Where Was Kevin in 2023? (Part 1)

Kevin Triplett

2023 was a big year as I explored US, Canada, and relationships. The year began with me at my sister’s home in Vermont. We returned to her ranch in Texas before I headed to St Louis, Canada, and Europe. Along the way, I married someone!

Vermont

I’ve mentioned my sister several times, I should write a little more about her. I’m the baby in the family (an old baby!), I have two brothers and only one sister, she’s the eldest. So she’s like both a mother and a sister to me. She’s an amazing person and we’ve enjoyed a deep relationship all my life. So when she visits her home in Vermont, I always enjoy going with her. It’s a beautiful little town in New England, very different from her ranch in Texas.

The mechanical room in the basement - I love the industrial beauty and attention to detail

Texas

Back in Texas, we had our own version of snowy weather in late February with an ice storm that took out power and brought down tree limbs. The ranch spreads out over 250 acres with a lot of hills and rocks. It’s a great place to escape from the city and noise with stars and wide open skies. This year, 2024, we’ll be able to see the total eclipse from her ranch!

Contrast With Spring and Fall

Here are photos that show how green Vermont and Texas can be.

Her ranch doesn’t have cattle, just horses and wildlife (mostly deer, turkey, geese, duck, wild boar, and an odd kind of mountain sheep). The horses are cared for by her daughters who live at the ranch.

The “barnominium” where one of my nieces live, the horses are stalled, and my sister has her art studio

The horse barn is where the horses are stalled (they each have their own stall). My sister’s art studio (she paints beautifully) is in the left corner with the three windows). One of her daughters lives in the left side of the barn while the horses on the right side, next to the studio. There’s also an upstairs loft were guests can stay.

St Louis

My stepson Elijah and I took the train from Austin, Texas to St Louis, Missouri. US trains are not a common in the Mid-West and Western US. We’re just too spread out, remote, or unpopulated to support many passenger trains. But the few that run are amazing experiences.

Elijah and I enjoy traveling together and decided to go by train. St. Louis was an available destination and seemed like an interesting. Elijah is am artist, you can see his work on his Fwughox website.

Elijah in the observation car with his artist’s sketchpad

The “City Museum” in St Louis is surreal. It’s in a former shoe warehouse with a seven-story spiral slide the workers originally used to send boxes of shoes from upstairs storage room to the downstairs shipping center. The museum transformed these into slide for people!

The museum also has three-stories of man-made caves and a multi-story tree complete with a tree house! Outside, a five-story “jungle gym” lets people climb into towers, airplanes, and multiple slides. They have the world’s largest pencil, which Elijah used to draw a picture of the “Doge” character.

A part of the cave system inside the museum

Inside, where the caves and tree are entered

Elijah and I also visited the St Louis Museum of Fine Art. We always check out the art museums when visiting big cities together.

“Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion” by John Martin, St Louis Art Museum. He looks tired from his climb.

“Loch Lomond” in Scotland by Gustave Dore, St Louis Art Museum

Virginia with Emily Dickinson

I took a roadtrip with my friend Sybil, an actress, novelist and playwright. She was invited to perform “The Belle of Amherst”, her one-woman play about Emily Dickinson, for an arts festival in Tennessee. She performs her play in community libraries to raise awareness and donations for these libraries. I was her road manager, prompter (in case she forgot a line, which she didn’t), prop manager, sound engineer, and stage manager. It was a fun roadtrip and Virginia was a beautiful place to be in early, early Spring.

Sybil performing at a community library in Virginia

At a pioneer museum, I pretended to be “in the pillory” for some sort of rule infraction

Canada

I love visiting cousin Skip, who lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. He’s was president of Kwantlen University in Vancouver and serves on the board for La Salle College, an innovative and global ecosystem for design, business, education, and technology.

I arrived in March to see the herring spawn, a time when the whole food chain gathers to feast. Herring lay a massive number of eggs, hoping that some of the eggs will hatch and enough babies survive to sustain the species. Meanwhile, birds and sea mammals are feasting on the fish and the eggs. There’s so much sperm in the water that it turns white with foam. I got to see the tail end of the spawning, but was able to make a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43pYqfTz3SA

Sunset from Skip’s cabin at Salmon Beach on Vancouver Island

Salmon Beach is on the Pacific side of Vancouver Island. Here’s the location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9k6kxKTch3KsCynH6

Huge quantities of Herring eggs, attached to plants that were underwater but are now exposed at low tide

Mountain across the still, morning ocean

Vancouver Island was formed from a huge mountain range arising from the subduction of the Kula plate under the Pacific Ocean. Subduction of other plates is still occurring, which makes the island one of the most seismically active regions in Canada.

A lighthouse near Victoria, on the southeast corner of Vancouver Island

Next Week

I’ll post about my 2023 Europe and Mexican trips and marriage!