Pan Forest in Zeist

This weekend was back to regular programming where we normally enjoy our walks in the forest. It’s been weeks since we’ve done this so I was really looking forward to commune with nature once again.

The weather wasn’t really gorgeous; it was windy and still a bit cold for spring but it was nice to be outside. After the walk we went to the forbidden snack bar nearby and feasted on ‘patat oorlog’ (Dutch fries with mayo, sate and onions).


The Pan Forest in Bosch en Duin in Zeist, Utrecht is a nature reserve.


Spring has yet to come to the Netherlands but I can already hear the birds happily chirping early in the morning. They actually wake me up before my alarm clock does.


Panbos as locally called is quite popular by joggers. We seem to encounter them at every turn. On the left foto are gorgeous looking fungi.


The forest has many horse trails and we've come across a devil's fork tree!


More fotos of Panbos here and a green clearing.

The Pan Forest has a large network of horse trails, as well as walking trails ranging from 3 to 12 kilometers. There is also a golf course nearby. I’ve read that this forest is relatively young, born in the 19th century and the oldest tree here is 115 years old.

Location: Bosch en Duin, Zeist, Utrecht
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The Block That Pete Cokinos Built

Snow Musing by Lynn Thorp

Nicole and Richard, December

Big snows are (were?) rare enough around here that traditions and memories are firmly imprinted. My mom had traditions: always bake or make a big pot of something and instruct Dad to take an Irish Coffee to Elmo next door while he was shoveling. Without even realizing why, I stopped on the way home Friday for Irish Coffee makings. I didn't even remember the tradition until today when I offered one to my shoveling neighbor Cece.

When the news reports previous historic snow totals, they all prompt a memory:

1979 - Wearing what Dan called "weird chic" cloth Chinese shoes while walking home to 4884 MacArthur from an all-night party in Foxhall Village. Even the drugstore and Safeway didn't open for a day or two and people were skiing down the Boulevard.

1982 - Walking the several miles home from work at Georgetown University to find roommate Matthew Klena watching the news of the Air Florida crash and the Metro accident.

1996 - Being snowed in here, in Mt. Rainier, for over a week with young children. They got so sick of sledding that they just wanted to play on the plow hills at the corner. That was easy because these plow hills were right in front of the house and the kids didn't need to be so well suited up.

What will be this season's memories? Well, first the sheer number of events, including the "mess up holiday plans storm" of December . Then the January 30 six inch interlude during which we held Bob's big birthday party and grilled in the backyard. For the "big one" which just passed, it will be neighbors Kathy and John coming every night to play board games with Richard and me. And neighbor Dave and I embarking upon a committed relationship with Battlestar Gallactica by watching the first disc. Also our local brewery/restaurant Franklins has a new brewer and tonight's "meet the brewer/try two new beers" will stick in my mind because many of us who made it there hadn't been anywhere in days and yet another big snow was beginning. Staff were outside to push people out of the parking lot.

It's easy to make fun of snow hysteria, but it can be rough when the power goes out or the infrastructure collapses in various ways. But it also is just unusual enough to put us in a festive mood and makes us mark those friends and family who get us through, and it imprints traditions that we barely know we have. Fare well Washington DC area friends... spring will arrive for us.

Ostria Restaurant Dinner in Votsalakia

Eating out in Samos Island, Greece is very cheap, you spend approximately 30+- euros for 2 pax (1 starter + 2 mains + 2 drinks). We normally have coffee somewhere else at a lounge or bar. Thus, we ate out every night (we still have a week to go to enjoy this island!) and I will be posting all our dinners (and lunches) at different restaurants.



Hopefully, those who stumble upon this blog whilst planning for their prospective Samos holiday will have an idea where to eat and what to expect. My way of giving back to travellers and holidaymakers out there.



First night dinner at Ostria Restaurant



We were quite intrigued with this restaurant because you cannot see the dining area except for a pathway leading to the beach. The pathway is partly covered with vines crawling on a trellis with grapes hanging from it. The restaurant is indeed located on the sea side which makes it very attractive and quite romantic as well.













The restaurant has no website but it is listed on Trip Advisor, go here: Ostria



Kambos area (Votsalakia beach) in Marathokampos municipality is small so it is easy to find this restaurant as it is located on the main town’s street.



Special menu of the day



We ordered their special menu of the day that includes a Greek salad. Dutchman, the Burger special with Tzatziki, and moi, the Grilled Dorade Fish (gilt-head bream or bream fish) special with lemon sauce. Of course, a quarter Samian white wine for me as well. Samos has its own wine culture and is quite famous locally.











Food here is quite good. Not a fan really of French fries but I loved my Grilled Dorade fish. 4.25 stars out of 5. The ambiance here at the restaurant is fresh and lovely. They also gave us free coffee to close the dinner. In Samos, all restaurants give you a surprise free thing after dinner. The surprise vary per restaurant!



Beach view



But what we really enjoyed most were the beautiful views, and oh, the sunset! So relaxing...









If in Votsalakia - Kambos area, don’t miss this restaurant, for lunch or dinner.



More food posts coming!

A bright morning on the way

Just somethings found on the way this morning....

Reading Bill Strickland's Ten Points

A little while back, someone suggested that I read Bill Strickland's Ten Points, and before I knew it I was interacting with Bill Strickland himself and he sent me a copy. When the book arrived, the cover alone induced a pre-emptive sense of nostalgia. A cyclist walking his bike into the fading sun, beneath the overhanging trees, as if savouring the sweet devastation of defeat. Of course this would be on the cover of Bill Strickland's memoir.



Bill Strickland is the editor of Bicycling Magazine. He lives in Pennsylvania. He races for Kapelmuur Independent. And he writes, a lot. Articles for various cycling and sometimes non-cycling magazines, a few books, blog posts. The first time I read something by him was maybe in Rouleur a year ago, and then I began following him online. I remember it initially surprised me that a person who wrote like Bill Strickland was the editor of Bicycling. Those guys are all about nutrition and training and race coverage and roadbike reviews. Strickland's writing is evocative and sensual and self-consciously sentimental. And that's just on his instagram account.



Ten Points is an unconventional memoir. It's inextricably tied to bicycle racing, but is not really about it. Bicycling is more of a metaphor, an explanation, a case study in magical thinking. At the start of the book, the author tells his little daughter that he will score 10 points during a single racing season, then proceeds to participate in criterium races and fail spectacularly week after week.



But this plot line merely serves as a trajectory for the real story - a story of surviving childhood abuse, emerging damaged, then wondering for the rest of your life whether you're human or a piece of garbage. In adulthood, the author considers himself cursed, a monster. He struggles to stay in control, but the past haunts him and he worries about being a fit parent and husband. He believes that cycling keeps the monster in him at bay. And winning 10 points for his daughter might just have the power to lift the curse entirely.



Reading the memoir and trying to process it as such, I must admit that I found the 10 points theme to be overbearing and at times distracting. The writing is good. Bill Strickland excels at creating a visceral sense of understanding between himself and the reader. Repeatedly I found myself lost in his past, in his life, in his very sensations. In contrast to this, the overarching storyline of the 10 points feels forced, packaged. Like maybe the author had written the book differently, and then some editor swooped in and tried to make it more marketable for those who like the "top 10 ways to tackle hills" types of articles. I don't know how else to explain it.



Could the story have been told without the 10 points theme being so overt? I honestly think that it could. The book is really a rich collection of snippets, flashbacks to various incidents in the writer's life, and there are other ways in which these could have been tied together. The narrative style is jewel-like, seductive, while somehow also managing to come across as sparse and reserved. It is part American Gothic, part John Updike, but replete with its own, uniquely Stricklandian, characteristics.



In a way Ten Points reads more like a novel than a memoir, and some characters feel more believable than others. The incidents from the past, despite how dramatic some of them are, read as believable, as do the parts about racing. But in the present-day dialogue with the wife and daughter, the things they say are sometimes too well-phrased, too conveniently meaningful. In those instances I could practically feel the author trying to wrangle them into the 10 points plot.



At his best, Bill Strickland is the sort of natural storyteller who can engage an audience with a description of an Idaho cornfield. He can stir the reader into alternating states of wistfulness and fear within a single paragraph. He is a master of subtle foreshadowing. I want more of all that, less meta-narrative.



Writing about this book, I find myself wishing I hadn't interacted with the author prior. Because now I am hyper-aware of him as a real person and nervous about how he will feel reading this. But maybe that's arrogant. After all, who the heck am I and what does it matter what I think. I am describing the book as a reader, not as a critic. And I continue to follow Bill Strickland's writing with interest.

Leaning Tree over the Pigeon River

Yesterday I brought the kayak and went for an evening paddle on the Pigeon River in search of Moose. I did not see any Moose while I was on the river (although I did see a nice young bull in the dark on the drive home). What I did see, however, were several Beaver and some of the nicest clouds I've ever seen over the river. When I came upon this leaning Tamarack tree I knew I had to try and photograph the scene with the tree and the clouds overhead. Even though I didn't come home with any Moose photographs, I did come home with the memory of another beautiful evening spent on the river.

Pizza in North Beach

North Beach, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

The North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco is famous for being Italian, and, consequently, having great pizza. I got this tasty pie at Caffé BaoNecci on Green Street - it's certainly one of the best pizza places in the city.

If you remember the movie Mrs. Doubtifre, Caffé BaoNecci is located on the bottom of floor of the building that stood in for Robin Williams' apartment in the film.

Shellac: Why and How?

With the rise of the "classic bicycle aesthetic" it is becoming increasingly popular again to shellac handlebar tape, cork grips and twine. Obviously I love the trend. But I also think that people ought to be aware that the purpose of shellacking is predominantly practical, not aesthetic.



Shellac is an all-natural natural sealant (derived from the secretions of a Thai insect), which makes it perfect for waterproofing wood and cloth. When you cover your handlebars in cloth tape, two things will happen to them over a surprisingly short time period: They will get dirty from your hands rubbing road dust into them, and they will get soggy from rain and sweat - which can cause the tape to distend, discolour, and even rot eventually. Shellac will form a protective layer that will prevent this from happening.



At this point, we have applied shellac so often and to so many bicycles, that we have gone through 3 cans of the stuff in a year and a half. For those interested, here is how I like to do it:



. I use a 1" foam brush, rather than a real paintbrush. A paintbrush can leave visible brush strokes, whereas a foam brush makes it easy to quickly put down an even coat. Also, because shellac is difficult to wash out, it is pretty much a given that you will ruin paintbrushes with it. Ruining a foam brush is less costly.



. I like to apply shellac in thin layers, rather than oversaturating. This way it dries faster, and I have better control over the thickness.



. Because I like to feel the texture of my bar tape,I am careful not to go overboard with the shellac application. If you apply so much that your bars feel glassy and hard as a rock, they might not be so comfortable to hold. If you find that you've accidentally done this, try going over it with steel wool or fine grade sandpaper to restore some of the texture.



. Since I ride my bike often and in bad weather, I re-shellac on a fairly regular basis. The shellac tends to wear off first in the spots where I keep my hands the most. When I notice this, I know it is time to add another thin layer.



. Shellacking the night before I plan to ride the bike usually leaves sufficient drying time - but doing it at least 24 hours beforehand is safer. Once or twice, I've ended up holding my hands on the hoods during an entire ride, because the bars were still not 100% dry.



Twine requires shellacking for similar reasons as bar tape:If left in its natural state, it will unravel over a short time period from friction and moisture.



Because of their distinct look, it is understandable that shellacked tape or twine on a bicycle can be seen as a fashion statement. But while I am happy it looks nice, for me the practical benefits far outweigh this aspect. If it were not for shellac, I would destroy my cloth tape on a regular basis. And in case you are wondering - Yes, of course we brought shellac to the Cape! The Co-Habitant has finally replaced his Motobecane's stem shifters with Shimano bar-ends, and we re-did his tape as the sun was setting over the beach next to our house.

Happy Birthday Daryl

Today was Daryl's birthday. I think he must be around 20 or so years old now. Last night we had a party for both he and Nathan, whose birthday is this weekend.







I hope they had a great party. They are some great guys, so they deserve it!

Mystery Photo #8

This is the seventh post (and 8th photo) in a series of unidentified photographs from the Charles Wiseman Family Bible. See this post for background information. Click on the "Mystery Photo" label at the bottom of the post to see all of the photographs in this series. As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Paper photograph on card stock. 2 3/8 x 4 1/16. Printed on back: Frank A. Place, Photographer, Warsaw, Ind. Also, perhaps, another of those "hidden mother" photos? Looks to me like the background has been retouched.

Okay, even though we all know what can happen when you assume something, an assumption is going to be made that this is a photograph of one of the grandchildren of Charles and Susanna Bray Wiseman. In the previous post I suggested that the baby in that picture was Nathaniel Howard Wiseman, born July 18, 1884. He was the 2nd grandchild of Charles and Susanna. The first was Ethol Walter Scott, born April 7, 1884 in Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana and the son of Susanna Wiseman and James Scott. I don't think the previous picture was of Ethol because they lived in Vevay, in the southeastern part of Indiana. It's my opinion that the above photograph is of the 3rd grandchild who was Charles Wilson Wiseman, born September 20, 1886 and the son of Amanda Alexander and Samuel Bray Wiseman though it could be Smith Wiseman, born February 27, 1888 and also the son of Sam and Amanda.

The pictures below are from my father and were identified (from left to right) as Ethol Scott, Howard Wiseman, Smith and Charles Wiseman.

Good Day Sunshine

One of the things I love most about Florida is the sun. We are settling into our "winter" routine and enjoying being here again. I am really loving all of the sunshine after being in cloudy and rainy weather.





It was a bit cold today though. Not too cold to wear shorts while playing pickle ball and hiking by the river. But cold enough that at dusk, I could see my breath in the air. We built a campfire to keep us warm and at some point it was still too cold to be outside. I'm not complaining though. As long as the sun shines and I can be outside, I'm a happy girl.