Photos and report from our trip to Rome

March 4, 2017 by Paul

Over Christmas, we spent a wonderful two weeks in Italy. We spent eight nights in Rome, two nights in Naples (to visit Pompeii), and then the final two nights in Rome. This was our third trip and the longest one yet. (Our first was only three full days.) We saw a ton of things, some we had seen before and some that were new (including Trajan’s Market, San Giovanni in Laterno, GesÃº church). We enjoyed Naples, but did find it grittier than Rome, and loved Pompeii. The weather was really quite good aside from a couple of so-so days. Of course, I took a ton of photos (a bit over 5000).

Trip Report and Photos for our trip to Antietam and Gettysburg National Battlefields

November 25, 2016 by Paul

I’ve posted photos as well.

Kyle had the first couple of days of October off from school for Rosh Hashanah. We had been wanting to go to Gettysburg, a bit over three hours away, for awhile and decided this was a good time to go. As we had four full days, we also added a visit to Antietam, another hour past Gettysburg. We left Saturday morning and headed down to Hagerstown and Antietam National Battlefield. After arriving a bit after an early lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the battlefield. I had only a vague knowledge of the battle but did a quick read of Stephen Sears’ Landscape Turned Red the week before. This was an excellent history of the battle and well worth the read. (His Gettysburg, which I read before our trip there in 2004, is also excellent.) It really is amazing and sobering to visit the site of the deadliest day in American History (around 23,000 soldiers killed or wounded on Sept 17, 1862).

For dinner that night, we had made reservations at the Schmankerl Stube Bavarian restaurant in Hagerstown. I had called ahead to reserve the schweinshaxe (roast pork shank) as well and am glad I did as it was incredibly delicious. Even Kyle loved it. After dinner, we simply headed back to the hotel (the perfectly adequate Sleep Inn) and called it a night.

As we had seen all of Antietam, for Sunday we decided to head to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park as it’s only 40 or so minutes from Hagerstown. This is the site of John Brown’s raid on the US Armory in 1859 and played a significant role in the lead up to the Battle of Antietam. We hadn’t realized that the park had reconstructued/preserved the main town and it was a wonderful surprise. After an enjoyable morning and lunch at one of the cafes in town, we headed back to our car and out to Gettysburg. As it was on the way, we did stop at Catoctin Mountain Park for a short hike. Catoctin is a lesser known park but is the site of the Camp David presidential retreat.

After checking into our hotel in Gettysburg (the Comfort Suites near Gettysburg Battlefield) we headed to the visitors center for Kyle to get his Junior Ranger book. (We could get the others online but not Gettysburg). We weren’t sure we were going to do the museum and cyclorama but were very glad we did. The cyclorama is really quite something to see and even Kyle enjoyed it. We hadn’t seen it in 2004 as it was undergoing renovation. It’s really amazing that something like this was created 125 years ago. After an excellent dinner at Food 101, we walked around town a bit before stopping for ice cream and heading back to the hotel.

Monday was our day to tour the battlefield. We started at the visitors center and went through the excellent museum before doing the driving tour around the park. Kyle liked seeing the park but it is a bit hard to wrap your head around what was happening during the battle as it’s fairly large and was a three day battle. On this trip, we actually made it to Culp’s Hill, which has a nice observation tower, which we hadn’t before. Our visit took up the whole day to the point that we were worried we might not make it back to the visitors center in time for Kyle to get his Junior Ranger badge (third of the trip) but we did make it. (We could have gone back the next day anyway.) We did also visit the national cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address during the dedication of the cemetery in November 1863. Back in downtown Gettysburg, we had dinner at Mamma Ventura and stopped for ice cream.

On Tuesday, we headed back home. As it wasn’t that far out the way and we had been wanted to go for a while, we stopped by Valley Forge National Historic Park. (If you’re counting, that made five National Park Service sites in four days.) We watched the movie and spent a couple of hours visiting the park before grabbing some lunch and heading back home. We did a fair amount of driving but saw a lot of American history in a short time and had a wonderful weekend.

Trip Report and Photos from northern Vermont, NH and a bit of Massachusetts

November 20, 2016 by Paul

Posted photos as well.

As I had a lot of extra vacation time and Kyle was short a week of camp before school started, we decided he and I would spend a week in northern Vermont and New Hampshire. I wanted to visit some of the places I grew up visiting and we were also able to spend a few days with my dad and Sharon. We made the six hour drive up to Burlington on Saturday morning, spending Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night with my dad. It turns out that the Wings over Vermont air show was going on that weekend so we headed down to the waterfront on Sunday. It was great to see some cool planes and have a nice lunch on a pier along the harbor front.

On Monday, we headed over to Smugglers Notch to do the hike to Sterling Pond. This was a decent hike and we had a nice time. Afterward, we headed back to Burlington. Tuesday was kind of a dreary day so we spent a couple of hours at the movie theater watching Star Trek Beyond before driving the couple of hours to Littleton to have dinner with Lucy and Bob and Denise. (Ken came home later.) After visiting for a bit, we continued the drive to Lincoln, NH where we checked into Express Inn for three nights.

For Wednesday, we headed up to Franconia Notch, starting with The Flume. The weather was so-so but we figured we’d give it a show. Luckily, it was only foggy and drizzly so was okay. After finishing up, we headed into North Woodstock for lunch at the Landmark II followed by a stop at the candy shop and Fadden’s General Store. Next up was a visit to Lost River Gorge where Kyle had a great time crawling thought the caves. As it was later in the afternoon, we popped back to Lincoln for some make your own sundae at Udderly Delicious. For dinner, we hit El Greco’s Pizza a bit later and then popped up to the Kancamagus Highway from some sunset photography.

We had made plans to meet Carol, Mike, and the kids on Thursday at Clark’s Trading Post. Before heading over, we made the trip up the Cannon Mountain Tramway. Again, the weather looked iffy but turned out to be great. Heading back to Clark’s, we met Carol, Mike, and Courtney as Carley had to work. I remember Clark’s being quite small but I hadn’t been there in probably 30+ years. We ended up spending the entire day from around 11am on. Kyle enjoyed the train ride, the bear show, and, of course, the make your own sundae. Once done there, we headed back to Lincoln and had dinner at Black Mountain Burger Company, stopping for a frappe at Ice Cream Delights.

Normally, we would have stayed one more night in NH, but I had to head to Philadelphia Saturday evening to be there first thing Sunday morning to give my talk at the American Chemical Society meeting. To break up the eight hour drive, we decided to spend a night near Lexington and Concord, Mass to visit Minute Man National Historic Site. We had a nice time there and Kyle was quite patient at the Wayside House tour which turned out to be a bit long and dry. (It was where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott lived at various times.) He did get to be “part” of the militia at the Hartwell Tavern musket demonstration.

On Saturday, we headed home, arriving a bit before lunch time. I had a few hours to repack before heading out to the train station to catch the 1 hour ride to Philly. Both of us had an excellent time throughout the week. It was cool to show Kyle some of the stuff I grew up seeing and to see a bunch of my NH relatives.

Trip Report and Photos from Rocky Mountain National Park

November 13, 2016 by Paul

Many more photos.

The American Crystallographic Association (ACA) 2016 meeting was in Denver last summer. As I was attending and it ended on Tuesday evening, I decided to spend a few days visiting Rocky Mountain National Park, a couple of hours drive from Denver. I rented a car in downtown Denver and drove up, arriving in Estes Park around 11AM. Being a huge Stephen King fan, I had to splurge and spend one night at The Stanley Hotel. This is the hotel he was staying while writing and provided the inspiration for The Overlook Hotel in the Shining. In fact, it was used to film the 1997 TV miniseries (though not the 1980 movie with Jack Nicholson). After stopping by, my room was not ready, I grabbed lunch at Pepper’s Mexican Grill just down the hill before heading to the park. I spent the rest of the day driving the Trail Ridge drive all the way through the park to Grand Lake and back with a few stop along the way.

On Thursday morning, I was up early to check out of the hotel, stop at the supermarket for breakfast and lunch, and then back into the park to hike Deer Mountain (6.2 miles round trip and 1210 feet elevation gain). I then drove the Old Fall River Road up to the Alpine Visitors Center (at 11,800 feet). After lunch and Huffers Hill, I drove back to Estes Park to poke around town before checking in for two nights at The Maxwell Inn.

On Friday I decided to up the hike a bit and do Flattop Mountain (8.9 miles round trip and 2850 feet elevation gain to 12,300 feet). This was quite a hike and took me a total of about 6 hours. While it was a workout, it was definitely worth it. For the rest of the evening, I poked around Estes Park. On Saturday I drove back to Denver, dropped off the car, and checked into yet another hotel for the evening. I had originally planned to fly home Saturday but ended up daisy chaining another work trip to California right after so I stuck around for the night to fly to San Francisco on Sunday.

Overall, RMNP was quite nice. Unless you plan to do a lot of hiking, it was pretty easy to see in a couple of days. It was also quite busy, especially at the major stops and visitors centers.

Photos from Yellowstone

November 8, 2016 by Paul

I have finally managed to go through and post some photos from our trip to Yellowstone. There’s still way too many, but at least I didn’t post all 5100. 🙂

Photos from Florida

August 13, 2016 by Paul

While I know it’s been a bit, I finally managed to post some photos of our Kyle’s and my trip to Florida to visit my mom back in March/April (over Easter break). We were down there for most of a week. On Wednesday, we took what was going to be a day trip to Kennedy Space Center (a bit over two hours from my mom’s) and had a great time. We decided to stay the night in Orlando to break up the trip. We had a nice dinner out and did some swimming. We spent Thursday morning poking around Disney Springs (what was Downtown Disney) before heading back to Beverly Hills. Friday we did a walk around a local spring. It was a really nice week.

Trip to Kinshasa, Dem Rep of the Congo

May 15, 2016 by Paul

At the University of Kinshasa

As most of you likely know, I recently traveled to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (known as Zaire from 1971 – 1997 and being the former Belgian Congo). This trip was for work for provide the 4th (almost) annual CCDC workshop at the University of Kinshasa. While I was quite anxious about the trip, it was really an incredible experience and would go again in a second (assuming the country doesn’t destabilize significantly). It was amazing to see what the students and faculty make do with in terms of resources. The people were wonderful as well (though I wish I had learned more than my 10 words of French beforehand). I did post a (lengthy) Trip Report and a bunch of Photos.

Bonus Video #1:

Bonus video #2:

Photos from California

March 4, 2016 by Paul

A few weeks back, my group at work did a week long tour of the west coast. It was very hectic and busy, but I took an extra day or so on either end. I posted a couple of pages of photos. I flew into San Diego on Saturday afternoon, spending the night at the Hotel Cosmopolitan right in Old Town San Diego. This was an old stage coach hotel built in 1869 (as the second floor of a house built originally in 1827 by Juan Bandini). Back in both 1997 and 2002 when I visited, I ate here when it was Casa de Bandini. I ended up spending all afternoon and much of the next day right in Old Town, enjoying some great Mexican food, the history, and the warm sunshine. Sunday afternoon, a colleague picked me up for the drive out to the “burbs” for a workshop on Monday and a user meeting on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, we had an early flight to San Francisco where we had some meetings on Wed followed by a user visit and workshop on Thursday at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and a meeting with a collaborator on Friday morning (also at LBNL). Finally, Friday afternoon I was done for the week, so headed back to San Francisco and spent a couple of nights at the Club Quarters hotel in the Financial District.

After checking in Friday, I did a bunch of walking around town, seeing Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf. On Saturday, I had hoped to visit Alcatraz, but tickets were sold out by the time I got around to thinking about buying them. Instead, I took a cable car ride up California Ave followed by the bus to the Presidio. Here, I walked a ton eventually reaching the Golden Gate Bridge, crossing it (and coming back of course), before heading back into the city after lunch. I then headed back to Fisherman’s Wharf, visiting the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and heading back Pier 39 and then the hotel. I had an excellent dinner at Sam Wo in Chinatown. I turned in early as I had a 6:30 AM flight the next day (involving a car pickup at 4AM). I ended walking around 14.5 miles over the two days. Even though I really only had a couple of free days total, it was nice to bookend the stress of the trip with some relaxation. I also enjoyed my first real visit to San Francisco.

New Mexico

December 17, 2015 by Paul

Last month, I had the pleasure of heading out to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a business trip. I have lots of photos. This was my first trip to NM (well … I was there when I was four with my family but I’m not sure that counts). I spent a couple of nights in Santa Fe, staying at the wonderful and reasonable Old Santa Fe Inn right in town, which was very nice. Given it was the “desert”, it was quite cool as it’s at 7000 feet. (They had had snow the day before.) Fortuitously, our very good friend Paul Murphy now lives “nearby” in Carlsbad. Friday morning, after dropping off a colleague at the Albuquerque airport, I took the four-and-half hour drive down to southeast NM. It was quite the rural drive with not much between the two. (I did drive around Roswell, site of Area 51 of UFO fame.)

Of course, being in Carlsbad, I had to visit Carlsbad Caverns. It turns out, the elevator which normally takes visitors from the visitors center down 750 ft to the main cavern was out. We had to walk down from the Natural Entrance. This was an excellent way to head in. The trek down wasn’t too bad, but the trek up was a bit tougher. We did do the King’s Palace tour which was excellent. At one point, the guide turns off the lights and it was dark. After spending several hours down below and trekking back up, we did lunch at the center, did a short walk up above, got locked in (they had locked the gate without realizing someone was still there), and stuck around for sunset. (Luckily, Paul, being a former NPS employee, has friends who work there that we could call.)

On Sunday, we did the 45 minute drive down to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, with a brief stop on the way at an abandoned potash mine. This was my first time in Texas which was cool. The park itself was very scenic. We spent a good chunk of the day doing the 4.2 mile (roundtrip) Devil’s Hall trail. This was a good walk and the end, Devil’s Hall itself, was definitely worth it. After a brief stop at Frijole Ranch, we headed back to Carlsbad, stopping at Rattlesnake Spring and the BLM Pecos River Recreation Area on the way.

Monday morning, we had breakfast at Denny’s before I headed back to Albuquerque for my noon-ish time flight back home. I got to see Paul M again after several years, saw some great natural scenery, ate some great New Mexican food, and put on a decent workshop (it was a work trip after all). All in all, a great trip.

Oxford and Cambridge Photos

December 13, 2015 by Paul

I just posted the last batch of photos from our trip to the UK this past August/September. These are from heading out of JFK, a brief stop at Cadbury World in Birmingham, a day trip to Oxford (Suzanne, Kyle and I) to visit a friend from my Marburg days, and my week alone in Cambridge.

We had planned to head to Cambridge for a day trip during our time in London. However, as Suzanne and I had just been in June and I had been going regularly, and was planning to continue to do so, we were considering Oxford instead, also only an hour by train from London. Over the summer, Armida, who is now in Oxford, and I happened to reconnect so we decided it would be the perfect time to visit with her and her family. We did a lot of walking through town and had a wonderful day. We especially liked the covered market and I had toad-in-the-hole for lunch. My dad decided to stay behind in London and visited Kensington Palace and Hyde Park, both of which we enjoyed.

Suzanne, Kyle, and my dad flew home Sunday morning, leaving the apartment quite early. I headed up to Cambridge, an hour from King’s Cross station which was about a 20 minute tube ride from the apartment. The week was pretty much a typical week in the UK office. I did try to see more of town, venturing north of the river and hitting a number of new pubs. Normally, I tack on a night or two in London after the week in Cambridge, but as I had just been there for a full week, I left Cambridge on Saturday morning direct to Heathrow airport. It’s a bit of a trek, about two hours by train and tube, but you only need to connect once at King’s Cross as the tube from there, the Piccadilly line, goes right to the airport.

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