Passing Through Our drive to New York City today went pretty much as expected. On a Sunday morning in June, the week-ending population of New York usually doesn’t set out on the roads until the afternoon. That means we expected that our morning drive from the country to the city would be light traffic. That was the case right up until we got to that mess of a set of tangled roadways around Jersey City…
Post-Pandemic Parenting I am sitting here in the most bucolic of spots on my deck in Ithaca. The view across my pool in this bright sunshiny June morning (73 with a high predicted of 78) makes this a pretty ideal place to hang out under the awning and umbrella shade. To take a moment to describe the scene, the pool is surrounded by a substantial white picket fence (as is the deck a few feet…
Sneaking Into New York City Today is Father’s Day according to convention in the United States that begun, more or less, in 1910. A Day for honoring fathers has been a part of Western culture since the Middle Ages. Mothers have been honored formally in the U.S. since about the same time as fathers in the Unites States, but more broadly, mothers have been held on a pedestal for at least one day of the…
Betty Goes Swimming This is our third day in Ithaca and it has been wonderfully cool and a little bit rainy to boot. There has been no desire to test the waters of the pool, even though it is heated to a comfortable 85 degrees. Today was sunny and warmer and the thought did occur to me that a dip in the pool might be pleasant in the afternoon. The forecast said it would be…
The Beasts of the Field In the eighteen months I have lived on my hilltop in San Diego, I have gotten used to the critters that inhabit the chaparral. There is a very well defined ecosystem and while I am no zoologist or naturalist, this is how I see it. The baseline are the little ants I see here and there, inside and out. They don’t seem to be around much in the winter months,…
Tiering Up Today we drove the last leg of our Eastbound journey from California to New York. That rounds off to 2,800 miles in seven days of driving for an average daily ride of 400 miles. Today’s ride was only 335 miles, so about five and a half hours plus whatever stops we decided to make. We made it a forced march at 5mph over the speed limit (which I figure put us marginally over…
Ski In Ski Out A road trip across country at my age is bound to raise lots of memories. Indeed, today was a day of memories unlike yesterday. There is nothing wrong with the ride from San Diego through Las Vegas and up through the Virgin Valley Gorge into the red rocks of Southern Utah. In fact, it’s fair to say it’s one of my favorite areas of the United States, but we were just…
You Guys Playin’ Cards? There is a great scene from the the classic movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House, where the new pledge, Kent Dorfman (a.k.a. Flounder) ,who comes into the fraternity as a legacy based on the membership of his older brother, walks into the house and sees a group of upperclassmen at the poker table and says, “Hi guys……you guys playin’ cards?” It’s a showstopper because its the moment that Flounder establishes himself as…
A Room Without a View This week we are hopping from one roadway hotel to the next. Tuesday night was in the Holiday Inn Express in Richfield, Utah. It is right next to Rt. 70 and part of a highway exit dedicated to Rt. 70 travelers. Everything you need is within a hundred yards; a gas station, a minimart, a McDonalds and slightly better restaurant for those preferring not-so-fast food. The hotel has dug itself…
Falling to Earth I spent much of my drive yesterday through Utah listening to Ben Rhodes, the DeputyNational Security Advisor to Barack Obama, reading his newest book, After the Fall. It is a set of tremendously insightful vignettes from his post-White House years traveling around the world interacting with consulting clients. The specific theme is that democracy is not so much about to fall apart, but actually has begun the process of falling apart. His…