Nancy's Notes

Unexpected Growth

2011-11-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

We've been home for a week and I'm still thinking about the beauty of the high desert. I want to go back to the Anza Borrego in the spring to see the wild flowers.

October is the beginning of the tourist season in the desert. It's too hot in the summer for visitors. It's has been deadly hot there. The plants are dry and the flowers that are left are turning a brittle brownish gold and rusty red. But they have survived.

It amazes me how the plants endure. Even in the most inhospitable areas they find a bit of soil to sink their roots into.

One single flower or maybe two.

A whole tree grows out of a huge rock, where nothing else grows.

But when the dead leaves fall onto the rock, they will form a tiny bit of soil that just might host another plant.

This lava flow, which hardened 1000 years ago and shows little sign of fertility, has a tree growing out of it.

And this cluster of plants has taken root in a lava bed. I guess these would be considered the early adapters.

IKEA Trading Post

2011-10-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

We ate a light complimentary breakfast at the hotel and set the GPS for The Cinnamon Lady bakery. Sadly, we arrived at an empty storefront. No longer in business.

So we headed out of town.

That's our hotel in the distance. For perspective, notice how many rooms could fit into Dave's nose. This town is actually bigger than it looks.

Goodbye Hesperia, Apple Valley, Victorville, and Joshua Tree.

Anyone know what this rusty red bush is? It looks like it would make a good fiber dye but I want to be sure it is non-toxic before I collect any to try.

Sometimes my speed-of-light photos have an artistic look--like a pastel where the blending of the colors makes the scene more abstract.

We stopped at Charlie Brown Farms in Littlerock, CA when we saw they sold eggs, jerky, goat cheese, farm products and 50-cent coffee. The website will give you a pretty good idea of what the store is like. It's really not a farm unless you count the life-sized plaster replicas of cows and dinosaurs.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the candy display. One piece of dipped chocolate probably weighs in at 1/4 pound.

We decided to wait to get lunch at IKEA, our final detour on our way back to Santa Barbara. Yes, we had the Swedish meatballs and mashed red potatoes. And we managed to only buy the things we actually needed.

It was good to be home with the family, unpack our things, and share our stories.

Thanks for joining us on this trip.

The Road to Hesperia

2011-10-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I had an anxiety breakdown Thursday night, trying to figure out where to spend Friday night and which route to take to get there.

I think it was either the creepy neon green lighting in the hotel, or the nearly fatal head-on accident I'd avoided earlier when a VW bug decided to pass a truck on a narrow 2-lane road without allowing enough time to get back into his lane before we met. My sudden turn into the gravel just before the bridge allowed him time to overtake the truck and sail on by, in my lane. Passing an occasional cluster of artificial flowers stuck into the ground alongside the road, I gained a more vivid understanding of just what that meant.

Anyhow, I scoured the Internet and referred to Yelp to find some place smaller than Barstow and larger than Joshua Tree to spend our last night. I finally settled on Hesperia (because it had a cinnamon roll bakery), but I was totally stressed out over how to get there. I-40 would get us there quickly, but what if there was nothing to see or do in Hesperia? How far away was Apple Valley? Victorville? Joshua Tree? How could we make these last two days interesting... not just a rush to get home? It would be a shame to waste the end of our trip. Right? But then I didn't want to get stuck out in the burning desert without water.

Dave suggested we go to Big Bear but then commented on the possibility of icy road conditions. Strike that one from this list!

I finally gave up and went to sleep.

Nothing was quite so scary in the daylight, although the hotel was still a little weird.

We decided we'd take a chance on the desert roads and called ahead to reserve our room in Hesperia so I wouldn't need to worry about finding a room. I'd found a bead store in Apple Valley I wanted to visit. I figured Apple Valley had to be a pretty good place to visit since it had 2 bead stores. My cousin Mary Lou grew up there, which means I'd probably visited there at some time in my childhood.

This bird was a good omen.

And the weather was perfect. Blessings and safe passage from these rock faces.

It really was hard to leave Arizona.

So much color and visual evidence of our ancient geological history.

And then we were in California.

Where they took away my last delicious apple--from the roadside stand in Sedona--but refused to take the bag with the banana peel and an apple core. Wouldn't they be equally dangerous?

We decided to take the desert roads, but wanted to get a full tank of gas before we headed out on the roughly paved road shown on our map.

Fortunately there are two gas stations at this junction.

Our first stop on the desert road was at the honey trailer.

This made me really happy that we'd chosen this route. It was self-serve. Put the money in the envelope, drop it in the box, and take your honey.

Then we stopped at the Desert Information Center for a more detailed map. The tourist adviser assured us that the road was safe and well-paved, but to watch out for snakes, scorpions, and spiders if we got out of the car to look for rocks.

We had plenty of water in case we got stranded in the desert. Cellphone coverage is limited out there.

But it turns out the road south to Blythe is popular with truckers, so getting stranded isn't a big issue.

Dave, of course, decided to search the next available dry stream bed for rock souvenirs. The guy at the information center said the stream beds are a rock hunter's paradise and the area is open to rock hunters.

I reminded him about the snakes, scorpions, and spiders but he ignored me and came back safely with a handful of rocks with various mineral compositions including some nice sparkly ones.

In addition to choosing the hotel and stressing out over the route, it's my job to take photos from a fast-moving car with dirty windows. Most roads we traveled had soft-shoulder edges so almost all of my photos have to be cropped to take out the "speed of light" smear at the bottom of the picture.

This is one place we did pull over to take some photos, look for more rocks, and snack on the bread and goat cheese left from our previous adventures.

The road ahead goes west toward Joshua Tree. Doesn't this look like the fake backdrop in an old western movie? I have a lot of photos that came out with this flat effect. It must be an atmospheric effect.

It didn't take us long to reach Joshua Tree.

We stopped for a vegan lunch (all we could find on Yelp were vegan cafes). It was a little disappointing--beautiful and well-meant, but bland.

GPS Lady tried to direct us into a field, so we backtracked until she'd recalculated us onto a course that actually existed. I wanted to get to Apple Valley before Desert River Beads closed.

Just before coming into Apple Valley we passed this monument to the modern desert.

We'd just read about desert varnish in one of our desert brochures. It's that black and reddish brown coating on the rocks. A thin patina of clay minerals and oxides of iron and manganese is cemented onto the rocks by microscopic bacteria that live inside and under the patina coating.

The bacteria absorb the oxides from the air and precipitate them onto the rock. The clay coating protects the bacteria from the dryness and heat of the desert. Manganese oxide blocks ultraviolet radiation. Desert varnish is a healthy living environment for these bacteria.

The varnish is used to help date landforms. Undisturbed varnish may be well over 10,000 years old.

Early people carved petroglyphs into the patina, revealing the lighter colored rock beneath the varnish.

Drawings painted onto the rock surface are called pictographs (often painted with a red dye). So the designs on the rocks above are modern day pictographs but more ephemeral than the ancient ones.

I was surprised to discover that Apple Valley, Hesperia, and Victorville have blended together, sort of like communities in Los Angeles. Apple Valley has a beautiful mountain backdrop and really well-stocked bead stores.

Traffic was heavy on the road to our hotel and fast food chains beckoned us from every corner.

This was our corner.

And on the opposite corner.

The good news--no neon lighting in the hotel lobby or halls and our room was comfortable and tastefully decorated. We ordered Papa John's pizza and buffalo wings to be delivered.

One more travel day.

Arcosanti

2011-10-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

Perfect traveling weather today.

We decided to visit Arcosanti, south of Flagstaff before heading to Kingman on our trip home.

Arcosanti is a planned urban village located in the desert between Flagstaff and Phoenix.

Architect Paolo Soleri conceptualized it as a solution to urban sprawl, which he felt was making people feel more isolated from their local communities and was not providing efficient use of our resources. He coined the term arcology, which combines the words architecture and ecology.

He began work on Arcosanti in the 1970s hoping to provide a model environment to draw a population of about 5000 people. Today there are fewer than 100 people living there, but they remain passionate about the vision.

We arrived just before lunch. We were invited to join the residents for lunch in the cafeteria. Lunch was prepared by resident volunteers. It was generous, healthy, and flavorful.

This chair gives you a sense of the reuse of materials seen throughout the site.

Efficient use is made of the sun's heat throughout the living and work areas, using passive solar methods.

The heat rises up four floors and vents out the domed ceiling.

When it's cold, they attach a wind sock and use the fan to move the warmer air back down.

Here is a dining nook, off the main dining room.

Here's the dining room from the outside.

Some of the residents are full-time and some are people who have come to attend workshops where they learn about the vision for Arcosanti and help with construction or casting Soleri's famous bronze and ceramic windbells.

A 5-week workshop is a prerequisite to becoming a resident. There is one couple who has lived here for 40 years. Soleri continues to live at Arcosanti but has passed his leadership role on to a new director.

After getting his degree in architecture in Torino, Italy in 1946, Soleri, came to the U.S. and spent a year and a half at Frank Lloyd Wright's school of architecture. In 1950 he was commissioned to build a large ceramics factory in Italy. That led to his development of the casting methods he uses for both the ceramic and bronze windbells as well as some of his building techniques.

Sale of Soleri's windbells help to fund the project.

These are bronze cast bells either acid etched to create a patina, or burnished.

This is one of the ceramic windbell designs.

All of the molds--plaster or formed in sand--are Soleri's original designs.

The tour met just after lunch in the gift shop on the top floor, up where the domed ceiling vent releases the rising heat and provides natural light.

Here is a model for the full design of the project. The parts in darker gray (at the center) show what has been completed.

The next phase is building the greenhouse apron along the front. The heat from the greenhouses will be channeled into the area under the living quarters.

The orientation of the buildings allows for maximum use of natural light and regulation of heat throughout the year.

This is the ceramics workshop. During the summer the dome shades the workers from the sun. In the winter, the sun warms the cement and the workrooms inside.

The cement dome, called an apse, was made with a combination of pre-formed concrete and concrete poured in-place over a plywood and silt structure, which was removed when the concrete dried.

Soleri uses slip made from chunks of clay soil soaked in water to make the silt he pours into his pressed sand molds or plaster molds.

The raw chunks of clay dirt are in the round pit at the center. After soaking, the sediment becomes the slip used to cast the bells.

These are the sand cast bells. Forms are pressed into the sand to create the molds and then slip is poured directly into the sand depressions. When the edges dry to the correct thickness, the liquid silt in the center is removed. As the bells dry, the slip shrinks away from the sides of the mold. When the bell is removed, designs are carved into it and then it's fired. They also use plaster molds for casting some of their bells.

This workshop area doubles as a performance amphitheater when center pit and the sandcasting boxes are covered with a stage.

Resident housing is integrated into the work areas. These homes are right next to the ceramics workshop.

There are also residential units behind this art studio.

A community meeting was taking place in this building so we didn't get to go inside.

Use of solar panels has been limited because they've been too expensive in the past. But you can see they are using some on this garden-type room.

The greenhouse guest cottages are here along with a large swimming pool. There are plenty of areas to hike on the property.

Anyone is welcome to come spend vacation time here. Room rates are currently $30 to $100 a night, with meals from $5 (breakfast) to $9 (lunch and dinner).

The area in the back, houses the building and maintenance workshops.

This front area used to be a work area too but has evolved into a meeting place. Morning meetings and special events take place here, like Solari's recent 92nd birthday party.

This passageway is the most used walkway in the community.

Most residents use it morning and evening to commute to and from their work areas. There is no need for cars in this community.

This is a heat tunnel.

It passes under the residences and will be used to draw in heat from areas that are still to be built, like the greenhouse apron. It is also an useful storage area.

Most of the landscaping plants are local drought-tolerant varieties. These herbs and fig tree are an exception. These are watered and used in the cafeteria.

In the past they've had more extensive gardens. They grew and sold garlic from the open space out beyond the buildings. However they are letting their planting areas rest while they focus on the greenhouse project.

This amphitheater hosts performers from around the world. Jackson Browne has performed at Acrosanti.

The rooms above the amphitheater are residential. and the spaces below are planned to be used for shops where residents can buy things they currently drive to Phoenix to get or to sell more of their own products to visitors.

On the other side of the amphitheater apse is this stargazing area.

The seating is angled so gazers can lean back for a comfortable view of the dark sky.

This is the area where our guide works, casting bronze bells.

These metal forms are used to create the shapes in the sand casting boxes.

Molten bronze is poured into the cavity created by the forms in these two boxes which will be filled with compressed sand.

They carve the design into the sand mold depression before the bronze is poured.

The cooled bells are given a patina bath or they are burnished. Here is a stack of bells still being processed.

This is the end of our tour.

We headed on to Kingman where we stayed in my least favorite hotel of the trip. The lighting had a Las Vegas feel, kind of a neon glow. The interior designer must a had a wee bit too much coffee.

Here's the hall carpeting.

Competing patterns and textures:

And what is this?

Maybe it will look better in the morning when the spooky neon lighting is turned off.

Lowell Observatory & Diablo Burger

2011-10-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

This morning was reserved for a thunder and lightning experience. This was the kind of thunder that makes the windows shake. Definitely stormier than yesterday. We stayed inside.

We decided it might be a good day to go visit the Lowell Observatory to learn about the telescopes that have been housed there since 1894 (when Flagstaff had far fewer city lights).

The heavy storm had lifted when we left the hotel at about noon.

On the way we decided to have lunch at Diablo Burger, a restaurant recommended by our waitress last night. The beef is sourced from the Diablo Trust ranches just southeast of Flagstaff.

We chose to build our own burgers. Mine had cheddar cheese and grilled onions on it. Dave choose homemade red cabbage sauerkraut and Swiss cheese. The burgers are served on a branded English muffin sitting on top of a pile of rosemary fries. We didn't think we'd be able to eat the whole burger but guess what? After one bite, we both knew it wasn't going to be a problem.

Lowell Observatory is located on Mars Hill, close to our hotel (nothing in Flagstaff is really far away).

After the founder Percival Lowell died in 1916, his wife built this mausoleum. It sits next to the dome that houses the first telescope in his collection, the 24-inch Clark Refracting Telescope, built in Boston for $20,000 and shipped by train to Flagstaff.

Lowell believed the Mars might support life and that was sufficient motivation to dedicate his life to this study. He used this telescope to observe and draw diagrams of what he saw. He discovered lines that looked like canals on Mars. He theorized that they were waterways used for transport.

His chair was designed so he could sit in different position to study the stars and draw his diagrams. Note the tires around the upper wall. These 1950s era truck tires are used to rotate the dome so the opening will line up with the angle of the telescope.

Here's a shot of the Clark telescope.

This same telescope was used by NASA to diagram the craters of the moon before the first space flight. NASA eventually placed another telescope nearby for this purpose, so the astronomers working at Lowell could get back to their work with this telescope.

Here's a close-up view, looking up at it.

There is a smaller starfinder scope attached to the left side. When the lens cover for that disintegrated from age, the astronomer who was working here found that one of his wife's frying pans would work just as well. That frying pan is still used as the lens cover.

The other telescope we saw was the 13-inch Pluto Discovery Telescope. Lowell was convinced that there was a ninth planet, Planet X. He worked on that project as well until he died. After his death, his brother, who was the President of Harvard University, donated the money to buy this telescope in 1929. It's used for photographing the sky.

That square piece of metal at the bottom is a photographic plate. Twenty-three-year-old Clyde Tombaugh, who was not an astronomer but loved astronomy, was hired to do the job the astronomers didn't want to do, which was to sit in this cold room to take photos of the area Lowell had designated as the path of what would become the ninth planet Pluto. During the day he would compare these photos to determine if there was a planet moving through the solar system. By 1930, he had identified a tiny dot that was moving quickly relative to the stars near it. This officially became the planet Pluto (named for the God of the Underworld in a naming contest won by an 11-year-old girl in England).

More recently, however, Pluto has been demoted to dwarf planet status. There are several other bodies like Pluto that orbit around the sun but don't claim their own space. Our major planets dominate their area of the solar system. Because Pluto is so small and low mass, it competes for space with even with its own moon, and its orbit is so elliptic that sometimes it is in front of Neptune relative to the sun and sometimes it is behind.

Telescope work is now mostly done at darker locations nearby. The 19 astronomers working at Lowell Observatory do their daytime studies here and their night observations at the darker locations. Tracking near-earth asteroids is one of the projects they are working on.

Lowell Observatory has partnered with the Discovery Channel to build a telescope right on that road we took to Fossil Creek yesterday. The new Hubble type telescope will be completed in January. We will be able to see the resulting photos of space on the Discovery Channel in about June.

The New Horizons satellite is expected to pass Pluto in 2015 and send back images that will tell scientists a lot more about this dwarf planet.

None of this, however, is terribly interesting to this squirrel who was collecting acorns for winter storage. According to our tour guide there was recently a major territorial sqirmish between one of these Lowell Observatory squirrels and a resident woodpecker over storage in a particular tree.

The weather has turned very cold relative to when we got here last week. After the tour we went to Barnes and Noble to warm up with a cup of hot chocolate. Then we stopped by the Village Baker for a loaf of bread to eat for dinner with the leftovers we'd stashed in our hotel room refrigerator. We are heading back toward California in the morning.

Fossil Creek Creamery & Brix

2011-10-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

The forecast for today was for thundershowers and lightning, so we changed our plans from driving around mesas and flash flood areas to taking a trip to Strawberry, Arizona. Never heard of it? Me neither.

Our plan on this trip was to use Edible Community magazines to guide us to interesting places. Unfortunately there is no Edible Flagstaff... there should be because this town takes local sustainable foods very seriously. Most of the restaurants we've eaten at will tell you exactly where they source their beef, fish, cheese, fruit, and vegetables. It's often listed on the menu. If not, the server doesn't have to go to the kitchen to find out the name of the farm.

When we were in Phoenix, I'd read about Fossil Creek Creamery in an issue of Edible Phoenix. I'd also seen Fossil Creamery goat cheese on the menu in the restaurant in Scottsdale. I looked it up on the web but Strawberry is outside Phoenix, not on our planned route north.

However it's not all that far south of Flagstaff and doesn't involve mesas and flash flood areas. Here's what the weather looked like when we left Flagstaff.

The road took us past Lake Mary and into the mountains.

In the Mormon Lake area this part of lake bed was dry, but the colors of the ground cover were lovely.

And further on, Aspen trees were glowing gold in the distance.

Yes, there really is a town called Strawberry near Fossil Creek. And yes, it was raining when I took this photo through the wet windshield.

We had called ahead because they aren't usually open on Tuesdays during the fall and winter. Owner Joyce Bitner answered the phone and assured us that they'd be home and encouraged us to come visit. We were greeted by the goats when we arrived.

When we rang the large bell nearby, John Bitner came to greet us as well. Turns out his son lives in Santa Barbara near San Marcos High. We shared some Santa Barbara stories as we tasted a variety of creamy goat cheeses. Then we tasted his goat's milk havarti and a goat's milk cheddar that had just come out of the press. They also make goat's milk fudges and the outstanding goat's milk caramels. Caramelized goat's milk... yum!

We planned to have a car picnic around our purchases, choosing a wedge of havarti some plain and strawberry chili flavored soft goat cheese. Plus chocolate pecan fudge and a couple of those caramels (wish I'd bought more).

We met Joyce briefly on her way out. She asked us which festivals around Santa Barbara they might want to bring their products to. They just recently got into Whole Foods, but they like doing festivals too.

John took us out to see the goats. Each goat has a name. During birthing season in April, they invite children to visit and bottle feed the babies. During the summer, if you show up at milking time around 4 pm, you can help milk the goats.

These goats are really pets that share their milk to be made into cheese and fudge. They live good lives. All their milk goats live out their lives on this farm. When they are past milking age, they just become part of the extended community.

This is a car wash brush that the goats use to scratch their heads and bodies.

The climbing equipment in the background allows them to climb and to play King of the Hill. The turnaround time at the top is pretty short. However, getting your photo taken apparently trumps standing on top of the cable spools.

John explained the keyhole feeding boxes.

Goats take a mouthful of feed and shake it before they eat it. If the feed lands on the ground, the goats won't eat it.

However if shaken over the trough, the food lands back in the trough, and gets eaten. Very tricky.

John and Joyce also raise llamas but not for milk. The llamas guard the goats.

Leaving, we headed out on the road to Camp Verde hoping to have dinner at the casino restaurant we'd stopped at last week, but missed because we were too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

We'd had a rain-free visit at the creamery but our luck was running out. We went through this heavy rainstorm before we arrived at Camp Verde to find out that the restaurant is not open for dinner on Tuesdays.

Luckily, there was a fry bread stand across the street. Hmm, best fry bread we've had... topped with honey. We were glad we had a box of Saraphina's Princess baby wipes in the car to use after we finished licking our fingers.

This was our reward for the trip, along with the delicious fry bread.

We headed back to Flagstaff on I-17 as it was getting dark. We set the GPS for Brix, the sister restaurant to Criollo Latin Kitchen, where we'd eaten dinner on Day 7. I'd been reading about this restaurant on Yelp and in the local food reviews.

It was a cozy romantic setting with friendly staff and great food choices. It was difficult to narrow down our selection.

You know a meal is going to be good when the bread they bring to the table has a good texture, crust, and flavor. They brought us ciabatta slices baked nearby at the Village Baker. A special touch was the small pot of European style cultured butter with Hawaiian pink salt sprinkled on top.

Our first course was agnolotti (a small ravioli).

It was filled with cheese and served with chanterelles, baby spinach, and topped with cheese shavings.

Our next course was a red pepper parsnip soup.

That's a drizzle of chive oil on top. Who would have thought of putting parsnips with red pepper? This combination works!

I have to apologize. I generally use my iPhone for the food photos because it's not quite so annoying to people at neighboring tables, but the lack of a flash makes the results unpredictable. The other photos don't do the food and plating justice so I'll just describe them.

After I gave our server a copy of the current Edible Santa Barbara, the kitchen graciously sent out an amuse bouche of Creekstone Farm grassfed short rib finely chopped with thin-sliced green chili and pasta served over a small grilled carrot. Just the right amount of heat and the great flavor of grass fed beef.

Our main course was house-made tagliarini and chantrelles served with a plum and white wine sauce, onions, greens, and topped with shaved cheese.

We ordered a side of brussel sprouts. They were small and delicate with a lightly browned surface, served with onions and mushrooms.

We had no room for dessert but couldn't pass up the Almond Brown Butter Cake with whipped cream fraiche and Fuji apple syrup.

In addition to a relaxing delicious meal, we got a tip from the waitress on where to get the best grass fed burger in town. More about that tomorrow!

Antelope Canyon & Cameron Trading Post

2011-10-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

I am on complete beauty overload. The diverse range of rock formations and rainbow of colors we've seen today is mind-boggling. At the moment our photos are on Dave's computer and he has fallen asleep.

Rain and lightning are on the schedule for tomorrow so we'll probably have time to finish sorting through the 200 photos we took today to give you a small taste of Northern Arizona beauty.

I do have a couple of food photos on my iPhone I can share. On our way back to Flagstaff we stopped at the Cameron Trading Post for dinner. The trading post is one extremely large souvenir shop with a restaurant and hotel. The restaurant features Navajo tacos so we ordered a mini Navajo Taco and Navajo Hot Beef.

Both are served on top of a dinner-plate-sized fry bread.

A Navajo Taco is served open-face. The fry bread is topped with chili beans, beef, green chili, lettuce, and tomatoes.

For the Navajo Hot Beef, the fry bread is topped with slices of roast beef, a homemade gravy, grilled onions, and a green chili pepper.

This was a generous amount of food. I left most of my fry bread so I could eat a piece of their homemade apple pie. That was a good decision.

It took longer than planned to sort through the photos but here they are. These were take on the drive from Flagstaff to Page, Arizona.

The brown formations are chocolate-colored mudstone formed about 230 million years ago (Triassic period).

Looking down on the Colorado River Gorge. Vermillion Cliffs in the distance.

We stopped at a small store to get directions to Antelope Canyon since we didn't have a specific address for the GPS.

There are two slot canyons you can visit with Navajo guides. We chose the upper canyon, which doesn't require descent on a rock wall ladder. We did, however, take a bumpy 3-mile ride on the back of a transport vehicle. The road is a very dusty riverbed.

Entrance to upper Antelope Canyon

The colors change with the light. When the sun is overhead, light beams come into different sections of the canyon for brief appearances. We were too late in the day and in the year to catch a sunbeam. But it was not disappointing.

The shutter speed on our camera slowed way down because the light is low. You have to stand very still or use a tripod.

The guides know where to stand to get the best photos. Our guide took this one. If you rotate it clockwise 90 degrees, it forms a heart.

That's me on the right, standing in the exit. We went back through to the entrance. The light had totally changed.

These canyons are formed by fast flowing water. Runoff from even a small storm will quickly fill the cavern.

This photo shows debris on a ledge left by the last rain storm. (The water was that high.) The wet sandstone erodes easily. The water washes out sand as it exits the canyon, so the floor is lower after a storm. Then winds blow in dry sand, which falls down from the openings on top to refill the canyon. The floor level changes all the time.

This photo shows a branch that was washed in during a storm in the past.

The sand on the ledge was left from the most recent storm.

Tours are cancelled for about three days after a storm. It rained the day after we were there.

Here is one last photo, taken on our drive back to Flagstaff.

Meteor Crater & Petrified Forest

2011-10-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

Our goal for the day was to visit the Meteor Crater and then drive further on I-40 to see the Petrified Forest and some of the Painted Desert.

Here is a fragment of the meteorite that hit the ground near Winslow, Arizona about 50,000 years ago. It went into the ground and then exploded, killing everything within a 14 mile radius, and leaving a large crater. The blast was 20 megatons, or 1000 times the blast of the Hiroshima bomb.

As meteorites go, it wasn't that large but it was dense (made of nickel and iron) and is estimated to have been traveling about 26,000 miles per hour when it hit.

Based on the shape of the crater, which is round but has four distinct corners, the angle of entry could have been anything from 30 degrees to 90 degrees. An angle of less than 30 degrees produces an oblong crater.

Our guide on the walk on the rim told us that initially the crater was believed to be the result of a volcanic steam explosion. But mining engineer and property owner Daniel Barringer believed it was an impact crater. He invested many years and a lot of money mining the area at the center searching for the buried meteor to prove his theory.

It turns out he should have been searching the area outside the crater, where the explosion had thrown the fragments.

It was Eugene Shoemaker, the first geologist scheduled to walk on the moon, who finally proved that this was an impact crater. One hint was the inverted layers at top, along the rim. The oldest rock now rests at the top.

Shoemaker was disqualified from the Apollo astronaut program when he was diagnosed with Addison's disease. Instead, he trained future astronauts--bringing them to the Meteor Crater and to Sunset Crater (the volcanic area we visited on Day 7). Both areas are similar to terrain the astronauts would experience on the moon.

Meanwhile, Shoemaker continued to look for scientific verification that this was an impact crater. He found it on a visit to the atomic bomb test site in Nevada. At the test site, he found shocked quartz--created by the blast. The same shocked quartz is present in the soil at Meteor Crater. Since then, scientists have found shocked quartz at other meteorite impact sites around the world. There are about 150 known meteorite impact sites worldwide.

The property is still privately owned by the Barringer family. We paid $14 each to get in. There are viewing platforms as well as the walking tour on the rim with the guide. Only a few people get permission to take the primitive path to the bottom.

The rocks in this area contain many fossils. Here are a couple of examples the guide showed us.

The movie Starman with Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen was filmed at the crater.

Back on the I-40 we decided to stop for lunch in Winslow at the Turquoise Room in the La Posada Hotel, another railroad hotel designed by Mary Colton. This one is the site of the Winslow Amtrak stop. You can sit outside in a rocking chair while you wait for your train to arrive. The inside is similar to La Fonda in Santa Fe, NM, which she also designed.

The food was outstanding. I ordered the Lamb Churro Posole.

The free range heritage breed lamb comes from a ranch in Newcombe, NM. It was tender and the broth intensely flavorful.

Dave ordered the Barbequed Bison Short Rib Sandwich.

The chef used a blackberry barbecue sauce on the pulled meat and topped it with a chipotle slaw. The bun was a La Brea Telme roll, slightly crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. The sweet potato fries were lightly crisp.

All entrees are served with Mesquite glazed cornbread.

I'm guessing the glaze is made with a mesquite tea that is made into a glaze.

After lunch we continued east to Holbrook and then took the road to the Petrified Forest National Park. I noticed that as we got closer, the landscape still looked like a desert, with no large trees.

Uhh, there is no forest. Well, there was a forest here 225 million years ago, but that was when Arizona was close to equator.

These trees died along the waterways, floated downstream, formed log jams, and became buried under layers of sediment.

Silica from volcano ash gradually replaced the organic wood. Iron, manganese, and carbon also replaced the wood, adding to the range of colors as the trees hardened into petrified wood.

The park is trying to preserve these specimens but theft is ongoing. They are truly beautiful.

They do sell petrified wood at the National Park gift shop, but it's from private property, not the National Forest property. Fines for picking up "free" samples are $350.

If you continue on the road through the forest back to I-40, you go through Painted Desert. We were leaving after 5 pm so we weren't allowed to stop to take photos. These are photos taken from the car window.

Sunset Crater, Cafe Daily Fare, & Criollo Latin Kitchen

2011-10-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a short travel day. We've decided to stay 3 nights in Flagstaff. I had work to do in the morning so Dave went out look for a UV filter for our camera.

He was back in time for lunch. I'd read about Cafe Daily Fare on Yelp. What drew me in was the mention of Blackberry Duck Tacos. Owner Nancy McCulla has been a caterer for 30 years. Three years ago her friends and clients finally convinced her to open a restaurant.

The duck tacos consist of blackberry marinated duck, with habanero aioli, goat cheese, arugula, jicama, and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Dave had a poblano chili stuffed with pumpkin, corn, zucchini, red peppers, and a queso type cheese.

Both items came with a house spring green salad with apples, smoked gouda, and toasted pine nuts in a curried cider vinaigrette. Mine also had a corn and black bean salad.

We were so happy to have found this small cafe.

We headed up Hwy 89 to visit the Sunset Crater. This volcano erupted 1000 years ago.

The red is lava that had iron in it. The iron has oxidized, like rust.

But there is plenty of black lava flow to see alongside the road.

The appearance of green lichen is a good sign.

Lichen that is green is healthy lichen and it helps to break down the rock... although progress is slow.

This part of the lava flow trail didn't seem too inviting. We opted to take the shorter version.

The shorter trail had sidewalk. Note how the lava flow stopped right at the edge of the sidewalk... 1000 years ago.

Leaving the volcanic area, we entered an adjacent area with ruins of dwelling built by native people who lived there 800 years ago. There are several ruins to visit. This is the Wukoki site.

They clearly used local materials in building this three-story dwelling. It is built right on top of a rock outcropping. The view was panoramic. Unfortunately we got there too late to visit the other ruins.

For dinner I checked Yelp again looking for another organic seasonal restaurant. Criollo Latin Kitchen looked good. It was. The local food standards in Flagstaff are high. The waitress told us they'd changed one of the menu items because they had been unable to get a sustainably caught fish of that variety.

We chose two appetizers and a main course.

The main course was Mojo Marinated Pork Tenderloin with grilled potato cactus cakes on a bed of Spanish lentils in a red chili sauce. Incredibly tender pork sourced from Heritage Foods. For appetizers we had Diver Scallops with quinoa mixed with finely chopped vegetables and sliced almonds. The other appetizer was their Criollo tamale filled with roasted corn, green chili, and served with Tajo cheese.

Much as I would have liked to have tasted the Tres Leches Cake with homemade pineapple ice cream, I just couldn't eat any more. Perhaps another visit.

Grand Canyon

2011-10-22T07:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a light on food and heavy on photography. We got a good space in the Grand Canyon visitor parking lot and ate a quick car breakfast (crackers, cheese, local apples, and local water). Then we were off to catch the free shuttle to the western side of the south rim. Our planned destination was a short walk down the Bright Angel Trail.

Lots of hikers coming up from spending the night at the bottom and more hikers going down. We saw one guy running up. Some hikers we met told us about a guy they'd just met who had hiked to the bottom from the north rim and was hiking up to the south rim all in the same day... in spite of the frequent warnings not to hike down and up in the same day.

No, we didn't walk the 7.8 miles to the canyon floor. Although going down would probably have been fine. We need some serious training from Wolfgang, our endurance coach, before we attempt the full walk. It was coming back up that worried us and we had lots more to see before dusk.

This doorway through the rock looks man-made but I think the round window on the left was nature-made.

Note the number of footprints from people who had already been on this path. Ours are somewhere in this mix. This is reminder to pay attention to the shoes you buy, because your footprint could become art.

Back at the top, we caught the red shuttle which stops at multiple lookout points. We got off at Monument Creek Vista and took some photos.

That small tree on the left is growing out of the rock. Life is persistent.

The silence is restful. While we waited for the next shuttle, Dave took a break. Note the cool camera bag Dave is wearing. Thank you Maya!

The end point on the red shuttle is Hermit's Rest. This structure was designed by Mary Colter in 1914 for $13,000. We've been enjoying her architecture in the area. She worked with Fred Harvey as he built hospitality sites at railroad stops throughout the southwest. She concentrated on using local materials to create structures that blended into the surrounding environment.

We decided to walk the part of the rim between Mohave Point and Powell Point. The path there is close to the edge... but not too close. We thought the red structure in the distance looked like an really large amphitheater.

Along our path we saw this glowing plant. Like everything in the Grand Canyon, the right light at the right moment makes it magical.

This rock face has an unusual depth of color and interesting erosion pattern. I think it should be called Fiesta Point.

We took the blue shuttle back to our car and had a car picnic lunch. we made sandwiches with the leftover chicken strips we'd kept cold in our makeshift cooler. Even the lettuce was still crisp. We drank fresh water from the thermos we'd filled at one of many fresh water filling taps around the canyon (they are encouraging visitors to bring refillable bottles instead of discarding one-use plastic bottles). We finished off the meal with a little cranberry nut trail mix. Not bad!

Then we headed east out of the park along Desert View Drive.

At one scenic stop a woman offered to take our picture. The shadows were growing longer in the canyon and our photos were losing their crispness. We were on Grand Canyon overload anyhow. We'd absorbed our maximum concentration of Grand Canyon beauty for one day.

But when we left the park we entered Navajo lands, which surprised us with its own beauty.

The range of colors of soil in these hills was breathtaking--the colors of Native American blankets and pottery.

The sun was beginning to set so I wasn't able to capture many of these painted hillsides with my camera. We are going back that direction today to search out a little more.

We spent Friday night in Flagstaff and have decided to spend another night here.

Grand Canyon & Bright Angel Lodge

2011-10-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

It is really difficult traveling outside the range of any Edible magazines. I've been trying to use Yelp but some of the posts aren't really all that helpful. At this point we are traveling somewhere between Edible Phoenix and Edible Salt Lake.

Our bakery breakfast this morning was disappointing. Although the bread pudding was pretty good, the breakfast burrito wasn't, and the service was impatient.

Good feelings were restored as we drove though Oak Creek Canyon.

The fall colors are beginning to emerge. We also figured out how to hook my iPhone up to the AUX so I could play a little California Transit Authority on our car speakers. That was after we decided that even the BBC news wasn't making us feel better.

At Williams, we stopped to get gas. Several Navajo jewelry makers had set up tables. I asked one of them about his juniper berry bracelets. The berries are dried after the chipmunks pierce an end to drink the juice. The jeweler uses an awl on the dried berry to extend the hole that the chipmunk made. These bracelets are believed to protect the wearer from bad dreams and evil spirits. Seems like an inexpensive alternative to a sleep study. The one I chose includes Blue Lace Agate for intelligence, warmth, and friendship. All worthy goals.

In addition to the bracelet, we got some good advice about what to see when we go into the Navajo lands.

We were too early to check into our room so the hotel clerk suggested we go see the IMAX movie of the Grand Canyon, buy our passes to the park, and go to the park for lunch. We thought the movie would be a cheap substitute for a helicopter flight. Unfortunately it didn't eliminate the airsickness part. And rather than focusing on the rock formation and erosion geology, it was more like a wild ride on the rapids posing as historical narrative.

Afterwards we bought a lifetime senior pass for all National Parks (maybe it isn't so bad being a senior) for $10.

When we got to the Visitor's Center we saw there was a ranger-guided geology walk starting at the Yavapai Geology Museum scheduled in an hour. So we went to the restaurant at the Yavapai Lodge for a quick lunch. The cafeteria-style format should have been our first hint that we would have been happier eating the stale olive bread and warm cheese in the car.

We still hadn't seen the Canyon. It's strange, you really have no warning that it's there until you are suddenly at the rim.

This was our first view.

This is just before 2 pm. Note the shadows.

We walked with the ranger to several viewing spots where he pointed out the types of rock and explained how the canyon formed over 5 million years. The hardest rock, igneous and metamorphic, is at the bottom. Sedimentary rock forms the upper layers. One of the unique things about the canyon is that the layers are mostly horizontal. An unusual type of collision of two tectonic plates (one slipping under the other) raised the Colorado River plateau rather than tilting it. Erosion continues to widen the canyon. I would have remembered more of what he said, but I was worried about how close he was to the edge.

He told us that there are two ways to view the sunset. One is to watch the lengthening of the shadows and the other is to watch the sun move down below the horizon. Note that the shadows have begun to lengthen in the canyon.

These red slopes are especially pretty and apparently somewhat puzzling to geologists.

He asked us to think about how much dirt eroded away in the creation of the canyon and where it went as it washed away (about 4 trillion cubic meters or enough to enlarge the Great Wall of China all the way to Venus). That's 650 miles of sediment, or new land. He mentioned that the Imperial Valley in California is one of the resting places for the dirt that left the canyon via the Colorado River.

Dave took this photo from a very precarious looking viewing place. Look at the shadows now.

We drove down to Bright Angel Lodge for another view. Since sunset was imminent, there weren't a lot of people in the restaurant. After looking at the menu, we had hopes that this might be the meal that saved the day (foodwise), so we skipped the sunset in favor of getting a table.

We shared a lettuce wrap stuffed with chili and pistachio seasoned chicken strips, served with a lime sour cream dip. Then we shared a rosemary prime rib with baked potatoes and fresh green beans. It came with a roasted red pepper soup. Delicious!

The hotel and restaurant were originally part Fred Harvey'a empire of Santa Fe Railroad Hotels and Dining Stations, worthy of an Edible article for sure.

We couldn't eat all our food so we've turned the ice bucket in our room into a mini ice chest. We can have the leftover meat for lunch tomorrow on car-warmed olive bread.

The evening temperature has dropped dramatically so tonight the car will act as a second refrigerator.

Good night Grand Canyon!

Sweet Republc Ice Cream & Oak Canyon Village

2011-10-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

I watched Dirt! The Movie in our hotel room this morning to help me think about the article I'm writing for the next issue of Edible SB. This trip through the deserts of the Southwest brings me new appreciation for the beauty and resilience of the dirt that feeds our plants the nutrients that are needed to sustain their lives and ours.

On our way out of Scottsdale we stopped at Trader Joe's to get some bread, cheese, and nuts to carry in the car. Then we set GPS lady to the task of finding the ice cream shop I'd read about in Edible Phoenix.

The important thing about this photo is the word "OPEN." We'd waited until the shop opened at noon to include this stop in our plans. It was worth it. Sweet Republic uses local milk and cream from independent dairies, local honey, and as many other fresh ingredients as they can find locally.

We tasted:

Brownie Swirl: Rich chocolate brownie chunks and chocolate swirls in creamy vanilla
Honey Blue Cheese: Creamy savory combination of blue cheese and local honey
Salted Butter Caramel: Soft buttery caramel ribbons in creamy vanilla with a sprinkle of salt
Maple Pecan: Real maple syrup laced ice cream with toasted pecan chunks

Dave decided on a cup of the salted caramel and I had the brownie swirl in a freshly made cone. Afterwards we realized that the flat cookies we'd seen cooling are used to make ice cream sandwiches filled with the ice cream of your choice. Great idea!

They also make their own salted caramels, English toffee, brownies, almond brittle, and bacon brittle. I really wanted to taste the bacon brittle but wasn't sure I'd want to eat a whole bag, so I bought the salted caramels instead.

Then we left the perfectly manicured streets of Scottsdale to head for the red hills of Sedona. Both places are very upscale and quite beautiful. The only car dealerships that have closed in Scottsdale are the low-end manufacturers. Lexus and Lotus seem to be doing great. It's rare to see an older car in a parking lot, even at Trader Joe's.

We made a lunch stop at Camp Verde to eat at the restaurant in the Cliff Castle Casino Hotel. Their menu features items like squash blossom cream puffs with chipotle sauce, saguero (cactus) glazed quail, and chollo (cactus) bud risotto. Alas, we were too late for lunch. We should have realized that when we saw all the people from the shuttle bus pushing their walkers back into the casino with happy smiles on their faces.

Good thing we had bread and trail mix in the car.

On my friend Catherine's recommendation, we'd booked a room in Oak Canyon Village rather than Sedona. It's close-by, cheaper than rooms in Sedona, and has less of a focus on boutique shopping. Here's what we saw as we approached Oak Canyon Village.

Our hotel is nestled among these amazing rock formations.

And I thought Santa Barbara was beautiful! Well, it is, but these are breathtaking.

We drove to Sedona (about 15 minutes north) for dinner. It would be easy to spend a lot of money in Sedona and then wonder where you are going to hang all those crystals. I'm glad we're staying in Oak Canyon Village instead.

We found a bakery nearby that we'll visit in the morning before we get on the road to the Grand Canyon. We're booked at the Grand Hotel, on Wolfgang's recommendation. I like that I can email Germany to find out where to stay in Arizona.

(Thanks Catherine and Wolfgang!)

Borrego Badlands & Rancho Pinot

2011-10-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

We got up late this morning, had breakfast in Borrego Springs, then took the roundabout exit that heads towards the Badlands and out of town (there are 5 options).

Those are Badlands in the distance.

Lots of gravel in these hills.

Dave picked up some rocks to examine them more closely.

Flash floods rush through here during heavy rains.

But not everything gets washed away.

The road we were on ended at the Salton Sea, where we turned north to get to the I-10.

Back in the 50s, TV ads encouraged us all to buy property at the Salton Sea. We didn't see a lot of homes there but we did see a lot of palm trees.

Once on the I-10, we put away the camera for the long drive to Scottsdale. We did stop at one exit to see if we could find a place to have lunch. We found an abandoned gas station.

We weren't alone in our disappointment.

We settled for a car picnic at a rest stop further on--a slice of the homemade bread I made before we left, pears we picked at the orchard yesterday, and Santa Barbara Pistachio chile lemon pistachios. Not a bad lunch.

We are now happily resting in Scottsdale after eating dinner at Rancho Pinot. Last night I read and article in Edible Phoenix, "Harvesting the Desert," written about this restaurant. Chef Chrysa Robertson has been preparing locally harvested meals since Rancho Pinot opened in 1993. The waitress told us that the menu changed twice last week in response to the range and quality of ingredients available.

This attention to detail is reflected in the flavors and beauty of the food that comes to the table. We chose a collection of small plates to share:

Diver scallops on a bed of Thai slaw with a few noodles, peanuts, sesame seeds, and a bit of mango salsa
Crispy squash blossoms stuffed with a creamy ricotta and goat cheese mixture and a tomato vinaigrette made with small sweet vine-ripened cherry tomatoes
Spaghetti squash with sage honey butter and hazelnuts
Baby artichokes and grilled baby red potatoes with caper aioli

Colorful and delicate, each dish offered a delightful combination of flavors and textures. Tender scallops, crunchy squash blossoms, spaghetti squash not trying to be spaghetti, and artichokes toasted to caramelized perfection.

For desert we had hand-foraged prickly pear sorbet and a rice custard made with Arborio rice (risotto style) with salted caramel on top. My deep gratitude to Edible Phoenix for publishing that article and leading us to this restaurant.

So, it's 80 degrees outside (down from 100 degrees earlier) and it's about 35 degrees in our room. We had to turn on the heater to try to warm it up a little. Weird.

We're thinking Sedona area for tomorrow.

Wynola, Buffalo Burgers, Pears, & Borrego Springs

2011-10-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Although we didn't get to visit the camel dairy, we did pass it on our way out of Ramona.

We made a quick turn around when we passed a roadside shop in Santa Ysabel that said Weaving Works Fiber Art Gallery—a small shop packed with handspun yarn, delicately woven scarves, shawls, stunning horse blankets, and several floor looms. Owner Beryl Warnes invited us in and told us that just up the road in Wynola we'd find a shop selling local llama fiber.

What she hadn't told us was that we'd find this shop nearby as well.

We left Wynola with some beads, a bag of llama fiber, and directions to Buffalo Bill's where we ate local grass fed bison burgers.

Great burgers!

I set our GPS for O'Dells Organic Orchards so we could stop on our way out of Julian to pick a bag of pears. It's pretty much the end of pear picking time but we found a colorful variety of really sweet juicy pears that had recently fallen to the ground. So delicious!

Then on to the Anza Borrego desert. The geologic landscape here is fascinating.

This is the start of their tourist season. We're just a little ahead of the crowd. Summer is the off-season here because it gets up to 124 degrees.

Spring is the peak season, when the desert comes alive with colorful wildflowers.

Coming into Borrego Springs was a little surreal. Can you create an oasis in the middle of a desert?

We passed this building on the way to the palm-lined entrance to the spa resort where we are staying. The population is pretty sparse right now and a night at the spa resort is really reasonable. At the visitor center they told us that the population swells when the weather in Canada and the Eastern US gets really cold.

Today we'll visit the Badlands on our way to Phoenix or possibly Sedona. I'm be checking Edible Phoenix to look for food destinations in that area. Tempe looks interesting too.

Mystery Restaurant, Cups, & Stone Brewing Co.

2011-10-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Dave and I are on the road. We left this morning at 10:11, heading south. We set our new GPS to a La Jolla cupcake shop I'd read about in Edible San Diego, called Cups. No deadlines, so we took our time driving down the I-5.

Guess where we stopped for lunch?

(Sawdust on the floor)

Here's another hint:

(Hard-boiled eggs in beet juice)

Okay, it's in downtown Los Angeles and has been there so long that my parents went there when they were dating in the late 1940s.

Phillipe's

Phillipe's opened in 1908. They are known for their French dip sandwiches and cheap coffee... and delicious pies, and pickles, and potato salad and their hot mustard. The lines are long and you sit at long tables to eat with lots of other people. It's walking distance from the train station and right on the edge of China town.

Afterwards, GPS lady got us back onto I-5, heading for "lay joe-la." Honest, that's what she said. She clearly needs some help with pronunciation. (Her Santa Barbara street names are equally difficult to decipher.)

We arrived at Cups just in time for a tea snack.

My cupcake choice was Caramel Apple (spicy apple cake, apple compote filling, a light airy caramel frosting, and thin slice of apple). Dave chose the Brulee-J (custard filling, crunchy glaze on a vanilla cake, topped with a raspberry).

Each day there are about 12 flavors to choose from. It looks like they have good coffees too. It's a lounge so you can sit at the counter, lounge on a cushioned bench inside, or sit on benches outside. They have a pup patio for canine fans as well. They source organic and as local as possible. Their chocolate comes from Sweet Earth Chocolate in San Luis Obispo.

We Yelped some local hotels and decided to drive on to Escondido where the Holiday Inn Express is $20 cheaper than the one in La Jolla. And it's on the road we are taking to the Anza Borrego desert tomorrow.

I used the Edible San Diego website to scout out a restaurant for dinner. Several were closed on Sunday. We settled on Stone Brewing Company because they had baby back boar ribs in appetizer portions. I ordered a glass of smoked porter to wash them down.

Rich and flavorful. Delicious, but I only drank about a quarter of the glass and was glad I wasn't driving.

Time for bed. We have a viola player in the room next to us who must be practicing for an audition. What a treat to listen to the silky rich soothing sound of a professional violist.

There's a camel dairy farm in Ramona on our route tomorrow, but I don't think they take walk-in visitors. They make camel milk soap and sell camel milk chocolate online. It's called Oasis Camel Dairy. I'm hoping someone in the town sells their soap. Mountain Meadow Mushroom Farm here in Escondido sells compost, but not on Mondays. Oh well.

Must sleep.

Deuble Ancestors in Treschklingen

2010-06-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang offered to take us to the village of Treschklingen on our drive back to Berlin from Mannheim. My grandmother's dad was a Deuble. I'd found Treschklingen, on a birth record in 1798 for our immigrant ancestor, George Michael Deuble. Wolfgang and Andrea got out the map and found the town. It was sort of on our way... if we left early (or drove fast enough) to accommodate the extra miles.

The Deubles were clock and watchmakers. They built the town clock in Canton, Ohio and opened a jewelry store that survived many generations. I'd met some Canton Deubles, but had never gotten back past the immigrant ancestor in my genealogical search.

Treschklingen is about an hour southeast of Mannheim.

We parked near the church and were greeted loudly by the livestock. I was surprised the no one came out of the nearby houses to find out what was going on.

That crest says 1582. Some of these buildings looked pretty old.

We walked a couple of blocks to the town center and met a young boy on a bicycle who pointed us in the direction of the cemetery. It was a very small town so it was only a couple of blocks up the street to the entrance (at the end of town).

No Deubles in the cemetery, but they had some pretty graves.

This cemetery was smaller than the one at Grossteinhausen and the oldest grave we saw was 1968. Gravesites are leased and reused if the lease expires.

Wolfgang discovered a pathway that led from the church to the cemetery. So we walked back to where we'd parked our car by the church. I had to wonder if this path was used for funeral processions. It certainly gave us a feeling for what the village might have felt like during the time my ancestors lived there.

The town was very quiet. We didn't see people out on the street and no shops or restaurants.

Wolfgang knocked on the door of a home to find out if there was someone who could tell us if there were still Deubles in this community. A young woman came to the door and sent us up the street to her mother-in-law's home. Her mother-in-law took us around the corner to the home of Margret Niklaus, who has been compiling family histories in the town.

Frau Niklaus recognized our family name immediately. She invited us into her home and showed the book of families she has put together. Wolfgang translated for us and she gave us photocopies of the information she had, which takes us back a couple of additional generations. It looks like the family didn't live in this town for very long. I need to translate the information but it definitely included our George Michael and his brother who came to Ohio.

No mention of clock or watch makers, but she told us the family had owned a tavern called the Eagle, located on the empty lot shown above.

This sign means, "You are now leaving Treschklingen."

Note how these villages are cut out of forest.

I was the assigned navigator for this part of the trip as we moved further east and then would turn north towards Berlin. There is no speed limit on the autobahn. Need I say more?

Wissembourg, Alsace, France

2010-06-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our plan was to spend the afternoon and have dinner in Wissembourg. It was a holiday in both France and Germany--Ascension Day, the day Jesus ascended to heaven. What we didn't know was that it was a festival street market day in Wissembourg, but we figured that out quickly when we saw the cars lining the streets and people heading for and away from one particular area.

We lucked out when we entered a small parking lot in search of a space and a man offered us the space he was leaving.

Wissembourg is lush green town on the river Lauter. The amount water that flows through the town is controlled by locks such as the one we passed as we came into the festival area (lower left in the photo above).

I realize I haven't talked about food here recently, so this is my opportunity. In addition to soap, and crafty items, there were vendors selling food. We were hungry so our first stop was to taste dried sausages. These are air-dryed sausages. We bought several, translating the ingredients from French to German to English. If I remember correctly one was made with beets as an added ingredient. They all tasted good, so we bought four different kinds.

Next stop bread.

Breads in Europe are baked darker than we usually bake them here, but they also start with a darker dough that usually has rye in it (see the cut bread at the top of this display) .

Dave picked up some cheeses to try, while Wolfgang chose some cookies.

These are basically butter cookies with just enough sugar and flour to hold them together when baked. The butter is from Brittany, which is the gold standard for full-flavored European butter.

As we left the street market area, we passed a stage with folk musicians and costumed dancers of all ages. Seeing a sign for toilets, we turned down a side street in the direction indicated but found only old buildings, with no public toilets. The building in the upper center is the Salt House, where the salt tax was paid (a very unpopular tax because while salt was needed by everyone for preservation, the nobility and clergy were exempted from paying the tax).

We stopped at a restaurant (with a toilet), to sit and have coffee alongside the canal.

I think the outdoor tables were along the right-hand side of this stretch of canal. The restaurant was actually located across the street from their outdoor dining tables. We probably would have opted for eating dinner there if the waitress had not been so bizarre. She gave Wolfgang a menu, but then the people at the table near us (who were there first) needed to see a menu so she grabbed it from Wolfgang and passed it to them. So we just ordered coffee and sparkling water (and asked to see the menu). It took a really long time for her to get back to us with our full order, then when a newly arrived group asked for the menu, she grabbed it from me. At that point, we decided not to have dinner there.

Walking back to our car, we had to admit that it was a pretty good story anyhow and we decided that dinner in Mannheim would be just fine. In the meantime Dave popped into a bakery to pick up a tasty Alsatian pastry to eat along with some Breton cookies, sausage, cheese, and bread before our drive back to Mannheim.

That night we ate on the sidewalk at a French restaurant across from the dancing fountain in front of the Mannheim water tower. The fountain, designed in the early 1900s, performed a complex program, which Dave pointed out was not controlled by a computer at the time it was built. As the evening darkened, the lights in the fountain came on, giving us an even better show.

We'd left our camera back at Andrea's apartment, but I had my trusty iPhone handy so here's a quick snapshot of the fountain midway through its performance. A fitting end to a grand day and our last evening in Mannheim.

Hunting Herbrucks in Grossteinhausen

2010-06-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

My grandmother's dad was German. His family came from two small villages in southern Germany, not too far from Mannheim. The man in this photo is Peter Herbruck, who came to the U.S. from Grossteinhausen Germany in 1831. His family followed him to Canton, Ohio, where his sister Susanna married George Michael Deuble. They were Grandma's dad's parents.

Andrea drove us along the small winding road to the village. We passed Kleinsteinhausen (small stone house) on our way to Grossteinhausen (large stone house).

We parked at the far edge of town.

We walked past a children's play area.

It was a holiday. The town seemed to still be asleep.

Here's a sample of the houses and buildings we saw. It was a beautiful sunny day.

Note the solar panels. We saw lots of solar panel in the smaller villages and lots of wind turbines in open spaces.

Here's a taste of the character of the town.

Obviously there were children somewhere, perhaps playing solar-powered video games.

The fountain in the plaza was unusual.

Two streams of water poured out onto the bricks, then joined together and ran down to the far side where it went into a catch basin, right near this marker.

Yes that says 1257. I have no idea how long the Herbruck family lived there before the rest of Peter's family emigrated to Ohio.

Andrea found a sign that led us to the cemetery.

My friend Loretta always teases me about going to beautiful places and bringing back pictures of cemeteries. But if you're looking for ancestors, that's where you find them! Unless you are in Grossteinhausen, where there were no markers for anyone who died before the mid 1900s. We later learned that the cemeteries in some small villages are cleared every 25 to 40 years.We didn't ask what exactly that meant. But it did explain why there were no graves for Herbrucks here.

People put candles on the grave sites and they plant flowers on the graves. As you can see, this is a well-manicured town and cemetery.

There was a WWII section right at the gate. All the young men buried there died right at the end of the war. Apparently they were being honored for holding out against the Allied forces at the end of the war.

A little disappointed on our search for Herbrucks we walked up the street back into town where we passed an older (older than me) man sitting outside his house. Wolfgang stopped to tell him that we were Americans (I hoped that would be perceived as a good thing) who were looking for ancestors. His wife came out of the house and joined the conversation, then took us up the street and around the corner to the home of the oldest woman in town, Rese Pfeiffer. Rese is 90, but too young to remember my ancestors. She sure did remind me of my grandmother.

There was much discussion in German and the mention of a telephone book, which brought a lot of laughter since the Herbrucks had left before phones. But of course there might have been some Herbrucks still around in those early days. There is no sign of them there now, but Rese was happy to welcome us and make me feel like kin.

As I walked back to our car I looked at the buildings and flowers we passed and wondered what the town had looked like in 1831.

Back to France
Since we were so close to the border of France and we missed Paris, Andrea suggested we spend the rest of the day in France. She thought we wouild like to visit the town of Wissembourg, which is in Alsace. So we took an hour drive through the forest to Wissembourg.

A Visit to Koln

2010-06-02T03:27:00.000-07:00

In the U.S., we call this city Cologne, and apparently it is where Eau de Cologne originated. In those days you could splash it on your body or drink it for refreshment.

But we were there to see the cathedral. It is stunning to see as you pull into the train station. And it's not too difficult to find your way to the cathedral from the station! But we stopped for a mettwurst at a stand inside the station (smoked pork sausage with mustard on a bread bun).

Nothing quite prepares you for the immensity of this cathedral and the complexity of the architecture.

I think you could spend a day just walking around the outside and studying all the detailed structures and figures.

Gargoyles

Entrance Ornamentation

This UNESCO-designated site took 632 years to build (beginning in 1248). When I asked Wolfgang how it survived the bombing of WWII, his response was "God." In fact, it was hit 70 times, but the twin spires remained intact and it didn't collapse. Another reason might be that the twin spires were probably used as a navigational marker for the Allied planes.

Inside, the nave supports one of the highest Gothic vaults in the world, almost as high as Beauvais Cathedral, much of which has collapsed.

Many of the glass windows were destroyed by the bombings but have been replaced in their original styles.

Here is just a small sample of what we saw.

On the left is the oldest style of window and on the right, the more familiar style. The window in the center is the south transept window which had been temporarily repaired after the war with plain glass. This new window was completed by German artist Gerhard Richter in 2007. Square glass "pixels" represent colors taken from the other windows in the cathedral and arranged by computer. There is a pattern of repeated sections but you have to spend a lot of time staring up at it to identify the pattern.

The archbishop was not at all happy with the finished design. However, while he presides at services, he does not make decisions on restoration and maintenance of the cathedral. Those decisions are made by the Dombauverein, a non-profit civic association established in 1842 to manage the completion of the cathedral. So when he comes to the cathedral, he prefers not to sit facing the window. We learned this because a German tour group was standing near us when we were looking at the window and Wolfgang joined the group long enough to learn the story.

As light comes through Richter's window, it casts colorful patterns onto the walls nearby.

Here is a sampling of the floor mosaics.

You can see a little bit of window reflection here too.

There are two organs, built in 1948 and in 1998.

As we left the cathedral, I realized that the mettwurst was not sitting well in my stomach. We searched out an apotheka and got some digestive pills from a helpful pharmcist. Then we stopped for coffee (peppermint tea for me) at a small Italian cafe. They were really into coffee.

Heading towards the rathaus, we came across this Roman dig. Wolfgang says it's not unusual to discover underlying Roman structures when preparing to build a new shopping area or public building.
Dave and Wolfgang explored the area while I sat nearby, trying to get a point where I was feeling better. The air had warmed up a bit and the sun was shining. When they came back Wolfgang brought me a rose from a wedding party they ran into at the rathaus. Dave told me that the plan for the dig area is to build a shopping area on top but provide access to the Roman structure beneath the shopping area.

Okay, so let me explain about the rathaus. We were introduced to this term when we noted that the metro to our apartment went to Rathaus Steglitz. That wasn't too encouraging. However, it turns out that rathaus means courthouse, not house of rats. So this wedding was in the courtyard in front of the courthouse. There was music, food, and lots of merriment (I think that means alcohol).

We walked through the crowd and were planning to walk to the Hohenzollern bridge over the Rhine river. The bridge accommodates both train and pedestrian crossing. Lovers affix padlocks (called love locks) to the metal rails, then throw the key into the Rhine below. But we didn't get to see this or to toss a key because I really wasn't feeling well. Instead, we went back to the train station to catch and earlier train back to Mannheim.

I sat in a Starbuck's trying to avoid the smell of food, while Dave and Wolfgang negotiated with the reservation agent. He told them that the trains were completely full so they paid for 1st class reservations on the next train back. Turns out the train was practically empty so we had our choice of seats. Our conductor, Tim, even offered to let us drive the train.

This suited Wolfgang just fine, especially since he could go 300 kph without even touching the controls.

But actually the engineer running the train was at the other end. We went back to our seats to enjoy the ride without the additional responsibility. I practiced a little more speed-of-light photography since I was feeling a little better.

This one is interesting because you can see the up close image compared to the distant image. And you can also see the rapeseed crop that grows all over Europe to supply canola oil to the world. It's called rap or rape oil in Germany. You can understand why canola is a better marketing name in the U.S.

Conductor Tim came back to visit with us and pose for photos.

We walked back to Andrea's apartment and I cuddled up under a blanket while Dave and Wolfgang walked a couple of miles to get Vietnamese take-out. I skipped dinner since I couldn't even handle the smell of food. I really wanted to get better quick because the next day we'd scheduled a visit to Grossteinnhausen, the tiny village southeast of Mannheim in Sudwestpaltz, Rhineland Palatinate, the village my Herbruck ancestors left to come to the U.S. I didn't want to miss that.

Visit to Heidelberg

2010-05-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

Our first morning in Mannheim we walked up the street to the bakery to stock up for the weekend.

Wolfgang bought a little of everything. We went back to the apartment for coffee and pastries and then went back to buy more. My favorite was the apple tart. There were two versions. One with apples diced into small cubes, and one with larger pieces made from local apples. I liked them both.

Then we walked about 10 blocks to the lot where Andrea keeps her car. The drive to Heidelberg was about 15 minutes. Finding a parking place wasn't too bad since we didn't mind the 20 minute walk to the city center. The space was for two hours, so Wolfgang set the clock on the card that you leave in a visible space on the dashboard to let the parking police know what time you intend to return.

There is more reliance on the honor system here than there is in the US. We have a 1-month metro/bus pass for Berlin. We have been here almost a month and so far our passes have never been checked. We show it to get on the bus, but the metro has no entry machines, you just walk right onto the train. Occasionally an inspector comes through to check and you can be fined if you don't have a ticket or a pass.

On our walk to the town center, we passed several crops of mushrooms. It has been a cold rainy May here too.

I thought this was a particularly whimsical cluster. These little white flowers are everywhere in Germany right now.

Our first stop when we got into town was a chocolate shop called St. Anna's No. 1.

We sat outside in the sun while the owner prepared our chocolate. Dave and I ordered the orange chocolate. Wolfgang chose chili coffee chocolate. The owner expressed concern that he might want to rethink this combination, but Wolfgang assured her that he is tough, he can take it. The tiny shop was crowded with people buying handmade chocolates so we had time to sit in the sun outside before our chocolate arrived.

As you can see, this is not American style hot chocolate. This is real chocolate melted into a bit of milk. When she brought it, she told us to stir it to melt the lumps of chocolate. You can eat it with a spoon or go ahead and risk a chocolate milk mustache. The water is to drink between sips of chocolate. It was velvety smooth, not too sweet, with a hint of orange. Quite elegant.

Before we left, I bought a couple of her chocolates.

There is a disk of chocolate at the bottom of each. I'm not sure how they do the sides. Maybe it's a special mold, but the sides are very thin, like it is spread onto acetate strips. The center is a slightly soft ganache. The white chocolate one is coffee and the dark is hazelnut. The packaging is simple but elegant.

The outskirts of Heidelberg are modern but as you approach the center, it becomes more historic. The streets here were mostly pedestrian.

The Subway restaurant sign seemed kind of out of place here.

On the hill, we could see the remains of the old castle.

Wolfgang took us to his favorite place for coffee at the end of the street before we turned toward the bridge and began the climb up the hill (that he hadn't really told us much about at this point).

Turns out they had some really interesting chocolates as well. A solid disk of chocolate is poured into the bottom and then a very soft ganache is piped on top. Another disk of solid chocolate is poured on top. These are a little messy to eat but they were quite delicious.

Yes, the Starlight mice will eventually have their own perspective of the Berlin/Paris/So. Germany trip online but right now they are too busy exploring.

Here is one of the older buildings we passed as we headed towards the bridge.

The bridge crosses the river Neckar.

Wolfgang mentioned the little loop he would like to take us on to show us some pretty nice views of the city... with a nice Italian restaurant at the end.

We agreed that would be fun. It started out quite idyllic as a narrow winding path.

"You see, it's not so bad." But it got a little steeper. And it went up and up and up. "Just around this corner, we're almost there."

Oops, here are a few stairs. "You will see. It will be beautiful."

"Come on, it's not very far anymore." We finally did reach the first viewing spot.

And it was lovely (especially the part where we got to sit down on a bench). This is the snow-globe city in the winter with spires rising up out of the snow. Oh, but wait... that's not all! There are more stairs and a little bit further to reach the top.

And this is what to see from the top.

Going down didn't see quite as steep. Dave thinks it was about 400 feet to the top. The path is called the Philosopher's Walk.

By the time we got to the bottom it was later than Wolfgang had expected so we took a short break at the Italian cafe and called Andrea to find out if she wanted to meet us for dinner at an outdoor restaurant on the Rhine in Mannheim.

Wolfgang and Dave had coffee. I ordered their special of the day, Spargel Soup. Spargel is the thick white asparagus that is in season right now and for sale all over Germany and France.

The soup was salmon, dill, and white asparagus. It was my first taste of this seasonal treat. I've had a lot of white asparagus since and I like it this way the best. The texture of the soup was silky smooth with garlicky fried crumbles of salmon suspended in the light creamy soup.

It was a bit difficult to stand up and walk again after this short break, but we were well past our 4 pm parking deadline. Actually finding our car was a bit of a problem, but Wolfgang picked up the scent and led us through the city outskirts to the warm interior of the car.

We drove directly (well actually we missed the Mannheim bridge a few times but eventually found the correct street and got into the right area) and found a parking space within a convenient quarter to half mile walk to the restaurant. We sat outside and ate traditional German food as boats moved up and down the Rhine near our table.

Since I didn't have my camera, I thought I'd try out the video feature on my iPhone while we waited for our food to arrive.

We headed back to our car at sunset. We needed to rest up for the early morning train to Koln then next day.

A Tiny Bit More of Paris

2010-05-28T01:33:00.001-07:00

As we were packing up our suitcases, the maid came in to clean us out of our apartment. Good thing we were almost ready. Checkout was 10 am and she was about 10 minutes early.

We dragged our luggage downstairs and took the metro to the train station to store our luggage, since our train didn't leave until around 5 pm. That would give us a few more hours in Paris with just our backpacks.

Andrea wanted to show us the remains of a Roman arena and a mosque. We also found a botanic garden in that area.

This is the Lutrece Arena. Dave is staring into the grilled areas where the lions were kept? You can see these two release cages on the lower left of the photo next that photo. We assumed that the gladiators came from the entrance at the upper right in the larger photo. It felt strange to walk around in this arena.

The peaceful area around the arena seemed to contradict the history of arena sports in this location.

These Roman gardens are just in front of the arena. The picture below is another example of the mixture of time periods and that I mentioned in my previous posting.

The mosque was only a street or two over from these Roman structures.
It was closed but we could see the exterior. And across the street were some modern day balcony gardens.

Since it was the right kind of day for strolling in gardens, we walked back to where we'd seen the Jardin des Plants and took a leisurely walk. We saw some that large leaf mint that Dave had in his salad at Laduree the night before.

There were children everywhere, eating lunch on the benches, on the grass, and even taking naps under a tree.

The red hats and green hats must have been on a botanical tour. But some folks were just enjoying some quiet time on a shady bench.

We finally had to leave to pick up our luggage and wait to board our train back to Germany. We had a three hour ride to Andrea's apartment in Mannheim.

As the train moved towards Germany the sun disappeared and it began to rain.

Goodbye Paris.

Last Full Day in Paris

2010-05-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

We couldn't leave Paris without giving Dave a chance to see the Eiffel tower up close. I knew he'd appreciate the engineering.

We decided not to take the elevators to the top. Shaun and I took them last time at night which was pretty but really crowded. We decided the real treat is to see the structure and be awed by it's immensity.

And almost as exciting were the free toilettes nearby.

Dave had to pay a euro to use the toilette in a restaurant on our walk from the metro to the tower.

We decided to go to the Musee D'Orsey, but when we got to the metro stop my 3-day pass had stopped working... again. You can't try it again right away because it will interpret that as trying to get two people through on one pass. You have to wait for 20 minutes before using it again at the same station.

We decided to walk along the Seine in the direction of the Musee D'Orsey. It's really difficult to judge distance when you use the metro. Some stops are closer than you think. Since it had turned out to be a beautiful warm day, we decided to skip the museum and take a boat ride on the Seine.

We wished we'd done this earlier. You get a much better sense of how the city is laid out, and you find out more about the buildings and the history of the city.

These are just a hint of what we saw on the 1-hour boat ride.

I found the rooftop gardens to be intriguing. Those are trees up there!

Like London, Paris is a mix of old, older, and new. Here is a bit of Notre Dame rising above some very high-end apartments. Paris didn't experience the bombing that most of the cities of Germany did, so there are a lot more very old buildings here but there are lots of newer buildings as well.

After the boat tour, we discovered that my metro pass still wouldn't work, so we found an information booth at the station to get it replaced. This happened to me several times. I finally realized that the magnet latches on my travel purse were de-magnitizing the strip that communicates with the metro entry machines.

In the evening we went to the David Lebovitz book signing at the W.H. Smith bookstore across from the tuilleries (yes, we found it).

He was speaking mostly to Americans in Paris. He blogs and writes about being a pastry chef/cookbook writer in Paris. His style is light and humorous. There was a large crowd so we couldn't get close enough to see him, but we were near the book signing table so we got our books signed quickly. I gave him a couple of copies of Edible Santa Barbara. One of his ice cream recipes is in the one with the tomatoes on the cover and I gave him the chocolate issue as well since he leads chocolate tours in Paris. He told me he loves the Edible magazines.

I couldn't buy his new book Ready for Dessert because it's too heavy for my already heavy suitcase, so I got his smaller book on chocolate... a really good choice.

We leave on Monday and I'm already panicking about how to get everything into our suitcases and get them onto the plane. I'll probably leave my slacks here to make more room for the copper pan we bought in Paris.

Our final experience for the day was to go to Laduree on Champs Elysee for dinner. It was far too elegant to take photos of our food. We ate upstairs, choosing the classical menu over the cafe style menu. It was quite delicious. Dave's choice was the best, a shrimp salad with a light vinaigrette dressing. The small sweet shrimp were just a little warm on crisp butter lettuce, spinach, and large leaf mint. We bought our macaroons (Laduree is well-known for macaroons) to go because they are less expensive in a box than on a plate.

I have to agree with Pascale, the Gerard Mulot macaroons I tasted were better. I think the focus for Gerard Mulot is the filling with just a hint of macaroon exterior. The Laduree macaroons focus more on the macaroon exterior with a filling accent. I like this kind of research.

We were home by midnight. It's amazing how many people are still on the streets and in the cafes at midnight.

Tuesday in Paris

2010-05-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

We began the day with pastries and a fresh baguette Dave brought back from an early morning trip to the bakery down the street.

I wanted to see St. Chapelle and Notre Dame with the sun shining through the windows. Dave wanted to see the Rodin museum, so we all agreed to start at the Rodin museum and then after seeing the gardens, Andrea and Wolfgang would go off to see other sights. In the evening, we'd all go to the train station together to wave goodbye to Wolfgang.

Great place to go while we urged the sun out from behind the clouds. It worked!

Here I am... thinking.

The gardens were filled with statues. The one on the right in the flannel shirt looks kind of familiar.

Now here's an unusual sight.

Wolfgang stops to smell the roses? You probably know by now that Wolfgang puts in at least twice as many miles as we do on a walk as he darts back and forth finding the best things to show us.

The garden provided natural art as well. Dave and Andrea are framed by an ivy archway. A tree trunk offers a bit of natural sculpture, and the sun creates shadow art on the gravel pathway.

Andrea and Wolfgang waved goodbye as Dave and I went inside the museum.

Here are a few things we saw inside.

Our next stop was Saint Chapelle. We arrived during the lunch break so the line wasn't too long yet. We passed through the metal detectors but had to declare my little pocket knife which meant filling out forms and getting a claim receipt.

Saint Chapelle is very blue and quite beautiful. The photos on the right are downstairs below the chapel. You walk up a very narrow circular stairway that opens out into the room with the windows shown on the left in this photo.

This is a broader view of the chapel. We then reclaimed my pocket knife and had to walk with it through the area they had restricted us from entering with it to get to the exit.

We walked over to Notre Dame, which had no line, and no metal detector or pocket knife policy. Here is one of the rose windows.

And a bit of stained glass.

I have lots more photos, but these gives you an idea of what we saw inside.

All too soon it was time to get Wolfgang to his train. We didn't take our camera but he made it safely onto the train and back to Berlin.

Andrea took us to Montmartre to see where she had lived and to have dinner at a really delicious Algerian restaurant down the hill. We took the funicular up to the top this time instead of walking and we were grateful that the walk down was pretty easy. While wandering through the side streets of Montmartre, we saw this.

So I snapped a picture with my iPhone. That about does it for Tuesday. We only had one more full day left in Paris so we needed a little sleep.

Lost in Paris

2010-05-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Monday held some promise for some sunshine. The Starlight mice had finally emerged from their box to check out the apartment and look out the window at all the people passing by in the morning on their way to somewhere.

By Monday we'd run out of clean clothes so we did a little washing. In this apartment we had the same cheese-grater type washer but it also had a drying cycle. We never did figure out how to get it to dry without adding hot water. Wolfgang said it was stewing his clothes, not drying them. But that's what European windows and balconies are for.

Dave and I headed off in our clean clothes to visit the Centre Pompidou. This was a Lost in Paris day. We got off the metro and walked long distances in the wrong directions trying to find our way to the street that would take us there. By the time we found it, we were too frustrated to take photos of the Pompidou building. You'll have to click on the link to see it. It's unusual.

Andrea had suggested we also visit the Place des Vosges since we were in the area. So we consulted our map and walked in the wrong direction. But we eventually figured it out, with the help of some street signs and our LARGE PRINT map. On the way we passed this pleasant little courtyard.

Those glass bubbles on the lawn are actually solar lights.

We found an empty bench at the park to sit and relax. Everyone was enjoying the sun. It was still cold enough for an overcoat, but at least the sun was out.

Place des Vosges is in the Marais district. The houses that surround the park were owned by aristocracy. Victor Hugo lived here.

Our next stop was my favorite cooking store (Mora) near the Les Halles metro stop. The market halls are gone, but this reflective building is right near the metro exit.

I found a few more chocolate molds to try to stuff into our suitcases. I know I'll be happy to have them when I get home, but getting our luggage to the airport will be challenging.

Afterwards we decided to go find the W.H. Smith bookstore where David Lebovitz, the American pastry chef in Paris blogger would be signing his new book on Wednesday evening.

I found the street on my map and we headed off to the 11th arrondissement. We found the street without too many wrong turns and followed it to the end without seeing anything that resembled a bookstore. The street numbers were completely wrong, so I must have written something down wrong. But there was a small well-stocked cheese shop nearby, so we stopped in to pick up some dinner cheese and sliced meat. They also had small madeleines made with butter from Brittany (the best).

Neither Dave nor I can remember what we did that night so maybe we rested up for the next day, which would be Wolfgang's last day in Paris. I know I made bread pudding that night with all the leftover bits of bread. We had it with authentic creme fraiche. It was delicious.

Last Sunday (Paris)

2010-05-23T02:07:00.001-07:00

A week ago we were in Paris. A week goes by so quickly (especially when you're climbing stairs).

These are the stairs that took us to our 2nd floor (3rd in America) apartment. The first day we had no lights on the stairs but by the second day they were working. Good thing Dave brought his supply of flashlights along.

Andrea knew about a Sunday street market where the crowd sings French songs and dances. It's on Rue Mouffetard. Don't ask me where that is, we just followed Andrea through the metro until we arrived at the right place.

They pass out song sheets so you can sing along... if you can figure out which song they're singing and read French real fast. The refrains were the easiest.

At the beginning of the market was this beautifully decorated building.

We spent so much time watching the dancers that the market was closing just as we started to shop but we did get some awesome freshly baked bread and cheese. We passed a Jeff de Bruges ice cream vendor who sold us some really delicious cones.

Rue Mouffetard is a street leading toward the Sorbonne, with lots of interesting shops and small restaurants with good prices.

We chose this one because the quiches in the window looked really good. The restaurant was so tiny the waitress hardly had room to walk between the 6 tables to the back. She had a microwave at the front where she heated slices of quiche she took from the window display, then put some greens on the plate and served them. They made their own ginger lemonade. I had an asparagus quiche. The texture was soft and creamy.

We tried an apricot tart for dessert, but it wasn't nearly as good as Susan's tarts at the Village Feinkost.

We walked to the Sorbonne and visited the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter.

The inside was beautiful.

This is where the first demonstration of the movement of the earth was demonstrated by Foucault using his pendulum to track the movement. The pendulum was at 1600 when we arrived and 1700 when we left, proving that the earth had rotated beneath it.

This is a the ceiling where the pendulum is suspended.

We also went downstairs to the crypts where Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Marie and Pierre Curie, Carnot, Louis Braille, and many other notable people are buried.

Then we headed back to our apartment for a quick dinner. The Louvre was open for free entrance until midnight so we figured this would be a good time to visit it. We didn't take any photos but we saw the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa and some of the other Italian paintings. Since the Louvre was pretty crowded and we were tired, we decided to head home, stopping at the Arche de Triomphe on our way home. The stairs to the top were closed because it was midnight. I can't say we were terribly disappointed not to climb that set of stairs although I'm sure it would have been worth it.

Notre Dame

2010-05-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

Our goal on Saturday was to visit St. Chapelle and Notre Dame, both at the Cite metro stop. The line for St. Chapelle was long, so we headed the other direction to Notre Dame.

At this sign, we knew we'd made the right choice (although it didn't include icons for the really long line or the grumpy attendant at the window collecting coins).

Then, as we entered the plaza, we saw it!

No, not Notre Dame--the structure to the left, which caught us totally by surprise. Notre Dame would be there for a few more centuries, but the Fete du Pain is a one-weekend event and we'd just accidentally shown up on the right day.

If you are not familiar with French, be reassured that this was a festival of artisan bread baking, not a celebration of torture.

The top bread bakers in the city were all there demonstrating their bread and pastry making skills and techniques.

And they were sharing their techniques with everyone, especially the kids.

Outside the exhibition area were tents where we could buy sandwiches and pastries made in the exhibition room. The word had gone out to the gourmet bird community who had gathered in the nearby bushes waiting for handouts.

The plaza was packed with people from all over the world. Gypsies were working the crowd, asking for money from anyone who spoke English. I thought it was interesting that they looked for English speakers. "Madame, do you speak English?" Then they hand you a card written in English explaining why they need money.

The line to get into Notre Dame was long, so we decided to take photos of the outside and come back during the week to see the Rose windows from the inside. Here are a few of our photos.

Then I took Dave on a really long walk to the candy store Shaun and I had found when we were here before. Since I couldn't remember the name or how to get there, we spent several hours walking around the 4th arrondissement and never found it.

It was a beautiful day for a walk. A little cool, but the sun was shining. We walked along the Seine and then went back to our apartment to nap before heading out for the evening.

In the evening, we took the metro to St. Germaine des Pres. The metro was next to a church which advertised a gospel choir concert that had just begun, so we rushed in to buy tickets. It didn't take long to realize that gospel music isn't written for cathedrals. It's a lot like trying to listen to the announcement in a large train station. One person can almost sound like a choir in a cathedral because the sounds linger and produce harmonics. So instead of about 12 people singing it sounded like 100, all singing different parts of the song at the same time. It was a really muddy sound. Lots of people walked out, but we moved out along the side until we found an area where the acoustics were better.

Afterwards we went to Les Deux Magots for a late night snack of open-faced salmon sandwiches and haricot verts. The restaurants in Paris stay open really late. We passed diners at midnight in our neighborhood. This restaurant is in the Sorbonne area. Big article about Michael Jackson framed on the wall near the door.

It was cold and rainy again when we left, but Andrea said her mom had predicted sunshine for Sunday... in spite of what the weatherman was saying.

Leaving Paris

2010-05-21T21:06:00.001-07:00

We are on the speed-of-light train to Mannheim. A forest... a field... an embankment... farmhouses... yellow fields of rape seed... wind turbines... a tunnel... sheep and cows grazing... all a blur of color through the camera lens.
We'll be in Mannheim before I can get you caught up on the past six days in Paris. But I'll get started. First of all you cannot see Paris in a week. We tried. Most days we were out of the apartment at 8 am and back after midnight.

We had a Paris Visite metro pass, which means we climbed a lot of stairs. Paris has a lot more stairs than Berlin, but they also have more pastries, macaroons, and chocolates. One must climb the stairs to reach them.

It's really easy to get lost in Paris because the streets change names every few blocks, the metro has multiple exits, and streets do not run parallel and perpendicular. The first couple of days Dave and I spent more time walking the wrong direction than we spent at our destinations. In Paris, when that happens, you stop and have coffee... oh, and some pastries, or chocolate, or macaroons.

On Friday morning, I took Dave to L'Ecole Ferrandi, the cooking school I attended a few years ago ago, then to Poilane for some freshly baked bread, and then to the La Grande Epicerie du Bon Marche.

The weather was cold and drippy when we arrived and downright raining when we left, after having successfully negotiated a perfectly ripened (tendre) goat cheese and fragrant slices of salami.

While trying to figure out which metro station would get us to our next destination we passed a Maison du Chocolat. Hmm, forget the metro.

It took us far less time to eat our chocolates than to figure out which ones to buy. There are no photos. I'll describe the cherries. Each fondant-coated cherry had been dipped into rich dark chocolate. The cherry had dissolved into an alcoholic liquid with a seed at that center, so I'm guessing these started out as fresh cherries. Wow! Good thing we had more stairs to climb.

Retracing our steps, we passed A la Reine Astrid, another confisserie and were drawn to the shop by this window display.

This fruit-studded mound of nougat is sold in slices. We went into the shop and found these.

The Dammann Freres bar on the lower left was incredibly expensive but the photo was free. The dark chocolate mendiants on the lower right were delicious. The nuts were roasted and lightly glazed before they were dropped onto the puddle of chocolate. The green and white slice at the upper right is made of almond paste layered with cherries and hazelnuts. The upper left is a piece of nougat with apricots, almonds, and pistachios.

More stairs please!

It's Cold in Paris!

2010-05-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang says Andrea was in charge of the weather in Paris. This is not normal May weather in Europe, but our apartment has good heating and nice hot showers. Dave thinks we should have gotten weather insurance. But we are in Paris!

What is the first thing you should do in Paris after a 14-hour train ride? Climb up to Sacre Coeur to take a photo of the Eiffel Tower!

The walk was all uphill from our apartment in the 17th arrondisement to Sacre Coeur. It rained a bit, but we made it.

Yesterday was a holiday in both Germany and France, so we weren't alone at the top.

We passed a living living statue... or maybe he was just cold.

It was packed inside the Sacre Coeur because it was a religious holiday. We sat down inside to enjoy the windows and architecture (and get out of the rain). Dave fell asleep, so we woke him up and walked down the hill to go back to the train station to meet Andrea.

The walk down was quite lovely through a wooded area with flowers.

Later I'll post some photos from the food walk Dave and I took today.

On to Paris

2010-05-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

We are leaving Berlin tonight for Paris. Berlin continues to bloom around us. The white cherry blossoms are raining flowers onto the sidewalks and tulips are blooming wherever they want.

I have working on my Edible SB article, trying to cut out the extra 1000 words before we leave for Paris. Dave took these photos in our room in Copenhagen and on the ferry back to Germany. I think I managed to leave about 700 words in Denmark.

Last night after we arrived home from Denmark, Wolfgang and his family came over with dinner from the Feinkost American Village Cafe. Martina came over too, so we had a wonderful noisy meal with Wolfgang, Martina, and Monika telling stories of harrowing US adventures in English and German. I have no pictures of the food or event because we were all too busy eating to think of taking photos. I did get to tastethe Feinkost cheesecake last night. It was lovely.

Here's the only photo I have from last night. Monika brought us lilacs (flieder). They are hanging from trees all over Berlin.

Fortunately they survived our feeding frenzy. When we come back, I will take my camera to the cafe to photograph Susan's and Matthias' food work.

We'll be in Paris for 7 days and southern Germany for another 4 days. Then, Wolfgang is driving us back to Berlin. I'll try to blog our adventures as they we go along... depending on the quality of our Internet connection.

Copenhagen

2010-05-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

We are staying in at Morten's Guesthouse in the Christianhavn area of Copenhagen (blue house, pink door). We climb one flight of stairs to our room and the shared bathroom and another flight of stairs to the kitchen.

We can store food in the fridge and borrow plates and cups if we promise to clean up after ourselves.
Here's the toaster.

Dave went across the street to the bakery this morning while I was showering and brought back these pastries.

Let me just say that is this not like Solvang pastry. The texture is light and crisp with no gummy center and the flavor is buttery sweet. We are really hoping that the bakery will be open early enough tomorrow to pick up some to eat on the train back to Berlin. I like the long twisty one on the left the best.

We took the City Cirkel bus around town to get oriented. With a 24 hour metro/bus pass you can get on and off as often as you want. However, our driver clearly hated his job--heaven forbid we should ask him exactly where we were on the map. We were the only two passengers on the bus. So we got off at the tourist information office and bought tickets for the Hop On Hop Off sightseeing bus, which advertised a recorded narration in English and had headphones at each seat.

The headphones didn't actually work, so the English narration was also delivered over the loudspeaker. It only took a few blocks to realize that the narration was completely out of synch with the things we were passing. Apparently it was recorded on a traffic-free day. So the driver kept backing the tape up and replaying it until we arrived at the point of interest. Some of the segments were repeated three or four times and some were explained long after we passed the building or monument. Oh.. and it turns out that the mermaid in the harbor has been shipped to China for an exposition so they have some kind of video representation of her there instead.

After going through the full tour, we got off the bus in Christiana, which is a community of squatters who took over an old military base in the 1970s and turned into a hippie community. Photography is not allowed on Pusher Street where hash is offered for sale. We bought a falafel and latte instead and avoided the brownies. We did take a couple of photos of the colorful graffiti, which is everywhere--even on the rocks.

I'll another on my Flickr page under in the Denmark set. They also had fires burning in steel oil drum containers where we warmed our hands. (The sun was out but it was still a cold day). Those drums give off a lot of heat. We didn't take photos of them because the guys standing around them with us looked like they might be hash salesmen. As we left Christiana, we passed a sign that said "Re-entering the E.U."

We decided to stroll through the more upscale pedestrian shopping streets but didn't really see anything we wanted to buy. So we stopped at a bakery to get pizza for dinner and brought back some pastries for dessert.

The cherry tart has almond paste piped around it. The cherries were sugar syrup sweet and the almond paste had that extract flavor so that one was disappointing. The round chocolate truffle was pretty good. The nut tart lacked character but is a lot tastier if you take a bite of truffle with each forkful of tart. The pistachio paste log surrounding a fudge-like center was the best. One end is dipped in chocolate. It's not too sweet and the combination really works together.

So that's my report for today. We head out early in the morning for our 7-hour train ride back to Berlin. But first I have to write a note in the guest book.

Complainments? This reminds me of one of Wolfgang's first visits when he thanked us for our hostility as he was leaving.

Saturday in Berlin

2010-05-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

We started off the morning at the Village Feinkost Cafe with Wolfgang and Andrea.

This is the American Cafe around the corner from Wolfgang's apartment. This is the second time we've had breakfast there. The food is not only delicious, it's beautifully served. I hesitated to take photos because it's so American to put photos of your restaurant meals on the web, but you really need to see how gorgeous it looks. I had a burrito. The quiche looked really good too. Since this is an American cafe, I think we can get away with photos the next time. It has a neighborhood cafe atmosphere where people join each others conversations.

I'll save the food descriptions for the food photo blog entry. Here's a corner table.

The space is limited, so you need to reserve a table on the weekend. They also have a few tables outside but it has been cold and drippy so inside is more cosy.

Susan

Susan does the cooking in the kitchen and the baking, but she comes out to visit when she gets a break (which isn't often because it's been really busy when we were there). She is from Vermont. Her carrot cake is awesome, but so is her brownie and lemon tart. We haven't gotten to try her cheesecake because it was sold out. Wolfgang and Andrea were very disappointed about that. Susan quickly realized that she should never sell the last piece without phoning Wolfgang to ask permission first.

Matthias

Her husband, Matthias does all the pantry work (salads and sandwiches) and is the barista. They have good coffee, tea, and chai.

After breakfast, we went to the grand opening of the conversion of Templehof airport into a park. This was the American airport in Berlin set up to handle the airlift supplies after WWII ended. There are lots of photos of the event on my Flickr page in the Berlin set. The space will be used for special events. There were booths set up along one of the old runways. It looked like a Christmas market but there were political and non-profit information tables as well as food booths.

This however, was my favorite. These are drinks. Most of them had alcohol in them but a few didn't. I just loved the way they looked. Next time I make a pitcher of rose syrup soda, I'll do it like this. (Krista, don't you think something like this would look good in the summer issue of Edible SB?)

Now these cookies look like something right out of Hansel and Gretel. How could you not want one if you were a kid?

I think you can wear it around your neck and take bites when you need them, especially if you get lost in the forest. This might actually be useful on the Wolfgang workout tour, although the tour stops often for coffee and pastries or ice cream, which is why I'll weigh more when I get home than when I left in spite of the added exercise.

Well, we are in Copenhagen today. We have one day to see the whole city. I'll try to put photos on Flickr tonight. Our return train to Berlin leaves at 7 am tomorrow so I won't guarantee a blog entry tonight.

Berliner Philharmoniker

2010-05-07T13:54:00.001-07:00

This is the seating chart for the inside of the Berlin Philharmonic (I posted the wrong one previously). The orchestra is in the center. Wolfgang pointed to our seats as we entered. But first he wanted to take us on a little tour of the concert hall. Little tour means going up and down the stairs of every section to get a special view from the top. Afterwards, Dave pointed out that he no longer needs to have a treadmill stress test because he wasn't dead by the time we reached our seats.

The concert was good and was immediately followed by a walk through the area around Potsdamer Platz in the rain. It has been really cold here and it rained pretty hard all day yesterday.

I stayed home in the morning yesterday to work on my Edible SB article while Dave went out grocery shopping. He bought the ingredients to make bread... although he couldn't actually read the flour labels so the wheat flour turned out to be white flour and the white flour was rye. However his bread came out delicious.

Here's the sandwich Dave made me this morning with his freshly baked bread.

Life is good in our Berlin kitchen!

Buying Organic

2010-05-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

When the egg cartons say "Bio" (organic) here in Berlin, they really mean it.

The 2 Hour Wash Cycle

2010-05-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yup, we have our own washing machine right in the bathroom, next to the bathtub. This is very convenient:

We couldn't figure out how to actually get the short hose into the bathtub but then we noticed a plastic device on the floor behind the washer that bends the hose into the bathtub.

Hmm, this won't be too helpful. Our friend Roxanna warned us that we probably wouldn't have a dryer, but she didn't mention that we'd have to read German to figure out the settings on the washing machine. Click on photo if you speak German and send us the translation!

We lifted lid and found a cylinder that resembles a cheese grater.

However after rotatinng the cylinder we found a secret compartment that actually holds a lot of clothes. The dispenser on the lid is where you load the pre- and main wash detergent, softener, and bleach (we think). Anyhow, we chose some settings, poured in our detergent. Now we're waiting... and waiting... and waiting for the load to finish.

We figured out how to set up the drying rack which is supposed to go on the balcony, but since it's raining we'll probably put it in the bathtub. It's wise to plan ahead for washing (and maybe I should have brought a few more clothes).

It's raining so while waiting for the cycle to end, I planted the window box on our balcony. The trees here are leafing out and the birds are singing so planting a window box in the rain is fun.

Hey the washing machine has stopped! Time to go hang the wash.

Berlin Greetings

2010-05-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

Our friends Wolfgang, Herta, and Monika met us at Tegel Flughafen (airport) in Berlin.

We were pretty jet-lagged but we recognized them behind the profusion of American flags.

There were streamers too. But the official presentation was a Berliner (a Berlin doughnut), which Dave accepted graciously.

Monika drove us all to our apartment where there was a teeny tiny elevator to carry our luggage up to the 4th floor.

Monika, Herta, and I took the stairs. The last flight was the hardest. This will be the home of Grandma Nan's kitchen for most of our visit, except for the week in Paris.

Inside the apartment we found more flowers, confetti, and chocolate. You'll have to visit the Starlight Mice blog for a little more information on that. Wolfgang's family had also stocked our kitchen so we all sat down for tea, coffee and snacks.

We even had fresh pretzels (not shown here). Wolfgang showed us the seal to look for when we buy our own food at the supermarket.

It's the DKO-TEST seal shown here on the water he bought us. The word bio indicates organic. Our friend Martina told us that bio is especially important on the produce we choose.

Then Wolfgang took us on a walk of the area to help reduce our jet-lag--a really long walk, although we did stop for a coffee and pastries and again for a Vietnamese dinner before he took us on the final loop of the jet-lag cure walk.

The walk worked for Dave, but not for me. Alas, I was up at 3 am. Fortunately we have a separate living room so I left him snoring in the bedroom.

In the morning, Dave fixed breakfast in our Berlin kitchen.

After breakfast I took a short nap. Good thing because Wolfgang had a big walking day planned for us that began with a metro ride and walk to the Village Feinkost Cafe, an American cafe that he has told us a lot about. I'll save the details for my next post.

Link to Starlight Mouse blog: http://www.starlightmice.blogspot.com

A Moment for Zack

2006-11-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

Each dog in our lives has his or her own special personality. Michelann has written a tribute to Zack on her blog at http://www.lyrico.com/me/index.html, which lovingly describes the dog that was Zack.

For me, I'm finding it very difficult to look at a an empty paper towel roll and not think of Zack. One time he carried the carboard cylinder around for several days sticking it in our faces and in the faces of the other dogs to get us all to comment on his treasure and share his joy... I guess. After several days of this Bea (a dog of very little patience) got fed up, grabbed the paper towel cylinder from him and tore it to shreds. I have to admit we were all a bit relieved.

Socks were another treasure, especially the stinky dirty ones. He could be in and out of the laundry room in a flash, showing up back in the kitchen with a mouthful of sock. Another time he decided to forage the open dish washer. Shaun found him carrying around a knife in his mouth... a large one.

He also believed that all junk mail and packaging materials were his personal property... treasures to be admired by all who loved him. This was especially frustrating to Ladybug, who inherited her dad's appreciation for portable items and would often try to steal them from him by attaching her teeth to the other end. Shaun referred to this as the Kiss of Death. Zack would patiently hold onto his end as she tried to pull him around the room.

Flower pots were the funniest because he would grab the rim at the bottom of the circle instead of the top. A large pot would cover his eyes, causing him to walk into walls and chairs and other dogs.

And of course Lady Bug is a ongoing reminder of Zack. All of our puppies were raised by Zack who taught them to play while Amber was weaning them. At first Amber wouldn't let Zack near her babies, but he hung around a lot waiting for a sign that she wanted his help.

When the time came, he was ready. The puppies would pile onto him (all eleven of them) to play. He'd have puppies biting his ears, pulling his tail and under his front paw. They learned to make the growling sound that changes in pitch with the intensity of the play and also the importance of savoring your food... that's eating it very slowly while the other dogs watch.

We miss him a lot, especially when we change the roll of paper towels, try to match up pairs of socks, throw away the junk mail without a nudge on the arm, or sit next to his empty chair in front of the television.

Traveling to Hiroshima

2006-01-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

It snowed a lot more during the night after our snow day, but the next morning we caught an early bus to the train station and took a train to Hiroshima.

Looking out the window of the train at the blanket of snow covering the cities we passed through, we were quite happy to be in the warm train. Even the train had to slow down at one point to maintain traction on the frozen tracks.

It was snowing in Hiroshima, but not as much... just enough to get caught in your eyelashes but not enough to blanket the ground.

A Snow Day

2006-01-19T10:13:00.000-08:00

This was our first snow day in Japan. Snow was not part of our itinerary. We cancelled all major travel for that day, shopped at the local grocery and the 100-yen store and then went home and baked. I made lemon tarts and Dave made homemade bread. Jeff cooked us a delicious dinner. With the heaters running we were nice and warm and it was beautiful to look outside.

These pictures are taken at Karen and Jeff's house. You can see the neighboring houses from their upstairs window and the depth of the snow on the balcony railing (I think it was about six inches).

Jeff and Dave drove to the hardware store to find a shovel, since it is customary for each homeowner to clear his own section of the street. Not having brought a snow shovel with them from the U.S., they had previously used a dustpan... a slow and laborious chore. Jeff decided that with this amount of snow it was time to buy a real shovel.

In the meantime, kids on their way to school were outside laughing and throwing snowballs at each other. We could see red and yellow umbrellas passing above the snow-covered wall. A snowman appeared at the end of the street (and lasted until after we returned from Hiroshima).

Take a look at the lower right-hand photo. The string of bells hanging down from the corner of the roof is the rain spout. This is the standard design for rainspouts in Japan.

The bottom of this photo shows the top of the clothes line... actually it's an assembly of poles. Karen has a washing machine, but no dryer, so all clothes hang outside in the sun to dry... when there is sun. Sometimes the clothes come back into the house at night frozen and are hung on hooks and hangers near the electric heaters to defrost and dry.

Like in Europe, homes all over Japan have clothes hanging outside. In this case, hangers can be used on the poles and the poles are removable so you can stick the pole through a leg of a pair of jeans and place it back onto the frame (horizontally) to hang the jeans. There is also a revolving plastic assembly with multiple clothespins hanging from it for smaller items like socks and underwear. It has a hanger at the top, so it's portable (can be taken inside to use near the electric heater). Since space is at a premium in small Japanese homes, there are lots of ingenious space-saving tools like this in the household section of the stores.

The evening of our snow day, we drank warm tea, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and watched a Christmas movie together before going to bed.

Christmas in Japan

2006-01-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Last year we went to Germany, expecting a snow globe Christmas... no snow. Well not in Berlin. We did get to see some snow in Dresden.

This year we thought we'd do something really exotic and spend Christmas in Japan... a brief escape from the holiday madness. Guess what? Bing is everywhere. Bing was singing White Christmas in the airports in Holland and Berlin last year and there he was singing White Christmas in the shopping malls in Japan.

Probably our most exotic experience was when we attended a small private Chrismas concert given by the mother of one of Karen's and Jeff's students. She is an opera singer. We spoke no Japanese and the rest of the audience didn't seem to be speaking English, but they smiled and nodded in a friendly way.

Our hostess and two other opera singers sang familiar arias in the first half of the program. We knew we were heading into the Christmas part when they passed jingle bells out to the audience. Karen spent the intermission trying to sound out the characters on the program to figure out what was coming up. We assumed Jingle Bells was one of titles.

Not only was it on the program, it was a sing-along. You can see the words in the picture on the left. They started off the second half with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in Japanese, sung by three Japanese opera singers. Now that's a treat! It's pretty hard not to laugh when you hear Rudolph sung in Japanese.

They closed the program with Silent Night, sung first in German, then in English, and finally in Japanese. It was better than a snow globe Christmas!

After thanking the singers for a lovely evening, we bundled back up for the cold walk to our train back to Kosoji... warm with the glow of the music and the exchange of friendly nods and smiles from our fellow concert-goers. Hmm, a little Christmas is nice.

Japanese Toilets

2006-01-15T21:32:00.000-08:00

I really do need to mention the toilets in Japan. There are Western style and Japanese style. I wasn't surprised by the Japanese squat toilets because I'd seen them in Italy. But my first experience with the heated Western toilet seat was in this hotel in Tokyo. The toilet seat in our bathroom was toasty warm... a great place to spend a little time when it is snowing outside. Take a book.

The seat had additional features... a couple of bidet streams, one with a picture of woman and another that looked like a shower. Hmm. Ours was turned up a little high. Dave is still laughing about the scream.

On many models, you also find that when you sit down, you hear the sound of a burbling brook. And sometimes in Japanese style stalls a little speaker turns on and plays the burbling brook sound when you walk in. There is a button to push to replay it. When I asked Karen about this, she explained that you use the brook music to mask embarrassing sounds. Aha... like when you blow your nose.

Mostly I used the Japanese style toilets because I thought it might make me seem less foreign. On one snowy day in a public restroom without a heated Western toilet seat I chose Western and discovered why they heat the seats and why it's better to use the Japanese style if they don't. Cold, very cold!

You also learn to take your packet of kleenex with you because most public restrooms do not supply toilet paper. Nor do they have paper towels to dry your hands. Advertisers hand out free kleenex packets in the shopping district... gives you something to read in the bathroom. And women carry small washcloths in their purses to dry their hands. The fancier places have electric hand driers.

At home and in some restaurants and hotels they have Western style toilets with a fresh water spout above the tank on the back. You can wash your hands without having a separate sink. That water goes into the tank to refill it for the next flush. Very clever. Nothing is wasted.

2006-01-15T20:25:00.000-08:00

We bought this t-shirt for Shaun. Since he is a drummer and a cook, we thought he might be able to figure out what it means.

I wonder if the Japanese characters used on American-made t-shirts are as thought-provoking.

Japanese subways

2006-01-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

Most restrooms in Japan have the universal picture of the man or woman to help you find the right restroom. The other hint is that the men's restroom usually doesn't have a door and the urinals are directly across from the entrance. If you see men standing facing the wall and you're a woman, find the other restroom.

This is a subway restroom. The subways in Japan look a lot like the subways in London, Germany, and the U.S. The maps are designed the same way. Each line has it's own color etc. and the stops are listed on a map inside the car, usually above the door. As you can see the signs are very helpful when they include our alphabet (rumanji). You can count the stops from where you started and look for the rumanji lettering for your stop.

It's more difficult if you have to look for the kanji since that is not familiar to us. For example if it didn't say "toilet" on this sign, you would have to look for the combination of an unhappy face, a telephone pole with three lines, and a man with a hat running from a semicolon with a dot above it. That's a lot harder to recognize as your subway car sails past the sign. Karen said when they first arrived there were few rumaji signs, but in preparation for the World Expo in Nagoya this year, they put up a lot of new signs. Good thing because otherwise we wouldn't have known when we'd gotten to Nagoya. Even if you've figured out how to pronounce the name of the place you're going, it doesn't sound the same on the train or subway recording. The name melts into all the other words that come before and follow it.

People were very helpful to us when we were on public transportation or walking around trying to figure out where we were going. Somehow they recognized that we were tourists and that we probably spoke English...

Nighttime subway is quite different from daytime subway. Riders during the day are very quiet. If a cell phone rings, they move to the end of the car to talk quietly. Usually they text message each other on their cell phones or nap. No one even talks to the person sitting next to them. After dinner, however, the restraint disappears. One night we got into a car full of middle-aged (like us) dinner companions who were all laughing, teasing, and joking loudly across the aisle with each other. It was quite a contrast.

2006-01-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

I mentioned the mochi men. Here they are making fresh mochi.

A large batch of sticky rice has been boiled on an outdoor fire (off to the rear left of these pictures). The cooks bring the hot rice over and dump it into this pot, where the guys with the sticks push it together until it becomes a big glutenous lump. Then they bring out the mallets. Noisy process... each man in the circle takes a hit with his mallet and lets out his own personal exclamation as his mallet hits the ball of rubbery rice. That goes on for at least 10 minutes. It's ceremonial, a good workout, and obviously fun. I understand that mochi making is in preparation for the New Year's celebration.

In the first picture on the bottom row, there is a man on the left wearing a surgical-type mask. He is apparently the mochi master. He decides when the mochi is ready for the big mallet and he's the one who wields it. For some reason we didn't get a picture of him using the big mallet, but it took a lot of muscle to heft that one. One trusting assistant quickly turns the mochi between hits with the big mallet. I'm not sure I'd want that job... timing is critical. The master decides when the mochi is ready to eat.

Mochi, like green tea shows up in a lot of forms in Japanese cuisine. My favorite was some barbequed mochi on a skewer from a street vendor in Kyoto. Unfortunately I made the mistake of going into a shop to look at some gift items and when I came out Dave had already eaten the rest of the skewer full.

In case you wonder, the face mask is not a food prep thing. One of the first things you notice when you get off the plane in Japan in the winter is the number of people around you wearing masks... children, students, businessmen. It's cold season and if they are feeling sick, they don't want to spread their colds. They take this pretty seriously. We were also warned that it is not considered polite to blow your nose in public.

The morning we left Shinagawa (near Tokyo) for Nagoya, I was waiting in the train station at the bottom of the stairs with all our luggage while Dave went up the stairs to the Starbucks to get us some hot tea. With nothing better to do, I decided to count how often I saw someone wearing a face mask. It was about 1 in every 25 people.

2006-01-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Note the blue and red lines under the drinks in this vending machine. Blue means cold and red means the cans come out heated. So on a cold day, you can get cans of hot chocolate, coffee, or tea and put them in your pocket to keep your hands warm... or you can drink them to warm up from the inside out.

2006-01-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

Just this one last sign and then I'm logging off the computer for tonight.

This sign comes at the top of the Miyajima ropeway and tram. There are monkeys at the top... well on days when it's actually warm outside. We were apparently the only animals willing to walk up the icy paths that morning. The view was outstanding but we didn't hang around long enough to need a rocker. Had it been warmer, we would have hiked up to the shrine at the top of the next hill, where I hear there are cans of hot chocolate and hot Royal Tea (tea with lots of cream) in the vending machine.

2006-01-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

We didn't run. In fact it took us a lot longer than 10 minutes because when we turned a corner we were greeted by hostesses carrying trays of hot sake. So we sat down on the benches outside their ryokan to drink the sake and watch mochi men demonstrate how to transform a huge pile of hot steamed rice into fresh mochi. The hot sake was a welcome gift on that cold foggy morning, ten minutes away from the Miyajima ropeway.

2006-01-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

We apparently weren't the only ones enjoying this. Note the deer cookie salesman in the background.

2006-01-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Outside the Miyajima train station there was a guy who sold deer cookies. Karen warned us that the deer pretend like they really like these cookies so that the tourists can take pictures. She volunteered us to buy the cookies while she and Jeff took pictures.

A deer was butting Dave in the butt as he bought the cookies. Once I had cookies in hand, I had a deer pulling on my jacket sleeve.

The cookies went pretty fast.

2006-01-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

Cute aren't they? Kind of a mix between Amber and Ladybug. These deer are sacred on Miyajima. That means they are protected and allowed to convince tourists that they are starving.

2006-01-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is the sign on the bench at the shrine in Kyoto. We weren't sure what the warning meant. It was across from a food stand run by the shrine folks, so we figured it wasn't warning us not to eat. But the stuff about the dioxins was a little scarey so we decided not to eat or to sit on the bench. Maybe I could get a job as an editor in Japan.

2006-01-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

This is another example of English that doesn't quite hit the mark we would shoot for. Pocari Sweat is apparently a Gatorade-type drink that is pretty popular... or at least is advertized a lot. This was a vending machine in Kyoto. Japan appears to have vending machines in every conceivable place. Karen described climbing a long steep trail to a shrine and finding a vending machine at the top... along with the shrine.

2006-01-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

We saw this sign several times in Japan. Note the temperature. I took this from a train platform on the way to Hiroshima.

There were lots of samples of English phrases that didn't quite make sense, but sounded good. It was a good way to start the day.

Just the beginning

2006-01-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

"Okay, I'm here," she said, wondering exactly where she was. "Oh yeah, I'm in BlogLand. I've heard it's a place where you can talk as much as you want and no one has to listen. Hmm. Kind of intimidating." Her brain went blank.

"Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and try it out. It would probably be more fun than cleaning the house."

Then she yawned and shut down her computer for the night.