You see, it’s like this. I don’t have any family in the area, nor does my husband. I don’t really want to travel on Thanksgiving. And I host 30+ people for Thanksgiving dinner a scant 10 days before Turkey Day itself, so I don’t want to make the meal and find people to come eat it because, well, I already did. The other day someone asked my son what we were doing for Thanksgiving and Grey responded, “We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” Gah! We do! We just do so in a weird way! Now often I have gotten very gracious and lovely invitations to friends’ houses to celebrate. Heck, two years in a row I cadged invitations to one of my college friends’ parents’ houses. So we have suffered no lack of welcome or turkey. But the obligation of Thanksgiving, the feeling that there is a particular thing we have to do, that is entirely lacking.

And if you think about it for a moment, that is tremendously freeing. I have a four day period where there is no where we have be and nothing we have to do. Liberty!

A few weeks ago, one of my Scooby-addled children informed me that he wanted to see “a real live mummy”. This seemed like a reasonable request. At first I considered which museums in Boston might contain said Egyptian relic. Then I thought that the really good mummies were in New York. Except I hate New York. Then I thought that the really great museums are in Washington DC. And you know, I’ve been meaning to go to Washington DC for like five years now.

Then it dawned on me that I have four uncommitted days.

ROAD TRIP!

Sixty degrees on the Mall!

Yesterday was a sublime day, weather wise, here in the District of Columbia. Although my intention had been to hie immediately to the Museum of Natural History (hellooo Mummies and Dinosaurs!) the lure of the Washington Monument was too strong and instead we hied ourselves the length of the Mall, explaining the various wars, conflicts and heroes in mostly age-appropriate ways as we wandered. Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, where Thane bounced like a pinball between mummy exhibits. By midafternoon, someone was in desperate need of a nap, and the kids seemed tired too, so we came back and had an all family snooze. Indeed, as I write I am surrounded on all sides by sleeping menfolk. We spent the evening dining with some friends in the area, our kids playing with theirs.

Today the morning was the Museum of Air and Space. It was pretty fun, but Thane is woefully underslept and it is starting to show. Also, he has no respect for barriers/fences/ribbons. Also, he plops down on the ground all the time and declares, “I’m not going to _____”. My cajoling muscles are weary beyond belief. But he was fascinated by the astronauts and costumes, and demanded that he be permitted to wear the moon gear. We all thoroughly enjoyed the planetarium before making good our escape.

Thane and the Astronaut Suit of Great Interest

In half an hour I’ll wake everyone up, and we’ll go to the American Indian Museum. Thane is trying to figure out what his next obsession is. Mummies, astronauts and Native Americans are all strong candidates. Tonight, I think we’ll take the boys to see the Muppet Movie. Tomorrow, we do the 11 hour trip in reverse.

In my worse moments, I wonder what the heck I’m thinking and why didn’t I just stay at home and have the kids watch tv all weekend like a sane parent. But most of the time, I watch the wide-eyed wonder, insightful questions and bouncy kids and think that this was a fantastic idea.

Boys on pillars

Mt. Chocorua as seen from White Lake State Park (last year!)

I’m a mountain girl. I always have been. For most of my life I’ve lived within 100 miles of the sea. For the last 15 years, I’ve lived within 10 miles. Entire years have been strung together when I haven’t once gone to a beach or gazed over the crashing waves. Back in my dorm room, in college, where other people had pictures of their dogs or their high school friends, my wall was plastered with Mt. Rainier.

Mt. Rainier is 14,411 feet tall. If you ask me what the proper height for a real mountain would be, I’d venture that between 14 and 15 thousand feet is just about right. Anything you can drive to the top of can categorically not be a mountain. This was, at least, my opinion for years. But it has mysteriously come to pass that I am living in New England, and have lo these fifteen years. And while I might make condescending noises about the so called “mountains” that top out at a piffulous five thousand feet (barely a hill!), my sons are New Englanders and my weekends for the forseeable future will be spent in New England.

For three summers, now, we have camped at White Lake State Park, which is a lovely combination of rustic and convenient. We have driven over the Kankamangus on our “Car Walks” in foul and fair weather. And I’ve been lured, I confess, to thinking about hiking those trails branching off appealingly to the sides of the road.

This weekend, a strange collection of events made it possible for my beloved husband and I go camping up there, BY OURSELVES. After the 4th of July trip, replete with great whining, we were wondering whether we actually LIKED camping. (In retrospect, camping is less fun with a massively swollen knee and several torn ligaments – FYI.) The answer by the way is yes – we do like camping!

Yesterday after a leisurely and late morning, we went to the ranger station for the White Mountain National Forest for advice on trails and to buy a parking pass. The advice was greatly needed, since Irene had actually closed the Kankamangus. The ranger pointed us to a moderate 4 – 6 hour hike, which was exactly what we’d asked for.

Little did we know he was a maniac. The route in question was originally intended to summit Mt. Chocorua by way of Champney Falls. It gained roughly 3000 feet over the course of 3 miles. Much of the trail looked like this:

Our heroine, winded, less than half way up.

Other sections of the trail were steep and had bad footing.

Sadly, good sense caused us to turn back .6 of a mile short of the summit of Mt. Chocorua. (There were thundrous looking clouds overhead and I was concerned regarding whether we had enough daylight to safely navigate our way down.) But altogether, it was a splendid hike. I’m delighted to report that my knee, shredded as it is, endured remarkably and gave me hardly any trouble the entire hike. It was a lovely farewell to mobility for me.

Of course, drying my foot in the shower that night (see also: civilized campground) I managed to activate my torn meniscus and I am once again limping and moaning, but that’s not the fault of the Champney Falls trail!

I have backpacked the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier – much of it more than once (and sans ACL, by the way). I have hoisted 40 pound packs over 7000 foot high glacier-ridden saddles between great mountains. I have watched eagles soar beneath my feet and clouds break on the shores of alpine meadows like waves. This trail was as mean as any I have known, and I have known many.

Over time I have come to realize that these tame, worn-down, solid, glacier-riven granite mountains of my adopted home are, perhaps, shorter than their younger Western siblings. You may be able to drive your station wagon to the top of Mt. Washington. Coming down from the Kankamangus, you may have your choice of (bad) burgers and beer to slake your hunger and thirst. But for all that, these are no less mountains. Their trails are no less treacherous and difficult. Indeed, perhaps they are more so. My beloved Cascades flaunt their glory and majesty. The White Mountains are crafty and guilesome in their old age, revealing their splendour more in their rainment than in their bodies. But, grudgingly, I am coming to respect them. Perhaps even to like them.

We’ll see how this goes.

Mt. Chocorua

Here are some more pictures of the summer

Here, it served mostly to confine us to our home for a weekend. We watched the water lash at the side of the house and the winds whip the trees into dancing contortions. Who knew ancient oaks could bend so? But still, somehow, the dishes are done, the laundry is done, the leftovers are in the ‘fridge and another week awaits.

We gathered with our neighbors – our friends – as the skies cleared and our children spun like overwound tops, whirling like cross dervishes around the center of the house.

Tomorrow it all begins again: the week with its prosaic tasks, meetings and needs. We’ll spend maybe 15 minutes discussing the storm, shaking our heads, all agreeing we were glad it wasn’t so bad. Then we’ll move on to milestones and deliverables, and never look back.

Good night, Irene. Good night, Irene. I’ll see you in my dreams.

Sailors take warning.

We’re battening down the hatches here. Of course so many New England storms are overhyped, and so few live up to even a portion of their media coverage. Whether Irene will fall in that category remains to be seen. But we’re ready. Our house is in the middle of a hill – protected from wind but far above standing water damage. Most of the trees around us have been taken down – I think there’s only one tall enough to hit us. I have 10 gallons of water in the basement. I have our camping lanterns. I have enough batteries to get us through the long winter. I have enough food to last a month (assuming that the gas doesn’t get cut). I have cash and two cars with full tanks of gas.

I also lost my wallet last night. So far I’m not seeing any activity on the cards, but talk about the worst possible time to misplace your wallet. I really believe that it’s lost somewhere in the house or at work. I had it Thursday night at 10:30 pm when I went grocery shopping. The only thing I did between that and when I missed it was go to work. But seriously, I’ve looked everywhere. I really hope it miraculously appears and I don’t have to call everyone I’ve ever met to cancel my cards.

ETA: I’m DELIGHTED to let you know that after about 12 hours of worrying, I found my wallet wedged under the driver’s seat of the car. Huzzah! Now I’m ready for a hurricane.

Today is a kind of weird day. There’s no storm or rain yet – it’s perfectly fine outside. The storm isn’t really supposed to start until late tonight or early tomorrow. But the state of emergency starts at noon. And what do we do today?

I reckon it’s a good day to get my shaggy dudes a haircut!

The journey from Mt. Rainier (more or less) to Ashland usually takes about 7 and a half hours – if you stick on I5, go 70 and don’t stop. But it’s not what you would call a lovely drive (at least not until about Roseville). It had been years since I’d been to the Oregon Coast, and none of my memories of it are strong. So I decided this was an ideal time to rectify that.

Foggy Hug Beach

I had warned Adam not to expect sandy beaches. My (dim) memories were of rocky shorelines and dancing from dry-foot-fall to dry-foot-fall among the tidepools. But much of the Oregon coast line was sandy and lovely. This beach had large pebbles, then small pebbles then sand. There were uncompromising rocks erupting from smooth beds, like bullet holes through stop signs. We walked around a cape, carefully and quickly, to avoid the waves. We wanted to linger longer, but the pounding surf would soon make our retreat impossible. We stood, looked, listened, enchanted. I have long thought that the West was underlauded in stories and song. These coasts and mountains and forests deserve a rich, deep mythology. Those fogs should hide legends and rumors of legends. Those peaks should be shrouded in many names, mysteries and prophecies. And on this day, the waters of the Pacific, throwing themselves upon the unrelented shores of New Albion, were truly mystical.

But all stories come to an end, so we climbed back up to the car, rolled down the windows, and kept on. 101 jogged inland for a bit – more dairy farms than mystical rocky outcroppings – before lurching back out to the coast. We found a good radio station playing classic rock and roll, ignore the hours and miles in front of us, and sped onward.

An hour or so before dark, we stopped again. The northern fogs had lifted, and only the salt spray obscured the coast line. The beach where we stopped was a long one, with summer cottages redolent in childhood coming-of-age stories perched along the bluff, ending with a lighthouse that looked like the painted background on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. We climbed down through scrub to the deserted beach. The water snuck up, like the serpent in Eden, to entice us in. Quickly shoes were discarded and jeans rolled up past the knee, and we stood touching the majesty of the unfettered ocean.

That half hour spent there, feet sinking into sand, waves crashing into us, eyes towards the sunset, was one of the most magical I have know. There we were, in love, together. We held hands before the eroding power of the Earth, strong together. We laughed, watched and exhaled our shallow breaths. It was with great reluctance that we finally put our shoes back on and climbed back up the bluff.

Silhouette of my love

All was well with my detour (carefully negotiated with the help of Google maps with my husband who-does-not-love-road-trips) and I regretted not a minute of it. But it was 7 pm and we had between five and six hours of driving left in front of us. I was well rested, experienced and not too worried. With the last light of the long Western twilights, we turned onto Rt. 38 to Rt. 138 for the last haul to our rest.

It should be mentioned, at this point, that I am an extremely experiences mountain-road-night-driver. I learned to drive on mountain roads in the dark – usually while it was raining and I was super tired. I regularly came home from the theater in Seattle at 1 am when I was in high school. The roads I drove on were car-commercial-curvy with no lights. I remember some nights where the only point to the headlights were to be seen, not to see, since the lamp of the full moon offered more illumination than the paltry output of the forward lights.

I have never, in my life, seen a blacker road than I drove that night. There were no towns or outposts. There were no lights at the tops of hills. The moon was a memory, perhaps never to return. The stars were up there, but hidden and dimmed behind a high mist. The world was shrunken and swallowed to whatever dim advice came from my headlights, and my reflexes entirely guided by staying between the yellow reflectors and the white reflectors. We were far from rest or guidance and tiring fast – and in elk country. We were the only souls fool-hardy enough to be braving that stretch of highway in the dark. The road followed etching of the Umpqua River through the mountains, gleaming in starlight to my right, but beholden to the urgings of water (which are not the straight lines of men). Translation: it was curvy and windy and unpredictable, as well as dark. I do not believe two hours driving has ever left me as worn and weary as that two hours did. By the time we ceased our digression and made it back to I5, I gratefully passed the keys over to my husband.

But really, look at this road and note how green and unamended are the mountains through which it passes! (101 to 38 to 138 to I5)

We did make it safely, of course. And then we commenced our time in Ashland, returned home by way of Crater Lake (oh most patient of husbands!), went pontoon boating with the family and then returned, in stages, to the flat coast.

This is, sadly, the last report of my vacation that you will get. There’s one more story to tell, but I think it shall come from memory instead of journalism. But as a parting sweetener, I offer you these pictures!

Vacation 2011 Pictures

This is the last morning of Camp Gramp. We were awakened by Grey with wondrous news, his first tooth is loose. During Camp Gramp Baz lost a tooth, which he has placed in an envelope to take home to the tooth fairy. (This is not a full service operation). And Grey has his first tooth loose. What events! I e-mailed the parent units of the excited one, and Mom called to hear the news all by herself. I hope she had the phone a long ways from the ear!

We have started to collect the sundry things. The disaster so far is DS stuff. There is a sack missing. — the one with Baz’s case and various games. I am very sorry. The laundry is almost finished. Then I can have Grey and Baz sort stuff (Editor’s note: This assumes Grey knows which clothes are his – an assumption I would challenge!). I have allowed Grey to wear Baz’s plaid pants twice now. Clearly I am not capable of sorting the clothes. Kay and Thane’s stuff is easier.

The boo-boo report: The water park was hard on the campers. Thane has small abasions on his bottom. I was hoping they would be gone so I wouldn’t have to report them, but they are still there. The bottom of Kay’s bathing suit took the brunt of the wear. I haven’t checked to see if anyone else has bottom damage. No complaints = I don’t ask for the older ones. Otherwise, I think we are all OK.

It has been a wonderful Camp Gramp. You girls should be very proud of your children. (All right, the sons-in-law can also share in the pride) They are polite, intelligent, and adventurous. It is a pleasure to get to know the children. The Mineral church was particularly enchanted with the children. They specifically thanked us for sharing.

Today they go to Kent for a day and a half. Matthew (my son, you have a mother who loves you) will be taking care of them this afternoon. Matthew (loved by all, but primarily by his wife, Heidi) will take care of them tomorrow. Don and I will be packing for the Maritimes and sleeping later than 6:30 a.m. Then tomorrow night we take the Flynn children on the flight back to Boston.

We will take one last picture when we get all packed which I will post to prove they are still alive.

Thank you for sharing!

Gramama

Lively day. We were invited to a play date at Sue and Dave’s. Their granddaughter, Melissa, was there. She is 7. She had prepared well for our visit — tea cups and punch, cookies, mac and cheese which was nothing like the stuff that comes out of the box. I need that recipe! They have an outdoor room kind of thing with a fire place and a fire was not amiss today. I think the high temperature was under 70 today. We even roasted marshmellows! Fun.

Then we came home and Unca Matt was here. So we had a computer afternoon. He downloaded Castle of Dr. Brain for the boys. A little difficult yet, but fun. I did a really cool book with Thane. It is a dinosaur book. When you find a page with the correct logo, you hold it up to your web cam and it gives a 3-D graphic. I sense a coming trend. It is pretty simple, but could become more complex. One graphic is eggs. You press the space bar and the eggs hatch. Just thought I would say that Thane didn’t really understand it and prefered reading the book, but hey!

Kay started painting her peacock.

Then Unka Matt took me to Kent to pick up the Saturn. Ironically, we both forgot our phones, which was a mistake. Dad did a fabulous job taking care of the kids. He is a hero!

10 p.m. — I think I will go relieve him!

This is tragic. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) should be internationally known and lauded. As their “About us” states:

Founded in 1935, the Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is among the oldest and largest professional non-profit theatres in the nation. Each year OSF presents an eight-and-a-half-month season of eleven plays in three theatres plus numerous ancillary activities, and undertakes an extensive theatre education program. Operating on a budget exceeding $26 million, OSF presents more than 780 performances annually with attendance of approximately 400,000.

In other words, this is not a rinky-dink theater in the middle of nowhere. This is a theatrical powerhouse nestled between sea and ocean in one of the loveliest small towns I’ve ever seen. In my youth, I went to Ashland most summer’s with my Godfather. I learned an abiding love of Stoppard with Arcadia in 1996. I fell in love with Ted Deasy in “As You Like It” in 1997. I met Bobby McFerrin, barefoot and whistling, on the street the night after watching him rehearse an orchestra at the nearby Britt Festival. I have warm and lovely memories tied up there.

So this summer, when I heard they were doing Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance on the open-air Elizabethan stage, I decided that this is where we were going to spend our summer’s leisure. And it was a very, very good choice!

We had tickets originally for four plays, but “rushed” a matinee play on our middle day. This is an excellent plan, if I may opine. Also, that rush play was the very best of our viewing there, leading me to be relieved and delighted we picked it up!

Tuesday – King Henry IV Part II
This was the last of the Henry’s I had not seen. I’m quite fond of Shakespeare’s histories. I liked Henry IV part I and I loved Henry V, so I was glad to see this bridge play between the boy and the man who stood on that French battlefield. But Henry IV Part II is really Full of Falstaff. It must be a difficult play to stage because, in truth, it is not one of Shakespeare’s best. The two concurrent plots seem very far from each other – suppressing the rebellion and Falstaff’s foolings. It seems as though one or the other could easily be edited out without affecting the counterpart. The production was an excellent one. My favorite interpretation element was having one of the characters deaf/mute, who communicated with Hal through this expressive and easily understood sign language. The flicker of hands and the unexpected element of interpretation was a delight to me. Still, the theater was half full and the play faded fast from memory. If you can see only one play at Ashland… not this one. (Although if you are seeing several, it should be on your list!)

Wednesday afternoon – Ghost Light
This was our accidental play. The promo text did not sound promising. Few experience the death of a parent against the backdrop of history. In Taccone’s evocative new play, Jon is a theatre director haunted for years by the assassination of his father, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. When asked to stage a production of Hamlet, the ghost of the king stalks the battlement of Jon’s mind and heart, and he is summoned to confront his long buried feelings. Smartly laced with poetry and wit, this world premiere is rooted in a crime that shocked a nation and changed a city—and a young boy—forever.

In fact, it didn’t sound promising at all. But I really really didn’t want to see Measure for Measure and it was half priced so….

People. It was fantastic. The dialogue sparkled. The fourth wall was breached in a most fascinating manner. The boundaries between reality, perception and dream were powerfully crossed and braided. The acting was superb. The characters were people you wanted to know and to sit with. There was one of the best awkward scenes I’ve ever seen acted. (Of course, that it included my long-time heartthrob Ted Deasy was just a bonus.) From first scene to closing, it was superb. I would strongly recommend that should you find yourself passing by Ashland, you stop and see this play.

Wednesday night – Pirates of Penzance
My family has a long, long history with Gilbert and Sullivan, and with Pirates in particular. At about Thane’s age, my brother watched a video version of Pirates (with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronsadt and Angela Lansbury … truly worth seeing some sad night when you need cheering up). But this blessed video was played every single day in my household for over two years. Sometimes twice a day. We can, collectively, sing the whole thing together. I know every line of this operetta.

Ashland was one of the few places I could count upon to improve, not disappoint. And I was not disappointed! The staging was a delight. There was a live orchestra (of course) and the conductor played a visible role in the play. There were periodic lapses into other musical idioms – all amusing – before snapping back to Sullivan’s original-as-written text. Through it all, the cast moved and flew and lunged and trotted (often with the assistance of tuxedo’d, white gloved assistants) across the Elizabethan. The production was full of fun and energy and enthusiasm – as it should be. There were just enough departures to keep me on my toes, but enough time spent on the original that I didn’t feel cheated. Perfect. I would recommend you see it – but good luck getting tickets!

Thursday afternoon – The African Company presents Richard III
I had originally thought this was actually Richard III. But no, it was about a freed black troupe attempting to put on a production of Richard III at the same time as a white company nearby. There were a few promising moments – a few speeches, a few exchanges, a few plot threads… but on the whole it disappointed. The drama of the black/white conflict was diluted. The love-plot seemed abandoned halfway. Instead of a tight interweaving of multiple plot threads, it seemed just disjointed. This was the first week the play was open, so there’s hope that it will somehow tighten. It was also produced in the temporary tent necessitated by the cracking of a structural beam in the Bowmer, so that couldn’t have helped.

Thursday night – Love’s Labours Lost
We closed our theatrical week with a bit of cotton candy. Love’s Labours Lost is one of Shakespeare’s lighter plays, with a group of boys and a group of girls playing with each other’s expectations, well mixed with a troupe of fools wandering through. This production was fun, light and did an excellent job of making the almost entirely verse play easy to follow for modern audiences. It was lovely to look upon and very funny when the text permitted it. It was a wonderful play to disprove the idea that Shakespeare is boring to a young person. It was a lovely way to end our stay.

There were two plays that, having talked with our fellow theater-goers, I really WISH I had been able to see. I was told by a fellow patron that August: Osage County might well be one of the best plays written in the last 100 years. Even putting aside such hyperbole, it came so highly recommended that I was sad I couldn’t fit it into our schedule. We also really wanted to see The Imaginary Invalid, mostly because Moliere is fun.

It was a superb way to spend a week of vacation.

Yes indeed, Great Wolf Lodge was a fun place to be! Great wet fun was had by all. There aren’t many pictures because cameras and water don’t make a good match, but we had a great time. Thane played in the tot area. He loved the slides and sitting on the banana. Kay was with him most of the time. Baz was an intrepid swimmer. He did all the slides in the park, including the biggest. He did that with Papapa. We were supposed to go together but just didn’t find the right time. Grey did a wonderful job. He really learned how to handle the waves in the wave pool. Poor kid, he was too short for the big slide, but the was plenty of excitment in the ones he did.

Unfortunately, the grandparents weren’t with it and failed to get magic wands with the game. It is like a scavenger hunt all over the hotel. Next time we will be smarter.

The minute I get the three younger ones to sleep, I am going to bed. It was great fun, but I am really tired!

Hey, who took my toddler and replaced him with this boy?

I think he has a future in special ops!

Tuesday we went to Pioneer Farms. That is an amazing place. Baz got to use the blacksmith’s forge. Thane petted a pig and chased chickens. They all tried to milk the cow and got a ride on the horse. Doing the laundry was fun, and so was grinding coffee for their Aunt. Unfortunately, the trip to Sheila was cancelled. Good thing. We all took baths and played in the back yard. We all needed sleep.

Wednesday was a three adventure day.

First, Wilcox Farms, which is now an egg farm. They have 1,000,000 chickens on the place. As you can imagine — there were a lot of eggs. Unfortunately, the guide was not kid oriented and although he talked to the kids, he was really long winded. But the school house was cool, and so was the heavy equipment to climb on. Grey’s favorite part was lunch. I do wish that boy would eat breakfast.

Adventure two, Nisqually wildlife refuge. It is a beautiful place to walk. We watched a frog eat an insect and heard lots of birds. Baz read all the informational signs, but all three of the older kids could handle all the headings. They just didn’t have the interest that comes with a little age. While the wildlife refuge is a place that we all want to go, the primary purpose of this stop was to let Thane finish his nap before the final adventure of the day, Chuch E. Cheese. The pizza was better than the last time we were there. It is still a parent trap, but it does entertain the kids nicely. It was facinating to see the kids use their tokens.

Baz. He used his tokens very slowly. He took Thane around for some time. He is so patient with him. Then he chose challenging driving games and things like that to do. They all took longer. He didn’t get too many tickets, but he got good play value for his time.

Kay. She was extremely thoughtful about her use of tokens. She like rides with video on them. She came back to the table to check with us the most often. She was a little panicked that she was not with us all the time. Her pictures is very cute.

Grey. Grey used his tokens first by half the time. He would come dashing back with pickets and put them in his cup, then fly off to do more. Grey got a very creative collection of pictures in which he had different emotions, mad, scared, happy, etc.

Thane. We could give Thane no tokens and he would be happy. He puts tokens in the slots of the most colorful game, then runs away without playing it. He is perfectly happy with the demo screens on most of them. We almost made it out of CEC with him happy, but there was an epic meltdown at the prize redemption area.

Great days!

Checking out Chickens

Camp Grampers