Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate
I can hear Joie saying, first thing tomorrow, “What the heck does that mean?” More on that later…
It is after 10:00 PM here in Bogota, and everyone is asleep around me. Deep, weary breathing comes from each of them, even Georgia. But I have had way too many cups of coffee today. Is there a better spot on the planet for a coffee junkie than Colombia? I think not.
The thought that keeps me awake is this: My newest daughter is farther away from home than she’s ever been. By several hundred miles. She has never seen the ocean, she has only seen pictures of snow, and she’s probably heard a mix of horror stories and fantasies about Bogota all her life. I wish we could communicate, because I feel like she has so much to say.
Yesterday was a fantastic final day in Florencia. At least on my part. The posts below give you most of the details. Oscar did indeed take us all to dinner—the family, Peter and three ladies from ICBF, Carlos and Sylvia. We went to a typical Florencian restaurant: Corrugated metal roof, open sides, wood-burning stoves, surrounded by lush foliage, and specializing, of course, in obscenely big meat dishes. We had to take two taxis to get everyone there, and the first thing I noticed when we arrived was the huge grin on Kelly Johanna’s face. It seems we were very near her old house, the house in which she's the last five years, and she’d pointed the street out to everyone in her cab: “Mi casa! Mi casa esta alli!” I was particularly sorry to miss this, as for the last four days I've been pointing at various horizons from the hotel balconies and asking, “Donde esta su casa?” She could only give a vague wave and say “Thattaway,” or something like it in Spanish.
Shortly after we arrived at the restaurant a tropical thunderstorm landed in earnest. (You can see the predecessor cloud forming in the picture below.) Buckets, torrents, great sobs of rain. Georgia wanted to go stand in it, and I didn’t do a very good job of keeping her dry.
Four people from ICBF were there, and it was easy to see that they took special pride in Kelly. Late in the evening and after many beers Oscar pointed at the three ladies at the end of the table, leaned towards me and said (with Carlos translating), “These women are her family.” I could see it in the way they looked at her. In Florencia, an orphan is not a project or a statistic. One of them wagged a finger at me in parting and said “Escriba!” I promised we would write.
We went home with the most insane cab driver I met on our stay there. Florencia is a unique driving experience anyway: there are no lines, lanes, or markings on the roads. Cars, mopeds, motor bikes, donkey carts, and huge smoke-belching buses called chivas squeak, squeeze, and bully their way through any available space at breakneck speeds. Some sort of six sense that I’m not privy to allows the drivers to tell who's playing chicken and who's really serious at each intersection. Last night’s cab made a horrible a grinding noise in the right front, which I didn't understand: How could she have worn her rotors down to nothing, when she clearly never used her brakes?
As you read through these posts you might get the idea that we’d rather be anywhere than in Florencia, but that would be the wrong impression. It’s true, all of us were affected by the heat, the icy cold showers, and the feeling of being strangers in a strange land… But I think Florencia is full of wonderful people. I could live there. If I learned some Spanish.
So what’s “dry adiabatic lapse rate” all about? As much as we have all (especially Braden) been complaining about the heat, I have been thinking that it should be much hotter than 90 F this close to the equator, even at Florencia’s 9,500 feet of altitude. But then I remembered lapse rate, a holdover of knowledge from my brief piloting days: Under normal atmospheric conditions, for every 1,000-foor increase in altitude you can expect a 2-degree reduction in temperature. So, if it’s 90 degrees at roughly 10,000 feet, then the sea level temperature at this spot would be 110 F, or twenty degrees higher. That made sense to me.
This morning we left Florencia behind. There are interesting things to report: The gruff manager of the hotel thanked me warmly and said, I think, “Take care of that girl.” The deaf cleaning lady tried to refuse the tip I gave her, but I asked her to accept it with our thanks. Later she came down to the lobby and asked Joie for our address, which she gave her. While I was settling the bill Kelly fidgeted at my side and the front desk's phone rang. The receptionist looked at us, handed the phone to Kelly and said, “Kelly?” I tried not to look too surprised. She chatted for a while rapidly and then gave the phone back with a big smile. After the bill was paid I asked, “Quien es?” which is stupid non-Spanish-speaker shorthand for “Who was that?” She just smiled and said, “Mis amigas.” Her friends had called to say goodbye.
We were supposed to be at the airport at 10:00 for an 11:00 flight. As we drove out of Florencia I tried to remember as much as I could, because I didn’t think I would see it again soon. But at the airport they informed us that the plane was busted at another airport, and that one would have to be sent from Bogota to Peurto Asis, and then to Florencia, and then would take us to Bogota. With three hours to kill and Braden wilting like old lettuce in July we went back to Carlos’ office, where Sylvia (who had already said her goodbyes at the hotel) said “Otra vez?” (“Again?”) But it gave us all a chance to have a last lunch together, which was fruit salad in ice cream and frozen yogurt. I ate all of my dates, then Kelly’s, Joie’s, and Braden’s... This may cause problems later.
They both went back to the airport with us, the plane arrived as expected, and we left Florencia without ceremony. Kelly and I both had window seats, mine behind hers, and I watched her curiously. It was her first plane ride, and her first view of Florencia from the air. When I pointed out a big river flowing through town and said “Rio Hacha” she grinned and nodded like the kid she really is. I wish I knew what she was thinking.
We’re in Bogota now, which is dirtier, gruffer, and has more graffiti and barbed wire than Kelly Johanna ever saw in Florencia. I want to tell her that this is temporary, but we don’t communicate well yet. I ended up saying “Bogota es triste,” which means “Bogota is sad.” I think she nodded. Tonight we chatted through the computer’s translating program, and she told Joie and I about her favorite movies. I told her to tell us, while we’re here, what four or five new English words she would like to learn each day, and that we would work on them together. She liked that idea.
Sometimes she seems very distant, and it's a tough trick to let her know that we're here and that we care for her, even though we can't really say it.
Braden fell asleep early, and I had to agree when Joie said he looked very sweet up in his bunk bed. He’s wiped out. Georgia, on the other hand, is fully into her terrible twos, with screaming tantrums. We love that.
Tomorrow, Sunday, we’re going to the Salt Cathedral for a tour. I hope this first outing as a family in Bogota goes well—I expect it will, because Braden and Kelly Johanna act like fast friends most of the time.
As a last note: It's hard for us to believe Reed and Erin and Abigail are home, with Jackson wrapped in their arms. We've followed their journey through http://www.teammueller.com/, and can’t wait to meet their new daughter. We miss you guys.
And all of you, too. Michele, Janet, Ruth, thanks for the emails. Now that I don't have to go "into town" to send email we'll stay in touch more often.
It is after 10:00 PM here in Bogota, and everyone is asleep around me. Deep, weary breathing comes from each of them, even Georgia. But I have had way too many cups of coffee today. Is there a better spot on the planet for a coffee junkie than Colombia? I think not.
The thought that keeps me awake is this: My newest daughter is farther away from home than she’s ever been. By several hundred miles. She has never seen the ocean, she has only seen pictures of snow, and she’s probably heard a mix of horror stories and fantasies about Bogota all her life. I wish we could communicate, because I feel like she has so much to say.
Yesterday was a fantastic final day in Florencia. At least on my part. The posts below give you most of the details. Oscar did indeed take us all to dinner—the family, Peter and three ladies from ICBF, Carlos and Sylvia. We went to a typical Florencian restaurant: Corrugated metal roof, open sides, wood-burning stoves, surrounded by lush foliage, and specializing, of course, in obscenely big meat dishes. We had to take two taxis to get everyone there, and the first thing I noticed when we arrived was the huge grin on Kelly Johanna’s face. It seems we were very near her old house, the house in which she's the last five years, and she’d pointed the street out to everyone in her cab: “Mi casa! Mi casa esta alli!” I was particularly sorry to miss this, as for the last four days I've been pointing at various horizons from the hotel balconies and asking, “Donde esta su casa?” She could only give a vague wave and say “Thattaway,” or something like it in Spanish.
Shortly after we arrived at the restaurant a tropical thunderstorm landed in earnest. (You can see the predecessor cloud forming in the picture below.) Buckets, torrents, great sobs of rain. Georgia wanted to go stand in it, and I didn’t do a very good job of keeping her dry.
Four people from ICBF were there, and it was easy to see that they took special pride in Kelly. Late in the evening and after many beers Oscar pointed at the three ladies at the end of the table, leaned towards me and said (with Carlos translating), “These women are her family.” I could see it in the way they looked at her. In Florencia, an orphan is not a project or a statistic. One of them wagged a finger at me in parting and said “Escriba!” I promised we would write.
We went home with the most insane cab driver I met on our stay there. Florencia is a unique driving experience anyway: there are no lines, lanes, or markings on the roads. Cars, mopeds, motor bikes, donkey carts, and huge smoke-belching buses called chivas squeak, squeeze, and bully their way through any available space at breakneck speeds. Some sort of six sense that I’m not privy to allows the drivers to tell who's playing chicken and who's really serious at each intersection. Last night’s cab made a horrible a grinding noise in the right front, which I didn't understand: How could she have worn her rotors down to nothing, when she clearly never used her brakes?
As you read through these posts you might get the idea that we’d rather be anywhere than in Florencia, but that would be the wrong impression. It’s true, all of us were affected by the heat, the icy cold showers, and the feeling of being strangers in a strange land… But I think Florencia is full of wonderful people. I could live there. If I learned some Spanish.
So what’s “dry adiabatic lapse rate” all about? As much as we have all (especially Braden) been complaining about the heat, I have been thinking that it should be much hotter than 90 F this close to the equator, even at Florencia’s 9,500 feet of altitude. But then I remembered lapse rate, a holdover of knowledge from my brief piloting days: Under normal atmospheric conditions, for every 1,000-foor increase in altitude you can expect a 2-degree reduction in temperature. So, if it’s 90 degrees at roughly 10,000 feet, then the sea level temperature at this spot would be 110 F, or twenty degrees higher. That made sense to me.
This morning we left Florencia behind. There are interesting things to report: The gruff manager of the hotel thanked me warmly and said, I think, “Take care of that girl.” The deaf cleaning lady tried to refuse the tip I gave her, but I asked her to accept it with our thanks. Later she came down to the lobby and asked Joie for our address, which she gave her. While I was settling the bill Kelly fidgeted at my side and the front desk's phone rang. The receptionist looked at us, handed the phone to Kelly and said, “Kelly?” I tried not to look too surprised. She chatted for a while rapidly and then gave the phone back with a big smile. After the bill was paid I asked, “Quien es?” which is stupid non-Spanish-speaker shorthand for “Who was that?” She just smiled and said, “Mis amigas.” Her friends had called to say goodbye.
We were supposed to be at the airport at 10:00 for an 11:00 flight. As we drove out of Florencia I tried to remember as much as I could, because I didn’t think I would see it again soon. But at the airport they informed us that the plane was busted at another airport, and that one would have to be sent from Bogota to Peurto Asis, and then to Florencia, and then would take us to Bogota. With three hours to kill and Braden wilting like old lettuce in July we went back to Carlos’ office, where Sylvia (who had already said her goodbyes at the hotel) said “Otra vez?” (“Again?”) But it gave us all a chance to have a last lunch together, which was fruit salad in ice cream and frozen yogurt. I ate all of my dates, then Kelly’s, Joie’s, and Braden’s... This may cause problems later.
They both went back to the airport with us, the plane arrived as expected, and we left Florencia without ceremony. Kelly and I both had window seats, mine behind hers, and I watched her curiously. It was her first plane ride, and her first view of Florencia from the air. When I pointed out a big river flowing through town and said “Rio Hacha” she grinned and nodded like the kid she really is. I wish I knew what she was thinking.
We’re in Bogota now, which is dirtier, gruffer, and has more graffiti and barbed wire than Kelly Johanna ever saw in Florencia. I want to tell her that this is temporary, but we don’t communicate well yet. I ended up saying “Bogota es triste,” which means “Bogota is sad.” I think she nodded. Tonight we chatted through the computer’s translating program, and she told Joie and I about her favorite movies. I told her to tell us, while we’re here, what four or five new English words she would like to learn each day, and that we would work on them together. She liked that idea.
Sometimes she seems very distant, and it's a tough trick to let her know that we're here and that we care for her, even though we can't really say it.
Braden fell asleep early, and I had to agree when Joie said he looked very sweet up in his bunk bed. He’s wiped out. Georgia, on the other hand, is fully into her terrible twos, with screaming tantrums. We love that.
Tomorrow, Sunday, we’re going to the Salt Cathedral for a tour. I hope this first outing as a family in Bogota goes well—I expect it will, because Braden and Kelly Johanna act like fast friends most of the time.
As a last note: It's hard for us to believe Reed and Erin and Abigail are home, with Jackson wrapped in their arms. We've followed their journey through http://www.teammueller.com/, and can’t wait to meet their new daughter. We miss you guys.
And all of you, too. Michele, Janet, Ruth, thanks for the emails. Now that I don't have to go "into town" to send email we'll stay in touch more often.
posted by Michael Thelander at 7:12 PM
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