Walking and Drinking Beer

Moving, moving, moving...

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 20:50:00 +0000

I have a new website with its own domain now, please come by and enjoy the accounts of my adventures.

https://richgrantdenver.com

Enjoy National Beer Day (April 7th) in the Town that Makes the Most Beer in the World – Golden, Colorado

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 01:12:00 +0000

GOLDEN, COLORADO

View of Golden, Colorado from South Table Mountain

There’s no better place to spend “national beer day” than in the little town that produces more beer than anywhere else in the world, Golden, Colorado. This historic mountain town along the banks of Clear Creek, just 12 miles west of Denver, makes on average a staggering 11.8 million bottles of beer a day.

Coors Brewery from Clear Creek in downtown Golden

That’s because Coors Brewery -- the world’s largest single site brewery – has been making beer here since 1872. That’s when German brewer Adolph Coors was hiking along Clear Creek and found some nearby natural springs and decided to open a brewery.

Today, Coors uses that same Rocky Mountain spring water to produce 13 million barrels of beer a year. That translates into 4.3 billion bottles – or about 221,000 bottles of beer for every resident in Golden.

And Coors isn’t the only brewery in town. There are five other award-winning craft breweries, as well as two distilleries. The legendary Western scout and showman, Buffalo Bill Cody, would be so proud. Buffalo Bill was known to have a fondness for beer and alcohol, and today his grave on top of Lookout Mountain overlooks Coors and the pretty town of Golden down below.

But there’s more to do in Golden than stop and smell the hops.

Downtown Golden

The quaint Western-looking town, is a major recreation center known for biking, hiking, rock climbing, fly fishing, and kayaking, and is just minutes from the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The first T-Rex and many other dinosaurs were discovered here and Golden is also home to America’s only mountaineering museum and Colorado’s largest narrow gauge railroad collection. And of course, the “Wild West” lives again at the Buffalo Bill Museum.

But it’s beer that put Golden on the map and here’s some ways to celebrate National Beer Day in this little town where the slogan is, “Where the West lives.”

Golden, Colorado from the Lariat Loop Trail

FIRST – WHAT IS NATIONAL BEER DAY?

Since 2009, National Beer Day has been celebrated on April 7, marking the day that the Cullen-Harrison Act went into effect in 1933, ending prohibition for the production of beer. Upon signing the legislation, Roosevelt said, "I think this would be a good time for a beer." The act eventually led to the Eighteenth Amendment being repealed on December 5, 1933, with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. April 6, the day prior to National Beer Day, is known as New Beer's Eve. In 2019, New Beer’s Eve and National Beer Day fall on a Saturday-Sunday, making it a perfect time to celebrate man’s oldest food.

How to Celebrate in Golden:

Coors Brewery in downtown Golden

Tour Coors

Well, of course you have to start here. The brewery has a 30-minute, self-paced tour of the malting, brewing and packaging of Coors Beer. http://www.millercoors.com/Brewery-Tours/Golden-Brewery-Tour.aspx You get to explore a room of giant copper kettles and then stop in the packaging room, where thousands of cans and bottles whirl by, marching one-by-one on tread mills to be filled with beer and slotted into six packs. After the tour, those 21 and over can sample three free glasses of beer. If you already know how beer is made, ask for the “short tour,” which is no tour at all. They’ll direct you straight to the free tasting room and gift shop. Tours are $5 for Colorado residents and $10 for out-of-state visitors and include three free beers and a free souvenir glass.

Savoir Some Samplers at Craft Breweries

The way to drink at the five craft breweries in Golden is by ordering a tray of samplers – usually six different four-ounce beers that let you taste a variety of handmade brews, from lagers and pale ales to India Pale Ales, porters, stouts and sours.

Golden’s craft breweries don’t serve food, so you can bring your own food in or order from rotating food trucks that park directly outside. Because there’s no kitchen, dogs are allowed on the patios and it’s a rare day when there aren’t a half dozen dogs or more enjoying the Colorado sun at these outdoor beer gardens. Here are the choices:

Statue of Adolph Coors in downtown Golden

Golden City Brewery was founded in 1993 by two geologists, Charlie and Janine Sturdavant. The unusual thing was they founded the brewery in their own house. The beer garden is their backyard. In winter there’s always an outdoor fire; in summer, there are often musicians playing. Order a beer through the Dutch door of the carriage house, find a table, and relax in Charlie and Janine’s backyard (they still live here). Their specialty is the Clear Creek Gold Pale Ale, an award-winning, traditional German Kolschbier hopped with Czech Saaz for a pleasant floral finish.

Sampler tray in Golden City Brewery

Barrels & Bottles is a friendly brewery that believes in equality: there are 24 craft beers on tap (a half dozen of their own and great guest beers from across the country) and just to be equal, 24 tap wines. If you’re not familiar with tap wines, it’s a growing trend and the freshest way to enjoy wine right from the barrel, including wines produced in Colorado. Barrels & Bottles has one of only four beer infusion machines in the nation (one of only two in Colorado). These science fiction looking machines add tasty flavors like coffee or chocolate to beer, after it’s been brewed. Stop by and say hi to the owner’s two dogs and warm up with a Hint of Mint Brown Porter, a complex, malty dark beer with a lightly burnt character.

Cannonball Creek

· MountainToad is the quintessential Colorado brewery with big windows that open to the outdoors, an outdoor patio with food trucks, a beer garden, and 6-12 craft beers on tap. Check out the chalkboard to see what beers have been added to the menu. Dogs are always welcome and mingle with guests on the large tree-shaded patio, which is filled with picnic tables.

· CannonballCreek Brewing In its first year, this young brewery took two prestigious silver medals at the Great American Beer Festival, and in 2016 they were the only Colorado brewery to win two gold medals, winning another gold in 2018. They usually have between 6-12 craft beers on tap, as well as offering gorgeous views of the buttes and mountains surrounding Golden.

Barrels & Bottles Brewery

New Terrain. Located high on the east side of North Table Mountain with views down into Clear Creek Valley, the brewery, like its name says, is exploring new ways to make traditional beers. Their motto is not, “this is how it is done,” but rather, “what if we try it this way?” Couldn’t be more fitting, because among the many things you can see from their outdoor patio is massive and traditional Coors Brewery in the valley below.

New Terrain

· Holidaily This one-of-a-kind brewery is dedicated to making delicious tasting gluten-free beers. Try a Buckwit Belgian, a thirst quenching light brew with a mix of coriander and orange peel. Or let your hair down with a Ponytail Pale Ale – a single hop variety pale ale brewed specially for Collaboration Fest 2017.

For more information on other activities in Golden, visit: www.visitgolden.com

The Surrenders, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 17:49:00 +0000

How America’s Two Largest Surrenders in the Civil War Turned Out to be Victories – For Both Sides.

To read: Part I:

Part II

Shortly after 10 p.m., on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth walked up the back stairs of the Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. and entered the private box overlooking the stage. There was no guard. As an actor, Booth knew the play being performed, a comedy from England called “Our American Cousin.” There was a particular line in act three, scene two, that always drew laughter. Thinking the laughter would conceal the sound of a shot, Booth waited for the line, then as the audience howled, he walked up, placed a .44 single shot derringer pistol behind the head of President Abraham Lincoln, and squeezed the trigger, changing all history.

Bennett Place where the largest surrender in American history took place looks unchanged from April 1865.

We’ll never know, of course, what would have happened had Lincoln lived, but it’s easy to see the immediate effect his death had on the great Civil War and the surrender of the remaining Confederate armies. It caused havoc.

You can visit the site where this second, post-assassination surrender (the largest surrender in American history) happened at Bennett PlaceState Historic Site, Durham, North Carolina, and relive the tense few days where the end of the Civil War hung in the balance. It’s a quiet place today, re-creating exactly what the homestead looked like in 1865. But the story told in the museum here is quite suspenseful. But for the thoughtful and brave actions of a few men, the American Civil War might have broken up into guerilla warfare and, like other civil wars, lasted for decades.

Bennett Place near Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Most people mistakenly think the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. But there were, in fact, still 90,000 armed Confederate troops in the field and Confederate President Jefferson Davis wanted them to keep fighting.

The Confederate commander, General Joseph E. Johnson, did not. Johnson had been a classmate of Robert E. Lee at West Point and had fought with distinction in the Mexican and Seminole wars. He was against both slavery and secession, but as a Virginian, he felt honor bound to fight for the South. However, Johnson disagreed greatly with President Davis on strategy. Davis wanted the South to hold territory and aggressively attack the Union army.

An exhibit in the museum at Bennett Place

Johnson, realizing the South had much fewer resources, wanted to follow the strategy George Washington had used against the British in the revolution – that is to avoid pitched battles, retreat when necessary, and outlast the enemy.

By the end of the war, Johnson’s military career had been mixed. He had won some battles, lost many others and had been relieved of command several times, both by wounds and by presidential orders. But in 1865 with the South in ruins and facing its final crisis, Davis had no one else to turn to, and he re-appointed Johnson to command the last great Confederate army.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Facing Johnson was his old adversary, William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman had fought and defeated Johnson in the battles leading up to Atlanta, and had become, after Grant, the most famous and well known general in the Union Army. Once accused by the press of being insane, the volatile red-haired Sherman had recovered public esteem and won brilliant victories at Atlanta and on his March to the Sea campaign. His main strategy – eliminate the South’s ability to wage war by destroying their farms, railroads and factories – is often credited with ultimately winning the war, but also credited as the first “total war” waged by armies on civilians in modern times.

By April 1865, both Sherman and Johnson realized the war was over and they both wanted peace. To continue it, Johnson wrote, would be “murder.” Johnson asked for a truce and it was agreed the two generals would meet on April 15. However, on his way to the meeting, Sherman got one of the biggest shocks of his life. A coded telegram arrived stating that not only had Lincoln been assassinated, but Secretary of State William Henry Seward had also been attacked by an assassin with a knife, and though Seward lived, in the hysteria surrounding Washington, it was believed there would be further assassination attempts made on Grant’s life, and even on Sherman’s.

Johnson and Sherman meet on the Hillsboro Road, with the Bennett House in the background. By artist Dan Nance

Fearing what his troops would do when they heard the news, Sherman swore the telegraph operator to secrecy. He then continued under a flag of truce to meet Johnson on the Hillsboro Road. After introductions on horseback, Sherman asked, “Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Johnson said he had just passed a small farmhouse. And thus an obscure frame farmhouse belonging to James and Nancy Bennett was to become one of the most important sites in American history.

Bennett Place today is a walk back in time to an 1865 homestead

The original cabin burned down, but today, a home from the same era that looks just like it was placed on the foundation. The chimney is original. The surrounding Bennett Place park, like Appomattox, puts cars way off to one side so that once you enter the historic area, you can get the maximum time capsule effect of going back to a different era. There are a dozen structures and barns lining the original country dirt road. It’s difficult to imagine the shock of the Bennett family in this remote rural area when Generals Sherman and Johnson tied up their horses, knocked on the farmhouse door and asked if they could use their house for a few minutes.

A reproduction of how the table was set up for their meeting in Bennett's house.

As soon as the two generals were alone, Sherman handed Johnson the telegram. He wrote later, “I showed him the dispatch announcing Mr. Lincoln’s assassination, and watched him closely. The perspiration came out in large drops on his forehead, and he did not attempt to conceal his distress.”

Realizing now the importance of ending the war immediately before the north took vengeance for Lincoln’s death, Johnson proposed that rather than just surrendering his 90,000 men, what if he could surrender all Confederate forces throughout the South? It would be a brilliant stroke ending all potential fighting at once. Sherman and Johnson agreed to go back to their commanders with the proposal and meet at Bennett Place the following day.

There, on April 16, after hours of discussion back and forth, they hammered out surrender terms, which they both signed. An interesting anecdote was that Johnson brought along John C. Breckenridge, a former U.S. Vice President and now a Confederate Major General. Breckenridge was a lawyer and it was thought he could help with the language.

At the start of the meeting, Sherman went to his saddlebags, brought out a bottle of whiskey, and allowed everyone to pour a large glass. He put the bottle back in the saddlebags.

At some point in the meeting, Sherman, heavily distracted and without thinking, went over to the saddlebags, poured himself another large glass of whiskey, and put the bottle back without offering any to the Confederates. Breckenridge, a Kentuckian, never forgot that and later told Johnson. “General Sherman is a hog. Yes, sir, a hog. Did you see him take that drink by himself? No Kentucky gentleman would ever have taken away that bottle.”

The table and chairs from the meeting in the museum. The milk jug was on the table during the meeting.

Meanwhile, in Washington, there was total chaos with Lincoln’s funeral, unimaginable grief, a new president and fear of future assassinations. But that was nothing compared to the reaction when Sherman’s surrender terms finally made it to Washington. Back in March 1865, Sherman and Grant had met with Lincoln to discuss surrender terms, and Lincoln had told both his generals that he wanted to go easy on the Confederates and unite the country and his only concern for a military surrender was that the rebel troops lay down their arms, go home and obey the laws of the United States.

Sherman either didn’t understand this, or was bamboozled by the Confederate officers in his haste to end the war. But at any rate, his surrender terms went far beyond military matters and offered pardons to all Confederates, government and military, and allowed the soldiers to take their weapons back to arsenals in their own states. In the vengeful attitude that had seized Washington after Lincoln’s assassination, this was tantamount to treason. The surrender terms were rejected, Sherman was blasted as a traitor (or a fool) in the press, and Grant was ordered to go to Raleigh, take control of the army and force the Confederates to accept the same terms as Lee, or the truce would end and the war would start again in 48 hours.

A cannon that was silenced, but would go to war again if Davis had his way.

Two courageous things happened that saved the country from future bloodshed. One took place because of the great friendship that existed between Grant and Sherman. Rather than embarrass his friend, Grant charted a private boat and train and traveled to Sherman in secrecy. In Raleigh, Grant explained the situation, and left it up to Sherman to handle. No one in either army at the time ever knew that Grant was there. He came and left in secrecy and by doing so, saved Sherman’s career and reputation.

When Sherman told Johnson the surrender terms had been rejected, Johnson conferred with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis exploded. He ordered Johnson to send him all the cavalry troops and to break the infantry up into small bands that could fight on their own, or later be brought back together as an army. The war was to continue.

Grant traveled secretly to Raleigh to save his friend Sherman's reputation and command.

It was here that the second courageous act happened. Joe Johnson blatantly disobeyed his orders and on his own authority surrendered his forces under the same terms given to General Lee. The final, third meeting of Johnson and Sherman and this last surrender also took place in the Bennett farmhouse. The war, for all practical purposes, was over.

Strangely, Johnson and Sherman, who had never met before Bennett farm, became good friends and remained so for life. When Sherman died on Feb. 4, 1891, Johnson traveled north to be an honorary pallbearer. It was a cold rainy day and Johnson was repeatedly begged to put on a hat or go inside, but he said of Sherman, “If the positions were reversed, he would not do so.”

Joe Johnson died one month later from pneumonia that he caught at the funeral of his friend.

IF YOU GO:

One of the great things about visiting Bennett Place is that you can stay nearby in Chapel Hill, one of the most beautiful college towns of America. Home to the University of North Carolina, the downtown is a long main street lined with bars, breweries, bookstores (with cats napping in the window), coffee shops, church steeples, restaurants and grand spreading shade trees that lead off into a picture book campus of lawns and historic buildings.

Somethings not to miss:

The Carolina Inn

Carolina Inn. Located on the campus, the 185-room inn dates back to 1924 and offers the ultimate in Southern hospitality in a gorgeous setting. Afternoon tea is served 2:30-4:30, Thursday-Sunday, or stop by their outdoor patio for a cocktail after strolling through the pretty, tree-shaded campus.

Chapel Hill has eight breweries

Top of the Hill Restaurant,Brewery, Distillery North Carolina’s growing reputation for craft beer is exemplified here with outdoor rooftop decks, great food, and a very attractive bar. There are eight breweries and countless bars in Chapel Hill, but this is the one not to miss.

Silent Sam. Erected in 1913, this statue of a Confederate soldier faces Franklin Street from the UNC campus, and has been controversial almost from the start. It was put up either as a memorial to dead Confederate soldiers, or as monument to white supremacy, depending on who you talk to. Campus legend says that if a virgin walks by, he’ll shoot off his rifle…thus he is “Silent Sam.”

Silent Sam on the University of North Carolina campus

Following the riots and violence over a plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, VA, there were demonstrations in front of Silent Sam also calling for its removal. By state law, it would take an act of the North Carolina Legislature to remove a historic monument, and no bill has yet been introduced.

Carrboro: This funky, quirky, artsy little town is where the railroad came to Chapel Hill. It’s more of a neighborhood then a separate community, being only about a 10-15 minute walk from the campus along Franklin Street to Main Street. It’s an entertaining walk of bars, restaurants, the Carr Mill Mall (built in an 1898 cotton mill) and the famous Cat’s Cradle nightclub, known for 40 years of live music. The town’s motto is: “Feel free.” Enough said.

The Ayr Mount Historic Site in Hillsborough has 256 acres of grounds, including the beautiful Poet's Walk

HistoricHillsborough: This is a charming small town America type of place that looks almost New Englandish, which is appropriate since it dates back to the American Revolution. The downtown backstreets are lined with wonderful historic homes and gardens.

The historic back streets of Hillsborough go back to the Revolution

The town is justly proud of its River Park, which has paths following the scenic Eno River, as well as a reconstructed Occaneechi Indian Village, showing native life from the 17^th century. Nearby, the Ayr Mount Historic Site is the big attraction for the area with a sprawling 265 acres of grounds surrounding a powerful 1815 Federal-style plantation home.

Johnston County: Interstates 40 and 90 intersect in Johnston County, making it an important stop for people crossing the state in any direction. Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site is here, marking the last full-scale action of the Civil War on March 19-21, 1865. Once you get off the main highways, Johnston County is deep North Carolina, filled with great food, drink and Southern hospitality.

Jeremy Norris at Broadslab Distillery

Broadslab Distillery has a fun tour where owner Jeremy Norris will pour you samples of their authentic “moonshine,” which is a distilled corn whiskey made the same way four generations of his family have made it – many of them illegally in the days of prohibition or late at night under the moon to avoid paying taxes.

The Redneck BBQ Lab in Benson offers pulled pork, brisket, turkey, ribs, chicken, green beans, collards and cornbread, all prepared by members of the Redneck Scientific competition BBQ team. Why is it called a lab? Visit it and find out, but go hungry.

Johnston County has a “Beer, Wine & Shine Trail” that will guide you to deep South breweries, moonshine distilleries and wineries.

Very fun is Hinnant Family Vineyards, which has a series of wines honoring the most famous local daughter of the region, Ava Gardner.

Ava's Allure

There’s also a museum devoted to Ava in Smithfield that is definitely worth a visit. Ava Gardner grew up in this area, and although she was one of the most glamourous of Hollywood stars and lived for years in Spain and London, she chose to be buried back here close to the place of her childhood in nearby Sunset Memorial Park.

The museum has costumes, photos and mementos from her amazing 50-year career, which included three marriages: to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Mickey Rooney; to one of the big band swing era’s most famous musicians, Artie Shaw; and to one of the world’s most famous crooners, Frank Sinatra. But she always maintained she was a North Carolina country girl at heart.

Go hungry to the Redneck BBQ Lab in Johnson County, home to incredible food, craft beer and distilled spirits.

You might find yourself surrendering the charms of Ava Gardner at the Ava Gardner Museum in Springfield.

For more info on Johnston County.

Cruising With the Real Pirates of the Caribbean

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 17:12:00 +0000

Entrance to the Pirate Museum of Nassau

“Are ye a pirate, sir? Well then, sign aboard,” says the man in the tricorn hat, brandishing a flintlock pistol as he beckons visitors into the Pirates of Nassau Museum. Called “the best pirate attraction in the world” by British pirate historian David Cordingly, the museum in downtown Nassau, Bahamas, blends some Disney-like effects with enough real history to offer a fun look at the pirates who ruled the waters of the Bahamas 300 years ago.

And what a story it is. During the “Golden Age of Piracy” (1715-1725), the greatest conglomeration of pirates the world has ever known assembled at Nassau and created an actual Pirate Republic that terrorized the Americas and even challenged the European powers of Britain, France and Spain. They were all here – 2,000 outlaws including Blackbeard, Black Bart, “Calico Jack” Rackham, Charles Vane, the women pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read and dozens of others, all with one thing in common: they were loyal to no country and an enemy to all.

The Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship, in the Pirate Museum

But these pirates were a lot different than most people think. Formerly, they had been privateers, loosely fighting for England, France or Spain. But when the wars ended in 1715, they had no occupation and little choice but to turn to piracy. At this time, the world was ruled by kings, but the pirates in the Bahamas were revolutionaries and they created their own republic -- a democracy where they elected their own captains and officers. Runaway slaves were treated as equals and nearly a third of the crew on some pirate ships were free blacks. Pirates had their own laws and courts and even offered the first naval disability program to anyone injured in battle. But the real allure was best summed up by pirate Captain “Black Bart” Roberts, who said of pirating, “It was a short life and a merry one.”

Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam

And so was my four-day Holland America cruise on the good ship Nieuw Amsterdam, bound for these same pirate waters of the Bahamas from Fort Lauderdale. I have always loved pirates, so why not take advantage of some excellent December cruise prices to sail the historic pirate-infested waters and visit the haunts that have inspired hundreds of films, books and legends. I would devote the cruise to all things pirate – visit a private island once used by pirates to collect water, see the famous pirate museum, visit old forts, take a pirate history walking tour (sponsored by a brewery, of course), drink some rum, eat like a pirate and stroll the colonial backstreets of Nassau, taking in many of the same views over the island that Blackbeard and Black Bart had once known.

“Life on board a pirate ship consisted of long periods of drunken idleness and brief periods of violent action…Most of their time was spent gambling and drinking huge quantities of alcohol.” Placard in the Pirates of Nassau Museum

Half Mood Cay, Bahamas

Well, pirates never sailed on the Nieuw Amsterdam. Oh, you could get drunk, easily enough, and there was gambling once outside the 12-mile U.S. border. But it was hard to be idle with so much to do on board the ship, not the least of which was to take in the sunset and beautiful views of the sea – the same exact view that pirates would have seen. Technically, the Bahamas, just 180 miles off the Florida coast, are in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean. But the sea has the same sparkling aquamarine blue color of the Caribbean, with idyllic sandy beaches lined with palm trees.

The pirates originally located in Nassau because the harbor was surrounded by cliffs and could only be entered from the sea through two narrow, easily defended, passages. In addition, the harbor was too shallow for big warships.

The pirate flag of Calico Jack was "borrowed" for the Johnny Depp movie

From here, armed to the teeth in fast sailing sloops, the pirates could venture out into popular sea lanes to prey on Spanish treasure ships and British and French merchantmen. The first indication the victims would have of danger approaching would be to see the Jolly Roger flapping in the breeze on the horizon – the dreaded pirate flag. The idea for the flag most likely came from French pirates, who would soak a white flag in blood to let their victims know they would be treated with no mercy. These flags were called
“le joli rouge” – the pretty red – which drunken English pirates translated into “Jolly Roger.”

Each pirate crew hired seamstresses in Nassau to create their own flag, which generally had a skull and crossbones, death head, crossed sabers, bleeding hearts or an hourglass to show the victims that their time was up. Pirates never actually liked to fight. It was dangerous, and it could damage the ship they were trying to seize. So they liked to employ terror. Blackbeard would tie burning fuses into his beard and hair so that he was surrounded by smoke and looked like a fiend from hell, which he also just happened to resemble in temperament and cruelty.

Sunset at sea, heading for the pirate waters of the Bahamas

On my first night at sea, there being no Jolly Rogers in sight, I spent my time in drunken idleness, but on the morrow, we were tied up off shore before the private island of Half Moon Cay, as pretty an island paradise as ever held a buried treasure chest. Of course, as I was to learn, with the one exception of Captain Kidd, pirates never buried treasure. That (and much of what we think we know of pirates) was invented by Robert Louis Stevenson in his classic book, “Treasure Island.”

Most pirates were alcoholic wastrels who would spend their loot in one night of drunken passion in Nassau, or gamble it away, and soon end up back living in a broken down hovel, waiting for the next adventure. The majority of them were in their 20s, and lived short, violent lives. Not a single pirate captain of the era had his life end naturally, most of them being hanged, shot, or killed in storms. Or they went out in a blaze of battle, like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, who died from five bullet wounds, 20 stab wounds and was beheaded.

Half Moon Cay, the private island of Holland America

Half Moon Cay, where we dropped anchor, is its own pleasure palace with every opportunity from jet skis and kayaks to horseback riding in the surf, glass bottom boats, biking, paddle boarding or just lounging on the beach. I elected to take a nature hike to the summit of the island, some 68 feet high, passing ruins of old farmsteads along the way. There are 700 islands in the Bahamas and pirates would use ones like this to gather water and food, and lay in wait for a plump merchantman passing by. Or to maroon pirates. Marooning on a deserted island was a common punishment, and a cruel one. Although it might seem like a pleasure today, the lack of food and loneliness made it a misery for those left behind.

The cannons of Fort Fincastle were designed to keep pirates out of Nassau; now they welcome ships to harbor

Our next morning, we sailed and docked in Nassau, just a musket shot from the Pirate Republic Brewing Company. With fresh beers on tap with names like Long John Pilsner and Black Beer’d Stout, this is general headquarters for pirate memorabilia in Nassau, and their shop is filled with pirate stuff, from skull and cross bone kitchen magnets to the all-important pirate bandana. The brewery offers a combination pirate and beer walking tour for $13, which ends with a sampler tray and a giant pretzel. Around the stone walls of the 125-year-old pub are commissioned portraits of all the famous pirates of Nassau, created by renowned Bahamian artist Antonius Roberts.

Pirate tours at the Pirate Republic Brewing Co.

The art provides a backdrop to tell some of the crazy stories of people like pirate Howell Davis, who “died like a game cock,” killing two men before he fell, and “Calico Jack” Rackham, who was probably the pirate closest to Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

While in Nassau, Calico Jack fell in love with Anne Bonney, and convinced her to leave her husband, put on men’s clothes, steal the sloop Sweet William and begin a life of piracy. Incredibly, once at sea, Anne fell in love with a fellow shipmate, only to discover that this pirate was also a woman dressed as a man – the adventuress Mary Read. The three sailed together as pirates until they were surprised by a British ship off the coast of Jamaica. Calico Jack and most of the crew were drunk and hid in the ship’s hold. Only Mary Read and Anne Bonney offered any resistance, fighting like hellcats with pistol and cutlass.
But the ship was taken and all three sentenced to hang. As Calico Jack went to the gallows, Anne told him, “Had you fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog.” Anne and Mary both conveniently got pregnant in jail and escaped the hangman.

The Pirates of Nassau Museum

But many other pirates didn’t. Just a cannon shot from the brewery is the block long Pirates of Nassau Museum. As you walk by two fortress cannons into the front door, you plunge straight into a moonlit dock lined on one side by taverns and pubs and on the other by a full-scale reproduction of the 130-foot-long, 16-gun corvette, The Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s flagship. It’s like walking (instead of floating) through Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Sound effects replicate the creaking of the ship and the lapping waves hitting the dock, while you can hear pirates singing in the dimly lit pubs beside you. If you’ve just come from a beer sampling (and had a couple shots of rum along the way) the illusion is very entertaining.

A life size diorama of the woman pirates in Nassau

The museum details a pirate’s miserable life at sea and how the whole pirate era finally came to an end. Tired of the nuisance, England sent Woodes Rodgers (a former pirate himself) to Nassau in 1718 with three warships and an ultimatum for the pirates to choose: “Accept a pardon….or death.” In short order, most accepted the one-time offer of a pardon, and Rodgers cleaned up the rest, hanging ten of them at Fort Nassau. He described his actions as: “Expulsis Piratis – Restituta Commercia,” words that still adorn the official seal of the Bahamas – “Pirates Expelled – Commerce Restored.”

Ironically, it’s the pirates who have remained heroes. You can’t throw a cutlass in Nassau without hitting a shop selling skull & crossbones t-shirts or “Got Grog?” bumper stickers, while the only tribute to Rodgers the pirate hunter, is a small statue of him reaching for a brace of pistols, located in front of the British Colonial Hilton Hotel. He looks angry. But at least he looks dashing. The real Rodgers, when he was a pirate, got shot in the face, blowing away his jaw and many of his teeth and it’s doubtful he looked as handsome as he does here.

The statue of Woodes Rodgers, pirate hunter

Strangely enough, the British Colonial Hilton is the very spot where Rodgers hanged his ten pirates. And it’s also where James Bond stayed in the Ian Fleming book, Thunderball, which is about a modern day pirate in Nassau high jacking an atom bomb for ransom.

If you want to eat like a pirate, walk down Bay Street from the hotel for about a mile to a village known as “Fish Fry.” This is a row of a dozen local seafood restaurants, where the meal of choice is conch…a snail-like, beautiful pink shell mollusk that tastes like a rubbery scallop and can be grilled, stewed, fried or served cold in a conch salad with green pepper, tomato and onion, cured in lemon juice. “Cracked conch” (conch fried in a light batter) with “peas and rice,” (rice and small beans) and fried plantains (small banana-like fruit), washed down with the very drinkable local beer, Kalik, is the national dish.

Kalik is brewed in the Bahamas and the name is supposed to come from the noise cow bells make. Well, why not? Lonely Planet will tell you not to eat conch because of its near endangered status and the fact that is quietly being fished out in the Bahamas. Conch from the Bahamas has already been banned in the U.S. since 1986 and many other Caribbean islands. But as a pirate, how could you not taste the national dish? Conch is an important part of the Bahamian diet and a major source of their protein. It’s also delicious.

Cracked conch and peas and rice

For fun, stop at D’Water Café at Fish Fry for the Big Daddy Conch Show. Big Daddy (the rather large gentleman with no front teeth) has been cracking conch on the restaurant’s front porch for decades and will show you how it’s done with a hammer and knife. “If you want it any fresher, go and catch it yourself,” as they say. Though if you walk to the back of the restaurant, you can watch them pull fresh ones out of the water. Experts say it’s kindest to only eat mature, six year old conch, and Big Daddy will help you find one. As a pirate, you can finish off the meal with a fine Cuban cigar – legal and cheap in Nassau, but of course illegal to bring home to the U.S.

Four mid-size cruisers land a force of 8-9,000 passengers in Nassau, but it's large enough that everyone spreads out.

And if you still want more pirates, just look across the harbor to what was in pirate days called Hog Island. Today, thanks to some splendid PR marketing, it’s called Paradise Island. At one time, the majority of this island of resorts and golf courses was owned by the biggest pirate of them all. A scallywag named Donald Trump.

For more information visit: Holland America

Columbia River Gorge is Open for Business – and as Beautiful as Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 18:06:00 +0000

The beauty of the Columbia River Gorge in November 2017, two months after the fire.

September 2, 2017, started off wonderfully in the Columbia River Gorge. It was the beginning of Labor Day weekend in one of the nation’s most beautiful scenic areas. Located just an hour east of Portland, Oregon, this was a busy time for the area’s $100 million-a-year tourism industry. They had been hurt that winter with 8 feet of snow falling in an area that usually gets just inches. Interstate 84 was closed and schools and businesses had to shut down for as much as two weeks.

But now on Sept. 2, the weather was beautiful, people were hiking, biking, wind surfing, eating locally sourced foods, drinking craft beer at outdoor cafes and just enjoying the incredible beauty of a wilderness area along a river lined with cliffs, thick forests and waterfalls.

And then at 4 p.m., a fire was reported in Eagle Creek. Near the village of Cascade Locks, some teenagers had been throwing fireworks off a waterfall into the dry forest below. By morning, the fire they started grew to 3,000 acres. With favorable winds, over the next two days the Eagle Creek Fire blossomed into a raging inferno, so huge that at one point it leaped across the Columbia River, sending tongues of flame into the wooded hillsides on the other side of the waterway in the state of Washington.

More than 48,000 acres of forest would eventually be consumed by the fire

Eventually, 48,000 acres of forest would burn. The entire town of Cascade Locks had to be evacuated, along with hundreds of other residents throughout the gorge. Surrounded by flames, 153 hikers were cut off by the fire and had to be rescued. I-84 was closed. Clouds of smoke closed schools in nearby Portland, where more than an inch of ash fell on the streets. Fighting the fire rang up of a bill of $20 million.

The falls three years ago, before the fire.

And then the fire raced to Multnomah Falls, the highest waterfall in Oregon. A national icon, the 611-foot waterfall had at its base a famous lodge built in 1925 that attracted 1.5 million visitors a year. Dozens of volunteers came and heroically fought the blaze throughout the night, wetting the building’s roof and soaking a 100-yard perimeter around it. By morning, though the fire consumed a wood bridge below the falls and many trees, the historic lodge was saved.

The Gorge Today

So how much damage was done in the end? Amazingly, the Columbia River Gorge is today a triumph of both nature and man. On a trip through the gorge in early November 2017, barely two months after the blaze, there is hardly much sign of the catastrophic event. Sadly, Multnomah Falls Lodge and access to the falls is closed indefinitely, mostly because of damage to the roads. You can still see the falls, as beautiful as ever, as you race by a vantage point on I-84. Some other viewpoints and hiking trails are temporarily inaccessible, but compared to the vast amount of wilderness recreation available here, it is very small. The towns are completely open, I-84 is open, and the burn area is hardly noticeable compared to the rich forest land surrounding it. In fact, many environmentalists are saying the fire, which burned up the trees rather than torching the ground below, is just part of nature’s evolution. So here’s a review of just some of the many pleasures open and available in the gorge and Mount Hood areas, starting with ground zero where the fire started.

Cascade Locks and the Bridge of the Gods

Bridge of the Gods in November 2017.

The village of Cascade Locks is where the 2,659-mile long Pacific Crest Trails crosses the Columbia River over the very pretty Bridge of the Gods. A poignant scene was filmed in the Reese Witherspoon movie, Wild, was filmed on the bridge. During the fire, all residents of the town were forced to evacuate, crossing the bridge as flames approached the village from both directions. You’d never know it today. The bridge is as beautiful ever, and all businesses are open. The Best Western Plus Columbia River Inn at the base of the bridge is a pleasant place to stay with balconies overlooking river traffic of barges and pleasure craft.

Thunder Island Brewing Co.

Indian legend says there was once a bridge of land here over the Columbia with a huge lake behind it. Well, for once, an Indian legend actually makes some sense and is backed by geologists, who say there was a land bridge here that eventually washed away, helping to create the spectacular gorge. You can walk over the manmade Bridge of Gods to Washington, but there’s no pedestrian path on the road. Better is to have a beer, while you still can, at Thunder Island Brewing on the banks of the river. They’re moving into town, unfortunately, but their Rolling Thunder Pale ale and other craft beers will be just as good in the new location.

A visit to the gallery and studio of Heather Soderberg / is worth a journey. You’ll be hearing a lot about her in the near future. She’s the first woman to own a bronze foundry and is currently working on a 55-foot-long, 12-ton cast bronze statue of an eagle that will be the largest eagle sculpture in history. Bits and pieces of it currently fill the studio, and when finished, it will tour the country. In the gallery, they’ll explain how bronze casts are made, but good luck understanding it. Enough to say, it’s impressive to look at.

The head alone is as tall as a man.

The Cascade LocksAle House across the street is a cozy place for dinner with pizza and salmon chowder. It’s a favorite hangout for people walking the Pacific Coast Trail. It must be lonely on the trail. The hikers we met were a talkative bunch. As an ice-breaker, ask them what their “trail name” is and how they got it, but make sure you have a beer first. It’s liable to be a long story. You’ll certainly want to see the movie Wild before visiting the pub.

Troutdale

This colorful little village is the western gateway to the gorge and a good base for touring the area. Stop by the historic Barn Exhibit Hall, which is actually not historic at all. The cleverly built “barn” museum is brand new, but designed to look like it’s been there forever. Currently, there’s an exhibit on the history of the 75-mile-long Columbia River Highway, the first highway in the U.S. built as a scenic road, and amazingly, the first road to have a white stripe down the center. You can see why they took such care to divide the road when you drive on portions of it as its twists and turns with sheer cliffs alternating from side to side. It’s scenic and scary. When it was built between 1913 to 1922, it was also an engineering marvel. It still is.

Pretty Troutdale is a mix of colors and pastels to mix with the dramatic skies often seen over the Gorge.

Though it was replaced by I-84, bits of the historic road are still open. Sections between Troutdale and Hood River have been closed temporarily by the fire, but there is no impact from north of Hood River to The Dalles, our next stop.

Mosier

Mosier is picture postcard of a little place with a scenic park overlooking the river, the Rack & Cloth cidery, and most important, Route 30 Classics, which has ice cream, espresso and electric bike rentals. And what a place to rent an electric bike!

Electric bike rentals for a trip on the Columbia River Highway

A six-mile stretch of the historic Columbia River Highway here has been turned into a paved bike and hiking trail and heads west to the town of Hood River, passing through forest, along cliffs, and burrowing into tunnels on one hell of an exciting bike ride. It’s hilly and up and down, but on an electric bike? No worries. You toggle the bike from one to four on a power scale, change gears, and never pump more than you would on a flat stretch of road. The famous Oregon rain is also no problem. Winds gush through the Gorge at this point, swirling clouds and dragging in squalls. But the winds also bring bursts of sunshine. Just when you think, well, it’s raining, do I want to be on a bike? Out pops the sun and a view of unbelievable beauty.

A few from a cutout in the tunnel looks down on to I-84 and the Columbia River.

If you get wet, dry off in the Rack and Cloth, a cute little place making their own hard cider from apples grown in their own orchard. They’ll walk you through a cider tasting of four hard ciders. Even if you’ve tried commercial hard ciders and don’t like them, give these ciders a chance. They are a completely different, tasty product, unlike commercial ciders, and paired with handcrafted pizzas and locally sourced delicacies like squash soup? Delicious.

Hood River to the Dalles

Both Hood River and The Dalles are cool and quirky little towns worth a visit. Hood River is home to Full Sail Brewery and a sloping main street lined with shops, galleries, and pubs. This is the ground zero, recreational central of the Columbia River Gorge, and everyone is biking, hiking, sailboarding or doing something else to make you feel guilty if you’re just hanging out drinking craft beer. Well, not that guilty. This is Oregon, after all, and there are plenty of other people just hanging out.

Hood River is a fun and quirky little town.

There’s a little more history at The Dalles, which has an 1856 fort (just a house is left, but nice grounds) and Klindt’s Booksellers, which has been hawking books since 1870 and is worth a journey to explore their maps and local recreation guidebooks. Both towns, in keeping with this area of Oregon, have breweries and wineries and, increasingly, distilleries. And did we mention marijuana is legal?

And Now for Something Completely Different

Farming communities like Dufur and 300 days of sunshine are always just a short drive from the Gorge

The weird geography of this area creates micro climates that could not be more different. It’s barely a 30 minute drive south from the misty, swirling clouds of Hood River or The Dalles into Mt. Hood territory, where you come into fruit orchards, rolling hills and incredibly, 300 days of sunshine. Dufur, just south of The Dalles, is a tiny old farming community on the historic Oregon Trail with a few shops, a heritage museum and a real gem called the Historic Balch Hotel. This historic building has been transformed into an elegant spa and countryside retreat with gourmet food and an idyllic setting.

The Resort at the Mountain is nestled near Mount Hood and offers a completely different forest landscape.

South of Troutdale takes you on the western fringes of Hwy. 26, which (along with Hwy. 35) is called “The Fruit Loop,” as it curves and twists around the base of 11,249-foot Mount Hood, passing dozens and dozens of orchards, forests, rain forests, timberline, snow-covered mountains and rivers. The Resort at the Mountain just east of Sandy is one of Oregon’s premier lodges with a 27-hole golf course, luxury spa, hiking trails, two restaurants and bars, and best of all, fireplaces in the rooms. On a November afternoon at twilight, with a fire going and college football playing, we noticed someone on the patio peering into our floor to ceiling glass door. It was three baby deer.

Bob Denman has been making hand forged gardening tools for 30 years at Red Pig Tools in Boring, OR

For a true Oregon evening, head to the nearby Skyway Bar and Grill, a real mountain roadhouse (the address is Zigzag Mile Post 43) that was built by hand in 1972 and is today filled with art, antiques, live music, craft beer and the smell of barbeque and smoked meats.

And don’t miss the most exciting photo op of the region – Boring, Oregon. They make the most of the odd name choice with a Boring Brewery and Boring Winery (in the same building!) and lots of opportunities to take photos of the word “Boring.” It’s cute. But nowhere cuter than at the blacksmith shop Red Pig Tools, where for 30 years Bob Denman, a semi-retired advertising executive, has been hand-forging gardening tools. Bob, a life-long gardener, will tell you, there’s only one rule for weeding and that’s King Harrod’s rule: “Kill them while they’re babies!”

Nearby Wildwood Recreation Site has a wetland boardwalk down to the Salmon River

He has researched old garden tools and found that any modern tool that does two tasks is half as efficient at each. In his blacksmith shop, he hand forges old forgotten tools for special tasks (like weeding between cracks of patio tiles). The tools are beautiful (if somewhat medieval looking). Bob has been dealing with customers and perfecting his comedy-set for 30 years and if he’s in the shop, he has a 15-minute routine that is perfect, fun, educational and worth a journey. At a time where “fire” is not exactly a friendly word in Oregon, you’ll have a lot of laughs around his flaming forge and come away with a lifelong tool and memento of this slightly wacky – but gorgeous – part of the state.

FOR MORE INFO, ITINERARIES AND SUGGESTIONS: Hood-Gorge.com

The elusive and spectacular Mount Hood is visible sometimes and sometimes, like our four day trip in Nov. 2017, not.

The Surrenders! Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:24:00 +0000

How The Two Large Military Surrenders at Appomattox and Bennet Place Turned Into Victories -- for Both Sides

A historically accurate representation of Lee and Grant at Appomattox at the national park site.

After four years of bloody fighting and nearly 700,000 deaths, America’s great Civil War came to a sudden and unexpected end in April 1865. In just 17 days and only 109 miles apart, two great Confederate armies surrendered and the fighting stopped. Soldiers on both sides, who days before were desperately trying to kill each other, shook hands, looked up old friends, traded tobacco for coffee, and swapped stories. And then everyone went home,

No civil war in history had ever ended like this. In fact, no war had ever ended like this. As the surrendering Confederates marched up a dirt road to lay down their arms and flags, the victorious Union army, lining both sides of the road, saluted them. The rebels returned the salute. It was “honor answering honor,” wrote General Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Gettysburg, and the Union general who ordered the unique tribute to his former enemies.

Cannon at Appomattox battlefield and surrender site.

So how did America’s bloodiest and most violent war come to such a sudden and honorable end? It’s easy to find out for yourself on a weekend trip by visiting the two surrender sites, which are only a few hours drive apart in Virginia and North Carolina. You can stand at the spot where both surrenders took place, stroll down country roads where little has changed since 1865, and -- at a time when people are tearing down Civil War monuments and reinterpreting how we think about the Civil War – reach your own conclusions about the men who actually fought it.

As historian Shelby Foote said, “Any understanding of this nation has to be based on an understanding of the Civil War. It defined us.” And any understanding of the Civil War has to include an understanding of how these unusual surrenders came about and what they meant. Honor answering honor. There’s a concept worth a journey to explore.

The Road to Appomattox

At the end of March 1865, both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were worried. After three years of bloody warfare, Grant and the Union army had encircled Petersburg, the rail junction southwest of Richmond that protected the Confederate capital. But in a 10 month siege, Grant had racked up more than 40,000 casualties with very little to show for it. His great fear was that Lee and his 60,000 man army would somehow break out of the siege and head south to link up with Joe Johnson’s army of nearly 90,000 Confederates in North Carolina. Together, the Rebels could continue to fight for another year and a war weary Northern populace might not stand for that and sue for peace.

Union trenches at Petersburg 1865

Lee, on the other hand, faced even greater challenges. His troops were starving, disillusioned, out of supplies and deserting. After 10 months of nearly constant trench fighting, moral was at its lowest point. And Lee knew his lines were spread too thin, and he could not continue to hold Petersburg.

And he didn’t. In a series of battles culminating at Five Forks, Grant pushed Lee out of Petersburg and forced him to retreat west across Virginia. Rather than just follow him, Grant was always sure to keep Union cavalry ahead of and to the south of Lee to prevent him from joining Johnson.

The road that Lee took to his meeting with Grant in Appomattox Court House has changed little since 1865

By April 9, 1865, near the little village of Appomattox Court House, Lee realized his situation was hopeless. With his army surrounded and starving, Lee put on his best dress uniform (thinking that he would spend the evening as a prisoner of war), and told his generals, “There is nothing left me to do but go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.” After sending a white flag with a note to Grant, he sat down under an apple tree to await Grant’s reply.

This is the place to join him. Rather than start at the main visitor center, the best way to enjoy Appomattox Court House National Historic Park is to start about a mile to the west, at a roadside stop on Hwy. 24 called “The Apple Tree Site.” Because a rumor started that Lee actually surrendered here under an apple tree, the entire orchard was cut down by soldiers looking for souvenirs. So there are no historic witness apple trees here today, but you can still sit where Lee sat by the Appomattox River in a quiet place that is otherwise unchanged and think, as Lee must have done sitting in his fine uniform, how it all came down to this.

Robert E. Lee

The son of a Revolutionary War hero, Lee had been the second best student in his class at West Point and had fought with bravery in the War with Mexico. At the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln offered Lee full command of all Union armies. Although a slave owner (like 12 of America’s first 18 presidents) Lee abhorred the idea and wrote, “Slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.” But he could not draw his sword against his family and friends in Virginia, so when the state succeeded, he went with them. As he sat under the apple tree, he knew that in a cruel irony, the U.S. government had seized his house in Arlington, VA, and turned his front yard into a cemetery for the war dead. All 400,000 graves in Arlington National Cemetery today are on land once owned by Robert E. Lee that the U.S. government took from him.

With Lee in the Apple Orchard

It’s difficult to imagine Lee’s thoughts. Around him, the South was in ruins. A quarter of the men of military age in the South were dead, and nearly every city, factory and railroad was destroyed or under occupation.

When he finally received a note from Grant asking him to find a location for a meeting, Lee climbed aboard his famous gray horse Traveler and with just one aide with a white flag, rode down the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road toward the Union lines.

The road Lee took to the McClean House is unchanged and looks much like it did in 1865.

You can follow Lee down this same road through a landscape that is virtually unchanged. The road is lined with a split-rail fence with views of rolling farm land. Birds sing and it is deadly quiet out here in the country. In about a mile, a village of 20 buildings comes into view. Ten are original from the 1860s or earlier; another ten have been painstakingly reconstructed to what they would have looked in 1865.

The reconstructed McClean House in Appomattox

All cars are parked some distance away, so you are literally seeing the town of Appomattox Court House just as Lee would have seen it. There’s a tavern and stores, some farmhouses and even the county jail. In the center of town is the impressive Court House with its bell tower. As you walk along the dirt and gravel roads, costumed interpreters will greet you. When I asked one where the bookstore was, he looked puzzled and said, “Ain’t got no bookstore in town, but there’s a general store over yonder.” They don’t break character.

It was here that Lee met local resident Wilber McLean and was ushered to his house. McClean had lived near the first battle of the Civil War in Manassas, VA. He moved to get his business away from the fighting, so it was with great irony that the war ended in his parlor.

The Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road climbs a small hill to where Grant entered the scene.

Instead of going into the house, continue on the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road for another half mile up a small hill, with fences and views of the countryside in all directions. At the top is a cemetery of 18 graves, each with a Confederate flag. These were the Southern boys who had the hard luck of being the last killed in the last action on the last two days of the war on the eastern front. It was at this spot that Ulysses S. Grant rode up and met General Phil Sheridan and was informed that Lee was waiting for him in a house down below.

A small graveyard for the last Southern soldiers killed in battle.

With Grant on Stage Road

An extremely modest man, Grant was, as usual, wearing the uniform of a private with the bars of a Lieutenant General sewn on the shoulders. He was muddy, from a long ride, and he never wore a sword.

You can now turn around and re-approach the village from the direction Grant would have come. If anything, this approach is even more beautiful and timeless today as you descend a small hill, the road a dirt ribbon lined with fences as it curves to a small village of white buildings below.

The short walk gives you time to consider the position and feelings of Grant. He too had gone to West Point and fought with bravery in the War with Mexico, but from there on, his life differed greatly from that of Lee. Depressed by serving away from his family, Grant took to drinking and was forced to resign from the army. He failed at every business he entered and became so poor that he was the only US president who lived with his family in a log cabin that he built with his own hands. By the time the war started, Grant was reduced to working as a clerk in his father’s leather business.

U.S. Grant

But Grant had gone to West Point and with the war starting, officers were needed. Grant was given some basic military jobs drilling raw recruits. Through a political friendship, he secured a small independent command and quickly demonstrated a military brilliance that has had few equals in history. As he rode down the hill, Grant had many contemporary critics who considered him a “butcher” who won victories only by having superior numbers. But today, modern historians consider Grant one of the greatest military geniuses of all time with his victories at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and here at Appomattox all masterpieces of military strategy.

As he approached the McClean House, Grant tied his horse Cincinnati next to Lee’s Traveler and the two most famous horses in America, well known to every citizen at the time, chewed grass together, peacefully, side by side.

Inside, Grant was embarrassed by his shabby and muddy uniform and his first act was to apologize to the splendidly dressed Lee. They reminisced about Mexico and then got down to business. Grant had conferred with Lincoln, and together they wanted nothing but that the Southern armies would lay down their arms, return to their homes and obey the laws of the country. Grant added that all Southern officers would be able to keep their side arms, a great military honor at the time. Lee said this would have a “very happy effect upon my army.”

The McClean House in 1865. The original was torn down by speculators in 1893 hoping to make money from it.
It was rebuilt in 1940s.

Lee then mentioned that in the Confederate army, the soldiers owned their own horses, unlike the U.S. where they were owned by the army. Grant, having been a small farmer, knew the value of a horse in the spring to putting in crops, and allowed the Confederates to take their horses with them. Again, Lee said, this will have “the best possible effect upon the men.” Lee also stated that his men were starving, and Grant immediately ordered rations sent to the Confederate camps. The papers were drawn up and signed. The two generals went outside, Lee mounted, and they saluted each other.

When Lee returned, he was surrounded by his troops, many crying, begging him to break the army up into small guerilla bands and continue the war. But Lee asked them to accept the parole, return to their homes, and obey all local laws. He later wrote, “I believe it to be the duty of every one to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.”

The original chairs and tables at the surrender were seized as souvenirs (by everyone including General Sheridan and George Armstrong Custer). They now reside in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Lee sat in the wicker chair. Grant used this table and black leather chair.

On Grant’s side, the victorious Union army began celebrating and firing off victory cannons, but when Grant heard it, he ordered an immediate stop. He told his officers, “The war is over, the rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field.” He later wrote he was “sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought.”

Grant and Lee met shortly on horseback the next day. Among the many soldiers reuniting with old friends was Grant. Pete Longstreet was Lee's second in command, but before the war he had been the best man at Grant's wedding. Grant and Longstreet had a warm friendly greeting and handshake at Appomattox and would remain friends for life.

Over the next few days, some 30,000 parole forms were printed and given to the Southern troops, and in small groups of three to four, they set off walking on the long trudge home to Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and all points south. Soldiers from the north and south mingled together and shared food and stories. Even Lee was able to joke, when he saw his old army friend George Meade, who commanded the Union army at Gettysburg. Lee said, “What are you doing with all that gray in your beard?” Meade smiled and replied, “You have to answer for most of it.”

It looked for one brief, shining moment that a war as violent as the Civil War, fought over an issue as divisive as slavery, could actually end in a peaceful way. And then, on April 14, 1865, just five days after the surrender, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And everything changed.

IF YOU GO: The modern town of Appomattox moved several miles from the surrender site at the old village of Appomattox Court House, so while today the modern town has chain hotels, restaurants and all services, the National Park site is virtually unchanged from 1865.

The Lee Chapel in Lexington, VA where he is buried

There are plenty of places to stay and eat in Appomattox, but better is to travel an hour more west to Lexington, VA, where Robert E. Lee is buried. Lexington is the home of the Virginia Military Institute (where Stonewall Jackson taught before the war) and Washington and Lee University, of which Lee was president after the war. They are both buried here, Lee in a beautiful chapel on the campus, Stonewall in a small graveyard on the edge of town.

Even the horse Traveler is buried here, in a tomb beside Lee, just outside the church. Lexington is one of the prettiest towns in Virginia, a peaceful, historic place, surrounded by gorgeous homes, all on the edge of the Shenandoah Mountains.

There are many memorials to Lee in town, but it is well to remember, that Lee himself was against any type of monument to the war. He wrote in 1869 about a proposed Gettysburg monument, “I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife.”

Lee most likely would have disapproved of the many statues in his honor and thought it best to forget the war and move on.

Tourist information: Lexington:

Appomattox National Park:

The Surrenders, Part II (coming soon)

Bennett Place, North Carolina where Joe Johnson surrender to William Techcumsa Sherman.

Most people, mistakenly, think that Appomattox is where the Civil War ended. In truth, there were still 90,000 well-supplied Confederate soldiers ready to do battle, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis was ordering them to fight. It was the second surrender, now preserved as a North Carolina state park, where Joseph E. Johnson surrendered to William Techcumsa Sherman at Bennett Place, that has often been forgotten and overshadowed – but might actually be the more significant of the two major surrenders. That’s because something dreadful and game-changing happened between the two surrenders. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Ten Things You Probably Don’t Know About Charleston, SC

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 17:46:00 +0000

That Will Make You Want to Visit

The backstreets of the historic district

Everyone knows Charleston, SC, is one of America’s most historic cities, but there’s a lot more than history occupying the town’s 1,600 pre-Revolutionary War buildings, including new breweries, distilleries and clubs. Charleston has become a Williamsburg with bars. And James Beard award-winning restaurants. And one-of-a-kind shops and galleries.

Of course, there’s still plenty of history dripping from the Spanish moss on every corner waiting to be discovered.

So here’s 10 fascinating facts about this quirky town where Stephen Colbert grew up and Bill Murray is a part owner of the baseball team.

1. Charleston was started as a colony of Barbados.

In the 1660s, Barbados, the tropical island off the coast of Venezuela, was the richest speck of land on earth. And the most congested. Every inch of the tropical island was covered with 800 sugar plantations. An incredible 500 windmills used renewable energy to convert the sugar cane to the “white gold” used to sweeten tea throughout Europe. The little island’s population was larger than New England’s, but the majority of people were enslaved Africans, who did all the backbreaking work to make plantation owners rich. There was only one problem with this scenario. The island was starving.

Because every inch of land was used for sugar plantations, Barbados couldn’t support the beef and crops needed to feed the island’s population. So, much like the other powers in Europe, Barbados established a colony to support and feed the homeland. The colony these Barbadians started eventually came to be the city of Charleston.

2. You can see the many influences of Barbados all over Charleston – in the names of the streets dating back to the Barbadian founders, in the vividly colored buildings of pink, yellow and lavender giving the town a Caribbean feel, and in the basic architecture of the houses, which came to be called the “Charlestown Single House.”

Charleston single house with "haint blue" porch ceiling.

This is the famous one-room-wide house facing the wind. All the rooms in the
house opened to a piazza, or porch. The windows on both sides of the house could be opened
to create a much needed draft in the heat
of summer. Any walking or carriage tour of Charleston will show you dozens and
dozens of these Charleston single house homes – but the idea for them came from Barbados.

3. The roofs of the piazzas on all the
Charleston Single Houses are
painted“haint blue.” African slaves believed this color warded off evil spirits and they wouldn’t work in a house that didn’t have it.

4. Charleston was the largest slave port in America.

Any history of slavery in America begins in Charleston. Because it was founded by a slave plantation economy from Barbados, Charleston took on the same model and became the principle port where slaves entered North America with some 40 percent of them passing through Charleston. By 1860, there were 400,000 slaves in South Carolina, more than 57 percent of the population; of the 15 people in America who owned 500 slaves or more, eight were in this state.

In Charleston’s early days, slaves could be paraded and sold on any street corner that could gather a crowd, but by July 1, 1856, abolitionists forced the sale of slaves off public streets, and 40 slave marts were established for private sales. Only one has survived, and today it is the Old Slave Mart Museum, a one-of-a-kind place telling this chapter of the American story.

The Old Slave Mart Museum

Enslaved Africans began their journey by sailing the “Middle Passage” in filthy, overcrowded ships filled with disease. Those who survived, were brought to Sullivan’s Island in Charleston’s harbor, where they were interned to weed out the sick, weak and dying. The survivors were then placed in a baracoon --- jails, where they would be fattened up, washed, clothed, have gray hair dyed black and their bodies greased, all to increase their market value on the auction block. Ryan’s Slave Mart had one of the largest of the baracoons, and today it forms the heart of the museum.

A top slave with a skill like carpentry could fetch $1,500 – about $38,000 in today’s value. A young attractive light skinned woman could sell for even more. “If God has bestowed beauty upon a slave woman, it will prove her greatest curse,” one slave woman wrote.

It is an odd sensation to be inside the Slave Mart discovering the ghastly history that took place here, just a few hundred feet from carefree tourists clattering by in horse drawn carriages.

5. Charleston freely acknowledges the many accomplishments contributed to the city by enslaved Africans.

You can feel the influence of Barbados in Charleston.

Unlike Washington D.C., where politicians seldom mention that the White House was built by slaves, in Charleston the contributions of enslaved Africans are a principal part of any discussion of the city. In the Charleston Museum (the oldest museum in the U.S.), the Fort Sumter museum, and on home and plantation tours, you learn that many enslaved Africans were skilled craftsman – carpenters, stone masons, brick makers, gardeners, painters, blacksmiths, iron workers, and plasterers. Not only did slaves build this incredible city of homes and gardens, but they were also responsible for its wealth.

South Carolina was the only state that imported slaves for their knowledge. Since it was the principle rice growing state in America, they imported slaves from the Windward Coast of Africa, from Senegal to Sierra Leone and Liberia, because these people had been growing rice in their homeland for a thousand years. Rice production was tedious work – ten times the labor effort of growing cotton. But the profits were gigantic. Charleston became the rice king of America with 120 ships arriving in port every day. By the time the American Revolution started in 1775, Charleston was the richest city in all the colonies, and the fourth largest.

The gardens at Middleton Place were built and maintained by enslaved Africans.

6. The plantation at Middleton Place holds family reunions – for descendants of former masters and slaves. One spot that does an excellent job of illustrating how much Charleston owes to enslaved Africans is Middleton Place. The plantation home was burned in the Civil War and today Middleton Place is best known for having the oldest formal garden in the country. Gardens in the 18^th century were based more on symmetry and contrasting the many shades of green to be found in hedges, trees and lawns, so this is not a garden of colorful flower beds, but a subtle, mathematical creation.

The gardens at Middleton Place

Like everything else from this period, these magnificent gardens were built and maintained by enslaved Africans. Only here, they get credit for it. Eliza’s House, a freedman’s house from 1870, has been restored into a small museum telling their story. The names of all 2,800 slaves who worked at Middleton Place from 1738 to the end of the Civil war are listed, along with the jobs they held, and, chillingly, the price that was paid for them. There is Judy, a house wench and seamstress purchased for $70, and Cuffy, a carpenter who was bought for $60. Old Jenny came for just $15, but it must have been a package deal because Paul, her son, a gardener, fetched $70.

Every year, Middleton has a reunion of the family members who trace their history back to the Middleton name. Since 2006, the descendants of the 2,800 slaves who lived there have been researched and also invited; some 200 attended in 2016.

7. Charleston was a major battleground in the American Revolution.

Mention the Revolution, and most people think of Boston, Paul Revere, Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell, but there were actually 135 engagements during the Revolution in South Carolina, more than in all New England.

As the richest city in the colonies, Charleston was a major prize and the British sent an expedition of nine ships to capture it in June 1776. Quick thinking Americans built a fort out of rubber-like palmetto palm tree trunks and sand. To the disgust of the British, their cannonballs bounced off the soft palm trees, or got imbedded in the sand, while the American guns were able to do great damage to the British Navy. This attack failed, but in 1779 the British sent an even larger fleet and laid siege to Charleston. The Americans surrendered in what was to be the largest colonial defeat of the war.

8. Today, historic Charleston looks so much like it did during the Revolution, that when Mel Gibson filmed The Patriot here, all he had to do was take down signs and put mulch on the streets. The fire department wouldn’t let him remove fire plugs, so every time there was a fire plug in a scene, he placed a woman in a big hoop skirt directly over it.

Poe's Tavern near Fort Moultrie

Fort Moultrie, where the first battle took place, disappeared long ago, but a second fort still stands and a museum tells the role this spot had in three wars. After visiting, stop by the Poe Tavern for a drink. Edgar Allen Poe was stationed at Fort Moultrie in 1827 (although to escape gambling debts and family problems, he had enlisted in the army as Edgar A. Perry). Several of his famous short stories were written here or based on the area.

9. Another revolutionary war battlefield is now the hippest place in town.

The real fighting during the siege of Charleston in 1779 was right downtown in what is now Marion Square. Not that long ago, there was little for tourists north of this park, but today, the Upper King Street neighborhood is the hippest hood in town and booming with new eateries and clubs, while the park hosts a weekly farmer’s market and art shows.

When it opens in spring 2018, Hotel Bennett will rise from the park in attractive tiered building offering 179 luxury rooms and suites, many with spectacular views and balconies overlooking Marion Square. With a rooftop pool, a 1,000-seat music venue, view bars, and indoor and outdoor meeting space, the hotel will have the grandest location in Charleston.

The seafood tower in The Ordianry

The eight blocks north of here are now one long string of James Beard restaurants, music clubs, and lowcountry cuisine cafes with tap houses and distilleries sprinkled in. It’s packed with people and even lines on weekends, and busy every night. TheOrdinary deserves all the raves. From their spectacular shellfish tower signature dish to oyster sliders, the restaurant is simply amazing, transforming an old bank into a chic multi-level shellfish house. The Macintosh was the first big name on the street (Executive Chef Jeremiah Bacon is a five-time James Beard semifinalist). How could you not love a place that has a Bacon Happy Hour? Prohibition is a 1920s style speakeasy with live music six nights a week ranging from bluegrass to Cuban jazz.

There are at least seven breweries in downtown Charleston with more on the way. On Upper King, try the Charleston Beer Works and the spectacularly named, “Closed for Business” – both are tap houses with a wide selection of local beers, which, like anywhere in the south, tend to run to light, pales, sour, fruit and ambers.

10. The Civil War started in Charleston with the type of “battle” all wars should have – no one was killed.

Everyone knows the Civil War started at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired the first shells at Fort Sumter. Some 3,000 bombs later, the United States forces surrendered. No one had been killed.

The Huntley, the world's first submarine, also fought in Charleston Harbor.

Less well known is that the American forces came back in April 1863 and commenced the largest bombardment in U.S. history. For 20 months, the Union hurled seven million pounds of metal at Fort Sumter, and were never able to take it. They also bombarded Charleston in what was to be the longest bombardment of any American city in history, destroying much of the town. And regiments of African American troops assaulted Fort Wagner which protected Charleston, in an attack depicted in the movie Glory. Nothing succeeded, and Charleston was only taken when Sherman marched to it from Atlanta.

It's amazing, given the history, how much has survived here.

Of course, Charleston had also been destroyed by a fire in 1838 with 1,200 buildings burned, and then was hit by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which damaged 80 percent of the homes and left 50,000 people homeless. And if that’s not enough, Charleston is also on a major geologic fault and an earthquake in 1886 destroyed much of the city (and many experts think Charleston is way overdue for another).

All of these historic incidents are depicted at Fort Sumter National Monument. A visit is mandatory, and free – if you swim. But it costs $21 if you want to take the hour ferry each way.

Unfortunately, yet another disaster – this one manmade -- occurred on June 17, 2015, when a crazy psychotic killed nine members of a bible study group at the Emanuel AME church, just a few blocks from Marion Square.

The tower of the Emanuel AME Church stands proud.

Through all of these tragedies, Charleston has survived, endured and come out stronger and better.

On the second anniversary of the shooting, it was announced that famed architect Michael Arad, designer of the National September 11 Memorial in New York, will create a piece to honor the victims of this tragic shooting.

It is perhaps because Charleston has endured so much that it is so beautiful. Walking its quiet backstreets on tree-shaded brick sidewalks is one of the great joys of visiting this city. On every block there’s something to admire. Peek through a gate to see a private garden, duck down a tree-covered alley, wander through a graveyard, or read the plaques mounted on hundreds of homes to see who lived here. There is no place else quite like Charleston.

IF YOU GO:

There are hundreds of flower baskets in Charleston

The CharlestonConvention & Visitors Bureau is one of the best in the nation with a large, incredible visitor’s center packed with helpful advice. The Hyatt House and Hyatt Place share a common courtyard and are ideal place to stay, within walking distance of the historic district, and smack in the center of the exciting new restaurants and clubs along Upper King Street. They Hyatt House has a kitchen and order your own omelet breakfast. Bulldog Tours does excellent walking tours of the historic district.

Nine Colorful Characters Who Made History in Estes Park, Colorado

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 21:00:00 +0000

Sitting at the edge of Colorado’s No. 1 attraction – Rocky Mountain National Park – the little resort village of Estes Park lies in one of the world’s most beautiful locations, and as such, it has been attracting visitors for more than 150 years. In addition to the millions of tourists who have passed through, here are some other colorful characters who made history in Estes Park.

Longs Peak rising above the clouds

JULES VERNE
In 1865, nearly twenty years before his classic “Around the World in 80 Days,” Jules Verne wrote a science fiction novel “From the Earth to the Moon” about the first spacecraft to the moon, which was fired from a gigantic cannon. To follow the space ship’s progress, he imagined a fictional 80-foot-long telescope on top of Estes Park’s most famous mountain, the 14,259-foot-high Longs Peak. This was somewhat remarkable, since at this point in history, no known person had ever climbed Longs Peak. Verne mistakenly thought this was the highest mountain in the United States. He wrote: “All the necessary apparatus was consequently sent on to the summit of Long's Peak… Neither pen nor language can describe the difficulties of all kinds which the American engineers had to surmount…. They had to raise enormous stones, massive pieces of wrought iron, heavy corner-clamps and huge portions of cylinder, with an object-glass weighing nearly 30,000 pounds, above the line of perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in height.” Quite an accomplishment in 1865 when in reality, there was only one family living at the base of Longs Peak – that of Joel Estes.
Experience: It’s not quite as big as Verne imagined it all those years ago, but the Estes Park Memorial Observatory’s Ritchey-Chretien telescope is your gateway into deep space.

Lake Estes bears the name of Joel Estes, first known resident of the area.

JOEL ESTES
Joel was a restless man. He and his wife Patsey raised 13 children. Joel crossed the Oregon Trail, went prospecting in California and ended up in Denver in 1859 as a cattle rancher. The Gold Rush crowds in Denver forced him farther and farther up into the hills, where he finally discovered an incredibly beautiful secret valley at the base of Longs Peak. When William Byers, the editor of the Rocky Mountain News, tried to climb Longs Peak, he stayed with the Estes family. Though unsuccessful, he rewarded the Estes’ hospitality by naming the valley “Estes Park.” By 1866, Joel was restless again and sold all of Estes Park for a pair of oxen and moved back to Missouri. But the memory of the place that still bears their name lingered on. Patsey later said her time there “was like living on the front doorstep of heaven.”
Experience: The Estes Park Museum provides a window into the town’s past, with artifacts and exhibits stretching back to Joel Estes’ time.

Today there are hundreds of miles of hiking trails in Rocky Mountain National Park

JOHN WESLEY POWELL
Even though he lost his right arm fighting for the Union at the Battle of Shiloh, John Wesley Powell became one of the most well known explorers in history. In 1869, he led the first expedition to ever sail down the Grand Canyon in boats. A year earlier, he and William Byers made several attempts to climb Longs Peak, but were turned back each time. Finally, they found a route to the top and became the first white men known to do reach the summit (though they found evidence that Native Americans had beaten them to the top). It is estimated that 200,000 people have climbed Longs Peak since then, about 7,500 a year – although 60 have died trying.
Experience: Get to the top of the iconic Longs Peak in a safe and responsible way with a guide from Estes Park Mountain Shop – 14,255 feet above sea level.

MacDonald's Bookshop in Estes Park

ISABELLA BIRD
The fourth woman in history to climb Longs Peak was destined to become one of the most famous travel writers of all time. Growing up in England, Isabella Bird was frail and suffered from nervous headaches and insomnia. Her doctors recommended an outdoor life, and in 1873 she moved to Colorado, where the air was said to be good for your health. Settling in Estes Park, she eventually traveled 800 miles around the Rocky Mountains with her guide (some people said he was more than a guide) a one-eyed desperado named “Rocky Mountain Jim” Nugent (see below). Writing about him in her book, “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains,” she said he was a "man any woman might love but no sane woman would marry." (In Victorian England, that line was censored.) Isabella went on to travel and write about all corners of the world and became the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Experience: Isabella’s book about Colorado is still a great read and available in the national park gift shops and around town. Drop in to MacDonald’s Bookshop, Estes Park’s original bookstore, family owned since 1928, and browse their extensive history section.

Rangers give guided tours around Sprauge Lake.

“ROCKY MOUNTAIN JIM” NUGENT
Jim told so many tall tales that it’s difficult to separate truth from fiction. He may have been a trapper for the Hudson Bay Company, a British army officer or a defrocked priest. But we know for sure that he arrived in what would become Rocky Mountain National Park in the late 1860s. There, a close encounter with a bear left him with a scarred face and one less eye. Undeterred, he became one of the first guides in Estes Park and helped Isabella Bird and many others climb Longs Peak. But he had a falling out with another rival guide, Griff Evans. A year after Isabella returned to England, Evans shot “Rocky Mountain Jim” in cold blood with a double barrel shotgun. Incredibly, Jim lived long enough to write a statement accusing Evans, but without witnesses, Evans never stood trial.
Experience: The Fall RiverVisitor Center offers a variety of ranger-led educational opportunities, as well as exhibits on wildlife survival – just so you don’t end up looking like “Rocky Mountain Jim.”

The village of Estes Park sits right at the base of the national park lands, which, ironically, Lord Dunraven helped save.

LORD DUNRAVEN
A good friend and drinking buddy of the murderer Griff Evans was Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, the fourth Earl of Dunraven of Ireland. Lord Dunraven came to Estes Park on a hunting trip in 1872 and fell in love with it. In what has been called one of the greatest land thefts in Colorado history, Dunraven acquired (mostly through unscrupulous means) 15,000 acres of land around Estes Park to create his own private hunting reserve.
But the locals disliked his heavy-handed ways, and he became disenchanted with the large number of tourists visiting his private property (as many as 200 a summer!). So eventually Dunraven packed up and moved back to England, never returning.
Experience: Lord Dunraven came from Ireland – but the Dunraven Innhttp://www.visitestespark.com/listings/dunraven-inn/1807/, the classic Estes Park restaurant that bares his name specializes in Italian food. But certainly he’d approve of the Lord Dunraven, a center-cut sirloin steak charbroiled to perfection.

Lord Dunraven's private hunting estate is now the national park.

ALBERT BIERSTADT
Before leaving, Lord Dunraven hired Albert Bierstadt, one of the most famous artists of the day, to create masterpieces of Estes Park. Dunraven paid him $15,000 – a deal in today’s terms. These days, Bierstadt is considered one of the great artists of the American West and his paintings, which hang in a dozen museums including the Smithsonian, can sell for $7 million or more. His paintings of Estes Park and the Rocky Mountains (now in the Denver Art Museum) helped popularize the area around the world. When Lord Dunraven decided to build a hotel, legend has it that artist Albert Bierstadt selected the site that would offer the best views and artistic light. That hotel burned down, but the next landlord would replace it.
Experience: Estes Park’s gorgeous sights continue to inspire, and the Art Center of Estes Park’s gallery brings together an array of masterpieces from local artists.

The skies and clouds above Estes Park have inspired countless artists.

FREELAN OSCAR (F.O.) STANLEY
In 1903, F.O. Stanley, the wealthy inventor and producer of one of the first automobiles, the Stanley Steamer, was stricken with tuberculosis. Seeking a cure, he did what many did at the time and sought out the fresh air of Estes Park. In one season, his health improved dramatically and he resolved to turn the area into a world-class summer resort. He purchased 160 acres from Lord Dunraven and in 1907 constructed a grand hotel in the Colonial Revival style of New England, complete with electric lights, telephones, and en suite bathrooms. It was the first resort in the world where guests arrived by car rather than by train. Stanley helped Estes Park grow into a real resort village, and with his friend, naturalist Enos Mills, worked tirelessly to create Rocky Mountain National Park, which opened in 1915. The Stanlely Hotel offered every modern service, except heat — a factor that helped determine its future fame.
Experience: Take a step back in time and learn more about The Stanley Hotel's rich history during a daily guided tour that takes you all over the property.

The Stanley Hotel

STEPHEN KING
In late fall 1974, a fledgling writer named Stephen King wanted to cross Trail Ridge Road, but it was already closed due to snow. He sought refuge in the Stanley Hotel. At this time, lacking heat, the Stanley was in the process of closing for the winter and King was the only guest. He sat up late with Grady, the one remaining bartender, walked the empty corridors of the hotel, and finally checked into room 217 … where he had one of the worst nightmares of his life. But by morning, he also had the outline of The Shining, his first best-selling hardback book. Both Grady and room 217 make important appearances in the book. The Stanley Kubrick/Jack Nicholson film of The Shining was shot in Oregon, but King disliked it so much, he supported a 1997 television movie remake, filmed entirely on site at the Stanley Hotel. Today, the Stanley is regarded as one of the most haunted hotels in the world and is studied by paranormal experts. Ghost Tours of the hotel are a popular excursion in Estes Park, and the film The Shining plays on cable in every room in the Stanley, 24-7. But don’t watch it there alone.
Experience: Want to discover the Stanley’s “spiritual” side? Night GhostTours at the hotel take you to a few darkened spaces, telling the tales behind the "active" phenomena and spirit folklore that have been causing bumps in the night for decades.

Following The Great Locomotive Chase

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Wed, 10 May 2017 16:01:00 +0000

A 120-Mile Journey Tracing the Civil War's Greatest Adventure

Monument to the General in Chattanooga National Cemetary

I started where it ended, in the rolling hills of the Chattanooga National Cemetery in Tennessee. There, under a great bronze statue of the steam locomotive The General, is a monument to one of the Civil War's most daring raids, an adventure that came to be known as "The Great Locomotive Chase."

Around the memorial are the graves of some brave men: James J. Andrews, the civilian spy who organized the raid, and seven of the Union soldiers he led. Some of them were the first Americans to ever receive our nation's highest award for valor -- the Medal of Honor.

They also share one other piece of history. All of them were hanged; seven of them were executed side-by-side from a single scaffold.

The graves of the eight executed raiders are side-by-side.

How the locomotive and these eight courageous men came together is a fascinating tale. Since it is also the story of the world's first high-speed chase, it can only be appreciated by following the trail of Andrews' Raiders over a 120-mile journey, from Atlanta to Chattanooga. Along the way there are visits to museums, several monuments, a chance to see two of history's most famous steam locomotives and even the opportunity to ride a golf cart through an historic Civil War era railroad tunnel – the same tunnel the chase went roaring through in 1862.

Atlanta and Chattanooga were connected by vital rail links.

Some background is necessary before the first stop. In the early days of the Civil War, Chattanooga was an important rail junction that controlled food and supplies coming from the deep South headed to the Confederate armies in Virginia. Cut the rail lines in Chattanooga, and it could end the war.

The raid, as conceived by Andrews, called for 22 Ohio soldiers to dress as civilians and sneak 200 miles behind Confederate lines to Marietta, Georgia, just a few miles north of Atlanta. There, they would steal a train and race it north, burning the bridges behind them. With the railroad destroyed, Chattanooga would be cut off from Confederate reinforcements by train and easily captured by a coordinated Union attack advancing from the west under General Ormsby M. Mitchel.

The raiders spent the night in this hotel (far left window, middle row)

It was a daring, but possible, plan, and Andrews set it in motion. The raiders, traveling in groups of two or three, made their way incognito in civilian clothes to Marietta and on April 11, 1862, they booked two rooms at the Kennesaw Hotel. This is where you can join them. The hotel room that Andrews occupied is now part of the Marietta Museum of History and is made up much like it would have looked the night Andrews’ Raiders slept there, complete with a mannequin of Andrews looking out the window on to the tracks below. It’s hard to imagine, as school kids move around the room laughing, the tension these 22 men must have felt. Several of them spoke up and said they thought the plan was hopeless and doomed to fail. But Andrews was firm, telling them any man could drop out, but “I will succeed or leave my bones in Dixie.”

Andrews looks out the window from the room he stayed in.

So on the morning of April 12, in a light rain, each man stuck a pistol in his belt, and boarded the regularly scheduled north bound train. To avoid suspicion, they all bought tickets to different destinations. The train was pulled by a 25-ton, eight-wheel wood burning locomotive, The General. At this time, there were no railroad dining cars, so 12 miles up the line at Big Shanty, the train came to halt of hissing steam and smoke and all the passengers got off for a 20 minute breakfast break. You can follow the raiders to Big Shanty, now the town of Kennesaw, and home to the impressively named Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History.

There’s a barn full of exhibits here on the war and railroading, but for our purposes, one thing stands above all. The General. The gleaming black and red locomotive was destined to survive the raid, the war and even the burning of Atlanta.

The General

For years, it crossed the country touring at exhibitions, even appearing at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, before ending up back here in 1972, 100 yards from the spot where Andrews stole her. It’s an impressive and gorgeous machine. You can get climb above it, around it, and peer into the cab. From its red "cow catcher" to the great bell smoke stack and huge five-foot-high red wheels, clearly this engine was built for speed. It's easy to imagine Andrews in the cab, clinging to the handrail as the locomotive screamed round the curves, yelling to the engineers at the height of the chase, "Push her, boys. Push her!"

The museum has put together a thrilling film, using accurate bits from the 1956 Walt Disney Movie The Great Locomotive Chase, edited with modern actors and narration to tell a completely historical tale of what happened next.

The General in Kennesaw

Andrews plotted to steal the train at Big Shanty because it did not have a telegraph station. When the other passengers and train crew got off for breakfast, the raiders stayed on board, uncoupled the passenger cars, climbed into the box cars, snuck into the engine, released the brake and opened the throttle. With a grinding of steel on steel, they were on their way, in front of the startled passengers and an entire camp of Confederate soldiers. A few miles up the line, they stopped to cut telegraph wires and rip up track. They were now confident that nothing could catch them from behind and it was clear sailing up ahead.

But the plan soon went wrong. Rain had delayed Andrews for a day, but the Union attack went ahead on schedule. Afraid of the approaching Union army, the Confederates in Chattanooga tried to save supplies by sending additional trains south, clogging the rail line. Andrews lost several hours in delays. But carrying forged documents and claiming his train had badly needed ammunition for the “front,” he continually bullied it past skeptical station agents. They were just above Adairsville again ripping up track when suddenly the raiders were startled by a shrill whistle from the south. One of them wrote, "No sound more unwelcome ever fell on human ears."

The Station in Adairsville looks like it did in 1862

Pursuit! Unknown to the raiders, the General's conductor, William R. Fuller, had watched his train being stolen and started off after it on foot. Since the average speed of a train at that time was 12 mph, this was not as crazy as it sounds, especially since the north bound train had to adhere to a schedule that Fuller well knew. The uneven race soon improved as Fuller came upon a rail push cart and then an old iron works locomotive, the Yonah.

Highway 41, "the Blue and Gray Highway," follows the route of the 1862 railroad and offers a number of opportunities to visit sites associated with “the chase.” Free “Great Locomotive Chase” brochures available at the museum have maps and detail 14 points along the route associated with the race. Dalton is good stop with a rail depot that was there in 1862, and Adairsville looks much like it did during the Civil War. The depot, which was also there in 1862, has some exhibits on the raid, including two toy train locomotives that chase each other around one side of the building.

The Texas has recently been restored and will be returned to the Atlanta History Center

It was here that Fuller got what he needed most for the chase – his third locomotive of the day, The Texas, a powerful new engine that matched the General in speed. The Texas had been heading south, but Fuller commandeered it, and through sheer force of character and courage, raced the engine backwards at 70 miles an hour on tracks where the safe speed was 18. With whistles blowing, steel wheels shrieking on rails and steam billowing, he was able to follow the General in the race across the Georgia countryside.

From Adairsville on, it was indeed a race for life or death. Andrews' men tried everything -- pushing ties on to the tracks, building barricades, and even throwing the General in reverse to fling empty boxcars charging back toward the onrushing Confederates, but seemingly nothing could stop Fuller.

The Texas was raced backwards at speeds up to 70 mph

Or The Texas. This engine also survived the war and for years was on display at The Cyclorama in Atlanta’s Grant Park, which featured the world's largest painting – a circular piece of art four stories high and longer than a football field depicting the Battle of Atlanta. Both the painting and The Texas are now headed to a new and better home in the Atlanta History Center. The Texas has undergone a complete restoration and was revealed to the public for the first time in two years at a recent ceremony in April 2017 at the North Carolina Transportation Museum, where it was restored. In 2017 it will be unveiled in its new home, under a huge glass canopy at the entrance of the Atlanta History Museum. Similar to The General, it is a sleek and economical machine – the fastest thing on earth at the time of the Chase. Though it only worked for a few hours on the day of the Chase, The Texas ran for decades as a working engine, and in its new home it will do a fine job of interpreting railroading in the period both before and after the Civil War.

You can ride through the same tunnel as the race did on a golf cart

One of the final and most dramatic moments of the Chase came at Tunnel Hill. This 1,477-foot- long tunnel was opened in 1850 and was the longest tunnel in the South. It was the raider’s last chance to win the race. The Union soldiers wanted to make a stand and fight it out with pistols at the end of the tunnel, or send The General backwards at full speed through the tunnel to crash into The Texas. But Andrews was by trade a spy. He had always talked his way out of any dangerous situation, and he believed their best chance was by breaking up into small groups and fleeing.

Today, the Western & Atlantic Tunnel has been restored. Closed in 1928, and saved from destruction in 1992, it is a wet, dripping, narrow dark and dank space. But you can travel through it for $6 on a golf cart tour.

The Texas entering the tunnel.

Along the roof, you can see where 20^th Century rail cars were too high and scraped the rock, necessitating a new tunnel. When The Texas arrived at the edge of the dark tunnel, it was filled with smoke from The General and the other Confederates with Fuller baulked at entering what they were sure was a Union death trap. But Fuller, riding on the tender, forced them through. When they emerged from the tunnel back in daylight and could see The General ahead, Fuller could tell by its pale smoke that she was low on fuel and water and nearly finished.

And indeed they were. Just a short way past Ringgold, with all 22 Union men riding on the locomotive and tender, out of fuel and the Confederates in sight, Andrews gave his last order: “jump off and scatter, every man for himself.” There is a historic marker at the lonely spot on a straight track where the chase ended.

Historic marker in Atlanta near Andrews hanging site

Within a week, Andrews and all 21 of his men were captured. Caught out of uniform, they were considered spies and he and seven men selected at random were tried, convicted and hanged in Atlanta. The rest, fearing a similar fate, staged a desperate escape. Eight made it back to Union lines; the other six were captured again and eventually exchanged.

In the end, the failure of the raid led to two years of fighting before Chattanooga finally fell to Union hands. In all, more than 47,000 young men were killed or horribly wounded in these battles -- men who might have been spared had Andrews succeeded. Today, many thousands of them lay in the rolling grass slopes of the Chattanooga National Cemetery, surrounding Andrews and his men.

When the United States created a new medal to honor outstanding bravery, it was decided to present the very first ones to Andrews' Raiders. Secretary of War Stanton pinned them on the survivors himself.

Ironically, one of the raiders not honored was Andrews. As a civilian, he did not qualify. His medal is the judgement of history.

Georgia's Bloody Ground

Site of a major attack at Chickamauga

Few areas in North America have experienced as much violent conflict as the 120-mile stretch between Chattanooga and Atlanta. The battles for Chattanooga and the Battle for Atlanta stretched back and forth over this land from 1862-1864 in some of the Civil War's most savage and confused fighting. Several of the war's best preserved battlefields are just a few minutes drive from the route of the Great Locomotive Chase. The Blue & Gray Trail www.georgiabluegraytrail.org lists 74 historic sites. Among them:

Chickamauga National Military Park: Located just south of Chattanooga, the fields and woods of this battlefield were filled with smoke on Sept. 19-20, 1863, when

66,000 Confederates defeated and almost destroyed a Union army of 58,000. Casualties were among the highest in the war with 34,000 men falling. This was the first battlefield preserved in United States and is the largest. An excellent museum sets the stage, while an observation tower overlooks and explains the entire strategy of the conflict. Highlights include Snodgrass Hill, where General Thomas, "The Rock of Chickamauga," fought a rear-guard action that saved the Union Army and perhaps the war. The park also features one of the largest and best Civil War bookstores.

Lookout Mountain

Point Park and Lookout Mountain: Part of the Chattanooga National Military Park, this battlefield has a gorgeous view of the Tennessee River. From a tower, it is possible to understand the geographic difficulties that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant faced in trying to dislodge the Southern army from the hills around the town. The November 1863 campaign was one of Grant's most brilliant and set the stage for the Battle of Atlanta.

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park: Located 10 minutes from the site where The General was stolen at Big Shanty, this beautiful park preserves just one of the dozens of areas that saw heavy fighting in the Battle for Atlanta. Here in July 1864, General Sherman threw wave after wave of blue-coated troops in hopeless assaults against strong Confederate lines. The panoramic sweeping views from the mountain stretch to Atlanta and beyond. A museum attempts to explain the confusing campaign, but to truly understand it, head to the Atlanta History Museum.

If You Go:

The gorgeous hotel is in the center of Midtown Atlanta

The place to stay in Atlanta is the Georgian Terrace Hotel, Atlanta’s old grand dame. Located across the street from the restored Fox Theatre, the elegant and beautiful hotel opened in 1911 and has hosted everyone from presidents to rock stars. It is just down the street from the home were Margaret Mitchell wrote the ultimate Civil War novel, “Gone With the Wind,” and it is where Clark Gable and most of the cast stayed for the premiere of the film in 1939. Ironically, it is also within a pistol shot of Third and Juniper, the obscure corner in midtown Atlanta were James J. Andrews was hanged. There’s a historic marker, slowly being overgrown by bushes, to mark the spot.

The Marietta Museum of History is housed in the old Kennesaw hotel, where Andrews' Raiders spent the night before stealing The General. They have restored Andrews’ room as it might have appeared and have good exhibits on the raid.

Pretty Chattanooga and the Tennessee River

The Southern Museum of the Civil War and Locomotive History originally opened on April 12, 1972, exactly 110 years to the day that Andrews and his men stole The General, 100 yards from this site. The museum is the permanent home of the locomotive The General, and contains hundreds of artifacts connected to Great Locomotive Chase, as well as an 18-minute video and a full documentation on the role that railroads played in the war. Kennesaw is a historic town; a free walking tour brochure available at the museum points out 32 historic sites. Don't miss Wildman's Civil War & Relic Shop, the "Best Little War Store in Kennesaw, as it bills itself, directly across the street. Possibly the most politically incorrect museum you’ll ever see, it’s still a “don’t miss” one-of-a-kind attraction.

The Texas will be in a new space in the History Atlanta Center

The Atlanta History Center is magnificent and worth a half day. There are gardens, historic homes, an excellent strategic interpretation of the Civil War and the importance of Atlanta, and this will be the new home of The Texas, and the world’s largest painting.

Tunnel Hill Heritage Center & Museum is a hoot. The museum has exhibits on the raid, the tunnel, and the later Civil War battle fought here. But the highlight is riding a nine-passenger golf cart through the actual tunnel. Once you see the landscape, you can understand why Andrews baulked at fighting a battle here. There was little cover, and the raiders could see that the Confederates riding The Texas had long range rifles, whereas the raiders were armed only with pistols.

Atlanta has become amazing and makes a good base for following the chase.

Chattanooga National Cemetery

Open every day. There are 33,000 men buried here, including 12,000 from the Civil War. A memorial with a bronze statue of the locomotive The General honors the Great Locomotive Chase. James J. Andrews and the seven raiders who were executed are buried here in a small semi-circle around the monument.

ATLANTA: Atlanta has been transformed in recent years into a world class tourist destination. The best deal is CityPASS which saves you money and time and gets you into all the city's top attractions including the aquarium, Civil Rights Museum, CNN and more.

BEFORE YOU GO: The 1956 Walt Disney movie, "The Great Locomotive Chase," is surprisingly accurate and gives a good look at Civil War locomotives in action.

Traveling With Mark Twain in Hawaii

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:11:00 +0000

Waikiki Beach was the Royal Coconut Grove when Twain arrived in 1866.

In 1866, Mark Twain was virtually unknown without a single published book. He had bright red hair and he talked and gestured in such an animated way that people meeting him for the first time often thought he was drunk. And then he got one of the greatest jobs in history.

The Sacramento Union, the best newspaper on the West Coast, sent him to the Sandwich Islands (as Hawaii was then called) and agreed to pay $20 for every letter or story he sent back. Though Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain, would go on to become America’s most famous writer and the author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and would travel extensively around the world, he never forget Hawaii. He called it “the loveliest stream of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.”

Though he was only in Hawaii for four months in 1866 and never returned, much later in his life he wrote, “No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but that one, no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done…. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ear; I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud wrack;…in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.”

Rainbow Falls on the Big Island is just one of many places Twain visited that are much the same today.

So when my brother and I decided to spend two weeks exploring the Hawaiian Islands, who better to be our guide than Mark Twain? Armed with editions of Twain’s two travel books on the subject “Letters from Hawaii” and “Roughing It,” we decided to follow his route and see how much we could return to the Sandwich Islands of 1866, when it was still an independent kingdom and the most isolated population center on earth.

Honolulu

Twain arrived in Honolulu on March 18, 1866 after a ten day voyage and set out to explore the settlement of then 15,000. “The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it. Every step revealed a new contrast -- disclosed something I was unaccustomed to…I saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes…I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance – trees that cast a shadow like a thundercloud….I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens…gazing indolently at whatever or whoever happened along.”

The porch of the Moana Surfrider hotel, opened in 1901.

Much like Mark Twain, we arrived in Honolulu after what seemed like a ten-day trip, although it was really just a seven-hour flight and five-hour delay. After negotiating the maze of Waikiki streets, we checked in, had a drink and walked out at midnight into a light mist of rain. And into a Hawaii not too far different from Twain’s. Oh, of course, Honolulu is a now sprawling city of 400,000, with 8 million more tourists thrown in. But the shock of arriving from the mainland in winter was the same. Here there were flowers – everywhere – in January, with palm trees swaying overhead and huge banyan trees covering a city block. The temperature, even at midnight, was balmy and on every corner there were woman looking at us, perhaps not “indolently,” but at least sizing us up to see if we were potential customers.

Waikiki is known for boasting a large collection of streetwalkers. They were all colors, races and sizes, and beautifully dressed. And strangely, they were working the territory in front of the Moana Surfrider, perhaps the most gorgeous and expensive of Waikiki hotels, and one of the oldest, dating back to 1901. On this street, Kalakaua Ave, which has the same look and feel of Rodeo Drive, with many of the same stores, it is an odd sight to see prostitutes on every corner. Their target is rich Asian men, so two old, pale and poorly dressed Americans didn’t cause much excitement, but one did ask my brother if he wanted a massage.

The sunsets on Waikiki have not changed since Mark Twain's visit.

The Waikiki of Twain’s day was a village of white cottages. It was the royal coconut grove and one-time home of King Kamehameha I, the king that united all of Hawaii by winning a famous battle here in 1795. It was also here on the thin sliver of Waikiki Beach that Mark Twain tried surfing, and first introduced the sport to the world. “In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf- bathing. Each …. would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express-train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself. The board struck the shore in three-quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me.”

The statue of Duke Kahanamoku, the most famous of all Hawaiian surfers on Waikiki.

Today, of course, they are still surfing at Waikiki and the beach is home to the ultimate surfing tribute, a statue of the king of the board, Duke Kahanamoku. But the real excitement of surfing in winter is on the north shore of the island – a place that would have been inaccessible to Mark Twain except by boat because in 1866, no road penetrated Oahu’s central spine of mountains.

Breakers on Banzai-Pipeline Beach are so close to the shore you can capture them with cellphones.

Today, it’s a drive of an hour or so by tunnels and highway to Sunset and Banzai-Pipeline Beaches. Both are known for their flat reefs that cause waves to break when they hit shallow depths, creating a huge curling tube of water that surfers can actually ride down the center. In winter, these can be the deadliest of beaches with waves averaging nine feet, and reaching even 14-20 feet high, with the constant danger of surfers being hurled into the coral below.

The incredible thing when visiting is that the main road is literally at the edge of the beach. You just pull over for free parking, and in less than a minute you can walk right up to the gigantic breaking waves and be so close that you can actually photograph a surfer in curl … with a cell phone! Of course, the beach is lined with professional photographers with two-foot long telephotos and some of the top surfing photos come from here, but you don’t need one to feel part of the action. You can buy cold coconuts at the beach, or it’s a short drive to Hale’iwa, an old hippie surfing town that is also home to the most famous of all North Shore stops: Matsumoto’s Shave Ice.

The North Shore is a laid back look at an older, less commercially developed Hawaii.

Diamond Head

This 700-foot-high extinct crater looms over Honolulu and has fascinated every visitor from Mark Twain to the TV show Hawaii Five-O. Twain rented a broken-down horse named Oahu and struggled to the top, but now people think nothing of walking from Waikiki and climbing to the summit at dawn, taking a $10 cab ride back to their hotel. It’s an interesting hike, with tunnels and curving staircases cut through rock.

Of course the view from the top of Diamond Head includes thousands of modern buildings, but nature hasn't changed.

The summit was converted to an army lookout point in World War II. Of course the view today includes hundreds upon hundreds of modern hotels, apartments and office buildings, but nothing much has changed along the shoreline or in the steep mountain crags, so much of the view is the same as Mark Twain described it: “Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over the beautiful landscape…I gave voice to my thought. I said: What a picture is here slumbering…How strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain! How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the dream-haunted Manoa Valley! How….at this point the horse called Oahu deliberately sat down in the sand. Sat down to listen, I suppose….I stopped apostrophizing and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of court on the part of a horse.”

Mark Twain in 1867

On his way back to town, Twain noticed a beautiful island woman and thinking to impress her, he galloped by like a cavalier. She called to his friend Brown, who was bringing up the rear and spoke to him. Twain waited and when Brown caught up, he asked what she had said. Brown laughed. “She thought from the slouchy way you rode and the way you drawled out your words, that you was drunk! She said, ‘Why don’t you take the poor creature home, Mr. Brown? It makes me nervous to see him galloping that horse and hanging on that way, and he so drunk.’ “

Maui

Twain’s next stop was Maui. He wrote famously, “I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I had a jolly time. I would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatever… I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place good-bye so regretfully.”

Big Beach on Maui

Most people feel the same way. Twain based in Lahaina, so we did too. In the 1800s, this large whaling town could have 400 ships in harbor at a time, and seemingly just as many bars, saloons and brothels. One of the surviving buildings from the era is the sturdily built town jail. Today, Front Street, Lahaina is a wacky mix of tourist shops, historic buildings with balconies, restaurants, galleries, stone churches and bars, with an old fort and picturesque harbor that offers bobbing boats and classic mountain and sea views.

Lahaina at sunset from the Pier

Perhaps the two most familiar landmarks – the giant banyan tree that covers an entire city block and the historic balconied Pioneer Hotel where writer Jack London once stayed, both came after Twain’s visit, But there are a dozen or so buildings from his time, and no matter how many Subway sandwich shops and pizza joints invade, Lahaina still has the look of an old whaling town. Have a local Haleakala IPA from the Maui Brewing Company on the balcony of Captain Jack’s Island Grill, and you can drift with the swaying overhead palm trees back to a different time.

Captain Jack's looking towards the Pioneer Hotel, where Jack London stayed and wrote some of his stories.

By 1866, the missionaries had arrived in Lahaina, and were in steady conflict with the sailors, the native Hawaiians and Mark Twain, who loved needling them. He complained that the missionaries had come to make the native people “permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there.” He wrote, “How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.”

Lahaina is a weird mix of tourist shops and upscale galleries and historic buildings with a whaling port town feel thrown in.

One of Mark Twain’s permanent gifts to Maui was popularizing the idea of watching sunrise from the 10,023-foot summit of the extinct volcano Haleakala, “the house of the sun.” Twain camped on the top and at dawn had the not uncommon experience of being in bright sunshine, while all below him was blanketed with clouds. “It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always,” he wrote.

Hiking above the clouds on the summit of Haleakala.

Today, the ritual, which involves driving twisting roads in the dark and freezing on the summit until the sun comes up, has become so popular that as of Feb. 1, 2017, the National Park Service requires permits and only cars with permits are allowed on the summit at dawn. No matter. The summit view is fantastic at any time, and since the volcano is covered with hundreds of microclimates, there are always constantly swirling clouds and light formations. Dress warm.

The Big Island of Hawaii

With its active volcano, waterfalls, and historic sites, Twain liked the island of Hawaii above all else. He sailed from Honolulu and wrote, “We landed at Kailua (pronounced Ki-loo-ah), a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall coconut trees – the sleepiest, quietest, Sundayest looking place you can imagine. Ye weary ones that are sick of the labor and care… and sigh for a land where ye may fold your tired hands and slumber your lives peacefully away, pack up your carpet sacks and go to Kailua! A week there ought to cure the saddest of you.”

The buildings of Kailua line one side of the street, the ocean the other.

I liked Kailua best of all myself. The historic town consists of a half moon bay with the sea on one side, where towering waves crash against a rock wall breakwater every minute or so, sending a spray water splashing over the sidewalk. On the other side, is a South Pacific paradise of historic buildings sprinkled with new ones made to look old with shutters, balconies, bars, live music, ABC liquor stores, towering palm trees and an assortment of Hawaiian tourists shops.

The current Hawaiian State Flag was the national flag in 1866 when Twain visited.

Of course, it’s touristy. There’s a steady stream of cars, convertibles, motorcycles and people, with drifts of a live singer doing John Denver or a tourism shop playing Iz Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a song, by the way, that you’ll probably hear more than a hundred times. The official Youtube page for the song has 261 million views. I suppose there are people who hate it, but to me, never has a song captured a place better. Even Mark Twain, a hundred years before the song was recorded, wrote, “Why did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery the Rainbow Islands? These charming spectacles are present to you at every turn; they are as common in all the islands as fogs and wind in San Francisco.”

The parks along the sea in downtown Kailua look directly west and are perfect for sunsets.

Captain Cook was killed on Hawaii, a fact that fascinated Twain, and he spent a great deal of time visiting the site of the murder, and also the site where Cook was “cooked.” Twain had no great respect for Captain Cook, who he thought had pretended to be a god and got what he deserved. He delighted in the fact that when the British demanded the return of Captain Cook’s body, the natives could sheepishly only produce nine pounds of it… the rest having been eaten. The monument to Cook that Twain visited is now underwater. Not a good sign for global warming.

Wood carvings and a giant stone wall are the attractions at Pu"uhonua o Honauuau, City of Refuge

The big island is filled with sights visited by Twain that have changed little if at all. You can walk by the massive black lava walls of Pu’uhonua o Honauuau, the City of Refuge, which is now a National Park. The earth’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa, is still 13,677 feet high and consumes half the island, while the planet’s youngest and most active volcano, Kilauea, is still spewing gas, smoke and ash, as it did when Twain climbed down into it.

Looking down into the crater. Photo: Donald Grant

You can have the same view of Halema’uma’u Crater from the Volcano House, that he enjoyed. The current restaurant is new, but the location of the park’s only hotel is the same. He wrote, “The surprise of finding a good hotel in such an outlandish spot startled me considerably more than the volcano did.” Not only is the drop off Kilauea caldera steep, but so are the restaurant prices. But at least stop in Uncle George’s Lounge for a Kona Brewing Co. IPA and the splendid view. You might even want to stand by the fireplace – at 4,000 feet, it can be chilly up here.

The Waipi'o Valley can't have changed much since Mark Twain was here.

Mark Twain also rode through the Waipi’o Valley, which is just as inaccessible today as in 1866, and rode up and down all of the Kona Coast, writing, “Kona to me will always be a happy memory.”

But his happiest memory of Hawaii appears to be the women, which he mentions over and over, most often when he happens upon them swimming or dancing what he called, the “hula hula.” But being Mark Twain, he was always a gentlemen. “At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea, and went and sad down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen.”

Mark Twain never forgot his visit to Hawaii, and unfortunately, was never able to return.

George Washington’s New York

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 21:42:00 +0000

Fraunces Tavern is the oldest establishment in New York serving food and drink and a favorite of George Washington

George Washington was not really a New Yorker. He was born, raised and died in Virginia. He spent much of his public life, as both a president and a general, in his favorite city of Philadelphia. But New York? Not so much.

It’s hard to blame him. He fought six battles trying to defend New York, and lost them all, but one. When he finally retreated from New York, he wanted to burn the city to the ground, but Congress stopped him. Officially, at least. No one really knows who started the fire on September 21, 1776, but George was not disappointed when hundreds of houses in New York did in fact go up in flames.

Despite all this, George Washington probably did have some very fond memories of the city. It was in New York that he was sworn in as President and spent 17 months, before the capital was moved to Philadelphia. And it was here that the Revolutionary War officially ended in 1783, with a triumphal march by the Continental army down the Broad-way, stopping from tavern to tavern to drink 13 toasts at each one in celebration of the new country.

George Washington portrait by John Trumbull in NY Historical Society

Because New York was so small at the time of the Revolution, most of the sites associated with George Washington are within a short walk of each other. You can have a drink and a meal at his favorite tavern; see the pew he sat in at his church; view the gravesite of his trusted chief of staff (and current pop star) Alexander Hamilton; stand on the spot where he was sworn in as President, and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, passing almost directly over the spot where he retreated after the Battle of Brooklyn, saving the army in what has been called the most magnificent military retreat in history.

As George might have done himself, it’s best to begin the tour with a drink.

Fraunces Tavern

When Samuel Fraunces opened his tavern here in 1762, there were already 217 taverns in New York to serve just 13,000 people. Today, it is the only colonial tavern to survive and the oldest establishment serving food and drinks in New York.

Taverns at the time were a combination of an inn where you could stay and a public house where you could get a drink and meal. Both offerings were pretty dreadful. People shared beds and sat at simple communal tables, often arranged around a fireplace, with a mishmash of different flatware and glasses. Taverns were expensive because patrons had to pay not only for food and drink, but also for the candles used.

The Tallmadge Room in Fraunces Tavern today

The average colonial of the day drank a staggering four gallons of hard liquor and 14 gallons of beer or cider a year, and since pipe smoking was common, the room would be filled with smoke, gambling, gossip and politics. Taverns were hotbeds of radical ideas, and because Samuel Fraunces (or Black Sam, as he was called by friends) was a revolutionary, his tavern was home to the Sons of Liberty and other rebels.

When the British captured New York in 1776 and occupied it for seven years, they forced Samuel to seek safer ground and his son-in-law, a Tory, took over the tavern. But on Nov. 25, 1783, the day the war officially ended, the British departed, General Washington marched in, and he and 185 friends gathered at Fraunces Tavern for a celebration dinner. In New York, Nov. 25 was known as “Evacuation Day,” and was an official holiday for more than 100 years.

A private dining room in Franuces Tavern as it would have looked at the time of George Washington

George had promised his wife Martha he would be home in Mount Vernon for Christmas, so after eight days of celebration in New York, it was time for one last farewell luncheon party – the last time, as far as any of them knew, that Washington and his army officers would ever see each other. Washington fully intended to retire to his home and become a farmer, far from public life.

For the last meal, the tavern laid out an impressive spread of cold meats, but the atmosphere was so sad, no one touched their food. The best known account, written by Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, and now on display in the restaurant’s museum, described the scene as General Washington entered the room.

“His emotions were too strong to be concealed which seemed to be reciprocated by every officer present. After partaking of a slight refreshment in almost breathless silence, the General filled his glass with wine and turning to the officers said, ‘With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you….I cannot come to each of you, but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.’

General Knox being nearest to him, turned to the Commander-in-chief who, suffused in tears, was incapable of utterance, but grasped his hand when they embraced each other in silence. In the same affectionate manner, every officer in the room marched up and parted with his general in chief. Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed and fondly hope I may never be called to witness again.”

Good thing he wasn’t at any Hillary parties the night of the election.

You can see the actual room where this emotional farewell took place upstairs in the Fraunces Tavern Museum. This is a gem of a museum. In Boston or Philadelphia it would be a huge attraction, but somehow in the overwhelming opportunities of New York, it gets lost. You might find, as I did on a recent Friday afternoon in December, that you have all two floors of it to yourself.

The Porterhouse Brewing Company in Fraunces Tavern

The Long Room, where the dinner took place, has been reconstructed as it might have looked on that afternoon. It is a typical colonial dining room, with wood table and chairs, candles and framed prints, and actually not that different from the one you can dine in downstairs.

But the rest of the museum is a kick. There’s one of Martha’s silk shoes, the last letter from spy Nathan Hale (who was hung in 1776 and has a statue nearby at City Hall), and a wild assortment of trinkets and mementos from the Revolution and those who have preserved its history.

The collection of illustrations by John Ward Dunsmore fill the walls of the museum

Currently, for the first time, there are 47 paintings of the Revolution by master illustrator John Ward Dunsmore. This is the only time the paintings have all been together and they chronicle the entire war. He worked for a calendar company, and these paintings will be familiar to anyone who has ever had any interest in the colonial period.

George was no stranger to taverns or liquor. He liked wine, beer, and cider and was at one point the largest manufacturer of whiskey in the nation. Three of his dogs were called Tipsy, Tippler and Drunkard.

The small bar in Franuces Tavern connects to Porterhouse Brewing

After the museum, the restaurant is a bit eclectic, with offerings from jambalaya to lobster tortellini, but for those desiring authentic, there are beef and chicken pot pies, Scotch eggs and something called George Washington’s Horseback (bacon, dates and almonds).

The atmosphere? It could not be better. The main dining area (the Tallmadge Room, named after the Colonel) has a gorgeous room of wood tables lit by candles. There is a maze of corridors that lead to private dining areas and a bar with stuffed chairs, a roaring fireplace, and enough wood and prints to make George feel at home.

Cask conditioned IPA in Porterhouse Brewing Co.

The biggest surprise, is the Porterhouse Brewing Company, which has taken over half the main floor and has 140 craft beers to try, including a range of craft beers all brewed in Ireland. It’s all wood, mirrors and brass with brightly lit bottles and little nooks carved out for private gatherings around communal tables. Other than the no smoking laws, it’s pretty certain that the Sons of Liberty could still gather here and talk about The Donald pretty much in the same way they once did about George III.

The cobblestone Stone Street is lined with taverns and restaurants

Neighborhood Walks with George in Lower Manhattan

The great thing about Fraunces Tavern is that it is in the heart of Lower Manhattan. Just a short musket shot away is Stone Street, the first paved street in New York. Now closed to traffic as a historic district, the petty cobblestone way is lined with taverns and restaurants and evokes a feel for, if not colonial New York, at least the old New York of Godfather II. In summer, the two-block area is filled with outdoor umbrellas and is one of nicest places to dine in the city.

A block in the other direction takes you to Battery Park, which in George’s time was an island and fortress with 100 cannon. Today it’s been connected to the mainland and has one of New York’s oldest standing forts – (from a different war, Castle Clinton from the War of 1812) – and two emotional memorials.

The Sphere by Fritz Koenig

The Sphere designed by Fritz Koenig was a monument to world peace that stood in the plaza in front of the original World Trade Center. In the 9-11 attacks, it was buried under tons of rubble, torn apart, bent and scraped, but it was dug up, reassembled and now sits in Battery Park as a testament to New York’s resiliency.

Nearby, the Merchant Marine Memorial is truly eerie. Commemorating the 7,000 merchant marines who died in World War II, it depicts a sinking ship and drowning sailor with his arms stretched out of the sea. Depending on the tide, you see half of his body or just his arm and neck reaching out for help.

The Merchant Marine Memorial in Battery Park

New York’s famous Broadway starts at the intersection of Battery Park and Bowling Green (a small green triangle where George could have enjoyed the passion of the day – outdoor lawn bowling). Here you’ll find the 7,000-pound bronze Charging Bull sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that has become the symbol of a bull market on Wall Street. Rub its nose for luck, and continue up Broadway to the beautiful Trinity Church, where

Alexander Hamilton is buried.

The first Trinity Church was destroyed in the fire that George didn’t set in 1776; the current church dates to 1846. At first Hamilton was not allowed to be buried in the quiet churchyard, where gravestones date back to 1680. The church strongly disapproved of dueling and did not want to be seen as sanctioning it.

Alexander Hamilton's Grave at Trinity Church

Ironically, Hamilton’s son was killed in a duel three years before, and is thought to be buried in the same graveyard, but because of the stain of dueling, his grave was unmarked. Hamilton lingered for several days after his famous duel with Vice President Arron Burr and was able to plead in person from his deathbed with Reverend Benjamin Moore, rector of Trinity, and finally was allowed to be buried at the church. Today, thanks to the hit musical, his grave is a popular site for selfies.

From the church, cross Broadway and head down Wall Street and you’ll soon see George Washington’s statue on the steps of the Federal Hall National Monument. The statue is approximately where George was inaugurated as president (although at the time, he was inside another building that stood here. The statue is the same height and street location as where he stood).

Anywhere else in the nation – or the world – Federal Hall would be famous. In New York, the 1842 modified version of the Parthenon is overshadowed by, well, everything else. But climb the steps and go in – the rotunda is amazing, it’s free, there’s a lot of history and (always important in New York) there are clean, free public restrooms. There are exhibits on the inauguration and the Revolution in New York, and a there’s a fascinating “All George” gift shop offering everything from Christmas ornaments to bookmarks featuring his familiar face.

The statue of Washington on the spot where he was inaugurated facing NY Stock Exchange

One of the most iconic photos in New York is to frame the statue of George at Federal Hall with the famous gigantic flag that hangs on the New York Stock Exchange across the street. If you look closely, you’ll see that the stock exchange is on Broad Street, not Wall Street. Less well known is that yet another of New York’s terrorist attacks took place here in 1920 when 31 people were killed by a bomb placed in a horse and carriage. The building across the street from Federal Hall still has pot marks from the explosion.

St. Paul's is the oldest church in New York

Back to the Broad-way, it’s three blocks to St. Paul’s Chapel, known as “the little chapel that stood.” Built in 1766, the chapel survived not only the great fire of 1776, but also the attack on Sept. 11, that brought down the two twin towers of the World Trade Center, located directly across the street.

St. Paul’s was not damaged and became a place of refuge for the firefighters, police officers, and other first responders working through the devastation.

St. Paul’s was George Washington’s church in New York. You can see a replica of George’s modest pew box, where he prayed after the inauguration. The churchyard is particularly moving. George certainly walked through the gravestones here, because this was the main entrance to the church in his day. It is a truly a spectacular sight to see gravestones from the 1700s with Santiago Calatrava’s new World Trade Center Oculus Pavilion directly across the street.

Santiago Calatrava's Oculus Pavilion from the graveyard of St. Paul's

Finally, from the front of the church on Broadway, head to the ramp that is the pedestrian walkway over the Brooklyn Bridge crossing the East River. George had entered New York in the spring of 1776 as the hero who driven the British out of Boston. But then the Empire struck back, sending the largest armada of ships and men the world had ever seen to that point.

Washington tried to defend all the potential landing points, but the British outmaneuvered him and put 30,000 redcoats on Long Island. Then they conducted a secret night march around Washington’s flank, and in what became the Battle of Brooklyn, the largest battle of the Revolution, they badly beat him and almost destroyed the American army. Only a valiant last stand by Maryland troops at the Old Stone House saved the day.

The Old Stone House in Brooklyn was the scene of severe fighting in 1776.

Near the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, in Washington Park, the Old Stone House Building is now a museum. It is a reconstruction of the 1699 Vechte-Cortelyou House in the exact location where the battle took place. The museum has models and exhibits of the battle, but it takes a lot of imagination to picture this place in 1776.

Diorama of the Battle of Brooklyn depicts the fighting around the Old Stone House

Easier is to look down at the East River from the Bridge. With the victorious British to his front, and the river to his rear, Washington had only one option – somehow he had to retreat and ferry his men across the East River without the British knowing it. The embarkation point was the little shore-side park, Fulton Ferry Landing, just to the north of the Bridge on the Brooklyn side.

Keeping fires on the front line burning as a disguise, and in a providentially thick fog, Washington managed to extract his entire army of 9,000 men back to Manhattan to give them a chance to fight another day.

Emanuel Leutze's painting of George Washington Crossing the Delaware hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of New York,

A retreat may not be the most glorious of military maneuvers, but if George Washington had not managed to retreat from New York, there almost certainly would be no United States of America. And for that, New Yorkers…..and George Washington… were always grateful.

Denver to Vail – the Slow Way

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 19:20:00 +0000

I-70 heading west. It is exactly 100 miles from Denver to Vail Photo: Stevie Crecelius

Every month, almost a million vehicles travel the 100 miles on Interstate 70 between Denver and Vail, Colorado. They zoom past gorgeous Rocky Mountain scenery at speeds up to 75 mph, burrow through the highest auto tunnel in North America, and switch back their way over two-mile-high Vail Pass.

Main Street Georgetown

But those in the know, slow down and stop in four delightful and historic towns along the way. The Interstate highway bypasses these villages with nothing but a sign, but if you take time to visit, you’ll discover an operating steam locomotive that still chugs over a 100-foot-high trestle, old gold mines and gold mills, hundreds of historic Victorian buildings, tranquil river walks, zip lines that hurl you off a cliff, breweries, fine dining, river rafting through sheer canyon walls, and some of best riverside shopping in Colorado.

But be careful. With all the delights along the way, you may never make it to Vail. Heading from Denver, here’s where to make a detour.

IDAHO SPRINGS (Mile Marker 240) – ADRENALINE CAPITAL OF THE FRONT RANGE

An old water wheel along Clear Creek in Idaho Springs

This is the first real mountain town from Denver, and because of that, it’s become the Mile High City’s adrenaline capital. You can jump off rock cliffs on terrifying zip lines or scream through rapids in Clear Creek Canyon. Clear Creek offers more rapids per mile than any other commercially rafted river in Colorado. There are a staggering 18 companies in town offering wet suits and rafting trips. You can rent ATVs, horses, or mountain bikes and explore dozens of trails, one of which is affectionately called the “Oh My God Road!” You’ll find out why when you see the drop-offs without guard rails.

Colorado’s first major gold strike was discovered in Idaho Springs and today the town’s historic main street is lined with Victorian buildings that have been converted to bars, breweries, restaurants and mountain gift shops. Beau Jo’s Pizza is a town institution. For more than 40 years, they’ve been dishing out a hearty pie of what they call “Colorado style” pizza, which means each one weighs 3-5 pounds. Go mountain climbing before you eat the pizza. Down the block, the Buffalo Bar is where to stop for Colorado buffalo or lamb burgers. Buffalo is the leanest of red meats and has less calories than chicken. That’s also the home for the new and stylish Westbound & Down Brewery. Try a CPA (a Colorado Pale Ale).

The Argo Gold Mill processed $100 million of gold.

At the other end of Main Street, Tommyknockers Brewery has been turning out award-winning brews for 20 years, including winning 17 medals at Denver’s prestigious Great American Beer Festival.

Tommyknockers were mythical two-foot-high creatures who lived in mines and caused mischief. If you have the nerve, you can enter the real Phoenix Gold Mine, a place that looks straight out of a Lone Ranger movie. Put on a hard hat and follow a vein of gold through a twisting, dark and damp tunnel, just hoping that the creaking 100-year-old wood beams hold up for at least one more hour. Right in town, the Argo Gold Mill processed more than $100 million of gold in its day. Today, it’s a steampunk’s dream of mining equipment, shafts, belts, wood ladders and stairs. After the tour, they’ll teach you the fine art of gold panning.

Georgetown (mile marker 228) -- the Silver Queen

Georgetown looks like a Colorado Christmas Card, something you would never suspect from the I-70.

When John Denver was looking for the most picturesque town in Colorado for his holiday film, “The Christmas Gift,” he picked Georgetown. Ironically, millions of people zoom by this pretty village on I-70, or just stop at the gas stations at the exit, never knowing that just a mile away there are 200 Victorian buildings and one of America’s most beautiful main streets.

The Georgetown Loop crosses Devil's Gate Bridge

It was silver that made the Georgetown rich and led to elaborate mansions and beautiful homes painted a rainbow of colors. But it was the still-standing steeples here and there that preserved the town. Not the churches. The steeples are the remnants of volunteer fire companies, of which Georgetown had the best in Colorado. Most mountain mining towns were made of wood and burned to the ground at one point or another. Georgetown never had a major fire, and so the gorgeous main street and dozens of homes were all preserved and today, along with neighboring Silver Plume, are part of a National Historic District.

There are Western book stores, rock shops, railroad stores, galleries, Native American artworks, cute little restaurants – and of course, the Western staple – saloons. But the most fun is to walk or bike the backstreets, past one colorful Victorian home after another. You can tour the 1867 Hamill House, the home of a former Colorado governor, or stop in to see the Hotel de Paris, one of the West’s most opulent hotels that served French champagne and oysters in the 1870s.

The steeples around Georgetown are old fire departments that kept it safe.

Of all the railroad engineer feats in Colorado, one of the greatest – and scariest – is the Devil’s Gate Bridge, the 100-foot-high narrow trestle that allowed the railroad to corkscrew around and literally crossover itself, just like a Lionel toy train set, climbing 600 feet in elevation in just four miles. The feat became known as the Georgetown Loop, and today it offers a short – but thrilling – steam locomotive ride to Silver Plume, once a booming mining metropolis, but now more of a ghost town with dirt streets and old and empty false front buildings.

The steam train sends huge plumes of smoke 100 feet in the air as it chugs up the steep climb though stands of aspen, sending people scurrying from side-to-side of the open gondola cars for photos of the ever-changing scenery. The train lets go with a whistle every time it crosses the stream, and that’s the moment to have your video going. The sound of that whistle echoing off the mountains will be one that haunts you for a long time.

Silverthorne (Mile Marker 205) -- A River Runs Through It

The Outlets of Silverthorne are beside pretty Blue River

Few places have changed more than Silverthorne. Before 1967, there was nothing here but a gas station and a makeshift construction camp for workers building Dillon Dam. Today, Silverthorne will celebrate its 50^th anniversary in 2017 as a town that has now grown to 4,000 souls and offers one of the most beautiful shopping experiences in the nation – the Outlets at Silverthorne. There are more than 50 brands here, offering savings of up to 70 percent on Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, Columbia, Calvin Kline, Eddie Bauer and Levis. But it’s the setting that makes it special. The shopping is split into three villages on both sides of the meandering Blue River, which flows right through the center of Silverthorne. Bridges connect the shopping villages, which also have underpasses beneath the roads.

You can continue on the paved bike and walking trail beside the Blue River for miles, passing upscale restaurants near the river bank like Sauce on the Blue. This gorgeous eatery has huge picture windows looking out onto the river, an outdoor patio, and offers wonderful Italian classics like Spaghetti Bolognese and New York Style pizza to more contemporary dishes like Penne Gorgonzola. It will be the perfect place to dine before heading down the block to what will be the new Silverthorne Performing Arts Center, a cultural epicenter for all of Summit County. The new space will have two theatres for music concerts, Broadway shows, lectures and other events, as well as outdoor space that can be used for summer concerts.

The Gore Range rises above Silverthorne with gorgeous views in all directions

Not only is the river beautiful, it is designated as a Gold Medallion Fishing Stream, a honor reserved for only a few of the thousands of miles of waterways in Colorado.

Just down the road, past a field of grazing yaks, is Summit Sky Ranch, a new 21^st century development of 240 single-family homes designed to fit into the landscape, rather than altering the landscape to accommodate the architecture. Unique to the area, this will be a “dark sky community,” with lower light levels so as to make it easier to see the stars that blanket the Rocky Mountain sky above.

Silverthorne has sweeping views of Lake Dillon.

A state-of-the-art observatory will have a 20-inch refactor telescope that can be enjoyed by all through live stream to the Aspen House community center. The Blue River Valley of Silverthorne has very little ambient light, which is one way of saying, there’s nothing out here but mountains. It can be dark, which makes the night sky all that more amazing.

Ironically in Colorado, which was filled with gold and silver mines, Silverthorne’s name has nothing to do with the shiny metal. It was named after a local, Judge Marshall Silverthorn. Someone added the “e” along the way.

Frisco (Mile Marker 201)

Every corner of Frisco is decorated with flowers

Frisco was founded in 1870, so it’s been around a lot longer than Silverthorne. Sort of. Though it was a mining town and in its heyday had two railroads, a slew of saloons, shops and hotels, the depression hit Frisco hard. By 1930, there were only 18 people left in town. Frisco didn’t even get indoor plumbing until 1950. But then in the 1960’s, Colorado’s ski industry was born with Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper Mountain all just a short drive away. The former Ghost Town of Frisco boomed again with white gold.

Today, there are 2,800 full-time residents and 34 bars and restaurants. From I-70, Frisco looks like a uninviting roadside collection of box stores and fast food, but if get off the highway and drive a mile to the historic downtown, you’ll be rewarded with one of the prettiest and most historic main streets in Colorado.

Bread + Salt is the place for breakfast.

The Frisco Historic Park has relocated a dozen buildings, including an old jail, schoolhouse, ranch house, trapper’s cabin, chapel and others, and built them into a beautiful park on Main Street surrounded by Aspen trees. Don’t miss the model railroad of Frisco in the 1800s; you can run the tiny engine and cars around the miniature village for a quarter.

Across the street, Prosit is a Bavarian beer hall with 30 European beers and a slew of sausages, including pheasant, buffalo, elk, and wild boar, all with sauerkraut, shredded cheese, peppers and every type of mustard. Backcountry Brewery has an outdoor beer garden, while Bread + Salt is the town’s casual breakfast place, surrounded by aspens and flower boxes.

Frisco’s main attraction these days is the Frisco Marina, which sits on the shores of 3,300-acre Lake Dillon.

The Marina is right in the center of Frisco

There are 25 miles of shoreline surrounded by mountain views, as well kayak and paddleboat rentals, sailboat regattas, boat tours, paddleboards, canoes, fishing pole rentals, sailing lessons and waterside dining. Or rent a bike and pedal around the lake on paved, off-road trails. Of course, the lake sits at 9,000 feet above sea level, so the sailing season is short….early June to mid-September. When the snow starts (which can be mid-September!) Frisco’s Adventure Park, and the Nordic Center have multi-lane tubing hills, with a lift to take you and your tube back up the mountain. There’s cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and skating.

And, of course, if you’re really desperate to get to Vail, it’s just 30 minutes farther on down the highway.

IF YOU GO: Town of Frisco

Prosit on Frisco's main street is the place for buffalo and elk sausage and European beers.

Ten Ways to Explore New France in Old Quebec

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 16:36:00 +0000

Old Quebec from the walls of the Citadel

It took just 15 minutes in a battle in 1759 to end the empire of New France, but it’s taken the 257 ensuing years to create the marvelous concoction that replaced it – the wonderful walled, multi-cultural city of Vieux Quebec. Old Quebec is the most European-looking town in America, a twisting maze of cobblestone streets lined with colorful umbrellas and outdoor cafes, century-old stone buildings with bright red roofs and overflowing flower boxes, cute little shops selling local cheeses and maple syrup, and everywhere, cannons.

The gates are not historic, but were added to keep the walls intact

There are 4.6 kilometers of preserved cannon-studded stone walls circling the old town, which can only be breached by entering through four medieval-looking gates. Once inside, you are in an UNESCO World Heritage Site fairy tale, an 18^th Century European village with the fantastic castle-like Chateau Frontenauc – the most photographed hotel in the world – hovering over the town center.

In Old Quebec, every conversation begins with “Bonjour!” Horse-drawn carriages clip-clop up the street, waiters carrying huge platters of beer and food shuffle from table to table and everywhere there is color, from parks filled with flower beds to historic flags flapping in the breeze to gaily painted wood shutters and doors.

Pretty Rue Saint Anne is lined with historic buildings.

It is a far different place than the nearly abandoned and bombed out ruin of a smoldering town that the British marched into on September 13, 1759. And yet, much of Quebec is still the same, because in Old Quebec, you are never more than a step or two from its 400-year-old history.

The battle lasted only 15 minutes, but you can spend days exploring the stories around it and discovering the crazy cultural mix that transformed New France into Old Quebec. Here are 10 places to start.

The Plains of Abraham

Frenchman Jacques Cartier started it all by sailing up the Saint Lawrence River in 1534 and claiming all he saw (basically all of eastern Canada) to be New France. No one seemed impressed. It was 74 years before anyone came again. This time, in 1608, Samuel de Champlain sailed up the Saint Lawrence and for defensive purposes, at the river’s narrowest spot, protected by a sheer cliff, he founded Quebec City. For 150 years, the town, surrounded by stone walls, prospered and did well with fur and lumber trade.

But then Quebec got caught up in the first real world war, a global conflict between France and England that extended to America, where it was called the French & Indian War. In 1759 a British fleet arrived at Quebec and lobbed 36,000 heavy cannonballs and 6,000 bombs into the town, destroying much it and setting the rest on fire.

But still the French held out. In a last ditch desperate attempt, British General James Wolfe led 4,500 crack troops on a daring night raid, climbing the “unclimbable” cliffs protecting Quebec to gain the open fields outside the city walls. French General Marquis de Montcalm felt he must push the British back into the river, and in a military move still debated, he led 4,500 poorly trained French militia and regulars outside the walls to attack. The British redcoats were arrayed in two lines – the first “thin red line” of history. They held their fire until the French were 40 yards away, then delivered two devastating blasts of musketry. The first French line of troops disintegrated into dead and wounded. The rest were routed, the British took the city and that’s why Queen Elizabeth is currently on the $20 Canadian bill.

The museum features a sound and light show re-creating the battle.

Today, the battlefield is a far cry from blood and smoke and serves as the lungs of Quebec – a huge, beautiful park filled with bike trails, picnic spots, and, of course, cannons. The Plains of Abraham Museum offers “Battles 1759-1760,” a multimedia exhibition where cannon balls appear to come flying at you off the screen and chilling first person accounts tell the story of the tragedy inflicted on soldiers and civilians.

It’s somewhat ironical the bloodiest battlefield of Quebec is now where the city relaxes with concerts and recreation, but the fighting is not quite over. Plans to re-enact the famous conflict on its 250^th anniversary in 2009 were cancelled when people still upset over the outcome threatened to disrupt it.

Fort Museum

The best of 1960s and 21^st Century technologies combine to tell the story of Quebec’s battles at this museum, where a gigantic 60-year-old diorama filled with hundreds of toy soldiers has been updated with modern computer graphics and sound effects. Little ships move, bombs explode and there’s enough battle noise to please anyone in this retelling of the 1759 battle, and the later attack on Quebec in 1775 by the Americans, led by (of all people) the famous American traitor, Benedict Arnold. It’s old school tourism, but it holds your attention, and provides a graphic backstory of why there are so many cannons around town.

The City Walls & Artillery Park

Dozens of cannons line the 4 kilometers of walls.

No trip to Quebec is complete without walking the walls, and the best way is with a National Park walking tour. For some reason, all the guides of military sites seem to be young millennial aged girls with limited interest in the fighting, but charming accents and attitudes. No worries, there was never any fighting on the walls anyway. Our guide began by asking, “How many of you are Americans?” Half the group tentatively raised our hands. “Well, these walls were built to keep you out. And until today, they worked.” The joke is not lost on contemporary Americans who realize that in the 19^th century, we were the enemy and Canadians were forced to go to great lengths building walls to keep Americans out.

The 4 kilometers of walls are indeed an incredible feat, comparable to any of the walled cities in Europe. And the tour by the French Canadian guides is delightful and filled with fun. You’ll forget the dates, but always remember a sweet French accent saying, “So as you can see, the walls were built on the side of the city of which the cliff was not.”

The Citadelle de Quebec

Tip: the guards enter the middle of the field, which is the best place to watch

Fed up with threats from America, in the 19^th Century the now British Canadians finally finished the Citadelle, an impregnable “fort within a fort” -- the “Gibraltar of America” -- a place that was so powerful, it was never attacked. Today, the star-shaped Vauban fortifications offer a look at 300 years of military architecture. The highlight of the visit here in summer is the daily changing of the guard. This is an active fort and the Royal 22^nd Regiment is still stationed here. The colorful, if a tad long, changing of the guard ceremony involves dozens of troops marching while a regimental band plays and officers yell orders.

The Regimental Mascot Batisse

Look for troops who seem to be shorter than the others. They are women. Some 10 percent of the

regiment are women, and women participate in the changing of the guard, even as officers.

This is the only French regiment in Canada and all orders to it must be given in French. Even Queen Elizabeth must give orders in French. The Queen gave the regiment a Persian goat in 1955 to act as mascot and now the third generation of the goat, always named Batisse, is at every changing of the guard ceremony, posing for photos. Don’t tell anyone, but there are actually three goats named Batisse. The guides seem quite jealous of the goats. “Each goat has to work only once every three days and the rest of the time they get to hang out with their girlfriends,” our guide said.

The views from the Citadel over Quebec are the best in the city, but you’ll have to take them fast. This is a working fort and they don’t allow lingering.

The streets of old town

Many of the streets in old town are pedestrian.

There are two Quebecs, the upper and lower town (the one on top of the cliff and the one below it, which has been greatly increased in modern times with landfill). Both are fantastic. The upper town has a maze of streets, some closed to traffic, and a beautiful wood terrace lined with gardens and cannons overlooking the Saint Lawrence River. With the towering Chateau Frontenac as a beacon, it’s impossible to get lost, so the town is best explored by wandering aimlessly, ducking down this alley or taking that street to poke into shops selling maple syrup, Canadian art, Native American handcrafts, fur hats, and wool fashions. Every third building is a colorful café or bar. Rue Saint-Jean is a fun place at night, offering folk singers who do a mixture of songs in French and English. Paillard bakery is a favorite lunch stop with locals for sandwiches and pizza. Craft beer has found Quebec with more than 70 breweries in the province creating 400+ different beers. Maudite, Dieu du Ciel, and La Fin du Monde breweries are popular and widely available. Rue Saint-Anne is a pedestrian street filled with local artists, portraitists and caricaturists showing off their works. Rue Saint-Jean is closed to traffic on summer evenings and is lined with trendy cafes.

Place Royal & La Petit Champlain

La Petit Champlain has 45 shops and restaurants.

The lower town is the oldest area of Quebec, especially at Place Royal, the oldest and most unchanged square of the city that looks much like it would have when Benedict Arnold and the American army attacked in 1775, just a few blocks away. It was here in 1608 that Samuel de Champlain started the first permanent settlement in New France. The Place Royal Museum has dioramas and a 3D movie to help you visualize the history that took place here.

A bit livelier, is the Quartier Petit Champlain, the incredibly picturesque portion of the lower town where centuries old stone buildings now house 45 shops and restaurants, much of it terraced on the steep pedestrian path leading to the upper town. There’s an 1879 funicular connecting the upper and lower towns for those that don’t do well on hills, but the climb is not that bad and is lined with shops and restaurants, so you’ll be missing a lot if you don’t walk. The lower town specializes in handicraft boutiques selling jewelry, leather, fur, wool clothing, and decorative arts.

Flowers and cobblestones line the pedestrian streets in old town.

Both towns are home to incredibly talented street buskers who perform on stages sanctioned by the city. From acrobats jumping through fire rings to Broadway quality singers belting out tunes from Phantom of the Opera, Quebec is like a three ring circus, and you are never far from free top quality entertainment. Visually, the city is stunning with modern murals, outdoor sculptures and art works blending with 18^th century stone architecture and cobblestones (don’t even attempt to walk in Quebec in anything but flat, comfortable shoes!).

The Museums of Civilization

There are museums in Quebec covering everything from art to artillery, with historic houses, century old churches, monuments and an aquarium thrown in. Of interest to seeing how New France became Vieux Quebec are the four partners of the Museum of Civilization, an organization dedicated to preserving the history and culture of the various people who have called Quebec home.

A diorama of the famous 1759 battle in the Museum of Civilization

The modern Museum of Civilization is the city’s most popular museum, with a wide range of changing exhibitions. There are artifacts from Cartier to Champlain, battle dioramas, and exhibits on the first peoples of America.

The Musee de l’Amerique francophone will be a bit unusual to most U.S. visitors, who are probably unfamiliar with the word “francophone,” which means “someone who speaks French, especially in a country where there are two or more languages.”

The museums traces the history of French culture throughout North America, from the Mississippi and New Orleans to the Arcadians in Louisiana to many other little known influences.

LeMonastère des Augustines

For the right person, this could be a unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience. The Hotel-Dieu de Quebec monastery was built in 1639 by the Augustinian Sisters, who made this the first hospital in America north of Mexico. Today, it is a 65-room boutique hotel, restaurant, museum and holistic wellness center that lets you experience what it was like to stay and live in a monastery. Don’t even ask about Wi-Fi – you can’t even have an electric hairdryer or shaver. The authentic rooms (or “cells” as they were called) are simple, clean and comfortable, with a sink and mirror, historic furniture, shutters and shared bath. The 32 modern rooms have a contemporary look with private baths.

But your room is just the beginning of the experience. There are packages that include workshops, lectures, concerts, meals and daily activities all designed to increase spirituality and holistic health in an authentic setting. This is not the place to stay if you’re going to be out closing the bars on Rue Saint Jean, but for those looking for health, introspection and non-domination spirituality, look no farther.

If you’re not up to that, guided tours tell the story of the Sisters and with 40,000 objects, trace the history of medicine and the first hospital in New France. There’s a bullet extractor used in the famous 1759 battle, and all sorts of horrific implements from early medicine. In keeping with the program, you must be quiet during the tour and walk softly in the historic parts of the building.

TheNew France Festival, Fêtes de la NouvelleFrance,

Dance demonstrations, food, drink and music at the festival

Scheduled next for August 9-13, 2017, this festival is a must for anyone interested in history. It’s also a hoot. Staged in at the Artillery Park under the walls of the city, this is a massive celebration of all things 17^th and 18^th Century in New France with more than 400 programs and events, including a parade and fireworks. Hundreds of people dress like 18^th century soldiers, traders, common people, nobles, bar wenches and craftsmen. You can rent costumes and join the fun, or at the very least, get a tri-corner hat, a tankard of ale and a turkey leg and enjoy the show. Soldiers guard the gates, colonial bands play, Native Americans offer chants and there are craftsmen working their 18^th century magic in a long line of booths selling leather goods, jewelry, muskets and pottery.

Grab a tankard of ale and join in the fun.

Unlike so many historical re-enactments where the participants exhibit the three “O’s” (old, overweight and odd), here the costumed crowds are young and sexy, the beer is flowing, and there’s any number of delicious local delicacies to nibble on, from lobster rolls to local cheese fondue. There are folk singers, buskers, corn-eating contests, colonial dance programs (even without a costume, you can learn the dances), military marching bands, gun firing demonstrations, and special tours of the fortifications. There’s also a serious side with seminars and programs about the empire of New France.

Roving costumed educators will tell you how there were only 60,000 Europeans in New France in 1759 versus 2 million people in the British colonies to the south. Though New France was overwhelmed in war, the joie de vivre of the French people have kept the culture alive, and continue to celebrate it at this colorful festival.

Chateau Frontenac, a Fairmont Hotel

New France didn’t exist during the Middle Ages and Renaissance period, but to make up for that, New York architect Bruce Price incorporated architectural styles from both periods into his masterpiece hotel, Chateau Frontenac. Opened in 1893 (and expanded with five wings and a tower), the 611-room hotel is allegedly the most photographed hostelry in the world. Who could doubt it? It’s almost impossible to take a photo of Quebec without capturing this mystical castle in the center with its many fantastic green copper towers and turrets.

The name comes from Louis de Baude, Count of Frontenac, who was the governor of New France from 1672-1698. His coat-of-arms is on the entry arch to the hotel. Under it have passed every celebrity to visit Quebec, from Princess Grace of Monaco and Celine Dion to Paul McCartney and Leonardo DiCaprio. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill held two of their few World War II meetings in the hotel in August 1943 and September 1944.

The Chateau Frontenac looks like a castle over the European town of Quebec

Staying at the hotel is the ultimate Quebec experience. There are 2,000 windows, 1.2 kilometers of corridors and it’s not unusual for the hotel to dish out 2,000 gourmet meals a day. While the rooms have modern amenities in keeping with being one of the finest hotels in the world, the public spaces, lobby, 1608 Bar, and the rows of hotel shops are dripping with atmosphere and history.

And then there are the views. The hotel is built atop Dufferin Terrace, which is where Champlain built Quebec’s first fort in 1620. Today, walking along the wide wood boardwalk terrace lined with cannons, there are sweeping views of the Saint Lawrence River in one direction and of the towering Chateau Frontenac in the other. Had Montcalm won the famous battle in 1759, it’s hard to imagine how Quebec could have turned out any lovelier or more beautiful … or more French.

The friendly people of Quebec love visitors and enjoy discussing their amazing history and French culture.

IF YOU GO: Everything you need is at the Quebec Region Tourism Office.

Go Ahead -- Give Up the Ship! And See Greece Like a Local

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 22:38:00 +0000

The port of Hydra at twilight

From a cruise ship, it’s easy to get a taste of Greece and its 6,000 islands. Thousands do each year, sailing from Athens to Mykonos to Santorini. But they are missing the best part.

It’s almost as simple, and quite often considerably cheaper, to island hop on public ferries like the locals. Sure, it takes some effort, but nearly everyone speaks English, the Greeks are incredibly friendly and appreciate tourism, tickets are easy to buy from local travel agents, schedules are convenient and there’s an abundance of good hotels near ferry docks to which you can roll your bags.

Hydra has no cars or motorbikes -- only the sounds of boats... and roosters.

Best of all, when the hot afternoon sun starts to cool off and the cruise ship passengers have all sailed away, you’re still in town – ready to enjoy a sunset on a cliff or the magic as the lights come at the cafes along the waterfront. Greece can be brutally hot in the daytime, so many people take a siesta from 3 to 5 pm.

But at twilight, the temperatures cool, the skies glow from magenta to deep shades of purple and the streets fill with families. Windmills along the horizon turn orange with the setting sun, outdoor cafes and restaurants glow with strings of lights, and there are crowds -- even at midnight -- dining on fresh grilled calamari, octopus and shrimp, with colorful Greek salads of juicy red vine-ripened tomato, cucumber, olives and feta cheese, all washed down with surprisingly good local wines.

The Greeks live outdoors and every street and alley is lined with cafes.

As the sound of a musician playing a lavouto drifts across the warm summer evening, pulled along by refreshing coastal breezes, you can almost feel sorry for the poor people out there on the dark sea on their cruise ships missing all this.

On a recent trip, we visited eight islands and coastal towns effortlessly and often inexpensively, all using public transportation. In this first article, here’s some tips on how to see Athens and the less well known island of Hydra. In part two, we’ll explore how to do the famous islands of Mykonos and Santorini, and also stop at two nearby and practically free islands, the medieval town of Naxos and the holy shrine of Tinos.

ARRIVING IN ATHENS

The Acropolis is visible from everywhere in Athens

Almost half the population of Greece, some 4 million people, live in Athens, which often gets mixed reviews as sprawling, traffic congested and noisy. Well, it doesn’t have to be. All the major tourist attractions are within walking distance on pedestrian streets packed with lively restaurants, bars, cafes and shops – many of which have outstanding views of the world’s number one antiquity – the Acropolis. From the airport, simply take the $10 euro Metro Line 3 (blue line) to the Monastiraki Square station, and select a hotel within easy rolling distance. This is the heart of the Old Town, and easy walking to distance to the Old World (and somewhat touristy) Plaka neighborhood, or the trendy Psyrri. A great apartment rental nearby in Psyrri is Athens Suites, where for $90 euros you get a beautiful entire apartment, filled with original art.

Despite rumors, based on people who haven’t visited Athens in years, it is one of the most compact, exciting, traffic-free, safe and easy-to-navigate city centers in Europe. Almost all of the streets near Monastiraki Square are pedestrian and fun, many offering live Greek music. The streets in Psyrri can look a bit sketchy in daylight because of the Greek penchant for graffiti. Every building is covered. Some with art – some, not so much. But come evening, cafes and clubs sprout up everywhere, especially in buildings that by day look abandoned.

Old Athens is filled with pedestrian streets, squares and cafes.

There are plenty of tourist restaurants with a view of the Acropolis, but, like HBO, it’s pay for view. Since you can see the 450 B.C. monument from virtually everywhere, forget the view while eating. You’ll get more than enough views of it elsewhere since every inch of it is lit up until midnight.

The Parthenon sits several hundred feet higher than the town on top of a hill, so you can see it everywhere, from every angle. So enjoy some of the more local and inexpensive restaurants on the back pedestrian streets and in quiet tree-lined squares.

The Greek people live outdoors. Every restaurant has an outdoor café, and once evening comes, the entire city is out on the streets, parading up and down the pedestrian paths, drinking at bars, admiring the hundreds of cats who come out to stroll or listening to live music.

Back streets of Athens are wonderfully romantic at night

A word of warning: don’t pet the loose dogs or cats that wander around by the dozens, and as in any city, be aware of pick pockets.

Fresh fish and salads make Greek dining an experience.

It’s easy to get somewhat lost in the maze of pedestrian alleyways, but you can almost always see the brightly lit Acropolis sitting up on its hill to get your bearings. Tickets for the two major antiquities, the Acropolis, which was a collection of temples and the crown glory of old Athens, and the Ancient Agora, which was the main business area of Athens from 600 B.C. until it was destroyed by Barbarians in 267 A.D., are both one-time entry tickets, so choose your entry time carefully. Both sites are better early in the morning, or what we preferred, early evening when it’s cooler and less crowded. Tour buses can swamp the sites in mid-day.

Monastiraki Square station is also where you catch a simple $1.80 euro, 20 minute Metro ride on the Green Line (Line 1) to Piraeus, which is Athen’s port with ferries to all the islands.

HYDRA -- THE QUIETEST ISLAND

The port is filled with fishing boats and yachts.

Hydra is in the Peloponnese, the opposite direction from the more famous Greek islands, which means you’ll have to backtrack to Athens to visit the others. But it’s only two hours away and worth the effort, because Hydra is unlike any of the other islands.

There are no cars or motorbikes allowed.

Although Hydra is hardly undiscovered, it’s too small for major cruise ships, and most of the tourists here are Greeks weekending from Athens, with relatively few Americans. Wranglers with donkeys and horses meet every incoming ferry and will carry your bags to your hotel for $10 euros, but most hotels are close and it’s just as easy to roll them (though four-wheel bags don’t fare so well on the rough cobblestone streets).

Fortresses flank the harbor in Hydra

Life is slow and quiet on Hydra, with no major attractions and not much to do but sit at a waterside café on the wonderful, busy stone harbor, or hop on a water taxi to one of the nearby beaches. Ferries, water taxis, fishing boats, sailboats and even multi-million dollar yachts are constantly jockeying for position at the docks, sailing by the cannon-studded-fortresses that guard each side of the harbor. Hydra played an important naval role in the 1821 Greek War of Independence, and there’s a museum filled with ship models and paintings. But today, it’s hard to believe anyone fought over this quiet place.

There’s no beach in town, but many people swim off a stone quay with a ladder located on the rocky shoreline under the fort. There is a delightful, two-mile hike along the top of the cliffs lining the coast, past a windmill built for a Sophia Loren movie, to the cliff-side cafes and beaches at Kaminia just 20 minutes away, or on a bit farther to the beach at Vlychos. You can sit at a bar overlooking the idyllic scene, or hop a water taxi back to Hydra town for $4 euros.

Cafes under the cliffs and fortress.

The harbor cafes in Hydra town have an unusual canopy system that appears to be huge horizontal sails that can be maneuvered throughout the day to constantly provide shade. As the cooling and refreshing dusk envelops the sky, everyone heads to one of the forts to watch the sunset over the red-tiled roofs of the town, the cats come out to play (there are dozens and dozens of them) and the cafes come alive with bustling waiters and musicians playing lavoutos (funny-shaped Greek lutes). The backstreets of Hydra are a maze of quiet narrow white-washed alleys, decorated with brightly lit shops and cafes bursting with the color of painted tables and chairs. Until you visit the other islands, you won’t realize how peaceful life is without the noise of motorbikes and cars, in a place where the only sounds are the crowing of a rooster, the baying of donkey or the deep nautical horn of a ferry as it leaves port.

The rocky coastline of Hydra

Greek law says that menus have to indicate when calamari or octopus is frozen rather than fresh, and there is a big difference, so always check for that when selecting a restaurant. As a rule, tavernas (local taverns) are cheaper and serve only traditional Greek dishes; restaurants – even Greek restaurants – can be more expensive and international. Hydra’s not cheap by any stretch, especially along the waterfront, but you can always get by with the national dish – a gyro of pork or chicken, stuffed with fries, tomatoes and onions that sells for under $3 euros. Expect to pay $10-12 euros for a calamari or octopus dinner on the waterfront.

GETTING THERE: It’s not easy to understand ferry websites beforehand. On arriving in Athens, find a local travel agency (there’s one in Monastiraki Square across from the station, but there are many on the side streets as well. Tell them when you want to leave and return from Hydra and they’ll give you options.

One of the fast ferries arriving in Hydra

The fast ferries here requires that all passengers stay inside, but get you there in just two hours. Like a plane, ferries sell a specific seat on a specific departure. The travel agencies also can book hotels, but hotels can also be pre-booked on sites like Expedia and Booking.com. When looking at location, be aware that Hydra rises sharply from the street along the dock, so the farther you are from the dock, the more you will have to roll your bag uphill. For information on Greece.

The red tile roofs of Hydra surround the small harbor and port.

It's a two mile walk along cliffs and coastal paths to the beaches at Vlychos (pictured) or Kaminia.

There are no cars or motorbikes on Hydra -- horses and donkeys carry luggage and pull carts with food and supplies.

The Greeks are incredibly friendly -- and a little bit crazy.

Greek cats are definitely crazy. And beloved. Every town and port is filled with them. Be careful who you pet, though.

Ask if the seafood is fresh (although by law, if frozen, it has be indicated on the menu)

Sunset dinner in a fortress is just one of many possibilities when you spend the night in Hydra.

On the Trail of Kit Carson in Taos

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 18:32:00 +0000

“I don’t know if I did right or wrong but I always did my best.” Quote by Kit Carson on a placard in his home in Taos, New Mexico

Teepees near Taos

Few people in history have received as many mixed reviews as Kit Carson. The larger-than-life mountain man, trapper, scout, soldier, and Indian fighter was in his lifetime one of the most famous characters of the American West -- the subject of books and movies. There are mountains, parks, a state capital and a national forest named after him. In Colorado, where he is still a hero, bronze Kit Carson statues grace parks from Denver to Trinidad.

But in New Mexico, not so much. An exhibit on Carson in the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe states flatly that Carson was “admired by a few, despised by many.” Ouch. A 2014 article in the Albuquerque Tribune was headlined: “Kit Carson: The Most Hated White Guy in American History?” The article seemed to conclude yes – at least in New Mexico, a state that ironically treasures every association it has with the outlaw Billy the Kid.

The grave of Kit and Josefa Carson in Taos

Nowhere in New Mexico is this dichotomy over Kit Carson more intense than in Taos, the pretty mountain valley town where he spent 25 years of his life. Carson’s third wife, Josefa Jaramillo, was from Taos. They married here in 1843 and had seven children. She died giving birth to their eighth. A heartbroken Carson died a month later. They are buried side-by-side in a small park in the heart of Taos, called the Kit Carson Park and Historic Cemetery.

And that’s where the problems begin. In 2014, there was a movement in Taos to remove Carson’s name from the park. Interpretive signs by his quiet gravesite were defaced and at city council meetings he was called a “murderer” and blamed for the “Long Walk” of the Navajos, an infamous chapter of American history in which the Navajo tribe was forcibly removed from their homelands in Arizona and marched 400 miles in winter to a reservation, where thousands of them died. It was a Navajo version of the Holocaust. Carson wasn’t on the march, but along with George Armstrong Custer, in the changing times of the 21^st century, he has become a symbol of the tragedies inflicted on Native Americans during the “winning” of the West.

Statue of a heroic Kit Carson in Trinidad, CO by Frederick Roth (horse) and Augostus Lukeman (figure)

Which is a fact that would have struck the humble Kit Carson as simply amazing. A short and shy man, he was illiterate and couldn’t even sign his own name. Despite that, he was fluent in both French and Spanish, as well as Apache, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Blackfoot, Ute and Dine (Navajo). He had two Indian wives, lived and traded with the Indians for years and was considered one of the best and fairest of Indian agents. He served as the principal guide to the John C. Fremont expeditions of the Oregon Trail, which was the 19^th century equivalent of being an astronaut. Fremont’s widely read journals made Kit Carson a household name across America. During the War with Mexico, Carson helped capture California, sneaking through enemy lines in the dark and running 23 miles to get reinforcements. Later, he commanded Union forces with honor in the Civil War.

Kit Carson

In his lifetime, Kit Carson covered thousands of miles on foot and horseback across the American West, but you can get an intimate glimpse of both sides of the man in just a short walk around the Taos Plaza.

“The cowards never start and the weak die along the way.” Kit Carson

There has been a plaza in the center of Taos for more than 200 years. Originally, it was a fortified square where livestock could be kept safe at night, but today, it’s a quiet park with large shade trees and benches, surrounded by adobe buildings in the Spanish Colonial and Territorial Revival style. Since the buildings are all connected, when one caught fire, they all caught fire, and they’ve been burning down together for two centuries, leading, of course, to many changes. The current buildings date back to the golden era of 1930s tourism, when artists and writers such as D.H. Lawrence lived here. They drip with New Mexico charm with covered verandas, exposed wood beams, adobe walls and shops sparkling with turquoise jewelry, silver, and bright Indian blankets.

Near the Taos Plaza

Just a block from the plaza is where Kit and Josefa lived in a four-room, 1820s adobe house that is now a National Historic Landmark operated as the Kit Carson Home & Museum.

You enter the museum through a pleasant courtyard. This is where the Carsons did most of their living. The courtyard was where people cooked, washed, and socialized. It’s also where Carson conducted business as an Indian agent for the Utes, Apaches, and Taos Pueblo tribes. Many tribesmen pitched their teepees in the courtyard, where their children played with Kit Carson’s.

In the house, are exhibits telling his life story. Born in 1809, by the time he was 16, Christopher “Kit” Carson had run away from his home in Missouri and gone west on the Santa Fe Trail, working as a mountain man, trapper and hunter, and later as an explorer and guide. By the time he settled down in the mountain community of Taos, Kit was the town’s most famous citizen. The house is small, and the doorways even smaller. Kit was only 5 feet 6 inches tall. When Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman met the famous scout for the first time, he wrote, “I cannot express my surprise at beholding a small, stoop-shouldered man, with reddish hair, freckled face, soft blue eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage or daring.”

The kitchen in the Kit Carson Museum

The kitchen is reconstructed as it would have been, when food was prepared here for the nine Carsons. Taos was still the frontier and life was very simple with few possessions. Each of the rooms had a fireplace, which was the only heat.

Much of the museum is devoted to Josefa Carson, and you learn that Kit wasn’t the only Carson with adventures. Josefa’s sister, Ignacia, was married to the second most famous citizen in Taos, former mountain man and trader Charles Bent, who in 1846 was appointed governor of New Mexico. They lived around the corner, and you can walk to their home, also a museum, in a few minutes.

The Governor Bent Museum is a crazy, hodgepodge collection of Old West memorabilia including bearskins, arrows, guns, eight-legged lambs, farm tools, and Indian baskets. It was opened in 1959, which appears to be the last time any exhibit was dusted. Tom Noeding’s parents opened it and today he runs it, so if it’s open, that means he’s there and can point out the room where the famous fireplace was.

The murder would have taken place right about at the sign.

While Kit was out of town in January 1847, Josefa Carson was staying with her sister at this house when the Taos Revolt began. Taos and all of New Mexico had been ruled first by Native Americans, then Spanish, then Mexican, and then in 1846 by the United States, who captured it in the War with Mexico and appointed the first Anglo governor, Charles Bent. It was too much change too fast for the locals. Tensions built and an angry mob of Taos Pueblo natives and local Hispanic residents revolted and marched on the Governor’s house. Bent tried to calm them down, but they grabbed him from the house, shot him full of arrows, scalped him alive and literally tore his body to pieces, all in front of what is now the quiet Op. Cit Bookstore. Meanwhile, Josefa Carson and her sister Ignacia seized a poker and spoons and managed to dig a hole through the adobe wall at the back of the fireplace, and escape.

After the gruesome murder, the Carsons helped care for Ignacia and her children. Ignacia lived to be 68 and she and her grandchildren are buried in the Kit Carson Cemetery Park, not far from her sister and Kit.

An old wagon near Taos

If there was a tragedy to Kit Carson’s life, it is that he was amazingly good at whatever he set out to do. Unfortunately, this included fighting a war against the Navajos in 1865. Twice, he refused the assignment, but as a soldier he was finally ordered by Brigadier General James Carleton to lead the campaign. Carson reluctantly did, but he deliberately disobeyed his brutal orders to “capture the women and kill all the men.” Instead he waged a mostly nonviolent, “scorched earth” war by destroying the Navajo’s food sources, which forced them to surrender with little loss of life. Sadly, in the end, the results were equally horrifying. The Navajos were ripped from their land by other soldiers and forced on the deadly long march to a reservation, which killed thousands. Naturally, they blamed Carson for their defeat and never forgave him. Ironically, Carson had nothing to do with the Long March, and he even went to Washington to lobby for the Navajos to be returned to their homeland, which they were in 1868.

Carson quit the army after the campaign and he and Josefa died shortly afterward. Standing by their gravesite, 150 years later, it’s hard not to go back to Kit’s quote, hanging in his home. “I don’t know if I did right or wrong, but I always did my best.”

IF YOU GO:

Green chile stew at Eske's Brew Pub & Eatery

When Kit was near death, he allegedly said: “I wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili.” And by that he meant, Taos chili. Delicious cuisine is just one reason that millions of visitors flow to this beautiful artist community and outdoor recreation center every year. In addition to skiing, Taos is known for river running on the Rio Grande, hiking, fishing, and spectacular mountain scenery. There are dozens of art galleries and a fantastic assortment of restaurants, many specializing in New Mexico cuisine based upon the most famous of all green chiles, those grown in NM. The Eskes Brew Pub & Eatery near the main square has an excellent green chile stew as well as half dozen of their own craft beers. Wednesday night is “Bluegrass Night,” with many local musicians pickin’ away on guitars, banjos and fiddles.

Taos Pueblo -- the oldest continuously inhabited spot in North America

Another must visit is the Taos Pueblo, four miles from town. This is the oldest continuously inhabited spot in North America. The two main structures are believed to be well over 1,000 years old and consist of individual adobe homes built side by side and in layers, with common walls and no connecting doorways. They look today much like they would have when Kit Carson was their Indian agent; the only change to the adobe structures was the addition of blue entrance doors (the homes were originally entered via ladders from holes in the ceiling). Between 50 and 100 people still live in the Taos Pueblo without running water or electricity. Students give tours, and several of the buildings are open as shops selling jewelry, pottery and Indian fry bread.

The original San Geronimo church is now a cemetery.

In 1847, shortly after the uprising in which Charles Bent was killed and Josefa Carson had her narrow escape, the U.S. Army attacked Taos Pueblo in reprisal. Many of the Taos Pueblo people went to the San Geronimo church for protection. The army wheeled a cannon to the church, and fired into it point blank, killing dozens of women and children. The ruins of the church became a cemetery and the leaders of the revolt were hung in Taos Plaza. Visiting today, it’s hard to believe this tranquil and beautiful spot had such a bloody past. Because of past oppressions against them, the language of the Taos People, Tiwa, is unwritten and unrecorded and is passed down orally from generation to generation. It is quite remarkable to see people live here as they did centuries ago and walk literally back into the days of Kit Carson.

Where to Stay:

The spectacular entrance to El Monte Sagrado Living Resort & Spa

Just a short walk down Kit Carson Road from Kit’s old house is El Monte Sagrado Living Resort & Spa – one of those rarest of rare finds – a world-class luxurious resort and spa within easy walking distance of a historic district. El Monte Sagrado (which means “The Holy Mountain”) is spread over a beautiful 11-acre oasis filled with ponds, streams, wildflowers, bridges, waterfalls and aspen trees. The 84-room resort became a Heritage Hotel & Resort 10 months ago. The largest independent hotel brand in New Mexico, Heritage takes great pride in their collection of culturally distinct properties, and it shows. They are pumping big money into the $70 million, AAA Four Diamond resort, including major improvements to the rooms, landscaping and cultural amenities, as well as adding to the resort’s 300 piece art collection.

The Anaconda Bar has a gigantic snake curling around it.

Among the new amenities are regularly scheduled concerts by Native American flutist Robert Mirabal. A two time Grammy Award winner, Mirabal is also working with the hotel and Taos Pueblo to introduce a new garden at El Monte Sagrado that will use ancient seeds to grow Native American foods and spices on the hotel’s grounds for use in its kitchens. The hotel’s gorgeous restaurant, De La Tierra, serves all three meals, inside or on the patio. For dinner, go local and try the Caprice Cactus salad, the Crab Quesadilla and the Elk Chop seared and glazed with Chipotle agave nectar. The hip Anaconda Bar next door has a gigantic snake sculpture wrapped around the horseshoe-shaped bar and has one of the best happy hours in Taos with $3.50 local drafts and $5 house margaritas.

The lovely grounds have streams and waterfalls.

The resort offers six types of rooms. At the top end, the Global Suites are 1,100-sq. ft. casitas (small bungalows) each decorated with original art and architecture to reflect different regions of the world, from China, Japan and Spain to Morocco, Mexico and Argentina. Each of the casitas has two bedrooms, two baths, log beam ceilings and all luxury amenities from wet bars to pueblo-style gas fireplaces. Four of them have hot tubs. If it seems strange to have a global theme in Taos, there’s no worries. It works beautifully with the patios walking out into the gardens.

The premiere suites carry the global theme to Bali, Egypt and Tibet, while the 18 Native American suites each carry the name of a famous historic Native American and come with king beds, kiva-style fireplaces and balconies or courtyards overlooking the Sacred Circle, the green space surrounded by willow and cottonwood trees that is the center of the resort.

One of the spa rooms.

Finally, the Casita Suites are fun and funky, part of the original historic hotel with true 1930s New Mexico style and private patios, all upgraded with modern amenities, while the Taos Mountain Rooms are more tradition resort rooms but with private balconies, fireplaces, jet soaking tubs and access to all the amenities of the resort.

And then there’s the spa. The Living Spa, as it’s called, has won awards from Conde Nast Traveler to Spa Finder, and no wonder. The ten gorgeous and eco-conscious treatment rooms offer benefits such as a sunlit shower and natural waterfall cooling system. Kit Carson probably took a natural shower in a waterfall, but not like this. There are candlelit couple’s suites, Thai massage sessions, 90-minute facials…and when you’re done, don a robe and walk through the gardens to the saltwater pool for a long relaxing soak. Kit Carson would have never left Taos if he had discovered this place.

For information on other attractions in Taos,

Riding the Rail Runner Express to Santa Fe

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sun, 15 May 2016 22:32:00 +0000

The Rail Runner Express leaving Santa Fe's Railyard, near the Plaza

There are few sounds more romantic than a train whistle as it pulls out of the station starting off on a journey. Unless, of course, you’re riding the Rail Runner Express. This unusual 96-mile- long railroad runs between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM. The trains are sleek looking silver diesel engines with comfortable double-decker cars and a bright red roadrunner (New Mexico’s state bird) painted on the side. Much like the roadrunner in the old Looney Tune cartoons, the train makes the same distinctive sound. Just as the engine leaves the station, it goes: “Beep beep.”

It’s just one of several funny things about this 10-year-old railway that has transformed the way to get to Santa Fe. Although it’s often confused with AMTRAK, the Rail Runner is its own separate railroad, and only goes from Belen (a few miles south of Albuquerque) to the Railyard Plaza in Santa Fe, just a few minutes stroll from the historic downtown plaza. It was built in 2006 primarily as a commuter railroad to move people around northern New Mexico and to transport workers who couldn’t afford to live in ritzy Santa Fe from the suburbs to downtown.

Art is everywhere in Santa Fe's 250 art galleries

But the train has also made Santa Fe a superb car-free, weekend destination. Although Santa Fe’s airport is small with limited flights, Albuquerque’s International Sunport is served by eight major airlines with 5 million passengers a year. If you pre-buy a Rail Runner Express ticket online (only $9 for adults, $4.50 for seniors), there is a free shuttle from the Sunport airport that will take you directly to the railroad station in downtown Albuquerque. Here you can hop the train, and in 90 minutes (traveling at speeds up to 79 miles an hour) be within walking distance of most of Santa Fe’s beautiful sights. But leave your camera in its case during the rail journey. Although the scenery is beautiful, conductors and PA announcements will explain that since the railroad passes through the Sandia and Kewa Pueblos, riders are asked to not take any photos.

There has been a hotel here since 1607 (photo by La Fonda)

Once in Santa Fe, you can wheel your luggage to dozens of nearby downtown hotels, or hop the Santa Fe Pickup, a free shuttle bus with a bright red pickup truck painted on the side that meets every train and stops at major attractions in town, from the galleries on Canyon Road to Museum Hill, with buses coming every 15 minutes or so. There is absolutely no reason to hassle with your own car in Santa Fe, paying $18 a night parking, while trying to negotiate the maze of twisting 400-year-old roads. All of the city’s charms are walkable. And it’s also a historic delight to arrive in town by rail since the railroads played such an important role in Santa Fe’s style and development.

Meet the Harvey Girls

Historic photo of La Fonda in the 1920s

The perfect hotel to roll to from a train is La Fonda, the grandest of Santa Fe’s old historic hotels. There has been an inn of some sort on this corner of the Santa Fe Plaza since 1607. The current La Fonda (Spanish for “the inn”) was designed in 1922 by architect Isaac Hamilton Rapp, called the “creator of Santa Fe style.” Rapp blended the adobe square architecture of the indigenous Pueblo Indians with a romanticized view of Spanish colonial design, creating a fanciful combination of an earth-colored adobe building with verandas, hand-carved wood beams, and cathedral ceilings, decorated with brilliant Navajo rugs and pottery. When the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) acquired the hotel in 1925, they brought in influential Southwest architects Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and John Gaw Meem, who expanded on “Santa Fe style” with larger windows, individually painted furniture, stained glass skylights, terracotta tile floors, wrought iron bannisters and hammered tin chandeliers – all of which can still be seen in the hotel today. It was Meem who helped write the 1957 city ordinance that makes Santa Fe “the city different.”

The Harvey Girls

The ordinance, still in effect, says that no building in the historic district can be taller than the Basilica (five stories) and all new buildings have to be built in the Spanish Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival style – in other words, Santa Fe style. Because of this, Santa Fe was the first city in the U.S. to be declared a UNESCO city of Folk Arts, Crafts and Design, joining Seville, Edinburgh, Buenos Aires and others.

But the La Fonda has more history to offer than its architecture, thanks to the work of a former New York dishwasher and pot scrubber named Fred Harvey. Harvey emigrated to the U.S. from England in 1853 and learned the food business from the bottom up. At this time, railroads didn’t serve food on cars. Instead, they stopped the train at a roadhouse where a combination of rancid beef, cold beans and day-old coffee was dished out quickly so the train could be on its way.

The Harvey Girls exhibit in the New Mexico History Museum

To combat this, Harvey invented the idea of the chain restaurant. Working with the AT&SF railroad, he built a series of first-class restaurants and gift shops near the tracks where railroad passengers could always count on a consistent experience of top quality food and service. A distinctive feature of these “Harvey House” restaurants was the wait staff. Harvey ran ads all over eastern newspapers recruiting "white, young women, 18-30 years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent.” The girls had to be single and sign a contract that they would remain unmarried for one year, or forfeit part of their salary. They could be assigned to work at any of the 84 Harvey Houses in the West, and had a 10 p.m. curfew every night. Most distinctive of all, their uniform was a starched black dress with a white apron that hid their figure.

The dining room in La Fonda where the Harvey Girls worked, is still the same.

At a time where there were limited opportunities for woman, this was quite an adventure – the forerunner of being a flight attendant – and more than 100,000 women eventually worked as Harvey Girls, doing as much as anyone to help tame the “Wild West.” La Fonda was a Harvey House from 1926 to 1969.

You can see photos of the Harvey Girls and learn more about their individual stories at the nearby New Mexico History Museum, a brilliantly done hodgepodge of artifacts collected from New Mexico’s many heroes and villains. From Billy the Kid’s spurs to Kid Carson’s tobacco pouch to novelist D.H. Lawrence’s satchel, the museum tells Santa Fe’s amazing 400-year history in a fun continuum, from its days as the principal northern city in Mexico through the lively period of the Old West and the Santa Fe Trail, to its invasion by hippies in the ‘60’s to its emergence today as the third largest art market in the nation with more than 250 art galleries in a two square mile area.

The Palace of the Governors

Attached to the museum, is the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continually occupied public building in America -- and a one-time battlefield! During the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the native Pueblo Indians rose up and killed 400 Spanish settlers. Those Spanish remaining, barricaded themselves in the Palace for a siege, before finally sneaking out and retreating to El Paso. For the next 12 years, the Palace was under the control of the Pueblo Indians. Finally in 1692, a Spanish army returned and with the threat of seven cannons, retook the Palace.

Many of the rooms have been restored to the period when this was the capital for Nuevo Mexico, a huge area that included Texas, Arizona, Utah, California, Nevada and Colorado. Other rooms tell the story of the building in the 1846 War with Mexico, the Civil War, and the role of the building today, where the outdoor veranda serves as a daily trading post for Native American artists to sell their work. The program is regulated by the state to allow only 69 Native American artists a day, many of whom come early on cold mornings to get their space. The artists can change daily, but the jewelry, pottery and art is guaranteed to be authentic Native American work – something not true of many of the gift shops in town.

New Mexico Museum of Art

Another artist who worked in the Palace was its U.S. Governor, Lew Wallace, a former Civil War General appointed to govern the New Mexico territory before it was a state. Wallace lived in the Palace and at night, wrote his famous novel “Ben Hur” in these rooms – the first of many important writers and artists to call Santa Fe home.

Another, artist Georgia O’Keeffe was attracted here because of Santa Fe’s 325 days of sunshine and the soft, dry desert light. There is a museum devoted to her life and art down the block. Several of her paintings can also be viewed in the majestic New Mexico Museum of Art, another classic Santa Fe style building designed by Isaac Rupp in 1917. A $25 CulturePass will get you in the history and art museums, as well as the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Museum of International Folk Art, both on Museum Hill and easily accessible by the free Santa Fe Pickup. Altogether, there are 17 museums in Santa Fe…enough to keep anyone busy.

The old homes on Canyon Road have been converted to art galleries, making it one of the prettiest walks in America.

But the real fun of Santa Fe on a pedestrian weekend is just wandering around the neighborhoods and shops. Every street in Santa Fe is a work of art. Every gateway beckons, every garden is gorgeous, every blue door or shutter is a photo. The old roads don’t follow a grid pattern, and part of the fun is getting lost and discovering new homes, churches and businesses on the back streets. Canyon Road (ten minutes from La Fonda) was the original road to Mexico, and most of the old adobe homes along a two-mile stretch have been converted to art galleries. While the art might seem to be beyond your price range, don’t be intimidated. Duck in the galleries, talk to the artists, and you might be surprised at how affordable some of it is.

Don’t be surprised if you see locals like Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Game of Thrones author George Martin, Julia Roberts and Gene Hackman also walking along. Certainly, Santa Fe is ground zero for serious Southwest shopping with an incredible number of Native American jewelry boutiques intermingled with 400 restaurants, many serving New Mexican cuisine with tasty green chile from nearby Hatch, NM – arguably the best in the world. Eat as much as you like, but don’t forget you have to wheel and carry everything you buy back to the Rail Runner!

IF YOU GO: www.santafe.org The La Fonda hotel offers historic walking tours at 10 a.m. for $14.

Santa Fe is even more beautiful in the evening when the rooftops are covered with farolitos, Spanish for paper lanterns.

Don't be afraid of getting lost. Wandering around the backstreets of Santa Fe is one of the best experiences.

The 400 years of history can be found on every block of Santa Fe in the historic district.

Every gateway beckons you to enter -- many lead to galleries with some of the most impressive art in America.

Keep San Luis Looney

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 16:11:00 +0000

The San Luis Valley of southern Colorado is the largest alpine valley in the world. Covering an area the size of Massachusetts, this flat, sandy valley floor receives less rainfall than the Sahara. There are only 40,000 humans living here, making it one of the most isolated, quietest and darkest places on the planet. And you know what happens when things get quiet and dark. They also get strange.

UFO Watchtower

San Luis has attracted more UFO sightings than nearby Roswell, NM. It’s well known for unexplained cattle mutilations. Many believe the little San Luis Valley town of Crestone sits on a deposit of quartz crystals, making it a vortex to other dimensions. There are 30 religious shrines in Crestone, more per capita than any place on earth. And then there are the alligators, the sand dunes, and of course, don’t forget legalized marijuana. All of which make the San Luis Valley a little looney. And the people here like it that way.

Here’s a quick tour to some of the quirky must see stops in San Luis.

Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve

Great Sand Dunes

On the eastern side of the valley, at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, are 50- square-miles of soft, curving, and dramatic wind-sculptured sand dunes. They are the highest inland sand dunes in North America, rising to more than 750 feet. Pink, cream, brown, tan or gold – depending on the angle of the sun – they are shifting mountains of sand.

Each day, the winds go to work on them. A strong wind can set the whole 50 square mile dune surface moving, creating ripples, building the sand into elegantly shaped crescents or adding onto the loose masses called climbing dunes. But sooner or later, reverse winds blow down from the mountains and the dunes are returned to near their original shape. Scientists think they’ve been here 440,000 years. Maybe. No one really knows for sure. But photos taken in 1927 show that the main dunes have undergone very little change in the past 80 years.

Along the first ridge

There are many activities in the park, but everyone’s first choice is hiking the dunes. There are no trails here – they wouldn’t last an afternoon – so visitors can go anywhere they want. But first, to get to the dunes you have to cross shallow Medano Creek, which flows between the dunes and the Visitor Center. It’s best to just take off your shoes and wade across the soft, water-cooled sand creek, but be sure to wear shoes into the dunes. In mid-summer, the sand can reach 140 degrees F.

Due to shadows, the dunes appear deceptively steep. The pure physics of the sand says that it can’t be piled at an angle steeper than 34 degrees. Seventy percent of the grains of sand are .2 to .3 millimeters in diameter – the width of a human hair. Stacked any steeper than 34 degrees, and they simply give way to gravity and cascade down. But because of shadows, you’ll swear differently – especially as every step you take up, you slide back down halfway. Not to mention, the dunes are at 7,500 feet above sea level.

For decades, people have been trying to slide down the dunes on snow skies, on homemade cardboard sleds and aboard flying saucers made for snow. Unfortunately, they don’t work. But there are specially designed sand boards and sand sleds that do work and are available outside the park at the Oasis store. The dunes can be dangerous. Blowing sand can be fatal to cameras, and can sting exposed skin and eyes. And of course, it’s a terrible place to be in a lightning storm, so observe caution.

The highest dune in North America, Star Dune, is located opposite the Visitors Center and takes about six hours to hike to and return. Most people can easily make it to the top of the first ridge and back in two hours, and that’s more than enough view to give you a good taste.

UFO WATCH TOWER

The UFO Watch Tower and Museum

The dunes – or at least the darkness, lack of light pollution and the quiet they bring to the area – may have also attracted UFOs. Local resident Judy Messoline thought so. She built the world’s only UFO Watchtower in the town of Hooper, near the park’s entrance.

It’s really just a wood deck surrounded by strange UFO art. There’s a “campground,” or at least a place to park overnight, for a fee. There are lots of signs featuring ET. A small museum details the history of the strange number of astral sightings and cattle mutilations that have taken place in the San Luis Valley, some dating back to the 1700s. In theory, the tower is as good a place to park and look for UFOs as any. Judy claims that 88 UFOs have been sighted from the tower since it went up in 2000. Of course, her autobiography is titled, “The Crazy Lady Down the Road.”

COLORADO GATORS REPTILE PARK

An injured gator being given first aid

Literally just down the road in the town of Hooper are the biggest alligators in the West, along with a collection of rattlesnakes, pythons, snapping turtles, and, oh, about 350,000 Tilapia fish. Welcome to the Colorado Gators Reptile Park, one of the state’s craziest and most fun roadside attractions. It started in 1974 when Erwin and Lynne Young decided to use the valley’s geothermal waters (the water stays at a constant 87 degrees) to farm Tilapia, a tasty perch fish that needs warm waters. Fish in fish farms die pretty regularly, and to deal with all the dead fish, they imported 100 baby alligators in 1987.

Flash forward, and today, the farm makes more money showing off the exotic animals than from selling fish. Many people have donated alligator pets that became too large, and the park has become

a sanctuary for reptiles, including Mr. Bo Mangles, an albino alligator, and Morris, a Hollywood gator that appeared in dozens of films including Happy Gilmore. There are crocodiles, three types of rattlesnakes, tortoises to pet, and you can hold a two-foot-long baby alligator (then have the gator bite and leave bite-holes on your “certificate of bravery.”

Where most places have signs proclaiming how many months they have gone without an accident, at the Colorado Gators, their safety record sign is measured in hours. Maintaining dozens and dozens of gators in no easy task, and these gators are not pets. Ask the staff to show you bite marks. You’ll see the staff feeding them, petting them (the gators snap back), holding open their jaws for demonstrations – and at special events, wrestling them. This is one of the few places in the world where you can take alligator wrestling class.

Two dollars buys you a bucket of gator chow, or bring a fishing rod and you can catch and release Tilapia and catfish (or buy them for $3 a pound). If you catch a carp, you get to feed it to a gator.

WELCOME TO THE X-FILES

One of the larger ashrams of Crestone

About 30 minutes up the road is Crestone, a small town of 150 people at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains that is very much like walking into an episode of the “X-Files.” Crestone has more ashrams, stupas, Catholic retreats and spiritual centers per capita than any place in the world. There are 30 of them here, scattered in the mountains with spectacular views. Many locals believe that Crestone holds an energy vortex and is perhaps a portal to other dimensions. At any rate, something strange is going on here, as witnessed by the steady stream of pilgrims and religious retreats held in the town.

You can learn about this, and the artists who live in the area, at the Crestone Historical Museum and Welcome Center. Coming in May 2016 is Crestone Brewing Company, a restaurant and brewery that will make it well worth driving 12 miles off the main highway to see this little artist community, and its colorful ashrams.

IF YOU GO:

The boyhood home of Indiana Jones.

This is just the start. The San Luis Valley is also home to a fort once commanded by Kit Carson, spectacular hiking trails, waterfalls, the hometown of prize fighter Jack Demsey, and the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the highest and longest steam train in North America. According to movies, Indiana Jones grew up alongside this railroad, and you stay in the B&B that now occupies the house used as Indy’s boyhood home in the movies. Accommodations are most plentiful in Alamosa and Monte Vista, but there are beautiful ranch accommodations across the valley as well.

Gambling, Gators and Gumbo… Welcome to the Boudin Trail and Booming Lake Charles, Louisiana

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 18:34:00 +0000

There are no hard and fast rules about boudin. People don’t even agree on how to pronounce it. Some people say this tasty, sausage-like, south Louisiana finger food should be called “boo-dan.” Others add a little French flourish on the end and say “boo-dehh.”

Boudin on a plate. Lake Charles CVB

Either way, it’s usually pork mixed with rice, onion, green pepper and seasonings, pulverized in a meat grinder, stuffed in a sausage casing and eaten steaming hot.

But you can also add beef, liver, alligator tails, shrimp or crawfish. You can snack on it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It can be served fancy on lettuce, tossed on a hot dog bun, boiled, smoked, grilled, made into little balls or jammed in an egg roll and deep fried.

Just about the only thing certain with boudin is, if you’re eating it, that means you’re somewhere in south Louisiana. And as they say down there, that means “you’re eat’n good.”

Boudin on a bun

Homemade boudin is found in snack shacks, Cajun restaurants and convenience stores along the Boudin Trail, which follows Interstate 10 as it slices west to east across Louisiana from Texas to Baton Rouge. This is where the West meets the South, with a whole lot of African, French and Spanish culture thrown into the pot, all making for one rich and tasty gumbo of a regional cuisine.

And it’s culinary tourism of the Boudin Trail that is helping Lake Charles, Louisiana, a city of 75,000, explode with gorgeous new resorts and Las Vegas-chic gambling casinos. Of course, Lake Charles is also the 12^th largest port in the U.S., but it’s certainly not the oil & gas industry that’s causing a boom right now.

There are more than 6,000 hotel rooms in the Lake Charles area (roughly one for every 12 residents) with more on the way. The thousands of tourists heading this direction are coming for food, golf, gambling....and strangely enough, gators. Nearby Cameron Parish (they call a county down here a “parish”) has the highest concentration of alligators in North America – two gators for every human. There are also 400 species of birds, making it one of the principal birding centers of the nation.

Pretty Lake Charles

Of course, it hasn’t hurt that southern Louisiana has also become the new Hollywood with dozens of film and TV series from True Blood to True Detective being filmed in the area. The word has gone out to film producers, if you want crazy, from vampires to voodoo to ritualistic serial killers, in a bizarre and atmospheric landscape of petro-chemical plants, bayou waterways and cyprus swamps, all with a distinctive regional music, language and food, then south Louisiana is the place for you.

So bring an appetitie and a belt with some extra loop holes and here are some things to do in Lake Charles.

EAT:

Shrimp boil

Boudin, like almost every type of food in southern Louisiana, goes back to the region’s complicated cultural past. Cajun refers to French colonists who were thrown out of eastern Canada by the British in 1755 and ended up scrubbing out a living in the bayous, prairies and backwoods of Louisiana as hunters, anglers and trappers. They brought with them the French language, Catholic religion, a love of fiddle music and flavorful and spicy food, such as blackened fish that got its taste from being cooked in a hot iron pan. Most of their dishes can be made in one pot.

Creole comes from the Portuguese word “crioulu,” which means “homegrown” and originally referred to anyone of European or African descent who was born in the New World. Today, it’s come to mean a mingling of African, French and Spanish language, culture and cuisine, which features more elaborate ingredients and courses.

Oysters on the shell

But in the end, who cares? You’ll see both words used to describe the seafood gumbos, jambalaya, crawfish Étouffée, shrimp creole, fried catfish, shrimp boils, smoked sausage and po-boy oyster sandwiches that are just some of the local treats.

RESORT:

There are four massive casinos in Lake Charles, but it does them a disservice to describe them as such. They are actually full resort cities. The Golden Nugget with 740-rooms and 300 more coming and the 1,000-room L’Auberge are connected by a boardwalk and beach along the Bayou Contraband. There are golf courses, stunning pools, spas, a dozen restaurants … and a view of a petro-chemical plant with huge tanker ships sailing by. Welcome to Louisiana. It’s strange mixture that somehow all works. Locals and tourists blend in the resorts, which have live music, food and much more than gaming.

The Golden Nugget

NATURE:

The Creole Nature Trail is one of only 43 roads in the nation proclaimed to be “All-American Roads.” It’s the perfect introduction to the wild ecosystems of Louisiana’s Outback, which includes fresh and salt water marshes, cypress swamps, and some other nasty looking terrain – all teaming with alligators, snakes, frogs and some of the most beautiful birds on the planet. You might not want to be out here walking alone at night, but with guides, it can be wonderful.

GrosseSavanne EcoTours will take you by boat onto their 500-acre private marsh, where you can glide silently up to herons, roseate spoonbills, sandhill cranes and pelicans. There are 30 miles of marsh between Lake Charles and the gulf. This is the type of “off the grid” area where True Blood takes place.

Boat tours into marshes and bayous.

It’s easy to believe that a town of vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters could exist completely unknown back here. At Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, you can stroll on boardwalks through the swamp and get fabulous photos of hundreds of birds taking to the air. There’s fishing and crabbing…and if you make it to the gulf, 26 miles of beaches for swimming and shelling.

MARDI GRAS:

Although America’s most famous party parades through the French Quarter of New Orleans, Lake Charles offers the nation’s second largest Mardi Gras – a more family friendly affair where regular people can mingle with the krewes (the groups that stage the parades) the night before Fat Tuesday (something that would NEVER happen in exclusive New Orleans). Lake Charles has 75 floats where the Kings, Queens, Maids and Dukes of the crew throw literally millions of beads to the throngs of people along the route.

King Charles at the 2016 Mardi Gras

Any day of the year, you can see the world’s largest collection of Mardi Gras costumes in a simply incredible, rat’s nest of a museum – the Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu. It’s a hoot. Twisting and turning hallways take you through a never-ending collection of over-the-top feather and sequin costumes, many of which you can try on for photo opps.

Or even better, hop on a float yourself and participate in one of the true fun events of the region – a Chicken Run. In the nearby town of Iowa (pronounced Eye-Oh-Way) a half-dozen floats (flatbed trucks with a port-a-potty strapped on) drive through rural neighborhoods, stopping at various houses where the “Captain” will dance until people in the house provide an ingredient for gumbo. The parade continues, collecting chicken, rice, okra, spices, and other ingredients, which are all then cooked up into a giant meal for the whole community.

On the Chicken Run

Along the way, the captain lets loose a poor rooster, which is then chased by dozens of kids across the countryside. Don’t ask why. It’s just fun. There’s a zydeco band (a blend of accordion, washboard, spoons, fiddle and anything else that makes noise)…and each float has plenty of beer (hence the strap-on port-a-pottys.)

CULTURE:

South Louisiana is a strange and different land inhabited by friendly and fun-loving people who know how to cook. Millions of visitors are familiar with New Orleans, but it’s definitely worth the time to get out into the countryside and see the wild landscape that created Cajun and Creole cooking, meet the people, and enjoy their language, accents, music and absolutely unique lifestyle.

Crayfish boil. www.lindseyjanies.com

You can do no better for a guide than to search down Harold Guillory, the Lake Charles King of zydeco dance, and get a lesson on this easy dance step. Google him on Youtube, and you’re on your way!

IF YOU GO: www.visitlakecharles.org

St. Augustine -- The Town Built to Fight Pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 17:07:00 +0000

Castillo de San Marcos -- oldest fortress in the U.S.

In 2015, St. Augustine, Florida, did something that no other town in North America has ever done. They celebrated their 450^th birthday. But surviving as America’s oldest city hasn’t been easy. St. Augustine has been sacked and burned to the ground. Three times! It has been fought over in so many wars that the Spanish, French, British, Confederate, and pirate flags you see flying around town are not just for decoration – they actually represent countries and criminals that at one time or another controlled it.

But what can you expect from a town that was started for one purpose: to fight pirates.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about St. Augustine is that after surviving centuries of hurricanes and bloody warfare, this little settlement, originally located in the middle of nowhere on the edge of swamps filled with mosquitoes, rattlesnakes and alligators, has grown today into one of the most lovely and beautiful cities in the new world.

A plaza off of St. George Street

It is a place of incredible charm with cobblestone pedestrian streets lined with quiet plazas and outdoor cafes shaded by palm trees. There is a European feel, which is highlighted by something very rare in North America – a great stone citadel that sits squarely in the center of the town. There are cute little shops and art galleries. Spanish moss hangs from the trees, while a full-size Spanish galleon brimming with canons floats in the harbor. And of course, there are dozens and dozens of 100 and 200-year-old buildings that have been repurposed into museums, antique stores, pubs with live music, and candlelit restaurants. But don’t forget, this is St. Augustine. Which means even the oldest buildings can only date back to 1702. That’s that last time pirates sacked the city and burned it to the ground.

Pirates & Privateers and Privations

In 1565, Spain had a problem. Cortez had opened up Mexico and huge treasure ships filled with gold and silver were bound for Europe. However to get to the gulf stream to carry them across the Atlantic, the treasure fleets had to sail up the treacherous coast of Florida, and as the maps at the time said, “here there be pirates.” Full blown pirates (outright criminals) and privateers (essentially pirates who had a letter stating they were fighting for one of Spain’s enemies, like England or France) would wait and capture the slow moving treasure ships, or run them up on reefs and salvage the wreckage.

The drawbridge to Castillo de San Marcos

When the French went so far as to build a fort in Florida, Spain had to act. In 1565, they sent an expedition of 800 men and women under Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles to protect and settle the Florida coast. The French were soon dispatched and with the coast secure, the Spanish laid out the first European grid-style town in the continental United States, a real city with streets and plazas and impressive government buildings – and no food.

Florida was then a hot, humid, bug and snake-infested swamp, filled with disease with little ground to grow crops. The early years here were incredibly difficult. And then there were the pirates. Nine wood forts were built, and destroyed by pirates. The infamous Sir Francis Drake burned the town in 1586, 34 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Finally, in 1672, Spain had enough and construction started on the Castillo de San Marcos – the oldest and best preserved stone fort in the continental United States. Today, the huge diamond-shaped fortress is a National Monument.

Gun firing demonstration

You can walk the ramparts along the top of the towering, 28-foot-tall walls, defend the drawbridge, climb out on the bastions for a view of the harbor, and watch cannons being fired by re-enactors in Spanish uniforms. The fort was built of coquina, a soft local stone made of compressed shells. When the British attacked in 1702, the soft stone absorbed the cannonballs without crumbling, and the fort held out for 50 days.

Of course, the frustrated British had to settle for capturing the town, which they burned to the ground before sailing off. But the fort survived that battle and another brutal British bombardment in 1740 and was never captured.

After you’ve seen the 60 cannon built to fight pirates, leave the fort and cross the street to continue the story from the other point of view at the St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum. www.thepiratemuseum.com/ This is the largest and most authentic collection of pirate artifacts ever displayed under one roof. Of course, there are not a lot pirate artifacts. Most of the pirates were hung or killed in battle (Blackbeard went down with five bullet holes and 20 sword cuts, and they sliced off his head for good measure).

So there’s not a lot of genuine artifacts, but you can see Blackbeard’s blunderbuss, one of the three remaining “Jolly Roger” pirate flags, the world’s oldest wanted poster, and Captain Thomas Tew’s original treasure chest – the only known authentic pirate chest in existence.

Back streets of St. Augustine

The museum does a fun job of detailing the lives of the most outrageous of the scallywags, and kids can fire a cannon, see a Disney-produced special effects show on Blackbeard’s last battle, and stare at the actual sword used by Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. The sword spins in a special case with dramatic lighting as if it were a priceless relic, and maybe it is.

Most interesting are the exhibits of real treasure including pieces of gold, gold bars, pearls and silver, recovered from pirate shipwrecks, including Blackbeard’s own flagship, the “Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

St. George Street is home to two pirate shops and pirate walking tours.

The museum is just one of a half dozen pirate adventures. This is deep pirate country, and if you doubt it, there are not one, but two stores where you can be completely outfitted in your own pirate costume, from tri-corner hats to boots, swords and pistols. Up to a dozen fully outfitted pirates stroll around town posing for pictures, and there are pirate shows, a pirate sailing tour of the harbor on the Black Raven, and pirate, ghost and graveyard walking tours.

All of which seems quite natural. St. George Street, the cobblestone, car-free main street of town, looks like the setting of every pirate movie, with colonial buildings, pubs with wood signs, swaying palm trees, balconies and rustic old lanterns. Yes, it’s a bit touristy, but much of it is authentic, and it’s certainly beautiful at night with the lanterns glowing and candles flickering in many of the windows.

Every March, there’s a re-creation of pirate Captain Robert Searle’s 1668 attach on St. Augustine. Reenactors of pirates and Spanish soldiers fight in the plaza, then all the people of the town and the soldiers flee up St. George Street while the pirates sack the city. It’s no wonder there’s two pirate stores in town.

St. George Street

A short walk from the pirate museum, you can see how normal people lived at the Colonial Quarter of St. Augustine. This ‘living history’ museum is fun for kids, where they can see a ship being built, watch a blacksmith at work and learn how to fire a musket. No matter where you wander in St. Augustine, you’ll hear a lot of muskets and cannons being fired. There are four attractions that regularly fire off some type of black powder device. At least at the blacksmith, kids will learn where the expression “strike while the iron is hot” came from (you can only bend iron with a hammer when it is red hot).

St. Augustine is also the North American port of El Galeon, a replica of a typical Spanish galleon. The 170-foot-long, 495-ton El Galeon sails from New York to Puerto Rico, telling the stories of these heavily armed cargo ships that were like full cities under sail, but it is frequently in dock in its main port, St. Augustine The El Galeon is similar to the San Pelayo, which flagship that first carried Menendez to Florida in 1565. That ship carried 77 crew, 18 gunners, 317 soldiers, and 26 families, as well as provisions, including cattle.

El Galeon

Among the crew were several African American sailors. Spain allowed slavery, but it had nothing to do with race, so blacks and whites could be free or slaves, and if slaves, they could earn their freedom.

The first free black community in the United States was at Fort Mose, just a few miles north of St. Augustine. At the state park museum, you can learn how many African American slaves under British rule in Georgia to the north escaped to Florida, where under Spanish laws they could be free. By 1738, a community of 100 former slaves were living here, under the leadership of African-born Captain Francisco Menendez. When a British force tried to capture St. Augustine in 1740, Menendez and the black militia along with 300 Spanish soldiers launched a surprise pre-dawn attack that left 68 British dead. The English retreated to Georgia and Menendez was a hero….to the Spanish. To the British? Well, of course, they considered him a pirate!

IF YOU GO: www.floridashistoriccoast.com/

Walking and Drinking in St. Augustine

Prince of Wales

This is a five-star town for walking and drinking beer, filled with some great bars, live music, a wonderful brewpub and seafood restaurants in two century old buildings. It's more subdued than Key West, but has a similar number of bars in the historic district, which is where you want to stay. There are dozen B&Bs in the area, and a variety of chain motels along Hwy. 1, about 15 minute walk away.

The A1A Ale Works is a good place to start..modern building, but second story views of the bay and five nice craft beers (the Porpoise Point IPA has a grapefruit taste that goes with the view).

The town excels in British pubs, of which there are three. I really liked the Prince of Wales, which is off the noise of St. George Street on a secluded lane, with Spanish Moss above, a wonderful porch, live folk music, and small but traditional interior with British menu.

Barley Republic

Across the street the Barley Republic is lively enough place with two stories, live bands and one of the best outdoor patios out front (the bands can play in the patio or inside with the walls up, but you can hear them wherever). Meehan's Irish Pub is huge on a the bay in an historic house with live music and upstairs is Johnny's Oyster Bar.

For dinner, hard to beat the atmosphere of O.C, White's Seafood & Spirits, which is in a building that dates back to 1790, has a pirate as their logo, and a just gorgeous outdoor courtyard by the bay.

But you can't overstate how many bars there are, many with live music on the rooftop, others with balconies overlooking the streets, all easy walking distance in the historic district.

Rocky Mountain Turns 100

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 17:38:00 +0000

Sprague Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

The Rocky Mountains of North America are the second longest mountain range in the world, running in a ragged line for 3,000 miles from British Columbia in Canada all the way southeast to the north of Mexico.

So if you’re going to have the nerve to give just a small section of this long range the grand name of “Rocky Mountain National Park,” well, that better be one special section.

On the trail to Mills Lake

And it is. The 412 square miles of Rocky Mountain National Park have preserved some of America’s most pristine natural beauty. America’s fifth most popular national park has 147 lakes, 50 miles of streams, 360 miles of trails and more than 100 peaks that soar 11,000 feet or higher into the Colorado blue sky – many of them with snow year-round.

There are a thousand elk, as well as moose, bears, beavers and big\horn sheep. There are waterfalls and wildflowers, and more than a third of the park is tundra – that strange and harsh land above the trees where it is almost always winter.

But as beautiful and tranquil as Rocky Mountain National Park can be, it can also be one of the most congested spots in Colorado. With limited roads and parking, the popular park has to accommodate more than a million people in just six summer weeks. That’s more than the population of nearby Denver. Over the course of a year, 3.2 million people visit the park, sometimes “loving” it a little too much. On a recent Saturday in August, a mile-long traffic jam was caused by one sleeping bear, who chose to take his afternoon nap within sight of the road.

Elk along Trail Ridge Road

Some 35 invasive plants have moved into the park. Global warming is causing the glaciers to melt, and although the lakes and streams are crystal clear, the water is not safe to drink because of Giardia.

And yet, arrive early in the day or in off-season, or get out of the car and hike for a bit, and you can have the place to yourself. Even if you stay in the car, a drive through the park can take you over the highest continuous highway in the world, cruising over the tops of mountains with hundred-mile views in every direction. Just don’t concentrate on the views too much – there are sheer cliffs with no guardrails on every turn.

In 2015, the park is celebrating its 100^th anniversary of being protected forever. As you picnic by an idyllic stream or hike through a firework display of wildflowers and you want to know who to thank for preserving all this, start with an eccentric Englishwoman named Isabella Bird.

Preserving the Park

There weren’t many globetrotting women explorers in the 1870s, but that didn’t stop Isabella Bird, who became the first woman accepted into the Royal Geographic Society of Great Britain. From early childhood, she suffered from insomnia and nervous headaches. Her doctor recommended an “outdoor life,” so she set off on a series of adventures that ultimately took her to China, Japan, Vietnam, and India. Colorado’s dry weather was said to be healthy, so she moved there in 1873.

Isabella roamed 803 miles across Colorado, climbing mountains and riding a horse like a man (though she threatened to sue a newspaper that said she dressed like one). Her descriptive letters home about her explorations in Colorado were eventually published into a book that became one of the classics of travel literature: “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.”

Dream Lake with Hallet's Peak

One of her favorite areas was northwest of Denver near a valley that had come to be called Estes Park, after local cattle rancher Joel Estes. “Park” came from the French “parc,” meaning “open space.”

Isabella explored the area around Estes Park with the aid of a colorful local guide, Jim Nugent, also known as “Mountain Man Jim.” He was a one-eyed desperado who would be shot dead a year later, but he was a good-looking character, and there were rumors that he was more than a guide to Isabella. She wrote that Jim was the type of man “any woman might love but no sane woman would marry."

Isabella’s descriptions of climbing Longs Peak, the highest mountain looming above Estes Park, and the beauty of the area captivated the world. Even in Colorado, which had a mountainous area five times the size of Switzerland, the splendor of Estes Park became world famous.

Another visitor who settled here was Enos Mills, who became a local guide, climbing Longs Peak more than 300 times. Enos lobbied that the mountains, lakes and streams here should be preserved for future generations. He got his wish in 1915, when Rocky Mountain became America’s 10^th national park.

Touring the Park Today

With so many experiences (and so many people loving the park) here are some tips on how to enjoy its beauty.

Trail Ridge Road

Drive over the 48-mile-long Trail Ridge Road (the highest continuous highway in the world) and stop at the visitor center two miles above sea level. Bring a jacket because it can be 30 degrees colder up here than down in Estes Park. Hike to the top of the ridge to take in a 360-degree view of this moon-like landscape above the trees. Because of heavy snow, Trail Ridge Road is usually open only from late May until mid-September. Snow plows start cutting through the 30-foot high piles of snow in April and it can take six weeks to clear the road.

Hike around Sprague Lake. This is a short, level path around one of the most beautiful lakes in the park.

Sprague Lake

As you get used to the altitude (at 10,000 feet elevation, there’s about 30 percent less oxygen absorbed in your body with each breath) hike to one of the more remote lakes. The farther you go from the parking lot, the less people you will encounter. The most popular hike is to climb from Bear Lake to Nymph, Emerald and Dream lakes. It’s about 4 miles roundtrip, with spectacular views. This a very popular section of the park, and relatively crowded. To get away even more, hike a little farther. Two of the most beautiful lakes are Mills Lake (named after Enos Mills) and the Loch – both about six mile hikes. Bluebird Lake is known for its wildflowers and is about a 12 mile hike.

The ultimate park experience is to be like Isabella Bird and climb Longs Peak. Climbing a fourteener is serious business and requires being in good shape, having a lot of determination, a high tolerance for crowds, and lots of luck with the weather. Every year, some 15,000 people attempt to summit the 14,255-foot Longs Peak; since the 1884, 60 have died in that attempt.

Bear Lake with Longs Peak in background

The first person known to have reached the top was the one-armed explorer John Wesley Powell, who later became the first man to sail a boat through the Grand Canyon. For the average person, it’s a strenuous, all-day, 16-mile climb that requires starting at 4 a.m. or earlier. As a general rule, you always want to be off the summit and coming down by noon to avoid lightning. Although Longs doesn’t require any special mountaineering skills or equipment, there’s some bad exposure on the Narrows and the Homestretch parts of the climb, and a fall here could be fatal. Many people wear helmets to protect against rock falls from above. Bring four quarts of water as there is no water on the trail. It’s a “long” day, but there’s few better feelings than catching a glimpse of Longs Peak in the distance and knowing you have summited it.

The 1909 Stanley Hotel

Take the Night Ghost Tour at the Stanley Hotel. In 1903, F.O. Stanley, inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile, moved to Estes Park for his health, and finding the amenities lacking, built a huge summer home in a magnificent setting overlooking the mountains. In 1909, it became the Stanley Hotel. Horror writer Stephen King spent one night in the hotel in 1974, staying in room 217. Because the hotel was closing for the winter (it didn’t have heat until 1979), King was the only guest. He wandered the halls alone, and that night had a horrible nightmare about a haunted hotel that quickly turned into the classic horror novel, The Shining. The Stanley makes a lot of this, continuously looping Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining in every room on closed circuit TV. On the Night Ghost Tour you will learn that many of the rooms are haunted and the hotel has long been known for ghosts and paranormal activity. Perhaps. One thing is for certain, grab a drink and sit on the wicker work rocking chairs on the front porch. The view over the resort village of Estes Park and the surrounding Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the grandest in the world.

Estes Park from the ruins of an old hotel overlooking the town

If you go: Estes Park has an assortment of riverside cabins and motels, a delightful downtown with riverside cafes, and is located just a few miles from the entrance to the national park. Of course, the top place to stay is the Stanley, but even if you don’t sleep here, stop by the gift shop to pick up a brass key ring for room 217.

A Wild West Weekend in Cheyenne, Wyoming

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:17:00 +0000

Frontier Days (the center window is where Tom Horn confessed to murder)

Now that Cheyenne Frontier Days 2015 is over, it’s a wonderful time to spend a weekend in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Frontier Days, of course. This 119-year-old rodeo, the “Daddy of ‘em All,” as they like to say, is a bucket list event – the largest rip-roaring outdoor rodeo in the world. And if you want to go, start making reservations now for the July 22-31, 2016 event because reservations fill up early.

That’s the challenge. With 400,000 visitors and big-name concerts every day from Blake Shelton to Aerosmith, the huge extravaganza tends to turn Cheyenne into a 10-day boom town that buries many of the city’s simple pleasures.

And there are many simple pleasures to enjoy.

Old West History

Wyoming's slogan is "Forever West"

More than any other single place, Cheyenne is the center of the Old West. Gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok got married here. (So did Ernest Hemingway…to his third wife).

Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Luke Short and “Calamity Jane” all called Cheyenne home, and the legendary murderer Tom Horn was hanged here right downtown – the last man hanged in Wyoming (at least legally).

The famous Deadwood Stage started in Cheyenne, covering the 300 miles to the gold fields in South Dakota in three days of bouncing on rough dirt tracks through outlaw and Indian country.

Old West history is everywhere in downtown Cheyenne – in the western wear shops, galleries, museums, and architecture. But make no mistake, Cheyenne knows how to have fun, too. Wyoming was the last state to ratify prohibition and prostitution was legal until 1938.

The historic downtown is filled with western shops

Today in compact Cheyenne, there are two outstanding breweries and a dozen bars, several with live music. Bring the bikes and there are 37 miles of trails, many of them weaving through historic neighborhoods of great old wood mansions. Wood houses are something you don’t see in nearby Denver; to prevent fires, until WWII all homes in Denver had to be built of brick or stone. Cheyenne’s tree-lined backstreet neighborhoods of historic wood houses are delightful, especially in the Rainsford Historic District, where there are dozens of homes and mansions all designed by architect George Rainsford. Rich cattle barons loved his creative porches and roofs with towers covered by decorative “fish scale” shingles.

Wyoming is an independent place and for everyone you see in a cowboy hat and pickup truck, there will be another in dreadlocks and tattoos. But at just about two hours from Denver, it is a world away in atmosphere with great beer, food, and Western fun.

Some Ideas for a Great Western Weekend In Cheyenne

Catch the trolley at Union Depot plaza

Take the Trolley Tour: Cheyenne’s history is crazy. Seemingly every third building was a bordello or gambling hall. On this 90-minute trolley ride you get an overview of some of the more exciting events.

When the railroad was being built across America in 1867, there was nothing here but rolling grasslands. The chief engineer of the Union Pacific, Maj. General Grenville Dodge, decided this was as far west as the railroad could get before winter, so he picked out a place to build a fort to provide protection against Indians. Following practices that said no liquor could be sold within four miles of a fort, he laid out a town exactly four miles away.

Within weeks, the “town” of Cheyenne had 90 saloons and gambling halls, mostly in large portable tents, as well as 400 “ladies of the evening,” 4,000 residents and 23 hangings. Cheyenne boosters will tell you this is where Cheyenne got its nickname, “Magic City of the Plains,” because the city just sprang up overnight like magic. But at the time, most people referred to it by an equally descriptive name: “Hell on Wheels.”

The Trolley visits lovely neighborhoods like Holliday Park

When the railroad moved west in the spring, Cheyenne should have moved with it, but the Union Pacific built railroad roundhouses here and a substantial city was built around them. Some 75-100 trains still roll through downtown Cheyenne every day.

Later, Cheyenne became a cattle town and it was said that because of rich cattle barons, Cheyenne was the wealthiest town in the world on a per capita basis. Many of the mansions on Cattle Baron Row still survive. The fort grew into Warren Air Force Base, which today maintains 150 Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. This is probably as close to 150 atom bombs as you’ll ever get.

You can hop off the history trolley at stops like the State Capitol, the Wyoming State Museum or the Cheyenne Frontier Museum, which are all worth a look, and then hop back on a later trolley.

Shop Downtown Cheyenne:

Wyoming Home is a gigantic wonderland of western home furnishings

Downtown Cheyenne has the best collection of western stores on the Front Range. Wrangler is the place for hats, boots and belts; Wyoming Home has western furnishings, rugs, jewelry and gifts; and Just Dandy has women’s western-wear fashions. There are dozen other western galleries, bookstores and souvenir shops.

Many people make a trip to Cheyenne just for the SierraTrading Post, where you can save 35-70% on closeouts and overstocks of outdoor apparel and gear from places like North Face, Columbia, Rockport, Kelty, Merril and Timberline.

Drink Downtown Cheyenne:

Freedom's Edge

There are two great breweries in the downtown historic district. Freedom’s Edge Brewing Company has the usual tasting room with roll up walls, patio seating and a fine selection of changing brews. Try the 1890 IPA, a medium American IPA with citrus and grapefruit flavors. If the High Noon Chili Ale is on tap, it’s made with Alapeno, Serrano and Habanero peppers for a spicy kick.

The Cheyenne Brewing Company has the best location in town in the 1887 Union Pacific Depot, a National Historic Landmark and one of the finest railroad stations in America. Like Union Station in Denver, it’s been beautifully restored and today you can sample more than 20 craft beers and dine on high-quality pub food while looking out arched windows at passing trains.

Cheyenne Brewing Company

The historic 1911 Plains Hotel across the plaza has welcomed guests including Harry Truman, Ronald Regan, Ted Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The bar in the Plains was remodeled recently, and lost some of its character, but still packs plenty of Old West charm. Combined with the lobby, which is filled with historic Western paintings and sculptures, the Plains is a must stop. It also features a Capitol Grille restaurant, one of the best in town.

General Western Craziness

Giant Books "are made for talking"

Cheyenne packs any number of eccentric attractions to fill a weekend. There are 22 gigantic hand-painted cowboy boots around town. These boots “are made for talking” – each one tells a story about Cheyenne. Just call 307-316-0067 and enter the number of the boot when prompted to hear tales of gamblers, outlaws, and governors from Cheyenne’s past.

A “Big Boy,” the world’s largest steam locomotive, is parked in Holliday Park, which also has a beautiful lake and bike trails. The powerful locomotive was designed to pull 3,600-ton coal trains. There are only eight remaining in the world (one is in Denver, a second is in Cheyenne under restoration).

Another world-record train is on the second floor of the Cheyenne Depot Museum, only this one is much smaller. Railroad modeler Harry S. Bunk of Clarkson, NE, worked on building an HO model railroad of Colorado mining towns for 30 years. His layout became one of the most famous in the world, featured in more than 100 model railroad magazine articles, but because it was in his home, hardly anyone had ever seen it in person. Today, the setup has been relocated and rebuilt in the Depot. It’s a kick to see model trains pass over the Georgetown Loop and chug into incredibly detailed models of Central City, Black Hawk, and Idaho Springs.

The "Big Boy"

If you want to ride a train, one of the strangest in the world is located 7 miles south of Cheyenne on the Wyoming-Colorado border at the Terry Bison Ranch. A custom built and very funky private train pulls passengers on standard gauge tracks across rolling grasslands to the middle of a herd of 2,500 buffalo. There’s also horseback riding and a famous buffalo and steak house restaurant.

The downtown Nelson Museum of the West has an eclectic collection featuring everything from outfits worn by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to military uniforms, guns, Indian artifacts, saddles and a re-created Cattle Baron’s living room. If you like what you see, you can decorate your own living room in a similar style at the Wyoming Home down the block.

There’s even a Cowgirls of the West Museum that through clothing, exhibits and historic photos tells the often forgotten story of the contributions cowgirls made in winning the West.

Where to Stay:

The Nagle-Warren 1888 B&B

The Nagle-Warren Mansion 1888 B&B is more like a small inn with 12 luxurious rooms with all the amenities (TV, air, private bath, Wifi) but sharing incredibly beautiful public rooms with ornate staircases, polished wood, and antique furnishings. The included breakfast is worth a trip alone. The mansion is literally the biggest home in Cheyenne, purposely built by Nagle to be the biggest (replacing the former biggest home next door that now is El Charrito Mexican Grille). The U.S. Senator and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Francis E. Warren later bought the mansion and entertained many notable people here, including President Teddy Roosevelt.

If you go: www.cheyenne.org/

A Ramble in the English Countryside

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 00:40:00 +0000

How to Escape London and See

the Cotswolds – the England of Calendars and Picture Books

The Cotswolds features rolling green hills with 100 stone villages

London is magnificent, but it can also be big, noisy and crowded with swarms of international tourists following guides holding up umbrellas. If you want to see the real England – or at least, the Harry Potter fantasy version of what Shakespeare called “this green and pleasant land,” you need to get to the Cotswolds.

This postcard-pretty rural area of rolling green hills and honey-colored stone villages lies just 60 miles from Big Ben, but is a world away in atmosphere. Public footpaths meander over stone walls through fields of contented sheep. Lazy rivers with names like Windrush flow past country pubs with wood smoke curling from the chimney.

The Slaughters Country Inn

Of course, there are tour buses here, too. But the great thing about the Cotswolds is, if you leave the town square on foot, the village soon turns to countryside, and you’ll have the countryside all to yourself. Small wonder that Madonna, Kate Moss, Hugh Grant, Elizabeth Hurley, Patrick Stewart …and of course, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling – all call the Cotswolds home.

And you can too, on an easy day break from London. Here’s how you do it.

Rambling in the Cotswolds

Paddington Station

Leave your bags at your London hotel, throw just the bare essentials in a backpack, wear your best walking shoes, buy a “day return ticket” and catch the train at Paddington Station for Moreton-in-Marsh. Just 90 minutes away, Moreton has been welcoming travelers to the Cotswolds for 1700 years.

“Cotswold” is a Saxon word for “hilly shelter for sheep.” In the Middle Ages, Cotswold sheep were known throughout Europe for their heavy fleece and excellent wool. Some 20,000 sheep a day could be sold in a single Cotswold market town, and it was the wool industry that brought incredible wealth to the area, as indicated by the gated mansions, elaborate churches and wonderfully carved stone buildings along each town’s main thoroughfare.

Lower Slaughter

When wool was replaced by cotton and the industrial revolution, the sheep industry fell off. With limited rail connections, the Cotswolds became an isolated farm area, forgotten until the current age of tourism. Today, 85 percent of the land is still agricultural, but these picturesque limestone hills are also home to nearly 100 pretty villages of stone buildings, all bursting with tea shops, antique stores, inns and of course, pubs. The entire 2,250 square miles of the Cotswold Hills has been designated an Area of Outstanding National Beauty, sort of an English way of saying “it’s pretty.”

The buildings on the square of Stow-on-the-Wold date to 14-16th century

Moreton is worth a quick poke around and be sure to see The Bell Inn, which allegedly served as the inspiration for The Prancing Pony, the most famous pub in the Middle Earth of J R R Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”

Then catch one of the hourly buses to Stow-on-the-Wold. Located just four miles away, Stow is one of England’s best known market towns -- and one of the loveliest. At 800 feet elevation this is the highest of the Cotswold towns, which makes it a perfect walking center because all footpaths go downhill.

Stow is an ancient town. You can find Stone Age and Iron Age burial ruins nearby. Charles I stayed at the Kings Arms in 1645, just before the battle of Naseby. Charles lost the battle, and eventually his head, but don’t be put off by that. Like him, you can still enjoy a pint at the Kings Arms. Or walk a few blocks to the Porch House, which has been an inn since 947 A.D., making it the oldest inn of England. Try the fish and chips and a Ploughman’s lunch (ham, cheese, pickle and bread) and wash it down with a pint of local Brakspear bitter.

The Porch House may be England's oldest inn, dating back to 947 AD

Stow’s town square is a storybook village of flowers and handsome yellow-stone buildings from the 14^th-16^th century. A highlight of the square is the stock where in medieval days, transgressors where tied up and publicly humiliated as punishment. When tormenting people in stocks got boring, Stow also offered bear baiting, where wild dogs attack a chained bear. Time must have hung heavy before cable TV, and in the sleepy Cotswolds, Stow didn’t even have running water until 1958.

The town square is enclosed by buildings because this is where sheep were brought to market. Narrow alleys leading into the square (one sheep wide) were built for the sheep, not humans, but you can squeeze through them to find backstreet pubs, tea shops and antique stores. Be sure to stop at the Information Center to pick up a map for a classic four-mile Cotswold walk (mostly downhill) from Stow to Bourton-on-the-Water.

A Classic Cotswolds Ramble

Public footpaths

The map will lead you to a cemetery near 15^th century St. Edward’s Church, then guide you to yellow arrows and signs indicating a well-marked Public Footpath. There are 140,000 miles of historic Public Footpaths in England and Wales that permit you to walk across estates, past palaces, through working farms and across fields of sheep and cows. “Kissing gates,” a sort of swinging gate that lets humans pass, but not animals, keeps everyone in their place. On this walk from the heights of Stow, you’ll have sweeping views of the countryside, pass through several large farms, cross streams, hop over stone walls, pass a cricket field, and get a backdoor look at wonderful stone cottages.

Three miles brings you to the postcard pretty village of Lower Slaughter. Fortunately, “slaughter” here does not mean there are werewolves on the moors, but rather comes from Old English, meaning “muddy place.” This is as quaint a village as you can find. There’s an old mill standing beside the River Eye, which flows quietly through the center of town and is crossed by a series of small bridges. Stop for a pint at the Slaughters Country Inn at their lovely riverside outdoor beer garden. It’s the perfect place to watch horseback riders cross the river and canter off on bridle paths.

Lower Slaughter is postcard pretty

The footpath continues another mile along the river, past a cricket field, to Bourton- on-the-Water, perhaps the most touristy of the Cotswold villages, but with good reason – the town is simply gorgeous. The River Windrush flows quietly through the center of the village and is spanned by five elegant stone pedestrian bridges. Swans and ducks swim in the stream and there are a number of pubs with pleasant outdoor patios overlooking the water. Try the Duke of Wellington or the Old Manse Hotel. There are tourist attractions here – a miniature model of the village, a model railroad and a motorcar museum -- and lots of shops, which of course also means, lots of tourists. But walk down a side street to admire the flowers and stone buildings, and you’ll have the place to yourself. Plan on about 3-4 hours for the walk from Stow with sightseeing and stops.

It's easy to follow the footpaths

Dinner in Oxford

Hourly buses make the 20-minute return trip from Bourton to Moreton and the return train to London, the last bus leaving Burton about 7:30 p.m. However, rather than eat dinner in the country, another option is to leave Moreton by train in late afternoon and stop in Oxford enroute to London. The day return train ticket allows you to get on and off the train as much as you like, as long you’re somewhere along the route.

The classic university town of Oxford is relatively compact and offers three fantastic pub options for dinner. From the station, it’s an easy walk to the center of town, where pedestrian-friendly streets lead past one architectural gem to another, including Oxford Castle, Christ Church College (a film setting and inspiration for the dining hall in the Harry Potter films) and the famous punts on River Cherwell. There are Harry Potter tours of Oxford in the afternoon and ghost tours in the evening.

The colorful punts of Oxford

To visit three ultimate classic English pubs, try The Bear, Oxford’s oldest and most charming pub, which dates to 1242. The walls are covered with 4,500 neckties and the pub has nooks and crannies and an outdoor beer garden.

The King’s Arms dates to 1607 and was used regularly as a film location for the Inspector Morse mysteries. It specializes in elegant pub grub and is known for its steak and ale pie

The Eagle and Child is the youngest of the three, dating to only 1650, but has the most famous history. Not only did J.R.R. Tolkien write The Hobbit here, but it was also a favorite hangout for Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis was also a regular at the Lamb and Flag across the street, as was Tony Blair, when he was a student at Oxford.

When you’ve drunk enough history, there are two trains to London every hour, each taking just an hour for the journey.

The color of the Cotswolds

IF YOU GO: www.cotswolds.info/ Unfortunately, buses do not operate in the Cotswolds on Sundays.

The Spirit of Old Vallarta Still Lives on in this “Accidental” International Resort

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Wed, 20 May 2015 16:22:00 +0000

John Huston

“When I first came here, almost 30 years ago, Vallarta was a fishing village of some 2000 souls. There was one road to the outside world - and it was impassable during the rainy season.” So wrote American film director John Huston about his first encounter with the sleepy, isolated fishing village he was destined to change into an international mega resort.

In 1962, Huston was one of the world’s top film directors. He had hit upon a formula that worked perfectly. In films like The African Queen and The Treasure of Sierra Madre, he placed famous stars in beautiful and remote settings and let the location become a central part of the story.

Now, in 1962, charged with creating the film version of Tennessee Williams’ hit play, Night of the Iguana, he selected as his setting Mismaloya, a curving arc of a beach on the Bay of Banduras, just south of the remote village of Puerto Vallarta.

And then the chaos began.

Mismaloya had no electricity, no running water, and no roads. The film crew, equipment and actors had to come to the location every day by boat.

Richard Burton and Liz Taylor at their homes in PV

And what a crew it was. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were the two most popular and highly paid actors in the world. Both of them were married, but not to each other. They had fallen in love making Cleopatra (the most expensive movie in history at the time), and their affair thrilled the world. The Vatican went so far as to condemn it (calling it “erotic vagrancy,”) and a new word was imported from Italy to name the swarm of photographers who chased them – “paparazzi,” Italian for annoying insects.

Burton was starring in the film with three equally glamourous actresses, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr and Sue Lyon. Liz was along just to be close to Burton.

For her 32^nd birthday, Burton bought Liz a gorgeous home in the hills above Puerto Vallarta – then bought himself the house next door, building a bridge between the two. The press went nuts.

When the publicists and photographers weren’t busy chasing Dick and Liz, they spent their time glorifying the incredible beauty of the location. Puerto Vallarta was portrayed as paradise – a tiny village at the edge of jungle mountains with whitewashed buildings clinging to the hills, covered with pink bougainvillea and topped with red tile roofs. Quaint cobblestone streets led to lazy, sun-drenched plazas, while palm trees swayed over golden beaches lined with palapas selling fresh fish. Overhead, squadrons of pelicans floated in the always warm and blue sky.

Puerto Vallarta today is a world famous resort with a population of 250,000

Small wonder that with the encouragement of the Mexican government and local tourism officials, Puerto Vallarta became the “accidental” resort, mushrooming from a village with no roads that was only accessible by air or sea, into today’s city of a quarter million people with a cruise ship dock, spas, five star restaurants and resorts, exquisite art galleries and a huge assortment of adventure travel activities ranging from zip-lining to swimming with dolphins.

But strangely, with all the growth, it is still easy to find the romantic, isolated village of Dick and Liz. Here’s a few places:

The Backstreets.

The red tile roofs and cobblestone back streets are little changed.

The quiet cobblestone backstreets of Vallarta’s historic downtown (dubbed the Romantic Zone) still feel like a village with flowers, terraces, gorgeous white villas, red tiled roofs, and views of the Pacific in every direction. The Lady of Guadalupe Church (the symbol of the city) rings its bell on the quarter hour adding a romantic touch. Two reasons the area hasn’t changed much – the streets are incredibly steep and walking on cobblestones can be painfully difficult. If you’re up for it, you can climb 222 steps to the top cross high above the city for a sweeping view of the bay.

The Lady of Guadalupe Church

Or better, take a two-hour walking tour with Sandra Cesca of Walk Vallarta! On a variety of $30 tours you can see the colonial architecture of Gringo Gulch, visit shops and markets to watch artisans at work, sample local chocolate, cigars and coffee, meet some residents and hear wild tales about Dick and Liz, and their friends and fellow hell raisers who they entertained in Vallarta like Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. The romantic Hotel Catedral near the swinging bridges over the Cuale River is a wonderful place to stay.

Drink Cerveza in a Palapa in Yelapa

Until a few years ago, Yelapa had no outside electricity or roads and even today, most visitors arrive by boat. Getting there is an adventure. Hop a bus and travel along the rugged, cliff-lined coast six miles south to Boca de Tomatlan. This is the “end of the line,” the southernmost town on Bahia de Banderas (the 7^th largest bay in the world). From here, the paved road turns away from the sea and heads into the mountains. To the west there is 50 miles of coast that is only accessible by water.

Boca de Tomatlan

Boca feels like the “end of the line.” Jungle palm trees come to the edge of the bay, and the only sounds at the few, quiet waterside restaurants come from birds overhead or waiters snapping open bottles of Pacifico.

All activity centers on the boat dock, where launches holding 6 to 15 passengers leave every hour or so for a string of beachside villages: Playa Las Animas, Quimixto and -- the farthest out and most popular -- Yelapa. The trip can get quite rough in heavy seas (prepare to get wet), but as you round a rocky point and get your first view of paradise, Yelapa appears like a dream.

Yelapa appears like a dream

Verdant, green jungle pours down to a turquoise-colored bay, where on a thin sliver of sand there are a dozen or so palapa restaurants…and nothing else. Large numbers of people settle in for the day here, snacking on grilled shrimp, fish and beer, while the waves lap up to their feet, but the town is worth exploring. A jungle river divides the town from the restaurants; you can hike a half-mile into the jungle to the one bridge, or just wade across the knee-high stream.

There are a couple of general stores in town, and there’s a pleasant hike to a 150-foot high waterfall, but the most fun is just seeing the houses and people who live here, much like they did in Old Vallarta, where it is so quiet you can always hear the birds, the surf and the occasional clip-clop of a local riding a horse.

Waterfall in Yelapa

Sunset in Sayulita and San Pancho

Sayulita is no longer undiscovered. For years, this village an hour from Puerto Vallarta survived as an out-of-the-way surfer paradise, accessible by dirt road with a mile-long beach, big breakers, and a string of beachside palapas. The surfers are still there, along with a wild assortment of hippies and beachcombers. There are drums at sunset, dreadlocks and bikinis, and the smell of marijuana is sometimes present.

Sayulita this has the feel of a small town

But paved roads have brought shopping, dining and lodging (and the first major wave of tourists) to the town, which consists of a half dozen streets scattered between the beach and a plaza. There’s still a small town feel though. Every third person seems to be holding a surfboard, and there are plenty of restaurants on the cobblestone back streets and along the beach. Try the mixed seafood ceviche – shrimp, scallops and octopus cured in lime and fruit juices and served with green pepper, tomatoes and avocado.

Three kilometers up the coast, Sayulita’s sleepy neighbor, San Pancho, does not exist on maps. Its official name is San Francisco, but that’s too high-sounding a name for this one cobblestone street town, so they call it by its nickname, “San Pancho.” (Pancho Villa’s real name was Francisco, so all Francisco’s are nicknamed Pancho). This is a quiet place, except for the surf on the beach, which is a curving arc of sand between two rock headlands. Much of the beach at San Pancho backs up to private houses, which is good in that it will keep away major development. The center of town has the usual beach palapa restaurants.

The big story in San Pancho is the La Patrona Polo Club Restaurant, Bar, Lounge & Café – an incredible complex that has a full scale polo field in the center of the village with Saturday night polo games, dressage shows, and an exquisite, multi-story outdoor bar with live music after the matches. It’s simply amazing in a little town, and it certainly would have attracted John Huston, an avid horseman who was an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry.

An Unforgettable Night Under the Stars

Las Caletas at night is only accessible by sea.

After filming Night of the Iguana, Huston leased land from the Chacala Indians and lived for nearly two decades just south of Boca de Tomatlan in Las Caletas. Perhaps the prettiest of all Vallarta beaches, it is accessible only by sea. Today, Vallarta Adventures has the exclusive lease and offers beach visits to Las Caletas by day, or an exciting mystical show and dinner called Rhythms of the Night, a sort of Mexican Cirque du Soleil with traditional native dancing and acrobatics that ends with a chance to dine seaside by flickering candles. It’s a magical outdoor experience capped by an hour long return boat trip to Vallarta under the stars. Sailing along the rugged coast, past Mismaloya with the mountains looming against the sea, it’s easy to understand how this isolated stretch of coast became one of the world’s most famous resorts.

IF YOU GO: Puerto Vallarta Information

How Walt Disney's Love of Trains Changed the World

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 17:43:00 +0000

Walt Disney with the locomotive created for Disneyland.

Walt Disney loved trains, and because of that, the world is a better – and happier -- place.

Walt was fond of saying that his empire “started with a mouse.” And indeed, his creation of Mickey Mouse did make him a fortune. But the idea for Mickey Mouse came to him while riding a train.

It’s quite possible that if Walt was not such a railroad buff, Disneyland and none of the other 11 Disney theme parks would exist. Certainly, if not for Walt, four old beaten-up steam locomotives that did decades of work hauling hemp and sugar cane on the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan (United Railways of the Yucatan) would have long ago been turned into scrap metal in Merida.

The Disney empire has 11 theme parks.

Instead, these four ancient engines from Mexico have been transformed into the most popular steam trains in the world, bringing delight to kids and pulling 3.7 million passengers a year.

Today, the Disney theme park empire has 46 resorts in four countries, 26,000 hotel rooms and more than 140,000 “cast members” who keep the parks running. Walt Disney World in Orlando alone is the largest single site employer in the United States with a $1.6 billion payroll.

Yes, it all started with a mouse. But it also might never have happened but for Walt Disney’s love of trains.

“In one way or another, I have always loved trains.” Walt Disney

The museum is in America's newest national park, the Presidio

The best place to follow this remarkable story, is to start at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Located on the Presidio, a former army base that’s been turned into one of America’s newest national parks, the huge 40,000 sq. ft. museum tells the life story of Walt Disney, letting you get to see – and hear -- the man behind the magic. Much of the story is narrated by Walt himself on 200 video screens. There are interactive galleries, artifacts, photos, early drawings, historic cartoons, and a 14-foot model of Disneyland.

From gallery to gallery, the story unfolds. Walt was born in 1901 and had an idyllic childhood on a farm in Marceline, Missouri. Railroads at this time were much more than transportation, especially to Walt. His father was a railroad mechanic and his Uncle Mike Martin was a steam locomotive engineer. Walt’s first job was selling newspapers, candy and fruit on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

Walt Disney (right) with his first locomotive, the Lilly Belle

His other great love as a youth was drawing cartoons. At 16 he faked his age so he could become an ambulance driver in France during World War I, where he spent his down time drawing cartoons.

Many of his drawings from that period are on display in the museum.

Back from the War, with just $40 in his pocket, Walt took a train to California and with his brother Roy as a partner, set out to change the world of animation. There were ups and downs. In 1928, he lost his first success, Oswald the Rabbit, to a bad business deal in New York. Bankrupt, he was returning to California by train with his wife Lillian when he thought up a new cartoon – Mortimer Mouse. His wife thought the name was too formal and changed it to Mickey.

For the next 20 years, Walt would provide the voice for Mickey Mouse, while Disney Studios released a steady stream of ground-breaking animated movies, from the first full-length feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Fantasia, now regarded as a masterpiece.

Toy Trains Generate an Idea

Walt had always had a Lionel toy train set in his office, but in the late 1940s he discovered that two of his animators had bigger ambitions -- they had backyard railroads.

Walt riding behind the Lilly Belle.

Ward Kimball, who drew Jiminy Cricket, had a full-scale train in his backyard, while Ollie Johnson, famous for creating Pinocchio and Bambi, had a large-scale model railroad that you could actually ride on.

Walt went to the studio machine shop and hired Roger E. Broggie to build him a miniature railroad. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Ultimately, Walt’s backyard railroad, called the Carolwood Pacific after his street address, had a half-mile of track, switches and a long trestle. His wife had a problem with the train going through her flower garden, so he buried a 70-foot-long tunnel under the plants. He also named the engine after her – the “Lilly Belle.”

The Lilly Belle today in the Walt Disney Museum

The seven-foot-long locomotive and tender and many of the cars are now on display in the museum. Walt could sit on the tender and drive the locomotive around his yard pulling 11 people, who would sit on top of the miniature railcars. His daughter’s friends, neighbors – and even strangers – stopped by for a ride.

Walt was getting an idea.

Before his train, he had taken his young daughters to amusement parks. He said, “Saturday was always daddy’s day. So I’d take them to the merry-go-round and different places and as I’d sit while they rode the merry-go-round. I felt that there should be something built where parents and children could have fun together.”

A 14-foot early model of Disneyland

He wrote his ideas for a new type of theme park, originally called Mickey Mouse Park, to a friend, saying, “I just want it to look like nothing else in the world…and it should be surrounded by a train.”

His brother Roy and his wife thought he was crazy. At this time, amusement parks were trashy places with a bad carnival atmosphere. But Walt persisted with his dream, and on July 17, 1955 Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.

It was like nothing else in the world. And it was circled by a train.

Walt wanted to do his next park bigger and better in Orlando

The park was a phenomenal success. But Walt had bigger dreams and set his eye on Florida, where he wanted to build another theme park. “I am doing this because I want to do it better,” he said. The locomotives at Disneyland had been built from scratch, but for the new park, he wanted real locomotives, and he sent Roger Broggie around the

world to find them.

Roger did. In a railroad graveyard in Merida, Mexico, he found four old rusted black locomotives that had hauled sugar cane, sitting forlorn and abandoned, ready for the scrap heap. Roger bought them for $750, shipped

The world mourned Walt's passing

them to Florida, and helped completely restore them with a bright new paint job, brass fittings, new smokestacks, and new square headlamps. The four engines were named the: Walter E. Disney, the Lilly Belle, the Roger E. Broggie and the Roy O. Disney.

Sadly, Walt never got to see them. He died unexpectedly from lung cancer complications on Dec. 15, 1966. But his brother Roy took up the mission, and on October 1, 1971 opened the Magic Kingdom in Orlando with all four locomotives circling the new park.

Backstage Railroad Tour

Engineer Joe takes the tour back to the roundhouse.

Today, some 3.7 million people ride the Walt Disney World Railroad every year, making it the largest railroad in Florida carrying more passengers than AMTRAK. You can take the 20 minute, 1.5 mile ride around the park, or if you want an up close and personal look at the trains, you can take a $54 backstage Train Tour. The tour is limited to 20 people and meets outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom at a shocking 7:30 a.m.

The early departure is soon forgotten when a real locomotive engineer, Joe, shows up in overalls, striped engineer cap and red bandana, ready to take us on our own personal train ride. Each locomotive circles the Magic Kingdom 70 times a day, but on our backstage tour, our personal train stops after a quarter mile and blows three short whistles. We will learn that this is the signal for going in reverse. Each train has 16 different whistle patterns and they all mean different things. Two short whistles means moving forward, one long whistle and one short (followed by a clanging bell) means coming into a station.

A personal train stops at the station for the 20 person tour.

On our tour, the locomotive backs over a switch and pushes its five cars back to the roundhouse, located outside the park, where we will get to see all of the engines getting ready for a day’s work.

It takes 45 minutes to fire up each locomotive and get the water to 425 degrees to create the steam that propels it. The locomotives are stored in the bottom floor of the massive “roundhouse” (which is actually rectangular because the upper floor is where Disney World stores all their monorails at night). Crews work all night long preparing the engines, polishing the brass, repainting some of the trim, refueling the tender (the train uses 22 gallons of fuel an hour).

How to Run a Locomotive

Joe takes us up into the cab where we get to see how to drive a locomotive. A giant wheel in the cab is covered with notches. The throttle has a handle that fits in the notches and can be moved forward or backward a notch at a time.

"Bring it up a notch" to make it go faster.

That’s where the expression, “Bring it up a notch” comes from. Bringing it up a notch will increase the speed, bringing it down a notch will decrease speed. For safety, these locomotives travel at a maximum of 10 mph, but they could do 50.

Joe tells us some of the other every day expressions that came from railroading. “Blowing your stack” comes from letting off steam pressure through the smokestack, whereas “Spinning your wheels” is what happens if a locomotive tries to start too quickly and the wheels spin on the tracks without getting traction. We wonder if Joe is just “yanking our chain,” but turns out, that’s another railroading expression. So is “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” which was the side where wind normally blew smoke and ash, so it was where the poor people lived.

Everyone gets to be an Engineer

The park opens at 9 a.m., so it’s soon time for the locomotives to get to work and we have a rare opportunity to see the trains the Walter E. Disney and the Roger E. Broggie side by side. These two locomotives were built side by side in 1925 by Baldwin Locomotive works for Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan. They worked side by side in Mexico for 40 years, and today they still run on the same tracks together.

No other two locomotives in history have ever done that.

It’s a fitting tribute to Walt and his friend Roger, who did so much to keep the adventure

These two locomotives have shared many adventures.

of steam trains alive.

Millions upon millions of people around the world have been able to hear a real steam whistle, see and feel the cloud of steam as an engine pulls into a station, listen to the clanging bell and enjoy the thrill of riding behind a real locomotive as it chugs down the tracks.

“I just want it to look like nothing else in the world,” Walt said about his theme park. And he built it. Circled by a train.

If you go: Walt Disney Family Museum, www.waltdisney.org/, Walt Disney World, www.disneyworld.disney.go.com/

The Great Adobe Castle of the Santa Fe Trail -- Bent's Fort

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Grant) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:11:00 +0000

Traders and guides on the Santa Fe Trail at Bent's Old Fort during one of their many re--enactment events.

Few roads in history have conjured up romantic images like the Santa Fe Trail. It lasted only 60 years, from 1821 to 1880, but for that short time it was America’s first international highway. And the most colorful.

Across 900 miles of open prairie, from Missouri to Old Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail became one of the most important commerce roads in the world, bringing goods from Europe -- wool, silk, iron tools and cotton cloth -- to Mexico and returning with furs, silver, mules and horses. Traveling on the trail were a wild assortment of characters -- fur trappers and mountain men dressed in buckskins, famous guides like Kit Carson, big-hatted vaqueros and cowboys, soldiers from three different armies, gold seekers, journalists and adventurers.

One of the typical wagons of the trail at Bent's Old Fort

Thousands of huge 6,000-pound Conestoga wagons creaked across the dirt tracks, pulled by teams of 20 oxen, that were matched by color so that one wagon had all black oxen, while another used all brown. These wagon trains with their white canvas covers billowing in the wind like sails, slowly moved across a sea of grass at a rate of 15 miles a day.

And then there were the Indians. The trail passed through the traditional hunting grounds of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Comanche and Apaches. There were raging rivers to cross, massive herds of buffalo to be negotiated, mountains to be conquered, drought, cold, snow and thunderstorms.

All that's left is ruts

And then, just like that, the Santa Fe Trail was gone. In 1878, there were 500 dusty wagons rolling into Santa Fe from the trail every day. But two years later, the railroad from Missouri was completed. Where once it had taken three months to travel to Santa Fe by foot, by rail it took just three days. The famous trail quickly faded into obscurity, wind and rain washing away all but a few traces.

Today, modern highways follow some of the original route and most people zoom by at 75 mph. But slow down, and it’s possible to still see some of the old trail. There are natural landmarks and even some ruts in the prairie, carved there by wagons nearly 200 years ago.

Bent's Old Fort

Best of all, the National Park Service rebuilt the most famous site on the trail – the amazing adobe castle, Bent’s Old Fort in La Junta, Colorado.

Enter the gates of this mud-colored trading post, past massive towers guarded by cannons, and you are time-tripping back to the 1830s. Here, you can listen to tales from mountain men and soldier re-enactors, touch the wagons they pulled across the prairie and see the exact same views they did when this adobe fort marked the border between Mexico and the United States.

Building the Trail

The story of the Santa Fe Trail began a decade before Plymouth Rock, in 1610 when Spanish explorer and colonist Pedro de Peralta laid out the Villa de Santa Fe – the City of Holy Faith – in Northern Mexico. It was an ambitious plan with a grand Governor’s Palace on the plaza. But of course, at first, there were bloody battles with Indians, who in 1680 revolted, threw the Spanish out of the territory and occupied the Palace for 12 years. But slowly over time, Santa Fe became a peaceful and prosperous city, except that it was completely isolated. The Spanish government forbid any trade with the North Americanos of the United States and anyone who tried was arrested.

Governor's Palace in Santa Fe

Then in 1821, William Becknell changed that. He was a bankrupt Missouri trader, one step ahead of the U.S. law, who decided to take a big risk. He smuggled the first three wagons of goods to ever cross the Great Plains, somehow dragging them over rivers and up mountains and finally into the plaza of Santa Fe. Where instead of being arrested, he was treated as a hero! There had been a revolution, the Spanish were thrown out and the new Mexican government welcomed trade.

Overnight, the word was out and great caravans of wagons began assembling for the tremendous profit to be made trading with Mexico. The typical wagon train didn’t follow one wagon after another, as shown in films. No one liked eating the dust of the wagon ahead, and there was plenty of land, so the wagons spread out in columns. Caravans of 10 to 100 wagons traveled together for protection. Trade mushroomed from $65,000 in 1825 to $1 million twenty years later.

When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, an army of 1,657 soldiers and 150 wagons tramped over the trail, to capture Santa Fe without firing a shot. In the Civil War, both Confederates and Yankee armies used the trail, fighting the deciding battle of the war in the West directly on the trail at the Battle of Glorieta Pass. The Union victory preserved New Mexico and Colorado for the North.

Bent’s Old Fort

Troops approach Bent's Old Fort on the Santa Fe Trail

One of the trail’s most exciting events occurred n 1835, when brothers William and Charles Bent and their partner Ceran St. Vrain decided to build an Indian trading post along the Santa Fe Trail, on the banks of the Arkansas River. This was the dividing line between Mexico and the United States at the time and the center of Indian hunting grounds. Profits could be huge. The Bent’s could buy a buffalo robe from the Indians for 25 cents worth of trinkets, and sell it in Missouri for $6.

But the Bents didn’t want to build just any old trading post or fort. They envisioned a fortified town – a castle, really – that would be built of adobe bricks, guarded by towers and cannons. It would be a place that could provide all the luxuries of the city to hungry travelers who at this point had been weeks on the trail.

In the plaza of the Fort

The Bents brought 100 workers from Mexico, pushed mud and straw into wood forms to create sun-dried bricks, and over two years, built their dream. A visitor in 1839 marveled, “it was as though an air built castle had dropped to the earth in the midst of a vast desert.”

The original fort vanished, along with the trail, long ago. But the National Park Service working with original plans, drawings and archeological excavations, built an exact replica.

The first view takes your breath away. The fort’s parking lots are several hundred yards away. As you leave the parking lot and climb a small rise, there suddenly is Bent’s Fort in all its glory, sitting on the plains just as it would have appeared to wagon trains.

Bent's Fort appears like a dream today, just like it did in the 1830s

Enter the gates and you are in 1830s, surrounded by bustling re-enactors portraying the blacksmiths, gunsmiths, hunters, traders, soldiers and horse wranglers who kept the fort in business. It was a busy and multi-cultural place filled with many languages. The Bent’s owned three slaves who lived here, of whom Charlotte was a renowned cook. Indians frequently camped outside the fort while trading, and today, teepees still dot the horizon.

The center of the fort was an open plaza, surrounded by two story buildings. On the bottom floor were the storehouses, trading rooms, a barber shop, dining rooms, a kitchen and a blacksmith shop. The upper floors had more private rooms and even a billiard table and bar. Some 60 to 100 people lived in the fort, and it could accommodate up to 15 prairie schooners in a walled adobe corral. No one worried about Indians stealing goods from the corral – the walls were protected on top by living cactus.

The interior of The Fort Restaurant in Denver

The trading rooms were packed with beads, brass wire, red cloth, tobacco, hoop iron, tomahawks, bracelets, bright colored blankets, and of course whiskey.

Kit Carson worked at the fort as a hunter, supplying meat for the workers, before becoming more famous as a trail guide and soldier.

Ironically, William Bent didn’t live in the fort. His wife, a Cheyenne named Owl Woman, didn’t like all the constant noise of wagons coming and going, and the hammering in the blacksmith shop, and the traders and trappers drinking whiskey and carousing. So she lived in a teepee by the river. She made William live there too.

The Fort Restaurant in Denver was first re-creation of Bent's.

When war broke out with Mexico, Bent’s Fort became an army post. After the war, trade fell off, and the Bents had difficulties with the U.S. government. One story is that they set fire to the fort rather than have the U.S. take control. At any rate, the fort was abandoned and the adobe bricks eventually washed away, like the trail it had served, leaving only the wind, the grass and the big skies of the Great Plains.

If you go: Bent’s Old Fort is located in La Junta, Colorado, 190 miles from Denver and 280 miles from Santa Fe. http://www.nps.gov/beol The first reproduction of the fort was created by Sam Arnold in 1963 in Denver as The Fort restaurant. www.thefort.com.

Prickly Pear Margarita

Today, the restaurant is run by his daughter Holly Arnold Kinney and The Fort still dishes up more buffalo than any other restaurant on the planet. It’s a wonderful place to soak up the atmosphere of the Santa Fe Trail, while tasting buffalo, elk, quail, rabbit – even rattlesnake is on the menu. Try the “Bowl of the wife of Kit Carson – a soup served by Kit Carson’s granddaughter with chicken, rice, chipotle chili, dried garbanzo beans and cheese, served with avocado, cilantro and lime. Wash it down with a Prickly Pear Margarita made with real cactus juice. As the mountain men used to say, “Waaaah!”