哇哇來了

很久不見大家了 大家可好?

有了小孩 日子大不同
睡覺都來不及了 也就幾乎忘了張家網的存在

前幾天 很高興康男叔和Bruce特別繞路來Evanston看我們
也正好提醒我該來張家網走走

現在我的生活大多圍繞在兒子kieran身上
沒其他可以和大家分享
就現現醜 跟大家分享kieran的日記了
有空來坐坐囉
http://www.babyhome.com.tw/kieran
(我媽在的時候 我還做了一本網路相簿:
http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/bookviewer.py?d=tq%3Ey-cppl%60je%3E3359582)

ps: 托兒子的福 我開始打中文了!

Bar Trip Day 19

After a good rest last night, we began Day Nineteen by driving into Rapid City, South Dakota, and then heading south to see Mount Rushmore. Along the way, we finally managed to get a picture of the hay rolls; apparently, hay and cattle are bigger in South Dakota than corn and soya beans, which we had seen plenty of since northern Ohio.

As we neared Rapid City, we saw barren gray hills unsuitable for either farming or grazing. It was the Badlands.

Mount Rushmore is a stone's throw from Rapid City. You take US Route 16 up into the Black Hills, and go about 25-30 miles. From the road, Gutzon Borglum's monument to America seems no big deal.

Nonetheless, we decided to go in. There is no admission, but there is a fee for parking in a private parking lot. It's a rather nice lot, and it only costs $10 per car. Since we'd come all this way, we paid the fee and went in. We posed with some of the natives, since dad was born in the year of the sheep (which in Chinese (羊) could refer to either sheep or goat ...

... and I'm a Capricorn.

More than 60 years after his death, soon after which his son, who took over for him, declared the monument "complete", Gutzon Borglum stays close to the work for which he will always be remembered.

The amphitheatre is lower than Grand View Terrace and thus gives a better perspective as to just how huge the monument is.

Some friendly fellow tourists offered to help us commemorate this father-son road trip.

A final closeup of George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe.

Afterward, we decided to look for Crazy Horse. We found him, but were asked to pay $20 to see him. We decided that that was four times too much, so we turned around and got a shot of the Chief from the road.

After Mount Rushmore, we continued taking US Route 16 into Wyoming. As we approached Buffalo, we could see the beginnings of the Big Horn mountains.

At Buffalo, we decided to take the southern fork around the mountains. We've finally come to rest here at Cody, from where we plan to tackle Yellowstone tomorrow morning and early afternoon, before we head for Montana to get back on Interstate 90 in our push toward the Pacific.

Before I sign off for the night, here is today's video blog entry:

[Cross-posted from Between Worlds]

Bar Trip Day 18

Day Eighteen was also largely uneventful, until the very end. First, we finished up the Iowa portion of our trip. Iowa's cornfields are larger than the family farms in norther Ohio and Indiana ...

But that's nothing compared to the vastness of Minnesota's fields.

When we entered South Dakota, near Sioux Falls, we were greeted with advertising for South Dakota beef, so when it was time for dinner, we pulled into Mitchell, a larger town along Interstate 90, and targeted Chef Louie's Steak House and Lounge. The prices were definitely not low, but were not as high as those at big-city steakhouses. I had the filet mignon and a cabernet sauvignon, and was quite satisfied. If you find yourself in the area, I highly recommend it.

Watching beautiful sunsets has become a regular pastime on this journey, but it never gets old!

After the sun had set, though, it became difficult to take pictures. The crossing of the Missouri, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, was more impressive than the crossing of the Missisippi had been when we had entered Iowa.

But it was later on that the unsettling event occurred. Just before Vivian, South Dakota, Icy Z warned me that there was something wrong with the tire pressure. I switched over to the tire pressure display, which showed that one of the sensors was not sending information to the ECU. We pulled over and inspected the tires to make sure nothing was wrong, especially since, given the state of repair of South Dakota roads, it was hard to be sure that all that had happened was a simple signal failure from the tire pressure sensor. Once Icy Z had enough rest, though, she was eager to be back on the road.

We decided to turn in early today, even though the motel cost more than we were used to, due to the excitement of the momentary crisis. Here is the video log entry for today.

[Cross-posted from Between Worlds]

Bar Trip Day 17

Day Seventeen has been largely uneventful. After getting up in the morning, we went to meet up with Jannet for lunch in Evanston. Getting to Evanstaon was a long drive itself, to get through downtown Chicago.

Evanston itself is quaint, truly a college town for graduate students, it seems.

After lunch, we left around 3 p.m. It took us well over an hour to get out of Chicago. Once we left the main loop of Chicago, bounded roughly by Interstate 80, Illinois became suddenly very rural indeed.

The Mississippi as we drove by on Interstate 80.

We're staying tonight with Nuki06FireZ and his wife, who have been very gracious about putting us up for the night. They are the best part of Iowa, which is otherwise rather dull and not very interesting. Thanks again, you guys!

Finally, as I head to bed, here is today's very brief video log entry:

[Cross-posted from Between Worlds]

Bar Trip Days 11-16

Due to various factors, I have not had high-speed Internet access for some time, so it's been a while since I have been able to compile a new update. However, your wait will be more than amply rewarded!

We started off Day Eleven with a more in-depth tour of Washington, D.C. We rode in for one session in the early afternoon, during which we hastily walked the National Mall. We took the Metro from Takoma Park, where we had found our motel the night before, to Metro Center. From there we walked first to the Treasury Department.

Alexander Hamilton was responsible for creating the original national debt. Without a national debt, there would have been no credit rating, and without a credit rating, the government would not have been able to borrow money for the various expenditures it has made over the centuries. It is not the existence of the debt, but the destruction of the national credit rating by poor fiscal management, that is the real threat to the financial health of this nation.

Dad found the biggest Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of the White House.

One of the guards informed the tourists that there is no "front" of the White House. The second picture, however, is what abuts Pennsylvania Avenue. The street address of the White House is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so that face is the "front" of the White House.

In front of the White House is an equestrian of Andrew Jackson, which as far as I can tell is identical to the one in Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In this photo, he seems to be acknowledging the office, as well as the monument to the first person to hold the office.

Dad and I also posed with the Washington Monument.

Because we had to get back to our parking spot at the Takoma Park Station by 3:30, we had to walk very quickly. We saw the Smithsonian Institute, but did not go in.

Before heading back to the Metro, we walked by the U.S. Capitol Building, which houses the Legislative branch of the Federal government.

Deciding that we hadn't quite seen enough, because we hadn't yet seen the Lincoln Memorial, we drove back to downtown Washington to meet up with Travis. We found parking in West Potomac Park, which prohibits parking only between one and six in the morning.

We arranged to meet up with Travis at the Vietnam War Memorial. On our way there, we took a detour to check out the FDR Memorial ...

... and the Korean War Memorial, at which the South Korean Ambassador had laid a wreath just prior to our arrival.

The Wall at the Vietnam War Memorial was not as moving as we had thought it would be. There were just too many names, and we did not know any of them. Nonetheless, the beauty of the concept and design is inescapable.

Finally, we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial.

From the Lincoln Memorial, there was a breathtaking view of the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool.

From those very steps, exactly 45 years before, on August 28, 1963, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. There was a bouquet laid at the spot of the delivery of the speech, in memoriam.

After dinner with Travis, he went home, while we took another swing by the Lincoln Memorial on our way to the car. The night view is even better!

Unfortunately, technical difficulties meant that we lost a lot of the videos we had taken that day, including one of Travis saying hi.

After saying farewell to Messrs. Lincoln and Washington, we started on our way to New York. To avoid toll roads, we took some local routes. New Jersey is every bit as depressing and gray as Kevin Smith makes it out to be in his movies. We finally settled in for the night in Linden.

On Day Twelve, we passed by the City of Elizabeth, which figured in a famous patent case: City of Elizabeth v. American Nicholson Pavement Co., 97 U.S. 126 (1877). The case basically involved an inventor who had tested his design for a new sidewalk by installing it in the City of Elizabeth. The City copied his work, and sued for infringement. The City claimed in defense that by having his work open to public use, the inventor had given up his right to a patent. The U.S. Supreme Court found that the "public use" in which the inventor had engaged was necessary for his experimentation, and that he had therefore not forfeited his right to a patent.

We hunted around for a while for a way to get across to New York City. Unfortunately, there was no parking around Hoboken Terminal, and we did not trust most of the environment in New Jersey. Besides, we would have had to pay for parking as well as train tickets. Thus, we paid the $8 fee to take the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan.

Thanks to Sara, a friend from last year's Summer Abroad program in Beijing, China, I was able to focus my search for parking in Manhattan's Upper West Side. From there, we proceeded across Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we toured the Egyptian wing.

Dad had never been in Manhattan before, although he had been in various parts of Newark for business. Thus, he was quite excited to take a picture on 5th Avenue.

As New Yorkers well know, 5th Avenue is not only a fashion mecca, it is also the home of the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Rockefeller Center is also close by.

And, of course, there is Times Square!

From Midtown, we took the 2 train to the Financial District.

Trinity Church is also nearby.

Here's to a bull market! (By the way, there is not a similar statue of a bear. Superstition and all that jazz.)

Almost seven years later, there is still a hole where the Twin Towers once stood.

This statue is so 20th Century--the guy's got a briefcase instead of a laptop!

Alexander Hamilton is one of the more famous residents of the cemetery on the grounds of Trinity Church.

As we headed toward Massachusetts, we stopped by New London, Connecticut. We had seen the signs for New London Mall from Interstate 95, and it reminded me of another case: Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005). This was the landmark case in which Justice Stevens (not Justice Souter as stated in the video log entry) wrote that expectation of increased tax revenues was a public benefit, which was also a public use within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment.

Tired of paying motel fees, we decided to camp out at a 24-hour gas station along Interstate 95 at the end of Connecticut and sleep on the car. In fact, the next morning, as soon as we got back on Interstate 95, signs welcomed us into Rhode Island.

We didn't get much sleep, and we're not likely to sleep on the car again unless it were in an area where we could have complete darkness and see the stars. Then again, in such a place, we might not feel safe enough to camp out. Suffice it to say, comfort is not a reason to sleep in a Nissan 350Z.

On Day Thirteen, we shot across Massachusetts to the Old North Bridge at Concord. After British Regulars had marched on Lexington to seize arms and ammunition, there had been a brief skirmish on the green. From there, the cries to the Minute Men went out, and the British unit was faced on the Old North Bridge by a large body of Colonials. At this battle, for the first time, an order was given to fire upon British soldiers, which would make a traitor of the commander and any man who obeyed, under English law. Three British soldiers were killed or mortally wounded.

Today, the British and the Americans have a very close relationship, and the Old North Bridge is among the most peaceful places anywhere.

From Concord, we proceeded to Cambridge, and took the train from Alewife to Harvard Square.

After lunch at Au Bon Pain, we headed into town. We walked around a bit, but after the grueling amounts of walking in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan, we were tired. All we really looked at were the State House (after crossing through Boston Common) ...

... and, from a distance, Faneuil Hall.

Boston would be the farthest east we would be on this trip. From there, rather than heading back across Massachusetts toward upstate New York, we headed up to New Hampshire. We had decided, at the end of Day Ten, that we would take a detour to Montréal, Québec, to visit dad's alma mater, McGill University, since it was only just over 300 miles from Boston.

To get to Montréal, we had to cross into New Hampshire, and then Vermont. Along the way, we got to drive through the beautiful White Mountains, where we were treated to a jaw-dropping, ephemeral mountain sunset.

We figured that lodging in Montréal would be expensive because it was a big city, so we tried looking for lodging in Vermont. No luck. All the motels were filled to capacity or too expensive. We pressed on into Canada.

The highway in Québec had the worst paving of any industrialized country I'd ever been to. Further, just about all the signs were monolingual--but in French! When dad left McGill 34 years ago, the signs had been bilingual, with English slightly prominent. The reverse is now true.

With the help of dad's memory and Hraesvelg's GPS, we searched for dad's old co-op building. Dad had remembered the wrong address, landing us at 555 Rue Sherbrooke Est. After asking around at the Doubletree located at the wrong address, we discovered that dad must have remembered the wrong direction. Finally, we found the old co-op, which is actually located at 550 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest. Upon seeing his old quarters, dad was understandably excited, as you will hear in the video log entry.

Finally, tired after a long day of driving after a night with little or no sleep, we crashed at a motel in the western portion of Montréal, far away from downtown (centre-ville), run by an ethnic French woman who spoke excellent English.

After that recharge, we revisited the old co-op the next day, Day Fourteen.

Across the street, at 555 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, was the Schulich School of Music, with a statue of Queen Victoria in front. Dad had posed with the same statute 34 years ago; maybe that explains why he remembered the street number as 555 Rue Sherbrooke!

There are only two pictures of McGill, because so much of the school has changed so much from what dad remembers.

After McGill, we went on a tear through Montréal, especially Vieux Montréal, the old city. From the port along the St. Lawrence River ...

... to the streets, Vieux Montréal is every bit the picturesque place you'd expect a place of French roots to be.

After traipsing around Montréal all afternoon, we finally left for Toronto. Along the way, though, I had to get guess. In Canada, as in just about every country outside of the United States, gas is priced by the liter. Here, the premium octane (which I have to get for Icy Z) is C$1.354 per litre, which works out to about C$5.125 per gallon. Ouch!

From Montréal, it was a southerly drive to Toronto. For the first time on this road trip, we were able to get a sunset shining in through the passenger side window.

We crashed in the Richmond Hills area of Toronto with dad's oldest male cousin's widow, who showered us with attention. The next day, Day Fifteen, her children, my second cousins Simon, Ada, and Frank, and their families all made it out for dim sum.

This was the largest mango pudding I had ever had!

Ada's husband Patrick was a great sport about being the cameraman ...

... but we were able to squeeze him into at least one picture, this one taken at Uncle David's grave.

Before we had gotten around to taking pictures at the grave, we paid our respects with incense. We did not quite get a moment of silence, because dad was sobbing. He had been very close with Uncle David, with whom he had shared a bunk for five years. Uncle David had been a naval architect, obtaining an associate degree when it was the highest degree available in the subject. As soon as the formal baccalaureate program was created, he took classes to satisfy the required units, and graduated the same week as his younger brother and my dad, who graduated the same year.

Dad's emotions overwhelmed Aunt Nancy, who had been perfectly composed until then. She allowed herself to choke up a little bit as she told Uncle David that dad finally got the chance to visit.

Nevertheless, one person was there that should bring a smile to Uncle David's face, wherever he is when he reads this: Michelle, his granddaughter, was on hand. In your children and grandchildren, Uncle David, you live on.

As before, we could not stay in any place very long. We took advantage of the holiday weekend (Canada celebrates Labor day the same time as the United States, at least this year) to get to Niagara Falls.

From the Canadian side, the Falls is very much about the tourism.

But it is also very much about the beauty of the falls themselves. In fact, you can only see the smaller falls from the Canadian side. You can also see the entirety of the greater falls, which take the shape of a massive horseshoe, only from the American side.

Yes, we really were there. Those weren't postcards!

At the brink, on a clear day such as we experienced, you can see a double rainbow. Note the inversion of the prismatic sequence.

As we hiked back to our parking space, it was clear that the Canadian leg of our journey was at an end.

Back in the United States, we caught a glimpse of the sun before it began to set over Lake Erie in upstate New York.

That brings us to today, Day Sixteen. To avoid tollways, although they still often sneak up on us, we resorted to taking local routes. That brought us within view of parts of the country not easily visible from the Interstate system. From the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio ...

... to the corn fields ...

... and soya bean fields ...

... of Fayette, in rural northern Ohio ...

... to Amish buggies in rural northern Indiana!

And so now, more than two weeks into our journey, we are resting in Naperville, Illinois, with Uncle JT, who looks more and more like his handsome father, my maternal grandfather, with every year.

Tomorrow, the plan is to visit another relative in Evanston, Illinois, which entails a little bit of backtracking. Check back here to see where we go from there!

For now, because we have gone so many days without a proper high-speed Internet connection, the video log entry for the six days has been divided into those spanning the remainder of August ...

... and the first days of September.

[Cross-posted from Between Worlds]