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Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road – UK Trip: Part 2

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Something I neglected to mention in my post in part 1, was that following the Roman Baths, we walked back to our hotel room along the River Avon, the river that is my home town’s namesake. The river is very slow moving, but what it lacks for in its own momentum more than makes up for in the number of boats that graces the river’s presence. Boat upon boat tied up along the riverbank, all lined up as if they were cars stuck in traffic. But these weren’t just any old boats that you would take out for a Sunday cruise. These boats seemed to be either people’s homes or available to rent (or rather, for hire, as they would say over here), and they came compete with beds, kitchens, and–I imagine–toilets. And as we walked past them at dinner time, kitchen tables were set with placemats with proper dishware and proper cutlery. I could never imagine this happening on a boat in the US. Maybe it does somewhere. But not anywhere I’ve seen. It was just generally so wonderful to see basic dinner etiquette followed, even in the most unexpected places.

Now, so far I’ve talked about the things that the UK seems to be miles ahead of compared to us Americans, from credit cards, trains, and dinner etiquette. But something that is another world altogether is their road system. To preface, there’s a hilarious episode of Fawlty Towers (well, they’re all hilarious) called “Waldorf Salad.” The episode features an American guest, and naturally he complains loudly about the weather, the size of the cars, driving on “the wrong side of he road,” and the fact that Basil doesn’t know what a Waldorf salad is. He also complains about the size of the streets, referring to the M5 as a “little backstreet.”

Beyond getting used to driving on the left side of the road, I found that sometimes the greater challenge was making my way around some very narrow streets indeed, and the American’s comment in Fawlty Towers about a major motorway in Britain being the size of a backstreet seemed to ring a bit of truth. (Although, in due time, I will eventually drive on the M5, and it is, indeed, not a little backstreet.)

My endeavors driving in the British fashion began thus… Before we made our way to Stonehenge, we wanted to make a quick trip to the Royal Crescent, a large structure shaped in, well, a crescent, erected 1767-1775 and designed by architect John Wood. Getting there would have been impossible for us without the GPS as it directed us to seemingly turn left three times, go through several roundabouts, turn left some more, and then left again, go through several more roundabouts, wait on the side of the street to let oncoming traffic through, turn right, then left twice in quick succession, turn right, and then left once more, but not before allowing some more cars to go through while we waited on the curb (or kerb, rather). I remember hoping that this wasn’t a harbinger of things to come, and that driving in the countryside would be much easier, that only large cities like Bath have such a tangling mess of streets not wide enough even for a single car let alone two.

Anyway, we did manage to arrive, and it was simply marvelous to see the Royal Crescent. It is a masterpiece in Georgian design, and it’s currently used as residential space. While we marveled at it, we noticed a bird the size of a common pigeon but colored in black and white. My mother asked a handsome passerby who explained that these birds are called magpies, and that they usually travel in pairs. We didn’t notice this one’s pair, but she (or he?) was beautiful indeed.

As we made our way from Bath to Stonehenge, the GPS directed us to take mainly roads that began with an A followed by a number and a B followed by number. The A roads might I suppose roughly translate to the US’s state highways that sometimes are only two lanes but might sometimes develop into a freeway (a duel carriageway in the UK). The B roads are more like the US’s county roads (well, kind of).

What struck me about even the A roads, was that duel carriageways were largely there to help people pass in the way that certain US highways would add a passing lane for three miles to a two lane road. Furthermore, sometimes even the A roads would become so narrow, that things became uncomfortably close, not only between my car and the oncoming traffic, but also to the edge of the road on my left, which was never built with a shoulder, never raised above he natural ground level, and was frequency flush with well trimmed shrubs or entire buildings or a narrow sidewalk that pedestrians actually walked on. And sometimes you have to make room for bicyclists, too, and everyone was very friendly toward cyclists, which was so, so wonderful.

My mother and I frequently had a really good laugh about these roads. Especially since there are portions of these ridiculous roads that are legal to travel 60 miles an hour when in the US they would never allow anything much past 45. “Crazy!” I kept exclaiming. To the Brits credit, even though the posted speed was 60, they would at least paint SLOW on the roadway to alert you of oncoming things like sudden turns, etc. However, in the States, frequently turns are marked with their own speed limit, like 45 in a 55 zone. But over in the UK it seems much more relaxed.

The craziest moments, though, came on the B roads. These roads never developed into three or four lanes, and when the road became so narrow, so encased by a 3 meter high corridor of trimmed hedges, then a sign would warn us, literally, “Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road.”

Yes. Really.

“Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road.”

No need to expand roads here when instead you can just put a sign up that cautions, “Don’t worry, old chap. Just mind the oncoming traffic. It might be in the middle of the road, but just tread softly, softly, there’s a good fellow. Cheers.”

So that’s the way it was as we made our way to Amesbury to see Stonehenge. On the way there, we stopped at a cafe on the side of the road called the Angelfish that continued to confirm that the food we had at Marlborough Head just wasn’t very good. I had an omelet and my mother a ham and egg sandwich, and both were zesty and flavorful. We also had some milkshakes that were very different from our American counterparts. They were more like flavored milk with a scoop of ice cream. Oh well… Can’t win them all.

But, what the milkshakes lacked in satisfaction, Stonehenge more than made up for in sheer marvelousness. (Hm… did I just mention milkshakes and Stonehenge in the same sentence?)

In short, though, Stonehenge was absolutely fantastic. It’s one of those places like the White House or the Eiffel Tower or the Rocky Mountains. You see so many pictures of it, and then you finally see it in person with your own eyes, and it’s absolutely surreal. Forget the Romans (well, don’t forget them), but now Stonehenge is the oldest piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. And so absolutely fascinating learning about how it was put together and how accurately it aligned with the summer and winter solstice.

Really, though, so wonderful to see Stonehenge! Absolutely fantastic and brilliant! It was so overwhelming to imagine the people who moved these stones, who sanded these stones, who erected these stones. The hands that touched these stones. The organization involved in planning such a structure. The minds that devised such a feat in architecture. The ancestors who used these stones for their celebrations. Absolutely marvelous!

After Stonehenge, farther south we decided to go, in order to pay a visit to Henry VIII’s Portland Castle outside Weymouth, right on the coast, overlooking Weymouth Bay. (But not before checking into our hotel and having a good night’s sleep.)

Portland Castle, like Stonehenge, was also quite fantastic to see. It was really quite overwhelming to think about the kings and queens who walked these halls, the soldiers who readied canons in the various chambers, the men and women who later lived in it as a private residence. America doesn’t have history like this. Well, I mean, it does. It takes the form of artifacts from our American Indian ancestors, and then things like mines from gold rushes, forts of the Civil War, White Houses, and monuments. And that’s fine. But we tear so much of our stuff down after very little use, mainly because we insist on building things with wood. But even entire railway and streetcar systems just get paved over and forgotten in the name of expanding freeways. So sad. We could do with an alignment in our priorities.

Sorry. Soap box over.

Following Portland Castle (after petting and taking too many pictures of a really friendly black and white cat and taking tea at the Portland Castle’s tea room), we headed farther west to Torquey.

And it was in Torquey that we stumbled across a really marvelous find.

But I shall tell you about that in my next post…

The Same as with Everywhere Else – UK Trip: Part 1

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Oh the excitement! Oh the anticipation! And here we are at last, after months of waiting after buying our plane tickets, and in the case of my mom (or is it mum?) over 45 years of waiting since she left Europe not quite making it across the channel, because she and my father were out of money after they had spent a whole five weeks in Europe on their honeymoon.

The thing about traveling to a foreign country is that the first day can be a tad tiring and stressful. Even though we Americans and English share a common language (well, mostly; there are lots of noticeable differences) there are enough differences to make visitors like us feel stupid.

It’s tiring not only because you get off an eight hour flight, but also because trying to figure out how to do things properly without coming off as ignorant or unread is difficult, mainly because that even though you’ve read that at pubs you have to go to the bar to order food rather than wait for a server, trying it out yourself and hoping you do it correctly while worrying that they’ll notice you’re trying is very, well, trying. Plus they hear the accent, and sometimes you can just hear the sigh of frustration in their brain. But, oh well. That’s the name of the way on the first day. The more important thing to worry about on your first day after a long flight is to NOT FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOU ARRIVE. It’s very tempting to do that, but just don’t. Really. Don’t. Otherwise you’ll never get on the local time.

So what to do instead? Drop your bags off at your hotel or room or wherever, and then go to a busy, public place and walk around. But even getting to the hotel can be a challenge when you first arrive. Even though we managed to select the correct tickets for the Heathrow Express to get to Paddington and then from there our hotel, the machine wasn’t taking our card. So, we went to the counter where a very bored woman “helped” us.

When it came time to pay, however, we had even more difficulty. You see, the US is behind in some things. One thing we’re behind in is those new credit cards with those fancy chips. After the lady told us to pay, we tried inserting the card into the reader, and it told us to remove it. So we did. But nothing happened.

The lady at the counter told us to try again and do what it says on the screen. So, we put the card in again, the machine told us to remove it, and then nothing. She took the card, asked us, “Did you insert it this way?” indicating the chip end first, and I said no, and she responded, “You’ve got to put the chip end in first, the same as with everywhere else.”

Except in the US, of course, where these chips seem really fancy, as we didn’t quite know how to do it as with everywhere else. But, now we know how to use these fancy chip cards. And this generally is how it goes. You gradually learn how to do things as with everywhere else.

By the time we got to our hotel (after not understanding when to get off the train to Paddington, having to double back to get on the connector) we realized we were only a brief walk away from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, so naturally that’s where we went to stave off falling asleep.

What’s weird, though, was how untired we actually felt. So it was marvelous to see Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens with such energy flowing through us. We were both amazed at the amounts of people, the sizes of the trees, the ages of the buildings, but mainly how such a huge green space exists in such a city as this. And calling it a green space doesn’t quite describe it well. It feels like suddenly, in the middle of a bustling city, with people, cabs, cycles, and busses, that after just a few steps it’s possible to enter an entire field of green. And so many people were using it. Even after it started getting dark. Families weren’t rushing home, and people kept going about their normal enjoyment, all without the fear that at any moment a murderer with a gun might mug you for your money.

And Speakers Corner, right by the Marble Arch, was similarly busy with people just enjoying themselves, complete with a young man who was entertaining some small children with a contraption made of twine that he’d dip in a solution of water and soap to create bubbles of all shapes and sizes that would hover about in the breeze, and just a bit farther north at the Marble Arch were men and women holding signs declaring in all caps, “NO2ISIS,” as busy traffic zoomed by and onlookers gazed and took photos.

No first day in London would be complete without a trip to a pub for an ale and some good old fashioned pub food. We made our way along Oxford Street, heading east away from Speakers Corner. After some initial faffing about not quite knowing where to eat or what to eat, we came across a pub called the Marlborough Head. We sat down to some pints of cask ales, and I ordered the Taylor Walker steak and ale pie, my mum the baked Camembert, and then we finished with pudding, churros and a sticky figgy sponge. While we were eating it, we marveled at how bland everything tasted. Even the custard for the churros was emotionless and lacking in much zest. Still, that’s to be expected in a land where you must expect these things. This the the name of the way after all.

Following dinner, we made our way back to the hotel, the Mitre House, where how tired we were sunk in properly. And while a lifelong dream of mine was to watch a world premiere episode of Doctor Who on BBC One in London, not even that could keep me awake, as I found myself nodding off during the episode, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. All I remember is that it took place at Coal Hill School and the Doctor was dressed up as a janitor.

Oh well, I’ve got two more Saturdays to try again.

Our second day in the UK took us directly to Bath, and already on this second day I felt like I didn’t stick out as much, even though the accent still gives much away. Even still, we now knew how to use the credit card machines and feeling more rested helped keep the mind in order to do things like find the right platform to board the correct train that would take us to Bath.

And how fabulous the train system is here. This is another thing that the US is severely behind on. And I mean severely behind. There are very few places in the US where you can show up at a train station and expect to be on your way to exactly where you need to go and all within a half hour or so all with very little fuss.

And so little fuss it was to arrive in Bath, a taxi taking us to our hotel, and then a quick walk to downtown… er, I mean the city centre, where we happened across a restaurant called the Green Park Brasserie. And oh my! What a decadent meal to have! First we started with a salted squid salad for my mum and a pomegranate chicken salad for me, followed by for both of us a chicken dinner affair with roasted potatoes, steamed carrots, a vinegar cabbage side, and ginger seasoned squash. For pudding we had an even more decadent affair of rhubarb tart with a true Southwest England staple, clotted cream.

We had the most wonderful server as well. She was very friendly and had a wonderful, smiling charm about her. She even told us, “I just love your accents,” to which we told her that we loved hers as well! She told us that she was from the Midlands, and so the way she pronounces bath is closer to how Americans pronounce bath, along with New Zealanders and Australians. Apparently she gets lots of flack for pronouncing bath with the short A sound rather than the schwa A sound, as most of her other English citizens might pronounce it, while declaring that she’s actually in the majority of how to pronounce bath.

In the end, though, the Green Park Brasserie put to rest that all English food is bland, and I’m now starting to wonder if the meal we had at the Marlborough Head in London just didn’t have very good food. Or maybe it was just because it was pub food, and so we have to expect a certain mediocrity. We shall see when we return to London to try pub food again.

Naturally, a trip to Bath wouldn’t be compete without a visit to the Roman Baths. Now, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to a site that boasts architecture that’s nearly two thousand years old. I’ve seen artifacts from Ancient Greece and Egypt at the Louvre, but not the entire site of ancient remnants of a building built so long ago. The redevelopment of the baths is quite remarkable, but even remarkable still is viewing the original foundation and existing various pools. Taste the water, too. If you’ve grown up in the country where you might have access to an old pump made of some kind of heavy metal where you could pump water directly from a well, you’ll have some idea of what the water tastes like. Kind of normal to me, but I imagine somewhat disgusting for others. (Just imagine water with lots  of iron and magnesium, and you’ve got the idea.)

Well, we’ve got two whole weeks ahead of us. My access to the internet isn’t regular, so I’ll write when I can (hence writing in “parts” rather than my usual “days” when I write up my trips).

I hope you look forward to my next post where I shall chronicle my first excursion (and other lifelong dream come true) driving on the left side of the road.

Up North, Where Moments and Senses Delight

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No trip to Minnesota is complete without a visit to its northeast region, and I’ve always felt a special affinity for the region even though I feel at home in the Cities.

The state enjoys three biomes that all run roughly diagonally across the state from the northwest to the southeast.  The prairie grassland zone is the westernmost zone, its easternmost border a line from about the state’s northwest corner, all the way south to about the middle of the state’s southern border.  This part of the state is, frankly, boring, unless you’re into wide open spaces and like looking at tall grass and towns whose architecture mimics the flatness of the terrain.  The only towns I can think of that exist in this region are Moorhead and a town called Pipestone, I believe.

The next region situates itself immediately east of the humdrum prairies, essentially engulfing Interstate 94 and then Highway 52 in the deciduous zone (i.e characterized by mainly trees that lose their leaves in the winter).  Cities in this zone include Alexandria, St. Cloud, the Twin Cites, Rochester, and Winona.  If only because this is the region I grew up in (specifically St. Anna, a small town outside of Avon, a small town outside St. Cloud), this region is just kind of normal.  That is, when someone says “city park,” I imagine most people would imagine trees with leaves and not needles and then also would attach the word average to the description.  So this region, then, is just your average, normal area with trees that have leaves, a kind of suburbia of woods where the trees might be interesting, but only in a kind of cookie cutter kind of way, if you find inefficient residential design compelling.

But, my favorite zone that I just simply adore is the coniferous zone of the entire northeast part of the state.  These are no boring city parks but rather forests.  I imagine that when most people hear the word forest, they imagine dense thickets, tall evergreens, needles strewn about the ground, ferns, fallen logs slowly turning into soil, mushrooms of all shapes and sizes, birch trees defying the status quo with their enchanting pillars of light in the dark, shallow streams that every once in a while fall over ledges of rock into a magnificent and elegant display of mist, rainbows, foam, and gushing torrents of water.

This is where my friend Amy and I spent our weekend, 12-14 September, amongst all this, in a cabin.  There’s just something about this region, especially in the autumn, when the air is crisp, the scent of pine extra potent, leaves saturating from standard to brilliant.

Swinging BridgeOur first stop on our way to the cabin outside Finland, MN, was at Jay Cooke State Park, named after a major financier of the Union’s efforts during the Civil War and who developed a nearby power plant in the region, and the park boasts a swinging suspension bridge (and by “swinging” they mean the bridge barely mildly moves a bit when you walk on it) and a pioneer cemetery in addition to the usual hiking trails and things.  We only explored the immediate entrance, but that was enough to provide a prelude to things to come: fallen pine cones, rushing rapids and falls, desire paths through woods, skipping rocks, and testing temperatures of waters.

Lake SuperiorDuluth is only a small jaunt farther north from Jay Cooke, and we sadly arrived too early for the breweries to be open.  Bent Paddle’s doors seemed solidly shut, but Lake Superior (located in one of those ridiculously boring 1-level buildings shaped like a rectangle and made of grey bricks and grey doors and grey windows labeled with signs in sans serif of grey letters where you would expect an office where people sit around answering grey phones about grey questions like how much grey paint it takes to paint one of those ridiculous boring 1-level buildings shaped like a rectangle–in other words, the least likely place to find a brewery where you expect golden and red bricks, tall windows, and creaky hardwood floors) was open, but only to fill growlers.  What the building Lake Superior locates itself in lacks in any aesthetic awareness more than makes up for in the quality of its beer.  And there’s nothing quite like filling a growler at a brewery, where you can admire the artwork of all their various ales and beers and see how they decorate using burlap sacks with colorful designs imprinted on them.

After this, it was high time for lunch.  Sadly, the Duluth Grill had a line out the door as if it was lunchtime after the various cults in Lake Wobegon finished their Sunday ritual (I think it’s called “church”), but it was a Friday, which made the line out the door all the more surprising.  Still, I was happy to see the place getting their full due’s attention.

SunshineSo, we Yelped to find something else local in town.  I know that there’s Grandma’s, but everyone’s been there, and while I highly recommend a visit, be aware that it’ll be very touristy, so you may not get to experience the heart of Duluth’s people.  Yelp, however, suggested a quaint little place called Sunshine Cafe.  But, while the servers were very warm and welcoming and while you get to experience some of Duluth’s true people (namely a crazy old man talking about how times are tough and who wants to buy certain businesses and turn them into havens of healthy hangouts for youth, not to suggest that all Duluth’s true poeple are crazy old men) the food left you thinking, “Um… I’m pretty sure I can make this food much better without much fuss, using actual potatoes that you have to actually skin and to actually cut and to actually boil and to actually mash.”

Enger TowerThe next stop on our visit through Duluth was the Enger Tower, a 5-story stone sentinel that overlooks Duluth and the St. Louis Bay, 531 feet above the surface of Lake Superior.  You can glimpse some really fine views of the surroundings below from various vantages, including the famous lift bridge, Canal Park, and that bizarre 5 mile long sandbar (the longest in the world) called Park Point where people actually live.

By this point, it’s getting relatively late (well, 4:00 or so I believe, but we’ve still got an awful lot of driving to do), so we continue on northward along the stunningly beautiful North Shore Scenic Drive (confusingly dubbed North Shore All-American Scenic Drive by some, for some reason), which is basically a descriptive way of saying, “Drive on Old Hwy 61 then follow the real Hwy 61 after you go through a town called Two Harbors in order to see Lake Superior as you drive along with a smattering of little towns and sleepy shops.” Seriously, though, it’s a wonderful drive, and I highly recommend this route over anything else along the shore’s edge, unless you’ve got to be somewhere fast.

Russ KendallOne such sleepy shop that you can see along Old Hwy 61 in Knife River (yes, Knife River, the name of a town, and a town named after a river called, er, Knife River, a direct translation from the Ojibwe Mokomani Zibi, probably so-called because of sharp stones at the mouth of the river… I think the Ojibwe sounds better than the English, but whatever) is a fish shop called Russ Kendall’s Smokehouse.  (Well, I call it a fish shop, because that’s one of their main things to buy, but you can also buy beef jerky there, too, and other things.)  But, seriously… the best brown sugar cured smoked salmon and trout I think I’ve ever had!  Just buy a pound or two, get some expensive crackers, slice it up, and enjoy a most delightful snack!  It seems just the perfect thing to eat when you’re next to the majestic Superior amongst tamarack and birch.  We may not have fresh lobster here in Minnesota, but we’ve got some of the best fresh salmon!

Also, if you haven’t heard, this gem of the North Shore suffered a devastating fire earlier this year in May.  Fortunately they’ve re-opened, but I urge you to make a visit here to support their business.  It’s terribly sad, naturally, but I’m so happy that no one was harmed and that they have such a warm community around them and eager tourists passing by who are supporting them during some tough times.

Green DoorWe still had some ways to go, however, to our cabin in outside Finland.  A brief 40 miles after the fish shop, we came across a liquor store call Green Door, situated in Beaver Bay.  It was a modest affair, but one of those modest affairs where the liquor store was attached to and accessible by way of a bar, the clerk hovering back and forth between bar counter and liquor counter through a small doorway.  Modest though it may be, their selection of beers did not disappoint, and we were left having to make tough decisions rather than hold our noses and choose between stuff that’s not beer at all, by our definitions (i.e. Budweiser, Coors, and the like).  Actually, we probably wouldn’t have held our noses, but rather left and found something else.  Fortunately, if you find yourself quite far northeast and away from Duluth, there’s always Green Door in Beaver Bay, which will surely hopefully have something for everyone.

CabinAfter a quick trip to a grocery store curiously called Zups located in Silver Bay, we at last made our way to our home for the weekend.  This adorable little cabin situates itself amongst pines trees that are situated amongst sumac (and pronounce it the proper way, please: “schumak) that are situated amongst ferns that are situated amongst tall grasses that are situated amongst fallen needles and twigs that are situated above the heartiest, blackest soil, all next to a quaint little stream called the Baptism River.  And, there’s a sauna, too, heated by a wood burning stove.

Seriously, though: this is perfect.  It’s made all the more perfect when you slice up an onion, chop up some carrots, halve some mushrooms, peal some potatoes, cut up a chicken, create a broth of some kind of meat and red wine and whatever spices, do some simmering for a bit, and eat what my friend Amy calls, “Chicken Dinner,” a fantastic concoction of her own sure to delight the senses, best enjoyed when autumn is around the corner, temperatures hovering in the mid teens, with an IPA (or two or three).

But not too many IPAs.  For the next morning, let’s just say I felt a bit hungover from a bit too much wine and beer.  These things happen to people, you know.  And they sometimes happen when least expected, unfortunately, and it’s most unwelcome when they happen when on vacation Up North when leaves tell you in their own way that autumn is just around the corner.  On the other hand, however, they can be miraculously cured by some good old fashioned Finnish ways.

Seriously, though: this is perhaps even more perfect.  Heat up the sauna to somewhere about the range of the upper 30s, have a bucket of water ready to create steam over heated rocks, sweat things out for a good 30 or 40 minutes, dunk yourself into a river that can’t be much above zero, repeat.  And it’s best to do this with all your clothes off.

Headache gone.  Just like that.

(Well, the lying down in the cool breeze for two hours, a cup of coffee, and some Ibuprofen probably made a small dent in persuading the headache to leave, too…)

BUT… the dunk in the cold, cold river seemed to make the headache vanish completely and instantly, as if by opening a door that a headache can’t resist going through.  Fantastic, really, to be sure!

Incidentally, the Baptism River is the only place on the earth where you can un-baptize yourself.  This is especially important for fallen away Catholics like Amy and me who want to be excommunicated from the church, but find un-baptizing the next best thing.  This really is the only location on the earth where you can do this: the Baptism River outside Finland, MN.

(Am I joking?  I don’t know.)

So, our weekend was generally very much like this: admiring the cool breeze through the trees, enjoying salmon and trout on crackers, sweating out horribleness in a sauna and washing it off in a river where you can be un-baptized, and venturing out to more state parks.

CrosbyAnd the state park in question is George H. Crosby Manitou State Park.  Now, I’ve been to quite a few state parks in my time (and I have quite a few more to visit), but Crosby State Park is a real gem.  We approached the park from Country Road 7, which is a gravel road, and driving on gravel roads always reminds me of growing up outside St. Anna, because for many years that’s what our “street” was until it was paved: a gravel road.  Gravel roads also remind me of traveling to horse shows where I would ride upon my father’s horses while he plowed the field with a single blade.  And they also remind me of being away from something altogether: away in a way where there are fewer people per whatever measurement.

And Crosby State Park provides that.  These are some of the best hiking trails ever, and we happened only upon two groups of people total in our 2 hour woods trek.  These trails also aren’t for the amateurs, either, as there is much hiking up and down steepish hills over unforgiving rocks, through trails that look more like desire paths than proper trails, and in order to admire some of the more astounding sites, you have to delicately climb up and over semi-walls of boulders and smaller big rocks.  The Middle Trail (yes, that’s its proper name, the Middle Trail) takes you to a quite majestic cascades where the Manitou river plummets over jagged rocks in a display of mesmeric brilliance.  In order to really appreciate the full beauty of the cascades up close, you have to be comfortable jumping up and down some somewhat tricky spots between those semi-walls of boulders and smaller big rocks.  But, it’s terribly worth it.

Palisade HeadBut, forget semi-walls of boulders and smaller big rocks when you can visit Palisade Head, a proper wall of solid rock (well, semi-solid as you have to watch your step so you don’t fall into mini crevasses in the ground) that leaves those of us like myself with a weak grasp on approaching with confidence and solid knees sheer drops of quite a few feet, where you can fear for the lives of crazies who like to actually CLIMB ON THESE RIDICULOUS WALLS with nothing saving them except a harness secured to their body attached to a rope that they hope doesn’t lose its grip on whatever its attached itself to.

But, it’s fine.  Everything’s fine.  Because I’m not climbing on these ridiculous walls.  I’ll let others do that for me.  The fruits of the endeavors of these young men and women who were climbing Palisade Head showed in their arm and leg muscles muscles and the generally firm state of their bodies that Amy and I admired without allowing ourselves to drool hopelessly.

Apple PieOn our way back to the Twin Cities, we managed to find ourselves having to control our salivary reflexes once again when we finally had our chance to enjoy a late lunch, even though this time it actually was Sunday where you would expect ritual goers to be delighting in traditional after-idolization brunch.  I decided to try the Asian steak bowl, and it was fantastic!  They’ve also got some wonderful drinks, so I tried the beet lemonade, essentially normal lemonade with a couple tablespoons of beet juice floating atop that you stir around so that your lemonade turns a kind of vibrant purple-red and instead now has that wonderful rooty flavor of beets mixed in with the refreshing zest of lemon and tantalizing overabundance of sugar.  Again, do visit Duluth Grill if you have a chance and you’d like to stay away from tourists in Canal Park (as fun as that can be too).

Trips to the North Shore (or Up North in general) are a kind of staple for certain Minnesotans who live in the Twin Cities who require the hustle and bustle of many people, the myriad options for theatre, music, art, and dance, and just the general nicety of having so many amenities available where you can easily cure boredom.

Other trips are also quite welcome, too, especially if your curiosity’s appetite frequently requires much grander ventures to even more foreign lands to satiate its needs, as in just a few short hours I will be on a plane headed towards London, where I shall be enjoying the fantastic life and times of a wonderful people and a wonderful country.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post as I’m there, but I do intend to post when I return.

But, in the meantime, if London and the UK countryside isn’t quite your style or you need a brief weekend jaunt to get away from it all, make a trip Up North.  And perhaps you’ll find some hidden marvelousness in the form of a brilliant cascade of rushing rapids over jagged, knife-like rocks tucked away behind semi-walls of boulders and smaller big rocks.

Eeep!

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So, today marks the day that is exactly one month away from the day that I depart with my dear old mum to that most wonderful of places in the world, the United Kingdom.  It has been eight years since I’ve visited the country, and so naturally I am eagerly anticipating this day’s arrival.

For me, the UK draws up images of police boxes and red telephone booths, Tower bridges and stone circles, lonely lanes in the country and webs of streets in the city, damp, grey skies and bland, tasteless food, stiff upper lips and slowly rising lifts, car boots, tyres, indicators and chips, marmite, and wine gums, all wrapped in newspaper meant for fish with scents of lagers and images of druids.

Of course, all British people embody this exact description, just as, for me, the US draws up images of police cars and blue telephone booths, suspension bridges and four corners, highways in the country and symmetrical grids in the city, sunny, blue skies and zesty, flavorful food, really loud lips and high speed elevators, car trunks, tires, and blinkers and fries, peanut butter, and Dots, all wrapped in ridiculous plastic for things we don’t need with scents of jazz and images of cowboys.

(No, really.  This is exactly how things work on both sides of the ocean.  Really.  I’m totally serious right now.  100%.)

So, when I’m there, I totally expect to be served corn flakes in the morning without requesting it, to be asked why I drive a car everywhere and why I have so many guns, and to be admired for my perfect teeth and ridiculed for my ignorance of other cultures.

(No, really.  This is exactly what happens whenever we venture over there.  Really.  I’m totally serious right now.  100%.)

So, “Eeep!  I’m so excited!  I can’t wait!”

It will be a topping holiday, what.

I’d Never Write That Now: Bennington Day 6

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Things continue to wind down, here at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference.  It’s going to be really hard to leave tomorrow and return to the day-in/day-out.  But, onwards we must go…

Today I took another little jaunt into the city of Bennington.  I wrote about my first excursion in my Day 4 post, but today I got to experience just a tad bit more.  In town, there’s the quite impressive Bennington Battle Monument.  It’s over 300 feet tall, shaped very similarly to the Washington monument, and you can take an elevator up to the very near top.  And at the top you can see some really very staggering views of the city, and if you’re looking eastward, you can actually see the hills of New York.  My knees felt a bit weak as well while I was up top, due to a fear of heights.  The actual space for viewing couldn’t have been more than 15 feet on each edge, and while visitors are quite enclosed in stone walls and a ceiling, foot wide windows in the walls that stretch from floor to at least 10 feet high, you can look down quite a ways.  And if, like me, you have a fear of heights, things feel a little dicey, that high up.

I also got to explore the cemetery of the Old First Church.  And it just so happens that Robert Frost is buried in this very cemetery.  Always sureal, really, going to a famous person’s grave.  I think the first famous person’s grave I ever visited was JFK’s, and there’s just something very strange about that, being so close to a famous person’s body.  As it was the same with visiting Robert Frost’s grave.  Very strange.  I just can’t explain with better words how strange a feeling it is, doing this.

Still, very nice all the same.  I haven’t set any of Robert Frost’s poems to music, but seeing his resting place inspired me to start to get to know his work a bit better.

Following all this, I got to have a nice chat with Donald Crocket.  We looked at my Wind Quintet and my reed trio, Le triangle d’or.  I’ve really treasured these moments, from working with the string quartet yesterday to my chat with Don today, to gain insight into another person’s insight into my music.  I’ve got notes taken, and I can’t wait to get back home (even though earlier I said it’ll be hard to leave tomorrow), to review them all again, to make some little tweaks to everything to make the music work just a little bit better.

As the day came to a close, the wonderful Janet Johnson organized a reading of my aforementioned reed trio, so we got to enjoy a kind of mini reunion with Hilary Major on oboe and Abby Wells on bassoon.  I conducted, as it’s a tricky piece, and Laura Schwendinger attended, too.  Throughout the whole thing, I explained how looking at this music didn’t seem so much a reflection of me, but more a window into a me of the past.  There were so many things that I simply just wouldn’t write today, like a ridiculous time signature like 2+3/5 when 2/4 followed by 3/4 would be so much clearer.  There were also some quite difficult arpeggiations in all three parts that were quite awkward, even on page, let alone under the fingers of those playing them.

Abby was very kind, though, when I told her about the things I wouldn’t write now.  She said, “You know what that’s called?  Growth!”

Indeed it is!

S0 here we are, on the eve of my final day here at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference in the beautiful state of Vermont, and I shall miss this terribly.

Until the time comes to leave, though, I don’t need to worry and rather instead enjoy this moment now.  So, I shall enjoy one last drink in Bingham to celebrate a glorious time!

It’s Better without the Bartok Pizz.: Bennington Day 5

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There’s a different scent in the air, on this fifth day.  I already miss working with Martha, Hillary, Barbara, Abby, and Janet on my wind quintet.  They were such a fun group.  Still, the slightly slower pace is rather welcome.  I enjoyed a very relaxed morning, working on the blog a bit, catching up on email, and before I knew it, it was time for lunch.

At lunch I met up with some other fellow musicians who invited me to a rehearsal of their Dohnanyi sextet for clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello, and piano.  It’s a wonderfully lush piece of music, perhaps a tad on the melodramatic side, but it’s a melodrama that wouldn’t be out of place in a silent film or anything by Alfred Hitchcock.

Following this, I was in for a real treat.  The first piece of music I wrote back in 2005 after starting grad school in Madison was my String Quartet subtitled “For a New Latitude,” a title that not only indicated I was working in a brand new city, but also because it represented a clear shift in my sound world.  Everything previous had been, well, pretty basic, square, and conservative.  But, now I felt that there were no limits, especially after becoming acquainted with the work of Ligeti, Crawford, and Crumb.  The problem, though, is that my name isn’t Ligeti, Crawford, or Crumb, so this terribly difficult piece has sat on the shelf since I finished up the fourth movement in early 2006.

It was marvelous returning to it, however.  The JACK Quartet had read through the second and third movements some years ago, but that was under very limited time without much time for questions and comments.  But, I was terribly grateful for that moment to at least finally hear some of it.  Today, however, I got to work with Andrea Schultz, Masako Tanagita, Kate Vincent, and Maxine Neuman, and I had a chance to listen to them read through all four movements.  And what a treat it was!

It was somewhat strange returning to this music, though.  It was like looking through a window rather than seeing a reflection in a mirror.  There are so many things in the music that I wouldn’t do now: using so much Italian, for example, in favor of just indicating metronome markings over allegro non tanto, frenetically switching back and forth between col legno, arco ord., and Bartok pizz. within the space of a couple measures.

Speaking of the Bartok pizz., my how I was in love with it!  So much so, in fact, that I feel I overused it, Don Crocket himself saying, “I think it’s better without the Bartok pizz.”  And I agreed absolutely, that it would be better if used sparingly and only at more dramatic moments.

But, again, what a treat it was to hear this music, and how fantastic it was to receive such helpful feedback from the performers.

So, that’s it.  Things are clearly already starting to wind down, sadly.  This isn’t to say there’s nothing left to do, only that the end is near, and we’re preparing for the moment.

Fish and Maple Syrup: Bennington Day 4

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I neglected in my post for Day 3 to mention how I took a moment to enjoy the quaint little town of Bennington, which is a few short miles outside Bennington College.  I was pleasantly surprised at how vibrant the downtown area was.  I enjoyed lunch at a wonderful little coffee shop called South Street Cafe and Bakery, ordering a curried chicken sandwich, cream of celery soup, and a latte.  There were also a number of shops along the main stretch, and as I walked by Jay’s Cards and Gifts, I noticed that they had displays of maple syrup.  Before I even arrived in Vermont, I was already on a mission to make sure to buy maple syrup while I was here.  (Because that’s obviously what you do when you come to Vermont.)  I decided to purchase a grading sampler of four syrups (Vermont Fancy, Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber, Grade B… basically a sampling going from lightest to darkest), and I can’t wait to give them a taste at breakfast some day.

A pleasant little town, Bennington.  It’s often nice to “get away from it all,” by escaping the large city for a jaunt into a country town.  Some of the locals seemed to think Bennington wasn’t something to write home about, and while I would agree that I don’t think I’d be able to stand the smallness of everything, the town’s definitely worth a visit.

The big news from my fourth day at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, however, was the premiere of my Wind Quintet and Laura Schwendinger’s Wet Ink.  Both groups performed absolutely splendidly.  It was an interesting challenge, writing music for so-called amateurs, as it was a delicate balance of writing music that fit this order while also making sure that the music still sounded like me.  Even still, I was happy to discover that the music I wrote still stretched the performers.  While I could have chosen to write music that had nothing but quarters and eighths, for example, I felt that that would have been more of a kind of disrespectful dumbing down of the possibilities, and the musicians who performed would have probably just been bored.

At the same time, this whole project got me thinking about what it means to be an amateur musician.  I suppose it could mean that they are musicians who don’t make their living by being a musician.  Many of the performers at this conference are of really very high grade and could very easily make a living out of being musicians.  Instead, they’re doctors, lawyers, financial assistants, teachers, and so on.  It seems the wrong word to call them amateurs, though, as it seems like a pejorative.  I was speaking with someone who preferred the word non-professional, and that seem to sit better with me.  Still, it’s annoying to have to call these people by something that puts them on a scale.

Anyway, though, the performances of the Wind Quintet and Wet Ink were absolutely rock solid.  They performed with such confidence and grace and musicality that it would astound individuals everywhere.  I would have loved to have continued working with my performers for the whole week, to see how detailed we could get with the performance and how solid we could make the ensemble be, but I’m just still so impressed with the music we did make together in three short days, a total of 4-1/2 hours of rehearsals.  Many thanks to you all: Martha Somach on flute, Hilary Major on oboe, Janet Johnson on clarinet, Barbara Folb on horn, and Abby Wells on bassoon.

The other highlight of the day was the faculty concert in the Greenwall Auditorium.  The concert opened with the Hanns Eisler Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7, a cute little two-movement work.  I haven’t listened to much Eisler, but after listening to this performance, I must seek out more of the composer’s work.  The duo was well crafted, colorful, and a surprisingly wonderful treat.  The first movement was a capricious little mischievous bugger, finding a perfect balance between high drama and light hearted comedy between its fortissimo double stops to its pianissimo pizzicatos.  The second movement a kind of fughetta of sorts, both lines alternating between a jagged subject and a soaring countermelody.  This was followed by a perfectly splendid performance of the Eugene Bozza Contrastes II written in 1977.  I can’t praise the performers enough, but the less said about the actual music the better.  Bozza is just so, so square, and this music wasn’t worthy of the caliber of the performers.  Let’s just leave it at that.  (Well, I’ll just add that one of the movements was the boxiest tango I’ve ever heard.)  Fortunately, the program closed with Schubert’s “Trout” piano quintet, and what a treat it was to listen to this!  Such energy, such delicacy, such a tight ensemble.  This piece is just one of the pieces that’s difficult not to love.  And if you don’t love it, then frankly something’s wrong with you.

The evening closed with a wonderful little party in Bingham hall.  Simple hors d’oeuvres were available, and a sampling of beer, prosecco, and wine.  It was wonderful to catch up with many of the performers, and I was so happy to have the chance to try some local Vermont beers.  The state does rank #1 in craft brewing in the nation per capita, which is exciting.  So naturally, I’ve done two of the most important things here: buy some maple syrup from Vermont and try some beer from Vermont.

So, that’s excellent, then.

 

Cascade Things: Bennington Day 3

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We creators of art tend to have, shall we say, colorful ways of saying things. I sometimes become aware of the language we use to describe certain musical ideas to the point where I suddenly understand how ridiculous things might sound to outsiders.

But, all too frequently, the words we do use to talk about what might be happening are absolutely spot on.

I was turning pages for Laura Schwendinger’s Wet Ink, and there are sections of the music where the instruments will perform one line of music, but the line is dispersed amongst the instruments. Schoenberg called it Klangfarbenmelodie, literally sound-color-melody. It’s basically an eloquent way of describing what I just described. Imagine, for example, taking your favorite melody (let’s just pretend it’s “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for simplicity). A flute plays the part that goes, “Row, row, row your” (i.e. do, do, do, re) and a clarinet joins the flute on “your” and then continues the melody with, “boat, gently down the” (i.e. re, mi, mi, re, mi, fa) and a soprano joins the clarinet on “the” and finishes the phrase with, “stream” (i.e. fa sol). (She might continue on until, “Merrily, merrily, mer-,” and an oboe might join in on mer- and continue with, “-rily, merrily, life is but,” but hopefully you get the idea.)

Anyway, so there are these things in the Schwendinger where this sort of thing happens, except all in quick succession. The piano starts with a sixteenth note F-natural on a downbeat (or something, I can’t remember), the cello plays a sixteenth note C-sharp on the second sixteenth of the beat (or something, but you get the idea), the viola picks up the following sixteenths with G-natural and B-flat, and the violin finishes the following downbeat with an F-sharp. So a microcosm of the music, but imagine something like this happening for at least three beats or so, or sometimes for about one and a half measures.

We kept returning to rehearse these types of gestures, and whenever they came up, we started referring to them as “cascade things.”

Suddenly I feel like I’ve told a really, really long story in the hopes that the story would have a really, really funny punchline. But, I think that this is one of those moments where I’ve now realized that the story isn’t very good, as it now just comes down to, “Oh! By the way! I was sitting in rehearsal, and we kept calling Klangfarbenmelodie ‘cascade things’, and I suddenly become ultra aware of how funny that might sound to outsiders who just walked into the conversation, except I’ve just now realized that it’s actually not very funny at all.”

And now I’ve just realized that I’ve spent the better part of 45 minutes formulating everything up to this point in print, only to discover that this story isn’t very good, but that I’m going to post it to the blog anyway. I hope you’re not too disappointed.

So, anyway. Moving on.

Today saw another fantastic day at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference. Wet Ink is coming together marvelously, and today in rehearsal of my Wind Quintet, I was absolutely impressed with how quickly the music has started coming together. Yesterday we were all worried about trying to figure out where the beat was with notes tied across barlines and nothing happening on downbeats, but today there was a real, organic pulse that all the performers felt.

And real music began to develop today, too! They are all listening to each other, finding the perfect length for staccatos, learning how to comfortably fit five notes into a single beat without making it feel anxious, placing the mordents expressively, finding the most wonderful ways to play distant horn calls, and so much more. I really couldn’t be happier. It all just suddenly feels like so much has just gelled very quickly overnight.

I also got a chance to meet some of the other conference goers at a little get-together over sushi and prosecco. It was really very nice. I spoke to several individuals about their week thus far, told stories about bad page turning incidents (fortunately, I’ve never caused any major disruptions whenever I’ve page turned), learned about where some people were from and what else they do beyond music, and listened to stories about travelling to Venice and Turkey. It was also a nice opportunity to meet the board for a chance to thank them for a really wonderful week. And really, thank-you… for a really wonderful week.

Tomorrow in the Carriage Barn at 4:00pm shall see the premiere of my Wind Quintet and Laura’s Wet Ink in addition to performances by other groups on campus.It’s going to be a great show!

Notes of Unusual Size: Bennington Day 2

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I’m not a morning person at all, as it happens (but this is nothing new).  I set my alarm for 7:00, thinking I’d wake up to have a proper breakfast and enjoy cups of coffee, mindful of how the bitter taste awakens the mind.  But, after over an hour of snoozing later, it occurred to me that breakfast was not to be.  So, when it really was time to get moving, I quickly made my way to the cafeteria, toasted a bagel and spread peanut butter on it, poured myself a cup of coffee, and ate my breakfast as I made my way up to the Carriage Barn for the first rehearsal of Laura Schwendinginer’s Wet Ink, for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano.  The bitter of the coffee awakened me not over eggs and bacon, but over sonorous sounds of an expressively romantic cello and a violin whose pizzicatos were so beautifully resonant you could slap them between two pieces of bread and eat them for lunch, not to mention the quiet aggression of the viola, the anxious kvetching of the clarinet, and the expansive colors of the piano.

It’s really quite marvelous to be sitting with Laura again after my years absence from the UW, listening to her music in rehearsal.  It’s as if no time has passed at all.  Of course, lots of people say that about lots of things, but this is a case where such a statement shouldn’t be as empty as an actual cliche.

In addition to listening to the rehearsal of Wet Ink, I also got to work with Martha Somach on flute, Hilary Major on oboe, Janet Johnson on clarinet, Barbara Folb on horn, and Abby Wells on bassoon for my Wind Quintet.  I’ve mentioned on several occasions in previous posts how much I adore collaborating with others.  Frequently, it’s one of the most beneficial ways of learning how to do my own job just a little bit better.  It’s also just a wonderful way to interact with other people who share in our passion for creating.

And today’s interactions with these wonderful performers continues to reaffirm my love of collaborating.  First of all, it’s always quite rewarding to take a moment to come out from behind the piano to talk about the music I created (and in this instance I talked about the two characters in the piece: the nimble, mischievous gnome, and the floating, delicate faerie, even though these were merely analogies to help describe the secco lines introduced in the bassoon and the delicate grace notes introduced in the flute).  Second of all (but by no means in second place), it’s also so intriguing listening to what performers have to say about the music I wrote.

On this occasion, I had to giggle a bit when they all commented on my music about how there rarely are moments where things happen on the beat, to which I responded that that’s kinda my shtick.  I absolutely admired Martha’s attention to detail as she wrote into her part various cues and reminders for herself in order to help keep the ensemble together.

What absolutely impressed me, though, was how quickly the ensemble came together.  They were working with some relatively difficult music, but they all seemed to find the pulse very, very quickly.

Seriously.

It felt like they had been playing together for years, and I was so surprised to discover that they had only just arrived together as a group for the first time mere minutes before I arrived.

But, what I learned on this occasion was that I make my parts too small.  I frequently forget that poor eyesight has yet to fall upon me (and it will), so I frequently assume that if I can read the part, then everyone can read the part.  It may also have to do with the fact that when I create parts that I stare at them pretty closely (stooped over them, rather, with back bent horribly archlike toward the desk), and I forget that cellists tend to have to look at parts at somewhat of a distance.

So, good to know.  And I must remember this for next time.

Terribly excited to see what tomorrow brings!

(I do see time blocked off in my schedule for sushi and prosecco, so that’s enticing, to be sure.)

Where It’s Always Sunny: Bennington Day 1

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I’m writing now from Bennington, VT, and it’s the end of the first day at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference held here at Bennington College. Getting here was a bit of an adventure, but it was all worth it in the end. Fortunately, you can remove any fly from any ointment, and the ointment still works fine. While well over half my day was spent trying to arrive, sometimes the adventure is in the chase…

I was supposed to leave Minneapolis by 5:50am this morning, but my United Airlines flight from MSP to O’Hare was nearly an hour late due to a tardy inbound crew. Unfortunately, this mean I would miss my connection in O’Hare to Albany, NY. So, as soon as a man arrived at the ticket counter, I got right in line to figure out what I could possibly do. There was a lady in front of me who beat me in the line, but thankfully a second person arrived at the counter, and she was able to help me. To my astonishment, however, the lady who beat me in the line had the exact same problem I had.

It all was very genial, though. The U.S. Airways staff were very accommodating, booking us on a different itinerary and on planes that were actually booked to capacity. While the lady who helped me told me the wrong gate number for the new outbound flight (and since I have a difficult time trusting people anyway, unless I know them very well, I made sure to double check the gate number), I managed to arrive at the correct gate number.

The lady–whose name I later found out was Laurie (perhaps it’s spelled Lori?)–marveled at the predicament and how quickly United solved it. While the woman at the counter of our new carrier, U.S. Airways, seemed a bit annoyed that United booked us on a now oversold flight, she seemed happy to help us out, mainly because, I imagine, we were organized and arrived quite early and had our stuff together.

What was all so wonderful about this whole set of circumstances, however, is that I had the most wonderful conversation with Lori (or is it spelled Laurie?). We spoke about what I did, and we spoke about what she did. I said I was off to a chamber music festival, and she said she was off to a yoga class. Turned out, she was into the exact kind of yoga that I’m into: the kind that treats yoga as a mind/body experience, rather than just a body experience… a kind of mindful yoga where instead of using the breath as your anchor, you use whatever muscle groups you’re using in a certain pose as your anchor.

We talked about how I’m not very religious, but how we both admire certain Buddhist beliefs, partly because they’re not necessarily beliefs, more scientific facts that indicate, without a doubt, that mindfulness has the same rejuvenating power as sleep. (Yes. A fact. Look it up.) Buddha was essentially an atheist anyway, so Buddhism seems a perfect philosophy for atheists like me to delve into. (Granted, some sects of Buddhism do get a bit weird, though, as in large tenets of Islam and Christianity and a host of other bizarre persuasions, but I’ll stick to the portions of Buddhism that actually do make logical sense.)

It was all very nice, though, this conversation. And it would never had happened had that United staff been on time to their jobs. A wonderful coincidence, naturally. The universe is so massive and so large that of course improbably things like two Buddhists (or whatever we were… two people of similar minds, I suppose) bump into each other in a way such as this. Some people call it fate. But, it’s just chaos happening.

Anyway, our new itinerary took us from MSP to Philadelphia, and then from there to Albany. And Philadelphia (where it’s always sunny, apparently) has a much nicer airport to Chicago’s awful, horrible, sprawlish O’Hare. Plus I’ve only been to Philadelphia once before (whereas I’ve been to Chicago several times I’ve lost count… I do love that city, mind, I just never want to live there), and that was only very briefly, so it was nice to see Philadelphia’s skyline again to reacquaint myself with a city that I have a feeling I would adore.

It was also so nice because Lorrie (or is it Lory?) and I rode the shuttle to the correct terminal together, sat next to each other to wait for our flight to Albany to board, shared cookies, and just generally had a wonderful time becoming acquainted. I gave her my card, she shared me the names of some yoga resources in the Cities, and she became the most “single serving friend” (as Tyler Durden would say).

If that wasn’t perfect enough, I organized a ride from Albany to Bennington via an individual named Erin, who was equally interesting, very easy to talk to, who had remarkably similar political beliefs (it’s rare to bring up politics so early on in a relationship of any kind), and who spoke in the most natural tangents conceivable. Remarkable.

And if this still didn’t just make my day, the campus on Bennington is just absolutely gorgeous. I’ve been yearning for quite some time now to have serious, uninterrupted time to compose and work with musicians, and this campus is a perfect place to do that. It’s a campus unlike any other campus I’ve ever set foot in. It feel more like a kind of old military base that quartered soldiers, complete with open lawns for various routines for them drill. (I don’t mean this pejoratively, by the way.) The buildings in the area of campus that I’m spending most of my time are old, wooden, house-shaped buildings, painted white, like old homes on farmsteads. There’s definitely something very New Englandish about this place. I could possibly imagine a campus like this existing in Minnesota. It just wouldn’t fit. Bennington’s campus is a campus for Vermont.

And the views of tall hills! The smells of crisp, late summer air!

But most importantly, what a wonderful group of musicians! So genuine, kind, warm, and welcoming.

It’s also so wonderful to see my old teacher, Laura Schwendinger, again.

I’m really looking forward to this week of music making and music creating, in the hills of rural Vermont. It’s the first time I’ve set foot in Vermont (it was also the first time I’ve set foot in New York), and it’s absolutely splendid.