travel – Page 2 – Life In A Word

Horses on Circular Courses

In 1972, Billy Preston topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the catchy “Will It Go Round In Circles”. A year later, The Spinners spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart with “I’ll Be Around”. More recently, Kacey Musgraves’ debut single “Merry Go ‘Round” won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. All of which is to say, if I’m asked to celebrate “National Carousel Day” I have a great choice of theme songs for the occasion… played on endless loop, of course.

National Merry-Go-Round Day (I prefer “Carousel”) was this past July 25th, as it has been every year since 2014. Did you skip it like I did? The holiday claims to “celebrate the carousel’s history and joy, particularly marking the first U.S. patent by William Schneider in 1871.” And to celebrate, we’re meant to visit a local carousel, go for a spin, and post pictures of ourselves doing so online. So we drop everything we’re doing on July 25th and climb on a wooden horse? National M-G-R Day doesn’t even rate as a Hallmark holiday (and don’t waste your time trying to find a card to prove me wrong).

Contrary to my opinion about M-G-R Day, I think carousels are charming and a bit of innocent fun (other than those brass rings, which we’ll get to in a second). Carousels inspired memorable scenes in Mary Poppins and Big. Carousel was the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that Time magazine deemed “the best of the 20th century”. The “Carousel of Progress” was (and still is) one of the more unique attractions at Disneyland. And of course, carousels led to those pipe and metal spinners we all played on at the park when we were kids.

Carousel is derived from the French word for “little battle”, which hints at why we’re riding them at all today. In 17th century Europe, equestrian tournaments included “ring jousting”, where the rider attempts to spear a ring-on-a-string with his joust as he flies by. To practice this sport without wearing out the horses, a clever soul invented the carousel, complete with wooden horses on poles and a real horse to pull the device in circles. Eventually carousels made their way into carnivals, and then to the prominent locations where you find them today.

Now you also understand why early carousels had ring dispensers. They were a nod to ring jousting! The dispensers were filled with iron rings along with a few brass ones. If you were lucky enough to ride an outside horse and grab a brass ring (which is harder than it sounds as your horse goes up and down), you could exchange the ring for a prize or another loop on the carousel. For good reasons – safety being one – ring dispensers have been removed from most carousels today.

The people who came up with National M-G-R Day should’ve probably gone with “International”, because many of the world’s most distinguished carousels spin outside of the United States. The Carousel El Dorado in Tokyo, Japan, built in 1907, is the oldest amusement park ride still in operation in the country. The Lakeside Park Carousel in Ontario, Canada (1905) includes a self-playing organ that uses rolled sheets of music, rewinding one while playing the next. The Letná Carousel in Prague, Czechia (1892!) is one of the oldest in Europe, remodeled in 2022 but still housed in its original wooden pavilion.

America has its share of prominent “gallopers” as well. The Looff Carousel in Santa Cruz, CA is one of the few remaining with a ring dispenser, and entertains with the music of three organs. The Over-The-Jumps Carousel in Little Rock, AR (1924) simulates the natural movement of a horse instead of just going up and down on a pole. And the Flying Horse Carousel in Westerly, Rhode Island (1876!) is exactly as advertised. The horses are attached to the center spindle instead of the wooden platform, creating a better sensation of flying through the air.

Okay, I have a confession. I had the perfect opportunity to celebrate National M-G-R Day just days after it happened this year. My wife and I traveled to San Diego with our children and grandchildren for a beach vacation and found ourselves in Balboa Park, home of the Dorothea Laub Carousel (brass ring dispenser!) If we hadn’t already worn out the little ones on a long walk through the Japanese Friendship Garden we might’ve made it to the wooden horses. But I’m not losing sleep about it. After all, National M-G-R Day will come ’round again next year.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Ellen Makes Her Move

When we moved into our current house (and even the one before it), we made the classic mistake of saying, “We’re never moving again”. After all, picking up and going from one place to the next can be a real pain in the you-know-what, especially with pets and vehicles to relocate on top of the furniture and clothes. But at least we’re only talking about moving houses. What if you had to move an entire town?

If you live in an RV or a tiny home, you’d think nothing of pulling up stakes and going somewhere else. You have the wheels or the flatbed to make it happen. But moving an entire town means a population of people and a collection of structures. it sounds like something that could only happen on a Hollywood movie set. Unless you’re the U.S. government with its sights set on Ellenton, South Carolina.

Ellenton first appeared on a map the way a lot of small towns did back in the day. The railroad was interested in running new tracks through the farms of the area and a deal was made to acquire the land, including a plot for the train station. In Ellenton’s case, the railroad developer was smitten with the primary landowner’s daughter (Ellen). The relationship never blossomed but he did name the budding town after her. Thus we have “Ellen’s Town”, shortened to “Ellenton”.

Ellenton grew quickly in the late 1800s, from a host of agricultural productions to a working, living community of 600 residents. Eventually you’d find churches, schools, a post office, a general store, a dairy, and even a milling company and a cotton gin. But what nobody saw coming was the potential of the area for the construction of a massive facility know as the Savannah River Site (SRS). In the 1950’s in Cold War America, the U.S. government decided Ellenton and its surrounds were the perfect riverside location for plutonium and tritium production, for the development of the hydrogen bomb. Ellenton “won the lottery” over a hundred other locations.

I can’t imagine sitting in Ellenton’s town hall back when the announcement was made. Someone who drew a very short straw had to stand in front of the residents and say, “Sorry folks, we’re going to tear down your town so we need you to find somewhere else to live”. Then the government wrote checks for the properties and businesses and simply walked away. Eminent domain in capital letters.

I’ll admit I thought the government really did move Ellenton to another location. I pictured a cartoon image of the world’s largest spatula, sliding under Ellenton’s streets and buildings like an entire sheet cake, then dropping the whole mess several miles away. But I really thought the government moved Ellenton because we live right down the street from a town called New Ellenton. Turns out, New Ellenton is simply where a good chunk of the original residents chose to call home. The government had nothing to do with it.

Maybe the government didn’t move the living but the law required they move the dead. By the time Ellenton and several other small towns were acquired and shut down, the SRS property encompassed 310 square miles. That meant the relocation of 130 cemeteries, amounting to over 6,000 grave sites. They didn’t get every last one, so it’s fair to say old Ellenton still has a few residents.

The black-and-white photos I share here – from the Ellenton website – give the town a charming, old-timey feel. The few residents alive today hold reunions to share the memories of a place they can no longer see or even visit. Some of Ellenton’s stories make it sound very cozy. I wish I could say the same about New Ellenton, which is nothing more than a couple miles of highway with gas stations and bars scattered on either side. Frankly, the only reason you drive through New Ellenton is because you’re on your way to somewhere else.

I wouldn’t be nostalgic for Ellenton if the government didn’t make it disappear. Kind of reminds me of Brigadoon, the Scottish village that magically appeared out of the mist every hundred years. Maybe Ellenton will appear out of a nuclear winter on the hundredth anniversary of it’s own demise. In the meantime, a songwriter captured the story of the town in a rather sad ballad. “The Death of Ellenton” was never a big hit, but the town it celebrates sure took one.

Some content sourced from the WJBF website article, “Hometown History: The Forgotten Town of Ellenton”; the Ellenton SC website (including all photographs); and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

(Not So) Gently Down the Stream

The small gym I belong to has a fairly set routine with its instructor-led classes. You spend a half-hour on the treadmill and another half on the weight floor, effectively giving the heart and muscles equal attention. The runner in me prefers the treadmill but the brain in me knows – at my age – the weights are the more critical component. Now if only they didn’t throw in the rower every now and then.

If you belong to a gym yourself, I’d be curious to know what piece of equipment (or kind of workout) appeals to you most. Some people get lost in a treadmill run by following a virtual trail or listening to a really good playlist. Others stomp endlessly on the stair-stepper like they’re climbing the Empire State Building. Fans of the elliptical machine look like cross-country skiers going back-and-forth to nowhere. But where-oh-where are the rowing machines? Oh, they’re parked way over in the corner, just begging somebody to jump on.

I can’t remember when I first I tried the rower but I do remember thinking, there is nothing appealing whatsoever about this exercise. A straight back is critical to avoid injury (something I learned years later), and your arms and legs get a heckuva workout. But unlike say, planks, the workout on your abs is not as obvious. Not until later the same day at least, when you can’t sit or stand without midriff pain.

The topic of rowing makes it into my blog because of a recent and ridiculous world record. Three brothers – Ewan, Jamie, and Lachlan Maclean (how’s that for Scottish?) – just finished a row from Peru (the country) to Australia (also the country) in 139 days. That’s 9,000 miles for those of you who didn’t scurry over to Google Maps to find out.

As if 9,000 miles isn’t impressive enough, the Macleans row-row-rowed their boat continuously, which is to say they never stopped. Two brothers rowed while one brother slept. Their food supply was fresh fish (of course) or the occasional freeze-dried meal. The brothers endured everything you’d expect the Pacific Ocean to throw at them: seasickness, tropical storms, a shrinking food supply, and so on. One of the brothers even went man-overboard one night when a rogue wave came out of nowhere.

“World record” implies someone gave this crazy journey a shot before the Macleans did. Yep, a Russian made the same trip in 2014, only he did it solo. Don’t these crazies know they can get their rowing fill at a nearby gym?

Maybe your image if rowing is a little more romantic, as in crew, where teams of athletes scull long, narrow boats down rivers in races against each other. Crew really is elegance in motion whether “eights” or “singles”, the long oars moving back and forth in perfect synchronization to generate the glide, with hardly a disturbance to the water below. Crew is Oxford, Harvard, and Yale. Crew is outdoors on a picturesque, tree-lined river. Crew is anything but synonymous with the pursuit of a world record on the Pacific Ocean.

Speaking of racing, my little gym often injects “challenges” into our workouts by timing performance against a set distance. On the rower, the longest go is 2,000 meters, which most of us do in say, 8-10 minutes. I’ll admit, the competitor in me tolerates rowing just a sliver more when I’m on the clock. I close my eyes and pretend I’m in the Olympics, going for the gold. Okay no, I don’t do that at all. I just stare in the mirror in front of me with agony written all over my face instead.

My 2,000m gym row equates to about a mile and a quarter. Great. My online calculator says I only need another 7,200 rounds to make it to 9,000 miles. But hey, if I can maintain my pace and never sleep, I’ll go the distance in 50 days! Shatters the Maclean world record! Yeah, no. Not only am I putting down my rowing machine “oars”, I’m heading back to the treadmill with hopes of putting this torture device completely out of my mind.

Some content sourced from the CNN World article, “Scottish brothers complete record 139-day row across Pacific…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Where The Buffalo Roam

In southwestern Alberta, Canada, there’s a historical landmark curiously named “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump”. It’s the former location of a vast communal bison trap. Thousands of years ago native hunters would drive herds of the roaming animals over the plains and then right over the adjacent cliffs, in what is described as “the single greatest food-gathering method ever developed in human history.” The buffalo aren’t running in this part of Canada anymore. They’re no longer running in Boulder, Colorado either.

In case you missed it, the American college football season kicked off last Saturday… in Dublin, Ireland. Kansas State played Iowa State in a converted rugby stadium in front of a sell-out Guinness-filled crowd. A roving reporter took to the streets to ask locals what they knew about the American game and the answers were wonderfully ignorant. How many points is a touchdown? (“4?”) Name any American college football team (“Yankees?” “Dodgers?”) And then my favorite: What is Kansas State’s mascot? (“A tractor?”) Not a bad answer if you ask me. I’d guess there are more tractors than wildcats in Kansas.

Speaking of wild things, let’s get back to Boulder. The University of Colorado (CU) boasts one of the few live animal mascots in college football: a full-grown snortin’ stompin’ buffalo named Ralphie. Before each half of the home games Ralphie is released from her trailer on the sidelines (yes, Ralphie is a “her”) to run a horseshoe lap around the field at full speed, before her five handlers corral her back into the trailer. It’s the stuff of rodeos, and more than a few handlers have eaten dirt in the process (but at least they earn a varsity letter for their efforts).

Ralphie is actually the sixth live buffalo to represent CU since the mascot was selected in 1934. But Ralphie VI – aka “Ember” – has a singular distinction. She’s just not into the run. Whereas her five predecessors ran for at least ten seasons each, Ember decided to call it quits after just three. The University officially called it “indifference to running” and cut Ember from the team so she could spend the rest of her days roaming in pastures. Maybe Ember’s thinking she’s going to go over a cliff every time she runs. Can you blame her for hanging it up? No word on whether Ralphie VII is up for the task.

At least CU has a ferocious mascot, one a fan would associate with the Colorado surrounds. Like Texas’s Longhorn or Florida’s ‘Gator, you want a mascot that speaks to your particular locale and does so with a confident puff of the chest. But instead, a lot of America’s college football mascots have you thinking either lightweight or what the heck is THAT?

Cases in point. If I pull up this year’s top college football teams, I guarantee I’ll find several to underscore my point. And I am right. Ohio State’s mascot is a buckeye (which is a tree, and not a very ferocious one at that). Georgia’s is a bulldog, described as “loyal, gentle, and affectionate”. Oregon’s is a duck (A duck!) Alabama is known as “the Crimson Tide”, which was a reporter’s colorful spin on a long-ago game played in the mud (and not a mascot at all). Finally, Arizona State’s is a Sun Devil, which better belongs on Saturday morning cartoons than Saturday afternoon football fields.

On the other hand, you have the Penn State Nittany (Mountain) Lions, the Michigan Wolverines (don’t mess with wolverines), the South Carolina Gamecocks (don’t mess with those either), and the Miami Hurricanes (not an animal, but points for ferociousness and local flavor). Any one of those deserves to stand side-by-side with a live buffalo.

As much as I’d like leave this topic with Ember the Buffalo and her chest-thumping buddies, I sheepishly include one more: my beloved alma mater Notre Dame. We at Notre Dame are the Fightin’ Irish, because our football teams (at least those from the early 1900s) showed “the grit, determination, and tenacity characteristic of Irish immigrants”) That all sounds great until you see our mascot: a leprechaun who looks like he’s taking a break from the Lucky Charms cereal box. Is there anything less ferocious and less “state of Indiana” than that?

If it were up to me, Notre Dame’s mascot would be an open-wheeled, open-cockpit IndyCar (VROOM! VROOM!), the kind they race every year at the Indianapolis 500 just four hours south of campus. An IndyCar toughs out a jigging leprechaun by a mile, not to mention an indifferent buffalo who’d rather roam than run. I still say, good on you for choosing to head out to pasture, Ember. I wish the Notre Dame leprechaun would tag along.

Some content sourced from the Athabasca University Press article, “Imagining Head-Smashed-In”, the CUBuffs.com article, “Ralphie VI retires”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Tripping on Trips

I should pay more attention to the actual cost of things. A movie ticket is fifteen dollars… until you add in concessions, preferred seating, and online processing. A dinner out can be reasonable… until you add in the taxes and tip. And rental car companies add so many fees to the base rate it’s like you’ve just been bumped to a new tax bracket. With that in mind let’s visit the airport today, or more specifically, getting to the airport.

Flying is expensive; always has been. But it’s easy to overlook the cost of the airport itself. Maybe you already know, a portion of the ticket you just bought goes to a landing fee (LF) – what the airline pays the airport for the privilege of pulling up to the gate. Maybe you also know another portion goes to a passenger facility charge (PFC), which supposedly goes to improvement projects in the name of airport safety and security.

I don’t trust PFCs. I think they really go to things like art exhibits, children’s play areas, pet relief areas, and smoking lounges. I mean really, how much less would that plane ticket be if all you had for an airport was a ticket counter, some security and restrooms, and a gate to board your plane?

The airport needs more than LF’s and PFC’s to pay its bills, of course. It’s the reason you pay so much for parking. I mean, think about it. Once the parking garage is built it requires little to operate. Mechanical systems and a few employee salaries yes, but certainly nothing in the neighborhood of say, $30/car/day. Which brings me to my current conundrum.

Most of you don’t have the following challenge. When you fly, you’re close enough to the airport to where you can get a ride from a friend or take mass transit. Me? I have a choice of three major airports here in the South… but each of them is a two to three hour drive from my house. Which begs the question, how does Dave get from his house to the airport and back for the least amount of money?

Simple but Expensive. Dave drives his car to the airport, parks, and drives his car back to his house after he gets back. Works for short trips but what if I’m gone for three weeks (starting next Saturday)? Parking at Atlanta-Hartsfield is $30/day (and that’s long-term). Throw in a tank of gas for the car and I’m north of $700 just for the airport to/from.
Simpler but Even More Expensive. This idea unexpectedly sent me in the wrong direction (financial, not travel). I put in for a quote for car and driver from a service right here in our little town. They got back to me almost immediately. Little did I know my car is a limo and my driver wears a tuxedo. My wife and I can “sit back and enjoy their ride” for $520 each way. Gratuity not included.
Slightly Less Expensive. Here’s a fun option/comparison. Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport and fly to Atlanta. The two round trip tickets plus parking? Less than the cost of the drive and parking at Atlanta. If flights out of Augusta were ever on time I might actually consider it.
Clever But… Drive to nearby (tiny) Augusta Regional Airport, rent a car, drive to Atlanta, and return the car. Repeat the procedure in reverse when I return. No. The rental car companies want $300+ for Augusta to Atlanta. Multiply that by two to get back home.
By shuttle? “Cozy”
Less Expensive but More Cozy. We have shuttle services nearby; van companies where you share the ride to the airport with strangers. $200 gets us the trip to Atlanta and back. Okay, but now we’re driving our car just to get driven by a van just to get flown in a plane. Seems like a lot. And you leave when the shuttle service says you leave; not when you really want to.

Five solutions in and I still haven’t made it to Atlanta with any sense of fiscal satisfaction. I’m starting to think I should just skip the airplane and drive all the way to our destination. Or ride my bike with a pile of luggage on my back. But wait! There’s always 6. Entirely Less Expensive. Convince local son-in-law to drive us to Atlanta (and back). He can’t charge me more than the options I presented here, can he? Er, not if he doesn’t read this blog post first. I better call him… stat.

Licking My Lips

I wouldn’t normally be drawn to a company whose products target women. I’m pretty well stocked when it comes to lip balms, lotions, and shaving cream. But here comes EOS (“Evolution of Smooth”), a newish company using organic ingredients and bright, colorful packaging to entice its buyers. Now I’m enticed too because EOS just came out with an orange product. Or should I say, a product in an orange. You could say it’s something that only comes ’round once in a blue moon.

Evolution of Smooth may be trying to target men as well. Why else would they concoct a lip balm that tastes like Blue Moon? If you haven’t had so much as a sniff of beer, Blue Moon is an everyday man’s brew produced by the Canadian-American conglomerate Molson Coors. It’s a Belgian-style wheat beer: high on the wheat but not so much on the malted barley. And now it’s a flavor of EOS lip balm inside of a plastic orange.

If you order a Blue Moon off the menu, the bottle or glass should arrive garnished with an orange slice. It’s a nod to the orange peel component of the beer; an ingredient giving the witbier its subtle citrus flavor. I should know because I’ve had more Blue Moons than any other beer out there. When you live in Colorado as long as I did (almost 30 years) sooner or later you’ll tour the Molson Coors facility in Golden, just west of Denver. They bus you around town first (a quaint holdover from the era of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush) before depositing you at the doors of the rather industrial-looking facility.

When you get down to touring – walking through the massive brewery, seeing the step-by-step production process, and sort-of-but-not-really believing the beer’s water content flows straight from the nearby Colorado Rockies – you’ll get a better appreciation of just how much effort goes into a single bottle. But like most breweries a beer fan anticipates the final stop – the tasting room – where you’re offered brands and flavors not yet released to the public. It was here I discovered Blue Moon, back in 1995 when it was just a concept beer.

Fancy homes boast of well-stocked, temp-regulated walk-in wine cellars with dozens of the finest bottles on display. I boast of a 24″x 24″x 36″ below-counter drink cooler, purchased on sale at The Home Depot for $225. I may not have dozens of the finest bottles on display, but in my house you’ll always find a half-dozen bottles of Blue Moon at the ready.

To be clear, I’m any occasional beer drinker at best. I can make a six-pack last a month. The only time a beer really appeals to me is after an afternoon of hard, sweaty, gnat-filled yard work. I’ll come back into the house after hours of that kind of fun and Blue Moon beckons. And even if I consumed more than a half-dozen bottles a month I certainly wouldn’t be put off by the price. A six runs you $11.99 at Target.

I do know how good a beer can really taste. Make your way to Dublin, Ireland sometime, tour the downtown Guinness Storehouse brewery (which trumps the Molson Coors experience in every way imaginable), and have a fresh pint in the top floor tasting room as you gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the fairy-tale surroundings below. You’ll never want to leave. You’ll also realize that Guinness you’ve been having in America doesn’t measure up to the one you can have on Irish soil.

Any beer connoisseur reading this post is laughing at my reverence to Blue Moon. It’s a product whose color, strength, and lack of history bears little resemblance to the storied lagers of the world. It’s like the cosmopolitan offerings among the “real” alcoholic drinks on the bar menu. Light on ingredients and better meant for women.

No, Blue Moon isn’t necessarily meant for women (I hope), but maybe EOS’ latest lip balm is a clever way to get them interested. It certainly got my attention, and the thought of the taste of Blue Moon on my lips the entire time I’m working outside sounds amazing. No bottle or glass to juggle while I run the lawn mower. No garnish of an orange slice necessary. $4.99 instead of $11.99. Good call, EOS. I’m in.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Blue Moon… is being turned into a lip balm”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Up, Up and Away Birthday

One of my favorite lines from the science-fiction classic “Contact” (starring a young Jodie Foster and and even younger Matthew McConoughey) comes from one of the lesser-known characters. Foster’s Dr. Arroway discovers a communication stream from beyond Earth, while an anonymous millionaire funds the spaceship capable of traveling to the source of the signal. The donor then turns to Foster’s character with a smirk and says, “What do you say, Dr. Arroway… wanna take a ride?” This year, the same question was posed by the (good) people at Goodyear.

In a nod to my advancing age, the Goodyear Blimp turned 100 on Tuesday (or I should say, one of the Goodyear Blimps). “Pilgrim”, Goodyear’s dirigible based in Akron, Ohio, took it’s first flight on June 3, 1925. Now Goodyear can claim a hundred years of lighter-than-air travel, even if this noteworthy form of transportation never made it to the masses.

To be clear, Goodyear started with rubber, and then tires. They manufactured tires for bicycles and carriages back in the day as well as horseshoe pads and poker chips, before Pilgrim first took to the skies. Sure, you’ll find their products on vehicles everywhere but what comes to mind when I say “Goodyear”; tires or blimps?

I choose blimps. I grew up just thirty minutes from Goodyear’s blimp airbase in Carson, CA. The blimp I saw back in the ’60’s and ’70’s was named something like “Puritan” or “Reliance” or “Defender”, because Goodyear honored the sailboat winners of the America’s Cup. Not today. Thanks to a public naming contest the blimp down the street from my childhood neighborhood is named “Wingfoot Two”. (I prefer the America’s Cup names instead.)

Maybe you also choose blimps because you drive on Michelins or Firestones. More likely it’s because you’ve seen a blimp buoyant over the Super Bowl or other sporting event. And speaking of football, if the Goodyear Blimp sets down on the field it covers 80% of the yardage. That’s one big balloon.

Goodyear’s flying machines of my childhood were literally balloons filled with helium, without any of the technology of today to make them easier to steer. Coincident with middle-school history class, whenever I’d see the blimp I’d think of Germany’s Hindenburg, the Nazi propaganda passenger dirigible that, like the Titanic, is best known for its final flame-filled disaster, on approach to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey in 1937. Perhaps we should be thankful Goodyear never promoted its blimps as a form of mass transportation.

Also in my childhood, blimps offered a far more romantic image in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where a colorful zeppelin traveled here and there over the fictional country of Vulgaria, carrying the villainous Baron Bomburst and his crew. (And here’s my opportunity to distinguish between terms. A zeppelin has more of a cylindrical shape, while a blimp looks more like a sausage. A dirigible? Just a general term for an airship.)

Speaking of sausage, it was inevitable someone would open a sub sandwich shop named after the aircraft. The Blimpie franchise (“America’s Sub Shop”) began in the 1960s, spread to locations around the world, and enjoyed a good fifty years of success. Today most of the helium has left their balloon. There are only about 25 Blimpie stores left in the U.S. (compared with almost 20,000 Subways). IMHO Blimpie’s was the better product, at least the version I remember from the 1990s.

Oh how I wish I could’ve concluded this post with another wanna take a ride? You and I missed the boat, er, airship on that opportunity. Goodyear held a contest at the start of 2025 and leading up to Pilgrim’s birthday, where three lucky passengers won a blimp ride. I say “lucky”, when in fact my fear of heights takes away any personal appeal to float up, up, and away. No worries, because now I’m thoroughly distracted by hunger pangs. Think I’ll hunt me down a “blimp sandwich”.

Some content sourced from IMDb, “the Internet Movie Database”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Ambassador Aspirations

Wedding anniversaries call for a celebration in one form or another. My wife and I default to dinner out and exchanging store-bought cards. This year however, we threw caution to the wind and splurged on three days at the beach, at one of those resorts where they put a price tag on every little thing. It was meant to be the proverbial toast to our almost forty years of marital bliss. But right out of the gate I had to wonder if dinner and a card would’ve been the smarter choice.

Ocean-front room… has a nice ring to it, right? Somehow I shooed the practical angel off one shoulder in favor of the carefree one on the other and just booked it. I figured the extra cost would be justified by endless views of the horizon, easy walks on the beach, and ocean waves to lull us to sleep. At least that’s what I had in mind as I approached the front desk.

No sooner did I present my driver’s license and credit card when “Paula” (per the name tag) said, “Can I hang onto your cards a sec, Mr. Wilson? I’ll be right back.” Without waiting for an answer she disappeared behind a closed door. Minutes passed. Then tens of minutes. The growing line of check-in guests behind me was stressful, but more to the point what the heck was taking Paula so long? Was I about to be arrested and dragged away in cuffs? Was my credit card getting shredded to little bits? Was Paula really a front desk employee or someone who was already out the back door with visions of identity theft?

My fears were interrupted when the closed door opened and out strolled a more important-looking person – “Kevin” from Guest Services. Kevin asked if I could “step aside for a personal conversation”. So we moved beyond earshot of the other guests and an awkward exchange began.

“So… Mr. Wilson… uh… I don’t how to tell you this so guess I just tell you. We don’t have any more ocean-front rooms. I’m very sorry. We’ve given you and your wife an ocean-view room instead.”

Let’s clarify before we go any further. Ocean-front and ocean-view (at least at this place) are very different offerings. “Front” is smack-dab on the dunes of the sand of the beach of the ocean. Leave the sliding door open and you breathe in salt air and get sand in your hair. “View” is the room high up at the very back of the resort, with the hotel bars and restaurants in the foreground and the ocean a distant third.

I hesitated ever so briefly before responding to Kevin from Guest Services. The angel on one shoulder was lacing up boxing gloves while the other was donning a Japanese kimono and parasol for a bow of gentle acceptance. Neither approach seemed quite right so I split the difference.

“Why don’t you have an ocean-front room, Kevin? I have the confirmation email right here, showing I made the reservation weeks ago.”

“I know, Mr. Wilson, I know. We simply don’t have the room, not tonight nor any other night you’re here. How can I make things better?”

“How can I make things better?” Seriously?

“You can give me an ocean-front room, Kevin, just like I booked online. That would make things better.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson, that’s just not possible. The best we can do is an ocean view. Listen, why don’t you and your wife get settled in and I’ll give you a call later?”

So settle in we did, somewhat begrudgingly. And I’ll be the first to admit the ocean-view rooms at this place were actually pretty nice. Our windows were centered so we had a panorama of the pools and restaurants, with the waves and horizon just beyond. Live music floated up from the bar. It was a pleasing scene from our little balcony. Now if only we had the king bed we reserved inside of the room instead of two queens.

Ring-ring (er, buzz-buzz)

“Mr. Wilson? It’s Kevin from Guest Services again. I’m checking in to see how you like your room. Getting settled? Everything okay so far?”

“Well, yes Kevin, it’s a nice enough room, only it has an extra bed. We reserved a king and I’m looking at two queens.”

“Two queens? Hoo-boy that’s not good. Can’t say how that happened. How can I make things better?”

Ignoring his favorite phrase and choosing not to state the obvious, I said, “Look Kevin, we’ll manage with the two queens; don’t worry about it. But here’s what I want to know. How does a hotel not have the ocean-front room I reserved and was guaranteed weeks ago?”

Pause.

“Well, uh, Mr. Wilson, I’m not supposed to share this information but I can tell you one of our other guests extended their stay, so they’ve taken the room that was supposed to be yours.”

Extended their stay? Taken my room? Must be someone important, like South Carolina’s governor or one of those surgeons at the “Advanced Echocardiography” session in the hotel conference room.

“Yes Mr. Wilson, an extended stay. In fact, the person who made that request is an ambassador.”

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I knew it! A political heavyweight. One of those who has the power to simply decree and it shall be done.

“An ambassador, huh? Okay, well that’s something. From what country?”

“Marriott.”

“Excuse me? Marriott?”

“Yes, Marriott rewards. An Ambassador is the highest level of our rewards program.”

My wife looked it up. Sure enough, you’re an “Ambassador” if you stay in a Marriott enough nights in a year. Like, one hundred enough nights. Me, I stay in a Marriott three nights in a year. I wonder what the program calls me, “Peon”? Again my thoughts were interrupted.

“Look Mr. Wilson, I’ve got to get going now, but we’ve added a nice discount to your room rate. I hope it makes up for the inconvenience. How can I make things better?”

Man, this guy really wanted to make things better, so I considered my options. Room service? Spa treatment? Round of golf? Hotel gift shop splurge? Instead I simply said, “Sure Kevin, make me an Ambassador”.

He laughed. Then he stopped laughing. Needless to say, I didn’t get the promotion.

Finial Touch

In early January you walked into my blog, took a seat in a pew up front, and witnessed the longest church service in the history of France. From the first LEGO piece I laid as the cornerstone – a now-hidden flat black rectangle – to this week’s placement of the oversized finial on top of the roof, you watched – for almost two hundred years – the slow, somewhat steady rise of Notre-Dame de Paris. Time sure flies, doesn’t it? But at last we’ve made it to the end (or at least, the year 1345), where the pastor dismisses the congregation with a “Go in peace!”(which sounds much better than “Go in pieces!”)

Some reflection is in order today, especially since we’re talking about a building of faith. Our cathedral adventure over the last 19 weeks took us through 4,383 LEGO pieces and 393 steps of the instruction manual, snapped together in fifteen hours, resulting in a five-pound plastic model that – “thank heavens” – really does look like the famous French cathedral on the Seine River in Paris.

[Builder/blogger note: I chose my Spotify classical music playlist while I finished up the cathedral. The first selection was entirely fitting: Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance”, because this really did feel like a graduation of sorts. But the second selection was eerily more fitting: the final chorus of Handel’s “Messiah”. Ha-a-a-a-a-llelujah indeed!]

Some of the photos here aren’t much different than last week’s, but only because bags 31-34… of 34 bags of pieces, were all about embellishment: capstones, pinnacles, tabernacles, finials, statuary, and all the other little architectural flourishes unique to a cathedral (plus a little landscape on the sidewalk). You know those cake decorator videos where a white cake sits on a spinner and you get to witness the slow, mesmerizing development of frosting, flowers, and such? That was me this week; spinning, applying, and fully decorating my cake… er, cathedral.

Here’s a good photo of some of this decor (and click on any of the photos to see everything better). To the far left you can see several of the pinnacles; the little spires all in a row high up. There are 30 pinnacles on the entire cathedral. To the right you can see a couple of the tabernacles (14 of those); the open box-like structures above the tiny drainpipes. And running along the first floor you can see capstones; the helmet-like headers on either side of the open bays. There are more capstones on Notre-Dame de Paris than any other decorative element (68!)

Here’s a look at the cathedral’s famous flying buttresses, the exterior structural elements keeping the building from falling in on itself. There are 28 buttresses, including 14 running around the chancel and apse on the east end. Just below the tabernacle boxes you see the drainpipes. There are 46 of those. During a good rainstorm this view would include an elegant line of waterfalls.

Remember those curious “stars on flagpoles” (or “magic wands”)? Here they are again, all grouped together just below the part of the towers housing the bells. There are 24 of them. You can also see one of the cathedral’s three majestic rose windows front and center. Finally, note the round “medallions” just under the curved arches on either side of the rose window. You’ll find 24 of those on Notre-Dame de Paris as well; several stamped proudly with a “LEGO” logo.

Okay, one more example of embellishment. Here you can see the 12 disciples in green, symmetrically positioned around the base of the finial (all facing inward). When I pulled these little guys out of the plastic bag I thought they were scale figures for down on the sidewalk, but instead they are the statuary I referred to when I first talked about the cathedral back in January.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the model’s landscape elements. LEGO has come a long way since the boxy trees surrounding LEGO Fallingwater. These little “growees” are pretty sophisticated. Consider the tree in the middle. (Click on the photo for more detail). It’s made up of 37 LEGO pieces, including the trunk, branches, and leaves. Furthermore, the branches up against the cathedral are a darker green because, of course, that part of the tree is typically shaded.

Now then, before you “go in peace” I must mention one more thing; the so-called surprise I teased in last week’s post. Notre-Dame de Paris is such an elegant structure it deserves to be seen by day… and by night. Thanks to the good people at Briksmax, I am able to do just that: light up the cathedral from one end to the other. That’s the good news. The bad? I’m looking at another 2 instruction manuals and another 230 steps to get it done. Are you kidding me?

When I purchased the lights I figured they would be simply and cleverly inserted in and around the completed structure, but NO-O-O-O-O-O!!! (cue horror-movie music). In order to light up Notre Dame de Paris I must deconstruct the model. Again I say, are you kidding me? Here I finally complete my cathedral and now you want me to take it apart again? Sorry good readers; it’s just not something I can stomach right now. I’m going to sit and admire my completed cathedral while you settle for admiring the Briksmax photo above. You don’t place the finial on the roof of the catheral with a flourish, only to then remove the entire roof. Another church service for another time.

I leave you with one last look at our poor, unused, leftover pieces, all 48 of them in plastic-bagged captivity (but still trying to escape). I think they all ganged up and cried, “RUN FOR IT!”, because the 49th leftover – a tiny cluster of leaves from one of the trees – went skittering off the desk and onto the carpet below, where it immediately hushed and hid. I still haven’t found it, but no worries. The next time I walk into my office I’ll probably step on it with a satisfying crunch.

Running build time: 15 hrs. 6 min.

Total leftover pieces: 49

Pretty In Pink (and Green)

Here in the South, the arrival of spring has been declared with aplomb. You can already watch the grass grow, and it seems to need cutting every other day. But even more apparent, the blooms are everywhere. Pink azaleas (a staple at last weekend’s Masters golf tournament) run rampant. The roses have never been redder. And the giant flower heads of white hydrangeas will soon spring forth. This Easter week therefore, it seems appropriate for this blog to pay a visit to another cathedral: Saint Mary of the Flowers in Florence, Italy.

My LEGO creation of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is quickly coming to a close, so I need to tour you through at least one or two more cathedrals before I’m done. The first, you may recall, was Saint John Lateran in Rome (read about that one in Tucked-Away Place to Pray). Today we’re a three-hour drive to the north, at Santa Maria dei Fiore. It’s no surprise my tour of the world’s prominent cathedrals continues in Italy. To be honest, the whole tour would do just fine if it never left the country.

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany, known for its stunning landscapes, world-class wines, and Renaissance art and architecture. Approaching the city from any direction, you cannot help but notice Santa Maria dei Fiore. The cathedral is not only one of the largest in the world, but its exterior is finished with marble panels of pink and green, giving the structure a light, airy contrast to the surrounding buildings. The church is crowned by a distinctive dome, which captures your attention even before the church itself.

The architect in me wants to highlight Santa Maria dei Fiore for the remarkable engineering that went into this massive structure. I could spend an entire post talking about the design of the dome alone. Consider, its structure is actually one inside of another. The brick-clad concrete shell you see from the outside is connected to the one you see from the inside by “chains” of stone, iron, and wood. With this approach, Santa Maria dei Fiore doesn’t require the flying buttresses so prominent in Notre-Dame de Paris (a structural element the Italians regarded as “ugly makeshifts”). And the dome’s four million bricks – which might seem heavy-handed (ha) – are a much lighter material than stone or tile.

There’s more to this cathedral than its dome, of course. The plan, a traditional Latin cross, includes three rounded apses surrounding the altar, each used as a chapel. The nave (sanctuary) is the length of two football fields; a vast interior space with single aisles on either side. The structural arches soar 75 feet above the seemingly endless marble floor. And perhaps most unusual, Santa Maria dei Fiore is actually a complex of three buildings. You enter the adjacent octagonal Baptistry of St. John through sets of bronze doors (which are replacements for the famous originals now residing in a nearby museum). And the slender free-standing Giotto’s Campanile (bell tower) is a decorated work of art in itself. All three structures blend together with those distinctive pink and green marble tiles.

If you’re ever fortunate enough to visit Saint Mary of the Flowers, be sure to purchase the ticket to climb to the top of the dome. Filippo Brunelleschi – the architect -included a narrow staircase between the two shells so you can reach the uppermost cupola for a spectacular view of Florence and the surrounding countryside. Brunelleschi designed other structures in his lifetime; churches, chapels, hospitals, and such, but the Florence Cathedral is his crowning achievement. It’s no wonder you’ll find his tomb right inside the entrance, alongside the more prominent players in Santa Maria’s storied history.

LEGO Notre-Dame de Paris – Update #12

(Read about the start of this “church service” in Highest Chair)

Oh my stars, the build was challenging today! Bags 22, 23, and 24 – of 34 bags of pieces, focused almost exclusively on the west facade and the rising of the bell towers. We added the final rose window (above the west entrance) and reinforced the upper reaches of the nave in anticipation of adding the roof.

So here’s a detail I didn’t expect. In Notre-Dame’s towers, just below the uppermost structure (where the bells live – still to be built), you have – how else can I say it? – “stars on flag poles”. Forty stars on flag poles, to be precise. When I dumped out Bag 24, I thought, “What the…?” as the pile of magic wands you see here appeared. Did LEGO mistakenly add pieces from a Harry Potter model into mine? A Disney perhaps? Nope. Look at the final photo. Every one of those stars is planted at the west end of the cathedral like palm trees; most of them in the bell towers. Nice detail, Notre-Dame. As for installing them? It’s tough enough to push little poles into LEGO holes one-by-one-by one, but then you have to rotate the stars precisely forty-five degrees from the plane of the cathedral walls. The engineers at LEGO are having a barrel of laughs at my expense.

By the way, we’ve made it to the year 1245 as we build the bell towers, almost a hundred years after laying the first cornerstone at the opposite end. And we are almost done. By the numbers we have ten bags of pieces to go, but by the look of the model we’re closer than that. They must be small bags of pieces. Whatever. I just hope they don’t contain any more stars on flagpoles.

Running build time: 12 hrs. 01 min.

Total leftover pieces: 32

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.