Author: Tara Taft

Up, up, and away!

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It’s 6 a.m. on a Sunday the end of August, and I am in one of two hot air balloons rising up over a small town in Massachusetts with the pilot, Rudi of Dragon Fire Balloon Adventures, my husband, and my teenage son.  We are in Lucy, one of Rudi’s two hot air balloons, this one featuring a tie dye design and formally called Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

 

The sun has just risen; the air is cool and still. So still, in fact, that at first we don’t go anywhere except straight up. The cars and planes and people get smaller and smaller as we rise to about 900 feet.

We can see beyond the airport to more trees and houses and hills in the distance. We watch as the other balloon moves further west while we hang out above the runway.

It is peaceful up here in the sky. There is no sound except for the noise of the burner and the occasional sounds of our voices.

Rudi expertly controls the hot air flow and lets us down a little, hoping to catch a breeze at a different altitude to move us away from the airport and beyond, and slowly we do move, now just above the trees and telephone wires, now just above the houses.

We check out the landscaping designs, the decks and patios and discover what’s hidden behind some of those houses.

We watch our reflection in a pond full of lilypads and touch down on a nearby road to change passengers. While the crew holds the basket, our teenage son gets out and our teenage daughter gets in.

And up we go again, followed by the chase vehicles, as we travel not as high but further with the wind.

We see deer, startled by the inconsistent noise of the fire’s hot air.

We pass over conservation land and farm fields and more houses, finally landing in someone’s front yard at the end of a cul-de-sac.

As we wait for the chase vehicles to arrive with our crew, we notice that no one is home. The pool is covered, the shutters closed. They will miss the thrill of a hot air balloon in their front yard and the complimentary bottle of champagne.

We are watched by the neighbors as we help the crew pack up the balloon, quickly and efficiently, and head back to the airport where we join the other balloon’s crew and passengers for our own champagne.

To learn more about hot air balloons and how they work, click here.

Trip taken August 2012.

When Will We Get There?

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Squabbling in the back seat, wearing no seatbelts, our skin sticking to the vinyl seats of our station wagon, my brother, sister, and I kept asking our parents, “When will we get there?”

“It’s a mystery,” my dad wisely said, and our family weekend car trips became known as “Mystery Trips.”

Throughout the year, Dad perused the newspaper’s travel section and kept a file on unique and unusual destinations in California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. When it was time to pack for the trip, Dad gave Mom only enough information to pack the right clothes. We never knew where we were going until we arrived.

Equipped with a cooler full of potato, macaroni, and ambrosia salads, hot dogs and hard boiled eggs, our clothes in suitcases tied to the top of the car, we climbed into our gold and wood paneled Ford Country Squire, and eagerly awaited the first mystery of the weekend.

I remember the dry heat of Death Valley as we drove through the desert with no air conditioning. I remember the sounds of our dog’s nails as she slid across the metal floor of the far back seat of the car, Mom’s voice as she read aloud to Dad, my brother and sister’s giggles interspersed with the inevitable whines and accusations of sibling rivalry. We read and fought, completed Mad Libs, looked out the window, slept, or listened to Mom and Dad talk. There were no DVDs and no iPods.

Then we arrived. I remember visiting ghost towns, panning for gold and drinking sarsaparilla in Columbia State Park, finding bits of garnet outside Ely, Nevada, eating chocolate on a tour of Hershey Chocolate Factory, seeing elephants in Las Vegas, and peering over Hoover Dam. I remember my brother’s yells when he sat on a cactus and my mom’s disbelief when he told her he saw a rattlesnake right after she said to watch out for them. I remember waiting by the side of the highway in the Nevada desert at dusk while Dad walked to the nearest gas station for a gallon of gas.

I remember a crazy driver flying past us only to point out that one of our suitcases had opened and was spilling clothes across the highway. I remember begging Dad to stay at a motel with a pool and passing no vacancy after no vacancy signs before we finally found a place to stay.

We ran and climbed in playgrounds in places like Winnemucca and Elko, Nevada. We ate all our meals in public parks (blackened hot dogs and salads) and always slept in a motel, one of us sneaking our dog into the room. We were up early the next morning, eating our breakfast of hard boiled eggs and bran muffins in our room or sometimes scrambled eggs and burnt toast over a campfire at a nearby park.

When I was in high school, we traded our station wagon in for a VW Camper Bus. Now we slept in the bus, my brother and I in the pop up tent, my sister on the hammock over the front seat, Mom and Dad in the back with the dog. We cooked fish my brother caught in a nearby stream on the camper’s stove and played cards around the table in the back.

The trips were no longer a mystery. We could read road signs and maps. We didn’t need to ask where we were going or how long it would be until we got there, whether it was to Yosemite, Yellowstone, South Dakota or off to college, and eventually we even helped to drive.

Happy Birthday, Dad! Thanks for all those mysteries.

The Scents of Northern California

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The smells and scents of Northern California remind me I’m home, even though I haven’t lived there in over 20 years. I walk or run along the trails near Mount Tamalpais and the Pacific Ocean and breathe in.

I smell the menthol of the eucalyptus tree, its tall branches swaying high in the wind.

I smell the licorice of the delicate anise bush and remember tasting its fine leaves as I waited for the school bus.

I smell the Mediterranean fragrance of the California Bay Laurel as its leaves surround me on the trail.

I smell the woodsy dampness of the Redwood tree as I am dwarfed by its statuesque grace.

These scents surround me on Mount Tam, in Muir Woods, and in Baltimore Canyon, all just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, and I breathe in.

Trip taken June 2012.

A Day in DC – Part 3

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As we walked back to Union Station and got on the Metro, we marveled at our day. How much more exciting could it have been? Yes, we missed the Library of Congress and visiting the House Gallery, but we’d come back another day. We’d experienced history and seen our Congress at work. (See posts A Day in DC – Part 1 and A Day in DC – Part 2.)

I sat on the Metro reading the Senate pamphlet, waiting for our stop, when the conductor’s voice said, “Due to police activity, the doors will be locked at the Silver Spring stop. If this is your stop, please be patient for the doors to be opened.” While I continued reading (completely oblivious), the rest of my family watched as the train stopped, the police opened the door with keys and entered the train, pulled three young men off the train, then came back on to get one more.

Outside my window, I could see two policemen handcuffing four youths then watched as one of the cops reached down to pick a gun up off the ground and put it in his pocket (instead of his holster). After a few minutes, the police were gone, the doors opened to let people out and we continued to the next stop, our final destination. It wasn’t until we were off the train that I learned that the men who had been arrested, the ones with a gun, had been on our car, only a few feet from each one of us.

We never learned any details about the arrest, and the rest of our experience in DC was typically touristy with trips to Georgetown, Arlington Cemetery, Mount Vernon and Alexandria. But I don’t think any of us will ever forget our action packed day in DC.

Trip taken July 2010.

A Day in DC – Part 2

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Full of excitement (we’d just experienced a bit of history, after all – see A Day in DC – Part 1), we walked back to John Kerry’s office to collect our things before heading to the Capitol to watch the Senate in session. Minutes later, we sat in the Senate Gallery, absorbing our Congress at work. The room resembled a cocktail party. Only one senator was actually sitting, the others milled about, entering and exiting the room. We saw Kerry, Diane Feinstein and Al Franken. A black cloth and white flowers covered the desk of Senator Bird, who had died two days before our visit. We watched as senators voted to approve US Army General David Petraeus as commander in Afghanistan. As each senator’s name was called, he or she answered “Aye,” which sounded a lot like “Hi,” to my daughter who wondered at this friendly ritual.

Now off we went for a tour of the Supreme Court Building. The building held a special interest for us. William Howard Taft, a distant ancestor of my husband, argued for construction of the building, and his bust is displayed prominently in the entrance to the hall. Although the Supreme Court was not in session, we were able to sit in the chambers, imagining the judges deliberating as we listened to a lecture on the Supreme Court’s history and process. After lunch in the Supreme Court’s basement cafeteria, we headed back to the Capitol building.

Once again we waited in line to go through security. This time though, we lost a water bottle. Though empty, my daughter was instructed to throw away her Sigg water bottle. Leaving it outside wasn’t an option. Nor was hiding it in the bushes. There was no where else to put it, so in the trash it went, and we entered the building.

Streams of people milled the halls and the visitor center of the Capitol Building. Long lines of tourists waited for their tours. Happy we had arranged a tour through our senator’s office, we wandered through the exhibits before meeting Senator Scott Brown’s intern at the gold King Kamehameha statue in the National Statuary Hall at 3 p.m. After a short film, the intern took our family around the Capitol building, pointing out facts and trivia about past presidents and the building itself.

Our tour continued below the building where we hopped on a trolley for the short ride from the Capitol Building back to the Russell Senate Office Building.

All smiles, we disembarked and followed the intern up stairwells and down hallways, past interviews taking place, to Senator Brown’s office.

The office still held photos of Teddy Kennedy, its former inhabitant. We went out on the balcony where our photo was taken before walking back through the office. While signing the visitor book, we heard, “Hello, Senator.” And there was our senator, Scott Brown. After shaking the senator’s hand and having our picture taken with him, we said good-bye and left the building and Capitol Hill.

A Day in DC – Part 1

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From the Senate to the Supreme Court to handcuffs and a gun, what started out as a typical day on Capitol Hill turned into a memorable one.

After a few days in DC’s sweltering heat, absorbing the Smithsonian museums, watching millions of dollars being printed, riding bicycles around the monuments, and even pretending to be spies, my family of four (two teenage kids, my husband and I) were ready to experience Capitol Hill.

We walked from Union Station to the Hill with anticipation. Intent on showing my children where their congressmen worked, I headed our family toward the Russell Senate Office Building where our senator, John Kerry, has his office. The morning was cool but sunny, and all around us young men and women dressed in black and pumps or ties walked briskly to work. Near the Russell Building a line was forming, and being tourists, we jumped into line before fully understanding what we were in line for.

The woman sitting under a tent asked us if we’d like tickets. Tickets to what? My husband asked. Free tickets to Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing, she answered. While my husband ran across the street to Kerry’s office to leave our cameras, water bottles, pens and other items which were not allowed into the hearing, the kids and I waited in line.

Eventually we followed 20 others (most likely interns, their dress contrasted sharply with our tourist apparel) to the Hart Senate building. One by one we passed through security and into the quiet building where we formed another line outside the hearing room’s door. Bright lights, cameras and microphones filled the area. Men and women with press badges scurried around, tilting, adjusting and talking, as we waited silently to enter the room.

The large wooden door opened, and we entered, single file, and sat in chairs in the back of the room. Immediately in front of us, media personnel filled perpendicular tables with lap tops and head phones, talking, typing, looking official but not necessarily as if they were paying attention. C-Span monitors lined the walls, and on the opposite side of the room, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary sat elevated. There was Senator Diane Feinstein in a red suit and Senator Orrin Hatch. I could see Senator Al Franken asking the questions, and if I leaned sideways and sat up straight, I could see Elena Kagan beyond the reporters in front of me. It was easier to watch the interaction on the monitors but exciting to see the people with my own eyes. When the Committee took a break, my daughter caught a glimpse of herself on one of the monitors, and we watched interviews taking place just outside the door. A few minutes later, we were ushered out to make room for another group.

Visiting the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory

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Accompanied by a few 14-year old girls, I arrived at the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in June and followed the signs.

Once inside, we said hi to the women at the reception desk and walked down a narrow hallway, reading the signs and peering through windows.

We saw potatoes falling through a chute and on conveyer belts. We watched as workers grabbed random samples of potatoes potato chips and more potato chips, but we weren’t allowed to take any photos. We learned that it takes a lot of potatoes (4 pounds) to make only 1 pound of potato chips, and we observed the chips being weighed and packaged.

At the gift shop, we were given free samples (sea salt and vinegar and sweet mesquite barbeque) and bought two bags for lunch the next day (feta and rosemary and 40% less fat).

Located at 100 Breed’s Hill Road in Hyannis, Mass., the factory is open for free self-guided tours Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Trip taken June 2012.

Searching for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in NYC

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After finding the best pickle in New York City, my friend was now after the best chocolate chip cookie. According to her Californian rabbi, the best chocolate chip in the world could be found on Manhattan on the Upper West Side.

One morning in June, we met at Levain Bakery on West 74th Street to try a cookie.

What we discovered: the cookies are large, easily two servings worth, which helps justify the cost of $4 per cookie. Full of chocolate, the cookies contain walnuts as well (watch out all of you with tree nut allergies). Gooey on the inside and firm on the outside, the cookies are not crisp and their flavor exudes butter.

The bakery sells more than just chocolate chip cookies. Besides other cookies, the bakery sells bread, sticky buns, and other sweet items.

Since we didn’t try any other chocolate chip cookies in New York, I can’t confirm whether Levain Bakery makes the best chocolate chip cookie in the city, the country or the world. But I agree with the rabbi, its cookie is definitely in the running.

Trip taken June 2012.

A Good Witch?

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She lured us over with her mystical promises. The allure of fortunes and world wisdom beckoned us all, and she spread the cards before each of us, one by one, directing us to ask a question and choose a card and then reading its picture, attempting to interpret its application to our lives.

The death card, the queen of love, a card of finance, each of us, listened and smiled as each fortune loosely resembled an aspect of our life.

As I sat opposite this serene middle aged woman at a restaurant in Marin County, I noticed her costume. Her black almost purple long straight hair was adorned by a large black hat. She wore a green shirt covered in part by a black vest and black and green striped pants. Rings and bracelets sparkled and jingled on her fingers and wrists and she spoke in a voice reminiscent of the Addams family’s Morticia. She handed me her business card. “I do weddings,” she said.

An hour or so later, we’d move on and away from this soothsayer and were focusing on buying food for dinner at a nearby grocery store. Near the dairy section, we caught a flash of black and green and at the check out, we faced the witch again. She told the children with a voice smooth and deep, “So nice to see you again.”

Trip taken July 2011.

In Search of the Best Pickle

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We were on a search for the best pickle on Manhattan. Before my friend embarked on a trip to the East Coast in June, she did a little research. She googled and searched, arriving in town with a name and address. Her family and I followed as she walked briskly from South Street Seaport through Chinatown and Little Italy, passing glistening gelato and mouth watering cannolis.

Turning a corner on the Lower East Side, we found the best pickle at The Pickle Guys on Essex Street.

Stepping down a few steps, we entered a room full of pickles: vats of pickled tomatoes, olives, and carrots, mushrooms,  green beans and peppers.

And there were cucumbers: sour and hot, half sour and three quarter sour. I bought the full sour pickle and took a bite. Tart and crisp with just the right bite, it lived up to its reputation.

Whether or not The Pickle Guys actually sell the best pickle in New York, I never found out, but for pickle connoisseurs everywhere, it’s definitely worth a visit.

Trip taken June 2012