After our visit to the Olympic Peninsula, we caught a ferry for a short ride to Victoria, British Columbia. The city has the most temperate climate of any city in Canada and is a treat for eye and palate. The Butchart Gardens, just outside of town, is a must see sight, and we spent our first afternoon on Vancouver Island rambling around the garden. The entire town of Victoria, though, seems to be in bloom, including around our hotel and the Provincial Capital grounds.
On our second day, we treated ourselves to a carriage ride around Old Town and a great meal at Finn’s Restaurant, a local favorite where we sampled local oysters and Dungeness crab. Unfortunately, two days are not enough, but there was more to see and do back in Seattle, so back we went.
Recently, we visited Washington State and the Pacific Northwest for the first time in years as the guests of our friends, Jennifer Parker & Steve Clagett. They are wonderful hosts, and their longtime, but recently renovated residence, made a great base of operations. Joining us were several of our frequent traveling companions, including Blythe Tennant, Mart & Bob Larson, and Kat and Tom Nolan.
After a couple of days in Seattle, our group of nine headed out to the Pacific coast, staying at the Quileute Oceanside Resort in La Push . The Northwest Pacific beaches are so different to the Mid-Atlantic East Coast beaches we are familiar with, notably its sea stacks, massive piles of drift wood, and smooth sea tossed rocks. No swimming for us, but great walks with fantastic vistas and scenery.
There were nine in our traveling group, but we somehow never got a group picture that included us all. The above photo taken on an outing to Rialto Beach includes Bob, Kat, Steve, Mart, Sue, Blythe, and Jennifer. I was taking the photo and Tom was under the weather. It’s hard to describe the otherworldliness of the landscape; that’s perhaps why they used this locale to film the “Twilight” movies.
Another day included a challenging hike through a temperate rain forest to Second Beach. Giant Douglas firs, often covered in thick moss, cedars, huge ferns and lush, dripping foliage populate the green tinted landscape.
The national polls show that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a statistical tie. According to the NYT, even in every election since the Gore v. Bush 2000 contest, the polls have not shown this close of a contest. Nate Silver stills rates Trump with a 60% chance of winning. Should that happen, Sue and I will be distraught.
So keeping my fingers crossed and sending out good thoughts to the Universe; surely it can’t happen again and the fates cannot be so cruel to give the election to Trump.
Alebrijes or spirit guides populated the garden this summer; but instead of the small carvings you see for sale throughout Mexico, but especially in Oaxaca, these are almost life size.
We like to visit the garden throughout the year; each season, from early spring to late winter and including the Holiday lights show, there’s always much at which to marvel and delight. This past week, the water lilies were particularly delightful and varied.
It’s still pretty toasty here; high temps have been in the 90s these last few days and that trend is predicted to last a couple more, but Fall clearly is not too far away.
Even with the heat, the mornings have been cool enough that I have wanted a fleece, although I haven’t given up the shorts yet. Just this week I have been able to get back to my morning two mile walk; because of the retina detachment issues, the doctor had cautioned me to reduce my activity levels, limiting my walks to a mile or so these last couple of weeks. It has been good to get back to my normal routine.
Many might say that my walks are boring and repetitive; basically traversing the same path which takes me from our apartment building across Speer Avenue and onto the Auraria University Campus. Auraria houses three distinct and separate schools–Denver Community College, Metropolitan State University, and the University of Colorado at Denver. Located on a common campus, they share the Library and Student Union as well as a number of other facilities on the joint campus.
All that aside, it provides a great two mile circuit for my daily walks. Many days, especially during the summer, I am often the only soul ambling on its paths and walkways. Each morning, I stop by our Community Garden Plot to water and harvest; daily watering is essential in our near desert climate. The yield this year has not been spectacular; I blame the depleted soil in my plot but then there is also the vagaries of the climate and the lack of pollinators. Often when something does produce, the rabbits or the squirrels beat me to the fruit or vegetables. As SNL’s Rosanna Danna (Gilda Rather) used to say, “there’s always something.”
Even though I follow the same path, the scene does vary with the time of year. Often times, I am too caught up in my audiobook to notice too much of what’s going on about me, but yesterday with the changing season, I was more conscious of my surroundings and took a few pictures of a number of sights that caught my eye. We continue to enjoy living in our adopted city, Denver.
It’s been an eventful summer, and one of the most eventful things was having to deal with a detached retina and the series of operations that has entailed.
The first operation was on June 21st, after having returned from my sojourn in Alberobello, Italy. The doctors lectured me for not having come to see them sooner, but being in Italy made a consultation somewhat problematic. I woke up one morning noticing that the vision in my left eye was not right, but had no idea what was the problem. (Google counseled me that I might have had a stroke; fortunately that wasn’t the case.) Far from home and with no doctor at hand, and, since I could see well enough to get around, I decided to wait.
Once I got home, I made an immediate appointment with my eye doctor; she quickly diagnosed a detached retina and sent me post haste to the Anschulz University Eye Clinic. After a thorough examination, the eye surgeon, Dr. Manoharan, scheduled me for a repair procedure the following day.
This photo is from the first operation–the others pretty much followed the same process–no eating or drinking after midnight on the evening before the operation; checkin and waiting; completing the same forms over and over again; meetings with all of the doctors and staff; and waking up during the procedure, sometimes to tell the surgical team that I needed a little bit more “happy juice” as I could feel what they were doing. (You are never fully anesthetized, but only given medication which makes you drowsy and totally relaxed.)
The first repair stayed in place for 14 days; then I noticed that the vision in my left eye was askew. A return visit to the clinic confirmed that the retina had once again detached. The second operation followed quickly; that one lasted all of five days before tearing. Going back to consult with the surgeon, he told me that scar tissue had developed and allowed the retina to pull aways yet again. The third operation took place on August 16. This time they first cut away the scar tissue, lasered the area before suturing the retina to the eyeball, and then injected oil into the eyeball, instead of gas, to put pressure on the retina and hold it in place…and so far so good.
Of course, this all also impacted Sue heavily. She had to accompany me to every visit & checkup and then wile away hours in a freezing cold room for the surgeon to come tell her all was well. Driving to the Eye Clinic located in Aurora is a minimum hour round trip–and we have made a lot of those trips. Neither of us enjoys driving these days, but Sue has had to do more than her fair share these last couple of months. Even when I am permitted to drive, my depth perception is for crap so you really don’t want to be riding with me.
One of the standard instructions after each operation is to try to stay face down as much as possible (55 minutes out of every hour) during the first week of recovery; using a massage chair during the day was recommended as well as sleeping on my right side. All easier said than done. I was never the best of patients, completely lacking in pacience, but the doctor has assured me that my inability to stay totally quiet and prone did not cause any of the repair operations to fail.
Charlie and his best friend, Dylan demonstrated how I might want to use some of the other face-down medical equipment.
Sue and I were riding home from our latest visit with my eye surgeon–that’s another story. After stopping for lunch at 7 Leguas, a local Mexican restaurant which we decided to try today. A great option for lunch.
it was pretty late, after 3:00. The radio came on automatically and was tuned to NPR’s broadcast of the Market Report. The story was on terramation or human composting; I have read stories and heard reports on this a number of times in the recent past, but this time it really hit home.
Terramation is a name for human composting. The website Wikimpedia says “Although the natural decomposition of human corpses into soil is a long-standing practice, a more rapid process that was developed in the early 21st century by Katrina Spade, entails encasing human corpses in wood chips, straw, and alfalfa until thermophilemicrobes decompose the body. In this manner, the transformation can be sped up to as little as 1–2 months.[2] The accelerated process is based in part on techniques developed for the composting of livestock.”
For.a long time now, I have known that I didn’t want my family subjected to the traditional body disposal that we have long been subjected to. Clearly, there are many people just like me who no longer think that embalming and burying the body in a sealed casket in a graveyard is the ideal option.
Colorado is one of the very few states now permitting the option of terramation. Sue and I are certainly going to look into it.
These past weeks since the first presidential election have been a tumultuous time for dyed in the wool Democrats like us. After watching the debate, where President Biden seemed lost and totally out of it, I remember Sue telling me that she had a knot in her gut and felt sick, both physically and mentally.
I was willing to give Joe more benefit of the doubt, saying to myself and anyone who would listen, that he was a good president and good man…but it was clear to many of the party leaders that he was not up to another term. Thankfully, he was given enough time to make the decision on his own to withdraw in favor of Kamala; a brave and selfless decision. Wow, what a ride it has been since then.
We loved the DNC; we joyfully watched the entire convention. Each night, especially for stalwarts like us, was well produced and interesting to watch, building to the final night. Hilary Clinton, Barack & Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Coach Walz all delighted and informed. Didn’t you love Gus Walz standing up and saying “That’s my Dad!” Kamala gave a perfectly crafted and delivered acceptance speech.
With 70 days to election, the polls have Kamala up by two to five points nationally and holding onto the Blue Wall (Pennsylvania, Michigan & Ohio.) Let’s hope it continues to look so hopeful.
This wasn’t our ship–but one just as big and obnoxious as ours, coming into the Santorini harbor; fours hours were soon to follow. The following morning, there were six ships, with something like 20,000 passengers, all of whom had to take a tender from their ship to the shoreside dock, then wait for a spot on the funicular to take them up to the village on the hilltop. I don’t know how many people actually succeeded in seeing anything on the island of Santorini, but I know a lot of people never made it off the dock. Fortunately, we had decided against even trying as we had see Santorini before.
In the last decade, cruising has became a nightmare–there are just far too many people just like us–with time and money enough to afford a Mediterranean cruise, but there are just so many places you can visit. The next stop was Athens. We thought that it wouldn’t be too hard to get into town from the harbor at Piraeus. So did all the other people in line with us.
Don’t get me wrong. Sue and I have taken some cruises that we have enjoyed. Our favorite are the TransAtlantic repositioning cruises that leave from Florida, perhaps stop by a Caribbean island or two and then sail for six or seven days without touching land. Sure the food, drinks, and entertainment can get boring, but it’s usually peaceful and serene sailing from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean. We might even do that again, but not sure now if we can bring ourselves to try it. You still have to contend with your three to four thousand fellow passengers, all striving to get fed or into the nightly theater production.
The saving grace on this trip was being with John and Bonnie, Sue’s brother and sister in law. We do enjoy being with them and sharing some of the experiences.
On this cruise, we enjoyed seeing Mykonos with them:
Olympus:
The Amalfi Coast and Sorrento:
And most especially the stop in Malta and the visit with their granddaughter, Betsy, who was there for her semester abroad:
In June I embarked on a solo two week adventure in the Puglia region of Italy, an area I had never visited before, despite many visits to Italy over the past forty years. I am so glad I did.
Alberobello is a small city, located in the heart of Puglia, famous for its Trulli architecture. and orecchiette pasta.
I chose it because of the Trulli Italian Language School and the opportunity both to refresh my Italian and to get to know and explore a new part of Italy.
I thoroughly enjoyed my two week stay, the school and opportunity to see a lot of the Puglia region. The weather during the first two weeks of June was great–some very warm and sunny days, interspersed with some more temperate, blue sky days.
The Trulli Language School offered a two week Italian course. Twenty-five of us showed up on the first days of class when we were divided up into three groups, based on our level of Italian proficiency.
Classes, consisting of five to seven students, were taught every morning from 9:00 to 1:00 by talented and friendly faculty.
Afternoons were devoted to excursions to nearby towns as well as wine tasting, an olive oil tasting, a cooking lesson and excursions to several nearby towns.
Most of the towns were just an hour or so away; many of them on the Adriatic; all of them beautiful and fun to explore. There was always an opportunity to shopped/or sample the local wines or cuisine. My favorite town was Polignano a Mare where our tour included a boat ride that took us into some of the caves that honeycomb the cliffs under the city.
And, of course, there was always gelato–why is always so much better when combined with a ramble through an Italian village or town?
I was surprised to learn that I was the only man in the summer program, along with some 23 woman who came from all over the world–the US, Egypt, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Argentina and throughout Europe and the Americas.
The teachers and the owner/director, Andrea, were friendly and helpful. My classmates and I really enjoyed our teacher, Angelica, who had a degree in teaching, could speak French, Spanish, and Arabic and was a very intuitive and creative instructor (pictured above on the far right).
Two of my classmates, Chris & Holly, were great dinner companions. Over a bottle or two of Negroamaro wine, we enjoyed talking about our different backgrounds and experiences–Holly is from New Zealand and a mountain hiking guide, Chris is from Australian and a retired teacher; sharing family stories; and laughing at our mutual struggles with mastering Italian.
I really hope to return soon to Alberobello and to get Sue to accompany me!
