Log/Pic 77 New York & Paintball

So December started with a trip to the big apple with the Explorations crew. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Monet had a water lilly display and Tim Burton had a wicked creepy display.

Saw Donald...not

Would not be Christmas without a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Rockefeller Center with

Bill & Jill & the youths

Nothing says Christmas like a friendly game of paintball. Also with the students and staff of Explorations.

Me and Jeff in camo.

We played until dark.

Log/Pic 76 Larry the Cable Guy & NY

Log/Pics 75 Turtles & Book

So this fall I missed out on my annual motorcycle foliage trip and had to settle for kayaking foliage. This turtle-whose colors matched the leaves-was caught on camera exercising.
Above: left leg lifts
Below: right leg lifts

Followed by a series of push-ups!

Last year travel writer Doug Lansky bought the rights to one of my travel photos. This year he included it in his latest book. Yeah!

Log/Pic 74 TVAA Art Show

Above is the article in the Southwick Suffield News about an art show I was in. I'm on the right with my Jungle hat,

So here I am at the Tobacco Valley Artist Association Art Show.

It was their seventh annual show.

I had space number seven.

I sold seven photos.

Enfield Public Library asked me to put up a nature display in their community center.

I was happy to oblige.

Log/Pic 73 Spain/Canary Islands, Morocco & Portugal

Above is me in a sea cave in La Gomera

So after a day in Madrid, we headed out to the Canary Islands. We started in Fuertoventura and stayed in the rural area of Villaverde at this 200 year-old hacienda.

View from within a cave on Tindaya Mountain

Bread-man pulling fresh bread from an outdoor stone stove
Bread-woman selling fresh baked bread to us

Great kite-surfing beaches. Below is a nude beach.

Took a ferry over to Lanzanote...

... to see the volcano.
Then to La Gomera to see the sea caves (1st photo)...

...and plush forests

After a week there, we flew to Malaga, Spain and then on to Gibralter-to see the rock.
From there we drove to the southern tip and took a ferry over to Morocco.

Venders everywhere
Lisa's first camel ride-in Africa-with a seperated collar bone.

Took time for some Moroccan music

Drove the rest of the southern coast of Spain and up to Seville.

Saw Christopher Columbus's Tombinside St. Mark's Church...

...and also his monument in a nearby park next to a palace.

We crossed over into Portugal and saw this graveyard within a castle.

The beaches along the southern coast, the Algarves, was my favorite part of this country. I was not the only one apparently because it was way overcrowded. After we made it to the end of the southern coast- spending two nights sleeping in the compact rental car- we drove up the east coast and then headed inland visiting several other little towns along the way.

Log/Pic 72 Switzerland & Italy

I went to Vatican City to sit through a blessing with the pope. But before that I went to the Vatican museum and spent a good long time in the Sistine Chapel. But first I...

... traveled to basel, Switzerland to see my friends Anneka and Patrick. I had met them while sailing around the Galapagos Islands and we stayed together for awhile after our cruise was over. I had not seen them in three years-and I had never seen their three week old baby, Lynn.

Switzerland was a blast and my friends were awesome hosts. They took us to Lucern where we took a boat on a pristine Lake and then got on this cog train up the mountain.

View from above

View from the gondola on the way down

We crossed over to Germany to get the German train to Schaffhousen and Newhausen to see Rhinefalls. Back in Basel we would drift three kilometers down the Rhine River.

Our hosts took us horseback riding...Englsh style. Just before our second run, Lisa got bucked off and separated her collarbone.

Rome, Italy was next. Here the Roman coliseum.

Inside

The Pantheon

To Pisa to see the leaning tower

(see website for this photo)
Five degree tilt

Then to Venice

Gondolas

Next I went to Bolzano, Italy to see the 5000 year old Iceman.
Then back to Switzerland. From St. Moritz we took the Glacier Express-an eleven hour train ride through the Swiss Alps. I arrived in Zermatt and did some hiking along the Abenteur Gorner Gorge (shown below).

More hiking through the little Swiss villages

But the real reason for this stop was to see the famous Matterhorn.