Maritime Vacation, Part 1

Disclaimer: I know I'm completely green as a travel writer, but I'd like to try.  I beg your grace.

So, vacation...

First of all, where did I go?  Here:

And, more specifically, here:

Flew into Halifax - airport was practically deserted.  (Less happily, had to change planes at LaGuardia, where they haven't managed to reconcile contemporary security procedures and connection times with the fact that their terminals are spread between six different buildings connected only by shuttle.  Clearly, I'd blocked those memories, or I would have booked a different flight.)  Spent a few days in the city - checked out the Citadel fort, the waterfront, and the Maritime Museum, which was quite educational.  All interspersed with art galleries and bookstores and general urban wandering.

 Art dolphins all over Halifax.

Highlight: Ocean!  Now that I've been in the middle of the continent for a while, it's nice whenever I get to see real, open ocean.  Also, boats are pretty.

Lowlight: Haligonian coffee.  In three days I consumed the ten worst cups of coffee of my life.  This includes cappuccini from two different Starbucks, and something from Tim Horton's that I swear was actually tea.  I was afraid that maybe this was a region-wide affliction, but things did improve from there.  

Perhaps actual tea would have worked out better.

Insight: I knew that the Boston Common Christmas tree was an annual gift from Nova Scotia, for reasons that had something to do with the 1917 Halifax Harbor explosion, but I didn't know the great extent of the emergency relief provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Even if Parks Canada did erroneously refer to it as the "State of Massachusetts" throughout the exhibit - I won't tell Boston if you don't. 

After morning prayers at 250-year-old Anglican Church (the Rector gave an oddly rousing sermon about dinner parties) and brunch (terrible coffee, but decent soccer - Serbia/Ghana) I got a car and headed toward Cape Breton Island. 

Since I was travelling around quite a bit anyway, I mixed it up with my lodgings, going for a variety of accommodation types and a moderate range of price points.  There were a few Bed and Breakfast legs, so most mornings I spent eating eggs with retirees from the United Kingdom. 

Insight: Brits like limp bacon.

Cape Breton is a land littered with scenic drives and fiddle music.  The plan was to trace the Cabot Trail, which loops up around the national park near the north end of the island, then continue farther down the northwestern coast back to the mainland.  First stop: Baddeck, long-time home to Alexander Graham Bell.  I hadn't realized how long he lived there - almost the last 40 years of his life.  The estate, Beinn Bhreagh, isn't open, but a museum documents Bell's life and work there very well.
 

Yes, Alec.  Speed.

Highlight:  The museum has a massive collection of Beinn Bhreagh-era photographs, and it's hard to miss the signs that Bell was a jolly family type.  Whether he was puttering about the garden or trying to invent the airplane, he always seemed to have a grandchild or three in tow.  I always love evidence that a great mind was also well-balanced and personally admirable.

Heading up the trail, I noticed just how quiet it was up there.  I knew that June wouldn't be high-season proper, but it might as well have been mid-February, judging by the crowds.  I often drove for miles and miles without seeing another car, and rarely saw another customer in any shop or artist's studio where I stopped to browse.  I gather that grade schools don't generally let out until the end of June up there?  (Canadians are welcome to provide insight, because the answers I got while I was there didn't make much sense.)

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great - though it wasn't terrible - for most of my time on Cape Breton.  It was pleasant enough to drive around, and the scenery was still nice to look at, but the light wasn't ideal for amateur landscape photography.  I did get a few hours of clear skies before a storm with high winds whipped up and shut down all water-based transit for a day.  I sat out the storm learning about Acadian hooked rugs (have you ever seen a portrait of LBJ in a carpet?  I have, now.) and the history of Celtic music in North America.  And, by extension, I suppose, about the cultural dichotomy of the region.  (Eating Scottish oat cakes in a Tim's where everyone was speaking French helped with that, too.)

To be continued...

I'm alive! And I went on vacation!

I don't even know what to say about my Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island trip because it was absolutely amazing and wonderful in every way.  I was able to get away for about 10 days, which was perfect.  So, how about just some large photos for now?

Memorial Day

For some reason, I'm always taken aback when Memorial Day weekend is recognized, in church or wherever, in a generalized patriotic, stand-up-and-be-recognized-if-you're-a-veteran kind of way. Actual military upbringing taught me that Memorial Day is all about being dead, and I just can't shake it. Also, while I was growing up, much of my extended family still referred to it as Decoration Day, and it just isn't done to decorate the graves of people who are still alive.

Alright, aside from that, I spent a fantastic long weekend back in Boston visiting old friends and driving around enough to remember why I was so eager to leave. Massachusetts drivers are pretty widely posited to be the worst in the U.S. (yes, I would agree, and yes, I've been to New York AND L.A., and if you still doubt the perspective then you clearly have never discussed right-of-way with a real Yankee). But that's really not the half of it - it's the infrastructure that gets you. The dearth of street signs. The roads that had three lanes on that side of the intersection, which have mysteriously and spontaneously become one lane on this side of the intersection. The downtown five-way intersections with no directionals. The signs that say things like:

US 1N ->

when you know perfectly well that Route 1 is not in that direction at all. The problem is, sitting in your car with sad puppy eyes saying, "No, it's not true, it's a horrible, horrible lie," will not even begin to help you find the real Route 1.

And none of that is the real problem with the place. Not being able to get around is annoying, but it was the underlying local culture that sustains such conditions that I ultimately found to be completely intolerable. And that's why I'm here now - for the street signs and all the sanity they represent. It would sound pathetic if I didn't know how much it isn't.

Regardless, it was wonderful to see the people I got to see, and to feel so incredibly well loved, especially when I went back to my old church. Other highlights:

• Meeting baby I. and having her big brother remember me. He's 4, and we had a nice chat about his busy preschool schedule.
• Rooming with two 30-pound cats and two chihuahuas.

• Eventually finding the front door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
• Baby jellyfish at the New England Aquarium.

• Playing cards with my card-playing friends.
  
• Reassuring my card-playing friends' college-aged daughter that no, she doesn't have an indecipherable Boston accent, she just goes to school with too many people from Wisconsin.
  
• Gloucester, Rockport, and LOBSTER!!! Ooh, lobster lobster lobster. Hee Hee.

• Confirmation that Logan is, in fact, far grungier than O'Hare.

Miscellanea. Cold Miscellanea.

1. It's cold, and getting colder. There was a noticeable temperature drop over the 45 minutes I was out for lunch. (Lunch was soup. Warm, but not terribly filling, to be honest.) Forecast high tomorrow is -3F.

The cat is also cold, and has been experimenting with the best ways to take advantage of baseboard heat.

No, my Christmas tree isn't still up, I took that last month. Speaking of Christmas, she was thrilled to discover this newfangled gadget called a fireplace while at my parents' house in NY.

There actually is a fire in there, you just can't see it. Her latest move has been attempting to share my pajamas in the middle of the night. It may be kitty sweater time.

2. In other news, I have done a little bit of Making of Stuff. Scarves, specifically.

These were done as a part of the Special Olympics Scarf Project, in which knitters and crocheters were invited to make scarves in the official Special Olympics logo colors for competitors to wear during the 2009 opening ceremonies. I have a weird fascination with charity crafting, despite being skeptical of the underlying philosophy (the issue of the man-hours vs. significance of accomplishment). Regardless, I like them occasionally as an excuse to try new colorways and/or patterns. For anyone interested in the technical, the one on the lower left is hdc 2 strands; the bottom right is sc back loop alternating colors (reversible crochet? nifty). The top, inexplicably, is granny squares. I hate making granny squares, and I hate SuperSaver (the authorized yarn - it scratches and squeaks), so I don't know what I thought I'd enjoy about the two in combination.

3. And speaking of scarves, I got something immensely awesome from friends for Christmas. No photo, because it doesn't really look like anything, but it's this. A microwaveable scarf. Detatchable grain-filled inserts that heat up and keep you toasty. It's getting heavy use this week. Combined with this - another Christmas present and really, really, Really, REALLY fabulous - I can be in my own rather icy little heaven.

Far Above Cayuga's Waters

or, My Best Friends' Wedding

Had a great mini-vacation last weekend back at the alma mater for the marriage of my dear friends K & G. K was my roommate all through college; G was our mutual best friend, and an utter saint for his patience and persistence. And that's all we're gonna say about that...

I spent a few extra days seeing the family. Very late getting to Buffalo, since my flight was actually turned around in-air somewhere over Michigan and sent back to Chicago. So when I finally got into Rustingham*, nobody was at home, and I decided to go visit my mother at work:

My mother, at work.

After the library closed, it was back home, where I found these on my dad's table:

I won't tell if you don't.

Drove to Oddtown* the next day and met up with friends for the slowest dinner service ever. (We were already joking about requesting breakfast menus half an hour before we saw the appetizers.)

The bulbs were a touch late this year. These are small for April.

The wedding itself was beautiful and fabulous and all things wonderful, of course, but the whole weekend was just perfect. I got to see loads of people I hadn't in years, some of whom I'd been greatly looking forward to seeing, and others who I enjoyed seeing far more than I had expected.

Service was here; this photo was taken...


...from way up there.

The non-social time was spent walking around town and campus and taking far too many pictures. A place like a college campus ends up being full of such strong visual cues, and this one is notoriously gorgeous.

A favorite spot a hundred yards or so from my old dorm.

The weather was lovely and warm - too warm, almost, until just about the time of the ceremony itself. But the vegetation clearly showed that it had only just become warm:

L: Trees Saturday Morning; R: Trees Sunday Afternoon

Also, it took some looking to find some falls that were actually, well, falling.

These were pretty much the only ones, and are accessible via a fairly muddy hike at the best of times.

Also, Lexi stayed with her cousin Pippi while I was away, and was good about it. Didn't try to eat Pippi's mom even once, and she's been extra mellow since I got back. I'd like to think it's a gesture of appreciation.

*The geographic pseudonyms I developed when I first started blogging; I'm still quite attached to them.

Week X, Y, Z: The Truth - I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT Edition

No, I don't feel like it. So sue me.

Random Photo: De Cordova Museum Sculpture Park - Lincoln, MA

The last two weeks were taken up by an unexpected and all-consuming and excruciatingly detailed and mind-numbing work project. The latter part of this week is occupied by the arrival of a visiting dignitary*, and much of next by a pilgrimage (more on that later).

I'm tired.

Random Photo: Ogunquit, Maine

Everything I'd been planning to do in the next few weeks will get done over the next couple of months anyway, barring major and unforeseen interruptions. But I just don't feel like playing right now. And that's ok.

I started WT-ing by making a list of all the repairs I need to make, off the top of my head...when I got to the end of the second page, I decided I didn't feel like that, either.

Random Photo: Cloudgate, Millennium Park, Chicago

I'm going to bed with my seven-pound man-eating cat.

*My dad, actually, in town for a conference, but I think I'll try calling him that for a while.

Bury Me in the Color of Lake Michigan, Please.

Plus, a few more shots of the Windy City today.