Tag: Smiles

Major North American rodeos

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It’s desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state, a place that has some fine rodeos, like the one at Ellensburg, up the canyon, or out in White Swan on the reservation.

This list started out to be the biggest ones, but I’m finding even that can be tricky, depending on the varying measures. And then there are the Best Lists, which laud smaller events like the Reno Rodeo in Nevada and the Pendleton Roundup in eastern Oregon.

So here’s a list anyway. Giddyup!

  1. Cheyenne Frontier Days, Wyoming
  2. Calgary Stampede, Alberta, Canada
  3. National Western Stock Show, Denver
  4. Ponoka Stampede, Alberta, Canada
  5. Fort Worth Stock Show, Texas
  6. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, Tucson, Arizona
  7. Williams Lake Stampede, British Columbia, Canada
  8. Festival Western de St. Tite, Quebec, Canada
  9. World’s Oldest Rodeo, Prescott, Arizona
  10. Parker Ranch Fourth of July Rodeo, Hawaii. Oops, not North America but still in the USA.

~*~

Ever been to a real rodeo?

Yes, I enjoy Midcoast Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The coastal loop of Maine north of Portland but before Acadia National Park can easily be overlooked by many tourists who stick to Interstate 95. Besides, U.S. 1, its principal route, turns into a traffic jam during the summer, which is why we go in the shoulder seasons.

Many of its delights are found along the side roads that reach down its fingers to the sea or inland in the other direction.

Here are a few of the things we enjoy.

  1. The lighthouses, of course. Pemaquid Point at Bristol is a photographer’s favorite, but there are 20 more. Some are privately owned, and many – including the 11 on islands – are viewed best from the water.
  2. Ferry rides are one way to get to the islands and a fun trip in their own right. The state runs vessels from Rockport, Bass Harbor, and Lincolnville, and private services add New Harbor and Port Clyde to the points of departure.
  3. Getting to Morse’s sauerkraut in Waldoboro, leading away from the water, can seem like forever, especially in winter, but when we go, we stock up. This cabbage is nothing like the crap we were force-fed as kids, and the German restaurant and store are treats in their own right.
  4. Moody’s Diner, back out on U.S. 1, is a classic and where I learned the difference between lowbush blueberries common to Maine and the highbush ones like I grow.
  5. If you can, pick a town and stay there for a few days. We’ve done B&Bs in Bath, Belfast, Boothbay Harbor, Camden, and Damariscotta – as well as weeklong conferences in Brunswick – and each town is different. We’d go back in a flash to Camden in the depth of February again, if the opportunity arises. Or if it’s in the summer, we definitely want to visit the lavender farm. You have to walk around to really enjoy each town and its people.
  6. The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockport emphasizes work by Americans, especially modernists – and its connection to the Wyeths and Alex Katz are strong. The museum even owns the Olson house, made famous in the painting Christina’s World.
  7. Bay Chamber concerts have been providing classical music each summer out of the old opera house in Rockport and related venues along Penobscot Bay. It began as the summer home of the famed Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and maintains high standards.
  8. Popham Beach in Phippsburg has to be the loveliest in the Maine. The state park is also the busiest. Get there early, if you can, before the line forms.
  9. The river herring also known as alewives are a regional treat, especially when they migrate each spring. You can see them up-close in Damariscotta … or dine on them, if you ask around.
  10. When the herring run, the osprey follow. The big birds rival eagles in their majesty.

Big things about a tiny honeybee

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Buzz!

  1. It’s about 700,000 times smaller than the average human.
  2. It has 960,000 neurons, compared to 86 billion for a human.
  3. It has six articulated limbs, each with six segments.
  4. It has five eyes. Two of them are compound eyes made up of 6,900 lenses and cover about half of the face, These two mega-eyes sees the world differently. Red looks black, and the three primary colors are blue, green, and ultraviolet. It detects motion intensely but outlines are fuzzy and images, blocky.
  5. Its other three eyes detect only changes in light, as a warning of danger.
  6. Its four wings move at 11,400 strokes a minute.
  7. The wiggle dance tells other members of the colony where a nectar supply is within a five-mile radius of the hive.
  8. Of 20,000 species of bees, only four make honey.
  9. Around 80 percent of all American fruit, vegetable, and seed crops are pollinated by bees.
  10. Its straw-like tongue extends far beyond the jaw but has no taste buds. Instead, specialized hairs sense the chemicals that brush up against its exceptionally hairy body.

– from an article by Natasha Frost at Atlas Obscura

A bit of what I know about Cape Cod

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The flexed arm of 15 Massachusetts towns sticking out into the Atlantic is a unique part of New England. You sense something’s different as soon as you cross over the Bourne or Sagamore bridges high above the Cape Cod Canal.

Here are some considerations.

  1. It has four different sections, and they can be confusing. The Upper Cape is what you encounter immediately over the bridge, while the Lower Cape, or Outer Cape, is what comprises the wrist and hand of the upraised arm. Got it? That always feels reversed to me. And in-between are the Mid-Cape and Lower Outer Cape. Usually added to that are “the islands,” Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, which you reach by ferry.
  2. The Cape is infused with a Colonial appearance, despite all the development since, or at least since the high Victorian era. And it’s definitely integrated with the ocean, on both sides. It often becomes overwhelmingly twee, though the thrift shops can be well worth investigating. Make sure your American flag has only 13 stars.
  3. What people usually think of as the Cape is its far outer tip – the glorious sand dunes and then flamboyant Provincetown. For me, the heart of it all has been the Portuguese Bakery in P’town. Cheap, blue collar, and distinctively tasty, until recently. Portuguese, after all, have long been the fishermen.
  4. The Cape is noted for its lighthouses – 18 still working, last I counted. Some of them are privately owned.
  5. Chatham, at the elbow, has a gazillion big seals – and a shark population that feeds on them. You can get close-up views of the seals at the town’s commercial fish dock.
  6. The sandy cliffs and beaches along the Atlantic run for miles, from Marconi station on up to P’town. You can just walk and walk and walk, maybe returning on the converted railroad trail up above.
  7. Traffic jams are a constant headache through summer, especially on weekends.
  8. The Cape pushes the ocean current further out to sea, meaning colder waters rise up in the void to its north. For swimmers, that means warmer waters on the Cape than we have in New Hampshire or Maine, beginning earlier and later into the season, too. By the way, the Plymouth Bay side is usually warmer and gentler.
  9. Bicycling is big.
  10. I suggest going in the shoulder season, before Memorial Day and after Labor Day. Good swimming can extend through September, if hurricanes cooperate. For the rest of the year, the weather can be weird. Remember, the Cape’s at the mercy of the ocean.

Things that make me happy

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Savoring those rare moments when I don’t feel an inner compulsion to be moving on from whatever I’m actually doing. That is, when I’m free of that old weight of duty kicking in.
  2. As happens in Quaker worship. As well as Orthodox Easter and other feast days.
  3. The North Atlantic.
  4. Birds at the feeder. Or sighting an eagle or osprey anywhere, even hawks or hummingbirds.
  5. Fresh tomatoes or asparagus. Along with other things straight from the garden.
  6. Lobster, scallops, mussels, crabs. The joys of living so near the ocean.
  7. A good poem or novel, especially by an unknown writer.
  8. Musical performance that breaks free of convention while remaining true to the score.
  9. Arriving at a mountaintop by foot.
  10. Loving someone special. Especially.

~*~

Your turn.

What you should know about Dungeness crab

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

In my novel Nearly Canaan, Joshua and Jaya settle into a place unlike anything they would have imagined. It’s desert, for one thing, where nearly everything has to be irrigated, for another. Quite simply, it’s a lot like Yakima, in the middle of Washington state. But it’s also close to fresh Dungeness crab, a shellfish with a heavenly taste all its own.

What you should know.

  1. It draws its name from Dungeness, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula.
  2. It’s not King Crab, mind you, an Alaska specialty, but it is threatened by ocean acidification.
  3. It has five pairs of legs. (I haven’t counted the ones on a lobster.)
  4. It is found largely between Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Santa Barbara, California. But don’t overlook that Washington state connection, right in the middle.
  5. About one-quarter of the crab’s weight is meat. One crab usually satisfies one person, though sometimes it will be shared by two.
  6. It has a delicate flavor and a slightly sweet taste. Don’t ask me to compare it to chicken or anything else. Not even lobster. It’s as different as cod is from salmon.
  7. It’s the State Crustacean of Oregon. What else do they have?
  8. If you go out at night trying to find one with a strong light focused in the water, you can likely rake up one right next to a decaying starfish.
  9. You really can’t get it here, wherever that is, outside of the Pacific Northwest.
  10. If you haven’t guessed, I really do miss them. They don’t travel well.

Mottoes to live by

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Dunno if this counts as a motto, but I still like it: “Duma Luma!” From a private cartoon to me, evolving into an earlier incarnation of my novel Subway Visions. Here are ten more.

  1. “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free” – Nikos Kazantzakis, “Japan, China,” 1963
  2. “Abide in me”– Jesus of Nazareth
  3. “Jesus is the unseen guest in this house” – as inscribed over a Quaker family’s doorway in Belmont County, Ohio, followed by, “He listens to every conversation.”
  4. “The closer we get to our hopes, the closer we get to our fears” – artist Lita Albuquerque
  5. “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for mankind” – Horace Mann
  6. “Mind the Light” – old Quaker counsel
  7. “I make dreams … I don’t see clothes, I see the world” – Ralph Lauren
  8. “Everyone wants to reach for something a little higher. … Part of Ralph’s genius is he understood life’s aspirational”  – Michael Gould, Bloomingdale’s buyer
  9. “Randomness invites the universe to speak” – James Bartolino
  10. “You better be good to toads,” Cassia in What’s Left

~*~

Yay!

We’re all ears for any you might want to share.

 

A few facts about the cruise boat Mount Washington

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For 149 years, a New Hampshire vacation tradition has been the big cruise boat that plies scenic Lake Winnipesauke in the mountains in the middle of the state.

Here’s the dope.

  1. It started out as a paddle steamer in 1872, built by the Boston & Maine Railroad Company to transport passengers and cargo around the lake.
  2. It soon became a tourist attraction, drawing 60,000 passengers a year, a figure that continues.
  3. That vessel burned in 1939 while tied up at dock and a fire spread from a train station.
  4. The current incarnation of the M/S Mount Washington is 230-feet long and has four decks. Maximum capacity is 1,250.
  5. The current vessel started out in 1888 as an iron-hulled sidewheeler on Lake Champlain. In 1940, it was cut apart in Vermont and shipped by rail to Lakeport, New Hampshire, where the hull was reassembled in a new twin-screw vessel design. It was powered by two steam engines (since replaced by diesel) taken from an ocean-going yacht.
  6. There are three dance floors. It seats 500 for dining or serves one thousand for a reception. Two-hour dinner-dance cruises are popular.
  7. It has five ports of call – Weirs Beach, Wolfeboro, Center Harbor, Meredith, and Alton.
  8. The M/S stands for motor ship.
  9. The views include the summer homes of many billionaires as well as mountains and at least 264 islands.
  10. The line also runs two smaller vessels, one of them a mail boat where the envelopes are actually sorted en route.