The Help

Even though school started yesterday, I don't start teaching for a few weeks, thus giving me a little extra time to prepare.  I took advantage of the free afternoon and took my daughter on a date to the Laemmle to see the wildly popular movie The Help.  I had enjoyed the book back in January, and every one of my friends who saw the movie recommended it.

It did not disappoint.  Even though the movie had to leave out interesting things from the book due to time constraints, I felt as though it was true to the spirit and arc of the plot.

I went on rottentomatoes.com to read the critics' reviews, and it seems that the people who did not like the movie had a problem with the story (the book) rather than the realization of the story on the screen.  That is another debate, but as a person who is usually leary of book adaptations to the screen, I was pleased with this one.

BTW, C was, by far, the youngest audience member.  She said, "the wheelchairs in here outnumber the under-30 set."  True!

New Year

I love a fresh start, and I am so glad that there are several opportunities each year to have a New Year.  (I usually like to restart the calendar New Year on Chinese - or Lunar - New Year, too.)  Today's the day with the first day of the new school year in Claremont for both the CUSD as well as the Claremont Colleges.  The cars were lined up outside our local school this morning, bells were ringing, college parking has spilled over into the residential areas (one thing I actually don't like about school) and it is hot out.

For the many years that my children went to CUSD schools, we always started after Labor Day, but last year and this, we have started the last day or two of August, bringing joy to many parents, I'm sure.  The other new part of our calendar this year includes the entire week of Thanksgiving off instead of only Thursday and Friday, and I think that we will all enjoy that week off, too.

Continuing Summer Construction

 I'm not sure if it's a sign that the economy is moving a bit, but after the streets in Historic Claremont were given the slurry seal this summer, now bits of sidewalk are being replaced in the same neighborhood.  Given that many people walk in this area, it's quite helpful to have sidewalks that are flat.

An LA Day

It has been sweltering hot for the past 4-5 days, so, of course, we took up the offer of free tickets to the Dodger game this afternoon when Rick and Mary Beth couldn't make it.  Fortunately, their seats are in the shade, so it wasn't unbearable.  The Dodgers put up a good effort against the Rockies, but couldn't make the sweep - losing 7-6 today.  With attendance so low these days, getting parking (an outrageous $15) was easy, and getting out of the parking lot after the game was even easier.

We wanted to go to Philippe's for french dip sandwiches after the game, but it was too early for our stomachs.  (We had lunch around 1:00, and we got to Philippe's by 5.)  So we settled for boysenberry pie à la mode for dinner which was perfect for the hot afternoon.  By the time we got home the house was 88 degrees inside.

Bing.com

When should one buy plane tickets?  It always seems to be a gamble.  You look at a particular flight while you make up your mind, and when you decide to purchase, the cost has magically increased.

I've heard that the best days to buy are Tuesdays-Thursdays, and the cheapest days to fly are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

This past week we've gotten the date to be in Dallas for a wedding, and on Monday when we looked at the flight that best fit our schedule, the price was, indeed, higher.  So I decided to look at bing.com/travel which has this feature that tells you whether the prices are likely to increase or decrease in the near future, and the engines told me to wait.  I kept checking back, and on Thursday the flights in in our sights were $100 less each person, so I saved $200 by having a little patience.  It also said that there was a 66% chance that tickets would continue to decrease, but I was happy to have already saved.  I guess I'm not a big gambler.

Machu Picchu

Since we visited Belize, Guatemala and Costa Rica, we have been dreaming about going further south into South America.  First thing on our list to see is Machu Picchu (a close second are the Galapagos Islands). We're not sure when we will actually get to make this trip, but hopefully sometime in the next few years.

While we are waiting for that time, we have both just finished Mark Adams' new book Turn Right at Machu Picchu.  Also, there have been big articles in the travel sections of the NY and LA Times recently since this is the 100-year anniversary of Hiram Bingham III's first expedition which led him to this Peruvian site.

The Andes around Machu Picchu are chock full of many Incan ruins, most accessible only by strenuous hiking.  I doubt if I will ever be in good enough shape to hike the Inca Trail to get to any of the ruins that way, so I am glad to have read this book and take the trip vicariously.

Adams recounts two hiking trips he takes with an Australian guide (and a crew of porters and some mules) and puts his journeys in context of Bingham's expeditions with some historical information.  Reading this book only confirms, though, that I would like to take a trip to Peru to see this amazing site.

Harbingers of Fall

Back when I went to college a hundred years ago, I took a trunk of clothes, bedding, a typewriter, a dictionary, a lamp, two posters, some photos, a cassette player and my violin. It fit easily in the back of the Volvo station wagon. Over summer vacation, I packed up what I didn't need for 3 months and put the three boxes in a locker in the dorm basement.  

These days, enterprising companies bring these storage boxes to the Claremont Colleges in May.  Students put their storage items in these containers which get whisked away somewhere.  I know that the return of the upperclassmen is imminent when these boxes return.  First year students officially arrive this week, RAs and fall athletes have been here for awhile and everyone else arrives in a few days.

Another sign that our sleepy town will soon be bustling is the return of the Zipcars.  I don't know where the cars disappear over the summer, but in the last week the Priuses and Honda Hybrids have made their appearances.

July 28

This morning

More Armchair Travel

Just as my friends returned from their sabbatical years in New Zealand and Denmark, two more families have set off for a year of foreign exploration and fun.  I have added their blogs to my reading list (links on left) and am now enjoying Kyoto and London vicariously.

The Hypnotist

Last night our book club discussed Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist.  One of the book club members who could not come to the discussion emailed me that she was "so sorry not to be part of the discussion of a book that I found to be so poorly written and a plot so haphazardly and recklessly played out."

Her opinion echoes ours to the T.  Even the one star customer reviews on Amazon outnumber the five star.  I had seen this book advertised in the NY Times Book Review and heard the author/s interview on NPR (Lars Kepler is the pen name of a husband and wife writing team), and having been a fan of the Stieg Larsson trilogy, I looked forward to another Swedish murder mystery.  Well, the plot here was not really a plot, but several sort-of plots - perhaps Lars wanted one plot and Kepler the other - that got smooshed together with events that required way too much of my suspension of disbelief.

The good news was that I did not purchase this book and that it read quickly, so I was put out of my misery sooner rather than later.  Some in our group really liked the book.  Some did not, and we had a most lively discussion, but even those who didn't like it finished all 500 pages.

Thai Green Mango Salad

Last weekend H made this Thai Green Mango Salad which was so tasty that he is going to recreate it for book club.  The green beans are pad prik which have quite a zingy flavor, but I'm not sure what his recipe for that is.

E-Book

Last night I spent 20 minutes and successfully navigated the LA Co Library website and not only downloaded an e-book, but also the Adobe software needed to read the book on my laptop.  It took more steps than I thought that it should, but in the end, the book opened up.  Before I got too far into the book (Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler), I closed the application and reopened it to see if it would remember my place, and it sure did!

I have 14 days to finish the book before it disappears from my computer, and by that time, I'll see if I am a candidate for an e-reader.  I know that a laptop is not a Kindle, iPad or Nook, but I should get the idea.  I am not ready to give up paper pages, but I think that should I spend a year abroad sometime, it would be good to have easy access to English-language novels.

The library system does not have every book available in this format, and it seems to have lots of mass market bestsellers, but may do a little more searching to see what's available for e-loan.

Summer Fare

Vacation is a great time to read lighter fare and watch silly movies.  We did both during our recent travels.

Briefly...

I read Murder and Magic (A Lord Darcy Mystery by Randall Garrett) where a Sherlock Holmes'-type London detective uses a Watson-type wizard to help him uncover facts that would otherwise be impossible to detect.  This book consists of 4 short stories.

Next, I read The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.   This is the first of a series of books that are popular with the elementary and jr high set.  I can see where the humor is geared for that age.

Last, I read A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon.  Jane, in my book club, likes these Guido Brunetti mysteries set in Venice.  Light and fun, the descriptions of Italian food made me hungry.

While in Eugene, we went to the theater to see Cowboys and Aliens.  If you saw the trailer and still bought a ticket because you wanted to see Indian Jones (or Han Solo, if you will) and James Bond team up against aliens, you would not have felt cheated.  But why are aliens always so slimy?

High Tea at the Prince of Wales Hotel

Many national parks have historic lodges (Glacier in Montana has a handful), and Waterton has The Prince of Wales Hotel which sits atop a hill overlooking the town of Waterton as well as the beautiful lake, surrounded by mountain vistas.  We had heard about the afternoon tea and knew that we had to take advantage of it.  When will we ever be back?

Tea is served from 1-5 with the last seating at 4.  My advice - if you go on a Tuesday, do not show up before 3.  A tour group comes through at 1, and they take up nearly every table, and by the time they leave and the staff has a chance to clean up and reset, you are seated around 3.  No matter, though, it was raining a bit, and sitting in the lobby of this elegant hotel was quite pleasant.  A woman playing a Celtic harp set a lovely ambiance.

Here is a view.  Our table was the one by the window on the left.

  Choice of tea.

 The tea set.

 The goodies. 

 The top tier is dessert.  We saved it for last.

 The middle tier was scones - walnut and plain, with strawberry jam and clotted cream.

 The bottom layer was the "main course" with open-face chicken, cucumber and salmon sandwiches.

 All done!

Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Glacier National Park borders Alberta,  Canada, and the Canadians have a national park which shares Glacier's border.  In 1932, the two parks combined to create the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.  One of the days we spent on the east side of the park took us to Canada for a look-see.  

We drove all the roads in the park and took walks at the good stopping points (between raindrops).  Here is the Red Rock Canyon which offers an easy stroll with many vantage points for photos.  (It's not very big.)

 Here is Blackiston Falls - a short, flat walk about 1.2 miles roundtrip (2 K).

This one is Cameron Lake, at the end of another road.  We did not walk far enough to see the advertised grizzly hangout which is at the far end of the lake.

 The Prince of Wales Hotel.  Tomorrow I will blog about the high tea at this beautiful spot.

Excellent Dinner

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled vacation series blog posts to bring you photos from the most delicious dinner that H prepared this weekend.  Salmon spinach salad (inspired by the one from the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn restaurant in Glacier). H made sure I took a photo since he wanted to appear in this blog.

 Not only the food, but the pear cider was delicious.  We became fans of blackberry pear cider in Eugene, but the selection of hard ciders is more limited in So Cal.

Flora and Fauna

Here are some additional photos not on my Picasa site of the variety of flora and fauna found in Glacier National Park.  The park has an extremely short visitor season, especially this year when the Going-to-the-Sun Road did not open until mid-July.  Animals are busy foraging and flowers are in bloom EVERYwhere.  We took a ranger-led walk to identify wildflowers, and we ended up remembering the names of about 3 species...

Mountain Goats on the way to Hidden Lake

One of many deer throughout the park

Bighorn Sheep near Logan Pass

One of many species of white flowers that I kept thinking were Queen Anne's Lace (no QAL in Glacier)

Columbine

Wildflowers galore on the hillside by Lake Josephine

Black Bear - we did not see any Grizzlies

Bald Eagle - we saw two at Two Medicine

Glacier National Park

Logan Pass view

Glacier National Park has been on our list of places we must visit, and knowing the the glaciers there will be gone by 2030 (if not sooner) put it near the top of our list.

The scenery is stunning, and as I went through my 500+/- photos, I was hard-pressed to choose just one to symbolize the grandeur of the park.

So, I recommend that people visit the park, but if you want to see glaciers, you must work very hard to do so.  One glacier, Jackson, is visible from the road (at a distance), and another, Gem, has been downgraded from glacier to non glacier (think poor Pluto) because it's too small.  Otherwise, one must hike quite a ways, usually with some strenuous uphill at altitude to see the other 20-some glaciers.  This year is particularly difficult to appreciate the glaciers because the snow pack was 180% of normal and the ice packs are covered in snow and look like the surrounding snow fields.  So, we didn't really see much in the way of glaciers, but we did admire and appreciate what the glaciers have created in the valleys and lakes.

We entered the park on the west side, having flown into Kalispell (which is a big enough city to have a Costco), and the first lovely lake one sees is Lake McDonald.  I photographed the lovely water with the rugged peaks in the background and oohed and ahhhed, and as we went through the park for 7 days, I had to promise myself I would organize my photos immediately upon returning home since we were to see and photograph many more beautiful lake and mountain scenes.  And waterfall upon waterfall.

The first three nights we spent in West Glacier, an outpost just outside the park with a motel, restaurant, gift shop, two gas stations, a grocery store, an adventure company and a few other necessities.  No internet, no phone service.

At the end of seven days we asked ourselves if we had missed email, Facebook, etc., and really, we hardly noticed the technological absence.  Perhaps it is because we grew up without the tether that we could easily revert back to (near) solitary existence simply by being in such a magnificent place and spending our time hiking, photographing, reading and searching for huckleberry pie.....

I have chosen some of my favorite photos from Oregon and Glacier and put them on my Picasa site (link on the left).

Eugene

After all the fun in Portland, we headed south to Eugene to spend some time with Liesl and Chris.  I think I may have a distorted view of Oregon, because every time I go, it is sunny and warm....

We spent three days here and managed to do a variety of things.  We got to meet Chris' mom, which was particularly good since next year at the wedding, I imagine that things will be hectic.  We all went out to Mt. Pisgah Arboretum to check out the wedding venue, and if the weather is anything like it was that day, we will be wearing light, summery clothes.

The pavilion where the reception will be

The other family member we met was Peanut M 'n M (or just Peanut - and maybe some other strange nicknames that Chris comes up with), Liesl's new kitten.  This little guy is trying to make friends with the alpha kitty, Jellybean, but it will be a little while before peace is made between the felines.  Peanut cannot jump up to the top of this cabinet, so Jellybean can get some peace and eat her food in relative solitude.

One evening's entertainment was watching Liesl play some slow pitch softball.  She plays on Chris' company team and Chris cheers her on.  I like the expression on her face as she prepares to hit this ball.  I believe that she batted 1.000.  She also made a great catch in right field.

Oregon is certainly known for good food, and we had quite a variety of deliciousness.  Not only did Liesl cook up stuffed pork chops and Greek pizza for us, but we also ate out at Papa's Soul Food Kitchen, Dickie Joe's, and Off the Waffle.

"Blue Goat" waffle - with goat cheese and blueberries

Other things which kept us entertained:

Playing Beatles Rock Band (way fun)

Playing Carsaconne (I want to play this more)

Going to the matinee of Cowboys and Aliens
Hal fixing Liesl's and Chris' bikes

Me going to Costco and having the tires rotated on the Prism (not so entertaining, but not too bad)

Oregon, Montana and a little bit of Alberta, Canada

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

We arrived home last night around 11:30 which was 12:30 MST after 12 great days up north.  The first stage of our adventure began in Oregon where we saw two of my cousins and their families in Portland.  On Sunday Liesl came up from Eugene and we packed up the cousin bikes and rented some for us and took off along the bike path along the Willamette  River for several hours.  The weather was perfect and it seemed as though everyone in Portland was out enjoying the sunshine.

After bike riding, some of us were feeling peckish, so we treated ourselves to Burgerville.  The raspberry lemonade was particularly delicious, and the onion rings were massive!  This local chain claims that it is "inconveniently located for most of America."

My cousins' sons are basketball nuts and we watched some of their videos they put up on youtube.  It seems as though they spend their time outside making trick shots and filming them, and then inside putting them together in iMovie.  I think I just used to ride bikes and hang out at the pool in the summers when I was their age....

Flickr Vs Picasa

When I got my digital slr with 15 megapixels, I knew that I needed more storage for my photos, online as well as my own computer.  I thought that I might overrun my Picasa site, so I opened a flickr account (you need a yahoo account to do so).  I was thrilled to find out that with flickr you get new storage space every month. I happily uploaded photos and then I noticed a little sign that said I had put up 180 photos, and only 200 photos are visible.

I have decided that I will post my travel photos on Picasa and my "artsy" photos on flickr.  Flickr will be my exercise in figuring out which my favorite 200 photos are.  I have already deleted some, especially redundant photos, so my site should be continuously evolving.

Scanning Old Photos

I returned home from Kansas in June with a pile of photos to scan to share with family, and I finally got around to doing it.  Most of them I had never seen before, so it was like a gold mine for me.  This is a photo of my grandfather's grandparents' homestead in Herbert, Saskatchewan.  The notation on the back of the photo said that the house and the barn were attached.  It sure looks like wind-swept prairie to me.  I wonder where the wood came from?

29

Twenty-nine years ago, I married my best friend.

Summer Tomatoes

The tomatoes have been plentiful this summer.

Below is a great recipe for Pan-Roasted Corn and Tomato Salad from my daughter.

Pan-roasted corn and tomato salad 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 small red onion, chopped 4 to 6 ears corn, stripped of their kernels (2 to 3 cups) Juice of 1 lime, or more to taste 2 cups cored and chopped tomatoes 1 medium avocado, chopped 2 fresh small chilies, like Thai, seeded and minced Salt and black pepper 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1. Heat oil in skillet; add onion and cook until just softened, about 5 minutes, then add corn. Continue cooking, stirring or shaking pan occasionally, until corn begins to brown a bit, about 5 more minutes; remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. 2. Put lime juice in a large bowl and add corn-onion mixture; then toss with remaining ingredients. Taste, adjust the seasoning and serve warm or at room temperature.