Category Travel

Entries 15 Total

Of Paradise Terrestre, Two Years Hence

Jul 9, ’08 9:53 PM

Next Monday — Bastille Day — marks two years since I packed up and moved north to San Juan Island. Much has changed in my life in the ensuing two years, but much that is important to me has stayed the same. Indeed, I feel increasingly as if I live and belong here, at long last.

Each spring, as I have for years now, I re-read Lawrence Durrell’s Reflections of a Marine Venus, whose opening page speaks so directly to me:

Somewhere among the notebooks of Gideon I once found a list of diseases as yet unclassified by medical science, and among these there occurred the word Islomania, which was described as a rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit. There are people, as Gideon used to say, by way of explanation, who find islands somehow irrestistable. The mere knowledge that the are on an island, a little world surrounded by the sea, fills them with an indescribable intoxication….But like all Gideon’s theories it was an ingenious one. I recall how it was debated by candlelight in the Villa Cleobolus until the moon went down on the debate, and Gideon’s contentions were muffed in his yawns; until Hoyle began to tap his spectacles upon his thumbnail of his left hand, which was his way of starting to say goodnight….Yet the word stuck; and though Hoyle refused its application to any but Aegean islands….we all of us, by tacit admission, knew ourselves to be ‘islomanes.’

Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus

As I said, though the island provides constancy, friendship, and an abiding sense of peace and belonging, much has changed. I now travel down to Seattle on a weekly basis, to work at Gridnetworks and the UW campus. I gladly spend time in Seattle when it means I can see friends, family, and most especially T.

This weekend, in celebration of this anniversary in my life, I’ve invited friends and family to come up to the island, mingle with new Island friends, and eat terrific food and drink good wine. July in the islands seems to call for outdoor living and dining on the deck, as well as greater-than-ordinary culinary efforts. So I’m smoking and grilling a whole wild boar, from Broken Arrow Ranch in Texas, Cuban-style, and serving it with cuban black beans, rice, and fried plantains, accompanied by good rose, Chablis, and various red wines. I finished the fire pit for the boar roast today, and I’ll post pictures later this weekend. More soon.

Comments (3)

Remembering Marc

Oct 7, ’07 8:06 AM

My friend Marc Olson died two weeks ago.  Although his funeral was well attended by family and friends, the process of remembering and honoring those who pass doesn’t stop there.  Marc and I knew each other for about a decade, brought together by a shared love of wine and food and cooking, but we also worked in the same business (once even at the same company, briefly) and our conversations over the years ranged widely. 

Marcpeterhermitage1999

The picture shown here (Marc is on the right) is from our first trip to France together, in the autumn of 1999.  Marc, myself, and Peter Glidden met up in Lyons and drove down the Rhone River, eating terrific food, drinking amazing wine, and getting to know winemakers.  In the picture, we’re standing on a hill on the west bank of the Rhone River, looking across to the Hermitage hill and vineyards, where the Rhone makes a bend and exposes the steep rocky vineyards to wind and sun, causing the Syrah to struggle and thus gain complexity beyond that normally seen in southern or especially domestic wines.  Hermitage was Marc’s "home" in the wine world.

This trip was our first visit to the cellars of Jean-Louis Chave, the incomparable maker of Hermitage, St. Joseph, vin de Paille, and now the Mon Coeur Cotes du Rhone.  Our first dinner together on that trip, at Le Beau Rivage in Condrieu, was terrific, but merely a taste of things to come.  While staying at Les Florets in Gigondas, we nearly plunged our mini-van off the narrow, steep road leading up the Dentelles de Montmirail, and had to be pulled back onto the road.  The car was insured, but its cargo of wines was not, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. 

But our best evening was at the end of our trip, with dinner at Beaugraviere, in Mondragon.  Beaugraviere, a classic French country restaurant run by chef Guy Jullien, makes a particular specialty of truffles, and at the time had the most spectacular wine list I’d ever seen.  Each of us, as wine enthusiasts, was given a weighty novel-sized book, with each page listing a different producer, with a long list of the vintages available.  Marc, Peter, and I read in silence for minutes, each compiling a list of likely candidates.  Most of the bottles hadn’t moved since their purchase or release, meaning that old vintages from the 50′s, 60′s or older would still be in pristine condition.  Our choices, to complement Jullien’s cuisine, were the 1978 Guigal La Landonne to start, the incomparable 1961 Jaboulet La Chapelle, and an incredibly rare bottle of 1929 Chave Hermitage.  The three of us couldn’t believe our luck in having such an amazing ending to our trip.   After the restaurant closed, we sat and shared the last of our wines with Jullien, who broke out an amazing and rare oddity — a sweet marc (or grappa) made by Chateau Rayas in 1945 but never commercially released.  A perfect end to our trip together. 

Given busy lives and responsibilities, we didn’t see each other as often as we’d have liked, although oddly enough my moving to San Juan Island and Marc’s plane crash earlier this summer brought us together much more lately than otherwise would have been the case, and I’m grateful for that.   Several times lately, I’ve found myself reading something and thinking, "I should send this to Marc."  But our conversations are done now, and Marc lives now in the memories of his friends and family.  These will be memories of energy and exuberance and a passion for life.  None of us who knew and loved him will easily or quickly forget how he brought all of these qualities into our lives in abundance.

Comments (1)

Fire in the Sky Redux

May 31, ’07 6:43 PM

Most of the time when launching a big rocket, like we did over the weekend at Fire in the Sky, Copyright 2007 Linda LantzyI don’t have time to get decent photos.  The entire flight often lasts less than a minute, and during the descent you’re mostly busy trying to triangulate where it’s coming down, taking bearings and trying to estimate distances, so you can narrow down the area of weeds, grass, or sagebrush you’ll be trudging through later on.
 

So I didn’t get any pictures of my Giant Leap Elipse coming down, under the TAC-1 parachute, but another spectator at FITS did, and here it is!  The TAC-1 chute is big, and with anything smaller than a 3 inch airframe it wouldn’t even fit into the tube, but it’s strong and did a great (and almost as  importantly, visible) job of bringing down the rocket.  The small triangle you can see in the photo is a folded hexagon of Nomex cloth, which protects the chute from the heat of motor ejection while stuffed into the body of the rocket.  Much harder to see is the long Kevlar cord which ties together the two sections of the rocket, along with the steel quick-links (like small locking carabiners) that connect all the bits together. 

NOTE:  The photograph here is (c) 2007 Linda Lantzy, and is not covered by the Creative Commons License which governs other content on this website.  See Linda’s PhotoShelter site for licensing information.

Comments Off

Fire in the Sky 2007

May 28, ’07 10:29 AM

I just got home from Fire in the Sky 2007 in Mansfield, WA.  FITS is Washington Aerospace’s spring high-power rocket launch, drawing folks from all over the western U.S. for three days of launches and extreme engineering geekiness. 

My friend Bill Barnes and I both tried for, and achieved, our NAR Level 1 certifications, allowing us to build and fly rockets requiring motors with more than 62.5 grams of propellant, and giving between 160 and 640 Newton-seconds of total impulse.  I flew the PML Phobos, with a 29mm motor adapter in the 38mm motor mount, to accomodate the H128W motors we used for certification.  Both of our flights went picture-perfect with motor ejection; I used a 36" chute with central spill-hole to bring the rocket down gently but fast and straight.  I don’t have a good picture of the Phobos launch, unfortunately — the H128W took it off the pad faster than I could hit the shutter release.  But Bill and Susan might have video of both our cert flights, so that might be forthcoming when we can get it transferred.

After trudging through the sagebrush and getting woozy from too little water, too much sun, and no
food, I recovered theDsc_0010 Phobos (with spotting help from Bill – thanks!) and we completed our cert. 

At this point, since I was covered by Kent Newman’s LEUP (thanks!), I was able to fly the Giant Leap Elipse.  In order to get the CG properly positioned about 4 inches ahead of the CP (center of pressure), I had to load fishing weights (and a couple of extra AA batteries) into the nose cone.  With the 48" TAC-1 parachute, MC2 flight computer, and a 38mm I357 motor, the Elipse weighed in at 7.5 pounds or so — a heavy rocket but the I357 had plenty of punch to get it off the pad The Aerotech I357 generates a total of 342 Newton-seconds of impulse, with a peak thrust of 432.8 Newtons.  As a comparison, if you’ve used the black-powder Estes model rocket motors, the D12 delivers a total of 16.8 Newton-seconds of impulse, and 29.7N maximum thrust — so the I357 is delivers about 20x more thrust than a D12.   

The Elipse launched perfectly and the TAC-1 chute was easily visible in red and black against the clouds.  I managed a picture of the launch itself (shown here, click for a bigger version), which generated a fairly impressive smoke trail and nozzle flame.  To get a sense of scale for this picture, the Elipse is 6.5 feet tall and 3 inches in diameter.  Recovery was easy since it drifted back towards the pads.  I’m thrilled at how the weekend went, and eager to build something new for August or October. 

Comments Off

SAA Meetings in Austin

May 3, ’07 10:22 AM

Last week, I attended the Society for American Archaeology conference in Austin, for the first time in several years. Austin was a great town for the conference, but sad to say I didn’t get any truly good BBQ. IronWorks was OK, and Stubbs was fine for lunch, but we didn’t have a rental car this time and Salt Lick was out of reach. Despite this, we had a great time, and I caught up with folks I hadn’t seen in years, like Chris Pierce, who’s working on semantic web database technology, Terry Hunt, Lee Lyman, and many others.

Poster sessions were terrific this year, with plenty of space to walk around and see everything; increasingly I find that spoken talks are much less interesting, particularly when people have few slides and read their written-out talks in a flat monotone. How do people expect to convince or interest an audience without a strong presentation style?

Among the interesting papers I saw were two papers on costly signaling theory by Aimee Plourde (of UCL), and Jillian Galle (Monticello). Another paper by Colin Quinn and Ian Kuijt on signaling in the Natufian was also interesting, but I need to see a written copy to follow their argument on how they link Natufian burial behavior to costly signaling.

Comments Off

Of Paradise Terrestre

Jul 14, ’06 9:45 PM

Very early this morning, I steered my very over-loaded Land Rover, stuffed to the gills with bedding, temporary deck furniture, books, network gear, half a case of wine (and glasses!), coffee-making apparatus, and a couple of shorts and shirts northward, to take possession of the house on San Juan Island. 

I felt a deep sense of coming "home" upon driving from Friday Harbor to the house.  I’d worked up here as an archaeologist (and student) in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, and this island (in particular) had a strong effect on my emotional geography.  The islands have loomed, throughout the intervening years, as my unrequited "paradise terrestre."  I think I became, to quote Lawrence Durrell, an "islomane":

Somewhere among the notebooks of Gideon I once found a list of diseases as yet unclassified by medical science, and among these there occurred the word Islomania, which was described as a rare but by no means unknown affliction of spirit.  There are people, as Gideon used to say, by way of explanation, who find islands somehow irrestistable.  The mere knowledge that the are on an island, a little world surrounded by the sea, fills them with an indescribable intoxication….But like all Gideon’s theories it was an ingenious one.  I recall how it was debated by candlelight in the Villa Cleobolus until the moon went down on the debate, and Gideon’s contentions were muffed in his yawns; until Hoyle began to tap his spectacles upon his thumbnail of his left hand, which was his way of starting to say goodnight….Yet the word stuck; and though Hoyle refused its application to any but Aegean islands….we all of us, by tacit admission, knew ourselves to be ‘islomanes.’

Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus

To begin my first day of intensive Islomane therapy, I arrived on the first direct ferry of the morning, along with a gaggle (herd?) of tourists including about a zillion teenagers bound for some kind of camp, and stopped in Friday Harbor for the keys to the house.  For most of the day, Andrew (from Rock Island) worked on getting me Internet service, via their 900 MHz wireless "Canopy" service from Mt. Constitution (I look out to the northeast from San Juan Island) — successfully getting me between 2-3Mbits down and 5-600Kbits up by the time we were done (thanks, Andrew!). 

After I finished putting together a bed and buying a few essentials (soap, toilet paper, dishwasher soap, garbage bags), I had a celebratory dinner at Steps Wine Bar and Cafe, about which I’ve previously written.  Madden and Tawm took great care of me, and I had some utterly spectacular local English peas (served with yam gnocchi, garlic, and a bit of brown butter), and tiny carrots, in a savory vinegar and molasses sauce, grilled.  Amazing.  I could be a vegetarian quite easily with food like this.  Madden started me off with a revelatory Pineau des Charentes, a slightly sweet aperitif made in Cognac from unfermented grape juice halted with Cognac (basically, a vin doux natural or vin doux licquer).  I followed this with a bottle of 1988 Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf from the cellar, which actually needed more air to open up than I thought.  Still great tannins and acidity, and a beefy, iron-and-blood note in the nose, coupled with some spiciness when fully open.  Two hours later I’m drinking the rest sitting on the deck, with red fruit, spices, and definite iron, with less of the beefy/bloody thing as it thins out.
Dsc_0006

We finished with a bread pudding with an amazing mango puree with fresh vanilla beans and balsamic drizzle, accompanied by a Coteaux du Layon (a sweet Chenin Blanc dessert wine from the Loire Valley), and finally a shot of espresso.

I arrived home just as the sunlight turned golden and sunset occurred, and now as I write these words the last glow is fading, behind Saturna Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands.  The sea is calm and I’m left on the deck typing and listening to the occasional sigh of a wave lapping on the beach, so far below. 

A perfect day for a long-latent islomane to return to what has, after all these years, turned out to be not just a set of memories, but hopefully…..home.

Comments Off