2020 Pandemic Wandering, Day 2

Friday, June 12, Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee

The actual trace, in 2008

So I drove the entire length of the Natchez Trace Parkway. You may not know this -- I only figured it out the first time I was on the Parkway -- but the Natchez Trace Parkway and the Natchez Trace are two very different things. The Natchez Trace is the web of buffalo migratory paths and the footpaths Native Americans developed, first to follow the buffalo, and then in their trading with other tribes through what is now Mississippi; it was later improved as a Post Road in the early 19th Century, but the development of the steam-powered river boat put an end to that use.

The Parkway is just a well-maintained country road that roughly parallels the Trace, built originally as a back-to-work project of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. There are few major towns along it -- only Jackson and Tupelo, Mississippi and Florence, Alabama -- and commercial traffic is prohibited. In the first 100 miles I drove out of Natchez, I saw another car about every nine miles. Things picked up after that, as I approached Jackson. The road is two lanes the entire length of 444 miles, and the speed limit is 50 almost the whole way. (In places it drops to 40.) It's a pleasant drive, with almost no challenge to it, and very little drama.


Putting two and two together, when planning the drive I figured nine hours, plus stops. Google Maps confirmed that estimate, giving me a time of eight and a half hours. I must've made a lot more stops than I thought, as it took me from 7:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night to make the drive. At the outset, I did make a number of stops: there are a lot of signs along the route that say things like "Historical Site, 1/2 mile," but I quickly realized they were all of the "Something used to be here" variety, so I bypassed them when I figured that out. (There are also a lot of places where you can hike portions of the actual Trace; those are of the "Come

Come Experience Misery

Experience Pre-Industrial Misery" sort, and I chose to pass on the offer.) I made a stop for a meagre lunch at Kosciusko, Mississippi (a lousy convenience-store fish sandwich) where I met another couple from San Antonio (but they live waaaay out in Ultra-Loopland, so it's not like we would ever get together). They were cruising the Parkway on a tricycle, so we had that to talk about, plus the wife is from France, so there was that.

Jackson Falls

I may have been able to make the drive on a single tank of gas, but decided that it would be cutting it uncomfortably close, so I did get off and drive 3 miles down another highway (and back) for gas in Alabama. And once I got to Tennessee there were a couple of waterfalls to check out: the first was a short walk for not much to see; the second, Jackson Falls, was a pretty steep climb down and an equally steep climb back up, but at least the falls were worth the effort. Plus I met a transplanted New Orleanian, a nice guy who invited me to join him and another Orleanian living in Nashville for dinner Saturday night. (I didn't go. I'm writing this blog instead.)

Meanwhile, I've learned two new things. Well, okay, one new thing, plus I've had one thing I already knew confirmed.

The new thing is that the hair on the top of my head has thinned to the point where I now get sunburned driving with the top down. I wear a visor (and lots of suntan lotion) when I travel, and it's never been a problem before. Now, it is, so I will have to start a search for a hat or cap that doesn't get sucked off when the car is in motion. That could be a problem, with the shape of my head. (Maybe I could get a bill cap and cut out the back part of the crown...?)

The thing I've had confirmed is that I prefer being cheap. The hotels I chose in Natchez and Nashville are the type that certain friends who've travelled with me in the past would have preferred. Not the Four Seasons by any stretch, but nicer than I usually go for; 3-star places. Since rates are low just now, what with the corona virus keeping people home, I decided to go with things my friends would prefer. It ain't me, though. I paid $87 plus tax for a room in Natchez; I could have gotten one that would have been good enough for me for less than $60. I miss the thirty bucks. This room in Nashville is about the same cost, but on top of that, there's a parking charge of $20/night that really gripes my ass. (I thought I specified "free parking" when I searched for the room on Expedia or whatever site I booked through. I may be wrong. In any case, I won't make that mistake again.) I could have gotten a perfectly decent room with free parking at a La Quinta -- several in town -- and saved more than $80.

So from now on, two stars is enough for me when I'm travelling alone. Hell, one is sufficient in most places, but I find those often aren't much cheaper than 2-star motels. (Of course, I end up in a lot of 1-star or no-star motels, because that's all a lot of small towns offer.) All I want is a conveniently-located clean room with free parking and internet (another tick mark against the place in Natchez).

And, again, here's a link to the picture album for this trip.

2020 Pandemic Wandering, Day One

I wrote this Thursday night, but couldn't publish it then because the Internet at the fancy-schmancy hotel I used was not acceptably secure. Sorry for the delay.
 
First, a rant:

We are in the middle of a serious pandemic, which surely everyone in the country knows. Unfortunately, people seem to not understand the most basic fact about this pandemic disease, which is that is spreads from one person to another through the air we breathe.

Travelling alone in a car, I feel pretty safe from infection. Stopping at a gas station seems safe enough, as I can generally do my business there entirely away from other people. Even when I go into a convenience store (because of course the card reader at the pump wasn’t working) the clerk is behind a plexiglas shield. OK, safe enough there. But when I went to a Subway shop for lunch, I saw 8 people in line, none of them wearing a mask. Even worse, the three “sandwich artists” behind the counter weren’t wearing masks. 

Those are the people who, more than anyone else, should wear masks. The are the primary vectors for the disease. They are potentially exposed to the virus by every single person who steps up to place an order, and they will pass that exposure along to every subsequent person they talk to. 

I went somewhere else for lunch. Subway sandwiches are pretty good, and I like knowing what I’m getting, nutritionally speaking, but they are not literally to die for.

OK, so that’s off my chest now.

DAY 1: Thursday, June 11, San Antonio to Natchez

The drive over was uneventful. Top down all the way, and for those who are homebound in this health emergency, I can report that intercity traffic along I-10 is only slightly less than in normal times. Certainly every over-the-road truck is out there, and traffic between Katy and Houston was heavy enough that I opted to take the Katy Tollway, where mine was one of three cars I saw using it before the tollway ended at Loop 610. And for those who know me, the fact that I was willing to pay the extra dollar to use the tollway along there should be proof enough that traffic in the mainlanes was heavy.

I got to my hotel in Natchez about 6pm. There was no one at the desk, so while I waited for the clerk to return I made some calculations and decided that I could grab a quick dinner and get to Windsor Ruins in time to take some sunset pictures there. I had planned to stop there in the morning — it’s just a few miles off the Natchez Trace Parkway, and about 40 miles from my hotel. 

So I drove up there. A nice drive: once I passed the city’s airport, there was almost no traffic at all and the sun was low enough in the sky to the west that it produced no glare and little heat. I got to the ruins, down a pleasant country lane, and was the only person there.

Windsor Ruins

Windsor Ruins are the remains of a huge plantation mansion built just before the Civil War. It survived that cataslysm largely unscathed, only to burn down in a fire 25 years later. All that remains is the Corinthian collonade that surrounded the house. I was expecting it to be as mystically eerie as the reconstructed collonade from the US Capitol’s porch that stands in the National Arboretum in Wasshington DC (see below), but because these ruins are somewhat unstable, they are surrounded by a six-foot-high chain-link fence, so you cannot walk among the columns; and the fence is high enough that, for most of its circumference, it’s very hard for even a tall person to get a good picture. I could just get my lens over the top rail if I stood on tiptoe, and not always then. (There’s also a place in back where some frustrated tourist or uncaring teenager has cut the fence open.) Still, I think I got some decent pictures (including, I hope, a couple of nice shots with the car in them. Sadly, I won’t know until tomorrow, because this fancy hotel I chose to stay in (because rates are cheap right now, what with the pandemic) has an unsecured wireless internet with an unrecognised certificate, and so Firefox, my browser of choice, will not allow me to connect to it. So I will have to wait until tomorrow to upload my pictures and have a look at them, at which time I will cut and paste this narrative from my notepad to my blog.

The collonade at the Nat'l Arboretum, in DC

 








And here's a link to the pictures from this trip.

The Adventure Resumes

Oh, this "lockdown" has been tedious. Not so much for me: my normal life before coronavirus wasn't so very different from life in lockdown. Still, plans were upset.

Several years ago I acknowledged that I had driven my little convertible into the ground, as expected, and I got rid of it with the expectation that I would find something else to replace it with; another convertible, newer and possessed of a longer

The Old One

lifespan than a 13-year-old car with close to 200,000 miles on it, but one with the legroom and trunkroom that I absolutely require for the kind of travelling I like to do; and one with something like the sexy flowing lines of the old convertible.

Well, surprise, surprise: after a search of 4 or 5 years, I accepted the fact that there simply are no newer convertibles that  have the particular combination of attributes I wanted. There are beautiful cars out there, to be sure; I'm particularly attracted to the large Mercedes convertible. But none of those pretty cars, including especially the large Mercedes, have sufficient trunk room. Once you put the top down, an adequate stowage compartment becomes a slot for a briefcase. And other pretty convertibles start out with a too-small trunk.And others have cockpits so restrictive that I can barely slide under the steering wheel.

So last year I did some reflecting, and decided that, given the limited time I have left to do the kind of travelling I want (even though I'm still only 49 again), and the limited demands I make on my road car -- averaging 40 mph on back roads, even for days at a stretch, just isn't the sort of challenge a decent vehicle, even an old one, will succumb to -- I decided that what I need is another old sexy Jag. So I bought one, in January, in California. Drove it home just in time to beat the virus to South Texas. (Possibly worse.) And so it's been pretty much sitting in my driveway, laughing at me, as I cancel one planned trip after another, waiting for some place to go.

The New One

Enough. I can "social distance" as well in a car by myself as I can in my own neighbourhood. While in past travels I have occasionally met new people, and even developed a handful of good long-distance friendships with people from across the country, and renewed some old relationships, there's I see no reason why I should feel more at risk talking briefly to a masked hotel desk clerk or a waitress in a cafe in some remote hillside community in Kentucky than I already am when fondling groceries at the local supermarket, or having coffee and chilaquiles in the local taquería. So, why sit home?

And so, my county count will resume. Come Thursday, I'm heading out. First I plan to drive the entire length of Natchez Trace Parkway (I've already driven most of it: 40 mph on a nice country road uninterrupted by cross-traffic for 8 hours), then I'm off for a wander through the backroads of Tennessee and Kentucky, visiting counties I've never been to before. (There are plenty in Kentucky, and I won't get to all of them; there are fewer in Tennessee, but I'll only get to about half of what's left.) Then, up into Ohio, where there are six counties I've never seen, all in the northwest part of that state, so I will get to all of them, and that will make Ohio the 32nd state that I finish with. I'll get to some counties in Indiana and Missouri on the way home, but again, won't finish with those. (I could, easily, if I was willing to take the time, but the Merseyside Derby is set to take place on Father's Day, and I want to be home in time to watch it with my wife. It matters, especially this year. Certainly more than a few additional counties in the midwest.)

In past years, I would post prolix accounts of my trips as I went along. (As here, for example.) That got inconvenient when I travelled with friends, as there was usually something more interesting to do than type all evening. So I just started posting links to the pictures I took that day. Then that got inconvenient, as technology issues often got in the way. So I switched to just posting links to the photo albums when I got home. Well, this time I'll be travelling alone again, so I figure to have not much else to do of an evening than post travelogues every evening, or at least most evenings, wifi permitting. That plan was threatened by the fact that both of my computers were out of action, one dead, one dying. But today my little Macbook Air was saved from the rubbish heap by the timely intercession of a not-too-inconveniently-located repair shop (and two hundred dollars), no thanks to Apple and its poorly designed website.* So I will have my little computer along, and my camera batteries are charging as I type, and maybe there will be something of interest to take a picture of, once I get to Natchez.

Stay tuned.

The County-Count Status Map (not totally up-to-date)

* for example: I forgot my Apple ID, so I clicked on the "forget?" link ... and the first thing it tells you to do is enter your Apple ID. Duh.

Best Films of 2019

There were some pleasant surprises during this past year, and of course some resounding disappointments; but there were very few films that I regret having paid to see ... mainly because I saw most of the really bad ones on second run, and there just aren't many movies that are a waste of a dollar (or two; prices have gone up). One came really close, though.

The year's best (in descending order):

All is True: Shakespeare in retirement. This film would get my vote for best movie of the year, and for Oscars for Kathryn Wilder ("Judith") and director Kenneth Branagh.

Judy: Renée Zellweger absolutely becomes Judy Garland. Poignant, subtle, intense and moving.

Stuber: Seriously, a very good buddy film. Very funny, and very well written. A real surprise.

Shazam: Good performances, excellent special effects and a not-too-

silly coming-of-age story combine with a solid script that was, mercifully, light on Marvel Studios' usual shallow philosophy.

Black and Blue: A surprisingly insightful look at the struggle people face with expectations of divided loyalties, it manages to avoid most cheap sentimental mush.

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood: What would've happened if the Manson Family had gotten the wrong address that night. A better screenwriter could've told the story in about half an hour less, though, and a better director would have made him get the writing tighter.



The best of the rest (kind of in descending order): 

On the Basis of Sex: the Ruth Bader Ginsburg's story from her entrance to law school to hir first big court win. A good story, a good performance, a good period piece.

Hotel Mumbai: A telling of the story of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and a very good telling at that: effective but brief set-up to introduce the scene and the characters, then deep exploration of the reactions of hotel staff and guests, with minimal "humanizing" of the terrorists.

JoJo Rabbit: World War II through the eyes of a ten-year-old Hitler Youth. This touching film is beautifully shot and the writing is amusing, despite the sad subject. Plus, it's always impressive when a child actor give a subtly nuanced performance.

Instant Family: A real tearjerker, with a choppy script but a wonderful story. I really wanted to slap the bitch playing the adoptive mom, but someone in the film did it for me.

Gemini Man: Once you get past the "youthification" technology that can make Will Smith look 25 again, you find you're watching a pretty good action film.

The Best of Enemies: The technical limitations of a small budget are masterfully overcome by a stirring, even amazing, story and solid performances by all the principals.

Brittany Runs a Marathon: I laughed a little; I cried a little more. A warm, funny story and workmanlike film. 

The Upside: Predictable, yes, and unlikely "based-on-a-true-story" story, it was kept surprisingly interesting by good performances from both principals, Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston.

Rocketman: The music makes a good accompaniment to this Elton John biopic, looking back through 50 years of fantasy-filtered memory. An excellent performance by Taron Egerton makes it hard to remember that, in reality, Bernie Taupin's lyrics weren't usually about Elton John.

Long Shot: Seth Rogen gets hired by his former babysitter, who is now Secretary of State. If you can ignore the politically correct claptrap, there's some really funny stuff in this movie -- much more than one usually finds in his work.

Downton Abbey: An opulent continuation of a television series that I gave up on after three seasons. The situations are contrived, and the script tries to cover too many characters' problems, making the film's story feel superficial. Still, it's gratifying to see the honour of unglamourous work presented without apology.

Knives Out: Crammed full of stars from the B+ list (including former Marvel Action Heroes hoping to have further careers), this film's entertaining but silly plot amuses with red herrings but doesn't actually twist.



The rest that were good enough (in no particular order):

Bumblebee: another surprisingly good action film, from the Transformer series. The story's good, albeit trite, and the cardboard villains are ... well, cardboard. Excellent special effects help make this movie entertaining, though it really could have used some development of the potentially romantic side-story.

The Kid Who Would Be King: Morgana's costume was magnificent, and the English countryside was a great asset to this production. The special effects were all well-designed, but execution was not always to the highest standard: while Merlin's transformations were exemplary (and generally amusing as well), the movement of the Undead Warriors' horses seemed too jerky. And these kids' acting was wooden, a sign of perhaps rushed directing. Compare these performances to the child actors in JoJo Rabbit, above, or the early Harry Potter films.

Cold Pursuit: Revenge in the snow with some black humour to lighten the mood; well-written, well-acted, well-made, though no part was a stretch for anyone in the film.

Fighting With My Family: Unattractive characters that make you feel empathy makes this a suprisingly inspirational story. The acting is stiff in places, and the pacing is iffy.

Yesterday: This Beatles-based rom-com would have been far, far better if they'd actually performed whole songs: the only one done all the way through was over the closing credits. The ending is kind of lame, too.

Hobbs and Shaw: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Kevin Hart's small part is the best bit.

Angel Has Fallen: Despite the plot having as many holes in it as the hospital wall after the big gunfight scene, it's an enjoyable shoot-em-up.

Avengers: Endgame: It didn't seem as long as it was, but thank God they didn't feel the need to actually introduce characters, or it would have been an hour longer. It's just another well-made action flick running on the usual shallow substance.

Ford Versus Ferrari: Excellent sound work, done with artistic restraint. There were some really funny moments to lighten the gritty work of auto racing.

The Good Liar: A complex plot and good performances from the leads (Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, who are capable of more than we see here) raises questions about when retribution ceases to be justice and becomes mere vindictive revenge.

Honey Boy: Interesting without being in the least memorable.

Jumanji 2: the Next Level: as good as the earlier issue, despite the usual silly story line.


Not really good enough:

The Favourite: Lavish, but the dialogue misses a bit and the feminism is too on-the-nose.

Alita: Battle Angel: Very good special effects and a fairly good story (except for the idiotic romantic bit), but the whole movie is just a set-up for a franchise that, if it comes to fruition, will suck investment dollars away from more deserving pictures.

They Shall Not Grow Old: A World-War-One documentary by Peter Jackson. It's very slow to start, but picks up after a while, yet the Director's Notes after the closing credits are more interesting than the actual film.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Fascinating animation, sometimes more difficult to follow than a modern rapid-cut fight scene on film. It's really just a politically-correct origin story for yet another Spiderman, complete with all the trademark Marvel Studios shallow philosophy.

Aquaman: The star-power of Nicole Kidman doesn't make up for the comic-book production qualities, a throwback to earlier films from Marvel Studios; nor for the jejeune story, nor for special effects that aspire to more than they achieve. I can't resist saying, I would throw this one back.

Isn't It Romantic: I'm not sure if this Rebel Wilson vehicle is meant as a send-up of rom-coms, or as just a rom-com itself. Either way, it falls short, though it remains a pleasant enough little movie, I suppose; sillier than I'd expected.

Alladin: Kind of hokey. The cartoon version was much better. Will Smith did alright as the genie, but the guy playing Aladdin seems to have no particular talent beyond the right ethnicity.

 

Good Boys: It must be really hard to get kids to recite dialogue in a natural way. That chore is made even harder when the dialogue they have to recite is kind of stilted to begin with. A weak coming-of-age film.

The Art of Self Defense: One of my least-favourite actors (Jesse Eisenberg) in a black comedy about a guy who joins a karate class after being mugged. The interesting plot twists and absurd situations are hampered by a relentingly slow pace.

Hustlers: Two-dimensional female characters having fun and stealing from one-dimensional male characters. As a man, I find its portrayal of men insulting, but at least the music was good. (And another plus: having just seen the movie two weeks before allowed me to actually recognise one of its stars in a real-life encounter. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known what JLo looks like.)


Worst of the lot (in descending order):

The Current War: Slow, dull, disjointed; a movie full of uninteresting villains, with nary a flawed hero in sight.

Booksmart: Biggest disappointment of the year: a politically-correct coming of age rom-com set in a painfully outré LA high school. I literally wanted to fast forward through the lesbian sex scene (and thank goodness there was only one). I only laughed twice -- actually, guffawed -- both times near the end of the film when relief was in sight.

John Wick 3: Parabellum:  A spectacle of almost uninterrupted carefully choreographed quick-cut fight scenes held together only by the loosest and most ludicrous hint of a plot.

Robin Hood: No redeeming features. So-so action and special effects, Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx at their worst, and an utterly silly telling of the legend. Comes as close as any movie ever has to making me want my dollar back.

Best Films of 2018

I have a friend (he knows who he is) who, every year, sends me a New Year's Day greeting that includes his lists of favourite books, movies, trips, etc., of the old year. I wanted to be ready for him, so I started keeping track of the movies I saw during the year.

For the first time, his NYD card didn't include his top movie of the year.

Still, I had this long list of movies I'd seen, along with a rating I'd given each (one to five stars), so I thought I'd publish it here, for no particular reason. I know it's out of date, but I don't care.

Five-Star Movies:
None

Four-Star Movies:
The Greatest Showman  
Crazy Rich Asians
The Green Book
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
Blindspotting

Three-Star Movies:
Hostiles
Game Night
Red Sparrow
Ready Player One
Leave No Trace
The Spy Who Dumped Me
Mile 22
Juliet, Naked
Bad Times at the El Royale
22 July
Widows
Hunter Killer

Two-Star Movies:
Black Panther
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Call Me By Your Name
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Equalizer 2
Mission Impossible: Fallout
The Old Man and the Gun
Bohemian Rhapsody
Sweet Land

One-Star Movies:
Tomb Raider
Rampage
I Feel Pretty
Blockers
Deadpool 2
Life of the Party
Uncle Drew
Ant Man and the Wasp
Skyscraper
Johnny English Strikes Again
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

In posting this, I find that I have absolutely no memory of some of these movies; others are recalled to mind just by seeing the title. I should probably lower or raise the score based on how memorable the movies are, but some of them I remember only how very bad they were.

Narcissism's Great Leap Forward

And the Golden Microphone goes to...

Danielle Slaton, former US international soccer player, commenting on the performance of the Women's World Cup's host team in its match against Nigeria, in the 65th minute:

"It looks right now like France couldn't 

hit water if they fell out of a boat."

The French did manage to get a win by a single goal on their second chance at a penalty kick, after the first attempt went wide. (They got a do-over because the Nigerian keeper stepped off the line a few inches just before the first kick was taken. I object to that outcome because (1) the French penalty-kicker did not approach the ball at a steady pace, but slowed her last step, practically guaranteeing that the keeper -- who naturally would have anticipated the timing of the kick from the kicker's first few steps -- would move when the ball would have been kicked had the kicker maintained the pace she'd established; and (2) since the kick went wide of the goal, the keeper's coming off the line had no effect on the play. In a world free of nitpicking video review, the infraction by the keeper would rightly have been waved off as insignificant.)

Danielle Slayton (Fox Soccer)

Don't Believe It

I got talked into trying SpectrumMobile service. The biggest selling point for me was that it piggybacks on Verizon's network, promising the same excellent quality service for about a fourth of the price.

It ain't so.

Spectrum Mobile shipped me two new LG phones, with software that made it fairly easy to transfer info from our old phones to the new ones. Service here in town was not noticeably different.

Then I went on a trip to Florida. Once I passed out of the city, I had, essentially, no service of any kind. I had no phone signal almost the entire way. Occasionally I would have one or two bars, in cities like Houston and New Orleans -- not enough, I learned, to actually make a call. For data, I could get no 4G signal, and usually couldn't even get a 3G signal. Mostly I had no signal whatsoever, though occasionally I'd have a 1G signal. Which is very close to no signal whatsoever.

As I got almost to Tampa I finally had enough of a signal to enable me to use GPS navigation to my hotel ... sort of. At critical moments it would cut out, so I would hear instructions such as "In one mile." That's it, just "In one mile." Not very helpful. (And I still had no phone signal.)

While I was in Tampa I had spotty SMS service. For example, I could send a text from Row M at Raymond James Stadium, but not from Row F. (My seat was in Row F.) I would try to send texts from all over town, but usually got the message "Text not sent; tap message to try again." Sometimes it'd go through on the second try; sometimes it'd go through twice. Usually it didn't go through at all.

The only time the cellphone worked reliably was when I was connected to the wi-fi network at my hotel. That's not acceptable. The fundamental purpose of a cellphone is to have access to help should something bad happen, like if the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, or if you're using GPS to get somewhere. If there's a wireless network available, there's probably someone with a working telephone within a hundred yards.

I tried calling Spectrum Mobile while in Tampa, to see if there was something they could do about the pisspoor quality of service. I couldn't get a signal for long enough to get past the first item on their call menu. And by then I had decided that this was not a service I wished to continue with. It was worse than when I had T-Mobile, years ago.

So when I got back home I called Spectrum to tell them I wanted to discontinue the service and send the phone back. They tried to tell me there was a $35 per-phone restocking fee, but I told them I wasn't going to pay that because I'd been told when I signed up for the service that there was a 30-day risk-free trial period, and that if I didn't like it all I had to do was send the phones back. When I threatened to find myself a new internet-and-cable provider, the woman on the phone finally told me I could take the phones to the local Spectrum store.

I looked the Spectrum store location up on the Internet. It's just off the Interstate, about 6 miles from my house. So this morning I went there to return the phones. The guy there told me that he couldn't take the phones, because that location was a Spectrum Cable store and they don't handle the mobile side of the business. He played on his computer for a while and then told me that I could take the phones to Fed-Ex and they would ship them back to the location they need to get to. "They'll be able to print the label there," he said, apparently reading it off his computer screen.

So I went to Fed-Ex. They couldn't print a label because they didn't know where the phones were supposed to go.  So: back to the Spectrum store to find out where the Spectrum Mobile store was. Then I went there and they insisted they couldn't take the phones back because they had been shipped to me, and not bought in the store. (Is this crazy?) But they couldn't tell me where to ship them. So I started making a loud fuss about wanting to get rid of these phones and get rid of their crappy cellphone service, and they swung into action. A guy comes out from the back and says he will get me the address of where to send the phones. He got on the phone and called the same people I'd been on the phone with for an hour the previous evening, and got put on hold. While he was on hold, though, the Fed-Ex guy came in with some boxes that had the address on them, so he copied the address down. Upshot is, I ended up paying about $12 to send those damn phones back. Good riddance.

I understand that Spectrum Mobile is presently available only to Spectrum cable customers. I've been pretty happy with my cable service, but now I'm having second thoughts about that, too. If their new mobile business represents the kind of service I can expect going forward, I'd better start looking at alternatives.

Stooping to Murder

If Donald Trump pulls U.S. troops out of Syria so that troops of our ally Turkey can march in unobstructed and slaughter the fighters of our Kurdish allies, it will be the greatest betrayal perpetrated by the United States in its history: a betrayal not only of the Kurdish fighters who have done so much of our dirty work in both Syria and Iraq, but of our most cherished beliefs about ourselves. We will never live down the deserved shame that we will earn.

2018: Bellingham & Glacier Trip

The pictures from the trip out to Washington & Montana have actually been up in the Cloud for a while now, but I never got around to putting up a blog post. I'm doing that now.

Horton, Who-Hearer

The Cat in the Hat

Carly shows the Wolf how it's done

the Tooth Fairy

a big flamingo checks out Carly

We started the journey with a side-trip to Abilene, to see the city's wonderful collection of sculptures around the downtown area. Along the railroad tracks that delineate the city-center's southern edge, there's a garden of statues representing characters from Dr Seuss, along with a few others; and at the convention center, a few blocks north, is a children's literature sculpture garden. And there are a few other statues scattered around between those two spots. Even though I don't know a number of the stories represented (having been a child back before the printing press was truly established), I enjoyed them all.

for scale, note the passing 18-wheeler

While we were in Colorado, where Carly would spend her vacation partly at Rancho Mojón and partly at Golden Pound, I took a day-trip up to Nebraska, where my sister is working in a clinic. Along the way, I stopped to see a fairly extreme example of religious fervour, in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming: a collection of statues, including a gigantic one of the Virgin Mary.










Then we went up to Bellingham, Washington, for a soccer tournament, and a little hiking at Whatcom Falls, Mount Baker and Stimpson Preserve.

at Whatcom Falls Park

Stimpson Family Nature Preserve

snow field, Mt Baker

some random waterfall

Picture Lake

 After the tournament, we drove east to Glacier National Park, making stops at places along the way.

another random waterfall

Kootenai swinging bridge

Kootenai Falls

At Glacier, we spent a couple of nights in one of the old lodges built by the railroad to coax visitors to become customers, and the day between exploring Going to the Sun Road.

view from The Loop

400' waterfall

Jackson Creek

Goose Island

Jackson glacier

 

Construction of that road was an engineering marvel, back when it was built. It's the park's only through route, and it's where everybody goes. It wasn't as crowded as I'd feared, but there were a lot of people.

Next time I go to the park, I'll visit one of the other areas, north or south of Going to the Sun. (By then, there probably won't be any glaciers left, but I'm sure the park will still be there, and worth seeing again. Even though, as I write this, I see that the Going to the Sun Road is currently closed because of wildfires.)

There are lots more pictures from the trip; if Google is to be believe, you can see them by clicking on this link.

Enjoy.

Link to Pictures

2018 Condo Trip

I was going to write a nice old-fashioned blog post detailing all the stuff we did on this year's Condo Week trip to Surfside Beach, South Carolina, but now, two days afterwards, I can't remember when we did the things we did. So I'll just post the pictures I took and let anyone interested look through them.

Old Sheldon Church, Yemassee, South Carolina

The pictures are here.

The 2018 Florida Trip

My friend Marty was pissed off about something; I forget what, but he decided that the way to deal with it was to go lose himself in Ft Lauderdale for a while. Then he got over it (by pricing hotels) and decided not to go. But it put me in mind of the fact that I hadn't been to Key West in more than 3 decades. And there were seven counties in Florida that I'd never been to. So I decided to go to Key West for a few days, and then Lauderdale, and along the way I figured I could drive through those seven counties in the uninteresting parts of Florida.

Then I priced hotels in Key West and Lauderdale, and decided that New Orleans was a better place to be. But there were still those seven counties....

upscale yard art

So Marty flew down to New Orleans, and we made a quick drive around Florida, then came back to what has become our preferred ground.

baby gators

We started by taking in the high-end yard art at the US Sports Academy, in Daphne, Alabama. Then we drove on to Florida's highest waterfall (73 feet high; but it falls into a sinkhole about 65 feet deep, which makes it less impressive than it sounds), and through Liberty County, which has nothing to recommend it, and on down to Gainesville, in Alachua County. We spent the night somewhere around there -- I don't recall where -- and continued south until we hit the handful of really dull counties that help keep the Atlantic Ocean out of the Gulf of Mexico. We went to an overpriced drive-through alligator sanctuary before going through such dull spots as Glades and Hardee and Highlands and Okeechobee counties.

On the way back up, we passed by the Ste Anne Shrine, near Lake Wales, Florida. This is identified on Roadside America as a mostly-destroyed remnant torn down by "an unsympathetic Catholic Church." That's not true. The pictures on that web site are of a lakeside altar that once honoured St Christopher (who is no longer considered a saint), and apparently people just assumed the rest of the false story. The shrine to Ste Anne is about 100 yards east of there, in the woods off the road, and in fact is to be the site for a sunrise mass on Easter Sunday, according to one of the locals who's lived there for more than 30 years.

the remnant of the St Christopher
altar

Ste Anne's Shrine

So nice to have gotten that straight.

After that: New Orleans, where we've done nothing but party since arriving. We had outstanding meals at Alfonso's in Faubourg Marigny and St Charles Tavern and Ruby Slipper (which now has a location right on Canal Street, so we didn't have to schlepp all the way to Mid-City); and we did a street-car tour that included the Riverfront and City Park, plus a ride along Rampart street, so now I've been on all four lines in town. I feel so accomplished.

Ronnie's Ice House Barbecue
211 S US Hwy 281
Johnson City

(sort of across from the Dairy Queen)

I saw a clickbait show on one of the foodie channels a few days ago, purporting to name the "fifteen best barbecue places in America." The guy doing the show didn't even mention any of the great places in Lockhart or Luling; and he seemed more taken by gimmick-y presentation than by actual superior quality. So it wasn't confidence in his ability to identify truly great barbecue that led me to try Ronnie's in Johnson City, which made his top 10 list; more a matter of curiosity, combined with a building desire for a day trip up the road.

the Pedernales at Johnson City

Let me first recommend that, if you too decide on a day trip to Johnson City, don't go on a Monday or Tuesday, no matter how nice the weather. Almost everything in town of any interest to the casual tourist is closed. And about half of it is closed on Wednesday, too. All you'll have to do is eat and walk along the bank of the Pedernales, and maybe go see LBJ's boyhood home. All that together isn't worth the hour's drive from the Big City -- either Big City, Austin or San Anto' -- to get there. (Though, if your base is San Antonio, you can at least stop in at the Buggy Barn Museum in Blanco on the way home; and if Austin, you have Dripping Springs to stop in. Any disappointment can be drowned there.)

the Buggy Barn in Blanco

So. Ronnie's. Well, yes, it's good barbecue. The kind of good barbecue you can probably get in every one-traffic-light town between the Sabine and the Rio Grande. Juicy beef brisket rubbed with salt and pepper and smoked for umpteen hours out back (or, in this case, out on the side porch) and sliced up by the plate or by the pound. Sides of pinto beans, coleslaw, potato salad. Sausage and pork and chicken and turkey. All the things you find in every barbecue joint, plus a few: pea salad, corn salad, green beans, banana pudding.... A short line of people waited to order, always a good sign unless there's a tour bus idling in the parking lot.

I had just a brisket plate, and chose sides of pinto beans and potato salad -- not because they're my favourite sides, but because those, along with slaw, are the paradigmatic barbecue sides, and consequently the best choices for evaluative purposes. Greater wisdom might have lain in having my druthers, because the pea salad turned out not to be the white gelatinous mass with green dots that I'd pictured in my mind when the counter lady, on request, ran down the list of ingredients. The corn salad looked a better choice, too. Although both of the side dishes I chose were fine. The beans were somewhat seasoned, though not to the degree common farther south, a degree I've come to prefer; and the potato salad was good ol' very traditional church-picnic stuff ... with lots and lots of mayo.

The brisket was as expected: juicy, smoky, and hot from the pit, with traditional seasoning that's hard to improve on despite the wishes of television presenters. The portion size was fair: neither stingy nor generous, though I will confess to a twinge of disappointment when Ronnie stopped slicing and laid the meat on my plate. Sauce -- a very ordinary sauce -- was on the table in a squeeze-bottle.

There was a tray of bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers next to his work area, and they looked good, so I had them add one to my plate. I justified it by deciding to forego the buttermilk pie I'd planned on ordering. I felt that was a good decision when I saw the pie slices by the cashier's position: they looked a little on the chincy side to my greed-shrouded eyes, when in fact they're about as big as you'd expect them to be. But pie slices are always too small, aren't they. Well, should'a gone with the pie, because the popper sure disappointed. It was cold, and under-filled, and limp, and utterly without kick.

The worst thing about the visit, though, was the men's room. There was no soap, there were no towels; there was only the sign insisting that employees must wash their hands before returning to work. If I'd seen it before ordering, I would have gone to the Dairy Queen.

what's that mean?