Vacay

 It was another week of my family vacation. We decided that this would be my graduation gift for getting my master's last year. I debated whether I wanted something more personal, like a trip that my parents didn't pick, but if I kept waiting for something else to cash in on, suddenly five years would have passed, and it wouldn't seem relevant anymore.

Now, sometimes I get bored with people's vacation posts. So I hope that by injecting silly, frivolous comments with the more pertinent details of the trip, this post will be more entertaining.

When we weren't being tourists, it was fun to hang out at the condo in Williamsburg, Virginia, which was located on Olde Towne Road, a name that would have been more topical in 2019.

Part of the purpose of this trip was for my parents to go to Delaware, the fiftieth state they visited together. So Monday we took a drive up to Delaware. Our visit wasn't that exciting; it was mostly to check it off the list. We went to Bethany Beach, which was lovely, but it was chilly, so we didn't want to stay too long. 

I'm not sure why I took this picture of myself

On our way back, we drove onto an island called Chincoteague, but we didn't do anything in the quaint town. Which meant we didn't see the community theater's performance of Gilligan's Island: The Musical.

On Tuesday, we headed to Mount Vernon, Virginia, the land of George Washington. While at Mount Vernon, I realized that often I'm more interested in how things are remembered than I am in what actually happened. I'm less fascinated by Washington's life and more fascinated that people felt a need to turn his home into a tourist spot and celebrate his birthday. They had a memorial at his tomb, but they also had a memorial for his slaves. There was one marker from 1929 that was "in memory of the many faithful colored servants of the Washington family." Besides the obvious rhetorical device of referring to slaves as "colored servants," this marker shows that it was still all about Washington. That kind of thing is interesting to me.

We toured Washington's mansion, but they herded us through like cattle. It was kind of weird.

There were a few museum exhibits, and I was more interested in the exhibits that had relics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries showing how Washington was venerated. They also had this amusing painting from the 1930s that lampooned the apocryphal story of young George chopping down the cherry tree. I was kind of surprised to see them making fun of that story back in the 30s, because I can remember learning it in school in the 1990s. 

We ate at the restaurant there at Mount Vernon, where I had chicken and waffles, a rather unwieldy dish.

I enjoy visiting random stores, and that night we visited Ollie's, which is apparently an East Coast chain. It's something like a cross between Big Lots! and C-A-L Ranch. They had weird promotional signs throught the store, and I overheard a kid, probably around seven, telling his Mom about a sign with a dead guy on it.

Mom: I don't think he's dead.

Kid: But he has x's for eyes! That means he's dead!

Mom: Fair point.

So I looked up, and the kid was right, he did look dead. I'm not sure what the store was going for with this sign.

On Wednesday, we went to Jamestown Settlement, which had exhibits about the Jamestown settlement of 1607 but also a living history museum with costumed interpreters. They also had replica ships, which were cool to see.

A monument from 1957

But I was more interested in Historic Jamestowne, which was the site of the original Jamestown. There were lots of layers of history here: original seventeenth-century building foundations, Civil War ridges, and twentieth and twenty-first century monuments. 

Foundations of early seventeenth-century church

I think one wall of the church tower is original, but the rest is a reconstruction

1907 statue of John Smith

2007 model of James Fort

Excavation of Civil War ridge

In 1994, which wasn't that long ago, they began an archaeological dig at the site of Jamestown. They had many old wells and other sites. There was also a museum dedicated to their archaelogical finds, including two mostly complete skeletons. They also unearthed a spot of lots of animal bones, which indicates a place where they discarded the inedible portions of their food. But interestingly (and disturbingly), they also found a skull and a partial bone of a fourteen-year-old girl with cut marks on them, indicating that they resorted to cannibalism during difficult times.

I think Historic Jamestowne was my favorite site.

Early Thursday morning, we boarded a tour bus to head up to Washington DC as part of a tour group. My family visited DC when I was six and eight, so it's been a while. 

Our first major stop was Arlington National Cemetery, where we looked around a couple of hours. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have spent that much time there, but we didn't pick the itinerary.

We saw John F. Kennedy's eternal flame, and I remembered that the family scrapbook from our 1995 trip had a picture of me touching the post gingerly, as though it were hot. I wanted to recreate the picture, but I didn't quite remember what the original looked like.

Then we went and made a stop at the Lincoln Memorial, which is always fun to see, and the Korean War Memorial.

We had a couple of hours to see the Smithsonian museums, so we picked the National Museum of American History, which we visited when I was six and eight. We looked at exhibits about food and entertainment. (I wasn't at all interested in the exhibit about first ladies' dresses, so it's not worth mentioning.) They used to have the original Star-Spangled Banner hanging in the front of the museum (well, at least a replica of it), but now they only have this artwork, and you have to go behind the wall to see the original flag (which I did). 

Last week I mentioned that I was amused that my dad bookmarked "potato chips health benefits," so we were also amused to see these potato chips branded as "a healthy food."

We also drove past the Capitol, the National Archives, the White House, the Washington Monument, and a few other places before going back to Williamsburg. It was a long day.

On Friday, we visited Colonial Williamsburg, which had various historic sites with costumed interpreters. All these sites, but especially Williamsburg, made me feel bad for This Is the Place, which has a lack of funding and a lack of professionals, so it's not as nice. For example, the print shop actually prints things they typeset themselves, things you can actually read. And the shoemakers actually make eighteenth-century shoes for the employees. TITP was a fun place to work, but I'm glad I don't work there anymore.

A lot of the gravel was made of shells, which was cool.

Printing presses

Then Saturday morning, we got up early. My parents dropped me, my sister, and my niece off at the airport before they continued their road trip. Our second flight was delayed due to rain, and we had to sit on the plane for a long time before it took off. Because of the delay, I was able to watch three full holiday movies I hadn't seen before: A Christmas Story Christmas (7/10), Easter Sunday (2/10), and Batman Returns (8/10). 

It was a good trip, but I'm glad to be back home with Reggie.

Virginia is for lovers

 I'm writing this post from Williamsburg, Virginia, where I'm on a family vacation.

My parents are on a three-week road trip, and my sister, my niece, and I flew into Richmond to join them for a week in a timeshare condo. Since "Virginia is for lovers," my sister and I joked about finding boyfriends.

I packed up my stuff this week for my first real vacation in a while. It's the first time I've left Reggie, so I hope he will be OK without us. But when we first got him, he hid from us for a long time, so he'll be fine.

He was sitting in my suitcase while I was packing, like he wanted to stow away. Jimmy used to sleep on top of this suitcase, so it still has some of his hairs on it.

We had a red-eye flight into JFK Airport in NYC. My carry-on was slightly too big for the overhead bins, so I was embarrassed when I had to check it. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep on the flight; I never can. And just as I got to a point where I might have slept, we hit the worst turbulence I have ever experienced on a flight--since I was half-asleep, I thought we were all going to die.

(My dad's laptop doesn't have a number pad, so I can't do the keyboard code [ALT+0151] for an em dash, so you get those two hyphens. I could copy and paste from another website, but that sounded like too much work. But now this paragraph was probably more work than copying and pasting. But I hope you find it funny and/or interesting!)

(And speaking of my dad's laptop, I was amused to see that one of his Chrome bookmarks is a Google search for "potato chips health benefits."

)

Eventually we got into our second flight into Richmond, which was prettier as we flew above the coast, but this time I was sleepier.

My parents picked us up and drove us to our condo. I napped for around four hours since I was so sleep deprived. We really just relaxed and used the condo pool momentarily before a thunderstorm aborted our plans.

Then today we headed to some historic sites in Yorktown. It's not my preferred activity for a Sunday, but you pick your battles. Or battlegrounds in this case, since that's where we went.

We went to the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, which had indoor exhibits about conditions in eighteenth-century America and the end of the Revolutionary War, since apparently it ended in Yorktown. Since both of my jobs are almost exclusively in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it's nice to spend some time in the eighteenth. I thought the museum was really well done and balanced and nuanced. But the parts about the war don't really interest me. Military history really isn't my thing. I think that's why I (thought I) didn't like history in high school and college--it was all about wars.

TFW you have a master's in history and two history jobs but are bored at the history museum

They also had an outdoor exhibit area, which reminded me of my work at This Is the Place, but overall this museum seemed more polished. There was a cat that came up to us, and I was able to kneel down and pet it! So that was the highlight for me.

They also had some dyer's woad, and my instinct was to pull up the invasive weed. But they were deliberately growing it as part of a demonstration about using plants for textiles.

Then we went to a National Park Service site, Yorktown Battlefield. This one was more about the war. Like, I really don't care what direction the troops went or what Cornwallis said when he surrendered. But I'm glad other people have that thing they like, even if it's not for me.

(Speaking of things that are not for me, when I was in fifth grade, I went through an awkward phase where I was obsessed with chess, even though I was terrible at it, and I even started collecting chess sets. Now it doesn't interest me at all. But the gift shop did have a cool themed chess set.

)

 

 Then we drove around Yorktown to see different sites from the past, such as the redoubts from the war and the Moore House. These were more interesting to me, even if I don't need all the details of who went where.

Oh, and while we were driving, we saw the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile! Apparently there's only six operating in the US, so that was a fun surprise. 

 

It's been a fun trip so far! I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.

Trail trial

 The last time I went on a trail run was early November, thanks to all the snow. And because I value the Great Salt Lake, I'm not even mad. But I was really happy that all the snow finally melted from our yard, which meant I was able to do my first trail runs of the season after more than five months!

On Friday night, I headed to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, which thaws out faster than the other trails. I ran from my house, five miles total. There's a part of the trail with a little valley, and I was surprised to see a pool of standing water in it. I've been going to this trail for more than eight years now, and this is the first time I've seen that before!

I know it looks like a snowpatch, but it's a reflection of the sky.

The next day, I went back for a fuller run, this time to Ensign Peak, which is a default long run in the spring and fall, since it thaws sooner, but it's so treeless that I avoid it in the summer.

Most of the trail was dry, but there were some very muddy and snowy spots. It was a beautiful day. I had put sunscreen on my arms and face, but I got sunburned on the back of my legs. Most of the run was fairly typical; I was happy that I was in good enough shape to run up the steep hill above Ensign Peak without stopping.

The view of the trail from Ensign Peak

Mark I

Louis XIV

However, it was on the way back that things started to get weird.

I saw a little family with two kids on bikes and the parents walking along. The boy, who looked around eight years old, started biking down a minor slope and immediately tipped over, and his front wheel came off, right as I was passing them on the wide trail. Should I have stopped to help and see if he was OK? But his parents were right there, and I worried if I stopped it would just be interfering and making things worse. Soon he started crying in pain and said something about his leg. I kept looking back to see how things were, but I couldn't see them behind a knoll. I feel bad that I didn't stop to help. But I also don't know anything about first aid. And honestly, I might have fainted. Simply talking about injuries makes me woozy, and I wasn't in the greatest shape at that point.

Once I got off the trail, just over 7.5 miles, I was feeling so unusually thirsty, hungry, and exhausted. I had finished my water bottle (usually it lasts me longer), and I had had to eat my snack earlier in my run than usual. I could tell that I wouldn't be able to run the last mile and a half home. I had to walk. Sometimes I walk home if my knee or my stomach start hurting, but only rarely have I had to walk out of exhaustion.

There were times when I felt like I should just stop on the sidewalk and take a break. But I knew if I did that, it would be really hard to get going again. And I wasn't far from home.

When I finally got home, I was freezing, even though it wasn't a cold day. I went into the basement and got a 20-ounce bottle of Gatorade Zero, which I chugged in one breath, even though I usually use powdered Gatorade to avoid the plastic. I ate a granola bar and dozed off under a blanket in front of a Gilligan's Island marathon until I had the energy to go upstairs and actually have lunch. It took a while for my body to warm up and my fingers to quit tingling.

I'm not sure what was so different this time. It's not like it was an unusually long or difficult run for me. Maybe it was doing the five-mile run the night before. Maybe it's because I haven't had as many carbs this week, instead eating leftover Easter eggs and ham. Maybe it's because it's been a while since I've been on a long run, especially a trail run. Maybe it was the strength training I had done earlier in the week. Maybe the sun sapped all my energy after a long winter. 

But I'm glad to learn more things about my body, and this isn't going to put a damper on the rest of trail season!

Spring Baking Championship

 My three favorite TV shows recently are basically different variations on the same thing: Halloween Baking Championship, Holiday Baking Championship, and Spring Baking Championship. I began earnestly watching during COVID, and now they are the highlight of my Mondays.

In 2015, I got the cookbook How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which has inspired me to be more creative and experiment in cooking and baking. The book and the Food Network shows make me want to try new things. So I baked three Easter-inspired goodies this week.

First up was carrot oatmeal cookies.

I've actually been making these since 2016, since the recipe is in my cookbook. They are soft and not too sweet, and I love cookies with an oatmeal base. What was different this time was that I added Hershey's cream cheese baking chips, which are a relatively new product.

Of course, I'm not the only person to make carrot cookies at this time of year, and I'm happy to see so many places embracing the carrot.

Sugar Fix, which you can find at certain gas stations

Twisted Sugar

RubySnap. This one's a coconut carrot curry cookie.

Crumbl

Cutler's

Crave. Do you like how I took my own container to the store to avoid the single-use plastic containers?

Back in 2021, I had a hot cross bun from Parsons' Bakery for the first time. Of course, the song "Hot Cross Buns" is required playing for fifth-grade recorder symphonies, but I never actually knew what a hot cross bun was until I was an adult. They're a traditional Good Friday/Easter food in British-aligned countries. I decided I wanted to try to make my own, using a recipe I found online. But I omitted the orange zest because I didn't have any oranges, and I replaced some of the raisins with dried cranberries and cut-up prunes.

This was actually my first attempt at making a bread with yeast. The thought of letting my bread rise always scared me away. Unfortunately, I don't think my buns rose properly. I Googled causes for bread not rising, and these hot cross buns had many ingredients that can mess with yeast. All-purpose flour? Check. Cinnamon? Check. Dried fruit? Check. I guess if I want to bake a yeast bread, I should start with an easier, simpler bread recipe. But even though the texture is a little off, I like the way they look, and they have a nice flavor. 

The ones I got from Parsons' Bakery (I went back this year) were better for eating. But they took the lazy way out by making the crosses out of icing, instead of baking it onto the rolls like I did.

Recently I was sitting in a group therapy session, and the other men were talking about their boyfriends; but since I don't have a boyfriend, my mind was wandering, and I was thinking about cookies. I was thinking about the different places that put Cadbury Mini Eggs in cookies.

Chip

Crave

Thirst

I like these cookies, but they're kind of boring, because they're similar to regular chocolate chip cookies. I wondered why more places don't use more flavorful candies like jelly beans. But then I remembered that my mom has a deteriorating Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the 1970s that has a recipe for gumdrop cookies. I've wanted to try those at Christmastime. But gumdrops and jelly beans are confectionarily similar, so I decided to make the cookies with jelly beans instead.

At first, I started by cutting the jelly beans into smaller pieces. But jelly beans are small and hard, and they roll around, so cutting them up was a disaster waiting to happen. So I just put the rest of the jelly beans in whole.

I really was pleased with the result. They are flavorful, chewy cookies. I can see how they might be too chewy for some people, but I think I will have to make these again another Easter.

And speaking of Easter, here is the best secular Easter song ever made. Enjoy while you're home with the ones you love.