she's like a milk dud: sweet on the outside, poison on the inside

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GRODY candy

HOMEMADE candy corn

WORST halloween candy

BUMMER trick or treat

LEFT overs, LEFT overs, LEFT overs

FOR the fun haters (play a game at least)

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i would give nacho libre all the candy

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fun with google and the words "halloween costume"

enjoy....

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what hump?

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happy halloween week.....

Igor: Dr. Frankenstein...

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: "Fronkensteen."

Igor: You're putting me on.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, it's pronounced "Fronkensteen."

Igor: Do you also say "Froaderick"?

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No... ”Frederick."

Igor: Well, why isn't it "Froaderick Fronkensteen"?

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: It isn't; it's "Frederick Fronkensteen."

Igor: I see.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You must be Igor. [He pronounces it ee-gor]

Igor: No, it's pronounced "eye-gor."

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: But they told me it was "ee-gor."

Igor: Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?

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september in october

the whole month of september went a little like this:

teach, plan, make copies**, get sick, teach, plan, make copies, take care of a stranded puppy in the stairwell, teach, plan, make copies, memorize Bible verses in mongolian, teach, teach, receive news another friend is pregnant, plan, teach, make copies, get over illness, walk, walk, walk**, worship with young mongolians, receive news my sister-in-law is pregnant, teach, plan, make copies, have another class added to my schedule 3 weeks into the semester, endure the first snow of the…autumn, teach, teach, find out my new class is a nightmare, make copies, sleep, shower, realize in 6 months i’ll not be in mongolia, freak out a little, teach, plan, make copies.

there. skimmers can enjoy the sweep of generalities i’ve just mentioned and those who delight in details can read the asterisks below. look for october to come in november....i'll try my best.





make copies** - i don’t use text books in my lessons. mostly because i think the texts available stink. so being the self-righteous control freak of a person that i am, i make my own curricula. that means i also have to make hundreds of copies almost every week. this wouldn’t be a problem except that there is no copy service for teachers offered by the university. so you have to go out and find your own “Canon” shop (Canon is the general term for copy machine). this, too, is a bit tricky as the copiers are generally 50 years old and have to be re-started after 10 consecutive copies are made. i found myself having to divide my documents between three different copier places because of this. fortunately, after some more hunting, i was able to find a little Canon shop behind the school that has a shiny, newish industrial copier which can shoot out 100 two-sided copies in 5 minutes for 5 cents a page. what’s even better is that now i’m on a first name basis with the copy place people and they share their private stash of arig (fermented horse milk) and candy with me while i wait.

walk** - the main street that runs through UB is called Peace Avenue. it’s a very ironic name because peaceful is so very opposite of the truth. chaotic or filthy or, if I want to be melodramatic, deadly, would be three fairly accurate descriptors. anyway, all through september there was road construction along the avenue which redirected four-lane traffic on to two-lane side streets. a 15 minute bus ride now took about 45 minutes. even lessons were pushed forward an hour and half because students were facing 2 or 3 hour bus rides every morning. so my legs became the most efficient mode of transportation for me. now, i get to see all kinds of things on my way to and from work that i’d completely miss if i was on a bus – things that seem to make my day complete. like funny mongolian fashion (a saw a man wearing a track jacket that had “The Hand of God” written on the back), countryside people selling milk, a guy passionately singing opera out his car window, chubby cheeked kids dressed in smart little uniforms marching off to school, deel clad old people out for a stroll with their fluffy dogs. i got to experience the change of the seasons in a way i haven't been able to as summer died off and fall set in. i think it’s been over a month now since i’ve set foot on a bus.



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chapter ten - The Return

My goal was to finish this chapter before September. But obviously, like most things I try to plan, it hasn’t worked out that way. Curiously though, it seems ok that I finish this story in the midst of a beginning. I’d like to think of it as a reflection of what The Return really was. You’ll notice, after all, that the title of this chapter is not The End...

The morning of our departure, Tom played his ukulele while our bills were figured out. Yes, ukulele, a gift from a very thoughtful brother-in-law. I will tell you now that it’s weird to hear the ukulele playing in the Mongolian wilderness. But somehow, it also makes perfect sense.

After our bills were paid and Ed and Charli reimbursed the ger camp for the towel they burned, we were off – crammed together in a fogron bumping along to Murun. Not especially keen on taking another road trip, Ed, Charli and I decided on the quicker (hour and half) and less bumpy flight. It was just a bit tricky obtaining the tickets. I believe Ed was first directed to go the ticket office in Murun, but when we got there the office was closed. They told him over the phone that we could buy tickets at the airport. But when we got to the airport, there was no one there who sold tickets. We were told to go to the ticket office. So Ed explained that it was closed and we were told to buy tickets at the airport. Eventually, a prim, white-stockinged lady came and sat herself down at a very unofficial-looking table next to the metal detector to sell tickets. There were 8 spots left on the plane. In about 10 minutes, three of those spots were taken.

Ian and Liz opted to prolong the vacation experience by continuing their travels in the countryside. Tom and Emily were also flying out. After a bit of lunch together and a strange meeting with Ed and Charli’s co-worker’s son (who sat with us about 5 minutes then brooded in a corner opposite us picking at a piece of cake), we all parted ways – Ian and Liz to their next adventure the rest of us to the airport.

Tom plucked along on his ukulele as we waited to board. Emily read a Reader’s Digest procured from a recent trip to the states. I played “Could They Be Gay?” with Ed and Charli concerning a couple sitting across from us. We determined that they were. The flight was uneventful and lovely.

30 minutes after landing and a horrifying taxi ride by a driver who must have been in a big hurry and believed himself to be immortal – I was home. Dirty, stinky, tired and hungry.

That’s how all returns should begin.



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chapter nine - The Epic Hike

The ‘green trail’ is what we followed first. So called for the green paint markers splashed every km or so on sporadic tree trunks. This was a good idea. Trails are always a good idea. It seemed to be mostly level, not in the least treacherous, and put us a few minutes ahead of schedule. Our destination was a 2,000 meter (6,500 foot) hill about 8 km (5 miles) away. It butted up against one end of the mountain range we had spied the previous day on our boat ride. It was marked by a curious zig-zag line leading to the top. Zig-zag, I knew what that meant.

It wasn’t long before we came to a clearing and made a break with the green trail. The events and sights following this break are a bit muddled in my memory. I can’t quite discern which came first or after, so I’m not going to bother you with specifics, just generalities.

I remember walking up. A lot, actually. Up, up, up – that seemed to be the one and only direction our bodies were propelled. It was a never ending landscape of steepness. But the further we walked and the more up we went, the more amazing everything seemed to become. Huvsgul opened to a vast sheet of glassy turquoise, valleys sunk into deep greens, and the hills and mountains were draped in hazy blues. Remarkable! I’d never seen anything like it.

If we weren’t walking up, we were walking through – through dense piney forest, springing along the spongy needled floor, hurdling fallen trees or thorny bushes. Through soggy marsh-lands that completely soaked my shoes, sidestepping animal poo all the way – yak poo, mostly. And they must have been big yaks if I remember correctly.

Up, through, up, through for hours as if we were a bunch of needles sewing up the landscape. Eventually, after plodding out of a marshy bit, the land widened and the Beast presented itself - all 2,000 meters of him. There was talk about following a tree line straight up the side clear to the top. Something died in me after hearing that and I quietly mourned, trying my best to look eager. We talked about whether or not to eat lunch before tackling the Beast. We decided to fuel up instead on a bit of chocolate and keep lunch till the top as a reward for our hard work.

So it began. We picked up walking sticks from the layer of fallen branches in the sparse forest at the foot of the Beast. By the time we reached the tree line and gazed toward its ending point at the top – it became clear that walking the zig-zag road was indefinitely a smarter move. However, Elisabeth had gone on ahead of us while we were eating chocolate, following the old plan straight up the side. So Ed, Charli, Tom and I set to work on the zig-zag and Ian followed after his wife.

One of the things I enjoy about hiking is the sense of accomplishment. Some hills seem too impossible, the incline too ridiculous and all you think is, how can this be remotely possible? But when you reach the top and see how far you’ve come and take stock of your current circumstances, you realize you’re not dead or too exhausted to tackle another hill. You wonder, Man! Did I just do all that? How? Let’s see if I can do it again

That was how I felt upon reaching the top of 2,000 meters. That and an overriding need to lie down. Elisabeth and Ian had made it there before us by just a few minutes and were setting things up for lunch (ramen noodles again – but this time the packages came with spoons). We happily stuffed ourselves and took in everything we possibly could: the clean, sun-baked air, the greens and blues of lake, tree and hillside, Huvsgul, her mountains and valleys, and the contentedness of being with good friends. I was joyously looking forward to walking down and back.

As it turned out, down and back did not occur in the same way up and through did. I naively expected we’d walk back the same route we took forward. Silly me – remember, you’re in the company of real hikers. So instead, we walked about two miles the opposite direction before beginning our slow decent and journey back to camp. Tom, anxious to get back to his wife (who is pregnant and didn’t come with us), broke from us early on and ran the whole way back.

The events of this return journey are again, somewhat muddled. But these are the things I clearly remember:

Down, down, down. I’m not sure which is worse: a steep incline or a steep decline. They both kind of suck. But that’s the direction our bodies were now propelled. The goal was to get back to the forest and pick up the green trail somewhere near the beach. Ah, the green trail! A relatively non-laborious walk and the quickest way back to camp, I remember that!

Before we came across any hint of the green trail though, a good portion of bushwhacking through forest had to be done. By this time, it felt like my hip joints had aged 50 or 60 years and my legs were on fire. My pack had also somehow increased in weight by 10 pounds. We had also almost run out of water and it was the hottest part of the afternoon. I hated bushwhacking. Why couldn’t we have just gone back the same way we came? It was a tough battle fighting off the grumps.

Eventually we met with the lake and filled our dry water bottles, then picked the green trail back up (joy!). But what we remembered as a smooth, kindly coast, had violently tipped itself in our absence and had become a horrible series of upward climbs. Was this even the same trail?! I don’t think my 80 year old hips can take it, I thought to myself. But they did. They had to. Ed and Charli and I whizzed through the green trail as fast as we possibly could. Ian and Liz had taken a more leisurely pace. For me, at least, it was absolutely no longer about the journey anymore, it was all about the destination. The quicker you go, the sooner it will all end.

And it did. When we hobbled through the front gate of our ger camp, we spied Tom lying dead-like on the steps of the shower house waiting for the hot water. Emily was sitting beside him. He had come into camp about an hour ahead of us and was clearly out of gas. He actually did run the whole way back. When I returned to my ger, I checked the clock: 7:13 pm. It had been nearly 10 hours since we departed that morning. I laughed to myself. 10 miles in 10 hours. Ian and Liz hobbled into the ger shortly after.

We looked like a bunch of zombies at dinner that night, except Emily, of course. It took a lot to even dunk a teabag. But I think we all agreed that it was a great way to spend our last day at Huvsgul. Well worth it. We treated ourselves to fizzy sodas and went to bed early in nice, warm gers.

chapter eight - The Boat Ride

If you’re just joining us now, this is a brief summary of what you’ve missed: a train ride with snorers, Jimmy and his man boobs, roadless road trip, swindling, frustrating shower, delicious soup, treacherous goat path.

If you’re still with me, God bless you. There are only two more chapters to go and then we all can get on with our lives.

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You can’t go to a lake without getting in to it. This rule is suspended, though, when the water is too flipping cold to even stick in a finger. Such is the case with Huvsgul. It may be pretty but it’s also frigid – and year round at that. So if you can’t get in to swim, you try to find a boat. We soon found that pickings were slim. These were our options: 1. The Sukhbataar – a booze-cruise type ship that takes you round the lake blasting horrible party music. In order for The Sukhbataar to leave port there must be 60 people on board and you only have 15 minutes to get from your camp to the port after its horn is tooted. Plus it’s expensive. 2. Private ventures – little, rusty motor-boats owned by individuals or other ger camps. A base price for these seemed to be in the vicinity of $150 an hour per person.

This did not discourage us, however. With a little more investigation and bargaining, we found a private venture that dropped their price to $10 an hour per person – significantly more doable than $150. So we hired them for a two hour trip around the lake.

As it happened, our boat ride fell on a veritably windy day that had a chill and stirred up white caps from the east. And what direction did we go for the first hour? East, of course - against the wind and waves. And who was the idiot in front? Me, of course - pretending not to be the idiot. Luckily it wasn’t altogether miserable, just a little soggy and bumpy – the driver was worse off than any of us. I figured I could withstand the spray and splashes for the first hour, but was herded to the back after 30 or 40 minutes by Ian who took my place up front.

Not long afterward, our boat driver (the antithesis of Jimmy) slowed and ‘docked’ our vessel at a little peninsula. By ‘docked’ I mean ‘rammed into the steep, rocky side of the peninsula.’ Apparently, this was a good sightseeing place and we were urged to de-boat and have a walk around. If you’ve ever de-boated onto the steep side of a hill, you can imagine how hilarious we looked flinging our legs over the boat railing and scrambling up for dear life. Or maybe that was just me. Yeah, it was just me.

After taking some pictures, stretching our legs, and covertly going to the bathroom, we were all back on the boat to finish our little tour. It was on this return trip that Ian took bearings for a mountain range a little more than 8km (5 miles) from our camp. There was rumor of a second hike involving this mountain range, which I thought was incredibly ambitious and a little frightening. But it was only a rumor, right?

The way back was significantly less soggy and bumpy and by the time we eased up to the dock (a real one, not a cliffside), we felt two hours had been satisfactory. Really, if we wanted to boat the entirety of the lake, it would have taken all day…and we didn’t have enough money or dry clothes for that kind of thing.

Thus the boat ride ended and we merrily skipped our soggy bottoms back to camp. At dinner that evening, the rumor of the second hike turned into a plan for the next day’s excursion. It was to be a very big day. I like to refer to it as the epic hike.

And epic it was.