Our Pretty Church

There's a fellow in town photographing all the churches in Charleston. No small task in a place that calls itself "the Holy City". Go here to see his beautiful photos. I've directed the link to take you to our church first, but you can surf around and see seven or eight others that are all quite special. The collection grows and he's beginning to add churches from other places as well. I think he hopes to publish a book.

Ours is Circular Congregational Church and it was the founded by the early settlers in 1681 as the first non-Anglican  Church in Charleston. Because they weren't part of the Church of England they were looked down upon and considered "dissenters". Not to be encouraged, they weren't allowed to call themselves a church – only a "Meeting" and that's how the main avenue through downtown Charleston came to be known as Meeting Street – because it was the location of the Meeting House. This building is the church's third; built in 1890.

Circular started out and continues to be a denominational mishmash. In 1775, it was said to be "called either Presbyterian, Congregational, or Independent, sometimes by one of the names, sometimes by two of them and at other times by all three."

The Scottish immigrants who wanted a "truer" Presbyterian experience split off early on and formed First Scots Presbyterian down the street in 1731.

Another group left in 1817 and went around the corner to worship as Unitarians on Archdale St. And finally, the black memebers withdrew in 1867 and founded Plymouth Congregational Church. All of these are still active congregations.

Here is one of my favorite church pictures, taken by a member of the church sometime last year. It is our recently retired pastor, Bert Keller, weaving a newly baptised child "into the life of the congregation."  Even without seeing the architecture, this photo somehow gives a sense of the circle that is our worship space.

Swimming Lessons

Last Summer we all just sort of floated around aimlessly. This year, Duncan is determined to teach Fiona to swim. I sort of  miss the aimless floating, but Fiona does want to be able to "Do it myself!"

Across the Rockies to Banff, Lake Louise, and Glaciers!

Leaving Vancouver, we traveled for two days on the Rocky Mountaineer excursion train across the most impressive Rocky Mountains to Banff National Park. None of us - even Duncan - had ever been closer to the Rockies than a fly-over, so the awesome views out the window were captivating for all of us.  

Our traveling companion doesn't look very happy, but we enjoyed her company throughout the trip. It's a good picture of the rest of us and the only one we ended up with of all three of us.

We were not lucky enough to see much wildlife -- no bears or elk or moose. From the train, we saw osprey and eagles, some deer, and a big horned sheep. At one of our stops, this little guy practically posed for us. I thought he was a really fat chipmunk, but learned he is a type of squirrel.

By the end of the second day on the train, we were at the edge of the "Alpine Tundra" -- above the 7,200 ft. treeline. Many mountains reached 10,000+ feet. The color of the rivers changed from dull green to bright aquamarine, indicating they were fed by glacial ice-melt.

Before we visited glaciers, we fortified ourselves with lunch at the Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise. It is just as elegant as the more well-known Banff Springs Hotel and had this nice view of the gardens (gardens everywhere!), the lake, and the mountains.

A two-hour drive from Lake Louise got us to the Columbia Ice Field at Jasper National Park. Mom is in front of the Athabasca Glacier where the ice is between 270 and 1000 feet thick.

This bus with monster tires actually took us out onto the glacier. They told us the ice under us was as deep as the Empire State Building is high and the riverlets of running water we could see were from melted ice that fell as snow up to 150 years ago.

It was a bit windy, but otherwise a mild day. As you can see, lots of kids out in shorts.

The next day we did a bit more touring around the Banff area. We had lunch here, at the Banff Springs Hotel, built in the late 1800s to entice the rich and famous to visit using the new transcontinental railroad. In a display of old photographs, we learned that in the late 1920s, the wealthy would arrive with "letters of credit" for $50,000 to cover their 3 - 4 month stay. One photo showed a waiter serving "Lithium bromides" to a group of smiling ladies at the swimming pool. Well, no wonder everyone was happy!

Everything inside was on such a large scale, it is impossible to depict the grandeur and elegance.  I would love to go and stay a week. Let's see, if a 4 month stay cost $50K in the 1920s, a one week stay would have run just over $3,000. In today's dollars, that would be ??? What would you guess?

Of course we admired gardens here, too.

Here is a map showing our route for the trip, beginning at Seattle and ending in Calgary.

What a great time for all of us!

Canadian Rockies -- Victoria & Vancouver

We are home from our big Rocky Mountain excursion -- here are a few highlights from the Victoria - Vancouver leg.

Here are Victoria's signature hanging baskets.Victoria is on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, the capital of British Columbia, and a retirement and tourist haven. I had no idea the climate was so temperate here. I thought you had to be a polar bear to live this close to Alaska. But it doesn't get too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. Flowers thrive! 

We're in one of the water taxis that scoot all over the harbor, and we're going down a "street" of houseboats. One of these floating houses was in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle.

Here is British Columbia's Parliament Building -- it is outlined in lights in the evenings, giving it a definite Disney glow.

Duncan, just being himself, as we visited a Victoria city garden. Butchart's Garden, one of the stops we (well, Mom and I) looked forward to the most, comes next.

  Rose Arbor

  Fuchsias -- my favorites. They make me think of tiny dancers in tutus.

  Tuberous begonias. This is definitely one of the things that does well in these cooler temperatures. We saw them everywhere, huge, and in every color.

 
And here we have the tuberous begonias, a profusion of fuchsias and hydrangeas to boot.. Butchart Garden did not disappoint. We loved every minute we spent there.

 
Another day, another ferry ride to Vancouver. This was a bigger, more sophisticated city than we were expecting. Lots of modern architecture -- skyscrapers of glass and steel dominated the downtown. But it is on the water, with a marina, and a paved boardwalk stretches the length of waterfront.

 
I was quite taken with this fairly new public library building. It is a square glass and steel structure within a concrete structure that has curved walls and lots of arches -- reminiscent of Roman ruins.

 
Here it is from outside -- you can see the building within a building. We were told the design and scale of this as a public facility is controversial in Vancouver.

The roof peaks are fabric sails. This venue was built for the World Expo in 1986 and now serves as the cruise ship terminal.

This is the Olympic torch for the most recent winter games. It is only lit, we were told, for very special occasions. Apparently, they weren't told we were in town.

Tai Chi in the park on the waterfront. The red, squatting figures are an installation of public art. They made great photo props.

Here, as well as in Victoria, the harbors are busy helioports. There is steady traffic of float planes taking off and landing and for some reason, I found it relaxing to sit and watch.

Stanley Park is to Vancouver as Central Park is to New York -- a vast, multipurpose green space within the city. Here is a display of old and new totem poles carved by First Nations artists. Some of these poles tell a family's history and stories. We discussed what our family's totem pole would look like. We thought we'd have some wise owls in ours, because we have some pretty smart people in our family!

My Summer So Far. . .

On our fourth anniversary in June, we went out to eat and took a walk on the docks at City Marina, looking at other people's boats. 

After Adam's graduation from Wake Forest, The Parker Boys spent 10 days in France, mostly Paris. Here are Jeffrey and Adam looking a little ragged after climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I love these boys!

A favorite Residential College professor's wife, Helen Ashby, was the first weaver-artist (as opposed to weaver of useful things) I knew. By coincidence, in that way that makes you wonder if anything is just a coincidence, I have gotten to know the Ashby's daughter, Ann, this year. She does not weave or knit but has had her mother's yarn packed away for many years. She recently gave it to me -- and I became a wealthy woman. Cones and skeins of beautiful wools, textured cottons, silks, jute. . .  It has taken quite a bit of reorganization, but I have found a home in my loom room for nearly all of it. The picture above is tag ends of multicolored mohairs.

The crypt myrtles have been really pretty this summer.

With temperatures up in the high 90s everyday, this has been one of the hottest Junes on record in Charleston. This is a popular way to cool off among natives and tourists alike for the under-8 set. This is downtown, at Waterfront Park.

By the 4th of July, Morris and Christy had been aboard their 36-foot sailboat, Coda, for six weeks. They sailed from New Bern down to Florida, went snorkeling in the Keys, and then stopped in Charleston for several days on their return trip to NC.On Friday, I took off work and Christy and I went and got massages. Ahhhhh

The temperatures miraculously dropped down into the mid 80s and we were able to act like tourists comfortably. They had done historic tours in Savannah and St. Augustine, so we continued with that theme and trouped out to Fort Moultrie on Sullivans Island.

Here you can see a bit of Coda's cabin  I'll never complain about a small kitchen again.  But we managed to pull together a great traditional 4th of July dinner  -- hamburgers on the grill, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and brownies – and watched fireworks all around us from the dock. We gave the Best Show Award to the ones that erupted over the Joe at the end of the RiverDogs game.

I took this picture on the 4th of July, standing beside Coda and watching the sun set behind the bridge over the Ashley River. You may recognize the round Holiday Inn on the left.

Claire McGuffey, a really special friend of Debbie's, and of our whole family, made this "nap quilt" for me and it just arrived last week. She asked me to choose colors and she knew I love her quilt that is on the back of the couch at GreenPeace. Her note said she chose this pattern to honor the year of mourning that I've just experienced. There are 12 stars – one for each month of the year, held together in a group by the black border. The red and black checked border represents equal parts of  happiness and sadness in life. What a special and beautiful gift this is! And, Claire reminds me, the first person to sleep under a new quilt makes a wish. . .

 This picture was taken downtown on Sunday morning. The heat is back, but we've had more rain than have some places, so the window boxes are looking pretty lush.


Well, those are the highlights of our summer so far -- I'm getting better at remembering to take the camera with me whether or not I think I need it. Coming up, a trip with Mom to Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. We'll take an excursion train across the Canadian Rockies and end with a few days around Banff and Lake Louise. We have our passports and packing lists. We'll be leaving Raleigh, July 25.

Prayers for the People and the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea

We are now officially without a minister at Circular Church. A fellow who lives on Sullivan's Island offered this as our prayer of confession and renewal on Sunday.

I drove to church today
In my car, my beautiful Infiniti G35
With six speed manual and 265 horsepower
And balance weight front to back.
An engineer in Kyoto tuned the exhaust:
It growls; it purrs; it does what I want
It goes where I want and as fast as I want
Dare I say, I love this object?

And the oil seeps into the marshes
Of Martinbox Bayou, Christmas Camp Lake
and Mosquito Bight.
The dead pelican smells rotten and oiled.
Its mirrored black eye accuses.
The tar balls beach on Dry Tortugas
Like runaway balloons around Florida
On their way to the Charleston Gyer
To eddy inshore and pop like paint balls on Sullivans,
At my front door

Just desserts; ironic; reaping what is sown --
such obvious cliche; a sophomore's plot --
a send up of early clint eastwood spaghetti

We are thrust into this world
Organized around hydrocarbons
Six billion sucking on the same straw
Six billion driving the Baja without a spare --
We lack the imagination to envision
Another life that does not require genocide for us
to enjoy.
So shamed by our own culpability
We lack the passion to change.

Dear God, make us mindful
of the sacrifices we have required of others to live as we do
Dear God, give us the strength to forgo our privilege
Dear God, let us live in community with all our fellow
creatures, to apprehend the richness of life that is
available to us.
Amen

I think we'll be OK for another few weeks until the new Interim arrives.

The Best Place to Eat in Calabash - 2010

Duncan has fond memories of going with big crowds from Elizabeth Town to Calabash for huge piles of fried seafood and hushpuppies. We have stopped there to eat several times on our annual trek to Holden Beach and he says it just ain't the same.

That old fish camp ambiance is gone for good, I'm afraid. New restaurants with brightly lighted signs now entice patrons in with dishes like shrimp and liguini with wasabi ginger sauce.

On our trip this week, we stopped for lunch and among all the restaurants there, picked out Tony's Pizza. It was a great little family owned joint -- obviously popular with the locals. Just what you go to Calabash for!