Month: July 2008

One of my best memories growing up is from my time at the Wiltrout Cabin on Moose Lake. This is where my Uncle David, Aunt Cheryl and cousin Chad had a great place. We spent a number of summers on the lake, enjoying the fishing, hiking, boating, swimming and family camaraderie available. Unfortunately, my Aunt passed away a couple years ago, but Uncle David has rebuilt the cabin to immense and very plush proportions. Anna had not visited this great location and I had not seen the new log-cabin Uncle David built. So, we took a few days and paid a visit. It certainly did not disappoint!

We spent time on the water, chatting with dear Uncle David about a host of topics and most importantly just enjoying time together.

The lake and cabin have so many fond memories, I was very happy to share them with Anna.

One great new addition is a pool table. This is great for all the guys who frequent the annual fall deer camp. Here is an image of Uncle David about ready to sink the 15 ball.

Anna too was quite the the shark.

On our way up to Hayward (the closest city … about 30 minutes from Moose Lake, where the cabin is), there is a town called Cadott. This town has the claim to fame as the mid-point between the equator and North Pole (AKA 45 degrees North).

The day before Julie and Michael’s wedding, Michael genorously took the entire wedding party out on Lake Michigan to fish for salmon. It was a stormy morning and made for tough conditions, but we managed to catch a few fish. This is Patrick working on the first catch of the day. He landed a nice salmon.

Here they are. These fish are much larger than the typical brown trout in the rivers of Colorado where Patrick normally fishes.

Clay was the big winner for the day and landed a couple beautiful salmon. Both were about 16 pounds and both took over a half an hour to get in the boat. We had visions of Santiago and the “Old Man and the Sea.” Fortunately, there were no sharks to spoil the booty and Clay successfully landed both fish.

I was fortunate to catch a couple medium sized salmon as well. Of course, that is only because my father was gracious and let us young guys catch all the fish (he has the opportunity to go out on Lake Michigan at least once a year).

Here is Clay playing Santiago again…

Me with my second catch of the day.

Here is the entire catch of the day. Although not the most prolific day on Lake Michigan, it was certainly rewarding. We really enjoyed our time on the lake.

You may be wondering what happened to the man of the day, Michael. He and several other guys were on the other boat. Although it pains me to admit it, they were slightly more successful than us on the lake and wound up with 8 fish between them. 🙂 Ok, so it doesn’t really pain me, but a little friendly competition was fun.
The next day was the whole reason Anna and I were home: Julie and Michael’s wedding. Here is an image of the male cousins: Chad, T, and me.

This is the groom, Michael and one of his two best men, Omar.

This is Michael and his other best man, Brandon, with Chad in the background.

The beautiful bride, my sister Julie, on her way to meet my future brother-in-law, Mike.

The happy couple.

Can you tell they are happy to see each other?

The ceremony was on the lake my parents live on, Nagawicka Lake. There was also a sailing regatta the day of the wedding.

Their official photographer was very creative with her images.

The happy couple again.

It was a great ceremony. Anna and I were proud to be a part of it. Julie and Mike make a great couple and we are certain they will enjoy their wedded bliss for the rest of their lives. We were fortunate that our schedule allowed us to partake in this auspicious occasion.
This was a fitting end to our trip to Wisconsin. A wedding and image of the symbol for the country I have sworn to defend. The next post will most likely be in my training for Afghanistan. In case I haven’t told you in person, I will be a part of one of the provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan for the next year. First though, we have language and cultural training at Indiana University. Then a few months of intense training in North Carolina. Finally, this fall, we will arrive in Afghanistan with the intention of aiding the Afghan people rebuild their country and infrastructure. It will be a long time and difficult mission, but I am excited to be in a place where history is being made with the opportunity to help positively influence the outcome.

So, until the next adventure…
–Jim

When Anna and I stepped off the plane from Germany back in Wisconsin (after almost a 2-year absence for me), we were met by my parents. It was the 3rd of July and Milwaukee had a huge fireworks display planned. So, we hopped in the car and headed to the Lake Michigan shore to watch the festivities.
Once we arrived, the Quadracci Pavilion of the Milwaukee Art Museum greeted us. It’s a beautiful addition to the museum created in 2001 by architect Santiago Calatrava.

Here are a couple images from the 10,000 explosions that reportedly cost over $400,000 over 45 minutes with three distinct segments.


It’s amazing what you can find in your own back yard. Especially when you have parents that have a green thumb!

This next set of images are from Anna’s family. We spent the day with Sarah and Jason, Anna’s sister and brother-in-law, along with Susan, and her children, Anna’s oldest sister.
This is Caidub, Susan’s oldest son with a monarch butterfly.

Here is Grant, our Godson.

This is Griffin and he’s quite a character already!

This is Jason, my brother-in-law looking quite dapper in a image made by Sarah. 🙂

Another image by Sarah: Anna consoling Grant…

This is Gracie, about to release another new-born monarch butterfly.

This is the wonderful Miller family in their bi-annual family portrait I helped capture.

The Six Miller girls, although all but two have new names these days.

Sarah being silly, as usual. 🙂 Aren’t the Miller girls cute??

Another image of the Miller girls with their matriarch, Chris.

The eternally effervescent Emma.

The leader of the flock and my mother-in-law, Chris.

The most beautiful woman in the world…

Since it had been a couple years since I was in Milwaukee, my parents wanted to take me out to the ballgame. I hadn’t been to the new Miller Park (no relation to my great in-law family). We watched the Milwaukee Brewers take on the Colorado Rockies.

It was a great game with lots of intensity.

Unfortunately, the Brewer’s late-game surge was insufficient to win the day, but it was a great game to watch.

My parents were very thoughtful and requested a giant screen message to me, my Airmen and Soldiers. We are currently training for a year-long mission in Afghanistan (for those who don’t already know). It was a great reminder that everyone back home is pulling for us.

I will finish this post with a couple classic Wisconsin images. Although Wisconsin used to lead the nation in % of over-weight people, they have slipped to about middle of the pack. Currently, Mississippi leads the way with overall fatness, and Colorado is the leanest. However, that didn’t stop a number of large people from attending the game. It was quite a contrast from Europe.

Drinking Miller Lite in Miller Park watching the Milwaukee Brewers.

It has been too long since we were in Wisconsin. I really enjoyed my first few days back in my native state.
Next up is the our trip out to the lakes and most importantly, Julie and Michael’s wedding.
So, until then…
–Jim

For our last European vacation together (for a while), we decided to visit the Swiss Alps around the city of Interlaken. Since this is the same area we visited last year, we decided to try a different valley nearby and stayed in the village of Grindelwald. As you may recall, we stayed in the carless village of Mürren last time. Grindelwald is certainly laden with more cars and consequently tourists, it is still spectacular.
On the drive in, this is the sight that greets visitors, the Thunersee.

Jen got down to test the water. We decided to hold off on swimming, but it was very pretty water.

These next few images are from our drive.



When we arrived in the Grindelwald valley, this view of the Eiger Mountain was amazing. It rises 10,000 feet out of the valley floor to it’s summit at over 13,000 feet.


Another image of the picturesque Grindelwald.

Another typical Swiss home.

We hopped on one of the many gondolas for a hike in the mountains.

This is the view from inside the gondola.

At the top of the lift, this cow said hi with the ever present cow bell. What you can also see in the right foreground is a land luge course, called a rodelbahn. To give you an idea of what it’s like, this YouTube video does a nice job Swiss Rodelbahn Video

After the thrilling luge ride, we decided to stretch our legs and took a hike along one of the many trails in the area.

What hike would be complete without a picture of flowers??

Paragliders were all over the valley.

More typical Swiss architecture. All of us agreed it would be great to live here.

These next two images are from our hotel room. Not a bad view of the Eiger mountain.


We also hiked along this precariously carved trail up the glacier gorge, Gletscherschlucht.


Since our adventure quota wasn’t quite filled, we decided to next launch ourselves off a cliff. Fortunately, there are many companies that are willing to help with that endeavor via paragliding. The one we chose had us load into another gondola and ride up 1,100 meters higher (4,000 feet). As you may recall from our last Swiss trip, we also went paragliding then. We liked it so much, we came back for more.
This images gives you an idea of what we were about to do.

This is the view from the launch point.

Here is Jen, all set to go.

Jen and her pilot running off the cliff…

This is an image looking back at the launch point. If you look very closely, you can see Andy about ready to run off the mountain.

This is an aerial view of the rodelbahn. I think the cow is still there with her bell.

These next three images are all of Anna flying.



Anna made it safely back to earth and again walks with a bit of a swagger.


Now, here comes Andy under the red canopy.

Get ready to land…

And touchdown.

Now, it’s Andy’s turn to look back at the mountain valley he just conquered.

A further example of that great architecture.

Our final stop was for lunch on the Thunersee.

Yet again, it was an amazing trip with some of our best friends. We only wished we could have stayed longer. Perhaps when I return.
So, until the next adventure…
–Jim

Last week, Anna and I joined our good friends Tom, Tim and Dori for a splendid week touring the area around Bordeaux, France.
This trip had less emphasis on sight-seeing. That meant fewer pictures from me. Fortunately, Tim is an amazing photographer. So, we were able to pool our images to tell the story of the trip.
We all met up to see the city, take a bike tour, and of course visit a few vineyards. However, our expectations weren’t too high for the city, because one of our favorite tour guides had some rather disparaging remarks. Rick Steves mentioned Bordeaux “must mean ‘boredom’ in some ancient language. If I were offered a free trip to that town, I’d stay home and clean the fridge.” So, with that in mind, we began our visit.
Back in 1855, at the behest of Napoleon III, the wine makers of the region were classified by their relative quality (and price). Four were classified as first growth and given the label Premier Grand Cru Classé. Château Haut-Brion was one, so we decided to take a tour.
Although the tour was less than we hoped, we did learn the manner in which the famous oak flavor is infused in the wine. You can see here the toasting of the French oak barrel.

In the cellar, we were offered a glass of the 2004 vintage. Although it wasn’t the best, it was free of charge. That was true for all the wineries we visited. They all offer free tours/tasting.

Another interesting aspect is that often you can’t buy wine at the château. Fortunately, as you might imagine, there are a number of wine stores in the city. This is one of the most unique. Five floors of spiraled wine.

This is one of Tim’s images. You can see what a difference the ultra-wide angle lens makes.

In Bordeaux, we stayed in this great little place.

We also walked through the city and found a little friend.

After spending a while in the city, we decided to move our party to the east, in the Sauternes region. This is also the home of the dessert wine of the same name.
The grapes grown are predominantly Semillion. Here you can see the image that Tim captured of the baby grapes.

Tom’s bike was well equipped to ride with a little extra gear…

This is the view from Château St. Robert (captured by Tim again), where we stayed for a couple nights. It was an amazing location, right in the vineyards, a beautiful patio to enjoy a summer dinner and best of all, we were the only ones staying there. There are only a few rooms, so at night, we had our own personal château.
Often with the semillion grape, it is affected by “noble rot.” This is where the bacteria Botrytis cinerea attacks the grape bunch and removes water to condense the sugar. This is possible with cool, wet mornings, followed warm, dry afternoons. Tim has captured the mist very well. In fact, this is probably my favorite picture of the trip.

Tim also took his glass of wine out into the vineyard when we decided to climb a tree. The wine was more graceful than our climbing…

I think Tim was still feeling artistic and made this image with the local flowers and a Château St. Robert bottle.

Our next stop was Château Soussac (in the picture below), where we learned of a local fete (festival). It was a great insight to the local culture and people.

The party began with men/boys in stilts and women/girls dancing. Quite a sight.




This sheep was surprisingly calm through this process. The sheered wool went to the numerous kids who played with it for about 5 minutes, after which it ended up on the ground.

Only Tim and I tried the escargot, but it was quite tasty. If you haven’t tried it before, I highly recommend it. It’s a food that takes on the flavor of whatever sauce covers it (similar to chicken, although it tastes nothing like poultry).

Here is Tom enjoying the feast.

The next spectacle was the dogs who herd geese.

These geese moved as a pack.

We thoroughly enjoyed our evening delving into this quaint village.

Here are a few images of the whole basis for this trip … biking.
We felt that it was only fitting to take a bike ride and have a picnic. It was delicious.

This sculpted hedge was on top of a rond-pont (traffic circle). Although the town is known as a bike town and we saw many bikers to re-enforce that idea, as we stood here taking the picture, there were at least three people who honked at us. Perhaps they were just wishing us well, but apparently not many people take pictures next to this living bicycle.

One day the girls opted for a shopping/relaxing day. So, we decided to … punish ourselves. We rode our bikes from one side of the Bordeaux region (Gironde) to the other. About 125 kilometers. It was a very pretty ride and relatively flat. This is the before picture.

Just over halfway through our ride we traversed Bordeaux. We found traveling via bicycle in the city was better than using a car. In fact, we even had people honk and wave at us. Cycling is a much bigger deal in France.
Here you can see the pretty fountain in the middle of the city. The mist came and is (I believe) representative of the mist that enables the Noble Rot.

It was also refreshingly cool.

This is one of the Chateaux in Medoc. Whoever said there is no money/prestige in Bordeaux wine making, has never seen these chateaux. There were dozens just like this one.

On our final day, we took a short drive over to the famous wine village of St. Emilion. We arrived in time to take part in the Fetes de Printemps (or the festival of spring). This is where many of the local winemakers come to show off their products. It seemed to us that this was as much for other wine makers as it was for tourists.

This is the villagescape. The main focal point is the monolithic church that was begun in the 8th century. It’s amazing to see, and the most impressive fact is that it was carved out of the limestone cliff.

Here Tim’s wide angle lens gives a better view of the church. We toured the inside as well, but unfortunately, they did not allow cameras. However, an entire church cathedral carved out of the solid stone (hence monolithic) is a very impressive engineering feat … all the more so because it’s from the Middle Ages. The only minor mistake the monks made was that the steeple built above ground was slightly off center. Unfortunately, that meant that the giant columns underground meant to support the weight of the bell tower weren’t properly placed. This caused about 2 decades of concern once French engineers realized that cracks were forming in the foundation. The eventual solution was to install giant steel girders around the vulnerable columns. It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it is apparently sufficient to continue to hold the weight.

Since we heard so much about this bell tower while we toured the underground, we decided to climb it and see what all the hype was about. It certainly afforded majestic views of the countryside and village.


This is the King’s Tower, the second most famous tower in the village.

Tom and the ladies…



This final image is not mine. It’s a representation of the cave painting we saw nearby. In fact, these paintings are the oldest recorded cave paintings in the world. The first cave we visited, Grotte de Fonte de Gaume, has this image on the cave wall and is the last Stone Age era cave painting still open to the public. It was incredible to walk into a cave, and see something our ancestors created BEFORE the last ice age (13,000 years ago). Unfortunately, since the pigment is not carbon based, precise dating is difficult. However, the calcium carbonate that covers parts of the painting can be dated to the last ice age. So, we know that the paintings are at least that old. Combined with other archeological found at this sight and others nearby, the estimate that the actual age of the painting is more like 17,000 years old. Sadly, the most magnificent cave painting at Lascaux is closed to the public. From the time it was discovered in the 1940s until the 1960s when it was closed to the public, it deteriorated at an alarming rate. So, to remedy that problem, French engineers and painters created an exact replica of the most stunning parts and built it into the ground about 200 meters away. Although the replica is quite stunning it didn’t compare to the real paintings we saw at Fonte de Gaume. We hope that at least that cave stays open for a long time to come.

Bordeaux has a lot to offer and we really enjoyed our time there. Since we didn’t have high hopes for the sights, we were very pleasantly surprised. Spending time with our good friends Tom, Tim and Dori was the highlight though.
We look forward to another adventure with them soon.
So, until then…
–Jim