Thursday, August 5th

Thursday was the first day where I was in charge of the itinerary, and I have to give kudos to Mer. I had no idea how much pressure it creates. I worried if I had the plans right, and if it was going to be a good use of time and money. With Mer in charge, I just go where I am told and have a good time.

We started the day off with breakfast at Subway on Granville Street (again) and then headed down to the now very familiar Waterfront Station and caught the seabus. If I remember correctly (it may have been on Friday instead), there was yet another new cruise ship in dock next door, which was smaller than the previous two, but still plenty big. Anyway, we crossed the bay and caught a bus that took us back to the entrance to Lynn Canyon Park, where we had been on Monday with Beata and Ionut and Andrei. I was glad we were on the bus instead of walking; the trip took about thirty minutes, and had a lot of pretty steep uphills to go up.

I had come back to Lynn Canyon because I had seen in a brochure that there were some cool waterfalls up the canyon, but I could not remember the name. Sadly, the ranger at the information station told me they were not very spectacular. It turns out that she misunderstood me; I found out from Ionut later that the falls are worth seeing, but that they are six miles up the canyon and the ranger probably did not think we would go that far. The ranger did give me a map of the park and recommended a walk around most of the trails in the area (they all tended to be a couple of miles long or less), so I decided to do that instead.

Happily, the walk had us starting out to go south along the canyon, so I got to avoid the suspension bridge. The trail went down some steep steps, some without safety rails, and ended at a small but sturdy bridge. It was still thirty feet or so above the water, but I was okay with this. Mer and I stopped and looked around, and enjoyed the natural beauty both up and down river. I saw a few people in the stream downstream, so I thought it might be fun to try to get down there. We crossed the bridge and started to head south. The trail was immediately much rougher, and as we crested a hill with me in front, I heard a loud cry. I turned in time to see Mer come stumbling toward me. She had caught her foot and was trying to catch herself, but she was stumbling downhill and could not stop. I yelled that I had her, and then almost caught her. She ran into me with a fair amount of force, and I tried to hold her up, but could not. I did break her fall, but she had a slightly scuffed leg and a bruised ego and was scared. She had been in the process of falling for about ten feet and had even had time to think that she might hurt me as she careened toward me. She was much more shaken than hurt, but the incident made me immediately change my mind about going on south along the rough trail. It scared me to think of either of us tripping in the wrong spot along the canyon. I turned around and we went back north, catching up with the much better trail north of the bridge.

This turned out to be a good choice anyway. The trail was very pretty, although it was largely uphill. Mer was game about yet-another-hill, and it was long enough that by the time I got to the top I was sweating. We stayed on this northbound trail for some time, and passed a new in-the-woods water treatment plant that was unexpected by us in what seemed to be the middle of the woods, although Lynn Park is very narrow, so the edge of the park is always close by. After the plant, we came to a parking lot and a ranger station, and a path diverged and went down toward the canyon and an advertised bus stop. We kept on north, though, because I wanted to see Rice Lake and take the 45-minute walk around it.

Rice Lake is a small lake, surrounded by trees and mountains, and is soul-soothing. Or should have been. We made our way to a large dock near a parking lot, and sat down to rest and have crackers for lunch. Nearby was a group of four or five older people, and one woman was talking very loudly about how pretty the park was and then switched to something about the government. It was too loud for the serene surroundings, so we finished our crackers and moved on along the trail around the lake.

The walk was different than I had expected. The trees were so thick it was very difficult to see the lake. There were several vista spots with benches along the path, and we stopped at them to rest and enjoy the view. In all, I think it took about an hour to get around the lake, and then we headed back along the trail to Lynn Canyon.

We took a new trail down to the creek bed, as opposed to the trail that led back to the small fixed bridge. The new trail was cool, with stairs to climb down, and then getting to walk along the stream itself, and it was all very pretty. The bad news is that the trail led back to the suspension bridge. That was not all bad – I wanted to get a picture of Mer on the bridge, and she wanted to cross it to bolster her confidence that had been sapped by the Grind trail and her recent trip-and-fall. Still, I was not excited about having to cross it myself.

We came to the stream near a place called 30-Foot Pool, and so we walked over to it. It turned out to be a deep pool of crystal-clear water that was (I’m guessing) 30 feet deep. There was a small beach here as well, and so there were a number of people here swimming and wading. The more adventurous ones were climbing 10-20 feet up the rock face to jump into the pool. It was entertaining to watch, but I was glad I did not have my swimming trunks, so I had a good excuse not to jump into the pool.

We then wandered a little ways downstream, to an area pretty close to where we had gone wading on Monday. I took off my shoes, gave Mer the camera, and waded out to the middle of the stream. I wanted to sit on a rock and dangle my feet in the water in the small rapids next to the rock. I got to the rock, and turned partway around so I could sit down more easily. As I turned, I looked upstream, and about 20-25 feet away was a black bear. My brain went sort of numb, and then I quickly started planning how to run across a rocky stream bed if needed. I looked over to Mer, and said with surprising calm, “That is a bear.” She looked up and was startled. Happily, the bear was on a mission to get across the stream, and kept on going. As he approached the other side, Mer had the presence of mind to take a picture, and then the people up by 30-Foot Pool saw the bear and started taking pictures. Once I figured out that I was not going to be lunch, I admired the animal – it was very handsome and very powerful looking. As an aside, I guess the park was not kidding with its “Be Bear Aware” signs around the park entrances.

I did dangle my feet in the water, which was very cold. I made my way back to shore, where Mer expressed her relief that I was okay. She did muse awhile and decided that if I had been eaten by the bear, she would have been sad, but could have put on my tombstone Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction (from A Winter’s Tale), “Exit, pursued by a bear.”

We continued downstream, but the path started going back up. We stuck as close to the stream as we could, and so got to see some pretty spectacular views of the canyon as it grew deeper. We stopped at a high spot, but could not see the river below. We could see a lookout on the other side, so I took note of that in case we found a way over to it.

We finally made it back to the bridge. I crossed over, and as I feared, the bridge swayed a lot more since there was almost no one on it. I made it across, but was pretty scared the entire time. Mer walked out and looked over the edge on both sides, and I got the picture I wanted. We then went back upstream a little ways and found the lookout that I had seen. Mer pointed out some rapids where she had seen some teenaged guys shooting the rapids like a waterslide on Monday. It was insane. The things that teens can convince themselves to do is astonishing.

We left the park and caught a bus back to the quay, where we grabbed another bus and went back out to Cleveland Dam, where we had been on Monday. I wanted to walk around the trails there as well. It was still beautiful, even though the day was quite a bit more hazy than it had been on Monday. We crossed over the dam and walked downstream. The path was wide and flat, but pretty steep in some places. It was covered in gravel, so we slipped and slid around a bit. It was perfectly safe, as the canyon was not even in sight from the path we were on. We did get to where the path crossed the stream, and we walked across the fixed (non-suspension) bridge. I was able to stop and admire the view from the bridge, which was great. There was a bench and overlook on the far side, so we sat for a short while, but then crossed back over the bridge so we could stay near the canyon.

We walked upstream for a ways, and came across several pools where people were fishing from the far shore. We admired them briefly and then went on. The trail I wanted to take to see the falls over the dam turned out to be closed, so we turned back toward the pools. Near the pools was another bridge, so we crossed over and walked back down to where the people were fishing. It was a very tranquil spot. We stayed for 5-10 minutes, and saw lots of fish jumping in the pools, but never saw any of them get caught.

We stayed on the far side of the canyon and kept heading back upstream. This meant quite a climb out of a parking lot near the fishing pools. Mer was once again a game soul, and after some labored walking we came back out to the dam. We rested for a short bit and watched the water come over the dam, and then we walked back to the bus stop which took us back to the quay.

We just missed the seabus back in to the city, and the next one was about 15 minutes away. Since we were nearby, I decided to give Beata a call and see what she was up to. She was home, and happy to hear from us, and invited us over. So, we got up and went back to the buses to save ourselves the eight- or nine-block walk up the steep hills of North Vancouver. Just before the bus took off, a man looked over at us and smiled – it was Ionut, and he came over and sat with us. We all got off at the apartment complex where Ionut and Beata lived, and we went in.

Ionut changed out of his work clothes, and Beata asked us about our day while Andrei played with his toy trucks. Ionut came back out and seemed to approve of how we spent our day and also told me the falls I had wanted to see up Lynn Canyon were worth seeing, but 10 km (6 miles) upstream. I’ll see them next time.

We then decided to go out to eat, but had a false start. The restaurant I had suggested from a brochure I had read turned out to be a breakfast and lunch only restaurant, so we had to turn back. We ended up going to a Canadian chain called Fatburger. Not very subtle, but the burgers were very good. We sat on the sidewalk patio and enjoyed the evening. It was a leisurely meal that took well over an hour, and then Ionut insisted on taking us back to out hotel again. We also made plans to have supper together on Saturday, which would be our last day in Vancouver.

My first day of planning in Vancouver had gone pretty well, especially considering how I was not eaten. The tour-director role that Mer usually handles really is no easy thing.

From Sunday’s and Monday’s breakfast experiences with the prices at sit-down places in Vancouver, we decided to try a different approach. We initially tried a crepe place (it was even an “express” crepe place), but after 20 minutes, they told us it was going to be a very long time before they were ready. Apparently, to expect a breakfast crepe at 9:00 am was too early. We wandered down Granville Street, heading toward our old friend, Waterfront Station. We happened upon a Subway along the way, and Subway serves breakfast. Quite good breakfast as it turns out, and for under $10 for the both of us. We were delighted, and were to continue getting breakfast at Subway for the rest of our stay in Vancouver. Good stuff.

After we finished eating, we headed down to Waterfront Station, where we were amazed by the Millennium, a truly huge Celebrity cruise ship docked next door at Canada Place. It is difficult to express how large the ship was. Anyway, we caught the seabus, and then transferred to a regular bus, which took us out to Grouse Mountain. As briefly mentioned in the previous post, Grouse Mountain has a gondola to the top, and once at the top, it has zip lines, and paragliding, and free shows at the top. It is supposed to be the most visited attraction in the Vancouver area.

Back in the 80s, two men carved a walking trail out of the woods up the side of the mountain. According to Wikipedia, they did this without the permission of the owners of the mountain. However, the trail they created, called the Grind, is very popular. It takes most people about 90 minutes to climb it, with the record around 25 minutes. Mer had decided to humor my penchant for climbing things, and we were going to attempt to go up the Grind.

This is no small feat. The Grind is a two-mile long trail, and climbs almost 2,800 feet, with an average grade of 30 degrees. It is steep. It is really steep. (It essentially involves climbing rough and rocky stairs for two miles.)  We started climbing cheerfully, and made decent progress. After a few minutes, Mer was breathing quite hard and we were both sweating quite heavily. I am in the middle of training for another marathon, and have much longer legs than Mer, so I was doing okay with keeping my breath, but I certainly was working. After a few more minutes, we needed to stop to rest. It was then that I began to notice that no one around me was smiling. The trail was a steady stream of panting ans sweating people who looked as if they were not having much fun. Mer dubbed it “The stairmaster from Hell located in Heaven.” It certainly was beautiful – the trees were very pretty, and they stretched out in all directions.

We continued on our way, and we had to stop for rests more often. After about 45 minutes, we got to a sign that said we had finished one quarter of the trail, and that the remaining trail was very rough and difficult. At that point, Mer declared that she was beaten. We later ended up calling the mountain Caradhras, after the mountain that made the Fellowship of the Ring turn back in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. Mer was just deflated by the sign – she said she probably could have made it if it had even said we were one third of the way there. Since her stomach was cramping, I was more concerned about her health than the trail. I could not handle the huge suspension bridge; Mer could not handle the Grind. We all have our limitations. We did make it about 1/2 mile, and climbed about 900 feet, and we still had to go down the rough trail! It took another 30-40 minutes to get down. Mer left it up to me what I would like to do – go up the mountain on the pretty expensive gondola (of which I was very nervous), or got back to the city. We went back to the city.

Once we had returned to the city via bus and seabus, we walked over to Canada Place to check out the cruise ships docked there. Then we went back to the east toward a neighborhood called Gastown. Gastown used to be run-down, but now it is a pretty vibrant shopping and dining district. It has a famous clock run by steam, that looks really old, but is only 40 years old or so. It was a good place to window shop, although we did not tarry. Mer is not much of a shopper, and I was not in the shopping mood for the entire trip – too much to do to go shopping. We then turned south and went through Chinatown, passing through two or three blocks of rougher areas along the way (we still never felt threatened).

Chinatown was a fun walk. There are hundreds of foods and smells that I cannot identify along the streets. We took a short walk through the public Chinese garden of Sun Yat Sen Park, which was small but pretty. Just outside the park, we noticed movie trucks again, and so we asked what was being filmed. It was a spin-off of Fringe called Human Target. We could not go for a walk without hitting a film crew!

After Chinatown, Mer took me on a meandering walk to and through Yaletown, which seems like a nightlife and dining center. Along the way, we picked up a hitherto unwalked part of the seawall, so that was satisfying. We got to go by the tents of Cirque du Soleil and then walked near the small science museum at the end of False Creek. We also managed to wander by the local casino without stopping in. Yaletown itself was an interesting walk, but it was past 3:00 and I had not had my snack crackers, so I was more hungry than I should have been. Happily, we were headed to an early supper, just west of Yaletown, near the Elbow Room, where we had eaten breakfast on Monday.

Mer took me to Nuba, which is a small Middle-eastern restaurant. At first, I was discouraged. I was very hungry, and I am fussy about food, so I was not sure how well I would eat. It turned out okay – they had an excellent grilled chicken. After supper, we wandered back to the hotel, where we took it easy for a couple of hours. We actually went to the hotel outdoor hot tub and pool, and relaxed in both (not at the same time!). It is amazing how much better we both felt after the soaking and swim. Water is good stuff.

Mer then had us head out to catch the Granville Island bus, and we did go back to the small island. We swung into the small theater that houses Vancouver Theatresports, Vancouver’s improv comedy group. I was very excited. It turns out that Vancouver Theatresports does different types of improv at different times. We were there for the 7:00 show, which turned out to be an improvised musical.

It was astonishing. The pre-show was a man playing fun 30s music and showtunes on the piano. One member of the improv troupe then came out and applauded the piano player and announced that everything from that point on was going to be made up on the spot, including the music. He asked for a suggestion to get things going, by asking for an occupation of one of your parents. He heard a bunch of different ones yelled out, but settled on “magician.” So, he and four others came out and did the one-hour long musical “Magic Dust,” which opened with the piano player playing an improvised overture. The musical/show itself was very funny and really good. It had good character development, and great improv skills (heightening and callbacks and great listening skills). I was totally sucked in. The show went something like this:

The old but master magician, Mephisto, broke the news to his young female assistant that because of the glut of entertainment options available to the young, no one wanted to see magic anymore, and they only had nine shows left. The young woman insisted that they had to tell Mephisto’s son, Sydney. Sydney was feeding and caring for the rabbits, and Mephisto and the assistant told him the bad news. He was distraught, but the young woman suggested he could take the Mephisto mantle for the last shows. The father agreed, and handed off his cape to his son and left the stage. Sydney and the assistant then revealed they loved each other and would be together forever with the great line in the song “Forever will not be long enough – you’ll see!”

Meanwhile, an evil magician who was no good at magic wanted to steal the show, quite literally. He had two assistants, a man and woman, who reveled that his name was “Beelzebub, the evil magician,” which led to a very funny solo song from Beelzebub, the evil magician. The evil magician told his woman assistant to go and seduce the older Mephisto so she could steal his book of tricks, and then he left. The man assistant revealed that he was none too happy with this plan, as he liked the girl. Still, she left to follow the plan.

Sydney and his girlfriend were practicing a new trick when we heard the ringing of a doorbell, which the woman answered (“I’ll get it … because I’m the woman!”). It was the evil assistant, under the guise of selling almonds, which it turned out that Sydney and Mephisto both loved. The girlfriend was suspicious, and would not let the evil assistant near Sydney, but she succeeded in selling her almonds to Mephisto before disappearing with him into a back room (Sydney’s reaction: “Suddenly, I don’t feel like being home right now”), and so she got the book. Somewhere along the way, Sydney mentioned that Magi-con was in town, and he could try his new trick there.

With the book in hand, the evil magician realized he needed to take both Mephisto and Sydney out of the picture. He planned on kidnapping Mephisto at Magi-con, which he succeeded in doing. He then put on Mephisto’s shirt, and pretended to be Mephisto, explaining to Sydney that the face and voice changes were all part of a new trick.

Back in his evil cave lair, the evil magician plotted to get rid of Sydney. He decided to lure Sydney to the cave with the promise of a new trick, and his man assistant suggested putting Sydney in the iron maiden (“Ah, yes! I had forgotten I had one!”). They got Sydney and his girlfriend to the cave, and told Sydney that if he went in the iron maiden, he would become very small, and that it would be a great trick. Sydney went in and the evil people locked him in and then revealed their evil plan to go on stage as Mephisto. They told Sydney he would get small when he rotted in the iron maiden, and they left, at which Sydney cried out, “Hey! This doesn’t seem to be a magic trick! It seems more like a science trick!” Sydney told his girlfriend to go after them to try to stop them, and he would get out somehow. After a solo about how he needed to be magical, Sydney lamented that he had no lock picks, but then remembered he had his almonds that he had bought. He used the almonds to bribe his rabbits to come to the iron maiden and chew him out, and so he escaped.

Meanwhile, the evil magician was trying to perform (“Don’t worry about the rabbit, children! It’s MAGIC blood!”) when Sydney showed up and revealed that he was the real magician. The evil magician was defeated in a stare-down, and Mephisto (the father) was freed. The evil assistant asked his love to marry him, and then Sydney asked his girlfriend to marry him, and Mephisto agreed to go on the road with the now-reformed evil magician. The show ended with a reprise of the big opening number. Keep in mind that this took an hour and was all made up on the spot. It was perhaps the best improv I have ever seen. What a great show.

After the show, we headed back to the hotel, with a swing by a smoothie shop so I could get a strawberry smoothie. We were back in the hotel before 10:00, and Mer officially conceded her planning powers over to me for Thursday to Saturday. She had done a great job – we made good use of our time in Vancouver the first four days.

Tuesday, August 2nd

Tuesday morning was yet another sleep-in day, but we made up time by having the leftovers from breakfast on Sunday as our breakfast today. After breakfast, we wandered next door to the Vancouver Library, which Ionut had recommended seeing, and it really was next door – the next building east of our hotel.

The library is very cool architecturally – it is in a circle, with an outer circle of columns to mirror the building. It is multiple stories high (maybe 10? I did not count them), and made of a brown stone. The street next to the library was shut down and full of moving vans, but we were able to get into the library on foot. The main entrance of the library itself was mobbed, and as the doors opened at 10:00, people literally ran into the library and up to the second floor. We supposed they wanted the best books to themselves.

We went out another entrance, and came across what may have been public art – the sidewalk had been built up to the level of the tables and chairs in the courtyard, so that the tables stuck up just a few inches above the walking surface. There seemed to be a number of people with walkie-talkies about, and Mer noticed a van labeled “Police Bomb Squad – Boston.” We had heard that a lot of filming went on in Vancouver, especially at the library, and here it was. It now seemed at least possible that the sidewalk build-up was for the filming, but it was not obvious how. We asked a nice man with a walkie-talkie what was being filmed, and he told us it was the TV show Fringe. We have never seen Fringe, but know it is popular with some of our friends and students. We told him that our being there would score big points with them, and then he quietly told us if we waited, we would see one of the new stars of the show. I’m so clueless that he had to point her out to me, and I only managed a blurry shot and a distant back shot of her as she hurried into the library. It seemed fitting that I should be clueless in taking the photos of a show that I was clueless about.

We then continued on our way down to Waterfront Station again, and headed west along the streets and then the seawall. We passed by the huge convention center, Canada Place, where the cruise ships were supposed to leave from, but there was not one there at the time. I was excited as we passed Canada Place and got to the seawall because I had a good view of the seaplanes landing and taking off on the bay. There is regular seaplane service to the large island of Vancouver and some of the other smaller islands. Seeing seaplanes is fun, and not something you get to observe too much in Ohio.

We continued along the seawall along Coal Harbor and soaked in the sights. The seawall wound around with the bay, so it was quite a bit of walking to go what would have been a not-very-far distance in a straight line. We came around to the other end of Stanley Park, the northern side that we had not yet been on. The park was once again a great place to stroll. We saw some antique cars touring the park, and we made our way to the small but well-regarded aquarium in the park. Sadly, there was a huge line, and we decided it was too nice a day and not a good use of time to wait 30 or more minutes in line, especially since we had just seen the Chicago aquarium a month before. So, we went back to the seawall, and kept walking.

After a few minutes, we took a very short detour to go look at a collection of six or seven totem poles. We read about the meaning of totems – they tell stories or act as a coat of arms, which I had not known. They were very well done, and it was a good detour.

We made our way back again to the seawall, and went around a small lighthouse. We then found a nice bench to sit on and have crackers as a lunch/snack while we watched the ocean. A little further on we came across a sculpture of a girl in a wetsuit, which was cool enough in itself. But the really cool thing was that the sculpture was installed on a rock out in the bay. That must have been an interesting installation. In the same spot in the park, they had the masthead to an old Japanese ship that was colorfully decorated as a dragon.

We finally came back around to Lion’s Gate Bridge, so we turned to go back inland along the interior paths. We decided to take the walking paths instead of the road, and we soon got turned around. At that point, we remembered that out backpack had a very cheap compass attached to it as a zipper pull. We had always laughed at how silly that attachment was, but it did work, and now it came in handy. At any intersection, we were able to use the compass to find south, and so we could efficiently, but still surrounded by pretty park lands, make our way back toward the city.

Along the way, we stopped at Beaver Pond, which is covered in water lilies that are very scenic, but which the informational signs say were imported and now are accelerating the silting up of the pond. We continued around the pond, and crossed over a pedestrian bridge that went over the Lion’s Gate Bridge road, and then we were immediately back in the forest. It was amazing to see all the huge tree stumps from old trees, and the lush ferns, and the tall but newer growth. Near the edge of the forest, the trees thinned and there were small clearings that the signs said were good for birdwatching.

As we left the forest part of the park, we still stuck near water, and so we followed along a lagoon in the park. There were ducks and turtles and even a few heron to watch, and we took advantage of a bench to rest. Once we got past the lagoon, we were back in the city, and so we walked along less-used city streets and made our way back to the seawall so we could head back to Waterfront Station. Along the way, I stopped in at a small store that sold Italian food and ordered a hot chocolate. It was excellent, and I felt much better for the rest and the sugar.

We got back to a section of the seawall that was under repair, and somehow we missed the path we had taken earlier and we stared climbing up some stairs. By the time we figured out what had happened, we decided to see where the steps led. At the top, we turned around a corner and there was a large plaza. In the middle of the square was the Olympic torch! That was a very happy find. Near the torch was a sculpture of a pixelated whale, so that it looked like a huge whale made out of Legos. The square was great.

We then headed back around Canada Place, and there was a cruiseship in berth there. We decided to take a look, and were impressed by how large the ship was. We used it as an excuse to wander all around Canada Place, at least as far as you could go, which was to a point out at the very end of the pier. It had a great view of the bay and the mountains.

We finally made it back to Waterfront Station, and we got our all-day passes again and hopped on the seabus. It is a nice means of transportation – easy to use, relaxing, and with great views. Over on the North Vancouver side, we stopped by The Coffee Bun again to buy a bun to have the excuse to use the restroom, and we were politely told to use the public restrooms at the nearby market. While I did that, Mer called Beata again, and made sure she was home.

We got directions and walked up the hill about eight blocks or so to the apartment building where Beata and Ionut live. We did take one wrong direction, but it was easy to correct, and so we got there fairly efficiently. Beata greeted us. Romanians are extremely hospitable people, and Beata brought out some potato wedges and cheese slices that were quite welcome after the long day of walking. Ionut was still at work, and Andrei was taking a nap, so we had a great time talking. Andrei got up around 5:30 and Ionut got home around 6:00. Ionut grabbed a quick bite to eat (we were well fortified on cheese and potatoes), and then the five of us got in the car and headed west to Lighthouse Park.

The park was very uncrowded, and I am glad Ionut and Beata knew where it was, because the entrance was down a small street. The walk through the woods on the way to the lighthouse overlook was fantastic. It was beautiful – rock faces, huge trees, lots of undergrowth. We walked down the path until we came to a huge rock that we climbed up, and from there we had great views of the lighthouse and the ocean beyond. We soaked in the splendor for awhile, and then took a different path back to the car, including a small detour to another ocean vista, this time with a partial view of Vancouver. The trail back to the car had even larger trees, and the walk was great.

Ionut then drove us over to Cleveland Dam, which is one of the reservoirs for Vancouver. It sits at the base of Grouse Mountain, which is a tourist magnet because it has cable cars that run up the mountain. The lake was gorgeous – it was large, surrounded by trees, and had mountains all around it. It was spectacular (as much of Vancouver was turning out to be). We wandered around enjoying the views walked out on the dam and back (it was too high for me to be comfortable), and Ionut wrestled with Andrei on the grass. Ionut is a great father – a man who loves to be with his son, and does not treat his son like glass. Andrei loved it.

Finally, since night was falling, Ionut drove us up to Cypress Mountain, where there is an overlook of downtown Vancouver. Use the usual adjectives – amazing, breathtaking, georgeous, and such – it is such beautiful country. The overlook was great, but even the drive up the mountain was pretty (which we could see in the last of the daylight).

We stayed up on the overlook for about ten minutes, but it was getting late. Ionut insisted that he drive us to the hotel once again, so we made good time back home. Mer and I swung by the nearby Canadian donut chain called Tim Hortons, and we picked up a couple of small sandwiches to munch on back in the hotel. Another great night in a great city.

Monday, August 2nd

Monday we let ourselves sleep in again to get some rest. Once we were up and ready, we headed out and walked the several blocks to the Elbow Room, a breakfast and lunch diner that specializes in attitude. The owners are super blunt and use raw language if they feel they need to, and the place has quite a reputation for being a fun place to eat. We did enjoy the food, and I was told to “move your tush” when they needed me to switch tables and then told to move the same body part in more explicit language once we were done with breakfast. The food was good and unusual – I got the cinnamon roll French toast. The meals were about standard size for home meals, which felt small for a restaurant, especially when the bill came to almost $40 with tip. It was a good experience, but I would not need to do it again for that cost.

We headed back to the hotel to get outfitted for the day, including snack crackers to keep me happy. We swung by a 7-11 store to pick up an all-day transit card. They cost $9 each and let you ride any public transportation you want all day long. We walked down to a bus stop on Granville Street and waited for a bus. And waited. And waited. It turns out that Monday was “BC Day,” a regional holiday, and some of the bus lines only ran every 20 or 30 minutes. We had some odd entertainment in commenting on the mannequins in a store called Dare to Wear. You can use your imagination and probably will not be too far from the truth. Anyway, a  bus came along and we caught it to Granville Island.

Granville Island, as mentioned in the last post, is a shopping and street-performer district. We had gone to see if we could find James Hawkins from the night before. We found him after only one false start (looking for a book store we never did find), and he was delighted to see us. I’m glad we got there on the early side – around noon –  because he was almost sold out of his books. He gave us a book, and Mer bought another, and he was kind enough to sign them both. He recommended some more things to see, and even went so far as to give us his phone number if we had any questions. Again, what an extraordinary person.

We came out of the book store to see a large crowd gathered around a man who was addressing them through a PA system, and he was telling two men to stretch out a chain. He seemed funny, and it looked interesting, so we stopped. He was a street performer and magician, and he already had his hands handcuffed behind him. He had the two men, at whom he poked good-natured fun, test a long chain to prove it was real. Then, he had a girl from the audience search him for keys, with some wink-wink humor along the way, and she tested his handcuffs. Once the girl had verified that he was not carrying any keys, the two men from the audience wrapped him up in the chain. He then stepped into a bag held by the girl, and she tied it gently around his neck. She then counted down sixty seconds, and as time ran out, he stepped out of the bag, free from the chains and handcuffs and wearing a pink tutu. Why not? It was very entertaining. We gave him $10 and considered it well spent. We wandered around the island for a few more minutes, but it was crowded and the maps were not very good, so we kept not finding the stores I wanted to see (like a silk weaver place). So, we left and went back to the bus stop.

I don’t remember where exactly we got off, but it must have been Granville Street somewhere. We made our way north along Granville Street, which has four blocks of it blocked off as a pedestrian zone, which is nice. We headed down to Waterfront Station, which is a bus/train/ferry station, and used our all-day passes to jump on board the Sea Bus. The Sea Bus is a passenger ferry that takes 15-20 minutes to cross the northern bay to get to North Vancouver. Once we got to North Vancouver, I wanted to get some hot chocolate for the sugar, liquid, and calories, and eat my crackers. We swung into a place called The Coffee Bun, which sells sweet buns coated with a dusting of coffee. I ordered my hot chocolate (and got an odd stare for getting one when it was 75 degrees out), and then I decided to try a chocolate coffee bun as well. I split it with Mer. As an aside, the store was run by Asian immigrants, and on the counter was a notepad with the header “Is Anything Okay?” (presumably instead of “is everything okay?”). Mer and I loved that, and have been trying to work it into our lexicon.

The chocolate coffee bun was quite good (the coffee was very light), and my crackers hit the spot. While I ate, Mer called her friend Beata.

Meredith taught English in Romania for a year back in 1995-1996. Mer and her roommate, Laura, became good friends with a family there who had a 16-year-old daughter, Beata. Beata had come over to the U.S. once in 1999 or so, but that was the last time Mer and Beata had seen each other. In the meantime, Beata married the older brother of a classmate; her husband’s name is Ionut (pronounced “Yo-NEWTS”), which is Romanian for “Johnny.” Ionut and Beata emigrated to Vancouver about four years ago, and had a son, Andrei, over two years ago. Since they were in Vancouver, Mer and I wanted to catch up with Beata and Ionut, and meet Andrei.

Mer got in touch with Beata, and she told us they would pick us up where we were, Lonsdale Quay. We sat next to a fountain where we were all to meet, and we people-watched (including watching a man with a huge snake – ugh), and listened to the free music from a band nearby. It was most pleasant. Beata and Ionut and Andrei showed up after about 15 minutes or so, and we all walked back to the car. Beata looked much the same as I remembered her. I had met Ionut once in Romania back in 1997, but I had forgotten. Andrei was very cute and was very well behaved. Beata and Ionut had made the decision to raise Andrei speaking Romanian and Hungarian in the home, and figured he would pick up English and so be trilingual. That is very cool, but meant I could not communicate with a two-year-old. That takes you down a few pegs!

Beata and Ionut wanted to show us North Vancouver, so we piled into their car and Ionut drove us to Lynn Canyon Park. Lynn Canyon boasts a canyon, a very pretty river, lots of trails, and a suspension bridge that is about 150 feet above the canyon floor. Mer had been hoping to see the bridge and cross it as a test case for the more famous and much longer and higher Capilano suspension bridge, which is the longest and highest in the world. Because of the regional holiday, the park was packed, including the bridge. On the plus side, the extra people made the bridge sway less because of the extra weight, but on the bad side, crossing the bridge was very slow. I was scared crossing over, but did manage to get over without too much trouble by putting my head down and watching my feet. On the far side, Ionut wanted to show us the small river in the canyon, so we hiked down a very pretty hiking path for about a half mile to a place where we could see and climb into the river. It was very very clean, and very cold, and quite shallow where we were. I climbed into the river and jumped from rock to rock, but was not anywhere near as agile as Ionut. At one point Ionut even grabbed Andrei and jumped from rock to rock out into the middle of the stream, and did so without the least hesitation. We all splashed about for awhile and enjoyed the sun and water and trees, and then we headed back. Crossing back over the bridge was not much fun at all. People kept stopping to look around and to take pictures, and I was stuck on the bridge. I was so scared I thought at one point I might start crying. Finally, the log-jam of people moved on and I was able to get to land. I was covered in a damp, cold sweat. That pretty much ruled out the Capilano bridge. There was no way I was going to pay to be that terrified.

After Lynn Canyon, we all headed over to Whytecliff Park, which is a seaside park with lots of trees and exposed rock by the ocean. It was breathtaking. While Ionut and Andrei played in the park playground, Beata, Meredith and I wandered around the paths. Beata took us right up to the edge of the ocean, and she was nimbly jumping from rock to rock. I’m pretty confident in my footing most of the time, but I was a little nervous that one slip could be very painful or fatal. I was also worried about Mer, who does not always have the best footing. We were all fine, and the views were worth it. We wandered down to the small beach, and we poked around on the rock on one side of the beach. It was low tide, so we could have walked out to a huge mound of granite and climbed it (there were quite a few people on it already), but I was content with the scrabbling that I had already done. We caught back up with Ionut and Andrei, and we all got back in the car and headed over to Horseshoe Bay, where the major passenger and car ferries go out of. We wandered the small beach for a few minutes, and then went to Ya-Ya’s restaurant, where Ionut proclaimed they had the best fish and chips around. Mer got the fish and chips and seemed very pleased, but I got a wood-fired chicken sandwich that really was good.

After supper, we walked down on a pier and looked at the massive ferries for Victoria Island, and then got back in the car and headed east to Deep Cove. Deep Cove is a quiet little bay town, northeast of Vancouver but still reachable by bus. It was very pretty and very quiet. We wandered out onto the pier with Ionut while Beata and Andrei played at Deep Cove’s playground. We spent about fifteen minutes by the water, and then wandered back toward the small town. Ionut asked if we wanted ice cream, to which I immediately agreed. Canada has lots of Italian ice cream places that serve real gelato. We got some ice cream from the local store, and brought some back for Beata. It was a great treat, especially surrounded by water and mountains.

By this time, it was well after 9:00, and Ionut insisted on driving us back to our hotel. We got to drive across the Lion’s Gate Bridge, so we got to see and cross it without walking it. The drive through Stanley Park was also very nice. We said goodbye and made plans to see each other again the next day. Mer and I went right to bed, having had another busy walking day.

Sunday, August 1st

So, after Ellen left on Saturday, we packed and headed to the Cleveland airport. As a 12th anniversary gift to Mer (and to me), I had booked us tickets to and a 4-star hotel room in Vancouver, Canada. Mer had sighed her way through much of the winter Olympics, and everyone I had ever talked to who had been there had raved about how wonderful Vancouver is. We had a short propeller plane ride to Toronto, and then a four-hour flight to Vancouver. To save some money on the flight, I booked us on the cheapest flight, which got in at 12:30 am on Sunday. The flights went fine, and then we took a taxi for the thirty-minute ride to our hotel in downtown Vancouver; we took a taxi because it was late and because the train to the city stopped running at 12:00 or something like that. We were both very tired, and did not mind not having to think to get to our bed.

We were staying in the four-star hotel the Westin Grand. I got the rooms for just $145/night on Priceline, which was a great deal for a downtown hotel (and one that normally starts at $330/night). The staff at the hotel was very nice and polite and always helpful all week, and our suite was very comfortable. We had a good-sized bathroom with a two-headed shower (boy, did that feel nice), a small living room where we stored out stuff, and an adequate-sized bedroom with a very comfortable queen-sized bed. And, it was on the 21st floor, so had some good views of the downtown (no views of the mountains or ocean, but that was okay).

We got to bed around 2:00 and slept in until we woke up without an alarm, sometime around 10:00. We walked several blocks to a small diner that our guidebook recommended, Templeton. The place only had about eight booths and about sixteen stools at the bar, and there was about a twenty-minute wait, but we got a booth and had a good breakfast. We then discovered what we were to confirm several times – eating out in Vancouver is expensive. With tip, the breakfast was about $30.

We walked back to the hotel to get our supplies (camera, backpack with jackets, and such). We love walking in cities because you can see so much. We were not yet familiar with the public transportation system, so we did not have a lot of choice, but we still liked the walk. The downtown section of Vancouver is very walkable. It is also super bike-friendly – most roads have a bus-and-bike lane, and one of the bridges across False Creek bay has one whole normal sized lane dedicated just to bike traffic. Shannon would approve.

Anyway, after we got our stuff, we headed south to False Creek, a small bay south of downtown. Mer wanted to use that as the start of a long walk to have a mellow introduction to the city. Our mellow walk was slightly interrupted though. Sunday was the Gay Pride Parade, a huge parade that finishes off Pride Week. While we were quite able to continue our walk, the beach area was quite mobbed. Most people were behaving themselves, but as you would expect in a crowd that large, some people took advantage of the atmosphere to push limits by wearing as little clothing as possible (or no clothing for some of the women who went shirtless). There were also bands playing who were not using polite language. So we wandered west along the beach and got to and passed through English Bay Beach, where we dipped our toes in the ocean. We started to leave the crowds behind as we got to the western edge of English Bay Beach and the main drag (ha!) veered away from the beach. Having fewer people around was most welcome.

We then entered a gem of Vancouver – Stanley Park. Stanly Park is a 400-acre park west of the downtown. It has fine ocean and mountain views, and the entire peninsula is encircled by a public-access seawall that has a walking and biking trail (with separate lanes for walkers and bikers for most of the path). We entered on the southern side of the park, in English Bay Beach. There is a huge public swimming pool right on the edge of the park (I think it said the capacity was 3000 people!), and there are two very nice beaches along the seawall. We rested on a bench for awhile near one of the beaches, Third Beach. As the seawall turned northward, the path became bordered on the side by a huge cliff of rock, which was very very cool. We walked on past Siwash Rock, a huge free-standing column of rock about twenty feet out in the ocean. We then turned a corner and saw the magnificent and Matt-terrifying Lion’s Gate Bridge. Lion’s Gate Bridge is a green-colored Golden Gate Bridge in miniature, but not too miniature! We took some pictures of the bridge, and continued along the seawall, but as the path turned south-southeast, Mer felt we were running out of time, so we cut through the park itself to get out as quickly as we could. That still was not very fast, as the park is huge. Once we did get out, we walked back through the downtown back to Sunset Beach.

We were trying to get across False Creek to get to some tents on the other side of the small bay. Since we were short on time, we skipped the bridge across the bay and hopped on a water taxi. We got over to the north shore of Vanier Park. We walked over to the tents and picked up our tickets for “Bard on the Beach” – Vancouver’s Shakespeare festival. We were there to see Antony and Cleopatra, which I had never seen and Mer had not seen in years. The festival uses open seating, so we got in line, and when the doors opened we were still lucky enough to get front row seats, albeit slightly to the right of center stage. As we sat down, we noticed the seats next to us were labeled; the festival lets people “tag” their seats so they can wander to the concession stand.The seats next to us were labeled as one for Antony and one for Cleopatra. We smiled, and when an older but very vigorous couple sat next to us, we commented on being lucky to sit next to the main players of the play. We got to talking, and kept talking at intermission. They were fascinating people. They lived on an island outside of Vancouver near Vancouver Island. They traveled a lot, and had just gotten back from a trip to Egypt. The man, James Hawkins, is a best-selling author of mystery books, although he writes some histories as well. His wife, Sheila, had just gotten back from a weekend trip to China for an award she won. They were utterly remarkable people, and went out of their way to be kind to us. James told us to swing by a well-known Vancouver destination, the shopping district of Granville Island. He was going to be there on Monday for a book signing, and he offered to give us a book. He was quite taken with Meredith since he found out she was an English teacher. They gave us advice on what to see and made us feel very welcome. They were great people.

Back to the play – the set was very simple, but what a view! The set was a series of platforms with columns along the back of the set. The middle back of the set was open as an entrance for the actors, and it faced the mountains, if you were facing center stage (we could not see the mountains from where we were sitting).

The acting was excellent, as you would expect from a major metropolitan acting festival. Antony and Cleopatra were especially strong, with huge personalities and very good chemistry. Augustus Caesar was very good as the man everyone loved to hate, and the story was riveting. The major battles were portrayed as a few men carrying banners that would advance and retreat as needed, and it worked very well. I don’t really remember anything that we were critical of – it was a great production.

After the play, we walked over the Burrard Bridge, which was long and high enough to make me nervous, but small enough that I could still walk over it. We headed up to Davie Street to go to a restaurant called Hamburger Mary’s. It turns out that Davie Street is the heart of gay Vancouver, so the street was quite wild on the evening of the Pride Parade. What a zoo – tons of people, most of them waiting to get into clubs jammed with too many people already. We did get to the restaurant, and I finally got to eat around 11:00. We learned for the rest of the week to take some crackers and cheese along for a mid-day snack, since we never did eat lunch in the city.

After the late supper, we headed up one street so we could walk down a quite residential street for much of the way back to the hotel. It was lovely. We got back to and wandered down Robson Street, which our hotel was on. This is a main street and was still hopping, even at midnight on a Sunday. We got back to the room and happily went to bed, having walked at least ten miles that day and having seen an excellent play. It was a good introduction to Vancouver.

Happy anniversary, Meredith! Twelve years of being married to my best friend. I love you!

Friday, July 30th and Saturday, July 31st

Ellen did feel better on Friday morning. We all took it easy and and did not rush too much. Once everyone was awake and ready to go, we headed down to Akron to go to Wally Waffle for breakfast. We all got some form of waffle (I got chocolate chip), and Ellen gave the waffle batter a thumbs-up.

We then headed over to the Valley to go to the Nature Realm Metro Park. The Nature Realm does not have the rock outcroppings that the Gorge trail does, but it is still pretty and interesting. It has a wildflower meadow, a lake, a steep creek bed that has a suspension bridge over it, several impressive vistas, and an ivy garden. We tromped all over the park, doing all of the trails and having a good time. We were in no rush, so we took advantage of benches that overlooked the creek, and we spent some time admiring the climbing ivy garden that was growing over wire gazebo-like structures that made Ellen want to learn to weld so she can build one. I expect to see an arc welder in her garage next time we visit her house. There were lots of bees and butterflies around to watch, and it was a not-too-hot day, so we had a good time.

To add to the good time, we stopped by Handel’s ice cream on the way home. Sadly, Ellen is still not in the Riordan dessert-class yet, and so was unable to finish her sundae. If she keeps hanging out with us, there is every reason to believe she can work her way up to our standards. After ice cream, we went home to rest, which included about an hour-long nap for me.

For supper, we headed over to the Northeast Ohio restaurant chain Aladdin’s. Aladdin’s restaurant serves Middle Eastern fare, and Ellen was delighted. She pretty much liked everything that was on the menu. I was the only one to take advantage of Aladdin’s excellent cake selection – I guess Mer and Ellen were still digesting ice cream.

After supper, we went back to Akron to go to Aeros Stadium, home of the Akron Aeros Minor League baseball team. None of the three of us is a huge baseball fan, but Mer and I love going to an Aeros game once or twice a year. The park is beautiful, and there are lots of wacky things that go on between innings. On this day, between innings, the crew threw t-shirts into the crowd, had three kids have an air guitar competition, had two guys spin around a bat until they were dizzy and then had them run a race, and had a three-way race between people dressed up as cream sticks. The chocolate cream stick won, and that meant our section over third base all won coupons to a local grocery store for cream sticks. Yum. It is just a fun and relaxing way to spend an evening, and it was a glorious evening.

As far as the baseball went, the Aeros won, which is always a nice thing when we go to see a game. I bought Ellen a giant Aeros foam claw for the humor value of seeing her wear it, which she did for most of the game. And then, after the game, there was a fireworks show over left field. These Aeros fireworks shows are very impressive. They only last about fifteen minutes, but they are great – lots of fireworks going off all at once, and you are only a few hundred yards from where they are launching the fireworks. They are by far the best fireworks shows I have ever seen. Ellen seemed to have a good time, as indicated by enthusiastic foam-clad hand-waving when good things happened on the field. It was a really great way to end the last full day of Lavisher Ohio.

Saturday was a short day – Ellen was planning on leaving in the early afternoon, and Mer and I had a plane to catch in Cleveland for a week-long trip to Vancouver that we were taking to celebrate our anniversary. We still wanted to have a Lavisher Ohio kind of day, though. Ellen had been mentioning she was tight in the neck and shoulders from her drive and from some painting she had been doing in her house. I had remembered a local massage place had advertised a $35 hour-long massage, so I called them up and got an appointment for Ellen for 10:00. Ellen was pretty excited by a $35 massage.

We dropped Ellen off at the salon, and then Mer and I went and wandered the pedestrian street in downtown Cuyahoga Falls. It was an early Saturday, so not much was going on, but we just wanted the walk anyway. We got to the end of the street, and sat down on the open-air stage to enjoy the sunshine. While we were there, four people came into the seating area for the stage. It was two photographers and a young couple who were having engagement pictures taken. It turned out that the young couple were both former CVCA students. Small world in Northeast Ohio. We got to see the pictures being taken and then got to see the young woman’s ring. They continued on their way, and we headed back to the car and picked up a more-relaxed Ellen.

To conclude Lavisher Ohio, we headed over to the Sheraton hotel in Cuyahoga Falls, and went to the restaurant there. They have a brunch every Saturday and Sunday, and the views of the river and some of the falls are quite pretty. We ate a very leisurely brunch, and then wandered out on to the viewing/walking decks over the river and watched the water for a few minutes. Then we headed home and Ellen got packed up and Mer and I started packing ourselves. We all had packed quite a bit into a little over three days.

Our friend Ellen came out to visit us last Wednesday and stayed through Saturday. Ellen had come out during her spring break, and I had touted it as “Lavish Ohio.” Since we had sold the house and Ellen had just wrapped up her PhD program, it seemed fitting to go all-out and bill this visit as “Lavisher Ohio.”

I took Wednesday (and the rest of the week) off since Ellen was scheduled to get here around noon. I went for a long run with Jason in the early morning, and I had a terrible run. It was hot and humid and I did not drink enough. I got home and showered and then napped, and I got up just a few minutes before Ellen arrived.

Ellen is a big fan of Chick-fil-A restaurants, so we started off Lavisher Ohio with a trip there. None of us had eaten lunch, so the timing was good, and we once again got very good service, something that Chick-fil-A does very well. We even got to chat with the manager for a bit, and that was interesting; he is a very outgoing man and a part-time pastor, and it was much fun to get to talk to him.

After we were fortified by lunch, we headed over to the Stan Hywet estate. Stan Hywet is a public mansion and grounds that was built around 1915 by the Seiberling family, who were the founders of the Goodyear tire company. The house and grounds are very beautiful, and Mer and I wanted Ellen to see it. We ourselves had not been in the actual house in years, so we were looking forward to it as well. We paid to have a guided tour of the first two levels of the house (the top two floors were servants’ quarters and that is a different tour). It was a warm day, and that made the house warm, but it was still a worthwhile tour. Ellen is quite good at decorating her house, and she was making lots of mental notes about some of the decorative touches in the house, like the sculpted plaster ceilings. I would not be surprised to see Ellen’s house have decorative plaster the next time we visit her in Michigan.

The house is very lavish, with a music room/ballroom, a dining room that can seat 40 people, great bedrooms and balconies, a game room, and indoor pool, and more. The house is decorated extensively as a Tudor-style mansion, with lots of woodwork and leaded windows. The tour lasted about 90 minutes and Ellen seemed to enjoy herself.

We then spent quite awhile wandering the grounds. Stan Hywet sits on something like 60 acres, and much of that land is well tended. There is a lagoon in an old rock quarry (where Stan Hywet gets its name – it means “rock quarry” in Old English) with a very fine stone overlook. There is a Japanese-style garden, a large fountain behind the house, a tree-lined walk, a huge arbor, and extensive gardens. It was a very pleasant place to stroll around.

We stopped by the cafe on the way out so Mer and I could get something to drink since it had been so hot (Ellen passed on the drink). We then piled in to the very warm car, cranked the air conditioning and headed north to the Gorge Metro Park.

The Gorge Metro Park in Cuyahoga Falls may be my favorite metro park in the area. It is a very interesting path that winds around and through lots of rock outcroppings, wanders along next to the Cuyahoga River, and has excellent views of a dam. I find all of these things interesting. We tromped the entire trail, which took over an hour, and Mer and Ellen both humored me by agreeing to take the more difficult path that goes through and over more rock. We were quite hot by the end of the walk, but I was grateful that it had not rained since we had heard one peal of thunder while we were out on the trail and still about 20 minutes from the car.

We finished the walk with just enough time to scoot over to Rockne’s restaurant, which is a local restaurant chain. We were meeting out pastor Ken and his wife Janet for supper. Ellen had met Ken and Janet when she was out here in the spring, and they had hit it off, so I wanted to get everyone together for supper. Ken and Janet were waiting for us when we got there (we were about five minutes late), but had not been waiting long. We ordered food, and chatted about Ken and Janet’s daughter’s recent wedding, including looking at some pictures Janet had brought along. Ellen told amusing stories about her PhD dissertation defense, which included obscure and not-exactly-on-topic questions like “What would Aristotle and Boethius say about the question ‘Is history real?'” It was a jovial evening.

Thursday we headed out fairly efficiently. We were off and headed toward Cleveland before 9:00. We took a few wrong turns along the way, but we eventually found our destination, which was the Lake View Cemetery.  I am well aware that it is weird to take an out-of-town guest to see a cemetery, but I had heard lots of good things about it, although Mer and I had never been. It actually turned out to be really interesting, and the two hours we spent there went by very quickly.

Lake View Cemetery is a very pretty spot, and there are over 100,000 people buried there. President Garfield is buried there, as are lots of wealthy people like Rockefeller. There are also lots of ordinary people buried there as well, and the cemetery is still active (and they claim they have land to continue for another one hundred years). So, in addition to being a very pretty place to walk, there are lots of interesting monuments, including a Tiffany-designed chapel with a huge stained glass window. The chapel was spectacular and worth the trip just by itself, but the Garfield monument was also interesting, huge, and had great views from the balcony. Lake View is a very good trip, and Mer and I will be going back soon.

After touring the cemetery for a couple of hours, we headed back to downtown Cleveland for lunch. I had found an interesting-looking lunch place on 4th street called Pickwick and Frolic. The restaurant had fine food, and the inside of the restaurant was decorated in a 1930s theme that was beautiful. However, the real find was 4th street itself – we sat outside on the sidewalk and enjoyed the fine day. It tuns out that 4th street has been turned into a pedestrian zone, and it is lined with restaurants. The place was humming with people and activity, and it was a great place to relax and have lunch.

After lunch, we walked the six blocks back to Playhouse Square. We went in to the 2500-seat Allen Theater, which is about to be renovated and turned into three smaller theaters, so I was glad to get to see the entire theater one more time. We were there to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. It had been a long  time since I had seen it, and Ellen had expressed a desire to see it. We had excellent seats in the fifth or sixth row since it was a Thursday matinee (Ellen joked that I might as well have tried to get seats on the stage).

There are two versions of Phantom – Webber’s well-known one, and a lesser-known one by Yeston and Kopit. I often get them mixed up. Yeston and Kopit’s version has a very tight story-line and one that explores the Phantom and his story more. So, I was very surprised when the Webber Phantom picked up right in the middle of the action, where it becomes plain that the Phantom has been teaching the chorus girl Christine to sing, and that this has been going on for some time. Once I got over the surprise and remembered that Webber’s version is about the huge spectacle more than the story, I had a good time. I did get a little irritated once in awhile that most of the play is sung, even most of the speaking parts. But, the play lived up to the promise of being a huge production, with a cast of a least forty actors, many many elaborate sets (some which were used for only one three-minute song and then changed out), and a fairly large orchestra of probably twenty musicians. It was an  entertaining time, and the singers were all jaw-droppingly good.

After Phantom, we headed down to Canton to go to a very cool restaurant and vineyard called Gervasi’s. Gervasi’s has a large and pretty grounds, and the restaurant itself is an old converted barn. Sadly, after we ordered, Ellen became mildly ill with a headache and went out to the car to lie down. Mer and I ate our food efficiently, and got Ellen home so she could get some sleep. I was sad that Ellen did not feel well, but a good night’s sleep cured the headache, so Lavisher Ohio could continue on Friday.

On Saturday, I took Mer to Canton to the $1.50 theater to see a movie that neither of us had heard of – Letters to Juliet. I knew from a on-line summary that it was a romantic film, involving a woman who answers a letter to Juliet (from Romeo and Juliet). That was good enough for me, especially for $3.00 total.

It was a gem of a film. It was sweet and clean and well written. The characters were sympathetic, and there were several twists that I had not seen coming. It was all filmed on location, mostly in Tuscany in Italy, and the scenery alone is worth seeing the film. We were both charmed, and I highly recommend it.

In the evening, our friends Eric and Shanna came over, and we headed out to the far west side of Cleveland, to Lorain County Community College. The college was hosting (for one weekend) free plays by The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. We were going to see the very rarely performed Titus Andronicus, but first we wanted to eat. I had found an intriguing-looking bar that was praised for its huge sandwiches, called Fat Boys. It turned out to be a pretty decent find. None of us tried a full-fledged Fat Boy, but Mer and Shanna got half-sized ones. The food was tasty, and we were early enough that we were the only people there, other than a few at the bar, so it was pretty quiet and easy to talk.

We got over to the college a little before 7:00, and found out that the performance, which is usually held outside, had been moved inside because of weather concerns (it was very hot and looked as if it were going to rain). That was nice – we got out of the heat and, since we sat in the front row, we were sometimes less that three feet from the actors.

Titus is largely condemned by scholars as being a “bad” play of Shakespeare’s. It is argued that it was his first, and it is very very violent, with multiple limbs being cut off, several decapitations, and a huge body count by the end of the play. It is basically an out-of-control revenge play. Everyone is trying to get revenge on pretty much everyone. Still, I liked it. It is not a particularly deep play – there is no symbolism to speak of, and no subtlety at all, but the language is still Shakespeare and there is certainly lots of action. You do end up feeling for several of the characters, and you can see where many of the characters are coming from in their motivations. There is even a character who is evil and scheming just because he loves being evil. I am very glad to have gotten to see it.

Since The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival performs every weekend all summer long at different locations, they rarely have any kind of scenery or set. It still works. They generally use storage boxes to create different levels for actors to stand on or hide behind, and the audience simply fills in the rest. The acting is quite good, and the company gives younger actors a chance to get some experience playing in a Shakespeare play.

Sunday, Mer and I headed back to Canton to have lunch with Aunt Mary after church. We went to a small cafe that Aunt Mary had found called Caffe Gelato, and it was an Italian-style cafe with real gelato ice cream. They served lunch, and it was very good, and I was able to get an excellent hot chocolate that I had for my dessert. They were playing Roman Holiday on the TV screen in the corner, so I was sometimes distracted from conversation with Mer and Aunt Mary, but it was certainly a pleasant distraction (I like both Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn).

We then went back to Aunt Mary’s place, where I took a nap while Aunt Mary and Mer played Trivial Pursuit. For the first time ever in playing with Aunt Mary, Mer won, although Aunt Mary was only one space away from getting a chance to win herself. She is a very formidable Trivial Pursuit player.

That evening, Mer and I went back to Lorain County Community College to see the second play of the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, The Merry Wives of Windsor. This time, it was outside, and we were probably seventy-five feet from the actors, but they had the stage pretty well miked, so we could see and hear just fine.

Wives is the story of how the very popular Shakespearean character, Falstaff, is tricked by two women he is trying to have an affair with (so that he can have access to their money). The women get the upper hand in every instance, and Falstaff is duped and humiliated. It is a very funny play, and we enjoyed it quite a bit. This was the third production of the play we have seen together, and although it was funny, we both agreed the other two productions were better. Mer pinned it down when she said she thought Falstaff should have been much more over-the-top. Falstaff is a fat and old character, and it is ridiculous for him to think he could seduce any woman, let alone two married women. There is a lot of potential humor to be played up if Falstaff is played as being completely full of himself. Still, it was a very solid play, and we were very happy to have seen it.

Meredith got back home from Romania last Tuesday around 8:00 pm after almost 24 hours of traveling. I met her at the airport in Cleveland, and it was a very happy reunion. Mer got off the plane as efficiently as she could so that she could see me, and then as an added bonus, her luggage came out as the third bag on the conveyor, so we were out of the airport pretty quickly. Since Mer was pretty tired, I did not take her out anywhere, but we went home and went to bed right away, where Mer slept for about twelve hours.

Mer was all recovered by Wednesday evening, so I took her out for supper at Aladdin’s, where one of Mer’s favorite former students is a waitress. They had a good time catching up. We sat inside because I had thought it too hot out, and I was glad for that as it started to rain pretty heavily by the end of our meal. Happily, there were enough inside tables to accommodate the outside diners. After supper, we headed down to Clarice’s place, where we met up with Matt and Clarice and Josh and Kristen for a game night. We played a word game where you had to be the last to say a word inspired by a card (like “cars”). I came in last. We then played Celebrity Taboo (celebrity in this case simply meant famous people as opposed to just Hollywood people). Mer and I won, and we are finally at the age where we have an advantage over people in their twenties. We knew a lot of people from the 70s and 80s that our friends were vague on. I broke up the party a little after nine because I had to work Thursday.

Thursday we had a date – we went to Akron’s best mansion, Stan Hywet, to see the Ohio Shakespeare Festival’s production of Taming of the Shrew. The plays happen outside, in an old quarry that has long since been converted into a pond and garden. It is really quite beautiful. The sets for the plays are always simple – this year was a stage in front of a two-story house that was decorated to look Italian and of an older and fancier style. The festival always starts the evening with “the green show” – a 20-minute review of dancing and music and swordplay and the like. It is fun to see, and it gives the actors who have minor roles in the play a chance to show off their skills. This year we had a special treat – one of Mer’s former students was an actress in the production, and had some very good stage time in swordplay during the green show. It was very cool to see someone we knew on stage at a professional production.

Shrew itself was excellent. The actors threw in a lot of body language and large gestures to add to the comedy of the night. This production also added the rarely performed prologue to the play, where a nobleman finds a drunkard and decides to take him home and convince him that he (the drunkard) is a lord who has been mad for years. As part of the cure for madness, some actors then put on a play, which is Taming of the Shrew. Most productions skip all of that, and just do the play of Shrew, but it was fun to see the additional material.

The actors were quite strong, but the best were the leads. Katherine (the shrew) was very good as a fiery not-to-be-tamed spirit. She had lots of anger in her speeches. The man playing Petrucchio (the man who sets out to “tame” Kate) really shone. He spoke the speech trippingly, which is to say he spoke all the lines very naturally, and his physical humor was excellent.

At intermission, it began to rain lightly. This was the first production (of at least five or six that we have been to) where we were caught in the rain. The show continued on, and most people stayed. It did begin to rain harder, and finally lightning rolled in, so they had to stop the play with about 20 minutes left to go. It was a shame, because the production really was entertaining. The director offered to give free tickets to another performance of Shrew or the upcoming production of King Lear to anyone who was still there, which was very kind of him since refunds usually are not given if the play gets to intermission. Despite the rain, we were very happy we were able to see (most of) the production.

Friday, we had the last of the CVCA graduation parties, for one of Mer’s students. We were there for about an hour total, and got to talk with some students of whom we are very fond. Most people spent most of the time inside because it was very hot outside, so we did not get in any cornhole this time (although they had a set outside ready to go).

We went to video store to rent Valentine’s Day. Mer had seen all but the last twenty minutes or so on the plane trip home, and she wanted to finish it. It was a mellow activity, so I was game. It was an okay movie – I did not relate to most of the characters, but it did have some twists at the end of the movie that I had not seen coming. And I got to watch the movie with my own Valentine, so that was well indeed.