TuzigootJournal

December Scenes - Updated

2011-12-31T23:19:00.002-07:00

I started off December with a trip to Washington D.C. for a committee meeting (dealing with reliability , and the lack thereof, of military systems). Got there the evening that the Christmas tree across from the White House was lighted, but after the program attended by the First Family and others was over, and just as the area was being closed. Here's one picture I got with the Washington Monument in background. The national tree is surrounded by a ring of state trees.

Went back the next evening for some more pictures. I thought this shot of the scaffolding used for the previous night's program being disassembled was kind of artsy.

Several train sets were set up around the tree. Not long after the above shot there was a terrible accident.

Oh, No! Thomas the Train derailed! Homeland Security rushed to the scene.

I stayed in the famous Willard Hotel (your tax dollars at work). Here's their Christmas tree in the lobby.

The weather story of the month was snow in Cedar Crest. Three episodes in two weeks of 10-11 inches of snow. Some scenes around the house.

Saturday, eight days before Christmas, I flew (thank you SW Airlines) over to Oklahoma City (by way of Phoenix) to see UNM play Oklahoma State U.

Late in the game I got a picture message from Susie. Here's the picture.

That's me at the game, upper left with cap on (had on an OSU cap and a red UNM sweater to show my conflicted self, but I was glad that UNM won). That's my nephew Sterling on my left, my brother-in-law Tom on my right, with his hand up to his face. Nephew Peter was to Tom's right. Wow! I thought. How did Susie capture that picture and send it? Well, it turned out that Son Matt and grandson Tony were watching the game on TV. They spotted me, backed up the DVR and took this picture of the screen, then sent it to Susie, who forwarded it to me. Ain't technology wonderful?

Christmas is for the children and we were fortunate to have some of our extended brood here for Christmas. Here are grandkids Andrew, Tony, and Kaci Hinkle enjoying the candy canes and Christmas headbands.

And here are Joey and Heidi, who will be adding two more grandchildren to the brood next May.

To top off the Christmas season, here is a link to the year's worst nativity scenes. As a collector of nativity scenes, I've got some that are a little offbeat, but not to rival these.

Happy New Year 2012! Hope it's a good 'un.

Susie and Rob

Update. Wednesday after Christmas we drove to Las Cruces to see the Lobos play the Aggies. Beautiful drive down the Rio Grande Valley with snow-covered hills and mountains lining the way.

Lobos won big, avenging an earlier defeat on our home court.

Thanksgiving Trip to Colorado

2011-11-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Scenes from our Thanksgiving week trip to Colorado:

Macy, all dolled up for her baptism.

Two dolls.

The children's choir at the Highlands Ranch Community Church sang during the baptism ceremony.

Side trip. Susie and I celebrated our 12th anniversary at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs:

The view from the deck adjoining our room.

Thanksgiving program by Malia's kindergarten class.

The Pilgrim women did a particularly fine job of acting and singing.

Valerie works for Air Methods, a company that provides emergency medical helicopter transport. The company had a drawing contest for employees' kids, age six and under, for the company's Christmas card. Malia won!

All her creation. No parental coaching. She won a Nintendo DSi device - game player, digital camera, drawing tablet, wi-fi, who knows what else. She's showing it here (sorry, cut Jeff's head off).

She took some great pictures of Nei-Nei and Grandpa that we may be able to pay her to destroy.

Hanging out with Malia and Macy.

Pine cone art that Malia and I made in the park behind their house.

Good timing - we managed to stop twice in Las Vegas - breakfast on the way north, lunch on the way south. Here is a really nice book store, with a cute title, in Old Town Las Vegas. Stop in next time you're in the area.

Rob and Susie

Israel - 4 - Old City

2011-11-18T07:23:00.002-07:00

Thursday, Nov. 10. Last day in Israel. We spent the time exploring the Old City.

Here's a map: Jerusalem at the Time of the Second Temple (which included the time of King Herod's reign).

North is to the left. The temple was in the upper rectangle, which was a leveled area called the Temple Mount. The Western Wall of the Temple Mount is also known as the Wailing Wall. Pictures to come.

Here's one of the gates into the Old City, used by both cars and people.

Inside there are many places for worship, including: a church, a synagogue, and a mosque.

Here's the Dome of the Rock. It is maintained by a Jordanian agency. Access, via the covered ramp in this picture, by non-Muslims is very limited so we did not go there.

The wall in this picture, running to your right from the center of the picture, is the Western Wall. As mentioned above, it is also known as the Wailing Wall. There is a discussion in the link I just inserted of the naming issue. Also, the Dome of the Rock is within the bounds of the Temple Mount, probably built on top of remains of earlier temples (the writer of this article says it "stands on the place where Solomon’s temple once stood"), hence a contentious issue.

Here's the plaza next to the Western Wall.

On certain days of the week, including the Thursday we were there, many freshly-turned 13-year old boys have their Bar Mitzvah ceremonies here.

As Herb Geller explained to me, for years young Jewish boys study the Torah and learn how to sing the text. In this ceremony, they are being tested on it. If they make a mistake, they have to correct it.

Just behind the wall, female family members watch and throw candy at appropriate pauses in the ceremony.

Success!

A couple more scenes at the Western Wall.

A large group of African men were present. I don't know if that's typical or if there was some special occasion, or tour, that brought them here this day. If you want, you write prayers on pieces of paper and tuck them into crevices in the wall as you pray.

The gentlemen in this picture are set up for the long haul. This is in a portion of the wall access that is underground.

Quickly changing religions, here are some scenes along the Via Dolorosa that commemorates the journey Jesus took, carrying his cross, from where he was tried to Golgotha, where his crucifixion took place.

Some groups stage their own Via Dolorosa:

The present Old City is built on top of ruins of the city in Jesus' time, so today's route is not the actual place where Jesus walked. However, Irit showed us some paving rocks that had been excavated from the ruins of that period and embedded in the present walkway.

The Via Dolorosa ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, said to be built on not only the site where Jesus died, but where he was buried. Here's the plaza at one entrance. There's a story about that ladder outside one window, but I've forgotten it.

A couple of interior scenes.

There were large crowds in this Church and I must admit it was a little hard to experience a feeling of awe and reverence. I'm very glad, though, that I got a chance to visit these holy sites.

We took some time for shopping. Here are some street scenes.

We finished our day looking at an area outside the Temple Mount's southern wall where excavation is ongoing. Here's a grand staircase into what once was a gate into the Temple Mount, just above the excavation area (which does not now make for an interesting picture, at least I didn't get one).

After all of this, nearing sundown, Nancy and Herb Geller and I decided to walk back to the hotel. The route took us through a swanky, modern mall (which people may have trouble interpreting 2000 years from now when it is excavated). I had come here two nights earlier looking for something to eat. A shop featuring art by David Gerstein caught the Gellers' eye, so we went in. Gerstein is a famous Israeli artist. The Gellers have a couple of Gerstein pieces. You can read more about his art than you would ever want to at this site. You can also see examples.

One of his metal "cut-outs" (probably the cheapest thing in the store), described as follows, caught my eye - I think, in hindsight, that it was the "variational freedom," which sounds statistical.

Until the late eighties - when the large body of his works called "cut-outs" appeared, along with the process of reproducing them in series of up to 295 signed and numbered copies, hand-painted in industrial paints with some variational freedom - Gerstein went through different expressive phases, yet in all of them he brought together the biographical with the local. Over the years his image reservoir grew to include local trees and birds, and his painting technique improved until it reached the formulation of handwriting, line and coloring which are uniquely his own. His images were treated again and again, his funny figures internalized their slight stammer, their innocent absurdity and their kindness, until they became more and more graphic, automatic, spontaneous, immediate, schematic, direct, with no double-lining. Merely a smiling gaze. Before the metal cut-outs with their industrial-like process of production, Gerstein created works in painted wood-cuts. He painted the first of these objects in the exact same manner as his canvases - with conventional oil paints. However, the transition to another medium and material called for relevant paints and painting techniques: super-lacquer, stencils, tapes, air brushes, etc. He tried to liberate the "statues" cut in wood from the flatness of the plywood. In order to achieve an expressive, tangible effect he covered the image's surface with a mixture of glue, sand and paint, and added acrylic paint on top of the resulting rough texture. However, it seems that even this did not satisfy him. His quest for a suitable personal language led him to metal, forcing him to give up acrylic paint and adopt industrial paint, since acrylic does not take to metal.

I didn't buy anything, but when I got back to the hotel, I decided to go back and do it. So, here's my Gerstein cow.

How could you say No to a face like that? And, because one good cow deserves another, here's another one (actually the reverse side).

I was pretty proud of my excursion into art collecting, so I was shocked, shocked to hear Susie telling people at church about his cow and laughing. Actually, she (Susie, not the cow) says she does make you smile, which is not a bad thing for art to do.

That night we had a group dinner a short walk from the hotel. Returning, one of our group spotted this intersection sign. "Take a picture. That symbolizes the cross-cultural nature of our trip."

The next morning, Friday, it was back to the Tel Aviv airport and 24 hours later I was back in Cedar Crest. Hope you enjoyed the journey.

Shalom.

Rob

Israel - 3 - Jerusalem

2011-11-16T06:20:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, Nov. 9. Our first technical confab was at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

I took a picture of the sign on the building since it's not often you see a government building that highlights 'statistics.' Central Bureau of Statistics has a similar ring to it as Central Intelligence Agency, and might even be more entitled to the title! Moreover, it's right there under the Prime Minister's Office. Really warms my heart.

At the CBS we met Shlomo Yitzhaki, “The Government Statistician.”

Israel, being a small country, has one statistician who oversees and coordinates the collection and dissemination of (essentially) all government statistics. If I understand correctly, releases of government data are all handled by the CBS, not the agency that collects or "owns" the data. (In the US individual agencies, such as the Census Bureau, the Food and Drug Administration, etcetera, etcetera, generally have their own chief statisticians and there is some coordination via the Chief Statistician in the White House Office of Management and Budget.) I got the feeling that if you were a government agency head, or minister, or a member of the Knessett, you wouldn’t want to challenge this fellow’s numbers. For one thing, he said he would make it known to the press if someone was playing fast and loose with government data.

One of the Central Statistics Bureau staff who came to the meeting was, interestingly, the agency’s legal counsel. He started off by asking who was the first Jewish “government statistician?” Give up? It was Moses. The book of Numbers, chapter 1, vs. 1 and 2, says, "And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai …,saying, 'Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls;' And, of course, some time later it was because of Roman statisticians that Joseph and Mary had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem "to be counted" and this resulted in Jesus being born in Bethlehem. Else we'd be singing "O Little Town of Nazareth."

Several times during our week someone referred to "Israel time," meaning that things don't always start on time. A CBS example was that though policy (and maybe their constitution) calls for a census every 10 years, delays happen, so on average censuses have been done every 13 years. No use getting uptight about such things.

The CBS is in a growth period. Israel has just joined the OECD (Organization for Economic Coopertion and Development), which means more data needs. Also, they are working on linking various data bases in ways that will provide a better understanding of issues and needs. I asked, for example, if they would eventually be able to track, annually, the percentage of university graduates who have had at least one course in statistics. They said Yes. We didn't discuss this, but you could conjecture that you might even be able to track where these people went to work and how much they make. This sort of capability opens up all sorts of privacy and confidentiality issues, so you can see why the agency needs a lawyer.

On Monday there was a four-hour labor-union strike in support of "contract workers." Public transportation, including airports, but not our van, was shut down. The issue is the government's use of contract workers to do social work, rather than government employees. Contract workers are cheaper. I asked if the CBS had data pertinent to this issue, such as how many contract workers there are and how their compensation compares to government employees doing the same work. The answer was Yes and I just Googled up a newspaper article that says "roughly 80 percent of social services in Israel are today contracted out by the government to non-profit agencies or private entities." I didn't see anything on relative compensation, but the big-picture question is, Is the public better served by, say, three contract workers or one government worker in certain jobs? Need more data!

One more census note. In Canada the government recently decided they would make the long-form questionnaire, which is sent to a random sample of households, voluntary. Voluntary census returns, like voluntary internet surveys, can really distort the data, in unknown and unadjustable ways: garbage in; garbage out. The Canadian government chief statistician fought this, unsuccessfully, and resigned in protest.

Next we visited the Statistics Department in Hebrew University. Had a continuation of talks we had had elsewhere pertaining to how broadly statistics is taught, by whom, how effectively, and student perceptions of the role and value of statistics. One of the faculty members said he was writing a book, Thinking Differently: A Friendly Introduction to Statistics. Sounds like a good approach.

Interestingly, statistics were a little hard to come by here, such as how many Master's and PhD graduates are produced annually by the university. The department chairman, who couldn't be there, would know the answers, though.

Back to culture, we next visited the Israel Museum, in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Irit gave us a stirring tale about the discovery of the scrolls by Bedouin shepherds and subsequent perilous handling of them until it was realized how valuable they are. The scrolls exhibit includes some actual scrolls and some copies and is housed in what is called the Shrine of the Book. Here is an internet picture of the exhibit room.

That circular display has a copy of the Isaiah scroll (the book of Isaiah), which is 24 feet long.

Nearby is a sculpture garden and we spent some time there absorbing that culture. Some examples:

I'd call this one Roots.

Also in this same area is a 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem in the first century AD or CE, choose your designation.

Here's an overview.

Some of my shots, as sunset approaches.

From the people in the background of a couple of these pictures you get some idea of the size of this model.

Lots more pictures here.

We spent the next day exploring today's version of old Jerusalem. Lots of pictures there, so I'll cover that in a separate posting.

Cheers,

Rob

Israel - 2 - Haifa

2011-11-14T06:42:00.001-07:00

As I started writing up this part of the trip it occurred to me that I need to tell you about the People to People program and how our little delegation fit in - what I've learned in hindsight since I didn't do much upfront research.

I've always had some interest in visiting Israel - several friends have told us about their trips - but not a burning desire. I admire what Israel has been able to accomplish in a very hostile environment and I think it is right for the United States to support them strongly. This opportunity through the American Statistical Association (ASA) offered a chance to see one aspect of Israel that a more conventional tour would not, so that's why I signed up.

From the P2P website I learned it's all about world peace. The program was started by President Eisenhower in 1956. He was "acting on his firm belief that direct interaction between ordinary citizens around the world can promote cultural understanding and world peace."

Statistically speaking, my credo is that better lives all over the world can come from better data and better data-understanding, so that's my angle on the greater cause that we were serving on this trip: World peace through better statistics. Let's give it a try.

Here's how the ASA announced this trip:

People to People Citizen Ambassador Programs and the ASA have created an exchange to foster international goodwill, professional development, and personal enrichment. Join colleagues from around the world who understand the need for greater depth of knowledge in statistical science. Professional experience at any level will make an important contribution to the team. Delegates will learn about statistical literacy efforts in Israel; how statisticians are trained; and the roles of statisticians in health-related professions, industry, and government.

And that's what we did. Time will tell how much it contributed to world peace (I'm being flippant). To be serious, though, for the sake of "cultural understanding," I wish in hindsight that our trip would have included a chance to visit with Muslim/Palestinian/Arab statisticians who work and study in Israel.

Back to the tour. From Tel Aviv we drove north along the coast to Haifa, through a tunnel through a mountain that Haifa straddles, then a little further up the coast to the ancient seaport of Akko, also known as Acre. Irit wanted us to see an underground prison that was constructed during the Crusader occupation - around 1100. There was a lot of road traffic in the area associated with an Arab holiday, so it was slow going and we didn't get to the prison site until almost dark. An attendant at the entrance said, Sorry, closed. Irit pleaded our case and he finally relented and let us in briefly. We couldn't enter the underground area, but could go as far as an overlook. The British built a prison here after they took over this area in 1917 and it was later found to be built atop Crusader-era ruins. Here's the British prison walls.

The next morning we first visited Technion University, the Israel Technical Institute. This is quite a prestigious university and, in fact, a Nobel Prize winner this year in Chemistry is on the Technion faculty. (It later came up in our conversations that the per capita rate of Nobel winners in Israel is quite a bit higher than that of the United States.) Here's a picture of the building where we met.

We met with one of the great lady pioneers in the field of statistics, Ayala Cohen, Director of the Technion Statistical Laboratory.

The faculty member seated between Ayala and Nancy told us quite a bit about his work on short turn-around analyses of very large amounts of data, an example being the wait times of callers to a call center. Variables such as wait time are important measures of how well a center processes its calls. One tidbit of information that was revealed was that in slow times at one center, one operator in the center will call another. Operators’ pay depends on the call volume they handle.

Next we went to see the Baha'i Gardens, situated on a mountain overlooking the Haifa harbor.
Here's a website view of the Gardens.

I knew nothing about the Baha'i Faith, so here's some information, gleaned from the Wikipedia site and what our guide, Irit, told us. It is a monotheistic religion, originating in 19th century Persia, with a basic theme of unity - of people, of religions, ..., of everything . It encompasses "divine messengers" who have appeared over time such as Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha. According to Wikipedia, the Baha'i Faith has about five to six million followers, spread over some 200 countries. Haifa is an important center because the Faith's founder's tomb is located in these gardens.

We could only enter the top couple of levels, out of 19, of the gardens. Here are a couple of my shots from there.

I read in a newspaper that the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship had been moored in this harbor over the weekend.

From Haifa, we journeyed (in our eight-person van - I don't think I had mentioned) about 150 miles to Jerusalem,by way of the Jordan Valley and West Bank. Our primary cultural stop along the way was Bet She'arim, an ancient Jewish cemetery. Hundreds of people, including important Jewish leaders, were buried in sarcophagi (cement boxes) in caves excavated in hillsides at this site over the period, 200-400 AD.

Here's the entrance to one section.

And here is a chamber.

No bones left behind. Great place for a Halloween Haunted House.

Here are some examples of decorated sarcophagi (sarcophaguses?).

And here’s a (candid) picture of Irit in lecture-mode.

She had a lot of enthusiasm that added to her presentations: “Here, my dear friends,” she would say, sometimes going airborne, “we’re going to see the most amazing thing.” She’s been doing guide work for 16 years. She works as a free-lancer, guiding small to medium sized groups around the country, tailoring the itinerary to a group’s interests and time.

We next drove through the Jezreel Valley, a large farming valley south of the Sea of Galilee, the farms being owned and operated by kibbutzes, not individuals.

Then we drove through the West Bank region and on to Jerusalem. I don't understand and would not try to explain all the border and other issues pertaining to the West Bank, but there was a grim feeling driving through the area. Topographically, much of the area resembled barren area of New Mexico, such as the Jornado del Muerto (Journey of Death) along the Rio Grande in south-central NM. The mood was lightened somewhat by the occasional Bedouin camps and accompanying camels.

We got to the Mount of Olives just about sunset. Here's a little girl enjoying a camel ride.

The hillsides of the Mount of Olives are covered by a large cemetery.

Bodies are buried in the ground beneath these cement boxes, not sealed in them.

Looking across the way, into the setting sun,you can see the walled city of Old Jerusalem, backed by modern Jerusalem.

We would spend Thursday in the old city.

A Sanctuary of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives commemorates the site where Jesus prayed before being arrested, taken away, and crucified.

Here's a mural in the Sanctuary.

And here are some ancient olive trees outside.

So, that was our introduction to Jerusalem. Two more days there: next posting.

Rob

Israel - 1 - Tel Aviv

2011-11-12T21:21:00.002-07:00

Greetings. As this is written, I’m in Israel on a People-to-People trip, sponsored by the American Statistical Association. We will have one week of a mix of technical meetings and tourism/cultural exchanges.

Nov. 3. Long trip, Cedar Crest to Tel Aviv. Took 6am flight, ABQ to Houston to Newark. Found my way to international terminal with five hours to wait until flight to Tel Aviv. Luckily had an aisle seat assignment. Young man next to me tried to talk me into trading places with his wife who had window seat on other side of plane. No, thanks, I said. I like an aisle seat for the opportunity to get up and walk/pace the aisles on these long flights. He talked the window seat occupier next to him in to trading his wife, I mean trading seats with her, so all was well. The guy, though, turned out to be a more antsy guy than I am, so I got most of my exercise by getting up to let him out or in. I watched the movie, Captain America, but stayed awake for what I think was an 11-hr. trip reading, doing crossword puzzles, and playing games on the plane's entertainment console.

Our Tel Aviv hotel is on the beachfront, next to a large marina. Here are a couple of shots:

The temperature was mild and, because Friday is weekend day 1 in Israel, there were quite a few surfers out.

At the hotel, Friday evening, Nov. 4, now, we met, Irit, our tour guide for the week, for an orientation session, then dinner at a beachfront restaurant near the hotel. She gave us some statistics on Israel which she knew would excite us. If you'd like to know some, just write me.

Tel Aviv was founded by 66 Jewish families in 1909 and has grown to become the second largest city in Israel (pop. 400,000) and the most modern. Foreign embassies are located here, rather than the nation's capital of Jerusalem.

Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, was an all “cultural program” day; most days will be a mix of technical meetings and culture/tourism. Irit decided this day would emphasize Christian sites. So we headed for the Sea of Galilee, about 120 miles NE of Tel Aviv, but almost across the country. On the way we drove by Nazareth, now a hilltop town of 100,000; 2000 years ago, a village of 300-400 people. Later in the day we were back here for lunch and some sight-seeing.

We stopped at the Mount of Beatitudes – a site overlooking the Sea of Galilee selected to commemorate Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where he proclaimed the beatitudes. The three years of Jesus’ ministry were spent on a 6-mile stretch of the Sea of Galilee NW shoreline. This locale was on the trade routes connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, bustling with activity and populated by a relatively cosmopolitan bunch of people and hence a better audience for Jesus’s message than sleepy, isolated Nazareth.

Here’s the Church of the Beatitudes - octagon-shaped to represent the eight beatitudes (can you recite them without looking?).

A view of the Sea of Galilee.

That's the Golan Heights in the distance, under Israel control since 1967, part of Syria before that. As Irit reminded us several times, missiles are occasionally fired into Israel, from north and from south. Such attacks really sharpen one's desire for a better sense of security. Seeing the geography from the ground adds to the visitor's awareness. (Later in the week we drove through the West Bank.)

The Sea (actually a lake) of Galilee is about 40 miles in circumference. Today was the day of an annual bicycle ride around the lake, so we saw lots of cars with loaded bike racks. Most of the riders had completed the ride by the time we got there. More pictures here.

Next stop, en route back to Tel Aviv, was Nazareth. The present population of Nazaareth is roughly one-third each Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. Here's the crowded street scene as we worked our way up toward that church in the right center of the picture.

We had lunch of falafel-pita sandwiches and then toured the Basilica of the Annunciation which commemorates the announcement to Mary that she was to bear the Son of God. This church is built on a site that has been excavated down to the level of the village 2000 years ago. There are Byzantine and Crusade structures above that. Some pictures:

The ceiling – note the M’s.

The church features mosaics and other art provided as gifts from various countries. Here are gifts from Australia, Japan, Spain, and the US.

Back in Tel Aviv we finished the day with a very nice dinner at a beachfront restaurant. We sampled from a variety of salads and appetizers and then I had the sea bass entrée. Multiple dessert samples completed the meal. I think you could call the cuisine Mediterranean and thus similar to Greek, Turkish, and Italian. We met a faculty member later in the week who said, "I came here (from the US) out of idealism; I stayed for the tomatoes."

Throughout the day’s travels Irit pointed out the intermingling of Jewish and Arab towns and villages, that is, there are both Jewish and Arab villages in the same region. Her point was that the two peoples can live in some degree of harmony. And, she herself has Palestinian and Arab friends. She also pointed out the large number of unfinished, multi-story homes in the Arab villages. Unfinished houses are taxed at a lower rate than finished homes, so some/many homeowners opt not to finish their houses. Not criticizing, she would say, just pointing out facts.

Back in Tel Aviv we finished the day with a very nice at a beachfront restaurant. We sampled from a variety of salads and appetizers, as we would find out is the norm, and then had an entrée. Multiple desserts were then shared at the end of the meal.

First up on Sunday was a visit to Israel’s Independence Hall, where on May 14, 1948, Israel was created. Since the end of WWI, it had been a British protectorate. The next day Israel was attacked by five adjoining Arab countries. Welcome to the family of nations.

The guide at Independence Hall gave a dramatic accounting of Independence Day – for Israeli citizens, many of whom were sobbing during the presentation and who, of course, felt personally the tragic history of the Jews, the Holocaust and before, I can imagine it would be like hearing about our Independence Day, on the spot, just one or two generations removed from the event. Here's a picture of the hall where the proclamation was read and signed.

Related story: Herbert Keller, the only “Guest” on the trip, had his own personal guide while we were doing our statistics business in Tel Aviv. One place he visited was the Rehovot underground munitions factory, where the Jews secretly produced ammunition in advance of the British pull-out of Israel before Independence Day.

Next we went to Tel Aviv University and visited the Statistics and Operations Department. Our host was David Steinberg, until recently department chairman. David is a fellow former editor of Technometrics and we’ve known each other a long time, so it was good to see him on our agenda. We talked mostly about the Israel education system and the opportunities for statistical education within that system. Here’s a picture of our group with David – the one with a beard and without a People to People lanyard around his neck.

You can see we're a small delegation. Our leader, in the front row between David and me, is Nancy Geller, president of the American Statistical Association and manager of a biostatistics group at NIH. The others, starting on my right are Brian Sloboda, who works for the US Postal Service, Marianthi Markatou, who works for IBM and Cornell Medical School in NYC, Graciela M Gonzalez-Farias, from the University of Monterey, Mexico, and Juanita Tamayo Lott, recently retired from the Census Bureau, now living in San Francisco.

After lunch on campus we went to a small firm that does database handling and statistical analyses for pharmaceutical companies that conduct clinical trials of new drugs. One of our lines of inquiry has dealt with the ability of Israel’s universities to produce statistical talent that will meet the data/statistical needs of Israel’s government, universities, and industry (as you know, you can't have too many statisticians, can you?).

Monday morning – we visited the biostatistics unit in a medical research center in Tel Aviv. We got detailed presentations about three projects, one of which was a comparison of LDL cholesterol for Jews and Arabs living in Israel. The differences have implications for health policy. We were very impressed by the good spirits and collegiality of the folks in this group. They were having fun while doing work that has important effects on the health of their fellow citizens.

Monday afternoon, we had one more visit in Tel Aviv with another consulting firm in the biostatistics area, plus the president of the Israel Statistical Association, then we headed north to Haifa. Our cultural-program objective was the ancient port of Akko, site of Crusader ruins.

Stay tuned. We have one night in Haifa, then finish up with three nights in Jerusalem.

Rob

October Fests - 4 - Alamosa

2011-10-31T08:22:00.000-06:00

On the last two Sundays in October we drove with Matt and Suzy to and from Alamosa, CO, home of Adams State College where grandson, Andrew Hinkle, is a freshman and playing on the college's soccer team. Two gorgeous fall days.

Here's a picture Susie insisted I take (never would have occurred to me).

The object of their attention, that tall guy in the white uniform just left of center, is Andrew.

Soccer is a new sport at Adams State and the team is mostly freshmen, so they've struggled at times. The future looks bright, though, from the two games we saw. They tied one team well above them in the conference standings and they played Fort Lewis College, the top team in the conference, also one of the top teams in the country in their division, even at 1-1 until late in the game. Two late scores, one clearly offside, made it a win for Fort Lewis. Wait'll next year!

Here's a family picture.

That's it for October.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

October Fests - 3 - Jemez Canyon

2011-10-29T20:23:00.000-06:00

Last Tuesday, Susie and I took a trip together - to the Jemez Canyon about an hour NW of Albuquerque. Susie had heard a newscaster say the cottonwoods were at their golden peak, and they were! Enjoy:

All this wrapped around lunch at the Los Ojos Saloon and Restaurant in Jemez Springs, with a Johnny Cash album booming away for ambience, made for a great New Mexico fall outing.

Susie and Rob

October Fests - 2 - Oklahoma

2011-10-29T19:36:00.001-06:00

The second weekend of October I made a driving trip to Oklahoma; Susie flew out to Las Vegas to visit daughter Heidi and her husband Joey.

I had three reasons for going to Oklahoma: visit what I call the "Bennett farm," the 320 acres in NW Oklahoma that I inherited from my Mom, Bonnie Mae Bennett Easterling; attend the Tonkawa High School Homecoming; visit my sisters, Connie and Verla, and their families, in Edmond. So, I loaded the Explorer with junk food and gatorade, cranked the XM bluegrass channel up to Very Loud, and off I went.

Got lucky and found the Midway Cafe in Adrian, TX just in time for lunch, and it was open. (On our last few trips through here the cafe had been closed.) Adrian is located at the mid-point of historic Route 66, which ran from Chicago to Santa Monica. This is a website picture.

In addition to good food, they've got a nice Route 66 souvenir shop. So, remember Adrian, TX, any time you're driving I-40 between Amarillo and New Mexico.

West of Amarillo there is a famous row of buried, spray-painted Cadillacs; pictures and story here. East of Amarillo there is an anonymous row of buried, spray-painted Volkswagons. I discovered them on a previous trip and I happened upon them again when I exited from I-40 (exit 96) to angle NE across the TX Panhandle to OK.

Cool!

Spent the night with my cousin Ross and his wife Marsha in Laverne, OK, and had a good and hospitable visit as always, then went on to Buffalo to see my cousin Dennis, who farms and takes care of my part of the Bennett farm and several other parts: Grandpa and Grandma Bennett had five daughters, all deceased now.

Dennis and I drove out to the farm. The drought has been very severe this year, exacerbated by record high temperatures, so things are very barren right now. Dennis had recently sold his cows, which was a wrenching decision. He would have had to start feeding them now, then through the winter, and the cost would be greater than the money he would make from selling the next crop of calves. (Marsha had told me earlier, Ross loves his cows, they're his babies. There's a bond there you may not realize. Dennis told me his sons are worried about how Dad will get along without having his cows to tend. He says he fine with it, though. Wait till next year. Farmers are tough - sensitive, but tough.) Here are some pictures.

The following view is looking north about a mile and a half to what once was the town of Selman. This is where my parents met: she a HS sophomore, he a newly minted HS teacher and basketball coach. He needed a place to stay. Grandpa Bennett was the chairman of the Selman Board of Education, the rest is history - a true-life story of the farmer's lovely daughter and the handsome visitor.

Here, again from the long view, is the Bennett home place, where Dennis' son and wife live. Dennis inherited the 320 acres that includes the home place. My land is the adjacent 320 acres to the south (might want to take a google earth look at all this).

This is a special place to me. The summer after my junior year in HS I worked for Grandpa Bennett - drove a truck during the wheat harvest, drove a tractor, did other farm work, engaged in mischief with Dennis and his brother, David, who lived on their family farm a few miles south. Morphed from a 98-lb. weakling into a 150-lb, sun-tanned, hunk (HA! in my dreams).

Went on to Tonkawa for Homecoming weekend. There was a parade, with firetrucks:

This inductee, next picture, into the THS Hall of Fame was a long-time coach and teacher at the HS. Prior to that, though, he and a good friend had played baseball in a "negro baseball league." They're both white. The friend, who came to Tonkawa for the induction, has written a book about that unique experience that has gotten some visibility - TV interviews, book is available from the Cooperstown bookstore, etc. At first, he said, nobody believed this had happened, but he could prove it. So, now you know, too.

There were queen candidates. If I had a vote, she would have gotten it.

Here are some of the Class of 1961. I had several close friends from this class and it was good to see and visit with them.

The downtown merchants got the Buccaneer Spirit.

Another downtown shot, early Saturday morning, so the street was not thronged:

Note that the MALL is clearly identified.

There was a Saturday morning alumni coffee at a bank meeting room and I took this picture of a lovely painting of Tonkawa:

Ain't that purty. (Sandy Reinert, from Eunice, NM, always teased me about Tonkawa. Wish I'd had that picture to show her.) Unfortunately, the town fathers and mothers haven't maintained the elevator and here's how it looks now:

My classmate, Joe Brining, who lives in Tonkawa and is a major town booster, mover and shaker - I stayed with him - said some folks don't want to have the elevator painted, for reasons that aren't clear. By contrast, though, the train station, seen in pictures above, and which is just across Grand Avenue from the elevator, has been nicely preserved. The town calls itself The Wheat Heart of Oklahoma, and that motto and accompanying heart have just about disappeared from the top of the elevator. Joe told me to write a letter to the newspaper and see if I can stir things up, so I plan to. Your paint and PayPal donations welcomed.

Earlier, on Friday morning, I went out to NOC - Northern Oklahoma College (formerly, NOJC, J for Junior - it is a two-year college).

At the campus I met this year's recipient of the Verlin and Bonnie Easterling Scholarship. This goes to a sophomore social sciences major, with an emphasis on history, my Dad's love.

The recipient, Meagan Tiemann, grew up on a farm in the Tonkawa area and plans to continue her post-NOC education with a double major in history and English and the aim of being a writer and then one day becoming a museum curator. My folks would have been pleased. Also in the picture are the Director of the NOC Foundation (l) and the recently appointed President of NOC (r).

On to Edmond, where I had Saturday lunch with Connie, then joined Verla and her son, Sterling, on a trip to nearby Oklahoma City where they were celebrating the refurbishment and re-opening of a downtown park and botanical garden. Verla is the activity director at an Alzheimer's facility and she, some other staff, and several members of residents' families took a small group of residents on this outing.

Here's the outside of the botanical garden, called, I think, the Crystal Tunnel:

And some inside scenes:

That's Sterling, there.

The park is adjacent to a gleaming new skyscraper, way taller than any other building in the city, being built in downtown OKC.

A major reason for being in downtown OKC, though, on this particular Saturday afternoon, was that Verla's favorite folk/bluegrass local band, called Horseshoe Road, was playing. Here she and they are:

The band features an amazing fiddle player, Kyle Dillingham. There's a YouTube video here, for your listening pleasure and amazement.

Later we gathered at Verla's house for some visiting.

The fourth sibling, brother Lael, has been in Australia, though we heard just recently that the weather in Sydney, where they have been living on their sailboat, was so miserable that they were coming back to the States for a while.

Coming home on Sunday, I drove a few remnants of historic Route 66 in western OK and in TX. Some Oklahoma scenes:

The South Canadian River bridge:

Gas station and cafe in Shamrock, TX:

Another gas station, this one in Glenrio, TX, right on the NM border.

Earlier, I pulled off at an I-40 exit just west of Amarillo, to make a phone call, or find a ball game on the radio,something, and saw this sign. Sorry, I didn't make a note of the exit number so I can't advise you on where to stay. Just look for sign.

Fun trip.

Cheers,

Rob

October Fests - 1 - Balloon Fiesta

2011-10-29T07:15:00.000-06:00

Greetings Family and Friends: No Tuzigoot trips this month, but some short trips that might be of a little interest.

I went out one early morning to what was to be the Special Shapes mass ascension at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. High winds aloft kept the balloons on the ground, which wasn't all bad because it gave you more of a chance to get around and see many of them up close. Here's a sample:

Mild weather, not too crowded (this event was on a Thursday morning), traditional breakfast burrito and hot chocolate in the dark, had a good time.

Oh, on the bus from a shopping center parking lot in town out to the balloon field I happened to sit next to a good old boy from Houston. Told me about three times that he used to come to the Fiesta every year because he really liked the nice pins commemorating each year's Fiesta. A few years ago, though, the pins got kind of chintzy, so he quit coming. He decided to try again this year, and the commemorative pin is much nicer, thank you very much. Turned out that he drove to Albuquerque in his Tiffin motor home (which is what Tuzigoot is), so we had that common connection to discuss. I didn't see him again after we got off the bus, but I wonder if he went on to the field or if he just hung around the pin shop telling other people his pin story.

Next: Trip to O-O-OKLAHOMA, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains.

Rob

London-2

2011-09-12T20:44:00.000-06:00

Here are some notes on our visits to lesser-known London sites.

When we came out of Westminister Abbey we chanced to look across the street and saw this dramatic building, labeled Methodist Central Hall – a good omen, as our next goal was to visit Wesley’s Chapel, where John Wesley, the father of Methodism, preached, and to visit his house, gravesite, and museum at the same location.

First, though, we got something to eat at the Wesley Cafeteria at Methodist Central Hall.

Who knew Wesley had a cafeteria?

We decided to take a taxi across town and the helpful doorman hailed one for us and off we went. It’s amazing to us how ably London drivers maneuver through these narrow, winding, traffic-laden streets.

I somehow failed to take a picture of the chapel, so here's one from the internet on a sunny day.

Inside the Chapel:

Wesley planned the Chapel to be “purposely modest.” It’s nothing like the gorgeous cathedrals and abbeys we’ve seen, but it is still charming.

Margaret Thatcher was married here and her two children christened in this church. This altar rail is her donation to the Chapel.

A friendly volunteer, pip pip, cheerio, and all that, told us that Sunday attendance is around 400 and the church is very active in its part of the city.

I had seen on the Chapel’s website that a recital was scheduled for 1:00 pm and so we timed our visit to coincide with that so that we could participate in an event at the Wesley Chapel. The recital was by a powerful baritone, accompanied by his father, apparently (same last names), doing a German operatic piece, Sechs Monologues aus Jedermann. It seems that Jedermann has been visited at dinner by DEATH and told to pack his bags. This, as you can imagine, was pretty unsettling to Jed, as demonstrated vocally, accompanied by loud piano noises. A little of that goes a long ways. Reading ahead in the program notes told us that things turned out pretty well for Jedermann in the last Monologue, so we slipped out.

Another volunteer had come on duty and he took us on a tour of Wesley’s house. Wesley had the house built, a small, vertical, four-story building, for his own use (he married late in life, unsuccessfully - his ministry consumed him) and also with rooms for visiting clergy and their families.

One interesting item on display is an electrical spark generator. Wesley became interested in electricity through his contacts with Benjamin Franklin when he was in London. I asked the guide if Wesley bought the machine from Franklin or if it was a gift. He said he didn’t know, hadn’t been asked that before, but would try to find out.

A little background on Wesley, for the non-Methodists out there: He was born in 1703, one of 19 children born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley, only seven of whom survived childhood. When John was young, he was trapped in a burning house, but was miraculously rescued. Susanna said that convinced her that God had a special purpose for him.

He went to Oxford and was ordained as a Church of England minister. He and his brother Charles, who eventually authored hundreds of poems that became hymns (Oh for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, …. ), went to America, to Georgia, with intents to bring Christianity to the Indian tribes and colonists. That didn’t work out, so they returned to England. On their sea journeys, they had been impressed by some Moravians on board. When storms threatened, the Moravians' faith gave them a serenity that the Wesleys didn’t have. Something was missing. Back in London, John attended a Moravian service and, in his famous phrase, felt his “heart strangely warmed” by the presence of God. God cared about him personally. It changed his life; it changed his theology.

He and Charles organized Holy Societies. These groups began developing, in essence, a method for living a Christian life, hence the name. John began riding around the country, preaching his message to large crowds. Out of this grew the Methodist Church. John, though, never left the Church of England, even though it disapproved of him.

More historical information here.

Behind the church, tucked in a small graveyard backed by a modern office building, is John Wesley’s grave.

Frank, our guide, told us that Susanna Wesley was buried in the cemetery across the street, Bunhill Cemetery. Moreover, he told us, there are some other famous people buried there – John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, and Isaac Watts, a prominent early-day Methodist preacher and hymnist. Wow! Had to check these out. Crossed the street and walked up to a map that identified famous-person graves and Pow! The most prominently displayed person was the Rev. Thomas Bayes.

Some of you know that there is an area of statistics called Bayesianism. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, even though my thesis was Bayesian. Some of you heard, and still recall, Kathleen Diegert’s essay at my retirement party on my life as a closet-Bayesian. Now, I’ve got no quarrel with Bayes himself. He proved a fundamental mathematical theorem. It’s the way others have used and abused his theorem in almost theological ways that bugs me. Anyway, I was glad and not a bit uncomfortable to pay respect to Bayes's gravesite.

The grave areas were locked and there didn’t seem to be a caretaker about, but, just before we gave up we saw him - the caretaker, not Bayes. He unlocked the gate so I could stand by Bayes’s grave.

I did feel some regret in the following way. My statistical hero is Sir Ronald A. Fisher, of England of course. I had planned to visit the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment Station, where he had worked and developed fundamental statistical methods, but we hadn’t made it there and wouldn’t have time to – it’s NE of London, but not far. He died in Australia and is buried there.

My second statistical might-have-done was to visit the office of the Royal Statistical Society in London. Turns out that that office is not too far from the Wesley Chapel, but I didn’t realize it until the next day, which was too late. Here's a picture of Fisher and I encourage you to learn all about him.

Sorry, Sir Ronald, that I didn't do more to pay homage while we were in London.

The British Library was one of Rick Steves’ highest rated (three-stars) London sights and in reading about it on Monday I saw that it was open late on Tuesday evening, so off I went. Susie had had enough walking for the day, so she studied British modern culture on TV (I think).

The main Library attraction is its amazing collection of ancient documents. You can see two early copies of the Magna Carta, which, the narrative explains, established the principle that the King was subject to the law, not above it.

You can see musical scores written by Mozart, Handl, Mendelssohn, and others. I remember reading that Mozart didn’t make mistakes: he sketched in all those notes and musical signs and got them right the first time – every note, sharp, and flat, and more. Seemed to me, though, in what was displayed, that he had a few corrections, but nothing compared to other composers.

There are ancient Bibles, laboriously and elegantly hand-written and beautifully illustrated. There are also foundational documents for several other religions. Also, some early copies of Shakespeare's plays. Which reminds me: our guide through John Wesley's house said that Wesley possessed a copy of these plays. After Wesley's death, the person to whom his possessions were entrusted burned the Shakespeare plays. The theatre at the time was regarded as not reputable, especially for a theological figure like Wesley.

You can listen to Virginia Woolf talk about her writing (this tied in with the London Walk I took the next night that had a literary theme) and much more. And you can see handwritten lyrics by the Beatles.

Additionally, the King’s library (collected by one of the King Georges) is housed in its own separate four-story glass-walled chamber within the library.

Near the British Library, which is a modern building, opened in 1998, I saw this building, the St. Pancras (not to be confused with pancreas) Hotel and thought it was worth a picture.

(Do you remember when we used to really worry about using too much film and taking too many pictures?)

Rick Steves recommended walking tours of areas in London, so I showed up at a London Walk billed as a Literary and Pub Walk. (At London Walk you don’t sign up, you just show up at a designated Tube exit and look for a guide bearing a London Walk sign.) Our guide was Brian, a wry, friendly fellow. He told us a mix of stories about literary and royal notables.

One of the King’s scoundrel-relatives was told by the King that he would pay off his debts if he would marry a German woman with the right connections. This ne’er do well agreed, but didn’t go to Germany himself. He sent his mistress to find him a German wife. Big mistake (said Brian). She found and brought one back that was not only ugly, she smelled bad. Brian had some funny quotes that answered the question, How bad did she smell?

This walk was in the area of the British Museum (a three-star site we didn’t visit), which, until 1998, housed the British Library. The Library attracted several literary types to live in this part of the city. Both Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were registered readers in the Library. Brian told us that while in London, Lenin worked as a tour guide. Thus, in many of his statues he has one arm upraised, Follow me … .

We went by a building that housed the Faber and Faber publishing firm (there was only one Faber who thought his company would sound more established if he added another Faber to the name). T. S. Eliot, while a director there turned down George Orwell’s manuscript of Animal Farm, with a comment to the effect that, the book needed more public-spirited pigs.

Brian also told us about a literary and intellectual group that were called the Bloomsbury Group. That group included Virginia Wolfe and its members generally gathered in the part of London we were visiting, called, then, Bloomsbury.

We also got a science history story along the way. Leo Szillard (SPELL??) left Germany in the 30s and came to London to study physics. He had an idea that nuclear fission could be accomplished. Unfortunately, Rutherford, the head of the department, had gone on record saying that fission was impossible, so Szillard knew he wouldn’t get far there. One rainy evening, as Szillard was walking down the very sidewalk we were on, at a spot right over there, he got an idea: Here’s how to create nuclear fission. He hurried back to his room and wrote it up. He subsequently went to the University of Chicago where, with other eminent physicists, he succeeded in creating nuclear fission. From that followed the famous letter from Einstein to Roosevelt saying this knowledge could lead to a powerful weapon, and the atomic age was born.

Oh, the pub part of the tour. Brian stopped for a 20 minute break at a historic pub, the Queen’s Larder, mid-way through the Walk. Nothing very literary there.
The tube system almost got me on this excursion. I had been carrying both Susie’s and my Oyster (transit) cards. I thought I’d use one card on the way to the Walk, the other on the way back, in order to keep them balanced. Well, on the way I made an intermediate stop at Picadilly Circus to buy some souvenirs. I inadvertently used one card to enter the system, the other to exit. Foul! said the system, and wouldn’t let me out. I had just topped off the passes by adding five pounds to each when I left our hotel, so I couldn’t understand the problem. The system sent me to the assistance desk and the nice lady explained what I had done wrong. I showed her my receipts for the added amount and she put time back on one card so I could complete my evening travels. Next morning, though, both Oysters were dead again – they showed a negative balance! I bought enough time for another souvenir run, though.

I'm working on this posting on 9/11, from the Queens burough of New York City. I went out this morning and walked across the RFK bridge across the East River to Manhattan, and at the bridge's halfway point I paused at 8:46am, the time at which the first plane hit the World Trade Center, to look at the Manhattan skyline and reflect. A sobering moment that reminded me: While in London I read a remarkable article in the Sunday London Times Magazine about the people in the World Trade Center who jumped, or tried to do the impossible escape of descending down the side of the building. The topic has been unofficially taboo for the last 10 years, but the author was obsessed about finding out. Turned out that the official NIST report had a list that identified several "jumpers." The author talked to some of their loved ones. Very, very painful memories, but most felt the ones they knew had made understandable decisions – they didn’t regard it as a (cowardly) suicide. We can only hope that we’re never faced with the same dilemma.

Also, one fireman was killed by a falling body. The fellow firemen who tended to him did not go into the building and therefore were not killed when it collapsed, so the man’s widow took some comfort from that. Really hard to think about, but I wanted to share this with you.

There is a program by which airline employees and dependents can fly standby on other airlines. Mandi set us up for this and we had a standby listing for an American Airlines flight that left Heathrow at 700 pm on Thursday. We went to the airport, though, around noon right after checking out of the Montana Hotel. While checking us in, the AA rep said, What are you going to do all afternoon? Then she said, The two o’clock flight is wide open. We’ll take that, we said. Not only that, we got excellent seats – right behind a bulkhead (lots of foot room and nobody leaning back in our laps) with an empty seat between us. New York, here we come.

Cheers again,

Susie and Rob

London-1

2011-09-11T10:14:00.000-06:00

In three days of touring we pretty well checked off the main sights on our London-must-see lists: St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Harrod's department store, the John Wesley Chapel and Museum, the underground War Cabinet Rooms and Churchill Museum, and the British Library. Most of these sites do not allow interior photo-taking, but there are plenty of website photos available. Here are some of our shots:

We took a tour boat ride on the Thames from the Tower of London to Westminster. The tour guide was a comedian. Told us he was multi-lingual: spoke English, Scottish, Canadian, American, Australian, ... . Described one building as "old and used;" said maybe that's why Prince Charles liked it. Told us that Big Ben was named for the bell in the tower, which was named in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall. Said, Good thing his parents didn't name him Richard.

Here's a shot from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. Love those dome climbs.

Here's a wartime photo of St. Paul's during the German blitz. Despite, or maybe because of, its prominence on the London skyline, it was only slightly damaged in that period. There's a hole in one wall that's been glassed over as a remembrance of that time.

Here's a picture of the nave ceiling I found on the internet.

St. Paul's is where Prince Charles and Diana were married. (Don't know why Prince Charles keeps popping up in these notes.) Winston Churchill's funeral was there (I saw some dramatic 1965 film of the event later at the Churchill Museum) and Margaret Thatcher's will be, when the time comes.

Parliament. I used to be a frequent watcher of CSPAN's broadcast of Prime Minister's Question Time. On this trip, though, just got the picture; did not visit Parliament in session. Thought this was a pretty good picture from the upper deck of a bus.

Tower of London - where we saw the crown jewels. Also listened to a Beefeater guard/tour guide tell us about all the executions and imprisonments here.

The nearby Tower Bridge.

Westminster Abbey (on a cold and rainy day).

This is of course the scene of the Prince William - Kate Middleton wedding. Many famous people are buried or memorialized here and at St. Paul's Cathedral (as if you didn't know). A few that stand out for me: Handel, Darwin, Chaucer, Florence Nightingale (known in my circles for her use of statistics to define and fix health problems), John Donne (for whom the bell tolls), Samuel Johnson, and T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia). These luminaries make the buildings even more impressive.

While queuing for the Abbey, we saw two men with pink umbrellas.

When exiting, we saw this: two photographers snapping similar shots of their ladies. No, those two cars weren't moving or honking. It's easy to stereotype Japanese tourists and this scene pretty well captures it.

Buckingham Palace. We were in luck. When the Queen is at her Scottish palace during the summer, as was the case now, the Palace tour is greatly expanded so you can see more of the state rooms. Outside, the BP looks like a government office building, but inside, once again, it’s all grandeur. Awesome, in fact.

A couple of internet pictures inside the Palace.

Kate's wedding gown is now on display in the Palace. There was an accompanying video in which the designer explained the symbolism and engineering incorporated into the gown - you royal wedding enthusiasts out there probably know all about it.

I took this picture of a back window in the palace just in case the Queen might have sneaked back into town for a change of clothes and would wave to us from the window. Didn’t happen.

Out front, here are the Palace guards and the Palace leaf-blower.

There was no changing of the guard (or the leaf-blower) scheduled this day, but we wouldn't have anyway, because our Shirley friends had told us that it is a madhouse – people shoving and crowding: rude. So, we hiked to a bus stop, then rode a bus over to the Westminster area in order to tour the underground War Cabinet rooms and Churchill Museum (another three-star item on the Steves list).

Susie decided to sit this one out – too expensive relative to her level of interest. (All these top sites are pretty pricey, but you often get audio sets as part of the package.) We/I didn’t think too much about how long I might be in the museum, so we didn’t set a time to meet. There wasn’t a convenient indoor place to wait, so Susie took up a station outside on the steps. She couldn’t stray too far because we didn’t have operational cell phones. Well, I was in the museum an hour and twenty-five minutes, MUCH longer than what Susie had anticipated. I had tried to hold it to an hour, but there was so much to see and hear. Those Churchill wartime addresses to the nation are riveting. Worse, it had gotten windy and rainy. I hailed a taxi and we had it take us to a warm, dry place for lunch.

Here's an internet picture of the entrance to the Churchill Museum. (Kind of a strange picture, don't you think?)

That is not Susie huddled outside the door, but it's indicative.

The underground War Cabinet rooms were very interesting. From 1939 until the war's end in 1945, these secret rooms beneath the Treasury building, near Downing Street, were used by Churchill and company to run the war. Among other historical treats, you can listen to a recording of one of his phone calls with FDR.

I was thrilled: there were data charts posted - production of fighter planes, etc.

A particular highlight was a film of two classic, older British women reminiscing about their time on Churchill's staff and working in these secret rooms. They were laugh out loud funny. They said Churchill was natural and earthy in his staff conversations, not dramatic as in his speeches. Said he didn't smoke as many cigars as you might expect; only carried them to chew on and gesture with. One lady who apparently transcribed his phone calls said he often closed his conversations with "KBO," which she dutifully typed. After a while a Churchill aide said she didn't need to type that. Did she know what it meant? She said No. Well, it stood for Keep Buggering On. Sort of a predecessor of our LOL.

Another area of particular interest: the Museum had several displays pertaining to shipping supplies from the US to England across the North Atlantic in the face of German submarines and warships. My dad served on US Navy escort ships at that time and later wrote his PhD thesis on this aspect of WWII.

(A day later I was at Picadilly Circus in search of souvenirs when a friendly, chatty British man stopped me. Wanted to know if I was an American, did my father or grandfather serve in WWII? I told him. He wanted to say Thanks. Well, he also wanted to take my picture and sell me some. I look forward to getting the pictures in the mail.)

BTW, a day or two earlier in this part of town we walked by the entrance to Downing Street. Susie said, Did you take a picture? No, I said. You can't see anything behind the barrier. Take a picture, she said. OK, this one's for you, Susie: No. 10 Downing Street, somewhere back there. Been there. Got the picture.

A palace of another type is the Harrod's department store. Huge, beautiful place and I've never seen such a density of clerks. They're everywhere. Here's an internet exterior shot (we were there on a rainy evening).

Here's my picture of the Christmas room: Babe in Toyland.

Harrod's was not too far from our hotel, so we walked home through foggy London town.

That's enough for this posting.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Blenheim and Oxford

2011-09-08T01:16:00.000-06:00

UPDATE. As this posting was being prepared we heard that our friends, Wayne and Pat Young, had lost their home to the wildfire in Bastrop, TX. Such a tragedy. They were away, traveling in their motor home, at the time, but are now back in Bastrop, helping others who lost their homes. Our prayers and thoughts go out to them.

Some background. The Youngs lived in Ventana del Sol in Cedar Crest and were responsible for recruiting us to move out there. They knew a neighborhood house would be just right for us and they knew it would soon be available.

Saturday.

Just SE of the Cotswolds region is the Blenheim Palace, a world heritage site, among many accolades, and also the birthplace of Winston Churchill. And it was outstanding! Wretched excess done very well, and I mean that as a compliment. (By contrast, I've seen the Biltmore Estate in NC a couple of times and think just the opposite. It's interesting: a Vanderbilt, Consuelo, became the Duchess of Marlboro, and thus the mistress of Blenheim, but I don't know if the Biltmore is patterned in any way after the Blenheim Palace. Blenheim is about 300 years old; Biltmore about 100 years old)

Here are some internet pictures:

More pictures here.

No photography is allowed inside, so here are a couple of our outside shots:

Susie's comment about these statues was, At Caesar's Palace, the statues talk.

You can tour the living quarters of the current Duke of Marlborough and we did. He and his wife and staff live in one wing of the Palace. The "State Apartments," examples shown above, are in the center portion and other wing of the Palace. However, back in Churchill's youth, it was used as a residence. Young Winston liked to sleep in a room adjacent to the library.

We also took an animated tour led by the ghost of a maid. She escorted us through some of the dramatic events in the Palace's history.

After our Blenheim visit we drove a few miles further to Oxford and checked into a Travelodge. Cost us more than a B and B with a lot less charm and service, but we went for convenience - the GPS found it for us and we were pretty sure it would have a room. However, we had a heck of a time dealing with the double roundabouts to find and enter the parking lot.

One-lane roundabouts are great. Multi-lane roundabouts are more of a challenge if you don't know what lane you should be in. Some times there are road numbers on the lanes, but you have to be quick to recognize where you need to be and then get there. Otherwise, it's go with the flow and find a place to turn around and try again. I got adept at creative turn-arounds. These complex roundabouts (as they're known mathematically) are the only places I got beeped at. English drivers must keep one hand on the horn, because they're very quick to beep - in a helpful manner, not as criticism.

We had tentatively planned to head from Oxford to southern England for most of the week, mostly in and around Bath, then finish our English days in London the following weekend. But, as we thought about it, we decided we'd rather go on to London from Oxford, spend four nights there, then fly home. Actually, we're going first to NYC to visit Mandi, Paul, and Kaci. And 9/11 played a role in our thinking - thought we'd rather be in NYC for the 10th anniversary than in London. And, if there was some terror attack or incident on that date, we'd rather be back in the USA and not possibly stranded here. Etcetera, etcetera. Had had about enough of roundabouts and cute villages, too.

On the way out of Oxford, we looked up a couple of C. S. Lewis locales, found one of them (more darned roundabout confusion) - his home, The Kilns. It's a private residence, but here are front and back pictures, what you can see over the hedges. The outside staircase leads to Lewis's living quarters.

.
Our friends, Shirley Smith and Shirley Miller, are C. S. Lewis scholars and groupies and have visited England often. They recommended the Montana Hotel in London, so we made reservations there. Good price and good location. We drove to Heathrow, found the Hertz return site easily, and turned the car in (whew!). Then we took the tube to the Gloucester Road Tube Station, near the hotel, lugging our luggage through a light rain to the hotel. London, We're here!

Next: Susie and Rob do London.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

The Cotswolds

2011-09-06T23:15:00.000-06:00

Thursday. We’re headed south, for the Cotswolds, a rural area of scenic villages and narrow lanes. But first we made a loop through Beatrix Potter country, still in the Lake District, not far from where we stayed in Ambleside.

Susie remembers Peter Rabbit books as a child and as a teacher and this was a special stop for her. We didn't stop at the Potter's Hilltop Farm, too crowded, but here's what the countryside looks like:

We then made our way to the motorways that would take us south, through or around the cities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham. Our hostess in Ambleside had recommended the Cotswold village of Broadway for its charm and amenities. The B and B she recommended there, we found out by email, turned out to be booked (and it turned out to be on a list of top 10 B and Bs in England!), but we still decided, in concert with granddaughter Kaci, to take a shot at Broadway. After a long day of driving having to search for lodging can be a bit nerve-wracking (I'm told I can become "testy"), but we found a place just a five-minute walk from the Broadway town centre. We then found dinner at the Broadway Hotel - mostly behind that tree.

Marianne, the B and B owner, had a vacancy, due to a no-show, so we got it – for two nights. Marianne's daughter (a medical doctor) and granddaughter (a teenager) helped Mum serve the breakfasts, so that was a nice family touch.

Friday morning we were treated to an aerial show by swallows who nest on Marianne's house. Large numbers of them frantically swooped in toward their nests under the eaves of the house, but never seemed to land. In this picture you can see they have made a deposit on a room - our window, to be exact.

Next morning there was no such show and Marianne told me that the swallows generally depart in mid-September. Maybe they were getting a little testy planning their departure.

Broadway got its name because it has an unusually wide main street, typically named High Street in this region. There are some outstanding cottages, estates, and shops along its way.

Friday we meandered through the lanes and roads of the Cotswolds in a general SE direction. Saw many elegant estates of this sort:

Our Rick Steves guidebook highlights several villages in the Cotswolds, but says the real joy comes from discovering hidden-gem villages on your own. I had seen Guiting Power on the map and thought it an interesting name, so when we came to a crossroads with a sign pointing in that direction, that’s where we went. Here's a website picture.

This is a pretty typical Cotswolds, and beyond, village. I couldn't find the source of the name. A couple of close-ups.

We also took a quick look at Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter. The name is derived from an old English word for muddy place, not some gruesome event back in the day.

The aforementioned villages are not very commercial, which means, not very promising for finding lunch. Bourton-on-the-Water, from its write-up, looked like it might be a good place for lunch, but that town turned out to be full of tour buses, so we pressed on. Saw a sign for the Lamb Inn and went in that direction. As we pulled up, Susie said, If they serve only lamb, you’re in big trouble. They had plenty of other stuff and we had a pleasant lunch in what we subsequently found out was the village of Greater Rissington. That roof is made of stone shingles.

The afternoon’s agenda was Stratford on Avon, about 30 miles away, north of the Cotswolds region. That town was really jammed with holidayers. Our guidebook proved very valuable: it directed us to a parking garage located right after we crossed a bridge over the Avon and entered down town: Turn right three times and enter the garage. Got it on the second time around the block.

Emerging from the garage, we saw a hop-off/hop-on tour bus, so we hopped on. Actually, we queued up for a long wait. There was a student field trip group in front of us of about 30 and it took forever for their sponsors to pay the fare and get their charges loaded. Then, that bus took off and left us standing because it was late. So, we got the next bus.

Rode the bus, got a couple of fly-by pictures, and went back to Broadway. We decided it was enough just to see where Shakespeare was born and buried, we didn't need to go in. Typical Tourists!

Here's the house Shakespeare was born in.

And here's an interesting light-post fixture, seen up close from the upper deck of the bus:

Tomorrow's agenda is to drive down toward Oxford and see the Blenheim Palace and maybe some of Oxford. See you then.

Susie and Rob

Lockerbie, Scotland

2011-09-02T02:56:00.000-06:00

On December 21, 1988, a bomb was detonated in flight Pan Am 103 as it flew over Scotland, soon after taking off from Heathrow, bound for JFK airport. It was six miles in the air over Lockerbie and its pieces, as it disintegrated, took three minutes to hit the ground. Can you imagine the terror of those three minutes for those who survived the bomb itself (and the investigation found that some passengers likely did survive the explosion)? Major pieces fell in and around Lockerbie. Eleven people on the ground were killed along with 259 passengers and crew. Here’s an aerial shot showing the major impacts (except for the marker on the left side which is for the memorial garden that was created).

Here’s a picture of a crater in one neighborhood where the fuselage hit.

Here’s the memorial – a block with all the names of the victims listed.

Additionally, individual memorials have been placed on the surrounding walls and ground.

As you know, a Libyan man was convicted in a Scottish court of bombing Flight 103 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but he was given a “compassion” release a couple of years ago (to great outcry), supposedly near death then, but is still alive in Libya (though current medical reports after the rebel takeover of Libya say he is again near death, or maybe not – I haven’t been keeping up closely).

Anyhow, being here gave us much more of a feeling about what happened than we’d had from afar. We’re glad we came and paused to remember those who died here at the hands of Islamic terrorism.

Coming back to the LakeDistrict, we first stopped to create this piece of evidence that we had legitimately added Scottland to our BeenThere list.

Then, we angled SW to the coast at Marytown. Had some excellent take-away fish and chips.

There are some large windfarms in this area, on land and at sea.

From there we took the mountain back road to Keswick, over rugged Honister Pass. The sign said portions of that road had a 25% incline. Pretty exciting drive. We were often amazed at the walls people built in such mountainous terrain.

Back in Keswick, we picked up our laundry (which we had dropped off on the way out of town in the morning) and headed for the south end of the Lake District. Saw a B and B with a Vacancy sign and took it – very nice place with level floors and within walking distance of the town centre, where we found a very nice dinner. Not at all like that other place.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

York to Keswick

2011-09-02T02:52:00.000-06:00

Tuesday Morning. We left York with two related destinations in mind: cross the line into Scotland so we can add that to our BeenThere list, stay 2-3 nights in the Lake District of NW England. Looking at the map, I noticed that Lockerbie, site of the Libyan-sponsored bombing of a Pan American flight in 1988 that killed 270 people, was just north of the Lake District, so that became another reason to go to Scotland..

Partly because of the forecast of pm rain and partly to get to the scenic areas quickly, I set aside my resolve and we headed north on an expressway. Soon got boring; then got tedious as we drove for about 20 slow miles in a highway construction area. About the time Susie said, This is boring, (Susie learned this from her first graders) I spotted an exit for Richmond, identified as a Georgian Market Town, and took it.

First we went through a mysterious town that I thought was Tunstall. Mysterious because there were many large brick buildings surrounded by high fences with coiled barbed wire top and bottom. Couldn’t tell if they were holding prisoners, protecting a military installation, or what. I’ve read enough British spy novels to wonder if maybe it was one of those places where James Bonds sorts of gadgets are developed, or Russian deserters are interrogated. I suppose we could have stopped and asked someone what’s going on here? but didn’t want to raise suspicions with my foreign accent.

(Update. Never mind. I googled and mapquested later and found out that we were driving through the Catterick Garrison, the largest British Army base in the world.)

Then we got to Richmond. It was much larger than you expect from the size of its dot on the map. We drove up and down some very steep hills to get through the town centre. We did stop to look at the map to see where we were and where we might go. The map showed a four-digit road going west, along the valley of the Swale River, paralleling the highway we would have been taking headed for the west side of the island, near the England-Scotland border. Looked promising.

Turned out to be one of the neatest roads we have traveled: several villages and clusters of houses along the way, all built solidly out of the local limestone; rock-wall enclosed bright green pastures, with grazing sheep, cows, and horses; narrow bridges and narrow, rock-walled lanes where you occasionally had to alternate with oncoming traffic.

Saw several farms with this configuration - stone house and barn facing each other across a small yard.

After a while the valley steepened and we climbed through a highlands landscape and crossed a high pass in what we found out was the Cumbria National Park.

Covered about 35 gorgeous, fascinating miles, I estimate. So, we recommend, if you’re ever in northern England, take B6270 from Richmond to Kirkby Stephen.

Along the way we had two pub stops. One for tea and coffee, but really for a toilet; one for lunch. Lunch was at the Black Bull Inn in Nateby, near the west end of our ramble. The young woman in charge there had an interesting story. She and her husband had been in Nateby for just about six months. Before that, they had lived in Spain for 15 years where her husband ran a car shop (she’s definitely British in origin, not Spanish; we didn’t meet the mister). With the European economy in the tank, business was bad the last couple of years. She said people would have work done, but they wouldn’t/couldn’t pay for it. So, they closed the business, rented out their house, and found this pub in the north of England to run. Talk about culture change. She said it’s pretty here, but sure is cold. They hope to return to Spain. Here’s a Nateby picture.

During lunch it started to rain. Because of the rain we decided to go find a place to stay in the Lake District and hope for better weather on Wednesday for us to make a side trip to Lockerbie. Susie pretty well lets me decide our schedule, but she had said while we were in York, We are going to Scotland. Case closed, but, particularly with Lockerbie in the news now, I feel it’s a place we should visit.

We headed for Keswick in the northern Lake District. (Friends Dusty and Gay Blech, who have traveled often in England, named their son Kessick (which is how it’s pronounced) after the town.) Even though the bank holiday was over, the town was full of people and traffic.

Following our Rick Steves guidebook, I was heading for a nearby valley where he had listed four farmhouse B and Bs. Figured we had a better chance of finding a vacancy out in the country. Also thought it would be neat to stay on a working farm – Susie might help shear the sheep.

Took a while to find our way to and up the valley; there was some road construction and we had trouble following the detours (traffic diverts) around it. Our diverted route bypassed the first farmstay, unbeknownst to us, and the second had no vacancies. Not looking good for your travel planner. Kept going, uphill, narrow road. Saw the third one and pulled in. This was the Gill Brow Farm, “where Anne Wilson rents two simple, but fine rooms,” Rick says, and with a two night stay and Rick’s book, we’d get a 10% discount! Perfect. As we pulled in by the back of the house, though, Susie said, I don’t like the looks of this.

Let’s check, I said. It had been a long day’s drive and I was ready to stop. The front looked better.

Anne showed us a room and we (I) took it and asked for two nights. Bad choice, it turned out. This is an old house and there’s been some settling and buckling. Walking across our second-floor bedroom was something like being on the rolling deck of a ship. Not a good location for Susie’s vertigo. Also, we were far from town for amenities like dinner, particularly when you consider driving back in the dark.

I took a walk and took some farm pictures.

What happens when you cross a white sheep with a black sheep?

We had some crackers, peanut butter, and jam with us (smart thinking), so that was dinner. Then we couldn’t get the shower to work – there’s a contraption on the shower wall that heats and sprays the water – at least it had at other places we stayed. The knobs didn’t work here the way they should. Rather than get Anne’s help, we decided we could go without.

Susie said, I can’t stay here another night. I felt committed, but I didn’t relish the drive to and from Gill Brow, so after a little resistance, I agreed we’d leave in the morning. After breakfast I told Anne we’d decided to move on. No problem, but bye-bye discount. Another factor in this wise decision was that, depending on how long the Lockerbie trip took, this gave us some other options, which didn’t include another crackers, peanut butter, and jelly dinner.

Wish I could say we slept well, all things considered, but we didn't.

Susie and Rob

York

2011-09-01T02:37:00.002-06:00

Won't try to give you any York history - it goes way back, Roman times and before - and I'd probably get it wrong. Rick Steves, our guidebook author, says it is the "best sightseeing city in England after London." Here are scenes from York.

York Minster - the huge Gothic church, built in the 1200s and 1300s, which was spared by Henry VIII and became a key Church of England cathedral.

Exterior.

I did the tower climb - 275 steps and got these pictures. From roof level:

From the tower:

Some interior shots.

Choir seating. I went to an Evensong service Sunday evening.

An interesting tomb lid. Add your own caption.

They said it was just a headache!

These statues represent different English kings, but several of the faces are the same. I asked a guide and she said apparently there were two sculptors at work and each had a characteristic, multi-purpose face he liked to make. Which reminds me: I read that some people are not happy with the new Martin Luther King statue in DC - produced by a Chinese sculptor and looking a bit like Chairman Mao!

Sunday morning in York we found our way to Central Methodist Church, located/hidden inside walled old York. But after the required period of fruitless driving in circles by instinct flavored with a little bit of knowledge, followed at last by Let’s ask someone, we found it. Large, old building; small, friendly congregation, delighted to have visitors. We stayed for tea after the service.

This Sunday the preacher was a fill-in for the regular pastor. He’d been retired for 18 years, but when asked to go preach somewhere occasionally, he would do so. When we chatted, though, he said he was about to the point where he would say No.

In his sermon he said, among other things, that, to him, reverence was an important part of a worship service. Said some modern services are too long on entertainment, too short on reverence. So, we did reverence (which we do at home, but not to the same degree). It was nice.

At tea we asked if he and his wife had been to the States – a typical opening question. Turned out that at one point in his career he was an exchange pastor with a church in Chattanooga, TN. He and his wife really enjoyed that year. Good cross-fertilization of styles and lingo at both ends of that swap.

(Monday morning I took an early morning walk in our neighborhood. Came across this Methodist Church just about three blocks away from our B and B. Duh!)

After church we drove north of York to the York Moor. Some nice backroads and scenic villages along the way. Moor refers to the treeless tops of hills, covered with what the guidebook called scraggy heather (totally different from my niece Heather) that has a purple blossom in late summer. So, we got to see blooming heather (totally different from my niece Heather). The valleys between the hills, called Dales, were conventional green farming areas, so that made for a good contrast. Oh, one other moor point, the novel Wuthering Heights was set in this region.

Monday afternoon I went to the National Railway Museum. This is the largest railroad museum in the world. Some pictorial highlights:

The Japanese bullet train.

York bits: York used to be big in the chocolate business. England and Switzerland are the only two countries where more chocolate is consumed than bread.

This is for Valerie Hinkle. At a York café where we stopped for lunch one day, a “York specialty” was a bread, butter, jelly, and cheese sandwich. I often have toast with butter, jelly, and a slice of cheese for breakfast, sometimes with a fried egg in there, too, and Valerie thought that was pretty unusual. But, not in York.

Holy Trinity Church. In an informational notebook our B and B owners had but together, they called this small, ancient church a "hidden jewel."

The church was chartered in 1082. The main portions of the present building dates to the late 1400s. Wow!

Had a great time in York. Glad we included it in our itinerary.

Susie and Rob

Dublin to Wales

2011-08-29T15:07:00.000-06:00

Friday, August 26. We got up early to take a taxi to the Ferry Terminal. We had tickets on the Ulysses, which is cruise-ship size. When launched 10 years ago it was the world’s largest car ferry.

(I had thought I'd visit some of the literary sites in Ireland, but this ship was as close as I came. I have, however, been reading, James Joyce's collection of short stories, Dubliners; have no intention of ever reading Ulysses, though.)

The Ulysses has six decks for cars, buses, and trucks. It can carry 1342 cars, 240 trucks and buses, and 2000 passengers and crew. I couldn't see how the loading/unloading arrangements were configured, but I know it took nearly an hour to unload the vehicles at the other end. The nice security lady in the parking lot at the other end advised us to wait until the ship had unloaded and avoid the traffic jam. Here's a view of the Dublin Harbor as we sailed away.

We splurged and got tickets to the club level – “free” snacks, tea and coffee, newspapers, magazines, and wi-fi. And very uncrowded. (I had visions of crowded bench seats and active, noisy tykes, etc. in steerage, but that turned out not to be the case.)

There were a lot of cars, buses, and trucks (lorries) on board, not a whole lot of us foot passengers. In just over three hours we had crossed to Holyhead, Wales. Here's the Irish Sea en route and the Holyhead shore.

We picked up our Hertz car and headed for Betws-y-coed, Wales. I had picked a Band B there because it wasn’t very far from Holyhead and because I was intrigued by the town’s name. Here’s how I think it is pronounced: Buh-TOOSE-uh co-WEED. The letter w, in Welsh, is pronounced as double-oh.

Along the way we stopped in the university town of Bangor, primarily looking for an ATM (the machine in the Holyhead terminal not honoring our cards; we'd read that B and Bs prefer cash; will charge extra for plastic). We got thoroughly lost trying to find a legal place to park near the city centre, but finally got parked and found an ATM where we got some British pounds. Here's a large building at the university, which overlooks down town.

And here are shots of a historic church that we took a look at.

Betws is in the area of Snowdonia National Park, but I hadn’t researched anything about that. More fun to be surprised than prepared, no? Well, this area is big for mountaineering and other adventure pursuits. The first big surprise was these mountains along the road to Betws.

At one scenic turn-out we visited with a couple from Cambridge who had come to Wales for the holiday weekend to escape persistently rainy Cambridge. Here's their picture of us. (Now that I think of it, you'd probably be more interested in seeing them than another picture of us. Will try that next opportunity..)

Then what I thought might be a sleepy farming village turned out to be a jam-packed, hopping mountain-resort town. Full of stores selling outdoors gear and full of lots of healthy young people - people for hostels, not B and Bs.. The day we arrived, Friday, was the start of a long holiday weekend – the last Monday in August is a bank holiday, something like our Labor Day to mark the end of summer. Second time we drove through town we found our B-and-B, unloaded, and a little later strolled through town. Here are some pictures:

A river runs through it.

The village green:

The view from our window:

Saturday we planned to stop at the Bondant Garden, called the most beautiful in Wales and just a short way north from Betws. The weather was rainy and chilly, though, so we decided to skip the Garden. Check out the website to see what we missed.

Plan B was the Conwy Castle, a few miles further north.

Weather still rainy, but there was some shelter in the castle and enough gaps in the rain to have a good time exploring. I climbed the circular staircases to the top of a couple of these towers.

Susie did ground-level exploring. There she is now!

We then headed east on a four-lane highway, heading almost across the country to York, England. On the way we exited in search of a good picture of a harbor, but ended up with just lunch. But, we saw this law office. The firm's name is Griffiths and Hughes.

Susie has Welsh heritage, father was a Hughes, mother was a Griffith - close enough.

We stayed on motorways and expressways all the way to York. Had to because we had to bypass Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds (where they were having a major rock concert for the holiday weekend). GPS did its job. Seemed like we repeatedly got off and on M1 and one or two other M-roads. After this, it's back to the minor, more bucolic roads

Kenmare to Dublin

2011-08-28T12:42:00.000-06:00

Wednesday we left Kenmare. Have to be in Dublin Thursday evening to catch the Friday morning ferry to Holyhead, Wales. We decided to go south, then work eastward along the southern coast, catching some of Ireland's 10 most beautiful villages along the way. Waterford and its crystal were our main objective.

Before breakfast, when I took some of our bags to the car I saw a nice rainbow arching overhead. Went back to get my camera and got this much-diminished rainbow. (You should have seen the one that got away.)

Tried to take a second picture and found my camera’s battery was dead. So, the only pictures we got this day of driving through spectacularly beautiful countryside and seafront villages were by cell phone, and I can’t extract those to put in the computer and then in Tuziblog. Hoping to find some internet photos to plug in.

Our first off-the-beaten-path destination was Castletownshend. Along the way we enjoyed driving through Glengarriff, Bantry (where we did some shopping), Ballydehob, and Skibbereen. The GPS was particularly helpful in getting us through Skibbereen and on to the road to Castletownshend: turn left, then right; take the third exit from the roundabout, ... . The town's castle, at the lower right of this internet picture, is now a B&B.

It was lunch time and we found what appeared to be the only eating establishment in the village: Mary Ann's Bar and Restaurant. But, it was a good one. There was a poster in the bar featuring 100 Irish Pubs of distinction and Mary Ann's was there. This is an active fishing village and fresh seafood was a menu feature. We heard someone ask about prawns, but today's catch was not in yet. I had a very good crab sandwich, made from local crabs. Here's an artist's rendering of Mary Ann's.

The GPS lady outdid herself directing us eastward toward the main coastal highway; through very narrow lanes and even when we missed a turn (more than once), the GPS found another path through the labyrinth. And I do mean path. Not once did she say, Make a legal U-turn. There was always a plan B up her sleeve. We passed through some charming little villages and by some elegant country estates, but could never find them again.

Eventually, we got to Kinsale, a coastal resort town just south of Cork (pictures here). This is on the Top 10 roster and may also be the namesake of the Virginia/Chesapeake Bay village near which Lael and Katherine, my brother and his wife, sometimes reside (for the last couple of years they've mostly been sailing their way around the world).

Here we took an ice cream and latte break on a nice harborfront patio. Music was playing in the background. Susie had earlier mentioned that in various places we've been it seemed they were playing American golden oldies, if they weren't playing Irish music. Still, it was a surprise when, as we were enjoying our break, we heard the strains of Silent Night wafting over us.

En route to Waterford, now late in the afternoon, we got off the highway at Dungarvan. After wandering aimlessly for a while just sure we would find a hotel or B&B, I turned the job over to the GPS lady. She took us to St. Anthony's B&B. The lady owner was enthusiastically friendly, called us Luv, Dear, etc.and the accommodations were just fine. At her suggestion we ordered in some pizza and had a good night's rest and recharged the camera battery, too.

Thursday morning we drove on to Waterford, wandered around for a while trying to find the Waterford Crystal Visitor Center (Miss GPS tried to take us to a now-closed site in the outskirts of town, but we had been told the new center was in the city centre) and, after two sets of instructions from residents, we finally found it. Glad we did because it was a fascinating tour.

It starts here, with glass-blowing.

Then proceeds to the cutting.

(Susie said, Who knew that friend Thorne Davis was working here - for those of you who know Thorne.)

Then there are further cleaning, polishing, and inspection steps. Our guide told us, if I remember correctly, that about 30% of the pieces fail an inspection along the way and have to be crushed and melted and started again. Also, there are other factories throughout Europe, but here at Waterford is the only place where the specialty sculptures are made. For example, various sporting events have Waterford Crystal trophies. Here are some sculptures in process:

For the London Olympics:

A Waterford piano being made just for Justin Timberlake:

The Capitol dome:

This is hard to see, but this is a 9/11 Memorial
:

After Waterford we headed north toward Dublin. Still quite a bit of time before our five o'clock scheduled return of the car, so we headed for another top 10 village – Gowran - and in search of lunch. The GPS got us there by the scenic route, but there was no place to eat – maybe one takeaway shop. There also didn’t seem to be much of charm there either – maybe this large church ruin.

(We just have village names on a map. We left the coffee table book of pictures and text home, so we don't know why they were selected; figured it should be obvious, shouldn't it?.)

Susie spotted this flower garden in front of a house where we turned around, twice, so we took this picture.

And took this picture for the sake of quaintness:

I stopped in a butcher shop and asked them where to eat (smart thinkin', huh.). They confirmed nothing in Gowran but they came up with an enthusiastic recommendation for a Garden Center restaurant three or four km up the road. We drove by a/the garden center, but all I saw was a garden center, not a restaurant, so I didn’t turn in. Susie said I was driving too fast and missed the entrance. I said, OK we’ll loop back around and I’ll drive real slow and we'll turn in. In about a quarter of a mile, there was an intersection and I could tell it would take us back to where we had turned and found the garden center. Circled back and drove by the garden center again very slowly. AND THERE WAS NO DRIVEWAY to turn in on! We did see a sign for the restaurant saying turn left at the next intersection, which is just where we had turned left the first time around. Did it again, but this time we tried an unlabeled driveway that looked like it might go into the back side of the garden center. And it did. And it connected with the parking lot in front. This truly was a garden center with an attached restaurant. And the meal may have been our best. I had whiting, nicely battered and with a tartar sauce that was garden-tinted; Susie had turkey and ham with trimmings.

And that excursion to Gowran concluded our Irish backroads adventures.

Off to Dublin via motorways. We had a reservation at a Crowne Plaza hotel near the airport. This was a bargain I happened upon through Expedia. They have a mystery deal. You tell them what area you want to be in. They tell you the best price of a certain level of hotel, say 3-star, but they don’t tell you the name until after you’ve paid – no refunds, either. Their reasoning is that these high-end places don’t want it to be known that they’re selling rooms so cheaply. Shh. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you about this, so keep it mum. But, of course, the next time it will likely be a different hotel. We got a room for $95; most Dublin hotels websites I looked at were double that or more.

I programmed the GPS for the airport (I didn’t have an address for the hotel, just an area so I hadn't been able to set that goal for the GPS), figuring that we’d see the nearby hotels, but that didn’t work. Drove around the airport once, then found a place to park and plug in the hotel name (finding a place to pull over and get our bearings has been one of our most daunting tasks. End up in all sorts of dead-ends, parking lots and the like.) That worked and we found the Crowne Plaza a couple of miles from the airport.

Next step was to return the car. Should be easy, I thought. I found my way back to the airport (without copilot Susie) and looked for signs for the rental car return. Didn’t see any signs, or any that could be translated to that. People beeped at me for driving slow while I searched for information. Made one loop by the terminals and parking garages, but no soap. Fortunately, as I left that area I spotted a gas station/convenience store. The nice clerk there said, Continue down this road to a roundabout, take the third exit and drive down that road. You’ll see the Car Hire area. You won’t see any signs until you’re there.

Well, I got in the wrong lane of the roundabout and couldn’t get to the third exit. By taking the second exit I was about to exit the airport, bound, apparently, for a motorway going down town. But, I found a break in the traffic and negotiated a u-turn to get back to the roundabout and take the right exit. Successfully turned the car in. Apparently no damage from our various bush-brushing and curb-rubbing episodes.

Rental agency van took me to the terminal where I could catch van to the Crowne Plaza, which runs twice an hour. Found the hotel-bus pickup area just as a CP van was loading up. I was last on board, sitting with one cheek on four inches of seat between two large guys. Better, though, than hailing a taxi or waiting for the next van, I figured.

And so -

Here's to your roof,
may it be well thatched
And here's to all
under it -
May they be
well matched.

(Irish Toast)

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Ring of Kerry

2011-08-26T13:15:00.000-06:00

Ireland’s most famous, or most popular drive – the Ring of Kerry - loops around the Iveragh Peninsula on the west end of County Kerry. Our Rick Steves guide advised that if you’re driving, leave early in the morning and drive clockwise because the tour buses, some of them on a long day trip from Dublin, drive counter-clockwise and are thickest later in the day. Counter-clockwise also puts you in the oceanside lane from where the view is better and the scenic pull-offs (lay-bys) more convenient. So, that was the start of our strategy. However, in order not to make the day too long, we decided to drive to the end of the peninsula, then backtrack to Kenmare. (I also have the feeling that this late in the summer, mid-week, the bus traffic should be light – and that’s the way it turned out – aren't we the clever travelers?)

[Incidentally, in case I haven't mentioned it, we found the Rich Steves guides to Ireland and to England to be the most useful. He gives you opinions, not just PR. He prioritizes. For example, he says there's not much to see at the Blarney Stone castle and why would you want to kiss a rock that is coated with other people's lipstick and spit.]

First stop on the Ring of Kerry was the town of Sneem. Turned out to be a good place to get Susie some latte and some pastries for both of us. Enjoyed it so much we did the same on our return trip. Also bought a load of postcards to send home. Here are some Sneemscenes.

Continuing along the coast we came across this beachfront Caravan Camp. Eat your heart out, Tuzigoot. Didn't look like full hook-ups to us, though.

The next stretch of road took us by what one sign proclaimed as the most popular photo-op on Ireland’s most popular road. Here’s a shot from that area where we stopped where another couple had stopped and took each others' pictures.

Also, Susie wanted a picture of these two contented cows nearby.

Got to the busy town of Waterville where we strolled a bit and found a restaurant overlooking the water. Those are candles in this picture.

This particular body of water is called Ballinskelligs Bay. Across the bay is a village called Ballinskelligs and that is our day’s destination because I’ve been reading a book I found in our B and B’s lounge, titled Skelligsside. The author, Michael Kirby, was born in Ballinskelligs in 1906 and lived there all his life – as a farmer, fisherman, and poet. His book, published in 1990, tells about his life, the Skelligside people, customs, and culture. Made me want to go there and see the magic he felt.

In one section of the book he writes about an early-day poet, Eoghan Rua O’Suilleabhain, who was known as quite a ladies man. He was also a teacher and the story goes that he took a fancy to the widowed mother of one of his students. He asked the student to snip a lock of his mother’s hair while she slept and bring it to him. That would help him win her affections. The lad told his mother, Teacher wants a lock of your hair. She clipped some hair from their dog – "a fierce dog of mongrel breed, with a golden-yellow coat” and sent that to school with her son. Eoghan was sure that was a good sign. As he approached the widow's house, Kirby says, “his heart was light with expectation as he neared the widow’s house, whistling and singing. Alas! If he had no story coming, he had one going away, for the fierce yellow dog tore the trousers off him, and the poet decided that a good run was better than a bad stand.”

So, after lunch, we branched off of the Ring of Kerry to drive over to Ballinskellig. The village is fronted by a beach and out at water’s edge are the ruins of a castle.

I took off my shoes and waded across the little creek between the shore and the castle. Climbed to the top, got some pictures.

We next proceeded on down the peninsula to essentially land’s end.

Tthen we looped back to the Ring of Kerry and retraced our route as far as Sneem, for our second Sneembreak. From there we took a back road through the peninsula’s high country. Ireland’s tallest mountains are in this range.

Back in Kenmare, we topped off our day and our stay by going to one of the restaurants and pubs featuring traditional Irish music. We heard Michael O’Brian, playing the small accordion and singing, accompanied by guitarist Sean O’Connor. (Surely stage names, we said with some cynicism.) They were very good – O’Brian really works that accordion and also sings a sweet heart-tugging Irish ballad. Incidentally, have you ever wondered, who invented the accordion and why? I bought an O'Brian CD, but after looking at the cover and listening to recording, it was apparent that it had been several years ago - before he developed his style. You know how some Irish songs seem to go on forever. Well, that's what this CD is like, song after song!

Tomorrow we begin a 2-day trip back to Dublin. We'll be in touch.

Susie and Rob

The Beara Peninsula

2011-08-25T14:05:00.000-06:00

On Monday we explored the Beara Peninsula, from top to tip. We started by driving up and over Healy Pass (elevation about 1000 ft.) to go from the north side of the peninsula to the south. This road was built in 1847, during the Famine, to facilitate the movement of people and goods between the Counties Cork and Kerry. Here are some scenes on the way up.

"Now, where did I leave my sheep?"

"Oh, there they are."

At the top of the pass (about 1100 ft. elevation) is this crucifixion shrine, erected by an anonymous donor in 1935, restored in 1969.

While we were parked at the top we had a nice visit with a Scottish couple. I said I imagine that this country looks something like the Scottish highlands and they agreed.

Back down at sea level we continued SW to the colorful town of Castletownbere.

Just after we parked we were walking toward this street from the other end and heard the sound of one car hitting another. The driver had pulled in toward the curb on the left to park and clipped the right front of a the car she was trying to pull around. Looked like a case of driving a little too far to the left, but we didn't stick around to see if the driver was a normally right side driver. Just served to heighten our awareness and a feeling of relief that it hadn't happened to us.

As this is written Thursday night we've completed six days of driving. No major problems. Doing a little less bush-whacking on the narrow roads. Where I goof when instinct takes over is when I try to make a quick click of a turn signal only to turn on the windshield (windscreen, here) wipers.

I will say that having a GPS has been incredibly valuable. There's no way we could have negotiated ourselves through some of these towns by reading maps and signs without horribly getting lost and making numerous turn-arounds and stop-and-ask-directions episodes.

On the Castletownbere waterfront:

I took a quick peek at the town's Catholic Church - quite dramatic.

We had lunch nearby and then drove on down to the western tip of the peninsula. From that point there is an aerial tram that goes to Dursey Island. I had hoped to ride the tram but its schedule was full -- farmers and residents (there are "about six" the sign said) have precedence. The tram was hauling hay on this load.

Here are some scenes along our return on the north side of the peninsula.

There are a lot of these solid, two-story plus, rectangular houses in this area.

We took an ice cream break at one little village that looked to be mostly weekend or summer homes - not many people around when we came through.

Susie asked the lady in the shop if people coordinate their house-color choices. She said, no, they make independent choices, but, of course, with an eye to the colors that would fit in OK. Everything seems well-painted.

Soon after this stop, at one intersection I made a quick decision, contrary to Susie's good advice, and we ended up on a long loop off the main ring road that got us into some of the narrowest road we've encountered. At one point, both I and the oncoming driver folded in our side mirrors, shouldered through the roadside shrubbery, and eased past each other. There was a stretch of 2-3 miles where if we had met a car, one of us would have to back a long way to find a place wide enough to pass. Fortunately, didn't have to do it. This road, though, took us buy an interesting cemetery and the ruins of a small church and a host of other great views..

At one point we came upon a young man herding some cattle along the road and into an adjoining pasture. All the while he was talking on a cell phone. Whodathunk he would get reception? Maybe it was a satellite phone.

A lot of the country lanes are bordered by this orange flower - looks something like a day lily. Won't scratch your car when you brush against it.

Had a great day, finished it off with a sort of light dinner in Kenmare, and found a laundry where we could drop off some washing in the morning and pick it up that night after we complete our next peninsula drive, The Ring of Kerry.

I'll close with an Irish saying I found:

Top of the morning to you
and the rest of the day to yourself.

Susie and Rob

Adare to Kenmare

2011-08-23T13:20:00.000-06:00

On Sunday we worked our way mostly south from Adare to Kenmare, again following R-roads. Took a couple of wrong turns, but with the GPS and our map book (one tour guide said if you're going to drive in Ireland, immediately buy the Collins Atlas; we did, the first time we bought gas) we managed to recover. Some scenes along the way:

There may be oodles of Irish scenes like this, but they're a little hard to capture. For one thing, many of the roads are lined by overgrown walls and hedges, so you just catch occasional glimpses behind them. Second, there may be no place to pull over and take a picture; shoulder? roads have shoulders? Not the three-digit ones.

Saturday evening I felt that my driving acclimatization was going pretty well, albeit with some bush-slapping once in a while (Susie never flinched or hollered, so I thought it was acceptable). I think I mentioned that there is a tendency to drive too far to the left of the lane. Then, when you meet an oncoming car on a narrow road, you (I) tend to flinch to the left, thus occasionally encountering bushes and tall grass - but no wall, so far. After a couple more days, though (this is being written Tuesday evening - driving day 4), I started using the right side mirror to gauge the amount of room between me and the center line (when there is a center line). Thus, as someone approaches I can see where they are and where I am and hold or adjust my course accordingly.

What Susie did tell me Saturday pm is the you're driving TOO FAST. Too fast to look at the scenery. (Scenery? All I see is the road between my white knuckles.) Well, the local drivers drive faster than I do. They know where they're going and they know the roads. Consequently, we're often overtaken. I've gotten pretty adept at spotting left-side pull-outs where I can get off the pavement and let them by. And they'll pass in the blink of an eye give a piece of straight road. But, I think I was also trying to minimize overtakings by driving faster. I felt I definitely slowed down on Sunday, but still not enough. Still working on it.

I brake for cemeteries.

We found a cheery place for lunch - Bob's, in Ballydesmond, I think. If you've got Google Earth you can look up some of the roads we've traveled.

Our destination is the Harbour View B&B, located on the Beara Peninsula just a few miles out of the town of Kenmare. We didn't have an address for the B&B, just directions from the owner that were not too clear on how to get through Kenmare and on to the Harbour View. After a couple of loops through town, and some gentle coaching from Susie, I finally stopped at a grocery store and ASKED FOR DIRECTIONS.

Here's the B&B.

We had a choice between a normal room with a view out the back of the building or a little room tucked under the roof line behind the middle dormer above with this view of the harbour:

We took the room with a view. Here's an interior shot.

I tend to move around the room in a crouch, but, yes, we've bumped our heads against the ceiling a few times. The en suite toilet is really tiny with a sloping ceiling. To use the facility, in the manly way, you bend your knees and jam your head against the ceiling in order not to fall, inch forward, and try not to make too much of a mess. Sometimes, sitting has its advantages.

But enough bathroom humor. Monday morning we enjoyed the second B and struck out to explore the Beara Peninsula. Next installment.

Susie and Rob

Dublin-Cashel-Tipperary-Adare

2011-08-22T16:01:00.000-06:00

Saturday morning we took a cab to the Dublin airport and picked up our rental car. Heading for three nights, starting Sunday, in a B&B near Kensmare on the SW coast. Planned to spend a couple of hours on the motorways - 4-lane, divided highways - just to get a feel for left-side driving, right-side steering, then take rural roads (designated by R and three digits) until we found a good place to spend the night. Picked the intermediate goal of Tipperary because, you know, It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, particularly if you're starting from Cedar Crest. That's a WWI British song, when Ireland was part of the Great Britain, but it's also the song that the Mary Tyler Moore show cast sung as they left the newsroom at the end of the last show. Seemed like reason enough to search out Tipperary.

The exit for Tipperary was at the town of Cashel. I hadn't researched it, but it turns out that Cashel is an important Irish site and popular destination. The Rock of Cashel is a large limestone outcropping upon which various kings had had their castles, prior to 1100 A.D. From that high ground (rock) you could observe potential enemies and defend your kingdom. After 1100 the Rock became church property and various churches, chapels, and abbeys were built there. Our first clue was when we saw this sight just before we pulled off the motorway:

As you can see, there is a major renovation under way - they're re-roofing what is called the Cormac's Chapel, after an early bishop.

Here's the countryside seen from the graveyard adjoining the church on top.

This round tower is a structure of some renown - for its shape and because it is not held together by mortar.

A couple more scenes.

Next stop Tipperary.

I guess there wasn't enough of a village there for us to stop and take a picture.

It was still early afternoon, so we set our sights on Adare. We had found a book before we left home called the Ten Most Beautiful Villages in Ireland, and Adare was one of them -- known for its thatched cottages. We stuck to R roads going through the villages of Emily, Ballyhone, Bruff, and Croom, among others. As we neared Adare, but not knowing how near we were (actually, we should have known because we have our GPS with us, and it's been invaluable) we passed a couple of B&Bs that had vacancies. We were looking for something in Adare, but as we got there we got into a traffic jam - bumper to bumper traffic creeping through town. Couldn't turn around, so we went on through town until we happened to see an arrow pointing to a B&B. The vacancy sign was out, but when we knocked and the owner came to the door, she said Sorry, just let my last room. We told her about the traffic and asked if she had any suggestions for us. She said, Follow me, I'll take you the back way to a friend who I know has vacancies. She essentially completed a triangle and took us to the B&B we had seen earlier. The lady there had had a group of 15 cancel suddenly, so she was glad to see us.

A little later the traffic had died down, so we went in for dinner at Aunty Lena's - that's not us in front -

and to see the thatched cottages.

Tomorrow, on to Kenmare.

Susie and Rob

Ireland - Dublin

2011-08-22T00:51:00.000-06:00

Greetings Tuzigoot Fans:

We're in Ireland now. Left home on Aug. 16, landed in Dublin on the 17th. Took a cab to the Grand Hotel in Malahide, a short drive NE from the Dublin airport. The Grand is the site of a 2-day conference of the International Association for Statistical Education -- my excuse for making this particular trip at this time.

About 60 statisticians are gathered here to try to figure out what we can do to help people like you appreciate statistics more and to be more statistically literate so you won't be duped by bad data or inept or dishonest statistical analyses. It's a hard problem. People have worked diligently on it in the 40-some years I've been in the field. But, you won't listen. People who take our classes say they, the classes, are too boring/hard/confusing/... . They don't get it. We try teaching it early, K-12. We try to make it fun. We try to make it practical. We try to make it simple: it's just common sense applied to data, after all. Trouble is, I think, we're outnumbered by the people making it boring, hard, confusing, ... . We gotta find 'em and stop 'em! That was the unspoken, but underlying theme of my talk. We may be our own worst enemies, particularly in our introductory textbooks, my pet peeve.

Susie says , "Oh, poor Robbie----no one understands his stress in teaching statistics. Yet, when I relate how life is with a class full of children whose parents are in the wings ready to tell you how to teach, he shakes his head and I know inside he is smirking! By the by, our B and B hostess last night related how much harder American teachers have it compared to their Irish counterparts. She has a teacher sister in the states and knows that USA teachers spend many more days in the classroom....so there all you naysayers! May I add, however, that I really loved to teach.

Back to MY story (R): Aside from my curmudgeonly attempt at comic relief, there were some good talks by impressive people working at various levels of the educational system. One who stands out is a lady from South Africa, Delia North. The government has included statistics in the official syllabus at all grade levels. Trouble is, many teachers are not trained or comfortable in teaching it. Delia is forming teams, with a member from a university, one from the dept. of education, and one from the government's Official Statistics Office. They prepare and conduct in-service training, mentoring and follow-up. South Africa has unique problems -- multiple languages in a single classroom, large class sizes, poor facilities, and the residue of apartheid. But, she's having a great time working in this situation - very enthusiastic. Positive feedback helps: one trainee said, "I like this thing, statistics." Several other speakers described innovative efforts to enhance statistical literacy among the citizenry.

We did get in a little Dublin sightseeing. On Thursday afternoon we took the train into Dublin, then rode a hop-on/hop-off bus around the main sites - government buildings, churches, Guinness Brewery, Trinity College, ... . Here are some random shots from the back of the bus.

Here's a bit of the Guinness complex - 64 acres.

We had planned to go see the Book of Kells at Trinity College after we completed the circuit, but we got there just after 5:00 to find out that the library housing the Book was closed. The Book of Kells is a lavishly decorated transcription of the Four Gospels of the New Testament. Just before we came to Ireland I read the book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. Followers of St. Patrick, in medieval times, copied much of the literature that existed at that time, not only religious works but scholarly works in general. At the time, the barbarians were overrunning Rome and Greece, burning libraries and wreaking other havoc. Thus, those monks, slaving away in caves in Ireland, saved civilization's canon. Later I found out that other scholars don't give quite as much credit to the Irish as to book's author does, but still it was a good book.

Here's a Trinity College scene.

As you can see, it was raining at the time. Susie had an umbrella, I had a cap. Somehow, in the course of several cab and train rides over Thursday and Friday, we lost both.

Friday evening, after the conference was over, we went in to Big D again, this time to see Riverdance. That was/is an amazing show -- particularly the tap dancing. Susie ...both Rob and I had seen Riverdance in Albuquerque, I really wanted to experience the Irish dancers who included several from the US---most impressively, the two tap dancers who hailed from NY via Broadway and Oklahoma City University. Of course. rhe performance was wonderful not unlike the Alb. version...the main difference being that the Irish audience didn't hesitate to whoop and holler when they saw something they liked..

Susie says----We have been in Ireland a short time but I have become aware of a few things---the Irish like their huge Catholic churches, their beer,their cigarettes and sex-----there are a lot of little knee biters being toted around, The school system will have classrooms filled for many years .And mentioning beer---Guinness is the beer of choice. The Guinness distillery takes up many blocks in central Dublin. The first night of Rob's conference there was a social hour with free food and beverages. I thought, "What the heck." so I ordered a VERY small glass of Guinness. Well, you either get a water glass or a pint sooooo as the bartender poured the beer he explained that you fill the glass 3/4 full, let the foam settle, then fill the rest of the glass. Well, let me tell you it was STRONG! Rob and I each took a sip (when in Rome) and that was it. EVERYWHERE we go people are chugging Guinness. Maybe one develops a taste, but they would go broke if they depended on the Easterlings.

Tomorrow we take to the road - renting a car and driving to SW Ireland. Until then, ...

Susie and Rob

Westcliffe Wrap

2011-07-26T14:25:00.000-06:00

Howdy, Friends and Family. Home again. Here are some notes on the end of our stay in Westcliffe:

Lake Isabel.

Friday's outing du jour was a mountain backroads drive to Lake Isabel -- about 45 miles SE of Westcliffe. Our motorcycle-riding neighbor had recommended the drive and the restaurant at the lake. So we headed there for lunch. The road climbs from the Wet Mountain Valley into the Wet Mountains. (Isn't it interesting, the difference between the names given the two mountain ranges that encompass the Valley - Wet on one side, Sangre de Cristo on the other. I suspect the Sangres (which extend south to Santa Fe) were named from the other (west) side - glowing red at sunset.) We topped out at 10,700 ft. First two-thirds of the journey was through mountain ranch land, with a scattering of remote cabins thrown in. Here are a couple of pictures:

A lot of the road was pretty washboarded. It's hard to find an optimum speed on that type of a road. Susie didn't like 60 mph.

Last third was through the San Isabel National Forest. We finally connected with the highway near Bishop's Castle and proceeded to the lake and its restaurant. Menu touted a Tex-Mex theme, but I went Okie with chicken-fried steak and Susie had fried spaghetti - tasted good, but very garlicy.

The Wikipedia link above says Lake Isabel served two social purposes: it was considered "placation" for the Ludlow Massacre (we visited that site last year) in which 18 civilians were killed by the CO National Guard in 1914. That sort of reparation is rather unusual. Also, the lake was an early effort by Teddy Roosevelt to set aside national forest areas for public use - for tourists, in other words.

We took a route home that was mostly paved highway.

Chuckwagon Dinner and Show.

Saturday's big event was a chuckwagon dinner followed by a Sons and Brothers show. This was held at a ranch in the valley called A Painted View Ranch - really. I'd guess it means that the view from there is as good as a painting. The goal of the owners, as stated by the manager/emcee, is to keep the West in Westcliffe. The ranch has a large arena and accompanying facilities, of which there's a nice picture at the ranch website, that is used for various equestrian events. This past week it was the scene of a cutting horse competition. I went out on Saturday morning and watched some of that - kids in the 9 - 11 years-old category, from all over the west. Junior and adult divisions later in the day. Fascinating, but to a novice viewer, gets a little repetitive. The horse makes lots of acrobatic moves to prevent a separated calf from returning to its herd. The rider hangs on for dear life, though I suppose he or she may be communicating via knee pressure and body language.

Anyhow, the ranch also puts on a summer series of chuckwagon dinners and shows. We didn't know about these dinner shows when we made our RV reservations to encompass three weekends, but bought tickets when we found about the show. Thus, we book-ended our Westcliffe vacation with Sons and Brothers concerts. The emotional highlight was when they did a John Denver song to celebrate the birthday of his uncle who was in the audience. Here's the Youtube link to John Denver performing the song, Wild Montana Skies. The song's chorus:

Oh Montana, give this child a home
Give him the love of a good family and a woman of his own
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes
Give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana skies

You don't have to be from Montana to feel the emotion of this song.

The uncle and his wife were sitting in the row in front of us and they were very touched. Next to them was a couple from La Veta, CO - about an hour and a half from Westcliffe. They (in their 70s, I'd say) identified themselves as Sons and Brothers groupies, so we had a good visit at intermission.

Book Report.

I like travel books and on this trip I picked up an unusual one - The Lunatic Express by Carl Hoffman. You know it's not infrequent to see news reports about travel disasters, mainly in the third world: ferry sinking in Bangladesh, train crash in India, bus runs off road in South America, tourists kidnapped in Africa, ... . Besides these sorts of risk, there's general squalor and filth to deal with. (One of the scariest scenes for me was riding rush hour trains in Mumbai.)

Well, Hoffman decided to spend a few months traveling as many such dangerous, undesirable modes of travel as he could. His thesis was that there's a big difference between travel-for-pleasure (like motor homes to Colorado) and life-necessitated travel by millions of the world's poorest people and we need to know more about those people and the risks they take in order to survive. He never felt threatened or in danger, in part because, in spite of language and cultural barriers, he usually found, or was found by, someone who took him under their wing. Yet, at the end he felt he never really connected with the people he met. But, then, maybe he shouldn't have expected to in his relatively brief opportunities. It was fascinating reading.

And In Conclusion

In all our visits to Westcliffe, I've driven by the Custer County Courthouse many times, but never took a picture. Doesn't quite have the grandeur of Texas or midwest courthouses, but here it is.

As I look back over this year's Westcliffe postings, I see I haven't inserted some pictures from my early morning explorations. So, here are some.

A local photographer has a gallery in Westcliffe and his picture of this next barn is one of his featured shots. He told me where the barn is located and I made several morning pass-bys waiting for the sun to break through morning clouds.

This one I think I've done before.

(I could just insert pictures from previous years and hope/expect that nobody would know it, but that would be journalistically wrong.)

Here are a couple of pictures of the historic Beckwith Ranch, located just north of Westcliffe.

The first influx into the valley of European settlers was generated by silver and gold finds. The mining boom didn't last long, though, and was followed by ranching interests. Two brothers from Maine, the Beckwiths, built a large ranching empire in the state and their farm buildings have been preserved and are being restored. As the website says, Elton and his wife, Elsie, gave the ranch the air of an English country estate with cottages and a ballroom. Not far away was an area known as The English Settlement, but no buildings remain of it.

One more picture - approaching the valley. Autocorrect may have outdone itself on this one, but I'll go with it.

Our drive home on Sunday was uneventful and we were later treated at home to a thundershower and substantial rain. I should note that the Wet Mountain Valley is not very wet this year, as you can see in several of our pictures. Thundershowers threatened several times during our stay, and danced around the mountains, but not much came of them down in the Valley.

I also want to say a word about the Grape Creek RV Park where we stayed. The owners had just taken over the park when we were here a year ago. They've done a lot of work since then to improve the park - added a clubhouse, added tons of gravel to the parking sites and roads, spruced up the grounds, etc. When someone leaves, the owners (husband and wife) are out there immediately with rake and broom to prep the site for the next arrival. We greatly enjoyed our extended stay this year. May do it again some time.

Stay tuned. It's not a TuziTrip, but we're going to Ireland and England in mid-August and will be posting that adventure.

Rob and Susie

Westcliffe - 6 - Problems and Solutions

2011-07-22T10:11:00.002-06:00

Some people enjoy hearing about our 'problems' encountered along our travels. Two so far:

1. My CPAP machine failed just after we got to Westcliffe. There was a power outage one night, and after that the CPAP wouldn't power up. Coincidence? I don't know. Spent some frustrating time on the phone (frequently dropped or nonexistent connections out here in the wilderness) trying to find out if I could get a repair or a replacement somewhere nearby in CO. After a couple of days I found out that Walgreen's is no longer my supplier, HME is. In between we drove to Canon City because a person in the Westcliffe Clinic told us about an agency there that provides their respiratory equipment. The C Canyon lab, though, told me that they couldn't do anything without a prescription, which I don't carry with me. (Note. next time) A follow-up call to the Walgreen's supplier in CO Springs led to the discovery that I wasn't their patient any more. So, I started over phoning the new supplier.

Without the CPAP I snore - loudly. Consequently, I’m sleeping on the couch – my choice.,,, (Susie,here: absolutely his choice…methinks he likes it that way….and, hey, who am I to complain!) Susie says I don't stop breathing, though, so I don't think I'm killing off too many brain cells in the meantime. And who would notice? We get home Sunday and I've got an appt. to get new machine on Monday
.
2. At church Sunday we visited a couple who were on their way to a family reunion in Buena Vista (I think I mentioned this). We decided to drive to BV on Monday. About 20 miles north of here, the Explorer's engine died. Wouldn't re-start. A nice family heading to Westcliffe stopped and offered to help. I was going to give them our AAA info and ask them to call when they got to phone service (naturally, none where the car quit). Decided to try car again - it started. Decided to press on, because that would take us closer to Salida where we could get mechanic help, if needed.

About four miles later, the engine died. At this point we are on a road that is descending to the Arkansas River canyon and US 50, so we coasted on down – not easy with no power brakes or steering – another three miles and ended up behind the Cotopaxi Store, safely parked, not embedded. This is a combination general store, café, gas station, civic center – historic. They even have live music on Thursday nights. And a friendly owner. And enough fame that there is a YouTube video about it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L88rU6YaiM). Says it’s the store that "has almost everything, in the center of everything."

Still no cell phone access, but the owner pointed me to the store’s rotary-dial phone (pastel blue!) and I called AAA and in due course a tow truck came and picked us up and hauled us in to Salida. Meanwhile, we had lunch, Susie bought a book to read, I read the Denver Post and did the crosswords, and we watched the flow of humanity through Cotopaxi.

The tow truck driver, it turned out, had lived for a while in Albuquerque and it wasn’t long before we got his life story and philosophy – 26 miles into Salida. He was a nice, intelligent guy – proud Army veteran and the son and grandson of Army vets, former Salida policeman, devoted father to 2-yr. old daughter and surrogate father to his girlfriend’s three daughters, and very helpful. I had suggested taking car to Ford dealer, but he said that would be bad idea – they wouldn’t get to me quickly and wouldn’t do good work. He took us to another mechanic who did diagnose the problem right away – fuel pump failed (and after only 166,000 miles). He could get replacement the next day, Tuesday, and perhaps get it installed then.

So, what should we do? We asked about rental cars – so we could drive back to Westcliffe. Jason, our tow truck driver called Salida’s car rental place. They didn’t have a car available. Well, guess we’d stay in Salida. Jason called Hampton Inn for us and then drove us down there. We weren’t looking forward to 24 hrs. in the Hampton Inn with only the (sweaty) clothes on our backs and other regions and no way to get around town, but what choice did we have? As we were about to check in, the desk clerk asked if we might prefer to go back to Westcliffe. Turns out his girl friend does some informal taxi driving. She could take us “home” and come get us when the car was ready – for about the same cost as one night in Hampton Inn. Sounded good to us, so a little while later Jentle (pronounced Jen – Tell) picked us up and we headed for Westcliffe (about 60 miles).

Susie sat in the front seat and soon got Jentle’s life story. Here's her report: Jentle lived in Florida until she was eight years old (I think with her biological parents---maybe foster parents). Anyway, her new foster parents loaded up all their biological children as well as their foster children in two vans and moved to Salida for a new job for the father…..the kicker is that at that time they had about 20 children. When they got to Salida they took in six more children…..Jentle says they never could refuse a needy child. Well, the social workers decided that they had too many kids so they removed eight of them from the home (one being a three year old boy that they had had since he was born). She said they all were taken care of…..all finished high school and two in college (a few young ones still at home)…so her adoptive parents were devastated when the eight children were taken away. I understand that most of the children have now been legally adopted so she says she has 27 brothers and sisters. A sweet girl who is making something of her life and so appreciative of the people she calls Mom and Dad.

When we got back to RV park, I told park owner about our car situation. Also asked her to let us know if she hears about any park residents planning to go to Salida on Tuesday. It occurred to me on the way home that it would be more convenient and cheaper if we could catch a ride than to have to call Jentle and have her come out. Meanwhile, Susie talked to RVers parked near us and they said they were going to Salida on Wednesday, if it turned out that we needed to go then. On Tuesday other neighbors offered to take us to grocery store or wherever, if we needed something. (Susie was actually happy, I think, that I couldn’t plan an outing.) Also, I talked to the couple from Sioux City that we had met at church (see, it's good to go to church!) and found out they were planning to go to Salida Tuesday p.m. – no particular schedule. I wheedled invitation from them to hitch a ride. About 2 pm, though, I talked to mechanic who was working on car, but said you’d better plan on Wednesday.

Car was ready Wed. morning, so we rode to Salida with Dick and Jane -- Nash, from San Antonio. (Our RV park has quite a few TX rigs and their owners all say, Had to get out of the heat.) They were moving to a Salida RV park for three days, then on to other stops in CO. Dick and Jane had a dog named Spot (even though he was spotless) and another dog named Maggie. (Susie's late cousin, Jane, was married to Dick and they had a spotted dog named Spot. What a coincidence!) We had a good visit - he a retired AF guy, she a retired mid-school teacher -- and went to lunch with them after we got our car. (The place we went was across from the Hampton and recommended by Jason - that's why he picked Hampton, so we could walk to good restaurant.)

After lunch we drove about 25 miles further north to Buena Vista where we checked out the possible site (Rainbow Lake Resort) for a future family reunion (also wanted to stay in an area that had mechanics and cell phone service) There’s a lot to do in that area: white water rafting (best in the state, they say), hiking, mountain biking, fishing, 4-wheeler driving, horseback riding, zip lining, … . My sister, Connie, wants a reunion in 2014 when she retires after 100 years of homeschooling her six boys (actually 78 boy-years: 6 boys times 13 years, K-12, but I'll give her extra credit). I’m not sure they’ll let Susie and me ride a zip line at the ages we will be, so we’d like sooner. We’ll see.

Made a Wal-Mart stop in Salida and came on home.

Hope there are no more problems to dutifully report.

Oops. Handle on TV antenna broke before we left home, so we can only watch satellite channels – no major networks. We're gettin' by, though.

Wednesday evening we were treated to good omens: rainbow and colorful sunset

Susie and Rob

Westcliffe - 5 - Music Pass and Lower Sand Creek Lake

2011-07-22T10:05:00.000-06:00

Greetings, Family and Friends:

I've been wanting to do some hiking in the Westcliffe area and our neighbor, who has been spending all summer here for several years (from Texas, you might guess) - he and his wife go on motor cycle excursions in this area and beyond - recommended Music Pass. So, that's where I headed early Thursday morning. I had a goal of hiking to a high mountain lake and this trek had the advantage of being the shortest hike from trail head to lake that I could find in the area.

The trail head is about 15 miles south of us, 9 miles of pavement, 3.5 of washboarded dirt road, 2.5 of pretty challenging (for me) jeep trail. But, the Explorer handled it well. Couldn't help thinking - Boy, sure glad I have a new fuel pump, and, Good thing it didn't wait until now to fail. Got to the trail head soon after 8 am.

The trail to Lower Sand Creek Lake (there's also an Upper lake), in round numbers, consists of a mile and a quarter hike to Music Pass, climbing about 700 ft., a one mile, 400 ft. descent to the Sand Creek basin, then a one mile, 500 ft. climb to the lake (which is at an elev. of 11,500 ft.). Some might call it "rolling terrain." I called it a more than adequate challenge.

This website: Music Pass, says the pass got the name because the wind in the mountains here can sound musical. You know, Julie Andrews said it best: The hills are alive with the sound of ... . A forest service sign at the pass says Zebulon Pike crossed here, back in the day when he was exploring Colorado and finding the peak with his name on it.

Here are some pix:

Pastoral scene on the approach. I'm a sucker for cattle ranches backed by soaring mountain ranges and dramatic skies.

Approaching Music Pass.

I took this picture because I assumed that was the pass ahead. Typically, though, that was false impression - still a little further to go. At one time you could drive a jeep to the top of the pass, but not now.

When you cross Music Pass you go from National Forest to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The trail down the back (west) side of the pass takes you to the Dunes. It's a popular hiking locale. In the meadow in the Sand Creek basin there were several backpacking groups and tents.

Here's the Lower Sand Creek Lake. I believe the peak in the first picture is Tijeras Peak.

After I got back to the pass I took this picture looking across at the valley in which the lake is situated, beneath Tijeras Peak.

At the pass I met a couple of men who had driven up from Raton, NM to do some hiking and fishing and we had a good visit and hiking discussion. There's a sign at the pass saying Lower Sand Creek Lake, 3 mi. The map I was carrying indicated 2 mi. I hiked back from the lake to the pass in one hour and I know I can't do three miles per hour in that sort of terrain. Besides, I stopped to take pictures, like this one of purple-hued pine cones.

Here's a picture of the road down from the trail head - doesn't really do the road justice, though. Lots of big humps, erosion control I think, where I really expected to drag, but didn't.

One more shot of the ranch lands below.

There's something very poignant about abandoned farms. You wonder about the tales those walls could tell - the labor and dreams that went into establishing a homestead and the heartaches when the dreams died - the day the music died ... .

Later.

Rob and Susie

westcliffe - 4, Rodeo weekend

2011-07-18T08:43:00.000-06:00

Another weekend, another parade. Actually, it'd been 12 days since the Creede July 4 parade. This one featured lots of fire trucks, all of them belonging to the Wet Mountain Fire District. Hope you like fire truck pictures.

We were here two or three years ago for the rodeo parade and then all of the trucks were spraying the crowd. Things have changed. We had this:

Here's the scene after the parade: teams of kids spraying each other with fire hoses.

Incidentally, lots of smoke in the air on this Saturday. Were told that it was probably from NM.

As mentioned previously, famous fiddler and accomplished equestrienne, Heidi Clare, was in the parade.

Her horse is doing a trick - waving to the crowd.

Our second Westcliffe weekend continued Saturday afternoon at the Westcliffe Stampede rodeo. You know what rodeos look like, but here's a picture.

Sunday we attended the local Methodist Church. The preacher was new this summer. In fact, this is her first assignment as a pastor. She joked about having a severe case of dry-mouth a couple of weeks ago on her first Sunday, but so far seems to be loving her opportunity here. She lived and raised a family in Tucson, then decided to go to seminary and embark on a second career. That's a common route for entering ministers these days. Anyhow, sanctuary was well-filled and the folks were friendly.

We picked up a possible lead on a family reunion site near Buena Vista that we'll check out - not too far from here. We also visited with a couple who happened to be staying at our campground. The couple were here because they have purchased property in this area to build a home in a year after he retires: He is a Methodist minister in Sioux City.

We finished the day watching the exciting women's World Cup game - tough loss for USA, but Japan did what they had to do.

Have a good week. Should be a quiet week here. We're heading home next Sunday.

Susie and Rob

Westcliffe - 3, Bishop Castle

2011-07-17T08:26:00.002-06:00

Over the years we had seen mention of the Bishop Castle in Guides to the area, but had never gone – it’s about 40 miles SE of Westcliffe. So, on Thursday we went. Amazing! It’s this very unique one man project.

Since 1969 Jim Bishop has been building his castle on a site in the Wet Mountains that he bought when he dropped out of high school. For a time he also worked in the family’s decorative iron business, so there’s a lot of decorative iron in the castle, but now he subsists and finances construction from donations from visitors.

He has signs around the property explaining his views of and battles with government and how he won the right to keep the Castle open 24/7(daylight hours) and not charge admission. By signing the guest book, I think you sign away the right to sue if injured – and the potential for injury is great. There were a couple of very nervous grandparents climbing around when I was, shrieking at their grandchildren – DON’T GO THERE! Or, "I’m standing here so I can take a picture to show your mother how you fell."

The tallest tower is 160 ft. Here I’m standing on wire-mesh catwalk between the towers. However, the catwalk dead-ends just to the left of where I am – there is no connection to the next tower, yet, but there is a roped-off ladder supporting the unfinished end.

Tight circular stairways wind through the towers.

Bishop’s current project is building a moat around the castle. I heard someone mutter, If I was building a place like this, one of the first things I would do is put in living quarters. Living quarters are in a separate building that houses a gift shop and residence. That started out to be a family cabin, but Bishop had other ideas. And, yes, Bishop is/was married.

Here I am in the bubble at the top of the shorter tower:

I'm sure you realize that Susie stayed on the ground and took these pictures of me on high.

And, here I'm at the very top, inside that little cone.

One of the panicked grandparents I mentioned said her grandson was hanging outside the cone.

One more picture.

There's a fireplace in the massive ballroom in the castle designed so that the smoke comes out of the dragon's mouth. The clouds kind of look like that here.

So, if you're ever in the area, go see the Bishop Castle. I know several of you make occasional trips to Denver. Northbound, take the Colorado City exit off I-25 and take CO 165 to the Castle. Southbound, exit at Pueblo. Beautiful mountain scenery along the way, too.

Don't think I've shown you the traditional Sangre de Cristo shot from the Grape Creek RV Park where we're staying. Here's a recent moonset.

Barn pictures to come.

Rob and Susie

Westcliffe - 2, Jeff and Malia visit

2011-07-17T07:40:00.000-06:00

The week started when Jeff and Malia drove down Monday to spend a night with us, bringing their own tent so Malia could find out what it's like to go camping (and Jeff could find out what it's like to go camping with a 5 yr. old).

It started out like this - watching a video in Tuzigoot.

But, Malia soon tired of that and we got into other genuine camping activities like walking around the campground and playing in the dirt. She and I wreaked havoc on the ant population on our site. Susie had given her a plastic bowl and a kitchen spoon so she’d fill the bowl with dirt, then dump it on an unwary ant. If that didn’t do them in, hitting them with the spoon generally would. When we'd walk, which was pretty often, she'd "sneak" up on Tuzigoot, hoping to scare Jeff and Susie who were calmly sipping coffee and visiting.

(When sneaking, she’d act as though she could hide behind this site marker.)

Malia had hoped for a campfire, but those are outlawed right now - serious fire north of Westcliffe, now contained but with controlled burning continuing, and very dry - so we did microwave Smores.

This week is County Fair and Rodeo week in Westcliffe and I'd read that exhibits would be open on Tuesday. Thought Malia and even the adults would like to experience a county fair, so we went. We got to the fairgrounds and the only activity going on was in the horse arena. We watched one rider enter the arena, then ride her horse in a prescribed course around some cones. There was no second rider. The PA announcer, after a short pause, announced the first prize winner in the senior division of controlled riding (or some such category) and that was it. Only one rider in that class! I should have realized that the number of entries was pretty small when I heard only two places announced for winners in the junior division in some other category as we entered the arena. When the riders were called for the junior division and we only saw two horses, we decided it was time to leave. This is not the sort of county fair I remember from my youth in Kay County, Oklahoma. I looked it up. My road atlas says the population of Custer County is 3503, 2000 Census. That's about what the population of Tonkawa, OK was. Guess county youth, though, aren't much into livestock.

Postscript. Fair schedule said Friday was the day for showing beef cattle. Susie and I went out for that. I mean, we see lots of cattle from our RV park. Surely, there are a few kids around to show them. We found out that there were only three (!) beef cattle entered in the fair. We couldn’t stand the suspense so left and went to lunch. Had fish and chicken.

Continuing our search for something exciting for Malia to do in Westcliffe we went to the city park

As Jeff said, this must be one of the last merry-go-rounds in the country that the lawyers haven't had removed yet.

Then we went to lunch at the bowling alley, after which Jeff and Malia headed back to Highlands Ranch, their big camping adventure was over. We had a good time. Glad they came.

Next up - an account of our visit to Bishop's Castle. Stay tuned. You won't want to miss that.

Susie and Rob

Westcliffe - 1. Bluegrass

2011-07-17T07:20:00.000-06:00

As long-time, avid readers know, we've been coming to the Westcliffe High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival for several years now. Well, we're here again. But first a sad note - friends Bill and Connie Lacy have often come, too, in their motor home. If I recall correctly, Bill was in cancer treatment last summer and couldn't come then. He succumbed to cancer in January. We really miss him. He could sit through eight hours of bluegrass with the best of them.

There are two host bands for the festival: the Dry Branch Fire Squad and Sons and Brothers. I heard Dry Branch back in the 70s and 80s in a different incarnation in the Washington DC area. The leader both now and then is Ron Thomason who, around 10 years ago bought a ranch in the Westcliffe area and moved out here. His experience has really helped to attract top bands to the festival. He’s a horseman of some renown as well as being a great musician and story teller. I moved some of Dry Branch's recordings to the top of the Tuzigoot playlist so you can hear them, if you’d like to.

Dry Branch traditionally starts the Sunday morning festival session with a gospel set. They do some old-time numbers with old-time passion that always choke me up. Thomason says that the litmus test that separates hard core bluegrass fans from casual fans is whether you like gospel music. A member of another band mentioned Dry Branch’s YouTube recording of The Little Old Church By The Road and you can listen to it here. Little Old Church By The Road.

Sons and Brothers is a band that started by a Westcliffe family, who also launched what has become the High Mountain bluegrass festival. The band consisted of Dad and his three sons. Dad died tragically a couple of years ago of cancer but the band has continued. They added Uncle Fred and a (brother-in-law) drummer, so it's still a family band. Uncle Fred plays an electric guitar and they like to kid him and say that they have to keep him on his meds so he doesn't get out of control. The emcee threatened to remove all frets above the fifth from his guitar, saying there's just no need to go there at a bluegrass festival.

The band plays music with country, western, and bluegrass elements, but have moved well beyond to hard-driving, fast, loud, electrified and drummified, but I still like it. I couldn’t find a video or recording to link to. Sorry about that. Turns out they are playing at a chuck wagon dinner here in the Valley next week so we bought tickets.

As always the Festival lineup included a good mix of music styles. One of the groups was a duo who call themselves The Moron Brothers – good ole boys from Kentucky who told stories and corny jokes and played down-home music. I think we heard them here a few years ago because some of the jokes seemed familiar. Like the one about the guy who bought a parakeet, but it wouldn’t talk. Took it back to the pet store and was told, You need to file his beak a little. Came back a week later and said, The bird died. Well, did you file his beak off like I said? Yep. Well, what happened? I think he was dead when I took his head out of the vise.

Anyhow, the more moronic of the brothers talked about driving to Westcliffe from Pueblo (which he pronounced Poo-ba-low): Saw a sign saying Watch for Elk. Watched. Didn’t see any. A little bit later, saw another sign saying Watch for Falling Rocks. So, they were looking up at the mountainside for falling rocks, when Bang. They ran into an elk!

I made notes so I could tell you more of the Morons’ stories. One note is water/mouse. Wish I could remember what that one was about.

Couple goes to Wal-Mart. Man wants to buy some beer, but wife says, No, we can’t afford that. Times are tough. But, she buys some make-up. He says, Why’d you do that? Thought we couldn’t afford such things. She says, I just wanted to make myself look good for you. He: That’s what the beer was for!

Take my wife. Please! The Brothers had one more version of that classic line. Man robs a bank. He knows he's been recognized by bystanders, so he goes to one and asks: Did you see me rob that bank? Man says Yes. Bang, Shoots him dead. Goes to a second man. Same thing. Bang. Goes to a third man. Did you see me rob that bank? Man: No, but my wife did. A bit gruesome (my apologies to all wives out there), but funny in the right situation.

Here's a picture of the Moron Brothers..

You can see and hear the Moron Brothers here. They have a rather unique houseboat.

Another Kentucky group was the Roan County Hilltoppers.

The woman and the seated man are original Hilltoppers. According to Wikipedia, the group attained some fame back in the 80s and were visited by Boy George and the Sex Pistols - to learn about pitch and harmony, I guess. The other band members above were recruited for this gig. The woman plays a washtub bass - a stick and rope attached to the tub - and did the talking. The seated man (I think these two are husband and wife) plays fiddle, banjo, and guitar left-handed - but not with the strings reversed. He taught himself to play this way, she said, because when he told his Dad he wanted to play left-handed, Dad said, Nobody ever played a fiddle left-handed, so it was a challenge. He showed 'im.

The Hilltoppers almost didn't go on. The airline lost her stick. Luckily, the local hardware store came up with a post-hole digger handle and that seemed to work just fine. Not exactly Yo Yo Ma equipment required.

The rest of the festival lineup was more conventional bluegrass except for one three-woman band who seemed entirely too impressed with themselves and their arrangements. Seeing them once was enough. Susie and I knew when to schedule our breaks the rest of the time Incidentally, Susie spent quite a bit of time at the festival because, for one reason, the fact that we'll be in Westcliffe two more weeks means she'll have plenty of time to browse the stores, etc.

One more performer I want to mention is Heidi Clare (a stage name, I think, as in, I declare it shore is good to see you). She's one of the best fiddlers ever, I'd say, and several years ago she was in a band that hit it big, The Reel Time Travelers, playing old-time and old-time sounding music. They toured with performers from the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? The band came from NE Tennessee and played in a couple of High Mountain festivals and I think Heidi and other members even joined Dry Branch on stage for a few numbers. Then, the band broke up. I don't know anybody who could give me the inside scoop. A year later, Heidi showed up alone here and sitting in with Dry Branch and, especially, doing a set with Ron Thomason of that band. That's continued, so now, it's pretty clear to us that they're an item, but we're not sure whether to blame Heidi or Ron for the breakup, not only of the Travelers but of her marriage to a guy in that band.

More importantly, though, she really plays the fiddle - a very physical, even athletic, style. She also clogs - that's a dance, not something you do to drains. A YouTube video that includes both fiddling and clogging is here. Gotta see and hear it to believe it.

[Note added a week later, 7-16. Heidi rode a horse in the Westcliffe Rodeo parade, all decked out in formal riding gear. Didn't see Ron. More on the parade in a later posting.]

I'll leave you with a picture of downtown Westcliffe with the festival tent at the end of Main Street.

See, what you do in the early morning here in Westcliffe is stop by the filling station and pick up a Denver Post, then you go to the Amish bakery and get some orange juice and pastries and sit out front and read the paper. Then, you go back to Tuzigoot and tell Susie, Time for bluegrass!

As I write this, this week we're finding out what Westcliffe after Bluegrass is like. Stand by.

Rob and Susie

Royal Gorge

2011-07-13T16:08:00.000-06:00

Wednesday we followed the Arkansas River for about an hour to Royal Gorge. Sterling and I walked the bridge and rode the inclined railroad down to the river level and the aerial tramway across the gorge. Plans are to string zip lines across the gorge, whenever they can overcome various permission issues. Should be quite a thrill, says one who has never done a zip line. Susie doesn't do heights, so she relaxed in Tuzigoot.

The bridge is nearly 1000 ft. above the river and about a quarter-mile across. Here are some pictures:

It's not easy fishing from 1000 ft. above the water, but if you're so inclined, please note the warning.

Looking down.

That RR track used to carry regular rail travel. Now, it's just for a tourist train from nearby Canon City and an occasional freight train. At the Cotopaxi KOA I had asked, When do the trains come by?(I wanted the dramatic picture.) Son, there hasn't been regular service for eight years.

Looking up.

The inclined railroad, for those inclined.

Looking up.

Looking down.

We continued on Wed. p.m. to Chatfield State Park, near where Jeff Easterling and family live. Had a nice evening with them, then safely delivered Sterling the next day into the hands of TSA in DIA for his flight back to hot Oklahoma. 'Twas great to have him with us for a 10-day visit and Colorado trip. Good memories and experiences for all.

We got back to Chatfield early enough that we decided to hook up Tuzigoot and head for Westcliffe and actually got there early enough to hear most of the evening's bluegrass festival session. For several years we've been coming to Westcliffe for their bluegrass weekend (the weekend after July 4) and have thought about, maybe yearned, to stay longer. This year we are. Will be here through two more weekends. We'll be in touch.

Susie and Rob

Creede Wrap

2011-07-12T19:46:00.000-06:00

Monday we did an old-fashioned July Fourth Creede, CO, small-town celebration: parade in the morning, cookout in the evening, fireworks after dark. If you want to get in the mood, click on Ray Charles's America on the playlist. Some parade scenes:

There were vehicles.

Fire trucks.

Big trucks.

Girls on horses.

Girls on mechanical bulls.

Walking around our RV park, we had seen several RVs with inflated Uncle Sams (there's a metaphor for ya) tied to 4-wheelers. Well, they were in the parade.

A fine time was had by all. We enjoyed our group's hamburger and hot dog cook-out, then watched the town fireworks from about a mile away at our RV park.

Tuesday was departure day. We had planned to head over to Westcliffe, but, for various reasons, we decided to go to Denver via Tuzigoot where we would take Sterling to the airport for his flight home and also have a quick visit with Jeff and family. Also pick up some of Mandi and Paul's belongings they are going to store with us as they move to NYC. We drove as far as Cotopaxi, on the Arkansas River, US 50,and spent the night there in a throwback KOA - not designed for big rigs. But, they had a mini-golf course, pool table, swimming pool, and basketball court, all of which Sterling and I availed ourselves.

Next day, en route to Denver (actually Chatfield Lake and Highlands Ranch) we stopped at Royal Gorge. Next report.

Rob and Susie

Rocky Mountain High

2011-07-04T06:58:00.000-06:00

We're in Colorado. Going to be here a month. I've modified our playlist to start out with some John Denver songs to celebrate the occasion. Followed by Ray Charles's America the Beautiful. Here's a picture of the upper Rio Grande valley west of Creede - Rocky Mountain High. We're here for the Fourth of July weekend with our Allegro motor home club - eight rigs.

Let me back up a bit. On June 27, nephew Sterling Raines flew out to visit us for 10 days. In Albq, we did the Tramway thing, then loaded Tuzigoot and departed Thursday, the 30^th.

From Santa Fe north to beyond the CO border, the air was very smoky – the Los Alamos fire. We took Uncle Sam for July 4 site decoration (in place of the pink flamingos and Japanese lanterns with which we usually decorate our RV site) and he also copiloted the Explorer for us.

Friday, Sterling and I took off to find the headwaters of the Rio Grande, or at least get close. Here are some pix:

The road got narrower and rougher and then went underwater (this is about an hour and a half from Creede), which is where we turned around.Here I'm standing by, not the headwaters, but maybe the neckwaters of the Rio Grande.

You probably have to get up above timberline to be at the point at which enough melting snow trickles together to form the Rio Grande officially.

After turning around we stopped at a scenic creekside for lunch.

Back towards Creede, we hiked up Miner’s Creek until that trail terminated in the Creek. This was about a two-hour round trip, so after all this exploring we felt justified in stopping at the ice cream Shoppe in Creede.

Friday evening our group had a lovely dinner at a restaurant right on the Rio Grande bank.

Saturday, Sterling and I went river-rafting. Was a good trip with great scenery and enough rapids to be interesting. Then, that night we, the Allegro group, attended How to Succeed at Business Without Really Trying put on by the Creede Repertory Theatre. A rousing production. Incidentally, earlier in the day Sterling and I toured the underground mining museum tour and found out, among other things, that Creede was named for the prospector who found silver, quite by accident, here.

Sunday we hiked up to a point overlooking Creede.

Still smoky skies, somewhat. Good to read today, though, that Los Alamos residents were able to return to their homes and that there had been some rain in the area.

Enough for now.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Rob, Susie, Sterling

Jason's Week

2011-06-24T20:40:00.000-06:00

Jason's week centered on mountain bike riding in various locales, but with a mix of other activities: an Isotopes baseball game followed by fireworks, movies - Kung Fu Panda 2 and Cars 2, church, another wedding (Connie Lacy's daughter, Melissa, who also married a Joey), the Rio Grande Nature Center, Putt-Putt, fast food, ice cream, and TV. Summer vacation and retirement have a lot in common.

The best riding, we thought, was irrigation-ditch bank riding in the north valley. You've got shade, bumps, roots, and narrow spots, but generally flat terrain, interesting backyard views, and the ever-present challenge of not riding into a tree or the ditch.

Fire danger meant that national forest trails were closed, but we rode the Arroyo del Oso trail in Albq and the foothills trail along the west side of the Sandias. Most days started with a ride from the house to the subdivision gate to get the paper with a few loops through the neighborhood. We had a great time. Next year will be even better.

I'll be flying Jason home to Cary, NC this weekend, then nephew Sterling arrives Monday evening and we'll soon be off Tuzigooting to Creede and Westcliffe, CO through most of July. Stay tuned.

Rob and Susie

El Morro

2011-06-24T19:22:00.000-06:00

Coming home from Canyon de Chelly, we stopped at El Morro National Monument, which is about 135 miles west of Cedar Crest. This large sandstone outcropping became known as Inscription Rock because many early explorers and travelers inscribed their names and pertinent, to them, facts noting their passage: an early-day "Waldo was here" sort of notification. The first European explorer's inscription dates to 15 years before the Pilgrim's landing at Plymouth Rock. We wondered whether any modern graffiti will be monument-ized 300 years from now.

One of the earliest and most significant inscriptions was done by General Don Diego de Vargas, in 1692. He, Joey Vargas's ancestor, no doubt, proclaimed that he had "conquered for our Holy Faith and for the Royal Crown, all of New Mexico (however it was defined at the time) at his own expense (emphasis added) ... ." Here's a picture of Don Vargas:

This particular rock was important to travelers because there was a year-round pool of water at its base. The pool has been deepened and stabilized by the park service.

An early trading route from the Rio Grande to Acoma Pueblo to Zuni Pueblo passed El Morro. The railroad, Route 66, and now I-40 parallel this route about 30 miles to the north.

There are pueblo ruins on top, pre-dating the European explorers, but, late on a hot day, we did not hike up to see them. The outcropping is U-shaped, not a mesa like Acoma and other formations in the area, and contains a grassy box canyon in its interior.

So, now you've had your history lesson.

Karen and Mike flew home on Saturday and Jason stayed the next week with us. Details next.

Rob and Susie