Category: Trips

OK, on to the rest of our California adventure. We went to the winery that Julie and Mike recommended: Benzinger Estate. Although the Benzinger family was very popular in an earlier time, they have down-sized to a small, quality focused operation. They use a closed system to produce their wine. It’s very organic and quite refreshing to see. So, when we finally got to the barrels and tasting, it was with full appreciation of the process that we sampled their delicious product.

Julie and Mike gave us their special access passes that enabled us to try Benzinger’s best wine, It was certainly worth it. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about California wine before, but suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality.

After our time in Sonoma (where we also celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary), we drove south along Big Sur. It was an epic drive, as anyone who has done it can attest. Although we did the drive in a single day, we were able to stop a number of times and enjoy the journey.

Several stops were along 17 Mile Drive around and through Pebble Beach. If you look closely, you can see the lone cypress in the background.

The coast along the whole route was gorgeous.

Anna caught me trying to get an image of the seal island. It’s funny, I recalled stopping at the same place as a kid. Interesting what you remember.

The image I was taking.

There were seals all over! Very cute and playful.

Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park has a dramatic waterfall we stopped to admire (again on Julie/Mike’s recommendation). A worthy stop and view.

The same waterfalls.

The other side of the falls’ overlook.

A ground squirrel.

Some bi-valves waiting for water to return with the tide.

At the end of our Big Sur drive we came upon a series of beaches with Elephant Seals. These massive animals were fascinating to watch. We spent quite a while admiring these enormous creatures.

These mammals spend 8-10 months a year in the open ocean. The remainder of the time, they can be found in places like this beach.

December to March is the time where males bluster and flight for dominance and ultimately, males and females court and mate.

These animals were also very gassy.

A happy family. There are nearly 15,000 in the area we visited (although we only saw a fraction of that population).

A couple males fighting. These guys can not only spar with ferocity, but also dive to a depth nearly a mile deep and hold their breath for a couple hours. Those are some impressive skills.

A pelican enjoying the benefits of the ground effect.

The sunset was amazing. We were on a bluff overlooking the ocean with Julie and Mike near their home. It was a great afternoon and evening.

The coast bathed in the same sunset light.

That concludes our trip to California. What a great place and we really enjoyed spending more quality time with Julie and Mike. We look forward to seeing them again soon.
Next up will be a couple posts of our time in Washington DC this year. I’ve selected some images that are my favorites from the last few months here.
Finally, I will add a few more posts of our last trip. We took a “baby-moon” down to Florida with some time in Key West, then a cruise over to central America. But, first, back to Washington…
–Jim

I know it has again been too long since my last post. No excuses, but we’ve been finishing up our language classes in DC and are now en route to our new home in France. However, I would like to catch you up with our trip over the holidays. We spent a week in Wisconsin with friends and family, then flew out to San Francisco and drove down to Los Angeles to celebrate New Year’s with Julie and Mike. Before I get too far in the story, here are the images to accompany it:

The Golden Gate Bridge made a spectacular appearance for us.

As you might expect, we hopped on the only moving national landmark … the SF trolley.

The hills are as steep as I remember from childhood trips, but there were not nearly as many as I thought.

We also made the obligatory stop on Lombard Avenue to witness one of the curviest roads in the world. Me being me, I ignored the fact that I was sitting in an intersection.

Interesting sign, huh?

Someone was kind enough to take our picture.

This battleship was a majestic foreground to Alcatraz Island.

The Buena Vista bar on Hyde Street had authentic Irish coffees that were delicious. The process was an art form.



As we walked toward Fisherman’s Wharf, we hopped on a small charter boat to tour the bay.

She looks like a lucky lady, but I don’t know if I’d push my luck in a storm with her…

The boat took us out around the old maximum security prison, Alcatraz, underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and back to the wharf. The next few images are all of the Golden Gate Bridge and our little craft.




We also had a chance to tour this WWII submarine, the USS Pampanito. It was built in late 1943 and completed 6 combat patrols, including a couple near our old home in Guam.

The red lights kept night vision, and avoided using white light during critical missions.

Anna’s inspecting the map … ensuring we were on the right course.

Torpedo tubes loaded.

We again headed out to Alcatraz Island. This time, we opted to stop and tour the facility. Its infamy lives on today. It began as a military fort in the civil war, then a military prison and was closed as a federal prison in 1963 (it was cost prohibitive). When it became excess land, a group of Native American’s moved out to the island in order to occupy it. Their rationale was that by treaty in 1868, all excess land should be returned to them. However, the government didn’t want to let the island go, and a lengthy dispute ensued. Eventually, the island was turned into a national park. When you visit the island, there are remnants of all phases of the life on the island.


This magazine (one I enjoy reading from time to time) is representative of an inmate’s cell in the 1960s.

This is the view of the cell as it looked one night in June 1962. There were four prisoners who attempted to escape the purportedly inescapable Alcatraz. Of those four, three (Frank Morris and brothers Clarence and John Anglin) were able to get out of their cells and use a homemade life raft to attempt the impossible. The dummy in the bed gave them a little longer head start. The vent in the back is where the men were able to get out. Then, they proceeded into the wall, and eventually off the island.

Here is the back side of the wall where Frank, Clarence and John all worked their way out.

The San Francisco skyline.

Muir woods is the home to some of the world’s largest trees, the California Redwood. Not only are these trees massive, but also ancient. Some are thousands of years old. It’s humbling to walk among them.


We walked among the giants with our friend Gabriele.
These next images are again of the Golden Gate Bridge … this time at night.




This is the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland.

That finished our time in San Fran. Next we headed to the wine country in Sonoma County for a couple days, then down Big Sur to meet Julie and Mike in Los Angeles.
Those images and the story of that adventure will be in the next post. Until then…
–Jim

Once we came home from Emma and Scott’s wedding in August, we packed up the house and moved back to the States in September (for a little while at least). We headed to the Washington D.C. area for our intensive French language class.
Soon after we got here, we learned there was a little one on the way. Nevertheless, we wanted to make the most of our time in the US, or as the French say we could profiter. So, we headed up to the great American city, New York .. twice. The first was over Columbus Day weekend and again over Martin Luther King Jr weekend. This post is a melange of the images from those trips.

Although this image is from our second trip, the Guggenheim Art Museum is an architectural masterpiece. Designed by a Wisconsin son, Frank Lloyd Wright, it soars out of 5th Avenue. It’s my favorite piece by the man who was named best American Architect by the American Institute of Architects.

Central Park is a great place to take a stroll.

Anna snuck up behind me…

We also happened upon a parade during Columbus Day Weekend. These women represented Uruguay.



It takes a lot to control the huge volume of traffic in the city. New York’s finest were doing a great job.

Love was in the air … and on the street.

Radio City is always fun to see.

Times Square always seems to be a-buzz with activity.

On both trips we had the opportunity to meet up with our friends John and Gee. They joined us for a Broadway show and we joined them for a delicious brunch and trendy market. Each meeting is accentuated by great conversation. We look forward to hosting them in France.

John captured this image for us.

After the show (In the Heights … which, by the way, we HIGHLY recommend) we went to 30 Rockefeller Plaza to check out the skating rink.

The fountains are also pretty nice at 30 Rock.

The Top of the Rock had an amazing view and inspires an Empire State of Mind.

Central Park at night is like a void in the cityscape. The George Washington Bridge in the background.

Times Square was aglow.


No, we didn’t go back for another safari. This is in the New York Natural History Museum.

The exhibit on Native American nations was very well done. This canoe was one of my favorites.

The life size blue whale was also unique.

Or a chimp,

I always love seeing gems. Anna … not quite as much, but doesn’t mind receiving them.

A star sapphire.

Another image of the home of the Rockettes.

I had forgotten how amazing the Metropolitan Museum of Art was. We began the visit with some wine, cheese, classical music and finished with a phenomenal collection of art from around the world.




The hall of statues was full of classical and modern masterpieces alike.

The mighty Perseus.


The Guggenheim again.

Rockefeller Plaza was great when shrouded by clouds.
So, that covers our trips to New York City. We really enjoyed our time there and look forward to making it back soon for more show, museums and city life.
Until the next adventure…
–Jim

Back in August we also made a trip to Wisconsin when Anna’s sister Emma married Scott. It was a beautiful wedding and we really enjoyed being with the family. It was fitting for a return. The summer before my sister, Julie, and Michael were married. The day after their wedding, I deployed. Now, three weeks after I returned, we were back in Wisconsin for another wedding. Next summer, we’ll be back for my Cousin Chad and Andrea’s wedding with a new baby boy (if all goes well).
Now, on to the Wisconsin trip.
We began with Emma and Scott rehearsal.


Getting ready for the real deal.

Anna and Susan at the rehearsal dinner.

My beautiful bride.

Susan also has strength and beauty to match a great smile.

Billy Mitchell (or just Will) was a great ring bearer.

The church seemed like a concert when they dimmed the lights and put a spot light on the happy couple.

The happy couple.


The best part of the ceremony (for them at least!).

Just like in rehearsal.

Dad Miller looking happy and stoic at the same time. He has the amazing ability to do that on a regular basis.

Pat looking beautiful as usual. She identifies with the wicked witch, but I don’t get that. 🙂

Emma’s friend Liz, who is also Pat and Tom’s daughter. I loved the way the light caught her eye.

All 6 sisters together.

The lovely bride.

Mom Miller looking great as usual.

Scott with the girls.

I also got to hang out with two gorgeous women.

Maroly and Juan, who Anna and I had a blast hanging out with. Next time we are in Mexico City, we look forward to seeing them.

I recognize that tattoo from somewhere.

Dancing was so much fun.

Mom and Mike were certainly enjoying themselves.

The next morning, we all gathered at the Miller house for the present opening. This image is quintessential Kira.

A classic Emma look.

Will with his big blue eyes.

Sarah was the diligent note taker to keep track of all that stuff…
It was a great opportunity to come home and celebrate a special event with our family and friends. Until the next one…
–Jim

OK, so I know it’s been WAAAY too long since I last posted. I wish I had a good excuse, but for some reason I just couldn’t finish a post.
Nevertheless, I’ve still been making images and decided to finally catch up. To begin, I’ll continue with the Greek post.
So, where did I leave off? Ahh yes, Julie and Mike finished their Mediterranean cruise and met us in Athens.

These soldiers are part of the Presidential Guard of the Hellenic Army. Here they are performing a changing of the guard at the Greek Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Dress right, dress! Or, the Greek equivalent.

Carrying their M-1 carbines.

I saw this cutie in the crowd, do I had to make her image.

Sometimes it takes laying in the street about to be marched over to find an interesting angle.

This is Hadrian’s Arch, juxtaposed with the modern Athens through it.

The other side.

Temple of Hephaestus – Thission. Hephaestus is the god of fire and metal. It’s interesting that although this temple was begun before the Parthenon, but not finished until after.

Ahh, the Parthenon. A building that needs very little introduction.

The Porch of the Caryatids on the Erechteum. This sacred sight was built around the time of the The Peloponnesian War, just before 400 B.C.

Anna and I on the acropolis.

Julie and Mike at the same place.

The pediments are glaringly missing on the Parthenon. You may be aware of the controversy surrounding their removal in the early 19th century. Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire shipped them back to Britain and they are now on display in the British museum. In the new Acropolis museum, the pediments are explained and shown in detail. If the piece is missing, the museum indicates it’s location. The visual impact was profound. Although we really enjoyed seeing the Elgin collection in London, it would have been nice to see them in Athens. But, we’ll leave that decision to the courts.

Unfortunately, the Temple of Zeus is nearly completely destroyed. When constructed it held a gigantic statue of its namesake, considered by many as a wonder of the ancient world. Today, very little is left, but with a little imagination, one can still see the mighty god reposing in his temple.

We also stopped by the Theatre of Dionysus, god of wine and fertility (perhaps a contributing factor to Anna’s pregnancy??). Although it’s not in the best condition, the Greek government recently announced that a partial restoration would commence shortly. Also, most of what is visible is from the time of Roman emperor Nero when gladiator contests were hosted here.

In fact, Julie and Mike were so excited about the gladiators, they could almost see them!

Yet another view back to the Parthenon. A fact we learned from our good friends Dan and Rachael is that Nashville has an exact replica of this building. When we visited Dan and Rachael in Nashville, they drove us to it. and to our surprise … there it was, right in the middle of the Country Music Capital of the World, (almost) just as the ancient Greeks built it.

We also enjoyed the food, wine and dancing of the culture.

The Five Star Metaxa was also tasty. It’s a Greek type of brandy.

Night on the acropolis.

The subway was safe, efficient and fast to take us back to our hotel.
It was a great time and best of all a rare opportunity to hang out with Julie and Mike. We loved the opportunity to tour one of the most historic sights in the world with my sister and brother.
Until the next adventure… (this time I promise to publish faster!)
–Jim

OK, so, after a long delay, our website is functional again. My apologies if anyone was having difficulty accessing the site. We has some problems when our server switched platforms (meaning — the site got really messed up). Thanks to our good friend Dan (and his friend who did most of the work), our site is functional again. And, as such, we have a number of posts to catch up on. This will be the first of two posts on our trip to Greece from back in August. Then, we’ll post on a trip to Wisconsin, some images from here in Washington DC and a weekend trip to New York City.
Before I get into the post, we have some BIG NEWS TO SHARE: ANNA IS PREGNANT! We’re very excited. We’ll post more as things progress, but the baby is due in June, which will be after we move to France. So, we get to experience French health care. 🙂
Now back to Greece. It was a great trip and somewhere we’d wanted to go for years. We finally made it for a short visit. We began by exploring Athens and the islands nearby. So, here are the images.

This adorable boat was on the island of Poros. We took a speedy hydrofoil boat to get to these other islands. The hydrofoils are a great way to travel, but we realized that the are bumpier than expected.

Anna by her boat.

The harbor in Poros.

All the cats we saw looked very Egyptian with a smaller head and large ears.

The weather and temperature were perfect.

The whitewashed buildings with blue doors and trim is very Mediterranean. It reminded me of Sidi Bu Said in Tunisia, but I’m not sure which was decorated first.

As usual, we found a flower to take a picture of. 🙂

Who wouldn’t want to live here??

Next stop for the day was the island of Hydra. There were no cars on the island, and the white and blue adornment wasn’t as prevalent. It was a great place to just chill (exactly what we needed for our trip to Greece). We went swimming in the azure waters, had a few meals in outstanding restaurants, then headed back to the Athens metropolis.


This picture isn’t terribly unique but I really like the color.


This is our friend Reut, who we met in Athens.
These next images are from our exploration of the museums in Athens. As you might expect, they have a wealth of artifacts and information. It was fascinating.

The guy on the right is Paris from Greek mythology. He is famous for the apple you can see him reaching for (or holding … depending on how you look at it). Perhaps the most famous role is his elopement with Helen of Troy …. which supposedly started the Trojan War.

Athena, goddess of wisdom and virgin patron of Athens.




OK, that covers the first half of the trip.
Until the next post…
–Jim

We finally made it to the final month, July, which marked the arrival of our replacements. So, we had a very intense few weeks trying to educate the new engineers on everything they needed to know to be successful. Perhaps the most important task was getting the engineers out to all our project sites. That was something our team didn’t get to do, so it was my top priority during the transition.

This boy was very curious to see what we were doing … inspecting one of our road projects.

As usual, southern Kapisa was a wealth of interesting sites and people.

No, this is not India, but there were cows roaming the market.

This well is very typical of the wells throughout the province. Clean drinking water was a priority, and unfortunately not enough people have access.

Jon took the opportunity while we were speaking to the contractor to speak to this group of kids. He was doing a little education and giving out small tokens (pens and paper) to the kids.

These guys were helping on one of our school projects.

Joel was being forceful with this contractor to ensure he made necessary changes to the school facility.

As usual, the valley was beautiful.

The road we’re building here will enable all forms of transportation.

Same on this road.

July was also the time to harvest the winter wheat. As you can see, they collect the wheat by hand (with a sickle), but often have a mechanical thresher.

These kids had never seen a Frisbee before, but once we showed them how to play with it, they were quite excited.

This was another one of our projects. We helped refurbish the main traffic circle in the district bazaar. Joel had the good idea to add a welcome sign. We also added another solar light. These lights stay on all night and help provide security to the shop keepers. In addition to this project, we also built a couple public restrooms for people using the bazaar, and refurnished the main mosque. These projects, while not very expensive, will provide a little improvement to the quality of life to the people who live and work in the area. Again, we target projects that are developed and prioritized by the people of the area.

The fruit of Afghanistan is absolutely delicious. Personally, my favorite are pomegranates from TagAb, and second are the Afghan mangoes. The mangoes are a little smaller than traditional mangoes, and yellow. And third, are watermelons like the ones this girl is carrying.

This is another photogenic worker on a school project.
So, that concludes my images from Afghanistan. It was an amazing year, filled with hardship and turmoil. But, also left me with hope for the future. The people, government and construction companies are all working toward a better Afghanistan. There is much work to be done and all aspects of the country need improvement. Nonetheless, I believe that we are on the right track. Development of infrastructure, in concert with improved security by Afghan security forces will spur economic and commercial growth, thereby improving the efficacy of the rule of law. Finally, these things all aid in increasing people’s faith in the ability of the government to help them. Once this happens, we as a coalition will be able to pull back and let Afghanistan continue on its path with progressively less international support.
So, my adventure in Afghanistan has come to an end. Now, I get the opportunity to return to Germany and my Anna. I can’t wait!
Until the next adventure…
–Jim

On my final trip to southern Kapisa, we again stopped at the dam. This time, the water was flowing in full force.

Our contractor told us that the water is turned off for a few minutes each week, so that people could gather (not really catch) fish.


Here are the road workers picking out large rocks for the sub-base on the asphalt road. Progress is slow, but mostly steady.

Another view of the water, complete with rainbow.

This is construction of a culvert. The bad news was the quality was bad. The good news was the contractor identified the deficiencies himself and made corrections.

For some of the guys, this was their last mission outside the wire. So, near the end, they were understandably excited.

After we finished our inspection of southern Kapisa, we went to Kabul. While there, I had the opportunity to meet Mitch and Jen. Mitch had just been selected for promotion and had to re-enlist. I was honored that he asked me to perform the ceremony.

It was reminiscent of Guam, when he asked me to perform the same ceremony the last time he was promoted.

Next stop was out to Western Parwan. However, instead of a long drive, it was a short flight.

This is one of the district centers we are building. This complex will house the sub-governor and his staff.

Yeah, I agree, this construction is BAD!

The green valley is a sharp contrast to the austere mountains.

This walled fortress housed one or several families and is known as a qalat.

Next stop for the day was a school. Here you can see our ride and the mountains that surround the school. It was over 9,000 feet, and the altitude was noticeable with all the gear we were carrying.

Although plain, this school will enable two villages to have a building to hold classes in.

You can see we attracted a crowd very quickly.

Our interpreter is ethnically Hazara, as are the people in the area. So, he felt a strong affinity and even gave them a little money out of his own pocket.

The kids loved the pens. This girl immediately tested it on her hand.

This girl had very striking eyes, don’t you think?

Perhaps influence from Alexander the Great’s army?? I’m not sure, but there seems to be strong evidence of Caucasian influence.

A piece of grass makes fine dental floss.

This is one village I felt very safe in. The people were very appreciative that we built the school and were pleased that we made the trip all the way out to come check on it.
That was my final trip in June, but July marked the arrival of the replacement team and our final month in Afghanistan. Although we are right in the middle of construction season, it was nearly time to pass our projects on to a new team. Before we did that though, there was much work to do.
–Jim