The Willimers in America

10 Years After

Ten years ago, we had no home and we were living in a hotel. We had no car and were driving an expensive rental car, and we had no friends or immediate family to turn to - we had left them all 3,000 miles away. But these were not desperate times, they were exciting days, the beginning of a great adventure which saw it's 10th anniversary pass this week.
Over the years, we have addressed all those things in glorious fashion. We have a marvelous home, the like of which we could never have dreamed of in England, we are a two car family (including a long-cherished BMW !), and - as well as achieving the myriad of things that make for an established and comfortable life - most importantly of all, we have a wide circle of wonderful friends in our life.
Perhaps as life becomes more settled and contented, there are less things of note to write about. Certainly, it becomes harder to spot things which are of interest because they are 'different' - because, after ten years, they're not (though I did have to ask someone this week to confirm what "ten of" the hour means when telling the time...)
But a tenth anniversary is a prompt to pick up a slightly forgotten blog, to post more pictures and to share more of the thoughts and feelings that can't be expressed in the 420 characters of a Facebook status. Expect more soon.

Alaska Day 10 - 4th July at Seward

Today was a big day, with festivities and races all morning, and the big race at midday. The big race is the Seward Mountain Marathon, an annual event where runners leave the centre of town, run to the top of the nearest mountain, then half run, half tumble back to the finish line. For the best runners, going up takes about half an hour, coming down takes much much less. The town was filled with street vendors, with every kind of food and drink available.

So it was a big surprise that when we finally hit the streets just after 10am, nowhere was serving breakfast. Whilst Linda and I were looking forward to trying the street food, Tom wanted pancakes, but had to settle for pizza and fries for breakfast, which didn't put him in a good humour. We had some rough times of Ryan and Amy's schedule, which gave us plenty of time to wander around. The town had a real community vibe, and the day felt not unlike the Shadfest in Lambertville (where Ryan and Amy live) so there was no surprise why they like it so much.

  

During the morning, we went to the Alaska Sealife Center, where Bob Hicks had worked previously. We watched sea lions and seals pirouette gracefully around the tanks before heading back to town to meet up with the gang. After ice cream, our group dispersed, while the Willimers stayed with Ryan to watch the race start. A huge field of runners of mixed ability set off, and we tracked them from the centre of town as small dots disappearing up the hillside. 50 minutes later the leader returned, mud-spattered and bruised to cross the finish line. The end of the race was surprisingly low key, as the crowds of earlier seemed to have thinned out. And apart from a few groups of young herberts letting off stink bombs, the anticipated rowdiness never materialised. We finished the evening with a fine meal at Cristo's Palace, where I was able to extol and demonstrate the virtue of serving salmon with melted cheese, in my excellent Salmon Quesadilla.

  

More pictures of the day are here.

At The Zoo

Tom says - Today we went to the zoo in Anchorage and it, well... wasn't the biggest zoo ever, but it had a few bunch of animals. I did see some bears and a snow leapard and a lynx, hurrah ! But probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen I managed to captured on my camara. It's a video, and it uses Media Player. It involves a bear, a barrel, and a whole darn lot of abundance. So here it is !!!!

Alaska - Day 1

So May slips away, along with it the opportunity to blog in a timely way about all sorts of things - Tom's first Choral concert, all the end of year stuff, travel soccer events. And no sooner has the two-week party period called 'End of Grade School' finished, when our vacation starts, and we are on our way to Alaska.

Our good friends Ryan and Amy who come from Alaska have often told us amazing tales of their home state, commonly ending with the phrase "we must take you there one day" Finally we called their bluff and said 'how about this summer ?' Plans were made, and we now find ourselves in Anchorage, staying with Bob and Mary, Amy's generous and welcoming parents in their wonderful home.

Yesterday we travelled. But since this Alaskan adventure is a journey in itself, it seems pointless to write about the journey to a journey. We got on a plane in Philadelphia, it took us to Salt Lake City, where we got another plane to bring us here, 11 hours and four time zones later. We were fed the usual airline food, and watched cheesy airline movies, all in the cause of passing both time and 4,353 miles beneath our wings.

Now we are here, among mountains and lakes, float planes and strip malls, large stuffed moose heads and even larger stuffed fish. It's the first day, and I can't hope to sum up what it feels like - but it certainly feels different. On our trip out this morning, we played with words and came up with 'Alpine Redneck' to describe the feel of the area we drove through. It summed up the mixture of fabulous chalet-type wooden houses, built sympathetically into the side of impressively wooded mountain sides (Ryan said the area was called 'Hillside' but that didn't do justice to the scenery), occasionally punctuated with discarded washing machines and the odd 'Gun Supermarket'.

Our trip (that's me, Ryan and his good friends Shane and Missy, who we met in New Jersey on their 'Round America' bike ride) was intended to be a 'quick hike' up a local mountain called Flattop - a relatively simple 40 minute walk, and scree-scramble, to the top of an impressive viewpoint. Unfortunately Man got in the way of Nature, and the parking lot was half-capacity due to roadworks. We couldn't park anywhere near this trail, so we headed to a lower trail, and made the best of it. We picked our way up a sodden muddy trail, stopping to check out moose footprints and various piles of droppings. I tried hard not to be to alarmed at the advice on how to avoid being mauled by a grizzly bear, gored by a moose or bitten to pieces by mosquitos.

From the highest point of our trek, we were able to get some expansive views across the city of Anchorage and out into the Cook Inlet. We often advise travellers to new places to take a bus tour - it's a very effective way of getting to know a whole city very quickly, and to get your bearings for future excursions. Going up a local mountain, and looking out over the city was the most effective way of doing this for Anchorage - getting our bearings, and providing some context for future outings.

Much of our discussions have revolved around places to eat. Today for lunch we visited one of Ryan and Shane's old haunts, called Wee B's, for a classic grilled burger and chees fries. We returned to spend a little time talking about where else to visit, and a lot of time talking about various eating places we have to include on the itinerary.

Filling in the Gaps

I thought about this so many times - an easy way to fill in some of the gaps in this blog, without too much work. So here is our Christmas letter from 2007. Sorry if we sent it to you and you already read it. And sorry if you haven't read it, and it's 5 months late.

Seven years, yes seven ! In April 2007 we celebrated our 6th anniversary of life in the U.S.A. and we started our first calendar year as full-time permanent residents. 2006 had been a roller-coaster year in relation to my job, but it was the greater corporate world which supplied the ups and downs in 2007.

Last year ended with Dow Jones acquiring the Reuters' half of Factiva. At the very least, it was now simpler for me to explain to people who I worked for – instead of long explanations of 'joint ventures' and 'online business information', the simple answer was now – "I work for Dow Jones". This goes down really well locally, since people have heard that name before (unlike Factiva), and some even know where our location is !

This simplicity lasted two or three months, when the turmoil of moving from Reuters to Dow Jones (changing my pension for a 401(k), changing health insurance and payroll arrangements) was superseded by the uncertainty of a future life working for the Murdoch empire. In mid-summer, the paternalistic Bancroft family, who had owned the Dow Jones for 105 years, decided enough was enough and accepted the $5 billion Rupert was offering to buy the company (specifically – to buy the Wall Street Journal). So by the end of 2007 I will have gone from working for Reuters to Dow Jones to NewsCorp in 12 months, and hoping that at the very least my new company benefits include free access to Fox Soccer Channel !

Linda's business has been growing steadily throughout the year – she has branched out into scrapbooking classes alongside her card making, grown her customer base, built a loyal group of regulars and she regularly sells around $1000 a month of supplies. That "Small Business Marketing for Idiots" book was probably the most useful Christmas present I ever gave her.

On the home front, our latest step towards a truly American life style was to install vinyl siding on the house. In America, there are very few brick built houses – most houses are built entirely of timber. They go up very quickly, and traditionally they are finished with timber shingles or clapboard siding. These have to be maintained – which in turns means you have to paint the entire outside of your house every 4 or 5 years. The alternative is to remove all the timber shingles and install vinyl siding, which can look quite smart, but most importantly, it remains maintenance free for many years.

However the actual work requires that you open yourself up to another fact of American life – lowly-paid Hispanic labourers who don't speak any English and often have a questionable sense of 'quality work'. So we worked hard with our experienced project manager - from a large reputable Department Store - to prevent any problems. It turned out that the actual work was done brilliantly, with a great deal of care and attention and at a remarkable pace. If only the 'experienced project manager' from the reputable Department Store had been as good as Bernardo and his gang. Eventually the house came out looking fantastic, and next year we'll finish the outside by building a sumptuous deck for entertaining.

Thomas continues to thrive here in America. In September he entered 5th grade, which is his last year at elementary school. We are so impressed with the way in which his school prepares the kids for 'big school' next year. He has four different core subjects each day (as well as weekly lessons in Art, Music, Gym and Spanish) for which he has to move between classrooms, and every day he has responsibility for tracking his homework and when it has to be handed in. We understand that the Middle School teachers recognize kids from Tom's elementary school when they move up, because they all know their grammar and cope effortlessly with the daily schedule. After a year off, Linda volunteered for Home Room duties in Tom's class again. This is the last year she'll be able to be this involved with Thomas and school, so she wanted to make the most of it.

Tom is still playing soccer at a reasonable level. He finished his U10 year with Hopewell Surge in the Spring season. The team was very strong, and lost only two games all year – so strong in fact, that in the summer tryouts, Tom didn't make the team for the U11 year. Fortunately there were so many boys at this tryout that the club decided to form a second U11 team which is how Tom ended up playing for Hopewell Inferno in the fall, and I took my F coaching licence and became a travel team coach. Since the Inferno team was made up of players who didn't make the 'first' team, the quality is lower and the team struggled at first. But through the season they bonded as a team, and finished up with three victories in their ten games. Tom's confidence benefits from being a 'big fish in a small pond', and he scored 3 of the team's 8 goals. Late in the season, I took over coaching duties when my two colleagues were red carded, and suspended – and the team won 2 of their 3 games while I was in charge. Tom and I did a number of cool trips this year.

As Tom is growing up, his interests are getting more mature and becoming the kinds of things that father and son can do together. In June, we took a weekend trip to Cincinnati and Indianapolis. On Saturday, we visited Paramount Kings Island, one of the biggest theme parks in North America, and including The Beast, a most amazing wooden roller coaster on the side of a hill. Kings Island was chosen for its proximity to Indianapolis, so that on Sunday we could take in the US Formula 1 Grand Prix. Tom and I have become great Formula 1 fans, rising early on Sunday mornings to watch races on Speed Cable Channel, and to cheer on the Ferrari team – so rather unpatriotically we were willing Kimi and Filipe to beat Lewis Hamilton – which didn't happen at Indy, but came to pass by the end of the season.

Later in the summer, the racing bug threw up another fun day at Lime Rock, Connecticut, where Tom and I took in a family karting day – learning to handle a racing kart, control skids, learn lane discipline, and finishing with a one hour endurance race. As much as it was a fun few days out, we hope it might be something for Tom to build on – one day he wants to be a racing driver (as well as a teacher, a professional footballer, a paleontologist, and a roller coaster engineer). We haven't yet worked out which college does the course that covers all those.

Other summer trips included Baltimore – where we visited the National Aquarium – and Hershey Park for an overdose of inferior American chocolate, along with some fantastic theme park action and outlet shopping. And of course on the football theme, Tom and I could not miss the American sports phenomenon of the summer. David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy versus NY Red Bulls at Giants Stadium. In contrast to everything else about Beckham's US adventure, for once the action on the field lived up to the media hype, and Red Bulls beat the Galaxy 4-3 with a last minute goal in a fantastically thrilling game.

A number of newly founded Willimer traditions fell by the wayside this year. We had a very quiet Halloween (no Willimer Halloween Party, no haunted house etc) and no Thanksgiving trip, not least because we were (are) preparing to spend Christmas in England this year. If we haven't seen you here this year, we might see you over the holiday. We did see Gabriella here early in the year, which meant that for our New York excursion, instead of going up the Empire State Building with our visitors for the 14th time, we were led down to Greenwich Village for a tour of the jewelry and craft stores. We had a great time, and also found a store called 'Myers of Keswick' which sells everything English – including Walkers Crisps, Mars Bars and Typhoo teabags – as well as home-made sausage rolls and pork pies. I've been back a couple of times…..

We made up for no Halloween Party by visiting Sleepy Hollow with friends. Washington Irving's story called 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' is a staple of American childhood, and is set in the real town of Sleepy Hollow, in upstate New York. The town cashes in on this celebrity by having a host of spooky party events every Halloween. On Friday we went to a 'lantern blaze' – literally thousands of pumpkin lanterns arranged in fascinating tableux. On Saturday, the continuous rain led us to miss the 'round-the town' events, but by late afternoon we were at the Sleepy Hollow churchyard to see Washington Irving's grave, and the famous bridge where Ichabod Crane saw the headless horseman. Then on Saturday evening Philipsburg Manor hosted the Legend Weekend – the grounds became a haunted landscape where ghouls, witches, pirates, and apparitions came eerily to life, actors read 'The Legend' in costume, and the headless horseman made an appearance in a darkened paddock.

Linda wins the prize for ticking off another tradition this year. While I did the honours last year by hitting a deer in my car, Linda went all the way and hit a car coming in the other direction, which put her in court with a summons for careless driving. The system here allows you to plead not guilty to the greater offence, and instead pay a bigger fine for a lesser offence to avoid getting points on your licence. This involves going before a judge in municipal court along with various ne'er-do wells – Linda stood alongside kids caught with illegal fireworks and a surprisingly wide range of drink-drivers. She walked out of court with no points on her licence and $560 poorer.

My brother Nigel and his girlfriend Catherine dropped in April for a stopover on their way to a wedding in Hawaii (!) and then spent a week with us on the way back. And in July Pete Seaman brought his son Rupert to New York for a vacation, and we did a few trips together. Tom and I took Pete and Rupert to a New York Red Bulls game at Giants Stadium, and we all spent another day together in Central Park, with Chris pushing Pete's wheelchair up and down the hills before dining at Planet Hollywood.

If we didn't see you here this year, maybe we'll bump into you over Christmas? If not then have a very happy Christmas, and a best wishes for 2008.

Phew ! What a lot of stuff in 2007 - I'd forgotten half of it. Unbelievably, this year is almost as action packed, and I've hardly written a word so far....