Snapshots: Roswell - Alien City

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Snapshots: Roswell - Alien City

Roswell is a town of about 48,000 people, making it the fifth largest city in New Mexico. The area was originally settled in 1869 when Van C. Smith and Aaron Wilburn built a small store, inn and post office. They named their settlement Roswell, which was Smith’s father’s first name. Roswell was the home of Walker Air Force Base from 1941-1967 and housed a POW camp during World War II, holding mostly German prisoners. In 1947, a UFO purportedly crashed in the area and the military seized the aircraft and its alien operators. This alleged incident has brought interest and controversy ever since, and you can read all about it and decide for yourself at the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Roswell has embraced the tourism opportunity from their UFO encounter and there are no shortage of T-shirts and bumper stickers to be had. Beyond that, I found Roswell to be a pleasant place full of kind and welcoming people and I’m definitely glad I stopped in for a while. I hope you enjoy these photos from fun and beautiful Roswell, New Mexico.

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This Week on the Road - February 16th-23rd

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This Week on the Road - February 16th-23rd

Hello Everyone! Well, I was hoping for warmer weather when I came south, but I wasn’t expecting it to be in the mid-80s in mid-February. Temperatures are going to drop back to a more normal Texas winter range tonight, but I’ve been enjoying the heat and the sunshine of the last few days. It hasn’t been extremely motivating to do anything but sit outside and enjoy it, but I’m okay with that for a few days too. I’ve made my way about halfway across Texas at this point, and hope to be starting my exploration of New Mexico by the weekend. Once I’m there, I expect to get back to some more normal photo essays, but for now I’ve just been enjoying the ride west. This week has brought me from Lafayette to the Gulf Coast and then into Texas, through Houston and on to Austin and I’ve really enjoyed my time making this crossing. I’ve gotten a few days at the beach, had some wonderful food and seen some fantastic live music.

It hasn’t been all sunshine this week though, and I’ve actually seen a few things which left me questioning what is happening around me. It’s been disconcerting to say the least as I’m pretty open minded and in touch with what’s going on in the country and these incidents left m speechless. Two of them happened on the road and even though I’ve been reading in the news how traffic accidents and deaths are hitting all-time highs in this country, these both kind of shook me. The first happened when I was crossing the bridge between Louisiana and Texas and I saw a car going backwards over the bridge. They were reversing up the bridge in the oncoming lane – at least they were moving in the right direction, but I simply can’t imagine what they were doing and there was clearly no good or reasonable explanation for it. The second happened in Austin where I saw the same thing go down on two separate occasions involving two different groups of cars. In both cases, there were three cars weaving in and out of each other, running red lights and taking up the entire street. For those of you who played basketball, they were essentially doing a three-man weave and others of you can maybe imagine braiding your hair. This was in the early evening on a Sunday night on 6th Street – Austin’s main tourist drag. There is no way I can explain how dangerous this “maneuver” was, but I definitely wondered why there was no police presence on the busiest nightlife street in the city on a Sunday night of a holiday weekend. If this is the kind of “freedom” that Ted Cruz is always shouting about, I honestly don’t want anything to do with it. I agree that there are places where the number of rules and laws have gotten way out of hand (I’m looking at you, California), but you can’t have lawlessness either.

The other disconcerting thing I encountered this week was at a comedy open-mic night here in Austin. These small open-mics are usually pretty bad as people come out to try out their material on a live audience. But it’s usually similar to a night of karaoke where you get a bunch of average or worse performers and a few who are actually really good and it can make for an entertaining evening. And while this was worse than most, there were some funny moments. What I found disconcerting was the number of men who got up and made jokes about beating up women. There are a small handful of topics I find less amusing like, say, the holocaust (which more than one of them got into as well), but I simply can’t imagine who would find domestic violence funny. And you’d think after two or three of them were met with a completely silent room and people’s faces which no doubt looked as sour on these “jokes” as mine did, the others would have gotten the hint, but one after another kept going there. Just because someone is making a joke about something doesn’t mean they are doing that thing and I certainly told my share of off-color jokes when I was younger, but that was in a different time. This simply wasn’t funny on any level and I found it pretty terrible to watch. Thankfully they all bombed hard so maybe they will be humbled by the experience. Anyways, the good of this week definitely outweighed these few bad moments, as it always does, so I don’t want to dwell on them, but I was sorry to witness them as they definitely left me with more questions than answers.

When I left you last week, I did head over to the fabulous Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette for their Cajun Jam night. There were some really talented musicians there and I enjoyed the music and dancing and had a lot of fun. Thursday morning was rainy and gloomy with bands of heavy rain moving through the area, so I decided to stick around Lafayette for a while and let it pass. I hit the gym in the morning, then filled up my water tanks, enjoyed a delicious shrimp po’boy at the Olde Tyme Grocery near downtown and sent out a king cake to my mother and one to my brother. By early afternoon, it felt like the worst of the weather had passed, so I started heading down towards Rutherford Beach in Southwest Louisiana. I’ve stayed at Rutherford Beach before – it’s on Louisiana’s oil coast so it’s not the most beautiful beach in the world, but it’s quiet and pleasant and you can stay right on the beach for as long as you want (and it’s free!). I stopped at Suire’s Grocery on the way, one of my favorite little out-of-the-way eateries, and picked up their famous turtle sauce picante for dinner which is always a treat. Then I headed south into the huge expanse of beautiful wetlands which cover that part of Louisiana. The road runs right next to the bayou, and if you’re paying attention you will definitely catch a glimpse of dozens of gators as you go. There were also plenty of pelicans, egrets, herons and a dozen other varieties of shorebirds. It’s really quite a nice ride when you’re not in a rush and I pulled onto the beach with about an hour to spare before the sun set. I had time to get a spot and settle in and then crack a beer and watch the sun disappear into the Gulf of Mexico. It was a nice sunset, and as the day turned into night the lights on the oil rigs out in the gulf came on. It’s actually quite beautiful in its own way, and I had a lovely, if also quite windy, night on the beach.

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This Week on the Road - February 9th-16th

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This Week on the Road - February 9th-16th

Hello Everyone! I’ve had a great week soaking up the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of New Orleans, sharing laughs with old friends and just enjoying a few days in my favorite city. I went to some of the first parades of the Mardi Gras season, ate plenty of crawfish and king cake, heard some great music and generally just wandered around the city I called home for longer than most other places in my life. The weather has been warm and sunny and it’s been a pleasant week all around. I have also taken care of some things this week which needed to get done before I moved forward with my journey like getting new tires for Shadow Catcher and finishing my taxes. All in all, it’s been a great week and I’ve had a great time, and while it was tempting to stay in New Orleans for the rest of Mardi Gras, I hit the road today and ended up at a beautiful little café here in Lafayette to write this week’s This Week. We’re supposed to get storms here tomorrow, so I’ll be laying low while they pass through and hope to press on west in the afternoon. I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and celebrated the beauty of love, whether with someone or alone, and that you’re all safe and warm wherever you are.

After I finished this post last week, I did in fact make a beeline for New Orleans. There were plenty of places I would have loved to stop along the way, and people I really wanted to stop and see, but my compass pointed me south and I went for it. Had I left 2-3 weeks earlier as originally planned, it would have been a slower drive south but I really need to get moving if I want to see New Mexico and Arizona before heading to California for work this summer. I arrived in New Orleans at about 9:30 pm and had a nice, quiet walk around the French Quarter, parked just a few blocks from my old apartment there. I always feel a little lighter when I’m walking the streets of New Orleans, like the weight of the world is pressing down somewhere else and we’re all just going to suspend our disbelief a little bit and forget about what’s going on “out there”. The history of the city, its Spanish colonial architecture and creole culture really hit me in the heart and soul and I can spend hours just wandering around and looking at the buildings, as I did often during the two years that I lived there. It never seems to get old. There are even smells that will hit my nose which aren’t necessarily pleasant ones but which link to sense memories of all of the wonderful times that I’ve had there. Sadly, the city is in a low place in its omnipresent cycle of ups and downs which stretches back to the very founding of New Orleans. Crime is as high as it’s been in years and the pandemic and most recent hurricane have definitely had an effect on the infrastructure, population and morale of the city. Having lived there during another low point after Hurricane Katrina, I know it will bounce back again, but I was sad to hear so many of my friends, even those born and raised there, talking about leaving. I know it is different living there and I empathize with everything they told me, but it didn’t stop me from having an amazing week in the Big Easy. Later in the evening I wandered into one of the neighborhood bars I frequented while I lived there and it was nice to be greeted by my name 13 years after I moved away and see a friendly and familiar face (thanks Robert).

Thursday I woke early and wandered down to the river, stopping for coffee and beignets and a little street jazz at Café du Monde. I headed down to the French Market to see what the local artists were selling and then all the way down Royal Street to Canal, enjoying the buskers and architecture along the way. The sun was shining and there was music in the air it felt really good to be there. After a nice, long morning walk, I headed out to the gym and then across the street for some boiled crawfish and king cake at Rouse’s Supermarket. I had a wonderful personal tailgate in the parking lot with some good music, cold beer and a whole pile of mudbugs. When I was nice and full I headed over to my good friend Walker’s house which is where I stayed for most of my visit. I met Walker when I first moved to the city in 2007. He lived down the street from me and we hung out often, exploring the bars in the French Quarter and trying to help each other through that first year of classroom teaching. Walker grew up in New Orleans, so always seemed to have the inside track on what was going on around town and I was happy to tag along. While I stopped teaching many years ago now, Walker has been in the classroom since, but is taking a little sabbatical this year to clear his head and make a plan for the future. It’s been great to hang out with him and his lovely girlfriend Megan and her daughter. We spent Thursday night catching up and walking their dogs and having a couple of cold beers in their charming home…

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This Week on the Road - February 2nd-9th

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This Week on the Road - February 2nd-9th

Hello Everyone! I am thrilled to be back on the road after a wonderful two months at home in D.C. It’s definitely tough to leave my folks and my friends, but it’s time to get back to it and I’m very excited for the road ahead. I left on Sunday afternoon and have been making tracks to get south to warmer weather, which I have found here in Northern Alabama where the sun is shining and temperatures were in the mid-fifties today. While I’m sure you all know by now that I prefer the back roads and scenic byways, the interstate is definitely a nice option when you’re trying to hustle. I do love seeing all the exit signs on the way which remind me of some amazing times I’ve had in these southern states. My drive to New Orleans could have taken months, as it has in the past, but I do want to get out west sooner rather than later.

It is always nice to be back in the South, where the food and music are great and people hold doors and wave a ‘thank you’ when you let them in in traffic. I’ve been somewhat surprised at the number of people I’ve seen with masks on, but I’m also well aware of the low vaccination numbers and high hospitalization rates down here as well. It breaks my heart, really, because I know and have met so many good people in these parts who, because of whatever news they are reading, have decided not to get vaccinated. And now so many are getting sick and dying unnecessarily. I wish they knew as many doctors and nurses as I’m fortunate enough to know who could tell them, as they’ve told me, that vaccination is both safe and effective. But I’m not here in this area or here in this newsletter to preach, I just want people to be safe and healthy.

I certainly had a great few days at home this past week before I took off on Sunday. On Thursday my folks and I headed out to the Surratt Tavern in Clinton, Maryland for a tour of this fascinating historic building. My mom and I had been there before when we were on the Trail of John Wilkes Booth Scenic Byway last year, but it had been closed. We were happy to get back and see the inside of the place. Our guide was a wonderfully informative and we enjoyed or conversation with her. She realized that we knew the basics of the story of Mary Surratt and her son John and the role they played in the assassination of President Lincoln. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government. Since we already knew most of that story, she wanted to tell us more about the property itself and the role Mary may have played in the death of her own husband. She also wanted to share what she knew about the enslaved people who worked at the tavern and on the property. We were able to take our time wandering around the building and my mother was thrilled to look in all of the closets, nooks and crannies. It is certainly an interesting place and worth a visit if you’re in the area. From there we drove back into the city and made a quick stop at Mount Olivet Cemetery to show my stepfather where Mary Surratt is buried. We stopped for a beer at the relatively new Other Half Brewing Company in Ivy City. Their beers were good, but whoever named them needs a class in creativity and they were awfully expensive, even for D.C. Then we went around the corner for another beer at Atlas Brewing Co., an old favorite of ours. While we were there, the man in charge of their trivia night recognized my mother from her time working with the Boy Scouts. I was really glad he came over to ask because it really made her night. For dinner, we headed over to the Panda Gourmet just down the road. Tucked away in the Days Inn at the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road, this is the restaurant Chinese President Xi Jinping ate at during his visit to Washington. It’s a pretty great spot although it’s not what it was before the pandemic. I’m sure they’ve been doing mostly takeout and delivery as there was only one person working the front of the house when we were there. The food was still good though…

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This Week Off The Road - January 26th - February 2nd

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This Week Off The Road - January 26th - February 2nd

Hello Everyone! If you’re reading this on Wednesday night, Happy Groundhog Day to you. One of my college friends was from Punxsutawney, PA so I always think of him today. Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) did, in fact, see his shadow today, and in so doing he has predicted six more weeks of winter. That can only mean one thing – it’s definitely time for me to head south. This Sunday is the day, if all goes according to plan. I’ve spent this week packing, finishing up what I can of my projects while I’m here at home, and spending as much time as I could with friends and family. It’s always bittersweet to leave and as much as I’m looking forward to all of the adventures ahead, it’s always tough to say goodbye. To help pick myself up, I have contacted a few people who I will be seeing in the beginning of the week, and I definitely hope to be in New Orleans by the following weekend with plenty of friends to catch up with there as well. On a completely unrelated note, our football team here in Washington has a new name, the Washington Commanders, and I wish them well in the coming years. May their moral compass be a little truer than it has been in recent years.

Packing up my van is always quite a project as there is a place for everything and everything needs to be securely in its place. Every time I am home I unpack completely so I can get in and clean the inside out really well and then repack everything with some adjustments where I believe better efficiency can be achieved. I feel as though this time it’s packed particularly well and even though I’ve got pretty much everything loaded up, there’s still plenty of room. I’m thrilled it’s not jam packed and I think everything is going to work out really well with the way it’s loaded. And I’m still days away from taking off which is even better so that I can make adjustments before I hit the road. Omicron has given me a little extra time here in DC and I’ve tried to use it wisely. Meanwhile it’s been particularly cold and icy in the south so maybe it will all work out for the best in the end.

I have made two adjustments to my media strategy this week and I’m feeling good about both of them. As I have been writing about for several weeks, I’ve been (slowly) building my photography storefront on a separate site which I will integrate into this site as much as I can. While it’s still not where I want it to be and has very few photos on it, I’m thrilled with how it is coming and am happy to offer you all a sneak peek. While you can’t connect to it from anywhere on my site just yet, have a look here and let me know what you think. As always if there is any particular photo you would like me to add, please let me know and I will do so ASAP. Secondly, I’ve officially launched my TikTok channel this week, something I’ve been talking about for over a year now but finally went ahead with. TikTok is a neat form of social media which I’ve enjoyed myself for a while now and which is completely driven by video content but in shorter form than YouTube. If you’re on TikTok, you can find me @miles2gobeforeisleep.

I have gotten out a bit this week even though it’s been so busy. Last Thursday my folks and I headed out into the city for a nice adventure. We headed through Georgetown and the Navy Yard to see what’s new in those neighborhoods and then paid a nice long visit to Congressional Cemetery, one of D.C.’s most famous cemeteries and one which was simply too hot to appreciate when we last visited last May.

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This Week Off The Road - January 19th-26th

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This Week Off The Road - January 19th-26th

Hello Everyone. This is going to be another short but sweet one this week. I have been keeping busy here at home which I’ll get to in a minute, but first I wanted to share a couple of things with you at the top of this week’s post. I’ve set a tentative departure date of February 6th and I’m very excited about getting back on the road. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at numbers and data this week and since I’m vaccinated and boosted and generally in good health despite my diabetes, it looks like my chances of getting a severe Covid case which requires hospitalization are extremely low. They’re not zero (and maybe never will be), but I feel like the risk is acceptable to me. My bigger worry is how overcrowded the hospitals are and what would happen if I needed emergency care for some other reason. Those numbers will hopefully be going down over the next few weeks, but I am always cautious and the reality is that I haven’t made an emergency hospital visit in almost two decades so again it’s a risk I’m willing to accept. I will be keeping my mask handy and taking care to avoid crowded places and will likely be moving quicker than I had originally planned to towards New Mexico. I’m comfortable with the statewide precautions they are taking out there and plan on spending more time outside and alone than inside and in groups anyway. I’ll be leaving about 3 weeks after I had initially planned to, but I should still have plenty of time to see what I want to of New Mexico and Arizona this winter.

Leaving here, I plan on heading southwest through Virginia, Tennessee and Mississippi and all the way to New Orleans, catching up with a few friends along the way in whatever capacity they are comfortable with. If all goes according to plan, I will be in the Big Easy the following weekend and able to catch the first few real parades of the Mardi Gras season, which are small but hold good memories for me. Then I’m off to Texas for a week or two on my way to The Land of Enchantment. I’ve made some good plans for my time in New Mexico and I think we’re going to see some awesome scenery together, but if you have any suggestions or tips, I’m all ears.

My second bit of news this week is that I’ve accepted a job to return to guiding tours this coming summer. I’ll be guiding small group, overland trips for a small tour company called Incredible Adventures which is based in the Bay Area. I will be working for the same manager who I worked for at my old company and will be running tours for many of the same brands I’m comfortable and familiar with. My hope is to spend much of the summer in the Rocky Mountains and I’m pretty sure that will be a good possibility. It sounds like a really great opportunity and I’m definitely looking forward to it. While going back to guiding means putting some parts of this project on hold, I need to make some money so I can move ahead and at least I will still be on the road and taking pictures. We’ll see how it works out, but I’m definitely excited about it.

Lastly, I know I mentioned last week that I would be sharing links to my new photography storefront this week, but it’s not quite ready. I’m happy with the way it is shaping up, but I want to give it another week before I let you see it. It’s going to be a constant project going forward, but it will be far enough along by this time next week to be able to give you a sneak peek. That all being said, let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to this week.

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This Week Off The Road - January 12th-19th

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This Week Off The Road - January 12th-19th

Hello Everyone! January is passing quickly here in Washington. The short, cold days have not been inspiring this week, but I’m trying to stay positive and productive. I’m still keeping a close watch on case and hospitalization numbers across the south and when they start to go down, I’m going to be ready to hit the road. I’m definitely thinking the beginning of February. I do feel like I’ve been dodging and weaving as more of my friends come down with Covid, but I’m still managing to avoid it. Between my diabetes and the age of my folks, I definitely am not in the “just get it over with” camp. I feel like if I can head south and into warmer temperatures, I can spend most of my time outside like I did this summer and I still think my risks are acceptable if I’m outside. I have been hitting the gym every day and punching away at some of my projects this week, but I’ve mostly been hanging out at home and trying to stay warm. I did finally finish (for now) my gallery pages from this summer and fall’s trip to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It was fun to look back at these photos and the memories of the last six months as I got these together. I hope you get the chance to check them out – you can find them at these links:

Last Wednesday after I finished this post, I went back to music night with the boys. It was apparently British Invasion Night and the Beatles were heavily featured. It was nice to be there and I just wish I was good enough at playing an instrument to join in. I should have spent more time this summer and fall practicing, but I have a feeling in the months to come I may have plenty of time on my hands for just that. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever play a concert or a gig, but I would like to be good enough to join a jam session and just make some nice music.

On Thursday I went downtown to have lunch with my friends Estilla and Joby. Unfortunately the place they wanted to go was closed so we ended up wandering into Chinatown for some sushi. It wasn’t the best sushi I’ve ever had, but the company was good and we had a fun time. I hope to catch up with them in a couple of weeks in New Orleans, but we’ll see how it all goes.

Friday night we had our neighbors over for a few beers. They both like beer, so I had brought a 12-pack of New Glarus back from Wisconsin to share with them, but we just haven’t had the time to sit down and enjoy them. It’s always nice to chat with them as they are interesting people and bring shared values but a different perspective to the table. We chatted for a few hours talking about the pandemic, politics, travel, baseball, family and probably several other topics I’m forgetting. It was an enjoyable evening…

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A Look Back at 2021 and a Look Ahead at 2022

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A Look Back at 2021 and a Look Ahead at 2022

Happy New Year Everyone! I wanted to take a few minutes this week to take a look back at the year gone by and a look ahead at what I’m planning for 2022. It’s definitely been a year of ups and downs, but despite the many challenges, 2021 was a pretty good year for me. I’m hoping to build on that momentum and make sure the year ahead is even better. Before I get into the heart of this post, though, I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for your support over the years and especially through this last stretch. I didn’t know how I was going to keep my little travel blog going through the pandemic as I was at home in Washington for well over a year. Publishing this newsletter every week pushed me to try and get out and do something every week as I tried to make the most of the situation. Your comments, notes and emails really helped me through those trying times, and I wanted to say thank you very much. We did get out to see some pretty interesting and beautiful places this summer and fall, though, didn’t we? And hopefully I’ll be hitting the road again soon to even more beautiful places out west. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

2021 began in the midst of the pandemic. By the time the new year rolled around, I had been home for almost eight months. I even convinced my folks to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve for the first time in many years to wave goodbye to 2020 and all of the challenges it had brought us. From the previous July until this past May, I spent my days with my friends’ two year-old son, Mason, going on adventures near their home in Glover Park. He was such a little trooper and we would go outside almost every day, no matter what the weather was like. We had dozens of different routes which took us to hundreds of different places, all within about a mile or two of his house. He was usually one step behind me with a fistful of worms and a brain full of questions. It was amazing what we got into during that time, but we both learned a lot about the world during those 10 months. I’ve done a lot of different things in my life, but the year I spent helping raise Mason was definitely the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. I will always remember the sound of his little feet in the morning running out to greet me and the feel of his little hand in mine. Meanwhile, my mother and I would try and get out of town every week and go on at least one adventure of our own. We saw more of Washington D.C. than either of us imagined existed and traveled to small towns and down back roads in Maryland and Virginia as well. We watched movies every Wednesday and had parties in the basement every Friday. We brewed beer, played games and cooked all kinds of different foods and I got back to playing the violin after 35 years. I got a new compass and ran some orienteering courses for the first time in 30 years. Both felt really good. At home, we celebrated everything I could come up with, from Christmas in July to Up Helly Aa. Looking back, there are a lot of projects I wish I’d gotten to and a lot of other things I wish I had spent more time on during those pandemic months, but at the end of the day I got to spend a lot of time with my best friends, my family and a wonderfully curious little boy who really needed a friend through it all. They were some of the best days of my life…

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This Week Off The Road - January 6-13

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This Week Off The Road - January 6-13

Hello Everyone! It’s been cold here in Washington this week, but we’ve been celebrating the beginning of the Mardi Gras season so we’ve been staying warm, festive and well-fed. While the cold weather makes me want to get out of here and start heading south, the news from the states I’m headed for hasn’t been very good this week. Record case numbers, doubled hospitalization numbers and staff shortages are what I’m reading. While New Mexico has ramped up their public safety campaign, Louisiana and Arizona have both declared a state of emergency. Texas is still holding back, even though they are asking the federal government for more testing facilities and treatment doses. As much as I believe we should provide as much assistance to all of our fellow citizens as we can (and to everyone around the world when possible), Texas sure could start by helping themselves. As much as I’m loving spending time with my family and friends here at home, I’m also ready to be back on the road and heading for new adventures. It seems the prudent, though, to hold tight for a while and see what happens. I’m not interested in getting sick on the road or getting turned back again. I will spend the next couple of weeks getting my plans together and my van packed, though, so that when the time is right, I’m ready to go. Hopefully sooner rather than later. While I’m here, I’m going to make the most of it, keep hitting the gym every day and spend as much time with my family and friends as I can.

This past Thursday was Twelfth Night, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the first day of Mardi Gras. Twelfth Night is also called Epiphany or Theophany in different traditions, but it commemorates the visit of the three kings or the “magi” to the baby Jesus and also the day of His baptism. In Louisiana, it’s the first day you can buy King Cake in the stores and bakeries and in New Orleans the Phunny Phorty Phellows kick off the Carnival season with a ride on the streetcar. This year, Mardi Gras will fall on March 1st, making the season almost two full months long. I do love Mardi Gras season and while I sincerely hope to be much further west than New Orleans by March 1st, I do hope to pass through there on my way to get some crawfish and king cake. Here in Washington, we celebrated beginning Thursday and went straight through the weekend. The Christmas decorations are down and the Mardi Gras decorations are up. My mom baked her first King Cake of the season on Thursday, and it was her best one to date.

Friday night, my folks and I headed back to the basement, a space we utilized almost every Friday during the heart of the pandemic. During the year plus that I was home last year, we weren’t going out anywhere and we needed some way to mark the end of the week and the start of the weekend. It was nice to use a different space than the ones we used the other six days of the week, and the basement became our little retreat. As cases climb here in Washington, it seemed that the basement was once again a good option. We drank some Abita beer, enjoyed some good Louisiana music and I cooked up a loaf of Crawfish Bread (which is more of a Jazz Fest tradition, but it sounded delicious in my head, and it was). We chatted, played some games and had an enjoyable evening. It was just like old times, but hopefully this outbreak will be short-lived and the basement can go back to just being a basement.

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This Week On the Road - December 23rd-January 5th

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This Week On the Road - December 23rd-January 5th

Hello Everyone. Happy New Year to you all – may 2022 be everything you hope and dream it can be. I apologize for this newsletter not going out last week, but my folks and I were out of town on a little trip I will tell you all about later in this post. I had hoped to get my newsletter done before we left, but it just didn’t happen. Then the New Year came and went and then a snowstorm hit us on Monday and now it’s a whole week later. I’m sure you all had plenty to do as well this past week, but I missed writing this post nonetheless. It was definitely a festive week here at home and we enjoyed spending a lot of time together. We got out and saw some very cool places these last couple of weeks which I’d love to share with you here.

The Thursday before Christmas, we all headed down to Old Town Alexandria for lunch at Gadsby’s Tavern which was opened in 1770 and hosted two of George Washington’s birthday celebrations. It’s a great little colonial inn and our lunch was really good. From there we wandered around the Alexandria waterfront a little bit and then made our way back to downtown D.C. We had a nice visit to the National Christmas Tree in front of the White House and to the Capitol Christmas Tree at the U.S. Capitol. On the drive between the two, we were really struck by the beautiful tree at the Canadian embassy as well. Downtown Washington is a beautiful place every day, but it’s especially nice at Christmas and a really nice day really put us in the mood for the holiday weekend.

And a wonderful Christmas weekend it was, with lots of cooking and eating and music and fun. It was wonderful to get together and cook all day on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and turn out both an excellent breakfast and dinner on both days (no lunch was required, believe me). Everything came out well, and I was very proud of my first cheesecake which was delicious. While I don’t really want or need anything in the whole world, my mother really surprised me with a wonderful gift this year. I had mentioned in my blog a few weeks ago when I was out in Minnesota how much I had wanted an Indian pipestone pipe carved from their sacred quarries, but simply couldn’t justify the purchase. I don’t get a lot of souvenirs on the road, but that was one I had wanted and was disappointed about not getting. My mom found a really beautiful pipe online which had been hand carved by Roy Redwing of the Santee Dakota Nation from the quarry I visited while I was there and it’s something I will really treasure. I got a Roku for each of them so that when they are watching TV they can watch what they want as opposed to what’s on, and they are enjoying them so far.

After Christmas we lay low for a couple of days and then headed north and west to Pennsylvania. We had visited the National Historical Sites of Western Pennsylvania before, but it had been a bit rushed and we hadn’t had the chance to really dig into them as much as we would have liked, so this trip set out to remedy that. Our first stop was Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS, which tells the fascinating story of the first continuous transportation link between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (and also, therefore, between the eastern seaboard and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers). The biggest challenge on this route was over the mountains between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. In 1834 a system was completed by which canal boats could be towed onto railcars which could then be towed up the mountain by being attached to cables which were powered by steam powered engines. It was quite the engineering feat and was utilized for 20 years to make the crossing. Charles Dickens passed this way on his travels, as did the bodies of two presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) on their way west for burial. With the opening of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, this route became obsolete in the 1850s and not much of it remains today, but it is a fascinating place and the National Park Service does a great job of interpreting the site, as usual.

From there we headed on to Johnstown Flood National Memorial which commemorates the tragic 1889 flood which occurred following the failure of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River.

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This Week Off The Road - December 15th-22nd

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This Week Off The Road - December 15th-22nd

Hello Everyone! ‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land, the Omicron variant was getting out of hand. First and foremost this week I want to wish all who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas (and a Happy Christmas to all of those outside of the U.S. who think “merry” is a funny way to say it). I was chatting with one of my traveling friends this week and we were discussing where we had each spent Christmas in the past. My list included Barcelona, Newcastle (Australia), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Japan, St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands), Myrtle Beach, Key West, New York City, Los Angeles, New Hampshire and San Antonio. Some have been good, some not so good and one or two downright difficult. I’m very happy to be here at home in D.C. this year, off the road and not at work. Wherever you are this year, I hope the season finds you safe, warm and healthy. We will be sticking close to home over the weekend, cooking deliciously complicated meals together, laughing, listening to music and watching a few more Christmas movies. It will be somewhat low-key with just the three of us for Christmas and one of my mom’s friends joining us for Christmas Eve but that suits me just fine. It’s very good to be home.

This week has definitely put the Coronavirus and the Omicron variant front and center in the news and in my life. A very good friend of mine lost his 48 year old brother to Covid this week, reminding me in a personal way that this is all far from over. Mask mandates are back here in D.C. and hospitals across the country are filling up to dangerous levels. I’m sad to see that Michigan and Minnesota, both of which I obviously spent a lot of time in this year, are both hotspots right now and struggling - and that is coming not just from the news but from my friends on the ground there. I was very happy to see that Donald Trump got his booster this week and encouraged others to do so as well. I really wish other people would join him and realize that this isn’t a game and people are dying unnecessarily out there. The NHL has postponed its season and there have been many other cancellations as well. My friend Chris, who I was supposed to hang out with on Monday, came down with something and we decided to postpone out of an abundance of caution. The friends I was hanging out with over the weekend took a pre-holiday-travel home Covid test on Monday and both came up positive. They went for a clinical test and my folks and I tested at the Fire Station up the road and all came back negative which was a relief. I definitely feel better being vaccinated and boosted than I did at this time last year, but I’m starting to tuck back in a little bit as well. I’ll be keeping my eye on the news before I decide whether or not to set out across the country again in January. Because of my southern route with plans to get back to California and back to work next summer, it all seems very familiar to where I was in the beginning of 2019. I sincerely hope that this winter will pass easier than last year or the winter before. Please be safe out there and if you haven’t been vaccinated or boosted, please discuss it with a doctor and not a YouTube character.

I’ve spent my mornings this week at the gym, trying not to put on any holiday weight. My afternoons have been pretty quiet and restful, but I have been out and about in the evenings. Last Wednesday I went back to music night at my friends’ house to watch them jam out like we were still in high school. My buddy Joe brought some of his famous homemade eggnog…

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Snapshots: Winona - My Last Stop in Minnesota

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Snapshots: Winona - My Last Stop in Minnesota

Winona was my last stop during my six week stay in Minnesota. This small city with a population of about 26,000 is right on the Mississippi River and the Great River Road in the far southeast of the state. This land was once home to the Mdewakanton Band of Lakota Indians and is named for the first-born daughter of Chief Wabasha III. Originally settled in 1851, Winona grew to be a major rail and steamboat town with wheat and lumber playing a major role as well. Today, there are some great old buildings lining the streets and the St. Stanislaus Basilica is one of the most beautiful churches in the state if not the country. I also enjoyed a stop in the Historic Society museum located in the old armory and the beautiful stained glass windows at Merchants National Bank. I wasn’t in Winona long as it was time for me to be heading on down the road, but I hope you enjoy these few photos from my stay.

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