A FEW GREAT MOVIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

  

Hello My Peeps, 

Well, now that the 2000’s decade is officially in the books, people are busying themselves with a new task. No, not figuring out what to call this new decade (The twenty-teens? But we don’t hit teen numbers for three more years!) Can you believe we never came up with a good name for the previous decade? Seriously, you’d hear music stations saying, “the best of the eighties, nineties, and now.” That of course worked in 2001, but by 2003 “eighties, nineties, and now” sounded inaccurate. We still need a good name for the previous decade, if only so those contemporary music stations have a less clumsy tag line. 

No, what I’m talking about are all those best of the decade lists popping up left and right: sportsmen, movies, news making moments, etc. Well, I could give you a list of my favorite films of the last ten years, but I’m not quite a movie aficionado. I try to watch good movies as much as I can and avoid crummy ones. Still, there’s so many respected, popular, or acclaimed films I haven’t seen from the previous decade that I know my list would be lacking, even if it was technically a personal “favorites” list and not a “best of” one. So instead of going after that challenge, I’m just going to tell you about three films from this past decade that I thoroughly enjoyed that were not super blockbusters. They aren’t art films or independent stuff from Sundance. They’re just movies that, when I ask a circle of friends if they’ve seen them, get more no’s than yes’s. 

　 

1) Comedy 

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 

This movie is basically a parody of the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line. John C. Reilly (who you may know from Step Brothers or even Gangs of New York) plays the title role and is hilarious. What makes it great is that it doesn’t just beautifully parody the Cash film. It parodies and pokes fun at pop music in general.  And when you think about it,  the music scene is seldom tackled by our modern humorists; it receives very little flack in comparison to politics, sports, and Hollywood. The movie also has a go at such varied topics as the life-long journey of an artist, the Ray Charles movie,  drug use, 70’s variety shows, people with no sense of smell, and all heavy-handed biopic pictures ever made. It’s making fun of things that don’t often get made fun, and being dang funny while doing it. That’s enough to make it a good film, but this one has many bonuses. The songs all have silly lyrics, but man, the music’s actually really good. Also, this is the first comedy turn for Jenna Fischer from The Office. She lets her hair down, literally and figuratively, playing the female lead, and I can’t believe she kept from bursting out laughing with some of the lines they gave her. 

2) Drama 

Shopgirl 

Brad’s heard me talk about this one before. Some of you may know that Steve Martin does more than comedy movies, but most of you might not know just how prolific he’s been. He plays banjo in a bluegrass band that has actually performed at Carnegie Hall. He’s also written several serious plays and a few novels. This movie was adapted from one of his books and while its source material was not a heavy dramatic romance, it would be hard to call it a comedy. The story centers around an older and somewhat affluent businessman (played by Martin) courting and then sharing time with an unassuming and single shopgirl. There’s also another guy in the picture, a young rocker, sound tech type who is super positive but nowhere near anything career-wise as the film begins. 

I loved this film for how real it felt. The female lead is a sweet, though somewhat shy and slightly awkward young woman, alone in the city. She’s the kind of girl we all know (and usually like) but rarely see portrayed on film. The ending is also one that feels more authentic than what most movies offer. The beautiful extras in this movie are Martin’s narration, which I assume came right from the book, and also some nice starry night cinematography. I read reviews online after watching this one, and some criticized it as being not substantial enough to fit a full length movie. Now, I generally dislike movies where nothing happens, but I wouldn’t put this movie in that category. Stuff happens, it’s just real life stuff, when movie-goers are conditioned to expect (and unfortunately in these critics cases, unknowingly demand) unrealistic plot developments. This movie is too real for Hollywood cliché, and if I had to describe it in one word, it would be splendid. 

　 

3) Documentary 

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 

This film follows a man trying to set the world record in the classic game of Donkey Kong. Along the way it teaches you about the interesting world of classic gaming fanatics and provides a nice retrospective of video games’ first golden age. Now I assumed this was going to be a light film, by geeks and for geeks, celebrating a certain sphere of geekdom, but it was so much more. There is no narrator, which is a fresh change from the documentaries I’ve seen. This allows you to get lost in the story of our would-be-record-holder, a man who friends and family paint through their stories as the dude who should have won something a long time ago, but due to bad luck here and there, never did. He comes off as such a sweet guy that you can’t help but root for him. That stupid record in that stupid sphere of geekdom becomes important to you. You cheer when it appears he’s about to take his place in history, and your heart breaks a little when yet another piece of bad luck knocks him off the podium. Honestly, this guy reminds me a bit of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, and if you haven’t seen that one, you should rent it tonight. 

So do yourself a favor and check into these movies. If you need someone to watch them with you and explain more thoroughly why they’re awesome, I’d be more than happy to bring the popcorn. 

=Matt= 

PS I’m starting to work up a comedy bit at open mike nights around Chattanooga. If you live in town and would like to check me out, just leave a comment on one of my posts.

WHY I THINK I LIKE BELGIUM OR THERE’S SOMETHING GREAT ON TV TONIGHT…AT 3:30 AM

As you may be able to tell from the pictures below, this is a sports-heavy post. For you non-sports lovers, especially you ladies, please hang with me. On the surface, I am talking sports tonight, but this post is really about sharing neat stories of admirable women, women whose accomplishments perhaps should be a little more celebrated by those women’s groups out there. The ladies I’m writing about tonight are both Belgian,  both tennis players and both kind of cute. The first is Kim Clijsters (the J is silent.) Here’s an action shot.

Kim is twenty-six, which is about middle-aged for women’s tennis. She’s been number one in the world in both singles and doubles, and in 2005, she won the US Open. That tournament is one of four tournaments known as “majors,” the four yearly tourneys that are head and shoulders above the rest in both prestige and purse. (The other three are the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon, which is in England. You‘ll need to know that for later.)

You don’t get to Kim’s level of success without being great in many areas of your game, but one of the things that makes her stand out is her ability to hit shots while sliding. She is one of only about three elite women’s players that slide on all surfaces. Now, there are nearly no flattering photos of this athletic feat, because of the muscle work it takes to pull off. But it’s impressive in live action so check out this Youtube video.

Kim retired from tennis in May of 2007 to start a family. Two months later, she married her long time boyfriend and fiancé at a secret 6:00 AM ceremony in her home city of Bree, Belgium. The town’s mayor got up and came to the courthouse to officiate the wedding, and a few family members were present but that was it.

In February of 2008, Kim gave birth to her first child, Jada Ellie Clijsters. By my math her daughter came just under ten months after she announced her retirement. So when she said she was leaving to start a family, she meant it. And she wasn’t really planning on coming back either. She’d won her major, she’d held the top spot in the world, queen of the mountain. Now, it was time to be a mother. That worked for a while, but then there was an invitation.

Every now and again, a tournament event’s officials will set up a doubles match that pulls a few stars out of retirement (often for charity) . Kim got the call to play in one of these matches at Wimbledon in May of 2008 and agreed to participate. Not wanting to embarrass herself, she picked up the racquet a few weeks before the match and was surprised at how quickly everything came back after barely playing over the previous year. The experience stuck with her, and she eventually decided that while she wouldn’t necessarily return to full-time tennis, she would at least play some tournaments in 2009. She fared decently in her first two tourneys back, winning a few matches in each but not threatening for the titles. And then, though she hadn’t qualified officially for the US Open, she was invited by the officials of the tournament to play as a wildcard entrant. (They weren’t being that generous, considering she had won the event in 2005.) All the commentators talked about how nice it was to see her back, and how she looked to be in good shape. And then as the tournament progressed and she kept winning, the talk was no longer “nice to see her again” but “wow, she might have a shot at winning this thing.” And you know what? That’s exactly what she did.

Kim was the first mom to win a major in 29 years, and so it was only fitting that her daughter Jada, then two-and-a-half, joined her on the court to celebrate. The camermen all tried to get a picture of Kim and her daughter holding the championship trophy, but Jada kept looking away.

The best pictures though, came when Jada noticed she was on the Jumbo-Tron.

It’s kinda like when parents get their kid a nice expensive toy, and they just play with the box.

The next Belgian lady I’d like to talk about is also very accomplished. In fact, she really is the only women’s tennis star of this era that has a resume’ on par with the Williams sisters. Her name is Justine Henin, and she is 5’ 6” of pure altheticism. Here’s an action and studio picture.

As a child, Justine’s mother would often take her over to France to watch the French Open. (Taking a day trip to another country is something so uniquely European.) It was there,  watching the best players in the world, that Justine dreamed of being a professional someday. Many girls’ dreams don’t come true, but Justine’s did in spades. She not only became a great professional, but she has gone on to win the French Open, the very tournament that sparked and stoked her passion for the game, four times.

But much like with her countrywoman Clijsters, Henin has had to take time off from sports, though not always for as happy of reasons. You see, Justine Henin for a little over four years was Justine Henin-Hardenne. Then in early 2007, she took off for three months to go through the arduous divorce process that rid her of the hyphen, the Hardenne,  and the guy that gave it to her. One positive of the ordeal, which Justine was open in sharing with the media, was her reconciliation with her family, with whom relations had been strained due to conflicts with the former husband. She returned for the French Open that summer, and of course, much like with Clijster’s return, everyone said it was nice to see her back but wondered how competitive she could be.

Well, she won. What’s more, some of her siblings were attending her matches for the very first time in her professional career. And considering what a career she’d had up to that point, it really shows that their was some major strain behind the scenes between her former husband and her family.

With the divorce behind her and her family, in a much nicer way, finally behind her as well, Justine went on a winning streak which may be the best in the history of women’s tennis (or even women’s althetics.) She won ten of fourteen tournaments, including the next two majors, earning over five million dollars.  The success no doubt made the year pass quickly, and soon it was time for the French Open 2008. Justine was number one in the world, dominating her sport, and the obvious favorite to once again win the tournament that she had loved since childhood . So what did she do? She retired ten days before the event.

She wasn’t leaving to start a family. She didn’t have a man to marry. She was just burnt out. She needed a break. How come male athletes never do this in the middle of a career? Maybe she doesn’t appreciate what she has. Or maybe they don’t.

What did she do with her time off? Well, isn’t it obvious? Belgian television! Her first show was called Les 12 travaux de Justine Henin or The 12 Labors of Justine Henin, in which cameras followed her as she completed twelve personal challenges. After that, in June 2009, she hosted a musical show that revolved around Belgian-Italian singer Lara Fabian (Doesn’t this background paragraph seem so crazy-European?)

Then in September, in a move that no doubt plunged many a Belgian television producer into a deep depression, Henin announced her planned return to tennis. Her first tourney back was a few weeks ago in Brisbane (a tune-up for the Australian Open.) She looked good in her return, making it all the way to the finals, before her defeat in a long, competitive match with our other new Belgian friend, Kim Clijsters.

The Australian Open has been going on for the last two weeks. Henin was invited as a wild card, and she’s playing great. She actually had a rematch with Clijsters last week and got the better of her this time, knocking Kim out of the tournament. Now, Henin is in the finals, playing Serena Williams for the championship. It’s a Saturday night match, but since they’re 16 hours ahead in Australia, it will start at 3:30 Saturday morning, Eastern Standard Time. I’m posting this right around midnight on Friday, so it’s a bit of a cliffhanger. If you’re reading this post in an insomnia driven search for entertainment in the middle of the night, I say get off that computer and turn on the TV. There are some women I admire on this evening, that is, if you can stay up.

=Matt=

PS If you want to learn more about these players and women’s tennis, check out WTA.com

THE KNOXVILLE INSIDER

Well, I’m moving up in the world.  I’ve been given a chance to take Knoxville’s pleasures to a larger audience, so I’m going to be employing my skills as a journalist and my many contacts around the city for VisitSouth.com.  I get a really cool title and some extra cash in the exchange.

Check out my bio page.

I’ll be writing short posts about all manner of lodgings, restaurants, events, and attractions in Knoxville.  It is a wonderful extension of what I am trying to do here on Life of Adventure, a site that, in many ways, gives me a unique office in the city.  And it is that office which has led to this opportunity.  If VisitSouth.com does anything like what this blog does for me, it will rev up my quest to experience all the best life has to offer here.

Through this new endeavor, I’ll be featuring all sorts of metropolitan mini adventures:  special restaurants, shows, events, parks and greenways, etc.  The best thing about it:  writing for VisitSouth.com is really going to help me visit those places I keep meaning to try out, the ones I keep putting off and putting off.  Now I WILL go, and in short order.  I’ve got my work cut out for me, as Knoxville has so much to give.

I have a whole list of places I’d love to share with Knoxville’s visitors, but if you have more, leave them as comments.

I’ll put links here when my new posts go up, so that readers here can learn all the secrets of Knoxville, as I endeavor to uncover them all.

Stay tuned for more on Life of Adventure, which continues to enrich my life, and, I hope, encourage others to have adventures of their own.

ADVENTURE #40 – UNDER CHEROKEE BLUFFS / RETURN TO EBLEN

I dance for Club Level 10 on Friday nights, so as a rule, I’m pretty tired come Saturday morning.  But though I hadn’t hit the bed until nearly 2:30 a.m., I was awake, packed, and knocking on adventure’s door by 9.  It was the beginning of one of the most challenging days of adventure I’ve ever had.  And now that we’re up to 40+ adventures on the site, that’s saying alot.  This is one I’m going to be retelling when I’m old and gray, if I’m that lucky, so you’re going to want to read it for all the planned thrills and unforeseeable new experiences I discovered.  It’s a story that proves often we set out for a specific goal but find the true meaning of our journey in events we couldn’t possibly have predicted.

ADVENTURE’S DOOR

So I mentioned knocking on adventure’s door, and I meant it literally.  In this case it was the door of Rob Baldus, which I entered to discover my friend sorting a mountain of varied outdoor gear:  a dry scuba-type suit, climbing static rope, various cams and other chocks for rock climbing, waterproof bags, cold-weather apparel, his trusty SureFire illumination tool, etc.  And the day proved to require all of the above.

I stole a few pieces of his bacon to top off my hurried breakfast of fruit loops, and we loaded my gear into his SmartCar to head to destination No. 1.

At Rob’s mother’s house in Powell, TN, we switched from the Smart to a Tacoma with a large custom-built roof-rack.  That would be needed at our next destination.

River Sports was sleepy on this particular Saturday morning due to the typical January gloom, though the air temperature under our overcast skies had warmed considerably from the previous days of freezing air, snowfall, and icy roads.  We had no trouble picking up a rental canoe for 2, oars, and life vests, which we completely disregarded.

We reached Sequoyah Hills Park and unloaded our vessel.

Park and embark

CANOE, CLIMB, AND CAVE

Then we made a mistake:  we put Rob, an experienced kayaker, in the front of the canoe.  This position, apparently, is not a position to steer from, as we discovered by rotating like the teacup on a merry-go-round as we tried to get downstream.  I am not a good paddler in terms of fine positioning — in fact I’m terrible at steering — but we got there eventually.

Approach

Maneuvering to the mouth

Anchoring at the secret bay

We discovered a heavy anchor and used some titan cord to secure our boat.  It wouldn’t do to return from the cave’s jaws, only to be trapped beside the river with no choice but to swim across.

Kneepads on

Nests of dust

Leaving the boat behind

The recent cold had left its marks even in the relatively sheltered cave.

An unexpected sight: an ice stalactite stabbing the rock

Rock formation

We had visited this cave once before, so we thought we knew our way around.  But we still found an additional exit, amid a pile of rocks you could easily walk past without realizing it concealed a tunnel to high-ceilinged underground spaces.

Popping out of an alternate entrance

Rob climbs out

Once out, we found ourselves in the woods between wealthy-looking homes.  Signs on a nearby tree warned us that we were on private property and not to trespass.  Our day’s work lay in the cave anyway, so we respected the landowners’ boundaries.

Back to the cave

About to drop back down the hole

Rob follows in

Our previous summer trip to this cave found it free of bats, but we had better luck this time.

Denizen of the riverside house

The first time we came here, we knew there was a connection between our cove entrance and a portion of cave we’d accessed through another way in, but it entailed a drop we didn’t want to attempt.  We had accessed the other portion by climbing outside around the water’s edge to the other entrance.  This time, we found a way to connect the two cave portions from inside.

Another riverside exit

Checking a passage, but one too narrow

We left the first cave, connected by its 3 entrances, in search of another farther down.  This time, with Rob in the back to steer and me in front, we moved in perfect control down the channel.

Leaving the first cave

I ride in front; Rob expertly steers

Following the lowered waterline

In a few places across from Sequoyah Hills Park, massive old chains remain bolted into the rock face, presumably from nautical purposes old.  The links were thick enough to form a swinging metal ladder; I had to give it a climb.

The rusty and mammoth chain

As we had approached the chain, Rob had spotted the single largest vessel I’ve ever seen on Fort Loudon Lake.

A huge barge just beside us

Atop the swinging ladder

The next cave we sought is much harder to get to.  I climbed off the boat and used our anchor like a chock, slipping it in a crack and making sure it couldn’t escape by the use of two stones.  Our boat anchored, we still had to climb up some rocks, then use a rope left by earlier adventurers to ascend a rock-and-mud slope to the tiny door step of an even grander cave.

Beginning the climb to the higher cave

The tunnel's doorstep

Wriggling inside the warm stone house

Inside, even more treats awaited us.

A brave way to slumber

Deeper we go

A place to stretch out

These two caves’ highlights are shown in the video:

REST AND BACKUP

After we climbed out and performed the tricky operation of removing the anchor and climbing from vertical rock into an unstable canoe (without getting a bit wet, I might add), we returned the canoe to River Sports.  They were surprised we were back so soon.  But we had other plans to fulfill on this Saturday.

Our next stop was Bravo Italian restaurant, where Rob happens to work part time.  I had the chicken, bacon, spinach flatbread and hot tea to restore my strength.  We were not in casual dining attire:  we were filthy.  So we sat behind the unoccupied bar at the vacant pizza bar.  We chatted with Rob’s coworkers, covered in dirt we’d unintentionally carried out of the caves, dropping dust on the recently mopped tiles.  I’m not even going to go into what our beanie-covered hair looked like unfettered.

Here we picked up a Bravo kitchen worker/musician named Nick, who was to join us in returning to Eblen Cave.  He finished his shift, ate some ravioli, and climbed into the truck with us.  He also told us that Carol, the chef, wanted to come with us as well.  So instead of heading straight to the cave, we made our way to this new companion’s house in Cedar Bluff.

This required a third loading of gear — into Carol’s comfortable SUV.  We plopped onto light-pink striped leather seats and hit the road.  It was late afternoon when we reached our final destination.

CAVE, CRAWL, CLIMB, SWIM

Buttermilk welcomes us back!

We’d come to the cave to conquer more of its interior challenges, but what awaited us took my breath away.

The cave's toothy grin

The graveyard of ice

Nick, Carol, and Rob ... and Buttermilk!

Like swords piercing the earth

The ice within Eblen

It should be noted here that Rob was wearing Abercrombie & Fitch pants.  I wore Hollister pants.  Carol wore Lucky Brand jeans.  It’s important to have your designer clothes on when going into a muddy grotto.

We explored some of the side streets of the cave, but we pressed forward to our climbing challenge, needing first to pass through the tightest belly-crawl we’ve yet met in a cave.  Carol, who’s only other cave experience was more of a rock-roofed hike, performed well in the new environment.

Carol emerges from the tightest tunnel

The vastness beyond the smallest portal

We climbed unroped over some rockfall, then began to unwrap our climbing equipment to ascend a wall to a tunnel we’d left alone on our last trip.  With a push from Rob I was able to get up it without belay.  I awkwardly maneuvered in close quarters to get the rope passed round a good boulder and back down to my friends.  Rob then set up a self-belay and came up to set up an anchor.  From the top, he belayed our comrades up in safety, marking our first technical cave experience.

Rob ascends the cave wall

The upper portion consisted of 3 tunnels.  Two terminated rather abruptly, though I took a short nap in one, where the ceiling was just inches above my face as I lay on my back.  I contemplated the layer of rock above me, which seemed to be supported by another layer of earth, with soil and bedrock of its own.  We were existing in the little spaces between, where the irregularities in the bottom of the one and top of the other did not line up, and which threatened to be flattened by the weight above at any minute in making a more stable foundation.  But in a moment, I was at peace with the fact that forces of nature could swallow me cruelly at any moment:  how is that different from any other day?

Four of us crammed into a tiny den such as this after the climb, and then we sent Nick on a perilous mission alone, the mission he had come for.  He went headfirst into a tunnel with spanning pits, a formidable obstacle, as no one wants to fall headfirst down into an unknown squeeze and have to climb out upside down.  This he did with a harness on and Rob belaying from below, as Nick worked horizontally.  The tunnel was wide enough and tall enough for one only.  I watched as the rope ran up from Rob, into the tunnel over his head, then made a sharp turn.  Soon, only the mud-covered rope snaking back or forth down the tunnel gave any indication of Nick’s progress, but as he tells on the video, he made it to a spectacular place.

The video also details our first attempt at a water excursion in the cave.

THE AFTER ADVENTURE

Nick at the end of our harrowing day

The night sky was as black as the cave we’d come from when we emerged, me in dripping swim trunks and shivering, the rest to various degrees tired, cold, and wet.  We loaded our stuff into Carol’s SUV, trying very hard not to ruin it with mud.

We stopped at a gas station near Carol’s home, where we got drinks to go with the pizza that would be awaiting us at her door.  I picked up 6 chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme donuts as a reward.

We arrived on Carol’s driveway just after the pizza delivery person.  Cold and weary, we were all shortly making merry in Carol’s basement, with a soft sofa, blankets, pizza and drinks, and the musical entertainments of Nick, who played both guitar and drums.  This is the best way to meet new people.  When I woke up that Saturday, I had no idea I’d be listening to a new adventure companion’s music, while admiring the two complete arcade console’s in another’s basement.

Our next drive was to Rob’s mother’s house to return the truck, and for a much more important mission.

Nick, Rob, and I ended the day in the second-floor deck’s hot tub, warm under the cold air and infrequent raindrops, laughing and sharing stories and philosophies.  And there were donuts involved.  But after all we’d gone through and accomplished, I figured I deserved a little decadence.  And when I finally got home and in bed, I slept the kind of sleep that restores both body and soul.

ROB’S POST

See Rob’s post on this adventure on his blog.

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL PART III

“Saving the best for last,” is a phrase we use all too often in our society.  We also use the word hero too much.  While we’re at it, I don’t care much for hot enough for ya? either.   I’ll tell you what words and phrases we don’t use enough:  thank you, love, honey how was your day, higher pay for public school teachers,  Matt, you’re so handsome, genuine,  brutally honest yet simultaneously caring and so forth.  What does this have to do with pictures?  Absolutely nothing.  Enjoy the pictures.

Through those gates is a very historic and important government building.   The reefs are white flowers with black ribbon, which I don’t know if I’d ever seen before.  The Governor General’s wife had passed away a few days prior, and I think the flag even hung at half-mast. 

Just up the road there is the Governor’s House.  That’s the home and home of operations for the Bahamas’ head of state.  (You could never get this close to the White House without being tackled. ) Now there are some rules for walking around this beautiful site.  You may see a white line there on the road.  Visitors must stay behind that as they walk by.  If you choose to violate the sanctity of the line, you’ll force a response from one of the guards.

You know, the Bahamas are a pretty laid back country.  You can see it in the gate and posture of the people as they move down the streets and talk in the cafes and bars, but when I asked to take a photo of this young man, he locked into an attention position like the Governor himself was walking by.  (Bonus points for anyone who knows what the RBDF on his hat stands for.  Now before we go any further, I’m sure some of you would like to know the history of this historic site.  Well,

Okay, now for more pictures of the house.

There’s also some beautiful trees on the grounds.

I came in from the side gates, but here’s some views from the short walking trail in front of the building.

From in front of the statue.

And from behind.

To finish up this last photo journal post, I present to you a few non-Bahamian photos.  The first is a view of Cocoa Beach from about eight decks up as we sail by it on a fairly clear day.  It’s a unique perspective to look at a beach from the side, that high up.  It’s really something that you have to see for yourself, because my friends and I didn’t have the cameras or expertise to do it justice.  Perhaps this will at least whet your appetite.

With the naked eye on a nice day, you can see that cool wave effect another mile down the beach.  I promise. 

And lastly, to finish out, here’s  some hip Halloween photos.  First, I’ll show you what I looked like on the afternoon of October 31st.

I’d had facial hair for over two months.  Now I always shave my neck and under my chin and a little on my cheeks, but the rest of the beard hadn’t been touched for over three weeks.  People said I looked like a mountain man, and I took that as a compliment.  But then, on Halloween night…

The force was with me.  I love the irony of actually taking off something  in order to create a disguise.   There was supposed to be a vote that night for best costume.  I don’t think it ever happened, but here’s a picture of the two I think should have won.

That spider web rocks.  This girl is eastern European, Croatian, I think.  And her name is Zeljka or Zjelka, I always forget.  Only on ships do you find yourself saying things like, “I think I could get a date out of that chick, if I could just pronounce her name.”  Water, water everywhere, in more ways than one.

Peace out, my peeps,

=Matt=

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL PART II

Here we go again peeps.  Let’s check out a few more photos of the ship and the Bahamas.

                                           I’d call this the path of least resistance.

                         You may remember this fountain from last week.

                                                               Late Day Sunshine

Find a good angle, and you can even hide the sun.  (Sounds like something a political strategist would say.)

                                       Another church bathed in light.

 I know I tilted the camera, but it fits in a jazzy sort of way.  Bars, then arches, fountain, palm tree.

Stop and think.  What’s weird with this photo?  Without ever thinking about it, we always associate lighthouses with the dark green and almost marbly waters of New England, not the shimmering blue or clear waters of the Caribbean.

 

This is Cabbage Beach on Paradise Island.  That’s where the Atlantis Hotel is.  I dig those pines.

Here’s the view from the front of the ship sailing into the pier in Nassau.

And right in front of that bell is the coolest thing I’ve seen on a ship: a tree that grew out of the dead wood planks.  God, there’s gotta be a sermon or motivational speech there.  I mean really it’s inspirational with no further exposition.  Here’s a look at the roots.

 

I’ll post some photos next week from ship Halloween and the Governor’s House (that’s the Bahamas’ head of state.)  Meanwhile, let’s all catch up on Brad’s much more adventuresome adventures.

=Matt=

ADVENTURE #39 – THE LABYRINTH OF SNOW AND SUN

Time for more winter adventure!  This time, I’ll be seeking out what treasures are held by a local natural area I’ve never visited.  I’m not taking a map or guidebook to find my way around, and no one I’ve spoken to has even heard of this place.  I’m gonna need support on this mission, so I’m enlisting Joannie and her intelligent hound, River.

My companions

A HARD-FOUND ESCAPE

The William Hastie Natural Area is one of Knoxville’s most hidden parks.  Part of the road leading to it is a highway that actually deadends in thickets of underbrush and trees beyond a barricade.  But the last exit past the South Knoxville bridge brings the traveler to a sleepy part of Sevierville Pike.  The natural area isn’t even to be found on Google Maps (do I get an award for finding something Google doesn’t know about?) but if you go slow and heed a small sign that directs you up what looks like a driveway, you’re hot on adventure’s scent.  You pass a few houses on a tiny single-lane road and disappear between close-knit trees that sit inches from the end of the pavement.  I’m not sure two cars could cross on this entrance lane.  But in no time, you will pop out into a small open gravel lot with a sign and boulders.

2.4 miles of singletrack trails and 1.3 miles of old road, plus uncounted overgrown old roadbeds and off-trail paths lay tangled in this small area like a skein of yarn unwound by a cat and left on the floor.  The paths are perfect for mountain bikers, so they often take long S-curving ascents and descents, as if the narrow paths were carved by a large snake slithering through the woods, or as if the trail is a remainder of bobsled tubes, except that they’re too narrow.

All of the above makes the area a maze if you don’t have a map, as unmarked four-way intersections often lead to further unmarked intersections, and the continuous twisting of trail through identical landscape makes keeping your bearings next to impossible.  But not to worry; the area is so small, you might appear next to your vehicle just when you think you’re miles away, and you might encounter a trail you’ve been on before without having foreseen the connection.

The final interesting point about the location is that it has many exits, meaning that a path you think is a path might just drop you into someone’s backyard, or onto a residential street of aging neighborhoods.  The locals clearly have left themselves brush-guarded backdoors into the pocket of nature.

The maze begins

A frozen pond (passable if you're a dog)

Single track trail, suitable for mountain bikes

The snaking path

A straight shot

All so similar

Down into the hill's shadow

The snow hides

One of many similar bridges

River assesses the structural integrity, like a civil engineer

A sharp part of the labyrinth

Sunlit descent

Search for the way out

A few trails were marked, and the name of one, Sink Hole, was certainly suggestive of interesting geographic features.  Sure enough, we found the monster of a sink hole.  I ventured down, which you can see on the video, near the end.

Down we go

At first glance, it seemed impossible to get in safely, but a way down presented itself, despite the steep walls, deep drop, and sharp sticks at the bottom.

Additionally, the place is probably stocked with good swinging vines in the summer, though I fell on both vines I attempted to use in this way.

We wandered just about every path in the place, not sure at any given time how far from the car we were, how much we’d covered, or how much we had left, though we often spotted from a hill trails we’d already walked below.  The whole place consisted of wooded hills cut by gulleys that descended to a single roadbed, and snow, at least where perpetual shade had preserved it for several days.  And while some of the area was coated with the stuff as if it had just fallen, other stretches bathed in sunlight were as clear and warm as if it were spring already.

THE VIDEO

WHAT WE GAINED

At the end of it all, we drove away with a lot that we didn’t have before.  We’d explored the labyrinth, including most of its terminating arms, enjoying not just the serenity of the sheltered woods and vale, but the mystery of this unpopular retreat.  Even after visiting it, I have yet to meet anyone else who has been there.  It felt lonely and ancient, a refuge from modern Knoxville.  It is a forgotten place, perhaps, waiting to enjoy the few visitors who seek it out.

The fact that it’s so narrow and winding a path by road and foot to penetrate the inner secrets of the natural area makes it seem much farther out than it is.  It is really no more than 10 minutes or so outside of Knoxville, but it seems far away in time and place.  It is said that whereas the natural world used to have islands of inhabited land, now nature is the island, and humanity is the sea.  The 3 of us escaped the weary sea of humanity for a few hours onto a tiny, uncharted island.  I learned that in such a small place acreage-wise, there can be much to see, and nature has so much to give, if you wind through it, enjoying all its unique characteristics.

My word of advice for this adventure is that sometimes, it’s best not to have a plan, not to have a map, not to have driving directions, and not to stay on the wider path.  We mostly followed the dog.  Make a small adventure into a big one by deliberately getting lost, and if you have a dog, let them take you for a walk sometime.

And as for River, well, she got something too …

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL PART 1

Bahamian Flags Line the Pier (the blue of the flag represents the blue of the water)

Oh hi there peeps, I didn’t notice you come in.  Have a seat; make yourself at home.  I’m cracking out the old slide projector and dimming the lights to show you some images from the beautiful town of Nassau on the island of New Providence in the island chain country known as the Bahamas.  I’m not the photographer that Brad is, nor have I invested in as high a quality of camera as Brad has.  Still, I think I used my cleverness and perspective to pull off a nice little collection.  Enjoy! 

If you seen the commercials for the Atlantis Hotel, this is basically the same angle the hotel is shot from.

 

This is Carnival's newest, biggest ship. 5,000 total passengers. There was only one spot on the entire pier that allowed me to get it in frame.

 

This is the building you walk through as you enter the country. Colorful.

 

But I prefer the natural look.

 

 

 

Cool Fountain

 

Cool Restaurant Name

Cool Sign (and Quintessentially Bahamian)

 

 

Cool Church

Cool Stained-Glass (bonus points if you know why the dice are there)

  

I won't say cool anymore. Besides this sign is beyond cool. You won't see that too often in the U.S.

One Last Sun-Washed Island Photo.

More to come next week.  Till then,

 

 

=Matt=   

 

 

  

ADVENTURE #38 – BUCK BALD

I wake up in a mansion-sized, 4-story house near Inglewood, TN.  The places I find myself sometimes, I think.  I’m in a room decorated with fairy paintings and statues, the kind Amy Brown is famous for.  I lie on a bunk bed under a velvety, indigo blanket, with charms hanging from above me and magical glyph-like symbols hand-painted onto wood just beside me, inches away.  A 13-year-old boy marches into the room, helping my eyes open a few more degrees.  There are feet hanging off the bunk above me.  Lorien is up.  Where’s the dog?  Time for another day in my life of adventure.

CHORES

My friends Joannie and Lorien did most of the work, but my job during the horse feeding was to chuck bales of hay over fences from the back of a white pickup truck.  I was wearing a moisture-wicking, turtle-necked base layer and shirts under a large coat.  I had donned two pairs of pants and gloves.  Despite the hat and hood, my face was already freezing.  I need a mask, I thought.

I watched River the Daschund walk across a frozen pool of water only to to fall in up to her neck and climb back out.  I remembered my dip at Chimney Tops last winter.  But while River ran around like Bear Grylls trying to get warm after ice swimming, while she shivered, she seemed much more at home in the cold than the girls and I did … or maybe just me.

THE DRIVE

From valley roads we could see thin woods and high, snow-covered fields in the Cherokee National Forest.  That’s one great thing about winter, the sky is so clear you feel like you can see forever, into places it would take you days to get to.  We first needed to visit Lorien’s house, a 50-acre mountain retreat with deep streams, more horses, a treehouse, and its own large island among frigid mountain watercourses.

I walked a plank across the kind of babbling stream these mountains are famous for, with 3 dogs and the girls in front.  We explored the island briefly, then headed back to the brief warmth of the house.

Buck Bald sits atop a long, steep road with frightening switchbacks, the kind of road that really should have sturdy guardrails to prevent vehicles from rolling down 40-foot drops to a lower piece of road below, but as it’s gravel, it’s a long way from getting rails.  I really wasn’t worried.  I’d ridden buses in rural China, after all, and I found that you can bet the most broken down bus on the oldest, most treacherous road will never break down or succumb to disaster.  They’re like dead trees that never rot or fall.

14 DEGREES OR LESS

I don’t know how cold it was up there, but it was 14 down in the valley, and we were well above the valley.  Buck Bald had the kind of austere beauty I associate with great adventures, like summitting Everest, where despite total discomfort and impending need to leave danger before it’s too late, pure intellectual enjoyment enters the mind through the senses of a thoroughly unhappy body.  I’ve experienced this on Mt. LeConte, when the whipping wind made the summit unbearable and 5 miles of ice-coated downhill trail separated me from warmth — I was able to sit for a few minutes under a low, iron-gray sky enjoying in my head a beauty and sense of victory my body was utterly deaf to.  And blind to.  And numb to.  Just the cold on my face and the wind made it hard to open my eyes enough to take in the sight, but it was worth it.  The body just wanted to go home; the mind wanted the body to shut up so it could soak up the sights very few would ever enjoy.  In fact, probably no one but my companion and I ever saw it.  There’s something incredible about reaching a place that it feels no one would want to be, because it’s so inhospitable, so far from any source of protection or human comfort, like the moon or the bottom of the sea, or the deepest coal mine.  It’s the enjoyment of the rarely experienced, of being somewhere remote.  It makes up a great genre of adventure.

Buck Bald was like that — a heavenly place — an exposed grassy mound with 360 degree views of gorgeous natural creation.  And I think I associate heavenly places with a harshness and almost intolerable power of purity and cleanliness that the winter embodies so well.  The biting wind, the bright sunlight, the absence of flies and pests, all markers of the intense power of nature, almost too much for a person to take, but true and unyeilding.  It makes one revere nature as greater than human power, untamed and unstoppable, even unreasonable.  I like that.  Inside me, I know that it is good, and sometimes good is too much for me to take.

A blue palette

Expanse

Low-lying country

A great place for a picnic ... in summer

Joannie (showing her Alaskan thoughness by not wearing a hat)

Grissle McThornbody, holding River

Lorien: she looks like she's happy, but she's freezing cold

As expected, the dog, being better equipped for nature, seemed more comfortable than we did, even with our ultramodern coats and thermal gear.

I have evidence:

River checking the perimeter

TRANSMISSION ERROR

The next part of our plan was to head down to Tellico Plains, then catch the Cherohala Skyway into the mountain snow.  But Joannie’s jeep decided it didn’t want to shift gears anymore.  The transmission stopped working.  Fortunately, we had downhill all the way back to Tellico, where we could pick up cell phone reception and get a tow truck.  As we waited for rescue by Joannie’s brother and then the tow truck, the afternoon caught up to me.

I was tired ...

River was tired ...

In fact, we were both tired

The jury is still out on whether Joannie’s jeep has had its last adventure or will live to drive another day, but I’ll remember it for taking me to Buck Bald, that’s for sure.

That’s the thing about adventure, though:  you lose things.  You ruin clothes and get holes in them, beat up and burn cookware until it can’t be used, rip holes in backpacks and tents, go through shoes like Nike Corporation, destroy cameras with water, drop gear off cliffs, etc.  Matches run out, lighters burn up, hydration hoses need new bite valves, and don’t even get me started on socks.  Sometimes a really nice video camera bites the dust or a car breaks down or gets a window smashed out, but that, after all, is the nature of life — like everything else, adventuring makes it that much more clear.

You also lose fear.  You lose the barrier they call a “comfort zone.”  You lose your addiction to the man-made world, lose your pride and sense of greatness, lose your false friends, lose your false self.  You lose interst in things that don’t matter in life, and you lose your wonderment about what is important.  You lose cell phone reception and minute-by-minute schedule.  You lose the need for money out in the wild.

And that, I think, in the end, is worth a broken down car.  Especially because it wasn’t mine this time.    (Sorry, Joannie.  I’ll help you get where you need to be).

ADVENTURE #37 – EBLEN CAVE

Caves make perfect adventures during the bitterest days of winter, allowing the explorer to escape the cold and wind, while still getting out to experience a new nature-made wonder.  There’s nothing quite like hiking through frozen, dead woodlands and then dropping your jacket in the mouth of a 60-70 degree labyrinth.

This time I join Rob Baldus on his excursion to Eblen Cave, which, in classic lifeofadventure style, is a complete mystery to both of us.  You get to see our journey as it unfolded.

BUTTERMILK

Our directions led us to the Buttermilk Road exit of I-40, then on towards the cave.  We parked in a residential driveway, and though the homeowners were away, we made fast friends with a local dog.  The frisky, smiling, black-and-white dog joined us in our search for the cave entrance, a search that nearly froze my hands and ears.  The high temperature was 27 on Saturday, and we were out early in the morning.  Buttermilk jogged along beside us and right up to the cave mouth, a sight that was not lacking in “wow” factor.

The entrance was huge, like the hallway of a palace — or the jaws beckoning gullet of some giant beast.  Gazing back into the cave, one could see by the daylight slowly fail to show what was waiting for us.  10 people could have walked abreast in the largest tunnel.

INITIAL FINDS

Strolling through this cavern was easy and quick, nothing like the climbing, twisting, and squeezing Rob and I have done on other occasions.  There were no waterfalls to rappel down, no sideways tight angles, no belly crawls over sharp gravel to get in, and no kayaks necessary.  This did have one disadvantage; like us, the icy wind was free to stroll into the cave as well.

Crumbled stair to a underground stream

Bats! Yay!

What a hoss rock climber

Rob in the darkness

A turn in the tunnel

Bats were a major highlight for me.  I love bats, and to date we’ve only visited one cave where I got to see one.  This cave was filled with the little guys, brown mouse-sized bodies with wings reminiscent of folded black umbrellas.  The ears and faces give the look of a tiny chihuahua.  In this cave, to look around was to see bats, and we were careful to look before placing our hands anywhere.  I was pleased to see the dreaded white nose syndrome had not reached this place.  We haven’t been to caves for months, and our gear and clothes have been cleaned, so I doubt we were any threat to these bats as a disease vector.

THE CRAWL

Slowly we escaped deeper into the cave and away from the cold.  The tons of rock, soil, and plantlife above us was like mother nature’s blanket, and the temperature rose.  We walked bent over and then crawled on our knees into the farthest reach of a tunnel, only to discover a crawl tighter than a tubular playground slide.  Based on the smooth look of the earth, much like a dog’s trench under a chain-link fence, we could tell people had gone through it, but how long it was and whether it opened into something larger, we had no idea.

It was decided that I would go first, see if there would be somewhere to turn around, and Rob would video and be ready to exit and get help if I got stuck.

Watch the video to see what happened in detail.  I got a little freaked out by the returning echo of our words, and I moved slowly, with my elbows under me and my toes as propulsion.  Finally, I exited into a chamber you could build a restaurant in, except with higher ceilings.  Rob followed and had a tighter squeeze than me.  His arms had to go fully extended, giving him a more claustrophobic experience as he wiggled through.  And there’s something about knowing that that rock your back is scraping up against is supporting more tons than you can imagine and the only reason you aren’t crushed as the layers compress down into solid earth is some geological phenonmenon you can’t even evaluate.  I had to turn my head sideways to get it through, and I felt as if the props keeping that tiny space open could be knocked out at any moment with the feeling of ribs popping immediately following.

THE CLIMB

We explored both ends of the far chamber, finding we had to do a little climbing to access a chamber with higher ceilings than we’d yet encountered and beautiful flowstone formations.  Trickles of water and streambed issued from it, and we found rope leading to a higher level.  But the rope was soaked, thin and flimsy looking, and a tattered fallen piece of the same brand was on the ground beside it.  Better to try that on a return visit.

TOTAL DARKNESS

After sliding like snakes back through the tunnel better suited to my friend River the Dachshund than us, Rob and I relaxed.  We were in a chamber big enough to sit upright in but not stand, between the rabbit hole we’d come through and a knee-crawl back to the main caverns.  We cut out our two SureFires and both headlamps and relaxed.  Though we talked some, I felt that the otherwise total silence and total darkness around us, complete with incubator-like perfect temperature and humidity, was Mother Earth’s womb.  No GPS, no cell phone reception, no amenities, no day or night, winter or summer, no sensory stimulation but the rock beneath you and the air in your lungs — it was as if we’d crossed back to the place souls inhabit before birth, a place between life and death, where everything was paused and nothing in life mattered.

Caves must truly be the perfect environment for meditation.  I’d seen the paintings of masters staring at cave walls in Asian Art History back in college, but this was the real deal.  I’m not sure how long we were there, perhaps half an hour.  When there’s no light to see your watch, it may as well not exist.

AWAKENING

Imagine taking a midday nap with curtains drawn in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows all around you.  Now imagine that someone drops all the curtains at once to wake you up.  Multiply that by the reflective capabilities of cave walls, and you’ll have some idea what rude awakening was in store for us when the first headlamp switched back on.  There is a time when a 120 lumen flashlight is a bad thing, a time when even a 60 lumen headlamp is a bad thing.  The total silence became the echo of our laments.

It was time to go back to the cold.

Back to the light

An adventure well done

THE VIDEO