Wilderness - The Third Morning

Paris. Amsterdam. Madrid. Florence. La Dordogne. Yosemite. Crater Lake. The great American national parks. Even Seoul, Korea, once, when I was a young man. I have been fortunate to travel to these places and to immerse myself in the unique pleasures that each has to offer.

Today, however, I will write about the place on this earth where I most like to find myself. Northern Minnesota is home to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness - over a million acres of forest and lakes that have been set aside for the exclusive use of canoists and hikers, although I've never encountered a hiker in over thirty years of visits.

If one picture could capture the essence of the BWCAW, this might be the one.

Or this one.

Entry to the BWCAW is controlled by government-issued permits. There are no motors allowed in the BWCAW - no cars, no powerboats. There are no buildings to provide shelter from the elements, no electricity, no roads, no cellphones, none of the conveniences of civilization. On my trips, there are no iPods, no GameBoys. Campsite amenities include a fire grate and a pit toilet - not so much for convenience as to keep the pertinent activities restricted to limited spaces.

What the BWCAW offers in abundance is the natural beauty of the lakes, the sky and the forest; quiet that is unimaginable until you have experienced it; the solitude of a monastery; the opportunity to live by your wits, your physical aptitude and your initiative; night skies filled to overcrowding with stars; Northern Lights, if you're lucky; incomparable fishing, if that's your weakness; swimming at your your own private swimming spot; fresh wild blueberries to add to your pancakes; water you can still drink straight from the lake; forest you can wander into and not know where your steps will take you; encounters with wildlife - bald eagles, deer, moose, otters, beaver, black bears. Life slows as your canoe slides through the water and you fall into a rhythm of paddling as you take in the enormous beauty of the wilderness surrounding you. Portages provide their own brand of pleasure - a chance to get out and stretch your legs, walk through the woods, albeit weighted down with packs, and if you're the lucky one, the canoe. Each dawn in the BWCAW brings with it uncertainty that tingles the imagination. What will today hold?

Looks easy, doesn't it? (My cedar canoe is 55 lbs. Aluminum canoes run up to 75 lbs. or more.)

All that stuff on the ground has to get to the other side of the portage, too.
We always try to do it in one trip.

Portages offer a different perspective of the wilderness.

I spend a week in the BWCAW every year in the late summer, when the water is the warmest and the insects are growing tired of annoying human visitors. If I miss a year (a rare occurrence), I feel cheated. I have gone into this wilderness with old friends and new friends, with family, and once, alone. I have camped with experienced wilderness campers and with first-time campers. For several years, I went each August with my good friend, John Danicic; and we achieved a harmony with each other and with nature that I can't explain to but remember with pleasure. I take great delight in introducing first timers to the wildeness experience. Last year, my son, Paul, a BWCAW veteran, and I took his nine-year old stepson, Ethan, on his first wilderness camping trip.

Ethan & Paul at Devil's Cascade this year, Ethan's second trip

What I always tell potential first-timers before they sign on is that it's the wilderness. It's the wilderness. If you don't think you can be happy paddling all day in the rain, or if being cloistered in a tent in a downpour will leave you miserable, then this trip isn't for you. It can get cold, even in August. It can be very hard; paddling into a stiff wind is hard work.

Ask my wife, Carol, about the BWCAW, and she'll give you a hundred reasons to take in Broadway plays for a week in New York instead. She has accompanied me into the wilderness a few times, and invariably we get rain, more rain and put-on-all-your-wool-garments weather. There's some bad karma there; I can't explain it. Ask me about the BWCAW, and I'll tell you about endless blue sky days and nights of stargazing and campfires.

Endless skies, deep waters, silent forests.

This year was a good one. I took two trips. On my birthday, I headed north with my longtime friend from Maine, Jay Bartner. Jay has said for years that he wants to see the BWCAW, and for years his busy schedule has crowded out the possibility. Last year I told Jay that what he needed to do was to decide right then that the BWCAW was on his calendar for August '09. He took my advice to heart. And, voila! There he was, putting his shoulder into paddling, when he wasn't mugging for the camera.

Jay Bartner, BWCAW rookie.

Father and son, BWCAW veterans. It does not get any better than this.

Jay, I can tell you with confidence, had a great time. We worked together well, whether we were paddling, portaging or setting up camp. Jay took charge of the campfires and did a splendid job. We found a great west-facing campsite and set up a base camp from which we explored lakes and hiked portage trails for the duration of the trip.

A word about campsites in the BWCAW. There is no such thing as a bad campsite in the wilderness. (Well, almost no such thing.) But there are certainly some that are head-over-heels better than others. For me, these start off with one key characteristic - they face west and give you the full advantage of the afternoon and evening sun. You can swim later in the day and sun dry yourself on a warm rock. Your evening play time is extended with the lingering light of the long northern dusk. Wet stuff dries on the clothesline more efficiently than in a Maytag.

Chef Jay, tending to our first night steak dinner.

Two amigos, with a good pinot noir to accompany the steaks.

Chef Marc is no slouch in the wilderness, either.

Sometime late in the spring, Paul asked me if I'd like to take a canoe trip with him and Ethan. How can a father say no to such a request? So the day I drove Jay to the airport for his return to Maine, I started repacking my gear and assembling food supplies for the next trip. We couldn't stay long - only two nights - because Paul had to get back to work. But we packed a lot into the time we had. We found a great west-facing campsite, explored Devil's Cascade and surrounding lakes, caught northerns, ate too many s'mores and told scary stories as we counted satellites streaking through stars too numerous to count. Ethan has grown a lot in the year since his first trip. He handled his share of the portaging and even took over paddling duty in the canoe. In fact, for the first time in thirty-four years of canoe trips, I got to be a "duffer," the guy who just sits in the middle of the canoe like an extra duluth pack and takes it all in while the others do the work.

Paul, Ethan & I paddled the stunning Little Indian Sioux River.

Mmmmmm. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

This is the perfect time to comment on another special delight of a wilderness vacation. The year I turned fifty, I took my first (and only) solo wilderness canoe trip. It was an experience I'll always be grateful for, but one I don't need to repeat. The wilderness with all its pleasures, surprises and challenges is something to be shared. How many times in life do you get to spend days of undivided, undistracted time with someone? It's how I got to know my son-in-law, Ben, when he was still Ellen's fiancé.

For me, the ideal trip has to be a minimum of five nights. You can have a splendid time in three (or even two) nights; but to let the wilderness wash over you completely, body and soul, it takes longer. You begin to shed the busy-ness of your everyday life when you leave your car, cellphone and watch behind at the entry point. Paddling and portaging canoe and packs, seeing your first bald eagle or otter moves the process along. Setting up camp, nursing a fire to the point where it's ready to cook your steaks just right gets you closer to what you're seeking. The first campfire and the stunning darkness of the forest night helps, and crawling into your sleeping bag takes you further. And so it goes, until that moment - for me it comes without fail the morning after the second night. That's when you feel as if you've always been here. On that third morning, not having a table to sit at or a chair to sit on for meals feels so right. Your feet move confidently over rough terrain. Silence rules. The western sky tells you all you need to know about the coming day. Rain falls, soaking firewood, and sending you to your tent to read or to nap and dream. The chores - cooking, washing dishes, setting up camp, breaking camp, getting firewood, hanging the food pack out of a hungry bear's reach - are no longer chores; they become part of the rhythm of your life, like breathing and whispering I love you.

Magic is tangible in the wilderness.

Maybe I'm not getting the point across to you. It's like the song, Do You Believe In Magic? (John Sebastian, The Lovin' Spoonful, 1965, if you're not old enough to remember.) There's a verse that fits here - I'll tell you about the magic. It'll free your soul, but it's like trying to tell a stranger about rock 'n roll. Maybe you've got to be there yourself on that third morning, when conversations take on a new richness, just as the silences between you and your companion do, when you find yourself smiling for no reason, when eagerness for adventure competes in a friendly way with eagerness to idle the day away. You leave your companion reading in the hammock (yes, there are ample creature comforts) and wander into the forest on a path beaten by others. The path soon disappears, but you continue on, bushwacking your way through the dense growth. You step over a fallen pine, making a mental note to come back with your camp saw later. You emerge into a sunlit clearing and stop to pick an instant treat of blueberries. You climb over an immense, moss-blanketed granite boulder. You sit. You look back and see the lake in the distance; how far have you wandered? The sun warms you. You feel the whole earth beneath you. You look at the infinite sky above. The silence enfolds you, broken softly by a wind sidling through the tops of the trees, then bending to touch your face. You gaze at shimmering aspen leaves and think for the first time so that's why they're called quaking aspen. A bee buzzing nearby becomes your companion. A field mouse scampers across your hiking boot; you sit motionless, hoping he will return. A butterfly flits its haphazard course in front of you. No one on the entire planet knows where you are. No one knows where you are. Do you believe in magic? You move your eyes from the butterfly to the vastness of the distant lake. Maybe you see a sliver of a canoe making its silent way across to a portage. Maybe you see into time, the water frozen solid and covered in white. You feel the slow rhythm of your heartbeat, hear it beat in answer to the bee still working nearby. How long have you been here, you wonder. It doesn't matter. You stretch out your legs and lie back on the warm rock. You close your eyes and breathe deep. You drift, as if in a canoe. You remember the time you and your friend paddled across the dusky lake to the mouth of a river. In the distance you saw a moose - a rare treat - grazing by the reedy shore. You set your paddles across your lap, careful not to make a sound. The wind is behind you, pushing you stealthily into the river, closer to the moose. The beautiful creature grows larger, until it looms as darkness descends. The wind that has brought you close carries your scent to the moose, who looks over its shoulder at you with indifference, then returns to its meal. You don't smell dangerous. You drift. You drift. You drift until you hear the bee, still humming, and you open your eyes. How long have you been here? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you exist in this moment. For this moment.

All that matters...

Pleasures of a wilderness evening.

Here's to next year!

Sailing the Apostle Islands - Don't Forget Your List!

Good winds for sailing help leave everyday concerns behind.

We're on deck of Mariah, John's thirty-six foot Cape Dory, a beauty of a sailing boat, three hundred feet off Raspberry Island. The midmorning sun is high in the pearl blue sky, unmarred by even a hint of cirrus. On the southern horizon rests a herd of cumulus clouds, as if tethered to the land. The warm sun beats down, the prize for enduring eight months of winter. A chilly breeze reminds us kindly that winter is never far off. Today, we don't care.

The view from our anchorage at Raspberry Island.

It's the first of four days of in the Apostle Islands. Idyllic, I'd have to say, except for the annoyance I'm feeling. The annoyance struck suddenly with a crude epithet from my lips as we sped along a country road headed for the marina. I forgot the beef jerky! The good stuff from Nelson's Butcher Shop, enough salt-laced protein to keep two sailors happy for four lunchtimes. I had looked forward to surprising John.

"You shouldn't have told me," he said. I had to, though; I wanted to share the pain. It didn't work. I was still fidgeting at my negligence, still seeing that delicious dried beef sitting on the shelf of my refrigerator. Acceptance is a slow-acting palliative, especially when you start remembering other things you forgot. White wine. Jack Daniels. Salad dressing. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Off my game, is what I said.

I didn't make a list. That was my problem. You need a list for wilderness camping. (This was luxury "camping" but it was still wilderness.) For thirty years people have admired and complimented me for my canoe camping lists - with good reason. I have never been caught in the wild without everything my companions and I needed for comfort and survival. Well, except for the toilet paper incident, but we won't go into that now. Besides, that incident had a surreal resolution that I believe my years of diligence earned for me.

I was lax on this trip. It will never happen again. I'll have a list for next year's sailing trip, a written list. Bet on it. In fact, I've already put it together and begun refining it.

Well, things got better; and my chagrin ebbed. A cold beer on a sunny deck will do that. A hike across a lonely island to a lighthouse will go a long way to soothe, as well. (Well, not so lonely; the tour boat had deposited a clump of tourists that littered the trail.) That evening, we grilled fresh whitefish from Lake Superior that evening and settled into the rhythms of life afloat.

Aboard ship or on land, John is always so helpful.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed for Julian Bay on Stockton Island, a favorite anchorage of John's. We again had good winds. We dropped anchor at lunch time and commenced to seriously hang out for the next two days. We read. I wrote. John tinkered with instruments and gadgets. We went ashore, where we hiked and talked with the rangers. The only excitement was following the drama of a sailboat that drifted away from its anchorage while its owners wandered the trails on the island, the anchor not having been correctly set. We listened to the radio messages and watched as a good neighbor motored out to retrieve the sailboat - better than t.v.

Efficiency: doing my writing and collecting solar rays.

We hiked the Tombolo Trail on Stockton Island.

On Saturday night, John set his radio dial to Radio WTIP, Grand Marais, and we sipped wine and listened to "Small Change," a trivia game. Two hours later, the hosts of the show snnounced that their time was up until next week, and John and I wondered where the time had gone.

Do you know the theme song of the Muriel Cigar commercial sung by Edie Adams? Do you know who painted "The Boating Party?" Who was the leader of Oliver Twist's gang of street urchins? The name of the president who had three dogs named Drunkard, Tippler and Tipsy? The last name of Bonnie of Bonnie & Clyde? If you like trivia like this, you'd love "Small Change." For two hours the hosts fired dozens upon dozens of questions at the audience and then took answers on the air. The good news is that WTIP is a small local station with not many listeners, so you can get through to them to answer. We got through several times and batted about .500 on our answers. We set John's cell phone on the table between us, sipped wine and when we had a couple answers, one of us would grab the phone and call. Great fun.

Hello. Grand Marais? I have the answer.

If you want to find out how much fun, you can check out "Small Change" online. The show is on Saturday evenings, 7:00-9:00, Central Time.

Oh, the answers, in the order I asked the questions:
* "I'm a little Muriel, only a dime. Why don't you pick me up and smoke me sometime?"
* Renoir.
* Fagin.
* George Washington
* Bonnie Parker

The next morning, after breakfast and coffee on the deck, we took the dinghy and motored along the shoreline, exploring bays and sea caves.

We toured close to shore.

This monolithic rock (rocky monolith?) lies just off Stockton Island.

We ventured into sea caves.

That night we listened to the lonely notes of a saxophone from a nearby boat as we stayed up late to watch the moon rise over the lake to the east. In my entire life I had never seen a moonrise from the horizon. It is a stunning sight, a quivering ball of fire that gives no light to the sky as it seems to rise from the dark waters on the distant horizon.

Here I am, working hard, earning my afternoon beer on the deck.

Road Trip '09 - Part Three - Heading Home

With fresh brewed coffee from Elinor's kitchen in our travel cups, we set off early Thursday morning for western Pennsylvania and a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Our AAA triptik routed us back to Baltimore and then had us retrace our route west on I-70 and I-68. Getting around Baltimore was ugly and slow, but soon enough we were cruising westward toward wide open spaces.

It was an easy drive, and we arrived around noon. Carol and I have wanted to visit Fallingwater for years, but it is aclassic "out of the way" place. The Kaufmans, for whom Wright built Fallingwater, wanted it as a getaway spot, and it has remained that to this day. It is about sixty miles from Pittsburgh, where the Kaufmans lived, and near absolutely nothing. If we had planned on getting a motel in the area, we would have been disappointed.

Carol and I have seen several of Wright's buildings, but we were not prepared for the stunning beauty of this place. The Kaufman's were not only richer than God and thus able to pretty much give Wright a blank check; but they also had good taste and were strong enough personalities that they could work with Wright, who was not an easy man to work with. This, combined with an achingly beautiful setting among hundreds (?) of acres of forested hills, led to what I think must be Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece. I'm not going to describe it. Google it, or better yet, find a good book about it and see for yourself. I'll just say that the tour made my heart race. Photography was not permitted inside the house, so I settled for just being there, taking it all in with my eyes and allowing myself to imagine living there. They have longer, pricier tours on which photos may be taken, so I now have a reason to return. Perhaps I could combine it with a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

You've no doubt seen this photo before. The forest is so dense at Fallingwater that this is really the only place to get an open view of the house.

After our tour, we hit the road for a few hours. We bypassed Zelienople, Damascus, Chagrin Falls and Cuyahoga Falls before stopping in Streetboro, Ohio, for the night. Tomorrow we would head for Midland, Michigan to visit Marcella and Bob Lachance.

We spent two nights with our friends, who did a good job of showing us their pleasant town and making us think, "Oh, this would be a nice place to live." Midland is the archetypical midwestern town - well-trimmed, clean, family-centered attractions - but we won't really be moving there. Like Minneapolis, it has significant winter. But for the two May days that we visited, it was lovely. We rode bicycles and walked (surprise!). We toured the Alden Dow House and Dow Gardens. (I should mention that Midland is the home of Dow Chemical. Although Dow now employs hundreds where it once employed thousands, Midland is still very much a company town.)

Alden Dow was many things in his life, one of which was an architect who studied and worked with Frank Lloyd Wright. His home and work studio clearly show the influence of Wright. Where Wright sought to make his homes blend with the surrounding landscape in all aspects, Dow departs from Wright and fills his house with bright colors.

You wouldn't find anything like this at Fallingwater.

Dow Gardens, a gem of an attraction for the residents of Midland.

Fellow midwesterners, Marcella & Bob (in the Dow House)

When we weren't touring Midland with Bob and Marcella, we spent lots of time talking, covering large topics and small. Carol and Marcella of course rehashed a good part of their high school years. On the final evening of Road Trip '09, we had a delicious dinner at Café Zinc in downtown Midland. Café Zinc could hold its own with any of our favorite restaurants in Minneapolis. Afterward, we strolled the length of Main Street on a perfect spring evening. We walked all the way to the edge of town, where we saw up close the town's minor league ballpark, home of the Great Lakes Loons.

And then it was time to go home. I was more than ready. Our final adventure would be taking the ferry from Ludington, Michigan, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The four-hour passage didn't save us much time, but it was much more fun than four hours of driving around Chicago.

Our ferry's twin sister, as seen from the upper deck

Leaving Michigan

Road Trip '09, Part Two - Family

On Friday, the sixth day of our travels, we slipped out of Washington, avoiding the worst of rush hour traffic. We headed north on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and then on Route 1, treating ourselves to lovely countryside and missing virtually all of the heavy truck traffic that keeps to Interstate 95.

We arrived at our destination in the early afternoon. No, not Swarthmore, where Aunt Elinor and Steph live. Our first stop was Anna's Delicatessen on MacDade Blvd. to get our lunch - genuine Philly cheesesteaks and hoagies. These delicacies are not my reason for returning to Philadelphia, but a visit here would be less than complete without consuming at least one hoagie and one cheesesteak. (There are no substitutes, no matter what the menus of restaurants around the country claim.)

We devoted the next two days to visiting with Elinor, Steph, Ed and Barb. Elinor and Steph are the grandes dames of our family. Age has slowed them down a bit physically; although they still enjoy attending the opera, visiting with friends and eating in restaurants. (I think there is not a restaurant in a ten-mile radius of their home at which they have not eaten.) Although the don't move as quick as they used to, they both retain their avid interest in the world around them and are not shy at all about sharing their views. I have always been in awe of their fantastic memories and their ability to recount stories from years past, full of intricate details and insights. Elinor and Steph are great raconteurs who can entertain for hours with their tales of places they've been, things they've done and most importantly family history. We were graced with many of their memories over the next two days.

Elinor and Steph, still going strong.

We got to spend one pleasant evening with Ed and Barb. I wish it could have been more. They took us to dinner at a favorite spot of theirs, and then we returned to their home to stretch the evening as long as we could. We got to catch up on one another's lives. Barb has been waging a battle with cancer for ten years now in her own quiet and heroic way. In recent months, the doctors have ordered an increase in her chemotherapy treatments that place a greater demand on her strength. She rests for a day or so after her treatment, then is up and active again, refusing to let her illness hold her down. She still works, part-time, at the police station that was Ed's workplace for over forty years.

Barb loves to travel, and the new regimen of chemotherapy has taken that opportunity away from her for the time being. We're hoping that soon she also will be on the road again.

My brother, Ed, and sister-in-law, Barb

It wasn't all visiting during those two days. We walked, of course. We saw a good deal of Swarthmore, a pretty town with grand old homes that are shaded by mature trees. We walked past 208 Harvard Avenue, the home where my father, Elinor and their sisters grew up. We wandered the campus of the college and checked out the opening day of their farmers' market. We bought some cookies from a baker, the minister's wife whom we met the night before when out to dinner with Elinor and Steph. She assured us that the tiny market was much more lively later in the summer, when local crops will be abundant.

The Brandywine River Museum

We spent a pleasant afternoon at the Brandywine River Museum, a lovely small museum on the banks of the river that features the artwork of the Wyeth family. By happy coincidence we got to see a special exhibit of the quirky and whimsical artist, Richard Gorey.

And before we knew it, we were heading for Wildwood Villas, home of my sister, Joan, and Wally, the most famous of the Burgett outlaws. (Wally some years ago dubbed Barb, Carol and himself the "outlaws." It stuck.)

My sister, Joan, and the "Outlaw"

The Villas and nearby Cape May is a favorite spot for me. It's just such a pretty place. So we did what people do when they find themselves in pretty places. We saw as much of it as we could. Joan and Wally live in a quiet neighborhood, just a five-minute walk from the Delaware Bay. When Carol and I visit, we somehow find our feet taking us toward the bay each evening when the sun is low in the sky.

This is what draws us to the bay in the evenings.

Sometimes we get silly. No spouses were harmed in the making of this photo.

Joan and Wally gave us a nice tour of Cape May, culminating with dinner at the Wharf and an opportunity for Carol and me to have fresh seafood (almost as important as the hoagies and cheesesteaks).

The Whar...f Restaurant

Cape May Lighthouse

The old concrete ship, near the lighthouse, was one of a few built in the early twentieth century. They actually made some successful crossings of the Atlantic. (Really!) This one was sunk deliberately. (I don't know why. What else can you do with a concrete ship you don't want any more?) Time and tide have taken their toll. I remember seeing the remains of a ship here as a boy; now it's not much more than this ruin, although the sea birds seem to find it appealing.

The flower shop is next door to the gourmet cheese shop. This little patch of Cape May put is in mind of Dordogne.

On Wednesday, day twelve of our trip, it was time to say good-bye to Joan and Wally. The plan was to return to Swarthmore, spend the night with Elinor and Steph and get an early start the following day for our drive to Fallingwater. Elinor and Steph's condo was off limits for the day (contractors working), and Elinor and Steph were out on their own. So we took advantage of the open day to hop on the commuter train to downtown Philly for a day in the city.

It was lovely! We walked down busy and beautiful Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we had tickets to see the "Cezanne and Beyond" exhibition. The Cezanne exhibit was wonderful, but we were disappointed that the photography galleries were temporarily closed. We consoled ourselves with a pretty good lunch at the museum cafeteria before returning to the train station via the walking path along the Schuykill River.

"Rocky's" view of Philadelphia, from the steps of the art museum. No, we did not run up the steps. There were plenty of twenty-somethings present taking care of that.

The walk along the river was charming. Philadelphia has really done a good job of making itself attractive to visitors. We promised ourselves that we will spend more time downtown when we next visit.

Carol and I had discovered earlier in the week the Bistro on the Brandywine. Barb, we knew, would be resting after her chemotherapy session. We called Ed at the last minute, and he joined us for dinner there. A very nice place. The three of us had a good time together.

The following morning we departed, glad to have had precious time with family and eager to continue our adventure. I'll write about the return home in Part Three, coming soon.

Road Trip '09, Part One - On the Road

The most important journeys in our lives always seem to involve family and friends. So it was with our Road Trip '09. Family was calling. The need to see loved ones face to face, to embrace, to tell our stories and to laugh together was strong. Carol suggested that we forsake the airlines, make it a road trip. This surprised the heck out of me, because Carol is the first to tell you that she hates riding in the car. Family can be surprising.

The appeal of a road trip was strong. We could see friends along the way whom we haven't seen in years. We could at long last visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. We could take in the beauty of the American landscape. So, on May 9, our journey began.

The Wisconsin River at daybreak, Portage, Wisconsin

Our first stop would be Dayton, Ohio, to see our friends, Ken and Emelda Dahms. Minneapolis to Dayton was the longest stretch of the two-week trip, so we left home a day early. After we left Rowdie with Joanna, Bob and all the dogs with the assurance that we would return and she would once again be the princess, we set out midday to knock off a couple hours of driving. This plan got us to Portage, WI, a gem of a small town in the beautiful rolling hills near the Wisconsin Dells. We had a good dinner, a good night's sleep, and a good look at the well-kept old village when we departed early the next morning. As a bonus, we earned 490 Super 8 Motel points and were treated to the stunning sunrise view as we crossed the bridge on our way out of town.

Our first full day's drive took us through the expanse of farmlands of Indiana and gradually into the hills of western Ohio. Someone once described the sensation of driving across the vastness of flat terrain as a feeling of standing still. The land is so open and you can see so far that you feel suspended in space and even time. You can't allow yourself to be in a hurry on this kind of journey. You let your mind and your heartbeat slow, and you take it all in. You talk to your companion, but more often there is quiet. You have time to think all the grand thoughts and all the small ones that you care to entertain. Oh, and when you've have enough of all that, you put disc one of your book-on-tape into the CD player. Then disc two, disc three, four, five, and...

At the end of the day, we followed Emelda's excellent directions downhill on a country road, turned left onto the gravel road just before the new bridge, meandered a few hundred yards through woodlands next to a small creek and found ourselves at the home of our longtime friends.

Ken & Emelda Dahms, our friends for many years

Have you ever experienced a reunion with friends whom you haven't seen in years and you just fall into an easy camaraderie as if you have lived all that time as neighbors on the same block? This was how it was with Ken and Emelda. We gave and received the first embraces of our two-week journey, were given cold drinks (ahhh! A beer after a long day in the car!), and fell into animated conversation that was more or less uninterrupted over the next day and a half together.

Ken and Emelda treated us like visiting royalty, showing us their favorite restaurants, taking us on a lovely hike through the Ohio countryside, showing us all the points of interest in the region and on their property and all the while making sure of our comfort. What I'll remember most of this visit was the lively conversations, which seemed to be nonstop. We talked politics, social policy, sports, family, work, retirement and a few dozen other topics. Ken has always possessed an inquisitive mind and an irrepressible desire (need?) to share his ideas and find out what yours are. So it was always a lively time.

Ken and Emelda bought their small home on several wooded acres in rural Ohio thirty years ago. Over time, Cincinnati to the south and Dayton to the north continued to expand until the once bucolic countryside has been overrun with residential subdivisions, malls, convenience stores and the other signs of unrelenting growth. Over that same time, our friends have bought a couple acres here and a couple there, so that their home is a true retreat from all the modern hubbub. You can look out of any one of the many uncurtained windows of their home and see nothing but trees. If you stay longer than Carol and I were able, say thirty years or so, you grow familiar with foxes, deer, raccoons and numerous other creatures of the forest. You learn the names of dozens of varieties of birds that are your most frequent visitors. Just up the hill from their kitchen window is a residential subdivision; if you try very hard, you can just make out a patch of roof of one house. A short walk will take you to the road which is busy with commuters in the morning and evening. If you try very hard, you still cannot see or hear the road with its activity.

We were up and out the door, coffee cups in hand, early Tuesday morning. Our next stop would be Washington, D.C. Today's drive would take us over four hundred miles through the old worn-down mountains of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Maryland, different terrain from the farmland we had crossed two days previously.

The Youghiogheny Reservoir in western Pennsylvania
(If you think you can pronounce that, let us know.)

More than once on our drive we noted the similarity of the countryside to that of la Dordogne. I admit that this required a bit of imagination, but the likeness was there. Missing, of course, were the thousand-year old churches and chateaux, the small villages nearly as old and the tiny restaurants that invite (almost demand) that the traveler stop and sample their unique and tasty offerings. This reflection would bring a smile to our faces and a bit of silent reflection of our time there last fall.

Along our route, we couldn't help but notice the baseball fields. From the highway we saw the minor league park of the Washington, Pennsylvania, Wild Things. In virtually every smaller town we spotted the playing fields of the children, perhaps among them a future major leaguer or two.

As the day rolled on, an unmistakeable change occurred all around us. Long stretches of pastoral scenery became punctuated more frequently with larger and larger towns. The highway grew crowded. Our heart rates ticked up a notch as we had to pay a little more attention. We were in the East.

Soon, Interstate 495, the D.C. Beltway, sucked us into its frantic midday flow of traffic, spitting us out just as quickly onto Connecticut Avenue. We were in our old stomping grounds. Then we were turning left on Porter Road, crossing Rock Creek Park and entering Mount Pleasant, our home for four years in the 1970's. We parked in front of 1811 Lamont Street, NW, got out of the car and stretched mightily and knocked on the door of our former neighbor and still good friend, Wolsey Semple. Ferocious barking greeted us. Through sheer curtains we could see gaping jaws and sharp teeth just itching to get at us. Wolsey's German Shepherd, Othello, was doing his job, and doing it well. Then the door opened. Wolsey welcomed us once again into his home. Seeing his master embrace us in welcome was good enough for Othello. We became his new best friends, just like that. From that moment on, he permitted us to scratch his ear, rub his back and take him for walks whenever we wished.

Hanging out at Mama Ayesha's with Wolsey

Our old neighborhood. Some things never change.

Over the next two days Carol and I roamed the neighborhood and the city on our own. In the evening we'd meet up with Wolsey for dinner and conversation. There are countless high quality restaurants in Washington, but on our trips back there, we always end up at Mama Ayesha's. In her day, Mama served up cheap, delicious Middle Eastern cuisine. She used only fresh produce from her farm in Virginia. The restaurant wasn't much to look at back then, but you could always count on a good meal and a good time with friends there. Mama is long gone, but her family still runs the place. They've jazzed up the facade and the interior, and nudged the prices up a bit, but the food is still great and it's still a good deal. Wolsey told our waiter that we were visitors from the Midwest and had frequented the restaurant many years ago. Our waiter, Mama's grandson, is twenty-eight, Ellen's age. He wasn't born when we were on the scene.

Mama Ayesha's, a favorite of ours since forever.

Washington has changed a lot since we lived there. On Wednesday morning, we walked ten minutes to the Metro station on 14th Street. In the seventies, 14th Street was a place you steered clear of, a burned out remnant of the riots of the sixties. Now it is teeming with traffic, both motorized and pedestrian. The streets are lined with upscale condominiums, coffee shops and trendy stores. There is even a Target store.

We boarded a Metro train, and eleven minutes later emerged from underground onto the Mall! No traffic snarls. No parking woes. We spent the entire day on the Mall reveling in being the tourists we tolerated with disdain so many years ago. We spent most of our time at the National Gallery of Art, drawn by the desire to see its newest building, designed by I.M. Pei. I also wanted to visit Salvador Dali's Last Supper. When we lived in Washington, I would make my way from time to time to the National Gallery for the sole purpose of standing and studying this amazing painting. It used to hang by itself in a grand stairwell. Now it is found, still in solitary splendor, on the lower level next to the elevators. The painting's unlikely showplace is not an insult to the artist, as it would first appear to a visitor who comes across it in its out-of-the-way corner. The people who donated the painting to the National Gallery did so on the condition that it would always be displayed in a setting where it apart from other works of art.

The National Gallery of Art addition, designed by I.M. Pei

An Alexander Calder mobile in the foyer of the new building.

Outside the National Gallery of Art.

Springtime in Washington, D.C.

It was a beautiful day on the Mall.

After touring the National Gallery, we grabbed a snack in the cafeteria. It was about eleven a.m., and the cafeteria has only just opened. A handful of tourists were there when we arrived. Ahead of us in line was an older man dressed in what I would call a $1,500 lobbyist's suit. He ordered a sandwich and a split of champagne. When he handed the cashier a hundred dollar bill, she said she could not make change. He reached into his pocket and extracted a thick roll of bills, fingered through them but was unable to find anything smaller! His credit card saved the day.

After our snack, we took in the new American Indian Museum, another stunning addition to the Smithsonian. Like the many other Smithsonian Museum buildings, a person could spend weeks absorbing all that it has to offer. The museum's stellar cafeteria offered Native American cuisine, with offerings from each of the many geographical regions inhabited by various tribes. The plank-roasted salmon from the Pacific Northwest was nothing less than irresistible, but we left with the desire to return and try each of the regions.

If you asked me what my favorite city in the world is, I'd answer without hesitation, Paris. But I must add that Washington, D.C., takes second place. No other city comes close. (Okay. I'm not the greatest of world travelers, and I haven't seen all that many cities, but I still mean it.) It's not coincidental that Washington was designed by a Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, and that its layout mimics that of Paris with its many traffic circles. D.C. is a lovely city, with an international flavor and a pulsing excitement that are hard to match. What sets Paris and Washington apart, for me, is that they are both places where I would be satisfied to do nothing other than walk about their streets. Well, that and eat in their restaurants. But that is all I would need to do.