Herding Cats in Europe

Posted on May 23, 2026May 23, 2026 by Pete Schloss

Well, not actually herding “cats”, but 7 grandchildren, 5 of which are seniors in high school, and one just graduated. The lone exception is a “cute as a button” 9-year-old granddaughter.

I am not the “cat-wrangler”. That sobriquet belongs exclusively to Christine. All I will be doing is hiking 300 miles in Spain, accompanied by our neighbor, Charlie Murphy.

We have long lived the mantra, “Don’t put off until tomorrow the things you may then find you cannot do.” In my case I will attempt to put a conclusion to my fourth Camino. It was started the summer of 2024, but prematurely ending in Burgos, Spain. Back surgery was the necessary result of a well abused spine and the need to remove a cyst that had formed on my spinal column during the hike.

For Christine this summer offers the pursuit of a dream to share her adventurous spirit and love of travel with our grandchildren. She will be doing so with 7 of the 10.

Here are the details:

Next week Christine and I, along with 3 of the grandchildren, one of whom just graduated from high school and two who will do so next year, fly to Madrid, Spain. There we will be joined by our neighbor, Charlie Murphy. We will immediately train to Burgos. The 5 of us will enjoy 3 nights at the Hotel Norte y Londres, visiting the remarkable Burgos Cathedral and taking in other delights of this hidden gem destination.

On the morning of June 1^st, Charlie and I will proceed west on foot, encumbered only by our backpacks and the unknown. More about that later in this post.

Christine and the 3 “grands” will return to Madrid for 3 days, to be joined by another granddaughter who will be a high school senior in the fall. She will have just finished walking the Portuguese route of the Camino with members of her high school class. Christine with the four in tow will fly to Paris and do a week of “Paris stuff”. They then train to Amsterdam, doing a week of “Amsterdam stuff”.

The first 3 grandkids will then fly to New York where they will join their mother, our daughter, at summer camp. This is our daughter’s 7^th year as the camp’s head nurse. Her 3 kids have been campers throughout but are now employed as camp counselors.

Meanwhile: Christine and the remaining granddaughter will wander to Belgium, enjoying Brussels, The Hague, and Brugges. After days in Belgium, they will fly to Naples, Italy and meet our other daughter, and the granddaughter’s 3 siblings.

The 6 of them will spend a week exploring Naples, Capri, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, and Rome. Christine will then bid them “adieu” (which happens to be the most popular starting word for the daily New York Times game, Wordle. I prefer “SLATE”). On June 27^th Christine will fly to meet Charlie and me in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Charlie will leave us, returning to Kansas City. Christine and I will fly to Paris (more Paris “stuff”) for two weeks that will include Brittany, Normandy, and two nights at Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey.

We will then return home… WHEW!!!

I planned to continue hiking the French route of the Camino, The Way of St. James, from where I left off in the summer of 2024. Charlie recently mentioned that someday he hoped to walk the Camino.

“How about joining me in a few weeks?” I asked. With a look and a pause that telegraphed his suspicion of a less than funny joke, he replied “Really?”. Me: “Really.”. Charlie, “No, REALLY.” Me. “Honest. Really.” Charlie (catching his breath), “Let me talk to Mary, change a few plans and…”

…and Charlie began searching for a pack, walking gear, voraciously studying about the Camino, and doing training walks with me.

Charlie is a very good and deeply spiritual man of 68. I also know that he and I make good travelling parters. Charlie and his wife Mary joined us in 2023 piloting a canal boat in England. We got along perfectly.

Piloting the canal boat in England, 2023

He and I are not without some anxiety. I am 74 and have been haunted by the accumulating hallmarks of advancing age; back, prostate, kidney stones. My illusions of invincibility have been attacked and soundly defeated.

At 68 Charlie is still a top-flight tennis player but wears a knee brace and like me favors the companionship of trekking poles.

Next week we hope to receive a blessing and first stamp in our Pilgrim’s Credencial from a priest at St. Peter’s Parish here in Kansas City. The Credencial is our proof presented at the Pilgrim’s Office in Santiago that we have fulfilled the requirements for receiving the Compostela Certificate.

Daily while on the Camino we will accumulate stamps from churches, albergues (hostels), municipalities…, that certify our journey.

We will each carry a stone, a symbol of our efforts on the Camino. A 1,000 year tradition holds that the pilgrim deposits the stone at the Cruz de Ferro. This is a high point on the Camino where the pilgrim then recites a prayer in this general form:

“Lord, may this stone, a symbol of my efforts on the pilgrimage that I lay at the foot of the cross of the Savior, one day weigh the balance in favor of my good deeds when the deeds of my life are judged. Let it be so. Amen”

Yesterday I sought an appropriate stone, one that within myself I find meaning. Over the years we have often brought home stones as impromptu souvenirs of our travels. Among a small collection of these stones was one that I rejected as being too small. Moving it aside it turned to reveal its hidden side. At that moment there was no question but that this small and insignificant stone would be the one I would carry.

An examination of most statues or images of St. James, along with the waymarks of the Camino explains why.

Next, I reached into a large “change jar”. I wanted a quarter to give photographic scale to the size of the stone. The quarter that I randomly retrieved bore the year 1977, the year that Christine and I married, the year we bought our first home, the year that I entered law school. We consider 1977 to be the most impactful year of our life together.

Perhaps I am reading too much into these events. However, every miracle, both large and small, comes in two parts: That it occurred, and that it was noticed.

It is easy to dismiss such occurrences as matters of mere coincidence. To do so is like drawing the shades only to hide the glory of a sunrise.

“Some may roll their eyes, but for us it is otherwise.”

In 2018 Christine and I embarked on another vast journey. Starting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it included walking the Camino in Portugal. Nearing departure we were faced with some notable “coincidences”. Eddie, the host of our San Juan B&B revealed that he had walked the Camino two years earlier. To this he added, “Peter, in life there are no coincidences.”

Peace Everyone! Pete

PS. I cannot promise to post a running commentary of our upcoming journey. I hope to occasionally share pictures and thoughts. Please keep us in yours.

Murder on the Mainland?

Posted on January 25, 2026January 25, 2026 by Pete Schloss

Kona Hawaii, January 25, 2026.

CAUTION: STRONG OPINION AHEAD.

It is rare that events in the news are able to distract me from enjoying the fruits of our travels. The death of 37 year old Alex Jeffrey Pretti at the hands of ICE officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota has done so.

Murder? An Execution? Justified? Those are questions that the United States Constitution says can only be answered with the exercise of Due Process of Law.

What is certain is that we have witnessed a homicide, defined as the killing of a human being by another human being. We have witnessed a death caused by an agent of the United States Government and the denial of Due Process of Law to the victim.

We have also witnessed an effort by the government to “get ahead of the story“, and without evidence vilify the victim by creating a narrative that stands in stark contradiction to what is clearly shown in the many videos of the killing.

Universally, American law enforcement officers swear an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution. The words “Law Enforcement” are not meaningless. Officers are commissioned to enforce the law, but not to act as judge, jury, and executioner. The laws that they enforce, and that they are also subject to, include the protections of the Constitution. These include: The Right to Assemble, Freedom of Speech, The Right to Bear Arms, Due Process of Law, and in the case of criminal prosecutions the presumption of innocence until found guilty in a court of law.

If Alex Jeffrey Pretti was breaking the law by unlawfully protesting, unlawfully carrying a gun, or unlawfully resisting arrest, then he had the right to have his guilt or innocence determined in a court of law. There was no justification for a summary execution.

If the ICE officers who shot Alex Jeffrey Pretti acted criminally or without legal justification, then that also is to be determined in a court of law based upon facts found in a full, fair and unbiased investigation. Those officers do not have immunity, they do not stand above the United States Constitution.

To hold otherwise would mean that we are also witnessing another death, the death of the United States Constitution.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Longyearbyen and Humanity’s Lifeboat.

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Pete Schloss

Tuesday, September 16. After a 36 hour open ocean crossing we approached Svalbard Island. We would visit two ports of call, the first being Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world that has a population of more than 1000.

Our rather pedestrian (standard but small) cabin is located on the 8th deck. Deck 9, the observation deck, is a short stroll down the corridor and up some stairs. I threw on clothes and a light sweater and ascended to that deck. I was in for a shock! The weather of the last few days had been like late Fall in Kansas City. What I emerged into was the depth of Winter. Cold, driving wind, and snow on the surrounding shores. So much for light sweaters. Today would be full on foul weather outerwear.

We listen as the crew describes the nearby abandoned Russian coal mining town.

The harsh arctic elements accelerate erosion.

Longyearbyen hosts a population of 2,600 (including @500 children) and proudly notes that its residence hail from over 50 countries. It’s an industrial town with an economy based on fishing, arctic research, adventure tourism, and until earlier this year on coal mining.

The huge Longyearbyen coal operations, closed earlier this year. The red building to the left is apparently the office building.

The Svalbard Longyearbyen Global Seed Vault is located here, but more on that later.

The town was founded in 1907 by John Longyear, of Michigan, USA, owner of the Arctic Coal Company. The town was almost completely destroyed by the Nazis in 1943 and has since been rebuilt as a vibrant modern community.

Today Longyearbyen features an airport, hospital, weekly newspaper, and university extension, in addition to various commercial enterprises.

Interestingly, it does not feature a cemetery. It was found in the 1950s that the permafrost did not allow for the decomposition of the dead. There was fear that biological organisms might remain alive and emerge with the bodies which occasionally surfaced over time due to frost heave. 44 bodies were removed and relocated to the mainland. Thereafter the dearly departed have truly been departed south.

Longyearbyen is ARCTIC! The midnight sun lasts 128 days and polar night is 111 days long. Global climate change/warming impacts Longyearbyen and Svalbard Island more than every other part of the globe.

Humanity’s Lifeboat. The Seed Vault of Longyearbyen.

I’m 73 years old. Those of my generation may recall that in our childhood the elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, great cats, the great apes, whales, and walruses… seemed of an inexhaustible numbers. Sadly, extinction for each of these is a very real concern today.

Science has identified 5 great extinction events that have occurred over the Earth’s history. Science has also identified a 6th extinction, The Holocene, also called The Anthropocene Extinction. Flora and Fauna species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Causes and blame are topics for a different discussion.

Since the early 20th century, there have been significant efforts to preserve plant biodiversity for future generations. Among these:

The Institute of Plant Genetic Resources in Saint Petersburg, Russia was started in 1924. It survived the 28 month siege of Leningrad in World War II because several botanists chose starvation rather than to eat the seed collections and potatoes.

The Millennium Seed Bank near London, UK, was established in 1996 and is the largest seed bank in the world. It is already home to over 2 1/2 billion seeds representing nearly 40,000 different plant species.

The 12,000 square foot Svalbard-Longyearbyen Global Seed Vault opened in 2008.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure backup facility for the world’s crop diversity on the Svalbard archipelago of Norway.
As of February 2025 it has received seed samples from 123 genebanks in 85 countries around the world,
Photo: Michael Major for Crop Trust

My photo, from a distance through a ship window.

The vault is located hundreds of feet underground, deep in the Arctic permafrost, and within 3 foot thick concrete and steel walls. It is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear war, and the ravages of time. Temperatures within are sub-freezing, dry, and ideal for long term seed preservation. The purpose of this vault is the preservation of important food crop species. Signatory countries and organizations archive the seeds of their food crops here. Current holdings include approximately 20 million seeds representing over 13,000 years of agricultural history and 1/3 of the most important food crop varieties in the world.

Most recently Syria withdrew some of its seed stocks in an effort to reestablish agriculture in its post war era.

Seed vaults in general, and Longyearbyen’s in particular, may indeed be humanities lifeboat.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. Yesterday we secured an upgrade to our cabin. We can no longer call our accommodations “pedestrian“. We can no long call it a “cabin”.

The “twilight” that lasted through the night

An Unwanted Adventure

Posted on September 15, 2025September 26, 2025 by Pete Schloss

September 12th. Christine and I had enjoyed a wonderful day and afternoon in Reine Norway. Come evening I began to experience a nagging discomfort in my lower left back and abdomen. Within 20 minutes I felt forced to lie down in our cabin. Within an hour the pain was excruciating. I was pale, trembling, and sweat had soaked through my clothes.

We sought out the ship nurse. While I reclined in his small infirmary the pain moderated from an “8” to a “6”. His concern and Christine’s were palpable, but I felt that perhaps the worst was over. Vitals were good and we returned to our cabin.

An hour later and the pain had fired up again, worse than before.

The ship’s medical professional and an assistant were summoned. He was in direct contact with the ship’s captain and a shoreside doctor. A joint decision was made to make an emergency detour to the nearest port and arrange for ambulance transport to the nearest hospital. Two injections of morphine were administered.

We were over an hour away from port. Christine and the assistant packed our bags. A taxi was arranged to arrive at port to transport Christine and our luggage. The ambulance transport from port to the hospital would take another hour. A third injection of morphine was given.

I arrived at the small local hospital around midnight. I was met by three nurses and a doctor. Vitals and tests ruled out cardiac and infection issues. Further tests determined that I suffered from a kidney stone. A first level of treatment and watchful waiting brought relief. The hospital staff arranged for a taxi and a late night hotel near the town dock. I was discharged at 3am with prescriptions for 4 medicines. Christine was asked to pay the hospital and doctor bill… $30. The taxi from the port to the hospital had cost $300. Ambulance cost is unknown.

The hotel, normally not open at that hour, was emergency staffed by a kind and accommodating lady. Our room was charged at the lowest rate she could arrange, $130. We got only three hours of sleep as we had to be up early to try and catch an 8am fast passenger ferry to Tromso, hopefully to be allowed to reboard our ship. We were not expected back.

We made it. I was greeted like Lazarus returned from the dead.

I am better, not 100 percent, but better. We continue on, but with an undercurrent of anxiety as we cross open ocean these next two days.

Peace Everyone. Pete.

PS. Filling the four prescriptions cost $32.

To Serve Man

Posted on August 29, 2025August 30, 2025 by Pete Schloss

March 2, 1962: “Respectfully submitted for your perusal — a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we’re going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.” – Rod Serling (1924 – 1975)

63 years ago. I was 9, less than a month from 10. The television screen was barely 18 inches across, black and white, and so was the Twilight Zone. Later that night, after “To Serve Man” aired, nightmares came for me and millions of viewers across the United States.

TV Guide ranked the episode number 11 on its list of the “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. The ending was ranked as the “Greatest Twist of All Time”. Similar accolades were served by Time Magazine and The Rolling Stone.

Terror did not depend upon color and ultra-realistic gore. It was more effective and more subtle than that. “To Serve Man”. The title held the key. More on that later for those who do not already know.

Yesterday, Christine and I visited the Kansas City Zoo.

The weather was pleasant, unseasonably cool. We expected that we might have the zoo to ourselves. As it turned out it was filled with toddlers in strollers, nursing mothers with babes in arms, and older children who were perhaps being enriched as part of their home school curriculums.

We rode the Miniature Train, the African Tram, and I the Flying Flamingo (sort of a two-way power zip-line). Christine was a big “No” on the Flamingo.

As we wandered the park I also wondered:

I believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe. But what is “life”? Most definitions are biological, but some are philosophical and others legal. Wikipedia notes that there is no consensus on a definition, and that at least 123 definitions have been compiled in scientific literature.

Whatever life is, if we encounter it how will society respond? If it is life in a simple form will those who have held the belief that we are alone in the universe answer, “Yes, but only we are intelligent life.”

If it is life in a complex form will the reply then be, “Yes but only we are self-aware… only we have souls.”

If they are creatures who are clearly self-aware…?

There is perceivable intellect in the eyes of many mammals. At the zoo I looked like food to the cheetahs, the polar bears, and the lions.

I looked into the eyes of a gorilla. Eerily, it contemplated me right back.

In recent years science has determined that self-awareness is present in many primates, in elephants, and in sea mammals. We are captors of all these species and not so long ago we even justified the capture and enslavement (or worse) of our own species solely based on skin color. We still do so based on an individual’s failure to follow certain established legal or religious codes.

If we encounter life that is clearly “intelligent”, will we believe that we have the right to capture it, subjugate it, display it? What life will we deem as sufficiently “intelligent” to warrant a pass on such treatment? Our history shows that equality of ability has not been enough to earn equality of treatment. What treatment should we expect from a civilization more advanced than ours?

In “To Serve Man” a technologically superior civilization arrives on Earth. Its beings wear white robes and are 9 feet tall. Their apparent societal code of conduct is contained in a large book. The title of the book is translated early in the episode as “To Serve Man”.

The human-centric interpretation that Earth’s experts adopt is that these are benevolent beings who have arrived like angels to serve our needs. The aliens will alleviate poverty, end hunger, and eliminate disease. They even transport humans to their home world. Humans are convinced that they are being led to a heaven-like “Shangri La”.

The episode can still be found online and perhaps in streaming services. I highly recommend it. (Caution! Spoiler Alert!…)

Here are the details:

Peace Everyone! Pete

Share my "Thoughts"!

Kona Hawaii, January 25, 2026.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Share my "Thoughts"!

Share my "Thoughts"!

Share my "Thoughts"!

“To Serve Man” is a cookbook.

Peace Everyone. Pete

Share my "Thoughts"!