Category Archives: travel

Lake Affects I: Misery (Bay) Loves Company

#Pennsylvania State Parks, Presque Isle, travel, ,

After a spring and summer of way too much time on screens, I took a week and half off for a two-part vacation offering lots of water views. First destination to celebrate my husband’s birthday: Erie, Pennsylvania.

After a meandering trip through the back roads and small towns of western PA, we arrived in Erie just in time to catch a great sunset at Erie Bluffs State Park. After that we hunkered down in our semi-rustic cabin near Elk Creek.

The next day was our “discover Presque Isle” day. Presque Isle (“almost an island” in French) is a name shared with places in Maine and Michigan, so it will sound familiar to many. The Pennsylvania version is a peninsula, called aptly, The Penisula by the locals, jutting out between the bay and the open waters of Lake Erie. Erie is the next-to-smallest of the Great Lakes, but is still pretty darned impressive in size and scope. The Peninsula is entirely taken up by a state park with lots to offer for a day around, on or in the lake.

First stop was Misery Bay and the Perry Monument. I was thinking, Perry the Arctic Explorer and wondering what the heck the connection was. How wrong! We’re talking Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry, the War of 1812 hero here. Through the extensive series of historic markers flanking the obelisk honoring Perry and his brave men, we learned that after their grand defeat of the British navy, they wintered-over in this bay.

On a warm and calm late summer day, the bay near the memorial looks inviting and benign. Not so in the winter of 1813-14. And maybe in any other winter for that matter. It’s name, Misery Bay, stems from the freezing temperatures and sickness that killed off a dozen men that season, and made the rest of them, well, miserable.

Luckily for me, the winds were behaving and the air was fresh. I embarked on the Lady Kate, a sight-seeing boat which, with social distancing and everyone wearing masks (including our narrator, who regaled us with information for 90 minutes straight) took us on a trip across the bay into the open waters of the lake.

After the boat ride, we had a picnic, explored Horseshoe Pond with its ring of over twenty houseboats, and viewed the picaresque black and white channel marker from the shore. I dipped my toes into the cool waters at one of the beaches before we left in late afternoon.

The next day we did a bit of a walk-around in downtown Erie, parking on the edge of Perry Park which features a looming statue of the hero. “We have met the enemy and he is ours” is his famous quotation. For our part, we met Erie, PA and now it is ours in memory and pictures.

Sunset on Lake Erie from Lake Erie Bluffs
The sky kept getting more impressive after the sun set. Birthday Boy documents.
The Lady Kate awaits passengers near the Perry monument.
Houseboats of Horseshoe Pond.
Channel marker which looks like a mini-lighthouse, is as photogenic from shore as from the water view. There’s also a “real” lighthouse which is also much photographed.
The Man Himself presiding over downtown monument in Perry Park.

Getting the Hang of It

Central Pennsylvania, McConnellsburg, The Pulpit, travel, Uncategorized, , ,

“Let’s go jump off a mountain!” No thanks. Standing cautiously on the very top a ramp that ends in nothingness makes me queasy. I take in the view, but step back to safety seconds later.

  • One wonders what happened to this gentleman.
  • Behold the giant thumb!

Visiting The Pulpit, a hang gliders dream launch spot near our vacation cabin above McConnellsburg, PA is a must to take in the splendors of south central Pennsylvania. The rocky promontory, located a little ways beyond the iconic biker beer joint The Mountain House, apparently got its name from a visiting preacher who expounded from the stony perch.

Up a small rock strewn slope, there are two wooden (and, to me, sort of creaky looking) ramps, one smaller than the other. If you go at sunrise, which I never do because I prefer my warm bed at that hour, you can face east and get a glorious view over the ridges. At sunset (the better option in my opinion), you get the view over the town, the farmland and to the western mountains.

One of the many interns who lived with us temporarily over the years, Anneke from Germany, came to the cabin with us one wintry weekend about ten years ago. We walked to the Pulpit and she met some intrepid hang gliders from the club that frequents the site. She fell instantly in love with the idea of learning to hang glide, or, she later decided, to paraglide.

If you think hang gliding sounds risky, paragliding is even more crazy. Instead of jumping off a ramp into nothingness strapped to some substantial wings, you jump into nothingness tethered to a wide parachute held precariously by a bunch of thin ropes. She successfully mastered this bizarre hobby, and last time I checked she was still alive and well.

The view is thrilling enough for me. Leave flying to the birds.

Pawpaws to the People!

tourism, travel, Uncategorized

It’s pawpaw season, and festivals celebrating this regional native fruit are popping up all over. Visiting one of these seemed like the folkloric thing to do, and in fact I couldn’t believe that I had somehow reached my advanced age and had not done so already.

The Pawpaw Festival in Albany, Ohio (near Athens, and also near the United Plant Savers sanctuary which my adventurous colleague and partner in crime, Arlene, and I were visiting this week) is, I would dare say, one of the biggest in the country. We spent a couple of hours there experiencing All Things Pawpaw.

First, the taste. Upon arrival, we sought out the free sample tent where we could set the mood. Volunteers sliced us a big hunk and explained that you just squeeze the soft, yellowish pulp out of the rind, and swirl the big dark pits around in your mouth to get all the good stuff off them. (Then throw them out because they are poisonous if chewed and consumed, apparently.)

Next we found the craft beer tent, where for a few bucks you could try a variety of pawpaw brews (and take the glass home to boot). We listened to a band that defied genre classification, and then made our way to the food court. We sampled an Indonesian satay with pawpaw peanut sauce, and later tried Thai mango sticky rice with pawpaw mousse.

There were also vendors selling pawpaw bread, official paw paw festival t-shirts with designs dating several years back, and pawpaw plants. (As well as a lot of non-paw paw-related stuff.) We were saddened to have missed the pawpaw cook-off.

A full harvest moon rose over the festival grounds, as we finally admitted paw paw overload. Still, I insisted on stopping by the free sample tent one more time to leave with the sweet custardy taste still lingering on my taste buds.

  • Kombucha in various pawpaw flavors (still tastes I assume like vinegar)
  • Pawpaw peanut sauce is a winner in my mind.
  • This is what a pawpaw tree looks like.
  • There were no pawpaws in the coffee thank goodness.

Monumental Moments

Central Pennsylvania, travel,

A visit to Gettysburg is certainly sobering. The main attraction of this small city in south central Pennsylvania (no matter what the tourist literature says about “fun activities for the whole family”) is following crawling traffic through a bucolic countryside to gawk at an endless series of soaring monuments commemorating men killing each other.

That is cynical, I realize. But realistic. The artwork and craftsmanship that went into these monuments is impressive. Standing among the tortured angels and stalwart fallen soldiers and officers on horseback, you are all too aware that thousands upon thousands of men (and some women too I suppose) died horrible deaths all around you.

War is hell, that is clear, and the Civil War battles fought in Gettysburg on July 1 – 3, 1863 were among the most hellish. Fifty thousand dead. Fifty thousand – dead.

It’s difficult to know what to feel. Proud of those who fought? In despair of so much loss of life? Glad that the Union was victorious in the end, and the States united once again? All – or none – of the above?

When we got to the towering Pennsylvania Monument, despite the number of people ambling around the fields and climbing the stairs to view the vista, it was relatively quiet. Until a thundering boom resounded through the staircase; a cannon fired by a park interpreter. Just one boom, but it shook the building, and the psyche of the assembled visitors. For one awful moment, pride, despair and victory seemed irrelevant. Survival seemed foremost.

Maybe, in the end, that is the lesson we take away from a visit to Gettysburg. The deep, basic struggle for survival, and empathy for those who didn’t.

We Were There: A Visit to “You Are Here,” in Jeannette, PA

#YouAreHere, travel, ,

Jeannette, Pennsylvania is a small city east of Pittsburgh, which I probably never would have even considered visiting before. But, then, at a meeting of Pennsylvania folklorists last year, a friend and colleague formerly from Arlington, Mary Briggs, reported on the community art space she was involved in downtown Jeannette called “You Are Here.” And, I wanted to be there.

Downtown Jeannette

It took about a year, but I finally achieved that goal this past week. I brought with me my husband (who said, more than once I think, “Why are we going to Jeannette again?”) and three boxes of used but serviceable art supplies for their resale shop.

Mary greeted us at the door of the narrow storefront on the main drag, and introduced us to her “partner in crime,” Jen Costello, and they gave us the tour. The first thing one notices in the entryway is a colorful display of carved and painted canes, part of the “Lean on Me” project that Jen initiated to provide canes to those in need, mostly the elderly. The canes are works of art and stories in themselves, and are often customized for their new owners.

  • Carved canes, each one unique.
  • Gallery space featuring work of local artist Larry Beaver.
  • Mary looks through my donation of used art supplies.
  • Jen shows off one of her favorite canes.

The second thing you notice is a big chalkboard with upcoming events: gallery openings, free movie showings, classes and workshops, and other fun stuff. (Mary joked about their taste in movies, reflected in the most recent offerings, “The Blob” and “Son of the Blob.”) Next up, the gallery, an open space that doubles for movie showing and other public events.

Tucked behind the gallery is the resale shop, whose name further illustrates the quirky humor of Mary and Jen – it is called “Oh, Scrap!” At the very end of the row is office space and a couple of small artist studios. The second floor, which is undeveloped so far, will eventually hold a couple of apartments for artists.

In short, there is a lot of “there” at You Are Here. If you find yourself in southwestern Pennsylvania, you should go there, too.

Yarn bombed parking meter out front.

Museum Moments in Western Massachusetts

tourism, travel, , ,

I am privileged to have some old women friends (literally, now) who date back to high school, and even most of them to elementary school. It’s a small group, and we have done very different things with our lives, but we still enjoy getting together, doing stuff, and laughing over a few glasses of wine when we can manage to find a weekend to gather.

Back in late April, six of us converged at our friend Linda’s home in Western Massachusetts. We had all sorts of great plans to go on a hike, sit on her back porch, etc. but the weather was rainy and in the 40s. (At one point it even started spitting snow.) So much for the out of doors. Instead, we visited a couple of museums. And ate a lot. And drank more wine.

First up, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. The iconic portrait artists spent the last part of his career and life in this quaint Western Mass town, and this large spiffy museum has an impressive collection of his work. A separate building houses his studio. Special exhibitions highlight other American artists – when we visited, one of my personal heroes, Rube Goldberg, was also celebrated in a smallish side gallery.

One of Norman’s most popular paintings (at least for Stockbridge fans) is a Christmastime portrait of the town of Stockbridge, which is located a few miles down the road from the museum. He took some liberties in painting in the local mountains, which cannot actually be viewed from downtown, and also included a couple of buildings that are not really visible from the vantage point of the painting. But, otherwise, as witnessed by my own attempt to capture the town photographically, it was an accurate depiction. We ate lunch at the Red Lion Inn‘s pub, a step back in time for sure.

After an evening of camaraderie, and making plans for our next gathering, most of our party split for their respective homes in Vermont or Virginia, leaving only three of us to find a still-rainy day Sunday occupation. We decided (by process of elimination, since most local attractions were either not open for the season or not open on Sundays) to visit the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield.

This is a very eclectic collection of art, history, and nature, which includes an aquarium in the basement, and a huge open room in on the second floor featuring a sort of “cabinet of curiosities” highlighting their vast holdings of – well – miscellany. Mummies vie with moose heads, full sized plaster reproductions of famous works of art like the Winged Victory, and a few examples of Bragg Boxes, a sort of early educational kit developed by the museum’s first director, “who believed that museums hold the power to educate and uplift the masses.”

I was personally uplifted by a multi-room exhibition of the machines of Leonardo daVinci, also inhabiting the second floor until next September. Leonardo is another of my personal heroes, and although most of these machine models were instruments of war, they were fun nonetheless. Many were working models that one could try cranking, lifting, or otherwise manipulating, which delighted visitors of all ages.

Good friends, good museums, and a great weekend all around. Here are some photographic highlights.

  • Norman’s view of downtown Stockbridge
  • My own attempt to capture the same scene.
  • Old friends looking cold outside Rockwell’s studio.
  • Posing in front of Leonardo’s elegant tank.

Winter Works

Winter, ,

No sooner did we get back to our unfurloughed offices when the Great Sickness of Winter 2019 bestruck a large swath of our smallish workforce. For me, this meant having to forego a long weekend trip to New York City which would surely have yielded a much more interesting blog or two. I spent several days languishing in bed coughing and binge watching instead.

Since last writing, however, we did do a couple of interesting things. One was a visit to Frederick, MD and the Civil War Medicine Museum. This may seem a gruesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and some of it was pretty horrid (severed limbs, anyone?) but also very illuminating. And well done. We learned, among other things, that anesthesia actually did exist back then, and getting your leg sawed off was highly preferable to dying of gangrene. Frederick has a nice small downtown, and a canal walk which featured decorated boats created by local businesses and not for profits.

We also discovered some interesting Arlington history on another recent occasion. Upon taking a walk in a neighborhood off Wilson Boulevard, not far from our favorite Vietnamese food haunt, the Eden Center, we noticed a large property set off from the road. This consisted of a semi-crumbling mansion and a set of even more dilapidated outbuildings surrounded by a large tract of land.

Upon some internet research, we discovered that this was the former home of real estate magnate/horse racing enthusiast/man about town Randolph Rouse. There was more history to this property, which of course I read and then promptly forgot and did not bookmark, so if I find that again maybe I will write more about it.

Winter is still here, despite the warm respite this week, and hopefully the sickness and furloughs are a thing of the past. Here’s to further adventures and insights soon!

George Alfred Townsend: A Gap(land) in our Knowledge

culture, tourism, travel, , , ,

Nature and some largely forgotten history converged on a little post-Thanksgiving jaunt we took this weekend.  The Appalachian Trail intersects with a small park called Gathland in rural Washington, County, Maryland.   I wish I could say we went on a hike, but since the light was failing when we finally got there, we just explored the mute, stone testimonies to the man who was George Alfred Townsend, AKA “Gath.”

One of the two interpretive signs that deal directly with this enigma of a war correspondent and author of several novels includes the quote, “Mankind is always interesting, but is also fatiguing.”  As a successful writer, with it would seem substantial financial means, Gath and his beloved wife Bessie built a country estate to escape mankind and Washington, DC.

As most of the other ten or so signs describe various aspects of Civil War campaigns in the area, one does not learn much more about Gath, his life, and work from the site.  Bessie gets even shorter shrift.  The buildings remaining in the park, constructed from an attractive local stone, include Gath’s “empty tomb” – highly creepy, even if his mortal remains did not end up there – and the ruins of what appears to have been a very large barn.  There are also two houses intact, and the park web site promises a museum in one of them, open in the tourist season.

The central attraction of the property is a massive and curious memorial to war correspondents, planned and perhaps financed by Gath.  It towered over the peaceful late fall landscape like the sole remaining wall of a castle, with arches and crenelations, statuary and niches.  And a weather vane.

Perhaps we will return to visit the museum if/when it is open. Perhaps we will acquire a copy of one of Gath’s novels, such as The Entailed Hat, or Patty Cannon’s Times (as you see from this link, it is available on Amazon) and read it to better understand this contemporary of Mark Twain’s.  Perhaps not.  Meanwhile, visiting what remains of Gath’s country estate and trying to decipher his life from the meager outdoor interpretation available in the park made for an interesting afternoon.

Teddy Roosevelt in Buffalo: Mystery in History Solved

culture, tourism, travel, , ,

While in Buffalo recently for the annual American Folklore Society meetings, I had some free time to explore this fascinating city.  (Yes, it is much more than hot wings and Niagra Falls.)  I set off to explore why Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated in Buffalo in 1901.

I set off on a brisk (due to the 40sF temperature and wind) walk from downtown, admiring the architecture along the way, and soon arrived at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Historical Site

This stately mansion houses not only the library where Roosevelt was inaugurated, but an impressive array of interactive displays for deeper dives.  While you wait for your guided tour through the house, you are immersed in an exhibit on the 1901 Pan Am Exposition,  a sort of world’s fair designed to showcase everything progressive and superior about America.  Considering that electricity, and even ice cream, were new things back then, there was a lot to ooh and aah over at this fantastic city of the future for the people of the day, and putting yourself in their place via the displays was fun.

Things get decidedly darker when the tour guide puts on a video that explains how, after a rousing speech about the wonders of the exposition and of America, President McKinley is shot while greeting well wishers.  (Obviously at least one person, Leon Czolgosz, did not wish him well at all.)  TR was the Vice President, and when poor McKinley finally succumbed to his wounds (unfortunately he did not die instantly but suffered in the hands of inferior medical practices of the day), Roosevelt was summoned to Buffalo to pay his respects and get sworn in.

The next area imagines the many pressing issues of the day that must have been going through Roosevelt’s mind as he prepared to take over the presidency.  Many of them sounded disturbingly familiar to those of us reading the news in 2018:  immigrants flooding the country; poor race relations; and rampant devastation of natural resources in some of the country’s most spectacular wild landscapes, among others.

Poor old Teddy had his hands full, in other words.  As those of us who know a little something about his personal history (or find out more through a visit to one of the many TR historical sites around the country), he was not exactly perfect.  (Let’s not get into such things as the eminent domain of the Philippines, destructive safaris in Africa, etc.)

In any case, the tour through the house, standing in the library were the inauguration took place, seeing a pile of facsimiles of telegrams (the email – or even Twitter – of the day) that he needed to address, and then diving into more history in the upstairs rooms of the mansion where you can pose with a larger-than-life cut out, pretend to be president, and contemplate further how far, but then again how close, we still are to issues of 1901, was all very interesting and powerful experience.  Thanks to our tour guide and the staff of the site for an enlightening couple of hours.

 

Summing up Summer

#hiltonheadisland, beach, memories, museums, summer, travel, vacations, , , ,

Wow, here it is the end of summer already.  How did that happen?  After our Bengali visitors left, it seems the rest of the season just flew by.  And now its a soggy and humid Labor Day weekend.

So, that’s my excuse for not blogging more the end of the summer.  That, and the fact that my phone was in the shop for a week.  It is my primary camera now, for better or worse.  (And the dog ate my homework.)

There were some highlights – a bit of time on the Hilton Head beach despite most of the time helping my sister work out plans to transition our mom into assisted living.  A trip to California for Museum Camp at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and visit to the daughter in San Francisco.  A couple weekends at the cabin.  The lovely wedding of a good friend.  A bounty of green beans and tomatoes from the garden.  Some time around outdoor pools.

Here’s a few highly random photos highlighting those activities.

And so, fall looms on the horizon bringing (eventually) crisp weather and that “new school year” new beginnings vibe.  A sort of reset button for “normal life” after the time out of time of summer schedules and activities.

So, as summer 2018 fades into the sunset, no more excuses.