These Last Weeks of Summer

Travel was sporadic this summer.  Some of that was attributable to heavy travel this spring, some to conflicting schedules with friends, some to an awesome lineup of summer concert and some because of plain financing. I still have not found that money tree.  Honestly, I needed a break after the hectic spring and big trips to Mexico, Nevada and California. 
Things are about to change...




Path of Totality

A year ago, we started talking about the upcoming solar eclipse.  And a year ago I started looking at options.  This was no time to dilly-dally.  Rooms a year in advance in Wyoming were sold out in the path of totality.  After trying everything in Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, we decided to head to Music City - Nashville.  I have not been in over 10 years and John has never visited.  We jumped on a great room rate at the Sheraton 4 Points and decided to make it a mini-trip.

Well, the eclipse is less than 2 weeks away.  We have a huge road trip planned.  My trip schedule is packed with things I missed my first time to the city, and can't miss things for John.  We booked a ghost pub tour, a dinner cruise on the river, and plan to visit the area national park site, Stone River,  for the big event.  We will hop on and off the trolley to hit big city sites, and drive around to see The Hermitage, Belle Meade and the zoo.  I am super excited to visit the Parthenon again - I swear one day I will see the original in Greece. A few tours of caught my eye at historic homes, museums and historic music halls; I am hoping to catch the screen printing tour at the Ryman.  After the eclipse at the park, if we can hit the road quickly, I think we can squeeze in a tour at Jim Beam after the eclipse in Lynchburg since Stone River National Battlefield is already a half hour south of the city.  It will be a busy three days... and then I have to rush back because I have tickets to another concert the evening after the event.... no, I never do things simply.

Before I get too ahead of myself, we have to make it through this upcoming weekend.  We have some fun planned in Hershey Pennsylvania.  We are going bang our heads to Guns & Roses (hopefully Axel shows up).  Of course the weather is predicted to be nasty - sever storms!   That always makes an outdoor concert fun!  We are playing the amusement park by ear.  I haven't been inside the park since I was in junior high; I have fond memories of riding rollercoasters and the Rotor (a great spinning machine that suck you to the walls).  I hope we can get some quality time in the park and reclaim some of our youth.

I have several more trips in the works ... this is just August after all.  I have plenty of time to talk about my trip plans for the fall and winter! I don't want to get ahead of myself and not enjoy the moment.

 

 

A Classic Crooner, Boy Bands, Pop Stars, Broadway, and a Living Legend!

Summer is unofficially over (the equinox is not here YET)... I am not sure how it is September already.  I was so caught off guard that I missed my first post-Impressionism lecture at the Smithsonian - I knew it started in September, and I knew Labor Day just passed, but I just failed to connect the calendar dots.  Time flies too quickly.  It is scary. 


I would say where did the time go, but I have the answers - at work, weekend getaways, and in the many moments I had this season enjoying live music.  It has been an amazing summer for music.


 I found myself at quite a few Broadway shows (I love me some Broadway belting).  Looking back, this might be one of my best Broadway viewing seasons in a long while.  This summer, I saw shows solo, with friends, and with family.  There was my 4th of July bender where I saw Finding Neverland, She Loves Me, and Beautiful; and then near the end of August I saw American in Paris and Waitress.  Before the summer season even started, I grooved to Disaster the Musical and tapped along with Dames at Sea.  In DC, I finally saw the classic orchestrations of Bridges of Madison County.  (And there were more this past winter with Bright Star, Allegiance)  In those shows, I saw some Broadway legends and legends to be... I could not contain my excitement to see Gavin Creel along with Zachary Levi, Laura Benanti and Jane Krakowski (She Loves Me) and was giddy before Waitress with Jessie Mueller and Disaster packed with stars including Faith Prince and Adam Pascal. I saw Star Trek legend George Takei and legendary Lei Salonga in the gut wrenching WWII flashback (Allegiance).   I left shows in awe of Keale Sette (Waitress), Lesli Margherita  (Dames at Sea), Carmen Cusek (Bright Star) and Jennifer Simard (Disaster); these are names I will seek out in the future, easily.  All told, I saw 11 shows... and the year is not over.  Many new cast albums have been added to my collection - keeping me dancing in my seat while at work looking over paperwork!

The Lawn at Wolf Trap!

Broadway did not end there... Wolf Trap, National Park for the Performing Arts  had an incredible season.... and one of the shows I attended was with stage and screen siren Kristen Chenoweth (you know her - Wicked, Charlie Brown, West Wing, Glee, Pushing Daisies...)  So, braving the rain (not for the first time), a friend and I picnicked on the lawn to hear jokes and stories along with Popular, Fathers and Daughters and covers from many Broadways shows .... she even stumped us with a little known number from Flora and the Red Menace (leaving many of us to random google searches). 

Wolf Trap delivered more rain and more fantastic moments when I got to see Tony "freaking" Bennett!  My boyfriend and I sat through an epic thunderstorm, with lightening flashing too close for comfort, under a tablecloth, to see this crooner.  I refused to leave... he is Tony Bennett, and he turned 90 years old.  How many more opportunities would be have to see this living legend?  Don't know, but I do know that neither of us had seen him yet, so we weren't going to let wet asses keep us away from this show.  Acknowledging the storm, he cracked a few jokes as the classics he sang referred to weather, rain and sun. We were not exactly in a smoky room at small round tables with candles (how else you think of the old jazz singers with their bands preformed)... but man was it worth it to hear how he can still swing that voice. 

Tony was not the only legend we saw this summer... I got to see a Beatle!  A Beatle!  We went to see Paul McCartney.  And the boyfriend still gets giddy about this show, calling it the best we have ever seen.  He played for over 2 hours, pounding the keys and working the strings - singing songs from Pre-Beatles to his most recent song with Rihanna and Kanye.  It was an honest and true rock concert with lights, lasers and speaker issues... he joked that we all wanted the Beatles stuff and he could prove it with all the cell phones that came out at those moments; he admitted that he likes singing more than that... and that he likes to push.  And the crowd ate it up.  He could have played all night.  Sometimes, he didn't even need to sing because the crowd did it for him... like the entire place singing Hey Jude "lalalalala." It was an amazing, transcendent experience.

Stopping to the Smell the Roses in a Convention Center Filled With National Parks

The Philadelphia Flower Show is an institution in the City of Brotherly Love.  Unfortunately, I never made the time to go when I lived in that area and have missed it for various reasons over the years (as it has grown in popularity).  This year, when I learned that the theme would be based on the national parks, I knew I had to go.  And the fact that I had yet to do a Philly weekend with my boyfriend... well that was a perfect excuse.


The best way I could describe the scene in the convention center is master gardener/landscape architects interpreted some of the parks greatest hits and unknown gems through botany.  Half the convention hall floor was filled with large scale exhibits of scenes in the national parks.  Here you would gaze upon the famous of Yellowstone and Yosemite, walk along the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and NJ Coastal Heritage trails, Look upon the mountains in interpretations of the Rocky Mountain and Smokey Mountain, see some lesser known gems like Lincolns home, enjoy the water views of Acadia, the views in trees like at Redwood, and we got into the urban parks - Independence, Gateway, Golden Gate, the National Mall.  And if these installations were not enough, the rest of the flower show had more.

There were pressed flower designs done by students to represent park badges and postcards.  There was a miniatures exhibit to showcase tiny flowers and skills with scale, you had arrangements with colonial dishes and others to interpret national monuments.   The National Park Service was out in full force with scenes showcasing the nation's best idea in short film format in what was like a cabin in the woods (surrounded by a babbling brook, a Bison (the Department of Interior's official seal) and a bear).  Rangers gave lectures on park features and were all around to answer question about the parks displayed and depicted.  I was in park lover's heaven!  An added plus - all the parks of my youth got plenty of love - I was so excited to see Delaware Water Gap get some love.  And Sandy Hook made a special showing and didn't get overshadowed by the Statue of Liberty (the share a park designation)!

The flowers were overwhelming in their beauty even after a week of showcasing it was hard to know where to turn.  It was a rainbow of color.  There were so many cascades of color that my camera quickly ran out of battery.  And the crowds?  Wow, the place was packed.  But beyond waiting in lines to walk through some of the parks, traffic moved... no one exhibit hogged (though a few did skip the line to snap a picture here and there).  And if you needed to rest your feet - you had choices beyond park lectures... the Philly Zoo was there for animal demonstrations for the kid in all of us. An artist was on hand painting detailed flower watercolors. Food was everywhere (yummy Philly pretzels and Little Italy's cannoli)  You could go upstairs to the specialty booths - where we headed to visit the butterflies!  And then there was the market place... lots of venders.  You could rest you feet in any number of places selling patio gear.  You could buy plants and flowers galore.  You could buy art for your garden.  Gardening gear?  Check!  Tools?  Check!  Need a sauna?  Check!  Walking stone?  Yep, that too.  It was all there.

Winter Break - Seeking Out Desert Heat

I escaped the sudden brutal cold in the mid-Atlantic and traveled to the dry heat of the desert.  I when I say heat, I mean it, as the thermostat read over 90 once of the days on my visit to Southern Arizona.  I love to take advantage of a good United sale and snatch up reasonable fares ... a this trip to Phoenix fit that bill perfectly.




My first stop (after the insanely long lines at the rental car center), Saguaro National Park in Tucson.  That's roughly an 1 1/2 hour drive from Phoenix.  And that meant I got there just in time to watch the sun set over the desert and mountains.  I love how accessible this park is - one of the 2 units is right outside the city limits.  There is no excuse to miss this park when in the area.  And while it has been a few years since I have looked upon this stretch of the southwest... it is majestic, it is magical.  Walk among the cacti and listen-there is life all around you.  As the sun sets, the sky lits up in beautiful strips of pink and purple.  The mountains glow and then dim into a black outline in the sky.  The towering saguaro freckle the landscape casting shadows to show how anthropomorphic their forms can look.  I love visiting this park, because even if you only have 2 hours there, you can still walk away feeling like you visited another world.  It was the perfect spot after spending all day in a plane and a car.

I needed a good sleep that night because I knew I wanted to stuff my next day with places further
south... as in right up to the border.  I left the next morning and headed to Coronado National Memorial.  The park unit honors the explored Coronado and his quest to find the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola but really explored and mapped the area north of central Mexico.  The terrain is rough, the elevation is high and it is dry.  Nothing say great hiking like those conditions, but he did it in armor, I could do it in my Merrells and my LLBean backpack.  So, off on the trail I went (after driving up the mountain, cuz we don't have donkeys at our disposal) and I hit the trail to the Mexican border.  The whole

way down into the canyon I cursed myself and my sense of adventure knowing I was going to have to climb back up.  And as I neared the border, I was certain I was losing my mind, I heard cows "moo'ing"!  This was not terrain that I would think to find cattle but eventually I was able to spot them down at the bottom of the canyon once I turned on a switch-back toward the border.  I took my border selfie (as the park ranger wanted proof for my park pin award), snapped too many pictures of the landscape and the starting line of the Arizona trail, rested and drank some water before I headed back up.  And then I rested again and again... I had forgotten how high up I was, that incline was hard.  I am not going to lie.  In fact, I had to talk myself into forging on but once I got through that last switchback I was golden.  And that was good, because I was keeping my eye on my watch - I still needed to get to Tumacacori. 




Once safely down the mountain, and awarded with my hiker's pin from the Park Service, I watered up
and headed out to the historic missions site.  It was only 50 miles away BUT being in the remote location I was in, this translated into a 2 hour drive.  I got there with an hour to spare and that was perfect, that was all I needed.  The park site is the historic missions and surrounding structures.  It preserves the local Native American and Spanish missionary interactions, the Mision structure, the orchard ... oh, who am I kidding, it preserves the site where missionaries destroyed a native culture by reeducating them.  Off with those pagan customers and onto the new enlightened ways of the catholic church.  I have such a hard time stomaching these stories.  It angered me in Italy to see how the "my religion is better than your beliefs" destroyed culture and scientific advancement, and I angers me to see it here too.  We never learn from history. And these poor people, whom survived with the land were forced change because newcomers thought they knew better.  Would the world not be a better place if we did not destroy, but instead understood?  I don't know.  I didn't live this.  But I do know that we all need to learn from each other.  Preserving these places is important to tell these stories and remind each other that we can learn/understand and not vilify each other belief systems.


Okay - off my soapbox.

The Beach, 2 Parks, A Science Center and some Funky Golfing

The first 3 day weekend of the year... it's a great way to get away for a few days after the craziness of the holidays. This year, I didn't go too far (but far enough). Just 4 hours down the road to Virginia Beach. I know, I know, heading out to Virginia Beach does not make much sense in January, and typically it would not. This year, however, its been warm. Say it's El Nino, blame climate change, say it's a weird quirk... we all know it is NOT normal to have 60 degree weather in January, but that is what we had (on Saturday).




First stop on this weekend journey was the Coastal Virginia Wine Festival at the Convention Center. Friends know, I am not a drinker and I can't say that I have ever been to a wine festival before.. sure I have be to more than a handful of wineries before, but never something as big as this. I thought it would be fun to check out, taste a few of the sweeter ones (those are my style), look at crafts, listen to music and watch the grape stomp. Well, I found an awesome sangria with Athena Winery - just the winery name alone makes me want to visit - we are talking about my favorite Greek God people! There were some yummy fruit wines from Top Hill Berry Farms (we got a raspberry and a melon) and a great white and red semi sweet Breeze from Davis Valley. It was a great way to sample, because the pours were really just a small sip (just my style). Now, that small sip times 30+ venders times at least 4 tastes per winery meant there were plenty of drunk stumbling people all around. And that leads me to my major gripe of the festival - where was the food? There was a definite lack of food in a place where alcohol was being poured so freely. Not good! Some dip people with free pretzels, one crab cake guy and the convention center snack shop did not provide too many options. So, when my date and I got to the hotel - we headed out to eat. PRONOTO.

First Road Trip of the New Year

We are headed into Martin Luther King weekend. For a while now I have been using this weekend to explore on quick trips - I have headed to Florida, Memphis, took a bunch of trips to Vegas and had a great roadtrip last year to Palm Springs (from Vegas). I have seen a few national park sites - Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Nevada's Valley of Fire State Park.

This year, I am skipping the plane. Instead, I am headed to Virginia Beach and northern North Carolina. Virginia Beach is hosting the Coastal Wine Festival this weekend, and while I am not a wine connoisseur, my date loves a good glass of wine and I do enjoy the sweeter stuff. Besides, the festival also is host to arts & crafts, specialty foods and live entertainment. So, while it will again warm up this weekend, it is not warm enough to sit and enjoy the beach... we are headed inside to the convention center. If we are lucky, we can walk the "boardwalk" (I call it the cement walk) and listen to the waves.

I can't hang out in a convention center all weekend... I have my eye on the northern outer banks. I have spent my virtually entire life on the east coast, yet I have never been to the outer banks. It was never our thing. Growing up in Jersey, we had our own awesome beach. With family in southern Florida, a completely different type of beach awaited me there. We just never stopped in between. And now that I have lived in the DC area for 15 years, I find I still haven't made time to visit the banks. I have spent time in VA Beach, Ocean City Maryland and even the Delaware beaches. I haven't made time. That ends this weekend... We are taking the short 2 hour drive from VA Beach to Kitty Hawk and the surrounding areas. I have my sights on visiting the Wright Brothers National Memorial and Fort Raleigh. Neither will be like the 2 desert parks I have visited the last 2 years, but that is good - this is a change of pace. Fort Raleigh recognizes the mysterious site of the first English attempt at colonization (1585-1587). The Wright Brother site preserves the location of the first successful airplane flight in 1903. And if the weather cooperates, maybe I can drag my date on a few trails where I can put my camera to good use.

Have a great weekend everyone - Get Outside. Appreciate diversity. Enjoy life.