Back to the roots

"Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains
Shenandoah River -
Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin’ like a breeze

Country Roads, take me home
To the place I belong….."

Jon Denver wrote and recorded this song in 1971, just over 40 years ago. During my teens I took part in a two-week youth camp in the Alps every year. This song was always one of my favourite especially during the camp fires. Yesterday I went with my wife’s teachers group to the area described in that song. On this sunny Saturday we left at 8am from College Park to visit Luray Caverns (a limestone cavern system) in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. For more than an hour we drove through a landscape with mountains, valleys, meadows and farms. It reminded me of areas like Allgäu and Palatinate Forest (Pfälzer Berge) in Germany.

We then enjoyed a guided tour underground and the view was breathtaking. I was so glad to bring my tripod to get some nice shots, which in my opinion are the best way to ‘write’ about these caverns. Remember you can click all the pictures to see them in full size.

The days before that I spent mostly in College Park area. Laundry, grocery shopping and some nice walks were the main activities. My wife was busy with her project, so for me it was good to stop for a while after travelling so much during the last weeks. I noticed that my limit visiting major cities was reached. My soul was - and is still - hungry for nature.

Cities, skyscrapers and museums are nice and I can certainly appreciate and value them. But fact is, they don’t really give me that much energy. When I’m in the mountains, forests or at a lake, it is completely different. The feeling inside me is much more calm and enthusiastic at the same time. I guess that is one reason why I enjoyed Central Park in NYC so much. Nature is important for me. It’s one of those places where I can create positive stress, relax, re-charge my batteries and open up my mind.

Paint Branch Trail, close by our apartment

Paint Branch Trail

Autumn leaves

Autumn at the UMD campus

Luray Caverns

 Nice reflection

Near the Caverns

Shenandoah Valley

The song from John Denver: Country roads, take me home

Chi-town

After a rather uneventful Halloween night it was time to pack the bags yet again. On Tuesday afternoon my wife and I flew to Chicago where she joined a multicultural education conference. My role was - as usual - to plan leisure activities such as sightseeing and dinner locations for the free evenings.

My Wednesday began at noon, I think. After my wife's "silent" departure at 8am I turned around to get a few more hours of sleep. Then I strolled around the city towards Millenium Park spending quite some time at the Cloud Gate, nicknamed the bean. My index finger almost cramped shooting so many pictures in all different angles. Great spot if you want to fill up your memory card! Once I was convinced I had enough photos I made my way towards to conference location for pick-up service (one of my many new-found talents....). Dinner was at Petterino's, great food there.

On rainy Thursday I went to the Field Museum of Natural History. I was exited to see exhibitions of American Indian culture and other ancient cultures such as Incas, Aztecs and Mayas. Then it was time to catch a 3D movie about Sue, the T-Rex. Its skeleton was displayed in the main hall and very impressive. Seeing the giant jaw made me hungry and I grabbed a quick bite although my hopes of a dinosaur burger where not fulfilled. After lunch I went on to the Underground Adventure. It started by walking through a shrinking chamber after which I was only 1/100 of my size. The exhibition idea was to walk through soil about 1 inch below. A earthworm and a wolf spider were suddenly much bigger than me, scary stuff after Halloween. Whales were the main subject of the last exhibition I saw. 

Before arriving in the US I dreamed of a couple of things I wanted to experience during my stay. One was going to listen to some live jazz. So for dinner I chose Andy's Jazz Club. The atmosphere was very nice and the Rocky Yera quartet played two nice sets for us.

Before flying back to D.C. on Sunday night we did some sightseeing during the weekend. We walked through the center, along the shore of Lake Michigan and strolled through the Navy Pier. A boat tour taught us more about all the skyscrapers. Seems to me that in Chicago the architecture is playing a bigger role than in New York City. All in all, Chicago is a great city to visit, very clean and indeed very windy.

Almost forgot: my wife told me that in one shop was a big shoe special day. There were at least hundred pairs of size 14 and 15 to chose from. I was in shoe heaven and tried even a pair of size 17! It was a new experience to wear shoes that are too big..

Cloud Gate, Chicago

Reflections of a bean

Sue

Migration birds

A tourist trying to find out what Marylin Monroe wears..

Chicago 'bean' architecture

Downtown Chicago

Skyline from Navy Pier

Haunted..

New York City seems never boring. On Friday, a sunny autumn day, my wife, my sister and I rented some bikes and drove through Central Park. And yes, this time I saw the ice scaters :) At night we went up the Empire State Building and enjoyed the view. The day after a snow storm surprised us in the morning, so we went to queue for MoMA. A five-hour ride later and the home base in College Park was reached.

Today is Halloween. During our road trip we saw countless haunted houses. Back in our apartment complex we were 'expected' by lots of college freshmen and -women; all dressed up. I saw four smurfs, ms ketchup & mustard, the joker, a few supermans and quite many questionable and also tiny outfits. Yes, it's Halloween! I'm curious what's happening tomorrow night...

                                     ...I'm scared!!!

Central Park

Central Park Reservoir

Autumn in Central Park

View towards Queens

Colorful Times Square

33rd and 34rd street

Rare October snow in Brooklyn

Chasing autumn leaves

Leaving Toronto on Monday, my sister and I traveled along the north shore of Lake Ontario towards East. The next three days were quite busy as we planned to have a look at the Thousand Islands and then go back into the US. There we would see the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, visit the Green Mountains in Vermont, check out the egg in Albany and finally reach New York City by Thursday afternoon.

The autumn leaves near Lake Ontario were mostly gone due to a storm a few days back. However the scenery was really nice and sometimes very Finnish. One highlight were the Sand Banks, a long sand beach with big dunes. Unfortunately the dunes were not allowed to access in this time of the year. Even a local guy we met didn't have a clue why that is. In any case we found a nice spot to oversee the lake during a cloudless but windy sunset.

Adirondacks, where do I start. Of course with the leaves. Same as Lake Ontario - gone. Some pine trees turned yellow though, so it wasn't all like 'naked' trees. The landscape was great, nice mountains and roads winding around them. Again lots of resemblance with Finland. Home sweet home. If I'll ever be back, I definitely visit the Adirondacks again.

In the evening we discussed whether to see the Green Mountains in Vermont or not. So many people told me that Vermont is really beautiful. Weather forecast showed +6 C only and the whole day rain. Luckily we went there yesterday. I felt like being back in Central Europe, it all looked so familiar. And - most important - when getting there, almost all the leaves where still on the trees in so many colors! Even in rainy, foggy weather the colors where shiny. So it felt like we hit the jackpot anyway. The scenic byways didn't disappoint.
After that we drove to Albany, the state capital of New York. There, a theater for performing art was built in the shape of an egg. Interesting architecture.

Today we conquered the last 100 miles to New York City into Brooklyn, where our hotel was and where we met up with my wife. Traffic wasn't too terrible and besides a few close encounters, my nerves held up quite well. Nice experience, once and never again..;)

A rare moment, leaves and sunshine

At Sand Banks just before sunset

Thousand Islands - looks like Saimaa

Adirondacks, New York

Green Mountains, Vermont

Gotta love those colors

The Egg Center in Albany

Ten years, ten days..

Tomorrow we'll leave Toronto and I have quite mixed feelings about that. After seeing the mighty Niagara Falls on Friday my sister and I drove to Toronto, where a good friend of mine lives. I was already a long time looking forward to this visit as we haven't met in over ten years. What made this special was also the fact that he visited me in my hometown in Germany and finally I had a chance to visit him at home. Arriving in town just felt so surreal and it was hard to believe we'd see again. We met him and his wife in the hotel lobby for dinner and it just felt as we had seen each other ten days ago. Sometimes these things go like that...

On Saturday they took us on a 90 minute ride to visit St. Jacobs, a little town West of Toronto. Located there is Canada's biggest Farmers' Market, where one can buy all kind of food and clothing. Mennonites are living there as well, selling their harvest and hand-made products. It was interesting to see them traveling with horse and buggy, refreshing as to all the cars. The only thing I bought was pure maple syrup, yummy!
A stroll around the town center was lovely with the nice houses and we even went to the maple syrup museum. Now we are all experts, theoretically :) A Korean grill dinner and a visit to the 'Biermarkt', a pub with live music and many different beers, wrapped up a nice day.

To be a real tourist for half a day, my sister and me went today by ourselves to the harbor area, took a boat cruise for sightseeing and went up the CN tower, from where we had a great view over Toronto. This afternoon we went to my friends place and after that to his parents, who had us over for dinner. In addition

to the tasty paprika-chicken, we all prepared a typical meal from my home area - Kӓsspӓtzle. It was great fun and apparently also eatable :) After a lively discussion, dessert and sitting in front of the fireplace it was time to leave.

Back at the hotel, we all said our goodbyes and I must admit, it was quite hard. Those couple of days were great and it simply felt wrong to say goodbye - again. So tonight I'm glad that I had the chance to visit the very nice city of Toronto, but I'm also a bit melancholic for obvious reasons. One reason is also the fact that i couldn't share this with my wife, apart from phone and emails.

Today - more than ever - I realize how great this opportunity is for me to have this sabbatical year. I can travel around, see all kind of places and meet up with old friends. Also I have the time to listen inside myself figuring out new, old and perhaps forgotten things and put them into perspective.

Niagara Falls

St. Jacobs Farmers' Market

A store in St. Jacobs

View towards Toronto from Centre Island

Autumn at the Toronto waterfront

View of Toronto

Monuments, Memorials and Mable leaves

I’m sitting in the motel room in Niagara Falls, Canada. Outside it is windy and raining a lot. I just came back from a walk with my sister Andrea having a first look at the Falls. She is visiting us for two weeks and the two of us are on a 12 day road trip.My clothes are soaking wet and I’m still convinced it was worth to get a first look at the Falls from the Canadian side.

Andrea arrived last Sunday evening just after my return from NYC. On Monday evening the both of us went to D.C. to hop on a bus tour to see the ‘Monuments by moonlight’. The tour took some 2 ½ hours during which we had a few stops to get some pictures. The next day we went to see a couple of monuments, the Capitol and the White House during daytime. Finishing off the day in picturesque Georgetown we had dinner with my wife.

On Wednesday Andrea and I left College Park to drive the 300 miles to Warren, Pennsylvania, our first pit stop. There were lots of Halloween decorations countless pumpkins around many houses. Warren is a nice, small town located in the Allegheny National Forest, through which we drove today on route 59 and 321.
The weather has been quite ‘moody’, lots of rain showers, mostly cloudy and a fresh 45°F (7°C).  The scenery was unbelievable. Mostly leaf trees with all kind of shades of red, green, yellow and brown made this unforgettable. At Rimrock Trail a short hike took us to a place overviewing Kinzua. We caught a break weather-wise and it actually saw a tiny but of blue sky. Hopefully we'll have one day with blue sky and sunshine to get those colors even stronger. I can only recommend to anyone visiting that area to take this route. You certainly will not complain about too much traffic. In many ways this reminds me of Finland.

Getting closer to the Canadian border a boring stretch of highway made me start writing on the netbook and download the pictures from my camera. I considered how easy it would be updating the blog online. Eventually I came to my senses and closed the lid. I thought about the insane digital information age we live in.
As internet access is getting easier, people tend to use the opportunities more and more. Have you noticed when riding a bus or train that most of the people take out their mobile device almost right away after being seated? Is it getting more difficult for people just to be? With people being so ‘attached’ to social networks I fear creativity is suffering. I can speak only for myself but I noticed a huge change in my mind (especially for writing) when being longer time away from the nine-to-five routine.

Hey, I should get back to the travel part now. Crossing the border into Canada turned out to be quite easy. A passport control with a few casual questions and we were in. The rest of the day you already know and now it’s time for bed...

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

United States Capitol

Washington Monument with Capitol in the background

The White House

 

Autumn in Pennsylvania

Somewhere along route 321, PA

Pumpkins, did you get yours already?

Niagara Falls at night

Sometimes umbrellas are useless..