Amazing Washington - Northern Areas of Olympic NP

 May 29

Woke up to overcast skies and a forecast of rain, but clearing later in the day.  While checking out local restaurants the night before, we had come across some mixed references to Jazzy Joshua’s, which was right across the parking lot from us.  So we checked it out for breakfast, if only to save time.  On entering past the Bible display, it was instantly apparent that this restaurant was owned/run by Christians, and one delightful Christian was the only person besides us there that morning, an Asian named Lynne (sp?).  She was eager to talk, but not in a way that would put off Northeasterners, and she was the first person of several we met who were gobsmacked to meet people from exotic Massachusetts.  She confirmed that the area gets much less snow than you might expect, and gave us some great tips on where to hike, actually just reinforcing what we were leaning towards.  And we had a great breakfast there, I had the “Kitchen Stove” omelet, which had everything in it but the … well, you get the picture.

Back to the room for final switching to trail pack mode after that, and then a short trip to the main VC at Olympic NP (which is *in* Port Angeles), arriving about 15 minutes before it opened at 9:00.  We were psyched to explore the Park!  BUT … it was a rainy morning and we huddled under the front awning of the VC, reading signs about road and trail closings, with a volunteer, a young Ranger, and a gathering group of schoolkids on an outing.

The volunteer was talkative, as a lot of Washingtonians turned out to be, and this was great.  We were very disappointed to see from their displays that road access to the first trail we had earmarked was closed because of snow.  The volunteer wanted to recommend others, but when he asked for our itinerary he looked blank when I said we’d be going to Lake Quinault after Port Angeles.

OK, here’s a needed digression.  We come from a world where letters count (some), and European languages at least, are respected.  Some place name pronunciations in Washington did not show respect at first hearing, but that may be my prejudice.  “Sequim” is pronounced “Skwim.”  I pronounced “Lake Quinault” as a French word (“key-NO”) but the regional pronunciation is “kwih-NALT.”  Lynne told us that many Washington place names have silent vowels, and cited Sequim and also the city of Hoquiam, pronounced “HO-kum.”  What do you know?

Anyway, our friend figured out what I meant, and then was busy trying to tell me about his cousin who lived 5 miles East of Boston, and I had to interrupt.  “He must be awful wet then, because 5 miles East of Boston is ocean.”  He was stunned … “So, Boston is *on* the coast?”  Next he asked where Seattle was on our itinerary, and that there was a great farmers’ market there.  I told him that Seattle was not on our itinerary, that we’d be flying straight out after Rainier.  He was sputtering.  Why would you fly to a city and then not go to the city?  But we all were saved by the rushing phalanx of schoolkids and by the opening of the VC.

I bellied right up to the counter and verified with the Ranger that the road to our targeted trailhead was really closed, though she pointed out that we could walk there through several miles of snow if we wanted.  Jeez, and it was raining out and foggy!  Not good weather for tourists, but we huddled and decided to pivot and go West to see Madison Falls and perhaps the Lake Crescent region, saving the socked in heights of Hurricane Ridge for that afternoon or tomorrow.

Great decision as it turned out.  We gathered literature, purchased a t-shirt and hat, inspected their wonderful taxidermy, and piled back into the car and headed West on Park Avenue past the Port Angeles High School, eventually ending up on 101 West, where we put the pedal to the metal (as much as possible through intermittent road construction), past roadsides forests of ferns and invasive weeds out to the Elwha area of Olympic NP.  It was a long sentence.

We hooked hard left on Olympic Hot Springs Road and followed the Elwha River South for a few miles.  This and the other rivers we saw on the Olympic Peninsula are all prime salmon breeding grounds, though swimming up them is quite a feat.  The road was closed beyond the Madison Falls parking lot and trailhead (since 2017 because of a washout … the NPS really needs more funds to maintain what they have), but that’s as far as we were going anyway.

Madison Falls is a short trail, and we were instantly amazed by what at first we could not identify and were barely able to take in, bigleaf maples totally coated with clubmoss and licorice ferns.  No one else was there and we were standing in the rain (all with raincoats and hats, no problem), with our mouths hanging open, looking at these majestic trees.  And then we walked the short path up to the falls in Madison Creek, gushing 100 feet down moss-covered basalt, and we loved that sight too.  We sure saw some more awesome trees, mightier falls, and more cascading rivers later in the trip, but being on a smaller scale, this was a great introduction.  Our minds were opened by Madison Falls and we had them to ourselves on that rainy morning.

We began to see a few breaks in the clouds as we got back on 101 West and proceeded to the Sol Duc (sometimes spelled Soleduck) area of the Park.  The road wound back and forth, uphill past driveways leading down to houses clustered around the sides of Lake Sutherland, then across a wide strip of glacial moraine, emerging between mountains covered with Douglas fir and western hemlock to wind around the beautiful shores of Lake Crescent, back in the National Park.  This glacial lake plunges to over 600 feet, and the water is so free of algae that it glows turquoise around its edges.  The lake is home to the Beardslee and Crescenti trout, which are found nowhere else in the world.

We just had to pull over and soak in the view of the lake at the first viewpoint, along with several other cars.  We were in awe again, but the driver of the car just before us took the opportunity to try to drag me into conversation.  “You know it’s actually two lakes!” he told me, as an opening gambit.  He then covered many other topics and found out that we were visiting from exotic Massachusetts and had never been to Washington before.  He was awed by that, but it didn’t slow him down.  He told me what he thought was some great info, “You know, in Clallam County all the busses are free, so you guys can take a bus into Bainbridge Island and then take a ferry into Seattle.  There’s a great farmers’ market there!”  I thanked him for the info but we wouldn’t be going into Seattle.  He was taken aback, which was all I needed to walk away and look at the view.

The rain had stopped, the clouds were blowing away to the East, and it was becoming a lovely day.  Got back in the car and wound farther down the lake, past the Storm King Ranger Station and the Fairholme Campground area, eventually turning left down the Sol Duc Road.  We drove several miles down this, past the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and Campground, and parked at the Sol Duc Trailhead.

We were going to check out Sol Duc Falls and then do the Lover’s Lane Loop Trail, and so geared up for a long hike.  This was a big departure/re-supply point for back-country hiking, and there was a shelter for hikers caught in thunderstorms not far down the trail.  There were several people on the first part of the hike down to the falls, but it wasn’t crowded at all, and then there was practically no one on the Lover’s Lane Loop.  And this hike was beyond amazing, I don’t know how to begin describing it.  Perhaps some pictures would help.

This was old growth, temperate rain forest.  We saw lots of specimens of the bigleaf maples, and also Douglas firs, Sitka spruces, red cedars, and western hemlocks; the most impressive trees might have been the fallen ones that had become massive nurse logs, some sprouting and supporting hundred-year old trees themselves.  Sword ferns, vine maples, devil’s walking-stick, tiny wildflowers, every variety of moss we’d ever seen and many we hadn’t, lichens, everything draped with clubmoss, mushrooms and fungi, rocks covered with layers of growth, everything alive.  We saw just a few flying insects and a few millipedes and spiders, but no other animals that day, just amazing plant life growing everywhere.

We got to the falls themselves after almost a mile, and this was pretty spectacular too.  One guidebook we had gives a technical description of how the bedrock tilted to form a narrow channel in the river, but you’ve gotta see it to believe it.  There was a heavy stream of mist coming up from the cataract, and it formed a rainbow that we struggled to capture with the camera.

We continued past the falls on to the Lover’s Lane Trail, that wound for 5 or so more miles up along the West side of the river to the campground and then down the East side, back to the parking lot.  But after a mile or so we decided to change plans; this would have been a few more hours of the same thing, we only had a few granola bars and bananas and were getting hungry, and we wanted to get back to Hurricane Ridge that day since the weather had turned so nice.

So we reversed, cruised by the falls again and took some more pictures … the sun had moved and lit up a different rainbow over the cataract … and then back up the Sol Duc Trail to the now crowded parking lot.  We cruised back up the road looking for a secluded picnic table to make our PB&J sandwiches on, and found a fine one right before the Salmon Cascades site.

Back up to the head of the road and turned right on 101, but before heading straight back to Port Angeles we wanted to check out the Marymere Falls Trail at Lake Crescent, which the Ranger had recommended to us that morning.  It was a 45 minute drive back to the Storm King Ranger Station at Lake Crescent, where we parked and followed the path down to the beach, and then started on the Marymere Falls Trail by going through a culvert under route 101.

This was another mile there and mile back, through old growth forest dominated by Douglas fir, which started off flat but then went steeply uphill to a falls in a tributary of Barnes Creek, cascading down off Mt. Storm King, which featured in the Klallam Indians’ origin story of Lakes Crescent and Sutherland (the two lakes).  That story is covered in this article, as well as other gruesome tales.

Returned down the same path, filled our water bottles at the Ranger Station, and then continued East past the two lakes for the 30-minute drive to Port Angeles and the Hurricane Ridge entrance to the Park.  There we passed the VC we’d been to that morning and shot up and up into the blue sky, surrounded by trees and snow-covered mountains.

We thought we’d done a lot of uphill driving in Great Smoky Mountains NP, over the saddle in Hawaii, and up the Moki Dugway in Utah.  But this may have beaten them all, as it climbed and climbed and became twistier and twistier.  I’m not a cautious driver, but this was getting a little hairy, especially when there was so much to look at and the drops we were going around were so steep.  In 18 miles of serpentine road, we gained 5242 feet.  Play the video on this page, which must have been taken right around the time of year we were there.

We finally got to the top and there was a big parking lot, but where was the VC??  We parked near a hole in the ground where it apparently used to be … it had burned down in 2023 and probably isn’t going to be rebuilt any time soon.  They were running a gift shop out of a trailer.  Again, the NPS needs better support to maintain its Parks for the enjoyment of the people.

But the key thing was, this was an absolutely beautiful place!  There was a range of snow-capped mountains right across the deep valley of the Lillian River to the South, and behind us was the ridge itself, partly covered with snow (but with a few trails open), and affording absolutely lovely views off to the North over the Strait to Canada.  In fact, Sarah’s phone buzzed and T-Mobile had texted her, “Welcome to Canada!”  Another funny thing was the presence of blacktail deer, who were everywhere.  They wandered across the parking lot, “innocently” blocking cars, lounged on the steep slopes, and seemed oblivious to the swarming humans.

We set off on one trail through subalpine meadow until it was blocked by deep snow, then circled back around to the High Ridge Loop Trail, up to a summit with bunches of delicate wildflowers growing in the scree as the trail got steeper.  At one switchback, Sarah figured she’d gone high enough, but Dave and I continued up almost to the top, where we were blocked by snow again.  We saw a large marmot sunning himself across the meadow.

Oh no, our long day of exploring the spectacular Park was drawing to a close, and we were getting pretty tired out, especially after that steep hike.  Wandered around a bit more, but then it was back to the car and down and down the road, stopping at a few places to enjoy the view and let the brakes cool off … we could actually smell them.

Time to start thinking about dinner, but first back to the hotel to change out of our smoking boots and get in a little rest.  We found a place right down by the dock in the center of Port Angeles, and realized that this was right near the City Pier, which had an observation tower.  So we headed down there and it was a sparkling evening, out on the water.  The town has its own spit, which forms a long, curving pier that hosts a Coast Guard air station and shelters the harbor.  This is the first port for many ships coming across the Pacific into the Salish Sea, and several massive ones were anchored just offshore in a line.

We snapped a few pictures on the dock, and then drove a couple of blocks into the old town, where the restaurant we’d settled on was mobbed and had a 40-minute wait!  Oh well, we debated about a Plan B and decided that the thing to do was just go to the restaurant we were parked in front of, the Oak Street Bistro.  Strange that the one a few blocks away was mobbed and this one was deserted, but the food was fine, the beer was cold, and the service was mellow but good enough.

Found a gas station on the way back to the hotel, filled up the tank and got a few more bottles of water in their store.  We hadn’t gotten enough at the WinCo but now could rotate them and re-fill the empties when/where potable water was available.  Back in our suite in the Super 8 we played another game that evening, but ended up going to bed not that late.  It had been quite a day!

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Broadleaf Lupine
• Kinnikinnick
• Salal
• Western sword fern
• Alumroot
• Vine Maple
• Bigleaf Maple
• Hedge Mustard
• Narrowleaf plantain
• Ox-eye daisy
• Coastal Mugwort
• Licorice Fern
• Western Bunchberry
• Deer's-Foot/Vanilla Leaf 
• Devil's walking stick 
• Scouler's Corydalis
• Red-berried Elder
• Deer Fern
• two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley
• American Fairybells
• Stream Violet
• Pacific Trillium
• Woodland Strawberry
• forget-me-nots
• Herb-robert
• Piggyback plant/Youth-on-Age
• Glacier Lily
• Lanceleaf Springbeauty
• Coast Range Lomatium
• Spreading Phlox
• Coast Paintbrush
• Orange honeysuckle
• Arctic Lupine
• Common Vetch

Amazing Washington - Arrival and Dungeness Spit

 May 28

We’d wanted to travel to the Pacific Northwest for years, we’d never been anywhere near there and were sure we’d love it.  Dave wanted to come too and that was great with us.  So I researched hikes and made reservations.  We wanted to minimize time away from the kitties and so only scheduled a 6-day trip, and only to Washington.  But it was just fantastic and maybe we should have stayed a bit more.

Dave came up on Tuesday and we finalized packing, including one shared suitcase which we’d check.  We were flying Alaska Airlines and they charged for everything, so we were carrying on most stuff.  We also ordered food from them to be served on the flight, which wasn’t an outrageous rip-off.

Woke up really early on Wednesday, May 28, said goodbye to the cats (Andrew would be checking on them), and the Woburn Cab driver with the town car and the handlebar mustache drove us into Logan, a surprisingly painless drive.  Checking the bag and going through security was surprisingly painless too, though everything in an airport is a hassle.  Logan was already overrun at that time of early morning with tweens and teenagers going on field trips or maybe just hanging out and taking up space and quiet.

We found a Not Your Average Joe’s that was serving breakfast and had a leisurely meal, then found our way to the crowded gate, past the pet relief area.  We were just able to get seats together in the gate area, and had a nice conversation with a woman from Waldoboro ME, who was moving to Washington with her cat, Frankie.  Luckily, they announced that they were going to run short on overhead space and so were offering free checking of carry-ons, which we jumped at.

We had seats together and finally boarded the full plane, which left the gate pretty much on time at 9:00AM.  Sarah had the window and Dave had the middle.  I actually got in some snooze time (which I needed), the meal/snack we had ordered wasn’t that bad, and the jet stream was giving us West-bound travelers a break that day, so we were ahead of schedule.  They offered free movies if you hooked up your phone to the on-board wifi and watched on the small screen with headphones.  I read instead and snoozed and played cribbage on my phone.

It was pretty clear weather that day and Sarah had fun watching out the window.  Mostly cities and farms across mid-America, but then the badlands and the mountains started as we crossed the Dakotas and Montana, and we had fabulous views of Glacier NP.  Then civilization started up again and we landed in Seattle.  And we were instantly delighted.  We flatlanders were kind of ready for it, but were just amazed to be able to see snow-capped mountains in several directions from the airport itself, though it was a hot day in the city.

Picked up our checked bags (Alaska Airlines gets good grades, including their commitment to get checked bags out on the carousel quickly), found the shuttle to the car rental, and waited in line at Thrifty’s, eventually getting a black Chevrolet Trailblazer with just 532 miles on the odometer.  We’d originally reserved a compact but had to switch to something else because they ran out of compacts, so chose a small SUV, which ended up costing us less money and working fine.  The Trailblazer had a good amount of room for us three and odd luggage/food/maps/shoes/etc., got good mileage, and didn’t ever blink at the mountain/rugged roads we put it through.  We named her “Muddy.”

Left the car rental place and headed East on Washington 518 and then South on Interstate 5 along with a shocking amount of other cars, the road swelled to five lanes at times.  Luckily the left-hand lane was a (free) HOV lane and we could zip along, down to Washington 16 in Tacoma, where we headed West and then North over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  The Interstate had been as urban an experience as you might expect, but as we crossed the bridge we were knocked over again by the beauty of the mountains off to our left and dead ahead, and the blue, lovely, open stretch of water we were crossing.

In Bremerton, 16 turned into route 3, and we exited on route 310 for some shopping.  First was an employee-owned, huge WinCo Foods supermarket … quite the warehouse but we managed to get our small travel supply of PB&J makings, bananas, chips, beer, cider, water, granola bars, and bug spray and sunscreen.  Then down the street to The Novel Tree for some gummies.  Then back on the road to the North.

We were a little disappointed to not get many glimpses of the spectacular coastline we were driving up, but the suburbs, marinas, naval stations, and factories eventually petered out and we tourists were delighted by such prosaic things as the wildflowers and weeds growing on the sides of the road.  We were surrounded by banks of ferns and grasses, incredible carpets of ox-eye daisies, and sudden explosions of yellow bushes, which we determined were a mix of exotic Scotch broom and gorse, but were beautiful.

Route 3 turned into route 104, crossed another arm of Puget Sound on the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, and continued out West as route 101, which we’d be on for a while; we followed it in our circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula.  Our destination was the Dungeness Recreation Area and National Wildlife Refuge in Sequim, a short drive North on Kitchen-Dick Road through farms that looked like they never saw snow (even though snow-covered mountains were looming in our rear-view) and more spectacular fields of daisies.

We pulled up to the end of Voice of America Road (guess they have to broadcast across the Strait to the Canadiens to protect Democracy??) into a small parking lot.  We finally emerged from the car, ready to start our adventures, and were immediately knocked over by the blasting West-Northwest wind, though there was still a berm between us and the water.  We put on extra layers, tightened the straps on our hats, and set off down the seaside path through the Recreation Area up the shore towards the NWR.

Some setting of the scene may be in order here.  Between Washington and British Columbia is a huge arm of the sea called the Juan de Fuca Strait (part of the Salish Sea, that extends up into Canada).  The prevailing Northwest wind blows sand down the strait and has made spits on the Washington coast, such as the Dungeness spit.  We were up on the bluff, hiking beside clusters of beach roses (native Nootka roses), ferns, the ubiquitous salmonberry bush, and plants we’d never seen before, stopping at viewpoints to gawk down at the turbulent sea and across the @15 miles of brilliantly lit water to Vancouver Island, and being blasted at times by the sand, though we were high above the beach.

It was about half a mile, past the campground, to the entrance to the NWR, where they have a nice kiosk and bathrooms, and we had a short conversation with a volunteer who answered some of our amazed questions and checked my America the Beautiful pass.  The path then took us downhill past huge trees to the start of the spit itself, and I have no idea how to describe how it was so immediate, was all I’d imagined, but was more.  The wind was blasting us, the waves were threatening us, large seabirds struggled with the wind, the driftwood logs that had washed up on shore were massive, the sun was beating down, and the spit extended out and out into the sea with the faint mass of Mt. Baker seemingly hovering over the lighthouse out at the end of the 5-mile spit.  Our cameras had no hope of capturing what it was like.

We walked around the sea side and the bay side of the spit a bit, but would have been foolish to venture down it, even though it would have been glorious.  Well, glorious on the way there but impossible on the way back, with the wind and the driven sand in our faces.  The accumulating sand actually adds 18 feet to the spit every year.  We soaked in as much as we could, this was a great start to our vacation!  But it was already getting near 9:00PM by our body clocks, and the restaurants we’d researched in our destination of Port Angeles all closed at 8:00.

Walked back up the path from the spit and detoured on the Primitive Trail to get back to the kiosk, rather than the straight trail we’d just been down.  Back to the car, and it was just another half hour drive down local roads to 101 and into Port Angeles.  Port Angeles is a funny town, nestled between the towering mountains of Olympic NP to the South and the wild Juan de Fuca Strait to the North.  It’s a bit of a port town, a bit of an artsy town, and has a mix of nice houses and lots of run down ones, between straight streets of strip malls and auto repair shops.

We headed past the hotel we were going to stay at and into the “downtown” area, to the Midtown Public House, which is a really fun little brewpub disguised as an Asian fusion restaurant (or vice versa).  I had a fantastic bowl of udon noodles and pork belly, but was too tired to finish it.  Sarah and Dave were getting pretty tired too by that time.  We headed back up the road to the Super 8 by Wyndham Port Angeles and were assigned a nice, quiet, small 2-room suite on the third floor (only 28 steps up) from which you could just see a mountain if you peeked around the corner.  We dragged everything upstairs, stowed it all, played a quick game of our take on 3-person cribbage, and then I went to bed … who knows what the others did.

Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:

• Scottish Broom
• Gorse
• Smith's Cress
• Nootka rose
• orange honeysuckle
• salal
• Baldhip Rose
• trailing blackberry
• Lawn daisy
• Western Starflower
• Threeleaf Foamflower

Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 3

Got a good night's sleep in finally, but then the usual mosh pit for breakfast.  As I say, there were many Deadheads at the Hyatt House that weekend, more so than any other hotel we'd stayed at.  Everyone we talked to agreed that the shows had been fantastic so far, and that Bob Weir should show up on Sunday the 16th.

This show was going to be a very different band, Steve Molitz on keys, the dynamic duo of Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, Jackie Green, and Molo and Lesh.  They also promised special guests, and of course everyone's expectations were high.

After breakfast we played another couple of games in our room, went for a walk around parts of the West Harrison oval we hadn't poked into before, and then ate sandwiches.  Time for a big game of Parks downstairs, and then back up to the room for a group nap and a little TV before heading out to Port Chester.  The weather still wasn't sunny to any degree, but at least we weren't in a huge fog bank.  And Kiosko was as good as ever.  This night they presented us with free desserts, which were delicious.  We really like that place, and they seem to like us.  But who knows when or if we'll be back there?

Up to our fine center balcony seats again, and the band came on a little after 8:00.  We were delighted that Karl Denson was there (on sax, flute, percussion, and vocals) at far right, along with a to-be-filled guitar setup to his left, and Adam McDougall sharing the keyboards with Molitz.  Those two made some great sounds together.  Brian Rashap was again on Big Brown.  Here's the first set:

• China Cat Sunflower
• Deep Elem Blues
• Here Comes Sunshine
• Sitting on Top of the World
• Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
• Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
• Sugaree

I really like Jackie Green's voice, and he started us off with a nice vocal on China Cat.  And with the next few songs they sure took advantage of having the great Campbell and Williams.  Larry was playing a sick rockabilly Telecaster and standing still in precise "musician" posture as always, though his sound was so infectious.  Deep Elem was a perfect song for everybody to get to know each other, and then Teresa took over with Here Comes Sunshine; she was not about to brook any argument.  Another great part of this song was Denson's ethereal flute.

Sitting On Top of the World was another great guitar workup, and then it was Teresa's turn again and we could see her getting herself psyched.  To any one there who wasn't familiar with Teresa or felt that no one could equal the female vocalists of the first two nights, hold onto your hats.  She wailed out Lamps at the top of her voice, shrieking and howling and bringing out the primal force of the song.

Somewhere in there (the flow of guests was sometimes sudden), Rashap retired backstage and Grahame took over at bass.  He can play it, but he's a guitar player, not a bass player.  Later, Adam Minkoff took over and he's a fine player, he used to play bass in Amy Helm's band.  And then another great special guest appeared, Tom Hamilton at the guitar setup next to Denson.  Tommie sang a lovely little Mississippi Half-Step on which he conducted the crowd on the "Cross the Grand Rio" bridge.  But as always, he was bursting to play us some ripping lead guitar and he certainly did.  Jackie closed the set with Sugaree, helped immeasurably by having Teresa on backup.

Yikes, just one more set to go!  It was another average length intermission and we were getting pretty exhausted.  But our seats were great, the crowd was well behaved, and we were having a fine time.  What was there left to play?  Of course Truckin', Shakedown Street, and Sugar Magnolia ... but there was one more night to go after this one too.  I spoke up for Pride of Cucamonga, and every time I see Larry I'm hoping for his When I Go Away (though it's not really a Grateful Dead song).  Would they open with a Dark Star jam yet again?  And if Jackie's in the house you can't go wrong expecting Caution or So Many Roads.  So here's what they played, yet another excellent second set:

• Shakedown Street
• Pride of Cucamonga
• Truckin'
• Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)
• Pride of Cucamonga
• So Many Roads
• When I Go Away
• Cosmic Charlie
• I Know You Rider

Well, it was certainly a jam to open, but you could tell right away it wasn't going into Dark Star, instead they started funkifying things and went into the Shakedown riff.  Grahame was still on bass but gave it up for Minkoff soon and went back to guitar.  And I loved it when they finished that and then went into Pride Of Cucamonga, with Larry excelling on one of the Dead's most country songs.

A pretty quick Truckin' followed, and then they went into a deep jam, deeper and deeper until the bass line of Caution emerged and Jackie stepped to the mike to tell us about going down to see the gypsy lady.  He sang, "And she told me that all you need is just a touch of mojo hand" in one syllable!  Pretty impressive, and then he went on to tell the other guys in the band that they needed to get some mojo hand themselves, though he didn't seem at all assured that they'd follow his advice.

Anyway, a tight return to the last verse of Cucamonga came out of that jam, and then they stopped and Jackie crooned out a lovely So Many Roads.  This was another part of the set where everyone sat down and I did too, but right after I did, I was back up.  What was that they were playing?  It sounded like, and it was, one of my favorite songs ever, sung by the guy who wrote it.  There was probably a bunch of people asking, "What's this song?" but there were another bunch of us dancing and grooving.  This is the quintessential memorial song IMO.

A nice little Cosmic Charlie calmed us down, we were all paddling that paper canoe.  And then the band jammed again and wound up in the partner to the opening number, I Know You Rider.  There was full band and crowd participation on this one, everyone was singing along and feeling fine.

Grahame came out after the set for another donor rap and introduced everyone again, though I missed the name of the guy who took the second drum set for the last couple of songs.  Grahame then started strumming Sugar Magnolia, and soon our music weekend was over.

Back out into another cool night, and a short drive back to a suddenly not-so-crowded Hyatt House.  Heading back home in the morning and we couldn't imagine that the traffic would be any worse!

Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 2

Even though I'd brought my own pillow and humidifier, the bed was plenty big enough for tossing and turning, and the window was cracked so the temperature wasn't stifling, this was the first night in a strange place and so I didn't sleep well.  I was exhausted from the stressful drive down and the long and emotional evening's entertainment, but I was barely less exhausted by morning.  Oh well, it's not like I'm not used to this!

And the breakfast experience was not exactly a relief itself.  Yes, the Hyatt House had a good breakfast, but the problem was getting to it.  It's a huge hotel and over the weekend a lot of the people there were Deadheads.  But everyone went to breakfast at the same time and that meant a line to even get in the little breakfast room, empty chafing dishes when you got to the head of it, and an empty coffee dispenser too.  The kitchen staff was trying to keep up, but was short staffed and overtaxed.   And if and when you got your food, good luck finding a seat in that small room, which doubled as their bar in the evenings.

Back up in our nice room, we played a couple of board games (Splendor, then Azul) on the kitchen counter.  We would have liked to go downstairs to the bar to spread out a bigger game on one of their tables, but realized the breakfast brou-ha-ha would take a while to get cleaned up.  We had brought some sandwiches for lunch and stayed in to eat them.  We've gone for nearby hikes in other years, but the day was again very foggy and threatening rain.

Even so, after lunch we were determined to get outside for at least a bit.  The Hyatt House is set in a couple of acres in a large circle of highways.  Most of this hilly, rocky ground has been paved over and features immense, deserted parking lots and spooky, deserted office buildings.  There's also a huge Wegman's, a prep school, a couple of apartment complexes, and a massive gym/pool complex squeezed in there.  They've apparently struggled with groundwater though, and there are rocky dells with gaping culverts and (hopefully well positioned) holding pools between the huge buildings.  We explored around one of the apartment complexes and then the Wegman's parking lot.  Sarah braved the inside of Wegman's to get some spices (the Cap was doing a spice drive), though a laden Deadhead had warned us it would suck us in.

We then poked around the Histogenetics building, which looked like it dated from the 1970s or before, and was surrounded by a cracked, asphalt parking lot that seemingly hadn't been used in decades.  The large lot is arrayed over several hills, and one knoll had a deserted lunch/picnic area on top, mostly blocked off by fallen trees.  This was a spooky, post-apocalyptic office-scape, and seemed to be the norm around there from what we could see from the tops of the hills.  Back to our room for a short nap and then an abbreviated game of Parks in the breakfast room/bar downstairs ... and then it was time to head for the Cap again!

Another trip to Kiosko, and another excellent meal.  I had their Quesadillas de la Casa, Sarah got goat meat, and Dave had a very large piece of salmon.  Our timing was right on, and we were soon up in our center balcony seats, timing the squirrel.  The place had been pretty packed on Friday, but there had been a few empty seats.  This was obviously not going to be the story on Saturday though, as the crowd just poured in and there was not a space to be seen.  One usually has to stand through a show at the Cap to be able to see the stage, but strangely this did not hold true, however.  Maybe we're *all* getting old, but through most of another excellent show, a large number of people stayed seated.  For long stretches we could sit down and not have our view blocked, which was fine with me as my feet and legs were pretty worn out by the end of the evening.

The core of Lesh, Crosby, Krasno, Molo, Burbridge, Mitarotonda, and Hartswick were back, and we were excited to see that Natalie Cressman had joined her partner, Jennifer, and that there was yet another guitar setup over on the left side of the stage.  They were later joined by John Scofield with his singular guitar sound, and by Adam Minkoff on organ and drums.  Here's the first set:

• Friend of the Devil
• Deal
• Althea
• Peggy-O
• Crazy Fingers
• Stella Blue
• He's Gone
• Cold Rain and Snow

They opened with a formulaic take on FOTD and I remember thinking that of course I shouldn't expect a show as great as Friday's.  But then they jammed into Deal, and suddenly this was far from formulaic.  Hartswick and Cressman got their horns going, Oteil was doing his hopping-around thing again, they had Minkoff milking the organ and Crosby rolling on the piano, and we were all back smiling.  Althea was a Mitarotonda showcase, and then Scofield came out for a beautiful Peggy-O, with a great vocal arrangement.  Scofield stuck around for a great Crazy Fingers, on which he was as eclectic as ever.

But then it was time for a slow introduction to Stella Blue and the entire theater was staring at Jennifer with excited anticipation as she slowly took her mike off its stand.  She can sing this as well as it's ever been sung, and that's what she did, with Scofield adding some great guitar fills.  The crowd didn't even bother going nuts, this was church for all of us.  And after Jennifer ended they started another slow intro into He's Gone, and it was Natalie's turn.  She doesn't have the coloratura of Jennifer, but her voice is possibly more mind bending.  She can add a dimension of sincerity, originality, and soulfulness to a song like He's Gone, adding new notes and flourishes to the end of lines.  You've got to hear her.  And we all realized that she was singing He's Gone about Phil, and we all started tearing up yet again.

We'd seen Cressman do this song at the Cap before and it was followed by another Mitarotonda showcase tune, Cold Rain and Snow.  They did that combo again, and this time Rick's excellent vocal was backed up by the whole band, playing at their loudest.  This and Deal were possibly the songs of the set, though Stella Blue and He's Gone were untouchable in their own way.

Possibly a shorter set break that night, halfway through our annual(?) musical sojourn.  The guys came back out and mixed it up a bit.  Oteil had moved to the second drum set and Brian Rashap (Phil's longtime production manager) was playing Phil's "Big Brown" bass.  Also, John Medeski was now squeezed in with Crosby on the keys setup.  Here's the second set:

• Dark Star Jam
• Help on the Way
• Slipknot!
• Franklin's Tower
• King Solomon's Marbles
• Scarlet Begonias
• Comes a Time
• The Other One
• Dark Star

Again, they opened with a wild, long, out there Dark Star jam that wandered and wandered until we were a long way from Westchester County.  The whole weekend was more or less a tribute to Phil, and this sure was.  Their point was that, as Phil often said, Dark Star is always playing out there somewhere, and when our heads are in the right place we can tap into it.  They sure tapped, then Oteil moved back to bass and Minkoff appeared at the second drum set ... and then suddenly, brahnga-brah-dong!!! we were riding the crest of a wave.  Great stuff and so much like what Phil would have done.  This went into a great Slipknot! jam, which at times threatened to break out into the Allman Brothers In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, which made Oteil giggle.

Then a fine Franklin's Tower that threatened to swerve into Blue Sky, and this of course had the whole theater singing along with Jennifer (as if), and then another unexpected and acceptably tight twist, into King Solomon's.  I remembered the thrill of seeing Phil do this with Joe Russo in Boston in 2012.  Fantastic that they'd do both an extensive Slipknot! and then a huge King Solomon's in the same set.  Excellent Scarlet (which Jennifer topped off with the line, "Everybody's playing in the Happy Birthday Phil Lesh band!"), and another wonderful vocal from Oteil on Comes a Time.  He can be so self-deprecating and was seemingly embarrassed to be featured on vocal when Hartswick and Cressman were on the stage, but he's pretty good himself.

Oteil then switched from his bass to Big Brown and we all knew what was about to happen.  They launched into another loud and long intro, but you just knew that he was about to drop that bass run, and then we were off into TOO-land, and then ultimately into a tight Dark Star reprise, with Grahame up on the drum riser orchestrating the climax to the set.  Friday night had been great, but this second set was awesome!

Phew, time to sit down again and get a short break for our aching feet and legs.  Though we'd had some time sitting down during the second set, this had been a workout, physically and emotionally.  Pete Shapiro and Phil's grandson Levon came out with a cake, and we all sang Happy Birthday to Phil, though unfortunately he was not there except in spirit.  Then Grahame did another donor rap, which came out a little smoother than it had on Friday, but was still a bit hard for him to get through.  Then it was time for all players to come out again for introductions and the totally expected Not Fade Away, with lengthy crowd coda.

Another night at the Cap was over!  Back to the car in the foggy night and back up to West Harrison, where we fell into bed shortly.

Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 1

 As mentioned, we've seen Grahame Lesh perform with his father for several years, and been quite impressed with his talent as a guitarist and a bandleader.  It's very sad to know that his father, Phil, passed away at 84 this past October.  But it's great to know that Phil's music and his legacy continues.  Grahame announced a couple of months ago that he'd be continuing the tradition of celebrating his father's birthday at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester.  He announced gigs there on March 14 and 15, and then later on the 16th and 17th as well, with different bands.  We got tickets to the first three of the four shows.

Though it's one of the most expensive options around and we'd been avoiding it, we got a room at the Hyatt House in West Harrison.  It's relatively very close to the Cap, was advertised as having a good breakfast, meant that we could avoid the Connecticut Turnpike and/or parkways by sneaking into Westchester County down 84 and 684, and we were able to get a suite with two separate bedrooms for a not outrageous price.  Something had to go wrong!

Well, of course the first thing that went wrong was traffic.  We picked up Dave in Quincy around noon on Friday the 14th, and headed North and then West on the Mass Pike.  It was Friday afternoon and I've rarely seen the Pike so crowded, and of course the more crowded it gets the more aggressive some drivers are.  We got off on 84 and stopped at a rest area for lunch.  This road was saner but not by much, and when we got to downtown Hartford the press of traffic slowed down to a crawl for the next half hour.  We stayed on 84, though Google tried to get us to turn off South, down to the parkways, which we were determined to avoid because of recent bad experiences on them.  We should have risked it though, as we ran into traffic jam after traffic jam all the way out to Danbury, most caused by accidents.  This was not a mellow trip, and Connecticut drivers are erratic.  Finally made it to 684 over the NY border, and this was better, though one car tried to swerve into me when the driver seemed to fall asleep.  And for most of the trip, the other side of the road looked even worse!  Especially on 684, where it was a huge parking lot of people trying to escape NYC.

Anyway, we got to West Harrison and checked into our suite, which was very nice.  We were in a corner of the 4th floor of the huge Hyatt House and the suite had two bedrooms with king beds and en suite bathrooms, a kitchenette, a small living room area, and three large TVs.  The best thing was that the windows actually opened, and we were able to air out the room a bit, though the hotel had not turned on air conditioning yet.  This place wasn't perfect and through the wall we could hear the elevator going up and down, but it was very acceptable.

Unpacked, had a beer or two, and then got things together and headed down Westchester Avenue for the pretty short drive to the parking lot behind Kiosko, where we'd eaten many times before.  They actually seemed to recognize us (they're probably aware of the Cap's schedule, half the people we saw eating there that weekend were definitely Dead-ified), and we had another great meal.  Walked down to the Theatre, checked out the new street sign, went through security, bought some excellent t-shirts, and wandered up to our center balcony seats.  We were in row D that night, row F Saturday, and row E Sunday, all very good center balcony seats.

The people were streaming in and the squirrel was rotating around the Theatre, and then the band came on at about 8:15.  The players they'd advertised were Grahame, Jason Crosby, Eric Krasno, John Molo, Oteil Burbridge, Rick Mitarotonda, and Jennifer Hartswick.  They said they'd also have special guests, which of course led to much conjecture.  The first to come out were Amy Helm and Alex Koford, and the band launched right into a beautiful, moving opener of Box of Rain, with those two and Grahame singing like angels.  Here's the first set:

• Box of Rain
• Cumberland Blues
• They Love Each Other
• Tennessee Jed
• Bertha
• Brown-Eyed Women
• The Music Never Stopped
• Casey Jones

I know there were tears in my eyes during that first song, and I think there were plenty more in the audience and up on stage.  But they pivoted quickly into another song favored by Phil, Cumberland, and then proceeded to take it higher and higher.  Oteil was on fire from the beginning, hopping around the stage in his bare feet and obviously taking this gig very seriously.  But it was clear that this was now Grahame's band.  In the past he'd done a great job of holding together bands assembled by his father with his rhythm guitar and backing vocals, but now his was the dominant guitar sound on stage.

Koford moved to percussion on a second trap set to the left of Molo for BEW, and then Ross James came out on guitar and shared vocals with Jennifer on Music.  As one expected, Hartswick was just surreal on both vocals and trumpet, and the crowd loved her.  There was definitely a problem of too many guitars on stage, but Phil had always done this too, and there were only a few instances of them all going silent at the same time, or them all playing discordantly at the same time.  Krasno really impressed us with some of his leads, and Mitarotonda was great too, though not as dynamic as he would have been in a smaller band.  And we loved it all, this was a really fun first set and of course a great setlist.

After an average length intermission, they were joined by yet another guitarist, Scott Law.  Koford stayed in the second drum seat for most of the songs, though Amy's son, Lavon Collins (named after his grandfather, who later changed his name to Levon), took over for the last couple.  And in the middle of the set, Holly F. Bowling came out to play piano on Eyes and then share the keyboards with Crosby for the rest of the set.  Here's what they played:

• Dark Star Jam
• Uncle John's Band
• Playing in the Band
• New Potato Caboose
• Morning Dew
• Eyes of the World
• Mountains of the Moon
• Turn On Your Love Light

This second set was even better than the first set, it had jaws dropping all over the theater.  They opened with a long, spacey, wild jam that morphed into Dark Star, and then found themselves in yet another song often played by Phil, UJB.  After a short PITB came yet another long and funk-adelic Phil song in New Potato, and the best was still to come.  Amy again duetted with Koford, and they turned in a soulful Dew, Holly came out for her incredible take on Eyes, and then it was Oteil's turn and he gave us a lovely tenor vocal on Mountains of the Moon.  And after that was a long rave-up of Lovelight, with Jennifer bringing the theater down on transcendent vocals.  OMG, this was beyond first class.

We were getting pretty tired by then and all had a seat and a few gulps of water.  But then Grahame came out and got us all crying again.  He told everyone how meaningful this occasion was to him, and was bravely trying to control his emotions.  At one point he almost couldn't continue and his wife danced out to give him a hug.  The extended Lesh family was all there to support each other, this was as special an occasion for them as it was for us.  Grahame then made it, with his voice cracking, through his father's Donor Rap, which he is bound to continue.

And then everyone came out for the encore, which of course was even more emotional.  Amy and Grahame did Attics of My Life, with help from the whole ensemble, and then they finished with an upbeat song, Touch of Grey, with Jennifer on lead vocals.  But of course the message of even such a sunny song is a little bittersweet, and also we remembered seeing James Casey singing this from much the same spot Jennifer stood in, soon before he succumbed to cancer.

Wow, what a night!  The crowd was filing out quickly, it was well past midnight by then.  We sat for a bit and then moved on out ourselves, up the street on a misty, foggy night and back to our car.  Then a short drive back up the road to the Hyatt House and soon to bed.

Jack White Returns To Boston

American music icon Jack White released (in his own way) a new album recently, and then announced a tour of small venues.  This guy could sell out stadia, but booked two dates in Boston at Roadrunner, the new club in Allston Landing, on February 17th and 18th.  Both shows sold out quickly, but we were able to get tickets to the second, Tuesday, February 18th.

The Boston area has been going through a cold, icy Winter.  Dave was over and we all three drove into Allston on another frigid night, where we parked in the Warrior Ice Arena garage and had a fantastic dinner at a packed Railstop, where we met Leen.

Jack White is the consummate music impresario, and has booked local bands to open for him on all stops on this tour.  He'd had one group on Monday, and on Tuesday had a different one, Weakened Friends from Portland.  The band consists of Sonia Sturino on vocals and guitar, wife Annie Hoffman on bass and harmonies, and Adam Hand on drums.  We managed to catch half of their thoroughly enjoyable set.  They were a crunching, dynamic, great opening act for Jack, and though they played it cool, they had to gush about what an opportunity they'd been given to play to a packed house of 3500 rock fanatics.

Roadies in black ties and hats re-set the stage quickly, moving the drum riser (Patrick Keeler from the Raconteurs) and bass amps (Dominic Davis, Jack's long-time bassist) back and to the left, setting up a keyboard (Bobby Emmett in dark sunglasses) back and to the right, and leaving plenty of room for Jack's three big Fender amps, a guitar rack, and one mike exactly in stage center, with a small synthesizer keypad hanging from it.  The guys came on right on time at 9:15 and tore the place up.

Jack alternated between three guitars: an orange and black one that had an incredible tone and that he played most of his classic songs on, one in his light blue color brand with white accents that he played when he needed a crisp sound, and an acoustic with lots of pickups that had the fullest sound I've ever heard from a wired acoustic.  His guitar tech ran out and grabbed each when it was discarded, then tuned it quickly and returned it to the rack.  Jack spent most of the time behind the mike and/or up on the drum riser, egging the band on, but sometimes he roamed to the front of the stage and egged the audience on, though we didn't need much egging.  Everyone knew the cues and Jack didn't have to do much to get us going, and singing/clapping in time.

As I say, we'd arrived in the middle of the opening set, but were able to scoot around to the left and find a nice place to stand, about 35-40 feet from the stage.  There was not much trouble with chompers, but many people had their phones out and obstructed others' view by holding them up.  Jack hadn't stood for people getting their phones out when we'd seen him ten years ago, but time has marched on and there's no stopping it now.  Anyway, here's the first set list:

• Intro Jam
• Old Scratch Blues
• That's How I'm Feeling
• Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
• Roadrunner (cover of the song the venue is named after, by Boston band The Modern Lovers)
• It's Rough on Rats (If You're Asking)
• Little Bird
• Corporation
• Why Walk a Dog?
• Screwdriver
• You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)
• What's the Rumpus?
• High Ball Stepper
• Louie Louie (Richard Berry & The Pharaohs cover)
• Morning at Midnight
• Ball and Biscuit

These were basically played continuously of course, Jack rarely stops when he's got a guitar in his hands.  It's hard to pick out highlights, since all of the songs were done so well.  I was particularly thrilled by the classic Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (which I hadn't anticipated), the instant favorite, Rough on Rats, from his new record, and some great blues guitar on Why Walk a Dog?  High Ball Stepper was another highlight.  And what a bolt of energy for me, and then rippling throughout the crowd, when he rolled into Ball and Biscuit, one of his best examples of songwriting, and jammed it out to end the set.

As per normal, Jack and the band left the stage quickly, but only for a short, short break before coming out for a long encore, which was almost like a second set:

• Encore Rave Up
• Steady, as She Goes
• Archbishop Harold Holmes
• Sixteen Saltines
• That Black Bat Licorice
• Underground
• Seven Nation Army

We were beginning to get a little tired, if only because the energy coursing through the hall was exhausting.  Jack hasn't been altering his set lists much on this tour, but we were again delighted that he changed up a bit and covered Steady As She Goes and Black Bat Licorice.  And of course the crowd was more than primed for Seven Nation Army, and he didn't have to do much vocal work on that one as we all roared it out.  No Hotel Yorba, but we all had a great time participating with a Jack White show with all the trimmings.

By the way, the Bournes found Roadrunner to be a great, convenient venue.  Parking and dinner options were more than acceptable, and the hall featured fantastic sound.  It's also got a balcony with seats, which look like they have great sightlines, but are much more expensive than GA floor tickets.  Back into the cold night for us, and not a long ride home. 

Thursday At the Museum

 Went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston today and saw some of my favorites:

Madame Cezanne In a Red Armchair (Paul Cezanne)

Morning On the Seine Near Giverny (Claude Monet)

Houses At Auvers (Vincent Van Gogh)

Ollabelle Returns!

Ollabelle has embarked on a 20th reunion (of their first record) tour and stopped at the City Winery Boston this January 26th. We immediately got tickets of course, and drove into Boston on a cold Sunday, where we ate dinner at a noisy A&B Kitchen, while watching the end of the Commanders-Eagles playoff game, and then walked up the block to see them.

We've seen many great acts at City Winery in the few years it's been around, but this may have been the last!  They actually had a good sound system this time (they've added a couple of speakers), but in the past it's been underpowered.  But the site still has significant drawbacks, like the odd, long rectangle of a room, the crowded tables that force you to look sideways to see the stage, and the bad stage visibility.  But worst of all is that their menu sucks, you don't have room to eat on their small and crowded tables, they only have a few beers on the menu and are always out of them, and they've recently announced that they will require a minimum expenditure of $25 per person for upcoming shows!  This is ridiculous, if you don't want their overpriced food you will have to order several of their overpriced beers to get up to $25.  On this visit they were out of three of the five (canned) beers they have on the menu.

Anyway, Ollabelle came on not far past 7:30 and were great.  They were accompanied by Daniel Littleton on guitar (we'd seen him with Amy) and Duke Levine sat in for a few songs.  Left to right they lined up as Daniel, Byron Isaacs, Amy Helm, Fiona McBain, Duke Levine, Glenn Patcha, and Tony Leone on drums in the back.  They pretty much stuck to their repertoire from the past, though Fiona says they're working on some new material.  I hope they release a new record and keep touring, because I enjoyed this concert as much as I ever enjoyed them when they were a working band.

As great as all members of the band are, perhaps the best/most important player on the stage was Littleton, whose sonic tapestries and grungy leads are just fantastic.  Having a lead guitar allowed Fiona to concentrate more on her vocals and excellent rhythm (she switched between electric and a big acoustic guitar).  I remember when we saw them in Passim in 2011(!) that Glenn's keyboards were much more up front, and having the lead guitar also allowed him to concentrate more on color and fills.

They opened with Before This Time and got the older crowd riled up ... the room was only maybe a third full, which is criminal.  One of their strengths is their vocal arrangements, and though some of the songs below are associated with their lead vocalist, everybody chimed in, even Daniel.  The setlist may be posted at some point, but here's what I definitely remember:

Before This Time (all)

Get Back Temptation (all)

Soul Of a Man (Amy)

Elijah Rock (Fiona)

John the Revelator (all)

Be Your Woman (Amy)

Brotherly Love (Byron)

Ain't No More Cane (all)

See Line Woman (Amy)

Jesus On the Mainline (Glenn)

Northern Star (Fiona)

I Am Waiting (all)

No More My Lawd (Amy)

The Storms Are On the Ocean (Fiona)

Reach For Love (Tony)

Troubles Of This World (Amy)

Down By the Riverside (Glenn)

All of their songs were pretty short and they did a lot of them, but it was not a really long set.  They came back quickly after the standing ovation and played an encore of the song they're working up a new arrangement of for a memorial service for Garth Hudson, All Is Well, and then their wonderful cover of Brokedown Palace, rotating the verses between the band.

Just as cold when we got outside, but we had parked in a lot a few blocks away and then it was a quick ride over the almost completed Northern Avenue Bridge, through Charlestown, back to the highway and up to home.

Welch and Rawlings at CCA

We usually would crawl through broken glass to go see Gillian Welch, but we put off and put off buying tickets for her tour behind her latest CD, Woodland, almost until it was too late.  Boston and Portland were sold out by the time we got serious, but we were able to get what looked like acceptable tickets in the Chubb Theatre at the Capitol Center For the Arts in Concord NH on December 2.

It was rush hour as we drove up, and there was an accident on 93 in Southern NH, but we still got up there in not bad time, parked on Main Street near the venue, and had a fine meal at The Draft sports bar across the street.  The Draft filled up quickly with concert goers on a cold and dark early December night, and the Chubb filled up quickly too.

The balcony there gets horrible grades.  We'd been in the Chubb before, in the orchestra, and that's fine.  But don't go upstairs!  The sound system was pathetic and overtaxed; they tried to turn up the low end but just produced a disagreeable hum for the first few songs before turning it down to a tinny echo.  Luckily the crowd was pretty quiet, but they could easily have drowned out the band and we couldn't really hear Gillian and David when they talked in the mikes.  And the seats in the balcony were torture devices, crowded together closer than in Fenway Park!  Luckily the seat next to me was empty, so I could turn sideways and not break my knees, but it was close.  And their balcony bar was shuttered.  When I went down to the lobby for a beer I turned around immediately and climbed back up, because the line was about as long as your average TSA queue.

But besides that, we thoroughly enjoyed the show.  Gillian was on her acoustic and switched to a banjo for a couple of tunes.  David was on his tenor guitar, which sounded as good as ever.  And Paul Kowert joined them on bass for most of the songs.  Too bad we couldn't hear him.  We were thrilled that they opened with Caleb Meyer, but that was the earliest song they did.  As expected, they featured most of the songs from their new album and they mixed in some other great ones.  The setlist was excellent.

First set:

• Caleb Mayer
• Midnight Train
• Empty Trainload of Sky
• Cumberland Gap
• Wrecking Ball
• Hashtag
• Howdy Howdy
• North Country
• Ruby
• Red Clay Halo

Second set:

• Lawman
• What We Had
• Hard Times
• Sweet Tooth
• The Day the Mississippi Died
• Drag It Down That Dusty Road
• Wayside/Back In Time
• The Way It Goes

First encore:

• Look At Miss Ohio
• I'll Fly Away

Second encore:

• Hard to Say Goodnight
• Jackson

As I say, the sold-out house was quiet and the performers may have at first been a little puzzled by this.  But it was because we were all there to listen, not because we were frozen New Englanders.  There was much raucous applause and hooting after each song, but then we'd all shut up and listen to the delicate start to the next one.  They pretty much stuck to the recorded arrangements, but also threw in a few intricate intros and outros, and extended leads.

Cumberland Gap didn't have the fire it had had when we last saw them in Boston, but they made up for it later with a dynamic, four-dimensional Sweet Tooth jam.  I was very glad they did both Wrecking Ball and Wayside/Back In Time.  And two songs showed Gillian's uniqueness.  Hard Times is somewhere between a depressing, down blues song and an uplifting folk song, this one got a lot of crowd reaction.  And I feel that What We Had is one of the most astounding, excellent recent songs I've heard, while being out of character for even such an eclectic artist.  It's almost poppy blue-eyed soul, but still is wrenchingly authentic, and the harmonies in it are top-notch.

The crowd wouldn't let them go at the end, and they rewarded us with two encores, ending with their rootsy, country take on Jackson.  Great show and a quick drive back South to home!

Dave Keyes Band in Norwood

We were really psyched to go down to Norwood on November 8th, have dinner with our friends, share our shock at the election results, and go see the Dave Keyes Band in a rare NE gig.  It was on the calendar, I had the directions open in a tab on my computer, and then we forgot!  Luckily our friend Pam texted us that they were leaving the restaurant for the venue (The Fallout Shelter), and we said OMG and jumped in the car and dashed down there.

A fuck-up on our part but they saved us a couple of seats and we only missed a few songs, sidling into the seats in front of the stage, under the telescoping cameras.  They're really well set up to record/stream music from there (the concert is on YouTube), and we found the Fallout Shelter nice, small, with good sound (they got the volume way up there by the end of the set), and just right.

Dave was on his electric piano, wearing a trilby (guess he out-grew the scally cap) and dressed in his embroidered, black outfit.  He had Frank Pagano on drums, Jeff Anderson on electric bass, Chris Eminizer on tenor sax, and Arthur Neilson on stratocaster.  Dave played mostly originals in the first set, including his new show-stopper, The Invisible Man (written with Doug MacLeod, who's much older than he is) and his Faith Grace Love and Forgiveness.  He also did his tribute to health workers, 7 O'clock Somewhere, and closed with Ain't Doing That No More and Rosetta Tharpe's Strange Things Happening.

We all gabbed some during the pretty short set break, and then the second set was even better.  He opened solo with Leon Russell's classic A Song For You, dedicated to Pat, and covered some great gospel and blues, a couple of Robert Johnson covers (including a dark, dark Hellhound on My Trail), besides throwing in a few more originals.  His fingers aren't slowing down at all.  For an encore he did an absolutely funky, greasy, rockabilly version of Dylan's I'll Be You Baby Tonight, totally different from Burl Ives's cover.

We all milled around and gabbed for a long time after that, hadn't seen most of our college friends since before the pandemic.  And the Fallout Shelter was mice enough not to kick us out.  But finally it was time to go out into the suddenly Fall-like, windy and spitting night, and then drive back home, much more slowly than we'd driven down there.  A great evening that we almost missed!

Aurora Borealis Sighting

The news been saying that this is a prime opportunity for aurora borealis viewing, but we'd heard that before and had never seen it.  We went out around 10PM on 10/10 and there definitely was some red-pink glowing in the sky, but nothing spectacular.  Sarah took some pictures though and it's amazing how much more sensitive to the aurora phenomenon the camera is than the human eye.

Se we went back inside and I got ready for bed.  Then my sister texted and said we had to go back outside, it was amazing!  So we did (me in pajamas and slippers) and it sure was amazing.  We stayed out for about half an hour at the fork of our driveways and should have stayed out longer.  I later went up on our third-floor deck and it was perhaps more amazing from up there.

What we saw was a pastel red-pink, almost fuchsia at times large streak of color coming from the Northeast.  There was another long streak of lime green to the Southeast of that and basically parallel, but the green sometimes formed into a column and sometimes shimmered like a curtain.  It was amazing how quickly the colors and shapes changed, from pastel pink to brick red in the one streak and from almost a soft yellow to Kelly green in the other.  But it wasn't just two streaks, they were swirling to some degree and there were flashes of white, yellow, and blue kind of radiating from the Northeast but filling the whole sky in an instant.  The white was so bright at times you would have thought it was a huge spotlight someone was shining on the scene from the Southwest.  The three-dimensionality of it all was astounding too, with the red-pink glow making a background and the more brilliant streaks and flashes dashing in front of it.  And in the background was a white shape that sometimes faded and sometimes came forward, like a low sine wave pattern along the Northern horizon.

Remember that this was what the camera saw, not what our eyes saw:

We wanted to stay but were getting too  cold and so went in.  As I say, I later went upstairs and watched some more.  It was truly spectacular and now we can say we've seen the aurora borealis and also a full solar eclipse in the same year.  It made me marvel at the wind from our small yellow dwarf star, at the geomagnetic dome protecting our even smaller planet, and at the fact that we measly humans live there and can look up and see evidence of the frightening but beautiful forces shaping our universe.  

Quick Nova Scotia Trip, Sunday

We got up as soon as it was light on Sunday the 29th, we had a long drive in front of us.  It showed signs of becoming another absolutely gorgeous day, but was pretty foggy early there on the seaside.  We had some granola bars and room-made coffee, so after we dropped off the keys at around 7:50 we were bound to get as far Southwest as we could before stopping.  We had filled up the tank the night before … we got 6.3 on the trip to Cape Breton!  What this means is that when we switched the car to metric, it reported gas efficiency in liters per 100km rather than in miles per gallon.  So a lower number was better rather than a higher number … I kind of liked this.

Barely anyone on the pink highway early on Sunday, and we set the cruise control and just watched the trees roll by, down 104 towards Truro.  Kind of strange to go West to Maine!  We finally did stop at a Tim Horton’s (we had to go to one, it was as imperative as going to a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina) to get more coffee and a breakfast sandwich.  A bit West of Truro we detoured onto route 4 to avoid the only (sic) toll in Nova Scotia, but then re-joined 104 and soon crossed into New Brunswick, where the road became route 2.

I’m sure parts of New Brunswick are as beautiful as Nova Scotia, but all our time there except for our lunch break was spent on the superhighway … route 2 to West of Moncton and then route 1 down through St. John … and it was kilometers and kilometers of lovely trees, but not much in terms of rolling hills or vistas of the sea.  And all road signs there are bilingual, with the non-English language being French this time, as opposed to Gaelic or Mi’kmaq.

Finally got South of St. John and were desperate to find a nice little park or something, stretch our legs and take a lunch break.  We still had half our bologna sandwiches left!  Signs kept tempting us to detour down to the Acadian Coastal Drive along the South-facing New Brunswick coast rather than continuing on the highway.  We resisted because we wanted a “stop” rather than a “drive,” but took one of them eventually and down route 790 we found the lovely little town of Chance Harbour.  We continued along the loop and lucked into a small turnoff where we could park, walk around, and gaze out over a marsh to the ocean through the hazy afternoon light.

790 looped back up to route 1, and it was just another hour to St. Stephen and the border crossing back into the USA.  We crossed the St. Croix River, gained an hour, and had just a short wait to get through immigration.  They barely questioned us, just glanced at our passports and waved us through.  Filled up on gas again at the intersection of routes 1 and 9, and hit the road into Maine.  As much as we’d liked our trip, it was kind of nice to be back in the States … Canada never seemed abnormal to us, but this was definitely much more normal, or at least familiar.  And the Harris signs outnumbered the Trump signs all along route 9.

One last stop.  We love the Airport Brewing Company pub in Ellsworth but had never been to their taproom in Amherst ME.  So we detoured a bit and got a quick pint there, which was another great stop after having been on the road for almost eight hours.  Then one last hour through Ellsworth and back home to Sedgwick, where the cats were very happy to have us back.

How to sum up?  We had a great time, and it was an entirely successful, quick foray outside of our comfort zone of Northern New England.  We don’t know when or if we’ll ever be back in Nova Scotia, but we definitely concluded that it’s somewhere we’d love to go back to and spend some more time exploring.  Who knows?

Quick Nova Scotia Trip, Saturday

The rain petered out finally, in the middle of the night, and we woke to a crystal-clear, beautiful morning on Saturday the 28th.  Went back to the restaurant for another fine breakfast, with staggering views to the Northwest up the Canso Strait, which separate Cape Breton Island from the rest of Nova Scotia.  Packed up and hit the road North around 9:00 (after filling up on gas), crossing the Canso Causeway and turning up 105 in Port Hastings.  The highway was almost empty, and after an hour or so we were back driving along the coast, diagonally up the Northeast side of the island.

First Nations place names suddenly appeared, and many road signs were in both English and Mi’kmaq.  The culture was centered around the town of Whycocomagh and Whycocomagh Reserve.  We saw some gaming locales, and suddenly every other storefront had big signs saying, “We sell cannabis!”  Though it’s legal in Canada, these were the only dispensaries we saw, perhaps there’s a loophole in regulations for natives.

This was a beautiful drive on a beautiful day, up the interior coast past Nyanza and Baddeck toward St. Ann’s.  Here you’re supposed to turn West onto the beginning of the Cabot Trail around the Northern part of the island, but we realized that if we kept on up toward Englishtown, we could take a free ferry across St. Ann’s Bay instead.  This also took us past the Giant MacAskill Museum, which is a sister museum to the one we had seen in Dunvegan Scotland!  But it looked even dodgier than the one in Scotland had … the only sign for it was a small one at the end of a muddy, uphill driveway and we didn’t stop.

Our timing was perfect and we had to wait only a minute before they waved us and seven other cars onto the small Englishtown Ferry.  It was a very short, tumultuous ride over the narrow channel to the spit on the other side, and we’d probably saved significant time over taking the land route.  We joined the Cabot Trail, route 30, and did I say it was beautiful before?  This was just incredible as the Bay opened up into the North Atlantic, the wind and the waves kept coming from the Northeast, and we wound along the lovely coast up to Ingonish.

Liquor and beer stores in Nova Scotia are all branded as NSLC outlets … alcohol is well regulated in Canada … and we stopped in one in Ingonish, where we picked up a great assortment of beers and ciders and had a nice talk about the upcoming National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with the orange-shirted clerk.  My favorites of the Nova Scotia beers I sampled were Black Angus and Crazy Angus from the Cape Breton Brewing Company of Sydney, and DIPA from the Propeller Brewing Company and “The IPA” from Nine Locks Brewing, both of Dartmouth.

We also stopped at the Ingonish Visitor Center for the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Ingonish, paid our entrance fee and picked up a map.  The National Park is one of the most spectacular, scenic, breathtaking, wild, places I’ve ever seen and I’m so glad we went there.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to hike any of their many trails and then get back to Auld’s Cove and Maine on schedule.  We’ll need to go back there someday to do it justice.

But we did stop at many overviews, we just couldn’t pass them up.  Some are down at sea level, where the massive swells from the ocean break on the cliffs, some are up high on top of the cliffs themselves, from which you can see for many kilometers up and down the coast and out to sea, some are at the bottom of lovely, peaceful valleys between steep hills, and some are at the heads of those valleys, from which you can see huge distances of Fall-colored forest.

We saw a little pink granite in the seacliffs and exposed hills, but it was mostly sedimentary rock: red, white, and gray, sometimes all in one rockface.  Some of the jagged rocks were so shiny gray they looked like aluminum or stainless steel.  The mix of trees was a lot like Maine, mostly spruce and pine, but with more deciduous trees, mostly oaks and poplars but also many maples and beeches.

The Cabot Trail leaves the Park in places, and it’s funny how the road surface instantly turns into a mangled mess of potholes and creases … it’s well maintained in the Park.  And the signs for every kind of tourist trap you can imagine pop up like campaign signs.  We stopped at one artisanal sandwich and pizza place and got some nice home-made lemonade and a couple of sandwiches, which turned out to be mostly bologna.  Then back into the amazing Park and we had a great mellow lunch stop at a picnic table in one of the hidden valleys.

Continued on and then down the Northwest coast, to Chéticamp, where the Park ended and the cheap hotels dominated.  We had a long way to go down the coast to Margaree Forks, where we kept right on 19, down through Inverness and Mabou to Port Hood.  I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t have as many glimpses of the sea as we had had on the other coast, but there were plenty of trees, run-down houses and neatly kept houses, farms, lakes, marshes, and sudden tidal gashes in the land.  At one point, Google told us we were about to go through Dunvegan, and we were psyched (we’d been in the Dunvegan in Scotland), but it was only a deserted intersection.

In Port Hood the road ran alongside the ocean for a while, and we realized we’d gotten farther along than we thought we would by that time of afternoon.  It was less than an hour back to Auld’s Cove all of a sudden.  So we put the brakes on and started looking for a nice turnoff, maybe a nice trail, and there weren’t any!  Oh well.  We poked around some and in Craigmore we found a road down to a beach and a muddy parking lot at the end of it (with a friendly dog), where there were some people in a camper van camping rough (we’d seen a few doing this all over the island, nowhere near as many as in Scotland).  We took a walk on the beach and then were going to press on but thought, wait a minute … we have a great view of the sparkling ocean out to Cape George Point to the right and the entrance to the Canso Strait to our left.  Let’s sit right here, have a beer/cider, and enjoy the end of the afternoon.  It was a great cocktail hour!

We were tempted to go straight back to our nice cabin from there, but wanted a little variety for dinner and, after going through Port Hastings and back over the causeway, stopped at 3 Square in Auld’s Cove for dinner.  They’ve just opened and have more plans for a nice restaurant than they have a nice restaurant at this point, but we didn’t care and the food they had was excellent.  Sarah had mussels in a curry sauce, and I had a pork belly bowl.  Back to the cabin for a beer/cider on the small porch and then a game of Azul when it started to get chilly.  It was Saturday night and most of the other cabins were now occupied.  There was a little late-night revelry, but it remained a peaceful spot.