Achievement Unlocked - seventh continent visited.

This morning was very exciting! We awoke to a sunny day, and very calm seas knowing that in just a short time we would be taking our very first hike on Antarctica. A colony of Chinstrap penguins and a little climb to a beautiful overlook. There were humpback whales, just chilling, off the bow of the ship. What a day!

We went through the drill of putting on our wellingtons and parka, hat, gloves, life jacket, backpack… I felt like the Michelin Man. We had our first experience with the automatic boot scrubber (to keep contaminants off the continent) and got onto the zodiac. It was a short ride, but the excitement began to build early when a bunch of penguins started jumping out of the water just ahead of us. Once we got on land there was a path to follow to allow us to see many views of the colony without getting too close. I’m definitely glad we invested in the new lens. We were well back from the penguins but the lens makes it look like we were much closer. So, walking in the snow, enjoying the views… There is not much more to write so I’ll just share some of my favorite photos from the morning.

How many oceans are there on earth? Most of us learned about four - Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic. But there is a fifth called the southern ocean that surrounds Antarctica. We need to get across it. This is also often referred to as the Drake passage. The winds have free rein to go all the way around the earth unimpeded by any content in this region. So, yeah, swells, big ones. And, uhhhhh seasickness for many many passengers.

I’m getting a little ahead of the story, but the early morning trip to the airport and the charter flight to Ushuaia were uneventful and pretty uninteresting. After arriving we took a motor coach tour of Tierra del Fuego, which was interesting since we had been there before with much more time to hike, so we kept trying to remember exactly where we had hiked. We pulled up to our yacht at 3:00 and were among the first passengers welcomed aboard. No lines, no reception checkin. Here’s a glass of champagne! Sit on the couch here and let me scan your passport and take your picture on my phone. OK, here’s your key, you are now checked in! We were scheduled to leave at 6pm but we were told that due to the holiday things were running behind. By the time we headed to bed right after dinner we were still in port. We were too tired to care, and we slept until 8AM the next morning. Between the time change and the lack of sleep it felt great.

At our first briefing of the day we learned that not only had we left late, but we had also picked up 20 passengers from our sister ship that was having engine trouble after passing through a storm on the Drake passage days ago. We learned more about our excursions off the ship and that the first three rules are “be flexible” The captain and the expedition leader work together to find the best, safest, most interesting landing spots for the day. With changing conditions that is often not known until hours before we are told and ready to go. We were so impressed with the expedition crew! Lots of specialties and advanced degrees in all kinds of fields will be leading us.

By the time of this first briefing we were well into the Drake and there were a LOT of seasick passengers. I know I am not immune to it, but I am lucky that I don’t get seasick easily, so far so good. Jerry and Jane have not felt the best but thankfully they haven’t got sick either.

Later in the day we got fit for our parkas, life jackets and boots that we will wear whenever we leave the ship. We also had a fascinating lecture about the Albatross in the drake passage. This is the best place in the world to see them, and we have enjoyed watching them soar and dive amongst the swells. They can literally fly for up to 9000 miles without stopping. With their 12 foot wingspan they are some of the largest birds in the world. Unfortunately they are endangered. As creatures of the sea (they are only on land to breed and hatch and care for their young) they have been really affected by plastics in the ocean, and by bad fishing practices. Eat your seafood responsibly people! And, do what you can to reduce your use of plastics.

By dinner time we were all feeling pretty good. We had a very nice meal and enjoyed some after dinner entertainment by our cruise director before turning in for another good nights sleep. The winds and the swells were predicted to increase during the night, and that proved to be the case. We were definitely rocked and rolled to sleep. Waking up a few times as the bottles in the mini-bar all clanged together. During the recap briefing we were asked to predict when we would see the first iceberg. Not “bergy bits” or pieces of floating ice, but a real true titanic size iceberg!

I didn’t expect to see one on day two, but there it was just after lunch! I was looking out the window of our room and for a moment thought it was another ship in the distance, but once I got the binoculars it was clear that it was a berg.

Of course the other side of the ship had an even bigger one to see!

We still have a good long distance to go before reaching Antarctica, but things are going to get more and more interesting.

We decided to splurge and book our overnight flight to Buenos Aires as Delta One tickets. There are some nice perks with that. Easy drop off of checked luggage and access to the Delta lounge while you wait. The seats lie totally flat for the overnight flight. Maybe we will be able to sleep, we thought. Not so much as it turns out. But we made it, having left Minneapolis at 3:00pm on Tuesday we arrived at 9 something the next morning in BA. An hour to get through customs and an hour to get downtown in a cab, It was pouring rain, the hotel lobby was packed with people waiting to leave on their Viking cruise. And our room was not ready, to be fair checkin was not until 3, and we were not the only tired travelers arriving on an overnight flight.

We had booked a bike tour to keep us going in the afternoon, but that was cancelled due to the rain. So we hung out in the lobby, watched some soccer, and had a light lunch waiting for our room or for our friends Ann and Jerry to arrive.

The highlight of that first day was the dinner experience we booked at Fogon. Everything is cooked with the highly elaborate Argentine grill called a perilla. There are 9 courses on the menu, but the 2 surprise courses brought the number to 11.

The chefs were all very friendly and very entertaining. The food was absolutely delicious and a celebration of being a wine loving carnivore.

Our dinner didn’t start until 7:30 which is very early for the Argentines, and it ended sometime after 10 when most of them are just getting started. We were glad to get back to the hotel and put our overstuffed bodies to bed for the night. We had an all day tour of the city booked for the morning beginning at 9:30. Note that Buenos Aires is 3 hours ahead of Minneapolis so we were not too jet lagged, but still quite sleep deprived.

The tour of BA was fabulous, our tour guide’s name was Fabio and he was both knowledgeable and an excellent story teller. We had lots of questions and he seemed to really thrive on our back and forth. Our first stop of the day was at the government center. It was a big day/weekend as they were inaugurating a new mayor as well as a new president. Our impression was that this new president was going to be a trump-like disaster for Argentina, but it seems most people remain hopeful, that he will be an influence for change but moderated by the legislature that he must work with. Democracy in Argentina over the years has not been easy with many coups and rebellions. I won’t try to recap it all in this post, but I feel compelled to re-watch Evita with a new perspective. We did see the balcony that Eva Peron and Madonna both used.

Speaking of Evita our second stop was at the cemetery where she is interred. Her mausoleum is one of the most visited places in the city. This cemetery is just amazing as everyone is in some kind of crypt or mausoleum. When a family buys a place there they own it forever, but if they stop maintaining the site then it begins to decay. So we saw many amazing graves and many that had been grand years ago that were now full of spider webs and weeds. It was like a small town all to itself with streets and avenues going all over.

Having had our fill of beef the night before we politely asked Fabio for a different option for lunch. He pulled through and brought us to a small family run place that made killer empanadas. By this time it was well after 1 and we didn’t finish lunch until 3. We still had one more stop on our tour!

The highlight of the final stop was a drive by of the stadium where the Boca Juniors play. The club of Maradonna! The blue and yellow colors of the teem seemed oddly familiar to me, and I’ll tell you why. It seems that there were two teams in the city with the same colors, and they had a match to see who could keep the current colors, the loser would have to choose new colors. The Bocas lost, and the owners declared that they would adopt the colors of the next ship to dock in the harbor. That ship turned out to be flying the Swedish flag!

It was 5pm by the time we arrived back at the hotel. We were going to have dinner, and then take in a Tango show which didn’t start until 10! On top of that our bus to the airport for our charter flight to Ushuaia was going to be leaving between 4:30 and 5:00 AM the next morning!! Sound a little crazy? Well, we made it through, and are enjoying a couple of down days on the journey to Antarctica to catch up on sleep. More on that in the next post.

The dinner was pretty forgettable, and 3 out of 4 of us enjoyed the Tango show. OK, the music was good, I just have never learned to appreciate dance. For me the show could have ended after an hour but it kept going for another 40 minutes with various flourishes and bows and a dramatic rendition of “Don’t cry for me Argentina” to wrap up the show. It was after midnight by the time we walked back to our hotel, and yes, the alarm needed to be set for 4:15AM. There will be time to sleep later.

Fun fact about Runestone Academy. The GPTbot is our number one source of bot traffic. Thousands of hits daily.

My favorite quote of the day: > “The most efficient way to get through this is to listen to what he has to say.” “We are not here to hear what he has to say,” Engoron replied. “We are here to listen to him answer questions.”

Can anyone guess the context of this quote?

Today started out with another harrowing drive. We received about 3 inches of snow overnight, so my first duty was to clear the snow off the car. The snow was melting off the streets and it was warm enough that I really wasn’t worried about the drive. Until we started up the million dollar highway, on snowy, icy, roads, with no guard rails! We were doing 5-10 miles per hour on some parts. Luckily once we reached the summit things improved dramatically, but it was a very long first hour of driving.

The highway was built in the 1880s to connect Silverton with Ouray. It is supposed to be stunningly beautiful. Hopefully we can return in the warmer months to find out.

From Silverton we continued on to Durango and then Mesa Verde National Park. It was a great time of the year to visit as the crowds were pretty small. The downside is that the ranger led tours of the cliff dwellings had ended a few weeks ago. Still, we were able to see a lot of the detail of the construction extremely well.

Mesa Verde, Machu Picchu, and other ancient constructions always astonish me. How could they have done all of that building? So much progress in engineering that seems to have been lost. What happened?

Today began just North of Denver, dry roads and a cloudy sky. We had coffee and got our day started, we were on the road by 8:00. Our path today would take us to Ouray with a stop at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Not our usual route out of Denver, up I70, but rather down US285 and over Monarch pass. Not more than 20 minutes down the road the conditions changed drastically. Cars in the ditch and ice on the roads. We slowed our progress considerably and soon the ice changed to water, but the skies got cloudier and the snow started. The conditions were not too bad until we climbed up toward Monarch pass. A pickup (pulling a camper!) had slid off the road, we slowed way down and joined a line of other like-minded travelers.

Once we were over the pass, the temperatures warmed above freezing and the roads thawed and the sun came out. We paused for lunch at the Alpine Brewing company in Gunnison. We continued west toward Montrose but took a detour slightly North to take in Black Canyon NP. It was cloudy and we could hear thunder in the distance. Its odd to look down on the clouds in the Valley.

I kind of felt like maybe I could hear the dwarves from the Lord of the Rings.

The thunder got louder and closer, and before we knew it it was sleeting like crazy. In less than five minutes the roads were completely covered in slushy ice. But once again as we descended slowly the roads cleared.

We continued on our way toward Ouray and were treated to a beautiful sight as the clouds briefly cleared.

Our evening in Ouray was pretty uneventful. We walked around downtown, but it was pretty quiet as it was cold and rainy. We had dinner at Brickhouse 737 in Ouray and it was a great meal. Quite a nice change from breweries and other on the road meals.

I just had to stop during my ride, to enjoy the Fall colors, looking across Lake of the Isles toward downtown.

This is a theme for me in 2023… Individual thinking versus institutional thinking. From Bloomberg: “Still, any lawmaker who crossed party lines would risk fierce backlash from key supporters and donors”. Too many people are ready to burn down the entire country instead of working together! WTF!??

Home! Feels like we are unpacking a months worth of stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving! or Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s day! We are in Canada and Thanksgiving and Columbus day are on the same Holiday. It seems really weird for us to hear people wishing other people a Happy Thanksgiving on a Monday, much less in early October! But it was a day to be thankful for after all!

We started our day by visiting Niagara Falls! Our first stop was the behind the falls experience. It was a little unnerving to walk through a tunnel realizing how much water was flowing just feet over your head! But the sights were quiet nice.

We thought the view from above was even better. This is one of my favorites!

The Canadians clearly were lucky in that you can see Horseshoe falls as well as the American falls so much better from the Canadian side.

The afternoon was a fun afternoon of wine tasting in the Niagara region. Starting with the Wayne Gretzgy distillery and ending with a very nice pork chop on our grill back at the camp ground. At this point vacation is basically over and we have two days of driving to get back to Decorah. I’m almost sure the adventure is not over yet. So stay tuned for further updates.

Niagara

After a fitful night of sleep due to the on again off again rain, and in between the rain the wind blowing the rain out of the trees along with many leaves. We finally got up and decided to head down the road. It was just lightly raining when we broke camp, but as we drove west toward Syracuse NY we drove in and out of fairly heavy rain. Nothing nearly as bad as the moment we arrived at our campground!

It wouldn’t be a good trip if you didn’t get to use your raincoat. So we put them on and used the dump station and added some fresh water. Do I look happy or what?

When we found our site, it was basically a shallow river. Despite our excellent rain coats we were pretty wet by the time we got backed in and leveled up. I was wearing my crocs for some dumb reason so my feet ended up soaked too. I decided to do some work, which was a mistake, as something broke, so I couldn’t run my Saturday updates.

We thought about heading out to a brewery for dinner and the hope of watching MNUFC take on LA Galaxy. In the end our internet was good enough that we decided to make chili and stay in. The Loons miraculously won, so that is something. Their playoff hopes, however dim, are still alive.

The morning was cool and partly sunny but very windy. I spent the morning working on my problem and finally found the solution I needed. Jane took a walk around the campground. We had hoped to bike along the Erie Canal, but it was way too windy and cool.

Then I got the board book for the Luther board meeting and saw the schedule for Thursday, so we called another audible and decided to head out to Niagara Falls today, which will allow us to arrive in Decorah on Wednesday instead of Thursday. You gotta stay flexible when you are on the road.

Dear AppleTV

Some vague excuse about a dispute between MNUFC and local broadcasters is not an excuse for not broadcasting the game I paid for. Especially when you say I can stream it elsewhere.

Mixed emotions on the departure of Adrian Heath at MNUFC. But probably time for a change. I certainly appreciate all that he has done for the club over the last seven years. @jthingelstad What are your thoughts? Who would like you to see succeed Adrian?

Onward to New Hampshire! We have turned the corner and started heading back west. We got to Acadia a day early to try to maximize the nice weather, and are doing the same to try to enjoy some New Hampshire “leaf peeping.” Personally I’ve now done enough leaf peeping to last me a while, but everywhere you turn there are hillsides full of vibrant colors. Jane has a higher level of enthusiasm and can’t get enough of the leaves.

Here is a beautiful view from “Height of the Land,” one of our first stops in New Hampshire.

We arrived at our campground at Franconia Notch State Park. It is a very compact campground and took a lot of fancy driving for Jane to get our camper backed into our spot. Its one of the most unlevel spots we have had and took some stacking skill on my part to get us level left to right. But it was a beautiful site, with a nice fire pit.

After a long day of driving it felt good to go for a short hike at Artists Bluff. It was a good workout of climbing over rocks to get to the top where we could see hill sides in every direction, a small pond and even some of the ski slopes. It had turned quite windy so we didn’t stay on the bluff as long as we might.

Instead we headed back to camp, got a couple of bundles of wood, and made a nice campfire with happy hour and some burgers on the horizon. This will be our last campsite with no electric hookup. Also no place to dump, so we’ll have to haul our gray and black water with us to New York.

We have reservations for three nights, but we are anticipating leaving a day earlier as it is supposed to rain and we can drive to Syracuse and break up the drive to Niagara.

The highlight of day 2 at Franconia Notch was the hike to the Flume Gorge. This was a fun hike through a granite and basalt gorge. covered bridges and walkways. Fall colors were everywhere despite the overcast day.

When the hike was over we still had a drive on the “Kanck”. A well known highway with lots of turnouts. This weekend is a long weekend with Columbus day and Canadian Thanksgiving, which seems to be widely celebrated in the Northeast. So it is one of the busiest weekends of the year for leaf peepers. But despite the crowds there was plenty of beauty to go around.

We stopped for lunch in North Conway at a restaurant that was featured on Diners Drive-ins and Dives called Barley and Salt. We had the Thai chicken tacos which were really delicious and which I am determined to recreate when I have more than a camper kitchen to work with.

By the time we got back to the camper, which was round 6pm it was starting to rain so we packed up the chairs and had everything stowed and ready to take off in the morning. The rainy night was a perfect night to use some of the left over ragu in the freezer. We both feel like we we are in the home stretch now. We will be in Decorah in six days. The time has flown by, but looking back at our initial stops in New York feels like a long time ago!

I woke at 1:15AM, three and a half hours of sleep left. Darn, I did math, now my brain is awake. Breathe slowly and try to get back to sleep. 2:30, wonder what time it is now? 3:30, really? just sleep until the alarm goes off already! 4:30 both of us are awake but we might as well just lay here for 15 more minutes! Finally, my iPhone alarm goes off and I accidentally hit snooze – as if! I’m so used to just waking up at 5:30 every morning, that when I need to set an alarm to get up earlier my whole system breaks down. So why all of the fuss?

We had a reservation to watch the sunrise on Cadillac mountain! It is the first place to see the sun come up in the USA. I guess that is a cool feature. The recommendation from all of Jane’s research was to get there an hour before sunrise, which was very good advice because of course the sky starts to glow well before.

It is so cool to be sitting up there looking at the ocean and all of the little islands, and everyone around you is whispering, because its dark and nobody wants to spoil the vibe. We watch a cruise ship come into the area waiting to deposit its passengers in Bar Harbor for the day. We hear lots of fishing boats heading out, and we can see lots of moving points of light on the water.

We can tell there are some clouds on the horizon so there should be some nice color. And there is!

6:35 comes and the sun is obscured by the clouds on the horizon, but we wait a bit longer and are rewarded with a glorious sunrise! The volume level goes up all around us, and people leave their spots and start wandering around more. Everyone seems very happy! A beautiful sunrise and the promise of a new day.

What a great way to start your morning. Next we think that maybe some Popovers from the cafe at Jordan’s pond might be a good way to celebrate a successful sunrise, so we stop, but sadly they do not open until 9. It is only 7:30, so we head back to the camper for some pancakes instead.

Later some more hiking and another trip to Bar Harbor to find the internet. My coffee grinder has broken down, so I’ll try to see if I can find a replacement or at least by some ground coffee for future mornings. We only have a week left, time has gone so quickly.

Lets get going by 9 Jane said. No problem, time for coffee and morning puzzles etc. My watch and phone said it was only about 8:15 and Jane was pacing, “ready??” Her iPad said it was 9:15. Some of our devices had not made the switch from Atlantic to Eastern timezone. Not surprising given the lack of internet connectivity around Acadia.

The result was that we got an early start on our hike up the Beehive Trail, which was good because we definitely beat the rush. Here are some pics to highlight our hike/climb.

Yep, this hike features vertical climbs up metal rungs. A couple were even past vertical. I must admit that the pictures definitely look more dangerous than it felt at the time.

The climb was definitely worth it as you could see forever, and it was beautiful.

With the hike finished we headed back to the camper. The sun and solar panels had already done their job of recharging the batteries for the camper. We had worked up an appetite so I cooked some hash browns, bacon and scrambled eggs on the griddle.

Acadia has highways, park roads, and carriage roads. The last are thanks to the Rockefeller’s from way back. The carriage roads are for bikers and hikers and horses only. So it is a great way to see the park free from traffic. Getting to the carriage roads from our campground, however, is a bit of a challenge. We had to start on one of the park roads for a few miles and then walk our bikes up the bank to the carriage road once we got there.

We really enjoyed Jordan’s pond and Eagle Lake and the Bubble Pond… The fall colors were really brilliant

The last bit of our ride was back to hiking. To get from the carriage road to the highway that brings us back to our campground required some fancy maneuvering!

With plenty of exercise for the day, we rested for a few minutes and then went in to Bar Harbor where we had a dinner reservation. Bar Harbor was busy I can’t imagine what it is like there during the summer months. But we found a brewery with good WiFi to catch up on a few things and then walked around the shops before heading to Geddy’s for some calamari and pizza.

It was not a late night, as we need to get up at 4:45AM to drive up to Cadillac mountain to watch the sunrise…

Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia

Acadia! We have arrived!‘s

Halifax has a nice food scene and a pretty boardwalk along the bay. We saw several cruise ships leave and arrive, and got to try a local specialty. A Donair.

A Halifax Donair shares some history with a Gyro, except that they are made from beef and have a special Halifax sauce. Crispy thin sliced beef with a creamy, sweet, garlic sauce with plenty of tomatoes and onions. We split one from a shop on the boardwalk so as not to spoil our appetites for Jane’s birthday dinner.

The boardwalk was fine, but I wouldn’t say spectacular. We found a nice Irish pub for some drinks, and they had a live band. So it was fun to sit and listen. Not as cool as the ceilidh back on Cape Breton, but still good.

Birthday dinner was at The Bicycle Thief restaurant. It was a very nice meal, Jane had Seared Atlantic Halibut with brown butter & parmigiano fregola, charred asparagus, vino bianco, roasted sweet tomatoes, lemon & caper beurre blanc. I had Old-School Lobster Thermidor, Whole NS Lobster, wild mushrooms, shallots, Brandy crema, gratinéed with breadcrumbs, gruyère & parmigiano, truffle spaghettini & fresh asparagus. Both were delicious. We had a nice bottle of Chardonnay from Long Meadow Range in Anderson Valley. For desert we split the Creme brulee… slightly warm, with a really crispy crust, in short perfect. Top that off with a little sip of Port or Courvoisier and you have completed a near perfect meal.

The plan was to bike about 14 miles to Lunenburg, have some lunch at a brewery, and then bike back to where we parked. Drive back to the camper and make some Peruvian chicken for dinner. That was the plan. It was a beautiful day, It was a beautiful ride, although the trail was a bit soft in a number of places, and in a few it was completely washed out.

However, 15 miles into the 14 mile ride we called a halt to consult the map. Somewhere along the way we had missed a turn that we didn’t even know to look for. Now we were almost to Bridgewater, quite a distance from Lunenburg.

What to do now? Trying to make a triangle out of the situation was not a good solution. No trails from here to there, and the distance would have made the ride too long. So, we decide to turn back, maybe stop at a brewery along the way back, and see where to go. Riding along and discussing the options further, we decide to just head back to the truck and then drive from there to Lunenburg. Jane really wanted to see Lunenburg as it is a UNESCO site.

To get there we had to drive through Mahone Bay. What a zoo! We drove into their annual Scarecrow Festival! People everywhere. Cars everywhere. Astronaut scarecrows, firefighter scarecrows, They were everywhere. Kind of funny and clever. One of the few things we didn’t take a picture of, sadly.

Eventually we made it to Lunenburg where we found a good viewpoint to take a photo of the town, with its colorful buildings and tall ships in the harbor.

Around four O’clock we parked and walked to the Shipwreck Brewery tap room. The smell of pizza was a little overwhelming as we walked in! We hadn’t much to eat, and had just ridden 30 miles. After looking at the menu we decided the chicken could wait! One small pizza and one lobster roll to go with our beers please.

I have to admit I was a little whiney. Not yet 7am and Jane was ready to go. It was barely even light outside. But we had to get going. We are driving the Cabot Trail today, around Cape Breton island including many many short stops in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Spoiler alert… even though I was a bit grumpy starting out this was one of my favorite days. This drive is just so beautiful. In Jane’s notes it was described by some other blogger as follows:

The Cabot Trail is a road that hugs the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the rugged northwestern edge of Nova Scotia, where around every bend you want to pull over, spew expletives of joy at the stupendous vista, and take another snapshot.

Our first fun stop was to take the worlds shortest ferry ride on the Englishtown ferry. We had a lovely chat with the ferryman during our three minute crossing which covered everything from the state of education to English Premier League football, to the relative strength of various hurricanes, to whether the Packers (he saw our Wisconsin license plate) would win their Thursday night football game. We covered a lot of ground!

Our next stop was Middle head. A really nice hike which we cut short because we were still worried about time. Jane had read that it was really difficult to get the whole loop done in a day

After that it was just turnout after turnout of stopping to take in the scenery. Our next real goal was to do the Skyline hike.

The skyline hike was four miles out and back. With a set of boardwalk steps at the end that give you a pretty spectacular view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

More scenery followed the Skyline hike…until we arrived in Cheticamp, where we decided to stop for lunch at the Doryman’s pub, rather than eat another day’s worth of turkey and salami sandwiches. We had a great view of the bay and I had fish and chips and Jane had chowder. The chowder was great. My irish red ale was also very good. We think that our waitress secretly could not believe that Jane would like the IPA she ordered and so brought her a bud light instead.

At the end of the trail, Jane made a “wrong turn” that led us to the Big Spruce brewery instead of our camp ground. We enjoyed a couple of pints before heading back to relax for the evening. We made a campfire, thanks to our neighbor who gave us some nice dry kindling and paper to get it going! We were still very full from our mid afternoon meal that we warmed up some leftover pizza on the Traeger for an evening snack.

Middle head

A day on the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia