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Stadium Memories

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Some people read 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die and think about how many they can check off in a year.  My quest is more modest:  to visit all the major league baseball stadiums in the next ten years.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through my list, but I have to admit that given stadium demolitions, I’ve had to make up my own rules about what counts.  Essentially, I’m just trying to get to at least one stadium  per team.

So along that line, I wanted to let you know there’s a great online story – accompanying a magazine feature in Preservation – of Yankee Stadium memories on PreservationNation.org.  If you like baseball stadiums and/or baseball stories, check it out.

FYI, this has been a good year in my quest.  So far I’ve visited three new (for me) parks this year:  Oakland (with Anthea and all the folks from the Trust’s Western Office), Coors Field in Denver (with Mountains/Plains Office Director Barb and Dolores), and – of course – the new Nationals Park in Washington, DC (multiple times with a variety of friends and family). 

I’ve posted a picture (taken from my phone – sorry for the quality) from a Nats game in June. 

More to come…

DJB

A few “classic” photos

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I mentioned in an earlier post that my daughter Claire took black & white photos during our western trip on my old film camera that she calls “the classic.”  We just had that film processed (since Claire doesn’t have access to the dark room at school during the summer) and I thought I’d post a couple of her shots for all to see. 

The shot above was taken in the church yard of the 1760 mission church in Las Trampas, on the High Road to Taos.  Claire said this was her favorite of about 140 shots she took during the trip. 

The second photo I’ve posted is from Acoma, where Claire took two full rolls of film.  She loved the mission church at Acoma, so I’ve posted a shot she took of the bell tower early in our tour of the site.  There are so many great opportunities for photos at Acoma — the buildings and landscape are so evocative both individually and together.  In the photo at right, I liked the interplay of the clouds, stone, and metal of the bell.

The third photo is another Acoma shot.  After posting two details, I have included a view Claire took of the buildings on the mesa.  At one point she said, “It seems that every corner you turn offers another great photograph.”  And she’s right.  If you missed it, our post from Acoma can be found in the earlier posts under the Heritage Travel tag. 

Finally, I didn’t realize Claire had taken so many photos at the Grand Canyon until we had the film processed, but they were great to see.

I’ve posted one of Claire’s landscapes of the Grand Canyon which I especially enjoyed…and I hope you will as well.

More to come…

DJB

Charles Wolfe Inducted into IBMA Hall of Fame

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When I was a young undergraduate student at Middle Tennessee in the late 1970s, there were two English professors who influenced my life in ways that I’m still only understanding.  One was Ralph Hyde, who was serving as editor of the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin.  Ralph published the first articles of mine in a professional journal or magazine, introduced me to the rich cultural traditions of the mid-South, and gave me my first bottle of moonshine.  I still think all three are significant in shaping my life (although that’s the first and only time I drank moonshine!)

The other was Charles Wolfe, who taught English, succeeded Ralph as the editor of the TFS Bulletin, and – most importantly – brought scholarship and love to old time and bluegrass music.  Charles was an avid collector, writer, and recorder of music from the mid-South, and I was lucky enough to be with him on occasions when he was recording or interviewing some of the area’s old-time musicians.

Just the other day my father sent me a note saying that Charles – who died in 2006 – will be inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame in October at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.  This is a well-deserved award for an individual who brought rigorous scholarship and deep affection to a subject that many thought marginal at best.  One of Charles’ best books is A Good-Natured Riot:  The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry which chronicles the early days of an American institution.  It is especially fitting that Charles’ induction will come at the Ryman (the long-time home of the Opry), as Charles and I were both featured as “talking heads” in a Nashville Public Television production entitled The Ryman:  Mother Church of Country Music.   In this excellent history, Charles is one of the country music experts while I speak about the preservation issues along with other Nashville preservationists.  Highly recommended!

While I was still living in Middle Tennessee, Charles had me help him record an obscure brother duo (so obscure that I can’t remember the name or find any information on Google) from Alabama that sang in the style of the Delmore Brothers.  It was great fun to hear these two older men sing from the heart and to watch Charles work with them to capture their history on tape.

Charles was an institution, but he also had a great sense of humor.  In the compilation The Bluegrass Reader, Charles had a great article full of in-jokes entitled The Early Days of Bluegrass, Vol. 117 (Fiction), which you can read in its entirety by clicking on the link.  For this posting, I’ll just quote a few of my favorite tunes on this fictional album, which Charles notes (very tongue-in-cheek) as “peripheral influences on the development of bluegrass”

The Big Mouth Sacred Singers, “No Potholes in Heaven” (Backhoe 5440-B)

This was apparently a family group headed by a self-styled preacher named Tyler Tyree, who was the founder of a sect called the Church of the Speckled Bird, which venerated wrens.  They were fond of singing out of round-note songbooks in shape-note style, giving their music a striking diatonic effect.  Their special significance to bluegrass stems from the fact that they moved to Rosine, Kentucky, in 1929; a few short weeks later young Bill Monroe left Rosine.  So did several other people.

The Bluegrass Nuns, “Yellow Road to Camptown” (Merton 102-A, recorded ca. 1949)

The Bluegrass Nuns were three or four sisters from an obscure Carmelite order in south central Kentucky who entertained in various orphans homes from 1948 to about 1952.  Little is known about them except that they used an unusual three-stringed banjo, and they often sang part of their songs in Latin.  They are one of the first real sister acts in bluegrass.  In 1975 bluegrass scholar Boggs Hickey disguised himself as a nun and went around the area trying to learn more about this band, but he was arrested in Corbin.

Blind Oscar Thornton, “She Poisoned Me Boys” (Vocalion 5890)

This is Blind Thornton’s last recorded number, thought by some scholars to be autobiographical.

Doc Stanley, “Corn Cob Blues” (Harry Ace 345-A, recorded 1947)

This is Doc Stanley’s famous complaint about how rough dried corn cobs are; some scholars think Doc was trying to comb his hair with them, and there is speculation that this custom might have once been quite common in West Virginia.  Others see this song as related to Woody Guthrie’s “Hard, Ain’t It Hard.”

Thanks for the memories, Charles…and I’m glad the bluegrassers are recognizing your many contributions.

More to come…

DJB

Rafting the Rio Grande

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We awoke early this morning as we were heading out to raft the Rio Grande River south of Taos (see photo at left).  As everyone in town had promised, the rainy, cool evening gave way to a beautiful, sunny, yet cool morning.  Bundled up with fleeces, but in our quick-drying shorts (i.e., bathing suits and gym pants) we shivered our way to the little town of Pilar to meet with our guide from Far Flung Adventures.

Claire has a classmate named Pilar, so we began by taking 12 different photographs around the “Pilar Yacht Club” (actually, a little hole in the wall – see photo below) so they could post a Where in the World is Pilar? album for her Facebook page.  Then we met up with Hank, Bill, and Erica – the three Far Flung Adventures guides.

After a quick safety lecture, we joined up with Hank – a late 50s river guide, metal artist and all-round outdoors guy who was perfect for the four of us.  With Andrew and Claire in the front, Candice and I in the middle (i.e., the “safest” seats), and Hank in the rear we pushed off into the river for a wonderful two hour ride.

While the river was up from the recent rains, it was still relatively low and the rapids were just about right since three of us were first-time whitewater rafters.  One of the other boats got stuck going through one set of rapids, but all-in-all it was a pretty tame although somewhat wet ride for the four of us.  We all had a great time checking out the gorge, paddling through the rapids, and listening to Hank’s tall tales of 28 years in the river-guide business.  His funniest tale was when we came to the rapids where they take your picture.  He told of the time when he was taking a group of old ladies off a tour bus (Hank’s description) and they called him cranky because he wouldn’t let them smoke.  He said by the time they got to the rapids for the picture (near the end of the run), “These ladies had all decided that they didn’t care what I said and the photo showed a couple of them lighting up while I was yelling ‘paddle forward.’  Their attitude was ‘our husbands are all dead and buried, we’re having fun spending their money, and we don’t care what you tell us to do.'”  We all got a good laugh out of that and other stories about his dog, Monster, wearing a helmet while going through a Class 5 rapid in the front of the boat.

At the end of the run we took a picture with Andrew, Claire, and Hank; said our good-byes; changed into dry clothes, and headed to Santa Fe on the “high road.”  This was a beautiful drive through the mountains between Taos and Santa Fe.  There were fantastic views of the landscape (too bad Andrew and Claire were sound asleep through most of it), and a couple of 18th century mission churches along the way.  We stopped and took pictures at the 1760 church at Las Trampas (see photo below).

We arrived in Santa Fe and after checking in at La Fonda, another Historic Hotel of America, we walked through the historic district for a tasty lunch at Cafe Pasqual – a great Santa Fe dining spot that my colleague Dolores introduced me to a couple of years ago when the National Trust was in New Mexico.  Claire declared that, “Everything tasted so good she didn’t know what to eat” as she was tasting from everyone’s plate.  Yet another great culinary experience that we’ll remember from this trip.

We spent the afternoon visiting the shops.  (Unfortunately, one of the FINEST guitar stores in America – High Desert Guitars – is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays as I was hoping to spend an hour or more playing some of the most unique guitars designed and built by America’s top luthiers.  My former colleague Emily Espenshade can testify that I’ll drag anyone who is willing to a great guitar shop and then make them wait for hours while I sit and play guitar after guitar, as she went with me on my first visit to High Desert Guitars.)    One by one we all ended up back at La Fonda to rest up – either for dinner or for watching the Olympics.

Our trip is almost over.  Tomorrow we return to Albuquerque and fly home.  I’ll try and make one more post as I think about some of the random experiences that meant a lot to us.  But we’ve all agreed that this has been a terrific introduction to the west for Andrew and Claire.  Thanks to Jim, Janet, Dick, Mary Ann, Jerry, Judy, Bob, Dolores…and perhaps others I’ve forgotten…for all the great suggestions for our itinerary.  It has been wonderful.

More to come…

DJB

Great Little Towns; Wonderful Drives

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After our visit at Mesa Verde, we took off on the short drive to Durango on Saturday morning.  But along the way, we passed the historic little town of Mancos and saw a sign for the Absolute Bakery & Cafe.  Since we love small Main Street communities AND we were ready for breakfast, we pulled over. 

Mancos has a small historic downtown, and the Bakery & Cafe was in one of those older buildings.  We found a wonderful menu, a soundtrack of late sixties and early seventies songs on the stereo, and an eclectic mix of patrons.  More than once, one of us said, “This place would fit right in at Takoma Park” (the DC/Maryland neighborhood which has a great counter-culture 4th of July parade and is the area’s only nuclear-free zone – as approved by their City Council).  It has been a while since I’ve heard so much Steppenwolf, Neil Young, and Jefferson Airplane that early in the morning!

After breakfast, we visited a nice local arts cooperative and then took off for Durango, a 2007 Dozen Distinctive Destination of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.   We checked in to a great room at the Stater Hotel, a Historic Hotel of America (see the photo at the top of the post), and then spent the afternoon exploring the town.  As we were walking down the street, Claire said, “Now this is a town where I could live.”  (I don’t know if that was before or after our stop in the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store, where all but Candice decided to sample the wares.)  The downtown has nice stores, although the number of T-Shirt shops was troubling for such an historic destination.  Just off Main Avenue is a very walkable residential historic district.  The surrounding mountains and river add to the overall feel of a great place to live.  We had an excellent dinner at the Mahogany Room at the Stater before calling it a night.

On Sunday, we had our last long drive of the trip, as we drove from Durango to Taos.  Simply stated, this is just a wonderful drive through the beautiful scenery of the San Juan Mountains and National Forest.  There was very little traffic, and we just sat back and enjoyed the view.  I’ve posted a photo and another panorama (click on the X if it doesn’t show in your view) so you can get a sense of what we enjoyed.

Traveling with teenagers has been great, and we couldn’t have better companions on the road than Andrew and Claire.  But lunch today was one of those times when the “fun” of traveling two weeks with your parents may have been too much.  We stopped in the little town of Chama, NM for lunch, where our prospects beyond a hamburger/biker bar joint didn’t look too promising.  But we drove and found another section of town that had a sandwich cafe.  Claire immediately voted for the cafe, but upon inspecting the menu Andrew pushed for a hamburger.  When we opted with Andrew, we ended up in a very busy joint with a very harried waitress who would come racing to the table and say, “What do you want? You? You? You?”  Claire was incredulous and when the food was as mediocre as we expected, she kept saying, “If we get food poisoning it will be ALL your fault.”  The scene became more and more surreal, and we spent the last half of the lunch laughing – and we even got Andrew and Claire to laugh.  Suffice it to say that we survived and will always remember Chama…as well as “Blondie’s Pub & Grub” in Cortez, CO as our biker bar experiences of this trip.

We arrived in Taos amid torrential rains, so our touring was limited to the plaza, and we had a light dinner in the Adobe Bar of the Taos Inn.  (Don’t worry…we haven’t been taking Andrew & Claire out drinking on this trip through the west!)  Tomorrow morning we hope the weather cooperates for our whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande.

More to come…

DJB

Chinese Bluegrass

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I thought is was appropriate – on the morning after Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal at the Beijing Olympics – to post something about China.  Luckily, the Bluegrass Blog helped me out, with this recent post and video about Mei Han’s Red Chamber playing Katy Hill along with mandolinist John Reishman.  So from Durango, Colorado – which has its own strong bluegrass community (I just missed seeing Tim O’Brien who plays in town next week) – I’ll pass along this post in the Olympic Spirit.  The bluegrass enthusiasts among the readership will enjoy, and the others may find it mildly amusing.

More to come…

DJB

Home of the Cliff Dwellers

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We had been told by friends and colleagues that Mesa Verde was a special place.  But until we saw the stone communities, hiked the canyons, climbed among the cliff dwellings, heard the rangers tell the stories of the Ancestral Puebloans, and took in the majesty of the landscape, it was hard to comprehend its wonder.

We spent two days at Mesa Verde National Park and the lack of internet connectivity…not to mention the lack of televisions in the hotel rooms…helped us focus on the people and their stories.   It made for a very special visit for our family.

On the first day, we arrived in time to visit the Spruce Tree House site (see photo above), which is easily accessible and a good introduction to what we’d see the next day.   With our appetites for the site visit whetted, we satisfied our appetites for food with a great meal at the Far View Lodge’s restaurant.

The second day was full of hiking and climbing.  All four of us began the day by visiting the Long House site, which is the second largest (by 1 room) in the park.  We had chosen this tour because good friends had told us that visitors were allowed to walk among the site (as opposed to viewing from the edge at the more famous Cliff Palace).  After climbing down into the canyon and then up a short ladder, we found ourselves in this beautiful site.  The hour-and-a-half tour seemed to fly by, as we explored the kivas, storage sheds, and stone houses. 

When we heard about the “adventurous” tour of Balcony House when buying our tickets, we knew Andrew and Claire would jump at the chance to climb a 32′ ladder, crawl through two 6′ tunnels with 18″ widths, and generally hang out over the edge of a steep canyon.  Candice decided that she would pass on the thrills, so I signed up to join the twins.  And am I glad I did!

To reach Balcony House we hiked down into the canyon and then climbed up that 32′ ladder.  Our ranger, Zack, had given us a pretty good “scare” lecture at the rim, but we plunged ahead anyway.  My colleague Dolores McDonagh says that many rangers are frustrated actors, and Zack fit that bill.  He gave a great tour with lots of funny asides that kept us all laughing.  The beauty of this particular site is hard to overstate.  We explored the buildings and took lots of photographs as we crawled around the rooms and kivas.

Finally it was time to leave.  Earlier in the day at Long House we had met a couple that had visited Balcony House.  The wife told us, “don’t worry about the ladder, and the tunnels aren’t bad…but beware of that exit!”  And was she right! 

Getting through the tunnels didn’t prove to be a problem.  They are 6′ in length, but there’s a break in the middle where you can actually stand.  Andrew and Claire took my picture coming out of the tunnel, which we’ve included to give you all a laugh.  But then we faced that exit.

Once you are through the tunnel, you have to climb a ladder that’s much steeper than the entrance ladder…and that gets you to a toe and hand hold path.  You climb up the side of the canyon for a bit to a set of steep steps…and finally you reach an asphalt path where you can catch your breath and then turn around and gasp at what’s below you.  I think there’s a reason they don’t tell you about that exit!

Anyway, as we walked back to our car, Claire, Andrew and I agreed it was the best $9 we had spent on the entire vacation.  It was educational, beautiful, exciting, and fun…just what all historic sites should be.  We shared stories and photos with Candice throughout the evening, ate an early supper, and played a round of Scattergories before turning in for the night.  Just another great day in the American Southwest.

More to come…

DJB

Bluff(ing) our way to Canyon de Chelly

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When last we were in the land of Internet connectivity, we left you in Bluff, Utah – population 320.  After driving through Monument Valley with a stop at Goulding’s Trading Company for some great Navajo tacos, we arrived in Bluff to spend the night at the historic Decker House Inn.  We were met by Sandy the innkeeper in one of the town’s more substantial homes, and shown to a wonderful double room where we could all spread out.  Needless to say, Andrew and Claire were pleased!

Bluff is located in the middle of a very harsh landscape of red sandstone and deep gorges.  The town was settled by Mormon pioneers in the middle of the 19th century, and some of the buildings from that era (such as the Decker House Inn) have survived.  Even with such a small population, Bluff had some good restaurants, probably the best quality trading post we’ve seen so far, and a historic preservation organization which had prepared walking tours and great brochures of the town’s history.  After a scrumptious breakfast served by Kaye (her son is married to Sandy’s daughter), we visited the trading post in Bluff, took a picture (at the front of this post) of the “Navajo Twins” – backdrop to the town – and hit the road for Canyon de Chelly.

Canyon de Chelly (pronounced d’SHAY) National Monument was a wonderful find for us.  Archaeological evidence has shown that people have lived in these canyons for nearly 5,000 years, and although it is a national monument, Navajos still live in the canyon during the summer months and the guides and businesses are all Navajo.  The Navajo entered the canyon about 300 years ago, where they established a farming community raising corn and peaches.

We arrived in time to join a tour of the canyon floor led by our Navajo guide David, who grew up in Canyon de Chelly and has been giving tours for 28 years.  Over the next 3 1/2 hours we drove through the dry river bed and stopped along the way to hear of the farming practices of the Navajos, admire the sheer cliff walls of the canyon, and learn of the actions of Kit Carson to rid the canyon of Navajos in the late 1800s.  We saw houses and hogans from the historic period as well as the present.  Families that were living in the canyon today were still in evidence.

Canyon de Chelly is really three canyons (we made our way into two), and the walls of the canyon (see photo at right) rise from 30′ at the opening to over 1,000 feet deep into the canyons.  David, our guide, told wonderful stories and patiently answered our questions throughout the afternoon.  Continuing the pattern we saw at the Grand Canyon, we toured with huge groups of European visitors.  (Is ANYONE left in Europe?)  When we went to dinner that evening at the Navajo-run Thunderbird Lodge, we all agreed it was a very special tour that we’d all remember.

More to come from Mesa Verde…

DJB

A Few Observations From the Road

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Observation #1:  Native Americans didn’t locate near cell towers.  That’s a good thing.  But it means that we’ve had almost zero connectivity from Canyon de Chelly and Mesa Verde.  Expect the next full post on Saturday when we’re in Durango.

Observation #2:  Is ANYONE left in Europe?  I can’t believe it because they are ALL touring the American Southwest.  Our experience has been that there are 3/4’s international visitors to 1/4 domestic visitors everywhere we go.  We went on a great tour of Canyon de Chelly with a big group from Italy.  Out of 24 people, only 8 of us were from the US.  It has been great to listen to all the languages but what it says about the exchange rate…and my upcoming trip to Slovakia…isn’t so wonderful.

Observation #3:  Once you get the post from Durango, you can learn how I made it through an 18″ tunnel I  climbed yesterday afternoon at Mesa Verde with Andrew and Claire at the Balcony House ruins.  I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about that – plus the 32′ ladder I had to climb to get the chance to get stuck in that tunnel!

Hopefully, more to come…

DJB

Sacred Places

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After two wonderful days at the Grand Canyon, we headed out on Tuesday – but not before making a stop at Mary Colter’s beautiful Desert View Watchtower at the eastern entrance to the park.  Colter designed this gift shop and observation tower for the Fred Harvey Company in a way that appears to blend into the landscape.  She also brought in Hopi artist Fred Kabotie to paint the interior of the tower with symbols that depict various elements of Hopi mythology and religious ceremony.  There is a great reverence for the Native American culture here in Colter’s work.  Click on the link above for a description of the construction of the tower.  This structure is also featured on the beautiful cover photograph of my colleague Arnold Berke’s wonderful book on Mary Colter.

After leaving the Grand Canyon, we headed to Utah, driving through the magnificent Monument Valley of Arizona and Utah.  Read the Wikipedia write up linked above to begin to understand the geological and tourism aspects of this wonderful place, but it is best understood as the sacred place it is for the Navajo Nation.  We drove through this incredible landscape, listening to Native American music and simply soaking up the experience.  As is to be expected in one of the most photographed places on the planet, we stopped and captured some images of our own, a couple of which we share with you below, but it is difficult to capture this special place in photographs or words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We end the day in the small (population 320) historic town of Bluff, UT.  A wonderful day in sacred places.

More to come…

DJB