Anyway, Survivor has featured a couple hundred contestants over the years, most of whom we’d never recognize if we passed on the street. There are, however, perhaps two who, if we ever saw, we would actually want to meet and say hello to. It was therefore quite a nice coincidence that we did in fact spot one of these two — Yau-Man Chan — at the Amazing Meeting 7 in July. So, here’ s the obligatory photographic proof:

Carol immediately went into menu-planning mode and crafted a tapas presentation that would not resemble standard band food. With superb prep assistance from our friend Julie, they crafted a spread that pretty much blew everyone away. Here are just a few of the shots from the evening; more detailed food pictures will be appearing on Carol’s blog in a few weeks.

 

Two black-and-white underwater shots of dancers in dynamic motion — by a photographer who goes by “gmark” — and a color photo, “Underwater Dancer” by David Peterman, may be the best things here.

Full article here.

My friend Stuart recently pointed me to an article posted on Coilhouse about musician Zoë Keating. The topic of the article was about NPR allegedly using a sniplet of Zoë’s music during their programming, but without asking her permission or attributing proper credit to her. The general tone is that this was a bad thing, something not many would disagree with.

But the reason Stuart forwarded the link to me was because the article contains a photo I took of Zoë at a performance in Seattle in December. It is, I must say, a lovely photo and I’m very flattered that they selected to use it. What’s funny, though, is that, well… they never asked my permission to use it. Yes, they did give me very clear and prominent credit, but the fact that no one checked with me beforehand, combined with the subject of the article, makes for a rather funny occurrence.

If anyone from Coilhouse stumbles across this, please know that you have my full retroactive permission to use that image in your article. And thanks for the chuckle.

(Disclaimer: I can think of one scenario that may have unfolded that would let Coilhouse completely off the hook for this. Shortly after the concert in December, I emailed Zoë a few of my pictures and I’m pretty sure this was one of them. It’s entirely possible she supplied that image to Coilhouse to use in the article, in which case I can see how they would feel free to run with it without any further checking. Maybe this happened, maybe not. Either way it’s still funny.)

(A quick word for those who don’t know what the Goofy Challenge is all about: The Disney World Marathon Weekend in Orlando has a few events, but the most notable are the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday. If you sign up to run both of them back-to-back, that’s called the Goofy Challenge.)

Signing Up

Registration for next year’s Goofy Challenge opens immediately after this year’s event, and fills up fairly quickly. The result is you need to commit to this thing almost a full year in advance, which is probably good as it gives you ample time to plan your training strategy.

When you register, pay very close attention to what you are doing! You need to specifically sign up for the Goofy Challenge; if you sign up individually for the half and the full, you will not be entered as a Goofy runner.

Training

Our normal running schedule is to run Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, with a long run on Saturday. To prepare for Goofy, we wanted to add a longer than normal run prior to the Saturday run so we could get our legs used to the idea of logging double-digit miles on consecutive days. Starting in late summer, we shifted things around to running our regular runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then adding a 10-miler on Friday before the regular Saturday long run. The first couple weeks were a bit tough, but we quickly started seeing significant benefit from the Friday run and it undoubtedly played a big role in helping us finish Goofy in a decent time.

Speaking of time, we certainly did not shoot for any PRs during this weekend. Our plan was to do the half about 30 minutes slower than normal and the full about 45 minutes slower. If, however, I had been trying for a PR, I would have gone out even easier on the half and saved (almost) everything for the full.

Trip Planning

Both the half and full marathons start at 5:50 a.m., with hotel shuttle buses begining at 3:00 a.m. If you’re from the west coast – like us – you might want to consider getting to Orlando a couple days ahead of time to acclimate a bit to the eastern time zone. We flew in on Wednesday, which helped quite a bit. By Friday we were able to get to sleep at a nice early time to be ready for the early start time.

Lodging

You will likely be staying at one of the many Disney World hotels, but choose carefully. I would strongly recommend staying at the Port Orleans Riverside or French Quarter, or the Old Key West. Why? How does an extra 90 minutes of sleep sound?!

Officially, you are supposed to catch one of the marathon buses from your hotel to the start area. That’s all well and good, but doing so means you could end up standing around in the chilly night area for up to two hours after they drop you off in the Epcot parking lot. We stayed at the French Quarter, and both mornings we took a quick five minute walk to the start area. No Disney employee (whoops, cast member) will acknowledge that you can do this, but they also won’t prevent you from doing so. We would get up at 4:30, get dressed and have our pre-race snacks, then leave at about 5:10. That would give us plenty of time to find our corral and take care of any last-minute stretching.

One caveat: There are no sidewalks on the roads between the hotels and the start area so you will be walking on the shoulders of a busy road for a few minutes. Stay off to the side and you’re be fine. Also, approaching from the east like this can make it a bit difficult to get to the official corral entry gates. You’ll either have to jump the barricade (not that I would ever suggest you do such a thing) or walk south until you can enter with the rest of the crowd.

The Races

Generally speaking, we don’t like large races (large being anything more than a couple thousand people). These, however, were so well run and supported that the crowds really didn’t cause us any major concerns. There are a few points where it got a bit tight as everyone compressed down to single-lane roads, but it was rare for us to feel pinned in and unable to maintain our pace (unlike, for example, New York and Chicago).

There are a lot of water stations along the route… almost too many. In fact, we were skipping every other one towards the end. If you’re the type to carry your own water during races, you might want to rethink that for these races; they have plenty, and you can enjoy not having that unnecessary pound or two of water strapped to your waist.

We found ourselves getting a bit bored during the first part of the full marathon, then realized it was because much of it was on the same route as the half the day before. Once we exited the Magic Kingdom, however, we were on new roads with new sights and things picked up a bit.

The Medals

Let’s face it, the real reason for doing the Goofy Challenge is for the hardware. As you probably know, you come away with three medals: one each for the half and full, then one more for completing the Challenge. They’re big and clunky far from attractive, but maybe that’s why we go through all this to get them.

Baltra

(August 10 & 17) Baltra Island is the starting — and ending — point of Galapagos journeys, as that’s where the airstrip happens to be. The Galapagos Islands are 621 miles off the coast of Ecuador which was about a 2 ½ hour flight from Quito. After landing on a runway that seems to be almost the length of the entire island, it’s a short bus ride to the dock where you hop in a Zodiac and make your way out to the ship. Half of the images in this small gallery were taken during our arrival, the rest when we were leaving.

Three of the naturalist guides with our group grew up in the islands and when asked about the impact tourism has had on the islands over the years, Juan Carlos said it looks just like he remembers it as a child. There are just as many birds and animals as there have always been. The extensive conservation and research taking place in the Galapagos is largely funded by tourism. This poignant quote was painted on the wall of a museum we visited.

“Until recently the future of humans depended on the islands. Today, the future of the islands depends on humans.”
                                     – Centro de Interpretacion, San Cristobal Island

 

North Seymour

(August 10) Our first stop was at North Seymour Island, which provides an immediate immersion into some of the most famous wildlife settings in the Galapagos: Blue-footed Boobies, Frigates, iguanas and sea lions, oh my!

North Seymour is a very small island formed from tectonic uplifts, so it is flat and open with a variety of shrubs and cacti that have adapted to the very arid environment. It was once attached to Santa Cruz and Baltra so it has a similar look, but is notable for its abundant birdlife. The guides led us on a two kilometer walk along a rather rocky trail that gave us our first taste of what was to come in the week ahead.

 

Kicker Rock

(August 11) Kicker Rock is simply an enormous chunk of rock sticking almost straight up out of the water. There are no Starbucks.

 

San Cristobal Island

(August 11) We spent the morning in the small harbor town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno that seems to specialize in souvenir shops. The focus of our visit to the town was to visit the Centro de Interpretacion, which is a museum of human history in the Galapagos. Along with telling the historical tale of the famous explorers and early settlers, the exhibits illustrated the related impact on nature and the resulting education and conservation programs. Through education resources like this center, local residents have come to embrace the value in conservation of the unique ecosystem in which they live.

 

Espanola Island

(August 11) Espanola lies at the Southern tip of the archipelago and is the oldest island, at least above water.  We went on a three kilometer walk seeing lots of wildlife and a stunning coast line.

 

Other Pages

Go to Part 2: Floreana, Bachas Beach, Bartolome, Urbina Bay, Fernadia

Go to Part 3: Santiago, Puerto Ayora, Dragon Hill, Highlands, Quito

Floreana Island

(August 12) Floreana provided the first of several snorkeling opportunities, and was the first time for trying my underwater case in the murkey ocean waters. You’ll notice that there are a LOT of pictures of sea turtles. Probably too many, but I’m leaving ‘em.

 

Bachas Beach, Santa Cruz Island

(August 13) Santa Cruz is the second largest island and one of the most diverse islands in that it has all seven climate zones on the windward side that change with increasing elevation. Starting with the coast line Littoral Zone, plants that can tolerate saltwater or little water thrive such as Mangroves along with various morning glory and iceberg-like ground covers. The Arid Zone follows with the appearance of prickly pear cactus and Palo Santo trees.  Scalesia trees begin to appear defining The Transitional Zone which is the elevation with the most rain and fog. A temperature inversion makes the next zone dryer with few trees and the landscape is dominated by Miconia, and thusly named the Miconia zone. The highest elevation is often above the cloud line and fog provides most of the water so to the plants are low shrubs, ferns and sedges, and yes, it’s called The Fern-Sedge Zone.  The Giant Tortoise is the only animal that lives in all of the climate zones. 

Santa Cruz is located in the center of the archipelago and is home to the largest town, Puerto Ayora, the National Park Headquarters, and the Darwin Research Station.

 

Bartolome

(August 13) When NASA fakes a Mars landing, they’ll shoot it on Bartolome Island. The reddish volcanic surface made for a bizarre landscape indeed. There was also more snorkeling, but my flash batteries died shortly into it so not many pictures came out of it.

 

Urbina Bay, Isabela

(August 14) Urbina Bay is barely 50 years old, having been created by volcanic activity in 1954. It is guarded by a very vigilant hawk.

 

Fernandia

(August 14) Fernandia is the youngest of the islands made up of a single active volcano that erupts every few years, and thus has the most rugged landscape.  Because there has been little human influence on this island the indigenous wildlife are abundant. And what do you know, it also has iguanas and sea lions! This was by far Carol’s favorite island excursion.

 

Other Pages

Go to Part 1: Baltra, North Seymour, Kicker Rock, San Cristobal, Espanola

Go to Part 3: Santiago, Puerto Ayora, Dragon Hill, Highlands, Quito

Santiago

(August 15) Why only four pictures from Santiago? David decided to take it easy that day and purposefully left the dSLR and snorkeling gear behind. In retrospect that turned out to be a bad idea, because everyone reported that it was by far the most incredible snorkeling location on the entire planet. On well, David had a nice time sitting on the beach with the tiny point-and-shoot camera while Carol was snorkeling and swimming with sea lions, turtles, a shark, and even saw a  penguin rocket past.

 

Dragon Hill, Santa Cruz

(August 15) Still smarting from missing the legendary snorkeling from that morning, I made sure to partake of it that afternoon. Of course, the underwater scenary wasn’t that spectacular, with only one semi-viewable image of a ray coming out of it.

 

Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz

(August 16) Tortoises! The day started with a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and it’s tortoise habitat. We then meandered down to the town of Puerto Ayora for the afternoon.

 

Highlands, Santa Cruz

(August 16) The tortoises we saw that morning were just a warm-up for what we encountered that afternoon in the Highlands. Seeing a 500-pound tortoise make it’s way through the trees is an absolutely bizarre experience… even up close they look like they must be remote controlled animatrons.

 

Quito

(August 8, 9 & 18) We spent a few days in Quito before and after the Galapagos. Most of these pictures were from the guided city tour, which, quite frankly, could have used fewer stops at churches and more stops at museums, galleries or other cultural centers. The trip to the equator was pretty cool, though. And no, water does not go down the drain in opposite directions depending on which side of the line you are on.

 

Other Pages

Go to Part 1: Baltra, North Seymour, Kicker Rock, San Cristobal, Espanola

Go to Part 2: Floreana, Bachas Beach, Bartolome, Urbina Bay, Fernadia