thanks for the site, John, those pictures are great, and i love the monastary on top of the rock!

In the case of the monastery, I guess you plan ahead when you do your shopping for food. None of that running out for Chinese food or having pizza delivered if hunger strikes at odd hours. Mail delivery must be difficult, too. It is actually an excellent place for uninterrupted contemplation.

This is the monastery Grigoriou in Athos. You can find enough photos of the monasteries of Athos here (select ����� on the left and click on each small photo in the right): http://www.ert.gr/skyview/ John

I am sorry for the Greek language in this site. John

I love seeing the Greek language in this site. I am the one who is sorry for not knowing how to read it. Thank you for posting this most marvelous picture and where to find more. Thank you also for letting us know which link to follow. *Sigh* I wish my Greek (non-existent) was as excellent as your English, John. As to the monasteries on promonontories, it is easy to imagine how they were created. Those on islands which have houses right up to the edges of the cliff are the ones which amaze me. Do the cliffs erode much in Greece? I suspect they are slowly eroded. We dare not do this sort of building in Hawaii or California. I get acrophobia just thinking about white-washing the buildings, not to mention washing windows or fixing the roof. No wonder I am not a monk on Athos!

For an entire page of little images on which to click: http://www.ert.gr/skyview/mones.html

Incidently, I asked Ginny, who travelled to Greece several years ago, if the entire country was so bounteously endowed with antiquities. She assured me it was. I fear I would contract a serious case of exopthalmia in such circumstances. I would not dare to close my eyes lest I miss something. Tbank you again, John. You live in Paradise, not I.

great aerial view of the monastary--now that i think about it, it would be a great place for a prison (though i'm glad the monks live there and not inmates)

Yes! Lovely Monastery in a most magnificent setting - like an inlay of enamel in a large sapphire. I am bewitched. Devil's Island was not nearly as lovely a place. The French used it as a prison. Molokai, in the Hawaiian Archipelago got all the lepers. Islands are very potent isolation mentally and in actuality.

I should soon photograph my newly found rocks and tell you about them. I have a group of limestone fossils and a group of geodes. It is really far too easy to find them here in Kentucky!

It also helps to have a great guide, and that is exactly what I had!

can't wait to see those pics!!

I have discovered that there ARE no rocks in the part of Illinois I was in. There is dirt. Not fertile stuff. Just dirt with lots of corn fields and soybeans fields and hog growing places. But the only rock I saw was road gravel on the main farm lanes which appeared to have been imported for just that purpose from some plece else. What I did find was highly convoluted granite that was admixed with cherts in some instances and schists in others. And these were the larger ones. Most were quite tiny and showed signs of both glaciation and being water-tumbled into rounded shapes. Alas.

Where I am in Cedar Creek, TX there are no rocks. When the crew my swimming pool they bet me a case of beer they would find rocks. They always find rocks, they said. They didn't find rocks. Maybe a cannonball now and then, but no rocks. Now, down by the creek there are rocks, but they get washed in from somewhere else. There are a few rocks up on the hillside from the Great Flood of '81. The Memorial Day Flood scattered some rocks on the hillside.

Terry, is it too late to connect this topic with Geo Rocks?

No, this can be done.

Thanks, Terry! I have some overlapping but that is ok. Now I can share my new and growing rock collection with Wolfie's conference! I'll be posting images soon. Alas, I leave here tomorrow for the trip home, but will return here ASAP.

marcia, be safe!! *HUGS*

Keep us posted!

Absolutely I will keep you posted. Geo has the finest most supportive people on earth and I would never keep from them what is happening in my life. Back to California for now. I shall return!