Somewhere New February: Seneca Rocks

I'm constantly amazed with how much beauty lays just a few hours away when you dare to crest over the West Virginia mountains and venture into the forests. 

For the month of February I decided to take a quick weekend jaunt. Something convenient, something inexpensive, somewhere new. 

Somehow Seneca Rocks had evaded my hit-list until this third year of Somewhere New, lost among jet setting and wave chasing vacations, patiently waiting for me to notice it. 

I found us a tidy little room on Airbnb. The reviews were good and while our hostess would actually still be in India when we arrived, her dog Bubba Lou was poised to welcome us.

The Seneca House, as the designer and builder Shelly likes to call it, was constructed out of the barn wood from the barn that previously stood on the site. With the help of a few friends she built the house over the course of two years. 

It's one of the most unique and inspiring houses's I've ever had the fortune to be a guest in. 

And best of all. Each room comes with a personal Bubba Lou. Or well, she invites herself into your room and makes herself at home on the bed.

Apparently Bubba has become such an icon of the house and so beloved that they even have shirts printed with her likeness now. 

For $50 a night (now $60 when I last checked) it was a pretty sweet deal to be literally moments from the craggy peaks of Seneca and a quick drive over to skiing and adventuring.

Despite the draw to stay inside and snuggle into a blanket by the fire for the weekend we decided to get out into the snow and try out our cross country legs. 

We drove over to Whitegrass and made our way up to the sloping red lodge. A potbellied stove pumps out heat waves just inside the door, weary skiiers already melted into chairs from an early morning of coordinated effort towards forward momentum. Clutching my thrift store skis in my hand I looked around at all the other skis stacked in racks, left behind like puppies so their owners could grab a hot cup of coffee while they watch pathetically from outside. 

Our skis seemed rather short. Perhaps it was a new style? For being thrift store finds they were practically brand new.

Luckily for the uninitiated there are handy little tracks laid out, about hip width distance apart, within much the only real work to be done is just to slide your feet forward while pushing yourself with your poles. Turning and steering are not an option and thankfully so because even within the tracks I had tiny booted muchkins trying to pass me, giving me looks of disgust as they stepped out of the track to make an agile hop in front of me. 

I'll be honest. I was a mess. The tiniest of hills sent me into a panic and when we did reach a more substantial slope I had to slide down on my butt and pat my poor bruised ego on the back for holding back the embarrassed tears. 

Turns out, we had bought children's skis. And, amazingly, its rather impossible to balance on skis made for a toddler who only reaches two feet off the ground. 

Despite the frustration and embarrassment I couldn't deny that the surroundings were beautiful, the snow throwing an immaculately white blanket over winter's harsher lines and dry, flaking face. 

I dare say I even wanted to try it again. 

Back at the Seneca House we said our goodbyes to Bubba and headed back for home. 

Our trip was brief but rewarding.

Somewhere New January: South Royalton, Vermont

For a while you can get away with being behind on your blog. For a few months no one notices. Sure it's getting cool out and you're still posting pictures of suntanned, short-bare legs and golden sunlight on the beach, but you were living life to the fullest that summer and no one begrudged you a little delay. 

I'm almost a year behind on my blog. 

This morning as I arrived on the farm and a cool jacket of frost lay on the crops, like the thin layer of icing my grandmother spreads on Christmas cookies, I thought about these photos. The photos of that white icing sitting deep, smothering the trees, hailing from the heavens in fat, buttery globs. 

I thought about how almost a year ago I went to Vermont for the first time. 

Vermont is one of those storybook states for me. 

It's darkly green. It's dense. It's shaded and shrouded.

But at the same time it's blindingly white. 

Our friend Greg Berry moved to South Royalton to go to law school. 

Law school can be a dark, lonely place, especially when you live in South Royalton surrounded by mountains of tantalizing pistes, but all of your peers are too buried in a law book to hit the slopes.

So when we suggested a visit, a visit to experience the fabled whoosh of the Vermont mountain slopes, Greg was more than happy to accommodate our wishes. 

So we drove to Greg's tiny apartment, greeted by Bow's gruff welcome and Baxter's curious meow to stay for a quick weekend of hash brown breakfasts, jokes contests, an unevenly matched game of scrabble and good ole fashion skiing.

South Royalton is a tiny little town. One little street of commerce with a Co-op, a thrift store, a coffee shop and a restaurant or two are the offerings a few minutes walk away. 

We poked around the co-op, looking for treats amid beeswax candles in the shape of howling wolves. We went to the local burger joint, the joint that people travel from all around the state to go to, and had a vegan burger fail.

But mostly we hung out in Greg's apartment, strumming on guitars and enjoying the warmth of heavy quilts. 

One day we hit the slopes at Suicide Six. The next day Killington. And then our trip was almost over. A weekend goes awfully quick when you are hopping from warm restaurant to warm car in between embracing the cold in a downhill free fall. 

So on our last morning there was something Greg wanted to show us.

He took us through town, over the train tracks, through a tunnel and then we headed up. Slipping and sliding and stopping to admire the unbelievable white and the shrouded dark greens, we huffed to the top.

We climbed until we got to the place where the valley was laid bare. The rocks made a perfect little ledge to tiptoe out onto and spy down on the sleepy little towns below. 

Kent's Ledge was a perfect way to end our whirlwind trip to Vermont. 

As summer slips into fall and then so quickly into winter, I can only hope this winter's adventures will be as successful as last winter. 

Thanks Greg! 

Exploring Home: The George Washington Masonic Temple National Memorial

I've had a couple years of practice now in playing tourist in other people's homes. Sleeping on stranger's couches, sipping tea in other people's coffee spot, lazily walking someone else's route to work. But when I get home from my trip it's right back to the grind and I can easily grind myself into a rut when I'm not careful. 

And so sometimes I have to dust off my Exploring Home cap and spend a day poking around my own town. Luckily I'm not the only one who has never played tourist at home so my friend Anthony joined me on a particularly blown out, sultry day to a visit to the George Washington Masonic Temple in Alexandria. 

The monument can be seen from all over the area. As you fly into Reagan, dusting the Potomac with jetfuel and wanderlust you sail over it's pointed balcony. How many times I had hoped the metro in front of it I couldn't tell you, but I had never been inside. 

For a couple of dollars you can meet a docent in the main hall, under the imposing bronze statue of Washington himself, and get shuttled up and down on the gondolaeque elevator to see some of Washington's treasures and to poke into some of the displayed secrets of the masons. 

You'll see things like Washington's leather chair, where he would hold majesty over the masons in meeting, the clock that shows the exact time of his death, a strip of his hair and even the strangely cryptic apron he wore as a practicing mason. 

As a special treat we got to go into the Chapel of the Nights Templar, a very formal affair in black marble and heavy iron shields. 

If nothing else, the view from the top is wonderful on a sunny day. 

Thanks for exploring with me Anthony!

Where to Eat Vegan: Present Moment Cafe - St. Augustine, FL

We drove right by Present Moment Cafe the first time and had to pull around and approach it again. The squat barrel shaped building hugged close to the road had blended into the tightly packed urban blip of King Street in Old Town St. Augustine. 

But this is no urban desert of a restaurant. Within the doors lush blues and greens stream through the jewel toned windows, wood so lustrous it seems to still breathe, coats the walls and a gentle pink emanates from each table set with a Himalayan Salt grinder. 

In a town more equipped to serve novelty fried alligator tail and slippery sweet ice cream cones to tourists, Present Moment Cafe gives one pause. 

This is a restaurant designed to nourish all the senses.

I had convinced my grandmother to bring us into town to sample Yvette Schindler's raw fare not really knowing what to expect. Would there be anything she would dare to eat? 

Salads don't hold much of a place on this imaginative menu. Mango samosas, Viva Burrito, Nachos, White Truffle Pesto Pasta and the Sunlight Burger stuffed with mushrooms and nuts. 

Where to begin? 

Sometimes when I don't know where to start I go back to the start.

 Where did I start this weird food journey? What foods brought me out of the boxed mashed potatoes and microwave mac and cheese dark ages? 

Miso was one of those first foods.

At the Japanese Steakhouse, where charred bits of shrimp were thrown into the grinning gapes of openmouthed spectators, I tasted my first bowl of salty miso.

As a new vegan years later I was heartbroken to find so many restaurants served fish laced broths, so when an opportunity to try a miso made without my swimming friends comes along I take it.

Present Moment Cafe could have gotten away with being mediocre. With few vegan options and no real competition in the way of raw vegan fare, they probably could have gotten by being the only joint in town and could prepare whatever they wanted. But they turned out an amazing meal, a New York quality meal really. 

I was tempted to buy their cookbook before I left but opted to just hold the flavors and textures in my mind until I could make another pilgrimage to the fountain of youth that is Present Moment Cafe. 

22 West King Street

St. Augustine, FL 32084

Monday - Thursday 10am - 9pm

Friday - Saturday 10am - 9:30 pm