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...

Happy Leaf Day

Since I'm having a Canada-themed summer, I feel like I should be celebrating Dominion-hood, but, like most Americans, I can't manage to understand Canada as remotely well enough to do that. 

(Aside: Driving around the Maritimes during my vacation, I listened to much of the CBC's copious coverage of the World Cup group rounds.  There was lots of hand-wringing over the fact that, since the national team didn't qualify, Canadians were all rooting for other countries, and what could that possibly mean for the Great Question of National Identity?  To which I can only say, to whomever it may concern, "Calm down already.  You're just fine the way you are.")

Anyhow, I bought a package of maple-leaved balloons one night at Zeller's (I was there every other day - my camera eats batteries like candy), which I split up for various secretaries to spring on my Canadian boss and pastor this morning.  It does occur to me as somewhat ironic that July 1 probably represents the nadir for the appearance of naturally-occurring red foliage in the northern hemisphere.

Incidentally, according to my company's widely-distributed "Diversity Calendar," today is also the national holiday of Somalia, Rwanda, and Suriname.  Geography being what it is, I will use today to be thankful that Canada is extremely dull by comparison.

I'll post more trip details over the next few days and our own upcoming holiday weekend.

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?

Things that have made me happy in the past month.

1. Olympics Gossip.  Yeah, it's long over, but I figured I should confess anyhow. 
   Also: a) The final hockey game was possibly the best I've ever seen; and b) My cat likes to watch cross-country skiing, supporting the running joke of unknown origin that she's part Scandinavian.
   
   
2. The very elderly lady at my church who drives an electric blue Prius.  Go Betty!
   
   
3. Arthritis gloves.  I think they're magic.  And yeah, I feel a little pathetic.
   
   
4. It's gotten downright warm around here (over 40F today), and last week we hand seven straight days without a cloud in the sky.  It's very dark and rainy now, which I also like.
   
   
5. The decision to take a real vacation this year.  Strong front-runner is Nova Scotia.

Now, so far, when I mention #5, I tend to get a, "OMG ARE YOU GOING BY YOURSELF?" kind of response.  I have traveled for pleasure alone quite a bit - not for very long trips, and not because I explicitly prefer to go solo - it's just that I tend to be the only one readily at hand.  I've never had the slightest problem with this (nor eating alone in a restaurant, which, to hear most people talk, should send me into paroxysms of generalized neurosis), and it doesn't make any sense to me to stay homebound when I want to go somewhere else, just because there's nobody to come with me, but I'll confess that there are moments when it's maybe starting to get a little boring.   Regardless, I'm really looking forward to it.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas

Despite being incommunicado, I've been thinking of my blog friends and sending happy holiday thoughts. Barely checking email  or the rest of the web, though, so insert all appropriate belated greetings here.

I've taken off an entire two weeks for the sake of mental and physical health, and it has been glorious.  Lexi and I spent a whole week over Christmas in Rustingham with my parents and My Sister the Blond Artist, so I missed the great midwestern snow-in. I enjoyed napping extensively every day, and Lexi enjoyed the assortment of laps, and the fireplace, which she misses dearly, especially since it was 3F here this morning.

Phineas can't have all the cute kitty photos.

 

All these pics are from Chicagoland, since for some reason all the photos I took in NY were with MSBA's camera, and she hasn't sent them to me yet.

A few other highlights:

• Unlike the occasion of my last trip home, in August, none of the crazy parishoners stalking my father staggered into church falling down drunk and covered in their own vomit on Sunday morning.  I  suspect there are people who imagine the ministry as safe and boring.  That's so cute.
  
  
• Oh, oh, oh, how I miss Wegmans.  Like I can't even tell you.
  
  
• Also, Tim Horton's should really expand farther in the U.S. 
  
  
• Ohio must be in the middle of a rest stop renovation project, because the Ohio Turnpike has both the worst and the best travel plazas I've encountered in memory.  Seriously - one of them even sold me bland Cinnabons. How do you even do that?
  
  
• Best present: This clock, whose glory cannot be conveyed photographically, made by my amazingly talented uncle.  

He also made this sleigh tea light stand/Japanese vase several years back.

I may have mentioned this fall hasn't been a great one health-wise.  We're heading in the right direction, and mostly free of aches and pains (being able to use my hands more is good), but I'm still feeling kind of ick if I try to do much more than sit around.  But feeling good enough to be tired of doing nothing is a good sign.

Wishing a new year full of health and happiness to all my dear friends!

Look, more kitty.

And Lexi wishes a belated Meow-y Christmas and Happy New Year to: Micky, Sylvia, Megumi, Priscilla, Baker, Archie, Jacob, Phineas, and her favorite cousins, Izzy and Pippi.  And to Betty and Cora, even though cats rule and dogs drool.

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.

Travel?

Wende came up with a travel meme, and even though Colleen has every right to wipe the floor with us, here goes.

First trip you remember
Probably the cross-country move at age 3 or 4. Dad had just finished seminary in South Carolina and re-entered the Navy with a commission (as a Chaplain). First duty station was in Southern California, and we drove the southern route (Grand Canyon and all) in a maroon-and-ivory Impala. My only memory of my sister before she was 18 months or so is of her sleeping in the car seat on that trip. I do remember lots of other stuff that happened before this, but no travel.

This was the first of more childhood cross-country car trips than I care to remember, all associated with moves. Needless to say, I never had any of those college-age lifestyle fantasies that involve romanticized road tripping.

First trip you took by yourself
I assume this means all by yourself, without any other people at all. So, I think that would be the trip to a job interview in Parsippany, New Jersey, in college. I had to rent a car, which turned out to be the worst-designed model year ever of the Dodge Neon. The pedals were positioned at an angle such that I couldn't rest my heel on the floorboard while depressing the accelerator (no cruise control, naturally) and the horn attached to the steering wheel at exactly the place where it would have been most comfortable to place my hands. I got back to Ithaca with spasms in my legs and thumbs. I didn't get the job, but a few years later, the company (well, part of it) turned out to be one of my major clients at the second company I worked for in Mass.

First out-of-state (-province) trip as an adult
I'm realizing that this does skip most of the interesting stuff, since I had a rather travel-intensive childhood and had been in most of the states prior to adulthood. Also, I would hit at least 6 states just visiting relatives no more remote than first cousins - and I don't have a very big family.

So, if we're talking age-18-and-up, I suppose it would be school break trips to my college roommate's parents' house in New Jersey. That would be out-of-state in the sense of being a destination in a state other than the one where I was currently living, but it's not very interesting.

If we're talking real-grown-up-world, a few months into my first job in Mass., I took a business trip to...Springfield, Illinois. Also not terribly interesting, but after a few months in Boston, I was nearly giddy to drive on streets that were perpendicular to one another. I also heard my first livestock futures report on the radio on that trip.

Most humiliating travel experience
Ignoring all the times my mother prompted us to dress in the ugly American getup while we were living and traveling in Europe...

Since Wende's story involved tumbling over in public, the first thing that comes to mind is similar - visiting Chicago a few years before I moved here, I was crossing Michigan Avenue after dinner when my shoe flew off and and I landed on my face in the middle of the crosswalk. This was shortly after running into a turnstile at the wrong angle in an El station, which resulted in a bruise on my thigh literally eight inches in diameter.

But I'm actually not that humiliated by garden-variety clumsiness, so more traumatic was the time I was trying to pass security for a Boston-San Francisco flight, only to be told that my driver's license had expired. I'd never lived in one place long enough for that to happen before, so the possibility had never crossed my mind - and I never got a warning notice from the RMV. They did let me board, but hand-inspected all my luggage.

Possibly best hour
Every hour in Assissi. When we were living in Italy, one of the American Navy Catholic Priests had a seminary friend who was in orders there, and arranged trips to spend Thanksgiving weekend there every year. This included bringing all the ingredients for an American Thanksgiving dinner to be prepared by the ancient Italian ladies who cooked at the medieval inn where we stayed.

Second place: Watching older couples on the platform dancing to the music of the kid playing the guitar in the Clybourn Avenue station.

Moment that most would have been improved by someone who could pick up a cue
The trauma of being on a high school trip in Budapest with idiot chicks who don't know how to recognize the wrong part of town in a barely-post-Soviet-bloc eastern European city.

And for a bonus, I'll add my own prompt:

Travel story most likely to cause the eavesdroppers at the next table to do a double-take.
Tie between, "After the bypass surgery, we took my grandmother to Venice, and there were pigeons landing in her hair the whole time," and, "Once, when I was building a playground in Romania..."

Just a line...

Spent the weekend with friends at the wedding in Austin. I can't imagine voluntarily existing in such a climate, but it was good fun anyway. Always great to be with the old crowd. The Chinese-Jewish blend for the event itself was ingenious (red and gold chuppah and kippot, kosher Cantonese feast, and a ton of more subtle touches). Everything was personal and creative and in excellent taste without being stuffy or over-the-top, so kudos and congratulations to W & M.

I suppose one highlight, for lack of a better word, was the bouquet toss. No, I don't participate in such things, as it would be grossly self-contradictory on multiple levels. Fortunately, there was a whole crowd of girls this time, so it didn't matter. Unfortunately, I was seated at the edge of the dance floor, and the bride grossly overshot her target, and I wound up with a very lovely bunch of white snapdragons in my lap.

Literature Land is not abandoned - I'm still struggling with my connection issues and haven't been coordinated enough to post my answers to the last couple of challenges. But I will, shortly!

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.

Minnesota is Cold

But rather pretty:

Note: Prettiness in now way diminishes the discomfort of a one-day, out-of-state business trip. Nobody should have to depart from and arrive at O'Hare on the same day.

Note 2: Actually the trip was quite good, other than the exhaustion factor. Much of it was spent driving about southeastern Minnesota, which I'd never seen before and which was really quite lovely.

ETA Note 3: This is the picture I've been trying to take in my own neighborhood for the last three weeks, but the gray skies haven't cooperated.