California Zephyr to Chicago

 

Just a bit over three weeks ago, I arrived home in Seattle after 18 days in Italy.  Glad I'd been away, glad to be home again.  Glad to greet my two cats and to revel in their (ambiguous) signs of warm welcome.  ("Can we go outside, NOW?")

But almost before I'd unpacked my bags, and certainly before I wrote my trip summary for this blog, I was asking myself, "Where next?"

Well, really, I'm not rushing back out the door.  The cats require a certain amount of appeasing before they'll countenance another of their "master's" disappearances.  I'll be hanging around all October.

But in about five weeks, I continue my recent annual railway pilgrimages from the West Coast to Chicago.  I plan to repeat my 2022 trip on the California Zephyr, a 51-hour ride from San Francisco to Chicago, reputed by many to be the most beautiful railroad ride in the United States.  (The Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles offers worthy competition, in my opinion.)  I did consider the nearly four-day Canadian ride from Vancouver to Toronto, but I decided to save that for a future year.

I'll fly down to San Francisco from Seattle, stay overnight, and leave San Francisco the next morning at 7:15 a.m. by Amtrak bus over the Bay Bridge.   Once I'm across the Bay in Emeryville, I climb aboard the Zephyr -- my home until 2:39 p.m., two days later.  (Assuming always that the train runs on time.)  

The next morning, I meet up with my friends Jim and Dorothy, who will be arriving by bus from their home in West Lafayette, Indiana.  We met up in a similar manner last winter, after my arrival in Chicago from L.A. on the Southwest Chief.  And like last year, we'll spend part of our time together enjoying the performance opportunities that Chicago offers.  

First, and most seriously, we'll see Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro as offered by the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

We follow up Mozart with a somewhat lighter experience the next day: Drunk Shakespeare, a play within a play, in which four sober actors and one drunk actor try to perform Shakespeare.  As the billing eloquently describes the experience:

Hilarity and mayhem ensue while the four sober actors try and keep the script on track. Every show is different depending on who is drinking... and what they're drinking!

Craft cocktails are available for purchase throughout the show.

Find us at 182 N Wabash Ave, in the Chicago Loop, for speakeasy vibes, a full cocktail bar, and a whole lot of Shakespeare.

It sounds educational.  I'll try to sober up by the time my plane leaves for Seattle the following morning.

Solo travel in Italy

A couple of weeks ago, I returned from an eighteen-day "tour" of northern Italy.  It was an unguided tour, as I hopped from city to city, traveling on Italy's excellent railways, staying only briefly in each town.  

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did stay five nights in Florence, my first contact with Italy -- indeed with Europe -- at the age of 21 in 1961.  The other stops were generally for two nights, which, since the train rides were relatively short, generally gave me one full day and most of the day of arrival for exploration, for once more getting a taste of each city..

Besides Florence, I chose towns that I had visited one of more times in the past, and with which I wanted to re-establish a sense of familiarity.  

Florence

I had just visited Florence for several days in May 2023, but as Hemingway would have said, if he had hung out in Florence rather than Paris in his youth:

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Florence as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Florence is a moveable feast.

Mary McCarthy, in her excellent book combining a study of art and a telling of history, The Stones of Florence, spends her entire first chapter describing all the reasons that no one likes Florence anymore.

Florence is a manly town, and the cities of art that appeal to the current sensibility are feminine, like Venice and Siena.

What irritates the modern tourist about Florence it that it makes no concession to the pleasure principle.

This was in 1959.  Today, tourists too often seem to love Florence to death -- cars are banned from much of the center, and tourists pack the streets and sidewalks --  loving it perhaps far more than they love even Venice or Siena.    

The Uffizi is one of the world's great art museums.  The last couple of times I'd been in Florence, the line for admission was too daunting.  This time, I made a timed reservation, easily arranged on-line, and waited in no line at all.  Many of the great works of art that you have seen in art books hang in the Uffizi.  Florence was the primal fountain, the original source from which virtually all of later Italian Renaissance art flowed.   The Uffizi's exhibits are more densely concentrated than those in the Louvre, and the museum's focus is on painting -- Renaissance painting, primarily, although the lower floor contains later works up through the nineteenth century.

When you get tired of Renaissance painting, you can walk a few blocks to the Bargello, a castle-like building -- a former prison -- and view some of the great works of Renaissance sculpture.  I went primarily to see Donatello's work in its various stages, but much of it was unavailable for viewing.  I suspect this was a temporary problem, and by the time of my next visit to Florence, it will have been remedied.

My other major pilgrimage in Florence was to the Basilica of Santa Croce, the largest Franciscan church in the world, and the setting for early scenes in the movie of E. M. Forster's novel, A Room with a View.  

I also did a cursory inspection of Florence's second major art museum, the Pitti Palace, but I may have been burdened with two much art in too short a time.  I enjoyed the Pitti more for its architecture -- it served as the Medici home for many years -- than for the art it contained.

Up the road north from Florence's center, past the villa where 80 American students -- including me -- studied in 1961, is the town of Fiesole. A major Etruscan center in its day, founded in the seventh century B.C., centuries before Roman legions constructed the settlement of Florentia on the banks of the Arno, Fiesole became a favorite residential area for British expats in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, refined folks who wanted to escape the daily bustle of Florence below. The town is reachable on Florence's municipal bus system, taking a No. 7 bus from the central train station. There are some ruins, including a partially reconstructed Roman amphitheater, but no sites to visit that I'd consider major. But it made a pleasant morning, wandering the streets and hills of the small town, observing the big city below, and having an enjoyable lunch on the main square.

Beyond all these familiar Florentine icons, the greatest pleasure from visiting Florence results from simply walking the streets of the city and mingling with the crowds -- both residents and tourists.

Como

After five nights, a high speed train took me to Milan, where I quickly transferred to a regional train to Como.  The transfer was made at the Porta Garibaldi station, rather than the familiar Stazione Centrale, but the transfer was so fast I hardly noticed the difference.  After three straight years of arrival in Como before being transferred by ferry (or sometimes bus) to a rental home just north of Menaggio, the Como San Giovanni station and its environs were very familiar.

The street leading away from the station led directly to my hotel, just a couple of blocks back from the ferry terminal.  I had the rest of the day to wander about the city.  The next day, I satisfied a curiosity dating from my first visit to Lake Como in 2021 -- to ride the funicular up the mountain side and find out what's on top.

The funicular station is on the lakeshore, a short walk along the harbor.  The ride was fun, but the views from the funicular were usually obscured either by tunnels or by wild vegetation along the side of the track.  At the top was the small town of Brunate.  Very pleasant town, with some good views of Como and the lake below.  Signs marked various hiking/biking trails leading out of town, and I ended up hiking 45 minutes up a fairly steep trail to the Faro Voltiano lighthouse.  Decent, not great, views of the city below, but a feeling of accomplishment as I eventually sat nursing a post-hike cappuccino in Brunate.

I learned that the Italian word for lighthouse -- faro -- derives from the Pharos Lighthouse in Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Just a little etymology lesson.

I discovered after returning to Como that the lighthouse was clearly visible from the city below, once you know which direction to look.

Venice 

The following morning, I took an early train to Milan, where I connected with a train to Venice.  I'd been in Venice only two times before: with my university group in 1961, and a one-day visit the summer after law school in 1974.  Besides those two brief visits, my image of Venice derived primarily from the words in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, a vivid but probably melodramatic literary painting of the city in 1911. 

My train arrived in Venice's Santa Lucia station, perched on the Grand Canal.  I transferred to a vaporetto, which carried me several stops along the canal until I disembarked at the Rialto Bridge.  l had received written instructions from my hotel how next to proceed, and the hotel wasn't far from the bridge -- but making my way with my baggage gave me a lesson as to the torturous windings of the street patterns in Venice.  As I remarked in my journal, it was a short distance, but required climbing up and down two bridges, and negotiating sharp turns at six intersections of increasingly narrow "streets."  

An often overlooked attraction in Venice is the Lido, a long, skinny, sandy island a short distance by vaporetto from the main Venetian islands.  The Lido is the beach of Venice.  The main events in Mann's novel take place on the Lido, where the protagonist was a guest at the Hotel des Bains, one of the two important deluxe hotels in 1911.  A travel article that I read shortly before leaving home urged visitors not to overlook the Lido, and so I didn't.

If Venice proper is a delightful chaos of tiny, twisty streets and touristic crowds, the Lido is just the opposite -- calm and peaceful, long, wide tree-lined avenues, and an atmosphere that recalls Mann's world, but without the Edwardian stuffiness and overdressed bodies of that world.  The Hotel des Bains is closed, sadly, and has been for over a decade, but the Excelsior, at the other end of the island, which I didn't see, is still receiving guests.  And, of course, there are many other hotels now in business.

I spent only a few hours wandering about the Lido -- most of the beaches are owned by private beach clubs, which do sell daily memberships.  The beach clubs are where you find changing huts, refreshment facilities, and long rows of beach chairs.  But just to get a feeling for the Lido shore, I walked to a spiaggia libera, or free, public beach.  Very nice, very sandy, but not much different from our own beaches.

Returning to Venice proper, I had lunch -- expensive -- on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge.  Later that day, I visited the eclectic, quasi-Byzantine interior of the Basilica San Marco, and spent an hour sitting at a table on the Piazza, sipping my first ever "aperol spritz" -- an impressively refreshing aperitivo, costing a mere 13 euros ($14.50) -- while listening to an orchestra across the piazza playing "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby."

I was living in a dream world.  But isn't that what today's Venice is all about?

Milan

The next morning, I returned to Milan by train, where I stayed one night.  As I wrote home, only partially in jest, my sole goal in Milan was to wash my clothes.  Which I did, in a very nice self-help laundromat not far from my hotel. My main surprise was that I didn't have to buy soap for a euro, as I had at an earlier wash in Florence.  The soap was included in the price (and inside the machine), and was added at the appropriate time by the software running the machine.  For some reason, this amazed and delighted me.  And still does.

Riomaggiore

 After my one night stay in Milan -- so important a stop in those years when we are en route to a stay at a rental on Lake Como -- I took the longest train ride of the two weeks -- a four hour ride on a very modern train, with a full service diner, crossing to the Ligurian coast at Genoa, and then south through the Cinque Terre.  In May 2023, I had stayed at Levanto, just north of the Cinque Terre, and had visited four of the five towns making up the national park.  All except Riomaggiore, a lacking that I remedied on this trip.  

Riomaggiore is built on a steep hill.  The train arrives in the harbor area, and the streets immediately become vertical.  There is an elevator near the station that will carry you part way to the top, upon production of one euro or proof of hotel bookiing, which I used once, when I first arrived with baggage.  Thereafter ... well, you get used to walking  up hill, and watching all the life that's going on about you.  The walk soon seems far less forbidding that you first thought.

My hotel was quite a distance up the hill, and my room was small but pleasant, with a small terrace.  It's difficult for me to compare Riomaggiore with the other Cinque Terre cities, because I was visiting in very early September, while my visit to the other cities was in May.  On its face, I'd say that the other four cities seemed calmer and more sedate in their visitors than Riomaggiore.  Riomaggiore was about as picturesque as you could hope for, but there was a certain youthful hysteria in the socializing, in the drinking, in the volume of voices.  That said, I was never made to feel uncomfortable in my status as an older visitor.  The crowd was loud, but also friendly.

But like the other Cinque Terre towns, once you've let the atmosphere soak in and have enjoyed the dramatic scenery of small buildings piled atop each other going up the hills, and once you've had a meal or two, and nursed an aperitivo at one of the many sidewalk bars -- there isn't really much more to do.  If you're a hiker, there are hikes, but that quickly leads you out of town.  I stayed two nights in Riomaggiore, and that was probably about right.  If I was with friends, three nights perhaps.  But it's not a place to spend the week as an aimless traveler -- as opposed to, say, as an artist, or a writer.  Or using the town as a base for hiking.

I liked it.  At times, I was overwhelmed with how much I liked it.  But after two nights, I was ready to move on. 

Pisa and Lucca

It's a short train ride from Riomaggiore to Pisa, with a quick change of trains at La Spezia.  My hotel was a short walk from the train station.  I arrived at my hotel early in the day, left my baggage, and warned them that I'd be back late in the afternoon to pick up my baggage and formally check in.  Very affable desk clerk.

But I was quickly back at the train station, and jumping aboard a train for a half-hour ride to Lucca.  I had only the one night planned in Pisa, before heading back to Rome and my flight home.  I had initially planned to spend a day in Lucca while I was staying in Florence.  I noted, however, that the train ride from Florence to Lucca was about 2 1/2 hours each way, as opposed to a half hour from Pisa.  So I chose to wait to see Lucca until I reached Pisa, understanding that I'd have only the afternoon in Lucca before I returned to Pisa and prepared for my early train to Rome, via a connection in Florence.

Clinton, my sister Kathy, and I had visited Lucca in 2009, while staying in Florence.  My main memory was of circumambulating the city atop the medieval walls.  And so on arrival, I immediately climbed to the top of the walls.  The walls were built to protect the town's independence from aggressive armies from Florence and Pisa.  The walls were apparently daunting enough that neither city ever attempted an attack, and they quickly achieved the park-like atmosphere that they have today.  Circling the city is about a 2 1/2-mile walk (or bike ride -- many bike rental businesses in town), and takes maybe an hour.  It's an agreeable walk with scenery of the neighboring countryside on one side and of varying views of the city on the other.

After completing the walk, I visited the Lucca Duomo (cathedral), beautifully Tuscan on its exterior, and impressively Gothic inside.  By that time, my mildly arthritic legs were aching, but dawdling for a time for an afternoon aperitivo proved an excellent remedy.

I returned to Pisa and checked into my hotel.  I questioned whether I wanted to add more miles to my legs by walking across town to the Leaning Tower (Torre Pendente), but I knew I'd never forgive myself if I didn't.  Excellent decision, I discovered.  The walk proceeded for a stretch along the Arno river as the sun sank lower in the sky, then across the river for another half mile or mile to the great piazza that contains the Leaning Tower, the Pisa Duomo, the Baptistery, and other associated buildings.  The tower leaned just like it does in photos!  I remembered visiting it as a 21-year-old, when some friends and I all charged to the top.  Back then, a number of the levels had no protective railings, and it was up to you if you wanted to risk your life getting too close to the edge.  Things seem a little better (?) regulated now, but my legs weren't up to the climb.

Instead, I had an excellent dinner at an outdoor cafe immediately in front of the Tower. Watched the crowds, and remembered when tourists were fewer, hairs on my head were more numerous, and my legs were sturdier.  But the memories were happy, not sad, and my spirits were wonderfully buoyed by the excellent Chianti that accompanied my dinner.

Le Deluge

The next morning, I had breakfast and headed to the station for the regional train to Florence.  To my dismay, virtually every train out of Pisa was canceled, in compliance with a 24-hour nationwide railway strike.  After finding no alternative means of getting to Rome, I changed my flight booking by 24 hours, and returned to the hotel where I begged for another night's rooming.  They had no empty singles, but the very sympathetic clerk found an available triple, and some possibly applicable discounts that made the amount I paid only slightly more than I had paid for my single the night before.  

An excellent opportunity to see Pisa in depth, you suggest?  While I was having lunch near the station, the skies opened and the heaviest rainfall I remember ever seeing surrounded me under the sidewalk cafe awning.  I tried to wait it out, but eventually waded my way back to my hotel, drenched beyond belief by the time I arrived.  The rest of the day was spent in my somewhat gloomy hotel room, reading my Kindle, while it poured outside.

"What an adventure!" someone commented on Facebook.  "That's the kind of adventure I can have in Seattle," I responded, "only more so."

The next morning was bright and sunny.  I skipped the complication of a change of trains in Florence, and found a non-stop train to Rome.  My room in Rome awaited me, I had one final dinner at an outdoor cafe around the corner from my hotel.  And the next morning, I was on a flight back to America.

Do I recommend such an unguided "tour" of northern Italy?  Need you ask?

Northern Italy awaits

Back in early May -- back in those days so long ago that I had not yet bicycled down the Loire valley in France -- I wrote at some length in these pages about a trip I had planned for the end of the summer.  A wandering about through northern Italy, briefly sampling the beauties of famous tourist sites, most of which I had already seen, often at more length, in younger days.  Or at least, less older days.

I'm now less than six weeks from departure, and I thought it was time to crystallize my thoughts in my own mind, under the guise of bringing you, my readers, up to date.

Before beginning, I decided it would be wise to read what I'd written before.  On May 6.  To my surprise, I seem to have had the trip already pretty well planned even at that early date.  I had left four dates open at the end of the trip, as I waited for myself to make up my mind and to make hotel reservations.  I've now done so.  After leaving Venice, I will spend one night in Milan -- catching my breath and washing clothes.  Then I will spend two nights in Riomaggiore -- the only one of the Cinque Terre that I had not visited in the spring of 2023.  My final night, before returning to Rome, will be in Pisa.

I now have all my hotels booked, and all my train reservations made wherever train reservations are required.

I might mention that I've bought Rick Steves's guide to Florence and Tuscany, the town where I'll be spending the longest portion of my trip.  I read his Europe Through the Backdoor back in 1989, when my brother and I were traveling to Europe together. It was a good guide, but I've always had Steves pegged as a genial sort who writes guides for folks who have never done much traveling and need someone to hold their hands and give them confidence.

But his Florence and Tuscany guide is very well done and very comprehensive.  Florence is all about art, and Steves offers what is almost an Art 101 course in Italian Renaissance Art.  Along with his descriptions of art works, he places them in an historical context.  Even a little chart for the genealogy of the Medici rulers of Florence, which I considered quite helpful.

If you're an art historian, or even an art student, you probably won't find Steves's comments on art helpful, but most of us aren't, right?  I took art history classes while studying in Florence, but sixty years has dulled my memory.

The last couple of times I visited Florence, I found the line waiting outside the Uffizi ticket office -- seemingly stretching all the way  to Pisa -- intimidating.  Remembering my days as a student, when you just wandered into the galleries whenever the urge hit you, or an art assignment required it.  But I've now accepted the amenities of modern life, and have purchased an advance ticket with timed admission.  I'm assured it will save me from an interminable wait outside the Uffizi, standing and melting under the Tuscan Sun.

When I was in France in May, I lugged two weeks of clothing needs in a large suitcase.  I was both humiliated and grateful to have young Frenchmen offer to help me carry it up stairways in the Paris subways.  I've decided it's time to be sensible in my packing.  Clothes for five or six days only, and I'll do a little research to find the nearest laundromat when I'm in Florence, and again in Milan.  I'm not still a tireless 21, nor is Italy still a country where, if you wanted to wash your own clothes, you did it in your hotel sink.  Just like us, they now have what is called "laundromats."

And, really, that's about it.  Until it's time to pack, I'll just  continue refreshing my recollections of my various destinations on-line.  I fly out on August 23.  I'll tell you all about it when I get back. 

North v. South

A week ago, I returned from my most recent visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I wrote a detailed account of my visit last Monday, and then -- in what I interpreted as an admonition from my Muse -- accidentally deleted my draft while doing final preparations for its publication.  

Perhaps my Muse was right.  What I did at the North Rim -- what it's possible to do at the North Rim -- was pretty well described in my July 2022 essay on the same subject.  Except that I did less hiking this time because of a bum knee.

The South Rim is a vast stretch of well-developed National Park -- lodges, shops, camp grounds, museums -- everything that the tourist needs for a day's visit or for a week's visit.  Even, since my last visit, bike rentals to cover by bicycle the network of small roads and trails that stretch along the rim and behind the rim.  They even have a train running between the South Rim and Williams, Arizona -- a 2¼-hour ride I've never taken, but keep promising myself that I will.

Ninety percent of Grand Canyon visitors visit the South Rim without ever sampling the offerings of the North Rim.  Understandably, because the drive between the two rims takes 4.5 hours.  

But the North Rim has its own charms, often felt in terms of the absence of the tourist attractions of the South Rim.  And of the hordes who visit the South Rim.  The North Rim has one and only one lodge -- Grand Canyon Lodge.  The lodge does not offer rooms, but is surrounded by a large number of rustic cabins, in several classes of size and amenities.  As part of the lodge complex, it has an informal take-out type café (contrasting with the rather luxurious dining facilities inside the lodge itself), a "saloon," a park headquarters, and a small gift shop.  

The South Rim has two trails leading down to the river bottom; the North Trail has one.  The South Rim has a network of trails along the rim and in the country behind the rim.  The North Rim's lodge is on a promontory protruding into the canyon, and is thus surrounded by canyon on three sides; the only trails provided are either short walks, or a few much longer and more serious trails leaving the road from the park entrance several miles before one reaches the lodge.

These differences create quite different experiences for the visitors to the two rims.  The South Rim feels like a small but bustling town, crammed with tourists.  The North Rim feels like a quiet resort.

Aside from the 220-mile road between the two rims, the only approach to the North Rim is through empty land, part of it Indian reservation, a long driving distance from the nearest "civilization."  It is 264 miles from Las Vegas, the nearest commercial airport.  It is 145 miles from St. George, Utah, the only place that feels like a small city between Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  Once you're at the North Rim, you are reliant on whatever you've brought with you, or what you can purchase at National Park outlets.  

Some tourists miss rubbing shoulders with fellow tourists.  I don't.  It's not that there aren't others at the lodge or at the campground to talk with -- but their company is in no way forced on  you.  Even when you're with a "crowd" of thirty or forty other visitors on the lodge's back deck overlooking the canyon, you find many or most of your fellow visitors simply staring straight ahead into the canyon, fixing its size and beauty in their memories, contemplating the inescapable evidence that our home, the Earth, has been around and in flux for millions upon millions of years.  And that our human race has made an extremely last-minute arrival on the scene.

Not all North Rim visitors are philosophers, if course.  But the decision to visit the North Rim, in place of or or in addition to the South Rim, is in itself somewhat self-selecting.  You don't visit the North Rim just so you can stick a "Grand Canyon" sticker on your car.  And I enjoy feeling that the people around me, however diverse -- and you hear many languages spoken by visitors from many countries -- are in some way similar to myself in the kind of experience they're seeking.  I like the sense of relative isolation -- I say "relative"; this isn't a wilderness area -- and the feeling I achieve that the Canyon sits placidly before me, welcoming me, opening itself to my meditations, whatever those meditations may be.  Of the passage of time, of the complexity of the earth's development and formation, and of the hypnotizing beauty of the canyon.  And of how our human minds somehow interpret the naturally-created rock formations before us as "beauty," a beauty that raises our consciousness, however briefly, beyond the concerns of our daily lives. 

And so, would I even think of visiting the South Rim?  Sure.  Probably the next time I visit the Grand Canyon.  It doesn't offer an inferior experience from the North Rim.  Just different.

North Rim. Again.

On Wednesday, I begin a four-day mini-vacation to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  If this sounds familiar, it's because I've made similar Grand Canyon visits repeatedly over the years, each commemorated with its own post on this blog.  Most recently, I visited the North Rim in July 2022.

On my first North Rim visit, in 2013, I hiked down the North Kaibab trail as far as Roaring Springs, a 9.4-mile round trip to a point three thousand vertical feet below the rim.  It was an exhilarating hike, although I arrived back at the rim, five hours after I'd set out, exhausted, thirsty, and suffering from the August heat.  Luckily there is a water fountain where i was able to refill my water bottle on the way back up, at Supai Tunnel, 1.7 miles from the top.

In 2017, as the indolence of advanced years began setting in, I made it down only as far as the Supai Tunnel, a 3.4-mile round trip.  In 2022, I ignored the trail down into the canyon completely, but did a number of hikes on trails along the rim and back into the plateau at the top.  One of those trails, the Uncle Jim Loop Trail, 4.7 miles in length, was reasonably strenuous with some steep ups and downs.  Others were longer, if one wished to go their full length, but easier walking. 

Since 2022, I've developed arthritis in one knee.  It doesn't keep me from walking reasonably long distances, but does make me cautious.  I don't see myself plunging down the North Kaibab Trail any substantial distance, certainly not to Roaring Springs, but I'll be out on other trails.

A four-day visit to the Grand Canyon from Seattle really means two full days at the canyon.  I fly to Las Vegas, rent a car, and then have a five to six hour drive to the North Rim.  But that will be plenty of time to do a little hiking; tp hang around the lodge, perched on the very rim of the canyon, enjoying the view with an IPA in hand; to have great meals in the lodge's beautiful dining room; and to sleep soundly in my very own cozy, rustic cabin.  (Grand Canyon Lodge itself has no sleeping accommodations, but is surrounded by acres of rental cabins.

The North Rim is far quieter, less touristed, and more sedate than its South Rim cousin.  It is so remote  that you feel as though you're in a separate world once there.  The fact that I can't resist returning, year after year, is the surest recommendation I can give.  I love it!

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Photo:  Sunset view from near the lodge (2017) 

Cycling the Loire

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

--Lewis Carroll

As avid readers of this blog, you are well aware that -- since late February -- I have written about little else other than my impending bike ride down France's Loire valley, and my preparations for that ride.  Five essays, in all.  So, you ask, did I do it?  Did I survive?  Was it a feat that any moderately handsome, suave, intelligent, athletic, and sincerely modest 84-year-old might accomplish?

To all such questions, I can only bow my head demurely and reply "Indeed.  Yes.  And here I am, standing before you."

In prior essays, I've focused on my concerns about the physical demands of the trip, but I want to save my comments on those questions for a later post.  For now, I'll describe the trip in general, with any comments about its physical demands offered only casually where necessary.

Our trip was originally conceived by Jim -- by far the most experienced cyclist of our group -- as a marathon ride by himself, together with anyone who had the guts to join him, from Basel, Switzerland, through the Loire valley, to the French coast.  No one jumped at the chance, but the Loire did have appeal to many of his relatives.  So, kind fellow that he is, he compromised with a route limited to a ride from Orléans down river to Tours.  This route attracted his wife Dorothy, his adult son Graham, his brother John and wife Ann, his sister Anne, and -- last but not least -- me.  As part of his compromise, he and John decided to continue biking down river from Tours to Nantes, and then south along the coast to La Rochelle.  Even as I write, they should be relaxing after the fourth day of this extension.

For Jim, I suspect, the attraction was primarily the biking itself.  For many of the rest of us, certainly for me, the biking, like hiking, was a means of locomotion, and the objective was the chateaux and natural beauty of the Loire valley. For me, especially, because the horrors of arthritis make long distance hiking virtually  impossible and biking offers an acceptable alternative.  But for all of us, the fun of biking and the esthetic and intellectual appreciation of the sights and history we encountered are so intertwined that separating them makes little sense.

Our group gathered on May 11 in Paris, where we had booked rooms for three nights in a hotel near the Austerlitz station.  For some of us, this was a first visit to Paris; for all of us, Paris offers sights that are well worth seeing regardless of prior visits.  While still waiting for our room to become available, after a long flight from the U.S., Jim and I discovered that our hotel was almost adjacent to the Jardin des Plantes, sort of an arboretum for growing things smaller than trees.  It was surprisingly beautiful, extensive, and interesting, and was but the first of many fortuitous pleasures we ran into in the city.

The next day we followed my suggestion that, rather than select a specific sight to visit, we should just begin walking along the Seine, which flowed not far from our  hotel.  We walked down past Notre Dame and through the Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde.  Then, tired, after five hours of walking, we acquainted ourselves with the Paris Metro for our return to home base. 

The two highlights of our Paris visit, for me, were (1) the Eiffel Tower, which I'd summited with my nephew Denny and our friend Chris in 1997, but which was every bit as much fun to do a second time in 2024, and (2) attending a performance of Scarlatti's "Stabat Mater" in the incredibly beautiful chapel of Sainte Chapelle. 

But by May 14, we were itching to sample the pleasures of the Loire, and we left Austerlitz station by train, headed for Orléans. The next morning, a minion of the organizer of our unguided tour arrived with our bicycles and made sure each fit its intended rider.  Jim, Dorothy, and John had normal road bikes; we other four had chosen electric-assisted bikes (which we were relieved to learn were by far the most popular form of bikes used by the hordes of cycling tourists). The truck then drove off.  We were left with bookings at hotels in Beaugency, Blois, Mosnes, Amboise (2 nights), and Tours.  We were also left with an app containing maps and directions, and, hopefully, with sufficient native intelligence and common sense to get us through the next six days.

Each day was the same in some respects.  We had breakfast, usually quite substantial buffet breakfasts, at our hotel.  By 9 a.m. or so, we were on the road.  The mileage covered each day varied from 8 miles to about 30 miles.  The suggested time varied from about 1½ hours to about 3½ hours, but we generally exceeded those benchmarks rather substantially.  This was especially true for the last two days of biking, where frequent intersections or forks in the road caused our convoy to stop, study the situation and our maps, and proceed -- usually but not always without argument.  Upon arrival at our hotel, we might rest a bit and then check out the sights.  For the first couple of nights, there wasn't much but a small town to walk around in.  But we visited the first of our major chateaux -- Chateau de Chambord, the largest chateau in the Loire valley -- en route to Blois.  Unfortunately, we could only view the exterior, and the exterior from a distance, as there was an admission and tour charge, and firm fences fairly far away from the actual chateau.  We were short of time because a defect in Graham's bike had taken time for the rental company to respond and to correct.

Once we reached Amboise -- the second to last stop -- we hit the chateau jackpot, however.  We visited Clos Lucé -- the final residence of Leonardo da Vinci who had come to France at the invitation of King Francis I -- when we reached the city.  The next day, we took a city bus about 20 minutes to the Chateau de Chenonceau --ignoring the official tour's instructions to bicycle some thirty miles round trip to Chenonceau during our "rest" day in Amboise.  Chenonceau is probably the best known of the Loire chateaux, notable for its extension by way of a bridge, containing long impressive galleries -- over the River Cher.  And then, after our return to Amboise, while others tended to various affairs, I explored the Chateau Royal which looms on a cliff over the Amboise downtown.

Our final day's ride was to Tours -- a short 17-mile ride that required about four hours to complete.  The route deviated from the river and wound along an intricate network of roads through the famous Vouvray vineyards.  The scenery was beautiful and the small villages we passed through possessed a quiet intimacy that was strangely attractive.  But half way through the ride, the heavens opened and we rode for probably two hours through a continuous downpour.  I had laughed at bringing rain gear, as the others had -- "Hey, I'm from Seattle.  We don't dissolve when we get wet!"  The temperatures were in the 60s, but eventually being soaked even at 65 can cause a chill to set in.  I was glad when we crossed the bridge into Tours and located our hotel.

No chateau to visit in Tours.  But instead, the dazzling Tours Cathedral, built between the 12th and the 16th centuries.  Incredible interior, appearing to rise almost to the clouds.

A night in Tours, and then five of us took a TGV train to the Paris airport where we stayed in an airport hotel.  The next day -- May 22 -- we were on our way home.  Over way too quickly, but with lots of wonderful memories.  (And the other two, brothers Jim and John, well, they're still pedaling along, and still have adventures lying ahead.) 

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PHOTO -- Chateau de Chenonceau

Wandering about Italy

 

I've written about little else recently, so those of you who consult my blog frequently should be aware that I fly out of Seattle for Paris on Friday.  I now find myself in that half-pleasant, half-disquieting period when all preparations have been made, my packing list has been drawn up, nothing remains to be done but to pack -- but when it's much too early to begin packing. 

So I sit around idly, worrying about how the cats will survive without me (they'll do just fine), and waiting for the remaining hours to pass.

The weather is improving, as predicted, and so I'll do one final bike run either tomorrow or Wednesday.

I've been reading Bill Bryson's 1992 comic account of wandering about Europe, apparently as a youthful 40-year-old, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe.  Traveling with a backpack and without advance bookings, as I had twenty years before him, but with a far greater supply of travelers checks to bail him out when necessary than I had ever enjoyed.

But his experiences and mine were close enough to remind me of how much fun it is to travel from place to place on your own, without following an itinerary, even an unguided itinerary, set by a trekking company.  (I had done something similar to Bryson's wandering as late as 1999, when I traveled for a couple of weeks in eastern Europe.)

I always relied on tourist offices at railway stations to find myself a cheap hotel.  Bryson did so occasionally, as well, but he seems to have spent a lot of time wandering about the city, heavy pack on his back, looking for hotels in parts of town where few hotels existed.  He then so exhausts himself, at times, that he ends up paying a lot for a marginally acceptable room in an expensive hotel.  I preferred a little more certainty, of the sort that the official travel offices afforded.

Now, of course, we have Expedia and other services on the internet.  I can book hotels far in advance, if I want to arrange some sort of itinerary for myself, or even at the last minute on arrival in a city, using my iPhone.  Smart phones, the internet, and universal acceptance of credit/debit cards makes things easy.

I'm leading up to the announcement that -- replacing my hoped-for stay on the banks of Lake Como with friends and family for a fourth straight year in August -- I'm arranging a solo wandering about northern Italy on my own.  I've more or less arbitrarily -- guided by airline prices -- booked flights going on August 23 and returning on September 9.  

Before actually booking the flights, I had already booked a hotel for five nights -- the same hotel I stayed in a year ago -- in Florence.  Florence was where I studied for six months as an undergraduate, and it's the city I've returned to time after time.  My return visits have always been just long enough to revisit some of my favorite Florentine sites, before moving on.  This time, I hope also to use Florence as a base for day trips to various towns in the surrounding Tuscan countryside, ones that I've already visited, perhaps, like Lucca and Siena, but also smaller towns that played a role in the Renaissance history of art and politics.

After I had nailed down my airline and Florence hotel bookings, I began planning where else to visit.  To date, I've added Rome (for my arrival and departure), Como (not my old haunt in Rezzonico, but just the city itself), and Venice (which I last visited in 1974).  That leaves four nights still to be filled.  I'll take my time and choose carefully.  My schedule, as it now stands:

2 nights in Rome

5 nights in Florence

2 nights in Como

2 nights in Venice

4 nights (to be decided)

1 night in Rome

I rather like Italy, as you may have gathered.  More information as my plans firm up.  

Once I return from successfully biking my way down the Loire river valley!
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(June 3)  Change the "4 nights (to be decided)" to:

1 night in Milan
2 nights in Riomaggiore
1 night (to be decided)

My number two post for April!

In the years since 2007, when this blog was founded, I don't believe I have ever passed through a month when I posted only one entry.  Fanatical fact-checkers may work their way through all those years and discover that I'm mistaken.  If so, I concede graciously, while wondering at the absence of better ways of spending one's time.  (But I grow bitingly sarcastic in my Old Age.)

Whatever.  Whatever my past history, I don't want April 2024 to be a one-post month.  Hence, this post -- my second after my discussion in mid-month of my forthcoming biking trip, a trip that is now only ten days away.

I still have no thoughts -- whether approving, disapproving, or merely puzzled -- about the state of the world and its many obsessions.  I suspect that as I grow older, I've more or less given up on Man's Fate.  I hope not.  Only the future can tell.

But what I am interested in is my upcoming travels to and within France.  In preparation, as noted in my last post, I've been going on distance rides of similar length to what I'll confront in the Loire Valley.  I had reached 22 miles two weeks ago.  I've done rides of 24 and 26 miles since then, plus a few shorter rides just to keep limbered up.  Only one day on the actual tour exceeds 26 miles -- the second day, between Beaugency and Blois, will be thirty miles.  I don't think I need to reach that mileage here at home to be prepared -- thirty miles is just like 26 miles but a little longer.  If I'm wrong, I'll wait and be surprised.

I've been averaging about two bike rides per week.  I would have done more, but we've had persistent rain -- never a lot, but always enough to make me reluctant to get too far from home and find that "showers" have turned into "hours-long downpour." The weather looks good for tomorrow, and I think I'll ride 20 miles in the afternoon.  The ten-mile point on the Burke-Gilman trail, the turn-around point, measured from my house, itself a long mile from the trail itself -- has the fortuitous benefit of being marked by a friendly Starbucks.  I can stop for R&R -- a little caffeine, a free glass of water, a little rest for my tender rear end -- before beginning the ride back home.

I should note that the Burke-Gilman trail itself is worth riding.  It follows the shore of Lake Washington, passes through very nice neighborhoods, and is beautifully landscaped in forested land that makes you forget that urban Seattle is just a block distant from the trail.  So my practice rides are fun and rewarding, as well as a bit laborious.  Just as the Loire will be, once I'm there, I suspect.

Wish me well, and I'll summarize the experience upon my return.  (Yeah!  I've now done two posts in April!)
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Photo -- Park in the Matthews Beach area, alongside the Burke-Gilman trail.

Keep on pedaling

Twenty-five days from now, I fly out of Seattle, meeting up the next morning with six friends (everyone but me related by blood or marriage) in Paris.  After three nights in Paris, we take the train to Orléans.  The following day we will be outfitted with bikes and begin our six day bike ride down the Loire river valley.

We will start out strong, riding 25 miles the first day and 30 miles the second a beginning which still seems somewhat formidable.  Our distances will vary from 8 miles to 30 miles, with the average being 21 miles.  Three of us will be riding standard road bikes; the rest of us will be riding electric-assisted bikes.

I will be one of the latter.  In my prime, thirty miles on a standard bike would have been unremarkable.  In 1998, my nephew and I rode fifty miles, our first day in Southern China, in 95 degree weather.  We were tired at the end of that first day's ride, but nothing that a cold beer at our hotel couldn't cure.

My last ride of any length -- nothing approaching that Chinese adventure -- was in Laos in 2007.  Since then, I've ridden only occasionally around town.  I slid past my 84th birthday last month.  I therefore feel entitled to a little "electricity" in my life.  In fact, if it weren't for the availability of the electric bikes, I probably wouldn't have attempted this year's ride in France.

Which would have been a pity.  The arthritis in my knee, of which I've already complained bitterly, makes the daily hiking that has played so central a role in my vacations become pretty much impossible.  But a bike ride, although using muscles in your leg, doesn't stress the knee joint.  In fact, along with swimming, biking is a most highly recommended exercise for arthritis sufferers who want to stay in any sort of physical condition.

So, about a month ago, I rented an electric bike for a day, and took it out on the Burke Gilman bicycle trail near my  home to see how it went.  I was delighted with discovering that it caused no discomfort at all to my knee (or to my Achilles tendon in the other leg, which at that time was still a problem).  I completed a ride of 13 miles, and cut it short at that point not because of any leg problems, but because my butt was getting quite sore sitting on the bike's saddle.  

It wasn't until the next day that I found out that my leg muscles -- not my joint, the muscles -- were so sore and weak that I could hardly walk.  But as a hiker, I'm used to that kind of pain.  It means your muscles are beginning to strengthen in reaction to stress.

So my muscles needed strengthening, and my rear end needed callousing.  I needed to do some training rides.  I hauled my long-disused road bike out of the basement, had it checked out and oiled, and its tires inflated, and began riding.  (I also bought a couple pair of padded bicycle shorts.).

Eighteen days ago, I set out on a modest route that took me 3.4 miles.  Revelatory.  I found out that on a level course -- such as a bike trail -- you really don't need the electric assistance.  An ordinary 21-speed road bike is just as easy to pedal, and easier to handle when you're not pedaling.  But there will be times on the Loire when the route gets a bit hilly, and the power assistance will be important.  The next day, I rode 10.8 miles, and the day after that 12.6 miles.  There was then a period when I had relatives visit, and I missed a week or so of practice rides.

Unfortunate, but two weeks ago I rode 15.8 miles.  A week later, I was up to 18.8 miles, and last Friday I reached 22 miles -- longer than the average daily ride on our tour.  At this point, additional miles are far easier to achieve than they were at the outset.

In the final 25 days before departure, I want to get my mileage up to 30 miles.  I also want to make sure that riding, say, three days in a row doesn't tax my endurance.  Or my rear end.

But things are coming along well, and on schedule.  Actually, better than the schedule I had planned in advance.  I'm definitely excited about our ride, and trust I'll still be happy and in good physical shape when we pull into Tours on our last day, before taking the train back to Paris.

Birthday surprises

Hear that whine?  That continuing whine over the years, as I tiresomely complain that my far-flung family members so rarely visit Seattle?  

Well, that whine settled down to a purr this past weekend, as I reached yet another in a succession of scary birthdays.  I had known for months that my sister planned to visit me for my birthday, much as good-hearted women have always visited the sick and the lonely and the bereaved.

And she arrived five days before my birthday, for a week's stay.  Her travel from central Idaho was not without incident, however, as her new car was crushed by a falling boulder not long after leaving her house.  Repairs would take days, if not weeks.  Luckily, the repair shop already had custody of her youngest son's ancient car, awaiting a new suspension system.  Yes, she could exchange cars, her son agreed, and so she engaged the manual clutch and lurched and bounded across two mountain ranges like a character in a jalopy in a 1930s cartoon.  

But she arrived safely, if somewhat dizzy and showing signs of shock.

That was on Wednesday.  So we had good times, good conversations, some hiking in nearby parks, some eating at Seattle restaurants.  And I awaited a quiet but enjoyable birthday celebration a deux. 

Then on Sunday, I awoke from a brief afternoon nap to hear voices downstairs.  I thought that either my sister was on the phone, or we had been visited by a mutual Seattle friend.  I arrived in the living room, and saw the back of a head on the sofa, a head that was quite unlike that of the female friend.  I cautiously walked into the room and -- it was my brother!  A brother who doesn't do all that much travel out of California.  He had flown up from Palm Springs, just for the occasion.  I was stunned and delighted.  We all three went out to dinner at a very good neighborhood Italian restaurant.  (Yes, the lasagna was excellent.)

The next day, Monday, my birthday, the three of us were chatting in the living room, in preparation for a dinner at a very good seafood restaurant overlooking Puget Sound.  I had been half expecting our Seattle friend to join us -- if not for dinner, at least to wish me a Happy Birthday -- so I wasn't surprised when I heard a loud knocking on the door.  I was surprised, however, when I opened the door.  There, grin on his face, stood my oldest nephew, up from San Francisco.  He had expected to join us the day before, but there had been mechanical problems with the flight from San Francisco, and he had departed a day late.  

I now understood the number of changes that kept being made at my sister's request to the number of guests on the dinner reservation -- changes that had been attributed to supposed questions as to whether our Seattle friend was able to attend.  Instead, both my nephew and his father, himself a resident of Seattle, joined the three of us.

The dinner was topped off with a birthday cake my sister had brought with her, which was put on a plate and  served for a mere $20 restaurant "corkage" fee.  Well worth it.  And I think there were five candles on the cake -- I was grateful that the full actual number were not displayed, which would, in fact, probably have violated local fire code regulations.

So it was one of the best birthdays I've had in years.  And it would have been so, even if we had done nothing but gathered together at my house and talked.  

You just can't beat a family get-together, regardless of the pretext.  Especially when you live isolated in the "Northwest Corner."

Septdecennial

 

Yes, today is the seventeenth anniversary of my first blog post.  On March 20, 2007, after several hours fiddling around with setting up a blog, I posted:

Ok, my friend. Now that you've spent too much time deciding how this blog page should appear esthetically, and even more time deciding how best to present to the indifferent world an idealized description of your ever-important Self, you really might want to decide what it is you're going to write about. Don't you think?

Gosh and golly ... I stare off into space ... and await inspiration.

After 1,580 posts, I still find myself at times asking myself the same question.

In calendar year 2023, I posted 52 times -- the worst showing in all of my seventeen years.  I can't explain it, even though it was the end result of a three-year downward trend.  I just hope it was, in fact, the "end" and that things will be looking up in the future

As for this past year, I'll follow last year's example and not provide a "most popular" list.  The constant activity of robots scanning blogs now makes those figures somewhat meaningless. 

I do have a few personal favorites, but this year those almost all were related to my personal travels, not to issues of general interest.  I'll try to be more generally appealing in the year to come.

 

Friends again with my trusty bike

 

The photo above shows my road bike when it was still young and bright and shiny.  It was used to illustrate a short essay that I posted in June 2008, when I was considering joining a friend in a group ride across the wilds of Darkest Iowa.  My friend did it; I seem to have chickened out.

In my essay, while still pondering the Iowa boondoggle, I considered some preparation:

Ok, I'll dust my little friend off this weekend, fill his tires up (I see they've gone flat) and oil his chain, haul him upstairs, and take him out for a spin.

That was pretty much the last time that I gave my bike much attention; it has sat brooding in the basement, its spirits and its tires deflated, until now.

Today, I pushed it, deflated tires and all, some three or four blocks to the bike shop.  They will give it a careful examination -- cleaning, lubing, tightening -- as well as inflating the tires.  They will do this for only $90, unless the tires prove no longer sound enough to be safe for driving.  With new tubes, they would add another $70 to the bill.

I should have it back in my hands by tomorrow afternoon.  My test ride of an e-bike last Friday convinced me that the biking we plan for the Loire Valley in May will neither injure nor irritate my arthritic knee.  But it also showed me that my leg muscles -- those used for pedaling rather than walking  -- have been disused for too long.  They need a work out.

And that's what I plan to give them between now and May.  With my old pal, the road bike.  Who was already perking up at the attention I gave it before taking it to the bike shop.  He'll be beaming with happiness, like a puppy coming home from a kennel, all shiny and polished, when I go to pick him up tomorrow.

Me and my bike.  A team!

St. John Passion

On Saturday -- half way through Lent, and just three weeks before the Easter weekend -- I attended the performance by the Seattle Symphony, joined by the Symphony's Chorale, of the St. John Passion by J. S. Bach.

The work was  played by an orchestra considerable larger than would have been used in Bach's time -- a fairly full orchestra and a large chorale, with four soloists.  The Passion was sung in German with easily readable super titles provding an English translation projected high above the stage.

More so than do most concert pieces, even those with a religious theme, the St. John Passion tends to arouse actual devotional emotions in the audience, or at least it did so in me.

I was totally unfamiliar with the work; so far as I can recall, I had never heard it even from recordings.  The performance lasted for two hours, with a twenty-minute intermission.  As the title suggests, the "plot" follows the story of Christ's arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial, as related in chapters 18 and 19 of St. John's Gospel.  The gospel is presented in sung recitative, with the voices of the major characters -- e.g., Jesus, Pilate, Peter -- sung by soloists.  

Most of us are well familiar with the gospel reading --  John ch. 18-19 is the traditional reading for Good Friday services.  But Bach's Passion goes beyond the words of the gospel, interspersing arias and choruses suggesting the proper emotional response from the congregation/audience,  and exhorting us to prayers of thanksgiving and of devotion.  Most stirring, perhaps, are the numerous chorales sung by the full chorus, based on Lutheran hymns familiar to Bach's original German audiences.

The music of at least one short chorale "Jesu Leiden, Pein und Tod" seemed clearly familiar to me, or at least reminiscent of a similar-sounding hymn.

A very full house in Benaroya Hall, with a larger than usual number of receptive children and teens in attendance with their parents.  I myself am sorry that I'd never heard this work by Bach before.  If I have the chance to attend another performance some day, I'll definitely do so.

The gospel story ends with Christ's body being sealed in the tomb.

Rest well, you blessed limbs,
now I will no longer mourn you,
rest well and bring me also to peace!
The grave that is allotted to you
and encloses no further suffering,
opens heaven for me and closes off Hell.

I left the auditorium looking forward to Easter morning. 

Getting prepared

As discussed in my last post, I fly to France in May to join friends on an e-bike ride down the Loire river valley.  I leave Seattle on May 10, spend three nights in Paris, and then take the train to Orléans on May 14.  My seat will first touch the saddle after breakfast on May 15.

May 15, which is just over two months from now.

In my February 26 post, about two weeks ago, I sounded more convinced than I actually felt that the arthritis in my right knee would not trouble my biking.  Even biking of twenty miles a day.  I recalled  that last August, when the arthritis was still less a problem than was my left ankle Achilles tendinitis, I seemed to do fine biking ten miles a day for two days.

But in France, I'll be biking an average of 21 miles per day, with one day requiring 29 miles.

I needed some evidence that my confidence was not unfounded.  And so, on Friday I conducted an experiment.  I rented an e-bike from my neighborhood bicycle shop, and connected to the nearby Burke-Gilman bike trail, which parallels the west side of Lake Washington up to its northern tip.  My goal was to bike from my house to the small town of Lake Forest Park, a total of eleven miles.  With the return trip, I would have biked 22 miles, approximating the average daily ride required in France.

I didn't achieve that goal.  I turned around at the 6.5-mile mark, for a total of 13 miles.  But my knee (and my left Achilles tendon, as well) did great.  I had no pain in either location while biking, or that evening after biking, or the next day.  I met my Waterloo at 6.5 miles, not because of my knee/ankle concerns, but because of a very sore butt!

The rental e-bike came equipped with a very narrow, hard-surfaced saddle, which became increasingly uncomfortable on my un-calloused rear-end.  Also, I was wearing street clothes, just a pair of jeans.  I think I can handle the seat problem with a pair of padded biking shorts, together with a substituted padded saddle.  Plus a little more time acclimating to the experience.

Even more unsettling, although it didn't occur to me until the end of the ride, was the fact that my thigh muscles weren't used to prolonged peddling.  I haven't biked for years, and my daily walks have been severely shortened because of my knee problem.. By the next morning, it was difficult to walk when I first got out of bed, and painful the entire day.  By today, the second day after my ride, that pain has pretty well disappeared.  But I have to be ready to ride six consecutive days in France, so I obviously need to get in better shape.

I have a standard road bike that I haven't used for several years, but that seems to be in good condition.  Except the tires have gone flat with time.  Once the tires are pumped up, I plan to spend some time riding it around the neighborhood, just enough to leave me with a little discomfort in my thighs after each ride.  I've prepared for similar rides in the past -- although not since 2007 -- and had no difficulty being prepared by the time of the group ride.

But I'll be careful,  My nephew and I joined a group bike ride in China in 1998.  One of the members of our group lived not far from my home in Seattle.  He didn't appear for the trip, but his wife did.  Her husband apparently had been preparing for the ride conscientiously, with daily rides on Seattle streets.  At some point, disaster struck and he was thrown from his bike.  No permanent damage, but a severe enough injury to prevent him from joining our China trip.

I'll pretty much stick to bike trail rides, but even there something can always go wrong.  But life is full of risks.  As we like to tell folks scared of flying, their greater danger will be an auto accident on the way to the airport.

Further reports in the future, as events warrant.

Biking down the Loire

It's been two months since I last complained in this my blog about being afflicted by the one-two punch of  tendinitis in my left Achilles tendon and arthritis in my right knee.  Don't assume that my silence means that these afflictions have gone away like magic.  Or that I'm no longer suffering from all the disruption to my favorite activities that they cause.

Actually, the tendinitis is considerably improved, and I have hopes that the tendon and related muscles are gradually healing.  The arthritis, however, .... well, arthritis doesn't really "get better," so far as I know.  Most sources say that the best you can do is to slow down the degeneration until you either pass on to a better and less painful world, or pay for an artificial knee.  I'm nowhere ready for the latter, and hopefully am not looking at a near approach of the former.

These problems, taken together, kept me from taking part in a pre-paid  hike with friends in Scotland last August.  But, as reported to you, I nevertheless joined the group and traveled by baggage van each day, joining the hikers when they arrived at each day's target town.  

Except for two days, when I stayed with the group on a bicycle.  A bicycle.

I found that bike riding bothered neither my tendinitis nor my arthritis.  Unfortunately, the remaining days of the hike were over terrain too rough -- at least in my estimation -- to make for comfortable biking.

But now we come to 2024.  Same fellow hikers.  But this year we are planning to be fellow bikers.  My university friend Jim is an untiring biker, and has taken part in weeks-long group rides throughout the U.S.A. -- including one ride from the east coast to the west coast.  

So Jim has organized a bike ride through the chateau-infested Loire Valley in France, two and a half months from now in May.   As with our past hikes in Britain, he is working through an organization that arranges each night's accommodations, as well as provides maps and tour descriptions.  They also arrange for bike rentals.

We will be a group of seven.  Two of us -- Jim and his brother John -- are purists who will ride conventional road bikes.  The rest of us will ride e-bikes.  The entire group will ride from Orléans to Tours.  After a day's rest in Tours, the two hardy brothers will continue on to Nantes near the coast, and then south to La Rochelle.  The rest of us will return to Paris from Tours, and then home.

The ride as far as Tours is rated as "Easy."  We will be biking six days on mainly level terrain, with daily miles ranging from eight to 29 miles, averaging out to about 21 miles per day.

We plan to spend four days before the ride in Paris, training for the ride by consuming ample provisions of truffles, cassoulet, bouillabaisse, and coq au vin -- washed down with hearty French wines. 

 Getting to bed by 1 a.m.

Should be great. Wish me luck!