My Trip in Books

Traveling by train means having a lot of time to read, and I think it fitting to honor my traveling companions. Since graduation, I have finished 5 books and read parts of 4 more.

The first, I started in the last week of school, before I left. I finished it in the waiting room of Needham Orthopedics. Leading up to graduation, I had much difficulty scheduling an appointment, so the day after commencement and before I set off across the country, I went into the office, explained my situation, and I sat down until I saw Dr. Savenor. Thanks to Bryson, I had something to laugh about instead of contemplating the possibility of lugging my immobilized left wrist around 'til July.


Just as Virgil guided Dante through Heaven and Hell, the Roman bard accompanied me from Boston to Milwaukee. I had been meaning to read The Aeneid since I took Latin in high school, and it proved to be an epic adventure, quite unlike anything else I have read recently. It felt strange to be doing something so pedestrian as riding a train, reading a book, while Aeneas faced fearsome armies and the wrath of Juno.


Before I finished the Aeneid, I spent an interlude at Dancing Rabbit reading parts of two books from their library. I needed a break from epic battles set in dactylic hexameter. Respite was provided by Ray Bradbury, whose collection, A Medicine for Melancholy, is notable for skillfully creating moods. I had never read anything by Wendell Berry before, but now I want to read more. His essays muse on community, local economy, and our ecological impact, all things that have been brewing in my head for the summer.


Upon finishing the Aeneid, I felt like rereading something, and in Tess' basement I found The Grapes of Wrath, which she let me take with me. Steinbeck is my favorite novelist, and this is one of my favorite books. I read it first in high school, but this time, I saw the story through the lens of community at Dancing Rabbit, seeing migrant strawberry pickers in California, and being a wanderer myself.


I found the next selection at a used book store in Albuquerque before I departed for San Jose, and it lasted me until I came back to Tucson. It's one I'll need to reread, for Martin Buber is much like Kierkegaard, in that his language is so convoluted that it's easy to spend all your time trying to understand what he's saying without asking whether or not he's right. That said, Buber's idea about how we relate to others as "You" or "It" is compelling. I definitely default to interacting with others as third person characters in my life as opposed to beings making their own way in the world, just as I am.


Erik Kennedy recommended this one to me. Frassati was a likable engineering student who died at 24 of polio. He was politically active and notable for befriending and financially supporting poor neighbors. After he died, it emerged that he had extended network of such friends, to whom he devoted much time, energy, and money. For his simple life of good works, he has been beatified by the Catholic Church, which means you can call him "Blessed Pier Giorgio". I didn't have time to finish his story, but I aim to at some point.


While staying with my sister, I availed myself of one of their many books. I picked it up because I've heard so many people rave about Blue Like Jazz. I even once saw it tagged with a "read with discernment" label in a Christian bookstore, because of its liberal leanings. Donald Miller writes as he is, a Christian who struggles to claim and live up to that name, and who mourns fundamentalism and hypocrisy in the church. I ended up reading about half of the book, and I'll probably read the balance eventually.


This last book was a real treasure. Jane Goodall is a scientist and writer of exceptional compassion, which is evident if you read any chapter of Through a Window. It caught me off guard at first, because most scientists write with a colder, more objective one, but Goodall tells the stories of the chimpanzees at Gombe as if they were her family or friends. I was amazed at the similarities between chimpanzees and humans, in their capacity not only for gentleness and caring, but also for violence and hunger for power.


To Bryson, Virgil, Bradbury, Berry, Steinbeck, Buber, Frassati, Miller, and Goodall: Thank for you for a great trip.

Houston

Ah, Houston, the last major city of my travels (sorry College Station, you don't quite count). I had begun to grow a little travel weary after over a month on the road, so I was glad to arrive at my sister's apartment. I had been there before, and as a family member, I felt more like I was at home than on vacation. We cooked dinner, watched Inception, and played non-competitive Taboo with her husband, Josh. It turns out Taboo is just as fun when everybody wins, so don't let anybody ever tell you you can't play it with three people.

We also went to see the Houston Symphony at Hermann Memorial Park. They played, among other things, Tchaikovsky's Symphony #5, which was my favorite part of the concert. The weather was just right, which, for Houston at this time of year, is saying a lot.

My last night on the road was spent at the residence of Amanda and TJ White, friends from high school who got married in January. TJ is commuting from College Station to Houston to work for BP, so we had a nice long drive back from the city to catch up. He had just finished his first day, which sounded like an arduous string of HR info sessions. Amanda had also had long day, so we had a quiet evening: dinner, a little talking, and off to sleep. Let it be known that TJ went to bed before me and woke up long before me. This may be a first.

In Between Pictures

These pictures were taken from the train near Palm Springs, CA, and El Paso, TX. Neither was my destination, but I felt compelled to document each of them. All of these images look dusty, which is due in part to the fact that these places are dusty, but also due to the sepia tinge that Amtrak's aged windows add to pictures taken through them.

If you've talked to me for very long, you know that I care about the environment, and that I think renewable energy generation is an important step we must make toward make our society more sustainable. So I found the hundreds (almost certainly thousands) of wind turbines near Palm Springs, CA, heartening. We actually did stop there for a smoking/fresh air break, so I can personally attest to the wisdom of siting the turbines there. I don't know how people managed to light their cigarettes in the blustery wind, but on Amtrak, there is little that can stand between a smoker and a smoking break.


As we neared El Paso, we also neared Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which holds a special place in my heart. In this picture, you can see the border wall and Juarez behind it. I visited Juarez four times in high school with Amor Ministries, building houses over spring break each time. After my senior year, Amor stopped working there because of escalating drug cartel violence, around the time the state department began to issue severe travel warnings for Juarez. It makes me sad, because I know that there are good, beautiful people in that city. I only know a handful whom I built houses for, but surely there are hundreds of thousands more. The demand for drugs elsewhere and the violence of the cartels in the city strangle the good work that people want to do there.


The border is has a lot of industry along it, probably due to the abundance of cheap labor on one side for factories on both sides, which may very well be owned by corporations in neither country.


I barely caught this last one. Who knows what's in this tank, or what it has to do with Jesus? Someone affirms that he lives, and I believe this too, but I'm torn as to how to take the message in this context. Is it heartening, signifying to people that drab industrial work and industrial pollution are not the last word on life? Jesus said we could see him in the faces of the poor, and I think if I spent enough time in the area, I would. So in spite of industry, Jesus lives among the people here.


But I can't shake this idea, that if Jesus does live, why are things still drab, dry, and polluted? Shouldn't we make something better if our Lord lives? Ultimately, both of these responses coexist within me, wanting something better while acknowledging Jesus' presence in an imperfect world.

Peace to you,

Tucson

Tucson, more than any other destination, gave me a lot to think about. I guess I was thinking too much to take any pictures. It was very beautiful, though, and I want to do it justice. Here's a picture someone with a better camera took of the Sonora Desert. Isn't it nice?

Photo Credit: E.J. Peiker

In Tucson I stayed with my friend Ali, who is working for Borderlinks, a non-profit that does experiential education about immigration, border economics, and poverty. They also cook meals for their groups, so I got to help out with that when I was in the office.

One night, we went to the Greyhound station. Every night, people released from the Eloy Detention Center, whose "customer base" is the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are dropped off at the Tucson Greyhound station. If they're lucky, they can catch a bus that night, but if they're not, they have to wait until the morning. Unfortunately, the station closes between 11:45 PM and 5 AM. We went to talk to the people arriving from Eloy, make sure they had tickets, and find a place for them to stay should they need it. Luckily, everyone had tickets already. My Spanish is abysmal, so my friend and a couple of other people did all of the talking, but I'm glad I went. I never would have imagined that this need was there unless I had been shown it. Seeing that makes me want to seek out where people need help in my community when I get back home.

We also visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, where we saw lots of native plants and animals. The undisputed highlight - which topped even the adorable napping of desert mammals - was watching the curious behavior of two nest-builders. One bird was perched in the beginnings of a nest, sitting precariously where a cactus arm reached out from the main stalk. The other bird would fly down to the ground, search for and find the perfect twig, fly back, and land on the back of the other bird to place the twig. They repeated this process for quite some time while we watched and laughed.

Seattle

Note: I'm in Houston at present, and I'll be back in Flower Mound tomorrow, but stay tuned! I'll be updating pretty frequently to get posts up about each of my stops as well as some overall reflections about my experience.

I've been to Seattle a couple of times before, but always in the context of family vacations in the surrounding area - Olympic National Park, an Alaskan Cruise - so I was eager to visit it on my own and see it anew.

The new stuff began hours before reaching the city because of my different method of approach, as we crossed through the Cascades in Oregon and Washington. The views were enchanting, and I recommend taking the train up the West coast, the Coast Starlight, to see them for yourself.


I didn't go up in the Space Needle, but I did stitch together some images of it after walking past it to go to lunch. There was more to the panorama, but I learned an important lesson: never take panoramas of scenes with moving traffic unless you are really, really good at it (which I am not).


Perhaps the most unusual thing that I saw in Seattle was something in Pioneer Square that defies easy description: guerrilla knitting installation art, perhaps? There was a woman in the square actively attaching these knitted sleeves to light posts, trees, and street lamps, adding bright splashes of color to the peaceful, muted square.


In addition to Seattle proper, I spent one day on Vashon Island with John Rosenwinkel (Olin '11.5). To get there, I took a ferry from downtown and then hopped a bus on the island to Burton, where John is living. After John and I had been walking a bit along the road toward his house, I noticed a profound difference between Vashon and Seattle - really between any isolated area and the nearest major city - it was quiet, blessedly quiet. With Vashon the difference is magnified by the closeness of downtown Seattle and Tacoma, but because that distance is over water, the island is like a different world.

On Vashon we ate wild fennel from the side of the road. We went kayaking to an uninhabited beach on the island, where there were innumerable sand dollars. Kayaking gave my arms a workout they had been missing for a few months. Having broken my left wrist in February, I was very pleased to be able to do this.

My final night in Seattle was spent having Indian food with a whole mess of Oliners working for Microsoft as interns and full-timers. It was good to see them all.

Mountains, Trees, Bridges, and Hills

Greetings from Los Altos, CA! I'm staying with Travis Schuh (Olin '12) and his family. On Sunday, I went hiking with Travis and his dad in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, where I saw some very large Coast Redwoods and Douglas Firs, including one 2000-year redwood! This means that Jesus and this tree were saplings together, although a world a part.

We had a great hike up and down and up in the mountains, with some great views of the ocean along the way. In one of the sunnier spots, we snagged a picture.


We then descended to Berry Creek Falls, where I found an eminently huggable and exceedingly large tree.


It's humbling to be surrounded by plants so much older and bigger than I. In NorCal, there are so many beautiful natural features - the ocean, the mountains, the redwoods, not to mention fruit growing everywhere - that it seems like some kind of magical fantasyland. In my part of Texas, there just aren't as many natural wonders to enjoy.

The next day, I visited San Francisco with a borrowed bike while the Schuhs went to work. One of my favorite sites was the Palace of Fine Arts, which was constructed for the Panama Pacific International Exhibition to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal and generate some serious tourism for the Bay Area. It once housed hundreds of works of art, but now is a lovely little park that resembles a Roman ruin.

I biked onward to the Golden Gate Bridge, where San Francisco's famous fog was finally lifting.


I proceeded to bike across it to Marin County, and then right back. I followed El Camino Del Mar along the coastal cliffs until reaching Golden Gate Park. After that, I biked straight through the city to hit up Grace Cathedral, a magnificent Episcopal cathedral in downtown San Francisco. I walked the labyrinth and finally had some time to sit, reflect, pray, and admire some beautiful stained glass.

Between San Francisco's hills and the mountains in Big Basin, I am pretty sore. Hopefully this means I sleep well tonight on the way to Seattle.

Lunch Atop a Watermelon

On Thursday, I visited the Sandia (Spanish for watermelon) Mountains, east of Albuquerque. I took a tram up to the top, which the operators claimed was the longest tram in the world. The ride lasted about 15 minutes and rose 4000 feet above the surrounding desert, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. A partial view from the top, including the tram, is shown below.


As a result of the elevation, the mountain crest is about 20 degrees F cooler than Albuquerque, and a heck of a lot windier. The cooler temperatures, coupled with the comparatively large amount of rainfall (21 vs. 8 inches annually), means that the mountain peaks are largely tree-covered. When the sun sets in Albuquerque, those looking east see the red-colored granite of the Sandias looking especially red in that light. With the rind of green cover on top, it's easy to see why the Spanish called them watermelon mountains.

The cool temperatures were quite welcome to this hiker, who had the fortune of eating his sandwich on the peak in the right of this picture. There's a little structure on the top called the Kiwanis Cabin - you can barely see it here. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps for some inscrutable purpose.


And on the top, I ran into this woman who was moving to Dallas from California, who agreed to take my picture. Too bad my eyes were closed :( , but the view is impressive.


After an afternoon of hiking, my feet were quite dirty. I think I did well.


Next stop, San Jose. But first, I have the pleasure of training through New Mexico, Arizona, and California. No doubt I'll see some imposing mountains and stark desert beauty along the way.

Hasta luego,

Adorable Cacti in Albuquerque (no, really)

I really like desert flora, and Albuquerque has given me a great opportunity to enjoy some. I've included a couple of my favorite pictures here. This little flock of Texas Rainbow stretched out their limbs so imploringly that I was all but forced to call them adorable, though that is an uncommon thing for cacti.

The second one is not cute, but it does have an unique name, "cow's tongue". I think it's interesting how the cactus has spines to protect its precious moisture from would-be cactus eaters, and the humans who own the adjacent property put up barbed wire to protect their stuff from would be thieves. And this is the thing that I like about desert plants, that even though they're covered in inch-long spikes and have names like "horse crippler" (an actual cactus), they almost universally put forth beautiful, colorful flowers. Barbed wire has no such charm.

Turn the train 'round flip it and reverse it

Since my last post, the world of current events has made a serious intrusion into my summer schedule. My plan after visiting the Twin Cities was to head West to Seattle on Amtrak's scenic Empire Builder. However, due to bad flooding in North Dakota, all trains between St. Paul, MN and Spokane, WA were canceled until further notice. For this reason, I have rerouted my trip through Albuquerque, and I will be approaching Seattle from the south, via San Jose. From there, it will proceed more or less as planned, but the dates will be different. I made an updated version of the map from my earlier post. The trips according to my original plan are in red, and the new ones are in blue.

This has reinforced to me the importance of remaining flexible while traveling, because there are some things we can't control completely, like floods, or in the case of European travel, volcanoes. A flood's not particularly complicated. But it's big enough and the trains are finicky enough about railroad conditions that it doesn't matter.

So when life gives you floods, head somewhere dry, like Albuquerque. Apparently, there are only 8" of rain a year here. At least that's what a tour guide told me. I'll have a post and some pictures from here up soon.