Seattle

Here are the hi-lights of a very enjoyable vacation with Mom, Dad, my brother Adam, Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet.

Friday, September 11, 2015.

I leave work in Live Oak, Florida and get on the road at 5:30pm.

I do not plan to make the entire trip to my parents’ house in North Carolina tonight. Instead, I’ll stop somewhere between Jacksonville and Savannah.

I take I-10 to I-295 north around Jacksonville, and then hit I-95 into Georgia.

Usually, I get sleepy very quickly once I begin driving on the interstate. A mocha frappe from a McDonalds along the interstate is a good solution to drowsiness.

To my surprise, though, I am not getting sleepy on this drive. It is probably the anticipation of the trip. Any time that I am going someplace new, an excited energy builds in my body, and I feel more alive.

Still, though, after about three and a half hours on the road, I decide to pull into a Motel 6 in Richmond Hill, Georgia. Across the street from the motel is a seafood restaurant and bar called Steamers.

There, I enjoy a great meal of scallops on a bed of seafood pasta. I also meet some fishermen from Virginia, on their way south. They tell me that they have their own TV show on the NBC sports network called Fish Mavericks.

Steamers closes earlier than either the fishermen or I want it to, but the bartender tells us about a place called “The Juke Box,” within walking distance.

I let the fishermen leave first, amused at how they all pile into the back of a pickup truck driven by one of the locals. Then I walk to the spot.

The Juke Box is filled with smoke, pool tables, tattoos, black biker leather and pretty women. A live band plays, and I enjoy the music. The fishermen and I stay to enjoy the scene for as long as they let us stay.

Saturday, September 12.

I roll out of bed at the Motel 6 around 10 am, shower and head over to the Waffle House, also across the street and right beside Steamers. After a breakfast of ham, eggs, hash browns, and toast I get back on the road.

That afternoon, I arrive in Lumberton, North Carolina and my parents’ house. They are always glad to see me and comment that I appear to be taller. Then mom adds, “Or maybe we’re just getting shorter.”

Mom has a nice dinner prepared. Later that evening, my brother arrives from Wilkesboro.

I lay down early this evening, as our flight is leaving from Raleigh Durham International Airport at something like 6am, which means we have to be on the road to the airport around 3 or 3:30am.

Sunday, September 13.

As always when I rise in the morning, I feel like junk. Even though there is the excitement of this adventure, I want something to pep me up.

Still with hours of darkness before the sun makes its appearance this day, we stop at a McDonalds in St. Pauls so that I can buy a medium mocha frappe. I introduce my brother to one of these as well. He says that he is surprised by how good it tastes. But for the first time that I can recall, the drink has absolutely no effect on me.

We are taking Southwest airlines, and ours is the first flight out of the airport this morning, a connecting flight to Chicago.

A line has already formed to check in the luggage, though it is not a very long one. After about 15 minutes of waiting and slowly moving forward in the line, Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet walk up. They have come from Rocky Mount, NC.

We say hello and wait for them to get through the line to check their bags as well before we all proceed together through the TSA security checkpoint.

Once we find our gate, mom pulls out her Sudoku book. This is a hobby that she has discovered the past couple of years or so, and she enjoys working the puzzles, as does Uncle Jerry. While we wait to begin the boarding process, Uncle Jerry teaches me some basic techniques for solving the puzzles.



Dad has checked us all in early, so we get a good boarding position on the flight. I always prefer a window seat. The aisle seats make me feel a little claustrophobic. We take off in darkness, but by the time we land in Chicago, the sun is up. Both dad and I (and I think mom) are able to catch a brief look at the Chicago skyline coming in.

Soon, we are on the flight bound for Seattle Tacoma International Airport. My brother has a neat application on his smart phone that shows where the plane is over the country, air speed, elevation, and distance to our destination. I wish I was able to see this as well. I am always curious as to what state and towns we are flying over when I look out the window.

I have a window seat on this flight, and I do a Sudoku puzzle to pass the time. The couple beside me is a bit eccentric. The man’s hair is unkempt, and the woman makes random comments (which now I cannot remember specifically). They are both probably in their late 50s or early 60s. The woman is in the middle seat. She does not have much sense of body space, as her left elbow keeps knocking against me.

A couple of hours into the flight, she orders an alcoholic beverage. Kahlua is the liquor.

She only orders one, but quite shortly after consuming it, her head and arms drop, and she is listless in her seat, passed out. A short time after that, the foul odor identical to what I have smelled in nursing homes wafts from her general direction.

But as we near Seattle, a more pleasant experience awaits. We are flying above a layer of white clouds. Out off the wing, not too far away, is a large snow covered mountain. I try to find Adam sitting behind me on the plane, calling out his name to draw his attention to it, but I do not see him.



I hear others behind me on the plane, though, say that it is Mount Rainier. I later learn that they are right. The mountain is the dominant geographical feature of the area.

The plane begins its descent into the city, and we fly into the clouds. The mountain disappears. We are in the clouds for some time before I can finally see land below us. We fly over the Boeing factory and another airport.

After we touch down and begin to taxi to our gate, I spot a hangar for Alaskan Airlines.

The day is overcast as we retrieve our luggage and catch the shuttle to the rental car center, but by the time we hit the road in our maroon Dodge Caravan, it has cleared and the sun is out.

To my surprise, I see billboards advertising places that sell marijuana. Adam informs me that it is legal here.

“Medical marijuana?” I ask, skeptical.

“No. It’s legal out here.”

The family eats a quick lunch at Wendy’s before searching for our hotel, the Sleep Inn. Sea-Tac, as this community is called, looks run down and dangerous, to be frank. It is just south of Seattle.

In fact, when we check into the hotel, the woman at the front desk tells us not to go out after dark. She is very knowledgeable and helpful about the local attractions and how to get around, and spends a great deal of patient time explaining things to Uncle Jerry and Dad.

She tells us about the “light rail,” the best way to get around downtown Seattle. We have tickets to a Seattle Mariners game for Monday night and were planning on driving there, but on the advice of the lady at the desk and the shuttle driver, we decide we will take the light rail. The Sleep Inn offers a shuttle service to and from the light rail, as well as anywhere two miles north of the hotel.

That late afternoon, we take the light rail into the city, to Pike’s Market and the waterfront. On the ride, we are able to see the peak of Mount Rainier, which I also saw above the clouds on the airplane coming in. We do not know then that, even though the weather will remain good throughout the rest of the week, the clouds will prevent us from seeing the peak again.

The weather is beautiful. I am comfortable in a long sleeve shirt, and mom and dad wear jackets.

The sunset is gorgeous, and Adam and I enjoy a meal at a restaurant on the waterfront called Cutters. I have wild caught Alaskan salmon on a bed of linguine. Uncle Jerry, Aunt Janet, Mom and Dad choose to eat less heavily and less expensively at a sandwich shop downtown. But after our respective meals, we meet on the waterfront at the north entrance to Pike’s Market.

The sunset is gorgeous as we look out across Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. We take family photographs with the water and the buildings of the waterfront (to include Century Link Field where the Seahawks play and Safeco Field where the Mariners play, beside it) in the background. If the camera angle was lowered to our feet, though, it would capture that we are standing right in front of a vacant homeless person’s makeshift bed.

Heeding the warning of the lady at the hotel, we do not stay until dark and ride back to our accommodations.

Monday, September 14.

Mom, dad, Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet take advantage of the continental breakfast that the hotel serves. I am usually not a fan of the cereal, yogurt and mass scrambled eggs that these places typically serve, so I skip breakfast along with my brother.

While the folks are eating breakfast, I go for a run.

My right knee has given me problems of late- I guess one of the issues related to age. I cannot run as much as I used to before it starts acting up. By accident, I figured out that the wear and tear is not as bad if I do not run on concrete sidewalks, but stick to the asphalt, which has a little give. I find that this area is not conducive to running on the road though. It is a major thoroughfare which runs by our hotel, and the side streets quickly come to dead ends.

I find a small pattern that is about as good as it will get to avoid traffic and concrete, and repeat the pattern about four times to cover probably a little less than three miles. Still, the fact that I am going for a jog in the state of Washington, in a place that I have never been, makes the run memorable. I go past a tree whose leaves have turned a bright shade of yellow, and I break a nice sweat.

After I shower, we load up into the minivan and head east to check out the University of Washington. I had always pictured the school, which has the same colors as my alma mater, Western Carolina University, as being tucked in the Cascade Mountains the same way that Western is tucked in the Appalachian Mountains.

But U of W is right in the city of Seattle. The first place that we visit is the university book store, which is in downtown on a street right alongside shops and restaurants. The purple and gold gear inside could in many cases be passed off as Western Carolina ware, especially the clothing or items that are simply marked with a “W.”

Because my brother buys some items there, we are able to get our parking validated, and the ticket is taken by a fellow in sun shades with long black hair and a black beard. He looks like he could be a member of one of the grunge bands that were popular in this city in the 1990s.

Next we head into the campus and find the athletic complexes. The baseball stadium and the football stadium are side by side. The gate to the baseball field is open. They have the same artificial turf, with ground up bits of tire rubber that the University of Maine had for its field. The Washington baseball team is there, doing some drills, and we soon find that we are in their way. They politely ask us to leave. Uncle Jerry, who played baseball for North Carolina State University, talks with the coach for a few minutes to ask about their schedule and where they go to play during the cold months when the season first starts.

We circle around the football stadium, as there are no openings for us to go in and view the field itself, and eventually park near the main library. It is surrounded by a large red brick courtyard. The building itself looks more like a cathedral rather than a library, with Gothic stone arches and stained glass windows.



Dad takes some time to read the wall near the entrance that talks about the history of the university, and mom ventures with us into a gigantic reading room lined with what appears to be football field length walls of books.

I could spend the entire day on campus, but I know that we need to keep moving because there are plenty of other things in Seattle, and time is always short on these vacations.

On the way back to our vehicle, I go inside the law library at the University of Washington and check out a classroom and the library there. The law school and the library are small, much like the law school and library at Florida State University where I attended. It is interesting to note that the library has an Asian law section, prominently marked.

My family does not venture with me into the law building, but instead goes to retrieve the van. I know that I do not have long before they will come back for me, and hustle out when I see them from in the street from a window, driving by.

For lunch, we find a restaurant recommended to us by one of the locals, Café on the Ave. I order the seafood pasta.

I have already noticed that there are many more Asians here than where I have lived in Florida and North Carolina. The woman who takes my order at this restaurant is one of the more beautiful Asian women that I have ever seen. She has a spunky personality too, chastising me when I did not take my order number with me to the table.

Unlike with schools on the east coast, classes will not start here until later in September. It must be freshman orientation time, though, as I see a lot of college aged people walking around with the same University of Washington paper bags.

On our way back to the car after lunch, we stop at a used book store- one of mom’s favorite things to do.

I glance through a book on the history of Seattle and note an aerial photograph of the Boeing Factory during World War II. The roof of the factory is made up to look like a residential neighborhood from the air. The caption of the photo says that none of the Japanese bombers ever had the range to reach the American coast, though.

Getting back into the minivan, I notice a crow walking fairly close to us and point it out to Uncle Jerry. The crow’s feet appear to have multi-colored socks on. Uncle Jerry thinks the feet have been painted, but I cannot tell. I wonder what the reason is someone would do that. The crow seems to be unaffected by his socks, though, and walks close to us- apparently hoping that we will toss him some food.

We drive back to the hotel, and then take the hotel shuttle back out to the light rail. Riding the rail all the way to the end into downtown Seattle again, we explore Pike’s Market some more.

Uncle Jerry and mom want to get some ice cream from a McDonalds. I am thirsty and ask the staff for simply a cup of water, but am told that they do not give out free water due to “safety concerns.” They explain to me that homeless people would come in and just want water, so they decline to give out free things.

I also want some ice cream as well as some caffeine to help pep me up because we are all going to a baseball game tonight.

Instead of ordering these from McDonalds, though, I like to eat at local places, not chains. There is an ice cream shop across the street called “Cupcake Royale.” They have some unique flavors of ice cream like “corn flakes and whiskey” and “red velvet cupcake.”

Adam orders a red velvet cupcake cone, and I have an espresso milkshake, which consists of two shots of espresso and a flavor of ice cream called “stumptown.”

It is delicious and gets me wired.

After walking around the Pike’s market area, we take the light rail to the Stadium stop, where Century Link Field and Safeco Field are side by side.

The Los Angeles Angels are in town, and we watch Mike Trout and Albert Pujols take batting practice.

It is neat when we first walk in to see that there are seats with a gas fire going behind glass to keep them warm.

The night cools off quickly, and I do not think that mom and Aunt Janet are particularly enjoying things in their left field seats. I walk over to the right field section and the “Hit It Here Café” to enjoy a meal of Pacific Northwest gumbo while I watch the game.

Adam comes over to join me, and we notice across the field that mom and Aunt Janet are no longer in their seats.

After we finish eating, we walk back over to left field and find that mom and Aunt Janet have retreated to the seats with the fire and are actually ready to leave.

I have to tease Uncle Jerry, an avid baseball fan. “Last time I checked, a baseball game is nine innings,” I tell him.



But the ladies are ready to head back. On the light rail ride back to our stop at Sea-Tac, I enjoy looking at the buildings and houses go by, the lights that are on in each home, seeing people move in them. I wonder and marvel at all of the stories happening around me in this novel place.

Tuesday, September 15.

We head out early via the hotel shuttle to the drop off at the light rail. All the way to the end again, we ride, and we walk to Pike’s Market. The family decides to split up and go our own way for an hour and a half or so and then meet up again later.

I eat breakfast alone at a restaurant called The Athenian. My order is two eggs sunny side up with sausage and hash browns. I have a great window seat, overlooking the Puget Sound. The sun is bright is a blue sky.

After breakfast, I find my brother, and we look at a baseball card shop inside Pike’s Market. I am amused to see University of North Carolina basketball cards. My brother and I talk with the owner for a while. The shop has been there for many years, he says, and I tell him about my collection and unopened boxes of 1991 Fleers that I have in Lumberton.

He shakes his head and says the card industry changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when everyone began making memorabilia and drove the prices weigh down. My Fleers are not worth anything.

I see the Mark McGwire Topps rookie card (from the 1984 Olympic team) that I wanted pretty badly as a kid. I can buy it now, but after McGwire’s steroid scandal, I am no longer a fan.

After the baseball card shop, my brother and I go up to street level and watch some of the workers toss fish back and forth for the crowd.



The whole family meets again, but we break to have lunch on our own. The folks prefer smaller portions and sandwich style food for lunch, but I go with my brother to have a nice meal at the Fisherman’s Market on the water, right behind the big Ferris wheel.

I buy a talisman from a store called The Pirate’s Plunder- a key chain with the skyline of Seattle engraved on an attached bottle opener.

The key chain replaces one that broke a couple of months prior. That key chain was from 2007 and 2008, when I was a graduate student at Western Carolina University. It had a rubber purple circle on it printed with the words “WCU Graduate Student Association.”

The words had worn off years ago but the rubber itself finally tore and broke off of the metal ring.

Since 2007, I had held that key chain and it reminded me of fond things from Cullowhee, North Carolina: The freedom of being a student, the beauty of the mountains and the campus, girls I dated and tried to date that year.

So, it saddened me when it broke. But now, I deliberately waited to buy a new key chain in a place where I knew I would have more fond memories. I think I will always remember that my brother Adam was with me in the store when I purchased it, along with the other memories from the trip. From there, we went to a store next to Pirate’s Plunder and he bought some “Big Foot” gear for his son, who loves to go “Sqwatchin” or hunting for Big Foot in the woods of North Carolina.

We meet with the family again, and dad does another financial favor for me by buying my brother and me “city passes” that include four attractions.

One of them is a harbor cruise, out into the Puget Sound. The day is overcast, now, but not raining. As we board the boat, I notice that the water is a brilliant shade of emerald green. I have never seen water that color before, and it dawns on me that this must be where the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Seahawks get the green that makes up part of the colors of their uniforms. It is not a basic or straight green that they wear, but closer to the shade of the water that I see.

I also now know that the Seattle has the nickname of “The Emerald City,” and I assume that it comes from the color of this water. Later, though, after looking it up on the internet, I am not sure that either is true. I cannot find an explanation for why the water is the emerald shade of green, and apparently Seattle gets the name The Emerald City because of the forests of the Cascade Mountains in the area.

The harbor cruise gives us a good view of the skyline, and the on board guide points out various things like the neighborhood where the fictional TV show character Frasier lived. We also see a number of sea lions in the water.



I get mom and Aunt Janet a couple of bars of “Seattle’s Finest Chocolate” which is sold on board.

After the harbor cruise, we take a quick tour of the Seattle Aquarium. There are some fascinating creatures here, but at the same time I feel a little guilty about paying (or rather having dad pay) to help keep them in captivity. I wonder if sea animals get depressed at their confinement the same way that it is obvious that land animals in zoos do.

We take the monorail, a separate line from the light rail, out to an area called Seattle Center. This is where the Space Needle is located, along with the Chihuly Garden and Glass, and the Experience Music Project (or EMP, a pop culture museum).

We try to go to the top of the Space Needle, but it is closed to the public because of a special event going on inside.

We instead venture into the Chihuly Garden and Glass, which in my opinion should be called the Garden of Glass. The place is an impressive display of the artwork of Dale Chihuly. He creates large pieces of colorful glass in shapes that make them appear like they are part of another world. This is one part of our trip where truly a photograph is worth a thousand words.



After the day’s events, the adults are pretty tired, but Adam and I are going to head out to another Mariners baseball game. It seems to be the most fun thing and perhaps the safest thing to do in Seattle at night.

Because the Mariners are below .500 and not in the playoff race, the crowd is sparse enough that we can basically sit wherever we want.

Before the game, I buy a black baseball cap with the original Seattle Mariners Baseball Club logo on it from 1977. It is an “M” made to look like Poseidon’s trident.

The baseball game is a good one with the Angels winning by one run. Two of the league’s best players, Mike Trout and Nelson Cruz hit home runs.

When I was younger, sitting down for spectator sports often seemed like a waste of time, like there was something better I should be doing. I do not have those feelings often anymore, though. I can remember being stressed out a couple of years ago in my job in Miami, when I had overextended myself, and the idea of just relaxing and watching TV or a ball game seemed like one of the finest things this life has to offer. I appreciate being in a stadium in Seattle with my brother as he eats pizza and I enjoy a beverage, watching professional baseball players play the game well.

Wednesday, September 16.

It is a beautiful, sunny day to go to Mount Rainier.

As we are using the hotel shuttle and the light rail system to get around the city, we consider turning in the minivan and saving some money on the vehicle rental. There is a tour that we can take from the hotel up to Mount Rainier. But the cost of the tickets persuades us to keep the minivan and just have Adam drive us out there.

We never see the peak of the mountain, which we learn is not unusual. The mountain creates its own weather.

I enjoy the scenery and the small towns that we pass through as we head away from the city. The state fair is going on in Puyallup, but I cannot convince anyone to stop. We pull over briefly at an overlook for the Alder Dam, before passing through the mountain towns of Elbe and Ashford.

As we near the Mount Rainier National Park, we go by a red restaurant that looks to be pretty old. It stands alone among the forest of Douglas firs, and I make note of it as a possible place to eat when we come back this way.

Inside the park, we have to rush through a little quicker than I know Adam and I would like. There are numerous places to stop at trail heads that the two of us would like to explore, but that the older folks cannot navigate and have no interest in.

Still, I make it a point to hike down a little way at the Carter trail head with Adam and touch the ice cold water of a river flowing off the Nisqually glacier.



At another stop, Adam and I hike down to a spot that allows us a view of a neat waterfall. We can see mom and dad at the top of the waterfall where the parking lot is, though they cannot see the falling water like we can.

We arrive at the visitor center near the highest point in elevation where cars can travel. It offers a beautiful view of the slope leading up to the mountain itself, which remains enshrouded in the clouds. Off in the distance, we can see mountain climbers steadily making their way up in elevation toward the snow and the cloud bank. A large field of red fern type plants stretches for several acres.



Too soon, we have to come down off the mountain. I am pretty hungry, though. I think about the mountain climbers and realize that I am nowhere near the shape that I need to be in to engage in that sort of endeavor, and I also realize that- at this point in my life, anyway- I have no desire to climb to the summit of a mountain like this.

At my request we stop at the two story red cabin in the woods that I saw coming in. I go inside to retrieve a menu for the folks to look at, and they decide the place is agreeable.

The place is called the Copper Creek Inn. It has been here for many years, and indeed we can hear the creek running behind the building.

The meal here is my single favorite of the entire trip. I have a trout dinner with their special raspberry butter on the bread. The atmosphere is rustic, but there is a beautiful large painting of the mountain on the wall. The menu provides a history of the Inn going back to the mid 20th century.



After we finish eating, I take a stroll into the woods to take a look at the creek itself. When I walk back, I see an alphabet made from what appears to be antlers or sticks, nailed neatly to the side of the Inn. It amuses me as being a bit spooky, like a sign that the explorers come across in the movie The Blair Witch Project.



We climb back into the minivan and exit the forest, headed back to the city. We pass by a horse race track that Adam wakes me from a nap to take a look at, the Emerald Downs.



Once back at our hotel, the men want to head back out to another baseball game at Safeco Field. But mom and Aunt Janet elect to stay at the hotel.

We buy upper deck tickets at $10 apiece from a guy on the street who actually has a business card. Once inside, though, the stadium is empty enough that we try our luck at sitting in the lower deck near the right field foul pole.

Others try the same thing, but the ushers come down, check their tickets, and ask them to move. Adam makes the observation that they are only checking the tickets of people not wearing Mariner’s gear. He already is wearing the Seattle baseball cap that he bought last night, and I put mine on as well. The ushers pass by us multiple times, but never ask to see our tickets.

Before the game begins, we go to the bullpen and watch the starting pitcher warm up. He looks to be Japanese. A fellow in a Mariners uniform with a white mustache stands to the pitcher’s right inside the bullpen. To the pitcher’s left is another fellow who appears to be Japanese and in his early 20s. I tell dad, my brother and Uncle Jerry that I bet the older guy is the pitching coach, and the younger one is the translator.

We enjoy the ball game together. I have a fish sandwich. Dad and Uncle Jerry have barbecue sandwiches, but complain that they do not taste as good as the barbecue they get in North Carolina. That should come as a surprise to no one. I have eaten seafood every chance that I have been given on this trip.

During the game while I am getting food, it begins sprinkling rain. Dad, Adam and Uncle Jerry get to watch the retractable roof close. The interior of the roof is black, so I do not notice it has closed against the night sky until an inning or two later.

The Mariners win the game 3-1. On the way out, just before we board the light rail back to our hotel, Uncle Jerry asks dad, “Do you think we’ll ever see another Seattle Mariners game again?”

“Not at Safeco Field,” dad answers.

Thursday, September 17.

Adam does not want to leave Seattle without going to the top of the Space Needle, and I do not blame him. It is the iconic landmark of the city.

We leave early, once again taking the hotel shuttle to the light rail, then on to the monorail. For the first time since we have been in the city, it rains substantially. The rain does not last long, however, and it is only overcast when we take the elevator ride to the top.

The guide on the elevator says that the peak of Mount Rainier is only visible about 60 days out of the year, and we do not see it on this day, either.

From the top, Adam points out to me where the Seattle Supersonics used to play. We have a fantastic view of the city and the sound on all sides of the Space Needle, and I wish I knew more about the city to appreciate what I am looking at. There is a freight ship out in the sound, and mom zooms in with her camera to take a picture.



Like many other places on this trip, we could spend a lot of time here, but there are other things to see and do and time is always limited.

Close to the Space Needle is the EMP (Experience Music Project), which is actually a pop-culture museum.

The folks have little interest in this place, and spend most of their time waiting for Adam and myself in chairs in the lobby.

The EMP has a lot more that catches my attention than I thought, though, particularly from movies. The hi-light of the EMP for me is seeing Darth Vader’s light saber from The Empire Strikes Back. That movie was the first one that I ever saw in a theater.

In addition to the light saber, there is memorabilia from some of my favorite movies: the outfits worn by Daryl Hannah and Joanna Cassidy in Blade Runner; the metal skeleton of a Terminator model from T-2, along with the arm of the terminator that was used in filming the movie; the guitar that Kurt Cobain played on stage the first time the band Nirvana ever performed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” live; the Captain America motorcycle from the movie Easy Rider; the axe that Jack Nicholson used in the movie The Shining; Robin Wright’s dress from The Princess Bride, and many other things.

The cartoonist Chuck Jones was from Washington and also has an exhibit here, and we look at some of his original drawings from one of my favorite cartoons as a child, "One Froggy Evening."

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I have a nice Salmon burger from Quincy’s at Seattle Center for lunch.

Entering the terminal for the light rail on our way back to the hotel after lunch, I have the most unpleasant experience of the trip. After boarding an elevator to go down a level, dad points out to me that I am standing in a puddle of urine.

Thoroughly disgusted of course, everyone is amused to see me jump off the railing that I am leaning against as well, as who knows what else the guy hit with the yellow stream.

“Why do people piss in elevators?” I ask out loud in irritation as we get off.

“Drunk,” Adam says.

I wipe off my shoes on whatever patches of vegetation and dirt I can find.

After riding back to the hotel, we climb into the rented minivan and go to a place called “The Locks,” where ships come into the port from the open ocean. It is maintained and operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The locks separate salt water from fresh water, as I am told by our guide that maintenance on the hull should not be done on ships in salt water. Salmon also use “ladders” put into the locks to get upstream to where they can spawn.

The guide also tells us of some good places for dinner. Uncle Jerry wants to eat a nice seafood meal in Seattle before leaving. I have been eating this way the entire time, but the adults have usually chosen less expensive sandwich shops and places they are familiar with such as Subway for meals.

At the guide’s suggestion, we go to Chinook’s, right on the water.

I order a couple of appetizers for the table of fried calamari and slices of salmon in a unique sauce.

“You gonna tell them what calamari is?” Adam asks with skepticism.

“What is calamari?” dad and Uncle Jerry ask.

“Squid,” I answer.

“What?” Uncle Jerry asks.

“Squid!” I say more loudly.

The look on his face is the same as when Adam and I joked that we were going to take a detour in Canada to go see Vancouver.

Everyone tries it, but dad sees a fried piece that is the entire squid with the head.

“That’s too much,” he says with furrowed brow.

The food is enjoyable, at least for me. I know Adam enjoys his salmon as well.

Darkness is beginning to fall in this, our last night in Seattle. We have a discussion about how long days stay light depending on your proximity to the equator. When I try to explain to Uncle Jerry how it works in Alaska, I screw up the seasons, telling him that in winter it is light pretty much for 24 hours a day.

Chinook’s is right on the harbor where a lot of fishing vessels are docked. I would not mind walking out among them to take a look at the boats that the guide at the locks told us go up to the waters off of Alaska and do the type of fishing featured on the show Deadliest Catch.

Adam would like to Kurt Cobain’s house, though, and I cannot blame him for that. Nirvana was one of our favorite bands when we were in high school.

Uncle Jerry and the other adults are clueless about it, though, but sit patiently as I misread where the GPS is telling us to go. We then drive a roundabout way to get to the house, and night has almost completely fallen when we finally arrive in the affluent neighborhood.

It is obvious that tourists are not welcome here, the place where Kurt Cobain took his own life. The current owners of the property have let the shrubbery grow tall to obscure the view of the house inside the gate, and orange and white barriers mark the sidewalk as closed right in front of the house.

Adam turns around and comes back by slowly so that he can see it for himself. The car behind us, I am guessing is a resident of the community and knows what we are doing. He gives us a long blare on the horn.

“I know, I know,” Adam says. “But I’ll never be back here again.”

I ask Adam why he cares so much about seeing this place. For him, it is because Kurt Cobain expressed a new type of music- guys who played in ordinary clothes, rather than the elaborate costumes of the 80s hair bands that preceded them. He also felt a connection to Cobain’s struggle with depression, despite all the success that the rock star enjoyed. As our guide on the harbor cruise said, clinical depression is one of Seattle’s largest exports.

After we see what can be seen of the house, we stop in a park in the neighborhood to allow the older folks to use the restroom. It is almost completely dark, now.

The park is actually on the water of the sound, and I carefully walk to the water’s edge as it is becoming almost too dark to see where my shoes are coming down.

A group of mallards scoots away through the water as I approach.

To my surprise, there is a fantastic view of the Seattle skyline across the water. Dad, Adam and Uncle Jerry walk down the grassy bank to take it in with me.

This will be the last view of the skyline on this trip, and probably the last view of the Seattle skyline ever for my folks.

Back at the hotel, I do not bother going to bed. We have to board a flight before 5 am. I go for a run on a treadmill in the hotel fitness center, and then watch movies on HBO until it is time to leave.

Friday, September 18.

On the plane ride out of Seattle, I try to make conversation with the cute woman beside me. She is from just outside Seattle, and is on her way to Vegas for a wedding. But she quickly drops the clue that she has a serious boyfriend.

Our flight connects through Las Vegas, a terminal that I have been in twice this year. Adam and I have lunch at Pei Wei, an Asian restaurant inside the Vegas Airport. Adam spots the plane that caught fire a couple of weeks prior, charred and setting off to the side on the Tarmac.

Taking off from Las Vegas, my side of the plane affords dad and me a great view of the city. We see the entire city from the air, including the strip and where the housing developments end and everything becomes desert. We get a view of the Hoover Dam.

Also on this flight, we recognize what has to be the Mississippi River below.

Coming in for a landing at Raleigh Durham International Airport, I can see the traffic on the interstate is snarled. It will be a long drive home to Lumberton.

We say our goodbyes to Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet and head back.

I spend Saturday resting at my parents’ house and watching college football.

Sunday, I get up early and say a tough good bye to mom and dad, who are going out to church before I head south to Florida.

Wally the cat comes over for a visit from across the street just before I hit the road, and I let him inside. Adam, who will stay with the folks through lunch at least, is left to tend to Wally.

I shake hands with my brother and drive out to I-95 for the run home to Live Oak, Florida.

I hope more of these kind of trips are still in our future.

The Bahamas

A Cruise from Jacksonville, Florida to The Bahamas and back, November 27- December 1, 2014.

I overhear the conversation of the lady in the sauna on the deck of the stern. “My man couldn’t come with me on this cruise. He’s on probation. He can’t leave the state of Alabama!” she cackles.

***

The ride up and down Interstate 95 has become a bit of a grind for me during Thanksgivings. If traffic is smooth, the drive takes over seven hours, one way. But it is never smooth, not during Thanksgiving weekend. Inevitably, the vehicles all come to a complete halt at some point in South Carolina, both during the trip to North Carolina and then the trip back to Florida. A seven hour drive becomes nine to ten hours. 20 hours total of driving is just too much during a four day span.

So this year, I told my folks that I will plan to see them at Christmas, and booked a four day cruise from Jacksonville to The Bahamas.

I have never been on a cruise before, and I have never been outside the United States other than to Canada.



The cruise departs on the Carnival ship Fascination at 4pm on Thanksgiving. The weather is cold and windy. Checking in is a bit of a process. I stand in line, inching along through security, for about an hour and a half. Once on the ship, things still seem a bit claustrophobic. The cruise line serves a late lunch, and it becomes apparent to me that at least some of this experience is like being trapped in a giant, over-packed, floating Golden Corral buffet restaurant.

Many of these passengers look like Golden Corral is where they belong. Fat and boisterous, I watch them load their plates with food to even further pack on the pounds and expand their waist size.

I have come on this cruise alone, with the at least a faint hope of meeting a cute woman with whom I can pass the weekend.

Within a few minutes of standing in the buffet line, though, I realize that is going to be a long shot. I see only a handful of women whom I would care to meet, and they all have husbands or boyfriends guarding them. This is a Thanksgiving cruise, I remind myself. I should not have expected many singles. It looks like there are none my age or any younger. Also, there are a ton of kids on board.

Setting sail into the open ocean as the sun goes down, we pass under the Dames Point Bridge leading into Jacksonville. It is my first time being on a ship that will go completely out of sight of land. A strong, cold wind of 30 miles per hour pushes against the ship all night, and we dock in Freeport on Grand Bahama Island about 45 minutes behind schedule, at 12:45pm on Friday, November 28.

As part of the cruise, I booked what is called an on shore “excursion” through Carnival. I chose a 12 and a half mile bike ride around the Freeport area. Counting the tour guide and myself, only six people signed up for this. That really is not too surprising, given the builds and lifestyles of most of the people on board this ship.

But the bike ride is the highlight of the entire cruise for me. We ride through Port Lucaya, Taino Beach, and Fortune Beach before ending at the Garden of the Groves.

The bikes were pretty old and used, but they got us where we needed to go. The guide sort of laughed at me at the beginning of the ride when I asked for a helmet. He pointed out how flat the island was, saying the highest point is only 68 feet above sea level.

When no one else requests a helmet, I let it go. Once we get started, though, I know every single one of us should have been wearing a helmet. Traffic whisks by us only inches away at some points. In the Bahamas, they drive on the opposite side of the road than in the U.S., and the passing lane is reversed to be on the inside rather than the outside. We also ride over rocks and uneven ground.

During one moment, I catch sight of a tree that I have never seen before- an Australian pine, not native to the Bahamas. It distracts me, and I swerve a little, almost into the path of an oncoming car.

Still, the wind in my hair, the small downhill coasts, the beautiful blue shades of the water, and the feeling of freedom that comes from being on a bike make this a moment that I am unlikely to forget.

***

Night life is amusing on the boat. Kids run around everywhere. It is an unfortunate part of my temperament that I do not like children. I have never wanted kids, and more than one woman has ceased dating me once that fact became known to them.

There are over 700 children on this ship. I cannot walk 20 yards without one of them getting in my way, not paying attention to where they are going. And then the parent shouts, “Watch out, Josh! Look where you’re going!”

The kids remain oblivious.

The only place on the ship where I can find refuge is the Serenity Lounge at the stern. You must be 21 or older to come here. In the Serenity Lounge on the first night of the cruise, I almost get into real conversations with a couple of attractive women. But then their husbands or boyfriends alertly come and whisk them away, and I do not see them in this part of the ship again for the rest of the cruise. I have to smile that, after the first night, on a packed cruise ship, I find that I drink alone at the bar in the Serenity Lounge. There are other bars on the ship where people have gathered- with their kids running around behind them, of course.

The bartender in the Serenity Lounge is who I talk to the most. He is from Indonesia, and will not see his own wife and kids until February, he tells me. He is thin and a very hard worker, just like all the other employees on the ship. Most are Asian and their lean physiques are in stark contrast to the passengers on board.

I ask the bartender if he likes his work, if he likes traveling on a cruise ship.

“It’s a job, sir,” he tells me.

I ask him if he is looking forward to the end of this cruise. To my surprise, the last day of a cruise is one of the hardest, he tells me. There is no break. They have to load on more supplies and get ready for the next cruise, which will depart the same day that we dock back in Jacksonville.

During one of my walks through the ship, I stumble across a break area for the employees. All of them are smoking, and most have headphones hooked up to an iphone. They are oblivious to their surroundings.

The bartender has two young children.

“Do you want your children to come to America?” I ask him. “Are there opportunities for them in Indonesia?”

“I would like for them to come to America,” he answers me, “but not by working on a cruise ship.”

He looks around at the empty bar. “You should come back in the summer,” he tells me. “November and December are very slow months for this bar on the ship.”

On deck at night, the moon is beautiful over the dark water. My room has a TV channel that shows the location of the ship on the globe, sunset time, sunrise time, wind speed and direction, the speed of the ship, and ocean depth.

When I see on the television that the depth of the ocean is close to 9000 feet, I head out to the stern.

No one is out here. The wind blows strong. There are no surveillance cameras. I lean against the railing, trying to fathom that the bottom of the sea is almost two miles down.

I also realize that if the railing were to give way, I would be gone- simply gone. No one would see me go overboard. And I cannot swim. It would be a painful and most terrifying death.

I look out over the black horizon of the water.

“This is really the stuff of nightmares,” I say to myself.

“Isn’t it a wonder?” I hear a voice say behind me.

A young African American woman comes down the stairs from an upper deck.

“It’s a wonder, and it’s a little scary,” I say.

“People can choose to look at this and be scared. But I am just in awe,” she says. “You think you are in control of your life, and then you see all this and you realize: You are not in control.”

I nod my head in slight agreement, not willing to make the next jump that I know she does, that there is a God who loves us who is in fact in control of it all.

***

On Saturday morning, I awaken to find us in the port of Nassau on New Providence Island. Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas.

After a shower, I am about to get dressed to explore the city. I discover that all of my polo shirts are missing from the closet. I search all over the room, but they are nowhere to be found. The only conclusion that I can come to is that the housekeeping staff has stolen them when they came into clean my room.

I put on a t-shirt (the only type of shirt that I have, now) and some shorts, leave my room and go to the first Carnival cruise employee that I can find- a young girl setting up a food bar.

“Excuse me,” I say to her. “Who should I talk to? I need to report that some things have been stolen from my room.”

She gives me a look like I have just accused her personally.

“Sir, you just need to go and talk with guest services.”

Once I find that desk, I try to remain as calm and polite as possible. The man at the desk, a fellow from New Zealand, takes me to the side to complete the report.

“What exactly is missing?”

“Three Polo styled shirts: A red one, a blue one, and a garnet one.”

I catch him almost rolling his eyes. He types in my answers to a computer.

“Do you know the brand?”

“Izod. I-Z-O-D.”

“How old are they?”

“About a year.”

“How much were they worth new?”

“$25-$30, I think.”

I note that he never once refers to the shirts as stolen. He calls the head of housekeeping on a phone, and asks her to look for them.

Once that conversation is over, he says to me, “We don’t call security unless you insist.”

This seems like an odd thing to say to me. Obviously, you have a thief in your housekeeping staff. I do not say this out loud, but I am sure he can tell that is what I am thinking, especially after I tell him that I do not want any more room service for the rest of the cruise.

“We’ll keep this ticket open. Hopefully, the shirts will turn up. If you happen to find them, please let us know so that we can stop looking,” he says.

“Of course,” I answer.

***

I have had things stolen from me a few times in my life, and it is never a good feeling, of course. This has left a bad taste in my mouth about Carnival Cruise Lines, and about the guy who cleans my room.

Stepping off the ship into the crowded port of Nassau, I put my wallet in my front pocket with my hand over it, and try to forget about my shirts.

Bay Street is the main tourist area. It runs east and west. This is not genuine Nassau. Shops like these, t-shirts and jewelry- one can find anywhere (though I later learn the Bahamas is a great place to purchase diamonds in part because there is no sales tax and DeBeers deals directly with the merchants).

I have about four hours before I need to be back on the ship and it sets sail. I decide to walk south, away from the coast, for an hour and a half or two hours, and then turn around and head back.

The walk south goes uphill, and I get a decent view of the harbor to the north. From my map of Nassau, I see that there are several embassies nearby, and I think I spot one- though I cannot tell what country it represents.

The city changes once I begin the downhill walk. Now, I am getting into the area where the native Bahamians actually live. This is what I want to see.

I come to a park with a baseball field. I consider getting my camera out and taking a picture, but then think better of it. Three guys are sitting around the edge of the park, and they watch me. Though it is near 80 degrees, they wear hoodies, with the hood pulled up over their heads.

I know I look like a tourist with my backpack and my bright Florida State baseball cap- not to mention my white skin.

Instincts tell me to not stop to take a picture. Keep moving.

Further down the street, a car pulls into the small parking lot of a shop. The lady who gets out looks at me with curiosity before going inside.

As I walk and get nearer to the business, she comes back out and hops in the driver’s seat. As I pass, she shouts to me from her open window, “Excuse me, sir?”

I turn to look at her.

“Are you a tourist?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“Then you need to turn around and head back in the direction you came. You are in a dangerous neighborhood and you look like a target, especially wearing that gold watch.”

I immediately decide to take her advice.

“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that.”

“Stick to Bay Street,” she says. “That’s the safe place for tourists.”

“Okay.” I nod and smile and start to walk away.

“Love you!” the woman says.

As I walk back past the park, one of the guys in the hoodies crosses the street and is about 30 yards behind me. I am not sure if he is following me, but I think about what I am going to do if there is a confrontation.

The stolen shirts are still fresh in my mind, and the theft is a source of irritation and anger.

Even more, I am agitated and frustrated that things have not gone as I hoped over the past few weeks with a girl that I like back in Florida. I was happy around her. It is particularly painful because I feel like she got to know me well, perhaps better than any woman has ever known me. And then she quite suddenly chose to stop being around me and go with another man. It was and is a shock to my system. It is the kind of pain that drains hope from my soul of ever meeting a woman that I can trust. It is the kind of pain in my body and mind that creates a sort of madness behind my eye sockets… I look forward to when these feelings subside.

Anyway, I decide that I am done being the victim for today. If this hoodie guy comes up to me and demands that I give him my wallet or watch or something, then I am going to forcefully tell him what he can go do with himself. He is going to have to knock me down to get those things.

If the situation escalates and he pulls out a knife or a gun- well, then I like to think that I have the bravado to play out the end game right here. “Murdered in Nassau” has a colorful ring to it for the final chapter of my life. I think I would prefer that ending to something like “Died alone in a nursing home after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s.”

So, I walk along for a little while longer, and then quite deliberately turn and stare back at the guy, trying to make eye contact with him. He becomes squirrely at my movement, and looks down and away from me. I continue walking. When I turn again, he is gone. I make my way back to Bay Street.

***

Now that I only have t-shirts to wear, I know that I need one or two nicer shirts for dinners on the ship. The food at dinner time is my second favorite part of the trip, behind my bike ride in Freeport. I do not eat much during the day, when the food is obviously of cheaper quality, to save my appetite for the high quality evening meal. I have lobster tail once, during the captain’s dinner where everyone dresses in formal attire. And every night I have multiple helpings of broiled Atlantic salmon, jumbo shrimp cocktail, artichoke dip, pumpkin bisque, Italian minestrone, onion soup, escargot (for the first time), steamed white rice, and for dessert, melting chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, or amaretto chocolate cake with butter pecan ice cream.

It amuses and amazes me that, with all this great food on the dinner menu, I watch some families order nothing but loads of pizza and French fries.

I do not want to wear a t-shirt to these dinners, so in Nassau, back on Bay Street, I stop in "Senor Frog’s", a chain of bars in the Caribbean. Senor Frog’s also sells a line of clothing, and I look at a golden colored collared button down shirt made of rayon. The shirt is about the perfect size off the rack.

“Does rayon shrink?” I ask the attendant.

She gives me a warm smile. “No, that shirt should not shrink when you wash it.”

So I buy it for $32 and wear it to dinner.

After dinner, I step out on the stern deck of the Serenity Lounge, looking at the stars and the sea. A pretty woman in a red bikini sits alone in the sauna, and for a little while it is just the two of us. She smiles at me.

Drink in hand, I am waiting for the liquid courage to kick in so that I can go up and talk to her more easily.

Before it does, though, a man whom I overhear is her husband joins her in the sauna, along with another couple. I cannot help but overhear a story that the guy from the other couple tells:

“So they had given me ecstasy. And I had never taken that before. Man, when I got on that drug, I was freaking out. I picked up a butcher knife and was just walking around the house. I knew I was going to cut somebody or cut myself. They tried to get the knife away from me, but I didn’t want to give it up. Finally, they got the butcher knife away and got me to lie down on the couch. Man, I laid there, looking up at the ceiling fan, for seven hours. I didn’t blink that entire time. I was just staring at it. My eyes dried out so bad… Ecstasy’s a powerful drug, man.”

Everyone in the sauna goes on to share some stories of their own drug experience.

I sigh.

I cannot relate to that. I have no stories to tell from a drug experience. In the dating world, I think that makes me a bit of a square. Everyone, it seems, everyone has used drugs, and many continue to do so. It does not matter your station in life. Whether you are homeless or whether you are a lawyer, whether or not you are religious and go to church- everyone has used drugs. The hypocrisy of what I see from this every day in my job is really disgusting. Rich people with drug problems can check themselves into an expensive rehab and are treated with kid gloves. Poor people caught with drugs by the police get prison.

I suppose church might be the best place to find women who do not want you to use drugs with them, but I cannot force myself to get high on Jesus with them, either. And just saying something like that makes them angry and ends any hope of getting along… It is what it is.

One of the waiters has noticed that I am sailing alone. I can tell he is from an Asian country like Indonesia or the Philippines. His English is not the best.

“Mr. Nathan, you should come back on cruise at different time,” he says to me one night at dinner. “Too many kids on this cruise. December will be the same, lots of kids. You should come in February. What is the holiday you have in February?”

“Valentine’s Day?” I ask.

“Yes!” he exclaims. “More people like you on that cruise. No kids.”

I laugh. “I don’t think a Valentine’s Day cruise would work out too well for a guy sailing alone, either.”

My response goes completely over his head, though.

“You come back in February, Mr. Nathan,” he repeats. “What is holiday again?”

“Valentine’s Day.”

“Yes!” he exclaims again.

We shake hands when I leave dinner for the last time. He smiles, and we wish each other good luck.

***

Back in my room, as I undress for the night, I notice a small closet door, away from the main closet. A memory comes rushing back to me.

“Oh, no.”

I open the door to the small closet and sure enough, there are all of my Izod shirts hanging on the rack. I forgot that I had put them all in here.

I immediately get dressed again, head to the front of the ship and the Guest Services Desk, and apologize.

The next time I see the steward who cleaned my room, I apologize to him personally and tip him some money. He seems to want to have nothing to do with me, though, and I cannot blame him. I almost wish the shirts had been stolen, now, so that I would have been right in my assumption.

***

After the cruise, when I arrive back home in Live Oak, I do a load of laundry. My golden "Senor Frog's" shirt shrinks too much to be wearable, and largely disintegrates in the clothes dryer.

***

One of the prettiest sights on the cruise is sunset on November 30. We are well out to sea, and so the sun actually goes down over the water.

Along various points on the horizon, clouds shower rain into the sea as the sun sets.

I have heard some stories about the ocean flashing green right at the point when the disc of the sun drops below the horizon. It is depicted in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, so I watch carefully for this.

Right as the sun goes down, I notice that when I blink, the ocean toward the horizon appears to be a different shade of blue, and close to green. It only happens when I blink and only lasts an instant. I guess that it is because the rods and cones in my eyes are a little off in discerning color from watching the setting sun for a couple of minutes straight. Perhaps that is what people are seeing when they claim to see a green flash. But who knows?

I am glad that I went on this cruise, and I look forward to more adventures in traveling. I think if I sail again, though, I will see if I can book a singles cruise.

Maine & Canada

Friday, September 12, 2014, Live Oak, Florida.

None too early in the morning, I get on the road to North Carolina. I am going to spend the night with my parents in Lumberton. My brother arrives at their house in the evening, just a short time after me. He comes in from Wilkesboro, NC. We have a nice, home cooked meal by mom of roast beef and vegetables.

As I watch television with my parents that night, I hear a thud out on the front porch. Dad and I exchange looks.

“That’s the cats,” he says. “They’ll jump off a chair after a frog or something. Sometimes it scares us good.”

The next morning, September 13, all of us pack our luggage into Mom and Dad’s Nissan Altima and ride up to Garner. My uncle, Dad’s brother, lives there and drives us to Raleigh Durham International Airport. We fly Southwest Airlines to Baltimore for a brief layover, then on to Portland, Maine.

We arrive late in the afternoon. My Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet (Uncle Jerry is Mom’s brother), will be coming in later tonight, also from RDU. We rent a maroon Town & Country Chrysler minivan for the trip up the Maine coast and into Canada.

We check into the Comfort Inn that afternoon. I have not eaten anything all day except for the airline peanuts, so we all head out for a meal. Uptown Portland is where we first look for a restaurant. There are plenty of places, but nowhere to park. All of us are so hungry at the present that we do not desire to struggle with this. I want a nice place to eat, with no fuss. On the way to uptown, we passed a restaurant that I had never seen before called “The Sea Dog.” It is close to our hotel, and we head back there.

“The Sea Dog” is a great restaurant. I learn that it is actually a small chain, with two or three other locations in Maine, and also a couple in Florida. I order a sort of seafood pot pie. Mom has New England Chowder, the best New England Chowder that she has ever had in her life, she says.

It is such a late lunch that mom and dad are satisfied just to have snacks for dinner, a few hours later. I want to go out somewhere, though. My brother accompanies me to Buffalo Wild Wings in Portland. It is my first time ever going to this chain restaurant. I am impressed with the number of big screen televisions all over the place. Tons of college football games are on, along with major league baseball games.

The food is so-so, though. It certainly is not a healthy place to eat, as basically the place just serves wings with a large variety of sauces, and fries or onion rings.

I smile at one of the women sitting at a table next to us. She is with a group of about four or five other people. After my brother and I have been there a while, they leave.

“Did you notice anything unusual about the table beside us?” he asks me.

I look over at it and shake my head.

“None of them ever said anything. They were all using sign language.”

“Huh. Neat,” I say. “A place like this would be nice for them, then, to watch all the action on the different TVs and not be bothered by the noise.”

After finishing our meal, Adam and I take the minivan out to the airport and pick up Uncle Jerry and Aunt Janet.

Sunday, September 14.

After checking out of the hotel the next morning, we head to Freeport, Maine, just a little north of Portland. This is the location of the LL Bean store that Uncle Jerry really wants to visit. By far, most of LL Bean’s business is done through on-line ordering, but this store is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

There are some surrounding outlets and restaurants in Freeport as well. For the first time in my life, I order a lobster roll. The Linda Bean Restaurant in Freeport also has a small stand just outside the main LL Bean store. This where Adam and I enjoy them. The bread is hot and buttery, but the lobster meat is actually cold. I think that I would like it better if the lobster was hot, but it is tasty, nonetheless, and makes for a nice late morning snack.

Later, the family enjoys a lunch at Amato’s in Freeport. I have a plate of spaghetti with Amato’s custom sauce.

After Freeport, we head northeast on Highway 1 to the town of Ellsworth, where we check into the Hampton Inn.

I want the family to enjoy a good, authentic Maine meal. On the hotel clerk’s recommendation, we visit the Union River Lobster Pot restaurant in downtown Ellsworth. Cauldrons of boiling water set outside of the restaurant, along with large tanks filled with lobsters.



I order “The Lobster Pot,” the featured meal of the restaurant. A whole lobster is brought to me inside a blue metal pot, along with steamed clams and corn on the cob. I have never eaten a whole lobster before- only lobster tail at the chain restaurant, Red Lobster (and I have not seen a single one of those restaurants in Maine).

It is also the first time that Mom or Dad, Uncle Jerry or Aunt Janet have had lobster. The waitress brings us bibs, shell cracking instruments, and an instruction sheet on how to break apart and eat a whole lobster.

All of us just sort of stare at the creatures when they are presented.

Dad is a little bothered by the fact that they are boiled alive, and so am I for that matter. I wonder how much pain a crustacean feels, how much suffering is involved when they are placed immediately into a vat that is boiling hot. I realize that this lobster in the pot in front of me was alive probably less than minutes ago. The tail is curled up underneath its body, like it is in the fetal position.

“The soul has not even left the shell yet,” Adam says.

The meat is extremely tasty, though.

It is actually quite easy to get the meat out of the tail and the claws. I peel the rest of the shell off and taste a small amount of some grayish meat before I realize what it is.

“Is this the brain?” I ask the waitress. She nods.

“Are you supposed to eat the brain?” I ask.

“I don’t,” she says, and makes an “ick” face. “I see people who do, but I wouldn’t do it.”

The size of the brain of the lobster is much larger than what I thought it would be, which also makes me wonder about the suffering. Lobsters often visibly respond to me when I walk up to look at them in the tanks.

I finish the meal with the best slice of blueberry pie that I have ever had.

After the meal is over, we all get back into the minivan.

“Wasn’t that the best meal that you’ve had in Maine?” I ask Uncle Jerry.

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he responds. “I had a bowl of cereal this morning.”

You can get live lobsters everywhere in Maine. There is a tank of them for sale in the Walgreens across the parking lot from the hotel. A bright red lobster, in a tank by himself in Walgreens, seems to wave to me with one of its claws when I enter the store and pass by him. Perhaps years from now, people will look back at all this slaughter and boiling and be disgusted at the holocaust and hellish type conditions these creatures were put through. Or perhaps not. I hope they do not feel much pain or suffer. I hope the death is instantaneous when they are placed in the boiling water.

Monday, September 15.

From Ellsworth the next morning, we drive south to Acadia National Park.

As I make my way up stairs to the park’s visitor center, I notice small piles of stones, with one on the top of each pile that looks like an arrow. These are cairns, used to mark trails.

Inside the visitor center, I review their collection of field guides and discover perhaps the best guide to plants that I have ever come across. It is called “Plants of Acadia National Park.” Filled with colorful photographs and a couple of useful identification keys, this book catalogues almost 900 species of plants that can be found not only in Acadia, but all over New England.

From there, we head to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Depending on the time of year, one can be the first person in the Western Hemisphere to see the sunrise from this location. The top of the porphyritic granite mountain offers a great view of Bar Harbor as well.



It is cold and windy on top of the mountain. With my binoculars, I can see a lighthouse in the ocean to the east.

After coming down off the mountain, we continue around the loop road of the park. I enjoy a turkey sandwich for lunch at the Jordan House inside the park. It offers a great view of Jordan Pond, which is more like a lake.

While in Acadia, we also take in locations called Sandy Beach, Thunder Hole, and the Wild Gardens of Acadia.

Sandy Beach is quite small, but it is what passes for a beach in Maine, whose coastline consists almost entirely of granite.

Thunder Hole is a place where the granite meets the ocean, and during a storm the waves crashing into the rocks creates a thundering noise.

The Wild Gardens of Acadia contains all sorts of plants and flowers native to the park. The plants are all meticulously labeled. This, along with Cadillac Mountain, is my favorite part of the park, though dad tells me that he is more impressed with the frogs on the lily pads in a little stream that runs through the garden. I do not think either of us have ever seen frogs literally on lily pads, the way they were portrayed in cartoons and children’s books when I was growing up.

After leaving Acadia National Park, we drive into the town of Bar Harbor in the late afternoon. I really like the town, and would spend the night here if I was traveling alone. The pubs and taverns look like they have some character to them, and I think that I would meet interesting people inside.



The family splits up for an hour to go shopping, but I use the hour to walk down historic West Street. The houses along this street are gigantic and old, some now divided up for nonprofits or inns. I also come to a place on the water that has a stone bridge leading to Bar Island. The tide is up at present, though, and the bridge is under four to eight feet of water.

That evening, I convince my family to return to the Union River Lobster Pot in Ellsworth. While I really enjoyed my lobster meal there, as did my brother who ordered cedar plank salmon, the rest of the family is not interested in eating lobster again. They all order something different this time. I have a plateful of clams both steamed and fried, along with some homemade crab cakes.

Tuesday, September 16.

We head out in the morning, up Highway 1 bound for the Canadian border at Calais. The road begins to follow the St. Croix River, which divides the U.S. from its northern neighbor.

We stop at a Dunkin Donuts shop in Calais just before crossing. I ask the lady behind the register how to say the name of this town.

“Callous,” she says, “like you have a callous on your hand.”

At the checkpoint, the Canadian Border Patrol agent greets us in both English and French. Mom tries to take his picture, but I warn her not to do this.

They ask the agent if he minds if they take his picture.

“Actually I do,” he says, “for several reasons.”

The town on the other side of Calais is St. Stephen, but we quickly find that Highway 1 turns into a sort of interstate in Canada, a very empty interstate. The quality of the pavement is great, but there are hardly any vehicles on the road, in either direction. This is the farthest east that I have ever been as well. Once we cross into Canada, we enter the Atlantic time zone and lose an hour.

We zip up to St. John. Along the way, Adam spots a bald eagle perched in a tree along some open swampland. He points it out to me.

In St. John, after checking into the hotel, we have lunch at Wendy’s. There is some confusion over the exchange rate and the amount of change given for American cash. Uncle Jerry did not expect to receive change in Canadian money, but Adam buys it from him as a souvenir.

We drive around St. John, which got its boom as a ship building town. We visit the Reversing Falls, a place where the tide comes in so strongly that it reverses the flow of the St. John River and creates a sort of rapids. While observing these rapids, I also spot a seal swimming in the water.



That night, we eat at Vito’s, a nice Italian restaurant that has been in place for a number of years. I order spinach lasagna.

Wednesday, September 17.

After an early morning run on the treadmill in the hotel workout room, I walk outside and take in the brisk Canadian morning air. Beside the hotel is an open field of New England Aster and goldenrod flowers. In the distance there appears to be a granite quarry.

We get on the road south and head back to the United States. In Orono, Maine, we visit the University of Maine, first having lunch at “The Family Dog” Restaurant. I have a nice chicken sandwich. The owner of the restaurant tells us the best places to visit on campus.

We take in the hockey rink, where I note that the school’s hockey team took home NCAA national championships in the same years that Florida State (where I went to school) won national championships in football: 1993 and 1999.

We also see the football stadium and walk onto the baseball field. It is artificial, but not Astro turf. The plastic grass actually has bits of sand and ground up rubber in it, making the surface softer than Astro turf.

I go inside the University library while my family waits outside. The library reminds me a lot of where I went to undergraduate school- Western Carolina University. Some of the desks along the walls are designed like bunk beds, with students able to climb ladders and study in a desk mounted over a person beneath them. I also note that the library does not appear to have air conditioning.

At the University bookstore in the Student Union, I pick up a history book that is required for one of the classes on campus, Changes in the Land by a historian named Cronon. I take a few minutes to read some of the pages, and I am so struck by how illuminating this writing is that I decide to order a copy of the book for myself.

I also make a brief visit to the planetarium on campus. It is brand new, and not yet open for business. Boxes line the walls, but the director of the planetarium points out the telescope to me, the largest in Maine. It has a computer system that will let the scope know when the sky is clear rather than cloudy, and open up the lens for observation.

My brother is a big Stephen King fan, and knows that the author lives in Bangor, just a little to the south of the University. While in the library, I go to a computer and quite easily find the address of his house. We punch it into our GPS and ride there. Adam is rather surprised that I could so easily get the address. The house has an iron gate with a spider web design in the center and two bats with wings spread, mounted over the hinges.

We return to Ellsworth to spend the night. This time, we eat dinner at Helen’s Restaurant. I have a seafood platter with stuffed Haddock, along with another slice of blueberry pie for desert.

Thursday, September 18.

In the morning, we drive south on Highway 1 and stop in Camden. This is a nice little town on Penobscot Bay. We eat lunch on at the Camden Deli, where I have another lobster roll.

Farther south, we head to Boothbay Harbor. The family drops me off at the Botanical Gardens of Boothbay while they continue on into the town.

The Gardens have an incredible and beautiful display of plants and flowers. I try to make note of some of my favorites: The Blue Lace Larkspur, the Knockout Mystic Illusion Dahlia (Dahlia Hybridia), the Shrubby St. John’s Wort, The Southern Star, Artist Blue Ageratum, the T. Rex Stonecrop. If I had to pick one that was my favorite, at least for what was in bloom at this time of year, it would be the Bat Faced Cuphea.



When the family returns to pick me up, they all talk about how much they enjoyed the feel of the town of Boothbay. Mom found a great Friends of the Public Library used book store, though they were only open for another 15 minutes when she arrived. She manages to buy one book that she wants before it closes.

We drive on into Portland, and have dinner at the Sea Dog again. This time, I have a delicious plate of mussels and linguini, along with a coffee cheesecake for desert.

I am having trouble getting the rest of the folks to enjoy dinner like I do. Adam orders a brownie with ice cream so that I do not eat desert alone. He offers some to Mom, who says that she is too full. To my amusement, though, when we get back to the hotel, Mom eats a granola bar with some coffee.

Coffee is what she needed, she protests to me.

The Sea Dog offered coffee, I point out to her, it just had Jameson whiskey in it is all.

Friday, September 19.

The weather in Portland this morning is as cold as it has been all week. The wind is blowing and the temperature is in the 40s or perhaps low 50s.

As we wait along the harbor to board the boat for a lighthouse tour, Adam spots an artistic display. We walk up to it and discover that it is a piece of the Berlin Wall. It is obvious from the graffiti and the government signs remaining on the wall which side was the west and which side was the east.

The trip out onto the water is cold and windy, but also enjoyable. The Portland Head Lighthouse is the most impressive sight. We get rocked back and forth pretty well when a huge cargo ship speeds past us out to sea.



Adam spends the entire ride up on the top deck, where the wind is the strongest. Dad stands at the bow of the boat for most of the trip, taking in the sights and the elements.

That night, we have dinner at one of Dad’s favorite restaurants: Cracker Barrel. These are all over North Carolina and the southeast United States. I have a nice meal of rainbow trout, corn, pinto beans and cheese grits.

After dinner, we go to the planetarium at the University of Southern Maine and watch a show on IBEX, a satellite in space that is mapping the outer edges of the solar system, or the heliosphere. The operator of the planetarium also gives a talk and demonstration of what the night sky looks like that evening.

The next day, Saturday, September 20, we fly back to North Carolina. During the layover in Baltimore, we pass a large group of WWII veterans dressed in the same blue t-shirts. Most of them are in wheelchairs. My brother guesses that they are going to Washington, DC to see the WWII memorial in the Washington Mall.

When we get back to North Carolina, Uncle Ken, my dad’s brother, treats us to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, Ragazzi's, and we arrive back in Lumberton in time for me to watch the Florida State and Clemson football game on television.

The air is much warmer in North Carolina than it was in Maine.

I am appreciative of the time that I got to spend with my family on this trip. It was relaxing, and I enjoyed some nice food. I am glad that everyone was healthy enough to enjoy it with me.

Taking a Break

For the past couple of years or so, I have made the effort to post a blog entry here pretty much on a weekly basis.

I am going to be slowing down a bit, at least for a while.

Not writing blog entries should slightly speed up progress on the novel that I am attempting to complete, but the main reason that I need to take a break is to re-energize.

I have been told that my entries of late have gotten a little dark, and are not as enjoyable to read.

We all as humans have our sad stories and moments of pain. Though this blog is about my personal experiences, I also try to make it entertaining and perhaps useful for people. They do not need reminders of the depressing things in their lives.

So, I will take time off and see if I can build up some positive energy that triggers fond memories from my life.

In September, I plan to take a vacation to Maine with my mom, dad, my brother, and an aunt and uncle. I will definitely write about this experience. I have never been to Maine before, and we also plan to cross over into Canada.

I will probably post some entries before then, too, though I am not sure when.

Another Level

The World Cup is going on right now in Brazil. If I had grown up playing soccer, I am sure that I would enjoy watching the games much more. As it is, I grew up playing baseball.

So now, church league softball games in Live Oak are the highlight of my week.

Whatever skills that I acquired for softball did not come easy, though...

Lumberton, North Carolina. 1989-1992.

Coach wants to put me at catcher on my Little League team, but Dad tells him that is not a good idea, because I am “bat blind.”

This means that I flinch when the batter swings in front of me as I try to catch the ball. Perhaps it is a problem that could be worked out with practice, but I have no desire to be a catcher, really. It takes too long to constantly be changing in and out of that equipment in between innings when it is my turn to hit: The shin guards, the chest protector, the helmet and mask. The shin guards and chest protector have all sorts of straps to fasten. Plus, the catcher takes a beating in every game, for sure. Pitchers throw the ball hard into the dirt in front of home plate. There are foul tips, and collisions with base runners when I am supposed to block the plate as they round third base.



Still, during one of our games while our catcher is putting on his equipment again (he made the last out at bat in the inning before), the pitcher, Matt, asks me to get behind home plate and catch while he throws a few pitches to keep his arm loose.

I do not bother to use the catcher’s mitt, but rather my regular glove that I wear at my regular position at second base.

As the pitcher hurls the ball at me, it snaps loudly against the leather pocket. That is how you know that you are catching the ball in the pocket of the glove like you are supposed to- the loud pop.

One after another he tosses to me, including a couple of breaking pitches. It occurs to me that this is one of the hardest throwing games of catch that I have ever played in my life, and it also dawns on me, now, that I am playing a level of baseball where I am expected to hit a ball traveling faster than what I am used to catching in the field.

I tell this to my dad after the game, and he gives me a look like I am a little strange, like it is an obvious observation that I have made.

***

“High school is where you really begin to learn how to play baseball,” I heard Roger Clemens say once.

Well, I am not to high school yet, but next is junior high baseball at Littlefield. Littlefield is grades 7-12, and I play second base on the junior high team.

One day at practice, we decide to use the pitching machine that the high school team does, inside the batting cage.

There is a warped spot on the rollers that shoot out the ball. Actually there is a chunk missing from the roller. If the ball hits that warped spot, then it is likely to spray the pitch anywhere. I am watching when, more than once, the machine shoots a high speed fastball right at the batter’s head.



As with becoming a catcher, I have no desire to get into the batting cage with that broken machine, and I complain to the coach.

He rolls his eyes, and I realize that I need to get in there to stay in his good graces.

Once inside, the ball never comes at my head, but my fear that it might, combined with the fact that these are the fastest pitches that I have ever tried to hit in my life, means that I have zero success putting the bat on the ball. It is highly frustrating.

“You’ve got to do something, Nathan,” the coach says. “This is how fast the pitchers will be throwing, now. Hold your bat out and bunt the ball.”

This, I can do.

In another practice, we are performing infield drills where the runner on first attempts to steal, and as second baseman I cover the bag.

The catcher hums the ball to the bag, and I go to one knee to field it. The runner sliding in hits my leg, just as the ball gets right in my face. My glove drops slightly, and the ball hits the top of my glove and barely skips over my head.

“Hmm,” the coach grunts disapprovingly. I narrowly avoided getting smashed in the face with the baseball.

Another day, the coach gets one of the pitchers on the high school team to throw to us in a simulated game.

The high school pitcher is a very hard thrower. He is also very wild, both in his pitching and in his life. He has been suspended multiple times for fighting, and I generally avoid him in the hallways.

I watched one game where he was pitching, and he threw a ball that caught the batter square in the face. The batter just stayed face down on the ground for a few minutes. When he did leave, it was with the help of other people, and he went on to the hospital.

I have no desire to get in the batter’s box against the high school pitcher, either. My younger brother is on the team, and to his credit and courage does step in against the high school pitcher. I stay on the bench, though, hoping the coach does not notice that I have not hit, yet. If the coach does notice, he says nothing about it. To my relief, the practice ends without me having to step to the plate against this wild, hard thrower.

I have a pretty decent season with the Littlefield team, though. I do not hit well, but I field my position at second base better than others who want to play there.

In 1991, the Robeson County school systems merge, and I go to Lumberton junior high school for my 9th grade year. The class is much larger than what there was at Littlefield, and the competition to make the junior high school baseball team here is much more intense.

During tryouts, I field a throw coming in from the outfield to second base. The runner is coming from first, trying to take the extra base. I catch the ball, but the runner’s slide knocks me out of the way before I can apply the tag.

The coach shakes his head at me.

“They’re going to be wearing metal spikes, now,” he says. You cover the bag like that, and you’re going to get messed up.



I think I do pretty well fielding my position in tryouts, but it is obvious that I do not have the throwing arm that other guys on the team do.

The coach watches me relay a cutoff from right field to third base. He has me do it a few more times, and I can tell he does not like what he sees as far as how quickly and accurately I can get the ball there.

Later, I field a ground ball and throw it to first the way that I always do. But the coach yells at me, “Charge the ball!”

Then he asks the rest of the team in a loud voice, “What kind of defense do we play?”

“Attack defense!” all the other players shout in unison.

Tryouts are not a pleasant experience, and neither is it a good feeling when I see the final roster posted on the gym wall early one morning when I arrive at the compound that is called the junior high school. My name is not on the list.

I realize that I have come to another level of baseball, where the ball travels faster with more breaking pitches, and the players wear metal spikes. It is a level where I am not good enough to compete, anymore.

One of the assistant coaches talks to me during an afternoon after school, encouraging me to work harder and try out for the high school team next year. But this is a transition I do not make. Instead, I join the cross country team in high school and earn a letter in that sport.

***

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

I enjoy a softball game this evening, playing with high school and college baseball players who wear metal spikes, throw the ball like a rocket and can hit it out of the park.

Thanks to the baseball experience that I had growing up, though, I can hold a spot on this field and with this team. The captain keeps me in for about half the game, usually, and at catcher- which is a much different position in slow pitch softball than in baseball. I do not mind being a catcher in slow pitch softball.



Playing softball is one of the most enjoyable things that I do, now.

I also understand baseball better than any other sport, so I get more enjoyment out of watching a game than with other sports.

As a little league and junior high baseball player, I escaped the experience without any broken bones, concussions or a smashed-in face.

All in all, baseball and softball have been great experiences for me.