February 14, 2000 - October 22, 2014 |
insightful observations and cogent commentary on all the really important things in life ... and some of the less important things
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Something Really Good
I was enough taken with Ludlum's book that, over the course of perhaps the next two years, I read everything he had written to that point. Then I found, almost by accident, that he wasn't the only person in the world who wrote exciting spy stories; and when I discovered Frederick Forsythe, I learned that Ludlum wasn't even the great writer of the genre. Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War had so much more texture than any good story from Ludlum that I developed a sort of snobbish disdain for Ludlum's mere works: diverting, perhaps, but nothing like literature. And then I encountered Tom Clancy -- his early works, before he started taking on all kinds of generally less capable writing partners. (Everyone is less capable than Clancy.)
And then, suddenly, I ran out of exciting international spy stories to read. Oh, a few people wrote some good stuff: Ken Follette was okay sometimes, not so good other times; but his historical sagas are much better entertainment. Some of Clancy's more recent collaborations are entertaining and reasonably well written. But books by Vince Flynn and David Baldacci and Daniel Silva, popular though they may be, are relatively insipid and thin; they are to spy novels what Disco was to music. Every time I hear about a writer of books of this type, I check it out, snob though I am, because I love the ripping yarns. But I'm generally disappointed. Most of the books of this genre seem to have been written on a deadline, by people who can barely write for a newspaper. They are the reason God created public libraries, where you can avoid wasting money on books that utterly fail to live up to the blurbs.
The other day, I picked up a book at the library called Dead Eye, by a writer I'd never heard of called Mark Greaney. (He may be the only published writer without a Wikipedia entry. He is, even more surprisingly, one of those "generally less capable writing partners" of Tom Clancy.) This book has turned out to be a truly exciting, engrossing story, written with great texture and sufficient detail to really satisfy the lust for (presumed) authenticity. (If he could resist the urge -- his own, or more likely his editors' -- to state the obvious in melodromatic one-sentence paragraphs, he'd be close to excellence. In any case, he offends far less often than Flynn, Baldacci or Silva.) The character development is succinct and effective; the plots are convoluted but nicely drawn, no action or turn of plot requires some character to do something out of character, and there is no hoary reliance on deus ex machina. The story is coherent, the dialogue sounds real in your head, and the action is gripping. Greaney is a new writer of spy thrillers that I can whole-heartedly recommend. I just hope his production can keep up with my appetite.
[His other books, to this point, are The Gray Man, On Target, and Ballistic. I expect to buy and read all of them pretty soon. I'll probably even consider the three books he co-wrote with Tom Clancy.]
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Saturday, August 9, 2014
End of the End of the Road
There is a reason why they call it "The Grand Canyon":
We arrived at the North Rim on a foggy, drizzly morning, and even in those conditions it was a magnificent spectacle. It was too early to check into the lodge, so we drove up the road to the few viewpoints accessible by car: Imperial Point, Roosevelt Point, Cape Final, Vista Encantada. We stared off into the distance, as the fog rose and fell, toward hoodoos and mesas and great piles of eroded rocks, things with romantic names like Jupiter's Temple and Freya Castle, and we were amazed.
Eventually the fog lifted, and we were amazed again. Words fail me.
The Colorado River used to run red. Since the dams built across it above the Canyon, it's now a mundane shade of greenish-brown for most of the year.
While we were there, we took a hike along the Widforss Trail, which goes west from the road along the rim of the canyon to join with another trail near an overlook at the top end of Transept Canyon.
This formation is called a "temple."
Transept Canyon |
When the fog lifted |
To see the rest of the pictures from the Canyon, click here.
Beginning of the End of the Road
What that means |
After that, we went back and fetched Buttermilk and forced her to indulge in some ice cream from the C-Store in town, then dragged her up to the little miniature golf place for a round. (I won't mention who won; I've already taken all the bows I'm going to take.)
In the evening, the Perfesser mentioned that he wanted to try something called a "poutine," which we had seen on menus in a number of places. It was described as french fries covered with sausage gravy, and he thought, repulsive as that sounded, that we ought to at least try it. After all, we wouldn't go to Delaware and not try scrapple, would we? We recalled, perhaps incorrectly, that Bob's Burgers & Brew in Ferndale had had it on their menu, so we went to the Bob's location in Birch Bay ... which didn't have it. Not only did they not offer it, the hostess wasn't entirely sure what it was. "Is that that Canadian thing with the gravy? Yeah, we don't have that." Ah, well, so we have at least one thing in Canada to look forward to besides the 2015 Women's World Cup.
What that means |
Then it was back to the condo for a last round of margaritas.
Morning comes, and off we go. On the way down to Sea-Tac, we stopped off at Burlington in response to the powerful and ineluctable call of Lafeen's Donuts. This time, it looked like hundreds of people had read and believed my previous post, as the display cases were stripped nearly bare. I could not, therefore, get an exquisitely light French cruller, nor a thick, fruity apple fritter; but had to settle, regrette rien, for a chocolate-dipped old fashioned doughnut and a blueberry fritter. (It's been almost a week and writing this makes me think of contacting them to enquire about a care package.)
Then it was down to the long-term parking where I'd stored my little convertible during the Group Tour. A quick goodbye to Church Lady and the Perfesser (because by now the rental charges on the anemic Rogue were accruing hourly), then throw our stuff in the Roller Skate, and we're off for home, the long way.
The first order of business was lunch, which we had at Las Palmas, a Salvadoran restaurant just down the street from the parking lot, where I had eaten a pretty good breakfast two Sundays before. Salvadoran food is similar in many ways to Mexican food, of course, but with a tropical twist that makes it identifiably different, certainly from the Tex-Mex variety that's so common in my home town, and from the more exotic varieties that are available in many places in south Texas. My own experience with Salvadoran restaurants back home is limited -- I can only think of two that I've been to, though I've been also to Honduran and Costa Rican restaurants, which I think are indistinguishable in any meaningful way from Salvadoran cuisine.
What that means |
Our lunch wasn't quite as good as that breakfast, but it wasn't bad. I had a spinach papusa and a papusa revuelta (if memory serves): beans, beef and cheese on a thick, pillowy tortilla. Both were ordinary-good, neither was exceptional in any way. Overall the place was good enough to recommend but not good enough to recommend heartily ... except that it was cheap. And when I compare the prices I've seen around Seattle to the prices I'm used to around San Antonio, I think Las Palmas is an excellent place for lunch.
N.B.: Las Palmas appears now to be out of business (2020).
After all the build-up to Snoqualmie Falls -- it was on the list of Things To See four years ago, and again two weekends before, and I never managed to get up there -- you would think a curmudgeon like me would have been disappointed. I wasn't. It is a beautiful waterfall, in a nice setting, with a pleasant lodge above it and not really all that many people for a magnificent summer Friday near a big city. In fact, I wish it had been another day, when I didn't have to get back in the car and head on down the road. It would've been real nice to have spent more time there.
We drove, top down, across eastern Washington. Boy, was that a mistake. Generally, my rule is this: if it's not raining, the top will be down if the temperature is more than 70 and less than 94; between 55 and 70, and between 94 and 97, it depends on other factors; but at 55 or less, and 97 or more, the top will be up. But then, I usually have air conditioning. Not this time, so I left the top down even though it got to 103, and nary a cloud in the sky. (Some smoke from the continuing wildfires, but that hardly qualifies as the silver lining in that particular cloud.) So when we pulled into Baker City, Oregon, we were a little crispy around the edges. (After that, no matter the temperature, if the sun was up, so was the top.)
Baker City is a charming little community in eastern Oregon, once a stop on the Oregon Trail, later
Geiser Grand Hotel |
twilight in Baker City |
compare this to May 2013 |
There aren't a whole lot of towns in Utah south of Salt Lake, but Panguitch, a town I stayed in with a friend a couple of years ago, is a pleasant little town with almost all the motels in Southern Utah (it being 20 miles from Bryce Canyon and close also to Zion National Park, Cedar Breaks, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Capitol Reef, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon). It also has at least one good restaurant, the Cowboy's Smoke House. (Don't get the brisket; it was dry two years ago and is still dry, but the sausage is very good and the pulled pork is outstanding. So is the service. The prices are reasonable but they only take cash. They're open, and packed, until 10.)
What that means |
(This is getting too long for most people to bother with reading, so I'll break it off here and continue it on another post.)
Thursday, July 31, 2014
A Nice Place to Live, But I Wouldn't Want to Visit There
for maximum coherence, read all the posts from this trip in order, starting with THIS ONE.
After a day off from touristic pursuits (to do laundry, shop and watch a soccer match on TV), we took a day trip up to Vancouver, British Columbia. We drove inland to the border crossing north of Lynden, Washington (where there was no delay to get across) and went by the set of the current television show "Bates Motel," which airs on some cable channel. (We had thought it was the set of the movie Psycho when we planned the excursion, not having carefully read the place description on line.) Then we headed into the city.Vancouver skyline |
The bartender greeted us cheerfully, and then was never seen again. It being another gorgeous day, we wanted to sit outside, but they only had two-tops there, so we pulled up to a high table just inside the wide open doors. Naturally there were televisions all over the place, so we couldn't entirely avoid watching; but at least they were showing British sports, such as you might have to see in an Irish prison: darts on one screen, golf on the other. (Darts, it seems, is as abstruse as cricket. Scores seem to go up and down at random, and we couldn't tell just by watching whether a throw was good, or otherwise.) Our waitress brought menus and drinks quickly. So far, so good.
The menu includes such overpriced traditional Irish fare as sliders, flatbreads and nachos. These are the things we ordered. (As Hispanics have moved farther and farther north, I have more or less rescinded my rule against eating Mexican food north of Round Rock, but then, this wasn't really Mexican food. Let's call it cucina-inspired.) Church Lady and the Perfesser both went for the pulled-pork sliders. They report that the little burgers had good flavour but not a particularly good texture, neither moist nor dry, just vaguely unsatisfying: too little meat, too little slaw, too much bread. "Disappointing" was the word used twice.
Buttermilk's flatbread was better. It had a topping of pulled pork with pineapple salsa and jalapeños on a crispy layer of bread. The topping was adequate in quantity, though more meat would have been unobjectionable, and the crust maintained its integrity throughout the meal.
My nachos were interesting. They were made from a number of small tortillas, cut in half and fried, then stacked in a jumble on a plate. Toppings of meat (pulled pork again), corn, onions, peppers and jalapeños were scattered across it, then dosed with a drizzle of sour cream. The menu referred to "lots of cheese" on the dish. There was, arguably, the promised amount of cheese, but it was mostly in one part of the plate, as though the arm doing the scattering of ingredients had tired towards the end and just abandoned the effort. Because of the interlacing of the nacho chips, the dish was a little hard to eat, but that produced the rare yet desireable result of allowing me to finish lunch after the Perfesser, who is reknowned for his deliberate approach to meals.
What does that mean? |
We almost didn't learn any of this about the food at Cielli's, because the service was so very bad. (I was reminded of a rude comment of a friend, years ago in Mexico, who told a waiter that we had received lo mas pinche servicio. It would have applied here, but we were all too polite to express ourselves except through the gratuity.) We did not get our food before we had reached the point of calculating how much we should leave for the drinks if we walked out. It was easily a half hour between ordering and serving, during which time we learned nothing about darts scoring either. It would have helped our mood, to say nothing of the tip, if our waitress had come by to check on us during that long wait, or to let us know there would be a delay. Instead, she studiously avoided so much as looking in our direction; she devoted herself to the farther sides of the room, the exterior tables, and the areas behind the kitchen door. She was not a good waitress.
pretty building, not much inside |
Stanley Park is huge, and popular with locals. For tourists, it's not so great. It's so big that you can't walk from one part to another without repeatedly paying the typical exorbitant parking rates. It's so poorly marked that we didn't find the many sites we had wanted to see there, settling in the end for the wildlife of the Lost Lagoon (which we found right off; I guess it's only lost because nobody's looking for it, and I understand why), consisting of lots of racoons and ducks, a few other birds, a squirrel and -- surprisingly -- a coyote; all of whom seemed to want to be fed (except, thankfully, the coyote, which was happy to just chew on himself); and the waterfront view of the Lions Gate Bridge, mainly of interest for the forest of kelp floating along the shore. On our way out of the park, we passed Sunset Beach, which we had intended to visit later on because our guidebook called it "a less populated beach." That must mean it is less crowded than Times Square on New Year's Eve, because it was packed four hours before sunset. We quietly dropped that plan and headed on to Canada Place, which was mildly interesting and slightly informative with its postings on Canadian history; and we drove by the Gastown Steam Clock --- it was too congested to stop, but we got a good long look and a decent picture out the car window while waiting for crosstraffic; we had a stop sign, they didn't.
What does that mean? |
What's that mean? |
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Two Days
for maximum coherence, read all the posts from this trip in order, starting with THIS ONE.
There is a yarn store half a mile up the road from where we're staying in Birch Bay. This became important and required a visit of some protraction on Sunday morning, as soon as it opened. The Perfessor took the opportunity to acquire a novel from a local writer who was sitting under an awning at the Birch Bay Public Market nearby; the novel turns out to be a good story badly told, but he's going to read it if it kills him.
I spent half an hour on a front porch talking to an interesting Marine veteran from Massachusetts who gives the impression of being somewhat addled, though that could be the effect of long years spent in Alaska. After that, we had lunch at Bob's Burgers & Brew, the local outlet of a regional chain. Way too much food, good service. It was also right by the bowling alley, where we all did so abysmally that I shan't report the results in detail here. Suffice it to say, we all need practice.
We went from there to Honaker Homestead Park, which features two attractions: a fragrance garden and a farmstead. The fragrance garden is a small plot of ground planted with aromatic herbs and flowering plants. It includes Tennant Lake and has a 40' tower for wildlife viewing. I didn't see any wildlife, but got nice pictures of Mount Baker.
The fragrance garden |
The farmstead is the legacy of the Honaker family, of Swedish origin. The patriarch was an accomplished architect back in the Old Country, but apparently not happy. He upped-sticks and moved to New Zealand, then to California, before landing in this remote corner of Washington around the turn of the 20th Century. Having designed his own farm buildings, they are somewhat nicer than your run-of-the-mill farmhouse and barn. The barn (and a sort of farmyard petting zoo) were open, but they didn't have enough volunteers on hand to open the house.
The Honaker barn. It's full of old farm equipment, but a little short on explanations. |
Where doughnuts come from |
Gorge Creek Falls |
Ladder Creek Falls |
Monday, July 28, 2014
Busy, Busy
for maximum coherence, read all the posts from this trip in order, starting with THIS ONE.
On Friday, we crossed on the ferry from Swartz Bay, north of Victoria, to Tsawwassen, south of Vancouver, and drove down to our condo in Birch Bay, Washington -- enduring a long wait because of the ludicrous and specious security procedures at the border; procedures which Canada has apparently copied in retaliation, judging from the line waiting on the northbound lanes.
The condo is a nondescript little complex on the one road in the area; tiny seaside cabins across the street in front, a creek behind. Nice enough inside, and with all the necessary accoutrements: utensils, cooking gear, fireplace & television. We spent some time settling in, then headed up to the grocery store -- and, more importantly, the liquor store -- to stock up. We cooked (skillet chicken & rice) & ate in after a pitcher of margaritas had worked their mellowing magic. It was not a tragedy.
This one I actually liked |
"Endangered Species" a quicksand hot tub? |
"Ooh! What's that smell?" |
Next stop was Whatcom Falls Park, where the US Government, following a previous Republican-inspired economic meltdown, built some charming improvents around a stream with a couple of waterfalls, for the employment of that generation and the enjoyment of subsequent ones.
What that means |
After lunch, we walked across the street to the Spark Museum of Electrical Invention, a place filled with odd and rare old devices from the dawn of electricity: Tesla coils and old telephones, radios, televisions, galvanometers, and all the things used to bring mankind to the understanding we now have (some of us, anyway) of electricity and its applications. Best part of the visit was the show they put on once a day, where a man dressed as a mad scientist demonstrates (without really explaining) static electricity and the operation of a Tesla coil. He does some interesting tricks, lighting fluorescent bulbs without connecting them to anything, and putting a volunteer in a giant metal cage and running two million volts at it. Fun for kids, as much fun for grown-ups.
We took a short walk around the city center before heading back to the car and up to Big Four Mountain, east of Granite Falls. There used to be a big resort hotel there, but it burned down in the 1940s, and now it's just a part of the Mount Baker-Snohomish National Forest. So of course the entire area was beautiful, and it would have been perfect in a convertible. We found the trailhead and hiked up toward the mountain.
The mountain is called Big Four because there's a place near the top where, when most of the winter snows have melted away in the spring, snow in the shape of a numeral 4 is left in a low area for a good long while. That, though, isn't the attraction that brought us to the mountain. We were there to see the ice caves that form at the bottom of the mountain. Snow falls from the upper parts of the slopes down near-vertical cliffs that range from two to four thousand feet. It forms a large pack at the bottom, and then snowmelt running down the mountain runs in at the top and out at the bottom, forming large caverns entirely of ice. Of course, with those cliffs and that snow there's a strong likelihood of avalanches, and even now, in mid-summer, the resulting caves could collapse at any time. Somebody dies in there every ten to fifteen years, but that didn't stop a lot of people from running around in the caves with their children. It stopped us from leaving the trail, which is on slightly higher ground 100 yards or so away.... Most of us, anyway; I told myself I didn't come all that way to stand that far back and look, so I climbed down onto the talus deck and approached nearer to the caves, mentally calculating how far a total collapse of the ice would move out away from the mountain wall. (Not all that far, because there's not all that much snow and ice left at this time of year.) I stood in front of the largest cave to get a picture and to feel the alternating hot and cold breezes as winds came first off the mountainside to my right, and then out of the cave in front of me.
Big Four Ice Cave click here to see all the pics from the Condo Week |
What does all that mean? |
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Buds & Bugs
for maximum coherence, read all the posts from this trip in order, starting with THIS ONE.
Having only two days in Victoria, we planned around the weather. Wednesday was to have a good chance of rain, so we planned to do things in the city that would keep us indoors most of the time. It worked out well, and we hardly got wet. In fact, the threatened rain turned out to be nothing more than a slight drizzle until mid-afternoon, at which point the weather gods gave up and left us with only clouds.
Thursday was the important day, when we were to be outside almost completely. There was a slight chance of rain in the morning, but in the event it was only morning clouds, followed by a spectacular midsummer afternoon of blue skies and breezes. We spent way too long at Butchart Gardens, a fabulous botanical spot in a long-dead rich old lady's back yard quarry north of Victoria. My feet still ache from the experience.
We arrived early, shortly after their opening, and stayed until around 4pm. At that point we headed down the road a short distance to the Victoria Butterfly Garden, which was more fun than I had anticipated. When that exhibition closed, we headed across the street for dinner at a so-so family restaurant before going back to Butchart Gardens, because they were supposed to be really something to see after dark.
Ross Fountain at Butchart Gardens |