TRAVEL RIDER

The Hunting Castle of King Charles

2007-05-08T21:42:00.000-04:00

Here is our day out in the Czech countryside to King Charles' Hunting Castle. We passed "Amerika" on the way. Why they call this deep mining area "Amerika" I cannot say. Click on the photos to get a better view of cairns that caravaners leave behind and check out the cave chairs. And do you think it's safe to call this hunting camp a castle? It was, by far, the best daylight for photos during my entire European trip.

A Castle for the Palace: Praha again

2007-04-21T19:11:00.000-04:00

Here we are in and around the Palace. I especially like the sculptures on the gate, forward of the Adam and Eve painting. Finally I have posted a photo of my crazy wind surfin' kayak paddlin' hikin' travelin' drinkin' Czech buddy who generously invited me to stay with her family in her homeland. This was my second day after having taken the train from Dresden and having met her in Prague. Did I mention what a beautiful trainride along the Elbe it was?

So what was life really like for kings and queens in this city? I have only ever been inside a castle once before - in the highlands of Scotland. But it was in ruins and no care was given to repair or maintain it. The rough stone made for some fantastic bouldering though.

Say, what is the differene between a castle and a palace anyway? Although it was beautiful and profoundly ornate, I found no warmth inside the manicured slabs of this Palace's walls, columns, gates or spires. But I'm sure warmth and physical comfort were much less important to Kings and Queens in a time when homes were designed to keep them safe and secure from constant hostile threats.

On this day, my friend and I exerted ourselves on a long walk up a very narrow stairwell to the top of the Palace tower. Despite the fact the stairs were packed with slow moving, gasping people, I could still experience the romance of the place by reliving childhood imaginations of being an imprisoned princess in just such a castle or palace as this. If I were a lovely princess in this palace, I would have made conversation with the ugly gargoyles. I can't deny that Praha is a magical place architecturally, from the pebbles laid meticulously in the walks, to the gold inlays in the eyes of the snake wrapped around the tree of knowledge. We simply do not have anything like this in the States - nothing as ornate, ancient or original that is.

I've gone retrograde

2007-04-12T21:21:00.000-04:00

Okay. I haven't written in weeks. I haven't finished writing about my trip to Europe and I am months behind in current events and future plans. So, here I am finally, sitting down with my laptop and Blogger.com says it'll be unavailable for maintenance at 10:00. This means I have 30 minutes to write something of worth and without much thought. What timing! Well, my whole week has been a series of bad timings and just plain clumsiness all around. Like mercury, I do believe I've gone retrograde!

First thing: it's April 12 and I still haven't done my taxes and I when that will happen is still in question seeing how we just got whomped with another round of fluffy snow for another great weekend of riding! Monday I started out by being very late to the vet. Last night, I washed my very expensive, light gray, faux fur-lined Burton snowboarding jacket with a bright blue jel ink pen in the pocket. That was not fun. This morning, I left the coffee pot on and had to return home a hour after arriving to work to turn it off. When leaving work at the end of the day, I jumped in my car, started it, jumped out to wipe the snow off the windshield, went to jump back in, only to find I locked myself out, yes with the car still running. I missed my daily work out because of this so I went food shopping instead. Okay. I get home, find I left the wash in the washing machine and as I am hanging it to dry, I discover I have tortured yet another expensive article of clothing — a fine wool sweater shrunk to a negative size 2.
After dinner, I took the compost outside only to return to a locked porch door. Okay, what else?I've probably forgotten. Don't even let me begin to talk about work. It's been pure HELL. Well, the one good thing to happen: the shrimp I purchased was $1 less than the register said it was. I made the girl go back to the deli for a price check and yes! I was right damn it! You see, there are good days and there are bad. And some days you just run out of time and say the heck with it all; because there's always tomorrow....isn't there?

More Praha

2007-03-26T23:24:00.000-04:00

Soon, I will post photos of our day trip to Karlovy Vary and the hops fields and sights along the way. For now, here is more of Praha... the city without end. I do believe Praha is the largest city I have ever been, well except for NYC, but you can see the limits of NYC; whereas, Praha goes on forever and forever. Be sure to click on the photos for detail closeups. Character is found in the gray slabs of stone chipped and cracked and repaired hundreds of times over. The city is covered with orange terracotta roofing and along the bridge you'll find random spots of gold laid in statues and worn by the touch of visitors' hands who caress it for luck and for love.

At top is the Little Quarter Bridge Towers with the smaller of the two towers being one of the oldest parts of the original Charles Bridge built in 1357. The Bridge has 30 sculptures, with one being lifted out of place for repair at the time of our visit. It's quite an ordeal to move these monolithic Saints off their perches, using cranes and other big equipment and with hundreds of people underfoot — not the safest place to be in the city.

Praha in Pictures

2007-03-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

November 2006

The night I stepped out of the Metro and into Prague, Bach filled the air in the Old Town Market Square, at the Church of Saint Peter and Paul.

The next day, my Czech friend and I ventured over the Vltava via the Charles Bridge and up the steep stone cobbled streets to Prague Castle (not yet pictured)
and the Cathedral of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert. My favorite photo from this early part of the day is of the canal. Click to enlarge the view of the Pilsner Urquell Boat and the sheep skin covered chairs at the cafe to the right. I'll tell you, between their chair coverings, cat belts, svarzik, grog and "super coffee", the
Czechs sure do know how to stay warm.

Don't eat the snow. It's worse than yellow.

2007-02-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

What a snow storm. One week later, and I'm still being trapped in the driveway by city plows. Several days after the storm had ended, the plows came through again, and not only toppled the snowbanks back into a 2 foot-high blockade at the end of the driveway but also destroyed every household's recycling container and recycling that was resting on top of the 6-1/2 foot high snowbank along the entire length of my street. What a surprise for anyone who had to drive to work that morning to find they had an hour or more of shoveling to do and maybe a second shower to take before finally heading out.

Here in Vermont we greet, with glee, only "natural" disasters at 7 a.m., NOT man-made ones. And we take pride in the kind of yankee ingenuity that unsticks cars from 7-foot high snowbanks by using floor mats under the back tires of powerful four-wheel drives. We certainly don't appreciate the wreckless, "get the job done no matter what" mentality demonstrated by a public tax-funded snow removal service. Fortunately, I was able to leap, tuck and roll over the end of my driveway and walk to work and not be late. (Yes, I left the digging to my neighbors. Irresponsible I know, but I had to get to work no matter what.)

The snowbanks are so high that the city has become a maze of tunnels that are terribly fun to play hide and seek in . You can't get hurt if you fall or get slam-danced into the snow. I should damn well know. And there are some people who just get so excited by the almighy white stuff that they can't contain themselves. They become one with the snow; writhing in it... inhaling and slurping it and, yes, eating it, as seen demonstrated here by a patron outside Burlington's finest, locally-owned flatbread and beer-making establishment.

From Snowplow drivers and snowball fighters, to rider and skiiers racing to the mountain with zero visibility just to be the first down that 3-foot blanket of powder snow. What is it about this deep slippery stuff that inspires such unusual childlike, wreckless and irreverant behaviour?

I can only imagine what the bottom of my street is going to look like in spring once the snow melts: broken glass, dented cans, newspaper, bags, cereal boxes, milk jugs and who knows what else! The city will have to pay the cost of replacing the recycling bins too. What a wreckless waste of resources.

Piece of advice: Please don't eat the snow on my street! It's worse than yellow.

Nor'easter March 2007

2007-02-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

Yeah Snow is here, finally! At least 2 feet of it. Our first snowstorm of the year! And everything is shut down, including my work place. Here's my housemate and neighbor on "first shift" with Ava puppy frollicking on top of every shovelfull. And for the first time ever, we have over-wintering robins tugging at the crabapple berries in the front yard. Can't wait for the magic carpet ride down powder this weekend!

A Postcard Never Sent: A.K.A. a mission never accomplished

2007-02-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

A bit suspect don't ya think?
The flat lips, chicken nose, squinty eyes..
Surely fits the profile for detaining, indefinitely.

Berlin: Scratching the Surface

2007-01-15T18:03:00.000-05:00

Berlin is a blister of historical significance with it's future always lying just below the surface of the skin, waiting to erupt if you are willing to stay long enough to scratch it open. It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain to my friends and family what intrigues me about Berlin. Berlin captured me in ways other European cities I visited did not. I guess it's more of an unconscious sensibility I have about this place, than a full understanding of it's allure or it's potential as a city I might like to live in. I must come back so that I can properly identify the pull it has on me. For
one thing,
there is just so much I have yet to see and learn about this place. Yes, Amsterdam is very livable, a great place to work, ride and raise a family if I had one. Prague is certainly a city to visit for the arts, opera and ballet, for the shopping and the romance at Christmas time, but not a city for me to live in. Berlin has an ineffable romantic appeal for the young, intelligent, unmarried and childless creative professional. Economically speaking, Berlin is a great place to enjoy the social pleasures and consumer indulgences of a high middle class single person making working class wages. The city is full of young people (many internationals), attracted to the low rents, the struggling, cutting edge arts and nuances of a city once divided. It's a place where people turn to hip cultural trends in the shadow of city glamour that never arrives in full form. It is an intellectual city, deep in philosophic traditions (see the historical Humboldt Universitaet) and influences of the the critical theorists. Speaking of such, here I am standing with two of those "influences" at the Marx-Engels Forum, located on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse and Spandauer Strasse in the Mitte. There is what seems to be a noticable bit of a"critical distance" in almost every German I have ever met and maybe it has influenced what I have observed about German men in particular –– their two sides. (NOTE: this is my experience; I am not making any claims to all German men of course). But does anyone else notice how some German guys have both a scrupulous, sometimes abrasive, mysterious exterior and a gentle loving and daring interior? Is it this simple ambiguity, or enchanting duality rather, that attracts me so to German men?

Anyway, coming from the working class that I do, there is a comfort knowing that the people walking around the streets in their fancy coats and shoes have worked hard, and earned their right to look good in their high fashions. Berliners do work hard and long hours, until 7 or later then out to eat by 8:00. And they eat well, REALLY well, in a city where tapas and turkish abound. Then it's out to the clubs till 3:00 or later. What they say in the guidebooks about this lifestyle is true! (As for me I went out three weeknights in a row with my hardworking friend Norman). The Jazz Fest was in full swing during my stay in Berlin so I caught one local jazz group at a place called Zosch located in an attractive stone cellar in Berlin-Mitte Tucholskystr. 30. Another night, we stayed out very late to see the Puppet Mastaz at Club Maria, a great puppet hip hop group - Aweseome! OH! And I must again mention Iva Nova, my heroins of Slovenian Folk Punk from St. Petersburg, Russia.
And also pictured here is the Volks-Buhne (People's Theatre) on Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse. This is a great area for arts and music, where further down the street is the Babylon which hosts the annual Jazz Fest and other great theatrical, film and music venues...

But the hard truth about Berlin, in a country suffering from high unemployment, is that it's financially bankrupt, so it does not attract the volume or variety of business needed to build a sound city infrastructure and sustainlable economic base. Instead, it thrives on on the influx of young and aspiring creatives that keep it alive through it's vibrant multi-media, communications and service industries -- Yet the good news is it's a great place for writers, photographers, and designers in the multi-media and communication fields. So I'm still rooting for you Berlin! And you have my full attention!

Go Berlin!

Pathetic In Dresden

2007-01-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

(Back to logging my European trip. NOTE: I am changing course by jumping ahead to my stay in Dresden, It's not sweet. I'll return to Berlin next time.)

After parting from Sascha and Norman, the rest of my one night in Dresden was spent alone laughing and talking at myself in the Mondpalast Hostel , plugged to a laptop spinning out Dresden Dolls, wondering if it was the passion of love or passion of loss that brought me to this awesome, yet pathetic place in time. All I could do this night was exit my body and ask myself the following:

What about this deep red curtain? The winding snake on the wall? The drink in your hand? Could it be disturbing that you are here on a cold rainy November night, with Hydra circling your head, facing a blood-red curtain in a funky Dresden hostel on Louisenstrasse, drinking a Brandenburger dunkler bock?

What is this trip really about? Is it about the fear of facing the unknown, the unfamiliar, of facing yourself and the curtain that divides knowledge from imagination?

What's on the other side of that red curtain? Why does Hydra hiss at you that way?
Wait! Can you hear her? "….. Shhh!" She says, "….. lissssten to your heart, lissssten to your mind. Do not divide so much your heart from your head. Why do you lead your life with the passion of an emotional reptile....ssshhh....feel less and keep your head dear girl."

The red curtain, the iron veil, the hissing red tongue, the red hot blood of Hydra's severed heads. Are you not tired of the Herculean blows? More at odds with yourself than anything else... ha ha... hiss... hiss.

Where was the Dresden friend who could have shown me around this dirty pit of a city? He would have pointed out the beauty I was missing: maybe at the train station; the wonderful bike trail along the bank of the Elbe; the bridges; the Opera House; in the clean Alstadt with the scary crows and the refurbished history. But that has all been tainted somehow. I must return someday under different circumstances.

Christmas in Florida

2007-01-02T23:10:00.000-05:00

Christmas in Florida? I don't recommend it unless, like me, you enjoy winter sports and are experiencing a serious lack of precipi-
tation. In that case, you might consider taking a week to visit your mom in her retirement community and go saltwater diving in the

Gulf of Mexico; or spend a late night carousing around St. Petersburg with boys in pink shirts and visit the Dali Museum the next day; or spot a Sasquatch while 'shrooming in the cow fields of Gainsville, Florida. And if you are silly-headed enough to drive over 3,000 miles to Florida and back, be sure to stop for some fireworks before reaching NYC for New Year's Eve. By the time you return to Vermont, you may be lucky to find some white-capped mountains to welcome you home.

Friedrichshain: Fresh and Photo-Ready

2006-12-26T20:31:00.000-05:00

After reunification, low rents and the many empty apartments attracted the attention of West Berlin squatters to Friedrichshain.

Today, more and more people with alot of money are migrating to this part of the city, buying up real estate for business and artistic endeavors. Friedrichshain has a centuries-old working class, residential
roughness
that excites my senses, and makes it hard for me to accept the economic potential of its inevitable urban develop-
ment and class disparity. The description of Friedrich-
shain in Lonely Planet had me thinking it was the center of the punk element of Berlin. But it did not feel street punk to me. Although the grafitti on this Squat gives it that anarchic feel. It's already full of classy boutiques, clubs, restaurants, bars, galleries, and design and media companies, yet they are all are presented in a very quaint way, suggesting moderation yet promising a future of gentrification. It's fashionable but understated, attractive yet repulsive. I would have lived there, but already it's too late.

I had the most tasty fresh "bio" pasta though. There was a photo shoot at this Martella cafe. The photographer let me take a shot of his 'in situ", photo-ready plate of fresh pasta.

And finally, why I follow suit of dividing the city into districts as all the guidebooks do is beginning to feel uncomfortable. So perhaps I should look for another way to describe the areas of Berlin beside the official district designations.I think it will be more accurate to identify neighborhoods rather than districts, but I must return to Berlin before I can do that.

The Art Mile - Auguststraße

2006-12-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

And here is my Berlin companion at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art viewing one of the seven channel video installations by Jen DeNike. This installation is called Seasons in the Sun (2005). The Kunst-Werke is a nonprofit gallery founded in a converted margarine factory and located in my most frequented area of the Mitte on Auguststraße. It seems, however, this area of the Mitte is also called the Scheunenviertel or 'Barn District.' Many of the districts have been renamed in Berlin since reunification.

Along the Spree

2006-12-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

Here is the Fernsehturm or Television Tower, beyond the Spree River. Rivers tell you much about a city, especially along their banks. For example you can gauge how dirty a city is by seeing what drains into its rivers during a heavy rain, or you can discover forgotten industrial sites or curiously styled architecture that is not described in any guide book that you may have on hand. You see, I find these buildings visually appealing, with blocky pillars that rise up from the river, step by step, toward the sky; and background buildings providing streamlined waves of postmodern contrast. Do these building blend or progress from old to new? Is this'Bauhaus'? I have not yet found any reference to these buildings.

And what about this last building? So modern. As far as the location of these buildings, I think I crossed over the Spree River into Friedrichshain on the Warschauer Str. bridge. If not, then it was Lichtenberger Str. bridge. I should find myself an architectural historian, I think. Any Berliners out there who can help?
... I continue to piece together the puzzle.

Berlin: The Puzzle City

2006-12-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

How it is that I have no photos of Berlin's new Hauptbahnfoh (main train Station) I can not explain!!
Maybe because it is so new, so modern, so complete?
To have a photo of this new monstrosity would not quite fit the puzzle that is Berlin. A "puzzle" is perhaps the best metaphor I can find to describe the ever-evolving Berlin.
I refer to the rebuilding of Berlin, the continual process of becoming whole, piece by puzzling piece.

Or perhaps I have no photos because I was promptly greeted at the train station by my friend Norman who swiftly wisked me away to his office in the Mitte district, on Chausseestrasse. It is one thing to arrive, and another thing to land. I arrived at the new train station but I landed at Norman's office. To "arrive," is to be in the act of arriving, entering into a place, any place. (And I must say, arriving in Berlin by train is like entering through a digestive tract, a very narrow entrance that winds through the central guts of the city, past the Bahnhof Zoo and high walls of steel, glass, and impressive graffiti-lathered concrete.)
To "land" is to touch ground, to see and feel the concrete under your feet and be present in the moment. It was at Norman's office where I took in this view, and had a moment by myself to realize I had really landed in Berlin. Okay, big deal! A zen moment perhaps, which had little to do with the view and probably more to do with the good office coffee.
But here is the view anyway, looking into the courtyard from my friend's office, which is part of an old piano manufacturing facility. After lunch together, Norman went back to work and I spent hours walking around the Mitte, exploring the galleries, independent designer boutiques, impressive wine cellars, and other kinds of nonsense accessory shops that give a little insight into the local sense of humor. My favorite place to explore and to return to again and again was the "cutting edge" Augustrasse, where on my first day in Berlin, I found a philosophy/poetry exhibit in honor of Hannah Arendt. What a good sign that I had landed in the right place at the right time!

BERLIN

2006-11-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

Iva Nova
My favorite heroins of Slovenian folk punk swaying people off their heels in Berlin, at Kafe Burger. A coincidence of space and time. What delicacy, what luck. What a good call Norman.

Local Anarchy

2006-11-21T21:02:00.000-05:00

My Amsterdam friends live in a great neighborhood in the southwest ring just a few blocks from Vondelpark. In addition to the park, another favorite place was the locally-owned wine/cheese store located midway down my friends' street. The store's shelves are filled everyday with cheese rounds of different textures, hardnesses, ages and aromas. I bought a great cheese knife there, one with a specially designed, wooden handle and blade that efficiently cuts thin slices of soft, medium or hard gouda (The knife was one of the few souvenirs I brought home with me, aside from my Czech-made sulfur spring sippy cup that is).

In their neighborhood you can also find the OCCII squat. Like many squats of it's kind in Amsterdam, it offers all kinds of cool activities including childrens' theatre, live music, dance and performance art, as well as being the location of libraries for alternative info, independent presses, and some renowned cafes, restaurants and music rehearsal spaces.

According to Dutch legislation, a house or building must be empty for a year before it can be “squatted”. There is a housing and public space shortage in Amsterdam so sqatting is still fundamentally about needing a roof over your head. But it is my impression that the squatter's movement in Amsterdam is less political than it was in the 80s and is now more of a social and cultural movement. Amsterdam is attracting more youth from the eastern countries who see squats as serving not only as a living space but as way to connect and integrate themselves into the social fabric as community volunteers. And if a group of progressive thinking people can make a claim to their squat as a community center, providing neigborhoods with events and opportunities that the community values, then the squat may acquire a better status approval and become more likely to get city support in keeping their squat. At least this is how it was explained to me. I just know the OCCII was damn cool and I would support it with my volunteer hours if I was actually a resident. As a traveler, I was certainly happy to spend my hard-earned euros at the bar and enjoy alternative music. That's what community is all about, and if squatters are turning abandoned buildings into living culural organisms then I can only shout out : Viva la Squatter's Movement! (Which is basically the statement seen here on the yellow banner.) And then I go home to Vermont and ask how do I start a squat in Burlington? Heck, everyone knows how bad the housing and public space shortage is there!

Thanks to Beth, I am able to recall some finer details of the night we visited the OCCII to see music as part of a benefit featuring three different hardcore punk bands. We had a bit of time finding the entrance, but with a little help of some street guys pointing us away from the sauna, then some spanish-speaking guys, leading us toward the front door, we finally found our way in. To continue to describe this place, I must quote Beth, because it was just as much a discovery for her as for me and she describes it as an informed local who can compare it to other places in the city.. so in Beth's words:

"The bar was actually quite extensive, offering a few different types of beer including a very tasty local brew, scotch, jenever, wine and port and all the drinks were very cheap by Amsterdam standards. The music was loud, fast and raw, bringing back some of my fondest memories from living in Albany, going to all-ages hardcore shows as a kid. After the last band finished and the slam-dancers had retreated to the corners of the room to smoke, people started sweeping up and, upon getting into a conversation with one guy, I came to find out that the place is entirely staffed by volunteers. In fact I was encouraged to join the collective, either helping clean up and man the bar during shows, or help cook in the squat's soup kitchen. I mean, who knew? I certainly didn't! Two years I've lived around the corner from this place, lamenting about the lack of affordable live music in Amsterdam, and it was right around the corner the whole time..."

Awesome huh? This is truly a success story about finding the local scenes that they don't tell you about in the guide books!

As for the anarchist element in Amsterdam's squatter movement. That's a whole other chapter I have yet to write about.

A Czech Flu

2006-11-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

So here are more Amsterdam photos just to keep my travel logs moving along while I lay in bed with some kind of Czech flu...So much for the healing properties of Grög!

I Could Live on a Houseboat

2006-11-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

I think I could live on a houseboat for awhile. I would keep my kayak on the deck along with my fruit trees, herbs, arugula and mustard greens. I left Amsterdam today. It was sunny and nearly 60 degrees F. Oh, how I wish I could stay.

Endless Improvements

2006-11-14T13:46:00.000-05:00

I heard Beth swear in Dutch today. She is miffed by the endless obstruction of Amsterdam's ongoing construction. It seems the city never rests in it's effort to improve what's "already good enough," says Beth. I agree, it is a pain having to get off your bike or to leave the bike lane, or find another side street to get around all the construction. And it's not like the city provides detour routes or markings for bicyclists. Now the idea of marked bike lane detours may seem a bit overkill for people like me from the States; but when you spend your day, your week, your year, commuting by bicycle like so many Amsterdamers do, you might welcome being treated equally to a motorist in a construction zone! But for Beth, the issue is not really about providing detours. The issue is whether the constant improvements of city streets are really needed. As for my opinion on the matter? I really can't give an informed one. I'm simply grateful to my friends for making it possible to spend every day on a bicyle while I'm here..

The Amazing Healing Properties of Grög

2006-11-13T13:04:00.000-05:00

I have returned to Amsterdam after visiting Berlin, Dresden, Praha, Karlovy Vary, and Harrachov in the Krkonose Mountains of the Ceska Republica. I might have lost 5 lbs the first week while bicycling all over Amsterdam, but quickly gained it back the last week in Ceska Republica with my friends's family in Praha. I enthusiastically abandonded my vegetarian ways, to survive... (knock on wood- because I mildly fell off Beth's bike today and wracked my wrist and neck a bit).... on a diet of good food, good people, music, minor language challenges, history, post-communism, and forgetting about my real life for awhile. But best of all, I return home cured of all ailments by the amazing healing properties of grög and the life enhancing, river-fed brew of Zdrave' Kvasnicove" Pivo.

Riding in Amsterdam

2006-10-29T13:48:00.000-05:00

"Flatlander" is a derogatory term loosely used by some hill people of Vermont for people who live in cities and valleys outside the Green Mountains. I suppose this word could be used for the people of Amsterdam, but after riding bike here, I have decided to redefine the concept in a new and positive way.

Commuting in Amsterdam is a euphoric experience. We could learn a thing or two from these people who "hug the sand." Think about it; the fee required to repair a tire tube or replace brake pads is ridiculously small compared to the European price of gas or a pair of well-treaded, waterproof shoes. In fact, In the four days I've been here, I think I have yet to walk an entire block by foot. Well I know this may not sound all that rad but this is not Vermont, where there seems to always be some kind of weather-, time-, clothing-related, geographical or physical constraint keeping me off my bike.

So when I return home after Europe, I will find me a handsome new set of wheels, a bike that really fits me, with a cushion size seat and handle bars that allow me to sit upright. When I find it, I will marry it! We'll lock frames together and have little "tricycle" offspring and buy a front box for our dog to ride in.... oh what bliss! Unfortunatley, I will have to return to shifting gears! Burlington is not flat like Amsterdam — a city where the act of shifting gears is more of an effort than pedalling harder over an ever-so-subtle canal bridge incline. It may be the only real physical effort a bicyclist encounters throughout the day.

Artists starving... and gnawing... at the bone.

2006-10-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

Ampersand
Amanda Palmer Dresden Dolls
(live, Hamburg, Germany)

Love Endeavor
Alice Smith
For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me

Ambitious Orchestra
Seven Deadly Sins

September Clouds (haiku)

2006-10-01T14:48:00.000-04:00

September clouds above Lake Champlain;

fall winds kicking up waves;

sailing haven soon to be frozen over.

These Guys

2006-09-03T13:38:00.000-04:00

Our last show at the Intervale featured a very loud Jazz Guys to wake up the lazy afternoon crowd (as well as the late-summer sleepy grasshoppers settled in the grasses around the barn).
The Jazz Guys are something not entirely jazz. In fact, they aren't jazz at all. They are more like a displaced Brit-pop-alt-inde band "journeying" through the Green Mountains. And being a "compilation" of two brothers, childhood friends and Johnson State grads, makes them decidedly non-Brit-pop-all-together. In these predominantly downjam band lands of Vermont, this group offers a refreshing heightened upward moving beat, that begins at the achilles tendon and works it's way up and out through every orifice of the head. They were damn loud. And with all their tight-knit boyish punk reverb, they drove out the last group of nesting swallows from the barn's rafters above. Not only should you be willing to go many miles to pay to see this Burlington band (and shimmy your butt off), but you might also consider them for hire if ever you need to clear your attic of bats! And then I imagine them with a bass; with that who knows what kind of creatures could be stirred out of their musical corners....

Debonair/ Without Words

2006-07-11T00:11:00.000-04:00

Not much adventure writing to post these days. How about some musings instead?

Without Words

Why this desire to form a language of what is?

Always giving life to words that might rather be unsaid?

Why this need to express, to verbally transmit, to define; to create the metaphors that words allow?

How tainting is this act of always making symbols?

What of the risk of mundane projections and ugly distortions?

What if we let the words rest?

Oh, but how we welcome agile tongues to caress and embrace the visceral experience.

And how else to validate knowledge when we stop making words?

Is it not words telling us we are alive and that love is greater than the mere language we have to convey it?

And what of the fear that love could die by words unspoken?

Seaworthy

2006-07-06T00:35:00.000-04:00

The fourth of July had skies of both lightening and fireworks.

By the way, we did finish our kayak stand (except for the padding). And see how Lake Champlain is still very high!

And finally, out to "sea"
(without my pfd?).

A Solstice Jig

2006-06-27T21:46:00.000-04:00

Well, life surely does have it's many facets and adventure sports only takes up a small portion of mine. I haven't made it to the Atlantic yet, and the wind is not strong enough to windsurf and I just barely got my kayak on the water! So perhaps I should give a little plug to the great things happening in my own back yard-- The Intervale Center.

I volunteer in my community by supporting local organic agriculture and by organizing a summer music series called "Thursdays at the Intervale. Check it out at Intervale Center. We had our first event of the summer last week with the Irish band, The Redeemers.
Attention all haggard parents; I will let you in on little secret: very small children will dance for hours to Irish music.

Liz Soper, from National Audubon Society was our guest speaker. We had a silent auction to raise funds for the Intervale Farm Programs as well as to help farms recover from losses due to all the rain and flooding this spring. Donations included things such as chocolate, coffee, rare plant species and beautiful original watercolors and prints by local artist Bonnie Acker. American Flatbread was on board too, serving up delicious flatbread baked fresh in the mobile, hand-built hearth. The clay to make the hearth was collected from a river in Waitsfield, Vermont.

Peony Pad

2006-06-16T23:55:00.000-04:00

Some creatures spend their entire lives as passengers on other living things. But aren't we all parasites of one kind or another? Spider finds everything it needs to survive on this luscious peony blossom: nectar, water, air... and microscopic larvae for dessert from time to time. Oh, but to find that one vehicle that provides it all...

When the Rain Never Stops

2006-06-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

The lake water is so high we ran out of shoreline to build our kayak stand. How do you build in two feet of water? You don't. You move everything back toward the bank. The rain has been relentless for weeks, for months! But finally, we had a 4-hour break from it on Sunday and could start clearing and stake out an area for our stand. Mallet's Bay can be exquisitely pretty when viewed from my cockpit on the water, with views of the 'dacks to the west and Green Mountains to the east, but not so pretty standing on the shore in muddy boots, a hat and long pants on a cold rainy day in June, speculating on the weather and feeling a lot like those abandoned dinghies slumped over on the docks and waiting for summer to begin.

Cold Spirits of Paddlefests Past

2006-06-01T22:46:00.000-04:00

It took ALL F'in' DAY to get out of town. Every turn a delay. From a stormpipe burst traffic backup, to being trapped by a stalled car in the City Market parking lot. And a cold shadow visited me that morning. Unforgiving.

Peopleless and raining, Radka rescuing hotdogs with both hands. Me rolling hot tea in my mouth, calling her "kayak" as she waded through discounted clothes, dripping mustard. Shivering.

A foggy drizzle Sunday drive home. Will CK understand how nasty cold drove disinterest in the whole affair? No demos or workshops? Are you crazy? Will she believe the shadow chased us out of Old Forge, only to take refuge in a lonesome float plane on Long Lake? Oh, but by then we were well-fed and warm. We dismissed the spirit's last whispers and looked forward to when cold beer would taste good again.

Paddle Fever

2006-05-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

From board and bindings to bathing
suit and boat. It's kayak season!
I will soon return with news on my excursion to the Atlantic coast but first there's the annual Paddle Fest across the Lake in the beautiful Adirondacks of New York (see photo). No, I don't have to paddle across the lake to get there.... So stay tuned for more Travel Rider adventures.

And watch out for my newest sport windsurfing. My Czech friend says it's very dangerous and you can get up to speeds of 50 - 60 miles per hr. So this will make it two new extreme sports learned in one year!! So perhaps it is not so much
the sport that is extreme than my desire to ........

Stratton: Day 2

2006-03-12T12:41:00.000-05:00

By day two, my group's riding skills had improved so much that we were considered good enough to ride with the cream of the Burton crop! We rode two hours with Donna Carpenter, co-owner of Burton snowboards. Well, I admit, maybe it wasn't really our skill level that afforded us this rare opportunity but it sure was good public relations on her part, and she gave me great tips on the snowboards I should demo. She's a lovely, laid-back woman, originally from the South, with great stories about this year's olympics in Italy, about travelling and riding in New Zealand and the bad pick up line that Jake used on her in the bar where they met. Donna is peddaling the pink -- expect to see a lot of it in next year's line of Burton women's apparel. Our group actually included a New Zealander named Peta (now a New Yorker, shown here resting). Peta was good at riding her board what our instructor called "la la style" – like a surfboard – something Peta does in her other life, but Maryanne put a stop to that bad habit right away. Like I said, we all have our bad habits.

Stratton: Day 1

2006-03-10T20:53:00.000-05:00

Snowboarding is a sport that one can advance in very quickly once past the psychological setbacks of a wrenched wrist, spinal shock or deadly whiplash slash and burn. After four times out on the board at local Bolton, Vermont, it was time to get serious. So I gave my supervisor notice, packed up my borrowed boots and board (thanks Tiff); also my recently purchased "discounted" $80 helmet; and new music by the Dresdon Dolls and Reverend Glasseye and embarked upon my first adventure in travel riding. I enrolled in the Burton Women's Snowboard Camp at Stratton Mountain in southern, Vermont. Not exactly exotic or erotic or far away, but it included free food, free Burton Women's equipment and free guys modeling next year's line of Burton women's clothing....hmm. Here's Maryanne – snowboarding diva instructor extraordinare. She's also co-author (along with husband) of The American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI) Freestyle Accreditation program. She also helped design and build the features at this year's U.S. Open at Stratton.

Within the first 10 minutes at Stratton, I decided I didn't particularly like ski resort chic. It wreaks of exploitation of the local worker economy. Except for the unending enthusiasm from the expert instructors in the Women's program and the positive vibe from the Burton Retail employees that fitted me out, I was greeted by everyone else with something other than what I call "customer service".
Does any customer ever enjoy the attitude of a low-waged, disgruntled, seasonal service worker whose greatest benefit (though nothing to frown at, and worth my consideration) is a free ride between two day jobs and a half-priced clinic with a 2006 Olympic champion?
Well, despite my cynicism, here's a little photo of the resort anyway, and of Bromley Mt. beyond--looking a bit more stoic in the distance than Stratton's Village Tower nestled at the base in the foreground.

Here's Hillary at the Burton Demo Tent, setting up the women's Troop board for me.
I unknowingly rode an entire run with the bindings set up backwards, thinking it was a great ride. I couldn't give her any shit though, as she was distracted with the task of recruiting what looked to be a lack of male models for the fashion show that night.

Flying Creatures of the Night

2006-03-10T00:12:00.000-05:00

In snowboarding, I've had much to learn and much to unlearn. This is a very good example of my worst bad habit — leaning back off the front leg on the heelside turn and subsequently falling... time after time after time. The upside with learning to ride at night, however, is that no one seems to notice! I am simply just another shadowy mass lying splayed in three directions, disregarded by those who sweep past me through the air in exhilaration. Oh, how I long to be one of those flying creatures of the night!

Pun Intended

2006-02-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

My Life-long dream job #2: being paid to travel to remote and exotic locations around the world and write travel tips and reviews on food, music and culture.

After recently taking up snowboarding, I can finally realize my dream and be a travel rider...but without the pay. Oh well, who needs it when you're having this much fun!