AMG
Anne Marie Gold Joined: April 26th 2009
Logged in: October 4th 2011
Logged in: October 4th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Plus ca change
There are times in your life when all the elements seem to come full circle and you are struck by the patterns and pathways that have formed you. This past week certainly has been that. As a young child one of my favorite places to visit was to my mother’s cousin Natalie Frohock and her husband Brick, a professor at Harvard, in Cambridge, MA. They lived in what seemed to be a huge home near Harvard and there was always a somewhat mysterious air in the house – Brick was in his third floor study doing serious, intellectual work, Natalie had just come back from a trip to the gourmet grocer Savenour’s and was cooking something marvelous in the kitchen and my two cousins Natalie and Sarah were off and about in Harvard Square, seemingly much ... read more
Louis Gold
Grand Canyon, AZ – Albuquerque, NM – 449 miles Total miles: 1381 After saying goodbye to the gorgeous Grand Canyon – a bit sunnier this morning but still very unseasonably cold - Albuquerque is the next stop, crossing the Southwest on I-40. The last time I did I-40 across the Southwest was on September 11, 2001. I had been on an early morning flight from Atlanta to San Francisco and when all flights were grounded we landed in Oklahoma City. I was fortunate enough to get one of the last rental cars available, asked the woman sitting in back of me on the plane if she wanted to drive to San Francisco, and we hit the road. It was an eerie trip – I really didn’t have any idea on how to get to California and ... read more
Grand Canyon
After such a day yesterday of highlights and pushing adrenaline, today was a much needed day off the road. Of course, we didn’t quite expect it to snow! We started out with a quick, cold walk on the Rim Trail to the geology museum but it became a sprint as the white stuff started to come down about half way there. I kept thinking I was seeing things but no, it was definitely snow, followed by sleet, hail, rain, sunshine, etc. – apparently the spring weather at the Grand Canyon follows the Maine saying “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.” Seeing the majesty of the canyon from this vantage point is equally wonderful but I think I would have missed a lot without the experience of seeing it from the river. Some hiking, ... read more
Reliving his boyhood on the Colorado River
Peach Springs, AZ to Grand Canyon National Park, AZ – 144 miles Total miles: 932 40 years ago, in 1971, Steve and his cousin Larry Oster did a week long rafting trip down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and to this day he still thinks of it as one his greatest adventures. After we married, and in a moment of his humor, he proclaimed that our marriage would be perfect when I rafted the Colorado with him. Well, 37 years later, we finally have the perfect marriage. The morning started early, sunny and a bit windy, with an hour long drive down an unpaved road to the Diamond Creek put in on the Colorado River. Our driver’s name was Cruz and he was aptly named for his driving skills! We met our fellow travelers ... read more
Lone Pine, CA
Lone Pine, CA to Peach Springs, AZ – 419 miles Total miles: 788 miles Do you ever wonder about who is behind those Adopt A Highway signs? Today as we cruised the highways and byways of California and Arizona I couldn’t help but wonder about the stories behind some of the signs. Why did the Indian Wells Ladies Garden Club sponsor a lonesome stretch of 395 in Kern County? Who are Kelli and Piglet and Family? Who was remembering Ray and Bertha? I think about all these unknown stories…. Today was long stretch of desert. We were greeted by the majesty of Mt. Whitney hit with the early morning sun during our morning walk. Then we hit the road for about 8 hours, across the Mojave, into Arizona, first sight of the mighty Colorado, and then ... read more
Our modern Conestoga wagon
Sacramento, CA to Lone Pine, CA – 368 miles What is it about being on a road trip that Steve and I find so wonderful and companionable? When we first started talking about driving across country once again this spring, it was for the ostensible idea of getting the Subaru to the East Coast so we could switch cars with Lauren. Underneath all that reasoning – and we certainly always do things in a reasonable way – was this unquenchable desire to just hit the road once again. To lock ourselves in a car for 2+ weeks in our road trip bubble, experience 4,000 miles of Americana – somehow we have come to love this life. Steve still seems surprised that he loves the idea of the journey versus the destination – I think our life ... read more
Carriage ride in Williamsburg
Monday, May 24, 2010 - Appomattox, Richmond Another grey morning but somehow emblematic of Appomattox - it was a grey, rainy day on which the famous surrender occurred. It is a small restored spot, out of the way, famous only for what ended there. We meet a couple of enthusiastic rangers who engage us in 15 minutes of Civil War minutiae, e.g. exactly which regiment was where, and it’s fascinating to watch grown men with such passions. You get a sense of the sadness and pathos of the ending to what both sides saw as a great, patriotic endeavor…and relief that the war was finally over. In Richmond, at the Museum of the Civil War (a true monstrosity of 1960’s brutalist architecture), it is amazing to see the carefully preserved artifacts…the coat Lee wore at Appomattox, ... read more
James Madison' Montpelier
Friday, May 21 One of the pleasures of road trips is the excitement of a find that you didn’t expect. Our traipse through AP US History has had us trying to recall so much that we had forgotten - education is wasted on the young - but many of the places and names certainly did ring some familiar bells. But our real find today was a new one - Montpelier, the home of James Madison, outside Charlottesville. We started out Friday morning meandering along a country road lined with the famous Virginia horse farms on our way northeast of Charlottesville - absolutely gorgeous country. Montpelier was the family home of the Madison family - he was born there and died there - and clearly shows how the Virginia aristocracy lived two hundred+ years ago. Until 25 ... read more
Skyline Drive
Wednesday we started the day out in Harpers Ferry - on another cold, grey morning - walking the historic downtown area and the site of John Brown’s raid. The National Park Service is doing an increasingly excellent job with its museum exhibits and at this time of year we frequently have the place to ourselves. One of the most interesting exhibits was about the Niagara Movement, from the first decade of the 20th century, founded by W.E.B.DuBois, which was the first major organization demanding equality for all blacks. It was the predecessor of the NAACP and held Harpers Ferry as sacred ground, as a result of the John Brown raid. Albeit with lousy weather, we still tootled off down the Skyline Drive in Virginia and it was aptly named as we were sometimes above the clouds, ... read more
Eisenhower National Historic Site
One of the fun parts of roadtripping is collecting people…well, not quite actually collecting them but collecting vignettes of the folks you meet on the road. I guess I have to admit to a certain amount of voyeurism as we travel as I do enjoy people watching and, frankly, listening in on conversations from time to time. Yesterday morning at the Gettysburg Visitor’s Center there were masses of high school students on the obligatory field trip, filling out their requisite class survey forms while leaning on each other’s backs, trying to be uber-cool with each other, and just generally being teenagers. Some comments overhead… “I didn’t know Jefferson Davis was President of the US... Dummy, it means President of the Confederacy.” “Eew, can you imagine being operated on with that? Did they have drugs back then?”...while ... read more
