New York events and Colorado Alert

We have our own fire - view from North Boulder Park Looking South to flatirons.  South Boulder on evac alert -Rico's school's neighborhood.  

One hour later - 6:30 p.m. -  same view.  We've had clouds and a bit of rain during the day.  I was parking the car just off east Pearl at 1 for lunch and saw lightening flashes to the south and west - fire started about then from a lightening bolt.  It is tinder dry - no rain in weeks.  Yesterday's ( and this afternoon's storms are erratic and drop rain in different spots - we got none yesterday but 10 blocks away - our lunch friends had puddles when we took them home.  thew we got a soaked deck about 7:30 but very little rain hit the grass - the leaves got it all!
The fire looked much more under control; this morning but we have not checked anything this afternoon.  It is almost 5 and the Kelloggs are coming for an inside - we think - picnic.  The temp this afternoon went down to 88 - 90s this a.m. as every day since we got back except for one.  Tied the 102 record last Sunday.  East Coast get ready - we're sending it your way I'm afraid.

Grad and grandparents - it was a lovely event and a very nice dinner afterwards.

The family.

Nice sun set - wrong photo!

Toasts at dinner - it was very well done as the siblings spoke first and then the  two grads.  A fine end to a nice day.

Grad party time - afternoon to be followed by

evening.  Our grad is up in the air!

We'd stayed an extra day to enjoy the jump out the window ritual at Julie's kindergarten end of year picnic.  Lots of fun orchestrated by a great teacher.

Happy Father's Day! Early Summer Catch-up

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

I loved reading about Matt's huge Spring Term and big congratulations to Sarah on her graduation- Well Done!

Queso keeps getting bigger!

It already seems like summer's been going on for a while now at the Kellogg house, and I guess it has!

I returned last week from a solo voyage to Jackson, WY and Hailey, ID to visit the old college buds, Scott and Spike. I rode my bike a lot; probably 100 miles of the best singletrack I've ridden. It was very nice to catch up and see what those guys are busy with. Scott founded the first private high school in Wyoming, and he just graduated his 6th class of seniors- 22 kids; the biggest class yet. I loved hanging with his 2 cute kids and his wife, Mollie in their comfy house in the Snake River bottomlands just south of town.

Spike and Liz are both super-active and busy as usual up in Hailey. Spike just started an international land use and conservation consultancy and Liz is doing some incredible high-level work in international environmental law. They're both thriving up west of Hailey in a comfortable modern green-built home nestled against the foothills with a view of the Pioneer Mountains which Spike has been integral in helping preserve. We had some great meals together and we rode a lot- check it out: Epic mt. biking with Spike in Ketchum

Catching bubbles is a favorite pastime

While my trip was going on, Reid was off on an Alaskan cruise with Jerry Grant's wife, Jane. Jerry and Jane were supposed to go as a couple, but Jerry was not feeling up for it, so Jane invited Reid- Lucky guy! He came back with tales of the glaciers, orcas, lumberjack shows and epic feasting. He also shipped back a 20 pound salmon he caught which we've been enjoying. . returning, he's been immersed in his SMBA (Singletrack Mountain Bike Adventures) team, putting in long days and lots of miles getting ready for his first race in Crested Butte this week

It's been a hot summer, and we've already had one bad fire, setting a record for property damage in the state in just one week. We're keeping cool with our membership to the Elks Club Pool- the best pool deal in town and a nice place to hang out.

Chillin' at the Elks Club pool on a 90+ degree day

Little water sprite

Father's Day hike

Queso learned how to drink from a sprinkler- and stay in the shade. Boden finally pushed himself to go for it off the medium slopestyle feature at the bike park and Kate and I took Reid to his first real concert; Michael Franti and Spearhead at red Rocks. June has been good and we're looking forward to what the rest of the summer holds!

Sarah Graduated!!

Harmonaires singing at Shea Stadium opening day '04?

Will, Sarah, and Jaren

Processional solemnity

Celebrating Siblings

Harmonaires reunited to sing the national anthem

AHHHH! So Happy!

Sarah's Senior Prom

pinning

posing

mugging

family pose

family candid

Vacation Time - June 2012

Boden on the Belgian Stairs

A beautiful but hot - high 80s and no wind - day at the Bike Park was Reid was in Alaska and Dad in Sun Valley.

Bo

Boden catches some air.

Boden and I spent an hour at the park - I with camera and Boden with Bike!  It was fun and different after swimming two days before.  

Spring Term & Other Travels

           Washington and Lee mandates that all students take a “spring term” course. This course is 4 credits as opposed to 3, takes place over a 4-week period, and often concerns a specific and creative subject. For example, last year I took “Buddhist Meditation” and some of my friends took “The Philosophy of Time Travel” as well as “The Ethics of War”. W&L also allows offers study abroad programs for the 4 weeks, which is exactly what I did. Ireland is the only country I haven’t visited that is part of my heritage so I decided to go there (I also loved the professor that was guiding us through the rural West of the country).
           The course took place in a small village called Dingle, which is located on the Dingle Peninsula, and is one of the Western-most points of Europe. It reminds me a lot of Block Island, a place that my family and I have “holidayed” every Thanksgiving for the past 10 years. We arrived on a beautiful Sunday afternoon – the rain was lovely and warm. After the bus ride to Dingle we got a tour from our guide/coordinator Sean Pol. My favorite part besides the harbor street and “Fungi” the town dolphin was the number of pubs/(insert business here). The most famous of these establishments is “Foxy John’s”, which is a hardware store on one side and a bar on the other. It wasn’t profitable enough in those days to only own a hardware store so they decided to sell beer on the side.            

View from my window in Dingle

Harbor street in Dingle

During the four weeks there were activities scheduled for us non-stop. I would estimate that we spent 40-50 hours/week on class related activities such as lectures, group discussions, and most of all site visits and tours. We only had to write about 20 or 25 pages for the course (Writers of Western Ireland), and about 80% of that was relatively informal, but those tours and visits sure made up for the lack of writing we had to do. My three favorite places (activities to come later) we visited were: Muckross Manor (especially the Abbey), Thor Balle Lee (Yeats’s House), and Coole Park.
           

 

Muckross Manor was an estate owned by English Nobles in the town of Killarney, Co. Cork (?). The estate’s claim to fame is that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited for about 3 days as a stop on a summer holiday. The servants of the house and the owners expected the be knighted or made gentry for their exceptional efforts to accommodate the Queen (who was very picky), but Queen Vick died before she could thank them for their hospitality.
           The Abbey was chilling to say the least. As you emerge from dense woods that separate the Abbey from the street you see that the churchyard overlooks a lake and mountain-scape that is hidden, save one small window, by dense woods. The church was not in ruins, but it had no roof and part was in the process of being restored. The Abbey housed a Yew tree surrounded by a walkway that connected two of the main rooms. The most impressive thing about Yews, besides their deep connection to Celtic and Christian religion, is that they that average lifespan of the trees is unknown since the oldest one on the planet is estimated to be between 3,500 and 4,500 years old! This was the highlight of the day for me and it seemed that some of my classmates were just as captivated by this as I was.
           

Coming out of the Muckross estate woods to the churchyard

Muckross Abbey

Later in the course we traveled north to Galway, Co. Clare, and made several stops along the way. One of the stops was at Thor-Balle-Lee, home of W.B. Yeats’s farmhouse and tower. We stopped here to hear three of his poems, “An Irish Airmen Foresees his Death”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, and “The Tower”. Our English Prof has a phenomenal voice and an eye/ear for reading poetry out loud. Getting to listen to him recite these poems, which we had studied intensely the term before, sent shivers up and down my spine. It was the first moment on the trip where the class was held breathless as a whole.
           

Thor Balle Lee (Yeats's House)

Professor Conner reading to the class

Thor-Balle-Lee is located on the grounds of Coole Park, which was owned by Lady Gregory until the mid 20th century. Lady Gregory was a dear friend of Yeats’s and together (along with James (?) Synge they began the Abbey Theater, which became the epicenter of all great Irish plays and performances. We also studied Coole Park, which is why I thought it was so interesting getting to see it in person. This is a picture of the “autograph tree” that Lady Gregory kept. On it are all the signatures of great authors and other figures that visited her.
This is where her house used to stand but the state tore it down and used it as building materials for other projects.
           

Where Lady Gregory's house used to be

Autograph tree

The three best experiences I had were: climbing Mt. Brandon, Visiting the Skellig Islands, and visiting the Blasket Islands.
           Mount Brandon is just over 3,000 feet and overlooks Dingle and the surrounding towns. Its peak is always visible no matter how what angle you look at it from, and clouds often cover it (sometimes holding rain and sometimes not). Climbing it was the most adventurous thing I’d done in a while mostly because about 3/5 of the way up our guide (Sean Pol) said that it was “totally cool” to start climbing straight up. Little did the leading group (self-appointed Seal Team Six) know that this lead to a rock-less incline of about 75 degrees. Spider crawling up 100 yards of mountain moss, at that incline, with a backpack filled with 4.75 liters of water pulling you backwards, is a terrifying and exhilarating experience. We made it to the top of the mountain and found that someone had brought up a giant cross. We took a picture together at the top with only clouds as background. I was delighted at how isolated the peak was. Though our communal efforts and experience atop Mt. Brandon the few who did climb grew much closer.
           

Part of the way up Mt. Brandon

At the peak of Mt. Brandon

The mountain's "false peak"

Behind the Mt. Brandon climb were the Skellig Islands and the Blasket Islands. The Skelligs are the Western-most inhabited part of Europe. In the 12th century Monks journeyed to the set of rocks in the Atlantic and built a monastery. Their goal was to devote themselves to God completely through isolation and difficulty of task. They built 600 steps into the side of the rock and built beehive huts along the sides of the mountain. The most impressive part of this is that they used all stone from the mainland, and in their days the voyage took 1.5 days each way. .The Blasket Islands were home to a few great writers, who we studied during our time there. If anyone is interested in day-to-day life of these people I highly suggest reading “The Islandman” by Tomas O’Creahan (?). It should be easy enough to find on Amazon. At first it seems like a string of disconnected memoirs, but in fact, when examined literary themes and motif emerge making it a true work of literature. The islands were abandoned in the 1950s after a series of events that made life impossible on the islands. We saw the remains of the village, untouched, and climbed “the saddle” (mountain on the Great Blasket), and made some donkey friends.

Birds on the side of an otherwise dark rock. Total count 15,000+

         

Skellig Michael

Huts on the side of Skellig Michael

That was the bird rock from the top of Skellig Michael

Joanie on the boat

  

Dolphins on the way to Blakset Islands

Abandoned village on the Great Blasket

Closer abandoned village

Donkey friends living on the Blaskets

Cliffs of Moher. Where Harry Potter 6 was shot (Voldemort's cave) and also the "Cliffs on Insanity" in The Princess Bride

Me & Jake on a "Hill Walk"

I met a new friend on the trip, Jake, who is one of the cooler people I’ve met at W&L. The best part is he isn’t Greek, which goes against everything that W&L freshmen and sophomores are taught. It is a pretty limiting system socially, but does have its benefits and merits. Jake and I golfed twice (he’s on the team) and I ended up doing pretty darn well in his opinion.