Great Meteora Monastery

We spent the morning rushing through breakfast so we could beat most of the busses visiting the monasteries. (Actually, the Greek members of our party had to do a lot more rushing than Danita and I. Our tour guide is not a person for rising early.) We managed to beat many, but not all, of the busses to the Great Meteora Monastery. We were able to move ourselves past two more busses by walking steadily up the steps while others stood to the side, panting.

Church Building

Non-flash photography was permitted except in the Church itself. Unfortunately, the building is quite dark. The only pictures I could take were outside. This shows the outside of the Church portion of the building. All of the monasteries were rebuilt in the 15^th century. We were able to visit the Church because it is no longer used for services. The monks moved their services to a less impressive area when the monasteries gained their UNESCO protected status. It was an appropriate thing to do, in part because the number of monks has dropped dramatically since WW II. Today, there are probably a dozen monks left. For at least some time, St. Nicholas (the smaller monastery we visited) was down to one monk. We saw a lot of 15^th century frescos and icons. We heard explanations for all of it, but it didn’t all stick. Nonetheless, it was an amazing and impressive site.

Tower

Our other visit was to the St. Nicholas Monastery. It had far fewer visitors, and it was a much smaller Church area. These allowed us a much more intimate experience of viewing the paintings and icons. The monasteries fly the old Byzantine “Double Eagle” flag. This flag is  quite popular in Greece, as a symbol of their connection to the past.

Double Eagle Flag

Our Guesthouse (the yellow building), viewed from St. Nicholas

My first picture in Greece

We arrived at our hotel in Athens about 9:00 Tuesday evening. Our flights were uneventful, but we were not prepared for the difference between British Air’s international and domestic flights. Service on the international flights is fantastic. We had a choice of two dinners and all the drinks we wanted. Even the wine is free. The domestic flight from London to Athens was the opposite. Drinks and snacks were for sale. One couldn’t even get a complimentary cup of water. Even though we arrived late at the hotel, we both wanted a light dinner. The easiest thing we could do is to visit the hotel restaurant. It turned out to be an excellent choice. The food was fresh and flavorful. The price was reasonable. The service was first-rate. And the view was of the Acropolis. This was certainly a fitting topic for my first picture in Greece.

Athens Treasury

Wednesday our tour guide Nota picked us up. We were going to visit Delphi, site of the most famous oracle of ancient Greece. Delphi was a neutral ground for the Greek citi-states. Cities vied for prestige with the beauty of their “Treasuries”. These were small buildings with some art objects inside. The Athens Treasury was by far in the best shape. It was the only one that was in good enough shape that one could readily identify what it might have originally looked like.

Athens Treasury Pediment and Frieze

The pediment and frieze for the Athens Treasury has also survived and is mostly intact. These shows the exploits of Hercules and Theseus. Inside the Treasury were spoils from their victory at Marathon, where they defeated the Persian army.

Temple to Apollo

The main building was the temple to Apollo. Kings of the city-states went to Delphi (or sent their representatives) to get knowledge of the future. The king talked to a priest. The priest talked to the Oracle. The Oracle was an illiterate young woman who had to eat a poisonous leaf and small an ethanol gas that rose from an underground chamber. These made her foam at the mouth and utter nonsense sounds (and also significantly shortened her life). The priest “translated” the Oracle’s utterances into a prediction. The woman was only a distraction. The priest gave answers that sounded favorable to the king but could be broadly interpreted. The most famous example is when a king was told that if he went to war, he would destroy the army. The king went to war and saw his own army destroyed. Technically, this outcome met the Oracle’s prediction. The other thing that made predictions successful was that all kings went to the Oracle. This gave the priest more information than anybody else in Greece.

Stadium with room for 10,000

Such an important neutral zone couldn’t be used only for predictions. The area had a stadium for the Marathon games (similar to the Olympic games, but not played in Olympia). They had musical and theatrical competitions at their stadium. The stadium could seat 10,000 people, an average size stadium.

Bronze Cauldron – note repairs

There were several different Oracles with different divination techniques. These competed for prestige. Delphi was the best known. They demonstrated their importance by displaying their wealth. This brass cauldron is an example. These cauldrons were used to prepare food for large crowds. But Delphi displayed far more cauldrons that were needed for food preparation, just to show how much brass they owned. This cauldron is especially interesting because the rivets clearly show where it had been repaired.

Ivory and Gold Statue

Statues and other works of art were also used as bragging rights. This is an extremely rare example of a technique using ivory and gold. The most famous temple was the Parthenon, which had a very large ivory and gold statue of Athena. The statue did not survive. The statue in this picture shows the technique, which can help us imagine what more famous ivory and gold statues looked like. This ivory looks black because it survived a fire. But the statue is in remarkably good shape.

Bronze Statue

Most of the ancient Greek statuary was bronze. Ironically, very little bronze statues survived because of the value of brass in making weapons. The Delphi museum has one of the finest examples of brass statuary. The piece is of a charioteer with his chariot and horses. The piece suffered significant damage, but the charioteer survived perfectly. Even the eye lashes are still intact. It is also one of the finest pieces of bronze art produced, displaying the Greek idea perfect beauty, down to the famous “Greek foot”, where the second toe is longer than the great toe.

Meteora Rocks

The afternoon was spent driving to Meteora, where we would be visiting some famous Monasteries. The area as mysterious rocks. Not part of any mountain range, these rocks appear to pop out of the earth for no reason. The look smooth at a distance, but when one gets close they are clearly aggregate (like cement). The rocks have many mysterious and wonderful holes, or small caves.

Nicholas Monastery

The monasteries started out as hermits living in the caves in isolation. Over time, Monks moved into these holes, built monasteries, and developed the monastic lifestyle. This is a picture of the St. Nicholas Monastery, the smaller of the two we would visit the next day.

Our guest house was wonderful, with a walk-out porch. This picture was taken from our porch. We spent the evening admiring the view and watching the stars come out.

Click on the link below to see a cave tour!

A Brief Virtual Tour of Jewel Cave

Brinton Museum

We visited Little Bighorn Battlefield this weekend. It’s too far for a one day trip, so we stopped in Sheridan, WY. While there, we visited the Brinton Museum. This museum is set in the middle of ranch land. Most streets are gravel. Buildings are obviously working farm buildings. When one finally arrives at the Brinton, one finds an ultra-modern building totally out of place with its surroundings. The backbone of the building is a rammed-earth wall which supposedly is built like the wall of China and will supposedly last 2000 years. One end of the wall symbolically encoumpases the Bighorn Mountains. The other symbolically encoumpasses an ancient medecine wheel. Actually, nobody knows the significance of the medicine wheel. It’s just a name. If you’re into this kind of stuff, there’s information at this link: http://thebrintonmuseum.org/feature/feature-2/. What I noticed is that the building was built with funds from one donor. Their revenue almost covers the payroll.

Indian Blanket

Whatever the long term prospects of the Brinton, their exhibits are stunning. This buffalo hide blanket is typical. (The white circles are an artifact of the lighting and glass cover.) The placard described the symbology of the colors and design. I found this design striking — almost modern, yet made in 1900. I came away with an altered view of Native American spirituality. Can one improve a war horse with a saddle ornament that gives the horse the agility of an antelope? Or is the real purpose to remind the rider what he has to do to help his horse perform better? Who knows? (Actually, Indian spirituality briefly left its roots and became nothing but magic. In 1880 a new spirituality called the Ghost Dance promised to protect Indians from bullets. It died out by 1890 for obvious reasons.)

Last Stand Hill

The next day it was on to Little Bighorn. I had read a book of the Plains Indian War. lt was quite interesting to tie the movements and tactics of the battle at the Little Bighorn River to the land. We took a tour led by a Crow Indian. He gave an excellent account of the battle sometimes called Custer’s Last Stand, and he did it in just one hour.

Our Guide

Before he started, he protected himself with sage incense and ash. You can see the ash on his forehead. One of the guides was attacked by a critter, receiving several scratches. Guides have not been attacked again since using this spiritual protection. The guide appeared to use a sign language while he was talking. I don’t understand his purpose. It was not the sign language used by the deaf in the US.

Humming Bird at the Brinton Museum

Here’s a bonus pic from a small garden at the Brinton. This is our last week at Jewel Cave. We will work Thursday – Sunday. Monday we will pack, clean, and check out. Then it’s off across country to Columbia. We plan to arrive home Sept 9, then leave for Greece on the 11th.

Agate Fossil Beds (mountains in the distance)

Today was the solar eclipse. This is the first time we have been close enough to just drive somewhere and see it. This was important to us. Towns were posting signs stating how much they were charging for parking today. Cheap hotels were charging anywhere from $500 to $1000 for a room. Those who needed last minute eclipse glasses could get them — for astonishing prices. We decided to drive to Agate Fossil Bed National Monument. That’s about 150 miles and 2 hours, 30 minutes away. Being a national monument, we knew they wouldn’t be charging any fees for parking or visiting.

Tripod busted? Fix it with duct tape!

Originally, we didn’t plan to see the eclipse. We figured other people would want the day off and Jewel Cave would ask us to work that day. But Monday is our normal day off and nobody asked us to come in. Our original plan was to leave about 5:30. But visitors, co-workers, and the staff at Agate Fossil Bed all thought that parking would be filled by 7. Everybody said that pulling over on the side of the road would be impossible for various reasons. (We saw several people who did the impossible.) We decided to revise our plans and leave at 3:30 (AM). When somebody we know suggested that might not be early enough, we decided that 3:30 is plenty early enough. Whatever happens happens. It’s an adventure, and we’ll have an interesting story to tell even if we don’t see the eclipse.

Astronomy Club

So off we go, casually equipped with some water, some food for breakfast, eclipse glasses, and a pocket camera. The drive down was very easy. We encountered very little traffic, arrived just after 6, and got into the line of early-arrivers trying to get be the first in the parking lot.

Solar Viewer

We met one couple who arrived about midnight, with plans to sleep in the car. They encountered a park service police vehicle with flashing lights, and thought they would not be admitted. But it turned out that the park had set aside an area for early arrivals to park and sleep.

We had 4 1/2 hours until the eclipse. We brought breakfast with us, but in spite of the park having two food vendors on site, we couldn’t find a cup of coffee. We wanted to walk their 2-mile interpretive trail, but it was closed today. So we settled for watching their movie, taking a few walks around the grounds, and reading our books.

The park had spaces for 1500 cars, and it looked to me like they pretty much filled up, but not until just before the eclipse started. It’s a lot of fun going to a mass event like this. Everybody comes for the same purpose. Everybody is in a good mood. A comfortable and energetic vibe permeates the event as strangers meet and have casual conversations. It was fun walking around and taking snapshots of what I saw.

All kinds of people were there. Some came with nothing more than a frisbee to toss around. Others had elaborate telescopes and cameras, complete with special filters and automatic tracking mounts. There were astronomy buffs and families looking for one last activity before school starts. Everybody got the message that they shouldn’t look directly at the sun. The park had free eclipse glasses for those who were totally unprepared. They had a projection viewer for those who wanted a better view. They had a Native American offer his interpretation of the event.

The eclipse itself started out as a fun but somewhat routine affair. Excitement built as we approached totality. Near totality, we saw two planes overhead, chasing the eclipse. I was surprised by how excited Danita and I got when totality was achieved (as well as everybody else there). There is no other experience like it. A partial eclipse does not prepare one for a total eclipse. The birds did not go nuts. It did not look like night-time. There was much more light than I thought there would be, and the color and quality of the light was something I have never experienced before. The corona I saw was much larger than what I have seen in pictures. But mostly, it was just great fun. There were spontaneous shouts of awe when the eclipse went total. And more spontaneous shouts when the sun started coming back 2 minutes later. All-in-all, it was a most worthwhile, fun, exciting, and satisfying experience. But it is not worth a $1000 room.

PS – the only thing I didn’t see was a pinhole projector. There are many ways to do one. The most unusual idea I heard was to use a Ritz cracker for the pinhole — one gets 4 images of the sun on the screen. Too bad nobody tried it. It would be a news-worthy achievement to make one that works.

Roughlock Falls

When in Western South Dakota, one should make sure that Spearfish is on the “must see” list. Spearfish is a town on the north edge of the Black Hills, about 100 miles and 90 minutes north of us. The area is known for its beauty, clear creeks, waterfalls, and hiking. We intended to start out with a 3-mile hike. When we got into the area, we met a park official who talked us out of the hike. I’m not sure we made the best decision when we decided to skip that hike.

Spearfish Falls

We decided to move on to the waterfalls. There are three in the area. The most impressive are Roughlock Falls and Spearfish Falls. The entire area is stunningly beautiful. The creeks are perfectly clear. It was common to see people fly fishing, hiking, and of course taking pictures. It is easy to tell this is one of the most beautiful areas of the state, because there are many extremely upscale vacation homes in the area.

Studebaker Surrey

Our next stop was a museum in town. We saw many items that made us wonder why anybody would want to see them, such as various horse saddles. We saw a stagecoach that was used on the Spearfish – Deadwood line, one of the last stage coaches in regular use. We saw a surrey with a fringe on top, made by Studebaker. But the surprise find of the day was an Edison cylinder player, which I found way cool (and Danita ignored).

Edison Cylinder Player

The most interesting place we visited was the Termesphere Gallery. The artist is Dick Termes. His education was entirely in fine arts. But what he does is highly mathematical. He paints what one would see if standing in the middle of the room and slowly turning in a full circle. But he paints it on the outside of a sphere. He starts by precisely marking 6 points on the sphere: North, East, South, West, Up, and Down. Then he paints so each scene uses the correct vanishing points. It’s a precise mathematical transformation, done without formal math. One views the work by suspending it from the ceiling and using a motor to slowly rotate it. It’s very strange to view. Several of them are mind-blowing. Rather than try to take a picture, I’ll visit the website from time to time.

Since we didn’t do our hike, we had some extra time and decided to watch the movie “Dunkirk”. It was quite a strange experience. After watching 20 or 25 minutes of the movie, the picture went black. After a minute of sound but no picture, I went out to the lobby, saw the manager, and told her what happened. She acted like she knew what she had to do, so I went back to the theater. After another couple of minutes, the theater lights went on, the manager came in, and announced she would give us refunds. It was ideal for us. After seeing the first 1/3 of the movie, we decided we didn’t want to see the rest of it.

Bear Butte

Bear Butte

When we went to our hotel, we found a severe case of road construction in the middle of the town’s major interchange with the Interstate. There was no traffic control. The SD drivers were taking turns, one at a time, through 4 intersections within about 1/4 mile, and being very cautious about what they were doing. It was astonishing to see. Anywhere on the East Coast, the result would have been gridlock as every driver tried to force their way through. It took over 20 minutes to get through the mess. Danita had a nice swim, and the desk clerk told us how to bypass the traffic. We weren’t able to eat at the restaurant we wanted. Most days of the week, they are open for lunch and dinner. But on Mondays, they are open only for lunch. That’s pretty much the way things are done around here. There’s no predictability, rhyme, or reason. And information on the Internet isn’t updated to what they’re doing this month. It’s all part of the adventure!

Bear Bute

This morning we took a drive over to Bear Butte. This is a stunningly beautiful area. We intended to walk to the top of the butte, but weather was iffy. You can see the clouds in the pictures. We experienced occasional light rain. One never knows when light rain might turn into a major thunderstorm in the Black Hills. The first 1/2 of the walk went up a saddle peak almost as high as the main peak. We decided to enjoy this view and return to the car.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Glen and Mom

I spent this week in West Palm Beach, visiting Mom and Glen. Mom fell and broke her arm. Then Glen fell and shattered his arm. Dani went down to visit, followed by Gayle. Glen’s son Alan and his wife Rosemary came back from Europe and went down to visit. Now I am visiting. Dani plans to come down Friday. Gayle might visit again, depending on how Mom and Glen are doing.

Mom is doing much better since she got her arm out of a sling and got permission to drive again. She has problems with her PT exercises hurting her arm. But she’s getting herself around very well. She has a nurse visit twice a week to check her and help with her shower, and a PT visits twice a week. She had been feeling overwhelmed because she was so far behind on her budget and hadn’t been able to do those daily activities that we all find so satisfying. We got her budget patched up, and she’s had time to do some of the things she enjoys doing. She is feeling much less stressed.

Glen is in Morse Rehab center. He’s doing remarkably well. He isn’t strong enough or stable enough to walk, so he is either in a wheelchair or in a bed all the time. His arm is still in a sling, so he can’t move himself anywhere. There are lots of patients and not very many staff. As a result, Glen spends a lot of time waiting (as do all the patients who can’t move themselves). Glen is doing his exercises and eating his meals. He is getting stronger and has been able to stand. He will see his bone doctor in about a week. He’s hoping to get permission to get rid of the sling and start using both arms. This will be a major improvement in his mobility. Morse will hold a review of Glen’s progress Wednesday. We’re all looking forward to hear the results of that.

I’m going back to Jewel Cave tomorrow morning. It’s more-or-less an 8-hour flight with a 2-hour layover in Dallas. I don’t mind long layovers at all. I would much rather spend several hours in a nice airport than worry about making my connecting flight. Dallas is a very nice airport. I’ll be back at work Thursday, conducting cave tours and climbing 723 steps two or three times a day in a 49-degree cave. It will be a refreshing rest after a week in hot humid West Palm Beach.

Iron Mountain Rd

We had a heck of a rain last week. There was damage to some of our trails. Water was pouring down the steps to our visitor center so wildly that it wasn’t safe to go up or down the steps. Power went out in our facility. We have backup generators and can get people out of the cave with our elevators. But we don’t allow anybody to enter the cave while power is out. There was lots of confusion, as the powers-that-be tried to decide when the power would go back on, which tours to cancel, etc. In addition, our internet is not on backup power, which meant we could take information for a refund, but we couldn’t actually issue a refund for people who paid with credit cards (which is most people). It all turned into a lot of extra work for the ticket sales folks.

Iron Mountain Rd

We did simple things this weekend. Yesterday we drove scenic Iron Mountain Road. It had pigtail bridges. Two single-lane bridges and a couple of view points gave framed views of Mt. Rushmore. We also played put-put, visited some attractions, and in general had a good time.

Today we drove up to Rapid City and did some chores. Even on vacation, one needs a haircut. The surprising thing is that there aren’t enough car dealers for the population in this area. I know this because one needs an appointment to get an oil change at the Honda dealer. Most dealers won’t even make an appointment for an oil change.

Pigtail Bridge (from the Internet)

We even managed to see two movies this weekend – Spiderman and Wonder Woman. Both were good, but we enjoyed Wonder Woman a little more. We saw Spiderman at a theater in Newcastle, WY (24 miles away). This is a quiet little town with no tourist attractions at all. But they do have one movie theater. It has one screen, they change their movie once a week, and they show the movie once a day at 7 PM. I can’t imagine how they can afford to show a movie as recent as Spider Man. The show we attended had about a dozen people. We paid $17 for two tickets. The guy that owns it must be donating his time and his personal fortune to the city.

The summer weather here is great. High temperatures are between 80 and 90, but humidity is low. Even 90 degrees feels tolerable n the shade. In the evenings, lows are around 60 to 65. We don’t have, and don’t need, air conditioning in our apartment. We use fans to cool the apartment at night, and close it up during the day. It is quite comfortable.

We went adventuring and had a great weekend. Highlights included a dinner at Desperados Restaurant. The food is only OK. But the prices were reasonable, and the restaurant name fit right in with the Black Hills ethos. We played mini-golf, saw local art, and even went to an amusement park. The park would be considered small by any East Coast standards, but it was a lot of fun. Danita and I went into a bouncing-seat simulator, wearing 3-D glasses and shooting at robots. (Don’t shoot the good guy humans!). With seven of us on the ride, we came in second and third. Not bad for a couple of old fogies.

Brule

For evening entertainment, we went to a concert by the Native American group “Brule”. And we saw our first rodeo. We’ll probably never understand how they score points at bareback horse riding, bronco horse riding, and bull riding. But I’m convinced that cowboys have to be totally nuts to ride a bull. Speaking of being old fogies, we were offered rides from the parking lot to the venue at both the Brule concert and the rodeo. Of course we accepted. The cart was a little bouncy on the gravel at Brule. I took off my hat and pretended to be riding a bucking horse.

Art – Painted bike – in the Dahl Exhibit

It’s back to work for us. We have to work 4 days in a row before we get more days off. How sad!

We did an overnight trip to Deadwood this weekend. I’m finally getting over my cold, with only a mild cough. But Danita is a full week behind me, so we’re still taking it easy.

Mt Roosevelt Friendship Tower (built by Teddy Roosevelt’s good friend Seth Bullock)

Deadwood and Lead were where most of the gold was found in the Black Hills. Deadwood is well known for being a rip-roaring mining town with characters including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, and Potato Creek Johnny. The town is filled with tourist traps, kitch, and such. The town has had many ups and downs over the years. They solved their most recent “down” by being the first town in SD to allow gambling. Today, most hotels and restaurants have casinos. (Or maybe the casinos have most of the hotels and restaurants?) Today, gambling exists throughout western SD, with small casinos everywhere — even gas station / convenience stores. Either way, it’s nice to see the town doing well. It’s also depressing to see a casino when entering almost any establishment, complete with a completely empty series of machines with flashing lights. Or even worse, one half-drunk working a slot. I suppose most gambling occurs at night. We wouldn’t know for sure.

Wild Bill Hickock’s Grave Marker

We spent some time looking for a restaurant in Deadwood. In desperation, we finally went to the visitor information center and asked if there were any restaurants that weren’t a casino, a hotel, or having live music. It turns out there is one — Harry’s Wild West Spaghetti. “Harry” is the person who started the local radio station and ran it for 35 years. He was Italian, and loved having friends over for spaghetti. His daughter and her husband used his recipe to start their restaurant. One gets a choice of 3 pastas, 3 sauces, and hamburger, sausage, or chicken. It was good spaghetti. We hadn’t found it for themselves because they didn’t have a web site. We had a delicious dinner. With their name, it was natural that they had “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” on a continuous loop, with the movie soundtrack as their background music. That inspired us to watch the movie on Amazon when we got back to the hotel. It turns out to be very long (almost 3 hours) and somewhat boring. Our hotel had a beautiful “infinity pool”. Danita enjoyed the pool, but she couldn’t swim because it was very popular with the kids.

Homestake Mine Locomotive – from the Baldwin Works in Philadelphia

Danita visited her second gold mine. This one was large enough that I was able to do most of the tour. (I left a few minutes early, when the passageway got a little too small and some of the kids a little to antsy.) Our last stop was in the town of Lead, where we saw the visitor center for the Sanford Research lab where Dr. Ray Davis found proof of Neutrinos, winning the Nobel Prize. The lab is still active today.

Cool Clock Works with Controls for a 16-bell tower