Enchanted in the Olympics

As we are driving up Graves Creek Road to the trail head where we will start our hike, Neal explains that in the term tropical rain forest, the first section of the phrase refers to temperature, while the second refers to level of precipitation. This insight is of particular import, as we are about to spend 3 days hiking through a temperate rain forest, and only in this time of relatively untouched and fertile area are you going to find trees big enough to do this in.

But first things first. I arrived in Seattle the Friday night, having almost killed myself getting here. Met up with Neal and Dave at the airport, and soon Matt came by in a supremely welcome sight, his brothers jeep Cherokee. The idea of spending 3-4 hours driving out to Olympic National Park with 4 guys and all of our gear stuck in Matts tiny jeep had been something I was dreading. Food shopping (we brought entirely too much food, easily enough for 6 people), a fair nights sleep and a few cups of coffee (none for me but hey, this is Seattle) later, we are on the road to Olympic. We went south on 5 until we hit 101, then followed in through Aberdeen and up to Quinault around 1 pm. Wilderness passes at the ranger station (for a nominal fee), and conformation that the snow situation in the park was truly as gnarly as we had heard. The Olympics get over 100 feet of snow per year and even in late June all the passes above 4000' were covered in snow at which Neal proclaimed the place the himalympics.

After we got some fishing catch cards and Dave did some minor car repairs(old Sassie was tough, but with 200,000 miles and a 500$ price tag a little damage could be expected) in Amanda Park. Then skidding our way along the muddy road back up to Graves Creek Trail head to start out to Enchanted Valley.

The Quinault Rain Forest is absolutely stunning. It may be cliched, but this place felt alien and magical, like this was the land that time forgot ... or something equally cheesy yet completely awe-inspiring. Having just moved to the East Coast last summer, I thought I was familiar with green, but this place blew me away. Along an ice-blue and white river, ground to tree-top there was green and brown life, mosses draped everything, hundreds of ferns hovered just off the ground and tree of every description crowded through into our eyesight.

Hike started crossing Graves Creek, straight up a fire road for about 2 miles, then down along the river and across the Quinault at the Pony Creek campground. Although we were all fresh, it was slow going because we kept stopping to take pictures of the jaw-dropping beauty all around us. It kind of defies description, but these pictures might give some inkling as to what we were staring at as we walked. The ranger we had spoken to said the trail to Pyrites Creek, where we would camp the first night, was about 9.5 miles and pretty much flat. The ranger we had spoken to was full of shit. The trail was not particularly difficult, but could in no way be described as flat. You might say it was full of relatively shallow oscillations ... but clearly not flat. The first six miles to O'Neill Creek were up and down, wet and muddy but very pleasant, winding through moss covered hemlock and alder along and away from the banks of the Quinault river. After O'Neill the trail closed in on the river and we walked along the bank for some time, getting occasional unimpeded looks out on the river and the mountains beyond.

Grimy and sweaty, we rolled into Pyrites Creek around 5 pm. The campsite was on the shore of the river, separated from the water by a beautiful stand of birch trees. True to my declarations and much to the amusement of everyone else, I immediately went swimming in the river, which both refreshed me and damaged the circulation in my extremities. Snow melt is cold. After everyone finished washing their feet and laughing at me, we set up camp and started dinner, which was delicious ... pasta, fresh bread and two bottles of wine. We severely overestimated the amount of pasta we would need, particularly since we had so much other food (2.5 pounds of jerky, 2.5 pounds of dried fruit ... ridiculous) and Neal stepped huge and finished the extra half pound so we did not have to pack it out. We hung out until it got dark around 1030 drinking wine and whisky, then crashed, got up around 8 am, ate some oatmeal and set out for the short (3.5 mile) hike up to Enchanted Valley.

Just a bit past Pyrites creek Dave stopped us suddenly and we stood and gawked at a large Elk about 100 feet away in the woods. It paralleled us for a little while so we were never able to get closer to it, and made me wish heartily for a telephoto lens. Soon it bounded away, and we were again left alone to marvel at the huge, moss covered trees surrounding us. Then, maybe 45 minutes later, Dave was walking about 15 feet ahead of us and we heard him shout, "Bear!".

We hustled up the path over a slight rise to where Dave was standing and saw a mid-size black bear just sitting in the center of the trail, no more than 15 feet away. He was just minding his own business and when we all got there he started to move off into the woods. Being idiots, Neal, Dave and particularly I all got closer to take pictures, while Matt is standing in the background banging his hiking poles together and saying, "Uh guys. Thats a bear. We need to scare it away not get close to it."

Matt was right, but it was a non-issue as the bear simply walked away into the woods. Soon afterwards we got to the gate to Enchanted Valley, a simple wooden structure clearly meant to keep the unicorns and elves in. Just after this gate we got our first glimpse of the snow-capped peaks crowning the valleys northern end , and then we started down into the valley itself, crossing a one-sided bridge and making our way back across a shallower, rocky section of the river to to the open ground. The views we breathtaking, walls over a thousand feet high towered on either side of us, steep rock walls covered with green, only broken up by the myriad of waterfalls made by the snow melt carving its way down the cliff face. Thick, tall foliage lined the eastern side of the valley with trees crawling up the mountainsides, while the on the western side the vegetation was more open, with lower trees and scrubs and wetland plants, with the river running in between them. Scattered about are wild flowers of all types, not in large patches but spread out like treasures in the greenery. I know that Neal is going to have a field day.

We checked out the rangers chalet at the base of the valley, got our bearings and set up camp in a campsite at the northern end of the valley. Lunch was quick (we had already been gorging on jerky and dried fruit) and after we had hung up our bear bags we were off to check out the ice caves we had seen in the snow patches on the mountainside to the west.

Getting to the ice caves was required crossing the river and pushing through a fairly thick swampy area, but the caves were well worth it. Huge sections of snow had been washed away by water running down the mountains to join up with the river. The first cave was huge and very open, and as we bounded through we saw the waterfall that had carved it out running strong down the mountainside that made up the back wall. We separated a bit before we met up at the second cave, but Dave, Matt and myself all bonded over the mass of stinging nettles we walked through to get there (Neal, who can identify nettles and was leading the way, did not deign to notice the nasty plants because we was wearing long pants).

The second cave was up the cliff, so that looking out you could see the whole valley. In this cave the water had carved a 200 foot tunnel down the face of the mountain, so climbing through to see the waterfall at the top was really fun ... scrambling up wet rocks and muddy skree avoiding the freezing water to get a unique, close-up view of the waterfall at the top. It was beautiful, looking from the dark, wet, muddy cave up onto the clean, pure water cascading down the green hillside.

From that cave we decided to cross what seemed like a small rise cover with slide alder to get over to a little tongue of glacier we had seen from camp. This proved to be far more difficult than we had suspected it would be , and we ended up essentially walking in the trees for about a quarter of a mile, topping them like birds to get our bearings and escape from the incredibly dense vegetation. We finally emerged, scratched up and bruised but having a fantastic time, right beneath the snow field, which contained a third ice cave that seemed to pass directly under the center of the snow field.

Neal and Dave explored the cave while Matt and I appreciated the natural air conditioning and the spectacular view. The explorers came out, very cold, after about 20 minutes, and then Neal, who had brought his ice axe and crampons because he is crazy, decided to create a new exit through the roof of the cave. Although I think only crazy Neal could find this process fun, watching him provided the rest of us with great entertainment, especially when we threw snow balls at him from on top while he was in the cave. At this point we were all pretty beat, except for Neal, who is superhuman according to the park ranger at Grand Tetons. Dave, Matt and I forded the river and trekked back to camp. We hung out reading, eating and playing cards while Neal climbed the snow field and eventually got back to us around 630 pm, leaving his crampons on the other side of the river (something we did not find out until the next day).

General goofing around ensued, I put on the ugliest socks in history while Neal ran around blindly as the inept yet humorous campground criminal. Dinner was a wet but surprisingly good freeze dried veggie Pad Thai, topped off by finishing the whiskey we had all been nipping at most of the day. Around 830 pm clouds started to roll across the mountains, giving the valley an air of majesty and solemnity. It was really beautiful and made me feel like we were in a different place than the one we had set up camp in that afternoon. Clouds are fast becoming one of my favorite natural phenomena, they can rapidly transform a place, give it an image of mystery that moments before you would not have imagined it could possess.


After gawking at the scenery, we all crashed out. I woke the next morning to Neal yelling and shaking the tent, but did not come about for a bit. This turned out to be very lucky because when I finally did emerge a deer was eating about 5 feet from the tent. At first I was really excited and yelled to Dave and we took a bunch of photos, but then we realized the deer was basically tame and it hung out the whole time we ate breakfast. Matt, alas, never saw the deer as he was stuck at the pit toilet waiting for Neal to bring him toilet paper. Meanwhile, Neal was taking pictures of the deer.

After breakfast, Matt took a short hike up toward Anderson pass while Neal, Dave and myself went hunting a waterfall by following a spur of the river upstream. Despite large quantities of nettles, various spiny plants and some steep terrain, we followed the stream about half a mile and saw two beautiful waterfalls. We all met back up at camp around lunchtime, packed everything up and headed out for Pony Creek camp. We kept a pretty good pace and made it back to O'Neil Creek around 345 pm. At point the blisters Dave and I had developed the previous day were completely raw, so we were just ignoring them. About 2 miles later Matt started to agitate for a hike all the way out, adding about 2.5 miles from Pony Creek Camp to the car.

Personally I was wavering, my pack was really heavy (turns out I cannot pack properly and my pack was maybe 10-12 pounds too heavy ... but hey, I got a good workout right?) and my blisters hurt. But they talk turned to dinner and the prospect of hitting up Taco Bell in Aberdeen and my spirits were renewed. After a brief rest at Pony Creek campsite we pushed on the last 2.5 miles, back up the fire road and out to the car. Rapid unpacking was prompted by the swarms of mosquitos and soon Sassie was rolling out of the park, back towards Aberdeen and those delicious grilled, stuft burritos. A long, tough day, 13.5 miles (plus the morning hikes) in a little under six hours. Of course the trail was "flat" ...

Hell before Quinault

As I sit here on the plane from Boston to Seattle, on my way to escape civilization into the bowels of the Quinault Rainforest, I am feeling a bit martyrish ...

You see, about 72 hours ago I woke up, Wednesday morning, in the swamp that my bed had become during the night. You see, the weather had been rather nice over the weekend and it had rained a bit so I thought, idiotically, that it would be alright to just use a fan to cool off during the night. This was a bad decision. I woke up at eightish, soaked in my own sweat and not particularly well rested. As I got up off my bed, the spot where I was laying down looked like the darkened police outline of a murder victim. Got up and did my yoga, leaving the AC on through out ... couldn't finish triangle pose or any other standing pose for that matter as my feet kept slipping off the mat due to my sweat.

I know I sweat a lot, but in my defense it was hot. The heat index was around 108 Fahrenheit. Its dumb right, that we and Jamaica and basically no one else use a temperature scale, Fahrenheit, that is really difficult to convert to anything else, explain to anyone from anywhere else and may be based, in part, on a cows body temperature?

But I am derailing myself here ... the rest of the day consisted of work and showers ... more time spent working but all I can remember is the showers. Work, normally an air-conditioned solace against the heat, was no help, as the central air was broken, leading our lab to feel tropical and give us the bizarre impression that we had indoor weather issues. Additionally, I have brilliantly scheduled my opthamologist appointment, recommended by my dermatologist to look for moles in my eye the day before I leave for the trip ... so I was basically frantic all morning, as despite all planning there is never a good time to go on vacation, then left for my eye exam.

Exam is at 2, but I had ordered lunch and it did not come until 1:50, so I wolf down some shumai (which, by the way, look nothing like little birds) and some sushi and race off to the opthamologist. Sweaty and frantic, I show up 12 minutes late, fill out my forms and then sit in the corner for about a hour and a half. Now I know that appointments run long and doctors have busy days too, but what is the purpose of a 2 o'clock appointment when I don't even see the nurse until 3:45 ... I mean doctors aren't supposed to be like the cable guy, seeing you in the window between 2 and 5 ... couldn't I just fill out the forms on the Internet and be paged when the doctor thinks he'll be ready?

When I finally do get in to see the nurse, she has me read the eye tables and such, then she tells me she is going to paralyze my eye before dilating it with a gooey. orange liquid that smelled like rotten lime candy. So my eyes get paralyzed and colored and I sit back down in the waiting room until Dr. Haft is ready. What I am not told is that I will not be able to read or focus on anything within arms reach during this time. Not knowing this I try reading for a while and develop a massive headache ... which I am later told is a direct result of my trying to read. Not to worry, the paralysis will wear off in 4-6 hours and until then it will be just like being middle aged.

Oh, and its perfectly fine to drive, as long as I don't need to read any street signs. What?

Now dreading the aging process and my impending ride to Costco (the one stop buy far too much for any possible single reason but I am too lazy to go anywhere else store) I set off to try and buy the snacks and food supplies and responsible for on this trip. My headache, quickly becoming epic, gets much worse when I get to Costco and try to read the shopping list. I cannot do it am am forced to call Neal, and ask him to read me the things I am responsible for getting. I then walk into Costco, only to leave immediately when I am told that they are broken and can only take cash ... prompting me to drive all over New Rochelle trying to find an ATM. I did find one eventually, but it took me about 20 minutes to use it because I could not read any of the text on the screen!@#!@ Back to Costco, buying Trail Mix, Power Bars, dried mangoes and low-sugar mixed fruit, which I found by asking several friendly folks to read the ingredients on the packages for me.

Its 7:30 when I get home, I eat and pack and do some laundry and then head outside to work, only to discover that the sky has opened. Apparently late afternoon/evening thunderstorms of titanic proportions are normal here, but I had never seen one before ... this fact becomes important later. So I drive 3 blocks to work, get soaked going in, work until midnight and then get soaked running back to my car, only to discover that somehow my automatic lights, which I never turn on or off, stayed on and my car is dead. So I walk home, dripping, and crash out.

Thursday is much of the same, unbearably hot in the morning, so two showers before I leave the house, and very busy until lab meeting, where I am informed that I should be worried about thunderstorms and flying. This type of worry is not in my repertoire ... when you make a plane reservation, you leave at that time ... that is the point of the reservation. But my worst fears came to pass and just three and a half hours before my flight was to leave, all flights out of New York are canceled. And because they canceled all the flights the previous day as well, there are no flights available to Seattle until Saturday.

I spend over an hour talking with Jet Blue, which has become the official airline of both Springfield and of stranding your ass on the East Coast. The colossally stupid employees I keep talking to just keep telling me it will be okay, despite the fact that if I am not in Seattle on Friday then it will NOT be okay and there is no way to get from New York to Seattle before Saturday. I finally, on my fifth call, speak to someone reasonably with it, and this friendly but completely over-hassled woman helps me book a flight from Boston to Seattle the next night. Now I can get there, I just have to get up at 7 am, ride down to Port Authority, take a bus to Boston, meet Ted for lunch and a ride to the airport and fly to Seattle from there. I get tired just writing about it. I get home from work at 6, exhausted and worn from not sleeping well and being crazy, only to discover that I have planned too well and have no food in the house.

By the way, the thunderstorm that the flight was cancelled for never even showed up. A tiny, thunderdribble passed NYC around 630ish, prompting me to fall into full despair.

Fortunately, I have good friends and Aimee saves me from total despair by making me dinner and hanging out. The next day was as long as I thought it would be, the bus system being ridiculous ... I am glad I got to Port Authority early as half the people with reservations did not get seats. And this happened to me the last time I took Greyhound ... what kind of company oversells its seating capacity as a standard operating procedure. Anyway, I got a seat, right behind the guy with so much ear hair he look like paint brushes were sprouting in his ears. The ride was slow and we were basically forced (by the super loud speakers and numerous TVs) to watch the crappy movie, "Pursuit of Happyness" which apparently was made by people who believe that the quirky mis-spelling of the title and the disclaimer that it was based on a true story make up for the colossally boring and trite script ...

Got to Boston a hour late, Ted got stuck in ridiculous traffic, had some lunch and got to the airport, where the flight was delayed an hour and a half and I almost had a nervous breakdown because of this conversation,

PJ (to Jet Blue counter guy) - "So whats wrong with the plane?"

Counter Guy - "Oh nothing, we just need to get some more crew from an alternate site because some of the crew flying have logged too many flight hours."

PJ - "Oh good, so the plane is fine and the flight is going to be okay?"

Counter Guy - "Yeah, the plane is fine. But I can't say what will happen with the flight. If I were you, I would be worried."

What the fuck!*&!^$@*&!^$@ Nothing was wrong with the plane, the weather, the crew, anything ... a new guy was in transit as we were speaking. Unless he was killed on the way to the airport, we were going to fly ...

And fly we did, got underway around 745, and, barring some other catastrophe, will arrive in Seattle two hours late, but at least I will get there, and, in about 9 hours, I will be walking out of civilization into the Olympic Wilderness.

See you in a week.

Summer Madness

So the last few weeks have been quite hectic, as I am working on submitting a grant at work while also working on remodeling plans and trying to do normal science. All of this in addition to the planning for my upcoming trip to Olympic National Park ... things have actually been coming along quite nicely, although over the last week or two I have had a number of those days where you get exhausted just thinking about what you did that day. Doing it was actually mind numbing. But no worries ... backpacking is coming ...

The Wandering Jew

That's what I became last Saturday, due to a idiot maitre d', incompetent public transport (that is still somehow better than that found in any other city in the US), a lack of curiosity and a mauve curtain.

After returning to Astorias beer garden for yet another fabulous evening ... I have other things to say and this blog is not really about the beer garden, but I need to reiterate how fantastic this place is. Its just what drinking and partying and hanging out should be like, so easy and relaxed and just plain fun ... anyway, I was supposed to wake up relatively early Saturday morning and head off to a baby shower where I had been promised a beer in a baby bottle. Now if this sort of promise does not excite you, you are too old.

Leaving the Bronx at around 1030 in the morning, I arrived at the desired restaurant, Supper, at 1 pm, about an hour late, due mostly to the fact that both the 5 and the F trains were under construction (whats new) and each stopped about 20 stops before they were supposed to. Thus, a relatively easy trip down to the village on the 5 train became a nightmare of transfers and bizarre jaunts across this or that set of streets and ended me up somewhere near my destination having taken the V train.

I get to Supper and call Dana, who is the organizer, but can't get a hold of her, so I walk into the restaurant and look around. I don't see anyone I know, or even any big groups, but I am not that late so I figure they mush be here somewhere. I ask the maitre d' and he says they are in the back, which is where I just looked. I look again, they he looks with me, and neither of us see the group, most likely because THEY ARE NOT THERE. All I see is the empty back room full of tables, chairs and a mauve curtain over the stairs down to the bathroom.

I walk out of the restaurant and call Dana and Koffman, the only people I know at the shower, but both phones are off. So I walk up to a nearby park on 10th and A, and take a seat, watching a impromptu concert by a pasty white reggae band. This minor entertainment is supplemented by the filthy hipster convention going on at the bench opposite me, as well as the crazy homeless guy dressed up like an abused jungle convert ops solider who is putting golf balls at the group of wheelchair bound guys watching the band.

By 3 pm I am hungry and tired of the music and the golf, so I call Dana again, no response, and head uptown for some sushi and a good walk. The day was no loss, as I explored alphabet city pretty extensively, hung out in Barnes and Noble (dodging a rainstorm ... its odd to go into a bookstore and read the book you brought with you) and met up with Rob for a drink later than night.

I finally found out what happened, while I was at the bookstore. The mauve curtain covering the bathroom area also covered the downstairs seating area where the shower was being held, and since it was downstairs, no one had cell reception. Dana only got my messages at 5 pm when they all came up for air after baby bottle boat racing. I am not sure why the maitre d' was unaware of the location of the large, reserved room is his own restaurant though ...

Since my baby left me ...

don't worry, now, she is just gone for the summer. Aviva is off in the wilds of western NC, at Camp Wellspring, counseling overweight kids about proper eating and exercise habits to maintain a healthy weight. And she is worked her cute butt off, churning out the hours and hiking through the blue ridge mountains. Except for the fact that she is far away from me I think what shes doing is awesome ... I mean how lucky am I that I found such an incredible girl and above and beyond all the other great stuff (I mean her favorite movie is Coming to America, she loves buffalo wings and beer gardens, likes to argue) she likes the outdoors that much. I am jealous, a whole summer in the Blue Ridge Mountains .. I mean have you seen how gorgeous they are. And even though I really miss her, its not so bad I still get to hear from her, as Wellspring is not the typical summer camp in terms of deprivation, she has wireless Internet in her cabin and carries her cell phone, so we get to talk a lot.

And I am still here, working my tail off, missing her dearly and wishing her a great summer. New York in the summer is a lot of fun, when you are not working, which hasn't been that often yet. After my big presentation tomorrow I am heading back to ber garden in Astoria, should be fabulous. And the weekend is looking up ... Still, I miss my girl and am counting the days until we road trip up to Maine at the end of the summer.

Love you babe.

Dva Pivo Prosim

So at some time in the much more pleasant past, beer gardens abounded within the borders of the boroughs of New York ... but these days, these wondrous places have gone the way of the dodo. Well, not all of them. There is one left, and finding it was like finding the coelacanth. A gorgeous, tree shrouded football field sized area secluded it from the drab exterior of Astoria, a wonderland of picnic tables, kielbasa and burgers, happy, drunk new yorkers and most of all, pitchers and pitchers and pitchers of true Czech beer, as Lauren is happily demonstrating Can I tell you how long it has been since I had real Czech beer! And from a keg. I know Scooter is jealous just seeing the pictures. And they don't just have one czech beer, they have Pilsner Urquell, Krusovice (both cerny and svetle, dark and light for you non-czech speakers) and my favorite, Staropramen. Fantastic. For those of you who do not know, in the Czech republic, dark beer, which is sweeter, is often considered women's beer while the light beer, which is bitter and sometimes stronger, is for men. In my experience, most Czechs (both men and women) prefer the lighter beer, although there is obviously enough of a market to sustain the production of both types. Anyway, Aviva had been to the beer garden a week before and called me breathlessly on a Monday night around 930 babbling about this great place and how much I would like it. I should pay more attention to my girlfriend, shes smart. Because I loved the place as soon as walked in, even though we had to throw away the olives that we bought in the Greek market on the way and even though we had to stand in line (although not for very long, as later that day Kate and Phil were in line for around 45 minutes). Huge. Shaded and breezy, so cool even in the hot New York Summer. Full of picnic benches and boisterous, happy beer drinkers. Festive faces, smiles, pleasant rowdiness, the things you want at a general good time. The kids running around on stage, watching a German cartoon, the Mr. Softee truck parked shyly in the corer behind the gate, the smiles on the faces of guys and girls carrying two and three pitchers back to their tables .. these were a bonus. And when I got up to the front of the beer line, saw the true Czech taps ... heaven And the day went. Aviva and I got there at four and met Adam coming in. We grabbed a table, grabbed a pitcher of Staropramen, polished it off and quickly got another of Cerny Krusovice. After that one Adam and I were a bit loopy and Aviva was drunk, so we got a Kielbasa and fries and just hung out for a while. With another pitcher of course. At some point in the evening we started talking to Lauren and Diana, 2 cool girls who were sharing a table with us. This was excellent, particularly for Adam, as he hit things off very nicely with both girls, particularly Diana I think that this was as much due to Adams winning personality and tremendous flirtation skill as to his desperate need to talk to other people because Aviva and I were drunk and in love and he had been stuck alone with us and our PDA for several hours at that point. Both girls were a tad quiet at first, probably because we were loud and obnoxious, but soon they started drinking and joined in the rowdiness. More pitchers followed and Aviva allowed me to get her another beer, which put her far past her tolerance, much to the enjoyment of the rest of us. Soon Aviva, Lauren and Diana were all playing flip cup with the group at the next table while Adam and I hung out with some friends of his who showed up. At some point Kate and Phil showed up as well, as i mentioned, had to wait in line for a while. I made a very retarded attempt at convincing the door guy that Kate was my cousin, but it did not work and they got in after a while. It did not take them long to catch up, Phil especially demonstrated his rapid inebriation ability and the evening just kept getting more fun. Later on Aviva and I got a plate of goulash, with actual knedliky, or at least a good enough facsimile that I did not notice much difference in my inebriated state. Soon after this, I think Jess and Russell, showed up and the evening progressed. Eventually, after somewhere between 12 and 20 beers, we all left, passing Lauren and Diana on the way up the street, drunk and happy with Mr. Softee . Somehow, between the four of us Aviva, Phil, Kate and I managed to wander back to Aviva and Kate's place, picking up a three-wheeled bubie cart for Kate along the way and crashing hard when we got there (actually, I think we looked at pictures at talked and drank water, obviously not enough for me given my fantastic hangover ... the next morning was painful for me, but everyone else was fine ...I begin to feel old writing this ...

I got Shad ... aint you glad

Ah Shad, Alosa sapidissima, hidden delicacy of the rivers of Northern Connecticut. Apparently related to the herring, but a bit larger, Shad is the eponymous fish that is central to the annual Shad Bake in the town of North Stonington, Connecticut. I would never have heard of this rather large memorial day party except that it is hosted by my girlfriends roommates family, and thus we were invited to take part in this glorious local tradition, dating back until at least 2003 (likely it is older, but Phil, the adorable 90 year old man with the bow tie that Aviva fell in love with said he was at the first Shad bake in 2003, but he might have meant his first and not the first, he didn't make it clear) The festivities began early that weekend, as Friday night saw me out with Aviva, Adam, Jess and a bunch of friends from work (Aimee, Clarisa, Gene, Kris, Toni and her fiance Jon) at a bar called the Heights. We were out to celebrate Gene becoming a Doctor for the second time, PhD this time, MD the first time. The place was kind of a college hangout for kids from Columbia, I am told the bar is normally packed but as this weekend was memorial day a lot of people had left the city so the place was relatively empty. We were supposed to be hanging out on the roof top deck, but it was quite humid so we ended up on the second floor, enjoying the bar food, especially the wings, and the cheap drinks, particularly the margaritas. On Saturday we lazed around, took a walk over to A&J, the new market I found on Allerton road (grocery stores are a particular interest of mine, as the fruit, veggies and general food products in California kick the shit out of those available in the Bronx). My friend Scooter was kind of passing by for a Bar Mitzvah in New Rochelle so he dropped by for about 20 minutes, then Aviva and I went to hang out with Jess and her friends up in Washington Heights for game night. Catchphrase, karaoke and the random folding paper game that taught us about how Moses could excite random prostitutes with his biblical prowess...

And on Sunday we got up and took off for North Stonington, way out in the Southeastern corner of Connecticut. On the way we stopped at Whole Foods to buy supplies for the mojitos I was supposed to make during the Shad bake. I say supposed to because in Connecticut on Sundays, like in many formerly puritanical areas, no alcohol is sold in Connecticut on Sunday. So, because these states are firmly root back in the time of the teetotalers, I was not able to get the good, silver rum I needed to make fantastic mojitos. And I do make pretty fantastic mojitos, using this simple recipe

Pellegrino (other high quality mineral water works but pellegrino is the best)
Bacardi Silver
Mint
Limes
Simple sugar flavored with vanilla beans (2 cups sugar to 1 cup water, boil and add 1 sliced vanilla bean while it is cooling)

The proportions depend on the size container you are using, but you combine the ingredients and muddle the limes and mint into the liquid.

Anyway, we didn't get rum (although we did get everything else) and after not getting it we drove up to Kate's. Kate lives in the tiny town of North Stonington, right by Mystic (of Mystic Pizza fame). The town is a movie set, right down to the little red hardware store on the corner of main street. Its very, very, very cute. As we got out of the car and started to walk up the driveway, we saw that Shad was in the house.
This became even clearer as we walked up the driveway. Kate greeted us with a smile and some rhubarb vodka, surprisingly good by the way. We walked up and took a gander at the shad, we had arrived early enough to see it being put up on the boards. The shad are gutted and prepped by being nailed to wooden slates using strips of salt pork. The fish laden wood is then propped up by the fire, where the fish roasts slowly over a few hours. Looking at it after all the fish is up makes it seem like a convocation of fish zombies, possibly meeting to discuss the spheres of control over the rivers in hell
The Shad had all been caught by the members of the SQRSFA, the Saugatuck-Quinnipac Rivers Shad Fishermans Association. This association, which seems to exist principally so the members can wear SQRSFA hats and shirts at the shad bake. Kate's father, quite a character, is a prominent member of this organization, as well as of the Thunder Lizards, an antique vehicles biker gang made up of old dudes tooling around the Stonington area in ancient motorbikes and cars. The shad are caught and prepared by the members of the SQRSFA, who take a great deal of pride and delight in the day.

When we first arrived and started drinking there were maybe 25 people around, so we had time to rapidly get drunk (particularly Aviva, whose tolerance might be able to compete with a vole or other small mammal) and goof around with Kate for a while. But by the time I finished preparing the simple sugar for the mojitos (Kate had black rum, not ideal but it worked) there were more like 150 or 200. Among these folks were an ever increasing number of old, proud SQRSFA and Thunder Lizards (one of whom drove in on an ancient motorbike with a side car), the town royalty (a 99 year old very spry looking woman who held court in a section of the Garden), Kate's just graduated brother, his girlfriend and a number of her cute friends, and a general mix of all types of other North Stoningtonites. We sat down with some beers and watched the crowd grow. Seems like the whole town began to show up ... as I told Kate's boyfriend Phil, this was some real Connecticut shit. After some excellent people watching and drinking, during which we met the aforementioned 90 year old Phil and the bagpiper (who would later bagpipe the shad cake onto the table and who also informed us that the gators that fully uniformed bagpipers wear harken back to their original uniform and have nothing to do with keeping the water out of their boots), I went back inside finished the mojitos (which I then delivered to Kate, Phil, Kate's parents, myself and Aviva) and began to sit down when Kate and her Phil recruited us to a game of lawn bowling. We jumped at the opportunity to hang with Kate, because up until this point she had been a celebrity, looking reporter chic and popular, with everyone wanting to talk with her about her life in the city

Aviva and I were destroying Phil and Kate for a while, owing to my vast experience lawn bowling with the old guys at Balboa park in San Diego, we took a break to get more drinks, watch some more folks and generally get drunker ... all of which we accomplished very efficiently. At this point rhubarb vodka, mojitos, may wine (a sort of light, fruity wine full of strawberries and flowers), box wine and jug wine (you know, like the crappy Franzia we all drank in college trying to be sophisticated) and beer were in abundance, the beer being held in old washing machines full of ice. Women walked around handing out shad roe wrapped in bacon, which was chewy and salty but surprisingly good. A large number of appetizers that I initially took to be the main course came out, vanished within half an hour and were soon replaced by the real meal. Piles of sausages, bacon and of course shad highlighted this course, along with salads and sides of every imaginable description; Greek salad cover with olives and feta, thick Russian salad, Caesar, green vegetable with thick, leafy lettuce, one of those lettuce salads that is trendy and has 9 different kinds of lettuce none of which look like lettuce, Mediterranean, pesto pasta salad with bow tie pasta, creamy pasta (elbows) with sun dried tomatoes, polenta salad, couscous, numerous kinds of rice, some with mint, some with tomatoes, some pilaf style, Asian salads with crunchy noodles, three types of baked beans full of fat bacon chunks, and a variety of chips and such at the start of the table, an area I did not even reach the two times I ventured up to the food as my plates filled up too fast.

Lunch on the lawn, more food on the lawn, no more lawn bowling, people watching, drinking and then it was time for the desert. Aviva, like many people had brought a cake (hers was a carrot cake) but all of them were dwarfed by the shad cake. A full three feet long, the cake shimmered green as white in the sun as it is brought out to the sound of bagpipes to join the rest of the deserts as the piece d' resistance. Following desert, even though I didn't have any as I was too full, I was drunk and full so I wandered over to the other side of the house and set up for a luxurious nap in a hammock filled the rest of the afternoon. Aviva wanted to nap on the hammock with me but being drunk and selfish, I mentioned that we might break it as it was not really set up for two people, so she hung out some more and I dozed. But not for more than 1 hour, after which I got up and drank some more while tossing a Frisbee around with some of Kate's friends and playing with her obscenely adorable niece and nephew.

When we moved back to the party it had thinned out and was getting dark, so our attempts at badminton failed, as it is very difficult to play when you cannot see anything, and we ended up sitting around the fire drinking with a bunch of Kate and her brothers friends, Kate's brother-in-law and cousin Gordon and the shad boards. It quickly became apparent to me (after several abrupt and strange conversations) that having already been drunk and sobered up, I was not in any space to really interact with the largely early 20's crowd who remained, so when the group, who were all rather drunk, got up to install lighting in the trees by the tents and then play flip cup, I went inside read on the couch. Aviva joined me for a while, then got an urge to play flip cup (which she apparently didn't do, I found out later) and then came back inside and slept on me while I read. We finally got to bed around 0130, after saying goodbye to an extremely, in her own words, crunked Kate, and slept very well despite random drunk and other sounds from the nearby tents. Wanting to get back to NY relatively quickly, we got up the next morning and quickly ate the breakfast Kate's mother had laid out and headed back to the city (there was really no traffic and we made excellent time) sadly missing the parade in which Kate's father would be riding down main street in his antique fire engine ...