Hiking with my dad

Last month, my dad and I went hiking in southwestern Colorado. Specifically, we spent one day in Black Canyon of the Gunnison and one hiking Grand Mesa. Dad and I hadn't done a trip together, just the two of us, probably ever. And I learned a bunch of stuff about myself, my dad, and a part of Colorado I had not experienced.



Black Canyon may lack the size of Grand Canyon, but is certainly not lacking in grandeur. The sheer walls of black volcanic rock, cut with pink stripes of quartz monzonite, are striking. My photographic skills really don't do it justice.



The vertical drop is so precipitous that the river bed at the bottom shows no evidence of human occupation, ever, even as the Ute Indians lived all around the canyon rim for hundreds of years.



The only way down to the bottom is down some very steep trails (the park service won't even use the term 'trail' to describe them) with pitches up to 60 or 70 degrees. At one point, they have even installed an 80-foot chain to help you descend or ascend a particularly steep section.



We only went about a third of the way down because we didn't have enough time. That was enough, however, for me to be as impressed with my 77-year-old father as I was by the natural surroundings. That's him working the chain ...









The next day we hiked Grand Mesa, the largest flat-top mountain in the world. Because the mountain top is nonporous lava rock, water is trapped on top of it, forming 300 lakes. Dad grew up in the area and used to go fishing up there.

There are miles of healthy forests, with no sign of the beetle-kill that has ravaged Colorado. And almost no sign of people either. It's quite a treasure that I had never seen before.



As I described in my previous post, Dad was a hiking stud. Those two days of hiking wore me out, and overall it was a terrific four-day weekend with my dad. We're going to have to do it again next summer.

Capitalism or communism?

I just returned from several days in Shenzhen in southern China. This is only my second visit to China, and I find it a confounding country.

The Chinese people seem to be very entrepreneurial, always looking for opportunities for profit and willing to start new businesses at the drop of a hat. The Chinese government appears to encourage this behavior, giving the impression of supporting, even nurturing, capitalism.

But everywhere you look, you see the economic inefficiencies of the communist system of government. For instance, the way I got into Shenzhen was to fly to Hong Kong, then I took a bus across the border into China. Of course, at the Chinese border, I got off the bus, went through passport control, then reboarded my bus on the other side of the border. I thought that was it and we would then drive right into Shenzhen.

However, when we got to the edge of Shenzhen, the bus stopped again and they checked papers again. They seemed more concerned with the Asians on the bus than westerners like myself, and I asked my Chinese host what was going on. He stated that Shenzhen is a special economic zone and that Chinese citizens from other parts of the country were not allowed to enter without the proper papers.

I don't know what criteria they use to define that permission, but any artificial barrier to the flow of labor capital (or currency, or information, or anything else) means inefficiencies and inequities to me. (Can you tell I'm a free trader?)

Other examples of labor inefficiencies were everywhere. The new, modern, beautiful hotel where we stayed had a spa that covered one floor, with a pool, workout room, and spa service rooms. At the pool, there was a "California Juice Bar," where a woman stood ready to serve up smoothies. However, I never saw anyone in the pool the whole time I was there, but she stood there at her bar all day long.

Another example was the woman whose job seemed to be to clean off the tops of the stone benches in the formal garden across the street. That's all she did, all day, every day that I was there. How can that be a good use of the labor resources?

These are the kinds of stories we used to hear about the old USSR, and we know its fate. If China somehow manages to smoothly transition away from centralized planning to true capitalism, they will be a formidable economic power. But they need to remove these types of artificial barriers, and it's hard to see how they can do that and remain consistent with communist rule.

A run in Central Park

Yesterday morning I got up and did one of my favorite travel activities; I went for a run. We were in NYC for a birthday party (much more on that later), and we stayed at our friend Mary Ann's home on the Upper East Side, a block from Central Park.

I have only been to New York a couple of times, and had never been in Central Park. It was a perfect morning for a run, with clear, sunny skies and about 60 degrees. There was actually a race going through the park at the time, with several thousand participants, but I avoided that. They close the streets through the park on weekends, so there are lots of runners and bikers.

The reason I love to run when I travel is that I see a city in a very different way when I'm running, and the distraction of the sightseeing makes the running time just fly by. I have run in Honolulu, London, Calgary, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, the French Alps, and Nice.

Central Park is not as big as I pictured it to be. It's big, maybe five miles north-to-south and a mile east-to-west, but the impression I've always had from maps, movies and TV shows made me think it was larger. I think it's just that the Manhattan island is pretty small.

There were cyclists riding a circuit around the park, which has to get pretty boring, but I was still envious. As much as I enjoy running through a new city, cycling through one would be even better.

One of the best things about living in Boulder and running in Central Park is that I felt like I could run forever. I did about five miles and could have done several more, even though I haven't been running much. I quit because my knees would have made me pay for it later. And since I found out that the opening band for this party is Manhattan Transfer, something tells me that I'm going to have to do some dancing later.