How I Spent My Summer Vacation June 1999
But before I begin, here are some current pictures...
With five of my six beautiful grandkids, January 2003
Now the same grandkids December 2007
Two more beautiful granddaughters live in California
Oldest grandson with his mother at A&M.
May 30, 2003 my mother, sister, and wife
help me celebrate my 60th birthday.
...now for my vacation in June 1999
My son and grandson join my brother and his wife at
an outdoor cafe in Bruges, Belgium. Andrea speaks seven languages
fluently, so we had no problem with communications in Europe.
Great God, I'd rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn so muses my brother as he pauses for a moment in a bay near Bodrum, Turkey
So might I standing on this pleasant lea have sights to make me less forlorn
See Proteus rising from the sea, or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
My grandson, nephew, brother, and I
pause in The Hague, Netherlands, beside
a statue of our ancestor, Johan Van Oldenbarneveldt
who was beheaded in 1619
View from near Johan's statue of Maurits House
in downtown Den Haag, Netherlands
My son samples raw herring, traditional fare in the Netherlands,
while my brother and my grandson look on in disbelief (The Hague).
My brother and my son sail out of the harbor at Bodrum, Turkey
My son contemplates the route of Odyseus through the"wine dark seas"
while Kara Ada, the "Black Island", looms in the background.
A side trip to Ephesus from Bodrum only takes a couple hours
to drive but is well worth the effort. These two cities house the remains
of two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (i.e. the Temple of Artemis
is near Ephesus, and the Mausoleum is at Bodrum (the ancient city of Halicarnassus))
My grandson roams over the ruins at Cnidos, known to have
been the location of the first medical teaching facility in history.
To get here from Bodrum, we sailed by the Greek Island of Cos, where
in 460 B.C. Hippocrates was born.
My son does a back flip from the rigging in a bay near Cnidos
My son enjoys the view from St.Peter's castle. Built during the
crusades, it guards the entrance to the harbor at Bodrum.
My son swims in the clear waters of the mediterranean
in a small bay near Bodrum
My brother, his wife, my grandson, and I watch the
sun set over the north sea at the beach near Wassenaar, Netherlands