Brooklyn's Botanical Gardens

After multiple attempts, I finally made it into the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn. If something is so close and accessible, it always seems a little harder to get to, and then the times I did go, the rest of Brooklyn was waiting on line to get in or it was closed (on Monday). It's Cherry Blossom season, which evokes thoughts of The Mall in DC and for those having gone to Japan--Japan.


The crowds were pretty thick throughout the gardens, yet they do a masterful job of creating vantage points, setting benches back off the path to create an illusion of privacy, peering into the a rose garden, a Shakespeare inspired walk, the shimmering meadow pictured below. There are green houses with desert, tropical and warm temperate environments, lily pools and a magnificent (though pricey) catering hall for a wedding.
The picture below is actually across Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Park. The bride is propped in the tree ready for pictures.

Adirondack Mountains

The high peaks range of the Adirondacks in New York feels like the big country of the western Rockies. Yeah they are not as high, but they start at a much lower altitude, get above the tree line, and get that rugged, unpredictable weather of the big mountain ranges. The park is the largest in the contiguous United States. There are high mountains, lakes, marsh lands for boating, skiing, hiking, biking, ice and rock climbing, and snowmobiling. I have an even better appreciation of New York.

It was just a five hour drive north of the city. Our first night was in the small town of Keene Valley. The Inn owner told us to let ourselves in and grab some beers. We stoked the fire, sat around at midnight and reconnected with some old Peace Corps stories. The Mountaineer--an idyllic mountaineering shop--was our staging ground to get some of the gear we needed.
There was two feet of snow at the trail head and 7 plus feet at the peaks. We strapped on snow shoes and set up camp about an hour in. At a stop some well-trained bird found our snack to be as tasty as we thought. We explored the area and the next morning hiked over a pass down onto Avalanche Lake. Two hundred foot rock walls lined the entrance to the lake. The Mt. Colden trail entrance was tucked in amongst the trees on the left side of the second lake in the valley. The trail goes up and up through dense pine forest. At some points the snow was level with the trail markers.
The peak was socked in a cloud but the sparse alpine view was spectacular. The trees gave way to tough shrubs covered in icicles. For a few moments, we lost the trail and stared down some slick rock leading to the edge of the rock walls we were looking up at from the lake. At the top, we found a bare rock and chomp on some gorp and buttered French bread.


It always takes me a night to slow my internal clock to the time of nature. The first night I am restless, needing some sort of distraction--music, the computer, a movie. After a good first night's sleep in the back-country, buried in my sleeping bag, the morning is always refreshingly perfect. Throw in a little coffee and laugh at the man in black and life is good again.
This was the only break in the clouds on the day of the ascent.

Leaving Work

There is a freedom
Loosed from confines of glass and steel
Wind
Tears in my eyes
I’m unencumbered,
I can hear, see, and smell
Feel the air.
Deep breaths
In and out
Tension dissolves
Complete concentration
I’m aware of everything
In all directions
My dimensions are sleek
Agile
My legs continuously pumping
Anticipating
Reacting
Arms pulling
I slide through traffic
As they wait
Then slug forward
Burning old dead weight
I cruise through an intersection
When all lights are red
That moment
When legs behind guzzling steel
Move from brake to gas
Their only exercise

Green trees
In Prospect Park
Fresh oxygenated air
I sit back

Coast
With hands out
I embrace life
And smile
At my arrival home

Fireman's Funeral

A fire raged through the remnants of the Deutsche Bank in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. Two fire fighters succumbed to the flames. Thursday morning was the memorial service one of the men. He grew up just a few blocks from my place. Fort Hamilton Parkway was blocked off from 9 am to 1 pm. Firefighters from across the city arrived in formal attire.


Firemen, five rows deep, lined the street for three blocks leading to the church. The cadets in light blue faced them on the opposite side of the street. There was a complete and solemn silence for 20 minutes as the funeral procession passed. Camera crews watched on. The musicians played "Taps"on the bag pipes. Their sounds resonated through the pa system. Once the church was filled, the funeral service could be heard on the street.

Broolklyn Tornado

I slept soundly, vaguely aware of the tremendous thunder and lightning spaced way less than a second from each other. In the morning I made some coffee and started reading as I do each lazy early morning of summer vacation. The phone rang, the answering machine picked up and Danielle's father was leaving a message about the news reports of a tornado in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park only blocks away from us.


The tornado touched down along the water along Shore Road and the 70's streets. Trees were lifted out of the ground from the force of the wind. A house and cars had trees crushing them in the morning. Multiple streets were blocked off throughout the two neighborhoods. Leif Erickson Park had a whole block of old growth trees downed, branches strewn about, fences and a swing set crushed.

Notice the pink sign in the window of Johnny's Pizza Shop offering free pizza to the victims of the tornado. Just down the block on 58th street five houses had their roofs ripped from their tops and dropped on the street at their front steps.
The blinds in the window show signs of the implosion of the roof. City workers post "unsafe" for entering signs on a row of homes. With the streets block on garbage day, the smell of refuse fills the street.
Major news crews were lingering around the streets and yellow ribbons blocked access to streets, houses, and various cars. The tornado seems to have touched down carving a two mile long semi-circle before dissipating.

Broken

They come to broken schools from broken homes.
They know only fear and intimidation;
Mistaken it for respect and strength.
They fight amongst themselves
Battling for their voice.
Knowing somewhere deep down
That they are the forgotten,
The poor,
The minority,
The lowest rung in our class society.
They're fed sugar, caffeine and logos.
Then expected to focus on content
Increasingly disconnected from their lives.
Drugs are used to placate them.
Soma
Images of "A Brave New World"
A factory with its bells, whistles and clocks.
Training workers,
Not thinkers
Students push against the walls,
Fight the only way they know
Pleading for help.

Tradition and Drink

The oldest standing church of Central America withstands the elements of weather and encroachment of the expanding city of Xela in the highlands of Guatemala. A restoration project is working on refurbishing the interior while the active ministry has moved to a more modern building.
On All Saints Day, our tradition of Halloween, the entire town seems to spend the day at the city cemetery celebrating the lives of those past. They bring flowers, picnic, fly kites, and drink to the occasion. In a mini-quest to find a local drink of this region, I found a woman just a block from the above pictured church who makes a strong berry-accented moonshine and a liquor that tastes of eggnog. The heavily monopolized beer industry makes Gallo, with the fertile rooster labeled on the bottle, the default choice for celebration.

Lake Titicaca

The high altitude lake shimmers on a vast plateau within the long chain of the Andes mountains. Currently the lake serves as an arbitrary boarder between Bolivia and Peru. The indigenous cultures floating on their islands of reed grass survivied the Incas, the Conquistadores, and the struggle to stay afloat with the advent of tourism. I continue to feel guilty for taking their pictures. My solace is in the little solar panels that passively take energy from the sun, implicitly saying techinology is an alright addition; this works for me.


The contemplative moment between a father and son listening to the gentle rhythms nature links generations, culture and change. These two were taking a respite from the celebration at the nearby church in Copacabana. The festivities brought pilgrams from all of Bolivia to gain blessing for the longevity of their various modes of transportation. Flowers, toy trucks, saints and beers seemed to converge cultural, Catholic and modern traditions. Interestingly, there is a similar holiday on the opposite side of the world in the Hindu nation of Nepal.


As the sun rose I climbed out of bed, put on some long johns and a hat to take away the chill, shouldered a small pack with water and set out to circumnavigate the Isla del Sol. With no automobiles, only foot paths meander up, down and around the hilly, terraced farmland, I relished in breath-taking vistas at each turn. In my seven hours of touring, I was alone ducking through stone doorways of Inca ruins, hired a canoe and local for a jount in the water, drank coca tea with a elpaca herder and reveled in my aloneness in nature.

Organic Farming Carmagnola

The local train from Torino takes us to Carmagnola twenty minutes southwest of the Olympic destination scrubbed clean for the big winter event held last winter. Without the faculty of the Italian language, we make a phone call and await the farmer on his way to pick us up at the train station. With our legs squished in the back seat of a mini-car, we wind our way on tight, two-lane roads. Big stands of paper harvesting trees, corn and wheat roll in each direction. This sign greets us at the entrance to the farm.

From Rome, the train ride north along the Italian Riviera pops in and out of tunnels passing famous places such as Pisa, La Spezia, and Cinque Terra. Our ride takes us up into the north country of Italy near the base of the Italian Alps. The rugged coastal mountains give way to a flat, lush valley. This is the farming center of Italy with Torino and Milan capitalizing on its wealth and the charm of Venice flourishes where the river meets the sea.

During the weekdays a bus load of little kids come to tour the farm, feed the animals, play, and eat an elegant pasta meal. It is wonderful to see six year-old kids served with white dishes and real silverware on a long table prepared under a grape vine awning, rather than given plastic everything because they can not be trusted or throw-away is temporarily cost effective.
The World Wide Organization for Organic Farmers (WWOOF) provides a network of farms in every corner of the globe for farmers, adventurers and travelers alike to get their hands dirty, manure on their shoes, taste the local food and drink (The wine and espresso being the fortes of Italy!), and delve into some local culture. The exchange is a full week's work, months if the time suits, for room and board. Each farm posts a bio of their location, accommodations, and the focus of their farm. We stayed a week. We got dirty. We drank wine. We ate wonderful meals and we slept well. Our host was fabulous.