2015-03 Florida

A little extra time after a trade show gave Ray an opportunity to take in some of the sites and activities in Florida.  Around of golf was just barely completed before the rains came in.  One of the holes has a very unique green that is almost like 2 regular sized greens separated bu a large dip in the middle.  The dip is about 4' deep, and landing on the side of the green opposite the flag across the dip makes for a very  long and challenging putt.

The hotel Ray stayed at was on International Drive, which has a lot of tourist hotels, restaurants and attractions.  A new attraction called the Orlando Eye is slated to open the beginning of May.  The height of the Eye is 400', giving clears views for miles over the flat Florida landscape.

An airboat ride was also in the cards this trip.  The boats were powered by a V-8 engine and help about 15-20 people.  We rode through the reeds and grasses in the shallow area and came upon a couple of different alligators sunning themselves.  One had babies nearby, but were unconcerned with approaching boat.  Running and full speed and swerving back and forrth as we we made our way through the swamp was interesting as you didn't know what was around each bend.  With the captain up on a much higher perch, he was able to see beyond the reeds.

 

2015-03 Kennedy Space Center

Ray visited the a place he has long wanted to see, Kennedy Space Center.  It was a fun day reliving growing up during the heyday of the space program, where the whole nation was behind the program and also obsessed with our progress.  From the first man in space, to extended orbits, launch pad tragedies to the watching men walk on the moon.  Ray and one of his co-workers spent most of the day at the space center.










The first stop was the Atlantis space shuttle building which has the actual retired Atlantis space shuttle, which had over 30 missions and traveled over 126 million miles.  Seeing the ships up close provides a perspective of their size and the power required to get them into orbit.  The rocket motors and engines have diameters of about 6' and burn fuel a the rate of tons per second.

Next was a bus ride through the entire complex, seeing the launch pads (which are being reconfigured for new and flexible space vehicles), media areas, and the gigantic vehicle assembly area, the largest one story building in the world, the equivalent of over 50 stories tall.  The crawlers that transported the completed rockets to the launch pad have their own roadway, which is river rock gravel and not paved or cement.

Next stop was the Apollo building, which has a full size Saturn V rocket, space capsule and lunar module.  They rockets are so big, but he command module and lunar lander or small and a tight fit for the astronauts.   This represents the part of the space program that I remember the best, including building models of the Apollo rockets, getting up before sunrise to watch moon walks, and marveling at the fact that these guys left our planet.

After the Apollo area, we spent time in the rocket garden, which has mock ups and actual rockets from the various stages of the space program, from the smaller satellite launching rockets to the Saturn 1B used for one of the Apollo launches. 










After leaving the Kennedy Space Center, we stopped at the Astronaut Hall of Fame just across the causeway.  There was much more focus on the individual astronauts and the command modules they piloted and the tight quarters they worked in.

2015-03 Finding Roots in Eau Claire

Over the last few months, Ray has been working with a new sister company in Eau Claire WI, which is the hometown of his mom.  When Ray's family lived in Dallas, they would head north each summer to spend a week with both sets of grandparents, so Ray has many fond memories of Eau Claire and Superior from the 60's.

Ray's grandpa Milo Bergh on his mom's side, owned a vehicle repair shop on Water Street called Milo Bergh's Garage.  Grampy Bergh would take Ray to the shop in the morning and have help fix cars, or at least clean up or "organize" things. They would then go across the street to the bakery for coffee and donuts mid morning.  This meant chocolate milk and a chocolate covered donut for Ray.

The shop is now a bicycle store called Anybody's Bikeshop, selling new bikes and repairing old bikes.  Walking into the store was a great experience, as much is still the same as it was back in the 60's, including the wooden floor, a patched area where they hydraulic lift used to come up from the basement, the large door and customer access from the back.  The old back windows are filled in and the door now is a swing door rather than a full width slider, but the original openings are still there and visible.

Since I was in the market for a new bike, I decided it would be great to buy my new bike from from the new owner of Grampy's shop.  I told Eric my story and he asked if I had any old photos from the shop, which I didn't, but knew I had seen some from my mom.  I got some copies from some slides she had to bring over on my next visit, which is when I decided which bike I wanted and bought it.

One of the photos shows Grampy out back of the shop sitting in a Rolls Royce with the sign in the background.  Customers brought their cars to the back for service, and that has not changed as customers still bring their bikes in the back for service.

A few weeks later, I had a dinner in Eau Claire with some out of town guests and had a little time to kill between work and dinner, so decided I could pick up a few geocaches.  I looked up geocaches near the site of my great grandpa's house, the Ager house across from the former Luther hospital.  The Ager House is a historical Eau Claire landmark with a rich history.  I discovered that my great grandpa as the subject of a geocache.  He is one of a series of caches about historical figures and places in Eau Claire.

Waldemar Ager was a journalist who settled in Eau Claire in 1892 and became the editor of The Reform, a temperance Norwegian newspaper.  He was also a writer, storyteller and gave many speeches over the years.  A complete bio and more history of the Ager House is available on the Ager House website at http://www.agerhouse.org/golden-age.htm

It is fun to go back and visit places with great memories, or links to family history.  I'm sure I'll uncover a few more links to the past with the time I am spending in Eau Claire.

2015-03 Taipei Lantern Festival

Ray was in Taipei again this year during the lantern festival.  The festival goes on for 10 days, but the actual date of the celebration is 15 days after the lunar (Chinese) new year.  This year it was on March 5th, but Ray went to the festival grounds on Saturday the 7th. This is the year of the goat in Taiwan (while China calls it the year of the ram), so many of the displays included goats in them.


The festival is at the original site of the flower expo held in Taipei in 2010.  It is a good use of the area and allows for larger crowds than when it was at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and Civic Plaza.











The displays are filled with lights and are much more beautiful at night.  That is also when the crowds swell.  Ray went in late afternoon, so he got to see the displays up close before it got so crowded, but stayed to see them lit up after dark.

The displays are built by all sorts of groups, from school groups to civic organizations to groups of professionals.  School groups were as young as middle school

The expo park is right below the flight path to the downtown airport, so there were a lot of up close views of various planes on their approach.  When they went over, everyone looked up and many took photos, including Ray! The planes ranged in size from small twin engine turbo props to the very large jets.




 In an adjacent park, there was maze made out of hedges with 4 different tile mosaics inside the maze.  The trails were covered with rocks, there was about 2 feet between the hedges and it was all flat, but somehow it translated to a tortuous path!