Port O'Connor Texas & Fishing

Among the friends we have stayed with on our travels have been people we met through Faith In Practice. First we went to visit David and Ruth Hamilton in Hot Springs Village Arkansas. David and Ruth were facilitators on earlier teams. They showed us around, fixed us wonderful meals and Ruth and I went into Little Rock to visit the Clinton Museum and the Old Arkansas State House. The Clinton Museum was fascinating, including a guided tour by Bill Clinton, exhibits organized on the basis of different themes and lots of memorabilia. There was little mention of the impeachment trial, except to explain it as a Republican attempt to get back at him for Democratic gains during the off-year elections. He made numerous positive comments about Hilary. It was striking to hear his view of diplomacy (meet and get to know leaders so that you develop a respect and can use that to encourage people to take unpopular stands) which stands in stark contrast to the present administration. Arkansas politics were the focus at the Statehouse. There are a lot of famous and infamous Arkansas politicians including Orville Faubus, Dale Bumpers, William Fulbright, and Bill Clinton. The League of Women Voters was founded in Arkansas, which was the 12th state and 2d southern state to sign the amendment giving women the right to vote.

We set off early Tuesday morning October 14 to get to Houston for the FIP Gala. Despite the stock market crash the previous week, about 500 people turned out and FIP raised about $347,000 gross. The next day we headed off to Port O'Connor Texas, where Joe and Vera Wiatt, the founders of FIP, live. We drove through a driving rain storm down to the Gulf coast. They live right on the beach.

This is a photo of the sunrise over the bay. When we arrived a cold front was moving through and there was a wind and the bay was choppy. Thursday night we watched the Coast Guard practice rescues in the bay with helicopters, boats and baskets.
Joe and Vera are avid fishermen and hadn't been fishing for three months. When the weather cleared up, they took us out wade fishing for Red Fish. You wear booties and wade through water that is mid-calf to mid-thigh deep. You shuffle along the bottom to scare the sting rays away and to avoid stepping on them. The goal is to cast you mullet (a bait fish which Joe caught with a net) into sandy areas where smaller fish would follow it and cause a Red Fish to come out. Both of us caught 24" Red Fish. This is the first time I've really gone fishing and I had a blast. Vera was my coach and I got to the point I could put the bait on my hook, though I couldn't tie hooks on when puffer fish cut them off or remove my fish. It was thrilling to catch these large fish, which really put up a fight. We went out for an additional half day of fishing, but were unsuccessful. Our grins show how happy we were. We then returned to dock where Joe and Bob cleaned the fish and we prepared a big fish fry. Yummy!
While Joe and Bob were cleaning the fish I watched the barge traffic on the intercoastal waterway. This is an artificial waterway that runs near the shore and is protected from the rough water of the Gulf. There is a lot of barge and boat traffic on it. While waiting I watched petroleum tankers and barges filled with gravel travel up the Intercoastal.
When the guys were finished cleaning the fish they threw the carcasses to the brown pelicans who gathered around. The pelicans are everywhere. This area is along the flyway and we saw brown and white pelicans, Great Blue and White Herons, Pink Spoonbills, ospreys, turkey vultures and lots of other birds I couldn't identify. The pelicans used to be endangered, but they aren't any more.

Pleasant Hill Shaker Village

On our way to Louisville, we stopped at the Pleasant Hill Shaker Village, about 25 miles south of Lexington. Pleasant Hill was founded in 1805 after Shaker missionaries came to participate in camp meetings in Kentucky. At its height Pleasant Hill had 500 residents, divided into five families. The village lasted until 1910. Its downfall occurred from a combination of the Civil War and bad business decisions. During the Civil War, the Shakers were pacifists who opposed slavery. However, they were not attacked by either side. However, 10,000 troops passed through the Turnpike to the left on their way to and from battles, particularly the Perryville campaign in 1862. The Shakers fed the troops and treated the wounded, at great personal sacrifice. After the Civil War many converts came to Pleasant Hill, some because they were disabled and couldn't support their families, some widows with children, and some orphan children. As a result there were children in Pleasant Hill. Prior to the Civil War the Shakers had made and sold brooms, boxes, seeds and the first medicines available from a catalogue, mainly to southern markets. Those markets dried up after the war. That, combined with the industrial revolution which improved the lives of all people so that the relatively prosperous life represented in Pleasant Hill was no longer such an attraction, plus some bad business decision caused the abandonment of Pleasant Hill in 1910.



This is Centre Family House, home to 100 men and women who lived on separate sides of the house. They ate in the house, had an infirmary, and met for evening Meetings in an upstairs room. The building was designed by a man who also designed many of the other buildings in the village. He placed the buildings to take advantage of the Kentucky winds and ensured that every room had cross ventilation. There was a cupola that opened to let the hot air out. There was an infirmary, over the kitchen, to treat the ill.
One of the things that the Amish manufactured was brooms. This man still does so. The Shakers used to raise broom straw, though it is now imported from Mexico. In addition to making floor brooms (which last for decades), he makes turkey wing wisk brooms, pot scrubbers, cake testers, etc. He was a font of information. Among other things, there are about 190 employees.
This shows the dual stair cases in Centre Family House (used separately by men and women). One of the Shaker beliefs is that since man sinned they must be celebate. This photo also shows the lovely design of Centre House (arches and wood work).

Monticello, VA

Thomas Jefferson built Monticello (little mountain) over a period of 40 years. He started by flattening a mountain top on the 5000 acres he inherited. He and his wife began living in one of the small houses at the ends of the L's that embrace the main building. Monticello was busy (even though it was a Monday in October). We had a tour of the house, including the green house, Jefferson's third library (one was destroyed by fire and the second was donated to what became the National Archives), his room filled with evidence of his multiple interests, and the entry hall filled with artifacts from Lewis and Clark and others which were intended to educate people while they waited to see Jefferson.
There was no good water source at Monticello, which is on the top of a hill. Jefferson built four cisterns and collected rainwater. Since the L's were built underground with walkways on their roofs, he made the roof corrugated (note the different width beams in this photo) to collect additional rainwater. Jefferson also designed an underground corridor which connected each L under the main house. There were store rooms, a wine cellar (NPR says that will be open to the public next year with a lot of information about the types of wines Jefferson collected) with a dumb waiter to carry bottles to the Sitting Room, a cider/beer cellar, etc.
Jefferson became a devotee of French cuisine after he served as the US Ambassador to France. He brought one slave with him to be trained as a French chef. Monticello's kitchen included this 8-burner stove which permitted the simmering of sauces. The copper pots came from France. The kitchen also had a fireplace with a spit which operated by means of a weighted pulley system and a baking oven.
Monticello also includes this huge garden (1000' long) which was originally surrounded by a palisade wood wall. The garden was built on a flat ledge which was partially built on a stone wall. In the garden Jefferson experimented with over 350 different varieties of vegetables. Below the vegetable garden was an orchard with more than 150 different varieties of trees. Jefferson did a lot of grafting himself.

We walked from here to his gravestone which famously remembers him only for the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia freedom of religion clause in its constitution and the creation of the University of Virginia and ignores his service as VP, President and ambassador, positions Jefferson thought it was simply his duty to fill.

Jefferson, had about 200 slaves and only freed about 7 during his lifetime. Though he abhorred slavery and had promised the slaves freedom at his death, due to the huge debts on the plantation, they were all sold.

University of Virginia

We headed off from Tunkhannock after a stop in Wilkes Barre to have the power converter (which converts 110 to DC and runs all the lights in Snoopy) replaced. We had an unpleasant experience with the service provider, but they had us and we had to pay more than we had agreed to. We went down to Kendal (near Philadelphia) to visit my Aunt Allie (94) who is still very sharp. She told us some more things about the Cottage (which was built in 1908). I had remembered a huge washing machine made out of a barrel in the basement. She said it was a commercial washing machine purchased by Louis and Caroline since there were 3 kids in diapers. Then we headed to Newtown Square to visit Albert Fletcher, the father of our Corvallis vet. When we got there, the Volvo refused to start. Bob spent a long time dealing with AAA to get a tow, etc., but when he finally went out to meet the tow truck it started again (Yeah!!!!). We took off towards Gettysburg, where we arrived about 10 p.m. (the latest we've arrived anywhere on this journey). We ended up stopping in York PA at Sal's Italian restaurant for really good pizza.

The next morning we took off towards Skyline Drive in Virgina via the back roads. Skyline drive goes right along the narrow spine of a mountain range. It was designed as a national park in the 1930's specifically for cars, so it has multiple viewpoints. It was intended to give East Coast residents a taste of the outdoors. Over the years, it has grown more wild.

We arrived in Charlottesville, VA where my friend Madelyn Wessel (a fellow higher ed attorney) and her husband (a fellow MD/PhD diabetes expert) and their two dogs (Penelope the Springer Spaniel and Keppler the beagel) live. Madelyn had a wonderful dinner for us when we arrived and gave us a tour of the University of Virginia on Friday. Here we are in the back of the gardens along the Academical Village. The gardens are behind the Pavillions where VPs, the Provost and other high-ranking administrators live. They are open to the public and anyone can go in and sit down to eat or enjoy the space.

Thomas Jefferson designed the Academical Village. This view shows the Pavillions (with the tall columns) and the Student Rooms (behind the smaller columns). Seniors, chosen by their peers, live in the Student Rooms, each with its own fire place and no bathroom. The Rotunda was closed for Board of Visitor meetings, but we went up to the dome room.

This is a picture of the walls that surround the Academical Village. They are all serpentine. When Madelyn went back to work, we visited the Special Collections. One was on North American Maps from 1500-1800. The other was the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection. It includes one of the first 25 Broadsides of the Declaration of Independence distributed to newspapers and elsewhere the day after the Declaration was agreed to, various letters related to it, examples of various reprints of the Declaration and various takeoffs (including one promoting temperence).

More Tunkhannock Photos

This photo shows the beginning of the fall colors in Tunkhannock. As we drove south, the colors became less pronounced.
Some of the historic houses in Tunkhannock. This is the Piatt-Ogden House, built in 1896 by a local lawyer.

The view from the look out over the Susquehanna. The property across the river is owned by the Nature Conservancy. The Susquehanna at this point makes a huge goose neck, called the Narrows. Tunkhannock is in the center right of the photo. Our property does not include the look out, though we do own some property down on the river in the center right of the photo.

Reflections on Tunkhannock

Bob and I returned to Tunkhannock the end of September in order to fit in a visit with friends in Virginia who weren't returning from Germany until October 1. As we were driving from Connecticut to Tunkhannock, just prior to stopping at a disc golf course east of Scranton, we got a phone call from Markus asking when we were going to arrive. The masons and the cement truck were arriving Friday morning at 7:30 to finish the back of the garage space under the Cottage and were also going to pour the floor for the GARN unit in the carriage house. To be ready, we needed to spread gravel and place steel mesh in the Carriage House and Markus was alone (though Tiny Sands was coming with a skid steer to help move the gravel). We pushed on to Tunkhannock and Markus and Bob worked till about 9 p.m. to get everything ready. We all woke up the next morning to dig the space and build the form around the pad for the emergency generator in the Carriage House. We finished just in time for the cement pour.

Markus left Monday afternoon and Bob and I were alone in Tunkhannock. We stayed in the Cottage and would work part of most days. We finished the following jobs:

1. Placed rocks as steps at the opposite end of the pond from the beach. Since the pond had to be lowered to repair the leak this is the only time these rocks could be placed.
2. Repaired a portion of the drive that had eroded with large rocks and gravel.
3. Finished installing the south window and door in the living room and put foam around the west facing windows.
4. Removed the wood frames from around the concrete slabs in the Carriage House.
5. Moved almost all the tools and supplies from the porch to the basement and organized them.
6. Raked and shoveled dirt around the door slabs on the back of the house.
7. Put more gravel into the Carriage House next to the GARN slab so there is a flat surface to walk on to place wood.
8. Painted two coats (primer and enamel) on the roof of the Horse Shed.

It turns out that Markus and I egg each other on into a frenzy of work. When Bob and I left Tunkhannock, we were exhausted (as was Markus). I was trying to keep up with Markus and he was trying to keep up with me. Bad combination. We understand that we have to slow down in the future. Without Markus around, Bob and I rarely worked more than 3-4 hours a day, a much more reasonable pace. We also had to slow down due to three days of steady rain.

As a result, we also did a lot of fun things. We visited Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. This is a working steam engine repair facility with a working round table and repaired steam trains and a great museum. Since it was mid-week and after school started, there were not a lot of people. We took a tour to the repair facility, which was really interesting. The facility has collected lots of machines necessary for repair of steam engines and cars and they are actively repairing engines. The top two photos are of the UP engine (25 of the largest steam engines in the world were built for UP to go over the Rockies) with a little switch engine and the turn table in the round house operating. We spent most of a day at Steamtown. There is also an electric trolley museum next door that we didn't visit.

The Deiterich Theater in Tunkhannock has a film festival in the fall. We went to one movie every day. We saw the following films:

American Teen - A documentary of HS seniors in NE Indiana, including the most popular girl, her cohort and various outcasts. It is an amazingly frank look at the lives of teen agers, sex, drugs, depression, etc. The movie also uses animation to express some of the dreams of the teens. Highly recommended.

The Children of Huang Shi (starring Johathan Rhys-Meyers) - A true story of an English journalist who sneaks into China to cover the Sino-Japanese war who ends up running an orphanage. The orphans are all boys and to avoid conscription into the army, he takes them on a 500 mile trek through the mountains in winter. It's called the Mini Long March. The scenery is fabulous, the story amazing, and there is great acting. Highly recommended.

Elsa and Fred (in Spanish) - A love story among septagenarians. A very sweep film which we enjoyed immensely.

Encounters at the End of the World (by Werner Herzog who directed Grizzly Man) - A story about McMurdo Station in Antarctica and all the strange people, inveterate travellers, who end up there. The photography is stunning, the science being conducted on volcanos, penguins, under ice organisms, etc. is really interesting and the interviews with the people are quirky. Highly recommended.

The Last Mistress (in French) - This was the one movie we didn't really like. It is beautifully photographed, but is about a young man who has a long-term liaison with a mistress. There was lots of sex and sexually explicit discussions, but it left us cold.

Mongol (in Mongolian) - This is the story of Ghengis Khan and gives one a different perspective on this man's life. The photography is gorgeous and the battle scenes are like some of those epic battle scenes in the Tolkein trilogy. Apparently he was a very devoted husband and father, though he spent more time away from his family than with it and his wife was almost as amazing as he was. Highly recommended.

Transsiberian (with Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer and Ben Kingsly) - This is a thriller set on the Transsiberian RR. It was the first movie we saw, and though there is some violence, the story is gripping. Highly recommended.

Up the Yangtse (in Chinese) - This is a movie about the effect of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and the people in its wake, seen partly through the eyes of tourists riding up-river on a boat. There are haunting pictures of these markers along the river showing where the flooding will rise to. The movie is seen partly through the experiences of two people who work on the boat, one a self-centered young man who speaks good English and the other a very poor girl who wants to go to school but whose parents need her to work and send money home. The photography is beautiful and the effects of this dam on the people is brought out through the two stories. Highly recommended.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen's latest film) - This is a truly funny film about love in Spain. It's better than a lot of Woody Allen's recent films, but I'm not a total fan. Recommended.

The Visitor - This is a fabulous film about the interaction between a widowed economics professor from Connecticutt who comes back to his Greenwich Village apartment to find an African couple living there. The man plays drums and teaches the professor. The women makes jewelry and sells it on the streets. It was the best movie we saw; investigating the problems of illegal immigrants and the US policy about them.

Ann and Vern arrived on Sunday for two days and we walked around Tunkhannock looking at the historic houses. We also drove out to Nicholson to show them the Nicholson viaduct (the longest cement bridge in the world). It was built to shorten, straighten and remove track crossings on the railroad in the 1920's. The owner of the Lackawanna RR spent the equivalent of $1B to make all sorts of repairs and improvements to the RR to move freight faster, and thus earn more money. We also walked out to the overlook 500' above the Susquehanna (Bob hadn't seen that either).

Connecticut

Ann and Vern, Bob's sister and brother-in-law, have a cabin near Sharon, Connecticut in the northwest corner of the state, very close to both New York and Massachusetts. They live on Gavel Cabin Rd. and they own Gavel Cabin. It is about 4 miles outside of Sharon, a quintisential New England town. Every day we went on an excursion. The top two photos are from a protected natural area called Pond Mountain. We walked down next to a huge escarpment and then circumnavigated the lake. Ann, who is a master gardener, identified many of the plants we walked past.

We also went off to a Massachusetts State Park which consisted of a cobble, irregularly shaped rocks thrust upwards during the early plate tectonics. This particular cobble is located along the meanders of the Housitonic River and is the home of over 50 different species of ferns. We walked around the cobble at its base and then went up to the lookout over the Housitonic Valley. The weather was again beautiful. We then went down to walk around the house of the original owner of this property, the oldest house in the Poconos.

Another day we went to see the Great Falls on the Housitonic. Like many falls, there is an electric power generating facility at its base. In total we spent about 10 days in Connecticut and New York City.

Bash Bish Falls & Copake Iron Works

Ann and Vern had tried to find Bash Bish Falls twice from the Massachusetts side. They had heard that it was easier from the New York side and Taconic State Park. We headed off to NY (Sharon CN is very close to both Massachusetts and NY). We found the falls and hiked in 3/4 of a mile to what was described as the most beautiful falls in Massachusetts. The walk was through the woods and it was a little cool.

The falls are beautiful. At the board next to the falls the park service has posted descriptions of about ten accidental falls (some fatal, some not) to deter people from swimming in the pool below the falls or climbing up the rocks next to the falls. There are big signs prohibiting swimming in the river.

Also in Taconic State Park is the Copake Iron Works. This area was heavily developed to produce iron in the mid-1800's. It had water, limestone, iron ore and wood to make charcoal. The furnace (above) is one of the only extant furnaces from this era. There were great descriptions of how the iron was produced. By the early 1920's almost all these iron works went out of business due to competition from Pennsylvania and Minnesota. The Copake Iron Works was famous for producing plows, railroad wheels and other tools, which it continued doing after it ceased to produce big slabs of iron. To entice workers, duplexes were built by the company. These houses still exist and have been converted into cabins. The owner's house is now the house of the park manager.

This is one of the few buildings remaining from the iron works. The furnace is located to the right of the photo, in the trees. There is also a company store and storage shed for dynamite. A small museum is located in the building.

White Mountains & Boston

Bob and I left Montreal early Monday morning on September 8 to avoid the commuter traffic. We traveled the back roads to the border crossing in Canaan VT where we were the only car and there was one border guard. He asked a few questions, swiped our passports and we were on our way. We decided to travel the Three Rivers Scenic Byway, a route along three rivers where logs were floated to mills and which passed through the White Mountains. We were going to drive the road to the top of Mt. Washington (known for the worst weather in the US and the highest wind gust ever recorded at ground level, 231 mph), but the $27 cost, the 39 degree weather at the top with 47 mph winds and 100' visibility deterred us. Instead, we continued on to the AMC cabin in Pinkham's Notch (Pinkham arrived on a sled pulled by a pig) and took two short hikes. The first was to a rock outcropping about 450' above the road and looking towards Mt. Washington (which is in the clouds) and up the valley (see above).

The second hike was to Glen Ellis Falls, a delightful short walk to these beautiful falls. The trail had been laid by the CCC. Afterwards we continued through the White Mountain National Forest towards NH 153, another scenic byway and stopped at Crystal Lake for our picnic lunch of Montreal bagels, chevre cheese and fruit. Our destination was Boston where my niece Catherine and her husband Arjun and son Miro live.

Arjun is doing a post-doc at MIT and Catherine is pursuing prerequisites for an MSW. Miro, who is 19 months old is a cutie. Catherine speaks only French to him and Arjun speaks English. He is very verbal and communicates in both languages. It's wonderful to see how the next generation is raising its children. After Miro went to bed, Catherine fixed a wonderful dinner and we all toddled off to bed.

The next morning Miro woke up at about 6:30 and we all ate breakfast and yacked until Arjun had to go to work at 8:15 and Catherine and Miro were headed off to a coop daycare play group for Catherine's first 3 hours without Miro. We headed off on the Mass Turnpike towards Sharon, Connecticut in what became a driving rain. As we took the back roads we traveled through small Massachusetts towns, passed an old Quaker Meeting House, saw Amherst and eventually stopped for lunch in Lanesborough, MA (where the Road Food book had recommended a restaurant that no longer exists). However, we stopped at a pub and had yummy belly clam sandwiches (Bob) and buffalo burger with sweet potatoes (me).

We arrived at Ann and Vern's cabin, Gavel Cabin, at around 4 in the afternoon. It's about 4 miles outside Sharon, CN on its own pond, surrounded by state forest, lovely gardens created by Ann and quiet.

Montreal

When we returned to Montreal, we visited the site of the 1967 World Fair, Man and His World, and the site of some of the Olympic venues on two islands in the middle of the St. Laurence River. The Biosphere, which was the US pavillion during the World Fair, is now the site of an environmental museum. The dome used to be covered by acrylic, but in 1976 a welder was repairing the frame and accidently caught the surface on fire. It all burned in 20 minutes. Now there is an environmental museum inside. This view shows the Montreal city skyline through the frame of the dome.
The dome with the museum inside. There were various very interesting exhibits. We saw a film on six screens (you sat on stools that could be turned) about endangered species. There was a hands-on, interactive exhibit about the St. Laurence River and the Great Lakes. There were wonderful photos of boreal forests. The top of the museum has examples of many of Buckminster Fuller's inventions (he's really a Renaissance man), including cars, a needle rowing boat, domes of various varieties, etc. In the center was an explanation of wind power (very interesting now that there will be a wind farm just outside the Cottage). The museum uses bogs to clean its waste water and has wind generators inside.
From the Biosphere we went to the Montreal Botanical Garden, a huge place with wonderful green houses, a Japanese and Chinese garden, an aquatic/bog garden, an insecterium, model gardens, etc. There were two wedding parties with photographers going around having their photos taken (lots of dragging little kids and bridesmaids with sore feet). This orchid was in the greenhouse.
The Botanical Garden is near the Olympic Stadium. The removable dome designed for the stadium did not take account of the snow loads in Montreal and has been replaced numerous times. Montreal was paying for this stadium through a tax until 2005. This shows the tower with the lines connected to the present roof (which is also removable).

We also walked around the ethnic section of Montreal (St. Laurent street), visiting a 50 year old bagel bakery where the bagels are cooked in a wood-fired oven.