Tours of Washington DC Attractions: Contact Your Senator or Representative

In another week, we'll be off to Washington DC for a week, followed by a week in coastal Virginia. In DC you can arrange to tour many of the significant sites on your own, but the best way to make sure you can get tours of major attractions in the nation's capital is by contacting your senator or representative, whose staff arranges tours for constituents. We did this the last time we visited DC, three years ago, and we're doing it again (with a new senator, Mark Udall) this time.

All of our national representatives have websites, and you can find yours by Googling "office of Senator so-and-so." On the front page of the site will be a link that says something like "Visiting DC." This will take you to a page with some instructions and a form to fill out indicating the dates of your visit and what available tours you're interested in.  Fill out the form, send it off, and wait to hear from the staff member (in our case, Lauren in Sentaor Udall's office) in charge of arranging tours. The process can take a while, since the senator or representative's staff acts as a liaison between you and the agency that handles tours for the sites you'd like to visit.

You should submit requests five to six weeks in advance of your visit, and there are no guarantees about getting the tours you request, especially if you travel at busy times. You should also be open to possibilities other than your first or second choices. Last time we went, we weren't able to get a couple of the tours we asked for, so the senator's staff asked if we would like a Library of Congress tour. It turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip, and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in books, history, or architecture.

The White House, which was still in post-9/11 mode and not doing tours on our visit to DC three years ago, has now re-opened to tours for the public. However, groups must consist of ten people or more, so each state's Congressional delegation works together to form groups for the tours. Because of that, you may not know until fairly close to the beginning of your trip whether you will get a White House tour or not.

This time we requested tours of the Capitol (which we had done last time but wanted to do again), the White House, the Pentagon, and the Supreme Court. Other choices available were the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Lauren was able to arrange for us to tour all of our requested sites except the Supreme Court, which she explained wasn't available because the limited number of tickets available were already taken for the time we would be in DC (but she told us about the Courtroom lectures that are held when the Court is not in session, which we could attend). We're also invited to stop by the senator's office to pick up passes for the Senate gallery so we can observe proceedings.

We have written instructions for each tour about where to go, when to be there, and what we can take in with us (which is pretty restrictive in most cases and different depending on what facility you're touring). Bringing those instructions along is important so you can keep straight what you can bring where. Names submitted to the senator's office must match the names on your IDs, and the Pentagon requires two forms of ID for adults. While heightened security is a fact of life these days, it is a shame that some places are still not open for public tours. For example, I took a fascinating tour of FBI Headquarters in 1985, complete with a weapons firing demonstration, but the FBI currently continues to be closed for tours.

It is possible to arrange tours on your own, by going to individual websites; however, we've found it's just so much easier to go through your senator or representative's office, and you'll sometimes end up in a special tour group, rather than the one that's open to the general public.

On our own, we've arranged for a tour of the State Department. (Click on the "About State" link and scroll to the bottom of the page to find the "Tour the State Department" link.) We're also hoping to visit the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, but we'll have to line up for tours and take our chances.

When we're not touring, we've filled in our schedule with monuments and museums, and of course we're looking forward to sampling the good food to be found all through the District.

Follow the trip here on my blog and on Twitter @worldisabook.

Annette

Oregon Wine Tour for Two (plus our driver, of course)

We love visiting wineries, especially when we don't have to drive from one to another, but it's hard to find wine tour companies that accommodate a party of two.  When we were planning our trip to Portland, Oregon, for earlier this year, we intended to use Portland's excellent public transportation system (which is free in the downtown area), and we could easily take light rail from the airport to our hotel, so the expense of a rental car didn't make sense. But we also wanted to spend a day touring Willamette Valley wineries.

After looking at a whole lot of websites that said, "Oh yeah, we'd be happy to take your group of 10 or 15 or 20 on a wine tour in our buses," or "Oh yeah, we'd be happy to take the two of you on a wine tour in our snazzy limousine and charge an arm, a leg, and your famlily dog," I'd just about given up on the idea that we could find an affordable wine tour with a car and driver.

But then I found Oregon Wine Tours, run by Ron Burke (above, on the left).  Ron's company focuses on small groups of 2 to 10 and offers a variety of reasonably-priced options that range from self-drive iteneraries through guided tours to VIP and romance packages.  We chose the Premium Tour Package, which included pick up and drop off service at our downtown hotel, a full-day tour visiting four boutique wineries in the Willamette Valley, and a stop for lunch.  Most of the wineries Ron features waive their tasting fee for his tour groups, which makes the day that much more affordable.  Ron runs tours 7 days a week, all year long.

Ron picked us up at 9 a.m. at our hotel.  We began asking him questions right away and discovered he is very knowledgeable about wine.  We had a fascinating discussion as we drove through the beautiful Dundee Hills wine region.  We learned about the effects on wine of the microclimate and different soils of the hills and valleys, as well as the history of the area's development as a wine region and its winemaking families.

We visited Anderson Family Vineyard, a family-owned, low-tech, small-batch (about 1,000 cases a year) operation founded in 1992.  They don't do a lot of tastings for the public, but they will for Ron's groups.  We loved their pinot noir and found their chardonnay surprisingly good (we're not really chardonnay fans).  We learned about their gravity feed method of moving the wine and why they feel it's better than using pumps. 

Adelsheim Vineyard is another family-owned winery founded in 1971.  They have a beautiful new tasting room in which we had a lovely selection of cheese and crackers to go with our wine tastes, and we learned about their unusual labels that feature art portraits of women associated with the winery.  Great pinot there, too, and they sell their wines on line. 

Domaine Drouhin is owned by a French family that also has vineyards in Burgundy, and their pinot noirs, first planted here in 1988, have much more of a dry, French character than the other wines we tasted.  Their approach to planting and cultivating their vines is very different from most wineries in the area.  Sometmes you can taste a wine from their Burgundy vineyards in their tasting room, as well. 

Patton Valley Vineyard, founded in 1995, was our last stop.  More lovely pinot noir here, and several regulars sipping away in the cozy tasting room.  Patton's wines are also available for online purchase.  This winery has now gone to 100% screw caps on their bottles, which seems to be the wave of the wine future.  You can get a short lesson in screw caps for great wine here (you'll need to scroll down a ways to find the article).

All of the wineries offered the option of ordering half-cases to be shipped, so you can drink their wine at home without breaking the bank.

Ron delivered us to our hotel in Portland about 6 p.m.  We were relaxed from the glow of our wine tasting and still had plenty of time to go out for a nice dinner that night.  We knew a whole lot more about pinot noir and the Dundee Hills viticulture region than we did that morning.  And we were looking forward to some great pinot noirs arriving via UPS when we got home.

Thanks for reading my blog!
Annette  

What I've Been Reading: "The Last Dickens"

The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow, has lots of very promising elements. I like literary mysteries, unlikely heroes, Charles Dickens, and stories filled with interesting historical details. London (my favorite city in the world) and Boston (right up there on my list of favorites) are perfect settings for such stories. The protagonist, Boston book publisher James Ripley Osgood, is a historical person and very unlikely hero who interacts with a mixed cast of historical and fictional characters in a story that mixes historical and fictional events. Perfect, right?

The story is a mystery about a mystery: it posits that Dickens’s last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, is a thinly-disguised fictionalization of the story of an actual young man from the neighborhood of Dickens’s country home. But Dickens has died with the novel only half-finished, and Osgood, partner in a struggling Boston publishing firm that is Dickens’s authorized American publisher, must try to find any additional manuscript pages Dickens might have finished before he died. The lack of international copyright laws means that whoever gets their hands on any pages first can publish them and make a fortune for their firm. Osgood has to contend with dangers that range from annoying to life-threatening from other folks who want to beat him to the manuscript (which may or may not exist).

But, from beginning to end, The Last Dickens remains an idea with great potential that suffers in the execution. I found the structure of the story, which shifts from the “present” in which Dickens has just died to a recent past in which he is touring America for the last time, difficult to follow (and what is the India thing with Dickens’s son doing popping in and out of the narrative?).

Osgood is a decent guy, if a bit stiff, but I didn’t find him believable as the semi-action hero Pearl tries to turn him into toward the end. The other characters should be interesting, but come off flat or exaggerated – and they all kinda talk the same. The insights into the cutthroat world of publishing in the latter half of the 19th century are interesting, but the main publisher-villain and the main opium-trade-villain both pretty much talk us to death. The prose is in need of an editor with a ruthless attitude toward adverbs and extraneous words, and who will whisper sweet nothings in the author’s ear like, “Show, don’t tell.”

It should have been a good story, but when I put it down it never drew me back with that irresistible desire to find out what happens next. By about the halfway point, I was reading to get it over with–while still hoping it might get better. It’s always disappointing to find a promising premise that doesn’t manage to deliver. Reading this book was like being a die-hard baseball fan whose team just can’t put together a win. I kept rooting for the story to make a base hit, even when all hope was lost.

Pearl does throw in a lot of Boston and London atmosphere and interesting historical details (like the description of the “moving parlor” elevator in a Boston building), but too often the detail interferes with the story. For instance, the murderous bad guy is literally on Osgood’s heels when Osgood enters the moving parlor in an effort to escape him. The action stops dead as we learn about the interesting elevator; once it picks up again, the momentum is gone.

Read the book for its historical details--many quite fascinating--about 19th century Boston, London, Kent, the publishing industry, Dickens, and travel. But don’t expect a page-turner that will keep you up past your bedtime.

Links to some other reviews:
New York Times
Boston Globe
Christian Science Monitor
Washington Post

Thanks for reading my book and travel blog!

Annette

"Up North" and Back Again in Michigan

Before leaving Holland State Park, we walked out to the Big Red Lighthouse. Lighthouses dot the shores of the Great Lakes, and a lighthouse tour of the Great Lakes can be a wonderful way to organize a vacation in the northern Midwest. We only had time for Big Red on this trip, but it's a nice walk along the shore out to the light and then beyond to the breakwater that guards the channel connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Macatawa.

The waves on Lake Michigan were six to eight feet that day, so we got to see some spectacular splashes on the breakwater, though swimming was out of the question.

Monday we headed for Alma, the town where I was born. We poked around cemeteries and went to look at houses where family members had lived. One thing that hadn't changed was that there isn't much in the way of eating to be had in Alma, except for pizza and burgers.

Mount Pleasant, just a few miles north, was a nice surprise, though. At the New Holland Brewing Company, Bill had picked up a publication of the Michigan Brewers Guild and we've been on the "brewpub tour of Michigan" since. Mountain Town Station in Mount Pleasant is in a historic train depot (not a mountain in sight -- this is central Michigan, after all -- but the name aside, we had a great meal there). We had steaks outside on the patio accompanied by an excellent IPA and very good service. Unlike most brewpubs we've encountered, this one also has a big wine room where you can buy a bottle to have with your dinner (for a modest corkage fee) or to take home.

Going "Up North" has been a Michigan tradition for decades, so we spent a day up at Higgins Lake where my family owned a cottage when I was a kid. It's a gorgeous, clear lake with a sandy bottom. Unfortunately, Higgins Lake is also a place where there's not much in the way of eating to be done, so we drove up to Grayling, which is a center for river paddling in the summer. We had lunch at Spike's Keg O Nails, a local institution. Spikes opened the day after Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and provides a real Up North experience. Casual, friendly service, decent food, okay beer selection, lodge decor.

Our next destination was Ann Arbor, where I went to grad school twenty years ago, and where we knew we wouldn't have any problem finding a good meal. But on the way, we consulted our brewpub guide again and stopped in at Redwood Lodge, home of the Redwood Brewing Company, in Flint. Again, there wasn't a redwood in sight (aren't there nifty Michigan things people can name their places after?), but the lodge decor was very well done, and this was another brewpub with a big wine room. We tried the kolsch, the ESB, and the IPA -- all good -- along with our blackened chicken sandwich and baked mac and cheese. Excellent, friendly service once again.

After wandering around the University of Michigan campus and in Ann Arbor, we tried yet another brewpub last night, Grizzly Peak Brewing Company (no grizzlies or peaks here, either -- sheesh). Sliders, IPA, stout, and a root beer float for dessert -- all good. Lunch today, after we saw the new Harry Potter film, was at the Parthenon Restaurant, and was another good eating experience: saganaki, gyros, and Mythos beer. The service was friendly and attentive, and the staff helped us remember the very rudimentary Greek we had learned for our trip to Athens last fall.

Tomorrow we head for Kalamazoo -- more brewpubs there, too. Thanks for reading my blog!

Annette

Holland, Michigan -- Relax and Refresh

This is our 5th day in Holland, Michigan, and we've been relaxing too much to turn on the computer more than a couple times. But it's Sunday morning, we've had yet another wonderful B&B breakfast, and it seemed like a good time to share this part of our travel adventure.

We've been staying at the Crimson Cottage in the Woods, a lovely, purpose-built B&B that's been in business about two years. Kathy and Michael, our hosts, are fun and interesting to talk to and great sources of information on the area. The breakfasts have been outstanding, served in their sun room that looks out through the trees and onto a pond. Our room is spacious and comfortable, and the house is full of light from the large windows.

Yesterday we went to the Holland Farmers Market. The produce was abundant and very tempting, but we limited ourselves to some sweet cherries. While we resisted the pies, we bought some cracker bread that was excellent with organic cheese later in the evening.

We're visiting with family who are staying in their trailer at the Holland State Park, on the shore of Lake Michigan. It's been a little cool for much in the way of beach activity, but we've had a fine time relaxing on their trailer's "patio" and watching the world go by. Every now and then, we stir ourselves to go out for something to eat or to play minigolf with our 6-year-old Perfect Nephew.

We've found some good eating places in town. The New Holland Brewery has excellent beer, good pub food, and great service. Wild Chef Japanese Steak House provided table cooking entertainment for the youngster and very good food for all of us. My hibachi filet mignon was tender and tasty (and not smothered in teriyaki sauce), and the fried rice was light and not at all greasy. Yesterday, we had a late lunch at Curragh, the Irish pub downtown. They've done a nice job with the decor to create a traditional Irish look, and they have a nice selection of beer. They were very busy on a July Saturday, and food and service were a little uneven -- not as good as at New Holland, which is right across the street.

Our other major entertainment -- besides vegetating under the trailer canopy and eating -- has been minigolf at Sundae Sundae Golf Golf at 631 E. Lakewood Blvd. The "sundae" part is locally made ice cream; the "golf golf" part is two 18-hole miniature golf courses, one more challenging than the other (though members of our party made holes in one on both of the courses). You play among trees and ponds, so it's cool and comfortable. The holes are in pretty good shape, and the course is interesting enough that we came back a second day to play the other 18 holes. It was just good old-fashioned fun, like what I remember from being a kid in Michigan (thousands of years ago...).

Downtown Holland is full of historic buildings and interesting shops. It's clear that the city has worked hard to make their downtown area vital and attractive to visitors. On Thursdays, the street is full of street entertainers playing music, doing magic, that sort of thing.

Holland has provided for both of our major needs in this first week of vacation: interesting sights, activities, and food, and a place to relax and forget about our very busy lives as innkeepers.

More later -- thanks for reading my blog!

Annette

24 Hours in Chicago (Mostly Food & Drink....)

Chicago is a city that never fails to delight me. It's the first big city I ever visited -- and that wasn't till I was in high school. My family were small-town Michigan people who never saw any reason on earth to go to Detroit. When we moved to DeKalb, Illinois, in 1965 we pretty much avoided Chicago, too. But then came a high school field trip (I think our primary destination was the Museum of Science and Industry) during which we were allowed a little time to buy love beads on Rush Street during the height of the hippie era. That first trip didn't make me entirely comfortable with cities, but it was an introduction to their enchantments.

We spent last Tuesday night in Chicago at the Westin Michigan Avenue, just two blocks from the Water Tower and right across the street from the John Hancock Building, which had been the tallest building in Chicago when I made that first trip. We wanted a chance to walk around the city and have some great food before we headed off to Michigan for two weeks of lakes, trees, and less urban delights.

After stashing our bags, we headed over to Rush Street for a pint of Goose Island Brewery's Honkers Ale at Pippin's Tavern, a place of dark wood and tin ceilings where you can order food from Downtown Dogs, the hot dog joint next door. We skipped the hot dogs, though, and just wandered the neighborhood, which is often a great way to find dinner (sometimes not so great, of course, but ya takes yer chances). On the near north side there are so many good choices that you can hardly go wrong.

We spotted a sign that said "Spanish Cuisine," and since we're thinking about a trip to Spain next year, checked it out. It turned out to be 1492 Tapas Bar at Superior and Wabash, which ended up providing us with a trio of delights: the chance to eat outside in balmy July weather (rather than the usual Midwestern hot, sticky July weather) and watch the very interesting world go by, an excellent tapas meal, and an opportunity to explore the Victorian mansion that houses the restaurant -- you know, one of those lovely old townhouses that you walk by and think, "Gosh, I wish I could see what that looks like inside." The original woodwork and stained glass are preserved beautifully, and all you have to do is visit the bathroom to see them.

We enjoyed crab cakes, a mixed grill of bite-sized pieces of meats distinctively but gently seasoned, a plate of olives, onions and pickles, and grilled asparagus with prosciutto. We also got lucky because Tuesday is their half-price wine night, so we had a bottle of Dona Paula malbec for only $25.

More wandering ensued, till we ended up back at the Westin for a nightcap at The Grill on the Alley, which is decorated like a Victorian gentlemen's club, but the walls are literally covered, wainscoting to ceiling, with an eclectic mix of lithographs and line drawings. Service at the bar was friendly, knowledgeable, and competent, and we savored glasses of port in the shadow of John Hancock. Not having had room for dessert right after dinner, we asked if the bartender could have two desserts, the vanilla ice cream and the fresh strawberries, combined for us to share. The special order was no problem and a delicious ending for the evening.

Wednesday morning, before heading out for Holland, our first stop in Michigan, we wandered over to the lake shore and through part of the Northwestern University campus, then back over to Superior to a restaurant we'd noticed the night before, Pierrot Gourmet in the Peninsula Hotel. The outdoor dining area was full, but we were able to get a table in a open doorway, half indoors and half out. We had a hearty French country breakfast -- Alsatian scrambled eggs and breakfast bread pudding -- that kept us satisfied all the way till dinner.

I write this in the sun room of our B&B in Holland, Michigan. Sun shines through the pines, birds visit the feeder, and we're getting ready to go spend the afternoon at the Lake Michigan beach. More later....

Thanks for reading my blog.

Annette

Before the Founding Fathers -- Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates"

I haven't thought much about the Puritans in a very long time, but I just finished reading Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates, which is an entertaining (and from time to time, annoying) re-introduction to the founders of the Massachussetts Bay Colony and to the dissidents who broke away to found the colony of Rhode Island in the 17th Century.

Virginia Heffernan, who reviewed the book for The New York Times, said this, "My experience of the book: I kept being annoyed, and I kept reading." Vowell makes you feel as if you're chatting with a cheeky insider on Puritan history. The combination of history, smarty-pants commentary, and personal details of Vowell's pretty-interesting life and times reads like an extended conversation with somebody who knows a lot, thinks a lot, and really wants you to be entertained by her stories. Not all of her jokes work, not all of her breezy, let-me-cast-this-in-21st-century-colloquialism riffs work -- but lots of them do. I often smiled with delight, sometimes chuckled to myself, and now and then laughed out loud as I, like Heffernan, "kept reading."

Part of the appeal of Vowell's writing is that she is smart-alecky funny. But the ironic detachment and "duh" moments are balanced by the occasional unexpected corny meltings, as when she talks about being moved by Governor John Winthrop's vision of Boston as a "city on a hill" established to be a beacon for the world. She admires the striving for goodness and the reaching for impossible dreams and the courage that brought people to New England in 1630 and caused them to lay down the basis for many of the elements that have become exceptional about America. If she were just being snarky about the whole Puritan experiement, this book would hardly have kept Heffernan and me turning pages.

By the time I finished The Wordy Shipmates, I felt I'd had an entertaining, insightful (and, yes, sometimes annoying) review of Puritan settlement of America and of how their attitudes and principles have affected our lives today for better and for worse. I also wished that I'd had Sarah Vowell along with me in the late '80s and early '90s when I lived in New York and spent many weekends and short vacations exploring New England. Those would have been much richer trips.

The picture is of Anne Hutchinson's trial before the civic fathers of the Massachussetts Bay Colony. Read Heffernan's review here. Another review by Tim Gebhart gives more information about the book. And here is what Heller McAlpin said about Vowell's book in The Christian Science Monitor.

Day after tomorrow we're off on our vacation to that exotic destination, Michigan. Actually, a more interesting place than folks might think.... I'll let you know what we find there.

Thanks for joining me on adventures through books and the world!

Annette