A short hike

Last week, myself, Heather and two of her friends went on a hike. One of her friends is possibly doing a Kilimanjaro trek next year so needed to try out some new boots. Plus I get out of the house and get to see another new part of America!

We hired a car and drove the 50miles from the centre of Manhattan to the Bear Mountain area. This involved heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, up the Palisades and back into New York state.

Bear Mountain Bridge

We parked at the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site car park and once we'd found where the start of the route was, it was fairly straight forward. I even remembered how to read a map.

But what with everything being back to front in this country, I found out that the dotted line on the map turned out not be a thin wooded trail like back home, but instead a larger forestry road.

Short and steep was the order of the day:

© http://www.nycdayhiking.com

Popolopen footbridge

The footbridge was all smashed up from the last storm in the area but luckily the water was low enough and there were enough stones to make our way across while staying dry.

Once over the water it was a fairly steep climb but really enjoyable. Bone dry rock but even had to use my hands a lot to pull myself up. Once we got to the top the view was superb.

The same bridge we were level with at the start

As the area has some old forts and historic battlegrounds, there is a cairn at the top in memory of fallen comrades.

Plus it borders the US West Point Military Academy so we could hear gunfire from the top of the hill away in the distance.

The weather was again, really hot and sunny but luckily there was so much shade on the route otherwise I would have struggled. I took a litre of water with me, but we had to stop at some guys house in the woods on the way down to refill our bottles. When you start to run low on water and are a little dehydrated it's really easy to see how you just want to pour all of it over your face.

For the whole route I've never seen so much wildlife under your feet. Centipedes, tonnes of those big daddy long leg type spiders, ants. Even seen the tail of a snake slither away under a rock. A big hawk circling the top of the hill. But the big winner on the day was this guy right by the side of the road.

Independence Day

The weather has been so hot and sunny during the day and it means that nearly every night you get these red-ish skies as the sun sets.

Every so often in Scotland you get a "red sky at night, shepherd's delight" kinda moment but it's pretty much like this every night at the moment.

This was taken from our window (with a powerful zoom ;) looking across to Manhattan with the new World Trade Centre buildings under construction on the left hand side.

Yesterday was the national holiday for some kind of independence from some other country or something.

We just spent it downstairs with the neighbours having a BBQ and then when the fireworks started at the back of nine we went up on our roof. They used to be on the East River but unfortunately they moved the celebrations over onto the Hudson this year, we still got a reasonable view though.

In other news, my paperwork is FINALLY ready to roll. My new cv is just undergoing the finishing touches and after a lot longer wait than I thought, I can get in touch with the real world again, and get a job.... somewhere.

Hottest race ever... for me

On Saturday morning we did the Front Runners New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run (5Miles). It was Pride week in New York. Every week seems to have some feature associated with it, some more important culturally then others, as next week it's Spiderman week!

Just as well it was a 9am start as this meant "only" getting up at about 6.30am so we could take a train to about 47th street and then a taxi up the east side to 102nd where the start was as the train isn't as close to the park up the east side and also not as frequent on the weekend.

We had the best thunder and lightning I've ever seen in real life on Friday as the three day run of 90/100°F weather finally broke. The lightning striking the Empire State Building was a pretty cool pic.

© NY Daily News photo

So I don't know if an earlier start would've helped with the weather as it was still in the 80°'s during the race.

It's still weird to have to stand and listen to "your" national anthem before ANY kind of event, then although I'd put a faster than I'm currently fit for time down as my estimated pacing I still struggled to get going the first 800m as you weave in and out of slower people.

There was just the 5000 finishers in this one so it was still a fairly crowded route but not as bad as the last one I did.

The start © NYRR

Not being familiar enough with Central Park yet, the route was a surprisingly hilly/undulating one and there wasn't that much flat. That and the heat, meant I was struggling for the last mile and a half. I couldn't even muster a pick-up towards the finish. I finished in around 37.30 and was about 500-something out of the 5000.

The best part was the popsicles/ice lollys they handed out at the end, in the Pride rainbow colours, I just sat on the grass for 15+mins waiting for Heather and trying to recover.

Because of the weather and also the bits of entertainment they put on near the baggage area you definitely get more runners hanging about afterwards.

Okay, it's definitely the weather! Back home it's rare not to want to grab a hot shower and put on a warm top.... zipped up to the neck.... in summer.

Me trying out my new cooling towel afterwards

Hot in the city

Back in New York, we enjoyed another sunday morning run in Prospect Park near our apartment followed by some food from a food truck rally that frequents the Grand Army corner of the park every few weeks.

Then on Tuesday night after a concert, because we were out of the house by 5.30pm we just HAD top have a bite to eat afterwards. So we went to Crif Dogs and had a couple of dogs, I enjoy the bacon wrapped dog, yum.  Heather tried the corn dog..... on a stick. Not that great.

The place is so little but it also has an old phone booth style door in the wall that people, a few tourists but mainly the "hip and the cool" folks come to try and get into some little cocktail bar next door that you have to speak in the phone to see if they let you in. At least you can eat your dog and smirk at the people trying to get in.

Today I got my medical paperwork finally signed off by a doctor and opened a savings account as well as applying for a credit card if only to try and kick start some kind of credit history in this country.

I also walked the downstairs neighbours three dogs as they are on holiday and went grocery shopping. Not that thrilling but all in 100°F weather!

The weather is about 95-98°F but with the humidity it said it would feel like as much as 108° at some points!! The hottest ever recorded temperatures at the airports for this day in history, ha ha.

Not enjoyable. Now that I'm finally home, I can't leave the one room we have air conditioning in!

Back in Portland

After another morning run, we (without showering!) went on a walking tour with Heather's family. An interesting talk about the history of old Portland and the saloons and dodgy people who sold guys to boat owners etc. I just enjoyed getting to see downtown Portland. It's very nice with the river, many bridges the light rail train and the cobbled areas.

 

The famous Voodoo doughnut store

Yes, they have a dedicated skate route on the main road

Japanese tribute monuments

Portland lived up to its reputation for weather. It rained a couple of mornings, including 2 minutes of hailstones while we were driving. At least it wasn't that cold when it rained. It was nice to get some fresh air.

Then after lunch in an Irish bar, with the football in the background, we (still without showering) took the tram (that's confusingly what they call it) up the hill to the top and back down, just for the views.

Bike parking at the bottom

Then off to meet another friend, home, showered, back to Heather's brothers for tea. Each day was exhausting and we flew back at night so were were home by 8.30am. Pretty tired.

Especially as I HAD to be awake by midday to watch the Euro's.

There are things you miss, like the cooler weather, forest trails and the seemingly friendlier more laid back people. But then you get back to New York at 6.30am with 3 hours shut eye (not sleep) and then head out later for a concert (The Maccabees), food and ice cream at 11pm and I guess New York has some benefits to it too!

Then we repeated that last night as we went to a different venue to see Lisa Hannigan. Now off to play soccer tonight!

Update. We won, but I got a yellow card, ha ha. No slide tackling allowed at this level.
The pitches are cool, just a block from the west side Hudson River and you can see the Empire State Building in the background.

Me getting a talking to from the ref!

Road Trip back

I got up at 8am and went off for a 30min run just to see if I could tell any difference in running at over 4000ft. It was difficult to tell as I'm super fit. Ha ha, no because I had just rolled out of bed. Maybe there was marginally less of a full intake of breath.

It was weird, it looked super sunny and was warm during the day but it got down to -3°C at night and was only about 5°C when I went out. I'm already used to sunny meaning roasting temperatures!

We went back over to where Heather's sister and husband were staying at the wedding resort. It was like a posh MacDonalds resort in Aviemore. All golf, trees and mountain views.

 
Then I got to do the drive back to Portland from La Pine. It was my first time driving in the states and the highway stuff is easy enough, it's more the through town/city stuff that was a little weird feeling.

Felt like a chunk of car had been welded onto the right hand side. I also reached for the seatbelt over my right shoulder at one point, ha ha.

We had a little stop in Sisters

It was like a main street with stores, a slight country style, with ranches on the outskirts. It was rodeo weekend so there were plenty cowboys in town and we had to wade through the event traffic to get into town.

Yeah, okay, these ones aren't real

Then we stopped at the Detroit Dam & Lake.

And a little sample of the local locals who were fishing off the side.

Is that woman wearing 5 pairs of bike shorts?

Then we stopped at Salem for a quick visit with one of Heather's old college friends.

And I got a little tour of Heather's old campus including a sorority house, ha ha, just like the movies!

I drove most of the rest of the holiday. It's weird what you miss, although probably the fact the traffic was a little calmer than New York helped. I think we heard two car horns the entire trip plus I seen three cop cars in six days and no cops, traffic wardens on the streets at all. What a contrast.

Road Trip there

The main reason for going to Portland was to go to Heather's cousin's wedding. This was on the Saturday at 5pm and was just over 200 miles away.

Once we got past the general freeway scenery the real Oregon showed itself.

With Heather driving I was clutching the camera and trying not to miss anything we passed. I didn't realise the altitude we were going to be climbing whilst driving there, trees, greenery and even snow capped mountains further on. Similar to the drive from Aberdeen to Aviemore, ha ha.

We also passed the 45th parallel. Where it's exactly halfway between the North Pole and the equator. Some good old US style tourist signs told us that.

I learned that the area has a lot of features formed from volcanic activity including the lava cast forests, lakes from craters and lava caves and volcanic rocks generally piled up roadside.

We got there with time just to shower and change and drove the 15mins to the plusher resort where the wedding was held.

So I met most of Heather's family's side of the family. All very nice people.

The ceremony was really short and non-traditional (religious), it must be catching on, nearly as short as our own! They were also married by a judge although the massive wooden hall surroundings were a little posher than ours.

When we left there were a couple of deer bouncing through the car park!