2024 Life Logs, Day 245: Tomatoes and Elephants
Date: Sunday, September 1, 2024
Weather: Overcast, Rainy Day; High Temp 71, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
It was overcast today with periods of misty rain. Heather and family persisted and arrived at a mooring in the pond at Cuttyhunk this afternoon. We had a couple of hours with no rain mid-afternoon, so hopefully they did, too. It was probably not a banner day for sailing, but the weather was perfect for staying inside in processing tomatoes. So, that is what I did. Until about an hour ago, my plan was to can those tomatoes tomorrow, but while watching some of the Sunday morning programs I record to watch later, I saw something that caught my eye. On CBS’s Sunday Morning I watched a piece on Ketanji Brown Jackson. Then I fast forwarded to see if anything else looked interesting. That’s when I saw the elephants. I reversed to the beginning of that piece and watched. There has been a display of life-sized elephants in Newport since the beginning of July. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it before, but each of the elephants on display was modelled after a real life elephant and made using dried Lantana Camara vines. Lantana is beautiful, but it is an invasive weed that threatens protected areas in India. I did some more research and found that the elephants were created in the mountains of eastern Kerala and western Tamil Nadu in southern India. Mark and I, along with our friends Lynne and Ed, traveled into those mountains while we were there. Unfortunately, the display in Newport ends tomorrow as it is moving on to New York City. And nothing says it will still be there tomorrow. What I can find says they will be there “to September 2”. Does not mean through September 2 or ending September 1? Getting into those mountains in India was quite an adventure. So, I am thinking, “If I could do that, why not take a chance and drive to Newport early tomorrow morning in the hope of seeing the elephants?” But if they have already been taken away, the drive will be for naught. The other option is to visit them in New York City. One way or the other, I have to see those elephants.
I am copying part of my log from February 2010 on the day we traveled from Kerala to Tamil Nadu (the state to the east of Kerala). Driving to Newport ought to be a piece of cake after the adventure we had traveling on a public bus in India!
“I’m so glad we decided to go ahead with our weekend trip to Periyar Wildlife Reserve. The mountains here are so beautiful and the high tea plantations are just spectacular. But our morning started off a little shaky. Dave of Freebird took Ed and Lynne of Constance and us to shore at 7:15 am. So far so good. But our troubles began when we arrived at the bus station and everyone we talked to gave us a different location for finding the bus to Kumily. The station master’s office sent us to the side of the station. People there sent us to the front. And two different people in front gave us two entirely different locations. We went back to where we started and Mark went from bus to bus asking. Finally, someone from the station master’s office came up to us and pointed to a white bus. We bolted in that direction and tried to confirm with the bus driver that he was indeed going to Kumily, but it was just not clear. Then we saw a sign on the front of the bus indicating that it was headed to Madurai in Tamil Nadu (the state to the east of Kerala) and I had read that the bus to Kumily goes on to Madurai, so we were getting closer. We finally boarded and hoped for the best. I had decided that I was going wherever that bus was headed and once we paid for our tickets, it was confirmed that we were going to Kumily. So that whole experience was a little more confusing than we had hoped for, but otherwise the bus trip went fine. It took seven hours instead of five as advertised, and we traveled 180 kilometers from Cochin through crowded towns for the first half of the ride and then climbing higher and higher on the switchback roads for the second half. We actually had to cross into the state of Tamil Nadu before getting off the bus.”
