Rural Arkansas

A good bit of my extended family lives just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. My Dad and I just got back from the annual Mitchell Family Reunion. I had never met any of my Arkansan family, nor had I ever been to the Deep South.

I actually like it. The people were nice. Little Rock itself was quaint, but a bit sleepy. My family was very welcoming. And no one called me "boy" even once. (Us Northerners always assume that overt racism is still lurking behind every corner in the South.)

While my Dad usually stays on one of the family farms when he is in town, I opted for the Comfort Inn Downtown, and my Dad wisely chose to join me. Since we had a little freedom from the family, we also got a chance to check out the Clinton Presidential Library and also ventured about an hour outside of Little Rock to spend the day in the town of Hot Springs.

Below are a few photos of my adventure. The first set of photos were taken at and around the family farm where most of the reunion festivites took place. The second set were taken in one of the original bathhouses in Hot Springs that was preserved as a museum by the National Park Service, which felt more like an old school insane asylum than a place for relaxation.

Family Farm

Twin Peaks

“You can’t even see anything,” exclaimed the disappointed Asian tourist upon stepping out of his car atop Twin Peaks.
 
Twin Peaks is perched high above the city of San Francisco. It’s the kind of location that would beacon tourists and travelers from all corners of the globe, promising sweeping 360 degree views of the hilly city below. One might expect to even be able to see from the TransAmerica Pyramid at one end of the city all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge on the other.
 
All of that may be possible if it weren’t for something else that the city is famous for. Fog.
 
Fog creeps in from the north and slowly blankets the city in a deep, seemingly impenetrable grayness. It may be sunny when you leave the office for lunch, but by the time 5:00 rolls around, the fog has already begun its descent.
 
Having spent nearly three years in San Francisco, I grew fond of the summer fog. Its dark, ominous presence slowly engulfing the city like the outstretched fingers of a large hand. It became synonymous with San Francisco in my mind. It was as much a part of the city as cable cars, sourdough bread, or hippies lining Haight St. 
 
Don’t get me wrong: sun-soaked days were always a welcomed occurrence in the city. They offered the chance to finally sit on the beach in bathing suit or leave your apartment without a jacket or sweater in tow.  But for me, the fog is helps define the city.
 
We awake our first full day in the city to cool temperatures, gray skies and low visibility. While you can see a block or two ahead, your vision hits a wall shortly thereafter.  It’s perfect. Jahkedda has a few hours of work to take care of that morning, so I take the opportunity to take in the fog in all its glory. From our apartment on the edge of the Mission, it’s about a 2 mile hike to the top of Twin Peaks. While I have been to Twin Peaks before, it has always been by car. I had never taken the opportunity to conquer the route on foot.
 
Following the rainbow flag-lined portion of Market St past the restaurants, gyms and cafes of the Castro District, the street begins its gradual ascent towards my destination.  The bustling commercial neighborhood slowly morphs into the quietly residential.  The modest single-family houses gradually become larger and more expansive as I make my way further away from sea level.
 
About halfway to the top, I check my map to verify the route. The streets are quiet and the fog is dense. A slight mist begins to develop. Up ahead, a couple appears in the middle of the block and heads in my direction.  Curious of where they came from, I inspect the break in the wall from which they emerged.  I find a steep staircase that leads to some unknown destination. There is no sign, no indication of public or private property, and a low overhang obstructs my view beyond a few stairs.

 I decide that the stairs are roughly headed in the direction of Twin Speaks and I take the plunge. The path leads through a very long, narrow, and seemingly out-of-place park dedicated to a local celebrity. Brightly colored flowers and imposing trees line the hill on either side of the staircase. The stairs continue, seemingly endlessly. The gradation becomes steeper the higher I climb. Continuing forward or turning back are the only options.  I go forward.
 
I emerge from the park in the center of an upper middle class neighborhood, slightly disoriented.  I head towards to the closest visible street, not knowing exactly where I am. Fortunately, it appears that the staircase provided a short-cut through the circuitous route displayed on my map. A sign at the corner points me in the direction of Twin Peaks. 
 
The fog is dense. The street is quiet. There are no people. No cars. No signs of life.  I start to feel that I’m all alone in the world. The sidewalk disappears. I hug the edge of the road as the path snakes its way to the top. A car of tourists emerges, slowly making its way back down the hill. I continue forward.

 Opting for the steep makeshift trail up the side of the hill instead of following the winding road to the top, I reach the nearly 1000ft summit a bit winded. There are already a few people there that morning: a few tourists frustrated by the fog and 2 or 3 men alone in their parked cars waiting for someone or something.  
 
There is an observation deck replete with coin operated telescopes, whose presence seems almost laughable in a fog so dense. The only thing to see from that vantage point is the nothingness that exists just beyond wherever I’m standing, an impenetrable wall of gray.

Vans of tourists come and go.  Workers tinker with the telecommunication station on the premises. Individuals sit with their car doors open smoking a cigarette, perhaps as a way to escape the hectic world below, if only for a few minutes. The fog remains.  The foreign tourist was right: “You can’t even see anything.” 
 
But maybe that’s exactly the point.

Seattle Photos

A few shots from our month in Seattle:
 

Denny Park

Kayaking Puget Sound

Urban Beehive

Bookbindery Restaurant

Isla Bonita Restaurant, Bainbridge Island

On Puget Sound

Seattle

59 degrees, overcast skies, persistent drizzle. 

I stepped off the plane from the Dominican Republic on June 1, 2011 completely unprepared. First order of business upon arrival was a trip to Old Navy to supplement my tropical wardrobe with attire more suitable for a “summer” in Seattle: long-sleeved shirts, a hoodie, and an extra pack of undershirts for good measure. 

Seattle is not just a city. It’s a way of life. A life in which climate plays a leading role, especially when it comes to the city’s food and drink culture. Seattle residents put a premium on fresh, locally produced meats and produce, as demonstrated by restaurant menus and the innumerable farmers markets throughout the city.  Local farms fueled by the temperate climate and predictable rains in the region dramatically reduce the number of miles from crop to table, which is at the heart of the food culture there.  However those cool temperatures and only periodic sunshine also help make Seattle one of the most caffeinated cities in the world. While the European-style espresso bars offering small shots of strong black liquid certainly exist, in the birthplace of Starbucks, residents seek large cups and free refills to help them get through the day. It is not uncommon for multiple cafés to compete for business on the same block. Surveying residents to determine the best cup of joe is a fool’s errand. With so many possibilities, everyone has their favorite. 

Seattle’s other addiction, not counting medical marijuana of course, is craft beer.  While Washington State has built a robust export market for its stellar red wines, the local brewmaster is clearly the hometown favorite.  The average grocery store has a better selection of local beers than most places on the East Coast offer of beers of any type.  A house party is almost as likely to serve bottles of homebrew as the professional variety.  Tastings, food pairings and street festivals throughout the year all pay homage to the sudsy stuff.

Beer makes sense in a place like Seattle. Wine and liquor are of course popular, but beer speaks to the anti-establishment sensibilities at the core of the city. Wine is too bourgeois, liquor too flashy. A pint of beer sits comfortably in the hand of a happy hour reveler dressed in layers of wrinkled shirts and tattered jeans, who just happens to be a Senior Manager at Microsoft.  But not just any beer. This is Seattle, not Pittsburgh. A can of PBR just won’t do. It needs to be brewed onsite from locally farmed ingredients and water fresh from the Cascade Mountains. 

Anything short of that is simply unacceptable.

Still Here

We've conquered a lot of territory since our last blog post nearly 2 years ago. We've moved back to DC, spent a month in Seattle, 2 weeks in France, a long weekend in Philadelphia, and I recently spent a a week in Tunisia. At some point in the midst of all of that travel we got married. Next week we're headed to California and I may be traveling to St. Petersburg, Russia shortly thereafter.

Much ground has been covered, but there is still much ahead of us. We will try to recap the highlights of past adventures while at the same time posting the accounts of new ones.

Tree Planting

A friend of ours from my job put together an environmental advocacy group aptly named The Green Team. As a follow-up to their Green 5K run a few weeks ago, the Ministry of Environment donated a bunch of trees to the organization. About 20 of us joined about 30 or 40 Dominicans and trekked out to Bonao in the interior of the country to plant a few of the trees. The plan was to head out of the city around 7:30, drive out to Bonao, plant a few trees and be back home by noon. As with everything else in this country, things didn’t go quite as planned.

After meeting up with the other tree planters, a caravan of minivans made their way through villages en route to the forest. After a brief hike through an open field, our guide passed out small bundles of tree seedlings and explained to us the planting process. Given that we were standing in an open field devoid of trees, neighboring a fairly dense stand of trees, we all assumed that our goal that day would be to extend the already established forest into the open fields. On the contrary, we were tasked with planting trees on the fairly steep hill on the other side of the trees…in nearly 100 degree weather.

Hiking up the side of a steep hill in the blazing heat was not what any of us had signed up for. Needless to say, many of the volunteers for the day felt blindsided, unprepared and generally miserable. Jahkedda and I were doing alright, but even we weren’t exactly having the best time. Once we all finished planting our bundles of trees, we hiked back to the vans for water and prepared to head home. However, the rest of the group had other plans.

Backtracking through the village and barreling further down the highway, the caravan turned off the main road and through another village heading to a waterfall close by. By this point, Jahkedda was getting fed up with the heat, the hiking and the general outdoors. After great deliberation, we decided to follow the trail towards the waterfall with the intention of turning back if the trail became too arduous. On the first half of the route, things were going fine in terms of gradation of the trail. Also the sun had dipped behind the clouds, so the temperature had fallen significantly. But then it began to drizzle… and then rain… and then pour! Our only choice was to turn back and retrace our steps back to the van. The only problem with that plan was that we had already walked 20-30 minutes so it would take at least that long in the pouring rain to make it back.

The first 10 minutes of trudging through the pouring rain were fairly miserable. But then, we reached a point of saturation at which point we realized that we were completely soaked and it no longer mattered that it was still raining. We were then able to appreciate the cooling raindrops and take in the amazingly beautiful view that we had previously managed to completely overlook: the lush greenery, the jagged rocks of the mountains, the rushing river below. We finally made it back to the van, and about 45 minutes later the rest of the group returned and we made our way back to Santo Domingo.

Although it wasn’t exactly how we imagined and there were some frustrations along the way, all in all it turned out well. There was a good crowd, amazing scenery and we got some good exercise. And that’s basically how most things tend to turn out in this country: it’s never perfect, it’s never how you imagined, but when it’s all said and done, you’re always glad you did it.

Drenched in sweat after tree planting

Military Guard. Not exactly sure what he was there to protect: The Cows? The Seedlings? The Volunteers?

SKYDIVING!!!

For my 30^th birthday last year, Jahkedda bought me a pass to go skydiving and since we were preparing to make the leap to live here in Santo Domingo, she also bought one for herself so that we could make that leap together. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not on our side and we weren’t able to make the jump before leaving the U.S.

Taking advantage of the good weather during our last trip to the U.S., we rescheduled our jump during our time with my folks in Baltimore. Commandeering my father’s SUV, we made the nearly 3-hour trek out to the jump site in northern Virginia. Upon arriving at the airplane hangar, we were greeted by the matriarch of the family-run business, surrounded by her adult sons, her daughter, son-in-law, and their 2 small kids. Her husband had just landed in the neighboring field and was busy unlatching their previous customer and rolling up the chute.

After signing a stack of liability waivers and receiving a brief (very brief!) tutorial on the process, I found myself being strapped in. One brief glance at the very compact Cessna airplane made it very clear that Jahkedda and I would not be jumping together. Whereas Jahkedda had done this once before and sensed that I was the more nervous of the two of us, she suggested that I go first. Strike now before reason and nerves drained the remainder of courage left within me.

While the plane looked small from the outside, it wasn’t until I stepped inside that I realized just how small it really was. There were no more than 10 feet from the pilot’s dials to the rear of the plane. I couldn’t help trying to calculate whether the size of the plane made it more or less likely to plummet to my death. Interrupting my calculations, the door slammed shut, the noisy engine kicked in and we began to taxi to the runway. Everything was happening so quickly that I hadn’t had time to think about what I had gotten myself into, the imminent danger before me. However, once the plane took off, there were no more instructions or preparations to distract me from my own thoughts. All that existed were me, the pilot, the guide and roar of the engine beneath us. A wave of doubt and second thought rushed over me. Paying good money to jump out a perfectly functioning airplane seemed at that moment like the most ridiculous idea I had ever had. But by then, it was too late to turn back. My best bet was avoid looking out the window to try to forget what was about to happen. I looked for a distraction. I did my best to avoid eye contact with the guide and all that he represented. I focused on the innumerable dials and switches manipulated by the calm and seemingly experienced pilot. I found escape in guessing what each switch controlled, what each meter measured. I was surprisingly successful in my pursuit. It wasn’t until the guide, whose existence I desperately tried to forget, roused me from my state that I was abruptly reminded of the task at hand.

Strapped tandem to the guide and at the appropriate elevation, the door is swung open and I am faced with incredibly strong winds and clouds passing below me. The guide instructs me to lay my feet one in front of the other out the open door and onto the ledge below. What happens next is all a blur. The next thing I remember is falling. And fear. Fear that something would go horribly wrong. Fear that I hadn’t paid enough attention in pre-flight tutorial. Fear that my hands weren’t positioned correctly to allow for the optimal deployment of the parachute. Fear that I had tempted the fates and as in some Greek tragedy, the day’s events wouldn’t turn out well for the protagonist.

Then, as if by magic, all became serene. I was in my correct position. The sensation of falling had diminished in my mind. I slowly took in the view. My heartbeat slowed. It was as if I was no longer falling. I was gliding slowly and comfortably back home. All was again right with the world. The guide deployed the parachute with a slight jerk and we began to drift towards the ground. He handed me the reigns, one on either side of me. I was told to tug on one handle, which made us swirl in one direction and then pull on the other to make us spiral in the other. I had very little tolerance for such antics. I had somehow miraculously survived the worst of the fall, and now that the parachute was open and we were all but home free, he decided to tempt fate once again. I wanted no part of it. Sensing my lack of enthusiasm for this part of the process, the guide reclaimed the reigns and guided us smoothly and efficiently back to the landing field.

Once on the ground, my heart rate was much higher than I expected and the sensation of falling still remained within me. There was also an overwhelming feeling of relief that we had landed safely and the strong desire to never leave terra firma again. Jahkedda was there in the field to greet me. I was very happy to see her. Next was her turn, and I knew, as in most things, she would perform much better than I.