Road Trip in the USA - from Detroit to New Orleans

Beautiful physiographic map of the US, who could resist it?
source: Wikimedia Commons

Here we are on American soil again! Julianne and I flew from Bilbao to Detroit on December 17, ending the European portion of our Great Wander, which lasted 16-1/2 months more or less. Now we set out on the American portion, as we wander a very indirect route from Detroit to Seattle, often through parts of the US we've never seen before. 

So here begins a new series of travel postings, tracking our movement across the giant spaces of America. 

We've planned a great circle loop south, southwest, and northward. We'll see friends as possible, see art when we can, visit national parks and birdwatching sites, renew some experiences in this huge country. We'll end at home, in Seattle, in the 2nd half of March.

Our rough trajectory, winter into spring 2015-6
map credit: shass.mit.edu

How is it here for us? Are we having culture shock? Are we glad to be back or are we discombobulated? The country is always a surprise. We may find it isn't what we thought.

Of course, first we had to get here. There we were on December 17, rising at 4 a.m. and stumbling onto the plane by 5:30. 

Many hours later, we were in Detroit. We came back sick from Spain with bronchitis or maybe pneumonia, and of course 6 hours of jet lag, so we thought we weren't the best company. But our friends didn't let that stop them, or us. 

First thing, we had early Christmas near Detroit with our friends Andy and his family: Cyndy, Ami, Amanda, and Chris, plus Andy Jr. and his family.

We laughed and talked, talked some more, ate and ate, and hugged grandson Chris until he couldn't stand it. The family also took us to their extended family Christmas party. It's such a big family they have to hire a hall for the party. Look closely at the stockings on the  mantel, you'll see there's one for each of us, too.

Living room at Andy/Cyndy's at Christmas

Andy Coleman

Chris Miller at 10

How lucky we are to have such friends! Andy, Cyndy, and the family were so warm and open-hearted it was hard to leave. We might have stayed longer, but that's the thing about our life these days, we're always leaving. And likely they wouldn't really want us hanging around...so on the third day we packed up and headed out for our date with New Orleans.

The family made sure we had lots of candy, salted nuts, nutcracker ornaments, a key fob, big yellow drink cups, a fleece throw, bottled water, pop, a green plastic tub, whatever you want. Many keepers, and we're still working on the nuts and whatnot.

Our Scion, a pretty good chariot.

Ah, the American road!

It's just over a thousand miles from Detroit to New Orleans. We were in a hurry and took freeways. South and south, a bit west. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, into Louisiana at the last moment.

The land was flat, then rolling hills, then higher hills with road-cuts, then flatter again. It was cold, then mild, then warm. It rained, or didn't. It was cloudy and grey, or dark.

Pastures with cattle, and fields, gave way gradually to forests. The trees were bare until we hit pine, and then it was either pine or logged-off ex-pine. Commercial forests - one height, consistent density, most trees quite young and skinny. Those trees don't get to get old.

All along the way, the road looked the same. In the distance, landscape. A chain-link fence, infinitely long, marking the edge of the right-of-way. Inside, within wide margins, two flat ribbons of road, one each way, pass a green median. The roads may curve. There can be bushes, fences, trees, in the medians. Signs are color coded, mainly green. This goes on and on and on. Freeways present very simple visuals. This is partly a safety feature.

The traffic was sparse. Cars and huge trucks hurtling on. Truckers own the road, and we remember that these roads were built for delivery, not touring. In fact, we didn't have as much traffic as we expected, perhaps because it was a weekend.

We had hopes for visual interest in the built-up places near intersections and off-ramps. But evidence of town life has its own repetitiveness. Strip malls, gas stations, miles of car sales, truck sales, camper sales, trailer sales, mini-storage places, fast-food places, roadside hotels, and billboards. Big churches, big parking lots, tents selling fireworks, taverns and roadhouses. Quite a bit of road repair. The food wasn't very good at all, even in the restaurants.

Of course, we were on a treadmill going South. We expected no other than this. This was our fate for two days.

Surely, we hope, away from the road, deeper into the landscape, are towns and lives as individual and quirky as you might hope, full of particularities of region and history. But we didn't see them.

We saw a great blanding. The same things are available no matter where you are. The service people are smooth and practiced. The hotels are similar, regardless of logo. We were in Michigan, in Mississippi - but we could have been in Montana, in Maine. The road is nearly the same. 

We see just the larger roads here

This reality is really efficient, and  moved us as fast as we wanted. We played into a conspiracy to not notice what was around us, to move on, keep moving, not stop for any interesting detail. Might as well be anywhere. Exactly what we wanted.

It's a consequence of size. The scale of America is so huge! You have to go fast to get anywhere. The miles and miles and miles of forest, the hundreds and thousands of immense trucks, the size of the sky. The little towns, one after another like beads on the road's necklace. We were dazzled by the space given to roads, the edges of roads. The wide lanes, two or three in each diretion. The wide medians. The cloverleaf interchanges, so careless of space. The permission to go fast.

It's part of trying to pull together all this disparate space into one concept. You unify it by providing a single environment over and over and over. What is gained is a sense that "United States" is an overarching fact, but what might be lost is the particularity and uniqueness of each locality.

Americans are ambivalent about this, but the fact is there to see all around. There are many thoughts to think on this topic - but we are hurrying on.  

We left Waterford, Michigan, on Sunday morning Dec 20, and got to New Orleans on Tuesday afternoon Dec 22. We could have done it faster, too, but we stopped to sleep and eat. Why suffer?

So this first road trip impressed us with the spaciousness of the United States, the effort to impose a single style on a disparate landscape, and the love of speed.

However, New Orleans doesn't work that way. We had a different experience, and that's another story, coming right up in the next posting.

by Nancy, with maps via Google

Prehistoric Cave Art: Altamira and Paleolithic Painting

Today Julianne and I fulfilled a longstanding desire - visiting Altamira and seeing representations of just about the earliest examples of art made in Europe.

See the scratches where the painter laid out his image before adding color.

The art in Altamira, located in hilly territory very near the coast in northern Spain, is between 14- and 18,500 years old, approximately contemporaneous with Lascaux Cave in France. It's a World Heritage Site and is nicely set up for visits. The area is very beautiful, and the town nearby, Santillana del Mar, is terminally darling with its 12th-century architecture and seafood restaurants. We're staying at a very nice AirBnB cottage in Orena, near Santillana. We're pleased.

View north from Altamira. This landscape may not be much different than it was all that long ago.
Take out the fence and houses, and remember it's a cold climate, with steppe rather than forest.

Bison, horses, antelope stand, run, lay across the rock ceiling in Altamira Cave. There aren't any images of people or objects, only animals and occasionally lines and dots. Sometimes a red hand.

People lived at the mouth of the cave and made the paintings deeper inside. Who were they? How did they do it? What did they intend?

Glassed-in opening of reproduction cave at Altamira

Humans aren't very tidy, and these folks left a lot of debris behind that helps describe their lives. They were hunter-gatherers, wearing tanned leather clothing, making chipped stone tools, living hard lives in a cold climate. They had fire, and their diet wasn't bad - fruits, seeds and leaves, meat, shellfish, some fish. I'm imagining them as very busy keeping body and soul together, and not particularly introspective. Few lived as long as 30 years.

Stories of the cave's discovery vary a bit so I'll just put them together into a narrative:  a shepherd discovered the cave after a falling tree dislodged some rocks concealing the entrance. He told a scholar about some drawings in the cave, and the scholar's 8-year-old daughter looking up saw animals cavorting on the ceiling. This was in 1879.

This shows the center of the layout drawing below

Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola was so intrigued he published in 1880, saying the images were very ancient, from the Paleolithic. He was ridiculed, even accused of forgery, until further discoveries confirmed his analysis in the early 20th century (he had died in the meantime, though).

Layout of paintings on the ceiling not far inside Altamira; compare with picture above

Tourists came in droves when the wars in Europe were over, and their breath and dust and carelessness, including grafitti, threatened the paintings, which were closed to the public in 1977.

By 2001 a replica had been completed nearby, with a museum attached, and this is what we saw.

So, how did they paint? With their fingers, it seems, or perhaps leather pads, and they sometimes used hollow bird bones for blowing pigment, like using an airbrush. They scratched the image into the soft stone using harder stone flakes, Their pigments were charcoal and ground ochre - very familiar today! They could manage black, red and some yellow ochre, but not white or blue. Seems they mixed ochre pigment with water, using shells for palettes. The charcoal, of course, came in the form of sticks from their fires.

They painted on the walls and on the ceiling. How did they paint on the ceiling, we wondered. Like Michelangelo, the guide said, lying on a scaffolding. We were rather skeptical, but have no better ideas. Perhaps, we thought, the floor of the cave was higher than it is now (it's lower because the archaeologists dug it out), and they could reach the ceiling? But we are not seeing the real floor in this reproduction cave, anyway.

Layout of Altamira Cave, with locations of images

The images overlap each other and there is no horizon or sense of environment. Upside down, every which way, different sizes, various styles, some incomplete, many outlines without color, some color with no outlines, some crude, some very sensitive and perceptive, if you like that word.

Done over a long time, seemingly without relation to each other. Or...? Some are so similar in style, it's easy to think the same person did them. But....?

It's fun to speculate. The original cave is open now, five people per week, on Friday, by lottery. We'll be in Bilbao by then. So instead, we're going to another couple caves, El Castillo and Las Monedas, which are open to see the originals. Looking forward to that.

There's a lot of fascination with such old and evocative imagery. We are such Johnnies-come-lately to artistic expression. But that hardly stops us, does it? There are in the museum at Altamira some modern interpretations based on the art in the cave. Here are a few, plus one from an early publication:

Ana Maria Gomez Barquin

Manuel Montequin Polo

Miriam Gonzalez, leather and light

Hermilio Alcalde del Rio, 1902

by Nancy, some help from Google images

Santiago de Compestela

Santiago de Compostella has captured my imagination since we visited Arles, France a few years ago.  That smallish town was full of folks with packs, carrying staffs and with shells hanging from their jackets or packs.  Arles is one of the modern places pilgrims start walking The Way of Saint James (Santiago).  I am fascinated with ancient roads--I can't seem to get enough of Roman roads, Oregon Trail and other human paths.  I was hooked and during our time in France found little bits of the trail here and there.  Cluny Monastery in Paris was a major pilgrimage center in the Middle Ages and was a stop for us too.

Now we are in the heart of the devotional way in Compostella itself, staying in a 300-year-old building a few blocks from the Cathedral of St. James.  Lucky for us it is a nice day since this is a really rainy area.  Early December is not a busy season here but there were plenty of people around. More folks drove here rather than walkers but walkers too. Apparently some pilgrims use donkeys or bicycles but none today.

This shrine began in about 900 AD with pilgrims coming from all over Europe.  There were 12 major paths used then and some remain active now.  The most famous in the Middle Ages and now is the French way which goes along the north side of the Pyrenees and enters Spain about Roncevalles.  It hugs the north coast and then moves a bit south to Compostella.  We are just north of the Portuguese border, near the western point of Spain.

Pilgrimages became more popular in the Middle Ages.  Compostella was just after Jerusalem and Rome as a sacred site to visit.  In 2014, 230,000 pilgrims completed the route and got their certificates in Compostella.  A pilgrim gets a booklet and gets it stamped at various churches along the way.  Many people do pieces of the route over many years to finally complete it.

Today, the noon mass, which is especially in honor of the Pilgrims, was quite full. Someone presents a list of the pilgrims to the priest and reads aloud what countries they are from.  Since it is in a big echo-y church and in Spanish, I can only report that there were Italians among the pilgrims. Pilgrims leave their backpacks and staffs outside during the service and there are designated watchers to guard their stuff.

Church exterior
The church building is such a mix of times and styles.  The original building was built in the 900's to house the remains of St. James, the apostle who brought Christianity to Spain after Christ's death. The oldest part of the current building is from the 1100's.  This south door is pretty much intact from those days.  It shows the Romanesque arches and medieval carving.



The rest of the exterior was modernized to Spanish Gothic and some baroque. This view of the west (main) door gives a good sense of the exterior.  However, the door and lower facade are under scaffolding for repairs.

Interior
The interior structure of the church remains beautiful Romanesque with glorious dome and arches above the altar. The dome and the left arches hold the remains of medieval painting.  The right arches are plastered; I think never painted. The pilgrims slept in the upper arched area back in the day.




Baroque Decor
The high altar is a confection of Baroque with pure gold and silver coating most surfaces.  The altar was added to over the centuries building up from the crypt with St. James' remains.  The altar has an area behind where pilgrims go to "embrace the saint" which means that they put their arms around the statue of St. James as pilgrim. The line was long, I did not go in so I cannot report back on whether it creates a peaceful feeling but it seems like a kind of gentle thing to do. The upper statue in the picture of the altar shows James with a staff and wearing the typical pilgrim's hat. These are also part of current pilgrim wear but the hat now has an updated style.



The Baroque period is famous for its angels.  Having visited so many churches in Rome, I have an angel-style in mind but these must be a specifically Spanish version. Big and little, they are everywhere, even climbing the pipes of the organ. 

Medieval Carvings
To my delight, there were some medieval statues of saints carved on the pillars which hold up the church dome.  They could not be baroqued-away and remain in place surrounded by the later style. I really love medieval style carvings and was drawn to these.  I think they seem squat but in fact they are sitting, holding scrolls. I did not fined any written explanation of the medieval carvings so cannot tell who they are and what kind of paint was used which seems to still be in fairly good shape. I do not think they are ceramic but they look glazed.

Christmas Nativity Scene
A Nativity Scene fills up one section in the south east of the nave.  While in Rome, I became fond of the various nativity scenes which created little towns of Bethlehem with businesses, taverns, dogs and the manger scene.  They do that here too with a scene that creates a combo of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.  Everything is in here from Herod's palace, to a synagogue, to a rug store and a stable. The actual manger scene has shepherds and the baby is present.  Wise men--not yet arrived.

Text by Julianne
Photos mostly by Nancy.
You can see that I got the hat in the new fashionable style. I have to sew a scallop shell on to the front to get it completely right.  What are the chances?

Eating in Portugal: Dinner at the Goat Corral, Sintra

We were uncertain, it was dark, nothing much around and the name of the restaurant did not inspire confidence.  But dinner at the Curral dos Caprinos turned out to be great.  Cozy, delicious, interesting.  Being Americans we eat early, we can't help ourselves. So when we got there at the 7 PM opening time, it was not full but filled up fast with people probably from the area.  Anyway, all speaking Portuguese.

The decor charmed immediately.  The walls were lined with goat paraphernalia and goat heads.  I was sitting facing the one on top of the blog and grew fond of him as I ate.  The horns in front of the little white goat--I can't figure them out and they were beyond the English of our waiter. Many kinds of goat bells and goat harnesses. Seems as though the area is called Curral dos Caprinos because this mountainy area, out in the country is where the goats were rounded up for market. Some cattle too but goats were the feature. Now it looks like a suburb--all houses, no goats.

We had such a substantial lunch of seafood stew in cream sauce that we came in with light appetites. There were many choices of main dishes, including kid, other meats and various fish. We were pleased to find soup of kinds we had not tried before.

The smaller bowl in the back of the photo is garlic soup that Nancy ordered.  It was creamy, seemed to be pureed vegetables, maybe squash.  Onions and garlic were still in pieces.  Cilantro, much cilantro. It seems like a very simple soup but was very good.

I ordered Alentejo soup.  The explanation ahead was "bread and egg" but I decided to try it anyway. It is a traditional and much loved soup; the waiter was really happy to serve it and tell about his food to a foreigner. Alentejo is a region of Portugal, south of center and inland to the mountains bordering Spain. Famous for its wine and, now I find, for its soup. The soup is a soup of hard times--the waiter said it was eaten during WWII.

Bread and egg turned out to be an accurate description.  It is a light herb broth with a lot of cilantro.  I could not identify other flavors specifically except garlic.  Slices of stale bread had been soaked in the soup but it is a kind of bread which keeps its shape. Then an egg is poached in the broth.  It is served in a tureen and the waiter made much of scooping it into my dish.  There was more than enough for two if we had realized ahead.

I enjoyed it very much--delicious.  I was able to find a recipe in the NY Times, in case any one wants to try it out. I will give it a try when home.

Meals here always start with a basket of bread.  Here we also had "fresh" cheese, a bit like cream cheese.  Olives, little fried meatballs which reminded me of Kibbeh from the middle east.

After the soup, if we were following the pattern, we would order a main dish and end with desert and port wine. Tonight, our meal was complete with a glass of wine.

We have been so delighted with the great quality of the local wines here in Portugal and previously in Spain.

In Portugal, we have become familiar with "green" wines which are a white wine that is just a bit sparkling.  The ones we have tried are from the north.  More research is needed to determine if it is a regional specialty of if other regions produce vinho verde.  I'll report back in a few weeks.

Text & photos by Julianne. Tasting by all.

Feminist Lisbon Grafitti - Eliminating Violence Against Women

"Not shut!"

Pretty good grafitti stencils and posters for the International Day of Eliminating Violence Against Women (UN declaration for November 25). This stenciling and postering was an organized effort that appeared overnight in our neighborhood. We didn't see who did it. We did see similar stencils in some other neighborhoods, but the concentration here was impressive.

Look out, she's got a guitar!

These posters were on the front wall of a ruin right near our tram stop in Graca neighborhood. There's a community center devoted to art and creativity quite close by, and perhaps the posters came from there? I'm guessing - no idea actually.

I exist because I resist

I imagine that I see a wish for community action, a wistfulness and longing, besides the more conventional international protest iconography. A sort of underlying sadness. Does it relate to fado, the melancholy Portuguese musical style? I'd like to see and understand a little more about this.

We're going to dismantle patriarchy and capitalism (sorry for the bother)

A quote from Adrienne Rich was posted right alongside some poems in Portuguese. English is quite commonly used and understood here in Lisbon. Very useful language. I'm making it bigger because it's a bit hard to read in this small format. The wish for community so clear in this statement seems to fit well with the emotional tone of the other postings.

Quote from Adrienne Rich

Google didn't do too well with this

If one is touched, we all respond!

Gender is violence

Not only on what we could call the protest wall... also on utility posts and especially on the asphalt of street corners, where one walks to cross the street. You can't avoid seeing these stencils!

Well, I don't get the words, but I like the graphic.
Something about stamping on my heart?

If one is touched, we all respond

I want to be sad without guilt...Love speaks

Feminism is here to stay

"I disagree without agreement..." "Woman's scope"

I expect these poems are more subtle than Google can handle. At a certain point the translator bot fails to perform. The right-hand poem seems to start "Away with what I say, what I dream, what I think," but I can't get it any farther. The left-hand poem doesn't reveal itself in Google-ese.

We saw facebook postings about marches against violence toward women in Spain and Italy, otherwise perhaps the day passed without being marked very publicly. A very nice photo noted by my fb friend Francesco di Majo - a non-march that happened somewhere, perhaps in Italy. The image credit is missing. It might have been in Paris, where marches have been banned for the time being I believe. Anyway, it's touching, I think. A silent witnessing.

The stencils in Lisbon are another silent witnessing of a sad fact of life - violence - and a desire to overcome it, to make a better world. 

by Nancy