Apparently I am touring the nation seeing Pandas. I didn't realize this at the time, but for whatever reason, I felt a disturbingly strong need to visit a Panda while I was in San Diego. So far, Gaia and I have seen three of the nation's 11 pandas.

• Last year at the National Zoo Gaia and I saw Mei Xiang and Tian Tain.
• This year at the San Diego Zoo we saw Gao Gao. Bai Yun was hiding out around back, so we missed her and we did not see Yun Zi.
• We still need to get to the Memphis Zoo to see Ya Ya and Le Le. (Note that Ya Ya and Le Lee do not yet meet the standards of notoriety as estaplished by the watchmen of the Great Wiki.)
• And to Zoo Atlanta to see Lun Lun Xi Lan, Po and Yang Yang.

Considering there are only four zoos in The United States that have pandas, I think that's pretty good for a thing I didn't know I was doing. If I tried harder, I could probably have seen a few more.

And, it's worth noting: Panda's are cool and all, but there are rarer animals. Seeing two of the seven remaining Northern White Rhinoceros on the planet is something that although Gaia doesn't see as significant now, but I hope one day she realizes that she has beheld the last remaining wonders of a once great species as it quietly rested in a mud puddle.

It's not her fault, really. The zoo, as great as even the San Diego Safari Park is, is about the worst place you can go to commune with an animal. It is, sadly, a sobering fact about these trips to the world's greatest zoos, that people, in general, do not care about nature or animals nearly as much as they care about free-refills and giant, ugly-ass yellow balloons.

This is me at the helm of the HMS Surprise, a fictional ship that is, in fact, real.
This is complicated, but here's how I think it works.

The HMS Rose was built in 1970 as a replica of the 18th century Royal Navy frigate. She was an attraction and sail training ship up until she was converted to the HMS Surprise for the film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World." For the film, the ship was made over into an authentic recitation of a 24-gut frigate in the style of a vessel in the British Royal Navy during Nelson's era.

Although she's full-rigged, she also contains twin-diesel 300 hp engines, and is steered from a control room under the quarterdeck. She's also appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides.

Thirteen ships in the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Surprise or HMS Surprize. The HMS Surprise that's docked at the San Diego Maritime Museum is not one of those ships, and technically is not entitled to hold the honorific HMS title.

That doesn't mean, however, that it's not exhilarating to stand on her quarterdeck and feel the San Diego breeze sweep across her. And it doesn't mean that you shouldn't kick your shoes off and run along her decks and feel her planking dig into your feet. She's a fantastic wooden ship regardless of her pedigree, and as close as you're likely to get to standing atop the decks of a tall ship.

And the magic and majesty that comes with the ship being part of a fictional universe as great as Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series is just gravy on the icing.

Mmmm... First up north meal of the year.

I watched a shooting star spiral across the sky, like a Fourth of July firework slipped through a wormhole tonight. Suddenly I was standing on the dock in seven places. In seven times. Seven skies on display over the northern sky, sparkling as jewels of the sky. The moon was a blurred ring that waxed and waned running from the eastern sky to the west.

There was an incredible depth to the sky. Layers upon layers of stars, each one an onion skin of time separating all the members of the zodiac, each appearing in seven places at seven times.

And the star spiraled downward, leaving a wide spiraling flagella in its wake, tucking itself politely behind the trees.

September formed around me.

I smiled, seeing that the universe’s great depth remained behind he now single layer of stars in the northern sky. And I inhaled the crisp northern wind and felt at peace.

There was something about Iwo Jima. The air was thick and somber. Twighlight had set in and the evening’s only breeze wafted across the memorial, bringing with it the smells of the oncoming harvest season: Hot lawns and warm cement.

My eyes kept catching on Ira Hayes. Ira was a Native American. He never really got over the war. He never really became comfortable with becoming an american icon. He fought those battles within himself through substance abuse. He was found dead in a pool of his own vomit in January of 1955. He was 32 years old.
As I write this, I am three years older than Hayes lived to be.

When I was in DC recently, Gaia and I also saw the pandas. I’m told by locals you don’t always see the Pandas. Strange thing, this National Zoo.
Don’t take this as a criticism, but it seems that the National Zoo is built for the benefit of the animals, not so much for the benefit of the people. I think that’s great. The result is a zoo that is more about exploring a natural park and less about riding the trains. We only had a chance to see a very limited part of the zoo, so we stuck to the Asian area, expecting to see the famous pandas boxed up and on display. I mean, there’s only like 10 of them in America, so I figured it would be a “take a turn staring at the panda” line wait.
Turns out we were right. But also very wrong.

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were, in fact boxed up. But that was only because the didn’t seem they wanted to go outside. And I don’t blame them. It was 98-degrees in the shade with some crazy high humidity that day. I had carried Gaia on my shoulders up the uphill mile-long hike from the “Zoo” Metro stop to the gates to the National Zoo. More on that later, but it shows that, I, like the pandas, were in a place to appreciate air conditioning.
But there they were: Pandas!

Sitting in a pile of bamboo leaves inside a cooled house, separated from each other and in the process of being reintroduced. Mei Xiang sat and ate several branches while we watched. As did Tian Tian. And so that was seeing the Pandas. It was special and crowded, and not a very long wait, so, overall, panda-riffic!

Here’s where we were wrong: seeing the pandas outside is not a better way to see them. From conversations with locals and others who have been to see the Pandas and not seen them because they were outside and therefor harder to spot, it turns out when the pandas are out they can escape your view if they feel so inclined. And so walking through the twisty turns and variety of paths that offer lots of angles to peak and peer into PandaLand, you have a good chance of seeing a panda, but not a panda-promise.

But the Bamboo! And the walk through the zoo! And the other rare and unusual asian animals on display! This was all great, too. Red Panda (not a panda), sloth bears (not a sloth), Asian Otters (really otters), and The Fishing Cat (sleeping not fishing). All rare and special sights to see. Gaia was particularly impressed with the Red Panda since her familiarity with it comes exclusively from the Katamari games.

Having grown up within shouting distance of the Milwaukee County Zoo, I can tell you this: Milwaukee County used to be the kind of a zoo that was about “experiencing” natural animals in their natural setting doing natural stuff. And I suppose that’s still true. Perhaps its familiarity with the Milwaukee County Zoo that makes it seem so mundane; but when you walk through the asian animals area within the National Zoo, it’s sort of like walking through a different place. You’re almost connected to the animals native places— in an idealized and safe way, don’t get me wrong. But, unlike the aging exhibits in Milwaukee, the National Zoo was, for me, as much an botanical experience as a zoological one*. Seeing the gardens, the winding trails, the beautiful bamboo, and the misty walls surrounding PandaLand are worth the price of admission.

>

Speaking of the price of admission, this is truly the zoo’s greatest feature. No admission costs. Just walk right in. But the walk, oh yes, you will pay for the walk. So here’s a pro-tip for those of you who take the Metro the the National Zoo, shared with me after the fact by a zoo greeter:
Get off at Cleveland Park, not at the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan exit on the red train. The cleveland park stop is the same distance from the zoo as the Zoo stop, but it is downhill. Then get back on the Red Train at the Zoo stop. Again, walking downhill.

*Notable exception for the Grey Wolf exhibit and recently remodeled Giraffe house in Milwaukee. And an extra asterisk in recognition of the unique challenge presented by Milwaukee’s colder climate.

Yeah. I saw the frog. And it was good.
It’s not, as some might have you believe, like I have some kind of weird worship fetish with the frog. It’s not that at all. I love the frog like I love my friends; he’s someone I’ve grown up with. He’s familiar and comfortable. He’s an inspiration to me. I grew up to be a journalist and its certainly because of the frog’s standup reporting at the scenes of many a fairytale sketch. When I was forming I read the frog’s magazines, I watched the frog’s movies and TV shows. I sang the frog’s songs. I lived through the frog. I knew, without a doubt, that it was not easy being green.
And, yeah. The Frog’s also a product designed to capture my fat and dirty dollar. Especially since he died. This second coming of the Frog has always felt a little weird for me; since the Disney sale, really. Nothing has been right since 1990.
I think that’s why the frog in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History resonated so much with me. This isn’t Brian’s Frog. This wasn’t the Disney Frog. This frog was donated sometime around 1979. I’ve seen the frog before in lots of contexts, but this frog was the real deal. This was Jim’s frog; and somehow, that changes things.

Yeah. I cried. The photos that I snapped of the exhibit don’t capture the joyful energy, the exploding creativity, the love that radiated from the frog. The frog could have stood up and done the happy feet dance in that glass case. The frog is alive with the spirit that one time made him dance. That energy is still in the frog and it radiates around him like a halo.

This frog, I think, is from the frog’s golden age. A master showman, working hard to make the best art he could make given his circumstances, aware of the challenges facing the world, but choosing to sing about those challenges rather than give in. And sometimes the frog gets angry. Sometimes the frog fails. But the frog picks himself back up. The frog makes hard choices, but he makes the right ones. The frog does the right thing, even when it hurts.
The frog is human.
The frog lives.

We didn't get out of Milwaukee until almost 10:30 last night. Which means that by the time we got to Manitowish Waters, the sun was coming up.

So, today's mostly been about resting and recovery. Since it's been raining all day, that's all good by me.

I check the logs on the router at our lakehouse the first thing after logging on up here.
Nobody ever uses it. I specifically leave it open because I don't really see the harm in having an open access point up here that is not connected to any computers and doesn't have a very robust connection. I guess, if you want to sit in your car at the dead end road the cabin is on and leech my bandwidth, who am I to stop you? Funny thing is, I see people parked outside the public library doing the very same thing up here all the time.

But nobody ever uses our pipes up here. Perhaps it has something to do with the network name.

Gaia actually asked me to put her to bed tonight. And then only went to sleep with a minimum of crying. Wow. Progress.