Category: North America

  • How to scatter your possessions around the world

    As I travel, I have learned a few things that you may find helpful in your own travels. One is how to give away your possessions along the way, without even meaning to.

    Have you heard this joke?:

    Some people learn by reading books. We’ll call these ‘type C’

    Other people learn by observing the mistakes others make. We’ll call these ‘type B’.

    While some guys just seem to have to pee on the electric fence wire for themselves. We’ll call these ‘type A’.

    It seems I am a type A.

    I have noticed that I have a habit of scattering my travel clothing throughout the world. I have left a fine cashmere sweater in an airplane overhead rack, a nice windbreaker on a Japanese bullet train (later reclaimed at railroad lost and found in Tokyo–the Japanese catalog and store lost items), my favorite travel pillow on my first flight this trip 😰 (United Airlines does not seem to try very hard to help you re: lost items), a useful electrical adapter plug in an apartment, my rain jacket(?!?) in a hotel room, which, when discovered 5 miles down the trail, led me to get quite wet on the trudge back to retrieve it. The list is endless.

    Inexplicable. You would think I would learn! Sometimes I think this is actually my way of giving away my possessions on a continuing basis. If I put my glasses on more often, I might not overlook things as much. My comforting thought is that these items are not lost, they are just being enjoyed by someone else. And my pack keeps getting lighter. The benefits of unintentional philanthropy. Lest you think I am losing my marbles due to age, I have been absent-minded like this for most of my life. Male obliviousness? You decide.

    As they say, a word to the wise is sufficient. Perhaps someday I will become wise myself. You, as a type C or B, may learn from my errors and avoid them yourself.

    So, in summary, a few tips on how to give away things on a steady basis:

    Set things down without a plan, in places that blend with their color. It makes it less likely you’ll notice them when packing up.

    Put things in drawers where you can’t see them. Greatly improves the odds you’ll leave them.

    If you use glasses, don’t wear them while packing up, so you’ll see less.

    When dining out, set your hat, your glasses, your purse on a chair so things will look neat. So neat you will walk away without noticing them yourself.

    While waiting for a subway/train/bus/plane, set your hat down on the seat next to you. Works like a charm. Likewise when you’re on the subway/train/bus/plane.

    Cultivate a devil-may-care, live for the moment attitude, and trust everything to work out OK.

    All these ideas have been well-tested by me, and are proven to work. You’ll wind up with less stuff to bother you.

    If you don’t like giving your stuff away (or cannot really afford to do so), try this:

    Be disciplined: have a place for everything, and put everything in its place, every time!
    If you use a pack with pockets, always put things in the same one, every time.
    Then, when it’s time to depart, check each pocket and see if anything is missing.
    Have a checklist (at least in your head) and ALWAYS go over it before departure, item by item.
    Cultivate an aware attitude about what you’re doing, and where you are, at all times.
    Zip up the pockets on your pack, pants and jackets so gloves and such don’t fall out unnoticed.

    I haven’t tested the above ideas, but they seem like good ones, and I may try them eventually, particularly if I’m seriously running short of stuff.

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  • Seattle, Washington

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    Mount Rainier as viewed from the entrance to the University of Washington campus

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    Central quad area, U of W

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    Amazon.com makes its home in Seattle, and is building this dramatic flagship building downtown.

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    Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island near Seattle is, in effect, a botanic garden

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    This Douglas fir must be close to 100 years old

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    The Reserve is used as a classroom by local schools

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    This totem pole represents the origins of the Eagle Clan

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    Then back by ferry to Seattle

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    Next day, ferry to Southworth, west of Seattle, to visit my long time rock climbing buddy. We went to have lunch in Port Orchard at the Home Made Cafe. It is in the bottom level of a former church. The proprietors live upstairs.

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    Les and Sandie at lunch with me in the Home Made Cafe. Les and Sandie are both teachers.

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    Friends for more than 50 years, Mel and Les discuss exciting Yosemite Valley rock climbs of the past, and make plans to do more in the Washington State North Cascades in the future.

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  • Palo Alto, California

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    The area south of San Francisco, California went to considerable effort to protect some beautiful wild areas on the nearby hills as open space, with lots of trails. WIthout this, this area would have likely been covered with houses by now. A lovely place to hike.image

    A nice 3 ½ mile hike, a good starter for my 9 year old grandson

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    Grassy meadows at 2200 foot elevation. Pacific Ocean 17 miles off on the horizon

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    Grass meadows interspersed with wooded areas of very old oaks and conifers

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    This massive old oak may have been growing here since when this was part of Mexico

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    A very old conifer

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    Lots of wildflowers up here still in early June

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    A harmless gopher snake that tried imitating a rattlesnake to scare us

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    Madrone trees show patches of peeling bark and glossy coppery trunk

     

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    Palo Alto and Menlo Park have areas of elegant homes. Having been neighbors of Stanford University for more than 100 years, this area has long been an attractive area to live

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    Silicon Valley wealth on display, Italian style

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    Recent shortages of water in California have not discouraged these gardeners

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    A more modest bungalow style home

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    This area values and preserves its big old trees.

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  • Philadelphia

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    World Heritage City:  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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    Philadelphia has an airy, attractive train station on the banks of the Schukykill (pronounced Skoo-cull) River. Founded in 1682 by William Penn, it is the 5th largest city in the U.S.A.

    imageIn order to see as much of the city in a few days as possible, I signed up for their bike sharing program, Indego. For $15 a month, you get unlimited use of bikes scattered around the city, for not more than one hour at a time. However, if you return one to a dock, you can immediately check it out again for another hour. In this way, I was able to ride more than 60 miles around the neighborhoods and parks of Philadelphia in just 3 days, a very bike-friendly city. If you visit Philly for several days or more, and like biking, I recommend it. It greatly extends your range.

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    My first impression walking through the streets was of the many colorful flower boxes.

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    One of the many fountains, with the distinctive statue-topped City Hall tower in the backgroundimage

    City Hall. The statue is of William Penn

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    There are many historic buildings scattered around the city, sometimes dwarfed by newer ones

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    College Hall, University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”), built in 1873.

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    Ben Franklin sits looking at Van Pelt Library, in the middle of the very beautiful Penn campus. Penn and Drexler Universities are part of what is called the “University City” area west of the Schukykill River.

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    Rowing ‘crew’ boats is popular on the river

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    Here, high school girls get ready for a race. It is said that crew rowers have one of the highest levels of aerobic conditioning of all athletes.

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    Biking along the river through Fairmount Park on a pretty day is sublime

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    Up on Lemon Hill

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    Many murals adorn buildings all over the city

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    I suppose there once was a building in the middle here! Philadelphia, a very old city, has areas of old deteriorating buildings, where the contrasts in wealth are stark. The city nearly went bankrupt when its manufacturing base shrank, but in recent years has shown new vigor and has been coming back as a very attractive place to live.

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    The Barnes Foundation museum, home to numerous paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Soutine, Rousseau, Modigliani, Degas, van Gogh, and Seurat.

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    The Rodin Museum, where you pay what you wish for entry

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    The ‘Please Touch Me’ children’s museum in Fairmount Park

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    View from Liberty Tower Observation Deck. Delaware River and New Jersey in the distance. $19

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    Time to bid Philly a fond farewell. Just outside the 30th Street train station, you can relax in the stylish and very popular wooden swings before your journey.

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  • Maryland and Delaware

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    My nephew Reuben and family now live in Rising Sun, Maryland, about 60 miles north of Baltimore. I journeyed down by train and car a few hours south of New York for my first visit to Delaware and Maryland. It’s just 1 ½ hours by train from NYC Pennsylvania Station to Wilmington, Delaware. The first part of the journey takes you through industrial New Jersey, past oil refineries and manufacturing plants.

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    Rural Maryland near Chesapeake Bay used to be mostly big 300 acre farms. While it has begun to be subdivided, many big farms remain. Just two miles south of the Pennsylvania state line, it is not far from the Amish and Mennonite farm areas. While driving there, I passed an Amish horse and buggy.

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    A Mennonite family at the Wilmington, Delaware train station

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    Maryland lies just north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but though they were part of the northern Union States, they were allowed by law to hold slaves prior to the Civil War. This old fieldstone house in Rising Sun, Maryland build in the 1700s had slave quarters in the third floor attic.

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    This big field adjacent to Reuben and Sheila’s home is fallow, awaiting a crop of field corn or soybeans. In season, the crop tops are alight with fireflies at night.

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    Big open farmland spaces

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    A snippet of “Coat of Many Colors” song, sung by Abby and mom Sheila.

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    On a sunny, chilly May day, we drove out to Elk Neck State Park and walked about a mile out to the Turkey Point lighthouse. It can get very windy out here!

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    Lots of history here on Chesapeake Bay

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    Spring has sprung, and flowers are forming on the trees.

     

    Now, the time has come to head back north via Wilmington, Delaware. While waiting for the train, I took a walk down by the riverfront and learned some history

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    I had not known that the importation of slaves had been banned in 1808, or that trade in slaves had continued for the next 50 years despite that. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to live in constant fear of being kidnapped and separated from your family and children, and forced to work as a slave in the areas where blacks were treated as property with no rights.

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    Thomas Garrett, a Wilmington, Maryland Quaker and iron merchant, decided in the year 1820 to devote his life to the abolition of slavery. Over the next forty years, though often threatened with physical violence, he helped more than 2,000 blacks reach freedom in his capacity as ‘Stationmaster’ in the Underground Railroad.

    Even when in 1848 he was fined so heavily that he lost all his property, Garrett declared to presiding judge (the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) that “…thou has left me without a dollar…I say to thee and to all in this courtroom, that if anyone knows a fugitive who wants shelter…send him to Thomas Garrett and he will befriend him.”

    (The courage of this man, and the enormity of his sacrifice, touched me deeply)

    The Underground Railroad was a network of people–whites, free blacks, fugitive slaves, Native Americans and religious groups such as Quakers, Methodists and Baptists, organized to provide safety and comfort to slaves escaping to freedom.

    It was dangerous work and over the years dozens of ‘agents’ were jailed for aiding escaping slaves. Though Delaware was by law a slave state, more than fifteen Underground Railroad ‘stations’ have been identified in the state, testimony to the extraordinary moral courage of many of its citizens.

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    Harriet Tubman

    Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett–one, a black fugitive slave ‘conductor’ and the other a white Quaker ‘Stationmaster’–were critical links in the Wilmington area. As a key transportation hub to points north, Wilmington was one of the most dangerous passages for fugitive slaves.

    Crossing the Market Street bridge was especially dangerous. As the only public roadway across the Christina River into Wilmington, it was an ideal check point to look for runaway slaves.

    After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1848, Tubman made 19 trips into the South over the next decade to lead nearly 300 slaves to freedom. She was one of several Southern agents who became spies for the Union Army during the Civil War while continuing to aid the growing number of runaway slaves. She eluded capture despite the large bounty on her head.

    In 2016, it was announced that Harriet Tubman will become the first woman to appear on US currency, on a new version of the $20 bill. The final design will not be released until 2020. Here is one proposal:

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