Holiday Greetings
Clockwise from the upper right:
Idaho State Capitol, Boise
Amy, Akirah, Terry & Linda on Terry’s birthday
Tom at Leadville, Colorado
Fall Color, Logan River in Northern Utah
Shoshone Falls near Twin Falls, Idaho
Ahmed Mansour, birdman of Egypt, with Tom, Linda, Plover and Kingfisher
Wedding reception in Cairo, Egypt
Touring Americans at the Citadel of Cairo
Bonus Links with photos and Descriptions:
Christmas Letter 2020
Season’s Greetings from the SawyersSeason’s Greetings from the Sawyers
After
celebrating Christmas and New Year's Eve in Minnesota, we departed for our
customary twelve-week winter getaway in Egypt. This was to be a big travel
year. Shortly after our return from Egypt, we were booked on a flight to
Peru and later in the fall we were scheduled to visit Hawaii and the Baltic
states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Sadly, it didn’t happen.
In Egypt, we hosted four guests and arranged the usual “grand tour” for them. It had been ten years since we’d visited the southern sites so we traveled with the group 400 miles south by train and spent several days visiting the Valley of the Kings and other famed sites accessible on a Nile river-cruise. At the end of January, Egypt became aware of the emerging threat of a virus in Wuhan, China, and abruptly cut off all travel from China, dismissing current Chinese visitors.
Egypt was quick to promote social distancing, require masks and gloves in many places, impose an evening curfew and close the tea shops where local men gather to smoke shisha. In spite of all this, we managed numerous outings to friends, off-the-beaten-path cultural sites, a wedding and a guided birdwatching tour. We hired a local bird expert to take us out for a day of bird watching in an oasis outside of Cairo where we saw an amazing array of birds including plovers, kingfishers and flamingoes.
About the middle of February there was no longer any air travel into or out of Egypt and we resigned ourselves to spending the foreseeable future (and perhaps the remainder of our lives) in Cairo. Egypt and the United States faced a common problem – besides the virus – how to deal with stranded citizens in each other’s countries. The U.S. State Department arranged a couple of flights on Egypt Air between Cairo and Washington, D.C. and on April 3-4, we returned home.
With airline travel off the agenda this summer, we took one lengthy road trip in September to photograph the Idaho state capitol in Boise. We were able to visit friends along the way, dine in restaurants and visit several local museums. One highlight was a visit to the famed 1880’s mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where we were fully three thousand feet higher than we would have been in the Andes of Peru.
With little else to keep us busy during the lockdown, we cleaned the garage, restored an armoire and landscaped the garden at the entry of our townhouse complex. We spent many hours in our screened porch watching the animals and birds behind our house. We counted 52 different kinds of birds this year, from eagles and egrets to hummingbirds and orioles.
Terry continues working hard as a manager at a high-volume Holiday Station store close to his home on the St. Paul side of the Twin Cities. This essential job keeps him very busy but he and Amy have spent family time with us throughout the year.
For web-links and pictures taken throughout the year, visit the on-line version of this letter at
www.tjsawyer.com/2020
In Egypt, we hosted four guests and arranged the usual “grand tour” for them. It had been ten years since we’d visited the southern sites so we traveled with the group 400 miles south by train and spent several days visiting the Valley of the Kings and other famed sites accessible on a Nile river-cruise. At the end of January, Egypt became aware of the emerging threat of a virus in Wuhan, China, and abruptly cut off all travel from China, dismissing current Chinese visitors.
Egypt was quick to promote social distancing, require masks and gloves in many places, impose an evening curfew and close the tea shops where local men gather to smoke shisha. In spite of all this, we managed numerous outings to friends, off-the-beaten-path cultural sites, a wedding and a guided birdwatching tour. We hired a local bird expert to take us out for a day of bird watching in an oasis outside of Cairo where we saw an amazing array of birds including plovers, kingfishers and flamingoes.
About the middle of February there was no longer any air travel into or out of Egypt and we resigned ourselves to spending the foreseeable future (and perhaps the remainder of our lives) in Cairo. Egypt and the United States faced a common problem – besides the virus – how to deal with stranded citizens in each other’s countries. The U.S. State Department arranged a couple of flights on Egypt Air between Cairo and Washington, D.C. and on April 3-4, we returned home.
With airline travel off the agenda this summer, we took one lengthy road trip in September to photograph the Idaho state capitol in Boise. We were able to visit friends along the way, dine in restaurants and visit several local museums. One highlight was a visit to the famed 1880’s mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where we were fully three thousand feet higher than we would have been in the Andes of Peru.
With little else to keep us busy during the lockdown, we cleaned the garage, restored an armoire and landscaped the garden at the entry of our townhouse complex. We spent many hours in our screened porch watching the animals and birds behind our house. We counted 52 different kinds of birds this year, from eagles and egrets to hummingbirds and orioles.
Terry continues working hard as a manager at a high-volume Holiday Station store close to his home on the St. Paul side of the Twin Cities. This essential job keeps him very busy but he and Amy have spent family time with us throughout the year.
For web-links and pictures taken throughout the year, visit the on-line version of this letter at
www.tjsawyer.com/2020
There is more to see!
Our Travel
Blog - Egypt Posts
Our Travel Blog - All Posts
Our on-line photo albums including
the Backyard Birds of Woodbridge
the Birds of Egypt and
the Traveling Ladies Trip to Croatia (2018)
Our Travel Blog - All Posts
Our on-line photo albums including
the Backyard Birds of Woodbridge
the Birds of Egypt and
the Traveling Ladies Trip to Croatia (2018)