About Us

Spring has sprung, here and everywhere. It sprung in Sarajevo while we were away in the USA. "Home Leave" is earned every 18 months of service, and ours started the last week of March and lasted 6 weeks!. We left cold and snowy Sarajevo and flew to DC where the azaleas were just starting to bloom. Clear, cool sparkling days followed one after the other into mid-April. We visited the shops and the sights met friends for dinners and drinks etc. Of course, there was some 'business' to do, including medical checkups, taxes, and the like, but it was a fun couple of weeks, including a picnic under the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin, a drive to the seaside, and several return visits to Clydes and some other favorite DC restaurants. .........

The highlight of the home leave was our visit to West Palm Beach, FL. We departed DC in mid-April and made the drive in 2-1/2 days. Somehow the same cool, sparkling weather was there too! Thinking to save some money over WPB's famously expensive hotels, we selected a small strip-motel recommended by Frommers located right on A1A in Jupiter Inlet, a seaside community at the norther tip of Palm Beach County. It looked quite "iffy" from the street, and an inspection of the rooms revealed grandma's attic's furnishings. But the rooms were big and bright, the sea was a block east, and the Loxahatchee river ran right behind the building. We had stumbled into the neatest, hottest, coolest corner of PB County, the place where the landed gentry drive to eat fresh-caught seafood, dock their boats, and dip into the local leisure culture. Our 2-day visit grew into 8 days, spent driving around the area, gaping at gorgeous houses & communities, eating seafood on the dock overlooking the inlet, drinking beer with the locals, and getting daily sunburns. Naturally, we had to see what a condo there might cost, which led to a frantic 3-day search and ended with our finding THE right place: A sturdy, converted apartment complex fronting a huge open park which, in turn, fronted the Atlantic and some of the best beaches in the county. Clincher: There is a manager on-site who rents the places by the week and the month to vacationers and businessmen, making this a great rental investment! We are now waiting for a 2BR ocean-front unit to come on the market. Watch this space!!!!

Don't give up on me -- I have more to tell! After eight days of sparkling sunshine and blure waters, we left Florida and drove to western North Carolina. The Ashville area is a mountain plateau of the Blue Ridge, and a place there has fascinated us -- Lake Lure. Knowing nothing about the place, we drove there (took 10 hours) and found a cabin in the woods for the night. We had stumbled into Hickory Gorge, a deep slice cut out of the Hendersonville plateau created by the Rocky Broad River which drains into the artificial Lake Lure created by damming up the river in the '30s. This peculiar 'ditch' has a unique climate -- it's protected high-rocky walls make it 10 degrees cooler in summer and 10 degrees warmer in winter than the surrounding countryside. We can verify this -- the gorge was in full bloom, flowers, azaleas, and leafy green trees, while the Ashville was still sporting daffodils and bare trees. The temps here average 70 degrees in the summer. Another find! We snooped around Lake Lure, found that it had already been found out, but there were still a few places on the periphery which might make good investments. Watch this space also !!!!!

OK, enought travel? Maybe not. We went back to DC after a 4 wonderful weather days in NC, and found DC rainy, chilly and not at all welcoming. Great -- time to get ready for the trip back. We would have Bavaria to enjoy when we hit Europe because the return trip was thru Munich. We had arranged to spend 3 days in Bavaria on the way back. OK, Munich is famous for its churches, its folk culture and its beer halls. We're in our '60s now, and really don't fit. But, aah, Bavaria and all its splendors is only an hour south! After a day wandering Munich, we hit the high road, spending a whole day driving thru the Tirol mountains, thru Garmisch & Obarammergau, thru the UberTirol valley, and all of it in big, full sunlight. Yes, occasional snow, but the sun never stopped. OK, OK. Enough. We're back home now, and we're in a new apartment. Look up the page on our new place, and I've got some nice nex pix for you.