Visiting Ellis Island Friday, Dec 12 2008 

museums and travel thisgaudygildedstage 7:00 pm

One of the highlights of PJ’s and my trip to NYC last week was our visit to Ellis Island. We took the subway down to Battery Park and then caught the ferry over to Ellis Island.

On the way over, the ferry docked at Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty stands. If we had wanted to, we could have gotten off the boat, looked around the Island, and then caught the next ferry over to Ellis Island. But we decided to skip the Statue of Liberty and just head on over to Ellis Island.

Since going to Niagara Falls this past summer, I’ve discovered by fondness for ferry and ferry-sized boat travel. The ride around the Statue of Liberty was particularly fun, since the weather was nice and the trip really gives you a pretty close view of the statue.

This is just one of a couple dozen pictures I snapped of the Statue from various angles. This one is my favorite, though, because it gets everything into one picture — the statue, the little people in the foreground, and the beautiful, blue sky.

PJ visited NYC in 1987. Visitors could still go up into the statue’s head/crown back then. You can’t anymore, so we figured it wasn’t really worth a visit. I didn’t realize that there’s also an exhibit about the statue in the base. Maybe that would have lured me into visiting.

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New York, New York [w/ update] Wednesday, Dec 3 2008 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 5:11 pm

PJ and I are having a great time in New York City this week. Liza opens on Broadway tonight (we’re seeing The Seagull instead), so here’s a clip of one of her signature songs:

We’re here until Friday morning. I’m looking forward to blogging about it when I get home. Here’s one more clip in honor of the city:

UPDATE: Posting this link on my blog was obviously some sort of magical charm. Chris Noth, Mr. Big himself, was in the audience at The Seagull on Wednesday night. PJ said that his being there was more exciting than the play itself. More about that later, when I blog about the plays and musicals we saw.

 

Visiting Arkansas Friday, Aug 22 2008 

food and travel thisgaudygildedstage 6:11 pm

PJ and I spent a week in Arkansas visiting friends and his family. We had a great time, but it wasn’t the kind of trip that packed one exciting activity after another. It wasn’t Niagara Falls, in other words. That makes blogging about it a little difficult.

We went to Fayetteville first to visit our friends who live there. PJ went to the University of Arkansas for his undergraduate degree, and we’ve gone back there almost every year since we first got together. It’s interesting to see how much it’s changed in the last 14 years.

We also make the pilgrimage to see Harrington, the first cat that I spent any time around. She’s a great cat. When she was younger, she played a milk top game for pounce treats. That was our first glimpse at what a cat can add to a household. She’s older and kind of frail now, but she’s still great. Here’s her picture:

I kept forgetting to bring my camera with me as we did things, so I can’t illustrate all of my opinions, but I’ll relate the highlights anyway.

Once of my favorite Fayetteville landmarks is the Dickson Street Bookshop. It’s a great used book store. For years, I slowly bought the store’s collection of books from one of UA’s former eighteenth-century scholars, including his 11 volume set of Pepys’s diary. I highly recommend that anyone who likes to read stop by the Dickson Street Bookshop.

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Visiting Niagara Falls Thursday, Jul 31 2008 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 8:13 pm

The third and final destination on our vacation last week was Niagara Falls. I’d never been there before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. We stayed on the Canadian side, which I highly recommend. PJ had gotten us a room with a view of the falls. Here’s what they looked like from our room:

They’re truly one of the most beautiful and impressive things I’ve ever seen. I was actually a little overwhelmed by them when we first got there. The weather was great–a little cloudy and a little bit of rain, but it was generally very pleasant.

I took a lot of pictures of the falls while we were there. I’ll post a few of them and offer my views on some of the activities we did while there after the break ….

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Stratford Shakespeare Festival Tuesday, Jul 29 2008 

theater and travel thisgaudygildedstage 12:17 pm

For the second leg of our vacation last week, PJ and I visited the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Until recently we thought that we wouldn’t be able to go on our annual trip to New York in December and we didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for airfare to England, so we thought a drive to Stratford (and then to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake) would be a good alternative, which it was. (Right before leaving, we learned that we won’t be going to MLA this year, so we probably will be going to New York after all. Two theater trips in six months is great!)

We arrived in Stratford on Wednesday morning. We stayed at the Olde English Parlour Hotel, which is now the Parlour Historic Inn and Suites. It seems like a nice little hotel. Our room, or more precisely our suite, was really nice. We tend to travel as cheaply as possible, but this time we did a little better for ourselves — nothing outrageous, but better than the least expensive. Our suite had a living room with a couch, flat screen TV, and kitchenette. Then there was a separate bedroom, which also had a flat screen TV (I mention the televisions because, after spending three days in Pentwater without access to one, it felt great to be able to watch whatever was on.)

Our hotel was within walking distance of all of the three theaters we were going to as well as to the shops and restaurants in downtown Stratford. The downtown is really cute:

One of the first things we did on Thursday morning was find the Shakespearean Gardens, a beautiful garden along the Avon River that contains flowers and plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays.

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Visiting Pentwater, Michigan Monday, Jul 28 2008 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 9:13 am

Last week, PJ and I took a week-long vacation that took us around the Great Lakes region generally and to three destinations specifically. Our first stop was Pentwater, Michigan, a quiet little resort town on Lake Michigan. Our friend James invited us to visit his family’s summer home again (we visited a few years ago). We had a great, relaxing start to our vacation in Pentwater and nearby Ludington.

This is downtown Pentwater. It’s mostly little gift shops and galleries, a few bars, and some restaurants. James’s house is just a few blocks from the downtown area. It’s a beautiful home and is included on the Pentwater Historical Society’s list of historic homes. Here’s the front of the house:

One of the house’s best features, especially for academic summer visitors, is the back patio, which is the perfect spot to sit out and read a good novel.

It’s also great for grilling, which “we” (meaning James) did the first night we were in town. James grilled some walleye, made black beans, and steamed some green beans. It turned out to be our best dinner while we were in Pentwater. Next time, we’ll definitely have to let him cook for us more!

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Celebrating PJ’s Birthday Saturday, Jun 21 2008 

food and movies and queer culture and travel thisgaudygildedstage 6:47 pm

Yesterday was PJ’s birthday. To celebrate, we spent the night in Columbus. We sometimes talk about getting a hotel room in Columbus, having a nice dinner, and going out to some clubs, so we decided that this was a good time to finally do it.

We left Athens around 1 or 1:30. When we got to Columbus we went to The Book Loft, which we hadn’t been to in a long time. I was especially looking for some Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, or Dorothy L. Sayers novels, but they didn’t have any I wanted. Instead, I bought P.D. James’s An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and 500 Greatest-Ever Vegetarian Recipes. One of the things I especially liked about this cookbook is that all the recipes come with a picture of the final product — I think that goes a long way in convincing me to try a new recipe. I like to know what I’m shooting for!

Afterwards, we went to a coffee shop next to the Book Loft, had a drink, and browsed the local papers to look for things to do that evening. After our coffee break, we drove over to our hotel, which was just on the southern end of the Short North. We stayed at the Hampton Inn on High Street. It’s a nice hotel, but the main draw for us was its location. We wanted a hotel close enough so that we could walk to (and more importantly back from) the gay bars.

But before that, we went to dinner. We had a reservation at Basi Italia, which is just off of the Short North in the Victorian Village. We’d been there once before with friends. We both liked our dinners ok, but we ultimately decided that it wasn’t quite as wonderful as we had remembered it. Last time, we had each ordered the Basi Caesar Salad, the eggplant parmesan, and cannoli. This time, PJ had trout and I had crab ravioli for our main courses. I started with roasted mussels, and Pj had the salad again. we shared a cannoli for dessert. Everything was fine, but the real standouts of the meal were the dessert, which was so yummy, and my glass of wine, a 2006 Montellori Chianti. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that brand again. I really liked its smooth, fruity flavor. We forgot to bring our camera with us, so I don’t have any pictures to accompany this description of our dinner — yet again, all apologies to Kathee!

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Visiting San Francisco Monday, May 26 2008 

museums and travel thisgaudygildedstage 8:40 pm

PJ and I traveled to San Francisco this past week. We left on Wednesday and flew back yesterday. The trip has given me lots to blog about.

We were officially in San Francisco for the conference of the American Literature Association. PJ had to attend the business meeting of the association for which he serves as treasurer. While he had to work, I had plenty of time to be a tourist. This is our third or fourth time to visit San Francisco, so we know our way around the downtown relatively well. Overall, I think the trip was a good mix of repeating things I’d seen/done before and seeing/doing new things.

This time we stayed at the Parc Fifty-Five downtown. Here’s a view of the city from our windown on the twenty-ninth floor:

Just click on the picture to enlarge it. The bit of gray showing just between some of the buildings is actually the bay. We really liked the hotel, and our room was great. My only complaint is that we later spent a small fortune on 6 gin and tonics in the hotel lounge, but they were absolutely delicious, so I guess I can’t complain too much!

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Newport Mansions: A Visit Tuesday, Apr 22 2008 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 9:05 pm

While PJ and I were in Newport, RI this past weekend, we visited five of the local mansions preserved by the Preservation Society of Newport County. I had seen a documentary on TV about the Breakers (and maybe some of the other mansions) and really wanted to see them in person. I had been to Newport for a conference years ago, but the conference was in March so the weather wasn’t really right for sightseeing. When PJ mentioned a trip to Newport while I visited him in Massachusetts, I jumped at the chance.

The weather this weekend was perfect. We stayed in the Hotel Viking, which is in walking distance to some of the houses (though it’s a bit more of a trek than we had initially thought it was). We decided at the start of the day that we would purchase the five house deal — tours of five of the mansions for $31. We knew that it would be exhausting, but we only had one full day in Newport, so we figured we might as well fit in as much as possible.

After breakfast, we walked to the Cliff Walk. Here’s a picture I took along the walk.

View from the Cliff Walk

For a larger version of the picture, just click on it. I hope you can see here just how nice a day it was. It started off a little cool, but it soon got into the upper 60s. The water is gorgeous — I could see why millionaires would want to build summer homes here!

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Worcester and Newport: Brief Update Saturday, Apr 19 2008 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 6:25 am

I’m visiting PJ this weekend. On Thursday, I flew to Boston, where he picked me up to take me to Worcester. Worcester is kind of cute. Nothing terribly special, but it looks like a pretty nice place to live–especially in its proximity to so many other locations in New England. While he worked in the library yesterday morning, I walked around downtown Worcester and visited the Worcester Art Museum. PJ left work a little after noon, and, after eating lunch, we drove to Newport, RI, where we are now.

Today, we’re planning on seeing some of the Newport Mansions, the grotesquely-decadent summer homes of rich industrialists from the nineteenth century. We’ll stick around Newport tomorrow morning, seeing a few more sites (like the Tennis Hall of Fame), and then we’ll drive back to Worcester. I fly home on Monday morning.

So far, it’s been a lot of fun. I’ll have lots to blog about when I get home.

 

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