Cities 2023

Not much in the way of travel this past year. The places where I spent the night were mostly in my home country.  Victoria, MN, MIami, Fl, Belize City, Belize, Webster Groves, MO, Minneapolis, MN, Coralville, IA, Steubenville, OH, Hickory, NC, Roan Mountain, TN, Duluth, MN. 

Independence Days Remembered Part II

In looking back over the years the thing that stands out from my youth is the absence of big fireworks displays. Growing up in Florida I do not recall ever going to a big fireworks event ever. That was something we saw on TV, but never in person. It's not that we didn't go, it just didn't happen. There were plenty of sparklers and firecrackers, cherry bombs and M80s, buzzing things and flying things, things that exploded and things that soared. But none of the really big stuff. 

Thus, I have no big kid memories of the 4th. Except for the time that Bill Leap and I soaked a bunch of cattails in gasoline and lit them as torches. I was about 13 or so. We soaked them for a week and they made a nice display in his back yard. 

Others. As an adult around 1982 I helped fire off the big stuff for the Pine Bluff Arkansas Jaycees event. It was fun launching them and seeing the fear and excitement on the face of my toddler daughter. 

Mid 90s. Richmond Virginia, with friends. One of the kids got sick, I recall. 

Mid 90's St. Louis. Watching at eye level from a conference room in the Boatmen's Bank building with colleagues and our families. 

2005 Approx. Lake Minnetonka. Excelsior Minnesota. Nice display and I remember the traffic and parking being not near as bad as expected. 

2010 I was in Buenos Aires on July 4th. Odd to be somewhere when this is just another day. 

2022 I better be able to remember last year's. Watched a nice display sitting in the back of my now gone Ford F150 with my wife. Parking lot of target store in Waconia, MN. 

Note: As I was writing this I recalled writing a similar post in the past. Here it is. https://midnightdiner.blogspot.com/2011/07/independence-days-remembered.html

Top Five Hikes

Hiking in the Black Hills of SD this past weekend caused me to think about the best hikes of my life. Here are the top five.
1) Pinnacle Mountain - Pulaski County, Arkansas. Not the most scenic but the hike I've done the most with my family. A store of good memories.
2) Sunday Gulch - Black Hills, near Lake Sylvan. Fresh in my mind, hard not to put it on the list.
3) Blue Mountains - Katoomba, NSW, Australia. Echo Point, near the Three Sisters formation. Like being in another country. (I know this sounds pretentious but its my one and only hike outside the US and really is beautiful)
4) Carver's Gap - Roan Mountain, Tennessee. You can just bury me here.
5) Crabtree Falls - near Steele's Tavern, Virginia

Other great ones that my wife says are not hikes because they don't go up and down... Exit Glacier in Seward Alaska, The Grand Canyon - south Rim, Central Park to Times Square, the refrigerator to the couch, Mackinac Island loop.

Independence Days Remembered

The thing is, they're not. Remembered. There are only a handful that I clearly remember. July 4, 1976, 1981, 1982, 2010.


In 1976 most people were doing something really big, it was the bicentennial. I was stuck in Strafford, Missouri with the family of my on again - off again girlfriend. We heard some politicians, pastors, soldiers and other civic leaders speak. Somewhere I still have the program. I remember thinking, "what am I doing here?".

1981 and 1982 I remember because I helped shoot the fireworks for the city of Pine Bluff, Arkansas (another "what am I doing here" experience) I was a new dad. Both years our daughter, a toddler, cried at the sounds. By the second year she was 18 months old and enjoyed looking up in the sky. I was in the Jaycees and we sponsored the fireworks. Not a lot of regulation back in them days. Just a dozen guys standing in a field by the convention center, drinking beer and launching coffee cans of chemicals high into the air. The fire chief did come by to check on us, if I remember right.

Last year I was in Buenos Aires on the 4th. The only reason I remember it is because it was last year and it was the first time I was not in America on Independence Day. Went to a great restaurant, Las Lilas. That was about it. It was just another day in Argentina. In another ten years I will have completely forgotten about it because absolutely nothing special happened that day.

There were of course others but they all run together. The ones near our neighborhood in St. Louis. The ones here in Minnesota. Good times with family and friends that run togther to form one big Independence day memory.

Three memories of Argentina.

Just got back from Buenos Aires with my wife. Blah blah blah, wonderful city, blah blah great art and crafts and all the like. Weather was wonderful. The memories I will take away could not be more diiferent. Three stand out. The restaurant Las Lilas was one of the few expensive restaurants I've been to that lives up to the hype. Blah blah blah steaks, blah blah blah octupus, dessert, all were great.Probably what I will remember most ten years from now. Second, my wife spending a grueling night with a stomach virus ( no photo available ). Third was Evita's tomb. Modest by the gaudy standards of this cemetery. You have to hunt for it. Hundred and hundreds of crypts.

Me and my passport

I did not go outside the US until I was about 30, when I attended a conference in Montreal. Did not make it outside North America until well into my 40's. I never would have expect a year of travel like this, but mainly for my own archive, the list of places traveled is below. The US places were about two thirds business and the rest family stuff. The international trips were all business but fortunate I was able to include family, Rob to Hong Kong and Seoul, Robin to Cyprus, the whole family to Barcelona.

In North America: St. Louis, New York, Winnipeg, Los Angeles, Chicago, Helena MT, Las Vegas, Toronto, Philadelphia, Wilmington, New Orleans, Little Rock, Boston, Charlotte, Columbia SC, Greensboro, Charlottesville, Chicago, Atlanta, Roan Mountain, Chicago, San Francisco,  Fort Worth, Waco, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Columbia SC, Keswick VA, Boston, Winnipeg, Kansas City, Little Rock, Charlotte, Columbia SC, Richmond

Elsewhere: Hong Kong, Seoul, Amsterdam, Cyprus,  Buenos Aires, Rio, Sao Paolo, Santiago, Lima, Barcelona, Paris.

48 hours and one lousy picture in the city of lights

48 hours in Paris, 24 of which was basically free time.
7am Sunday, landed. 830am I'm at the hotel. 9-10 went for a run in the gym. 1030 - walked to the Louvre. 1115 to 1pm, toured the Louvre, mainly to see the big three, Monna Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo. Guards with machine guns outside the Louvre. If I was Greek or Eqyptian I would be very disturbed at all of my countries treasures that have been ransacked and put on display here. 1pm to 4pm mainly walked along the Seine with the obligatory side trip to Notre Dame. Back to hotel where I conked out until 7, when I met a friend from London for dinner. Had steak tar tar, which is almost impossible to get in the US anymore. Took this one photo after dinner.

Monday, Meetings and a nice dinner in the evening.
Tuesday. Got to airport way too early due to a transit strike that threatened to tie up all the cabs, so I grabbed an early one. Met a couple from Excelsior while in the Delta check in line. Had a nice talk with them off and on as we waited for our flight. Beth and Rob, did not get their last names. She is in the same large bible study group as my wife. Small world.

This is only my second trip here but as before I was struck by how much we copied the French in the early history of our country as we designed our cities and buildings. Every building here looks familiar, because you've seen a copy of it somewhere back home

Another Last Family Vacation

Our first "last big family vacation" was in 2002, if I remember right. We all went to Alaska for a week of salmon fishing, hiking, petting sled dogs and petting glaciers. Since then we've had one other notable LBFV, to Maui in 2005. There was also 2006, which was the year that we could have had another  LBFV, but chose to split up, guys to Alaska with Uncle Kevin, girls to the Caribbean.

I know we do this because the kids are grown and going separate ways and we all feel a need to get in one last big fling together. Although there have been the alternating annual treks to South Carolina and Arkansas for Christmas, we don't usually consider those as vacations, though I suppose we could.

This one, to Barcelona, was really something. A place we probably woudn't have selected had it not been for the fact that I was there on business. Caroline is almost 18 so I suppose this was the first one with all adults, sort of, if you include me. Although I was working I got to spend a fair amount of time with the family. Mainly it was nice just to see everyone together and the interactions that are uniquely ours.  

....the punches in the arm, the nicknames that go back to some event known only to us, the words and phrases that are just ours, a sister laying comfortably next to her brother. Occasional talk about weddnig plans, career plans, college plans, but mainly a few days of no plans. Just time together. Time for shared bathrooms that bring back memories of a full house in St. Louis. Time for shared food across a crowded table. Time to remember vacations past with toddlers in tow. Time for strolls in ancient churches on ancient streets. A moment or to for thoughts of Spain and old lessons from grade school about the long past glory of this country. One more time to just be together and be thankful that we have each other. Was this really the final LBFV? Perhaps, but not the last time together.

Macho Machu Pichu

Did it. Along with a friend climbed to the top of Waynapichu, the big monster that towers over Machu Pichu, shown below. At the time of the taking of the picture there were about 60 people there and I was clearly the oldest. Don't know whether that's cool or a sign of my stupidity.

Peru is an amazing place. Full of people so warm and friendly. A Peruvian colleague told me it was due mainly to the magnetic force of the earth being so strong there. He said it softens the personality or some other such new age rant. I tried not to laugh since he clearly believed what he was saying.

The country is full of hard working poor. Not lazy poor, but back bent, gnarly handed, grey haired men and women who physically toil more in a week than I do in a year. You can't hang around these folk for long without feel ashamed for every having said " I had a hard day". We must open our doors to people like these.

Food, wow. Ate my first guinea pig, which inspired me to tell of the day I murdered Buster, a hamster. Murder is perhaps too strong, accidental homicide perhaps. Also a little Alpaca, a unique meat with a texture like poultry and a taste like beef.

I have to go back to this place and spend much more time buying alpaca sweaters, sampling amazing desserts, stare once more at the Southern Cross, climb more steep trails to majestic views, wonder at the altar of more churches, adjust my lungs to the higher air, and return with a few more phrases of Spanish.

Flying across Peru

One of the things I've learned in my travels is that the concept of a "remote village" is fading. I can pick up enough of a weak cell signal to know that in all the little enclaves of humans below there is access to the same flow of info I have back home.

Just a few years ago the ancient dirt roads that crisscross the valleys and mountainsides were the only way of gathering news from the outside world. And just a few generations before the same was true for mountain people everywhere. No more.

Bye Santiago

I could live here, if I never had to go through customs

Probably the most beautiful big city that I had never given much thought to.

Leaving Brasil

As big and explosive as I'd heard. Wonderful people. So much potential in the markets. Rio yesterday, Sao Paulo today.

A place I never expected to be

Inside the Peruvian Consulate to Brazil in Rio. Waiting for a friend to sort out a visa problem. Staring at the walls. When an official comes in the room to make an announcement I shrug, nod, and roll my eyes along with the others as though I understand what is being said. The silent universal language of citizens waiting in government offices.

Independence day

Let freedom ring. Watching Britney's top ten hits on mtv in a hotel in Buenos Aires. (Hit me baby was #1)

Paper cups and parking lots, dogs, and refugees from Naminara

I spent several days last week in the hometown one of my six nieces, Lauren, the one farthest away. Seoul. A great adventure in a great city with a most excellent niece. One who is a great wanderer of the planet and shows her warmth and hospitality in all she does. I loved playing with Lauren and her siblings when they were very little. With all my nieces and nephews I think I avoided contact during the high school years. Bonding with uncles is the last thing on their list, and dealing with teenage angst, outside my nuclear family, is last on mine. I think I stayed a few steps beyond their sphere of awareness from around age 13 until they left for college and became human again. Time to reconnect.

Our last day in Seoul had to be the best. We met at Anguk Station around 9 and took a 90 minute bus ride to catch a ferry to Naminara Island. There we ate a great meal that we cooked at our table over a small charcoal pit. Pork, several types of kimchi, rice and a variety of vegetable dishes. Her boyfriend, Han Joo, never let us down as he ordered one dish after another over several days and immersed us in the full Korean dining experience. Our day in Naminara included great food, a small music museum, lots of photos, strolls down wide gravel avenues bordered by tall pines and a saxophone rendition of "My Way".

Lauren's love for the Korean people and the plight of those to the north, shows continually. An english teacher by day and freedom fighter by night. Hers is not an in-your-face self-righteous indignation but a determined commitment to take one step each day to draw these oppressed deeper into her heart. She serves them by keeping the public aware that many are imprisoned or perhaps, at that moment, fleeing south. She is ready to talk about it, or not talk about it, but the sense of purpose is very clear. It's easy to simply shrug off her work as one of the many "stories" of our family, until you see her in her place. When you walk the avenues of Seoul and hear her describe her work in her own words, in her voice, you cannot help but be changed. Her description of our day together is much better than mine and can be found by clicking here

The day wrapped up with another good meal inside one of Seoul's infamous "Love Motels". During the meal I caught something, my hands started itching and this has since turned into a major rash over my hands and ankles. It looks a little like poison ivy and I probably got it on the island. A little reminder of Korea to carry with me. As Rob and I stepped into a cab we gave her our last hugs for a while. It was hard to say goodbye, which is as it should be.

Double Happiness

One bargain I can never pass up. I don't smoke, but when the revolution comes these will be gold.

Easily exchangeable for a meal, a motel room for a night, safe passage into Canada.

$8 a carton in Seoul. Downside is my wife thinks I am a bad person for buying them. However, if she knew me like I know me she would realize this... if the Lord gave her a list of the things wrong with me, hoarding cheap cigarettes would be near the bottom of the list.

Seoul Men

One quick day in Hong Kong and 5 big ones in Seoul.

Korea, the economic horse of Asia that never seems to be top of mind. Thousands of years of history that for Americans begins and ends with the Korean War. One step into any Korean museum and you immediately sense that any understanding of Korea you had before was very very inadequate.

My trip was made whole by the presence of my son. I grew up with brothers but spend most of my days surrounded by wife and daughters. Since he left home several years ago I have lived in a female dominated household, a stranger in a strange land. When he shows up it's like the cavalry has arrived, rescuing me from a world I do not understand.

While his sisters took fatherhood in wonderful directions I didn't expect, he made it what I always thought it would be. Playing catch, football practice, fishing, mowing the lawn, afternoons at the ballpark, adventure movies, cub scouts, minor vehicle accidents, and all the other father/son stuff. There was of course the less pleasant things like falling into trouble at school and various escapades when the parents were out of the house. As time passes I remember less and less of his misdeeds, though his sisters are quick to remind me.

We don't see each other often but when we do, you will find us doing very predictable things. Guy stuff that helps me keep my head. Such as twenty minutes ago, when we were huddled around his computer screen at Narita Airport, trying to get the SuperBowl score. No broadcast of the game here, and so much for customer focus in the Delta Sky Club.

I was in HK and Seoul for business and Rob joined me. Traveling with grown children is different, but in a good way. Hard to step out of the parent role and just have a good time. If I had a thousand korean won for every time I asked him if he had his passport.... you know the rest. I guess though it's a good sign that after the first night of running around with his ex-pat cousin, I stopped asking him where he was or what he was doing.

Father and son traveling together to a far off place neither have been to. A trip everyone thinks about but few get a chance to actually do. In some ways it was like the travels with my daughters but also different. Simpler. Less planning. A bit more about learning and a bit less about shopping. A bit more about exploring and a bit less about what we will wear that day. A little more connected to the sports and news of home.

So what's all this rambling about? I suppose that just about every major dream I ever had for my kids has been realized. When I think about what I expected when I first got married and what my family is like today, I am only pleased and proud and with no complaints. He is a big part of that, because he is the one I could relate to the most, as a man and former boy. Our conversations on the trip finally have time for some of the deep stuff of life, topics that I suspect women fall into routinely, but men seldom do. We do it when time permits or circumstances of life demand, but not as part of our routine. We also talk about the normal day to day events. Work, sports, weather, food, sports, markets. He's going through some of the same things I did when I was his age, but is doing it better. He's staking out his career and place in life with more thought. He plans and thinks things through better than I did. When he was little I noted often how tough he seemed. Not in a negative or bullying way. But in a way that says "I will stand my ground", or "I will reach that goal". It's a determination and strength of purpose that I did not have at his age.  

While he is going through many of the same things that I did when first out on my own, I know a lot is different. I try hard to hold back the advice, since it is rarely something he hasn't thought of before (the same holds true for his sisters) Different people, different times, different circumstances, different answers.

Our sentences are short but carry the weight of meaning that comes from twenty plus years of conversation. It's a code that has changed little over the years. It is some of the very best talking and listening that I do.

I traveled a lot with this kid, to many wonderful places. Fishing in Alaska, to the rim of the Grand Canyon, surprise flights to Grandmother's, family vacations with cousins to Colorado, day trips to Chicago. This first trip with the man was the best of all. 

Singapore/Kuala Lumpur

Began the day running laps around a mosque in KL. Later climbed the 300 steps to the hindu shrine at the Batu Cave outside the city. Second time here. Food here was ok but lacks the distinctive dishes and flavour of the Thais and Chinese. I love this place but understand why "let's go eat Malaysian" is never heard in the US. The Manadin Oriental is amazing in its service and one of the best places I've stayed.

Singapore, first time here. Another monster that just grows and grows. Capitalism is so explosive here. I wish more people could see what it does when unconstrained. Both for well and ill, and that the "well" overwhelms the "ill".

Christmas, as a secular holiday, is more apparent in Singapore and KL than back home. At least the word "Christmas" is everywhere. Christmas trees, complete with the star of Bethlehem on top, are in every mall and along every major street. Granted, the sense of commercialism around the holiday is extreme, even from the viewpoint of a resident of the United States. But nice to see that star, which has been all but banned from public places in the United States. As a religious holiday I would give the United States an edge, but just a slight one.

Nice trip, more thoughts later, dozing off at the terminal........

Wrapping up this entry from the Delta Crown Room at Narita Airport and enjoying the last few hours of a six hour layover. It is noon Monday and 9pm Sunday back home.  The trip has been good but unfortunately leaves me with multiple examples of how far customer service has fallen in the US. Example.... I'm on Malaysian Air flight from KL to Tokyo, standing by the bathroom in the middle of the night, waiting for it to become available. A flight attendant across the way sees me, picks up the phone and calls another flight attendant to notify me that there is an open restroom close by in another section of the plane. That would never happen in the United States. Simply impossible. Example 2.... I get off the elevator at one of my hotels, heading with bags to my room. Somehow one of the staff knows who I am and where I am going. As soon as I get off and head the wrong way direction a voice calls out, "Sir, room 1705 is this way". How did they know who I was, where I was heading? Someone at checkin called and told them I was coming up. I'm no one special, just another guest, but certainly treated special in Asia, as anyone would want.

We've still got a lot to learn.

Frankfurt

Germany has not felt like a foreign country, but more like home than some places in the United States. First visit here. I shouldn't have taken this long to get here but looking forward to going back. Saw almost nothing of the city. Attending a conference, mainly in a convention center and hotel. Went for a stroll to the train station today and walked by this sculpture.

Kiev

24 hours in Kiev, Ukraine. Wonderful people, not enough time. A place I never expected to be. That I would be drinking a coke and watching CNN in the Hotel Opera is clearly not what Stalin had in mind.

Shown here the caves of St. Anthony and St. Theodosius. Monks have been living here since the 11th century and many entombed in these glass cases. More later.

Also shown, the statue of the Motherland.

.................