52 Books: Book 30

While at the beach I read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Not exactly a light, beachy read, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The book is written by a veteran of the Vietnam war. The work is fiction but draws on O'Brien's personal experiences in the form of essays that lead you through the war experience. This is the first war-type of book that I have read that I felt really got at the emotion of what is like to be a soldier. The first essay goes into what the men carried: weapons, photographs, memories and also fear. The essays touch on what it is like to: contemplate dodging the draft; fight a war you don't understand and don't believe in; watch your friends die; etc. I thought it was very well written and definitely worth the time to read it.

Excerpts from the book:

...They carried all they could bear, and then some, including the silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.

...for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing – these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the hardest burden of all, for it could never be put down...

The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seems to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't unfix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.

To generalize about war is to generalize about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells you the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life.

Lost in Translation

I have to share a funny story from our weekend in Texas. We were driving to the airport in San Antonio and for some reason Daniel and his dad were discussing various things that Wesley had learned in school {many, many years ago}. Wesley mentioned that he had had a teacher in the third grade who had attempted to teach his class some basic french phrases.

For some background: Wesley grew up in Woodbury, TN which is fairly rural and this would have been close to 40 years ago, so we were surprised when he mentioned this little tidbit of information. Daniel asked him if he remembered anything from his third grade french and Wesley said that his teacher had taught him one phrase that had stuck in his head all of these years...

"Comment bobbity boo."

Say what??? 

Now for some background on me: I lived in Canada when I was in the 4th-6th grade and part of our curriculum was to take a daily french class. My teacher was from Quebec and she drilled phrases {with correct pronunciation} into our heads for years.

So when Wesley said this phrase I had no idea where he was coming from. It just didn't make sense. I had him repeat it a couple of more times and my brain reached back to years ago when I studied french {I took it up again in high school, but learning from a southern woman just wasn't the same and I don't think that I ever learned any more than what I had learned in elementary school in Canada}. Anyways, it finally struck me that he must have been trying to say, "Comment allez vous?" Which means "How are you?" 

The whole conversation gave me a good chuckle and now Wesley knows the correct way to ask a person how they are doing!

52 Books: Books 28/29

This set of books both happen to be by Colin Fletcher, a pioneering backpacker and writer in the 1960s. Through his experiences and writings he became a "spiritual godfather" of the wilderness backpacking movement.

I started out reading The Thousand-Mile Summer. Published in 1964, the book follows Fletcher's hike traversing the state of California from Mexico to the Oregon border. The first part of the book focuses on his experience in the desert. Following the topography, the end of the book finishes with the mountains. I thought there was more of a focus on the desert and he kind of petered out at the end with the mountains, which was a bit disappointing since mountains are my favorite. Overall, this was a great read, though his writing style takes some getting used to.

Excerpts from the The Thousand-Mile Summer:

Ideas that burst on you at three o'clock in the morning, looking as if they will change your life, have a despicable habit of losing their luster in the daylight. But very occasionally once or twice in a lifetime – they fulfill their promise, right to the end.

You cannot walk alone through virgin desert, day after day, without responding to the solitude. You do not grow lonely; you pass over instead into an aloneness that leave you free and content.

Now the danger had passed, I felt thankful that the desert had reminded me in time how fine a line divides safety from tragedy  – and how easily a moment of carelessness can send you stumbling across it.

One of the deeply satisfying things about a mountain – almost any mountain – is the way it can at the same time belong exclusively to so many people.

And suddenly I wanted the comforts of everyday life... for more than a thousand miles I traveled alone and it had never occurred to me to feel lonely; but now, above all, I wanted to companionship. I was ready at last for The Walk to end.

The second book by Fletcher was The Man Who Walked Through Time. Published in 1968, this book details his experience as the first man to walk the full length of the Grand Canyon. What he did was intriguing, but I didn't like this book nearly as much as The Thousand-Mile Summer, I think it was because he spent so much time contemplating the evolution of the world. I wanted to read about his hiking experience and not just dreamy thoughts one man had about the past.

Excerpts from the The Man Who Walked Through Time:

...you always mean to start a long walking trip in good physical condition. Your plans wisely include a series of lengthening workouts with full pack. But the pressure of last-minute preparation always seems to crown them out, and you arrive at the starting point not only mentally exhausted but equipped with flacid muscles and slipper-soft feet.

Cross-country on foot, miles are always misleading. The hours are what count. In the Canyon, miles became virtually meaningless.

You cannot escape the age you live in: you are a product of it.

The world is not, unfortunately, all beauty or all grandeur. And what I needed now, as a corrective, was some ugliness and some pettiness. {At the end of his walk through the Grand Canyon, Fletcher contemplated driving through Las Vegas on his way home}.

18Weeks.5Days.

We are getting close to the halfway mark. In about 3 weeks we will discover the gender. In the meantime I am enjoying sitting on my porch drinking iced coffee in the mornings and not having a whole lot of responsibility.

My belly is getting a little bigger – somehow it always appears larger in the evenings. Daniel has informed me that I officially look pregnant. Mostly I feel like I am bloated ALL OF THE TIME. It probably has something to do with my insides stretching and growing. Heartburn continues to be my archenemy – also worse at night. And I have given myself a total of 64 shots to date.

Most of my clothes still fit relatively well, but bras are now my nemesis. Who knew that my chest cavity would be expanding so much!?! Mostly they make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, like I am being squeezed by a boa constrictor. Suggestions on a good bra for the duration of my pregnancy would be most welcome.

Last Night in Texas

On our last evening in Texas Daniel and I headed to the beach for a pre-dinner swim in the Gulf. Initially I didn't plan on getting in the water, but on second thought I decided that I didn't want to be someone who never got in the water just because I am a "grown up."

The best part about the Gulf was watching the flying fish. They were about 12-inches long and they kept jumping out of the water, like they were trying to get over the waves. Too bad we didn't get a picture of them.

For dinner we went to Port A Pizzeria. It was buffet style {or a feeding trough as some of our friends say}. It was good, but it didn't really sit well with me, which is too bad because I really like pizza. Maybe if we had ordered a fresh pie it would have been better.

Port A had good reviews online, but I thought it was just okay. It kind of reminded us of a Mr. Gatty's or Mazzios.

 

We finished our evening by going out to the point to watch the sunset. It was a nice way to end our time in Texas.

Beach and Station Street Grill

After our dolphin tour, we went and picked Wesley up for lunch. We settled on the Beach and Station Street Grill {which had good reviews online}. I am SO GLAD we went there. It was a small restaurant but since we arrived around 1:30PM we had no problem getting a table.

The food. WOW. The food was excellent. Daniel's dad had a steak that came with grilled shrimp – which he shared with us since he doesn't like shrimp. It was to-die-for good. I don't think I have ever had shrimp that tasted so good. We had a bite of his steak as well and it was also fantastic.

Daniel tried the fried flounder and I had popcorn shrimp... all of which was amazing. I still can't get over that grilled shrimp. I am dreaming of grilling my own shrimp now {Daniel – you need to hurry up and buy us a grill already!!!}.

We were too stuffed for dessert, but I would have LOVED to try the Bourbon Pecan Pie {maybe when I am not pregnant???}. If you are in Port Aransas, you definitely need to plan on going to the Beach and Station Street Grill. In the evening they have a deck you can sit on {during the middle of the day it was way too hot, but it would be perfect once the sun went down}. 

 

*Note: They have excellent lunch prices, so if you are on a budget don't let the evening prices detour you, just stop by during the day!

Dolphin Tour

Daniel and I are not ones to go on vacation and lay around at the beach all day. For us, a trip to the beach generally means bike rides and walks on the beach and maybe a kayak rental. However when we vacation with other people we have learned that we have to take into account that not everyone wants to be active on vacation {some people like to lay on the beach or shop or stay inside and watch movies}.

Since we were spending the weekend with Daniel's dad, we came across an inexpensive dolphin tour that we thought we all would enjoy. Unfortunately Wesley was still recouping from his walking pneumonia so he told us to go by ourselves. I felt bad that he was still not feeling up to par all weekend, I think he would have really enjoyed the dolphins.

For $22 per person, we got to go out on a boat for about 2 hours with Kohootz Dolphin Encounters. Captains Gary & Susan led the tour. Captain Gary informed us that the dolphins like music, especially Jimmy Buffet... so we listened to Jimmy Buffet for the entire trip.

Daniel and I started out sitting on seats at the front of the boat before moving to the platform on top of the boat. The first little cove we came to, there were several schools of dolphins {presumably mothers and their little ones}. I haven't seen many dolphins {a few at Hilton Head}, so for me, it was a special experience. 

When the dolphins moved on, our captain turned the boat around and took us back towards the Lydia Ann Lighthouse – it is on an island that can only be reached by boat. Evidently during the civil war, when the Union soldiers took over Port Aransas, they had plans to use the light house to help guide their ships in. However they discovered that the Confederates had removed the lens from the light house and it was useless. The lighthouse has been restored and is "manned" year round by lighthouse keepers.

We saw dolphins a few more times, but nothing like the first encounter. It was an enjoyable morning on the water. It would have been nice to see more dolphins but we still had a good time.