River Bend I We were home just over a month when we felt the need to get back out on the road, or at least outside so we’ve come to River Bend for a week. The site is in the foothills of the Willamette National Forest a few miles east of Sweet Home. Not a…
I didn’t write about: Cicadas At the plantation, the trees were full of a loud chirping/clicking sound. Cicadas I thought, but a woman in the souvenir store said they were locusts. Comparing the bug body I found on the path to images on line, the noise was from cicadas, large, 1 to 2 inches, fly-like…
It was dark when I woke, as it usually is. From the other end of the bunk, Lyd said we were in Pasco. My watch said it was 5:30 West Coast time. Sleep had been intermittent. The heating system had alternated between a balmy 90 degrees and a more comfortable 32 degrees. It was a…
Our layover time in Chicago was diminished by the tardiness of the Lake Shore Limited (I really like using the names of the trains, it sounds so knowledgeable and official). The baggage claim process was tedious in the humidity of the station, our bag appearing only after a search by an angry attendant. We re-checked…
Union Station in Chicago is a shrine to travel. It is sleek, white marble, the great hall unadorned by the clutter of shops and kiosks. In its grand simplicity, it is a portal for the world to pass through on its way to other places. Boston’s South Station, on the other hand, is a monument…
Beginning is never easy. Persevering is harder. Lydia and I had been to Plimoth Plantation before (and yes that is how they spell it because it was named prior to the standardization of spelling). In 2008, we had followed Hwy. 20 from its beginning in Newport, Oregon to its end near Fenway Park in Boston.…
Boston was hot, the temperature degrees only exceeded by the degrees of humidity. It was like being in a slow cooker bean pot (pun intended). In about six hours we’d all be fork tender and done. The plan was (and here I must parenthetically insert that the only person in the world more organized and…
Out the window, Vermont streamed away from us, the villages, verdant hills, vine covered factory shells gradually disappearing, to be replaced by the flatter and more peopled landscape of Massachusetts. It was not an improvement. In 1968 Simon and Garfunkel produced the song America. In part, the lyrics say Toss me a cigarette, I think…
Vermont is a land of abandoned and derelict mills, large, brick, mid-nineteenth century structures that were once the heart of the American Industrial revolution, a revolution fueled by the arrival of the railroad. We were awed by the size and number of these old factories and mills as we rode north. They dominated the otherwise…
We left Washington early on Sunday morning. It seems that I had scheduled all our departures for pre-dawn conditions. Washington was not like New Orleans, there was no cache in the early hours, it was just a city getting ready for another work day. We navigated the beautiful great hall of Union Station and found…
barelyaboomer 