Category: Our travel

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Truman

Harry Truman was a plain guy who know next to nothing about international politics (FDR deliberately kept him in the dark) but ended up leading the creation of the most successful international system in the history of humanity.
But he knew how to let others work and he succeeded because of his great team, guys like Marshall, Kennan, Harriman and Acheson (shown below) and a generally deep bench of talent below. These “wise men” learned from the mistakes following WWI. They knew that you cannot rely on good will and idealistic talk, so they crafted institutions and structures that have lasted.

If you read the biographies, and there are many good ones, you see that these men were all flawed and imperfect, and the world they created was also imperfect, but it was better than anything else ever tried.
The sad and alarming fact is that none of these men could make it in today’s politics. Kennan was really weird. He would have been castigated as an elitist. Harriman and Acheson were really elitists in every way. (Nothing wrong with being elite if you really are better) Marshall was as near a perfect man as this world gives us, but I am sure they would have dig some dirt on him too. Truman did not graduate college and was self-taught. He came up in politics through the legendarily corrupt Pendergast machine (although he was Pendergast’s token honest man). And Harry could swear and carry on.
These men were/are my heroes. They inspired me in my diplomatic career and in life. I could not miss the chance to see Harry’s home.
BTW – one of the best biographies ever written is David McCullough’s “Truman.”
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Travel along I-95

I drove all the way from Georgia to Virginia yesterday. I was afraid that I would get fatigued and not know it, so I resolved to stop at all the rest areas along the way. The first I hit was a really nice welcome center in South Carolina.

You can see in my photo that they used a lot of wood construction. This is southern pine, appropriate for this place. It is not CLT, but the beams are gluelam, a decent alternative.
North Carolina has some nice rest stops, but they are normal looking. Virginia’s are done in the colonial style.

One thing you don’t have much at rest stops is shade. I would like to take a 15 minute nap to rest, but with the sun heating up the car it is not easy to do. I wish there were some bigger shade trees, or how about some solar panels. They would do double duty as shade and energy providers.

I only filled up on gas twice: once in South Carolina and then again at exist 104 in Virginia.
In SC, I also bought some firecrackers for the boys. They have some really big things down there in South Carolina.

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Down the middle of America

Heading home from Baraboo right down the middle of Wisconsin and Illinois. Got my last slice of Rocky Roccoco and headed south and east.

My first photo shows the Wisconsin River flowage, Lake Wisconsin. You go slower on the country roads, but you can see more. Next is a walking path at a rest area in Illinois. The windmills are taken from that same stop, as is the photo of the linden flowers. I just love that scent.

The last two photos are the world famous Morrow plots at University of Illinois. They have been planting crops on that spot since 1876 to learn about fertilizer, crop rotation and soils. These are the oldest such plots in North America, but they are not that easy to find. Seeing as how they are probably the biggest tourist draw in all of Urbana-Champaign, you think they would make bigger deal.

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Chicago with Chrissy

Of course, the big reason that it is fun to tour is because I get to be with Chrissy in new situations. You can see in my first photo when we had supper at a nice Italian place. The second photo is from the Navy Pier on Lake Michigan. As we walked back along the pier, I mentioned that this scene reminded me of Lake Michigan (I was thinking of Milwaukee). Chrissy made fun of me, pointing out that maybe it reminded me of Lake Michigan because it WAS Lake Michigan.

We stayed in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst. It is an “trolley suburb,” i.e. one built around trains and transit. These are pleasant suburbs, since they are fairly dense near the train stations. This one featured restaurants and beer gardens, surrounded by leafy suburbs.

We also toured the Quincy Street Distillery. They make a variety of spirits there, including various sorts of whiskeys and gins. The owner and manager, Derrick Mancini, was clearly an enthusiast for his profession. He explained how the system worked. The key to flavor is aging. Whiskey acquires flavors from the wood in the barrels. If they use smaller barrel, it ages faster, but produces a less mature whiskey. We did the tasting. Chrissy liked the younger whiskey. We bought three bottles, each of the different sorts.

As I listened to Mr. Mancini and perceived his love of what he did, I thought about the future of work. We have passed through the machine age, where we need to mass-produce standard products. Maybe we can do products the are also in their own ways works of art.

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Chicago & Frank Lloyd Wright

Continuing with Chicago, Chrissy & I went the architecture tour on the river. I recommend it. We had an exceptionally good tour guide. He even played blues harmonica was we came in to dock.

Since I live in Washington, high-rise buildings are not something I see often. Chicago is the place to see high rise buildings and the river is the best way to do it. It is a beautiful city.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Catching up with recent activities, Chrissy and I went to Chicago to take a look at some of the architecture and specifically at the Frank Lloyd Wright house and neighborhood around Oak Park.

The neighborhood is very pleasant, but I do not think that it results exclusively or even mostly from the Frank Lloyd Wright contribution. I like many of his innovations – and many have entered American vernacular architecture, but the totality of his deigns were not always that good.

The neighborhood is part of the “garden city” movement of he late 19th and early 20th Centuries. What I like about the area is open aspect, varieties of buildings and – more than anything else – the nice big trees.

My first photos shows Wright’s house and studio, followed by one of the Wright designed houses. Next is an ordinary Victorian house, that also adds to the beauty of the neighborhood. Wright evidently hated those things. Last tow are the nice trees. First is a big elm. Next is a ginkgo ‘s Wright’s yard. The tree was there when he bought the place in 1887, so it is at least 130 years old. It is the widest ginkgo that I have ever seen, although not the tallest. As I examined the tree, I notice that the top had been cut off. It looked like damage from wind and not a aesthetic choice.

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Everglades

Alligators used to be so rare that they were put on the endangered species. Today they are so common as pigeons, common enough to be a nuisance. We visited Everglades and Big Cypress. One stop featured a 15 mile loop you could ride on rented bikes. We did. We hoped to see maybe one alligators. There were dozens. The rangers said that they were not dangerous as long as you didn’t get too close. The ones we saw barely moved, but Chrissy did get a good action picture of one that you can see in the first photo.

The bikes were not very good. They had only one very low gear. I felt like one of those clowns on a little bike. The distance that I easily cover in less than an hour on my own bike took two hours on the little ones.

The second last photo shows the Everglades from an observation tower. It is an interesting ecology, very flat and wet most of the year but with a dry season. During the dry season, it often burns. We saw smoke from a fire (last photo) but all I know about the fire is contained in the photo.

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Polydactyl

I learned a new word from my cousin Dorothy Bozich. The word was polydactyl. It means that the animal has too many toes. It was good to know because we went to visit Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West. Hemingway thought that cats were lucky and that those with six toes were even better. He had as many as 70 cats. Today there are only 53. All have the pterodactyl gene, although not all have six toes.

The cats have names from the Hemingway’s life and times. For example, there is a Greta Garbo, a Humphrey Bogart and we actually saw a Patsy Cline. My photos show the various cats w/o names I know. Actually, I Chrissy says that the cat on the fountain is called Elizabeth Taylor. The last photo is just Hemingway’s house.

The cats are free to go, but none do. It is a kind of cat heaven. Why would they leave? The only lost cat was called F. Scott Fitzgerald. Evidently a visitor loved that cat and wanted to buy him. He was told that F Scott was a free agent and not for sale. A few days later that cat mysteriously disappeared. Got a better offer?

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Key West

A few photos from around Key West. We have Chrissy and me eating breakfast and then Key Lime pie, separate places. Last is me at the very end of US. 1.
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Convertibles

I would never own a convertible, but we are making it a tradition to rent one one time a year for a road trip. We started the tradition by accident. I was finishing up a training simulation at Camp Pendelton, near San Diego. Chrissy came out to meet me. I rented a car, but it turned out to be a piece of junk. When I took it back and complained, they offered a nice convertible. We drove up the California coast and then out to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Monument. Driving the convertible greatly enhanced the pleasure of the trip.
We are going to do a road trip from Orlando down to the Key West, so we have a convertible again. Chrissy gets to drive it most. The yellow one is the current version. The silver one is Mount Lemon, near Tucson. The white one is California coast and the gray one is Grand Canyon.

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Dogs & men

For Mariza- they have a statue of Boomer at Vatican Museum. Who knew? The other picture is Apollo that was nearby. This is the most famous Apollo statue, thought to embody perfection. Looks okay. Â