Summer of 17.

The summer of a teacher is a beautiful thing.

That is unless it’s too short or you work too much. This year summer was both too short and I worked to much. That is if I were going back to teach on August 7. But I’m not. This is my retirement summer.

By the way you know how everyone makes the jokes about the best three reasons to be a teacher are June, July, and August? You can forget about that these days. The summer of 2017 was not even two months long – 59 days to be exact.

School ended on Thursday, June 8 and I was on the road to Tampa on Sunday, June 11. So much for lounging around in retirement.

Trip 1. June 11-19. Tampa, Florida. AP Language and Composition scoring. Left on Sunday, June 11 for the Tampa Bay AP Language and Composition scoring adventure. We had been in Kansas City for two years, and I surprisingly loved it there. So even though there were many unknowns, since I would be rooming with Clifton and Jane would be there, I knew everything would be just fine. And it was.

Table 146. Synthesis. My table was great. Patricia was our table leader and there was very little drama. Just a lot of hard work. I loved every minute. One of the blessings was meeting Timm Frietas.

Trip 2. June 20-21. Las Vegas, Nevada. Global Entry Interviews. A two day quick trip to get our Global Entry interviews done. The only issue was that it probably was the hottest day of a very hot summer. Christine and I have never driven to Las Vegas before so we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. At one point the temperature gauge in our car read 121 degrees. Later the fix engine light came on an we were sure it was going to mean we would be stuck there for days.

Trip 3. June 26-28. Donner Lake, California. Dock Repair. During our very wet and snowy winter, our dock at Donner lake was completely decimated. In the process we found out that the Trex Christine’s dad had had installed was faulty and that Trex would replace the decking material for free. We had part of the understructure repaired by a profession, but we decided to do the work on the decking ourselves. I’ll just leave it at that.

Trip 4. July 9-12. Kansas City, Missouri. Adviser Academy. For the first time I actually got to teach at the Walsworth Adviser Academy. I’ve wanted to for years but was never asked. I was there primarily to promote the Adviser Mentor Program, but it was still a lot of fun. Even got to see Michael Franti at KC Crossroads.

Trip 5. July 17-20. San Antonio, Texas. Lonestar South. I had been asked to teach here by Paula Adamek, one of my most favorite people in the Walsworth tribe. I had first met her at the first Walsworth Elite Weekend in Kansas City five years ago. Also got to meet Mitchell Franz another one of the great Texas photographers.

Trip 6. July 21-25. Orange, California. SoCal yearbooks. I love this workshop and have been doing it for years. The best part is it’s not a one-man show. I get to share it with some of my long time and favorite adviser friends.

Trip 7. July 30-August 2. Dallas, Texas. Lonestar Yearbooks DFW. Lisa Llewlynn loves me and it’s always so much fun to work with her. Let’s just say the workshop was a little disorganized however. The highlight of the trip was staying with Lori and sharing a bathroom with her mother. And of course the BBQ at Hutchins in McKinney.

Trip 8. August 3. San Francisco, California. Grateful Dead Tribute Night. Booked these tickets in the spring. WE were hoping to see Bob or Phil. We got Moonalice and as many hot dogs that you could eat. It was still fun to get to walk on the field back to our seats. Former student Mark Malovos also hooked us up and we got into the Gotham Club. It was pretty spectacular.

Trip 9. August 5-29. Copenhagen. Fiesole. Firenze. Greve. Panzano. Volpaia. Assisi. Sorrento. Pompeii. Herculaneum. Positano. Amalfi. Capri. Anacapri. Montalcino. Lake Como. Copenhagen. This was the retirement trip I had dreamed about. I wanted to be no where near Del Campo High School on that first day of school. Being in Italy was a pretty good exchange.

We flew into Copenhagen on Norwegian, stayed for a couple of days getting to know this beautiful city and then flew on Ryan Air into Italy at Bergamo.

Copenhagen