50th Wedding Anniversary

My wife and I have been retired for several years, and after retirement, the next big occasion is the 50th Wedding Anniversary. The 50th high school reunion actually preceded this big occasion, but since I had not seen those people in 50 years, I decided to skip that commemeration. That probably was a mistake, but I had reservations about seeing what 50 years did to all those people I knew and remember as teenagers. In any case, my wife and I faced what to do to celebrate the benchmark anniversary. In addition, it seems to me that wedding anniversaries are not as important to young people today as to previous generations, but marriages are more fragile today than in the past and golden anniversaries probably are rarer now than in the past and will be more so in the future. Therefore, we decided not to leave it up to our family, who for us are the principle celebrants for such occasions.

We decided to host a family cruise that included the anniversary date and invited our two sons and their families, ten people, including six children from 17 months to 13 years old. My wife's brother and sister-in-law also joined us, but at their own expense. The ship made a round-trip to New England and eastern Canada, leaving from Norfolk. We all drove to the to the port, and this made getting to the ship easy and not subject to the restrictions and inconviences of air travel. The actual anniversary day was spent in port at Bar Harbor, Maine, where we had a family lunch on the patio of the Parkside Restaurant. Dinner with sparkling wine was on the ship as it sailed for Saint John, New Brunswick. A few days later, on a formal night when the family dressed for dinner, we took a family photograph, and my wife and I also posed with our six grandchildren. The cruise celebration was fun, and it marked the occasion in a way that most of our family will remember it.

In addition to Bar Harbor and Saint John, the ship visited Boston, Portland, Maine, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. We did family tours at many of these ports, but my brother-in-law and I took a tour to the Cog Railway at Mount Washington, New Hampshire from Portland, and my wife and I took a tour to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia from Halifax. My wife and I had visited some of these ports in the past, but Saint John and Portland were new to us. I had thought about a visit to L. L. Bean in Freeport from Portland, as I am a big fan of their clothing, but an uncle, who is a train buff, encouraged me to see the Cog Railway, and I was not disappointed. Besides, L. L. Bean has a large store not far from the harbor in Portland.





The Cog Railway, built in the 1860s, now uses both steam and diesel engines and climbs to the summit of Mount Washington at 6,288 feet above sea level (from the Marshfield Base Station at 2700 feet). For us, the summit was wet and foggy. The view must be spectacular on clear days, but we found ourselves "above the clouds."

Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site, with many charming and historic structures from the 18th century. It is a famous fishing port and was home to the Bluenose, the winner of four international schooner races from 1921 to 1931 (See the Canadian dime for her likeness). The Bluenose II is now docked there. I had a great lunch of fresh mussels on the porch of the Rumrunner Restaurant with a splendid view of harbor.

Bluenose II

Boston was the final stop before returning to Norfolk. We took the Old Town Trolley Tour to get around the city and to see the sights. We visited the usual sites (Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, the USS Constitution, Trinity Church, Fenway Park, etc.), bought a Harvard tee shirt, and had lunch at Skipjack's at Copley Square. We had a day at sea to recuperate before arriving in Norfolk. It was a memorable 50th wedding anniversary for us.

The Site of Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico

The archaeological site of Izapa is in the Mexican state of Chiapas, only a few miles from the Mexican border with Guatemala on the Pacific coastal plain. I had the opportunity of visiting this site and the Soconusco Archaeological Museum in Tapachula in early May. The museum displays some of the important artifacts from the site. I was on the Holland America ship Westerdam, which was repositioning from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle, and the ship stopped at Puerto Chiapas. I know better than to expect that a tour from a cruise ship will satisfy a aficionado, in whatever he or she is really interested or knows something about. True to form, the tour gave us limited time to explore this large site, and the guide, although an earnest and intelligent young woman, had very limited knowledge about it and gave the tourists the usual spiel about blood and sacrifice. More seriously, she misidentified the plaza and ball court. In addition, a tour discharges a large number of wandering people on a site, and I really do not like to have my photographs, which I, at least in my former life, show to undergraduates and the public, cluttered with tourists in their touring clothes. Nevertheless, the tour did give me a chance to see the site I have often read about and had not seen before. I have visited most of the Mesoamerican sites of any importance, but the Pacific coast of Chiapas has always been a bit out of the way. The new port facility at Puerto Chiapas will remedy that from now on.

The Izapa tour stopped at Group F, one of six subareas of the site and the one that is located conveniently along the Interamerican Highway, but north of the main site area. It also is the group that the New World Archaeological Foundation in part reconstructed in the 1960s after excavation. However, Izapa was first settled about 3500 years ago, and archaeologists have found evidence of that settlement elsewhere (in Group A). Based primarily on ceramic sequences, Group F dates later, probably between 2000 and 600 years ago. In addition to its proximity to the highway, the better preservation of the later Group F was an important factor in its selection as the part of the site to be reconstructed and shown to tourists. The above photograph shows the Group F plaza with a monument platform (sans monument) in the left foreground, Mound 130 on the left (mostly out of the photograph), and Mound 125 in the background. Mound 125 is a complex consisting of a platform with a pyramid (temple base) at right and a several smaller mounds (one of these can be seen in the center background). All of these probably held buildings, which may have been temples, elite residences, storehouses, or whatever. These mounds of earth are faced with river cobbles, and they probably were covered with plaster and painted. There are several stone sculptures in the roofed enclosure in the center of the photograph.

The above photograph shows an I-shaped ballcourt, with the pyramid of Mound 125 in the background. The sides of the ballcourt are formed by Mound 126 on the right (and mostly out of the photograph) and two-tiered Mound 127 on the left. It is only ballcourt at Izapa and appears to be a relatively late feature. In fact, Group F may have been the last area of the site occupied.


After we had explored Group F, we were put back on the bus, which then headed for Tapachula. The guide passed around the above photograph, which was labeled Mound 30. Mound 30 is in Group A at Izapa, and it is within that mound that the earliest evidence of settlement at the site was found by archaeologists. However, we were not given the chance to visit that mound or the several stone sculptures there (in the photograph they are the things protected by small the grass ramadas). This early settlement and the influence it received from the Olmec and then presumably transmitted to the Maya of the lowlands is the major importance of this site. Interestingly, the photograph of Mound 30 was passed through the bus without explanation and with a number of other photographs of plants, birds, and other things of local note. The tour then headed for a tilapia farm!

Eventually we reached Tapachula. There in the center of the city is the Tapachula Cultural Museum (above photograph), and inside it is the Soconusco Archaeological Museum. The museum houses artifacts, including stone sculpture, from Izapa. At least, the artifacts that were not taken to Mexico City (to the National Museum of Anthropology) or to Tuxtla Gutierrez (Chiapas state museum).



The above photograph shows Olmec figurines, some of which could have been found at Izapa. The Olmec culture, with its distinctive art style, appears to have developed on the east coast of Mexico, and these figurines are evidence of Olmec influence (people, trade, and/or ideas) in the early period of the settlement of Izapa and the Pacific coastal plain.

The above photograph is of Stela 25 from Group A, which is in the Tapachula museum. It shows a human figure (right) standing above a conch shell and opposite an alligator (its head is near the figure's feet) from which a tree grows. The human figure holds a snake and a staff on which sits a large bird. The stela is from volcanic tuff , is broken at the top, and was removed from the site by vandals. Its meaning can only be conjectured. The museum does not have some of the more famous stelae from Izapa: the beautifully carved Stela 5 from Group A, which has a tree of life and seven human figures, and the grisly Stela 21 from Group D, which has a priest carrying a severed human head. I guess I will have to be content to view other people's photographs of those.

You can read bits and pieces about Izapa in just about any textbook or reference book about Mesoamerican archaeology, but the primary references that discuss the excavation and the details about the site are the Papers 25 (1969), 30 (1973), and 31 (1982) of the New World Archaeological Foundation at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It was an interesting visit, but I guess the best thing about it was that it prompted me to research the site in more detail. Labeling tour photographs, and you should always label all photographs, always does that for me.

Mountain Lake Elderhostel

The recent elderhostel at Mountain Lake addressed the natural history of the lake area and of the Appalachia region. I enjoy visiting Mountain Lake whenever I can, and I have found that the elderhostel programs there are a good way of doing it. As usual, there were many interesting people to meet, things to learn, and activities to enjoy. The lake itself is down, so one of the activities that I always look forward to, fishing, was not possible.

The photograph above was taken from the was lake side in 2005. The lake now looks like a quarry, and the water is only 60 feet deep at its deepest location at the north end of the lake. When the lake is full it is nearly twice that depth. I was told that the lake loses 600 gallons of water per minute from a crack in its bottom.

The above photograph was taken from the north end of the lake in the summer of 2005. The lake then was down from 2004, but only slightly in comparison to today. What causes this fluctuation? It is a natural phenomenon that results from diminished precipitation and possibly recent earth movements in the area. Nevertheless, the lowered lake had only a minor impact on my enjoyment of the elderhostel and the beautiful resort at Mountain Lake.

The lodge is beautiful, the food is great, and the people are friendly. The weather also is very pleasant: it is at least ten degrees cooler than in Blacksburg and makes for very pleasant sleeping.

My last photograph for this post is from the elderhostel program orientation. Less than half the time was spent in a classroom, but classroom time is necessary if you want to be able to understand what you see outside. It's time well spent.

Starting a Blog

One of the topics at the Natural History of Appalachia's Mountain Lake elderhostel last week was Nature Journaling. The speaker spent some time on electronic journals and encouraged us to create a nature blog. At the end of her presentation, she asked us to write a practice blog. The following is mine.

Nature Blog

Mountain Lake, Virginia

June 27, 2008

Things I saw during a five-day stay:

a smaller lake

creatures in a stream

distant mountains

a waterfall

a chestnut-sided warbler

dying hemlocks

large and small trees sharing the forest

thunderstorm passing by

This is just a moment in nature's timescale.

Since I have been writing journals on paper for some time, I decided to try setting up a real blog. I am interested in nature and archaeology, and because I am retired, I chose the title you see on the top of the page.