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| The Lochside Hotel in Bowmore, Isle of Islay |
Established in 1884, the Lochside Hotel is a quaint and
comfortable place to stay on Islay. Although the rooms are small, and the
hallways narrow, this is certainly by the standards of a 21st-century traveler.
The dining room and bar are cozy and convivial, with a whisky menu that
contains virtually all the products of local distilleries, including those with
eye-watering prices.
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| Room 6 |
Nursing a Blurred Vision IPA for a few extra minutes of
enjoying pleasant, if not threatening, weather. A sparrow is trying to manage
and protect a huge chunk of bread, but rivals make that job increasingly
difficult. Many people are sneezing because of the high pollen levels.
Pulled kikok chicken sandwich with red cabbage-tomato salsa, beetroot yogurt, and roasted onions. BRLO Blurry Vision Hazy IPA.
Sometimes, among friends, restaurants achieve a mythic status based upon the experience rather than the food. Of course, excellent food can help bolster one’s impression of a restaurant as well. Located on a nondescript street, behind the doors of an inauspicious building, Tapeo Gràcia is a warm and invitingly small dining area. Without a reservation, or eating by myself, I am frequently relegated to the bar, which is great as well. I can watch both the bartenders and cooks prepare meals for cheerful and expectant guests.
I have fond memories of finding the restaurant after Sally,
Niel, and I wandered the narrow streets of the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona
for seemingly an hour. There are so many choices about where to eat, and it is
difficult to decipher which ones are merely interesting from those that might have
good food as well. The first time we stumbled into Tapeo, we thought we hit the
jackpot. The following year, we attempted to retrace our steps, all of us
forgetting the restaurant’s name. Just as we were about to give up, and Sally
said, “the next decent restaurant,” as if by magic, we turned the corner and
there was Tapeo.
I have had many good meals in Barcelona, but Tapeo remains
my favorite. Without a doubt, it has interesting food and good drinks. But the
ambiance and vitality of the restaurant makes it a fun place to visit.
May 2024 dinner:
Espárragos tempura con romesco ligero (Tempura Asparagus with Romesco sauce)
Pan de coca con tomate (Coca bread with Tomato)
Huevos estrellados con jamón ibérico de bellota (Broken Eggs
with Iberian Ham, Bellota refers to free-range, acorn-fed ham, aged for over
two years)
As we approached security, a middle-aged man with slightly graying hair and silver-rimmed glasses was stopped and told that he was not allowed to take a luggage cart through. It was crowded and he was trying to hurry. When he took one bag off, another fell to the ground. His wife screamed, walked over, and kicked him so hard that the security guards instinctively moved to intervene. The man turned and took the luggage cart away. But everyone who saw it was stunned into an awkward silence.
Located in a former gas station, it is perhaps our favorite taco place on the planet(?). Last visited: April 2024.
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| Al Pastor, Salmon Taco, and Pollo Verde |
Address: 30 Broadway Ave,
Mystic, CT
The Northern Lights seen over
Nova Scotia on my flight to Iceland, after intense activity in May. Not the
best photo, but my first-time seeing aurora borealis.
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| Eastern Bluebird near Fish Hatchery Road |
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| A breeding pair of red-tailed hawks have returned to their nest near the Mile 8 signpost. |
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| A peacock on Nealy Road |
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| Spring dandelion |
Located in the Algiers Point
neighborhood, this classic 1940s neighborhood house did not have air-conditioning.
As such, it probably made watching a movie in the Algy during the summer the
equivalent of a steam bath. Today, the Algy is astudio and gallery for a local
glassblower.
Address: 446 Vallette Street
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| Coco enjoy "her" new ottoman in room 119. |
From their perspective, the cats think that Delaware is a room at the Residence Inn at Rehoboth Beach. While the car ride is scary, being in a new place is, at first, exciting. There are new places to explore and hide, a cubby hole beneath the sink for example. In fact, Coco got caught behind a dresser drawer and was trapped there for several hours. Our mistake was that we left the drawer wide open, there was not enough room for her to jump into the drawer and then out of drawer onto the floor. She was getting a little panicky, and I even went and asked the manager if he knew how to remove the drawers from the dressers. Although we are not engineers, Angie and Coco eventually figured it out.
At first, Pip was at peace.
The territory that is a hotel room is much easier to monitor than the territory
at home. There was no prompting him to use the litterbox, and he slept soundly in
bed with us. He was gregarious and cuddly. But as the week went along, he let
us know that he was ready to go home. He is a sensitive cat, who likes his routine.
And he is not shy about reminding us of that.
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| Pip on the comfortable bed that, from his perspective, can only be found in Delaware. |
Sometimes we are just lucky. After driving four hours, we three cats who are all reluctant travelers, I was unpacking the car when I noticed a huge flock of geese, descending not too far away. I paused to watch for a few minutes, noticing that there were flashes of white as birds descended and ascended – they were migrating snow geese. The birds were on their spring migration north to their breeding grounds in the Arctic.
With the roof bag unloaded
and stored, the cats were relatively happy in Room 119, their temporary home for
the week, I got in the car to go for a walk on the trail. In Rehoboth, walking any
distance other than on trails can be difficult. As I waited at the light at the
hotel, I noticed geese flying a few feet in the air from time to time and
decided to investigate. Less than a quarter of a mile from the hotel, a
multitude of snow geese were gathered in an empty field between medical
buildings. Cars were slowing down or stopped to observe the spectacle, many
people made eye contact and we knowingly returned smiles and grins with one
another. Worried that I would frighten the birds if I got out, I pulled the car
over watched the birds and took a few photographs. While there were a few stray
snow geese for the remainder of the week, I did not see any large gatherings. It
was just fortunate timing.
Bertrand Russell (c. 1950): “One of the painful things of our time is those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”[1]
Russell, the eminent
sociologist and philosopher who gave thought-provoking lectures via the BBC in
1950, worried about the balance between passion and reason when it came to the
future of humanity. His concern about willful ignorance is a concern for any
age and remains a source of consternation today.
[1]
Living in the Atomic Age (1950) by Andrew G. Bone. The Collected Papers of
Bertrand Russell, Volume 26.
I suppose I look like I know
what I am doing. Waiting for a trolley at St. Charles and Martin Luther King
Boulevard in New Orleans, two couples were milling around the stop. It was an
odd place for a group of older tourists to be. I suspect they were not in the
area to see the location of the 1900 Race Riots. One of the men, after some
quiet conversations among the four, got up the courage to ask him for if I were
local. The other man stood a couple of steps back, as if backup. “I am not,” I
confessed, “but if I…”. I did not finish the sentence. They wanted help
figuring out how to ride the trolley. I explained how on the app you could buy
a pass for unlimited rides for $3, versus $2 per trip. He wanted to know if he
could buy passes from the conductor; he could not. They are only available on
the app. His response: “I’m old, I don’t like to put apps on my phone.” One
could always delete the app as soon as you leave town. He acknowledged that was
a possibility, “but still…” he drifted
off, and I meandered away. When I boarded my trolley, going the opposite
direction, the four stood remained in the middle of St. Charles Avenue debating what
to do.
