Roadblogging: Seattle, Again

I spent the last 20 minutes wrangling with a post of photos and captions that did not want to line up properly. And finally said fuck it and deleted the whole thing. Instead of photos, words.

This is probably the last epic road trip I will make with my son for a long time, and certainly the last one of this nature, when he's still a kid--an almost-17 kid, but kid nonetheless--and there are a few vestiges yet of him looking to me to show the way. After two weeks and the long drive home looming in just a few days, we have simultaneously been gone forever and only just left.

Planning this trip I thought it would be mostly camping and fishing, with college visits the official excuse for taking three weeks of vacation to traipse across the Pacific Northwest. It hasn't quite turned out that way, with far more hotels and sushi bars than tents and wriggling silver fins and scales on the end of a line, but that's okay. He's not the dirt-rolled camping critter he was when he was five, and my aching shoulder is probably better off for having spent more nights on a bed than on a Thermarest. We never had much luck catching fish anyway, and our tortillas got soaked, so...

So we drive from city to city, mostly me behind the wheel but sometimes him as I clutch the armrest and try to keep my voice modulated. We take scenic routes when we come across them, the slow meander through the redwoods and the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge making up for the scuttled plans of camping on the Oregon coast, his unmasked wonder at the giant trees and quiet, impossibly green moss-draped rocks and rushing streams bringing me a deep satisfaction and pride. I am glad he has seen these things and found them beautiful. I am glad it was with me. Even though the larger waterfalls themselves were crowded with other tourists, we somehow managed to be the only car on the roads between them, allowing a slow, solitary exploration unintruded by other people.

He plucks a long strand of grass from the rock and pokes it into my ear as we walk up the trail and says nature fight! and grins.

Magic moments are hard to come by. I'll take these.

Roadblogging: Seattle

Dear Seattle's University of Washington District,

Your road system sucks.

Blow me,
Boltgirl

Roadblogging: Washington

George, Washington. Really. And is his picture on the water tower? Of course it is.

Roadblogging: the Fishing Report

Smith Creek, Oregon. See all the fish? Yeah, we didn't either.

No fish here.


Sigh. Is there nothing this woman cannot do better than me?

I guess I can live with it.

Roadblogging: Portland

This is where the adventure really began for me the last time I was up this way, after 24 near-solid hours of driving, when I pulled off the historic Columbia River highway at La Tourelle Falls for oatmeal, tea, and tipple of bourbon on a cold gray late December morning. This time around promises to be very different, with a summertime view replacing the fat snowflakes that started in earnest by the time I hit Multnomah, and the company of my boy being far better than flying solo.

Damage report so far: one smashed shin (courtesy of a post in a campground on the Redwood Highway) and one squashed thumb (incurred next to the Umpqua River while splitting firewood off an old stump that retained much more spring than anticipated; still numb three days later).

About that Redwood Highway: damn. The Avenue of the Giants--actually an old stretch of 101 before it was realigned--is a 31-mile alternate route running along Highway 101 from Phillipsville to Pepperwood that cuts through virgin stands of Coast Redwoods. Ignore the clusters of kitsch that have sprung up in small communities around some of the groves (does anyone really need a ten-foot Bullwinkle chainsawed out of a giant tree trunk?) and spend an hour trundling along the road at the bases of the biggest trees on the planet. You've probably seen pictures of the big redwoods, but they cannot compare to seeing them with your own eyes, standing next to a trunk that's bigger than your kitchen. I felt like a hobbit. The deep, deep shade, the quiet, the realization that I did not know what the needles on the trees looked like because they were too far up for me to see them, and trying to comprehend the two thousand years of time some of them have spent slowly growing up, up, up into the sky while entire civilizations have risen and fallen and the trees haven't noticed at all... that's awe-inducing like little else.

Big tree. Small Boltgirl.

Driving through Oregon on I-5 is a lot like driving through parts of southern Illinois and Indiana, albeit with big hills on the horizon and a lot more conifers. Farms, barns, small towns with beat-up sloping curbs and grass growing out of the cracks and tractors holding up traffic. It is familiar and soothing. I wonder sometimes at my tendency to see new places through the lens of what I already know, evaluating them by their goodness-of-fit with the familiar. Wondering at the perpetual longing for home.

Portland itself is pretty okay. This is the city many people in Tucson point to as a model for what Tucson should strive to become, and really, who wouldn't want that kind of celebration of cultural diversity, historic preservation, green zones, a river walk, and arguably the best public transportation system in the country? I'm not sure how Tucson gets over the stumbling block of a river that doesn't actually have water in it, though, not counting summer monsoon runoff and effluent from the sewer plant. But! We are busily laying track for the new streetcar, which is modeled on Portland's but will unfortunately run on a limited and somewhat puzzling route (the hospital? really?). I hope our streetcar comes with cop car-style bumpers or, alternately, wonder how much it costs to fix streetcars that will inevitably be rear-ended, sideswiped, t-boned, or smashed from the front. They're going to be sharing the street with Tucson traffic, after all.

Today, the Confederations Cup final and Chinatown, possibly with a side trip to Powell's. And the blissful disconnection from the world will continue for another few days.

Roadblogging: San Francisco

Wow. Nice city they got here. This is my first time in San Francisco, and I love the little bite-sized central city with so much stuff packed into it. You can walk everywhere, even with all the goddamn hills in the middle of things, and it's all quite interesting. I'm sitting halfway up a hotel near Ghirardelli Square, looking out at the occasional seagull wheeling over a very foggy bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is hiding, mostly successfully, but I'm hoping it makes an appearance later.

We dutifully trekked up and down Lombard Street. I am fascinated by the rumble of the cables running underneath Hyde; the boy is intrigued by the number of very small dogs people walk up and down Van Ness. We both liked the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf and wondered about a life spent flopping on a dock saying arf arf arf all day long. Maybe the occasional fish makes it worthwhile.

This afternoon it's back in the car and up the road to the Sonoma coast, and possibly very chilly, blustering camping on the beach. Could be invigorating, could suck. We'll see.

Historical Chicago History Post

Getting back to my summer vacation before it hits the month-ago mark... I spent the July 4 weekend in the city doing a few things I'd done before and seeing a whole lot more I'd managed to miss during the nine years I lived there.

First stop: the site of the Haymarket Riot of 1886. From the plaques at the base of the memorial, which depicts labor activists speaking from a wagon before the meeting turned ugly:

On the evening of May 4th, 1886, a tragedy of international significance unfolded on this site in Chicago's Haymarket produce district. An outdoor meeting had been hastily organized by anarchist activists to protest the violent death of workers during a labor lockout the previous day in another area of the city. Spectators gathered in the street as speakers addressed political, social, and labor issues from atop a wagon that stood at the location of this monument. When approximately 175 policemen approached with an order to disperse the meeting, a dynamite bomb was thrown into their ranks.

The Haymarket Memorial, 151 N. Desplaines St.

The short version of the aftermath is that 7 cops and 4 civilians were killed by the bomb, thrown from Crane's Alley, here:

Crane's Alley, east side of Desplaines.

The slightly longer version is that, despite the failure to identify the bomber by either name or affiliation, the organizers of the meeting and several other people with unpopular pro-labor political beliefs were arrested and imprisoned after sham trials. Two organizers and two speakers were executed; another was murdered in prison while awaiting trial. The Haymarket Affair ultimately became a rallying point for the modern labor movement.

From the memorial at Desplaines and Randolph, it was a decent walk down to the ultimate Chicago historical site: the origin point of the Great Fire. The O'Learys built their barn on DeKoven Street just east of Jefferson. October 8, 1871: cow, lantern, wind, history.

Poof.

The red brick building behind the monument? The one that says "Chicago Fire..."? Yeah, the full sign reads "Chicago Fire Academy." Too fittingly, the original fire site was taken over by the fire department to build their training academy; the back of the brick building is lit up at regular intervals to teach cadet firefighters how to ameliorate the effects of modern day O'Learys.

Boltgirl demonstrates callous disregard. It wasn't me, honest!

From there, a stroll up to the south Loop, where Dearborn Station overlooks the south end of Printer's Row.

Dearborn Station's tower, somewhat shortened after a fire--what else?--destroyed its original high peaked roof.

Next time: fun architectural details from historic Loop buildings. For now, the Cubs won in Milwaukee and are sitting in first by four.

Off to the Floody Midwest Edition

The annual escape from Tucson in June commences tomorrow; we hop the train in Flagstaff and head east and hope the railroad bridges in southwestern Iowa are still intact. The family is converging on a small state park in southern Indiana that has been our hearts' home for the past eighty years or so. Unfortunately, it's also located smack dab in the middle of the worst flooding Indiana has seen, ever. The park itself is up on a hill above the White River, but we buy our beer in the little town of Spencer, which is at the bottom of the hill and now under the White River. Hundreds of people have been evacuated so far. The river was expected to crest last night and recede through this week, but more storms are rolling in on Friday, right before we turn up.

McCormick's Creek usually looks like this:

A mellow little waterfall.

This is what it looked like last week:


Less so.

Anyway. Should we come through the floodwaters unscathed, I have an additional week and a half in the Chicago area, most of which is likely to be spent playing cards and drinking wine on my aunt and uncle's back porch. Intermittent nature, culture, and drunken birdwatching posting from Chicago is possible in a couple of weeks, but given the current sorry state of our laptop's modem, it may be a check-back-in-July kind of deal.

In Which We Do Not Want To Come Home

Upside to visiting Chicago: love it. Downside: never want to leave.

Wednesday was exactly the sort of perfect June day that blots out memories of the CTA breakdowns, interminable expressway construction, and perpetual March slush that tend to make people decide to move someplace else. Today the cool breezes under a warm sun drew us downtown for unapologetic tourism.

The Bean!

The formal name of this wonderful hunk of steel is "Cloud Gate," but everyone calls it the Bean. We love the Bean. Essentially a giant parabolic mirror, it squats in the middle of Millennium Park, happily reflecting both the skyline and its adoring fans in all sorts of interesting ways. People can't keep their hands off it. Everyone pats it. Small children hug it. It inspires big goofy grins.

Boltgirl and family wave parabolically from the awesome curvy surface of the Bean.

Walk underneath and look up to see yourself there and there and there and there...

More stunning architecture is on display in the Pritzker Pavilion, an amazing outdoor music venue with a lawn the size of a few football fields covered by an open lattice of curving poles. The Grant Park orchestra was rehearsing when we walked through, and the acoustics were thoroughly good.

Full orchestra nestled in the cavernous maw of Pritzker Pavilion.

View of Michigan Avenue through the latticework of the Pritzker lawn.

From Millennium Park, it's a quick hop, skip, and bus to Navy Pier. We walked the thousand yards out to the end to watch the boats go by and listen to the seagulls shriek. Then it was back to the train that pulled out of downtown faster than I would have liked, into the last few days of being in Illinois for a while.

Grand Ballroom at the end of Navy Pier, at the end of a perfect day.

Magicicada sp.

They are... everywhere.

Sunday morning I decided it was time to seek out the 17-year-olds of Cicada Brood XIII in person. I have a long and complicated relationship with these bugs, although most of it revolves around the hideously large, plump, and green annual version. As a wee child in southern Illinois I would be out on a fine summer afternoon, minding my own business, climbing a tree, when crunch, my hand would come down on a shed exoskeleton stuck on a branch. Or I would be skipping barefoot down the sidewalk and crunchsquish, would tromp on top of a dead or dying bug.

It's a history filled mostly with intense heebie-jeebies.

I know cicadas are utterly harmless. I appreciate their interesting life cycle. I chuckle at the consternation hordes of them are able to produce in rational human beings, myself included. None of that stopped me from even beginning to resent the catalpa trees in my hometown since they seemed to be a particular favorite congregating place for the little bastards.

Anyway. Sunday afternoon we were off to the Morton Arboretum in the western suburbs, since we heard the cicadas were there in pretty impressive numbers. "Pretty impressive" may be accurate if it can be construed to mean "holy fucking shit" times about a million. Cicadas flying through the air. Cicadas buzzing around trees like bees around the snowcone booth at the county fair.

The visuals were nice. But the audio portion of the presentation was mind-blowing. We could hear them through closed car windows driving the city streets on our way to the arboretum, at least when the car slowed down. Actually on the grounds, the sound was much louder. And then we parked to hike into the woods a bit, where it was louder still, growing louder and louder the deeper into the trees we walked. Maybe a quarter of a mile in the sound was absolutely punishing on the ears, a steady pulsing background sound topped with a second song that rose and fell as hundreds of thousands of bugs vibrated their abdominal membranes in unison. I have never experienced anything like it.

Back at the arboretum visitor center, I grabbed a "Cicada 2007" t-shirt and took it to the nice older lady at the cash register. As I reached down into my bag to get my wallet, I noticed a cicada on my shirt, crawling on my right boob, and took great pride in not yelling or flapping around. I calmly flicked the bug off, not viciously, I didn't think, just, uh, forcefully enough for it to land about ten feet away. The old lady sighed sadly, "Ohhh..." I thought about apologizing, but did I mention it was on my boob? So I just shrugged and handed her my debit card, you know, the one with my undeniably female first and middle names printed on it, and she recovered and finished the transaction, smiled, handed me my stuff, and said, "Have a nice day, sir."

Shite.

Despite the gender confusion, Morton Arboretum is highly recommended, with 1,700 acres of trees and plants from different parts of the world, lovely loop roads to drive, and maybe three times that amount of trails to walk through the woods and around lakes. There is a children's garden and a nifty hedge/evergreen maze to get lost in, and the details of all of it are very nicely done.

Cubs Win! Cubs Win!

Wednesday marked the great pilgrimage to beloved landmarks--both of my former life in Chicago and the boy's fond mental images of the place. First, a stop for sustenance at Buffalo Joe's in Evanston.

Spicy wings.

The wings are perfection. Wash 'em down with waffle-cut fries and forget about the drink since it's impossible to pick up your cup due to the sauce slopped all over your fingers--the boy used his forearms--and spend the rest of the day catching sweet whiffs of hot, buttery, vinegary, peppery heaven wafting up from your hands, no matter how much soap you use afterwards.

Then I dragged the boy on a brief detour down memory lane, that being the two blocks down Sherman Avenue to Willard Residential College at Northwestern University, where I spent four beer-and-cards-soaked years. The hall was named after Frances Willard, dour founder of the Christian Women's Temperance Union.

Boltgirl and the stern, sober, disappointed glare of Frances Willard.

Thence to Wrigleyville and the color and pageantry of interleague play. Cubs flags, fans, paraphernalia, and tourists everywhere. How strange to be on the tourist side of things after so many years of being one of the knuckleheads who lined up three hours before gametime to get into the bleachers. Of course, at that time the bleachers were five bucks a pop; face value now for premium dates is $35, and the scalpers working the Clark and Addison intersection were getting $60 per bleacher ticket. Whatever. I parked my pride and pulled out my camera like the rest of the yahoos from Iowa and other suburbs.

Cubs-Sox lucha libre masks in a tourist-free comics shop.

Packed rooftops overlooking the right field bleachers.

If you click on the photo to see the large version, you'll notice two cryptic signs on the rooftop to the left of the Miller Lite billboard: Eamus Catulii and ACO036198. The numbers are a reference to the number of years since the last division title (03), last NL championship (61), and last World Series title (98). Given that, I expected "eamus catulii" to be Latin for "we're out of patience" or "how can any team suck so bad for so long," but it actually means "let's go Cubs."

We met up with my two best friends from high school (thanks for the tickets!) and settled into the best seats I've had at Wrigley in a long while, terrace box on the third base line. The six-dollar beers went down smoothly, the dogs had just the right snap, and we had a nice little reunion on Ernie Banks Day at the ballpark. In the end, the Cubs managed to pull out a one-run victory (winning a one-run game is a major miracle this season), with a strong performance from starting pitcher Sean Marshall and a closeout by Ryan Dempster, who actually looked like a major-league closer rather than somebody's drunk brother-in-law, and we happily shuffled out of the park with 40,000 other relieved people singing "Go Cubs Go" in full throat.

Andersonville

View from the Quincy Street El station.

Trains are wonderful things when they run on time. Despite being strapped for cash and perpetually on the edge of service cutbacks and fare hikes, the Regional Transportation Authority-Chicago Transit Authority tag team delivered me where I wanted to go this morning with cumulative delays totaling maybe 45 seconds. I could set my watch by the Metra train into the city, as always, and even though the Brown and Red Line tracks are under construction, the longest wait I had on a platform was about seven minutes. And if I had gone up the stairs a little faster, I would have caught the first train and not had to wait at all.

I am torn about the automated system on the CTA trains, which removed conductors from their jobs and put everything on the shoulders of the motormen. Job loss bad. Timely audible announcements good.

The object of today's solo quest was Women and Children First, a stalwart among the dwindling number of woman-owned independent bookstores in the country. Linda, one of the owners, happily showed me around and recommended several books (her list here). I ended up buying Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (autographed copy!), set in a traveling circus in the 1930s, which Linda gushed about. The book, not the circus.

Women and Children First, on Clark Street north of Foster.

Andersonville was a nice neighborhood for walking, its side streets full of big leafy trees and nice to jaw-dropping brownstones.

Brownstone, jaw-dropping variety.

And by 12:30 the neighborhood was fairly swarming with dyke couples shuttling among the Swedish bakeries, Turkish restaurants, dog delis, and sidewalk cafes. I was accosted by a well-meaning young HRC rep clutching a binder. I declined to give her any money, but thanked her for her work.

Apparently even the Baptists like us in Andersonville.

The last side trip before the return El hop back downtown and Metra out to sunny DuPage was Early to Bed, a renowned woman-owned sex toy shop. It was much smaller than I expected, far more boutique than superstore (or even Walgreen's). "I Touch Myself" was playing on the stereo when I walked in--a nice, if inadvertent touch--and the single girl behind the counter was friendly without being pushy. I guess a sex toy shop is about the last place I want a hovering sales clerk, so it worked out well for both of us. I got to see (and heft, waggle, and cautiously poke) many things I had never before seen in the flesh. It was an impressive selection. I'll leave it at that.

Celebrating the Return to Pentium M Capabilities

And to think all it took was 20 minutes on the phone with Dell tech support. The pleasant and very patient fellow sitting somewhere in India walked me through a few different attempts to get a workable wireless network key, and at the end asked me to stay on the line to take a survey telling his corporate masters how well he performed for me. "Thank you for taking the survey," he said, "and when they ask, my name is Earl." *blink blink* Okay. Thank you, Earl.

Forthwith, photos.

Old Motel Du Beau sign catching the rising sun above the Flagstaff station.

British tourists conferring in the Amtrak lounge car.

We spent most of the train ride here in the lounge car, which is graced with comfortable seats, tables, and windows that wrap up onto the ceiling. Just down the stairs is a snack bar staffed by Shirley, who cheerfully dishes out the coffee and doesn't skip a beat when you order a Heineken at six in the morning, asking only if you'd like a little bucket of ice for your bottle.

Surprisingly good photo opportunity from the lounge car, near the New Mexico-Colorado border.

Our fellow passengers were good-natured and friendly until the last few hours of the trip, when we ran into a couple that was still very friendly despite being in the process of ripping each others' throats out.

Bill: Wake up.
Rose: (sprawled in an apparent drunken stupor)
Bill: Wake up. I bought you a hot dog.
Rose: (silently re-wrapping hot dog and slamming it onto Bill's fold-out tray table)
Bill: That's ten dollars worth of food there.
Rose: I DON'T WANT A FUCKING HOT DOG, BILL.
Bill: There you go. You dishonor me by not eating this hot dog and Pepsi. It cost me ten dollars.
Rose: STOP IT, BILL. JUST FUCKING STOP IT.
Bill: I told you if you raise your voice to me we're through. Now you're raising your voice to me on a train. You are not coming home with me.
Rose: SHUT THE FUCK UP, BILL. YOU'RE DRUNK.
Bill: I am not drunk. I only had four shots this morning. You're the one who's drunk.
Rose: STOP IT, BILL. I'VE BEEN ASLEEP THIS WHOLE TIME. GO BACK TO THE FUCKING BAR.
Bill: ( deeply wounded, sniffling). You wake up mean, Rose. You wake up mean and then have to let everyone on this train know it. I only bought you a hot dog and now you raise your voice.
Rose: WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THE FUCKING HOT DOG?

Yeah, round about this point we went back to the lounge car. When we returned to our seats a couple of hours later, Rose and Bill were giggling and affectionate, surrounded by hot dog wrappers.

Bill: Hey, you see those big wind turbines out there? Isn't that cool?
My son: Uh, yeah.

Zoom

Procedure for riding in the truck with my uncle:

1. Get in.
2. Hang on.
3. Re-establish a close personal relationship with the protective deity of your choice.

Because uncle's truck apparently has two modes of operation:

1. Floor it.
2. Slam on brakes.

I like to think I'm a reasonably cautious driver. I mean, whatever the equivalent of "prude" is for driving, well, I'm not that, far from it. Maybe I've just been in Tucson too long, but I find myself thinking that, well, 35 mph in the Costco parking lot is just a bit excessive.

In other news, if there is a significant gay population in DuPage County, it hides itself well. In six days I have seen exactly one gay guy (working at Costco) and exactly zero lesbians. I didn't realize how diverse Tucson is, or at least the parts of the city I frequent, and after a week of not being in the comfortable company of people like me, I guess I'm getting a little twitchy. I go into the city a few days next week, so the ratio should change a little. And me totally out of shape. What can I say?

Morning Dialogue

Hey, my stomach said, poking me from inside the abdominal wall. Shhh, I whispered. Hey, it said more forcefully, somehow managing to wiggle its fingers through a layer of fat to grab my ribs and shake them like a bad women-in-prison movie, I'm hungry. Shush, I said. Snack on the re-emergent fat roll if you're peckish. And I continued on my walk.

This morning was hideously humid, the harbinger of a severe storm system winging in across the northern plains and currently dumping on the Quad Cities on the Iowa-Illinois border. I was attempting some sort of cardio activity to jump-start the morning since the kid was still snoring and showing no signs of wanting to get up to play basketball, so I traipsed along the side of roads that were busier than I'd hoped and dodged cars.

There were a few intriguing finds, including four CDs (two mix CDs, one Nickelback, one band I'd never heard of) and two wireless phones, home handset versions. Not sure what they were doing languishing in the grass alongside Klein Road. Trudging through the dew-damp grass, I remembered how we always knew when someone had new shoes when I was in elementary school, back in the days when it seemed everyone wore blue canvas sneakers with white rubber toe caps. Within a couple of days' use, the toe caps were irrevocably grass stained. It felt funny to be worrying about my new Pumas in this alien (for them) environment.

Stomach lost in the end. I came home and had toast. Hah! Take that, stomach!

In Which We Are Stymied By Ancient Technology

In this case, it's my aunt's ten-year-old laptop that's holding me back. I did manage to find the USB port hidden on the back, but it needs drivers to make my nifty little Mimobot work, and lord knows I've crashed this poor machine more times in the past four days than I care to remember, so downloading drivers probably isn't an option.

So no pictures for now. What are those other things I use here from time to time... oh, yes, words.

Yesterday morning as I sat praying that the laptop would decide to come back to life before anyone noticed I'd killed it, I watched a male cardinal and his fledgling get harrassed to distraction by a cowbird fledgling. Initially it was just the pair of cardinals, the parent on the feeder and the fledgling on the ground in full feed me squawk and flutter. The parent flew down and back up several times, filling its offspring's gaping mouth, until the cowbird showed up and started its own food demands. Overwhelmed by the show, the cardinal ignored its own fledgling, making a couple of trips to feed the cowbird until the young cardinal rushed it and momentarily drove it off. 'Ray for cardinal Jr.

Cowbirds are a parasitic species that lay their eggs in other birds' nests. They typically have a shorter brood time than other birds, gaining their chicks an extra few days to build up strength to either kick the other eggs/hatchlings out of the nest or out-compete them for food. The cowbird food-demanding display is loud and aggressive. Couple this with the tendency of adult birds to respond to an open squawking beak rather than the specific type of bird it's attached to, and you get cowbirds eliminating their competition in the nest and generally wreaking havoc on local songbird populations. Watching the young cardinal drive the cowbird off before its befuddled parent could feed the damn thing even more was gratifying.

The rain that relented for most of the day has returned, bringing with it a cool breeze sweeping a steel sky that looks and feels more like October than June. The redbud tree's flat planes of leaves dip momentarily with each raindrop while the ferns shudder beneath them. The oaks remain unperturbed. Birds and chipmunks and squirrels are hidden away now as the rain sends ring after ring expanding on the pond. The desert is very far away now as I am nestled in the green.

Sweet Home Chicago, Day One

Well, it' s more like My Uncle's Sweet Home DuPage County 36 Miles From The Loop, but you get the idea. After a 32-hour train ride (only an hour late! yay Amtrak!) that entailed only a smidgen of drama, I'm happily wrapped up in the tiny woods surrounding my uncle's house, listening to the rain, watching the clouds, drinking in the complete green of the place. The 200-year-old oak trees shade a thick understory of trillium, False Solomon's Seal, True Solomon's seal, nightshade, phlox, wild ginger, Joe Pye weed, jewelweed, and poison ivy. Chipmunks and squirrels hop across the yard and marvel at the single intrepid squirrel who's managed to foil the multiple barriers on the pole to hang onto the birdfeeder and pilfer all the sunflower seeds he can stuff into his cheeks. Of course, it takes him two or three tries to flip up over the barrier, so most of the time he's spiked back to the ground with a galvanized aluminum clang. The other squirrels don't laugh too loud, though, because this guy at least gets to eat, and he ain't sharing.

Pictures and hot squirrel action video may be posted later if I figure out how to transfer them to my aunt's ancient laptop. Does this thing have a USB port? I'm not sure. Life is good.

Road Trip

Summer road trip, or traintrack trip, as the case may be, starts tomorrow morning. Posting may be sporadic for the next three weeks or so while I am frolicking in my native Illinois environment, since I will likely be too delirious with black-dirt, deciduous-forest, balmy firefly-evening joy to spend much time hammering away at the laptop, but you never know.

In Which We Surrender to Steve Jobs and Fret Over Large Insects

Finally did it this afternoon. I have this trip to Chicago coming up, you see, and the girlfriend offered to go halves on an iPod as a bon voyage (or bon choo choo, as it were) present. I'm not a total irresponsible materialistic git; I went with the nano.

Shiny. Black. New!

The shiny black 8G nano, that is, which I'm busily loading music and photos onto as I type. The photos take up next to no room and you can set them up as a slideshow to whatever music you want. Swoon. My only previous experience with iPodLand has been with the minor suburb called Shuffle, which I use at the gym and dig mightily, but the track selection and playlist capabilities of the full-feature babies, including those cute little photos, has won me over. Add in DRM-free music and I am very, very happy indeed.

In other road trip news, the 17-year cicadas have begun emerging in Chicagoland. I must remember to pack my wellies. Fuck, fuck. 17 years ago this month a spent a horrific afternoon trying to walk from a church in Wilmette to the Linden el stop, for which I had stupidly worn shorts and Tevas, meaning I spent the couple of miles in the middle of the street trying not to step on the fucking cicadas that were crawling, flopping, dying, and otherwise occupying every other square inch of ground when they weren't careening into my ankles as they flew a couple of inches above the street in their death throes. Hate. Cicadas.

Comes up from under the ground + glowing red eyes = spawn of Satan

Nevada Photoblog

No pictures of the strip or even the sad rows of slots and video poker machines you can find in just about any convenience store, but I do have some nice shots of the most pleasant surprise of the trip--the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area west of the city.

The Keystone Thrust, which resulted in the older gray igneous rocks of the La Madre Mountains being flung up on top of younger red and white sandstone deposits of the Calico Hills

Turtlehead Peak, above the Calico Hills, from the Calico Tanks trail

The red coloring in the sandstone comes from trace amounts of iron oxide--one part per million is all it takes. This is one of the top rock-climbing locations in the US, with dozens of routes and plenty of bouldering opportunities (and the requisite signs warning of frequent deaths suffered by people who go scrambling without the right gear).

I must confess a thing for quarries, originally sparked by visits to the limestone quarries of southern Indiana. The old sandstone quarry here (1905-1906) was almost as good, in a tiny bite-sized way. Just like in the limestone quarries at the turn of the century, the sandstone was first cut into long slices by a large, self-propelled steam-powered saw. Then spikes were driven closely spaced along crosswise lines into the stone, popping it apart into blocks. This was done in layers, the saw working down in steps.

Layers of cut sandstone

Remnant saw groove on bottom layer of cut stone

Leftover sandstone blocks with spike scars

Come to think of it, other parts of the preserve hit me like old home week as well. My favorite trail is a half-mile stub heading into a white sandstone canyon with a seasonal waterfall coming over the edge of a precipice into a round, roofless cavern. This is apparently the season of only a drip, but the drips thoughtfully froze into pretty icicles on a small tree at the bottom of the fall.


If you gotta go to Vegas, go to Red Rock Canyon.