Forest Primeval

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
~Longfellow

Yesterday as I was sitting in my car, a nice young man carrying a bow and arrow walked past my tent site, and I was reminded that I had pitched my tent next to a trailhead used by hikers and horses. I waved, as we do in the country, and after a split second he waved too. This morning I woke to a pattering sound, and for a moment wondered if it was raining. Not rain, the sun was out. It was the sound of leaves falling. Today before breakfast I spent a little time exploring the trail behind my tent. You can go up about a half hour before the trail is cut off, for me at least, by a huge tree that has torn from the side of the hill and whose unended roots stick out from a huge hole in the trail.  But the forest was lovely in the filtered sunlight, and in the sound of leaves that kept falling.

 

The vegetation here is slightly unfamiliar, but I can recognize some type of oak tree.  I certainly had to move a lot of acorns out from under my tent when I was setting it up.  The vine going up the trees looks a lot like the poison ivy we have in the northern part of Illinois and Indiana.  They say you should always count the leaves when you look for something to use as toilet paper in the wild.  I would add to that to look up before gathering firewood.

Here are the falling leaves and the sound they make.

Camping

This is my tent.

As you can see, the library is adequate for the journey.

Here are the rest of the accoutrements.

Entrance.

This is a Shawnee National Forest, on the flood pain of the Mississippi River. Bridges here are concrete, they can be driven across when the water is over the road and they don’t have to be replaced every time it floods.

Concierge.
The sign says stop here and pay. At the entrance is a split log fence of the type Abe Lincoln (16th American president) used to make.

You take an envelope, put your money or check in it, and put it in the slot of the metal tube. There is a padlock you can feel at the bottom of the tube for removing the envelopes. Does anyone monitor it (or the campground)? I never saw anyone.

This is the powder room. (For AJP, who appreciates indoor toilet design.)

You will notice right away there is no shower, hot or otherwise. What do you expect for ten dollars a night?

The kitchen:

This is of course what you come for, the marshmallows.

and you make them into s’mores.

I had planned to say here until a) I finished Ulysses, b) I had to be back at work, or c) it rained, but I’m starting to rethink this.  My spider sense is tingling, perhaps unreasonably, but I always listen to it. Last night there was another camper in the campground but now they have left and I am the only one there.  Also last night there were some odd animal cries from the opposite hill.  Wolves?  With fewer people will they be less likely to shy away? Of course it is the ones with two legs you have to look out for…  I may spend the night in the car, and will think of moving on in the morning.

Daybreak

Somewhere in southeastern Minnesota, after a three hour nap in the back seat…

Good morning!

Stone Bridge

There isn’t a mellower bridge anywhere than the Stone Bridge on the Minneapolis waterfront.

The Stone Bridge was my third bridge of the day.  The first was the Washington Street Bridge, the site of several suicides, including poet John Berryman.   The Washington Street bridge is a creepy bridge to cross.  When I drove across it, I thought of falling.  I changed lanes to avoid being near the edge.

Everything there had changed.  First I tried to park by the little house where my college roommate used to live and where I spent so many hours listening to Bette Midler and Todd Rundgren.  It wasn’t there any more.  Instead there was a parking ramp… next to a condo. The little bookstore inside the building under the bridge where I had bought my copy of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’s letters for a Spanish lit course wasn’t there anymore either.  On the West Bank side of the bridge, dozens of shoes hang in a tree.   Don’t suicides remove their shoes before jumping? How many suicides has this bridge claimed?  Is there a pair of shoes in the tree for every soul lost on the bridge?

I had intended to cross the bridge on foot, but now I backed slowly away from the edge, thinking of falling, airplanes falling, bodies falling, the exhaustion that comes after a funeral, exhaustion too profound even for grieving, then, thinking of finality, I crossed the bridge on the inner enclosed part.

After inspecting the metallic pedestrian bridges over Washington Avenue on the East Bank–the last time I was here they were wood–and looking at the metal curiosity that is the Weissman Art Museum, once again I approached the edge of the Washington Street bridge for the return trip.  I could hear the lamp posts creaking in the wind. Then I heard other voices, the Welsh voices that had taught me how to climb on Mount Snowdon, holding onto the side of the mountain with four points, and moving one limb at a time, seeking handhold, toehold, handhold, inching slowly across, aware of danger, aware of more than danger.  My consciousness expanded to take in the horizon, the clouds, the invisible earth beyond all of it.  Then I crossed the bridge next to the edge, looking over the side, aware of it all, photographing it all.

Returning to Seven Corners, where I had left my car, I walked briefly out onto the Plymouth Street bridge to see the location of the bridge that fell, the bridge on 35W that crosses the Mississippi east of downtown.  The vivid sunset did not make up for the discomfort of the bridge, just as the poem inscribed on the lintels of the Irene Hixon Whitney bridge that I would see a few days later does not make up for the unpleasantness of that bridge.  The sunset would be better enjoyed from the nearby Stone Bridge.

I found parking near a building with neon signs announcing “soap factory”.  It was indeed once a soap factory and is now an art gallery.

It’s even better after dark.

Then on to the bridge itself.

Historical markers tell the story of the bridge, built in the days of sawmills and lumber and railroads, to open up Canadian grain markets for the river’s flour mills.

(Everything here is clickable.)

Everyone is crossing the bridge–bicycles, dogs, joggers, old couples.

On the right, upstream, is St. Anthony Falls.

To the right of St. Anthony Falls is Nicollet Island, and a sluiceway used by a power company.

But the best view of the bridge is from underneath, reached by descending a wooden stairway.

Funny, isn’t it, how this is the place where everyone congregates, the place everyone speaks of with warmth in their voices.  Not the shiny places built of metal by famous architects, but the solid utilitarian structures made of stone and wood.  Oh, today you were at the Stone Bridge, they will say fondly, remembering the earth and the trees and the water.

~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE: AJP says the Stone Bridge looks good upside down too, so I have to try it.

And now for something completely different.

The Stone Bridge upside down:

State Fair

Foot long hot dogs.

Coffee grinder attached to bicycle mechanism.  The coffee is, of course, fair trade coffee.

Horticulture.

Seed art.

The best food is here, although the sound from the stage on the right is a bit loud. Egad, I must be getting old if I’m complaining about loud music.

Exit.

There are also cows, horses, sheep–lots of sheep, pigs, rabbits–and yes, goats, but they were all asleep.  The sheep and goats are not together as one might expect–they have separated the sheep from the goats.  Sheep are in the “Baa” building and goats are in the “Swine” building.

Midsommar Maypole at Bishop Hill

At long last Bishop Hill  has scheduled it’s Swedish Midsommar maypole dance on a Saturday instead of a Friday so that those of us who work on Friday can make the trip after work in time for the festivities. (The traditional Swedish summer solstice was celebrated on June 23, but this year the main celebration will be June 27.)

Bishop Hill was a utopian community established by Swedish immigrants in the 1840’s.  It is now maintained by the state of Illinois and is a National Landmark Village, listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Think rhubarb pie, Swedish meatballs, antique shops, concerts in the park, and folk dancing.  The complete schedule is here. Let the summer begin!

Now if only they had camping facilities less than 20 miles away, like maybe at the Colony Bed and Breakfast or the Colony School or (in my dreams) a municipal campground like they have Decorah, Iowa. A long drive in the dark after an exhausting late night barn dance is not something I look forward to.

I will have to settle for Johnson Sauk Trail State Park, which always has plenty of tent spaces in the $10 range, no matter how late you arrive. Yes, I know about Prophetstown State Park, even further away–the “prophet” being Wa-bo-kie-sheik (White Cloud), advisor to chief Black Hawk in the 1830’s.  Prophetstown used to have great tent spots right on the river bank until it was closed by flooding and taken over by mosquitoes.

Single Malt Scotch with Hats

Last night I spent my birthday sampling single malt scotch at a Chicago scotch bar called the Duke of Perth.  Oddly enough, the bar also had both a goat and a hat, odd because the whole scotch thing came out of some comments made by Languagehat on a thread on AJP Crown’s goat blog, A Bad Guide.

The goat I’m afraid was dead, (a mountain goat, I was told)  but the head was preserved on the wall wearing an American  sailor hat.  A matching moose deer head over the bar wears a Scottish police hat.

Don’t let me forget to say something about Ardbeg (no, I didn’t taste it).

Birthday Malt

Last week I tasted a single malt scotch for the first time– and in spite of not being a scotch drinker, fell in love.  For my birthday I decided to do further explorations of the single malt scotch world.

Googling for single malts in Chicago, I discovered that major cities do have bars dedicated to the single malt scotch, and Chicago is no exception.  The place to go is the Duke of Perth at 2913 N. Clark.  I left home at about 10:30, but the traffic on north bound Lake Shore Drive was so bad I didn’t get there until 11:30, with another half hour driving around the block on those impossible north side one way streets trying to find parking. Finally by midnight the crowds were beginning to thin out and I had secured a place to park less than a block away.

I had really worked up an appetite looking for that parking spot, and realizing it had been four or five hours since my last meal, I thought a snack was in order to lay down a good base for the evening’s exertions.  Unfortunately the kitchen was closed and there was nothing whatsoever to eat–no peanuts, no goldfish crackers, and certainly  not the old Chicago standby,  Tombstone ndividual frozen pizza.

The staff had some sushi behind the bar they were sharing with each other, and I was reminded of all the places in the world you can sit at the bar and order food from the place down the street.  Not here.

But I didn’t come to eat, I came for the scotch, especially wanting to try one of the peaty Islay malts recommeneded by Languagehat.

‘There are several samplers you can order to get a taste of several malts at once and this is what I ordered. For $18 I got three half-ounce samples served in tallish snifter-thingies.  The three peaty malts were Talisker 10 year from Skye (pronounced the way it looks), Caol Ila 18 year from Islay (pronounced cull EE-la), and Laphroig 10 year from Isley (pronounced lə FROIG).

Low battery, to be continued…with the Aberlouer (prounounced aber LAUW er) aged in casks previously used to age sherry.

Ontario Sortie

You don’t usually think of Ontario as being particularly bilingual (at least I don’t) but the highway signs are posted in both French and English.

Particularly annoying are a series of highway signs nagging about dangers of the highway. In Ontario, these three scourges are drinking, tailgating, and fatigue. The sign appears first in English, then in French. Here are the French signs warning about death from drinking and tailgating:

Even the population signs are bilingual–but what has happened to the comma in the population number?

BTW, if you’re American don’t forget to bring proof of citizenship: birth certificate or passport. The days of driving through Ontario with nothing but your driver’s license are over.

Why the summit?

Why do the trails always lead to the summit?
True, you can see some nice views from high up. This is from the western side of Mt. Graylock in western Massachusetts, where the Appalachian Trial passes through the state.

Trails in this state park are “moderate”, “strenuous” and “aggressive”. Of course, the one I picked had to say “aggressive” at the trailhead once I got there.  “An hour and a half up and one hour down”, said some hikers who were just leaving as I arrived. The trail looked like it was pretty much straight up. Forty minutes into the hike, I decided I wasn’t sure I wanted an “aggressive” trail. I took my pulse by my cell phone clock, wondering if I should continue, then took it again 5 minutes later. Was I in good enough shape for this?

And why the summit? I have been to the summit of what, Mt. Snowden, Harney Peak, ..there must have been others. Did I have a numinous experience? Was I a better person for having been on the summit? Did I really need to do it again? No, it was a letdown, an artificial goal, a non-experience. Like everything else, the fun was in the journey, not the destination. Feeling like one of Kipling’s characters from Kim, searching for enlightenment, I began the descent and immediately started to enjoy myself.