Dear friends and family:

We stopped in Arizona to see Saguaro NP, Casa Grande NM and the Biosphere, all of which were fascinating. We got to meet up with our friend Steve for a tour of Saguaro. I won't include any pictures, but of course we have so many! We'll certainly show any or all to you if you want to see them.

Our next stops included Carlsbad Cavern NP. The second picture here is one of the formations in a cave we toured on a ranger-led flashlight hike. It was an interesting tour because there was no artificial lighting in the cave, and the formations were really spectacular. This figure has many names - La Muerte, the Grim Reaper, or the Klansman (the ranger apologized for the politically incorrect name but he shared it anyway). The caves of Carlsbad Caverns were formed about 10 million years ago. These are perhaps the best caves we've ever been in and definitely recommend them. If you can get there between March and October the Mexican bats are there in the thousands and put on a show every evening as they fly in and out of the cave. We were there too late so all we got to see and smell was the bat guano (poop), not quite as exciting. The first picture is of Ruth looking at a prehistoric mound of bat guano. They used to mine that stuff to fertilize the orange trees in California - anyone need a job? Can you imagine mining bat guano 10 hours a day? Not for the faint of stomach.

After a brief stop in Guadalupe Mountains NP, where the wind was bitterly cold (I think this was when all you northerners were getting colder than normal temps), we headed to Big Bend NP in southern Texas. I mean southern - catch the last photo of the Rio Grande, the left canyon wall is in Mexico. You used to be able to cross into Mexico from the park, but no more, the Border Patrol has taken care of that. In fact, we had at least 4 road stops to be questioned by the Border Patrol as we traveled along route 90. I think they either have too much time, too much money or too many officers, maybe all of the above.

We loved Big Bend. We spent our first full day there hiking in the Chisos Mountains basin, a 12.5 mile loop. You see the picture of Brian looking out over the South Rim of the basin towards the Mexican border. At this point we're about 15 miles from the Rio Grande. We saw deer, javelinas, birds (the Mexican jay, the rufous sided tohee and some unidentified warblers) as well as a mother black bear with her three cubs. The picture shows one of the cubs checking us out. Notice the tree with the peeling bark - this is locally known as the "gringo tree" because it's bark turns red then peels, just like a gringo! We had beautiful weather and stayed only three nights, then ran out of time.

Perhaps our favorite stop in Southern California, after doing some hiking and camping at Joshua Tree National Park, was the Salton Sea, a 35 mile long body of water just to the south of Joshua Tree NP. The Salton Sea is a shallow sea about 200 feet below sea level, and because it has no outlet it is saltier than the ocean, and growing more salty all the time. The sea has come and gone several times over the last 1000 years, and in its current state it is host to many species of migrating birds. You can see the snow geese swirling in the air - they were a lovely sight. In addition to snow geese we saw black throated stilts, brown and white pelicans, gamble's quails, roadrunners, logger headed shrikes and many little diving ducks that we couldn't identify. But the sea is a fragile environment and its growing saltiness means that it may not sustain fish life for much longer. As it is, only the tilapia can reproduce in such salty water. Without fish the birds won't have food and will lose this stopover on the Pacific flyway. So the local government is putting tons of money into trying to preserve the lake. It seems like trying to fight nature, but we wish them the best.

Close to the lake we visited the mud pots you see in the last photos. This part of California is only a few miles from two major faults, so there is lots of geothermal activity. These mud pots are created by hot gasses escaping and oozing mud up to the suface. Some form little volcanos and others are more like the pots you see in Yellowstone. It was odd to run across this phenomenum in an abandoned field surrounded by geothermal energy plants, basically in the middle of nowhere. We were tipped off at the visitor center at Salton Sea that they existed.

We have been impressed with the variety of climates and natural features of California - from the redwood forests of the north coast to the deserts and mountains of the south. To add to the odd mix, agricultural fields, irrigated by the Colorado River, butt right up against the desert, creating a juxtaposition that most of us from the midwest would find jarring. We associate good crops with rain, but here, where it doesn't rain much at all, only irrigation makes the fields productive.

Indonesian Places

Hi Folks,

We experienced great contrasts in Indonesia. Below is a pictured of Jakarta, the capital. It is an unbelievably congested city. The day we arrived Utun picked us up at the airport and we drove through the city 20 miles to his home. It took 4 hours, thats right-5 miles per hour. City streets in Chicago at rush hour are like the German autobahn by comparison.

Next to the city picture is a photo of rice fields which are beautiful and all over the countryside. The picture of Brian is taken in Borobodur, a massive and impressive Buddhist temple built about 1300 years ago. On the island of Bali we saw many rather ornery monkeys. This one got someone's shoe, I had to hold on to my glasses to keep the monkeys from stealing them. Also from Bali are a picture of the sunset over the ocean taken near our hotel there and a photo of one of the two Balinese dances we saw.

Indonesia is huge, it is the fourth largest country in the world, and we only saw a small portion of it. As you can see from these photos it is a different world from the U.S. We are glad we went and really loved the people who were the friendliest people we have ever met in our travels. But we are also happy to be back to the world we are more familiar with.

Brian and Ruth

It's hard to summarize 16 days in Indonesia in a brief post, so we'll divide it into two: the people, and Indonesia, the place. All that with a caviat that we saw very little of Indonesia's many places and ethnic groups. We spent our time in the capital, Jakarta, in the cities of Bandung, Cilegon, Semurang, Bogor and Yogyakarta in West and Central Java (the same island that the capital is located on, and that has the majority of the people of Indonesia living on it), as well as the southern part of the resort island Bali. Java is about 95% Muslim and Bali is about 95% Hindu, and both linguistically and culturally they are very different from each other as well. The people we got to know were all Muslim. You see a picture of Utun and Brian in their hardhats. Utun is a site manager for a German chemical plant in Cilegon and he is the reason we visited Indonesia - he was Brian's AFS brother in 1973 - 4, 35 years ago! His family is the top photo, but missing is his eldest daughter who wasn't able to be there that night. We also met two of his sisters. Lilis is the mother of one of the boys in the third photo. The boys are all members of a pop-rock band, the Romance Band, which is having a modicum of success in Indonesia. His other sister, Inge is one of the teachers at a Muslim school, in the line-up of white-head coverings towards the top. We also met his father, Pahpi, sitting on the couch with us and his wife. We enjoyed meeting the extended family and getting to know life as it is lived by middle-class professional Indonesians.

Muslims in Indonesia are a very tolerant group, and they see their religious practice as one of many, which is a necessity for survival in a country that has so much diversity. They don't eat pork or duck, can't touch a dog's nose before prayer, don't drink or gamble, pray five times a day, etc. The women mostly cover their heads, but it is a choice for women in Indonesia, so particularly younger women are not inclined to follow the practice. Women and men both cover up, which means long sleeves, jackets, head coverings and long pants in 95 degree heat and high humidity. We noticed that in Bali, where the majority of people are Hindu, they wear shorts and cool summer blouses and have none of the lifestyle restrictions of the Muslims. In Java you find prayer rooms everywhere, in train stations, museums, parking garages (I'm not kidding) because of the requirement to pray 5 times a day. In Bali every house and restaurant has a temple for prayers and offerings, and little baskets of fruit, food and flowers are set out each morning to ask for blessings.

Being in Indonesia during the election was fun. Barack Obama spent 2 years of his youth attending school in Indonesia. I think his step-father was from Indonesia and he has a step-sister who still lives there. So he is practically Indonesian as far as people there are concerned. I think people there were as excited as us to see him become president!