March 19, 2008
When I liked flying...
Alaska Airlines was the primary reason why. Now they're demonstrating again why they hold a 50% share at Sea-Tac airport, and why if I still lived anywhere they flew, they would always be my airline of choice.
There are three things I love about this article:
1) Alaska Airlines gets it. In the new world full of security and other obstacles to actually getting on an airplane and back off again at your intended destination with your stuff, this airline employs "lobby coordinators" in the "decision zone." Unlike the annoying greeters in any given retail store, these people serve the twin purposes of facilitation movement AND bringing graciousness to a rather calloused process. But even more than that personal touch, read the description of the kiosk lobby - not an atm-like device at the end of the linear formation, but a genuine lobby, with multiple points of service, opening up the space and giving the whole thing a more relaxed, dignified feeling. Absolutely wonderful.
2)When Fast Company was a brand new magazine and I was a determined to be successful business person, I was a charter subscriber. I learned a lot from that magazine about moving, about changing, about seeing business and processes with new eyes and not shying away from change. Still love this magazine, especially for profiling very cool new solutions like this one.
3) Ed White's comment about the patents - happy to see others embracing what Alaska developed. Cool.
Posted by cageyer at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2007
Seattle Notes
It's been two years since I hit the road for a coast-to-coast adventure of few plans, and that was also the last time I made it home to Seattle. The weather last week was just what good Seattle-in-June weather should be - rainy, and cool, with that combination of low-lying clouds and ground mist that makes visibility while driving kinda uncertain. The excuse for the trip was my dad's 65th birthday. The party was fun, and we managed to pull off the surprise of my being there. He didn't know I was in town until I pulled up in the rented blue PT Cruiser to pick him up for the party. That surprise was great.
I spent the week at a friend's place, with the friend, his girlfriend, and his kids sometimes there and sometimes not there. It was a nice feeling - sorta like flopping at friend's the way you might expect to do in college - but at older ages and with more surrounding adultness. Hooked up for dinner with Bridget, my former MA buddy who returned to the Seattle area after surviving that program and has been in the part-time instructor saga/challenge since then. She's talking about going to Korea for a year to teach. Mixed feelings on that one - good for her, great experience to have, but I'll miss her, even though I probably wouldn't have seen much of her iin that year anyway. I spent the last night with Elana, my best friend of - well, we figured just about 28 years now. We didn't have enough time to catch up on everything, but we did get the important details covered. I hope when I am her age I look as fabulous as she does. Oh, wait. That's right. I am her age. Damn.
I didn't do all my usual touristy things while I was there, because the trip was too short and the weather not all that pleasant for a ferry ride when you packed for "summer" and got "late spring" instead. Still, there are a few things I can report.
1. Magus Books is still the coolest used book store in the country.
2. The University Farmer's Market has some of the best growers anywhere. In particular, the guy with the fabulous heirloom tomatoes should be a destination for every tomato lover.
3. Big bunches of bright flowers for $5 is one of the main reasons I so miss Seattle.
4. I am still (and always will be) a Husky, through and through.
5. Traffic in Seattle is awful - but it's worse in Everett, believe it or not.
6. Heffalumps can still cause great sorrow.
Dad and I spent Saturday bumming around the U-district and then popped over the Redmond to visit the Saturday Market where my stepmom sells her Wakky Shirts. As we're standing at the check-out counter at the University Book Store where I am buying purple Husky shirts in anticipation of the Huskies @ SU football game in the Carrier Dome on August 31 (got that everyone? The Huskies are coming to Syracuse to play football. Guess which side I'll be sitting on....) and I hear what sounds like the awesome Husky Marching Band. So I do some inquiring, and it is the Husky Marching Band, and it's on CD, and they sell the CD - so back in line I go. It was daddy's birthday, but he paid for all of the Husky stuff. What a great dad! Now I have the music that reminds me of the best days of my college life, ready to call up and get misty over anytime I want.
I bought some books at Magus, including an old (and, as Dad says "pre-mildewed") 18-volume set of the works of George Eliot (dad didn't pay for that part). And then, because the short way from the U-District to Redmond is 520, but getting to 520 meant trying to navigate Montlake Blvd. just as the gathering for Commencement was in full swing, we went around the top of the lake, and thus I could buy the fun little book On Bullshit at Third Place Books, another of the Seattle area's best places. Then, when we got to Redmond, he took me to the brand new Whole Foods Market there. OMG - a foodie's dream shopping place. There were samples of all kinds of great food, included plenty of organically grown fruit. Everything was just amazing - seafood, cheeses, meat, the food bars (including the sushi conveyor bar), the rows and rows of quality food, much of it organic, with choices in every category, and the BEST guacamole ever, anywhere. Yum. Sure, the whole organic movement is not without its critics, and there is a distrubing logic to the fact that burning the fossil fuels necessary to bring products of any kind, but organics in particular, from, say, Chile doesn't really do the think that organic "should" do. And, it's still the case that, as this particular location demonstrated so well, this kind of food shopping is a luxury of wealth. But, I think it's worth recognizing the efforts of a grocery chain to function on principles of sustainability.
All in all, it was a good trip.
Posted by cageyer at 09:31 AM | Comments (1)
April 12, 2006
i've been everywhere
A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a mini-seminar at work (these are professional development sessions required of folks who teach in our program who aren't full-time faculty) on the subject of preparing students for digital writing - or something like that. Anyway, we worked with iMovie. I had never used iMovie before, but with a little instruction and an example to follow, it was really quite easy. Soon I had my own little three minute movie about my travels around the country.
Antje Duvekot has this great song called "Long Way." It's about traveling, about being everywhere. I love it for many reasons, but in this project I came to realize that I could illustrate it with my own photographs of my own travels. My movie project wasn't really good at doing that, but in the doing of the movie project I came to see a bigger project, one that told the story in a less linear way, a way that more matches the sentiment of the song, a way that feels more like being "on the worn out heels of Kerouac". So tonight I was going through my photo box - the one that begins after I was single, after I had a new life in front of my, after I was heading out "into the great unknown." And I came to realize that I have been to some really beautiful places. I've seen spectacular sites, vistas, landscapes, waterfalls, lakes, mountains. I can flip through the pictures and remember where I've been, how much I've seen, how much I enjoyed the trip, how I'd like to do it more, and again.
There are a few states in the union I have not yet traveled. But just a few. I've been all over the map, and it really is a long way to Michigan/Washington/Tennessee and back. Really.
Posted by cageyer at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2006
Travel Notes
Airline travel used to be fun. Back in the day, I had my own copy of Delta's timetable - the booklet that lists every flight and includes information about the aircraft and type of service provided. (I haven't seen one of those printed in years.) I was a reasonably frequent flyer and used to comb the book to find just the flight and service I wanted. Upgrades to first class could be had for a mere $60 if you didn't have enough miles. Alaska Airlines was the airline of choice for any trip in their service area. In addition to the extra legroom that made them highly attractive, they offered such amenities as free wine on their flights. Ah, those were the days.
Fast forward. Airline travel is not fun. I have done it a few times since I moved to Syracuse and really, it's almost worse than riding the bus. The rows get increasingly close together (remember that rule about putting your head on your knees and covering in case of an emergency? Fat chance!). The seats measure in a 17.3 inches wide. Do you know anyone with a 17" shoulder span? No, me either. Well, except for a some younger folks who also wear size 2 and 6, respectively, or a group under the age of 12. Seriously - you don't have to be overweight to not fit on the plane. It really is like packing sardines into a can. It makes me think of that program where they put the couple in a house for a year where everything was about 3/4 size and they had to live as if it were all normal. Drove them nuts with frustration and anger. It's the same - crammed into a too small space for a long time. And yet we do it - many of us - enough to oversell just about any flight that comes here - because it's still the way to get from here to there and back in a reasonable amount of time and with a minimum of personal wear and tear.
In the current edition of American Way magazine, the president wrote in his column about a proposal to open Love Field (in Dallas) for long haul flights. Apparently this would benefit the field's chief occupant - Southwest Airlines. American, with its big hub at DFW, is opposed to this change, and some of the implications from the impact study suggest they are right to do so for reasons even beyond their own competitive positioning. But that's not the part that was interesting to me. The interesting part was when he referred to Southwest Air as the wealthiest domestic airline.
Now, I've "known" Southwest Airlines since they were "born", so to speak, and the reason I find their wealth interesting is because from the beginning they did it differently than the rest of the airlines. At first, that meant they did things that business travelers, in particular, didn't like and wouldn't fly because of. But now, I think it means something more interesting - something to do with not carrying the weight of prior labor agreements in various forms, not having to maintain the kinds of long-haul and international systems that the other domestic airlines still carry. Lots of interesting business choices and an interesting result in a globalized world.
Southwest Airlines is a case study in many business success books. If I had the time, and I don't right now, it would be interesting to do a project studying the course of the airline, what business pundits said about it, what has happened, and how it came to be that a small start-up with a used fleet, no seat assignments, and a reputation for the quirkiest safety announcements in the industry came to be the wealthiest of all. (Book suggestions or other references gladly accepted).
Posted by cageyer at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2005
Bear Paw
Imagine you somewhere in the middle of northern Montana. The autumn chill suggests winter will soon come, with rain, snow, and hard winds. You have been traveling, mostly on foot, for over four months, always pursued, never able to rest for long, without adequate food supplies. There are many in your party--women, children, elders alongside warriors and chiefs. Many are weakened and sick. 100 have already died. You fled your home in the Wallowa hills to avoid capture and detention by an invader who wanted your land for the gold in the hills. Not content to simply let you and your party leave, they have pursued you for months. Your journey has wound nearly 2000 miles through high mountains and the lands of unfamiliar and enemy peoples. On September 29, with only two days journey remaining to the land of the Sioux where you hope to find sanctuary, the chiefs determine to make camp on a tributary of the Milk River near the Bear Paw mountains. The warriors kill some buffalo for food. Buffalo chips make fuel for fires. The chiefs plan to stay only one day - long enough to hunt a little and rest before the final leg of the journey. You are 60 miles from freedom when in the early morning of September 30 you raise your eyes to the hills south of camp to see a Cheyenne scout leading the soldiers of the United States Army. First they scatter your horses...
The year is 1877. You are part of the Nez Perce, and your journey is about to end.
July 10, 2005 ~ Near Chinook, Montana.
Today I encountered the most sorrow-filled placed I have ever been on this earth: Bear Paw Battlefield Nez Perce National Historical Park. Here the Nez Perce met their defeat, miles from home and painfully close to Canada, the camp of Sitting Bull and refuge. It is a sad, sacred site set in the vast stillness that Montana is mythical for. It was so quiet I could distinguish specific sounds among the hum of insects, and a car approaching could be heard miles before it was seen. I imagined this site - not very big at all, really, with a 1.5 mile loop interpretive trail and a somewhat but not vastly wider circumference - filled with the sounds of people, talking, cooking, playing. The stillness seemed surreal. The quiet seemed striking. The tragedy seem palpable. I wept for a people I have never known for a betrayal commited in my name, in the name of a God I claim to worship and the country in which I claim citizenship. It hurts, sometimes, to claim either of these things.
With the discovery of gold, the Nez Perce homeland was reduced in 1863 by nearly 90%. In 1877, General Oliver O. Howard received orders to move all of the Nez Perce to a reservation..."
The reservation was to be in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. No one who has ever been to both the Wallowa and Oklahoma could see this as fair or right. Not surprisingly, the Nez Perce resisted. The Nez War of 1877 began in June. The tribe followed Joseph and the other chiefs through the mountains of Idaho, over what is now the Rockies, to the prairie where they hoped at last to turn north and find Canada. 60 miles. That's all that remained for them after nearly 2000 on the run.
It is not the experience of Manifest Destiny marching west. Instead, it provides a view from the homeland looking out..."
from the sign at the beginning of the trail.
A people invaded and driven out, pursued as if they had been the hostile force. I wonder sometimes if the reason Clark committed suicide was because he knew, somehow, what would eventually happen to the people he and Lewis met on their journey to the Pacific and back.
The army thought they would have a quick battle and a victory. It turned into a seige. For six days, the Nez Perce held on. About 150 members of the tribe fled the camp and did make it to Canada. Only when Sitting Bull met them did he realize the fight was a near as it was. He had heard of the plight of the Nez Perce, but believed them to be much further south along the Missouri river. The refugees made him realize the true location, and he set out with a band or warriors to help. Encountering Chief White Bird and additional refugees at the Medicine Line (the border of Canada), he learns that rescue attempts will only bring more harm. For Chief Joseph and the survivors of the seige, it is too late to help.
During the seige, Nez Perce gave water and blankets to fallen army soldiers, when it was night and safe to do so. Many soldiers died. Many Nez Perce died. Small round markers throughout the site mark the places where chiefs and warriors fell. Such small remembrances, often with offerings placed near them. Small momentos of cloth and wood fading in the hot prairie sun. The remains of soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave at the site were moved in 1912 to the cemetary at Little Big Horn.
The seige lasted six days. On October 5, Chief Jospeh and Chief White Bird met with army officers to discuss terms of "quitting the fight." When Joseph agreed to the surrender, Gen. Nelson Miles promised him safe passage back to the "place you love to stay in". White Bird distrusted the Army and fled with a band of about 30 refugees. They make it to Canada. The rest, betrayed by the Army, are led to Oklahoma. The climate shift killed all the newborn babies and many of the elderly. Many of the tribe were sick throughout the first year.
Now there is an historical trail, a network of sites that tell this sad story. It gives real context and sense to the words I learned as a child in a schoolroom in Washington, where the history of the explorers and the trappers, the traders and the missionaires, the gold and the army are neatly and tidily presented in short snippets in books. Chief Joseph is portrayed as a hero not for his courage and leadership during the long odyssey and ordeal, but for the words of his surrender, the oft-quoted and not much contextualized words "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more." Some learn the whole of his speech that day, taken down and translated as he spoke by an army officer, later published in Harper's Weekly:
Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
After he finished speaking, Joseph drew his blanket over his head.
This National Park, a unique entry in the system, is presented from the point of view of the people who lived here first, before "Manifest Destiny" came to claim their home, their land, their way of life, their lives. I lived in Washington for many years, with reservations scattered throughout the places that I routinely traveled. Some are poor. Some are wealthy. All are reminders of the legacy of westward expansion. I learned this history of the Nez Perce as a schoolgirl. But I didn't really "learn" this history until I stood in the middle of that battlefield, being bitten by mosquitos and biting flies in the hot summer sun and heard the sound of sorrow deep in my own ears.
In addition to the battlefield site, the Blaine County Museum in Chinook offers a multimedia presentation about the battle. Additional resources include:
The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. A thoroughly researched history originally published in 1965 and updated in 1997. It is written for the lay reader, unacquainted with Nez Perce history. It is filled with detail and includes an extensive bibliography.
The National Park Service webpage for the site.
A better, more detailed, and more informative site is this one from the Friends of the Nez Perce Battlefields.
Posted by cageyer at 08:59 AM | Comments (1)
August 01, 2005
Road Trip 2005: Food Finds
In some cases, I had guides to cool local places I had saved from magazine articles. In other places, I chanced upon some very cool food purveyors. If you're traveling, check these out:
The Texas Roadhouse in Lima, Ohio (and probably other places). Not the best ribs I ever had but they do get an A- for atmosphere and points for good introductions. When they learned I hadn't been in before, they brought me a two-rib sampler of their baby back ribs, and gave me a back of their peanuts to take home. Not bad! It's the kind of place where you crack peanuts and leave the shells on the floor, but the beer selections could definitely use an upgrade. If you go, be sure to mention that first time thing. It's kind of cool to watch what happens next.
Boulder, Colorado has many great places to eat, but the one I was interested in was the West End Tavern which used to have the best view of the Flatirons in the city. That was before some idiot decided to allow an office building to go up next door that was two stories taller. Originally it would have completely obliterated the view, but after a long legal battle, a corner of the new building was shaved so the deck still has a view. Progress often sucks. But, though the view may be more limited, the food is still great. I had a wonderful plate of Asian Barbecue Shrimp that would have been enough to call dinner for only $5, and a pint of locally brewed Zolo ale for just $2. Such a bargain!
In the small hamlet of Pt. Arena I found this wonderful place called The Daily Record. It's both a grocery store and a cafe. The store is stocked with organic and natural foods, locally provided whenever possible. I camped at Manchester State Park, and went back to this town to find something for dinner. I had a choice of an ordinary looking mini-mart and this:
How could I not go inside? Fabulous food - Chicken Pesto Panini for dinner, a breakfast croissant the next morning with great bacon and the best latte I have ever had anywhere. If you find yourself on California 1 north of the bay, it's worth a stop.
Cannon Beach, Oregon, is home to a marvelous bakery, but even better it's the home of Bruce's Candy Kitchen, where they make real, soft, fresh, made-on-the-premises salt water taffy. I've been buying candy here since I was a kid. The taffy is the best, but they also offer an assortment of chocolates, including dark chocolate seafoam and cashew crabs. Yummy! (Seafoam is a light, airy, crunchy candy made from spun honey, then dipped in chocolate. I only buy it an Bruce's and only in small quantities because it's soooooo good). Even if you don't stop in Cannon Beach for any other reason, you need to drop by Bruce's and indulge.
I've raved about McMenamins Edgefield before but in the summer there's an additional experience. The Loading Dock Grill features barbecue and burgers. I enjoyed a wonderful smoked pork loin sandwich with a blueberry barbecue sauce that was amazing. Unfortunately, they don't pack the sauce to go. Fortunately, McMenamins does now bottle three of its great ales. 22 oz. to go. Whee! Edgefield is just east of Portland, Oregon, off of I-84 at Troutdale. It's a great place to spend a night before heading east through the Columbia River Gorge. The Loading Dock has live music on summer evenings. Well worth the visit. Great food, beer, wine, atmosphere, and artwork. Edgefield has it all.
In Hungry Horse, Montana, there is a unique store called The Huckleberry Patch, where they sell a variety of goodies made locally in Montana from wild huckleberries. Ice cream, taffy, jelly beans, huckleberry honey, huckleberry creme honey, jam, preserves, tea, and some other stuff I'm forgetting by now. If you can't get there in person, you can order gifts for yourself and others online. Tasty stuff. They used to have a restaurant that was known all over the area for good home cooking and great pie. The restaurant is gone now, but the pie filling is still available.
More accessible for most of us, and worth the trip, is Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Zingerman's isn't a single place, but a cooperative of several businesses, all run by folks with a passion for what they do. I found Zingerman's Roadhouse in my usual way - I was driving up a road looking for something else, saw the neon sign outside that said "Really Good American Food" and was intrigued. I was delightfully surprised to find this is no ordinary roadhouse. Friendly, comfortable, with an extensive menu of great choices, this roadhouse is a little more upscale than I expected. Planked wild west coast salmon? In Michigan? Or how about cheese flights, featuring small batch cheeses from The Creamery? Or fresh artisan bread from Zingerman's Bakehouse? No fancy pasta titles for this place, but the Mac and Jack is a dish worthy of any bistro, featuring smoked free range chicken, green chiles and fresh Monterey Jack cheese. It was so flavorful and really good. They encourage diners to ask for samples of anything interesting but unfamiliar. I tried their eastern North Carolina choped pork barbecue - the kind with a vinegar based sauce. It was good, but I opted for the comfort food instead. I got the lowdown on the whole organization, how the original founders opened Zingerman's Deli, nearer the University of Michigan campus, and added partners who were interested in starting other restaurant businesses. It's a great success story for all concerned, and the food is incredible. I visited the Bakehouse and the Creamery before leaving Ann Arbor for home. I brought back three kinds of bread and three kinds of great cheese. The Creamery also makes gelato (which I couldn't bring all the way home) that is superb. Intense flavor, soft, dense, wonderfully creamy texture. I tried coconut and dulce de leche. Insufficient superlatives. Good eats, indeed.
Posted by cageyer at 06:09 PM | Comments (2)
July 31, 2005
Road Trip 2005: An academic tour
Enter here the timeless fellowship of the human spirit.
This inscription is on the door above the west entrance to Norlin Library on the University of Colorado campus. It captures something of what living an academic life means to me. I didn't set out to make this a campuses tour, but I was drawn to them anyway. However different they may be, each campus I visited seems a part of a larger whole, a continuum that spans generations and continents. Behind the cut are some highlights and observations of my stops along the way.
Ohio Northern University
Established in 1871 by Henry Solomon Lehr, ONU is a small but pristine campus situated in the center of a small but pristine town in rural Ohio. I doubt if it gets much "redder" than this area. There's something almost mythical about rural Ohio, in the sense of the American myth of midwest Christian living, and Ada seems to be the snapshot of that. You can get some sense of the symmetry and architectural unity of the campus from the virtual tour, but not as much as I felt seeing it all as a panorama.
Miami University
Without question the most beautiful campus I visited along the trip. If I had made campus visits prior to enrolling in graduate school, I might be living in Oxford now. The Great Miami River flows through southwestern Ohio, and the valley is quite lovely, very rural, and yet not all that far from Cincinnatti. Oxford feels like it's a long way from anything resembling a city, but I was told that several faculty commute from Cincinnatti, so it can provide the best of both worlds. Like many older schools, Miami features a number of historic buildings. They offer visitors a delightful self-guided walking tour that gives a bit of the history of each building along the route. You can follow it in virtual form here. Choose the Walking Tour to follow the tour I took, or choose the Panoramic Tour a better appreciation of just how scenic the campus is. THe most interesting historic building, I thought, was the McGuffey Museum, the restored home of William Holmes McGuffey of McGuffey Eclectic Readers fame. There's a statue of McGuffey near the hall named for him.
University of Missouri
Another beautiful campus, though in a much different way, Mizzou is an urban campus set in the heart of Columbia, Missouri. Several of the campus buildings have the feel of being part of the downtown area, but one enters the central core of the campus through archways that give it a set-off feel. Flowers were everywhere in bloom while I was there, and with the humidity levels, the brilliant colors gave the campus a tropical feel, even in the face of the stone buildings.
Founded in 1839 by the Geyer Act (imagine that!), Mizzou has the distinction of being the first public university established in the Louisiana Purchase territory. To commemorate that, they have the original headstone from Thomas Jefferson's grave, and a statue of Jefferson engaged in writing on a lap desk in the garden. Mizzou is also home to the first school of journalism in the country. The original campus building, Academic Hall, was destroyed by fire in 1892, but its columns remained. They stand in their original location, but the new building was placed 400 feet away, giving a most interesting visual effect. You can view the columns and other historic sites at Mizzou in their online tour.
University of Kansas
My greatest surprise in visiting this campus was to discover an Oregon Trail historical marker. KU sits on Mount Oread, between the Kansas and Wakarusa Rivers. Pioneers on the trail went up over the mount rather than along the rivers, apparently. Lawrence was at the center of the slavery conflict during the "Bloody Kansas" years. Although the university was approved in 1856, it wasn't actually built until after the Civil War. Lawrence was founded by anti-slavery settlers from Massachussetts. During the slavery debate, the anti-slavery Jayhawkers were continuously in conflict with the neighboring Bushwackers from slave-holding Missouri. On August 21, 1863, led by William Clarke Quantrill, pro-slavery guerillas eluded Union troops and launched a raid on Lawrence. With orders to "burn every house and kill every man" the raiders, which allegedly include Jesse James, killed 200 men and caused $1.5 million in property damage. Such was the birth of the University of Kansas.
Jayhawk Boulevard runs through the campus on a route parallel to the Oregon Trail and is home fto sixteen historic buildings that reflect various architectural periods in the university's history. When you visit the campus, you can pick a nice brochure for a self-guided walking tour. There are some fabulous views of the two river valleys from the top of the hill, particularly from the upper floors of some of the older buildings. You can also follow an information packed brochure for a self-guided tour of Quantrill's Raid, though a car is probably needed for that. Other features of the campus include the new Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, which includes several exhibits and the Dole Archives, 4,000 boxes and 1,000 square feet of archives representing the largest single collection of Congressional papers.
University of Colorado
I have visions of teaching at UC, visions that invovle hiking in the nearby Flatirons or any of the several perimeter parks of Boulder, exploring the top of the Rockies, or just watching the many people at the Pearl Street Mall. Boulder is a very cool place, and the campus is an integral part of the city. Boulder Creek runs through the campus, and the Boulder Creek trail is a lovely 16-mile stretch to walk or cycle and avoid the intersections and traffic lights of the city. Off the southwest corner of the campus is Chautauqua park, nestled into a system of trails leading into the Flatirons. I hiked the Enchanted Mesa/Mesa Trail loop where I saw, along with stunning scenery, a young white-tail buck. A nice treat in the early morning. The park features cottages for rent and an historic dining hall that is very popular on a Saturday morning. Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian mall filled with shops, restaurants, historical markers, street performers, colorful locals and lots of fun, sits to the northwest of the campus, in easy walking distance. The local farmer's market, open Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings and featuring great local certified organic food, is also in walking distance. In fact, everything in Boulder seems very compact and easily accessible. More on Boulder in another post.
Like so many other schools, CU-Boulder (as they call it) was founded in the late 1800s. The first building constructed on the campus, Old Main, still stands. The original funding for the school came when the local settlers were faced with a deadline and had to come up with funds or lose the university to another town. They found the money. The campus now has over 200 rural Italian-style buildings set against the mountains, featuring reddish stone that blends in nicely with the hills. I could describe it more in words, but it's better to see it in pictures.
Berkeley
I last visited this campus when I was roughly 14 years old and was completely convinced this was where I was going to college. My father thought otherwise. Seems that the echoes of the Free Speech Movement and other student turbulence associated with that campus in the '60s still rang loudly in the mid-70s. I tried to explain to my dad that Berkely was by than a quiet, even apathetic, campus. He said that was because fathers like him didn't let daughter like me go there.
Berkeley is, well, Berkeley. The campus is part of that. I think the most interesting thing I found on this visit was the Free Speech cafe, an on-campus coffee shop dedicated to the Free Speech Movement and its leaders in 1964. The walls feature murals of the sit-ins, and administration response, along with pages from the local papers describing the events in that time. The tables have copies of the student newspaper entries from those days under glass. It's easy to overly romanticize what happened at Berkeley in that Movement. It's much more interesting and real to read it in the news reporting of the day. Mario Savio hadn't planned the event in the way it happened, hadn't organized the scope or size of it. He and the other student leaders were protesting a specific restrictive act of the administration, and a groundswell emerged around them. It's pretty interesting. There's a book about it, called The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s that I think will make particularly interested reading after having read Mark Kurlansky's book 1968.
University of Oregon
Another place I imagine teaching someday because of it's location, the University of Oregon really does have more to it than a great history in track (remember Steve Prefontaine, anyone?) or its proximity to Nike (Bill Boardman and the original "waffle trainers" came from here). The campus is, as they all are, very pretty. It sits along the Willamette River, with parks nearby. Eugene is only about an hour from the Oregon coast, 90 minutes or so from Portland, near the MacKenzie River, and has easy access to all kinds of recreational opportunities in central and southern Oregon. Eugene continues to promote its image as a hub for running, with plenty of trails benefitting walkers as well as runners. Lane County is also home to several historic covered bridges. I'll have to tour those on another trip.
University of Michigan
I couldn't pass through Michigan and not stop at Ann Arbor. I've heard about Ann Arbor for years, how beautiful it is, how much there is to do, etc. My romantic sense of the friendships to be formed at college come from the alumi of "Big Blue" in The Big Chill. My early football fanhood prominently featured Michigan, usually in competition with Ohio State. So I finally stopped by for a visit. I think of all the campuses, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has the most wedded relationship to its town. The campus and the downtown area butt against each other so that only on a map can you tell where one begins and the other ends. There campus doesn't feel at all secluded, even when crossing "the Diag," which might just be a city park. The visitor's brochure is for both the town and the campus, giving the sense that the town-gown relationship works well here. Plenty of shopping, lots of bookstores, coffee shops on all sides of the campus, markets, and whatever else one could want. As this was the end of my travels and I was pooped, I didn't take as much advantage of the campus as I could have, but I did find a number of interesting historical displays, including one marking student activism on the campus in the early 1970s, and a few marking the NASA astronauts that came from UM.
This, travel fans, marks the end of the academic tour. At least, for this trip. But my tour continues, my quest to find and take my place in the great conversation, the timeless fellowship. I leave you today with this inscription, from the valance of the Norline Library:
Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.
Posted by cageyer at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2005
Road Trip 2005: The summary stuff
Inspired, in part, by Leah's post on trip stats, I thought it would be kind of fun to summarize my trip in (sort-of) statistics.
Total miles driven: 7,719
Number of days: 22, including the start day and the end day.
Number of states crossed or visited: 20, plus one Canadian province
Longest I stayed in any one place: 4 nights in Philomath, Oregon
Longest single day drive: It's close, but it's either Columbia, Missouri to Denver, Colorado; OR Boulder, to El Cerrito, California; or possibly Cut Bank, Montana to Minot, North Dakota. It could be Duluth to Detroit.
Shortest single day drive: Bandon, Oregon to Florence, Oregon, even if you count the side trip to Eugene.
Number of Great Lakes viewed: 5, plus the Great Salt Lake.
Total gallons of gasoline: 304
Best price found for gasoline: $1.999
Highest price paid for gasoline: $2.659
Average for trip: $2.26
Total number of cities slept in that have university campuses: 9
Number of campuses visited without staying: 3
Most interesting drive: Going-to-the-sun Road in Glacier National Park
Most routine (I hate to say boring) drive: Lawrence, KS to Denver, CO.
Most disappointing portion of the drive: The Shoreline Highway (Route 1) in California. "Pacific Mist" shrouded the ocean most of the way.
Best day to see trains: Sunday. Going west, I saw many trains along the route through the mountains, but the last Sunday (July 10, I passed 12, not counting the Amrak, on the line the parallels Highway 2, and most of those 12 had 100 cars or more. Even the shortest one was 63 cars. That's a lot of freight in a day!)
Number of used book stores visited: 7
Number of used books purchased: 25
Best book find: Writer's Guide and Index to English, 5th Ed. by Porter G. Perrin, edited by Wilma Ebbitt. Found at Turn Around Books in McMinnville, Oregon.
Most scenic part of the trip: Glacier National Park. No contest.
Most poignant part of the trip: Nez Perce National Historical Park/Bear Paw Battlefield (about which I will have considerably more to say in another post.)
Award for best freeway median decoration: California, for the miles of multi colored flowering shrubs along I-80 as you descend the mountain.
Penalty for drivers most frequently failing to yield the passing lane when not passing: Washington.
Best latte I have ever had: The Daily Record in Pt. Arena, California. Their food rocks, too.
Most interesting beer found along the way: Moose Drool. (no, I'm not kidding).
Places I definitely want to go back to: Boulder, Colorado; The top of the Rockies above Denver, including Aspen, Vail, Leadville, Rocky Mountain National Park, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park; Glacier National Park (and the surrounding area in northwestern Montana); Ann Arbor, Michigan; Macinaw City and Macinac Island, Michigan; the Oregon Coast (always).
Things I didn't do that I wish I had: not many, except the bookstore in San Francisco, and Powell's in Portland. And more walking on the beach in Oregon.
Things I did I wish I hadn't: the Drive Thru tree at Leggett, California. This is not "the" drive through tree from the Redwood Firest - but a tourist trap of the first order; planned to drive from Cut Bank, Montana to Minot, North Dakota all in one day with so much to see in between; driven the UP (that's Upper Peninsula) in Michigan without time to stop along the way.
And finally, and most important, the people to whom I offer extended thanks, gratitude, and appreciation for putting me up, feeding me, and giving me points of anticipation along the way: Paul Bender; Marcia Hansen; my brother, Tim, and his family; Elmer and Dottie Taylor; Elana Bryan (who gave me a pointed look about calling Syracuse "home" in an earlier post, reminding me again how valuable best friendships are) and hubby Mark; my dad and his wife, Don and Tana Steward, who for the first time in years have a guest room in their home; Ann Tandy-Treiber; Keith and Linde Tandy; my dear friend Rich; and of course, my mom and her husband, Gail and Eddie, who helped with expenses and gave me the reason (justification?) for making the trip. Thanks to all of you.
Stay tuned for more posts on interesting places and themes of the trip, along with pictures (assuming, of course, that any of them came out!).
Posted by cageyer at 06:26 PM | Comments (4)