View to a Thrill: Rainy Days and Mondays (I Always get Around)

Exploring a very wet Rhode Island town

The wettest layover I ever had was in Providence, RI. That is, it used to be. As is the case for Pasadena, CA, I’d never been to Providence and I wasn’t going to let a little rain spoil the chance for me to get out and see it.

The good traveler that I am, I have my handy compact umbrella in my bag. It’s a magical umbrella…if it looks like rain and I take it, the dark clouds will mock me and hold their juice. If it looks like rain and I leave it in my hotel room, the skies open overhead. The only time it isn’t magic, is when it already raining; the perfect test of whether or not I’ll actually venture out.
A rainy day in Hong Kong
Wet tracks in Frankfurt, Germany

When I was in Brussels for the first time, I spent my first morning exploring in a light drizzle. I was recently caught without my umbrella in a wondrous thunderstorm while exploring Ft. Lauderdale, taking refuge under the carport of an apartment complex. Chicago, London, Denver, Narita, Frankfurt; rain, quite damp, gully washer, ame, regen mit donner!

A storm hits Ft. Lauderdale

In the case of Providence, it was sprinkling out, so the umbrella came with me, of course. This was near the start of my artistic photography experiments, so I enjoyed exploring new places, taking photos that interested me. I like textures and angles, and found some great things to shoot.

Textures on a wet street in Rhode Island

It was when I got about as far away as I had hoped to venture and started heading back towards my hotel that the skies truly opened up. Never mind, I was not going to let it spoil my adventure. I wandered through a neighborhood under a small umbrella with camera in hand. When I got back to my room, my pants were soaked up to the knees. My shoes were as submarines just surfacing from a long sea voyage. My socks were literally to be wrung out and laid to dry.

US flags in the rain
And here is a tip for helping speed the drying process on clothes…bring out the ironing board and run the iron over them. The shoes you just have to pack in the plastic bag that normally hangs in the closet. Or, if there is an air conditioner under the drapes (and if they don’t stink) you can use the hangers with the clips to hang the pants on the drapes and have the air blow on them for a while.
Using a hangar to dry out pants.

And then there was my time in historic Pasadena, California, home to the famous Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. How many times I’ve seen the wondrous floats clad with beauties waving from among legumes, flowers and seeds adorning elaborate parade floats. There I was, just a few days into the new year, with the bleachers and stands still in place waiting to be disassembled, admiring the architecture and quaint shops. In the rain I ventured out, with umbrella in hand. I’d never been to Pasadena, and who knows if or when I’ll find myself back again. After all, I’ve yet to return to Providence.

Wet street in Pasadena

In Rhode Island

I don’t care what day it is or how wet it may be. I got this job to see the world and that’s why I travel with my umbrella. I want to get out and explore. Doesn’t matter if it’s a rainy day or a Monday, I won’t let it get it me down. Out and about I must go!

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View to a Thrill: Ghosts in Japan

Photo by Penguin Scott

NRT March 13, 2004

I’m in Narita, Japan and turned on the radio. I found a station playing band music. The music is sort of jazzy- sort of big band; trumpets, pianos, violins, harps and bass, old people music, as I call it. I’d already been downtown, walked to the Naritasan temple, dined at the local noodle house and shopped in the hundred Yen store. Now I was back in my room, trying to find some activity to occupy myself with before boredom took control. I’m not sure why I chose to investigate the radio and its limited variety of stations, but there you have it; big band music to boot.

It took me back to the days when I was a young boy and I’d go to Corpus to visit my grandparents, Memaw and Pa. They listened to this type of music at night as they slept. I recall it so well; After staying up past my bedtime, I’d go to bed in the bedroom, which adjoined theirs. Still being awake when they would eventually turn out the lights, I could hear them pray together, the one that talks about walking down the valley of the shadow of death. From my bed, listening to them recite together, and then turn on the radio, I could feel the love they shared for one another. And I always wondered what that valley looked like, obviously all dark with those death shadows blocking out the sun.

Oh how I used to love going to Corpus. I would go to the grocery store with Pappy, holding his hand while crossing the street to go to that funny grocery store with a big arched roof. On the walls were large, colorful 3-D fruit and veggies. I seem to recall a mural you’d expect to see in West Texas with cowboys and covered wagons. Not sure how it wound up being on the Gulf Coast instead, but it left one of those wonderful, lasting impressions on a young boy.

My grandparents were such good cooks, and everything was made from scratch and with fresh ingredients, many grown in their very back yard. I’d eat things in Corpus I never ate at home in Houston; collard greens, fried okra, rice swimming in sweet milk. And it was here where I learned that some people put salt on their watermelon and didn’t use sugar in grits. I’ll never have hotcakes or cornbread the way my grandfather used to make them, and the world my never recover from this.

I loved their house, with its musty smell, the sound of the window air conditioner and the dim light created from keeping the curtains drawn to keep out the Texas heat. I recall the traffic noise from the busy street out front, the cicadas screeching in the hot and humid afternoons. They always made the heat seem so much more than maybe it was, as their screams permeated the living room where we hid in the relative cool. Memaw and Pa…together again, now that she passed away nearly six months ago.

And here I am in Japan listening to their music and thinking of them; missing them and reliving the past. I was so young then. And I feel so young now – not like I’m 36 at all; hardly even like late 20s. Sometimes I still feel so very young. And although I’ve been on my own for so long, and I’ve been an adult for as long as I was a child, I don’t feel all that old. That’s a good thing, I guess.