January 2020 we returned to Chile, part of the deal Liza made with Robert for her 60th birthday (party or trip? trip!). We wanted to return to the lakes district and stay in Puerto Varas, where we had finished a cycling tour in 2017. Building on that idea we also wanted to go birding and do some wine tasting. Our itinerary took us from central Chile to southern Patagonia, and over the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.
Continue reading Chile (and Argentina) – Jan 2020
Winter is coming (first snow on our local mountains as I write) so that means it’s time for another edition of the Weissler Holiday Gazette, the annual missive that has taken many forms since its debut in 1993.
Continue reading Ho ho ho, it’s that time again!
October we were on the road, once again with Brooklyn friends Mark and Joanne Guralnick, for more national and state parks, national monuments, etc. The main goal on this trip was to get to three in southern Utah that have long been on the bucket list, and somehow we’d never gotten there: Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands. But as always seems to happen on a driving trip, we tried to cram as many other locations in as we could! And we did much better on this trip understanding the geology along the way.
Continue reading Arizona and Utah Parks – Oct 2019
We finally managed a trip back to Arkansas in coordination with Liza’s mother Alpha, to spend some time with family, but also to see some sights that had escaped us on many prior visits. We met up with Alpha in Dallas (thank you American Airlines for neither flight being late) and continued on to Little Rock. After telling the rental car company no, we don’t really want the behemoth SUV to drive down the road (seriously, a choice between an Expedition and an Armada … what are we, the Spanish off in search of gold?) we stopped in for “dinner” at the Flyway Brewing Company in Little Rock before continuing on to Hot Springs.
Continue reading Arkansas – Sept 2019
What started out as a trip to Germany for a family event – a symposium honoring Adolf Weissler, Robert’s great-grandfather – quickly grew into a bigger trip encompassing Iceland and Scotland. The joys of retirement – no need to hurry home! This could probably be three posts, but we’ll try to do it in one.
Continue reading Iceland, Scotland, and Germany – June 2019In February 2019 we set off on a long-awaited birding trip in South Africa, from Cape Town to Kruger National Park, with Birding Africa. Our tour was bookended with several days on our own in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Continue reading South Africa – Feb 2019
We decided this year to spend the Christmas holiday in New Mexico, to do some birding (sandhill cranes, rosy finches, etc.), see friends, and enjoy the cuisine (“red or green?” being the standard “which chile sauce do you like” question). We packed quite a lot into a one week trip!
Continue reading New Mexico Christmas – Dec 2018
Holiday greetings to friends and family, near and far! Seems like just a couple of weeks ago we were putting together last year’s Weissler Holiday Gazette, as we still like to refer to our annual missive that debuted back in 1993.
Continue reading Merry Happy Joyous Holidays!
In October we were delighted to attend the wedding of Richard Wanerman and Cindy Drakeman in Princeton NJ. (Richard’s father Rob is Robert’s second cousin.) And since we were “in the area”, it was a perfect chance to get to another national park (Valley Forge National Historical Park) and to go birding down in Cape May, at the very southern tip of New Jersey, home to the famous Hawk Watch.
Continue reading Princeton Wedding, Cape May, and More! – Oct 2018
As part of our continuing mission of “let’s see all the national parks” (must use Robert’s volunteer park pass, after all!), in August and September we visited three more biggies: Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park, finishing off in Wyoming with a national monument (Fossil Butte) and in Utah, a national historic site (Golden Spike).
If you want to skip the narrative and just look at photos, click here.
Continue reading Montana, Wyoming, and Utah National Parks – Aug/Sep 2018