The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Outdoors weather

I didn't get up at 2am to drive to Mt Rainier like one of my friends, but I did spend almost all day outside yesterday. Cassie and I met friends (one human, one dog) in Elmhurst for a 9-kilometer walk down the Prairie Path in the morning. And my car flipped 30,000 km on the way back from the walk:

That 2.1 L/100 km (112 MPG) is for the entire life of the car. In fact, I used some gasoline yesterday for the first time since June 15th, so this year my car is getting closer to 1.5 L/100 km (151 MPG)—and of course infinite MPG for over three months. And of course, 30,000 km since 22 December 2018 is an average of 14.2 km per day, which is exactly how I avoid using gasoline most of the time.

Finally, yesterday evening Cassie and I went to Spiteful Brewing to enjoy the 24°C weather:

Today we're heading to the dog beach and the Dock, which closes for the season tonight.

Marseille

I decamped to Marseille on my last full day in France last week, since I had a flight before 11 am and didn't want to add another hour coming from Aix. I will have to visit the city again, hopefully before I'm too old to negotiate the steps to the train station:

I walked around a bit, up through the Panier district, where I caught this view of the Vieux Port:

But this is probably a better view:

I finished the evening at this little corner bar near my hotel. If it were in Chicago, it would just have an Old Style sign out front:

And that's it for Europe, for now. I'll aim to get back to Provence in 2 years or so, and I'll bring my real camera.

More photos: London

I can scarcely believe I took these 10 days ago, on Friday the 20th. I already posted about my walk from Borough Market back to King's X; this is where I started:

You can get a lovely snack there for just a few quid. In my case, a container of fresh olives, some bread, and some cheese set me back about £6. Next time, I'll try something from Mei Mei.

Later, I scored one of the rare pork baps at Southampton Arms. Someone else really wanted a bite, too:

Sorry, little guy, I can't give you any of this—oh darn I just dropped a bit of pork on the ground. (Lucky dog.)

Finally, this screen shot shows why I love Europe so much. (It's in French because I switched my phone's language settings to help practice while I was preparing for the trip.) The blue dot in the center-left shows where my train was at 20:06 France time (18:06 UTC) on Saturday the 21st. The stuff in the upper-right corner shows my phone's GPS utility. If you look at the left side of that box, you can see "Vitesse 303;" i.e., a speed of 303 km/h, or 190 mph. And that isn't even the train's top normal operating speed.

If we elect people in this country who actually care about climate change, we could have trains like that here, too. But given the proportion of the electorate who plan to vote for the convicted-felon rapist demented geriatric XPOTUS in five weeks, I am not optimistic.

Trip photos: Wednesday-Thursday

I meant to post more photos from my trip earlier this month, but I do have a full-time job and other obligations. Plus it took me a couple of days longer than usual to recover, which I blame squarely on the shitty hotel room I had for my first night causing a sleep deficit that I never recovered from.

I posted a couple of these already, but with crude, quick edits done on my phone. I think these treatments might be a little better.

Sunrise at O'Hare on the 18th:

The hills of Hampshire:

Invasive megafauna preparing to attack:

Why I decided to walk for 10 km through Hampshire in the first place:

The Grand Canal:

It might take a few days to get more of these done. I'll post more as I get to them.

Connecting through Heathrow

I had the opportunity, but not the energy, to bugger off from Heathrow for an hour and a half or so connecting from Marseille. Instead I found a vacant privacy pod in the Galleries South lounge, and had a decent lunch. Plus I'm about to have a G&T.

I've loaded up my Surface with a few articles, but I really only want to call attention to one of them. Bruce Schneier has an op-ed in the New York Times with his perspective on the Hezbollah pager attack and supply-chain vulnerabilities in general. I may even read that before turning my Surface off.

Next stop: Chicago, home, and dog.

Last hotel for a while

I've arrived in Marseille, after a short but perfectly pleasant trip from Aix-en-Provence by basic commuter train. I didn't realize the Gare Marseille was on a hill, however, so it took me a few minutes to sort out how to get to ground level.

Just going to dump three photos from yesterday and this morning, then figure out what to explore in the 2 hours of daylight I have left. The principal goal: scoring a slice of the famed Marseille-style pizza that the New York Times assures me is second-best in Europe after Napoli.

Anyway, this is the view across the street from my friends' house, which they built at the edge of their small village about 40 km north of Aix:

We drove for a bit after lunch to Lourmarin for ice cream and a stroll:

Back in Aix, we had some pretty heavy rain come through overnight, leaving behind clear blue skies and lots of (not too hot) sun:

Once I get back to Chicago I'll have the tools to organize and process my photos better. Now, though: exploring Marseille.

Two Lost decades

I will spend most of today exploring the narrow streets and fromageries of Aix-en-Provence and visiting with an old friend up in the hills above the city. While I endure those horrors and privations, I will also be struggling with the realization that the TV series Lost premiered 20 years ago today.

Remember, kids: don't let the smoke monster cast you out of purgatory until you've figured out the meaning of your life.E

Vroom

I love actually experiencing the 21st Century. Right now I'm hurtling through the suburbs of Lyon at 265 km/h (down from 300 km/h earlier) on my way to Provence. The Eurostar from London started with an insane scrum at St Pancras—they really mean it when they advise you to arrive 75 minutes before departure—but it arrived at Paris Gare du Nord a minute early. The only impediment to getting onto this train came in the form of several consecutive people who couldn't figure out how to get RER tickets from the machine. Pro tip: use exact change. Also, note to SNCF: your tickent machine UI sucks.

I expect I'll have more interesting things to write about tomorrow as I explore Aix-in-Provence. Monday mid-day I'll relocate to Marseille, then fly back to Chicago through Heathrow on Tuesday.

For now, I'm going back to my book.

The trip so far

Other than the hotel debacle, I'm having a pretty good time in the UK. Yesterday I went out to Berkhamsted to do Walk #1 in The Home Counties from London by Train Outstanding Circular Walks (Pathfinder Guides):

I followed that up today by getting lunch in Borough Market, then walking back to King's X:

(The maps are in French because I set my phone to French to practice in advance of my arrival in France tomorrow.)

The weather yesterday and today has been spectacular, to boot.

Another nice bit of news: I'm now less than 1,000 miles from lifetime Platinum status on American Airlines (with courtesy Sapphire status on another dozen airlines):

That should flip over 2 million lifetime miles when I get back to Chicago.

And now: a shower, a quick kip, and (I really hope) a pork bap at the Southampton Arms.

About that hotel room

I mentioned yesterday that I've paid a £319 poor-research tax because I changed hotels after only one night.

The original hotel, the Argyle Square Hotel just south of King's Cross, has mixed reviews. My experience traveling to London for 30 years told me that I could either avoid or ignore the difficulties some people had with the hotel. For example, Americans always complain about European room sizes and British plumbing. Always.

This time my experience failed me completely. This is the best photo I have of my room there:

By "best" I mean that it puts the room in the best light possible. That said, please direct your attention to both air conditioning units (the fan and the window) and imagine how effective they are cooling a 3rd-floor cell when it gets up to 27°C outside. Also imagine carrying a 16 kg suitcase up to the third floor on a staircase barely wider than the suitcase. Also imagine that the bed you see there—hard to tell, but it's just over a meter wide—has not a mattress but a decades-old box spring, so that you can feel each individual coil digging into your body as you try and fail to sleep.

Now imagine brushing your teeth and discovering that the plumbing isn't just quirky, it's producing really off-tasting water. And the shower, barely bigger than a coffin, is nowhere within reach of anyplace to put a towel or a bar of soap.

I have traveled to Europe for over 30 years, staying in youth hostels as a kid and "charming" old hotels as an adult, and I've never stayed in a room that bad.

Contrast that with the room I have now: 

Almost the same price. And just the other side of King's X. And with a desk big enough for my Surface, books, charger, and bottle of water. And places to hang my clothes.

Once I fled the Argyle Square, I re-read the reviews on Trip Advisor (there are only 18!) with a more cynical eye. I can't be sure, of course, but the 5-star reviews seem remarkably similar. And the 1-star reviews seem a bit more genuine.

This hotel has over 4,000 reviews and most of them are positive. Not to mention, multiple electronic security measures, and actual plumbing that does not produce horrible effluent.

I am glad I moved.