Iceland revisited

I'm well into my travels in France (1 month now) but as I promised in an earlier blog, I wanted to share with you what I've learned about tectonic plates, in particular, the two significant plates that meet in Iceland. Try to stay awake.

As you will remember from high school geology, the earth's crust is a bunch of adjoining plates, much like the shell of a turtle. Unlike the turtle shell, these plates are in constant motion in all different directions. Most of the major earthquakes and volcanoes occur where these tectonic plates meet and each seam exhibits one of three types of motion.

Transform Slide slipping – where the plates grid past each other as we have in California. Friction causes pressure to build until there is a sudden slip or earthquake.

Convergent boundaries - occur when two plates move towards each other resulting in mountain ranges like the Andes in South America.

Divergent boundaries - are those that move apart, which is what you find in Iceland. What is most unique about Iceland is that it is the only place on earth where a divergent boundary is above sea level and thusly more easily observed.

The boundary, called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, passes from the southwest to the northeast corners of Iceland. The plate to the west is the North American Plate while the other is the European Plate – and these two plates are moving apart at the astonishingly rapid rate of 3 inches per year. "Astonishingly" is a relative geological term.

At one location in the southwest corner of Iceland, there is a very pronounced valley that clearly shows this line of separation. The valley is only 50 meters wide, maybe 10 meters deep and a half-mile long. A small footbridge has been built there and spans this gap and the two ends of the bridge are not permanently attached. In the middle of the bridge is a sign with a line showing the exact location of the two plates.

Because of this divergent movement, the earth's crust is thinner in Iceland which gives rise to lots of volcanoes and geysers in Iceland. In fact, there is a town in Iceland named "Geyser" which is the generic name used all over the world. This thin crust also means that thermal wells are easily accessed and the steam from those wells generates 90% of the country's electricity.

 

Most of the geology in Iceland is relatively new, quite jagged with little erosion except in the valleys where glaciers have eroded the terrain.  

Class dismissed.

Doublettes a la melee - What the hell is that?

OK, it wasn’t the finals at the 2013 Petanque World Championship in Montauban, France - but it was France and it was a petanque tournament...and I played in it.

Today, the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois Petanque Club held the second tournament during my stay with Jo Sanchez here in France, just south of Paris. It was a “doublettes a la melee” competition which I understood to mean that there would be a drawing for partners and you would change your partner every game – but in fact, you kept the same partner throughout the tournament. I really don’t like that format, not because my partner and I were eliminated (we won 1 and lost 2), but because as you can imagine, it really is the luck-of-the-draw that determines the best teams and ultimate finalists. Plus, this was an open (and free) tournament so all levels, novices to former champions, participated.

It was a random drawing among 60+ players and my partner was one of the 2 children participating in the tournament. Gaetan was a 12-year-old boy and his younger sister was the other child in the tournament. Their parents were also participating in the tournament and since we were eliminated earlier, I got to watch his mother play into the quarter-finals and his father play into the semi-finals. Gaetan was relatively new to the sport, however, he was a good tactician and we worked well as a team because we discussed tactics throughout the games. Our one win was against one of the best shooters in the club but alas, he was unlucky and drew a weak partner.

After the tournament, I visited with the entire family and had a very nice time with them. It was a pleasant afternoon filled with clacking boules, sunshine, perfect temperature and lots of French people laughing and talking while playing petanque.

Regards,

Jim Schwobel

 

My Petanque Tour de France – 2013

As someone who enjoys the French culture and the game of Petanque, I am living a dream. For the past week, I have been in France visiting Jo and Paulette Sanchez. Jo is a former Petanque champion of both France and Algeria and his wife, Paulette, is a most gracious hostess. Their home is a spacious, three-story house that Jo designed and built in 1967.

Jo is a retired electrician and is the best example of a Renaissance man that I know. He plays the harmonica, he is a prolific painter in watercolors and in addition to being a champion Petanque player, he is an excellent coach in the sport. He has a fantastic workshop in his home where he can fix anything.

During this past week, Jo and I have played Petanque every afternoon at his club, Club de Petanque de Sainte Genevieve des Bois, where I have received a most gracious welcome by everyone in the club. Yesterday, they even let me play in a tournament sanctioned by the French Federation of Petanque – which is just for French people. Jo talked to the officials and they let me play. Having my USA Federation of Petanque membership card also helped. I was the only foreigner in the tournament consisting of 80 two-man teams!

 

 

I probably don't have to tell you that we did not win the tournament (in spite of Jo's excellent shooting and my not-so-bad-for-an-American-in-France pointing). In fact, we lost the first two games of the double elimination tournament by the scores of 13-7 and 13-11. What I must tell you is that just participating in an event like this was one of the most memorable experiences in my life. To be surrounded by 160 Petanque players, most of whom have played this game since they were children, in a tournament of the iconic French sport was pure ecstasy.

I hope that all my friends in the Heart of Texas Petanque Club in Austin, Texas get to have an experience like this. 

Energy and Water in Iceland

I was in an Internet café and met a British grad student who was studying Hydrology and was working at an Iceland power plant during a year-long exchange program. He explained to me that Iceland has both water and electricity in abundance. 90% of their energy comes from thermal wells drilled 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep that bring super heated water to the surface. As the water comes to the surface, the pressure is reduced and the water turns to steam that drives turbines that generate electricity. Because of the high sulfur (and other chemicals) content, you cannot drink the excess water created by this process but they do use it in a heat-exchange process in other industrial applications.

Drinking water is extracted from shallower wells (generally 200 ft deep) that tap into the predominantly basalt rock – which is very porous and efficiently traps the 90+ inches of annual rain in much of the country.

This guy also explained that there was a complete lack of effort to conserve water or electricity. Everywhere you go, there are electric wall heaters going full blast, even in unoccupied rooms, buildings, etc.  Lights are on all night where they are not needed. Every small town has an outdoor heated swimming pool and hot tubs going full blast 24/7.

 
In contrast, solid waste recycling bins are located everywhere, are free and more widely used than in the USA.

I've included several photos of power generating stations located in the southwest part of Iceland where the two diverging tectonic plates are the thinnest and they don't have to drill so deep to get the hot water.

(Stay tuned for the lesson on "diverging tectonic plates")

Entertaining day in Iceland

Wow! What a great day. Most of my trip, so far, has been spent enjoying the geological features found in the vastness of Iceland. Today, I was fortunate to spend time with some Icelandic people enjoying some local customs.

 

It all started with a great night's sleep in a nice B-n-B. This morning, the owner told me about a local event happening today that few, if any, tourists know about.

Way back in the spring, all the sheep ranchers in Iceland herd their sheep up into the mountains where summer grass fattens them up and there is plenty of glacial water to drink. The ranchers in a local area will mix their sheep together because it would be impossible to keep the herds separate and it no doubt helps in cross-breeding among the herds. When winter comes, they all get together, saddle up their beautiful Icelandic horses (that's another story to come) and herd the sheep back into the warmer lowlands. The trip takes several days as the sheep travel 50+ miles.

When they arrive in the lowlands, they are herded to a place where the ranchers can then sort their sheep. This is done in a big round pen about 100 ft. in diameter - with a dozen or so smaller pens along the circumference. Each pen belongs to a different rancher. There is an entrance to the big pen that is used to get them into the middle then that gate is closed and the fun begins. Everyone starts grabbing sheep and looking at ear-tags for their own and wrestling them through the gates to their pens. It was particularly fun to watch the kids helping their family with this chore. Later, the sheep are loaded onto trucks and taken back to their respective ranches.

It is quite the social scene of the year as all the neighboring families gather in the big pen to visit. I stood in there with them and my feet were constantly trampled on by sheep and my pants smell of wet wool. 

 

All this started about 9:00 am and by about noon, they had filled the big pen 5 or 6 times with a total of about 6,000 sheep sorted into the separate pens. Did I mention that most of this activity is accompanied by drinking that began at 9:00 am! There was lots of canned beer being consumed but the majority of drinkers (the majority of adults in attendance) were drinking out of flasks and pint liquor bottles – from licorice-flavored vodka to some very fine cognac – and I had some of both. I was the only tourist there and when someone found out I was from Texas, there were lots of folks insisting that I try their favorite – so I did.

After the sheep sorting, most of the men gathered in the middle and sang one traditional Icelandic tune after another. I was surprised how good they sounded for being a bunch of drunk sheep herders but I later learned the men in Iceland are quite good singers as it is a rich part of their culture. Be sure to click on the video to hear/see some of the singing.

 

They were still singing a couple of hours later when I was sober enough to drive.

 

Reindeer in Iceland

REINDEER:

Reindeer are in Iceland, however, they are not indigenous. They were imported a long time ago by some of the original settlers in hopes of providing a good source of meat as there were no sheep here either. The problem with reindeer is that they migrate great distances because they need lots of grazing range. They simply could not convince the Icelanders to become nomads and follow them all over the place. So shortly after they were imported, they were let free. They have sustained a respectable population to the point where they are hunted in limited numbers through a national lottery that allows a fixed number of hunters to take a specific number of reindeer.

I was told that the hunting season is about to begin – and the reindeer know it because each year at this time, they go hide in the most remote valleys and hunters have a difficult time finding them.
 
I was lucky to see one and take some pictures of him. You will notice that he is shedding his velvet. He will shed his antlers, an annual occurrence, in the coming winter months when the mating season is over.

5 days into my Iceland experience

This initial entry will be brief as I'm 5 days into the trip and am simply way to busy during this part of the trip to write much. I'll include a few photos, however, to satisfy at least my family and friends who are mildly curious.

Sept. 4 – Left Austin in the early morning for New York City. Had a (planned) 8-hour layover at JFK which gave me enough time to take the subway into the City and view the World Trade Center Memorial and have lunch at some (any) unique place.

That evening, I caught a late flight to Iceland, arriving early the next morning in time to pick up a rent car. Since them, I have driven about 600 miles, which is 2/3 the way around (clockwise) the island, camping for 4 nights – so far. Tonight I am staying in a hostel because the weather is miserable – rain and cold….and they have Internet.

I have found Iceland to be quite amazing. If you are wondering why did I choose to travel here, I'd have to say it is to satisfy my curiosity about the dynamic and varied geological features found in this place. My interest in things geological began in college. As most of you know, my degree from the University of Texas is in International Business. However, that degree requires a year of some science. I chose Geology and since then, I've been quite curious about that stuff.

 
OK, enough writing for the moment…here are some more photos...

From Bilbao up the west coast of France

NOTE

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Another day in (several) paradises. I left Michele and Modesta’s house on Tuesday, July 18 at the early hour of 9:00 am. This departure is a segment of my trip that will last a week or so and is an independent part of my trip. I will be foraging for myself, that is, no hotel reservations down the road, no idea of when or what I’ll eat or even where I’ll eat my next meal. The familiar daily shower will also become iffy.

The day started with a back-road adventure from just south of Toulouse to the West, driving for several hours with the Pyrenees over my left shoulder. I was heading for Bilbao, Spain with the primary objective of seeing the Guggenheim Museum – both the architecture and the art found within. From the pictures I’ve seen and stories I’ve read over the past 15 years, it is quite the engineering feat, not to mention the artistic appeal.

Bilboa is about 250 miles from Michel’s house and I was presented with the usual option of taking autoroutes (toll roads) which are very fast and come with toll booths along the way or taking what is today considered “back-roads”. These back-roads are really just the old highways that were replaced by these autoroutes. The old highways have plenty of turns, stop lights in the larger towns, round-abouts in every little village, trucks and tractors hauling hay, etc. down the road often at an escargot’s pace. The newer autoroutes have none of those obstacles, in fact, they have few entrance and exit ramps. If you miss your exit, you may have to go another 25 miles where you will exit, pay for the additional distance, turn around, get back on the toll-road and pay for the distance back to your missed opportunity.

The toll roads are fine examples of engineering feats as they often bend and curve around some mountains while tunneling right through others and often bridge the gorges on the other sides. Some tunnels are a mile long through solid rock and the bridges are often a quarter-mile high and over a mile long.

I like the toll roads for the obvious reasons of efficiency but the views are often bad or at best, fleeting with no opportunity to pull over and enjoy them. That is why I often take toll roads for segments of travel but then exit and move over to the old highway. I don’t have any statistics but my guess is that the drive-time increases three or four-fold. But, I have the opportunity to see much more from behind the wheel at the slower pace and there is usually a convenient spot to pull over, relax with the new-found scenery and maybe have a lunch and/or take some pictures.

My trip to Bilbao was a mix of these two roads with the added excitement of deliberately taking a very small road from Orthez, France (just a few miles west of Pau) up and over the Pyrenees to Pamplona, Spain. This 100-mile route took more than 4 hours but gave me an interesting perspective of how wide the Pyrenees are. In 1981, I had actually done some mountain skiing and down-hill skiing in the Pyrenees but did not have an idea of their true size. This mountain road also helped me understand how difficult travel was in much earlier times. It was a very exciting trip on several levels. I had to pay attention at every curve of which there were hundreds. It seems like there were that many small villages along the route too, displaying a really interesting contrast in architecture to that of the houses in the rolling hills in other parts of France. The houses in the rolling hills have flatter roofs while the mountain dwellings have steeper roofs to help keep the snow from building up and collapsing the roofs. In fact, as you drive from rolling hills to the foothills and then into the mountains, the roofs gradually get steeper.

I arrived in Pamplona, Spain in the early afternoon. I was lucky as the week-long San Fermine Festival called “Running-of-the-Bulls” had occurred a week earlier and the town had returned to normalcy. Besides, I had been there on my 6-week trip in 1974. I did not run with the bulls that time either. I spent a couple of hours there, tracing the 500-yard run that the 6 bulls and thousands of crazies take for 7 days in a row. I visited a lot of the stores along the route and they still had their usual display of photographs dating back to the 1940’s. Some of the photos are really quite graphic and served as a convincing argument to avoid this macho test of courage (stupidity?) back when I was last in Pamplona at the age of 28.

Bilbao was calling so I hopped onto the autoroute for the 150-mile trip. While getting gas at a stop along the way, a huge thunderstorm appeared so I decided to crawl in the back of my station wagon and get a bit of sleep until the storm passed. Well it rained all night so I had a good night’s sleep right there. Honest, it was great. I have plenty of room to stretch out along one side of the back with my back pack and food box along the other side. I have a light-weight sleeping bag, an inflatable back-packer’s mattress and one of those sheets that is sewn up into a sack - you know, like the one’s you get when you get a sleeper car on a French train. In fact, my sheet is the very same one I stole from the French train system in 1976!

I awoke about 7:00 AM for an early start to Bilbao, arriving about 8:00 AM. I told you those autoroutes were fast! I had two hours to kill before the Guggenheim opened so I strolled around the outlying neighborhoods and got some interesting pictures as a result of my foray. The Guggenheim building was even more interesting than I had expected. It was quite impressive and represented a unique blend of architecture and modern art. It made me wish I had stayed in the UT School of Architecture instead of getting that degree in International Business. Oh, well, fun-and-play with a BBA!

The first floor was a permanent exhibit of curves in all kinds of medium, including a variety of huge sheets of steel, 3-inches thick, as big as the walls of the outside of a house and rolled into all kinds of shapes. They were arranged in a vast array of shapes in the middle of a very large room. Most were arranged like walls so you could enter maze-like structures and enjoy being enveloped in 100,000 pounds of steel. Sorry, taking pictures was forbidden so you’ll have to see it for yourself or look it up on the Internet.

The second and third floors contained a traveling exhibit entitled “Russia” and contained what I believe is the definitive collection of Russian art – from the old masters through the art revolution after Stalin’s death, Kreuschev’s reigning in (again) of art and finally Gorbachev’s “Glasnost” policy that not only brought the Berlin Wall down but resulted in the demise of the Soviet Union. I bet you did not know I knew so much about Russian art. Well, I did not before seeing this exhibit.

I left Bilbao in the afternoon and headed for the French border, again mixing autoroutes and the more interesting highways.

Eye witness to Tour de France

NOTE: I am also placing some photos in an album in my MSN Group. If you care to see these additional pictures, you can go to > http://groups.msn.com/Jimtex/shoebox.msnw …and click on the album “Europe – 2006”

It is July 17. I’m still in the South of France because it is so comfortable here for many reasons. We are having a heat wave that is a bit hotter than normal. The temperature is in the 90’s every day so it is just like being home in Texas.

After about a month of seeing the southern central part of France, I’m now near Toulouse again. My friend Michel and his wife Modesta, invited me to stay at their chateau again and I’ve been taking day trips to interesting sights in the area.

Three days ago, I drove south about 60 miles to the countryside near Pamiers to see the 12th stage of the Tour de France. That was very exciting. I arrived early, (about 3 hours before the race passed by) at what I thought would be a good spot – just before a high peak where the riders would be going slower. It was also at a turn which would slow them down some more, perhaps letting me take extra photos. After an hour or so, the side of the small road was packed with the cars and vans of other spectators. About two hours before the riders would be passing by, at least 100 vehicles of all shapes and sizes came by with people inside throwing all kinds of items advertising everything from the newspaper to sausage. My location seemed to be ideal for collecting a bunch of stuff of which I have absolutely no use. After the caravan of advertisers came a hundred or so cars belonging to the press.

During all this time, I visited with the folks who had parked near me. I met a nice young French couple with a 7-year old son who were also attending their first Tour de France event. Several other folks heard my Texas accent butchering their beloved language and stopped by to chat. On my car, I had also placed a small Texas flag that I brought with me, just in case Lance Armstrong came out of retirement. He did not.

Finally, and somewhat anticlimactic, the riders passed by and even though it was at the end of a long uphill stretch and well into the race, they were FAST! I was able to take a video of the procession but had no time to reach for my other still camera. There were two groups: the small pack of 4 or 5 leaders followed by the rest. Within a minute or so, it was all over, except for the riders of course who had another 60 miles or so to go before reaching the day’s finish line in Carcassone. All the spectators then piled into their respective cars/vans and waited in line in the hot sun, going nowhere on a small country road for almost an hour.

Remember that I told you I had arrived early enough to find a good location? Well, that location included a nice big tree that provided me with plenty of shade so I sat on the back of my station wagon, sipped on a bottle of cool water and munched on a couple of breakfast bars containing some unknown (to me) fruit.

All this happened on the 14th of July and as everyone knows, France’s national independence day, so that evening I drove about 30 miles north to Toulouse to see the fireworks. The traffic, parking, crowds and fireworks were much like we experience in Austin. The fireworks lasted about 20 minutes and were well-coordinated with the music that was played on some very large speakers. The difference being that they played the French national anthem and the music was all classical (that means no Lee Greenwood or Willie).

This past weekend, Modesta’s relatives from Spain came to stay at her chateau. They came in two cars and there were 14 of us at the table for a bunch of meals. Now I was faced with additional communication problems: trying to get along in my French, trying to remember things from the three years of high-school Spanish and then trying to understand the Catalan pronunciation (it is different from the Spanish we learn in Texas). A good time was had by all as it was basically a family reunion and they had the additional entertainment provided by me trying to speak their language. The food and wine was fantastic too.

Speaking of wine, Michele is an experienced wine collector and has a wine cellar beneath his house that would be the envy of any collector. His “cave” holds 100’s of bottles of all kinds of wines, many quite old and most of the finest quality. I asked to be allowed to sleep in the cave one night, thinking that I would gain additional knowledge of fine wines by doing so – but he said my snoring might disturb the wine. He did allow me to take both still pictures and videos of his cave.

Finally, some news from Jim!

Howdy from the South of France.

You would have thought that during the past month of traveling, I could have found the time to make a lot of entries into this blog. Well, I’m sure I had many opportunities to do so but I’ve experienced something interesting and certainly unexpected while traveling.

I remember when I was planning this trip I thought, “wow, in 2006 I have all these tools available to share my daily adventures: email, this blog, my personal Web site, digital camera, digital video camera and on-line phone that only costs $.02/minute!” I diligently updated my email address files, created this blog, bought a digital video camera, All these things certainly did not exist in 1981 when I last traveled to Europe.

In spite of the ease of communication and these numerous ways to communicate via the Internet, I have not been compelled to utilize them. Yes, during the first week or so, I felt the need to maintain contact with family and friends and share events with them via email. I even sent digital video clips to a few folks. I also utilized the on-line phone software, Skype, to keep in touch with several family members. Often this meant packing up my laptop and finding an Internet Café and since at that time I did not have a car, walking or taking a bus some distances while following sketchy, at best, instructions from people eager to help, but not necessarily well-oriented to their own town.

An interesting transformation in my life has occurred. For some reason, I am becoming more inclined to enjoy the things this world has to offer in the moment they occur. Yes, I take lots of pictures and videos because first, old habits are hard to change and second, I always look at things with the thought of sharing them with family and friends and always thinking how they might enjoy seeing them. But now I find myself sitting on a rock fence, looking at some beautiful field of wheat, with the wind making those “waves of grain” and enjoying it at just that moment.

Since most of my professional career in Information Technology was spent working on long-term projects, living for the moment is certainly a different approach to life for me.

I wonder if this is also a part of the normal aging process?

We hear and read lots of philosophical discussions about “living for the moment”. I think it has a lot of merit because if we only think of the future, we never take the time to experience the reality of the moment - and our lives. It is like going to a movie and instead of watching each scene, always thinking of what will be in the next scene or even more distracting, how the movie will end. You miss out on the fruits of the director’s efforts – plot, cinematography, sound, etc.

Not having a vast knowledge of religions, it is my guess that a bunch of them also treat this topic with their own doctrine. Maybe someday I’ll look into that, but for the moment, I’m enjoying each day as it comes.

I’ll leave that topic for you to ponder.

Now, I’ll share some of the things I’ve experienced on this trip.

Arriving in Manchester, England on the 6th of June, 2006, I checked into a hotel not far from the University of Manchester. An English friend who, along with his girlfriend, happens to be working in Austin at the University of Texas, had made the trip to England a few days earlier to visit family and friends. He played in a concert that night and I got to attend.
Afterwards, it was the obligatory trip to a pub for a “pint” or two.

Several days later, other friends who play in our British Brass band in Austin, named “Austin Wonder Brass”, arrived to participate in the event known as Whit Friday. At this music festival, over 130 brass bands get on chartered buses and travel from town-to-town within the local area and play different pieces for their march from the bus to the contest area where they all play the same piece of music for the local judge. At the end of the day, the best bands are awarded CASH prizes from each of the over 20 towns. The purse from all the towns for this particular festival was over $20,000! Who says musicians never make any money? Sadly, that holds true for the musicians who participate in Whit Friday because only a few bands are awarded the cash prize in each town, there are a lot of towns and the same bands don’t necessarily win in each town. You do the math.

The real winners, however, are the folks in the small towns who get to hear all those bands by simply walking to their main street and sitting on the curb while these bands play as they march by. I’m not sure how they participate in contributing to the cash prize their town awards but it can’t be much money per person. Other folks, who don’t mind hearing the same contest piece, will bring their lawn chairs and sit in the contest area. The contest area could be a football pitch (soccer field), a town square or even a vacant lot. The judge is prevented from seeing/knowing what band is performing and is often sequestered in a small camping trailer, just a few feet from the band. The more clever judges will arrange for their location to be in a pub with the prescribed two curtains separating them from the bands.

While the “Sale Brass Band” did not garner any cash prizes, I can say that the four members of Austin Wonder Brass who were invited to participate in this contest, did themselves (and AWB) proud. This could be seen in their willingness to experience everything about the event including hoisting a pint or two with the more seasoned members of the band at the many pubs along the route.

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On June 10, 2006, I took the plane to Toulouse, France. I arrived in the evening and was greeted by my friend, Jean-Yves, whom I had not seen in 25 years. We went to a café and in an hour or two, tried to catch up on our respective lives. I got a great little hotel room, not far from the center of town where I had spent many days and evenings back in 1975 and again in 1981.

The next day, I was invited to Jean-Yves’ home for a birthday party (it was my 60th) where I got to see his wife for the first ime in 25 years and meet one of his daughters, son-in-law and two grand children. The grandchildren helped me blow out the birthday cake candles (two times).

After a week or so in Toulouse, I was invited to the home of Michele (a guy) and his wife Modesta. Their home is really a grand chateau about 20 miles south of Toulouse on the way to Spain/Andorra. They bought it 20 years ago and their ensuing renovation resulted in a beautiful, grand and typical mansion in the south of France.

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A few days later, Charlette, a French friend who lives in Austin and France, picked me up to take me to her house in the country, near the small town of Parisot which is just north of Toulouse and south of Albi. Her parents are staying there for the summer and the four of us have made various trips into the surrounding areas to visit great restaurants and see the sights.

Two weeks ago, I bought a car (1999 Renault Megane station wagon) and will use it on my trip to the west and north of France in the next week or so.

The geography is fabulous in this part of France with rolling hills planted with crops of wheat, maze, corn and sunflowers. The sunflower fields are particularly entertaining in the morning when the sun is behind you and you are facing all those flowers. It is as if you are being watched by thousands of wide opened eyes.

Some days ago, Charlette and I drove about 300 miles to the French Riviera for 10 days, staying with friends in Sanary and Antibes. We also visited Nice, St. Raphael, Frejus, Toulon and Bandol during that time. All these towns are on the coast, have unique harbors and most have forts or mountains situated to afford great views of the Mediterranean Sea.

After a week of living the good life on the Cote d’Azur (Riviera), we returned to Parisot in time for Charlette to get a booth at a flea market in a nearby town. The flea markets here are just like in the USA except that most items here are made in France and each booth has an exciting assortment of things. They may be ordinary items to the locals but they have great appeal to the eye of the only American tourist within miles. I managed to buy only a few items, one being a vintage wine-bottle opener.

This country is amazing. At every turn in a country road, there is some beautiful field of green, yellow or other color with a texture that begs to be photographed. In every little town, and believe me there is one every 5 miles or so, there are many unique architectural features – each one of which could grace the cover of any home-and-gardens magazine.

I hope you enjoy the attached photographs.

Regards,
Jim

Just a bit more detail of the tasks necessary to take a trip

I was last discussing the amount of preparation it took when I made extended trips during my late 20’s. I’m going to jump forward 30 years to today and start examining how the amount of effort has grown. The ‘to do’ list is now much longer. Why is that?

It is obvious to you that life gets more complicated as we pass through it. Think of your own life and how much more you have to do on a daily basis. Got a spouse and some kids? Then your tasks increase exponentially.

During the first part of life, we are compelled to spend a lot of time, money and energy getting in step with our perception of what it means to be a member of either our own peer group or of a peer group into which we aspire. We constantly compare ourselves and our ‘situation’ in life with our peers, relatives, movie stars, tycoons, professional athletes – anyone we know or read about who has a better paying job, bigger house(s), more exotic and frequent vacations. This is especially compelling in a free-market, capitalist society in which I was, quite by chance, born – the good old USA. Which brings up the question many travelers surely must ask themselves when visiting foreign places, “What quirk of fate caused me to be born where my passport says?” I could just as easily been a human being brought into this world in Sumatra or Switzerland. But that is a whole other topic, perhaps to be explored another time.

Let’s get back to those activities that help us carve out our place in society, you know, getting that college degree, finding a spouse who will at once, make us whole and who will best fulfill our evolutionary obligation to procreate, finding a job that will pay us more and more money so we can buy more and more things. All these things conspire to add baggage to our lives, mostly in a good way (that hot tub on the deck sure feels good after mowing the yard) but not necessarily creating a life that gives us flexibility (the hot tub has to be drained before going on that winter vacation).

In preparing for this upcoming hiatus from the life I'm now leading, I had a heck-of-a-lot of stuff to do before I could take off for even the relatively short time of one to three months. I don't think this preponderance of chores was unnecessary nor was it the result of anal-retentive behavior – although I could be wrong.There are so many things to do that I found I had to make lists on many pages, organized into a variety of categories: house, finances, communications, my will, my cat, not to mention what to take and what to do on the trip.The following list contains some of the most important things I had to do. Is it exhausting but not exhaustive.

Update my will
House security
Health insurance
Lodging for my cat
Yard maintenance
Clean out refrigerator
Make airline reservations
Some technology: laptop, software, files (I will be maintaining several Web Sites while on this trip)
Communications: Update email addresses, get a Skype account (cheap telephone calls using my PC and the Internet)
Photo equipment: Digital camera, digital video camera, recharging apparatus for all that stuff.

Fortunately, all my recurring bills and deposits are handled electronically but I did go to my bank (credit union) and let them know that there would be some European activity on my credit cards.

There was also a bit of advanced communications with friends living in Europe. I have been in touch with some of them during the past 30 years, more recently via email, so it was easy to correspond with them and arrange some time together. A few more international phone calls and emails to a few hotels and my plans were taking shape.

Stay tuned: This blog will now evolve into a journal, interspersed with thoughts I might have while traveling. There will also be some photographs.

The effort it used to take to go on a trip

During these past few months, I've been discovering some interesting aspects of the aging process. It has to do with the preparations we, or at least I, have experienced while at the age of 59, "getting my ducks in a row" so I can take another extended trip to places far away from home.

When I first had the tools to travel (time and money), I was in my late 20's and made my way to Europe for 6 weeks of exploring the world outside my relatively small peripheral vision. I recall that I had few tasks to do in preparation for that adventure: paying my apartment rent a couple of months in advance, over-paying my utilities so they would not get in arrears and be cut off, having my mail held at the post office and deciding what sized backpack to buy and what to fill it with. Oh yeah, there was the hour I spent writing on a small piece of paper, the addresses of folks to whom I'd want to send post cards. Add the purchase of a dozen rolls of film and I was ready to go.

Not much to do there, huh?

Moving ahead one year, I found myself in the unique position of having the opportunity to live in Europe for a whole year! What extra perparations did I have? Not much, just selecting a few extra shirts, underwear and a sport coat. All items now fit into my trusty backpack (from the previous year's adventure) and a second day pack. A few other tasks included forwarding some magazine subscriptions to friends who would enjoy them, closing a checking account and selling a bunch of stuff at a flea market.

Stay tuned: My next entry will jump ahead 30 years and explore the type and quantity of things I am finding necessary to do for this upcoming voyage of discovery.

The wisdom of age

Howdy. I believe this blog is going to provide me with a simple pleasure. It is going to be used to write notes during my European trip in the summer of 2006. Read 'em if you want but the mere act of "publishing" my ideas about this world and my own experiences is thrilling to me - at least at the beginning. We'll see how I do over time.

If you choose to tag along on this physical and (hopefully) semi/quasi-intellectual journey, be prepared to experience the possibility of alternating acceleration and deceleration - similar to when a car is about to run out of gas. Whiplash is a distinct possibility.

What you should know from the beginning is that this form of writing is a unique experience for me, a guy who has spent most of his life writing computer programs, specifications for computer applications, technical procedures and policies for government entities.

You have been forewarned.

So you may ask, what is this guy about to do? Well, in short, I'm going to try to recapture some slivers of my youth and repeat a lengthy trip to Europe, first experienced when I was 28 (I'm 59 now). Actually, I'm going to re-explore some unique places and emotions I visited half my life ago and along the way, find some new ones. I will be paying particular attention to how the wisdom of age will affect my impressions of both new and repeated experiences and places.

Age is not the only variable thrown into the equation. In contrast with my previous trips to Europe, I now have some folding money and several credit cards in my pocket so if I want to try a local menu delicacy in any town, hell, in EVERY town, I can do so.

If you are young, maybe this will afford you the opportunity to peek over the hill at things awaiting you in your life. If you are not-so-young, you might see some things about yourself from a different perspective.

I'm making no promises.

Stay tuned: My next installment will probably address the amount of work it used to take to prepare for a trip - when I was half my age.