The Little Beet

Here's a little restaurant I came upon in Washington around Du Pont Circle called The Little Beet. Any restaurant that lists cauliflower and broccoli on their front window must be part of some horrible nightmare fever dream for me but it would be right in my mother and sister's wheelhouse.

Here's what the front window says if you can't quite read it from the photograph:

GRILLED / CHARRED / CRAFTED
STEAK / BROCCOLI / QUINOA
SALMON / CAULIFLOWER / LENTILS
CHICKEN / KALE / BUCKWHEAT
REAL / SIMPLE / HEALTHY

The View From My Window #22: Seeing Russia From My Window

When Laura and I lived in Kharkiv, Ukraine before the Russian invasion, we lived in the closest major city (Kharkiv has about 1.5 million people) to the Russian border. We joked before a Russian invasion was a realistic possibility that Kharkiv might be the first city they would take but having such a large population turned out to be a benefit as controlling a city that size would have required more military resource than Russia was willing to use. 

Now that Laura and I are spending the summer in Washington DC, it turns out we are closer to Russia than we ever were in Kharkiv. I know Sarah Palin famously joked about seeing Russia from her doorstep but I can literally see it from my window was we live right across from the Embassy of the Russian Federation. That's the embassy compound behind the tan walls. 

The compound, which includes an apartment building, school, and sports areas, was constructed in the late 70's and early 80's. It is built on a hill called Mount Alto and no one is easily jumping the fence and making it onto the grounds as there are several levels you need to climb to actually get to the building levels.

The famous Russian spy Robert Hanssen alerted the Soviets that the Americans were building a tunnel under the compound to better spy on the complex.

Criminal Records' Georgia Musicians Artwork

I recently got to visit the best record store I've found around Atlanta, Criminal Records. The store is located in the Little Five Points neighborhood of east Atlanta and it's a nice mix of new and used vinyl, comics, toys, and just about everything...except trading cards.

It was pretty hard not to notice that they had changed out the signs in front of the store and had added a great map of Georgia that roughly shows where some of the famous musicians from the state are from. Musical greatness might be Georgia's greatest claim to fame and just taking a look at some of these names you may understand why.

Here's a breakdown of some of the most famous Georgian musicians. Many were born here and some made their names here. James Brown was born in South Carolina but got his start in Georgia. The battle for most important musical Georgia town is between Athens and Macon. Macon has the one two punch of Little Richard and Otis Redding while Athens has an amazing quantity of stars from R.E.M. to The B-52's to The Drive-By Truckers to Neutral Milk Hotel.

Here is a more comprehensive list of the bigger stars.

Allman Brothers Band - Macon
Black Crowes - Marietta
Drive-By Truckers - Athens
B-52's - Athens
Gladys Knight - Atlanta
Gram Parsons - Alanta
James Brown - Toccoa
Little Richard - Macon
Indigo Girls - Atlanta
Otis Redding - Dawson/Macon
Outkast - Atlanta
Ray Charles - Albany
R.E.M. - Athens
Widespread Panic - Athens

The Lover's Oak

We recently visited Georgia's Atlantic coast and it was a refreshing change from urban Atlanta. It's hard to believe the change in environment in about a three hour drive and the islands of St. Simon and Jekyll Island are great places to visit if you ever get the chance.

The main city around the coastal islands is Brunswick, Georgia and like Savannah, it has many planned out public squares. While we were driving around early on a Sunday morning as the town was still pretty much asleep, we came upon this huge oak tree. Getting out and reading about it, it is called the Lover's Oak and the National Arborist Association has certified that the tree has been there since well before the founding of the United States.

The "Lover's Oak" name comes the tradition that the tree was a common meeting place for Native Americans who would sit under the tree's huge base. Who really knows about that but the tree was an amazing "off the beaten path" moment that you often find while visiting little rural towns. 

FDR's Walking Sticks

Over the summer I got to visit President Franklin Roosevelt's Georgia home, given the name the Little White House. He built the home in Warm Springs, GA to take advantage of the warm spring water that helped with his polio treatment and it would be the place where the President passed away when he died of a stroke in 1945. The museum that makes up the guest house and the main house has many great FDR artifacts including these wonderful walking sticks which he received from people all across America.

Surprise Corvettes

As you drive through Tennessee...first to Nashville, then Murfreesboro, and ultimately Chattanooga, you are struck by how beautiful the Volunteer State's scenery is as you make your way through the Cumberland Plateau and the southern stretches of the Appalachian Mountains.

The mountain passes are the most picturesque part of the drive and also probably the most dangerous part as semis struggle up the mountain and then descend on the other side like a bat out of hell. There are even some runaway semi lanes full of sand to hopefully stop a truck that has lost its brakes coming down the mountain.

On our last trip over the passes, we came upon an unlikely site of a truck hauling a trailer full of new Corvettes.

And when we passed the trailer, we had a surprise with the vintage car that was hidden underneath.

The White Haze

Winters in the south are just like a really, really long fall that doesn't ever quite get to winter. There are hints that winter might just be around the corner but it just never quite makes it. We didn't have to turn on the heat until December and the air conditioning has been known to be on in March.

Thankfully, we been able to return home to Minnesota/Wisconsin each winter and it hasn't disappointed in giving us a good strong taste of winter and what we were missing. I typically go through a series of emotions from "isn't winter wonderful?" to "SNOW!!!" to "how do people live here?" to when we return home "isn't it nice to be able to wash your car in January?"

During our visit we drove from the Twin Cities to Rochester, MN to visit some friends just after a snowstorm had blown through. This was at the "SNOW!!!" stage of my love of winter and it reminded me how beautifully desolate the Midwest can be and how the early Scandinavian settlers must have felt a little bit at home staring out into the white haze on the ground and in the sky.