Austin!!!

It's surprising to me sometimes how hard it is to trust your instincts. Given the nature of the thing, you'd think it would come entirely naturally, but for me that has not been the case. Some days are easier than others. When my friend texted a couple months ago to say she and some friends had found cheap tickets to Austin, there was no thinking it over. I was in. A few weeks later, I flew out of Pittsburgh with 10 lovely WV ladies to experience a town I've been wanting to visit for years.  

Naturally, we made a beeline for Torchy's Tacos as soon as we landed, suitcases in tow. Having selected two delicious options, I got in line to order, only to discover my wallet was not in my purse. Panicked, I went back to my suitcase to look. I found it there, the result of a last minute shuffle in my rush to board the plane without paying for an extra bag (See Michele? I did it.). When I got back to the line, the cashier was holding the credit card of the guy behind me,  who had offered to buy my lunch. Welcome to Austin. 

Next up? Boot shopping and dessert.

For a girl who loves delicious food, succulents, cowboy kitch, and alt country music, you could not order up a better place.

My one regret for this trip is that I did not make it back to eat these churros a second time.

The city is sprawling, and we got to see a lot of lovely architecture and landscaping as we wondered through various neighborhoods.

Good design was absolutely everywhere. Even the dry cleaner had a beautiful storefront with an amazing sign. Art is so important to this town that they designated an entire park for graffiti. Anyone can show up with a spray can and make their mark on this multi-leveled dilapidated structure-turned art park. (Though apparently the city's Historic Landmark Commission recently voted to demolish this park, making it hard to keep pessimism at bay.) 

Next we checked out a lovely sculpture garden featuring the work of Charles Umlauf, and that evening we went to White Horse for some Texas two-steppin' and honky tonk. It was only a few years ago that I came to the realization that I do in fact love country music, so long as it's the RIGHT kind. I don't know what it is about honky tonk, but we get each other. No pictures from that venue because we were busy dancing.

The next day we were moving a little slower, and so we meandered through an amazing botanical garden complete with a Japanese koi pond and a designated succulent section.

Sunday afternoon we made our way to Jo's for--wait for it--Sinner's Brunch. Just the name makes me happy. 

There we celebrated Liz's birthday with her family and some awesome live music.

And then? On to chicken shit bingo at Little Longhorn Saloon of course. Real chickens. Real shit.

The scene was in the parking lot. I took advantage of the moment to practice my portraits.

Not only did we experience some authentically Austin bingo, but our girl Sarah won $114! 

After we soaked up Sarah's winnings and the good music there, we made our way to the Skylark Lounge for some blues. Three standout events at that place. 1) The music was amazing; 2) I met a man named Cornelius Rumblejunk (I checked his license and friended him on facebook to make sure this was real. It appears to be.); and 3) Out back was a fire pit and Frito pie. We heard there was gumbo, but it turns out there was also this other amazing, very Texan offering on tap. Oh, yes. Not gonna lie. THAT was some delicious junk food. 

The last day we had brunch at South Congress Cafe, outside of which was this quintessential Austin scene. 

And I haven't even mentioned the run I did in a nature preserve with a coyote warning, which was tucked in amongst residential neighborhoods just blocks away from our air B&B, OR the speakeasy we had to have a numeric code to enter, featuring swings as bar seats and babydoll head lights...

Needless to say, I love Austin.

A Dolly Sods Adventure

Dolly Sods has long been my favorite spot in West Virginia, but even so, this fall was my first time camping at Red Creek. The guys made the great sacrifice of driving out early Friday morning to snag our spots, securing themselves a little kid-free beer drinking time and allowing the rest of us to swoop in after dark and avoid the task of camp setup. Win-win.

There's something about seeing a tundra-like landscape where you don't expect it. It's surprising and beautiful and such a lovely respite. I need these times of seeing our state only for the beauty it has to offer and not for the heart-wrenching sadness that often pervades.

After the soft morning light came these clouds hanging low over the Allegheny Front under a crisp blue sky. Nothing short of exhilarating.

As only kids can, these guys had the most fun at Bear Rocks playing in the little ephemeral puddles that had formed in the many rock craters.

We only managed a few short hikes with seven rascals in tow, but the rest of the time they ran non-stop, making their own forest adventures and leaving us to relax in a way you can only achieve when you're outside with good friends, no cell service, and nothing to do but drink beer and enjoy each other's company.

This is the pre-sunrise shot from Sunday morning, which I got because I could not deny the child who said from outside our tent, "Mom, are you going to miss the day break again?" No. No I am not. And I'm so thankful I got to sit out on the rocks in the blowing wind with that little boy, waiting for the sun.

A Wild & Wonderful Table

My friends from the Bridgeport Farmers Market know how to throw a party.

Last Saturday was their second annual fundraising dinner, A Wild and Wonderful Table, featuring delicious dishes prepared by West Virginia chefs using local meat and produce, two signature cocktails, and my very favorite WV beer, the Halleck Pale Ale. 

Not only did everything look beautiful, but I loved the way so many people contributed their particular talents to make this event come together. In addition to the organizers, who coordinated and orchestrated many moving parts, one person designed and constructed the long community-style tables using lumber he sawed himself.

Another envisioned and executed the "look" for the event, complete with vintage place settings and natural tablescapes made from brown paper and fresh herbs, topped with gorgeous flower arrangements (made by yet another market vendor), all underneath long strands of twinkling lights.

Several Sargasso bartenders made sure everyone had delicious drinks throughout the night, served up in Ball jar glasses of course.

Local musicians played throughout the night.

Did I mention the food? Yum. 

This whole night would have been amazing and lovely no matter where it took place, but the fact that one group of people came together to make it happen here in North Central West Virginia . . . well, let's just say I think everyone involved truly appreciates the sense of community it represents.

Naturally I took many more pictures than this, all of which are view-able here.

Highway to Holler

The New York Times says the personal essay is dead. Lucky I only make photo essays I guess. This set documents the three-mile stretch from Route 50, where you turn off to get to where I grew up, all the way back to the holler itself.

When I lived in Oregon, I thought even the plants that grew in the ditches were beautiful. It's taken me a while to adopt that same viewpoint about home, since it's all so familiar, but seeing it through the camera lens definitely helped. And now I wonder if the west coasters feel the same about WV ditches?

Once you arrive at the farm, you may start to understand why Dad exchanged small-town life for the hemmed-in serenity of these hills. This has long been a question of mine.

Portrait of a Small Town: Fairmont, WV

What better way to start then a God-sent Granny?

I'll let these photos speak for themselves. Fairmont has some lovely old buildings but a very forgotten feel.

By far my favorite was this collection of gems, on haphazard display in the windows of a full service gas station:

Montreal Part 2

Parts of Montreal felt very much like Toronto to me, with tall shiny skyscrapers and signs of new construction everywhere. But sprinkled throughout are buildings of weathered stone with carved or cast embellishments. 

We walked through downtown on our way to Mont Royal, which is known for its sweeping views of the city. The hill was visible as we approached, and turns out to be a sizable park with wide switch-backing trails that meander to the top, as well as a set of intense stairs for those who want to go straight up. On our way down we heard the huffing and puffing of the surprising number of people who chose this option, and I'd say the paths were the way to go unless you're in it for a workout.

The streets downtown are wide, like in cities out west, and largely the landscape seems very flat. It wasn't until we crested the hill that I noticed the mountains in the distance.

Multiple carved squirrels perched high in the ceiling of the chateau that sits behind the lookout.

A man stopped to tell us that this church was recently restored, reinforcing the friendly Canadian stereotype yet again.

Montreal's Chinatown is sizable and colorful, and just a few blocks away from Old Montreal.

We managed to see a fantastic Chagall exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts on Easter Sunday before the plague that afflicted me on the second day of our trip really set in. But by then I could no longer spare the energy needed to lift my camera.  

Montreal Part 1: Griffintown and Old Montreal

Those Canadians did it again. They made me want to move to their country immediately. I feel we should start importing Canadian ways and take back some of the ones we've sent their way.

I flew to Montreal a few weeks ago on Porter Airlines. Normally I find talk of routes and transportation methods to be the epitome of mundane conversation, but I'm mentioning it here because Porter took customer service to a new level. (Admittedly, my trip took place shortly after airline employees dragged a doctor off a plane here in the U.S., sending expectations to an all-time low.)

Nonetheless. Let's start with the fact that the female flight attendants wear jaunty round hats, a throw-back I found quite charming. But they also served my sparkling water in a cute little glass. On the plane. When I got to Toronto and was told to throw away my water bottle as I went through security, I was assured that I would find beverages in the "lounge." Right.

But the lounge turned out to be a large area with plenty of comfortable seats, adjacent to a little cafe where you could help yourself to free sodas, water, coffee (served in a cute little cup with a saucer!), and snacks. Free snacks. This all made me feel quite fancy and not the least bit hangry. And then you know what happened next? They served complimentary wine and beer on the next flight.

To this I say: Step it up American airlines. You can do better. 

I woke up early the first morning and found an old canal just a few blocks from where we stayed in Griffintown. It turns out to be a relatively short walk to the Old Port, though I didn't realize that until later. The light was beautiful and I played around with my new lens until my hands were too cold to keep at it.

While I didn't realize it that morning, the huge building above and below turns out to be Grain Silo No. 5, which was mentioned in one of the guides I consulted before I left.

Griffintown is gentrifying at the moment, so there was an interesting mix of construction cranes, graffiti, and chain stores like West Elm and Starbucks. 

In the afternoon we walked to Old Montreal, which has the infamous European feel I'd read about. 

I was on the lookout for this architectural wonder, known as Habitat 67. Now a housing complex, it was used as a pavilion during the 1967 World's Fair. 

The walkway near the Old Port had a bit of a boardwalk feel, and lots of people were out and about. I liked that this ropes course was there amid all the old historical buildings.

Just a few blocks from the water are the narrow European-like streets, where we had a delicious French lunch. Unlike the French in France, when you speak French to the Canadians, they assume you can actually speak the language and keep on speaking French to you. It's a very polite assumption that I had to counter several times with, ok, ok, that's all I've got. 

We found some interesting galleries here featuring contemporary art that contrasted nicely with the old world surroundings. This part of the city was about as close as I could get to the Montreal I conjured in my head as a girl reading Calico Captive. (A riveting story where a family in New England gets taken by Native Americans and sold as servants in Montreal. I cannot wait until my child stops finding violence scary so I can read this with him.)

Since I may or may not have taken 178 pictures in one day, I decided to break this into two posts. More next time.

Portrait of a Small Town: Clarksburg, WV

I remember having a ball with my camera in a tiny little rundown town in Preston County when I first moved back to West Virginia. I've gotten a little better with the camera since then, so it seems like time to make the small town rounds again. First stop: Clarksburg.

Above is a fountain I remember from chlidhood, right next to the bank where I opened my first savings account. (This is a big deal when you're raised by a fiscally conservative New Englander.)

Downtown has some beautiful buildings, but I've also been intrigued for a while by the little subsection of town known as Glen Elk. The homeless shelter known as the Mission is there, but otherwise there's a quiet, abandoned air to the place.

I was surprised to see a large bag of good-looking salad greens in the front seat of this car.

And I think this may be a Slim Jim wrapper. At least, I really want this to be a Slim Jim wrapper. 

Apparently a former buggy for a soccer team?

Love the unexpected spot of color from these cute yellow chairs . . . and I hope they mean that people actually sit on this little balcony.

Just around the corner from what appears to be a residence is an old doorway that looks to be a former entrance to Julio's. I haven't been in years, but it's one of those semi-secret places that everyone raves about. Despite being next to the railroad tracks with nothing else around, Julio's has always had the reputation of a fine dining establishment, known for the lack of prices on the menu (much to the chagrin of my aforementioned fiscally-conservative father). Apparently prices have since been added.

I can imagine a really great outdoor beer garden in the grassy space above. If you could somehow convince a bunch of creatives to re-locate en masse, they'd find some really cool (and cheap!) places to inhabit here.

Patterns about Town

You know that elated feeling you get when you're finally well after being sick for some time? That's kind of how I felt when I finally picked up my camera after a long break last week. Oh, the joy of having an instant art-maker in my hand!

Being a visual person is a blessing and a curse. Almost every room I enter I re-decorate in my head, and I've been known to swap two pictures in a public bathroom that just were not in the right place. True story.

On the other hand, I see interesting compositions everywhere. I found so many lovely patterns on my walk downtown last week.

I think Morgantown could use more public art, and I've been brainstorming ideas of how that might happen (please comment below if you have some!), but meanwhile, I'm trying to remember to notice the beauty in what already exists. It's here amid the gritty winter dirt.

A Weekend in Boston

This activist honey bear featured prominently in the last college apartment I shared with my friend Sarah--a fine (firetrap if you ask my mom) place we affectionately dubbed the Pearl Palace.  His message seemed ever-relevant on my recent trip to see Sarah in Boston the weekend after the election.

I could not resist snapping some pics of Sarah and Ed's adorable apartment when I woke up Saturday morning. Everywhere you look is an interesting little vignette or a lovely piece of art. Plus, who can resist an affectionate multi-toed cat named Unicorn? No one. Clearly.

And then, because this is Boston, where things go on, we went to check out a new community center of sorts that Harvard opened recently. A ceramics class was in progress, and they let us wonder through and check things out.

What better to follow that then a fancy-pants grilled cheese (goat cheese, arugula, fig jam, yum) and beers?

I also could not resist a street selfie here, a la Vivian Maier. If you've not seen this woman's work, you must check it out. She took huge numbers of photos for years while working as a nanny in Chicago and printed very few herself; her work was discovered posthumously and is absolutely amazing, as explained in this documentary.

Sometimes small town life makes me forget how big the world is. Luckily, even a short weekend trip is enough to remedy that.

The Way Forward

Here in West Virginia we've been wondering about the way forward for many years. People feel desperate about the state of things--the widespread loss of jobs, the incredibly scary drug epidemic, the tendency of young people to leave the state. As a Charleston attorney explained in a blog post that went viral last week, it's these lost opportunities and jobs that account for our state's recent election results.

Last week I listened to a documentary called Cedar Grove, produced by Catherine Moore, who says: "There's just kind of a feeling in the air, right now, in central Appalachia, that we have reached a moment, or a crossroads, where we're gonna have to choose a path for our future." Her piece is worth a listen, and her conclusion simple: it starts with us.

And while I like that sentiment (take the power back! be self-reliant! don't wait for someone to save you!), it does leave me wondering. What does that mean?

For my part I say, hey, check out our beautiful state. We got to see some terrain you can't access except on foot by taking a ride on the Cheat Mountain Salamander train outside of Elkins several weeks ago. Which I mention because tourism is one option we have here. Social entrepreneurship is another.  Regular entrepreneurship could also work. But how do we make that happen? Should we recruit?

Feels Like Home

A couple weekends ago my friend Athena invited me out to pick some of the flowers she planted this year at Harmony Farm. The farm sits up on a hill so that once you're there, it feels very isolated and lovely. There are some houses nearby, but not too close. The sky that day felt big and encompassing in a way that's somewhat rare when you live in the hills. She had grown beautiful long rows of sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, bachelor buttons and nasturtium. 

I've read a lot about self-care over the last few years, and you'd be amazed how many people recommend treating yourself with flowers. These "feel better" lists get rather cliche after a while, but then again, cliches exist for a reason. Flowers can really make a girl happy.

I've been wanting to plant cosmos in my yard for years now, and this year, I finally did. I put a bunch of seeds in front of my shed, and all summer I watched the plants grow very tall and produce nothing. Not one flower. I have a particular affinity for cosmos because growing up my sister and I planted a huge row of them every year across the front of our vegetable garden. They're so delicate and beautiful, and they bloom all summer long. It's October now, and look who finally decided to make an appearance?

This is the second year I've grown dahlias. Last year I planted bulbs, and they produced a few flowers. I dug the bulbs up in the fall and stored them in the basement all winter. (I literally just threw them in a crate. I think you're supposed to take better care and store them in sawdust. It's an evolving hobby, this gardening.) I planted the bulbs this spring, and just like the cosmos, nothing happened for months. But this fall they emerged in all their glory. And they are so amazing. The perfection of all the individual flower parts is like tiny baby toes.

There's just something so good and wholesome about growing flowers. It makes me feel like home. As another friend said to me recently about (being old and) watching birds: Free Joy!

I'll take it.