Big Sky Montana

Big Sky Montana is a rush.  Some folks want to be skiing into their 7th decade and I am one of them.

 Will Frey, Jim Walton, Bill Hancock, Janet Alexander, Butch Bice and Bill Bass on top of Lone Mountain

 Going up for a run down

Sunrise view from our condo at the Summit at Big Sky in Montana 

 Hot Chocolate Break

 Anne at the Firehole River Falls Yellowstone

 Jim and Anne at Lower Geyser Basin Yellowstone

 Anne and Jim at Old Faithful

Bison watching on the Firehole River Yellowstone

Luxembourg summer 2009

Wiltz, Luxembourg home of the Beer Museum, which is an interesting place indeed.

Bourscheid Castle in Luxembourg

Bastogne, Belgium honors the Americans who fought for their freedom at Christmas 1944 - the States and military organizations are named and thanked by the people of Bastogne.

General George S. Patton's grave, he was buried with his men per his request. It is a beautiful place memorializing a terrible time in world history.

The Porta Nigra in Trier Germany is a second century Gate to Trier in the Roman Wall during Roman times. It was a home for St. Simeon, a hermit monk from 1028 to 1035 where he lived in a small cell and was fed through a hole so as to give him total prayer.  After his life it became a part of a church in his memory for many hundreds of years until Napoleon destroyed the church in 1803 and this revealed the Porta Nigra.  The gate itself was rebuilt thereafter as a memorial.  Note the intrepid tourist, Anne Marie, standing before the Porta Nigra.

The Camino of Santiago goes through Trier, this is at the Tourist Office of Trier.

Burial vault of St. Matthew in Trier in the Pfarrkirche of St. Matthias which is also an Abbey (Abtei St. matthaias).  Very interesting and a stop on the Camino.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a beautiful place.

A Visit to Umkumbe

 Anne and Jim having a "sundowner" at the end of the day, Jim with his Bell's Palsy...

 Anne next to the Bouganvilla tree

 Safari Lady

 Sundown at Umkumbe in South Africa

 Tawny Eagle in the tree overlooking Kruger Park

 Elephant walking up the Sabi River bank

 Cape Buffalo near Umkumbe Lodge

Leopard near the front gate of Umkumbe Lodge

Umkumbe Lodge is a private reserve North of Hazyview in South Africa and inside the game fence adjoining Kurger National Park. The Lodge has two game drives per day and is right on the Sabi River next to Sabi Sands. Anne and I were there for a long weekend in September 2010 while on a business trip to South Africa.

Ireland

Kinsale, Cork. Here we encounter trouble, a person has been lost at sea and the locals put on yellow vests and go looking for them. This one ended with the rescuers finding only the body of one who was washed into the sea. Photo from March 20, 2010.

The Mosel River in Germany

One of the most pleasant places in the world to visit is the Mosel Valley in Germany. This visit in late July 2009 found the grapes growing and the weather perfect.

Catherdral of Beauvais

The highest vault in the world is found in the Catherdral of Beauvais in France. Celebrated in Ken Follet's epic novel The Pillars of the Earth set in England but having a master builder, Jack who studied how Beauvais Catherdral was being built to skill himself for building a catherdral in England.

Beauvais Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais) is an incomplete cathedral located in Beauvais in northern France. It is the seat of the Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon and Senlis. It is, in some respects the most daring achievement of Gothic architecture, and consists only of a transept (sixteenth-century) and choir with apse and seven polygonal apsidal chapels (thirteenth century), which are reached by an ambulatory. The small Romanesque church of the 10th century known as the Basse Œuvre, much restored, still occupies the site destined for the nave.

The Mosel River in Germany

The Mosel River

On September 27, 1997 after Reinhard Wirtgen's funeral in Windhagen, Germany I drove to the Mosel River. I was depressed and these photos were taken on that afternoon and gave me great consolation.