Thankfully the rain stopped before we headed out to Granada from Seville. (https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/12/26/ready-for-moor/ ) As with Seville, our stay was outside of the center of town, and again in the trendy area, chosen not due to it’s Silverlake/Bushwick vibe but due to it’s proximity to the Alhambra. On our walk from the train station to our place we wandered through pretty much all of Granada, thanks to Google maps. Granada, like most of Spain, seems to have more street names than streets, so every few blocks, the name of the street changes and sometimes we followed along with it, other times not. Further complicating our progress was that usually 3 to 6 streets veered off every plaza. Which diagonal street was the little blue arrow pointing us towards? Other times it was hard to tell what was a street and what was a driveway.
Tickets for the Alhambra were time sensitive, so we booked the first time slot of the day, thinking that this was Spain and dinner begins at 9 or 10 in the evening, so no one was going to show up at the Alhambra at 9 am. We gave ourselves 30 minutes for the 800 m walk from our place to the entrance, because it was straight up. We actually did the walk quickly (well Nick did), and used the rest of the time to get lost. We did make it to the entrance on time, and yes, we were right, it was pretty empty.
Building the Alhambra was started in 1293 by the first Nasrid emir. It was a perfect location on a hill at the base of the Sierra Nevada, the site of earlier fortresses. 360o views.
The Alhambra was really a little city with palaces (6), military fortifications and barracks, worker’s quarters, gardens, baths, and Mosques. It had it’s own rather sophisticated water system. Of course, Ferdinand and Isabela eventually took it over and, of course, did some remodeling. With each subsequent inhabitant or conquest, more remodeling was done, and eventually even Napoleon got involved using it as a fortress and attempting to dynamite the whole thing when he left, but he came up short. An earthquake caused more damage. It was abandoned and became a tear down. Finally in the early 1800s a full restoration was started, and continues.
We will leave the rest of the story to pictures.
The walk back down was a bit more relaxed as we wandered through the Moslem quarter and then along the river back into the center of Granada.
We finished our southern Spain tour in monumental fashion, now off to Valencia.
The trip almost did not get off to a flying start. Literally. The attendant at at the Iberia Airlines counter at Logan Airport in Boston gave us a scare when she said we couldn’t fly to Madrid unless we showed proof that we were returning to the US. It was our old friend Schengen https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/schengen/ telling us to prove we would be out of the EU by 90 days. We ran outside and booked some random return tickets, although neither the attendant or passport agent subsequently asked to see the newly booked tickets. Eight hours later, upon landing, we canceled the return flights, because we have no idea what we’re doing. (travel tip: all flights departing or arriving in the US have a 24 hour grace period).
Returning to Europe after 3 years, https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/10/01/let-the-fugue-begin-again-2/ it looks the same (as it has, more or less, for 600 years). We wasted no time, arriving at 5:00 am in Madrid. Although, everyone was masked on the plane (thank you, Iberia) but not during meals, we opted to stay masked and wait to eat, so we ate our saved airplane food while waiting for the the bus to take us from the airport to Atocha, the Madrid train terminal (every train station should have a little forest). Luggage stored followed by a quick 30 minute train ride to Toledo.
Toledo, the home of El Greco, was once a thriving center where Jews, Muslims and Catholics all lived in harmony; until about the mid 1400’s when Ferdinand and Isabela defeated the Moors in the Granada War, then ran all the Jews and Muslims out of the lower half of Spain (Andalucia). Following that, every mosque or synagogue was converted to a Catholic church.
Unimpressed after our few hours there, tainted perhaps with jet lag, rain and anti-religious sentiments, we left Toledo, returned to Atocha, got our bags and headed to Seville, our Andalusian base for a week. Which turned out to be a week of rain, hard flooding rain. As My Fair (weather) Lady Julie Andrews warned us “the rain in Spain stays mainly on our plans”. But, we were prepared.
The heavy rains and flooding changed our plans of day trips (Cadiz, Jerez and Huelva) so we decided to go with Plan B, appropriately on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Since our travels were covering Catholic conquered Moorish lands, we went all out and did The Holy Trinity of Andalusian tourist sites, Alcazar in Seville (the Father-dates back to 11th century), the Alhambra (the Son-dates back to12/13th century), and the Mezquita in Cordoba (the Holy Ghost-easily the most spiritual and oldest dating back to late 900’s). We started with Seville.
Seville was extremely walkable. We stayed on the outskirts of the tourist area, which was nice in that every time we walked somewhere, we could walk down a different street, past a constant stream of churches, cafes, plazas and strikingly beautiful buildings.
The Alcazar, conveniently located next to another Seville main attraction, the Cathedral,
was our introduction to Moorish tile and plaster work and was also the water gardens of Dorne in Game of Thrones (water seems to be a theme this week).
The wet weather was a suitable exchange for visiting this major tourist attraction without the crowds. We followed up with a super lovely walk through the Plaza de España (built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929)
and Maria Louisa Park (built between 1911 and 1929, and parts used for the movie Laurence of Arabia).
A short train ride took us to Cordoba for the Mezquita. Yes, it has been 500+ years since the Jews and Muslims were asked to leave, convert or die, but it still feels wrong to pay 11 euros to the people who offered those three choices to the original owners. “Nobody expects (to pay) the Spanish Inquisition!” So to address that personally, we chose to go to the Mezquita during the free hour first thing in the morning.
The Church’s “remodel” included little saint inspired nooks along the edges of the room, paintings and crucifixes but the draw to us was the building itself. Lucky for us, the free morning admission included dodging the marble floor cleaning Zamboni, which was a piece of cake after 4 days of walking through Seville’s narrow, narrow streets.
Cordoba, like Toledo, also had a rich history (pre 1492) of three cultures successfully mixed together. While the streets are not lined with Stolperstein as in Germany (https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/they-do-make-you-stumble/), the Spanish department of tourism started marking the streets with little bronze plaques in the Juderias (Jewish quarters/ghettos) for the Caminos de Sefarad (Spanish Jews). It does seem pretty odd that 500+ years since the Jewish quarters were emptied, they are still called the Judaria (Jewish Quarter) in all of the cities we visited (Toledo, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Madrid) or will be visiting (Valencia, Girona, Zaragoza). We only saw one area noted as the Moslem quarter, even though it was ruled by the Moors from A.D. 711 until 1492. But that makes sense since then all of Andalusia would need to be called that.
Over the last 6 months we have watched 15 dogs, 10 cats, 4 goldfish, 4 llamas and 2 horses. Each with very specific needs and schedules although Nick has successfully shifted everyone’s schedule to his. Unique traits included:
A dog that jumped out of a second story window, fortunately a week before we started the house sit and fortunately unharmed.
A 12 year Labrador with diarrhea, also fortunately survived our sit (the most normal dog but maybe it was just because he was a labrador).
2 indoor cats living in a 55+ retirement community near the home of the Yankee Candle headquarters, the home even had a candle with the aroma of a “California dog beach” called Sand+Paws.
A neurotic Australian Shepard mix that we couldn’t stop from constantly licking the kitchen appliances unless we played endless fetch in the backyard.
2 indoor cats with an elaborate catio and multiple hiding places in the house so that we spent the whole sit searching for them.
A “barn” cat that we needed to search for each night to bring in before the coyotes found her.
2 horses that we were unqualified to watch, one of the horses got a severe case of pruritus (itchiness) that required 22 Zyrtec a day, and a daily Aveeno moisturizer rubdown yet we all survived.
A spaniel with very short legs who needed her genitals wiped every other day, which the owner had spelled as gentiles in the instructions.
2 small dogs that took over our bed each night by amazingly turning into 1 ton boulders that could not be moved when sleeping horizontally across the full sized bed.
A cat who belonged to those 2 dead weight dogs, that we rarely saw because the owner had built an elaborate tunnel system for the cat utilizing the house duct system-because after 2 years, the dogs still terrorized the cat.
a Min Pin (she looked like a bloated chihuahua) , who eats primarily coleslaw and frozen vegetables tossed onto on the floor so she can remember being a street dog (raw cabbage? maybe the bloat is understandable).
2 Shih Tzu rescued from puppy mills, one who goes into the bedroom closet to howl for several minutes once a day, the other one was missing an eye.
A house with no pets except pantry moths and mice, but we did have a list of chores from the owner including clearing rain gutters, moving a compost pile, and clearing the house of pantry moths and mice. So, a pest sit.
We do not know the names of the fish, but can you match the names to the dog? Stella, Dulce, Scout, Smokey, Nala, Harry, Darby, Izzy, Monty*, Roux, Osito*, Charley, Benji and Wendy. (*grand-dogs, so not really dog-sitting). Answers at the end of the blog.
And the larger mammals Pearl, Phil, Mac and Delphine plus Winston and Cocoa.
Plus the cats, can you match again? Lagatha, Simon, Piper, Edward, Taj, Tucker, Hazel, Mini, Kit Kat, Pixel and Taz. (Absent: Clementine). Answers at the bottom of the blog.
And finally our pest sitting whose names we did not know.
We did not have an opportunity to pet sit them, but we did visit our other grand pets and did not want them to feel left out.
Answers to the match:
Dog names start at the bottom with one-eyed Stella and zig zag up. Cat’s names start at the top each line, left to right. The feature picture at the top is probably our favorite dog (not including the grand-dogs), Chocho (with Nick). Chocho invited us to watch him again in Valencia, Spain for Christmas so of course we are.
Anyone need a sitter? Just tell us where your pizza cutter is before you go.
After leaving Canada Dry ( https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/08/15/lohw-canada/) we continued our pet trail travels, eager to uncover the uniqueness of each place. The plan was to visit different places living as locals by animal sitting. As very responsible pet sitters, we never felt comfortable leaving the animals in our care for more than a few hours at a time, so the sitting part of this situation was very real. While some of the pets could walk as far as we could, others got winded after half a block. We have thankfully not done any cat-walking, although we have seen plenty of cats being walked on leashes. Further planting us in our house sits, is that we are carless and at the mercy of public transportation or our feet https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/05/15/van-gone/.
To visit family and to round out our Southern van trip last fall/winter, we covered Northeast, Mid West, California and Pacific Northwest. We have gone or will have gone from Los Angeles to Belchertown to Boston to Providence to Deerfield to Amherst to Minneapolis to Edina to San Francisco to Mendocino to Shoreline to Broadview-Seattle to Olympia to Fremont-Seattle to Steilacoom to Portland to Mendocino to Los Angeles to Valencia, Spain. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/07/06/the-dog-days-of-summer/
Many places boast about being so unique or weird, but over the last 6 years of traveling, very few places feel distinctively or pleasantly weird. The motto for Portland (where we are currently sitting) is “Keep Portland Weird”. Actually, several cities have adopted this motto Austin, TX (which actually was the first to use it), Louisville, KY (what?), Indianapolis, IN (Really? Their twist on the slogan is “Keep Indy Indie”. Not bad but really?) and Internationally- Brno, Czech Republic (“Udržujte Brno divné”), that we agree with just for the spelling alone. Everywhere apparently wants to be unique, wants to be weird but if everyone is weird, does that become ordinary? It is all kind of silly and annoying, except for pet sitting. Pet sitting is truly weird, but pleasantly weird.
The truly weird. With each sit, we step into the houses and lives of complete strangers and begin to understand these random acquaintances in more personal ways. Completely bizarre and yes, a little creepy. A little uncomfortable to sit on their couches, put away their dishes or locate a pizza cutter in idiosyncratic kitchen arrangements. We need to figure out the TV remote(s), learn the trash and recycle schedule and what time the mail is delivered. We live in constant fear about breaking something or losing an animal. We slide into the daily patterns with their animals (although Nick successfully changed every pet’s feeding schedule, and walked every dog farther and more frequently than the dog wanted. Even the horses got up and out earlier).
We assumed odd animal routines, with the pinnacle being the dog whose breakfast included literally tossing a handful of coleslaw on the kitchen floor, followed by collagen sprinkled on canned tuna water, followed by spoonful of offal, followed by frozen vegetables tossed on the living room carpet.
The various owners have been a community theater actor, optician, christian pastor, long distance runner, collector of mid-century euphemia/tchackas, painter, realtor, TV news writer/on air personality, model railroad hobbyist, psychotherapist, former owner of a bowling alley, historical novelist, regular novelist, professional quilter, and a self-proclaimed groupie for the band the National.
The pleasantly weird. What is nice about pet sitting, is it is truly a mutualistic relationship, where both parties benefit. The best type of symbiosis. We get to help someone go somewhere by watching their pets, watering their plants, picking up their mail, tidying their house or obliterating pantry moths (see part 2). We get to travel and live in a new place and they get to travel. After 2+ years of being home-bound, the travel for some of our owners was rather poignant and very needed. A trip to see friends before another round of chemo therapy, weddings, a spiritual retreat, seeing adult children/elderly parents/grandchildren or just an escape.
The conclusion is that towns are not as weird as the people who live there. Or maybe it is just pet owners who are truly weird, not just us, and everyone is pretty weird in their own ways. No need to “keep” people weird, they just will be. But the weird people were kind, thoughtful, have a lot of shoes and don’t take care of their pots and pans well.
We’ve been trying to escape to Canada for a long time but it was like bumping our head against the wall. Now, with restrictions lifted and our vaccination cards full, we slipped in a Canadian vacation between dog sits.
With the van gone, https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/05/15/van-gone/ we had to rent a car which was more head bumping. Nothing was available in the Boston or Providence area. We finally found a car in Springfield, MA requiring us to backtrack 2 hours west to begin our journey northeast but since Springfield is kind of in the greater Amherst/Berkshires zone we could return the car to where we would end up after Canada. After waiting 2 hours in the Enterprise parking lot for our car to arrive, we were off. Since we had already hit Maine, etc, it was straight to Canada https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/12/13/waits-motel/
The nonsensical world of driving in New England, from car rental to car driving was hard for us to digest. Google maps took us onto dirt roads, through someone’s driveway, anything to shave 30 seconds off our destination arrival time, but we somehow made it to the Canadian border at Calais, Maine. It felt great to be international again, starting with learning the local pronunciations. Unlike the French border town where you catch the ferry to England (pronounced Cal-lay), the American Calais is pronounced Callus (which fits America more). We finally got our foot in the door. Canadian border agents were, of course, amiable despite our American accent and confusing answer to “where do you live” . Crossing took less than a minute, slowed down by us saying “That’s it? We can go? Thank you!”
Coming into Canada
Our first stop was Saint Andrews a small coastal town, a hidden gem per Canadian travel literature. The number one vacation spot! Where Canadians prefer to go! St. Andrews consisted of a couple blocks of Maine-esque shops, a pier, beautiful lupin fields, lots of plaques on houses and live deer posing as lawn decorations. We think we saw vacationing Canadians there. Most impressive though, is St. Andrew’s travel PR team.
For us, everything about Canada feels slightly askew, in a good way. It’s like wearing your t- shirt on inside out, very comfortable (especially without the tag scratching your neck), it looks almost the same but it’s just noticeably off, but in a pleasant, amusing way. To start, even though we were just north of the eastern tip of Maine, we were now an hour later in AST Atlantic Standard Time Zone. And then there was the radio. We like radio, we loved Canadian radio. So many songs we were sure we might have heard them before, similar but not exactly, … ……. they were Canadian (great titles).
The aspirational goal of our trip was to tour the Bay of Fundy (Family Fundy!). Bay of Fundy is famous for its extremely high tide range, the highest in the world for the range between its lowest and highest tides ( about 52 feet). In some areas the tide goes so low you can walk across the sea floor to nearby islands. The tides also create tidal bores as the high tides rush back in up the rivers. In one 12 hour tidal cycle, the amount of water the flows back in forth in this area is twice the amount of the total combined flow of all the rivers in the world over the same time period. https://www.bayoffundy.com/about/highest-tides/
Who is doing the PR for this natural attractions? Why is this not on everyone’s bucket list? Every day, we imagined the shores would be lined with ecstatic clapping from vacationing plumbers. It was like twice a day seeing what drought Lake Mead looks like now, but without the dead bodies. ( https://www.npr.org/2022/08/08/1116307660/lake-mead-human-remains-fourth-body-swim-beach)
The high tides just look like a lot of water, but we were not there for the highs. Like all of our vacations, we were there for the low points and the bores. (this was not our first bore https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/wonders-man-made-and-natural/ ). We drove along the western coast of the Bay ending up in Moncton at a hotel right next to a bore viewing site, equipped with bleachers (they don’t kid around), we half expected venders selling empty bottles of water. And we weren’t disappointed, we couldn’t have been more pleased to hit rock bottom. Only Canada can make a low point a positive.
Before the bore, the river is pretty empty.
Here comes the bore!
Watching the water fill……….A few hours later, almost full again.
The tidal bore in Moncton comes up the Petitcodiac River (nicknamed the Chocolate River due to its brown color) and like most bores was slow and hard to leave, politely. Bores are graded by intensity on a 1-4 scale and the ones we were seeing were 1-1/2. Nothing more Canadian than a modest bore. We watched it twice, the second time getting up at 6:30 in the morning AST.
We had front row seats from our hotel which was on the edge of the Tidal Bore Park. Not only could we watch the tidal bore, but also the construction which seemed to draw just as many people. If you want to watch the bore, here is the webcam https://www.moncton.ca/webcams/tidal-bore-webcam
From Moncton we drove to Halifax, NS a vibrant college town on the Atlantic Ocean coast. Well we thought it had a college vibe but maybe it was because we stayed 3 nights in a (virtually empty) college dorm at Dalhousie University (great view of the very busy football/soccer fields).
We walked all over Halifax enjoying almost everything. We rarely get take-out food (and never go out to eat) but we felt that we should try Halifax’s famous fried seafood. Very disappointing, lower than the tide. One “seafood” take out, though, did meet our (low) standards.
We wandered through lovely urban streets with beautiful parks, old churches, cemeteries and Farmer’s markets. We walked along the Atlantic coast, from Point Pleasant Park, through the working port and then along the tourist promenade. Another city where we could say, yeah, this is very livable (although not sure about the winter).
Site of the fried seafood fiasco, view of Halifax was good though. Even stumbled into a Pro-Choice rally, unfortunately, for a very needed community catharsis
We took a day trip south along the coast to Lunenburg, which was suppose to be another cutesy beach town, but it wasn’t. The drive there was beautiful, with the high point seeing a bald eagle.
Maybe the Canadian Tourism PR team could focus on a new message, “Canada is just a good place to go with a lot of good things to see, eat, drink and do, a few great things, but just generally, Canada is good.”
A mellow week in Canada, then we made the long drive back towards Amherst passing areas that we first saw as muddy flats but now were full of blue water, the wonder of the tides. Returned with a nondescript night in Newburyport, MA, very US. Calais America.
Canada we will be back, happily with our shirts inside out.
After shedding our van, apartment, and plans to restart our overseas adventures, https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/05/15/van-gone/ we decided the least we could do was go visit (bother?) our children and grandchild (she is not bothered).
Travel required digging up some housing. Continued pandemic concerns combined with everyone else’s revenge travel made housing options limited. Without the option of our van, we looked for what we had used in the past for longer term stays; AirBnb and sublets https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/02/24/musical-chairs/ . In Amherst, gateway to the Berkshires and home to five colleges, the AirBnB places were either not available or were excessively expensive. We found a few sublets but they required a three month stay or wanted students who would continue into the fall. The only viable sublet came equipped with Play Station 4 and beer pong, but that life style may have killed us (or just made us stronger ?).
But as my (Nick’s) very religious, dyslexic mother, Sister Eileen, always used to say “doG provides”, and so we decided to become Dog Sitters.
Five years ago, we had used Trusted Housesitters for Doe, our labrador when we went to Tel Aviv for our granddaughter’s birth. Our introductory phone conversation with our dogsitter was great, her daughter lived near by, she had many good dog sit reviews. All seemed good until she showed up and was 15 years older than her pictures and had a rather unstable gait due to her pronounced limp. This did not bode well. Six weeks later when we returned, Doe had lost most of her fur from anxiety and lost significant weight despite lack of exercise. The house, though, was very clean as was the garden since she cleaned out a lot of plants thinking they were weeds (they were not).
But we were determined to be great dog/house sitters First we went to Mendocino to Patricia’s sister’s house to visit and practice house sitting.
Next we went to LA to practice dog sitting with our grand-dog Osito.
It felt a little like European travel again, although this time it was with double masks as we took a bus, plane and then Uber (with an interesting driver monologue about a childhood in Cuba), to East Hollywood.
Osito was a great dog sit start. As at previous visits, Osito began by constantly barking at us nipping (okay biting) Nick twice. To add to the level of difficulty Osito had diarrhea the night before Marika and Trevor left (smart dog, did it in the shower). After we took him to the vet, we bonded and Osito decided to tolerate us without barking.
A soft diet, that didn’t include Nick’s ankles, and frequent walks resolved both the diarrhea and Osito’s fear/hatred of us. By the time Marika and Trevor came home he was jumping on the couch to sit with us, but once Marika and Trevor walked in the door, Osito made clear where his loyalties were, and began barking at us again, although with a little less ferocity. Okay, we figured, we had this down.
Red eye to Hartford, CT followed by an Uber ride (this driver’s TED talk was about his childhood in Turkey as related to US politics) to our next sit; a 12 year old border collie mix named Scout in rural Belchertown, MA just outside Amherst, MA.
Mt Pollux
We got into the routine fairly quickly; pills in the pill pocket twice a day (an experimental use of Tagamet for ocular melanoma) and playing dog chase around the coffee table 20 times a day.
walking on the Norwottuck trailNightly Hip-Hop concert from the frogs in the next-door mosquito breeding swamp
Scout’s initial enthusiasm gradually transformed into almost rabid protectionism. By the end of the stay, she was leaping at delivery trucks, delivery people and friendly joggers.
Hearing of our new found pet sitting skills, a few others stopped by to inquire. There are limits, though, to our pet-sittings, we generally do not sit bears.
Bear 1, 2nd day in, at the drivewayBear 2, 31st day in. just outside the porch
Scout’s high energy required frequent walks; bear-aware, mosquito-swatting and tick-avoiding. Anxiety producing, multiple times, during the day but especially at night when the fireflies kinda looked like animal eyes. Obviously, we were West coast amateurs.
Our next dog-sit was to be more urban, Brookline, MA on the edge of Boston. Scout’s owner tested positive for Covid before her flight home, so Nick graciously stayed on while Patricia was welcomed to Brookline by free Gin and Tonics on the boulevard.
Darby, a 12 year old Doodle, was pretty adorable, but required all day coaxing to eat/take her reflux meds and constant attention either ball playing in the house or going for a walk.Between walks with Darby and solo walks to escape Darby, Patricia was averaging 7 mile days. It was great that there were so many places to walk to. Neighborhoods of old beautiful buildings, great yard art, a library where you can check out bundt pans, the Charles River and of course, Fenway Park.
Nick was able to eventually make it to Boston by driving to the airport with Scout in her owner’s car. Nick said his goodbyes to Scout but she already changed her alliances back to her owner and bit Nick goodbye.
Feeling a little apprehensive as we jumped on the commuter train to our next dog sit in Providence, RI a city we were eager to spend some time in after a very short intriguing stop last winter, https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/12/06/siteunseeing/ . Twelve year old Chocho had diarrhea the night before we came (do we bring it on?) but we were prepared (thanks Osito). Antibiotics, probiotics and our special soft diet cured another one. One of Chocho’s owner’s is from Argentina, where Chocho means a happy, content person, but In Spain, Chocho is a derogatory slang word for female genitilia. We were careful not to yell his name on walks/in public. Chocho, a big gentle black lab, restored our faith in dogs and Providence retained it’s attraction.
After these three sits, we probably need to change our Trusted Housesitter profile to reflect our specialization in 12 year old dogs requiring medication with a sub-specialty in diarrhea.
We were kind of surprised by the intimacy of dog/house sitting. It is like living in a (mostly) enjoyable short story that you become absorbed in, with it’s own surprises and mysteries and now, you are part of the story. While we don’t snoop (really), just being in someone’s space for a number of days, surrounded by their knick-knacks, books, furniture, pictures, kitchen equipment (or as we have learned lack of) you feel an understanding and knowledge of a person that you are not entitled to have.
It is also a nice feeling to be able to be trusted, to feel, briefly part of a community and to be there for someone at a stressful time. The people we sat for were all on pilgrimages; religious (to an ancient Abby) or emotional (trip before cancer treatment), saying goodbye to an elderly parent (before moving overseas). After being tainted by the bad in people when our possessions were stolen from our van, it feels right to be the good. It’s nice. The world could be good, vote.
It took us a while to update as we were busy waiting out winter in Olympia.
We returned to Olympia to live out the last 3 months of our 7 month lease of our second-story studio-hovel, AKA the apartment of low back pain, unlike Santiago, there was just no comfortable space. Days were spent sticking our heads out the door to see if it had stopped raining (no), gotten above 50 degrees (no) or if anything in the world had improved (unfortunately, no). Everyday, despite the conditions, we would venture out to walk off our lower back pain and wander around different Olympia neighborhoods while contemplating a (more) permanent residence. Consistently, we were pleasantly surprised with the world just outside our door.
Flora, when spring happened, it was abundant.
Great walks with beautiful trees, perfect clouds, public art and frequently on-point messages
Water, after all, it is Olympia, it is the water.
Wildlife
The old Tumwater Brewery
Rare glimpses (when the clouds cleared) of Mt. Rainer were stunning
With a brief warm spell of 50 degrees with no rain or hail, we started prepping Santiago for a new journey cross-country. After gluing down more cork and wool, hanging drapes, packing and repacking, we put Santiago to bed on St Patrick’s Day, and during that night, someone broke into our van and cleaned it out (better than we would have). Our power generator, daypacks, clothes, shoes, chargers, passports, immunization cards, laundry quarters, cooler, market bags, even the luggable loo. Our first thought was why aren’t people nice? Meanness seems to be as contagious as Covid right now, but without a vaccine, and definitely unmasked.
Our experience with the police was equally disappointing (although our USAA insurance came through big time). Our report was completed online, no police visit. A follow up phone call, initiated by us, got nowhere. The officer seemed more concerned that he was coming across as understanding and empathetic, looking for a “like” or 5 star rating in our post call survey. (Is there a cop Yelp?) We did get some crime-solving tip from the bank teller who told us to look at OfferUp, a Craigslist-like site. Two of our bigger items were immediately listed identifying the seller and his location. They sold within hours.
With a little internet sleuthing, we found that the seller had a criminal record of previous theft. We contacted the police again but since we didn’t have “100% proof” (such as a serial number) they couldn’t pursue it. Who has a serial number on their cooler? So now we check the police blotter daily, in addition to Wordle, Quordle, Mathler, Nerdlegame (well the last two only Nick), to see if he’s been caught.
A month into the spring that never quite sprung with record cold throughout April, it was time to leave. With our plans stolen we decided to sell Santiago, with only a half baked idea of what to do next. After getting no private party interest and lowball offers from CarMax and various Mercedes dealerships we decide to roll one last trip with Santiago to California (for better luck). Our farewell tour included a night in Eugene, Oregon to consolidate all our belongings into two 10×10 storage units.
His and Hers?
Now we will travel with only what we can carry on our backs. 65 liters of living, re-creating our low back pain on the road.
His and Hers
Entering California is always a thrill and this was boosted by getting an inquiry for Santiago as we crossed the state line. Our potential buyer’s idea for Santiago was completely unbaked. He wanted the van to house his 98 year old dad on their twice- monthly weekend trips to Sebastopol. During the negotiations, he asked if he could fit a bed AND a wheelchair, how to heat the van, and how would his dad pee without bumping his head on the ceiling. Of course, we could answer these questions, but his plan seemed like a recipe for disaster, although we very much appreciated his appreciation of Santiago’s aesthetics. So, as a public service, and fearing his dad would only survive for a senior moment, we moved on and found a home for Santiago in Santa Rosa at the highest lowball price, Manly Automotive.
With us in Santiago’s rearview mirror we got a ride to Mendocino to unpack and repack our plans.
This week’s photo of topless old man looking out window contemplating his life.
We haven’t posted in three months, where does the time go? We had been waiting for…… hmm, not sure what we were waiting for to post. Maybe, for something to happen?
Two years plus of waiting, waiting becomes part of the daily routine where today is not much different than yesterday or tomorrow. You forget who you told what, even though you only talk to maybe 3 other people. You worry about further boring already bored people. Yes, you both did Wordle in 4 steps, now what, so what. Tomorrow, again.
2020-2022 Oregon-Washington-Idaho-Montana-North Dakota-Minneapolis-Wisconsin-Illinois-Indiana-Pennsylvania-NY-Rhode Island, MA-Maine- New Hampshire- Vermont-Connecticut-NJ-North & South Carolina-Delaware,-Maryland-Virginia-Alabama-Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas-Oklahoma-Texas- New Mexico-Arizona-California (not really listed in any coherent order well, because it is going on the third year….)
Reinforcing the time dysfunction, our apartment felt like walking into the 1930’s. Downtown Northampton.
For 7 weeks we entertained ourselves with daily walks through downtown Northampton, prettier and twice as big as downtown Amherst, so 4 blocks instead of two. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/so-thats-why-its-called-new-england/ Nearly everyday, weather, permitting, we drove the 10 miles to Amherst to spend time with our daughter, son in law, granddaughter, grand-dog and grand-cats.
Smith College, alma mater to Sylvia Plath, Gloria Steinem, Julia Child and Nancy Reagan(!), a lovely college situated right downtown about 2 blocks from our apartment, is often thought to be the gem of Northampton, but true pride is that Northampton is home to the largest Pin Oak tree in New England. We visited it a few times, it got bigger with each visit. Here measured in Monicas http://www.ents-bbs.org/viewtopic.php?t=7569
The other immobile celebrity in town was Sylvester Graham, he was planted in the local cemetery. Sylvester is known for the creation of the Graham cracker and his strange sexual ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Graham Something to think about next time you have s’more. We visited his site a few times, as well. He’s still dead.
Not a two-month slow crawl this time, as we did when we headed east in the Fall, but rather five days of snow flurries, wind gusts and enough < 10o temperatures to keep our water bottles, lentil soup and sardines frozen. We entertained ourselves with bad audiobooks, finding songs that were about the cities/states we were driving through and playing our personal radio game (play the song and then ask each other “would you change the station if this song came on?”), hence all of the links here so you can play along.
Due to the constant cold, it was concluded that it was not the best time to sleep in the van, so we returned to our habit of staying in places at least two towns away from where you would actually want to stay. It is not just quantity but quality and the return trip was limited in both. Each day and night were memorable, a creepy crawl through inconsistency in weather, covid precautions and motel hospitality. We followed our updated travelers’ adage… “Red State at night, driver take flight, Red State in the morning, driver take warning.” A summary:
After driving through the dismal expanse from Ohio through Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma, the absolutely stunning, awe-inspiring geography of west really does take your breath away. Pictures from a car really don’t capture it.
We thread the proverbial needle, 11 hours of driving a day, successfully covering 2,706 miles until ironically Needles, CA when the undercarriage panel of the van engine fell off. We dragged it for a mile until the off ramp. We found a gas station with a mechanic (kind of 1960’s thing, like our motels). He did not charge us to remove it, nor did the guy who re-attached it in LA, these gestures helped to clear up the gloom as we entered blue skies, our destination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cQH8vpbr04
En route, we avoided restaurants and markets as much as we could, relying on what we brought with us and horrible free breakfasts . Anything on a cracker followed by insta-pot perfect hardboiled eggs with mustard + goat cheese, followed by disgusting egg + potato (that is not butter, those are eggs), followed by hotel nachos (nachos?). Our meals seemed to reflect our absolute mindlessness as we crossed the country for the 4th time.
Initial destination reached, we thawed out for a few days in LA . We resumed our mad pace, heading north and managed to see 2 cousins, 3 siblings, and 1 niece in 3 cities in one afternoon (all outside, all masked).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnV7dTXlXx
Wrapped up this adventure leaving California, passing by Shasta, a bunch of other smaller volcanos and entering Oregon at Klamath Falls again, pictures do not really capture how very beautiful it is.
Oregon waved us off graciously with a rainbow and we returned to our Olympia apartment, which kind of felt like home, although the van feels more spacious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsccjsW8bSY
We entertain ourselves with daily walks through downtown Olympia, twice as big as downtown Northampton, so 8 blocks instead of four. Evergreen State College, alma mater of Kathleen Hanna, Carrie Brownstein, Matt Groening and Macklemore (!), situated about 2+ miles from our apartment is often thought to be the gem of Olympia, but true pride is that Olympia is home to the “largest spruce tree” identified as such on google maps. Somehow we missed it, walked right past it, but we did see the moon tree, after walking passed it multiple times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_tree.
Did we tell you that the largest Pin Oak in New England is in Northampton?
As medical students, during your surgical rotations, you learn the rules of surgery. They vary in number, and by institution, but the main ones are
sleep when you can
eat when you can
don’t make any changes after 4pm
never fuck with the pancreas
Since van life is very similar to surgery, we follow some of the same rules with slight modifications;
sleep where you can
eat where you can
don’t arrive after 4 pm (too dark)
never fuck with the pandemic
The rules became harder to apply as we moved north and the operative phrase was “closed for the season”. It was like we changed rotations and we were now doing a pathology rotation, because everything was cold and dead.
There were no campgrounds open for camping, even the Walmart was not an option. With temperatures dipping below 30 we had to accept that Santiago was really just a metal tent. Sleeping in the van was not really the issue since we had made a quilt out of the excess wool insulation and that wooly mammoth beast of a blanket was beyond warm. The problem was where do you hang out once the sun goes down, which is like 4 pm. So then you go in the van and then are asleep by 7! The temperature inside Santiago was maybe just a few degrees warmer then the outside. We did not even need to put the food in the Rtic to stay cool, so we now know the freezing point of sardines, dolmas and olive oil.
It came time to rotate out of our van life into hotel life, with its own protocols. But the transition out of van life did not necessarily lead to greater convenience or luxury. The need to recharge batteries decreased, but we still brought in the instapot, electric teapot (those hotel coffee makers are pretty gross) and tortilla maker.
“Eat when you can” translated to waiting outside until the breakfast area was clear to dash in and “grab what you can” at the grab-n-go breakfast.
“Sleep when you can” became “sleep where you can find outside corridors”. Not “fucking with the pandemic”, meant we restricted ourselves to hotels with outside corridors based on our daughter’s friend’s advice (important to listen when the friend is an infectious disease doctor/epidemiologist). Finding “motel” like places had gotten kind of hard. Maine had more due to the beaches but half of Maine was closed, so we essentially decided where to go based on where there were open, outside corridor hotels.
It felt pretty accomplished to actually have made it to Maine, a long-time desired destination. We had about 10 days to kill before we could move into our Northampton sublet near granddaughter and family. We crept up the coast of Maine, stopping in one cute NE town after another. Our first overnight was in Freeport, ME- home of LL Bean.
Our cabin here won for most adorable place stayed although not much bigger than Santiago (our van).
Again, “closed for the season” was the rule for Maine. The 10% of Acadia National park that was open was stunning.
Limited places to go and cold, cold wind meant more hotel time!
We moved south to another Maine beach town, Ogunquit, named by the Abenaki tribe, which translates to beautiful place by the sea. We spent our Thanksgiving here sharing our traditional Brussel sprouts and cheese and crackers dinner with our imaginary friends, thankful for a Covid secure motel. The beaches were breathtaking, and we walked the Marginal Way https://www.ogunquit.org/marginal-way/ but it was freezing cold, and the chowder we had to warm up was disappointing, kind of like lumpy milk soup with potatoes and seafood.
Lured by another presidential link, we drove to the neighboring, NE cute (goes without saying) town of Kennebunkport, the summer home of the Bush family. Since everything here is super-close to each other, and since it was winter, we were able to drive to see the beaches of Ogunquit-Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-York-Wells-Kittery in less than half an afternoon. We probably could not have done that in the summer considering that 37 million people visited Maine in 2018 and the coastal route is along two-lane roads (just 1.3 million people live in Maine).
Wide variety of beaches with some very hungry duckscatch of the day (in Maine beach attire)Seagull’s Thanksgiving left-oversEach beach was different, some had tons of little clams or tons of big clams; little black snail shells or no shells
There was a bit of drama when our shell collecting took an ugly turn. We realized the beautiful blue snail shells were actually inhabited beautiful blue snail homes, evidenced by shells moving across the bathroom floor overnight. This required a very quick return to the beach to re-home our accidental guests. (dental floss for size comparison)
After 7 days in Maine, we traded the cold of Maine’s beautiful beaches for the cold of New Hampshire and Vermont. First, a quick stop in Portsmouth, NH just because we could. Like almost all other New England towns, we walked through the cute center and hit the highlights (exteriors only) within 45 minutes or less. Here, though we were left with some intriguing questions.
Why were these Peanuts comic stripson the base of a grandstand in Prescott Park, created in 1930?Where did all the bricks on this beach come from?
We drove through New Hampshire’s mountains, unaware that a bunch of snow had dumped the night before. But roads were clear as we drove through a series of Christmas Cards.
We added another presidential badge for NH born Franklin Pierce, (the country’s 14th), but also one of our worst and least remembered. At least NH remembers him with an inordinate number of signs promoting their native son’s birthplace. https://www.nhstateparks.org/visit/historic-sites/franklin-pierce-homestead-historic-site We landed in Putney, VT, because it was only about an hour from Amherst (our eventual goal) and the only outside corridor hotel we could find open in the area. Sure enough, our hotel in Putney, VT was on Patel Rd, and run by a Patel family. We bundled up and went for our usual just-arrived walk about town. This consisted of walking the one block of the town until the dead end of the town- a cemetery. We realized more of the town was dead than alive, only about 455 people live there.
We did add another college campus drive through-Landmark College, but mainly sat around wondering what the other 455 people could be doing.
Finally, we were able to leave the land of small soaps and shampoos and wrap up New England travels for awhile. As noted beforehttps://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/so-thats-why-its-called-new-england/) we understand why it is called New England, and it also felt a bit reminiscent of Europe in other ways. A lot of people had accents and you can drive an hour or two and be in another country/state. Although in Europe, there were differences between countries, the differences in NE states is that everything looks pretty much the same. The one stand out for us were the many warning signs for “Moose Crossing” but alas no moose seen; our biggest disappointment of Maine. But, traffic signs usually fail to fulfill their promise. We have yet to see “slow children at play”
Boosted by the balmy weather of the South, a Covid jab and fevery night on Chocolate Street, we headed toward the Hudson Valley, a long desired destination. Our hypothetical Hudson Valley trip had been a river cruise but in these Covid times that wasn’t considered . But realistically, that probably would not have happened, since the only boat trip we’ve ever taken (together) is the Jungle cruise at Disneyland and that didn’t end well when our youngest daughter threw up after getting off (she thought it was real).
Instead we settled for highway 9 on the east side of the river which only offered occasional glimpses of the river. But strategic stops along the way, kept the suspense up and provided dramatic vistas while passing through many, historic villages.
For no good reason, we somehow fell into a college tour- perhaps that is natural after three daughters, or maybe it is just because most of the towns in the area have a college. First stop, Vassar, it looked precious, expensive and just trying to find parking was a reach.
Wandering out into Poughkeepsie, we drove right under the Walkway over the Hudson State Historic Park, so we went ahead and walked over the Hudson, enjoying a cold and windy panoramic view. A better choice than our hypothetical Hudson River cruise or 1998 Jungle Cruise and no one threw up.
Although we had always wanted to do the Hudson Valley, we did not really plan for the Hudson Valley, so twilight found us looking for a place to stay and since laundry and showers were done, it was time to check off another parking lot- we were fortunate to be able to spend the night in the Elk’s Lodge parking lot (now we only have a Cracker Barrel parking lot left to earn the boondocker’s badge). The Elk’s parking lots, like Cracker Barrel and Walmart, are usually welcoming to overnight travelers. it was a “benevolent” and “protective” night (as per their motto) surrounded by the sounds of a late Boy Scout meeting and Bingo. https://www.elks.org/lodges/LodgeFacilities.cfm?LodgeNumber=275. Not only did this bring us closer to meeting Nick’s boondock goals but turns out it was a historic lodge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Elk’s lodge, and as anyone who has been to Poughkeepsie/Hyde Park area knows, it is all about FDR.
Newly inspired, we visited the FDR National Park the next morning, but like everything, these days, stayed outside. What we saw was a bit random, maybe not the top 40 hits, but still interesting (their cushions almost match our van’s cushions!, more great views, who knew they were such accomplished equestrians?). https://www.nps.gov/hofr/index.htm
Followed the National Park trail that supposedly went towards Vanderbuilt’s mansion, we ended up somewhat lost in a random neighborhood in the village of Hyde Park. (Hyde and seek Park?).
Beautiful, National Park wooded trail that just casually dropped us off in someone’s driveway.
We pushed on to Olana (or rather the wind pushed us on), the home of the famous 19th Century Hudson Valley painter Frederic Edwin Church https://www.olana.org. (again, great from the outside, skipped the inside).
Kinda like a classier, East Coast Winchester house
The plan was to, again, walk across the Hudson on the Skywalk to Thomas Cole’s estate (another Hudson Valley painter), almost did it , but the cold and the wind determined otherwise. We ended our brief Hudson Valley tour and headed to an overnight in Vermont, Bennington, VT another college town. Unfortunately, we were also coming to the realization that Santiago was named after a Spanish town, not a New England village, with weather very different to what we were now living in.
ice on the inside and outside, winter is coming
During our Covid year in Amherst, we kept wanting to go to the adjacent towns of West Adams, home of Mass MOCA & Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Williamstown, home of Williams College, but thought there would be so much to do we would want to save it for a safer time to visit. Since the current trip was all about going places we talked about going (yes, that is novel for us), we thought we would make a scouting stop and we could go back later. Considered a walk around Williams college, but road work blocked access, so we did not get in. But scouting was good, conclusion was a quick stop was enough, two more small New England towns checked off the list. Our view of Mass MOCA, very consistent with our B-side travel.
Museum visiting Covid style- Some type of sculpture outside the Berkshire Art Museum; Sculpture and vending gift shop outside Mass MOCA and the view from outside the North Adams History and Science museum located in the lobby of the Holiday Inn
A detour through Amherst to get covid testing (negative), an oil change and drive-by two colleges, we headed for the Cape (don’t we sound East Coast?). Cape Cod was not really in any plan, but since we were in the New England neighborhood, it was more a curiosity and would look good on the travel resume. To get there, we went through Providence, RI and checked Brown University and RISD off our college tour list.
Best police car motto seen “Defender of the Arts”
Providence was a nice surprise, had a nice feel, well, at least from the outside. It felt like a mix of San Francisco and Boston, but we only spent a few hours walking along the river. It also felt like a livable US city, a la Savannah. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2021/11/25/savannah-squared/
The drive through the Cape was disappointing in that it we were too inland to see the water, and kind of felt like anywhere east of the Rockies. We spent the night in another former President’s stomping grounds, Hyannis/Hyannisport which had a little tribute walk for JFK. Here, influenced by our lack of enthusiasm, we decided to turn left and head north instead of continuing on the Cape. If you look at the Cape as a flexed arm, we only made it to mid bicep, and apparently the nicest parts start at the elbow and up.
Another shell lined sidewalk, in Hyannis
With the Cape behind us, we sailed through Plymouth, MA as Thanksgiving week began. Somehow we missed the Rock and the downtown, but managed to have a very pleasant short visit in Plymouth with relatives on Fresh Pond (ponds being another very East Coast thing) and headed toward Maine, another long aimed for travel goal.
We were pretty proud of ourselves for stumbling across some traditional tourist sites even though they were often seen from a distance or may have been closed for the season. But, B-side traveling, while not always chart-topping, can be surprisingly good.
