"It's alright, baby girl"

Late summer '13 in Blacksburg

That's always been the mantra I whisper in Emma's ear when I have to leave her alone for the day, or when emergency vehicles scream by us on our walks.  It's not the words–those are for me–it's the way you say it.  My mother likes to point out that she's a 'delicate flower.'
     I've been repeating the mantra more often since she was  diagnosed: when the pain is particularly bad, when her pills come out, and when she is nauseated from the tonic of medicine, food, and pain.
     It's been a long road since September–longer than I would have thought, honestly.  While we were discovering the truth, a dizzying array of statistics were hurled my way.  Even with those estimates, I would not have thought I'd be typing these words in last few days of 2013 with Emma curled at my feet, looking better than she has since September.  I think I was pessimistic as a defense mechanism–it seemed appropriate to set low standards for 'successfully managing' terminal cancer.  Appropriate or not, here we are, approaching the median survival time following radiation and chemotherapy.  

Chasing me on the beach in Nags Head, NC

     We had a nice holiday in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The weather was beautiful, and the cancer was more dormant than awake.  This is how I rate the weeks of my life now, good cancer weeks and bad cancer weeks.  I will take the good ones any time I can get them though, no complaints.  
     Before I get you too excited, she isn't cured.  We've just bought her some more time.  Apparently, Emma's psychological frailty–crippling at times–belies her physical tenacity and will to live.  It stands to reason that a creature as mindlessly and effortlessly happy as Emma loves life so deeply that her will is an all but indomitable force–unless you happen to have a vacuum cleaner.
   

Climbing the mountain

Isabella prepped and excited for today's climb up Afton Mountain and the Blue Ridge Parkway! It's a tough day, but well worth the pain and suffering. I've been thinking about this ride for three years, and I can't wait to take it on now, after a considerably larger number of miles under my belt. 

The goal:

Trail angel, gone but not forgotten:

And then the payoff!

After a long day of climbing, there's the descent into Vesuvius VA. Let me say that if you are not comfortable on a bike, don't do this, and if you are comfortable, proceed with caution and have a blast! There are a number of turns that will make you wish you had checked your brakes, and perhaps reacquaint yourself with whatever believe in. There's something about the adrenaline rush, it reminds you you're really alive for sure. Now that I'm safely down the mountain and approaching my destination, I surely feel alive. Thanks to the donors, thanks to the other riders. 2 more amazing days. Tomorrows ride through Lexington was one of my favorite - probably because of the downhill, but the bucolic landscape helped to complete the scene. 

Wrong way

Presenting the check to the James Q Miller MS Clinic

Meeting some of the patients and staff. Your donations at work!

And for the presentation,

The 2013 team withe the check

Glendale, VA

Hammock city in Glendale outside Willis Church. 

It was a pretty hot and steamy day, in fact a lot like in 2010. When I did this leg back then though, I remember still being a little afraid of this trip. We hurried through those first miles - possibly to prove we can. It's too bad too. You go through some beautiful and culturally rich places that you may never see unless you really try. The Historical Triangle, Yorktown-Williamsburg-Jamestown, is a pretty cool place. 

I also want to take the time to applaud the region for maintaining and expanding the National Capital Trail that stretches a good part of the way from Jamestown to northeast of Richmond. 

Some of the trail from today - outside Jamestown. 

Now I'm swinging in my hammock with some great friends, enjoying a June evening in Virginia. 

Waiting

"I stay my haste, I make delays, 

For what avails this eager pace? 

I stand amid the eternal ways, 

And what is mine shall know my face. "

From "Waiting" by John Burroughs

On our way

Packed and ready. On our way to Yorktown and the beginning of the 2013 TransAm adventure. It's nearly 3 years to the day since I left Yorktown on my bike. 

Our route to the coast closely follows the bike route, not surprisingly given the terrain of Virginia. Afton Mountain is even challenging in a vehicle. 

I've gotten word that cyclists are descending on the Duke of York hotel already - this is happening I guess!  

It's that time of the year again

Searching sandbars on the Missouri River in South Dakota

I am always taken a little by surprise this time of year.  Typically, Blacksburg's worst weather is just before Winter loosens its grips on southwest Virginia, breathing life into the saying "it's always darkest before the dawn."  This year, was no different, except we had to pry Jack Frost's fingers free, leaving me unsatisfactorily prepared to meet the spring and all that comes with it.  Since I head out to South Dakota each year around the first of April, relapsing late winter is a common occurrence–just as I acclimate to shorts and sandals, I pack parkas and knit-caps.

This year marks the 9th year of our demography study of Piping Plovers on the river.  Through droughts, 100-year floods, and droughts again, we have intensively monitored the responses of piping plovers, least terns, snowy plovers, and assorted other shorebirds to the myriad of natural, and some wholly unnatural, variations in the Missouri River.  (If you are particularly interested in the VT Shorebird Project, here's a link with more information: http://fishwild.vt.edu/vtshorebirds/index.html).  My springs are filled with the characteristic 'peep-lo' of piping plovers, and I am reminded of the comforting feeling that the birds are as good at keeping the date as any calendar printed.

Nuray releases a plover on Hilton Head Island, SC

Although I am involved with other species and projects, the plovers dominate my time and attention.  They are certainly charismatic little characters, but following the migratory pattern of a anxious little bird has both advantages and disadvantages.  The birds migrate for survival, to secure a safe and hospitable stretch of beach on which to endure winter. These refuges are often remote islands off the southeast Atlantic and the Gulf coasts–not bad places to be as long as the weather cooperates.

Migration isn't for the faint of heart though, either as a bird or as a person.  I've been migrating for a while now, first here for a few months, then another place for a few weeks–such is the life of a wildlife biologist, and to be frank, I can't imagine what else I'd like to do.  Perhaps you need to revel in being a little thin, that feeling of taut hunger, lean, spare, but prepared.  Build up your flight muscles, but don't carry any unnecessary weight as you fly.

The fleet at the dock in Oyster, VA

Tomorrow I leave for another week of riding with Bike the US for MS, re-enacting my 2010 debut by riding from Yorktown to Blacksburg, VA.  While I would love to stay longer, it's migration time after all.  I just left Virginia's eastern shore two days ago, across the Chesapeake Bay from Yorktown.  Might I recommend you visit if you ever have the chance.  It's remarkable how quickly the din of city life falls away as you take the bridge-tunnel (a feat of engineering worth seeing once in its own right) from the densest population center in Virginia (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, etc.) to potentially one of the least.  I'm not sure what i expected, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Granted, it helps that we were charged with collecting data on Red Knots using the Virginia barrier islands as a refueling location on their way north, which afforded us the opportunity to survey the largely deserted islands. For more info on the knots, click here.  The knots gather en masse here and elsewhere, having to thread the needle of arriving in the Arctic on time to breed.  And it is with the knots beginning their journey north to the tundra that I head again east, to the shores of Virginia with my bicycle.  Another year, the plovers peeping, the knots gathering, and me loading a bicycle onto a car for another migration.