Snapped this while driving through downtown Spokane, Washington, at about 10 in the morning on June 23 with my friend Pete. You can count eight clearly visible contrails here, and the remains of possibly two more. I don’t know what accounts for the jet traffic over Spokane, though Seattle is in the direction most of these appeared to be headed. (I meant to post this ages ago, but am just getting around to it now because of a “thar’s strange things afoot in yonder sky”:comment made on a post elsewhere.)
Corn Hole: The Game
I took about 300 pictures last week on my trip to Chicago and northeastern Ohio. I have a fantasy of editing that down to a couple dozen for a little travelogue. I have the same idea for piles of pictures taken last August and for various trips and events going back three or four years.
While waiting for the dream to become reality, here’s just one from Geneva on the Lake, Ohio. It’s a little resort town on Lake Erie, about 50 miles east of Cleveland (and just west of Ashtabula). The place is a mix. There is the faintest undercurrent of something sort of upscale trying to happen there–some fancier housing, some motels cleaning up their act, even a half-decent coffee shop with free WiFi. But the bread-and-butter going back to the 1920s, judging from the dates on some of the businesses, including one (vintage 1924) that claims to be the oldest continuously operating miniature golf course in the world, is catering to middle class and working class families escaping Cleveland and Pittsburgh and other old industrial towns. One form that focus takes today is the welcome extended to bikers, by which I mean Harley-riding hordes. My brother and his family were in town the Saturday night before last, and they said the town was absolutely packed with bikers and folks cruising up and down the main drag. And yes, there were lots of families with kids at the sidewalk burger and barbecue stands and arcades, too.
We got into town on the Sunday after the crowd descended. The town was already winding down for what everyone told me was the typical quiet period between weekends. John had pointed out the coffee shop, Gail’s Coffee Cafe, and early Monday I strolled up the deserted strip from the cottage my sister Ann rented to get caffeine for the two of us. Then I encountered the sign above.
“Play Corn Hole Game Here.”
OK, wait a minute. Where I come from, cornhole has a distinctively pejorative connotation to it. And it’s not just me: Here’s what the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary has to say about it:
cornhole: to perform anal intercourse with : BUGGER — usually considered vulgar.
That, however, is not how bean bag tossers in northeaster Ohio (and elsewhere: check out the search results for “cornhole” on Google. There’s even an American Cornhole Organization, “the governing body for the sport of cornhole.” The ACO site includes a link to a Wall Street Journal story from last summer (“More People Give This Game a Toss, Corny as It May Be“) which both mentions the delicate matter of the name and notes that the game is spreading (like a mysterious rash?) across the nation’s midsection. (Oh, yes: Chicago’s on the cornhole map, too).
So I’m late to the cornhole game. That doesn’t mean I’m above learning about it, though. Later Monday, someone had set up a cornhole game–which consists of two boards, each with one 8-inch hole, placed at the ends of a roughly 25-foot long court; the object is to pitch your four corn-filled bags and get them in the hole–in the driveway at our cottage. Ann, my niece Ingrid and I tried it out. We were so good at it that soon we found it more amusing to throw the bags at each other (Ann and Ingrid were actually pretty good; me–too much force and impatience). Later, I saw the family staying in the next cottage over playing the game. Mom, dad, and a son (maybe 14) and daughter (10). It was a cut-throat game, and it turned out the mom was the ace of the group. As my sister said, they were probably appalled at the way we cheapened their game.
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Ohio Sighting of the Day
Ohio sighting of the day: a bald eagle, flying near the railroad museum in Conneaut (KAHN-nee-utt), Ohio. I asked the women staffing the museum desk whether eagle sightings were common in the area. Yes and no. They’re often seen around the harbor on Lake Erie, and some are thought to nest near a highway bridge over a nearby creek. Still, they hadn’t seen any over *that* part of Conneaut. I was with my brother John and my dad; John said it was the first time he had ever seen a bald eagle “in the wild.” Wild enough, I guess.
No picture of it, though. The above is a view of the museum (the old New York Central station).
United States Air Blog
The Rich and Insipid Traveler
Mostly to feed our fantasies, I guess, a few years ago a friend who thought we should travel more sent our names to a travel company called R. Crusoe & Son. Several times a year, we get the R. Crusoe catalogs. Once or twice I’ve perused them seriously–one time they had an off-beat cruise that started in Chicago and went out through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence to Newfoundland and then on to Greenland. One of the stops on the tour was L’Anse aux Meadows, the single site in North America where physical evidence has turned up of a Viking settlement. Something about that appealed to me. But we’re talking luxury travel here, inviting people to drop five or maybe even six figures on a trip. When the time comes, I’ll get to Newfoundland for a lot less than that.
Sometime in the last few days, we got the latest R. Crusoe catalog. In format, in style, and substance, they look and read like J. Peterman gone into the travel business. Mostly the results are innocuous. A description of an upcoming trip through China includes these highlights: “Enroll in Shaanxi Normal University for a morning discussion with students. Hear their hopes for the future. … Don’t blush when we view the lesser-known Han Dynasty naked warriors. Emperor Jingdi died in 141 B.C., but he left behind earthenware figurines dressed in silk. The clothing didn’t survive, but the troops are exquisite au naturel.” (Italics Crusoe’s, throughout.)
One of the trips in the brochure goes through Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Cambodia, and other places we Americans have left our mark. The pamphlet acknowledges that we’ve got some history in that part of the world, and the tour will visit war sites. But the past is acknowledged in a bland, chatty, empty — insipid — way that makes you wonder whether the purpose of visiting the region is to remember what happened there or forget about it. Here’s the bulk of the description, which I swear is presented in context:
Begin in Hanoi, which blasts any old associations of the Vietnam War. The 21st century city is a rich stew of influences–Asian and French colonial brand-new and Old Quarter. Our investigation goes forward as it should, by the leisurely pace of a rickshaw.
To Ho Chi Minh’s old haunts. Then poke around in the past with a researcher at the Museum of Ethnology. … See the Hanoi Hilton, where downed American pilots spent more time than they would have liked. …
Emperor Gia Long founded Hue as his dynasty’s first capital. He even created his very own Forbidden City, part of the imperial citadel. Have a look before retooling your sense of romance at dusk aboard a private sampan on the Perfume River. Also here: seven tombs for seven emperors. …
Once Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City sizzles. Its War Remnants Museum presents us with an eye-opening version of the “American War.” Passing the U.S. Consulate, experience a flood of memories–the chopper on the roof evacuating the last Americans.
Over cocktails and dinner, an economics professor brings us up to speed on Vietnam.
Burrow underground in the Cu Chi Tunnels, the very ones that helped change Southeast Asian history for good.
Then Cambodia. Somerset Maugham arrived in 1930 on a languid journey. Jackie O dropped by, too. Like them, we see the country’s light and dark sides.
Touch down in Phnom Penh to dabble in local history at the Royal Palace and its Silver Pagoda (featured in Architectural Digest). Treasures collected from across Cambodia await in the National Museum.Cruise the poetic Mekong River at sunset on a private boat.
Those who want a deeper understanding of the unspeakable horror of the Khmer Rouge can take an option drive to the Killing Fields and visit Tuol Sleng Prison.
Consider today’s Cambodia over lunch with a journalist at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. …
Our trip winds down with some options: Enjoy a cruise on Southeast Asia’s largest lake, with a stop to see creations of artists disabled by exploded land mines. Instead, head for the finely-carved temple of Banteay Srei. Or get a view of Angkor on a helicopter ride over the complex. …”
That last “instead” is a stunner. It’s as if the person writing the copy suddenly thought, “Amputees?! Get me out of here, Mr. Wizard!” For eight thousand or ten thousand bucks, depending on whether you’re sharing a room on this 17-day extravaganza, a quick extraction from reality is the least you ought to be able expect.
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California Fires
Just briefly: I flew home from Portland today. As soon as we crossed into California, smoke became visible from the scores or hundreds of fires ignited by lightning over the weekend. I managed to roughly match three images I took from my flight to three satellite images of the same general region shot yesterday by NASA. I’ll try to refine later, but the sight of all the smoke–so much that everything here in the Bay Area reeks of it–was truly stunning.
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Mount Tabor
In Portland on Monday evening, Pete took me on a favorite walk from his place in northeast Portland, up to Mount Tabor (two or maybe three facts he alleged on our stroll: Mount Tabor is an extinct volcano, and Portland is one of two cities that has an extinct volcano inside its municipal boundaries; the other is Bend, Oregon). Anyway, it was beautiful up there with the late twilight. Lots of people picknicking, walking, taking in the views; we happened upon one group sitting in a meadow, playing guitars and singing. We spotted the two guys above at a west-facing view near the summit. What got our attention was their smoking: they were seriously attending to smoking pipes. Of course, I wanted to capture smoke curling up from their inextinguishable briars. Alas, I couldn’t get an angle on my subjects that wouldn conceal my intentions. This angle was OK, though, especially after I noticed the little dog under the bench. (Below: Mount Hood, seen from the eastern crest of Mount Tabor.)
My Triathlon
As mentioned in a previous installment, I’ve been up in the Pacific Northwest (broadly defined) to see my friend Pete do the Ironman Coeur d’Alene triathlon. Pete started into this swim-bike-run business about six and a half years ago, the year he turned 40. He went into it as a strong cyclist and runner (though not a distance specialist) and a non-swimmer. After a few months, it became apparent to him that a) he found the sport not only challenging but intriguing and fun and b) that it would take far longer than the half year or so he and another turning-40 friend had allotted themselves to adequately prepare for a race that consists of a 2.4-mile open-water swim, 112-mile bike ride, and full-distance marathon (26.2 miles, if you don’t have that distance tattooed on you somewhere). So he shelved the full Ironman plan for the time being and did “half Iron” events where each event is half the total length of the full version. Somewhere along there, he started running marathons, too (last year he qualified for the Boston Marathon, and this year he ran that event). Since the only thing harder than finishing an Ironman is getting into one–each even admits about 2,200 racers, and each seems to be fully subscribed, at 500 bucks or more a head, within hours or days of opening for registration–he signed up for Coeur d’Alene last June. Yesterday was the day.
Short of a disaster–something possible but unlikely such as a bike crash or something like a debilitating injury during the run–I didn’t have any real question that Pete would finish. The question for me was more about what the full day, and especially the long, long concluding run, would take out of him. The one thing I have noticed from seeing shorter triathlons is that many very strong athletes whom I imagine look imperturbably graceful running under normal conditions are reduced to a painful-looking shuffle in the tri marathon. And it’s a shuffle that goes on and on and on.
I saw some of that yesterday. Pete hit the (60-degree F., wetsuits required) water at 7 a.m. with 2,000 other swimmers. The scene was beautiful mayhem. I saw him in the wild scrum in the swim-to-bike transition area, where volunteers helped peel wetsuits off the athletes, and then as he headed out on the bike. I saw him come in and out of town on the two 56-mile cycling laps, and then early on his run. In the long periods between sightings, I was walking back and forth to a Coeur d’Alene cafe and cheering on every triathlete I saw. When I first saw him on the run, I told Pete that he was looking great. He said he felt pretty good. I saw him coming back in from his first of two running laps. He smiled, but said, “The pace has slowed considerably.” He was out long enough on the second lap that I started to wonder if everything was OK. It was–I was simply stuck in spectator time, while he was slowing but moving forward in competitor time. Finally, I spotted him less than a mile from the finish, ran ahead to snap one last picture, and then watched him run the long, downhill and beautifully sunlit finishing stretch down Sherman Avenue to the lakeshore where the whole thing began.
To repeat what I said yesterday to hundreds of people I didn’t know: great job, Pete. (And yeah, he did well: 12:26:07 total time, 73rd of 209 starters in his age group.)
(Pictures: Top: The field finishes first of two swimming laps. Bottom: Pete, on the second-to-last turn before the finish. Click for larger versions.)
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Solstice and After
Well, I see I’ve missed our summer solstice by a day. It was too hot here to pay attention. Yesterday, the unofficial Holly Street high was 101–the hottest I’ve seen it since we moved in 20 years ago. The bonus: It stayed lovely and warm out all night, no sweatshirts needed. More of the same today. Just 9:30 in the morning, and it’s already in the 80s. One of the toughest bike rides in all of California, maybe the entire United States, is being held today: the Terrible Two. A series of precipitous climbs and descents through hot interior Sonoma County (mostly). My heart goes out to the 250 or 300 people who are out there; I’ve done daylong rides through heat like that, and for me it’s just something you have to survive.
And now: Running to Oakland airport to get on a plane to Spokane, Washington. My friend Pete is doing the Ironman Coeur d’Alene tomorrow, and I’m there as his official rooting section and post-event driver. Go Pete!
More from up north.
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Available
On the outskirts of Patterson, California, a town on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley about 75 miles southeast of Berkeley as the crow flies (or about 100 miles as the Dodge Grand Caravan drives). Kate spotted the sign as we were pulling out of a fast-food and gasoline mall along Interstate 5. The only place I’ve seen my family name on a sign before was North Dakota (on a Hallmark shop in Grafton and on a travel agency in Grand Forks that’s nationally known for its tours of Norway). Just in passing: The Patterson city website, which notes the burg is known as “The Apricot Capital of the World,” says the town had 11,000 people in the 2000 Census. The signs entering town now say 20,000-some. Big swaths of big new homes have appeared on the western fringe of the city; in fact, driving into town, the border between what we were calling “new Patterson” and “old Patterson” (with downtown eateries like Hank’s Harley’s Grub Shack) is pronounced.
More about the excursion tomorrow.
Technorati Tags: california, interstate 5, travel