travel

Random 5 Friday – Movin’ On

November 1, 2013 by admin

Fall is on full display in Philadelphia (taken at the Barnes Foundation)

This morning’s Random 5 post comes to you from Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Yesterday we took the train from NYC to Princeton, NJ, where we rented a car and are looking forward to more interesting explorations. Thanks to Nancy at A Rural Journal for hosting the Friday Random 5…I know I say this every week, but some really fine bloggers hook up to her site every week, and are well worth your time!

Here’s my Random 5 for this week:

I love eating seasonally, and that means I’ve been getting more than my fair share of pumpkin. This past week I enjoyed pumpkin hummus in NYC, and last night I had a pumpkin risotto at Talula’s Garden in Philadelphia. Talula’s is spendy, but the food is fresh, local, and exquisite. If you’re looking for a splurge, check it out. We had s’mores for dessert, truly decadent with rich, dark chocolate.
We’ve been fortunate in our lives that we have been able to travel the world and see some of its greatest art. Yesterday we explored the Barnes Foundation, right in good ol’ Philadelphia, which is filled with Renoirs, Cezannes, and the occasional Van Gogh sprinkled in the mix. It is one of the great museums of the world, in my opinion. We walked from room to room, gasping all the way.
Riding around in downtown Philadelphia makes me cringe. We plugged in our GPS (affectionately known as Gertrude or Gertie) to take us to Independence Hall, but at rush hour it’s hard to get in the right lanes and make the turns, so our trip was longer and more stressful than we expected. After more than 30 years of living in Houston, you would think it wouldn’t faze me, but no.
We also saw the Rodin museum. We had no idea that Philly had one, but when we saw it we decided to wander in.
I’m looking forward to spending some time in Amish country. Cities are nice, but I’m ready to get back into more rural settings.

Have a great weekend!

The Liberty Bell...I thought the gardens in front of the building were gorgeous! — The Liberty Bell…I thought the gardens in front of the building were gorgeous!

Random 5 Friday – On the Road

October 25, 2013 by admin

Good morning and happy Friday! Once again, I am connecting with Nancy over at A Rural Journal for her weekly Random 5. It’s been a great way to connect with other bloggers, so come join the fun!

Here’s my Random 5:

I finished knitting my first hat this week. I won’t show it yet, because I want to do the blocking and finish work, but I’m pleased with myself.
My tip for the week: always get the right tools for the job. When I was making said hat, I tried to use my double-pointed needles instead of a circular one, because that’s what I had in the house. It didn’t work out, though, so a quick trip to my local yarn shop, and I was good to go! With the right needles, it went faster and easier.
We arrived in NYC last night. It was our first flight into JFK, and we waited in line for 45 minutes for a cab. It took less time to get from JFK to Chinatown than it did to wait for the cab.
I’d love to tell you about my Neighbor from Hell, but since we’re in a legal battle with them, I’ll keep mum for now. The good news is, he’s a lot older than we are, so odds are that we’ll outlive him. We figure he’s going to be a thorn in our sides until the day he dies. He’s just that kind of guy.
When one decides to live gluten-free, then more planning needs to go into travel. We ate a hearty breakfast, and then ate lunch at the airport rather than getting food on the plane (I read Delta’s menu, and the only gluten-free option was cheese and dried fruit). For the flight, I took some homemade gluten-free granola and some apples. We needed something before bed, and the nearest open restaurant was Italian, which is a bit like a recovering alcoholic going into a bar…but I found a nice shrimp salad on the menu. We’ll see how the rest of the trip goes, but so far, so good.

Have a great weekend!

Potting Up

April 29, 2013 by admin

My first plantings...spending the days outside, nights indoors until the frost danger passes. — My first plantings…spending the days outside, nights indoors until the frost danger passes.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, tomatoes are a challenge to grow. The Holy Grail, my hairdresser advises me. Kimberly has had a knack for accuracy in the year or so since I met her at an olive oil tasting, so when she says something, I believe her.

Of course, I also like a challenge. Back in the day, I was one of those women who sought out men who were just that, and the more emotionally unavailable they were, the better. If life gets too easy, I get nervous. A long time ago I learned to break off those relationships in favor of healthier ones, but apparently I still need to beat my head against the wall now and then…so why not grow something that some people say I can’t?

The problem here (with tomatoes, not men) is a lack of heat. We have to coax, cajole, and sometimes trick the plants in order to get fruit from them. Summer disappears at times before it arrives, keeping the fruit from turning red. While I don’t mind the occasional fried green tomato, I like mine fully ripened, thank you.

This year I grew them from seed, which helped me get through the dark, moody winter days. As the seedlings started to sprout and grow, I learned how to “pot up” the plants before setting them outside. That means I keep putting the plants in larger and deeper pots as they grow. I set them deep into the new pots and trim off the bottom leaves, burying most of the stem. This allows them to form long, substantial root systems.

Setting down roots is not my forte. Growing up, our family moved around from town to town due to job changes and transfers. Even in Houston, where I lived for 30 years, I found myself repeating the pattern, moving into new neighborhoods and apartments when changing jobs. I lived in one house for nearly ten years, but other than that, I’ve lived the life of the proverbial rolling stone. When hubby and I settled down and married, we satisfied our restless spirits and itchy feet through travel. Now that we live in the type of place we always wanted to travel to, we travel less. It’s good for the garden for me to be home, but at times I still yearn for the vagabond life.

When I arrived in Port Townsend a year ago, I planted the seed of myself here. Like a good tomato plant, I grew toward the light and started the process of growing my roots. I didn’t grow into my new home as soon as I expected…but little by little, I am getting to know people and am finding my way.

On a daily basis, I’m consulting gardening books and online resources. These tomato plants, grown from seed, are my precious children. Some of them have died along the way, and I have grieved every loss. Still, I now have so many thriving plants that I’m not sure where I’m going to put them all. As I’ve gotten to know some people better, I’ve learned that not every seed of friendship will grow, either. Some will thrive, some will not. Some will grow slower than others.

Later plantings, just starting to spend some time outdoors.

It’s too soon to tell if my efforts in tomato growing will pay off. Next week I’m going to a class taught by a local expert, but unpredictable weather wreaks havoc here, as it does with any garden anywhere. It’s possible that I will go to all this trouble and not get a single tomato. Still, I’ve increased the odds, and my life is better for having taken the chance. Planting a garden means I’m willing to take a risk. Moving cross-country means taking a risk with new people, new situations, new culture.

As I help my tomatoes build their root system, I am also building my own. It takes time, patience, and some finesse. I will do my best to create sturdy plants, and in doing so, increase my own sturdiness.

This little guy was planted early but is taking his sweet time...but I hung in there, and he's starting to grow. Who knows why the same seed grown in the same place acts so differently? — This little guy was planted early but is taking his sweet time…but I hung in there, and he’s starting to grow. Who knows why the same seed grown in the same place acts so differently?

All Points of View

April 22, 2013 by admin

I toss a pair of black convertible pants, caked with dust, into the laundry. I clean my fingernails and smooth out the chips and snags with an emery board. I put fresh bandages on the backs of my heels to soften the sting of blisters. I dampen my curls to remove all trace of “hat head.” This can mean just one thing.

Hiking season has begun.

We took off on a whim after yet another round of personal legal hassles in a week defined by bombs and blasts. Yet again, we are faced with a terror attack, and yet again, another community suffers the blows of what appears to be an industrial accident. From Boston to West, Texas, we were shaken as a nation. I feel weary, and everyone I speak with does, too. These events bring up sorrow, but also the increasingly bitter rhetoric of political sides screaming ever louder.

There is nothing like a big-shouldered mountaintop to carry one’s burdens, so we piled into the car, packs and poles in tow, and drove to the Methow Valley on the eastern side of the Northern Cascade Mountains.

Highway 20, also known as the Northern Cascades Highway, is closed during the winter and just opened a few weeks ago. At the highest points of the drive, remnants of the 35 feet of snow that covered the road remain. Many trails will have to wait until July or August, but on the eastern side, in the Methow Valley, most of the trails are sunny and dry.

On our first hike of the season, we took a simple stroll on a trail outside Sun Mountain Lodge. Though we had 360 degree vistas to admire, I found myself fascinated by the flowers at our feet. It was hard to know where to look. Every plant finds its own way to survive in this tough, dry terrain that could just as easily be West Texas as Washington State.

On Saturday, we took a hike at Pipestone Canyon. We’d never heard of it, but our kind host Dan at The Chewuch Inn in Winthrop recommended it to us. Though the hike is not well marked, it happened that an organized footrace was taking place that day, so we took advantage of the flags that the organizers had put out to direct the runners. The first few miles were ho-hum, but we discovered that by hanging in there, our patience was rewarded with views both looking down into the canyon and looking up from its floor. The treasures of green, glacier-formed valleys, snow-covered mountaintops, and rocklike canyon formations reminiscent of Sedona gave generously of themselves, and we took in their splendor as they fed nectar to our parched spirits.

In the summertime, rattlesnakes slither and sun themselves. Pipestone Canyon has the largest concentration of rattlers in Washington State, we’re told. It made me extra careful when I had to make a potty stop on the path! This being springtime, though, we didn’t see any such critters.

Tiny flowers draping the mountaintop at Sun Mountain Lodge

We humans have fought and disagreed since the beginning of time. Whether or not one believes in an actual Cain and Abel, we can agree that we will fight, often passionately and to the death, for what we believe in.

We can also climb to the mountaintop and look around us at the exquisite, boundless beauty of God’s earth. It overflows in its abundance and gives us perspective. Along the path, we greet strangers with smiles. We come across yet another patch filled with wildflowers. On the way home, new snow blankets trees in a living postcard.

From the craggy peaks to the smallest flower, we see all points of view. It’s easy to see, after all, that a mountain’s nature is to be a mountain, as a flower’s is to be a flower, and a snake’s to be a snake. We can’t change the snake, but we can look to stay out of its path.

Worth a three-mile walk to get to see this? I think so!

A late winter wonderland near Washington Pass in the Northern Cascades

Book Tuesday: What is the “Real” Israel?

December 4, 2012 by admin

In 2008, hubby and I went to Israel. Stunning and stressful, inspiring and frightening, the country showed its many sides to us as we explored it in our rental car. When I came home, I wanted to write about it, but how? Nothing I tried to write did justice to the experience.

Author Martin Fletcher, who walked the western coast of Israel the same year we were there, has written the stories that I couldn’t write in Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation. A longtime journalist, Fletcher had covered many battles and skirmishes throughout the country. He felt that he was missing something, and walked the western coast of Israel in search of the “real” Israel. Along the way he interviews Jews, Israeli Arabs, soldiers, and more.

As Fletcher hikes along the coast, my own memories come flooding back. In one example, he writes about Acre, with its medieval walls, where Jews and Arabs live peacefully, for the most part. Just before our visit, though, some violence erupted when an Arab drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur (the holiest day of the Jewish calendar). As with all things Israeli, however, it’s complicated, and hubby and I had a nice visit in Acre despite the violence just a week before. Fletcher reflects on this incident, though it occurred several months after his walk, and notes how challenging it is to separate politics from daily life in Israel.

When Fletcher describes the northern town of Nahariyya, I remember meeting my first former Israeli soldier: a pretty waitress in a local cafe. Slim and slight, she recalled doing her military service when Lebanon was bombing Nahariyya in 2006. My stepson was in Israel that year, and we feared for his safety, but his group leaders moved them further south out of harm’s way. I realized again what should be obvious: no matter how intimidating or powerful, many armies are made up of young, fresh-faced kids just starting their lives.

Israel 106 — Roman ruins at Caesarea, where Napoleon was turned back.

There were so many contradictions and contrasts, too many to describe here. I am grateful to Fletcher for his ability to present them so clearly.

Fletcher doesn’t try to draw conclusions. His reviews are mixed because he hasn’t chosen one side or the other, but that’s why I appreciate it. It’s confusing and complex, and Fletcher doesn’t make it less so. He does, however, show the fascinating and frustrating land of Israel in a way that made me nod my head and say, “Yes, yes, that’s it. That’s what I couldn’t find the words to say.”

Israel 393 — Sunrise at Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea

Friday Fun — The Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race

November 2, 2012 by admin

We’ve all had a tough week. A little fun won’t take away Sandy’s devastation, but we might as well have some laughs where we can.

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Just for grins, here are some photos from the recent annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, where “cheating is not a right, it’s a privilege.” The first such festival was held here in 1983, making it the third oldest kinetic sculpture festival. Vehicles must be operated by humans (not engines) and prove their ability to travel on land, water, and in mud and sand.

Costumes? This is how we normally dress around here!

. The goal, as I understand it, is not to win, but to come in somewhere in the middle. Just another day in a wacky paradise!

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!