Robert (GeoBob) Ford's BLOG: Back in New Haven (Yale) with Bryan, Anya and Celeste

After enjoying a wonderfully mild winter in St George southern Utah (no snow clearing!!)--see previous BLOG post--we've returned to New Haven Connecticut at Yale University for about six weeks to be with our kids (Anya and Bryan) and our cute granddaughter (Celeste) who just recently turned two in April--see photos below. We also have had a great recent visit in early Spring (in St George) by our younger son--Colby--from Riverside California where he is finishing a degree in geology at the University of California, Riverside.

We will return to Utah in early June where hopefully all preparations will be "a go" for starting on our house construction on "my place" near Rockville Utah (see previous BLOG post). It has been a wonderful time to be here--experiencing spring for a second time after basking in it first in southern Utah around Zion National Park.

While here in Hew Haven I've spent a lot of time gallery-hopping and as result am preparing to enter a photo exhibition hosted by the Kehler Liddell Gallery which is part of the very active Photo Arts Collective found here (a program sponsored by the Greater New Haven Arts Council) which makes New Haven a truly exciting "cultural hotspot" here in New England. Some of the photos I've prepared for showing are in my online SLIDESHOW--on my website which I have also updated while here in New Haven.

In the next two weeks we will visit the Maine coast and the Green Mountains of Vermont before returning to Utah. I expect to be returning to my sustainability consulting with a trip back to Africa in early summer and later to Latin America. I'm keeping quite busy and happily engaged while waiting for the long process to start building really begins (see previous BLOG post).

By the way, taking time-off this last year has been great for my psyche and physical health, and it has allowed Karen and I to reconnect with family and with ourselves after the trauma of selling our house in California last year, after Karen went thru the heartache if her mother's death in February, and living through a forced period of separation while I worked in DRC/Congo for five months (Jan-June 2010). And, we've done a LOT of downsizing as well over the last winter that has given us more mobility and great satisfaction. I found some things I haven't seen for years--and got rid of tons of stuff I no longer want to see. I highly recommend it!

But, getting back into photography has been just what I needed for this time in my life, though I've found a LOT that I needed to learn if I'm truly going to make a go of it as a business. Right now it is still fun though it is a lot of work--but work I truly enjoy! Any suggestions are much appreciated. There is also a chance I will start some part time teaching in the fall at Dixie State College and Southern Utah University. All part of being "semi-retired"--wish me luck!!