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Tonight is our last night in Manhattan, at least for this trip. I’m not ready to go home, but circumstances (like the need to earn a living) leave me no choice.

The original plan for the trip started when the National Trust for Historic Preservation sent Diane a flyer for a Hudson River Leaf-Viewing Cruise, optionally preceded by a five-day trip to “New York City: A Work in Progress”. Diane’s been a member for a few years, and we normally toss the travel brochures, but this one caught our eyes — and we realized that:

1. I had to be in Orlando for the IBM Academy of Technology meeting the week after the New York City tour, so the travel made some sense, and
2. We could go, because Jeff was going to be away at school.

So we sent our deposit in and waited for more information.

The deadline for final payment passed with no word, so I called the travel coordinator, who said that they were having a hard time getting enough people together for the trip, and asked us to be patient. It’s fairly easy to be patient keeping money in my hands instead of sending it away.

Finally, they called while we were in Denver for Worldcon — the trip was almost certainly on. So we did some research on flight options and when we got home, they confirmed the trip and I booked Diane’s flights both ways and my flight to New York — I had to wait for the Academy travel information to book the rest of my trip, though. Eventually, that came in, and we were all set.

Then the credit crunch hit, and the Academy meeting got cancelled. So I had to scramble to book my flight home to match Diane’s (if I’d been thinking, I would have tried to move to a later flight home, but at least our flight is at 9:45am and not a really early flight). All was well.

Until Diane got an infected toe the week before we were to leave. Her doctor put her on antibiotics and wanted her to come back in a week — when she told the doctor about the trip, the doctor was dubious. And two days later, Diane returned, because her foot was looking worse, not better. But the doctor doubled the dose of antibiotics, and Diane improved, so we flew out last Sunday.

Sunday

Since we had to leave a day early to meet the first activity on the trip, we decided to take advantage and go visit Diane’s mom’s grave at Calverton National Cemetery, out in Suffolk County. And the smart thing seemed to be to stay at the Marriott Long Island in Uniondale; Marriott hotels are always reliable.

Not this time. We had to change rooms at 3am due to noise and a bad bed, after arguing with the night supervisor who wanted us to repack so we’d only have one room. I finally won that argument, and eventually, we got to sleep, but I am not a happy customer, and have a letter of complaint to write when I get home.

Monday

The trip to Calverton was uneventful, fortunately, and we even got a cache in after the visit. That ate into our time, though, so we didn’t make the other pilgrimages I’d planned, to Ralph’s or to Diane’s old house (though I have to admit that I was slightly worried about the latter, given the difficulty the buyers had had in getting a mortgage — I didn’t want to see the house vacant). We did manage a diner for lunch Baldwin Coach Diner, but it wasn’t anything special. A quick dash to JFK to return our car and a quick taxi ride later, and we were at our home for the next week, the Roosevelt Hotel.

And a short time later, we met our group in the lobby for our first activity, a walk to and tour of Grand Central Terminal and the surrounding area.

Then back to the hotel for a welcome reception — the wine and cheese were tasty, but insufficiently filling, so we took one of our companions’ recommendation for a quick, cheap, fairly tasty dinner at Curry in a Hurry; naturally, we walked both ways.

Tuesday

Tuesday dawned early, and we had our first of many breakfast buffets at the Roosevelt. I’m glad I didn’t have to think about the bill (it was included in the cost of the trip), but the food was good, and there were many choices — in fact, I never did try everything I wanted (the lox and bagel were just too good to pass up). Then it was into our “private motorcoach” for the longest day of the trip.

We started with a failure — we were supposed to have a tour of Masonic Hall, but the volunteer guide never showed up, so about all we saw was a waiting room, the restrooms, and this plaque.

We couldn’t wait, because we had an appointment with another volunteer guide, this time for a tour of City Hall and the Tweed Courthouse. Fortunately, this guide volunteers for the city, so she showed up. But first, we wandered around City Hall Park, where I saw the day’s first reminder of 9/11:

City Hall Park was very pleasant; I especially enjoyed the fountain.

City Hall and Tweed Courthouse were interesting, but not terribly picturesque. Then we walked down into the financial district and had lunch at Les Halles. This was the first of our group meals, most of which had semi-set menus in the interest of speeding the meal along (not really rushing us, but keeping on schedule). I’d go back happily.

Lunch was well-timed, because it had started to rain just before we got to the restaurant, but the storm was over by the time we left for Federal Hall, Trinity Churchyard, St. Paul’s Chapel (where we saw the 9/11 exhibits), and finally a tour of the area around Ground Zero with volunteers from the 9/11 Tribute Center. One of the volunteers had worked on the 102nd floor of the South Tower but had changed jobs a few weeks before 9/11; he still lived in the area, and suffers from respiratory problems as a result. Of course, that wasn’t the most moving part of his story, but it’s all I can relate without distortion.

By the time we’d finished, it was 6pm, and our “private motorcoach” had a lot of traffic to fight on our return visit — I’m not sure but that the subway would have been a better choice. We got back to the hotel far too late to go to a show, so we went to dinner instead, at Angelo’s Pizza on Second Avenue, choosing the place by its four-star Yelp reviews. I wasn’t terribly impressed, and added my own review to help others in the future — there was nothing wrong with the pizza, but I was sure we could have done better.

Wednesday

We started Wednesday with a tour of the Tenement Museum, which included an interactive interpretive session; I got to play the role of the paterfamilias of a turn-of-the-20th-Century Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant family, asking questions of a teenaged Sephardic Jew who’d been in the country for a couple of years. It helped me appreciate what my grandfather had gone through when he came to America.

Then we walked down Rivington Street to Schiller’s Liquor Bar for a “light lunch” (only two courses); the neighborhood was a bit on the quiet side because it was Simchas Torah (Ashkenazi spelling deliberate, given the area), so some of the stores were closed. Schiller’s was fun and filling, but not so filling that I wasn’t interested in making a stop at Economy Candy, where I bought more than I should have but not as much as I wanted to.

Back on the bus for a trip up the East Side to Gracie Mansion for tea (and dessert) and a tour. We just missed the Mayor, who’d been there for a reception for the Consular Corps. Gracie Mansion is worth the trip; in previous years, the tour omitted the upstairs private quarters, but since Mayor Bloomberg decided to live in his own home instead of at the Mansion, the whole house is shown. And now that New York has lifted term limits, the odds are good that there will be four more years where you can see the whole place.

We returned to the hotel with plenty of time to visit TKTS and score tickets for Spamalot. They’d announced that they were closing in January earlier that day, so I’m glad we went when we did (I hadn’t known about the closing until I saw it printed on our ticket). On the other hand, I have to say that comparing the play with the movie shows the value of a limited budget — I far preferred the movie.

We tried to go to Akdeniz Turkish Cuisine before the show, but they were full, so we went next door to McAnn’s, which was a perfectly serviceable bar, with decent food and beer.

Thursday

Thursday was downright chilly and windy, which was a shame, because our first stop was outside, at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.

Michael Berens gave us a great tour of the exhibit (EAF08: 2008 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, there until March 1, 2009); his comments and energy added a lot to my appreciation of the exhibit and kept me out in the wind until we were dragged away to join the vast majority of the tour, who were waiting patiently on the bus for us.

We made a quick stop in Astoria Park to admire the underside of the Triborough Bridge

We then continued on to the Noguchi Museum, where we had a low-energy tour.

Lunch was at Taverna Kyclades in Astoria. It gets rave reviews on Yelp and in Zagat, but I thought they were only average; being in a group didn’t help, I’m sure, but the salmon was overcooked, and that didn’t jibe with their reputation. I might try them again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do so.

And that ended the organized portion of the day; we had decided to go see The 39 Steps if we could get tickets at a decent price. The lines at TKTS were long, but we’d found a half-price flyer on the way over, so we hiked the extra three blocks to the box office and took care of our business that way. Then we took advantage of IBM’s corporate membership in MoMA and went in for a short visit (because two museums just aren’t enough for a day in New York). After that, we cast about for dinner and ended up following a Twitterpal’s recommendation for Bukhara Grill, which was quite tasty but more expensive than I expected (note to self: if the menu in the window has opaqued prices, beware). I wish we could have brought our leftovers back, because they were too good to abandon — but without a refrigerator, abandonment was the only option.

The 39 Steps was great fun, though a bit hard to follow at times; I guess it would have helped to have seen the movie or read the book first.

Friday

Friday was the northern day of the tour. We started at Van Courtlandt House in the Bronx, not far from where the subway ends; then we visited Poe Cottage, which is about to undergo significant restoration, and then the Bronx Museum of the Arts where we had a well-guided, but too short, tour of the “Street Art/Street Life” exhibit.

After that, we journeyed to Harlem for lunch at Londel’s. They failed badly on the service side (Diane didn’t get her meal until 20 minutes after the rest of us were served, which was about an hour after we’d sat down), as well as not having the sweet potato pie that had been prearranged. And the food wasn’t very exciting anyway. I did enjoy the “local” Sugar Hill Beer while I waited for my food!

The slow service cost us the chance to walk around Striders’ Row, but we finished the afternoon at a high point, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, including an interesting ghost story.

Then it was back to the hotel to rest for a bit before the grand finale, a trip to Top of the Rock

and a farewell dinner at the Sea Grill in Rockefeller Center.

Saturday

We had our last “tour” breakfast at the hotel and said goodbye to a number of folks who we saw there, then set out for a day of touring Manhattan on our own. There was much geocaching in the morning, not all of which was successful.

Lunch was at an old haunt of mine from my 1980 trip to the late, lamented IBM Systems Research Institute. Well, almost. In 1980, it was known as the Electra Coffee Shop; now, it’s the Morning Star Cafe, but it’s still a great New York diner.

After lunch, we walked up to Central Park for more geocaching, and then to the Metropolitan Museum (thanks, IBM!) to admire some European paintings and the current Chinese landscape exhibit, along with some quick trips through the Egyptian collection, the “New York, N. Why” exhibit, and some shopping.

Then we walked over to Beyoglu for another shot at a Turkish dinner; this time, we had no deadline, so, of course, they seated us immediately. This was another Yelp pick, and it was a winner — the vegetarian meze plate was great, as was the doner kabob. I’d go back cheerfully.

We decided against baklava for dessert in favor of Pinkberry for Diane and Sedutto for me — that was probably a mistake, because it had started raining while we were at dinner, and the rain really picked up while we were at Pinkberry. It eased up by the time we left, and wasn’t too bad on the way to Sedutto — but then the wind hit. My umbrella didn’t survive, and I wound up throwing it away before we got back to the hotel (sure, we could have taken a taxi — there were plenty available, despite the rain — but what fun would that have been?), and we were quite soaked. But it was fun anyway, and I felt virtuous, having walked over 30,000 steps for the day (which probably didn’t make up for the caloric intake).

Sunday

Today, we decided against the hotel breakfast; instead, we walked a block to Smiler’s, where Diane and I had breakfast for under $10. Total.

We had another reason for eating at Smiler’s instead of the hotel; we were having brunch with an old friend at Noho Star. After Saturday, we didn’t want to walk quite as much, so we picked up a MetroCard Fun Pass for the day and took the subway to NoHo, arriving early enough to do more geocaching (again, not all successful).

Brunch was very pleasant, as was catching up; Ed said that if the day was clear, we could do worse than to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and so that’s what we did (with a not-so-quick detour to the hotel to pick up my jacket).

I took a ton of photos on the bridge and in DUMBO, posting many of them on Twitter as they happened; Ed saw my tweets and arranged to meet us again, giving us some very useful tips on the local area, including the suggestion of having pastries at Almondine.

After that, we made a brief visit to Bloomingdale’s, and finished the evening with stops at two pizza places, Portofino on Second Avenue and Two Boots in Grand Central. Portofino was much closer to “real” New York pizza, at least given my choices (mushroom slice at Portofino, “Earth Mother with cheese” at Two Boots). And then a little Ciao Bello sorbetto to top off the evening.

Tomorrow, we get to see JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 — it’s going to be the first Monday the facility has been open. I hope security there works better on a Monday morning than it does at San Jose.

When we went college shopping in Oregon last May, we did some last minute wine shopping at the Made in Oregon store in the Portland Airport.

One of the bottles we picked up was King Estate 2006 Oregon Pinot Gris, which we had with dinner recently. We liked it a lot; it was crisp, with lots of fruit (I’ve gotta get better at writing down descriptions of wines while drinking them instead of waiting a couple of days!).

Sadly, we only bought one bottle. But we should have the opportunity to buy more; we already have planned a trip to take a closer look at Willamette, and now Jeff’s been accepted at the University of Oregon. We’d bought the Willamette tickets before hearing from U of Oregon, so it’d be expensive to change them; I think we just might have to make another trip instead.

Just a warning to anyone planning to make hotel reservations for Denvention — don’t wait! The Courtyard is already sold out at the con rate for Friday and Saturday, so we’re going to stay at the Marriott.

I guess we picked a good long weekend to be in Tucson instead of here — we missed the winds, rain, thunder, power outages, and general havoc. Instead, we had temperatures in the 60s and low 70s, gentle rain one evening, and way too much food.

We also had a steady stream of messages from our house sitter telling us what we were missing, including photos of our late TV antenna. We’re supposed to have DirecTV come out next week and install a new dish; I was going to try very hard to get them to bring out a receiver with OTA capability (and still might) but it’ll need a new antenna, too. This one is beyond repair.

The high point of our touristing in Tucson was the afternoon we spent at the Pima County Air and Space Museum — we were lucky enough to get onto a Boneyard tour as soon as we arrived, and afterwards, wandered around the museum proper for several hours. Photos are on Flickr.

But most of the time was spent with Diane’s relatives, talking and enjoying their company.

Restaurants worth mentioning:

• El Charro Cafe (on Broadway) — as always, tasty authentic Mexican food
• The Good Egg — as always, good, filling, reasonably-priced breakfasts in a pleasant environment
• Viro’s Italian Bakery — an Italian deli with decent food, decent gelato, and very reasonable prices
• New Delhi Palace Cuisine India — they make a good Chicken Tikka, and their “Karhai” (wokked) vegetables were a nice change compared to normal Indian restaurant fare

But despite the good food and company, it’s good to be home again!

Joel Spolsky recently wrote

I’m sad to say that the Congress Plaza Hotel where we did the event at this morning does not qualify as anyone’s palace. The usual nice words you might use to describe such a hotel would be “threadbare” or “shabby.” Other words (“maccabre,” “Barton Fink,” and “scuzzy”) come to mind. This was entirely my fault; I set a target budget for hotels in each city and didn’t do the research to make sure the hotels would be entirely nice.

I remember the Congress Plaza Hotel as the “host” hotel for The Second International World-Wide Web Conference on Mosaic and the Web back in 1994. It was tired and grubby then, and I assumed it had been chosen to accommodate student budgets. They offered conference attendees the chance to have an RJ-11 jack installed in their rooms at the trivial price of $75 — my boss kicked in for the “upgrade”, and I’ll bet he had to pay for every phone call, too. I was lucky — the hotel was filled by the time I made my reservation and I had to stay at a Hyatt a few blocks away.

I guess there’s a niche for shabby hotels, and it’s good to know that it’s being filled by true experts in the field.

The 100th anniversary of the War Between The States Civil War was, unsurprisingly, a Big Deal in Richmond. One of the ways in which it was celebrated was by building a special temporary museum downtown, the Virginial Centennial Center, and, as a schoolkid, I was taken there on a field trip.

I don’t remember many of the details, though I’m pretty sure that the exhibits slanted towards The Lost Cause view of the war; I do remember that they had some interesting dioramas portraying key battles, with moving lights and other high-tech 1960s effects.

The Centennial Center closed in 1965, though the building still remains (though it’s due to be demolished soon). But now there are two Civil War museums side-by-side in downtown Richmond, next to the James River and Kanawha Canal. One is part of the Richmond National Battlefield Park; the other, The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, is run by a private foundation. They share a parking lot, which is convenient.

We went to the Park Visitor Center first, picked up a virtual geocache, watched the movie, and poked around a little before walking down to Shockoe Slip for lunch and a real cache. Then we walked back and visited the American Civil War Center, before returning the the Park Visitor Center to finish the day.

Both museums were better than what I remember of the Centennial Dome, but if I only had had time for one, I’d go to the Park Visitor Center. It told the full story, with much less repetition, and with fewer noisy displays. And it was free. I don’t mind having gone to the Civil War Center, but one visit there was enough (they do, however, validate parking!).

We’re in Richmond for the first time since my Mom’s funeral, so our first stop was her grave. It was the first time any of us had seen the marker, and of course Diane and Jeff had had to miss the funeral last year, so it was an emotional stop.

But then it was time for something completely different: a trip to Dave’s Comics and Silly Ass Toys so Jeff could pick up the current batch of comics in his subscription and we could talk with Dave, Marlon, Wendy, and Sheryl about old times, old friends, new toys, taxes, and spam.

Most of those topics aren’t of much interest to anyone but those involved (and taxes and spam will, I’m afraid, always be with us), but some of the toys were interesting. Dave showed us a Laser Star Projector — but he didn’t have one available for sale at the present time, so I won’t link to it. I will, however, sing the praises of one toy we’ve had for a few years, the Airzooka, which I really ought to bring into the office for those days where shooting something would be a good idea except for the consequences!

Dave recommended The Tavern in a small shopping center across the street, and it was a good choice. Not too noisy, all non-smoking (I think that’s still an issue here), tasty, and friendly. Worth another visit.

After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon in another cemetery, Hollywood Cemetery. I hadn’t been there in many, many years — when I went as a kid, I remember being somewhat frightened by the signs at the entrance reading “One Way In”. Those signs were gone, but the permanent residents remain, including two US Presidents (John Tyler and James Monroe) and one Confederate President (Jefferson Davis, of course). And one possible future president wanted to have his picture taken with all of them, but I’m only going to post one, at least tonight:

We also visited the Confederate section, where I found a monument to the Jewish Confederate dead with an oddly-transliterated version of the Sh’ma:

Apparently that spelling was used in the Prayer for the Confederacy, composed by the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Ahabah here in Richmond. I don’t know if it was supposed to be Yiddish or just idiosyncractic; I sure had never seen it before.

We finished our tourism for the day with a quick trip to Oregon Hill so I could show Diane and Jeff where my grandfather’s grocery store used to be, as well as some of the other sights I visited driving Shiva last year.

Then we headed back to my brother’s house where we finally saw them (they were asleep when we got in last night and we were asleep when they left for work and camp this morning), though we had exchanged phone calls during the day. Then dinner, a little geocaching, blogging, and now to bed….

We’re just back from a trip to Oregon, mostly to look at colleges. We flew up on Tuesday night on a pretty full Alaska flight to Portland and then drove down to A Creekside Garden Inn in Salem to spend the first two nights. Our scheduled arrival was a bit later than normal for our host, and we got in even later, but when we called, she said she’d do her best to stay awake for us, and she did. But soon after our arrival, everyone trundled off to their respective bedrooms. And so ended the exciting first day of the trip.

The next morning, we had a tasty breakfast, and headed to Eugene to visit the University of Oregon. Our tour started at 12:30pm, so we decided it made sense to leave as early as we could, and arrived about 11am, ready for lunch. We tried to go to an Indian buffet across the street, but they weren’t open; on our way back to the car, we were accosted by a faculty member, who noticed us looking at a map and offered to help us. He suggested Mekala’s, a Thai restaurant, which hit the spot quite nicely. Then we returned to the University for our private tour and information session.

We weren’t actually supposed to have a private tour, but I guess not many high school juniors get the days before Memorial Day off. Jeff did, because Wednesday was Shavuot and Thursday was Shavuot for non-Reform Diaspora Jews, and the school wasn’t silly enough to try to bring people back for one day before a three-day weekend.

At any rate, we did get a private tour of the campus; Oregon, unlike the other schools we visited, was still in session, since they follow a quarter calendar rather than the traditional semester schedule. But we hadn’t made arrangements to visit any classes, so that the only real effect was that the campus was humming. It seemed much smaller than the University of Arizona — and it was certainly much greener! They had lots of nice buildings and the usual Bed, Bath, and Beyond fake dorm room (though they were the only school we saw this trip with the sponsored room); the guide talked a bit about the classes and the professors, and he praised the career center and the president (who seems to like interacting with students). Our information session was similarly private; the counselor gave us the admission requirements, which are very straightforward, pointed out that, unlike UC and CSU, they don’t have “impacted” courses or facilities, and gave us some general good advice about taking notes on visits and applying to meet early deadlines if at all possible.

Then we wandered over to the student-oriented business area just off campus, poked around the bookstore, went to look at the Hillel House (which was closed because of Shavuot), did a cache, and drove back to Salem for dinner. After looking through the menus at the B&B, we chose Boon’s Treasury, one of the local outposts of the McMenamin’s Empire; it was a little over a mile away, so we walked there. Jeff had wanted the pasta on the menu, but the menu was several years old, and the pasta was no longer on order; he coped, and we all enjoyed our meals (especially dessert), finishing just before the music started at 8:00. A fairly brisk walk home followed, to work off the dessert, and we were all in bed early.

Thursday, we checked out but left our car at the B&B and walked to the Oregon State Capitol where we watched the House debate
Senate Bill 707, revisions to the Bottle Bill, adding bottled waters to the list of beverage containers needing a deposit. I was surprised by the intensity of the debate, since I would have thought it was a very straightforward updating of the law. Clearly, I’m not an Oregon grocer, nor a legislator with ties to the grocery business! (The bill passed.) We also visited the Senate, but I’m not sure what they were debating (they were less organized than the house), and climbed to the top of the building. Oregon’s Capitol Building is very much open to the public — you don’t even have to go through a metal detector to enter, nor to enter the galleries. It was a refreshing change.

We looked at the menu of the Capitol Cafeteria and decided that we’d do better in the open market, so we walked down to Salem. Jeff wanted pasta after his disappointment of the previous day, but it was suprisingly difficult to find. Eventually, though, we stumbled across Alessandro’s, which filled the bill quite nicely. Then we did a quick cache (though the only reason we could log it was that its owner took pity on us and showed us exactly where it was) and walked to Willamette University.

Again, we were the only customers for the tour; Willamette is a much smaller place than University of Oregon (about 2000 students total), but the tour still took the customary hour. Then we had a session with an admission counselor, where there were no real revelations. I guess Willamette’s biggest draw for Jeff would be its location, just across the street from the Capitol. It’s easy to get an internship with a legislator (maybe with a lobbyist, too), and they often eat at Willamette rather than the Capitol Cafeteria!

From Willamette, we returned to the B&B via Caffe Gelato, which I can highly recommend. Then we drove to our Priceline-selected Portland hotel, the RiverPlace.

So far, we’ve been lucky when getting hotels through Priceline; the locations have been good, as have the rooms. This was no exception; we were near the south end of the Waterfront Park, a couple of blocks from the Portland Streetcar. The only downside was the nearly-mandatory valet parking, but that was going to be the case at any downtown Portland hotel, and saving nearly 50% on the rooms made it much more tolerable. So did arriving just as the chocolate chip cookies were put out!

We had dinner at Cypress Restaurant, a couple of blocks away; it was ok, but not thrilling, and I’d look elsewhere on future visits. But it was pleasant eating outside, looking at the waterfront. Then we hiked across town to Powell’s City of Books, where enough hours vanished that we felt more comfortable taking the streetcar back to the hotel than walking.

Friday, we had two schools to visit. Reed College was the first; we arrived almost an hour early (the traffic on Thursday had put the fear of God into me, unnecessarily), so we poked around the campus for a while before going to the Admission Office for our tour. As usual, we were the only customers.

Reed is…different. It’s strictly undergraduate; it expects a lot of its students (including a serious senior thesis), but it grants them a lot of freedom and respect in return. We met with the Dean of Admissions, Paul Marthers, before our tour, and had an interesting discussion (somehow, the normal discussion of the admission logistics didn’t happen), and then had a very personal tour of a very pleasant campus. I know that I would have liked to have known about Reed when I was looking at colleges!

After Reed, we had to make our way to Lewis and Clark College. Fortunately, we had enough time to stop for lunch; we stopped in the first interesting looking neighborhood with parking that we found; it turned out to be the Sellwood area. The restaurant we stopped for (the one with the parking lot) was closed, so we walked around and found Mekong Vietnamese Grill. It was worth the walk, though not worth a special trip back.

We continued on to Lewis and Clark, which was the most organized of any of the schools we visited. They had a sign up welcoming us, along with the other families visiting during the week; this was the only school where we had to share the tour. Our guide took us all around the campus, into many dorms and classroom buildings, and I really felt that I got to know the place. I also got the impression that they view Reed as a rival, while Reed doesn’t particularly notice that Lewis and Clark exists. As our guide put it at one point, “Reed is scary.”

Lewis and Clark’s distinction is their devotion to internationalism. All students are required to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language, and more than half of their students do a term (or more) away, mostly overseas. I’m not sure if this is a good fit for Jeff or not (the language part, especially), but it definitely provides an angle to judge the school. The question of languages came up during Jeff’s interview, too (this was the only school where he had an Official Interview By Himself).

And then we were finished. So we celebrated, first by having some delicious Umpqua Ice Cream at the Little River Cafe on the waterfront, then by going back to Powell’s. Finally, we had dinner at La Terrazza on Morrison (which advertises itself as “Casual Italian”, unlike La Terrazza on Salmon, which appears to be more dressy). It was perfectly serviceable (the bread was excellent) and not too heavy, which was perfect for the evening.

Today, we had breakfast at the Little River (much better than what we’d had yesterday at the hotel), checked out, and then drove to McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. We knew we’d only have an hour or so for the museum, so we were happy to discover that they reciprocated with The Tech. The Spruce Goose is enormous; the other planes were also interesting, and I could have easily spent more time poking around. But our 737 awaited.

En route, we stopped at Pasta La Casa for a quick meal; I thought it was better than La Terrazza, but not outstanding. Still, it was a pretty good find for a strip mall chosen more-or-less at random!

We got to the airport with plenty of time; we spent a good part of it in the Made in Oregon shop, buying wine. I was a little worried about being able to fit it in the carry-on space on the plane, but I needn’t have been — there were only 20 or so people on the plane, and they had to reassign seats for weight and balance. But there was plenty of overhead space!

All in all, it was an educational trip in many ways. These schools seemed to appeal to Jeff more than the ones we’d visited earlier, and I won’t be surprised if he applies to some of them. And if we wound up with reasons to visit Oregon more often, I can’t say that I’d be disappointed in that, either.

We decided to avoid the Grapevine again (though there was nothing on the traffic reports that really indicated a need to do so), and thereby found ourselves in Bakersfield for lunch. Our original plan had been to eat at the Apple Shed in Tehachapi, but they quoted us a 20-minute wait, and there wasn’t 20 minutes worth of browsing in the shop, so we continued.

We weren’t feeling very adventurous, so we waited until we started seeing recognizable signs — I was ready to give up and go to Baja Fresh, but when we pulled into their parking lot, there were a number of more interesting looking restaurants to try. We ended up at Flame and Skewers, which served “Mediterranean” food (in other words, shwarma and kebobs), which was a great choice, especially since we’d spent the previous 90 minutes listening to Israeli music on Radio Hanukkah. After looking at the business cards at the restaurant, I doubt that they were serving Israeli food, but it was quite tasty and certainly in the right spirit.

And then on to home. Total driving for the trip: 2104 miles, most of it spent listening to Radio Hanukkah, which now has 24 minutes left in this year’s edition. It’s definitely downhill from here!

We finished our Tucson stay with yet another trip to The Good Egg (one more visit and we get free meals!); then we picked up Diane’s Dad and SO and took them part-way to her son’s house. When we last saw them, they were sitting in the Wendy’s at the Outlets at Casa Grande, waiting to be picked up (this was, of course, according to plan, though it’s still somewhat disquieting to abandon family in the middle of the desert).

From there, we took our chances with Phoenix traffic (although the Jam Factor was Green according to XM Traffic, we sure hit some slow going), but it only took us an hour or so to get through the city. And at 1:30, we were once more seated in Silly Al’s Pizza in Quartzsite for another late lunch. The place was even smokier than last time, but still worth it.

I’m not sure that stopping for gas at the Flying J at Arizona Exit 1 was worthwhile, though — sure, we saved 40 or 50 cents a gallon compared to California prices, but we only needed 5.5 gallons, and there was a line at the pumps.

The rest of today’s driving was uneventful, though we did hit some slow traffic just after CA-60 branched off — slow enough that I tried out the “Detour” function on our Prius nav system. It told us to take the adjoining road, which was what I planned to do anyway.

We’re overnighting at the Dynasty Suites in Redlands, which is a fairly standard 3-diamond motel. The most interesting thing is that they play classical music in the parking lot — I’m almost afraid to ask why.

There are a ton of franchise restaurants near the hotel (Long John Silver’s, Arby’s, Taco Bell, and El Pollo Loco are all within a two-minute walk), but we hoped to do better. So I turned to the oracle — Google Maps. And it delivered Eastern Classic Thai Restaurant, which was a great find. Jeff ordered Thai Green Curry and ate all of it, so I can’t comment on it, but Diane and I traded our dishes. She ordered Mint Leaves Chicken (with sliced chicken rather than the default ground chicken), which was very tasty; I had “Crying Tiger”, which is grilled beef with a hot sauce on the side — delicious. The restaurant was almost empty, which is a shame given the quality (and reasonable price) — I would go back happily if I were ever in Redlands again.

No sightseeing or geocaching today — driving was the priority of the day. It’ll be the priority tomorrow, too. 400 miles if we take the Grapevine.