We Survived the Futaleufu

Greetings All,
We are sitting here in Puerto Montt Chile after spending a week in Patagonia braving the Class 5 rapids of the mighty Futaleufu river, hiking, rock climbing and rappelling. This was by far our most adventurous and downright frightening trip. We were part of a group of just seven people and were definitely the oldest and most out of shape. The weather bounced between cold, hard rain and beautiful sunny days with temperatures ranging from low 50´s to high 70´s with the sun rising at 5am and setting at 10pm. They say in Patagonia you can experience all four seasons on any given day. Looking back everything was fun, exciting and rather simple - but during the hype, the safety talks, the warnings, and seeing other people opt out of the Class 5 rapids, the week started off quite scary. I was front position left side and setting the stroke in our boat and after feeling like I barely survived a 300´ swim test in the river on a very dark, windy, cold, rainy day I had never been more terrified on vacation and questioned how much rafting I was going to do. After a sleepless night of rafting and drowning dreams, I decided screw it - Larry The Lizard was at my side saying ¨Go sick or go home¨ and there was no way to get home so I went sick.
Despite the doom and gloom and ¨high swim potential¨ we never had a swimmer from our raft, Lori survived her first rock climbing experience, and the 300´ rappel we did was a blast. I´m very bruised and battered with a sprained left wrist and a blown right hamstring resulting from a poorly executed 45´ cliff jump (a first for me). The scenery has been breathtakingly beautiful and all the people we've met have been awesome. We are looking forward to chilling out with the giant heads of Easter Island. We arrive there tomorrow. So Merry Christmas and Happy Easter to all and Go Patriots!!!

The Next Adventure: Chile

Later this week we will jet off to Patagonia, Chile for a white water rafting trip on the Futaleufu River (affectionately known as The Fu) - complete with Class 5 rapids which is as insane as rapids get and something we've only seen from afar until now. The trip is with Earth River who have a very cool interactive web site that lets you see video clips and photos from many different spots of the trip. I just posted the itinerary so you can read about some of the totally sick things in store for us. After surviving Patagonia we fly another 6 hours into the Pacific to visit Easter Island - this is the most remote inhabited place on earth and home to the giant head monuments (Moai). This is a trip I've dreamed of since I was a kid and saw a comic book where the Moai pulled themselves out of the ground and started running amok on people. Can't wait to see that! Also think photos of Larry The Lizard (who is of course accompanying us) on Easter Island will be just about the sickest Larry shot imaginable.

Happy Holidays!

Modern Medicine

I thought the worst thing about returning back to Massachusetts from a week in San Jose California would be the 18 degree temperature that greeted me Saturday night, but then my father had a heart attack Sunday afternoon and I no longer really noticed the weather. He went to the emergency room in Leominster Hospital and then was rushed to the new cardiac unit at UMass Memorial in Worcester - all while still going through a heart attack. I had thought heart attacks were just sudden events, but his was going on for some time and they couldn't get him to stabilize. Lori and I rushed off to UMass and since it was a Sunday night the place was empty. The cardiac area isn't always staffed - people just get called in for emergencies. So we were just wandering the halls, found someone to open a door for us and suddenly we are looking into an open operating room where my dad was on the table. A nurse grabbed us and locked us up in a waiting room. After just a few minutes the doctor came and spoke to us. They had put a stent into the artery that was blocked and that along with some medications aborted the heart attack before any serious heart damage was done. My dad was already awake and alert and we went with him as they rolled him off to ICU. The most amazing thing to me was that this afternoon (Tuesday) we brought him home. I was prepared for an agonizing decision about whether we dare go off on our trip to Chile later this week or not. But I guess these days heart attacks just aren't that big a deal. My dad is home and looks and acts no different than he did the day before his heart attack. It is practically drive through service these days at the hospital.
Plus the Patriots won another close game Monday Night to remain perfect. WooHoo!

Patriots Remain Undefeated

Even without playing a game, the New England Patriots clinched their fifth consecutive AFC East crown thanks to a loss by the Buffalo Bills yesterday afternoon. So the stars seemed aligned for another rout, but give the Philadelphia Eagles credit. They didn't believe the hype on the Patriots being the best NFL team in history or care that they were 23 point underdogs in last night's game. The Eagles showed up to play and they played hard, making the Patriots look very beatable. The Eagles were very aggressive - shutting down Randy Moss, going for it on fourth down and even pulling out an onside kick in the first half. The Pats defense looked slow and tired while the offense was lethargic, had lots of dropped balls and didn't even pretend to have a running game. But New England pulled it out in the fourth quarter to win 31 - 28 and improve to 11 and 0 on the year. And I'm sure Philly will be left with a quarterback controversy since backup A.J. Feeley looked like a star for much of the game - well aside from the interceptions that bookended the game. I enjoy this type of game (provided we win in the end of course) to the 30+ point blowouts the Pats have laid on a few teams this year. I also think it is these close games that really prove how great a team is. Now that the rest of the league has been shown what you need to do to beat Tom Brady - anything is possible as we head into the final month of the regular season.

I'm off to California for the week for work, then back home for a few days before the big adventure in Chile. It's gonna be sick!

Happy Turducken Day!

Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving this year. We dared to break from our recent tradition of frying our turkey to finally sample a Turducken. For those who don't know; a Turducken is a semi-boneless turkey (it just has wings and drumsticks) that is stuffed with a deboned chicken that is stuffed with a deboned duck breast. A layer of Cajun dressing is placed in between each bird to create six flavorful layers of stuffing and poultry. Normally we've talked about trying a turducken while we clean up after Thanksgiving, but this year we remembered to look into it in plenty of time to order one from CajunGrocer.com. No, we didn't make one from scratch - perhaps next year.

The Turducken is very deceiving, it looks too small to feed as many people as it is supposed to. But since it is boneless and crammed with so many things, it is just a solid brick of food. I was sure the 15 lb creature wouldn't be enough for our 14 guests but we didn't even get through half of it.

One of the coolest things about the Turducken is how easy it is to carve. You just cut it right down the middle and start cutting slices. Like it is some sort of poultry layer cake. And the combo of birds made the tastiest gravy ever. I highly recommend trying one.

We've spent the last two days eating left overs, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm marathons and pulling things together for our big trip to Chile to raft the Futaleufu River and then check out Easter Island, which is now just a couple weeks away.

We'll actually miss a few Patriots games, but with them blowing people away so easily I don't think we'll notice. I never would have guessed how boring it could feel to have such a dominant football team. Close games and cheering for the underdog (like the Pats were in their first Super Bowl win in 2001) is so much more exciting and gratifying. A Super Bowl win this year seems like it will be almost anticlimatic since the whole world already expects a perfect season and another championship. Never would have predicted the Patriots would become a hated jugernaut like this.