World Chump - Wanderlust

For the grand finale of our tour, Lovey joins us in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia from Washington, DC, where she just had a conference. The dog's tail slaps Lovey's midsection in staccato, Jade is so thrilled to have her back. Lovey took the train from Union Station in DC, and we pick her up at the train station.

Harper's Ferry is an outdoorsman's paradise. Conveniently located at the merger of the two rivers Shenandoah and Potomac, Harper's Ferry had always been a historic site to me, first and foremost. John Brown's fort is right where the rivers meet, and it's hard to imagine that something as violent as a bloody uprising could occur in such a gorgeous area. The building itself was dissembled and moved twice before it found its way back to where it belonged in Harper's Ferry. John Brown's legacy, of course, is secure. John Brown knew fully well he would be hanged, and his martyr status ages well with each year, especially in the America of the 21st century. 

Jade, of course, has other plans. In her canine world, abolishing slavery and a bloody civil war all have their place, but it is paramount that she follow her snout and hunt out any living, breathing creature (dogs, in particular) who could possibly stand in her way of obtaining top dog status in the world AKA world domination. Never mind that the dog was returned to several shelters several times, in the end everybody wants to rule the world, and nobody more so than Jade. It has never dawned on her that there is plenty of human love to give for many dogs, that all dogs don't need to be eliminated to guarantee Jade's happiness. Her happiness will only be complete if she is the last dog standing, there's that chip in her head that keeps egging her on. To Jade, Harper's Ferry is just another place for a million dog sniffs.

From our motel to the fort, it's three miles at least, but the three most beautiful miles you will ever walk. Paths...asphalt paths, beaten paths, mud paths all crisscross each other on a race to the crossing of the two rivers, and here any hiker can choose (or blaze) any path and never go wrong. Once you cross the bridge, you are already approaching a portion of the Appalachian Trail, as if this was even needed around here. 

The population of Harper's Ferry is in the triple digits, from what I understand, and the town as a whole looks as peaceful as it looks prosperous. Because of the limitations set forth by the rivers and the woods, an expansion of the town is highly unlikely...what you see is what you get. Somehow this small town has two vegan restaurants. 

We walk into downtown heading downhill and return to the motel going uphill, which, in the end, gives us enough time to have dinner and blissfully conk out after walking at least a dozen miles. A wonderful place indeed, and something the tourists should remember when they are in DC. When do you get the opportunity to ride a train in this country? This might be your best chance right here. 

Somehow I doubt that there is a town in America with more monuments per square mile than Gettysburg. Depending on the time of day, they look even more striking, whether this is in a fog, at sunset or sunrise. Here, I don't even doubt about the presence of ghosts. The question here is only how many there are.

On our way up to Scranton, we had already missed Gettysburg by the barest of margins. Not today.

Today, Gettysburg has about 7,000 people, and has all of the warm small town feel. A cashier at a gas station proudly flashes a copy of a certificate Gettysburg received for being one of the most livable places in the state of Pennsylvania. People are proud of this place, and rightfully so.

And yet, for all of its charm, that's not why we're here. One of the facts remain that some of the most beautiful places have had some of the highest butcher bills when it came to war. Ireland is one of those places. So is Little Big Horn. Ever been to Verdun? It is chilling imagining yourself there a mere century ago. 

According to the National Park Service, Gettysburg has 1,328 monuments, or one for every six citizens there. We drive up to the Military National Park Museum and marvel at its tasteful installations. Unfortunately, most tours are booked for at least four hours, so we need to improvise. I find an app to download and decide to take Bash, dog, and truck on our own tour. We stop at the place General Lee camped at while he was in charge of the confederate forces in Gettysburg. There's the Shriver House Museum that was seized by the Confederate Army. There's even time for Ike, former president Eisenhower, and his weekend retreat. It seems we stop every 100 feet or so, or whenever there is a new monument erected to commemorate an event or some state's unit. 

We stop and climb the tower at Culp Hill, where arguably the bloodiest fighting took place. Held by Union troops for the duration of the battle, this is where tens of thousands of men fought for supremacy of the hill, which was vital in overlooking the surroundings. There we sit, Jade the dog wagging its tail after making the ascension.

I am trying my best to just enjoy the serenity instead of visualizing two armies butchering each other to death. Worse yet, I have this recurring image of Woodstock, where we had just been less than 48 hours before, of bodies lying in the mud, probably baked out of their minds on drugs, while there are bodies lying in the dirt here as well, uniformed but lifeless. I can't hep but shudder. One of the places is a shrine of peace, the other a shrine of war. And because this is America, of course they are 200 miles from each other and could be visited the same day, were the eager tourist so inclined. 

Although the Civil War ended in 1865, its effects have haunted us to this day. And in the end, you start playing the great what-if games, like: what if we hadn't gone to war? What if all of those men hadn't died? Would there still be slavery in the 21st century? Would there still be this divide among the populace we find now? 

In the end, we realize it was essential for us to come here. We need to remind ourselves that peace is never a given, that there is a Gettysburg for every Woodstock. That freedom isn't, indeed, ever free, whether you fight for it or not.

From Scranton, we drive northeast until the highway morphs into a country road that curls around mountains, woods and rivers. Bash, being a teen, spends a lot of time on his phone, but that eventually bores him, too, so that he reverts to messing with Jade in the back or laughing and shaking his head at our great escape yesterday in Scranton. 

Like the roads, the towns eventually grow smaller. Most of them have a gas station, a family restaurant, the mom-and-pop to go with it, and little else. Like in the South, there are buildings just crumbling apart, the result of businesses going belly up, or small towners breaking the chains of tradition and leaving for the bigger cities. The roads continue to curve and wind through the woods until we reach the famed Highway 17B, the rain still accompanying us.

Like all X-ers, I suppose I was a little in awe of the Woodstock generation. The Summer of Love, Beatlemania, the moon landing...all of this coupled with music that was as fresh as a hippie's daisy. Woodstock itself would set the tone for all music festivals going forward. And to think this could be accomplished on a dairy farm nobody had ever heard of. The 17B itself was packed during those fateful August days in 1969. When half a million people descend on a dairy farm in the middle of the sticks, you just know the infrastructure wasn't built for it. It got so bad that the concert organizers had to fly the musicians in by helicopter. 

We get off the 17B and park. The dog can't accompany us into the museum, although I let her walk and sniff around the concert grounds later. Even without the museum and the new amphitheater they built there, the festival grounds have that magic you look for in certain places, like a certain baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield. Bash and I stop where the stage was and look up the hill. Half a million people...it's as true as it was mind-blowing. For one day, this was the second biggest city in the State of New York. 

The museum, although abundant with tasteful exhibits, doesn't really tell me anything new. This is a place for nostalgia, of which I don't feel any...not for my generation, and certainly not for the Woodstock generation. As a 20 year old, I would have been dumbstruck by the museum. As a grown man with family, I have to admit I am less enthusiastic. How could one generation create something so marvelous, but get everything so wrong? In the end, I feel the Woodstock generation, although it certainly had its merits, was like the crowd at Woodstock. Party, peace, love, and music...only to leave the cleanup to others. In many ways, the country is still reeling from the decisions they made in the years to come.

In the end, it was still a wonderful place where history was made...a beautiful assembly of people who truly believed they could change the world, and actually did, for three days. The music, to me, was secondary and often not that good, quality wise. The fans were the star here, and rightfully so. Even Bash visibly appreciates it.

Definitely worth a visit. My advice is to listen really close on that meadow, and you might just hear that roar of the crowd again. Maybe you can hear Richie Havens madly strumming his guitar as if his life depended on it. You can hear Sly Stone rousing the concertgoers out of their sleep at three in the morning. Or Jimi Hendrix's crushing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. It is still very tangible in the air...not unlike another place we would be visiting shortly, albeit for opposite reasons.

Honestly, who outside of the U.S. has heard of Scranton, PA before? Then double down and ask yourself what you know it for. The only reason I knew about it was that there was a rumor that Andy Warhol had been born there. It turned out a birth certificate produced by some shyster turned out to be a forgery, or as authentic as a painting (or a hundred of its copies) just cranked out of Andy's factory in New York. But that was the extent of my Scranton trivia.

Writers, and later the film producers, have rarely gone on record as to where their fictitious tales take place, even more so when that story becomes a TV show designed to draw the maximum audience. Don't you want a broader appeal? Don't you want people to live in a Springfield, so that each state with a Springfield (or at least a state neighboring it) can root for their own? How about Oakdale? Star City? In many shows, you can afford to leave the actual name of the town (actually big city) in it...the bigger, the better. L.A. and New York stand alone here, with frequent appearances made by San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston. Then there's Pittsburgh. How much lower can you go? Until this day, I admire the producers' decision to have The Office staged in Scranton.

Whenever I watched The Office with Liebi (my kids love it too, by the way), we would hear the music, see the opening credits, and then cheer five seconds into the intro, when the sign that says "Scranton welcomes you" makes its appearance. I kept telling Liebi, "That's me. I'm goin. I am SO goin'." Liebi would shrug, reply, "That makes one of us." I still hadn't seriously planned to go to Scranton until Bash warmed up to the idea after watching dozens of episodes starring Michael Scott, Dwight Shrute, and the rest of the gang. After we decided to go on a road trip the last week of our summer vacation, there was no going back. Scranton, here we come. 

We pass Gettysburg on the way there, but I decide we'll catch Gettysburg on the way back. Pennsylvania itself is how I always remembered it. Rolling hills followed by never ending forest. We roll into Scranton in the afternoon and waste no time getting into town, Jade in tow. We walk around town, and there are some charming old buildings that have lost none of their pizzaz, including the courthouse. We find the Scranton sign in the mall, take a picture with the dog. Bash insists on going to Alfredo's, because he can't leave town without eating their pizza. We look at the map. 1.2 miles from where our car is parked. Looks like a nice day for a walk, doesn't it?

The servers at Alfredo's are fantastic, make a big fuss about Jade, whom they wine and dine. Jade's tail now is on auto wag. Bash orders the wrong pizza (he wanted a pepperoni, after all), but still declares it the best pizza he's had all year. Just when we finish our food, it starts to drizzle. Then it starts to shower. Ten minutes later, all hell breaks loose and we're wondering whether to go back by taxi or boat. No boats anywhere around here, so let's try the taxi services. No dice from anyone, and that's a hard no. 

I shrug at Bash. We'll have to wing it, I tell him. We storm out of Alfredo's like Butsch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, our goal the next bridge about 200 yards away. We make it, but are already drenched by the time we get there, as is the dog. We should have believed the weather report, I suppose.

We take it 100 yards at a time and find shelter in a doorway of The Salvation Army. Again, little by little, bucket by bucket, we make it and then take a moment in the car. All we want is a shower now and a cool motel room, as does the dog. Bash and I can remember many travel destinations, but we'll remember Scranton just as much as the others. We watch a couple of Office episodes before we turn in. 

Definitely worth a visit, although what we'll remember it the most for will be, again, the wrong thing, a rainstorm that absolutely drenched us. Which will be more than fitting for the next day's destination.

While Axl is in Germany for the last two weeks of his vacation, I embark on a road trip with Bash and Jade, our trusted and over eager Pitbull terrier/staffy mix. Liebi joins us for the first, and eventually, last portion of the trip in exactly one week from now. 

From Western Carolina, we need to drive eight hours to Fairfax, VA, our first stop, where we drop off Liebi for work purposes. We take a wrong turn in Asheville, where we drive on the Interstate 40 instead of the 26, a decision that will cost us at least an hour, although our GPS doesn't seem overly concerned. If you need to take a wrong turn, let it be in Western Carolina or Eastern Tennessee. Just one visit here will convince you that you might have wasted your entire life when you could have simply settled here in a log cabin.

Only one minor drawback. We are in the middle of a torrential downpour that slows traffic considerably. Worse yet, we are almost rear-ended in the fast lane when a red pickup behind us is able to jerk the wheel to the right at the last moment. This trip could have ended early, I'm thinking. Luckily for the pickup, there were no vehicles in the slow lane when he was able to dodge our Nissan. Whew. Only less than two hours into this trip, and it already has disaster written all over it. We finally hit the 81 in Tennessee, and catch a break when the rains stop. But no worries, they return the moment we cross into Virginia near Bristol.

One route I love to drive along in the Interstate 81 in Virginia along Shenandoah. Here I keep picturing the movements of Confederate troops led by Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War. With my eyes back on the road, I need a hare, or a car going slightly faster than me to pull me along without getting pulled over, in this case by Virginia state troopers. My hare is a pickup with a Pennsylvania license plate pulling a zero-turn lawnmower on a trailer. Amazingly, the guy chugs along at about 85 for the better part of 90 minutes, we are the hound behind him, and we make up for lost time. 

For people driving from Washington or anywhere from the northeast to the south: avoid the 85 or 95. Neither interstate is worth the headache. More than not, there will be heavy congestion around DC, and not rarely in Richmond and later Raleigh. Take the 81 and enjoy the ride instead of cursing it. I've taken that route to and from DC so many times that I have completely sworn off the coastal routes.

From the 81, I hit the 66 toward DC. There is a big dark cloud over DC that looks like a spaceship ready to swallow the city whole. Instead, the skies open up, and we get hammered again. ELEVEN hours later we roll into Fairfax, a combination of bad decisions and bad weather. That same trip usually takes seven and a half hours. 

I watch a few innings of the San Diego Padres vs Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game, but go to bed early. No tourist activities today, only a long shlep of a trip that has everybody exhausted, dog included. Consider this a tune-up.

On our way back, a couple of boats filled with tourists pass us. I wave at them, while the dog flashes them a welcoming smile. I'm on that boat, too, just drinking it all in. 

No, this won't be a political statement, as my readers know by now. One motto I always follow with this blog is to share stuff that I feel would be useful. If some person reads about a post I might have written about the Dead or Red Sea and got some useful information, wonderful. Admittedly, postings about roadkill are not everybody's cup, but by and large, I believe people get something out of this blog.

Although I mainly write about travel, I also like to write the occasional post about lifestyle, including health. I am in my 50s, and over the years had health issues that included high cholesterol and high blood pressure. These are not conditions I want to keep, safe to say. In my family, we have a long history of people dying of heart attacks, so I am warned. Following more skyhigh cholesterol readings, I finally decided something would have to give and decided to drop all meat...this was about four years ago when I arrived in Frankfurt. You read that correctly. Dropping meat in Germany. This means I would go without the brats, without the schnitzels, without the Kassler. I know: nuts, although nuts actually became a more regular staple in the absence of meat. The result: my cholesterol went down, my blood pressure stabilized, and I didn't even have to give up the good German beer. 

But something was missing. I worked out regularly, avoided the car whenever I could, drank plenty of water. Now, I needed to find a good health routine regarding the rest of my nutritional plan. Too many times, I cheated. Although I wasn't eating meat, Liebi and I would have regular cheese platters, which, eventually, would...see if you can guess. Right, I became a candidate for statins again.

Next, I decided to go pescatarian. I was going to explore all options of being a vegetarian, and I never had anything against fish. So, I would have fish once or twice a week, with me or Liebi cooking vegetarian recipes on the other evenings. Then came the last step. I sighed. I had tried everything, gone keto, pesca, veggie, caveman, astronaut, etc. I intermittently fasted, yet I still didn't feel quite right. Now I dared myself to do the last one, which was vegan. Let's do it.

I don't think the transition was hard. I had lived in Morocco and Jordan and dined largely on plant-based food, which was the best food I ever tasted. But this was different. Now I would jettison Brie and Gruyere. Bye-bye to Pizza. Yogurt. Turkey on Thanksgiving. Not easy. All this in Germany's alpha city Frankfurt, a place with exquisite restaurants, as Liebi and I would learn.

The changes after adopting a vegan diet were amazing. After only four weeks, I could feel the blood running in a body which previously had been...what's the word, clogged perhaps? I was sharper mentally, found that I had become a more productive person overall. People thought I had lost my mind, like I was openly grazing on the living room rug. The fact is, though, is that I drew a line as to what I would feed myself with. There are foods and non foods. Apple...food. Doritos: non food, or junk, not useful for the body. 

In addition, I knocked out added sugar. The results are that I feel like 20 again. 

This is not to say that I won't return to cheese and meats and fish again some day. But why change the diet if I feel the best I ever felt as an adult? Doesn't make sense to me. So I eat brown rice, quinoa, couscous, soy, the whole nine. I tell people not to pity me, and they don't, for the most part. 

That's my public service announcement. Stay safe and healthy, folks. 

Do you know what a power outage looks like in my neck of the woods?

First of all, keep in mind that I live in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In my town, there are three times as many horses as people. The ratio of big trees (by that I mean 60 feet plus oaks, maples, and beeches, among many others) to horses is about 5,000 to 1, and I am being generous with that assessment. How is that for minority rule? 

Now the power lines are hung the old-fashioned way, loosely from pole to pole, the poles mostly made of wood. In heavily wooded areas, these are strung willy-nilly through fields, forests, and mountains, or wherever power is needed. Power outages here, especially during stormy weather, are not uncommon. What's more, it can take a while until you can locate where the power outage originated. If you're lucky, it may be a short drive or hike away. Worst case is, you hike for hours. But then again, the power companies are aware of these things, so I'm sure they can quickly locate where the line went dead. 

A power outage here is easy as pie. This isn't a power outage caused by overload, unlike the great blackout of New York I wrote about a few posts back, but simply the result of a fallen tree branch. The tree branch doesn't have to be that big, either. In fact, I recall a tree branch from one of our water oaks crashing down from 30 feet up, a branch as long as a surfboard and with the circumference of a small plate. With the height, though, the branch was able to completely annihilate one of our garden chairs made of massive wood. Very impressive. In the end, I couldn't tell what was the branch and what was the chair.

The snap of a tree branch makes quite a racket. You will feel a long crrrrraaaack, followed by a swish - usually a branch working its way through and past other branches, followed by a big thump if the branch lands on grass, or a crash if it hits anything more solid, as in pavement, or a house or vehicle. If it hits a power line, the sound will be more stifled, although only marginally. Now what happens when an entire tree comes tumbling down? That's the sound I imagine a big dinosaur would make after suffering from a heart attack. This can be caused by erosion or lightning. Either way, the sound puts your own size in this world into proper perspective. 

In our neighborhood, a power outage goes like this. The crack or explosion, followed by the tree or branch coming down, then the power going out. Simple as that. Then our heavily wooded area really becomes dark, as if it wasn't dark enough already. People shrug their shoulders, reach for the torch, and investigate. Just me, or the whole neighborhood? Then come the text messages or phone calls. Do you have power over there? 

The last power outage was fixed in less than five hours, and I am still amazed by how quickly the power company was able to assemble a crew at three in the morning. Turns out it was a tree that was finally uprooted due to its odd angle. Luckily this happened at night, although it did block the access road to the main highway that takes people into town and beyond. 

A power outage is a blip on the radar in the city...in our area, it is a force of nature and a reminder of how fickle civilization can sometimes be in these parts.

I know. It appears I am suffering from writer's block, although it's actually traveler's block, meaning that Covid took a healthy bite out of the last year's worth of travel I could have had in Europe. In addition, I just left Germany, so it's curtains for Europe, at least for the time being.

To recap, I spent the last four years and three months in Frankfurt, Germany (which is the longest I have lived in one place since 1990, according to my estimates). I did some good travel...and also missed out on some good trips. Although I already knew Germany, it was refreshing to see how the country works up close in the 21st century, while I am grateful that my kids had the chance to experience life in Europe and speak another foreign language.

With that said, here are the five things I will miss the most about Germany:

1. Good, Healthy Food

On most days, I could go to any super or farmer's market and bring home some good, fresh, healthy produce (or bread, or cheese, or sushi) at a reasonable cost. Frankfurt has some fine restaurants (here's looking at you, Heppy Green!) and even more of a selection of international cuisine, that includes plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. 

2. Good, Healthy Beer

Ooh boy. Favorites here include Schlappeseppel and Leikeim, plus Franziskaner (Weissbier)...at 15 bucks a case (20 half-liter bottles!, or five standard six-packs, if this were the U.S.) an absolute steal. Believe it, German beer made Covid lockdowns that much more tolerable. 

3. Hambone

Hambone was the name of our 2008 BMW 116i. A small car, by BMW's standards, but a terrific car with little maintenance and even fewer hiccups. Add to it that I could drive 100 mph on the autobahn, and it's safe to say I will miss Hambone long after I have purchased my new wheels here in the U.S.

4. People

Germans, while on the face of it a little reserved, were often the voice of reason during the past four years. There's a lot of humanity in the German people, and there are certain things that won't ever be discussed (free health care, low college tuition, fair tax rates) during the present election run-ups. In the end, this is a country where liberals and conservatives were able to co-exist, even with the most recent tension.

5. Travel

Okay, so this would pertain more to Europe as a whole, but that fact is, our travel in Germany was quite solid. Okay, so we didn't make it to Berlin this time around, or even to Hamburg, but we got our money's worth out of Europe.

BTW, "tschüss" is the short German way for saying bye. Short is appropriate, as I usually hate long good-byes. Okay, let's see what the U.S. has to offer over the next few years.