Grand adventure hiatus: looking home to the Country Life Fair

In the midst of reminiscing about the past three weeks’ adventure, I glanced home across the pond to share in the increasing excitement surrounding the Country Life Fair, to be held on September 27th-28th at Fulham Palace, London SW6. The ripples are spreading across the UK, sweeping up stars of the Chelsea Flower Show and the BBC, not to mention luminaries from the worlds of food, gardening and travel. Author, presenter and adventurer Ben Fogle will be opening proceedings as President of the Fair, and much-loved gardener and Country Life contributor Alan Titchmarsh talks of his love for the rural way of life in his Foreword to the Fair. New exhibitors are still being announced, with Swaine Adeney, Boodles and the Present Finder of Sherborne all recent additions to the illustrious list of participants. Cleve West, whose design won Best in Show at Chelsea in 2013, and James Alexander-Sinclair, one of the BBC’s presenters at Chelsea, will be spearheading the Country Garden, and, in the Country Kitchen, chef Tom Parker Bowles (who described the Fair as 'a glorious example of rus in urbe') will be joined by Rachel Green, author and star of numerous cookery shows, and Mike Robinson, chef at the Pot Kiln in Berkshire and owner of Michelin-starred Harwood Arms in Fulham.  

Before the Fair even begins, there is reason for excitement: the Country Life Fair Grand Ball. To be held on September 10^th at the Natural History Museum, London SW7, the black-tie affair looks set to be the party of the year, with Scottish reeling, dancing to the famous Alexander’s Discotheque and a fashion show, all under the benevolent gaze of Royal Patron HRH Prince Michael of Kent. Tickets are a mere snip at £65, so click here to buy.

Quintessential England: cricket at Parham, West Sussex

Lest all this extravagance should leave your senses reeling, it’s worth remembering the value of the Fair in promoting the very best of British produce in the heart of London. The rural way of life is far from the idyll it should be these days, with red tape, endless expenses and the threat of new roads, railways and houses, not to mention the difficulties of coping with flooding and iniquitous laws, but the British countryside is still the greatest place in the world and it is time to celebrate the people who keep it so. The Fair is also giving something back in more obvious ways, by supporting several excellent charities and organisations: The Haven, Tusk, The Kennel Club, Chicks, The Prince’s Countryside Fund and Victoria’s Promise. Life in the countryside has always been about supporting the local community and looking out for others, and the Country Life Fair is continuing that tradition. So book your tickets now by clicking here, and use promo code OP14 to enter the fabulous prize draw. Let’s bring the countryside to town!

Worcestershire snow

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Grand adventure part 1: Niagara Falls, J. B. Priestley and Mackinac Island

What a trip: seven flights, seven states, two provinces, two countries, 12 beds, five horses, one engagement party, one wedding and two showjumping wins! The past three weeks have been a cornucopia of spectacular natural beauty, fantastic food, über-air-conditioned hotels and terrific company, with plenty of true love as the cherry on top. I have travelled from California to Michigan via Arizona, Saskatchewan in Canada via Colorado, Ontario and Maine via Massachusetts and New Hampshire and finished with a flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific. En route, I sailed into the teeth of Niagara Falls, to Mackinac Island at sunset and down the Kennebec River to the haunted island of Seguin. I rode Western style across the grasslands of southern Saskatchewan and drove a carriage around the woodland tracks of a Maine peninsula, marched with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and feasted on home-battered Northern Pike caught only hours before. I say again, what a trip!

Happy traveller: on Lake Huron, Michigan, at sunset

I will not even attempt to tell the whole tale in one blog, so this is merely part one: the magnificence and monstrosity of Niagara Falls, ice wine and J. B. Priestley at Niagara-on-the-Lake and indulging in fudge on Mackinac Island, Michigan. It began with the spectacular sight of lightning viewed from above when flying into Detroit. Billowing mountains of cloud were lit up with flashes of gold, the sunrise battling with the fury of the thunderstorm in a breathtaking display. Slipping through the clouds, the green of Michigan was startling after the tinder-dry brown grass of California. If only they could build a giant pipeline across the States!

Green grass! What a sight. Rain clouds and lushness on Mackinac Island, Michigan

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant to protect the glorious Californian valley from the ravages of commercialization. The signing was prompted in part by what was already happening at Niagara Falls, where opportunistic landowners were wringing every penny from tourists eager to gaze on the six million cubic feet of water that crash over the edge every minute. I can only thank God that the powers that be took the warning and saved Yosemite from a similar fate. Today, Niagara Falls is a grubby town crammed with amusement arcades, all-you-can-eat restaurants and lumbering tourists spending fortunes on tat. It is almost impossible to take a photograph of the Falls themselves without snapping some concrete edifice in the background, usually adorned by neon letters trumpeting the presence of a casino. 

Since 1925, the Falls have been illuminated at night in a somewhat garish display

Fireworks over the Falls, with additional lighting provided by hotels,

fairgrounds, casinos and other assorted money pits

Thankfully, however, my first dire impression diminished as we took the (overpriced) funicular railway down to the edge of the Falls and leaned over the rail to absorb the might of this thundering river just feet below us. The name Niagara Falls actually refers to three waterfalls, American Falls, Bridalveil Falls and Horseshoe Falls, the latter being the most impressive. Passages behind Horseshoe Falls were excavated as long ago as 1889, when lantern-holding guides led Victorian tourists close behind the water, and the tunnels that afford the same view today were dug in 1944. The noise of the water is awesome, even with about 10% of it diverted for hydro-electric power. Taking a Hornblower boat cruise into the jaws of the Falls themselves is thrilling, if damp, and is a ‘must-do’ in the words of the ubiquitous advertising material. Looking at the swirling green waters, it is hard to imagine wanting to throw oneself over in a barrel, but such are the numbers of daredevils wanting to attempt some sort of stunt that applications are now restricted to one a generation, roughly 20 years. The last was in 2012, when Nik Wallenda crossed from America to Canada on a tightrope. (In a celebration of red tape, customs officials checked his passport the moment he stepped onto firm ground.) Astonishingly, the first person to survive the journey over the Falls in a barrel was 63-year-old Michigan schoolteacher Anne Edson Taylor, who, for reasons unknown, took her cat with her. It survived, too, but probably took some time to forgive her. Sadly, the river below the Falls, considered one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the walls due to the pitiless whirlpool quarter of a mile wide, saw the death of the first man to swim the English channel, Shropshire-born Matthew Webb. He attempted to crown a career of endurance swimming by attempting to swim across the whirlpool and save his family from destitution with the resulting royalties. He failed.

Anyone for a swim?

A solid wall of water: the view from behind Horseshoe Falls

American Falls from the Hornblower cruise. In winter, the rock piles at the base

freeze and form the base of weird and wonderful crests and pinnacles of ice

In the teeth of the Falls, taken from under my oh-so-stylish blue poncho! 

  

One concrete addition to the town I don't mind is the Skylon Restaurant, 775ft up in the air with tables set on a moving band that takes 45 minutes or so to revolve 360˚. Watching the spray rise hundreds of feet in the air as you sip martinis and feast on well-cooked classic food is definitely worth it. Impressively, our request to have our steaks black-and-blue was fulfilled to perfection. For hundreds of miles, dark green forests form a carpet edged by the gleam of Lake Ontario to the north and Lake Huron to the west, golden in the setting sun. The mighty Niagara River pours inexorably into the gorge, blue and serene in the distance, white and furious in the foreground. From such a vantage point, it is easy to ignore the ant-like, plastic-clad tourists and simply absorb the spectacle of one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. 

The American Falls in evening light

Zooming in on the Canadian Horseshoe Falls from the Skylon Tower

Even the Horseshoe Falls themselves are dwarfed by the clouds of spray 

generated by six million cubic feet of water plunging 188ft every minute

A memorable place to have dinner!

For those wishing to escape to more refined surroundings, I urge you to drive half an hour to Niagara-on-the-Lake, a pretty, leafy blend of Stratford-upon-Avon and New England. It is justifiably renowned for the Shaw Festival of top-class theatre, and the performance we saw of J. B. Priestley’s When We Are Married confirmed its reputation. Spot-on Yorkshire accents, thoughtful casting and snappy direction made for a hilarious performance, with even the most English of jokes prompting a laugh among a receptive audience. A wine-tasting at Trius Winery was the perfect culmination of an afternoon that began with pouring rain and high humidity and finished in blazing sunshine. It was hard to imagine the kind of conditions that render this the perfect area for the creation of ice wine, which is made from grapes that have frozen on the vine, but winters are long here and snowdrifts can rise several feet. Temperatures between -8˚C and -12˚C freeze the water in the grapes, but not the sugar, which means that the sugar is highly concentrated when the grapes are picked. The resulting tipple is sweet and silky, the perfect accompaniment for an after-dinner cheeseboard or, indeed, classic British theatre.

 

The Royal George, one of four theatres in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

The leafy main street with storm clouds building in the distance

Leaving the bright lights of Niagara behind, we crossed the border back into the US and embarked on the long drive to Mackinac Island in northern Michigan. We broke the journey with a meal at Tony’s Restaurant that was both delicious and revolting. Even the side orders came with a side of fries! Fortunately, my friends’ prior experience prompted us to get only two meals between four, but we still boxed up leftovers that would have fed a family of six. It is fun to indulge in such a feast sometimes, and I certainly needed no urging to tuck in, but I can’t help thinking that it is places such as this that make America the enormously fat country it is today. If Americans halved their food consumption, the world would have no fear of running out of food as the population increases, and we would be an awful lot healthier for it. Still, Tony’s has an atmosphere and a sense of humour – evinced by its menu/newspaper – that make it an institution, and long may it remain. But, maybe, hold the extra fries?

Lunch for two at Tony's Restaurant. I kid you not.

I have to admit, these are genius!

The word 'starvation' isn't to be found in any 

dictionaries in Michigan

The over-indulgence continued on Mackinac Island (pronounced Mackin-aw), where fudge shops occupy a substantial square footage and rows upon rows of delectable sugary treats are an irresistible temptation. I tried, and failed, to remember my mother’s timeless injunction that ‘your eyes are bigger than your stomach’. The confectionery is not the only reason Mackinac Island is worth a visit, however – there is no motorized transport on the 3.8 square mile island set in the blue expanse of Lake Huron and the clapboard streets and bustling harbour are as picturesque as you could wish. Horses and and bicycles are the order of the day, with steady heavy horses pulling dozens of carriages and bicycles left unlocked everywhere. The name means 'big turtle', awarded by native settlers 11,000 years ago, since when the island has swapped ownership several times: after being granted to the newly formed USA upon Independence, it was retaken by the British in the first engagement in the war of 1812. In 1814, an attempt by the Americans to recapture it was firmly rebuffed, but the island was granted back to the USA following the Treaty of Ghent signed on Christmas Eve that year. Now, the 18th-century fort that Major Patrick Sinclair built for the English stands as a solemn reminder of past conflicts above a town most notable today for its peace and quiet. 

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, redolent of long dresses,

afternoon tea and cocktail hour

Sunset behind the town

St Anne's Catholic Church

The way to travel

Strolling west along Lake Shore Road 

Sunset over Mackinac Bridge on the way home

My time in Michigan ended with an engagement party on the shores of Long Lake near the cherry capital of the world, Traverse City. The sun shone, the homemade burgers vanished as fast as the father of the groom could make them and the sand burnt our feet as we played volleyball (badly). The most recent engagement party I had attended before this took place in the noble environs of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where the Champagne flowed and the canapés were delicate and delicious. The two events couldn’t have been more different, but both were joyful celebrations and enormous fun. After all, whether you’re drinking beer or Bollinger, wearing high heels or flip flops, all that matters is having a good time with family and friends. Here’s to true love!

 Good ol' American patriotism on Lake Michigan

Jetskiing and tubing on Long Lake, Michigan: an engagement party to remember!

Bride and bridesmaid: Maxine and me!

Aww!

Ghost towns, giants and garlic fries, Gay Pride and game shows: a very American week

A dust devil whirled down the road as we approached. Clouds of dust rose from the dirt track and dust caked windows, doors, curtains, tables and chairs alike. A jacket hung forgotten on a nail, a sewing machine stood waiting for a seamstress that would never come and stacks of magazines crumbled in the schoolroom. Amid the sagebrush, rusting machines lay abandoned, gradually succumbing to the fierce winds and extreme temperatures of the high desert.

Into the old West

Once the means of gathering riches, now a monument to a vanished world

No one will ever shrug on a coat and stride down these streets again

This was Bodie, a Californian town known throughout the West for its lawlessness, of which one little girl, on the eve of her family’s departure to the remote valley, wrote in her diary: ‘Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.’ In its gold-mining heyday in the late 19^th century, when $32 million of gold and $6-7 million of silver was extracted, its 10,000 inhabitants had an astonishing 65 saloons to choose from. The ‘badman of Bodie’, never identified, was a bogey man that law-abiding citizens in other towns would whisper about behind closed doors. Killings were common, providing plenty of work for the passing bell atop the fire station. In 1881, the Rev F. M. Warrington called the town a ‘sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion'. Even John Wayne might have struggled to bring order to this place.

The main street of Bodie, silent now where gunplay once rattled

How many men's heads were broken in here?

The Dechambeau Hotel and Post Office, remnants of respectability

The Swazey Hotel, collapsing under its weight of memories?

Yet less than 100 years after gold was discovered in this desert, high above the salt-encrusted expanse of Mono Lake near the border with Nevada, the town that once bustled with life and death alike lay abandoned and crumbling. Today, only 5% of its buildings remain, the rest lost to a fire in 1932, which was started by a 2½-year-old boy called Bill playing with matches. It now serves as a reminder of the Gold Rush that led to thousands of people crowding into anywhere with a whiff of the shiny stuff. To wander the streets, peer into the church (the oilcloth bearing the Ten Commandments was stolen years ago) and tread the rotting boards of the Miller house is to step into the past. It’s incredible how swiftly the lumbering tourists with their cameras and burger bellies vanish and the ghosts take over. Of course, it is said to be haunted, and a book of letters from worried visitors returning stolen trinkets testifies to the belief in the Bodie curse, that anyone who steals a rock or broken pot will meet with nothing but bad luck. 

The table is laid for a meal in the Miller house, but the food will never be served 

Decades of neglect are manifested in the peeling wallpaper and damp walls

The whole place has been left in a state of ‘arrested decay’, allowed to crumble exactly as it was when the people moved out, right down to the books on the shelves and the ironing board in the laundry. In winter, this is a barren, bitterly cold place, being 8,379 feet above sea level, shrouded in snow and whipped by strong winds. In summer, it bakes under a pitiless sun, grass yellow and dry, wood cracking and paint peeling. Even before you add the lawlessness, this would not have been a comfortable place to live, and it is no surprise that once the gold ran out and fires destroyed many of the buildings, people were little inclined to stay. For those who come to visit now, treading carefully on the broken floors, it offers a haunting glimpse of a lost world.

Given over to dust, the town of Bodie broods on its past

One of the grander houses in town: home of the Hoover family

Me outside the home of the Kirkwoods, who made their fortune

supplying and shoeing the hundreds of horses and mules who 

hauled the hard-won gold from the mine

The old Methodist Church, built in 1882

The glassy expanse of salty Mono Lake, a few miles south of Bodie

A few nights later, I shrugged off the dust of Bodie and entered a very different but equally American world: that of a baseball game at the AT&T Park between the San Francisco Giants and the Cincinnati Reds. Exuberance is the name of the game here – kiss cams, chants and an endless stream of food vendors, cheers and whoops and catcalls, everyone dressed in bright orange and black, floodlights banishing the night. I’d never been to a baseball game before and I loved every minute. Everyone was good-humoured, from the fans to the photographers, even though the Giants fell 3-1. We feasted on hot dogs and garlic fries, which more than justified the many exhortations that had led me to have them. My friend Shannon did her best to teach me the rules, but I confess, beyond thinking it’s easier to understand than cricket, I failed to follow everything perfectly. One thing that was different to cricket, just as American football doesn’t even approach the rigors of rugby, was that all the fielders wear gloves. Admittedly, they pulled off some spectacular and seemingly casual catches, but it seems easier than stopping the harder cricket ball with bare hands!

Sunset over the AT&T Park

A genuinely impressive moment was Adam Duvall’s first major league home run, which he clouted way into the bleachers just over our heads. Cue lots of screaming and leaping to catch it and intense disappointment when it flew far above us! Our disappointment, however, was as nothing to the pain felt by an over-excited chap who catapulted onto the benches beside us, flattening an innocent girl in a desperate attempt to clutch the ball and slamming onto the concrete in a way that could not have been comfortable for certain parts of his anatomy. Even more excitement ensued when they showed the replay and we spotted ourselves on the big screen – my first ever Giants game and I get on TV! If you feel so inclined, you can watch the big moment by clicking here. Shannon and I are at the bottom right, second row from the front…

Shannon and me with a random visitor from Denver, Colorado

Feathers, sequins and rainbow flags replaced orange and black last Sunday, when Market Street was closed for the annual celebration of Gay Pride. It’s a genuinely heart-warming event, when everybody cheers for that simple but life-affirming thing: Love. A gay couple bore a banner saying ‘Just married’, a transvestite belted out YMCA and the mayor, Ed Lee, travelled in style in a gorgeous old Lincoln. Most impressive, to my mind, were the police officers wearing sashes and belts in the rainbow colours, hand in hand with their boyfriends and girlfriends, being cheered by a scantily clad and beaming crowd. I can’t think of many cities where a police force would come out so openly in favour of gay love. The whirl of colour and naked flesh was a little too outrageous for my delicate English sensibilities, however, so I escaped down to a Bart station to take the train to Oakland and a more intimate celebration.

Police sharing the smile!

The Mayor rides in style

No, I don't know why either...

The gay community is certainly thriving here!

Who said men can't wear purple?

Positively modest for Pride-goers!

 Hugely popular among American game-show viewers is The Price is Right, a programme in which contestants chosen from among the audience guess the price of various items, from foosball tables to diamond rings, to compete for the grand prize. Shannon and her extended family and friends went down to a recording in LA earlier this year and, after screen tests and interviews, she was called on stage by presenter Drew Carey. Several rounds later, with a teaspoon of luck, she had won the grand prize! Not only that, but she proved herself to be a natural in front of an audience, both on screen and with a microphone in the Oakland theatre where the episode was screened to 100-odd of Shannon’s friends and family. Watch the whole thing here! The event raised money for her sister’s charity, Hella Heart Oakland, and proved that she would have the world at her feet if she took to showbusiness. Remember the name Shannon Eng!

Shannon warms up the crowd with a quick game...

...before we watch her moment of triumph!

For something more English, don't forget to book your tickets to the Country Life Fair, September 27th-28th at Fulham Palace, London SW6. Use Promo Code OP14 to enter the fabulous prize draw!