March 9, 2018

Greetings on a cold but sunny morning.

As usual, much has happened since I last wrote. I am currently on sabbatical, which gives me some breathing room and a chance to catch up on those aspects of life that fell to the wayside for the past seven years. Matt and I just returned from three weeks in Australia, and I figured it would be a good time to send an update about what I have been up to for the past six months. Fall was absolutely gorgeous. We took advantage of the weather and walked a lot (and I mean a lot). We have perfected what we call "adventure days", in which we explore a section of the greater Cincinnati region by foot. These typically wind up being 10-12 mile excursions with some sort of destination in mind. For example, an adventure in Late November took us to the Cincinnati Art Museum, where we saw two very memorable exhibits: one on apartheid in South Africa, and one on the fashion industry (featuring Iris van Herpen’s 3D printed “clothing”).

Our fall was also filled with friends and family. First, a bit of sad news. My grandmother passed away just five days shy of her 100th birthday in early October. She was a tough old lady and I had been under the impression that she would probably somehow outlive even me. She was a rather private person and I have learned a lot about her since her death, including seeing photos of her as a younger woman that I had never previously seen. They open a window into her life that I had not previously been pricy to, and I am somewhat saddened that I did not get to know her better as a person.

Ok, now on to happier things. Matt’s brother got married to his long-time partner, Lauren, near their home in Annapolis in November. It was a delightful celebration. The theme was maritime and the wedding was outdoors. It was cold but beautiful. As part of the wedding party, we even got to sail across a bay in a lovingly restored vessel owned by their neighbor and friend. Our friend Andy visited again for Halloween, and my mother joined us for Thanksgiving. We had dinner with our long-time friend from Santa Cruz, Krish, who now lives in Cincinnati with his parents. It’s a small world.

We spent the end of November with family in three different places. First, we visited Florida, where we were able to catch up a bit with relatives on my dad’s side of the family. My aunt now has wireless, which allowed us for the first time to examine maps and subsequently explore her neighborhood and larger surrounding area. For the most part, the weather was lovely, and it was hard to stay inside. Matt and I decided to go down to the gulf coast (Okaloosa/ Santa Rosa Island) twice. One excursion was sunny and glorious. The other was foggy and ethereal. It’s amazing how much light and fog can do to transform a place. It’s certainly beautiful when the sun is out but the fog creates a magical and mystical space. The shoreline of Okaloosa/ Santa Rosa Island, which is a sandbar, is not built up like the rest of Florida. I guess it can’t be because the shifting sands and storms will destroy buildings. The coast is calm and quiet and windswept. I’m thinking it could be a nice retreat for a few days in the off season.

Next, we saw my mother in Michigan for Christmas. My brother joined us and we enjoyed several incredibly cold and snowy days not doing very much other than trying to walk a few blocks through blizzard. Since it was so cold, we wound up spending a good chunk of time at museums, including the Kalamazoo Air Zoo (which houses a most impressive collection of planes) and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, which had a really informative exhibit on guitars, and a planetarium show called “Space Park 360” that actually made me a little sick. If you like roller coasters and have a strong stomach, I would recommend it. My mother, wisely, opted out.

Lastly, from Michigan we went to State College to see Matt’s dad, brother, and our sister in law for New Years. The winter followed us and we didn’t spend too much time outside. We did get to check out State College’s first night, complete with its 100’s of ice sculptures, and we fortuitously struck up a conversation with the team that created the sculptures at a bar later that evening. Apparently this is very much a family operation (I had no idea). The team members have known one another since they were little, and all of them were brought into the business by family. I didn’t realize that we still had these artisan-apprentice type businesses in the US and I really enjoyed talking to the team.

January was our “nose to the grindstone” month. I hunkered down and managed to get multiple papers wrapped up and submitted. If you are interested in learning more about my research, here’s a nice writeup about a recent article by our UC media relations folks:  http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/goshawk.html.

And all that hard work in January paid off. We have just returned from three weeks in Australia where we were truly able to relax. We spent a week and a half in Tasmania, followed by a very brief trip to Canberra to give scientific talks at the Australia National University (and see an old friend from my time in South Caicos), up to the Blue Mountains for a few days, and then ended in Sydney. The trip was a much-needed break and it served its purpose well.

Tasmania was a particular treat. They really respect the natural world there and it is quite beautiful. Definitely feels somewhat like New Zealand, but it’s got its own identity. We essentially toured the entire island by car, stopping for hikes along the way and sleeping at pre-planned locations for the night. And boy did we see and do a lot! We walked through beautiful fern forests, saw raging waterfalls, took a night ghost tour at Port Arthur, one of Australia’s most haunted places, and consumed some great food, beer, wine and cider. We also saw a variety of wildlife, including Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, echidnas, lyre birds, parrots and fruit bats.

We saw the devils in a captive facility called the “Unzoo”. The venue is going out of its way to take down the walls for many of its enclosures, allowing native animals to roam freely and choose to stay only if they want to. Many of their animals were injured at some point (usually car accidents), and would likely not survive in the wild. They have a good life at the Unzoo. We had the opportunity to hand-feed Forester kangaroos during our visit, which has to be one of the neatest things I have done in a long time. The devils differed from many of the other denizens in that they were retired from a breeding program, and they were most definitely in an enclosure. Apparently, they have one of the strongest bites of any mammal, they’re mostly blind, they’re not very smart, and they have a pretty short temper. So… probably best to keep them separated from the tourists.

Parrots and fruit bats were everywhere in New South Wales, and there were also a lot of parrots in Tasmania. I loved it. I would be happy to live in a place where the sky is filled with raging parrots during the day and giant bats in the evening. The parrots were colorful and vocal, and some were quite large. We saw sulfur crested cockatoos and king parrots (both of which I had come to admire during my time in Queensland way back when), as well as a variety of other small and large birds. The yellow-tailed black cockatoos were the most impressive. They were the size of a heron! I can’t imagine keeping a cockatoo as a pet. Their call carries for miles, and is not particularly melodic. The bats are quieter, but they can still chat up a storm when they clamber amongst branches in a particular productive fruit tree. I honestly don’t know how they are able to fly. They’re quite bulky. I think they must have very strong flight muscles and finger bones to support their wings. The lyre bird and echidna were also in the wild, but they were unexpected, and wow was it special to see them up close and personal. The lyre bird announced its presence by kicking dirt and rocks down the steep slope above us when we were in the blue mountains. We learned that they do this while foraging in the leaf litter, and that they are responsible for accelerating litter decomposition and displacing a lot of soil and loose rock down slope. This is a lovely example of how closely knit the biological world truly is. Echidnas are like spiny little tanks. We stumbled upon it during a hike but it didn’t seem phased. It just continued shoving its long nose into the dirt (presumably feeding on ants?) and then sauntered off after a couple of minutes. ‘Never thought I’d get to see one of those, and certainly didn’t expect to get to see one <5 feet away. We did NOT have the same luck with platypus. We tried to view them at Lake Saint Clair, which is supposed to be a good location, and we may have seen one, but it was getting dark, and it was hard to tell what, exactly, was tearing along just under the water’s surface 100 feet away. I choose to believe it was a platypus. Oh yes, we also saw a wombat from far away. I can guarantee it was a wombat because nothing else is built like a cube and grazes.

All in all, it was simply a terrific trip. Most of the time, we stayed in remote small towns and villages, but we did check out both of the island’s cities: Hobart and Launceston. I liked Hobart better, but that may be biased by the fact that we stayed there early on rather than later in the trip. It also houses the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art), which is one of the best contemporary art museums in the world. My overall favorite place? I don’t think I can choose. Matt and I did make a list of all the places we liked a lot just in case we get to go back someday. The weather turned somewhat foul about half-way into our time on Tasmania, but the rain and cold felt appropriate for an island that is so close to the south pole (granted we were there in the middle of summer). And it helped make the waterfalls epic. The downside was that we didn’t get to see any stars at night, and I bet that they would have been absolutely phenomenal at some of the places where we stayed. This is something we can look forward to if we get to go back. I also think we’re going to have good stars on our next big adventure – we’re headed to Namibia with friends from Canada in May.

It’s good to be home. Australia is an amazing place, and I would readily return there, but I also am pretty fond of our home in Cincinnati. I would think twice before moving. It’s still cold here but Spring is in the air, and I’m looking forward to spending time outside in the coming months. Life is good.