WASHINGTON, DC - SOMEBODY CHECK THE LIGHTS

It's happened to all of us. Forget to check the timer on the lamp in the living room. Or let the outside yard light timer get a little out of sync, so that they come on at 3pm and go off at 8.

Happens to us all. Like the Park Service. 

Apparently the lights on the Washington Monument aren't quite synced right.

Hate it when that happens.

WASHINGTON, DC - STREET FEST

Street festivals are common and popular ways for cities, towns and neighborhoods to gather and celebrate as a community. It's a way to foster a sense of belonging, of togetherness.

Below was taken July 4th, 1996 on The Mall in Washington, DC. More than a hundred thousand people gather each year to watch the fireworks, and celebrate our country as a whole.

Sadly, two decades on it seems we need this sense of community more than ever, and are farther from it than ever before.

THE DAILY ESCAPE: THE WALL

Known simply as "The Wall", where people walk respectfully and quietly reflecting upon the list of names of service people lost in a confusing war. 

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC.

Double Nickels - Part One: Getting Under Way

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” 
                                                         ― Anita Desai








(For reasons about to become very obvious, most of the photos in this column were not taken by me. Used with permission.)

I have to wonder how many people are going to recognize the meaning of the title of this column. Yeah, it means 55, of course -- the age I turned on my latest completed spin around the sun.

But it also harkens back to the days of CB radios (if you remember them, we are contemporaries). Double nickels referred to the speed limit on most American freeways and highways. The connection, of course, is to a life on the road.

Getting under way also refers to the process of a ship preparing to leave -- and leaving -- dock.

Early memories of Japan

I began traveling at the very earliest possible age. Though no one remembers precisely when it happened, within six months of my birth I was loaded onto a commercial airliner -- probably propeller driven -- to go from Norfolk, Virginia to our new home in Palo Alto, California, via a short stop for a family visit in Los Angeles.

My father was a Navy officer pursuing an advanced education, which at that point was taking him from the massive Naval Station in Norfolk to Stanford University to get his fourth degree/first Doctorate -- in International Relations. Dad is a bit of an overachiever, but more about that later.

The move was the first of many in my youth. By the time I was eighteen and looking at my college years, I had lived in ten different cities -- probably thirteen houses. Norfolk and Palo Alto were just the first.

Dad climbing Mt Fuji

From Palo Alto we moved across town to Mountain View, then a massive relocation to Yokosuka, Japan. Aboard a Lockheed Super Constellation. A brief stop in Alaska for refueling (remember when aircraft had to do that?) and down to Tokyo International Airport.

Back yard in Japan

I was far too young to truly appreciate the cultural opportunity, but I do have vague memories of the house and the surroundings. A few flashes of Japanese culture -- Tokyo and a visit to the Great Buddha in Kamakura, a few Japanese gardens here and there, and a view of Mount Fujiyama from our Naval Housing back yard. There are several specific recollections which tell me the images are more than just something I conjured after hearing a story -- the are a few things no one else would have known, or had cause to recall.

I wish I remembered more, but that's enough to have gotten me off to a good start.

From Yokosuka we traveled back across the Pacific aboard the troop (and family) transport ship U.S.S. Patrick, stopping for a few days in Honolulu -- where I discovered that Batman, much to my surprise, spoke English. After a couple of years of Japanese television and comic books, this was the biggest shock of my young life, and probably a pretty welcome one. From a cultural standpoint, however, it made the impression that cultures differ -- and that I could appreciate that fact.

Christmas, Hawaii style...

Long Beach - my current hometown -- was our next destination. After Japan we settled into a pretty normal American life. I started Kindergarten at a school only a couple of miles from my current home, and yes I've been back to see my old school. And our house. Both are notable for their humbleness and normality. But in my memory, they stand out as very important.

Long Beach led to a two year stint in Pearl City, Hawaii. Terrific memories and wonderful place for a kid to grow up. Across the street from our house -- a Naval Housing duplex -- was a thick tropical rainforest. And a short ways away was a rocklike outcropping, where on numerous occasions my father would be met by a boat -- a "gig" -- from his ship. By this time he had gained his first captaincy, commanding a crew of a couple of hundred men aboard the U.S.S. Hissem, DER 400. I would accompany him a few times on his commute, riding on the bow as the gig sped through the waters of Pearl Harbor. I learned a deep respect for the Navy and for that way of life. To this day I am wonderfully comfortable at sea, on a boat or otherwise riding with the wind in my face and the smell of the ocean in my nose.

Visiting Plymouth, MA

Keeping the maritime tradition, the Navy soon sent us to what at the time I thought of as the opposite end of the world: Newport, Rhode Island. Hawaiian warmth became New England cold. Snow and allergies and the introduction of our first dog: Pandora, the Dalmatian. (Again, are you seeing a pattern in my life? Those things that impressed me as a child are still favorites well into adulthood, and probably into senility if I get that far. My family has had something like nine Dals over the years. Very much a family tradition my wife and I continue to this day.)

After the deep freeze and smallish town of Newport we returned to Southern California -- to Seal Beach, a town directly adjacent to Long Beach. Again, patterns. It was here I completed out Elementary School. In six grades (plus Kindergarten) I had attended fully five different schools. It forced me, and my sisters, to be outgoing and open. Unlike my wife, my friends were pretty much two year engagements, not the lifelong commitments more stable lifestyles permit. But we didn't know any better and each new school was an adventure of some kind. Some good, some bad, but each a different and exciting change.

Sledding outside DC

After graduating from sixth grade the family was transferred to Washington, DC. The longest tour of duty we had ever spent -- four years. After a temporary home in Reston, Virginia we moved into a neighborhood called Cinnamon Creek, which was at once both wonderfully diverse and cosmopolitan -- people from all walks of life ranging from military families to employees at government think tanks, corporate relocations and -- in at least one case -- a well-known reporter, minister and government "gadfly".

And it was here I began to develop more permanent relationships. I attended Joyce Kilmer Middle (Junior High) School, and George C Marshal High School. I am in touch, and enjoy getting together with, several of my friends from those days. (There's an amusing story about how I regained touch with one of them. One of my best High School buddies, Wes. I was at a trade show in Los Angeles when a guy walked up to me after a presentation and asked if I went to Marshall. Wes. 2500 miles and years away, he still recognized me. Now, nearly fifteen years later, we still try to get together whenever possible, and it's still a comfortable and genuine friendship. Forty years after I moved away from Marshall.)

My final tour of duty before I moved away to college was in San Diego. Two years there and I was attracted by the bright lights of Los Angeles, where I have lived in or near ever since.

And while I can certainly be considered to have "settled down", as far as a life on the road, this was only the beginning.

Up next, Tentative Steps.

Hawaii, the year I met...and the year before I married...my wife and Traveling Companion

Pic of the Day: Inside the Ferry (Tail)

Okay, bad pun. It's 3:19am as I write this. 

This is the inside bay of a Washington State Ferry as it waits to load cars and passengers for a voyage around the beautiful San Juan Islands. It's an inexpensive way to spend a day amidst some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the Northwest.

Pic of the Day: Gone Fishing

Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands, Washington State.

Pic of the Day: Ferry

Washington State ferry, Friday Harbor.

Pic of the Day: WINE

           One of the items on my NOW (Life List) is to drink a glass of wine in all of the major wine regions of the world. Obviously there is a lot left open to interpretation with the term "major", but so far I've had a glass (or more) in the following (in rough geographic order): (California) Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley, Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Rosa; (Washington) Puget Sound; (Oregon) Willamette Valley, Columbia River Valley; (Virginia); (Australia) Hunter Valley, Margaret River, Swan Valley; (Italy) Tuscany, the Veneto, Sicily, Compania; (France) Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Provence; (Croatia).

Still a lot to get to...

One of my pet projects is shooting the pour, which may have the unfortunate effect of making the pourer nervous. The below tasting, very confidently done, was poured at Vasse Felix in the Margaret River region of Western Australia.


https://www.vassefelix.com.au

ROAD TRIP: The San Juan Islands

"We went out to the islands to get berries, fish." - Isadore Tom







The San Juan Islands, huddled in the center of the Straight of Juan de Fuca -- named in honor of a 16th century European explorer -- mark the transition from the Northwestern United States into Southwestern Canada.

The San Juans are comprised of eight large and dozens of smaller islands. Without a doubt the "capital" is the town of Friday Harbor, which serves as sort of a regional jumping off point and host to the thousands of tourists who flock to the area every year.

Morning along the passage

The best (and pretty much only ways, save your own boat) to get to Friday Harbor is via the Washington State Ferry system, which has frequent departures from the mainland terminal in Anacortes -- roughly an hour and a half drive north of Seattle. Or from the Canadian side from Sidney, which is a major ferry hub for the Canadian ferries that come in from Vancouver. Either way it's a spectacular ride through some literally stunning scenery. Best tie for both is early in the morning or later in the day when the angles of the sun are at their most dramatic.

Downtown Friday Harbor

As with most seaside towns and areas, the primary activities are sailing, eagle-watching, fishing and watersports, though the latter may be tempered by the knowledge that the San Juan Islands have their own "resident" pods of killer whales -- three of them according to our tour guide. These residents stay in the area year-round, as opposed to migrating pods of whales which move their location dependent upon the time of year. The good news about this is that you can usually see a few of them on the many regularly scheduled Whale Watching tours out of Friday Harbor. (We took the high-speed Western Explorer Zodiac-style boat from Western Prince. Not only more quickly able to adapt to the whales' changing locations, but a thrill-ride on its own. Highly recommended for the adventurous types.)

Inside the massive Washington State ferry

The rising tide

Another fascinating feature of the islands comes twice a day dependent upon the location of the moon: the tidal surge (right). The islands are located ideally for a significant rise or drop of the ocean, which in sections produces a virtual "sea" of eddies and whirlpools. A fascinating sight and certainly a most memorable moment for anybody who has experienced it.

But regardless of your intent: catching fish, seeing whales, birdwatching or just strolling the streets and galleries while stopping for a drink to people watch, the San Juan Islands are an easy-access retreat from the city, and a truly beautiful part of the world.

Links:

Friday Harbor

Washington State Ferries

Western Prince Whale Watching Tours 

Sunset in the channel

Everything I Need to Know About London I Learned from Doctor Who

"The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination."

- Alexander Cockburn

Marlo, where are you???

Some months ago I made note of the impact the James Bond films had on my chosen destinations and impressions of places around the world. A less seemly aspect of all this is the effect watching entirely too much television did for the way I viewed that same world as a kid. (The first Bond film I can remember seeing in the theaters was Live and Let Die, so there was plenty of damage done to my young psyche before Bond took hold.)

As a child, I admit I watched a lot of TV. (Yes, yes, we all turn up our noses publicly, but according to research the average American watches four plus hours a day, so get over your bad self. Yes, you're cool, we all admire your restraint. Move on.) In particular, and no real surprise, comedy programs made up a good share of those shows. At that time it was highly unusual for anyone under 12 to be allowed to stay up much beyond 9pm, and the majority of television programming on the three available networks (*gasp*, THREE?) was built around something called Family Hour before 9pm.

I know Yukon Cornelius is round here somewhere

As such, my view of the world around me was highly restricted to a) places I'd been, which by my twelfth birthday counted Hawaii, Japan, New England and Virginia in addition to California; and b) those other places which I'd seen only on the small screen television set in the family room.

So, being a mildly impressionable…okay, very impressionable young boy, my world was defined by what the television industry refers to as "stock shots" -- pictures of a place used as an introductory shot to the rest of the program, establishing where the story takes place. Shots of the surf along Waikiki for Hawaii Five-O, Miami for Burn Notice. You've seen a million of them as the network comes back from a commercial. 

Mork? Mindy?

My worldvision was defined by these stock shots for years. My "New York" was a vibrant, brightly colored city as shown to me by That Girl, the comedy program about a single woman in Manhattan starring Marlo Thomas. (A whole column could be spent with HER impact on my childhood impressions, but that's an entirely different column, and Blog probably.) I can summon those mid-sixties stock shots of the core of Manhattan, looking down at the city from on-high and looking dramatically different from the grittier New York I would later discover at the movies and for myself much later in life.

Where's the red Thunderbird?

Hawaii, interestingly enough, was represented by Gilligan's Island. To a little kid palm trees are palm trees and since I'd spent some time on Oahu, the connection was an easy one to make. Likewise, Minneapolis was, and may forever be, defined by Mary Tyler Moore's cap toss and picture window. As one of the two major American cities I have left unvisited on my agenda -- the other, stunningly, being Chicago -- my adult impressions of Minneapolis still resonate with that cap toss. And, yeah, Chicago is inexorably linked to Bob Newhart. I never said I've outgrown the easily-impressioned phase of my life.

Mayberry must be right around that corner

Let's see: San Juan was that far-away windy place on The Flying Nun; Get Smart was my Washington, DC; Los Angeles…Hollywood… was The Beverly Hillbillies. The beautiful and scenic college town of Boulder, Colorado was born in my mind as the home of Mork and Mindy.

Yes. Rather idealized and twisted view of the world.

And television dramas weren't exempt from their influence. 

My Las Vegas was represented by Robert Urich's Vegas! The darker edges of Chicago were filled in by no less than Kolchak: The Night Stalker. (Which might explain why the Windy City is still on my to-do list.) 

Adam-12 was my Los Angeles. Still is, in some ways.

Steed. John Steed.

All of this being particularly amusing to me when, as an older teen, I realized that most of these shows weren't even filmed in those places. Now, as then, television is the art of artifice where Long Beach is used for Miami as well as middle-America. Vancouver is a much less expensive alternative for New York and Boston. As I discovered the world of back lots and remote locations I realized how much of those impressions of my childhood were wrong -- and that those cities and other places were far more textured and wonderful than I'd ever imagined. Having by now visited a good portion of the US, and gaining a toehold on Europe, I've found that while some of those daydream locations might lose a little luster in the translation, the majority are far more fascinating and enjoyable than even Marlo Thomas might have suggested. 

Then again, looking back, the London I know from The Avengers and Doctor Who and UFO is still a place I wouldn't mind visiting. Can you suspend belief just this one time? Please guys?

Eh. 

Gotta go. I can see by the clock it's time for my trip to Seattle to visit with my friend Frasier.

Oh, Toto, I don't think we're in Miami any more