(OT) Praise/rant/etc #5

[Eye of Hoffs]

It's difficult to separate out the praising and ranting today, so...

Combined praise/rant
Itasca State Park had provided the best night's sleep of the holiday so far, a combination of the cleaner air and the quieter surroundings. There was still a dull drone from inconsiderate people and their a/c units (it's called passive air conditioning) but not enough to keep me awake. I slept through until about 6:30 and we made our way down to breakfast when they opened at 8:30. I think that I may have been a bit harsh on the children with my comments the other day because here the screaming has been replaced by the monotonous clomp clomp of the octogenarians' walking canes impacting wooden decking, but there you go.

So the breakfast at the last place was fairly wretched - extensive but largely inedible. The cereal selection was sugar flakes, sugar crispies, sugar loops and honey sugar loops. The oatmeal varied from a nearly total liquid consistency to a kind of grainy cement. The bread tasted like molasses and if you put it through the toasting conveyor once it came out still limp, twice and it was a smouldering wreck. The various hot items would not have been out of place in a swamp. And then there was the tea...

You see, Americans, or at least commercial enterprises, cannot do tea. For a decent cuppa you need to use boiling, not tepid, water and you really require a teapot to let it brew. It definitely helps to put the milk in first and then add the brewed tea, and that's real (preferably skimmed) milk, not the ghastly creamers that often get served up. And then there is the tea itself, it needs to be proper tea and not some of the questionable products on the supermarket shelves. And please note that we don't really have "English Breakfast tea" in England, it's just your name for anything that you don't have something better to call. That's one reason we really like Starbucks here, you can get a good cup of char there.

Now breakfast at the Lodge was not a buffet, just a fairly limited but decent selection of items. And I have to say that it was generally pretty good. Caroline had the oatmeal and toast and I had eggs, bacon, potato thingies and toast. Of course, the bacon was the fat-infested stuff they always serve here, what we call "streaky bacon", not the big lean cuts that are standard back home, but I digress. No, the problem was the tea. Really, all servers working in diners and the like should just have a big sign stuck on their chest with the words "Would you guys like coffee?" because I don't think I have ever heard anyone open up with anything else following their initial greeting. Well we didn't, we wanted tea.

"Oh sure," she enthused, "what sort would you guys like? We have Earl Grey, Darjeeling, some green China tea, and I think we may have..."

"Just standard black tea, please", we cut in, "like English Breakfast."

"Oh, we're saaarry but that beverage is not available in this establishment. Thank you for aaaasking."

So they have Earl Grey, green tea, lemon chihuahua and lord knows what else, but no plain black tea. Look, hardly anyone actually drinks all that other crap back home. Okay, maybe in central London they do, but that lot voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU so they don't count. All that stuff is mostly foul. Just because it has a posh English name doesn't mean we would really consume it. And Earl Grey is about the worst, in Caroline's opinion it tastes like a mixture of "smelly socks and mothballs", although that does make me wonder what kind of diet she had before I met her. But honestly, Patrick bleeding "Picard" Stewart has a lot to answer for I can tell you. We just drink normal black tea, okay? Fortunately we long ago learned to always come to the US with a trusty box of PG Tips, so I went back up to the room and brought down a few bags and they provided the water. Lukewarm, of course.

And so with breakfast out of the way we started on the day's adventure. We had selected the inspirational sounding "Wilderness Trail", a ten mile hike that loops around the park with several offshoots to various places of interest, foremost of which is the source of the Mississippi river. But prior to starting that we were going the half-mile or so to the park's second major feature, an old fire watchtower which rises up one hundred feet and supposedly provides spectacular views over the woodland canopy. Now, in many parks like this the main warnings concern the danger of running into bears. But in Itasca it is a different menace altogether: poison ivy. Dire warnings are to be seen in the literature and establishments, and sure enough we were faced with one we had not yet seen as we started out. Now annoyingly I cannot remember the exact wording of this example, but here is roughly what it said without perverting the meaning:

Poison ivy can have shiny or dull leaves. It has a single stem and only a few stubby branches or no branches at all. In the fall the green leaves can vary in colour between yellow and red.

Hmm, okay. It's not easy for non-botanists to tell for sure whether you are looking at a multi-stemmed organism or multiple single-stemmed ones. And it is mid-September, so maybe the leaves have started turning or maybe they haven't. So another way of interpreting all that helpful advice might be:

Hey doooood, pretty much anything out there in the forest could be a danger. Shoulda stayed in the city, huh? Hahahahaha.

Thus we embarked on our journey with a degree of trepidation, endeavouring to keep a healthy two yards between ourselves and anything that Jean-Luc's tricorders might pick up as a life form. Still, before long all that was at the back of our mind as the environment took over. Screw the veggies, we were looking forward to seeing some of the many animals that are apparently to be found here. It had cooled off considerably overnight and I needed both fleece and rain jacket to begin with. But the cool wind was quite exhilarating. Freedom! The great outdoors! At one with nature! Solitude! Peace and qui...

Suddenly an ominous "ooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaooooooooo" burst through the stillness. We stood frozen. Again came the roar, "uuuughhhhhhhhshhhhhaaaoooo". What evil was this? The aliens had landed? They were filming Jurassic Park 7? Sauron had relocated to Minas Firetower and his minions were preparing for war? We bravely walked on further and the howl grew louder. But we had to know what was going on. And then the first roar was joined by another, "eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeewowow ugh-ugh-ugh eeeeeeeaaaaoooooowowowow". Covering our ears we soldiered on. Then the metal monolith of the tower loomed up in front of us and shortly afterwards the source of the uproar became apparent. We had stumbled upon a bald-headed chainsaw bird and a grey-tufted log grinder, together with a cute brood of construction chicks. Aw, how dandy. As we began the ascent of the tower the flock seemed unconcerned by our presence, just a charming grunt from one as we made eye contact. Ignoring our bleeding ears (and aching legs) we reached the top of the obelisk and gazed around at the panorama. I think we both liked it, but it was difficult to make out what Caroline was saying in all the noise. Hell, it was difficult to think at all. Giving up on communications, we stopped to take a quick snap of the spectacular wildlife scene below us (see pictures) and then proceeded down to terra firma.

As we made our way back along the trail the cacophony gradually receded. Thankful of having such a lucky encounter, we braced for what other wonders might await on the Wilderness Trail. Pretty soon we reached the start and our boots dug into the soft footing of the all-natural tarmacadam trail surface. Yes, it transpired that the Wilderness Trail was actually Wilderness Drive and we were sharing the solitude with motorbikes, cars and trucks. Oh well, at least we were consoled by the reassuring grey of the road surface and we could keep a healthy distance from all that threatening green, yellow and red in the woods. But wildlife encounters were few and far between. There was the occasional squirrel and chipmunk and the odd call from an unseen bird of prey, plus a probable sighting of some woodpecker which is common to the area, but mostly it was just silver-tailed chryslers, black-crested fords and loads of four-wing-drive sport utility vultures. Yet I mustn't be too critical of the park, because Wilderness Drive did feature an impressive number of toilets compared with most trails, and that's a good thing. Caroline claims to have a bladder the size of a peanut, which she blames on having three large children. Personally I think that is BS and put the blame squarely on the parents for their bad genes (not sure if it was Frosty or Elsa). So more toilets equals less chance of despoiling the serene grey. And who knows what might happen if she came into contact with any of the dreaded weed.

We branched off at one point, braving the sinister greenery on all sides, to check out a landmark: the Great Red Pine, tallest in the state. Only the top had apparently fallen off some time ago so it was not the tallest. In fact it was really nothing more than a fairly big tree. And being in a forest and all we didn't really have to go out of our way to see, you know, a tree. But we saw it I guess.

A little further on, around half way, we branched off again to see the Great White Pine. which was surprisingly still intact but even less impressive than the unimpressive not-so-tallest red one. But still, we took the opportunity for a spot of lunch: sandwiches, flapjacks and a flask of tea made with boiling water and PG tips teabags. We then had a bit of a mini-crisis. Caroline does like a touch of sweetener in her tea but she had left them behind at the lodge. Still, no problemo! We just tore a crust off a piece of the bread, swilled it around in the tea for a minute, and she was good to go! Our fuel reserves restocked, we headed back to the Great Grey Way in search of the source of the Mississippi, just like those hardy explorers all those years ago. Except that they probably didn't have Berghaus fleeces. And they were presumably constantly scratching themselves because the Native Americans had not thought to put up any signs warning people of the horrors of contacting any kind of biomass in the area.

Another couple of miles along the road we turned right and with considerable distress noted that the formerly one-way road had turned into two-lane blacktop. The discomfort came from the fact that there was now a band of yellow running along the centre of the highway and for all we knew that could be the autumnal form of the noxious weed we had been warned of. But somehow we prevailed and in a few more miles arrived at the park's hub and for the first time since leaving the lodge, save for the construction crew and the odd cyclist, we saw people not being propelled by an internal combustion engine. We duly took in the official start of Ole Miss and had a soda and ice cream at the cafe, then began the last leg of the journey down the east side of the lake. Here we could exchange the asphalt for the more forgiving earth of various trails, which although adding some length and the increased dangers of encountering the-plant-which-must-not-be-named, our legs appreciated it. Pretty soon we heard the soothing call of the this-vehicle-is-reversing duck and knew that we were nearly back at the lodge.

All jokes aside, it was a fairly decent day. The road surface was a bit monotonous and we didn't see anything especially unusual (the scenery wasn't really all that different than England) with no exciting wildlife encounters. But it was great and definitely though-provoking to see the start of such a mighty river. And we are definitely getting older. We must have done getting on for fifteen miles all told, but it seemed to take a much harder toll than a couple of years back. The tarmac didn't really help though. But now we say adieu to Lake Itasca and our journey continues today to the town of Ely.

Pictures of the Day
Unmissable views from atop the tower & the obligatory "We woz there" photo op.

[Dr Alzheimer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM

...ah, but Picard was a Frenchman, wasnt he?

[Nonel]

PG Tips is where its at. It gets me through those terrible moments without a proper coffee.

[Zardoz of Crete aka Kimi aka Victoria Secret]

Where is my Like Button!!! 

[Razz]

I was going to reply with an easy way to spot poison ivy, oak and sumac....but I kinda wanna see this play out. There is a part of me that would like to see what the Hoffs would look like with a rampant poison Ivy Rash. *looks at his demerit count*

ok OK! I'll tell you. Boy scout saying #1 "If the leaves come in threes step away, please." Google pictures of those plants and you'll see what I'm talking about. There are other plants with leaves similar, just stay away from those until you can spot the ones that matter.

This is how we like to make our tea in my house.

1. I get a kettle and boil water in it.
2. Then take some PG tips and steep them for a few minutes in the kettle.
3. Once that is done I then take the kettle and dump it in the sink.
4. I then go to the fridge and pour me a glass of good ole southern iced tea.

you're welcome.

P.S. I was going to ask which one in the picture was you. But after looking at the pic I realized the one on the left is entirely to pretty to be you.

[CharGar]

Something seems to really have his dander up besides the tea.  Appears in the picture the vein in the neck sticking out.  That's always a sure sign of something about to explode.

[Razz]

Something seems to really have his dander up besides the tea.  Appears in the picture the vein in the neck sticking out.  That's always a sure sign of something about to explode.

Demerit Buildup. A very common issue among adult Brits.

[Natalia]

Thank you, Hoffs.  We miss you.  I haven't had such a good laugh in a while.  I laughed so hard I cried.

By the way, you really don't want to encounter poison ivy, or you could be taking home souvenirs from your trip that you won't appreciate at all.

When I was young I ran into a poison oak bush (no visible leaves, just branches) while hiking.  I ended up being one of the curiosities at the World's Fair in Seattle.  When we went to the hospital to try to get treated a team of about 10 doctors wanted to carve up my face for science, because they had never seen such a wonder.  It was a very painful experience and I had scars (real ones) for years.  Lucky for me, my parents wouldn't let the doctors take their samples, so the scars were just from the poison oak......which is very similar to poison ivy.  I am one of the unlucky people who happens to be just about deathly allergic to it.

Interesting that one of my reasons to love Hawaii is there is NO poison oak here.  However, to my surprise, the skin of the fruit and the sap from the mango tree contain the same properties, but mangos are easier to avoid than twigs in the forest.

Have a great trip.  Love the pictures.

[Razz]

I had no idea about Mangos!

When I was younger my girlfriend and I went skinny dipping. At one point she got out, walked through some underbrush and laid down in the grass. Well there was some Poison Ivy in the underbrush. She broke out everywhere. I mean everywhere. It was really hard to explain how she got it in some of the areas on her body. Her parents never really liked me much after that....

[Sara Dale]

you can also get that nasty stuff from someone burning it and you walking through the smoke.   

I hope the rest of the trip gets better.    But I do love hearing the tales of your travels. 

[Ian James]

:-) long pants and sleeves help but if you know you've been walking through it, best get those clothes in the wash immediately


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[Zardoz of Crete aka Kimi aka Victoria Secret]

My Gift to you Hoffs.  Feel free to use it.