Tag: travel

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Riding the Taksaka: from Jakarta to Yogyakarta

title slide

I’ve edited this post from one published in an old blog in 2011.

selfie on the train
Aboard the train

The heat and humidity is stifling. Even in an air conditioned coach, a bead of sweat runs down my beard. I could pull the curtains as the sun pours in through the crack glass, but I want to seethe countryside. So I sit with sweat beading on my forehead. The sweat soaks back of my shirt which clings to the vinyl seats. I take another swallow of water from my bottle as I we race past vast rice fields in different stages of production.  

Although large, each field is divided into manageable plots, which are separated by dikes which allow for flooding of the paddies. Here, six degrees below the equator, it’s endless summer and the fields produce two crops a year. In some paddies, the green rice is tall.

rice paddies with workers planting rice

Occasionally I spot a farmer wandering through the rice with a backpack, spraying what I assume is insecticide.  Other paddies remain muddy with bundles of rice laid out waiting for the workers, mostly women working halfway up their calves, to replant. In other paddies, they harvest the rice, cutting the stalks and feeding them into a thresher or, in some cases, beating the stalks on the ground, separating the seed from the stalks. And then there are the paddies in which the harvest has occurred. Some of these fields have been burned. They remain charred. A few still smolder. I can smell the smoke in the train.

I am riding the Taksaka, the train which runs across the island of Java, having left Jakarta’s Gambir Station in the morning, heading to Yogyakarta. We left the capital nearly an hour late. For the longest time, we roll through the sprawling city. Poverty abounds. Trash is everywhere and the canals are filthy. I’m blessed to travel executive class. My ticket cost a bit over twenty dollars, but that’s a lot of money in Indonesia. And this is probably the only first-class train in the world with cracked windows and cracked vinyl seats.

Slums in Jakarata

We pass trains in which the only way people can enjoy air conditioning is to climb to the top of cars. They sit just below high voltage electrical lines, a dangerous position for if they start to slip off and grab one of the lines, they’d be instantly electrocuted. This is a country of great contrast with a few who are extremely wealthy yet most live in dire poverty and unspeakable conditions. For many of the people, the filthy canals being their only source of water for bathing.

train window showing rice fields
view from a train window

Slowly we begin to leave the city behind and move into the tranquil countryside. Farms with elaborate irrigation systems line both sides of the tracks. Along the coastal plain the land is flat, but mountains rise in the distance.  We race pass small stations where, as we approach, the station master steps out in front in an immaculate uniform. They hold red and yellow flags and remains at attention as we speed by. Our first stop is Cirebon. As the train approaches the station, a host of merchants jump onboard the slow moving cars, selling food and drinks and other goodies. Women carry a thermos of hot water and cups and instant packages of coffee and chocolate. Others sell baked and fried goods, fruits, packaged snacks and chips. Outside, other merchants knock on windows and bargain with those of the train.  

It’s almost lunch time and I ask an older Indonesian gentleman sitting next to me what I should eat. He suggests I order a steak from the dining car. I take his advice. It arrives as we leave Cirebon. The plate consists of ground steak, some egg, boiled potatoes, carrots, and green beans. It costs 30000 IRD, a little over three dollars. I ask my traveling friend from where he thought the beef came. Laughing, he said, “Probably Australia.”

After lunch, the tracks turn southward and snakes up the ridge of mountains which form the backbone of Java. Rice remains the main crop as we climb higher. More fields appear ready to be harvested. Many other vegetables also grow. There are a few cows along with sheep and goats. I’m impressed with the fields, and how along the top of the dikes are staked green beans and cassava.  There are also plots of corn, sugar cane, and melons.

The scenery enchants me. In contrast to Jakarta, everything appears clean. The irrigation works are even more elaborate here, the water running through masonry channels.  The neat houses, all roofed with red tile, stand in contrast to the green fields. Tall palm trees many loaded with coconuts, shade the residents.

I walk up to the front of the car and stand by the door, between coaches, trying to get a better angle for a shot of the back of the train as we move through the turns.  An attendant sees what I’m attempting and opens the door for me, allowing me to stick my camera out and photograph the back end of the train. I’m careful, realizing how dangerous such a stunt could be. You’d never be allowed to pull such a stunt in the United States and most other countries.  

train in Indonesia
The back of the train.

I remember once, riding the Coast Starlight from Oakland to Los Angeles. I stood at the door in the bottom of the double stacked car as we raced along the Pacific coastline. Another traveler with a camera opened the window on the door. The car attendant was furious with him! Here, in the mountains of Java, I stay in the doorway for a long time, enjoying the cooler breeze of the mountain air and the ability to photograph without having to shoot through dirty and cracked glass.  

Although the car, with many cracked windows, doesn’t look like what I might expect from “executive class,” I am impressed with the tracks.  Here in the steep section of the line, line is mostly double tracked with welded ribbon rail and there appears to be new ballast under the concrete ties.

tile factory

After passing the town of Bumiayu, nestled in the shade of the forest stand scores of small factories devoted to the manufacture of tiles for roofing.  By each kiln are stacks of wood for the fires and the open air buildings have two levels of roofs, allowing for smoke to rise and clear the work area. The train begins to pick up speed.  Soon, we’re out of the mountains and along the coastal plain of the Southside of Java. We stop in Purwokerto, the second station stop of the trip. Afterwards, we’re back in large fields of rice, racing on toward Yogyakarta  It remains rural for a while, then we began to enter an urban area. My traveling friend tells me we’re only a few minutes from the station. 

We arrive at 5:20 PM, about 50 minutes late. I look for the Kiko restaurant, where I’m to meet a driver from the Green Gardens Bed and Breakfast. He’s not there, but as I turn around, a man runs up to me with my name written on a piece of cardboard. At least I won’t have to worry about finding a place to stay for the evening. 

We hop on his oversized minibike. It doesn’t seem so large with the two of us, me with my backpack. Somehow we fit, but tightly. We take off through the streets. Along the way, at an intersection, he says he needs gas. We pull over, but there are no pumps. He buys two former soft drink bottles filled with gasoline. He pours them into the tank, and hands the empty bottles back to the proprietor. Then we’re on our way to my home for the next four days. 

Other Train Trips:

Riding Coach from South Bend to D.C.

First transcontinental train trip:
 Part 1, Reno to Pittsburgh
Part 2: Pittsburgh to NC
Part 3: NC to Reno via Seattle

Danville to Atlanta, 2020

Getting to Springer Mountain on the Southern Crescent: Gastonia NC to Gainesville, GA

Coming home to Pittsburgh, 1987

Doubly late to West Palm Beach, 1986

Riding on the City of New Orleans, 2005

Edinburgh to Iona, 2017

Riding in the Cab of the V&T, 2013

Bangkok to Seim Reap, 2011

Riding the International: Georgetown to Bangkok, 2011

Malaysia’s NE Line: The Jungle Train, 2011

Coming Home on the Southwest Chef, 2012

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Civil War and Civil Rights: Travels in Central Virginia

title slide with author at the end of High Bridge

As I’m finishing up another vacation of which I plan to write about later, I thought I would catch up on Summer travels. In June, I took a week off. I spent a good portion of the time building a retaining wall, but was able to get away for three days and explore a bit of central Virginia.

Bear Creek Lake State Park, where we stayed

Last month I made a three day trip into an unfamiliar section of Central Virginia. Two things peaked my interest. One was to peddle the High Bridge Bicycle Trail.  The other was to visit the Moton Civil Rights Museum in Farmington. But while there, I also checked out a number of other sites dealing with the final days of the Civil War. As I written earlier, we moved to Petersburg, Virginia when I was six years old. I spent my first three years of elementary school in the all-white Walnut Hills Elementary School. We lived in Petersburg at the end of the Centennial of the War, I became interested and the war became real. Pieces of cannon balls and mini-balls (bullets) were often found as dirt was moved for home foundations and roads.

Petersburg is also where I have my first memories of race racial tension. We left in the summer of 1966 and you could feel the tension in the air. Petersburg would begin to integrate their school system that fall. There were four of us boys in a two block area who moved that summer. Everyone thought we were moving because of integration, but that wasn’t the case. Dad had always wanted to live near the coast and my brother and I headed with ur family into Southeastern North Carolina. The other brothers, Mark and Mike, moved with their mother to be near family in Michigan. Their father, who was a Master Sargent in the Army at Fort Lee, headed overseas. This time, they were not allowed to go with him. In the spring of 1966, Vietnam wasn’t on our radar. That would soon change. I’m pretty sure that’s where their dad headed. I often wondered if he made it back safely.

Thinking back to the spring of 1966, it’s easy to see how entwined the events of that year entangled with the events 101 years earlier. In early April 1865, after nine months of battle around Petersburg and Richmond, Union forces breached the Confederate lines. Lee had no choice but to pull his army out and make a dash west, in the hope to reunite with another Southern army in North Carolina. For a week, as Lee moved west, northern troops kept cutting off his retreat until finally, seven days later, he surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. 

For whatever reason, we never visited these places when I lived in Petersburg. Maybe it was because there were more than enough Civil War battlefield sites around Petersburg. Maybe my parents didn’t want us to see where the surrendering took place. But it probably had more to do with us taking vacations either in the mountains or along the Atlantic shoreline. Yet, I remember many of the towns around these parts from my father who traveled there for work. He called on businesses and schools around Farmville, Dinwiddie, Amelia, Prince Edward County, and South Boston among other places. Driving along these roads on these dry June days, I found myself wishing I could ask him questions, especially about the schools as he often performed boiler inspections there. I don’t remember him saying much about the difference in black and white schools, but know he visited both. 

Beaver Dam
Beaver dam at Bear Creek Lake State Park

For the two nights on this strip, we stayed at a lovely cabin at Bear Creek Lake State Park. The cabin sat in the woods, not far from the small lake around which the park sat. Most of the park’s features were on the other side of the lake, a walk of a couple of miles in which I saw a beaver, a few harmless snakes, rabbits, and a few deer. After making the walk on the first night here, I came back to the cabin and fixed steaks while enjoying the evening.. 

At home, I live on a ridge overlooking a hay fields to the north with woods to the south and east. The birds often nest in the trees, but spend much of the day catching bugs or eating seeds in the high grass, while robins find worms in the yard. The thick hardwood canopy shading the cabin provided different bird sounds in the morning: flycatchers, warblers, gnat catches, and blue jays. But we didn’t spend a lot of time at the cabin.

bicycling. across high bridge

The next morning, we were in Farmville early as the day was going to be hot. By eight, we were peddling on the High Bridge Trail, which runs about 15 or so miles east and west of the city.  We didn’t plan to ride the entire trail. The highlight of the trail is the bridge, which is located five miles east of the city. The bridge spans the floodplain of the Appomattox River. The river itself at this point is not very wide, but the bluffs on each side create a half-mile wide valley covered with trees. When we arrived at the bridge, we crossed slowly. The bridge stands barely above the trees, providing interesting observations of birdlife in the top of the canopy.

At the ends of the bridge, plaques showed what the site looked like during the Civil War. The forest of today was absent, the trees having all been cut, probably for timbers for the massive structure. About a half mile after the bridge was a museum with the history of the bridge. One section showed the various tress patterns used in the the bridge, which was rebuilt three times during it’s history.. Another section explained the bridges role in the closing days of the Civil War.  

Appomattox. River from High Bridge

This line, built in the 1840s by the Southside Railroad, linked Petersburg to Lynchburg. It later became a part of the Norfolk Southern Railway. The maintenance on the bridge became to expensive and, with other alternatives linking the east to the west, the railroad abandoned the line in the early 2000s. It’s now a linear state park running from Burkeville to Pamplin City. 

This was a bridge that wouldn’t burn. As Lee’s armies evacuated Petersburg and Richmond and moved west, a Union calvary was dispatched to burn the bridge. This could have trapped Lee’s forces which consisted of 1800 wagons. However, the Confederacy had already fortified the approaches to the bridge and repelled the attack. A few days later, after Lee’s army with its massive number of wagons crossed the bridge, the South attempted to burn it. But with the Union forces on their heels, they extinguished the flames and quickly repair the bridge, allowing them to continue their pursuit. 

Civil Rights walking tour
Sidewalk walking path marker

After riding the trail, we headed to the Moton Museum which interprets the Civil Rights struggle in Farmville. This was an African American school which, in 1951, faced a student strike for better conditions. While the law required separate but equal facilities for all races, this wasn’t the case.

Moton School, now a museum
Restored Moton School in Farmville, now a museum

Students at the Moton School used old text books from the white schools. When room ran out in the older building, the school board built tar paper shacks around the brick building, where students froze in winter and sweated during the warmer months. There was no gym or shower facilities as in the white high school. In 1951, the students walked out. This was considered the first civil rights protest in the South. Later, this area saw white resistance to court ordered integration of schools. Instead of integrating, they shut down all the schools for several years. During this time, white students mostly moved to church sponsored schools and to this day, the racial divide continues between private and public schools. 

After two hours touring the museum, we headed out to Sailor’s Creek and then Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Both of these locations where locations of battles toward the end of the war. At Sailors Creek, the Confederates had difficulty getting all the wagons over the two bridges crossing the creek. While they repelled the attack, allowing most of the army to escape, about a quarter of Lee’s army surrendered. The end at Appomattox was only 72 hours away. Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which is about 5 miles north of Farmville, was another blocking battle where a few units of Lee’s army attempted to slow Grant’s army. On the edge of the property of this church was a sign I’d never seen on a church ground: No Relic Hunting!

Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
McLean House at Appomattox Courthouse
McLean House

On our last day, we spent the morning at Appomattox, which had been restored to look like it might have appeared in 1865, when Lee and Grant meet. I didn’t know the McClean House, where the papers were signed, had been taken down to be used in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and then to be displayed in Washington, DC. But it never made it and the building was rebuilt on its original foundation in 1948. It wasn’t till after World War 2 that the site received federal protection as a National Historic Site. Surprisingly, Appomattox, unlike most Civil War battlefields, remains mostly free of monuments. The exception being my home state of North Carolina. Maybe my relatives felt it appropriate to celebrate the end of this “rich man’s war.”  

Appomattox Courthouse
Patrick Henry's dining room
Patrick Henry’s dining room

That afternoon before we headed home, we stopped at Patrick Henry’s Red Hill. This was the home he retired to 1794, after his career in politics. Henry died in 1799. The estate is ran by a private foundation who attempts to reclaim the heritage of Patrick Henry. We remember his inflammatory words, “Give me liberty or give me death.” The interpretation along the grounds doesn’t shy away with the ironic view of such liberty for himself the enslaving people. They do a good job on displaying the lives of the slaves on the plantation. A short walk from the Henry home are the restored slave cabins and slave cemetery. Patrick Henry is also known for his work for the adoption of the Bill of Rights. 

Patrick Henry's Home
Patrick Henry’s Home

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Festival of Faith and Writing and My April Trip to Michigan

title slides with photos from trip

I’m delayed in finishing up this post on part two of my trip to Michigan for Calvin University’s Festival of Faith and Writing. To read part 1, click here. Sorry, but I didn’t take many photos at the Festival.

Friday, April 17, 2026 

Barbara Brown Taylor speaking at the Festival of faith & writing
Barbara Brown Taylor speaking at the end of the Conference

On Thursday morning I first attended a discussion between Robin Kimmerer and Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, moderated by Debra Rienstra. I’VE read all of Kimmerer’s books and have just finished Meyaard-Schaap’s book, Following Jesus in a Warming World.  I also read Rienstra’s weekly Refugia newsletter. The conversation started with an interesting twist. Kimmerer expressed curiosity as to why she was invited to a conference about faith. Not thinking of herself as a faith writer, she expressed interest into why so many Christians seem drawn to her work. Meyaard-Schaap responded that Christians long for a deeper story than we sometimes are fed, and that the Old Testament is essentially an indigenous story. Kimmerer is Native American. 

The 45-minute conversation provided many insights which ranged for what we think about the human body, to the land we inhabit, and to how fear is not sustainable. Everyone agreed in the need theologians to address the ecological crisis.

My second morning session was a conversation between Laurie Halse Anderson and Ayana Mathic titled “Rewriting the Record: Literature, Memory, and the Histories We Inherit.”  Deb Van Denen moderated the conversation. 

My next lecture was by Kiki Petrosing, titled “Spell, Ceremony, Miracle: The Literary Narrative of a Lapsed Catholic.” I was especially interested in hearing her conversation having read two of her books of poetry, Bright: A Memoir, and White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia.  I also learned more of her relationship to her mentor, Gregory Orr, as both have tragedy in their past. 

At lunch, I took part of a writing circle focusing on memoir. Courtney Ellis, who along with her husband, pastors a Presbyterian Church in California, led the discussion.  Most of the lunch hour focused on the mechanics of memoir writing, drawing heavily on Annie Dillard and Anne Lamont.  She reminded us of the difficulty of publishing memoirs unless we were able provide a different hook to make our story even more interesting.  This “hook,” can help us create a framework. She also reminded us how we can’t write everything and must make decisions as to what we should cut. As a preacher, she thinks about her stories from the pulpit and won’t include anything which she would feel uncomfortable saying in a sermon. She also encouraged us to write within a community (writing group) to get helpful critique. 

After lunch, I attended the most straightforward “how-to” lecture of the conference. Margot Stenbuck, an editor and author of A Grown Woman’s Guide to Online Dating,” talked about how to pitch non-fiction books. While her outline was straight and organized, with details about the cover letter and what to say not to say, she tied it all together referring to clips from the movie “Hitch.” In a humorous manner, she presented finding a publisher (or editor) akin to finding a spouse.

My closing lecture was Ross Gay, a poet, who describes himself as a student of joy. He mostly drew on his work, Why I Garden, which sold out, but I did come home with another of his book of poetry, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.  His readings were enjoyable, but I didn’t take many notes. However, I did appreciate a side comment made between poems as to his indebtedness to Amy Leech’s work. I recently read another of her books and reviewed it here. 

Saturday, April 18, 2026

I began the final day of the conference sitting in on a discussion between Ross Gay, whom I heard the evening before, and his friend Patrick Rosal.  Not only delightful, but the conversation showed their genuine friendship for each other. They play basketball together but now live far apart so they appreciated the festival bringing them together. Throughout the conversation they told stories about the other and spent a lot of time laughing and causing us to laugh. 

Next, I attended a conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and college professor. Back in the 1990s, as Taylor began her ascent as one of the great preachers of the generation, I spent a week with her and 12 other preachers in San Francisco. A lot has changed since then as she left the church for the college classroom. For much of this presentation, she talked being “a free-range preacher.”  While she no longer a pastor of a congregation, she still gets invited to preach in churches all over the nation.  She joked about this new role, comparing herself as the babysitter who brings with her a dart board and steel darts.  The other thing which impressed me is how she still draws and relies on her mentor from seminary, the late Fred Craddock.  She mentioned him several times including his saying, “you’re a preacher. You hold the camera; you don’t get in front of it.” 

At lunch, I was with the second meeting of the memoir writing group. Courtney Ellis began with an exercise. We had to give two sentences of a scene from our story. Then, each of us had to ask questions based on those two sentences, to help the writer draw deeper into the story.  After this exercise, she provided a few closing insights into publishing and the role of social media. 

After lunch, I attended a conversation titled “Witnessing What’s There: Writing and Attention in a Wounded World” which featured Daniel Jose’ Camaco and Alejendra Oliva with Alisa Tigchelaar moderating.  The conversation centered around their work as activist writers in a conflicted world of immigration. Then I attended Christine Byl’s talk titled Place and Landscape as Character. Living between Montana and Alaska, Bly has written about her work building trails and living in remote areas. 

The closing plenary lecture featured Barbara Brown Taylor. As always, she was amazing as she spoke about the power of words. As she often does, nature played a role in her insights. She also drew from her recent book, Holy Envy, in which she writes about engagements with students from other faiths through her teachings. Part of her talk she included in a recent Substack post. 

After leaving the conference, driving back to the hotel and thinking about dinner, I spied Red Lobster. For some reason, I recalled a day of Christmas shopping with my daughter twenty years earlier.  At this point in her life, people thought she was Dakota Fanning, the child music star. Twice that morning, in stores, people had told her she looked like the star. Then, at lunch at Red Lobster, the waitress fawned all over her, again, thinking she was Dakota Fanning. I’m not sure what came over me, but I suggested she sign a napkin Dakota and leave it on the table. While I thought it would be a good joke, my daughter conscience wouldn’t allow it. I pulled in for a late dinner, recalling the events of twenty years earlier, before heading back to the hotel. 

Sunday, April 19, 2026 

Sunday morning, I attended The Church of the Master, which has over the years done incredible work with worship. I have attended this church many times, going back before living in Michigan. Several times when staying with Jack Stewart, we’d attend church there. The last time, they’d just called a woman from Scotland as pastor, and I really enjoyed her sermon. This church also an incredible group of congregants who were the intelligentsia within the Christian Reformed Church. But this time, the preaching wasn’t overly impressive. But I enjoyed other parts of the service. The most unique thing was the detailed bulletin that didn’t name any of the clergy participating. 

After church, I headed to Hastings. While I waited to meet my friend Bob for lunch, I walked along the riverwalk which runs where the old Michigan Central Line used to be. There, along the Thornapple River, was a series of monuments consisting of pages from a children’s book about an owl in Central Park in New York City. At each stop, there was a place for those walking to stop and read. This new feature was dedicated to Jane Arnold, a former 1st Grade teacher from Hastings who was a member of the church when I served this community. I had heard but forgotten that she had died. 

Bob at Cedar Creek
Bob at Cedar Creek

After lunch, Bob and I headed down to Pierce Cedar Creek, where we hiked back in the woods by Cedar Creek, where I had walked and skied or snowshoed many times when I lived in Hastings. The leaves on trees were just beginning to unfurl, allowing the flowers along the ground to put on a display. I estimated nature here is about two weeks behind what where it’s at in the Virginia Mountains. 

Swamp marigold amongst skunk cabbage
Swamp marigold amongst skunk cabbage

It’s always a joy to be in the woods with Bob as his botanical knowledge far exceeds mine. We looked at the small flowers blooming before the forest canopy closed in and shaded the ground. The swamp marigolds amongst the skunk cabbage in the lowlands were especially beautiful. 

That night, we had decided to eat ice cream for dinner at the new Culvers in town. We stayed up late talking. 

Cedar Creek

Monday, April 20, 2026

Jim paddling a canoe in winter
Nim paddling in the bow in winter

On Monday, I met Jim, my winter canoe partner, for breakfast at Richies. It was good to be served by Sandy, who still waits on tables there, and to see a lot of old regulars from when I lived in town. After lunch, I meet with the other Jim, who was my assistant at the church when I was there. He doesn’t get out much these days as he cares for his wife and depends on a walker or cane to get around. 

Afterwards, I called the finance manager at First Presbyterian Church. Nancy lost her husband a little over a year ago from a heart attack just a month after he’d retired. She had planned to retire a year earlier but stayed on a second year to have a place to go and to let the church minister to her in her grief. I had talked to her after Dave’s death, and wrote to her, but hadn’t seen her since I left Hastings. Nancy now plans to retire after the books close this year. 

author standing by his portrait
Standing by my portriat

I dropped by the church to see her, which seemed odd as this was the first time I had been in the church since I left in the summer of 2014. I had called Nancy, the church’s finance manager, to see if I could visit. She seemed delighted and had some time before a 1 PM finance meeting. Nancy has been the finance director for the past 25 years, including all the time I was at the church. She had planned to retire a year earlier, but then her husband who had just retired, died from a massive heart attack. I talked to her afterwards and wrote to her, but had not seen her since that tragic event and wanted to drop by. Nancy insisted on showing me my “full-sized” portrait on a hallway in the church. We talked about old times and how she was doing without Dave, along with what her kids (and grandkids) are doing.  She introduced me to their pastor (the second one since I left). I stayed long enough to greet those on the finance committee, all who were in the church when I was the pastor. 

When I left the church, I stopped for a quick lunch and then drove to South Bend. I picked dinner as I knew I would be boarding the train after the dining car closed. Next, I dropped the rental car off at Enterprise and had them give me a lift back to the train station.  A little after nine, I boarded the train and headed east, running through the towns and cities below Lake Erie. I slept. I don’t even remember stopping in Cleveland. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Selie by train
Selfie by train in Cumberland MD

I woke up early in the morning, just before we pulled into Pittsburgh, watching another familiar area as the train ran along the Ohio River and then over the Allegheny and into the Steel City.  I noticed a bicyclist getting on the train at the stop in Pittsburgh. It was 4:30 AM. Soon, I was back asleep, but at breakfast I talked to the bicyclist who’d just completed the C&O Canal and the Great Allegheny Passage train, which brother and I had done last May. This was his fourth ride on the trail and now headed back to his home to Washington, DC. 

Breakfast became an interesting place to meet folks. There was an attorney who worked for the District Attorney in Austin, Texas. Another woman had spent the past six years taking care of her sister in Salt Lake City, Utah. She decided to buy a rail pass and was heading to Miami.  After a stop in Washington, I boarded the Southern Crescent for the last leg of my ride through the Virginia Countryside. Sitting next to me was a guy named Brandon, heading to Charlotte to see his brother who was in a traveling theater group. Brandon lives in Narobi, Kenya and works as an attorney for the United Nations.  I enjoyed our conversation.  I arrived back in Danville, from where I started a week earlier, a little after 11 PM. 

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Heading to Grand Rapids and Part 1 of the Festival of Faith and Writing

title slide
Selfie of me by the train
When I returned home, not only did I get a chair cut, I trimmed my beard!

On Tuesday morning, April 14, after filing an extension for my taxes, I boarded the northbound Crescent, in Danville, Virginia. At Union Station in Washington, DC, I had long enough a break to eat before catching another train bound for Chicago. My destination was South Bend, Indiana, a city I arrived in a little before 8 AM on Wednesday.  I had planned to get a sleeper. When I first looked at this trip, I could have done each leg for about 400 dollars, but after the debacle of airlines and unpaid TSA agents, train travel became more popular. Two weeks later the cost for a sleeper on each leg jumped to 900 dollars (over $1800 total) and I decided I could travel coach. 

Stair in Lowery's Book Store painted to be the back of books
Stairs inside Lowry’s

I have attended the Festival of Faith and Writing many times. It’s held every even year and Calvin brings in around 60 authors. They don’t have to be Christian, although most are. The one requirement is that the authors write seriously about faith. As with the other years, this year didn’t disappoint. As before, there those authors I wanted to hear and meet. In addition, there were other authors I didn’t know, whom I heard and are now interested in reading their works. 

The festival opened with its first plenary speaker, Laurie Halse Anderson, who writes historical fiction for young adults. I was not familiar with her work, but she has won the Nobel Prize in Children’s literature.  She has written some interesting books around the American Revolution. Her success, she credits, is with doing the research of a non-fiction writer to assure her stories are factual. She also focuses on the “ordinary.” Instead of writing about Washington or Franklin, she tries to bring in the common people, especially women, children, and minorities. Through their eyes, she shows how they perceive the events of the day. She also talked about how writing one book leads to another. Having written about the Revolutionary War, she became interested in a Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia a few years later, which resulted in Fever 1793.  I plan to read that book. 

In addition to four plenary speakers, the Festival offers numerous concurrent sessions throughout the three-day period. The first afternoon, I attended a conversation by two young adult writers (Kate Albus and Dana VanderLugt) discussing the craft of writing fiction and how it can be used to draw younger readers into the past. 

Next, I attended a presentation by Carrie Fountain titled “About a Million Blessings a Day.”  Fountain is a poet who sets out every morning to write a poem. She acknowledges, most are not very good, but she feels the need to get something on paper and overtime has a collection of material with which to work. I enjoyed listening to the poems she recited and came away with an autographed copy of her book of poetry, The Life. Fountain charmed me by asking where I was from when I was having her book signed. She then complementing me on the sound of my voice. The next day a guy I was talking to during a break stopped me in mid-sentence to ask if I read Audible books. I thought he meant listening and I said I generally have one going all the time. Then he said, I don’t mean listening, I mean reading, you have the ideal voice.  I laughed and said it would be ideal until I butchered the punctuation of some word. 

That night, the plenary speaker was Robin Wall Kimmer. The title of her talk “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” is also the title of her latest book which I read and reviewed (link above) in January. Of all those authors in attendance, Kimmerer was the one I really wanted to hear. She’s both a scientist and a Native American and draws on both in her books, of which I have read all three. I read Gathering Moss in 2021 and Braiding Sweetgrass (her most popular) in 2024. While Kimmerer titled her talk after her book, it wasn’t a recap of writing. Instead, she presented a thesis around what the writer can do to help heal the world. Her first rule: always begin with gratitude. She encourages writers to help people know their place on earth. For nature writers, she suggests we celebrate the living world, foster kinship, incite wonder, inform, sound the alarm on danger to the planet, seek justice, and defend wild places. She also peppered her talk with startling statistics such as the average American child can identity only 10 plants but knows around 100 cooperate logos.

Discussion with Debra Rienstra, Robin Kimmerer, and Kyle Meyaard-schaap
Kimmerer (in the middle) talking to Debra Rienstra and Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

Kimmerer also spoke of the danger of linguistic materialism, moral exclusion, and how the colonial experiences around the world have damaged native languages which were more earth based. Of all the presenters over the three days, I took far more notes (4 whole pages) on Kimmerer’s talk. Most other talks I only took a single page of notes. After her talk, I checked into my hotel and then walked over to a nearby Olive Garden where I had dinner with a former colleague. MaryMartha served with me when I was the pastor in Hastings (2004-2014), serving as the church’s adult ministry coordinator. Several years ago, when her husband Larry began to decline in health, they moved to a continuing care center on the southside of Grand Rapids. Larry has since died. I enjoyed our late dinner and talk, but was ready to crash when I got back into my room.

To read Part 2, click here.

  (look for part 2 in a couple weeks) 

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The Battle of Moores Creek 250 Years Later

title slide with photo of the bridge and the 250 anniversary logo
My dad paddling in Moores Creek in November 2018

This July, our nation will celebrate its 250th anniversary. But before signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4th, battles occurred between British loyalist and colonists. Most these battles occurred in the New England states, and in New York and New Jersey. But one small yet significant battle occurred in Eastern North Carolina. This Friday will mark the 250th anniversary of this skirmish.

To raise troops to suppress the rebellion, the British set their eyes on raising an army of 3,000 soldiers from the Scottish Highlanders who had settled in the Sandhills of the Upper Cape Fear River region of North Carolina. Many of these Highlanders moved to North Carolina following the failure of the Scottish Bonnie Prince Charlie to take the British throne in the Jacobite rebellion. After the Battle of Culloden in 1745, under the threat of death, many Scots confessed their loyalty to the British crown and left Scotland. Quite a few of them ended up in the Sandhills of North Carolina. Others, who had not participated in the Jacobite Rebellion also relocated on the promise of free land offered by the frown. 

Cypress knees and ice, February 2010

The British governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin suggested raising an army of Highland Scots from the Sandhills of North Carolina to help stabilize the Southern Colonies and give the British a base to quell the revolt. Martin hoped to raise an army upwards of 10,000, but his military commanders were only able to raise an army of approximately 1,600. 

In late February, the troops lead by Donald McDonald assembled at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville) to begin their march to the port in Wilmington. The plan was to unite with a larger British force coming to the colony by sea. They found the main road, on the south side of the Cape Fear River blocked at Rock Creek by Patriots led by Col. James Moore. Unwilling to fight as only about half of his new recruits had firearms, McDonald moved his force northeast, crossing the Cape Fear, and then south, along another road which paralleled the Black River. There were a few skirmishes along the way.

Reconstructed Moores Creek’s Bridge

On the night of February 26, the loyalist found a small contingent of patriots camped in from of what known as Widow Moores Creek bridge. They sent a Messager asking the colonist to surrender. They laughed the suggestion off. Thinking they vastly outnumbered the patriots, Mcleod, who assumed command on MacDonald’s illness, planned to attack. 

Two units of patriots had converged at Moores Creek, some twenty miles from Wilmington. The site was considered an ideal location to stop the Loyalists. The swamp around the creek would force the army to stay on the high ground. This allowed the patriots to create an effective field of fire. Col. Alexander Lillington and his unit of 150 men dug in along the eastern approach. These men were whom MacDonald’s scouts had observed on the 26th. What he didn’t know is that Col. Richard Caswell with 850 men from New Bern had dug in on the opposite bank. 

Reconstructed earthworks on the east side of the creek

Thinking there was only a small contingent of men guarding the bridge, Mcleod’s soldiers prepared to attack in the early morning hours on the 27th. After a six-mile night hike on a spooky road running through a swamp with trees draped with Spanish Moss, they prepared to assault Lillington’s forces in the early hours of the morning. Instead, they discovered his camp deserted, but the campfires coals remained warm. 

Col. Mcleod handpicked a contingent of men to cross the creek and to see where the enemy might be hiding. Dawn was just beginning to break, and a fog concealed the lowlands around the water. They carefully crossed the slippery timbers which had been greased with fat.

Road heading through the swamp

Coming off the bridge, they silently made their way through the fog and up the road out of the swamp. Maybe a twig snap. Suddenly, someone ahead shouted, “Who goes there?” “A Friend of the King,” was the response. At that point, knowing the enemy was just ahead, they drew sabers and charged up the road yelling “King George and Broadswords.” They were brave but foolish. But the patriots had dug in. It was a trap.

The patriots held their fire, hiding behind breastworks as the Scots came out of the fog. They charged like William Wallace reincarnated. When only 15 or 20 yards from the line, the patriots opened fire. In addition to their muskets, they were armed with two small canons loaded with grapeshot. With the road flanked on both sides by swamp, the Scots had nowhere to go. McLeod fell first, followed by fifty-some of his handpicked men. The rest of the Highlanders fled. The battle lasted only minutes. Over the next couple of days, they captured 800 or so of the Highlanders. They granted some pardons and went headed back to their farms. But many they banished to Nova Scotia, Florida or the West Indies.

It was a small engagement early in the war. But the battle discouraged the British from trying to conquer the Southern colonies. Their forces moved north where most of the fighting would occur for the next several years. The battle also helped the colonists in North Carolina by providing weapons and supplies. Interestingly, most of their Patriot weapons had been given to them by the British during the French and Indian Wars. That’s a lesson we still haven’t learned from history.

The battlefield is a National Park site. The earthworks are reconstructed. Numerous monuments have been erected, most given by the people of North Carolina in the great monument age (1890-1920). Two of the larger monuments are for Pvt. John Grady, the only death on the Patriot’s side, and for those Scots fighting as loyalists. After 120 years, old grudges died and the state (which after the Civil War entered a Scottish revival era) no longer harbored ill feelings for the losing side. 

In addition to the battlefield trail, there is a small museum with several period weapons. There is also a short “Tarheel” interpretive trail. This trail focuses on the role the longleaf pine played in the development of the “naval stores” industry. Interestingly, all the native longleaf pines have been cut. There are younger longleafs growing, but all the mature pines are loblollies. The battlefield trail takes you along a boardwalk into the swamp around Moores Creek, allowing up close views of a cypress swamp. The water is stained brown from the tannic acid of the cypress trees. These trees also have “knees” that protrude up from the muck. The Spanish moss gives the swamps an eerie feeling. In the summer, there’s a good possibility of encountering snakes and perhaps, if lucky, of seeing an alligator. 

I was last at Moore’s Creek in November 2018, with my father. We paddled up the creek from the Black River. 

Speaking at the Savannah St. Andrew’s Society in November 2019

In 2019, I spoke of this battle at the St. Andrews Society of Savannah annual St. Andrews banquet.  To read this speech, a part of which I used above, go to:  https://fromarockyhillside.com/2019/12/01/st-andrews-talk/

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The Lights on Harkers Island

Title slights with photos of anchor lights and trees on Harkers Island at Christmas

You must want to go to Harkers Island to get there. There are no major highways running to the island. Instead, you exit US 70 near its eastern terminus, drive south through marsh and over a bridge to reach the island. To go further, you must take a boat or be an excellent swimmer. Once you’re on Harkers Island, you’re closer by boat than car to Beaufort or Morehead City. 

Cape Lookout Lighthouse from Harkers Island (roughly five miles away)

People come to Harkers Island in order to get to Cape Lookout lighthouse or the old lifesaving station near the Cape Lookout shoals. Others come to walk the beach along Shackleford Banks where wild horses roam. In the fall of the year, most people come to fish for blues or trout in sight of the lighthouse or to hunt ducks and geese in the marsh along the Atlantic flyway. And if you come in December and hang around till dark, you’re treated to an incredible light show as the island decorates itself for Christmas. 

Decoy ornaments

The people on Harkers Island are creative. Known for carving duck decoys, they also know how to put on a good Christmas light festival. Homes and utility poles on the island often sport anchors created by Andy Scott and Richard Gillikin. During the holidays, blue lights accent these anchors. Lights decorate old boats abandoned on empty lots. Lights decorate docks and homes.  And outside the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, flapping geese pull Santa’s sleigh. Behind the sleigh, porpoises jump. And you can’t miss the huge Christmas tree built out of stacked crab pots. 

During December, dozens of crab pot trees are showcased inside the Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center. Local families, businesses, churches, schools, and community organizations sponsor and decorate the trees. Trees recall those who died from cancer and old ghost towns like Portsmouth, now a part of the National Seashore. One tree celebrates the dark skies around Cape Lookout. On a night with clear skies, the stars seem more brilliant without much light pollution. One tree celebrated the life of Alma, who baked hundreds of wedding cakes for the community over the year. Other trees celebrate those who worked on the waters around Harkers Island for a living, families who built boats, and the Jim Dandy’s family who stores is one of the oldest businesses in Carteret County. 

The museum, located on the east end of the island, has more than Christmas trees to offer. The main floor contains an outstanding collection of duck decoys along with history of hunting along the Core Sound. The second-floor exhibits highlight the folks who made up the small “down east” communities such as Bettie, Cedar Island, Davis, Lola, Sealevel, Smyrna,  Stacy, and Williston.  And for those who are healthy, there is an observation deck two stories higher, providing views of the marsh around Harkers Island. 

My father started to come up to Lookout to camp and fish back in the late1980s. At the time I was tramping around the country and either living in Nevada or Pittsburgh. But every few years I tried to get home during this time to enjoy a few days of fishing. As everyone aged, they stopped camping and instead rented a house on Harkers Island, which became a base for fishing.

This year, my time on the island began with a gale (my sister and I did some shopping in Morehead City and visited Fort Macon on Emerald Isle. It’s been at least 40 years since I was at Fort Macon. On Tuesday, the rains came and we along with my brother checked out Beaufort. Sadly, we found the Maritime museum closed but we could watch them work on such boats across the street and toured galleries and stories along the waterfront.

On Wednesday, we were up earl, running through Barden’s Inlet for a day of fishing around the jetty on the southside of Cape Lookout. We caught a few trout that were not of legal size and had to be thrown back, along with some blues. We talked a lot about my dad during the four days I was on the island. It was good to be back in familiar waters.

Other Lookout Posts:

2020: Last time fishing with my dad on Lookout

2022: Solo kayak trip to Lookout

2024: Fishing with my siblings

Cape Lookout Lighthouse coming back in through Barden’s Inlet
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Nevada 375 and Rachel, Nevada

Title slide with photo of dry rain along Nevada 375
One house we worked on was located near here, where the road is still washed out.

I’ve been away this week, working on a Helene rebuild mission out of Burnsville, North Carolina, so I don’t have time to write anything new. I wrote this piece many years ago and some of you may have read it in another blog. I tried to update and clean up the language a bit before reposting it. Recently, I learned another friend had spent time working around Tonopah, Rachel, Caliente, Nevada on a government contract. He, too, was surprised that not only did I know of these places but had been there many times. Thinking of him, I thought I’d republish it.

The last time I was in Rachel was in 2010, as I drove across Central Nevada, heading from Death Valley to my old stomping ground in Cedar City, Utah.

Rachel, NV during daylight. Photo from the internet


I see the lights of Rachel a good ten miles away, soon after crossing Queen City Summit. “The bar will be open,” I say to myself, “I’ll grab a cup of coffee and stretch my legs and take in some of the night air.”

It’s after ten, early September 1995. I still have two hundred miles to drive to get home, having spent the past two weeks backpacking along the John Muir Trail in the Sierras. When I got off the trail, I learned my parents were driving in the next day, which meant an all-night drive. In the hundred miles since Tonopah, I’ve only passed a couple of vehicles. I roll my windows down and stick my head outside, trying to stay awake and alert. I pop cassette tapes in and out, playing them loudly and trying to find something to keep me awake. Nothing comes in on the radio, except some distant AM talk station from Los Angeles. 

I try to stay awake for nobody’s likely to see if you run off the road in this country. Making it more dangerous, this is open range. I share the road with cows. They’re hard to see at night and often seek the blacktop for warmth. If I run into one of these beasts and die, my estate will get to pay for the cow. 

“Thank God for Rachel,” I mumble, thinking about how this is one of two stops in the next two hundred miles where I can get coffee. I topped off my tank in Tonopah. Experience taught me the few gas stations along this stretch will close before I drive through.

Entering town, I pull off at the “Little A”le’Inn,” the center of Rachel’s night life. I’m shocked to see so many cars and people mulling around. Normally, there might be a car and a pickup or two out front. Tonight, I must search to find a parking place. The line to the bar starts at the front door.

What’s going on?” I ask the guy in front of me. 

“It’s Labor Day weekend,” he says, “people come from all over on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends to check out the UFOs.” I’d noticed just outside the front door, mounted on a tripod, a parabolic listening device. These people are serious. Many of them have cameras and binoculars dangling from their necks. At the booth closest to me a guy cleans the lens for their cameras I consider telling him not to bother, as I’ve yet to see picture of a UFO taken through a clean lens. But I hold my tongue. 

“Do you think they’re really UFOs out here?” I ask the guy in front of me.

“I’m not sure, but you see some strange things,” he says, adding that he mostly comes up from Vegas to enjoy the party.

I look around at the eclectic crowd. There are dudes with pencil protectors in their shirt pockets talking to guys with tie-died t-shirts. Some look college-aged. Others probably have great-grandchildren. Many appear to have been strung out on drugs since the 60s. A few may have come straight from a desk job at IBM. It looks like a lot of fun, and I imagine myself as a reporter for the Rolling Stones, getting to know these people and writing about their shindig. Unfortunately, I must get back home.

 It takes me a while to get up to the bar and then I must wait for the bartender to make another pot of coffee. Then he fills my Maverick[1] insulated cup. I head outside, climb into the car and drive eastward into the darkness, over Coyote Summit and across Tikaboo Valley. It’s sad to leave the lights behind, for even if they don’t see a UFO, they’ll going to have a good time.

In my travels between California and Utah, I stopped at Rachel a dozen or more times. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there were only two businesses in town. The gas station sat on the east end. It includes a store which would make a 7-11 appear to be a supermarket. I’ve never seen it open after dark and their hours seemed to be irregular, another reason why I topped off my tank before heading this direction.

The Little A’Le’Inn sat on the west end of town. A combo restaurant, bar, casino, and motel, it reminds me of a scaled down version of Bruno’s Country Club in Gerlack, Nevada. The Inn seemed thrown together and wouldn’t make the Triple A Guidebook. But people come here because Rachel is the closest town to the supersecret Area 51, where some believe our government holds intergalactic aliens as POWs. Others think the government made a secret pack with some space race to dominate the world. I don’t believe it, but there are strange things seen in the skies along this highway. 

Driving along this stretch of highway, I’ve been scared out of my pants when a jet, flying what seemed to be 50 feet above my car came up behind me. I first noticed the. shadow. Because of his speed, I didn’t hear him until he’s gone.

Once, while checking out the mining sites in the Timpahute Range northeast of Rachel with Ralph, we watched several jets in apparent dogfight. I’ve never seen such aerial maneuvers, as they turned and swirled back and forth. One jet climbed almost straight up like a rocket, only to turn and come back to earth at supersonic speeds. When the jet disappeared behind the mountain, we looked for a fireball. We assumed it crashed. Then, to our surprise, the plane pulled back up and climb again as two jets made the same maneuver. Neither of us could believe that a plane could perform like that. 

Sun setting amongst Joshua Trees in Central Nevada



This is barren country. The government controls all the land land south of Rachel. This is a training ground and bombing range for Nellis Air Force Base. They tested stealth fighters and bombers here. The vast area also contains the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear weapons used to be regularly tested.

Rachel is a relatively new town. In the 1860s, the town of Tempiute grew up around a vein of silver to the northeast. That petered out. Later, a tungsten deposit was discovered. Until the 1980s, Union Carbide ran a mine there. Most of the miners lived in Rachel. A few ranches dot the countryside along 375, but it takes a lot of this poor arid soil to produce enough grass to feed a cow.

Every time I stopped at the “Little A’Le’Inn” I meet interesting people. Once there was a family from Germany who came to see UFOs. Another time there were several young adults from the Netherlands. One evening, there was a couple at the bar who had driven up from Las Vegas. They were nearly out of gas. The gas station had already closed for the day (and the owners had headed to Vegas for dinner), so the couple rented a room at the motel and made the best of the evening by drinking heavily. They probably saw some good sights that night as well as some bugs on the wall in the morning.

The bartender is always willing to offer advice as to the best places to supposedly see UFOs. And the walls of the place have pictures and clippings about UFOs and even a signed photograph of Spock from Star Trek. In the mid-1990s, Nevada 375 became known as the “The Extraterrestrial Highway,” a move which helped draw in the curious to support Rachel’s businesses. 

I’m sure most people who drive across Nevada 375 think it’s the worst road to travel, but I find comfort in the desolation. US 50 crosses Nevada way to the north. In the 1960s, Life Magazine dubbed US 50 the loneliness road in America. Compared to Nevada 375, Highway 50 is a crowded freeway. 

Each end of Nevada 375 is located at a hot spring. The road begins at the site of Warm Springs along US 6. A gas station with a swimming pool sat at the junction, but by the 90s had closed. You can still stop and soak your feet in the warm sulfur smelling water as it runs through a ditch. Crystal Springs is at the other end of the 98-mile highway, at the junction with US 93, which leads south to Vegas and north to Ely. The springs are huge, with deep pools of warm water creating a large wetland and bird sanctuary which never freezes.

For those interested, there are other hot springs in the area. Just south on US 93 are the communities of Ash and Alamo, both of which have hot springs. Further to the east is Caliente, another town with hot springs located in cement pools at one of the towns 1950ish hotels. 

trains passing through Caliente, Nevada

If you travel this road, be prepared. It’s a long way to help. Limited services can be found in Tonopah (108 miles west of Rachel) and Caliente (98 miles to the east of Rachel). The nearest city is Las Vegas, 140 miles south of Rachel, on the other side of the government’s testing area which is closed off to the public.

[1] Maverik is the name of a chain of gas stations and convenient stores.

Other Nevada Adventures:

Great Basin Mining Adventure

Reno to Pittsburgh (April 1989)

Sunday drive to Gerlach

Driving West in ’88

Matt, Virginia City 1988

Doug and Elvira: A Pastoral Tale

Christmas Eve 1988

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published inAmerican Baptist Historical Society Quarterly, part of these revivals were in Virginia City in 1867) 

Eddie Larson, a good shepherd (he ran his sheep on BLM land in Eastern Nevada during the winter).

Riding in the cab of a steam locomotive

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August Book Reviews and James Taylor in Concert

book covers and a photo from the James Taylor concert

I’ve taken this week off to officiate at a funeral in Georgia, which is why there were no sermon posted on Sunday. I’ll be back next Sunday. 

James Taylor Concert

James Taylor and band with the multimedia presentation behind them

In addition to the trip to Georgia, we made another trip with friends to Raleigh, North Carolina last Thursday night, September 4, to attend a James Taylor concert. Although the singer has aged, he’s 77, he put on a good show. And whenever he sings, Carolina in My Mind,” in North Carolina, the crowd erupts as they did this past Thursday.  Before the concert, a friend warned there would be no standing ovations as no one in the crowd would have the knees to get on their feet more than once. But that was not the case. He brought the crowd onto their (our) feet repeatedly.  I loved all his songs about the road and travel. I appreciated his humor and political insights. When speaking about Carole King, he paused, looked to the crowd and said something like, “Oh, by the way, NO KINGS.” It was a good night. 

Most of the summer we have been attending concerts at the Blue Ridge Music Center, which is mostly bluegrass, so it’s good to get back to a bit of rock-n-roll and the music of my youth.

The group of us waiting for James Taylor
The group of us waiting for James Taylor

Derick Lugo, The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey, 

Book cover for "The Unlikely Thru Hiker

narrated by Derick Lugo, (2021), 7 hours and 12 minutes

I picked this book up on a two-for-one sale from Audible. It sounded interesting and humorous. While it doesn’t quite reach the humor of Bill Bryson’s, A Walk in the Woods, I enjoyed reading about his hike and recalling my own hike on the trail nearly 40 years ago. 

Lugo is an African American, which makes him unique on the trail. While I met a few African Americans while hiking, most were only out for a day. The exception was Felipe, a reporter for Springfield Massachusetts, who hiked through his state to write an article about the 50th anniversary of the trail.  While he seemed to get on the nerves of other hikers, I got along with him. When done, he sent me a copy of his articles along with a wonderful black and white photo of me resting against my pack as I wrote a letter. 

Photo of me from 1987, writing a letter while on the Appalachian Trail
1987, on the AT

Lugo was a city dweller. He had spent little time outdoors, which makes him an unlikely hiker. But he is open to learn from others. Furthermore, hiking the trail these days are different in that there are a lot more people on the trail. This allows him to learn from others the skills necessary for such a hike. Furthermore, he appears to be a genuinely nice guy. He strove never to use bad language and respected other hikers. His attitude paid off and he had a wonder trip, telling his readers about this journey and the people he met along the way. 

If interested in the Appalachian Trail, I recommend Lugo’s book.  An excellent storyteller, the book is a delight. 

Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now  

Book cover for "Okay for New"

(New York: Clarion Books, 2011), 360 pages with chapter illustrations.

I have enjoyed many of Schmidt’s young adult books (Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, The Wednesday Wars, Orbiting Jupiter , and Trouble). His books deal with serious issues facing adolescence boys and the larger society.  He reminds me of a male version of C. Lee McKenzie, who also takes on such topics with adolescent boys and girls. Lizzie Bright deals with racial issues in early 20th Century, Maine. The Wednesday Wars are played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Orbiting Jupiter deals with teenage parents. And all the books deal with boys coming of age. I met Schmidt a couple of times when I was in West Michigan as he taught in the English Department at Calvin University. I had not heard of this book, but learned about it from Kelly’s blog and immediately picked up a copy at my local library. 

Doug Swieteck is a young teenager who adores the New York Yankees, especially Joe Pepitone. The middle brother steals a hat of his that was a gift from Pepitone.  It’s the 1960s. His oldest brother serves in Vietnam.  While things don’t look good for him, it gets worse.  He moves with his parents and older brother from Long Island to a town in Upstate New York when his father accepted a job in a paper mill. He doesn’t want to move and his first impression with his new town are not good.  

In time Swieteck makes a friend, Lil Spicer. He takes a job with her father delivering groceries on Saturdays. The people in the town seem weird to him, but he gradually warms up to them. He also becomes enamored with the paintings of John James Audubon and with the guidance of a man who works at the library, learns how to paint. 

Swieteck has much to overcome. His father steals from him, taking the salary from his Saturday job (even though he hides the tips he receives). His father’s friend, who got him the job at the meal, is a jerk and seems to egg his father on. The young Swieteck becomes a friend with the manager at his father’s mill at a company picnic. He introduces him to horseshoes, which Swieteck excels. 

For a kid who seem to feel the entire town hated him, Swieteck has amazing experiences. Though one of the clients whom he delivers groceries to, he finds himself on Broadway in her play makes its debut (and Joe Pepitone is in the audience). Also, by the end of the book, things with his family seem to have improved, despite the fact his oldest brother has returned from Vietnam without his legs. But things are not all well, as his friend Lil suffers for an illness that threatens her life. 

This is an easy read. Growing up is seldom easy as Schmidt shows. But a few helpful adults, hard work, and the right attitude can make a difference.

Joseph Heller, Catch 22 

Book cover for Catch 22

(New York: Simon Schuster, 1961), 443 pages, Audible edition (2017), 19 hours and 58 minutes. 

I don’t know why I never read this book. I’ve seen the movie several times, but it’s been 15 or 20 years since I watched it last. The book, I think, funnier than the movie, which is hilarious. As this is a novel about war, it’s dark humor. 

Yossarian (I love that name) is a bombardier on an island in the Mediterranean. The commander of his unit keeps raising the numbers of flights required before they can return to the states. Feeling he’ll die in combat, and that he has already flown more missions than others in the operation theater, he tries everything to avoid making more flights.  His fear is heightened by the death of Snowden, a tail gunner on his plane. Yossarian comforts him and bandages up his leg, telling him he’ll be fine, only to discover a mortal wound under his flight jacket. The incident haunts Yossarian. Yet, when Yossarian is offered a deal to go back to the states, he can’t accept. The deal would be dishonest and not be fair to his fellow airmen. 

This book has a legion of characters such as Major Major (named by his father as a joke) who becomes a major. One can imagine the confusion. Doc Daneeka, the flight surgeon, hates flying and bargains to be added to the flight rooster without flying. This allows him to receive his flight pay. His gig works well until the plane he’s supposedly on is shot down. The army declares him dead. His wife is notified and finds herself the recipient of all kinds of life insurance and burial benefits. She and the kids move without leaving a forwarding address while the doctor is stuck on a war theater without pay.

And then there is the dead man’s stuff in Yossarian’s tent who took off on a flight without having been officially received in the unit. His flight crashed and no one can touch his things since he wasn’t in the unit. And then there is Milo and ex-PFC Wintergreen, who run black market operations who trade with anyone, including the enemy. While they are making a profit (and everyone has a share in Milo’s operations), there are also missteps as when Milo buys all the Egyptian cotton one year and then is unable to unload it. 

There’s plenty of sex in the story. The whores in Rome, cause some of the airmen to fall in love. One, Nately, dies in a plane crash. Yossarian has the unpleasant task of telling “Nately’s whore” of his demise. She, in turn, tries to kill Yossarian, and continues to try to kill him to the end of the book.

There are also relationships between airmen and nurses. The wives of their superiors are also tempting, especially the ignored young wife of training officer back in the states who insisted on drilling the cadets every Sunday afternoon. Violence and sex go together in the book. One officer rapes a maid, then throws her out of a window to her death. Yossarian confronts him as the sirens wail in the distance. Expecting him to be arrested for murder, the MPs march by the dead woman on the sidewalk and up the stairs. They arrest Yossarian for being in Rome without a proper pass. The book is filled with such surprising twists. of events. 

The book, obviously reflecting on the anti-communist sentiment of the McCarthy era, has intelligent officers trying to trap everyone into confessions, from the airmen to the chaplain. Milo, with his syndicate, displays a weird loyalty to capitalism. He will do anything for a profit, including lifting morphine from the plane’s first aid kits. And why he tries to create his own monopoly, even buying and selling products among his own businesses, he doesn’t want to deal with other monopolies as that wouldn’t be capitalistic.

The incompetent rises to the top, such as the special services officer, who oversees entertainment and such pushing out the general over aviation to claim the spot.  Absurdity wins.  The classic “Catch 22” holds that you can’t fly if you’re crazy, but if you claim to be crazy, you can’t be crazy because only a crazy person would fly over enemy territory.  Of course, in the book, everyone is crazy which drives Yossarian crazier.  The book ends with Orr, who everyone thought had died when his plane crashed, is found washed up in Sweden, a neutral county.  Of course, no one knows how Orr make it from the Mediterranean to northern Europe, but it’s enough to give Yossarian hope that he too can make it. 

This is a classic book which I had a used copy for decades. I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to read and listen. I recommend it with a warning. The contains dark humor. Adult situations are numerous and there’s plenty of violence within the pages. The later should come as no surprise as the book is about war. The writing is amazing. Heller can twist a sentence and a delight to witness.  

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Michigan Ramblings (June 16-July 3)

Title slide with photos from northern Michigan

I spent the last half of June mostly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While I have already written about my solo kayak trip around Drummond Island, I thought I’d share some of my other adventures. 

Jim at Richies Koffee Shop

I arrived in Michigan on June the 18th, staying with my friends Bruce and Katie on Jordan Lake. We enjoyed dinner and sitting out by the lake, along with a late evening boat ride around the lake. The next morning, I headed early into Hastings to have breakfast with my friend Jim, at Richies Koffee Shop, a place I often ate breakfast when I lived in Hastings. As I drove up, Dave and John were at the table by the front window. They wondered who pulled up with a sea kayak on top of their car. When I got out, John said to Dave, “Oh, it figures, it’s Jeff.” I talked with them along with Sandy, my favorite waitress, until Jim arrived. Then I moved over to a booth and caught up with my old canoeing partner. 

I left Hastings a little before 9 so I could make it to the Upper Peninsula (UP) by 2 PM. It rained most of the way, but I made good time.

Me, Gary, Ron at Snows Bar and Grill

At 2, I had lunch with Gary and Ron. Gary and I were in the fire department on Skidaway Island and paddled together several times in the Okefenokee Swamp. I hadn’t met Ron before, but he also lives on Skidaway during the winter and on an island outside of Cedarville, Michigan in the summer. Gary and his wife were traveling through, visiting friends in Michigan before going on into Canada. We met at Snow’s Bar and Grill in Cedarville, a great place for white fish and walleye. It enjoyed catching up with Gary, who grew up in Michigan.  We said goodbyes at 4:00 PM. I stopped by Cedarville’s grocery store and arrived in Detour Village a little after 5 PM. 

On Thursday, I rested and checked out my gear for my trip around Drummond. I realized I had forgotten to bring a battery pack to recharge my cell phone. On Friday, I paddled around Detour Point early in the morning. Then I headed to Sault St. Marie for Walmart, where I picked up a battery pack and the rest of what I needed for my trip.  Afterwards, I decided to travel over to Point Iroquois Lighthouse. 

Point Iroquois Lighthouse

I’d been here once before but forgotten the reason why it was named after a native American tribe found much further east. In the 17th Century, facing pressure from European settlers, the Iroquois tried to extend their territories further west.  Here, on the east end of Lake Superior, the Chippewa, the native tribe of the Great Lakes Region, stopped the Iroquois advancement after a bloody battle. Then, in honor of their dead foe, the Chippewa named this point along the lake, Iroquois. With all the talk about changing or not changing names to make it more “American,” I had to salute the Chippewa graciousness. The next week, I would learn that Drummond Island was named for the British General in charge of northern Michigan. At the end of the War of 1812, he was ordered to move his garrison back into Canada.  

On my way back that Friday, I stopped for dinner at Cozy Corners in Barbeau. I’d eaten at this place before, but never on a Friday night. The place was packed. I sat at the bar, talking to my neighbors, watching the Detroit Tigers play on TV, while also catching glimpses of two southbound freighters.  I ate fish tacos made with walleye. 

The Manse

On Sunday, in exchange for staying at the church’s manse, I preached at the Union Presbyterian Church, using a sermon I had preached a few weeks early at home.  On Monday morning, I headed over on an early ferry run for my paddle around Drummond. 

If you didn’t read about my Drummond Island circumnavigation, you can catch up here: Days 1 & 2,  and Days 3 & 4

I came back to Detour from Drummond Island around 2 PM on Thursday. I laid out my gear in the garage and the sunporch to dry, showered, and took a nap. Around 5:30 PM, I got up and drove over to St. Ignace to pick up Bob, a friend of mine from Hastings. He took a bus up to the UP from Grand Rapids. He was scheduled to arrive at 10:10 PM, so I decided to go over early and eat dinner.  

Of all the times I have been across the Mackinaw Bridge, which crosses at St. Ignace, I have never been into the town. I exited I-75 at Castle Rock and drove through the town and realized soon it was a mistake. The place was packed. I found myself at the end of a parade of old cars, not knowing that this was the first night of a four-day car rally. All the restaurants were packed.

I stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few supplies, then decided to try the St. Ignace Truck Stop. It, too, was busy, but by 9 PM had slowed down as patrons left. I sat at the bar and ordered walleye. I was finishing my meal at 9:45 PM, when Bob called. The bus arrived early. Thankfully, he was only a couple of blocks away. I picked him up and we headed back to Detour Village. 

Friday was wet and foggy. I spent the morning reading while Bob, who’s an editor, worked on a project. Occasionally, Bob shared his frustration at the book he was editing. He felt he had to rework too much of the author’s words. But he had been hired by the publisher to get the book ready for print, so he kept at it. Around 2 PM, we took a break and headed over to the Detour Village Inn for one of their great hamburgers. 

The Village Inn is a baseball themed park. Tim Grisdale (Grizz) started the inn after he hung up his glove having played minor league baseball in the Detroit Tigers organization. In addition to running a bar and grill, he was a big supporter of baseball and softball in the town. He died in 2018, before I started coming up to Detour Village, but his memory lives on. There’s the Grizz burgers and lots of photos and newspaper clippings posted on the walls. 

Whitefish Sandwich at Snows

After lunch, we headed to a preserve off Prettiss Bay, where we stayed exploring till almost sunset. Plants seen included wood lilies, thimbleberry, yellow coreopsis, yellow lady slippers, shrubby cinquefoil, red osier dogwood, along with irises, columbines, and shinleaf. Then we drove over to Cedarville and I had a whitefish sandwich for dinner at Snows Bar and Grill.

You might think that Snows gets its name from the extreme winters of the UP, but that’s not the case. There is a “Snows Cut,” which runs between the islands, just south of the joint. I have always found this interesting since I grew up just north of “Snows Cut,” where the Intracoastal Waterway cuts from Myrtle Grove Sound to the Cape Fear River, just north of Carolina Beach. That cut was named after the engineer who directed digging this part of the waterway in the 1930s. 

Bob playing the Sax on Drummond

On Saturday, after a morning of reading and editing, we took the ferry over to Drummond Island and met Dave and Sandy, who took us to a potluck dinner hosted by Lighthouse Church. The dinner was outside. Bob, who is an excellent saxophonist, did a short concert. 

On Sunday, I again preached at the Union Presbyterian Church and Bob supplied special music. He had come up with me in April 2024, so folks on the island knew him and enjoyed his music. Afterwards, we were invited to join a group at the Mainsail Restaurant for Brunch.  

Botanist Bob

In the afternoon, after a nap, we explored the fins along Lake Huron, just east of Albany Creek. A fin is a wet boggy area. In this case, it’s separated from the lake by a series of dunes. This place is rich of wildflowers, especially carnivorous plants. While Bob has worked much of his life in the publishing business, he is the best botanists I know. Not only does he know the names of all the plants, but he also knows most of their Latin names.

Al

Albany Fin

Plants seen: Northern Pitcher Plant, Butterwort (rare), round leaf sundew, linear leaf sundew (rare), horned bladderwort, rose pogonia (orchid), and pitcher thistle (rare). 

After exploring the Albany fin, we came home and fixed steak for dinner. Monday, we lounged around reading and editing. On Tuesday, we packed up and headed over to the Detour Village Inn for lunch before driving south. On our way south, we stopped at Wilderness State Park to look for some rare plants which Bob had seen there years earlier. He found the plants, but it was after they’d bloomed. I stayed at Bob’s Tuesday night. 

Wednesday morning, before leaving Hastings, I had breakfast with “Doc,” my former associate at First Presbyterian Church. Now confined to a walker, “Doc” or Jim, cares for his wife who struggles with dementia. But Doc still gets around some and remains in good spirits. Then I started the long drive home.  

Selfie at Hocking Hills

I decided to spend one more night out in the woods, so I headed to Ohio’s Hocking Hills. I’ve heard about this place before and wish I could have spent more time there. The hills are beautiful with some interesting rock formations around the creeks. I slept in my hammock and enjoyed dinner at the lodge as I watched the sun set. I arrived home on Thursday afternoon, after racking up almost 3,000 miles over 16 days. 

On the way back, I discovered Southern Ohio is filled with Covered Bridges. I’ll have to explore these some other time.
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Riding Coach from South Bend to D.C.

Title slide with photos of the train in South Bend and Savannah

I planned to finish up my tales from my Michigan trip, but the week has been too busy, so I bushed and edited a piece I wrote back in 2017. On the trip, I was coming home (to Skidaway Island) from a conference at Calvin College (now University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  The route from Pittsburgh to Cumberland paralleled the bicycle trip I took in May with my brother. Click here to read about that trip.

The train arriving in South Bend

I wake up, realizing the guy in the seat next to me is gathering his stuff. Looking out the window, I see we’re running alongside a river. It must be the Ohio. I pull out my iPhone to check the time. It’s 4:45 AM, we’re approaching Pittsburgh.  

“Getting off in Pittsburgh?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he answered. He was asleep last night when I boarded the train in South Bend. I was tired myself and had quickly fallen asleep. I vaguely remember train stopping at Elkhart, and totally missed Waterloo, along with longer stops in Toledo and Cleveland and several quick stops in smaller towns. We pass the Emsworth Lock and Dam. I’ve been here many times before. I’m surprised to see the barges are still running on the first of February, but then it’s been a warm winter.

“Live in the ‘burgh?” I ask.

“No,  Philly.”

“But you’re getting off here?”  I resisted the temptation to make a disparaging remark about the Phillies and Eagles.

“Yeah, I gotta catch another train. I have a two-hour layover.  You from here?”

“Nah, but I lived here for three years when I was in school back in the ‘80s.  It’s a great city.”

We talk for a few minutes. The train slows down and then pulls away from the river. I learn he’s a long-haul truck driver.  They found a beer in his truck when it was being serviced. He said it was left over from New Years, but it’s a violation and they terminated him. But it’s okay, he says, as he’s already has another job lined up with another trucking company.  

As he talks the train swings to the right and soon, we on a bridge across the Allegheny River.

“The Three Sisters,” I say, pointing out the identical yellow bridges below us. The train slows, stopping at the Pittsburgh Station underneath the massive building which used to house offices for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The conductors and engineer change crews here, providing a fifteen-minute break. After all the passengers depart, I get off and walk for a few minutes along the tracks enjoying the fresh air. Most passengers remain asleep, but a few shuffle around on the platform enjoying an infrequent smoking break. It’s odd to be outdoors in the predawn hours on the first of February without a coat.  When the conductor shouts, “All Aboard,” I step back onboard and take my seat. Soon, I’m back asleep.  

I’d boarded the train the evening before in South Bend, Indiana.  I’d taken the train up from Savannah the week before to attend a conference at Calvin University. While I could have taken the train into Grand Rapids, it would have required an extra day each direction with a long wait in Chicago. Instead, I got off in South Bend and rented a car from Enterprise. They picked me up early in the morning on my arrival.

The evening before, I had to turn the car by 6 PM, to get a shuttle back to the station. The train was scheduled to arrive a bit after nine. I had brought a sandwich for dinner and ate it in the station while I waited. It wasn’t a very fancy meal, but sufficient. I would have preferred to eat in the dining car on the train, but suspected it would be closed by the time I boarded. 

Taking up a seat along the back wall, I pull out my book, Robert Harris’ Pompeii. This is the original train station and the seats are heavy, old, curved oak benches. While they look like church pews, they more comfortable. Every few minutes when the crossing gates just outside the station would begin to ring in announcement of another train. The ringing was followed by the horn of a train coming closer until it whisked by, followed by the waning sound of the horn and the clacking of the wheels. This was the main line serving trains heading from Chicago east to New York, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The station was never very busy and only a half dozen of us who board in South Bend when my train, the Capitol Limited, arrived.

I wake up a little after seven and in the dark can make out a river that parallels the tracks.  According to the timetable, we must have already stopped in Connellsville and are beginning the long slow climb over the Alleghenies. The river appears deep and slow, with just a few rocks, but I know that’ll change as we gain altitude. Snow dusts the ground. The trees are barren. Occasionally I’ll spot a pine or cedar, frosted with snow, but the trees are mostly hardwoods of some variety. In the dark, it’s hard to tell the specie. I take my book and notebook up to the snack car for breakfast, ordering a breakfast burrito and coffee. Sitting at a table, I eat, while watching the scenery change. As we gain elevation, cedars appear, and the water runs faster between eh rocks. Snow covers the ground with more falling. 

The train slowly winds its way up the tracks, its wheels at time squeaking against the rails. We reach the village of Confluence. The morning is gray, foggy, and wet. Only a few cars are on the roads. As we gain more elevation, the river becomes smaller and swifter. We run through the first tunnel.  On the top of the hills are many windmills. Mountain laurel covers the hillsides.  

We enter another tunnel, a longer one, and when we come out, I notice that the river has changed directions. We’re heading downhill, but the engineer holds the train back, going as slowly downhill as we did uphill. The sun attempts to burn off the fog. Its golden reflections reflect from the ripples of the creek below. As we lose altitude, there is less snow on the ground. The train picks up speed. By the time we reach Cumberland, the snow is gone. We’re a bit early, so I step off the train and enjoy the fresh air. It feels more like spring than deep winter.   

On my bicycle trip on the GAP, I saw these same windmills.


After Cumberland, I head back to my seat.  The train runs quickly along the Potomac River.  I continue reading Pompeii, picking up where I left off last night. A little over an hour later, we make a short stop in Martinsville, West Virginia, a neat looking old town. An old, abandoned roundhouse sits on the north side of the tracks. The business district runs along the south side. 

Our next stop is in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. I look for the old hotel where I stayed when I was here while hiking the Appalachian Trail. The stop is short and soon we’re crossing the river and heading into a tunnel.  

Harper’s Ferry

Below Harper’s Ferry, the train parallels the C&O canal. The canal seems to be filled with stagnant water covered in a green slime. The train makes its last stop in Rockville, before pulling into Union Station fifteen minutes early. I head for the food court for a quick lunch, before heading out to the National Gallery for the afternoon. I’ll be back at the station in time to board the train to Savannah. I’ll have better accommodations for this leg as I’ve booked a sleeper.

Arriving in Savannah