Best of 2015

Posted on December 31, 2015 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

I think by all accounts, 2014 was one of the worst years on record for me. By comparison, 2015 has been a dream, even with the bumps, bruises, and emotional roller-coasters that are the norm for making our way through Life. In some ways, 2015 has been a holding pattern and a waiting game, but in most respects I tried to pack as much as possible into 52 weeks, spending my time exploring, hanging out with friends, and soaking up every minute I had with Mr. Blue Eyes. While I’m excited for the coming year and all the challenges and triumphs, I am also a little sad to see 2015 close. So, I decided to come up with a “best of” list of some of my favorite things from the last twelve months.

Muir Woods, California, July 2015

Best Experiences of 2015:

Geez, I really don’t know how to narrow this down. However, I can say with confidence that the best times of my year have everything to do with spending time with the people I love.

Adventures afar and nights at home in jammies with Blue Eyes.
A 6-state Midwest road trip with a girlfriend.
Spending a whole week as the full-time caregiver for my stepkids, it’s more time than I’ve ever spent with them, and a few hiccups aside, it went smashingly!
A long weekend laughing with my best friend and her family in California.
Book club, always and forever.
Designing and costuming a competitive (and award-winning) Shakespeare team comprised of 50 teenagers with one of my oldest, best friends, for our 10th year running.
Planning and executing back-to-back smash success events for work; one a giant professional development conference, the other a state-wide event for 20,000 high school students.
Spending the evening with my four siblings, the first time we have been together in YEARS.
Crashing with dear, dear friends for a couple weeks between moving all my things to Arizona and moving my actual self.
The homemade welcome party that awaited me when I finally arrived here in Arizona.

Best Books of 2015:

Goodreads tells me that I read 111 books this year (!!), a total of 36,000 pages (for reference, my 2014 totals were 38 books and 13,000 pages). My shortest book was the Pulitzer Prize winning play Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley, the longest was the behemoth War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. My most frequently-read categories this year were Russian literature and history (especially of the Romanov family), feminism, and slavery and racism. I also read a number of books about North Korea, Darwin and evolution, elephant psychology, Joan of Arc, neuroscience and psychology, the Iranian Revolution, and China prior to/during Mao’s cultural revolution. Yes, I have eclectic taste. No, I won’t ever apologize for it.

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy is a master, and in my opinion, this is his best.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs
More than any other slave narrative, this one rips my heart out. Harriet’s anguish and turmoil over leaving her children behind, of rescuing her children, of keeping her family together, this will change you in all the right ways.
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, by Sandy Tolan
Refugees, war-torn middle-east, historical context for the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and a lot of “Humans of New York” type stories and sharing from in-depth interviews on both sides. Absolutely recommended.
The Martian, by Andy Weir
Hilarious, scientific-nerdy, perfection.
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhaul Bulgakov
Magical realism and political satire in communist Russia? Gimme!
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
This is why people like 19th century English literature.
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
This book is very much an acquired taste, but I loved it. Yes, even the 600 plus pages about the history of whaling, the anatomy of whales, the economy of whales, the works. Loved it.
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
So dark and moody! So delicious! I can’t believe I hadn’t read this one before.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley, by Charlotte Gordon
Dual-biography of early feminist icons from the 18th and 19th century? Yes, please!
The She-Pope: a Quest for the Truth Behind the Mystery of Pope Joan, by Peter Stanford
Did you know a woman became Pope in the 11th century!? This story and the research to piece this story together are so fascinating!
Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup
At times I am baffled that slavery existed in the United States, that humans were perfectly fine owning other humans. This book details some of the most monstrous atrocities and a few gentle kindnesses from white freemen to their black slaves.

Of these books, which should you read? Well, world events being what they are, I think you should read The Lemon Tree as soon as possible. It shows both sides of Arab and Jewish tension and the history behind it. Honestly, it made me much more sympathetic to both sides and the war-torn refugee people who are caught in the middle. If that isn’t your cup of tea, I’d definitely read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a rare first-person slave narrative from a woman’s point of view.

Best Vacation of 2015:

This is probably a toss-up between an awesome road-trip across the Midwest with a girlfriend, and a delightfully low-key weekend in San Antonio with my sweetheart. Last January I had high hopes for a warm, international getaway, but more practical things like bills and buying a house and maintaining two households for 14 months took precedence. Hopefully 2016 will see a little passport action.

Best Photos of 2015:

I have had the chance to travel around to a number of different places this year, hauling my camera with me. Of the thousands and thousands of photos I snapped this year, these are probably my favorites, along with the others in this post.

Capitol Reef National Park, Apricot Orchard, March 2015

Grand Canyon North Rim, October 2015

Boone Hall Plantation, Charleston, South Carolina, September 2015

Bryce Canyon National Park, Thor’s Hammer in the fog, October 2015

San Antonio Botanical Gardens, agave teeth, November 2015

Best thing I learned:

You will never truly feel better about something until you do the work to actually change it. I’m sure some philosopher has said this much more eloquently and concisely, but I learned (or, re-learned, rather) that buckling down and getting my hands dirty and elbows greasy brings me an incredible amount of satisfaction. Granted, there are some things that we cannot change and must simply learn to work around or live with; I get that. What I’m saying is that we as humans are capable of an incredible amount of forward progression if we put our minds to it, pool resources, and reach out to friends and loved ones. Here’s to 2016, more forward and more progress.

San Antonio Mission Trail, Texas

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

The Mission Trail in San Antonio consists of the five early missions that have since been swallowed up by the city. Some of the old churches are in better shape than others, and some were more extensive in the first place. Blue Eyes and I spent a Sunday morning wandering from one to the other, checking out the ruins, peeking in the chapels and standing in awe of the architectural feats accomplished during the 1700’s in the middle-of-nowhere Texas.

The Alamo is one of the original San Antonio missions, it is by far the most famous due to the terrible loss the Texans suffered at the hands of the Imperial Mexican army. (Confession: I actually had no idea that the Texans lost at the Alamo….I hope I can still be friends with those of you from Texas. And, to be fair, you probably didn’t know that Utah was founded by religious refugees running from government-issued extermination orders in the Midwest. So, state history lessons for everyone.)

Mission Concepcion

After The Alamo with it’s memorial flowers and altars and hundreds of people milling about, I was surprised that Mission Concepcion was so different. We arrived just as Mass was getting out, and seeing families chatting and kids running around the lawns seemed so…normal. This building in old and weathered, and I was both surprised and delighted that–despite it’s National Monument status–it is also just a regular cathedral for the devout people nearby.

Mission San Jose

Called the “Queen of the Missions” this cathedral was by far my favorite. I think it is the largest, and has these amazing arched extensions around the main church with gardens and flowers all over.

I mean, really. How can you not be totally charmed by this place!?

Mass was happening while we were visiting, so we didn’t poke our heads inside at all, but we wandered around for almost an hour, admiring the stonework and the sheer size of the building, and me patiently(ish) waiting for the crowds to clear a bit so I could get the photos I wanted.

Mission San Juan

Mission San Juan (which I don’t have any photos of), was the simplest building, whitewashed and without much decoration. We poked around the dark little museum and circled the grounds, but services were taking place in the church and we didn’t want to disturb, so off we went to the final mission.

Mission Espada

The oldest of the East Texas missions, the Espada church looks like it’s abandoned, but there is a small monastery and retreat attached where people continue to live, study, and pray. The rest of the grounds are in ruins, with stones and bricks removed for decades for other building projects. Now it’s mostly just the outlines of the walls and foundations.

However, the chapel was empty so we were able to go in and sit for a little while, admiring the faith and dedication of these believers from hundreds of years ago, and to appreciate the service and life-work of the priests and monks who continue to run the missions in San Antonio.

San Antonio, Texas

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

San Antonio Riverwalk

Last month I went to San Antonio for a work conference and managed to squeeze in plenty of wandering. Blue Eyes lived in Houston for a few years and fell in-love with Texas, so he was pretty stoked to join me for the weekend after my conference and explore a little. We stayed right on the Riverwalk a loop of the San Antonio River that is lined with shops and restaurants and bars.

I wandered the entire loop several times, taking photos and enjoying the delightful weather.

The restaurants have all appropriated part of the not-entirely-huge sidewalks outside their space, and in the evenings it was crowded with people and sounds and delicious smells of Mexican food and BBQ (not usually together, thank heavens).

I have a thing for these painted tiles, they were inset in everything and I just love them!

Bridges every so often let you criss-cross the river, darting back and forth for the best Mexican food and tchotchkeys.

Japanese Tea Gardens

The Japanese Tea Gardens are built in the pit of an abandoned stone quarry, they are quite small, but absolutely gorgeous. The water is a super healthy looking green (ahem), but the pathways and gardens are charming, the large pagoda is built of quarry stone and brings a little bit of Texas to traditional Japanese architecture.

McNay Art Museum

Between my conference ending and Blue Eyes’ flight landing, I spent a blissful afternoon wandering around the McNay Art Museum. Once a residential mansion, it’s owner left it to be a wonderful art museum with an expansive sculpture garden. This museum has a little bit of all the painters I love, and it was so fantastic to just wander through the rooms at my own pace, swooning over the pieces I loved without worrying that I was holding anyone up.

The building has this lovely central courtyard smothered in jungle and pretty fountains. The museum was practically empty the day I was there, and I loved being able to just sit and detox a little bit.

Again, with the Spanish tiles. I just adore them.

San Antonio Botanical Garden

Before Blue Eyes and I left for the airport we decided to squeeze in a little Texas BBQ and a stop at the Botanical Garden. They have extensive grounds and have divided it up into sections that represent all the different natural climates and geographic locations in Texas. So, there is the arid desert, and the humid jungle-y bits, and the plains parts, and the coast.

So pretty!

These tiny little orange blobs were one of my favorites, I can’t believe they come from purple flowers!

Blue Eyes was content to wander with me for a few hours, taking ten million photos and trying to figure out how I could copy some of the fantastic cacti gardens for our yard.

Overall I really loved San Antonio, although I do not think I’d be able to stand the heat and humidity of the summer. But, it was a lush, gorgeous, interesting city to visit and we managed to squeeze in a bunch of mini adventures! More photos from San Antonio on Flickr.

Charleston, South Carolina

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

Charleston walk around historic downtown, pretty as a postcard. And freaking humid. There were crazy tropical storm warnings starting a few hours after I arrived. I did not feel one bit guilty about holing up in my hotel room after 8:00 pm with some Southern BBQ take-out, AC cranked up, and a book on my knees. Humidity is not my jam, walking around outside in heat and humidity makes me pretty cranky pretty fast. (Seriously, is it ever NOT humid in the south!? Inquiring minds would like to know.)

Rainbow Row, a delightful block in the old historic district that looks like a sorbet buffet. Pink and mint and lavender and sky blue houses, one after another, with gorgeous flower boxes, charming front doors, and enviable iron scroll-work. And no less than three photographers using them as a backdrop for bridal shots.

Wandering around the water front, watching dolphins and turtles play in the harbor, enjoying some gelato and people watching…it was such a wonderful evening. The Palmetto trees (palm trees for us plebian Westerners) lining the walks were swaying, there were fountains everywhere and moss growing on bricks and tree trunks. And, DOLPHINS in the water. I mean, take away the humidity, add my sweetheart and another scoop of gelato and it would have been down right perfect. (Yes, I realize the humidity is essential for the moss to grow everywhere, but man, can the dang weather stay out of my armpits and off my neck!?)

Most people rave about all the delicious things they ate in Charleston, and I had an amazing burrito-thing, some decent gelato, and some pretty great BBQ, but overall I wasn’t there to eat, but to wander. I wandered into restaurants when I got hungry and wandered back out again when I got antsy. I would go back to Charleston, but maybe in February or something when the weather is a little less soggy. I didn’t have enough time in two days to see all the things I wanted to see and photograph.

Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Feisty Harriet — Leave a reply

Fort Sumter, a tiny island fortress in Charleston Harbor, is the site where the Civil War began. The first shots fired in 1861 were by the Confederate army, they blasted Fort Sumter until it surrendered a day-and-a-half later. Over the next four years the fortress was reduced to rubble in battles and was not abandoned until Sherman marched his army through the South on his way to Atlanta in 1865.

I’ve read quite a bit about the South and the Civil War, but most of my knowledge is about the war in and around Virginia and Pennsylvania, what I know about the South is mostly gleaned Gone With the Wind. I loved being able to wander around the island, see the massive canon that were used to fire on ships, other islands, and the city of Charleston. I am still amazed at how large those guns are and their range is impressive.

After Fort Sumter was blown to bits, it was never rebuilt. What remains is the foundations of what used to be a several-stories high building that housed troops and supplies for weeks on end. It makes the broken walls and shattered bricks all the more eerie, imagining hundreds of men living and fighting in layers on top of you.

My visit at Fort Sumter was fairly short, but as there is very little to see–the whole island is really covered by the ruins of this fort and a small museum–I didn’t mind. A massive rain storm was rolling in and I was more than happy to get back on the ferry and back to (below sea-level) land before that tropical storm hit in full force. If you go, you have to buy your ferry tickets separately and probably in advance, they tend to fill up quickly via online sales, especially in peak tourist seasons.

Also, I think it’s time I refocus some of my Civil War reading on areas and battles farther south, I was embarrassed at how little I knew. (I’m a nerd. I know. It’s part of my charm.)

Feisty Harriet

"i" before "e" except when I'm feisty.

Tag Archives: Travel