a click, a plunk, and a silent soaring

“All nature sings and round me rings, the music of the spheres.” There’s a click, click, rustle, rustle, click, click, click, rustle as I approach the knee-high patch of grass along the damp trail. Flashes of yellow-tipped red-orange claws between blades of grass betray the crabs who are scrambling to escape the small earthquake of my foot falls. Further along a decisive plunk surprises me, as I’d seen neither the frog nor the weed-logged bog he plopped into. As the trail emerges from the drenched forest, white waterfowl soar across the cloud-pocked sky, chests puffed out and feet pointed neatly behind them. It reminds me of riding my bike a few days ago. A huge gray crane startled me as it soared into my peripheral vision. He hung there just a few feet away, abeam my head for some moments, matching my speed as he sized me up and I stared back, wide-eyed.

112 miles, 12 miles, 500 pounds and an un-manned F-16

I opened the door on Saturday morning at 7:02am and was pushed back into the building by the heat.  Suddenly leaving at 0600 seemed far smarter, even if it meant getting up while the clock still had “5” on the front on a Saturday morning, which I am highly opposed to.  On the second try, I made it out into the thick humid heat to meet 3 other crazies for a long bike ride.  We pedaled out the front gate of Kunsan Airbase…and 11 hours later, arrived at the back gate of Osan Airbase, 112 miles away.  That was the final goal, but as always, the journey was rife with stories.

 

In the end, we began as 4, ended as 3 (one took a cab back home from mile 55); stopped at 42, 66, 92, and 105 miles for beer, water, potato chips, Pocari Sweat (think Gatorade), and monkey bananas; saw a land-locked ship (we weren’t hallucinating!); applied sunscreen 3 different times; got free coffee from one gas station and admired the month-old puppies at another; passed one truck; passed 100 miles at 20 miles per hour and have the picture to prove it; rested in the shade of bus stops, tunnels, trees, and awnings; made phone calls while riding to say we’d be 4 hours late; sweated off the heat that measured just shy of one degree per mile that we rode (99 degrees F); and overall, just enjoyed the ride.

 

I failed to mention to my ride-mates that I ran 12 miles and rode another 25 the next morning.  Even though it was a beautiful day and a beautiful course on shaded trails through a park and around a lake, I don’t think they’d appreciate my energy after that grueling ride!

 

After so much exertion on the weekend, Monday morning came far too early.  But someone had found an empty “pit” (F-16 back seat) for me to ride in, so I had to go!  I’d forgotten about the acceleration.  Even at 20,000 feet and climbing, push the throttle forward and the jet just GOES.  Smoothly.  With solid confidence.  “Shooter” let me fly a bit on the way back to the field and around the traffic pattern.  We were the “unmanned flight”.  Number 4 of the formation was a woman also, so the odds were even – 3 men, 3 women (4 viper pilots in the front seats, 2 stealth pilots in pits).  Forward visibility is severely lacking from the back seat of a viper, as it is in an F-117 so I was fairly comfortable with that, but having another pilot watching my flying was entirely another story.  Nevertheless, what a great jet the F-16 is!

 

The next day I flew alone again.  Alone, with a 500 pound piece of explosive tucked away in my jet’s belly.  We took 4 F-117s and 4 bombs about 25 miles west of Kunsan to an island called Chick-do.  Clouds were forming rapidly over the island that was our target area.  One pilot in front of me chipped some rock off the island with his bomb.  As I approached the island, I peered through a layer of cloud thin enough to drop the bomb through.  I released it.  The jet yawed sideways as the bomb bay door opened.  I felt a tiny jolt as the bomb released and the door shut.  Now all I had to do was shine the laser at the target.  I picked a hollow on the side of the island and waited.  And waited.  My countdown reached 0, and still I waited.  Then the jet selected the next point and started a turn.  Still no explosion.  While it’s somewhat disappointing not to see it hit (not to mention the question of where the bomb went…), it’s a rare thrill to drop a bomb off the jet.

 

And all that by Tuesday…  Hope your summer’s providing just enough excitement and rest.

Donna

DMZ - There but for the grace of God go we

I usually don't sent these this close together, but I have some pictures I want to send about both of them...so here's a little about a trip I took last week...

 

I rode with my Korean friends the day before I went to see the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone).  I debated whether I should tell them I was going.  It’s like going to see the country’s greatest scar, its greatest wound.  The chasm that tore apart friends and families.  The chasm that they blame partly on us.  I wonder what they think about Americans going to see it as tourists.

 

It occurs to me that we came close to having a DMZ.  We fought amongst ourselves once.  Other countries came in and helped us fight.  You could say history worked out for us, or you could say God saw fit to keep our nation together, in His plan to make it a great nation.  How much of history would have happened differently if we had been two separate countries since the mid 1800’s?  There but for the grace of God…

 

There is a huge difference between us and Korea, though.  We fought against ourselves of our own volition, over our own values.  Korea sees their division as caused by other countries’ wars on their soil.  The USSR, the US, Japan, China.  Their monuments at the edge of the 4000 meter-wide demilitarized zone are monuments to the hope of unification.  There is a stone etching for each province now engulfed by North Korea; for each province on the far side of the chain link fence, the concertina wire, the mine fields that stretch from coast to coast.  Every few meters a 1-meter-tall white post marks the border.  Rusty signs also depict the border, in Hangul and English on our side, and Hangul and Chinese on their side.  White rocks balance half way between each fence post on the barbed-wire-topped chain link fence that marks the edge of the DMZ.  In many places stacks of flat white rocks with a single red line painted down the stack balanced between chain links near the bottom of the fence.  The theory is that these stones will fall if anyone tries to cross the fence, and alert the ROK soldiers that monitor the border from concrete bunkers every hundred meters or so.

 

We took a bus up from Kunsan to Imjingak House, home of a Liberty Bell, an alter surrounded by stone etchings of the provinces now behind the barbed wire to the north, an amusement park, and a rail bridge over the river that forms the border for many miles, though not here.  From there we bussed further north to Camp Bonifas, named for a US Army Captain killed in an altercation over the pruning of a tree.  A memorial now stands on the spot.  The tree was removed, but not before the US put more fire power in the air and on aircraft carriers off the coast than had ever been used in support of any previous forestry operation. 

 

From Bonifas, we were bussed to Combined Security Area (CSA), past more checkpoints, past Freedom Village (a south Korea village of farmers working the land just south of the mines), past the mine field, past several observation points, and into the CSA.  Baby blue buildings belong the non-communist side and silver, to the communists.  Several buildings cross the line between North and South.  Including one we walked into, which has housed talks between countless dignitaries over the years.  Walking to the far end of the building, I crossed into North Korea.  Outside, a concrete slab not more than a foot wide stretched from building to building, marking the border.  South Korean soldiers stood at a ready position, half hidden behind buildings, keeping an eye on the “Freedom Building” in the North, with its partly open window rumored to house a man watching us with binoculars.

 

The next bus stop let us off at Checkpoint 6 in view of a North Korean checkpoint on the next hill, partly hidden in the overgrown brush.  At the edge of the clearing below the checkpoint, a rusty sign marked the Military Demarcation Line (MDL).  Further into the haze stood the flag pole in deserted Propaganda Village that holds one of the largest flags in the world.  It’s nearly 30 meters long and weighs almost 600 pounds.  Invisible through the thick air, the guide told us of a tower that scrambles any TV or radio signal before it reaches citizens of the north.  Below us, brush had grown too high to see the Bridge of No Return, so named for an incident in which prisoners were allowed to choose where they wanted to go, but forbidden to return to either side once they had crossed over.  Flocks of birds made themselves at home above an overgrown lake nearby, flying across the border uninhibited, oblivious to the laws of man.  What would it take for us humans to be as oblivious of demarcation lines, borders, and property lines as they?  To just live and let live and enjoy life?

Busses, bikes, and beautiful boring roads

Busses, bikes, and beautiful boring roads.  Somewhere during the 51minutes of swimming, I transitioned from fearing paddling for nearly 2 whole miles to just enjoying it – the coolness of the water, the relaxing feeling of buoyancy, the calming rhythm of my stroke, stroke, breathe, stroke, stroke, breathe.  The Kiwi who ended up winning the race overall had commented just before the race began that, “the swim is just there to be enjoyed.”  I enjoyed it…as I dreaded the 12.5 mile run.  But in between the swim and run was a 50 mile bike ride.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, along a flat grid of wide newly paved roads, canvassing the peninsula of reclaimed land.  Or claimed land.  Land claimed from the sea.  Instead of conquering new lands from foreign people, South Korea scoops out hills and moves the dirt to make land where there was once sea.  On that land they build grids of wide roads in anticipation of industry and traffic.  But now while the roads are still new and there’s little traffic, the triathletes seized their opportunity to have a race.  But even beautifully paved roads don’t make for a very scenic course on an almost completely flat peninsula with little vegetation.  The night before the race, as I checked in, a fellow English speaker told me the course was exceedingly boring.  I knew immediately where the course was – on those roads. 

 

As I passed by on the bike, smatterings of people cheered the first woman.  Many cameras pointed my way.  I never saw the second place woman on the bike, but I did see many men pulled off the road to pee.  With 4 port-a-potties for 470 participants plus spectators, I had to believe that was the plan all along.  The number of guys standing beside the road throughout the day, peeing in the grass supported my theory.  There was never a line at the port-a-pots: another piece of evidence.

 

I rode past a bus parked on the side of the road.  There were 3 busses that disgorged piles of triathletes and gear before the race, then parked along the road.  Outside the middle of this bus sat a pair of shoes, neatly placed on the pavement as if ready for someone to step into them.  As I approached, a head, then shoulders, then a body became visible inside the cargo hold under the bus.  Wish both hatches open and the breeze blowing through, it was just another place to lie in the shade and watch the race.

 

Eventually the ride ended and the run began.  As always, I was happy to be able to lean on the bike for support for the first few running steps into the transition area.  A change of shoes and drenched socks, and I was on my way again, trotting along at a pace I feared was too fast.  A mountain bike passed me and I wondered what it was doing among the runners.  Following the bike was a fast runner.  I had passed the same runner and bike as I finished the bike course, which was also part of the run course, so I figured out that the bike was marking the front runner.  I was amazed at how fast that first runner was: he was more than half way done with the run as I just began it.  And he was miles in front of the next person.  The same couldn’t be said for myself and the next woman…

 

Each time I turned around on the four out-and-back legs of the run course, I watched for the woman closest behind me.  I didn’t time how far she was behind me on the first out-and-back.  She was 10 minutes back the next 2 times, and 6 minutes back the last time, but by then I was less than 2 miles from the finish.  During that last out-and-back, the same mountain bike that had led Bernard had picked me out of the crowd and begun to roll along just in front of me.  He paused while I continued my aid station routine of partly filling a bottle with energy drink and grabbing a full water bottle from the table.  I then started running again as I poured the water into the energy drink to dilute it, taking a gulp, then splashing the rest on my face and body, and dumping it over my head.  The coolness alone energized me.  Someone offered an ice cube that I had no free hands to take, so I trapped it under my hat until it melted.  With the regular dousings, the ice cube, and my steady sipping of weak energy drink and, I felt pretty good as I approached the finish line 5 hours and 17 minutes after I started the swim.  I even pushed the pace up a little.  I can’t remember the last time I had the energy to do that at the end of a race, and it felt good.  Or maybe it just felt good to be done sooner!

 

They draped a medal around my head – a finishers’ medal.  The glass trophy was awarded much later, after the last person finished, at the formal awards ceremony.  Until then, I cooled off in the water while people looked at me funny, ate hot Korean beef and veggies, drank iced watermelon soup, walked to keep the joints from rusting in place while people congratulated me in their limited English, or in Korean.  I really just wanted to finish.  But once the prize is within reach…why not go for the win?  Not bad for my second sort-of-half-ironman.  And I think I’ll only sacrifice one toenail to the cause.

 

Hope you had a more relaxing weekend, and still have all your toenails.

Donna