Category Archives: Travel

Spa Trip – Curcuit de Spa-Francorchamps

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And now we finally arrive at the reason for this whole trip to Belgium.

I first saw Formula 1 at Spa on The Wide World of Sports in the late 1960s; you’d get about a fifteen-minute highlight clip from the broadcast with Jackie Stewart doing commentary. But it wasn’t until I started watching F1 in 1994 that Spa really grabbed my attention. For about thirty years, if you’d have asked me what my favorite track is, the answer was Spa.

I don’t golf, but I imagine my driving a car at Spa is akin to a golfer getting to play a round at St. Andrews. For me, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Wow. I’m here.

August 5

I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but I had yet another bad night’s sleep. Two and a half hours of sleep, about that much tossing and turning, then a couple more hours of sleep. It was raining the entire time I was awake.

My breakfast was delivered promptly at seven. It put the fare at my Brussels hotel to shame: a basket of bread (three different rolls and two pastries), orange juice, grapes, cold cuts, cheese, a few cherry tomatoes, peach yogurt, fixings for coffee, and an assortment of packets: Nutella, honey, two different jams, and butter. Far too much for me to eat!

Ryan picked me up at 7:20, and we were at the track a few minutes later.

First on the agenda was the drivers’ briefing. I’ve driven quite a few tracks now, and although there are many similarities, each track runs things their own way. As Dorothy said, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” Here at Spa, things are quite different than any of the tracks in the USA. I’m pretty sure it’s a European thing and not just this track.

At home, we’re required to have our windows down. If you get in an accident, the glass from the side windows won’t go everywhere. And the rescue crew won’t have to break a window to get you out of the car. Here, windows have to be up. Even for convertibles!

At home, when faster cars catch up to you, you give them a “point-by”: use an arm signal to tell them which side to pass. At Spa, with windows up, you can’t do that. Here, you use your turn signal to indicate which side you’ll go to, and the overtaking car goes on the other side. That took me several laps to get accustomed to.

I will point out a few more notable differences later.

After the briefing, we met our instructors. Mine was Konstantinos Zannos (Kostas), a native of Greece now living in Spa. In over 70 track days, I’ve never had an instructor before. A couple of times, at Portland and COTA, I’ve given rides to instructors, but it wasn’t for coaching – they just wanted rides in a Lotus.

Kostas set up some helmet-to-helmet communications so we could talk to each other. In my car, top off, window down, and engine behind your head, without an intercom, it would be impossible to communicate other than by hand signals. In my Spa rental car, a BMW M240i x-Drive, a comfy coupe, we’d have had little problem. Still, a comms setup like this is the way to go.

During the briefing, it was mentioned that the most common accident on track is a driver going off in the first turn. This made me think of my day at Harris Hill, where I did exactly that. Naturally, today I again did exactly that. The Kemmel straight is the fastest part of the track. The track was still wet from the overnight rain. But most importantly, the turn is much tighter than I expected. I was tentative, too light and late on the braking. I missed it big time! It won’t be in the highlight reel, though, as I wasn’t running the camera in the first session.

I really struggled that first session, despite Kostas’ excellent instruction. It’s a new track in damp conditions (still wet from the overnight rain) in a car I’d never driven before, which is about twice the weight of my car and also a fair bit faster. On top of that, it’s a long lap – the longest I’ve driven. It felt like every time around, I’d forget half of what he told me the previous lap. I probably frustrated him a bit, but he was very patient with me. I had his services for an hour, where I drove a six-lap session. That was my second-longest session of the day. Later in the day, we had a good laugh about my off.

His instructions did help. On my next lap, my first without him, I was 9 seconds faster, and on the lap after that, an additional 7 seconds. I ran into him several times throughout the day. When I came back from those two laps, he asked how I did. I told him I did a 3:12. He asked if I thought I could do a 3:00. I wonder why he picked that time. Because it’s an even three minutes? Or what he thought a good (average? novice?) driver should do a three-minute lap in that car? I managed a 3:02. I don’t know if that’s fast or slow, but I’m happy with it. I showed consistent improvement throughout the day and was getting comfortable with the track.

He was very perceptive. I was very tentative those first laps. Rather than saying I was tentative, he described exactly how I was applying the brakes. I couldn’t have described what I did any better myself. I had a couple of moments where the car got a bit squirrely, and he diagnosed them immediately. Once, he told me not to watch the car ahead too closely, because I’ll follow them instead of going where I need to go. He was right. I realized I was doing that just a moment before Kostas pointed it out. He was very attuned to what the car was doing, what I was doing.

Almost every track day I’ve done, drivers are broken into groups, either by experience (novice, intermediate, experienced) or speed (fast, slow). Today, we had no groups. We could just go out any time we wanted. That was nice, but Ryan and I both agree that a fast/slow grouping would have made us happier. There were some very fast cars out there and some classic small sports cars, so the closing speeds were sometimes … frightening isn’t the right word – maybe unexpected is better.

One of the other big differences in operating is the way red flags work. At home, if a red flag is thrown, everybody is supposed to come to a prompt stop. Here, everyone is to proceed to the pits until whatever incident occurred is cleared up. Once cleared, the track goes green and cars can return to the track. Pretty much like F1. I suspect, with no supporting evidence, that our flaggers today also worked the F1 race.

Unfortunately, we had a lot of red flags. I lost count. I generally expect to get four sessions, 20 to 30 minutes each. I had more sessions today, but that wasn’t a good thing. There were several times I got only a couple of laps before the red flag appeared. Twice, it happened on my out lap. My lap timer recorded nine sessions: 6 laps, 3, 0, 3, 4, 9, 0, 3, and 5 laps.

My car rental was for 300km, and I had to buy my own gas. When I first registered, I thought 300km wasn’t enough. So when I got an email offering an additional two-hour session, I signed up. I wasn’t thinking, though, that it was just extra time, not extra kilometers. It might have come in handy had the weather been bad, though.

As the regular session neared completion, I knew I’d do my 300km without needing the evening session. RSR were kind enough to refund my money. They normally don’t do refunds, instead giving vouchers good for three years.

The gas pumps didn’t offer me receipts, so I don’t know how much fuel I used. Heck, until I get the credit card bill, I won’t know how much I spent. The cost works out to a bit more than $7.50 a gallon. I think I spent nearly $200 on gas. My car would have been half that, or less.

I had a short moment of panic when the fuel pump didn’t accept my Visa card. The whole trip, I’ve been trying to use my AmEx card, but many places didn’t take it. I had not been anywhere that took AmEx but not Visa, so when the pump declined my Visa, I thought I was in trouble. But the AmEX worked. A few minutes later, Ryan called me with the same complaint – his Visa wasn’t working. I offered to let him use my AmEx, but Laura had her AmEx card. I mentioned this to another driver a few minutes later, and he told me it had to do with a PIN number. If the card didn’t require a PIN, it declined the card. But… but… my AmEx card doesn’t have a PIN.

It took me a while to get used to the car. The fastest I’ve gotten my car is 121 or 122 mph. I’ve driven a Ferrari 458 and a McLaren 650S at HPR and got neither of those cars over 125 (not that they’re not easily capable of it). Today, I managed consistently to get the BMW to 138 on the Kemmel straight.

Ryan’s car was race-prepared. That is, it has a roll-cage, racing seats, and the fancy dashboard was replaced with basic gauges. It’s equipped with a 4-point harness. This is another difference between here and home. In the US, 4-point harnesses are not allowed. A 5- or 6-point harness is required if a harness is used. The 4-point does not prevent “submarining” – in an accident, the driver is not prevented from coming out of the seat below the steering wheel. You really want a harness that keeps you securely in the seat.

The seats in my rental car have substantial side bolsters. They keep you from moving very far laterally. By the end of the day, I was feeling it in my kidneys. I’m not saying I felt like I was getting kidney-punched, but I was getting pretty sore. In the Lotus, the seats have very little padding, and after a long day, I can get a little tender along my spine, but I find the seat is otherwise comfortable. And I like my CG lock. The day after Spa, I did feel a bit like I got a little worked over.

I brought the vent mounts I use in the Lotus for mounting the phone, but the vents in the BMW would not accommodate them. I like being able to see my lap timer. I think it’s an important tool. If I couldn’t mount the phone, I’d have to keep it in my pocket. I’ve done that before, and the data quality suffers. Badly. When he got in the car, Kostas put his phone in the cup holder. He said he does it all the time, no problem. I can’t see the timer, but at least I’m collecting the data. (Yet another difference – at home, we are to remove all loose articles from the car – nothing should be able to fly about the cabin in the case of an accident. I’d never leave anything like a phone unsecured.)

  • My breakfast
  • Today’s rental car – BMW M240i x-Drive
  • Me and my instructor
  • I got passed by these guys
  • F1 pit box markings

As is my habit, I try to talk to my Lotus people. Today, there was only one Lotus. I did manage to introduce myself, but it was a brief conversation. He’s Swiss, has run at Spa many times. He volunteered that it’s a six-hour drive for him. A man after my own heart – he doesn’t trailer his car, either.

All day, the car complained about low tire pressure. A warning showed up on the display – it took up most of the screen. I had to clear it every time I started the car. And I had to remember to do this before I put my gloves on. The low tire pressure is expected – at the track, we run pressures lower than appropriate on the road. The mechanics said they couldn’t configure the car to turn the warning off.

Fairly often, the dashboard would beep and flash red and tell me I needed to brake. It’s sensing cars that are a fair distance ahead of me that are in their braking zones while I’m still accelerating. (Listen for it, if you watch the video.) One time, I got a message that I had a serious drivetrain problem and should get service. I was low on gas, but I’d been lower earlier.

I completed my 300km just a few minutes before the end of the day’s session. RSR were serving champagne, beer, and snacks. Ryan and I had a beer with Kostas and a couple of guys he was chatting with. I mentioned that I’d like to go to England and visit the factory in Hethel. One of the other guys responded in a deep Scottish brogue, “Oh, a Lotus man!” He now owns his 4th Lotus, a V6 Exige not available in the US except as a track-only car.

The other guy in the conversation, Dave, a Brit, was looking for a particular one of the snacks being served. There were none at our table. He flagged down a server, who came by a few minutes later with another little basket of them. Kostas and the Scot gave him grief about liking them. They’re a Dutch treat called bitterballen. They said I should try one, so I did. They’re little deep-fried meat concoctions. After I bit into one, they told me they’re generally called “dog’s balls.” Ryan and I instantly asked if they’d tried Rocky Mountain Oysters.

All done at the track, Ryan, Laura, and I went in search of dinner. The first place we tried was closed. The second was open and looked to have many empty tables, but we were turned away because we didn’t have reservations. We ended up at a fast-food joint called Canadian Burger and Pizza. Outside stood an old Bob’s Big Boy statue. I had a BBQ burger. It was much like the BBQ burger I had in Brussels – not at all BBQ.

So that’s my Spa experience. I had a blast.

Spa Trip – Autoworld and a Drive

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August 4

Another miserable sleepless night. I slept about an hour and a half, then was awake for four hours and managed to sleep for another hour before dawn. Yeesh.

For breakfast, I walked to a nice bakery and had a delicious pastry loaded with raspberries. Definitely not allowed on the sugar-free diet!

Ryan and Laura picked me up a bit after 11, and we went to Autoworld. Somehow, I didn’t see it yesterday – it’s where I saw an Elise parked across the square from the military museum. Clearly, I only have eyes for Lotus, and didn’t spot that there was a car museum right there.

Autoworld is the Belgian National Car Museum. Their current pop-up exhibit, called “Big In Japan,” is Japanese cars. Somehow, not one of them was JDM (Japanese domestic market). They were all left-hand drive cars. I was mildly surprised and mildly disappointed. They couldn’t find even one JDM car?

The permanent exhibition is a nice collection of cars. Obviously, the majority of cars are European, so I saw quite a few cars that were entirely new to me. But I have seen other examples of many of the more valuable cars here (the pre-war Bugattis and modern Ferraris, for example). I go to a lot of car shows. They had a 1901 Toledo Steam Car, built by bicycle makers.

Hit the Road

The road to Spa – more correctly, the road to Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps – was pretty crowded the entire way. It was a bit more than an hour and a half of mostly rural expressway. We headed to my hotel so I could get checked in, but nobody was there. My reservation confirmation email said check-in starts at 4 pm and we were early, so we went to the track to get checked in for tomorrow with RSR.

That accomplished, we headed to the grandstands at Raidillon. It’s pretty trippy finally being here. Ryan and I are driving on the second day of a two-day event, so there are cars out running on the track. The weather is beautiful, hopefully it will be this nice tomorrow. Watching the cars blast down the hill from La Source, down to Eau Rouge, vaulting up over Raidillon, and disappearing, full throttle echoing up the Kemmel straight was fantastic.

Back at the hotel, there was still no sign of life. The address in the email said the address was 220, which is a restaurant. All the rooms are at 223 and have keypads on them. I was starting to think I wouldn’t be able to get into my room. I was not yet in full-on panic mode.

I phoned the number listed on their website, but it went straight to voicemail. A moment later, a maintenance guy came out the door of 220. He didn’t speak any English, but understood that I wanted to check in. He made a phone call and got through to someone. After a conversation, he handed me his phone.

The nice lady I talked to told me that my room number and code were in an email. I never received any such email. She told me the room number and code and asked when I wanted breakfast tomorrow. It turns out I’m the only guest in the place. I told her I could do without, but she said she’d have breakfast delivered to my room. What time did I want it? As I needed to be at the track at 8, she suggested 7 am.

Disaster averted. What would I have done if I’d been a few minutes earlier or later and not run into the maintenance guy?

On the phone, she told me the code, but the maintenance guy worked the doors for me. I had a little heartburn that there was some trick I missed.

I had a nice dinner out with Ryan and Laura, another traditional Belgian food: Hawaiian Pizza!

No heartburn at all – not from the pizza, and there was no trick to the hotel code.

  • Breakfast
  • 1901 Toledo Steam Car
  • Autoworld
  • Bus Stop Chicane
  • Raidillon!

Spa Trip – Serendipitous Museums

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August 3

My first good night’s sleep. I woke up twice, as previous nights, and at 2:00 was worried I’d get a repeat of last night. But all was good, I fell back asleep fairly quickly and slept until 8. I almost never sleep that late.

Today is another day of semi-aimlessly wandering around on foot. Rather than sitting in a restaurant for breakfast, I was looking for a nice bakery. Last night, I thought about that segment of city wall I found and tried to get more info about it. I found that there’s an old gate from that wall serving as a museum, Porte de Hal. Google showed me a bakery between the hotel and there, and off I went.

This is a fairly densely populated area, yet I don’t see too many grocery stores. There are little shops, like convenience stores, but they sell some produce. The only true grocery markets I’ve seen are much smaller than your typical suburban Safeway store, maybe a quarter of the floor space.

Just before I arrived at the bakery, I walked through a small square where they were setting up an outdoor market. Not a farmers’ market; it had a much wider variety of food. Between the market and the bakery, there’s a bar on the corner. It’s 10 am on a Sunday, and two tables on the sidewalk are full of guys drinking beer and singing happy songs.

Porte de Hal was closed. It’s being renovated, but is still open. Except for every other weekend. Evidently, this is every other weekend. Just my luck.

Next, I headed to Parc du Cinquantenaire. The only art in my hotel room is a picture of the arches there. I had no expectations as to what I might find of interest there, but it was somewhere to go. It’s a bit of a hike, but I enjoy a nice hike.

Just before I got there, I found myself outside the House of European History. It’s not on my radar at all. Entry is free, and they give you a tablet and headphones for the self-guided tour. Their exhibits cover European history, focused mostly on recent history. Brussels is the administrative home of the European Union, so it’s natural there’d be a museum focusing on European history after World War II.

It’s in the building of an old dental school. The central staircase features a giant hanging sculpture. It’s hard to describe and nearly impossible to photograph. It is 25 meters tall (82′), made of steel and aluminium. It’s called Voxtex of European History, and rises beside the staircase to the skylight, traversing all six floors of the building. I’d say it looks a bit like a giant squid, but that’s not it. The tentacles are ribbons of metal with letters and words cut out. The ribbons snake into the exhibits on each floor and feature relevant quotations.

Most of the exhibits cover territory I’m already familiar with – the industrial revolutions, the world wars, the cold war, the siege of Sarajevo. Very well done. On my way out, I asked if they had a water fountain. Not one you can drink from – you have to have a bottle. I meant to bring a Nalgene bottle with me, but failed. And I never buy bottled water, so I was without a bottle. I was directed to some vending machines, where I used the wrong one and learned what eau chaude is. I saved the cup. It may come in handy.

There’s a whole side of Brussels that interests me, but that I’ve ignored. NATO headquarters is here, as is the EU headquarters. This museum was a nice little taste of modern history, in contrast to all the 13th-century churches and 17th-century art I’ve been immersing myself in. It was a happy little accident, finding this place.

Only a few minutes after leaving there, I arrived at the Parc. It’s a nice, big park with beautiful trees and landscaping. I headed directly to the arches.

The arches look like many other triumphal arches. I can’t just look at a set of triple arches without going through and looking from the other side. Can you? When I stepped through, I was faced with a bunch of old cannons outside the entrance to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History. Planes and tanks! Sign. Me. Up.

I could have spent all day in there. I was hoping for a bit more of it to be World War II, but they didn’t make the place to cater to me. The large hall is dedicated to aviation, spanning from the early hot air balloons to relatively modern jets.

I’ve seen a lot of planes. There was a big collection at Falcon Field in Mesa, in hangars next to what used to be the Confederate Air Force. I’ve been to the Pima Air Museum, the Air and Space Museum. Wings Over the Rockies at Lowry. I’d like to go to the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs. So I’ve seen pretty much every kind of plane that I know something about. Here, most of these aircraft were ones I’ve never seen before. But I don’t know anything about them. I don’t know why they’re in a museum. Only a few attracted my attention.

Tanks, on the other hand, I seldom get to see. I want to see tanks! The only WWII tanks were American, which disappointed me a bit. Ohio is loaded with Sherman tanks outside of VFW posts. They have an M-47 Patton. They also have a few German Leopard tanks. These were developed in the mid-1960s, used by the West German army (and Belgian Army, evidently). I was a big fan of these when I was about 10 years old.

These are outside, and the ground had tank tracks on it. I hadn’t thought about it, but you have to keep these things drivable. You don’t have to keep your museum piece Spitfire flyable, but if you can’t drive your tank, you’ll never be able to move it.

They have quite the collection of WWI items, including a few tanks and more types of artillery than I knew existed (yes, I’m prone to exaggeration, but I’m only exaggerating a little). In the technical hall, some exhibits showed many (all?) of the processes and parts required to manufacture sabers, flintlock guns, and rifles. Think “exploded diagram” but with the real parts.

Stumbling across two nice museums. I couldn’t have planned it any better.

As it was a Grand Prix Sunday, my next stop was a sports bar, where I watched the Hungarian Grand Prix and had a couple of beers. I had just stepped in the door, was putting my backpack down at a table with a view of the TV, hadn’t yet gone to the bar, when an older guy berated me in French for not having a beer. Dude, lighten up. Can’t I put my stuff down first?

  • Porte de Hal, under renovation
  • Voxtex of European History
  • Triumphal Arches
  • German Leopard tank
  • How It’s Made

Spa Trip – Basilica, Atomium, Beer

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August 2

I slept poorly last night. More precisely, I slept well from 10 pm to 2 am, then not at all from 2 to 6, then well from 6 to 9. I woke up covered in sweat, not at all refreshed. I’m normally up before 7, ready for the day.

Rather than mounting an expedition in search of breakfast, I ate in the hotel. Imagine your basic complimentary motel breakfast in most of America: serve yourself scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, maybe a banana. That was the fare here, except it wasn’t complimentary. When I checked in, I was told breakfast would set me back 23€ per person, or just under 27 bucks. (When I checked out, it turned out to be 18€, or $21.) When I planned the trip, I thought breakfast was included, but even at that, I didn’t plan on eating at the hotel.

Today I widened my radius of exploration by using the subway. First was the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart, or Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Cœur. For some reason, I was thinking this was another Gothic cathedral. I couldn’t have been much more wrong. It was built only a century ago. The cornerstone was laid in 1905, but construction wasn’t completed until after the First World War. It’s not Gothic: it’s Art Deco!

It’s somewhat larger than the two churches I visited yesterday. They claim it’s the fifth-largest church in the world. I know, the internet is never wrong, but various sources I’ve found put it no higher than 8th largest. Back in 1975, I visited St. Isaac’s Cathedral in what was then Leningrad. Through the mists of time and my poor memory, I believe they also claimed it to be the 5th largest. In any event, the Basilica is a significant building, erected at the behest of the King, as a symbol of national pride.

I wouldn’t say the weather was ideal when I arrived there, but I was a bit shocked to step out of the elevator onto the panorama (the walkway around the base of the dome) into a major downpour. Luckily, it was a minor squall and passed after a few minutes.

Next, I went to the Atomium. It was built for the 1958 World’s Fair. Very crowded. I asked for a senior ticket, but she charged me to standard adult fare. Backpacks had to be put into lockers, which were coin-operated. She kindly loaned me a 1€ coin.

I was a bit chagrined to learn that pay toilets are a thing here, particularly as I still haven’t converted any money. Fortunately, the ticket to the Atomium (where toilets cost 0.70€) also includes entry to the Design Museum, where toilets are free.

I don’t know what I was expecting at the Atomium. When you first enter, there are some exhibits telling the story of the 1958 World’s Fair. After that, I don’t know what to make of it. You proceed from escalator to staircase to escalator, moving from one globe to another. There are flashing colored lights and … noises? … electronic music? I was underwhelmed and it’s a mystery to me why it draws such large crowds.

The Design Museum basically had two exhibits: plastics and skateboards. I suspect the plastics exhibit is permanent. The skateboard exhibit is temporary. I found the skateboards more interesting than the plastics, and I’m not particularly interested in skateboards. I was thankful for the free toilet. We take our victories where we find them.

Outside, there are food trucks selling waffles and ice cream. I’ve been using my credit cards the whole time, but these food trucks were the first places I’ve seen where credit cards aren’t accepted. A waffle would have hit the spot right then. They look delicious, served with a dollop of ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup. Seeing that having some cash might be handy, I stopped at an ATM in the subway station and got 40€.

After a short break back at the hotel, I went in search of food. My daily wandering took me by the Ferris wheel next to the Palais de Justice. There’s always been a waffle truck there. I elected to go without the ice cream. The waffle was warm, drizzled with chocolate syrup, and served on a piece of waxed paper with a paper towel. It was warm and sticky and quite tasty.

One of the places on my list of potential sights was the Belgian World Beer Experience. I had walked by it the first day I was here. It looked like a bit of a tourist trap. I went in anyway.

It’s housed in the Bourse de Bruxelles building, the former stock exchange. Before going upstairs to learn about beer, you go downstairs for an archeological tour of the site. I didn’t expect that! Archaeologists excavated the site from 1988-2012. In the 13th century, there was a Franciscan church here, with a cemetery. In 1695, Sun King Louis XIV’s troops bombarded Brussels, destroying the nave and the choir down to the foundations.

Legend has it that it’s the burial site of John 1st of Brabant, also known as Gambrinus or Jan Primus. Gambrinus would be St. Gambrinus, who embodied the joyful enjoyment of alcohol, and has even been credited by some with being the inventor of beer.

The beer museum was more interesting and informative than I expected. I learned that hops is a distant cousin of cannabis. One exhibit had funny quotes about beer. Frank Zappa said, “You can’t be a real country without a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some sort of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” And, from Plato: “He was a wise man who invented beer.”

To top it all off, admission includes a draft beer served on the rooftop terrace. They had about 50 beers to choose from. I picked the Chouffe Cherry. It was very cherry; sweet rather than sour. Not something I’d have on a regular basis, but I enjoyed the change of pace. Sipping my beer, looking out over the old town, I heard more American voices than I had since I got off the plane.

Beer gone, it was 8 o’clock, and time to find dinner. I was hungry, it was late, and I didn’t want to take a lot of time searching for a nice place, so I ended up at the same restaurant as last night – good food, friendly staff, English menu. Why not repeat, as long as I don’t repeat any part of the meal? Instead of the stew, I went for the meatloaf with the mashed potatoes/carrots. After the meatloaf, I asked for their second-best chocolate dessert. They brought out their chocolate cake. Served with a scoop of ice cream and filled with delectable molten chocolate, it hit the sweet spot.

  • Basilica
  • Stained glass
  • Basilica interior
  • Atomium
  • Bourse and excavation
  • The chocolate cake

Spa Trip – Cathedrals and Fine Art

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My travels through Brussels may sound a bit … aimless. That’s because they more or less were aimless. I had a short list of sights that I thought might be worthwhile, but I didn’t have anything like an itinerary or a plan. If I went everywhere on the list, great. I had no doubt I’d like places that weren’t on the list if I just stumbled upon them. And, with only a handful of days to explore, I would certainly get back home and think, “I should have gone there!” So my general plan was to begin each day with a starting place, then improvise after that.

I picked my hotel because it’s in a network where I can use some points to cut a few Euros off the daily bill. It fit my budget, and it’s close enough to the center of the city that I could get around on foot. For a budget place, it’s in a nice neighborhood. The neighbor across the street is the Mission of the State of Qatar. A block away, there’s a very upscale hotel that I passed by every day. Often, a Ferrari was in the driveway. Once, a Maybach was parked out front.

August 1

My first destination today was the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. Amazing building. Construction began in the 11th century, and was largely complete in its current Gothic form by the 16th. As the national church of Belgium and the Primate of Belgium’s official seat, it frequently hosts royal weddings, state funerals, and other official ceremonies.

There are public parks all over the city. Some are tiny, some are significant. After the cathedral, I came upon one that was a little different than other city parks I’ve seen. City parks are all very well-manicured. This little park was a bit on the “wild” side – very little sign of curation other than the fountain and the paths.

Next, the sidewalk led me to the Oldmasters Museum, or Musée Old Master. It concentrates on works produced from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The museum was founded by Napoleon in 1801 and includes many artworks seized from religious institutions. This is an all too common story of museums. It’s definitely not good that museums all over the world are filled with stolen goods, but at least these artifacts are now kept in controlled environments for proper preservation (and sometimes restoration) and that they’re available to the public.

The temporary exhibit is Rene Magritte. Interesting work. I guess he did a lot of wordplay. I didn’t see a work’s title that matched the work. It’s like he played games in naming things. I saw one Magritte piece in their permanent collection – a bowler hat with a light bulb on the front. Not a painting, an actual hat with an actual lightbulb.

Magritte, like many artists, made numerous variations of many of his works. He had one, The Treachery of Images, that’s a painting of a pipe with the caption “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (this is not a pipe). The 1929 version of this is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In this exhibit, there’s one from 1962 called The Tune and also the Words. This exhibit also has a few other variations, including one that’s officially untitled, but is called “The Sexual Pipe”, where the stem is a phallus. He also had a thing about painting men in bowler hats, and a series of landscapes derived from an Edgar Allan Poe story I’ve never read called The Domain of Arnheim. Certain images repeat throughout much of his work, such as eggs or white balls with black equators.

The Old Masters collection is about what I expected – mostly religious. One hall was filled with giant pieces. I can only imagine how much work went into all of these. Some of them seemed somewhat anachronistic. I think of paintings of anthropomorphic landscapes as being a modern or surrealist thing, but there are a few here from the 16th century.

I had lunch at a little brew pub. I had two different beers, both tasty. I asked the bartender for a lunch recommendation. He suggested the Salade du maraîcher. I had no idea what it was; I’d never heard of it. Through the power of the internet, as I write this many days later, I’ve learned it simply means “market gardener’s salad.” I ate it without knowing even what was in it. Among other ingredients it was beefsteak tomatoes, grilled zucchini, roasted garlic, feta cheese, purple basil sauce, and a slice of sourdough bread.

After lunch, I found myself at another church, Église Notre-Dame de la Chapelle, or Church of Our Lady of the Chapel. It’s not quite as large as St. Gudula, and doesn’t look to get as much funding for upkeep, but it also doesn’t get the tourist traffic. This one was built between the 12th and 13th centuries. This church is only a kilometer (0.6 miles) apart. They’re significant structures. From what I can tell, the population of Brussels at that time was perhaps 30,000.

Both of these churches were built about the same time as the city was being enclosed by walls. I only found one small piece of the old wall (not that I was looking for it), and the museum about the wall was closed when I went. The original walls were about two and a half miles long. The defensive walls, though larger than the churches, were crude in comparison, as befits their purpose. If you think of wealth as being the accumulated surplus of production beyond subsistence, it seems inescapable that the vast majority of wealth went to the Church.

As I said earlier, I didn’t go to Belgium to eat tacos. I wanted to try at least a few traditional Belgian dishes. My very limited research suggested mussels, or beef stew, or meatloaf with mashed potatoes and carrots. And, of course, there are waffles and frites. And chocolate. At the hotel, I asked the desk clerk if he could recommend a nearby restaurant with good desserts. He wasn’t much help – he said I should find a restaurant with pictures on the menu. It’s not the worst advice for a monoglot American tourist, but I’m somewhat willing to be daring. He did, though, suggest I try something in the Sablon, a neighborhood of chic bars, fashionable restaurants, and chocolate shops near Central Place.

So I basically wandered around the Sablon for an hour, where I came across a place serving Belgian specialties that had an English menu. I had the beef stew. It was delicious. The typical beef stew I’m familiar with always has potatoes, onions, and carrots. This was just beef, and is made with beer. The side dish for the stew was frites. They recommended beer pairings with all their entrees. For dessert, I asked for their best chocolate dish. It was a mousse. Delightful!

  • Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula
  • One of the stained glass windows
  • Interior
  • Exterior, side view
  • “The Tune and also the Words”
  • Big Old Masters
  • Église Notre-Dame de la Chapelle
  • Fragment of Ancient City Wall

On Blending In

I recently watched a movie where the characters were Americans in Europe, on the run from the bad guys. One character told the other to lose the backpack and baseball cap so he wouldn’t look like an obvious American. Here in Brussels, if you want to blend in as a local, a backpack and baseball cap are good, as long as the cap is for the New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Dodgers. Also, feel free to wear a t-shirt with an American city name on it (New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago) or something like “East River” or “West Coast California”. But to seal the deal, to really fit in as a Bruxellois, smoke a cigarette.

I carried my backpack, rain jacket and umbrella in it, and wore my baseball cap. I wore polo shirts instead of t-shirts, and I don’t smoke. But there was no hiding the fact that I’m an American every time I opened my mouth to speak.

Spa Trip – Arrival in Brussels

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I flew United, Denver to Brussels via Chicago O’Hare. Economy, back of the bus. The first flight was on time, but as is often the case for me, upon landing in Chicago, our gate was occupied. I had a quick connection – while we were still waiting for a gate, the United app was beeping my phone: my next flight was scheduled to start boarding. After a few minutes waiting on the tarmac, they directed us to a different gate. We were supposed to arrive at gate C 12. My flight to Brussels departs at C 16. Instead of walking a hundred feet to the gate, it was a sprint down one concourse, through the tunnel, and up another concourse. Luckily, things were running a few minutes late, and they only started boarding when I arrived at the gate.

The flight to Brussels was my first time on a 787. I was on the aisle in row 60, the very last row. The economy cabin is ten seats across, with two aisles. My row was only nine, but I was next to the head. I expected a suboptimal experience next to the head, but I was next to a bulkhead, not the door. There was no odor, and I could get up whenever I wanted and stand for a few minutes in the rear galley. Bonus: the middle seat was the only empty seat on the plane.

I was a little surprised at our route. I knew we’d be going fairly far north, but I didn’t expect us to go due north from Chicago and due south over Scotland and England.

Meal service started pretty quickly after we reached cruising altitude. There was a choice of three meals, unless you were seated in the last row and you took what was left. In this case, it was the chicken and rice.

I normally have no trouble sleeping on planes. This time, though, not a wink. Each seat has a screen on the back of the seat in front. They kept the cabin dark, encouraging people to sleep. When I turned my light on to read, it looked like a beacon. Nobody else had figured out how to turn the light on, perhaps. I watched the map of our route when I watched anything. People around me watched movies or TV shows.

Breakfast was some sort of bagel sandwich – egg, cheese, ham.

Inexperienced international traveller here. I was surprised by how the passport check and customs worked. Passport check was before baggage claim. I was asked if Belgium was my final destination. Passport stamped, and I was on my way. Collect my bag at baggage claim and head out the door.

I’m not renting a car on this trip. Well, I’m renting two of them, but that’s later.

Google’s route for me was to catch a bus at the airport, then get another bus to the hotel. I opted for simplicity. The second bus saved me a twenty-minute walk. I’m happy to walk twenty minutes.

They let me check in to the hotel early, which was convenient. That allowed me a quick rest before heading out. The hotel elevator is the smallest I’ve ever seen. The safety placard says maximum load 400kg or 5 persons. There’s no way to get five people in this elevator unless three of them are infants.

The staircase is adjacent to the elevator and seems to have the same footprint in the floor plan. It’s the size of a bedroom closet. The stairs are small triangles, not much bigger than my foot, and I have to be careful not to knock my skull on the ceiling at the bottom of each flight. I’m on the fifth floor. The lobby is floor zero.

To get any of the lights to work in my room, I had to insert my room card into a little gadget on the wall by the entry. That took me a minute to figure out. Not how to do it, but that I needed to do it.

After a short nap, I walked to Grand Place. It’s the city’s central square, surrounded by ornate old buildings. It’s the main tourist attraction in the city. The weather was nice enough when I set out from the hotel, but in the end, it was a two-hour walk in the rain. Silly me, I left the raincoat in my room and wore the hoodie instead.

The buildings in Grand Place are giant works of art. Many are covered in statues made of stone or copper. Hundreds of them, all unique. It boggles my brain to think of the number of hours of highly skilled labor that went into it. The crowd was on the thin side due to the rain.

I headed back to the neighborhood of my hotel to look for dinner. Just like any place I’ve ever looked for a restaurant, I had choices: Italian, Mexican, Asian, or burger joints. I had all these within a few blocks, as well as French, Lebanese, and Hawaiian Poke. No traditional Belgian kitchens, though. I didn’t come here for tacos, and I didn’t want to deal with two language barriers trying to order Lebanese food in a French-speaking country. So I got a burger.

It’s a little joint, Bintje. Most business is take-away. They have seating for a couple dozen, maybe. The kitchen is next to the door, so when you stand in line to order, you get to see them cook. Fresh-cut potatoes fill a large shelf above the fryers; no frozen frites here. They had three burgers on the menu. I had the “Original BBBQ” burger. That would be bacon barbecue, thus the three Bs. But no barbecue sauce. The sauce they used was tasty, but not BBQ.

The bun was delicious and the serving of fries frites rivals Five Guys in generosity. I had a draft beer, a local brew. The server switched to English with the first word out of my mouth: “Original”.

There’s quite a bit more English in use here than I expected. A high percentage of the businesses I passed on my bus ride from the airport had English names. There’s English graffiti. On the way from Bintje to my hotel, a couple was walking and talking behind me. She’s speaking a steady stream of French, then says, “Sign. Me. Up.,” then switches back to French.

I am 8 time zones from home.

  • Anglo-Belgian Memorial (World War I)
  • Grand Place panorama
  • Detail over a City Hall door
  • All the figures…
  • Mont des Arts

Mid-Ohio Trip – Chicago

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Day 7 – Friday, May 31

The weather guy on TV said the sky today would be “milky”. That’s not a description I recall hearing before. Turned out to be fairly apt.

When picking a hotel for my stay in Chicago my first consideration was to be roughly half way between downtown and Autobahn. That meant a western suburb. Next consideration was proximity to a train station. Without knowing anything about Chicago mass transit I had to ask around. Bob suggested the best way to go was on the Metra. This is an entirely different train system than the “L” operated by the Chicago Transit Authority. With this in mind, I picked a hotel just a few miles from the Naperville Metra station.

I didn’t want to have to get to the station early enough to find a parking spot, so I grabbed a Lyft. At the station, I was expecting to buy tickets from a machine. That’s how it works for the BART in San Francisco and the Metro in D.C. It works differently for Denver’s train system, at least the one I’ve ridden. There are no turnstiles but you still get your ticket from a machine. At the Metra station, you actually go to a ticket window and buy from a person. How quaint.

The train cars are tall double-decker affairs. The lower level is two seats on each side of the aisle. The upper level is one seat each side, with some seats facing forward and others that are jump seats that fold down, and you face the aisle. Up there, you’re on one side or the other as there’s no floor in the center. A conductor comes through and checks tickets, and from the lower level he can collect from the folks above.

The train deposits you in Union Station. The trains are below ground level and there are many platforms. Not knowing where to go I just let myself be carried along by the crowd, turning right and left, going up escalators, I finally was deposited on Adams St on the bank of the Chicago River. The general plan was to wander the public spaces by the Lake, then spend some time at the art museum and go to the observation deck at either the Willis Tower or the Hancock Tower. I could either find dinner downtown or head back to Naperville.

So finding myself on Adams St at the river was a good starting place. All I needed to do was walk a few blocks east and I’d be at the museum. It wouldn’t open for a while, so I’d have time to wander through the parks and gawp at the skyline.

Bean There, Done That

I didn’t have a clear sense of how the place is laid out, so I just started at the northwest corner and went around clockwise. This meant I’d start in Millennium Park. The big attraction here is “the bean,” which is actually called Cloud Gate. When I arrived there were only a few people. Great luck, I thought. I can get some pictures without a huge crowd. I managed to take one or two photos before a busload of kids showed up. Ah, well, so it goes.

A few yards south of Cloud Gate is the Crown Fountain. I don’t think I’d heard of this before. I’m pretty sure I’d remember it. There are two sort of obelisks that face each other with water cascading down the sides. And I literally mean “face each other.” They have human faces on them. The faces are animated. That is, they slowly change their expressions. Periodically, they purse their lips and streams of water pour from their “mouths”.

Heading toward the lake you come across the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, an interesting open-air venue, obviously designed by Frank Gehry. From there you can take a pedestrian bridge across Columbus Drive to Maggie Daley Park. It has all sorts of little nooks and crannies for kids to explore: forts and pirate ships, hall-of-mirrors gardens, sculptures, and so on. Heading south along Lake Shore Drive eventually takes you to Buckingham Fountain.

From here I crossed Lake Shore Drive and walked along the water’s edge. To the north you can see Navy Pier, to the south the planetarium, aquarium, and the Field Museum. Heading back west takes you through the south end of Grant Park. Before you get to Michigan Avenue you’ll find the loop’s railroad tracks below grade, out of sight. I skipped some of these little parks and worked my way back to the art museum, the Art Institute of Chicago.

It’s a big museum. I didn’t make it through the entire place, but I got close. I’m not the biggest art fan. That is, I like art, but there are some types that don’t appeal to me. So I was perfectly willing to skip various exhibits. As it turned out, I don’t think I skipped much. I’m not an expert on art or art museums by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d suggest that this is one of the top art museums in the world. Perhaps not “top ten” material, but not far from it. I was surprised how many of the works I recognized, and how many works by artists I recognized.

American Gothic on the left and Nighthawks through the doorway on the right

Among the exhibits that didn’t appeal to me are some of the works of modern art. This would include Jackson Pollack, who I suspect just sold his drop cloths. Another one was just a set of colored panels: a block of blue next to a block of red next to a block of green next to a block of white, or things to that effect. I don’t understand this stuff. Picasso may not be my cup of tea, but some effort obviously went into it. It’s a different view of reality, but there’s a viewpoint there, even if it doesn’t speak to me. A series of paint swatches seems like they’re just trying to pull one over on me.

The rest of the exhibits are amazing in one way or another. The miniature rooms were incredible. A woman did a series of rooms either based on real houses or her imagination that represented a place and time. Furnishings, art, lighting, rugs, views into adjoining rooms. I almost skipped that one and I’m glad I didn’t. I really liked the impressionists, too. The American art included quite a lot of furniture. “They don’t make them like that anymore” is an understatement. The level of craftsmanship is insane. The several rooms with armor and arms was great, too.

I did get a bit of a kick out of all the people taking pictures of the art. I’ve done this on occasion myself, to be honest. But these days I’m more interested in the room as a whole, or the people looking at the art. Because I can go on-line and find a much better picture than I can take of that Picasso.

The admission ticket that I bought for the art museum included a trip up to the Skydeck attraction at the Willis Tower. That’s the observation deck on the 103rd floor. I entered the building through the wrong entrance. A doorman there immediately asked if I was looking for the Skydeck. I jokingly asked him if he thought I looked like a tourist (because I obviously did: Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and a camera around my neck).

Other than the views, the attraction is The Ledge. They basically took out four windows and made bay windows with transparent floors. Groups of three or fewer people get sixty seconds, four or more get ninety. Everybody does it, so the line is long: maybe 20 minutes. I got to chatting with a group there where one of the guys wanted to do a handstand. He said he’s been doing handstands all over Chicago. Here, he was reluctant because he’s afraid of heights. I said, “Hey, don’t worry: nobody has fallen out the entire time I’ve been waiting here!”

I have a problem with heights, but this didn’t bother me

By now I was done. I’d been walking all day and I was looking forward to sitting down on the train. I managed to find the correct train without looking too much like a rube. I sat on the upper level this time, thinking there might be a view. There wasn’t. After some time, my phone rang. It was Bob. After chatting for a couple minutes I couldn’t help but notice that several people were giving me the evil eye for talking on my phone. I told Bob I’d call him back. Once off the train, I got the phone out and started to call a Lyft. As soon as it asked where I wanted to go, it told me I was down to 3% charge and shut itself off. (I left the hotel with a fully charged phone. Most days, it’s down to 55-60% by the end of the day. Some days it gets happy and goes through 90% by bed time. This day, it must have been positively ecstatic, to use 100% in 10 hours. And I hardly even used it.)

That’s just great. Not only can’t I call a car, I can’t even bring up a map to tell me which way to hoof it. I didn’t even really know how far it was. I was hoping it was closer to four miles than seven. On the way to the station I didn’t really pay attention to where we were going, but I did have a general direction. So off I went, expecting that I’d be able to stop at any number of places to ask for directions. I passed a Little Caesar’s Pizza place and a DQ. I considered going to the pizza place and ordering a pizza for delivery to my hotel, then catching a ride with the driver. But the line was out the door, as was the line at DQ. After that, I was in a residential area whose few businesses were all closed.

There were no other pedestrians and when a hippyish bicyclist came by I stopped him to ask directions. He told me I was going in the right way and that if I got to the highway I’d gone too far. I found the street I was looking for and soon found my hotel. The last hurdle to jump was the lack of a crosswalk across a multi-lane road with a high speed limit. As you may have guessed, I managed to cross without getting run over. Back in my room, I plugged in to recharge. I checked how far it was: less than three miles.

I had dinner at a brew pub next to the hotel and had a large beer.

More photos here.

Today’s miles: 0 road Total miles: 1,729 road, 407 track

Laguna Seca Trip: Day 13 – Henderson to Bayfield, CO

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Wednesday, July 20

Today is a “zero day” in Henderson with Chris. A corollary to “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is “Nothing happens in Henderson.”

Thursday, July 21

In a feeble attempt to exit Vegas before it gets hot, I was out the door by 7:30.

Google wants to take me west to go east; it will suggest I make four turns or have me on a dirt road in Death Valley to save a quarter mile but will take me miles out of my way to put me on the interstate. Chris gave me a different recommendation: Boulder Highway to Nellis to Las Vegas Blvd to I-15. I take Chris’s route and for fun leave Navigator running to see how long before it reroutes me to my current path. It gave up about half way up Nellis after recommending about thirty left turns. This, perhaps, is a ploy by the Las Vegas chamber of commerce to keep me on the Interstate rather than driving through their town. Either that, or Google is still messing with me.

I’m not a particular fan of Vegas. I’ve only visited the place a few times, but it strikes me as a crummy little town. Every place I’ve seen off the Strip is run down, somewhat dilapidated, desiccated. I don’t like the weather there, and even when it’s not baking hot I find nothing appealing about it. If it weren’t for the gambling, this place wouldn’t exist, it would be just another Great Basin valley, an isolated Air Force Base.

My Vegas escape route takes me by the speedway and the location of the proposed Tesla giga-factory before depositing me on I-15. I take the interstate a few miles past St. George, Utah. In order to get Navigator to take me on my desired path, I had to give an intermediate destination. That’s St. George. So it got me off the highway and sent me left and right and left again until I was in front of the local college’s football stadium. “You’ve arrived at your destination!” Maybe I should have looked for that Starbucks instead. Actually, if I wouldn’t have wanted to top off the gas tank, I’d never have gotten off the interstate here. I get back on I-15 for a few more miles before heading east, ending the trip’s last Rule #1 violation.

This is the road to Page, Glen Canyon Dam, and Lake Powell. I’ve never seen so many boats on the road before. Boats outnumber RVs. Big boats, pulled by dueller diesel pickup trucks. Big, shiny, black pick up trucks.

I often say of Wyoming that all the interesting bits are around the edges. I’ve decided that Nevada has it worse. It has no interesting bits. Pretty much as soon as you leave Nevada the terrain gets much more interesting. Nevada, in my experience, is like a wrinkled table cloth – just one valley after another. Sameness followed by sameness, with minor variations in vegetation. Back in Utah, the wrinkles are replaced by layers. At St. George you enter red rock canyon country. We’re at the western end of the Grand Escalante Staircase (even if we’re not in that particular park). We can see different kinds and colors of rock, interesting formations. I’m happy to be leaving the Great Basin in my rear view mirror.

Not long after St. George the road takes me through Colorado City. There’s a Colorado City in Colorado but this one is bigger. It’s one of those places I’d heard of in the news over the years but never bothered to figure out where it was. It was in the news because it’s where a splinter sect of fundamentalist Mormons live. These Mormons are polygamous; believing that their god wants their leaders to marry as many fourteen year old girls as possible. In all the small towns through here, I see women in the old style garb. These dresses strike me as not far removed from the bee keeper suits women are made to wear in parts of the Middle East.

Not only are there a lot of boats on the highway, approaching Lake Powell there are lots of places to store your boat, so you don’t have to tow it up and down the highway. Lake Powell appears, side roads lead to marinas. When I see a sign for Wahweap Overlook, I stopped to look it over.

IMG_2293_stitch_crop_resize

Lake Powell from Wahweap Overlook

The next obvious stop was the Glen Canyon Dam’s visitor center, followed by a walk part way across the bridge.

Glen Canyon dam and bridge

Glen Canyon dam and bridge

Navigator’s penchant for short cuts kicks in again in Page, with the result that I drive by the lumber yard instead of any restaurants. I need to eat in Page as there’s nothing available until Kayenta, still quite a way down the road. The Maverick station has a store with a grill offering burgers and Navajo tacos. I grabbed a burger and ate it at a picnic table outside. I share the table with a young French couple. Seating was limited to two picnic tables. The other was occupied by a family. Guns were not welcome here, they were encouraged. Show your gun and a permit, get a 10% discount (not good on fuel). You can also get the discount by showing ID that says you served in the military. I wonder if that includes the military of other countries? I wonder what the French couple thought of the gun discount.

Just after Page the road passes parking lots for Antelope Canyon tours. This will have to go on the list of places to visit. We’ll certainly have to come back here and explore the place in more detail.

I’m taking AZ 98 from Page to a junction with US 160. This junction is about 30 miles from Kayenta. This is my least busy road for the day, a relaxing drive. From then on, it’s familiar roads for me – Four Corners and the oddly named Teec Nos Pos, through Cortez, past Mesa Verde, and skirting Durango. When I got to about Mancos the place looked and smelled right: I’m back in Colorado.

To top off the day, I had dinner at the Seven Rivers Restaurant at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. I had the petit filet mignon, jalapeño mashed potatoes and the corn dish. Yum.

Grace and Greg kindly put me up for the night. Grace was a good sport, suffering through the modern equivalent of getting out the slide projector: going through the photos on the laptop.

Laguna Seca Trip: Day 11 – Monterey to Henderson

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Tuesday, July 19

Now we enter the phase of the trip where things are a bit more free-form. So far, everything has been pretty well planned – the route is known (even if not perfectly followed), activities defined, lodging reservations made. Now, though, things are more like ideas than plans. The idea is to visit Yosemite, but it’s not well enough defined to call it a plan: drive through the park, stop at the visitors center, chat with a ranger to determine a hike for tomorrow, perhaps take in a short hike, then off to the Inyo National Forest to search for camping.

With that in mind, I want to do a little trip preparation. The internet in the motel room is nearly worthless and isn’t connecting so I figure I can go to a Starbuck’s, grab a bagel and some internet. I use the Google Navigator app on my phone: find Starbucks. It thinks about it for a few seconds and presents me with a choice: which Starbucks would I like to visit? There’s one in St. George, UT, and a couple near home in Arvada. I know I passed one within a few blocks of the motel and might guess there’d be about thirty in a five mile radius of my position. Why does Google want to send me to St. George?

No matter, I find the Starbucks. It’s in a Safeway. I grab the laptop and head inside. Get the laptop booted up and search for wi-fi. None of them seem to be Starbucks, but Safeway has an open network. Get connected to that only to find it doesn’t have internet. So no further planning for me at this point. I’ll rely on the phone app for navigation.

This goes well enough. The drive from Monterey to the approaches of Yosemite is pleasant; scenic but not particularly noteworthy. Well, except one bit: Google has me make a turn onto Road 9. This is a farm road, paved sometime in the last century and barely maintained. I’m taken through the farms of the central valley – some sort of nut orchards, corn eleven feet tall, olive orchards, various other crops. Next is a right turn on Sandy Mush Road. It’s in only slightly better shape. Why is Google sending me on these odd roads?

I arrive at Yosemite around 11. If our national parks were named for their most prominent feature, RMNP would still be RMNP. Bryce would be Hoodoo. Yosemite would be Granite Slabs. As soon as you see the first giant slab of granite that forms a cliff wall you see the entrance station.

At the gate I ask for the visitors center and am directed to Yosemite Valley, the most crowded part of the park. Here, people have parked cars at every available turn out or wide spot. I find a place to pull over and consult the park map. I see that I passed the turn off for the tunnel view, so I decide to check that out before hitting the visitor center.

I get lucky here. I imagined the parking lot to be bigger. It’s not very big, and it’s crowded. The three cars in front of me are waiting for spots and blocking ingress and egress. But they didn’t notice that a car behind them wants out, so I snag a spot before those folks. I take the opportunity to snack here; I’m starting to get hungry what with having skipped breakfast.

IMG_2260_stitch_crop_scaled

Part of the Yosemite crowd

The view here is pretty magnificent. The car normally draws a lot of attention. But here I’m mobbed by comments and questions. Nearly as many people take pictures of the car as they do of the view. I’m used to the car getting such attention. Even when there’s another Elise people like the green and yellow. But I’ve never seen anything like this. I have my snack, snap a few pictures, and am back on my way back downhill into the valley.

Yosemite Valley tunnel view

There’s a trailhead! I should stop here and take a short hike. I pull into the lot. Sort of: I can’t actually get into the lot because not only are all the spots full but there’s a long line of cars hoping to get a spot. I make about a 9 point turn to get out and note that cars are parked along the road below the parking lot, too. Clearly, I’m too optimistic. I’m going to have trouble parking anywhere in this place.

I decided to skip the visitors center and head to Tioga Pass. There are pullouts up and down all the roads in the park. I find one here with a view of the valley and park the car. I did a quick u-turn and park so that I can try to get a picture with the car in the foreground and climb a few feet up the hillside across from where I’m parked. I missed the opportunity for a quick shot. Other cars and people are arriving and they all seem to want to get a shot of the valley while standing by my car. I wait patiently and eventually get the shot.

IMG_2268sNow a tour bus pulls up. Because I’m parked where I am, he can’t get in. The ass end of his bus is blocking traffic. The driver sees me; I point to my car and to me, run across the road and hop into the car to move it down far enough for him to get parked. No key in my pocket. Where the heck is it? It’s not in the ignition, not in the seat. How the hell could I lose my car key? I need to move it downhill, so I just take it out of gear and let it roll. The bus gets parked and the driver gives me a thumbs up. I’m in a bit of panic, though. I finally find the key in the wrong pocket (I never put keys in that pocket). I make a pantomime of “cant’ find my keys” for the bus driver, then show that I found them. He laughs.

I continue up Tioga Pass, stopping at most of the pullouts. Early on, we get a view to the east and see damage from a recent forest fire. The road continues to climb and turns back to the west. Overlook after overlook is crowded. All the trailheads have full parking lots plus lines of cars on both sides of the road in both directions. Doesn’t look like I’ll be hiking today.

But, frankly, for the last few hours I’ve been considering just heading directly to Vegas. The congestion here is just an additional factor. Perhaps the deciding factor, but just one factor. I continue to take my time through the park, seeing what sights I can (and answering questions about the car at every stop). When I was looking at the map earlier, I saw there’s another visitor center at Tuolomne Meadows, so when I get there I make a quick stop. This is not the visitors center I’m looking for; it doesn’t have much to offer. And it offers me no reason not to head to Vegas. I decide to table my decision until I reach Lee Vining for a late lunch/early dinner.

Over my meal I call Chris to make sure it won’t be a problem arriving at his door two days early. This done, I call home and let Genae know the change in plans. I let Google Navigator select the quickest route to Vegas and hit the road. Now, up until now the idea was that I’d drive a somewhat longer route and see what Death Valley looks like. Yes, I’m probably insane for wanting to go through Death Valley in July in a convertible with English air conditioning (probably works great in London, cooling from 80 to 75, but it’s certainly not good for desert southwest climes). With the updated itinerary I’ll be skipping Death Valley.

The first bit of the next part of the trip is CA 120. What a fabulous road. I’ve seen a road built like this before, near Joshua Tree. The road was built using no cut-and-fill. It looks like they drove a road grader to clear the weeds, then just poured asphalt right on the ground. I didn’t see a single culvert and the only shaping of the roadbed they did was to bank the road enough to prevent any cases of negative camber. The road lies directly on the terrain, unlike most roads. If the ground falls two feet, so does the road.

This is actually quite fun. You can’t go terribly fast, but you don’t need to. It has more curves per mile than you’d expect, and it rolls up and down so much you generally can’t see more than a few hundred yards. One section descends through a gully not much wider than the road. It’s a series of S-curves a few miles long. Tightening, loosening, getting steeper then not so steep. Next comes a sign: “Dips Next 5 Miles”. This section is a straight line but the road goes through depression after depression. Again, you can’t see very far, so it’s strictly no passing. But the road goes up and down like mad. The dips come in combinations: one, then three quick ones, then a big one, then a double. Sometimes the dips are so steep you feel like you’re going straight down. None are more than perhaps thirty or forty or fifty feet deep, but they’re big enough to give you that “light stomach roller coaster” feeling, followed by some serious compression at the bottom. I was having so much fun, I laughed out loud several times. What a great Lotus road.

After this fun section, I was directed through a couple of navigation points. By now I notice that the map doesn’t show my route in a blue line. In fact, the map is empty save for the pointer that indicates my location. But it’s still telling me where to turn. Okay, I must be out of cell range. I’m sure it loaded the required info when I started and I’ll be okay. Remember, I lack an atlas.

I also use the phone as a speedometer. I notice that as I speed up or slow down, the reading doesn’t change, and the compass heading is stuck. I arrive at a T-intersection but Navigator is silent. The phone has locked up. I cycle the power and relaunch Navigator. The phone actually says “No Sim” before it says “No Service”. In any event, Navigator will be no help here.

Last gas, of course, was Lee Vining. I’d seen one sign indicating how far I’d have to drive to get gas. The signs here told me that town was to the right. I need to go southeast, and it’s south to the right, north to the left. I go south. It isn’t long before I see this is the wrong way to go. The road makes a right turn and heads directly into the sun. Yes – directly: we’re climbing a steep pass, the road still poured directly onto the terrain. I know I can get gas in about 25 miles this way, I have no idea how far I need to go the other way. The safest course is to proceed to the known gas station.

Mono Lake

Mono Lake

This is all a big adventure. The road I’m on is not quite as fun as CA 120, but it’s still a gas. It climbs steeply, twisting and turning all the time. Like the other road, the surface is good. Near the top of the pass the little canyon we’re going through is so narrow as to support only a single lane. “Yield to Oncoming Traffic.” Like the other road, it’s not heavily traveled: occasional cars but not a single truck. I’m having fun, it’s all good. Another fun Lotus road.

In the next town I gas up, get connected with Navigator, and answer more questions about the car. Navigator wants me to retrace my steps, but I see that the route through Death Valley is only 20 minutes longer from here. I’m not a big fan of repeating routes when I have so many to choose from, and as it’s only 20 minutes, what the heck? Perhaps I’m fated to go through Death Valley.

A few miles down the road, Navigator gives me a new message: Shorter route available. Do you want to take it? It can’t be the one I’ve already been on, can it? I’ve been going 20 minutes already, and turning around here would be longer, wouldn’t it? I accept the change. Of course, it wants me to make a u-turn. I cancel and reselect the Death Valley route.

Passing through the next town I can’t help but notice a bunch of runners. They’re scattered along the road side in pairs or pairs of pairs. I think the guys at the edge of town are stragglers, but after making a turn to the east I see they’re running along here, too. They’re coming my way, running on the foot-wide shoulder. There’s not much traffic, so I can almost always give them the full lane. Along the other side of the road, spaced irregularly, are vehicles deployed to assist the runners, always in pairs. I’m guessing one of the pair is the competitor, the other is providing support or assistance.

By the time I’ve gone sixty or seventy miles I’m really curious. The sun went below the mountains to the west some time ago; dusk is turning to dark. How long will I need to keep an eye out for runners in my lane? There’s a pullout ahead, so I pull off and ask the crew there. “How far are we running?” “One hundred and thirty five miles.”  This isn’t just a 135 mile run, it’s the Badwater Ultramarathon. It’s a 135 mile run out of Death Valley to the Mt. Whitney portal, which means it includes over 8,500 feet of climbing. The things people do.

The road here starts a serious descent: tight turns and steep grades. Drop offs on one side. And still there are runners. I pretty much have to crawl down the mountain to be sure I don’t run into somebody around a blind corner. By the time it’s fully dark I haven’t seen a runner in fifteen minutes, but there’s one final straggler.

The road is now clear of runners, but with the dusk and dark other critters are appearing. A coyote is ambling down the road toward me, following the center stripe. Rabbits occasionally make a dash across the road, or sit and watch me go by. It would not be fun to clobber one of these guys. Are there really as many rabbits as I’m seeing, or is my imagination getting the best of me? Now, instead of a 9:30 arrival in Vegas it’s more like 11:30. I have a couple more hours of night driving.

Shortly after Stovepipe Wells, Navigator directs me to take a left on Scotty’s Castle Road, followed by a right on Daylight Pass Road. I’m not happy that it’s taking me onto named roads. I much prefer numbered routes. After a few miles of Daylight Pass Road I enter Nevada and Navigator tells me I’m back on a numbered route, a Nevada state highway. All is well again! Except that it’s not. Now Google says to make a right turn on Airport Road. This is a dirt road. Does Google want to kill me, have me dispose of my own body in the desert? Why is it taking me this way? Should I rebel? In the dark, with no map, I follow directions. It turns out that the road is dirt only two miles, which doesn’t take long, even at 15 mph. Shortly after regaining pavement I arrive at an intersection with US 95 which will take me right to downtown Vegas.

I have survived the various tests Google as presented me: I found a Starbucks in Monterey, I overcame resetting the phone in the middle of nowhere with no service, I was not left for dead in Death Valley. And one final minor annoyance: Navigator left me at the end of Chris’s street rather than in front of his house.

Laguna Seca Trip: Day 9 – Danville to Monterey

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Sunday, July 17

I wanted to find a place to hand wash the car this morning, so Rod came with me as navigator. Just exiting their neighborhood I spotted a red M100 ahead of us. Rod said, “Catch him!” He made his green light, we got stopped by a red. He was out of sight, but Rod suggested he might be going to the auto parts store. Sure enough, when we were gassing up Rod spotted him. Naturally, I had to go introduce myself. I met Mel, who would be taking his other Lotus to Laguna Seca tomorrow. What are the chances?

We found the car wash, but they weren’t washing cars because of a compressor problem. Not sure what they need a compressor for to do a hand wash, but so it goes. Back at the house, Rod helped me wash it in their driveway. I didn’t put a lot of effort into it, but managed to get about eight pounds of bugs off of it. She’s presentable now.

After lunch I packed up the car and was on the road by 2:20. Went over the San Mateo bridge and then to Half Moon Bay. Traffic crawled along slowly most of the way. South on PCH, steady stream of traffic headed northbound, nearly as much as going my way. Just south of Half Moon Bay I saw Bo’s car parked by the road. He wasn’t in it. I should have stopped. My plan was to stop a little farther along, but soon all the parking areas were filled. I ended up not stopping until I got to the hotel. Google navigation had me take an alternate route due to long delays.

At Thunderhill Bo said he might try to make it to Laguna Seca. So when I saw his car, I thought he was going to be there.

Checked in at the hotel and unpacked the car. Spent some time on the phone, then set off in search of dinner. Found the Alvorado Street Brewery and Grill. Had a pilsner and a patty melt. Started up the car to head back to the motel and got a check engine light. I checked the codes when I got back: 1302 and 0128. A 0128 indicates a bad thermostat. The phone app didn’t know what a 1302 was so, naturally, it directed me to the internet. I cleared the codes and will drive it to the track and seek professional advice.

It turns out that the next night the internet in the motel didn’t work properly. It would have saved me a lot of stress had it been this night instead. I made the mistake of reading a few pages of a Lotus Talk thread. Evidently there was a common problem, codes 1302 and 0303 (or 0302 or 0301 or 0304) that was terminal for a number of people. Limp mode, five thousand dollar repairs. Cam problems.

I shut off the laptop. If I have a terminal problem, what do I do? How do I get the car to a shop? If the repair will be expensive, I may want to have it shipped home and park it until I can afford that large of a repair. I have more stuff than I can take on an airplane. How do I get it all home? How do I get me home?

It’s going to be a long night.

Planes fly really low over my motel.