Luckily, for the second day in a row, the story is better told with photos than words.

Today we went to Tiger Kingdom.  This organization has carved out a unique and (well-deserved) niche in the Chiang Mai tourist world.  They house a vast array of tigers and allow ill-advised travelers like your humble narrator a chance to pet, lie on and hang out with tigers.

“What size tigers, Steve Sir?”

I am so glad you asked.  In fact, you can choose the size of tiger that you want to spend time with, ranging form 4 months olds to 500 pound adults.  They have 4 increments of sizes.

“But they surely drug these beasts.”

I was absolutely certain that they must when I first read about their experiences.  I then went to a website that insisted emphatically that they do not drug or abuse their tigers (and single lion, hence the title of the blog after the bears the other day). I was still uncertain about the drug issue until we arrived.

We arrived early, 30 minutes before the place even opened.  As anyone from Camp Champions knows, I am a unapologetic tiger lover.  Tigers are part of our camp mythology – we talk about the “tiger within every camper” as recognizing the unique aspect of each child.  As a child, I used to stare at the tigers at zoos until I was dragged away.  Susie grew up with dogs, but the Silver Fox and the Baskin crew always featured really cool cats.  And tigers are like the coolest cats of all – bigger, beautiful, regal, graceful and just BIG.  From the stripes to the ridiculously big feet, they have been the gold standard of animals for me.

Since we arrived early, they suggested that we walk around to see what cages we might want to visit.  No one else was there, so we spent 15 minutes just watching the “big” tigers in their enclosure.  Here is what we saw:

How wild and lively - must be for show - I wonder where the tigers we will visit are.

Less than 30 minutes later, this happened.

I promise you that this is one of the two fighters! This is Bobby.

Here is one of the other ones (Sunflower). I am still giddy.

Later in the day, these same guys would be doing this.

No drugs for this fellow.

As exciting as this was, the smaller cats brought the greatest joy.

Here is a “medium” fellow that Liam used as a pillow.  He is a yearling that weighs around 175.

Tempurpedic Tiger

I rubbed Lulu’s belly.

Sharing a yawn together

We all laid on some tigers.  On some occasions, we heard their heart.  Others, we heard purring.  The most distressing was hearing digestive fluids from one of the big guys . . .

We spent the most time with the “small” tigers.  These are less than 8 months old and weigh between 80 and 100.

The girls spent time with Kellogg, Metro, Catai and Masai.

Susie is in love. I love her arm on Metro and his on Kellogg.

Virginia blowing a kiss to Kellogg (he was the active one)

How ferocious - and Kellogg looks mean too!

We went into the same cage together.  Each had our moments to pose and play with the tigers.  Wiley was doing some belly rubbing when Chicken got frisky.

Check out the paw and Wiley's expression!

Sister Fish seemed more relaxed with Virginia.

The trainer thought she was a little too close to the face in this one. Fish showed no signs of emerging from her nap.

Here is a happy crew.

That is a great looking quintet.

The whole gang with Chicken.

At the moment we took this, I was contemplating ways to sneak Chicken out dressed as a child.

Susie flirted with Metro (yes, apparently there are two Metros).

I could not hear what she whispered to him, should I be worried?

The absolute highpoint was the little ones.  We fell in love with 4 month old Winter (boy) and Angel (girl).

At this moment, Angel decided to jump into Wiley's lap.

Susie and I are thinking about new bedding.

Loving the new pillows.

Meanwhile, the kids were falling in love.

Everyone looks so happy.

The tigers could even bring peace between Virginia and Liam.

WInter's next job as peace envoy with be the Middle East

Not only were we upset to leave this pair, Angel registered her protest as we rose to leave.

I guess she is not cage-broken yet.

I’ll leave you with this nice shot of Terrill and Angel.

I think this will be her Facebook profile picture (Angel, that is).

Off to have the flesh eaten from our feet and ankles.  I guess tigers are not enough excitement for one day!

Steve Sie

Let me explain why.

It is easier to write when I have time to write.  BUT, it is easier to write when I have something to write about.  As a result, uneventful days lead to early bedtimes and boring blogs.  Crazy days find me sitting outside my room fighting mosquitos and trying to decide what to share.

This is one of the latter days.  We had a full and wonderful day.  We woke and left late, but we saw much of the best of Chiang Mai’s offerings.  We visited three temples.  The first was clearly off the tourist grid. It was lovely.

Team Baskin at the wat

A small detail at the temple

The second was incredibly popular (as one of the three most sacred Buddhist sites in Thailand).  We were with a couple of thousand of our nearest and dearest friends.

One of the lovely performers outside the wat

Getting some zen

The last was a ruin in the middle of town that was incredibly memorable.

This once rose up 250+ feet! It is now 190 feet.

After the temples, we visited one of the great restaurants of Thailand.  Apparently, people fly from Bangkok for the day to have a meal there.  It was inspiring.

After our spectacular meal, we ventured to the night market for the second day.  This market is based on the idea that shopping in the day in Thailand is too darn hot.  As a result, they have long post-sunset markets.  At the night market here, we did not get anything. Not because nothing was interesting, but because the Baskin females were on a mission.

They wanted fish to eat them.

This is not a misprint.  A special type of fish is used to exfoliate your feet, ankles and lower legs from . . . I have no idea.  Remember, my beloved readers, I am a guy.  Exfoliation sounds like a sci-fi effect.  We do not thus indulge.  The gals, however, wanted to meet the fish.

In an odd move, I joined the ladies.  I want to say that I am delighted I did so, but I am not sure.  This establishment offers free wifi and 30 minutes with your feet in the water with fish that have an unusual interest in your flesh.  For the entire half-hour, I sat in place as I prayed that no piranha would be in the pool.

"They only eat the 'excess' skin - how do they know?!?!

It was great.

We ended the night at a blues bar.  I am sad to say that we left the blues area around 11.  It beckoned that we stay, but we had a tired crew and an elephant trip to take tomorrow, so we left early.  We should not have.  I have attended over 50 blues shows and I love the genre.  I mention this because our band was truly great.  While I have seen more elegant players, non matched the style and insight of our lead guitarist.  It was a truly expected serendipity in Chiang Mai!

No, really, they can play!

I will conclude with some artsy shots.  We took a lot of shots and thought you might enjoy the best.   If not, please put on your favorite blues CD (I recommend Stevie Ray Vaughn or Buddy Guy) and remember that the blues “is just a good man feeling down” (BB King).

Buddha and shadow

A worshipper at the wat

Teens dancing outside the temple

This shots amuses - please note the attire of the man worshipping the pacifist boddhisatva.

Tomorrow, we hang with Elephants, so it is time to sleep!  See you tomorrow!

Steve Sir

You see, we went to a hospital and the post office.  One of the experiences was incredibly difficult.

Let’s start with the hospital.  Before last summer, Susie noticed that Wiley had a lymph node that was larger than the rest of his.  She had him visit a doctor and got a clean bill of health.  Several days ago, she noticed that it was still there.  One of the great things about Susie is her deep understanding of medical issues.  It makes her a great mom and a fantastic head of our camp health center (the Ill Eagle’s Nest).  The downside is that she knows the most concerning diagnosis for every symptom.

She did not like the fact that the lymph node was unchanged in 6 months.  She also knows that Thailand is a famed “medical vacation” site.  A “medical vacation ” is when people travel to another country for medical procedures that are less expensive than in the USA.  Bangkok is a big destination for this practice.

Susie decided to make an appointment for Wiley.  I had mixed feelings.  My gut told me that the reasons that the doctor was not worried before (the node was not hard and it was not too large) had not changed.  But I am also aware of Susie’s superior medical knowledge.  Finally, I hate to have her worry.  Today was the day for our appointment.

Part of me was concerned that Wiley might be sick.  Another part of me worried that they would “upsell” us into a battery of unnecessary (and painful) tests.

We took a cab the hospital first thing this morning.  [Note: cabs are cheaper than the subway by a mile.  A 30 minute drive cost us just $3.  Subway travel for three would run $4.  I have never seen a place where cabs are cheaper.  I cannot even speculate why this would be true.]

Outside, we saw this shrine.  I suspect it is the equivalent to chapels in church, but more actively used.

Even at a modern hospital

We arrived, signed in, waited 20-30 minutes and met the doctor, Dr Pornthet.  He was delightful: professional, thorough and reassuring.  He was not at all worried about the lymph node.  He checked all of Wiley’s nodes for 5-8 minutes, listened to the history and prescribed two meds to help with the acne that he believes is the source of the swelling.

I do not like to write about the cost of things, but let me share this odd comparison.  We saw a pediatrician, two nurses, and received 2 prescriptions for a total of $61.  In Europe, we had to pay $57 to cross the bridge between Sweden and Denmark.  $61 would not get a quorum of us into Westminster Abbey.  Heck, it was $15 less than the Thanksgiving Turtle.  The facility was first rate: accredited by the Joint Commission for hospital accreditation (I am sure that our Prague locale was nowhere close) and they provide translators for 140 different languages.  I found this simply amazing.

It was like a 2 ton weight lifted off of Susie.

She was so happy, that she decided to do the only logical thing – attack an additional challenge.

We have been carrying Regina for almost 2 weeks. If you do not remember Regina, she is our 18 pound carved wooden horse.  He she is being fashionable:

Sporting the sarong at the beach

After a bit of research, we learned that the Thai Postal Service is the most reasonable method of shipment.  Once we decided that we were going to ship, we acquired a few additional for gifts and camp decor to join her on the trip.  We also pulled all of the cold weather gear we had used in Nepal.  We were surprised to realize the extent of our pile.  It was mountainous.  We gathered everything into several backpacks and then headed to the post office in two cabs.

We had not considered the possibility that the Christmas season had depleted their supply of large boxes.  Picture a family of 6 with 5 bags of stuff, a wooden horse and no clue.  They are the only westerners in the post office. The youngest is dressing up the wooden horse.  They are pointing to boxes with and waving their hands as if to say “bigger”. It became clear to me that we were the most authentic form of amusement that many of these workers has seen in weeks.

But the show was just getting started.   A nice manager told us about a place that would sell us boxes and perhaps pack them for us.  He have us directions.  Liam and I headed out.

His directions failed us.  We walked for 20 minutes and came up empty.  Liam, to his credit, is not scared to asked strangers questions, so he was interviewing anyone that we could.  Ultimately, we ended up at a Goodyear tire dealership and acquired two boxes.  They were new and solid.

And 2 inches too short for Regina.

While we were gone, the rest of the team started a fashion show with Regina.

The Grace Kelly look

The stylish turbin

The nice manager, seeing our incompetence and feeling the sort of pity that is usually reserved for the seriously impaired, offered to walk me (with Regina) to the box store.  It look more like an electronics repair shop than a packaging venue, but the sweet woman who owned it soon appeared the perfect box.  She, however, had zero interest in packing the box with the fragile wooden sculpture.

This is the nicest guy in the postal system

I took the box and Regina back to the post office.  Now the show really started.  We begged for some packing tape and we got busy.  We braced her legs apart using long underwear and then taped the legs together – thus limiting their movement.  We tossed in items.

Regina's home for the next month or two

The Regina Bundle

Have you ever been to the circus and seen the clowns exiting the small car?  You marvel as more and more and more of them appear from the vehicle.  That is what the Thai postal workers saw.  We kept producing more items to stuff into the box – puffy jackets, gloves, elephant pillows, sunglasses wrapped in socks, rice paper lamps, sandals, a rain jacket, hats, door handles, Thai boxing shorts, bracelets, sweaters, walkie-talkies, and more.  We realized that each of the two bozes we had would be just slightly under-packed.  Terrill suggested that we take some used boxes and cut them up to fill the empty space.

You might think this an amusing spectacle, but we were able to raise our game.  While packing, it became obvious that we would not need one to the 2 boxes we acquired from Goodyear.  This might seem like an uninteresting fact.  If so, that would mean your name is not Virginia.  She saw an opportunity to create a box robot.

The start of the robot

You might speculate the value of a box robot during a packing challenge.

I would too.

She, however, provided enough amusement to one of the workers that he literally had to sit down.

The big kids were getting bored and fighting a tad – pushing, talking too loud and even wrestling.

They are 14, not 4. No, really.

While watching this man laugh, Susie noticed that the post office sold pink shirts with the Royal crest embroidered on them (the official post office uniform).  The material is actually the high quality Dri-Fit clothe used by Nike or Adidas.  While we were still stuffing the boxes, Susie asked about the shirt.  They suggested that she try them on to assure the right size.  She tries on the Woman’s large.  It was a tad tight.  The woman helping started to giggle – “you too big, you must wear men’s sizes”.

She found this hilarious.

I found it slightly worrisome.  You see, the kids have been telling Susie earlier that a dress she bought made her look big.  These are words that I avoid like the ebola virus.  In fact, I generally focus on whatever I am reading like it is of life-sustaining importance.

There are a few things I know.  First, I think Susie is beautiful – really beautiful. Second, I know she is not big at all.  Third, I know this is a conversation that must be avoided.  There is no way to safely respond to “what do you think I look like in these?”  To my mind, it is a koan, those enigmatic Zen questions like “Without thinking of good or evil, show me your original face before your mother and father were born.” or “what is the sound of 1 hand clapping” (sorry for repeating this reference from last night).  In short, there is no easy answer.  So, “what do I look like in these” is best answered with “73″ or “the rhesus monkey” or “how about that lymph node”.  Under no circumstances should you attempt a straightforward answer.

So we are in the post office with 2 stuffed boxes, a box-robot, two howling postal workers, a radiant woman recently accused of being large, wrestling teens and a confused 47 year-old . . . for 2 hours.

Another day for the Baskins.

In the end, we sent a 10 pound package and a (wait for it) 62 pound package.  We amused an entire post office.  At one point, Susie suggested that they might be getting tired of us.

Terrill responded wisely, “mommy, they work in a post office.  This is the most fun they will ever have here.”

We are here to serve.

I hope you found some amusement in this as well.

Steve Sir

Addendum to Poon Hill

My previous blog shared a very brief account of our ascent up Poon Hill to watch the sunrise.  In my rush to get the blog out, I did not have time to confer with the rest of our crew or share all my thoughts.  Since there is only one Internet connection on this trip, I decided to write while everyone else ordered breakfast and repacked.  I went to the café immediately and only had 20 minutes.

Here are a few extra items.

Liam went up the hill with 400 milliliters of water in a Nalgene bottle.  By the time he had reached the top, 10% of the water had frozen while being jostled in a backpack.  That confirms my previous meteorological assessment.  I said that I thought “it was cold”.  You can see I have some skill in this regard.

In fact, the clouds that made the sunrise so spectacular were largely to blame for the cold.  A cold front had come in during the night.

We got some great family shots as well as one picture with Cool and the Gang.  I hope to post the shots from our trip soon.

Typing in an open air internet café in freezing weather is not easy.  It is made harder when you are on a 10+ year old keyboard that needs extra weight on the “shift” key.  If both of these conditions are in place, you look like a dim monkey when you type.  Cool Sir walked up while I was struggling.  If he had any respect for me prior to that display, I surely eradicated it.

As long as we are sharing tidbits, here are a few others from the day.

Brotherly Battering

This morning, the boys were sharing a room with 2 twin beds.  As Susie walked in, both were wrestling in one bed.  The two following comments came in very rapid succession:

Susie (wistfully): “My boys, just like they are back in the womb.’

Wiley (establishing a wrestling hold): “I kill you!”

Yep, love is a wonderful thing.  They were both right.  When Susie was pregnant, they had a 3 month soccer match inside her.

Rooster Rage

Nepal might be 2 hours and 15 minutes off Hong Kong, but we deeply suspect that the roosters think they are in China.  In Pokhara, the crowing started at 3:30AM (5:45 China time).

This is not quaint.  Or authentic.  Or intriguing.  To be honest, this really embittering.  If I were crass, I would say it sucks.  I am not crass, but it sucks nonetheless.  Susie (generally a fanatical lover of all birds and an odd fan of chickens) was contemplating Poultricide.

We are now employing earplugs.  Yep, we have stayed in 3 cities bigger than New York and 5 bigger than Houston and managed to sleep OK. But one random time-challenged rooster and we are striving for sensory deprivation.

Object Identification

Yesterday, when we were at the guesthouse of the questionable construction, Terrill strolled into the bathroom nearest our rooms.

“A shower sounds great.  Look!  They left us a back brush.”

Both Susie and I looked at each other in a way that suggested that altitude sickness was hitting her.  Susie responded.  “Let’s pass on that – it is a toilet brush!”

Thanks . . . I Guess

After our morning on Poon Hill, we went back out onto the trail.  While we were walking along, we came upon a forest of Rhododendron with gnarled roots and reddish bark.  The sun had broken through the clouds and was streaming through the canopy like light through a cathedral window.

At one point, we stopped for a rest next to a tree partly covered in moss.  The moss was a vibrant olive with gold flecks in it.  Terrill then made a comment.

Sometimes we say something that is absolutely true that is meant to be kind, but falls short once it trips from your tongue. I think this was such a time:

“Wiley, your eyes are like moss!”

Indeed, the moss was lovely and matched his eyes perfectly.  Yet I am not sure this came off as lovingly as she intended.

Lost in Translation

Yesterday morning, Susie popped into the girls room to make sure that they were packing and getting ready for breakfast.

She emerged from their room with a radiant smile.

“Our little girl is really embracing the culture.  While I was in there, she greeted me like a Nepal native and said, ‘namaste’.  In fact, she repeated it to make sure I heard it.”  (‘Namaste’ means ‘welcome’.)

About 4 minutes later, an exasperated Virginia ran into the breakfast area, “Mommy, why did you leave me?”

“What do you mean, Virginia?”

“I kept yelling at you.”

“What?”

“Yea, I told you ‘Mamma, stay’!”

Steve Sir

In the Austin Airport, Ready for the Next Adventure!

Welcome back to that Baskin Travel Blog.

For any readers that are new to the blog, welcome! I hope to make a daily record of our Crazed Baskin Adventure. I am currently sitting in a plane bound for Beijing, China with my wife Susie, and four children – twin 14 year-old boys Wiley and Liam and daughters Terrill (13) and Virginia (10). We will be in Asia for 11 weeks and then go to New Zealand for 3 weeks.

The family is separated due to the vagaries of the Hainan Airlines reservation system. Susie managed to cajole them into getting she and Virginia next to each other. All of us are in middle seats except for me. I am in a bulkhead aisle only after the realization that my entertainment system was on the fritz.

I think this early and minor adversity will not be an issue. The boys assured us that they would not watch any of the inappropriate movies (Hangover 2? Really?). Of course, the one movie I watched had even the mildest curse words edited out. If they did the same thing to the “Hangover 2” track, I think it will effectively become a Silent Movie.

Back to the blog.

This is not a luxury junket. We will be staying in hostels and riding overnight trains. We will trek in Nepal and have home-stays in Vietnam. In short, we will be acting like college backpackers, except without the luxury.

We finished a similar 8-week trip through Europe. During it, we covered 11 countries and bonded a great deal. If you would like to get a feel for that trip, please feel free to look through the blog archive.

As a sane individual, you might ask why we are doing this.

At times, I wonder the same thing, Here is the main reason.

As camp directors, Susie and I spend our summers with our camp family, full of exceptional teammates, counselors and campers. We, however, do not get to take summer vacations with our own children.

We are thinking of this as a heapin’ helpin’ of summer vacations all linked together.

One day in 2010, we were talking about our lack of summer trips as well as the fact that all 4 kids were switching schools in a year. That led to the idea – lets pull them from school and give them an education through travel. We are now living that experiment.

Before we begin to describe this adventure, it might be worth sharing a few thoughts from the first trip.

Happily, we are still alive and speaking to each other. The former is expected, but the latter is somewhat remarkable to me. I marvel at the positive approach the entire family brought to each leg of our European journey. We spent dozens of hours in a car with 6 people and our luggage. We stayed in apartments the size of a large bedroom. We required teenage boys to wake before noon.

In other words, we were taking some risks. As it turned out, they were all “reasonable risks” (to borrow some Camp Champions parlance). It was not leisurely, but they did not mind, In fact, they developed a healthy approach to the trip: “its travel, not vacation!” I think I want to make a t-shirt that says this.

We learned a great deal, not only about each other, but about history, culture, arts, beauty and kindness. We consistently found people that were helpful and simply nice. I found this a wonderfully encouraging discovery. Sure, everyone was not nice everyday, but on the whole, people seem inclined toward decency.

Of course, I think part of this stems from our deciding to expect people to be positive. Over the years, I have found that people who expect others to be nice are rarely disappointed. Similarly, those that assume the world is full of jerks seem to find jerks just as readily. I am not sure if this is because each group only sees what they expect to see or if they actually bring out the best or worst in others. I suspect that it is a combination. When people approache me with the honest assumption that I am a kind person, I find myself striving to meet their expectations.

In any event, the people we met helped infuse our family with a renewed enthusiasm for not only travel, but humanity as well.

I cannot imagine a better education for them during that 2-month period.

The trip did make our month back in the States a little tricky. After 2 months in Europe with limited technology and full daily agendas, the transition back home was odd. They rediscovered sleeping late as well as the remote control. We did go to our major Texas cities to see our campers and parents, but we had an unusual amount of idle time.

We also found that some of the tensions that had formed in Europe were blossoming in the idleness of Texas. Their tones were getting a bit raw. They found it hard to resist the occasional barb.

You might wonder if this is the right warm-up for a 14 week journey. Susie and I wonder too.

Yet I remain optimistic. I have a basic faith that they will be great travellers and family members once again. Ironically, the kids seem to act better in the face of challenges than in the face of ease. I suspect there is a deep insight in this observation. Perhaps ease is a disease. Perhaps we are meant to strive more than be comfortable. Perhaps it is too late on a long flight to wax philosophical.

We will see as we explore even more foreign environs on this trip. I suspect that the kids will soon say, “this is not vacation or travel, it is an adventure!”

Steve Sir

But today is not about board meetings, it our last day in one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

Here is a fun shot that shows two of the great icons of London.

Old (Big Ben) and New (London Eye) Together

This morning was a trip through Westminster Abbey.  Most Americans know it as the site of royal weddings (William and Kate) and royal funerals (Diana and the Queen Mother).  It is also the seat of the Church of England.  Most notably, it is a walk through the history of England.  In fact, there are times that you forget that you are in a church.  This never happened in Italy or Spain.  In the great cathedrals and churches of Spain and Italy, you see Madonnas, Passions, Martyrs and Biblical scenes.  In Westminster Abbey, you see the tombs of kings and queens, memorials to scientists (Newton, Darwin), writers (Shakespeare, Chaucer, Byron), statesmen (Churchill, FDR, Disreali) and nobles.  If a cemetery and a museum had a child, it would look a lot like this church.  In fact, I think it is interesting that it honors playboys like Byron.  Also, given the continued opposition to Darwin within certain segments of the conservative American Christian community, I was intrigued to see him buried in a church next to Sir Isaac Newton.

In Front of Westminster Cathedral Where William and Kate Had a Modest Little Wedding

They did not allow photography within the church, but I did get a chance to capture one of my favorite memorials in the cloisters.  This particularly attractive and informative plaque recognizes a remarkable man: Captain James Cook.  He is also a great link to the end of this trip (since he was English) and the next trip (Cook discovered New Zealand, the final stop of our final trip).  Cook did not grow up around boats and basically worked his way up to the position as captain.  As such, he captained three expeditions of three years (!?!?) each.  He traveled to the farthest points north and south ever to that date.  He sailed north of the Bering Straight above Alaska and came within miles of discovering Antarctica.  I think our trip was a long one.  He was at sea for months at a time, encountered hostile natives and fought major disease.  We, on the other hand, will never travel for more than 24 hours at a time.  Our worst disease has been a cold.  We did meet a few Hungarians who seemed religiously opposed to bathing, but that seems to be mild compared to spear-throwing Maoris.

This plaque shows the path of his three journeys.  I hope you can expand the photo and see where this crazy guy went.  BTW, in his native Yorkshire, his name would have been pronounced “kook”.  I love that.

I SImply Marvel at the Travels of Captain Cook

The afternoon saw us visiting the British Museum where we saw items from three great ancient cultures: Egypt, Assyria and Greece.

I am included a few of our favorite photos.  The first shows the style of a Grecian temple, with columns, friezes, and pediments.  Not only is this cool looking, but it is a great example of what the main attraction of the Museum is: the statues of the Parthenon.

Here is the small temple.

Small Sample Temple

Here are partial statues from the Parthenon in Athens.  They are beautifully presented and explained.  Their superior presentation, however, has done nothing to mitigate the anger of the Greek government.  They desperately want all their ruins back.  Good for tourism, you see.  The Greeks say that the ruins are Greek and belong in Greece.  They were spawned by their ancestors on their soil – they are an intrinsic part of their culture.

The Brits respond that the Greeks were negligent for years and allowed vandalism, neglect and pollution to destroy many of the ruins that the Brits did not take. The English took these treasures when no one cared and curated them for the world to see and appreciate.  The Greeks are welcome to what they still have to discuss Greek history, but the Brits share their ruins as part of a survey of ancient culture.  How do the Greeks compare to the Babylonians or Egyptians?   They want to preserve these treasures as “citizens of the world”.

As a parent, I recognize these subtle arguments.  Here is a summary.

Greece: “They’re mine!“

England: “I had it first!“

G: “Mine!”

E: “Nuh-uh!”

G: “Yea-uh!”

E: “Moooommmmm!!!!!  Greece wants to take my statues!!”

Parthenon Pediment

Before I leave, let me share some carvings that were done in 650BC (almost 2800 years ago).  The Assyrian kings would go on Lion hunts.  While I have nothing against most hunting, I struggle with hunting animals at the top of the food chain purely for sport.  As l looked at a wall of carvings, I came to the conclusion that the carver thought the same way as I do.  Look at the sad and powerful way he (I assume it was a he back then) portrayed this terminally wounded and paralyzed lioness.  The kings all looked stoic and indifferent, but the lions all looked full of passion and pathos.

This Is Oddly Poignant for a 2800 Year Old Frieze

I hope that we will not feel like this tomorrow as we travel!  I worry that this might be some foreshadowing of our condition.

We cannot wait to see our camp family over the next few weeks!

Steve Sir