Backyard Fauna

We had some visitors at lunch time today. A mother deer and her two babies showed up to have a snack in the neighbor's backyard.

After a while the babies got tired and decided to rest while mother moved around finding more to eat.

Mom posed for a shot in the neighbor's backyard.

When I went outside to get a better shot, they all became a little skittish and started to move away.

Late Afternoon in Texas

Chicago II

The purpose of my trip to Chicago was to help out with a new course my old department had developed. They had some instructors drop out, so they brought me out of retirement. Everything went really well, so they probably didn't really need me, but it gave me a chance to catch up with former colleagues and friends.

Here's the line-up. The boss:

Her right hand man (and his fallen hero):

The reformed banker:

The mountain man:

The new guy:

The brains behind the class:

The big cheese from Richmond:

The guy from Black Rock (the town, not the Treasury's asset manager):

And the techie who keeps the lab running:

All kidding aside, I had a great time. It was fun brushing off some of the cobwebs that have collected over the past two years.

Chicago I

We just got back from Chicago. I went up to teach a class for the Fed, so Susan decided to go along. Unfortunately her mobility was limited by her broken foot. We spent the first four days with Rob and Sarah and then moved downtown while I was working at the Fed (when I retired, I also gave up commuting). It was nice to get some time with Rob, Sarah and the kids--we don't get to see them nearly often enough. Here are some pictures of the kids. It seems like every time we visit, one of them is camera shy. Last time it was the oldest. This time it was the youngest girl.

All but one:

The youngest granddaughter did allow this picture:

She has the cutest blonde curls.

The oldest girl really dotes on her little brother. He's about the happiest baby I've ever seen.

The two oldest. They make perfect playmates for one another. The oldest (left) plays drums and his brother plays guitar (Rock Band).

Both boys are playing baseball this year. I think they both are having a good time, but the second oldest practically sleeps in his uniform.

Both older boys are also into scouts. While we were there, the oldest took his mom on a mother/scout camping trip. We think she was very brave. She is a pure-bred city girl (she grew up in Greenwich Village in New York). But she held up well on the trip. Here's a picture of her setting out her tent to dry after the trip.

Her son seems amused by the process.

Painted Churches of Texas

You might have thought that we had seen enough churches in Italy, but we signed up for a Sun City sponsored tour before we left. It seems that the Czech and German immigrants to Texas in the 19th century built a lot of churches across the state. From the outside the churches look pretty ordinary, but once you go inside they are anything but ordinary. We visited churches near Schulenburg, which is between San Antonio and Houston about two hours south of Austin. We visited the churches in Dubina, Ammansville, High Hill and Praha. There are lot more of these churches and at least 15 of them on the National Register of Historic Places, so this is just a sample. Most of them are open for visitors all the time.

The church in Dubina.

The Church in Ammansville. No exterior shot.

The Church in High Hill. One of the prettiest exteriors.

The church in Praha.

Milan and Lake Como

Milan was our last stop in Italy. We had hoped to see Da Vinci's The Last Supper, but we couldn't get tickets. I consoled myself with reading about how disappointed a lot of people are with the painting once they see it, due to its poor condition. Anyway, there's not much else to see in Milan. It's the industrial and business capital of Italy and is unlike all the other cities we visited. Two things stood out for me: Milan has one of the best and easiest to use public transportation systems I've ever experienced (however, this means you hardly see the sky for the overhead wires) and although Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, people there dress very poorly compared to Florence and Bologna. Go figure.

Milan does have one outstanding sight: its cathedral. Its outside is the most ornate of all the cathedrals in Italy; but the inside is less impressive than a lot of smaller churches--Verona's for example. Here's a picture of the outside.

One of the doors and detail from another door.

 

The floor was also interesting.

I did find a couple of other shots in Milan that looked good to me.

 

The second one is Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, billed as the world's first shopping center. It's just to the left of the Duomo.

When we couldn't get in to see The Last Supper, we decided to make a side trip to the Lake Country on our extra day. People had told us it was beautiful and they were certainly correct. We took the train to Como and then caught a ferry to Bellagio (two hours--but it seemed shorter). Lake Como is like an inverted "Y" and Como is at bottom of the left leg. Bellagio is at the junction of the two legs. Another ferry took us to Varenna on the eastern shore, where we caught a train back to Milan. The rest of the pictures are from our Lake Country excursion.

The harbor at Como . Also a picture of some guy Susan saw on the ferry.

 

There are beautiful houses, hotels and gardens all the way along the shore. Some houses and a hotel.

 

 

Some gardens.

 

 

As we moved up the lake, the shore got steeper and steeper. The towns looked like they were coming right down a cliff. We turned one corner and it looked like the Alps were rising right out of the lake.

 

Coming in to Varenna and a look at how steep the streets are leading away from the harbor.

 

Bellagio and Varenna were very pretty little towns. Here are some pictures from Varenna.

These flowers were growing out of a vertical stone wall.

 

Some pretty roses at the train station.

Varenna had some beautiful doors.

 

In addition to pictures of doors, I like pictures of boats.

In Varenna, at first we couldn't find the train station. We looked up the hill and couldn't see any tracks. The people we asked for directions told us to follow the main road and we would be able to see it right above us. We finally found some people with bags, who we figured were coming from the station and they gave us directions. These pictures show why the location wasn't immediately obvious.

The left end of the platform:

And the right end of the platform.

The train came out from under the mountain only long enough to stop at the station.

That concludes the posts from our trip to Italy. We had a great time and pretty much lucked out with out itinerary, the weather, travel arrangements, etc. Too bad all trips can't go as well as this one did. We had a great time. If anyone is interested, I have about a thousand more photos (digital, of course) than I've put on these blogs.