mountains – Tales From The Hive

As we’ve travelled around the USA, I’ve always found it interesting how the names of places reflect their history.

We left Chicago at the end of December on our way to Tucson, where we have decided to live, for a little while at least. We left the Windy City much later than planned due to some unexpected aggravations.

“The Bean” – A famous sculpture downtown. We had never seen these amazing reflections at night.

Beth’s happiest time in Chicago. At a family Chanukah party with many family members including 3 adorable kids.

Line of snow covered Citi bikes — The Windy City in December

The first complication was the car deciding that, since we were leaving on a big trip, it needed its oil changed. Our van is very modern and will tell you when it needs its oil changed, but it’s not on a regular schedule. In that way it’s a bit like a toddler that knows they need to go to the bathroom and announces it at the last second, causing their parents to spring into frenzied action. “I need to go now!” “I need my oil changed now!” Although we’ve been taking the car out on a fairly regular basis, it decided that since we didn’t have any spare time that day, it needed its oil changed.

Complication number two was a failure of the apartment building to do what they said they were going to do. Namely, allow us to move out easily by programming the freight elevator for us and opening the loading dock doors. We had scheduled the freight elevator for that morning, but there was no freight elevator to be had. No problem, we’ll take the elevator with a back door and get to the car that way. Oops, nope, the loading dock doors are closed.

Taking matters into my own hands, I parked on the front sidewalk and proceeded to bring our stuff down from the 59th floor and stuff it into the car. As I was stuffing my second load into the car, a security guard walked up and told me that I couldn’t park there, on the sidewalk, in front of the building. After informing her on the lack of elevator and the closed loading dock doors, I challenged her to find a solution for me. Challenge accepted, she strode off as I moved the car to the alley and the rest of the packing went smoothly. Thank you security guard!

Now several hours behind schedule, we stopped and gave the “Hive” (our blog’s namesake) the oil change it craved, and headed down to St. Louis where we spent the night. Due to the long day, we ordered dinner from The Olive Garden, where we never eat, and had a good nights sleep. Coincidentally our daughter in Alaska and her boyfriend celebrated their anniversary by going to The Olive Garden in Anchorage the exact, same, night! Family togetherness when you’re spread all over a continent. I’ll take what I can.

Fox and mice store front decorations — Store window in Chicago

The next morning, we headed out on a long drive to Dallas, TX, our next stop. As I was sipping my morning coffee and driving, we passed Pomme de Terre Lake! There is also a Pomme de Terre stream that feeds that lake. We were surrounded by all these “Pommes” of “de Terre”!

So what exactly is a “Pomme de Terre”? Quickly utilizing my knowledge of Latin, I knew “Terre” meant “Earth”, as in “Terra Firma”, and “Terraforming”. But what the heck is a Pomme? It sounds very pretentious by itself and more-so when you round your mouth while saying it and slightly lowering your voice. Pomme. Yep, it’s French.

Beth translated this to English and accurately reported it as “Apple of the Earth”. Except she was wrong. Putting my knowledge of French to work, I knew it was actually a potato! Those weird and whacky French had been to the middle of Eastern Missouri and named something “Potato.” Why? I don’t know. I’m just happy that I was able to put my two words of Latin and one French vegetable to their fullest use by solving this riddle. Fortunately there weren’t more French or Latin words to translate the rest of the trip, or I’d have been in trouble.

So why Potato Lake and Potato stream? It turns out the lake is artificial and named after the stream a wandering Frenchman decided looked like a potato. Or maybe he thought it was good for growing potatoes? Or maybe he was hungry for potatoes? We may never know.

That’s what’s so cool about traveling! You never know what you will find. In this case, a food cultivated for centuries in the Andes was brought over to Europe. It was declared an Apple of the Earth by the awed Frenchmen, who then crossed back over the Atlantic to North America. And then, while wandering around the middle of the continent with potatoes on their mind, came across this stream in the middle of nowhere and named it after the food they were craving. Viola! We have a Pomme de Terre stream! And because of that stream and the Army Core of Engineers, we have Pomme de Terre Lake! And I love french fries!

Plate of french fries — Don’t they look good?

Sorry, I might have gone too far in the previous paragraph and done a disservice to French people everywhere. We (that is, us English speakers in North America) should consider the “apple of my eye” saying. If you are not familiar with this term, I can tell you that it’s not a medical condition and it’s not contagious. When someone is the apple of your eye it means that you love them, maybe even exclusively. Instead of lacking words, perhaps the French were so enamored with the potato that they named it Pomme de Terre to express their passionate love of this apple-like thing that came from the earth. The French, passion, and love – it’s a thing.

Does anyone know how Dallas got its name? It makes no sense to me. El Paso makes total sense; it means The Pass in Spanish. How about Tucson? Again, it makes no sense. Outside of Dallas, we stayed with a dear friend and her husband in Grapevine, Texas. Grapevine got it’s name due to its location on the appropriately-named Grape Vine Prairie near Grape Vine Springs, both names in homage to the wild grapes that grew in the area.

And how do you pronounce Tucson? It’s pronounced like the bird with a big colored beak selling round hoops of breakfast cereal, the Toucan. Too-can. Too-son. Maybe a Conquistador with a soft Barcelona lisp was trying to name it after the bird? As with Potato stream, we may never know.

I actually have no idea how most places got their names. However, some are easy, such as “New York”, “New Jersey”, “New Brunswick”; named by homesick Englishmen, obviously. Yet others are plainly from the Indians (how confused were those original explorers to name them Indians?). Names such as “Detroit”, “Ontario”, “Dupont”, “Winnebego” are all Indian names. Others are fun to say; Walla Walla, Washington and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, for example – even if I don’t know where they come from. And now that Beth had read this, and added how Grapevine got its name (a question she asked when we were there), she is going to find out how all these places got their names!

Catalina mountains at sunset — Catalina Mountains at sunset. Taken near “Metal Arts Village”

So, now we’re in Tucson for the foreseeable future and enjoying sunshine and warmer weather. I am ignoring that one morning when Anchorage (known as a good place to park your boat), Alaska was warmer than Tucson by a whole degree Fahrenheit. More news to come soon about life in Tucson!

Temperature listing showing Anchorage, AK is warmer than Tucson, AZ — Anchorage is warmer than Tucson! How did this happen?

In our visits and travels so far, people have been really nice, friendly and super helpful. But as we were loading the car to leave Grass Valley, we witnessed an incident of road rage on the street corner. One car cut off another and then a young-ish man was leaning out his car window screaming and cursing. As the other car drove away, the young man rode past me, leaned out his window, and said “Sorry.” Only in California!

Before leaving Grass Valley, we took a last look at all the old mining equipment. Grass Valley was a gold mining town, and appears to going through some kind of revival with many building renovations. I now know what hydraulic mining is, and in fact saw a hydraulic 21 inch gate valve that was used at “You Bet-Red Dog Diggin” (had to work that name in here somehow).

We also found Caroline’s Coffee, biked some, tasted wine at Luccelli’s (small boutique winery – outstanding), took at trip to nearby Nevada City, and saw “The Post” at a cool old theater downtown. Our rental is a block from Main Street so the car has only been pulled out twice in four days (I even walked to Safeway for groceries.) As part of my community research, I spoke to the president of the local temple here. She was amazingly friendly and had a bunch of great community information.

Chris started biking outside again because the weather has been in the 60’s in the afternoons. He starts work very early and then knocks off in time to have 1½ hours of daylight. I have started practicing yoga almost every day like I had been planning, and like in Moab, did a class at a local yoga studio.

There is an old hotel right downtown that is now the Bret Harte Retirement Inn. I was considering it for my next home because it has a great stained glass window. When I saw the stained glass window, I had all kinds of fantasies about Salomy Jane being either an famous gunslinger, outlaw, or madame. But Bret Harte was a famous writer who wrote the screen play to a 1914 western called Salomy Jane. Disappointing!

The nice but disappointing Salomy Jane’s window.

Nevada City was similar to Grass Valley although seems a bit more built up and possibly wealthier. It also has its history embedded with mining. One of our nieces spent about a year there about three years ago, and when we texted her that we were there, she sent us a great tip. She suggested we visit the South Yuba River about 8 miles away so went there for a small hike and to see the sunset. Gorgeous!

Downtown Nevada City has a lovely hodge-podge of mainly old buildings, some going back to the mid 1800’s. We even found a couple of art deco buildings, including the court house, which has a new section, but then a white shining, towering old section. There are restaurants and bars, winery tasting rooms, antiques, ice cream and chocolate shops, bakeries, cafes, yoga and pilates studios, and a great number of wellness businesses.

The beginning of the super moon over Nevada City

We made it to Redding, California where we will be until February 28th. As you can see below, we have made our apartment more homey with a couple of pictures and holiday cards. Every day we have been outside as it unusually warm here, and should stay that way for at least 10 more days. On Friday, we biked, then spent Saturday at Lassen National Park (60 degrees with melting snow), and biked again today (me 18 miles and Chris 40 miles). Everyone is concerned about the lack of snow in the mountains, because the snow then melts and provides enough water for the summer. Evidently last year at this time, there was 10 feet of snow in Lassen. There couldn’t have been more than 12 inches so far this year.

And Chris first ride — A view of the Sundial Bridge in Redding.

Views from Lassen Volcanic National Park

The new week will start tomorrow and I will be back to living the real life (working a few hours at least, yoga, getting the car washed, doing laundry, doing research on places to live, etc.)

Tag: mountains

The Names of Places

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