"I Wished to Live Deliberately..."

On the Friday of my Boston sojourn, I went to Walden Pond to visit the site of the cabin that Henry David Thoreau built in 1845 as part of his experiment in simple living. He wrote about the two years he lived in that cabin in Walden, Or Life in the Woods, published in 1854.

I had not set out to visit this shrine to the transcendental movement; it was too rainy to be a tourist in Boston so I was wandering purposely aimlessly and found myself on the road to Concord. All of the sudden, I saw a pond on one side of the road and a parking lot entrance sign on the other. The word "walden" jumped out at me and I turned right.

I had found the Walden Pond State Reservation, maintained by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It surrounds the pond and includes a small swimming beach, beautiful views, and many trails leading to the site of Thoreau's cabin. It was here that Thoreau settled in to try a simple life.

I walked through the woods to the site of the hut. Thoreau abandoned the place after two years. It was salvaged into other uses; the boards went into other construction projects and the roof became a cover for a pigsty. The site was lost for years but was rediscovered in the 1940s.

Starting in the 1870s, friends and followers of Thoreau started to visit the site they thought had been where Thoreau lived and wrote (they were off by a bit) and began a tradition of leaving behind a stone in memory and tribute. There is now a sizable pile of stones.

Across the pond there is a steep bluff known as Emerson's Cliff. I found a small stone there to place on the pile by the hut.

Concord has a great deal else to see. The Minuteman National Historic Park is there. It includes the Old North Bridge where the American Revolutionary War started.

I'd like to head back there some time and spend more than an afternoon.

At Fenway Park

I got a chance to see the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park last night. I'm killing time in the Boston area while Colleen plays bass at Berklee and I figured I might as well try to get a ticket to what turned out to be the 418th consecutive sell out of Fenway.

I'm an Orioles fan, but I do like the Red Sox. Besides, baseball is baseball, and we're talking about Fenway Park, one of the classic old ball parks.

I had pretty good seats (not as good as that picture would suggest; that was taken on my way to the men's room). I was in the grandstand on the first-base side and close to home plate. I was fairly far back, though, just a row in front of standing room.

I sometimes enjoy going solo to events like this. I've done several large rock concerts as a solo and now this ball game. There's a certain freedom to being an unknown.

The Red Sox lost this game, 8 to 0. They had had an emotionally active game the night before in completing a sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays, a good team. There were fights and outbursts and drama. The game I saw was against the Mariners, not one of the better teams, and the Red Sox looked a little flat and made a few errors.

In Boston

I'm typing this in a smelly smoking room in a Sheraton Inn in Newton, Massachusetts. I'm in the Boston area through the week-end. I brought Colleen up for a three-day "Bass-Lines" program at the Berklee School of Music. She's staying in the Berklee dorm and I have a cheap (and stinky) room just outside of Boston.

We drove up today. Colleen is almost done with the first 6 months of her graduated driver's license; she can drive with a parent along in the car and I used this trip as an opportunity to give her some (guided) experience driving on various kinds of highways. She has now driven Delaware's SR1, parts of the Garden State Parkway, several different interstates, and the Merritt Parkway. She did well.

We got into Boston in the late afternoon and got her checked-in at Berklee with no trouble. We then met some summer friends at Quincy Market for a nice dinner. After that, I dropped Colleen off at her dorm and headed out to this hotel.

I got terribly lost heading back out here. It was dark and Boston is tricky. I got here, though, after a few false leads. This hotel sits astride Interstate 90 -- the Massachusetts Turnpike -- Looking out my window I see three lanes of headlights and three of tail-lights.

I used Hotwire to book this place; it didn't have to be special, just a place to sleep for a few nights. My plan is to play tourist but be nearby if Colleen needs me. I didn't count on a smoking room, though. I hope they can move me tomorrow.

Sometimes I Just Want to Take a Walk

I was walking in downtown Dover this week, headed up to 33 West for a Caesar salad, and I found myself wanting to keep on walking west. For long, long time. When I was younger I used to get these urges to take up travel as a lifestyle.

At different times I have wanted to live on a coastal schooner, I have wanted to ride a bike across the nation, and I have wanted to drive around the outside of the US. Generally I have thought that I should make my living writing about the experience or taking lots of pictures.

That feeling came back as I walked into a stiff cool wind on Monday. The walking warmed me and I thought, "I could do this all day." I had a brief daydream of walking by easy stages across the country, carrying a small backpack, my camera, and a laptop. I could blog about it and post lots of pictures, supporting myself with discrete, tasteful ads and maybe a paypal tip-jar.

I could work my way along back roads and through small towns. I could plan my trip to match the seasons, visiting south in the winter and north in the summer. I'd maybe camp-out sometimes, but I'd take full advantage of motels and hot showers. (I'm not that young anymore.) I would simply walk across the country, visiting places.

It was just a daydream. I'm happy in my life as a dedicated husband and dad, a state worker, and a long-term Lewes-ite. But sometimes it is fund to think about being completely different; to think about taking a long walk.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

It looks like March 2008 won't be one of my more prolific blogging months, at least not on this site.

I spent Sunday through Wednesday of this week at the mid-year conference of the National States Geographic Information Council -- NSGIC -- in Annapolis. But that doesn't explain my absence since Wednesday of last week. I guess I just got caught up in real life for a while there.

The NSGIC meeting as a whirlwind of busy, as it is usually the case. We hold the mid-year each year at about this time at Annapolis, so I have an easy trip and can linger a bit on Sunday morning before heading over for the first meeting of the day. And, since I'm so close, I can be back home, if needed, in just a few hours.

As I've noted in the past, the NSGIC crowd are nuts. They (we, I guess), start early and go late when we get together to discuss state and federal coordination of GIS and geospatial data. We did take an evening to dine at Paul's, on the South River, a bit west of Annapolis. We crossed this sunset-lit bridge to get there and watched it darken as we ate.

I decided to take notes during the sessions of this conference directly in the Blogger editor and so was able to post summaries of each session as it ended. It was an efficient approach, but it meant that I had to stay through each. Some were fascinating. Some were not. A few were fairly boring. I tried to keep a record, though.

On Wednesday, we joined another industry group for a breakfast on Capital Hill to discuss common policy issues. After, we had a few minutes to wander downtown. I'll have some photos in a few days. I also took advantage of a somewhat bright afternoon's drive home to get a few more shots of Delaware's border and the stones placed by Mason and Dixon.

In DC

I'm in Washington, DC, for few days for a conference of the Census State Data Center Network. We're meeting at the Census Bureau's new headquarters in Suitland, but staying at a hotel in northern Virginia, just across Key Bridge (left) from the District.

We took buses from the hotel to Suitland this morning. We were dropped at the main entrance where we all had to make our slow way through security. That took a while and the conference started late. Ultimately, we managed to make up the time and by lunch we were back on schedule.

In the afternoon we had break-out sessions. I was in a conference room trying to understand the higher (for me) math needed to make sense of the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) when the fire alarm went off and we had to join hundreds of Census workers in an orderly evacuation and a less orderly milling-around outside for about half an hour.

I don't think it was a drill, but I never heard what caused the alarm. I wouldn't be surprised if it was my brain short-circuiting when I tried to understand PUMS data.

We got back to the hotel around six this evening. I had time to wander across Key Bridge and take a short photo-walk along the Canal.


Tomorrow, we'll be back out in Suitland. I'll try to keep my brains from shorting-out again.

Rainy-Day Tourism

I'm amazed to find myself at Thursday evening with no blog posts since the start of the week. The NSGIC Conference can be a brutal week, with days filled completely with meetings and information. I've had little time or energy left to post.

It is important to break away if possible and get a stretch. A small group of us took a few hours Tuesday afternoon to visit the Olbrich Botanical Gardens here in Madison.

It was raining fairly steadily, but we took the umbrellas provided by the Botanical Society and wandered around the gardens until the rain grew too heavy. The gardens boast a variety of landscaping styles. There is a sunken garden, a rose garden, and a formal garden. There are pathways and trellises.

In one corner, a close-packed collection of small plants rests on a pedestal. Two kaleidoscopes focus-in on the plants.

Toward the back, across a bridge, a traditional Thai Pavilion sits serenely among reflecting pools.

It was very pretty. But after a short visit we gamely headed back to the Conference hotel and into more discussions of geospatial data and IT coordination.

Now it is Friday evening and we have just completed our final meeting: the first gathering of a new Board of Directors. Tomorrow morning I have an early flight through Chicago and back to Baltimore. I should be able to get back to Delaware in plenty of time for Sussex Tech's football game against Cape Henlopen High. I'll get to sit with Karen in the stands and watch our daughter play bass with the Tech marching band.

Nineteen Years!

I received a great big vase-arrangement of red, red roses this afternoon at my office. The lovely Karen sent them in honor of our nineteenth anniversary. I am a lucky man. I am a happy man.

On this date in 1988 Karen and I exchanged our vows in Potomac, Maryland. We had a reception at a country-club-like place and made our honeymoon escape in my old VW Jetta. It was a heck of a party.

We spent a night at the Admiral Fell Inn, at Fells Point in Baltimore. The next day we flew to Switzerland for a hot-air ballooning trip. That was pretty damn cool.

I remember standing with Karen in the gondola, looking down on a stream in a green valley, crossed by a covered bridge. The shadow of the balloon briefly shaded a fly-fisherman who looked up and waved.

I remember saying that when we reached twenty years we should bring our (presumed) kids back to Switzerland for a ballooning trip. Karen laughed and laughed. It was an early example of an important part of our relationship; I have crazy ideas and Karen is amused.

But maybe we'll do it. Next year?

Sixth and Seventh Golf Games in 2007

I had two chances to play golf while we were in Vermont this summer. Vermont is, topographically, so much different from Delaware that is great fun and a real challenge to play up there.

At Bakersfield Country Club
On the Tuesday of our week at the Tyler Place, we put together a group of 10 interested in playing a round of golf and headed out to Bakersfield Country Club. Several of us had played there in the past; it is one of my favorite places to play just for being so different from what I am used to here in the flat lands.

Bakersfield is a local club and very down to earth. The parking lot is gravel and the members are neither hoity nor toity. The holes range from rolling meadow layouts to long thin dog-legs that hug the sides of what seem like towering mountains. There are plenty of elevation changes and challenges.

I played poorly, as is my habit, though there were some good moments. Since my drives are dicey at best, I usually play safe and use my 3-wood off the tee. On a course like Bakersfield, where many of the holes feature dense forest on one side and yawning chasms on the other, straight-though-short is a good approach. I carded a par on one hole and felt mostly positive about my game despite a few blow-up holes and a final score of 126.

The weather was lovely, with blue skies and a few clouds.

At Richford Country Club
Later in the week, Andy Southmayd and I headed a bit further out to play a neat little 9-hole course at Richford Country Club. This is another very local club that sits just south of the border with Canada and boasts a healthy membership from north of the line.

Andy found this place and counts it among his favorites. I am fond of it as well. It also varies between meadow and woods and has even more elevation changes than Bakersfield. Like many courses in the area, it includes wonderful mid-fairway boulders that, if hit, can send your ball well off to almost anywhere.

Our round was wet. we played in a slowly lifting fog that occasionally forgot itself and became light rain. On the positive side, it made reading the greens a bit more interesting.

Again I played badly, mixing in a par with a series of mediocre holes and a few blow-ups. Not terrible, but not great. Good only another 126.

Over the last nine years, I've played some seven different courses in upstate Vermont and New York. I've enjoyed all of them, played poorly, learned things, and seen some spectacular views. I've bought golf shirts and hats. There are grass stains from mountainsides on my golf shoes and towel.

Thanks north country. It's been great fun.

Vacation Report #3: The Falls at Niagara

We got to Niagara Falls late in the day on Wednesday, crossed the river/border, chatted briefly with a pleasant young man at Canadian customs, and found our way to a stylishly vintage-looking Holiday Inn just up the hill from the Falls.

I had been to Niagara Falls for a very brief visit back in the fall of 2005 as part of that year's NSGIC Conference. I knew then that I wanted to bring Karen and the girls back for a bit longer stay. This time, we had an evening and a full day to check things out.

We started with a dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of the "Skylon" tower. It featured good food and great views of the Falls and both the US and Canadian Niagaras.

On Thursday, we carried a full load of tourism. We viewed the Falls from up close, both above and below. We walked in the tunnels under the Falls and got soaked on the lower viewing platform. We walked the trail along the wild white water downstream from the Falls. And we visited the butterfly conservatory, where clouds of pastel bugs floated around and among crowds of delighted visitors. If one is lucky (and I was) butterflies stop by to check you out.

Of course we also rode the Maid of the Mist, which ferries visitors up river and as close to the Falls as is prudent. Each passenger is given a blue plastic poncho. When the wind is up, as it was on our visit, these ponchos are a challenge to control. And it is the case that once into the thick spray below the falls, photography is impossible. But this trip is always worth the wetting.

We finished our visit with a dinner at the Table Rock Restaurant, which overlooks the Falls themselves.

The area around Niagara Falls is remarkably developed. When I used to hear about Niagara Falls as a child, I imagined a wild, natural scene. In reality, the Falls provide a center-point between two largish cities; one in each nation. On both sides, the river banks are parks with nicely developed trails and amenities. Back from the banks are hotels and tourist attractions. The Canadian side seems more developed and features towers and a casino or two. But it is a pleasant place to visit.

If only for a day or two.

Vacation Report #2: At Watkins Glen

On Wednesday morning, we headed west from the Binghamton area towards Elmira, then north to Watkins Glen at the southern end of Seneca Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. We wanted to take an hour or two to wander through Watkins Glen State Park.

Watkins Glen includes a deep canyon cut through layers of sedimentary rock by a stream that now drops down a series of waterfalls. Several trails wind along the stream and along the top of the canyon.

It's a lovely spot.

After a quick lunch, we drove north along the west shore of Seneca Lake through New York's wine country. We picked-up the New York State Throughway (I-80) at Geneva and headed west to Niagara Falls.

Vacation Report #1

We've returned from just under two weeks up north. We got back early yesterday afternoon. We hugged our cats, unpacked, started lots of laundry, mowed long grass, took the carrier off the roof of the car, and went off to see the new Hairspray movie (which was great).

We started our wanderings on Tuesday, July 10. We drove north, taking I-95 out of Delaware, I-76 past Philadelphia, and I-476 north through Pennsylvania to Scranton, where we picked-up I-81 to New Milford, PA, where there is a large truck stop and a small Holiday Inn Express.

The truck stop was a Flying J. We had an excellent dinner there and wandered around the store for a bit. The food was wonderful, plentiful and inexpensive, though it might be a challenge to eat healthy there on a daily basis. Clearly, the Flying J folks use their great and low-priced fare to attract business for the fuel and supply sales.

As we ate, we heard the public address system calling out reservation numbers for the showers. The truckers -- who came in all shapes, sizes, colors and genders -- entered tired, hungry and rumpled and left rested, sated, clean and ready to go.

Keep an eye out for Flying J's when you travel. They are pretty cool.

We're On The Road

Back in two weeks.....

On The Road With Dino

Dino has begun his trek from Indonesia to Newark, Delaware. He's blogging his way around the world.

At last posting, Dino was in the airport at Singapore, having come from Jogja via Jakarta. He's got Tokyo, Detroit, and Philadelphia ahead.

I guess it would be too much to ask for "Around the World in 80 Blog Posts," but maybe in 8?

Storming Times Square

Karen, the girls and I made a flying visit to New York City on the Wednesday after Christmas. Irene the Organizatrist put together a bus trip for students and families of the Dance Studio. We sent away for Broadway tickets, booked our bus seats, got up hideously early, and drove over to Millsboro to catch our motor coach.

By chance, one of Colleen's friends from Academic Challenge was in the city with her family, from Seaford, for a few days. Against all odds, we managed to meet them for lunch at the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. Afterwards, they helped us take Standard Tourist Family Portrait #32.



After a short wander around Times Square, checking out the buildings and people, we headed to a matinée of Hairspray. That's a great show: bright, funny and rocking. We loved it.

Waiting in line outside the Niel Simon Theater, I enjoyed watching a young woman from Fox 5 in New York (Vanessa Alfano, maybe? Looking at this again, I think maybe it was Toni Senecal) doing takes for some sort of story. She would walk towards the camera, bouncy and animated, saying whatever the line was supposed to be for her report. Then she would stop, turn on her boot heel, and stalk back to her starting point, fuming and discontented. Next take? Bouncy and happy again.

Everyone in line enjoyed that.

After the show, with dusk falling, we headed up 52nd Street to Fifth Avenue, stopping to shop and take pictures. The girls had a strong urge to check out Saks Fifth Avenue. I thought it a good place to try for a new self-portrait.

Evening on Fifth Avenue, a day or two after Christmas, is crowded. Really, really crowded. We had to play old-fashioned, NFC-style, ground-attack football just to get through the crowds to meet the bus.

Then it was a creep through the streets of Manhattan, out the Lincoln Tunnel, down the turnpike and home. We pulled back into our garage just at Midnight.

It was a long day, but fun.