Todd Klein's Blog, page 330

And Then I Read: THE COMPLETE PEANUTS 1981-82

Images © Peanuts Worldwide LLC.

There's nothing better than sitting down to read one of these collections, and this one is just as good as the previous ones as far as the writing and humor and human insight. For the first time in this collection I'm beginning to notice the occasional shaky lines that characterize Schulz's later work on the strip, and a few times the drawing seemed to go rather badly for a strip or two. Schulz was around 59-60 when doing these, and I can certainly sympathize with the days when the pen doesn't go where you want it. Most of these strips look fine, it's just now and then, but I expect the trend will develop further in later collections.

Doesn't matter, the material is still great in every way. The backbone of the strip is the continuing exploration of the personalities, worries, annoyances, and occasionally joys of the main characters, from Charlie Brown and his baseball team to Peppermint Patty and her trouble with school. From Lucy's crabbiness to Sally's smug sureness she's right about most things when she isn't. And of course, Snoopy seems to have the most fun, he's the clown and the show-off of the strip. One moment in this collection seemed to veer suddenly into a serious emotional confession by Peppermint Patty's friend Marcy, but after a few days it was left behind, perhaps never to be brought up again. Just as well, it would have changed the strip, I think. Perhaps Schulz recognized that as well.

Of course there are a few serious, sentimental and even sad moments here and there, but the overall experience of reading Peanuts is uplifting, smile-inducing, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Well worth every cent and highly recommended.

And Then I Read: A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

I've been working my way through this thick tome for about a month and a half, and finally finished it on our vacation. Kind of sad to see it end, even so. This fifth volume of "A Song of Ice and Fire" is every bit as good as the rest, though the story and cast of characters has now grown so large that it takes a while to get rolling.  I mean, you know what you're in for when a book begins with not one but five maps and the character list appendix is over 50 pages!

As before, Martin spins out several main story threads and quite a few minor ones as well. This time one major threads focus on Tyrion, the sarcastic dwarf son of the former King of Westeros, and the person who murdered that king, now a captive in a far land, a pawn in several power struggles, and a man whose own intelligence is often thwarted by his destructive habits and big mouth. The fact that Martin makes him one of the most likeable characters in the series says a lot.

Then we have Daenerys, now a Queen in the far eastern land of Valyria, and the "mother" of the three young dragons of the title, who are now getting quite large and independent, causing her all kinds of problems. But her more serious problem is trying to rule the lands and cities she's captured. Having taken her throne in the city of Meereen, she finds it almost impossible to bend to her will, and all kinds of intrigues and compromises are forced upon her. Her plan was to assemble an army and sail back to Westeros to claim the throne there, but she's ever more entangled in the web of Meereen.

Finally we have Jon Snow, the bastard son of House Stark, now the leader of the Night Watch, a group of former criminals and outcasts tasked with guarding the great ice wall at the northern edge of Westeros from the ever threatening forces beyond it. The world of this series is one where the seasons progress over a series of years rather than yearly, and Autumn is giving way to Winter. It may be a Winter that will mean the end of everything Westeros has known, but meanwhile Jon Snow is trying is best with what little he has, even if it means joining forces with some of his enemies.

There are lots more storylines interspersed among these, and in the later part of the book some characters from the previous volume are caught up with as well. As I said, this massive wheel of a story takes a while to get rolling, but when it does, things really roll along nicely from one exciting episode to another. Certainly no one is having a good time, everyone is suffering in some way or even several ways, and yet they persevere and struggle on with all that's arrayed against them. It really is a remarkable series, putting a new kind of grim realism into the swords and sorcery format, and Martin's writing is superb, getting to the center of every mind, no matter how dark that center may be.

Highly recommended, but of course, start at the beginning with "A Game of Thrones." And will this series ever really be finished? Hard to know, but I feel I've gained a lot of pleasure and knowledge from reading it anyway.

Home News and Nature Notes

The beautiful weather from our second week of travel has followed us home, it's sunny and pleasant this weekend, with no wind. I have some work to catch up on, but it was hard to stay inside, so yesterday afternoon we went down to Cape May Point to walk on the trails and visit the Hawk Watch at the State Park. Here's the tally board so far this year. There were lots of watchers, but hardly any hawks, though we did see a few on the trails. Then we had a fine dinner at Frescos on their final weekend of the season.

Today I went out to do some cleanup in the yard. We have just a few acorns! When you live in the woods with oak trees, you expect that. These are blown and raked into the woods, but more continue to fall. If only we could eat them! (Yes, I know it's possible, but only with a great deal of effort, and even then they don't taste good.)

I also put up the lovely new wind chimes given to us by Ellen's friend Laura on our trip. She made the strands from colored glass and beads, and it looks cool. Not sure how it will sound yet, as there is absolutely no wind today.

Later we went for a walk along the Promenade in Sea Isle City. There were plenty of people enjoying the beach, and it was downright hot there.

In the dunes lots of Seaside Goldenrod is blooming, attracting many migrating Monarch butterflies. How many can you find in this picture?

Not my favorite butterfly, but they can be quite attractive, and of course their migration story is amazing, some make it all the way to Mexico.

Now we're home, and I'm making my mother's Apple Cake recipe with some of the Winesap apples we bought from an orchard in Tennessee. It's my favorite apple, and only available for a few weeks here, I guess they don't keep well. We'll enjoy it tonight after dinner!

Wait till next year…!

Guess the Phillies' great season was too good to last. Hope Ryan Howard recovers from his final out injury. I'm done with baseball for this year, time to get more reading done!

Luray Caverns

If you've never been inside a large cave, the one in Luray, Virginia is a marvel that will not fail to impress you. I was there as a boy, about 50 years ago, and unsurprisingly I found little had changed but me, though if anything the cave seemed bigger this time!

The entrance is well hidden, inside a normal-looking building, next to the gift shop, just a simple door. When your guide opens it and leads you inside you descend about two stories into the earth down concrete stairs, and suddenly there you are inside a huge cavern of wonders.

While it's true that the walkways cross over, under and around each other, make no mistake, the features in Luray are HUGE. Walking the cavern covers about 1.25 miles. Often the ceiling is low overhead, but then it opens up onto giant stone waterfall/draperies like this one.

The lighting in the cave is well done, if heavy on the yellows. A flash shot like this one brings out some of the gray and white in the stone that's hard to see without it.

But the lighting also adds greatly to the experience. For instance, here's part of the underground lake in a flash shot…

…and the same area without flash, just the lighting provided. Now you can barely tell where the surface line is, and which part is reflected in the perfectly still water.

The walkways are generally wide and easy, with brick or concrete underfoot, though sometimes you have to watch for obstacles like stalactites hanging in the path. We noticed quite a few that had their ends broken off. Our guide said that in the early years of the cave tours (it was discovered in the 1870s), visitors were allowed to break off one as a souvenir. That didn't last long, but of course the damage is still obvious in the glacial pace of cave features. An active Stalactite grows only about one inch in 120 years. Many we saw are inactive and not growing.

Here's a massive one that fell from the ceiling about 7,000 years ago, and is now partially covered by later features. Does not give one a feeling of confidence about what's overhead!

I didn't take photos of some of the most famous features like the Fried Eggs, and the Stalactite Organ (which we heard demonstrated: little hammers hit them to make bell-like notes), but tried to get pictures of things that appealed to me.

After about an hour it was time to climb the stairs back out of this timeless wonder into the ephemeral surface world. Can you imagine the impact the discovery of this cave had on the three men who found it and saw it for the first time? They actually got scared by some of what they saw and didn't come back for a few weeks, but soon enough plans were underway to let the world see their discovery, and unlike some caves, this one has been mostly preserved well. Go see it if you can.

Skyline Drive and a Hedge Maze

We're back from our trip and very glad to be. Always great to get home from anywhere. I have enough pictures for two more trip blogs, and will cover Luray Caverns tomorrow. Today it's the Skyline Drive and the Hedge Maze at Luray.

My little Honda Insight has done very well for us on this trip, and come through without a scratch, and getting about 47 mpg on average, even with all the hills. We did one last day of hill driving Wednesday, taking the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park to Luray. The views were similar to those on the Blue Ridge Parkway, of which this is essentially the top third, though the elevations are lower and the mountains more rounded. We enjoyed it, but again found it somewhat less compelling than the highest parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We stopped for a steep but fairly short hike to see Dark Hollow Falls, about 1.5 miles round trip, but most of that either up or down. Not bad, though, and the falls are pretty.

The day was sunny with little wind, and the butterflies were out putting on a show for us. We saw this Orange Sulphur first.

Then a handsome Mourning Cloak.

As if that weren't enough we later had a Disney Moment as this very friendly Anglewing Butterfly landed on Ellen's hand and stayed there for several minutes!

There are two Anglewing species in the Eastern U.S. that look quite similar from above…

…but on the underside is a distinctive white mark, as demonstrated! This one is clearly an Eastern Comma with a white semicircle. The other species, Question Mark, adds a white dot below. Clear markings on butterflies are rare, and these two are also named for punctuation, which is something I approve of!

When we got to Luray we had two things we wanted to do. The famous Caverns, of course, but also this relatively new Garden Maze.

This is only the second hedge maze I've been in, the other being at Hampton Court in England. That one is privet hedges, this one is yew, and lacks the historic backdrop, but otherwise is equally entertaining.

So many choices, and people do go both ways! I used my maze-making knowledge to get us to the center quickly, but that eliminated another aspect of this maze:

You're given a card that is supposed to be stamped at four Goal stations in the maze. Ellen wanted to do that, so we ended up walking every path in the maze at least twice to find all four Goals and even needed to look at "Help" hints a few times to find them all and the exit. It was fun, and we were there for about an hour, so well worth the entry fee.

Luray Caverns tomorrow.

Blue Ridge to Blowing Rock

Monday our plan was to drive from Cosby, TN back to Asheville NC, then rejoin the Blue Ridge Parkway there and take it northeast to Blowing Rock, NC, and that's what we did. The weather continued to be cold and windy, but sunny, so great for views like this.

On average the views in this section are not as dramatic or high as in the earlier part we'd done, from Asheville to the Great Smokies, but there are still some areas over 5000 feet, with groves of pretty Mountain Ash trees, and some color on the hills.

In addition to lots of snakelike turns and ups and downs there are many places where tunnels were the only solution for the road builders. Most are pretty short, but all are unlit, so it's headlights on. The longer ones are a bit spooky, like being in a mine shaft.

We stopped for a picnic lunch at one high area designed for that, and persevered despite a cold wind. We also stopped for an interesting Mineral Museum on the Parkway. After several hours of slow driving we reached our destination, Blowing Rock.

The town is named for a rocky outcrop on the south side of town where a scoop-shaped valley funnels wind up the rock face in a strong, steady stream. Legend has it that a Native American jumped off the rock and was blown back up to the top, and small objects thrown over the edge will also blow back up, even small stones.

Another part of the rocky outcropping where you can walk below it.

There's also a viewing platform extending out over the edge where you have great views of the area like this.

We enjoyed walking around the small town, which reminded us a bit of New Hope, PA: lots of inns, shops and restaurants, and had a fine dinner at our own inn. But that evening we reassessed our trip plan, which called for two more days on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This one had seemed pretty similar to the first, but with somewhat less exciting views. Did we really want two more days of it? We decided we didn't! I made some calls to rearrange our next few nights' stays, and Tuesday we took faster roads, mostly interstates, skipping past the rest of the Parkway and a stop in Roanoke, VA, staying instead at a nice B&B in Afton, VA. It was a long day of driving, but we still got here early enough to have a relaxing late afternoon and an excellent dinner at the Blue Mountain Brewery Restaurant here. If you're ever up this way, I highly recommend it, and if you're a beer fan, I absolutely loved their "Dark Mild" on tap. It has all the rich flavor of a British pub beer but with no bitter aftertaste. Wish I could bring some home, but it doesn't bottle well, so they don't do that.

Today, Wednesday, we're taking the Skyline Drive to Luray, VA. More on that next time.

Leaving Great Smokies, Dollywood

Sunday was our last day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We drove north through the park to the Tennessee side and went for a nice trail walk to a small waterfall there. The weather was cold but sunny, as it had been the last few days, and the 2.6 mile walk was easy, on a paved path, and enjoyable.

While many of the leaves are still green, splashes of bright color, like this Black Gum tree, made for bold contrasts and great views.

Along the trail Ellen spotted this small shrub with unusual seed-pods. We looked it up, it's called Strawberry Bush. This flash photo does not show accurate color.

The color is closer on this blurry non-flash photo. The seed cases do look a bit like strawberries at first glance.

Here's just a small part of the waterfall, my other pictures didn't come out well. There were lots of other folks enjoying this walk, even some with babies in strollers, so you can imagine it's not too tough.

After leaving the park we drove through Gatlinburg, a very touristy town that reminded us some of the boardwalk amusements in the beach towns near us at home, though with a country flavor, of course. But we didn't see anything there we wanted to stop for. Further north, Pigeon Forge is known for country music venues, but we didn't see a lot of them, mostly motels and fast food places. The major attraction there is Dollywood, a theme park created by Dolly Parton. Neither of us are big Parton fans, but on reflection it seemed the most interesting place to see here, and Ellen is a fan of country music in general, so we paid the rather high entrance fee and spent a few hours there.

Inside we found an attractive layout of shops, theaters, rides and craft demonstrations, as well as plenty of food options like the one above. The decor is much like Disney World's Main Street area, but with a country flavor.

One of the craft demos was this horse-driven sorghum press, grinding the sweet juice from the sorghum stalks, which is then boiled to create molasses, the main source of sweetening in the area's farms in times past. The horse went round quite happily on his own, chewing on a sorghum stalk.

One of the main attractions in the park, and what sets it apart from others, are about eight stages where live music is performed on a regular schedule. We caught two shows, this one called Country Crossroads, where six talented young singers/dancers performed a variety of country hits from the earliest days to the present, most in abbreviated form. It was well done, and the singers seemed to be having a great time. Ellen finally got the country music fix she'd been looking for in this area.

The other show, "Sha-kon-0-hey" was more of a Broadway production in a bigger theater with elaborate sets and a live band. About two dozen performers sang Parton's own songs about this area of Tennessee where she grew up, its history and conflicts, as well as its legends and entertainments. Not a bad show, but the sound wasn't great. The singers were over-amplified, making the words hard to understand at times. The sets and acrobatics were great, the singers good. The story and music were somewhat corny, but in a sincere way, and presented a very positive, perhaps Disney version of the area's history and people, but it was good fun.

The other thing we enjoyed was a ride on the Dollywood Express, a real steam-driven train, only the second one I've ridden on. This particular engine is old, having been put into service on one of the Alaska gold-rush rail lines, and it's been lovingly restored and cared for.

Like much of the park, the ride had its cornier aspects, including some of the set pieces along the route, but it was still fun.

After a few hours in the park we headed east to Cosby, Tennessee to a bed and breakfast for the end of our long day, and the beginning of our journey back toward home. More next time.

Great Smokies NP Part 2

On Saturday we decided to visit the Cataloochie Valley in the eastern part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This remote valley was once farmed and had over 1200 people in it, but when the park was formed they gradually sold their lands and moved away. A few farmhouses and public buildings remain, maintained by the park service, who also keep some fields mowed.

Getting there is a trip, though. This picture doesn't really capture how small the one-lane road is that snakes and stairsteps up and down a high ridge, and meeting oncoming traffic is scary. (On the way out we saw a bus-size camper on the way in, can't imagine how he could make it!) Once in the valley the driving is easier, though still on very narrow roads.

One reason to come here is a small herd of elk, and here they are, very relaxed and unconcerned about people watching them. Far different from the elk we saw in Yellowstone last year, where rival males were bugling and sparring the whole time!

A closer look at the male who seems to have no rivals here.

The Caldwell Place is one of the preserved farms in the valley. From the outside it looks fine, but inside it's empty with ancient peeling newspaper lining the bedrooms and dark, empty wooden walls elswhere. Kind of spooky.

Here's the Caldwell Barn. These homes were only used for about 100 years or less, and were largely cut off from the rest of the civilized world then.

In addition to the Elk we saw quite a few turkeys, like these Toms, also unconcerned with people nearby. Plus a Ruffed Grouse, first one I've seen in a decade.

After about five hours round trip to Cataloochie we returned to the park Visitor Center in Cherokee…

…where we were surprised to find two more bull Elk in the field nearby. Not sure if they're young bachelor males, or are just waiting for female Elk to arrive here from the hills.

The visitor center also has a recreation of a working farm from the area which is worth a visit, and a nice trail along the river which we enjoyed as we ended our second full day here. More next time.

Great Smokies NP Part 1

The highest point in the park is Clingman's Dome, and you can drive nearly to the top of it. We actually did that twice on Friday, more on that in a moment. Here's part of the spectacular view from the end of the road, where you begin a half-mile uphill walk to the observation tower at the top.

On our drive up that morning we saw this young Black Bear digging for and eating grubs at the side of the road. Very cute, and not bothered by the cars and people stopping to take his picture.

Here's a closer look at most of the bear, with his nose in the dirt.

The reason we did this drive twice was, after our morning visit we drove back down to the Visitor Center where Ellen had made plans to meet Laura and Ralph. Laura is a friend of Ellen's from high school, and they got back in touch recently by email, but had not seen each other since then. We found them, had a good meet and greet, and then a nice lunch together. Then Laura and Ralph wanted to see the lookout atop Clingman's Dome too, so we all went up again in our car. This allowed for more catching up between Ellen and Laura.

One of the more striking things on the path up the hill are these Mountain Ash trees, with leaves falling and bright red berries.

Here's a closer look at the berries. On trees with still-green leaves, it was very Christmassy.

The walk to the Lookout Tower is strenuous, but with a few rests we made it. On our first walk up the tower was in the sunshine.

But on both trips the clouds moved in when we reached the platform, and this was the view! Too bad, at 6643 feet, the highest point in the park, and also the highest point of the Appalachian Trail, should have provided great vistas, but sometimes clouds happen. Driving back down we again saw bears, this time a mother with three cubs, all digging at the roadside.

We went back to Cherokee and toured the Cherokee Indian Museum, which was interesting if ultimately sad, then had dinner in the Harrah's Cherokee Casino which opened there recently, and will hopefully provide income for the tribe. Ellen and Laura had a great time talking, and we all enjoyed the company. They stayed overnight, had breakfast with us, then headed back to the Atlanta area. We appreciated them driving up to see us. More on the Great Smokies next time.