Some Things We've Done - 2022 Edition

The years roll on!  Before we know it, we're into...

2022 

Sea of Cortez - A & L, longtime friends and mentors, needed a couple of extra bodies for a sailing trip out of La Paz, Mexico.  We didn't have much else going on, so off we went to explore the Sea of Cortez with them for a week, along with their longtime friend M, and A's nephew and nephew's girlfriend.  It was a bit of a motley crew, but we had a wonderful time.  S got to ride a whale shark, and it was the last time I got to spend quality time with A before his death in 2025.

SLSO - a new symphony season began in the fall of 2021. We saw loads of shows, including Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, a symphonic performance of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sibelius' En saga, op. 9, and loads of other gems.

Colorado - our annual ski trip was its usual success. Dad and D had to scoot on another adventure when we had a night or two left, so we took ourselves out on a super-great date night to the Office Spiritorium that we still talk about!

Florida - it had been a long time since we had visited K and J in Florida.  We had a springtime visit, which included seeing Pippin - a show I had never seen before! - performed by the Indian River State College theater department. 

Turks & Caicos - we certainly hadn't planned to spend the year traveling the world, but when S's best friend found round-trip tickets to Turks & Caicos for $200 per person, how could we not? It was truly silly that it was so cheap!  So we spent a week there with Z and L, touring, beaching, and generally getting away from it all.

OTSL - the annual summer opera season was back to its regular old self.  Shows were Harvey Milk (which was better than I expected), Awakenings, Carmen (a classic), and The Magic Flute.

Germany and Azerbaijan - since Morocco didn't work out, it turned out that our first big post-COVID trip was to see the Formula 1 race in Baku, Azerbaijan.  S had gotten very into F1 several years prior, and we were watching all the races (when they weren't cancelled).  The Baku race goes, in part, through the old town area.  "That looks cool," we thought; "we should go there."  S's friend J, also a huge F1 fan, was totally into the idea and scoped out an epic apartment in Baku right on the race course.

We bought the necessary t-shirts and were planning the trip.  It turned out that most of our airfare options took us through Germany, a place neither of us had been.  So we decided to tour there as well!  We flew into and out of Frankfurt, and spent two days each in Heidelberg (including its stunning Church of the Holy Spirit and castle), Baden-Baden (which included a trip to the famous Friedrichsbad Spa and Casino), Freiberg (whose gorgeous church bells were right outside our hotel room window, and where the Black Forest mountain biking was quite the uphill-downhill adventure), and Frankfurt (highlights including the Communication Museum and the bar at our hotel overlooking the city in the evening).

I haven't yet mentioned that our luggage was lost by United/Lufthansa on our way to Germany.  It hadn't been found in the eight days we were there, so we spent an unfortunate amount of time in each city we visited shopping for a new socks or clean underwear.  By the time we got back to Frankfurt, I was feeling very much like a bag lady with no actual suitcase, and we shortly had to get onto an airplane on the way to Azerbaijan.  So we stopped in at a luggage store and I bought a large, aluminum, rolling suitcase to hold all our new purchases.  (S also picked up an unnecessary but to this day quite useful Deuter duffel bag - which he liked so much that he has since bought another!)

We loved Germany.  It was clean and felt safe and the trains were (apparently surprisingly!?) on time.

Azerbaijan was another world.  We liked it too, but it was something entirely different!  It was one of few places we have been where they truly do not cater to English speakers.  Some folks may speak English, but it's certainly not a guarantee.  It's a Muslim country but -- at least in Baku; we didn't go elsewhere -- you see everything from women in full hijab to those in miniskirts and tube tops.  We went to the Azerbaijani National Carpet Museum, Maiden Tower, and the Daniz shopping mall (where we lived out our own F1 race on their indoor karting track).  Despite three attempts, we never were able to catch the Museum of Miniature Books when it was open.  I'll have to go back just for that, if nothing else!

Wyoming - Dad's parents both passed away in 2021, and that year we began a family tradition of taking a summer trip together in lieu of Christmas gifts.  2022 was our first year.  We went to a lodge in Wyoming, which was preceded by a visit on the part of S, K, J, and me to Grand Teton National Park for a few days.  This has, in the years since, proved to be a wonderful annual tradition.  S and I drove our campervan out and back so we had a few additional stops along the way (the Crazy Horse Memorial where we saw a performance of traditional hoop dancing, scenic drives through Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Yellowstone, and others).  

Memphis - for S's birthday, we took a trip to Memphis for the weekend.  The weather was beautiful.  We visited the Fire Museum, saw the ducks at the Peabody, took in some live music, and got the still-frequently-used 1-gallon bucket from Silky O'Sullivan's on Beale Street.

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site - I've been in St. Louis for a long time to have never been to White Haven, the common name of the U.S. Grant National Historic Site.  So when the Campbell House Museum, where I had been a longtime member, had a "Farm Table to Gilded Table" event with food and drink served at both places, I simply couldn't resist.  It was a wonderful event and a wonderful date night!

SCUBA Diving - S had spent a lot of time SCUBA diving when he lived in Florida.  I had never done it.  So one weekend, we hopped in the car and drove to Panama City, where he did a refresher course and I got my Open Water certification!  I had done all the online work ahead of time, but that stuff really doesn't sink in for me.  Once we got in the pool, though, it really started to make more sense. 

St. Lucia - S had always harbored (pun intended) a secret interest in sailing.  When he decided he wanted to get his captain's license, I figured that I might as well do it too.  So off we went to St. Lucia, where we could get not only licenses which were good in the U.S., but also the necessary certification to charter a boat in the Mediterranean, should we want to go there. 

St. Lucia was a strange place.  There were little restaurants and tucked-away places that were fantastic, but as a whole the people seemed largely annoyed that we were there.  They were a bit rude and put off by the fact that we might need anything, even the hotel staff!  It was an odd attitude.

But we left with shiny new licenses, so it was a success! 

Some Things We've Done - 2021 Edition

The recap continues:

2021 

Colorado - as 2020 rolled into 2021, we weren't about to forego our annual ski trip.  We had planned a three-day drive from here to there, but an incoming storm headed towards one of the passes we needed to cross inspired us to keep going on the second day.  We needed to get over the pass that night; if not, we either would be stuck on the east side for a few days at least or would have to head way south to get to warmer weather and lower elevation. It was pretty sketchy, but we made it!  And had a nice ski trip, to boot. 

King Lear - St. Louis has a popular summer Shakespeare program, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.  It's always an outdoor production, so they were well-situated to handle the various COVID restrictions.  In 2021, the production was King Lear.

OTSL - After a cancelled season in 2020, OTSL returned in 2021 with outdoor performances.  Guests got a little gift bag which included a fan, a koozie, hand sanitizer, and bug spray.  K and E were here on the same weekend. It's been so long now, but my recollection is that they shortened the shows, so we saw both Gianni Schicchi and Highway 1, U.S.A. on the same night - but I could be wrong about this.  Regardless, we had a nice time and two show-inspired menus including ribollita, casseruola alla fiorentina, grits, and fried green tomatoes. 

California - for our first air travel in a long time, we headed out to the Central Valley for the wedding of my dear and long-time friend M.  It was an outdoor event at a local organic farm.  The celebration itself was lovely, and the food was fantastic!  A great time was had by all.

Lumberjack World Championships - the 2020 version of this, like everything else, had been cancelled.  But we had had so much fun in 2019 that we went back again once they reopened.  The beer was a little more expensive, but the show was every bit as fun.  There's also a great outdoor exhibitors' "hall" where you can learn all about the local area, buy axes, listen to the Pinery Boys, and stretch your legs a bit between events.

West Virginia - S organized an end-of-summer trip with a group of friends to the Gauley River National Recreation Area, were we were rafted the Gauley Marathon!  It was wild enough having white-water rafted a few times before, but there were a couple in our number who had never rafted before, and one who couldn't even swim!  Despite his initial astonishment, our guide was a good sport about it all and we had a wonderful time.  West Virginia, by the way, is beautiful.  Definitely a place I could spend some more time. 

Camping - for our anniversary in 2021, S and I went camping.  It was a short but wonderful trip to a relatively easy-to-get-to spot, but also a relatively unpopular spot, so I'm not going to say where.  WE had fantastic weather: pants and t-shirts during the day, crisp and cool at night.  We camped next to a babbling brook and slept like babies. 

On other weekends, but also in 2021, we took advantage of that post-COVID time when there was still a lot of working from home and flexibility to take long weekends.  We did a lot of fishing, took our canoe out a few times, and spent some good time outdoors. 

Colorado - Thanksgiving in 2021 was in Colorado, and it saw all three sisters and their spouses (and L!) in one place.  Plus E, her husband, and son were there as well.  Thanksgiving is, all in, probably the best holiday.  It's not my personal favorite, but I do love it, and I know other people love it too.  It seems to be the overall winner.  We took a day trip to Telluride to see what that had to offer, which included the gorgeous drive.  The autumn weather and leaves were a beautiful backdrop for some fun family photos, too!

Morocco Maine - We (mostly S) had planned an epic trip to Morocco for my birthday, a big hurrah now that everyone was traveling again.  It was going to be our first "big" trip in a long time, to somewhere that no one we knew had ever been.  So much to look forward to.  But just a couple of weeks before we were scheduled to leave, another round of COVID reared its ugly head, and Morocco shut its doors to travelers.  Americans who were there were flown home on planes chartered for just that purpose.  

So, since Morocco was off the table, we threw together a last-minute trip to Camden, Maine.  We booked every special they had that month at the Camden Harbour Inn, and stayed there with back-to-back Christmas and ski and New Year's and whatever-else-was-on-offer deals.  The food at their restaurant, Natalie's, was fantastic; the bartenders equally so.  Probably half the shops in town were closed for the off season, but the ones that were open were charming and made for a nice shopping experience.  Their local public library was having a big book sale when we were there, and I picked up a few good books - including one set in Morocco!  It was just barely below freezing; it was cold enough to snow on Christmas Day - something we really can't count on in St. Louis - but was warm enough that it was raining the day we went skiing at the Camden Snow Bowl.  But not so warm as to melt the ice which made our hike in Camden Hills State Park treacherous but fun!

It wasn't Morocco, but it was a great back-up vacation! 

Happy 4th of July!

Some Things We've Done - 2020 Edition

Carrying on the recap of how S and I have spent the last several years, here we go with... 

2020

Bahamas Cruise and Kennedy Space Center - COVID wasn't a thing yet, at least in this part of the world, when S and I joined K and J down in Florida for a long cruise weekend.  I had, some time prior, sent my passport in for renewal.  S got his back in a couple of weeks, but mine was delayed.  I am a shady character, after all....  Luckily, because the Bahamas is U.S.A.-lite, you can take a cruise there with just a birth certificate and driver's license (and in my case, a marriage license).  We had, as we usually do, a great time with K and J!  We kicked butt at trivia and did our best to clean out the bar; we can't let those unlimited drinks packages go to waste, after all!  Much pizza was consumed, we escaped from the escape room, we spent half a day in Nassau and J's birthday doing all the water slides at Coco Cay.

Back on land, we ended our whirlwind weekend with a trip to Kennedy Space Center. As seems to be the trend with every museum we visit, it is a place we could have spent some more time!

Colorado - it has been my tradition for some years - even before S was around, and definitely now that he's nearly as good a skier as I am - to head out to Colorado for the annual ski adventure.  It was on that trip that I bought the skis I still ski on each year, my Blizzard Black Pearls.  We didn't know it at the time, but that trip would be the last time we were on an airplane in an age.

 

Because then, COVID happened.

 

Remember how weird it was when no one knew what was happening?  And we never went anywhere?  Even going to the grocery store was a fraught experience.  Most of the rest of the year, we stayed home, as did many people.  We were both working from home, feeling very lucky to have flexible jobs and loads of outdoor space where we could get fresh air, work out, and generally not feel like we were trapped.  We pulled out lots of honeysuckle from our woods, spent time in the gardens, began the still-ongoing master bathroom renovation, spent lots of time cleaning and organizing the basement, and finally had time to do lots and lots of cooking.

We were not without some high-way bound adventures, though:

Shackteau - K and J have a cabin a few hours from where we live.  In June or July of 2020, they made the long trip up from Florida, Dad and D made the equally long drive in from Colorado, and we made the relatively short hop from our house to spend a week or so together.  As anyone who's ever been there knows, a trip to the Shackteau is also a project list.  The big one we ticked off during that visit was building a fire pit.  It's a 16' x 16' square in the yard, the hillside held back with a few railroad ties.  The ground is covered in gravel, and in the middle we built a fire ring out of landscaping bricks.

We enjoyed a lovely tour of the county, including the local cult, and spent a day on a boat at Mark Twain Lake.  All in all, it was a lovely time and a really nice way to see everyone when no one was flying.

Ozarks - S has an aunt and uncle who have, for ages, had a second home down at the Lake of the Ozarks.  In the late 20-teens, they upgraded to a bigger place, planning to ultimately sell their home in St. Louis when they retired and move down to the lake full time (which has now happened).  In the heat of summer in St. Louis, it's a nice place to escape to, which we did.

Colorado and Phoenix - as fall rolled towards winter in 2020, another round of COVID was rearing its ugly head.  We had been in St. Louis for longer at a stretch than we typically were, and we were getting a bit itchy to travel.  So we packed up our campervan and headed back to Colorado, stopping along the way at the Cosmpsphere and Strataca, both in Hutchinson, Kansas.  Once we arrived, we spent two weeks with Dad and D.  From there, we dropped down towards Phoenix, meeting up with T and L, S's dad and step-mom, along the way.  We then spent three weeks with them in Phoenix before making the long trek home, which were punctuated by stops at Petrified Forest National Park and the odd but fascinating Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve, outside Bartlesville, OK.

Some Things We've Done - 2019 Edition

Do you remember back when I used to write a lot on this blog about the various places I went and things I did all over town?  I do too.

I'm not sure quite why I got away from doing that, but I did.  It was sometime in 2019 that it happened.  I know this, because I just found a big ol' pile of playbills, brochures, and other documentation of various activities!

So, here is a seven year recap of our fun times (though there is a noticeable gap, which I'm sure you all will understand).

2019

60th Annual Lumberjack World Championships - Hayward, Wisconsin, is home to the annual Lumberjack World Championships.  We've been twice, and it's been a blast both times.  Tickets and beer are inexpensive, the competition is fierce, and the nearby Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest provides ample camping opportunities (if you can handle the North Country mosquitoes).  After our first night in the forest, we got a very kind offer to camp in the parking lot of the now-closed Tiny's Diner, which made the next morning's breakfast quite convenient.  Tiny had an enormous collection of rubber ducks and related decor, and we've sent him several to add to his collection as we've traveled the country and the world since we first met him, including one from SLAM right here in town!

We can also recommend setting aside a whole afternoon to visit the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum (and make sure you go all to the way to the last outbuildings, which is where they have the old fishing boats and motors -- we got a bit shorted on time so had to speed through this part, unfortunately).  Same goes for the Sawyer County Historical Society; it's a great little museum jam-packed with local history, but hours are a bit limited, so plan ahead!

Our Anniversary - we spent a weekend in downtown St. Louis for our 2019 anniversary.  We spent the day participating in MetroQuest, which covered the downtown and Washington Avenue neighborhoods that year.  Dinner was at Hamilton's Urban Steak House & Bourbon Bar, which was hosting a special Maker's Mark five-course pairing dinner that evening.  I still have the menu!  Seared scallop, arugula and endive salad, roasted rack of lamb, Wagyu ribeye, and bananas foster.  We capped it off with a visit to The Gaslight Theater, where they were showing the play Fifty Words, which is -- not ideally, for an anniversary -- a play about a troubled marriage.  But it was well-acted and was also my introduction to the Gaslight!  We stayed at the Angad Arts hotel, whose rooftop bar/club sure was an experience!  Cool rooms, though.

Florida - our last big family get-together pre-COVID was a Thanksgiving celebration at K's house.  It was a great time! 

Phoenix - we busted out of the St. Louis winter with a holiday trip to see some family in the Phoenix area.  Hands down, the best moment of the trip came when S's step-mom saw me shopping online for leather duffel bags.  "I'm thinking about getting myself a Christmas gift," I explained.  She told me to hold my horses, disappeared into a back bedroom, and came back out with a box that had "Christmas gift?" scrawled on the side in permanent marker.  She opened it up and pulled out a leather duffel bag!  Apparently they had ended up with it somehow and neither of them wanted it, but they never bothered to return it, instead holding onto it for the right moment.  It was (and remains) perfect!

What I'm Reading Now -- Cutting For Stone

Cutting for Stone was hugely popular and well reviewed when it first came out in 2009.  I was in my workin'-at-the-bookstore days at the time, and everyone wanted to read it. 

I've had the audio book version of this for probably a decade, but it's been stuck in the lost world of iTunes, and I have only relatively recently managed to extract it.  

So, since I've been having so much fun with audio books lately, off I go with this one! 

What I'm Reading Now -- The Federalist Papers

The September selection for my 2026 Reading Challenge is The Federalist Papers.  It's a collection of 85 essays that were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, collectively making the argument for why the voters in fledgling United States should ratify the newly-drafted Constitution.  

I am still working on How to Win a Grand Prix and was lamenting that, apparently, I have gotten rid of my copy of The Federalist Papers.  Since Grand Prix is digital, I wanted something on paper.  Imagine my good luck when I was over at a friend's house and she had a copy of The Federalist (as it was known when it originally published) right there on her bookshelf!  So off I go, with my borrowed paper copy of essays in support of our federal government.

Which, to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about on the whole right now. 

A Gentleman in Moscow -- Take 2

I really liked A Gentleman in Moscow. More on that later.

Where I want to start is its big similarity with All The Light We Cannot See, which truly didn't hit me until I looked at this blog to begin writing this post.  But as soon as I saw the cover image for All The Light, it immediately hit me that they have extremely similar protagonists. Our titular Gentleman here is Count Alexander Rostov, who has been sentenced to a life of house arrest in Moscow's glamorous Metropol Hotel.  He is intelligent, witty, and observant, but limited by his physical confines.  In All The Light, young Marie-Laure is equally intelligent and observant, but spends years confined to one home or another in war-torn France as a consequence of her blindness.

 

Each of them witness, in their own way, huge world events unfolding outside their doors while half their lives pass them by. For Count Rostov, it's the decades following the Russian Revolution, as it grows into a world power; for Marie-Laure it's World War II.

 

They each have two major and several minor relationships which anchor them through the story.  For Marie-Laure, they biggies are her father and her uncle.  For Count Rostov, they're his long-time lover and his daughter (for details, you'll have to read it).

About A Gentleman In Moscow itself, I really did enjoy it.  I listened to the audio, which helped me get through a pretty hefty book in basically record time for a slow reader.  I appreciated the Count's erudite observation and analysis of the incidents and people that swirl around him. I appreciated - and this is unusual for me - the sometimes overly flowery language and the unnecessary asides.  They just all seemed to work in this book, with this character, in this style for me.  Nevermind that outside the doors of the Metropol, Russia was in crisis; the unflappable Count Rostov carries on.

What I'm Reading Now -- A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles has been on my list of books to read for a while.  Somehow he's just never made it to the top.  I so enjoyed the experience of the last two audio books that I listened to, I decided I'd give it another go and see what else I could find in the library's "available now" category.

And there was Amor Towles! A Gentleman in Moscow was available, so I snagged it.  It's the story of a -- you guessed it -- gentleman (a count, specifically) in -- you guessed again -- Moscow after the Russian revolution.  As punishment for his various misdeeds, he is sentenced upon penalty of death to house arrest at the Metropol hotel.  It's the story of his time there -- how he passes it, whom he meets, what led him to that fate.

So far, the description in simply brilliant.  The recounting of the people and the goings-on in the lobby, the restaurants, the card room, even on the roof, all make me feel like I'm right there, wishing I were as articulate as the Count. 

I look forward to seeing what happens in the rest of his exile! 

The Paris Apartment -- Take 2

The Paris Apartment is basically the same book as The Midnight Feast.  I think, on balance, I did like The Paris Apartment a bit more.  The characters were more interesting and Paris is more interesting than most places. 

Our protagonist is the sister of a fellow who mysteriously disappeared just an hour or two before she arrived in Paris from London for a visit.  It falls to her to investigate his disappearance, all while being unsure of who she can trust and who may have been involved.

I haven't read The Guest List, the last of Lucy Foley's books that I had put on my list, but I expect it's also basically the same as the two I've read already.  Of course, maybe if I just need something entertaining, it'll be perfect.