East coast transport

I didn't get to see too much of Washington, DC's sights during my attendance at a librarians' meeting there last week. [we librarians work pretty hard, in case you hadn't noticed] But I got to see more of the countryside by flying into Baltimore instead of direct to DC, and saved some money in the process.

Now, I've already extolled the virtues of DC's metro in a post on my London blog (since riding a subway will always remind me of the Tube). But that wasn't the only mode of mass transit I got to sample on my trip.

To start with, of course, I flew from wedding central in Denver to Baltimore. Then took a WMATA bus, which conveniently picked me up at BWI, and for a little over $3, deposited me at the Greenbelt Metro station pictured above. After a nice little drive through the Maryland countryside, where fall colors were still quite lovely. I got right on a metro train headed to downtown DC and after a short wait was on my way. One connection later, and I was at Pentagon City, a short but invigorating walk from my hotel.

This isn't my hotel, but rather the impressive buildings at the Pentagon City Mall

All together, my plane touched down at 3:30 and I was in my room relaxing at 5:30. Not too bad if it's a Sunday afternoon and you're not in a hurry. Total cost of ground transport: $6, and the flight from Denver was less than $150.

As I said, I was too busy meeting, cogitating, learning about cool new things to put on my website, and visiting with librarian friends from around the country, to see many DC sights during the meeting. However, a nice vendor-provided lunch did offer this view of some of the monuments across the river from the meeting site in Arlington, VA:

I was able to take a quick walk in a little park across from a restaurant where a group of Texas librarians got together for lunch. It had this really nifty fountain, along with some interesting bamboo structures that unfortunately didn't photograph very well.

Back to the transport theme, however, I took a different route back to Baltimore on Wednesday when the conference was over. Being a weekday, the wonderful Maryland MARC trains were running, which is a somewhat faster way of getting from DC to BWI, for about the same price as the bus/metro combo.

This option centers on Union Station, the lovely structure featured in last Wednesday's post. Once you're there, I'll bet you could get just about anywhere else. But I just needed to get up the road to Baltimore. Which you can do on the Penn Line in about 1/2 hour, for $6. When you get to the BWI stop, just hop off the train and onto the handy free shuttle bus that takes you directly to your airport terminal.

From which I was able to get back to San Antonio for less than $100! So unless time is really short, fly into Baltimore instead of DC National or Dulles—save money and get to ride trains in the bargain!

Colorado in October...

... is starting to be a tradition. Last year I got the prize for having traveled farthest (I think) to a nephew's wedding in Denver—from London! This year the distance we traveled wasn't so much, but the festivities and family visiting were just as nice.

We were greeted with this lovely sunset upon arrival in Denver last Friday—note unused (fortunately) snow fence in the foreground.

Then there was just time to dump bags and catch breath before heading to the yummy and fun rehearsal dinner. The restaurant featured this neat slide Sally is trying out in the photo on the right. Several others of the party had had enough wine with dinner that we sampled the feature on our way out as well. A niece and nephew are on their way up the stairs on the right.

Saturday morning we spent being very lazy, sleeping in, watching college football in HD in our hotel and not eating breakfast, since the last night's feast was quite sufficient for multiple day's nourishment. Plus we had to save room for the wedding dinner later that day, not to mention one of my favorite culinary experiences—wedding cake!

The lovely wedding ceremony was followed by more fun, eating, and visiting at the reception. Which, coincidentally, was held at the same country club as last year's event! We're getting to know that part of Denver pretty well. Unfortunately, our little family group this year was missing a couple of members, since Argentina was just too far for Hal and Carey to come. But Sally represented her generation admirably.

A few other cousins from this much more numerous side of our family (my in-laws) were also missing, but there were plenty of them (some with progeny, as well) to give the bride and groom a great send-off into married life, as you can see here:

Camera-shyness is not a dominant gene in this family

What a lovely spot for a party! Here is some supporting evidence, one shot featuring external scenery (note the snow!) and one interior decorations, with an eye toward that great view at dusk.

---

---

You may not be able to tell from the photo above, but the bride and groom made a very attractive couple. Congratulations, William and Mollie! And thanks to you and your parents for throwing such a lovely and entertaining weekend of fun.

---

Fortunately [or unfortunately] this year I didn't have to [get to] fly back to London after the festivities. But I didn't head straight home, either. A report on the next leg of my October travels is coming up shortly.

Wordless Wednesday: Union Station near Capitol Hill

A river walk

I don't have much time to blog, since I'm leaving this afternoon for a short, but rather extensive, geographically, trip. (More about this later.) But I had to write about what we did last Saturday, since it was so quintessentially Hometown Tourist-y. (Although a regrettable lack of good batteries in the camera resulted in very few pictures taken.)

We went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk! My city's two most popular (and, we often hear, the state's most popular) tourist attractions.

The impetus was, of course, visitors from out of town, including one who'd never been to Texas. But the evening started with our first symphony performance in some time. (An unofficial New Year's resolution of mine is to do more supporting of musical performances in town.) The Prokofiev violin concerto and Beethoven's 7th were fabulous! And an extra treat was the chalk art on the sidewalk outside the Majestic, one of the examples of which you can see above. Earlier that day was "Chalk it up," when groups from all over town draw on sidewalk and street. We liked several of the designs we saw that were still in evidence that evening.

Even though the symphony ended at about our usual bedtime, we met up with the out-of-towners, who were just a short walk away on the River enjoying margaritas. After eating what was essentially a second supper of nachos (across the river from the restaurant shown above), we decided that the Texas newbie just had to see the Alamo, which is also not far away (advantage of a small downtown! picture is of visiting nephew and friend).

And not far from there is the Menger Hotel, Teddy Roosevelt hangout and overall interesting historic structure. Amazingly, even though it was almost midnight, a very congenial security guard cum tour guide was showing some other folks around the lobby's highlights and so we joined in. An additional historic note that he hadn't known about: the visiting in-laws had their wedding reception here

many
a few years ago and my sister-in-law had thrown her bouquet from one of these picturesque interior balconies!

---

Now, about that trip, and an advance apology for an upcoming blog hiatus. Tomorrow we head to Denver for another Colorado October wedding, another nephew (not the one in the Alamo photo—I've got lots of nephews) tying the knot. Then Henry heads home on Sunday but I fly to Washington for a librarians' meeting. I've got new batteries in the camera, though, and so hope to have some good pictures and good stories to catch up on when I get home.

Changin' places

Encouraged by my travel-writer son, I opted to skip Wordless Wednesday this week [did anyone miss it?] and join Blog Action Day, whose theme for today is climate change. When deciding what to write about, I got to thinking about places I've enjoyed visiting and wondering how they might be affected by climate change.

So when my grandchildren [should any be produced] visit these places as adults, will they be able to enjoy them as I have?

Of course not, even without the specter of rising sea levels and radically shifting weather patterns. Places change. They always have. The planet evolves. It always has. This is the argument some folks advance for not worrying about climate change. But I don't accept it as an reason for continuing business as usual.

And I can't help wondering about its negative effects on some of these sentimental places....

• Glacier National Park (see photo above). Might have to be re-named by mid-century.
• Galveston Island. There are places at worse risk for disappearing under the waves as sea levels rise, but this is a special place in my family's history; plus they've recently had a taste of a possible disastrous future. Shoot, my adolescent hometown of Houston might lose some real estate as well.
• Perú. Valleys like the Moche, on the right, depend almost completely on meltwater from Andean snows for their moisture. What will these people do when there's not enough snow left to melt for them? [Aforementioned son's Blog Action Day post discusses this problem, which involves more than just Perú, in more heartbreaking detail and much more professionally than I can]
• London. I'm not worried about it slipping beneath the sea or drying up. But it might freeze up if the Gulf Stream shifts significantly due to massive inflows of fresh water from melting ice caps.
• Colorado. The view outside of my dream retirement residence might be a lot different by the time I'm able to enjoy it. Warmer winters are allowing the pine beetle to flourish and vistas like the one in this article might become more common. Personally, I prefer something like this:

I'm basically an optimistic person. Plus, I've had firsthand experience both at work and at home with young people who inspire confidence in a hopeful future. So I feel that challenges can be dealt with, solutions can be found. (Even if it's too late to stave off some of the negative impacts I've listed here.) But we need to work together to find them. And we need to accept scientific fact as scientific fact.

Woodcarvers' tales

Sometime ago, I posted some at-home-tourist thoughts about things I like in our vintage 1930's house. I've been thinking lately on how to follow up on those positive vibes, and my thoughts, and eyes, have been drawn to some of the lovely details in woodwork that I admire around the place—some of which are even older than the house.

Now, what follows might lead you to believe that we've always been lovers of antiques, but the real story is a bit less flattering. Henry's mother loved antiques, and also had quite an eye for lovely pieces, and the items you see here came to us largely through her largesse, or at least thanks to the well-chosen collection of antiques that furnished her house. In other words, we've always been happy to take free furniture, and our affection for these examples of a bygone age's craftsmanship has simply grown through years of familiarity!

For example, the two photos above are details from a simply stunning buffet that she gave us to replace the one we originally had (that she also gave us) when she wanted to use that one at her lakehouse. The curly-cue detail on the left is from one of the buffet's doors, and the handsome lintel and columns (architectural terms might not be completely correct) are from its top.

We've recently become the happy owners of lovely chairs from Tootsie's house [not wanting to be called "grandma" when she became one, she opted instead for this nickname from her childhood—a much more fitting appellation for someone with her energy and young-at-heart outlook!].
This photo is of the gorgeous detail that adorns the tops of these chairs, now in our dining room, which Henry's parents brought back with then after living in Germany. It's some of the prettiest carving in the house, and occasionally makes me want to rethink my general disdain for anything frou-frou-y...frou-frou like this I can handle!

Some of the furniture we have dates back much further, like a large china cabinet that belonged to Tootsie's great-grandmother. The story is that she brought it to Texas with her from Tennessee. The medallion on the left here is my favorite detail piece of carving on the cabinet.

Not all of the woodworking I like is on furniture, though. This charming little owl (I guess?) figure on the right, and the handy wooden bowls all came from my mother's house. Not exactly antiques, yet, I expect they are 1950's vintage.

Another nice figurine we have is this handsome carving on the left, from Vietnam, a souvenir of our son's bicycle trek there a few years ago. [Want to read about what can result when you raise your children to be independent and adventurous? He kept a journal on this three-month-long odyssey, via the aptly named website "Crazy Guy on a Bike."]

An amazing contrast to the simple lines of this figure is the somewhat hallucinogenic carving on a chest that Henry's Dad brought home from his service in India during the War. Now the happy repository of our Christmas decorations, this piece takes the prize for the most elaborately carved object in the house. This photo only shows a portion of the front, which for some reason has a bit of uncarved surface exposed. The top is all etched in similar scenes, leaving me simply to marvel at the skill, patience, and imagination of the woodcarver. What a tale, indeed!

Clockwork Storms

We're a little bleary-eyed this morning, thanks to some very heavy thunderstorms that interrupted our slumber with close to clockwork. At midnight, 3:00 and 6:30 I was awakened by thunder.

The heaviest rain, and biggest thunder and lightning show, by far, was the middle performance. I read the other day that we're behind some 9 inches in our annual rainfall, and I'm thinking we might have made up a good bit of that last night*. [That's the way "annual rainfall" usually works around here—we often get it all in a couple of big storms, whereas if it was spread out evenly throughout the year, it would do our yards a lot more good.]

At any rate, there was a LOT of lightning from 3 to 4. Some of it no doubt looked like this NOAA photo, although all I could see were sudden lightenings at the bedroom windows, practically constantly there for a while, accompanied by enough thunder to make sleep impossible.

Yawn! OK, I know I complain a lot about our lack of rain here, and so I won't be able to do that for a while. But if you can't complain about the weather, what can you find to talk about with strangers on the elevator? And I should be able to take a nice, long nap this afternoon.

---

*I was right about this. See this story in Monday's paper.