Cold days in Seattle

 

This lovely photo (photo credit: Seattle Times) was taken a couple of blocks from my house, in the Arboretum.  The skating rink is normally a quiet, woodsy pond occupied by ducks swimming about in a placid and proprietary manner.

The past few days have been cold in Seattle.  Lows around 13 degrees (minus 11º C.).  Highs not exceeding 32 degrees (0º C.).  And it will remain cold for several more days, although the high may creep up a degree or two above freezing tomorrow afternoon.  Some of the coldest weather on record for a January.

It's not that we're California.  We generally get some snow most years, sometimes up to a foot (30 cm) of snow.  I've taken pictures of snowy scenes about my neighborhood, some taken in this same Arboretum.  See, for example, Another February snowfall, which documented eight inches of Seattle snow as recently as 2021.  (Photograph below-right, taken in the Arboretum.)

What we rarely get, however, is ice.  I mean, sure, we see puddles freeze over.  But we rarely see ice thick enough for kids to be playing hockey on.  I can think of only once in my lifetime that ice on a lake (down near sea level) was deep enough to warrant crowds of people walking, skating, and otherwise frolicking on it.  And that was in the mid 1950s.

Hockey in the Arboretum!  Where did they even come up with hockey sticks?  Indoor rinks, probably.  It looks like the sort of scene we see in comic strips or paintings, showing "typical" American fun, or that we read about in books (Hans Brinker!).  It ain't Seattle.  But, this year at least, it is Seattle.  

So enjoy it, kids.  It may be a while until you can skate again in the Arboretum.  With global warming, maybe the last time.  But it's great to see it while we have it.

Tragedy in Houston

Hail! Hail! to Michigan

The champions of the West.

Yeah.  Well. 

The idea of the Michigan Wolverines being the champions of "the West" seems a little bizarre, to those of us in the Northwest Corner.  Or I suspect to anyone living west of the Mississippi.  A bit like Spokane's Gonzaga one day claiming to be champions of "the East."

But let's not quibble.  As of tonight, they are the champions of American college football.

They won decisively, 34-13, against our local Huskies.  Huskies who in game after game had shown themselves able to beat the odds -- literally -- and to pull themselves out of scoring holes in the final minutes of close games.  Not this time.  They were behind Michigan the entire game, start to finish.

I sadly admit it.  Tonight, at least, Michigan was the better team.  Their win wasn't a fluke.

Washington isn't my undergrad school, but it is something of an adopted school -- both because I live several blocks south of its campus, and because I received from it both a graduate degree and a law degree.  In all sports essentially a fair-weather fan, I rooted for the Huskies most of this season, awestruck by their ability to pull wins out of seemingly sure losses.  Sort of "anti-couging" their games, as it were.

But beyond my personal attachments to the school, I rooted for the Huskies because they represented the Pac-12 in its last hurrah before it committed conference suicide.  I grew up watching the nine-team Pacific Coast Conference mutate into the Pac-5, then the Pac-8, then the Pac-10, and finally the Pac-12.  It was the conference of the West Coast, despite those later questionable additions of the two Arizona schools, and then the even more questionable addition of Utah and Colorado.  

In my fantasies, at least, the Pacific Coast conference valued academic performance more than most other conferences, and tried to hold on to the archaic belief that college football games were played by ordinary students who merely had athletic interests and abilities.  Students who played football as recreation, in the same way as lawyers and businessmen might play squash or golf.

Let's all have a good laugh, before I continue.

So, as of next fall, Washington joins Michigan in the Big Ten, and the Pac-12, now reduced to two members, probably fades away into the mists of history.  At least the UW joins the Big Ten, not certain other conferences I could snarkily name.  I've always believed that the Big Ten was a midwestern brother of the Pac-12 -- not just because their two champions met annually in the Rose Bowl, but because the Big Ten was composed of schools with equally high academic reputations.

And Michigan's academic reputation was (and is) near the top of the Big Ten.  So we lost to a team from a school I respect for reasons other than football prowess.  

My own undergraduate school has slunk off to the Atlantic Coast Conference -- despite our campus's being located a few short miles from the Pacific Ocean.  Aside from the geographical absurdity of its new affiliation, in my opinionated opinion it will be hanging out with a fairly shady group of schools (Duke and a couple of others excepted), like an innocent child whose parents have lost money and have moved to a more dangerous neighborhood -- but what do I know?  Who knows what goes on back there on the Atlantic coast?  I guess I'll learn some of the answers in coming football seasons.

So, I'm sad about tonight's loss to Michigan, and I'm sad about the dissolution of the Pac-12.  The football seasons to come will have their interesting moments, I'm sure, but overall I suspect that everything is falling apart.  The television industry has a talent for ruining everything to which it turns its mercenary attention.

Sort of the anti-Midas touch.  The death of the Pac-12 is but the latest example.

Listen to the whistle

From the wide Pacific Ocean

To the broad Atlantic shore

From sunny California

To ice-bound Labrador

She's mighty tall and handsome

She's loved by one and all

She's the hobo's accommodation,

the Wabash Cannonball.

It was cold, and it was wet, and it was drizzling.  I was out for a walk after lunch, trying to work the kinks out of a newly arthritic knee, and enjoying completely a damp (but not pouring rain) day in January.  It's a Northwest Corner kind of love -- you have to live here to appreciate it.

Off in the distance came the wail of a train whistle.  I'm nowhere near railroad tracks, so far as I know, and the sound came from the direction of Seattle's King Street Amtrak station, several miles away.  The mournful sound of a train's whistle seems almost designed to complement dark skies and drizzling rain.  I was happy, in that sad way that Scandinavians in the Northwest tend to be happy.

And I was reminded that I'm only about five weeks from my train ride to Chicago.  A train ride, from various starting points, that has become another of my winter "traditions" over the past three years.

Assiduous readers of this blog will recall that I traveled to Chicago from San Francisco on the "California Zephyr" in 2022, and from Los Angeles on the "Southwest Chief" last year. This year, I'll be hopping the "Empire Builder" here in Seattle, a 48-hour ride to Chicago.

I'll be "riding the rails" in a comfortable roomette on the Empire Builder, which seems somewhat decadent compared with a "hobo's accommodation" on the Wabash Cannonball.  But comfort aside, I suspect much of the emotional charge is similar -- the sense that you're traveling great distances, night and day, and that, once on that train, you have no control over where it stops or the route it takes.  In fact, you have no responsibilities at all -- you simply gaze out the window, read a book, meditate on the mysteries of life and your place within it.

Of course, unlike a hobo, you also look forward to three meals a day in the diner, and maybe an aperitif before dinner!

Unlike the past two years, I won't be returning to Seattle by airline as soon as I arrive in Chicago.  A couple of friends will be traveling up from their home in West Lafayette, Indiana, to greet me upon arrival.  By chance, I'll be in Chicago in the midst of a city-wide theater festival, and we plan to take in a show or two, while catching up and exploring Chicago so far as possible in that city's ungodly winter weather. 

This will be my third ride on the Empire Builder.  I rode it to Chicago when I was 14 years  old, on my way to a three-week stay with a former elementary school classmate whose family had abandoned the Northwest.  I reveled in my adult-like independence, even while gladly welcoming being taken under the wing of my friend's family upon arrival.  My second ride was just fourteen years ago, the first section of a train odyssey to Boston, heading to a nephew's wedding on the Maine coast.

I am so ready to roll!  I feel like stepping out the door into the gathering dusk and listening again for that lonesome, distant cry of a train's whistle.  Empire Builder?     Wabash Cannonball?    Whatever!

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar

As she glides along the woodland, o'er the hills and by the shore

Hear the mighty rush of the engine, hear the lonesome hobo's call

As you travel across the country on the Wabash Cannonball

South for Christmas

Like the rest of my family, I was born and reared in the State of Washington.  The famous "Northwest Corner," as my blog would have it.   Unlike every other member  of my family, I still live in that state.  In Seattle.

The rest of the family, the shameless renegades, have flown to the far corners of the ... well, of the West Coast I guess.  My sister and my youngest nephew Jesse live in Challis, Idaho.  My brother moves about between three residences co-owned with his daughter -- all in Southern California -- Palm Desert, Oxnard, and Big Bear.  His daughter's usual residence is in Glendale.  My eldest nephew lives in San Francisco.  My "middle" nephew has lived for the past several years in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with his wife and daughter; they will return to Sonoma, California, however, at the end of this school  year.

I have hosted Christmas and Thanksgiving on a few occasions over my lifetime, but generally no one wants to come to an area they now consider either a rainy bog, or a state too close for comfort to the Arctic Circle.  Instead, I get regular invitations to visit them, and to do the traveling myself.

Which is merely a lead-in to my announcement that I will be flying from Seattle to Palm Springs tomorrow.  My brother will meet me at the airport and escort me the 14 miles eastward to his home in Palm Desert, where he has offered me places around the family Christmas tree and the dinner table.  I'll be returning next Tuesday.

These announcements of departure from Seattle used to be necessary to explain why eager readers of my blog needed to expect a week or so without the joy of reading my latest essay.  Now that my frequency of publication has sunk to a level explicable only by old age, incipient dementia, or -- most likely -- criminal laziness, this sort of announcement really isn't necessary.  In fact, it's farcical.  Nevertheless, old habits live on. 

And so -- "No posts, gang, until at least next Wednesday!"

Getting to know Arthur Ritis

With all good intentions, people say to me "Oh, you're not old! ...
"My uncle is ninety and he walks eight miles a day." 

Lucky Unk.  I hope he never meets that old bully Arthur Ritis or his mean wife Sciatica.

--Ursula K Le Guin, No Time to Spare, "Going Over Eighty: The Sissy Strikes Back"

----------------------------------

Fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin was 81 years old when she stepped from fantasy fiction to harsh (if often funny) reality in her published collection of essays from her blog.  

The quotation above is take from one of her earlier posts.  She was sick of being told "You're only as  old as you think you are."  Such comments, she feels, are well meant, but encourage older people to deny the obvious changes in their bodies, and their obvious resulting inability to still act like a kid.

She herself suffered from arthritis and sciatica at 81.  She didn't drive.  Her formerly enjoyable walk to the grocery store to pick up one item or another was now a torment -- she was forced to limit her grocery visits to one per week, keeping a list during the week of her needs for the visit.

I chuckled sympathetically when I read her little essay a couple of years ago.  I didn't realize how quickly one can go from being a light-limbed and light-hearted youth to an arthritic cripple.

"Cripple" is a bit of an exaggeration.  I can still get around; I can walk a couple of miles with only minimal pain.  But so far, I haven't been able to walk much farther than that without developing pain not only while walking, but for the next day or two.

What's been surprising to me is how quickly it all happened.  If you skim over my blog essays for the past six months or so, you'll note that I was still hiking steep paths without complaint last May.  In July, I developed a strained groin muscle that very gradually became more painful.  In July, I decided to cut back the distance of my daily walks from four to five miles a day to something like two.  Within a couple of weeks, without known cause, I began having Achilles tendon pain in the same leg.  

Note that the groin strain and the tendinitis were both annoyances of the sort that are somewhat easily treated, primarily with rest.  But by the beginning of August, I was developing knee pain in the opposite leg.  At first the pain was minor, but it soon became more worrisome than the Achilles tendinitis.  (By that time, the groin muscle was no longer really a factor.)  By the time I left with friends for Scotland at the end of August, it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to participate in the group's daily hikes.

I saw an orthopedist, whose radiology revealed moderate arthritis.     He suggested physical therapy.  The plan would be to strengthen my leg muscles, thus increasing the stability of my knee joint, and reducing or eliminating pain.  I haven't really done that, of course.

A friend tells me that his wife found physical therapy to be useless in combatting her arthritis, but that she's intrigued by a remedy that her grandmother swears by -- raisins soaked in gin.

Intellectually absurd, but tempting.  Even without the raisins.

I do something occasionally similar to consuming gin, but with fewer side effects -- I take a Tylenol or two.  Even one reduces the pain noticeably, but doesn't entirely eliminate it.  I kind of like the background sensation of mild pain, because it reminds me not to get carried away and walk long distances before my body's used to it.  

If it ever will be.  Most on-line experts say that you're stuck with arthritis for the rest of your life.  The only change is that it generally gets gradually worse.

Anyway, I don't take Tylenol regularly, at least yet.  Taken too often and in too great a quantity, it ain't good for your innards.

I go back over my years of writings, in this blog and before, about the hikes and climbs I've taken.  Many of them were exhausting, some even painful.  But the exhaustion came from my lungs' efforts to suck in enough oxygen.  And the pain came from the pain that younger muscles feel as they learn to work harder and longer with training.

These little essays make me sad, knowing that they document challenging hikes and climbs, most of which I'll never be able to do again.  But reading about them makes me happy that I did them when I did, year after year, always exhausted but always happy.

I've passed on the moral that I derive from my life history to my younger friends on Facebook:

"Don't kid yourself that you're too busy with work and family to go hiking or climbing now, but that you look forward to doing it when you have time, once you retire." 

Because maybe you won't. 

Singing like angels

Christmas is packed with traditions.  One of my more recent traditions -- interrupted for a couple of years by the pandemic -- has been attendance at the annual "Festival of Lessons and Carols." presented by the Northwest Boychoir and its teenage affiliate, Vocalpoint! Seattle.

The combined choirs present their concert at eight Seattle venues each December, leading up to their final concert downtown at Benaroyal Hall.  Last night, I attended their concert at St. Mark's Cathedral, not far from my house.

The singers this year included 29 boys from the Northwest Boychoir, and 32 teenage boys and 15 teenage girls from Vocalpoint!.  The concert each year is based closely on the Christmas Eve service at King's College, Cambridge -- portions of which are available for viewing on YouTube.

In the versions by both King's College and the Northwest Boychoir, the most striking moment -- for me, at least -- comes at the very outset.  At St. Mark's, the singers enter a short distance into the cathedral from the rear, behind the congregation, and pause before advancing farther.  The congregation is hushed as the solo, ethereal voice of a very small boy begins the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City," his voice swelling as he nears the end of the verse, filling the volume of the entire cathedral, from the congregation on the floor all the way to the high rafters above. 

At the second verse, the entire choir joins in as they enter and file to the front of the cathedral, lining up in rows and singing all six verses without accompaniment.  Their singing becomes more complex with each verse, and the final verse is sung with a soprano descant soaring high above the pitch of the main melody.

After singing three more carols, the choir proceeds with the lessons.  A boy -- this year, also a girl for one of the readings -- begins each lesson with a reading from the Old or New Testament.  The choir then proceeds with a carol, related to the reading,  followed by a well-known and popular carol in whose singing the entire congregation joins. 

The overall effect  is magical, and is concluded -- after nine such readings -- with the choir's singing of "O Holy Night," and -- as they file back out through the rear of the cathedral -- "Joy to the World."

As I've mentioned in a past year's blog, I have reservations about the piano accompaniment, although the accompaniment is quite musical in its own right -- not merely a support for the singers as  in a typical church or Sunday School service.  These singers need no support, as was well illustrated in the two carols that were sung without accompaniment -- the initial "Once in Royal David's City" and a Gregorian chant with challenging polyphony, "O Magnum Mysterium."  Both pieces illustrated the skill and musicality of the singers, young and older, beautifully.

But all the carols were beautifully done, with or without accompaniment.  As we filed out of the Cathedral, we were greeted by smiling Boychoir singers, still dressed in their gowns, who were distributing small candy canes.  

All of us, in fact, were smiling.  Even Ebeneezer Scrooge, had he been present, would have been smiling as he walked out the door.  

We're No. 2

So, the University of Washington football team is the second best in the entire United States of America.  The AP says so, the Coaches' Poll says so, and the thirteen voters in the almighty College Football Championship say so.

Very cool.  But, those of us who aren't totally committed Husky fanatics, or at least current UW students, have our doubts.  The team, despite its 13-0 record, has seemed shaky in game after game.  Would the second best team in the entire known world really have to struggle to get past Stanford, Oregon State, and Washington State?   We, along with most of the nation, have asked ourselves that question repeatdly. 

And beyond that, here in the Northwest Corner, regardless of ethnicity, we tend to be Scandinavian in our attitudes.  "Be humble.  Don't brag about yourselves.  Don't call attention to yourselves.  Remember that if you're too happy today, you're bound to be miserable tomorrow.  Things can always go wrong, and usually will."  Pessimism is our proven default.

And even my mildly felt, Norwegian happiness at the Huskies' success is offset by my displeasure with everything else in the world of college football.  The advent of the College Football Championship has been motivated by television's quest for bigger bucks.  It's been built on the destruction of the New Year's Bowl traditions, and on the destruction of regional football conferences with century-old traditions (notably this year, of the Pac-12), and the growing conviction that football conferences themselves are no longer necessary.  That their championship games, especially, should be done away with.

When you have a play-off system that determines the champion of the entire Universe, who needs regional conference championships?  They just clutter things up.

And, of course, the antique need for "regional" conferences is now obsolete, now that we can fly across the country in five or six hours.  (And now that football players aren't seriously expected to have the same lives and academic strivings, interests, and responsibilities as do common college students.)  With West Coast teams now set to join the "Mid-Western" Big Ten conference, joining recently-added Atlantic Coast teams like Rutgers and Maryland, the term "regional" is rather anachronistic, right?.  

My mind is still reeling from the idea of Stanford and Cal playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

I can't predict where it's all heading.  I just know I won't like it.  In fact, as a teenager, I hated the disbandment of the "Pacific Coast Conference," and its temporary replacement by the Pac-5.  Even though the Pac-5 was, within a few years, expanded back to the Pac-8, leading to the snide comment that the schools had chosen an unnecessarily complicated way just to get rid of the University of Idaho. 

So, bah!  My politics may be liberal, but my attachment to traditions, to the "way it's always been," is downright conservative.  Even Tory!  Stop the world, especially the sports world.  I want to get off.

But anyway.  Go Dawgs.  Beat the Longhorns! And the Wolverines!

Christmas cards

Sir Henry Cole is said to have sent the first card in 1843, and we've been sending and receiving them ever since. We can not only judge a sender's personality by the cards he sends, but we can also sense the changing moods of society itself by the differences, from decade to decade, in the style, subject matter, and art work of the Christmas cards it creates.

We creep closer to the month of December.  And as we creep, we consider once more the vexing problem of Christmas cards.  Do we send them, or do we not? '

I'm not certain why discussing this issue has become an annual tradition here in the Northwest Corner blog.  It first arose in 2008, the second year that I cheerfully published what had begun as a humorous, passing stab at imitating the obsession of what I then considered a much younger generation. 

Blogging.

I presented a brief history of the custom (see my quote above), and then began questioning my own sanity in continuing the tradition while stranded in the midst of a society that seemed to despise tradition.  But I quickly brushed my qualms aside, as well as my progressive reputation.  Like a cigar-smoking Tory, I boldly declaimed:

Let's face it. Maybe in 2008, with email and Facebook so readily available, no one really does care if I send them a card or not. But I send them for myself, at least in part. Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas until I carry my stack of envelopes down to the corner and drop them in the mailbox.

And send them I did.

The issue fell dormant for the next eight years.  But in 2016, the issue raised its ugly, if holly-wreathed, head again.  I not only questioned the sending of Christmas cards, but professed myself shocked at the vulgarity of whatever cards actually were available for sending.  What's wrong with society today, I cried, in tones redolent of the Republican National Committee?  Have we lost all appreciation not only for the sanctity of Christmas, but for the simple, all-American values represented by public portrayals of happy families about the tree, and rosy-cheeked kids on sleds, and snow storms, and deer gamboling through the forest?

Maybe -- except in the bosom of our nuclear families -- we should all just sit around a plain pole and exchange ironic witticisms.  Or did Seinfeld beat me to it?   Happy Festivus?

And with that, the floodgates of blogdom were flung open.

I offered my yawning readers similar themes in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.  How original!  How predictable!  No wonder my readership figures began spirally downward!

And yet, through all these many pages of self-questioning angst and lamentations, one fact stood out:  I continued to send Christmas cards, year after year.

Which brings us to 2023.  Let me be brief.  And unapologetic.  I've ordered Christmas cards.  They arrived today.  I will bend over my desk, appending personal greetings to each.  Yes.

Yes.  While the rest of you gather around the Festivus Pole, worshipping the gods of modern, sarcastic, ironic, post-traditional America -- I proudly admit --

In 2023, I once more shall mail Christmas cards! 

Merry Christmas.

Ditching the boot

I'm sure we all lament the narcissistic turn my blog has taken this year.  When, of course, I'm writing anything at all.  Either I'm gloating over my travels, or I'm worrying in print about my disintegrating body.

But after two posts about my Achilles tendon, I can't just leave the subject hanging.  The matter's ready, not yet for closure, but at least for an update.  An encouraging update.

Two weeks ago, I related my submission to "the boot," that orthopedic appliance designed to keep me from using the Achilles tendon and to force me to walk somewhat stiff-legged.  My two weeks of boot purgatory ended on Wednesday -- I had already discarded it for walking inside the house two days earlier.  On Wednesday, I reported for my two-week follow-up medical appointment.  It was a short visit with the podiatrist.

He asked me if I'd experienced pain while wearing the boot?  No.  Had I felt pain walking around the house in normal shoes?  No.  He had me stand on my toes.  Did that hurt?  No, but I lacked strength to get more than half-way up on my affected foot.

Doing fine, he said.  No more boot.  No more icing my leg daily.  Continue five-minute stretches twice a day.  Get out and start walking.  Very short walks at first, but increase by increments.  If it starts hurting while you're walking, cut the length of your walk by half the next day, and continue from that new base point.  See a physical therapist for leg-strengthening exercises.

A walk in the park!  Literally.  I'm up to a mile walk -- in the park -- as of today.  I don't count my steps walking around the house and other short distances.  No pain in my ankle so far.  (But my legs do feel weak and wobbly, after two weeks of ankle immobilization.)

Interestingly enough, after the ankle pain developed in August, I also began having pain in the knee of my other leg.  X-rays showed arthritis, but I'd never before had pain in that area.  Now that I'm walking normally both without a boot and without consciously or unconsciously favoring my ankle, I've noticed the arthritis pain has greatly diminished.  I may not be out of the woods with respect to the arthritis, but it's an interesting development.

I'll continue with the prescribed regimen.  I'm optimistic.  It's so cool  to walk freely, even though I'm far from being back to my normal four to five miles a day.  But I see the progress.  

It's odd to be so happy because I'm able to do, even to a small degree, something I've always enjoyed doing, but have naturally taken for granted.  Walking for pleasure.

Maybe, with continued progress,  I'll be able to return to blogging about the Great Philosophical Issues of our time?  We'll see.

Challis Thanksgiving

Quickly ignoring my unconscionable and increasingly glaring failure to blog with any regularity, I'll mention that I'm looking forward to enjoying Thanksgiving next week near Challis, Idaho, with my sister's family.

I note that I've blogged on the subject of her house and large property on thirteen occasions since 2017 -- most recently this past June when my far-flung family met there for something of a reunion, including, most notably, a rafting run down the Salmon River.  Her property abuts Salmon-Challis National Forest, and abuts it so closely that I can look out my bedroom window at the wire fence a few feet away, marking the boundary.

I've seen the Challis property in sunshine and in snow, when choked with brush fire smoke and when blessed by the dying beams of an eclipsing sun.  There are horses to ride, dogs to run with, cats to pet, and even bunnies -- many of them -- to cuddle.  Not much more that I can say about the property, at least until the next natural phenomenon appears.

More to the point is that I'll be able to enjoy a holiday with my sister and her family.  This time, I'll be the only family member visiting from outside Idaho, but I'll be accompanied on my visit by Suzy -- a long-time family friend whose mental acuity, sharp humor, and physical agility totally belie her ninety years.  Our last get-together with her for Thanksgiving was in Vaison-la-Romaine (Provence), France, in 2009.  

Suzy and I will fly from Seattle to Idaho Falls on Tuesday, where my sister will meet us and drive us the 2½ or 3 hour hour drive to her home.  It will be a short, four-day visit, but one to which I've been looking forward eagerly. 

In Provence, fourteen years ago, we roasted a chicken and called it turkey.   This year, I have dreams of real turkey and dressing, and all the necessary trimmings, in Challis!   

RMS Queen Elizabeth

This week, I reserved a February roomette on Amtrak's "Empire Builder," a two-day trip from Seattle to Chicago.  This completes my West Coast to Chicago "trifecta" -- following similar trips the past two years on the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles and the California Zephyr from San Francisco.

I have no particular objective in going to Chicago -- the reason for the trip being the train travel itself.  I've often compared similar train rides I've taken to cruises for the average guy.  They aren't particularly cheap, but certainly far less than a cruise ship.

The comparison to travel by ship brings to mind my first dreams of travel as a tourist.  First, that is, not as part of family travel with my parents and planned by my parents.  But travel planned -- if only in fantasy -- by myself. and travel to be undertaken alone.

I was 12 or 13.

I was a young kid in the early 1950s, just a few years after World War II, although that war seemed like ancient history to me at the time.  My mother had somehow acquired a travel memoir by an American who had traveled by car up and down Great Britain in those first post-war years.  He visited town after town, discussing each in loving detail.  I was already primed by temperament to be an Anglophile.  Reading his book converted that predisposition into a total love affair.  

I wanted to explore England.  I needed to explore England.  I planned my own itineraries, based on the sights and experiences described by the author.  [Both author and title have been lost in the shifting sands of memory, and my family no longer has the book.]

In another three or four years, I figured, I'd be old enough to rent a car myself in Britain.  The question was how could I get there.

In the early 1950s, airline travel certainly existed, but it was prohibitively expensive for travelers with my resources -- or with my family's resources, for that matter.**  The obvious way to get from America to Britain was by ship.  

Travel by ship in those days differed from passage on cruise liners today.  The ships provided often luxurious accommodations, especially for the two upper classes, but the objective was travel from Point A to Point B.  The same objective as as that of passengers who traveled by rail -- to arrive somewhere as quickly as possible, not (primarily) to gaze at the passing scenery with a cocktail in hand.

Numerous ocean liners sailed down the Hudson River from New York Harbor, heading for Europe.  I think I finally decided on the largest then afloat, Cunard Line's RMS Queen Elizabeth.  The ship was divided into three classes, First, Cabin, and Tourist, and each class occupied its own portion of the ship, with its own dining and other facilities.  Tourist class passage between New York and Southampton was, as I'm certain I recall, $165 each way.  Far beyond my ability to pay, as a 13-year-old.  But maybe by the time I reached 16 or 17?  One could hope.  One could dream.

I also was concerned about the preliminary matter of reaching New York from my small town in Western Washington.  That would be solved by the three-day train ride from Seattle or Portland to New York.  I don't recall the fare at that time, but a year later, when I was 14, I traveled round trip to Chicago by train for $90.  Still pricey, but easier to contemplate.  I'd be traveling in a coach seat the entire way, of course, not in a sleeper.

Today, looking back, I'm fascinated by the style of shipboard accommodations, even for Tourist class.  That didn't interest my junior high school self at all.  I just wanted to get to Britain as cheaply as possible, and an ocean liner was the ticket.  

So did I eventually sail off to Britain on an ocean liner ?  Nope. Just a kid's dream. But eight years later, I did find myself talking at the border to an officer of Her Majesty's Home Office, Immigration Branch.  Not at Southampton, but at New Haven.  Arriving by sea, but on a ferry from Le Havre, not a liner from New York.  I had ended up on the Continent, months before I ever saw England, attending school in Florence.  And I had arrived in Italy not by sea, but on my school's chartered Pan-Am DC-6.  During our three-week semester break, I crossed from France to my childhood dream destination

The ferry was quite nice, but it wasn't the Queen Elizabeth.   But England was England, largely the England I had dreamed of as a 13-year-old lad.  Far more "England" -- still largely its pre-war self (prices still in traditional pounds, shillings, and pence! oh joy!) -- than the modern country millions of tourists visit today.  I'm glad I saw it when I did.

But I'm sorry I didn't arrive on the RMS Queen Elizabeth! 

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Photos

Top -- RMS Queen Elizabeth

2.    -- Tourist class library

3.    -- Tourist class lounge

4.    -- Tourist class Winter Garden restaurant

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**NOTE (11-15-23):  In the 1950s, minimum fares for all airlines were governed by an international body, the IATA.  The IATA had refused to allow air travel that was not first class until July 1952.  The minimum one-way air fare from New York to London was $711 -- in 2023 dollars, $8,255.  But in 1952, Pan Am won the right to offer a "tourist class" level of service for $486 round trip -- $5,642 in today's dollars.  

Still a bit steep, even for the day dreams of a 13-year-old

Giving me the boot

Back in August, just before leaving for Scotland, I posted my lament at having developed tendinitis in my left foot Achilles tendon.  Since my purpose in going to Scotland was to hike eleven miles a day,, my lament was understandable.

The best treatment for Achilles tendon problems is obvious -- give the tendon a rest, let it heal.  And, in fact, I refrained from hiking in Scotland, following my group of friends by bicycle for two or three days, and more usually by hitching rides in our baggage transfer van.

But I didn't really give my ankle a rest.  There were places to go and places to see.  I walked around towns with everyone else, as soon as their day of hiking was over, and I walked around towns just out of curiosity during the days while they hiked.  

Then I went to Lake Como in Italy for two weeks.  Did I spend two weeks resting my ankle?  Are you kidding?  There are so many places to explore.  I even did a rather lengthy and strenuous hike up a hill in Varenna, to explore a castle at the top.  Peer pressure, even when your peers don't mean to be pressuring.

So I get home for two weeks, and then fly to Thailand to join my nephew and his family.  We didn't do anything too strenuous, but we went out for walks around his neighborhood almost daily. 

Finally, my autumn travel completed, I decided to see a podiatrist.  What your ankle needs is rest, if it's going to heal, he advised me.  Unnecessarily.  To encourage me to do so, he insisted that I wear a boot -- a knee-high boot -- all day except when sleeping (or, I assume, showering).  The boot holds the ankle immobile, so that the Achilles tendon isn't being constantly pulled and exercised.  It also makes walking difficult -- not impossible, because I still have to get around the house and go out for groceries and the occasional meal -- but clumsy enough to discourage me from setting out for leisurely walks through the park.

Walks that I greatly miss.  

But the boot will be on for only two weeks, today being my fourth day of confinement.  To back up the discipline of "the boot," the doctor also has prescribed fairly large doses of Prednisone to reduce inflammation.  And demanded that I follow a daily routine of stretching and icing.  

Even after that glorious day when the boot comes off, my tendon will need probably months of special care, exercises, and reduced use.  Hard to predict, the doc says, shaking his head.

So here I am, a blogger who once prided himself on discussing events of general interest, of philosophical import, of humorous daily life -- now confined narcissistically to discussions of his personal health.  

I don't mind growing old, but do I have to be so stereotypical about it?

More later.  Oh yeah, there'll be more.  Bet on it.

Enjoying the burbs of Chiang Mai

Sunday, I arrived home from Thailand.  Three days later, I still can't read for any length of time without falling asleep.  Jet lag, you know.  Let's see if I can at least write a short blog post!

It was a short visit, just six days, making the best of what had been planned as a rather different trip.  But it was a highly enjoyable visit, poignant because it may have been the last such visit to the beautiful northern town of Chiang Mai.

Not that I will never visit Chiang Mai again, but that it will never again be the kind of visit I've enjoyed over the past six years.  My nephew Denny and his daughter moved to Chiang Mai in 2017, where Denny accepted a job teaching middle and high school classes at an international school.  They were joined later, after his marriage, by his wife and his retired father.  Visiting Chiang Mai became an annual family event, until interrupted by the pandemic.  This year's visit was my first since Covid's chokehold on travel.  Sadly, it was to be my last.  Denny has decided to return to teaching in California, together with his family.

Any future visit to Chiang Mai will be as a simple tourist -- not as a family guest.  The difference is significant.

Since 2017, I've become familiar with central Chiang Mai.  Every return to the city is fun and this year Denny and I spent part of a day revisiting favorite areas.  Favorite areas shared with any curious tourist who visits the city.

But Denny lives outside the downtown area, southwest of the airport and close to the hills of the Thanon Thong Chai range running north and south west of Chiang Mai.  One day, we drove into the city on his motorbike, following a bewildering route through a maze of small roads, thus avoiding the semi-freeway -- enjoying a much more beautiful drive.  The city is surrounded by pleasant neighborhoods, such as his -- forested with semi-tropical trees and plants -- in many of which live members of the area's large expatriate community.  Spending your days in these neighborhoods is a very different experience from staying in a hotel in the city itself.

My experience with these neighborhoods has derived from two primary sources, both highly enjoyable.  First, riding on the back of Denny's motorbike as we tooled along small streets and roads, both in the valley and up in the hills.  And second, sometimes related to the first, meals at numerous small, local restaurants and cafés.  These eating spots -- aside from the numerous pizza joints -- all served both Western and Thai food.  They were inexpensive (at least by American standards), beautifully designed for both indoor and outdoor dining, and welcoming to locals, expatriates, and any casual tourists who may have been lucky enough to blunder in.

We also had one luxury dinner at a restaurant close to Denny's house -- the Little Glass House -- specializing in French, Italian, and other Mediterranean dishes.  Thailand's restaurant scene is not provincial, not even in the provinces.

A third source of experience with these suburban neighborhoods is the well-marked maze of bike/pedestrian trails, at least near my nephew's house.  Formal bike trails are almost superfluous, because the narrow streets and roads are so lightly trafficked, but they help guide you through some of the most beautiful, forested areas in the neighborhood.  We went out for walks virtually every day I was there.

Why can't I, as a tourist, simply return to this area on my own?  I could, in theory, but I would sorely miss the guidance of my relatives, taking me to the places best worth visiting.  Also, these are not areas where you find hotels, anymore than you expect to find hotels in an American suburban neighborhood.  I was staying in a rental next door to my nephew's house, rented to me by a couple known by Denny.  There was no neon sign in front advertising "Rooms for Rent."

Having gushed over the charms of suburban Chiang Mai, I should emphasize that the Chiang Mai downtown is full of hotels and bed & breakfasts -- everything from youth hostels to luxury hotels.  And you could easily spend many days enjoying the world of historical and modern day Chiang Mai without ever venturing beyond the ancient walls and moat.  

But just be aware that there's a lot more out there in the open countryside.

Lake Como redux -- 2023

As I prepare to depart Thursday for Singapore and Chiang Mai, Thailand, I recall that two weeks ago today, I was prowling around Milan -- sightseeing, photographing, and killing time before my 9 p.m. flight to London.  Writing this, I suspect I sound like quite the jet-setter, although by personality I'm almost the opposite.  It's just that several trips have come together at nearly the same time.

My visit to Italy was the second chapter of a European adventure that began with the hiking trip in Scotland that I discussed two posts ago.  With two of the Scotland crew -- John and Anne (my college friend Jim's brother and sister) -- we flew to Milan, took the train to Milan's Stazione Centrale railway station, and walked a couple of blocks to the hotel we had stayed in exactly a year before.  There we met Ann and Tony -- the wife and husband, respectively, of John and Anne.

We arrived late.  All of us were hungry, and we went out to dinner at an outdoor café a couple of blocks from our hotel -- a dinner begun at 10 p.m., which made me feel quite European and cosmopolitan.  The following day we relaxed in Milan, and then the next morning we took the short (about 45 minutes) train ride to Como Town, on the southern shores of the lake.  If we hadn't felt it before, we now realized that northern Italy was crammed with tourists this year, even at the relatively late date of September 9.  The line for tickets on the lake ferry was endless, but we persevered as we watched the sailing of several boats, finally got our tickets, and boarded a hydroplane about 3 p.m.  We arrived at Menaggio -- half way up the western shore of the lake -- about an hour and a half later.

After two prior years renting the same villa just north of Menaggio, I felt on very familiar ground by this time.  We walked to the bus station and boarded a bus for the ten minute ride to Rezzonico, where our property's manager was waiting for us with big smiles.

As I approached the entrance to our rented villa, I felt the same as I had the year before -- that I had hardly been away at all, let alone an entire year.  Everything looked the same, everything seemed welcoming. The manager realized there was no need to give us more than a cursory tour of the house we knew so well.  She set us up with reservations for dinner at the local pizzeria, and wished us well.

We had only to choose our rooms, move in our bags, kick back our heels, and await the hour for dinner.  The two bottles of complimentary wine in the kitchen's pantry called out to us.

The only real differences between this year and last were (1) the weather -- beautiful the first three days -- changed to clouds and occasional showers for the rest of the week; (2) we missed the presence of Jim and his son Graham, although the house felt a bit roomier with only the five of us; (3) we felt more at home in a well-remembered and beloved town rather than first-time visitors amazed by the magical world in which we found ourselves; and (4) my legs were still suffering from the infirmities that had plagued me in Scotland, limiting the amount of hiking and walking I could do.

Nevertheless, we repeated our ferry visit to Bellagio and Varenna, across the lake, and walked a considerable amount about those towns.  Assisted by a morning dose of Tylenol, I also joined the others in climbing a steep, rough trail from the town to Varenna Castle, feeling a brief flush of late-life manliness, a feeling I had missed for the most part in Scotland.  John and I also repeated last year's visit to the neighboring town to the north, Cremia, and this year pressed on further along a pleasant lakeside trail to the next village of Pianello.  

Less actively, we discovered a new hotel restaurant about a mile from our villa, which also contained a gelateria with some of the best Italian gelati I'd ever sampled.  And that's a high bar.  And we discovered that our opening day piazzeria also served as an excellent source of caffe and croissants in the mornings.  We wound up our week's stay with a final pasta dinner on Friday.

On Saturday, I sadly bid farewell to our group in Menaggio, where they caught the bus back to Como Town, and thence by train to Milan.  Anne and Tony were leaving for home, but John and Ann were heading south to explore Sicily and the Naples area.  I was sad, as I say, but also eager to greet my sister Kathy, brother Philip, and his wife Vicki, whose ferry pulled into Menaggio in mid-afternoon.  We took the bus to Rezzonico, and almost lost our brother when the bus's doors closed and bus began moving while he was still struggling with baggage.  It was a funny scene, although maybe only in retrospect. 

Check-in formalities were repeated, and Philip and Vicki -- their first visit to Lake Como -- began settling in and getting a feel for the area.  A photo from their first day shows Philip already stretched out on a lounge in our patio area, soaking in the sun.

Unfortunately, not a lot of sun soaking was available during this second week.  The occasional showers of the first week became more frequent.  I woke up about 3 a.m. Wednesday to the most dazzling lightning display I'd ever witnessed.  The room was lit non-stop for about a half hour, and the roar of thunder was constant.  We had occasional thunder and lightning throughout the rest of the week, but the rain that fell seemed to dry surprisingly quickly, so we still managed to get out and around quite a bit.

While Philip and Vicki were otherwise engaged, Kathy and I repeated the hike to Pianello that John and I had done the prior week.  Tylenol again came to my rescue and made the hike easy and enjoyable. 

We repeated the visit to Bellagio and Varenna (but not the climb to the Castle), where the crowds were even denser than they had been the week before.  It was a relief to spend the rest of the week in the far more semi-rural atmosphere of our village and its surroundings.  We did make an enjoyable visit (as had the group in the first week) to the Swiss city of Lugano, a beautiful lake-side town a little over an hour's bus ride from Menaggio.  We had a great lunch.  And then were totally drenched during our half hour return to the bus stop for the ride home, but the downpour seemed funny, rather than a disaster.  (We are all former Pacific Northwest residents, after all.)

That same night, we had our celebratory dinner -- as we had with both weeks the prior year -- at the family-run restaurant Lauro in the village.  As always, a wonderful meal in a casual but atmospheric setting.

So, again it was Saturday morning.  Kathy's knee had been acting up, and so we skipped the ferry and took the bus all the way from Rezzonico to the train station in Como Town, and then the train back to Milan.  That night, we had the best meal of either week at the restaurant near the station in which our second week's group had dined in 2022.  The next day, we each headed home, our planes leaving at widely different times.  Mine was the last, leaving at 9 p.m. for London, where I spent the night at the Terminal 5 airport hotel before leaving for Seattle the next morning.

An excellent two weeks.  Will there be a fourth consecutive year at the same Lake Como villa?  When I returned home, I was shocked to see that the first three weeks of September 2024 were already booked, as was the third week of August.  In panic, I plunked down a deposit to reserve the villa for the last week of August. 

So I guess the answer, quite probably, is "yes."

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Photo -- Lake Como displays a different mood during the second week from the sunny, peaceful face it had shown in past years.  But even in a storm, it's a highly attractive locale.

Singapore "Swing"

Barely back from Milan and Lake Como, with my circadian rhythms still somewhat confused, I leave next week for Singapore, and then on to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

I spend only one night in Singapore, between flights, and you might well ask me why I'm taking this circuitous route.  Because of a cooler, more complicated plan that my sister and I originally planned together with my nephew and his wife.  My nephew lives and teaches in Chiang Mai.

The idea was to meet in Singapore, explore it a little (I'd been there a couple of times before, but never for long), and then take the train through Malaysia to Bangkok, stopping along the way to see a bit of Malaysia and, perhaps, sample their beaches.  I'd fly home from Bangkok, and the others would proceed to Chiang Mai.

Unfortunately, for various reasons my sister was unable to make the trip at the last minute, but I already had the nonrefundable airline reservations.  So I'll stay overnight in Singapore, then fly via Bangkok to Chiang Mai.  I'll spend a week in that very attractive and relaxing town, socializing with my nephew, who will be on vacation, and then fly to Bangkok to connect with my previously booked flight home to Seattle.

I'll be gone about ten days, only six of which will be in Chiang Mai.  The rest of my time I'll be flying, cooling my heels in airports, and staying in hotels -- both in Singapore and in Seoul airport's 12-hour-stay, inside-security hotel which exists for the exclusive use of persons in transit.  I'll have a 14-hour stay in Seoul between my flight from Bangkok and my flight to Seattle.

This isn't an itinerary that I ever would have arranged from the outset, but it evolved organically out of unexpected events.  But it will be fun, and the heart of the original plan -- to spend time with my nephew and his family -- remains intact. 

There will be photos, of course.  I'd post of photo of me downing a Singapore Sling at the Raffles bar in Singapore, but the drink is vastly overrated.  I'll stick to gin and tonics.