New England in a Week

We planned an impromptu trip to Rhode Island and Vermont, trying to burn a little PTO before it expired at the end of the year. My sister Sarah and her husband, Ryan, just relocated to Rhode Island from Chicago and neither Justin nor I had been to Vermont for the fall foliage so east we headed.

As luck would have it, we managed to line up our trip to overlap my other sister's visit by a day. 

We had a fun oyster shack dinner together the night we arrived.

 

And the three sisters had a group photo before Buffy departed.

 

Justin, Ryan and I checked out the Columbus Day Parade in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence.

On Tuesday, the four of us headed north for a week of clean mountain air. Justin and I climbed Mt. Monadnock near Keene, NH. I don't think we've ever hiked up something like Monadnock...it is just one giant boulder after the next.

Here we are on the summit with the rolling New Hampshire hills below.

We followed the cheese route north to Burlington, VT on Wednesday. We stopped at Morse Farm in Montpelier for maple syrup and maple creemees (soft serve).

Picturesque Morse Farm

Ryan rides the milking cow at Morse Farm.

Dozens of different syrups. We did a taste test and found the Dark Amber A to be to our liking.

On my birthday, we traveled to mecca, aka Ben & Jerry's. We sampled their newest flavor, Schweddy Balls.

Justin enjoyed rolling the balls around in his mouth.

For my birthday, we had dinner at Hen of the Wood in Waterbury. We just happened to be seated right next to the GOVERNOR of VERMONT. Our waiter tipped us off to who he was and after he finished his dinner, he came over and wished me a happy birthday. Pretty cool, eh?

The Birthday Girl--outside of the old mill that houses Hen of the Wood.

 

Bucolic Vermont

 

Portugal 2010

A cobblestone mosaic on the sidewalk.

Why Portugal? It's likely sunny and temperate in March, it has more than its fair share of World Heritage sites, likely due to the fact that it was a global empire from the 15th to 18th centuries and it has quite a viticulture that we were eager to sample close to the source. And here's the recap:

Saturday, March 6

Nothing much to talk about here since pretty much all we did was sit on airplanes or sit in airports. The fun starts on Sunday!

Sunday, March 7

We arrived in Lisbon at 6am (GMT). The customs line was long and slow so we have plenty of time to contemplate the comments overhead from a fellow American's mouth: "They [Obama's supporters] are all communists and Marxists and they want a revolution....show me the birth certificate!" We hoped our itineraries would take us far apart from this fellow.

Rua Augusta in the Baixa

Finding our hotel without much trouble, we were able to check in ultra-early and take a much-needed nap. We woke up around 3pm in the afternoon and set out to explore Lisboa. We wandered the streets of the Baixa district all the way down to the Praça do Comercio and took an antique elevator up to the Barrio Alto where we strolled around and back down to the square near our hotel. We stopped for a drink at a Pastelaria and sampled the first of the many sweet pastries that vendors in Portugal sold to us. The Portuguese love their sweets about as much as Seattlites love their coffee. I think workers stop on the way home for a shot of espresso and a pastel de Belem (custard tart) as a ritual of the day. We tried (successfully) to make it a ritual of our days in Portugal too.

Our first meal in Portugal was something to get excited about. I had fish and Justin had pork and clams (Porco a Alentejana). Justin measured up every proceeding meal to this one and I’m not sure that he found another meal quite as tasty.

Monday, March 8

We woke up to rain and since most of the indoor activities (like museums) were closed on Mondays, we improvised a plan and made it work. First, we took the metro down to the river and went looking for the daily market. We found it thanks to my Portuguese language tapes that taught me to say, “Where is the location of …” Hooray! The market was a total disappointment with only a few vendors selling some fruits and veggies and most of the stalls completely empty.

Funicular de Gloria at the top of the hill

We made our way back to our hotel and found lunch and decided to take a tour on a trolley around the city. Aside from foggy windows in the trolley, it was a perfect way to spend a rainy day. We took a funicular (a trolley that runs up a steep hill) up to the Barrio Alto and found the Port Wine Institute that evening for some delightful tastes of this national drink. The Port Wine Institute was in this cool old building with lots of stone and exposed beams. It was a lounge where you sat and ordered a glass from their huge list of wines. They have probably 100 different port wines to try, most costing around 1-2 Euros/glass. What a deal!

Justin sampling a ruby port at the Port Wine Institute

Tuesday, March 9

Castle Sao Jorge with the city of Lisboa in the foreground

Time to check out the famous Castle in the center of Lisboa's Alfama district: Castle Sao Jorge. This castle was rebuilt and restored in the 1960s under Salazar after falling into complete ruin. Most of the walls had been knocked down and needed to be pieced back together to resemble the fortress that we see today. Like many of the castles in this country, this was built by the Moors many centuries ago and then captured by the Christians around the 12th century. When we visited, there was a team of archeologists restoring a recently discovered Islamic neighborhood adjacent to the castle.

Here I am patrolling the castle walls

Wednesday, March 10

Just outside of the center of Lisbon is an area called Belem with a wealth of World Heritage sites. The prime attraction is the Monastery of Jeronimos, a giant church and cloisters done in classic Manueline style architecture (of course! King Manuel commissioned this church). This huge building was financed with "pepper money", the tax on all of the spices that travelers brought back from the east. Here, Portuguese explorer Vaso de Gama is entombed.

Monastery of Jeronimos

Tomb of Vaso de Gama

Interior of Monastery of Jeronimos

Across the street from the church is the Monument to the Discoveries along the Tejo waterfront, a monument to Prince Henry the Navigator aka Infante. And down the road from that, about a 1/2 mile is another World Heritage site: the Tower of Belem which was closed to visitors when we were there but the exterior view was probably adequate.

Tower of Belem

After walking the length of the main drag, we found a little bar to have a beer and contemplated one more site: The Coach museum. This museum had about 50 restored horse-drawn coaches from all over Europe on display. Some of these were in amazing condition for their age--probably because they were largely used for carting around royalty and likely had a nice garage in which they were parked.

Royal Coach with gold leafed gods sitting on the tailgate

Thursday, March 11

Justin and I day-tripped it out to a little aristocratic escape called Sintra. Sintra is the host to a handful of palaces and castles amongst a bucolic setting. With all of its hills, the views of the landscape are breathtaking. When we finally made it up to a viewpoint, we could see hundreds of little parcels of land, dotted with the occasional wind turbine and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.

Here, we toured the National Palace, still in use today for some special occasions, Pena Palace and a Moorish Castle.

The National Palace photographed from the Moorish Castle

The National Palace was pretty empty so the main attraction were the tile walls and the painted ceilings. The kitchen was pretty interesting with these two giant exhaust hoods to funnel smoke from the fire under the spit.

Pena Palace on the other hand was fully furnished (these folks might have been horders by today's definition) and was full of eclectic architecture. The architect was either having a lot of fun or couldn't make up his mind. Either way though, it made for an interesting tour stop.

Pena Palace

Our final stop (thank god! we were tired from hiking up and down hillsides on uneven cobblestone) was the Moorish castle. This castle was quite similar to the one in Lisbon although the views were quite different and quite amazing.

Moorish Castle and beyond

Friday, March 12

Tomar is a little town in the middle of Portugal which probably would not have caught our attention, were it not for Justin's interest in the stories about the Templar Knights. The city of Tomar has the headquarters of this order of Knights, the Convent of Christ. It is a sweet little place, a little slower than the big city with a lovely river running through the center of town. As luck would have it, our cute little hotel was on an island in the middle of this river.

Lovely Tomar

We had two objectives for this town, get our dirty laundry clean and tour the Convent of Christ. The laundry was easy, despite the language barrier, since the only option was to drop it off an have it done and the convent was huge and amazing with a hint of spook.

Convent of Christ, Home of Portugal's Knights Templar

Saturday & Sunday, March 13 & 14

The lovely botanical gardens

From Tomar, we hopped a train to Coimbra, Portugal's college town. Host to both the historic university built around the 15th century and the modern day school graduating Portugal's best and brightest. We planned to poke around the university sites and check out some gardens as well as attend the weekend futbol matchup between FC Academica, Coimbra's professional team and FC Porto on Sunday. So after finding our hotel and shedding some layers of clothing (the weather was warming up), we visited the picturesque botanical gardens and dragged ourselves up the big hill to the university campus. The gardens were lovely, although it was a bit early in the year to see much in bloom. By the time we got to the campus, there wasn't much time left before the sites closed to tourists so we decided to walk into town and have a drink and look for a spot for dinner. About halfway though our meal, we noticed that the big soccer game on TV (every restaurant has a TV that is broadcasting some soccer game) was the game we were hoping to see. The league had moved up the game a day from their published schedule and hadn't told us! Bummer, because I think we would have had fun attending the game and rooting for the home team (although they lost to FC Porto 3-1).

The front door (check out the door in the door) of the old library.

On Sunday, we headed back up the hill to the university and checked out their historic buildings now on display for visitors and not used for education. One really cool fact that we learned is that the old library which was amazingly decorated with gold-leaf and ancient books has bats residing in its stacks. The librarians allow this because the bats eat insects that could destroy the old books. Every night, they lay down drop cloths throughout the building to catch any bat droppings and the cleaning staff tidies everything up in the morning before they open for visitors.

A view of Coimbra from the University. Notice the Futbol stadium in the background.

Monday, March 15

Ribeira view of Porto

Making our way further north to our final destination for this vacation, we arrived in Porto shortly after noon. Porto was alive with people everywhere probably breaking from their jobs and out for lunch. It was exciting to step off the train and find ourselves in the middle of a bustling city. After arguing about the directions to the hotel (literally, it was 3 blocks from the train station but the orientation was a bit confusing), we finally found it and check in. The hotel was really cute and we got a room with a balcony and view. Justin and I found a restaurant near the hotel for lunch and planned our walk down to the river to take a boat tour and have an aperitif of port.

The view from our room of Clerigos Tower.

We signed up and paid for a boat ride and took a stroll past the port wine lodges to kill some time before the boat departed. The other passengers on the boat were quite amusing. There were two women who appeared to be local tourists (they probably lived pretty close to Porto, although it is a bit difficult to eavesdrop in another language so perhaps I picked up on that incorrectly) who took about 300 photos of themselves posed on this boat. The boat ride was about 50 minutes down and up the Douro River, just shy of the Atlantic Ocean and under several of the bridges that span the river from Porto. Afterward, we sat down at the Kopke bar for a glass of port.

Justin cruisin' the Douro

Tuesday, March 16

Equipped with our tourist map with key sites highlighted, we struck out to find some sites to see. By this point in our trip, Justin and I were both a little tired of churches and museums, despite Porto's fine collections of both. We toured the interior of the Stock Exchange Palace, an incredibly ornate building that used to host more commercial activity but now is mostly used for tours and the occasional meeting by some local trade groups. Most of the building is decorated with cast plaster and then painted to resemble other things like metal, wood and granite. The craftsmanship is amazing.

Lighthouse at the beginning of the Atlantic

Right next to this Palace is the tram station so we caught a ride on the tram down the river out to the breakwater where the Douro River meets the Atlantic. Justin, feeling like he needed some symbolism, took off his shoes and dipped his toes in the water.

Come on in, the water's warm.

Later that afternoon, we bussed it over to the other side of the river to check out the Port Wine Caves. About 30 or 40 Port Wine makers call Porto their home and have these amazing facilities that are centuries old. The caves are multi-storied but dug down into the side of the hill to take advantage of the temperature and humidity that being underground offers to the port making process. The first place we visited, Croft, took us into the first level of their cellar where they have gigantic vats for aging LBV and hundreds of chestnut barrels for aging other varieties like tawny and vintage port. The chestnut barrels allow for a higher level of oxidation which induces a different flavor than the vat aging process. This was all very fascinating for someone who only discovered she liked port wine three months prior to this trip. After touring and tasting at Croft, we hiked further up the hill to Taylor for basically the same thing, a tour and a tasting. Fun times!

Barrels of Port Wine at Croft Cellars

Wednesday, March 17

Ramos...Ramos Pinto.

Our last full day of vacation meant that we needed to stock up on our souvenirs and squeeze in any last bits of site-seeing. We first headed to the market, a place similar to Seattle's Pike Place but without all of the arts and crafts. What a variety and what fun it would be to have a kitchen so that we could cook up a meal from here.

Fish seller at the market.

We made our way through the market and onto two other quintessential Porto establishments, the Majestic Cafe for a coffee and tea and their old world ambiance and the Lello & Irmao Bookstore for its neo-Gothic facade and double staircase. From there, we focused on finding a few souvenirs and buying some port wine to bring home. And, buying port wine meant a chance at tasting more port wine which had become our favorite pastime on this vacation. We visited Ramos Pinto where there was no tour and tasting wasn't free but Justin had sampled one of their ports at the Port Wine Institute in Lisboa and really liked it so we wanted to see their cellar and buy some of their wine. Our last meal was a light one, steamed clams, soup and the delicious Portuguese bread. It would only be 24 hours before we were back in Seattle struggling to burn up all of the calories we consumed eating Portuguese bread.

Delicious Portuguese bread.

Thursday, March 18

Ate logo, Portugal! We left on a big jet in the morning, arriving back in Seattle at 9:30pm local time.

Facing the Atlantic

North to Alaska!

For my 30th birthday, my family chipped in and arranged a vacation to Alaska for Justin and me. With all of their frequent flier miles sitting idle, Sarah and Ryan sprung for the airfare and my parents and sister Buffy chipped in money for lodging and entertainment. And, in the spirit of Johnny Horton, Justin wrote a birthday poem and selected a few appropriate travel aides for an Alaskan adventure. My birthday is in October but I’ve been known to drag it out as long as possible to make the most of it. So, perhaps this is a record, but on a fine June day, I departed for the great white north and relished in opening my birthday gift.

Friday, June 8

Departure day. The forecast for the week in Alaska at all of our ports of call was rain rain rain. We packed for it. It’s a little disappointing to vacation in the rain but I was going to make the best of it. Sarah’s miles were on United Air which meant that we went south before we went north making for an extra long plane ride and a late arrival in Anchorage. But, Alaska celebrates nearly 24 hour daylight in June and much of the rest of the summer so while we arrived at midnight, the sky still had some dusk left in it and luckily no rain. We weren’t up for hitting the town so we hit the sack at our hotel.

Saturday, June 9

We needed to collect our rental car from the airport so we took the hotel shuttle back to the airport and then headed out to the big city of Anchorage. Seriously though, Anchorage is really a small city although the largest in Alaska. We hit the Saturday market which turned out to be a bunch of booths peddling tourist junk to the cruise ship clientèle that were embarking or disembarking from their voyage. There was nothing much of interest for us. It started out a little chilly but by noon, the sun had warmed up the streets. There was no chance of rain in sight. Having a quick and lousy hotel breakfast, we were hungry and headed for the brew-pub that someone back in Seattle had recommended for lunch. After lunch, we walked down to the Anderson home, one of the original settlers in Anchorage. This was the starting point of the historic, interpretive trail by the waterfront. We took a stroll and learned all about Anchorage’s early beginnings. The trail ended up by a bronze statue of Eisenhower with an eagle attacking his head. The monument to Alaskan statehood overlooked the Knik Arm and the Alaskan interior beyond.

Statue in Anchorage commemorating Eisenhower's contribution to Alaskan statehood.

As usual, I had found a bargain tourist coupon book that had some really good deals of which I planned to take advantage. One of our coupons sent us two for one to the Alaskan Museum, a history and art museum featuring Alaska’s native culture as well as its art and industry. The museum featured a top floor dedicated to history and a ground floor dedicated to Alaskan artwork. We spent most of our time in the history wing learning about the indigenous people and their unique cultures. There were also exhibits on the gold rush as well as the oil drilling and mining industries throughout Alaska. One clear message from the exhibit was the wealth of natural resources that Alaska contains. It had many a man scrambling for their Eureka! moment at the turn of the 20^th century but did not yield the gratuitous golden fortunes those men dreamed about until mid-century when the black gold was discovered. After a couple of hours of Alaskan education including a documentary on the gold rush, we were ready to set out on the eating opportunity to another pub that our Seattle acquaintance recommended, the Moose’s Tooth. I’m pretty sure that the Moose’s tooth is popular among the entire city of Anchorage first because of the huge crowd and second because this seemed like a fun place to hang out for an evening. Pizza, beer, what more do you need on a Saturday night? Well, we thought we needed a movie too so after a nice pizza-pie and a few beers, we set out to find a theater showing “Ocean’s 13”. We hit the late show and at 11:30 when we walked out, the sky was still clear and bright—a very surreal ambiance.

Sunday, June 10

From the beginning, the day was clearly going to be a scorcher and I realized right then that there was little faith to be put in the weatherman. Having packed for cooler, wetter climates, we headed to the REI for some skimpier clothing to make our travels more comfortable. Our carefully laid out itinerary had us going north to Hatcher Pass for the first part of the week and then south to the Kenai Peninsula in the second part of the week. The guidebook recommended stopping on the way in Eklutna at the beautiful Eklutna Lake for hiking, biking and kayaking. We did and after a quarter mile up the Twin Peaks trail I decided that it was too much like Washington’s Mt. Si that I talked Justin into retreating back and renting mountain bikes to traverse the flat trails. I checked out some bikes and we headed around the lake, making it about five miles in before turning around and cycling back. I wanted to dip our feet in the lake so we scaled down the rocky slope to the edge of the water and waded in. Unfortunately, the rocks were very loose and very steep so getting back out of the water and back up the slope was a bit tricky.

Justin and I taking a break from the bicycles at Eklutna Lake with the Chugach Mountains in the background.

But we made it back and out of the park and out to Palmer for lunch before venturing on to Hatcher Pass to our sourdough cabin in the woods.

Chillin' in the hammock at our sourdough cabin in Hatcher Pass.

Our cute little cabin at Hatcher Pass.

Monday, June 11

Today I discovered that my credit card was not in my wallet as expected but back at the lake with the bike rental outfit. Hmmm, not a good start. The outfitter agreed to hold onto it until the next day when we’d be passing back through and could pick it up. I decided to trust in its care and not make a big fuss about canceling it and complicating the trip. Instead we carried on as planned and found a nice flat hike called the Gold Mint Trail along the Little Sustina River. The main attraction here was the wilderness and several beaver dams built up in the river. We even spotted a beaver as we hiked along. There were no people on the trail so we hiked in relative solitude until we were nearly back to the parking lot. We checked out the old gold mining settlement of Independence Mine.

Justin hiking along the Gold Mint Trail at Hatcher Pass

One of the beaver dams located along the trail. The heap of sticks in the middle of the pond is the beaver home.

Mister Beaver himself. See his head poking out right next to the shore in the center of the photo.

A few of the buildings at Independence Mine, one of the longest running gold mines in the state of AK.

Tuesday, June 12

Wednesday was mostly a traveling day although we decided to make the most of our detour to pick up my credit card and hike out to the mosquito-infested Thunderbird Falls. If you held still for 2 seconds, the bugs would swarm. We took some quick pictures of the falls and the lovely wild roses along the trail and then headed south.

Thunderbird Falls vista

One of the many wild roses along the trail at Thunderbird Falls.

Past Anchorage, we stopped along Turnagain Arm to check out the tidal bore wave. We didn’t really see much of excitement; just a 1 foot wave in the distance but there was a nice vista of the Arm. We continued toward the Kenai Peninsula and stopped in Hope, AK to hike another flat trail called Gull Rock which followed the shore on the south side of Turnagain Arm.

You can barely make out the tidal bore. It is that white wave in the background.

A view of the Chugach range from the Gull Rock Trail on the Kenai Peninsula

Wednesday, June 13

Today was our big King Salmon fishing adventure in Soldotna, AK on the Kenai River. There’s not much to talk about. We didn’t catch anything. Not even a bite. We did see someone fall out of their boat into the 41 degree water taking a turn to sharply.

Here's me not catching anything.

A view of the competition from the bow.

A remnant of the Russian influence on Alaska in Kenai: a Russian Orthodox Church.

Thursday, June 14

Licking our wounds from the absence of fresh fish that we’d be packing around, we got out of the generic little town of Soldotna early and headed to our final destination of Seward, AK. Along the way, we stopped to do a great hike to Ptarmigan Lake along the Ptarmigan Lake Trail. With bear bells strapped to our packs and bug repellent dabbed behind our ears, we hiked up the mountain to an alpine lake with beautiful turquoise water. There were lots of wildflowers, devil’s club and the occasional patch of nettles that we managed to find our way into. We lunched up at the lake, waded in to the icy water and I even dunked my shirt into the lake to refresh. Again, there was no chance of rain and the sun was HOT.

Bathing my feet in Ptarmigan Lake

Ptarmigan Lake

A stellar jay on one of the thousands of dead spruce trees, killed by an invasive spruce bark beetle. The beetle thrives because of the practice of fire suppression in Alaska.

We arrived in Seward in the late afternoon and checked into the cutest little room you’ve ever seen in a repurposed Alaskan rail car. It was a sunny afternoon and Seward was magnitudes more appealing than the generic Soldotna so we ventured out to have an ice cream and check out the town. I had a two-for-one coupon to the SeaLife Center in Seward and due to our bells, we had seen precious little wildlife up to this point. The SeaLife Center is a lot like the Seattle Aquarium. It has the standard Pacific fish that are fished commercially like salmon and halibut as well as octopus, squid, shrimp, and crabs-all the sea life that we know as seafood. There are also several sea mammals and coastal birds living at the center so we had fun watching the animals play and do their animal things like feed.

Justin getting friendly with the SeaLife Center's resident sea lion.

Friday, June 15

Today was our big halibut fishing adventure in Seward, AK. There’s not much to talk about. We didn’t catch any halibut. Justin caught a ling cod and a skate which is like a sting ray. I caught 2 ling cod. Ling cod are not in season in June so we had to throw them back. A few people caught halibut on the boat but we did quite poorly as a boat that day. We were especially disappointed since we were quite certain that we’d have success; even the captain was surprised by our poor luck….we’re blaming it on the banana that one of the guests brought on board and ate for lunch. Superstition has bananas as the cursed food at sea.

The out-of-season Ling Cod. I think this same fish just kept re-biting Justin's and my hooks just to stick it to us.Justin's got his first bite!

The ugly skate that swallowed the halibut hook.

Saturday, June 16

We had a couple of outstanding adventures to check out on our last full day in Alaska: Exit Glacier and sea kayaking. We made our reservations for an evening kayaking trip on Saturday morning and then drove out to Exit Glacier. The Glacier has undergone some serious melting since records have been kept. About 2 miles before the parking lot, there were signs with years marking where the glacier was and when. The glacier’s retreat has been significant, leaving only a flat bed of glacial silt in its path. We learned that the glacier advances 2 feet daily but melts back 3 feet daily so it loses 1 foot a day. Glaciers appear blue because the dense ice absorbs the red/yellow part of the spectrum but reflects the blue part of the spectrum giving the glacier its blue tinge. We hiked up the Overlook trail to have a close look at the glacier from above and then back down to see if we could get right up to it. Unfortunately, the water runoff is so extreme it created several fast moving rivers that were too wide and deep to cross, stymieing our ability to approach the glacier.

Here we are close up to the blue glacier on the end of the Overlook trail.

Justin posing by the glacier's runoff. The base of the glacier is in the upper left of the photo.

Our kayak trip shaped up to be one of the top highlights of the trip and our final adventure. We showed up to find we were the only people who signed up. Our guide, Shannon had invited one of the other summer workers, Andy, at the resort to join us so the four of us ventured out in 3 kayaks. Shannon and Andy each had their own and Justin and I paddled in a tandem. We launched the boats and were soon enough surfing the swells in Resurrection Bay. It was pretty windy but the night was perfect…just warm enough and very clear. We paddled up the shoreline to Bridal Veil Falls, a simple little waterfall near the shore. The falls are a short hike from the shore so we beached the kayaks. This was the furthest and longest that I had ever paddled so I was feeling a little weak but luckily, we had the wind and waves at our backs on the way home so we were able to get some advantage from that. It was tiring but a really nice trip.

I'm chatting with the guide dressed in the spray skirt for the kayak.

Bridal Veil Falls outside of Seward, AK.

Sunday, June 17

I enjoyed a reindeer sausage in a city park back in Anchorage before our flight. I think it was Dasher.

Mmmm...spicy reindeer!