mullerb's musings

The summer of covid, the summer of people avoidance. Thus we spent July riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) from Boulder to Helena, Montana. Here's the route we took: (view the route details on RideWithGPS) It was super fun to start from home and catch a bus up to Nederland to kick off the ride. From there, a big ride up Rollins Pass and a day of dirt roads heading west from Winter Park brought us to the GMBDR near Ute Pass. A mellow pace, 1,152 miles and 82,373ft of elevation gain got us to Helena over 28 days. We spotted bears, moose, golden and bald eagles, a couple of badgers and a couple dozen fellow GDMBR riders along the way (all heading the opposite direction, north to south). And loads of wildflowers everywhere! We're so very privileged to have so much open space and beautiful landscapes to explore - and the time and health to make it happen. Here's my gear list: Bike Salsa Fargo Apex 1, 2020 edition ( details ) 1x32 with 11-42 in rear for me and 1

Have I ever alluded to my need to always have a project going? I'm a lot like my recently deceased dad in that way: I go existential if I don't have something to obsess over. Sometimes that obsession isn't a project; it might be doing some research related to a new gizmo or the 'need' to update one of my bikes or ski gear... Well, the latest obsession has to do with vans. Rachel and I have been purveyors of VW Westfalias ever since we bought our first one back in 1987, a classic air-cooled, green 1978 Microbus. We took it on an awesome 3+ month road trip to climb and explore the Western states. So much fun! And probably the experience that sealed the deal for our monogamous life :-)  Of course, we had the essential ' How to Keep Your Volkswagon Alive (for the complete idiot) ' and we made good use of it. Somewhere in there, we had a short stint with another Type 2, '77 Microbus, just a regular one but with a huge, leaky sunroof - I just couldn

A fun, unexpectedly neat city to visit. Pics are viewable here: From 2012 Mobile Pics and vids

11 days of southern fun that kicked off with 4 cold days on the water. Sea kayaked out of Everglades City again but headed north this time. West Pass to Tiger Key for 2 days (while th wind blew itself out!) then a day at Rabbit Key with a return via Rabbit Key Pass and Chokoloskee. The 2 nights in Miami Beach for some good food, visits with Joe and Yoly, and lots of beach walking. Off to Jupiter for 5 days for more fine wine, food, visits with Julian and Siggy then an 80th b-day celebration at Jean Pierres.

A 5-night float down the Ladore stretch of the Green River. Sept 27-Oct 2, 2010 1800-2200cfs George K, Eric W, Nina, Mho, Barb, Rachel and I

Friday late PM departure to drive 6 hours north: Friday eve: camped at Wind Cave NP Saturday: Cave tour in the AM and a hike on the prairie in the PM Saturday eve: Camped at Grizzly Camp and Picnic Grounds near Mt Rushmore Sunday: Mt Rushmore in the AM and a hike up Little Devils Tower in the PM Sunday eve: Camped at Bismark Lake NF campground Monday: Jewel Cave loop hike in Hell Canyon and cave tour

Helped get Mom situated after her surgery. Flew in early Sunday, Aug 29 and flew home Wed, Sept 1 in the eve. Mom is recovering well and Dad is coping just fine. I squeezed a short exploration of Mingus Mtn in on the way up while driving via Prescott. Awesome overlook up there! And on Wed early AM, I drove up W Mingus Ave from the airport as far as I comfortably would go before parking and hiking/running a couple of miles up hill towards the towers. Gotta come back with a bike!

Day 4

Day 2 of our excellent road trip: camped at Aspen Grove campground near Jefferson Lake but got up early and drove to the Mt Yale trailhead below Cottonwood Pass. Hiked up past Browns Pass to the ridge above Kroenke Lake. Rambled around towards Mt Yale and took in the incredible views of the surrounding Collegiate Peaks.

Day 1 of an excellent 4-day hike/bike trip with just Rach and I. After dropping Leah and Natalie off at Santa Maria YMCA camp, we rigged up at the Beaver Pond trail head off Jefferson Lakes road for the short but steep, rooty, and rocky ride up to the pass. 6 miles of up with a 2,000+ ft gain. Rachel's first real technical ride. She got really good at the on/off thing and got better and better at handle the rocks. Once at treeline, it was a cruise. Ans going down, she only dismounted a couple of times. Very nice!

An 8-day trip to visit Joe and Yoly in the Hamptons, to stroll NYC, and to revisit the old Gunks haunt. Flew out early AM on Wed June 16 and returned late Wed eve June 23. Spent lots of time in the pool, riding, beach strolling and grilling in Quogue, Rach and I spent a whirl wind 24 hours in the City then drove up to the Gunks for a day and night and drove back via New London and the ferry to the North Fork. The girls got lots of R&R time and Uncle Joe time and had a half day in the City before we flew home on Wed. I love the City! We must have covered 8 miles of street walking and saw the WTC memorial, ate great food, perused the MET. Need to go back to see lots more!

Hopped on a 6:30AM flight on Friday and returned Sunday late afternoon. Caught dad by total surprise Friday AM. Fun!! Then Dan shows up with Liz at 2. More surprise and fun!!

A marathon 1800 mile drive to Cottonwood with a swing to southeastern Arizona and central New Mexico to get home. Left on Tues. eve Dec 23 in order to avoid the incoming winter storm, progged to hit the Frontrange on Wed. Missed all but a few flurries heading over Raton Pass. Crashed at Comfort Inn in Santa Fe. and woke up Wed AM to iced over roads and a few inches of fresh. Wwe walked the old town square and visited the Georgia OKeafe gallery before heading west again by noon. No snow to speak of for the rest of the drive. Spent a few pleasant days visiting with my parents while stuffing face on cheese fondue and fondue bourgenogne and squeezing a nice hike in above Sycamore Canyon. Took off to the south on Sat. AM to hit up the Superstitions for a hike in the PM. Then over towards Tuscon for a short, surprise visit with Julie Bram, Norma's boyfriend at the time of her passing. Camped at Catalina State Park. Sun. AM walked the Sonoran Desert Museum then drove east to Chicarua Na

...to Edlingen, Germany. So began a week long trip to Germany to co-facilitate a EUMETCAL Flash workshop. Left Boulder with Rach driving me to the Table Mesa Park'n'Ride at 2:40 on Saturday. Left DIA at 5:40pm and landed in Frankfurt at 11am the next morning even though it was only a 9 hour flight. Kind of a time warp but so it goes when traveling at 550mph towards the east across those time zones. Through serendipity, I got to sit next to a colleague from GLOBE on her way to the Copenhagen UN climate conference. She was great fun to talk to about her past work with other COMET folks and to learn a bit more about GLOBE's endeavors. The serendipity was a good thing too as I was really bummed that I got that inner row seat. I was tagged to an aisle seat but a split-apart family pleaded to have me switch. I reluctantly agreed. Reluctant because my long legs do much better when I can stretch them into the aisle. It worked out alright though and not switching would have been bad

That's funny cause the beds in this hole are way too small. More like a cot than a bed. Looking forward to switching hotels tonight. The new one is in the city center has much better access right out the door to the sites that you want to see. The only draw back is the 15 minute metro ride from the conference but hey, that's kind of fun and novel. Rolling lessons for Leah, eh! That's great. I hope she enjoys it. Kelly is bailing, I take it. Too bad - she's really capable. ENjoy the hike! Should be really nice up there! My kangaroo presentation is on Friday. Yesterday was the workshop, today I split a presentation with Pat on COMET's current state of affairs, Thurs I lead a round table discussion on formatting traininig for mobile devices and I have a poster session to show off lots of COMET stuff. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox From: Rachel Muller <rachel@mullerb.com> To: Bruce Muller <bruce@mullerb.com> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:06:34 PM Subject: Re: travel plan

...and things are pretty raw. It's midnight and I just got home from a mini adventure. After getting set up in the hotel, we headed over to the university, which is all of one building (!?!) where the conference is being held. The building does have a couple of radars on the roof so it really is a college of science with focus on physics and atmospheric studies. The venue is just fine for our small band of global met trainers. It reminds me of the old 'gymnasium' school buildings in Switzerland where I went to 5-7 grade. We set up the computers, which are very nice new laptops, helped haul enough vodka up the stairs for each of us to have our own bottle at the ice breaker on Tuesday eve, then went out to dinner at a German restaurant with 5 Finns, 3 Americans, 1 Australian, 1 Dutchman, 1 Italian, and 2 Russians. Pretty wild. Instead of doing the reasonable thing at 9:30 PM, which would have been to go back to the hotel and catch up on some sleep, I went with Pat to his hote

Hard to say what things are like yet. We got in after a long 7 hour train ride. It's only 300km so it should really only take 3-4 hours. But lots of stops and a very long 1 hour stop at the border slows it all wayyyy down. The scenery was the same the whole way: tall birch and pine woodland interspersed with fields of green hay and the occasional farm house. Pretty monotonous but still pretty. We traveled with Alessander, the guy that took over Jaakko's former job. He's an Italian that married a blue eyed, blond haired Finn 12 years ago and mover to Finland to raise the family. He's a really nice guy and we great conversation the whole way. The region just across the border used to belong to Finland so it looks pretty much the same as well. Until you get closer to St Petersburg. Then things start to change - for the worse, unfortunately. Things start looking very run down, disused, and, well, drab. What a bummer. St Petersburg also greets you with a very run down look.

Hi Girlies! I'll post pics from the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mullerb/2009_06EuropeTrip# How do? It's 12:40 in the morning here and the sky is still totally lit up. Amazing! I had a grand tour of a day with Jaakko. After last night's late escapade for dinner and a midnight stroll around the city center. I ate reindeer for the first time in my life. I also picked up the tab in order to pay back their hosting me. Despite the late night, I still managed to beat the jetlag and got up by 8:30 local time. Jaakko reluctantly gave up a late morning slumber on the first day of his 5(!) week break from work to take me to see his office where I visited with several folks that I know. We bussed it across town, about 3 miles, to get there. Nice place. It's the country's center for atmosperic research; a brand new building tacked on to the university's physical science research campus. It sits on a hill to the north of downtown and the views from the upper floo

Sorry I keep missing you on skype these days, Ben. Most afternoons are steeped in meetings. Thinking of you all though, all the time. Kicking back with some Coldplay in seat 20D on flight 932, trying to get my fingers to play nice on this ipod touch's little keyboard On the first leg of a 3-leg flight to Helsinki. A couple of days to see the sites of that northern city with my hosts, Jaakko and Maria, then a classic train ride to St Petersburg for a week long conference. A week in Switzerland with the girls after that. Close to a year now in a 'senior' management position. It's a senior position since there are only 5 of us that are running our show and any one of us can be called in to be the acting director if needed. We're a pretty flat organization so all 38 of us are pretty close. I've had a banner 10 months of getting creative putting new processes and tools in place. Funny how work can be fun yet so draining; at times it's like a long hard bike ride

Packed up the van Friday afternoon and pulled out of town by 4PM for a long drive west. Climbing, hiking, and relaxation gear stowed away, we left a very spring-like Boulder to head over the mountains and see some long forgotten scenery. Time to share some of our old haunts with the girls - and with the Blum's, who caravaned along with us. Rach and I spent weeks and weeks climbing in JT and red Rocks back in our day. Both really fun spots to hang out and live off of PB&J and rice and beans. Which we did. Cause we were living hand to mouth back then. In a nutshell, as Varda so succinctly put it, the trip was: 2000+ miles driven 4 national monuments/parks/reserves visited 20+ miles hiked 24+ climbs led or toproped 1 dinner cooked, eaten, and cleaned in the daylight (meaining we were quite busy most days) 1 late night spent walking the Vegas strip (just to let the kids know what most folks like to do on their time off) Note for future I-70 road trips: the camp by West Water put-in