from D.C.: good things

People like San Francisco and Seattle and New York. I’m saturated with New York and I can’t relate to the west coast. They have weather superiority issues. Every time I talk to my own mother (who lives in Berkeley), I hear about how uniquely special the skies are over there. When I am out visiting, all I notice is how crowded it is underneath their brilliant skies. And of course, Seattle isn’t that brilliant. (I haven’t ever traveled there, so I shouldn’t comment, but I’ve heard enough about the problems with their leaky skies.)

But this year, I have come to love visiting Boston and D.C. It may have something to do with two of its inhabitants, but there’s more to it.

I gave Boston its fair moment here on Ocean a couple of weeks back. Let me focus on D.C.

I go outside to pick up a couple of steamy coffee concoctions and I notice that I am not wearing gloves and it doesn’t matter. The air reminds me of Paris – cold, but nothing a scarf can’t take care of.

Around me, there is light. D.C., unlike any other city in the States, has no sky-scrapers. I think the tallest building (the Cairo apartment house, built in 1894) is 13 stories high – that’s just one more than my condo building in Madison. It caused an uproar when it went up and since then, structures are kept to more modest levels. You get to see a lot of sky. I like sky.

Food? Oh, like Boston, it reeks of good food. Low-end southern tinted, high-end perfectly composed and, what I tend to sample on our nights out – excellent fresh and honest (they list the farms!) middle of the pocket-book stuff.

Like last night, here (and yes, we devoured one of those pies):





And did I mention museums? You know, the free ones? Where you can enter, not wait in line and walk straight up to a painting with your little ones and transport yourself to another place in seconds.





Or, come back years later with the now not so little one and take in a visiting exhibit of mid-nineteenth century British photography.






…And then watch a dad teach his kid to skate (in the Museum sculpture garden).





























You know, the sculpture garden with the big typewriter eraser. (Are you too young to have ever used these? Times were tough for writers of yore.)





We cross the Mall to the metro stop. The Mall. My office looks out over a mall back in Madison. Bascom Mall. But the D.C. Mall is huge. With room enough for a game.





In the late afternoon, we make our way back to Georgetown. Because it’s always so enchanting there. And because they have great cupcakes.









On the way home Im taken (for balance) to a "favorite" rat-sighting places.

So okay, there are rats. I do indeed see one. Squirrels with less attractive tails. An animal-friendly city! Me, I hate pigeons and yet I still love Venice.

There isn't a city in the world without issues. And still, they draw me in. Complicated places. But beautiful too. You can't get too lazy in life and hide. D.C. wont let you hide.

south?

It’s time to take a break. Wisconsin has forged some kind of weather alliance with northern Canada this year and I'm getting impatient with it all. Time to head south. Where a daughter lives. D.C. is south. D.C. hardly ever gets snow. D.C. is balmy now. Springlike almost.

I’m coming!

Say what? I'm bringing with me snow and ice to the east coast? I'm so sorry! But surely this would not include D. C… Could it??

The plane is full of people diverted from cancelled flights into New York and Boston. Lucky us. We’re heading south of that mess.

So it’s unfortunate to hear the pilot come on and say “folks..” (captains like that expression) “… we’re being diverted.” Why? -- I wonder. “Our landing gear isn’t working properly (something about no skid that or the other) and so we need an extra long runway. That means going back to Detroit or landing in Dallas. We’re choosing the latter.”

At least that’s what everyone heard. Dead silence. Then murmurs. (Wow, that’s really south!) Then another announcement. “Folks, there seems to be some confusion. We mean Dulles, not Dallas.”

The minute cell phones are permitted, the whole plane calls everyone they know to tell the story of Dallas, no, Dulles, and ha ha! isn’t it funny?

People like a happy ending.

But it’s icy and foggy here. I take the city bus from Dulles to DC downtown and I can barely recognize anything outside. The city is hiding behind a layer of cold, gray air.





I am a bad weather magnet!

Still, I'm not discouraged. This is daughter-land! And weather patterns change. And walking from the metro stop to her place I see this:





...and this:





Perhaps not balmy. But warm enough for someone to be sitting outside. How about that! How spring-y!

moon beams

Last night, I wanted to see my city bathed in a moonlit landscape of bronze and gold. I wanted to watch the skies warm up. I wanted to see the eclipse that was announced as being best witnessed from my home town. Not to be repeated until 2010.

I had a three-hour time span. The night was crystal clear.

I stayed home.

It's so cold outside!

But I did take a quick peek from my balcony. Good stuff. Up there, between my condo and infinity, there was a pretty moon all orange and, from one side, bright.





The next day (today), I was lost in a universe of work from sunrise to sunset. And I couldn’t be bothered with moons or stars or lights bathing landscapes, or much of anything else, really.

Oh, how quickly moon beams fade.

cold

High of 6?? No, you don't feel my pain (you folks, south of here).

I wait at the bus stop. In the shelter hut. I’m not a fan of them. What can I say -- they are dirty. Still, they offer protection.

A couple sits on the bench. Very young. She snuggles into him. He’s detached, but it could be an image thing. She takes out a pack of cigarettes. Why you doin’ that? – he asks. I paid for them! –she protests. And look, I won $3 in the lottery! And then – hey, look at these! She takes from her pocket a crumpled strip of photos. Fetus photos.

He glances over, says nothing. Look here, you can see his wee-wee. He looks, says nothing. She lights her cigarette and only now do I notice that she could indeed be quite pregnant.

I also notice that she has a tooth missing and that she is wearing ankle socks. On this horribly cold day.

She snuggles into him again and lights her cigarette. I leave the shelter.

And the whole episode just shakes me on so many levels.


I get off on campus, pick up a cup of coffee at the bookstore and walk to the Law School. You know how you can tell it’s icy cold here? The guys are not only not in shorts, their heads are covered.




My class ends late. I look out my office window. For a long time. Just a person or two out there, on Bascom Hill.



I eat a sweet potato chip and head home.

today

Today, over coffee, a friend suggested that I break beyond the tame in Ocean. (Actually she did not use the words “break” or “beyond” or “tame,” but I chose to hear it that way.)
I thought about it for a second and then said this – Ocean is a leisure blog. It explores the possibilities of that component of your life.

I’m not sure I fully believe that, but it sounded good.

And so here I am, on a major political event day in my state and I walk away from it here, on Ocean.

Well, not totally. I’ll say this much: Ed and I cancelled each other out in the voting.

Other Wisconsin news? It was cold. Even the bus felt cold. But, I get off, I go vote, I walk home, open the door to my condo, and suddenly, winter feels like a small nothing.





In the late afternoon, I drive to the café, passing a playground in a very small park. Everything is iced over. No kids here. What a surprise.





Returning home again, I watch a guy walk a kid up toward a park trail. He points to the ice on the trees. The kid listens. They walk on.




And that is today, political happenings notwithstanding.

from Door County: winter storm

We saw it coming. And sure enough, we wake up to the sound of ice pellets hitting the glass door.

It’s going to be a long day.

I lose myself in work.

The Inn is empty except for us and the innkeeper. We go downstairs to confirm that we will be staying an extra day. I don’t think this was in doubt. The weather looks…severe. Our innkeeper tells us that we may get snowed in by mid-day (the Inn is a couple of miles away from the main road). He’s urging us to think about food early, before the snow piles up.

By early afternoon, we’re restless. We borrow a shovel (just in case) and venture out to town. To stock up. To eat. To walk around a little.

Not bad so far, I tell Ed. The road by the Inn feels very manageable.




We get bold. I suggest crossing the Peninsula to Bailey's Harbor. These are short distances and if the roads aren’t too bad, we can eat there. We can even head north along the coast. How about that! A peek at the wilderness in a snowstorm!

We go slowly, but really, it seems very drivable. Some businesses are still open, the main roads at least are being plowed regularly, even as the storm dumps more snow and ice with each hour.

Along the coastal road (Q), it’s very very quiet. We see the lake and it looks so very different today.





The road bends into the forest. We’re surrounded by evergreens, now not so green, because of the snow. Sometimes the windshield is hit by pellets, at other times by the quiet flakes. No one is out playing in the snow today. Okay, almost no one.





I remember this stretch of road well, from summer days of many decades past. Days of wildflowers and creeping rose bushes. I pick up the woodsy Rustic Road toward Cana Island – it’s where you can find Door County’s remaining lighthouse. We get out and hike to the island’s edge. You used to have to slosh through water to get to Cana and the lighthouse. But now, I can see clumps of growth through the snow. But just barely. It’s all being covered by torrents of snow.

The lighthouse looks lonely, out there, facing the full force of the storm. We walk around it, trying to keep our faces away from the gusts of sharp pellets of ice.





It’s hard to say where the island ends and the water takes over. Much of the shoreline is under a winter cover. And there isn’t an edge, really. Just a swirling mass of water and frozen bricks of ice.





And now the wind is really picking up. The snow is persistant and dense. One last look at the frozen waters of Lake Michigan…





…and we start to head back toward the car, leaving behind an island completely buried in ice and snow.










The Rustic Road is looking very rustic now. The snow covers tracks quickly and so movement is slow.





Still, by the time we reach the village of Bailey’s Harbor, I'm sensing that the snow has again changed it's tone. It's become more gentle. There’s time for a late lunch/early dinner at the Harbor Fish Market. It feels good to shut the world of snow out for a while.





We order the “catch of the day” (which, btw, comes, not surprisingly, from Maine) and mop up every last drop of sauce on the theory that you never know where your next meal will come from… And still no appetite for dessert.





We cross the peninsula and pass one village, then another. Some eating places are actually opening for dinner, but we've had enough. I turn in toward our Inn, gun the engine and push our way up the hill, following someone’s tracks, assuming that the vehicle knew the road better than we do.

And we get back without so much as a slide.


It's Monday now. The drive back to Madison is like child’s play. Even though the 220 or so miles moves us from bright fields of glistening cherry trees to landscapes of blowing and gusting snow. All beautiful. Really, I forgive my state for being so cold. For now.

from Door County: the peace before the storm

Such a calm beginning to the week-end! Wake up, look out the window, see this:





The clouds disperse, the sky's blue, that blue that makes you not hate February quite so much. It's a fleeting moment of winter love.

It’s a perfect day.

We have skis with us. We have enthusiasm. We have a state park across the road, on the Green Bay side of the peninsula. We glide quietly through a winter forest.















Magnificent. That alone was worth the drive. We watch others love this day equally energetically.










And, we climb a lookout tower to get a different view of the coastline as it dips into the village of Ephriam.





I tell Ed – this is the tower I climbed with daughters when they were little. It taught me to get my fear of heights under control.
It’s under control? – the man knows my weaknesses.


Our innkeeper suggested that I stop in and say hi to Joel, over at the basement café of the Ecology Store. It’s in the old meeting house in Sister Bay.

Joel is from one my favorite spots in France -- Brittany. He’s been in Door County for about a dozen years – oh, what one doesn’t do for one’s sweetie! - but he speaks enthusiastically about the village of his kid years. And, remarkably, it is the village where I’m expecting to get to this spring. He’s thrilled. I always want to tell people to go there – it’s so beautiful, but it’s so far! Oh, I know. It’s at the very western tip of France. For me, that’s the attraction.

Joel makes a fantastic curried cauliflower bisque and a hot cheese and tomato sandwich. The coffee is best of best. Or, maybe it’s the setting – by a warm stove, after several hours on the trails.





It’s late afternoon, but I still want a look at the Michigan Lake side of Door County. Newport State Park is a place I used to go to with daughters and I want to see it now, in the winter cold of a February sunset.

We give up on skis and hike along the coast, then through the forest, then out again until we see the islands around the northern bend.















The wind is sharp now and the sun is almost gone. Ed leads me out onto the iced-over beach.

How do you know we’re not over water? – I ask. It’s no secret that my adventuring quotient is far lower than his.
There are grass clumps here.
They could be underwater. Or sporadic islands.

But we forge ahead, because the waves, breaking against the ice are so loud, so beautiful, so harsh, that you want to get closer, just for that one spray, caught on your shivering camera (okay – shivering hand; the camera doesn't care).





We better hurry back, Ed warns. He has this way of being calm, indifferent really, and then suddenly infusing an urgent note, making me think that we are in imminent danger.

But we’re not. The wind is strong, but the path is marked by snowshoes and we make our way through the darkening forest to the beach as the sun fades, throwing its inevitable red streaks everywhere.





We’re exhausted. We eat dinner at a place just around the corner from our Inn. Solid Door County supper club fare. Our appetites are huge. But still no room for anything sweet.


I’ve been tracking the approaching storm system all week long and it looks pretty certain that it'll hit us hard enough, so that we will not make it out of Door County Sunday.

No matter. I have my books, my work materials, my chocolates and a half bottle of rosé from Cassis. And so another tempest begins. With pellets and fat wet flakes and most everything inbetween.

from Door County: snowed in!

Fading Internet, disappearing roads, disappearing world!

More later. Maybe much later.

en route to Door County: sweet trails

It’s cold. The car steams up inside, freezes on the outside. So we head north.

Ed asks: we’re stopping at Oshkosh for chocolates, right?

This is a puzzler to me. I associate Oshkosh with kid overalls and experimental aircraft shows. A working town with no particular culinary traditions.

You don’t remember the article I read you from the NYT?
I don’t remember the article you read me from the NYT.

In case you, too, missed it, the article describes the old fashioned chocolate and candy shops in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley (that would include the towns of Oshkosh and Appleton, with Green Bay thrown in for good measure). You wouldn’t think there would be such a high demand here for homemade chocolate. But there is.

And everyone knows where to find them. We pull up to a drive-through Starbucks in Oshkosh.

We’re looking for Oaks Candies. Know where they are?
Of course! Follow 9th to Oregon!




Inside, it looks…oldfashioned. I’m trying to understand candy labels – there are creams and clusters, but I’m beginning to see that Wisconsin has its own faves:




Anglefood, meltaways, oysters.

We buy a little bag of 6 candies for $3.26. We eat several. Very sweet. Fresh.

Where’s Doty Street? – we ask.
She knows we’re looking for the competition. But, she’s Oshkosh friendly. Down the street, turn right at the gas station except it’s not really a gas station it’s like a car dealer, and then right on Doty.

We follow the trail. Just a breath away from Lake Winnebago.




In a residential neighborhood, a house, with barely a sign announcing it’s business there in the basement.





Hughes Home Maid (pun intended) Chocolate Shop. You want authentic? You want friendlier than you could possibly imagine? You want an invitation into the kitchen? Free samples? Oysters? Easter Bunnies? The best English toffee? Here, put yourself in my shoes for the moment:






















We leave with a pound box of milk chocolates (Ed and I share a love for quality milk chocolate – we search out the stuff in all food stores) for $9.50.





I’m thinking we should stop now while the sugar is still under control. But we’re so close to the others! Shouldn’t one compare?

In Appleton, the gas attendant gives us directions to Vande Walle’s. It’s on Mall Drive. Easy.





Here, the samples are flowing at us fast and furious. Try this, try that. We do. And we take the self-guided little tour of the kitchens. More samples there.




When it comes time to buy, I am drawn to the garlic pistachios. You can understand that, can’t you? When the nice nice super nice saleslady describes the center of an aglefood chocolate, I’m starting to perspire. Still, I pick up a bag of toffees and chocolate covered jellies. I love those! Memories of Poland!

You need a bag to carry all that, don't you? Sheepishly -- yes. And where is...
Two miles down on Wisconsin, you’ll come to Superior. It’s there. – they tell us. They know what we’re up to. Our next stop on the candymaking tour. Wilmar Chocolates.





Would you like a sample of anglefood? No! I mean, yes, sure, thank you. I’ll pass. How about a cinnamon spice fennel piece? Yes, of course. No, I’ll pass. Mmmm… delicious.






Wilmar’s is different. At Wilmar’s, it’s criminal to pass on the dark chocolate stuff.

The clerk asks an older man who comes in. Would you like a piece of the cinnamon spice fennel… No thanks. I’m not into that newfangled stuff.

Wilmar’s is breaking new ground here.

In the back, one chocolatier is finishing up his work. You’re taking pictures? Yes… you know. Came here because of the article. Yes yes, well, hope you like our chocolates.





I can hardly stand the sight of another. And yet..

We have chocolate macadamia turtles. They’re very seasonal. Sure, throw in that. Three half pound boxes, $27. For small gifts, no? I'm still smiling. Must be all that chocolate covered anglefood.



Ed asks about the next stop, but I am sugared out. You can’t enter a chocolate making place and exhibit no enthusiasm for the free samples. It’s just not polite.

We listen to the radio as we make our way up north, into the Door County peninsula – the pinkie finger of our state, surrounded by the waters of Lake Michigan.

It’s cold, the sun is long gone, the snow layer around us is significant. It’s quiet.





Juniper Inn is off the road a bit, just past Fish Creek. The innkeeper is waiting for us. The fire downstairs is blazing. Cookies in a jar, a sherry decanter on the nightstand. Our “Sunflower” room looks over a forest of birch and fir.

We unload the car and head out for a seafood dinner at Kristofer’s. 20% off, all seafood on Fridays.

It is, as I remember it from previous trips many many years ago. Twinkling. Subtle. Nice.





We pass on dessert. Nothing sweet tonight, please.