The NASCAR season kicked off last weekend. It consists of 36 races, running February to November. I’m no racing aficionado, but I sure had a good time at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. I was able to take a “hot lap” of the track at 110 miles per hour.
Tag Archives: travel
Detroit as a Street Art Canvas
Detroit has long suffered from urban blight and a gained a reputation as a mecca for “ruin porn.” But the city is making an impressive comeback and has enough new construction projects, new residents and new sports facilities in the works to make most cities envious.
The city still has a long way to go. There are vast swaths of vacant buildings and open land where structures have been torn down. But, talk about making lemonade when life gives you lemons….The city’s many vacant buildings and storefronts have made Detroit a massive canvas for world-renowned street artists, attracting tourists who love street art and graffiti from around the world.
One of the most famous street art locations in Detroit is the once-thriving two-block area of the city’s 
east side known as the Heidelberg Project constructed by artist Tyree Guyton. It’s an outdoor art experience you wouldn’t believe–funny, sad and haunting. His goal, to make people pay attention to the blight rather than avoiding it. You can read about it and Detroit’s other street art and graffiti projects in the terrific book Canvas Detroit that I picked up on my recent visit there. In that book Guyton says, “My experiences have granted me knowledge of how to create art and how to see beauty in everything that exists.” Take a look:
Old Florida: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Park
Temperature right now in Minneapolis: -8 degrees. It was about the same yesterday when I took my dog for a gorgeous and sunny but “brisk” walk. There’s something satisfying and contrary about going for a walk in extreme cold.
It’s also fun to talk to people where its warm and make plans for a visit. That’s why right now, as I sit under a blanket drinking hot coffee, I’m thinking 
about my recent conversation with Valerie Rivers, manager of Marjorie Kinnan Rawling Historic State Park, located in tiny Cross Creek, near Gainesville. The conversation started with, “When you come to the park in spring the smell of orange blossoms waft over you.” That’s enough to set me off to find one of Rawlings’s classic books such as The Yearling and to set me dreaming about a visit to her home, now a Florida State Park. My glasses are steaming up just thinking of it.
It’s hard to imagine Florida before the developers came. Yet, visiting Rawlings’s home where she settled in 1928 offers a glimpse of Florida before high rises and posh swimming pools, before air conditioning and even electricity–and bug spray. Rivers says fans of Rawlings’s classic novels find themselves transported into the world of The Yearling (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) or her memoir of living on this site, Cross Creek, as they tour her farmyard, orange grove, seasonal garden, trails and home.
“Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s books portray the land and the hardscrabble “cracker” people who first settled Florida,” says Rivers. She broadened my definition of the word “cracker” which I have always used as a synonym for “redneck.” (My aunt who lived in Florida called it “The Order of the Scarlet Nape.”) But, by Rivers’s definition, crackers were the early Florida settlers who loved the land and made a living on it, though barely.
Visitors may stroll the homestead here and take a tour of Rawlings’s home. For the short term 
anyway, I’ll do that in my mind with a copy of Cross Creek. As Rawlings said,”It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind. One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home.”
(photos courtesy of Florida State Parks)
Trio of Spoons at Spoon and Stable, Minneapolis
Chef Gavin Kaysen has a reputation, not only for his cuisine and his award-winning new restaurant Spoon and Stable in his hometown, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s also known for his collection of spoons—and how he obtains them. His collection was the inspiration for the the name of the new restaurant (along with the fact that it’s located in a former horse stable built in 1904), which was a 2015 James Beard Award finalist for Best New Restaurant.
He scours second-hand shops for spoons, others he has received as gifts from friends and from other restaurants because of his spoon-loving reputation. Others he has, well, pocketed. Sterling to to wrought iron, for Kaysen, it’s not just a collection of spoons, it’s “a collection of memories.”
The lure of spoons began for Kaysen when he was a 21-year-old pastry chef in Lausanne, Switzerland, learning to make the perfect quenelle of ice cream. On his days off, he used beef fat to practice making the elegant oval scoops. When he finally mastered the technique he kept the spoon he was using as a memento.
Kaysen continued that habit of spoon pilfering. For him, they offer a tangible memory of an experience whether is was a great meal, outstanding service or a beautiful dining space.
Knowing his penchant for spoons, guests in his restaurant now bring in spoons from their own collections to give Kaysen and they tell him the tales behind them. “I love their family stories,” he says.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/trio/
Fabulous Holiday Windows in New York City
It’s the time of year when retailers ramp up for the holidays with ornate holiday displays. Nowhere in the U.S. is the holiday decor more fantastic than in New York City. And, in New York you’ll find the most fabulous of all in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman.
I’ve been lucky enough for the last several years to be in New York during the holiday season. The corner of 5th and 58th is always my first destination to see what wonders they’ve come up with for the year. (I also enjoy touring the wonders inside the store, but window gazing is much more economical.)
The theme for last year’s windows was the arts, including architecture, theater, painting, music, and my favorite, literature–all absolutely and delightfully over the top. The Creators Project blog has an article about last year’s windows.
If you go this year, send me a picture of Bergdorf’s windows. And, be sure to read about my literary walking tour of mid-town Manhattan.
New Mexico Chiles: Know Your Boundaries
Sometimes you need to set your own boundaries, know your limitations. That’s especially the case with chilis.
They may merely add flavor to cooking or set your mouth ablaze in a manner that will send you running for the icewater (and have other repercussions, too, if you know what I mean.)
I was in New Mexico a couple of weeks ago where chilis–red and green–are in just about everything you eat. Fall is the height of chili season there and you’ll find them piled in farmers’ markets and smell them roasting, “New Mexico aromatherapy,” at the market or on the roadside. You’ll find them in restaurants any time of year. When ordering, your server may ask, “Red or green?” By that she means the color of chilis you want. If the answer in both, it’s common to say “Christmas.”
Some chilis hot, some not. In some cases it’s like playing roulette–one in ten is hot, you just don’t know until you eat it. Either way, they’re beautiful to look at.
Half Moon Bay, The Ganges and Reading in Minnesota
Hi fellow readers and travelers:
I’ve done a lot of traveling this summer, but I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus, so I have plenty stored up to tell you about.
I’ll start by sharing my new article on the USA Today travel web site. It’s about the pulchritudinous pumpkins of Half Moon Bay, California, and all the food-related activities there are to do there even after all the orange orbs have been made into pie.
Speaking of travel, I also had a great time interviewing Ann Bancroft, the famous polar explorer, for the Minnesota Women’s Press. She’s off on a new adventure in October, this time to India where she and Liv Arnesen and their team will navigate the length of the Ganges River. This hot, dirty, overpopulated trip seems an unlikely choice for someone who is used to the isolation and the pure, crisp air of the frozen poles. Yet, the more we discussed the perils of such a trip, the more her eyes lit up with anticipation of the challenge. The trip is part of a series she plans to undertake that will bring attention to the crisis of fresh water around the world. Find out more about the expedition at yourexpedition.com
Last week was a big one for literary events here in Minneapolis. I attended Pen Pals, an author series presented by the Friends of the 
Hennepin County Library, in which famed librarian Nancy Pearl interviewed Judy Blume about her new novel, In the Unlikely Event. Blume is chiefly known for her middle grade girls’ novels such as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. The new book for adults is fiction based on the true story of the series of three commercial plane crashes that occurred in her home town in 1952. I haven’t read the book yet, but it sounds like it could put me off air travel for a while.
Finally, Faith Sullivan launched her new book, Goodnight Mr. Wodehouse at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. I aspire to be like Faith, not just for her literary expertise, but for her vivacious 
personality, humor and grace. She alternated reading from her book with short pieces of music from the time played by her friend Michael Anthony.
Set in Minnesota around the turn of the last century, the book is the story of a woman who has more than her share of tragedy in life, but keeps on going, buoyed by the diversion and humor of British author P.G. Wodehouse. Readers will love her comments about the joys and life-saving aspects of reading:
“Life could toss your sanity about like a glass ball; books were a cushion. How on earth did nonreaders cope when they had nowhere to turn? How lonely such a nonreading world must be.”
And, on retiring from teaching, the heroine hopes she “left her charges with a love of reading, one of the few things they could count on in life. The years could rob them of friends and farms, of youth and health, but books would endure. She eased deeper into the chair and turned the page.”
When I’m done reading Faith Sullivan’s book, I’m stocking up on a few volumes by P.G. Wodehouse.
Visiting the Mankato Minnesota Houses Where Betsy and Tacy Lived
Fiction Meets Reality in Maude Hart Lovelace’s “Deep Valley”
It’s hard to believe that a series of novels can still be popular with a heroine who neither Tweets nor Snapchats, a girl who lacks magical powers, a vampire boyfriend, or a fabulous assortment of weaponry. Yet, the beloved Betsy-Tacy series by Mankato, Minnesota, author Maud Hart Lovelace have been in continuous publication since the 1940s and inspire an almost fanatical devotion, even among readers who are used to consuming racier fare such as “Gossip Girl” or “The Vampire Diaries.”
If you need proof, you need only show up in Mankato on a Friday or Saturday afternoon in summer. You’ll find Betsy-Tacy fans who’ve come from around the world to visit the trim little Victorian houses on Center Street, “Betsy’s House” and “Tacy’s House,” where Hart Lovelace and her real best friend, Frances Kenney, grew up right across the street from each other. Little girls and their grandmothers, mother and daughters, and adult “gals on getaways” line up for a tour of the real-life houses that are the setting of the beloved book series. The houses have been lovingly restored and designated as national literary landmarks.
A Calming Oasis
A step into Betsy-Tacy world is a step back into a slower, more peaceful era.The first of the series’ 10 books, Betsy-Tacy, begins in 1897, when Betsy is about to turn five, and the series continues through Betsy’s Wedding during World War I, all based on Hart Lovelace’s own girlhood. The lack of technology, fighting and fast-paced action may be the secret for the books’ enduring appeal. Linda Lee, an adult Betsy-Tacy fan visiting from Claremont, California, says of the books, “I re-read them even now. They’re about family, friendship and fun in doing simple things. Reading them brings a sense of calm to my frenzied life.”
The houses are open on weekends year-round but Betsy-Tacy fans 
show up en masse each June for the Deep Valley Homecoming—this year from June 26-30— like a children’s book Coachella. (Deep Valley is the name Hart Lovelace gave her hometown in the books.) Activities include Betsy & Tacy home and neighborhood tours, narrated horse-drawn trolley rides, a Victorian Tea, Deep Valley Book Festival*, fashion show, living history actors, speakers and re-enactments, a vintage car show and more.
Inspiration for Modern Girls
Enthusiastic docents regularly lead tours of the houses and point out how the homes and the neighborhood compare to the books’ illustrations by Lois Lenski. From the old-fashioned kitchen, to the lace curtains and fine china, to the books and Maude Hart Lovelace memorabilia, tours furnish a cultural snapshot of the era, a chance to experience what it was like to live in a Midwestern town when the first automobile arrived and homes got their first telephones.
But beyond a nostalgic connection to a fictional world or a look at old houses with creaky floors and Victorian furniture, a visit to the Betsy-Tacy houses offers a look at the lives and friendships children, the aspirations of women at the turn of the last century, and celebrates girls who are, while old-fashioned, strikingly independent and adventurous.
While old telephones may be the highest tech you’ll experience on the tour, Betsy and Tacy aren’t totally off the grid. You’ll find constant discussion about them on Twitter and Pinterest.
*I’ll be at the Deep Valley Book Festival this year, signing copies of Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs and Girls on Getaways.
If you go:
Mankato is about an hour and a half south of the Twin Cities via I-169. The houses are open this summer on Friday and Saturday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children (under 5 free).
Download the Discover Deep Valley brochure for a walking tour of the area.
We picked up bagels at Tandem Bagels, 200 E Walnut St., for a picnic in Lincoln Park, which figures in the books and is set amidst a gorgeous grouping of Victorian homes.
Bainbridge Island, The Island That Inspired Snow Falling on Cedars
From Seattle’s busy waterfront along Alaskan Way, it’s only a forty-minute ferry ride across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island but it’s a voyage to another world and a slower time.
The island was the inspiration for David Guterson’s bestseller, Snow 
Falling on Cedars, called San Piedro Island in the book. Guterson makes his home on the island and used to teach school here. We hop off the boat in Winslow, a cozy seaside town located on Eagle Harbor. It’s a great place to explore on foot. For those who want to go further afield, bikes are available to rent between June 1st and the end of September right by the ferry terminal at Bike Barn rentals.
Winslow began as a timber and shipbuilding center and was, for a time, larger than Seattle. Today it’s a bedroom community for Seattle and the picturesque harbor, the trees, the greenery, and the misty hills give it just the right rich ambiance for romance and drama, like that in Snow Falling on Cedars, but it certainly isn’t “downtrodden and mildewed,” like Amity Harbor in in the book.
We wandered the charming shops on Winslow Way including Eagle Harbor Book Co. (where they’re happy to tell you about local authors), The Traveler and Bainbridge Arts and Crafts. We ate a tasty lunch at Cafe Nola.
Yet, fans of Snow Falling on Cedars or anyone who wants to understand the history of the island will find the most satisfaction in exploring the island’s history so head to The Bainbridge Island Historical Museum. Housed in a red 1908 schoolhouse, the museum tells the story of the island’s history, particularly the Japanese internment as it really played out on the island, the true story at the heart of Guterson’s book. 
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans became the focus of suspicion, even though many were second-generation citizens. They were rounded up and sent into exile in military-style camps such as Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Manzanar in California.
It’s a half-hour bike ride or a ten-minute cab ride to the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, around the bay from the ferry landing. This is the site from which Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and sent to Seattle and then to internment camps on March 30, 1942.
For more on Seattle, see my previous post, All Is Not Grey in Seattle.
Read more: Seattle and Bainbridge Island are featured destinations in Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs,and Girls on Getaways.
And, In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story, about how the publishers of Bainbridge Island’s community newspaper fought the internment of their Japanese neighbors.
Explore Jack London State Park With My New Article
I have a new article, The Wild Still Calls, in this month’s issue of a fun magazine, “Live Happy.” It’s about Jack London State Park and how the volunteers there are keeping the park and the memory of author Jack London alive.
London, author of The Call of the Wild, White Fang and many other adventure stories, was the most famous author of his time. Most people don’t know he was also a world traveler, sustainable farmer and oyster pirate. His own life was as adventurous as his stories.
Off The Beaten Page Travel 