Tearing Down the Trailer

Alas, it is a sad, sad day in Rothland. But a joyous one as well. After forty years, the trailer house is no more.

As you’ll recall, I grew up in this lovely mobile home:

I wasn’t born here, but I have few memories of anywhere else. We moved here when I was two, so all of my childhood, all of my adolescence, and much of my adult was spent in this building. After serving as our family’s home, it eventually became the offices of Custom Box Service.

Many of you have visited this trailer house, which has been, well, dilapidated for some time. You’ve played games here. Spent the night here when we were kids. Worked here. And so on.

Well, after more than a decade of talking about building a new office, Nick and Jeff have finally taken action. Earlier this month, they brought in a temporary office:

And today…well, today this happened:

As I say, it’s a sad day, but a joyous one. There were a lot of memories tied to that building. But there’s no question it was an eyesore and a hazard and all of the other nasty things you can think of. We were embarrassed to bring customers out to the shop because the place was so rinky-dink.

I hope that in a few weeks, I’ll be able to post photos of a brand new office building!

Niall Doherty Practices Spanish

While editing a guest post for my personal finance blog, I found this seven-minute video from Niall Doherty. In this clip, Doherty, who has been learning Spanish for 3-1/2 months, carries on a casual conversation with two friends he’s made in Spain.

I like this exchange for several reasons. First, it’s subtitled. Second, this shows Doherty’s Spanish skills at 3-1/2 months, about six weeks ahead of where I am today. (I can see my skills being similar to Doherty’s in a few weeks.) Third, I like to see the effort he makes, the mistakes he makes, and how he’s able to converse anyhow. He’s unfazed. That’s awesome. It takes me a l-o-n-g time to compose sentences in Spanish, which makes conversations awkward. It takes Doherty a while too. I love watching him search for the right word. It’s not just me!

Tomorrow, Aly (my tutor) and I are going to break free of our coffee shop confines and go for a walk. I hope to converse entirely in Spanish. I think my strengths and shortcomings (especially with regards to vocabulary) will become clear very quickly. It’ll be fun!

Meanwhile, I’ve begun to rough out an itinerary for my October trip. I had intended to spend most of my time in Ecuador, with side trips to Peru (for Machu Picchu) and the Galapagos, but after doing some reading, I’m really, really drawn to the area around Cusco, Peru. I found a $35/night lodge that offers wi-fi. The price is good, the location great, and I could see myself holing up there for an entire month.

We’ll see.

For now, I’ll leave you with another video from Doherty: How to fit everything you own into a 42-liter backpack. (My pack is a 46-liter pack from REI.)

Mexican Radio

One of my favorite parts about learning Spanish so far has been discovering a world of new music. Thanks to José (one of the employees at the box factory), I’ve been exploring the various Mexican music stations in Portland. (I say Mexican because that’s the audience the stations cater to and the source of most of their music. But Shakira, of course, is not from Mexico.)

In fact, I love one of these stations: 93.5 “éxitos“. (Éxitos means “successes” or, in English, “hits”.) Even if I weren’t trying to learn Spanish, I might listen to this music.

But since I am trying to learn Spanish, this station is even better. I don’t understand everything — not even close — but my comprehension is improving. I could catch maybe 5% of the songs and chatter when I started in June, but now it’s up to 25% (and I certainly get the gist of nearly every song).

My favorite songs are often those in which the singers enunciate. The more I’m able to understand, the better I like the song. For instance, here’s “Te Amo” from Makano.

Some songs, though, are beautiful even when I can’t understand them. “Insensible a Tí” by Alicia Villareal was tough to parse at first (though I know the lyrics now because Aly and I went through them), but I was still moved by it.

I’ve been playing this song over and over and over (una y otra vez) since I first heard it last week.

You may be wondering how I know the names of these songs and artists if I can’t understand everything that’s said. That’s where Shazam comes in. Shazam is an iPhone app that, after listening to a few seconds of a song, can usually identify it for you. (Not always, though.) And after it does, it lets you see lyrics, buy it from iTunes, or add it to a Spotify playlist. In short, it’s like magic.

I look forward to discovering more new Spanish-language music in the future. (And to having Aly help me translate it during our classes. That’s half the fun!)

Bonus! I just discovered that Spotify allows users to share playlists, so here’s a short Spanish playlist. I have a more robust playlist in iTunes at home, but this is a good sampling of the stuff I’m listening to right now.

The Art of Omar Rayyan

Though I put my dreams of traveling to England on hold this summer in order to help take care of Mom, I did find some time to sneak away for a long weekend in Indianapolis recently. Indianapolis isn’t quite the same as London, but I still had fun. I met up with my friends Adam and Courtney, and we spent four entire days at GenCon, one of the world’s largest gatherings of nerds.

Note: For more about my trip to Indianapolis, check out the write-up of GenCon Indy 2011 at Far Away Places, my new travel blog. (My new travel blog that isn’t quite ready for prime time.)

While at GenCon, I browsed through artists’ row, a collection of a couple dozen fantasy artists. Most were okay, but nothing caught my fancy. Not until I stumbled on the work of Omar Rayyan, that is. I stopped at his table only briefly, but those moments were magical. To Rayyan, I was probably just another guy to whom he gave a business card. But to me, I found a new favorite artist.

Rayyan paints watercolors of fantasy subjects. Some are rather grotesque, but many of his works would be perfect illustrations for fairy tales. (In fact, some are illustrations for fair tales.) When I got home and had time to look through his portfolio, I found several prints I wanted to own.

Look at these gems:

The Birdbath by Omar Rayyan

The Cavalier by Omar Rayyan

The Starting Line by Omar Rayyan

The Tea Party by Omar Rayyan

Note: All artwork reprinted here by permission. You can buy prints of Rayyan’s work from his Etsy shop.

When I showed these images to my cousin Nick last week, he was impressed. “They look like they’re from the Brown Fairy Book,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked. He googled it for me. Then we looked more at Rayyan’s site. “Look!” I said. “Some of these are from the Brown Fairy Book.”

Finding Rayyan’s work was only one part of a long weekend that made me realize how much I love anthropomorphic animals. A lot. In fact, you’ll be hearing more about this in coming weeks. I’ll bet you can’t wait to read my review of Mouse Gaurd! (Short version: It’s awesome.)

How to Learn Spanish — Fast!

Last night, I finished reading the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In Spanish. What makes this remarkable is that eight weeks ago, I could barely read a word of Spanish. In the past two months, I’ve gone from only knowing how to swear in the language to being able to read passably well, to hear enough to get the general feel of a conversation, and to speak at least well enough to be understood.

How did I do it? I threw time and money at the problem.

Expert advice
After the World Domination Summit ended in early June, I set a goal to travel. I spent a week poring over an almanac before deciding to start my solo adventures in Latin America. (I actually decided to start in England, but that trip had to be postponed so that I could take care of things on the home front.)

In order to make my adventures in Ecuador or Guatemala or Peru more enjoyable, I knew I wanted to learn Spanish. I’d taken a semester of Spanish nearly 25 years ago during my freshman year of college, but all that I remembered were common curses and jokes about cows. I didn’t know where to begin, so I contacted my new friend Benny Lewis, the Irish polyglot.

Note: Benny is a young man who has been traveling the world on the cheap for the past nine years. As he travels, he learns languages. He speaks eight languages fluently, and hopes to learn more. (He’s been learning Turkish since I met him in June. In Turkey, naturally.) Benny shares tips and tricks about language learning at his site, Fluent in 3 Months, and in his e-book, The Language Hacking Guide.

“The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself,” Benny told me. “Travel to a country that speaks Spanish and spend all day with people who speak it. That’s how I learn.”

“What’s the second-best way to learn?” I asked.

“If you can afford it?” Benny said. “Hire a private tutor.” So I did.

I looked at the local Craigslist listings until I found a likely candidate. I e-mailed to set up an initial consultation. One morning in the middle of June, I met Aly at a local coffee shop.

Mi Profesora
Aly is a young-ish woman (she won’t allow me to ask her age) originally from Lima, Peru. When she was twelve, she began learning English from a private tutor. After graduate school, she headed to Minnesota. (Or maybe she came to Minnesota for graduate school — I can’t remember the sequence.) She didn’t like it in Minnesota, though, so she came west. She now lives in the Portland area and makes a full-time living by tutoring people like me.

Our first meeting went well. Aly liked that I seemed motivated, and I liked that she was both intelligent and funny. We agreed to work together. For the past two months, we’ve met three times a week for ninety minutes a session. Sometimes my progress seems slow — I’ve been stuck on the past tense(s) for weeks now! — but other times it seems brisk. All of the time, Aly adjusts the lessons to my needs.

Today, for instance, we spent half an hour discussing geopolitics in English. I borrowed a book from a friend — Las venas abiertas de América Latina — and when I showed it Aly, she talked at length about the history of Latin America. It was awesome. (Aly has promised to bring me mp3s of the abridged version of this book tomorrow. She says it’ll be good practice for me to listen to it.)

Note: One thing that’s different about learning a language now versus learning a language in school is that now I’m motivated. Back then, it was a requirement. Today, I want to learn so that I can communicate with my Spanish-speaking friends, and so that I can travel well. I’m much more willing to work than in the past.

Other sources
But it’s not just my tutor that’s helping me learn Spanish so quickly. I’m also devoting lots of time to independent study. I study as I walk to and from the gym each morning. I study whenever I drive. I study at the dinner table. I study whenever I can.

In addition to Aly, I:

Use flashcards on my iPhone and iPad. There are several flashcard apps, but I settled on Flashcards Deluxe, which allows me to dowload free “decks” of cards and work through them at my own pace. I like that the app allows for spaced repetition, and that it has an option for writing your answer with your finger. (This keeps me honest.)

Do practice problems in workbooks — just like when you were in school. These workbooks are cheap and effective when combined with other learning methods. My Spanish Verb Tenses book cost me twelve bucks, and it’s worth ten times as much. (It can be had for $6.44 from Amazon!)

Listen to Mexican radio. I told my friend Jose that I’d been listening to traditional Mexican oom-pah music (not sure which style that actually is — banda?), and he promptly made a list of about ten Portland-area radio stations that cater to the Mexican population. (I say Mexican because most of the latinos in the area are from Mexico, and the radio stations bill themselves as playing Mexican music.) My favorite is 93.5 “exitos“, which plays Spanish-language pop — especially dance music. The music on this station is very J.D.

Read children’s books. I’m reading Harry Potter, as I mentioned, but I have other books in the wings: Las telearañas de Carlota, La casa de la pradera, and El Hobbit. Most of these take a lot of work, so in the meantime I’ve been reading basic books, including those from Dr. Seuss. And Aly’s always bringing me new ones, like Pato para presidente (which is hilarious in Spanish or English).

Choose the Spanish option whenever possible. My iPhone and iPad are now set to Spanish. When I call automated telephone systems (as I’ve been doing when taking care of my mother’s finances), I choose the Spanish-language menu. If a magazine has a Spanish feature, I read it. If instructions are in Spanish, I use those instead of English.

Read BBC Mundo. This Spanish-language news site is written at a relatively low level, like all newspapers and magazines. In other words, it’s perfect for me. I can now read nearly every article. Watching the videos is much more difficult, but that’s okay.

Make use of Google Translate. This online tool is amazing. It’s a great way to check your own translations and to parse difficult phrases. (“Que podría tener algo que ver con” — what the hell does that mean? Actually, Google Translate doesn’t get it right either — it’s idiomatic, and Aly had to explain it to me.) The iPhone app is like magic: Speak into it with one language, and the app translates your speech to another. It’s like Star Trek‘s universal translator!

Practice with Rosetta Stone. This (expensive) software uses an immersion-like method to drill in basic language skills. It’s good as far as it goes, but I found that working independently I was able to quickly outpace the software. I’m constantly having to skip lessons to catch up with my current level. This might be a good choice if I weren’t using a tutor, but as it is, I wish I hadn’t spent money on Rosetta Stone.

Speak Spanish (if clumsily) with native speakers. This is by far the best way to learn. It’s also the most intimidating. It’s scary to try my Spanish with real people. I know it’s poor, and I don’t want to look like a fool. But you know what? Nobody has laughed at me so far. In fact, everyone’s been very supportive, especially my Spanish-speaking friends. (But even the gas station attendant, who smiled as he responded to my lousy Spanish!)

So although I’ve had to tap my travel fund to pay for my Spanish tutor, I’ve also been spending a lot of time with free (or low-cost) learning sources. Taken as a whole, these tools have helped me make great progress in the past eight weeks.

Obviously, I haven’t mastered Spanish yet — I’ve barely begun to learn! — but I’ve made great progress in the past two months, and I hope to make further strides in the six weeks before I leave for Latin America.

Five Cat Family

It cracks me up that I haven’t haven’t written much lately. As usual, that means there’s actually too much going on in my life, not too little.

For example: As many of you know, Mom is currently in the memory-care unit of an assisted living facility. I won’t go into details (yet), but she had another mental-illness crisis in June/July. The doctors ordered 24-hour supervision, and even if they hadn’t, we would have sought it.

What, then, to do with her two cats? There’s only one real answer: They’ve come to live with us.

Yes, that’s right. After the loss of Toto in February, we were down to three cats. Despite my insistent pleading, Kris refused to budge from that number. Now, however, we’re up to five cats. And man oh man, has that played havoc with the cat politics around this place.

To summarize, we have:

Simon, he of prize-winning photos. He loves to climb ladders and to sleep late.
Nemo, who is scared of everything except…
Max (or Meatball), who is a lovable lug (but frightened of Nemo).
Socks, who is a miniature version of Max. She is actually his blood sister.
Silver, who is Simon’s blood brother.

At first, I thought Silver was worthless. He hid under the bed. He hissed. He didn’t interact with anyone. Now, though, after two weeks at our house, he’s established himself as Boss. (In the world of Kris and J.D., “Boss” is bestowed to the top cat of a house or neighborhood. Simon used to be Boss of the house, though he quarreled with Oreo next door about Boss of the neighborhood.)

It’s been entertaining over the past week to watch as the cat politics are sorted out. Simon was pissed off about being dethroned as Boss, and he and Silver came to blows a couple of times. Now, though, he’s resigned to it. As long as Mom still scritches him.

Meanwhile, Nemo (who thought he was Boss) hasn’t come inside except briefly. He’s completely cowed by Silver. And Maxwell doesn’t know what to think.

The new cats are chowing through the cat food. Because they were 100% indoor cats, they haven’t learned to use the outdoors for bathroom duties. (Although Silver figured out how to do Outside in minutes. He loves it.) And now our house is even furrier than it was before. The stairs are covered with cat hair.

Five cats seems like a lot. Still, I’m hoping Kris will let me get a replacement for Toto.

Gencon Indy 2011

At GenCon, there were many vendors with many dice. This vendor’s dice were awesome.

As a life-long geek, I’ve always wanted to attend GenCon, one of the world’s most prominent gaming conventions. I remember reading about it as a boy and wishing I could go play Dungeons and Dragons with all of the older geeks. So, when Adam Baker (Man vs. Debt) invited me to visit Indianapolis to attend GenCon 2011 with him, I jumped at the chance.

For four days starting last Thursday, Adam and his wife (Courtney) allowed me to tag along with them as we joined tens of thousands of other nerds to play (and purchase) games.

We split a lot of our time among two rooms: the Mayfair room and the Rio Grande room. Mayfair produces games like Tigris & Euphrates, Empire Builder, and The Settlers of Catan. Rio Grande’s games include Dominion, Power Grid, and Carcassonne.

We played some of our old favorites (I actually won at Settlers, a game I normally loathe), but mostly we tried new games. Here, Adam is picking up the rules to Rio Grande’s Navegador, an exploration and economics game that won rave reviews from our group. (We all ended up purchasing it.)

Adam Baker, learning to play Navegador at GenCon

Because GenCon is so huge — my guess is there were roughly 30,000 people present over the course of the weekend, so probably 15,000 or more at a time on site — it plays host to a variety of game tournaments and championships. The North American championship for The Settlers of Catan is played at GenCon, for instance. Here are folks playing Settlers at a custom-designed table:

Hundreds (thousands?) of games of Settlers were played at GenCon

These custom-built Settlers tables sold at a reasonable price, actually. I think a fold-up version cost something like $150 and a full table maybe twice as much.

There were lots of expensive games and accessories that tempted me, including a $120 version of Automobile and a $150 version of Settlers. Though I bought a lot of stuff, I did my best to steer clear of the deluxe editions.

My favorite part of the entire show was the exhibit from Geek Chic. Geek Chic produces amazing high-quality furniture designed specifically for nerds. They make fancy filing cabinets for comic book collectors, display cases for folks who paint miniatures or collect action figures, and jaw-dropping tables for gamers. Their gaming tables (which range from the size of a coffee table to simply ginormous) are gorgeous. Best of all, they’re thoughtfully designed for gamers, with all sorts of great features and options, like dice towers, recessed play areas, and shelves for each player. This furniture is expensive, but probably worth it for someone who games a lot.

These gaming tables at GenCon were amazing.

I’m not willing to spend $16,000 on the massive Sultan, a ten-player table for miniatures and role-playing games. But I might consider budgeting $1300 for the Hoplite, a coffe-table sized game station. And there’s no question I covet the comic book filing cabinets!

Most of the stuff in the exhibit hall was much less expensive. In fact, most of the things for sale were games.

You could buy nearly any game you wanted at GenCon

On the final day of GenCon, Adam and I both took some time to browse for our favorite games. We’re both big fans of the games from Rio Grande: Dominion, Power Grid, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and — my favorite game of all time — Carcassonne. Both of us bought a copy of a new Rio Grande game called Navegador. I look forward to teaching it to my friends.

Other points of note:

The game auction lasted all weekend (about 30 hours of non-stop live auctions!). We sat in for a couple of hours Sunday morning as the board games were auctioned. It was far more entertaining than it ought to have been. I was sorely tempted to bid on a copy of the Bionic Woman game I remember owning when I was a boy. But I resisted the urge.

The GenCon board game auction. Adam bought the copy of Tigris & Euphrates you see here.

There were also plenty of people in elaborate costumes. These ranged from generic fantasy adventurers (elves! barbarians! wizards! zombies!) to characters from popular comic books (especially anime) and films. (Tons of of Star Wars characters, for instance.) There were actually many, many shops in the exhibition hall that catered directly to the costumed crowd. I generally disdain costumes, but I’ll admit that by the end of this convention, even I could envision myself dressing up for something like this.

Lots of nerds came in costume. By the end of the con, even I was tempted by the costumes.

Companies preview their new games at GenCon. One game that caught my eye was X-Wing from Fantasy Flight Games. This game, which was just announced (and won’t be available until early 2012), is a tactical space combat simulation using miniatures. I’m hoping the gameplay lives up to the aesthetics of the thing.

Companies previewed new games at GenCon, such as the X-Wing miniatures game.

I also stopped by to see my friend Nicole (on whose couch I slept two weeks ago) at her booth at the back of the exhibit hall. Nicole owns Green Ronin, a game publisher in Seattle. She was patient enough to answer some of my questions about her competitors’ game systems, and she even pointed me toward one that was best suited for gaming needs. (Okay, I’ll confess: I want to lead my friends on a role-playing game in which they play anthropomorphic mice. Think Watership Down but with mice instead of rabbits.)

I had a great time at GenCon, and I’d be happy to return in the future.

Footnote: I was supposed to fly to London immediately after the conference to begin a month-long stay in England (and possibly France and/or The Netherlands). But because of my mother’s health problems, I decided to cancel the trip. This makes me sad, but it means I can focus on preparing for my October trip to Latin America instead.

A Dream Deferred

It’s been a long time since I posted an update at Foldedspace, but as usual that’s not because I’ve been a slacker; it’s because I’ve been extremely busy.

As most of you know, I came away from the World Domination Summit in early June burning to make fundamental changes in my life. I wanted to move to a smaller house. I wanted to travel more. I wanted to write about things other than money. And, in an ideal world, I wanted to make these changes sooner rather than later.

I’m still burning to make these changes, but they’re happening more slowly than I’d hoped and anticipated. Real Life has put on the brakes. Over the past two months, i’ve been:

Working, as usual. I’ve been writing at my personal finance blog, of course, but I’ve also been doing my monthly column for Entrepreneur magazine and my new twice-weekly contributions for Moneyland, Time magazine’s new money blog. Plus, I’ve given interviews, met with colleagues and readers, answered email, and more. Basically, despite my best efforts to relax, I’m working just as much as always. (Don’t forget that I’m also trying to write two new blogs: a travel blog and a blog about awesome people.

Traveling — though not as far as I’d hoped. I flew to Denver and Seattle for business, drove to Canada for a vacation with Kris’ family, and then flew to Indianapolis to attend a gaming convention with friends.

Helping to take care of Mom. In June, Mom had another acute mental health crisis. For the past six weeks, the family has been working together to find the best solution for her (and for us). I’ve been squeezing my responsibilities around conferences and work, but it’s tough to rationalize spending five or six weeks in far away places, leaving everyone else to take care of the situation.

Trying to get my house in order — literally. Before I begin extensive travel, I want to make sure things around Rosings Park are running smoothly. To that end, we brought in a landscaper to take care of all the yardwork I’ve been neglecting while writing instead. We’re hiring a roofer to repair the leaking roof. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m going to purge the rest of the Stuff that’s been hanging around in storage.

Over the past two months, I’ve been trying hard to do all of these things so that I can take off and travel for several weeks at a time. I had hoped I’d be ready to fly to England to hike Hadrian’s wall this month. In fact, before we understood the extent of Mom’s health problems (and before the leaky roof on our house), I had purchased a ticket to fly from Indianapolis to London today. But I’m not on a flight to London; I’m on a flight to Phoenix, from which I’ll catch a connection to Portland. I’m coming home to spend eight more weeks tying up loose ends before heading out on my own.

There are some other consequences to my busy-ness. After reaching my goal weight at the end of June, I’ve gained weight over the past month, and not in a good way. I’ve been stress eating. During my travels, I’ve been eating poor-quality food. I’ve had very little exercise. As a result, I’ve gained five pounds. It’s only five pounds, but I feel like a whale. I’m not worried, though: In the eight weeks I have at home, I’m going to focus on fitness.

Another consequence of my hectic lifestyle is that I haven’t been able to write as much as I want for pleasure. That means few updates here, and few updates at my new blogs — the blogs I really want to be writing at.

It would be easy to get discouraged by the lack of progress toward my goals, but actually I’m in good spirits. I’m having fun. And although I haven’t managed to make it to England or Ecuador yet, I know I’ll travel soon. I have the money, the time, and the inclination. Besides, it’s possible (probable, even) that by delaying my adventures for another two months, I’ll actually be better able to enjoy them. If I know Mom’s doing well, that the house is in good shape, and that my writing jobs are complete, I’ll have less weighing on my mind.

To that end, I plan to spend the next eight weeks working diligently to prepare for my departure. I’m going to focus on fitness, write lots, finish fixing up the house, and spend my spare time with Spanish. Then, in October, I can jet off to Ecuador or Argentina or Peru without a care in the world. I look forward to it!

Hiking from Lake Louise to the Lake Agnes Teahouse

My wife and I have spent the past several days in western Alberta, tucked high in the Canadian Rockies. Every few years, we join her family for a group vacation. In the past, we’ve visited Alaska, San Francisco, London, and New York. This year we chose Banff (population 7600), the highest city in Canada (at 1383 meters above sea level).

The scenery in Banff National Park is stunning. Words can’t do justice to the views — and neither can my photos. The Canadian Rockies stretch from horizon to horizon. Jagged peaks burst abruptly from the earth, towering above the pine forests below. Here and there are rivers and lakes colored a creamy turquoise blue. (This captivating color comes from “rock flour” carried by glacier melt-water.)

I’d love to say my photographs captured the majestic beauty of the mountains, but they don’t. This is the best I’ve managed so far (though I plan to keep trying):

Lake Louise, as seen from the gondola on the opposite side of the valley

Kris and I drove from Portland to Coeur d’Alene on Friday, and from Idaho to Banff on Saturday. On Sunday, we joined her family to explore the town and the surrounding area. On Monday, we drove the 58 kilometers north to Lake Louise.

Like everything else in the area, Lake Louise is gorgeous: Its glacier-fed waters are the same creamy turquoise found elsewhere in the region; mountain peaks (and Victoria Glacier) tower on three sides. There’s pine forest all around.

Canoes are popular on Lake Louise, especially on a sunny day.

On a sunny summer day like this one, tourists are everywhere. Some sit on the patio of the nearby chateau, sipping tea. Others rent canoes to paddle on the lake. But most pick one of many trails to hike and explore. Kris’ parents decided to take the easy stroll along Lake Louise, while Kris and I joined her sister and her husband for a more strenuous hike.

We had two options. We could:

Hike a 10.6 kilometer round-trip to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse. This four-hour journey includes a 365 meter elevation gain.
Hike a 6.8 kilometer round-trip to the Lake Agnes Teahouse. This two-and-a-half hour climb features a 385 meter elevation gain.

I was eager to do the longer hike, but my companions preferred the shorter route. Besides, Kris’ parents would be finished with their walk along Lake Louise in about an hour. If we were gone for four, they’d have a lot of time to kill. No worries — we set out for the Lake Agnes Teahouse.

Tiffany, Kris, and Paul on the well-marked (and well-traveled) path to the Lake Agnes Teahouse.

The path from Lake Louise to Lake Agnes is wide and well-trodden. There were many other hikers on the trail. Some were serious: they moved swiftly with their trekking poles and hiking boots. Others were more casual, making their way to the top in flip-flops.

About one-third of the way to the top, we reached the first switchback; here a small clearing in the trees allowed us to catch glimpses of the boaters on Lake Louise below. Two-thirds of the way to Lake Agnes, we stopped briefly at Mirror Lake. We would have rested longer but the mosquitos were out in force. Instead, we hurried on.

Note: When traveling, I almost always carry insect repellent with me. (I’m a fan of Ben’s wipes, which are like moist towelettes soaked with DEET.) For some reason, though, I left my insect repellent behind for the excursion to Lake Louise. I paid dearly for that mistake.

We stopped for a break at Mirror Lake; the bloodthirsty mosquitos forced us to resume climbing.

Aside from the mosquitos, the most difficult part of our hike was the elevation. Though it’s a constant climb from Lake Louise to Lake Agnes — there’s no up-and-down as on some mountain trails — the pitch isn’t severe. But because the trail is a mile above sea level, even fit folks can feel out of breath.

After about an hour of hiking, we reached Lake Agnes, a serene spot tucked into a bowl formed by a series of mountain peaks. The Lake Agnes Teahouse sits on the near shore, and is a popular destination with hikers. The teahouse offers 100 varieties of loose-leaf tea, but also provides snacks, light meals, and other drinks too.

The Lake Agnes Teahouse offers 100 varieties of loose-leaf tea.

I enjoyed a tuna sandwich and a bowl of “spicy African peanut” soup, which I washed down with a pot of lapsang souchong tea. (Since I don’t like coffee, I often drink this smoked tea from China. I like it so much that I buy it in bulk.) Given that the Lake Agnes Teahouse has only a tiny kitchen (and no electricity!), the food was surprisingly good, especially the oatmeal brown bread (which is baked fresh every morning). The only drawback was the cost: $5.70 for the pot of tea and $13.80 for the soup & sandwich combo. That’s $19.50 (or about $21 U.S.) for a simple meal! We agreed the price was worth it, though — a fitting reward for our efforts.

Note: The Lake Agnes Teahouse accepts only cash (or travelers checks). Because there’s no electricity, you cannot pay for your snacks with plastic.

Before we left the Lake Louise Teahouse, Kris and Tiffany played scofflaw by feeding a granola bar to the chipmunks lurking nearby.

Kris and Tiffany disobeyed the signs and fed the wildlife.

On our descent, we were plagued by even more mosquitos than before, which hardly seemed possible. Brave Paul allowed one of the little devils to suck his blood while I snapped a photo of the only predator we’ve seen so far in Alberta.

Paul fed the wildlife too. It was impossible to not feed the mosquitos.

The climb from Lake Louise to the Lake Agnes Teahouse was excellent exercise, and the weather perfect. Plus, the meal at the teahouse was memorable. We had fun. I do wish we’d done the Plain of Six Glaciers hike, but traveling with groups requires compromise. Besides, this gives me a reason to come back to Lake Louise sometime in the future, right?

Serving Suggestion

Courtesy of the local Fred Meyer produce department, here’s the world’s most hilarious “serving suggestion”: a serving suggestion for bananas.

Serving suggestion for bananas

There you have it. In case you weren’t aware of it before, you can use bananas in a fruit salad. Or — believe it or not — you can “simply eat fresh for a natural boost of energy”. Now, if only they could tell me what I should do with these blueberries…