Eastern Oregon Trip: Thomas Condon Paleontology Center

View of Sheep Rock from the parking lot of the Paleontology Center

It was while we were in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument that we left HWY 26 and turned north on Oregon HWY 19.

I was excited to visit the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, two miles after our turnoff.  I was reading Your Inner Fish for my library book group.  I find the fossil record fascinating.  When I was a kid I had a small fossil collection, several of which were found in my rural Wisconsin back yard.  (I have to ask my mom if that's still around.)

In 1859 Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.  Fossils were the big thing among a certain set.  A minister and self-taught scientist in The Dalles, Oregon, Thomas Condon, heard about abundant fossils from soldiers in 1862, and in 1865 he began excavating fossils in this area. Condon eventually became a Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon.

A few minutes after arriving at the center, a short movie about the John Day Fossil Beds and paleontology was announced.  We learned there are fossil beds throughout 10,000 square miles of Eastern Oregon. The National Monument is 20 square miles of protected area.  The John Day Fossil Beds in particular are very diverse.  Six distinct ages ranging from 7 million to 44 million years ago can be found there. The fossil record is so reliable there that paleontologists around the world "are looking to this formation for correlation."

I'd learned in Your Inner Fish that lava beds were not good places to find fossils because the molten lava destroyed the beings it killed, and that former sea beds were good places to find fossils.  In this case, it was volcanic activity that created these profuse fossil records, but it was mud flow that covered over and smothered everything, and since it was so fast, it was like a snapshot of all the living beings at one time, encased in mud which became rock.

While Thomas Condon must certainly have kept a record of where he found fossils, these days paleontologists can keep notebooks with precise locations, times, and pictures printed on the spot.  In this rich territory in Oregon, a paleontologist can find "an entirely new basin that no one has collected before."


I can't recommend enough visiting this place as part of your visit to Eastern Oregon.  It can't compare to the American Museum of Natural History, but it is chock full of information, and because of the unique fossil record of the area, has a wide range of fossils, post-dinosaurs. Wall murals depicting the animals and plants as they may have looked line the walls (well-done, not hokey as I remember museum visits from my childhood) and the exhibits are displayed as if on exposed rock.  I took a bunch of pictures to look at later but there are plenty of photos and other things to explore at the National Parks website. (I may have more description work to do with those photos of mine, so check back later.)

Eastern Oregon Trip: Kam Wah Chung Museum

Sheesh, I've been busy. Here it is almost two months later and I'm almost done with my travel chronicle.  After a leisurely morning, breakfast in our room, packing and checkout by noon (love that noon checkout time), we left Baker City on Oregon HWY 26 East.  If we stayed on 26 it would get us back to Portland, but our destiny took us north sooner than that.

First stop, the Kam Wah Chung Museum.  Ever since we read Midnight at the Dragon Cafe for Everybody Reads in 2007, I've been interested in visiting John Day, and viewing the encapsulated history of Doc Hay in this museum.  Included in the events for Everybody Reads were lectures on the history of Chinese and other Asians in Oregon.  More recently, OPB's show Oregon Experience covered the history of the museum and Ing Hay and his business partner Lung On.  Video here. It happened to air again before our trip, and my sweetie and I watched it together.

It turned out we couldn't visit the museum except in a guided tour, as too much damage was done when too many unescorted people wandered in the small space. We were lucky to arrive just a little before a tour...just enough time to use the restroom, buy a piece of Chinese calligraphy art, and view the displays in the visitor center.

In 1862 there was a gold rush in Oregon.  At the same time the Civil War was preventing an influx of workers, so foreign workers were relied on to fill the gaps.  As I mentioned before, only men were allowed.  Doc Hay and Lung On left their families behind.

In 1882, no one but scholars were allowed to enter the country from China.  After a certain point, even if they wanted to, the two men didn't dare return to China because they might not be allowed back.  They remained in their adopted home of Oregon.  Doc Hay wrote letters faithfully and sent money, and according to our guide, appeared to love his wife, though it was a traditional arranged marriage.  Lung On, though, was apparently glad to leave his arranged marriage.

I found myself wondering again, what about their sex life?  Did they have any once they moved to the U.S.?  Did they dare?  Could they have been lovers?  If that were the case this could never have been hinted at for the history books.  I like to think they were partners in more than the business sense, hiding their companionship in plain sight.  I also wonder if the sexual revolution has indeed made us more sexualized, and if it was entirely common for unattached women as well as men simply to have no sex life.  Lung On liked to gamble, and both liked to host a cadre of visitors.  I can imagine them smoking, tossing coins, tiles, cards, shooting the shit, laughing at low humor, easing the unexpressed libido through innuendo and crude jokes.

In 1921 electricity arrived in John Day, and Ing Hay got it the first day. One later addition was a bedroom for Lung On, with its own entrance.  This way Lung On wasn't disturbed when Doc Hay received a late night patient, and Doc Hay wasn't disturbed when Lung On returned from late nights spent drinking and gambling.

The grocery was closed down when Lung On died, and the business closed completely in 1948 when Doc Hay could no longer run his healing business. After his death, the building was closed completely. When the building was opened back up in 1969, they found items from the twenties to the forties.  They also found Kentucky bourbon under the floorboards dated 1912-1918...so apparently this catch-all business that served both Chinese and whites also was prepared to be a speakeasy, or provide the speakeasy's liquor.

Erhu, or Chinese violin, on the right

There were pasted red papers with Chinese writing on the walls. I'm guessing this had something to do with New Year's celebrations.

These two men were the only Chinese to remain buried in the town.  Everyone else had their remains sent back to their homeland as their tradition enjoined. Lung On didn't want the job, but he was the one who would dig up the bones and send them back to China.  Doc Hay was buried with a Mason funeral.

 Altars graced every room.



More details and photos here.

Eastern Oregon Trip: Elkhorn Scenic Byway

After shuffling through two museums, we were ready to go for a drive. Our first destination outside of Baker City was Sumpter, Oregon, a little over a half-hour drive. Sumpter doesn't qualify as a ghost-town, but it has plenty of those Old West buildings, and it has a ghost-dredge....a retired gold dredge, that is.

The gold dredge used water to pull the gold out of the soil.  The material sluiced through the moving building, water washing the gold to the bottom of the sluices, along with other heavy materials, and the lighter materials were dumped out the back.  The gold bits mixed with black sand were tumbled in a barrel with mercury-coated paddles.  The gold bonded with the mercury, while the black sand escaped below.  I wonder if the person responsible for this gave the Mad Hatter a run for his money. I also wonder how much mercury escaped into the ponds and piles and the Powder River.

 

This was the last of three dredges built on the Powder River, built in 1935, retired in 1954..  After viewing the dredge inside and out, it was mid-afternoon, and we had a choice: retrace our drive back to Baker City, or keep going on the scenic byway. If we returned, we'd have enough time to visit the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, but if we kept going we'd see walls built by the Chinese, ghost towns, and pass over the mountains. We decided to keep going, and there might still be time to make it to the Interpretive Center. First detour off the byway: Granite.

Granite was supposed to be a ghost town, but it looked pretty occupied, and while the old buildings were minimally renovated, you could see the modern energy-efficient doors and windows. The next stop on the byway was to visit the Chinese Walls, but now that I research, I see I was looking at the wrong thing! 

"The Ah Hee Diggings, also called the Chinese Walls, are sixty acres of hand-stacked, winding rock walls constructed of placer mine tailings. The walls were built by Chinese miners who worked gold-mining claims for the Ah Hee Placer Mining Company along a five-mile stretch of Granite Creek from 1867 to 1891." source, link above

All the signs showed the stop with stone barriers, so I took photos of those, but what this website shows as walls were not cemented rocks, but piled rocks.

Before Granite we went over a pass of 5,864 feet, and after, a pass at over 7,800 feet, and we saw a mountain still a 1,000 feet higher.  The temperature up there was 66 degrees, and when we got to the valley, it was 81 degrees.

We made it to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center just 20 minutes before they closed.  They didn't charge us, though my sweetie donated some money anyway, and they informed us that we could look but we had to be out of the parking lot by 6 pm.

After, we would have liked to stop to see wagon trail ruts near the road, but we had little time to catch some dinner, then go back to Sumpter for our moonlight train ride on the Sumpter Valley Railway.  (We ordered room service again for a quick but tasty meal.) We'll just have to visit the End of the Oregon Trail nearby in Oregon City sometime soon.  More photos of the dredge, the mountain drive, and the Oregon Trail center can be found here, along with further details.

Normally one would ride this train during the day, but because there was a full moon and the Perseid Meteor Showers were expected, this Moonlight Express was scheduled.  Just at that point in time when the next moment I couldn't see, the moment just before that, I saw a deer.  This was the extent of our wildlife spotting, other than birds and chipmunks. After twilight fell I spent most of my time with my head back looking at the sky above. Of course that bright lamp of the full moon didn't help any for spotting shooting stars, but I did see one, on our trip back to McEwan Station.  The 7 mile trip was extended in time thanks to changing of the engine from front to back, so it would be front again after Sumpter Station.  Also, we had cake.  More photos and details here.

This was a very full day.

Eastern Oregon Trip: Museums

First view on entering the Adler Museum

We managed to pack two or three days into one. On our one full day away from home, we managed to see two museums, travel the Elkhorn Scenic Byway, which included several "ghost towns" and a state heritage sight, the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, and a moonlight ride on an historic train.

After our leisurely room service breakfast, we were ready to do some of that walking around and about that tourists do, so first we went to the Adler House Museum. We happened to arrive just as the museum guide was starting a tour.

Leo Adler lived his entire life in this house, was a major philanthropist in Baker City, never married, and left his fortune to Baker County, including his house. Once he lived alone in the house he closed up the entire upstairs, closed up the front rooms, and only lived in two rooms in the rear of the house.  The unused rooms became unheated storage rooms.  In some ways this helped preserve household pieces, as they went unused, but weather extremes probably didn't help, and the rooms were never cleaned.  Leo was a generous person, and if someone said they liked something, he was apt to give it to them...like the unique lamp at the bottom of the stairs.  Leo had given it away to a friend, but museum curators were able to ask for, and get it back.  The butler's pantry did not have a full set of dishes because Leo gave many of those away too.

Leo receives award for good deeds from the Pope

As we proceeded on the tour, I found myself wondering about those parts left unsaid.  Why did Leo and his sister and his brother never marry?  Was it because they were Jewish and perhaps there weren't many Jewish people in Oregon?  Did any of them have lovers?  Our guide showed us a "Chap Book".  I didn't get it right away, as I immediately thought of the usual usage of the term.  She told us young ladies of the day would keep a book like this to keep track of their dates and whether they liked them.  Oooohhh! Chap book.  They called them "chaps" in the day.  It was the size of a yearly diary, and with room for about 5 chaps per page, there was room for a lot of chaps.  It looked as though Elizabeth had many entries, a good twenty pages, though it nowhere near filled the book.  All her entries listed the eye color...blue eyes...brown eyes...but as far as I could see as the guide riffed through the book, no opinions on how she liked the boys.  Poor Elizabeth died at the age of 33 of the flu.  Before that she taught kindergarten in the home.  Were all these chaps unworthy, or was Elizabeth just not interested in that?  Leo too?  Even with prejudice, he would have been a fine catch, but it seems he was uninterested. 

for more photos from the Adler House Museum, go here

Since we happened upon the tour, we took a little longer here than we intended.  Next, we went to the Baker Heritage Museum.  Like the Tillamook Museum, which I am fond of visiting when at the coast, there was an interesting mix of natural history and people history. Whenever I visit these exhibits, it reignites my interest in rocks and fossils.  Among the many collections I had as a tween was a rock and fossil collection.  I keep meaning to ask my mom what happened to that.  I doubt she still has it.

After I got my camera out in readiness, and as we showed our tickets we'd got at the first museum (it cost less to visit both), my sweetie pointed out the sign that said no photography was allowed.  The clerk told us photos were okay, just no flash was allowed.  Good thing, because there was too much to see, and photos help me reflect on and remember things.

The Crystal Palace

I noticed that when you visit small museums like this, the exhibits depicting life back when look very similar...especially the schoolrooms. However, this museum also had rooms that depicted very specific pieces of Baker County history, such as the shop that Leo Adler's father owned, The Crystal Palace.

What might make these little County museums unique are these specific histories.  In Tillamook, there's an entire wall of portrait photos of founding citizens (see Elbridge Trask, immortalized by Don Berry in Trask).  Here, there was a particular focus on mining and logging history, as well as these scenes featuring the histories of specific citizens.  And I wonder, do all these museums have some stuffed animals?  I remind myself these animals would long be dead already anyway.

Coming next, our scenic drive. I leave you with the photo of the model for the film set of Paint Your Wagon.

For more photos of the Baker Heritage Museum collections, go here.

Weekend Treat

I had time to snap a quick photo of my new house color including trim before I left for work on Friday. It looks so sweet. After work I left directly on a weekend out of town hosted by a Buddhist friend and mentor. She gave me a ride, and grilled me on my life so far. She scared me with tales of cabin traditions such as playing games while only talking with fake accents. On the way we stopped for food for the weekend. Of course I had to snap a photo of the library next door.





Her cabin is on National Forest land. She and her co-owners lease the land, and own the cabin. No new building is allowed, and the government agency wants buildings dismantled whenever possible. It's as close to camping you can get with enough of the comforts of modern living: plumbing; full-sized beds; and electricity. The owners were allowed to keep the outhouse because sometimes the water gets turned off. Some things sometimes missed, but not essential: internet access and cell phone connection.

The first night there we played UNO and Clue, and drank Pina Coladas. I messed up the clues at Clue. The next day more folks arrived, and after breakfast and some puttering about, we went on an easy (for them) hike. I didn't plan to do the whole thing because I didn't want to hold the others back, but they didn't seem to mind waiting. A hike for me by definition includes weight training. I've noticed recently that when I walk with others I have to be careful of this. When I forget myself and try to keep up with others I can't get enough air. So I was going to ferry the car to the end of the hike.

I kept going though. When we stopped for lunch, we were more than halfway through. I'm not very hungry in the midst of a workout. Somebody else got most of my sandwich (but of course I made up for it later with snacks, as we all did).

We passed by Enid Lake.

and this big boulder, about 15 feet high. J seemed quite sure it came from a volcanic explosion.

After I got home, I saw this NOVA episode on a Northwest Megaflood. I'd wondered about that, if that had anything to do with the big rocks, but I had no clue about altitudes. Our mutual friend the scientist had told me about this flood that washed down the Columbia River basin. I researched the question, and must conclude J must be right. Enid Lake is 1102 meters high, while the flood at its height reached 170 m. (See page 5 here.) I found this cool blog on Pacific Northwest history while doing my research.

Mango the dog found snow, which made him very happy:

and S found a Medicine wheel which needed mending, so she fixed it.

See the full slideshow and more narrative from the weekend right here.

Wisconsin visit

As I mentioned earlier, it was a dark and stormy night when I arrived in Wisconsin.

By staying in Fond du Lac, I chose to stay in a place I never have before. My mom told me at the last minute it was possible I could have stayed at my grandma's house if we scared up some furniture, but I told her I'd already said my goodbyes anyway. I didn't even visit Plymouth, come to think of it. I had no wish to drive by.

I chose Fond du Lac partly because I got the best deal on a hotel room, and partly because my dad is there now. My mom had been concerned I wouldn't have the time to see her, being so far away from Waldo, but when I called about that, she was busy herself. I would have liked to see her more.

After my frenetic but satisfying New York visit, I was glad to take it easy. My dad called me early, and I told him I would be sleeping a little longer. Then he called again to say he was on his way over on his tricycle. (Pretty nifty, his tricycle.) He wasn't sure I'd be able to find my way to him (he was right) due to street closures due to the flooding. I was just about ready when he arrived. I took him to lunch at Faro's Family Restaurant, located right next to the hotel, and whose parking lot I'd used the night before and hoped wouldn't get me towed, because, you know, the flood had caused my hotel to be completely full, and semi-trucks were taking up parking spaces that I might have used, so I used the parking lot next door. Did you notice that, I ran on my sentence and used 'you know' funny how that happens while I'm talking about Wisconsin. I learned that there.

Then we went driving around a bit, and I asked Dad if there was anything he'd like to do that he couldn't usually do without a car. He wanted to shop at Piggly Wiggly, too far for him to get to normally. I wish I'd taken some photos of the worldly goods damaged beyond repair that had been pulled out of basements and put out on the curb. Already on that second day of the flooding the local paper announced the city would be doing bulk item garbage pick-up. That is something about Wisconsin...the people meet such exceptional needs in a methodical, practical way. Also something about Wisconsin, the people will take all they can get from it. We saw kitchen sinks, bicycles, and many non-flood-damaged items as well as melting cardboard boxes full of lost basement treasures.

We got to see the flooded football field:

I found out later that my sister-in-law Cathy and my nephews also got to see it, that in fact they were in Fond du Lac when the flash flood began. They didn't have any troubles themselves, but they were delayed for hours due to other stalled cars. My nephew Jake got a dramatic video of the water rushing around the cars. I have to pester him to get that on youtube with all the others.

Unlike my many other visits, when my visits with my Dad were relegated to a short afternoon, or in one case, a very short visit before I rushed off to catch my plane earlier than expected, I got to see my Dad almost every day. His creativity has taken a kooky crafty turn, as seen in this tape-covered paper mache hat and this braided-plastic-bag footstool.

More Dad and flood photos here.

Dad told me a neighbor girl was playing with her friends, and asked him, "Are you the mad-man?" My dad said he looked at her, and just gave an expressive non-threatening shrug that he demonstrated for me. It seemed a good answer. We talked about that a little. I think it concerned him that he would be the strange scary mad-man of the neighborhood. I suggested he could say something like, "I suppose so, but I'm not dangerous," and we strategized ways he could let the little kids know that while yes, he is strange, he's nobody to be afraid of.

And that's the truth. He is what you could call the mad man. It's pretty amazing he's survived schizophrenia as long as he has. He's still working on finding ways to live with that in the world. He asked me if I was able to relate to him better than my other family there. I promptly said yes. Even when he was deeply into bible-thumping Christianity, we could still talk in a way I can't really with the rest of my family.

I found out on this visit that my brother listens to right-wing pundits and voted for the frat boy residing in the White House. His in-laws are conservative, and now so is he a bit. I think I convinced him to listen again to Obama, and set aside the biased views he's been fed while he does. Cathy said she would. I couldn't get through by phone, but I decided to take a drive out to their place on the second day, and we had a pleasant evening, albeit smoky. We sat at my grandpa's picnic table, which happened to be downwind of the barbecuing pork roast my brother was cooking for the grad party the next day. I especially enjoyed talking to Jake. Cathy told me later they left us alone on purpose so we could get to know each other better. I do hope the boys will visit me soon. Both artists, Jake and Abe are considering coming to the west coast for college. For now, they're staying close to home for their first year.

On Father's Day, the graduation party. I got myself a little lost trying to find it at the Sheboygan Marsh. This is the first time google maps failed me. You see, it sent me to the edge of the actual marsh, to a dead-end gravel road, nowhere near the other side with the Lodge and the campground. (If I hadn't been in such a hurry I could have looked closer before I set out and seen that on the map.) I found myself back on the road to my brother's house, but of course no one was there. Back in Glenbeulah, at the Citgo station where I got gift cards for the boys, I discovered I was very close, I just had to follow county road P.

So I got there, I finally saw my mom, we visited. I took photos. The boys played croquet, just as they did at Zac's graduation party.



The twins have worked at the Marsh Lodge for years...since before high school I think...mowing the campground, taking care of garbage, etc. The owners lent them the space for free. At Zac's party, Cathy put together a photo display. At this one, not only photos but a wrestling-mat display of all Jake's and Abe's letters and medals. The E is for Elkhart Lake, of Road America fame. Well, maybe fame. I'd be surprised if I have racing fans reading my blog. Abe had a special medal for 100 ?wins ?events but Jake just missed out because he only had 99. Abe, my brother tells me, has the perfectly-formed body for the exceptional runner.



The rest of the photos are here.

I didn't really have plans for after the party, and since none developed, I called my dad and asked if he'd like to go to dinner. I took him to Schreiner's Restaurant. He got liver and onions, which I remembered him getting years before when he took me to the Big Boy restaurant in Sheboygan...now long gone.

Finally, the next morning I visited my mom and her husband before I drove to catch my plane. At least they are voting for Barack Obama. I think the boys might be too. Mom and I went to lunch, and we stopped at a store to try to find a dress she could wear to a wedding.

Their neighbors had this cool bowling ball bug sculpture:

Passing Strange

I went to see Passing Strange when in New York. It came highly recommended by Spike Lee and the only celeb blogger I read, Rosie. (I like her more as a blogger than as a celebrity. That's probably how she'd prefer it.) I thought maybe I could say I saw it before it was a big deal. It had 7 Tony Nominations. It won Best Book of a Musical. Best book? Poor Stew. What do you say to that? He didn't quite know.

I enjoyed it, but there were some things, nothing to do with the musical itself, that made it a less than stellar experience. For one, the theater seats were old, ragged, small, and uncomfortable. For another, I was in the third row (wow yeah the third row) but also right in front of the amplifier, and this was a rock musical. In the big finale, the singers practically screeched, caused feedback, and that hurt.

I've seen enough musicals now that I have some bases for comparison, and I have to say, I can't garner the enthusiasm that Rosie did. A young man sets out around the world on a psycho-spiritual journey, tries to find the "real", expresses his quest through music, and finds the real in the family he left. But too late, or is it too late? I could see how Rosie identified...she often talks about losing her mother as a child...and part of Stew's quest becomes finding his mother's love after she's gone.

He's a black boy who grew up in a middle-class Christian house. Sometimes he presents himself as the ghetto, or as passing for black, thus the title. So while he's seeking the real, he doesn't present his own real self. The real he's looking for is an ideal, and someone points out to him that kind of real can only be found in art. What he's really looking for is "more than real," and that is love, and that is what he left behind when he left his mother and didn't return to visit.

When it comes to a psycho-spiritual journey expressed through a musical, I really like our own home-grown One: The Musical much more. Not that I'm biased or anything. It does reinforce that New York feeling that nothing else exists for them but New York. For me, it goes to show the best art might not be found in New York. (ChezBez, take note.)

I will say I liked the autobiographical nature of it. At least I think it was that, and I liked the way Stew, as an older man, narrated the story, sometimes singing, sometimes interacting with the characters of his past. That dialog of past with present was a nifty sophisticated way to present the story. Also noteworthy was the way all the actors besides Stew and younger Stew switched seemlessly to different characters in Stew's life as he moved around the world.

When I debated with myself over what musical to see, it was between this, or Spring Awakening, or In the Heights. I don't regret my choice, even though In the Heights got more love from the Tonies. Beforehand, I wasn't as drawn to the music. Interesting, now I can't find those videos on the website, and the montage in their place sounds much better.

Brooklyn Museum

I got a little ahead of myself, posting the video and mentioning the adventure I had driving to my hotel from Milwaukee. (Keep in mind I drive maybe 3 miles in a week, on city streets, in the daytime. I hardly ever drive on the freeway, even less on country roads, and rarest of all, in thunderstorms. It was quite the adventure.)

Earlier that day I had time in the morning to visit the Brooklyn Museum. I knew I wanted to thanks to the New York Public Library Blog. Did I mention that already? Unfortunately, I did not have the time to visit the tunnel from Brooklyn to London. That might have been fun, but more so with kids or at least with someone to laugh about it with. I heard about that from the same blogger who told me about the Murakami exhibit.

There has been very little about anime or manga that has appealed to me, so I thought this would be interesting but wouldn't necessarily hit me where art hits me, but it did. For one thing, I learned Murakami isn't just about marketed Japanese pop art, including mass-marketed stickers, but about deeper elements of fine art. One of the first pieces I saw were two anime characters, life-size male and female...he with...oh, just go here and click on exhibit 1. Really, go there. I thought, Oh, those poor inhibited parents who thought this was cartoons for kids. They'll be covering eyes today. The artist says something in the video about wanting to shock Japanese audiences. I saw those jagged white whirlwinds of...er...life force...in an abstract painting, and that bumped it up for me. How often do artists give you clues in one piece about the meaning of an image in another piece? (Maybe they do and I don't know it.)

I was impressed with the threads of Buddhist thought I saw in the art. I could not take photos in the exhibit, but Mr. Pointy was in the lobby.

Mr. Pointy is obviously a bodhisattva, but a bodhisattva unlike any I've seen before. I couldn't wait to share the photos with my Dharma school kids.

The museum has a neat time-lapse video of Mr. Pointy being reborn here.

Other stuff by Murakami made me think, well that's funny, this is Japanese psychedelia. There are mushrooms, distorted images, stuff coming out of heads, heads upon heads (that's also a Buddhist thing) and I liked it a whole lot more than American psychedelic art. I found it interesting there was no mention of drugs in the descriptions. It had to be there though, at the very least, homage to psychedelia. Taken as a whole, when I compare this to my impression of American psychadelia, I get the feeling Murakami is more comfortable with these natural forces of the internal human mind. He depicts them as teenagers. They can be raw, primitive, yet have a childlike innocence.


I liked his Warhol-esque treatments of some of his characters, and I really liked his series on Bodhidharma. They were selling limited edition prints, but the postcards worked well enough for me. Each print had a quote with it, too bad not all the postcards included the quote.

This one says, "That I may time transcend, that a universe my heart may unfold."

Regular readers must know why I like that one.





That wasn't all though. I was there just in time to catch the Utagawa exhibit. By this time I was a bit fatigued. I'd been walking everywhere, including a large percentage of the Met Museum the day before.

I learned in this exhibit that it was kind of common for big-name Japanese artists to create erotica. So that explains Murakami a little too. One that caught my eye was based on The Tale of Genji. Who knew that modern-day porn borrowed from Japanese art with their puns on well-known mainstream titles?

I quickly toured around The Dinner Party and Ghada Amer. A person could spend a day just on that, but I had a plane to catch. Of course I also visited the regular exhibits of the museum. I could take pictures in the regular collection. You can see my complete Brooklyn Museum photo set here. It includes some of the subway station art.




I was delighted to see a print I own in
the Utagawa exhibit. I won it as part of a fund-raising raffle. In the exhibit, I got to see three versions of it at different stages in the printing, starting with washes and ending with detail.

Photos Here and There

I wrote about my first day in Brooklyn. Here are the photos of my visit with Jan to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Do follow that link. This one may be my favorite:

Earlier this spring, even while I was so busy, I found time to go on the river cruise again with my friend and mentee. See more river and bridge photos here. With a sufficiency rating of 2, could this be the most unsafe bridge in the nation?

See why it's so unsafe here.

Back to Brooklyn:
I stayed at the Loralei Bed and Breakfast, and I certainly could stay there again. Compared to hotels in New York, it is cheap, but so much nicer than a hotel. See photos here. There are also photos of the neighborhood. I will be adding a few more of the neighborhood that I haven't uploaded yet. I found Loralei through TripAdvisor. I highly recommend it for planning trips.

I love this Mister Softee scene:

I intended to go to the Guggenheim, but all galleries were closed but one.
That just left more time for the Met. I meandered through for 4 hours. Exhausting but amazing. (Follow that link for a daily featured work of art. I should do that too.) As I did with MOMA the first time I visited New York, I took photos of those pieces that grabbed my attention. Well, some of them. Thank you, New York, for letting us take photos, unlike the museums over here in Portland. I showed my nephew Jake my photos on my camera. He is really into skulls in his artwork, and he was quite interested in this:

Hello, kitty.

More later...

Hurry up and...vacation

It's amazing what you can do when you do it with a higher purpose. In the final weeks of preparing for the Buddhist Festival, I was getting a bit of negative energy sent my way, on top of negotiating some vital cross-cultural connections. That person I was concerned about, well, he takes the cake. And alms. And has an ego the size of a house. Stress and worry dragged me down, and I got a cold. On the third day of said cold, I did all that I needed to do at the Buddhist Festival. Last year I also lost my voice...allergies this time of year just add to the immune system break-down. People watched out for me, but some people, notably at least 2 middle-aged white men who are attracted to Asian temples, gave me undue hassles over abiding by park rules.

A friend told me it's like there's a big birthday party, and I'm the mom. Everybody else is having great fun, but I'm worried about all the little details. Exactly. I do try to find something to experience as just another audience member, but I don't get to experience much of the talks. Regardless, countless people found it a perfect day, even with scattered droplets of rain. Photos here. Don't get me wrong, I am happy I could do this, even with a cold. If not me, who?

The next day a good deal of my cold lifted. For one thing, all that weight was lifted. For another, I used various cold drugs to get it out of my lungs, as well as pineapple. Another tireless organizer, a sweet monk, was watching out for me at the festival, and told me pineapple was good for that. It was. He also said I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and lifted his hands to demonstrate as though it was quite visible to him. I think it was.

I still went to Dharma School. It was the final day, skits by the classes. When I and my girls took the stage, I was delighted when my little friends Sam and Tim pointed and exclaimed, "Look, there's Enji!"

The day after that, I cleared up some of the mess in my house so I could pack, then I packed.

And today, I flew to New York. I took the non-stop flight for the first time (I haven't before because I was afraid of the early morning start). When I got here, I still had a good portion of the afternoon and evening. I apologize to those of you who've heard this a number of times. I decided to visit New York for a couple of nights because I'm visiting Wisconsin for my twin nephews' graduation party. The best airline tickets were sending me to Newark, then back to Wisconsin. I thought since I had to log all that airtime anyway, I might as well pause here for a couple of nights. I was still feeling the cold a little, and body aches from all that busy-ness, and I had a hard time getting to sleep. I got maybe 2 hours sleep last night. I feel surprisingly OK today, but earlier tonight I was drifting off as I was checking my email.

Tomorrow night I see Passing Strange, highly recommended by Spike Lee and Rosie O'Donnell. (Among others I'm sure.) During the day I plan to visit either the Met, or the Guggenheim, or both if I can.

Thursday, perhaps the Brooklyn Museum before I go to the airport in the late afternoon.

Today it so happened my friend Jan, the one who took all the beautiful photos at the Buddhist Festival, linked above, was on the same flight as me. We shared a taxi back to her friend's place right across from the Brooklyn Museum. Jan lived there in the 70s and early 80s. The rented apartments became a co-op building. I don't remember what she said she sold her apartment for, but now they sell for a million dollars.

She took me to see the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. We expected to pay, but the sign said "Free all year." She had stories to tell connected to the garden. When she was a little girl, the Japanese garden was closed due to the war. Her mother would hold her up to the fence so she could peer in, and would say, "When the war is over, the garden will open again."

She and 4 mothers in her building would take their play group to the Garden. The kids would play in Cherry Row. A little 4 foot bank leading down to the cherry trees was their "hill" that they would roll down. Each mother would have the kids 1 day...so that was 4 days that each mother had free to do what she wished. The garden is right next to the museum, and we could see the back of it. She told me that the large addition replaced a hill that they would sled down when she was a girl. We took a photo on her camera, and on mine, of her pointing to her old apartment building. We also took a photo of her on a bench, pointing to the plaque which dedicates it to a friend of hers who died. Everything had little metal plaques, including great boulders. I joked that kids growing up there might think that all rocks and benches come with plaques.

She called a car service for me, and I first arrived at my Bed and Breakfast around 6 pm. Just like on HGTV, my beautifully restored B&B is run by a gay man around my age. I'm not sure if his partner is still involved. I found it on trip advisor, and I suspected the one negative comment stemmed from bigotry. I was getting a bit hungry, and walked to a restaurant from a list my host provided. I couldn't find the restaurant, but I did find authentic NY Italian pizza, and it was the best. Then I had a chocolate dipped cone from the ice cream truck.

I meant to have the photos to go with my day, but I'm experiencing technical difficulties. My computer is not recognizing my nifty new 4GB SD card. I did not bring the cord to connect the camera, so it looks like photos will have to wait til I get back.

Neahkanie and Nehalem Bay

I really quite enjoyed our vacation along the coast last month, but something I missed was the leisure time to walk on the beach. By some dumb stroke of luck somebody cancelled and I won the drawing for two nights at the library cottage. During the three days/two nights there, I got the chance to walk on the beach four times. I've been fortunate to visit here about once a year since Steve and I started going.


There's always something different about the beach. This time there was a giant tangle of seaweed. These things are about 30 feet long.

Somebody left an art installation on the beach:

I like to visit these rocks during low tide. Once upon a time there were at least three, and this the tallest was 4 to 5 feet above the sand, the size of an easy chair. I'm not sure if people truck in sand to replace sand lost to the ocean, or if the ocean shifts sand back to the shore. During high water, the rocks would be submerged. I wonder if I will find them at all on my next visit.

I also enjoy observing the gulls as they drink the fresh water from the creeks emptying into the ocean.

I was particularly drawn to the rocks. Perhaps I developed an affinity after the Shasta Caverns. I was climbing about on the rocks on the north end of Neahkanie beach when the low water tide turned around to seek high water. Whoops, almost got wet.

The sunsets were glorious.

Steve had the neat idea to take photos of details of the cottage that he likes to remember.

I decided to steal his idea and take a few more of my own.

On Thursday, our full day there, we visited the Cart'm recycling center

and the Nehalem Bay State Park, Steve's good idea.


We saw a total of eight deer.

For the slideshow of all the photos, go here. There are many more favorite things, and more visions from the beach and state park. Turn the titles on if you want to see more explanation, off if you just want to see the many photos.