Little Sister Adventures

Poppy had to stay home this time, because this is an airplane trip!

Time to go to Greece. It's a three-week extravaganza. A professional conference, a week in Athens and surrounds, and a seven-night cruise in the Mediterranean!

Come along, as Little Sister Adventures heads across the Atlantic to the Greek Isles.

I took a couple days to get there, as I left from my small-town home airport and connections necessitated my going to Dallas and staying overnight before heading to Athens.

In Dallas, I received a cup of chai while I waited for my Indian food dinner at the food truck.

Dallas Airport

America's Heartland. My photo app tells me that it's Arkansas down there.

On my long overnight flight, I bought a premium seat just so I could be sure to have a comfortable window seat. The plane was not very full, so I needn't have worried. It was a good spot, though, and cocktails were included, so I started my vacation right with a bit o' bourbon.

I was able to curl up on two seats, as I had no one next to me in the two-seat row. I actually got a few hours of sleep.

Finally! The Greek Islands!

Trish and I enjoyed our first Greek meal at a place around the corner from our hotel. Grilled feta with honey, beer, and gyros. Yes, please!

Breakfast from the nearby bakery, eaten on our patio. Best spanakopita I've ever tasted!

Once in Athens, we hit the ground running. It was three days chock-full of professional papers being presented. It was a lot of information, a lot of wonderful speech-language pathologists from around the world, and one wonderful person with aphasia presenting keynote speeches, short-form presentations, and poster sessions.

Brain: full. Body: tired.

Trish did great on her poster session!

The event was at the Technopolis. Interesting complex. The auditorium was perfect for the conference. The planners took good care of us, with beautifully catered coffee breaks and meals.

It was fun meeting all the academic people that Trish has connected with in the Speech-Language Pathology/Therapy world, from around the world. There was a lot to learn; much is being researched in the field. Exciting stuff.

After the last day, the conference organizers had arranged for us to be bussed to the Epidaurus Theater, the best-preserved Ancient Greek theater.

The drive up:

Stopped for a break and refreshments. Toast and ice cream, if you desire. I bought a Dr. Pepper.

The Corinth Canal was built in the 19th century to ease transport across the area, but it never lived up to expectations. It's not used much, and never really was.

Once at the Epidaurus, we were treated to a performance of Aeschylus's The Persians. It was powerful and transfixing. I feel so fortunate to have been able to experience it. The theater was amazing, and the performance was incredibly powerful.

Examples of the stone seats. We did have cushions, thank goodness!

Photos of the performance were thankfully not allowed! Here is the curtain call and the props of the libations that the Queen offered to Hades to summon the ghost of her husband, Darius, the father of the dumbhead Xerxes who dared to challenge the Greeks and lost the entirety of the Persian army and navy.

The next day, we had to change hotels, so after dropping our luggage at the new spot, we took the short walk to the Archeological Museum. I'll show you that in the next post.

Opa!

The last few days of my trip were certainly not the least! We finished strong.

Tuesday: Hiking With a Dear Friend

Anne from Texas had planned a visit to her parents, and so I arranged to meet up with her. Anne had been disappointed that her planned trip had to be postponed twice. When her plans got quashed the second time, though, selfishly I was happy when I could finally jump on.

I was honored to join Anne on one of her treasured secret hikes on Tuesday morning. It was a lovely spring day, and we chatted and marveled at sights big and small for a little more than five miles. It was a treat! Thank you, Anne!

Enjoy the photos.

First, the required stop at Anderson Overlook. Seriously. Never gets old.

And then the hike.

Do you see a giraffe?

Life grows where it can:

Closeup:

Not only do I marvel at plants growing in rocks, but lichen is (are?) a friend of mine.

Toward the end of our jaunt, shortly after she spotted (and left, natch) an ancestral pottery shard, Anne spied an Ancestral Pueblo ruins. Amazing!

Every day this week, but especially today, I had been mindful of my footsteps traversing the land that others had inhabited a thousand years ago. It is important to be mindful of those who have gone before. It was a deeply moving moment for us, encountering the past here beneath our feet.

Anne and I enjoyed a nice lunch at Pig n Fig (if you go on Tuesday, get the daily special: chicken salad on croissant. Delish!) and parted ways with a big hug.

On one of my town walks, I had pinched a tiny, but freakin' fabulously fragrant, lilac stem. It accompanied me back home. Every time I needed a hit of home, I took a whiff.

That afternoon, I packed up Poppy and battened down the hatches. I had cut my visit a tad short due to forecasted rain on my route, so Tuesday afternoon I buzzed down to Albuquerque for another restful night at the Cracker Barrel!

Found some friends there:

Wednesday

After a restful night, I headed a little south to:

I again varied from my uszh. Instead of a breakfast burrito, I had huevos rancheros, Christmas. Yummy.

Plus a sixer to go. Poppy has a freezer, after all!

IYKYN

Belly full, I headed west once again, and just east of Flagstaff I decided to stop at Walnut Canyon National Monument.

The site holds the cliff dwellings of Ancestral Puebloans. They used the naturally occurring overhangs from the limestone layer in the Kaibab Formation to form the roof of their dwellings, and they stacked rocks to make the walls.

Looking across the canyon, you can see the windswept Coconino Sandstone, and on top, in the limestone layer, more dwellings.

Who among my geology friends can explain this bulge?

I'm a sucker for wildflowers.

CB again on Wednesday night.

Thursday

My son Kevin had been urging me on my numerous trips on I-40 to stop at Calico Ghost Town. This time, I did.

It was a short-lived silver mining town in the late 19th century, bought and restored by Mr. Knott of Knott's Berry Farm in the 1950s. He handed it over to San Bernadino County, and it is a cool little regional park.