California's Gold Country, November 27, 2010

On our way to the Sierra, Noam and I have often quickly glanced left and right while whizzing through gold country in the Sierra foothills and thought it might be a nice place to visit (sometime when we weren't in a hurry to get somewhere in the mountains). The weekend after Thanksgiving we dedicated to gold country. The plan was to start in Coulterville and to drive along highway 49 (get it? Highway 49! Like the 49ers! Who came to mine gold! Personally, I drove across it about 400 times before I made the connection) to Placerville, stopping for the night somewhere in the middle. Now that the miners are gone, it is clear that the gold country towns live and die by tourism. The main drag to Yosemite no longer runs through Coulterville and there is no ski hill nearby, so Coulterville is a sleepy place. This adobe building was the Sun Sun Wo mercantile, a chinese grocery and probably opium den that operated from 1851 to 1926 on Chinatown Main Street in Coulterville:
The Hotel Jeffery in Coulterville, with its cool stamped tin siding and second story porch, operated until recently as a hotel and restaurant:

North of Coulterville we stopped in Chinese Camp to confirm what I have long suspected from driving through it on the way to Yosemite - there is nothing there. We tried to hike around Jamestown but it was raining and miserably cold, so from Sonora we headed to Columbia State Historic Park. The town of Columbia has a history similar to that of many gold country towns: founded in 1850, swelled to accommodate people mining nearby, burned several times, then declined as the gold rush wound down. Columbia is unique in that in 1945, the state of California bought the main street and several side streets, including the remaining buildings. There are several businesses on main street including a couple of hotels, restaurants, and shops, and people dressed in period costume doing demonstrations like blacksmithing and candle making. The Columbia jail:

After Columbia we headed to the Moaning Cavern of Calaveras County. Dripping water used to cause a moaning sound at the entrance to the 410 foot deep cave. We took a walking tour of the cave down to 165 feet below ground, a depth reached by a sketchy looking spiral staircase built in 1922 and at the time, the tallest arc-welded structure. One website I found calls this type of cave feature "cave bacon":

After the cave, we went to the town of Murphys to find food. Murphys has a super cute main street that is littered with wineries. We stopped at a bookstore so I could buy a book including Mark Twain's story about the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County, set in the town of Angel's Camp, where we would stay. At the bookstore, we asked for a restaurant recommendation and the proprietor and her friend recommended Mineral, a vegetarian restaurant across the street, or Grounds. We chose Grounds, where I ate a crab cake that nearly killed me. I spent 11:30 PM to 5:30 AM barfing every 35 minutes at the Gold Country Inn in Angel's Camp. Oh, it was horrible! Noam thinks Jesus punished us for choosing Grounds when there was a perfectly awesome haute vegetarian restaurant available. He thinks the punishment being meted out to me alone was a question of jurisdiction. I felt so awful the next day we just drove home rather than continuing our drive north, so stay tuned for Gold Country 2: Electric Boogaloo! Not sure when that will happen, because the thought of going back makes me seriously queazy, but you will be happy to know that Le Petit Bistro in Mountain View has since rehabilitated my relationship with crab cakes!

Berlin, October 28 - November 3, 2010

We arrived in Berlin and took a taxi to Pankow, a nondescript residential neighborhood in former East Berlin, where we settled in to Shalev's studio. Thanks Shalev! The next morning, we had breakfast at the bakery next door, where the baker listed to our orders spoken in ratty German sounded out from the labels in front of each type of pastry, corrected our pronunciation, then insisted on hearing our corrected pronunciation before turning over the pastries. After some most excellent rhubarb pastries, we headed downtown. We heard so many horror stories about not validating one's S- or U-bahn tickets, it seemed appropriate to commemorate the act:

We took the S-bahn to the Brandenburg Gate, a former city gate and symbol of Berlin:

Pretzel and sausages, the cuisine of my people. Great shot of every single tooth in my lower jaw, no?

The real purpose of our trip to Germany:

The Reichstag, which was famously set on fire in 1933 by a Dutch communist. After the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenberg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended civil liberties and which the Nazis used to ban publications that were not friendly to the Nazi cause. Pretty much the beginning of the Nazi era of Germans-behaving-badly. The Reichstag was reconstructed beginning in 1990 and reopened in 1999 as the meeting place of the Bundestag, the German parliament:

Remember how one of the iconic images of the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall was the East German Trabants driving on the Autobahn? Now you can drive them through Berlin on a Trabi-Safari. Alison, who is too young to remember the fall of the Berlin wall, could not understand why Hannah and I got all nostalgic at the site of crappy cars with blue clouds of oil smoke coming out the tail pipes. Trabi-safari:

On Friday Ronni took the train to Berlin from Cologne. We met her at the train station and went with her to Kreuzberg. (Later in the trip I went with her to this cute bar in Kreuzberg with the fox tail with binoculars:)

We stopped for pizza in Kreuzberg, where there was a picture of the funny and bossy guy behind counter with a Hitler mustache penciled in and the words "Pizza Nazi" written across the top. I didn't know you could call people "____ Nazi" in Germany, but I guess Seinfeld desensitized us all to that. Here are some helpful directions:

The River Spree:

Saturday Ronni met us in Prenzlauer Berg, where we walked around, shopped, had a cup of coffee, and tried to avoid disturbing the radishes:

Sunday I met Ronni for the exhibit at the German Historical Museum called "Hitler and the Germans." We spent a few minutes being annoyed by the exhibit, then left and cruised around museum island. This is what is known in my house as a Noamage, an homage to Noam - Noam loves him some photos that juxtapose old and new:

Sunday evening we walked through the Topography of Terror, a history of scary things Nazis did, located at the site of the Nazi security apparatus. We were relieved to note that the German treatment of this material is pretty similar to Yad Vashem's treatment (the national holocaust memorial in Israel). This is a picture from the Topography of Terror, *shudder*:

Actually the creepiest thing we saw was a picture from the 1960s of a Waffen SS reunion. Monday Alison and I headed out to Charlottenburg, home of Charlottenburg Palace, a palace built in the 17th century by the wife of Frederick I, the first king of Prussia. Charlottenburg Palace is the only royal residence in Berlin. Pretty neighborhood:

On our last day, I dragged Alison out to the suburb of Wannsee to see the Wannsee villa, where Hitler's lieutenants agreed on the final solution of the "Jewish question." The villa is on a street along the lake crammed with huge mansions. The villa was owned by the Nazi party and used by party higher ups for R and R. Disturbing to think of the premeditation, that the final solution was discussed not in a bunker but at a business meeting in this beautiful place - I can imagine some SS Gruppenfuhrer saying to his secretary "Lena, cancel my eleven o'clock, I have to schlep out to Wannsee for this meeting" (okay, maybe he didn't say schlep). The view from the Wannsee villa conference room:

I finally ate currywurst at the Wannsee train station, pretty much sausages with barbeque sauce. On our last evening, Alison and I waited in line to go inside the Reichstag. I am glad we bothered to do that, since shortly after we returned, I read that the Reichstag is now closed indefinitely to visitors due to security concerns. This is from near the top of the glass globe on the top, looking down into the chamber:

Thursday morning, we dropped the keys with the baker next door at 5 AM and took a taxi back to the airport. Bye Berlin!

Paris, October 25-27, 2010

My friend Alison and I left San Francisco on Sunday and arrived in Paris on Monday afternoon. We took the train to Luxembourg gardens and walked to the apartment we had rented in the Latin Quarter, where Hannah had been staying since Saturday. We dropped the luggage, picked up Hannah, and started walking toward Cafe Constant, where we met Denny and Ellen for a late lunch. Luxembourg gardens:
With my sister:

After lunch, we walked toward the Eiffel Tower, where we people watched and decided not to wait in line to take the elevator to the top (which I have never done and want to one of these days). With Hannah, Denny, and Ellen on the Champs du Mars:

We had a drink, said goodbye to Denny and Ellen, then walked back to our apartment along the Seine. Tuesday morning we took the metro to Montmatre, where we walked around the neighborhood. Sacre Coeur:

We took the metro back down across the river to Au Petit Tonneau, where we had lunch with Denny and Ellen. After lunch we wandered a bit, then took the train to the Marais. After wandering around the Marais for a bit, we were all suddenly overtaken with a case of too much togetherness, so Hannah headed back to the apartment, Denny and Ellen headed back to their apartment, and Alison and I continued wandering. We walked up to Les Halles, the traditional central market of Paris. I wanted to see Forum Les Halles, a hideous, partially underground shopping center that opened in 1979 and apparently is an accomplishment in shopping mall awful-ness. It didn't disappoint on that score:

When we got tired of walking, we hopped on the metro and headed to the Arc de Triomphe, to see the Arc and watch the traffic on the traffic circle:

Wednesday morning we went to the Great Mosque of Paris, in our neighborhood. The Mosque was founded in 1926 and sheltered Jews during World War II. Hannah at the Mosque:

Nice tiles:

Hannah and I walked to Montparnasse to have lunch with Denny and Ellen, then we took the train back to the airport to fly to Berlin.

World Equestrian Games, October 8-9, 2010

Abby and I arrived at the Kentucky Horse Park on Friday. We cruised the trade fair and watched some of the exhibitions. This is Molly, the pony who was abandoned in a pasture in St. Charles Parish after Hurricane Katrina, then was taken to a rescue where she was attacked by a dog who injured her leg. Her leg was amputated and she was fitted with a prosthetic leg by the veterinary hospital at Louisiana State University. She was wandering around loose, eating grass, while kids piled around her. What a good-natured pony:
Riding a mechanical version of Cat Ichi, a quarter horse cutting stallion from Texas:

Show jumping on Friday night:

Saturday was the marathon phase of combined driving. The teams of four horses negotiate eight obstacles. The time in each obstacle is crucial, though the time between obstacles appears to be largely irrelevant. The drivers blaze through each obstacle, then after driving through the finish line for an obstacle, may halt to adjust equipment, or walk or trot slowly toward the next obstacle. A German team negotiating obstacle 5, the Stone Garden:

Dutch driver Ijsbrand Chardon in the last obstacle, the Spring:

The driver before Chardon was a Canadian driver who drove conservatively - he seemed to be fairly new to this level of competition. Chardon drove so aggressively that by the last obstacle, he was just a few minutes behind the Canadian, who had started twenty minutes before Chardon. Saturday night was the show jumping final four, where the top four riders

after several days of competition ride each other's horses over a short course. I was cheering for the 28 year old Saudi rider, because I loved his spicy mare and because it is nice to see some new blood in this sport. He took the silver medal.

Portugal, September 11-18, 2010

I think we can all agree that trips organized around the planned consumption of alcohol are the best ever, so when Amy and Ben invited us to join them for wine and port tasting in Portugal, we jumped at the chance. We arrived on Sunday, picked up the car, and drove to Porto. A quick lunch stop in Coimbra, home of the University of Coimbra, founded in 1290 and one of the oldest universities in the world:

On to Porto, where we dumped our bags at the hotel and promptly headed across the river to Vila Nova de Gaia, the town across from Porto where most of the wineries that make port are located. We headed to Grahams, maker of the 20-year tawny that I tried for the first time in Foreign Cinema in San Francisco, which got me hooked on this whole port drinking thing. On Monday we walked around Porto for long enough to seem respectable, before heading back to the river for more port tasting. Nice architecture in the city center of Porto:

This kind of stuff suggests to me that Portugal is still mourning the loss of her empire:

The Douro river in Porto. On Monday we had dinner at the Taverna dos Bebobos on this quai - DANGER DANGER DANGER! I think the sardines they fed me were poisoned.

Tuesday we left Porto and drove upstream to the part of the Douro river valley where the grapes that are made into port are grown. Traditionally the grapes were pressed, then the wine was shipped downstream about 100 km to Vila Nova de Gaia in flat-bottomed boats of the type in the above photo. At the Ramos Pinto winery we saw some footage of one of these boats headed downriver through some pretty impressive rapids. The river was dammed in the 1960s and the wine is now shipped by truck (not nearly as romantic). The cultivated hills of the Douro river valley:

I was sick all day with food poisoning, so I spent the day that was pretty much the highlight of our trip hanging my head out the car window like a dog, trying not to throw up on the back of Ben's head while he was driving, and most regrettably, NOT tasting port. We stayed Tuesday night in Ourem. Wednesday we headed to Batalha to see the monastery built to thank the Virgin Mary for Portugal's victory over the Castilians in 1385. My food poisoning seemed to have worked itself out by Wednesday morning. Giving the all-clear sign in front of the monastery:

The tombs of King John I and his queen, Philippa of Lancaster, whose marriage cemented an Anglo-Portuguese alliance that continues to this day. So cute, the hand-holding statues:

King Duarte I, John and Philippa's son, started work on a separate chapel, intended as a mausoleum for his family. Duarte I died young and later kings lost interest in the Batalha monastery in favor of the Jeronimos monastery in Belem, so the chapel was never finished. Still, the Unfinished Chapels are the prettiest part of the Batalha monastery, as illustrated by Noam shown here demonstrating his love for Manueline architecture:

From Batalha we headed to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in mainland Europe, where we grabbed lunch, then to Cascais, a delightfully low-key seaside town:

Wednesday night we stayed in Setubal, south of Lisbon, on the Sado river estuary:

The last two days of our trip we spent in Lisbon. Below is the church of Sao Domingos, which was damaged in the 1755 earthquake and a later fire. You can see where large sections of stone fell away during the earthquake, leaving the columns looking rough, it was cool:

At the park at the top of the Elevador da Gloria (a funicular):

Sailing in Escanaba, MI, September 3-6, 2010

We flew to Detroit on Friday, met Hannah, then flew on to Escanaba. Detroit airport has a cute little red people mover train INSIDE the terminal building - pretty cool. Saturday the weather was a little iffy for sailing so we enjoyed the splendors of the upper peninsula instead. We headed down to Cedar River to see the baby sturgeon, then stopped for lunch at the Lighthouse Pub. We waited there, sucking down beer, for the day's whitefish delivery to arrive - it was worth it. Noam is showing off his new Huckleberry polo shirt, awarded only to those who serve with distinction aboard the Huckleberry:
Just inside the door of the Lighthouse Pub is one of those racks with brochures advertising the local outlet malls and dinner-theaters-with-jousting. We picked up a local driving tour which promised old growth forest at nearby J.W. Wells state park. The ranger at the entrance gate looked at us blankly when we asked about old growth forest (stupid lying brochure) but we still paid six bucks and hiked there. New growth trees at J.W. Wells:

Determined to get our six bucks worth from our state park pass, Dad turned north and floored it, determined to make it to Fayette historic state park before they closed. Fayette was the site of a Jackson Iron Company iron smelting operation from 1867 to 1891. The people have moved away, but many of the town's buildings are restored, though sadly not the two story outhouse that once graced Fayette's hotel. Snail shell harbor, where Fayette is located:

The smelting furnace at Fayette:

Sunday we sailed in the Little Bay de Noc. Behind the wheel of the Huck:

The upper peninsula of Michigan is known for pasties, a dish originally from Cornwall which is sort of like a calzone but is filled with meat, turnips, and rutabagas instead of melted cheese and things that taste good. Several times we drove by the fine eating establishment Dobber's Pasties, which had a sign out front with the changeable letters arranged to read something like "Yooper soul food. Now serving gravy." I begged to go there, and dad, Hannah, and Noam finally relented on Sunday. Highly recommended. Monday dad drove us to Milwaukee where we had lunch with mom, then headed to the airport to fly home.

Red Mountain Basin, August 20-23, 2010

Campsite inventory and obliteration at Disappointment Lake. Yay! I got to lead my longest string ever, three mules, including Leon, who often carries our food in bear-resistant boxes because they are heavy and he is big. Leon seems to have a sense of humor - he will ram you with the corners of his boxes and he appears to know exactly what he was doing. At one point when we stopped for a minute, we left him dallyed on Trooper's saddle horn, and he positioned himself at an unlikely angle, apparently so he could dig the corner of one of his boxes into Trooper's ribs. Me and my string:
Trooper and Franky taking their morning nap:

Piglet and Leon:

Red Mountain Basin is gorgeous, but the trail up there is steep and unforgiving, which you can tell from the place names up there: Hell for Sure pass, Devil's Punchbowl, Disappointment Lake. Below is beautiful, and entirely un-disappointing, Disappointment Lake:

Sunset from our campsite near Mount Henry:

Why why why would you carry a boarding pass this far? Unfortunately this special person burned his or her name, otherwise I would have sent it back to him/her with a request to please obliterate his/her fire ring in the future and pack out half-burned trash.

Self portrait with a tiny blue sliver of Devil's Punchbow in the upper left side of the picture:

You can't really tell from the picture, but this granite was so slick and steep it made my toes curl. Thank goodness Franky knows what to do:

On our last morning, frost in the meadow while we took down the fence and dispersed the piles of horse and mule poo: