Category Archives: Travel

Aging, Humanities, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

The OWM

March 21, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon

The Order of Woolly Mammoths, or OWM, the sacred sound that created the world, met tonight at Frank’s for our annual corned beef and cabbage feed. Bill Schmidt gave us an insiders perspective on the nuclear crisis, explaining the safeguards in place and said, with some emotion, that if called and if he could contribute, he would go. It gave me a personal connection to the brave, even heroic effort that engineers and other workers at the Fukushima facility have already offered and confirmed what I suspected. These are men and women who have a wartime level commitment to their jobs, knowing that if doing them costs their lives; it’s a sacrifice both necessary and worthwhile. They deserve our deepest admiration and respect as humans tested in a type of cauldron most of us will never, thankfully, see.

Tom, a new grandfather-to-be, asked for advice, stories, thoughts from current Woolly grandfathers. He has chosen to devote his meeting, our next one, to the topic. Gray heads discussing gray-headdom.

Stefan and I discussed a possible visit to Aerquipa when our cruise hits Peru. It would involve a plane flight from Lima of about an hour and a half. I want to make it work, seeing Lonnie and her folks at work, visiting someone I know. Some planning to be done.

These men, this crowd of silverbacks, men I knew when our hair had color are a central part of my life. It was good, as it always is.

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Travel

Mindfulness

March 13, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

We’ve begun the slippery, muddy slide into the growing season, though I understand some of the parking lot snow piles, many well over 8 feet high and some much higher than that, will take a long time to melt. Maybe months, into the summer. The snow always pleases me as it falls and as it covers our world, now over 120 days straight with snow cover, but there is a time when it becomes a nuisance. The snow went beyond nuisance this year and became a definite hazard as it has become impossible around the piled snow at many city intersections. When driving the Celica out of the garage here, I’ve not been able to see traffic on 153rd since late December. In that regard I will be not sorry to see the snow melt away. On balance, though, I get far more pleasure from the snow than I do hassle, so when it’s time again, I’ll be ready.

Leslie’s mindfulness presentation this morning was wonderful. We drew mandalas, did a guided meditation and ate a strawberry, a grape, a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread with intention and attention. We washed it down with water and tea. Each bite was an adventure. Made me aware of how unmindful I am when I eat. Also brought me into the present. It was a Be. Here. Now. time. Gotta get back to the meditation, discovered I missed it.

South America. A lot to learn in the next six months plus. In addition to scoping out the ports, already somewhat begun, I’ll read at least one comprehensive history of the continent, an ecological history and a natural history. I want to find a reasonably priced geography, too. The ones I have found so far are damned expensive. One of the values of traveling is its ability to make the distant, close and the abstract, real. There’s a definite gestalt to lengthy travel in a part of the world unknown. At some point, a point uncertain, an understanding snaps into place, a combination of prior experience, preparation and that small market in Manta, Ecuador, the smells of Santa Marta, Colombia, the sight of glaciers around Punta Arenas. Then, like the Velveteen Rabbit, South America will become real for me.

Often, I take along some literature, too, perhaps some Allenda, Losa, maybe I’ll just take take a Hundred Years of Solitude and read it again. The phrase book, too.

Grocery store now.

Aging, Family, Travel

A Third Thing

March 10, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

We went to the St. Paul Grill tonight for our anniversary dinner. Our first date was coffee there after a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Concert. I learned Kate was a physician and she learned I was not a lawyer, but a clergyman. Both surprised.

Tonight the place was hopping, full of an odd mixture of opera buffs and hockey fans. The state high school hockey tournament is in town at the Excel Arena and the Opera is at the Ordway Theatre, both next to each other only a block away from the St. Paul Hotel, location of the Grill.

In addition, just across the block on the diagonal is the Landmark Center, where, in 1990, on this day, Kate and I tied the knot and stomped on a glass in a silken napkin.

Over the meal tonight (lamb chops, medium rare for both of us with a creme brulee for dessert) we talked about the South America cruise to which we committed yesterday. 37 days, an Inca discovery theme, with ports of call all along western South America and up the east coast as far as and including Rio. This is a retirement present for Kate, a thank you for all her years of hard work as a doc. I’m just going along for the ride. (Ha.)

Marriage has a palpability, is a third thing in and of itself. When two come to anniversary, the thing they celebrate is not themselves, but this third thing they have made together. It is, in every way, as precious and significant as a child, as difficult and rewarding, too.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Travel, Weather +Climate, Writing

Heading Home Tomorrow

March 6, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Snow has begun to come down in earnest. I like the view out of my window here in the Bishop’s room. Snow falls between the two pines that frame the central pane and I can see across the service road toward what I now know is the Monastery orchard. This is a wonderful piece of land, wooded in parts, with two lakes and ample space for agriculture. The Monastery did have a large farm at one time.

I’ve decided I’ll head home tomorrow afternoon. I’m a bit lonely here now and I want to see Kate and the dogs. Since I get my writing done in the morning, sometimes a bit after lunch, I can write tomorrow morning, eat lunch and head out. That way I can be back at my desk on Tuesday morning, ready to keep on writing.

So ancientrails will hit the road around 1 pm tomorrow, driving east on Highway 12, then north on 494.

Breakfast today is at 8, not 7:30. Feels pretty soft, writing here at 7:50 instead of dining in silence. The Monastery is a great place to focus on writing and I think I’ll return when it comes time to revise one of my earlier works, perhaps in January. Once I finish the first draft of Missing, I’ll have Kate read it and comment on it, perhaps Lydia, then I’ll set in a manuscript box on the shelf in my study. 6 months or so later, I’ll take it out and read it like a stranger, making the first cuts and revisions.

Though I’ve not practiced it, they say writing is in the re-writing and I believe it.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

When the Bell Tolls, It Tolls For Me

February 4, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

Here I am, a heretic beneath the bell tower of Blue Cloud Abbey, sitting at this mobile scriptorium, pecking away at the keys. The bell tower rises outside the window, a jet passing by, contrail at an acute angle toward the north, a metal angel streaking like Icarus toward the sun; a sun, obscured early by the western wing of the retreat center, that this morning draped a bloody red-orange mantel over the far horizon, visible for miles from this point, 900 feet above the floor of the otherwise flat prairie.

When the bell rings, which it does every quarter hour once, every half hour twice and the number of the hour on the hour, I fly on the time machine of sound back to the middle ages when the sound of the bell determined the compass of a parish, all within the sound part of the same community, an aural community, knitting itself together every half hour. These days, these latter days, these 21st century days the bell could not be heard over the rumbling engines of trucks bearing cookware, basketballs and note-book paper, cars scurrying here and there with people, like small loud beetles set loose on the hardened surface of mother earth.

How do we know what community we belong too, now, now the bell’s sound has become muffled? Could it be that this very medium (there goes the bell, ringing 3:00 pm), these bits and bytes that travel from this prairie monastery, constitute our new bell tower? A quiet sound heard world-wide, making us one people, one community, one pale blue marble in a vast ocean of airless space?

We ate lunch today with the monks in their lunchroom, a wide, long room with the animals symbolizing the gospels painted on a mural, done in a style reminiscent of Northwest Coast Native American design styles: an ox, an eagle, a lion, a winged human. Some of the monks wear the black robe, others blue jeans and sweaters. Some of the monks have become stooped by age, while others, younger, would not be distinguishable from any one at the counter of a Marvin, South Dakota coffee-shop. I had spinach, a vegetable medley, two peaches and a bit of tuna salad. Fare fit for a simple life and just fine with me.

I find myself wanting to come here by myself, perhaps for two weeks or so, to concentrate on my Latin, on finishing the novel I’ve already well begun. Perhaps I will, one of these days, if Kate’s ok with it.

Aging, Family, Retirement, Travel

A Decent Insurance Sales Agent

January 27, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

Kathryn Kiegler has restored, no, wait that’s too strong, has challenged my opinion about insurance sales folk. She gave us good advice, walked us through the labyrinth that is Medicare and the various parts attached to it A, B, C, and D, then helped us evaluate a plan best suited to Kate’s needs. She was clear, patient, gave us the time we needed. Great person to work with.

We did hit one weird snag. Kate had not gotten her part B card, nor her letter telling her she had been enrolled. Without this letter or the card Kate couldn’t sign up for Medicare advantage at all. Kathryn called Social Security, finally, after a really long and tedious animated voice, a real human came on the line. Kathryn explained Kate’s need for the letter, the woman agreed to fax it and all seemed in order. Except. By the time we were ready to leave, no fax. None of us wanted to wait the 10-12 minutes to go through the animated phone information.

What to do? Kathryn recommended going to the Social Security and getting the letter in person. Not a bad solution since the SSA office is on Chicago Avenue and 18th, not all that far from Kathryn’s office near Westminster Church downtown. So, we drove over there. Kate went in while I waited outside. I’m not real patient with bureaucracy. When she returned a bit later, letter in hand, she told me why we had received no fax. “The man told me the Social Security Administration never faxes anything with a social security number on it.”

Hmmm. Have you ever read Kafka? Can you imagine, say, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles choosing to never fax something with a license plate number on it? Yes, of course. Identity theft. I know. Seems that such intelligent folks could have figured out a solution. One idea. When faxing a document to the person whose social security number is involved? Leave it off and let them fill it in on the other end.

The really good news in this is that our budget for Kate’s insurance costs was about double the cost we’ll pay. That probably means the same will hold true for me. That will remove several thousand dollars a year from our expenses, maybe a bit more. Where was that cruise brochure? Maybe we could afford that round the world jet junket? Nah, even at $65,000 that sounded like a cheesy deal. The Amazon River? Egypt? Possible. Maybe possible.

Retirement, Travel

Dreaming of the Far Away

January 26, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

With Kate now retired, life has taken on a different, more relaxed rhythm. She’s not hurrying to get ready for work, nor is she coming home tired, neck, back and hip on fire. We don’t have that churn created by the world of busy, earn, comply, obey. Both of us have an easier day, though we’re not quite used to what to do with evenings yet since that was her work time and my workout, end the day time. We’ll get a new flow, one that will change with the seasons as the garden and the bees begin to demand more and more time, then subside as fall ushers in another round of senescence and transitions back to the cold, fallow months.

Travel is the one real potential budget wrecker we have. I had some misspent time this afternoon looking at the National Geographic Expeditions catalog. Gee, for only $65,000 a person you can fly around the world, stopping in exotic places along the way, staying in 5-star hotels including the Raffles Hotel D’Angkor in Siem Reap. I know that place, $500 a night and a hell of a good afternoon tea. My $35 a night place was just fine, thank you. Cheaper food, too. That Amazon River cruise looked

Have to sign off now for the Legislative Committee conference call.

Aging, Art and Culture, Commentary on the news, Memories, Politics, Retirement, Travel, US History

MLK

January 17, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Eleanor Hibbert

Ms. Hibbert, whoever she is, has it right; just the way life is. And, by the way, I’ve had my share of experience.

Slept in my own bed last night. Ahh.

Today is the tour of the Target Corporation’s art collection with lunch at Masa before the tour. This one has been a bit problematic, partly because it came in when four other events also got organized. However, the day has come at last.

Today will be the first day at home, a regular work day, when Kate does not go into the Allina Medical Clinic Coon Rapids. She stayed up last night until 2:oo a.m. playing a word game on her Kindle. Freedom. A beautiful thing. This is also the week of her party, Coming of Age: The Art of Retirement. On Thursday, January 20th, from 5-9 p.m. we will celebrate Kate and her medical career, but, with more inflection, Kate and the next years of her life. If you read this, you’re invited to join us at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. No gifts, just you and yours.

It’s also Martin Luther King day today. My age cohort grew up during Dr. King’s rise to national prominence as the civil rights era took hold of the nation’s psyche. The civil rights movement represents the US at its best and its worst. Over the long haul since King’s leadership in 1955 the Montgomery Bus Boycott ignited by Rosa Parks to today cultural attitudes and practices have changed dramatically when it comes to people of color. One way to note this is to consider the relative reputations of Dr. King and two of his chief opponents: Lester Maddox and George Wallace.

Have we come all the way to a nation in which a person is judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?” No. Are matters demonstrably better? Yes. Can we stop working on the pernicious effects of prejudice and racism? Of course not. Can we celebrate a better day? Yes, that’s what MLK day stands for.

All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This perspective of King’s has its roots in the radical theology of Henry Nelson Weiman. It was Weiman’s basic idea that god could only be found in relationship and, further, that god really was the mystical thread of connection between and among us all. A fine idea, though a bit of a category mistake in my opinion. Why call this mystical thread god? Why not the mystical thread or deep relationship or interrelatedness? In either form though it represents a distinct challenge both to American individualism and to the existentialist stance that I consider my own.

King and his intellectual mentor, Weiman, call to those of us who put our bold lettering under Individual to consider that there is an equally bold and distinct word, Related. Martin Buber would approve.

Aging, Family, Humanities, Travel

Family Time

January 15, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

Kate sees this trip as vacation; I don’t. Family related travel, the bulk of what I do, has a different purpose and feel. It’s about relationships and the hard work necessary to maintain them. It has the flavor of duty, but duty in a positive, not an obligatory sense. The hard work has its pleasures, yes, lifting Ruth up in the air as she giggles, helping Gabe push his toys around on the floor, but it also has its rough edges. A relationship with a sister, troubled since birth, breaks bad in a new, more intense way after she becomes pregnant.

The parents of young children face a plethora of challenges, too, noise and activity levels after a hard day at work, insistent demands for attention, keeping the kids safe indoors and out, little time for themselves separately or together. None of this is new, this is the ancientrail of child-rearing, but it is one meant to happen in an extended family. In our case, as in so many, many others, children and grandchildren live in one state, grandparents, uncles and aunts live in another.

Continue reading Family Time →

Aging, Family, Travel

The Cheeky Monk and The Irish Snug

January 11, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

And so it is. The cold month I mean. -7 last night here in Denver. Not Minnesota cold, but still, it counts. The snow though has mostly disappeared from the city streets and will be all gone by the weekend when highs in the 40’s hit the high plateau.

Kate and I went to the REI flagship store yesterday, a large brick building that used to be a tramway (don’t know what that is) now stuffed with ice axes, mountaineer boots and more fleece than you shake a sheep at. It has a very Colorado feel with many young, hyper fit folks looking for the right gear for climbing a 14’er and then skiing back down.

Denver has a young persons feel with many interesting bars like the Cheeky Monk and the Irish Snug. Gastro pubs. Kate and I stopped for lunch at the Cheeky Monk, a woody homage to some form of Belgian culture with Belgian waffles on offer as a dessert item. Kate had a beer sampler that included Stone’s Lucky Bastard and Avey’s Czar. Potent stuff. More so than Kate anticipated.

We’ve both eaten a bit too much fried and fatty with corresponding complaints from our digestive systems. You’d think at our age…

In spite of its proximity to the mountains, the Rockies loom on the western horizon, Denver is a flat city, very Midwestern in that way.

Since this is the time period of the Great Western Stock Show the restaurants have many cowboy hats, cowboy boots and the occasional sequined Rodeo Queen. It all gives Denver that Western feel that it sometimes lacks in the summer.

OK. Off to the Denver Mint.