House Progress

Hi All!
The last several posts were about our vacation but that doesn't mean that's all we've been doing. We volunteered at the Formula 1 race in Austin again, we've harvested the last crops of the year out of our garden and we've been working on what we afffectionately call "the crack house" that is on our property in order to get it in shape to be rented.

And of course we've been working on our house. The master bathroom is just about complete now and we have finished the floor in the kitchen. Below are some pictures to catch you up.

Susan holding the 6.5 pound sweet potato from our garden

Subfloor down and the reclaimed wood starting to be put in place

All the wood is down

The kitchen floor is finished!

Grady turned a cabinet we bought into a vanity and made
the frame for the mirror. Bathroom done! Except for some baseboards.

That's all for now.
Take care.
Brian

Vacation - Final Chapter

Finally, the third and final chapter of our vacation. When we last left you we were in Athens, Greece. On Monday, September 16 we flew from Athens to Paris, with a one hour layover in Madrid. We had a one hour layover however, our luggage spent the night.

After spending a few hours trying to arrange to get our luggage delivered, we got to our hotel for about five hours of sleep before catching a train the following morning to Macon. In Macon we met up with Kent and Heather- friends we met in the Bahamas and with whom we watched the solar eclipse back in 2017.

Kent and Heather have a canal boat in France and had invited us to visit on the way home from Greece. Or maybe we invited ourselves, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, we spent the good part of four days on their boat on the Saone River. We started in Macon and moved up the river to La Truchere where we spent the first night. Wednesday we stopped in Tournus for lunch and sightseeing before moving on to Chalon-sur-Saone that afternoon. When we arrived at the marina in Chalon-sur-Saone we met back up with our luggage. Hooray!

Thursday Kent had rented a car so we headed out see (and taste) some of Bourgogne (Burgundy). Our first stop was a wine co-op in Buxy where we tasted several wines from small vinyards in the area. From there we found a boulangerie where we got some sandwiches to go before stopping at the Chateau de Rully for a picnic lunch.  We had one more wine tasting scheduled for later in the day so we drove around amongst the vinyards and stopped to watch two different techniques for harvesting grapes.  Our last wine tasting was at Feuillat-Juillot in Montagny. Camille was our sommelier and is the daughter of the owner. As an aside, since we met her, she ran the New York City Marathon in 3 hours and 6 minutes. It probably goes without saying, but the wines were fantastic and our pallets don't do it justice.

All in all, we had a great time, ate great food, and thoroughly enjoyed France. Thanks to our hosts Kent and Heather for showing us their France. If anyone is interested in chartering a canal boat and traveling around the rivers of France, Heather has written a practical guide you'll want to read. You can find it at... https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-European-Canal-Charters/dp/1495468038

Now for some pictures.

Kent and Heather's canal boat, Apres Ski

Not many but an occasional barge

Our first lock, where Heather went ashore, knocked on the door
of the lock master's house and then helped him open and close the gates

Chateau de Rully

Brian and Susan after our picnic lunch

Kent and Heather

Kent found some grapes that had been missed. Yummy!

Grapes for table wine can be harvested by machine

Better quality wines require the grapes by harvested by hand

Domaine Feuillat-Juillot

Chalone-sur-Saone

Our route on the Saone

That's all for now. Take care.

Brian

Vacation Part Two

Hi All,
I'm finally getting around to posting about the second part of our "vacation". After our three days in Athens we finally got to the real reason for our trip to Greece, sailing around the Greek Islands. The Saronic Islands to be exact.

When we first discussed chartering a boat with Jay and Carol we discussed whether we should get a local captain or not. Having someone that spoke Greek and would know where the best places to go swung us over to having a captain. Knowing what we know now, we're glad we had a local captain. More on that later.

Saturday was our first day on the boat, Ageri. After ordering food, drink and other items and having them delivered, we pulled away from the dock around 6:00 PM. Leaving this late would not normally be an option as we didn't drop anchor until 10:00 PM that night. We anchored in a cove / small bay off the island of Aegina.

Sunday morning we moved to a snorkeling and swimming spot of the island of Moni. Moni is known for the wild peacocks that live there. I never did see them but I sure heard them. They were quiet until disaster struck. I was the last one of us back to the boat from snorkeling and I noticed some smoke towards shore but couldn't really see what was going on until I was back on our boat. There were a dozen or so boats anchored around us. A sailboat that was anchored closer to shore was on fire. The peacocks were screaming and it sounded like people screaming "get off the boat!"  There were indeed some people still on the boat when the flames were already visible on deck. They got off and in a few minutes the boat was fully engulfed in flames. It was a sad, sad sight to see that boat burn down. We stopped one more time to snorkel on the way to Poros, where we spent the night.

Our days pretty much consisted of the following... Wake up and have breakfast on the boat. Leave the dock. Mostly motor as there was not much wind most days. Stop somewhere to snorkel and have lunch. Move on to the island where we're going to spend the night, usually arriving early afternoon. Spend some time walking around town, checking out the sites and just enjoying the beautiful towns. Eating an early dinner (early for Greece where dinner is usually eaten around 10:00 PM) at one of the many small cafes with tables along the seawall. Head back to the boat, go to bed and then get up the next morning and do it all again. If it sounds like I'm complaing about this agenda, you are mistaken. It was great.

Sunday we were in Poros, Monday in Ermioni, Tuesday in Spetses, Wednesday in Hydra, Thursday in Methana, and Friday night back in Athens.

Docking. Docking in Greece is, from what I can tell, alway stern to. That is, the stern (back of the boat) is tied up to the pier. Sounds easier than it really is. Especially in Hydra. The technique is to drop your anchor about 100 yards from the pier and then back up to within a foot or two of the pier. Someone will jump off the boat onto the pier if there isn't someone wandering by to catch your lines. Two lines are run from the stern to the dock and back to the boat.  Then there is a few adjustments getting the lines just the right length and tension on the anchor to keep us from hitting the pier. Then there is Hydra, a very popular destination with very little space at the pier. The first folks to get there tie up stern to to the pier. Then when the pier is full, the next bunch of folks tie up to the first line of boats. Then the third line of boats tie up to the second line of boats. Getting in isn't too bad, but getting out can be a pain and you'd better have some patience. It's pretty much just chaos with people yelling at each other and from there it gets worse when anchor lines get wrapped around each other. This is when the decision to have a local captain ranks as one of the most brilliant decisions we've ever made.

On Friday, after our stop for snorkeling and lunch, we headed back to Athens. This is when the wind started to blow. And did it ever! We had a 50 knot wind right on our nose all the way back to Athens. At one point we were running along the shore of an island where it was obvious we could get out and walk faster than the boat. We did finally make it back to Athens and spent the night in the marina there. Saturday morning Jay and Carol headed to the airport and we spent a couple more days in Athens before moving on to part three of our vacation.

I'm tired of typing now. Let's get on to the pictures...

Our Captain, Captain Lik

Our Route

One of the many churches we saw on the islands

Jay and Carol in front of a statue of Laskarina Bouboulina. She was a naval commander and heroine
of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. 

Susan and in the background notice three lines of sailboat tied up to the pier. Our
Captain said it isn't uncommon for them to be four deep. 

In Hydra

A fisherman on Methana

Changing of the guard at the Greek Parliment in Athens

Happened upon a car show in Athens

Good bye Athens and the Acropolis

That's all for now.
Take care.
Brian

Vacation

When you are kinda sorta retired, is it called a vacation when you travel?  A friend asked me that question and I'm not sure of the answer. But anyway, we've been on a trip for the last three weeks and I'm going to call it a vacation. There are three distinct parts of our trip so I'll post them separately.

Part One - Athens, Greece with our friends Jay and Carol.

We met up with Jay and Carol at a VRBO in Athens on Tuesday, September 3. We spent the next three days touring  Athens and Corinth. In a word, wow! We pretty much liked everything about Athens. We liked the city, the people, the sights and the food. Oh boy, did we ever like the food!

Besides the various historic sites we visited, we had an olive oil tasting (Greece makes the best olive oil.  Just ask a Greek if you don't believe me), we visited a winery and had a tasting there (ended up leaving with 14 bottles of Greek wine) and had an excellent meal at a place in the country you would never find if a local didn't take you there.  We had been told Greeks like to eat meat. They do and so did we.

Now for some pictures...

Temple of Olympian Zeus

Acropolis as seen from Temple of Zeus

Jay and Carol at Temple of Zeus

Panathenaic Stadium has hosted several Olympics. More importantly, the stadium is where the Olympic flame starts on its journey to the nation hosting that year’s athletic contests.  The current structure was restored in the 19th century for the first modern version of the Olympics Games after centuries of disuse. Panathenaic Stadium seats 50,000 spectators and is the largest stadium in the world made entirely of marble.

View of Athens from Mount Lycabettus

View of Athens and Acropolis from Mount Lycabettus

Erechtheum - One of the temples on top of the Acropolis

Parthenon - Most recognized temple on top of the Acropolis

View of Temple of Zeus from Acropolis

Odeon of Herodes Atticus - Music venue that seats 6,000, built at the base
of the Acropolis in 161

Temple of Asklepios - Greek god of health and well-being

Temple of Apollo in Ancient Corinth

That's it for now. Take care.

Brian

Plywood countertops... Gone!

Hi All,
Hope this finds you well. With visits from grandkids, helping neighbors, life in general and the fact it's just plain hot, we haven't made much progress of late. But that's not to say there hasn't been some.

The big news is the plywood countertops in the kitchen are finally history. It's another one of those projects where we didn't really know what we were doing so we spent more time reading, youtube-ing, and discussing approaches than we did actually doing the countertops. Some time ago we decided to do concrete and they are finally in. Some refinement may still come. First was the island bar top that was poured in a form and then flipped over and put in place (with the help of our friend Tony).  The rest were poured in place.

Susan woking on the form for island bar top

The island countertop framed up and the bar top in place

The last and biggest piece poured

We like the look of the chiseled edge and it hides some imperfections

The garden was a bigger success than last year. But there is still room for improvement.

The haul for a couple of days

Our friend and neighbor Stan came across some honey bees that had taken up residence in a water meter in town. Susan has kept bees before and I was interested so we got together some beekeeping stuff and went and got them and upgraded them to a better neighborhood, next to our garden. They only stayed a few days and then moved on. We may well try again in the spring.

That's Brian suited up and gently moving comb and bees 

Over a year ago we bought a 1955 model 600 Ford tractor. I posted pictures of it at the time. Sad to say it just wouldn't cut it. Pun intended. It's neat and it runs well but it just doesn't have the power to mow what we need it to mow. And not having a front end loader and bucket was a shortcoming as well. So we bit the bullet and bought another tractor, one that should last us forever. And it has shade, power steering and a comfortable seat!

2014 New Holland 55HP

I believe that covers it for now. Take care!

Brian