kenisms

Alaska…. Don’t let its midnight sun set.

Posted on June 20, 2019 by kwundrow

We are concluding our Alaskan adventure. Our trip has taken us through the interior of Alaska starting at Fairbanks, passing through Denali National Preserve, Anchorage and eventually, Whittier where we boarded the Island Princess bound for Vancouver. Onboard the ship, we enjoyed stops at Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. We have taken a river cruise, a jet boat through class five rapids, a train through mountain passes and tunnels, a closeup experience with the Mendenhall Glacier and countless encounters with Alaskan wildlife. We have seen whales, dolphins, otters and sea lions, soared with eagles and respected the ravens and met countless native and resident Alaskans.

I need to share my impressions of this beautiful land. I wrote in my earlier blog of the vastness of the land and the overpowering beauty and magnitude of its mountains, especially its crown jewel, Denali. In this attempt I would like to speak to the fragile nature of its environment. We came to see the mountains and the glaciers. We explained to anyone interested that we especially wanted to see the glaciers before they disappear. I will tell you that every ranger, guide and native will tell you that global warming is felt no more drastically than in Alaska. Average temperatures have risen by four degrees. Weather patterns that once produced heavy winter snows in many areas have been altered, in turn, lessening the chances for glaciers to, at the very least, stay stable. Higher summer temperatures have caused many mountains, once snowcapped all year long, to lose their snow before the summer season has ended. The warming is most evident in the glaciers. Alaska has most of the remaining glaciers of the world and yet only 5% of them are deemed, “healthy”, meaning they are still advancing or in most cases, staying stable. The other 95% are all receding and many at alarming rates. As a glacier recedes, it eventually becomes a hanging glacier, one no longer reaching water but rather “hanging” from the mountain basin high above the valley floor.

Alaskans, to a person, request the visitors, their friendly term for tourists, to please take this information back home with them and then to make a promise to find at least one thing no matter how simple, that they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. When you stand in awe in front of one of these majestic glaciers, you can’t help but make the promise. It’s not a question of whether you believe the science, but rather can you deny what’s right in front of you. As a people, we cannot turn a blind eye to the problem. We must do what ever we can with our actions and our votes to protect our open spaces, rivers and streams, our land and its resources, not just for Alaska but everywhere they exist.

If you go to Alaska, you will in fact encounter the “last frontier”. You will sense the vastness of the wilderness and experience the history and culture of its people. You will hear of their love of the land and their determined spirit to not only survive but to thrive. You will pass through areas that take you back to the gold rush days of 1898 and leave you feeling like that was only a moment ago.

Alaska will take you in, heal you and realign your senses. And as you depart, you cannot help but feel renewed. That is what wilderness does. It gets into your soul, reminds you where we all once came from and beckons you to come back. To come back to the wilderness, to the wildness that lies in each and every one of us.

Go to Alaska or at least to somewhere wild and then pledge to protect it.

20,310 feet of Majesty

Posted on June 12, 2019 by kwundrow

The call came just before 6:00 am. The voice said, “The mountain is open.” When you are in the shadow of Denali, you don’t receive a wake up call, you get a call telling you the clouds that 60% of the time wrap themselves around the mountain like a cloak, have cleared and your view of “The Great One” is ready to amaze.

Denali at 20,310 feet is the highest mountain in North America. Some will argue that it is the highest mountain in the world, surpassing even Mt Everest. The reasoning is that Everest sits on the Tibetan Plane and has its base starting at 17,000 feet and rises another 12,000 feet from there to its summit at just over 29,000 feet. Denali’s base sits at 2000 feet giving it the greatest vertical rise of all mountains. Regardless, Denali impresses. The mountain’s height grabs clouds as they try to pass and holds them in place on her flanks. The sheer area covered by its base, overwhelms the viewer. When the mountain clears, Denali dwarfs everything in her shadow.

First summited in 1913, it has claimed the lives of over 100 climbers who would try later. Even today, with the west buttress route laid out with a rope line, five camps to supply and assist the would-be climbers and highly improved climbing gear, the summit still defies 50% of those that try. It is simply a force nearly too great to be reckoned with.

When the weather does clear and Denali releases the clouds captured by her sheer size, the view is spectacular, breath taking and humbling all at the same time. She fills your view with her size and challenges your eye with her height. You click picture after picture as the sun subtly changes her look, lighting a ridge here and shadowing a face there, but even as you review them, you see that those pictures cannot do justice to what only the eye can perceive. The whiteness of her glaciers, the darkness of the shadows cast by the ridges that outline the paths to her summit, your eye gathers in what no picture can depict.

Denali is one of the main reasons I came to Alaska. I have now viewed her from three sides; north, east and south. I have felt how she rules over the vast wilderness of Alaska. I have waited for the call and when it came, I was not disappointed. My wish for those who have not yet visited, is that you will at least consider trying. I promise that if you do, you too will be moved by the sheer vastness of Alaska and stand in awe of her crowning jewel, Denali.

Denali…”The High One”

Posted on June 9, 2019 by kwundrow

My wife described the view from our plane as “vast and desolate.” A strange combination of adjectives. Rather like saying “he was an exceptional criminal.” In reality, it is a fitting description in that Alaska is vast and yet as you look out over the landscape from the air it appears empty of human inhabitants. That changes as you land and though sparsely populated, is full of extremely friendly people, both indigenous as well as those who have come here to make Alaska their home.

We are guests of Princess Cruise Lines and our accommodations on land are expansive lodges bordered by rivers and mountain backdrops. First stop was the city of Fairbanks where we took a river cruise and got an introduction to Alaskan culture. The most striking impact this far north, is the midnight sun. You can read about it or hear it described, but these descriptions cannot come close to the reality of its effect. I am a person who suffers from FOMO, the fear of missing out. After being up for 20 hours, including a three hour time shift, I still could not go to bed. It was 10:00 pm but the sun was still at the equivalent of 6:00 pm and the lodge was a buzz with activity. The sun finally set around 12:30 am and was back up at 3:15 am. I can testify to that because I witnessed both events.

The end of day two found us in Denali, the village, not the mountain. After a dinner revue, we were headed for bed knowing we were facing a 6:00 am start time for our Denali bus adventure. The trip into our hopeful viewing point of the great mountain covered sixty miles of mostly gravel road winding its way through the Denali National Park Preserve and at times, precariously hanging on the edge of mountains over seven hundred feet above the valley floor. After riding for nearly three hours, we reached the end of the road roughly thirty-five miles from the base of the mountain. The indigenous people called it Denali, meaning “the high one.” On a clear day, the view is spectacular, as the snow capped mountain literally rises up to completely fill the horizon and live up to its majestic name. On a clear day, it does just that. But not today, not for us. None the less, the Alaskan Range and the surrounding scenery does not disappoint. With a little imagination and enough visual cues from what we can see, the mind does the rest.

When visiting Denali, the quest is to sight the Big Five. That is the five biggest animals of the park; the wolf, moose, grizzly bear, dall sheep and the caribou. We were no more than a mile in, when the bus in unison yelled out moose. There on the side of the road was a moose cow and her calf. Another mile down the road and we spied a second moose. One down four to go and sixty miles to find them in. Our final tally turned out to be around twenty caribou in several herds, an equivalent number of dall sheep also in several flocks, four grizzly bears but unfortunately, no wolf. The grizzly bears were the most spectacular. With roughly three hundred grizzlies spread out through six million acres, seeing one is considered lucky. Sighting four, well you can do the math. Our first was spied up in a high meadow just barely within our ability to see it. We saw another, much closer this time, walking along the gravel bed of one of the many glacial rivers we passed. The last two were the winners. We spied the first high up on a ridge above tree line and were wondering what it was doing up there and why it was still climbing higher. That is when we spied the other bear climbing up some three hundred feet below. The only explanation was that the lower bear was driving the other bear off. It may have been a female grizzly protecting its cubs or possible a female grizzly driving off its own too fully grown cub so that she might mate again. The guide let it up to us to speculate.

Though not sighting a wolf was a disappointment, they are very rare. We did, however, replace the wolf with many other sightings; snow hares, ground squirrels and even a golden eagle. All this while seeing the changing eco-spheres of taiga forest, tundra, glacial kettles and rivers and of course the majestic peaks towering above tree line with some heading toward 17,000 feet and higher.

Tomorrow we head down range, crossing over to the eastern side where if we are lucky, we get one more chance to see Denali. It is possible that we will avoid two overcast days in a row and get an unobstructed view of the giant. The question is, do we feel lucky?

The Final Frontier

Posted on June 4, 2019 by kwundrow

They refer to Alaska as the final frontier but I am sure we will always find new ones. I guess in 1849, it just seemed appropriate to think of it this way. In two days, my wife and I will be on our quest to explore it. We have planned this one out so my wife is comfortable that there will be no surprises. I personally will be looking for any and all the surprises I can find.

With the trip planned out and mapped by are AAA travel planner, Claire Christensen, Deb was ready to do her research. First there was the virtual tour of the cruise liner. Next came a YouTube video of whale watching and glacier exploration. At this point it seemed all the bases had been covered but there was one more, a YouTube presentation of what and how to pack for your Alaskan experience.

Somewhere in the middle of this research, while I sat dutifully at her side, she noticed that I was not watching. Now please understand that my wife’s planning skills have more than once and in fact on multiple occasions, saved me from certain disaster and on several occasions from missing the show all together. I knew better than to not be watching but I am a creature of my own restlessness. I need to be surprised as often as possible and this trip is clearly one of those times.

I want to walk onto the boat and have that aha moment when I take in the luxury and size of the ship. I will revel in the moment if we actually see a whale breaching alongside the boat but I don’t want to be disappointed if one never appears. Random thought, “breaching” is such a strange word. One would think its what a traveling evangelist does when you show up at the beach looking for a good sermon. I guess a whale doing its thing is a rather religious experience. And as to the packing video, well there’s my daughters’ favorite traveling with dad mantra, “they have stores where we’re going, right?”

So in two days, we will board a plane headed for Fairbanks Alaska. It leaves at a very precise airline sort of time that I am confident my wife knows. She will get us to the airport in plenty of time to clear security, find our gate and wait. I will drift about until the last moment when I will be beckoned to join her in the boarding line and eventually, take my seat. At that point, the captain, stewardess and Deb will all remind me to fasten my seat belt, sit back and enjoy the ride. All I can say is thank God for planners.

Wind in the Trees

Posted on May 23, 2019 by kwundrow

For those of you who were never aware, I grew up on a small dairy farm just outside of Appleton Wisconsin. Yes, as my high school classmates so often reminded me, I was a “hay seed.” All though an often painful handle to accept, I later became comfortable with the moniker, but not until later in life when I looked back at the memories it evoked and the undeniable aspect of my character that it became.

Being a particularly beautiful day today, I was out on the deck of our home when the wind picked up and began rustling through the leaves of the trees that line our backyard. It was the sound of that wind through the trees and the cooling effect of it on my face and arms that brought back the memory. It poured over me and gently floated me back to a time when I was about ten or eleven years old. In this memory, I am back there with my brother, sitting under the grain trailer in the middle of one of our fields, a stem of timothy grass danging from the corner of my mouth and that reminiscent wind rustling through the trees, cooling us on a hot July afternoon. We are waiting for the combine my dad is operating to fill with the oats I and my brother will haul back to the grain building on our farm.

Though this was hard work for us when other boys our age were off playing sand lot baseball or down swimming in the river on a hot and lazy summer afternoon, it was none the less a very pleasant memory. It took me back to a time when things seemed so simple and so peaceful. When I still had an entire lifetime ahead of me. It was time spent with my brother and my dad. It was a time, even if I was a hay seed, that I was glad to be a farm kid and being told by my dad that he was proud of me.

Memories are like that. It can be the simplest thing that evokes them. The words of a song or a glance at an old picture may be all that’s required to take us back to a particular time or place. For me, it was the rustling of the wind through the trees on a warm spring morning. The key is to choose to hold onto those memories that evoke a sense of peace and calm. Of happy times with friends or family, or even just the beauty of someplace we once visited. Though it is often difficult to forget the harsher memories, we don’t need to go back there and we certainly should avoid reliving them. Choose instead those memories that take you back to a place of contentment. A time of wonder and opportunity.

We are more in control of our attitudes than we believe. Evoking positive, peaceful memories is an easy thing to do. Memories can calm us and even inspire us. And here’s a thought. We have the ability to both recall and create our memories. The next time you travel, the next time an activity feels special, the next time an event is especially emotional, sense the world around you in the moment. Take in the smell and sounds that surround you. Observe the people sharing the moment with you. Create the details of a memory worth recalling.

Listen to the wind. It might be calling you back.

Take the Exit

Posted on May 18, 2019 by kwundrow

I just finished unpacking the last of my Amazon deliveries today. My garage is full of the entrails of packing Styrofoam, bubble wrap, plastic tape and bags and of course forty pounds of cardboard. That was today. Two days ago I took my two grandchildren to McDonald’s. Even though we ate in, we dealt with the paper that wrapped our burger, the box it was placed in, the plastic straws and spoons wrapped in their own plastic protection. And of course, I drove everywhere as did the delivery vehicles dropping off my Amazon prizes.

What’s my point? I am an educated individual. As we dumped all of the McDonald’s waste into their one and only trash container, I could only pray that one of the McJobs was someone going through the trash to recycle the recyclables. Though I dutifully recycled everything I could from my Amazon packing and even went on-line to see if the Styrofoam could be recycled somehow, I still had indirectly created the pile of waste and could only wonder how many people would skip this process and just throw the whole works into the garbage bin, sentenced to eventually end up in a landfill.

All of this deniability is leading us to an inevitable end if we don’t personally and collectively change our ways. Science tells us that by 2050, if we continue at current levels, our polar ice caps will be gone and the resulting sea level rise will mean that parts of if not complete coastal cities will be gone. Granted, by 2050 I will likely be gone or at the very least, barely cognizant of what’s going on. My grandchildren, on the other hand will only be in their mid thirties and inheriting the mess we are creating. They will be contending with migration inland from coastal areas, hurricanes and typhoons that reach category 4 and 5 with frequencies never seen before, dangerous and permanent climate changes impacting year round weather. The only possible positive news is that the landfills will have created more ski hills.

In the face of this science, we have a political party that declares the science is just fake news. They bury their heads in the sand and make excuses stating that to beef up ecological standards would damage businesses and thus the economy. But if we continue at our current pace, that will be the least of our problems. Businesses can adapt. They can price in the cost of doing business the right way and we as consumers can make choices to do business with those that would. The science isn’t fake news. It’s science and educated people need to heed it.

We can continue to deny, we can pretend that we have more time than the science tells us, we can say it’s the next generation’s problem and not ours. As one politician from Utah offered as a solution, have more children and they will be smarter, even though he would also cut education funding, and they can solve the problem. The problem is that it will be too late. It is looking more and more like we may have only a decade to slow, stop and eventually reverse the impact of our behavior. We need politicians and leaders that get it.

So what’s a person to do? Here’s three ideas and I challenge you to add more ideas to the list.

1. Vote for politicians that will work on the issue. Even if you may not agree with some of their other policies, this problem is too important to not be approached by politicians willing to make the hard decisions needed to make a difference. They would strengthen not weaken standards, they would be willing to raise taxes to fund solutions, they would support alternate energy sources, namely solar, geothermal, wind and water. They would protect our green spaces and our National Parks. Make this a priority for them to earn your vote.

2. We can recycle and reuse. Learn what is and how to recycle. Reuse and re-purpose things. It can be as simple as taking your own bag to the grocery store. We can choose to do business with businesses that care about the environment and take measures to protect it. We can do everything possible to reduce our own carbon footprint. There are more internet sites popping up everyday that will provide us with the information we can use to accomplish this.

3. We can advocate with our voice, our feet and our money. We can fight for and support progressive candidates. We can attend forums and let our voice join others’ fighting for recognition of the problem and the change needed to facilitate a solution. We can write about it. We can stand up for it. We can stop denying.

We need to realize that we are on an interstate. It ends at extinction. We need to take the exit before it’s too late. We are not too small or powerless to make a difference.

Take the exit. Do it today because your tomorrow depends on it.

Making Time to Take Time

Posted on May 13, 2019 by kwundrow

Today, as I was out driving, I heard one of my daughters’ favorite songs. “Cat’s in the Cradle”, by Harry Chapin was playing on my car radio. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been no better than the subject of the song or if maybe I had actually been more of a factor in their life than the father had been in that song?

We look into the eyes of our newborn children and want so many things for them, but basically we want them to be healthy and independent. If they come equipped for these two things, everything else falls into place. Health is not within our control, only a healthy life style. On the other hand, independence is a skill we either develop in them or they develop in spite of us.

Our children develop independence through and by the way we nurture them. We can be part of their life or we can be absent in it. When we are absent in their lives, they will become dependent on someone or something else to fill the void.

The problem we all face is the issue of that difficult balance between work and family. In today’s competitive, fast paced, over connected world, the balance may be lost all together. The demands on our time to be successful at our careers so that we can earn the living wage we need to support our families can tip that balance away from the very lives we are earning the living to support.

So what are we to do. First and foremost, we must clearly decide that family is our priority. If we do this, we will be better equipped to make decisions based on our family life as opposed to how much money can I make and how high up the ladder of success can I climb. I have not forgotten balance. We can not ignore the need to work to make a living, but if we make money our first priority, it becomes too easy to lose sight of everything else.

When I was working and raising my children, I set boundaries. As a teacher, I often faced hours correcting papers and working on curriculum. The catch here was that I could take it home with me. The danger….I could take it home with me. It was a delicate balance and sometimes, no oft times, required my doing that work late at night after they were tucked in. In the later years of my career, working as a tax planner, the tax season would demand long hours over the course of several months. I made a commitment to hold two evenings a week open for an earlier departure from work. I also committed to not going into work on Sundays. This required that I work harder and also more efficiently on those other days, but my commitment to family was my motivator and for the most part, kept me on task.

I know what you are thinking, easy to say but not always easy to do. I will admit that your employer must be on board with your commitment to family, and mine was. When you have a boss that demands so much of your time that there is never any time left for family, then you must answer the tough question, is this the right job for me? As I stated above, there will be times and or seasons that demand more time, but if your employer is at least willing to compensate with flex time following those high demand periods, then hopefully you can find your way through.

For me, the instant “Cat’s in the Cradle” is played, I am singing along with Harry. But it does not take long before I begin to wonder, was I just the same or did I drop everything to catch some ball with my daughters at least enough times that they noticed the time spent more than my absence. …..I can only hope I did.

The Bro Code

Posted on April 25, 2019 by kwundrow

I know what you are thinking…”how dare he.” Be fair, stay with me to the end. I may not completely swallow my foot.

I was going golfing with three friends the other day. My wife, with all due respect, asked me the inevitable question as to when I would be getting home. I gave the standard guy answer that I couldn’t really say. She of course asked if I meant I couldn’t or that I wouldn’t. Picture the pregnant pause.

As I considered my answer, I first planned on throwing my three friends under the bus by claiming if they were driving I would be at their mercy for when we would be coming home. After careful, no nervous, consideration as to the possibility of cross fact checking between spouses, I came clean and said I couldn’t due to the “bro code”.

Now truthfully, I am not even sure if there was a bro code between us let alone what it would possibly be. But I had put my foot in my mouth and there were only two choices. Spit it out and come clean or swallow my foot further. I decided to swallow further.

I explained that the code required me to not name a time due to jeopardizing any member who had successfully negotiated a longer hall pass. This only led to more questions like if its eighteen holes of golf and we are supposedly gifted with the talent of knowing to the minute how long it takes to drive x miles, apparently I had been bragging on a recent trip, why would someone be negotiating a longer time period than the accurate one?

At this point I should have punted but men always believe that given the two minute warning and down by two touchdowns, we can huddle up and still win this game with a Hail Mary. I went with the emergency contingency. If an emergency were to come up, we may be forced to all become involved in the emergency as a support team and then who could tell how long we might be tied up.

At this point you need to picture my wife’s pose, especially what she is doing with her eyes. I didn’t even think they could roll up that far without permanent damage. Completely out of explanations, she surprisingly provided one. She explained that she suspected what I was really saying was that following golf, there might possibly be a period of beer drinking followed by or consecutive with some card playing and thus an accurate time frame would be questionable at best. She went on to explain that what she was really hoping for was a text somewhere along the way giving a reasonable ETA. She then asked if there really was in fact a bro code I was protecting? My response, “I’m too old to even know for sure what a bro is.” Busted.

But I wasn’t completely finished. “Well Hon, why didn’t you let me off the hook earlier?” Her response, “And spoil the fun of seeing you squirm? No way.”

Lesson learned guys, when confronted with the time question, think of anything besides the bro code. As the Myth Busters would say “Tested and Busted.” Women are way too smart for us, or at least me. Still wondering about the picture? It’s what happens to poorly considered arguments….they go up in flames, big flames.

Odds and Ends and Things in Between

Posted on April 15, 2019 by kwundrow

Regardless of the fact that Wisconsin did not clean up its act while we were away, we returned home last week. We were greeted with hurricane winds and snow still in the air. The winter coats had to be brought back out and I fear our tans are already fading, and after all that work to start them. Normally, I would be complaining but as anyone who has traveled for any length of time knows, the trip comes to an end and you return home, happy to be back to the place you chose to spend your life. The travel is great but the return home is part of the journey.

If you followed our journey through my blog, it’s only fair to sum it up. Being the former math teacher, a few statistics seemed in order. We tallied 3203.1 miles and spent a total of 59 hours and 38 minutes of the trip behind the wheel. Considering we were traveling for 23 days (552 hours), that is still just 10.8% of the total time we were gone. We visited 10 states, crossed six state rivers, traveled through or around 17 major cities and viewed the campuses of 7 universities. Our stops allowed us to take in 26 attractions in 9 cities, not counting 6 hotels, a beach condo and three home stays with three very gracious sets of friends.

If the story ended here, it would be impressive but not impactful. With that in mind, I wanted to share at least some of the observations from our trip. The first of those observations was that no matter what state you are driving in, the locals all seem to be crazy drivers and you are observed as that out of state driver that has no clue. This phenomena I credit to the fact that the locals know, for the most part, where they are going and will always seem over confident. Mean while, we as the interlopers, may not know where we are going and at the very least do not know how far to the next exit nor what the traffic lane will look like when we get there. There is a lot to say for anticipation versus anxiety. Before you tell me “but what about a navigation system”, it is still just a computer doing its best to pronounce the road names and spending a lot of its time saying “recalculating.”

My next observation, love them or hate them, concerns hotels. The most important thing to understand about hotels is that everyone there is going somewhere. Some are moving from where they lived to where they will live next. Some are heading out on a vacation while some are returning home from one. Still others are visiting families and unfortunately for some, it may be due to a life that is coming to an end. The one thing they all have in common is that almost every person wants to have a conversation and has a story to tell. I for one can’t resist encouraging their story and yes, sharing my own. I wrote about it earlier, but this is a chance to test the six degrees of separation theory. I contend, that if your questions are open ended enough, it will not take too many to find that connection.

My next observation is that no matter where you travel, no matter who you encounter, we are all the same and we are all different. We are all citizens of the world and we share a desire for life to be simple yet interesting. We all deep down want peace and harmony and we just want the freedom to be who we are. This is what makes us all the same. And yet, we all have different hobbies and passions. We work at different jobs and eat culturally different foods. We play different games or maybe just variations of the same game. The beauty of these differences is that they are what makes travel so interesting while the similarities are what makes it so comfortable.

My last observation is really more of an answer to the question that everyone asks you when you travel. “What was your favorite thing?” My answer is that I can’t just name one thing. I can tell you that I thought the prettiest city was Savannah. My favorite beach was on Hilton Head Island. Favorite attraction, Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum, but the most impressive was the Chattanooga Aquarium while the most moving was Chickamauga Battlefield. My favorite activity was golfing with alligators while the best biking was in Palm Coast, though I need a shout out for riding bikes on the sand beaches of Hilton Head Island. I guess my answer to what did I like best, is all of it and that’s exactly why I was willing to put all those miles and hours driving from city to city, and state to state.

One final fact. We met so many interesting people but best of all we reconnected with three sets of friends who were brave enough to make the statement “if you are ever in the area…” and sincere enough to make us feel so welcome when we did.

Headed Home…Wait, What, A Blizzard?

Posted on April 12, 2019 by kwundrow

I said we wouldn’t come home until Wisconsin cleaned up its act and now one day’s drive from home and you throw us a blizzard? I guess it’s too late to turn back now.

We left Hilton Head Island two days ago and have been swinging north through North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Our first night got us to Asheville, North Carolina. Nestled in the Appalachians, it is a music city with great restaurants and one incredible gem, the Vanderbilt Mansion called The Biltmore. The tour took us most of the day as the house, all 250 rooms and 43 bathrooms sits on 8000 acres including a farm, village and winery. The house tour was set up as an audio tour with you being treated as a guest of the Vanderbilts being given a tour of the house before the festivities begin. The rooms are set up with mannequins in period dress adding a sense of realism to the tour. This was one of the best if not thee best tour I’ve ever been on.

Late that afternoon, after an extensive wine tasting that got us just loose enough to buy more wine than we have ever purchased at one of these things, we headed north again on our way to Lexington, Kentucky. Arriving late, we unloaded our luggage at the hotel and pretty much crashed for the evening. That is not before I answered several emails and did some road work for the first hour only to realize that the reason everything seemed so dark was that I was still wearing my sunglasses. I might add that I had driven the last half hour coming into town after dark and wearing those same sunglasses. This by itself might speak to being tired, but my darling wife never noticed. Kind of makes me wonder if I can trust her evaluation when I ask her if I look presentable and she replies in the positive.

This morning we headed to downtown Lexington where we stumbled on to a historic homes walk and the childhood home of Mary Todd Lincoln. The homes were for the most part restored and were serving as private residences. Many were incredibly well done. We also learned that Lexington was the home of The Transylvania University! I guess they have to prepare vampires somewhere. Seriously, it turns out it was a prestigious school of higher education established in 1789.

We finished our walk with a tour of the childhood home of Mary Todd Lincoln. the tour guide was very good and gave insights to her upbringing and life I had not realized. Their blended family spawned 17 children. As Kentucky was a slave state and the Todd’s had multiple slaves, the Civil War completely divided the family. Eight of the sons fought for the confederacy, while five sons joined the Union Army. Meanwhile the sisters split between North and South resulting in a truly “divided house.” The end result was a deep rift between family members as well as the tragic end for several of the sons. Mary’s life was filled with extensive tragedy and left her in later years fighting deep depression along with a period spent institutionalized for a diagnosis of insanity.

Our trip is drawing to a close but not without a wealth of memories and experiences, let alone a couple thousand pictures. Beware, if you ever cross us, we may just force you to sit through the entire slide show.

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	Annette Landsness on Stranger Times
	kwundrow on Life’s Moments
	Annette Landsness on Life’s Moments

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