Boog's Blog

Friday 21 September – a Rain say

Day started with significant thunder, lightening and rain which tapered off early afternoon.  Left some roads very slippery.

Early start from Hotel Roncesvalles

QB in very pretty Basque town

The last 4km were especially steep and slippery; a dangerous descent on tired legs. The balance of the terrain and walls were excellent to outstanding.  Fine road services, views.and terrains.

Speaks for itself. 

One of the fine views, not looking real.

So far, and very unlike our previous caminos, the predominant language has been English. Canadians, Americans, Brits. Justafewfrom other places.  Also the age of walkersisnow much closer to ours. Few mid-lifers or millennials.

A notable event or two for usos that we passed, as in walking more quickly, some folks.  Very notable for us slow walkers.

The pictured bridge, in Zuberi, is of medieval original.  Local farmers would walk their animals around it to Ward off rabies. No info on how well it worked.

Our toys track our distances. They do so with a large dispersion:

iPhone- 14.0 miles; Android-15.6 miles; Garmin GPS 17.1 miles.

Wildlife: horses with short fuzzy legs, pale tan cows, sheep of non mountain and mountain variety, chickens but not much else.

Dinner included two specialities of Navarre, where we are.

Red peppers in oil garlic, lemon, white wine. Second, the drink, mostly digestif, Patxaran aka Pacharán.

Thursday 21 September

Tomorrow we march with the weather we get to have. Today, however, was warm and sunny.

A lazy do nothing other than reading and making sure all gadgets, maps, and instructions properly set up and functioning.

Our hotel was formerly a monestery.

Casa Beneficios, our hotel.

Back in contact with Nancy and Jerome. Out paths will not cross this time. Their post today included some good suggestions (food especially) for our eventual salamca stop.

We decided to order a la carte as the media pensión (pre-paid) was of less interest. Had a typical evening meal pictured.  I asked for the bill. Ah, it is ok, with a waive of the servers hand. Not the first time in Spain that food was comped when close in price. Never happened in France.

Wednesday 20 September

A day to get  past jet lag. For some reason it has been worse this trip.  

A snippet from memory lane and the earlier  post on Roncesvalles where we first had cujada.                          

” Cuajada is from sheep’s milk, looks like yogurt but tastes like it has not been cultured. Served in attractive earthenware jar with honey to mix in. Excellent. We will order it repeatedly for research purposes.        
Shout out to Bob: To make this cheese, 1) have Hugo bring in a sheep, 2) feed sheep well, 3) milk the sheep, 4) add other stuff until complete, 5)serve to friends and family”.

Roland

Short walk to the monument to Roland; local legend of where the song originates in history.  Good to compare pics from the blog with our earlier visit.

Long planned was a visit to the bird migration center. QB got a fine tee shirt there last time. This time we were fooled: open only on weekends.  Previous visit was on a Sunday.

Another closed place, the XII Chapelle of Charlemagne. Fortunately good views from the openings surrounding the historic building.  

Cheese

Local cheese aquired from the only shop in town.

Dinner with two walkers, Toronto and Bordeaux, clearly enjoying themselves. Stories, wine, ribbing. Bob would have enjoyed them.

Sunday 17-18-19  September 
Oakland, Barcelona, Pamplona ( hotel Palacio Guendelain) Roncesvalles.  

Fly to Barca, train to Pamplona and overnight there, stay for tapas, then to Roncesvalles by taxi.                                            
We are off again to sack the Camino.  We go not as paid professionals – those who were  paid to have their patrons sins  extirpated – but as travelers.                                                   
 During the previous trip (seven years ago)  much of the history of the camino and towns was explored and explained on the blog.    We do not intend to repeat the history part for these posts.

Breakfast

For the hard core there is a search box on the blog in the upper right.   Put in the city where we are staying and the blog from the previous trip should appear magically. It is all magic.  

Pinxos lunch

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Our Pamplona hotel. A real gem. Wonderful old casa well run. 

Monday 21 August, eclipse day.  

A trip to see the effects of the wizard. Yes, you know which wizard.

 
A double good day:. eclipse and a visit to a wonderful park-rose garden.

Window says medical and retail marijuana

That this is a marijuana friendly area cannot be overlooked or the odors avoided.

A few shots of the people and shadows at the eclipse viewing.  A fine viewing; a whetting of our appetite for seeing a total one.  Perhaps July 2019 in South American, preferably by ship.  Research has started. Some may wish to join us.

The early part looked like the Apple logo; QB thought it looked more like a cookie snacked upon.

Of course the end of times folks marched by. Not pictured.

Washington Park and it’s rose garden on the Portland highlite list.  Did not make it to the Japanese garden.

List, a very long list of the garden roses.

Above is a view from the top of the rose garden, looking down into the valley well below.  It was a long very very hot walk up.

The rose garden is several, many times larger than the one in Regents park.

Sunday 20 August. Vintage Portland Hotel

A short trip to see a short event.  Boogs along with several, many, thousands of others. 

Planned, or rather did not plan, this event about a year ago.   Hotel booked but research into the details of the path through Oregon overlooked.  Not quite full eclipseunless the path is diverted by some cosmic event not yet invented ala Doug Adams.

Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.
John Keats

Fun fact:
“Michael Zeiler, a cartographer and eclipse chaser who runs the website GreatAmericanEclipse.com, determined when the sunlight during the eclipse will be of the same intensity as it is elsewhere in the solar system. If you were standing on the center of the moon’s shadow in the path of totality at 28 minutes, 40 seconds before totality, you’d experience the intensity of sunlight on Mars. A breath before totality, just 7.7 seconds before the sun is swallowed, you’d experience the sunlight on Pluto. At 59 seconds before totality, you would experience the sunlight on Saturn”

On the plane: many are discussing their travel and accommodations. Southwest calling it The eclipse flight.  Conversions morph to Trump and Nazis.

Hawthorn vertical lift bridge

Hawthorne Bridge historical vertical lift bridge

Vintage Portland hotel

North of the hotel and towards the river the area is very poor looking with lots of drugs and marijuana smell everywhere but no construction; numerous homeless. It looks like the city is going to hell.

Far more pan handlers, Street people, drugged out than we have seen in a while.

Several food stalls looking good except for garbage everywhere

Above food looked good but not clean enough for standing around and sampling.

Heading South the city improved greatly. Reasonable commercial and retail areas, food area, and many hotels.

Found a good ramen place.

Shaved ice with a coconut foam right by the ramen place.

Near the hotel is a park where hungry can come and eat, at least at times.  Was very crowded at 4pm.  This is during clean up.

Friday 28 July

Guests departed during the day. Dinner with Sara et. al.

A very nice table with a very nice family. welcomed us into their home and life. Very touching.

Norman Rockwell scene.

Dinner, well prepared, of course by George. chicken with a fine tomato gunk (his words).

Saturday 29 July.

G&M head off early to a flea market.  We, of course, continue to sleep in.

Breakfast at Cru, another fine one.

Dinner at the apartment,a classic boog dinner.

Sunset by the yachts.

Sunday 30 July

Our anniversary, trip to Jamestown, final dinner.

So ends this adventure.

Took a ferry to Jamestown. A small island of 5K persons.  Asked the boat person about housing prices here: like Newport, nothing under 400K.

Walked around a bit. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Especially compared with busy newport.

Nothing under 400k

Sitting near the water

Anniversary dinner.  Also a big thank you the G&M for arranging the adventure.

QB has been wanting fresh bluefish this whole trip.

Preamble announcement: the comments section has been upgraded  (thanks Tom). In short you can now get notified  by email, opt-in – about comments. 

On the blog, at the end, you will find comments.  Click on the word comments. Look at them, add a comment, or subscribe to comments as they come in for the current post.

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Wednesday 26   July

Multiple visitors day.   Bob and Ellen staying over for two nights.  Hillary and Eillen, staying on Goat Island (more about this on Thursdays post).

Arrivals interspersed with eating, walking, and dinner at Anthony’s, our go to place for lobster and seafood.  No raw bar, that was last evening.

Hilary with Birch Beer

Hilary went out of his way to get me some Birch Beer.  Have not had since boy scout and or Binghamton days. QB remembers that it was commonly available in Binghamton.

Others remember this beverage ?

Eileen in the foreground.   Bob in the back.

Dinner and then coffee at the warf.

Not our yacht

Thursday July 26

A day of socializing, walking and, of course, eating.

Tall trees.  Many many tall ones here.  The climate (George says mild Winters and lots of rain).  Especially beech trees and horse chestnuts.   Additionally, many trees of the gilded age may have been planted large.  

Dinner on Goat Island.  Hilary’s son in law works for a company that is an investor in the hotel, Guerny, on the island.  Only one hotel and several condos there.

Nice masted ships on the way to Goat Isl.

Dinner was not a success.  Not at all.  Music far too loud, 100db measured. we complained continuously and they finally comped the whole meal.

Dinner at Scarpetta on Goat Island

Food , except for two dishes, was mediocre especially for a high end name brand restaurant: Scarpetta. Sauces bland. Pasta overcooked. Veal dishes good.

Monday 24 July Rain, heavy at times.

A no visitors day.

WP has a new editor, beta. Trying it out. Nope, still too buggy with media. Reverted to visual editor.

Dinner at my current lobster favorite.  Anthony’s.

Two pounders, might have been a bit more.  One claw was in a to the death fight with me; I won. Yummy.

QB had the scallops, also in the picture.  Ample serving of eight.  Fresh farm corn as well. Another yummy.

Tuesday 25 July

Another quiet day. Breakfast at a old style diner. Run by an extended family for the past 30 years. Clean, well run.

Gary’s on Thames

At Starbucks QB finally finished editing Richard’s novel. Discussion planned for August. Quite a good work, I read it for pleasure not editing; funny at times. Especially funny at other times.

 Once again at Benjamin’s.

Oldest gas lighted street.

And then the tomato house on Corne Street.  He brought them here. Praise be.

His house.

Finally, and certainly not least, a major correction.  In the comments the other day Elizabeth asked if the Newport Tower was Stone built, meaning no mortar.  I mistakenly answered yes without taking a second trip and look.  Clearly I answered mistakenly.  

Sunday 23 July

Peggy and Stuart left after lunch.

Newport Tower, likely an old mill

Highliter of the day was a walk about Sachuest wildlife refuge.  On a point to end of Newport.  

Nice trail along the ocean shores.  QB purchased an especially charming HR souvenir.

Trails and views

Nearby Norman Bird Sanctuary was skipped.  We saw, on the Sachuest trail, several birds, likely a yellow throated something and another mockinbird as well as hills galore.

We skipped due to ticks.  Too many warnings for us. Spray, long pants, socks tucked in, arms and more covered, check regularly.  We skipped.

Have now added 1st 2nd and 3rd Beach to our visited or seen list.