New Zealand Adventure

We’ve been in New Zealand just a week, but we’ve already seen much of the South Island. We started outside Christchurch at Windwhistle where the wind was really whistling as we golfed along the Rakaia Gorge. 

Next south to Dunedin where we visited the lovely old railway station. Lime electric scooters are pervasive in NZ as well, here in front of First Church. 

Its spring here and the flowers are lovely, especially the rhododendrons. 

Then even further south to Invercargill, the most southern city, home of Burt Munro, famous for setting many motorcycle land speed records. The movie The World’s Fastest Indian is about him—it’s a great film. 

Our weather has not been as nice as we expected, but we’ve golfed 3 times and has two good hikes. Unfortunately, our Siberia Experience was cancelled because of weather. The cloud cover was too low to fly us in to the drop off point for the hike. But we have no real complaints after reading about the Milwaukee weather!!

Wild Weather

Having a great time in Colorado. Spent a day with brother John and family before three days of golf under sunny skies. 

This is Wednesday—79 degrees and on the course in shorts and short sleeve shirts.

Then this is Thursday in Golden—21 degrees and about 4” of snow. Almost a 60 degree drop!!  So glad we brought our long underwear.  It could go down to 10 degrees tonight and set a record. Should be nice by the weekend, however. 

Arctic Adventures

Our Arctic cruise has surely been a lesson in geography—both physical and political. After leaving Greenland, we headed to northern parts of Canada. We certainly were aware of the 10 provinces, but we were not aware that there are three Canandian territories—the Northern Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. Nunavut? It was formed in 1999 when the Northern Territories were divided in two. Nunavut is huge. Administered by the Inuits. 

We have kayaked in the arctic, seen musk ox, walruses and polar bears. As an expedition ship we have learned about the geology, flora, fauna, birds, culture, etc. and we are getting very adept at scrambling in and out of Zodiacs. With poor internet access, I’m only including one photo of Kangaamuit, Greenland. 

35 Years and 250+ Books

Our book club celebrated 35 years of reading and friendship with a wonderful trip to London. We had an literary focus, but visited other beautiful sites. 

Chihuly art added to the beauty of Kew Gardens. 

Persephone Books on Lamb’s Conduit is a publisher/bookseller of out-of-print female writers. Here we all are pictured with the owner. 

We were fortunate to be in London for the Chelsea Flower Show. Not only were the flowers in the show magnificent, but many shops along King Street were also decorated with flowers. 

We visited both the Charles Dickens home as well as the Sherlock Holmes Museum. You come away feeling that Sherlock was almost a real person!

It’s going to be hard to top this for our fortieth!!

English Foot Trails

Just finished our 7 day walk (62 miles) in the English countryside. And not a single raindrop fell while we were on the trail!!

So many lovely stone cottages with thatched roofs. 

The routes took us through woods, across fields, along tracks, into charming villages, and offered beautiful vistas. 

And, indeed, this is an accurate display of our average speed per hour each day. 

There was always time for a pint (or two) at the end of each day. 

Now on to London!

Western Spirit-Scottsdale

We had a sole day in Scottsdale before returning to MKE. A visit to the Western Spirit, Scottsdale’s Museum of the West was perfect. The current exhibit was photographs taken by Barry Goldwater of native Americans, long before he got into politics and served as Senator. In his youth he has a chance encounter with Ansel Adams who praised his work. 

There many collections of spurs, saddles, halters, chaos, guns, and all things western. 

The bronze sculptures by John Coleman were outstanding. 

And we got into the Western spirit too!

Fun Times in Palm Springs

Well, the Garfields, Van Reusens, and Schnells are all still friends after a week together in sunny Bermuda Dunes (Palm Springs). The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. And Petra’s home with three en-suite bedrooms was perfect, even with its little quirks. Plenty of golf, eating, drinking, laughing, shopping, political discussions, an infamous night of cards playing 31, and lots and lots of Mahjongg, made for a quick week. 

The house was on the Bermuda Dunes golf course. And it’s for sale. It can be yours for a mere $800K. 

We attended the Indian Wells art show, but only Schnells made an acquisition. 

Rick and Jim played 5 rounds of golf with Kathy, Tony, and Mary playing two. Jean proved to be an excellent cart driver and caddie for Mary. 

A visit to the Sunnylands estate of the Annenbergs was fascinating. It has served as a retreat for 8 past presidents. Annenberg was a media mogul and served as ambassador to the UK under Eisenhower. The gardens were lovely, but we unable to tour the mid-century modern home (25,000 sq ft). Next time. 

There was an exhibit of bird photos taken at the estate. 130 varieties of birds have been sighted at the property. 

And we had our own Elvis with us at the Big Rock pub.