Water Water Everywhere

And many drops to drink...













The daily comparison for maximum water usage in the Dassler Cabin on Isle Royale versus our home in Grand Rapids:

Drinking and Cooking
Home: 2 gallons
Dassler Cabin: 2 gallons


Washing Dishes
Home: 5 gallons (filled wash tub to wash, faucet running to rinse)
Dassler Cabin: 1 gallon (wash tub, rinse tub)

Bathing
Home: 30 gallons (two 10 min showers)
Dassler Cabin: 3 gallons (2.5 gallon solar bag, .5 gallon sponge bath for Andy)

Toilet Use
Home: 20 gallons (2 gallon tank flushed 5 times a day for 2 people)
Dassler Cabin: 0

Laundry
Home: 40 gallons (Maytag top loader)
Dassler Cabin: 10 gallons (2, 5 gallon buckets, one for rinsing, one for washing)

General Cleaning
Home: 1 gallon (washing hands, rinsing the sponge after doing dishes, brushing teeth etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0

MiscelaneousHome: 1 gallon (watering the plants outside with the hose, car washing etc.)
Dassler Cabin: 0


Daily Total:
Home: 99 gallons per day
Dassler Cabin: 16 gallons per day

Life is different without a faucet and a running tap.

Concert 3 On Isle Royale

A Program of Original Music Inspired by Lake Superior















High Tide, Andrew Bergeron
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret
Alpha's Last Dance, Carmen Maret (premier)
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, Andrew Bergeron
Gauntlet of Death, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fog Break, Andrew Bergeron (premier)
Nineteen Knots, Carmen Maret (premier)
Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer from Lake Superior Suite, Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron

Wildlife Sightings on Isle Royale

western painted turtle (at hidden lake)
garter snake (all around)
bats (lots every night, especially around the bench, one flew in the house with me and we had to shew him out)
snowshoe hare
red squirrel
red fox (Scoville point resident)
river otters (Tobin Harbor visitors)
moose (6, all along Tobin Harbor)
loons galore (they nest in the harbor)
horned grebe
double crested cormorant
great blue heron (on Dick and Mary's Island)
wood duck
lesser scaup
goldeneye
mergansers
bald eagles (2, one adult perched in Tobin, one yearling on passage island)
merlin (passage island)
spotted sandpiper (seen from the canoe, on Tobin Harbor shore)
herring gulls
black capped chickadee (by Dassler)
red-breasted nuthatch (by Dassler)
winter wren
cedar waxwings (everywhere by Dassler, look up)
shrike (Rock Harbor spotting)
black and white warbler (by Dassler)
yellow-rumped warbler (by Dassler)
white-throated sparrow (can be heard everywhere along lake superior it seems)
song sparrow (all over)

Anniversary on Passage Island

Today is me and Andrew's 4th year anniversary. We practiced till 3:00pm, then Pat Valencia, a musician and former park service employee friend took us out to passage island, a spooky but really wild place about 3 1/2 miles off the northeast shore of Isle Royale. Pat calls it "the real wilderness of Isle Royale."

Korena, another ranger friend on Isle Royale and botany expert told me she was jealous we got to go out there. She said the diversity it has for such a small island is amazing, something like 700 different species of plants.

We saw wild sundews for the first time, a carnivorous plant with sticky pads about the size of my index fingernail. We also saw lots of Canada yew and ash, "moose candy" that has almost vanished from the Isle Royale mainland.

We also saw a young bald eagle perched on a tree in the harbor on the south side of the Island.

Our last full day is tomorrow. We have internalized such a peaceful, relaxed and receptive way of being that it is hard to imagine our mental and physical states before arriving and of course our response when we return home.










Canada Yew














Sundew, carnivorous plant

Discovering Birds

When I first arrived at the cabin, walking to the outhouse (about the length of a small city block) was a drudge that seemed to take too long. But, over the last weeks it has turned out to be one of my favorite activities.

I have learned to watch birds. I never go to the outhouse now without binoculars and my camera. Today I got a great photo of a cedar waxwing in the top dead branches of an ash growing along the shore.

I also watch for changes: water, boats, skyline, wind speed and direction, animals (including people).

I think the birds have warmed up to me over time. I notice they kind of loom around now, where it seems in the beginning they always quickly flew away. Maybe I walk and look slower now too.

Last Few Projects

We finished our composition projects today. Andrew wrote a final hand copy of his piece "Fog Break". He swore a lot today, surely a sign of the intense process of copying music with a permanent pen. He said he used the leftover brownie that Dick gave us to keep him going. Andy would take a small bite of it after successfully writing each line of music.

I finished a poem and piece of music about the wolves based on a story in Rolf Peterson's book "The Wolves of Isle Royale" that tells a story of the Alpha Female in the East Pack that saved the wolf population on Isle Royale from extinction.

Concert 2 on Isle Royale

Title: "Bach on the Water Part II"

Even more people came this time! 80 or more. So rewarding to have an attentive and packed audience to play for.

Prelude in A minor, J.S. Bach
Fall: Grape Stomp, from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Prelude in E minor, J.S. Bach
Walkabout Sparrow, Andrew Bergeron and Carmen Maret

Prelude in G major, J.S. Bach
High Tide, Andrew Bergeron

El Decameron Negro (The Black Ship), Leo Brouwer

Prelude in D minor, J.S. Bach
Footprints in the Snow from Preludes, Claude Debussy

Prelude in B minor, J.S. Bach
Silueta Portena, tango

Prelude in F# major, J.S. Bach
Waves and Waterfalls from Lake Superior Suite, by Andrew Bergeron

Wilderness Composing

We worked hard again today. I am getting a neck ache from writing so much music by hand. It is a good thing we take a lot of breaks out in our wilderness backyard.

Andrew was like a mad scientist today scheming up a flute and guitar piece about our previous fog experience. He is writing it in 11/8 and wants to do a 3+3+3+2 division of the beats. He was out at the inspirational bench for about an hour thumping the side of it with his hand and then came in with a gleam in his eye.

I finished a draft of my solo piccolo piece called "Nineteen Knots" and started a piece about wolves called "Alpha's Last Dance."

The birds distracted and excited us today. I kept grabbing for the binoculars. Cedar waxwings, yellow-rumped warblers and black-throated warblers were all outside the dining table window where Andrew and I strew all of our papers, pencils and erasures.

After dinner Andrew came running in for the binoculars, "a cormorant is fishing just off the bench" he said quickly. Sure enough we saw him catch a fish too. (Cormorants, we later found out from talking to folks in Tobin Harbor, were actually a problem for a while because they were draining the fisheries in the small harbor areas around the island).

We walked the small loop around Scoville Point and I saw a shrike on a big spruce near the split. I heard it and then quickly spotted him in the binoculars, big body and hooked beak.

Dick and Mary Scheibe, our new caretakers for the end of our stay came over to the cabin, Mary calling a loud "whoo-hooo" before she was close to the cabin. Mary has been coming to the island since he was three. Mary and Dick are the official folks who drive the artists around, make sure they have everything they need, and show them a good time.

Other than Dick and Mary, we had no other human contact all day.

Rumbles of thunder over the lake tonight. Maybe we will receive a little cooling blessing tonight. It has been in the upper 80s. Bad for moose, who don't feel feel even the slightest bit cold until 25 degrees BELOW zero, and start to over heat about 56 degrees ABOVE zero!

Concert 1 on Isle Royale

Chuck Volunteers to be Stage Manager


Our concerts took place in a little auditorium in Rock Harbor. It seats about 80. We were a little worried about who would show up for our first concert, but we ended up packing the place standing room only.

We decided to theme the first concert by calling it "Bach on the Water" which combined our own music about water with Bach works from the Well Tempered Clavier that Andrew transcribed for flute and guitar. It was an idea that we have had for a year, and we finally had a good environment to try it out. It worked well, the Bach pieces were like a short warm up for us and for the audience's ears before each of our own pieces.

Here was our program:

Prelude in D minor, J.S. Bach
Calm to Storm, from Lake Superior Suite, Andrew Bergeron

Prelude in E minor, J.S. Bach
Walkabout Sparrow, Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron (premier, written first five days of residency)

Prelude in A minor, J.S. Bach
The Night from Toward the Sea, Toru Takemitsu

Prelude in A minor (book II), J.S. Bach
Bachiana Brasileiras , Heitor Villa-Lobos

El Decameron Negro (The Black Ship), Leo Brouwer

Prelude in B minor, J.S. Bach
Silueta Portena, tango

Prelude in G major, J.S. Bach
Summer: Wedding Dance from Lake Superior Suite, Carmen Maret

The Inspirational Bench

Bench by Morning










Bench by Day











Bench by Night

There is a wonderful bench just outside the cabin that offers views of the sunset, the water, Passage Island, and Tobin Harbor. Here is a poem that one of the rangers Paul handed me as we walked off the boat at the end of our trip. This is about the "old" bench before it was renovated.

The Bench

At the tip of Tobin Harbor
Perched high upon the rock
there's a weathered wooden bench
where artists like to flock
it's part of the Dassler cabin
a palace in this place
this land of Isle Royale
by Superior's ever changing face
the view from there is princely
majestic to say the least
from a little bench so humble
inspirations never cease
you have to be kind of careful
not to sit on some rusty old nail heads
if you sit right in the middle
you'll be comfortable instead
if you open up your senses
nature is everywhere
from a seagull flying by
to mare's tails up in the air
sounds of lapping waves
rushing against the shore
little biting black flies
nip at your feet and more
a part of me would like to fix it
spruce up that old beaten bench
yet, it's perfect just as it is
just like a white bearded old gent
I only worry that someday
someone not thin could fall through
in the mean time I know it'll continue
giving inspiration so true

Foxy Omen

I slept in today--9am
Finally a clear, bright sunny day
Lake talk = "fair"
We worked on composing till 3:00pm
Revised drafts
Andrew finished a flute and guitar version of high tide

We practiced a few hours for our concert

Canoed to Duncan bay portage
the wind in our favor on the way back

Delectable dinner: cabin rice and beans with raw milk cheddar cheese and avocado tomato salad, all slathered in lime juice

We got into an argument on our nightly walk out on Scoville
as the moon rose

Always about music
what it means to us
what it means to other people
how to communicate in public about music

A fox popped out
walking the trail as we were
came right at us
the other direction, toward Rock Harbor

I made a "shooing" motion
Fox sat down, middle of the trail
biting his back legs--so skinny

Andy whispered, "I think he wants to pass"

We stepped off the trail a few feet
He got up
skipped past
down the rocky trail

What were we arguing about?

Moose Bones

Today Chuck and Connie took us to meet Rolf and Candy Peterson, "the wolf people". Rolf started studying wolves on Isle Royale in 1958 while still a graduate student and next year is the 50th anniversary of the same study, the longest predator prey study in the world!

How to describe the Peterson's cabin?

LOTS OF MOOSE BONES!
Collecting moose bones is one of the main ways the Peterson's assess the health and interactions of the moose and consequently the wolves on Isle Royale. During our nice little picnic along the shore by their cabin, we were surrounded by 50 years worth of bones. Candy Peterson showed me the kinds of things they look for in the bones such as osteoporosis, and arthritis. Moose teeth also grow like trees, with visible rings, so Rolf Peterson takes out the front teeth from the jaw bones of the moose, grinds them down, and can then tell how old they were when they died. When the Peterson's started collecting bones back in the 1970s, the Peterson's did the dirty work themselves, walking off the trails throughout the island just waiting for the bones to appear. (Imagine in winter too, where Rolf went seven weeks at a time, carrying frozen moose bones across the island in below zero temperatures!) Now they have a wonderful system set up where volunteers from the Earthwatch Worldwide program pay to come to the island and walk through marshes and over downed trees to help pick up bones.


After visiting with the Peterson's we went back to Tobin Harbor and added a new experience to our life: canoed to a dinner party. Chuck had a little get together his cabin about a 1/2 mile row from ours. Menu: potato salad, ham, pesto pasta, cheddar dill cornbread and rhubarb pie.

Fog Poem

Andy:

I awake with fog
play guitar with fog
Darjeeling tea with fog
compose and fog
fried rice and fog
hike in fog
Minestrone, fresh bread, Gruyere cheese, with fog
Sitting on rocks in fog
Inspirational bench, no view today, in fog
I talk with the fog
I listen to the water in the fog
fog with fog, in fog, and some more fog
now I will sleep
with
FOG

Fog and Soup

Our bedside alarm woke us at five minutes till 8:00am, just a few seconds before we were instructed to catch the morning report over our National Park Service Radio. We could already predict the main attraction: FOG.

Chuck our faithful caretaker for the week walkie-talkied us soon after and asked us if we felt like a couple of kernels in a bowl of fresh popcorn.

We got up soon after (early for a couple of musicians), made tea and worked on composing our piece about birds until Andy made his nearly famous fried rice for lunch. Then, we worked more in the cabin until the first hints of cabin fever set in. It was 2:30pm, visibility--50 feet :) (See our foggy photos here)

I made some homemade three bean and legume minestrone when we got back from our foggy walk then we went to bed.

3 Bean and Legume Minestrone Soup

2 carrots, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 potatoes, chopped
1 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup each, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, and canelli beans, soaked overnight.
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 cup lacinato kale leaves, thinly sliced
1 can diced tomatoes, "Muir Glen" is the best
2 TBS olive oil

1. Saute veggies in olive oil till soft, then add dried dill and oregano. Add soaked black-eye peas and canelli beans and 2 cups water. Boil 15 minutes. Then, add garbanzo beans, bay leaf and half the parsley, greens and tomatoes. Partially cover and cook 40-60 minutes.

2. Salt to taste, then serve with the rest of the fresh parsley over the top. If available drizzle with additional olive oil and a hand full of pine nuts scattered on top.

The Dassler Cabin - Our Home for 19 Days

Andrew standing on Tobin Point at sunset, the Dassler cabin is hidden in the trees on the point


Located in the Tobin Harbor, the "Dassler Cabin" was named and owned by the Dassler family who built it in 1905. It finally became property of the park in 1991 and the next year became the Artists In Residence Cabin. There are only a half a dozen or so homes left in the Tobin Harbor that the park doesn't own. The families basically get to keep their cabins until the life leasee in the family passes away.

There is a lot of ambivalence between the life leasees and the park, and why not? Although it was the families on the island that ultimately decided to make Isle Royale a National Park, it is still not an easy decision to hand over a historic rustic cabin to "the government" where there are always a variety of interests involved. That and the added dilemma of "human" culture versus wilderness, which after all really aren't two different thing (Is there anything left on the planet that hasn't been messed with by humans?) makes it a tough situation for everyone.

The nice thing about the Artists in Residence Program is that we operated as a mediator between the friends and families that own property and the park employees. Technically , we were volunteers for the NPS (National Park Service) but we were taken care of and brought in as visitors to the Tobin Harbor family community. We supported the agenda of the National Park by celebrating its natural beauty, and at the same time supported the preservation and use of one of the cabins in the Tobin Harbor community.

Living in the cabins is literally like going back in time. Most don't have electricity, although some are working on getting approval from the NPS to use solar power. Almost all have a propane stove and propane powered lights, but only a few have propane refrigeration, a luxury in its own right. Many have ice boxes (for real!) The Peterson's ice box looked like a small top loading freezer with a compartment in the top for ice and the refrigerator goods below. It was inside a little open air outhouse looking structure built under a group of trees outside. There is also something called a "California Cooler" which is a cupboard that is built with screens that open to the outside so that the cool air from the lake can come in an settle in the cupboard. Connie Boyle keeps her eggs there.

Most people gather their water for cooking and washing in buckets or white ceramic basins straight from the lake. Everybody filters their water now, although Chuck Boyale said he drank the water straight out of the lake for 45 years without getting stick and only until his wife Besty was sick with cancer did they start filtering as a precaution. Everybody washes their dishes and bathes with straight lake water. We have a small 2.5 gallon solar shower bag that I used to "take a shower". I hung it on a nail that was hammered into a post supporting the back awning of the Dassler and luckily a spot that had a rocky area underneath and plenty of trees to obscure the view from the plethora of boaters that zoomed past our point every day.

The best showering device we saw on the whole trip was built by Dick Scheibe. He lined his small closet space off his cabin bedroom with a shower curtain and then cut a hole in the ceiling that would fit a five gallon bucket. He rigged a device to raise and lower the bucket, and then attached a shower head to the bucket. All he has to do is heat five gallons of water (which isn't exactly a quick job) and voila, he can have a nice 5 minute shower inside.

Privies are an important aspect of the cabins too. Ours was about a 1/8 mile walk from the cabin, a walk that at first seemed to take forever, but then became an enjoyable break time activity. Some of the cabins are on islands so small they don't have room to put a privy, such as the cabin Dick and Mary Scheibe stayed in. The people who have their own privies absolutely don't let any toilet paper go in the hole. They pack it out and have big signs instructing people to dispose of the paper in another container, usually nearby. This is so the holes don't fill up as fast, and probably to keep down the smell.

Fireplaces and wood are a necessity in all the cabins, even in July and August it can get down into the 50s. Wood is difficult to come by on the island too because all the trees on the north end are small, mostly because of weather and the moose population who have eaten almost everything in sight.

First Day on Isle Royale

Today we woke up in the Super 8 in Houghton, MI and packed up the car for the Ranger III, a 165 foot boat that takes passengers to Isle Royale twice a week. We still had one straggling box that had to be loaded on the boat that was filled with lemons, limes, oranges, and avocados--very important items for the health and well being of two food hound vegetarians. It turned out that 45 minutes before was still a little late for loading, thought not at the "Greg Blust chew-out" level which a friend Doug received for trying to have the personnel load his kayak 10 minutes before departure.

Foggy, crystal calm waters took us all the way to Mott Island (just off the Isle Royale mainland where the park headquarters is) and then to Rock Harbor. After unloading the boat we had to cart our 7 boxes and three backpacks a half mile to another boat in Tobin Harbor that would then take us another 20 minute boat ride to the northeast end of the island where our little cabin affectionately know as "The Dassler" waited for us. After reaching the nearest dock by The Dassler, it was another 1/4 mile uphill to carry all of our stuff into the cabin.

Luckily we had a lot of help from the friends and family of the life leasese who still stay in the cabins around Tobin Harbor in the summer. John Snell helped up load our stuff, and the Connelly family helped us cart our stuff in four different trips up to the cabin.

Chuck and Connie Boyle would look after us for the week. Chuck has been to the island for about 50 years and knows most of the people and places in Tobin Harbor.

After unpacking for a few hours we walked around Scoville Point, the tip of the island where our cabin was. It was so foggy we could barely see the lake. But, we did notice how low the water was from the year before. Down 18 inches someone told us...global warming?

I transcribed some loon calls for the flute and guitar piece we planned to write about the birds. I took my junker flute outside and played in the harbor and listened to a great echo against the rocks.

Foggy, foggy night! We were talking about how it was a good thing we had been there before because otherwise we would be totally disoriented, not to mention kind of bummed not to know what things looked like.

Isle Royale Preparations

We camped last night in Copper Harbor, MI at Fort Wilkins State Park which is at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. We did our usual morning practice routines at the picnic table in our camp, but to no enjoyment thanks to the biting stable flies who burned my ankles right through my socks in between each Taffanel and Gaubert arpeggio.

We drove down to the Keweenaw Food Co-op in Houghton, MI to buy groceries for our 19 day stay on Isle Royale. Even though we wrote a menu for each day it still took us a LONG time to buy, an hour alone just in the bulk isle! We packed all our goods in boxes and went over the loading dock to load up for our ride to Isle Royale on the "Ranger III", all boats have names you know.

Greg Blust, our liaison and director of the Artist-In-Residence program showed us how to load our stuff, especially the stuff for the walk in refrigerator and freezer on the boat. He gave us our tickets and a key for the cabin, then he was back to work.

We hung out for a while along the channel between Houghton and Hancock, the old mining building on the side of the hill looming over us.

"Why are people so attached to place?" I asked Andy out of the blue.
"Why not?" he quickly replied, "place is so much about a person's environment and their memories."

This got me thinking about nature and how people attach meaning to their experiences with nature, which for so many of us is not part of our daily existence. "Nature" is usually reserved for vacations or special outings. I read an essay by Joyce Carol Oates called that week called "Against Nature" where she talks about human pitfalls in writing and talking about nature. She says nature by itself doesn't have meaning, it is we who attach sentiments such as "piety, serenity, awe" etc to it.

We are sitting on the banks of the Houghton-Hancock channel, sun setting, Andy says our last goodbyes to his mom, cell phone securely propped between cheek and neck. We will have no electricity or running water in our cabin on the island. Which of course also means, no conventional showers, no flush toilet, no wireless, no cell phone service. Some people's worst nightmare I am sure.

Wet Dry Wet Dry

What a moody lake!
4 foot waves, started misty and fogy, now blue and shining

Today we saw iron juts from the soggy wood of a shipwreck

enjoyed the essence of oregano, garlic, rhubarb, cherry, and pine in the air

4 days without: cars, money, alcohol, music, inside, clocks

body feels good from each step of 13.3 miles


Lentil Potato Carrot Stew with Couscous and Coconut Cream
(the best thing you have ever tasted after a LONG hike)

1 tsp minced garlic
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
2 small potatoes
1 carrot
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp salt
4 dried birds eye chilies
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp Bragg's liquid amino (funky health food item)
2TBS olive oil
1 small can of coconut milk, cream reserved

1 cup couscous
1/4 tsp minced ginger
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 shallot, minced

1. Saute spices and minced garlic in olive oil for 30 seconds, add potatoes and carrot, stir fry 2 minutes. Add salt and chilies then paprika and turmeric. Add 3 cups water and bring to a boil, then add red lentils. Cook 15 minutes, then cover and wrap in a towel or other heat resistant clothing and let stand while you prepare the couscous.

2. Saute minced ginger, chopped garlic, and shallot in olive oil. Then add the water from the coconut milk, plus 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, then add couscous. Stir, cover, and let stand 5 minutes.

3. Serve lentil mixture over couscous with dollops of the reserved coconut milk cream on top.

Waterbed for the Backcountry

Our tent became a waterbed this morning. Lake Superior carried rain and the boom of thunder for many hours until Andrew finally sat up at about 6:00am and realized our tent was suspended in a 3 inch pool of water! We unzipped the flap and saw our boots and backpacks floating past!! The night before we had found a nice big hemlock to pitch the tent under, but had managed to put it in the only spot beneath the tree without good drainage. So, what left to do? "WE'VE GOT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE" (The nice version of what Andy said when he realized our predicament.)

We carefully stepped out of the tent, rain still pouring, picked our home by the poles (with everything still in it) and walked it to the other side of the tree. Whew, it was going to be a long day, we had 8 miles to walk too. Luckily we were able to get back in the tent and find a couple inches of dry space where we hung out for a couple of hours, cramped, but moderately dry until it stopped raining.

Andy was a real sport to walk in the lead, which is usually my job, so that he could take the bulk of the water hits from the ferns onto his boots, instead of mine:) The most amazing thing that happened on the trail were two owls about the size of Andy's hands flew into a aspen branch directly over us about 5 feet away. They cocked their heads 180 degrees and stared at us as if they were looking into our souls.

The sun finally came out in the late afternoon and a lucky breeze kicked up before dusk! So thankful for a dry night.

Blue Flame Waters

Lake Superior at dusk on Mosquito Beach
Fire pink sun ball
and blue flame water extending to the horizon

We watch this pink ball
light lazy enough through the clouds
for us to look at it with our eyes

I yoga pose on these old sedimentary rocks
My forward bends the deepest they have ever been
The rocks keep my extended legs propped up and relaxed

Despite our floors, the earth is not meant to feel flat!

Off to Pictured Rocks

Andrew and I said goodbye to the band on Mackinac Island and headed up to four nights of backpacking along Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore. We arrived in Grand Marais to catch a shuttle van that would take up over to Munising so that we could walk the entire 45 mile stretch back to our car. The woman who drove our shuttle van talked a lot of politics and complained a lot about making a living up in the U.P. She said that she had driven the same van for 27 years and her pay was still only $11.00 an hour! It got me thinking a lot about the disparity between nature and class. In other words, why can't places rich in natural beauty also be rich in social justice?

We decided not to take our instruments for the four night, five day journey. It would be a time to clean out our musical selves, and a time to use our brains to come up with a concept for a piece that we would write together for our upcoming Artist-In-Residence stay on Isle Royale.


Sleep on the Shore

We are going to bed soon
before the sun
Under a canopy of, aspen, hemlock, and sugar maple
where birch grow in packs
invading the rocks that look over Lake Superior

I can still see the bald eagle that flew underneath us
Zoom bird
brown and white
big shadow passing over turquoise water

Mackinac Island Performance

Today we woke up at 7:00am after a short night of sleep and drove to catch the 10:00am boat to Mackinac Island. After a getting our luggage and music equipment we took a nice mosey on the horse drawn taxi up to Sue and Bruce Miller's cottage (parent' s of our musician friends Tess Miller and Scott Harding). We had just enough time to get ready and practice a bit before the concert at 2:00pm at St. Anne's Church, the oldest and most visible church on the island.

It was a break through performance for our group, probably because it was our first time really playing in a concert setting. We usually play for dancers where a lot of other things are going on, and where the main goal is to keep bodies moving on the floor. It was so nice to have an attentive audience, there were about 50 people, and the acoustics in St. Anne's were great! We could really play with the dynamics of our pieces, especially with Desde el alma and Andrew's arrangement of Buenos Aires Hora Cero.

Milonga in Traverse City

Carmen:

Today we woke up in the rain. We hung out until we could make a fire and then made breakfast. Homemade tortillas on the fire and curried pinto beans. After that we drove to a picnic shelter to practice for the gig at Gallerie Medici, a beautiful art gallery and tango studio owned by painter and tango dancer Cindy Carlton.

It was great to have lots of friends and family from out of town for the gig that night and Avik from Ann Arbor joined us on bandoneon! As a quintet it was lout and biting. Check us out below!

Tango, Wine, and Music

Carmen:
Friday the 13th! Second day of the band retreat. Today we woke up to a sunny day, ate oatmeal and drank perfectly brewed loose leaf oolong made by Andy. We spent the good part of the morning playing: a new version of Felicia, Nueve de julio, Francia, Silueta portena, Andy's arrangement of Buenos Aires Hora Cero, and Oblivion, all pieces for our Mackinac Island Concert the following Sunday.

We went to Larry Mawby's for a sparkling wine tasting and ate a delicious goat cheese, avocado, arugula, tomato, red onion sandwich on the way. We ended up getting a flight at Mawby's with the best three of his sparklers: Cremant, Talismon, and Blanc de blanc.

After that we went to John and Jo Crampton's, friends of ours who own Willow Vineyards in Sutton's Bay. We ended up giving an impromptu concert in the tasting room for John and Jo and all the visitors that day. Everyone thought it was a real treat and we got some really good practice for our upcoming concert.

After we left Willow, we ate doughnut peaches that I had left sitting on the dash. There were hot from the sun. They tasted like warm peach pie! Then, we drove the back roads to get to Sleeping Bear Dunes and took a secret entrance to get up to the good views. As usual it was a strenuous hike up and a quick run down. We stopped for coffee in Glen Arbor and then listened to some awesome music in the car on the way back to camp. I was the DJ-- Assad Brothers with Najda Solerno-Sonnenberg, Dave Douglas, Andrew York, Radiohead, Stefon Harris, and Mike Stern.

A kitchen sink pasta dinner--tomato, shiitake, rainbow chard, arugula, onion, garlic sauce over rigatoni.

Beginning of the Retreat

Carmen:


Today our Tango Folias band drove up to Traverse City for a 5 day band retreat. Dean, Debbie, me, and Andy packed more stuff that we did for a month long tango tour. We drove the short two hours to Interlochen State Park, our home for the next few days, and then went to the Traverse City Co-op to buy some serious goods for our camp meals. On the way home we stopped by Left Foot Charley's, a new winery in the Traverse area that is housed in a building on the old State Asylum! A lot of the old buildings are still there, white and abandoned. Kind of a spooky place for a tasting. Good thing the wine was so good!

When we got back to our campsite (#332, a very lucky number for tango musicians) it was about to rain. We quickly gathered our instruments and slid them into the tent along with ourselves. Within a few seconds it was absolutely pouring rain. We each found a sleeping bag to prop ourselves up on and then we practiced: Derecho viejo, Felicia, La cumparsita, Nueve de julio, Silueta portena, Desde el alma, Francia, Corazon de oro, and Oblivion. All from memory! Or course since we could barely even sit with our instruments, let alone find room for the music.

About halfway through Nueve de julio Debbie and I looked at each other at the same time and burst out laughing. A simultaneous recognition of how ridiculous the scene was. Debbie was all crunched up on her rolled up sleeping bag, he head titled almost 45 degrees so that when she moved her bow it wouldn't poke through the top of the tent. Accordingly her glasses where edging closer and closer to the end of her nose. I on the other hand played piccolo because my flute wouldn't fit in the space. Kind of a funny scene playing, especially the Piazzolla tunes on piccolo with thunder crashing down every minute.

Luckily it stopped raining and we were able to get out and make a delicious dinner:

Coconut Milk Stir Fry with Vegetables and Golden Tofu











16 oz locally made tofu (from Traverse Co-op), drained and cubed
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, diced
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and diced
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp crushed coriander
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1 package thick rice noodles

1. saute the cubes of tofu in olive oil, lightly salt to taste
2. Saute spices, garlic and ginger 30 seconds over high heat
3. Add pepper, stir fry 1 minute
4. Add coconut milk and heat
5. Meanwhile pour boiling water over rice noodles and let stand for 5 minutes
6. Before coconut milk mixture heats add rice noodles, then serve

The Folies - U.S Tango Tour Awards

We've had an amazing journey and we thought it would be fun to recount some of the most memorable with our "Folies" Awards. Roll out the red carpet...



Best Alternative Music: Boulder, CO (thanks Tara and Nick!)

Best Downtown Milonga: St. Paul, MN (thanks Andrea, Elias, Janeen, Florencia, and Bob!)

Best Food and Coffee: Ciao Bella, San Diego, CA (thanks Daniel and Linda!)

Best Milonga View: China Harbor in Seattle, WA (thanks Arturo!)

Biggest Dance: (100+) Tuesday night at The Turnverein, Denver, CO (thanks Ellen, Patricia, and Tango Colorado!)

Biggest Lesson: (48) Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, UT (thanks Barbara!)

Hilarious Host Award: Jenny Debouzek, Albuquerque, NM (thanks for making us laugh so hard!)

Hipp(ie)est Tango: The Tango Center in Eugene, OR (thanks Greg and Liz!)

Inspiration Award: Madison, WI (thanks Jeff, Eilleen, Steve, and Krista!)

Jammiest Tango Jam: Peter's Pub, Pittsburgh, PA (thanks Trini and Sean and all the amazing musicians!)

Maiden Voyage: Above Slims in Northside of Cincinnati, OH (thanks Virginia!)

Most Fun in the Sun: San Diego, CA (thanks Linda, Teresa, Daniel, and Linda!)

Most Unique Tango Venue: Alegria, North Ridgeville, OH (thanks Timmy and Joanne!)

Rock Star Production and Design: Boise, ID (thanks Beth-Animal and Sarah!)

Supreme Social Dancing: Tango Berretin in Portland, OR (thanks Megan, Alex, Joe, Jenna, and Amie!)

"Sweetest" Milonga Venue: Emack and Bolios (famous ice cream shop), Columbus, OH (thank you CATS!)

Wildest Conversation: El Pulpo (ask us about Pulpo's rehashing of Troilo's run-in with the cops)

Thanks again to everyone who made our tour possible!

It was a huge success. We are counting our blessings:
1. No car trouble and no accidents (1 parking ticket though :)
2. Good weather throughout, no rain outs for camping
3. 100% success rate for performances, and good turn outs all around
4. No sicknesses or injuries
5. Nothing got stolen
6. No major equipment problems
7. NO BAND DRAMA!
8. No major delays
9. We came home with money!!

Lessons learned

Andy:
1. Do not drink two glasses of wine right before bed when the drive you have the next day is longer than you have to sleep
2. Use equipment that you know how to use
3. Plug the DJ laptop into house sound equipment (so that the other equipment can be picked up before 1:00am!)
4. Take a day off
5. Mahler rocks
6. Do more jams next time
7. Edit guitar parts with fingerings before the tour
8. Skip the opportunity to eat greasy Mexican food at 1:00am
9. Next time, bring an extension cord

Carmen:
1. Pack light
2. Learn to wash clothes in other people's bath tubs
3. You can't control the waves but you can learn to surf
4. Following in tango is an elusive art
5. Practice music before recreational activities or it won't happen
6. Eat well (don't forget lots of dried cherries)
7. A written agreement is very helpful
8. Every place is more or less struggling with the same problems
9. Don't leave my stuff in people's showers
10. Its only about the people
11. Putting this tour together was like having a baby, it was easy to conceive, but it took 9 months to put together
12. Camping is the way to go
13. McDonalds, I'm NOT lovin' it
14. Everything is better with olive oil

Avik:
1. Practice every performance day even if it is only for 5 minutes
2. Tell friends I know in different cities about the tour beforehand
3. Next time spend more time in each place
4. Better to digest thy belly than thy "filet of fish" (McDonalds)
5. The great outdoors are indeed great
6. Tango people are extremely generous
7. People are more similar than they are different. Especially when they share a passion for tango.

Interesting Facts

Total Tango stops: 15
Number of places that was a first time tango visit for all of us: 6

Biggest lesson turnout: 48, Salt Lake City, UT
Biggest dance turnout: 100+, Denver, CO

Number of people who graciously hosted us: 24
Number of musicians collaborated with: 22

Largest tango jam: Pittsburgh (8 others)

Tango stop with highest population: 1.2 million, San Diego, CO
Tango stop with lowest population: 94,000, Boulder, CO

Total miles traveled: 8.845 miles
Miles driven by Andy: 8,445 miles!
Number of states traversed: 20
Average gas cost: $0.12/mile
Longest single day of travel: 710 miles - North Ridgeville, OH to Lake Anita, IA
Average driving hours for the last week of the tour: 7 hours/day

Coldest: 30 degrees, Carson National Forest, Pecos Wilderness, NM
Hottest: ~100 degrees, Joshua Tree National Park

Highest Elevation: 9500ft, Carson National Forest, Pecos Wilderness, NM
Lowest Elevation: 0ft, San Diego, CA and Cape Lookout, OR

Furthest North: Seattle, WA
Furthest South: San Diego, CA
Furthest West: Cape Lookout, OR
Furthest East: Pittsburgh, PA

Number of camping nights: 7
Longest stay in one place: 3 days in Boise, ID
Number of non-caucasians in Boise: 1 (Avik)

Latest night: 3:45am in Pittsburgh with El Pulpo
Earliest morning: Seattle, 7:30am

Number of different places we stayed in 30 days: 20
Number of hotel stays: 0

Number of snakes observed: 2 (one in captivity)

Number of times we ate fast food: 6 (too many)
Number of times we ate fast food in the Midwest: 4 (3 in Ohio)

Number of times we did laundry: 8

Most expensive food: 1 tiny white truffle at $250/lb

Believe it or not, the following amounts are for all 3 of us combined...
Average amount spent on food: $42/day (watch out Rachael Ray)
Average amount spent on gas: $40/day
Average amount spent on lodging: $5/day (thanks to our gracious hosts)
Average amount spent on wine: $7/day
Average total expenses: $94/day

Food leftover: grapefruit, jar of peanut butter, bag of dried cherries, a bag of dried morels

And...
We started on June 1 with a full moon and ended on June 30 with a blue moon--the auspicious second full moon of the month.

Last Three Memorable Meals

Carmen:
After we left Seattle we had a killer six days to complete our tour. We drove from Seattle to just south of Bozeman (680miles), then the next day from Bozeman to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (444 miles) and then from St. Paul to Madison to Cincinnati (Over the week an average of 7 hours a day of driving time, mostly by Andy).

At one point Avik said that now you know what it must be like to have cabin fever, he then grabbed his computer to find a video he downloaded that is a spoof on "The Shining".

In the end it was the food that made our time bearable and broke up the monotony.

Here are the last three homemade meals we had together on the road: (Thanks to the PCC Natural Food Market in Seattle for supplying us with four days of groceries.)

Montana Car Lunch:
Cucumber Salad with Blue Cheese Tomato Sandwiches



four cucumbers
dill
olive oil
balsalmic vinegar

ciabatta

blue cheese
four roma tomatoes

Dice cucumbers, toss with 1/4 chopped dill, 2 tsps olive oil and a teaspoon of balsalmic vinegar. I kept the dill in a glass filled with water over night. The cool temperatures up in the Montana mountains kept it nice and perky.

Slice bread lengthwise and layers hunks of blue cheese and slices of tomatoes. A nice light lunch in the hot Montana sun.

Montana Campsite Dinner:
Thai Rice Noodles with Curry Coconut Milk and Golden Tofu



Thai rice noodles, enough for 3 people, soaked in hot water for five minutes then rinsed with cold water
1 can unsweetened coconut milk

3 green onions, chopped
1 inch ginger slice, diced
1 eggplant, sliced
1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms
3 jalapenos

1 tsp turmeric
1tsp cumin
1tsp corriander, ground
1 tsp, mustard seeds
3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 lb tofu, cubed and fried in olive oil

Fry tofu first and then remove to a plate.

Fry the dried spices and hot peppers in olive oil. Add vegetables and mushrooms. Cook for 10 minutes. Add water if the veggies start to stick. Add coconut milk and turmeric then the soy sauce. Bring the stew up to a boil then remove from the heat. Season with salt as needed. Add tofu on the top and eat.


North Dakota Car Lunch:

Mixed Salad Beans Topped with Guacamole and
Herbed Couscous



Herbed couscous mix ( I think we had casbah brand)

1 can organic salad bean mix (kidneys, garbanzos, and great northerns)

fresh basil, chopped
fresh dill, chopped
3 roma tomatoes, chopped

2 avocados
1 tsp salt

juice from 3/4 of a lemon (save the other 1/4 for the guacamole)

1/8 cup olive oil

Combine olive oil and and 3/4 cup lemon juice with herbs, beans, and tomatoes. Add salt to taste.

Mash very ripe avocados in a bowl. Season with lemon and salt.

At a gas station, fill a thermos with hot water from the tap on the coffee machine.

Pour about 1 1/2 cups water on over the couscous.

Before eating, spoon guacamole over the bean salad.

Fifteenth Tango Stop - Cincinnati, OH

Carmen:



We had a primo space last night for our last performance of the tour. It was a loft space above a Northside, Cincinnati restaurant and we were the first to use the space. How wonderful it is to dance on a brand new floor and be the first ones to use a sound system for the first time.

We also had a primo place to stay. Virginia Malton, our host, had us stay in her downtown Cincinnati condo that overlooked the river onto Newport, KY. She graciously gave us the whole place to stay!

It was a great way to end our tour. After a grueling 10 days, (averaging 7 hours a day of driving the last week alone) it was a relief to have an another enjoyable evening of dancing and a well received live music performance.

Notes From the Driver

Andy:


Driving across the country so far I start to think of roads and cities in a different way. The cities are kind of like a giant heart. It sucks us in and we unload the tango circus, teach, play and dance tango. Then by the next morning it spits us out (with little sleep) and we enter the vein (highway). The heart pushes us along our way through the veins as we are sucked to the next city.

So then, what are we? Our red Buick is a blood cell fueled by really old fossils, pumped out of this heart with admittance from a credit car with a giant yellow M. When we are seated in our blood cell car we, the musicians and dancers, are not really moving inside the car. We are blogging on this computer for you.

Fourteenth Tango Stop - Madison, WI

Carmen:




We got the idea for our tour last Fall 2006 when we traveled to Madison and Chicago for two weekend performances. Avik, Andrew and I had such a good time playing together at those two places, especially Madison, a place we have performed 8 times now, that we decided that we should plan a longer trip for the this summer. Avik brought the idea up, half jokingly. I ran with it. Nine months later our tour was finally set and ready to give birth to itself. (Hey, kind of like having a baby).

Last night we returned to Madison again, this time at a new downtown venue called The Brink Lounge, an upscale restaurant and bar that is connected to a complex of other restaurants and bars. The dance floor was cozy, actually it was smaller than the stage! (Don't worry we didn't let it go to our heads :)

Thanks Madison tango people for inspiring almost a year ago for our tour!!

It is now the beginning of the end. One performance in Cincinnati to go!

Thirteenth Tango Stop - St. Paul, MN

Carmen:




The milonga was at a downtown St. Paul restaurant called Matty B's, a steakhouse with a nice bar, and an "L" shaped dance floor. It was a very social evening. A lot of the folks that came hung out, chatted, ate dinner, had their drinks and then danced a few tandas. It reminded me a lot of playing in our hometown Grand Rapids gigs at the Mezze Cafe, where we have our regular milongas.

It was great to meet up with members of Mandragora, Minnesota's premier tango orchestra. Bob Barnes, the accordionist and Scott Davies, the guitarist filled us in on the dynamics of their group, their new internet CD release that is coming out, and what arrangements they have been wor
king on. We shared common sentiments/challenges about playing in a tango band: managing band personalities, monitoring (paying for!) the alcohol consumption at restaurant gigs, holding back the tendency to turn everything into an up tempo Firpo style arrangement (aka. keeping the band from rushing!), finding the time to produce good arrangements.

Thanks to Andrea Ducane who made our performance possible. It was great to meet all of the Minnesota tango folks.

Twelfth Tango Stop - Seattle, WA

Carmen:




What a gorgeous setting, a restaurant ballroom on the harbor with a view of the city. "It actually gets more beautiful as the sun goes down because the city lights illuminate through the windows," a couple told me as I was trying to get a photo at the start of the milonga.

Arturo Newman, the milonga host and our contact person for the gig told me he likes China Harbor (a Chinese restaurant in downtown Seattle) for his milonga because it is a lot like a Buenos Aires venue, a bit dingy and a funky sound system. However, he dresses it up with table cloths and candle light so that as the evening unfolds the atmosphere is just right for social dancing.

In the end it is the people that make the event. We had a really nice time; good dancing, good energy, it made our work easy!

Eleventh Tango Stop - Eugene, OR

Carmen:




The Tango Center in Eugene Oregon is one of the few places in the country to have their own building devoted entirely to tango. The building is located right downtown and according to Greg Bryant, the caretaker and founder of the Tango Center, it is rare for tango to be seen so often in one place by the general public. Most places to tango around the country are found through knowing someone with inside information or from accessing a website or a paper that gives information about a space that is being rented for a tango event. It is no surprise that Greg can make it work, Eugene holds the largest cooperative festival in the country and has been addressing progressive social services such as offering community health insurance since the mid-60s. Eugene also has a thriving market and street vendor scene. It reminds me Madison, WI, in some ways (a town close to home) although in Eugene it is legal for women to be topless in public, and outside of Eugene there is a festival out in the mountains that involves a naked tango dance! (I am not sure if I want to go there....and I guess it is too damn cold in Wisconsin for such happenings).

According to Greg, there have been some recent struggles in downtown Eugene involving developers who want to tear down parts of downtown Eugene to rebuild a bigger and better town! Hmmmm, destroy people's homes and places of work to build new stuff. Sounds like the developers really have the well being of Eugene residents in their best interests. Urban development (or "sprawl" according to some) is not as clear cut as it may seem (no pun intended).

The good thing is that the Tango Center is still around, and even better is that since we were there the last time there are new dancers and more musicians including two tango bands :)

The Mahler Cycle

Avik:




As we drove from Seattle to Bozeman, we heard the last notes from Mahler's Ninth and final completed Symphony (he started a tenth but died before finishing it). This marked the end of our cross-country Mahler cycle.

Consider for a moment that Mahler completed his First Symphony in 1886 and his Ninth in 1911. Imagine what the world must have been like without blogs, email, automobiles, and airplanes. Nature probably played a larger role in everyone's lives. It has been documented that nature, in particular the forests and mountains outside Vienna, played a great role in inspiring Mahler's music. In fact, many of the works were written in the composer's cabin in the Alps. Mahler references nature a great deal in his music, from birdcalls in his first symphony to the dying hearbeats in his last.

In high school and college, I listened to a lot of Mahler but rarely in settings outdoors. To hear all of Mahler's works while seeing some of the landscapes that might have inspired him was a unique and enlightening experience. Here is a sample of some of the landscapes which served as our Mahler backdrop:



Mahler 1: North Ridgeville, OH to Lake Anita State Park, IA



Mahler 2: Lake Anita State Park, IA to Denver, CO



Mahler 3: Denver, CO to Taos, NM



Mahler 4: Taos, NM to Albuquerque, NM



Mahler 5: Albuquerque, NM to Joshua Tree National Park, CA



Mahler 6: San Diego, CA to Zion National Park, UT




Mahler 7: Zion National Park to Salt Lake City, UT



Mahler 8: Boise, ID to Portland, OR



Mahler 9: Seattle, WA to Bozeman, MT




Of course, Mahler is not alone in taking inspiration from nature. Many modern day composers, such as Messian, take to the woods to write their works (as do authors, academics, and others). Later this summer, Carmen and Andrew will be spending two weeks as artists in resident on secluded Isle Royale thinking about, writing, and performing music.