September 1 - Louvre and the Marine Museum

Today the girls and boys went separate ways.  Nancy and Pam went to the Louvre while Rick and I went to the Maritime Museum at the Trocadero. The girls enjoyed seeing master artist works and avoided the tourist crowds.  Afterwards, they shopped and made their way back to the apartment.

View of the Louvre taken through the glass pyramid at the entrance of the museum

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The maritime museum was very interesting for Rick and I.  Gadget people thrive in this atmosphere.  The models were made by master craftsmen, going back to the 1500's.  Rick is a model builder and found some scaled plans for a rare steam powered side-wheeler. 

Napoleon's barge

One of the larger models.

Sorry for the blurry picture.  The light was very low, no tripod and no flash.  The detail was amazing.

For dinner, we walked to the Rue Cler neighborhood and ate at The Petit Cler restaurant. 

August 31 - St. Sulpice, Bastille, Luxenburg Garden, River Cruise down the Seine

We started our day attending church at St. Sulpice.  It is a grand cathedral a very big pipe organ.  They have a short organ concert after the Sunday service.  It was a wonderful sound that easily filled the space. 

This is the location of the Bastille prison.  It was torn down in the 1830 French revolution.  It is  a monument and a large rotary (traffic circle).  A caravan of cars and motorcycles staged a moving protest while we were there. 

Starting the river cruise on the Seine with our friends. 

The people on shore view the spectators on the boat and we do likewise.  You see two groups on shore.  The farthest group was Salsa dancing and the nearest group was ballroom dancing.

One of our high school classmates suggested we have a hot chocolate on the banks of the Seine.  These two cups are for you Glenda.  Granted, ice cream for the four of us followed the picture.

We are ranging from 9.5 to 14 miles a day walking (most days, about 11 miles)  Lots of sights to see.

August 30 Musée de l'Orangerie and the Eiffel Tower

We modeled for Rodin in our younger days.

The Musée de l'Orangerie "  features Impressionist" artists like Monet, Matias, Renoir and several lesser known artists.

Renior

Marie Laurencin

Amedeo Modigliani

Andre Derain

Chaim Soutine

Rick and Pam went to the top of the Eiffel tower.  Nancy and I took our trip to the top in 2008.  There were large crowds of people up to 11:00 and everything thinned out only because it started to sprinkle.

August 29 Chateau Versailles

A train ride on the French railroad (RER) to the city of Versailles and a another walk to the Chateau.  This is a really big and opulent place.  The line just to get through security ( not as tough as TSA), but we kept our shoes on.  Makes Disneyland look like a joke.

Line for security.  This is the front of the castle.

Selfie of Rick, Pam, Nancy and Bud

Chateau Versailles - view from the back

This is just part of the reflecting pool.  Originally there were 1500 fountains, not there is only 300.  If you look closely in the distance, those are 16 foot row boats.

The row boats

looking back at the castle

The pool was for the fountain was about 150 feet across

This is only a small sample of the rooms for the kings and queens.

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This a building on the chateau's ground about a half a mile from the castle.

We had four different meals and they were delicious.

 Only walked about 10 miles today.

 

August 28

Musee d'Orsay for our first look at the "impressionist" artists.  Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures.  The building was an old train station they saved from destruction in the 1970's and it is beautifully restored.

Our luggage finally caught up with us.  One bag delivered at 5:30 PM and the second delivered at 12:35 AM on Friday.  UPS, it was not.

They have several bridges that have chain link type guard rails and people have thousands of locks attached to fencing. 

Walked 12 plus miles today

Nancy capturing the trekkers.  She could have at least closed my mouth.

August 27 - Wondering around the neighborhood

 A walk down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triump and a little shopping.  Strolled down Rue Cler for lunch and some grocery shopping.  

Still asking Air France about luggage.  Last time for checking luggage on international flight.

More later

August 26 After a Long Day

Sorry for the delay in posting.  Jet lag and really busy.   We are sharing our two bedroom apartment just off the Champs-Élysées with our friends Rick and Pam. We were getting ready for the adventure.  Still working with Air France to get our checked luggage from Amsterdam.  

More on this day later. 

In Paris finally

We're in Paris, the City of Light - and rain!  Our travel day was longer than expected, featuring a 2 hour delay in Portland, 4 hour delay in Amsterdam, missed connections and delayed luggage in Paris.  By the time we reached our apartment, we'd been awake 29 hours!

Happily, we met our friends, had a delicious dinner, and a restful night.  Today we grab an umbrella and explore the city.

August 2014 Getting ready for the next trip.

We are heading to our next destination tomorrow.  We are meeting Rick and Pam for a visit to the mystery place.

Here is a hint.

This is a picture from our visit in 2008.  It was only 2 very short days.  This time we are taking our time and enjoying the sights.  We will keep you posted.

June 2014 in Bandon

This picture says it all.  We had a fantastic time walking on the beach and visiting with friends and relatives from Oregon and  Northern California.

I took this picture on the fourth evening.  Some days are just magic.

March 2014 Phoenix

  We watched some Spring baseball and visited old friends.

We decided that the outfield seats on the grass were not as comfortable as the seats in the stadium. Duh!

We had a dinner with friends from my college fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon.  Thank you, "Steamer," for organizing the party.   I had not seen some of the guys since 1969.  Great times and great guys.

March 2014 San Jose

We had a wonderful time visiting my friend in San Jose.  We've known each other for over 55 years.  It is nice to have such great friend!

February 2014 Mazatlan

We were invited to stay in Mazatlan.  We ate, drank, shopped and relaxed.  It was a very good time to head south of the border and skip the cold and wet weather in Oregon.

Relaxing

Cathedral in downtown Mazatlan

Sunset from the balcony of our condo-

Tuesday Oct. 8, 2013 - Last Day

We meandered down back roads along the coast to Boston.  A nice sunny day with a few clouds.  The trees are shedding their leaves pretty fast now.  The rain and the wind from the last couple of days left a good portion of the color on the ground.   The lasting memories from the trip will all be bright with shades of orange, yellow, red and green.  Of course, the history of the area and the roots of our ancestors going back to the 1600's have added immensely to the richness of our adventure. We were able to visit many of the areas that our ancestors immigrated to, lived, raised their families, and died.

Check a few more things off our bucket list.  Plane leaves in a while.

 Final count on the New England miles was a tad over 1700.

One of our last stops was at the Fisherman's  Memorial on the bay front in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Does this statue look familiar? 

  

Monday Sept. 7 - Dover, NH - found some relatives

We went digging in the antiquity section of the Dover, New Hampshire library and confirmed one branch of my mother's family that dated back to 1608.  We also found  two generations of  of my ancestors that were buried in the Dover area on Varney Road and in the Varney Cemetery.  The cemetery was very small (40' wide and 75' long) and grown over.  Only four headstones were visible, but in very good shape compared to others we found in more exposed areas. 

View from the edge of the road and relative size of the burying ground.

Varney Cemetery established 1850

If you gotten this far down the page, please note.  We are flying home on the 8th.  The blog will be off line for a while.  Hope you enjoyed the narrative, we sure had a great of fun.  Final mileage for Missouri was about 400 miles and New England was about 1400 plus miles.  The only regrets was that several of the Nation Park sites we wanted to tour were shut down, because of the little children in DC.