Retracing the Bike Adventure, Part 2: John Brown Canyon and into Moab

See Part 1 of this adventure here. 

I thought that this rock formation in the canyon looked a lot like the now-fallen Old Man of the Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

After our lunch at the Gateway Canyons Resort in Gateway, Colorado, we started up John Brown Canyon. I had heard so much about this part of the mountain biking trip, and everything I heard was true. It was grueling, it was all uphill, and it was exhausting. And this was taking the ride in the comfy passenger seat of our Prius, and I didn't even have to drive!

This was the view at the top, or what I thought was the top of the road. As Beez pointed out, though, the road just never stopped going up, up, and up some more. 

Dinosaur tracks from an unmarked trail off to the side

This is the little car that could.

This shot is to give you the sense of the immense drop-off on the side of the road. I couldn't get my foot to go out any closer to the edge. 

I hope that this shot gives a better idea of the drop at this point. 

Looking down toward Monument Valley, Utah.

I have no photos for the next part of the journey, but it is certainly engraved in my memory. The road finally started going down but, if anything, it was far worse than going up. Picture a very narrow and twisty dirt road, covered with slippery gravel and broken rocks, with our Toyota inching along through the blind curves. To our right the road was overhung by those red cliffs that break off in car- and house-sized chunks. On the left side of the car, the cliffs fell off for what looked (to me) like thousands of feet. I couldn't see the bottom.

By the time I was thinking that perhaps we should turn back, there was no longer any place to turn around. I wondered what would happen if we went over the edge and later read about a hiker in the canyon who found a smashed truck and the body of a man who had been missing for 26 years (that story can be seen here). 

We eventually found ourselves winding through fantastically-shaped red rocks on the outskirts of Moab. Moab was the end-point of the big bike ride, and I shared some of the mixed feelings of regret and relief the bike riders must have felt at the end of their grueling journey. The 215 miles of trails they had traveled were amazingly beautiful and crushingly challenging for them. I have a huge appreciation for their accomplishment!

We spent a relaxing evening in town, had breakfast at the Moab Diner ("the best green chile in Utah", and it was!), then headed out on the road for home.

Good-bye to Moab

The last of the red cliffs of Utah

Approaching New Mexico, and a new landscape appears

Another blurry photo taken on the fly

San Francisco Memories

Because I spent part of my childhood living in San Francisco, I expected that our recent trip there would stir some memories, and it did. 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with the fog coming in...

... catching a cable car...

... the excitement of the cable car going up... and up...

... and the stomach-clenching thrill of the cable car going down...

This is a tranquil shot taken out a restaurant window at Fisherman's Wharf (look closely for some of the resident sea lions sunning themselves). The wharf retail area is now much bigger and much busier than the wharf of my childhood, which had maybe three outdoor crab pots boiling for the few people waiting in line to take fresh crabs home with them. Back then in the early 1950s, there were a couple of big restaurants, and they are still there, but now the wharf area is "best known for being the location of Pier 39, the Cannery Shopping Center, Ghirardelli Square, a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum, the Musée Mécanique, the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf, the Aquarium of the Bay, and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park" (Wikipedia article, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco)

These little three-wheeled rental cars were a new sight to me. 

I loved having the chance to ride a familiar street car once again. 

This was the view from our daughter's hotel, the J.W. Marriott Union Square Hotel. You can see our hotel, the King George, somewhere down there. The cool San Francisco fog together with the sound of fog horns and the cries of seagulls took me right back to my childhood...

... as did this intersection. As we strolled back down Kearny Street to the hotel from our dinner at The Stinking Rose, the sight of that gate literally stopped me in my tracks. It was such an unusual sensation for me, but I had the strongest feeling that I had been in this exact spot before. When I looked around a bit, I realized that I was standing at the entrance to Maiden Lane, where my parents had brought us kids to see Christmas decorations every year. I had no idea that the memory was stored somewhere in my brain since we moved from San Francisco when I was only 11, but there it was!

Who knew that this happy street from my childhood had once been at the heart of the red-light district, and that, at one point, the area was experiencing a murder a day! However, enterprising merchants were determined to change it into a destination, and by the time I knew it, the Christmas decorations there were magical. Now it is an upscale shopping area with fancy boutiques, closed to auto traffic during the day. 

I loved our trip to San Francisco and feel so lucky to have lived there. Our little row house on 48th Avenue is still there in the Sunset District out by the beach. My parents sold it for $11,000 back in 1955. We could never afford it today!

Me, at our house on 48th Avenue in San Francisco
Circa 1949-1950

A San Francisco Evening

Who doesn't want to reek of garlic? Our first meal in San Francisco is always, if we can manage it, at The Stinking Rose ("we season our garlic with food") in North Beach. Their website tells us that the restaurant has become famous for celebrating the culinary euphoria of garlic and serving over 3,000 pounds of the pungent herb each month. Named after an historical term for "garlic," The Stinking Rose offers scrumptious, contemporary California-Italian cuisine prepared and adorned with garlic. 

We walked the mile and a half from our hotel, and were soon digging into bagna calda ("garlic soaking in a hot tub") and neon ravioli.

City Lights Books was just a few buildings away and we spent some time after the meal browsing the free-spirited selections in the famous bookstore founded back in 1953 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin. On our very first date in 1980 (or so) Beez and I had discussed Ferlinghetti's poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind; Beez with his usual total recall and me figuratively trotting along, trying to keep up with his quick intellectual strides. Of course, Ferlinghetti's shop has always been special to us.

And speaking of trotting along, I did my best to keep up with daughter Dee and gym rat Beez on the (long) way through Chinatown back to the hotel. At the slightest hint of a hill I stopped to "take a photo" while resting up for the next block. It irritated me that all those hours on the treadmill over the past six months didn't seem to translate to real-world San Francisco walking, but as my son Ben pointed out it would have been a lot harder for me to walk all over the city B.G. (before gym). 

Street mural,
Chinatown, San Francisco

Although I was born in Maine, I lived in San Francisco from the age of 3 months until I was eleven. I had no idea that all sorts of forgotten foggy city memories were lodged deep in my brain. More about that next time.

Shopping for Supper, the Way the French Do

We thought we were prepared for our stay in France. We had translator apps all set up in our phones,  we had special European coverage so that we would be able to use them, we arranged to have Euros on hand, and we had a wonderful navigator thingy in our rented diesel Peugeot. 

However, I'm afraid that as novice European travelers, we simply didn't know what we didn't know. Out in the French countryside, very few folks spoke any English. No problem: We turned to our phones for some handy phrases. Oops, no coverage as promised: Phones didn't work. 

Then came the problem of finding something to eat. Okay, we had plenty of Euros but we simply could not find a supermarket, or anything resembling one. We found the occasional small village store, but they were never open when we were hungry. It seems that family mealtime is very important to the French and they all go home for hours in the middle of the day. When we were finally able to get into one of the little stores, they had what we would consider emergency supplies only. Obviously, the French were well fed and fond of their food, but where the heck were they finding any?

We eventually worked it out. We knew that there were occasional open air markets held here and there and the thoughtful folks who rented the house to us had left a schedule of which town hosted the market on which day. We were picturing American-style farmers markets, which we use to supplement the big weekly shopping we do at the supermarket. Apparently, the French buy the bulk of their food at these outdoor markets. 

And is it ever fresh!  If you will scroll back up to the top photo, you will see a gentleman carrying a cardboard box back to his car. We had no idea at the time that it contained his monthly supply of poultry, still on the hoof! A kindly vendor explained to us--he had a little broken English and we had less and far-more-fractured French, but we worked it out. He told us that those in the know arrive early at this monthly market, famous for its poultry, held in the ancient town of Lencloitre. Thousands of chickens, geese, guineas, doves, quails, and ducks are sold out in the first hour or so. People carry their boxes of live poultry back to their cars, then return to finish the rest of their shopping in a more leisurely fashion. 

I guess those little feathered guys provide fresh meals for the family until the next monthly market. No plucked and cut-up and sanitarily packaged chicken for these folks!

I liked the way the greens were hung so the ducklings (goslings?)
had to reach for their food, giving them a little exercise in those crowded cages

The chicken guys were able to handle six to ten chickens at a time by grabbing their legs

You got the sense that these weren't like the coddled backyard chickens of America--I'm talking about the ones that get names like Peckatina (to mention a girl we all know and love)

After the family's poultry supply had been squared away, people had time to look over the bedding plants...

... and saddles, clothing, shoes, fresh fish (dead, but fresh), oysters, eels, lovely cheeses, all kinds of charcuterie (as we learned, these are bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit), eggs of every sort, breads and all kinds of pastries, vegetables, fruits, and wine.

Oh, yes. We mustn't forget the mandoline man. He demonstrated his slicer with a deftness that had to be seen to be believed. He chopped, he minced, he julienned, and he grated. He made dangly earring-shaped decorations from zucchinis (of course he called them courgettes). He was charming. He knew he had a sucker with this American tourist (who was thinking nostalgically of the Deerfield Fair in New Hampshire). I couldn't tear myself away until I bought the miracle-working slicer and all its accompanying attachments ("only" 20€). Of course, it came in a sealed box with no instructions. We haven't managed to make it slice a thing yet but, on a positive note, we haven't chopped off our fingers, either. 

He minced, he charmed

Although we didn't buy anything that was still alive, we were so proud that we had finally figured out how to buy food! And wine! Lots and lots of wine!

I know I've shown you this photo before, but it's my best food photo ever. 

Vacationing in a French Country House (Was It All a Dream?)

What a summer it has been! Since returning from our travels to France, Iceland, New York, New Hampshire, and California we've been kicking back and lazily enduring the desert summer heat here in southern New Mexico. Our time in France is starting to feel like a dream, so I'd better start writing about some of the wonderful memories before they drift away completely. 

We flew to Paris at the end of May, picked up our rental car and headed south, jet-lagged as we were. Don't you wish you had been there with us? Three worn out and cranky travelers, snappy tempers, unfamiliar car, busy Paris highways, unfamiliar road signs... We might have given up, were it not for the crisp, no-nonsense British woman's voice issuing forth from under the Peugeot's navigation screen. She led us down through the zippy roads leading to the A-10, south through the beautiful Loire Valley, then into a maze of rural roads and roundabouts, until we were on what seemed like donkey tracks leading through field after field of wheat and red poppies. Where in the heck was this place we had rented via the Internet?

Here is was, at last: Les Volets Bleus (Blue Shutters) in the commune of Monts-sur-Guesnes ("settled for many centuries"). We loved the house at first sight. It was tucked back from the quiet road, its front yard fragrant with lime trees, herbs, roses, and honeysuckle.

The shutters provided French-style natural air conditioning. There seemed to be no mosquitoes, but a bird flew in one morning, took a turn around the room while tweeting its approval, then flew out again. That's my son inside, setting up dinner reservations via the wireless internet access. 

The front door brought us into this marvelous great room/kitchen, which was outfitted with everything we needed. I loved the dishes and casseroles, especially the rabbit one. 

The other side of the great room contained spaces for people to visit around the fireplace, and that large round table where we could look out through the honeysuckle vines while sipping local wine. If you click to enlarge this photo, you might be able to make out the rabbit casserole over on the shelf in the corner.

There was another room down the hall with another fireplace and a library full of books I would have liked to have read. Alas, no time for reading...

This charming staircase led upstairs to many bedrooms with sleeping accommodations for ten or so. 

This is the bedroom that Beez and I chose to stay in. That was one comfy bed with a luxurious duvet and feather pillows. Throughout the house I admired the curtains and bed linens and slipcovers, all done by an expert with a wonderful sense of color and style. 

This was the upstairs bathroom with a view. Those big windows were always open during the cool parts of the day and overlooked the fragrant lime trees (no relation to citrus trees--we call them linden trees in North America), whose perfume is said to exert a calming influence. Downstairs was another bathroom with a claw-foot bathtub. 

We had some memorable meals out on this veranda, with its view of the surrounding hills and a medieval tower ruin. There were cherries, roses, and lavender for the picking and within reach; with grapes and figs to come later. I wanted to stay in this house forever...

As a matter of fact, you could do just that. The place is for sale now, since the owners would like to be done with their long-distance property management (they live in California, Massachusetts, and New Mexico). Perhaps you would like to buy the place and rent it out to us for a couple of weeks next summer--it comes completely furnished. I'll bet those wonderful dishes are included, as well. Details regarding the sale of the property are here.

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation

You'll have to pardon my excitement, but this was our first trip to Europe, so you'll be hearing a bit more about it. I thought it might help if I told you all the places we went.

First, we headed to New York from El Paso, so that we could meet up with our son, who was traveling onward with us. Because we are such country mice and were quickly exhausted by wandering around crowded Manhattan on foot, we made our way to this peaceful sanctuary of a cemetery just across from the World Trade Center site.

St. Paul's Churchyard

The next day, we left New York and headed for Iceland, where we had a very brief layover--just long enough for a beautiful open-faced smoked salmon sandwich. Yep, it's always about the food with us. 

Can you tell that I'm excited about becoming a world traveler?

After our late-night "lunch" in Iceland, we headed off in the summer twilight (it doesn't really get dark this time of year in Iceland) and on to Paris. Pausing just long enough to figure out the controls on the rental car and to program the navigator, we headed south through the Loire Valley to the beautiful blue-shuttered house, Les Volets Bleus, that we had rented for the week. The link below the photo will take you to many more views of the lovely interior. It was a dreamy place to stay, and it was all ours--for the week, anyway.

Les Volets Bleus

After an all-too-short week in the countryside, visiting chateaux and abbeys, street markets and gardens, beautiful villages and the sea, we drove back up to Paris and turned in the rental car. From that point on, we explored Paris as the Parisians do--on foot, by metro (subway), by boat, and by le taxi. But not by bike or Vespa--I drew the line there!

An amazing piece of interactive street art. Look closely (click to enlarge)
and you will see that the sidewalk appears to have heaved upward. The little boy
was using it for a slide. I can still hear his laughter. This is located off of the Boulevard Saint Germain, on the south side, at the intersection of Rue de Rennes and Rue Bonaparte. It's in the Place du Quebec and the sculpture is Charles Daudelin's, l’Embâcle http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_du_Qu%C3%A9bec

In Paris, we visited museums, strolled through parks and gardens, ate at sidewalk cafes, became philosophers for an afternoon, indulged ourselves at the Angelina Tea Room, and took an evening boat ride on the Seine.

Sunset over the Seine

Then we flew back to Iceland, swam in the geothermal waters of the Blue Lagoon, and continued on to Boston. In Boston, we did a bit of shopping and a bit of eating (you're not surprised by now, I'm sure), then drove up to New Hampshire for two days of visiting, partying, and reuniting with old friends. And then we flew once more, back to El Paso.

Phew. It's no wonder that some mornings I wake up wondering which hotel I'm in, and which language I'm expected to understand for the day!