Zion

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In March of 2002 Kate and I were in Zion National Park for a couple of nights. We had earlier been to Death Valley and then at a conference in Las Vegas -- where we flew from. It was nice to catch a bit of sun and blue sky in the American Southwest and escape our dreary winter.

We had visited briefly the year before in 2001 when we did a grand tour of National Parks around the Grand Canyon and were so impressed we wanted to come back and explore more.

Zion is a deep narrow canyon about 3 hours to the north east of Las Vegas in Utah. As it's off season we were able to book a cabin in the park and drive our car in. In the busy seasons it's hard to get a room in the park and cars aren't allowed -- you're shuttled around by bus.

The cabin was very nice -- built of stone and logs with a fireplace to enjoy. There's not much going on after sunset which comes pretty early as you're in a canyon. We played scrabble one night and enjoyed ourselves. As this was a very short stay -- drive up from Las Vegas, overnight in our park, a full day in the park, overnight in the park and then back to Las Vegas for our flight home -- we made the most of our one full day in the park.

We arose early to make the most of the day. We had planned on doing some hikes up the rock face for views of the valley. But there had been a snow fall overnight and the trails were slippery. So, instead we went to the visitors center, near the entrance to the park, and hiked around there. As the sun came up and shone into the valley the snow started to melt and trails became more tractable.

Nearby is a trail to a high viewpoint at a place called the Angel's Landing. If you can imagine the looping path that a river makes as it meanders to form this canyon think of a very narrow loop that forms what looks like a very narrow tear drop. It's sometimes described as a vertical fin -- it's just that narrow. That's Angel's Landing.  What makes it especially interesting is the site you hike to is very narrow and very high up. It's a vertical drop of 1,488' from the top down to the valley floor. The steep path up is carved out of the side of the canyon wall and loops back and forth. Walter's Wiggles is a narrow switchback built of rock and stone on the trail -- very similar to some of the trails in Grand Canyon

However, we really weren't prepared for Angel's Landing.

Near the top (actually far from the trail end), at the narrow part of the tear drop, the trail takes one out over a narrow tilted area where there's a chain that you can hang onto! Kate is bravely leading the way and I'm scared shitless holding onto this chain and crawling along on my hands and knees. It seems to me that if one were to slip you'd soon be sliding over the edge and falling 1,000' or so to your certain death. A fast way down but not my idea of fun. I suggest that maybe we should turn around and not go to the end of the trail. Fortunately Kate agrees with me (takes pity on me) and we turn around.

As we are shimmying off this narrow (perhaps 40-50' wide) tilted rock area we encounter some young people who are on their return trip. They've been to the very end and on their way back. They're young, perhaps in their 20's, and walking along (recall we're crawling and holding onto the chain for dear life) smoking cigarettes, hands in their pockets and chatting away as if they were walking down main street in their home town. They were sympathetic to our plight and waited patiently as we crawled back to the relative safety of wider ground. The picture above shows Kate in the relative safety of "wider ground". I had a terrifying sense of vertigo that I could not manage just knowing that over the edge it's a straight drop ... down, ... down, ... down, ... and splat!

If you ever read about the trail we didn't make it as far as the "Scout Lookout" which is known as the turn around spot for the faint of heart. It's just that scary.

I have since discovered that the path, after we had abandoned it, gets incredibly narrow. Barely wide enough for people to pass one another! How can they have such places and even build trails to them? I've recently discovered on line:

• Dave Nally, author of Deaths and Rescues in Zion National Park, states “Angels Landing is the deadliest spot in Zion. There have been at least 15 deaths there during the last century.” (2019)
• In response to concerns about crowding and congestion on the trail, on and after April 1, 2022, everyone who hikes Angels Landing needs to have a permit. 

In later years we did return to Zion and were able to walk a rock face on the far side of the valley. But on this trip, we weren't brave (or foolish) enough to venture further. At this stage, I don't think I ever will.

In closing, there are a lot of trails worth exploring in Zion. Many are easy trails, some are frightening. For more information on Angel's Landing see Joe's Guide to Zion where there are some stunning photos of how narrow it can get.

Death Valley

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In March of 2002 Kate and I had a bit of a winter break in the American Southwest. We flew into Las Vegas (it's always easy to get there) where we rented a car and spent several days in Death Valley (to the west over the California border), then some more of our vacation time in Zion (to the north east in Utah). Both are National Parks, scenic spots and much more interesting than Las Vegas itself. This blog note covers the Death Valley portion of our adventures.

We have some advice for travelling to Death Valley. First book your accommodation -- either Stove Pipe Wells, the Furnace Creek Inn or the Furnace Creek Ranch -- then your flight. You can always get there, you can't always get a room. And you really want a room in the valley so you can experience sunrise and sunset. 

We've been to Death Valley before and this time decided on a novel entry even though it was late in the day. The Titus Canyon road is a one way gravel road that leads off the main road near Rhyolite and crosses the Grapevine Range to follow the Titus Canyon down into the valley. Along the way there's the Leadfield ghost town (August 1926 to February 1927 -- how's that for brief!) but not much else. The road is very narrow and very rough in spots. It's barely maintained and definitely a dodgy route at best. The canyon itself can be worn by flash floods -- there's a big alluvial fan where it comes out into the valley. Later during our visit we were talking to a park ranger who told us that we shouldn't have taken a rental car on that route, the car rental would have explicitly forbidden it, and if we had any trouble we would have been entirely liable for all damages. I'm writing this in 2021, some 19 years later, so I guess the statute of limitations applies. We visited again, some years later, and that time rented a 4-wheel drive to explore some of the more off-road locations.

We stayed at Stove Pipe Wells near the sand dunes and the Emigrant Pass out to the west from the valley. We like it here, it's much cheaper than the ritzy accommodation at the Furnace Creek Inn and the Furnace Creek Ranch which are more central to the valley. The rooms are fine, the restaurant is good enough. There's not many alternatives in the valley. They even have a salt water pool to swim in and Kate likes that. I like exploring the nearby sand dunes. In the album there's lots of pictures at sunrise and sunset of the dunes.

First thing next morning we're up early and down the road for sunrise at Zabriskie Point. There's Manly Beacon in front of you, the badlands of the wash, the valley and salt flats in the distance and the Panamint Range with Telescope Peak in the far distance. The sun rises behind you and you get to enjoy the changing view as the sunrise exposes the badlands in front of you. We've been here for sunrise many times and will always come back for more.

You can hike from Zabriskie point down into the valley through an area called the Golden Canyon. On another day we hiked up the Golden Canyon from the valley to the foot of the Manly Beacon and the Red Cathedral. At this time of year it's a pleasant hike. In the summer time it's to be avoided or taken with care -- people have gotten lost, taken a wrong turn, run out of water and died.

From Zabriskie we continue east and upwards out of the valley on the Furnace Creek Rd (No. 190) and take the side trail/road (the Furnace Creek Wash Road) for about 15 miles up to Dante's View, a high point on the east side of the valley.  Along the way, near the main road, there's a bit of an active mining town called Ryan on Amargosa Range on the east side of this valley. Dante's View is a scenic viewing area at 5,476' on the  crest of the Black Mountains (the easterly range), overlooking Death Valley with Badwater directly below. There's great views of the extensive salt flats below, the alluvial fans on the Panamint Range in the distance. Up the valley to the north you can just make out the oasis at the Furnace Creek Ranch (there's even a golf course at the ranch!) and the single paved road along the valley floor. Stove Pipe Wells is in the far distance to the north but not visible. At the end of the day it can be quite cool at this elevation and it's often quite windy. So you need to dress accordingly.

From this viewpoint you get the impression that the salt flats are fed by water coming from the north end of the valley (but I understand the major water flow is coming in from the south end).

There is some surface water at the Saltwater Marsh north of Furnace Creek (which always has water deep under ground) before Stove Pipe Wells. We saw a coyote when we visited the marsh -- you wonder what they live on. There's a tiny fish that lives in the salt water of the valley but it's so tiny as to be hardly visible. Stove Pipe Wells, as they name implies, relies on deep wells for water. There is some surface water at the Furnace Creek Ranch and a lot underground that they must pump to keep those golf greens going. And of course, there's surface water at Badwater but you wouldn't want to drink that! 

Badwater is the lowest point in North America some 280' below sea level (with Dante's View directly above). At Badwater you can walk out onto the extensive salt flats. It's pretty smooth and level here. Nearby there's an area on the salt flats called "The Devil's Golf Course" where it's awfully rough and irregular. North of Badwater there's the Natural Bridge Trail where water has punched a hole through the rock to make a natural bridge. 

We had dinner one night at the luxurious Furnace Creek Inn -- we can't afford to stay there but it's a  lovely spot to watch the sun set to the west and enjoy a nice meal.

We've been to Death Valley more than a few times. Each time has been an adventure. We're usually visiting sites we've been to before but we never tire of them: the sand dunes near Stove Pipe Wells and Zabriskie Point are my favorites.

Nashville & Atlanta

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Kate had a meeting in Atlanta Georgia. Rather than fly down we made it a bit of a driving adventure stopping in Nashville for the Bluebird Cafe on the way down and again on the way back. We visited Chattanooga (for the choo-choo on track 29) and the nearby Lookout Mountain (with Big Rock Candy Mountain ringing in our ears).

The image at left is the statue of Athena in the life size Parthenon (1897) replica in Centennial Park Nashville. Why bother going to Athens, Greece? The real Parthenon (438BC) is mostly a pile of rubble (1687) and the Elgin Marbles aren't even there anymore — they're in London, England! In Atlanta we stayed near the Olympic Square. Visited the Coca-Cola museum and the Martin Luther King memorial. Why is every street in Atlanta a variant of "Peach Street"?

On the way back we stayed at an Antebellum Colonial home (with the nearby slave cabins) in the mountains and got to see David Rawlings and Gillian Welch perform a dynamite set of rock-a-billy in a small Nashville club well off the beaten path.

This note and photo album require more work ... lots more work.

Ps. this note and the accompanying photo album were prepared during the COVID-19 lockdown of February 2021. The photos are from scanned slides taken at the time.

Stockholm

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In July of 2001 we made our first trip to Stockholm Sweden. Kate was invited to present at a conference, I tagged along to carry her bags and our friend Cindy travelled with us.

This is a place holder. The album and this note need a lot more work.

Grand Canyon

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In March I had a conference on Long Beach (that's a little south of Los Angeles). We made a bit of holiday out of it. We flew in and out of Las Vegas and did a grand tour of some of the national parks -- Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion.

This is a placeholder. The album and this note need a lot more work.

20th Anniversary

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We celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary with a luncheon dinner party July 27, 2000 at the Westover Inn here in St Marys. We were married August 2, 1980 in London at the University of Western Ontario where Kate and I were in graduate school. These days I'm working at the University of Waterloo while Kate continues with CAMH (and it's evolution from ARF).

This party was sponsored by Kate's parents — Jack and Doreta. Kate says Doreta was always a bit disappointed that our wedding dinner wasn't more "formal". On our wedding day we had a buffet dinner catered by Food Services and served in Sommerville House at Western where we were married. This today was quite different — an elegant service with gourmet food, white table cloths, stemware, fine china and more. We had planned on having about 50 guests but it turned out there was about 60 of us who came and we had to take over two separate dining rooms at the inn.

We had all of our bridal party in attendance except for Monica (Gord's first wife was an attendant for the bride and we've lost track of her). Alison Preston was the maid of honor with Joan Watson as the other attendant. Mike Schwan was my best man with Gord (Kate's brother) and Ken Edmonstone (my nephew) as groom's men.

I don't recall any speeches that day but I do recall that both my dad Maurice and Kate's dad Jack took an opportunity to say a few words. Jack told a long and winding shaggy dog story, we wondered where in the heck he was going, which ended in a punch line about a "cat scan and lab report".

The day had started with cocktails and a visit outdoors on the patio deck at the inn, followed by the luncheon indoors, and ended with more drinks and tom foolery at our home and on our deck. The day started sunny but by the late afternoon a gentle rain had started that made for some summer tobogganing on the slope in our back yard. Leo, Paul (my younger brother) and I would take turns pulling a plastic sheet with a rider on it down the hill. We had done this before when the kids were visiting so it wasn't that weird. There's a picture in the album of Leo and me pulling Cindy on a ride down the hill. I worried that we might trip on the way down but, although we were winded, there were no casualties that day. Sam's husband Al took it as an opportunity to do a sliding dive into some wet grass — still crazy after all these years.

One of the interesting and traditional things we did for our party was to serve some of our original wedding cake. We had been keeping it wrapped up in our freezer all these many years. The other was to give everyone a C90 cassette mixtape of "Hits at our House" — that tape is now in my iTunes library as well as available on my YouTube channel. There are many tunes there that still mean a lot to us. Here's that playlist with the original commentary:

1. Marilyn & Joe (Kinky Friedman). Our trailer park love song.
2. Weekend Punks (63 Monroe). We were weekend punks ... for a while.
3. Passing Through (Leonard Cohen). I'll always remember that bus ride!!
4. London Calling (The Clash). A favorite punk band.
5. Night Rider's Lament (Jerry Jeff Walker). Life's about choices — marrying you was one of the good ones.
6. General Strike (DOA). Our favorite suburban punkers (we like their politics as well as their music).
7. One More Spring (Garrison Keillor). A good excuse to go to Mpls (we did too — to see the PHC show).
8. Sonny (Jean Redpath). Another song we both love and another definition of Canada
9. Reason for It All (Eric Bogle). We saw Eric at the Horseshow Tavern and will again on our anniversary.
10. Rodeo Wind (Chris Wall). Cowboy music should be defined by songs like this.
11. The Crawl (Spirit of the West). Been there, done that.
12. Passionate Kisses (Lucinda Williams). Pat introduced this to us by making Reg wear headphones to listen intently.
13. Fairytale of New York City (The Pogues). It's just so much fun to sing "you scumbag, you maggot!"
14. Memories of East Texas (Michelle Shocked). I think of Kate as a girl who has seen the ocean.
15. Gulf Coast Highway (Nanci Griffith). Just a great love/life song (and another artist Pat introduced us to).
16. Road to Bayamon (Tom Russell). Life is a circus on the Road to Bayamon (Reg wanted "Homestead Steel").
17. Crossing the Causeway (Grievous Angels). Our dessert island band — about 10 years running.
18. 45 Years from Now (Stan Rogers). Make the most of the moment.
19. Corpus Christi Bay (Robert Earl Keen). We've had great times in altered states and the state of Texas.
20. Pico de Gallo (Emily Kaitz). We were in the audience when they recorded this one!
21. What I Like About Texas (Gary P. Nunn). People wonder why anyone would like Texas — here's a few reasons.
22. Dublin Blues (Guy Clark). We've seen the Spanish Steps and the David (and I loved you from the get-go).
23. Rivers of Babylon (Steve Earle). Psalm 137 — religion makes for some good music.
24. In Spite of Ourselves (John Prine/Iris Dement). She's my baby, I'm her honey.

These photos, probably none that I took, some that Kate took and many by friends and family who shared with us, were in a small photo album which, at Kate's urging, I scanned during the summer of 2023 (some 23 years after the fact). When I look at these photos there are many fond memories of the event, the people and that time. Some of friends we still hang around with, some of friends and family who have passed away, and some of friends who have simply drifted away.

In My Life —

There are places I remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life I love you more

Though I remember I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life I’ll love you more

— Lennon & McCartney 

This note, these photos and the YouTube playlist were created during the summer of 2023.

Madrid

 

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After Kate's ISRA conference in Valencia, July 9-14, we took a train to Madrid where we stayed for a couple of nights before winging our way home. We visited a couple of important museums, there's not too many photos from either, and spent an evening wandering the streets and snacking in tapas bars.

That first evening we wandered the streets through Plaza Mayor and over to the Royal Palace of Madrid and the nearby gardens. It was a pleasantly warm evening, much cooler than the day, which had brought people out. I can understand dining late in a country where it's so warm.

The next day we went to the Prado Museum (the Spanish National Art Museum) and were pleasantly surprised there was an exhibit of "The Garden of Delights" by by the Dutch painter Heronimus Bosch. It's actually been part of the permanent collection since 1939. There's some debate about when this religious triptych (an altar panel of three pieces) was painted but there is agreement that it's sometime around the year 1500. For me it was instantly recognizable from posters we used to have in our drug addled university years — the right hand panel entitled "Hell" is most impressive and a popular poster. That's some detail from the panel above. I had no idea that the work was 500 years old!!

There's lots of works to explore at the Prado. I found The Miraculous Lactation of Saint Bernard (Alonso Cano, c. 1650, oil on panel) particularly and weirdly interesting. I've since read:

Exact details of the vision(s) known as the "Lactation of St. Bernard" are unclear. One account indicates a statue of the Virgin Mary came to life while Bernard was praying. The animated statue of Mary sprayed milk from her breast onto the parched lips of Bernard, forever proving her status as the Virgin Mother of God.

Very near the train station is the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Within is the huge (approximately 12'x25') grey, black and white Guernica by Pablo Picasso. The painting is in response to, and vividly documents, the 1937 bombing of Guernica by fascists from Germany and Italy in support of the dictator Franciso Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) which brought General Franco to power as dictator of Spain. Picasso refused to have the painting shown in Spain so long as Franco was in power and the painting was kept in trust by the MoMA in New York City. Picasso died in 1973, Franco in 1975 and Spain became a constitutional monarchy in 1978. MoMA ceded the piece to Spain in 1981. It was on exhibit at the Prado (as per Picasso's will)  but moved here to the Reina Sofia to a purpose built gallery in 1992. It's an impressive piece both historically and artistically. 

I recall the weather being incredibly hot and we were in a crappy little flat, not too far from the train station, where the air did not move. There were some night clubs in the area and I recall being wakened one late night as someone tried to fit their car into a space which was far too tight. They'd squeeze back until they bumped the car behind, then inch forward to bump the car in front, then repeat as both of these cars are honking away having set off some bump detector.

Ah, and there was a MacDonald's across the street. Kate found it was one of the few places where she could get a proper garden salad!

— Slides scanned during the pandemic, these notes composed 2023/01/08.