Category Archives: Sight Seeing

Women Hang Gliding Festival

Posted by dkrashb on

Today is the last day of the biannual Women’s Hang Gliding Festival at Lookout Mountain Hang Gliding.  We thought long and hard about whether we wanted to participate or not.  In the end, we decided not to because we figured it would be crowded on the training hills–crowds on the training hills mean fewer flights and less progress.

Instead, today we will drive out to the mountain launch in the hope of finally seeing someone take off from there.  We have been up to the mountain launch at least 5 times now, but each time, the wind has been blowing the wrong direction and no one was launching.  We’re hoping the wind will be with us today.

We take our time getting going this morning–after all, it is a Sunday morning. When we get to Trenton, GA, the closest town to the flight park, we’re both hungry and it’s almost lunch time.  We decide to stop for a bite to eat.  Where to eat in Trenton is always a question.  They have a lot of fast food choices and handful of family places, but we’ve not had a lot of luck with the places we’ve tried in the past.  Today, we decide to give the one Italian joint a try.

Perhaps they have good pizza, but we made the mistake of ordering pasta.  It was edible, but that’s about the best I can say about it.  The manicotti was over cooked and had the texture of something that had been cooked, frozen, and cooked again.  The sauce really had nothing going for it other than that it was wet, and the salad was entirely made up of iceberg lettuce that had seen better days.  The most amazing thing was the sweet tea.  I mixed half a glass of sweet tea with half a glass of unsweet tea and it was still too sweet.  But, we got through the meal and on our way with full bellies.

When we arrived at the mountain launch, it was about the time of afternoon when we’d expect to see hang gliders setting up.  No hang gliders in sight.  We look at the wind sock and sure enough, it’s a tailwind.  Having studied the first 3 chapters of the beginner hang glider’s training manual, I now know why this is so important.  While one might think a tailwind would make things easier because it pushes the glider along, a tailwind actually creates negative airspeed over the wing, which prevents the glider from lifting, which is very bad indeed.  So, hang gliders, because they rely on the wind and the wind alone when launching from the mountain, do not launch in a tailwind.

However, there are lots of aerotows going up this afternoon.  With a plane creating the airspeed needed for the glider to lift and an open field that lets the plane change the direction of takeoff according to the wind, aerotows are not so wind-direction dependent.  We stand and watch some of the gliders and I shoot, trying to capture both the gliders and the amazing fall leaves.  Unfortunately, once again I am shooting in the early afternoon and there is both sharp light and distant haze to make me wish I’d gotten there earlier.

A woman standing on the observation deck with two cameras around her neck walks over upon seeing my big lens.  She says she’s jealous of my lens.  We end up talking to her and her husband for several minutes.  Turns out they do people’s taxes for a living and only work from January to April.  The wife has gotten into photography of late, but it seems the husband is not so keen on the amount of money she’s spending on equipment, even though it appears she’s buying less expensive lenses.  She talks about wanting to start shooting portraits for money and how much she enjoys “making pictures” (this Southern expression has always thrown me, but when you think about it, it probably makes more sense than saying “taking pictures”).

The husband starts complaining about the expense again–he says, “I bought her that camera for $1000 and then she wanted another one so I bought her that one too and it was another $1000.”  I commiserate on the expense of good equipment and comment that the lens I really want is $12,000.  He turns to Pat and says, “I bet you said no to that!”  Pat and I both laugh at the notion and Pat says, “It’s her money.”  I say, “I said no–I’ll never be able to justify that expensive of a lens.”  I find it interesting that the husband has shared with us that he and his wife run their tax business together, yet he seems to think that their income is his income.  Even more interestingly, he assumes every man makes all buying decisions.  I feel sorry for the wife, although working 4 months of the year does sound fun.

We spend a little time in the hang gliding office before we head down to the landing zone to watch aerotows take off.  First, we talk about the different training packages and what would make sense for me given that I really don’t want to launch from the mountain, but I’m enjoying the training hills.  Then, we schedule coming out to the training hills next weekend and Pat takes a sudden interest in how much hang gliders cost.  This catches me off guard.  We learn that he and I could potentially share a glider and that a beginner glider starts around $3000 new.  I watch Pat’s face as he looks at the gliders the instructor points out to him on their website and I try to determine whether he is seriously thinking we’re going to be buying a hang glider or not.  I flash back to the months, even years, of getting rid of possessions in an effort to simplify our lives and try to imagine how a hang glider fits into this picture.  But, I let him look without comment.

Next, we drive down to the landing zone and sit for a while, watching aerotows.  For the first time, we see someone on a tow line that’s on a winch rather than an ultralight.  We’ve seen winch launches on TV before, but didn’t know this park had a winch.  The glider gets about 50 feet in the air before releasing and then comes back down and lands immediately.  I assume this is part of an aerotow training package.

We watch several tandem aerotows take off, and I practice focusing manually with my long lens with the extender attached.  I quickly learn that panning with an aerotow and manually focusing at the same time are not possible for me.  I’m not able to see clearly enough to tell if I’m in focus or not through the viewfinder and I can’t use live view in the LCD while panning.  I go for a small aperture opening in the hope of having enough depth of field to cover the difference.

After a while, Pat is bored and I have so many shots of hang gliders that I’ll be at the computer for hours, so we decide to leave.  As we drive out, we spot a flock of wild turkeys across a field.  Pat pulls over and I get out of the van slowly and grab my camera and tripod from the back.  By the time I get set up, another car has approached from the other side and a woman with a point-and-shoot gets out and starts walking towards the turkeys, spooking them.  I get only two quick shots in before they take flight and I have no time to make any adjustments to better capture them flying.  I make a mental note (not for the first time) that I really need to find a class on wildlife shooting or I’m going to end up always shooting landscapes.

Knowing and Unknowing

Posted by dkrashb on

The funny thing about any hobby for me is that once I start, I have a hard time stopping.  The reverse is equally true.  As a result, I practice my hobby in “fits and starts” as some of my relatives would say.  This leads to slow progress–I practice a lot and start to get better and then I stop for a long time and have to start over when my interest cycles back around again.  So, while I’ve been “seriously” interested in photography for a good 8 years now, I have the skill of someone whose spent 6 months doing it regularly.  It’s a little frustrating–I’m a quick learner in many aspects of life, but not when it comes to physical activity.  For some reason, photography is more like a sport to my brain than an intellectual exercise.

But today, I am on a roll.  After spending the day shooting at the Tennessee Aquarium workshop, I’ve suddenly remembered a bunch of stuff I’d forgotten and now I’m excited to try to shoot some of the things I haven’t gotten around to shooting yet.  I’ve already shot over 700 pictures today, but I manage to talk Pat into going out with me to shoot the fall colors in Coolidge park at sunset from Walnut St bridge.  I’m hoping to get some really interesting shots of Market St bridge with the sun going down in the background.

Pat agrees to go with me, but only if we go eat something first.  We decide to give the sushi place a try–it’s right at Coolidge Park, so it would make the most sense to take my gear with us, eat, and then go shoot.  However, Pat doesn’t want to carry my gear into the restaurant.  We end up walking there to eat without my gear, which I guess would be OK given that it’s not a long walk and we can always use more exercise, but the reality is that we’re running out of time as the sun sets earlier every day and I’m worried we’re going to miss the light.

We manage to enjoy our dinner in spite of my anxiety about the light.  The sushi is decent.  They don’t seem to have real crab meat in most of the rolls that have crab, but we avoid the fake crab and what we have instead is tasty.  I also take the waiter’s recommendation on a glass of unfiltered saki and it’s quite tasty, too.  Unfortunately, I don’t feel like I can eat slowly and I pop most of a bowl of edamame into my mouth in a matter of minutes.  Pat laughs–he says I get a rhythm going when I eat edamame that looks like a machine.

After finishing up, we walk back to the apartment as quickly as I can drag Pat back on his still-healing pulled hamstring.  I keep looking at the sky and hoping we aren’t going to miss the sunset.  We get my stuff and head back over literally to where we just came from.  There is a band playing in the far corner of the park, apparently there is a big halloween celebration there tonight with a live band, trick-or-treats for kids, and some stands set up that we are too far away to see clearly.  It’s a nice idea to have a big public party in the park, especially with the weather as amazing as it is.  I cannot get over the fact that I’m comfortable running around in a T-shirt most days and we’ve had nothing but sunshine for all but a couple of days in the past month.  In fact, we haven’t turned on the heat yet at home and the temperature hasn’t gotten below 68 yet.  We often have to open the windows during the day because the passive-solar effect of the windows heats up our place too much.

In any case, here we are in Coolidge park with our backs to the party in one corner, and trying to capture the brilliant trees in the fading light in the other corner.  Unfortunately, the sunset is not very dramatic tonight.  With no clouds in the sky, there’s not a whole lot going on there.  And the angle of the sun is bad for shooting into it–I have to look away and try to compose at the same time.  I manage to shoot the Walnut St Bridge from a variety of angles at least 100 times.  I wonder how many pictures of this bridge I will end up with by the time we next move?

After Pat gets too annoyed by the band doing a bad job playing sappy cover tunes, I manage to talk him into going up top on the Walnut St Bridge so I can try to shoot the sun setting behind Market.  But, I have more troubles with the angle of the sun.  I am generally disappointed with what I see in my LCD.  I hope that the shots will look better on a big screen when I get home knowing full well they won’t.

As Pat gets itchy to get going, I wrap up and we head out after the sun drops below the mountain in the distance.  I’m not sure if I’m getting senile or if I just haven’t been paying attention my whole life, but I completely missed the best light!  After stressing about getting to the park before sunset, I packed up and went home about 20 minutes too early.  As I sit at my desk processing disappointing shots, I look out the window, see the glow cast over the scenery below and say out loud, “Crap!”

Intent on not missing the best light all together, I set up my tripod and camera once more and fire off some shots from our balcony.  Once again, I am reminded that I do not make good progress learning a new skill when I de-prioritize it and then pick it up with a vengeance again.  It’s not only that I forget a large portion of what I learned, but I also seem to fail to realize that I’ve forgotten it.  I behave as if I know what I’m doing instead of looking things up that I really need to look up.  Not knowing what you don’t know is almost always the most difficult place to be when you’re trying to accomplish something.  I seem to be stuck in this place of not knowing.

Oktoberfest all over again

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Saturday once more.  This weekend’s agenda is to experience Oktoberfest Chattanooga style.  The last time I went to an Oktoberfest in the states, it was the Oktoberfest in Columbus about 15 years ago and it was pretty lame compared to Oktobefest in Munich (as one would expect).  Given that Columbus is about 3X the size of Chattanooga, we don’t expect much.  However, Chattanooga has the interesting twist of combining Oktoberfest with their weekend farmer’s/artist’s market.

The market sets up Saturday and Sunday in the Tennessee Pavilion downtown for Oktoberfest–the market is normally only on Sunday’s.  They set up a tent and have bands playing outside the market area.  And, of course, they have plenty of beer trucks, too.  We decide that since we will want to have beer and don’t know how long we will want to stay, we will walk there.

Most places we go are so close that walking there takes less time that getting into the car, driving, and finding a parking place.  However, the Tennessee Pavilion happens to be at the opposite end of downtown and is a good 2 miles away.  While a 4 mile walk is not bad, I have a slight limp due to my sprained foot and Pat is still limping from his hamstring pull.  But, it’s an incredibly beautiful day, so we decide a walk is in order.

Walking through downtown Chattanooga is a different experience than riding through it on a bike.  Slowing down allows us to notice details that I missed when I rode through the previous weekend.  We also point out things to each other that I noticed from my bike and Pat noticed from a drive through the area during the week.  As we get further from the riverfront, the area becomes more deserted.  There are few people out and about on a Saturday morning with the exception of the area near the Chattanooga Choo Choo.  We are a block over, but as we pass a large hotel, suddenly groups of people appear in front of the hotel.  Yet, as soon as we pass the main entrance, the sidewalk is once again deserted even though we are passing a large convention center.

We start to worry that we’re lost just because the streets seem so deserted and we think we ought to be getting close.  But in another block, the road shifts and we can see large groups of people up ahead.  We make it to the festival and discover that, like Munich, there is no entrance fee.  However, instead of beer wagons pulled by draft horses, in Chattanooga, they have lined up a collection of VWs at the entrance for people to look at.  We are intrigued by the VW pop-up camper.  It even has a tiny kitchen with a camp stove in it.

I get out my new iPhone 4S and decide this is an excellent time to test out the new and improved camera, having decided not to carry my DSLR today.  I’m not sure the shooting conditions really make it a good test–lots of bright sunshine in mid-day–but at least I got pictures.  Unfortunately, it’s so bright out that I have trouble telling what I’m pointing at with only an LCD screen to go by.

We find food first, ordering brats that are typical American, course brats.  I like these a lot.  Pat prefers fine brats, but I can’t recall ever having them here.  We take our food over to some tables where we can sit to eat.  Eating takes about 10 seconds (walking makes us hungry!) and then we head straight for the beer trucks.

Unlike the Munich tradition of only allowing regional breweries in Oktoberfest, Chattanooga has vendors selling all kinds of beers from lots of different places.  This certainly opens up more choices, although there are at least 3 breweries in Chattanooga.  I believe that’s 1 brewery for every 100,000 residents.  I try the Oktoberfest brew from the Chattanooga Brewing Company.  Pat picks a Pilsner.  The beers are served in 8 oz plastic cups and are only 3/4 full.  This is probably a good thing–we really don’t need the 1 liter mugs used in Munich.

Next, we walk around the market.  There are only a handful of produce vendors and one honey vendor.  We end up talking to the couple selling their honey for quite a while.  We learn about their bees and sourwood honey and end up talking about other things.  Pat learns that Eddie, the bee keeper, used to know about Gruhn Guitars in Nashville.  This starts of a conversation of seeing if they know any of the same people.  Soon, they’re talking about Eddie’s old trumpet and swapping information.  Eventually, we tell Eddie and Lou (Eddies’ wife and the Candlemaker) that we will come back tomorrow to buy when we can ride our bikes down.  Lou points us in the direction of some interesting artists tents and we leave them to go take a tour of the craft vendors.

While I’m not interested in buying non-consumables that don’t go on my camera, I am a bit amused by some of the offerings.  There is an entire tent dedicated to aprons.  In case you, like me, have forgotten what an “apron” is, it’s an article of clothing you put on over your real clothes so you can cook without getting food on your outfit.  Except here, they are called “hostess wear.”  And they are supposed to be couture.  I cannot imagine the kind of woman who buys a fancy apron to cook in, but I’m pretty sure the last one died a few decades ago.  Wouldn’t most women rather hire a caterer than spend a bunch of money on “couture hostess wear”?

A couple booths over there is a display of fancy barrettes and other accessories for little girls.  Tons of tutus line the racks in the tent.  I wish I would have written down the vendor’s name because it was really funny, but it turns out this vendor dedicates her talents to creating pageant wear for little girls.  For any one who believes that the way to make a little girl feel good about herself is to dress her up in frilly attire and judge her based on her appearance as compared to other little girls, this is the place for you.  We, however, move on quickly.

More interesting to me are the photographers’ booths.  I love to look at professional photographers’ work, although it often depresses me just because my own photos pale in comparison.  But, it gives me ideas and when the photographers are there to give pointers, it’s a real bonus.  However, the first booth I pause at features the work of someone who seems to enjoy Photoshop a lot.  They have a cityscape of Chattanooga with WWII planes flying over it.  I don’t quite get it.

The second photographer is more interesting to me.  His photos are more purist in nature.  Plus, he has a shot of Neuschwanstein displayed for Oktoberfest that surprises me–it’s shot from the bridge above the castle, which, between rain and snow, is a view we skipped both times we went.  He also has a really nice shot of the penguins in the aquarium.  I talked to him for a while about how he got it, having had such poor results myself.  He told me what time they clean the glass and how he managed to get a clear shot.  I thank him and look forward to my photography workshop there next weekend.

Moving along, we decide it’s time for another beer.  We return to the beer truck and I decide to stick with what I had the first time.  We walk around slowly while we drink our (very small) beers and I spot a stand that sells cake by the slice.  They seem to be attracting a big crowd and I suddenly find my sweet tooth suggesting perhaps I should go stand in the line.  I pick a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting.  Then, we wander off to find a place to sit–which has gotten more challenging as the day has gone on.  I try the cake and when I get a big bite of frosting, I nearly choke.  The baker seems to have employed some special sort of magic to infuse at least a pound of sugar into less than a quarter cup of icing–I bet she was wearing couture hostess wear when she did it.  The cake is moist, though.  I try adjusting the cake/frosting ratio on my fork and take another bite.  About then, a man with a little girl approaches and asks if we’re using the extra chairs at our table.  We invite him to use the table as well and he and his daughter (not wearing a tutu) join us.

After a few minutes, the man’s wife joins our table as well, carrying a pretzel that resembles a pretzel only in that it’s shaped like one.  The brown crust looks bumpy and, well, wrong.  It’s shining with what I can only imagine is oil.  When the woman sets it on the table, we all laugh out loud.  I take a picture just for fun.  We learn that she is also from Germany.  In fact, she grew up about an hour from where Pat spent his early years.  I ask Pat later what the odds are of being at a festival in Chattanooga and meeting a woman from Atlanta who grew up an hour from his home in Germany.  He says, “Well, we were at Oktoberfest.”  I roll my eyes at him–like all Germans come to Oktoberfest in Chattanooga!

On the way home, we decide to stop at the Pickle Barrel pub for another beer.  We don’t really need another beer, but the building is so interesting that we want to go inside.  It’s one of those wedge-shaped buildings that practically comes to a point where two street intersect at a very shallow angle.  We each order a beer and then take the narrow, metal spiral stairs up to the deck area.  Small trees surround the building so that their foliage is the perfect height to provide shade on the deck.  It’s a beautiful day to sit outside, although it’s cool enough that I pick a spot in the sun.

As we sit, we see a free shuttle drive by.  I google and find that there is a shuttle that goes between the Chattanooga Choo Choo and the Aquarium.  We contemplate walking back to the Chattanooga Choo Choo to catch the shuttle instead of walking the rest of the way.  However, a little more googling tells us that we’re a 1/2 mile from the shuttle and 1 mile from the aquarium, so we might as well walk the extra 1/2 mile given that we can’t find any schedule information for the shuttle–it would suck if the shuttle has stopped for the day.

We stop in the restroom before we leave.  The restrooms are like caves, dark and small with rock walls and wooden doors that swing shut and latch with large wooden sliding bars that seem like something out of the middle ages.  I decide to test the flash function in the iPhone to see if I can capture the ambience of the ladies room, covered in graffiti.  I’m impressed that I’m able to get a shot at all considering how dark it is.

We make our way slowly back up Market St.  When we get to the bridge, we pause and notice a cabin cruiser docked below with a For Sale sign on it.  There is part of me that thinks I would like to live on a boat, but we decide to forego walking down to look at it.  We drag our gimpy, tired selves home, plop on the couch, and prop up our feet.  My sprained foot, which has felt fine all day, decides to tell me now that I walked too far today.  I give it some ice to quiet it and all three of us settle down for the evening.

Aquarium Revisited

Posted by dkrashb on

After spending most of my day out on my bike, I return to the apartment and decide I am in desperate need of some restorative yoga.  Since I still have not bothered to find a yoga class, I get out my collection of yoga props and start practicing alone.  The lack of music reminds me that I still haven’t set up streaming to our receiver from iTunes–I’m pretty sure that’s not what I’m supposed to be thinking about during yoga.

I decide to do a couple of slow flows to warm up a bit.  This helps remind me to think about my breath instead of the infinite number of other things I tend to think about.  Then, I start into the long poses required for restoration.  Of course, I have no clock visible, so I have no idea if I stay in the poses long enough to get the full effect given that, in restorative, poses are often held for 10 minutes or more and it’s pretty darn hard to both breath and relax into your pose and mentally track time all at once.  So, I just hold them until it feels like my joints have space in them that they didn’t have before.

After about an hour of yoga poses, I feel far more relaxed and any tightness I had from riding is gone.  I decide that I cannot stay home another evening, doing nothing but sitting around on the couch.  I remember my aquarium membership and my desire to try to shoot in the aquarium and decide this evening is a good time to give it a try.

I jump into the shower and immediately, the memory of the man I met during the bike tour today asking me if I’m retired jumps to mind.  I like to tell myself that I fully accept the fact that I’m aging.  Yet, it’s moments like this that I have to face the fact that vanity has no concept of acceptance.  I may be OK with aging as a general fact of life, but I am not OK with other people thinking I look like I’m aging.

This spurns a sudden interest in appearance.  Instead of doing my usual routine of throwing on some sunscreen, scrunching my hair, and pulling on my most comfortable walking shoes, I suddenly decide to blow my hair out straight, put on some make-up, and locate a cute pair of flats.

After determining that I look as good as I can without professional assistance, I decide to take my camera with one lens so I don’t have to carry my backpack and tripod.  I decide to experiment with my fixed length 100mm lens.  I put the necessary cards and cash into my back pocket, grab my house key, and head out, choosing the fastest route since I am wearing less comfortable shoes than usual.

As I enter the bridge, two men are walking towards me.  One of them, who is probably close to 60, looks at me and says, “Ma’am, you’re looking f-i-i-i-i-ne today!”  Now how did he know I really needed to hear that?  I laugh and say thanks as I continue on my way without slowing down.  I laugh because not only does the timing strike me as funny given my vanity crisis, but also because what was sexual harassment in my 20’s is now rare and welcomed attention in my 40’s.

As I cross the bridge, I look across the water and see people that appear to be standing on the water.  There is a low-lying pier that blends with the surface of the water due to the reflecting light.  I turn around and look back at our building and see the back drop of the hills and the foreground of the park and decide I should stop and shoot for a moment before going to the aquarium.  When I turn on my camera, it gives me the message that no one who has just walked 1/2 a mile in less-than-comfortable shoes wants to see:  “No CF Card!”  I groan, turn off my camera and head back towards home.

I suck it up and get the card and then return to the aquarium, stopping briefly on the bridge for a few shots, but the light reflecting on the pier is not the same.  Oh well, another shot missed!  I enter the aquarium members reception and get my free ticket.  I head towards the penguins.

The glass in front of the penguins is smeared and there is a wall of children pressed against it, standing on the benches in front.  The penguins are racing back and forth, leaping fully out of the water as they fly by.  I make an attempt to capture this, but I have several issues.  First, 100mm is too close for the situation.   Second, even at f/2.8 (as wide as this lens will go), there is not enough light for fast enough shutter speeds to freeze the penguins in motion.  Third, reflections and smudges on the glass confuse the autofocus and make getting any kind of clear focus next to impossible, even when I try to shoot the penguins standing still.  Since I am coming back here for a photography workshop in a couple weeks and I don’t have a lot of time before the aquarium closes, I decide to move on to the jellyfish.

Turns out shooting jellyfish with the macro lens is fun, but also challenging.  Even though they don’t move fast, they move enough that a slow shutter speed causes blur.  And with a wide-open aperture and close focusing, the depth of field is so shallow that I can only get a small area of the jelly in focus.  I play with this a bit and end up with a couple of shots that are interesting, although not quite what I was hoping for.

I move on to look for the alligators, hoping to get some good shots over the top of the glass.  Unfortunately, the alligators are hiding this evening.  Not one appears for a shot.  I shoot some turtles that appear to be cuddling on a log and a couple of birds, but then move on again.

Next, I go up to the atrium on the top floor of the river building.  I find a place to sit and watch for birds.  There is a feeder near my seat, so I figure it’s a good spot.  Eventually, a yellowish bird I don’t recognize comes and perches where I can see it.  I get a couple shots, but even after looking at the signs listing what birds are in the atrium, I cannot identify it.  I make a note to look it up later (I feel quite foolish when I realize it’s a female Scarlet Tanager–something I should be able to recognize).

On my way out of the building, I take a few quick “drive-by” shots of a sea turtle.  I overhear a father and daughter talking about the fact that this turtle is supposed to be in the other building, but he is in timeout for hurting a shark.  He is a huge turtle and there are a lot of small sharks in the other building, so I can see how that would be a problem.

I decide to see if I can find the Macaws before I have to leave.  I’ve forgotten which exhibit they’re part of and it turns out that they’re on a floor in the other building that I skipped today.  Since it’s almost “kick out” time and my heels are now blistered from my cute flats, I decide to call it a shoot and find dinner.

Instead of heading home to fix myself something, I decide to find a bar I can eat at.  This is a habit I developed when traveling alone on business.  I like to be around people vs eating alone in my room, but it feels weird to sit at a table by myself in the middle of a restaurant.  Eating at the bar usually guarantees that you’ll at least have a TV to watch and often results in interesting conversations with complete strangers you’ll never see again.

Tonight, I end up sitting next to Clyde.  He is also alone and we end up talking.  He’s in his 50‘s, unsuccessful at finding a suitable partner in life, and tells me a lot about the differences between women from Wisconsin (where he’s originally from) and women in Chattanooga (which he has called home for more than 20 years).

In the meantime, a couple sits down on his right and the woman next to him keeps talking to him when he’s not talking to me.  Eventually, she leans in, looks back and forth between me and him, and asks, “Are you all married?”  Clyde laughs and says, “No.”  She looks at me and says, “Are you on a date?”  I laugh and say, “No.”  Her face becomes slightly puzzled, “Are you just friends then?”  I smile again and say, “Nope.”  She looks really puzzled and then says, “You all don’t know each other; you just met?”  I nod and say, “Yes.”  She pauses for a moment, looks at Clyde and says, “She just sat down next to you?”  He affirms.  She glances at me, then back to Clyde and says, “She’s real purty!”

If the woman seemed more sober, I might have felt more flattered by this compliment, but I will take it.  Once again, the universe has answered my vanity’s call for affirmation–if only I could get the universe to help me out with more important things (like maybe letting go of my vanity all together)!

After I eat, I say my good-byes and head back across the bridge.  I call Pat and we talk as I walk home.  This is supposedly a security measure, but I tend to think I’m safer when I’m not on the phone just because I’m more alert and, therefore, look less vulnerable.  But, I suppose Pat could call 911 if something happens.  In any case, I make it home safe and sound and it’s only 9:30PM.  Looks like I will still be spending some time on the couch tonight!

Riding to Georgia

Posted by dkrashb on

For the first time in my life, I am about to ride my bike from one state to another.  This has a lot more to do with having lived most of my life in the middle of a state than with how far I’ll be riding.  I am going to the last bike tour of the Chickamauga Battlefields, a large memorial for the Civil War.

This will be my first time commuting by bike here and I’m a bit nervous about riding on the roads.  I got the route from Outdoor Chattanooga, the organization sponsoring the biking tour at the park.  They also gave me the lowdown on the difficulty of the climbs and the traffic situation.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask about the neighborhoods I would be riding through and Pat is out of town this weekend, so I will be riding alone.  Now that I am almost out the door, I’m suddenly wondering if I’ll be going through any scary parts of town.

I decide that if it were really bad, Outdoor Chattanooga wouldn’t have sent me that way and finish gathering up my gear.  I pull on padded mountain biking shorts–after much time off and then riding yesterday, I need the padding today.  I love the fact that it’s the middle of October and I’m putting on shorts for a 7:30AM ride (not something I’ve ever done in Ohio).  I also love mountain biking shorts–they look like normal shorts so I don’t feel like an idiot walking around in them if I end up going into a store or something.

I snap on my helmet, velcro my riding gloves, zip up my high-visibility jacket, and snug-up my backpack.  Then, I mount up and take off.  Today, I head over the Market St bridge instead of taking the longer route over Walnut St.  It’s early Saturday morning and traffic is light so I figure it’s a good time to experience riding over Market St bridge.  There are actually fewer obstacles–no meandering tourists with small children to dodge–and there’s plenty of room for cars to pass me safely.  I continue through the familiar part of downtown that I’ve walked many times.  This doesn’t take long.  As I continue my ride through downtown, I realize how little of it I’ve actually seen.

The non-touristy downtown area is quiet.  Only a few people are out, mostly waiting on buses.  I quietly glide by, cranking at a steady pace.  My legs are still warming up and I’ve discovered a few bruises from my fall yesterday.  As I get outside the downtown area, I go through some neighborhoods that might not be areas where I would look for a home.  There are a surprising number of people out and about for early on a Saturday morning, but as I pedal past a flea market set up in a parking lot, I realize the draw.

I cross under the freeway that goes around Chattanooga’s South side and through a couple more intersections and discover I have now ridden the full length of Market St.  It is now called Alton Park Blvd.  Sounds nice, but it’s not.  The area is very industrial–hard surfaces with cracks seem to be the architectural theme here.  As I get to my first turn, I pass a convenience store.  A teenager crosses the street in front of me.  I catch myself staring–I’m amazed by how low he has managed to position his pants on his hips.  His rear end is actually completely above the waistband, although he’s wearing blue shorts underneath, so he is not indecently exposed.  He takes small, awkward steps, restricted by the low-hanging crotch in his jeans.  It’s nearly like having your legs tied together.  While I’ve seen this fashion statement many times and for many more years than any such style should remain popular, this is a new extreme.

Having made my turn, I continue down 38th St and ride through a new housing development that looks like it was intended to start a revival of the area probably right before the market crashed.  The small area of new houses looks well-maintained–everything still looks fresh and new–but it looks a little lonely, like it was deposited in the midst of an industrial wasteland from the sky.  The small trees draw attention to the newness of the community–I try to imagine what it will look like in 20 years when the trees are big enough to cast shadows on the roofs.

I make my way on over to Rossville Blvd think I must be getting close to the state line as Rossville is in Georgia.  The area remains depressed looking.  By “depressed looking” I mean:  there is a lot of trash along the roads and sidewalks, the buildings and their surrounding structures (like parking lots) are in a state of disrepair, the style of signage suggests no one has bothered to pass any zoning laws to make the area look less cluttered, the signs themselves are old and haven’t been updated for many years.  In short, there is no indication that anyone cares what the area looks like or invests in making it appealing.

I pass another flea market just before I see a sign indicating I am almost at the state line.  However, I miss any indication of the state line itself.  I am suddenly in Rossville and there, in front of me, is the Food Lion that we have looked up on Google maps.  As it turns out, one of the disadvantages of living in Tennessee is that there is a sales tax on food.  It’s slightly less than the tax on non-food items, but it’s roughly 6%.  Plus, the food seems like it’s already about 20% more expensive than in Columbus, which makes no sense (but it makes cents!).  So, we have toyed with the idea of going grocery shopping in Georgia, where there is no (or little) sales tax on food.  The Food Lion looks every bit as depressed as the surrounding area–I am not encouraged.

I continue on by and make it to the last turn before my destination.  There is a bit of a climb here–I’m going over a ridge.  But, I make it just fine.  As I get to the final mile or two before my destination, the Outdoor Chattanooga van and trailer pass me.  The woman who gave me directions is in the van and they honk and wave, but they are already passed me by the time I realize it’s them.  I make it safely to the visitor’s center and coast down the parking lot to where Outdoor Chattanooga is lining up loaner bikes for people who want to join the tour but don’t have a bike of their own.  The moon is still visible in the incredibly blue morning sky and the combination of colors inspires me to get my camera out.

By the time the tour starts, there are at least 50 bikes in the parking lot.  Everyone gathers around Chris, the interpretive ranger, who kicks off the tour by talking about the trail of tears and the forced evacuation of the Cherokee down the road we all just came in on.  He paints a picture for us of the loss of land, life, and homes as these people were forced to move.  Then, he paints a picture of the people that came after them, farming the land that we now stand on.  He tells us that he likes to focus on the people who were part of history and what the impact of history was on them.  Every part of Chris’ body participates in his story telling.  He is gifted with an almost magical ability to convey the feeling behind his words.  There is no doubt that this tour will be different.

After our introduction, we all mount up and ride to another part of the park where many regiments have erected memorials indicating how many were wounded and injured here.  Chris once again creates a vision for us of these men on the battle field, chasing each other and firing on one another.  He shares personal stories of men and women who were so interconnected across the Mason-Dixson line that questions of right and wrong are transcended.  If I had any fear that a lone yankee woman would feel out of place on this tour, it quickly abates.

Between this stop and the next, I end up talking with a man who tells me his wife is the superintendent of the park.  When we get around to how long I’ve been in Chattanooga and why we moved there, after I explain that we wanted to move and how we picked Chattanooga, he says, “Oh, are you retired?”  with a tone of voice that conveys certainty, not surprise.  I cannot help but feel like he thinks I am much older than I am.  In fact, I think he thinks I am his age and he looks to be in his sixties.  I decide not to ask.

The next stop allows us to look across large open fields that the soldiers had to run across while retreating.  Chris tells us harrowing stories of men being shot and honored, even by the enemy.  I find myself feeling intensely sad that these men will live through history because of war.  I look around me and see a bride posing in front of a bright orange tree.  She looks beautiful in her white dress against the green grass, orange tree, and blue, blue sky.  Her presence there seems  impossible in the context of the stories Chris weaves together for us.  But, I suppose it is the way the cycle works–one set of stories is replaced with the next.

For our final stop, we must ride up a steep but short hill.  I feel somewhat redeemed when I am able to ride up the hill without getting out of breath–many of our group have gotten off their bikes and are walking up.

After Chris intrigues us one last time and finishes up the tour, we all start heading back down the hill.  A woman in front of me has a completely flat rear tire.  I call out to her and we both pull over.  It turns out that she is also here alone.  I get out my portable pump, but it’s for presta valves; she’s never heard of a presta valve.  She tells me her husband is a firefighter and he usually takes care of the bikes.  I would make fun of her for that, but she seems like and amazingly nice person.  And, before anyone attributes her lack of knowledge to being a “Southern Belle,” she is from Ohio, too, so there goes another stereotype.

In any case, she doesn’t have presta valves and I can’t get any air into the tire.  Fortunately, Outdoor Chattanooga has provided a sag wagon in the form of a couple on a tandem who arrives to help out.  The man hands us a pump and we start pumping while he goes back to get some additional tools with his wife.  He returns alone and we have made no noticeable progress getting air into the tire–even after taking turns pumping because we’d worn ourselves out.  He takes the pump away from us, changes the position of the tire, and has the tire completely inflated in about 30 seconds.  So much for my independent woman status!

We ride back to the visitor’s center together, keeping an eye on the tire.  It clearly has a slow leak–we watch it deflate as we ride.  We make a stop at the halfway point to inflate it one more time (well, we watch the man inflate it one more time).  But, we all make it back to the parking lot just fine.  The woman with the flat drove there, so she has no issue with getting home.  In fact, surprisingly, I am the only one who rode their bike to the bike tour.  Given that we couldn’t have ridden more than 5 miles in the park during the tour, I’m surprised.

I head on back home after making one more pit stop at the visitor’s center.  The roads are busier on the way back and I enjoy the ride a little less than on the way in as a result, but it’s still such a beautiful day to be out biking that I can’t help smiling.  That is until I’m headed up 37th St and a truck drives past me dripping really smelly runoff that sprays me for what seems like a half an hour.  I hold my hand up to block the spray from hitting me in the face and slow down nearly to a stop just to let the spray dissipate ahead of me so I’m not continuing to ride into it.  As the truck pulls ahead, I read the back panel: “Industrial Waste Handling.”  I really wish I had a giant military weapon right at this moment so I could just eliminate that truck from the face of the earth.

I make it back alive–my skin hasn’t started peeling off my face, my eyes aren’t burning, and I only smell slightly like garbage.  This is handy for the final approach to home since the tourists are all out this Saturday afternoon.  I figure smelling like a homeless person might help alert them to get out of the way.  I can’t remember the last time I so looked forward to a shower!

Gaining Air

Posted by dkrashb on

The alarm goes off at 5:45AM.  I groan.  It’s Sunday after all; shouldn’t I get to sleep in?  I roll out of bed and feel all the places that are kinked, sore, and bruised from yesterday’s hang gliding adventure.  My neck and shoulders are burning.  I remind myself that I am only going to feel worse tomorrow morning after doing this a second day, then I get moving.  Coffee, face wash, and a glass of water all wake me up.  Pat is up and in motion.

Once again, I run around gathering everything necessary for a morning on the training hills followed by tandem flights.  For someone who doesn’t own any hang gliding equipment, this is an amazing amount of stuff.  First, I pack my camera bag, then I pack a change of clothes and stuff it in my new tripod bag.  Next, I pack my laptop, Verizon MiFi, iPad, iPhone, and all required power cords along with my wallet, sunglasses, etc. into a laptop bag.  Now, you might wonder why I need an arsenal of electronics to go hang gliding.  The truth of the matter is, I don’t.  But, I need this bag for the same reason Pat is gathering up pillows while I’m packing my bags:  we are going to have 5 hours to kill between the morning hill flights and the 5PM tandem flight.  I might as well make it a productive 5 hours.  Next, I grab my bag with my five fingers shoes and our water bottles.  When at last we’re ready to roll, I hang such an assortment of goods off my appendages that it’s not clear I can fit through the door.  Pat relieves me of a couple of bags and go on our way.

Having learned from yesterday’s mistake, we stop at a gas station in Trenton, GA before we get to the country roads that lead back to the training hills.  They let us use their employee restroom and we buy a couple of granola bars.  When we get to the training hills, I, of course, have to go again.  Back to the nasty outhouse I go.  I wish I would have brought a nose plug, but I survive.

This time, I am not only on time to help put together the gliders, but I am required to put together my own.  Today, Pat and I will each have our own glider.  Assembling a glider is a little scary.  As you read the instructions and put each piece in, you think to yourself, “I’m going to fly in this thing and if I don’t do this right, I’m going to die.”  It’s a lot of pressure.  But, I manage to get the thing together and ask for some help when I’m not sure if I’ve got it right or not.  The thing that surprises me is that the ribs that make the wings rigid are rods that simply slide into pockets and rest loosely against the front bar that creates the leading edge of the wing.  Seems like they should be attached somehow.  The other thing that surprises me is the places where it’s OK for the glider to be severely bent.  For example, the bracket that attaches the wheels to the down tubes is completely askew, but I’m told that there’s no problem with that bracket.  However, bends in the wing ribs are bad.  Bends in the front tubes on the leading edge are especially bad.  While I understand why the wing needs to be a particular shape, I’d kind of like my landing gear to be just as straight.

I get my glider together faster than Pat (I had a little more help).  I load it up onto the trailer and hop on, holding the strap that keeps it from tipping backwards in one hand and bracing the front of the glider with the other to keep it down in the trailer.  We bump along over the grass and to the back hill, climbing to the top in no time.  I am the 3rd person to make it up the hill.  Dan, the instructor, arrives only minutes after I do and the first students start launching.  The air is calmer today and we hope for a good day with lots of flights.

My first flight is an improvement over the day before.  I am encouraged that I am able to get air right away, although I still fail to correct my direction and spin out when I land in the middle of an unplanned turn.  An interesting thing is happening as I gain confidence–I am starting to have one more conscious thought that I remember each flight.  I remember the feeling of running in the air.  I remember letting my hands loosen and slide down the bar.  I remember trying to turn the glider.  This is all a lot of improvement–earlier flights, I could not tell what I had or hadn’t done or if I’d had any actual thoughts at all.  Now, I am able to discuss my flight with the instructor and realize that I was not keeping my eyes on target.

My next flight, I realize when I am not looking at the target and correct a little earlier.  Each time, something new is achieved and remembered.  It’s interesting to observe myself learn.  While I wish I were one of those natural athletes who can take on any physical task and instantly conquer it, my slow learning process at least gives me the opportunity to understand how I learn.  I notice that there is a point in each flight where I go from experiencing the exhilaration of soaring to the fear of landing (I have an assortment of scrapes and bruises from yesterday).  When I shift from the feeling of flying to the fear of falling, I start to forget what to do.  But, each time, I get a little further before that panic sets in.  Even after a particularly painful landing the flight before.  In that flight, I am caught by a cross-wind and turned dramatically to the left.  I shift my weight but I don’t change direction.  I assume I’m shifting the wrong direction and shift the other way, which makes matters worse and then I fall to the ground, literally bouncing off the grass and getting completely airborne a second time before landing for good.  The entire flight from when I left the ground to the second time I landed lasted about 8 seconds (based on the times of photos Pat shot).  Both knees hit when I landed the first time; they are bruised and swell slightly.

But the next flight, I still get better.  Now I know that I was correcting in the right direction, I just didn’t have enough speed to be able to control the glider in the wind.  I work on moving the bar in and out.  When I push the bar away from me, I get more lift.  When I pull the bar in, I get more speed, but in a downward direction.  I realize I am moving the bar too much–I need to stay light in my hands while I adjust.  I realize this just as I come in for another landing after a 7 second flight.  I get in one last flight–8 today all together–before the wind starts to kick up.  Pat gets in his last flight right before me.  He pulls his hamstring as he launches himself from the hill.  He is done.  I’m already spent and am happy for the excuse to call it a day.  I get my last flight in.  It’s smooth and controlled, although the wind has died and I don’t get as much lift as I have on previous flights.  That’s OK.  I wanted to have a controlled landing and I did.  I am not breaking any learning records on the hill, but I’m OK with that.

With Pat hobbling badly, we decide to postpone our tandem flight again.  We make the drive back up to the pro shop at the top of the mountain.  Once again, a crowd of tourist has gathered around the launch ramp only to be disappointed that no gliders are launching today–the wind is from the wrong direction again.  However, a tandem flight is towed up from the landing strip below, so the tourists (us included) get to enjoy watching that flight soar by.  I go inside to get a book that we need to pass a test to graduate to the next training hill.  While I’m paying, I hear a girl screaming and many people laughing.  Pat tells me when I return outside that the glider buzzed the pro shop and scared the girl to death.  We were surprised–I wonder if this is a boyfriend taking his girlfriend for a tandem flight since none of the pilots we flew with in our previous tandem flight did anything to intentionally scare us.  In any case, we’re glad to see them land safely on the airstrip below.

Pat limps back to the car and I drive us home.  Once again, we are exhausted.  I find myself wondering if there is a workout we can do for hang gliding preparedness!

The Last Vacation Day

Posted by dkrashb on

One thing I have learned through experience that I try to do with every vacation, but especially one involving international travel: Always fly home 2 days before returning to work. Best case, it gives me a day to unpack, do laundry, get caught up on mail, nap at will, and settle back in. Worst case, if Pat gets detained in immigration (or a storm rolls in) and we miss a connection, it gives us an extra day to get home. We have needed that day for travel three times now, but when we don’t, I always appreciate having that day at my disposal. This is doubly true when my body has gone through a time change of more than 3 hours. I don’t do time changes well. Coming back from the West Coast actually messes me up worse than coming back from Europe, but I still need a few days to get back on schedule.

We managed to get into Atlanta last night without incident. The drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga was killer. When I booked our flight, I thought, “Oh, we’ll get into Atlanta at 7:30PM, that won’t be too bad for the drive home.” I failed to add 6 hours to that–our bodies were still on Germany time. To us, it felt like we arrived at 1:30AM. Then, it took another hour by the time we got our luggage and found our car in the “economy” lot (which turned out to cost almost double what the economy lot in Columbus costs). We hadn’t made it half way home before I was nodding off in the passenger seat and Pat was soon struggling to keep his eyes open behind the wheel. We had to stop and find a place to buy some water, stand up, get some fresh air. I don’t know which exit we took (I was probably asleep), but as we drove down the main drag, it seemed every building was boarded up. Some had signs that said “open during construction.” Others look abandoned. I remembered that tornados went through the area earlier in the year before we moved from Columbus and was astounded by the remaining devastation after so many months. We pulled into a gas station that had a trailer for a building. A large building was about halfway built behind the trailer. It’s a creative solution to staying in business. My mind shifted from the misery of being overly tired to the fortune of not having gone through a tornado. Unfortunately, this didn’t keep me awake for long once we were back on the road.

When we pulled into our parking lot, Pat told me that he’d been nodding off again for the last 10 miles. I said that he should have pulled off and found a place to take a nap. He had thought about it, but decided it would be weird to pull off the road so close to home. I replied, “Better weird than dead.” He agreed, but we were already home so it was a pointless conversation. We drug our tired selves upstairs, not even bothering to take all of our luggage with us, and fell into bed.

So, here we are, we’ve made it home without incident and now it’s Sunday morning. I managed to sleep through the night and wake up at 6AM after our long drive home the night before. I have no desire to do laundry or anything else that isn’t vacation-like. However, I don’t want to end up laying on the couch all day because it will slow down my adjustment to the time change. I talk Pat into walking across the bridge for breakfast in the Bluffview Art District. On the way back, we decide to walk down to the aquarium and find out about their River Gorge Explorer tour. They have a really nice boat that they use for tours of the river gorge. We confirm the schedule at the aquarium, but don’t buy any tickets. On the way back to the apartment, I talk Pat into going on the sunset tour tonight. I purchase tickets online when we get home just in case there is a big rush and the boat fills.

We do a little unpacking and a little laundry, but we spend a couple hours relaxing, dozing off and taking a short nap before it’s time to walk back over to the aquarium. We stop in member reception because the online ticketing didn’t have a way to get our membership discount. The guy is extremely nice and apologetic in crediting back the discount. The aquarium also credited us for 3 adult tickets we had purchased when we signed up for our membership. With the $10 we save on the cruise, we’re now exactly even on the cost of the membership–it’s a really amazing deal.

We walk around trying to figure out where we need to be for the boat ride. The boat is still out on the previous tour. When it returns, we watch it spin in the water and then slide sideways over to the dock. When we get on the boat, there is a video playing that explains how it was built and then transported to TN from WA. Two of the boat captains actually picked it up in Florida, tested it, and then brought it up the river to Chattanooga. It’s a very cool boat that goes very fast, but I lost interest in all the details about what it could do. We have to remain seated during the fast portion of the ride. We get up to speeds over 60 MPH, but the captain stops suddenly whenever he’s approaching other river traffic or docks, etc. The wake rises above the windows when we stop, but the guide explains that the fast stops and starts actually minimize the amount of wake, preventing rocking other boats.

The guide is actually a naturalist and, apparently, a history buff. He talks us through the history of the area going back to the Native Americans and the Civil War. He also talks about the wildlife in the area and points out anything that he sees as we go down the river. When we get to a wide open area, the boat cruises slowly and we all go stand up on the deck, watching for wildlife. We pass the convergence of Suck Creek with the Tennessee River and the naturalist explains that before the river was dammed, there was a huge whirlpool at the confluence that would suck down boats, etc. Apparently, it’s still there, just in deeper water. I wasn’t clear if it was still dangerous or not, however. In any case, he solved the mystery of why someone would name a creek “Suck.”

I have brought my big lens in the hope of seeing exciting wildlife, although I’m not exactly sure how well I will be able to shoot from a moving boat. We see many, many Blue Heron. I knew they had recovered well in Ohio after the banning of DDT, but the number along the Tennessee River is amazing. The most exciting bird (to me) we see is the Belted Kingfisher. Unfortunately, we’re too far away for a good shot. We also spot a huge gathering of Turkey Vultures circling above the river. I keep my eyes peeled for masses of dead fish floating on the water, but we never do spot what’s attracted them. While Vultures are always a little creepy, having had a large die-off of fish in our pond when we lived in the country many years ago, I have tremendous gratitude to vultures–I didn’t have to clean up a single dead fish.

When we return to the dock, we are all invited to go up on the deck to watch the captain spin the boat 360 degrees using a remote control. We stand on the boat while it spins. Then, the captain steers it sideways to the dock using the same remote. It’s a little crazy that a boat can maneuver like that. As we de-board and walk up the dock, we discover the lights on the pier have interesting patterns that shift as we move. We can see these lights from our apartment, but they just look like normal lights with interesting shapes from across the river. Up close, the light shoots up a post that has metal shaped in parabolas and a metal reflector at the top. The parabolas reflect the light so that it looks like the entire post is in motion as we walk. The reflector at the top doesn’t appear lit at all looking at it from below, but from across the river, it looks like it is the source of the light.

As we return home crossing the bridge, we discuss our day and decide that it was the perfect last day of vacation.

Returning to Frankfurt

Posted by dkrashb on

At long last, our trip is winding down.  We meet Pat’s parents for breakfast one last time before returning to the hotel in Karlsruhe to pack.  We will spend tonight in Frankfurt at an airport hotel and then fly home the next morning.  It’s a funny thing for me.  As much as I like travel, a two week vacation always seems like a little too much.  During dinner with Dieter and Gisela one night earlier in the week, Gisela suggested dividing our vacation into two parts:  one for sight seeing and one for relaxing at a spa.  I think this is an excellent suggestion.  But, there will be no spa time this trip.

After we pack, we walk down to the lobby to meet Pat’s parents one last time.  They will walk us to the S-bahn stop that will take us to the Karlsruhe train station on their way into Karlsruhe.  They are riding their bikes, so they will leave us at the stop.  We get to the stop ahead of schedule and tell Jim and Renate our final goodbyes before our train arrives.  They take off and tell us they will wave when our train passes them.  We hop on the train and watch out the window for Jim and Renate.  They are far ahead of our train and we stop before we catch up.  Then, we start talking about what we’re going to do in Frankfurt and momentarily forget to look for Jim and Renate.  We are relieved to find them still ahead of the train and we stand in the door where we can wave at them as the train goes by.  We pass them just a block before the train turns, so we don’t see them again at our next stop.

We arrive at the Karlsruhe train station just a few minutes before the 10:00AM train.  We rush to try to catch it, but we can’t tell which platform to go to.  By the time we figure it out and find the correct escalator, the train is at the station.  Several steps ahead of Pat, I get in front of a group of people getting on the escalator while he stands back and lets them go ahead.  When I get to the top of the escalator, the whistle is blowing indicating the doors are about to close, I am torn between trying to get on the train and hold it for Pat and waiting for him.  My fear that I will end up on the train alone makes me hesitate and I watch as the doors close just as Pat gets off the escalator.  We try pushing the buttons to open the doors, but no luck.  A man and his son come running up the escalator moments later and repeat the process, only they go a step further and argue with a conductor to let them on the train.  The doors remain shut.  Ironically, the train remains at the station for a couple more minutes with all doors closed tight before finally departing.

While it’s somewhat frustrating to just miss the train, we really hadn’t planned to make that train anyway.  So, it’s not such a big deal to us that we have to wait an hour for the next train to Frankfurt.  We return to the terminal and find a coffee shop and an outdoor seat.  On our way, we pass a couple in the middle of a fight.  They are young.  The girl is furious.  She is screaming at the man who stands there looking like he is visibly shrinking.  She screams louder, pushing on his chest and then kicking one of their large suitcases until it falls over.  Then, she exits stage right.  The man picks up the luggage and rolls it after her, looking like he’s still shrinking.

After relaxing with a cup of coffee, Pat and I successfully board the 11AM train.  We make it to the Frankfurt airport without further incident.  However, now we must wait for our hotel shuttle so we can drop our luggage off.  The bus shows up eventually and takes us to the far side of the airport.  It takes a good 25 minutes to get there and I joke that it would be a more direct route if we could just take one of the airport runways instead.  When we get to the hotel, it’s long before check-in time, but they have a room ready and allow us to check in early.  After dropping off our things, we take the next shuttle back to the airport where we take the train into the center of downtown Frankfurt.

There is a farmers market set up in the plaza outside the S-bahn stop.  We walk slowly past all the tents selling goods ranging from German meats to household decorations.  One of the tents sells local honey.  In this case, the honey is really local–they have brought the hive along.  The honey combs spin inside a large glass jar and the honey runs out a spout at the bottom.  Bees come and go as they please–we have been seeing bees since getting off the escalator coming out of the train stop, now we know why.  Pat wonders out loud what kind of insurance and legal agreements would be required to bring a bee hive to a crowded public plaza in the US.  No one seems to be the least bit worried about the presence of the bees here.

Hungry, we decide to find a place to eat.  We pick an outdoor table that appears to be out of range for the bees, although one or two seem to have followed us.  It’s a cloudy day, but the sun keeps threatening to pop through at any moment.  I am fascinated by a group of clouds with a hole it in that allows sunlight to stream through above a tall building.  I keep waiting for the beams to shine down on the building, but the clouds, sun, and building never quite align for me.

Pat and I finish eating and then walk around a bit.  We find the opera house and an interesting fountain full of bathing women sculptures.  A class of young children is lined up on one side of the fountain and a teacher attempts to get them all looking in the same direction at the same time as she takes pictures.  We sit for a moment and look at our map.  I would like to make it down to the river.  We plan a route and start to walk.  Like in Karlsruhe, we find ourselves going from a clean, safe area of town to a sleazy and rather frightening section in the matter of a block.  We abandon hope of finding the river and head towards a busier street where the environment feels safer.  Pat has experienced a complete loss of energy.  I am also tired and not all that enthusiastic about re-exploring Frankfurt.  We decide to call it a day and head back to the hotel.  Taking the train back to the airport and the shuttle back to the hotel seems like an easy way to get back to the hotel, but we end up just missing the shuttle and having to wait a half hour for the next one.  When the shuttle arrives, we collapse into seats.

Returning to the hotel, we discover it’s happy hour.  We have a beer in the bar and then decide to go to bed early.  On the way down the hall, we notice the Coke machine for the first time.  What catches our attention is the button for “Bier” at the bottom of the choices.  I can’t remember ever seeing beer in a vending machine before–I thought there was an age limit on alcohol now, I wonder how they check IDs?

We get ourselves as ready for our trip home tomorrow as we can and then fall into bed.  We watch the season premier of Two and a Half Men on my iPad, which is just short enough that I manage to stay awake for the whole thing.  Then, I fall to sleep thinking about how good it’s going to feel to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night.

Dinner with the Family

Posted by dkrashb on

Pat and I are in downtown Karlsruhe finishing delicious slices of cake. It’s 4pm and we are meeting Pat’s family, including two uncles and their wives, at our hotel at 4:30. We finish up the final bites and quickly and rush to the closest S-bahn stop. The S-bahn is not exactly a high-speed train, stopping every couple of blocks or so, but it still gets us back to the stop by our hotel at 4:20.

We walk the short block to the hotel. No sign of the family in the parking lot yet. We dash inside and upstairs to our room so we can change clothes, brush our teeth, etc. At 4:29, we are counting down trying to get out the door. We finally get outside, walking out the front door of the hotel about 2 minutes late, and find a family gathering in the parking lot plus one man. When we step outside, Jim (Pat’s father) and the stranger walk over to us, reaching us while we are still halfway between the hotel and Pat’s relatives. He’s a very friendly man who speaks English well. It turns out he is a friend of Jim’s. He greets us both and the starts talking. I find myself torn on whether it’s more rude to stand there talking to him and ignoring Pat’s family or more rude to cut him off. Fortunately, Renate joins us and end the dilemma by saying that we need to get going. We tell the friend good bye.

We walk the rest of the way across the parking lot to greet Pat’s Uncle Horst and Aunt Elvi as well as his Great Uncle Erwin and Aunt Emmi. I have met all four of them once before, but our greeting is awkward. It’s been many years since we’ve seen each other–it was before Pat and I got married, actually–and with limited ability to communicate, it’s not like we really got to know each other at the time. The lack of familiarity makes it hard for me to decide if the customary cheek kisses are appropriate or not. I follow each of their leads and go with handshakes for the men and cheek kisses for the women. The four have come in two cars since each car will hold only 4 people. We are meeting Pat’s cousin Claudia and he new boyfriend at a restaurant on the Rhine that is difficult to get to other than by bike or car. Pat and I ride with Horst and Elvi while Renate and Jim join Erwin and Emmi in their car.

When we arrive at the restaurant, Claudia is already there and her boyfriend has just pulled into the lot. He introduces himself as Alfonso and as we arrive at the table, because he speaks English well, I am seated on his left, across the table from Pat who sits next to Jim. Claudia sits in the corner across from Jim and on the other side of Alfonso. Pat and Claudia catch up in German. Alfonso, it turns out, is one of those chatty, entertaining people who likes to tell funny stories. It also turns out that German is his first language in spite of his Spanish genes and English is not as comfortable for him. As a result, the stories are told in German and Claudia and Pat have a good time while Jim smiles along and tries to look like he understands. I am too tired to pretend. Alfonso periodically turns to me and speaks English, clueing me in to the subject of the conversation.

After a while, Pat decides to change seats and catch up with the other end of the table. I use this as an excuse to walk down to the river and shoot the sunset. As I stand there watching the light change, a man walks by with a similar camera to mine also trying to capture the perfect angle of the sun to the bridge. I notice that neither one of us has a tripod. We exchange only smiles as he passes me by.

When I return to the table, everyone is cold and has decided to move to a table inside. It’s actually colder inside that out, but since the temperature continues to drop outside, I guess we figure it will eventually be warmer inside and sit down. We have had dinner and drinks and it is only about 6PM now. Even though I ordered the smallest dinner on the menu, I am so full from our late lunch that I feel like there is a giant anchor in my belly. I have no desire to eat or drink anything else. The conversation continues in German. No one has the energy to make the effort to speak English by now–the conversation is flowing and trying to speak a second language always disrupts social events. Pat occasionally translates for me and I follow the conversation as best I can, knowing what they’re talking about whenever Pat is telling a story simply because I was there. Sometimes I laugh before the funny part of the story because I am playing the story in my mind and it’s moving faster than Pat is telling it. But, at least it keeps me from looking bored. It’s hard to make a good impression on your husband’s family when you don’t speak the same language. I want them to feel comfortable having fun and catching up with Pat in German without having to worry about me–I figure it’s the best I can do.

After a while, Horst invites everyone back to their house. Alfonso has to go do something related to his children and Claudia takes off, but the rest of us caravan back to Horst and Elvi’s house. They have an amazing collection of things from Africa. Horst also has butterflies that he used to collect, although I am told he no longer believes in killing butterflies. He also has a collection of bird books. This gives me an opportunity to check on some of the birds that we’ve seen throughout our trip. Pat translates a description, Horst makes a guess at what we saw and shows me the bird in a book. I agree that it’s the correct bird and then google the Latin name to find the English name for the bird. In this way, I discover we have been seeing Gray Herons all over the place along with a hawk that Europeans call a “Buzzard.”

In the end, it’s a lovely evening. I entertain myself flipping through bird books and exchanging information with Horst even though neither of us speaks the same language. Pat has enjoyed catching up with his relatives–they are all favorites of his. We walk from Horst’s to the hotel–he lives only a few blocks away. In the cool, night air, I am revived. I start thinking about trying to learn German again. This happened the last time I met Pat’s family. I regret not speaking German and get motivated to learn it, but then have little opportunity to speak it again and lose interest until the next visit. We’ll see.

Cake in Karlsruhe

Posted by dkrashb on

Our first, and only, full day in Karlsruhe, we start with Laugenwek for breakfast.  These are a special treat for my husband as they are not something that can be found in the US–well, at least not a version that is worth buying.  Laugenwek are like pretzel rolls only really, really good.  We’ve tried “pretzel rolls” in the US many times and have always been horribly disappointed.  Dry and tough, the US version always leaves us wondering why anyone would even sell such rot.  In any case, today we are in Karlsruhe and deliciously fresh Laugenwek are readily available.  We slice them in half and spread them with butter from Irish cows–smooth, creamy, and sweet. They are amazingly delicious.  Unfortunately, the only sit down table at the bakery is occupied by a lone man.  There are two stand-up tables–one with a woman standing at it eating breakfast and the other with a cup of coffee on it.  We try to stand at the latter in such a way that we’re using the table to rest the things we can’t hold, but not actually standing at the table.  However, by the time our Lugenwek is ready, we’ve seen no sign of any person belonging to the cup of coffee.  It’s as if the person went to get sugar or cream and got called away so suddenly that they forgot they were in the middle of having coffee.  After a while, we give up on “borrowing” the table and simply take it over.  The owner of the coffee never appears.

On the way back to the hotel after breakfast, we pass the street that Pat’s grandmother lived on.  At the corner one block away, a man on crutches stands at a car parked in front of a dentist’s office.  Renate (my mother-in-law) calls out to him and waves.  It turns out that he was Renate’s neighbor growing up and and she has known him virtually all of her life.  We stand and talk (well, Renate, Pat, and the man talk) for several minutes, catching up.  Renate hasn’t seen the man in some time.  I wonder how many people live in this village who still know Renate–the village has grown into a regular town and there is new construction of townhomes on many of the streets we pass.

We continue to the hotel and say our goodbyes for the day.  We will meet up again at dinner, but Pat and I are going to spend the day in Karlsruhe on our own.  When Pat and I head for the closest S-bahn stop a few minutes later, the train is already sitting there.  We walk to the next stop and manage to make it on foot faster than the train makes it through the lights between the two stops.  The ride to downtown takes only a few minutes–we are not far and Karlsruhe is not a large town.  As we approach our stop, we pass a pyramid sculpture.  I forget to ask why there is a pyramid in Karlsruhe, but Pat probably doesn’t know either.

We walk towards the castle.  Or, at least we try to walk to the castle.  First we have to get around construction that has multiple sidewalks closed.  We have to reroute three times before we find a way to the plaza that surrounds the Karlsruhe castle.  When we get to the plaza, we are both thirsty and need to use a restroom.  Feeling funny just ordering water in the cafe, we decide to sit and have coffee.  I go to the ladies room and return to find Pat sitting at our table with a Pilsner.  I look at my watch and discover it is already 11AM, which I guess is not horribly early for a first beer if one is German and on vacation.  Not being German myself, I stick to coffee.

We re-enter the bright sunlight–it’s a beautiful morning–and walk over to the castle, which is now a museum. We stop on the grounds to snap off some quick shots and then follow a group of teenagers we can only assume are on a field trip inside the building where we buy tickets.  Walking through the museum is not exactly exciting for me.  I am more excited by castles that have been preserved in their original state than in looking at displays of the contents that once inhabited them.  Plus, there are no signs in English, so I have a hard time understanding, for example, why there is a large exhibit from Turkey in the middle of one floor.  Even Pat cannot figure this out from the German signs he attempts to read.  On top of the lack of available information, no photos are allowed inside, which pretty much makes going to museums pointless to me.  Just as I am about to suggest we head back out to the park outside and walk around among the trees, a museum employee standing on the floor looking at my camera asks if we have gone up the tower yet.  Pat tells her we have not and she explains that there are great views from up there and that pictures are allowed.  We find the tower entrance and walk up the many, many stairs to get to the top.  A door opens to the balcony so that we can walk around the complete circle outside with no glass between my lens and the view.  It’s fabulous.  I am suddenly ecstatic that we came.  What’s also cool is that it allows us to see the layout of the city.  We saw maps inside that show that Karl had built Karlsruhe with all the main roads radiating out from the castle at the center.  Seeing this from the tower after seeing it in drawings and a model makes it real.  I’m not sure why all the roads need to radiate from the castle, but it does look really cool.

After climbing back down to the interior of the museum, we try to work our way towards the restrooms.  However, it’s like a maze with only one path that leads out and that path takes us through every exhibit in the museum.  After winding our way through two more floors containing Egypt, a 19th century general store, and more of Turkey, we finally ask someone for the most direct route to the restroom.  She points us towards the elevator to the first floor, but we still have to go through 3 more exhibits to get to the elevator.  Finally, we make it to the first floor and find the restrooms.  We decide to forego anymore exhibits this trip and to head back outside.  Pat is hungry and he wants to have cake.  We are now on a quest to find cakes that can stand up to Pat’s childhood memories.

We walk through Karlsruhe looking for a bakery.  We pass what seems like dozens, but none of them are serving the type of cake Pat is looking for.  We end up walking through a part of town that attracts seedy looking individuals–the storefronts are mostly casinos and strip clubs.  At the end of this strip, however, sits a huge cathedral that I want to see, so we walk on.  When we get to the cathedral and walk inside, we are disappointed to discover that there is a glass wall between the entry foyer and the rest of the church.  We are unable to walk through it, but I do get one shot of the interior through the glass wall.  A man sits in a pew inside praying.  We wonder if there is a hidden entrance for parishioners.

Heading back through the seedy part of Karlsruhe, we pass a brewery and hope that maybe we can take a tour.  However, there is no sign of life in the windows and the doors that we can see look bolted shut and have no signs that imply they are ever open to the public.  At this point, feeling uncomfortable with the surroundings and starting to run out of time, I suggest we take the S-bahn back to where we started to get cake.  We hop on the next train a ride the mile or so that we’ve walked back to the pyramid in mid-town.  I get out Google maps and look up the department store Pat remembers having really good cakes.  We walk down the street and I put the iPhone away when we get close.  But we can’t find it.  I get the iPhone out again and we find the address.  When we get there, the department store is now a sporting goods store and they don’t carry cake.  Pat is crushed.

We return to looking around and finally ask some elderly ladies outside a bakery across the street.  They suggest another department store, but when we go up to their restaurant, Pat isn’t satisfied with their offerings.  We wander around until we decide we must eat.  We stop at a restaurant in the plaza by the pyramid and sit down.  We eat real food instead of cakes.  It’s 3:00 by the time we sit and we are supposed to meet Pat’s family at the hotel at 4:30.  The server is busy and it takes a long time to get food.  As we sit and watch, we notice that all of the people eating at the tables on restaurant down are having huge desserts.  After we finish eating, we ask the server if they have desserts; he tells us to go next door.  We move over about 10 tables and pick up a menu.  It’s all ice cream.  Pat asks a server if they have cakes and the server tells him to go inside.  I sit at the table while Pat goes inside to select cakes.  When he comes out, he is thrilled.  This is the place he remembered all along and they offer an enormous assortment of cakes to choose from.  When the server brings out the cakes he’s selected, we indulge in one filled with a nut cream and one filled with lemon cream.  We both like the lemon cream better, but the cakes are delicious.  It’s after 4 by the time we finish and we must pay and rush back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.