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I was looking thorugh my passport collection and cataloged all the trips. I found 81 - some of the entries were hard to read so I might be off by 1 or 2. And I think there might a few Canadian ones with no passport entries.

My first trip was a solo trip to London and Paris in 1964. About 8 days in each with various side trips. In London I stayed in hotel near Trafalger Square that no longer exists and had a pub on the first floor where I often hung out. In Paris I stayed at Hotel Des Deux Continents on Rue Jacob which still exists. There were lots of young people there and we'd usually meet at breakfast and plan an outing and dinner location.

My second trip was in 1966 to Colombia and Ecuador with my new wife (marriage lasted about 4 years - we are still friends).

Some of these trips were work trips - quite a few to Paris since I was working for Bull, the French Computer Company ( I say the since it was the nationalized company that was affiliated with Honeywell where I was employed and eventually bought the Honeywell computer business. Also trips to Germany, Italy, Sweden (these three to present technical papers I wrote), and Tokyo. I remember one that was Paris and then Calgary. We had an affiliate spin-off group from Calgary University. I always took a few days after the trip to enjoy myself; on several of them Robert rsc came and joined me after the work trip.

I think I've been to Paris 12 times - not all work trips. I love Paris and all the nearby places you can go to. A few years I read a book: Paris to the Past by Ina Caro which talked about renting an apartment in Paris and taking train trips to nearby places. So we did that.

There is a small village in central France: Conques that I have been to 4 times. I want to go again. A picture I took is is my desktop picture.


Some of the trips were dance trips (Contra or English Country dance): Costa Rica, Greek Islands, Western Ireland, Florence, Loire Valley.

We heard about a person, Ken McFarland, who was a trip organizer - dance and non-dance trips. We went on one of his and were hooked so went on 13 more of his trips - (some were sequences so only counted as 1 trip). Machu Picchu twice, the upper Amazon and Colca Canyon in Peru plus Easter Island and the Galapagos. Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, Egypt and Tanzania. Florence, Loire Valley, Western Ireland, and Greek Islands were dance trips. Most of the other travelers were dancers and on several non-dance trips we did a bit of dancing: in Myanmar, on Easter Island, on a boat in the Amazon, Tanzania,.... Sadly Ken died last year.

We have taken a lot of winter trips to the Caribbean. We tried St Vincent and the Grenadines (Young Island and Palm Island), Tobago, and Bermuda (not in the Caribbean) but found this wonderful resort: Guana Island in the British Virgin Islands; we have been there 24 times. It is a small private island with at most 30 guests, beaches, hills, iguanas, easy hiking, excellent food, nice other guests...]. Expensive but wonderful.

Other side of the world: Japan twice, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Austrailia, New Zealand.
Africa: Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.
South and Central America: Chili, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Belize, Guatamala, Costa Rica, Mexico.
Europe: Ireland, England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina now), Georgia, Armenia. I have stood with a foot on each side of the equator and arctic circle. Sadly an August dance trip to Finland organized by a pair of people who went on many Ken trips has been cancelled.

Another instigator of trips is soc.motss - originally a Usenet news group for LGBTQ people and allies - has had a yearly gathering - called a con and several were international: Toronto, Vancouver, Utrecht, Stockholm, and Montreal. This year's is supposed to be in Ireland in September, but probably won't happen.

As part of the motss con some of us went to the Dali Expo in Monterey. Dali actually lived in Monterey for a few years and many of the works in this exhibit were illustrations for books (not biology text books!).

We have been to quite a few Dali museums - one of the most interesting was in Cadequés in a bulding that was his home. Of course I'd like to see a Dali exhibit in a building designed by Escher.

     

     

I am glad that I am not Dali's psychiatrist.

As part of our motss.con New Orleans trip we went to the Saint Louis Cemetery.

Click for pictures:


And since it was Easter Weekend there were a bunch of Easter parades. We saw part of the official Gay Easter Parade which takes place in the French Quarter.

Click for Pictures:

2014 was another fine year with lots of dancing, travel, socializing, theatre, concerts, opera, watching baseball, volunteer work as co-chair of the Cambridge GLBT Commission, member of organizing committees for the JP Contra dance, the JP English Country dance, and Lavender Country & Folk dancers).

I have rsc, my husband/partner/boyfriend - 41 years and going strong, and our family of 58 "people" as companions. (We supposedly had a moratorium on family expansion but this year a kangaroo and her child were a birthday present for Robert and I received 4 more from friends to help me recover in the hospital). I have lived in our house in Cambridge for 48 years and our summer house in Gloucester for 37 years.

I lost a month and half with 3 1/2 weeks in hospitals for spinal surgery and rehab + lots of Physical Therapy resulting in pretty complete and steady recovery from when I could barely walk. And I have to commend all the people who worked in the 2 hospitals who were all genuinely friendly, competant, helpful and nice - which made the stays much more pleasant. The previous time I was in the hospital was in 1957 for an appendectomy.

By rough count I danced (Contras or English Country Dance) on 76 days in Jamaica Plain, Cambridge, Concord MA, Woodstock CT, Becket MA, Gloucester, Florence It, Mansfield MA, and New York City.

For Organized Entertainment:

29 concerts, theatre, or operas in Boston and NYC

Opera: Aida at the Met, Rigoletto, I Puritani, La Traviata, and The Love Potion at BostonLyric, Die Meistersinger Met-HD.
Theatre: The Magic Flute (Isango Ensemble), King Lear (Shakespeare Globe, Trip to Bountiful, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, Auld Lang Syne (Jack Neary), 400 Miles (Amy Herzog), Fences (August Wilson) at Gloucester Stage; Trip to Bountiful.

12 RedSox games in Fenway Park

For Museums: MOMA (Matisse Cutouts) and the Frick Museum in NYC, PeabodyEssex in Salem MA (JMW Turner exhibit), MFA in Boston (Goya), Currier Museum in Manchester NH (Escher exhibit).

Travel:
Dix days at Guana island, BVI; Two weeks in Italy; Pisa, Cinque Terre, and Florence; 2 short trips to NYC; Long weekend in Portland, ME for the soc.motss.con (XXVII - we attended all but the first three).

Where I slept in 2014:

Home in Cambridge & Gloucester

And for travels:
San Juan Airport hotel, San Juan, PR
On Guana Island, BVI
GEM hotel in NYC
On LH425 (BOS->MUC) on the way to Italy
Hotel Bologne in Pisa, Italy
An apartment, Le Coste, in Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy
Bernini Palace Hotel in Florence, Italy
LCFD Dance Camp in Woodstock, CT
HoJos Plaza in Portland, ME
Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston
Spaulding Rehab Hospital in Salem, MA
LCFD Dance Camp in Becket, MA
Fairfield inn and Suites in NYC
LCFD Board retreat at Senexet House, Woodstock, CT

Because of the my spinal situation I missed the opportunity to sleep in the Comfort Inn in Rutland, VT for the Worlds Longest Contra Line attempt (not successful), and at a Camden Hills State Park in Maine for the Labor Day camping trip.

In June as part of motss.con.26 which took place in Ann Arbor we went to visit the Heidelberg Project in Detroit. I took a bunch of pictures which I hadn't got around to posting. It was a fascinating place.

Today I learned that the house burned down. News article.



Click here for pictures from our trip

We went to visit the Biltmore Estate while we were in Asheville. On a 8,000 acre site, George Vanderbilt (of the Vanderbilt family) built a 150 room house and had a magnificent set of gardens design by Fredrick Law Ohmsted. We took the audio tour which was well worth it since there is lots of information that you wouldn't get otherwise (44 short descriptions + about 15 more extra details about the rooms, the society, the way of life, and other details). We saw only about 30 rooms - among others the library filled with books, several dining rooms, George's and his wife's bedrooms, some guest rooms, the kitchen and pantries, some servants rooms, the gym, pool, and bowling alley. It took about 2 hours. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house and I didn't although I was tempted to take a picture of the wonderful antique rowing machine in the gym.
It looked like this:

After lunch we spent about 2 hours in the gardens. The conservatory was chock full of blooming plants, and there were various flower and shrub gardens as well.

You can also go to Antler Village (a relatively new addition) and do wine tasting and see a museum among other things.

Click here for some pictures

While in Seattle last month a bunch of us went to visit the Bloedel Reserve, a most lovely garden / woodland / meadow on Bainbridge Island. What a delight of scenes, reflections in the ponds, a japanese garden, moss garden, textures.

The owner and his wife resided there from 1951 to 1986 and developed this place. Among other things, the house has an extensive library of mostly bird and plant books.

I strongly recommend a visit there if you get a chance.

A few pictures here:

At the motss.con last month a bunch of of us went to the Seattle Aquarium.

I'm always interested in the Jelly Fish exhibits. They had an interesting exhibit with a donut shaped object you could walk through with Jelly Fish circulating. It doesn't match what you see in the Monterrey Aquarium, nor these ?Jelly Fish? seen at the Chihuly exhibit at the MFA.



Click below for some pictures:


And some short videos:

Early last week Steve Dyer died. As of several days ago the cause was unknown but it probably was a heart attack. Steve affected the lives of many people over the years. He created net.motss (now soc.motss), the first USENET newsgroup for gay people to meet and converse in 1983. Called motss for members of the same sex because it was felt that if had gay and lesbian in the name many sites wouldn't carry it. He, with Brian Gollum created the Bear Mailing List in 1988. He also gave many people accounts on SPDCC, his home server, in the days when if you didn't work for a University or a few companies you couldn't get access to the Net.

I've met many of my current friends and acquaintances via soc.motss - starting as electronic friends we met face-to-face at motss cons and at parties - frequently at Steve and Tony's house in Cambridge when they lived there. Many people have recently recounted their own tales of how Steve affected them because of these electronic media and his generosity. He will really be missed.

Visiting hours at the funeral home are on SUnday from 2-6. The funeral is on Monday at 10am. See below for details. There will be a gathering for his friends at Jasper's Summer Shack in Cambridge at 6:30 on Sunday.

From the Obit in the Boston Globe:

Visiting hours in the John J. O'Connor & Son Funeral Home 740 Adams St. (near Gallivan Blvd.) DORCHESTER Sunday 2 to 6 pm. Funeral Mass in St. Brendan's Church Monday morning at 10 o'clock. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited. In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to St. Brendan's School, 23 Rita Rd., Dorchester, MA 02124. Interment Cedar Grove Cemetery. For directions and messages of condolence, www.oconnorandson.com.

Searching for Wildlife in Miami and Miami Beach we saw a few typical specimens of non-native species.



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