Out of the woods it comes

Just back home from another year's personal retreat to a wooded, rural place where there's not much to do except read, sing, pray, think & evaluate where I am in life.

Such a dull subject, that last...  ;)

This year for the first time in I don't know how long, I repeated a location.  Normally I find someplace new, but a combination of lack of new places within a decent driving distance, and good memories of one I visited 4 years ago made the decision easy.

As to the accommodations, they were Spartan.  I rented a "hermitage", which was a straw-bale hut with propane powered stove & water heater, and solar power only for everything else (no normal AC outlets for radios, cell-phone chargers, etc.).  There was running water, at least, and a real bathroom.  It was essentially a teeny little studio apartment, which would have cost $1350/mo. in Berkeley, CA (based on my daughter's actual experience there), but parking was free, and linens provided.

A couple of views of things next.  First, looking from the main lodge toward the "hermitage".

Next, a zoom on the hermitage building I was in.

A view from my hermitage doorway.

The kitchen.  Such as it was.

Turn around, and ... there's the bed.  Not much to the place, but it did the job.

So as to the "read, sing, pray, think" part... that all went off without a hitch.

And the evaluation:  the trend is up!  :)

October is Travel Month - Again

This is that stretch of the year where I spend 6 weeks straight either going, or preparing to go, to London, Germany, Bermuda, and NYC on business, as well as off into the woods for a few days on retreat.  I enjoy the travel, even though at my age I am not as resilient as I used to be, and take a while to recover.  Right now I'm home, with the first two destinations behind me (see below), and the into-the-woods part coming up.

You've heard the expression:  "Getting there is half the fun"?  Not this time.  Just got back from 10 days in Europe pitching my company's story to reinsurance markets.  The meetings went great, but the traveling... was brutal.  Explaining to people that you are doing some foreign travel for business is often greeted by "oh, how marvelous for you!", as if it's a paid vacation to exotic lands or something.  Ha!  Yes, there are sightseeing opportunities, which are great, but when the planes, trains, and automobiles part fail you... it is far from glamorous.

Suffice to say that spending the night sleeping on the floor of O'Hare airport trying to get to London, and having your train to Augsburg from Munich cancelled altogether due to a suicide on the tracks, makes you really glad for a few hours sitting at an open-air table enjoying a beer on the square.  Simple pleasures grow larger when they follow after personal disruption.  :)

But the third time was the charm, and heading home was comparatively easy.  All you have to do is click your heels together three times, and say:   (oh, you know the rest, right?)

On to the travel photos.  I don't think I got more than a mile from my hotel on any leg of the trip, so all of these scenes are close by.  First of the City of London:

Well, that was 6 days in London (meeting rooms and business dinners excluded).  Someday, when we meet face-to-face, dear reader, I'll narrate them for you.  Most, though, are self-explanatory as you've no doubt already found.

On to Germany, then, my second stop.  I begin with the hotel, and what non-business sights there were to see over the course of 4 days.  I found that my German came back respectably, so that I was able to converse with waitstaff and shopkeepers fairly well, not to mention reading menus and street signs decently.  :)   Augsburg is over 2,000 years old (1,000 years older than Munich), and was founded by its namesake, the Emperor Augustus, a statue of whom is prominent atop a fountain in the Rathausplatz.  Technically speaking, it's in Swabia, considered by most to be part of Bavaria, although the alt-schule locals respectfully dispute that.

So there you have it, mate.  Cheers!  Und Auf Wiedersehen,!