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March 30, 2013

My 1st 5k with a stroller, Denver’s Central Park, and my race shopping spree

Posted by jennavandenberg under Colorado, Doing stuff with a baby, Running | Tags: |
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First race with babyI can finally run again!!! My daughter turned six months today, which means I can officially run with her in a jogging stroller without worrying about giving her shaken baby syndrome. Likewise, I can resume going to the gym as childcare is available for those exactly half a year old (and not a day sooner, as I discovered when I tried to sign her up yesterday).

Aubrey and I celebrated her half birthday by participating in the Hippity Hop Easter Trot 5k. As you can probably guess from the name of the race, this was a family friendly event. There were tons of kids running around on a search for Easter eggs prior to the race. The race itself featured a small army of oversized jogging strollers.

It wasn’t the most competitive run I’ve ever participated in. I spend the first mile cautiously jogging along, worrying simultaneously that my kid was too hot and that I’d accidently run into someone’s heel. Luckily Aubrey babbled happily for the 3.1 miles and I was fully enjoying my runners high by the end of the race, despite an embarrassing finish time that I’m not going to admit to on this blog.

The race was well organized. To me this means that there was a loudspeaker with music at the start/finish, ample parking (on the street), mile markers were obvious, results (via timing chip) were posted immediately, and there was good food at the finish. Yay breakfast burritos! It was not the most gorgeous run I’ve done in my life, but Denver’s Central Park was a nice enough venue.

Central Park, Denver

Central Park is in Stapleton, the area of Denver with a lot of new fancy sub-division houses (oh, that area). It is northeast of downtown, off of Martin Luther King Blvd and Central Park Blvd. Take the Quebec exit south off of I-70 and head east on MLK for a couple of miles. The park has a huge play area for kids including a big climbing rock that my brother would have loved when he was five. There are lots of good sledding hills too.

Subdivision heaven

Playground

Upon returning home I went on a shopping spree. My website of choice was my beloved www.runningintheusa.com. I am excited for the next few months!

April 6th: Jackalope 5K race in Laramie, WY. I emailed the race director who quickly responded in the affirmative that I could indeed run with a jogging stroller. Get ready Aubrey!

April 20th: 4-H Fun Run in Holdredge, NE. This is still a maybe, dependent on their stroller rules because I doubt I can convince anyone to travel to Holdredge with me. My affection for small town races is n0t shared by many.

May 27th: BoulderBOULDER 10K in Boulder, CO. I need to find a babysitter for this one because the huge race (50,000 participants, 90+ waves) doesn’t allow strollers. Family members: this would be an excellent weekend to visit.

June 17th: San Francisco Half Marathon. A fabulous coincidence: Aubrey’s Las Vegas dwelling father is originally from Oakland, and he’s anxious for her to meet his family that still lives there. He is a HUGE Oakland A’s fan, whereas I live and die for the Mariners. Naturally we made sure that Aubrey’s first trip to The Bay would be when the M’s are in town. (Bonus: this is also father’s day weekend) Last week I discovered that the SF Marathon would be held that same weekend. YAY!!! My best friend Denise is coming up for the weekend to and we’re doing the first half of the marathon. (She’d be in shape for the full…but I will most definitely NOT be).

June 29th: Ellsworth Wisconsin Cheese Curd run (10K? 8M?) This is another happy coincidence. My family will be celebrating my grandma’s 90th birthday the EXACT SAME weekend as the cheese curd festival. And man, do I love my cheese curds.

Fresh cheese curds

Sometime in August or September: A FULL MARATHON. I’m not sure where I’ll be living/working so I can’t commit to a specific one yet. Stay tuned

 

February 24, 2013

The Tropics in Denver: Two Free Locations

Posted by jennavandenberg under Colorado, Travel, USA | Tags: , , , |
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I was expecting Denver to be a lot prettier in the winter. It’s gorgeous here in the spring and fall, with tree leaves respectively budding white and pink and changing red and orange. But in the winter everything is just dead. I think I was expecting to live in a Thomas Kinkade winter scene: pine trees heavy with snow, kids skating on frozen ponds, white-capped mountains in the background… Nope. The weather here has a severe bi-polar personality disorder, which means it will be snowy and gorgeous for five minutes and then everything will melt and it will be fifty degrees the next day. Trees and parks will remain dead-looking until April.

Denver winter

Luckily there are antidotes to this excessive brownness. You can either

  • Head up to the mountains where it’s so cold that you eyeballs freeze, but the snow doesn’t melt. OR…
  • Find something tropic in Denver. And no, I’m not taking about fruity drinks with umbrellas. I hate Margaritaville. Thank goodness there isn’t one in Denver. I’m talking about the greenhouse at Denver Botanic Gardens and the indoor rainforest at Denver Zoo.The only picture I took at the zoo
  • Since only part of the zoo and gardens are tropical, I recommend not paying for your admission to these attractions, particularly if you go during the winter. Free 2013 zoo days this winter have already passed, but if you are into planning waaaay ahead, the zoo will be free again on November 4th, 15th, and 21st  The Botanic Gardens will again be free March 27th, April 22nd, July 9th, August 27th, and October 7th.

At the zoo last month I skipped the elephants, zebras and cheetahs and met my friends somewhere around Bird World and Lorikeet Adventure, where it was nice and warm. The Emerald Forest and Primate Panorama also feature inside viewing areas.

On the other side of the park is Tropical Discovery, an indoor rainforest. There are no dead looking brown trees here. Everything looks very lush….except the “temple ruin in the heart of the jungle.” It looks rather cheesy. But while in my fake rainforest, I enjoyed gazing at the fish and turtles, and my baby girl craned her neck to look at an exciting light coming through the water.

The zoo is located inside downtown Denver’s City Park (also very brown and dead looking this month). Being free day, the parking lot and garage was very crowded, and the line of cars piled up to get into the park was long. However the zoo itself didn’t feel very crowded. Maybe that’s because everyone was checking out the elephants and cooler outdoor animals.

Adult admission to the zoo is $12 during the winter and $15 in the summer. Winter hours are 10-4, summer hours are 9-5. Check out the zoo’s website here for more information.

Last week when my parents came to visit I suggested that we visit Denver’s Botanic Gardens, which shocked them because I hate botany. Botany 101/plant identification was the only class I failed in college, and I failed it twice. The first time with a 10%. And I was actually TRYING to pass. I’m sorry, it is just impossible to tell if a leaf is separated (in which you should turn to page 652 in your dichotomous key) or merely serrated (page 152 – an get ready for another equally impossible task). But my farmer father was an ag major, my mom loves gardening, it was free, and I had a baby to entertain me so off to the Botanic Gardens we went.

A flowerIt wasn’t so bad – mostly because I skipped the pools, outside gardens, and ornamental grasses. They didn’t look too interesting from afar (dead, brown, etc.). The greenhouse was kinda nice though. I stepped inside the garden, stepped back out, stripped my daughter of her pink fuzzy snowsuit, and re-entered. It was VERY hot and humid in there. The greenhouse is several stories (there is an elevator) of lush greenness. In addition to various plants that I don’t know the Latin names of (I left my dichotomous key at home, dang it!), the greenhouse has a water feature complete with ducks. I especially liked watching little kids run around with petri dishes, collecting various stuff. I don’t know if they were supposed to be doing this, but they looked very cute and earnest. I’m sure they’ll make good botany students in the future.

I conveniently got hungry an hour after our arrival at the gardens. (My dad said he could have spent NINE HOURS there. Oh, the horror.) If you, like me, don’t want to dine at a place called Offshoots at the Gardens, Three Lions, a soccer (football?) pub around the corner has great bar food. Denver Botanic Gardens are open from 9 -5, and if you don’t go on a free day, it’ll cost you $12.50 (more than the zoo? That’s absurd!) The gardens are downtown at 1007 York Street. Check them out here.  

Less than five weeks ‘til spring!

Spring!

 

November 3, 2012

Northern Arkansas: Buffalo National River and Eureka Springs

Posted by jennavandenberg under Arkansas, Travel, USA | Tags: , , |
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When you are from Seattle and live in Denver, and someone asks you to conjure up a mental image of cute little mountain towns and rivers winding through hills and valleys, Arkansas is typically not your go-to-state for such images.

And yet, driving through Arkansas we found such things.

Granted, Buffalo National River is not the most gorgeous river I’ve ever seen, but apparently we were there the wrong time of year. I was all excited to go hike up to see a waterfall, but the park ranger informed us that, being late July, they would be all dried up by now. Gesturing to the deserted Visitors Center, he told us all about the hordes of people and their canoes that flood the area in the spring.

If you don’t care too much about waterfalls or exciting rafting conditions, you can still enjoy the park in the late summer. The hiking and swimming is good and there will definitely be a camping spot open.

After a quick hike, mom and I walked down to the river the check things out. There was a family swimming in the bath-like water. They looked like they were having so much fun that mom and I scrambled back up the path, donned our swimsuits and spent the next hour cooling off in the (very, very slow) current.

In between exclamations about how great the water feels, the family recommended that mom and I spend the night in Eureka Springs, which is two and a half hours northwest of the river. So we dried off and headed out, hoping to get to the town in time for dinner.

Eureka Springs was every bit as cute as promised…although they’d probably prefer the world “funky.” It’s one of those strange towns carved into the side of the mountain with steep winding streets, lots of artsy shops, and cute houses.

We only spent one evening in town, so I can’t write too extensively about the place, but I will recommend eating at Local Flavor Café. They have basic American dishes plus fancier stuff like sesame encrusted goat cheese salad and shrimp salad stuffed avocado. We weren’t there on Sunday, but their Sunday brunch menu looks fabulous too. Local Flavor is one of those eclectic places, with a collection of lamps decorating the dining room. They also have outdoor patio seating.

If you are driving from Arkansas to Denver, soak up all the Eureka Springs you can, because it’s the last interesting place until you get home. Sorry Salina, Kansas. I will not be blogging about you.

 

October 31, 2012

Central High and the Little Rock Nine Museum

Posted by jennavandenberg under Arkansas | Tags: , |
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After spending the past few years re-reading “Warriors Don’t Cry” and teaching my students about Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine, going to visit Central High School, the sight of the famous school desegregation crisis was a must while in Arkansas. I even did some pre-travel research (very, very rare for me) by scribbling down the address of the high school (which, being in operation, the general public cannot tour unless prior arrangements are made) and the small museum around the corner.

Mom and I pulled into Little Rock around lunch time. We figured that we would spend an hour checking out the school and museum, have lunch, hit Clinton’s Presidential Library, and be out of the town by that evening.

But that small museum held us captive for hours. I’m not really a museum person, but this tiny one was exceptional. Every plaque, picture, audio clip, news reel, video montage, and taped interview was captivating. Perhaps this museum was interesting to me because I’d read so much about the event (it is usually more interesting to learn about things you already know about, hence the educational buzz-phrase “activate prior knowledge”), perhaps the museum was exceptionally well-put-together, or perhaps the subject matter is just inherently interesting. Whatever the case, mom and I forgot that we were hungry and didn’t have hotel reservations in Little Rock, and we spent hours soaking up the museum. The museum doesn’t just tell the story the integration of Little Rock, but begins with exhibits on slavery and key Supreme Court decisions regarding Jim Crowe laws.

Then comes the story of the Brown v Board decision, the first attempt at integration, the segregationists protests, how Arkansas’s Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to block the students from entering the school, how President Eisenhower had to send THE FREAKIN’ US ARMY down to Little Rock to ensure that nine students could attend school, and how Faubus closed public schools the next year. Especially well done were the video news clips of the time spliced with interviews from the nine high school students who desegregated the high school. 

 

As mom and I nearing the pictures of Bill Clinton standing with the (now much older) former students, we were thinking that we should probably tear ourselves away from the museum. Then we started talking to an older couple who were there with their two grandchildren. They were long time Little Rock locals. The grandma was busy urging her middle-school aged grandkids to “pay attention! This is the reason you can go to good schools!” but the grandfather stopped and talked to mom and I for a long time, pointing out one of the Little Rock Nine students that he’d grown up with and reminiscing about what it was like to be a young black man in Little Rock in 1957 (Which can be broadly summarized as “scary”).

 

As Mom and I walked down the street to Central High, I tried to picture the hate mobs that blocked the very street we were walking on fifty years earlier.

Despite the fact that I’d just seen footage of this street, crowded with angry people in fifties haircuts, I just couldn’t imagine such a thing occurring here, on this quiet street, in front of this gorgeous school.

Despite the fact that I’d read about governor Faubus: a man who would close all public schools rather than have them integrated, I can’t imagine such a man would exist, and I can’t imagine a population of people who would vote for him.

Despite the fact that I’d read, learned, and taught others about the hardships nine high school students faced while simply attending school, I can’t imagine the spitting and kicking and threats of lynching that occurred here.

Despite the fact that I’d just talked to a man who’d lived through it, I can’t imagine that any of this happened. It all seems like a made up story, or something that happened in some far away country, a long time ago.

Not something that could happen in my country. 

 

October 28, 2012

Baseball in Jackson and Little Rock

Posted by jennavandenberg under Arkansas, Baseball, Tennessee, Travel, USA | Tags: , , , |
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Unless you are a Tigers or Giants fan, baseball season is sadly over. For my Rockies-and-Mariners-loving-self, the season has been over for nearly a month. It’s always a depressing time. April seems so far away, especially now that I live three states away from the spring training complexes in Peoria, Arizona.

So to cheer myself up, I’m reminiscing about my minor league vacation while half-heartedly listening to Game 2 of the World Series on mlb.com.

I’d been wanting to go to Tennessee for ages (there was a trip planned four years ago that went awry) to see the Jackson Generals AA baseball team – formerly the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx. Why the need to see a random team in Tennessee? Because these ball playing fellows are just two steps away from being Seattle Mariners.

I’ve followed the Mariners minor leagues for years. I grew up cheering on the Everett Aquasox (the Mariners short season single A team) just north of Seattle. When I moved to Las Vegas, my favorite male travel companion and I would leave Sin City every summer weekend to instead hang out in the crappiest towns of Southern California. We would follow around the High Desert Mavericks (the Mariners long season single A team), cheering for them on in the fabulous cities of Victorville, Lake Elsinore, Bakersfield, and Lancaster. We had to be the only people LEAVING the excitement of Las Vegas to become Victorvillians for the weekend. But hey – baseball calls. We had things timed so Tom could pick me up from school on Friday and we’d pull into Stater Bros. Stadium in Adelanto just as the national anthem was starting. This mad dash unfortunately did not allow for a stop at The Mad Greek in Baker.

Anyways, after future Seattle Mariners are finished being Everett Aquasox and High Desert Mavericks, they move onto Tennessee to become Jackson Generals. (There is also a team in Clinton, Iowa, but I haven’t been there yet. Next year!) Therefore when my parents and I planning on visiting family in Baldwin, Wisconsin, I insisted that we “swing by” Jackson, Tennessee on the way back to Colorado. (Note to the geographically challenged: Jackson is NOT between Denver and Baldwin.) Luckily my parents are also diehard minor league fans, so convincing them to take a five-state detour was an easy task.  

We left Graceland in the afternoon and made the two hour drive to Jackson. I was humming Johnny Cash’s “We’re Going to Jackson,” for most of the drive, despite my mom gently suggesting that the song was most likely referring to the town in Mississippi. Unaffected, I sang on. My favorite part about driving through the south is singing all the country songs that are affiliated with various cities. I’ve made more than one travel companion despise the songs “Maybe it was Memphis” and “I’m a Little Past Little Rock (but a Long Way from Over You)” over the years. Come to think of it, that is probably why Tom killed the trip to Tennessee all those years ago.

Back to baseball: The Jackson Generals play in Pringles Park, right off of I-40 (you can see the park from the freeway). Being in Tennessee, the place was HOT. My mom claimed that she’d requested seats in the shade, but we were seated squarely in the sunshine. If you go to a game around 4:00, you’re going to want to sit in sections G – I in rows 15-22. Later in the evening, your back is to the sun if you are on the third base side sections A – F. Luckily, it was not very crowded, and so we abandoned our assigned seats and moved to the shade. It was a great game, even though the Huntsville Stars beat us in the 11th inning. If you are in the area, catch the game on the radio at 101.5 FM.

A few days later my mom and I found ourselves in Little Rock Arkansas for a day longer than expected (The Little Rock Nine Museum was just too cool. We couldn’t tear ourselves away after our allotted one hour had passed). How should we fill up an evening?

Baseball, of course! Right across the river from downtown Little Rock is the gorgeous Dickey-Stephens Park, home of the Arkansas Travelers since 2007. While the stadium is relatively new (the gal checking us in at our hotel was reminiscing about watching the Travelers at Ray Winder Field. She rolled her eyes at the mention the “new” stadium), the team is certainly NOT. The Travelers have been around 1895! They are currently affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels.

The game was fun, full of typical minor league shenanigans: errors, ground rule doubles and a run scored due to consecutive wild pitches. It was apparently “paramedic night” at the ball park – the men in white made three trips to the field, the first incident involving a little leaguer who passed out during the national anthem (it WAS pretty hot). Luckily everyone made it through the nine innings without having to be transferred to the hospital.

My mom and I were especially glad to have had a fulfilling night of baseball when we returned to our hotel room to find that back in Seattle Ichiro had been traded to the damn Yankees. It’s a good thing I like farm teams, because that’s basically what my Mariners are – a farm team for the Yankees. Luckily this World Series game that I’m listening to right now does NOT involve the soul-sucking/money grabbing team that gets booed by their own fans in New York. Listening to Detroit shut them down a few weeks ago was glorious. Things aren’t looking so good for Detroit now, but its baseball…you never know what could happen. Maybe the Mariners will even make it to the play-offs someday.

I can’t wait for next April…

 

October 24, 2012

Nashville, Tennessee

Posted by jennavandenberg under Tennessee, Travel, USA | Tags: , , , , |
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Someone told me that if I ever go to Nashville, I should skip music row and just go to the Whole Foods in town. Apparently at the food/salad bar there the Whole Foods employees make orders from scratch using ingredients from the produce in the store. This advice obviously came from a classic Denverite.

Thank God I skipped her advice.

Music row comprises the few blocks along Broadway in Downtown Nashville where wanna-be country music stars play for tips on smoky stages, new restaurants, old-time honkey tonks, and famous dive bars. Almost all the establishments have signs outside informing country-loving tourists which famous singers got their start in that very place and whether Tim McGraw had ever been there. Sadly, I did not see any famous people on music row, despite keeping my eyes peeled for Taylor Swift.

I was actually a little worried that I wouldn’t see ANY singers, famous or otherwise because I was in Music Row on a Sunday afternoon. According to most country songs, everyone would be in church or enjoying a fried chicken family meal after church. Luckily, this was not the case in real life. There were TONS of bands playing on music row, despite the fact that it was Sunday afternoon. Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Legends Corner were some must-see (must-listen?) spots. My mom and I briefly popped into those and several other bars, listened to a song (or a verse, depending) or two and then headed out, wanting to check out ALL the Broadway bars.

We also wanted food. Many of these bars didn’t have much of an afternoon menu, but were more than willing to serve us a beer or a shot of whiskey. As much as I love Toby Keith’s “Whiskey Girl,” I passed up the shots since I was starving (and pregnant). Most of the places to eat and also listen to music in the afternoon were chain restaurants that we weren’t really interested in patronizing.  (Sorry Margaritaville).

Then we came across Honky Tonk Central. This isn’t an old, dingy bar – quite the opposite. Steve Smith, owner of Tootsie’s, recently purchased the long-abandoned Seanachie building, refurbished it, and opened up the new bar. Live music is played here daily from 11am to 3am AND they have a full menu.

Mom and I immediately knew we’d found our resting spot for the afternoon. We passed the packed bar in the middle of the restaurant and found a place at a table in the back next to a huge open-air window. After listening to various members of the band endlessly sound check the mic (seriously, this took, like, thirty minutes), a female-led cover band took the stage and belted out Sugarland, Johnny Cash, and LeAnn Rimes songs. They gladly took requests and even sang Whiskey Girl. It was exactly what I needed to hear in Nashville.

After a couple hours, we stuffed money in the tip bucket and finally tore ourselves away to head to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Here we spend a couple hours listening to old-timey country music, watching a pretty good film about country music on TV, touring the Country Music Hall of Fame, listening to a banjo demonstration/lecture, and (my favorite!) checking out the display of Taylor Swift’s tiny dresses from her “Speak Now” tour. We also walked across the street through the Music City Walk of Fame and Nashville Music Garden, which is worth skipping.

The museum is very heavy on the roots and history of country music. Downstairs there is a quick walk through of contemporary musician’s exhibits (mostly clothes worn during famous performances). Interestingly, there is nothing on the Dixie Chicks. I’m always interested in seeing how country music venues deal with my favorite politically ostracized country singers. I think the further south you head the less you hear about them.

It was a perfect afternoon in Nashville. Sadly we had to head out of town that night, but I’m excited to go back one day and check out the bars at night, go to the Loveless Café, and hear a performance at the Ryman Auditorium. And next time, I’ll be drinking whiskey.

 

August 15, 2012

Problems with moving from Las Vegas to Denver

Posted by jennavandenberg under Colorado, Nevada | Tags: |
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Although I love living in Denver, a recent trip back to Sin City has forced me to admit that there are a cultural adjustments I haven’t even started to make yet. Here are a few:

The food:

Everywhere I go in Denver I am surrounded by people who don’t eat meat, cheese, milk, wheat, gluten products, butter, or anything else good. People apparently live off of produce from their gardens and endless trips to City O’ City (the “BBQ” there is dry rubbed tofu. Can someone from Kansas City come beat up the chef please?). To each his own and all that, but I love baking! It sucks to bring a batch of cookies to an event and have them go untouched. This would NEVER happen in Las Vegas. My friend just threw me a baby shower in Vegas and people gobbled up her cupcakes, artichoke dip, mozzarella/arugula/tomato skewers, cream cheese filled strawberries, and ice cream punch that looked like a baby bath.

There is no way that menu would fly in Denver. If she would have been limited to locally grown swiss chard “shakes” and mushroom “burgers,” she would have quit on the spot.

I should love that I live in the healthiest state in the union, and sometimes I do. The peer pressure here makes me eat better, which is technically a good thing, but sometimes I miss my Las Vegas friends who un-ironically ask me if I’m trying to lose weight because I only ordered one hamburger at the McDonald’s Drive-Thur (true story). The other problem is that I’m surrounded by skinny people and I therefore look fat in comparison. (Granted I’m nearly 8 months pregnant now, but this problem existed 8 months ago and will again be a problem in a few short weeks). In Vegas I had a backside that I loved. In Denver, I just have a fat ass.

The marijuana:

Seriously, I was driving ON THE FREEWAY and I got a whiff of weed. I can’t go on a run around the block without fearing a contact high. Do medical dispensaries really need to be on every corner? It’s not like nobody smokes in Vegas, but Denver is really excessive. I guess Coloradans have to make up for their lack of butter and meat somehow.

The music:

Everyone here is into really cool and edgy music. I like Taylor Swift and top 40 hits. This is a problem.

Proximity to lots of cool places:

If you are into weekend road trips, Las Vegas is a great place to live. You are less than six hours away from L.A., San Diego, Phoenix, Lake Tahoe, some of Utah’s best national parks (Bryce and Zion), and the Grand Canyon. Denver has a lot of great mountain towns to explore, and heading up north to South Dakota is pretty cool. However, a drive east will bring you twelve hours of nothing but corn and soybean fields.

The slightly trashy element:

People in Denver aren’t trashy. Gals in my workout class have color coordinated Lucy workout gear. Moms shopping in the Highlands near my house all are pushing their toddlers in top-of-the-line jogging strollers. I haven’t seen anyone grocery shopping in their pajama pants. Everyone wears Tom’s shoes in the summer and cute no-heel boots in the winter.

People in Las Vegas probably don’t even know about Tom’s shoes. (Can you buy them at Wal-Mart?) Trashy clothes are not only on the Strip, but everywhere in Las Vegas. I miss raising my eyebrows at people’s outfits, spending entertaining hours simply people watching, and talking trash about the trashy things people wear. Also, I’m sad that I can never wear pajama pants to the store here (not like I ever did it in Vegas, but it was good to know it was a viable option. Also, I can’t afford Lucy workout gear or Tom’s shoes.

Luckily Denver more than makes up for its shortcomings. With four sports teams, a different running club to train with every day of the week, tons of cute mountain towns, a (relatively) well-funded education system, and a vibrant downtown (with museums! The most popular museum in Vegas is the Mob Museum), I’m totally in love with Denver. However, sometimes I miss my trashy, gluttonous, pop music loving self that I could comfortably be in Las Vegas.

 

August 1, 2012

Graceland

Posted by jennavandenberg under Tennessee, Travel | Tags: , |
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Elvis was hot. I don’t know why I’m so late to pick up on this fact, but he really was. Way cuter than any of the Beatles, I think.

Obviously I’m talking about young and relatively skinny Elvis, aka the only Elvis discussed and displayed at Graceland. I’m not a huge Elvis fan, but was adamant that we had to go to Graceland while in Memphis. I feel like quite the dork because the Graceland references that I could conjure up involved that TV show Full House. Remember how Uncle Jesse was a huge Elvis fan?

Anyways…the audio tour through the Graceland mansion and grounds was pricey ($32 for the cheap tour plus $10 to park), but fun and worth it. I am generally pro-audio tour, and this was an especially good one due to the obvious plethora of music that accompanied the tour.

Graceland tickets can be purchased ahead of time online here or at Graceland. Since we were due to be in Memphis on a Saturday, we got tickets online. We avoided a short line, but would have been fine either way. They do offer AAA discounts, so take advantage if you are a member. After buying tickets you can visit the MULTIPLE gift shops (it’s kinda like an Elvis strip mall around there, complete with an ice cream shop) before receiving your audio headset and hopping in the bus line.

A very short (like, two minutes) air conditioned bus trip takes you across the street to Graceland. While small by today’s mansion standards, Graceland is a cool place. Elvis did not design or name the place, but bought it pre-built and kept the name Graceland. Like every poor kid, Elvis had promised his parents that he would someday provide for them, and indeed they always had a room in Graceland.

Non-flash photograph is allowed (Obviously. I’m too scared to take illegal pictures), but visiting the upstairs private part of Graceland is not. The tour takes you through the living room, Elvis’s parent’s room, the carpeted kitchen and the jungle room (also carpeted…on the ceiling) before heading downstairs and outside.

The buildings surrounding the mansion contain tributes to his fame and musical career. There are videos of him talking about his deployment overseas (can you even image pop stars being in the service today?) and scenes from his movies and concerts. Some of his be-spectacled pantsuits are on display, surrounded by albums and awards. You can trace a timeline of his life and career through the displays and audio tour information, but there is NO mention of any negative aspects of Elvis’s life, although drugs were briefly mentioned when discussing Elvis’s untimely death. Outside the mansion the tour takes Graceland visitors past Elvis’s gravestone, where fans still bring a barrage of gifts and flowers.

The tour takes a little over two hours, although you are welcome to spend as much time as you’d like in Graceland. It was crowded, but people were never pushing you to move along or speed up. There was not a line visitors had to stay in. The audio tour had several sections wherein you could stay and hear optional information, so I would image that hard-core Elvis aficionados would probably stay longer than two hours.

After the tour a bus takes you back across the street so you can purchase Elvis souvenirs – pink Cadillac earring, anyone?

 

July 29, 2012

Wisconsin FRESH Cheese Curds

Posted by jennavandenberg under Good Food, Wisconsin | Tags: , |
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If you have lived in or around Wisconsin, then you already know all about the awesome-ness of cheese curds. If you are from a more coastal state, then you possibly feeling a little disgusted and wondering why any food would include the word “curd.”

A cheese curd is basically the first substance you get when making cheddar cheese. After milk, culture, and a coagulate come together, the curds and whey separate (yes, we are all thinking about Little Miss Muffet right now). Whey is drained from the cheese vats, and the curds remain.  Typically, these curds are then pressed into molds to be aged and turned into the cheddar cheese blocks that we all know and love (mild cheddar ages the least amount of time, extra sharp cheddar can age for years). However, if you can snag these curds before they become cheddar cheese blocks then you have scored yourself a tasty treat.

Cheese curds are mild tasting, slightly rubbery in texture, and salty. They squeak when you bite into them, which causes them to also go by the moniker “squeaky cheese.” The thing about cheese curds is this: they HAVE to be fresh. I don’t mean they were made two days ago and flown to you from a Wisconsin farm. I mean REALLY fresh. If a cheese curd was created at six in the morning, you’re going to want to be eating that cheese curd for lunch. Or breakfast.

It’s not like they are poisonous after a day has passed, they just aren’t quite as good. Don’t get me wrong, if someone gives me a two-day-old cheese curd, I’ll eat it…but I wouldn’t spend any money on these over-aged cheese particles. The tell-tale sign of a cheese curd past its prime is that it no longer squeaks when you bite into it. You can cheat a little bit by bringing your curds to room temperature (10 seconds in the microwave usually does it) which brings back the squeakiness, but that trick usually only works for a day or two.

So herein lays the eternal problem for a west-coast gal who loves cheese curds: You have to buy cheese curds directly from source (i.e. a dairy farm). Once cheese curds have gotten to the supermarket, they are no longer fresh (even if they’ve been vacuum sealed). This is why cheese curds are primarily a Wisconsin treat. Tons of farms in Wisconsin make cheese curds every morning, so you are guaranteed to get the good stuff. But Wisconsin is far away.

There ARE places in and around Seattle where you can get cheese curds, but most of the curds have been flown in from Wisconsin days ago and are therefore not worthy. A few Pacific Northwest farms (Ballad Family Farm in Gooding, Idaho and several of the Tillamook farms along the Oregon coast) and Beecher’s Cheese shop at Pike Place Market do make cheese curds, but not on a daily basis – so you can’t count on them for freshness. When I was little there was a place in Mt. Vernon that made fresh curds every Sunday. My Wisconsin-bred father would take me and my brother there. We would take our ice cream cones up to the observation deck to watch the workers drain the whey out of the cheese vats and churn up the cheese curds. But that place closed years ago, so back to Wisconsin we must head.

This is one of the good things about living in Colorado – I’m three states closer to Wisconsin. Luckily I have several family members residing in Wisconsin, so I have non-cheesy reasons to visit too. I headed that way a couple weeks ago with my family, driving past endless rows of cornfields until we reached our destination. Shortly after hitting the Wisconsin state line, my parents and I were at Cady cheese, making our first cheese curd purchase of the week. I’d had a minor panic attack the previous day, worrying about whether or not I could eat cheese curds, because apparently un-pasteurized cheese and pregnancy don’t mix. But all ended well. Cheese curds are pasteurized. Thank goodness. I can handle the no-drinking part of these nine months, but the inability to eat raw cookie dough and soft cheese is a little tougher.

We stopped at Cady cheese a few days later on the way out of Wisconsin, buying several bags so my dad could take some back home to my brother – a task he failed to accomplish when packing his suitcase early the next morning. My poor brother therefore didn’t get his cheese curds until several days later when my mom returned home with them. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know this delay is completely unacceptable.

So if you’ve ever had a non-Wisconsin cheese curd and were left unimpressed, do yourself a favor and head up to America’s Dairyland. Get the real stuff. Somewhere between the squeaks you’ll be glad you did.

 

July 25, 2012

Why I Love the Olympics

Posted by jennavandenberg under Travel
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I love geography because of the Olympics. When I was little my parents hung a world map near our television. Each time an athlete was about to dive, race, wrestle, or perform a routine on the uneven bars, my brother and I would race to the map and locate his or her country. I remember being especially amused that there was a country called Hungary, and nearby was another one called Turkey. How crazy is that?!? We poured over the map during commercial breaks, memorizing capitals and tracing our fingers over rivers.

The fact that that this is an unusual obsession became abundantly clear to me when I started teaching geography to middle schoolers. You know how every so often surveys will come out, alerting the American public that 50% of adults can’t locate Canada on a map? I never believed those statistics until I started teaching. Believe me, they are true.

But getting back to the Olympics: In addition to improving my country identification skills, the Olympics have often been important to me. My best friend and I spent the winter of 1994 alternately glued to our TV’s and our ice skates during the Lillehammer Olympics, convinced that Tonya Harding was innocent and we would be able to pull off double axels by March.

My best Olympics experience was during the 2006 Olympics. I’d spent the previous months traveling through Europe and was student teaching in Norway that winter. I’d been so busy drinking at every bar in Trondheim that when February rolled around I didn’t even realize that the Olympics were about to commence. The weekend of the opening ceremony I’d signed up to go skiing with a group of fellow international college students in Sweden. After our snowy bus ride up to the mountains, we all cooked dinner together and turned on the TV to watch all the countries parade into the Olympic arena in Turin, Italy. There were about a dozen of us in that ski cabin, all from different countries. We each cheered as our respective athletes waved their nation’s flag and flashed genuine smiles for the cameras.

Although I no longer harbor any illusions of becoming an Olympic athlete (especially since I repeatedly tripped over my skies getting off the chair lifts that weekend in Sweden), I still am awed by the way we manage to come together in friendly competition and celebration every two years. It’s a continual reminder that although we are from separate countries, there are things that bind us together as one world.

 

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