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Improbable Home

Improbable Home

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It’s a day of hauntings, of swirled fog and footsteps in the night. But here on the tip of the Olympic peninsula (actually, a map tells me that it’s called the Quimper Peninsula), it’s bright and clear. 

I arrived here yesterday when the sun was streaming in the windows of the house that will be my home for the next two weeks. There were just two hours left of daylight. I had to explore.

There was a road down to the beach and a lighthouse at the end of it. There was a single sailboat moored in the waves. There was Mount Baker and the North Cascades on the horizon. 

I walked until I was hungry, then came back here, to this most improbable home. 

Seattle Sunday

Seattle Sunday

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Today I head up to the residency at Port Townsend, but yesterday was a break between prep and travel. A Seattle Sunday. 

And not just any Sunday, but a crisp, sparkling one, temp in the mid 30s to start. I hoofed it east toward Lake Washington and strolled first down, then up. The water was so clear you could see the rocks at the bottom.  

People were running and strolling and walking their dogs. The sunshine was intoxicating. I don’t expect to see much of it while I’m out here … so I reveled in it, too. 

A Mountain, A Miracle

A Mountain, A Miracle

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Day One of my getaway began with an early wakening and a miraculous flight across the country. 

Do I gush when I say miraculous? Actually, I do not. Because when you grow up on car travel, as I did, on seemingly interminable slogs from Lexington, Kentucky, to Los Angeles, San Francisco or other points west, boarding a jet at 7 and being on the opposite coast before lunch will never cease to amaze me. 

What awaited me on the other side were family and friends, blue skies and fir trees. Here’s Mount Baker from a Columbia City, Seattle, rooftop. It’s the same mountain that illustrates Friday’s post, which I captured from an earlier plane trip. 

It’s become a beacon now on these cross-country flights. When I see it, I know I’m almost there. It always appears sooner than I think. 

The Unmentioned

The Unmentioned

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I’m thinking about travel blogging, which I’ve done a bit of these last few months. Writing and traveling are natural partners because they’re both about exploring and discovering. But there’s at least one major difference — when you write about a trip, you edit out the embarrassing, extraneous or just plain boring.

A week ago, for instance, I was packing up to leave a motel room where I worried I might have picked up bed bugs. I know these critters can lurk in swanky establishments as well as lesser ones, but this place was most definitely the latter. 

I’d chosen it because it was cheap, and fresh from three weeks in Scotland I was all about saving money. But from the first glimpse of the dingy hallway I remembered an important lesson I often ignore: you get what you pay for.

It’s always good to be reminded of that reality. It’s even better to leave it behind in the detritus of trip details I generally leave unmentioned. 

(I have no photos of the offensive motel, which did not have bedbugs, by the way.)

For the Birds

For the Birds

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It’s a fact of life that if your dear old doggie has passed away, some of the attention he used to enjoy will be passed along to the pets who remain. And so, during our recent Savannah getaway, the parakeets had timed radio music to brighten their day and accompany their chirps. 

Here are these tiny creatures, the two of them together weighing less than a first-class letter, with Beethoven, Vivaldi, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and scores of other composers blaring from the stereo. The house was filled with sound, whether they wanted it or not. 

Luckily for them, the radio shut down a little before 7 p.m. each evening, which means they were spared the news of the day. 

(Toby during a contemplative moment)

Sideways

Sideways

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It’s part of the Charleston allure, the way so many single family homes in the historic district sit sideways on their lots, presenting to passerby not their ample fronts but their narrower sides.  

It wasn’t for tax purposes, but for privacy and tranquility that the airy old manses on Tradd or Legare turned their shoulders to the world.

I didn’t enter one of these homes, but I can imagine the cool breezes that would flow from the portico ceiling fans. There would be rocking chairs, of course, and tall glasses of iced tea, beaded with moisture. 

To enter you’d step through a portal that led from street to porch. A false door? Perhaps, but it provided an extra layer of protection between inside and out. 

The Power of Preservation

The Power of Preservation

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A walking tour of Charleston yesterday revealed many interesting facts, two of which are related, I think. This southern city had the nation’s earliest and most successful preservation laws — and it has now surpassed Las Vegas in the number of weddings per year.

That last one is a dubious distinction, but it indicates that people want to be here, that there’s a charm and scale about the place that boosts tourism and the bottom line. 

Old buildings, narrow alleyways, hidden courtyards — these create a sense of place that’s often lacking in this country. If only more of our cities had preserved their pasts, instead of bulldozing them. 

(The Powder Magazine is South Carolina’s oldest government building, completed in 1713. The Colonial Dames of America saved it from demolition in 1902.)

Bridge at Sunset

Bridge at Sunset

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The Port of Savannah is the third largest in the U.S., plied day and night by colossal container ships. But when I snapped this shot it seemed to be holding its breath, and the Talmadge Bridge seemed delicate as lace.

Today we leave this city for its cousin across the river — Charleston, South Carolina, with its French Quarter, waterfront and Rainbow Row.

We may take another span to get there, but a bridge will be involved, just the same. 

(As it turns out, we took this one.)

Savannahhh!

Savannahhh!

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In 2015 it was Big Sky, Montana. In 2016, Chicago, followed by Huston in 2017 and St. Louis the year after that. And then we ran out of young’uns getting married, or at least ones having big weddings. 

This weekend, we made up for lost time. Savannah obliged by rolling out a pair of warm days and sultry evenings, perfect for strolling the brick-paved walks of this gracious southern city. 

I’m here to see people not scenery, but the place has wowed me just the same. 

The Low Country

The Low Country

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There was one point in yesterday’s drive when the GPS inexplicably sent us off on a 17-mile detour, presumably because of a traffic jam ahead.

Whether or not this was necessary — or a wild goose chase — may never be known. But though it had already been a long trip and I was more than ready to be done with it, I tried to take in the surroundings, to feel the flatness of the land and the nearness of the water.

It was only then, during that brief sojourn away from the buzz and roar of I-95, that I felt I was truly in the low country.