The University of California, Berkeley, commonly known as Berkeley or Cal, is the first campus of the University of California system, established in 1868. Walking through its hillside campus, it reminded us somewhat of our alma mater, the University of Auckland, with its mix of old and new buildings, iconic clock tower, and similar number of students.
We are not sure if this is a Christo art installation or simply a building under construction.
One difference between Auckland and Berkeley is the size of the University’s football stadium. California Memorial Stadium, home of the Golden Bears, holds around 63,000 fans.
Another difference between Auckland and Berkeley is the existence of fraternities and sororities at the latter. At many American colleges and universities, students join fraternities and sororities as a way of meeting other students and making friends. Often these are housed in old mansions and buildings on or around campus. They are easily spotted by the Greek letters that identify which fraternity or sorority lives there. Berkeley’s were particularly impressive.
The town of Berkeley, itself, which surrounds the campus, reminded us somewhat of Greenwich Village in New York City, the home of New York University. It may have been the low rise, somewhat rundown, buildings of both neighborhoods, or the throngs of roaming students. Perhaps, it was just that both neighborhoods are forever linked in our minds as centers of 1960s student activism.
As we walked back from the campus to our hotel we passed through some very nice neighborhoods. Homes clad in natural dark wood shingles were particularly popular.
We came across this majestic redwood tree.
Other reminders that we were in Berkely were this bumper sticker laden Subaru
Happily, we found ourselves in San Francisco during the extensive Diego Rivera exhibit being shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There were over 150 of the famous Mexican artist’s paintings, frescoes, and drawings. Here are just a few of our favorites.
The museum is well worth a visit just to see its permanent collection. Here is some of the artwork and a few of the sights we saw along the way.
Our good friend, Charlet, invited us to come visit her on her farm about 90 minutes drive from DC in rural Virginia. It was nice to escape the city for a few hours and enjoy the beautiful countryside.
Fletcher’s Boathouse, sitting between the C&O Canal and the Potomac River, has been operating since the 1850s, renting out boats, bikes and fishing equipment. On a beautiful clear day, we rented a kayak and headed out into the river. It is unlawful to swim in the Potomac but that now probably has more to do with the dangerous currents than with the cleanliness of the river. There is now an abundance of fish in the river, including perch, shad, and striped bass (known locally as rockfish). We also saw turtles sunning themselves on rocks jutting out of the river, and at one stage a bald eagle flew overhead.
Across the canal from the Boathouse is the Abner Cloud House, the oldest building on the canal, dating back to 1802.
We returned to the neighborhood where Lauren grew up and where her parents lived until five or six years ago. It is a quiet neighborhood with winding narrow roads and houses on large sections. One of the great things about doing these blogs is the surprising things we often learn. For example, Lauren was not aware that she had grown up in a house that stood on land that was once part of a plantation. And not just any plantation, but the one where perhaps America’s most famous slave lived, Uncle Tom. When Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she drew from several sources but the best known was the autobiography of an escaped slave called Josiah Henson. Today Uncle Tom is a derogatory term used for someone who is excessively subservient. The Uncle Tom in the novel was not that man. Rather, minstrel show retellings of the story performed by men in black face transformed Uncle Tom from the Christian martyr of the book to a fool and apologist for slavery. The real Uncle Tom was nothing like the Uncle Tom we now know. Henson had an incredibly inspiring life and it is truly shameful that his story is not more widely known.
Henson had been born into slavery near Port Tobacco, in Charles County, Maryland in 1789. When he was a small boy, his father received one hundred lashes and had his ear cut off and pinned to the whipping post, before being sold off to Alabama, after he stood up to a slave overseer. When Henson’s owner died, the family was sold off and Henson was separated from his mother and siblings. Henson’s mother had pleaded at the auction for her new owner, Isaac Riley, to purchase Josiah as well. Riley responded by hitting and kicking her and Josiah was sold to Adam Robb who was a blacksmith. But Josiah was very ill as a child and Robb, fearing that he would lose his investment, agreed to give Josiah to Riley, in return for Riley bringing his future horseshoeing needs to Robb. Henson was reunited with his mother, regained his health and eventually became entrusted as the farm supervisor.
In 1828, Riley agreed to sell Henson his freedom for $350 which he had already saved up and a note promising a further $100. However, Riley secretly added another zero to the paper changing the fee to $1000. Having been cheated of his money and learning that he might be sold again, Henson escaped to Canada, taking along his wife and children. After working on farms in Canada, he was eventually able to purchase 200 acres in Dawn Township and started a black settlement that exported black walnut lumber to the United States and Britain. He also had become a Methodist preacher and spoke as an abolitionist. He had sent his eldest son, Tom, to school who in turn taught Josiah to read a write in his fifties. His book The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself, was released in 1849 and became the basis of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Henson remained at the Dawn Settlement until he died in his nineties, although he did make a number of trips overseas. He secretly returned to the United States on many occasions as part of the Underground Railway and was responsible for leading 118 slaves to freedom. After the civil war and the abolition of slavery he again returned to the United States where he met with President Hayes at the White House. He also returned to Riley’s farm which by then had gone to seed. Henson described it as “a wilderness; the most desolate, demoralized place one can imagine.” He even crossed the Atlantic to Britain where he met with Queen Victoria and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There is a brand new Joseph Henson museum in Luxmanor that is well worth a visit. It outlines his amazing story and includes the original plantation farm house. Its hours are limited, as it is only open from 10 to 4, Friday through Sunday.
The Josiah Henson MuseumJosiah HensonThe Riley Homestead
In 1928, Morton and Ernestine Luchs, had acquired 94 acres of the original Riley plantation which they ran as a farm. However, soon they decided to subdivide the farm into half acre lots. The called the suburb Luxmanor, which we guess is a nod to their last name. Unlike many other developments in the area at the time, Luxmanor deeds did not include restrictive covenants preventing Jewish families from purchasing homes. The neighborhood, therefore, attracted a number of Jewish families (There were, however, covenants restricting purchase by African-American families). For a long time, the area remained fairly undeveloped and Lauren remembers surrounding farmland and country roads. Like many suburbs that were built with large sections, many of the original modest brick ramblers and colonials have now been torn down and replaced with massive mansions. Here are some of the original homes that still remain.
And here are some of the larger homes that are continually springing up in the neighborhood in place of the original homes. It is interesting to see the different types of home that have been in favor with developers over the last forty of so years. A few years back, large colonial homes, stucco mansions and the occasional post-modern home were popular.
Now Craftsman and Country style architecture appears to be in vogue.
Here is one of the very few modernist homes in the neighborhood.
And here is the house where Lauren grew up. The new owners have painted it white and appear to be going for a more mid-century modern look.
Finally, we passed by Luxmanor Elementary School. When Lauren attended, it had only been open for a short while and was a small school. Now it has been rebuilt and has 575 students.
If you can tolerate the slow bumpy twelve mile ride along a winding dirt road from Vail, you will eventually come to Piney Lake. The trip is worth it. The lake is nestled into the foot of the Gore Range and sits within thousands of back country wilderness within the White River National Forest.
Winter Park and Vail are both ski resorts in Colorado but that is about where the similarity ends. Vail is large, upscale and faux-European. Winter Park, on the other hand, is smaller, decidedly American and definitely not upmarket. However, it will always hold a special place in our hearts because that is where we met. During the 1982-83 ski season, we both worked at small rustic Miller’s Inn. Winter Park was even smaller then it is now but we had a great group of friends and we managed to keep ourselves entertained. It is hard to believe that forty years have now passed since that time. The Inn’s main building burnt down a number of years ago, and the various cabins have now been converted in affordable housing, but the Miller’s Inn sign was still there as were the other buildings. It truly was a trip down memory’s lane.
Escaping the heat and humidity in Washington DC, we headed west and up into the Colorado Rockies, where we spent a week in Vail. We were joined there by Jake, Kylie, Sofie, Emma, Ben and Taylor. The town is famous for its ski mountain, the largest in Colorado, but it is also a beautiful and interesting place to visit in the summer.
It is named for Charles Vail, the highway engineer who routed U.S. Highway 6 (now Interstate 70) through the valley where the town is located in 1940. The ski area was founded in 1962 by Pete Seibert and local rancher Earl Eaton. Seibert had served in the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II, and had trained at nearby Camp Hale. He was wounded in Italy at the Battle of Riva Ridge but recovered and went on to become a professional skier.
The town itself is basically a recreation of a European alpine village and walking around it’s easy to imagine yourself in the Swiss Alps. It is very pristine with beautiful flowers everywhere and a crystal clear mountain creek running through the center of town.
Along with the hiking and biking and other physical activities there are also a number of spaces for those seeking some culture. The Gerald Ford Amphitheater, named after the American President who resided in the town, is an idyllic spot to view a concert and we went along one evening to watch a Latin funk band.
It also has a quiet, serene library, where we stopped for a while to relax and catch up on some reading.
There is a great weekend market where you can buy all sorts of crafts and fresh produce, including the best smoked salmon that you will find anywhere.
For those more actively inclined, there is a gondola to the top of the mountain where there are various activities, including a bungie trampoline and a zip line for the kids.
We started the day having breakfast in the beautiful garden of the Hotel Lucrezia, a quaint little inn that was once a farmhouse. The hotel is tucked into a backstreet of the tiny little village of Riola Sardo.
After breakfast, we drove over to nearby Putzu Idu beach. Despite the early hour, it was already rather crowded.
So we didn’t stay long but headed off to our next and final destination, Gesturi. Like Riola Sardi, Gesturi is a tiny little village. Arriving at the village in the late afternoon, we immediately went exploring its narrow streets.
The main claim to fame for the village appears to be that it is the birthplace of Father Nicola da Gesturi. Born in 1882 as Giovanni Medda, he became a friar in his late twenties, taking the name Father Nicola and spent the rest of his life wandering the streets of Cagliari begging for alms. He became much loved in the city and during his wanderings many approached him not only to give money but also to ask for advice, comfort or a prayer. During World War II, Cagliari was heavily bombed and Father Nicola stayed in the city offering help among the rubble. He died in 1958 and about sixty thousand people attended his funeral. Apparently, traffic was blocked for hours during the funeral procession. His photo is on the wall of the church and his face is on a number of murals in the town.
Father Nicola’s birthplace
We stayed the night a quaint B&B, called Cortis Antigas, that had been beautifully restored by our host.
Next door to the B&B was a charming restaurant where we had a great meal sitting in its courtyard.
The next morning we had breakfast in the inn’s courtyard. Like practically all of the food we have had during our trip, it was fresh and delicious.
After breakfast we headed to the airport, after a couple of amazing weeks in Sardinia and Corsica. We thoroughly recommend them to anyone seeking a Mediterranean holiday. Hopefully, we will get back there some time in the future.
Having crossed back into Sardinia, we drove down to Bosa. It’s a quaint little town with colorful buildings and a hilltop castle. We started with an espresso at one of the local cafes before setting out to explore the narrow streets of the old town.
Mal and Lauren 