Author: Tara Taft

12 Hours of Blizzard Juno!

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There’s nothing like getting a month’s worth of snow in a few days!

After a brief snow storm on Saturday, January 24, 2015, about 5 inches of snow fell on our outside table before the rain compressed it. Here’s what the table looked like on Saturday and pretty much what it looked like when we went to bed on Monday night.

Before Juno

Here’s what it looked like at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

At 8 a.m.

Juno - 8 a.m.

At 9 a.m.

Juno - 9 a.m.

The dog still hadn’t been out. So, we started shoveling and blowing. It was 17 degrees, and windy.

Juno and the dog

It kept snowing all day. At 4 p.m., I took this photo.

Juno - 4 p.m.

At 7 p.m., I took this last photo.

Juno - 7 p.m.

We stayed warm and never lost power. Instead, we went snow shoeing. Today, after shoveling again, I’ll be out on my skis.

When to Visit Walden Pond

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I first discovered Walden Pond when a friend took me there for a summer evening swim. I’d studied the Transcendentalists in college, had heard of Thoreau but had never read Walden. We walked along the trail to a place my friend knew, away from the crowds. We swam to cool off from the hot summer air.

Since then I’ve visited Walden several times. In the morning, when people gather to swim; during the day, when the beaches are crowded with small children; and on the weekends, when people from the city seek an escape from the summer heat. I’ve picnicked along its banks, hiked along its trails, swam and kayaked its cool waters. But until last November, my visits have remained in the summer months. Last November, I discovered how magical Walden Pond can be without the heat and without the crowds.

On the Pond Banks Cabin SiteWalden Pond

Trip taken November 2013.

How to Make a Christmas Baby Feel Special

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Do you know anyone who was born on Christmas Day?

I do, and my mother, Marialyce (aka Rusty), is one of them. Maybe that’s why she made such an effort to make birthdays such a celebration for her children. Because December 25th was never just her birthday. As a child, her parents put a candle on a mincemeat pie for her birthday cake, and many of her gifts were combined Christmas and birthday presents.

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I started making birthday cakes for Mom with an Easy Bake Oven some time around age 6 or 7. After a molasses cake was a flat fiasco, I turned to Mom’s Julia Child cookbooks. For years, I made an orange chocolate cake with mocha frosting (Le Glorieux with Chocolate-Butter Icing, which just happens to be gluten free). A few years later, we began separating the occasions; opening up Christmas presents in the morning and birthday presents with cake in the evening.

Although she planned parties for many, birthday parties for Mom were few over her lifetime (she could count them on one hand). So when she turned 75, we decided to surprise her.

That Christmas, Mom and her husband planned a visit to my sister’s home in Alabama for the holidays. On Christmas Eve, my husband, our two kids and I flew into town, rented a car, and drove to my sister’s house. Posing as carolers, we rang the door bell about 9:30 pm. As we sang “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” my sister called Mom to come see the Christmas carolers. As she came into view, we switched to “Happy Birthday” and watched her smile changed from delight to incredulity.

I’ll never forget that Christmas and what fun it was to surprise her. We’ve all heard that sometimes it’s better to give then receive, and that year, it definitely was.

Merry Christmas! Or should I say, “Happy Birthday!”?

Trip taken December 2004.

Shopping Around the World

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I discovered all these handmade gifts a couple of years ago at various local fairs. Even if you’re at home this holiday season, buying and giving gifts made by people in other countries brings the world to you and helps the artisans who make them as well. Happy shopping!

Tara Taft's avatarSnapshots and Sojourns

Where did you go this holiday season? I stayed near home the month of December but went shopping around the world and bought several gifts handmade by women and children in places like Sri Lanka, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand. Each item made me pause and smile, and I have no doubt, they made the recipient feel good, too.

I oohed and awed at jewelry made in the Philippines and in India from genuine pearls. Pearls with Purpose was created to instill self-sustainability and hope in women throughout the world.

I smelled the candles and admired the containers at Prosperity Candle, a company whose mission is to “empower women to rebuild their lives through candle making, one gift at a time.” After training women as candle making entrepreneurs in Baghdad, the company began working with Burmese and Bhutanese women refugees living in Massachusetts. If you buy a candle, you…

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Finding Gluten Free at the Denver International Airport

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While searching for a safe gluten-free meal at the Denver International Airport, we were surprised and excited to find an Udi’s Cafe on Concourse B near Gate 22.

Udi's Cafe DIA

That was in 2013. In April 2014, the company changed the name of its restaurants to Etai’s. I guess after 20 years in business and the success of their bread, they decided it was time.

Although I haven’t been to the cafe named Etai’s, it appears that there is no change from the cafe named Udi’s, at least according to the company’s website and Yelp. Most everything is gluten free or can be. There is no online menu for the airport location, but you can get an idea of the dining options by checking out one of the menus for the other restaurant locations on Etai’s website.

If you want some ideas for eating in other airports, check out this blog.

Trip taken July 2013.

How to Get Across the GW Bridge

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The road was red on the tiny screen of my phone. The directions said “rerouting.” We followed blindly, exiting 95 to avoid a congested highway stretch just before the southern entrance to the George Washington Bridge.

traffic jamOff Route 95 and onto Route 46 then right on North Avenue, one small road led to another equally small road but not a through street. Other cars merged in front of us and suddenly our detour was as congested (well, almost) as the GW Bridge. And we realized that we weren’t the only cars being rerouted by Siri!

Detour

Getting off the well traveled route around New York City always makes me a little nervous. I think of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and the fateful wrong turn the main character, Sherman McCoy, makes.

Slowly we made our way to the traffic light and back onto 95 where all lanes crawled across the bridge, and our view was marred (or enhanced) by the fog.

Foggy bridge

Are we better off with Google Maps? Showing us traffic and detours, updating our routes with ETAs? Or we were better off in the old days with just maps and AAA TripTiks to show us the way?

On Board the Queen Mary

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I grew up hearing about the RMS Queen Mary, a British passenger ship with an aura about her not unlike the RMS Titanic (but without the disaster tales). On my last visit to California, I promised myself I would make a trip to Long Beach and climb aboard. Why? After years of reading and writing about the ship, I wanted to see her for myself and to visit the first stop on The Tucker – Tyler Adventure.

For $29.95 I bought a “First Class Passport” for a day on the ship which included a self-guided audio tour and a behind the scenes tour of the Queen Mary on the “Glory Days” tour. (Although also included in the First Class Passport ticket, I ran out of time and never made it on the “Ghosts and Legends” tour or on the adjacent Russian submarine, the Scorpion.) The next day, my friend and I drove to Long Beach, parked, and walked toward the ship looming before us.

Walking to QM

She is big. Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Queen Mary is 1019.5 feet in length. She is tall. From her keel to her smokestack, the Queen Mary is 181 feet high, 49 feet above the water line. She is big enough that during her hey day she carried as many as 1,957 passengers on her 12 decks. For five days in September 1954, my mom and her friend, Rusty and Kit, were two of them.

QM Decks

The Queen Mary is also elegant. The tour took us to the ship’s ballroom and through the art deco bar. We peeked in at a first class cabin, now a hotel room.

After the tour, we wandered on deck, looking for the location where one of Rusty’s photos was taken.

IMG_2323

We explored the souvenir shops, ate lunch in the Tea Room, and took the self-guided audio tour, finally finding a replica of a tourist or third class cabin, the cabin in which Rusty and Kit stayed during their 5 days aboard the ship.

Tourist Cabin

If you go, allow yourself plenty of time to explore and to discover. You might even want to spend the night. And if you want to know more about what it was like to travel on the Queen Mary in 1954, read the book, The Tucker – Tyler Adventure.

QM Sign

Trip taken July 2013.