Sauble Beach & Goderich, Ontario

Posted on October 21, 2024 by admin

I was a little surprised the seagull allowed me to get this close.

On the other hand, he’s a resident, at least sometimes, of Sauble Beach on Lake Huron. He’s used to people, because people show up in large numbers at Sauble Beach when the sun is hot, and that birdbrain of his is enough of a brain to know that the beach apes are usually harmless. Even better, food always seems to be around them, and they’re pretty careless about dropping some of it.

We’d come to Sauble Beach – the unincorporated town of that name and the beach of that name in Ontario – after our easy walk around Sauble Falls PP a few miles (ah, km) to the north. We were looking for lunch. And there it was.

Note the distinct lack of a crowd. Out of frame are two high school boys eating, and they were all the other customers at that moment, toward the end of (2 pm) conventional lunchtime on the Thursday ahead of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Other places were already closed for the season, but Beach Burger soldiered on for the trickle of customers still around.

A beach feast.

The concoction on the right, of course, is poutine. It’s not just for Québécois any more. Nor even just for Canadians.

Beach towns have beach businesses.

Which would be pointless without the beach.

Further down the coast, Goderich bills itself as the Prettiest Town in Canada, at least on the postcards I bought there. I will say that the courthouse square has some fine vintage buildings.

The severe Huron County Courthouse itself, a 1950s replacement for a building that burned down.

Nicely placed color on the square.

We walked around the square, which was pretty much our entire experience with Goderich that day, except for popping into the just-off-the-square Goderich Branch of the Huron County Library to (1) admire the building and (2) find a restroom. Waiting for Yuriko, I had a short talk with one of the staff, and found out that the building was originally a Carnegie library. The robber baron financed libraries in Canada too. Who knew?

The square isn’t actually a square, but octagonal, with eight commercial blocks and roads radiating out in alignment with the eight points of a compass, according to Paul Ciufo, who wrote an audio guide to the square, as confirmed by Google Maps. Ciufo calls the design “unique in Canada.”

“The plan was chosen by John Galt, Superintendent of the Canada Company, and co-founder of Goderich in 1829,” Ciufo says. “Galt was a polymath — a businessman, world traveler, and friend of the Romantic poets. Galt wrote a biography of Lord Byron, and authored novels second in popularity only to Sir Walter Scott’s. Town planning fascinated Galt, and he yearned for more creative designs than the grid pattern favoured by the Royal Engineers.”

William “Tiger” Dunlop

Another founder of the town was an even more colorful Scotsman, William “Tiger” Dunlop (d. 1848). The 19th century was quite the time for ambitious men looking to be colorful.

After serving with distinction as a doctor in the War of 1812, “[Dunlop] went… to India where, as a journalist and editor in Calcutta, he took a hand in forcing the relaxation of press censorship,” the Dictionary of Canadian Biography tells us. “His unsuccessful attempt to clear tigers from Sagar Island in the Bay of Bengal, in an effort to turn the place into a tourist resort, provided him with his famous nickname…”

Eventually Dunlop went to Upper Canada, involving himself heavily in efforts to settle the area as an official with the Canada Company.

“The year 1832 saw publication of his guide for emigrants, Statistical sketches of Upper Canada, an event that… helped put him back on public view,” the dictionary continues. “This engaging book, written under the pseudonym A Backwoodsman, mixes some (small) practical advice with much tomfoolery and fully exploits the author’s humorous persona. In his chapter on climate, for example, Dunlop says that Upper Canada ‘may be pronounced the most healthy country under the sun, considering that whisky can be procured for about one shilling sterling per gallon…’

“During the rebellion in Upper Canada in 1837-38, Dunlop raised a militia unit, whose nickname, The Bloody Useless, gives a clue to the important role it played…

“Dunlop is said to have done everything on a grand scale, and this is nowhere more evident than in his drinking. He kept his liquor in a wheeled, wooden cabinet called “The Twelve Apostles.” One bottle he kept full of water: he called it, naturally, ‘Judas.’ His reputation as a maker of punch ‘and other antifogmaticks’ was legendary with the Blackwoodians.”

Antifogmatic. I knew I got out of bed this morning for something; to learn such a fine word.

Bruce Peninsula National Park: The Sand

Posted on October 17, 2024 by admin

Clambering around on rocks, even the kind that don’t require any technical skills, takes energy, so lunch was the next order of business after our hike along the shore of Georgian Bay last Wednesday. We spotted a food truck outside the park, on Ontario 6, called the Hungry Hiker. That seemed fitting.

It had a Bigfoot theme. That seemed odd.

During our travels in the U.S. West, especially Montana-Idaho-Washington state, we noticed many roadside Bigfoot depictions, including this one in metro Seattle, in front of a place in Edmonds where we had lunch one day.

The Hungry Hiker Bigfoot was the only one we saw in Canada. Whimsy on the part of the owner, maybe, which also included some of the menu items, such as the Sweaty Yeti, a chicken sandwich with a sweet glaze. We ordered one, but not The Big Foot, which was a foot-long hot dog. Sasquatch theme or not, the Hungry Hiker’s food was satisfying.

Next stop: Singing Sands Beach at Bruce Peninsula NP. The park includes more than one section, with the beach on the other side of the peninsula, facing Lake Huron proper.

Nice. A big, almost empty beach. In mid-summer, it’s probably overrun. In October, there were only a few people and a frolicking dog.

Behind the beach, a fen.

I don’t know a fen from a bog or a marsh, even though I’ve seen a fen, but that’s what the sign said. It also informed us that resident in the area is the Massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus), “Ontario’s only venomous snake.”

I didn’t know Ontario had any venomous snakes either, much less a rattler. We were further assured that they are small (not a good thing) and shy (better), so they are likely to avoid you. Also, they are endangered, so gardeners in, say, suburban Toronto aren’t at much risk. Canada ≠ Australia, despite some historic similarities. As we tromped along, none were to be heard.

A short trail wandered into the trees near the beach, past a couple of creeks meeting Lake Huron.

The trail was a loop, returning by way of grasslands and more beach, which was a little rocky at that point.

We still had some afternoon left – a warmish day in October isn’t to be wasted – so we went to the BPNP visitor center, back on the Georgian Bay side, to climb the observation tower.

Nice views, though not as much fall color as we’d expected. I could feel the tower shake just a little in the wind, which wasn’t a pleasant sensation. I’m still up for climbing towers for the vistas, but find myself a bit more unnerved by the experience than I used to be.

We still weren’t quite done. We drove the short way to Big Tub Harbour, which isn’t part of the national park, but rather part of the town of Tobermory.

The thing to see there is the lighthouse.

Still a working light, so no climbing, unlike others. Not as storied as the Lighthouse of Alexandria or even the Eddystone Light, but good enough on a windy afternoon in Ontario.

The Idaho State Capitol & Bits of Boise

Posted on October 2, 2024 by admin

Boise is a growth town. I know that because the Census Bureau reported a population of about 235,600 in 2020, compared with 205,600 in 2010. Not only that, driving in downtown Boise was a pain in the ass last month, considering how many streets were closed for construction. That’s usually a growth indicator.

Adding to the irritation is the fact that many of downtown’s one-way streets (that are still open) go opposite of the way you want to go. But when you’ve found a place to park, and arrive at a restaurant like Bacon in downtown Boise, you forget all that. Nice tip before we left Seattle from Dan, who has spent some time in the area.

Maybe not good to eat in the long run, but in the short run, it makes you glad you spent the night in Boise and headed out for breakfast the next day. Also, downtown Boise looked interesting, especially on foot.

The former Idanha Hotel, which opened exactly at the turn of the 20th century – January 1, 1901 – and is now a multifamily residential property. Its architect, a Scotsman named W.S. Campbell, founded a firm in the late 19th century in Boise that’s still around: CSHQA.

Everywhere has one of these murals, though usually they say, Welcome to…

Eventually, by way of Boise’s unpredictable streets, we made our way to the Idaho State Capitol. I saw it briefly in ’89, but only from the outside. A grand edifice.

Grand inside as well.

John E. Tourtellotte & Co. designed the capitol, completing much of it in 1912, though the House and Senate wings came a few years later. Tourtellotte is another one of those architects of yore who did a lot of work.

The Idaho State Capitol has a gilded Washington on a gilded horse.

“Austrian immigrant [Charles Ostner] carved George Washington from a single pine tree,” the capitol web site says. “With a postage stamp to guide him, Ostner took four years to create his masterpiece. His young son was said to have frequently held a candle to light his workroom after darkness fell.

“Once completed, Ostner gave his rendition of our first president to the Territory in 1869. In return, Idaho’s leadership paid him $2,500.” Later, it was gilded and much later, restored.

Any capitol can have an image of George Washington. But how many have a Benjamin Harrison?

Idaho is, of course, another of the six Benjamin Harrison states, entering the union with his signature in 1890 as number 43, just days ahead of Wyoming. A nearby sign says the Harrison bust was carved in 2009 by one Steve Ussing using wood from a red oak planted by the president himself.

Glacier National Park

Posted on September 19, 2024 by admin

“Did you see the weather forecast for today?” the young-faced NPS ranger said to us at the Many Glacier entrance station of Glacier National Park on August 23. Skies were clear that morning and the air had the makings of a warm day, but I confessed that we hadn’t. That was a bit of carelessness, considering that we were planning to take a hike. I think he wanted to tell us that, but thought better of it.

“There might be a thunderstorm this afternoon,” he continued politely. “Or not. Weather’s unpredictable here.”

I thanked him and we went on our way. What to do with that information, anyway? Cower somewhere dry? No. The hike was on.

Another way to refer to Glacier is Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, since the much smaller Waterton Lakes NP, a Parks Canada unit, is just north of Glacier on the other side of the Canadian border. Single park, my foot. You still need a passport to go to Waterton, at least if you drive, and I assume you pay separate admission. Still, the road to Waterton has a cool name: Chief Mountain International Highway (Montana 17 and then Alberta 6).

The part of Glacier NP we first visited was about 20 miles south of the border, and I think the closest we came to Canada on this trip. We had our passports, in case we wanted to go. It’s good to have options. But we didn’t have the energy for the rigmarole of two border crossings.

A short drive from the Many Glacier entrance is the Many Glacier Hotel.

The hotel has views. Looking out on Swiftcurrent Lake.

Many Glacier Hotel dates from the 1910s, the handsome sort of place railroads were building at the time. Swiss style, to go with the notion of Glacier NP as the Switzerland of America. These days it is priced as a luxury property, only open in the summer. This year, it closed just this week. During the winter, I suppose, management hires a fellow like Jack Torrance as a caretaker. Well, maybe not quite like him.

A trail starts the hotel and goes around Swiftcurrent Lake, as well as the adjoining Josephine Lake, making connections with harder trails that lead into the mountains. Packing water, hats, walking sticks, plastic ponchos, and bear spray obtained at a big-box retailer in Helena, we headed off to do a circuit around Josephine Lake. To get there, you hike around the southern edge of Swiftcurrent.

It ended up being about a four-mile walk, with views of the mountains.

Anyone with a smartphone can now do homages to Ansel Adams. Pretty good ones, too.

There are still glaciers in Glacier NP, but they are receding. One forecast of their total disappearance is by 2030.

Views of the water.

Møøse!

Toward the end of the walk around Lake Josephine, we spotted bears frolicking in the water, too. At just the right distance. That is, pretty far away, especially because it was a mother and two cubs.

Eventually, the trail leads back to the hotel. We were fairly tired by then, so it was a good thing to see.

After the hike was over, we saw bison.

On my plate at one of the hotel restaurants. A nice buffalo burger, if a little expensive. You know what they say about room for all of God’s creatures, except that I didn’t have any mashed potatoes with that meal. Next to the French fries, then.

Remember the weather forecast? During our hike, and the meal afterward, skies were clear and temps warm. We needed those hats and that water. As we were leaving Many Glacier Hotel, however, we noticed dark clouds massing to the north. A moisture invasion from Alberta-British Columbia.

By the time we (almost) got back to our campground outside the St. Mary entrance to the park, the thunderstorm had arrived. Rain and then a few minutes of hail. I pulled over under a tree that offered some protection, but luckily the hailstones weren’t as big as in Wyoming, and didn’t even put any dints in the roof of the car.

Helena, Montana

Posted on September 17, 2024 by admin

Missing a hike around Devils Tower meant we had time for other things, including a fine second breakfast in Hulett, Wyoming (pop. 300+). I asked the waitress what it was like a few weeks earlier, during the Sturgis Rally.

“Crazy,” she said, adding that the rally started on her third day on the job, for that extra measure of crazy.

She and her husband and daughter had been living on a boat for five years until recently, she also said, including a sail through the Panama Canal once. She mentioned that almost in passing, as if five years on a boat is something people often do, followed by relocating far away from any oceans. Though not Sturgis-busy, the place had more than a few customers, so I wasn’t able to get more detail.

We had time to look around Sundance, Wyoming before we left. Turns out Harry A. Longabaugh spent some time in the local jug for a bit of thieving near Sundance, and so he became known as the Sundance Kid. The town of Sundance (pop. just over 1,000) wants you to know this, communicating it to passersby with a memorial in the town’s main municipal park.

Despite his long history of criminal shenanigans, that was apparently the only time he was imprisoned. Guess you can get away with a lot when you have the dashing good looks and vim of a young Robert Redford.

The drive from Sundance into Montana and on to Helena took up most of the day on August 21.

Billings, Montana, bears further investigation if we’re ever out that way again. All it takes to impress me sometimes is a terrific lunch, and that we found at Spitz Mediterranean Street Food in downtown Billings. It didn’t seem like a chain – and I’d never heard of it – but there are about 20 of them, and it seems that Billings can support one. Other locations are in such usual-suspect retail markets as southern California, Denver, Portland, Ore. and DFW.

We spent the night in Helena and woke the next morning to more than a hint of a wildfire in the air, from elsewhere in Montana, but less than an air action day.

We planned to drive to the entrance of Glacier NP that day, but we couldn’t leave the capital of Montana without seeing the capitol. Front and back.

Inside.

Stained glass is a little unusual in a capitol, but not unheard of.

Murals are more common. Some clearly from an earlier period.

More recent murals depict scenes like this, the cooperative spirit between native and settler women.

On display in the Montana House of Representatives chamber – and the reason its door is always locked, to protect it, a sign said – is the painting “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole,” by Montana artist Charlie Russell (d. 1926). It is a highly esteemed work of his.

In situ:

Only a few blocks from the capitol is the Cathedral of St. Helena, which is undergoing exterior renovation.

It was open.

Some magnificent stained glass.

Before leaving town, we visited downtown Helena.

Soon we made our way to N. Last Chance Gulch Street, which is a pedestrian thoroughfare. At least, that’s what Google Maps calls it.

The Helena As She Was web site says of this street, in answer to what its real name is:

“The answer is: Both. Last Chance Gulch is the name of the actual gulch in which gold was discovered in 1864. The thoroughfare which was built down the Gulch was originally named Main Street. It remained that way for some 85 years, until July 20 1953, when acting Helena Mayor Dr. Amos R. Little, Jr. signed an ordinance officially changing the name of Main Street to Last Chance Gulch. Both names are still used locally for what was once the grand thoroughfare of Helena’s business district.

“Last Chance Gulch meanders as it does because it was originally routed between mining claims; it was not designed that way to lower fatalities from stray bullets, as some promotional literature has claimed.”

Stray bullets, eh? Helena wouldn’t be the only place that trades on a history of (fortunately) long-ago violence. That kind of thing is a dime a dozen west of the Mississippi, and not unknown to the east.

Along N. Last Chance Gulch. And there is a S. Last Chance Gulch, though we didn’t walk that far.

We found Taco del Sol on N. Last Chance Gulch. Unlike Spitz, a standalone operation.

If you want tasty nachos in Helena, Montana, Taco del Sol is your place.

South Dakota Dash ’24

Posted on September 13, 2024 by admin

The first day of the trip was a slog from Illinois through Wisconsin and most of southern Minnesota. The second day, August 19, we woke up in Luverne, Minnesota and went to bed in Sundance, Wyoming. Less of a slog, mainly because we stopped a few places in South Dakota along I-90.

First of all, Sioux Falls. How can you stop in Sioux Falls and not see the falls?

Hard to believe, if you crop things right, you’re in a city of around 200,000. Sioux quartzite, it’s called.

Once a hub of water-power industries — the ruins of a mill are on the grounds — these days the falls travel through the municipal Falls Park. Sioux Falls has thoughtfully erected an observation tower on top of a rise in the park, for better views.

Naturally, we went to the top, for the view of the falls, downtown Sioux Falls, and – off in a different direction – a major Smithfield meat processing plant. Sioux Falls isn’t just about credit card HQs, the result of a race-to-the-bottom concerning usury laws. It still has industry, too.

Before leaving town, we sought out the Cathedral of St. Joseph, a work by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray (d. 1917), another of those famed architects mostly lost to time. Among other things, he was chief of design at the 1904 St. Louis world’s fair (one of the four fonts of the modern world).

It was open. Not all city churches can say that on a Monday.

Nice. Westward on I-90, at one of the rest stops, we found a much smaller religious structure, though elegant in its simplicity.

It too was open.

Lunch that day was in the burg of Kennebec, SD (pop. 281), which happened to have a place, Benji’s Diner, with a distinctive ag-town vibe, and serious meat on the menu.

It’s a little hard to tell, but there’s beef under that sea of gravy, and I found it mighty filling. Signs on the highway promote the SD beef industry and beef eating on principle, and they get no argument from me.

We took a look around town. When I saw this, I concluded that every town, no matter how small, has one of these murals as a little expression of civic pride. Seems that way, anyway.

Kennebec is the Lyman County seat.

The built environment isn’t just buildings.

Despite our large lunch, we managed to stay awake for the drive to Wall, SD, stopping for a few minutes at Wall Drug and then Badlands National Park, where we spent a few hours. That decision factored heavily into what happened next in Wyoming, more about which later. Enough to say that by the end of the day, we were in Sundance, Wyo.

But we weren’t done with South Dakota. For reasons I won’t bore anyone with, especially myself, we had to backtrack the next day to take care of a minor issue with the car, so it wouldn’t be major later on. For that, we went to Rapid City, which we had bypassed the day before. I’m glad we got to go, because the mechanical issue didn’t actually take long to deal with, which left us with time to see a bronze James K. Polk.

Plus U.S. Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge, among other U.S. presidents at street corners in downtown Rapid City that I managed to see.

“When a local man noticed people interacting with a temporarily placed statue of President Lincoln outside the Hotel Alex Johnson [in downtown Rapid City], an idea sparked. This man was Don Perdue, and he came up with the idea to put a president on every corner in Downtown Rapid City,” explains Visit Rapid City.

“It took a lot of convincing, a lot of fundraising, and hours of research before it started. In 1999, Perdue proposed the idea to the city as a way to honor the legacy of the American Presidency. The project was approved and in 2000 the first four presidents were unveiled: George Washington, John Adams, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush… Over the next ten years, a group of local artists worked to create and place all 40 of the remaining statues.”

I didn’t have time to see all of them. Or the inclination. It was in the low 90s F. that day, so I only wanted to spend a few minutes seeking them out, while Yuriko more rationally waited in our air conditioned car.

She was willing to get out and look at Rapid City’s older attraction a few minutes later, however: Dinosaur Park. I later checked with my brother Jim. He said he does indeed remember, a little, our family’s visit to the park in 1960, before I was born.

There’s a good view of Rapid City from atop the park’s hill.

But you’re up there to look at wire-mesh-frame dinosaurs with concrete skins, originally dating from the 1930s but obviously maintained into our time and (maybe?) tinkered with a little to more closely match current thinking about dinosaurs.

Even better, I learned that the park was originally a WPA project, consciously designed to draw tourists to Rapid City with something distinctive. Of all the various WPA projects one can encounter, this has to be unique among the lot.

Summer Lunch

Posted on August 12, 2024 by admin

As forecast, the week kicked off warm, but not too warm, and sunny, but not too sunny. Out latest bill from ComEd suggests a cooler summer so far: average temps for July of 74.1° F., which I assume means both day and night averaged. Last year, the average was 77.1° F. The latest bill was higher despite that, because for various reasons we’ve kept the AC at a lower temp this summer.

Another benefit of summer, if you attend to a garden.

The meat and bread, we bought. The tomatoes and cucumbers, we grew.

Bloomington Ramble ’24

Posted on July 29, 2024 by admin

Want good soft serve ice cream in an unpretentious setting? Look no further than Carl’s Ice Cream, a plain-looking shop deep in the heart of Bloomington, Illinois. Also, look for its anthropomorphic soft serve cone rising over the parking lot.

Yuriko and Ann had strawberry, I had chocolate. Carl’s in Bloomington – there’s also one in Normal, with an ice cream muffler man outside – was an early afternoon stop on Saturday. We spent part, but not all of the weekend, in Bloomington.

Something we (I) also had time to do was take a better look at the impressive three-legged communications tower in downtown Bloomington. It’s visible for quite a distance, and makes me wonder, why aren’t more communication towers this interesting?

Much of the day was hot, or at least very warm, and sunny, a prelude to heavy rains early Sunday morning. So Yuriko was content to stay in the car – with the AC running – when I took in a few closer views of tower.

Pantagraph articles about the tower are paywalled, but snippets poke through from search engine results:

In the last 30 years of telephone, radio and other network service, the Tower Center became a sort of landmark for downtown Bloomington, lovingly nicknamed the city’s “Eiffel Tower.”

Bloomington’s ‘Eiffel Tower’ changes hands after 30 years

The McLean County Center for Human Services Recovery Program is gaining a new home beneath the iconic 420-foot communications tower in Bloomington…

Another source tells me that the tower dates from 1989. The Tower Center is the two-story building under the tower, now belonging to McLean County.

After the rain cleared away, late Sunday morning was as toasty as Saturday had been, but more humid. I decided against a walkabout at the Park Hill Cemetery in Bloomington. It’s good to ration your time under those hot and copper skies.

Still, we drove around a bit through the cemetery. Not a lot of memorial variety, but not bad.

Now I can say I’ve seen Mike Ehrmantraut’s grave. But not that Mike Ehrmantraut, of course. The fellow offed by Walter White, being fictional, must have an equally fictional grave.

Adjacent the cemetery is the sizable Miller Park, which includes the Miller Park Zoo. We didn’t want to use our ration of intense sunlight at a zoo either, but in the park itself.

When you see a steam locomotive in park (and its tender), you really ought to get out and look.

Three million miles. So the train could have, with the right track, gone to the Moon and back a number of times, provided it took its own oxygen to keep that engine going.

And what would the display be without a caboose? Partly because that’s just a fun word to say.

Ignorant fellow that I am, I didn’t know the Nickel Plate Road, so I looked it up later. Once upon a time, it was a major regional RR, spanning northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Miller Park features a sizable war memorial.

In its vicinity are some retired weapons of war, such as a captured German 210 mm Krupp Howitzer (in better shape than this one).

As well as a WWI tank. Created for that conflict, at least. An M1917 light tank. Apparently none made it to the front during the war, but were put in service for a few years after the war by the U.S. Army.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of those on display. I’m reminded of my great-uncle Ralph. I understand — from my mother, and maybe even grandma told me this — that he was in a tank corps in France, with the American Expeditionary Forces. Such a posting is said to be fairly dangerous, and I believe it. Supposedly, Ralph was poised to go to the front at the time of the Armistice, which might well have saved him.

Italian Lira, 1983

Posted on July 14, 2024 by admin

Rain, rain, rain. So many times in that last few days I can’t remember how often. The best of them was Sunday not long after midnight. Not a lot of thunder, just rain. I opened the windows in our north-facing bedroom and lay in bed, listening to the rhythm of the falling rain. It didn’t tell me what a fool I’ve been, and even if it had, I’d have told it to mind its own business.

An artifact from Italy, July 1983.

Why do I have this? Just my pack rat nature. It’s in an envelope marked Europe, 1983.

Also, it confirms what I already knew: pre-euro Italy was a good deal in those days, though it took a few minutes to gather some data points on that. Not exactly dirt cheap, but reasonably priced, especially considering the high value, such as the many good meals.

The receipt shows that I exchanged a $100 travelers check for lira at Banco di Roma one day in July. At that moment, the exchange the bank gave me was $1 = 1,502 lira, though the bank dinged me 5,000 lira as a fee, so I didn’t quite get that. But 1,500 lira to the dollar is close enough

I checked the diary I kept during the trip for notes about what cost what. I wasn’t very good at making such notes, but I did mention a few costs in passing, such as the fact that admission to the Forum in Rome cost 4,000 lira.

So, 4,000 lira would be about $2.66. That’s in fatter 1983 dollars, however. A current equivalent ($1 in 1983 = about $3.15 now) would be roughly $8.40. And how much does admission to the Forum cost these days?

It’s a little hard to get an exact equivalent, since the options are more complicated now. Of course they are. The Forum Pass SUPER Ticket has this description: “Roman Forum-Palatine and Imperial Fora in a single itinerary. One ticket gives you access to the new route, which allows you to visit the archaeological heart of Rome in about two hours: the Roman Forum, the Imperial Fora and the Palatine.”

That costs €24. So let’s say three times as much as I paid, more or less. Are the Italians three times better now at maintaining the Forum than they were 40 years ago? I’m skeptical.

Other costs from 1983 (expressed in period units):

A bed in Rome at the Pension Grossi: 7,000 lira ($4.60). Of course, there were about a dozen beds in that room.

A meal at Mario’s in the Trastevere in Rome: 5,800 lira ($3.80). I had a number of wonderful meals in Italy, as you should, but that was one of the best: spaghetti and salad and liver and onions.

A room at the Albergo Italia in Salerno: 15,000 lira ($10)

A meal in Salerno: 7,500 lira ($5). The stars of that meal were gnocchi, along with squid fresh from the Mediterranean, about which I raved. Wish I could actually remember it.

A toilet at the Salerno train station: 200 lira (13 cents). Cheap, but not for something that should be free.

A room in Florence: 10,000 lira each ($6.60)

Doughnuts in Florence: 500 lira (33 cents) each. I remember the gelato in Florence, which we ate more than once, but not the doughnuts. I bet Florentine doughnuts were almost as good. I didn’t record the price for the gelato, but it was probably comparable. A 33-cent doughnut would be about $1 now. Still not bad, and certainly cheaper than any hipster doughnut you can get these days.

Boba

Posted on July 10, 2024 by admin

Postscript on the tent. I returned it today, and the clerk said I hadn’t been the only one who brought it back for leakage. So I suppose my return is now another data point that the retailer is gathering about the tent. With enough data like that, it might vanish from its shelves sometime, maybe in favor of the brand it used to sell — namely Coleman.

The camping gear is now off display there anyway, as far as I could see, as a seasonal matter. The place is very much attuned to seasonable buying patterns, as any major retailer is going to be. Tents are for spring, as people think about camping.

At least no Christmas stuff yet. That I noticed.

I did notice these boxes.

And these.

Just an indication of the further march of bubble tea (boba) into the awareness and buying habits of the American consumer, and the businesses out to meet that demand. If you can find it in this warehouse store, that puts it firmly in the U.S. mainstream. I haven’t taken to it myself, but my daughters have, enough to spend time at the boba tea houses that have opened up locally over the last decade or so.

Joyba happens to be headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, though the bubble tea itself is a product of Mexico. Nearshoring in action, I reckon.

Boba’s distinctive ingredient is the tapioca pearl, and the drinks come with straws large enough to pull the pearls through. Bet tapioca makers – cassava growers – are happy about the new worldwide popularity of boba.

“Bubble tea is said to have originated in the eighties in the city of Taichung [Taiwan]. Several tea companies claim to be the creator, so it’s unclear which is the true founder of the popular drink,” reported the South China Morning Post.

“A decade later, the addictively tasty drink reached most parts of East and Southeast Asia with bubble tea shops popping up in every mall and street corner. Since then, it has spread across the globe, including the US, Australia, Europe and South Africa.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Food & Beverage