All by Jules Older
Shortly after Jules Older’s 80th birthday and his wife Effin’s 77th, they moved. They left their home in San Francisco, crossed ocean and equator, and landed in New Zealand. This wasn't just a visit; they’d bought one-way tickets and weren’t planning a return.
As more and more folks seek their tribes, author Jules Older adds one more tribe to the list. It’s more significant than Jewish or Buddhist, Italian or Iranian, male or female, maybe even gay or straight—goers and stayers.
A lifetime of friendship on the ski slopes is a bond unlike any other for Jules Older.
When Jules Older received a Farewell Party invitation from a friend in Santa Cruz, California, he made the trip not only to say goodbye to an extraordinary man but also to discover the hometown that his friend so dearly loves.
He studied the French tapes. He bought the French software. He even took the French immersion course. Jules Older was ready for Paris. He would sound just like Maurice Chevalier and leave the French with a better impression of Americans. He would be the Pretty American.
Kids and culture is a difficult thing to get right. How to introduce the kids to high culture while managing not to ruin it for the adults involved? Author Jules Older attempts to do just that when he buys tickets for the family to see Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House. He'd hoped for the ultimate Believe-Me, You'll-Thank-Me-Later cultural experience. His young daughters, however, saw things differently.
If you travel, you will have dumb days. That's a given. You’ll get on the Metro, but on the wrong train, and you’ll end up at the wrong end of Paris. You’ll order dinner in Tokyo, and with a flourish, the waiter will set what appear to be raw snails in front of you. You’ll book a hotel in Miami, and when you get there, discover that the elevator hasn't worked since the Nixon administration. These are dumb days. They will happen.
The trick is to avoid VDDs — very dumb days.
I just survived one. Barely.
Jules’s Very Dumb Day began in our hotel room in Luxembourg City. We’d been here a week, a week of nothing but sunshine and warmth. Okay, maybe I'd grown cocky about the weather.
Now, we were heading north to Vianden, a town of winding, cobbled streets; an ancient mountaintop castle, lovingly restored; and such overwhelming charm that… well, in 1871, Victor Hugo found refuge here.
Bet he brought his raincoat. Though I’d searched our hotel room from gurgle to zatch, I couldn't find mine. Not that it was raining — just in case. After seven straight days of Luxembourg sunshine, no worries.
We took the Hop-on Hop-off Bus to Vianden. We arrived at 11 a.m., and though he spoke no English, the driver assured us in the modern traveler’s Yiddish — FranglishDeutch — that he'd pick us up at exactly 2 p.m. on that self-same spot. And off he drove.
That was where we had to make our first decision. Walk up to the castle or down to the tourist chairlift, then hike from the top of the chair to the castle. Effin said. “I felt a raindrop. Let’s walk up. It’s shorter.”
I said, “Nah, let’s take the lift. It’ll be an adventure.”
by Jules Older
OK, here it is — my dark secret.
No, first, let’s set the scene. I’m a professional traveler. I make a substantial part of my unsubstantial living by traveling the globe and writing about it. I should be good at travel.
I am… when I travel with my wife. We serenely swan into Portland or Ponce or Pittsburgh, where we observe, write, photograph, and leave. People say, “My, what a competent couple.”
Couple. That’s the key word here.
When I travel without Effin (who should be declared my legal guardian, not my spouse), I lose everything. Everything. That’s my dark secret.
On a ski trip to Italy, when I drove on to Cortina, my right ski boot stayed behind in Val Gardena. Care to guess how much it costs to ship one ski boot across the Dolomites?
On recent trips, I’ve left my swimsuit in Miami, car keys in Montreal, camera in… I never did find where I left that camera.
by Jules Older
On our last visit to Japan:
* * *
It was to Tokyo we were returning, decades later. Our friends – Eipan and Hirame, Eiichi and Hiroko – still lived there, and it was way past time to re-une. And we wanted to see the city we’d been so taken with all those years before. How had it changed? How had it not?
When I tell Hirame on the phone that I’m looking for changes, she says, “Expect to see a lot of blonde Japanese.”
I chuckle. “Not your daughters, I bet.” Despite his years as a grad student (and my roommate) in New York, Eipan is very traditional, a samurai businessman with a 6th degree black belt in Judo. I can hear Hirame’s quiet smile all the way from Tokyo. “They’re brown-hair Japanese.”
It doesn’t take long to spot other changes, other sames. First stop on the bus trip in from the airport is the La Floret Hotel. As the bus doors open, a young woman in a sharply pressed uniform bows deeply. Score one for the same. On the other hand, where the massive hotel – and dozens like it – now stand, there used to be only small shops. The Tokyo skyline has pushed skyward.
At our friends’ home, there’s a similar mixture. We still take off our shoes at the door, but Hirame greets us with a kiss, not a bow. The ofuru, the ubiquitous Japanese hot tub, still awaits, only now it’s kitted out with bubbles, programmable water jets and digital temperature controls that can be operated from the kitchen.
Greyhound killed our college romance.
She was finishing her B.A. at UVM, I was beginning a Ph.D. at NYU, and the nine-hour bus trip between Vermont and New York slowly eroded love, commitment, and finally, even passion. She graduated, found a job, and got involved with an English literature student. I learned my clinical psychology, tasted the pleasures of New York, and struggled through a dissertation.
But when her literary affair ended badly, she called, and I invited her down to my Greenwich Village apartment for a weekend reunion.
Greyhound again.
Greyhound Super 7 Scenicruiser Bus, 1971 by aldenjewell/flickr.com
Farmer's daughter that she was, she'd never seen a ship of any size, so we walked down Houston Street to the waterfront. Good fortune — a cruise ship was about to embark. On the decks stood a flock of blue-haired ladies in borrowed mink stoles and a clutch of grey-haired men in new camelhair overcoats, all throwing streamers to those below. Catching the streamers were grown-up sons and daughters, waving and calling to the departing vessel.
“Don't worry!” they shouted. “Don't worry!”
I started to worry.
I worried that I'd be grey-haired before I went anywhere. I worried that by the time I left I'd be too old to enjoy wherever I was going. I worried that when I finally embarked from the Houston Street dock, the last words I'd hear from loved ones would be, “Donnnnn't worrrrryyyyyyy...”
by Jules Older
Shooting travel videos was always something other people did.
For one thing, I'm a word guy, a writer. Visuals are for somebody else.
But that’s hardly the only reason I shied away from shooting. There's my profound lack of knowledge about how to make movies. The teamwork required to do it. The weight and expense of even a secondhand, third-rate movie camera. Plus the knowhow and expense of editing footage once it’s shot.
And all that was once true. Now it isn't. Welcome to one of the true wonders of the Digital Age. I'm still a writer, but now I'm a writer who shoots videos. More than sixty of them and counting. Maori carving in New Zealand. Skiing in Alberta. An action-sport competition in San Francisco. Turns out I like visual story telling, too.
But the main differences between then and now are technological. Thanks to advances in gear, I (and you) can learn to shoot, buy the gear and even master the editing process without going broke or going crazy.
I've learned my craft at the Apple Store, using their One to One program, which, when you buy a new computer, is yours for $200 for two full years. No further charges required. No tips accepted.
by Jules Older
Inspired by the new California Academy of Sciences exhibit, EARTHQUAKE, we decided to check our earthquake kit.
Yes, we have one. We’re prudent Bay Area citizens, and like most Bay Area citizens, prudent and otherwise, we live on a fault line.
The Big One is coming and coming soon—more on that, below—so get your earthquake kit in order. We did.
But it had been how long since we put that kit together? Five years? No, more like eight. Maybe we ought to check it.
Maybe you should check yours. Ours came as something of a surprise.
Eight years ago, we’d bought a large plastic bin that just fit the living room closet. In it, along with a few other items, we neatly packed canned beans and pesto, a can opener and plastic forks, crank-operated flashlight and radio, wipes and toilet paper, canned fruit and toothbrushes, candles and matches, disinfectant and Band-Aids, and, for reasons that now escape us, exactly forty-seven dollars.
Sealed it up and stuck it in a cool, dry place next to the ski jackets. Should last forever. We’re earthquake-ready—rock on.
Funny how fast eight years roll by. Until the Academy exhibit, we forgot all about our kit in a closet. Never opened it once.
Then, we did. Eight years later, it had shrunk… and grown.
by Jules Older
I am not a vegetarian.
I say it with pride: I am not a vegetarian.
But I live with a vegetarian — well, a mostly vegetarian, and when the vegetarian’s daughters (and mine) come home, then we get into serious vegetarianism. Because I'm outnumbered, three to one.
Now, I have nothing — well, almost nothing — against vegetarianism. It’s true, I think the best diet is a richly diverse one. And it’s true that I think everything about us, from our taste buds to the shape of our teeth to our digestive systems, indicates that we are built for eating meat as well as tofu.
But at home, I'm more likely to get tofu.
That’s why it gave me such pleasure when the editor of Vermont Magazine called and said, “Jules, m’boy, we’d like you to get yourself down to Windsor. Write us a story on the New England BBQ Championships.”
And I was even happier when he added, “Oh, and bring the vegetarian photographer with you.”
Payback’s a brisket.
by Jules Older
Sure, I wanted to go to San Francisco. Cable cars, Chinatown, Golden Gate… and something more. Daughter Willow had moved to the Haight district, which in my day was the hippie epicenter of the world. What a chance to introduce Willow to her dad’s own, personal history! So I signed us both up for something called the Haight-Ashbury Hippie History Bus Tour.
Along with four 20-year-olds — I think they were history students — Willow and I climbed aboard the bus — the psychedelic VW bus — owned and operated by tour leader, Hippie Bob.
H.B. was in his fifties. He wore a long, graying ponytail and those little, round John Lennon glasses. He had on enough love beads to serve as a flotation device, and he smelled of a familiar herb; maybe it was patchouli. Maybe not.
Just the guy to teach my daughter modern American history.
“Hippies like me came out to the Haight for the Summer of Love,” Hippie Bob began. “We lived in communes in big old houses like the ones on this street.”
“When was the Summer of Love, Bob?” Willow asked.
“In the sixties, man. Definitely in the sixties. And call me Hippie Bob. That’s my handle, you dig?”
Willow looked puzzled. “I, uh, dig, but when in the sixties, Bo — Hippie Bob?”
“I dunno. We weren't all hung up with numbers and dates and stuff back then. If it feels good, do it.”
I piped up, trying to help the history lesson progress. “Wasn’t that 1967, Hippie Bob? And weren't there many famous rock stars and other cultural icons living right here in the Haight?”
by Jules Older
Sometimes a great notion comes in unexpected form.
In this case, it was an email — a deeply humiliated email — from a travel and ski writer. He'd just spent a night in the drunk-tank in the ski town of Whistler, British Columbia. Here's how the email started:
“For accommodations in Whistler, you can’t beat the price. I found a single room for the cost of a bottle of Chianti (Reserva 2007 - $24.95, plus tax).”
The moment I read that opening line, I wanted to publish the email as a ski story.
The moment I had that thought, I had another: I can publish it as a ski story.
And before the sun set, I’d begun the process of publishing my first and, so far, only, ebook.
Ebook: a book-length publication in digital form, to be read on ebook readers, mobile devices and home computers.
I emailed the best ski writers I knew who wrote personal stories — not instructional, race coverage or gear reviews — and asked them to contribute one chapter each to an ebook with, as yet, no ename.
And while I awaited their answers, I created a name:
SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Hope.
Almost all the writers said yes. They sent me deeply personal tales from an altitude of 17,000 feet in Bolivia, from dodging gunfire on the slopes of Lebanon, from the day the chairlift crashed in British Columbia. They sent stories from the interrogation room in Toronto’s airport, from a sickeningly steep couloir in France, from the little ski town in Colorado where Beth Jahnigen first encountered real male culture:
SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart is my first eBook, and the learning curve has been as steep as a double-black-diamond run at Vail.
by Jules Older
For travelers, some things are essential. Others should be left at home or not acquired in the first place. Here’s this year’s compilation of things you need and one thing you don’t.
The outdoors maxim, “Take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints,” is where we’ll start.
TRAVEL ESSENTIAL #1
If you're gonna take pictures, I've got a camera for you. It’s small enough to stick in your pocket, light enough to take on a mountain climb, cheap enough to let you pay your mortgage … and powerful enough to blow you away. It blew me away, and I'm used to great cameras in small packages.
The camera in question is the Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS. It weighs less than five ounces, fits in a shirt pocket, and costs less than $200. But its real strength lies in what it can do.
Video? Full hi-def. Sound? Impossibly good — doubly so for a camera with such a tiny microphone. Low-light capability? Still can't believe what I've captured in gloomy rooms. Zoom lens? Big zoom but loses sharpness when you really pull in that distant egret. Viewfinder? No, but you'd better get used to that. Like the typewriter or phonograph, the viewfinder is a dying species.
After testing the 100 HS on snow and off, in two hemispheres, I pronounce it the best small camera I've ever tried. And the best buy. www.canon.com
TRAVEL ESSENTIAL #2
From pictures to footprints. I've been testing two shoes — one made for walking and one for running. My first question: Does that designation really make a difference?
by Jules Older
When I teach skiing, I suggest to my students that, to establish and hold a rhythm, they find their ski song.
Truth is, my ski songs find me. My usual one is Sweet Georgia Brown. When I skied West Virginia, it morphed into Miner’s Lifeguard. When I crossed from Switzerland’s French side to the German, my song suddenly switched to Springtime for Hitler and Germany.
See? My song finds me.
by Jules Older
People seem to think that Las Vegas has no soul. There are soulless towns, but Vegas isn't one of them.
For most, the soul of Vegas is probably the Strip, that ever-lengthening line-up of grand hotels, most of them heavily themed. From a Magic Kingdom look-alike to Manhattan Island to gay Paree, to an Arabian bazaar… by the time you finish reading this, there will be at least two more gone and three more — bigger and more sumptuous — replacing them.
by Jules Older
I'm a travel writer and videographer. I fly to New Zealand, drive to San Jose, train to Banff, ferry San Francisco Bay. I've come to know what travelers need and what they're better off without.
So here's my list: what to buy and one thing to avoid. Here we go…
Clic reading glasses. They've gone up in price from about $30 to just under $80 (or $24.99 at The Trip Shop), but they're still savers of time and space. One pair of Clics replaces, in my case, a dozen reading glasses, one in every room of the house, one in the car and one in the place I put them where I'd never forget them and then forgot them. Clics, which you can buy online, just hang around your neck waiting to be magnetically clicked into action. I never travel without ‘em. And I no longer use strong language when searching for my accursed glasses. www.clicgoggles.com
High Sierra luggage. First rule of suitcase: It’s gotta have sturdy wheels. Second: Must be as light as possible. Third: Has to hold everything you need. If, like me, you're a skier, that means a lot of holding. Between boots, helmet, gloves, parka and ski pants, we don’t travel light.
One bag that meets all these requirements is the High Sierra 32” A.T.GO expandable, wheeled duffel. It’s big enough to hold everything, thus avoiding airline extra-bag charges. It’s light enough to save your back and avoid airline extra-weight charges. Sturdy zipper, strong wheels, good balance. If you pack big, you'll be glad you got it. And though it retails for $340, The Trip Shop (powered by Amazon) has it at $126. www.highsierrasport.com
Salomon shoes. Start with this: For any footwear — hiking boots, running shoes, ski boots, sandals — fit is 10 times more important than brand. If they don’t fit in the store, when you get to the trail, the track, the mountain or the beach, expect a world of pain.
That said, if they do fit (and they fit me better than any other brand) Salomon athletic shoes are your best bet. That’s because Salomon came up with QUICKLACE — where one pull replaces tying and retying laces. It’s Lacing for the Lazy. Like me.
Ah, but which model: the XA Comp 3 or Wings? The XA Comp 3 is a bit lighter, 350 grams, and somewhat cheaper, about $100. Wings has more padding, which means more protection from pavement. It also means more weight, 390 grams, and more moolah, $130-160. www.salomon.com/us
by Jules Older
I'm a travel writer, which means I'm a hit-and-run artist — New Zealand’s North Island today, the southern Sierra tomorrow. I'm the man who rarely returns.
Except to Newfoundland. I've been five times to Canada's easternmost, poorest and most interesting province. That chunk of rock in the North Atlantic, closer to Ireland than to Vancouver, 1,600 miles east of New York, captured my heart an hour into my first visit.
On the latest visit, I experienced three lifetime thrills in three consecutive days. Where else on earth can you do that?
THRILL ONE: ICEBERGS
It began in the tiny town of Springdale, where we hooked up with ace pilot Rick Adams, owner-operator of Springdale Aviation Ltd.
I flew over and around massive icebergs making their way south from Greenland. Never before had I seen a berg, and now they were scant yards below the Cessna 185's wing.
But if iceberging from a low-flying plane is a thrill, berging from a sea kayak is a life event. Because sea kayaking has a very steep learning curve -- you can be moderately proficient in an hour or so -- and because icebergs have a tendency to get stuck just offshore in the province's protected harbors, the experience is open to the many rather than the fit few.
It's a stunning experience. I drove over a hill and down into an outport, Newfoundland for coastal village. My heart thumped a little louder as I spotted the gleaming white of half a dozen icebergs towering above the dark water like dollops of cream on a chocolate cake. I couldn't wait to haul the kayak off the roof of the van.
![Night[mare] at the Opera, First Act](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53877922e4b0dbf4e86c62c9/1464636138801-E3Q5ASZA23A6EW6KRWPS/14813584358_d532fe7bd5_k.jpg)
