Author: Paul Gerald

The first noticeable difference on an English hike is that you take a train to the trailhead — and the train goes through a place called Wivelsfield.

The next is that the train ticket runs about $30 each for a ride of just over an hour. But with gas around $11 a gallon, city traffic nightmarish, and coffee and pastries for sale on the train, it all starts to make sense.

Hiking in England definitely makes sense. Why fight the hordes at London tourist attractions when you can read the paper on a train and in two hours be strolling through green, rolling hills past Roman ruins and medieval churches? Such was the proposal my host Liz, a Virginian now living in London, made to me when I came home one evening complaining of London’s noise and concrete.

We consulted a dizzying array of “rural ways” on a website, settling on the easy 5.5-mile Barcombe Walk, described as going “across fields and along quiet country lanes, following the river Ouse to Barcombe Mills, visiting the three villages of Barcombe.”

After grabbing some sandwiches near the station in Lewes (pronounced like Lewis), a 9th-century Saxon town along the Ouse (“ooze”) River, we took a cab to Barcombe (“bark-em”) Cross. The final bit of charm came from our cabbie who cheerily announced, “Right, off we go to Barcombe, then!” He spent most of the ride wondering aloud why anyone would live in the hellhole of London when they could be out here in the country.

We had printed a route map and description from the website, and right away I knew it wasn’t going to be like a standard hike in the U.S. First, it listed refreshments along the way, and second, the opening line was “Starting from the Post Office in Barcombe Cross High Street, turn right, and head towards the roundabout.” We passed the old gatekeeper’s house, the garden an explosion of color, then followed a path along someone’s field to a pond virtually ringed with “private fishing” signs.

From there, the route led us over footbridges, along fields, through thickets, and over several types of stiles, one of which is a spring-loaded self-closing thing called a “kissing gate.” Another big difference from U.S. hiking is that we were often, and quite obviously, walking through private property. One can only imagine an American farmer being asked to give up a swatch of cropland to a trail, then to let strangers walk it. But there’s a funny reversal on thoughts related to land here: Everybody puts fences, gates, and walls around their yard, but public rights-of-way routinely cut through crops. “Cross the drive to follow the waymarked path, bearing left after the first field and continue along the edge of the next field, keeping the hedgerow on your left.” Ah yes, hedgerows, those quintessential symbols of the English countryside. At times they are 10 feet high and, along the roads, barely a car-width away from each other. When we hiked in May, they also were adorned with wild roses and Queen Anne’s Lace.

After, I don’t know, a few fields, several stiles, and a couple of roads, we came to the hamlet of Barcombe Mills, where the Ouse and several tributaries (including Andrew’s Stream) were harnessed in centuries gone by to run mills. Much of the old works are still around, including weirs and dams and chutes, but the last mill burned down in the ’30s, the train station closed in the ’60s, and the pub in the ’90s. Barcombe Mills is what you’d call sleepy today with lovely stretches of path along the river, ducks and geese on the water, and a bridge occupying a spot where one was mentioned as existing in 1066. An old toll sign goes back to pre-decimal days: “waggon and horses 1.6, motor and side-cars 3-0.”

We could have wandered down a side path to the Anchor Inn, a lakeside pub that rents canoes, but we wanted to keep moving; the route map promised a thatched roof in the next village. We found it next to the Church of St. Mary, with walls dating to the 11th century and a tower from the 13th. Just down the road was an old estate with a sculpted hedge nearly 25 feet high and across the way was a house with a pond and gardens, the whole of which was so charming that I thought my heart would explode upon looking at it.

All this loveliness was still bouncing in our heads as we wound behind houses, along lanes, and back into the village of Barcombe Cross, where our map said the trail ended “along the High Street, next to the Royal Oak.” I thought that might be a historic tree, but in fact it’s a pub, where our hike ended with bags of potato chips, a ginger ale for me, a stout for Liz, and a call for the same cabbie to run us back to the station.

Whatever English hiking lacks in wilderness, it makes up for in common sense and charm.

Headed that way? Visit ruralways.org.uk to pick a hike and nationalrail.co.uk to find a train. Airfare to London is around $1,000.

During the recent media circus over the pat-downs at U.S. airports, I had a wave of memories wash over me. I’ve had enough airport experiences, many of them in foreign lands, to honestly think that having somebody’s hand in my crotch wouldn’t be such a big deal.

My favorite was after I had been in Nepal for a month of trekking. I’d been in the sun for a month, my hair was long and frosted, and I was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt and sandals. On the flight from Kathmandu to Bangkok, I was strangely bumped to first class, where the attendant asked if I would like beer, wine, or champagne. My response: “Yes.”

I kept the party going in Bangkok, and by the time we landed in Japan, I was not only experiencing deep culture shock — traveling from medieval villages to uber-tech Japan in less than 48 hours — I was also tore up pretty good. And my passport told the Japanese customs people that the drunk, tie-dyed longhair before them was coming in from Thailand.

What followed was such a thorough search that it would have uncovered elicit postage stamps. Every article of clothing came out of my luggage, every pair of socks was separated and turned inside-out, every button was unbuttoned. But what made it weird was the whole thing being done in a polite, respectful Japanese style and with white gloves.

They actually repacked my luggage, improving on the job I had done, and apologized to me the whole time. I was swaying, trying not to pass out after a three-country bender. Had I known I could get away with being felt up, I would have pounced at the chance.

Coming into Canada once, after a week of backpacking — and no showers — my buddy and I were questioned by the authorities, while dogs sniffed around our pickup. While we were inside, being questioned in separate rooms, a VW busload of hippies was seated in the lobby, and we passed the hour or more making jokes about sitting on the Group W bench. We were having so much fun they let us go with good wishes.

Going into Mexico is about as tough as going into Arkansas. My friends and I rolled into Tijuana (for no morally acceptable reason, by the way) after having this conversation with the Mexican authorities:

“Que tiene?” (“What do you have?”)

“Nada.” (“Nothing.”)

The opposite was flying out of Pakistan. You carry your luggage into the airport, where it and you are thoroughly searched. Then your luggage goes to the screeners. After it’s screened, you reclaim it and carry it yourself to the tarmac, where dogs sniff it (and you) before it goes onto the plane, where you’re patted down again. And we couldn’t take batteries onto the plane. The reason was never made clear.

Another favorite was arriving in Egypt years ago. It’s an interesting enough experience, but knowing no one adds a certain something. When my host tracked me down in the airport, his greeting — almost in one, continuous word — was: “Hello, great to met you; welcome, let’s go to the duty-free store.”

I’m not much of a shopper, but it was his country. So we got into a long line, which consisted entirely of Egyptians holding cash and foreigners holding passports. I inquired about this and was told that Egypt is essentially a dry country, but foreigners can buy booze at the duty-free store. Not only that, but a bottle of Johnny Walker was about $100 on the black market but about $15 at the duty-free shop. So my arrival was a cause for celebration, and, in fact, a decent-sized party was waiting for us at home.

The champagne didn’t make it there, and Johnny Walker has probably never caused such a stir. Those folks were sure happy to see me! And by the end of the evening, I was about ready to start grabbing crotches.

I went to Italy last year and came back with … well, let’s just say that I violated the ban on importing meat and cheese. Grossly. And I could have avoided duty on wine and olive oil. The whole thing about visiting agricultural areas and staying on farms? It didn’t come up, and here’s why: Those folks in customs waved us through. I had two stuffed duffle bags, a big “Nada” on my customs form, and all I got was a half-attentive nod. At that point, a little physical contact would have almost been comforting, just to know they’re paying attention.

It’s funny what New Yorkers complain about. Most people would see all kinds of annoying subject matter: traffic, noise, prices, pollution. But all the folks I hung out with on the Upper West Side seemed stressed out about strollers.

Strollers disturb the finely tuned flow of sidewalk travel, which in Manhattan is almost an art form. “Personal space” there extends outward in inches, not feet, and everyone is constantly moving. So strollers really put a kink in the groove. And what they do to a typical little New York City cafe can cause near-riots.

Of course, it isn’t entirely about the strollers. Listen awhile, and you’ll catch another level: Many of the ladies pushing the strollers are not the moms. They’re Jamaicans, or a host of other mostly non-white nationalities, pushing around white babies. This is where you start to get a sense of the real complaint. It’s the “G” word.

There’s a funny aspect to being a wealthy white liberal. Many of the world’s problems can be traced to rich white people, and liberals claim, at least, to care deeply about these problems. This leads us to the guilt, and to comments like, “This neighborhood used to have some character to it, but now it’s all getting gentrified.” When this stuff comes from fairly well-off white people, it borders — to me, anyway — on the comical.

So it is that the Upper West Side, an area that stretches from, say, West 65th Street up to about West 110th Street, has progressed from mostly African American 100 years ago to tenements in the 1950s to a big gay population in the ’60s and ’70s to … well, the strollers. And $13 lemon-ricotta pancakes.

Throw in a $6 side of bacon and a $5 glass of orange juice, and you have a typical breakfast at Sarabeth’s on Amsterdam Avenue, just up from West 81st Street. (You can dial it down to $7 porridge or up to $15 eggs Benedict.) Sarabeth and her husband started making spreadable fruit in their apartment, then opened a bakery/kitchen in 1981. According to their website, “the little store, with its unique charm and wholesomely delicious products, became an instant success with discriminating New Yorkers.” Today, a basket of “Sarabeth’s Muffins and Legendary Preserves” will set you back $12, whether you’re discriminating or not.

From that (humble?) start, the Sarabeth’s empire has grown. First was the Upper East Side location in 1983, then the Upper West Side in 1996. And by the way, the Wikipedia entry for the Upper West Side says it is “decidedly upscale” and reputedly home to “New York City’s affluent cultural and artistic workers.” The Upper East Side, by contrast, is “traditionally home to affluent commercial and business types.” Affluent being the common thread, both are prime Sarabeth’s habitat.

On the Upper West Side, the scene tends to overwhelm the newcomer. There are more languages, ethnicities, and cuisines in one block of Amsterdam Avenue than in all of Memphis, and it all seems somehow gritty and cool at the same time. But my friend Joseph, who’s lived within a few blocks of West 96th Street for almost all of his 50-something years, can see all the changes. In fact, he likes to say that you’ve become a true New Yorker when you can say what a place used to be.

Joseph and I, by inclination and income, are more naturally drawn to diners, delis, and family places. He steered me to the finest roasted chicken I’ve ever had, at a Peruvian restaurant in his neighborhood called Flor de Mayo.

And the best dining experience I had in a week in the city was when I called him one day from 8th Avenue and West 14th Street and asked where I should eat in the area. He told me about a family-owned Puerto Rican place up the avenue called La Taza de Oro, and I stuffed myself on baked pork chops, rice, black beans, flan, and coffee for about $12.

Now that same $12 wasn’t going to get me the lemon-ricotta pancakes at Sarabeth’s, but I didn’t care. Like the city, and like Joseph, I can find room for just about everything, at least occasionally. I can do the counter at a loud Puerto Rican place, and I can do the flowers and Euro-café outdoor seating at Sarabeth’s.

The bacon was crisp and tasty, the juice fresh-squeezed, and the pancakes amazing — as they’d better be, for these prices. They were light and fluffy and drizzled with just the right amount of organic maple syrup from Doerfler’s Farm.

I don’t know where or what Doerfler’s Farm is, but I’m sure it’s a discriminating place.

One of the times my New York hosts chuckled at me, and there were several, was when they asked what I’d be doing one day, and I said, “Checking out Brooklyn.”

It isn’t that a day in Brooklyn is poorly spent. Quite the opposite. Among other qualities, it may be the most ethnically diverse place in America, with 38 percent of the population foreign-born. No, their chuckling was based on my ignorance. I thought of Brooklyn as a “part of town,” which is technically true. But Brooklyn has almost 2.5 million residents. Were it an independent city, it would be the fourth most populous we have. So, imagine someone telling you they were going to spend a day “checking out,” say, Houston.

My hosts told me to focus: Pick two places you want to see and spend half a day in each. They suggested the Botanic Garden, and I thought two things: 1) There’s a botanic garden in Brooklyn? And 2) Why would I spend precious New York City time in a garden?

They insisted, so I relented. But even as I plopped down my $8 and walked in from Flatbush Avenue, I was thinking I’d knock this out in a few minutes, then go over to Park Slope and get a cup of coffee or wander over to Williamsburg and take a friend’s suggestion to “check out the tattooed hipsters.”

I don’t remember exactly when I forgot about Park Slope, but it was early. Perhaps it was right inside the entrance, when I walked under a massive wisteria arbor and saw a long and beautiful lawn surrounded by azaleas. For a moment, I thought that was the whole garden, and I would have been impressed. But at the far end of the lawn, I saw a patch of forest across a walkway. It turned out to be a native flora garden, the first of its kind in the country and a reminder that even while wandering past a meadow, pond, stream, and flower-filled pine forest, I was in the middle of a great American city in a 100-year-old garden.

I caught a glimpse of another great lawn down the hill and headed for it. On the way, I found a lilac collection, with 150 different species. Walking among the blooms was like showering in perfume. And speaking of such, the lawn turned out to be a rose garden, with 5,000 plants also in full bloom. That garden alone would be a major attraction in any city.

That’s when I got curious and pulled out the map they’d given me at the entrance — and realized I was only a third of the way through! So much for the hipsters. I had gone from “knocking it out in an hour” to needing a plan so I could get it all done.

I started with looping past the Cherry Esplanade, since its 40 species already had bloomed, then down through the fairy-tale-sounding Bluebell Wood, where I just missed the spectacle of 45,000 Spanish bluebells blooming under the shade of beech and birch trees.

I looped around to the left and headed for the Japanese Garden but first was drawn in by the Fragrance Garden. It was designed in 1955 for the visually impaired, but for all of us it’s a festival for the other senses: plants with scented leaves, plants for touching, fragrant flowers, and kitchen herbs. Just down the path, and aimed straight for your eyes, is the Shakespeare Garden, with 80 or more flowers mentioned in his writings.

After all this sensory input, the Japanese Garden was the perfect, peaceful antidote — a bit of serenity within the grand abundance. Low hills wrap around a pond, in which an orange gateway stands in stark solitude. The path leads over wooden bridges to a viewing platform, then up to a waterfall that’s heard before it’s seen and occupies yet another level of serenity. Just beyond is a Shinto shrine, as if high in the mountains.

In a placid daze now, I wandered through the Magnolia Plaza and the Lily Pool Terrace. I sipped coffee and watched birds in a patio at the Conservatory, then drifted into the building to get out of the sun. I discovered a bonsai collection and became lost in their miniature world.

One of these trees, perhaps three feet tall, was 115 years old. I stood in awe before it, considering how many generations of people must have worked on it. It had both the grandeur and exquisite detail of an old-growth fir and, despite its size, the stature to match its sublime surroundings.

From the staggering size of the city to the peace and quiet of a garden, I had indeed found something special in Brooklyn.

A moment at the Grateful Dead exhibit in New York City captured the whole experience for me. I was standing, enraptured, before a handwritten page of Dick Latvala’s notes on the 1977 Cornell University show — stick with me here — when two Russian girls about 20 years old asked me to take their picture. They were wearing headphones with the audio of The Grateful Dead Movie, which was being projected onto a wall, and wanted to record their visit.

I took their picture, then asked what they knew about the Dead. “Nothing,” one of them said. “What is it?”

Aside from being pointless, asking a Deadhead what the Dead were all about can be borderline dangerous. Tempted though I was to devour the next hour of their lives, I let them off the hook with “They were an American rock-and-roll band.” The girls skipped on out the door, and I went back to read that Latvala called the closing of the Winterland in 1978 “the greatest time I have ever spent on this Earth.”

Somewhere between “what is it” and “greatest time on Earth” lies the record of the Grateful Dead. And somewhere in a library at the University of California at Santa Cruz is 600,000 linear feet of books, recordings, business correspondence, posters, tickets, photographs, films, stage props, and who knows what else, collectively known as the Grateful Dead Archive. A small show with some highlights of the collection has been extended at the New-York Historical Society until Labor Day.

One might ask, “Why?” The short answer is so that people who don’t know much about them can learn a little something, and the rest of us can feel the vibe again. The Dead may or may not have been “one of the most significant cultural forces in 20th century America,” as the exhibit’s press materials claim, but they were definitely interesting.

Non-fans will learn, for example, that the band was corresponding directly with its fans back in the early 1970s. Today we have Facebook, but 40 years ago the Dead were asking fans, via stamped letters, for advice on cool old theaters “where we would dig playing.” By the 1980s, they were selling tickets directly through the mail and setting up “tapers’ sections” at shows. When it ended in 1995, they had a mailing list with more than 500,000 names on it.

For Deadheads such as myself, putting on a set of headphones and hearing one of those old ticket announcements, re-living the excitement at new shows being announced, then realizing this one was for a show I actually went to at Cal Expo in Sacramento, then remembering the amazing glow-in-the-dark Frisbee toss I had with a stoned-out waif in the parking lot there, and the “Scarlet Begonias” they played the third night … well, let’s just say that this exhibit hits different people in different places.

Much of it is similar, though on a far smaller scale at this point, to a tour of Elvis memorabilia: of some interest to an outsider, captivation to a true fan. There’s Jerry Garcia’s guitar next to Bob Weir’s once again and the skeleton dolls used in the “Touch of Grey” video. There are handwritten notes for the “Wall of Sound” speaker system they tried out in 1974. There’s a video somebody shot at a gig in 1967. There’s a wall of decorated envelopes fans sent their ticket requests in. Another of backstage passes. Another of tickets — and for me, the teary recognition of one from December 30, 1991, in Oakland, which featured a drum solo so powerful and intense that the drummers (and some fans) leapt into a bear hug when it was done.

Okay, I’m back now. The overall effect of the exhibit is to realize that the Dead were “an American rock-and-roll band,” sure, but also something else. You might think they were a sham perpetrated upon generations of drug-laden teenagers, and you might think they were (again with the press materials) “one of the most significant cultural forces in 20th century America,” admired by “a sociological phenomenon known as the Deadheads.”

Full disclosure here: I went to 50 or 60 shows and can write some of the most over-the-top prose about them you’d ever want to read, but even I cringe at phrases like this one from The Atlantic in March: “The Grateful Dead Archive … will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethno-musicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians … business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses.”

I mean … sure. Maybe. I can assure you of one thing: It was a hell of a good time. And if you weren’t into it, it remains a curiosity. But either way, if you’re in New York between now and Labor Day, it’s worth dropping $12 to check out the exhibit.

“Grateful Dead: Now Playing at the

New-York Historical Society” (nyhistory.org)

hen an Italian friend — who has lived in Chianti his whole life, has worked as a tour guide for more than 10 years, has been an ambassador for the local wine and olive-oil makers, has wandered the back roads of Tuscany looking for people living the traditional way — when that guy tells you you’re going to see a shepherd family for a homemade meal, you know you’re in for something.

That was the promise as Silvio and I headed past a riverside village, up a couple of winding roads, down a gravel track, and arrived at the shepherd family’s house just before the entrance to the Casentino National Park. It isn’t quite as rustic as you might think — the family has a car and agriturismo rooms for rent — but the fence appeared handmade, the house was of stone, the roof tile.

Though we couldn’t see them, there were 70 sheep out there somewhere, as well as pigs, chickens, and rabbits. Lorenzo, the young man who greeted us at the door, said his father was out with the sheep. He also said his mother Miranda was making us pasta for lunch. This I had to see.

On a large wooden table in the middle of a small kitchen, Miranda had rolled out a circle of handmade pasta, about three feet across. She was working it over with a four-foot rolling pin, which she said (with Silvio translating) was her grandmother’s and more than 100 years old.

She was working pasta with ease. I asked how often she makes this meal, and she said, “Every Sunday.” Sometimes, in Italy, it’s what’s unsaid that puts it all in perspective. By “every Sunday,” one can assume she means since forever. And that the family eats together every Sunday, maybe with visitors — though Lorenzo already had told me only nine people live within a mile of the place. So it’s just the three of them, every Sunday, eating handmade pasta.

I asked what’s going in the pasta, and Miranda pointed to a large bowl filled with a reddish-gold substance. She reeled off the ingredients: mashed potatoes, tomato, garlic, olive oil, and nutmeg. She shrugged — a classically Italian gesture that says, “What else do you need?” I asked if all this came from their garden, and she said “of course” with another shrug. Well, the olive oil they get in trade for their fresh sheep’s cheese with a family down the hill and from friends like Silvio, who brought oil from his grove and wine from a friend.

Miranda made little piles of the filling all over the pasta, lined up in rows. Then she folded half the pasta back on itself, the filling leaving lumps in the smooth, golden surface. With flour-covered hands, she patted down the spaces in between, then took out a roller and cut out the ravioli.

I asked about a sauce, and she said, “Burro e salvia.” Butter and sage. There was another shrug. The butter was a trade from the man with a cow down the road, and the sage was from the garden.

While the pasta boiled, Lorenzo told me that for a small family, a few sheep and some land equals independence. You get wool, milk, pecorino and ricotta cheese, and meat from the animals, plus vegetables from the garden. You can go in the forest and get wild herbs and chestnuts. What else do you need?

I realized I was visiting another world, one that may be disappearing. With some wine poured and pecorino and bread and ham and olive oil and tomatoes to snack on, the conversation turned to people being disconnected from the land, not knowing where their food comes from, not eating together as families. This family said they couldn’t imagine living like that. I realized I don’t have to imagine it. I was the alien in the kitchen.

The pasta arrived, and even if I could describe it, would I need to? Every food fantasy you can come up with came true on that table. It was luscious. I wanted to wallow in it. I wanted to stay at that table forever. Part of me, a happier and more peaceful part, is still there.

The home described here has an apartment that can be booked. See casapallino.com/en.

Every morning in Italy, I would wake up with the sunrise.

Early in my trip, it seemed a little harsh, since the sun appeared over the hill at about 6 a.m. But after spending a few days and nights in the Tuscan countryside, one gets a new understanding of time.

I was sleeping in a renovated 16th-century barn built with its open end facing south to dry the hay in the late-summer sunlight. Today that side is a large window with a bed nearby, so a visitor can lie there and watch the day’s first light spread over the vineyards and olive groves and hilltop houses. Times like that make you forget about time.

Besides, once you settle into the Tuscan groove, you realize that time is a concept and a highly elastic one at that. My friend Silvio would tell me, as we said goodnight, that we would start our day at, say, 9 a.m. By my third day with him, I’d come to realize that the little shrug he offered with this comment, the subtle wave of the hand, the shift of the lip, meant “That’s 9 a.m., Tuscan time.”

So, after watching the sunrise and then catnapping some, I would get up, splash my face, dress, and write in my journal for a while. Then I’d see if the light in the main house was on, and if it was, I’d amble over to find Silvio at the long wooden table by the fireplace, where maybe some coals still glowed from the previous night’s roasting. With a half-mumbled giorno he’d motion to the dry toast, the homemade fig jam, the stove-top espresso maker with a couple shots left in it, and the bottle of water. This, on the occasion that they go so far, is what Italians call breakfast.

About the coffee: What we call espresso, they call café. Add a splash of milk, and it’s a macchiato, which over here is usually some concoction with caramel flavoring and whipped cream. What we call coffee, they don’t drink. An Americano is café with water, because they see that Americans can’t handle the real stuff. A latte over there (latte is the word for milk) is served separately: café and a pitcher of warm milk for you to mix in. Cappuccinos are only for the morning. Drinking a cappuccino after lunch is as strange to an Italian as drinking a Pepsi with breakfast is to us.

To my palette, espresso is the way to go. A strong, flavorful shot or two, perhaps with some sugar to dull the edge, with some toast and jam and a glass of water … that’s a proper breakfast. It’s just enough slap to get you going, not enough substance to weigh you down. Later, when you have your mid-morning fade, you can swing by the little shop in town for a pastry and a cappuccino, and then lunch will be big and filling, with pasta and wine, and then, along with most other people in the Tuscan countryside, you’ll shut it down for an hour or two, maybe even take a nap. Then have another shot of espresso, and you’re ready to go till dinner.

This was the general outline of the day that awaited me when I’d head back to the apartment to finish my morning routine, and Silvio would say, “Maybe half an hour.” With an interior chuckle, I’d walk with the dog out to the road for some morning air, take in the sweeping view, then watch and listen to the swallows flitting around in the trees.

After some amount of time that my American mind identified as “maybe half an hour,” I’d see Silvio push open his door, still in sweats and T-shirt, and leave to water the vegetable garden, the wagging dog now at his heels. I would grab my journal and sit at the table on the lawn — ready to leave, just as ready to stay.

Soon, sometime, eventually, we would be driving some winding lane through the hills, so Silvio could show me the Renaissance chapel his friends are renovating, or the new olive mill another friend put in this year, or his favorite view of a particular medieval village from a recently found hilltop vista. Or maybe today was the day the local wood-fired baker has that special bread, or the shepherd is saving us a ricotta.

Walking up from the garden, petting the dog, Silvio would say — half ask, really, and with the same half shrug — “About 15 minutes.” I’d look up from my writing, take in the new angle of light on the rolling hills, feel the warmth of the sun, then shoot him a smile, and a wave of the hand, and say, “Whenever.”

Tom Eggers

Enchantment Lakes Basin

The people of the Pacific Northwest are almost comically proud of
their home turf. They refer to much of the U.S., with just a hint of
scorn, as “back East,” and what they say about California can’t be
printed here. They often engage in conversations about how lucky they
are to live in a land of wild oceans, high mountains, vast deserts,
tall trees, splashing waterfalls, nice people, and a seemingly endless
array of outdoor recreation options.

So it makes an impression when the hikers and climbers of the
Northwest get a little misty-eyed about one place in particular —
a relatively small, lake-filled basin between soaring granite peaks on
the east side of Washington’s Cascade Range. Even the name given the
place, the Enchantment Lakes Basin, suggests a reverence that makes it
stand out among the countless other lakes, valleys, and peaks.

A trip to “the Enchantments” might lead anyone to scatter words like
“fairy tale” and “magic” and, yes, “enchanting.” One might also throw
in “challenging,” not only for the physical hurdles — it’s a
climb of well over 3,000 feet — but also for the government
bureaucracy one must negotiate to even get permission to go.

Just a few miles up Icicle Creek, flowing out of the Wenatchee
National Forest, lie two trailheads. Between them, way up there, is the
Enchantments, and one only has to choose which approach one prefers:
the long slog up past the Snow Lakes (10 miles, 6,000 feet of gain, few
views) or the express version up 2,200 feet in five miles to
spectacular Colchuck Lake (and a possible night in camp) followed by a
wickedly steep “trail” up Aasgard Pass. Just imagine a pile of rocks
more than 2,000 feet high; that’s Aasgard. Yet most hikers
prefer this route, just to get the climb over with.

The mountain goats are generally waiting at the top of Aasgard. And
I don’t mean that in a trite way: They literally stand near the trail,
watching hikers come up. They are waiting for food handouts (highly
illegal) or the salt of our urine (highly awkward). Rangers actually
tell hikers to pee on rocks so the goats won’t chow down all the
vegetation.

Arriving atop Aasgard, you’re 7,800 feet above sea level and at the
top of a rocky ramp, about a mile and a half long and dotted with lakes
and pockets of trees. The lakes have names like Perfection, Isolation,
Tranquil, and Inspiration. At the upper end, they sit among rugged,
alpine scenery with glaciers and granite walls above them. Further
down, they are laced with trees, including the gold-in-autumn larch,
which brings a whole new horde of (frigid) hikers in September.

On both sides are immense rocky crags, many of which lure climbers
from all over the country. But even if you aren’t of the rope-and-piton
crowd, there are a couple of peaks (like Little Annapurna) that are
classified as “walk-ups,” which you can knock out in an easy day from a
camp in the basin.

About that “camp in the basin,” though. It’s much-sought-after, so
much so that the Forest Service limits access to the whole area. It’s
all done by a mail-in lottery around the end of February each year
— five months before the snow melts — and there are three
permits available.

One of them, the one everybody wants, lets you spend the night up in
the basin; the other two let you camp at lower lakes like Colchuck or
Snow and day-hike up to the basin. In 2008, 1,000 applications came in.
A third of them got a basin permit, a third got a backup date or
location, and a third got nothing.

And here’s the thing with those permits: You have to pay in advance,
and if you don’t get one, they keep the money. So list backup options
when you apply. (Get all the info you need at: fs.fed.us/r6/wenatchee/passes/enchantments/).

It’s kind of a shame to have to deal with all of this. It’s also a
blessing, though, because without some system in place, hikers would
overrun the place and, ironically, ruin it as a hiking destination.

But that level of interest, indeed demand, should tell you
something. If folks in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho — many of
whom moved from “back East” to be closer to all the natural beauty
— are that excited about a place, you can bet it’s something
special. If you doubt it, plug “Enchantment Lakes Washington” into
Google Images sometime, and I bet you’ll be reading up on permits
pretty soon.

Wills and Caroline Gardner

Last I heard, they had made it to central Oregon — and his
pedals weren’t falling off anymore. That’s a good thing, especially
when your goal is to ride your bike across America.

To judge from their whirlwind beginning, Caroline and Wills Gardner
— siblings from Memphis determined to ride their bikes this
summer from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine — were relying
primarily on youthful enthusiasm and a couple of St. Christopher medals
given to them by a Central Gardens neighbor.

St. Christopher is the patron saint of safe travel, but in the first
15 minutes of their ride — 15 minutes! — what they needed
was their first aid kit and tools to repair Wills’ bike. That’s because
A) it’s unclear if they had ever ridden their bikes fully loaded with
gear and B) they didn’t take their bikes for a test ride after they
were assembled.

Let’s back up. Why are these two twentysomethings — he a 2009
UT-Knoxville grad and she a refugee from a Dallas hedge fund —
riding their bikes for 72 days and 4,200 miles this summer? Simple,
really. “We were going to volunteer in Nepal,” Caroline told me, “but
then we realized we’d be there for the rainy season.”

I took them to Astoria, on the Oregon coast, to pick up the bikes,
which had been shipped from Memphis. Along the way, I asked them some
questions.

How long have you been training for this? Caroline: “A few
weeks.”

How long has it been since you rode your bike 40 miles in a day?
Wills: “I never have!”

A few more questions determined that they didn’t know how to use
their camp stove, had yet to spend a night in their tent, and their
food stash consisted of ramen noodles, peanut butter, honey, bread, and
Pop Tarts.

I stopped asking questions and started praying to St.
Christopher.

They started out on June 3rd, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic
August 10th, and immediately both crashed. I think Wills went down
first, but both needed patching up. Then Wills’ pedal came off in a
construction area, which is where that test ride back at the shop might
have helped.

That night in camp, they discovered that their alcohol stove, made
from an old Budweiser can, “proved quite dangerous.” Caroline set it
and a can of denatured alcohol on fire, but they eventually feasted on
“burned beans, cold corn, and half-cooked ramen.” (Mom and Dad Gardner,
back in Memphis, have probably quit reading by now.)

The next day, they were confronted with that quintessential Oregon
hazard, the logging truck — in a tunnel, no less. Both sprawled
out again, and a couple miles later, Wills’ pedal was gone for good. So
there they were, unable to ride, “questioning just what in the hell
[they] were doing.”

But that is when St. Christopher intervened, in the form of “a crew
of Texans,” one of whom was a biking enthusiast. They were given a ride
to a bike shop and treated to a new crankshaft for Wills. They just
beat the rain into camp that night. They had peanut butter and honey
sandwiches with Pop Tarts at Cape Lookout State Park on the Pacific
Ocean.

The trip was on, and special travel magic — every day a story
— was flowing.

The next night they camped by the Salmon River, and on Day 4, they
were given homemade jerky by a man with a shotgun (he was hunting
gophers). Then they stopped at a winery for a tasting. In Corvallis,
Oregon, they met an original member of the 1976 trans-America bike ride
and were fed pasta with meat sauce by a group of 15 Germans in
camp.

Like I said, the last message they left said they were in central
Oregon. This means that the Cascade Mountains are behind them and that
some more friends in my Portland betting pool have been eliminated. (I
lost when they pulled out of Eugene.)

With continued good luck, on the day this issue of the Flyer
hits the street, they will be in or near Grangeville, Idaho, looking
forward to arriving soon at Montana’s Lolo Hot Springs. After Montana,
it’s on across Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, New York, and New England. We shall see.

As I waved to them outside the bike shop in Astoria, I think I spoke
for all of Memphis when I said, “Good luck.” Wills said, “We’ll need
it!”

It or St. Christopher.