Where in the World is Bernie?

Machu Picchu, Peru

You may have noticed that I have not posted on the blog for several weeks. Don't worry, I am still alive and doing well. It is just that I was on a long stretch of consecutive trips to various locations. The trips started right after MARPM.

MARPM 2024

MARPM 2024 was a success with 30 clinics, 14 layout tours and several vendors. Financially, we lost a bit of money, but not enough to break the bank. We plan to do it again in 2025. So mark your calendars for the weekend of September 13-14. 2025. 

LAKE ERIE, OHIO TRIP

Put-in Bay, Ohio

Next Alicia and I drove out to Sandusky, Ohio to play a round of golf at Sawmill Creek Resort. Then we boarded a ferry to spend a week at Put-in-Bay, Ohio and other islands in Lake Erie. This was a Road Scholar Trip focused on bird watching, but we also did general touring of four of the islands in Lake Erie including a visit to the Battle of Lake Erie Memorial.  I particularly enjoyed the large diorama of the naval battle at the visitors center.  

We also saw a great number of birds, especially migrating warblers. We even got to participate in bird banding at two different banding sites. The Road Scholar guides were great, We plan to do more Road Scholar trips in the future. 

KENTUCKY TRIP

We returned home and had a few days to recover before heading out to Kentucky to escort Alicia's mom to visit her sister in Pikeville. 

We had some time in Cincinnati, so we took in the Science and History Museum in the Cincinnati Union Station. This is a great museum with a fantastic model railroad exhibit. We also like the full scale diorama of the waterfront in the basement of the museum.  

In Kentucky, we had the chance to play golf on two beautiful courses built on reclaimed coal mines that used the mountain top removal technique. 

Beautiful mountains of south east Kentucky and western Virginia near Pound Gap

We had a chance to visit Elkhorn City, KY.
Alas, it is a shadow of its former railroad self. The railroad museum was closed, but it didn't look like it was well maintained. 

After that, we managed a quick visit to see our son and his family in Lexington, KY. 

SOUTH AMERICA TRIP

Ecuador

(L-R) I, Samia (Local Quito Bonsai Artist), Terry and Rob 

After a brief rest at home, I flew down to Quito, Ecuador with my brother Rob and his wife Terry. Rob was invited by the Quito Bonsai Club to do presentations and workshops, While he did that, Terry and I toured Quito seeing old churches, museums of local culture, and the fantastic botanical garden.We did get to ride the brand new Metro system in Quito. We also got to visit the Mitad de Monde memorial on the equator. 

I did a full day of bird watching with a local guide in the Tandayapa Valley. It was a fun adventure that reminded me of some Army exercises I have been on. It started with a pre-dawn hike on steep trails in the cloud forest and extended across the beautiful  Andes west of Quito. I saw an incredible number of birds including the Andean Cock of the Rock, rare antpitas, and dozens of types hummingbirds.  

Peru

The passenger station in Machu Picchu

Trackside scene on the way to Machu Picchu

We departed Quito and flew to Cusco, Peru via Lima, Peru. The next day we boarded the Perurail narrow gauge railroad to Machu Picchu Pueblo. Machu Picchu can only be reached by rail or walking. There are no vehicular roads to the town.  The railroad takes at least 6 switchbacks and several horseshoe curves to climb over the hills northwest of the city to reach Machu Picchu.  I can probably do a post just about the Perurail train ride. 

We stayed at the fantastic Inkatrra Hotel that is situated on many acres of their own private nature preserve. We toured the ruins at Machu Picchu.  It is an impressive site, especially when you consider it was a private city for Incan royalty with several religious structures. Amazingly, it only was in service for about 80 years, before the Spanish Conquistadors forced it to be abandoned. 

 I also did 3 guided tours of the Inkaterra nature preserve with guides from the Inkaterra Hotel. The hotel is a unique 5-star property with guests staying in private casitas among the jungle. It reminded me of the Jurassic Park Movie. It was probably the nicest hotel in which I ever stayed. 

Again, We saw an amazing variety of birds. I was especially pleased to see torrent ducks, a type of duck that only lives in fast moving streams in the Andes. Perhaps my favorite bird that we saw was the Andean Motmot, which we saw several times and up close. 

I was really pleased with the photo of the Gould's Inca on the left as it was quite dark when I took the photo. 

I took over a thousand images on the trip and lots of video of the train ride. 

Andean Motmot

We had one last morning in Cusco before we flew home. We got to tour the famous Plaza de Armes in beautiful weather. 

We ate a lot of good food on the trip including some unusual things such as goat, Kuy (guinea pig), sea food empanadas, and mate de coca. The latter is a tea made from the same leaves that are used to make cocaine. It allegedly helps with altitude sickness. I found that it was too much of a stimulant for me, so I only tried it once. Luckily, I did not have trouble with the altitude, though Rob and Terry did.

Fernando and Terry at the Galleria Latina in Quito.

We met a lot of wonderful people on this trip, especially in Quito. We hired a friend of one of the bonsai club members, to drive us around. Fernando was a wonderful person who took us to see museums, shopping, and cafes. He introduced us to several interesting people that gave us a good insight into Ecuadoran culture, history, and politics. He even gave me a gift of a book on local hummingbirds.  

One of the bonsai club members introduced us to his brilliant daughter who aspires to be an astronaut. She plans to go to MIT or Caltech next year.  She gave me a small gift of a small hummingbird since she learned I like birds. 

The Quito Bonsai folks  want to invite Rob back to do more bonsai workshops and I plan to go too, but this time I plan to visit the Amazon. 

ALABAMA TRIP

I arrived home on Saturday after a brutal 8-hour layover in Lima prior to an overnight flight, but there was little time to rest. On Monday, Alicia and I flew to Alabama to babysit our granddaughter Merritt while her mom was on business to New Orleans. While we were there, we rode the little narrow-gauge railroad at the Zoo. That is Merritt's favorite part of going to the zoo. 

That was great fun. Alas, we caught a nasty cold from our little one. It has taken we all this week to recover.  

Wedged in between all those trips were two trips to take down the D-Day exhibit in Gettysburg and them set it up in Woodstock, VA and then another trip to the French Embassy in DC to disassemble it. I was out of country, so I did not participate in the set up at the Embassy.

Whew, I get tried just thinking about all of it. I am looking forward to catching up on projects and doing some work on the layout.