The dreaded travelogue: Chamonix, France

This is our third trip to Chamonix, or first in 2011 as we hiked one-half of the Tour de Mont Blanc*. We came here again in 2016, prior to taking on the Swiss Haute Route (which we completed over a two year period). This year we are here with the freedom of a vehicle, not having to walk everywhere. That said, the vehicle has been sitting in the hotel parking lot for three days now.

We could have driven to Cascade de Dard, a local waterfall. Instead we opted to walk up the thousand feet, our total day covering nine miles. There was a time when such a hike was a small thing, but after ankle surgery and a long period of relative inactivity, it was tough. The ankle hurts at the end of each day, but the next day feels new. It also counts against us that we are in our seventies.

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A couple of useful outdoor programs

While we travel and hike, we have come across some amazing and free programs that we use regularly. The first is called Seek, put out by iNaturalist. It is available for free at the Apple App Store.

Seek has many uses, but we primarily use it to identify plants. We merely hold the iPhone camera over the plant, whether leaf or flower. It quickly identifies it, giving us the common name, though on occasion it offers only the Latin name.

It does not matter whether you live in a large city or rural area, or as we have discovered if you are in a foreign country. Its database is so massive that if knows every plant and every subspecies. It is truly a wonder to behold. When stumped, it offers “dicot” or “monocot”.

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Americans in Paris

We just spent five days in Paris, walking 32 miles, visiting four museums and Monet’s home. We saw thousands of people. We ate in non-Michelin rated restaurants and walked the streets of various Parisian districts. This extensive survey is not scientific or peer reviewed, but here are my impressions:

Gays are among us, a few flamboyant, but mostly blending. By and large, coupling is race-based, black women with black men, whites with whites, Syrians with Syrians, etc. It is also age-based, young with young, middle with middle, and as with me and my wife, old with old. Among younger people there is little variety, as young girls tend to hang with their own race and status. Same with guys. Where I see diversity is among young school children being led by adults, quite a cacophony of races.

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Fat chicks

The Louvre Museum holds something like 380,000 pieces of art, with 35,000 on display. Over 15,000 people visit it every day. It is overwhelming.

Yesterday was my second visit to the place, and I was determined it would be better than the first. We had a list of maybe twenty works we wanted to see, including the stele of the Code of Hammurabi. But the place is only generally organized, and lacking expertise we were quickly lost. It is maybe a few football fields long (guessing),two wings and two floors per wing with many side rooms and a basement. There is no centralized location to look up various works, no computerized guides. In a constant roar of people, fatigue quickly sets in. After maybe 90 minutes, I thought Hammurabi was not a big deal, not worth the trouble.

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A night of Vivaldi

If you are not a classical music buff, don’t be concerned. Neither am I. I only know a little of  Beethoven, a dab of Mozart (I do not care for most of his work, Vivaldi and a few others. There is so much to take in. We took time the other night to go to Sainte Chappelle Cathedral here in Paris to hear Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

If you, like me, imagine that this Vivaldi package is the brief pieces we hear now and then as backdrop to advertising or at high school concerts, not so. The seasons are quite involved and go off in many directions. By the time Winter, a brief and beautiful piece, rolls around, we have experienced almost an hour. I will give due credit to the amazing magicians later when I have more time  [Paul Rouger was far and away the star of the show, a brilliant violinist.]

We were treated at the beginning to Pachelbel’s Canon in D and then Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor. Each of these beautiful pieces is recognizable even to the untrained ear … you know, like mine.

At the end there was palpable excitement among the hundreds of people in the crowd, as there usually is at the end of a remarkable performance. I could not help but marvel at the depth of talent in our species, and the power of collaboration. I cannot imagine that we live and develop these remarkable talents, and then just die. There has to be more!  Has to be.

Of course, many do not develop our potential, and so become truck drivers, cooks, politicians and accountants. We had a piano in our house when I was a kid. None of the four of us boys ever learned to play.

Lysenko, Mann, Gore … peas in a pod

Trofim Lysenko 1898-1976) was a Russian scientist. Don’t be confused. Wikipedia calls him a “pseudo” scientist but in our day and age most science is pseudo, and yet we call our virologists, climatologists, geologists, physicists, and oncologists “scientists” nonetheless. So, I think it OK to refer to Trofim as a scientist as well.

Lysenko as responsible for the deaths of millions upon millions of Russian and Chinese peasants. He came up with new agricultural practices that were to revolutionize food production in both countries,  but instead set farming back decades.

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Your “crazy driver” is my premeditated risk

By: D. S. Klausler

I love to drive. Backing up a bit, my pal Mark over at PieceOfMindfulprompted this diatribe a while back. I’ll get to the specifics, but meanwhile know that driving in Chicagoland can be mentally challenging and is frequently infuriating. Traveling out on the big road has had its events, but the city mayhem is the driving (hah!) theme herein. In typical fashion, I’ll stay modest and brief. No, I am not in a hurry on the road, but…

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How to avoid jet lag …

I have long wondered how executives and politicians manage to travel great distances and yet always seem fresh on arrival. Their time tables have to be screwed up. Yet they manage to sit through meetings and do some public speaking as if they were fresh.

I cannot do that. I need at least two days on arrival (in this case France) from Denver, an eight hour time difference. We do our best to stay awake as long as possible once we get here. Last night that was until 7:30 PM, and when I awoke at 11:30 PM I took a couple of sleeping pills that got me through until now, almost 3 AM Geneva time. I feel rested and refreshed, but there is along day ahead and another night of fighting to stay awake into a normal schedule. It usually takes those two days to work my  way into the new time zone. Continue reading “How to avoid jet lag …” →

Our little journey

In the past, as my wife and I traveled, I made it a point not to make the blog a travelogue. I just let it rest, hoping other writers would chime in. I know I wrote now and then while in foreign places, most prominently in my mind in Buenos Aires, where I tripped on the crypt of Evita, or Eva Peron, said to have died young in 1952. Her crypt said she died at age 32, but actual birth records recorded her death at age 33  and voila!, I had uncovered another fake death.

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