tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53631928706345001982024-02-18T17:45:51.830-08:00The Curious ZephyrUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-62400681418864751292020-04-08T15:39:00.000-07:002020-04-08T15:39:16.891-07:00Quarantine Backyard Ultra in Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I ran my first 100km race on Saturday. It was an accident. There weren’t even supposed to be any races in April – pretty much every event across the planet has been cancelled or delayed until the fall as part of the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. And yet there I was on April 4 racing with several thousand runners not only from around the world, but physically located in several dozen separate countries, and next thing I know I’ve run both longer and farther than ever before. Where did this alternate reality come from?<br />
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<span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Allow me to introduce the </span><a href="https://personalpeak.ca/quarantinebackyard/" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Quarantine Backyard Ultra</a><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">, the brainchild of </span><a href="https://personalpeak.ca/" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Personal Peak Endurance Coaching</a><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">. Although first I need to go one step further back to explain the Backyard Ultra, which is the brainchild of the one and only Lazarus Lake. (If you’re a total newb to the endurance running community, check out the documentary “The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young” to learn more about this evil genius man and one of the most notorious ultramarathons in the world.) Laz created a race called Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra in 2011. He named the race after his mutt and hosts it literally in his own backyard. The concept is quite simple: the winner is the last person still running. Everyone else gets a DNF (Did Not Finish, for the newbs). Competitors must run 4.167 miles every hour, and be ready to start the next lap exactly after one hour. Miss the start bell of any lap for any reason and you’re out. There is no time cut-off and no goal distance. The winner just has to outlast everyone else.</span><br />
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The swift spread of COVID-19 crushed a lot of athletic hopes and dreams in the spring of 2020. Races are cancelled or postponed, tracks are closed, running groups can’t get together to train, and none of us know when things will start to trend back towards normal. The initial few weeks as lockdowns went into place were mentally really tough as we processed through denial into anger and sadness and hopelessness. We suffered through the paradox of having many of our motivations snatched away such that we didn’t even want to go out and run, and yet needing to run for our mental health, especially in places where getting some exercise was one of the few permissible reasons for leaving the confines of the house.</div>
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And then along came Personal Peak with their genius idea. Why not do a Backyard Ultra virtually? Thanks to technology like Zoom, YouTube, Facebook, and Strava, you can have thousands of runners all over the world connect together to compete in the same race without stepping outside, let alone on an airplane. So that’s exactly what they did.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I signed up for the Quarantine Backyard Ultra about a week in advance of the race, all I knew was that it was free and you could run as far as you wanted. I registered using Google Docs and received a bib number and a Zoom link for race day. We had the option of doing a Zoom check-in on Thursday evening or Friday morning to make sure we knew how to use the program and were clear on the rules of the race. It was somewhere between my Zoom check-in and Saturday morning that I learned what Backyard Ultra is all about. And then I started to get really excited about it. Here was little ole me, running a Lazarus Lake race! The first-ever virtual Backyard Ultra! With some AMAZING runners – the elite field included ultra greats like Harvey Lewis, Michael Wardian, Dave Proctor, Anna Carlsson, and Maggie Guterl. These people are world class, but here I was toeing the line right along with them!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2 April: Zoom Check-in</td></tr>
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This was going to be FUN.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In addition to the regular rules of Backyard Ultra, Quarantine Backyard Ultra also mandated that runners comply with COVID-19 restrictions. This meant that some runners did laps on their balconies or around their living rooms; some used treadmills; some ran outside. We are still allowed to exercise alone outside, so that’s what I did. We set up a table in the driveway loaded up with snacks and drinks, and I started and finished every lap there. We dug out an extension cord to bring the laptop with the Zoom feed as far outside as possible. Luckily it was a beautiful day to be outside and time zones worked in my favor so that my race started at 0900. Thus the time warp began.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My original goal for this race was to do 10 laps. By Friday evening, I had decided to go for 12 hours instead (aka 12 laps). In the end, I did 15 loops which means I was in the race for 15 hours, over 11 of which were actually spent running. That’s 62.63 miles. Just over 100 kilometers. 2411 people started the race, over 1300 of them DNF’d before me, and there were only about 200 of us left on Zoom when I called it a day after the 100km mark. My only sense of time passing was when the sun went down. There were a couple laps towards the end where everything really hurt and I was very focused on that, but the time still went by quickly. I can’t explain it. If you know, then you understand ... and if you don’t, you’ll just always think it’s crazy. When I think back on those 15 hours, my stream-of-consciousness trying to process the experience and remember everything that happened goes something like this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was really nice running weather, and my legs felt amazingly good. I wasn’t even in a marathon training cycle. I had just been running 30 to 40 miles a week—pretty average. I did my first lap on the bike path toward Rosslyn, and then a different direction on the bike path, and then a lap through a neighborhood that was one of only two routes that I didn’t repeat. It was fun, as always, running with Reese and she appreciated the walk breaks that we don’t take on normal runs. I changed shoes and socks four times, running the majority (seven laps) in my Sauconys, four in my Altras, and three in my New Balance. I wore SmartWool socks except with the Altras, when I switched over to Injinji for a little while. It was entertaining having Greg bike a lap with me while trying to take videos and photos. And I was very glad for his company at 10pm when I headed out for Lap 14. My feet hurt and I was getting tired; I needed a distraction. It was great to be back at the house every 4.167 miles and it was super nice to put on a dry sports bra and shirt every 3-4 laps. I think in total I ate four pickles, a can of regular Pringles, a can of chicken soup, one peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and three packs of Clif blocks. Maybe that wasn’t enough, but it’s the most consistent I’ve ever been with nutrition. Greg and Reese made an excellent support team. I abandoned the bike path after it got dark partly to stick closer to home and also to avoid the hills. I attempted to run down every street in the Virginia Square area. I was very curious what my final map would look like! I only had on long sleeves for the first three laps, and then T-shirts the rest of the time. Was it humid? It must have been humid. It was mostly overcast and didn’t feel very warm, but I finished off my 16oz water bottle about three miles into every single lap. Pickle juice and chicken broth tasted really really good after all the Nuun water. And milk! Always milk, are you surprised? Nope. I didn’t drink much though, probably only two cups. Saved the biggest slurp for right after I called it quits. Maybe the improved hydration and nutrition made a big difference. Maybe it was the fact that there was no set distance I had to reach because everyone DNFs this race unless they win. I don’t know, but I didn’t start to get sore until around mile 50. And even then, the most sore thing was my feet just from pounding pavement for so long. My quads were screaming at me by the marathon point of the JFK 50 miler; they barely whispered at me during this race. Did the rest breaks make that much of a difference? I don’t know! But I felt better longer than I ever have, so I scrapped my original goals and instead ran my first 100km. I don’t know where it came from. I ran it on my base rather than event-specific training. My muscles held up better than any race I’ve done before. My stomach held up better too! All of these improvements amaze me. Why would I feel better than I ever have when it’s the longest I’ve been on my feet and the farthest I’ve run? What a day. What a race. I’m proud of myself. I had a lot of fun. This is my COVID-19 silver lining.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-79020542923314301902016-12-30T14:43:00.000-08:002020-04-08T11:33:37.298-07:00The CZ Book Club: 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
2016 was a rough year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. It was also a pretty good year for plenty of reasons. For example, it was definitely a good year for some interesting reading!<br />
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So, if you'd like to expand beyond your normal reading selection, here are some suggestions for you. (Unless Russian literature is your norm, in which case this list will be a lot of familiar favorites.)<br />
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For an interesting exploration of a woman returning to a place haunted with memories, where she seeks to heal and find proof for herself that she is not, to put it crudely, a complete worthless screw-up: <i>Good Morning, Midnight </i>by Jean Rhys, author of <i>Wide Sargasso Sea. </i>This novel blurs the narrator's past and present in a drunken, emotional haze that pulls you straight into the pages.<br />
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For a scathing psychological portrait of a two-bit Russian gentry family slowly tearing itself apart from the inside: <i>The Golovlyov Family </i>by Mikhail Saltykov. This novel typically isn't as well-known to Western readers familiar with the likes of Dostoevsky, but it is similar in its darkness and preference to peer into the most cobwebbed corners of a character's mind.<br />
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For a comical depiction of the salt-of-the-earth and colorful people of the small country towns scattered across the vast plains of Russia, and the story of one lazy man with an incredibly bizarre moneymaking scheme: <i>Dead Souls </i>by Nikolai Gogol. Gogol presents a nice contrast to the darkness of Saltykov with an idyllic Russia populated with oddball, but not cruel and malicious, characters.<br />
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For a tragic romance and unembellished portrayal of lives of poverty in imperial Russia: <i>Poor Folk </i>by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The story is told in a series of letters between a poor copy clerk and his second cousin, a country girl who falls in love with a sick student.<br />
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For a tangled, intense story about morality, God, love, hate, and relationships: <i>The Brothers Karamazov </i>by Fyodor Dostoevsky. There is no way to distill this novel down to a sentence or two. It is a masterpiece.<br />
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For a beautiful, moving story about the difficult transition from an old life to a new one: <i>Farewell to Matyora </i>by Valentin Rasputin. <b>This is the best book I read all year.</b> It's the story of a group of old people living on an island in the Angara River, and how the tides of modernism and development quite literally sweep them away when their island is designated to be drowned when a dam is built across the river in the name of industrialization. They cling to their disappearing way of life and doomed homes as long as possible, and their drawn-out farewell is absolutely heartbreaking.<br />
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For a trippy experience that is pretty much the same as the movie: <i>Fight Club </i>by Chuck Palahnuik. Seriously, it's a super strange story with a major twist, but I didn't get anything out of the book that wasn't in the movie. So I guess they're both good?<br />
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For a portrayal of the ultimate type of superfluous person, all talk and ideas and no action: <i>Rudin </i>by Ivan Turgenev. Good ole Russian authors and their genius for psychological examination of their characters!<br />
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For a beautiful story about a husband and wife and the tragedies that war inflicts upon the families left behind: <i>Live and Remember </i>by Valentin Rasputin. This author is fantastic. Soldiers are not the only ones shattered by war.<br />
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For a political thrill disguised as a sci-fi novel: <i>Double Star </i>by Robert A. Heinlein. I was so surprised by this book! If it wasn't for the periodic references to free fall (zero gravity) and Martians, I would have thought it was just a great political caper! An impersonator hired to cover for the disappearance of a major public figure? You will not see what's coming.<br />
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For a series of stories depicting the lively, colorful personalities to be found in small country villages in the far reaches of Siberia: <i>Stories from a Siberian Village </i>by Vasily Shukshin. These snapshots show both the pure, simple ways of the old life and the slow modernizing incursion of the new.<br />
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For different perspectives on life inside the Soviet prison camp system: <i>The House of the Dead </i>by Fyodor Dostoevsky, <i>One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich </i>by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and <i>Kolyma Tales </i>by Varlam Shalamov. All three are semi-autobiographical by individuals who survived time in that frozen hell. Dostoevsky's and Solzhenitsyn's stories both follow a main character interacting with guards and fellow convicts, navigating labor assignments, squirreling away the rare extra ration of bread, suffering with the lice and bedbugs, and detailing every other mundane aspect of life in the gulag. Shalamov's book is an amalgamation of vignettes that reveal the inner workings of the camp doctors and medical facilities, movement of prisoners through the system, delineation of gangs within the camps based on the convicts' sentences, and the depths of desperation to which man can be brought.<br />
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;"><b><i>NON-FICTION</i></b></span><br />
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For an incredible story of escape, resourcefulness, and persistence: <i>The Long Walk </i>by Slavomir Rawicz. A small handful of men escape from a Siberian prison camp in the middle of winter and journey all the way across the Himalayas to India. On foot. I can only hope that were I ever to end up in a situation just a fraction as impossible as what they faced, that I would make it through with the same courage, creativity, and compassion.<br />
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For a hilarious and interesting travel memoir: <i>I Cannot Rest from Travel </i>by Willard Price. This guy had a serious case of wanderlust, and lived in a time when there were still new frontiers to be explored and it wasn't as easy as hopping on a 16 hour flight to Australia. Some of his observations are definitely not politically correct (by current standards), but many are still so true about what travel offers today!<br />
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For an unbelievable story of betrayal: <i>A Spy Among Friends </i>by Ben Macintyre. This well-researched saga of Kim Philby and the Cambridge Five, told from before they even became spies, is great. There's something about how a sharp British writer like Macintyre describes people -- the little details that become his primary focus -- that makes you feel like you've been friends with them your whole life and know them inside and out.<br />
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For an example of the far-reaching power of the written word: <i>The Zhivago Affair </i>by Peter Finn and Petra Couvee. I had no idea, before this book, that the CIA was in any way involved with the publication/dissemination of <i>Doctor Zhivago.</i> Even the Vatican was involved at one point! Nor did I know anything about Pasternak's stubbornness in sticking up for himself and his beloved masterpiece against the Soviet authorities. When I get around to rereading <i>Doctor Zhivago</i>, it will be with new eyes.<br />
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For inspiration about being an underdog: <i>David and Goliath </i>by Malcolm Gladwell. Although most people would never wish to be at a disadvantage, the various case studies presented in this book show how it's possible to not only overcome challenges, but to make them into strengths.<br />
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For more crazy Russians and wild Siberian stories: <i>Siberia on Fire </i>by Valentin Rasputin. The book is a series of stories, likely autobiographical, and essays by this incredibly perceptive Siberian author.<br />
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For some girl power, comedy, and successful dream-chasing: <i>Bossypants </i>by Tina Fey. I heard so much about this book, and I always thought the cover was bizarre, but I didn't really want to take the time to read it. Thank you road trips and audio books! I enjoyed learning about SNL behind the scenes, but it bothered me how much Tina Fey attributes aspects of her success to Alec Baldwin. Just own it, woman: you worked hard and you had some lucky breaks! That's a good life!<br />
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Happy reading in 2017!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-35592092761775999892016-09-22T19:08:00.000-07:002016-09-22T19:08:43.025-07:00Treasures of the Grand Canyon: Little Colorado<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Two years ago, my crazy family went on yet another fantastic adventure. When I was a kid, we rode to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back out) on mules. This time, we went from top to bottom in length rather than depth, floating from near Lake Powell all the way past Havasu Creek heading towards Lake Meade. I haven't written about the trip at all yet (<a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2016/08/the-taj-redux.html" target="_blank">we've already discussed how I'm a failure</a>, so I won't get into that again), but I did decide long ago how I want to break it out, because it's too much amazingness to cram into a single post.<br />
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I had planned to write one piece dedicated solely to the Little Colorado. Apparently there's no time like the present! This pristine, sacred place is currently the focus of a controversial debate about a development plan to build two hotels and a railway that would permanently alter the very heart of the canyon and the rivers, and would increase the number of annual visitors to the tens of thousands.<br />
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Full disclosure: I do not support this development plan. <a href="http://savetheconfluence.com/" target="_blank">I signed the petition against it</a>. But I'm not an environmental activist, and I'm not writing this to try to drum up hundreds more signatures advocating on behalf of the canyon. (Although feel free to sign if you want!) As ever and always, I want to introduce you to a beautiful natural place, share my memories, and perhaps inspire you to undertake your own adventure to visit!<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Visitors to the Little Colorado can get there two ways: by land or by river. I am not familiar with the details of the hiking routes, but I believe there are a couple different options. By boat, there is one way: float downstream on the Colorado River from the put-in point at Lee's Ferry, which is several days river-ride to the north.<br />
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The Colorado River, architect of the Grand Canyon, is a deep, fast, cold, darkly hued force of nature. The Little Colorado, one of its many tributaries, is exactly the opposite. It's smaller and shallower, and therefore a bit warmer, but the most noticeable difference of all is its shocking aquamarine color. We knew when we were near the confluence of the two rivers because a cloud of brilliant blue mushroomed out into the murky waters of the main river. The currents intertwine such that the waters of the Little Colorado blossom upstream a bit before spinning out into the center of the river and progressively blending into darkness.<br />
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We tied up the rafts, grabbed our life vests, and piled out of the boats for a short hike away from the main river and up the Little Colorado. We waded across the mouth of the confluence, stepping carefully through the opaque neon water, to a dirt path following the bank of the tributary upstream. Although most of us made it across with water only up to our knees, one friend stepped straight into a sink hole and received a nice dunk in the brisk waters of the little river. Although warmer than the big river, the Little Colorado was still chilly enough to be very refreshing on a hot summer canyon day. The steep rock cliffs of the main canyon relaxed, stretching a little wider and flatter to host green shrubs and grass, brights slashes of color among the varied reds of the rocks, dirt, and clay. There were actually some cabin remnants visible on the bank opposite from the trail we followed.<br />
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A half mile or so upstream from the confluence, the Little Colorado runs through a series of minor rapids that are super fun to float with a life vest. We jumped straight into the cloudy blue water and let our vests support us as we sailed past a few boulders, through some eddies, and out into a wider, still, smooth section of the river. We made human chains, linking our ankles around the waist of the person in front of us to bounce through the small rapids together.<br />
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I loved floating on my back in that open water, letting the life vest cushion me in water that was just as blue as the sky arching high over my head. The rushing of river water around boulders filled the air, and was the only sound in the canyon.<br />
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We learned the hard way that we did need to be cautious with our initial entry into the water. It's opaque, so it's difficult to gauge the depth simply by peering at it from the bank. One of our friends sustained a pretty nasty sprained ankle because she energetically leaped into the river, expecting to land in the main channel where she would sink into water over her head. Instead, she rammed into thick mud that was less than a foot below the water! Fortunately, she didn't have to hike back to the rafts on her sprained ankle; instead, she strapped on her life vest, carefully limped into the river, and floated all the way back to the confluence while we hustled along the path on the bank to keep pace. (She was a champ and made it through the rest of the trip, soaking her leg in the river at every chance she got and using a big stick to help her get around camp.)<br />
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After a few floats down the rapids, I hiked further upstream until I reached a section where the river flowed over terraces, looking like it was sculpted for a royal garden. Mud walls, turquoise water, scrub brush, and blue skies. With the rest of my rafting crew out of site and sound range, there was absolutely nothing around to remind me that there's this busy, crowded world full of people and things outside of the pristine canyon.<br />
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Red (rock). Blue (sky). Turquoise (water). Basic colors (basic elements), and a remote, peaceful afternoon to just breathe, float, and absorb as much as my mind and heart could handle.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-36055137304424845322016-09-07T13:35:00.000-07:002016-09-07T13:35:25.893-07:00For the Bookworms in Boston<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In this age of tablets and smart phones and every other manner of portable screen that you can carry with you anywhere, the printed word seems to be losing the war. Newspapers and magazines are struggling to morph into something that aligns with this digital world, and those brick-and-mortar bookstore classics like Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million have been forced to shutter many (or all) of their stores and expand their wares far outside the realm of "book." And then there's Amazon, who was originally born straddling the line between digital and physical as the biggest retailer of printed books that existed purely in the digital world.<br />
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Maybe in 50 years kids won't understand colloquialisms referencing turning pages and the like because Kindle will rule the world. Maybe people will have forgotten that musty smell of undiscovered stories and waiting adventures that wafts through the stacks of shelves in old libraries and second-hand bookstores. Maybe "browsing" will no longer signify hours wiled away reading back page summaries and will instead refer only to scrolling through lists of titles on a search engine.<br />
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Maybe.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>In the meantime, there's still a place in this world for tactile book lovers like me. No town is complete without at least one store, tucked down an alley or on a side corner, that harbors that musty smell of potential among is stacks and shelves of scuffled, finger-printed, dog-eared beloved books. Sometimes there's a cat or a dog. Usually contemporary titles give splashes of shiny color to shelves laden with externally dull, cloth-bound hardcovers that you've never heard of before. Always you are welcome to take your time, and proprietors will not be surprised to round a corner and find you seated on the floor between stacks reading a tantalizing first chapter to help you narrow down your final selection for purchase.<br />
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My beloved Boston has three bookstores that are my particular favorites, and one book table.<br />
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You read that correctly: a book table. I'll start there. (And yes, <i>technically </i>it's in Cambridge, not Boston.) Just up the street from the brick building that houses the administration of the Harvard Extension School, on the corner of Brattle Street and Farwell Place, sits a table. It's a regular table, perhaps a shade longer than the typical picnic table, and without the attached wooden benches. And it's always covered in books. Such close proximity to Harvard University guarantees a very interesting and ever-changing selection. You'll find textbooks, non-fiction research on all manner of topics, and serious works of fiction. The book table does not have a vendor, and it's on the honor system to deposit the appropriate amount of money in a container on the table. In fact, I just learned that you can find the book table on Google Maps, and that's exactly how it's labelled -- "Honor System Books."<br />
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Number three of my favorite Boston bookstores is a local Massachusetts chain called <a href="http://www.ravencambridge.com/" target="_blank">Raven Used Books</a>. While I lived in Boston, their local flagship was an awesome below-street-level location near Harvard Square, and they opened a second store on Newbury Street. However, the Harvard Square store was recently relocated to 23 Church Street and they had to close the Newbury Street store because of insane rent prices. No surprise there! Location roulette aside, Raven is a wonderful store with thousands of fascinating books. They specialize is "scholarly and literary titles" and have a huge turnover from the local academic and literary communities, which means there's always something different to find on the shelves.<br />
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My second favorite Boston store is <a href="http://www.brattlebookshop.com/" target="_blank">Brattle Book Shop</a>, located downtown at 9 West Street (not on Brattle Street....) one block away from Boston Common. When the weather is decent, this store expands outside beyond its three-story building into the empty lot next door, where rolling shelves are lined up for browsing as well. The side lot is decorated with colorful murals depicting famous personalities from the literary world.<br />
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Inside, you'll find wooden shelves lined with books organized by topic. Sometimes there's a Bernese Mountain Dog assisting behind the register. Brattle Books has a collection of rare and first-edition books in addition to the regular jumble of academic and literary titles. And most interesting of all, they offer a rental service to assist with decorating using books! Whether a realtor needs to decorate the library in a show home with serious-looking leather-bound books, or a movie director needs to make a film set look like a college dorm room or a professor's office or just a cozy living room, Brattle can provide the goods to complete the look. What an interesting sidebar to include in a regular bookstore business!<br />
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Last, but absolutely not least because it's my favorite, is <a href="http://www.commonwealthbooks.com/" target="_blank">Commonwealth Books</a>. This place is so old school that they do not have a digital inventory, and if you sell books to them for credit, the total amount of money you've earned is recorded on a notecard kept in a filing system. They're hidden away on Spring Lane, a tiny alley smack in the middle of the downtown chaos between Faneuil Hall and Downtown Crossing and <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/04/boston-in-24-hours.html" target="_blank">right on the Freedom Trail</a>.<br />
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Like Brattle Books, Commonwealth carries antiques, first-editions, and rare books too. They've got maps and engravings to complement their huge selection of tens of thousands of titles. The store is organized by subject, and the shelves create a maze of nooks and crannies with the occasional stuffy chair and fireplace that cater to the serious browser. There's even a large fluffy orange cat that may prowl the floor investigating patrons, but is more likely to be found curled up asleep behind the main window.<br />
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When you need a break from your <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/10/cannoli-queen-of-north-end.html" target="_blank">cannoli eating</a>, <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/03/gallon-challenge-in-boston.html" target="_blank">beer drinking</a>, and history <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/06/its-raining-in-boston.html" target="_blank">sightseeing</a>, these bookstores are little oases of serenity in the madness of the busy city. Long live the printed page.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-53653537967565930902016-09-01T14:34:00.000-07:002016-09-01T14:34:26.999-07:00Bataan Memorial Death March in Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My 2015 marathon was atypical. <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/12/antarctic-ice-marathon-in-review.html" target="_blank">Although I guess that doesn't mean much, coming from me</a>. But this one was different, even by my standards, because it wasn't a run. It was a hike. Or, more appropriately, it was a march.<br />
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The <a href="http://bataanmarch.com/" target="_blank">Bataan Memorial Death March</a> is held annually in memory of the forced march of over 60,000 American and Filipino soldiers at the hands of the Japanese Army after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines in 1942. Over 10,000 of those prisoners of war (POW) died during the brutal 60 mile journey. A significant number of the American POWs were from the New Mexico National Guard, which is why the New Mexico State University Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) began sponsoring the memorial march in the late 1980s. The New Mexico National Guard and White Sands Missile Range became sponsors of the event in 1992, which is when the march relocated to the missile range.<br />
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I don't remember the first time I heard of the Bataan Memorial Death March, but it's been in the back of my mind for years. I did not (and honestly still don't) know a great deal about the history that the march is memorializing. I was hooked because of the location. White Sands Missile Range was, in my mind, one of those mysterious, secretive, forbidden government sites that I naturally was curious to see. What a great opportunity!<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Silly me. Anybody can drive through White Sands Missile Range -- well, at least through the southeast corner of it. The highway from Las Cruces over the San Andres mountains to Alamogordo goes straight across that section of the missile range. It's beautiful country!<br />
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Although I can evidently travel through the range whenever I want, participating in the Bataan Memorial Death March gave me 26.2 miles to become much more intimately familiar with the high desert terrain of White Sands Missile Range. (Yes, the hike is limited to 26.2 miles, even though the actual event was much longer.)<br />
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Participants in the march can enter under several different categories. Many military members wear their combat uniforms. Non-military wear whatever they want. And both military and non-military can race either in the "light" or "heavy" divisions. "Heavy" division means participants carry a 35 pound ruck for the duration of the march.<br />
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The march started out very early in the morning on the Army garrison at White Sands. In true desert fashion, it was quite chilly and required several layers of long-sleeves to be comfortable. After an emotional recognition of some of the remaining survivors of the Death March, a Blackhawk helicopter buzzed the crowds of marchers, and waves and waves of U.S. service members saluted the giant American flag floating over the starting line. After all that exciting and inspiring pomp and circumstance, the actual start was a shade anti-climatic because there's no sudden crush of movement forward and no shifting into high gear. You're beginning an eight-hour hike through rocks and sand up and down a mountain; you stride forward in a purposeful walk, but a walk nonetheless.<br />
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The first eight miles meandered through the relatively flat, gravelly sagebrush heading north of the Army garrison towards Highway 70. Folks chatted with each other as we trudged along, and I ended up paired with a girl doing the "heavy" category. We matched up around mile three and stayed together for the next 17 miles! She pushed me to sustain a more strenuous pace, and I would have been at least an hour slower without her company.<br />
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At Mile 8, the main course turned north under the highway and towards the mountain. Those who elected to do the 14.7 mile short option looped directly back towards the garrison, but the rest of us had a mountain to climb first.<br />
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For this part of the march, we were on paved road that went straight up for more than a mile, gaining almost 200 feet in elevation. Thankfully there was a water station at the top, and we paused for a well-earned break before continuing on to what was my favorite part of the route.<br />
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Now that we had climbed nearly to the top of Mineral Hill, we maneuvered in a circle around the peak. The path became sand and dirt, which was a challenge after the hard pavement, but suddenly we seemed to be truly out in the wilderness. As we passed behind the peak, the buildings of the Army garrison and other maintenance structures near the end of the paved road vanished. There was nothing but dust, sage, cholla, and endless blue sky.<br />
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An occasional abandoned wooden ranch building crouched dispiritedly some distance of the trail, distracting my imagination with rumination on the challenges of carving a life out of this harshly beautiful land. It was only fitting that as the path continued round the mountain and the highway slowly came back into view, several Rangers mounted horseback paused just off the path observing and cheering for the marchers. It was a snapshot of a wilder time in Western history.<br />
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The mountain loop ended just after Mile 18, and my feet were extremely unhappy. Totally my own fault; I didn't exactly do any practice treks with my boots before the march. So I stopped to get some blister assistance, and lost my hiking partner in the process. She thought I might catch her, and that goal certainly had me moving quite quickly through the last miles, but I never saw her again.<br />
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It was easier to trot down that mile-long hill than walk, and then it was back under the highway on the road until the route dipped off pavement again through more dirt and sand back towards the garrison. As I got closer to the garrison, I realized that my Garmin was running out of battery power.<br />
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That dang watch was my final push to the finish. I really wanted to see my entire GPS track after the race, and I was determined to cross the finish line before the watch died. Despite my incredible blisters, and the fact that I'd been on my feet for about 8 hours at this point, I picked up the pace as the course wound along the western perimeter fence of the garrison and eventually rounded the last corner towards the tents and music and crowds at the finish.<br />
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At the Bataan Memorial Death March, I learned that I can hike a marathon in almost exactly twice the amount of time it takes me to run one. I relearned that there is a reason we break in our footwear before using it for a serious event, and I was continuously reminded of this for four days after the march until my blisters went down and I could walk like a normal person again. Although I evidently didn't need the excuse, I got to see my mysterious White Sands Missile Range and <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/05/a-snapshot-of-american-southwest.html" target="_blank">experience New Mexico in all its desert glory</a>. And I got to spend a day being thankful that I could choose to undertake this challenging but enjoyable journey instead of enduring the brutal circumstances forced upon those soldiers during World War II.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-55702578317643350792016-08-25T17:59:00.001-07:002016-08-25T17:59:53.448-07:00Travel Tips for the Ages<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There are a gazillion blog posts, magazine articles, books and movies out there touting the life-changing potential of travel. Those who have never experienced the changes must continue to scoff at the concept, because those who have been lucky enough to experience the changes keep seeking new ways to share the same story. They truly believe in the power of those moments and the importance of having as many people as possible experience them, or they would simply cherish their particular memories without trying to convince the nay-sayers. I'm a believer, and it's a worthy cause.</div>
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As I recently did regarding <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/08/taj-mahal-moment-of-quiet-and-solitude.html" target="_blank">my experience with the Taj Mahal</a>, <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2016/08/the-taj-redux.html" target="_blank">let me enlist a second voice</a> in case mine isn't sufficiently compelling. We're different genders, very different ages, and from totally different times, but Willard Price had the same wandering soul as the global nomads of today. If we're all on the same page over 70 years later, we must be on to something!</div>
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Willard's advice on how to grow, learn, and maximize the opportunities that the world has to offer distill into four rules that are as applicable today as they were a century ago.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">1) Be curious.</span></b></div>
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"The chief enemy of human understanding is not the one who does not know, but the one who does not care to know."<br />
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"Travel stimulates a vast curiosity which we do not have at home. In our own community, we become so used to the things about us that we do not wonder or inquire about them. The novelty of the things we find abroad stimulates mental activity - or should. It should produce more knowledge and less prejudice, for 'prejudice is being down on what we are not up on.'"<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">2) Be respectful.</span></b></div>
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"There are many who should stay home. They are those who when they travel leave behind them a trail of rancor rather than goodwill."</div>
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"Why is is that some people who are pillars of propriety so long as they stay home go berserk when they travel? Out from under the scrutiny of the home folk, they feel that they can cast off all inhibitions."</div>
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"He steals the gavel from the Peace Palace in the Hague. He bashes in a bobby's helmet. He lights his cigarettes with a franc note and plasters his suitcase with liras to show his scorn for Europe's devalued currency." [DON'T BE THAT GUY!!]</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3) Learn some basic phrases in the local language.</b></span></div>
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"It is hard to enter into the life of a people without some knowledge of their language."</div>
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"The first expression to be learned in any language is the equivalent for 'Thank you'."<br />
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"The first courtesy one can pay to new friends is to learn something of their language."</div>
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"Language opens doors of understanding that may otherwise be firmly closed."</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4) Be open-minded.</b></span></div>
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"When traveling we are too inclined to behave like square pegs in round holes. We do not try to fit in. We will get much more out of our journey by adopting the ways of the [locals], even though we think they are not as good as our own ways. The successful traveler is at home abroad. He respects the taste and judgment of his hosts and is willing to concede that they are just as human as he is."</div>
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"When we begin to see how much better other people do certain things than we do we begin to suspect that possibly we are the ones who are uncouth, uncanny, immoral, heathen and wild. At least, we become less cocksure about things."<br />
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Open your mind, open your heart, and the possibilities are endless. Brace yourself; life change is imminent.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-24359260317528214352016-08-20T13:01:00.004-07:002016-08-20T13:01:47.828-07:00The CZ Book Club: 2015 Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have this thing where I can't get rid of a book without (re)reading it, and I'm downsizing my life, which mostly means going through the piles of books that are stacked all over my house. Funny that just a few years ago, I was collecting any book I could get my hands on while I cherished the dream of one day having a fantastic library room with wooden shelves requiring sliding ladders for access to the top. Then I moved a few times. And wouldn't you know, books weigh a LOT. I am pretty sure the total number of book boxes I had to unpack was equal to the total number of boxes for everything else I own. Not conducive to the minimalist goal of living out of a vehicle!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Per my own standard, it's going to take a while to get through my piles so I can send them off to new homes. But there's progress.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Wynne's War</b></span></i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- by Aaron Gwyn</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary:</b> An instinctive act during a firefight brings Russell to the attention of Captain Wynne, leader of a Green Beret unit preparing for a mysterious mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. Russell's skill with horses are vital to their success, but his faith in the military and leadership and his own priorities and dreams is severely tested as he learns more about the enigmatic Captain and his team of loyal followers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take:</b> A comment on the back cover of this book drew a comparison to Cormac McCarthy, and I absolutely agree. It's dark, disjointed, and confusing, which is completely appropriate with Afghanistan as the background. It's a bizarre blend of reality and surreal dreamscapes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"He realized that by now he'd prepared himself to die a number of times, but he hadn't - not in any way that mattered - prepared himself to live."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Little House on Rocky Ridge, </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">Little Farm in the Ozarks, </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">In the Land of the Big Red Apple, </span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;">On the Other Side of the Hill</span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- all by Roger Lea MacBride</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79qhu_MJ5sGe1bakp4l2rqILTa6uLrTcLVQ4D2hRabdyexMHovvTOUBaGhwtk7ROiwJPpyasVquGVAFIwmTEEhfqf5eL45mimiOdURIqJHQisczOPJc9zD_JUTER6EzLwKkh9vzFOhoM/s1600/51Lcn7RSyjL._AC_UL320_SR214%252C320_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh79qhu_MJ5sGe1bakp4l2rqILTa6uLrTcLVQ4D2hRabdyexMHovvTOUBaGhwtk7ROiwJPpyasVquGVAFIwmTEEhfqf5eL45mimiOdURIqJHQisczOPJc9zD_JUTER6EzLwKkh9vzFOhoM/s200/51Lcn7RSyjL._AC_UL320_SR214%252C320_.jpg" width="133" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary: </b>A continuation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, captured in her autobiographical books known as The Little House on the Prairie series. Her daughter, Rose Wilder, lived an equally fascinating life, and the childhood years of it were penned by her close friend and "heir" Roger Lea MacBride. We learned about the challenges of pioneer life in the Dakotas from Laura; Rose's experiences introduce us to life in the Ozarks of Missouri.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>Laura Ingalls Wilder is an original, but these are informative about farm and small town life in the Ozarks in the very late 1800s. If you're a fan of the Little House on the Prairie, it's fun to see your favorite "characters" in as adults.</span><br />
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<span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UA1D_nIbkEo/V7iy0Dr9yeI/AAAAAAAABkg/5GQ2oh48Ck0wWegyYnJh2urVHHNTpHNrQCLcB/s200/a3ae3b1972f0821758580405d569b501-w204%25401x.jpg" width="122" /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Buffalo Girls</b></i></span> - by Larry McMurtry</span><br />
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<b>Quick Summary: </b>The story of the Wild West, including such towering figures as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickock, and Annie Oakley, told by none other than Calamity Jane. It's not about buffalo stampedes, cowboys and Indians, and gunslingers though; it's about the slow fade of the truly wild West as the land becomes settled and those larger-than-life individuals struggle to adapt to a new way of life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>I enjoyed reading this book! It provides a very different perspective on all these famous figures, and presents a realistic view of the Wild West counter to the romanticized norm.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDU7GbsEzt7kLrTI1-mqMJOjbgcbDOIE6jjSZFJ3lnoeSm7I2q00kCI1TPmEEumDG_-J9B8PsUh_avO2x9Ox-O2ItovxQSLaICndTTp0MQFWU4nt1ztGrlLt7y48SWiXyIg5FwYibRnPI/s1600/41t29YVtzfL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDU7GbsEzt7kLrTI1-mqMJOjbgcbDOIE6jjSZFJ3lnoeSm7I2q00kCI1TPmEEumDG_-J9B8PsUh_avO2x9Ox-O2ItovxQSLaICndTTp0MQFWU4nt1ztGrlLt7y48SWiXyIg5FwYibRnPI/s200/41t29YVtzfL.jpg" width="134" /></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Mattie</b></i></span> - by Judy Alter</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary: </b>Apparently I was on a pioneer kick for a while? Mattie tells the story of a pioneer and physician carving a life for herself on the plains of Nebraska.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>Mattie is a spitfire! It's not common to find stories, fictional or not, about a solo woman in a time when women were expected to be wives, who becomes a doctor before women could do such things. Healthy dose of independent inspiration here!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigR15ubV7GQOCrvIguR8-OzVrz7-WAk9b0IN7D83vlFSVBsZvazCCERGI5qoYE2TCJeSjSQEQ1CGUtFuqPdLJsCXr3lXs2k66qVr36Hxgm6_n3t6zFMweQ5ttbNjZp5Y2hLZ_TAcBF-9Q/s1600/518nciNl0rL._SX320_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigR15ubV7GQOCrvIguR8-OzVrz7-WAk9b0IN7D83vlFSVBsZvazCCERGI5qoYE2TCJeSjSQEQ1CGUtFuqPdLJsCXr3lXs2k66qVr36Hxgm6_n3t6zFMweQ5ttbNjZp5Y2hLZ_TAcBF-9Q/s200/518nciNl0rL._SX320_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="128" /></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Natasha's Dance</b></i></span> - by Orlando Figes</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary: </b>A cultural history of Russia from the very beginning all the way through Soviet times.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>This is not a history book, which is great, but the complete disregard for chronology can get a little confusing when you're trying to put the artist/author/dancer/musician being discussed into context. Regardless, it touches on many different aspects of culture and cultural development, and is an excellent broad look at what makes Russia Russian!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Oblomov</b></i></span> - by Ivan Goncharov</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6_x9-5HtsaE/V7iz0MHWbsI/AAAAAAAABkw/Fq7lLqV44TQDEJsB71digb34CkEFeRmZQCLcB/s1600/763_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6_x9-5HtsaE/V7iz0MHWbsI/AAAAAAAABkw/Fq7lLqV44TQDEJsB71digb34CkEFeRmZQCLcB/s200/763_large.jpg" width="131" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary: </b>A classic novel not as well known outside of Russia, it tells the story of a man who, despite his plans and dreams, cannot motivate himself or be externally provoked into action. From his couch, he observes life passing through the world around him, but he is a bystander rather than a participant. He nearly saves himself when he makes the acquaintance of an intriguing young woman, but ultimately his inertia triumphs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>I love the incredible psychological acumen of Russia authors. You root so hard for Oblomov because he really is a sympathetic character even though he is literally a waste of breath, but you kind of know how it's going to end up -- Oblomov doesn't even get off his couch once for the entire first part of the book! Perhaps it was especially intriguing because I am the exact opposite type of person.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>What is to be Done?</b></i></span> - by Nikolai Chernyshevsky</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0G-BBXbxIzDNyCWT_t0pBPzMyqRfzKhtCgCLi5QZ-8zJF_nYTN4vgvNkSQSGFPNmr9_LaveuPK7PpIJ9PMwg7PmCdDVGdJBE7SYYEnwaKzCBaeXkIXyYEJj-V8CFaZtNedSaGVQilO-A/s1600/9780875010175-us-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0G-BBXbxIzDNyCWT_t0pBPzMyqRfzKhtCgCLi5QZ-8zJF_nYTN4vgvNkSQSGFPNmr9_LaveuPK7PpIJ9PMwg7PmCdDVGdJBE7SYYEnwaKzCBaeXkIXyYEJj-V8CFaZtNedSaGVQilO-A/s200/9780875010175-us-300.jpg" width="125" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Quick Summary: </b>A love story, a political commentary, and a philosophical discussion on socialism. Vera Pavlovna finds a way out of an arranged marriage and establishes what ultimately becomes essentially a women's commune housed inside a sewing shop.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>My Take: </b>Another point for feminism in an unexpected quarter, since the main character is a woman who undertakes to escape an arranged marriage and achieve financial independence. And this was written in the mid-late 1800s ... in Russia. I found this novel difficult to relate to, having grown up in a completely different style of society, but the challenge of making that connection and visualizing these characters and their lifestyle is worthwhile.
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-5611081377599157852016-08-16T20:41:00.000-07:002016-08-19T05:03:21.949-07:00The Taj Redux<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/09/favorite-runs-paul-stock-nature-trail.html" target="_blank">It has not quite been a year since I published a post!</a> Whew! I'm less than a month shy though, so clearly an epic fail. The teaser is that I have over 40 stories that I want to finish and share, so it's not for a lack of adventures and fun and travel-inspiration that I've been a ghost!<br />
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First: this blog is not dead. I don't know for certain what I want to do with it. I want to change it, make it more of a story-telling forum than a how-to forum, and I want to do a whole lot more with photographs. But I also have a full-time job that I have not decided to abandon, so I haven't been able to dedicate the time and energy that I want into developing this into my vision. Yet? There are a lot of things pulling me in a lot of directions these days, and it is not a pleasant experience. Something will give way eventually. I'll be glad if it's not my sanity.<br />
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I was recently lost in the bowels of the Widener Library trying to locate books that I wanted to check out for thesis research. Along the way I found this gem; and how could I possible leave it behind?? The title says it all-- <i>I Cannot Rest from Travel.</i><br />
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The title comes from a line in a Tennyson poem. The author of the book, Willard Price, was a journalist/photographer/jack-of-all-trades and he published this book in the early 1950s. It's definitely a book of those times, and there are some cringe-worthy generalities that are an excellent reminder of how far we've come in the last half century. Anyway, the point is that this man enjoyed some insane adventures. Sometimes, I wish the world was still wilder, unknown, and mysterious as it was when he was gallivanting around before the ubiquitous digital connection afforded by the Internet and social media.<br />
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Anyway, one chapter really struck me, and I wanted to share. It's unfortunate that I haven't written the many things I have planned and as a result, <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/08/taj-mahal-moment-of-quiet-and-solitude.html" target="_blank">one of my last published posts was about the Taj Mahal</a> ... because the time lapse between that post and this one is extensive, and that's part of what's so neat about this unexpected discovery!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwuVsQKNX2p5TMtbAvQz_CqsU3FlFZq5isC5NUOS6rrRM5umLOD2UhC9hLSyVXQ7f3MznUZ8ePjL5okth4W3GxTBLXvqFTacXNhPZQkOV-1-38Rb9KBcxnd-YQQ0cU0IdCyHfM5hxhTPo/s1600/052+upriver+to+the+Taj.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwuVsQKNX2p5TMtbAvQz_CqsU3FlFZq5isC5NUOS6rrRM5umLOD2UhC9hLSyVXQ7f3MznUZ8ePjL5okth4W3GxTBLXvqFTacXNhPZQkOV-1-38Rb9KBcxnd-YQQ0cU0IdCyHfM5hxhTPo/s640/052+upriver+to+the+Taj.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>I first laid eyes on the Taj over a year and a half ago. I've never been particularly drawn to explore India, but seeing the Taj in person was an incredible experience -- much more than I expected. But if the perspective of one girl's visit from early 2000s isn't enough to convince you, allow me to share the perspective of another man's visit from the early 1900s. Two people from wholly different circumstances and times, and both left in complete awe --- trust me, there is something about the Taj.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTCwraFhR7XhvjSgICycRCE2UzNyWlh1LKS5nY36bSgMWY63g6l62ZIYtvICoTyt17k7MYpP-Zj1GeznqoeZjPMUgjxvsPe4MVbpnEJa45bhdbvZPX068tYhyphenhyphenPI88maNgvPSHzZ8QyCY/s1600/014+Taj+Mahal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTCwraFhR7XhvjSgICycRCE2UzNyWlh1LKS5nY36bSgMWY63g6l62ZIYtvICoTyt17k7MYpP-Zj1GeznqoeZjPMUgjxvsPe4MVbpnEJa45bhdbvZPX068tYhyphenhyphenPI88maNgvPSHzZ8QyCY/s640/014+Taj+Mahal.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Willard somehow managed to talk his way into the grounds in the early early morning before it was open to the public. He was there alone. He was there for sunrise.<br />
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"I feel my way down the steps and walk a hundred yard or so along the marble pavement towards the Taj. Then I stop and look. Is it really the Taj, or only a mental image of it? It is like a castle in the air, a mirage, something built of soap bubbles. Or is it the ivory model of itself sold in the shops. Directly above it is a pendant star like the other star over Bethlehem. Other stars cluster about it like jewels."<br />
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"It is nothing real, but just a story-book picture of something real."<br />
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"I sit down on the parapet and gaze for an hour and more upon the Taj, admiring its pale purity, its peaceful resignation, its perfect deadness. After all it is a tomb, and it knows how to behave like one.<br />
Or does it? For now I see a miracle - a tomb coming to life. The sky begins flushing in the east. The dead, nunlike white of the Taj begins to change to a warm flesh color...It is no longer an image cut out of paper. It is as if a picture should begin to live and breathe, as the statue of Galatea became Galatea. Is the loved one buried here stirring in her sarcophagus, rising, sending her heart-beats to the pinnacle of every minaret, swelling the booming dome with her own radiant warmth?"<br />
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"I had come at this hour to avoid the chattering, cigarette-butt-dropping crowds. But now I look around, wishing there were someone else to share this miracle. There is no one."<br />
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"It is exquisite, this blushing ivory with pastel-blue sky and rose wisps of cloud."<br />
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"Shah Jehan built it for love of his wife. There is love in every line."<br />
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"Under the great dome is the tomb covered with lace like carvings of flowers inlaid with lapis lazuli, malachite, agate, and carnelian. There are grilles of marble carved to almost cobweb fineness. The casket is a jewel-encrusted pearl, so ethereal that you would hardly be surprised to see it rise and float away."<br />
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"The windows at the top bring me suddenly into startling familiarity with the lovely lady now brought to life by the sun. She is no longer a pale, dead nun. She is a dancing girl. She has flung down her white habit, and put on ornaments. Invisible before the dawn, wonderful necklaces of decoration now appear, green, red and brown. And he dew-covered beds of flowers in the garden make it seem that she is using perfume. This is no cold, marble lad, and there is nothing tomblike or deathlike about her home. She may die every evening, but there is a resurrection every morning."<br />
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"And for the rest of my life, the mist will return whenever I think of the Taj. For I have seen, verily I believe, the loveliest thing ever made by the hand of man."<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-5787152726937237122015-09-09T16:07:00.001-07:002015-09-09T18:40:12.164-07:00Favorite Runs: Paul Stock Nature Trail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Tucked away in the northeast corner of the wild open spaces of the state of Wyoming, there is a little town. It's little by rest-of-world standards; for Wyoming, it's a pretty decent size.</div>
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It was born in the late 1800s and named in tribute to arguably its most famous resident ever, the American frontier legend William "Buffalo Bill" Cody.</div>
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Cody, Wyoming is Cowboy Country. It sits on the edge of the Absaroka Range of the Rocky Mountains, and guards the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It holds a rodeo nightly during the summer months, and is an embarkation point for hunters in the fall and winter. It's got high plains dotted with sage and cattle, a sulphur-smelling river that carves its way through a canyon marking the edge of town, and mountain sentinels looming on the horizon.</div>
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<a name='more'></a>I like wild places, so my favorite running spot in Cody is a trail on the edge of town where it's easy to forget that you're only half a mile away from a gas station and Dairy Queen. Behind the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the trail drops down onto a little plateau above the Shoshone River. The buildings from town disappear and you are left with dirt paths zig-zagging around sage bushes peering over the cliff edge towards the river flowing by below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-OpikzBIbmR4kaJsDocencpi-rQPzA0qN7sirx23G_VXN5m_pqkeCQsAYsy3yuVeixmTJfsME9fjEqPMg_AD8oQkdW3bbGyyzOuRBbbKWPCyh2iKfANbFlGREjnQJqWS2L3ncsiGh1vB/s640/blogger-image--565364771.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-OpikzBIbmR4kaJsDocencpi-rQPzA0qN7sirx23G_VXN5m_pqkeCQsAYsy3yuVeixmTJfsME9fjEqPMg_AD8oQkdW3bbGyyzOuRBbbKWPCyh2iKfANbFlGREjnQJqWS2L3ncsiGh1vB/s640/blogger-image--565364771.jpg" /></a></div>
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You have Rattlesnake and Cedar Mountains for company to the west, and Heart Mountain snoozing to the north. The trail follows the curve of the Shoshone River and eventually dips down right to the banks, where the dogs can wade in and get a refreshing drink. The wind smells like dust and sun-scorched sage.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinKPtWJ7HmN94Db_V0auowKFynYbIbU5rhhCP0AR7w8fjz3vzuW25yvWzhA4ou6MwMY4fOBN-l33UOw7wyTChg94_sJXjuq5d5aq_QPcs4gw76wa45bepP3I6k2jYKHtzzC1uNNXJYyd2E/s640/blogger-image-731208329.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinKPtWJ7HmN94Db_V0auowKFynYbIbU5rhhCP0AR7w8fjz3vzuW25yvWzhA4ou6MwMY4fOBN-l33UOw7wyTChg94_sJXjuq5d5aq_QPcs4gw76wa45bepP3I6k2jYKHtzzC1uNNXJYyd2E/s640/blogger-image-731208329.jpg" /></a></div>
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By staying along the perimeter, the trail can be maximized to about two miles. You may encounter horseback riders, runners, hikers, or native wildlife like foxes and pelicans camping out on a sandbar in the river.<br />
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It's a little slice of Wyoming heaven.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-65109689283854498552015-08-18T22:48:00.000-07:002016-08-16T08:45:27.533-07:00Taj Mahal: A Moment of Quiet and Solitude in India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
India is a country of color. Traditional clothing favors vibrant hues, especially for women. Cherry red, fire orange, peacock blue, emerald green, and sunshine yellow collide in a chaos of scarves and saris. Buildings tend to be grey, brown, and red because of the stone and earth available to use for construction. Yellow and green tuk-tuks dart through the streams of modern vehicles. Food is spiced to shades of yellow and red, and markets abound with sandy-looking mountains of colorful precious flavors like saffron and cumin. Plants bloom in every available space, providing a backdrop of green even in the most crowded, dusty cities.<br />
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India is also dirty. Many roads are not paved, and a smog of pollution and dust permeates much of the country. Animals freely roam the streets, even in the most metropolitan and modern of cities. That's just the way it is for this densely populated country, but it creates a sheen of shabby sameness over the riot of colors that is India.<br />
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Against this backdrop of crowds, chaos, grime, and hues, the Taj Mahal is a shock to behold.
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<a name='more'></a>It glows with a lightness rare to India, as somehow the white marble domes and walls resist the polluting stain of the surrounding city. It towers surreally over its accompanying red stone buildings and lush gardens and against the hazy Agra sky. The bright reds and greens (and blue, if the sky cooperates!) highlight the surprising purity of the Taj's exterior.<br />
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Although the Taj Mahal is a massively popular destination for both foreign and local tourists, the crowds diminish in its presence. They dissipate through the extensive gardens, and find themselves dwarfed beneath the towering Islamic script carved into the facades of the Taj. It regally looms over the snaking queue of visitors, quietly absorbing them into its interior and gently releasing them, dazed, onto the stone courtyard overlooking the river.<br />
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The Taj is one of those instantly recognizable landmarks that is absolutely worth a personal visit. Endure the three-hours-one-way taxi ride from Delhi. Force your way through the mobs of street hawkers trying to get you to ride a camel or take their special personalized guided tour of the Taj grounds. Wait through the ridiculously long lines of visitors patiently inching forward for a metal detector screening and pat down from security.<br />
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Slowly work your way into the crowd streaming towards the Great Gate, and under it's massive stone arch. Step through the gate, and then plant your feet firmly against the stone. Resist the ebb and flow of the humanity around you, ignore the urgent guidance of your unwanted specialized tour guide trying to set up the "perfect" photo op, and let your eyes do all the work.<br />
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That first glimpse of the Taj Mahal is breathtaking. It is so much more delicate, more intricate, and more astonishingly stunning than can ever be captured through the lens of a camera. It's more than just a beautifully sculpted white marble tomb; the painstaking details of the inlaid vines and flowers disappear in photos. The calligraphy of the Islamic script fades before the majesty of the overall effect, but comes into sharper relief with every step taken through the gardens, past the fountains, towards the steps up to the tomb's entrance.<br />
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Some places have been photo-shopped into oblivion, to the point that a visit becomes a huge disappointment when the reality has no hope of living up to the recorded image.<br />
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THE TAJ IS NOT ONE OF THOSE PLACES.<br />
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It glows from within, somehow. It exudes calm and reverence. The photographs are beautiful, but they simply serve as means to arouse the memory of the garden's hush and the tingle of goosebumps that danced along my arms when I stepped beneath the shadow cast down by the pearly domes.<br />
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It's worth it.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-28243427527543999352015-07-07T16:15:00.000-07:002015-07-07T16:15:24.558-07:00Eat, Drink, and Be Merry in Kyiv!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Food: one of the basic requirements for sustaining life. Yet finding it when you're traveling can be a challenge. It's intimidating to venture into restaurants when you're new to a country, especially if you don't speak the language. And it takes practice to enjoy eating alone. It's no wonder that, when faced with the prospect of taking on both of those challenges at the same time, you'd rather skip the eating thing altogether.<br />
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But if you do that when you're in a new place, you miss out on a major portion of the experience of being there! Half of the fun of traveling is trying new foods in all their local glory, or passing judgment on the new place's attempt to recreate your hometown favorites. But you have to get yourself through the door and to a table first.<br />
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Don't worry, I've got your back. I find its easier when I've got recommendations from someone I know. I've already helped you find the <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/08/adventures-in-montgomery.html" target="_blank">best BBQ in Montgomery</a> and <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/10/cannoli-queen-of-north-end.html" target="_blank">best cannoli in Boston</a>. You can plan <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/03/gallon-challenge-in-boston.html" target="_blank">a pub crawl</a> or an <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/07/i-scream-you-scream-boston-screams-for.html" target="_blank">ice cream crawl</a> in Boston, or a <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/01/the-shelby-tour-of-portland.html" target="_blank">city-wide noms tour of deliciousness in Portland</a> or <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/08/eat-drink-and-be-merry-in-pei.html" target="_blank">Charlottetown, PEI</a>. So tracking down some tasty options in Kyiv? Piece of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paska_(bread)" target="_blank">paska</a>!<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>PUBS</b>: They're everywhere! Huzzah Ukraine!<br />
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Quite possibly my favorite little pub in Kyiv: <a href="http://tirol.kiev.ua/" target="_blank">Tyrol</a>. This gem is on the road between the main train station and Universitet metro, and is tucked just a bit below street level. They brew their own beer and serve it Guinness-style with nitrous, which makes for some glorious smooth foam. Try the red beer, that's my favorite. They also make delicious food (GREEK SALAD, you cannot go wrong! the black bread is also really really good) and it is super inexpensive. You can hang out by the bar, which has TVs and a definite sports-bar vibe, or go to the back room where the walls are lined with shelves of books and other German/Austria knickknacks. The waitresses don't speak a ton of English, but they do speak Russian. They're very friendly and you'll get sorted out no matter what.<br />
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Porter Pub is a chain and I was told that each location has a different atmosphere. Therefore, I can only speak to the Porter Pub at Kontraktova Ploscha, which was hopping with a hilarious 80's cover band on the Saturday night I visited. They had a decent beer selection as well as cider, but we didn't stay long enough for food. When you're on a pub crawl, you keep crawling.<br />
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Another fun little place in Podil is a pub called Plan B. The name alone makes it awesome, but it also regularly has live music, is located below street level, and has an excellent beer and cider selection.<br />
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Not too far from St Sofia's is a very chill pub with a case of name confusion. In Ukrainian, the spelling says "Cooper." But they translate the English to "Copper." Either way, Cooper/Copper Pub has a main room with lots of wooden tables, including one table tucked away behind saloon-style swinging wooden doors. As seems to be the trend, the pub is below street level. Sometimes they've got live music and there's a jolly expat regular nicknamed Frenchie who dances with everyone. The drinks are poured strong and you must order appetizers because they're greasy and cheesy and garlicky and delicious.<br />
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Andrew's Descent (Russian: Andreevsky Spusk; Ukrainian: Andreevsky uzviz ... I do not enjoy transliterating Cyrillic into Roman!!) is one of the most popular tourist streets in Kyiv. This is partly because it's got a gorgeous church at the top, and partly because it's a cool cobbled street, and partly because Mikhail Bulgakov's house is there, but probably mostly because it is always lined with dozens of street vendor stands selling souvenirs. You can get kitschy T-shirts and rolls of toilet paper with Putin's face on them, or beautiful hand-embroidered traditional shirts and painted trays. And conveniently located midway down the Spusk is a microbrewery! It's called Solomyanska Brovarnya. When you need a shopping break, pop in there for some good local beer and decent local food. The best thing is that you can take the beer with you to go ... they'll give you a bottle that's about a liter (I think), for 40 hrivna. That's about $2 US.<br />
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<b>PIZZA</b>: it's a thing in Kyiv, and there are many tasty options!<br />
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Right across the street from Universitet Metro is a really good pizza place called Rusticana. When the weather's nice, they have tables set up on the sidewalk outside, or you can sit in the spacious main room. The pizza is thin-crust and delicious, and gets served pretty quickly. They've also got good salads, some wine and beer selection, and great prices.<br />
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According to a friend, who heard from his friends who are Italian and therefore should know these things, the most authentic pizza in Kyiv can be found at <a href="http://www.napule.com.ua/" target="_blank">Pizzeria Napoli</a>. And they do make a damn good pizza. I'm a fan of the four cheese; my spice-oriented friends love the diavola. Also the caprese salad is delicious. Also the tiramisu. But this place is extremely popular, so you need to make a reservation before you arrive.<br />
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A third option is Cuanto Cuesto, located a block or two north of the train station. They go for the white-tablecloth-atmosphere like Pizzeria Napoli, but really they're more like Rusticana with good, simple thin-crust pizza and salad options.<br />
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<b>GEORGIAN</b>: If you've never tried Georgian food before, you are completely missing out. Especially if you like CHEESE. And dumplings! And meat grilled on skewers!<br />
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Quite possibly the most fantastic Georgian food in Kyiv can be found at Shoti, conveniently located basically next door to Pizzeria Napoli (because they're owned by the same guy). It's also the most expensive Georgian food in Kyiv, but it's worth it. The khachapuri was amazing, the other fried cheese appetizer was amazing, the khinkali was amazing, and every single entree we ordered (sorry, I don't even remember the names of each one) was also amazing.<br />
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For slightly cheaper but still completely delicious Georgian, you've got two other options: <a href="http://nikala.kiev.ua/" target="_blank">Nikala</a> in Podil, and Chachapuri just down the road from Universitet metro. Nikala is dark and less busy than Chachapuri, where you absolutely have to have a reservation to have a seat, but they've both got great food! Anybody that makes khachapuri well wins gold stars in my book. Chachapuri's waiters speak decent English, and they've also got an awesome doorman with a sweet beard and a huge fuzzy hat and traditional-style long coat and boots. You can't miss him!<br />
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<b>LOCAL</b>: My favorite local foods are pelmeny and vareniki. They're both variants of dumplings; pelmeny tend to be small and round and vareniki are larger and more oblong. They can be stuffed with meat, mushrooms, or other savories which of course must be eaten with loads and loads of smetana (NOT THE SAME AS SOUR CREAM). Or they can be full of fruit and eaten with cream ... aka dessert!<br />
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A good local chain with lots of pelmeny and vareniki options is Varenichnaya Katyusha. It's inexpensive too, with a funky 1950's diner style decor that also involves lots of old books on shelves and checkered table cloths.<br />
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<a href="http://kozatska-gramota.com.ua/" target="_blank">Kozatska Gramota</a> is an interesting dining experience. We were greeted on the street by a lady in colorful traditional Cossack dress, who welcomed us into the restaurant with a shot of some kind of liquor. The decor was really cool, with lots of bright colors and woven wooden furniture and paintings depicting Cossack life. It touts itself as a Cossack restaurant ... I don't exactly know what that means for specific food dishes, but they had vareniki and it was delicious. And on the way out, the lady accosted us again for another shot for the road (or for the horse, as the Ukrainian phrase goes).<br />
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One more awesome, cheap, and super fast place to get pierogi (the Russian variety, which is like a savory pie, rather than the Polish variety, which is basically like vareniki) is a chain called <a href="http://www.pirogovaya.com/" target="_blank">Nikolai</a>. They keep a variety of periogi ready so when you walk in, you order, they cut a slice, and you're all set! It's a great place for an afternoon snack or for a small meal if you're not feeling particularly hungry and don't want to face down a massive amount of amazing Georgian food.<br />
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<b>BURGERS</b>: also a thing, like pizza and sushi! I wasn't expecting it at all, but all the places I tried did an excellent job! Any beef-loving American will be perfectly satisfied.<br />
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True Burger has not only nailed the burgers (which were huge), but they also make absolutely the best fries in Kyiv. It was rather odd to pair a burger and fries with a fruity cocktail, but they had an extensive menu of options, so we had to give it a try. It's a laid back little place with nice wooden furniture and stacks of checkered blankets by the door that you can grab and take with you to your seat if it's a little chilly outside.<br />
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Podil of course has a burger spot or two as well. 3B Cafe is pretty good, and they have a decent beer and cider selection, which just works better with a burger than a cocktail does. The atmosphere is an odd mix of relaxed bar and ritzy club .... there are squishy big pillows on the benches along the walls, and some patrons were really, really dressed up, but the burgers are served on heavy pieces of slate and the fries come in paper cones. Not sure what they're going for, but it's an ok place!<br />
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There are food trucks all over Kyiv that also make some kick-ass food. We had some really good burgers from a truck called Road Food, which was parked outside Sports Palace before a 30 Seconds to Mars Concert. You might get scolded by a policeman for sitting on the sidewalk drinking beer, but I don't really know where else you are supposed to go to take in a meal purchased from a food truck?<br />
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One last fun and unique choice that I'll throw into this category, even though they don't serve burgers, is Dogs and Tails. Gourmet hot dogs and fancy cocktails ... what a combo! They have a modern, spartan-style decor with very strange dog paintings on the walls to go along with the theme of the restaurant name. The food was really good and the drinks were excellent. You'll have to wander into a courtyard to find the place, but it's light with lots of windows and not remotely sketchy, even at night.<br />
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<b>CAFES</b>: plenty of local chains, but also plenty of street-side vendors!<br />
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There are little trucks and vans and buses and carts shaped like pink snails that sell coffee, and they can be found everywhere around the city, from outside the metro stations to along the walking paths in the parks overlooking the river. All of them appear to do brisk business too!<br />
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If you want to sit down and enjoy a nice cafe atmosphere, find one of the <a href="http://www.chocolate.lviv.ua/en/320/where-to-buy.html" target="_blank">Lviv Handmade Chocolate</a> locations. There's one near Universitet Metro and one at the bottom of the Spusk, and probably others that I didn't encounter. The cafes are very nice, but can get very crowded on weekends. They serve a variety of drinks and desserts to be consumed in the cafe, and you can also buy chocolate goodies like truffles, bars, clusters, etc. I'm not a huge fan of adding cardamom to hot chocolate, as I discovered, but the chili spice is very tasty!<br />
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In a previous life, I absolutely loved Kafe Xaus, which is all over the city. They used to have an amazing French hot chocolate that was so thick, you had to use a spoon to eat it rather than drink it. But that was about ten years ago .... Kafe Xaus now is like Starbucks. I was disappointed. But they're quick and easy and on every street corner.<br />
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<b>OTHER</b>: a few more options that don't fall into a category we've already covered!<br />
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Baguette Cafe is on the Spusk, so if you need some sustenance while souvenir shopping and you don't want to hit the brewery, this place is quite good. It's a little fancier, but the food was good and the jasmine tea is amazing.<br />
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If you love whiskey, you HAVE to go to <a href="http://whiskycorner.kiev.ua/ru" target="_blank">Whiskey Corner</a>. I have never seen so many bottles of whiskey in my life. It's a more upscale place, which is reflected in the food options (and prices), and they have a nice outdoor patio. The staff speaks Russian, Ukrainian, and very good English, which came in handy trying to explain some of the dishes. Be careful who you take with you to this place ... some of my friends accidentally spent over $100 in one night sampling the different whiskeys, and with Ukrainian prices, that is one heck of a bill!!<br />
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I will warn you, it's incredibly easy to gain 10 pounds in a week because of all the delicious food choices around Kyiv. I think I ate my weight in xachapuri and pelmeny alone! And every bite was worth it!<br />
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Here's a <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@50.4522816,30.5182035,7341m/data=!3m1!1e3" target="_blank">map</a>. Or check out the <a href="http://www.trover.com/l/sMOt-places-to-eat-in-kyiv-kiev-ukraine" target="_blank">list I made on Trover</a>, which has many of these places and more!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-62395840137605894862015-07-01T22:51:00.000-07:002015-09-27T17:03:41.653-07:00Air Force Marathon in Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Although I didn't know it at the time, this quest started back in 2009 when I <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/03/the-original-in-review.html" target="_blank">ran my first marathon</a>.<br />
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Then there was a two year break before <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/06/marine-corps-marathon-in-review.html" target="_blank">marathon two</a>. Since I still didn't know I was on a quest, I did <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/06/cape-cod-marathon-in-review.html" target="_blank">a third marathon a year later</a> that in no way contributed to the successful completion of the quest.<br />
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It was only on the <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/12/antarctic-ice-marathon-in-review.html" target="_blank">fourth, and coolest, marathon</a> that I realized there was a quest: run a marathon on each of the seven continents. As my dad pointed out, Antarctica is the most difficult continent to check off. It only makes sense to carry on and hit the remaining four!<br />
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But it appears that I've stalled.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>I did run a marathon in 2014, but it was another one on US soil. I guess I could start a second quest to do a marathon in each of the 50 states? Three down, 47 to go? That's not <i>nearly </i>as satisfying as three down, seven to go. Let's just stick with continents for now.<br />
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Anyway, 2014 was the <a href="http://www.usafmarathon.com/" target="_blank">Air Force Marathon</a> in Dayton, Ohio. It's a pretty popular race, with a field consistently over 15,000 people that do the full distance, and hundreds more that participate in the half, 10k, and 5k that are run on the same day.<br />
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The race is hosted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the fact that much of the course goes around the active flight line on the base is a huge draw for many folks who don't normally have access to military facilities. Also, the flight line means FLAT terrain. And since it's the Air Force, they advertise aircraft flyovers as part of the event.<br />
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Frankly, I was most excited for the fly over. It never gets old to see two fighter jets or a huge bomber come swooping in at low altitude and rattle your bones with their roaring engines. So the 2014 race did not exactly start off on a positive foot when there was no flyby! Not even a tanker! Or a UAV! Nothing!<br />
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I spent the first five miles with an eye on the sky waiting to see something in the sky. Air Force, MAJOR FAIL.<br />
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Aside from that massive disappointment, it was a good race. Most of the hills were in the first bit as we ran around Area B of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and then headed north towards Fairborn. We went up and over the interstate, which meant a long, shallow incline, and then passed through Area A of the base and into the town of Fairborn.<br />
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The main drag of Fairborn was absolutely my favorite part of the entire marathon. It's kind of sad that it was around Mile 9, when you're still pretty fresh and don't need the encouragement as much, but at least after Antarctica, I know that I don't need crowd support to survive these events. Anyway, the route looped up and then back down the main street of Fairborn, and it was PACKED. They had the high school band out there, and DJs blasting music, and hundreds of people making a gauntlet on the road and cheering and clapping and making a ruckus. It was awesome!<br />
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Then we headed back onto base and out around the flight line, where there were no spectators aside from the volunteers manning the aid stations. They did a good job, especially the alien-themed aid station set up by the folks from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, but it did get quiet. And sunny. From Mile 12 through about Mile 15, there was no shade. And it was getting on to mid-morning in September, so it got steamy!<br />
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Mile 20 founds us coming off base to go over the interstate again, and then head down a ramp towards Wright State University. At least the cheering picked up a bit, since folks weren't restricted by access to the base, but the hills picked up also. It was rolling terrain all the way back to Area B. My dad, on a bike, found me and trailed along kind of pacing me until we rounded the corner through the main gate onto base and could see the Air Force Museum and the finish line looming at what seemed to be a fairly short distance away.<br />
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Fake out! The finish line was close, but we had to run <i>past</i> it towards the museum and then loop back in a giant horseshoe that, according to my Garmin, put the race at markedly over 26.2 miles. Half a mile may seem like nothing in the grand scheme of 26, but by that time, your fun meter is usually pegged, and every step past that horrible 0.2 is a complete killer.<br />
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Maybe it was the training that I put in over the summer, and maybe it really is just a fast, friendly course, but I ran a PR by about 10 minutes! It was also my first major long race since I <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/11/farewell-merrells.html" target="_blank">switched to barefoot</a> and changed my stride, and although my calves were quite sore by the end and for the next couple days, overall aches and pains were pretty minimal! I enjoyed the course, and I thought the logistics of the entire event went very smoothly, especially considering the massive numbers of people that had to get through security and get parked and checked in and all of that.<br />
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I also loved that I had friends and family running and supporting at the race! It's way more fun to collapse at the end when Mom and Dad are there to drink Gatorade and go sit in the shade too. It was also really cool to high-five my friend as we passed each other on the horseshoe through Fairborn, and then to be there cheering her across the finish line at the end of her first marathon.<br />
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My only criticism, aside from the <b>LACK OF FLYBY,</b> was the spacing of the aid stations. They were two miles apart, which was definitely too far by the second half of the race when the sun was out fully and the heat really picked up. One of my friends ended up with heat exhaustion because of dehydration, and he was even carrying his own Camelbak to supplement what was available on the course.<br />
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So that makes three on US soil. I'd say I've knocked out the North America requirement for sure ... it's time to move on to the four continents where I haven't run a race yet!<br />
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2015 Update: I didn't run the full again, but I was there for the start of it and then I ran the half marathon. I think the organizers must have gotten wind of how disappointing the lack of flyover was in 2014 ... so they made up for it this year! Three in one morning! The highlight was the U-2 Dragonlady, which flew over before the marathon gun. The U-2 was also the sponsor aircraft of the 2015 race. But then a bunch of guys jumped out of a C-130 and parachuted down with giant American flags strapped to them, which was pretty cool. And then the Wright Flyer flew over! It's a model of the aircraft with which the Wright Brothers successfully cracked the code on getting something heavier than the air to stay airborne. Welcome, aviation! So, three for one. Much more what I expect from the Air Force!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-24322635730483597452015-06-14T09:49:00.001-07:002015-06-14T09:49:55.660-07:00The CZ Book Club: 2015 Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The first six months of 2015 have been a doozy! I racked up 38,3500 miles on airplanes and over 50 hours sitting in airports, which was the primary reason I managed to tear though so many books. There were some interesting unplanned themes too .... India, Afghanistan, and Alaska popped up several times, along with the Russian fairy tale Snegurochka. Several novels, spanning the globe, examined the complex relationships between family members. There was a lot of the insecurity of being an immigrant transplanted to a completely alien culture. And there will pretty much always be at least one book with a horse or two prancing around.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804137609/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0804137609&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=GEERCK2R3OCHTP6U%22%3EWhat%20I%20Was%20Doing%20While%20You%20Were%20Breeding:%20A%20Memoir%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0804137609%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding</a></span></i> by Kristin Newman<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804137609/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0804137609&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=YEUK3LXPSZU7555F"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0804137609&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary</b>: While all her friends follow the traditional path of marriage and family, Kristin Newman decides to work hard and spend all her off time traveling and having crazy adventures. As soon as she boards a plane to leave the country for a trip, she basically becomes a completely different person. Travel Kristin falls in love, falls in lust, parties a lot, sleeps on strangers' couches, and lives completely irresponsibly and impulsively whenever she is on the road.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> "I wanted love, but I also wanted freedom and adventure, and those two desires fought like angry obese sumo wrestlers in the dojo of my soul." The end.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590440683/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0590440683&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=IYQBC6XEEI3OLMIZ%22%3EHorses%20of%20Central%20Park%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0590440683%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Horses of Central Park</a></i></span> by Michael Slade<br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> A kid living in New York City discovers he can speak to the horses that pull carriages around Central Park. Many of the horses are quite depressed by their restricted, regulated life, so the kid concocts a plan to give them a few days of freedom.<br />
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<b>My Take</b>: This is a children's book. As in elementary level. But it's also a pretty unique story, and interesting walking the line between right and wrong and doing the right thing even if it's technically wrong.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670831409/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0670831409&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=OJW3O6BRXJPMCZ2L%22%3EAnastasia%20Morningstar%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0670831409%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Anastasia Morningstar</a></i></span> by Hazel Hutchins<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0920236952/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0920236952&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=JGJQ5UZOC4IZOYC3"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0920236952&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Two friends meet a peculiar lady who can turn people into frogs. They convince her to become their science fair project, which brings negative attention to her abilities but also upends the black-and-white beliefs of their science teacher. Kids learn that magic doesn't jive very well with the adult world, and adults remember what it's like to believe in magic.<br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">My Take:</b> Yes, another children's book. But this is the most unusual kid's book I've ever read! I would love to see the crystal butterfly ... and turn people that annoy me into frogs.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501105132/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1501105132&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=DSJF4UKHJ44WTBGN%22%3ERise%20of%20ISIS:%20A%20Threat%20We%20Can't%20Ignore%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1501105132%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore</a></i></span> by Jay Sekulow</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501105132/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1501105132&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=NFVS3VOZAIH7VJZH"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1501105132&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">Quick Summary</b><b>: </b>An analysis of the rise of a couple significant Islamist extremist terror groups and the threat they present to Israel.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">My Take:</b> Inflammatory and biased! Yikes! It absolutely must be read with a grain of salt and definitely do not even consider it a "scholarly" work, but it's still someone's perspective that's probably shared by other people, so it's worth being aware of it. Although I was peeved that most of the book was actually about Hezbollah, not ISIS. Way to capitalize on the most current headliner, Jay.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0515120278/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0515120278&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=PUH66KG4YIT66BTR%22%3EThe%20Cat%20Who%20Said%20Cheese%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0515120278%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Cat Who ....</a> </i></span>by Lilian Jackson Braun</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0515120278/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0515120278&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=X2Q2MBAJJISHANVH"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0515120278&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">Quick Summary: </b>This is a series of mystery novels (my book happened to be three of them in one binding) about a former big-city journalist turned small-town columnist named Qwilleran, and his two Siamese cats, Koko and YumYum. They moved to a tiny, backwoods town for a life of rest and relaxation, but trouble follows them. If Qwill only spoke cat, he'd solve all the mysteries a lot faster because Koko is psychic.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">My Take</b><b>: </b>I don't read a lot of mysteries, but these are fun. Lots of quirky characters and memorable events, totally reminiscent of being outside the cities in New England!</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0373802730/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0373802730&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=CZWJFMI5VN5IYDEP%22%3EFortune's%20Fool%20(Tales%20of%20the%20Five%20Hundred%20Kingdoms,%20Book%203)%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0373802730%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Fortune's Fool</a></i></span> by Mercedes Lackey</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0373802730/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0373802730&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=ANYMUQPI7HVFQDA7"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0373802730&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Katya is the youngest daughter of the Sea King and works for her father as a spy. Sasha is the Seventh Son, a Fortunate Fool, and also a Songweaver ... a triple whammy that comes in handy when his love Katya disappears on a mission and needs a Hero to help Good ultimately defeat Evil.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> I love Mercedes Lackey, and her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms novels are really fun because they draw from fairy and folk tale traditions all over the world and blend them together into new adventures with familiar faces. Also, she's all about strong female characters, so that's fun!</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A3ZJFRQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00A3ZJFRQ&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=CP5PPXJ2F54SBHMG%22%3EI'm%20Here%20To%20Win:%20A%20World%20Champion's%20Advice%20for%20Peak%20Performance%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00A3ZJFRQ%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">I'm Here to Win</a></i></span> by Christopher McCormack</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A3ZJFRQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00A3ZJFRQ&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=WUEORVFJGDWF55WK"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00A3ZJFRQ&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">Quick Summary:</b> Autobiography of an Australian professional triathlete and Ironman and the journey that took him to his wins at Kona.</div>
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<b style="font-weight: bold;">My Take:</b> Well, it probably does take a certain overdose of ego to become the world champion of an incredibly difficult endurance sport like Ironman. But that aside, it's a very motivating and inspiring story and a neat insight into what it's like to be a professional athlete and to spend all your time training and racing.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616954752/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1616954752&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=RQ2AXONGPEENWRNE%22%3ECold%20Storage,%20Alaska%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1616954752%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Cold Storage, Alaska</a></i></span> </span>by John Straley<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616954752/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1616954752&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=2SCZHLTV6RZ4YLN4"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1616954752&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Cold Storage is a tiny outpost of a town accessible only by boat. Given the isolation, it's only natural that the town is populated by a host of eccentric characters. There's Clive, who returns after a stint in prison and opens a bar in an old shack with a lot of history. There's Clive's brother Miles, the town's medic who's questing after a king salmon. There's Little Brother, a brute of a dog who occasionally talks to Clive. There's Billy, who decides to paddle in a kayak from Cold Storage to Seattle so he can meet the Dalai Lama. There's Jake, the drug "kingpin" that Clive used to work for who follows Clive to Cold Storage to kill him. And more!<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> The bizarre cast of characters is very entertaining. The novel also captures the dichotomy of Alaska: a place that invokes desperation and despair because of its isolation, yet also ignites wonder and peace through the sheer power of its raw natural beauty. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062244760/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0062244760&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=35IG2EFR4QHODX6E%22%3EThe%20Pearl%20That%20Broke%20Its%20Shell:%20A%20Novel%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0062244760%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Pearl That Broke Its Shell</a></i></span> by Nadia Hashimi<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062244760/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0062244760&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=PZNR26EXFHWUCCD7"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0062244760&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> When she is young, Rahima becomes a <i>bacha posh</i> (a girl dressed and treated as a boy), which introduces her to a wider world closed to other Afghan girls. The story of her coming of age during the current conflict in Afghanistan is interwoven with that of her great-grandmother, a girl who also lived as a boy, but in the early 1900s.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> This was a tough read. It's interesting and informative about Afghan culture, but it also makes my blood boil to read about pre-teen girls being sold in marriage to 40-year-old men with three other wives, how the women are discarded if they do not deliver sons, and how they simply bow their heads and trudge on through their misery and expect that there is nothing else out there. (Well, not always ... but no spoilers!)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316175668/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316175668&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=RVH7FIQGMDTDS4IV%22%3EThe%20Snow%20Child:%20A%20Novel%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316175668%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Snow Child</a></i></span> by Eowyn Ivey<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316175668/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316175668&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=4G2KT46BHFAPKPDH"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0316175668&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Jack and Mabel leave the East after a heartbreaking tragedy to rebuild their life and rediscover their love in the remote wilderness of Alaska. It's lonely and back-breaking, until Faina appears from the snowy woods and changes everything.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> This is a beautiful reimagining of the Russian fairy tale of Snegurochka. I love the setting in 1920s untamed Alaska, which is a character unto itself in the novel. Eowyn Ivey is also fantastic at portraying the emotional lives of the main characters, and how the smallest action can cause such pain or such warmth in a close relationship.</div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>"Life is always throwing us this way and that. That's where the adventure is. Not knowing where you'll end or how you'll fare. It's all a mystery, and when we say any different, we're just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?"</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307278263/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307278263&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=PC7FYCP6M2HUREDG%22%3EThe%20Lowland%20(Vintage%20Contemporaries)%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307278263%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Lowland</a></i></span> by Jhumpa Lahiri<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307278263/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307278263&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=LL4K6ZMHWLZLKGTH"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0307278263&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Udayan and Subhash are brothers growing up in Calcutta, caught up in the Naxalite movement in the 1960s. They are extremely close until after university, when their paths begin to diverge and Subhash finds himself in New England. A terrible tragedy with far-reaching consequences marks both their lives indelibly.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> Whew, relationships! Siblings, spouses, lovers, parents and children .... it's all tied into this novel at some point or another, and its heartbreaking to be reminded that sometimes one powerful event can influence every single facet of the twists and turns of a person's life thereafter. I loved this book because there is nothing particularly special about the main characters ... they are not famous, they don't alter the course of history, they don't make some ground-breaking discovery ... but they live, they love, they hurt, they heal, and the story of their lives is tragic and beautiful and fundamentally no different than that of most of us on the face of this planet. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476729093/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1476729093&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=LIBX4DKSM22AOHB3%22%3EThe%20Rosie%20Project:%20A%20Novel%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1476729093%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Rosie Project</a></i></span> by Graeme Simsion<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476729093/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1476729093&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=GLL3OCOELCCUHFCS"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1476729093&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Don Tillman is a genetics professor with Asperger syndrome. He has always had a difficult time in social situations, so he decides to initiate 'The Wife Project' to find a suitable life partner. He meets Rosie, a bartender, and quickly eliminates her as a viable option, but he agrees to help her with her own project to discover the identity of her biological father.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> I've only seen <i>The Big Bang Theory </i>a couple times, but I could not shake the image of Sheldon out of my head for this entire novel, because Don is so similar. Don is the first-person narrator of the novel, and it was really fun to be inside his head and see how he views the world because it makes sense, yet it's so very different from the average person's outlook.</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594632383/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594632383&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=ZSE6FC36CENF7PQ7%22%3EAnd%20the%20Mountains%20Echoed%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1594632383%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">And the Mountains Echoed</a></span></i> by Khaled Hosseini<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594632383/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594632383&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=VOCTYWDL2XEWYZSA"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1594632383&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> The story of the consequences of the choices made by one family living in the town of Shadbagh, Afghanistan.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> There is no way to do a quick summary of this extremely complex novel. The story is told from the perspectives of no less than five of the primary characters and catches up with them at different times over the course of their full lifetimes. Once again, it's terrible how girls are treated in Afghanistan, and it's one particular heartbreaking incident that kicks off the series of events covered in this novel. Like <i>The Lowland</i>, this is another story about life and the choices we make and what happens next and how things come together after years and years, or unexpectedly shatter instead.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307455920/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307455920&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=MXVDPNB4TG3473F2%22%3EAmericanah%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307455920%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Americanah</a></i></span> by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307455920/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307455920&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=NKBWLU3A5WTQSGFM"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0307455920&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love as teenagers, but find themselves separated when Ifemelu goes to the U.S. to study and Obinze, who can't get a visa, ends up undocumented in England. Ifemelu's journey takes her through the struggles of being an immigrant in a foreign country, and gives her many experience with race in America. Ultimately, both Obinze and Ifemelu find themselves back in Nigeria.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> This was an <i>extremely </i>interesting read. I'm not an immigrant, and that experience is COMPLETELY different than just living somewhere for a few years or passing through as a traveler. I also enjoyed Adichie's observations on race in America, although I don't agree with all of them. But that's the sign of a good book-- it gets your blood heated up or the tears flowing; it gets you thinking!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594867305/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594867305&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=7D7XWZ4UGYNV67RU%22%3EThe%20Extra%20Mile:%20One%20Woman's%20Personal%20Journey%20to%20Ultrarunning%20Greatness%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1594867305%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Extra Mile</a></i></span> by Pam Reed<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594867305/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594867305&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=QP2IPYJVF6HEQREO"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1594867305&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Autobiography of the first lady to win the Badwater Ultramarathon ... and she did it twice!<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> As a runner, I always enjoy getting inside the heads of other runners. Especially the ones who have blazed new trails, which is exactly what Pam Reed did as a woman in ultra running. This book isn't particularly well written and it can get a little preachy and defensive, but now I want to do an ultra even more!!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599951509/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1599951509&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=6MOPU2RADV4LQTEU%22%3EThe%20Monuments%20Men:%20Allied%20Heroes,%20Nazi%20Thieves%20and%20the%20Greatest%20Treasure%20Hunt%20in%20History%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1599951509%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Monuments Men</a></i></span> by Robert M. Edsel<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599951509/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1599951509&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep00-20&linkId=Y2OA4QUXSBJYIOLF"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1599951509&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep00-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Europe is a treasure trove of history in architecture and art, which is not exactly a priority for conservation during war. Except to a small group of men who worked tirelessly during World War II to save Europe's greatest pieces from destruction by the Nazis.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> I never knew before the extent of the deliberate looting campaign by the Nazis, nor did I know about Hitler's predilection for art. I had also never before thought about the conservation of Europe's treasures as the war decimated so much of the continent, so I enjoyed reading about the Monuments Men mission and their successes. I'm sure it's not usually a priority for military commanders, and is probably a frustration when they're trying to achieve a mission objective, but it's nice to know that there's someone out there thinking beyond the immediate life-or-death battle to the other things that can become victims of a conflict.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Have you read any of these books? What'd you think?</i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-32494063135941051102015-05-27T19:25:00.001-07:002015-05-27T19:26:01.702-07:00A Snapshot of the American SouthwestA good travel story usually involves something unexpected and crazy and sometimes dangerous or scary that chucks a wrench into your otherwise perfect plans. For example,<a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/02/the-story-of-keys-and-mountain.html" target="_blank"> losing your keys on top of the tallest mountain in New England, but not realizing said keys have been lost until you're back at the trailhead four-ish hours and five-ish steep miles later</a>. Or flying to Glasgow while not realizing the city has two airports and your overnight hotel reservation is not by the airport where you arrived. Or <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/12/you-know-youre-in-antarctica-when.html" target="_blank">getting stuck in a huge storm that extends your visit to Antarctica from a brief four days to ten life-changing days</a>.<br />
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But sometimes, nothing ridiculous happens. Every now and again, I find myself on a trip that's kind of like kayaking on the creek back home. It's fun and beautiful and I thoroughly enjoy myself. The water is calm (and navigable!) and sometimes there are cool birds. After a while, I head back to the pier, take my kayak out of the water, and go home with pleasantly sore muscles and happy memories. At no point does the creek turn into a fury of rapids at the edge of the precipice that marks an unexpected thirty foot waterfall smashing onto giant boulders in a cloud of foam and mist.<br />
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And that is okay!
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In March, I took a brief roadtrip through the American Southwest which was basically a good ole kayak outing with no waterfall. Literally...I was in the desert, after all. My flights were on time, the airlines did not lose my luggage, my rental car did not break down, I did not get lost (not once! whaaaaat!), nothing poisonous tried to bite me, I never ran out of water, I didn't get an atrocious sunburn, everything I ate agreed with my stomach .... NOTHING CRAZY HAPPENED.<br />
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In a way, my mini-roadtrip was memorable simply <em>because</em> it was such smooth sailing. Let's be honest--it's not often that absolutely nothing goes wrong. But here's where I get to the second part of my kayak analogy--the bit about sore muscles and happy memories--because even though I don't have a cliff-hanging tale to convince you to keep reading, I saw at least one mind-blowingly amazing place and it was a trip worth sharing! And bonus for you, you'll still have fingernails by the end of this post.<br />
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My drive started in El Paso, Texas, the closest normal-sized airport to my final destination in New Mexico. El Paso is an odd little city. It felt out-dated and tired, like it's the set for a Depression-era movie with no hope of a happy ending. There was a lot of construction downtown, but I'm not really sure what they were working on. El Paso has a university, and minor league sports teams, but comments from folks at the airport indicated that the primary source of lifeblood is the giant Army base. But my strongest impression from El Paso was the border fence, which <i>completely </i>creeped me out. I passed the pedestrian border crossing to Juarez, took a few more turns, found a highway pointing north, and suddenly I was driving next to a giant fence that looked like it was the demarcation of no-man's land. It was exactly like being in a war zone, or an area of prolonged conflict. It's unsettling to visit such places, and the fences are a constant reminder that there's tension simmering beneath the surface. We keep building walls to separate people and eventually re-remember that it really does not fix things. The Mexican side of the border was a strip of barren, dusty land that eventually faded into the warehouses and homes of Juarez's neighborhoods. The U.S. side was me on my highway sandwiched between that tall, forbidding fence and railroad tracks. It was several miles before the highway diverged, and I was quite happy to head north into the high desert and away from the unwelcoming wall.<br />
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Desert terrain is not what pops immediately into my head as an example of gorgeous scenery, but mountains always make the cut. And New Mexico has desert mountains. In Las Cruces, I turned east and drove straight up a pass in the San Andres to pop out to this incredible view:<br />
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Welcome to White Sands Missile Range! Many people see a vista like this and immediately feel small, alone, and even bored by the awareness that there is nothing for miles and miles in every direction. It makes my blood tingle. This is the wild, unforgiving land that chisels away softness to create the steel-cored individuals whose sun-darkened faces and dusty clothes populate our fantasies of the Wild West.<br />
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I spent a bit of time at the White Sands Missile Range military base, and a bit of time in the booming megalopolis of Alamogordo, but my favorite bit of time was spent right halfway between the two ... basically at the beach.<br />
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Beach? In the middle of the desert?<br />
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Pretty much. In fact, it was even BETTER than the beach, because at every beach I've ever been to that has gorgeous white sand dunes, there are also signs everywhere warning how fragile the dunes are and don't even think about walking/running/jumping on them. Just to be safe, don't even breathe on them. Stay 10 feet away at all times.<br />
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But the expanse of powdery-soft white gypsum sand that is <a href="http://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm" target="_blank">White Sands National Monument</a> is a dune-lovers paradise. You can walk wherever you want, jump off whatever you want, throw sand at whomever you want, and even sled down whatever dune you want! Sledding is not just tolerated; the national park service encourages it by selling plastic disc sleds at the visitor center.<br />
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From the highway and the park entrance, the white dunes peek up over the scrubby sage that populates the rest of the wide valley between the San Andres and Sacramento mountains, but the first jaw-dropping moment comes a couple minutes down Dunes Drive, when you leave the vegetation behind and are transported to the Sahara Desert. The road is covered in white sand and snowy drifts rise up on either side of you for as far as you can see.<br />
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I beelined past the short Playa Trail and Dune Life Nature Trail and Interdune Boardwalk for the very far end of the access road into the National Monument. As I drove, I saw families with beach umbrellas, lounging in beach chairs, enjoying picnics and building sand castles. I saw couples strolling in the sand, folks playing with their dogs (YES, DOGS, TOTALLY ALLOWED!! MAJOR POINTS FOR WHITE SANDS!), and a group of friends tossing a Frisbee. It was like any trip to the beach, except the ocean was missing. And, of course, folks were sledding on the dunes.<br />
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At the end of the road, I parked and started out on the Alkali Flat Trail. I wanted to disappear into the dunes to where I couldn't see a single person. I walked for a while, and was pleasantly surprised that most of the sand is quite packed down underfoot, so it wasn't nearly as strenuous as I expected. There are some deep spots in the valleys, and slippery spots coming off the crest of a dune, but mostly it was just like walking on dirt.<br />
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Alkali Flat Trail is about five miles round trip (so I was told), and I had a marathon the next day, so I wasn't keen on trekking the whole thing. I decided to cut across the middle of the loop, vaguely following a pair of hikers who had passed me at the beginning of the walk. Up a dune, down a dune, across a flat, following the crests since it was the easiest walking. It was remarkably difficult to see the terrain changes because it was an overcast day and there were no shadows to mark sudden steep drops into the sand valleys. Some of them were over ten feet, and basically cliffs!<br />
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Once, my unaware trail blazers disappeared from view. I scrambled to the top of my next dune, but I still couldn't see them. I started to panic a little. My heart rate picked up and I had to consciously keep myself from running to the next crest. There was no sign of life in any direction, not even footprints in the sand, and it's a little more terrifying to realize how very alone you are in an unforgiving environment like a barren desert than in a life-ful environment like a forest.<br />
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As I moved through the sand, it occasionally squeaked under my feet, so I stopped walking. I made myself stand completely still and let the incredible weight of unadulterated silence crush down on my shoulders. No twittering birds, distant rush of moving vehicles, quiet rustle of leaves moving in the breeze, or buzz of an invisible airplane passing by miles overhead. My heart sounded like thunder echoing in the Grand Canyon. I tried to hold my breath, which of course did nothing to dull the roar of my heartbeat.<br />
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I felt myself shrink as the blinding desert and shadowy mountains rushed away from me, expanding farther and farther to dwarf me in the center of the overwhelming stillness. But at the same time, the fear passed. If it wanted, this desolate and beautiful place could eat me alive. I didn't care.<br />
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I continued my trek through the undulating, identical dunes and eventually people-specks appeared on the horizon. I saw a trail marker and angled my steps in that direction, weaving up and down with the pattern of the sand until eventually I reached it. My battered shoes kept filling up with sand, so I paused to take them off and walk barefoot through the silky gypsum for a few minutes.<br />
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Eventually I was close enough that conversations drifted to me through the still air, and the mountains receded back to their guardian position along the far horizon. I found an empty plastic bottle lying at the foot of a dune and carried it out with me, leaving only shallow dents in the sand to mark my passage.<br />
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As I drove out of the national monument a while later, the sun finally busted through the clouds and flared across the sand with blinding light. I wanted to stay, and watch the palette change as the sun faded behind the mountains. I could imagine the dunes glowing pink in the sunset, slowly shifting to cool blue as the light dimmed and dusk settled in. That's when the desert foxes would peek out of their dens, and the rabbits might venture forth to nibble the dusty sage. What would that landscape look like beneath a full moon? Or in the misty glow of early morning? I was only there for one short afternoon, but the monument would easily draw me back to see it through the changing seasons in every possible facet of it's myriad beauty.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-82108941268871773792015-05-06T01:24:00.000-07:002015-05-06T01:24:13.138-07:00Lviv in 24 Hours"..... where you can't swing a cat without hitting a medieval church."<br />
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I'm sitting here not writing and clicking around on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Curious-Zephyr/501351859972723?ref=hl" target="_blank">Facebook</a> instead, and I see this description used by my friend for her weekend exploring the Golden Ring around Moscow. How appropriate! Thanks, lady, for letting me borrow your words. It's a perfect description of Lviv as well!<br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Part One -- Churches</em></span><br />
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Lviv has a <em>lot</em> of beautiful churches, cathedrals, and chapels scattered throughout the city. I took myself on a walking tour outlined in the 2011 <em>Lonely Planet</em> that I was using for the maps, but what was touted as a stroll through Lviv's historic center was really a trek to find every single religious building still standing downtown. There is the Church of St Mary, which has some pieces dating back to the mid-1300s. Then there's the Church of St Nicholas, which has pieces dating back to the 13th century. Both of these churches were very plain, with drab plaster walls and no windows, but the next church was adorable. The Church of St John the Baptist has pointed eaves edged with brick designs and a pretty garden blooming with spring flowers. It's also a book museum now.<br />
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Then there's St Michael's Church, a pretty church with two spires perched on a hill overlooking the old town. Next is the Bernadine Church and Monastery, which sits just inside the last remaining section of the city's original medieval fortification. Onward to the Dormition Church and its adjoining bell tower, and then across the plaza to the Boyim Chapel. This one is striking, with a blackened façade that looks like it was scorched, and unusual carvings decorating the front. It's right next to the Latin Cathedral, which has sections that are over 700 years old. Then there's the Jesuit Church, with a beautifully faded gold and blue interior.<br />
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A few blocks away, I peered through the gates into the courtyard of the Armenian Church, which is supposedly quite beautiful but was blocked off to the public that day. And then I finished up at the Dominican Cathedral, which is massive and imposing and has the neatest doors in the whole city.<br />
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I also like the Dominican Cathedral because there's a statue behind it of a monk named Federov, who was the first printer in Ukraine. And on weekends, a used book sale springs up around his feet!<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Part Two -- Cobblestones</em></span><br />
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Part of Lviv's charm is the miles and miles of cobbled streets. Most of the historic city center is cobbled, and even this does not stop Ukrainian women from walking about in precarious high heels. I wonder if there are as many annual ankle sprains as there are individual cobbles? They certainly help you remember to walk slowly and enjoy the scenery!<br />
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In one of Lviv's most eccentric (and awesome!) restaurants, there is an entire room dedicated to the city's cobblestones. Different types of cobbles are displayed along one wall, and a bright red digital counter on another shows the total number of cobblestones to be found paving Lviv's streets. According to the restaurant's menu, the counter decreases every time a cobblestone is spirited away to the dacha of a member of Parliament.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><em>Part Three -- Stairs</em></span><br />
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Stairs, stairs, and more stairs! Lviv's are nothing like <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/07/montreal-in-one-word-is-not-what-you.html" target="_blank">my Montreal memory</a>. Instead, they are creaky and narrow and tucked away in the bowels of Lviv's memorable historic architecture. It starts with my Airbnb apartment, situated down a dark alley and up three flights of groaning wooden steps. (It sounds creepy, I know, but it was actually pretty awesome.)<br />
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Then there are several flights to get down to the cave-like dining area of Robert Dom's beer house, adjacent to Lviv's beer museum and the brewery that celebrated its 300th birthday on the first weekend in May.<br />
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What goes down must come up, I suppose ... so up I go, to the top of the House of Legends. This funky restaurant features a car perched on the roof along with a famous chimney sweep memorial, a room dedicated to lions, a room for Lviv's underground river (including a live video feed of the water gushing into darkness), the aforementioned cobblestone room, and even a room containing every book ever written about Lviv. It's dark and crowded, with clunky wooden furniture, and creaky wooden stairs that rise through the center of the building in a narrow, twisting staircase. The wait staff must have killer leg muscles. The ubiquitous thumping of feet running up and down is the restaurant's musical score. The outside of the building features a large metal dragon undulating through the bricks that breathes fire at night. It's a chaotic collection of randomness, and absolutely worth the visit.<br />
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The next stair-stop is the ratusha, the town hall that towers over the center of Ploscha Rynok. I climb four stories to the ticket office, and then pay 10 hrivna for the privilege to keep going. For most of the way, the wooden staircases cling to the sides of the square tower with open air filling the space in the center. Towards the top, the gap is filled by the clockwork mechanism that pulls the weights to ring the bells in the tower. Just when I think I've reached the top, I realize that light is only coming from a window and one last, narrow, spiral metal staircase is between me and the open patio on the top of the ratusha. But it's worth the claustrophobia (worse when people try to go up and down at the same time ... definitely NOT wide enough for that!) for the wonderful view over the jumbled chaos of downtown spreading away into the wider streets and green parks of modern Lviv.<br />
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Ah, the stairs. It's not over yet. For an even better view over Lviv, I hike up to Castle Hill. This crest of land overlooking Lviv is home to the last remaining piles of stone that were the fort of 14th century Lviv. The castle ruins are not impressive; the view is.<br />
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But I have to brave one last flight to go to the original Lviv Handmade Chocolate store. I walk in expecting a café on the main floor, <a href="http://www.trover.com/d/t1i3-%d0%bb%d1%8c%d0%b2%d0%be%d0%b2%d1%81%d0%ba%d0%b0%d1%8f-%d0%bc%d0%b0%d1%81%d1%82%d0%b5%d1%80%d1%81%d0%ba%d0%b0%d1%8f-%d1%88%d0%be%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bb%d0%b0%d0%b4%d0%b0-kiev-ukraine" target="_blank">like I found in Kyiv</a>. Silly me! As with all these tall, narrow buildings crammed together in Lviv's city center, the chocolate store just goes up and up and up. There is a deck at the top of the creaky stairs, and I can see House of Legends' car from my new vantage point. There are small tables and beanbags tucked under the eaves, but it's a little chilly, so I go down one more flight to a lovely room under a series of skylights that makes it feel nice and open. The other two floors of the chocolate shop are stacked with bars in a variety of flavors and textures, cans of fruits and nuts dipped in Lviv chocolate, and all manner of other tasty souvenirs. Because of the never-ending flights of stairs in Lviv, I'm confident the calories balance out.<br />
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Lviv is a wonderful city with a lot of European flair and just a shade of Soviet memory to keep it humble. The cobbled streets pulse with life, especially on the weekend when the downtown is closed to vehicle traffic and crowds of pedestrians flock to the restaurants, pubs, and buskers. The interesting nooks and quirky crannies inspire imagination, and the café culture just begs writers to channel the city's energy through pens onto paper. A weekend is never enough, of course, but I'm glad to have had a glimpse of the heart of Ukraine's independent spirit.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-37780396494048066822015-04-29T23:06:00.001-07:002015-05-25T18:38:31.448-07:00Favorite Runs: Holosiivskyi Park<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I knew there was no way I would make it out of the park without getting lost, so I tried to plan for it. Yes, that is correct, I planned to get lost. Trust me, it makes sense.<br />
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The first challenge was that I was going for a run. I really, really do not enjoy running with a backpack, which meant I was restricted to the two pockets in my shell. My city maps depicted my destination as a blob of green, so I knew they wouldn't be much use anyway. I printed a screenshot from Google maps, folded it in fourths, and hoped that would be good enough. I grabbed emergency cash, my cell phone (which naturally wouldn't connect to the network and was therefore completely useless as a map), and of course my small camera.<br />
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The second challenge was that I was going to a very large woodland park with limited road access, but lots of trails. I've seen places like this before, though. In addition to the "marked" trails, there are loads and loads of offshoots that could be from animals, or could be run-off gulleys after a storm but look suspiciously like paths when its dry, or were tamped down by people who like shortcuts. For a stranger like me, these extra trails just make life very confusing. That's how I get lost.<br />
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I'm okay with getting lost though. It's happened before. Mwenzie and I once drove to <a href="http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-north/harold-parker-state-forest.html" target="_blank">Harold Parker State Forest</a> for an easy 5k trail run. 13 miles and 2.5 hours later, we finally rediscovered where we'd parked the car.<br />
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Also, I was tired of running on the unforgiving cement slabs that equal sidewalks and roads in Kyiv. My legs were angry with me, and I was looking forward to a chance to run more than five miles without navigating through traffic.<br />
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Finding Holosiivkiy Park was easy. I took the metro to Holosiivska station, popped out of the ground, looked for the main road (Prospekt 40-letya Oktyabrya), and crossed it. This put me at the northwest corner of the park.<br />
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My vague plan from there was to follow the pond and then stay right until I hit a small cluster of buildings. The trail ended there, but another one picked up across the street. I would stay on that trail until I found the next two ponds and stick to them as they curved towards the west. Then I would follow the trail south for a bit until it intersected with another trail heading west, and switch to that one which would eventually dump me out somewhere behind the National Exhibition Center (very distinctive in former Soviet countries, with lots of strange pavilions) near the Hippodrome. I figured that towards the end of the run, I'd be able to follow hoof prints to find my way. And then back on the metro at Hippodrome station to go home!<br />
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Ah well, the best laid plans. By the end of the first pond, I was already confused because I knew I shouldn't be on pavement anymore and I hadn't seen a trail turnoff. But as I expected, there were all sorts of little brown ribbons cutting through the new spring growth on the forest floor. So I veered off and followed one straight up a very steep hill. There were wider trails at the top, so I started heading south, somewhat as planned.</div>
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When I stopped to take a picture, a lady tried to convince me to jump rope with her children. My brain didn't work quickly enough to point out that her kids were about three feet shorter than me, and there was no way they could swing that rope high enough to not decapitate me. She gave up and commanded me to keep running (Bezhi!), so I did. Uphill, downhill, and suddenly there were buildings right in front of me. I didn't expect them so quickly, so I hooked to the left and made a very wide circle around them.</div>
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Then I popped out on a road. By now I was so muddled, I didn't remember that there was one road cutting through the forest park. But I found a lovely wide trail on the other side, so I followed that. Before long, I was in the bottom of a gully. The trees were just starting to think about blooming for spring, so the forest was very open and easy to navigate. The ground was carpeted green, but the branches were bare. My feet crunched through the brown layers of dead winter leaves.</div>
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After a precarious log-crossing and several fallen tree hurdles, I got annoyed with the unexpected obstacle course in the gulley, so I went straight up the hillside to get out of it. I rounded another corner and came to a screeching halt, because there was a goat. Several of them, actually. And an old man kneeling on the ground murmuring softly to a kid (goat-kid, not human-kid) that he held under his knee while he tried to fix something on its leg.<br />
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I realized that I'd also found the second set of ponds, although somehow I was looking <i>down </i>at them from the top of a very steep bluff. Best of all, visible only because the trees were naked, I saw a golden-domed church glittering in the sun on the other side of the lake. Go for a run in Kyiv, find yourself in the middle of a fairy tale! I was so surprised by all of this, I just stood there for at least a minute, and then jumped a mile when something tickled my fingers. I looked down into the golden slit-pupiled eyes of one of the curious goats. It nibbled on my fingers until I said hello and carefully picked my way past it and the old man, who never looked up even though his dog didn't stop shouting about my presence until I was sliding on my butt down the bluff. That's about when the poor goat-kid started screaming too. Did you know goats sound EXACTLY like people crying because they're hurt? Rather creepy. Not such a fairy tale moment after all.<br />
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I knew I wanted to keep heading south from the lakes, but I felt a shade uncomfortable with all the people hanging around, so I took the first path I saw. It went straight up another hill (yay), and then popped out in a plowed field behind a dacha. Definitely not where I wanted to be, so I followed the edge of the field until there was a spot where I could hop over the shrubs and escape back into the forest.<br />
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Not long after that, I found a fantastic grid of dirt paths. I passed a picnic spot where some families had settled down for a day of relaxing outdoors in the spring weather, and then I was alone in the woods. The minutes ticked by as I ran along, enjoying the green shade and filtered sunlight and clean air. Someone jogged past me in the other direction, and once or twice I saw mountain bikers whoosh through an approaching intersection.<br />
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Eventually, I noticed I was dodging the occasional pile of horse manure too. Good sign! After an hour or so, I decided I had probably gone far enough south, so I took the next east option. Except it took me to a road, and there was a gate on the other side of the road that looked suspiciously military in nature, and I was not keen to get arrested for trespassing on government property in a foreign country, so I promptly retraced my steps to the first opportunity to turn north. I knew I was not heading towards the Hippodrome anymore, but I was over 6 miles into the run and getting tired, so I figured I'd rather try to find my way back from whence I came than keep aimlessly running.<br />
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The trail wiggled back and forth through the trees, and a handful of mountain bikers passed me also heading north. Then a girl on horseback, accompanied by a chunky yellow Lab, approached going the other way. She wished me a happy holiday, and I should have followed her, but I stayed on my trail. Eventually it had to either chuck me out at the ponds, or at the main road which followed the western edge of the park!<br />
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The trees started to thin out. I ran down a scary steep hill, but the trail felt like it was not going the direction I wanted, so I turned right again. Suddenly there were more people about, so I slowed to a walk. A girl asked me for directions. It didn't even matter that I couldn't answer her in Ukrainian. And then I was at a pond! This pond, the farthest west of the three in the middle of the forest park, had picnic pavilions lining its banks, and every single one was crowded with people barbecuing and celebrating Easter. And the golden-domed church was there, except on the opposite side now. I was past 7 miles, so I gave up and started to follow the road.<br />
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The road took me away from the ponds, past a couple cottages with laundry draped across lines under the trees and small gardens staked out for spring planting, and through the intersection with the street to the church. The bells were loudly ringing, and I was like a salmon swimming upstream through the steady flow of people walking towards the church. They thinned out when I came out at a plaza by a large, official-looking building. (Turns out it was a university. Just want one expects to find in the middle of a forest park.)<br />
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I felt like I should be going further west at this point, so I left the road behind and ran through the trees down another steep hill and popped out at a regular city park, with grass lawns and playground equipment and families everywhere. But beyond that park, I could see a road and apartment buildings. I crossed the park, and followed the road north. And at 8.75 miles, I found myself standing on the corner where I started. Not the plan, but at least I was no longer lost in the woods!<br />
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Turns out I almost ran to the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, which is as far south in Holosiivkiy Park as you can go. The gate threw me off and vectored me north, but I actually could have gone around it (I think it was just an observatory) and continued west. I cut off an entire quarter of the park, so it truly is a wonderful place to put in a respectable amount of mileage without pummeling your legs on the unforgiving streets and sidewalks. You can get there via public transport, so you can channel all your energy into your run. And best of all--you're in the middle of Ukraine's capital city, but it only takes a few miles for you to find the peaceful solitude of quiet trees and dirt paths that makes for a wonderful trail run.<br />
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UPDATE: I went back for another trail run after the trees came back to life. Check out what Holosiivskyi looks like in full foliage!</div>
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<i>Logistics: </i>Take the metro on the blue line to Holosiivska station. Right across the street from the exit, you'll see a pond. The northwest corner of the park starts there. You can also get into the park by cutting through the abandoned Exhibition Center (now popular among rollerbladers and cyclists) near Vistavkoviy Center station.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-48869257975375506562015-04-24T05:39:00.000-07:002015-04-24T05:39:16.197-07:00Pripyat: Visiting Chernobyl's Ghost City<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/10/nuclear-tourism/johnson-text" target="_blank">"What I remember most about the hours we spent in Pripyat is the sound and feel of walking on broken glass."</a><br />
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Thanks a lot, National Geographic, for writing one of my strongest impressions of the experience six months before I even <i>had </i>the experience.<br />
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The shattered window panes that adorn the interior floors of Pripyat's abandoned buildings emit a distinctive crunching underfoot, and it's a feeling akin to walking on small pieces of gravel, albeit a shade smoother. Pause and listen to other tourists moving through a different room or the floor above, and the glass takes on a distinctly musical, tinkling sound.<br />
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But there is something besides glass covering the floor in many rooms. It feels soft underfoot, with a slight give and an occasional slip as it rearranges against the pressure of my shoe. My soul cringes with each step, and I feel slimy, like I am defiling a precious object meant to be lovingly cherished rather than carelessly thrown on the dusty ground.<br />
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Books. Piles of books, with spines broken and pages fluttering sadly in the silent breeze.<br />
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Once upon a time approximately thirty years ago, Pripyat (При́пять) was a growing population hub, having only recently attained the status of "city." The youth of the city was reflected by the youth of it's 50,000 inhabitants--the average Pripyatian was 26 years old. The city had schools, stores, restaurants, gymnasiums, swimming pools, a football stadium, a hospital. The future was bright.<br />
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On 26 April 1986, everything changed irrevocably for Pripyat. A power surge triggered an explosion inside Reactor 4 at the nearby Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, initiating the worst nuclear disaster the world had ever witnessed.<br />
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On 27 April 1986, the residents of Pripyat were told to gather whatever belongings they needed for three days, and to temporarily evacuate. Four hours later, silence reigned the streets. Every last person had been bused out and, unbeknownst to them at the time, they would never return. Pripyat is now a city of memories.<br />
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Over the years, many people have illegaly stolen into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone--some for publicity stunts, some to poach <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/04/chernobyl-where-nuclear-tourism-meets.html" target="_blank">the burgeoning wildlife populations</a>, some for the "adventure" of braving the nuclear radiation, and some to succumb to the vandalism temptations of the ghost city's unguarded possessions.<br />
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Pripyat is covered in shattered glass, but not because every window was blown out by the explosion at the power plant. Rusted shopping carts are strewn about the grocery store, but not because people dropped everything to run away from an approaching fireball. Every desk in the school buildings is overturned, but not because there was a stampede to evacuate the children. Pripyat looks like the Soviet Pompeii, but not directly because of the disaster at Chernobyl.<br />
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Pripyat was unaware of any accident at Chornobyl until hours after the fact. There was no tremor through the earth, fireball in the air, or mushroom cloud to warn the people what had happened. When the announcement finally came, the city's residents had a bit of time to gather their things before they climbed into buses and were whisked away to new lives.<br />
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There was probably chaos, but not of the screaming, stampeding, destructive variety. After all, these people expected to return to their homes after a few days. The destruction of Pripyat is a product of vandalism.<br />
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And the haunting of Pripyat is a product of time. Trees grow through the bottom of the creaky Ferris wheel, and the former football pitch looks like a forest park. The woods are slowly encroaching the apartment blocks, and filling in the school courtyards and city squares. Nature makes a surprising amount of progress when its unimpeded for three decades.<br />
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In a way, the vandalism of Pripyat dims the haunting effect the abandoned city would otherwise have had. It's easier to visualize people fleeing in panic, overturning desks and leaving plates on the table in the wake of a nuclear disaster. Imagine instead that all the dishes were put away, books returned to the shelf, everything prepared as if the people were simply closing up to go on a short holiday. Then add trees growing out of the front stoop and the vines shadowing the windows because no one ever came back to trim them away. Dust collecting on the school desks and sporting equipment because no one ever came back to use them. A city that looks like its holding its breath, ready to spring back to life at a moment's notice even as it's being slowly buried by nature. This Pripyat would be terrifying.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the football stadium, with a track around the perimeter.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mail box</td></tr>
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This is the reality of Pripyat. It looks like it was torn asunder by a natural disaster. The fact that it was a man-made catastrophe makes no different to the ghosts that remain.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Why am I switching back and forth with my spelling? "Chornobyl" [Чорнобиль] is Ukrainian. "Chernobyl" [Чернобыль] is Russian. The place is best known by the Russian spelling, but it's located in Ukraine.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-65373683805347938642015-04-21T02:36:00.000-07:002015-04-24T05:39:57.947-07:00Chernobyl: Where Nuclear Tourism Meets Wildlife Tourism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I should have thought about what I expected to find before I got there. A barren, rocky wasteland wholly unsupportive of any form of life, with curls of steam rising ominously from the ground? People wearing space suits as protection from the radiation? Squirrels with eight tails and cerulean fur? <br />
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I didn't think about it. I've made up those graphic options in the last five minutes. But I know that what I <em>did</em> find wasn't what I was expecting, despite how ill-defined those expectations may have been.<br />
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After all, Chernobyl is the site of the worst nuclear disaster of the 20th century. Hundreds died as an immediate result, thousands still suffer long-term effects, and hundreds of thousands were forced into unwanted new lives as all human inhabitants within thirty kilometers in any direction from the plant were evacuated and relocated. <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2015/04/pripyat-visiting-chernobyls-ghost-city.html" target="_blank">A thriving young city, less than twenty years old and with a population of almost 500,000 people, became a ghost town in a matter of hours, and remains so to this day.</a><br />
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Nuclear radiation wreaks havoc on the human body. It's not exactly easy on animals either, but give Mother Nature a little time, and she'll always prove that she's far more resilient than we are. The thirty kilometer evacuated area around the plant became the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a permanent fixture banning humans from living in the area and thereby a de facto wildlife preserve, which gave Mother Nature a leg up with her recovery.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The forest in the Exclusion Zone appears to be thriving. The road to the power plant passes through small settlements and the town of Chornobyl*. The bare branches of spring trees allow glimpses of abandoned homes tucked away in the woods; come summer, these homes will vanish completely behind a dense screen of leaves and needles.<br />
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Chornobyl town is still somewhat active, with a fire station, a hotel and restaurant, a church, and lodging for the laborers who rotate through the plant as they continue to work to contain the contamination. But that transient population is a sliver of what used to be, and the forest is moving in on the streets lined with homes that haven't felt the footsteps of an inhabitant for decades. Paint peels, fences rot, and vines grope their way through broken windows.<br />
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Not even great military secrets are safe from the inexorable creep of Mother Nature. Within the Exclusion Zone, and unknown to the outside world at the time of the catastrophe, sits one of two radar sites established by the Soviet Union to detect ballistic missile launches from their enemies (i.e. the United States). The radar is massive. It's a string of maybe 20 towers, each over 100 feet tall, standing sentinel in a row at least a quarter mile long. The site is so large, there was a one-street town built nearby for the associated military personnel and their families.<br />
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Now, the radar presides over nothing but birch and pine, towering above the tall trees like an alien Gulliver. Rust creeps up the silver rails, but it will take years for the forest to bring down these behemoths. In the meantime, it has made short work of the small settlement huddling in the radar's shadow.<br />
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Small pines sprout proudly on rooftops and balconies, glorying in the lofty view it would otherwise have taken them years of growth to achieve. Tree branches engulf cement buildings, slowly breaking them down like the structures are being swallowed and digested by some monster. Rusty barrels sit in a pile with streaks of white smearing down from perforations in their metal hulls, and I do not want to know what is leaking.<br />
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As we approach the nuclear plant, we watch the numbers go up on the Geiger counter carried by our guide, Igor. It registered 0.8 at the radar site; now it's showing over 2.0 as we stand at a bend in the road next to the river and the power plant comes into view a couple kilometers away. We've just passed a construction site bustling with activity--one of the only areas in the Exclusion Zone where man is keeping Mother Nature at bay with bulldozers and cement as a U.S. company works on the facility that will ultimately provide dry storage of the remaining nuclear material.<br />
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The river doesn't look particularly murky or slimey, and there are plenty of fish. One bizarre highlight of stopping by the nuclear power plant is a quick visit to see the giant catfish near the main entrance. Giant. Over four feet long. See the critters in the bottom left corner of the photograph? Who wants to go noodling and come up with that clamped onto their arm? I have absolutely no idea if it's normal for catfish to grow to this size, but it's easy to reason that nuclear radiation morphed these fellows into super-catfish.<br />
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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is rusty and crumbling, but very clearly not dead and abandoned. In fact, after the disaster in Reactor 4 occurred in 1986, the rest of the plant continued to operate for another 15 years! The last active reactor, Reactor 3, finally ceased to operate in 2000. Now, the plant is being decommissioned and containment projects to combat the radiation from Reactor 4 continue.<br />
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Reactor 4 will be a hot zone for a millenium. In the immediate aftermath of the 1986 catastrophe, it was encased in cement to contain radiation and allow the other reactors to continue to operate. Now, a new containment device that looks like a massive airplane hangar is being constructed adjacent to the plant. When it's completed, it will slide forward to encase not only Reactor 4 but the entire plant.<br />
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The Geiger counter went over 8.0 in the parking lot outside the security gates leading to the new containment device. Their daily doses are elevated but not lethal, at least in the short-term, so the workers are rotated into the Exclusion Zone for a specific period of time, and then are required to leave for a few weeks to decontaminate.<br />
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Chornobyl presents a strange dichotomy of life and death. From the human perspective, the Chornobyl Nuclear Exclusion Zone is a dead zone, littered with broken towns and discarded accouterments of civilization. It's Mother Nature that keeps the good news stories alive for Chornobyl.<br />
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Despite the poison that takes so long to dissipate, the plant life is doing well. The fish are not floating belly-up down the river. Large mammals like Red Deer and Moose (as they're called in North America .... 'elk' to Eurasia) don't have to worry about running into people, although they do have to be concerned about grey wolves. There are even bears.<br />
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But most amazingly of all, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is home to a flourishing herd of the <b>only </b>wild horse species left in the entire world.<br />
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Brain boggled? I know mine is, and I've had days to process this incredible information. Seriously, I would have been less shocked if a Tyrannosaurus Rex came stomping out of the woods throwing sections of the derelict military radar at the tour bus than I was when Igor said "Przewalski."<br />
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There are two living subspecies of wild horse (<i>Equus ferus</i>) on Planet Earth at this very moment: <i>Equus ferus caballus</i>, which is the modern domesticated horse (including "wild" aka feral aka descended-from-domesticated horses like mustangs, brumbies, etc), and <i>Equus ferus przewalskii</i>, known as <a href="http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/przewalskis-horse/" target="_blank">the Przewalski's horse or Mongolian wild horse</a>. It's pronounced either 'preh-zhe-VAL-ski' or just 'zhe-VAL-ski,' whichever your prefer. These horses are native to the steppe, but in the late 19th century, a wealthy French chap brought a handful of them to his property in southern Ukraine. He had quite a collection of animals, and fortunately his zoological park survived the turmoil of the last century to exist today as an amazing nature preserve called Askania-Nova. It's the home of the largest captive breeding program for Przewalski's horses. In the 1990s, a group of horses from Askania-Nova were shipped north to see how they might fare in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.<br />
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Apparently they love it! The horses have successfully bred several new generations, and according to Igor, there are currently five or six family groups (8-10 mares and a stallion) as well as little bands of bachelor stallions spread through the Exclusion Zone, including on the Belarusian side.<br />
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Life and death; man and nature. A visit to Chernobyl is a drive through a time capsule and a stroll through a ghost town. It's also a wildlife safari and reminder of Mother Nature's indomitable spirit. Some part of my imagination was probably ready for plastic-wrapped spacemen and things glowing eerily with nuclear radiation, but the absolutely very last thing I <i>ever </i>expected to find near Chernobyl was a happy family of Przewalski's horses. Perhaps there is a happy ending in the works for this ground zero of international disaster and tragedy.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">*Why am I switching back and forth with my spelling? "Chornobyl" [Чорнобиль] is Ukrainian. "Chernobyl" [Чернобыль] is Russian. The place is best known by the Russian spelling, but it's located in Ukraine.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-61719900501336151042015-03-08T18:36:00.000-07:002015-03-08T18:36:02.283-07:00The Funkiest Theater in MassachusettsAlright, I know I haven't been to every theater in Massachusetts, so perhaps that title is a bit of hyperbole. But as soon as you set foot in the Somerville Theater, you know that it's at least in the running, regardless of what quirky small-town theaters you've experienced!
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<a name='more'></a>My introduction to Somerville Theater was during the Boston Irish Film Festival, and I was promptly hooked on the funky owl decor. Seriously, they're tucked in everywhere! I also love that there's a bar in the lobby and you can purchase drinks to take with you into your show.<br />
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This place is over 100 years old. It opened on 11 May 1914 and its repertoire has included vaudeville, plays by the Somerville Players, concerts (U2! Springsteen!), and of course film. In a century, the theater has been owned by three families: it was built by the Hobbs, then operated by the Vianos, and has been owned by the Fraimans for the last 30 years.<br />
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Our passes to the film fest gave us free run of the theater, which was wonderful because there was exploring to do!<br />
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The main stage of the theater is exactly that - a stage, complete with balconies. It looks just like the playhouse at my university. Evidently there used to be a concert pit which was covered in 1932. How do I know this? Because the concert grand piano that was installed in that pit when the theater opened in 1914 has been relocated to the second floor after spending almost 80 years holding up the front of the stage and the auditorium floor. They call it the "load-bearing piano." Now the piano is tucked into a hallway, along with some old school theater seats, outside the doors by which you access the balcony high above the main seating of the stage.<br />
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There are a couple smaller theaters that are clearly newer and are designed like regular movie theaters today, but they've still got owls to tie the decor together!<br />
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And then there's the art museum in the basement. I was looking for a bathroom. Instead, I found the MOBA: Museum of Bad Art. The sign even says, "Art Too Bad to be Ignored." It's a room with some very bizarre canvases and things decorating the walls. Some of it is bad, some of it is just juvenile, and all of it is exactly what a place like Somerville Theater should have hiding in its bowels.<br />
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Catch a film fest, or a current feature, or scan their schedule for one of their showings of a classic movie. They've got it all! And one last selling point, even though you're already clearly convinced that Somerville Theater is awesome, is that it's located smack in the middle of Davis Square, which is definitely one of the coolest little neighborhoods in the Boston area! Easy access on the Red line, so ready, go! The owls are waiting to greet you.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-26973789902900935162015-03-04T12:27:00.000-08:002015-03-04T12:27:41.941-08:00Why I Love Mainers, or The Day I Learned to Snowmobile<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Canada: the land of snow. And therefore, Canada: the land of snowmobiles. In fact, the eastern provinces of Canada are absolutely covered with massive networks of fantastic snowmobile trails. There are riding clubs everywhere, and heck, the snowmobile was even born in Canada! (Well, technically it was a Michiganer who got the patent in Canada ... but that's neither here nor there.)<br />
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I figured that the Maritimes were within reach, so it would be easy to find a great snowmobile adventure before my last east coast winter melted away. I started calling around. Halifax, where can I rent a snowmobile? PEI, got anything for me? You've got trails that circumnavigate the island/province, there must be options! No? St. John's? Fredericton?<br />
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Canada, how could you let me down like this!<br />
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Snowmobiling may be super popular, but you have to own your toy to be able to enjoy. First timer? Want to rent one and see what it's like? TOO BAD.<br />
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There was nowhere in eastern Canada within a 12 hour drive of Boston where I could rent a snowmobile for a day. This meant two things. First, my Canadian friends would not be able to join me for the fun, so I'd be going solo. Second, my drive would be a <i>lot </i>shorter.<br />
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Because fortunately not only is snowmobiling the winter pastime of Canada, but it's also the winter pastime of Maine! (And New Hampshire and Vermont, and New York too I'm sure, but I went to Maine.)<br />
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Even better, I found a place where I could rent a cabin for the night and bring the pups! Sold. We hopped in the truck and headed north.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Maine highways in the winter are rather desolate, with their crusts of dirty plowed up snow on the shoulder and sad, barren trees as far as the eye can see. So I can't say <a href="http://www.northcountryrivers.com/" target="_blank">North Country Rivers</a> outpost knocked my socks off when I arrived, with it's smattering of buildings right next to the state highway. The row of little cabins faced away from the road towards the Kennebec River, and seemed to me a bit like they were trying too hard to be a beautiful mountain hideaway. Although in summer, when the trees aren't in hibernation, it's probably close enough!<br />
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But once I turned my back on the ice-rimmed highway and sad gas station across the street, I was immediately pumped about my mountain hideaway. What a <i>fantastic </i>deal for $50 a night!! Mwenzie and I had an adorable two bedroom cabin with a living room and a kitchen ALL TO OURSELVES. It was cute and clean and completely perfect.<br />
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And the snowmobile adventure turned out to be just that--an adventure. I have to thank the Indian tourists who made up the rest of our group for that. I was nervous about being the clueless newbie, but those guys made me look like I'd been doing this for years!<br />
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Eventually the guides booted me out the door to practice on the snowed-over airstrip outside while they sorted out the chaos in the main lodge. So, I hopped on with my helmet, turned on the ignition, and immediately learned that snowmobiling is actually a lot like riding a jet ski and is therefore AWESOME. You learn quickly that what looks like a vast, smooth snow field actually has a lot of texture and terrain that you would never notice if you weren't traversing across it. You have to lean a bit to turn and help keep your weight distributed (this was more important out on the actual trails than on the flat air strip), but otherwise it's basically press the gas and go!<br />
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When the whole group was finally mounted up and vaguely comfortable with operating the machines, we headed off down the snowmobile trails that cut across the end of the air strip. We rode for over three hours! The trails were usually quite wide, with plenty of space for folks to pass us going the other direction. They curved around trees and swept down into gullies and leveled out along ridge lines to give great views of Maine's mountains off in the distance. With my crazy Antarctica boots and huge mittens, I found that I was quite comfortable with one exception- my head. Sure, I had a helmet on, but there are cracks around the neck and around the visor that let in a piercing wind that made my brain go numb. At one water break, I dug out my balaclava and put it on under the helmet, which fortunately fit over the layer of fleece. And then I was perfectly toasty for the rest of the day!<br />
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I learned that there's a code among snowmobilers when you're out sharing the trails. The lead person waves at the oncoming snowmobile and then signals with their hand how many people are following behind, so the oncoming snowmobile knows to modify their speed a little even after they've passed two snowmobiles, because (as in our case) there are still another eight strung out along the trail. And then, the last person signals to indicate that the parade is over and the oncoming drivers can push the pedal to the metal again.<br />
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As we cruised along, I couldn't help but imagine the forests in the middle of summer, teeming with vegetation instead of snow. I could feel the possibilities tugging at me of awesome trail runs and four-wheel excursions to continue the exploration in a totally different landscape. I also completely understand why people undertake long distance trips in winter and travel between towns on the never-ending web of trails across the northeast and Canada. How much fun would it be to line up with a bunch of friends and head off for a long weekend of snow cruising and discovering the back country? This trip was just a teasing taste!<br />
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Our guides finally succumbed to the frustration of herding the very inexperienced group and decided to head towards the gas station earlier than normal because it was taking so long for the group to make progress. So at one point, Gil and Scotty turned right with the group and told me to follow Dana to the left. They had very kindly realized that I had taken to the machine a lot faster than the rest of the group, so I got a quick side trip to stretch my wings a little!<br />
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Two minutes later, the two of us were barreling along the absolutely most breathtaking trail of the entire day, right along the banks of the icy river through a tunnel of frosted trees. The entire world was fading into shades of blue as dusk settled over the woods. We picked up speed significantly, which kept me on edge because one misturn and I would be flying down the ten foot drop into the frozen river, but I made it to the end of the trail, which was marked by a huge dam. By the time we started towards the gas station, it was well and truly dark.<br />
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And then Dana got lost.<br />
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One second we were on a snowmobile trail carefully cutting across a very steep hill, and the next second we were in someone's backyard and had to do a twenty-point turn on a very narrow trail to go back and try to find the right path. It was kind of fun meandering up and down the hills through the the yards of little house with smoke puffing from the chimneys and squares of warm light shining through the windows into the dark. But finally Dana had to admit he had no idea where we were, and we ended up driving the snowmobiles down the road to find the gas station. Yes, down the road. I didn't know this was possible. I don't think it's very good for them, but it'll work in a pinch.<br />
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And then guess what. We beat the rest of the group to the station!! They pulled up about five minutes after us!!<br />
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Everyone was wiped out by the time we finally made it back to the outpost, but North Country Rivers wasn't done with giving me a fantastic weekend yet. I checked on the pups and then went to the main lodge to get some hot food. The lodge was one giant room with a pool table, tables and chairs, snowmobile gear for sale, the checkout counter, and then a horseshoe bar backed against the wall leading to the kitchen. There were some locals at the bar, and some other visitors sitting at tables, and two large dogs roaming around saying hi to folks. When I mentioned Mwenzie, the bartender Leah told me to go get her! In fact, Leah said she wished she'd known Mwenzie had been in the cabin all day, because she would have kept her in the main lodge instead!<br />
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For the next two hours, Mwenzie ran around playing with the two big dogs and I sat at the bar drinking with the guides and listening to stories about white water rafting the Kennebec and snowmobiling and all the other crazy stuff they do. A small group up visiting from Georgia was puzzled that I'd driven up alone simply because I wanted to try snowmobiling, but before they went back to their cabin, one of the ladies said she was really impressed that I had the courage to strike out by myself, and she thought it was awesome because otherwise I would have missed out on the experience. I felt like she'd given me a warm and comforting hug. I was miles outside my comfort zone chatting with strangers in a new place, but they made me feel right at home. By the end of the night, the dogs were sitting on the bar stools with us. <br />
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I went to sleep that night proud of myself for shelving my introversion for a night and not being totally exhausted by the experience, pleased with my introduction to the wonderful world of snowmobiling, and grateful that there are still corners of this country where people are slightly crazy, in the best possible way. Welcome my four-legged kid as much as you welcome me and you've made every hour of driving absolutely worth the trip. Thanks, Maine!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-36974311019393035712015-01-11T09:31:00.002-08:002015-04-14T12:12:01.117-07:00The Shelby Tour of Portland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Most travelers I know agree that the absolute best way to experience a new place is with a local. For one thing, it saves you, the newbie, a lot of time usually wasted on figuring out logistical details like how to buy train tickets or where to park. But the main wonderful thing about locals is that they know all the good secret spots. They know the tourist spots too, and will tell you which ones are worth it, but then they can guide you into the real experience of wherever it is that you're visiting.<br />
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If you don't have a friendly local tour guide waiting anxiously for your arrival so they can show you all their favorite places, never fear. There is still a second option-- a distance local tour guide!<br />
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Eh, you say? What I mean by that is-- find a local who isn't there anymore and get them to tell you everything they know! Or even better, if technology allows, text them constantly while you're in their old stomping grounds and they can guide you virtually.<br />
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This worked out beautifully for us when we visited Portland, Oregon. Sure, we had brochures and we'd done some preparatory research on the interwebs. But the key to our Portland experience was my phone, which connected me to my friend Shelby. Shelby is a native Portlandian who now resides elsewhere in America because work made him move. I emailed him before our trip and laid out the ground rules: one day in Portland. He sent me some ideas, which was great, and of course as soon as we rolled into town, I started sending texts to say thanks for the suggestions and also to rub it in that we were in Portland and he wasn't. Because we're friends like that.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>But what happened next is that he started texting spur-of-the-moment suggestions that hadn't made it into his initial email. And before we knew it, from afar Shelby took us on his personal tour of his city!<br />
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The first stop was, naturally, downtown. It was Saturday, which meant Portland's famous outdoor market was alive and kicking on the banks of the Willamette. Saturday Market (don't let the name mislead you, it's also open on Sundays) is Portland's largest outdoor arts and crafts market that also has heaps of delicious food vendors and lots of live music and other busker-type entertainment. For the most part, the market is in Waterfront Park right along the river, but a section of it spreads up Ankeny Street as well. Talk about a place to find some really unique souvenirs and gifts for friends and family! The creativity and talent of the artists who run the various booths was very impressive and fun to check out.<br />
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From Saturday Market, we walked south along the Waterfront Park Trail to find Mill Ends Park. This little itty bitty patch of urban greenspace was first designated the World's Smallest Park by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1971. Supposedly there have been tiny animals and fences and even leprechauns "living" in the park, but it was uninhabited when we visited.<br />
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Our next stop was ice cream at Salt and Straw in northeast Portland on Alberta Street. There are a few other locations in the city, but the neighborhood around this Salt and Straw was super funky! Also there were rosebushes blooming everywhere, so now I understand why Portland is also called the Rose City. Anyway, about the ice cream. HOLY COW. It's like no ice cream you've ever tried before! The flavors are insane! Some are normal-ish, like Chocolate Gooey Brownie or Cinnamon Snickerdoodle. My favorites were Strawberry Honey Balsamic and Honey Lavender. And then there are the bizarre and delicious choices that provoke comments such as: "I really liked my ice cream ... until I got a giant bite of blue cheese." (He ate the whole scoop, so clearly the blue cheese wasn't much of a put-off.)<br />
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Since we were full of ice cream, it made sense to take a drink break next. Shelby sent us to Kennedy School, which is a McMenamin's. How to describe McMenamin's? It's a local chain, but they aren't just bars or restaurants. Some of them have hotels and banquet halls and there can be swimming pools/hot tubs involved too. Kennedy School is a McMenamin's located in an old primary school! Instead of destroying the building, they repurposed it and it is AMAZING. Many of the classrooms were converted into hotel rooms. The gym is a banquet hall/conference room, which was rented out for a wedding while we were there. There's a cigar bar and a hot soaking pool and a brew pub and a restaurant with a big patio. It took 45 minutes of wandering around and ogling all the cool old school history things on the walls and tucked around corners before we could even convince ourselves to sit down and enjoy a pint. I'm not sure any other McMenamin's location will measure up after such an incredible introduction, but based on Kennedy School, I'd say never let a McMenamin's pass you by without investigating it! What a cool way to preserve old places and make them new and fun again!<br />
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Once we start beer tours, they don't seem to end, so of course it wasn't long before we found ourselves searching for another good local brew spot. One of Shelby's favorites is the Widmer Brothers Brewing Company, which conveniently has a neat gasthaus pub attached to it that serves delicious German food. Mmmm dinner. And good beer too.<br />
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The afternoon was winding down by this point, and we had a bit of a drive to our next stop, but Shelby had also recommended checking out NW 23rd Ave and Hawthorne Street, so we made sure to drive through both neighborhoods before hopping back on the interstate and leaving Portland behind. The two streets are pretty similar, with lots of restaurants and bars and pubs and patios and people. We didn't get out of the car, but if you're looking for places to hang out and stuff your face with tasty treats, either one is a good bet!<br />
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It was just one day, but without Shelby's expert contributions, we probably would have stayed downtown and never ventured out far enough to see some of the other neighborhoods and all the cool things they have to offer. Thank you Shelby for being an awesome tour guide!!! My only regret is that we didn't make it to Voodoo Donuts. Next time!<br />
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Shelby's Other Recommendations (for when you're in Portland for longer than a day):<br />
- running in Forest Park<br />
- eat pizza at Escape from New York on NW 23rd Ave<br />
- visit the Japanese Rose Gardens<br />
- go to a Portland Timbers game<br />
- hiking around Columbia River Gorge, including Multnomah Falls and Crown Point<br />
- eat at Portland City Grill for dinner with a view (and good sushi)<br />
- eat at Le Bistro Montage for good Cajun food</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-39704928385753223752015-01-01T17:11:00.000-08:002015-01-01T17:11:08.220-08:00The CZ Book Club: 2014 Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
2014! Where did you go? How are you already nothing more than a memory??<br />
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Ah well, that means it's time for the second part of the <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/08/the-cz-book-club-2014-part-i.html" target="_blank">2014 CZ Book Club</a>. Prepare yourself for extreme randomness.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014331808X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=014331808X&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=UFDWCV3Y4KLXCTMN" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Harry Wakatipu Comes the Mong</span></a></i> <span style="font-size: large;">by Jack Lasenby</span><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> A young boy runs away from home to become a deer culler in the Vast Untrodden Ureweras of New Zealand, where he is teamed up with a ridiculous, lazy, unhelpful pack-horse named Harry Wakatipu.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> Kiwi-style tall tales! I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I swapped for this book off a shelf at Salang Beach, and I'm lucky I was traveling with a Kiwi at the time, because she had to help me translate a fair amount of slang. We still haven't quite figured out what it means to 'come the mong' though. Anyway, this book is a great blend of things that could very well be real with things that most definitely are not, and it's a lot of fun. And quite ridiculous!<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156034565/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0156034565&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=CYGMEUYKTHP3IHCZ%22%3ESalmon%20Fishing%20in%20the%20Yemen%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0156034565%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Salmon Fishing in the Yemen</i></span></a> <span style="font-size: large;">by Paul Torday</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156034565/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0156034565&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=3SBZFZ4QPWLEQN47"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0156034565&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a>
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Alfred Jones, a strait-laced and uninteresting fisheries scientist in a dispassionate (but logical) marriage to the career-driven Mary, finds himself hired by a Yemeni sheikh to undertake the seemingly impossible project of introducing salmon to a river in Yemen.</div>
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<b>My Take: </b> This book tackles every topic under the sun! Marriage, love, relationships, war in the Middle East, faith, bureaucracy, politics, and environmental stewardship are all neatly presented unconventionally in the format of emails, letters, news articles, interview transcripts, and personal journal entries. I was pleasantly surprised that there was so much more than just introducing salmon runs to a land-locked desert country and for the most part, it all worked together very well.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316743003&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=CSC2MCIYXVMP32BG%22%3ESkunk%20Works:%20A%20Personal%20Memoir%20of%20My%20Years%20at%20Lockheed%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316743003%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Skunk Works</i></span></a> <span style="font-size: large;">by Ben Rich and Leo Janos</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316743003/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316743003&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=M5ZKVPHXKUXFX536"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0316743003&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Ben Rich was the boss of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works for years, but he starts this memoir much earlier when he first started working in Skunk Works as an engineer. Over the decades, Rich was involved with the development of several famous aircraft, including the U-2 Dragonlady, SR-71 Blackbird, and F-117 Nighthawk. This book takes you behind the scenes of some of the US's greatest technological developments, going literally from the drawing board through testing to operational use and retirement.<br />
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<b>My Take: </b>Rich's memoir offers a behind-the-scenes look at the defense-industrial complex and the politics and negotiations between the military, federal government, and other national agencies that precedes the development of every project. Most of all, I was fascinated to learn about the ingenuity of the engineers tasked with seemingly impossible requirements, and the creativity they had to use to succeed. This book could have been a slow, heavy read because of the technical subject material, but instead it was very interesting and engaging!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060530944/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0060530944&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=P55SYCC2PXR63AGA%22%3EThe%20Graveyard%20Book%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060530944%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Graveyard Book</a></i></span> <span style="font-size: large;">by Neil Gaiman</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060530944/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0060530944&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=HCSQ4MQDWYVF4M6Q"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0060530944&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> Bod's family is murdered when he is very young, but toddler Bod luckily escapes. He is taken in by the denizens of a graveyard, who raise him, but a living boy cannot stay in the world of the dead forever. Eventually, Bod and his guardians must prepare Bod to leave the safety of the graveyard and to face the evil that remains determined, after all these years, to finish the botched extermination of Bod's family.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> As I learned earlier this year with <i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061689246/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061689246&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=NF7ZPVXZZHLTULDH%22%3EStardust%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061689246%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Stardust</a></i>, Neil Gaiman's writing looks innocent enough at first glance, but it is definitely for adults. Heck, this book started with the murder (by stabbing, no less) of three people! Darkness aside, Bod's graveyard adventures are very creative and I really enjoyed this book. Clearly I need to read more Gaiman.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375703764/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375703764&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=2BW7UVOL7IBLPFUK%22%3EHouse%20of%20Leaves%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375703764%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">House of Leaves</a></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"> by Mark Z. Danielewski</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375703764/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0375703764&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=ROH274XZNKHZ2H2C"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0375703764&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary: </b>There is a house in Virginia that looks normal enough from the outside. However, the inside is an eternally shifting space, exploration of which becomes the deadly obsession of the filmmaker that lives there with his wife and two children. He captures his story on film. Analysis of the film is provided by an old blind man named Zampano, who dies under mysterious circumstances. A hard-drinking, addict tattoo artist called Johnny Truant discovers Zampano's materials and begins to piece the story together. The house consumes Johnny's life too, which spirals violently out of control.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> CONFUSION. MASSIVE CONFUSION. This is an extremely difficult book to read, and don't even attempt to do it on an e-reader because you need to be able to flip back and forth between pages (there are a LOT of footnotes) and rotate the book in every direction and see when the font is colored blue or red, which is significant. You have got to read this in old school paper format. The foundation story is of the filmmaker and his family, and how the house strips them down to nothing before they can find their lives again. The second level is Zampano and his commentary as he pieced the filmmaker's story together. Then there's Johnny and <i>his</i> commentary, which comes out in crazy "footnoted" segments that can get really creepy. And finally, there are "the editors" who published the book based on Johnny's compilation, and they throw footnotes in occasionally as well. Some reviews described this book as a horror story. Others said it's a love story. I see where both opinions come from. All I will say is, don't give up. You'll want to, between the bizarre formatting and the technical discussion on things like filmmaking equipment and the ridiculous footnotes, but just finish it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609611756/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1609611756&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=JEUAGICBFNSPY4FU%22%3EThe%20Fear%20Project:%20What%20Our%20Most%20Primal%20Emotion%20Taught%20Me%20About%20Survival,%20Success,%20Surfing%20.%20.%20.%20and%20Love%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1609611756%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">The Fear Project</a></i></span> <span style="font-size: large;">by Jaimal Yogis</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609611756/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1609611756&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=VZSJERMFYJIRXSGR"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1609611756&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> When the love of Yogis' life ends their relationship, he spirals out of control. And he ultimately realizes that fear is the foundation of all his problems: fear of being alone, fear of never finding love, fear of being rejected. With that in mind, he decides to learn all about where the basic human of instinct of fear-- where it comes from, why we have it, how it's developed (or not) over time as our threat landscape has changed, how to use it to our advantage, how to conquer it. He applies what he's learned to his love life, as you might expect, but he also applies it to surfing. So there's that?<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> I was hoping for a really informative read about fear that would be more interestingly presented than a textbook. There was a little of that, but there was a lot more self-reflection and discussion about Yogis' personal life from childhood to present. My favorite parts were about Yogis' friend Jamie, who is an ultra-long-distance swimmer. Reading about Jamie's adventures was inspiring and motivating; not so keen on the rest of the book.<br />
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And finally, my New Year's Eve Eve entertainment (yes, I read the entire bleeding book in one day because it was that fun and entertaining).....<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062024035/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0062024035&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=VKF5R6HSRYPYR3P5%22%3EDivergent%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thecurzep01-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0062024035%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;%22%20/%3E" target="_blank">Divergent</a></i></span> <span style="font-size: large;">by Veronica Roth</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062024035/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0062024035&linkCode=as2&tag=thecurzep01-20&linkId=64HXTE23BX7XZM2I"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0062024035&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=thecurzep01-20" /></a><br />
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<b>Quick Summary:</b> It's post-apocalyptic Chicago and for the sake of humanity, society is divided into factions based on personality type. Erudite are the brainiacs, Amity are the earth-loving hippies, Candor are the brutally honest, Abnegation are the selfless do-gooders, and Dauntless are the thrill-seekers. Teenagers take a test which tells them their proclivities, and then they go to live in that faction and support its contribution to society. But of course it can never be that simple, and Tris finds out that she's "divergent," meaning non-conformist, and she doesn't fit into just one faction. She chooses Dauntless, and survives their initiation just in time to uncover a plot by Erudite to overthrow/exterminate Abnegation using Dauntless as their weapon.<br />
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<b>My Take:</b> Fun read! Tris kicks ass! I might have learned more about how fear affects us in this novel than I did in the non-fiction investigation. And now I'm wondering what my fear landscape would look like....<br />
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Alright, there's the end of 2014! If you tackle any of these books, I hope you enjoy them. Let me know what you think!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-20779381938801668032014-12-01T18:55:00.001-08:002014-12-01T18:55:54.887-08:00Favorite Runs: Yorktown Battlefields (New and Improved)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few miles south of the tourist mecca of Colonial Williamsburg in southern Virginia, quietly sitting on the banks of the York River, surrounded by the serenity of meadows and swamps and woods, you will find the humble historic burgh of Yorktown.<br />
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Most of the time, it appears to be a rather sleepy little town. There's an artist's gallery or two, and some antique shops tucked among the historic buildings open to tourists and the preserved homes available only for admiring from the outside. At the bottom of the river bank, the town did some remodeling in the last several years and created a tasteful little cluster of shops and restaurants almost directly beneath the Coleman Bridge.<br />
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I think part of the reason that Yorktown remains understated in comparison to Williamsburg is that there is no larger, modern town growing out of the historic nucleus. Instead, Yorktown is surrounded by natural space. The battlefields of the Revolutionary War are preserved as a national park, which means lots of forest and meadow and marsh for miles in every direction. Also dirt paths and gravel-paved tourist roads which are never particularly busy. Translation: runner's paradise!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmkqOThD_nLtZvxhvaCJIrmQQ2cm6hgcQ5TnTghua-lDjoYliI3uCtVNa2fkcROW-dpQYuaAxRBMPYQMFLpKH7tIq8aXZdmj1eFjtkNCDyJPFR9edCPCojPPvpARg6H6z69-4wpM93wn_/s640/blogger-image-1965636468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmkqOThD_nLtZvxhvaCJIrmQQ2cm6hgcQ5TnTghua-lDjoYliI3uCtVNa2fkcROW-dpQYuaAxRBMPYQMFLpKH7tIq8aXZdmj1eFjtkNCDyJPFR9edCPCojPPvpARg6H6z69-4wpM93wn_/s640/blogger-image-1965636468.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>The best starting point is Surrender Field, so-named because it's where General Cornwallis threw in the towel and America achieved independence. From the small parking area, there are many options. Head towards the river and the Coast Guard Station and after about a mile, you'll encounter this dam.<br />
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Turn around for a two mile jog, or continue up to the main road for another half mile (maybe), or cross the dam and turn left to go towards town. After a couple miles, you'll be able to loop back around to Surrender Road and the parking area.<br />
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Alternatively, from Surrender Field head towards Highway 17 instead, and you'll find yourself on the route formerly known to the local cross country team as the '6 Mile Loop.' Several years ago, the park installed a foot path that cut about a mile off the loop, although there are always random side roads and trails to bring the mileage back up. As you continue along the 6 Mile Loop, you'll encounter a couple spots where cannons are posted along the side of the road. After approximately one mile, there's a wide wooden bridge through this swampy area. Take a second to peer over the side and try to spot a turtle!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwjdh3-G54YRCGEQHyrc6pzB0PeZIrbY7tUpayeQLDoGg9uPid3YW3J0gabpwCt8fwXHC9IOiKWQFI0u_4BsSJP3bEn8cL9zVzxmp5D5qGDRstv5S_WrY1CR00jXu-3uJ193Ux6Uvt5IJ/s640/blogger-image-864833767.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwjdh3-G54YRCGEQHyrc6pzB0PeZIrbY7tUpayeQLDoGg9uPid3YW3J0gabpwCt8fwXHC9IOiKWQFI0u_4BsSJP3bEn8cL9zVzxmp5D5qGDRstv5S_WrY1CR00jXu-3uJ193Ux6Uvt5IJ/s640/blogger-image-864833767.jpg" /></a></div>
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Around two miles, the road forks. To the left, a creek crosses the road and makes a nice cool-down break during summer runs. The road continues a bit past the creek to a turnaround point, and from there you can venture on dirt trails into Newport News Park. Or go right, where the next landmark is the French Cemetery.<br />
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And then some more cannons. And more beautiful scenery!</div>
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Creeks, fields, serenity.<br />
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Eventually there's another fork, and you can go left onto the French Loop which adds a couple miles and a few more historic stops. Or go right and skip the extra mileage as you wind around these huge open meadows and over Highway 17. Not long after the bridge, the new(ish) footpath branches off to the right and brings you back to Surrender Field. If you carry on straight, you'll end up on Goosley Road. Hook a right and it will bring you back towards the caretaker's house, where you take another right to head back to Surrender Road. However, Goosley is not a great road for pedestrians and has no shoulder to speak of, so the footpath is a welcome addition.<br />
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You may encounter other runners, or some bikers, and a few tourists in cars. You may spot some deer, or at least hear them crashing away through the woods.</div>
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As a runner, you're guaranteed to experience the battlefields in a far more authentic way than slowly driving through in the covered protection of your car. As the sweat beads on your forehead and your heart pounds to the drumbeat of your feet, think for a moment or two about the utterly different circumstances which these peaceful places witnessed a couple centuries ago. Let the wind batter you a little, let the sun beat down on you, welcome the shady spots for their momentary cool, and embrace the freedom of the empty road.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-74551825021738894802014-11-07T03:28:00.000-08:002014-11-07T03:28:58.761-08:00The Boston Bucket List<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The first summer after I moved to Boston, I drove up to Vermont for a race, and one of my wonderful teammates from the <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2013/05/new-england-relay-in-review.html" target="_blank">New England Relay</a> let me crash at his apartment. It was a fateful visit that precipitated the creation of the most discussed decoration on my refrigerator for the next three years: the bucket list.<br />
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My friend had taped to his bathroom mirror a bucket list of the things he wanted to do while he lived in Vermont, because he knew he would only be there for a couple years. He had crossed off the things he'd already accomplished, and left plenty of room to add new items as suggestions and ideas came up.</div>
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I immediately started to draft my Boston Bucket list in my head, and put it on paper as soon as I got home after the race. It changed drastically over the years as I learned about more and more awesome things to do in New England. Every time friends came over, they would inspect the list to see what new things had been checked off since their last visit, and people were constantly suggesting things that I could add.</div>
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I know many people view the bucket list idea as a bit cliche and tired. But you know why it's a brilliant idea to make one and keep it somewhere very visible? Because then you actually do all the things you wanted to do! And when it comes time to move on, you have no regrets.</div>
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How many times has a weekend snuck up on you and suddenly you've got this beautiful Saturday and absolutely nothing planned for how to while away the hours? And you think to yourself, "Dang it, self, I know there are a bunch of things I've been wanting to check out in Boston, but I can't remember any of them off the top of my head at the moment. Guess I'll sit here and watch movies instead." We all need to have our lazy days, but mostly all I have to say about that is - Fail!</div>
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I found my list also was very handy for getting people to come along for the fun without me even extending the invitation. Someone would see the list, give it a scan, and then mention that they've always wanted <a href="http://www.thecuriouszephyr.com/2014/01/hi-ho-cranberry-bog.html" target="_blank">to go cranberry harvesting</a> too! Well no problem, when I look into making that particular adventure happen, I shall give you a call.</div>
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So without further ado, here is the famed document that occupied pride of place in my kitchen and provided the road map that helped me make the most of my years in Boston.</div>
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Even though I didn't even make it through all my ideas, I see the things I did do and I know with complete confidence that I enjoyed my time in New England to the absolute fullest. If you're interested, you can find the stories about many of these excursions on this blog, although the bucket list is definitely the older of the two and covers a lot more ground. Thanks a million times over to the folks who contributed to this stockpile of adventures, and to the folks who came along for some of them! Let this inspire any of you living in or visiting Boston and New England, because the possibilities are endless.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363192870634500198.post-20524890190458066822014-10-06T19:54:00.000-07:002014-10-06T19:54:23.353-07:00Cannoli Queen of the North End<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A young couple pushing a large stroller paused on the narrow North End sidewalk and peered into the bakery, only to see an impenetrable horde of people filling it from display case to display case. Clearly the place was popular, although they had never heard of it. But was it worth the battle to get in and place an order?<br />
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A man emerged from the melee and stepped down onto the sidewalk. He noticed the young couple vacillating, and advised, "Just get one of their cannolis. Best in the North End."<br />
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The young man stared blankly and said, "I don't know what a cannoli is."<br />
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(Note: This falls under the category of things you should NEVER SAY when you're in Boston's North End!)<br />
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The man, in true Boston fashion, reacted loudly: "What?? You've never had a cannoli? What are you even doing here?"<br />
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People paused. People stared. Other people chimed in about the mandatory requirement to try a cannoli. The young man became quite flustered and embarrassed.<br />
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Desperate to divert attention from his cannoli faux pas, the young man glanced around and spotted my friend and I standing in the street. We must have looked friendly, or pitying, or nonjudgmental, because he zeroed in and asked us where they could just get a slice of pizza. We sent him back down the street to Ernesto's and continued to wait for our other friends to escape the bakery craziness with our order of--what else?--cannolis.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-scEzLhlCxI-JUE50Q2ggVpNFJQ6-9lpuscgQIjBtGkcgxhm6XmY01mEYe6RXGSZH2fyDisHbBkZXn_e9Ylkp4Myc0LrhcFAkqsQEPPj9-BPZPk9CKSUdNZlbA1rbEhRLEaTgCsXX6b4/s1600/4-20+Hanover+Street.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-scEzLhlCxI-JUE50Q2ggVpNFJQ6-9lpuscgQIjBtGkcgxhm6XmY01mEYe6RXGSZH2fyDisHbBkZXn_e9Ylkp4Myc0LrhcFAkqsQEPPj9-BPZPk9CKSUdNZlbA1rbEhRLEaTgCsXX6b4/s1600/4-20+Hanover+Street.JPG" height="424" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>The cannoli was originally a Sicilian pastry. Actually, the singular is <i>cannolo </i>and <i>cannoli </i>is plural. But Americans never order one measly pastry at a time, so it has become cannoli and cannolis instead. The basic cannoli is a round roll of fried pastry dough filled with creamy ricotta cheese, but the best type of cannoli has the ends dipped in chocolate chips. There are also an endless variety of flavored options, from tiramisu to cherry to pumpkin to coffee to raspberry. (I apologize for the lack of cannoli photographs, but if you hang on to them long enough to take pictures, you are totally doing it wrong.)<br />
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If you want a good cannoli in Boston, you go to the North End. But then you have OPTIONS. Too many of them! Fortunately for you, my friends and I have sampled every cannoli the North End has to offer, and on more than one occasion. After much deliberation and a heck of a lotta ricotta, we have awarded the Cannoli Crown to the best bakery in the North End.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #f1c232;">HONORABLE MENTION: Mike's</span></b><br />
Mike's is, for some reason, super famous. During summer, the tourist lines stretch a block long and make walking on Hanover Street an epic pain. I don't really get it. It's good, but it's not that great. Definitely go here if you want an absolutely perfect tourist experience of waiting in line for ages! A chocolate chip cannoli at Mike's costs $3.50. They didn't even have plain cannolis the last time I visited, but I'd guess a plain one would be $3.00. Also, Mike's is CASH ONLY, so make sure you hit an ATM before you spend half an hour standing in line!<br />
<i>(300 Hanover Street)</i><br />
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<b><span style="color: #cc0000;">SECOND RUNNER UP: Modern</span></b><br />
Modern is across the street and half a block down from Mike's. It used to be a very tiny, cramped space, but earlier in 2014 they expanded significantly and the new bakery is basically the same size as Mike's. Room to breathe while waiting, huzzah! A plain cannoli at Modern is $2.50 and they are also CASH ONLY. The lines aren't typically as long as Mike's because, like I said, Mike's is super famous. Modern is only second famous. But Modern is better.<br />
<i>(257 Hanover Street)</i><br />
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<b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">FIRST RUNNER UP: Maria's</span></b><br />
This little place is very easy to miss, which is unfortunate because they have delicious pastries and cakes! I have one friend who swears by Maria's above all else, but the majority shouted her down, so Maria's gets second place. Regardless, they DO have excellent cannolis and unlike most of the other bakeries, the shells remain empty until you walk in and order. THEN they fill the cannoli, so its super fresh! A plain cannoli is $2.50 and chocolate chip is $3.00. If you order more than $10.00 worth of goodies, you can use a CREDIT CARD!<br />
<i>(46 Cross Street)</i><br />
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Now that we've rejected some of the most famous bakeries in Boston, you're probably wondering what's left! Can I get a drum roll please? The Cannoli Queen of Boston is .....<br />
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;">Bova's!!!</span></b><br />
Bova's is a North End Secret because it is NOT on Hanover Street! It's on the corner of Prince and Salem, one block away from Hanover, and it is awesome. (Yes, I know, Maria's isn't on Hanover either, but Maria's is still on a main road. Salem Street is only 'main' if you're a local.) Everything they make is delicious. And it's open 24 hours a day. No joke. Except maybe on Christmas. The family that owns the bakery also owns a dentist shop across the street, which is perfect after you've spent months eating all their delicious sweets. A regular cannoli at Bova's is $3.50 and a chocolate chip cannoli is $3.75. They're creamier, fresher, and flat out BETTER than any other bakery in the North End. Bova's also accepts CREDIT CARDS for orders over $10.00.<br />
<i>(134 Salem Street)</i><br />
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Go, go! Off the beaten path, down a side street, and enjoy the hidden treasures you'll find!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03166926584747276711noreply@blogger.com0