The Perseids meteor shower, an August tradition

by Kraig Becker on

The Perseids meteor shower is an astronomical tradition that returns every year, running from late July to mid-August. The night time fireworks occur for several weeks as the Earth moves through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which sprinkles particles across the atmosphere. Those particles, in turn, burn up in a bright, colorful, display that is amongst the best light shows that nature has to offer.

The 2010 edition of the Perseids has already begun, and will actually peak this week. The absolute best days to watch the meteor shower are tonight, tomorrow night, and Friday. (August 11-13) During these peak days, you can expect, on average, about 30-40 meteors per hour. But after mid-night things really pick up with as many as 90-100 shooting stars per hour. That’s 1.5 meteors per minute for those keeping score at home.

This year, stargazers have the sky working in their favor as well. On August 9, the moon entered the “new” phase, meaning that it will be absent from the sky at the peak days of the shower, ensuring that there won’t be any natural light pollution to obstruct the views. Having a dark sky is crucial to really getting the full effect of the Perseids, and that includes the lights of the city as well. If you want to enjoy the display to its fullest, it is definitely best that you head somewhere without too much ambient light, such as a large park. Better yet, leave the city behind altogether and head out into the countryside.

The next few days give us all the chance to observe one of the best astronomical displays of the year, and although it is most prominent in the Northern Hemisphere, it can be seen nearly every where on Earth. For an enjoyable and relaxing evening, grab a bottle of wine and a blanket, head out onto the lawn, and stay up late for the show. You won’t be disappointed.

[Photo credit: Mila Zinkova via WikiMedia]

The abridged Appalachian Trail: Shenandoah National Park’s day hikes

by Laurel Miller on

Ever since reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods seven ago, I’ve wanted to through-hike the Appalachian Trail (AT). Bryson’s account isn’t all birds and trees and sunshine, however. It largely focuses on the blisters and blood, and cast of often-sketchy characters he meets on his grueling trek. Yet through it all, he paints a beautiful portrait of one of America’s greatest recreational and conservationist achievements.

Conceived in 1921 by Benton MacKaye as a “project in regional planning,” the AT reached completion in 1937. It begins in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and runs 2,179 miles, culminating in Mount Katahdin, Maine. It traverses14 states along the way, including Virginia.

I’ve always been an avid hiker and camper, but I’ve never managed to find time to do the full trail. In May, while planning a business trip to Virginia, I realized it was time to face facts: I was 41, recovering from a lengthy illness, with a bad back, and an anemic bank account. Taking the three months or so required to through-hike the trail simply wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Fortunately, there are alternatives for thwarted ambitions and weak lumbar regions like mine. The AT extends 100 miles through Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, making it possible to day-hike sections, or connect to them via the park’s other 399 miles of trails.

%Gallery-98597%Thus, my boyfriend (who has bad knees to go with his bad back) and I decided to camp for a few days in the park. Our sole purpose was to find the best AT day hikes situated in, or near, Loft Mountain campground, 26 miles from the southern entrance at Rockfish Gap. Then we’d continue up Skyline Drive-the famed scenic road that runs the length of the park-to the northern entrance at Front Royal. We decided to bring only the bare minimum of food (coffee, peanut butter, and a loaf of bread), to see what the park camp stores stock for ravenous through-hikers on a tight budget. During our visit, we discovered that cheating the AT is a great option for outdoor enthusiasts short on time, money, or fully-functional body parts.

We arrived at Loft Mountain on a hot, overcast afternoon. It’s a huge campground, but it was nearly deserted during our mid-week visit. All four of the park campgrounds cater to RV’s (something we wished to avoid), but after checking out the other places, we found Loft Mountain the best if you’re looking for full amenities, sites ranging from hike-in to RV, and overall scenic splendor. Outside of the campground proper, there’s a store, sewage disposal facility, coin-operated showers, laundry, telephone, mail drop, and gas station, and an amphitheater for weekend ranger programs. The AT trail runs along the eastern border of the campground.

Reservations are strongly recommended in high season, which is Memorial to Labor Day, and October, when fall colors are at their peak. The campgrounds also have a set number of first-come, first-serve sites. There are fire pits, but the park prohibits outside wood to prevent the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer beetle: purchase wood for five dollars a bundle at all campgrounds and stores, or collect deadwood for free. Tent sites are spacious, clean, level, and mostly devoid of back-puncturing debris. We selected a sandy tent site in the more isolated “A” section, which overlooks the pastoral Shenandoah Valley. It was located above a series of equally well-maintained, but smaller, sites down a short foot path just steps off the AT (the campground has 44 walk-ins). A large, white-tailed deer, antlers covered in velvet, ambled out of the bushes near our site as we unloaded.

It’s an easy, one-and-a-quarter mile hike on the AT from the campground to the popular Doyles River Falls trailhead (mile marker 81.1 on Skyline Drive).The Doyles River trail runs along a wooded creek, which keeps things cool on steamy summer days. It’s an easy-to-moderate downhill walk (three miles, roundtrip), through mossy, fern-shrouded terrain thick with wildflowers and oak-hickory forest. The trail is well-maintained, although it could have a better marker at a major junction (hang a right just past the spring). Unfortunately, the falls were essentially non-existent, due to global warming or whatever, but it’s such a pretty, peaceful hike, no matter.

On the way back, we stopped at the camp store. It’s well-stocked; you certainly won’t lack for basic necessities or food. There’s a lot of backpacker-friendly options: pasta, rice, canned meaty things. If, however, you’re health conscious (I am), there’s mighty slim pickings. I’m not dissing the store, which is great by national park/campground standards. Camp stores obviously aren’t created to cater to the palates of demanding gourmands or health foodists, so pack accordingly. There are a lot of black bears in the park, as well, so whether you’re car or backcountry camping, you’ll need to store your food accordingly.

Dinner options included a minuscule selection of sad, floppy, produce, and some grillable meat items, such as anemic pork chops, the ubiquitous hot dogs and dubious burger meat. To save cash, we went the processed meat route. Which is how we ended up eating “pressed and formed” deli turkey (49 cents a package!) and processed “cheese food” sandwiches on squishy wannabe-Wonder Bread. In retrospect, we should have splurged on s’mores makings, which would have been great with the Bulleit bourbon Boyfriend had thought to bring from home (because, while pressed turkey is one thing, cheap bourbon is another, and life is too short to drink it).

On day two, we hiked to 81-foot Lewis Falls (moderate, 3.3 mile loop, half of it uphill), outside of Big Meadows campground/Byrd Visitor Center. The center is a nice interpretive facility with camp store and restaurant (tip: give the park restaurants a miss). The trailhead off Tanner’s Ridge Overlook (mile marker 51.5) is tricky to find. Instead, drive into the amphitheater parking, where there’s another trailhead.

If you hike the downhill loop to the falls, there’s a well-marked junction to the AT. I highly recommend a detour, even if it’s just a mile (you’ll need to backtrack). It’s a particularly beautiful section, but it also gives you a good sense of how solitary and meditative the AT can be. At the falls proper, there’s a stellar view of the Shenandoah Valley, dotted with barns, silos, and farmhouses.

On our last day we stopped at the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center, near the northern entrance, and took the one-mile Fox Hollow Trail. It leads to the ruins of some old homesteads and a tiny cemetery. The homesteading heritage of the park is fascinating; it was initially formed from more than 1,000 privately-owned land tracts ranging from forest and pasture, to orchards. If you want to delve more deeply into the history of these early residents, other good trails with homesite ruins include Hannah Run at mile marker 35.1, Nicholson Hollow at 38.4, and Rose River Loop at 40.4. The visitor centers also have excellent books and exhibits on this topic.

For Shenandoah National Park backcountry information and regulations, go here.

My trip was sponsored by the Virginia Tourism Corporation, but the opinions expressed in this article are 100% my own.

Key West gem: the Hemingway House

by Kraig Becker on

Key West, Florida may be a tropical paradise surrounded by some of the most spectacularly clear blue waters that you’ll ever see, but that doesn’t mean that it is completely devoid of history and culture. In fact, the city is steeped in history ranging from the pre-Civil War era Fort Zachery Taylor to the mid-19th century lighthouse that is now a museum. But perhaps the most interesting historical attraction of them all is the Hemingway House, where the legendary Ernest Hemingway once lived and wrote many of his great works.

Hemingway moved to Key West, from Paris, in 1929, bringing his second wife Pauline along with him. He allegedly wrote A Farewell to Arms while living over a Ford dealership and awaiting the arrival of a new roadster that Pauline’s rich uncle purchased for them. In 1931, that same uncle bought them the now famous house, and the happy couple moved in and settled down to raise a family. The lived there together until 1939, when the not-so-happy couple divorced, and Hemingway moved to Cuba with wife number three.

Hemingway’s decade of Key West living was the most prolific period of his career in terms of cranking out manuscripts. Aside from A Farewell to Arms, he also wrote Death in the Afternoon, Green Hills of Africa, To Have and Have Not, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and a number of his famous short stories as well. Something about the warm ocean breezes and beautiful surf seemed to inspire his creative side. He was also introduced to deep sea fishing while living there, which became one of his passions and was obviously an inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea, which is perhaps his most famous book.

Strolling on to the grounds of the Hemingway House will make you feel like you’ve stepped back to a different era. The place looks almost exactly the same as it did when Papa, Pauline, and their two sons, Patrick and Gregory, lived there, right down to the furnishings inside. The circa-1930’s photos, books, art, and furniture all add to the ambiance of the place, and at times you can almost feel the spirit of Hemingway still walking the halls. This is especially true in his old writing studio, which is on the second floor of the carriage house out back. The old typewriter sitting on the writing table, amidst a host of treasures and trophies, gives visitors a hint of the magic that once inhabited those walls.
Of course, many of those visitors come not just to examine the artifacts of the house’s famous former resident, but to catch a glimpse of its famous current ones. The grounds of the Hemingway House are patrolled by an array of cats, each one a descendant of Hemingway’s original feline pets that lived with him and his family more than seven decades ago. There are nearly fifty cats living there and about half of them are polydactyl, that is to say they have six toes on their front paws. Sailors once believed that six-toed cats brought them luck, and the superstitious Hemingway agreed, adopting a number in his lifetime. The offspring of those cats are easily spotted lounging, pouncing, and parading about their lovely tropical home.

If you get the chance, be sure to take one of the guided tours of the the house as the guides are funny, engaging, and have a great grasp of the legends and lore of the place. For instance, they’ll point out the lovely water fountain made out of urinal that Papa dragged home from his favorite bar, Sloppy Joe’s, one night, or they’ll show you the replica of a cat sculpture given to Hemingway by Pablo Picasso. The priceless original was stolen from the house a few years back and smashed beyond repair by the thief who swiped it.

But perhaps the best story you’ll hear is about the beautiful 65-foot long swimming pool that dominates the backyard. As the story goes, in the late 1930’s, when Papa was away in Spain covering that country’s civil war, the boys convinced Pauline to put in the massive pool, claiming their father had always wanted one. Ten months, and $20,000 later, the pool was complete, much to the chagrin of the author who returned not long after it was finished. Needless to say, Hemingway was not happy, after all the entire house cost just $8000.

The legend has it that Hemingway then pulled a penny from his pocket and tossed it to Pauline, telling her she might as well have his last cent too. Pauline pressed that penny into the still wet cement, where it remains, under glass, to this day. A week later she divorced Papa, sending him packing to Havana.

Located at 907 Whitehead Street, right in the heart of Key West, the Hemingway House is a fun and interesting look at life on the island when Hemingway wrote, drank, and caroused his way through the streets. Admission is just $12 for adults and $6 for kids, and even if you hated your high school English teacher for making you read Hemingway’s work, you’ll probably still enjoy this enchanting place.

Top ten foreign street foods

by Laurel Miller on

With food trucks springing up across the U.S. like so many mushrooms, it seems the culture of street food is finally finding its place in the national psyche. Some, like Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ truck (a Korean-Mexican hybrid that I promise tastes approximately a million times better than you might think) in LA, have garnered critical acclaim, with Choi recently being named one of 2010’s “Best New Chefs” by Food & Wine. Others, like Portland’s Garden State, have earned widespread press for the utter deliciousness with which local ingredients are transformed into versions of Italian street food like arrancini, or chickpea fritters. In fact, Portland is unofficially the food cart capital of the nation.

But U.S. street food is like the United States itself: a melting pot. Our street food culture- aside from hot dog vendors and Manhattan food carts dispensing coffee and breakfast sandwiches to office workers and the hungover-is primarily based upon inspired reproductions or adaptations of foreign street foods.

In honor of our country’s fledgling, on-the-fly food culture, here’s a list, in no particular order, of some of the best overseas street snacks. Totally subjective and dependent upon the individual vendor, mind you, but the following are regional specialties you don’t want to miss, should you find yourself in the vicinity.

1. Tacos de anything

Who doesn’t love a great taco? And by taco, I mean soft corn tortilla, no bigger than a softball in diameter, piled with juicy bits of carne asada, carnitas, adovada, cabeza, lengua, or pescado. Bonus points for bowls of freshly made salsas and other condiments like escabeche, guacamole, limes, radishes, chopped onion, and cilantro.

2. Elotes/choclo con queso

Depending upon where you are in Latin America, you’ll find corn on the cob sold in a variety of permutations. Elotes are a beloved Mexican street food: boiled or grilled corn slathered with mayo, chile powder, and lime juice (you may instead find fresh kernels cut into plastic cups and mixed with same). Choclo con queso is found in parts of South America, like Peru and Ecuador. The deceptively simple pairing of chewy, boiled native corn (a world apart from our overly-sweet hybrids), served with a generous slice of handmade queso fresco is proof that two ingredients can still equal nirvana.

3. Dumplings from almost anywhere

Korean yakimandu, Russian pelmeni, Polish pierogis, Nepalese momos, Chinese bao; all delicious. Doughy dumpling relatives include Vietnamese bahn cuon (rice noodle sheets filled with ground pork, mushrooms, and shrimp), or Cantonese cheung fun (same, only filled with whole, peeled shrimp, and chopped scallion).

4. Roti

These flat, crispy/chewy Malaysian pancakes are found in various countries with a significant Muslim population. There are many different types, ranging from roti canai, a tissue-thin version served with a side of curry, to thicker, more doughy variations. In Southern Thailand, you’ll often find sweet roti filled with sliced banana and drizzled with condensed milk. Singaporean hawker centers are a great place to find a wide selection.

5. Chaat

These bite-size, salty, crispy, tangy snacks are traditionally indigenous to Northern India; the southern states have their own version, known as tiffin. Chaat is generally vegetarian, because vendors lack refrigeration; look for bites such as pani puri and bhel puri. These puffed, hollow rice crisps come with spiced potatoes, chickpeas, and condiments such as yogurt, chutney or spiced waters.

7. Empanadas

Most of Latin America has empanadas in some form: fried or baked dough stuffed with meat and other savory or, occasionally, sweet fillings. Argentina, however, is the undisputed king, wherein entire towns or provinces are famed for their empanadas. Salta, considered to be the empanada epicenter, produces varieties that reflect the arid region’s climate. Baked empanadas de choclo, a savory, hominy-like corn filling, or charqui, an air-dried beef softened by the steam from the baking process, make for exceptionally flavorful pastries. In Tucuman, empanadas are such a point of pride that they get their own Fiesta Nacional de la Empanada.

8. Kebabs, satay, yakitori, or other versions of meat-on-a-stick

‘Nuff said. [Ed’s note: Just ask @MikeSowden]

9. Pizza/calzone

Ditto.

10. Pho

Done right, few things are more nourishing, or nurturing, than a giant bowl of fragrant beef broth loaded with rice noodles, tender bits of meat, slices of chile, and herbs. Traditionally, pho (pronounced “fuh”) is from Hanoi, but you’ll find variations, including a version made with chicken, throughout Vietnam.

On the steps of Rome, on the edge of romance

by Gadling Staff on

“How come you don’t write postcards like your friends?”

I sat near the foot of Scalla di Spangna, or Spanish Steps, catching my breath after having climbed up and down the 138 steps to the Trinita dei Monti at the top. Around me a gaggle of college women on a school-sponsored trip dutifully poised cards on their knees and scribbled away, presumably to the parents who paid for this trip to Rome, or perhaps to boyfriends stuck back in the States with jobs as camp counselors or delivery boys in their fathers’ firms.

I had arrived in Rome that morning. Having come from Sweden, I was still stunned by the German, Swiss, and Northern Italian landscapes. At twenty-four, I’d barely been out of the Midwest, where the land is flat and vast. In the past few days, seeing my first mountains — Alps no less — I couldn’t get over the fact that humans had the audacity to cut into those monsters to lay train tracks, and that I could be bulleted through the bellies of those beasts.

I was stunned too by Rome. Fountains and ruins, trattorias and cafes, gods piercing the sky next to merchants hawking wares. Alone, I wasn’t quite a part of it, but I wasn’t apart from it either, not like the young women around me, who didn’t bother to look up from their writing much, who didn’t seem to notice the sunlight baking the medieval-looking buildings, who barely noticed a six-team horse-drawn carriage ambling by us.

“I’m not with them,” I said to the man who’d spoken to me, making sure my horror at his association of me with these tourists was clear in my tone. I wasn’t a tourist but a traveler, I wanted my tone to convey. Not merely a traveler either, but a solitary traveler, gaining worldliness at every turn. Hadn’t I just seen Alps?

“No?” he said, raising his dark eyebrows just enough so I could see he was impressed with me. The feeling was more mutual than I wanted to admit. He and a few other men had parked their motorcycles in the street at the bottom of the steps and leaned on the machines, watching the crowds. With hair dark as coffee, fitted black jeans (despite the heat), and a leather jacket, he was nothing like the Harley bikers I was used to at home although they wore jeans and leather jackets too. He was undeniably European.

“You don’t know them?” he gestured to the girls who had by now finished writing and whose chaperones were shepherding them toward a bus.

I shook my head and may well have rolled my eyes.

“So you let me take you for a ride. Show you the real Rome.” He gestured again at the girls. “Rome they don’t get to see.”

All good sense told me to say no.But of course I said yes because in addition to being European, he seemed genuinely intrigued by me. I did have at least enough sense to hesitate first. Despite my assertion that I wasn’t one of those tour-bus girls, I also wasn’t as free a spirit as I made out. Of course, I had heard all of the warnings about the sexual aggressiveness of Italian men toward foreign women, but I was still wildly flattered. I felt noticed. Also, I believed then, and still do, that the travel of one’s youth defines one, perhaps for years, perhaps for life, and I’d thrust myself into the world to figure out just what this definition of myself might be. This meant taking chances.

“Yeah, okay,” I said.

I can’t rightly say I remember the man’s name today, but I’ve called him Pietro in my mind for years because his friends joked that he was a good man to be with, a rock, like St. Peter. His friends were right too. Pietro did just what he said he would do. He whirled me around Rome, taking me to little cafes, introducing me espresso, to his friends, to shops and streets that years later made me feel I’d been to a completely different city than those who described the Rome of tour books.

At dinner that first night, he took me to a tiny restaurant near the Piazza Navona. To my discomfort, he didn’t order for me, but he patiently explained everything on the menu and insisted I order for myself in Italian. It was strange to hear my voice trying to make those elastic sounds that were far too beautiful for someone with an accent from the South Side of Milwaukee to make.

Yet it was good to hear myself speak, however haltingly. I’d barely said a word for days, grunting and pointing to get what I wanted like Helen Keller before she’d met Anne Sullivan. Over pasta with a tart clam sauce, even my English felt slightly charred, but Pietro listened to my descriptions of my family, my love of Lake Michigan, and my impressions of Italy with such intensity that I was convinced he actually thought I was something more than a mere youthful cliche sitting next to him. I allowed myself to wonder if he might be right.

Pietro advised me to abandon all but the best sights and instead to spend my time looking at the people. This was the way to learn a place.

Pietro laughed easily and often, and by the time the gelato was served, I found myself settling in and feeling less like a stranger. He seemed to know everything there was to know about Rome, contemporary Rome with its nightclubs and shopping. He advised me to abandon all but the best sights and instead to spend my time here looking at the people. This was the way to learn a place.

After dinner he drove me to the cheap pensione I’d rented that morning before heading to the Spanish Steps.

“You are something else,” he said as I climbed off of his bike.

I wasn’t sure what that something else was, but I liked the possibility that his words implied.

The next day, at Pietro’s suggestion, I gave up my bed in the pensione and stayed with him in his sun-slatted flat. More money for the rest of my trip, I reasoned, knowing saving money had very little to do with it. With Pietro I had entered the intimacy of this place. I was deep in.

During the days, Pietro came and went, talking little of where he’d been, what work he did, and I didn’t ask too much. I looked forward to languid dinners and frenzied dancing and all that came after the dancing when we were along in his flat. During the days on my own, I went to a few sights, deeply impressed by all things Bernini, but mostly I walked, doing what Pietro had suggested, looking and looking at so many people that after awhile I no longer compared them to myself or people I knew at home as I’d been doing since I left there. My vision was becoming fluent. I felt it as one sometimes feels muscles take on the memory of movement.

After a week, though, my InterRail pass began burning a hole in my pocket. Athens and Nice and Paris waited for me, and I only had three weeks left before my pass expired.

At dinner that evening, when I told Pietro I was leaving, he looked disappointed but by no means crushed. “You could stay,” he said. “I could find you a job. Learn some Italian to take back with you. Language is better than postcards, better than souvenirs.”

It was tempting. I’d gotten comfortable here, and traveling alone scared me more than I liked to admit. Moving around in places where I didn’t speak the language scared me too, and I was learning a little Italian. If I stayed, I would learn more. I’d made it here, I reasoned. I’d found Pietro. Maybe that was enough venturing for a while.

If the travel of one’s youth defines one, this decision would mean a lot. I twirled my pasta on my fork as he had shown me, but I was too nervous to take a bite. I looked at another fountain in another piazza behind another restaurant and thought that I’d never seen anything like that fountain at home. What else was out there that I’d never seen?

“No,” I said, the taste of basil and salt still on my tongue. Pietro was an adventure at first, but I had to admit that now he was safe. “Thank you. Maybe I’ll be back.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

Karen Lee Boren is the author of Girls in Peril, a coming-of-age story about adolescent girls in small-town Wisconsin. Her nonfiction has appeared in the anthology Rite of Passage: Tales of Backpacking ‘Round Europe. Read her blog on Red Room.

[Photos: Flickr | Kellinasf; Mciccone640; MikeScrivener]