Bond. James Bond

With the Seattle to Portland bicycle event now in the past, it became time to focus on things that are far more sedentary.  My friend Joe (not to be confused with BowlingJoe), creator of the excellent Captain ILL blog, and I have been watching our way through the entire series of James Bond films in order of release date.

Joe mixes a drink:  shaken not stirred

We started this project close to a year ago, meet pretty much when it’s convenient for us to do so, and are sometimes joined by Darin, who has one of the most impressive beards I’ve ever seen.  And what’s even more impressive is that he manages to avoid trapping food in it regardless of what he’s eating.  One guy you can always count on to show up, though, is Joe's roommate Mr.  Bones.  Unlike us, he's polite 100% of the time and has never interrupted the movie for any reason.

Mr. Bones is always ready for a Bond movie and a slice or two of pizza

Last week we screened Bond movie #8, “Live and Let Die”, Roger Moore’s debut as James Bond.   If I remember correctly we have 14 more to go to get us up to date. Of course watching the movie is only part of the draw.  It’s also the perfect excuse to have a couple of adult beverages and eat food that makes county fair grub seem like a NutriSystem meal.  Last Saturday it was a take and bake pizza with our traditional mid-movie macho nachos making an appearance.  Gotta have those nachos which, of course, I spike with hot sauce.

Mr. Bones and BowlingJoe

We’re looking forward to our next event at which we’ll be showing “The Man with the Golden Gun”.  Eventually though, we’ll run out of Bond films and will need to find another movie theme.  Any and all ideas are welcomed.

Seattle to Portland: Two Days on Two Wheels

My friend Brian has a bucket list.  That's right, an actual list that’s written out.  He claims he doesn’t and that it’s all stored away in his head, but I don’t believe that for a minute.  I just haven’t seen it yet.  In past years he’s done such things as jump out of airplanes and ride his motorcycle to the four corners of the contiguous United States.  Not to mention that he’s bowled a handful of perfect games.  That’s bucket list material, folks.

Last year he had the brilliant idea of riding a bicycle 204 miles over two days in the annual Seattle to Portland event sponsored by the Cascade Bicycle Club.  He asked if anyone was in with him and during a weak moment I not only stepped up to the challenge but also volunteered my son, Muffinheadedboy, to go along as well.

I tried to get out of it, at one point even threatening to embarrass Brian for two days straight by riding next to him for the entire distance wearing nothing but my custom made long distance bicycling thong.   He didn’t even flinch at that.  So ultimately, being a man of my word, I indeed was in for the ride.  I put on a brave face but privately wondered whether or not I could pull this off at the age of 51.  Even as a young person growing up in Port Angeles, riding from there to Sequim for a distance of 15 miles was an epic journey that I never took.  I had no worries about Muffinheadedboy, though.  He’s 24 years old, invincible by definition, and can roll out of bed after a few hours sleep and knock off 100 miles without breaking a sweat.

We all started training in April for the July 14-15 event with some low mile (meaning 20 to 30 miles) runs at places such as the Centennial Trail in Snohomish County.  Gradually we built those numbers up to around 85, doing laps around LakeWashington.  That’s all very nice but we were scheduled to tally 136 miles on the first day of the event, from Seattle to Castle Rock,WA.

The Team:  Brian, Roger, Muffinheadedboy, BowlingJoe

On the morning of July 14^th we arrived at the Seattle starting line at around 5:00am for a 5:15 start and were joined by Brian’s brother-in-law, Roger, to make a tidy group of four.  We weren’t lonely though, as there were 10,000 of our closest pals that were also on the ride. 

Here’s a word about those 10,000 riders:  nearly all of them are REAL cyclists.  They have $3000 bikes, all of the correct top-of-the-line gear, are dressed smartly and colorfully, and wear cycling pants in which it must take a large shoehorn and a tub of grease to get into.  Many of them will go on to complete this ride on one day.  ONE DAY???  That’s insane.  Now…what about Brian’s and my bikes?  They’re what are known as hybrid bicycles.  While they are very good bikes, they’re heavier, slower, more upright, and in general not built for racing. Not only that, they sported fenders and a kickstands, therefore firmly positioning us as Official Bicycle Outcasts of the 2012 Seattle to Portland Classic.

Now let’s talk about attire.  No tight spandex for BowlingJoe that’s visible to the world.  Sure I had it on but the exposed part of the shorts was just that…regular shorts.  As BowlingWidow correctly tells me, “Nobody wants to see you in skin tight spandex bike shorts!” (By the way, dear, thanks not only for your sage advice but for supporting me in general on this nutty endeavor).

Bicycle Mayhem at the First Rest Stop!

Day one started out just fine as we paced ourselves through Seattle, Renton, Kent, Puyallup (where there’s a challenging but not impossible mile-long hill) and beyond.  Fortunately there are food and drink stops every 20 miles or so, some of which have items that are “free” and sponsored by the event organizer and some of which have a donation jar for high school group sponsors and the like.  No difference for me.  There were points on the trip where I would have gladly paid fifty dollars for a bottle of Gatorade and a Clif Bar.

As the day wore on and those “real” bicyclists were in a steady stream passing me as though I were standing still (I heard the words “coming up on your left” so much that I thought it was my name) I realized that around a dozen of them complimented me on my shirt as they whizzed by.  I wondered about that and actually couldn’t recall what was on the back of the free shirt I got from Boeing Fitness.  I asked Muffinheadedboy to tell me.  It said Keep Moving.  Okay, now I get it.  The bike studs that were leaving me in the dust thought, “Awwwww….bless his heart.  That poor guy going 7 mph will finally get to Portland on Tuesday, but he’s going to keep on moving no matter how grim the outlook is for him.”

Castle Rock:  High School Gym or Flop House?

We arrived at Castle Rock High School at around 7:30pm.  Fourteen hours of riding.  The last two hours of that we were being punished by rolling hills that seemed like the Grand Teton range to us at the time.  Without even picking up our gear first, which was trucked to Castle Rock from Seattle, we headed straight to the carbohydrates:  spaghetti and meatballs, prepared by the Castle Rock High Future Business Leaders of America.  Never mind that it was lukewarm and pasty.  It was food and that was all that really mattered.

We all grabbed an ice cold shower in the locker room (again, I’m not complaining as it was a shower) and it was time to scope out sleeping arrangements for the night.  The gym floor was littered with sleeping bags, clothes and bikes but we scored a private classroom thanks to the fact that Brian and I use CPAP machines at night that require an electrical outlet.  I’ve never been so happy to have sleep apnea.  After acquiring a much-needed body massage outside the building it was after 9pm and time to tuck into the sleeping bag on the hard concrete floor.  At least they were considerate enough to have waxed the floor for us earlier in the day.

BowlingJoe and Muffinheadedboy on the Course

Day two started early with the alarm going off at 4:45 am.  We bought a pancake and sausage breakfast to fuel up for the remaining 70 miles and were back on the road by 6:00.  We encountered the only light rain we saw, between Castle Rock and Kelso at the Columbia River.  If one asks what the most harrowing part of the ride was, we’d all likely agree that it was coasting at a high rate of speed on the downhill slope of the huge Lewis and Clark Bridge across the Columbia.  The road had a narrow bike lane with traffic whizzing past.  It occurred to me that all it would take is one foreign object in the road to send me helplessly tumbling on the pavement.  If it happened though, at least I’d tumble onto the Oregon side and wouldn’t have to pay state sales tax on any medical supplies that I’d need.

Once we got to Oregon, the rest of the ride went fairly smoothly (except for a flat tire that Muffinheadedboy dealt with in short order) and for the most part consisted of flat roads.  Although a phenomenon does exist in which the last few miles seemed like it took hours.  I call it The Rule of Paul Simon in that “the nearer your destination the more you’re slip sliding away.” 

At Portland's Holladay Park:  We did it!

Not to worry.  We rolled our tired bodies across the finish line at around 2:00 pm to the cheers of several dozen Portlanders who had nothing better to do on their day off.  Actually we were glad they were there.  They made us feel like we just won a stage of the Tour de France.

It was a party at Holladay Park in downtown Portland.  Food and drink were everywhere.  Even the New Belgium in the beer garden, which I’m not a particular fan of, was absolutely world class and at the time tasted as good as anything imaginable.

Brian’s wife was kind enough to pick us up in Portland for a nice high-speed van trip back to Seattle as we all reflected on the last two days.  Muffinheadedboy even spoke of trying to do the Seattle to Portland in one day sometime in the future.  Knock yourself out, kid!

A fitting ending to a great weekend of riding

In the end, this was something I’m really glad I was a part of and it was an absolute pleasure to have gone on this journey with these three guys.  It was the most challenging thing I’ve done to date endurance-wise, but as a certain conditioning coach that I know says, we’re stronger than we think.

In the spirit of the late George Plimpton, I think I’ll move on to do something else in 2013 to write about and ease into my new role as “Seattle to Portland Ride Consultant” next year for anyone who’s interested in my services.  I’m not exactly sure what that something else will be, but if Brian is involved next time I will definitely insist on seeing his bucket list before I make any snap decisions.

Meanwhile, bowling season starts in just 49 days.  Better start practicing.

Introducing The New Bob Dylan

Many years ago, when I was in sixth grade, our class was going through the process of having students choose elective courses for seventh grade, our first year of junior high school.  One of these electives was band.  The idea of learning to play music really appealed to me so I decided that that’s what I would pursue.

One day in late spring the junior high band director came to our school to administer a test to those who were interested in signing up for band.  The test mainly consisted of the student identifying tones and then comparing them to determine which note was higher, which was lower, and so on.  When BowlingJoe’s results were calculated, the band teacher called me aside personally and suggested that I might want to take Spanish as my elective.  So that’s what I ended up doing, and my discouraged self never really revisited music again.  This was too bad because I’ve always thought that the ability to play music would be far more satisfying than learning how to ask where the library is in Spanish.

BowlingJoe:  The Next Folk Music Sensation?

A few weeks ago, armed with some newly found free time and a hand-me-down guitar, I started to take guitar lessons from one of the instructors at Bigfoot Music, the establishment that Muffinheadedboy works at.  My teacher, a veteran local musician named Jim Peso, has claimed that he can teach anyone to play the guitar.  Jim, we’ll see if you can still say that after spending a few months with me.

As musically illiterate adult, I will say that after three lessons this journey will not be an easy one.  Even the most basic things such as holding the strings down on the neck accurately and with the proper finger pressure is an elusive operation for me.  And to get both hands to work in unison with one another is unthinkable now.  “Patience and repetition”, as Jim tells me.  That’s the key.  And since I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon and touring the country as the newest sensation in acoustic guitar performance I might as well just take a deep breath, keep practicing, and enjoy whatever small gains happen to be waiting for me.

But for now, should anyone have the misfortune of being within earshot of me and my attempts to execute a perfect D-minor chord, they have my deepest sympathy.

The New Place

BowlingWidow and I have been living in our remodeled North Everett condo since late April, but I haven’t actually mentioned anything about it here or posted any pictures yet.  With that in mind, I can say that it’s working out really well so far.  The neighborhood is kept up nicely enough, is in a relatively quiet part of town, and seems to have very little crime.  But if you do want to introduce yourself to the Everett vice squad you won’t have to look far, just a mere 5 blocks away on Broadway.
 

Our Nice, Modest Kitchen

Sold and gone is the Marysville wooded half-acre whose trees which loomed close to where we slept, scared the living bejeezus out of us during windstorms on many a fall and winter night.  Say goodbye to two hours of lawn mowing per week when the sun is out later than 6:00pm.  Vacuuming?  Maybe twice a week instead of twice a day due to all of the dirt that was tracked in.

From One Corner of the Living Room (Complete with Lazy Cat)

So what to do with the free time gained from a shorter work commute and less maintenance?  Well, there’s lots to do aside from the usual answer of catching up on books and movies that seemingly everyone but me has read and seen over the last twenty years.  For one thing, being close to downtown gives us the opportunity to walk to a lot of places, thus providing exercise and a reduced carbon footprint.

Then there are my guitar lessons.  BowlingJoe is a well known musical illiterate and the notion of teaching an old dog new tricks will be put to a real test.  My music teacher claims he can teach anyone how to get to know his or her way around a guitar.  I’ll do my part by practicing a few hours a week and we shall see about that in time.  Meanwhile, I told my friend and professional musician Dave Nachmanoff that he shouldn’t spend a minute thinking that I might take his job.

From Another Corner of the Living Room

And what about bowling, prominently featured in the name of this blog?  The truth is that I really don’t bowl as often as most bowling fanatics.  But now, instead of spending Saturday’s cleaning out downspouts, maybe there will be a tournament or two in my future.

Yeah, there are really lots of things to do in this world that aren’t classified under the four-letter word called “work” (at least by my definition).  Cooking, volunteering, hanging out at microbrew festivals….it’s all good stuff.  And Muffinheadedboy, I, and a couple of friends will be joining 10,000 of our closest friends in riding our bicycles from Seattle to Portland over two days in July.  203 miles.  You’d better believe we’ve been using some of that free time to train for it, too.

Deck Off of the Dining Area

So far the move has been a lot like being in college again.  Except that now I’m 51 years old and go to bed by 9:00pm every night.  Maybe I’ll live until 90.  It would be kind of nice to be in the top of the sixth inning of life.  With plenty of baseball yet to play.

Louisiana Part Four: The Food

It’s no secret that I like food, and whenever BowlingWidow and I are visiting a place we make it a point to sample the local cuisine.  And while Louisiana may have its rough edges, they really seem to have gotten this culinary thing down pat in the last few hundred years.

We’re talking Cajun and Creole cooking here.  There tends to be a bit of overlap in making the distinction between the two styles, but in general, Cajun originated from French Provincial peasantry (they tended to use whatever local ingredients were available such as game meats, rice, peppers, celery and okra).  The Creoles cooked with a more sophisticated classic “melting pot” European style, used more varieties of seafood (and food in general), and are responsible for jambalaya and gumbo.

But who really cares?  It’s all tasty and fattening.  Thank goodness we don’t eat this stuff every day.  Here’s a small photo collection of some of what was happily consumed: 

The Appetizer:  Alligator - The Other Other White Meat

Enjoying Shrimp and Catfish Po' Boy Sandwiches in Baton Rouge

Ahh Yes...A Muffuletta Sandwich from Central Grocery in the Quarter

Crawfish Etouffee Anyone?

Red Beans & Rice with Andouille Sausage:  My Personal Fave

The Best of New Orleans in One Convenient Package

The Hurricane:  A Required Drink in The French Quarter

For Dessert (or Breakfast): Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

The End

Louisiana Part Three: New Orleans

We entered the New Orleans city limits from the north, driving past the Superdome on our left and toward the Convention Center where we would drop off our rental car.  We chose to bring it back to Hertz with an empty tank and we may have been running on fumes when we arrived.  A taxi cab was called and we traveled at breakneck speed to our bed and breakfast.  We stayed at a quaint little place called The Chimes, on Constantinople (Not Istanbul) Street in the heart of the equally quaint Garden District of the city.  There’s even a literary connection here, as the main character of the definitive New Orleans novel Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius J. Reilly, lived on Constantinople Street.

BowlingWidow at The Chimes Bed & Breakfast:  Great Place to Stay

The Garden District is a great (and very safe) place to walk, with all of its big deciduous trees and classic old homes.  Some of the more famous residents of the area include actor John Goodman (what was he thinking when he made King Ralph?) and ex-NFL quarterback Archie Manning, now more well known for being Peyton and Eli’s dad.  There are a couple of Garden District activities we really felt were worth doing.  First, take a tour of Lafayette Cemetery#1.  A guided tour if possible so you can take in the historical notes and learn how these cemeteries were constructed and operate to this day.  Then, walk the length of Magazine Street with its stores, shops, and interesting restaurants and bars.

A Typical Garden District Home

On a daily basis during the four days we were in New Orleans, we took the streetcars into the French Quarter that run along St.Charles Street.  While they weren’t exactly as fast a speeding bullet train they were a reliable and inexpensive way to get around.  The tremendously popular (and free!) French Quarter Music Festival was going on which had those streetcars busting at the seams with humanity.

Beads From Parades and Parties Gone By Cover the Lines and Cables Along St. Charles Street

Over the four-day run, the FQ Music Festival attracted around 500,000 people.  There was music for everyone’s taste there, unless you are a fan of chamber music or death metal.  Jazz, Blues, Funk, Zydeco, Brass, Traditional, Modern….it was all there on 20 stages (and some street corners) for 10 hours a day.  We couldn’t have possibly seen much more than a fraction of the hundreds of acts but some that made an impression on us under sunny 83-degree skies included Bruce Daigrepont, Rebirth Brass Band (absolutely blew us away), Papa Grows Funk, The Zydepunks, and Walter “Wolfman” Washington, who got our vote for Best Name for a Living Blues Musician.

Downtown New Orleans from the Mississippi River

A couple of more highlights would include getting in to Preservation Hall (barely), that classic concrete cathedral of traditional jazz, to catch a performance.  So was listening to Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue on the lawn on the last night of the festival.  Actually I think that all 500,000 people were right there with us so we recently got tickets to see them later this year at a smaller venue in Seattle.  All said, the weather more than cooperated, the food that we had (such as crawfish pie) sold at the event was great and even the Abita beer was drinkable for this Northwest beer snob.

The Rebirth Brass Band on Stage

Inside Preservation Hall (Barely) for a Show

Bourbon Street at Dusk

Finally, a few other notes about New Orleans:

·         We didn’t wander too far from the French Quarter and the Garden District into places such as Treme.  It would have been interesting to have set foot in those areas but we were warned not to by many and frankly we don’t run as fast as we used to.

·         There’s the French Quarter and then there’s Bourbon Street, within the FQ.  By and large the Quarter is a lot of fun to check out, drink a Hurricane at, shop and get something to eat.  The exception is Bourbon Street and the half block perimeter around Bourbon Street at which you begin to smell a fragrant combination of sewage and vomit.  We don’t really know exactly what goes on there, but it goes on there 24/7.  And they’re all drunk.

·         We were impressed by the ability of the residents (and visitors) to have a good time no matter what.  Katrina wasn’t a death blow for this place and neither will be the next thing that gets thrown at them.

·         The telephone wires along St. Charles Street were loaded with beads.  I think some of the strands have been there since Mardi Gras 1955.

·         Given the great (and rich) local food offerings, it’s perfectly understandable to me that Louisiana is near the top of the national leaderboard when it comes to obesity.

One Final Photo from New Orleans That Just Seemed to Capture the Moment

And speaking of food, next up is my fourth and final blog post.  I’ll conclude with a bite about the cuisine in Louisiana.

Louisiana Part Deux: Lafayette and Cajun Country

BowlingWidow and I said adieux to Baton Rouge and headed west in our rental car to Lafayette, a city of around 120,000 or so an hour-and-a-half away.  Most of the trip seemed to be spent on an elevated freeway, hovering above a rather large swamp.  When locals tell me that Louisiana’s coast line is disappearing I tend to believe them.

You just don't see street names like this in Seattle...

After checking in at our hotel, we gave ourselves a driving tour of the town to get more familiar with the layout.  We got hungry, so found a restaurant that served alligator (very good!) and crawfish etouffee (even better!).  I’ll go into the culinary aspects of Louisiana later, as it’s solidly deserving of its own separate blog post.

Grits:  It's what's for breakfast in Lafayette, Louisiana

Wherever we travel we try to make a point of embedding ourselves in the community and doing things locals would do at least a couple of times at each place we visit.  When it comes to music venues and Cajun music there is no better place in Lafayette than The Blue Moon Saloon and Guesthouse.  It’s a very nondescript, quite large house in a neighborhood near downtown.  The bar only seats a handful of people, with room around the perimeter of the stage and dance floor for the audience to congregate.

We hung around the Blue Moon for a couple of hours.  It was Cajun jam night so locals were dropping in with their instruments to hang out and play some traditional tunes.  The problem for us is that things don’t really get going until around 9:30pm, and not being night owls we only listened to the music for around 45 well-spent minutes.

The Blue Moon Saloon and Guest House:  A Must Visit in Lafayette

Our second and final full day in the area was somewhat of a pilgrimage for me.  Muslims go to Mecca.  Christians will flock to Jerusalem.  Me?  As a spicy food aficionado, I made sure we scheduled a trip to Avery Island:  the birthplace of Tabasco Sauce.  Avery Island is actually a misnomer - it isn't an island at all.

Avery Island Tabasco production isn’t what it once was (Tabasco plants are grown all over the world these days) but the packaging facility is going full steam five days a week.  The tour itself is really simple; we watched a film on Tabasco history followed by a quick glimpse of the factory behind glass.  Then we wrapped things up at the Tabasco Country Store where you can buy your choice of hundreds of Tabasco products.  We just kept it simple and got a couple of shirts and some BBQ sauce.

BowlingJoe used to only dream of giant Tabasco Sauce bottles.

Finally, we wanted to get out into the country a bit and visited a small town northwest of Lafayette called Eunice.  Eunice is one of the hot spots for traditional music according to all of the guidebooks but because it was the middle of the week, we just didn’t see it.  I’d guess that the result would be much different on a Saturday night but when we were there nuthin’ was happenin’ in Eunice.

Next:  New Orleans – The Garden District and French Quarter