Two weeks in France, visiting with family and old friend from school.

This trip was taken in September 2018.

Arc de Triomphe

Le Louvre

We took this trip with Connie and Duane, my sister-in-law and her husband.  We spent the first part in Paris. 

By the Place de la Concorde, near the Obelisk

I was happy to serve as the impromptu tour guide in Paris for the most efficient way to hit some highlights when we don't have a lot of time.

The Obelisk.

 From the Louvre, we walked by the small Arc de Triomphe, to the Place de la Concorde where the Obelisk is, then further to the Champs Elysees where we checked out the Grand Musee, the Pont Alexandre, all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.  We walked the whole length of the Champs Elysees which is not very long, though very famous.

Duane

Connie

Debbie and Connie in the Louvre

Connie and Andre in front of the Grand Musee

Pont Alexandre

La Seine

The last few pictures are from the Louvre.  It will take three days to see most of the exhibits in this world renown museum. 

At Gisele's

We spent some time with my cousin Gisele. We stayed at her house for two nights.  She was the most hospitable hostess ever! Above is her son Michael with his girlfriend to the left, his sister holding his arm, and Connie to the right. 

Sacre Coeur

  

We continued our trip South of France, outside of Marseilles where we spent time with my best-friend from high school, Jean-Charles.  He has a beautiful house overlooking the Mediterranean Sea with breathtaking views.  We spent a couple of days with his family.  We very enjoyed ourselves with his lovely family.   

Fleur, Eli's youngest daughter. So adorable!

The 3 brothers

Christelle (Eli's wife) with Fleur.

Anne-Lys, at Eli's house. 

With Jean-Charles

We finished our trip by visiting my siblings Jacques and his wife in Agouleme, and Eli and his family in Toulouse.  

We packed a lot in the two weeks.  We visited a lot of places, spent time with very loving people, family and dear friends.  Looking forwards to the next trip. 

Visiting the Chihuly Exhibit at the Biltmore Estates

This was simply magical! We visited the exhibit at night when it was beautifully lit, then we strolled by the next morning.

Chihuly is a world renowned artist who specializes in glass sculptures.  

After the exhibit viewing, we went for a nice dinner at the Stables Restaurant on site.  Great food, good wine.  

Debbie has always wanted to see Chihuly's work, so this was truly a very rewarding moment. 

We did a lot of birding the next morning when we went back.  The grounds of the estate are just as beautiful as well.   

This turned out to be a nice weekends! 

A great birding day this weekend at the Burns Brickyard

These are a few bird pictures from our Ocmulgee group field trip to a private property, protected land of 800 acres.

Album of birds here on this link

Turned to be a great day for birding.

Travelling to Arizona

New Mexico landscape

Travelling to Arizona was simply longer than we expected.  No, we expected it; experiencing it was different.  We drove for hours wondering if we will ever arrive.

New energy features in South Texas

Going through Texas was a mixed experience feeling.  You had the vast expansion of landscape that was different from the east coast, then the signs of new energy with the wind farms, but the old and ugly energy vestiges were inescapable.

The scenes of old Texas with the industrialized side of the energy sector were only a few hours of the trip but it seemed interminable.  At least that's how Debbie remembers it.  And I can understand that.

We broke the monotony and stopped at a park where we saw some strange ducks.  Those were not in any of my books or apps.  I'll call them "horned duck".  Don't look it up! I made it up.

New Mexico landscape

New Mexico certainly has a unique landscape.  Arid, but pretty arid.  Rocky mountains, wait! those are just big hills, no, mountains, hard to tell.  Then desert shrub expanses, and back to some greens, back to rocky, always changing.  Nice!

We traveled all day and never made it to Arizona.  Tired, we spent the night in a cozy hotel in Las Cruzes.  The bed was either very comfortable or we were very tired.  And I forgot the name of the hotel, so we must have been very tired.

We saw Ciudad Juàrez, a city in Mexico when we were going through El Paso. This was before reaching Las Cruces.  Lots of lights on both sides of the border.  Juàrez is big! We got messages from our cellular phones offering deals on using our phones in Mexico.  That's how close we were to Mexico.

We reached Arizona the next day.  As we pulled in to our campground we saw the Greater Roadrunner! A bird on our target list.  This promises to be good!