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  • Day 3: The North Shore, Hanalei Bay, Turtles at Sunset

    Day 3: The North Shore, Hanalei Bay, Turtles at Sunset

    I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

    Mine started the way most travel days do: a date with the blog. I started again about 4am downstairs but wasn’t quite done when Ash came down at 5:30am. He got me a latte from the coffee shop right when it opened, and then we went over for breakfast at 6am.

    We took our time and enjoyed the sunrise. Vasco didn’t come down until after 7:30am. We set out for our day 9am.

    This was first of several photo stops we did throughout the day, and soon after we left.

    We made this stop about 30 minutes later, full on the north side near Princeville. It was a good stop – lots of people thought so! Vasco is taking both an Art and Camera class at school (he’s very good at drawing) and the school let him bring the nice camera on the trip.

    So he’s taking lots of photos on this trip, and sometimes people get in the way. This was true on this stop with this one family who stood in front of the car forever and couldn’t stop posing. But, we weren’t in a hurry and the view was stunning, so we were happy to wait to get this shot (along with others with just him using his cameras!).

    We got to Hanalei Bay, our destination, just after 10am. It was a beautiful spot, perfect weather, and we stayed for over an hour. Vasco took photos and laid in the sun, Ash and I went for a long walk along the beach.

    I couldn’t decide which of these to include so you’re getting both. I love being able to see mountains from a beach, and the green here is so beautiful.

    We left the bay sometime after 11am. We were headed to the end of the road at the beginning of the Napoli coast but made one other stop along the way.

    We made it to the end of the road and had planned on doing a hike at a trailhead there. Alas, a reservation was needed to park and we didn’t have one, so we turned around and made our way back to the hotel. I took this from the car looking back. It’s the closest we will get to the Napoli coast on this trip, and this is the back side.

    We made it back to the hotel by about 1pm, plenty of time to take advantage of the special holiday brunch they were running from 11am – 3pm. After we ate, Vasco went to the beach and Ash and I went to lay down for a bit. By 3pm, Ash was still asleep, so I went out myself for a little sun and beach walking. Also sat in the hot tub for a while which was a nice treat.

    We headed out about 4:45pm again, headed to Poipo Beach over 30 minutes away, so watch the sunset and see if the turtles we heard about were there.

    Vasco had walked ahead of us as we got the car parked and by the time we made it to the beach he was already taking photos. He was standing here when we were walking up but then moved away as we approached. I had him go back so I could get this shot. I think he was pleased with it.

    We made it back to the hotel about 7pm. We were tired of the hotel restaurant but didn’t feel like going out either. When we couldn’t get into the restaurant anyway, they sent us to the other restaurant on the property, Crooked Surf, by the pool. This was perfect. Salads, burgers, etc. That’s the pool to the left and Ash and Vasco to the right.

    As we were revisiting our day and sharing photos, Vasco passed on this one which he’d snuck while we were at Poipo.

    And that was our Christmas Day, and a lovely day it was. We hope you had a great holiday yourself.!

    It’s 5:41am as I type on Thursday morning, and we head to the airport in a few hours for a 10:30am flight to Maui. See you on the other side.

  • Day 2: Waimea Canyon, sun and food!

    Day 2: Waimea Canyon, sun and food!

    Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Yesterday was our first full day in Hawaii and we got right to it. I was up first, as always, but came downstairs to work on the blog so I wouldn’t wake Ash or Vasco. I sat here in this corner of their coffee shop, patiently waiting for it to be open at 5:30am. It was about 4am when I got here.

    But by 5:30 Ash had joined me just as I got the blog up so his timing was great.

    At 6am the full breakfast buffet was open, so we moved to that area next door. It was pretty standard fare, nothing to write home about! We did catch a great sunrise though. Like other tropical places we’ve been, everything here is very open – lot a lot of doors or walls even, you just walk outside.

    Vasco came down about 7am and joined us. We had laid out a plan for how to spend our time the evening before: Tuesday would be the south shore and up to Waimea Canyon. This image gives you an idea of where we were on the island. Our hotel is above Lihue on the right. We headed west to Waimea and then up into the interior.

    We made it to our first lookout about 9:30am.

    Really stunning views. We stayed here a bit and just enjoyed the scenery. This was the only thing we were doing today so weren’t in a hurry at all.

    After the stop, we made our way to the Waimea Canyon Trail for a hike. It was about 2.5 miles round trip.  The hiking was moderate, some of it quite steep, and a lot of up and down, which is preferable to me than all down then all up or vice versa.

    Most of it was quite woodsy, as captured by the photo above on the left. And on the right, a wild chicken. We’d seem so many of them we did some reading up on them: depending on the source you come across, it’s estimated there are 4x as many chickens on Kauai as there are people, and most of them run wild. The already large population exploded in the 90s when a hurricane destroyed some chicken coops. Seriously.

    There was another couple here who we’d talked with a bit on the way up and we took each other’s photos.

    We stopped for some wave watching on the way back to town.

    We stopped for lunch in the town of Waimea a little after noon at Island Taco. I’d been joking for weeks that we were having tacos for Christmas so this seemed fitting. Although we all got burritos! Ash and I got ahi, Vasco got pork. All very good.

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    On our way back we stopped at the Kauai Coffee Company. The hotel’s activities person had told us about it the day before – the largest coffee plantation in the world – and I was interested. But the tours were $50 a person. Crazy. We weren’t THAT interested. But we learned a few things:

    • Yes, largest in the world – 3100 acres,
    • 4 million trees
    • Produced over 50% of Hawaii’s annual crop

    For the next couple of hours after we got back we just hung out around the beach of the hotel. Vasco got his highly desired tanning time. It occurred to me I can’t remember the last time we just chilled for a bit while on vacation.

    Ash and Vasco dressed for dinner. We took this in the hotel lobby before we headed out about 6:15pm. We went to a restaurant down the street at a resort called Oasis on the Beach.

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    This was a holiday special fixed price menu, at what I thought was a ridiculous price. So, we were hoping it was going to be really special, but it didn’t live up to its price tag.

    The only dish I’ll talk about is the deconstructed beef wellington that Vasco and I got. That was really tasty, and a surprising amount of food. We both enjoyed it, and it somewhat made up for the mincemeat pie we each had as or appetizer which was underwhelming.

    And that was our Merry Christmas Eve. I worked on the blog a little after dinner, but everyone was in bed by 10pm.

    Today we are doing the north shore, which I understand is a completely different terrain, so come back tomorrow to see what that’s about.

    We are incredibly blessed to live such a rich life and to be able to share it all with you. We wish all of the you the best of the holidays and hope you’re safe and happy whatever you are doing.

  • 2024 Hawaii: Arrival and a Luau

    2024 Hawaii: Arrival and a Luau

    Many of you know that our big news this year is we are hosting a foreign exchange student. His name is Vasco Corte-Real from Lisbon, Portugal. If you read any of our Ashland blog from a few months ago, you met him there. Since we knew he would have 2 weeks off at Christmas, we had loosely been planning to go to Puerta Vallarta at this time, but the program really doesn’t want you to take the kids out of the country. So early on we said to him: the US is a big place, is there anywhere in particular you’d like to go? He says “Hawaii?” like maybe that was too much. We just looked at each other and said “Yeah, we can do that!”

    Ash hasn’t been since 2002, and I haven’t been since 1993. He was on the big island for 2 weeks, and I was in Honolulu for work for a month so worked in what I could on the weekends. We are excited to be back.

    We had a 5:30am flight Monday, 12/23, out of Sacramento to LAX.

    Our layover was 3 hours which we spent in an Admiral’s Club and got a little breakfast.

    The flight to Lihue, on Kauai, took about 6 hours. It was uneventful as you want a flight to be!

    We are staying at the Sheraton Kauai Coconut Beach Resort. The photo includes the pool area with the Pacific in the background.

    Kauai is the most northern of the 5 or so main Hawaiian Islands when we think of Hawaii, although there are 137 total.

    This is our room. It’s small but free! Ash was able to book it on points. Retail rate for 3 people: $1499 per night. Crazy. It will be a little crowded but the price was certainly right given the alternatives.

    It does have a cute little balcony, and you can sort of see the ocean from it.

    We got settled in the room again then explored the property a bit. We went to the beach and Vasco and I checked on the water temperature which was cool but not cold like at home.

    Our rental for this portion of our trip is a Ford Mustang convertible. Because why not? They gave Ash a deal he couldn’t resist, and we were glad he didn’t.

    We got going pretty early for our first thing – a Luau – because we’d noticed traffic was pretty bad. And it got worse as we went on and what should have been a 15-minute drive was 45 minutes. Good thing we weren’t in a hurry.

    On our way, we stopped at a corner stand a got Vasco fresh coconut water.

    Our destination was Luau Kalamako, about 9 miles down the coast and inland for a couple of them. It was on a sugar plantation. There was a train ride that would take you on a 2.5 mile ride through it but we passed on that. There were also gift shops and other typical tourist stuff which we also passed on.

    I did manage to get to a luau in 1993 so knew what to expect, and this wasn’t all that much different. There was a cast of dancer and emcees who told a story about how the islands were inhabited through the eyes of one family, with lots of traditional Hawaiian dancing of course. The food was a buffet, with roasted pig as the big event.

    And of course, fire dancers!

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    It was an enjoyable evening, but we were all so tired we went back to the room and straight to bed.

    As I type this it’s Christmas Eve morning. We have 2 more nights at this resort in Kauai, and then Maui for 2 nights and finishing with 3 nights at Waikiki. We don’t have a ton planned outside of a couple of more dinner reservations and are looking forward to making it up as we go.

  • Day 2: Two shows at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and cheese!

    Day 2: Two shows at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and cheese!

    We both got up about 5:30am, the first in the household. Not a surprise. I got the blog up and then dealt with some technical issues, still unresolved. (If you’re a subscriber who got here via Facebook and wondered where your email was – I’m aware and working on it!)

    Once that was done, we went out to walk the dog a bit and get some coffee. We went to our default place when we’re here, Noble Coffee Roasting. It’s a pretty dog friendly place and there were lots of dogs on the way in and out for Zeus to say “hi” to.

    This is the front of the house during the daytime.

    We got back to the house and started on breakfast for the gang. We noticed when we got here yesterday that there wasn’t a coffee maker. The host lives in another house behind this one on the same lot and said hers broke so she took this one and would get us another. This morning, she left the machine itself on the back steps, but there was no carafe. Not sure what we were supposed to do with that! So, on the left, we went for what Ash called “cowboy coffee” which was in a pan on the stove and then scooping it out.

    Once I was done with the bacon, Ash used the grease to make hash browns from scratch with some eggs on top. It was all gone along with the 2 pounds of bacon we fried by the time everyone was up and got their fill.

    After breakfast, Ash, Erick, and I went to the little town of Central Point, about 25 minutes north of here just past Medford on I-5. And apparently established in 1889 according to the banner on the streetlight.

    The point of this excursion was Rogue Creamery, an award-winning cheese place that’s been making cheese here in this location since 1933. According to Wiki, “Rogue may be the first American creamery to command worldwide respect.” The guy behind the counter was very helpful. We were giving him a hard time about the “world’s best cheese” sign for their Rogue River Blue. “That’s quite a statement,” we said. But sure enough: in 2019 it became the first Amercian cheesery to be named World Champion at the World Cheese Awards in Bergamo, Italy. Not bad for a little hole in the wall like this, huh?

    We tasted three of them and, yeah, they were pretty good. The original owner brought mold, cultures and recipes for his blue cheese from Roquefort, France.

    We had him vacuum seal some choices for us that we want to keep until Thanksgiving, and he said they will be fine that way.

    There was a bakery next door, and we stopped to pick up some dessert items for the evening.

    At 1:30pm we had our first show, Coriolanus. It was at the Thomas Theatre, the smallest of the 3, seating about 200 people. It was packed. The show was – OK. We all agreed the 2nd act was better than the first, the primary problem being the first act was too long at an hour and 20 minutes. The story was set in early Roman times and had political themes that seemed oddly current. There were a lot of characters, most of them men, being played by an all-female cast with most of them taking on multiple roles. So, at times for me confusing. But tremendous performances, nonetheless. It’s one of those shows where, even if I’m not wild about the story, I deeply appreciate the work that went into telling it.

    We came back to the house and relaxed a bit before dinner. Ash had several appetizers before the main dish which was, we joked, a tub of pasta. The kitchen here is a bit lacking so we’ve learned to make do! And the dish was great.

    Our evening show was at 8pm at the Elizabethan theater, my favorite of the three. It is built intentionally to somewhat mimic the famous Globe Theater in London, where Shakespeare works were put on for Queen Elizabeth and is still in operation. They each seat just under 1200.

    The show was Much Ado about Nothing and was super enjoyable. A romantic comedy, it was a nice shift from the sort of war story we had in this afternoon, and the performances were great. While not a musical, there were nice moments of music and singing – quite well done – which I didn’t expect and really enjoyed. It was a nice way to spend the evening.

    The desserts we picked up that morning: one serving each of passion fruit cheesecake, carrot cake, German chocolate cake, Boston cream pie, and a chocolate-on-chocolate cupcake. All delicious.

    And of course, we sang “Happy Birthday” for Ash.

    Today is light in comparison with just one matinee show at 1:30pm and probably a visit to Jacksonville up the road. We’ll see tomorrow how it all turns out.

  • 2024 Ashland: Day 1 – Getting here and our first show

    2024 Ashland: Day 1 – Getting here and our first show

    This is actually my 4th time to Ashland (and Ash’s 12th we think) but the first time I’ll be blogging about it when we are here to see shows put on by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). My first time here was in February 2021, when we were still deep in the pandemic (vaccines weren’t even really out yet) and Ash and I had done our first road trip, 4 months into our relationship. Hard to believe if you’ve been following, right? At any rate, obviously we didn’t see any shows then. We returned in both 2022 and 2023, and each time half the shows we were supposed to see were cancelled due to COVID. So, Ashland and COVID are very tied together for me. No sign of any of that this year so I decided I’d actually blog this one.

    The last 2 trips we had friends join us, and this year is no exception, although it’s the most we’ve had so far. We rented the same house as last year with 3 bedrooms, but we’ve got 2 more people with us for a total of six. You’ll meet them all at some point over the weekend, I’m sure.

    It’s about a 5-hour drive from Sacramento to Ashland, which is just over the Oregon border. We stopped in Redding for lunch. I hadn’t quite decided whether or not I was going to blog so didn’t think to get pictures. But it’s Redding – not too much to see!

    I found these photos on my phone from 2023 – the only ones I still have from any of the prior trips. We only saw two shows, one of them being a sort of modernized version of The Three Musketeers which was a lot of fun. It was at the Elizabethan Theater, my favorite of the three. It’s outdoor, and the largest, seating almost 1200 people.

    I first heard about OSF around 2003, and the name conjured up images of people walking around in costumes eating turkey legs. Others have gotten that image, too; I can tell by their reaction when I say what we’re doing. No, this isn’t like a Renaissance Faire. Think film festival rather than carnival, only with live shows. And while it started as exclusively Shakespeare in 1935, it hasn’t been that way since the early 1950s. In addition to being sort of an all-year event, OSF also refers to the repertory theater which produces the shows.

    Our big news since our last trip, is we began hosting a foreign exchange student through AFS-USA. Meet Vasco, from Lisbon, Portugal, who joined our household on August 7. He will live with us while doing his senior year at McClatchy High School. He’s a great guy and we are thrilled to have him. This is our first trip together and there will be a couple more. While we did take him out of school just for one day for this trip, we are definitely committed to limiting that while making sure he gets to experience as much as he can while he’s here. Left and right were from his first day of school (we had to!), a few days later than his classmates because of some bureaucratic mishaps. But it all got worked out and he’s enjoying his classes.

    Vasco gets sleepy riding in a car for a long time, but he stayed awake for the first part of the trip. He crashed after lunch. Zeus was right there with him as we were pulling into Ashland around 3:15pm.

    We had two cars to unload. Ash, Vasco, and I got there first, so I was able to get some photos of the house before we emptied the cars.

    1. Kitchen
    2. Lindsay’s room off the kitchen
    3. “The boys room” off the small hallway
    4. Dining room
    5. Living room
    6. Master upstairs for me and Ash

    The host was kind enough to leave us some OSF programs. We are seeing 4 of the 8 shows: Macbeth, Born with Teeth, Coriolanus, and Much Ado about Nothing.

    We got settled, Ash fixed a simple dinner of salad, Impossible chicken nuggets, green beans, and mac & cheese, and we made our way out to the theater around 7:30pm. One of the reasons we wanted to return to this house is location: we’re like 3 blocks from the theater complex in “downtown” Ashland.

    There 3 theaters that serve OSF. Last night, we were in the Angus Bowmer Theater, which seats around 600. There was a gathering around a live band playing outside of the theater as we walked up, which was also about the time they stopped playing. Oh well!

    The show tonight was Born with Teeth. It was a 2-man play, one playing William Shakespeare, the other Christopher Marlowe. It was 90 minutes with no intermission. It was a beautifully and cleverly written piece of fiction based on a fair amount of truth which made it pretty believable. Both the guys were great, and it was both laugh-out-loud funny at times and poignant and teary at others. I’m sold on anything that makes me both laugh and cry. Everyone enjoyed it. Given my limited experience here at OSF – just 2 shows each of the last 2 trips – I’d say this was the best thing I’ve seen yet.

    We have a little tradition of ice cream after the show so of course we continued that. Zoey’s is just a couple of blocks up Main Street from the theater, and the house is literally around the corner from it. Here’s the gang as we were getting ready to leave: Lindsay, Erick, Michael, Ash, Vasco.

    We were home about 10pm and I got started on this. I’m continuing to play with new blogging tools so interested in any feedback or requests you have for formatting, etc. The carousel thing I tried in the NYC/DC blog didn’t work very well, and this time I figured out how to load multiple photos in one place so you can scroll through and spend whatever time you want (or not!) on each. Thanks to avid readers for that little suggestion (and you know who you are!).

    It felt weird to not have a photo of the outside of the house but I’d completely forgotten about it while there was sun so this will have to do. It’s cute at night, too.

    We have two shows today, at 1:30pm and 8pm, and that’s about all we have planned. Oh, and today is also Ash’s birthday, so there’s that. Happy Birthday love :)

  • Day 6: Washington, DC

    Day 6: Washington, DC

    This entry is for Wednesday, July 3, 2024.

    Here’s a better photo of the house that Erick lives in. It’s now 7 units and his is the entire top floor. As I type, I’m sitting at the top of the turret where all those windows are. The black and white photo is on the wall just inside the entrance. It still looks pretty much like that.

    We were up about 7am and went out about 8am for coffee, then came back to get ready to go. We left again around 9:30am and the whole agenda was to just walk around to see the sites.

    Ash and Zeus in front of the train station

    Seems like you can’t come to DC without getting at least a glimpse of the White House. So that’s where we headed first. Top left is the North Lawn which faces Pennsylvania Avenue. The South view of it has the rounded portico, which faces the National Mall. I was able to get a shot of that later in the day, below.

    This is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It’s HUGE – you get this look on all four sides of it and it’s quite large. It was built in 1888 and houses the Executive Office of the President (which is not the West Wing/Oval Office, but the support staff) and the Office of the VP.

    On the left, a tribute to WWI veterans, with a small garden leading up to it, and the south side of the Eisenhower building in the background.

    On the right, of course, is the Washington Monument.

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    I wanted to see the WWII Memorial and it wasn’t hard to find. It’s an oval fountain with columns all around, one for each state, and quotes engraved into large marble blocks about the courage, sacrifice, etc., these guys demonstrated for the betterment of the world. The two videos included are, on the left, of the entire fountain and, on the right, the waterfall at the back edge of it with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

    It was approaching Noon by this point and we were ready for lunch. Other than food trucks, there aren’t a lot of eating options on the Mall. Since I’d mentioned wanting to go back to the American Indian museum to actually spend some time in it, we figured we’d just do that next and have lunch again there. I had the bison hot dog this time and it was pretty good. Erick and Ash got chicken tostadas (not shown).

    The recommendation was that you start on the 4th floor and work your way down. As with the African American History Museum yesterday, it was A Lot. Both in terms of details and in emotional toll. The photo I chose to include was a beautiful sculpture depicting the support Native Americans gave to early Americans in the Revolutionary War. Called “Allies in War, Partners in Peace” it seemed, in comparison to everything else that happened, I don’t know – Ironic? Unfortunate? Hypocritical? Take your pick. It’s hard to stomach sometimes how this great country was built. And sad to see some so willing to throw it all away.

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    It probably wasn’t that long ago – several years maybe – that I understood that “The Smithsonian” wasn’t a place so much as many places. There are 21 museums and a zoo that make up the Smithsonian system. And there’s a bunch of them along the National Mall.

    I didn’t have any interest in the Natural History Museum until this morning when I learned that it held the Hope Diamond, the largest in the world. You can read about its storied history here; its estimated value is over $250mill.

    It was on the 2nd floor along with the other stuff we wanted to see so we went straight to it.

    And it is beautiful, famous for its size – 45.52 carats – and blue color. It was discovered in India in 1642 and has been owned by many, some say cursed, people – including Louis XIV and Marie Antionette as an example.

    Entrance to Smithsonian Natural History Museum

    African elephant beneath the rotunda

    Necklace of the Hope Diamond

    We saw a couple of other exhibitions at the Natural History museum but decided pretty quickly we were kinda done. It was hotter than the day before, we’d already walked over 6 miles in about 5 hours and decided it was time to go home. We rested there a bit before going out to meet a college friend of Ash’s and Erick’s that they hadn’t seen in 35 years or so. We visited with him and his husband for an hour then returned home.

    Another friend, David, who Ash had met in San Franciso 10-12 years ago, came by for dinner. It was a casual array of salads from Whole Foods which we ate in Erikc’s dining room, which is (cool!) in the turret of his condo. That’s the 3 of them in the top pic, David on the right.

    David brought a blueberry cobbler he had made last night, and we topped it off with some vanilla ice cream. I think just about everyone had 2 helpings of that. Scrumptious.

    And that, my friends, is this trip. Tomorrow we are having brunch at Erick’s sister’s with her and their mom, and then Erick will take us to the airport for a 4pm or so flight. I’d started this trip with 3 days off before we left Sacramento, and having 3 more days of nothing at the end seems like just what the doctor ordered.

    So I’ll take this opportunity to do some final thoughts, although there won’t be too many:

    1. We loved being in NYC as always. We hardly left the Times Square area for the conference and the shows. With the exception of a couple of walks, the whole thing happened between 43rd and 50th Streets, and 7th and 9th Aves. That was unusual for us, but it worked well.
    2. The conference was about what I expected and I’m glad I went, although probably don’t need to go back for another 5 years.
    3. DC has been great. I’ve only been here 2 other times, both times just having one afternoon to visit during SHRM Leadership Conferences in 2004 and 2005. So didn’t get to see much.
    4. I really enjoyed walking the neighborhoods we were in yesterday and today. It’s a very livable city, and I can’t believe how clean it is. Maybe that’s after 4 days in Times Square which is the filthiest part of NYC for sure. The comparison was stark.
    5. I always enjoy being in historic places and there’s no shortage of that here. We will be back.

    What’s next? We are grounded for a little while. We have a foreign exchange student from Portugal joining our household in August and that will keep us at home through his senior year of high school. But we’re excited about this new chapter in our lives, and have some great trips planned for later in 2025: Botswana in July, Bhutan in August, and the Amazon in December. We look forward to seeing you then!

  • Days 4 & 5: NYC to Washington, DC

    Days 4 & 5: NYC to Washington, DC

    We had a 10:35am train out of NYC to Washington, DC, Monday morning, July 1. It was a simple walk up 8th Ave to 33rd Street to the Moynihan Train Hall across the street from Penn Station.

    Ash and Zeus in front of the train station

    The seats we had weren’t together, so the ticket guy checked and said we could use the seats reserved for people with disabilities as they were clear all the way through the 3.5-hour ride. This gave Zeus plenty of room at our feet.

    We arrived at Union Station in DC right on time. I do love train stations! We took a Lyft to Erick’s place in Columbia Heights where we are staying. Erick is a college friend of Ash he’s kept up with all these years. He’s stayed with us in Sac a couple of times.

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    We got settled in and went out for a walk and an early dinner. We were pretty hungry since we didn’t get a lunch. We made our way to the Dupont Circle neighborhood and stopped at Annie’s, an institution in these parts since 1948.

    It was good food at reasonable prices. Ash had the salmon; I had a sirloin stir fry that hit the spot.

    From there we continued our walk into the actual Dupont Circle. We walked around the neighborhood a bit and Ash pointed out where he used to live while him and Erick reminisced about all kinds of stuff as we passed each establishment – some the same as way back then, but of course many changes.

    We ended up at Kramer Books, which has a cafe in the back called Afterwords (clever, huh?). We sat outside and had dessert – key lime pie for me and Erick. Ash had a goober pie which tasted just like a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

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    The top photo is the outside of Erick’s condo. Beautiful building from the 1800’s, typical of much of the architecture I’ve seen so far. Erick’s unit is the top floor. Notice Zeus very comfortable on the porch. This is not his first time here and he knew exactly where we were when the Lyft pulled up.

    We went out for coffee Tuesday morning to Colombe, a coffeeshop a few blocks away that Ash likes to visit when he’s here.

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    Ash and I ventured out without Zeus around 10:30am. We walked into the main part of the city, heading to the National Mall. We passed a lot of interesting architecture and landmarks on the way. The first two photos here are of Franklin Square – the park portion of it was beautiful with the city all around it. And I snapped our first glimpses of the Capitol and Washington Monument – one on one side, one on the other – as we crossed the National Mall.

    We met a friend of ours, Ken from Delaware, who came in to meet us for lunch. We met at the National Museum of the American Indian (is it just me or is that a surprising name?) to eat at the cafe, which has a reputation all its own. It’s called Mitsitam, and has some Native American specialties, including bison burgers and bison chili. I had the fry bread, something I’ve only had once before on an Arizona reservation so knew what I was getting. And it was great. Think taco salad, only on a rich, thick piece of fried bread, and bison chili.

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    After lunch we walked a good length of the mall, almost to the National Monument, to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. All of the Smithsonian museums are free, but sometimes you need and appointment to get in. This was one of those times, and we were right on time for our 1:30pm slot. Erick had joined us at this point.

    This museum is HUGE – like 7 levels – and we spent a couple of hours there and only scratched the surface on the first three starting at the bottom, which began with the beginnings of the slave trade and brought you to somewhat contemporary times as you made your way up. It’s a lot but impossible to not recognize how much – and how little – things have changed over 400 years. We have a long way to go still as a country and at this moment it feels like we’re moving backwards. But that’s another post.

    After the museum, we dropped Ken off at the metro station so he could make his way back to Delaware – about a 2-hour train ride.

    We started to walk back to Erick’s and made one stop for some iced tea and to visit briefly with a friend of Ash’s who he’s missed the last few trips. Then continued the trek back home. We ended up walking 9 miles this day.

    What does DC have that we can’t get at home? At least not in a shop like this? Jeni’s ice cream! A favorite of mine from when I spent a lot of time in Columbus, OH, I can only get it if I want to spend a ridiculous amount of money for a pint at certain stores back home. And then only a couple of flavor options.

    So we took advantage of this as we had to pass it on our way back to Erick’s. They had a nice seating area on the 2nd level which was empty except for us. We went classic: Brambleberry Crisp, Brown Butter Almond Brittle, and some buttery gooey pie thing that was great.

    We rested a bit at Erick’s then ventured out again, this time to the suburbs. Ash’s cousin, Naveen, had invited us to a pool party for this 15-year-old son, Naman. We had a lovely time here, the weather was great and the people we met all very nice. The foursome is us with Naveen and his brother, Ajay.

    And they had swings! I do love the swings. Ash couldn’t resist a video.

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    Today is more catching up with different friends at lunch and dinner, with some sight-seeing in between. We’ve changed our plans and are going home tomorrow afternoon instead of on Saturday, so have scrunched everything in to today and tomorrow morning.

  • Day 3: NYC Pride and Jinkx Monsoon in”Chicago”

    Day 3: NYC Pride and Jinkx Monsoon in”Chicago”

    Sunday was a fairly relaxed day. Since we weren’t going to do much associated with the parade we weren’t on any particular schedule. We had breakfast in the hotel and then left around 10am, to stand in line for rush tickets for Chicago at the Ambassador Theater on 49th. Chicago is the 2nd longest running show on Broadway (after Phantom) and has been in this spot since 2003.

    I got in line around 10am and Ash took Zeus to Central Park to tire him out. At about 11:40am, the box office guy said there were rush tickets for the 2pm at $49, but regular prices only for the 7pm show, starting at $69. We’d already planned our day around going to the evening show so decided to just go with the best seats that made sense for that show. And the ticket girl gave us a deal: 5th row center, normally $249, for $129. Since we’d had such good luck on our prior shows we decided that was good enough and took them. The big interest for me was: Jinkx Monsoon was back in their role as Mama for just a couple of weeks, and it seemed like we should take advantage of that timing.

    Theater poster at the Ambassador showing Jinkx Monsoon

    Ash had already dropped Zeus off in our room, so after getting the tickets we took a subway down to the parade area. Our group was meeting at a coffee shop on 8th Street just after the parade turns from 5th Ave. We stayed there for a couple of hours, visiting with some of the guys in the coffee shop then heading next door for some appetizers with a couple of others. By this time it was 2pm and we were kinda hungry but didn’t want to eat a lot since we had 5:30 dinner reservations.

    We watched the parade a bit – Steven in the photo with us was one of the guys we ate with – then decided it was too loud, smelly (pot was Everywhere) and muggy to stay out, so we went back to the hotel. Good lord we’re old :)

    Our friend Jonathan met us there – he decided the weather was too gross to out all the way to the Village from Harlem as well – and we visited in our room a good 90 minutes. It was nice to have that time.

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    We had dinner at Toloache, a Mexican place we’ve been to twice before (and Ash more than that) on 50th between 7th and 8th.  It was just as good as we remembered. We started with a cheese fondue that, for me, was probably the best bite of the trip. Cheesy, buttery, flour tortilla goodness with a hint of poblano peppers. I had chicken tacos and Ash had a chicken dish with corn and tomatoes that was terrific and should be tried at home!

    From there we went to the show. Great seats, and it was fun to see Jinkx, who did a terrific job. And got the loudest ovations at first appearance on stage and again at the end, indicating she’s the best-known entity in the show at this time. Not bad for a drag queen! She really is in a class by herself and we enjoyed the show. I’d seen the movie but hadn’t seen it on stage, and it’s always better. Many of the actors are playing with the audience throughout and it adds an element of fun that can’t be replicated in a movie theater. And this show is all about the music, story and dancing. There’s not a single set or costume change.

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    No trip to the Times Square area is complete without a stop at Junior’s for cheesecake. Cherry of course. And since most shows are dark on Sunday evening, it wasn’t even crowded. Will have to remember that.

    Here are a few photos Jonathan passed to me earlier:

    1. A nice photo of the 3 of us someone took after one of the workshops at St. Luke’s
    2. Him and Zeus at that same location – Zeus was a huge hit at the conference, with many guys getting their dog fix, missing theirs at home
    3. The group dinner Jonathan put together Saturday evening at Sicily

    And that is it for this part of the trip. We will head to Penn Station within the next hour to catch a 3.5-hour train ride to DC where we will stay until Saturday. See you on the other side!

  • Days 1 & 2: GSM Conference; “Water for Elephants”; “The Notebook”

    Days 1 & 2: GSM Conference; “Water for Elephants”; “The Notebook”

    I’m combining two days in this post since we spent the better part of them either 1. standing in line for rush tickets or 2. in workshops with the Gay & Sober Men’s conference.

    On Friday morning we got in line for rush tickets for Water for Elephants at around 8:15am for a 10:00am box office opening. There were only a few people in front of us, so we knew our chances were better than the long lines we saw across the street for The Outsiders and Stereophonics, both shows we were interested in. But when we asked the folks at the front of those lines what time they got there, the answers were in the 6am neighborhood – something we weren’t interested in doing.

    We got our tickets for $49 each – the reason you do rush. They weren’t great seats, but we were glad to get them at that price. While I was standing in line, Ash was getting coffees for us and also went to check us into the conference since we had missed doing that the day before due to our late flight.

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    The morning from our hotel window

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    After we got our tickets, we went back to the hotel for breakfast. We’d gotten breakfast vouchers with Ash’s Marriot status, and thank goodness since the price was $35. This was not a great buffet at any price so we were glad it was free. But it was convenient. We left the hotel around 11:30 and walked up 8th Ave to Central Park. We walked around there a little while Ash did some work over the phone and then headed back for workshops in the afternoon.

    The first workshop was on mental health, the second one on building queer community. We enjoyed both of them, and in between we went to Schmackary’s  on 45th just off 9th Ave for a cookie and coffee break. We were the first ones there and then a bunch of other guys from the conference had the same idea.

    After the last workshop ended at 5pm, we got a snack and coffee from Dunkin Donuts with our friend Jonathan and came back to the room to rest and visit a bit. He left around 6:30pm and we went on to our 7pm show.  We were at the Imperial Theater on 45th Street – that block between 7th and 8th Ave with like 5 theaters on it, the most of any in the district we learned later. Our seats were way over to the right in the upper mezzanine, but we noticed that much of the lower mezzanine was vacant. So at intermission, we moved and that helped immensely. And about 10 other folks from the upper area did the same thing.

    The show was enjoyable, a love story set against the backdrop of circus life and an elephant named Rosie. The dancing and acrobatics are what made it for me. I don’t need to see it again but might just for that.

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    The Imperial Theater, Water for Elephants

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    Requisite Selfie

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    Inside of the theater from our original seats, near the top

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    Much better seats!

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    Water for Elephants. Clever, huh?

    After the show, we got Zeus from the hotel and went in search of dinner. Again, we moved over to 9th Ave to get away from Times Square madness and ended up at 5 Napkins at 45th St. I’d eaten here back in 2019 and, like Schmackary’s, it was on a list of eateries the conference had provided which were giving discounts to attendees, 10% and 15%, respectively, in these cases. The food was really good actually, but we ordered too much of it: fried cauliflower bites, with a Nashville sauce that was too hot for Ash even, but that orange sauce was great; chicken, greens and grains bowl for Ash; burger for me; sweet potato fries which we shared.

    Speaking of Schmackary’s, it’s practically next door on 45th St, so we made our 2nd stop of the day. Ash had the darker cookie – chocolate chip loaded with other stuff, butterscotch for one. I had a strawberry rhubarb which – surprise! – tasted oddly like pie. But was wonderful.

    Saturday morning, we did the rush thing again, this time for The Notebook. Ash really wanted to see it. I’ve never seen the movie and for some reason had a bias against it – let’s just say it’s not about what I thought it was about – and we scored 2nd row center seats for $49 each. THIS is why you do rush! We had breakfast in the hotel after 10am then walked up 9th Ave just to get some steps in. We ended up at Lincoln Center and stopped to feed Zeus his lunch at Dante Park across the street before heading back. Ash took this shot while we were sitting there.

    We did the two afternoon workshops again. None of them this year were at the hotel, all at St Luke’s on 46th where we’d gone Thursday night for the Midnight Meeting. The first workshop was on sex in sobriety, a standard at these things, and the 2nd was a speaker – Dr. Alan Downs who wrote The Velvet Rage, a well-known book in the gay community that I’d read on the plane home after the 2019 conference.

    Jonathan had put together a dinner for after the workshops at Sicily, just a few doors down. There were 8 of us total; if he sends the group photo before I’m ready to post I’ll include otherwise it may show up later! The food was good. Ash had a fennel salad and chicken parmesan. I had grilled octopus on wild rice with dried cherries and pine nuts – it was a great dish that could easily have been my main. But nope, had the rigatoni on top of it. All great. We passed on dessert and had coffees instead.

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    Sicily – on 46th between 8th and 9th Aves, aka Restaurant Row

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    Ash’s fennel salad

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    My grilled octopus

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    Ash’s chicken parmigana

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    My rigatoni

    We sort of rushed out of there after 7pm since we had a show to catch, and still had to get Zeus back to the room. He made himself at home on the bed, as he always does.

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    The show was Amazing, really glad we saw it. We were at the Schoenfeld, and realized it was our 3rd time there – first for Come From Away in 2022, its longest running show at 4 years, and next for Take Me Out in 2023. And each time we had either 1st or 2nd row seats on rush tickets. If you’re, like me, one of the few people on the planet who wasn’t familiar with the story, it’s about a woman with dementia who wrote the love story of her marriage in a notebook, promising to return to her husband from this state if he read it to her. It was very well done, cast with 3 different couples to interplay different parts of their lives. The voices were strong with some powerful songs, and I’ve never experienced this many people crying in a theater before – at the end of each act especially. Very glad we saw it and I would see it again.

    An interesting tidbit: there was a scene with the “middle” couple in a rainstorm and actual water was used. I thought while it was happening: Hmm, Take Me Out used real water for their shower scenes in the locker room – must’ve made the engineering for this show that much easier. I don’t know if this show is touring but seems like a tricky feature to duplicate on a national tour!

    We collected Zeus again after the show and returned to Schmackary’s for cookies.

    The conference is essentially over. Today is the NYC Pride Parade, and there’s a spot reserved where all who are interested can gather to watch the parade. We had expected to walk the parade like I did in 2019, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but learned when the final agenda was announced that the city had limited the number of people who could march with each group to 100. When Ash checked us in, we weren’t already on the list but were given the opportunity to get on the list for a donation of $100 each. We passed and made our peace with not marching. At around 6pm last night, we were sent emails announcing that we had in fact made it to the list for free. I think this is because we were early registrants who had checked the box that we would march, which they had said would be given priority. But at that point we were already over it and declined so they could give the opportunity to others.

    All that to say, not sure how it’s all going to go today. We will try for rush tickets again and will probably make an appearance at the parade watching social. Tune in tomorrow…

  • 2024 New York City & DC: Departure – Sacramento to NYC

    2024 New York City & DC: Departure – Sacramento to NYC

    Yes, we are in New York City. Happy to be back to one of my favorite places. We are here for the Gay & Sober Men conference – Ash’s first time, me returning for the first time since 2019. That began yesterday, Thursday, June 27. We will leave on Monday for DC and finish the week there. Ash grew up there but I’ve never really been except for a couple of weekend conferences 20 years ago.

    Our flight was for 11:15pm Wednesday night, to get us here around 7:30am Thursday. But it was delayed 13 hours – thankfully we were notified just as we left the house, first of a 1.5 hour delay that was then extended – so didn’t get to the hotel last night until about 9:30pm, missing the opening speaker meeting. Oh well. We’re not big on speaker meetings anyway and are planning on skipping those and seeing what shows we can fit in on rush or lottery tickets.

    We had a small amount of time to kill when we got to the Sacramento airport, so stopped into the Escape lounge. It’s pretty new and we’d just learned that the Priority Pass would get us in so we figured we’d check it out. There wasn’t much to it but it’s nice to have. We didn’t eat anything, just had some coffee and then it was time to go.

    We had a direct flight in first class, and of course have Zeus with us. We were served lunch on the plane. Ash had a chicken dish, I had a quinoa salad, both quite good.

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    After an uneventful flight, we got our luggage and took a Lyft to our hotel, the Westin Times Square on 43th St at 8th Ave. Since it’s a Marriott property, Ash figured we’d get a better deal booking directly instead of using the conference rate. And we did. We learned just before we left that they upgraded us – for free – to a junior suite. It has a nice living area in addition to the bedroom. I’m sitting at that table as I type.

    We are on the 42nd floor (of 45) with south facing windows. I was a little surprised to see the Empire State Building, which is at 34th St and 6th Ave, but you can see the tip just beyond other buildings to our left. It’s pretty all lit up.

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    We literally dropped our bags and headed out for something to eat. My mouth was set for pizza, but the area we were in was a mess of people because the theaters were just getting out. So we went over to 9th Ave instead – one block over makes a huge difference – and stopped at 46th St. I can’t tell if it’s called “I love NY Pizza” or Vinny’s Pasta Kitchen. They did have a few types of pasta. But Ash got a slice of cheese pizza, me a pepperoni, and we shared some mozzarella sticks. Everything hit perfectly.

    The theme of this year’s GSM conference is SuperHeroes, and lots of things are being held at St. Luke’s on 46th, just the other side of 8th Ave. Since we were still a little wired from our trip and still on California time, we decided to go to the Midnight Meeting. And were glad we did. There were only about 40 guys there – out of 400 attending the conference – but it was a nice, easy way to meet a few and we were glad we went.

    We are off to a good start. We have a couple of workshops we are attending today and will see about seeing a show. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on tickets so committed to only seeing what we could get on rush or lottery. Time to enter some more lotteries, then. Come back tomorrow to see how that turned out…

    (PS: I’m playing with some new formatting options I’ve learned recently, so bear with me as I practice on you!)