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The Future and the Past

The Future and the Past

CannaTech Sydney 2018 is history. The inaugural Australian event, with 550 registrants from every level of the cannabis world, was a rousing success. For those who dreamed of the global cannabis revolution there is good news: the dream has arrived. For this particular cannabis veteran there was validation of the movement’s future in the form of 12-year old Rylie Maedler, the founder and president…

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Pademelons

Greetings from Queensland, Australia. I am enjoying a week with my friends Craig and Daryl before heading to Sydney for a conference on medical cannabis. Yesterday we visited Mary Cairncross Reserve, a lovely place to walk and view native flora and fauna. We had the good luck to see a Pademelon. Not familiar with the creature? Well, no worries mate!  As usual our good friends at Wikipedia can…

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Recently I had a chance to visit Vienna, Austria. You know Austria. It’s where Julie Andrews sang to the hills in the 1965 movie, “The Sound of Music.”

The sound of music really does describe a lot of Vienna’s history. Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert and Johann Strauss II, among others, were associated with the city. You can visit a room where Mozart, a precocious youngster and musical genius, dazzled his audience with his virtuosity. There are concert halls that have heard the premieres of some of the finest music known to man.

There is a lovely opera house, the Wiener Staatsoper, first built in 1869 (and rebuilt after WWII).  It was popular during the Third Reich with frequent performances of Wagner’s operas. Ironically the last performance before Allied planes started to rain bombs on the city was Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. The title “refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world.”  The bombing of Vienna must indeed have seemed like götterdämmerung.  In February and March 1945 alone there were 80,000 tons of bombs dropped on the city.

I’m a bit of a history buff, especially about WWII, and I can’t visit Europe without reflecting on the horror of that war. It’s especially easy in Vienna because the streets seem so familiar from documentaries and movies. The mind’s eye can easily visualize Nazi troops marching down the broad strasses (streets) and brave partisans lurking in bombed out buildings.  When I find myself in these places that have seen such awful destruction I often will think of a line from the Joni Mitchell song The Three Great Stimulants, “No tanks have ever rumbled through my street/And the drone of planes at night has never frightened me.” I have lived such a blessed life and certainly the #1 blessing is to have not experienced war first-hand. It is a wretched business and I am infuriated when someone of Donald Trump’s ilk throws out threats to Iran or North Korea or Venezuela. War is almost always a result of male egos.

But I digress. Back to beautiful Vienna, thankfully well recovered from world wars. It is vibrant and lovely.  I was in the city for a medical cannabis conference and I had one day for sightseeing. I spent most of that day on a “hop on/hop off” bus which I rode around the loop twice. I was just seven weeks removed from having a hip replaced and my stamina was not what it could be. I was grateful to have made the trip at all so seeing Vienna from a bus that was filled (off and on, of course) with happy people speaking languages from around the globe did not seem that bad to me. Along the way I saw lovely boulevards, historic architecture and hot rods…yes, hot rods, miniature hot rods. Out of place?  Definitely.  I laughed out loud.

  I knew I had one good foray in me in terms of walking and enjoying a particular site. It was a difficult choice. Friends who have visited the city before urged me to visit the opera house, or the Schönbrunn Palace, or one of the multitude of art museums, or the Lippizzaner stallions. But once I saw the Naturhistorisches Museum, the Natural History Museum, and learned that it has the largest display of meteorites in the world I knew where I wanted to be.

The building is imposing, with 94,000 square. It opened in 1889 and was built to hold the collections of the Royal Habsburg family. Like so many institutions of that time the design exalts art and beauty. Entering the main hallway is like walking into enlightenment.

Obviously I did not manage to visit all 94,000 sq.ft. The meteorites were up the stairs and through the mineral rooms which had an extraordinary array of rocks, ores, and gems.

  Just getting through the minerals was hard work but the gem room led to the Meteorite room and I must admit the museum has an extraordinary collection of cosmic debris.

The Knyahinya meteor, I have learned, is not exactly the largest meteor known to man but it was in 1866 when it fell to earth in the Carpathian Mountains in quite a spectacular fashion. The meteor weighs more than 600 lbs. and is quite lovely.

Knyahinya Meteor

The Meteor Room, fittingly, led to the dinosaurs and, once again, the Vienna Natural History Museum did not disappoint.

This room was populated mainly with excited children who dashed from one model and display case to another. They were too hyper to sit which left the benches more or less open. Those who did sit were tired parents and contented grandparents. Perhaps some of them, like me, were reflecting on life’s fragility. One minute you are in Eden, the largest beings on earth, munching leaves and grass contentedly when a bright light above you seems to portend a change.  Another götterdämmerung…. ❧

Vienna Recently I had a chance to visit Vienna, Austria. You know Austria. It's where Julie Andrews sang to the hills in the 1965 movie, "The Sound of Music."

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Mushrooms!

Here in Western North Carolina it has been a wet summer. Lots of rain and damp morning fogs makes for a soggy environment. I’m in the Nantahala Forest and, according to Wikipedia,

The word “Nantahala” is a Cherokee word meaning “Land of the Noonday Sun”. The name is appropriate as, in some spots, the sun only reaches the floors of the deep gorges of the forest when high overhead at midday.

Well,…

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Uh Oh ....

Uh Oh ….

Remember Buddy?  Dog of the lost collar?  I wrote about himjust the other day.  Well, that’s him snoozing on my porch.  He showed up yesterday as I was cleaning out my van (way overdue on that chore). Tango was in the van because he thinks it is his living room on wheels (he’s kinda right about that) and he doesn’t want to miss out if I’m going somewhere. So Buddy comes wiggling-waggling…

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Buddy

Meet my new friend, Buddy. I’ve written about another Buddy, the Fawn Hill Buddy who belongs to my friend Bonnie and lives just above me here on Fawn Hill. He barks to scare the thunder away … it doesn’t work.

This is a new Buddy and he lives on Potts Branch Rd. which runs just below Fawn Hill. That’s him on the left. I’ve seen him before, running free with two or three of hisbuddies. Many dogs…

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Trump got you down? Buy a Roomba.

  My Roomba, hard at work.

With the New Year I made a significant investment in a robot…yes, a robot. The Roomba vacuum cleaner, which can be seen to the right with more at irobot.com, is about as cute as R2D2, moves in a similar fashion and is just as much fun to watch. In these troubled times it is comforting to encounter something that simply does what it is says it will do.

And the joy of…

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Road Trip - This is the Wrap

Road Trip – This is the Wrap

  Alice’s Route 4/23/17 – 6/4/17  — 8,710 miles, 42 days

The odyssey is over. Tango and I are safely arrived in Franklin, NC, where we will quietly enjoy the summer.  No road trips anticipated.  😀

Zeke, Kelli, me, Taryn, Orion, Skylar and Erin… Mother’s Day in Long Beach, CA

Brenann, Evan, Mike, Alice and Stacy..the O’Learys in Hailey, ID.

Tango in the Turnbull N.W.R. near Spokane, WA.

We…

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On the Road - The Dakotas

On the Road – The Dakotas

Alice and Tango at Painted Canyon

If you enter North Dakota from the west, traveling from Montana along Interstate 94, one of the first things you will see is a billboard which simply says, “Be Polite.” I knew I was going to love ND.

The state has been on my radar for years but, let’s be honest, it is not exactly on the way to anything, with the possible exception of Canada. According to…

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On the Road - Four Great Days in Idaho

On the Road – Four Great Days in Idaho

Tango and our van on Idaho Rt. 33.

Today Tango and I turned the van eastward and began our journey home. The magnificent Western mountain ranges that have filled my windshield for nearly four weeks — the Rockies, Sierra Nevadas, Cascades, Pioneers — are sadly becoming relegated to my rearview mirror, growing smaller with each mile.

Our weekend was spent in Hailey, a charming town located in the…

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On the Road - Memories and Magic

On the Road – Memories and Magic

Jack, Josh and Janet Andrews. Cannabis helped Josh beat cancer when he was a toddler.

Faithful readers know I am on a cross-country trip with my canine companion Tango. Some of those faithful readers, but not all, know that I have a long history with the medical cannabis issue (to learn more please visit aliceolearyrandall.com). I have kept medical cannabis out of my Alice’s WanderLand blog for…

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On the Road - What a Difference A Day Makes

On the Road – What a Difference A Day Makes

Dashboard thermometer from 5/22/2017

Ah dear readers, what a difference a day makes.  Yesterday Tango and I navigated California’s hot and crowded Interstate 5.  Today we traveled secondary roads in Oregon and life was much better.

We started early and headed for Crater Lake National Park, an hour up the road from Klamath Falls. The day was perfect. Bright blue sky and mild temperatures.  There…

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On the Road - Time for Fun

On the Road – Time for Fun

A very warm Tango (it was 96 degrees) with Mt. Shasta peaking over his head.

Today Tango and I set off from Berkeley after spending four days at the Doubletree Hotel at the Berkeley Marina.  It was a wonderful place to stay, with a gorgeous park just across the street where Tango could run free in some tall grass and sniff every varmint hole on the acreage.  He was a happy boy.

We were in…

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On the Road - God Bless the U.S.A.

On the Road – God Bless the U.S.A.

Alice & Tango’s route so far – 4/23 to 5/14

I am just shy of three weeks on the road, about halfway through the trip. It has been great fun.  I think everyone should leave the safety of their home cocoon and get out in the world.  Despite the rather spooky presence of nearly identical shopping malls in every fair–sized hamlet, you can still catch the regional flavors that make this land a…

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On the Road, Day 5 -Windy West Tango, I have decided, does not really like the constant wind of the Western plains.  My theory is that it simply overwhelms his senses, which, as we know, are so much more acute than our own.  

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On the Road - Day 4

On the Road – Day 4

One of my favorite TV series is “Saving Grace.” (It originally aired on TNT 2007-2010 and is now available on Netflix.)  Holly Hunter plays an Oklahoma City detective named Grace who is visited by Earl, a lovable angel.  Grace is a nice twist on the prostitute with a heart of gold.  She sleeps around, drinks too much, and is a wicked jokester but she’s also ethical and a good cop.

A major story…

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On the Road - Day 2

On the Road – Day 2

Tango by one of the many Union and Confederate cannons.

Today Tango and I crossed the states of Alabama and Mississippi, stopping in Vicksburg on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Vicksburg is notable for being the spot where the first Coca Cola was bottled in 1894. It was also the site of one of the critical battles of the American Civil War.  In 1863, from May 18th until July 4th, the Union…