Trans/plant/portation

In Walla Walla, people have a habit of parking opposite to traffic when they leave their cars curbside. In Walla Walla, a resident fond of chainsaw sculpture has set something like 20-odd statues around his Alder Street lawn. In Walla Walla, people construct chicken coops in their back yards, or leave crumbing old cars on the street while they take years to get around to restoring them, and nobody bats an eye. One of the effects, perhaps, of living in the land of the libertarian is a stubborn inattentiveness to city code. So when the owner of the Inland Octopus, an old-fashioned toy store, moved a few blocks west on Main Street and commissioned a mural be painted on his store front, I would hazard a guess that he never thought anyone would come after him over anything as esoteric as ordinances. Read More…

While we’re living in a city again, we thought we should try to explore not just city life, but life particular to Seattle. There are the touristy attractions, to be sure, like the 7-block long Monorail and the iconic Space Needle, which has its own Web cam, by the way. But around the corner from a lesser known peculiarity of town, the Fremont Troll, is a chocolate factory. There was no way I would miss a chance to play in Wonka’s workplace. Read More…

Susanne and I had ourselves a blast at the Mobile Chowdown V last Friday, in the parking lot of Qwest Field. Romantic setting, I know, but we were there to explore the engine-inclusive side of cuisine, not make out in public. We lucked out and found a parking spot 1.5 blocks away, albeit only after accidentally making our way to the garage for the last home game of the Mariners. Fifteen dollars for parking is $15 less we’d have had for all of the fare at the event! Read More…

In college, a battle took place every Friday and Saturday night, at the edge of the campus. Two white trucks served hamburgers to students, competitors looking to be top dog in some kind of feud. There was the Wimpy Wagon, and then there was the other one. I guess Wimpy’s won out, since nobody I know remembers the name of the other one, but there was a war, all right. Because this was Syracuse, New York, getting a late night burger anytime after October 15 meant trudging through at best, several inches of snow. That’s a kind of commitment to something that university students rarely muster.

Food trucks weren’t exactly bastions of quality cuisine in this environment. They were just cheap and available, and if a wagon were sixteen steps closer than the dining hall, a good percentage of students would make that their preference, easy. I have no trouble attesting that as a Syracuse University alum, if presented with a no-brainer, I will option that every time. This is why the wine tasting class was booked solid every year, as was Theater for Non-Majors. Read More…

When we moved to Seattle, we calculated that we did not need a land line for telephone service. After all, we’re only here for 6.5 months. That’s just enough time to get around to giving out a new number and then telling people it’s not our number anymore. When I’d done the initial walkthrough I’d called Susanne, so I knew our phones—which are the same model, only in different colors, and no, I don’t need any jokes about having the same phone, thanks—would work in this space. Hence no need for a land line.

But the super gave me a warning: DSL is terrible in this part of the city. If you want actual bandwidth, get the cable modem. This made me flash back to the last time I had a cable modem, four years ago in DC. I almost threw the thing out my third-story window, because the provider sent each line out to too many customers, and when 8p.m. rolled around—otherwise known as The DC Porn Watching Hour—bandwidth thinned to a few blips an hour. It was mind-numbing. I went directly to DSL without passing GO and was rewarded with a cheaper monthly rate. Read More…

Susanne and I went to the fertility clinic today to see how close we are to another insemination attempt, after a trip last week to make sure her body had a green light for IUI. This was our second trip to that office after the now-infamous “two uteruses” comment from the counselor. I was pretty much over that episode, understanding that she’d been doing her best to explore all of our options for getting knocked up, even if it was a ridiculous conversation to have with her.

This being Seattle, a populated city that despite a decent bus service, has a lot of passenger cars crowding its roadways, I couldn’t find a convenient parking spot outside the clinic, which is just off of Lake Union. I do wonder idly why people who can afford Mercedes-Benz cars and yachts insist on taking all of the free parking available. Perhaps they need whatever help they can get to finance all of their payments. Whatever the case, I found a pay space, but the convoluted interface for getting a parking ticket was more puzzling than a Rubik’s Cube, so it took me a good 7 minutes to pay and join Susanne, who’d gone on ahead to the doctor’s office. Read More…

In Walla Walla, the sidewalks are rolled up promptly at 8, even on the weekends, and even in the height of the tourist season. As one would imagine, this can be frustrating for the residents of the city, whose dining options are reduced to Shari’s and Wendy’s if it’s later than 9p.m. And often, neither of those seems remotely appetizing, no offense to the hard-working waitstaff at either business. Additionally, sometimes I just want a little piece of sweetness that isn’t in the form of straw-busting milkshake. No offense to the Frosty. Read More…

If the ocean signifies the breathing apparatus of Planet Earth, then the mountains are the memory of its earlier incarnations, seemingly frozen in time even as they move secretly in some new direction. I have an affection for sea water, since childhood play dates with sand, shovel, and pail. Growing up east of the Mississippi I thought that the Appalachians were as powerful as mountains ever aspired. They counted as wilderness, filled with things not commonly found in our suburban parcel. Read More…

Someone on my Twitter list mentioned yesterday that she would soon be embarking on a trip to Alaska, and I immediately thought of the train ride Susanne and I took over in Skagway. At least four people told us to make sure we rode up and back on the old gold mining trail, so we booked our tickets well in advance of our cruise, and then we climbed on.

It was nothing short of amazing. The White Pass & Yukon Route train was a bit too modern to have jumped out of a steampunk novel, but it belched and groaned like a steam engine all the same, as it dragged us up 3,000 feet into the Canadian Yukon. We sat for much of the trip on the way up, but at the end the conductors moved the engine around, and our front car became the caboose. We didn’t miss the chance to stand on the end, marveling at the mountain ledges, miles and miles of the tallest evergreens I’ve seen in my life, and the detritus those thousands of Klondike miners left behind.

So it occurs to me that there are, in the quadrillions of tourist trap options available in the US, a few very choice gems that should get some fair due. They may be popular, they may be hyped, but they’re worth, say, wearing bright blue plastic ponchos. Here are a few favorites I want to mention:

The Maid of the Mist—Niagara Falls sounds like a great tourist destination, if it’s 1952. There are a lot of depressing buildings screaming out for fresh paint, and filled with plastic-wrapped souvenirs, but just follow the signs to this boat ride. I think the Maid of the Mist is more fun if you’ve gone to look at the falls from the top first, to help with a sense of perspective. It’s true that the Canadian side of the falls are more majestic; the US side is taller, but our neighbors to the north have the “horseshoe falls,” which I captured from the boat. No matter whether one takes the boat ride from the US or Canadian side, it will still travel into the heart of the falls. I couldn’t believe I was surrounded by hammering, plummeting water. As tall as the falls are around the Maid of the Mist, that’s how much water she’s sitting on—170 feet on both counts. You better wear the silly blue poncho.

Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park—It can be argued that my entire generation first learned about this geyser from Yogi Bear and Jellystone National Park. I’m happy that Susanne didn’t rend me limb from limb as I repeated my Yogi Bear impression as we wandered around the wilderness. It might not be the prettiest geyser there, it’s far from the most colorful, like the “paint pots” were, but it was shocking to witness, the smooth vapor all at once belching and hurrying out of the way of boiling white liquid. This is 3rd grade science fair to the 20th power. Once it’s done with its 5-minute show, take a walk on the rest of the geyser platform, and by the time that’s done, Old Faithful will be just about ready to have another conniption.

The Baltimore Aquarium—Less kitschy and more just plain overcrowded, the Baltimore Aquarium is organized by ecosystems, very accessible, and proportioned well. I don’t feel like I’m in a tiny building with smelly fish, and I don’t feel like there’s a lot of wasted space (I’m looking at you, new MoMA). Plus it has puffins, the globe’s friendliest, funniest bird species, in my humble opinion. There are dolphin shows, it’s true, but at least they’ve gone to some trouble to unpack how the animals are treated, and they have a fairly prestigious breeding program for bottlenose. That said, it is expensive, so try to get your hands on some coupons or group deals, because at more than $30 a ticket, the cost adds up fast. But the sharks and manta rays, inches away from the homo sapiens, are really not to be missed.

Have any kitschy touristy fun? Pipe up and add your own in the comments!

In the midst of my wild summer plans, family visits, and national park exploration, I learned that my friend, Jamie Moorby, had cycled across the US for charity, raising money for the DC Area Books to Prisons Project, which has a two-part mission: donate reading material to prisoners and educate the public about prisoner literacy. They aim to bring in reading material because many prisons do not have libraries, and the ones that do often have limited access or selection of materials. This cross-country bike ride was something Jamie and several other people participated in, ending in Oregon last month. I asked Jamie a few questions to talk about her experience.

What inspired you to cycle your way across the US, and how long have you been a long-distance cyclist?

I have dreamed of going on a long bike trip since I was a kid, but never pursued it I until this spring a friend asked me if I’d ride with her from New Orleans to the SXSW music festival in Austin Texas. I was quitting my job at a worker-owned/operated food coop in the DC area and moving to VT this summer anyway, so I said sure. Towards the end of that 10 day trip, another friend called me up and said “since you don’t have a job right now, why don’t you bike across the country with me?” I didn’t have any good reasons not to, so I agreed. Less than a month after finishing my 620 mile ride across Louisiana and Texas, we left Yorktown, VA for a 10 state, 3 month, 4,500 mile ride to Astoria, Oregon. Read More…