Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Panama Travelog #28
Panama City, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 10pm.

OMG. What a fucking mess this afternoon and evening turned into. Things have finally gotten under control somewhat by now but I'm still so pissed off.

Around 3 or 4pm today things looked good. We finished a revenge hike near Gamboa and needed to drive into Panama City. The plan was we'd drive to our hotel, check in, stow our bags in our room, then drive to the airport to return the car, and finally Uber back to the hotel. Oh, and squeeze into that list stopping at a Machetazo, Panama's equivalent of Walmart, so I could buy a swimsuit because I forgot to pack mine this trip. (It hasn't mattered until now because our last hotel didn't actually have a swimming pool, just a duck pond.) All these things happened, and in proper order, but how they all happened involved way more frustration than it should.


Back at the hotel Hawk and I divided our efforts.



Once the laundry was de-alcoholized and the phones were working we went out for a late dinner. The front desk had recommended a few restaurants within easy walking distance. We picked their first recommendation, Costa Azul, a restaurant with a huge menu of Panamanian standards. I noticed it's open 24 hours and was clearly popular with the late-evening crowd. And the food was... well, it's available 24 hours. I felt like they'd steered us to Panamanian Denny's.

As for the room temperature, I have temporarily accepted the solution of "Just turn it off". I will approach the front desk manager tomorrow. I expect the day shift manager will have more latitude to authorize a room change.

Panama Travelog #23
El Valle, Panama - Thu, 26 Dec 2024. 4pm.

I see my blog backlog growing huge with this trip in Panama. For example, the hike to La Dormida wound up spanning 5 entries— which will fill most of 2 days if I maintain my pace of 3 posts/day, longer if I don't. (Ed: It took 4 days to finish.) Thus I'm going to shift gears and start posting one-a-day summaries. I'm leaving space to fill in later with detailed entries including photos and such. One benefit of structuring my blogs this way should be a clearer narrative for our trip.

An Easy Start to the Day

Our day started off with breakfast in the usual place, with the usual foods, at the hotel. After breakfast we rested a bit; I'm still getting over achy legs from overexerting myself with the La Dormida hike two days ago. Today's better than yesterday. Going up the stairs is only slightly tough now. Going down the the stairs, though... ouch, that's still painful. My stabilizer muscles are wrecked from the uneven, steep, slippery trail at La Dormida.

Mid-morning we noticed that the sky was clearing overhead. How fitting that now, on our last full day in Anton's Valley, it looks like it will be sunny. Rather than just shake our fists at the sky as it mocks us, we decided to take advantage of Mother Nature finally taking pity and smiling on us a bit. We pulled together our hiking bags and headed out in the car with a list in mind of many things we could do while the sun is shining.



Also seeming to mock us is that today we could actually see La Dormida. The vantage point for this photo is not ideal, in down with electric and telephone wires running above us, but it's the clearest view I've seen. If you squint you can see the form of a woman lying on her back in the mountain. Her head is on the right, her next to the left of that, then her chest further left.

Hiking Cerro Gaital... Or Not

First on our list was hiking Cerro Gaital. It's part of the rim of the volcanic basin the valley lies in, and it's the mountain just behind our hotel. Of course, getting to a good trailhead to reach the top meant driving all the way around to the other side. I mean, we could have just walked straight up from the hotel... but that'd be a monster hike even more monster than La Dormida. So we drove.

Driving around to the upper trailhead on the other side of the mountain brought us up into the clouds. I knew it was possible, even likely, this trail would be socked in with clouds. While the sky was mostly clear from down in the valley there were places where low clouds were sticking around. And Cerro Gaital was one of them. This is where it was critical we planned a list of many things we could do today. We opted to nope out of hiking Cerro Gaital and instead go to the next spot on our list.

The View from Cerro La Cruz

Bailing out of hiking Cerro Gaital was absolutely the right choice. I had misgivings, strong misgivings, when we decided to get back in the car at the trailhead rather than hike. All those misgivings melted away as we came back down around the mountains and saw that our next destination, Cerro La Cruz, was clear. Beautifully clear.



We parked the car in a few places up on the ridge to explore different areas and see different views. I'm including just one photo here because, like I said at the top, I want to actually catch up on my backlog with these one-a-day entries, not fall further behind.

I picked this photo out of my collection for two reasons. One, it shows the spread of Anton's Valley below us. And two, that far mountain in the middle? The one with the clouds on it? The only one with the clouds on it? That's Cerro Gaital. Once I got to this spot around midday I knew that pulling the plug on hiking Cerro Gaital was 110% the right decision. Coming here I got the beautiful view I would not have gotten there, and it was much easier here with a super-short trail instead of a steep slog I would have been miserable doing.

Waterfalls at Las Mozas

I did stretch my legs at our next stop, the Las Mozas trail. It's just down the hill from from Cerro La Cruz. A short trail leads into a stream canyon with a few waterfalls. The short trail was surprisingly primitive. Any semblance of a constructed trail disappeared after about 20 meters as the route simply traversed the rough, volcanic rock next to the stream. With my weak ankles I was concerned I'd slip on the wet, very uneven rocks and stopped about halfway. Then I decided "Fuck it, I'm only here once" and pushed on to see the main waterfall. I'm glad I did.

Update: I've posted a blog with photos of Las Mozas waterfalls.

Lunch & Butterflies

Next up on our agenda was the butterfly sanctuary in town. But first was lunch. We stopped at a pizza spot in town we'd eaten at a few days earlier. Their pizza sucked but their empanadas and fries were good. So today we ordered just empanadas and fries. I washed mine down with a Panama beer. Usually I'm not a day drinker, but at these local restaurants a domestic beer is almost the same price as a soda. For an extra 20¢ I'll enjoy a beer.

The butterflies were... huge. There's this one species in Panama that's at least 6" across when it opens its wings, and it's brilliant blue on top. The butterfly sanctuary uses a double-door system so visitors can get right in with the butterflies. Some people in there with us had butterflies landing on their fingers. I couldn't get them on my fingers, but they sure loved my shirt and kept landing on my collar and shoulder.

Sharing photos and video of the butterflies is definitely a thing that would backlog my blog worse, so I'll leave those to post later.

Panama Travelog #10
El Valle, Panama - Mon, 23 Dec 2024. 8pm.

With so many little things go wrong on this trip we're trying to keep our spirits up. Instead of remaining bitter about the things we missed because they were closed, broken, unavailable, swapped to a cheaper model, or laden with fake reviews, we're trying to focus on what we do have.



After the snafu with our hotel booking for the next 4 nights we relaxed with a pair of drinks in the hotel restaurant. They made a virgin piña colada for Hawk without needing multiple rounds of negotiation. It was rich with real pineapple and coconut, possibly the best she's had. I got a margarita which, while not the best I've ever had, tasted like a it's just a tequila slushie. 😵‍💫

It's good we relaxed with these drinks at the hotel before heading out, because once we headed out we were in for more snafus. 🤣



With it being too late in the afternoon to hike anywhere and too early for dinner, we figured we'd visit the butterfly sanctuary in town. That entailed two more snafus. The first is that a bridge is out on the main road through town. The detour routed us along this neighborhood street... that's actually a dirt road. And it's muddy.

Then, once we got to the butterfly sanctuary, it was closed. Well, not closed-closed. But thanks to delays arguing about the bait-and-switch at the hotel we arrived just after the last entry.

So again, it was too early for dinner, too late to hike, and now too late to visit the butterfly sanctuary. What else was there to do? How about... go shopping!



We parked near the town's flea market and walked around the vendors' stalls. This area was clearly a tourist trap but we enjoyed looking at the goods here. Tourist trap or no, most of these are hand-made. We could tell because in many of the booths the craftspeople were sitting there making them! The photo above shows a hand-painted wood piece featuring a Harpy Eagle, Panama's national bird. We saw lots of them in different forms of art; I like this one because it's preying on a sloth.

After visiting all the booths at the flea market we walked along the town's main street— yes, the part on the other side of the "Bridge out Ahead!" situation— to glance at other shops and restaurants.



One of the shops had a bunch of Panama hats. I considered buying one... But a) they didn't have my size, b) I already own a couple of straw hats, though I left them at home this trip, and c) these hats nowadays strike me as being a bit colonizer-y, especially when a white guy like me wears them.

Soon enough it was time for dinner. We were hungry, too, as lunch was a couple of bao (for me) and 50 cents of fried plantains (for Hawk). The restaurants in town are mostly tilted to the tourist crowd, touting burgers, pizza, Italian, and... Chinese. Though the Chinese seems more locals-oriented than the others. We picked a restaurants with pizza and Argentine style food, particularly empanadas. Hawk got an empanada while I ordered a pizza and drank two cans of local beer to wash it down. I opted for the beer partly because I was curious to try Panama national brands and partly because it was only slight more expensive than the overpriced cans of soda.

Now we're back at the room, after a stop along the way at a mini-super (M/S), the regional term for a small grocery store that sells a bit of everything, to get some drinks and snacks for the room. I bought a few bottles of beer— I found Negra Modelo sold as loosies for a cheap price— to enjoy this evening. We're sitting out on the hallway/balcony in a pair of Adirondack chairs enjoying the evening air.

Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow. With everything.

For lunch Saturday Hawk and I tried visiting a new-ish restaurant chain nearby, Sourdough & Co. I've eaten there once before and was disappointed with the high price for a modestly sized sandwich but thought I'd give it another try. In hindsight I should have known there'd be trouble when the restaurant didn't have its basic sandwich prices listed anywhere— not on the lighted menu board behind the counter, not in the paper menus in a rack by the register. The total for our order, two sandwiches with side-and-drink combos, came to $55 and change.

"$55, that's a lot for two people," I told the cashier. "I'd like to review the bill to see the individual prices."

"Well, that's what it costs," the cashier said, unhelpfully, as if I'd criticized him personally. "You got two sandwiches with sides." Notably he did not show me price breakdown, as I'd specifically requested.

Before I could ask him more pointedly to show me the itemized bill, Hawk jumped in to the conversation and announced, "No. I'm not okay with paying that much?"

"What do you want to do?" I asked. "Leave?"

"Yeah."

So we left and walked across the square to Five Guys. Five Guys, which I'd just read in a news article this morning is rated the second most overpriced fast-food chain. The bill for our two meals there came to $36 and change. And for that money we both ate our fill. And, importantly for Hawk, they had a better drink selection, including drinks she actually enjoys.

Thanksgiving '24 Travelog #6
Falls Church, VA - Tue, 26 Nov 2024, 9:30am

The hotel we're staying at for our 4 nights in Virginia, the Hilton Home2 Suites in West Falls Church, is new and overall pretty comfortable. One thing a lot of travelers like about hotels such as this is that a breakfast buffet is included in the rate. Before you European friends of mine say, "Of course!' and "Yes, that's tasty," remember this is an American breakfast buffet. A complimentary American breakfast buffet. That means instead of fresh eggs, deli meats, cheeses, and baked goods it's stale, sugary carbs and other prepackaged crap. So while while many of my fellow Americans book hotels such as this because they fancy themselves living the high life gorging on that "free!" buffet, Hawk and I booked this hotel because every room comes with a kitchenette— including a 3/4-size refrigerator. We picked the hotel because that would make things easier to buy and eat our own groceries!



So indeed our first order of business Sunday morning (we arrived late Saturday night) was not to go downstairs to the breakfast buffet on floor 2 but go all the way down to the ground level and head over to the Giant Food supermarket a few blocks away. We bought drinks and snacks for the room as well as simple breakfast foods. Well, maybe not all simple. Hawk bought a tray of freshly rolled veggie sushi. 😋 I bought a jar of pickled herring, a few bagels, and a dish of cream cheese. Yes, I could literally get a bagel and cream cheese free from the buffet if I wanted... but I could tell the bagels in the supermarket were better than anything I was likely to find at a hotel breakfast buffet.

Monday morning I decided to check out the buffet to see how good of a choice we'd made. Indeed there were free bagels and cream cheese. I tried one of their bagels.... It was surprisingly way fresher than any bagel I've had at a similar hotel. But the ones I paid 89¢ each for at the supermarket were still way better.

I'm glad we picked the hotel where I can buy a better bagel.

Who remembers Marie Callender's? Okay, probably few people outside of California. They're a restaurant chain and a brand of ready-made frozen pies you can buy at the supermarket.

The restaurant chain has gone through ups and downs— but mostly downs— over the years. They were more common in California in the 1980s and '90s as an American variety menu restaurant whose specialty was a large selection of pies available for dessert. The chain went through a series of purchases and stumbled badly after its co-founder passed away. Today there are only 27 Marie Callender's restaurants left, per their website. Their map shows they've mostly in California, and mostly in Southern California at that. There are two in Las Vegas, one in Salt Lake City, and one near Boise. And of the merely two located in Northern California, one's right here in Sunnyvale.



Why the little history lesson on a little-known restaurant chain? Well, we decided to eat there for the first time in... years. It was a partly a matter of my sort-of New Year's resolution last year to try some new restaurants in the area— or old ones we hadn't been to in a long time. This definitely counts as the latter. I think Hawk ate at the local Marie's a few years ago, but for me it's been probably 20 years.

We did used to eat at Marie Callender's more often. ...Not weekly, or even monthly, but definitely more often than once in 20 years. The chain was one of many at the time in the category of variety-menu American food. In addition to Marie's there were Lyons, and Carrows, and bears Baker's Square. Now they're all gone. Though other chains in the once-crowded space, Denny's and Hobee's, are still around. It was partly because there were so many chains in the category that we didn't dine at any one all that frequently. Plus, middle-American wasn't a cuisine we cared to eat more than maybe once a month, and even then only for variety when we were tired of Mexican, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, and so many other categories we're rich with here in Silicon Valley.

So anyway, we decided on a visit to the local Marie Callender's for old times' sake. And because we were curious about this restaurant, in our town, being one of the few survivors.

Stepping into the restaurant was like entering a museum from the 1940s. The place was decked out in dark wood, highly waxed, with dim lighting. The wood floor creaked gently underfoot as we crossed the large foyer. Marie Callender's always made its niche within its crowded restaurant category with old-timey decor and a more upscale character than its competitors. But here what was once an artificial old-timey look now looked... genuinely old. Like nothing had changed for 40 years. Walking to our seat was like walking through a museum that serves food.



Little has changed about Marie Callender's menu, either. It looks similar to what I remember from 25 years ago— not that I remember it all that well. It does seem to have shrunk over time, though. That's understandable as a result of all the times it was bought and sold and the constant pressure from new owners to find ways to reduce costs. Luckily I was in the mood for a classic Marie Callender's dish, a meatloaf sandwich.

At least one thing changed from 25 years ago. Beer. Note that glass behind my plate and the bottle of beer in the upper right hand corner. Marie's offers a choice of about a dozen beers now! Serving beer was once considered antithetical to the family-friendly image chains in the category anchored by Denny's strove to maintain. As that category withered the chains decided they'd have to broaden their offerings in various ways to survive. So now there's bottled beer.

How was the food? Well, that meatloaf sandwich was the main thing, and it was... barely edible. The meat tasted like low quality ground beef, possibly with too much filler. It was also dry, like it had been left sitting under a warming lamp all day.

I was really disappointed by that, though at the same time not too surprised. I mean, Marie Callender's did used to be better. I know that because I know the kind of food I enjoyed eating when I moved to California in the 1990s, and I know it was better that this. This restaurant was never great; but it was at least fair. Now it's not even that.

Food at family-oriented restaurants that were once a mainstay of dining almost all seems to suck today. It's the end result of too many years of cost reduction in search of greater profits. The problem is, when they reduce the cost too much the product starts to suck, and once the food isn't that great anymore customers will go elsewhere. Witness why so many chains in this once booming category have disappeared over the past 25 years and even the survivors have only a fraction of the locations they once had.

PA Anniversary Trip Journal #2
Arlington, VA - Thu, 7 Nov 2024, 7:30pm

This evening we're en route to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to visit my inlaws for their 60th anniversary. We landed at DCA airport just before 6pm. From there it'd be just a bit over 2 hours of driving to my inlaws' house— if we went straight there. Instead we did a smidge of shopping in Arlington, Virginia near the airport. Then, since we'd had no time for lunch today as our first flight arrived late and we had to run through the terminal at MDW airport to catch our connecting flight, we decided to stop for dinner sooner rather than later.

Where to eat? In built-up Arlington there are tons of choices. First we agreed we were in the mood for Tex-Mex. Then we Yelped the choices and... found a curious choice wasn't too far out of our way.



The Rio Grande Cafe in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington is an old favorite. And by old I mean old. This is the first actual Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurant I ever ate at, 33 years ago! Prior to that I'd only ever had those shitty Old El Paso hard taco shells from a box with that packet of seasoning to stir into ground beef. I'd never had an enchilada; I'd never had a proper, freshly made salsa; I'd never had guacamole. Yes, I grew up in a very white-bread family, a cultural impairment I overcame very swiftly in college. I ate here weekly with colleagues 30+ years ago when I worked a few blocks away on a college internship.

This restaurant also holds special significance to us, as a couple. It's where Hawk and I met in person for the first time! That was just over 30 years ago. How ironically apropos that while driving to our parents' 60th anniversary we found a spur-of-the-moment stop that aligns with the 30th anniversary of a milestone in our own lives.

"Let's try new restaurants in the area." That was my New Year's resolution... in 2023. Our idea was to try one new-to-us or haven't-been-there-in-years restaurant a month. In the past 23 months we've tried... not quite ten. Clearly I'm still working on that resolution. 😅

This weekend we dined at Pedro's in Santa Clara. It's not new-new. It's a Mexican restaurant that's been there for years, at least as long as the going-on 30 years we've lived in the area. But it is kind of new to us, as the last time I recall dining there was over 20 years ago.

Pedro's is a big restaurant you can see from 101 in Santa Clara. It's harder to spot during the day, as it's a two-story joint next to a bunch of high-rise office towers. It's easier to see in the evening with its bright sign lit. Inside, the restaurant has a coziness that belies its capacity. The dining area are split into several rooms. On Saturday it was maybe less than half full, but with only some of the rooms open the visible areas were full enough for there to be a comfortable buzz. Low ceilings and intimate lighting— but thankfully not so dim we middle-age-plus adults need to pull out our phones to use as flashlights to read the menu— enhanced the cozy atmosphere.

Service was snappy. Servers entered orders on small hand-held tablets, so orders went straight to the kitchen or bar. Runners brought food and drinks out swiftly, for the most part. The one thing that was delayed was an order of tableside guacamole that arrived well after the chips and salsa.

So far I've talked about the atmosphere and the service. You might be wondering, what about the food? The food's the most important thing in dining out. Alas....

Pedro's food is good but not great. The quality and the presentation are a step above casual, family-oriented Mexican restaurants in the area. (Let me point out this is already high bar in this area.) But the flavors were not as good as our local favorites.

Pedro's prices were out of line. Entrees were about 20% more expensive than at our favorite local Mexican restaurants, which we think still taste better. A plate of two enchiladas was $30. A small steak quesadilla was $20. It all looked very pretty, but it was small for the price and only good, not superior, in taste.

In addition to being turned off by the elevated menu prices, we felt nickel-and-dimed by having to pay for chips and salsa. The three varieties of salsa they served us were tasty, but I really hope this isn't going to become the new normal at Mexican restaurants that chips and salsa are no longer complimentary starters. And for $6 for the salsa and $15+ for the guacamole— which was the size of one avocado, I must point out— they brought us only one small basket of chips. They didn't offer a refill until after they cleared away our dinner plates.

Drinks from the bar were hit-or-miss. I ordered a cadillac margarita that was good but not great. Hawk ordered a virgin piña colada that was an amateur effort. What landed on the table tasted like a melted creamsicle in a glass. She sent it back and asked for a Shirley Temple instead. At least that was good. And they brought her a refill.

Bottom line on the price versus quality ratio: Our bill was more than 20% higher than we spend for a comparably sized dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area, for the food was a notch below them. There's a reason why my last visit there was 20 years ago. I wanted to try them again in case that reason has changed. Sadly it's still the same.

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #27
Blowing Rock, NC - Fri, 6 Sep 2024. 2pm

Today we got out of the hotel even earlier than yesterday. Today we were on the road before 10am. 😅

There's a waterfalls hiking trail that starts right in town in Blowing Rock, NC. And it's not just some walk-in-the-park bunny trail, it's a genuine hike with an ascent of over 600' on the return. How cool is that?



The first falls on the Glen Burney Falls trail isn't Glen Burney Falls. It doesn't really have a name. It's not even a falls. It's just "Cascades". Okay, but it's more than 4' tall, like the photo above implies. There's actually a pretty good drop here....



What I usually say about the view from atop a falls not being very enjoyable is different here. These falls— I mean, cascades 😅— are horizontal enough that there's a good view from above. And it's nice with the view of the trail around to the left and the canyon dropping away below us. Oh, and the fact there's no way to stand at the bottom of the falls without trampling a restoration area.



Further down the canyon is the namesake of this trail, Glen Burney Falls. It's taller than this photo (above) gives it credit for. Like the cascades, these falls are horizontal enough that the view from below doesn't show everything. And the water flow today is light. I wonder what this was like 4 days ago, after rain the day before.



There's a bonus falls further down on the Glen Burney Falls trail. It's Glen Marie Falls. This falls is actually the tallest of the three, by fair margin. I figure it's over 60' tall. But it falls in kind of a crooked path over the uneven rock face, and at a low flow time like this it doesn't show well. As much as I don't like hiking in the mud, hiking this trail a day, maybe two, after a rain is probably the best way to enjoy it.

The return hike up the canyon was tough. I felt badly winded getting up past the three falls. The trail gets a lot easier above that, though. Even though there were another 300 vertical feet past that I was able to pick up my pace substantially.

Back at the trailhead we discussed what to eat for lunch. There actually aren't a ton of restaurants in this touristy little town of Blowing Rock. We didn't French cafe food (too French), we didn't want a brewpub (too early for beer), and we didn't want Mexican (too inauthentic— like, they use American cheese in enchiladas 🤢)... so we went back to the pizza place we visited a few days ago. Hawk's rarely in the mood for pizza, but they actually offer a style she enjoys— and the cook nailed it with her special requests. Plus I had a beer, because screw it, it's not that early. 😂

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #18
Boone, NC - Wed, 4 Sep 2024. 11pm

Once we got back to Boone this evening, after a satisfying long day out, our first order of business was finding dinner. It's surprising for a college town that Boone doesn't have more local, casual eats; mostly it's chains here. But we did find a well reviewed local burgers place call the Come Back Shack. The food was... college town eats. Which is to say, good but not great food with a fun, younger-oriented vibe. And it was less than half a mile from our hotel, so that was a win, too.

One of the things that comes along with a younger oriented vibe nowadays is no physical menu. There are no menus at the tables, no lighted menu board overhead, and not even a cashier to order from. You scan a QR code with your phone and order through their website, or you use an ordering kiosk at the back of the dining room.

I'm not a Boomer, but I agree with Boomers on this: We hate QR code menus. Just give us a physical menu! I like being able to see the menu all at once instead of having to scroll, scroll, scroll through pages of stuff on my tiny phone screen. Oh, and the fact it's seldom well lit in such restaurants anymore makes it even more of a challenge. Thankfully this restaurant did at least have that ordering kiosk at the back, so we could page through the menu in a reasonable font size. We ordered there. Though we noted that all the Boomer customers were having trouble with it, so if we found ourselves stuck behind one... shit, we'd probably just leave and go somewhere else.