Maple Bluff and Choro

 

Today I worked from home, and Travalon and I took a walk on Governor's Island and then drove through Maple Bluff on my lunch hour. Here are some photos. These are from Governor's Island.

These are from Maple Bluff. I hadn't brought my sunglasses, and the sun came out, so I put on the ones in the glove compartment that used to belong to my mother-in-law. They make things kind of golden, so they really bring out the yellows and reds. My view of the foliage was amazing!

After work I went to choro practice, and we are really starting to learn these tunes. However, when the young guy I recruited from Irish fiddling left because he had two hours left to turn in an assignment, my confidence waned a bit. We had two new people today, a guy on mandolin and another on guitar, and the new mandolin player packed it in early. Maybe he just had to leave, or maybe he gave up. Sometimes people show up once and never come again, but sometimes it's because they're from somewhere far away, like the time those two guys who played on cruise ships were roadtripping across the country and stopped in. That was a really fun session.

Now the World Series game is going into the bottom of the 11th inning. If the Brewers can pull this one off, they will win the World Series for the first time ever. Travalon was so happy when my team won ten years ago, and I will be very happy if his team wins.

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Ancient Irish Astronomy Presentation

 

Today I worked on campus and took a rosary walk at lunchtime. I left a little early to get to the planetarium at a local high school for a Shamrock Club event. We watched a presentation on ancient sites in Ireland that line up astronomically with the solstice, the equinox, or the in-between times, like Samhain (which is pronounced saw-ain), right between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It is a time that many cultures consider the veil between this life and the next to be at its thinnest, not just the Irish (from whom we get a lot of our Halloween traditions, like jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating), but the Mexicans with their Day of the Dead, and of course in Christianity it's All Saints/All Souls Days right at the beginning of November. Maybe it was the spooky subject matter, but I found my ride home a bit eerie, maybe because nobody else was on the road as I drove the dark route north along the lake. 

They were probably all watching the Brewers. When I got home, Travalon had the game on and the score was a couple of goose eggs, but in the fifth inning the Brewers were hitting like crazy, and not even home runs, just base hits, but they got ten runs. Then Travalon said he hoped the Rays would at least score one run, and in the bottom of the ninth he got his wish, so the final score was 10-1. It seems likely that the Brewers will win their first World Series title. They may even do it tomorrow if they sweep the series.

Travalon went to the zoo yesterday while I was at the Vespers service, and he took some photos: the new lion, the rhino, flamingos, a meerkat, a polar bear (allegedly pregnant), and a couple of capybaras, as well as some random fall foliage.

And here are some photos I took today on campus.

Here are some more photos Travalon took last week, of train graffiti in the yard in town.

From the Beltline, you can see beautiful fall foliage in the Arboretum, so Travalon found a parking lot across the Beltline to take photos.

And I'm not sure where he found these maples, but they are magnificent.

I still have lots of photos from his recent trips while a bachelor for a week, including more of La Crosse and a drive through Maple Bluff, so stay tuned.

Famous Hat