A Historic Day

After lunch, I am on my way to the ward to find more information from a patient's chart for my case presentation when I decide to stop by the staff tea room for a cup of coffee. As I enter the room, I hear the TV on with sound at full volume. A couple of nurses are organizing charts while looking up occasionally at the TV. The local TV channel is carrying live coverage of the US election. I make my cup of coffee and see Barack Obama on the screen getting ready for a speech. At the bottom of the screen flashes the designation: "President-Elect." As he starts to speak, I sit down with apt attention and sip my coffee absentmindedly.

Earlier in the day, I looked up the election returns online whenever I could. As I watched one swing state after another going to Obama, first Pennsylvania, then Ohio, then Virginia and Florida were starting to look more and more blue, I became increasingly hopeful even though the results were only based on exit polls. It almost sounded too good to be true - what, no "too close to call", no outcries for recount? I wasn't going to get my hopes too high; I was almost anticipating that some of the swing states would turn yellow, and then we'd get bogged down in yet another round of law suits for recounts and countersuits to stop recounts. I was telling myself that I wouldn't be convinced until the official counts were confirmed. Now that McCain has made his congratulatory phone call to Obama, I am relieved that the drama that had followed the last two elections won't be repeated this time.

I watch as President-Elect Obama speaks in his trademark soaring oratorical style. I notice that my eyes grow moist as his infectiously hopeful speech goes on, his eloquence a stark contrast to what we have had to suffer through in the last eight years. Images of his elated supporters crying, singing, and celebrating flash on the screen. Obama's election has brought hope to me and to many people who feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. But this is only the beginning; we can't expect Obama to fix everything. The things that are going wrong in the US are beyond what any one person can do to fix. He is inheriting a country with its economy in the dumps, a health care system already running over the cliff, and the only thing constantly going up is the national debt. These problems won't be solved overnight, but I know the one thing Obama can do as soon as he takes office is to repair the United States' image internationally. To paraphrase a popular credit card commercial - one economic bailout package: $700 billion; fix the health care system: $50 gajillion, to have the United States regarded around the world as the beacon of freedom and democracy once again: priceless.

With Obama's speech over and the local station switching back to its regularly programming, I dab my eyes dry and start my way to the ward again. I walk out of the staff tea room with a slight spring to my steps; I, as an American, am standing taller today.

In Retrospect: Grand Canyon National Park

September, 2002: my first drive across the US. My sister and I went to Europe for a couple of weeks, then drove from Washington, DC, to Fresno, California. We crossed the Deep South and dodged a hurricane. In the last stretch of the two-week drive, we stopped at Grand Canyon in Arizona for two nights. The mornings and nights were chilly at that elevation, and early October meant the low season, so the crowds were small. We got up early to watch the sunrise, twice. We did little walks down the canyon, but didn’t go far.

The Grand Canyon is in the northwestern corner of Arizona.

Sunrise over Grand Canyon

It was a hazy day. We learned from the Visitor Center that the westerly brought smog from Los Angeles to Grand Canyon from time to time. Today was one of those days. Thanks, Angelenos.

Standing at the precipice along the South Rim

The Abyss

The Canyon changed color as the day went by. The setting sun gave everything an orange glow, despite the bluish haze.

The next day, we got up early again to watch the sunrise at a different spot.

Being at the top of the canyon, there is not much with which to frame the sunrise. These couple of dead trees would have to do.

The haze from the day before was still hanging around.

In Retrospect: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park, is world-renowned for its geysers, springs, and wildlife. So, on my cross-country drive in July, 2004, I spent two nights camping at one of the campgrounds inside. Two-and-half days are definitely not enough for a national park of this size and diversity, but that was all the time I had.

Yellowstone National Park is located in the northwestern corner of Wyoming

All traffic stops and crowds gather as an elk crosses the road

Looks like something out of a Petrie dish. The thermophilic bacteria grow along suitable streams and ponds, the species and color changes depending on the temperature and pH of the water.

Over here the bacteria take on a reddish-brownish appearance

And along this stream, green and brown grow side by side

The Old Faithful – thar she blows!

Many of these creeks are replenished by run-offs from geysers and springs

Hot springs with boiling water like this one are so numerous, many are unnamed

Steam from springs blowing in the late afternoon glow gives the landscape a surreal appearance

Porcelain Basin is encrusted with calcium carbonate

The water of the springs can be clear, or it can be emerald-green, depending on the minerals dissolved in it

Grass and trees are constantly trying to reclaim the land

This spring next to a picnic area looks inviting, but it’s probably not a good idea to jump in - it's boiling

People watching yet another geyser erupt

The size of the Grand Prismatic Spring can only be appreciated from the air, this is just a sliver of it

Morning Glory Spring

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, although nowhere near the size of the one in Arizona, is still quite impressive

The raging torrent looks like a smooth ribbon from this height

With the spring dried up, the white calcium skeleton is what’s left of Minerva Terrace

These unfortunate trees stood in the way of the water spilling out of a spring

View from top of Minerva Terrace

A herd of bison grazing at the foot of the mountain

The road out of Yellowstone and into the big sky country of Wyoming

The road winds its way up the side of a mountain just outside of Yellowstone

In Retrospect: Zion National Park

In July, 2004, I did a cross-country drive from California to Washington, DC. Along the way, I stopped and visited a number of national parks in the western states. Southern Utah consists of a number of national parks, national monuments, and national forests – a great place to be if you like the outdoors.

Map of the US with location of Zion National Park marked

The road leading to Springdale nestled among the mesas

The red-tinged road inside Zion

Angels Landing, the tall rock formation on the left, forms part of the canyon wall

The shuttle bus is just a dot at the bottom of the canyon when surrounded by the massive cliffs

View of Zion Canyon from Observation Point, 670 meters from the canyon floor

The sheer drop off of the cliff offers spectacular views and gives you sweaty palms

Pine trees and cacti coexist here

Rainwater has carved out their preferred course through the sandstone canyon over the years

The layers of the soft Navajo sandstone is revealed after years of the polishing action from raging floods

The canyon comes to a point at The Narrows along the Virgin River

Rock formation and pine tree

The Zion-Mount Carmel Highway winds its way up the canyon wall

The Long Way Home

I am packing, not for going home, but for my cycling trip in New Zealand on my way back to Australia. Going home is the easy part, packing-wise. I am sure I have some clothes left at home to wear, but packing for the cycling trip requires a lot of planning, much more than my cycling trip to Vietnam last year.

Packing for a cycling trip to Vietnam was so easy, I did it in half an hour. In Vietnam, food was good, cheap, and everywhere; cheap accommodation was also found everywhere. So it was like a catered trip. New Zealand, on the other hand, is much more sparsely populated and things are not cheap. So I will have to bring all of my camping gear, making the packing a bit more complicated. So I take out my packing list for a cycling trip and my packing list for a camping trip, get a box from a bike shop, and get to work.

And, with my bike taken apart and put into the box and everything else in a duffel bag, I am ready to go.

Auckland from the air

My flights from Brisbane to L.A. via Auckland are uneventful. After clearing immigration at LAX, I stroll over to baggage claim. My duffel comes tumbling down the carousel, but my bike is nowhere to be seen. I stand and wait by the odd-size baggage area. As the baggage area clears of people from the flight, I know something is not right. A brief chat with the baggage guy confirms my suspicion: they have lost my bike. Well, at least they have lost it now, and hopefully not when I am in New Zealand and needing my bike a month from now. I fill out a form and walk out of the airport terminal unencumbered.

Next, at the train station, I find out that train tickets to Fresno are all sold out for the day. Oh, right, it is the Sunday after Thanksgiving - everyone is traveling. It did not occur to me to book my train ticket ahead of time; I didn't think that many people actually travel by train in the US. Apparently I was wrong. So I crash the night at my cousin's place.

On Monday morning, with train tickets in hand, I board the bus for Bakersfield. I have to travel by bus over the mountains north of L.A. into the Central Valley of California, then pick up the train in Bakersfield where the train line starts.

Twenty miles out of Bakersfield, the train comes to a halt. After a while, the speakers crackle to life. The conductor announce that a freight train in front of us had hit a truck at a crossing, someone was killed, so we have to go back to Bakersfield. In Bakersfield, the bus takes us around the site of the accident to Wasco, where we board another train. Six-and-half hours after leaving L.A., I finally get to Hanford train station, where my mom, my sister, and my little nephew have been waiting.

I am finally home! But my bike is still lost, sitting somewhere in Brisbane, Auckland, or LAX.

Happy Fourth of July!

Fourth of July, just another day on the calendar over here. I showed up to the morning hand-over meeting where the staff gave a progress report on patients on the ward, sat in on ward rounds where patients were interviewed and their mental states assessed, and followed the psychiatrist on duty to outpatient clinic. During the consult with a patient with psychotic depression, the psychiatrist observed,

Oh, it's Independence Day.

Patient (in a flat monotone):
What's that?

Me (helpfully):
It was on this day in 1776 when the people living in America decided to become their own country; they didn't want to be British anymore. America used to be a British colony like Australia was.

Patient (realizing Fourth of July had nothing to do with him):

Oh.
(silence)
I still hear voices and I can't get them to stop.

And that was the only time Fourth of July was ever mentioned the whole day.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight's dinner: lamb and spinach lasagna