, France. In Chamonix we walked around the shops and in the morning went took the gondola up the Brevent for the amazing view of the Mont Blanc Massif. Instead of driving straight back to Milan, we decided to return via Switzerland and the Passo Sempione. We ate a massive lunch of fondue which lasted us the rest of the day.

On Saturday we remained nearby in Lombardia. Luci’s parents took us out to eat at a restaurant over looking the Adda River where we amused ourselves watching a wedding reception in the neighboring dining room. Before leaving my parents stocked up on Italian foods to bring back with them (we had to lend them another bag). This morning they left early. They should be arriving back in Boston right about now; exhausted, no doubt, after a tiring but refreshing vacation.

Coming up next time…Luke and Luci tackle Antarctic red tape and shop for a motorcycle for their next great adventure(s).

The end of our stop in Colorado is rapidly approaching. We had an amazing week in Summit County. We couldn’t have asked for better weather and conditions. I took Wednesday off from the slopes; did some shopping and relaxed around the Condo. It was snowing pretty hard and was supposed to taper off on Thursday.

On Thursday I went to Vail. They were reporting 4 inches of new snow overnight. When I got to the Back Bowls, it was evident that there was far more than 4 inches. I rode up on the lift with a ski patroller and over heard a conversation on her radio. Someone from the base was asking for a more accurate measurement of snow depth. The patroller replied that there was more like 13” while the person at the base lamented “mis-advertising” the mountain’s conditions. I heard more than one person say that it was quite possibly the best day of the season. It was easily the best one I have had in a while. There remained, throughout the day, a thin veil of clouds that kept the temperatures low and the snow light. Which made for superb riding.

On Friday I convinced Luci that the conditions were going to be just the way she liked them; sunny, warm and soft. We went together to Keystone and had a great day together on the slopes. It was really perfect.

On Saturday we went together to Breckenridge and I hiked up peak 9 and got fresh runs on the Whale’s Tail amongst other things. Luci stayed in the valley and explored the town. By the end of the day I was exhausted from 5 days of open to close riding.

Back in Boulder we took a quick trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park and basked in the hospitality of our gracious hosts, Amy and Eric. Tomorrow we end our return trip from Antarctica to Maine and after a brief 5 days at home we leave again.