A fully tested, debugged, and reproducible weekend for your consideration.

Last weekend was really full so this weekend I'm taking things easy. One day, one major activity. Saturday is for watching belly dancers, Sunday is for hiking. The best part is, you can do it as well- it's all happening next weekend too. All links are clickable for full size pictures.

Saturday, Novermber 22, 2008- It's 12:30PM and we're on our way to Wanderlust for a belly dancing engagement (I will not be performing, my beautiful wifer will)! Wanderlust is a temporal place, part Cost Plus, part Brigadoon- it opens once a year near Thanksgiving and closes the night of Christmas eve. You'll find them in the midst of the Hoffmantown Shopping Center, a couple doors down from Le Chantilly. They have some neat things for sale, but more importantly, they have belly dancers from 1-3 on weekends (or at very least, next weekend, too).

Dancers are given store credit for their time- shoppers get to watch a free performance to great music. They have some great goo-gas, Celine picks up some shiny fleur de lis earings, then we rush home to clean the house in advance of relatives coming to town. They cancel their trip at the last minute, so we end up with the enjoyment of an extra-clean house with none of the trouble of guests- Win! If you are using this blog as a template to plan your next weekend, you do not in fact need to invite relatives or clean your house- just go check out the middle eastern dancers and maybe buy something from an independent outfit instead of World Market Inc.

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Sunday, January 23, 2008- It's 8:30 AM and I'm still in bed. It's been so cold the last few mornings I don't mind it being late- I get up and make tea. Inspired by Brian's recent Blog, I'll be hiking Piedra Lisa Canyon this morning. Maybe I'll get lucky and get a picture as cool as that frozen stream crossing.

If you've never been to Piedra Lisa before, there's a few things you should know. To get there, head east on Candelaria, past Tramway, to the 'T' intersection. Turn right, proceed a quarter mile and the parking let will be on your left. Pack water and perhaps even more importantly, wear hiking boots with good grabby tread. You can play down below with sneakers, but the real fun is going up the canyon which is largely composed of slick granite. Once you're there, looking east will look something like this:

Head a little east toward that solid looking rock, tilt your head back thirty degrees, and it starts to look pretty exciting. This is the end of sneaker-advisable adventuring. It's not that going up is so hard in city shoes, it's getting back down safely that is a problem. You can get a good pair of hiking boots for $20 at discounters like Big 5, so we'll assume you're set.

Scramble up some rocks, cross a few switchbacks, and you're nearly there. Here's a tree near the top:

There's actually little arrow signs that show you how to get here:

But the real challenge is getting on top. I go around the north side, take a couple one way leaps, and promptly get stuck. Then my digital camera's batteries die (Forgot to recharge from yesterday), so I'm reduced to cell phone pictures. Fortunately, upon closer examination all that's necessary is to climb underneath a few boulders and I'll be through!

It worked! Here's a view from up top:

Those little bolts are what crazy people use to repel from this point. Just to the left of this pair are a couple holes in the rock where a pair used to be- long since gone. To the left of those two holes, some partially remaining rusted bolt necks remain. Hope nobody was on them when those broke away! For your e-ticket pleasure, the following is a video showing how far up this is, and how far down, too!


Heading further east, it's not for before I run across what looks to have been a geocaching site. There's a man made stack of rocks next to a hole dug into the ground about a foot deep. Taking part in geocaching has been on my todo list for a long time, though I've never had an appropriate GPS for the purpose. Anybody tried this? I'm concerned I may end up finding a prehistoric ham sandwich or perhaps some expired milk. And then I'd have to sniff it. It's a guy thing.

Up here, fall is just getting started in some places.

It's about this time I remember this particular digital camera has a pair of AA batteries. That's important, not because there is a quickie mart up here, but because they discharge asymmetrically. By swapping 1 or 2 and 2 for 1, the camera comes back to life and I can take better pictures again!

In other places, it looks like winter is already here. Ice! It reminds me of that picture that inspired me to come up for the hike.

Continuing east, I run into the coolest thing I have seen since visiting Carlsbad caverns two weekends ago. It's ice, metling from the bottom up. Dumbfounded and delighted I take a cell phone shot:

Then, coming to my senses, I take a few videos, montaged below:


I'm not sure how well it will come through on youtube (The native footage is 720x480). Here's a link for the high quality version. It was so neat to watch the water flow underneath the ice. It was like watching phantom fish swimming down the rocky face. About 2:30 into the video is my favorite. It's 75% peaceful here; there are 4 sounds:The hum of the city behind me, my breathing, the trickle of the flowing water and the birds overhead.

Continuing up the trail starts turning into a mud bog. In such situations previously it's been my policy to find the nearest deer or man path out of the canyon, take it up to a human trail, and make my way back to the vehicle. I choose north, which in hindsight was a mistake, since it was all deer trails all the way back. If you happen to be considering using this blog as a template for your weekend, go south or just backtrack.

On the way up there's a handsome barrel cactus on the southwest-facing hill:

25 minutes later I've made it to the something resembling the top of a ridge. My iPhone has a "email this location" option. Here I am. That's going to be a long trudge back. I drink some water and shoot a little video.


In the above video there's two distinct sounds: Wind and automobiles. Being up in the foot hills gives one a real appreciation for how loud we are. We are lucky to have so little air pollution that Mount Taylor is easily visible, though over 50 miles away. What we aren't so lucky about is noise pollution. There is a steady drone coming from the city 24/7. It gets louder and softer as traffic lights change. Motorcycles with high-HP mufflers are especially noticeable.

For some who've always been in a city, this sound feels natural. For me, especially when in nature, this sound is terrible. When you're up here, the metal tags on a dog's collar can be heard from half a mile away. Our ears are such sensitive instruments, it's a shame we have to make more noise (iPods) to drown out the already loud sounds in the world. If you happen to be hiking in the foothills, go earphone free- listen to the sounds of nature, your breath, your steps, that coyote in the distance, the cougar in the tree behind you. Even if your life doesn't depend on it today, your quality of life does.

Southwest and Northwest, respectively, BTW. Oh, and the obligatory Sandia shot straight north:

For you rock hounds out there, there are many pretty rocks to admire. For a moment I hold one in my hand, turning it over, thinking how easy it would be to take home- then put it back. The open space is for all of us, after all.

As I get near my car, I hear the sound of 50 kinglets coming my way. They're so cute you could see a thousand flying right toward you and swear that Hitchcock was just being silly. They're so small the video just didn't turn out.

3 hours after leaving the car for the hills, I'm back in it... and ravenous: Forgot to bring a small bag of sweetened hooves and snouts. It's time for lunch- I call Ming Dynasty and put in a dim sum to-go order: beef rice noodle, shrimp&scallop, steamed spare ribs, footballs (ham sui gok), bead curd wrapped chicken, and Chinese broccoli. The total bill for this feast was $21 with tax- a genuine bargain.

If you've never had dim sum before, you're missing out. The fare offered at Ming Dynasty is like what you'll find on the west coast (The owners are from San Francisco where the family also has a restaurant). They usually only do dim sum on weekends and holidays. Today they had 4 carts running: Baked or Fried, Steamed and Shrimpy, Steamed and not Shrimpy, and Gelatinous Soups. These are my names that approximate what you're going to find, rather than anything technical. Here's a shot of the baked or fried cart, which as you can see, has stuff that was baked or fried:

If you eat pork and come to Ming Dynasty for Dim Sum, get the baked barbeque pork buns. That's the dish with the three rolls on the left hand side of the bottom rack. It's the most gentle way of getting into the swing of it (If you want to dive right in, get the chicken feet). Every culture has a hot pocket and the pork bun is the Chinese version.

So there you have it- something to do on Saturday and Sunday. It's free except gas and meals, it's healthy, fun and won't last. I hope you try some or all of the things from this list-