Thomas Condon

DAY 22: Friday, July 27th. We're in Salem, OR. We drove here yesterday from Boise, ID and on the way, we passed the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, and made a short stop at the visitor center - the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center. What a fascinating place! I learned there about Thomas Condon, who is probably the only Congregational Minister who has a National Park Visitor Center named for him.  He was born in Ireland in 1822, came to America with his family, graduated from Auburn Theological Seminary in NYC, was ordained a Congregational minister in The Dalles, OR, and served a church there. But he had a passion for geology and paleontology and began exploring fossils in the area. He was the first to discover the extensive fossils along the John Day River, said today to be the largest fossil deposit in the world. He began sending fossils to scientists back east and eventually left the ministry to become a full-time paleontologist, was made Oregon State geologist and the first professor of geology at Oregon University. He went on to publish a book, Two Islands and What Came of Them about the two major mountain ranges in Oregon which he believed were separated millions of years ago by an ocean which resulted in separate evolutionary development of the flora and fauna, and thus a completely different fossil record. What an interesting man!

Thomas Condon Center

DAY 23: Sat. July 28th. Yesterday, Roger Hull, Ellen and I took a nice walk in Minto Park in Salem while Bonnie Hull and J.E. Seibert biked, and then we all ended up for lunch at the Minto Island Growers Farm Stand where we had a great lunch. Good food! All fresh and organically grown.

Ellen, J.E. Seibert and Roger Hull at Farmstand

 Then we headed into downtown Salem to explore "Play Me--I'm Yours" piano festival -- upright pianos have been distributed in a dozen outdoor locations in Salem (and in other cities all over the world) and anyone can just sit down and play. We went to one on a pedestrian bridge over the Willamette River and had a little sing-along with another family - the dad played the piano better than any of us did.

Play me! I'm yours!

After that we visited the place where Bonnie has a little "studio" space along with several other artists and then went to a new coffeehouse run by the Salem Alliance Church (a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church). They undoubtedly would not agree with Thomas Condon's views of evolution (as biblical fundamentalists, they undoubtedly believe in a "young" earth), but their lattes are delicious and beautiful.

Piece by Manuel Izquierdo

We also tucked in a visit to the Hallie Ford Museum at Willamette University - a museum our friend Roger Hull had a great deal to do with creating. We love going there. In a newly-opened gallery we saw a sample of an Oregon sculptor's work - Manuel Izquierdo -  who will be featured in a major retrospective next January that Roger is curating.  It will be exciting.  

Bonnie Hull's "My Mother's Hand" wall

 

Beautiful Latte

Idaho Shakespeare Festival

DAY 19: I'm going back and picking up on an earlier post when we were in Boise ID. Tuesday, July 24th was the day we did an informal workshop with the Boise Hospice Singers and that evening we went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival Theater, not for Shakespeare but for Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid. As I mentioned earlier, it was an unusual, "over the top" interpretation and performance, but memorable. When I later went online and read about the original play, I realized that this production held closely to Moliere's characters and plot, but it must have taken great liberties with the script. As the publicity phrased it when describing what ages would be appropriate for this production, it was said it was for any age that liked "potty humor, yucky medical procedures and sexual innuendo." It was fun in a bizarre sort of way. Anyway, here are some pictures from that evening:

Ellen, Susan Gelletley and Larry at a picnic before the play.

Idaho Shakespeare Festival Theater

The set for Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid

 

Boise-Salem Loop

DAYS 16-20: At the moment we are in Boise, ID. We left Alpine Monday noon or so, arrived here Monday at about 7 in time for supper with Susan and Christian, a lovely meal of delicious beets, salad and grilled sausage. Yesterday was a full day - Ellen and I met with a group of Boise Hospice Singers folks - about 16 or so - and led an informal workshop - our 4th annual workshop with them! There is always more to talk about as a group evolves. Then in the evening we went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival performance of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid. This was not a traditional performance in any way - it was creative, bizarre, over-the-top in many respects, but quite memorable. That was preceded by a little picnic on the theater grounds. On our trip over to Boise on Monday I once again read aloud from William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience which we are finding to be a fascinating book. I picked it off the shelf just as we were leaving Vermont and I'm glad I did. Last Sunday we went to the United Church of Star Valley, and found that the pastor was on vacation, and no one filled in with a sermon. So it was a short service. But on Monday we listened to a tape of a Guilford service from July, 1995 and that was wonderful in every way. Shirley's children's story was What the Angelic Lobster Taught, which Peter Amidon had just told at the Memorial celebration last May 26th when I released I Invite the Children to Come Forward, so we got to hear the full service: Shirley's sermon on Heaven - which was a really good sermon, and a men's choir singing a lovely arrangement of Shall We Gather At the River? What a treasure those tapes are! Tomorrow we'll head for Salem, OR and be there a couple of days.

Lying Low

DAYS 14 and 15: Well, yesterday and today I haven't done much. Wednesday night I had a terrible night, not much sleep. Something was going on with my body but I couldn't figure out what. Thursday I was wiped out, light-headed, etc. At first we speculated that it was a reaction to the altitude (5640ft.), but I finally decided it might be an allergic reaction to something, who knows what? So I took a Claritin tablet and pretty soon I was feeling better. I had a better night last night and today have felt fairly normal. We just took a little walk uphill - and that went ok. It is still hot - in the 90's - but it does cool down at night and of course the humidity is low. Despite not feeling like fighting dragons, I have been able to get some work done on my project of transcribing the Tolles manuscript. I've finished two chapters now, a total of 113 pages in the original MS. It is very interesting, and amazingly, in the chapter on the Virginia colony I learned a lot about the background of my own ancestors - the Persons family line - who emigrated to Virginia in the 1650's and were yeoman planters who were involved in "Bacon's Rebellion" -- a revolt of dissatisfied smaller planters against Governor Berkeley. How neat is that? We have two more days here, and then we're doing our annual loop to Boise, ID and Salem, OR, starting next Monday.

Arrived safe and sound

DAY 13: We have arrived in Alpine, WY. We got here a little before Paul returned from work and also before Jenny and Max got home from work and day care, respectively. So we sat on the swing on the porch and just enjoyed the cooler, drier air. Our trip today began in Riverton. The Motel 6 room was a change from what we have had thus far - much more modern and spare in design than Super 8, although it had all the amenities. We liked it. We walked all around downtown Riverton looking for a place to have breakfast, and finally found the Cove Restaurant.  It was only a block from the motel - we had come the long way round. I'd give it a "B-."

The drive from Riverton to Alpine starts out in pretty flat, bleak country, but that changes. The hills rise up, the rock turns red.

Around the Togwotee (TOE-go-tee) Pass you start getting vistas like the one on the left. Then suddenly in the distance is the Teton range, below.  One never grows tired of looking at the Tetons, even when going through a long area of road construction, as we were. When we got into Teton National Park we went to Jackson Lake Dam and found a nice, shaded picnic table where we ate out of our food box from the car. We took the scenic route along Jenny Lake and on into Jackson where we stopped for ice cream. And then it was less than an hour's drive to Alpine.

Not long after we arrived, Paul, Jenny and Max came home and there was hugging all around and a lot of catching up to do on the news. It's good to be here.

Wedding Reception addendum

Katie & Betsey at the Royal

There are a few features of Ryan & Alicia's wedding reception I haven't shared yet. When you entered the lobby of the reception hall at the Four Rivers Environmental Center (FREC), there was an unusual guest book. It consisted of an old Royal standard typewriter, and you were invited to type your greetings to the couple the old fashioned way. Ryan had borrowed my brother's old Royal for the purpose. It needed cleaning but he couldn't find anyone who would clean it, so the keys tended to stick. There were instructions as to how to use it, which included the sentence: "If you don't know how to roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter, ask someone who does." That gave us oldsters a chuckle.

Bottles and candles

When you entered the hall, one of the first things you noticed was that all along both long sides of the hall were wine bottles with flowers in them, separated by votive candles. Ryan & Alicia, and their families,  had been saving empty wine bottles for two years for this purpose! It was a striking decorative motif. Another very unusual aspect of this reception was that the night before, the FREC had suffered some kind of disaster, I was never clear just what, which prevented the use of the toilets. So they had to scramble to bring in portapotties. That created a scene which none of us had ever seen before: a portapotty with a sign on the door: "Bride Only."

We tried, in vain, to imagine the bride trying to go into this in her wedding gown. And speaking of wedding gowns, Alicia had found and reserved a gown she loved at a bridal store in Elgin two years before the wedding, and made a down payment. The store had a policy - if the gown wasn't picked up in 30 days, it was gone, no refund.  Alicia explained that she was in grad school in Little Rock, AK, and couldn't pick it up in 30 days. They said they would hold it, and they did - at least they did as late as May of this year when Alicia called from LR and said she would be arriving in June after graduation to pick it up and they said, "Fine, it's here," But when she actually arrived to pick it up, she was told it had been given to charity!  This was a month before the wedding!  You can imagine her feelings. Happy ending: she found another gown she liked and they applied the deposit to it (but only after her father threatened some Mafia tactics!).

Another unusual feature: the bride cut the cake at the beginning, before the meal. Otherwise, that moment was pretty traditional. The meal was vegetarian: fruit salad, pasta, veggies and cake (the bride and groom are vegetarians). There was a lemon theme: When you entered, you picked up a whole lemon which had pinned to it your name and table assignment. On the tables were lovely bouquets in pitchers filled with water and lemon slices. It all took a lot of planning and imagination. If they put the same amount of planning and imagination into their lives together, they should have a fun ride.

Finally, I got this very lovely picture of Katie and her mother outside in front of a field of wild flowers:

My beauties

Hard night, hot day

DAY 12: Last night in Mullen, NE was sort of a tough night. Our motel was right by the railroad, and coal trains went by all through the night, blowing two blasts on the whistle as they went through town. Between that and an eccentric AC unit, I didn't get much sleep. Ellen woke up this morning with a splitting headache. So we got off to a slow start, but we did have breakfast at Big Red's across from the motel where coffee is $.50 a cup! How rare is that?

I started out driving since Ellen didn't feel quite up for that, but as time went on she felt better and by the time we had gotten to Fort Robinson, a State Historic Site in the NW corner of NE, she was feeling ok and able to drive. We had a picnic lunch at Fort Robinson, which is an interesting place and we learned it has reasonably-priced rooms in an historic building that was a barracks, now turned hotel. More interesting than a motel -  maybe we'll stay there on some future trip. From there it was just - drive through dry and barren country to Riverton, WY which is where we are tonight. It was in the 90's all day. The entire midwest and west that we have traversed is suffering from heat and drought. But as we go along I am reading aloud William James'  Varieties of Religious Experience (1907) which is a classic, a fascinating book, and amazingly modern and pertinent in its tone and outlook. I'm also reading aloud Arthur Ransome's We Didn't Mean To Go to Sea, in the Swallows and Amazons series. Fun. We are also listening to Teaching Company tapes on the topic Why Is There Evil? So far we've had lectures on the idea of evil in the Sumerian texts Enuma Elish and Epic of Gilgamesh, Greek mythology, Genesis, Job and certain Hebrew prophets. It's raised a lot of questions which we get to discuss,  and the miles flow by.