One dozen destinations #6: Teton Village

Teton Village was such a let-down I did not
take any pictures there. This is from the tram
up Rendezvous Mountain.

     I don't think Teton Village is as well-known as some of the other places I'm serving up to you while I'm cooling my head in a pan of water. But it certainly was memorable when my boys and I visited it in 2009. This is from "The Quest for Pie," my unpublished memoir of that trip.

     Forced out of the lodge, we could have returned to the Virginian. But that seemed a failure of imagination. Been there, done that. I figured Teton Village would be worth exploring. I hadn’t done any research, but it had a nice sound to it: “Teton Village.” 

     Driving there, civilization certainly fell away — suddenly we were navigating a single lane dirt road cutting through the middle of a golden wood. That seemed promising. “Perhaps,” I told the boys, “we will be charmed by the Teton villagers and their rustic ways.” Okay, I didn’t really think there would be an indigenous people, wearing seal skins, demonstrating their totem pole carving techniques. But I thought maybe there would be local craft shops or something. 

     The moment we arrived at Teton Village I saw that coming here was a mistake — another mistake. We were at a ski resort in summer, one big, decaying 1970s lodge after another, with nothing else to recommend the place. Not rustic, but run-down, not uncrowded, but empty. There were no craft boutiques, there were hardly any stores of any kind. An abandoned bedroom community. 

      Our hotel had a pool with lots of chairs facing a huge parking lot as if it were the sea. Peeling paint and old dark brown stained redwood walls. In our room, a freestanding air-conditioner — an odd, unexpected device that made the place look foreign, like a hotel room in Bolivia. The boys flipped on the TV while I left to explore the town. 

      There was an alpine tram up Rendezvous Mountain but, given Kent’s balking at Inspiration Point, taking him up a far taller mountain did not seem wise. Beyond that, nothing, not even a decent place for dinner. There was one Italian restaurant, but it was fancy, the kind of restaurant you’d take your prom date to share a bottle of Lancers Rose. Just the idea of putting on a suit jacket was repulsive, and I couldn’t see us eating there in our hiking boots and shorts.

      Thinking about dinner, I stopped in the local grocery — the Mangy Moose — that was really a glorified liquor store with a small food section. The place smelled strongly of dog — there was an Irish setter prowling the aisles. I took a long walk through the liquor section, just looking at the bottles — this would be a good night for it — then shook off the thought with an actual shiver, rather dog-like myself, like a collie shaking off water, then gathered a chunk of cheese, a loaf of bread and a salami and beat it out of there. 

      The boys mashed together some nourishment in front of the television. I sat at the pool, looked at the Tetons, and realized we had to get busy tomorrow. The devil makes work for idle hands.

Northshore Notes: Better Late than Never

     Happy October! EGD Northshore correspondent Caren Jeskey and I are very different people, luckily for her. But we do keep discovering similarities in outlook, such as our sharing the Big Love for architect Jeanne Gang. When the University of Chicago Press asked me to write my upcoming book, a daily history of Chicago, my very first thought was: "I've got to get Jeanne Gang in there." And I did.

     Although today's post underscores a difference: just because I need a vacation doesn't mean our indefatigable Saturday essayist needs one too. Caren isn't about to neglect her duties just because the cat's away. So I'm pleased to pause my "Dozen Destinations" space filler to share her Saturday report. Another snippet of my 2009 travelogue returns Sunday. 

By Caren Jeskey

     Chicago continues to surprise and amaze me. A friend called to say she could not make it to my September birthday dinner, so she suggested a local kayak trip instead. We met at the WMS Boathouse last Saturday morning, which Jeanne Gang designed. As a Gang fan, I was delighted. The structure was completed back in 2013, yet it had not been on my radar. 

     One of the buildings houses rowing training equipment and an education center complete with padded benches nestled into the woodwork, and a library of books children can take home. The design is fresh and crisp with skylights, floor to ceiling windows, and light colored wood ceilings and staircases. Gang earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s silver LEED score for the sustainability factor of the building. 
     In Gang’s words, “Ecologically, the overall goal of a healthy river led the design team to focus on diverting stormwater from the city’s combined sewer system, one of the largest impediments to improved water quality. The boathouse’s roof drainage elements and site design together function as its stormwater management system, diverting 100 percent of runoff from the sewer. Green infrastructure—porous concrete and asphalt, native plantings, gravel beds, and bioswales (rain gardens)—is used to store and filter runoff before slowly releasing this filtered water back into the river. Existing habitats were maintained and strengthened with a mix of native grass, plants, and trees, and silt fabric prevented compaction and erosion during construction. These efforts serve as a model for softening the river’s edge, supporting its ongoing revitalization. With structural truss shapes alternating between an inverted 'V' and an 'M,' the roof achieves a rhythmic modulation that lets in southern light through the building’s upper clerestory. In summer, the clerestory lets in fresh air, while in winter, it allows sunlight to warm the floor slab, minimizing energy use throughout the year."
     Then it was time to get into the water ourselves. Boat stewards fitted us with life jackets and expertly placed our single person kayaks into the river. They gave us step by step guidance on how to get in and out of the boats. The last time I dismounted a kayak was back in Austin, which ended in an unplanned lake dip. Thankfully, I managed to avoid a dunk this time.
     We set off northbound from the dock between Belmont and Addison at a leisurely pace. Regal herons perched on concrete slabs and tree branches. One took flight right over us, showing us its 6’ wingspan and graceful ability to soar. It was a cloudy day, so turtles were not sunbathing along the shore, but a few peeked their heads out of the water to check us out as we floated along.
     Folks who are interested can take part in planning river development on October 1 and 6 for the South Branch and Bubbly Creek areas.
     After our relaxing water jaunt, we took a short walk past The Garden bike park. We watched cyclists young and old landscaping dirt mounds, and doing twisty turny things in the air from atop their bikes. We headed south and saw a father and son who’d set up a Pickleball net in an empty parking lot, which reminded us that we’ve been talking about visiting the court at the new Architectural Artifacts location. We followed the path to Belmont Avenue and found a sweet view of the city.
     When it was time to leave this burgeoning nature oasis in the city, we headed to Avondale Coffee Club with our laptops to get some work done. Turns out, the pair of friends who founded the shop were there to regale us with stories about their establishment. Jacqueline and Adam let us know that everyone who works there functions as equals, like a well-oiled family. They bought their first 150 pound bag of beans from a farmer in Guatemala via an Instagram post about seven years ago, and the rest is history. They source most of their coffee beans through Golden Mountain Coffee Growers whose mission is to "fight poverty through quality coffee." Jacqueline roasts the coffee at Reprise Roasters in Libertyville. She won a Gold Medal for her "Double Anaerobic Fermentation Category 3: Filter" last month at Golden Bean, the "world's largest coffee roasting competition," and is heading to the Word Championship in Hawaii later this year.
     We also met Kati, their business partner and Adam's life partner, as well as teammates Brian and Zach. They are celebrating three years at their Evanston location today and this evening, where they are offering a rare 20 percent discount on their beans from 5-8pm.
     Damn you, mortality. I wonder how many amazing finds Jeanne Gang, the gang at Reprise, and other talented locals have in store for us? If only we could live forever and find out.

One dozen destinations #5: Old Faithful

     I'm on vacation. To keep you entertained, or at least occupied, I'm sending you to various garden spots visited by myself and my boys in my unpublished and no doubt unpublishable 2009 memoir, "The Quest for Pie."

     “Well that was an experience,” Kent said, as we reached the van. No one replied. 

      Yellowstone must have a doctor somewhere. I checked the map to find the medical office — marked by a Swiss cross — and while I was at it, double-checked the trailhead we had parked at. I had picked the wrong parking lot. The trailhead we had wanted was … 13 miles away. 

      Our visit to the Yellowstone clinic is a brief lesson in why the nation’s medical system costs so much. I figured something had bitten Ross and his eye was swollen shut in reaction to it. Give him a Benadryl and wait. That seemed a reasonable assessment of the situation. But a parent has fears — you might say that fear and parenthood are twins. “Becoming a parent,” I used to say, when Ross was a baby, “is the sudden realization that your whole world can choke to death on a penny.” 

      As soon as I considered skipping the doctor — avoid the paperwork, the cost and the hassle — the phrase, “If only he had seen a doctor immediately, the eye could have been saved,” flashed in my mind like a neon sign switching on. And once a phrase like that forms, deliberation is over and your decision has been made. 

      Ross sat in the waiting room of the small clinic, quietly reading a book with his one good eye. My heart swelled with love to see that. I went over the paperwork with the nurse, who assured me, incorrectly, that my insurance would cover this. 

     A doctor examined Ross — looks like a buffalo mite bite, he said. Give him a Benadryl and it should go away in a few days. That’ll be $267. 

     Ross’s swollen eye in one sense came as a relief. There was no way we were hiking up the Hell River Canyon with him like that. Or that’s at least what we told ourselves. We might have felt that even if his eye was fine, but either way, it wasn’t a topic of discussion. The thing to do was to proceed to Grand Teton National Park — practically next door. I phoned Edie, she got on line and found a reasonable motel — the Virginian.

     We were in the parking lot of the clinic, about to leave, when I realized there was something I had to do. I asked the boys if they wanted to go with me — they did not. So while they slumped in the car, I padded back to the geyser. It was now or never, and I couldn’t face living the rest of my life sheepishly explaining to people that, why yes, I had been to Yellowstone, but no, I had never seen Old Faithful erupt, not between my backcountry campsite fiasco and the buffalo mite incident. 

     I sat on a metal bench for about 20 minutes, waiting, eavesdropping on a black clad Goth gal — maybe 17 — complaining bitterly to her parents. About everything. At least my boys aren’t like that. Yet. 

     Eventually Old Faithful went from a smoking plume to a sputtering fountain that gushed, oh, 50 feet into the air against a cloudy, strangely winterish sky. It sounded like a leaky radiator. The geyser didn’t jet so much as vomit into the air, a wet heaving splat. Having viewed the profoundly underwhelming sight, I returned to the car, and we all bade a heartfelt farewell to Yellowstone National Park.

One dozen destinations #4: Stampede Park

     I'm on vacation. In the meantime, I've taking you to a dozen spots you might not have visited yourself. This is Stampede Park in Cody, Wyoming, as described in my unpublished and no doubt unpublishable travel memoir, "The Quest for Pie."

     After a Mexican dinner we went to Stampede Park for the Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede Rodeo, a yearly event that just happened to be taking place while we were there, an actual competition as opposed to the weekly western show held for tourists year round. We waited in line for our tickets, at window under a big sign warning foreign visitors to stay in the grandstand so as not to spread foot and mouth disease. 

     The rodeo was a charming mix of sincere patriotism and blatant commercial hoopla married to a display of roping and riding skills. We gathered on metal risers in front of an oval open-air arena filled with soft dirt, ringed with a blue fencing festooned with signs for the “U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.” and “Denny’s Guns and Maps.” The rodeo began with an enormous American flag walked into the arena, held at the edges by 18 members of the Cody Volunteer Fire Department wearing red shirts and gaiters. No flagpole outside of North Korea could fly so large a flag, so it was hoisted up the aerial ladder of their fire truck. 

     They were followed by U.S. Marines on horseback—four marines, in their dress blues, with white belts and white peaked caps, perched incongruously on four tan palomino horses. One marine held an American flag, another, a corps flag. It seemed a vision straight out of the Spanish-American War. Meanwhile, cowgirls on horses rode around them, their big sheer flags honoring Budweiser and Dodge trucks. The sun, slowly setting over the distant mountain range, poking in and out of big, billowing clouds, bathing us in a warm orange glow. 

     It was a low-key, desultory evening — minutes of waiting punctuated by seconds of bull riding and steer wrestling, team roping and barrel racing — the crowd kept entertained with stale jokes from the rodeo clowns, who wore wireless microphones. 

     “What do you call a pretty girl in Punkitown, South Carolina?” asked clown Frankie Smith, pausing before the punchline: “Lost!” 

     “You can tell he’s from Texas,” said Smith, introducing a contestant. “But that’s about all you can tell him.” 

    During the various events, the announcer would not only narrate the action, but also provide encouragement to the participants — “Git ‘er done!” he’d say, when a steer proved extra elusive to a cowboy trying to rope him. 

     It was all so colorful and rustic and cowboylike, I had a video camera in one hand and my little Nikon Coolpix in the other. I’m not sure why I took video. I was thinking of my father’s Super 8 movies of bullfights in Spain in the 1950s, and fancied it would be something we’d want to look at later. Though even as I was documenting the proceedings, it struck me that, by doing so, I wasn’t quite giving the action my full attention now.

     I also wanted a good photo of a cowboy on a bucking bronco to post on my Facebook page, and took a lot of photos toward that end. Facebook was like a new moon in the sky, exerting its own gentle tidal pull. Now I had this unseen audience of readers following our trip, watching. Since they were paying attention to me, suddenly I was paying attention to them. It was hard to freeze an action shot from so far away with the little camera, and I spent too much time trying to. Eventually I got one. The boys sat there, tired, munching on peanuts and just watching the action, which had a certain comforting repetition; like baseball, it did not demand continual or careful scrutiny. Cowboy after cowboy roped steers and rode broncos. They were awarded points on some system we didn’t bother even trying to understand, and since I wasn’t rooting for anybody we could just observe. A man came out with two enormous hump-backed white Brahman bulls and performed, standing on their backs and swinging pots of fire on cords. Clowns in yellow and red shirts would come rushing in, after the rider fell, and harass the wild horse until the fallen cowboy could scramble to his feet and lope off in the soft dirt of the arena. Young women on horseback raced each other around barrels — I guess that part did draw special interest; nothing catches a man’s attention like a bunch of racing cowgirls in snug Levi’s, cowboy hats and plaid shirts. It’s a good look. 

     Easy to see how people love this — before each ride, there was one completely still moment, when all the various rodeo handlers and hangers on, each in his cowboy hat, would be leaning over the blue metal rail, watching the cowboy brace himself on the back of his challenge — he would get settled on the sidestepping, shuddering animal, establish his grip. All would freeze for that single, delicious instant, a Western tableau, then the cowboy in the chute would give the signal, the gate would fly open and the beast would come charging out. The sun set, the rodeo ended, and, just as the audience was leaving, it started to rain. We waited for the cars to untangle themselves and leave the congested parking lot in Cody, Wyoming, the wipers slowly clicking back and forth, the rain coming down. The boys were nonplussed by the rodeo — it wasn’t something to be discussed, just another thing their father made them do. Back at the motel, they flipped on the TV and watched “Ghostbusters.”

Chicago gay bars get their due

     Surprise! While I am now on vacation, I wasn't last Friday when I wrote this. It ran in the paper Monday, and I figure I can expend the minimal energy required to share it with you here, for those unfortunates who read my blog but do not also subscribe to the Chicago Sun-Times, a lapse I really ought to lecture you about someday, after the conclusion of my "One dozen destinations" series, which returns tomorrow.

     The library in my home office is arranged according to subject, with books about birds here, presidents there. There are 28 books by and about Dante, which might seem like a lot, until you realize there are ... counting ... 41 by and about James Thurber.
     Some could go several places. “Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall,” by St Sukie de la Croix could be on the shelves of books about Chicago. But I’ve segregated it amongst books on gay history, alongside George Chauncey’s excellent “Gay New York.”

St Sukie de la Croix

     A publicist pitched de la Croix, ballyhooing his new encyclopedia of Chicago gay bars, and I couldn’t resist the chance to talk with a man the Sun-Times once dubbed “the gay Studs Terkel.”
     I know my readership well enough to understand that if I introduce a man named St Sukie de la Croix, many will spend the entire column wondering, “What’s with the name?” and miss anything else he might say. So let’s get that out of the way. Besides, I was curious myself.
     “It’s now my legal name,” he began, in a British accent. “I occasionally wrote things for mainstream papers, so when I started writing for gay papers in England, I wanted to separate the writing, straight and gay. I picked a silly name. Then I seemed to be getting more work under the silly name, and when I came to this country, everyone called me ‘Sukie.’”
     I assumed that part of his name was sort of an obscene wink.
     “No, no, no, not at all,” he said. “Once, I was married with children, I went to a fortune teller on a pier in a seaside resort. She said, ‘You’re married and you have two children and you’re bent. One day you will become a writer, first meeting a man and will leave your wife.’ Her name was Madame Sukie.”

To continue reading, click here.

One dozen destinations #3: The Badlands

     I'm on vacation. To occupy those poor souls who simply must read something of mine, and to fulfill the every goddamn day promise, sort of, while I'm taking time off, EGD will feature scenes plucked from my unpublished and probably unpublishable 2009 memoir, "The Quest for Pie."

     The farms and ranchland — gentle green rolling hills and fields — changed dramatically upon entering the park, into a beige vista of wind-sculpted rock formations, a slash in the earth stretching out in front of us. 

     We were beat from two full days of driving, and the boys were keen to get to our cabin at the Cedar Pass Lodge and relax. But I impulsively pulled off at a trailhead so we could take a closer look at these Badlands. I had to. 

     “Just a quick peek,” I told the boys. 

     I parked the car at the Door Trail lot. There was a boardwalk off to the left—composite recycled planks, wending through a gap in the dun mountainside. We followed it, the wind rippling our clothes, ruffling the tall grass on either side. 

     Kent pointed out a sign that read, “BEWARE—Rattlesnakes!” 

     “We have to take these signs seriously,” I said, half to myself, half to the boys. “But I suppose we don’t have to worry on the boardwalk.” 

     Turning a corner, and were shocked to find ourselves in a surreal moonscape. 

     We followed the boardwalk to where it abruptly ends, with a sign, another one of those stern warnings the National Park Service is so good at crafting, telling you, in essence, that if you proceed beyond this point you take your life in your hands, that people regularly get lost and die and you had better be properly equipped with the following listed items. Ross started to climb up the nearest hillside in his chunky black plastic Crocs clogs, but I called him back. 

     The boys and I stood there, looking at each other for a moment in the snapping wind, then turned and bolted for the car. I popped the rear hatch, and we began madly pulling on thick rag wool socks and hiking boots and tossing water bottles and Clif bars into a daypack as if the unearthly landscape we had just glimpsed might vanish if we weren't quick about getting back. Somehow that moment, the frenzy of preparation, leaning against the car, putting on our hiking boots, lacing and tying them as fast as our fingers could work, seemed extraordinary, almost equal to the natural glories we were hurrying to return to. Maybe because nobody complained, nobody dawdled, nobody required prodding. We ran across the boardwalk, our boots clomping, and turned the corner. The Badlands were still there. 

     Fan-tastic. 

     We spent an hour scrambling around the chalky soil, which had a slight crust to it, carefully climbing up the steep hillsides to stand, taking in the jagged horizon of peaks and crags all around us. The landscape was so jumbled, so pockmarked and broken, it became a kind of optical illusion, condensed, camouflaged, and it was tough sometimes to determine if a hillock was a mile away or a few feet in front of you. 

     “Art is nothing as to nature, boys,” I announced, taking photograph after photograph with the Nikon digital camera Edie had just given me that Father’s Day. 

One dozen destinations #2: Mitchell Corn Palace

     I'm on vacation. But no worries; I've planned ahead, and am leaving you with visits to a dozen disparate places, their only commonality being they're in America and I visited them and took photos. Yesterday we hit the Spam Museum and today we visit another popular tourist spot, continuing to use as a guide my unpublished and probably unpublishable travel memoir, "The Quest for Pie."  

     The Mitchell Corn Palace is not a palace made of corn — they tend to fudge on that fact, so I want to be clear, since the three of us were all deceived by the name, gulled into expecting a structure made of corncobs. 

     “Why’s it called the ‘Corn Palace?’’ Ross asked, as we sat on metal chairs, waiting for the introductory film to begin. 

     “Because it’s made of corn,” I said. He looked around the room. 

     “The walls aren’t.” 

     “Well, I hope the load-bearing walls aren’t, but outside…” 

     It isn’t much of a palace either, more of a grange hall with delusions of grandeur. Outside, an elaborate square brick building, festooned with Moorish onion domes and minarets and columns, yellow and green pennants snapping from the roof and murals installed on its façade — a new crop every year — made of 275,000 ears of dried corn. The murals are keyed to local attractions and dramatic national events such as the Bicentennial and the Moon Landing. This year’s theme was “America’s Destinations” with the Statue of Liberty and the Seattle Space Needle and Mount Rushmore dutifully highlighted. The overall effect is of a flattened Rose Bowl Parade float, in wall form and well executed in light beige to dark brown Indian corn hues. 

     The introductory movie was professional, history-based, with a subtle undertone of good old-fashioned prairie Calvinism. The Corn Palace, “a majestic, unique American folk art icon” also “lifts the mind above the humdrum duties of life” and is “a celebration of who we are and what we do and how we spend what little time we have in this world.” 

     After the movie, we were taken into an upper balcony, where we received a brief talk on the place by a young volunteer, who pointed out the corn tributes to the Native-Americans who once called this area their home, as if that changes anything, then shunted us into another enormous gift shop, even bigger than the Spam Museum’s. We gazed limply at a staggering expanse of Corn Palace crap—the place had not worked its magic on us, so the idea of memorializing our visit with a Corn Palace commemorative spoon or snow globe or shot glass repulsed us, and we bolted out of there, into a large concession area. Here Kent’s interest was piqued. He demanded a snack — maybe a hot dog? Some kettle corn? 

     “It’s 10:30 in the morning,” I said, “Why don’t I get your picture with the giant ear of corn?” Some poor schleb in a corn cob suit was posing with small children — a deal breaker for the boys. Too sophisticated and mature to associate with the giant ear of corn crowd. They turned the tables — why didn’t I pose with Mr. Corn? Yeah dad, you pose with him! I was about to call their bluff  — having explored the sub-cellars of public shame, the small potatoes stuff doesn’t embarrass me anymore — but kids were gathered around, waiting their turn, and while I could easily hug a guy in a corn suit, on a dare, I couldn’t push ahead of toddlers to do so.