Pagosa Springs Rotary Club
Will entertained us for 25 minutes with discussion and photos of his travels with wife Kristi to France and northern Europe this summer. He initially related some history of his family heritage. His paternal grand father may have been related to Pocahontas and his grandmother was from northern Italy and was an importer of silk from Milan, Italy. A maternal grandfather was from the Netherlands and was a minister who died in a ship wreck in the 1600’s.
He stated that he was born in Cambridge , MA and believes that he was conceived when his parents were honeymooning in France. Therefore, he has a personal connection to France. Kristi apparently also has a strong connection to France as well through her studies of art and history of France. They visited several history museums and art galleries and several photos were shared with our audience including van Gogh paintings. Will also circulated several books to compliment the pictures. They attended a French Baroque Musical performance at a church built in the 1700s. He showed a photo of the church and the soccer game that was being played adjacent to the church simultaneously.
Will stated that they visited other famous landmarks including the Louvre Museum known as the world’s largest art museum, the Pantheon, the Eiffel tower and Musee d’Orsay.
They were able to ride the highspeed train (TGV) that travels at speeds of 320 km/hr across France and Europe. Will got a chance to do some glacial skiing in the Italian Alps after traveling to Italy through the tunnel by the TGV from France to Italy.
He ended his talk with a brief mention of the Milankovitch cycle which is a cyclical movement related to the earth’s orbit around the sun that determines when the earth plunges into a glacial period and when it thaws out of one. According to Milankovitch’s theory, Will predicts that the earth will be in another ice age in 23000 years if I heard that right. Now that’s something we should be worried about!