This year Christmas fell on a Wednesday and it was Greta’s and Nick’s year to come home for Christmas. Since Greta wanted to stay for 2 weeks so she could attend Jamie’s mother, Deb’s, memorial/celebration of life service she decided to drive from Denver. She and Nick left Denver Saturday morning and arrived Sunday evening around 9 PM. Esther and I had tickets to the botanical garden wonderlight show that evening at 5:30 but were home by 7PM plenty of time to cook a pork tenderloin for pork sliders for a late night dinner.

Monday night Esther and I hosted Greta and Nick for dinner at Esther’s house we all cooked.

Tuesday, Christmas Eve, Robin and Andrea were going to drive up after work but had to cancel at the last minute because Robin rolled his foot and had to go to the ER for X-rays because it hurt so bad he thought it was broken. I had made a cod chowder for Christmas evening thing it was a good dish for when Robin and Andrea arrived

Wednesday, Christmas Day, we decided to drive to Macon, the day after Christmas, amnd dop our stocking with Robin and Andrea. Esther could go because she had a scheduled Pilates appointment and eye doctor appointment. She had just had cataract surgery on Friday Dec 20th and was anxious to have it looked at because she didn’t feel like her sight in the eye was getting better – but all was good. We had a grass fed, 4 rib roast, from Earth Fare for dinner with brussel sprouts, green beans and a salad for dinner.

Thursday, trip to Robin and Andrea house in Macon. We all, Greta, Nick, me and Isla, left around 8:30 in the morning. We brought all of the stockings, some prime rib and the Dutch cheese Esther and I brought back from the Netherlands. We did our stocking, snacked on cheese and crackers and ate so delicious cinnamon rolls that Andrea had made. We left around 2:30PM because we had invited Andy and Jen’s family over that night for a small Christmas get together. We got home about 5PM and Esther was already there and had taken the girls out to pee. Then, with everyone’s help we got ready for our party with: Andy, Jen, Carrie, Ewen, Rae, Sammie, Pete(Jen’s brother) and Sue(Jen’s sister) and it was a very fun evening with lots of conversations and laughs.

Day 1 – Sunday December 1
I flew out of the Atlanta airport at 8PM Sunday night on a Delta flight to Amsterdam. It was an 8-1/2 hour flight and Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of our EST.

Day 2 – Monday December 2
I landed at 10:30AM local Amsterdam time. Esther took the short bus ride from her father place in Aalsmeer to meet at the airport. Once we connected Gerard, Esther’s father, came and picked us up from the airport. It was almost noon by the time we got to Gerard condominium and the weather was cold and rainy. The parking garage for the residents was gated and located under the building so we didn’t have to get out into the weather. Gerard had a wonderful lunch for us of: fresh wholewheat bread, paper thin sliced ham, rookvleer and fresh, delicious cheeses. The weather cleared up for a little while in the afternoon so Esther was able to show me around the town of Alsmeer.

Day 3 – Tuesday December 3
A trip to Wageningen University so Esther could meet with Dr. Arnaud Bovy about her sabbatical next year. Esther also gave a hour lecture about her research that was well attended with several questions afterwards from the students – it was my first time attending one of her talks. We all had lunch together along with Dr Yury Tikunov, a colleague of Arnaud originally from Russia – some very interesting conversations. It was close to 5PM after we had a tour of the lab and were ready to leave to meet Annemieke, a college roommate for dinner.

Day 4 – Wednesday December 4 – The Brothers

Menno Van der Knaap – oldest brother
Menno owns and operates a large cut flower business that sells orchids. He has several large green houses located in Almere. The orchids are grown, cut, packaged and boxed from the green houses and trucked to a nearby auction house. Menno was in the process of changing out his heat source for the greenhouses from gas to wood burning. The Netherlands get their gas from Russia and are trying to become gas independant. Orchids also have to be watered with rainwater so Menno has a big rainwater collection system.

Maurice Van der Knaap – middle brother
Maurice and his partners have system of using dry hydroponics to grow a wide variety of crops. Their company is working to bring this system, of producing fresh produce, to food desert areas of the US, starting with Pennsylvania. They hope to have the first dry hydroponic greenhouse up and running within the next two years,

Gerben Van der Knaap – youngest brother
Gerben has refurbished some old greenhouses and built individual storage boxes inside and rents them individually. He hopes to have all the units built out by the end of 2025. There are several different sizes of boxes with rental prices dependent on square footage.

July 7 – 10, 2024

The Uranium Mind Trail near Steamboat Springs is a moderately challenging hike that offers scenic views and historic significance Here are some of the key information about the trail;

Length: approximately 3.2 miles long round trip
Elevation Gain: Around 850 feet.
Difficulty: Moderate
The trail leads to an old Uranium mine that was operational in the 1950’s

OUR VRBO home for our time in Steamboat Springs

Restaurants –

Weather: it was cool upper 50’s in the morning – then low 90’s in the afternoon.

Strawberry Park Natural Springs

Strawberry Park Hot Springs blends the pure natural beauty of the environment with the unique stone masonry of there thermal pools.

We went back to Denver after 3 nights in Steamboat Springs where the temperature reached the low 100’s so we canceled our hiking trips and found some cooler local activities. One day we walked two of the parks that had big shady trees, went to a movie, saw Fly me to the Moon, it was entertaining but the theater wasn’t that cool, another day we went to a museum. We made best of the extreme heat’

Sela flew back home to Portland on Saturday, the next day, Sunday, Greta, Isle and I stopped by the Garden of the Gods on our way to Monument Co. to see Chris, Cristy’s and Donna’s new house – it was great day.

Date: September 3 – 6, 2024.
The Virginia Creeper trail is a popular trail that runs through southwest Virginia, extending 34.3 miles from Abingdon to Whitetop Station, near the North Carolina border. Originally a railroad line, the trail was converted in the 1980s into a scenic route for hiking, biking and horse back riding. The trail is named after Virginia Creeper vine, which grows abundantly in the region and also the after the nickname of the original steam engines that “crept” up the mountains.

Abingdon to Damascus
This section of the trail is gentler, spanning about 15 miles and featuring rolling hills and farmland. Its a great spot for a more leisurely bike ride with plenty of scenic views, wildlife and historic markers.

Damascus to Whitetop Station
This is a more challenging but also more popular section, spanning 17 miles and leading up to the highest point on the trail at Whitetop Mountain. The route involves a gradual ascent and passes through lush forests, creeks and bridges.

I brought my RV and stayed at the Creeper Trail Campground a popular campground located on Whitetop mountain near the Virginia Creeper Trail head. I was distracted by a women, Esther, who I had just started dating and did not take the time to look at the directions on the campground website but followed Google Maps instead. Google maps had me high in the mountains on a gravel, one lane road with hair pin curves – hundred foot cliffs on one side and sheer rock on the other side. Was so glad I didn’t meet anyone driving the other way because I didn’t know what I would do.

Camping at the Creeper Trail Campground allows visitors to full immerse themselves in the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains while having easy access to both the trail and nearby attractions in Damascus.

Greta moved her flight home up by 3 days to Monday June 3, from her original date of June 6th because of my accident. I picked Greta up at the Georgia Ctr shuttle location at 6:30PM on Monday evening. I had mad a pasta salad which we had for dinner. I was starting to feel better but we still took it easy – here is a summary of her stay.

Tuesday, June 4 – we stayed around the house, rested and Greta swam in the lake. We had dinner at Kiques in Watkinsvile.

Wednesday, June 5 – we hung around the house in the morning then after Greta’s conference call with her book collaborators (Erin and Christine) we went to the farmer’s market at Creature Comfort. We bought some veggies, had a beer, listened to some live music before going to the Last Resort for dinner.

Thursday June 7 – we had lunch at Cali N Tito’s and did some grocery shopping because we wanted something we could cook on the Himalayan Salt tile that was regifted to me.

Friday, June 8 – we went downtown shopping at several of Greta’s favorite stores and had lunch at Big City Bread on their nice shady patio. Greta invited Haley over for dinner and we fixed chicken breast with piccata sauce – it was a fun evening even if Haley forgot and ended up an hour late.

Saturday, June 9 – Robin and Andrea came up Saturday afternoon and Greta made a lentil, salad with chick peas and grated beets for dinner – very good.

Sunday, June 10 – Sunday morning we had a waffles, eggs and bacon for breakfast then we spread Pam’s ashes on the property in some gardens. Sunday night we had a small bon voyage dinner party for Jen and Andy as they were off to Scotland on Tuesday – it was also a thank you for all their help after my accident. Greta and Andrea made a great taco feast and we had Pam’s easy blueberry cobbler for dessert – there were 7 for dinner Judy was also invited.

Monday, June 11 – we all went shopping at Costco, where Rob found a good deal on a Lego set, and then lunch at Marti’s at Midday. Robin and Andrea left for home around 2PM

Tuesday, June 12 – Greta and I went to Target where Greta helped me pick out a new pair of eye glasses. Then we drove over to Prince Ave where Greta had an 11AM appointment to get her nails done – we had lunch afterwards at the Farm Burger – it was very good.

At 4PM I took Jen and Andy to the airport shuttle at the GA Ctr for their flight to Scotland..

Wednesday, June 13 – took Greta to the shuttle at 8:15AM for her flight to New York where she was meeting Nick, who was flying in from Denver.