Window dressing

London has some of the most amazing store window displays. Harvey Nicks and Harrod's are world famous for theirs.

But you can find some pretty cool ones in the most unlikely places. Like a little town in the middle of Colorado.

I neglected to make a note of the name of the store where we saw this present-bedecked mannequin, but it's on the main street of Salida, Colorado (pop. 5200+). We were walking around downtown waiting for their Christmas parade.

When I saw this display I couldn't help but be reminded of other strolls down London streets. I'll bet the windows there are pretty dolled up for Christmas by now, too!

Remembering TFL*...sort of

Although I think about London a lot, and often find things that remind me of my magical time there, I rarely have experiences here in Texas that let me recapture a feeling from my "dream season."

However, I've recently found one. It involves a very mundane activity but I'm enjoying it immensely and I'm sure some of that enjoyment derives from the London memories that it stirs. The activity is just...plain...getting to work. Via mass transit.

I've started riding the bus to work (well, at least part-way; our system doesn't offer the breadth of coverage that London's does so I have to drive about five minutes to catch a bus that drops me off a few blocks from the Library. But it's still fun! And it still reminds me of all the great tube and bus and train rides I had in the UK).

You can see where I get on in the morning on the right above. And the much nicer stop where I wait for the eastbound #90 in the afternoon is on the left. (Believe me, the shade has been welcome on our hot summer afternoons!)

Besides the deep-down satisfaction of re-living, at least on some level, one of my daily London routines, my new habit has some other advantages:

• more regular exercise: the walk of essentially 3 blocks each way from the stop to the Library is not to be sneezed at, and I've actually lost a couple of pounds—that seem to be staying off—since I've started riding the bus (I was very slim and fit while in London, in spite of eating very well)
• more reading time: I love getting to read while someone else drives; I thought I might miss the extra NPR-listening time in the car but that hasn't happened (I just listen to more stories online)
• less gas expended: although I drive a Prius, I'm still saving some gas...and those buses would be chugging up and down Woodlawn Avenue whether I was on them or not
• making new friends: I've made the acquaintance of another St. Mary's employee who's a hard-core bus rider and who's been able to answer my questions and provide encouragement...plus diverting conversation on those walks between bus stop and campus

But my enjoyment of the activity can't be analyzed on a strictly scorecard-type basis. I just like to do it. And I know that a good big reason for that can be traced back to my car-less London days.

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*Transport for London...absolutely essential website for getting around London with minimal hassles

Another good war museum

One of my favorite London museums (of which I had many) is the Imperial War Museum.

Or, as I like to call it, the Peace Museum. Since its display of the details of 20th century wars is meticulous, but not laudatory, and the net effect of a visit is reinforced pacifism.

Last weekend we visited a nearby museum with a smaller focus—the National Museum of the Pacific War. But within its more limited scope, it's just as meticulous, just as well-designed and thought-out, just as respectful, and just as pacifism-reinforcing.

The quaint hill country town and shopping destination of Fredericksburg isn't the first place you might guess for the location of this fine museum. But it was the boyhood home of Admiral Chester Nimitz, who commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet in World War II. And the current museum grew out of an earlier, smaller, enterprise that just showcased his life.

So this charming little town finds itself home to this world-class museum.

We had other activities planned for the gorgeous spring day in this area (read about them over at Hometown Tourist) and so were totally unprepared for how long we discovered we wanted to spend at the Museum. Its footprint is small, but it's so cleverly laid-out that its density means you'd need many, many hours to do its displays justice.

The main attractions of the place are these multitudinous displays, many interactive, its wonderful detailed maps, and its poignant artifacts. It was hard to take good pictures in the dim light of the galleries, but I had to snap this display, celebrating the Flying Tigers that my father-in-law served with:

But the museum also makes room for bigger exhibits, like this seaplane:


The grounds of the museum, connecting the older Nimitz family hotel (see picture at the bottom of the post) with the new expansion containing the main displays, is a lovely park-like area. The picture of Hal and Carey above, under one of its handsome trellises, and the memorial plaques shown below form parts of this peaceful area:

Only rarely since I've left London have I found a museum that I wanted to rank with any that I visited there. But here, in little Fredericksburg, I think I found one.

I was so taken with its innards, in fact, that I neglected to take a photo of the impressive Victorian Nimitz Hotel part of the complex. But fortunately Wikipedia Commons had one I could borrow:

I'm already planning a return trip!

Not quite the Thames, but...

... a walk along the side of Austin's Town Lake a few days ago did bring back some memories.

The lake is a reservoir on the Colorado River that flows through town. Believe me, no Texas rivers are this wide in their natural state!

The photo above is of the Lamar Street bridge, taken from the brand-new pedestrian bridge that was the object of our walk. It's a very nice, wide, structure, that was being used by lots of Austinites on the pleasant, sunny day. And it doesn't "wobble" a bit!

Here's a look down its solid structure, facing north:


And here are some more photos taken from it:

looking over the elegant spiral ramp leading from the riverside to the bridge, you get a great view of downtown Austin from the west...

I doubt you'd ever see graffiti, or even street art, like this on a Thames bridge, but, folks are a little wacky in Austin (click on the image to see it large enough to read)...

There's a series of bridges across the lake that I, for some reason, neglected to photograph in a row from the pedestrian crossing. But on the right is the underside of one of the most famous: the Congress Avenue "bat" bridge. We saw the bats emerge from here on a trip many years ago, and it's an amazing experience.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong time of day (and the wrong season) for us to see them on this outing. But we think we heard some peeping as we walked under the bridge...

I expect that you wouldn't be able to see anything like the blooming tree (a pear, perhaps?) on the left anywhere near the Thames right now.

But even given all the differences between this jaunt and the many I took along the Thames while I was in London, it did bring back pleasant memories.

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To read about the main reason for my trip to Austin, check my Hometown Tourist blog.

An English Christmas

It's been two years, and three Christmases, since I left London. But I still pine for it, and for almost all things English.

Santa was listening this year, and I got three English-themed gifts:


I've been enjoying my new:

• puzzle, showing the Tower Bridge then and now, along with a bit of the Thames embankment on the far shore
• electric tea kettle...why did I wait so long to get one of these?! the tea it makes is amazing!
• England calendar, whose lovely scenes I'm looking forward displaying for the rest of the year in my office
  

I hope you all had as nice a Christmas, and that 2011 is off to a good start for you.