Unexcused Absences

Feb 27 to March 1, 2018 – Venice. On the list of things that tourist guides tell you to pack for a trip to Venice, you won’t typically find winter coats, gloves and hats. Because Venice is surrounded by the warm waters of the lagoon and the Adriatic Sea, the temperature rarely falls below 40 degrees this time of year. Yet, due to the lingering polar vortex (or maybe it was some Siberian thing), we arrived after our drive from Cortina to freezing temperatures and a forecast for snow.

Once again Heather scored us a fantastic apartment, on the mainland and on the main bus line that would take us across the causeway to the Venice most people picture in their mind. We stowed our gear (imagine showing up to a tourist apartment in Venice with ski carriers, boots, and giant suitcases full of ski clothes), then bought a 24-hour pass and made it onto the island by late afternoon. The pass covers all modes of public transport in and around Venice (buses, trains, and boats).

An almost-full moon

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

Venice seen from the lagoon

The first excursion was to lap the main island by boat, travel back up the Grand Canal, and find a restaurant that was walking distance to the bus terminal. I guess technically everything in Venice is walking distance, since there are no cars, but whatever. We found a terrific restaurant, Osteria Bea Vita, in the quieter, northern section of streets/canals.

The next morning we awoke early (for us) and immediately headed back to Venice for a full day of tourist activities. As we were crossing the causeway by bus, we started to see patches of snow on the bridge and railings, and by the time we reached the Island, there were two inches of snow on the ground. This clearly doesn’t happen very often, because even the locals all had their phones out and were snapping photos of snow-covered boats and bridges.

Snow near the bus terminal

Snow on the gondolas

Snow everywhere, but rapidly melting

We walked the streets to the south of the Grand Canal, then caught a boat to Murano, where we changed to a second boat to Burano. This is a more out-of-the-way island in the Venice Lagoon, famous for its fishermen, and for the brightly colored houses. My guess is that all the incorrectly mixed paints in Italy eventually end up in Burano, where they are distributed free to the residents.

Murano, not to be confused with…

Burano, with its brightly painted buildings

The leaning tower of Burano

Not to be outdone by its cousin in Pisa, Burano has its own leaning tower (but with a square instead of round cross-section). Our hoped-for delicious seafood lunch was pretty disappointing, especially considering that Burano is famous as a fishing village. But it was pleasant to walk all around and through the small island, and we headed back to Venice mid-afternoon.

Venice under a little snow

An alleyway in Burano

Gondolas on the Grand Canal

A wooden boat in Venice

After walking the central and eastern section, and visiting a few churches, we found a delicious Med-style restaurant, Frary’s, pretty much right in the middle of the island. We took our time walking back to the bus station, and found a few nice photo-ops down some small side streets.

Nighttime in Venice

Then it was time to wrap up our winter European trip, and catch an early flight home. And while it doesn’t snow very often in Venice, not even once per year on average, our plane had to be de-iced because, just for us, it snowed. Again. For a second straight day. Which delayed our flight. Which caused us to miss our connection in Paris. Which caused us to get re-booked on the dreaded Delta Airlines (partner to Air France). Which actually wasn’t so bad after all. Our previous flight on Delta, all the way back in 2003, was so bad that we successfully avoided the airline for a decade and a half. But now I guess we’ll have to reconsider, and give them another chance. All indications are that the title, “worst airline in the world,” is now owned by United.

Coming up, no flights (or cars for that matter) for a while, as we prepare for our annual, three-month, springtime Bahamas cruise. Our next post will feature turquoise water and, hopefully, delicious freshly-caught fish.

Burano and its leaning tower

A busy “street” in Burano

Basilica di Santa Maria in the late afternoon

The American West, mid-August, 2017 – I’ve been anticipating the arrival of the Great American Solar Eclipse since about the moment we saw our first total eclipse in Turkey over 10 years ago. The laws of physics prevailed (as if there was any doubt), and it finally arrived.

My first task was to identify the spot along the line of totality that would have the highest odds of clear skies. All factors (time of day, season, historical cloud cover) tended to converge over an area from eastern Oregon, through south/central Idaho, and into west/central Wyoming. Luckily, we could combine this with a visit to Heather’s Dad and his wife in Montana, plus a rendezvous in Idaho with our friends Brian and Susan, whom we met in the Bahamas during our 2016 cruise. We even got a quick flyby visit from my cousin and her husband who live in Calgary.

The gang at the RV park in Dillon, MT

The plan was to rent an RV (thank you, Heather’s Dad!) and camp about an hour north of the eclipse centerline for a couple nights. We targeted the area north of Idaho Falls, Idaho, as our ideal viewing spot. This would (hopefully) put us in clear skies on the opposite side of the centerline from the large population centers of Utah, Nevada, and California. The last way we wanted to spend the eclipse was sitting in traffic outside the zone of totality.

A preview of totality

Note:  Animation shot with my Panasonic Lumix and converted with ezgif.com.

Before the eclipse itself, we spent the night at a hot springs and campground in southern Montana, and the following day exploring the old mining towns of Virginia City and Nevada City. Saturday evening we met up with Brian and Susan at the RV park in Dillon, Montana, and it was just like old times anchored in the Bahamas, except that we were on solid ground and there wasn’t some mechanical system on one of our boats in the process of breaking.

Bluegrass band at the hot springs

Old tracks in Virginia City

Very old steam engine at Nevada City

The following day we visited the ghost town at Bannack State Park. This is a 5-star place to visit; you can wander through the town and explore the old buildings, plus at noon every day they have a guided tour of the gold-mine ore-processing facility that was the whole reason for the town in the first place.

The Bannock ghost town

An old wagon on the edge of town

Abandoned mineworks at Bannock Park

On eclipse day we drove south and found parking without incident, with plenty of time to get situated. We had a terrific viewing spot at the base of the Menan Butte trail. As the moon began to cover the sun, the light dimmed – but not like at sunset, where everything gets an orange tint. With the sun high in the sky, the color cast remained neutral, but it was as if someone was slowly turning out the light.

About 40 minutes before totality

Then, in an instant, it went dark. The sky turned a deep inky blue, the brighter stars and planets became visible, and it looked like someone had shot a hole in the sky; a pitch-black disk (the moon) was surrounded by a brilliant white fuzzy thing (the sun’s corona). There were a couple of red solar prominences visible to the naked eye, but since my poor camera was operating at the limit of its abilities, I couldn’t successfully photograph them.

The “Diamond Ring” effect just before totality

The “sunset” during totality

The two and a half minute “moment” we’d been waiting for

The difference between a 99% eclipse and 100% totality is literally the difference between night and day. If someone shrugs and says, “oh, yeah, I’ve seen an eclipse,” then they really haven’t seen totality – it is one of the most remarkable sights most people will ever have a chance to see.

A short time lapse of the eclipse

Afterwards it was a rush to get back to Montana, turn in the RV, and fly back to DC for a quick laundry and re-pack before our flight to Paris for our 2017 canal cruise. Our next report will hopefully be on our continuing adventures (7 years and counting) on the waterways of France.

A storm over Tennessee

Weathered siding

Abandoned rail car

Waiting for totality

We didn’t ski a single turn last winter because we spent January through May in the Bahamas. This year we were due for some skiing, but that would mean giving up a couple months on the Miss Adventure. It’s to my continued annoyance that I can’t be in two places at one time, so we had to choose. Hence, Vail.

China Bowl, Vail

Vail is possibly the most famous ski area in America, maybe second to Aspen. The area is adjacent to, and four times as big as, Beaver Creek, where we spent five winters in a row up until our 2015/2016 winter in the Bahamas. This year Heather found (and rented for us) the second-smallest condo in Vail, located across from Solaris Plaza and a six minute walk from Gondola One.

Our condo; second floor, far right, foreground

We flew out the day after the MLK long weekend, with the plan to stay until the first weekend of spring break. Since we didn’t want to be inconvenienced by actually working at the resort, with only 43 potential days of skiing in our schedule, we chose not to re-apply for our on-hill jobs that we had at the Beav (Vail and Beaver Creek are all one big happy company, so getting work at Vail would have been easy).

Vail Village

The weather in Colorado did not look promising at the beginning of the season. Vail had to delay its opening, and was plagued by warm temperatures and no snow all through November. Fortunately, in December, Al Gore relented and allowed some cold and snow to hit the Rockies. The Colorado resorts received almost an entire winter’s worth of snow in the seven weeks starting early December. And, because timing is everything, we arrived for that last week of heavy snow, during the best conditions of the season.

Lots of snow in the West Vail Mall parking lot

We tried to ease our ski muscles into shape, we really did, but the skiing was so terrific that we worked ourselves to exhaustion the first five days. Our fifth day was easily our second best powder skiing day ever, topped only by an incredible session in the French Alps in 2013. The powder in the back bowls was deep and plentiful. For some reason the resort was not crowded at all – possibly because the locals had already enjoyed 6+ weeks of continuous powder skiing. It was close to noon when we took the series of photos below in Siberia Bowl and Inner Mongolia Bowl.

Heather gets some quality powder time

Bolshoi Ballroom in Siberia Bowl

That’s me sampling a pristine powder field, Inner Mongolia Bowl

After the storm track returned to normal (one snowfall every 7-10 days), we got down to some serious socializing, and met up with our friends Greg and Susan, Audre and Dimitri, Elizabeth and Michael, Ellen and Emil, Harry and Debbie, Jeff and Christine, plus Praz, Megan, Jen, Guy, Sean, Kevin, “Tahoe” Joe, “Other” Kent, and Mike. We had several visits to the spa at the Four Seasons, courtesy of our friends who own a condo there, and we took evening walks through Vail Village and visited our favorite restaurants (the Minturn Saloon, Crazy Mountain Brewery, Tiamo, Moe’s BBQ, Vendetta’s, Blue Moose Pizza). Plus there were parties and gatherings and we basically didn’t have a free minute for a month and a half.

Heather enjoys an afternoon skate

The Vail Chapel covers all the bases

A clearing winter storm

We did wander over to Beaver Creek once or twice a week for either social skiing or the Monday Town Series races. As in previous years, we were very un-American and had no car, but the public transportation in Eagle County is fantastic and the lack of car never really bothered us. The Race Series was very good to us, and we won some great stuff, including race gloves (that I traded with a friend who had won a backpack), a boot bag, thermal base-layers, two restaurant gift certificates, a hard-sided ski carrier, and a GoPro (actually we each won a GoPro but we sold one at a nice discount to a friend).

Heather stirs some powder on Grouse Mountain, Beaver Creek

Early morning at the Beav

Kent cruises Raven’s Ridge, Beaver Creek, in a foot of powder

Our goal at the start of our visit was to ski every single day, at least 10 runs and/or 15,000 vertical feet (as measured by Vail’s Epic Mix iPhone app). Part-way into the season we upped our goal to 12 runs and/or 18k vert per day (it’s good to have goals). Along the way I decided to see how long it would take to ride every single lift in Vail once and (only once), all 24 of them. One day when Heather was at a PSIA clinic I caught first chair in Lions Head and then worked my way around the resort. It turns out it takes 30,218 vertical feet and four hours 45 minutes to complete the circuit.

Either “Daft Punk” or a very cold day at Vail

The weather gods continued to smile, because our last day we woke to 8 inches of fresh powder. This was on top of another 10 inches over the previous couple days, so the slopes skied a lot deeper than 8 inches. By quittin’ time I had amassed 829,622 vertical feet and 548 lift rides over 43 straight days. Heather had two days when she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t ski, so she ended up with about 45k feet fewer. But because we’re chronic over-achievers, at least when it comes to vacationing, we averaged over 19k feet and 12.7 lift rides per day. I feel that what we lack in personal ambition, we more than make up for with vacation acumen.

Final turns of the 2017 ski season

We finished our winter out west with a camping trip to Moab, Utah, with our friends Greg and Susan, plus Jen and her dog Miller. Greg and Susan are serious over-achievers when it comes to outdoor stuff. They have an entire cargo van filled with mountain bikes, tents, sleeping bags, cooking gear, coolers, and food. We camped on the mesa above the town for two nights. The first night was perfect, if a little cold; calm wind, clear skies, and temperatures around freezing. The second night was a lot warmer, but also a lot windier, and wasn’t quite as pleasant; a fine film of Utah dust had covered everything by morning. But, we had spent the previous evening at the fantastic Moab Brewery, so no one was too put out.

Taking Susan’s Jeep seriously off-road

Our campsite on Slickrock

A canyon vista near Moab

Back at Susan and Greg’s house near Beaver Creek, we had one final day to do laundry, pack, and visit the Gore Range Brewery (there’s a pattern developing here, I just can’t put my finger on it). Then it was an easy flight home, and with a six-day turn-around we will hopefully be on our way to the Bahamas to take our trawler, Miss Adventure, on her spring cruise through the Exumas and other Bahamian Out Islands.

Champagne powder, Inner Mongolia Bowl

More powder; Heather in Siberia Bowl

Still more powder in Blue Sky Basin

Jen (& Miller) at Crazy Mountain Brewery

“No matter what the cows say”

A hike near Moab

Heather negotiates with Miller regarding appropriate puddle-time

Snow in Vail Village

“Reverse ski tracks” from a windstorm

One more powder pic; me in the “white room”

As if spending the summer on our canal boat in France was not enough, after putting Après Ski to bed for the winter the three of us (me, Heather, Dad) drove to a little village in Brittany and rented a canal boat with our friend Jen and her parents.

Our rental boat on the pontoon at Sucé-sur-Erdre

Cruising in Brittany is special for us, because the western France canals do not connect with the rest of the country’s inland waterway network. So bringing our boat here would require an expensive over-land journey.

The crew of “Classique 46”

The rental boat was about 45 feet long, with four staterooms, quite a step up from our little canal boat. We started our trip from Nort-sur-Erdre, a small town 15 miles north of Nantes. After the obligatory checkout procedure – “Have you ever piloted a boat?” “Yes, a few times…” – we provisioned at the local store and cruised a couple hours south to Sucé-sur-Erdre, where we had a delicious “welcome-to-France” meal with our friends.

One of many Châteaux on the Erdre River

The following day, after a short cruise through “château alley,” we backtracked up river and entered the Canal de Nantes à Brest. Our stop for the night was in Blain, home to Château de la Groulais.

Château de la Groulais

From Blain, our next stop was Redon, the crossroads of the Brittany canal network. I took the train back to Nort-sur-Erdre to bring the car forward to Redon, so we’d have some transportation for a road trip in a few days’ time. The harbor in Redon connects to the river La Vilaine, which in turn connects to the Atlantic Ocean, so the harbor had some ocean-going boats, in addition to the usual canal boats.

The harbor at Redon

The following day we continued westward and turned up a very narrow (VERY narrow…) side river, which ended at a small boat harbor in La Gacilly. The town bills itself as an “artist’s town”, and was full of shops featuring local painters, sculptors, and potters, and also had a large outdoor display featuring photographers from around the world.

The narrow river to La Gacilly

Champagne for happy hour

An ornate support post

The entrance to the Canal de Nantes-a-Brest

The next day we backtracked to the Nantes-Brest canal and again turned west. Our stop for the night was in Malestroit, with its beautiful (and very old) village center. The town’s favorite son is Roger Plisson, who built, by hand, a tiny wooden sailing ship in the mid 1960’s, launched it into the canal, cruised downstream to the Atlantic, and then sailed around the world over the following 18 months. The boat, on display in the town hall’s parking lot, can’t have been more than about 20 feet long.

Roger Plisson’s tiny boat

Our boat leaves a lock

Malestroit centre-ville

Just outside of town is a museum dedicated to the French Resistance, which we toured the following morning. We didn’t have as much time as we wanted (the only taxi driver in town needed to go to another appointment) but it was still very interesting, and filled with artifacts from the resistance effort. The local area was famous during WW II as a large resistance camp that successfully fought off an attack by the Nazis.

Radio transmitter hidden in a suitcase

Portable electric generator for a resistance radio operator

US Army magazine from WW II

Malestroit

Turning back to the east, we parked at a rural mooring on the Oust River, beneath some cliffs that were very popular with the local rock-climbing club. I should note that other than the first day, which was cool and breezy, the rest of our cruise featured warm, sunny days, quite a rarity in Brittany.

Rural parking

Once back in Redon for our second visit, the six of us took our rental van and drove to Josselin, further west on the Nantes-Brest Canal but unfortunately too far for us to visit by boat. The main feature of the town is the imposing Château de Josselin on the hill above a bend in the canal. We ate a delicious lunch in town (Pizzeria du Château), visited the church (including a climb up the tower), then toured the Château and the grounds, before driving back to Redon.

From the church tower in Josselin

The Château seen from the canal

Château de Josselin

On our final full day, we cruised north on the Vilaine river to Messac-Guipry, a beautiful trip on a wide river. We tied up below the final lock and packed up the boat, and I took a train back to Redon to get the car.

Heading north from Redon

After turning in the boat and dropping Jen and her parents at the train station, the three of us visited a nearby automobile museum in Lohéac, a truly amazing display of well-known (Ferrari, Peugeot, Mercedes) and obscure (Facel Vega, Delahaye, Panhard) cars. The main collection featured “regular” cars from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, but there were also some very old cars (Aries, Darmont, Amilcar) as well as a whole section of race cars. The town is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, the center of the triangle formed by Nantes, Rennes, and Vannes, but you owe yourself a visit if you have any interest at all in historical automobiles.

A Delahaye 135M from the 1930’s

The Tatra 603 from Czechoslovakia

A Panhard PL17 from the 1960’s

With that, we drove to Charles-de-Gaulle Airport north of Paris, spent a quick night, and were up at 5am for our flight home. We had a terrific time cruising the canals of Brittany, so thank you to Jen, Cynthia, and Mark Stange for the delightful cruise!

And so ended our sixth summer in France. We are headed back to America to our trawler, Miss Adventure, so our next post will be from a boatyard in southern Georgia.

Our route through Brittany

An affordable canal boat

Cruising on the Nantes-Brest Canal

The Vilaine River in classic Brittany weather

Hiking near the Oust river

At the Redon Maritime Museum

Redon

Leaving a lock on the Nantes-Brest Canal

Yummy Belgian beer

Slightly skewed patissier

A gargoyle in Blain

The port in La Gacilly

The lock in Malestroit

The Vilaine River near Messac

The single-cylinder Velam Isetta

A late ’60’s NSU 1200 TT

A 1942 Hydromobile amphibious vehicle

A whole room full of modern race cars at Lohéac

I will be the first to admit that I have been extremely lax about blog post for quite some time. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve posted since the first week of our cruise — to the Bahamas. There are quite a few excuses (preparing for the Bahamas, living in the Bahamas, enjoying the Bahamas, actually working from the Bahamas), but all pretty lame when you consider Dr. V. has kept up with his regular postings.

I have lots of things to share with my good readers, including a lot of tips on provisioning, cooking and cruising in the Bahamas. It seems silly to post on the Bahamas from France. Never-the-less, I shall give it a try!

Look for future posts on our Bahamas cruise about:

-safety when cruising and the importance of a ditch bag

-provisioning

-recipes for cruisers

Our Bahamian winter proved to be a real adventure (requiring real work), but absolutely worth the effort. Now that we are ‘relaxing’ on the canals, it’s time for me to catch up!

The Exumas, where sea and sky merge