View from the Mountain

Southern steam bath

There's not much to say.  It's hot in the valley and on the mountain.  The temperature on our deck in shade at a little after 1 pm this afternoon was getting serious with the upper nineties.

We went to a movie just after five today, and the heat coming up from the paved parking lot was amazing.  In fact even though it was well after seven pm when we got out, the outside thermometer on the car registered at 99 degrees Fahrenheit until we got at least a mile away from the theater. Then it dropped all the way to 97.

I have no idea what the official temperature was today, but I can assure you it was hot in Roanoke today, and apparently it is expected to be even hotter tomorrow.  In fact our highs aren't going to drop out of the nineties all week.

It's too bad we can't bottle this heat and use it next winter.

The heat has also created an atmospheric cocktail that doesn't look very healthy, but there's little we can do in the short term.

Dining along side roads, FireBonz, Hickory, NC

Just a little off Interstate 40 at exit 125, the Hickory-Lenoir-Rhyne College exit, is a relatively unassuming red building with a simple sign, "FireBonz."

I didn't need a GPS, a map, or a city guide to figure out that this was a barbecue, chicken, and ribs place.  On a recent evening I decided to give it a try.

The day visited, I had managed to get myself hungry enough to attempt a combo platter with Baby Back Ribs, Chopped Pork, and Smoked Chicken.  I had a small side salad  that  turned out much better than I had expected.  It was very fresh and well prepared.   I especially liked that the waitress asked me with no prompting whether or not I wanted cucumbers in my salad.  Perhaps it's not a big deal, but to us "the only good cucumber is pickle" folks, it is a welcome touch.

I had already been given an explanation of the six sauces provided on each table from the very enthusiasic host who seated me.  I managed to try them all, and I think the mustard sauces are the best, but they all have their place, depending on your taste buds.

My meal arrived quickly, the chopped pork was about as good as it gets, and remember this is North Carolina, so it gets very good.  The ribs were excellent as was the piece of chicken which thankfully wasn't off of one of those giant birds that often find their way into our food these days.

All in all this was an excellent  meal with great service which made the dining experience well worth repeating.

The official location is 1520 Hwy 70 S, Hickory, NC.  Their phone number is 828-327-2232.  I think you'll find it well worth dropping by for a meal.

Summer bake

Whether you believe in global warming or not, we seem to have a hot summer on our hands.  If that's not enough the situation in the Middle East has heated up past the boiling point.  Even technology seems to be getting hotter. My new MacBook laptop is hot enough to make you wish for an air conditioned laptop pad.

I've got a lot more faith in technology companies solving that problem than I do in any relief from hot weather or hot heads in the Middle East.

You know that it's going to a hot day when Boston is already almost eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and it is just nine o'clock in morning.  You would think that being on the coast could provide some relief but Ocracoke is already at eighty-four degrees.

You can find some relief by heading to Canada.  Halifax, NS, notable for its great harbor and regular fog, is going to struggle to get above eighty degrees Fahrenheit only once in the next seven days.

If the cost of gasoline isn't holding you back, now is a great time to pay attention to my post, "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  You can enjoy cooler temperatures, a few tasty lobsters, and perhaps talk to some of the friendliest people on earth.  I suspect they still like Americans even if they don't care much for our government.

Actually the North Carolina coast isn't a bad place to escape the heat.  The picture to the left of the waves at Emerald Isle Beach looks pretty inviting.

In fact even though the beach areas are starting out pretty warm today, they won't get as hot as the interior spots, and generally there will be nice coastal breezes to cool things off.

When we were at the coast last week, Roanoke was sweltering.  It was warm at the beach but nice in the early morning and by seven in the evenings things were really pleasant for a walk on the beach.

If you're out moving around on the water things are also pretty nice in the Coastal Carolinas.  Of course you can alway jump in the water to cool down quickly.  This time of year there is little cold water shock.

I have to mow the yard today, and it would be really nice to take a dip after that, but I guess I'll have to settle for a cool shower.  I'm wondering if all this heat is going to give us an exciting August and September with lots of storms.

I don't get the sense that fall is going to get here anytime soon, so perhaps we better get prepared.

Actually I'm sure the folks on the beach are hoping that the weather stays nice for a few more weeks. 

If you're into political commentary on a hot day like today, you might check out, "Reign of Error," by Paul Krugman in today's NY Times.

Some of his comments are pretty chilling, and maybe that's the way to get cool these hot days.

I'll give it a try after I mow the yard.  Yet Krugman's comments are actually pretty scary, and unlikely to give me much more than a shiver.

It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?

Somehow after hearing Fox News while we were trying to enjoy a continental breakfast at our hotel at the beach, I'm not very surprised either that "64 percent still believe that Saddam had strong links with Al Qaeda."

Now would be a really good time for that walk on the beach.

“Vaneela” ice cream

As I was wandering through the Roanoke Market at lunch today, I couldn't help but marvel at the variety of the food we eat.  On the one hand, we have vegetables fresh from the farmer's truck. The ones in the picture to the right are grown locally and probably as good as you can get.

On the other hand, our food is becoming more and more complex and packaged.  This morning I read an article, "Creamy, Healthier Ice Cream? What’s the Catch?," in the NY Times.  The article talks about a newly engineered protein which is based on "a protein cloned from the blood of an eel-like Arctic Ocean fish, the ocean pout."

This ingredient, called an ice-structuring protein, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is used by Unilever to make some products in the United States, like some Popsicles and a new line of Breyers Light Double Churned ice cream bars.

“Ice-structuring proteins protect the fish, which would otherwise die in freezing temperatures,” said H. Douglas Goff, professor of dairy sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario. “They also make ice cream creamier, by preventing ice crystals from growing.”

I am impressed.  I'm assuming this ice cream will also help keep me from freezing when I'm shoveling the snow off the driveway in the winter as well as making my ice cream taste better.

There were few real apron strings in the sixties

This morning I read an article, "Loosen the Apron Strings," by Judith Warner in the NY Times.  The article is about summer camp and the struggles to survive that many camps are facing.  According to the article many of the camps are changing their focus from helping kids become independent to making certain kids are always in touch with parents.

Parents today, apparently, don’t want their kids out in the wilds, where they might walk in the paths of potentially tick-bearing Bambis. They don’t want the kids out of reach, where they can’t take a mood reading at each and every at-risk moment of the day.

Jeff Solomon, executive director of the National Camp Association, told The Wall Street Journal a few months back that some parents even question whether those who send their children away for extended camps “really love their kids.”

Apparently camps are responding web cams and always available e-mail.

All I can say is that there is something seriously wrong with these parents or their kids have been drugged into submission.

I can easily remember the excitement of my first summer camp experience.   I was probably eleven or twelve.  We headed off to the luxury resort of Camp Raven Knob in Surry County, NC.  In the early sixties that meant, wall tents over wooden platforms, metal bed frames and a somewhat questionable mattress.  The bathroom facilities were a step up above a latrine but still required daily doses of lime to keep the outhouses bearable.  There might have been some showers around camp, but in general I think we were supposed to be in the lake water enough to stay relatively clean.

I can remember being a little homesick the first time, and eagerly awaiting the Wednesday night parental visit, but I can't recall seriously wanting to go home.  As to communication with parents, Wednesday night was it unless you broke a leg or got bitten by a snake.  I think Camp Raven Knob had one telephone .  Of course in those days, most houses only had one telephone.

Of course comfort is all relative.  The cotton tick mattress in a wall tent were a huge step up from the Boy Scout tradition of sleeping on the ground in a pup tent.  If air mattresses were around,  and I think they were in the Boy Scout arsenal in those days, they weren't standard issue, but perhaps some of my old camping buddies can refresh my memories.

Computers would have been a problem since there was no electricity at the camp sites.  Light was provided by flashlights or the gas lanterns that the adults had.

Did we have a great time?  Absolutely.  Did we come back more appreciate of our comfortable abodes?  You bet.

We sent our kids off to camps of one sort or the other in the late eighties and early nineties.   Our oldest daughter experienced a number of camps from the traditional around a small lake girls camp to one run by aging hippies.  Our son did Boy Scout camp and a wilderness camp where I think he got a good dunking while canoing.   I can still remember his excitement recounting their good luck in finding a Dairy Queen in Pembroke, Va while on one of their hiking adventures.  Unfortunately I don't think the counselors let them enjoy the air conditioning.  The youngest daughter did 4-H and horse camps which always had their own unique excitement.

There was common thing about all these camps.  The kids were really glad to see us after the camps, and we were happy to see them. Generally once we gave them some of their favorite foods they recovered miraculously from their camp experiences. I don't know if they had any life changing experiences, but I do know we have some very independent kids, at least measured on the number of requests for help that we get. 

I know these are different times, but it is bad enough that we rarely see kids playing outside these days.    A good fort in the woods is something that all kids should have the chance to create. We don't live in a really hostile environment, and it is impossible to protect your kids from everything.  There are far more dangerous creatures walking some of our city streets than there are lurking in the deep woods.

Protecting kids from a well run summer camp isn't a wise decision, it's just another way to increase dependency which isn't a good tactic for a parent.