Tag Archives: swimming

That relaxed feeling.

family, travel, , , , , ,

Our days continue with the lovely relaxed feeling that comes from being just the right temperature and humidity. It’s dry here, but not harshly so.

The sun is bright, but not too bright, and the air seems constantly re-freshed by the winds, though evidently perception is not the full reality:

Our first morning here we wondered about the red dust on the car and the stone terraces. In the town many people were washing down their outdoor spaces though it had recently rained.

“It’s raining dust from Africa,” our host told us. Soon we heard from others, “It happens every May, the red dust from Chad blowing north.” Who knew?

In the picture below, that I took when Kate was navigating the twists and turns of the narrow village streets, you can see the dust on the windshield, but it’s not red, so maybe we are at the end of the African dust season, and the air is now carrying the paler local dust.

One day we swam at the closest beach, Aliki. It wasn’t crowded at all. Some Greek boys were very boyishly playing with a ball in and out of the water and providing good entertainment, especially for Pippin who was catching Greek words and phrases in their shouts; she became much more comfortable with the language than I after our months of Duolingo lessons.

Kate and Maggie on Golden Beach

After I walked out through the waves up to my waist, it still took me a few minutes to finish what I had started months ago, when I told my daughters how much I was looking forward to swimming in the ocean.

I knew it wouldn’t be as perfect as the other times I’d been in the Aegean, on the Turkish coast so long ago, but without a doubt it would be much warmer than any of our northern California beaches whose currents flow direct from Alaska.

Once I did dive in, it didn’t seem too cold at all, and I swam as lazily as one can, for (what I perceived to be) a long time. That felt so good. I hadn’t swum in the ocean at all since Maui, thirteen years ago.

Another day we went to Golden Beach, in the evening, and I don’t think any of us swam, but three of us brought the others drinks from the bar, and we sat and told stories from the last years or from our childhoods and anytime in between.

Pippin and I walked slowly along the shore looking at the smooth and many colored stones, and chose our favorites.

I have a lot of favorites. One daughter asked if I were going to take sand for my collection at home, and I realized I had forgotten to bring along a bag or bottle for that. In my purse I found a pill pouch with a few Tylenol tablets in it, so I dumped those in another place temporarily and scooped a tablespoon or so of golden sand into the tiny bag.

When we returned that evening after a long day on the other side of the island, we realized we were fresh out of drinking water. Our hosts simply stated on the website, “The tap water is not drinkable.” I had drunk a pint of it before I heard that, and thought it tasted good, but we have been buying water in quart bottles from the grocery store across from the beach.

Pippin wanted to walk down there to buy more water, and I went with her. It’s about a ten minute walk, and was very pleasant in the fading light, with the village sounds changed from the daytime. People were walking their dogs, and it seemed to be the hour for dogs to bark.

The doves that fill the airwaves with their constant urgent cooing had not stopped, but fewer people were on the beach, and the beachside restaurant tables were quiet.

We browsed the store a bit and in addition to water bought linden tea and rice cakes flavored with oregano. I would not have bought them if I hadn’t learned this week that Maggie likes rice cakes. That makes two of us.

For today our group split up, three going to the nearby island of Antiparos and two of us staying here for a Home Day. I washed some laundry — it dries in a flash on the rack outside — and wrote a postcard; Maggie swam in the pool. I’m lying on a day bed on the terrace that overlooks an olive grove with the ocean just beyond:

The owner of the villa was here earlier skimming the pool, and when I came out he was in the middle of telling Maggie that at her age she should be going into Naoussa to enjoy the night life. She was reading a book, and he said only two in ten Greeks ever read a book. He doesn’t favor the quiet life such as Maggie and I were having this morning, and prefers to be busy with “business.”

But as he was leaving he said he regretted building several such villas as we are staying in, it is too much work keeping up with the hospitality and maintenance on all of them.

He also said he comes from Crete, but it is too big, he likes Paros much better, and it is a better life than Naxos, too. I’m thankful he built this house we are staying in, because it’s the best.

We sleep and swim and sleep some more.

cabin, mountains, , , ,

Except for the hum of my car’s engine, and the sound of rubber rolling on asphalt, the night was still, and pitch black. Pearl and I were driving on curvy roads the last hour up the mountain, at nearly 10 p.m., later than I’d ever done that. There was no moon, but reflectors shone from the snowplow markers on both sides. I kept slowing down as a precaution against hitting deer that might bound out in front of me, then I would forget about them and speed up, my high beams shining into the darkness giving me some confidence to push on. This was an eerie and unusual way to start a vacation at the lake.

She and I had stopped a ways back to shop for five day’s groceries for nine people, and we suspected that at least one of our group’s three vehicles would have arrived ahead of us. Yes, three people greeted us when we arrived, and two hours later, at midnight, the last carful, in which two-year-old Lora was riding. Her Aunt Maggie had been entertaining her all day, or they’d have been even later.

So, bedtime was very late that night (morning). But then the fun began! This cabin has two bedrooms with two beds each, but there is a carpet and sofa in the living room, and a large deck. The effects of the altitude are laughingly predictable: everyone sleeps a LOT. We sleep late, and various ones take naps morning, afternoon or evening.

Yesterday we found a gloriously deep and green swimming hole down the mountain a short way, plus a redwood grove to stroll. Lora was so pleased with the latter place, she hugged herself. Most everyone swam, and Lora and I reached through the limpid stream to collect sparkling pebbles from the bottom.

Lots of cabins and businesses have a bear out front, carved out of a log. The one at top is next door to our cabin. He never sleeps, but I am going to go to my bed now, and will tell you more tomorrow.

Swimming, almost without end.

poetry, ,

ON SWIMMING

The rivers of this country are sweet
as a troubadour’s song,
the heavy sun wanders westward
on yellow circus wagons.
Little village churches
hold a fabric of silence so fine
and old that even a breath
could tear it.
I love to swim in the sea, which keeps
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he’s been on the road.
Swimming is like a prayer:
palms join and part,
join and part,
almost without end.

-Adam Zagajewski

Oregon – Granite Man, Pennyroyal, and Deer Brush

agriculture, family, nature, smells, trees, wildflowers, , , , ,

 

 

An hour before the race began

On the first of June Mr. Glad competed with other members of the family in the Granite Man Triathlon in southern Oregon. It was one of several events and meetings that formed the outline of a little trip around our neighboring state.

My husband was doing the swimming leg, as was the other grandpa of our Oregon grandchildren, and the two of them were the team captains. Our son and three grandsons made up the remainder of the teams, with the younger athletes compensating somewhat for the slowness of their elders. We womenfolk and some out-of-town kin were the support crew and also played with the baby (cute boy even if he isn’t one of my grandchildren).

My favorite swimmer left of center with his hands on his hips

Perfect weather, and a lovely setting, with trees leafing out, flowers beginning to bloom. As we stood around on the grassy slope of Applegate Lake waiting for the race to start with the swimmers’ portion, I had my first botanical experience of the trip. It started with a smell that only gradually broke into my consciousness enough to make me look down and search out what source my feet were tramping on.

pennyroyal – or not?

Pennyroyal was my first thought, as I picked off some of what was growing in the wild lawn, and in case you aren’t familiar with it, I outlined one cluster faintly in red, in the photo above, in the lower right corner. Even so, you may have to click on the photo to see it.

But it doesn’t exactly look like pictures of Mentha pulegium, though that pennyroyal is considered mildly invasive in California and Oregon. It doesn’t even look like pictures of the Oregon “field mint” Mentha arvensis, which I looked at in case my sniffer is not able to distinguish between members of the mentha family.

Pennyroyal has what I’d call a sharper aroma than most mints, and this one under my feet had that distinctive smell that I have met many times in my life, often in the mountains. Was I mistaken? Its leaves do look in some ways more like Monardella odoratissima, whose common names include “Mountain Pennyroyal” – but not exactly.

This Applegate Lake variety looks like a cross between it and another mint, as I study it further. And that impression might not be too far from reality, because it turns out that pennyroyal has an ability to hybridize with other mint species, adding to its troublesome weediness. It may crowd out native plants and even threaten Oregon’s commercial peppermint and spearmint crops, as I read in this article.

I learned a new word while reading it: allelopathy: a biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. I am familiar with this kind of influence from my experiences in gardening, but I didn’t know the name for it. The latest instance is the way nothing much grows under my manzanita bush because of its negative allelopathic qualities. The authors of the article experimented by treating seeds of a rare Oregon plant with a weak extract of pennyroyal root, and found that the germination rate dropped.

Deer Brush near Applegate Lake, Oregon

I didn’t know all of this bad stuff when I was lolling about in such a bucolic place; I was only pleased to have found a plant to check on as soon as I got home.

When we went out to the parking lot after all our guys were done (and some were done-in) I found another, a bush covered with honey-scented flowers. I thought it might be a type of Ceanothus, and I was right. But about the common name, I was wrong. I guessed Mountain Lilac, and it is in fact called that by some people, but maybe by mistake…? It’s officially known as Deer Brush.

The flowers come in shades of light blue and white, mostly, and it’s native to the western states. All of its uses are positive: animals eat it, the Indians made baskets from it, and it fixes nitrogen in the soil. Everybody likes this one!

Ceanothus integerrimus