Fingers Crossing at Amtrak

There is only one place in the entire United States where you can load your automobile onto an Amtrak train and accompany it nonstop to Florida. The embarkation point is Lorton, Virginia. I happened to find myself 3 miles away from the station when I happened to be stranded, unable to drive on the icy highways. How perfect is it to be steps away from a solution out of the predicament? How perfect would it be to tuck our car into the train, settle ourselves into passenger seats and snooze on the overnight voyage?

 The hitch? Sold out. So, here we sit in the parking lot, hoping to go standby. Hoping that the mob in the waiting room falls short of the capacity. Fingers crossed.

Epilogue:

Snap. Sadly, the train was full. We were not among those lucky people who Amtrak welcomed aboard.

Ice is a Trip Breaker

A record storm and perilous pile-ups is messing with our plans to traverse the east coast in three days. We left Rhode Island’s chilly climate yesterday morning, aiming to catch up with the sun in Florida. We were oblivious to the weather conditions ahead. Our car chewed up the miles as we listened to an outstanding audiobook, The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson. As we passed through New Haven, Stamford, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore, the travel time flew because our attention was riveted to the story of Jennifer Doudna and the history of gene editing. I just love a great science story. But then, my phone dinged with a text from a friend, “OMG, Look south into Virginia. Could be ugly.” I paused the audiobook and googled. Yep, snow was predicted for where we were headed. I switched to resume playing. We traversed the Washington, DC beltway and exited into northern Virginia. Flurries smeared the windshield, spurring my husband to spritz and wipe the windshield continuously. The sun lowered in the sky, radiating a blinding glare across the icy roadway, causing fellow travelers to slow down and a few to skid off the road. We agreed that our intended overnight stop destination of Richmond remained a good plan. At 90 miles away, it still made sense to press forward. Until it didn’t. Traffic slowed to a stop. We were sandwiched in between tractor trailers. In 30 minutes, we moved forward by 3 miles. Even with the distraction of a great book to listen to, the message was not lost on us that this was not a good situation. Each time google maps refreshed, our goal got further away. The Google Maps lady told us that there were delays of more than 5 hours. We inched forward and decided to exit from I-95 as soon as we could. We did; at Woodbridge, Virginia. Thanks to the Google Maps lady’s directions, we found a Quality Inn not far from the exit ramp. As we got off I-95, we noticed that the entrance to I-95 heading north was closed. True, we weren’t going north, but it could just as easily have been our side of the road that was closed. In fact, not long after we got off, the southbound lanes of I-95 were closed, stranding the cars that were still on the road. My husband and I were not the only people who bailed out. We got our key to a room and then went right out to search for something to eat for dinner. The shopping center a half-mile away had a few restaurants. Except: the Greek pizza place was closed, the Mi Casa/Su Casa Mexican restaurant was closed and the Chinese restaurant had a 2-hour wait for takeout (where people sat waiting for their orders). The last resort was the Food Lion grocery store with a paper notice taped to the door saying that they were closing soon. We grabbed the last two salads from the deli case and a bottle of Merlot and slid across the black-iced parking lot back to our car. We had a quality picnic dinner in our Quality room.

This morning, we lined up to take advantage of the free breakfast choice of either (and only either) Hostess Danish or Jimmy Dean Sausage Sandwich. Proof that we have arrived into the south. We’re waiting for the sun to melt the ice, for the state highway people to reopen I-95, and to resume listening to The Code Breaker’s gripping story about gene editing.

Art for Joy at Art Basel Miami Beach 2021

Just let me stroll among creative people and I feel joy. How can you not smile when you see somebody walking around looking like this?

Or, when you step outside into the botanical garden for a sip of chilled Whispering Angel and you see these women at the bar? The guide who led me and my friends through selected pieces pointed out a bit of playfulness. What appeared to be a pile of Amazon boxes delivered to the gallery's booth was not as they appeared. The boxes were sculpted of brass.

Yes! It smacked of Art Basel Miami in 2019, when Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to a wall. Provacative. Conversation Seeder. Silly? Joyful.

Art Basel Miami Beach 2021: If you’re big, it’s no big deal.

But if you’re small, it’s overwhelming. In the Miami Beach Convention Center, at Art Basel Miami 2021, I stared down at a square white coffee table. Covering its top was a large smear of red sand, arrayed in a spiral. It appeared tracked, as though someone’s fingertips pushed it across the surface. Although it was pleasant to look at, it didn’t seem particularly creative or intriguing, compared to the mass of exciting art displayed throughout the cavernous building. However, I was walking the floor with a knowledgeable guide who encouraged us to squat down and look across the circle at eye level. Everything changed. At the edge of the sand, I saw a tiny figure of a woman pushing a broom. At her scale, the expanse of sand and the suggestion of the work spread before her was overwhelming. She had days of work ahead of her. What tedious and discouraging toil. How you see artist Liliana Porter's spiral varies depending on whether you're big or small. Rushing or patient. Know-it-all or open-minded.

Traveling the US of A

One of the things I love about traveling is the planning. I love researching places before I go --- figuring out how to get the most out of the experience of being there. Sites to see, experiences to try, history to learn, restaurants to find, people to meet up with. Since COVID-19 arrived in March 2020, I killed several sets of plans. Really good ones! Antarctica, Patagonia and Paris. I am not going to reschedule until it's clear that traveling abroad is safe and has a low likelihood that it will need to be cancelled. That doesn't mean that the travel bug is dormant. It's not. Instead of polishing my passport, I've been eyeing the map of the United States. I've been carrying 8 states on my bucket list. I've visited the other 42. Wouldn't it be nice to have been to all 50 states? (Answer is YES). Being a list maker and an accomplishment checker-offer, I'm thinking that this is a good time to travel on the US highways. With vaccine in my arm, a mask on my face and my husband beside me, I could get excited about organizing a road trip to top off my state collection. Lucky for me, all eight states are pretty much stacked on top of each other in the center of the country. They form a swath from North Dakota up top, down to Alabama at the bottom. Through Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the Civil Rights museum and lots in between that I haven't unearthed yet, this idea has the potential to shape up into a super road trip. In the middle of the country in the middle of a pandemic. Has a nice ring to it.

Why Travel Again - Why it’s a Trip

It was the third day of what should have been a one-day cross-country flight from San Francisco. I was wedged into my slender economy class seat watching David Byrne, former Talking Head/current old guy barefoot in a business suit, jumping around on a stage. Joined by a troupe of performers in identical gray suits, they sing about chicken brains and talk about voting rights in “American Utopia.” WHY? Trying to travel by air was my world for longer than it would take to fly to Asia. I watched American Airlines’ curated entertainment and read three books on my kindle. David Byrnes’ clap-clap-clap soundtrack provided background for a memoir I was reading: Braver Than You Think. The author, Maggie Downs travels the world, honoring her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother by visiting the places on her mom’s bucket list that are now unattainable. While her mother is still alive. For a year. I momentarily set aside my reading to resume my own “travel” writing. WHY? Having concluded that air travel for COVID-vaccinated people is safe, I flew to San Francisco from my home in Providence, Rhode Island. Because the FAA hasn’t yet aligned with the latest CDC advisory, everyone on planes and in the airports must wear a nonstop face mask in the travel-by-air bubble. The trip out was easy peasy. The trip back was not. The flight out from San Francisco was scheduled to depart at 11:00am on Sunday morning. Granted, it did leave the gate. However, after sitting on the runway for about 1.5 hours, they needed to refuel. Due to a “technical” error, they overfilled the tank, spilling fuel on the runway. Fire engines were summoned just in case. The attempted clean up failed. The flight was cancelled, we stayed at the Marriott San Francisco Airport and we were rerouted for a morning departure.

On Monday morning, we boarded on time. After nearly two hours of sitting on the plane because airports on the east coast were closed due to weather, we deplaned to the lounge to stretch our legs while the rains cleared. After an hour of leg-stretching and food-buying, we reboarded the plane and took off for Philadelphia. Scrolling through the entertainment options, I discovered David Byrne. The theater audience leapt to their feet, stomping and clapping to the song “We’re on the road to nowhere.” As I watched on the little screen on the back of the seat in front of me, I was happy to be on the road to somewhere. However, because of the late departure, we arrived in Philadelphia after missing the connection and the rescheduled connection. We spent Monday night in a hotel not near the airport (the airport hotels were all booked). We checked into the Courtyard Marriott at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, overlooking the Philly sports stadiums, making my husband happy.