Two days before we are
to depart for Barcelona, another travelogue. Before getting to that, I can say that never
have we approached a trip with such trepidation. The Catalonian government (essentially, a
state government within Spain, of which Barcelona is the capital) has declared
there will be an independence referendum on October 1. (We are supposed to be in Barcelona Sept 28 –
Oct 3.) The Spanish government has
declared the referendum to be unconstitutional and is taking steps to prevent it,
including arresting Catalonian government officials and sending in the military. The potential for violent demonstrations is
significant. Our hotel is on Las
Ramblas, a long pedestrian mall at the center of the city--and the likely major
site for any demonstrations. We're
facing the possibility that we may fly into Barcelona and then immediately get
on a cheap airline or train to somewhere in France. (Our trip is to include a few days in
Barcelona, a few days in Avignon, and to end with six days in Paris. If we must flee, we'll go somewhere else in
France and go from there.)
Our perenigrations earlier this year included northern California and
Oregon.
We went west in late June/early July; we flew into San
Francisco, spent a little time there, then drove at a leisurely pace up the
coast, ending in Eugene, Oregon.
Although all of us who travel have groused about the lousy experience at
airports and in the planes, our recent transitions from land to air have not
been especially vexing. On this trip the
process was quick and pleasant. We were
through ticketing, baggage check, and security in about 15 minutes, and both
the airline and the TSA staff were friendly to the point of being chatty. Combined with a lovely sunny morning in the
mid-60s, we had an auspicious start. I
have to say, however, that both the speed of the check in and the demeanor of
the personnel have been notable the last several times we've flown, so I can't
complain as much as I think I should be able to.
Getting through the rigmarole so quickly means, for morning
flights, we have ample time to eat breakfast—a meal I never eat at home or ate
when I was working. Kathy teases me
about getting to the airport two hours early, but I do as the airlines tell
me—and one never knows how long the lines might be. I insist on getting to the airport four hours
in advance of international flights; Kathy protests but grudgingly goes
along. The early arrival allows me to
stop fretting, which I do for all flights until we're in sight of the departure
gate.
I was surprised that driving in San Francisco wasn't as much
of a challenge as I had expected.
Perhaps the experience of driving in Florence last fall made any driving
look easier. I had not driven in the
city the two previous times I'd been there, so it was frightening to drive up a
hill and have the sense that the car could tip over backward. Even seeing other cars surmount and disappear
over the summit of the hill was not reassuring, because my car could have a different weight distribution, so it could flip
even if others did not. (It didn't, of
course, but we held our breath.)
Our "apartment" in San Francisco was odd, a cross
between an efficiency apartment and a casita.
In addition to the bath, there were two rooms: a "living" room that was also the
bedroom and an eating area that was an extension of the galley kitchen. If it were to be used as someone's permanent
living quarters, I'd describe it as a glorified efficiency. I'd use it as a pied a terre. I would guess it had about 400 square feet,
perhaps a bit more, and in looking at the real estate prices in that area of
the city, we figured it would go on the market for $600K or more. In any case, it had a view of the Golden Gate
Bridge off to one side and the bay a few blocks away. (Later in the trip, we noticed that there was
a unit for sale in SF that had 850 square feet, 1 bedroom, for $1.075
million. Or approximately ten times what
it might cost in the Twin Cities, depending on the location.)
Everybody adores San Francisco; not us. We would not want to live there. Too expensive, too crowded, too hard to get
around, and (like any city) too noisy.
But I wouldn't want to live "downtown" in any big city; we've
already decided against considering it in Minneapolis when we sell the
house. As we sat on the roof deck of the
apartment building (3 stories), I looked at the architecture of the city on the
hills directly south of us (not downtown).
It was uninteresting. Just row
after row of newish (last 30-40 years) apartment/condo buildings, plain and
unappealing. Moreover, if you live in
the city proper, you cannot easily just go out for a post-prandial walk (unless
you like to walk up and down steep hills).
Our first full day in the city started off Kathy and Gary's
exercise regimen for the vacation. We
walked 10 miles on day 1 (including nosing around in Sausalito), seven miles on
day 2, six miles on days 3 and 4 (and then not quite so much). It's amazing how well one sleeps after that
much walking. (It's a lot for us; I know
there are plenty of people who regularly get that much exercise. We don't.)
Most of the seven-mile walk on day 2 was in the Muir Woods,
which is basically redwoods. We hiked up
800 feet on a path with many switchbacks and roots and rocks, sometimes at what
seemed like a 45-degree angle, and then back down 800 feet (a much gentler
incline). We averaged about 1 MPH on the
climb and walked in the woods for four hours.
We needed ibuprofen afterwards.
The trees are immense and walking in the Muir Woods induces quiet
comment and reflection (in us and most others we could see, although a few
carried on louder conversations as they walked—which I wanted to say is wrong
but I couldn't come up with a good reason for doing so).
* * *
I will
finish with the West Coast shortly. The
walk in the Muir Woods reminded me of commentary on Robert Frost's "The
Road Not Taken" that I had read just before we left on the trip. I perhaps last read that poem in junior high
school, so over 50 years ago. David Orr
in the Paris Review reports that a
Google analysis of search terms in 2012 demonstrates that "The Road Not
Taken" is by far the most popular poem of the 20th Century—and
is more popular in terms of searches by a factor of three than "Like a
Rolling Stone," "Great Gatsby," "Death of a Salesman,"
and "Psycho." Here's the
entire text:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I realized afterward that the commentary I read echoed a
number of pieces that have been written contending that this is one of the most
misunderstood poems in the entire body of (at least American or
English-language) poetry. The general
understanding is that the traveler chose the less-traveled path and, in the
words of one analyst, what the poem seems to be saying is, "Hey, I took a
road that most people don't take, and that has made my life better and that's
why I got all the amazing results I got in my life." But that is completely wrong, and Frost
himself criticized that interpretation.
(Frost was urged to change the poem to make it clearer what he was
saying, but he "himself was noted as finding the common misinterpretation
rather amusing and that even when he would read the poem to audiences 'doing my
best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling. . . ,' people still
commonly missed the point.")
Carefully
read, the poem says several things. (I
am helped in writing this by reading a number of websites about it.) First, the two roads were equally used ("worn
them really about the same"); it was not that one was a road "less
traveled." In addition, neither was
well-traveled ("in leaves no step had trodden black"). Second, they were about equal ("just as
fair"). Third, the narrator tells
himself a little lie (he'll keep "the first [road] for another day"
but doubts "if I should ever come back.") (It is a "he"
because the narrator was a friend of Frost's who Frost was ribbing, "a
person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other.") Fourth, and central to the misunderstanding,
the narrator admits that he will, later in life, claim that he took the road
less traveled and that "made all the difference." But the first two stanzas give that tale the
lie—and the narrator knows it. The roads
were about the same and either one might have led to a good (or not so good)
life.
In Orr's
summary, the last stanza reflects human behavior, "because this is the
kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming
that our current position is the product of our own choices. . . . The poem isn't a salute to can-do individualism;
it's a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story
of our own lives."
So what
has this got to do with Muir Woods? Not
very much, except that Kathy and I, looking at the map of the park, decided we
had two paths to choose from, which reminded me of the poem. One, the Bootjack Trail, was supposed to take
4 hours and was "moderate/strenuous."
The other, the Ben Johnson trail, was to take 3 hours and was also "moderate/strenuous." At first I figured "heck, after walking for
10 hours in San Francisco, we could do the 4-hour hike." On reflection, and with an opinion from
Kathy, we opted for the Ben Johnson trail—which, as I wrote, took us 4 hours,
not 3, and it was plenty strenuous
for us two city duffers. Two paths
diverged in a very tall wood and we were not
sorry we could not travel both. We would
have been hospitalized had we tried to do so.
* * *
Another
short aside on the woods. We learned
later that our walks in the Muir Woods and Humboldt State Park are "forest
bathing." According to NPR, there
are such things as a certified "forest therapy guide through the
Association of Nature & Forest Therapy." "The aim of forest bathing . . . is to
slow down and become immersed in the natural environment. She helped us tune in to the smells, textures,
tastes and sights of the forest."
You touch things, you smell things.
A forest therapy guide reads from works of John Muir. Forest bathing is "a Japanese practice
called Shinrin-yoku. Coined by the
Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1982, the word
literally translates to "taking in the forest atmosphere" or "forest
bathing" and refers to the process of soaking up the sights, smells and
sounds of a natural setting to promote physiological and psychological health."
The guy
who founded the aforesaid Association wants health-care providers to accept
(that is, pay for) forest bathing as a way to address stress. There is supposedly research that forest
bathing "can help boost immunity and mood and help reduce stress,"
says someone in "integrative medicine" at Duke. Apparently there has been at least some
research suggesting a walk in the woods lowers blood pressure a few
points. (Would a walk in the local park
have the same effect?) Forest air may
contain substances released by trees that, when inhaled, reduce stress hormone
levels. "Another study found
inhalation of cedar wood oils led to a small reduction in blood pressure." Neither of these suggestions has been
validated by solid empirical research.
It may be
that forest bathing has demonstrable positive effects on health. That it is being endorsed by the advocates of
integrative medicine makes me suspicious.
Here's what a website I trust has to say about "integrative
medicine":
We at
Science-Based Medicine often describe "integrative medicine" as
integrating quackery with medicine (at least, I often do), because that's what
it in essence does. The reason . . . is
to put that quackery on equal footing (or at least apparently equal footing)
with science- and evidence-based medicine, a goal that is close to being
achieved. Originally known as quackery,
the modalities now being "integrated" with medicine then became "complementary
and alternative medicine" (CAM), a term that is still often used. But that wasn't enough. The word "complementary" implies a
subordinate position, in which the CAM is not the "real" medicine, the
necessary medicine, but is just there as "icing on the cake." The term "integrative medicine"
eliminates that problem and facilitates a narrative in which integrative
medicine is the "best of both worlds" (from the perspective of CAM
practitioners and advocates).
Integrative medicine has become a brand, a marketing term, disguised as
a bogus specialty.
As the NPR
reporter notes, the idea of spending time in nature as a way to feel better is
hardly new. The website nextavenue.org
featured an article titled "Want Better Health? Go Outside" by
Elizabeth Marglin that included research from the University of Minnesota (so
it must be accurate, right?). Marglin
summarized research and interviewed researchers on the effects on humans of
being in or near green spaces. Those
spaces include parks, gardens, and streets with trees. The theory, which makes sense to me, is that
humans evolved in nature, it makes them healthy, and that urbanity and
technology have moved us away from it, with consequences for our health (the "biophilia
theory").
Citing various research articles (the quality of which is
not always discussed nor have I investigated them), she maintains there are
five reasons for going to green spaces.
(1) They reduce stress (cortisol levels dropped when time
was spent in green spaces). If you're
inside, try to get a room with a view of green (a major study from long ago
demonstrated that patients who see green need less medication than those who
see a brick wall). Fortunately, every
view out the east and west from our house is green. Unfortunately, that is only true from May to
October or so.
(2) It seems that if you live near green, you tend to get
out in it and be physically active. If
you have a garden, you must get out
and be physically active or plants will die or run amok or be overtaken by
weeds.
(3) Green spaces seem to reduce depression if you live near
them.
(4) You tend to interact more with others in green spaces,
so it can reduce a feeling of isolation.
(5) Living near green may prolong your life. A study out of Harvard and Brigham and Women's
Hospital "found that after adjusting for age, socioeconomic status and
race, the group whose homes were surrounded by high levels of greenery had a 12
percent lower mortality rate than those in the lowest-vegetation areas." (There is much room for spurious correlations
here: for example, homes surrounded by
green tend to be in upper-income neighborhoods, which means the residents
likely have better access to health care.
The base finding, however, could well be true: even if you live in a dumpy hovel, if you're
next to a park or forest, you're surely better off than living in the middle of
a concreted-over urban slum.)
For me, this whole subject of green space and forest
bathing raised four questions. (1) What
about people who live in northern climates (as I noted earlier, we can "forest
bathe" in our back yard glen or elsewhere in the area only about 5 months
of the year)? (2) How is this concept
related to having plants in my home? We
have lots of them; is that a minor way of forest bathing? My hypothesis going forward is that they are,
in my continuing debate with Kathy about the number of plants I have in the
house. I know that certain house plants
have been identified as excellent for cleansing the air, but I haven't found
anything about indoor forest bathing.
(3) There is advice available, somewhat psycho-babble-ish, in my
opinion, about imaginary forest bathing while you're sitting in your office at
a computer. But no mention of simply
having green plants. (4) To what extent
are short bursts of green (as in taking a winter trip from Minnesota to
Florida) beneficial? I've always thought
of them as both warm and green, although we haven't always achieved the "warm"
part of the equation.
In any event, our walks in the woods were pleasant, except
when we were going uphill over rocks and roots in hot weather for 2+
hours. I can go with this:
December 1884 Atlantic,
"Among the Redwoods," by E.R. Sill
Farewell to such a world! Too long I press
The crowded pavement with unwilling feet.
Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness,
And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet
The shade, the peace! Immensity, that seems
To drown the human life of doubts and dreams.
Far off the massive portals of the wood,
Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene,
Waited my coming.
* * *
Back to the West Coast:
we made our way north to Point Reyes.
We stumbled upon a rescue group releasing healed seals into the sea (the
speaker reported that they rescue and release about 1500 annually; it was a
feel-good event, watching the seals flop their way across the beach and
disappear into the waves, but one wonders how many are injured or abandoned
that they do not find). We stopped at a lighthouse, continuing our
modest walking program (half a mile and then down 308 steps to get to it, up
308 steps and a half mile back to the car).
Then we headed farther north.
Next stop was Humboldt State Park, home to more redwoods. They are just old, big plants—but they
nonetheless induce a sense of awe. The
park ranger gave me a handful of redwood pine cones, which are tiny compared to
other pine cones. Big trees, small pine
cones.
The park ranger also explained (and I had to go read about
this later to get it straight in my own mind) that there are two different
species, both native to California. The Giant
(coastal) Redwoods (sequoia sempervirens) live in the Muir Woods and in
Humboldt State Park, near the coast, get much of the moisture they need from
the damp air and fog from the coast, can live up to 2200 years, and can grow up
to 378 feet tall. The Giant Sequoias
(sequoiadendron giganteum) live near the mountains and need the dry heat of
mountains for their cones to open, live up to about or over 3000 years, are
slightly shorter than the redwoods (only about 310 feet tall), but have a
larger girth. The largest living object
in the world is the General Sherman giant sequoia, which weighs 2.7 million
pounds, is about 2200 years old, and 275 feet tall. We didn't see sequoias because we were only
on the coast.
Everyone told us, before we left, that we had to drive
(California) Highway 1. It is
extraordinarily scenic, to be sure, but it is also a pain in the ass to drive
because it is a 2-lane road that goes up and down and sharply around. I learned quickly that when the curve speed
sign recommended a speed, I should adhere to it. 15 MPH on a curve meant 15 MPH; any faster
and you felt like you were in danger of skidding into the woods or into side of
the cliff—or off the edge of the cliff on an outside curve. Often the curves are so tight you have no
idea what's 10 feet in front of you around the curve, out of sight. Had there been a bicyclist (of which there
were many) or a stopped car, I would have plowed right into it (at 15-20 MPH,
to be sure, but enough to do harm). It's
white-knuckle driving; the passengers can admire the views but the driver can
only glance away from the road for a second.
We can say we've been there, done that.
No need to do it again. (I do not
like to drive this way, I do not like this Kathy J!)
On the way to Grants Pass, Oregon, we stopped at Agate
Beach just to look around. We got there
and looked down at the beach, to which my response was, "that's a hell of
a long way down." Kathy laughed,
but of course we tromped down the path/steps to the beach. And came up with our pockets full of colored
rocks and stones (not sure we got many agates)—and wet shoes and feet when the
waves came up farther than we expected.
For some reason the climb back wasn't as strenuous as the one from the
lighthouse (or certainly not the one at Muir Woods). We think it was slightly gentler slope of the
path. In any case, we were hardly
winded.
Farther north to Grants Pass, from which we spent two hours
driving to Crater Lake (and two hours driving back; that was that day!). The lake is spectacular and the water is the
bluest I have ever seen. We could not
make the circle around the entire rim because the north and east sides remain
closed due to snow and don't open until July.
We do seem to run into snow when we travel, lately. First snow in Arizona in February, now snow—a
lot of snow—at Crater Lake. I guess the
lesson is to stay at lower elevations.
There are two uncertainties in travel: pillows and shower heads. (1) No place ever has quite the pillow you do
at home. Pillows on travel come in two
varieties: like a brick, where one's
head is at a 45-degree angle to one's chest, or like a pillow case full of
fluffy stuff that disappears when you rest your head on it: your head is on the mattress and you have two
puffballs surrounding your head. To my
surprise and delight, the place we stayed in Grants Pass had pillows like mine
at home: my head at rest is about 2"
off the surface of the mattress. Of
course, Kathy likes the puffball pillows, so these were not her favorite.
(2) It is the vertical placement of showerheads that is
always the unknown when one checks into a place. Some are placed on the shower wall for people
who are 5' tall or shorter: the water
hits below my shoulder blades. The
others, to my joy when I discover them, are for people who are well over 6'
tall, so the water hits the back of my neck.
In the case of the latter, I only need lean back to shampoo my
hair. With the former, I have to do some
kind of gymnastics to get my hair wet and then wash it. When we added on to our house in 1997, I made
certain that the shower nozzle was well above my head.
It is meet and right* that the decorative symbol on Oregon
vehicle license plates is a pine tree.
The overwhelming image of the countryside from the Muir Woods north of
San Francisco to the Douglas firs of Oregon is pine trees. Towering pine trees. In driving north on California highway 1 and
then U.S. 101, both 2-lane highways, you frequently feel as though you are
driving in a very narrow canyon with very high vertical walls on each side—but
the walls are pine trees that stand 100' or more tall. Often the sky is barely visible, a narrow
stripe of blue or clouds far above your head.
On those curving roads that go up and down and around, you are also
driving towards a wall of pine trees.
*I've
always liked that phrase. From the
Sursum Corda. "(Latin: "Lift
up your hearts" or literally, "Hearts lifted") [it] is [in] the
opening dialogue to the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer or Anaphora in the
liturgies of the Christian Church, dating back at least to the third century." It is used, among other places, in the
Anglican Book of Common Prayer as well as in Catholic services.
We have another recipient of the G&K Award for
Incredible Hosting: Shirley Clark,
professor emerita of higher education, retired Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs for the Oregon State System of Higher Education, and all-around
wonderful human being with whom to spend time.
She's one of the three women I mentioned earlier as having had such a
positive effect on my life. We spent 2½
days at Shirley's home, in Eugene, during which she showed us as much of Oregon
as it is possible to do pleasantly in about 60 hours. Even though I had not seen Shirley for over
20 years, we picked up as if we'd been interacting continuously. (Truth to tell, we had been in touch by email
and telephone off and on, so it wasn't as if we'd had no contact at all during those
two decades.)
Among our other travels in Oregon, Shirley drove us through
the campuses of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. Just by the nature of the proliferation of
Oregon vegetation, the campuses were greener than campuses in the Midwest. I have to say, however—and Shirley
concurred—the architecture of the campus buildings is more pedestrian and
functional than that of many of those at the University of Minnesota. The reason, I think, is that Minnesota has
more late-19th-Century and early-20th-Century buildings,
when the style was more ornate and was neo-classical or Richardson
Romanesque. Oregon has fewer of those
classier buildings.
One novel (for us) geologic phenomenon was the McKensie
Pass lava fields. There are many square
miles of basalt lava (which means big rectangular or angular blocks/chunks of
lava) that were deposited by volcanic activity that occurred between 1500 and
3000 years ago. The landscape is black,
bleak, and barren, and plant life has only barely begun to reclaim the land. Under a bright blue sky and sun, however, and
with snow-capped mountains in the distance in almost every direction, it was
quite pleasant.
At other sites we observed while driving to and from
McKensie Pass, the lava looked more like a jumble of large mud balls. Kathy captured the image perfectly: it looked like a field of dark earth that
Paul Bunyan had just plowed.
We were struck by the brief narratives on the plaques about
the pioneers who made their way across these lava fields with horse and wagon. A small remnant of a trail across the lava
has been preserved. We were dumbfounded
that anyone had traveled this jumble of 1' – 2' rocks, much less with a horse
and wagon. How did they flatten the
rocks enough to create a "trail"?
Me on my horse, seeing that endless field of rock, would have said "nope,
going back east."
Douglas firs have nearly perfect pine cones, about 3"
by 4". The gigantic redwoods have
tiny pine cones, about the size of the last part of my pinkie. Walking the paths of the woods in California
and Oregon allowed me to expand my international collection of pine cones. Someday when I am in my mid-80s I will figure
out something elegantly decorative to do with pine cones. About the same time that I figure out the
same for sea shells. Since I have mixed
the pine cones all together, I now have no idea which ones came from which
trees in which countries. I will have to
find an arborist with global experience to help me identify them, should I ever
wish to do so. Which I won't.
Shirley lives in the forest. To be sure, there are houses on each side of
hers as well as across the street and behind her. The quite hilly neighborhood is in a forest
of fir trees that are 5 or 6 times as tall as the house. Underneath these firs grow a profusion of
ferns, rhododendrons, and other green and flowering flora. The view out every window is green and
flowers. We told Shirley that when
decides to sell her house, we will look for a sweetheart deal to buy it. The house and setting are lovely, the city of
Eugene is attractive, and Oregon is a match for us in every way we could think
of—environmentally, meteorologically, and politically.
Delightful as the neighborhood setting is, Shirley told us
the story of the ice storm last December that brought down many trees and large
branches all around her. On seeing the
effects of fallen trees, such as mashed cars and houses, she decided in the
spring to remove two tall firs right outside her bedroom and garage. (Doing so didn't exactly open up the skies;
there remain many trees on her lot.) The
proposition that firs fall came as no surprise to us, given the number of them
we'd seen fallen in the woods before arriving in Eugene. I pointed out to Shirley, however, that she
had not eliminated the threat of severe property damage, given the number of
firs that remained close to her house.
Trees two lots away are still close to her house! She said she was well aware of the potential. OK, Oregon does have one drawback if you want
to live in an arboreous landscape.
A hindrance of those 2-lane highways through the forests
and mountains—which are often carved out of the side of a hill or perched on a
ledge—is that road repair is a trial.
With no shoulders (or tiny ones that are measured in inches, not feet),
the only way to repair or resurface the road is to close one of the lanes and
put a stoplight or a person with a flag at each end. Traffic delays are inevitable, so we often
sat in a line awaiting our turn to proceed.
We noticed a number of instances where the edge of the outer lane had
crumbled away. Rebuilding a foundation
anchored in the hillside was clearly going to take some time, so the reduction
to one lane at that site could last for months.
In other cases, there were rock slides that had closed the interior
lane; presumably those could be cleared away comparatively promptly. I can imagine that those who drive big dump
trucks with supplies and material are thrilled to do so on those narrow roads
that weave up and down and back and forth.
Not.
I was trying to figure out how many times I've been to
California. The first time was decades
ago; I visited my high school friend John Tillotson during spring break of our
(I think) freshman year of college, so a week in 1970. After that it was years before I
returned. Pat and I and the kids came
out (they joined me in San Diego when I was at a professional meeting); Krystin
tells me that she, Elliott, and I came out one time, and Elliott got to ring
the opening bell for Disneyland; Krystin and I came out on a weird trip to San
Luis Obispo to pick up items a cousin had left to me (her widower just wanted
us to pick up the boxes and get the hell out); I came with Pat to San Francisco
on a business trip of hers (and got the flu); and now with Kathy to SF and the
coast. So I guess six times. More than I have visited most states, much to
my surprise. I have only been to
Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, and Illinois (Chicago) more often. And, if I wanted to count it, Washington,
D.C. (Virginia only because Pat's family
gatherings were held several times near Virginia Beach, VA.)
There is at least one good reason to live in
California: the glorious flowers. We went into the Mendocino Coast Botanical
Gardens and spent about two hours being envious of all the flowering plants we
can't grow—or if we can, they are miniatures compared to their siblings in
California. It may seem a surprise that
I would be so effusive about the flowers, but we don't usually travel in the
summer so we don't see plants in full bloom.
Flowers in Florida and Arizona and Georgia in the winter are just not
that impressive, even if they are blossoming when Minnesota has snow and
ice. But the summer blossoms—oh my, but
that we could have them in our yard.
All told,
it was an enjoyable West Coast adventure.
I don't know that I need to return to California. Oregon, maybe.
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