Something of a Mixed Bag

Welp.  There are those kinds of days in every vacation of which today was one.  Lemme explain.

I will go to my grave insisting that North Cascades National Park deserves a bigger slice of the attention pie that is apportioned out to America's national parks.  Sure there's Yosemite and Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, and some of the other big, giant heavy hitters.  But this bad boy, of which you may or may not have even heard, is basically a slice of absurdly vertical remote mountainous wilderness that rivals those places in gratuitous natural beauty, and just piles it on and on and on (OK, so it doesn't have a Yosemite Valley or "Grand" canyon, but gracious does it have an unfathomably huge number of towering, misshapen mountains with waterfalls busting out of glaciers everywhere.  Actually, it' kind of like the mountains that ring Mordor, but with a happier vibe emanating from them).

Well, we were supposed to drive up this 25 mile long gravel road to a campsite and hike to a very, very, very pretty high mountain pass, only once we actually did drive ALL THAT WAY, and get out of the car, each of us were beset by a literal cloud of black flies so thick as to almost obscure our exposed skin.  No joke, people, these nasty buggers were ubiquitous. Whereas even though the view from the parking lot was bonkers, we made it no more than 10 minutes up the first set of switchbacks before being so covered with flies that we felt we had not choice but to beat the hastiest of retreats back to the car and drive outta there.  We were all crushed, and not least because it took so long to get up to Cascade Pass, but because we desperately wanted to see how much more beautiful it could possibly get.

Erica did manage to take a few pictures.  And, fast-forwarding a bit, we also took a bunch more pictures with our main camera later on on our replacement hike.  But it was only at that later point in the day that I realized I had FORGOTTEN TO TAKE THE CAMERA'S MEMORY CARD OUT OF MY COMPUTER FROM LAST NIGHT AND PUT IT BACK IN THE CAMERA.  So our memory card stayed all day in our hotel room in this very computer, and we had to subsist on phone pics.  So here are the only two pics we did get from the scene:

Note the glaciers, waterfalls, and extreme beauty

Ditto

Well, what to do? We decided to cut bait and drive over an hour back down the mountain to another section of the park.  We choose the Diablo Lake area.  Diablo Lake is kind of a Lake Como situation, where mountains plunge dramatically thousands of feet into water, so we made out alright, really.  We hiked the Thunder Knob trail, which is weenier than our original plans called for, but ended up getting us up to some mighty scenic country.  Enjoy some snappers, won't you?

A majestic, fly-less old growth forest, without any biting black flies

Diablo Lake

Thunder Knob trail

To of the Thunder Knob trail, with a fly-free Diablo Lake in the background

When we finally made it back to town, James was fit to burst about swimming in the motel pool.  Erica took him, and I got some delicious taco takeout from the Mexican grocery store with which the Best Western shares a parking lot.  We scarfed the tacos poolside, then crashed for the evening.

All in all, great day, the snafus notwithstanding.  Tomorrow we leave our beloved Best Western, camera-ready this time, for the Great White North.  Erica has never been to Canada (nor James), and I've never been to Vancouver, so it's going to be a true adventure tomorrow, and I can't wait.  Until then...Buen Camino!

Grant

Big Pig 4: West Coast Boog-A-Loo 3

Ok, ok, so it's been a loooooong time since I rapped at ya.  I know.  Anywho, long one short, we're at it again on the West Coast, this time in the Pacific Northwest to see friends, sample brews, scale mountains, and ward off all manner of whining and toy-begging coming from the backseat.  It's Monday night and we're in a Best Western in Mt. Vernon, WA.  To the action!

We landed very late Friday night in Seattle and headed straight for Lynette and Tom Baisch's home on the north side of the city.  They had graciously offered us space in their lovely home back when Molly was supposed to join us for a portion of our trip, but she and Mark high-tailed it to Paris for her 40th birthday.  Lynette stepped up and kept her end of the bargain (not really a bargain for her, I guess).

Seattle on Saturday and Sunday were a blast.  Sunday night we went out with Lynette and Tom to a decidedly fancy-pants small plates place.  Highlights from Saturday include:

Pike Place Market (sleepy James), before the VAST HOARDS descended on it 

The famous and disgusting "gum wall"

On the ferry to Bainbridge Island, where we ate ice cream and visited the kiddie museum (the ferry was the best part)

The stupid first Starbucks

I gotta hand it to Pike Place market in particular.  I was convinced it was going to be a Bubba Gump Shirmp Co. type place, with lots of little crappy boutiques selling shot glasses that say "Seattle" on them or Space Needle tshirts.  But it was actually very awesome!  As in, legit old school food stalls, craft vendors, and weirdo novelty junk shops.

Sunday was mostly focused around the MoPop museum (formerly the Experience Music Project).  They had a Jim Henson exhibit which James got pretty into, in additon to their regular collections of rock and roll memorabilia, sound labs (where you can jam on instruments), and movie and television props.

It is actually kind of spooky even though you know they don't have legs 

Luke Skywalker's actual light saber and severed hand props

Indiana Jones' hat and jacket, and the Staff of Ra from Raiders of the Last Arc

All the Star Trek costumers were there, but these dudes are my favs

Today we got up very early and made the long drive up to Paradise, on the slopes of Mt. Rainier.  The mountain had been hiding in the forest fire smoke all weekend, so we didn't even actually get to see it until we were within the park's boundaries.  But once up there, she did not disappoint.

I packed James in the kid carrier (he's pushing the upper weight limit now), and we walked up about 4 miles, until we were above the tree line and the snow got too slick and dangerous for us to continue.

Big ol' marmot just sitting there

MountRaineering in the snow

James is a BIG fan of g.o.r.p. (good ol' raisins and peanuts) now.  He insisted on stopping frequently to top up on gorp. 

True adventurers

The inevitable g.o.r.p. crash on the way back down.  

Tomorrow we'll be in North Cascades National Park, so we'll report back then!


Grant

Aug-Dec

Nothing really happened to speak of, travel-wise, when we got back from out East in mid-August. Not true...Erica did go to London for work, but apart from getting to attend the England/Switzerland international soccer match at Wembley Stadium (upon my suggestion), and a play in the West End, she mostly just worked.

In October was ¡BONGHOCHO!, i.e., Bongho 8, which had a Latin theme (margaritas, not togas). We beat USC gratifyingly, and/but James stayed home with his nana and papa.

In December, the greater Gholson clan once again headed to Puerto Rico just after Christmas.  James still likes to tell us that most of the buses, trains, and planes he sees are "going to Puerto Rico", so it apparently made a huge impression on him.  That trip will be he subject of my next post.


Grant

I know it's been awhile since I rapped at ya

You might have noticed that the last entry in this blog is nigh on a year ago, when we were in Stone Harbor.  Much has happened since that time, but/and because we are going back there in a few weeks, and I plan on covering that trip in some detail once again, I figured it was important to catch quickly all the readers (*ahem*) up on what's gone on in the interim.

To start, I found this saved on my desktop.  It's an entry that was started last trip, but never finished.

Uncle Joe is a wine buff, and drinks the good stuff.  I must have spent the better part of a few afternoons reading past issues of Wine Spectator to get caught up on all the in-goings on of the wine world, which seems to be mostly a world where vineyard financiers hold elaborate tasting balls for one another while flannel-shirted vintners do the actual work themselves (or, rather, oversee the work that Mexican laborers do).  So, pretty much like everything else, basically.  Anyway, Joe had brought a case of fine wine to the shore, owning to the fact that when Justin, Erica, and I visited him and Mary Kay in the Spring, we clearly drank more of his wine than he was expecting. [ed. note this entry just ends here.]

Here's another entry I found, from later in the trip when we went to Molly's house in Frederick, MD.  Beautiful house, by the way, and they've improved a lot on it since then, too.

State feathers!

SUPERBOSS day today..  The morning was pedestrian, but by 9am we were already on the way to Harper’s Ferry, site of an important Civil War battle won by the Confederacy (boo), as well as, more famously, the ending place of the radical abolitionist John Brown’s attempt to lead a group of freed black slaves into Maryland in 1859.  What’s cool, besides most of the things in this old town (old for America, at least), is that when you drive there from Frederick, you have to pass through a tiny sliver of Virginia on the way to West Virginia.  Erica says that doesn’t count as a new state for James, but who cares, she’s wrong.  Anyway, we ended up driving through that itty part 3 times over the course of the day, so it definitely counts.  Congrats to having been in three states today, James!

Harper’s Ferry is located where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers crotch, with the Potomac taking the name of the newly confluenced river, before flowing down to D.C. and out then out to the ocean.  The panoramas are great, and here’s a few samplins’.

Lovely view of West Virginia's easternmost point, AND, just at the riverbank below us, the state's lowest point in elevation!

The ammunition depot where John Brown met his demise

James not too sure about this war of 1812 reenactor guy

After the ‘Ferry, we drove straight north to the battlefields of Antietam, site of the single bloodiest battles and there milled about for a bit.[...]

That's it.  That's how I finished the report for that the trip.

In the next post, I'll catch you up on what's happened since then.

Where were we?

Ok!  So to top our zoo day we decided to take James down to Wildwood, to the boardwalk, for an exciting morning of watching him ride the tiny kid rides, and maybe winning for him one of those gross, awkwardly manufactured stuffed neon dogs or something.  However: alas!  We had looked up the times that the rides open before we left, and Google told us 9:30am.  But that, apparently, is when the pier opens, not the rides. So the whole thing was a big 'ol waste of time.  We thus wandered among the shuttered rides of the pier in the hot sun, like the Scooby gang amid the creepy ruins of an abandoned amusement park.  The grounded flying elephants and motionless merry-go-round figurines clearly piqued the boy’s interest, but he was to be disappointed on this day. 

No, not.

The cruelty of Morey's Piers' management at play on the pathetic face my child

Pink Elephants, not on parade

As an aside, Wildwood advertises itself as the “world’s largest beach.”  Now, it is giant, comically so, in fact.  The southerly current along the Shore washes down the sand from the beaches of Seven-Mile Island (where Stone Harbor is) and deposits it in Wildwood, building a beach there that is so wide that shuttles have to ferry beachgoers 3 blocks from the boardwalk to the water’s edge.  Not a great beach on which to have forgotten your sunscreen back at the hotel room. Nevertheless, this claim is, geographically speaking, dumb.  There are obviously much wider tidal flats all over the world.  For example, have a gander at the Wadden Sea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadden_Sea), whose beaches (of sorts) just go on basically forever.  But also, do you really even want to be the largest beach?  Is that a thing to be desired?  Because it kind of sounds like exactly the hassle it actually is.
  

Anyway, while I waited for Erica to change James' diaper in the public toilet under the boardwalk, Justin and I wondered around some of the nearby arcades, which we mostly empty.  In one, I stumbled across this harrowing scene (below).  

Bruce searched his whole life for existential consummation on the Shore, but apparently missed this bodega in Wildwood

We tramped back to our car, hot and bummed, but salvaged the rest of the day hanging out at the beach and drinking down those Yuenglings.  In the evening, I lost in consecutive games of Hearts (which I enjoy playing despite my lack of history with the game.  As its been the official Walter family card game since time immemorial, I'm more or less helpless against Tom and Justin, and even Erica, who plays despite not liking to.)  

Day 3 or 4 or 5?

Saturday evening drifted by vacation-style: a family game of hearts and Trivial Pursuit and glasses of wine and beers on the deck.  Sunday, James was up at 5:30am, peering at me from over the lip of his pack n’ play and giggling my name.  I got him up and out of the house so everyone else could sleep, and we walked the mile+ downtown to wait in line for the bakery to open up so I could get some coffee.  On the way back to the house, we stopped and played for a while at a neighborhood park.  By 8:00am, it was already 83 degrees.

I managed to get a nap in late morning, and the afternoon was a strictly beach time affair for all.  I smuggled down to the beach a few bottles of Yuengling (Tom bought it; I normally abstain because of the Yuengling family’s arch-neoliberal views regarding what laborers do and don’t (mostly don’t) deserve, but the beer was bought, so who I am to blow against the wind?) and quaffed them with nary a hassle from the local beach constabulary.  I also body surfed for a bit, and then took up a session of frisbee with Jake, during which I seriously messed up my throwing shoulder.  I recognize that my athletic skills have eroded as I’ve gotten older, but apparently I’ve physiologically degenerated to a point where I can’t even perform the rudimentary movements of play. 

James loves the beach now, which is a marked difference in his attitude since even Cocoa Beach this spring.  He spent the better part of the afternoon playing in the hole in the sand I dug, springing up suddenly and running into the surf, getting scared of the waves, and running back to the hole.  There has been some sand eating, but not a ton.  Erica spent what part of the afternoon that was not devoted to James care asleep, mouth agape, in her beach chair.  James thought it was funny to tell everyone “Mommy ni-night”.

This morning Erica did the good turn, and took our little early riser out for a long walk.  I slept in until 8 (unheard of, people) and enjoyed coffee and a bowl of Kix(!) while watching joggers on the beach.  Tom, Cher, and Aunt Mary Kay then joined the three of us on a trip to the local free zoo, which was pretty good by free zoo standards.  The Cape May County Zoo and Park is built in a patch of woods just on the mainland, and consists mostly of a series of raised wooden walkways that pass through cordoned off sections of the forest, under which its animals roam freely.  Pretty efficient design.  James really enjoyed getting carried about by his Papa, but started to get a bit squirrely toward the end, and prompted our early exit.  Here are some pics from the pre-meltdown portion of the trip.

  

Goat

The first of these types of pics for the Gholson clan/probably not the last

Kind of a safari vibe to this picture; probably the hat and peasoup green shirt

The evening was again mostly just hang out time on the deck, chatting and listening to waves.  We did attempt to get some good family shots while the sun was going down, with mixed results--the best of which are below.

Roll Call: Grant, Erica, James, Tom, Cher, Justin, Mary Kay, Joe, Joseph, and Jake

The 2:40am wake up call was a bit much, but alls well that ends well, eh?  Our flight took off from Midway at 5:30, and despite the objective awfulness of the early morning/very late at night start, we managed to land in Philly, collect the rental van, nab Uncle Justin from his west coast red eye, and get to the beach, all by noon.  Not bad!  James took the plane ride in stride, chatting animatedly with his nana and papa, squirming lots, gorging on snacks, but mostly being quite the genial gordito.

Stone Harbor, where we’ve plonked down for the week, is on the Jersey Shore, but it’s not “Jersey Shore”, if the reader takes my meaning.   That Jersey Shore, the one of Springsteen fame, and, later, the show Jersey Shore, is the Shore.  This part of the shore is more like Cape Cod or Cape Hatteras, or at least Stone Harbor and its sister city, Avalon is.  Just south of here are the piers of Wildwood and 45 minutes to the north is Atlantic City, and those have quite a bit of Shore-ish charm to them; to wit: a kind sleeveless machismo that sees you putting your hand in the butt pocket of your girlfriend in public.  Here, though, it positively reeks of class, and salt water taffy and free fudge samples.  Erica’s Aunt Mary Kay and her husband Joe have had a “cottage” (read: manse) on this strip of beach since 1978 and most of Erica’s summer vacations growing up took place here.  This is James’ first time visiting (it’s my third), which means that he earns another feather in the ol’ state capper, to go alongside Illinois, Indiana, Florida, California, Delaware (car only), Oregon, Pennsylvania, and the US territory of Puerto Rico.  Not a bad haul in 16 months!

I’m still super proud that we made yesterday a vacation day rather than a travel day only, and another plus of getting into the surf on Day 1 is that everyone slept like logs due to the combination of the savagely early start and the fresh salt air.  Erica and I even managed to sneak away for a bit of a date night, quaffing a few adult beverages (me: a Cape May Brewing Co. IPA and a Dogfishead Namaste wit; Erica a Moscow Mule, ordered in haste because she couldn’t decide between the drinks on the menu and the waitress was waiting and because she forgot she loves margaritas until I mentioned it was strange to me that she hadn’t ordered one) during sundown on the deck of a rather swanky outdoor hotel bar that overlooks the gorgeous harbor.  This morning we woke up slow, drinking coffee on the porch and watching the waves roll in.  After breakfast, we set up shop on the beach and Jake, Erica’s cousin Joe’s son, dug a giant pit in the sand for James to play in.  

Justin reads a trashy novel aloud to the waning sun

(note: due to lack of internet access on vacation, these posts are being uploaded ex post facto.)