Hill of Crosses and the Curonian Spit (Sept. 2003)

From Lithuania Diary:

From the missile base we drove to the Hill of Crosses, a hill in Lithuania where millions and millions of crosses have been erected. It's quite a strange sight indeed. It was bulldozed multiple times by the Soviets, yet sprouted again each time. There are crosses on crosses on crosses. Our old but trustworthy BMW shared the roadways with dozens of hitchhikers angling for rides, with horse-drawn wagons, with people marching to who-knows-where along the roadside, with tractors, with the long-distance busses, with kids selling mushrooms, each with a huge assortment in an overflowing basket.

( another picture )

On Saturday I rented a bicycle and took the ferry from Klaipeda down to the Curonian Spit, cycled to the fine-grain whitesand beaches, waded in the cold waters of the Baltic, searched for amber but found only what must be "fool's amber," some amber-colored hard stone that also washes up on the beaches. Bicycled all day through the forests, to the huge dunes, nearly to the russian border. In the forests Lithuanians pass quietly, gathering mushrooms: pensioners, children with manifest elfen genes, middle aged people too. They have baskets overflowing with huge mushrooms. You don't see them till you stop and then you notice them gliding through the forests. Watched the sunset over the Baltic.

( two more pictures )

On the ferry back to Klaipeda I saw in the port, highlighted by the setting sun, the vast Scandlines ferry, the ferry that sails daily from Klaipeda to Karlshamn, a Swedish city near Kristianstad, down in the southern bit of Sweden by Malmö. Malmö is the way home, and here was a ride, so close at hand. ...

( maps of southern lithuania and the baltic region )

(no subject)

holy @@@!!

http://buffalo.craigslist.org/

there is a craiglist within 76 miles now!

rochester oddities

• The front door to this house has a deadbolt that locks from both sides. That means you need a key to leave if the lock is locked. They say that this is so that someone can't break the window, reach around, and unlock the door.... but that seems pretty stupid in light of the obvious safety concerns. (And if someone breaks a window, they might as well climb in through the window.) AFAIK, this is illegal in California.

• On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you can park on one side of the street. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Weekends, you have to park on the other side of the street. This means that you have to move your car from one side of the street to the other every day if you park on the street, and you have to do this between 10am and 11am. Maybe this is why everyone here has ridiculously long driveways. Even though they have to shovel snow from these ridiculously long driveways.

AAA considered harmful?

"People don't join AAA for ideological reasons," says Kaehny. "My parents are AAA members, and when I tell them what the AAA national office does, they go, 'Oh my God, is that true?' And that's the reaction you get from almost everyone."

While AAA ("triple-A") presents itself as a good and wholesome organisation dedicated to the pleasure of roadtripping and motor-touring (not to mention giving you the occassional map, tow, jump-start, and key-extraction), it's been brought to my attention that AAA May Be Evil. Of course California's AAA denies it, albeit rather weakly; their lobbying FAQ denies just about all complaints. Washington's AAA has something to say as well. Nonetheless, there is a certain logic to the thought that an automobile association would at best not promote mass transit or bicycle interests. Motivation was apparently sufficient to form a travel club that provides a greener alternative to AAA, and the resulting entity is called the Better World Club. Discuss.