Susan – Be Back Whenever

10/2025 Almost the end of the trip

After Shetland we still had a few places on the itinerary. We picked up a car in Aberdeen for some lefthand driving and headed back to the Highlands for a few more ditillery visits. We were honestly pretty burned out of tasting whiskey and only visited 3 more distilleries, one of which was just for a bathroom stop!

The lovely Ladies Toilet at Glenfiddich Distillery.

Walker’s Shortbread Cookies were founded in Abelour. No tour of the factory, unfortunately, but we visited the company store.

The whiskey comes after you finish the run.

We couldn’t figure out why all (about 3) of the hotels in Ableour were full. Then we heard about the Dramathon – running with whisky at the end. We REALLY wanted a t-shirt from the event but that’s not part of the swag. If you want to run it, beware. This area is NOT flat!

Glasgow was the next stop for a few days. It’s a much “grittier” city than Edinburgh and parts reminded me of Brooklyn. The food was good, though, and we visited two art galleries along the way.

The BEST scallops at a tiny place in Glasgow. Thanks to Darcy for the recommendation.

A bicycle locker by the university in Glasgow. Does this tell you how much it rains??

This is the Glasgow version of sticky toffee pudding.

Back to Edinburgh, for the 4th time, before we took the train to Cambridge for a weekend with Mark’s cousin, Darcy, and husband, Kelly. They are always fun to spend time with. They like whiskey so we found a home for all the driver’s drams and half of the tasting glasses we’d accumulated.

Cambridge was packed because it was a graduation weekend. It took us 4 tries before we found a coffee shop with seats. We shared an elevator with a Thai student dressed for graduation in the morning. He’s graduating with a Ph.d in Engineering – Computer Science and AI. Has a position at Stanford already and just came back for graduation. We ran into him later in Cambridge and he showed us the huge framed diploma each graduate gets at graduation. How will he get that back to Palo Alto?

A visit with Kelly and Darcy in Cambridge with the required stop at a pub.

These are the little driver’s drams we collected along the way. Kelly and Darcy got all of them after we had a little tasting at their house.

This was in the WC at the Polar Museum in Cambridge.

Last stop was London for a few days before we flew back to Denver. We visited the Tate – Britain, went to see “Wicked”, did a little shopping for whiskey, met an Iowa friend for drinks, and had one of those amazing small world travel encounters. We were in a very crowded Kings Cross train/tube station on a Friday evening, looking for the exit we needed when we hear “I know you.” It was Richard from the Islay whiskey tour. He recognized us.

We saw “Wicked” in London at a Sunday matinee with all the kids. Susan had a broken seat! It was time to switch after intermission.

We met Sam, a U of Iowa friend, in London.

I had to eat mussels one more time before flying home.

10/2025 – A few days in the Shetland Islands

After overnight in Edinburgh, we took the train to Aberdeen to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. After watching all 8 seasons of “Shetland” on Britbox, we had to see what Lerwick really looks like. Well …. exactly like it does on the show!

We had a tiny cabin on the ferry, complete with a little shower. The crossing was nice and smooth until 2 AM when it became very rolling. Not much sleep to be had for the rest of the night.

We rented a car in Lerwick where the lady told us it’s covered for all damage except the door. If the wind blows the door off, we have to pay! What does this tell you about the weather??

We stayed in a nice little B&B in Lerwick and drove around the island for 2 days. There’s only one numbered highway which runs the length of Shetland. October is definitely the off season! Restaurants and museums were closed and we answered “Why are you here?” several times. It is a gorgeous island even if I wouldn’t want to live there with all the wind.

This is the police station on “Shetland”.

Mark had to find a cake fridge that we saw on “Shetland”.

The road crosses the airport runway. We were scolded for stopping to take a picture.

Jarlshof Archeology site at the end of the road.

The Atlantic Ocean from the Mavis Grind.

The North Sea from the Mavis Grind. This is the only place you can see both bodies of water from one spot.

Sheep roam wherever they want – fields, roads, sides of roads.

Lerwick Brewery tasting room is run by an American from San Diego.

After 4 days in Lerwick, we took the overnight ferry back to Aberdeen to begin the next adventure.

10/2025 – Four days on Islay

After 3 days in Edinburgh – more laundry – we joined our second whiskey tasting tour. The tour group had 11 people in it – 4 Canadians (2 women and one couple), 1 Chinese (Richard), 2 Swiss/Macedonians (Vlad and Maja), us , 2 German guys (Policeman and food inspector from Hamburg) with David as the tour guide. This tour was 4 days long.

The sun came out the next day after Storm Tracy roared away!

The Kelpies in Scotland. Nice rest stop, too.

The rain started at the Kelpie rest stop, falling harder the further west we drove. By the time we reached the standing stones, it was a downpour. Mark and I passed on trudging across flooded fields to look at the stones up close! We finally made it to the west coast and took the ferry from Kennacraig to Islay.

Day #2 – The guide did not want us to complain that we didn’t get our money’s worth. First stop was a walk up the street to Bowmore Distillery for a tour and tasting with a “breakfast dram” at 9:30 AM. Stopped at the Whisky Vault for a tasting and then to the Islay Woolen Mill for a 15 minute stop. Number 3 tasting was at Kilchoman Distillery, delayed by about 15 minutes as we waited for a funeral procession from the distillery to the cemetery. The actual service was held in the malting room since this is “Silent Season” – no production. At least 175 cars drove past us, including Search and Rescue people. The dead guy worked on the farm that the distillery is on AND he liked whisky!
After lunch, we stopped at Bruinladdaich for a short stop. Stop 5 for the day was Brunnahabhain but Mark and Susan shared one tasting. We liked this one. Everyone had bottles for “Drivers’ drams”. They are little bottles that the tasting fills up. We could drink it at night. Most places gave us at least 3 different whiskies to taste. You can understand how we accumulated so many! Last tasting of the days was at Ardenhoe, another new distillery. 4:45 for a tasting.

We stayed in a little cottage up the street from this distillery.

Kilchoman Distillery. We had to wait for a funeral procession of at least 175 cars to leave here.

Bowmore Distillery. We got to keep the little tasting glasses at each stop. We had so many by the end that we gave half of them to Mark’s cousin in Cambridge along with about 10 drivers drams.

Day 3 – We had a 9:15 start to head across the peat bogs to Port Ellen and all the distilleries there. First stop was Ardbeg Distillery. Ardbeg had the brilliant idea of making poster tubes to hold the drivers drams. Jennifer, our tour guide for the visit, gave us an extra!

Mark owns a tiny plot of Laphroaig land. His plot was underwater so no visit for us.

Laphroaig Distillery was the tour after lunch. Mark joined Friends of Laphroaig before we left CO so he now has a certificate with the location of his 1 sq. foot of land. Got a bottle with a stamp on the box. They did this to stop a water dispute with Lagavulin.

Lagavulin was the last stop for a tasting. The entire group was burned out from tasting and just wanted to go back to our rooms and get dinner. We had a yummy dinner at Bowmore Hotel with its huge whiskey collection ehich we did NOT sample.

Mark at Lagavulin Distillery. Yes, it was cold in the wind.

I’m trying not to blow away by this tiny castle ruin.

We saw Ronnie’s name on 2 of the plaques on the mills. He’s one of the 3 millwrights left in the UK.

He is one of the last 2 millwrights in the UK who work on the grain mills for all of the distilleries.

Day #4 – Off to Port Ellen to wait for the ferry. Because of Storm Amy last week we’d been bumped to the late ferry (12:15 PM) but David managed to get us on the earlier ferry at 10. The waiting area looked like mass chaos with cars and truck everywhere. Vehicles were packed in and we watched a loader give a driver directions on how to park the car in the last little bit of room on the ferry. We were last on, making us last off when we arrived at Kennacraig.

The vehicles are jammed on the ferry. There was quite a backup caused by delays due to Storm Amy cancelling ferry operations for a day.

10/2025 – Whiskey tasting in Speyside

We took a Rabbie’s Speyside tour from Edinburg. 15 of us on the tour – 7 Germans from around Stuttgart, Gary and Sara from Kent, David and Matthew (Father and son), Lorett from Isreal, and us.

Lindore Abbey was the first distillery we visited – no tour, just a tasting, a friendly dog, and a good toilet

We love mussels! We ate mussels at least 8 times on this trip. Some were better than others but none were bad.

Day 2 started with 9 AM pickup after breakfast at Ravenscourt B&B in Grantown-on-Spey.

Day 2 – Stop #1 -First stop was at Cardhu – 4 whiskies from the cask. Cardhu makes Johnny Walker and is owned by Diageo.

Mark volunteered to draw some whiskey from the barrel for the group’s bespoke tasting.

We had an interesting visit to the Cooperage. Four year apprenticeship, we watched them them testing the repairs they’d done to the barrels. The used barrels are shipped intact from the US bourbon distilleries and then repaired; Some distilleries have the barrels taken apart in the US and reassembled in Scotland. Coopers are paid by the piece.

Our last visit was to Speyburn Distillery. The tour went all over the distillery with a retired whiskey maker with a very strong accent. I could have used subtitles for him and the Germans in the group couldn’t understand him at all.

Day 2 – Tasting #3 – Speyburn Distillery

On Day 3 we wandered our way back to Edinburg, keeping our eyes on Storm Amy that had a direct aim on Scotland. Our first stop was Dalwhinnie Distillery with very white buildings, also owned at Diageo. Tasting had whiskey with chocolates to accompany them with an older guide. Whiskey was OK but chocolate was better.

Day 3 – Dalwhinnie Distillery, also owned by Diageo.

Storm Amy’s rain really started after lunch. We all voted for NO WALK because we didn’t want to get that wet. Adam stopped in Dunkeld at the oldest church still having services. Mark and I walked back to the bus in the parking lot through the tiny town, used the public toilet for 50p each at a manned office in the parking lot. I assume they get lots of visitors in better weather. Does he really collect enough money to pay his salary?? The toilets were clean, though.

The tour threw in a few historical stops including the Dunkeld church.

Adam drove back to Edinburgh in the wind. The old Firth bridge was closed due to wind. A few events have already been cancelled. Gary and Sara on our tour had a train to catch if it wasn’t cancelled due to the storm.

10/2025 – Scotland

We flew to Edinburgh from Munich where we did the laundry, got pedicures and met up with two different whiskey tasting tours. The first one was 3 days in Speyside while the second was 4 days on the island of Islay. both booked through Rabbie’s Tour. We highly recommend both of these tours! We had a driver/tour guide who knew exactly where to go. We could sample all the whiskey we wanted and someone else drove!

One good story from this trip – On the flight to Edinburgh, the guy in 1A (Susan was in 1 C) threw a fit because there wasn’t room for his bag in the Row 1 reserved bin. Tried to put the bag behind his legs. No go! The captain had to come out for a word. The passenger had to be first off so he could catch a bus in Edinburgh. Pilot told him we would be on the apron at Edinburgh, taking a bus to the terminal, but the passenger was welcome to could sit in the very back of the plane and be the first off at the back exit. That made him happy and gave Susan more room. Of course, when we landed, the busses didn’t leave the runway for the termninal until the entire plane had deplaned. He left at the same time as the rest of us. Oh, well!

9/2025 – Munich and Salzburg

We made a 2 week visit to Munich and Salzburg with friends, Steve and Christina. Munich and Oktoberfest was the first stop – fun as always!

This is a surfer on the river in Munich.

My favorite city in Europe, Salzburg, was the next stop. We took the train from Munich to Salzburg; we spent 4 days visiting some favorite locations including the Augustiner Monastery for their beer and a picnic in the garden. One day we all took a tour to a salt mine – not the same one we visited 35 years ago. The city was celebrating St. Ruppert’s festival with music, crafts, beer, sausages.

The Hohensalzburg in my favorite European city.

We visited a salt mine in our lovely miners overalls!

2025 – Six weeks in Maui

What could be better than 6 weeks on Maui in the sun and wind? We hung out, read books, did water aerobics every day (Susan), used the gym every day (Mark) and just relaxed. We’ve been to Maui enough (Well, it’s never enough.) that we didn’t do any typical activities – no luau, no whale watching trips, no snorkeling. The 2 weeks before spring break were pretty quiet with lots of “old” people. Then 2 weeks of spring break brought all the families. The last 2 weeks were a bit calmer.

Lahaina has made remarkable progress since the tragic fires last year. All of the debris has been cleared and house rebuilding has started. We saw a few houses that are finished, about 2 dozen under construction. It’s going to be a while until Lahaina is back to “normal”. The government has started issuing permits for businesses to rebuild.

We happened to be there for a full lunar eclipse.

Sunsets and champagne on the beach just go together.

11,12/2024 Christmas Markets and Home!

From Venice we flew to Vienna where we met a German friend, Jutta, and spent 4 days in Vienna visiting Christmas markets, the Spanish Riding School (Great tour), Belvedere Palace to see the Klimt paintings. If you want to see a city dressed up for Christmas, Vienna is for you. The streets, stores, buildings were all decorated with lights and ornaments. Vienna hosts at least 14 different Christmas markets all over the city. We think we visited seven.

What are the markets like? Do they sell things? They’re each a bit different and vary in what’s sold. Food and drink (Mainly gluwein which is mulled wine, wine, champagne), a variety of local snacks, and then there are the non-food products. Some of them have local craftsmen products, jewelry, pottery, ornaments, Nativity pieces, not much clothing. At night they are beautiful and tend to be the most crowded then. Lots of residents meet friends at the markets to wander, eat and drink. One or two had ice rinks.

Vienna City Hall at the Christmas market

Best thing about Christmas Markets – gluwein!

Yes, we visited the Belvedere Gallery so we could see the Klimt paintings.

After a weekend of too much food and drink, we flew to Berlin for Thanksgiving, Christmas markets, a few museums, and colds! These were the first colds we had in about 3 years – no fun!

One of the Berlin Christmas markets at night

This dog clearly knows how to ride the Berlin S-bahn.

A gluwein stand at a Berlin Christmas Market

Brandenburg Gate on a cold night in Berlin

Our last stop was Barcelona before boarding the Viking Sky to Fort Lauderdale.

La Sagrada Familia done in Legos, complete with crane.

We spent a few days in Barcelona walking around to find Gaudi buildings but did not go to La Sagrada Familia – been there, done that; visiting their Christmas market; checking out the very large city market with yummy empanadas, fruit, and interesting looking fish and iberian ham; visiting a few pharmacies to stock up on paracetomol. In the U.S., we buy bottles of 500 Tylenol. In Europe, not so much! Their “large” packages have 20 pills for about $3.

The last leg of the trip was a 2 week Viking cruise to Madeira, St. Maarten and Ft. Lauderdale. The seas were a bit rolling but it was nice and warm! We really enjoyed Viking – no one under 18, lectures, lots of room in the public areas to read or play cards or watch the ocean, only 900 passengers. The food was good and Mark learned all about Sambal from our Indonesian waiters. We met very interesting people and just chilled out.

The Viking chefs built a lovely gingerbread village.

The ship stopped for a day in Funchal, Madeira, a very mountainous island!

I knew we were back in Portugal when I saw the tiles.

Yes, Funchal has a Christmas market, too. This one only food and even beer!

The last stop was Fort Lauderdale where we flew back to Denver on a very uneventful flight!

10, 11, 12/2024 Cruises and Christmas Markets!

We’re blaming Sue for this trip. She finds cruises that look interesting, tells us about them and we end up signing up! This cruise was on Windstar, starting in Athens and making its way around the Mediterranean to some smaller ports. One of the stops was Dubrovnik which has been on our list to visit so we said “yes”!

We really liked Windstar for its size – only 235 passengers. It can dock much closer to cities because it is so small. The stops were good. In Catania we’d planned to take the city bus to Siracusa (we’d been there) to visit a few places but rain put an end to that! It bucketed down for about 24 hours and the officials closed the roads due to flooding.

Mark and I flew to Athens (Start of the cruise) a few days early to do some exploring. The last time we were in Athens was in May and the temps hit 100F+ EVERY day! October is MUCH nicer!

The cruise started in Athens on the morning after the U.S. election, headed to Gyphia, Corfu, Crotone, around Italy to Catania, Naples, Civitavecchia, Naples again, Messina, Dubrovnik, Zadar, and ended in Venice. No great stories for this trip but we did love Cindy, the coffee queen, on the Windstar ship. She knew exactly the kind of coffee we wanted every morning!

This cat liked to hang out in the window in Corfu and watch the people go by.

In Dubrovnik, we hired Marko, ToursByLocals tour guide to give five of us a 4 hour tour of the city. We met him on time by the fountain and while he was giving us the intro, a guy walked up and said “Marko” so Marko thought he was with us. Then two women came up looking for Marko, their tour guide. He checked their reservation – Nope, not him! Then we told him we are a group of 5, not 6, so the lone guy needed to find some other Marko. On the way to enter the walls, two guys came running up “Marko?”. Nope! Marko told us that “Marko” is one of the most popular names in Croatia and, obviously, for tour guides! He hid his name tag in his coat after that!

Marko did a great tour – fountain, graffiti, told us some things about “Game of Thrones” filming in Dubrovnik. One lady was offered by the producers 500E per window in her building (9 total) per day to keep her shades closed. She accepted! They paid the restaurant Marko worked in 10000E per day to stay shut and them hired them to do the catering for the movie.

We highly recommend November as a time of year to visit Dubrovnik. Unlike the summer when it’s overrun by visitors, we had the city to ourselves. Hardly any visitors, except our ship, and a few small tour groups.

We had to get the mandatory picture outside the Dubrovnik walls.

Even the cats in Dubrovnik know where the churches are.

The ship stopped twice in Naples – once at the end of a 7 day cruise and again at the beginning of a 7 day cruise. 1/3 of the passengers were only doing 1 week; the other 2/3 did both weeks. Naples has a bad reputation but it’s an interesting city to wander around. There’s even one street lined with shops that only sell items for your Nativity set – pizza ovens, veggies, loaves of bread and the baker. Even the church Nativity sets are elaborate with entire villages set up. And we watched some truck driver back into an alley – maybe it’s a street”?? The entire neighborhood watched the process!

We have NO idea what a French taco is in Naples.

Venice was the last port – one whole day to visit before disembarking in the morning. One highlight of the cruise was sailing into the Venice lagoon about 6 AM that can dock right in Venice. We wandered around all day and managed not to get too lost on the way to St. Mark’s. Again, November is definitely less crowded than summer, especially in the out-of-the-way neighborhoods,

Entering the Venice lagoon

This is where Part One of the trip ended. Off to Vienna next!

2024 Signs

We can never pass up the chance to take pictures of funny, strange, whatever signs. Here are some from Australia and NZ.

Coming out of Hobbiton – drive on the left.

Then there are the toilet signs.

4/2024 A month in New Zealand

From Sydney we flew to Queenstown, NZ, on the South Island. Qtown reminds us of Colorado mountain towns – lots of winter and summer activity tourists (Think skiing, hiking, and biking), lots of temporary young workers from all over the world, lots of outdoor equipment and clothes stores. They also have a YUMMY Patagonia ice cream store.

We wandered around for a few days, did the laundry, took a boat ride across the lake, and found a very high tech toilet in the park:
• Button to open and close the door
• Message that I had 10 minutes to use the toilet.
• Music played.
• Autoflush and the sink water started running with soap and a dryer.
• Button to open the door.

The last night in town, I was all ready for bed when the fire alarm went off at 9:15; threw on clothes and evacuated using the steps from floor 5 to floor 3 which put us on the side of the hotel. We waited outside for about 30 minutes until the fire department cleared us to go back. When we went inside, Susan and a few other people waited for an elevator while Mark took the steps. However, the walkers couldn’t find the steps on floor 2 so they pushed the elevator button and made us wait on floor 1!!

The plane flew over on the approach to Queenstown.

We did the laundry at this little lakeside laundromat.

From Queenstown we headed north to places we didn’t see 30 years ago on our first visit – Wanaka, Taupo, Franz Joseph, Blenheim. From there we flew across the water to the North Island for Palmerston, Hobbiton, Rotarua, Auckland. And the rain started to follow us.

The Wanaka Tree made famous by some TikTok’r

At Franz Joseph Glacier overlook, some Asian tour group posed for pics with the cut out ranger who was telling everyone not to go any further!

We spent a few days in Franz Joseph catching up with laundry, diary, and watched the rain pour all day and night, hard at times! We actually drove 3 blocks to Snake Bite Brewery for a beer and chips on the patio watching wet people and people park in a “no parking” spot – long yellow dashes. The local police could make a mint in parking tickets. The Meteo still called for rain through Friday (We were in FJ on Sunday-Tuesday) along with flooding.

On Tuesday night the rain eased up a bit about 4 AM. At breakfast we learned that the road heading south between Fox Glacier and Haast is closed, as well as between Fox and Franz Joseph due to a bridge being covered by a landslide. We planned to head north, thank heavens! We started the drive at 9:08 AM in a bit of hard rain, driving through some standing water on the road.

The last 2 weeks were on the North Island. One question we get is “How’s the driving on the left in NZ?” I think Mark agrees that it’s not hard since there’s not much traffic until you get around Auckland. The worst part is that the MAJOR National Highway – HW 1 from one end of the North Island to the other is only 2 lane everywhere except Wellington and Auckland. This road carries all the truck traffic from the various ports. There are pull outs and passing lanes if people are so inclined to use them.

How many stop signs do you need at this intersection in Taupo??

Feijoa fruit – sort of tart and sour. They are like zucchini – everywhere!

The “funnest” activity we did was visit Hobbiton, used making “Lord of the Rings”. Neither one of us has read the book nor seen the movie but the movie set visit was SO much fun! The props are amazing in detail. There’s even a 70% scale Hobbit house to visit.

We finally made it to Auckland after driving in the rain in road construction and dropping off the car at the Auckland airport. We visited the WETA Workshop studio special effects tour, The All Blacks Experience, The Auckland Art Gallery, ate yummy mussels and Indonesian food, did the laundry with the best dryer of the trip!

It was time to fly home on the Day that Never Ends.

Wake up at Monday 8 AM NZ time; 1 PM SUNDAY SF time
LWe landed at 7 AM Monday in SF – before we left NZ

Trip Summary: Fun train ride, great to visit friends; excellent scenery. We’ve decided that road trips where we stay only one or two days in one location are great in our 20’s but not our style any more when the trip is several months long. We like staying in one place longer – at least 3 or 4 days at a time. BUT if you’ve never been to OZ or NZ, put them on your list.

3/2024 Australia Road Trip

We picked up a car in Adelaide and started our road trip along the Great Ocean Road, Geelong, Phillip Island, Lakes Entrance, Canberra, and, finally, Sydney in time for Easter.

Twelve Apostles of which some have fallen in the ocean.

The first day from Adelaide, we drove through lots of vineyards to Naracoortes. After we checked in at the hotel, the low tire pressure indicator went off on the car. Our left rear was low but we found an automatic air compressor at the gas station. It beeps when the tire reaches the set pressure.
Naracoortes is VERY small. We stopped at Foodland to pick up potato chips. The checkout lady wanted to know where we’re from. When we said “U.S.”, she said, “What are you doing here?” (Reason: there is a National Park nearby with caves.)
The next morning, we left the motel to go to McDonalds (Makkas) for breakfast; the low pressure indicator was back on. Avis has an office, allegedly, in Naracoortes so we found it – Cappas Auto Repair. Hayden was super nice but he couldn’t do anything even when he called Avis. Avis told Mark to fix it at our expense. Hayden found out that Avis has a tire repair place in town so he sent us to “Trident” tire which turned out to be Bridgestone. They were super nice, found a very long nail and fixed the tyre. Said they’d just bill Avis. Thank heavens for such nice people!

The wind howled when we walked down to the grotto.

Meat pies at the bakery are always good for lunch.

We followed the Great Ocean Road from Warnambool to Apollo Bay to Lorne to Geelong. Little Creature is Mark’s favorite Australian beer and they just happen to be located in Geelong. Made a perfect overnight stop along the way.

The next day we took the ferry to Phillip Island for a penguin visit and a Wild Animal park visit. They’ve both been updated a bit in 30 years.

Fairy penguins returning home every night.

Australia has a “thing” about big things – pineapple, sheep, potatoes, avocados. We stopped in Goulburn, NSW, for a toilet, coke at Subway at the Big Merino. Very busy town and stop! Not much traffic until we got to within 50 km of Sydney airport. The tunnel into Sydney drops you right at the airport without a gas station in sight and Google wasn’t much help! We drove to the Avis return and asked “Where’s a petrol station?”. He directed us to a 7-11 outside of the airport. Google Maps finally got us there via Wickham St. The very busy station is at the point of 2 streets and seems to have a monopoly on rental car fill-ups!

We made it to Sydney in time for Easter Weekend which is a long weekend in Australia. Good Friday is a national holiday. Mark and Gayle and friends put together what is called “long lunch” on Good Friday with lamb and wine and other assorted food. They invited us for what turned out to be a VERY LONG Lunch. We arrived about 12:30 and left at about 8:30 PM. Excellent wine and a few experimental gin smashes.

We needed something to do on Saturday; microbreweries called our name. We took the Fast Ferry to Manly to 4 Pines. Beer but no t-shirts. They told us their other brewery in Brookvale has shirts. We found the bus to Brookvale and visited 3 breweries all in the area – 7^th Day, 4 Pines (no shirts there, either) and Buckettes. Tasted their beer, chatted with a few people, ate pizza at 7^th Day before we took the bus back to the Manly Ferry which was packed but we made it on the 2^nd ferry. All the beach people were going home.

View of Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road

In case you’re wondering, we mainly stayed in small motels along the way. They are relatively inexpensive and 100% of them have a kettle, tea bags and a pint of milk because, if you’re Australian, you are sure to want a cup of tea at the end of the day. Many had a microwave and small fridge along with dishes, glasses, cups, saucers for proper tea.

The Ghan – will it really go??

We flew to Darwin a few days ahead of time and were amazed at how much it has improved in the 30 years since we first saw it. The day the train was scheduled to leave (It has been raining for several days by now.) we crawled out of bed at 5:30, met in the lobby at 7 to be collected by bus to go to the Convention Center before going to the Ghan station outside of town by about 17 km. The process in need of a bit of change:
Hotel – give them all the bags – checked and carryon. Get to convention center, stand in line again so they could put the Bus # on our lanyard cards; watch a little show drinking bad coffee; hang out waiting to go to train about 9 AM. At 9 AM we got on Bus #4 to the train. At the train station we claimed our carryon bags and boarded K4 cabin; got organized. After Lincoln (cabin attendant) gave us the rundown, we went to the lounge car and had a glass of champagne.
“Why are we still sitting here at 10 AM??” Heavy rain flooded the tracks near Tennant Creek and the company was meeting to figure out what could be done. Served lunch and finally decided that we would leave at 4 PM and we’d be on the train for an extra night, getting into Adelaide on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Mark and Gayle thought Saturday was the original schedule!

If people could not do that, they could get off and get a refund. We would not do any excursion at Katherine because the roads to the gorge were flooded! We should arrive in Alice Springs on Friday AM for our excursions. We got $300 AU for the missed excursions.

Thank heavens for Wifi and TMobile. We changed the hotels and waited and drank champagne. The train finally pulled out at 4:37 PM, more than 6 hours late.

Mark posed in front of the engine while we waited to leave.

The couch turned into a lower bunk and the top folded down into an upper bunk.

The closer we got to Alice Springs the drier it got.

2/2024 – Plan B

This trip needs a prologue! Way back in July 2023, Mark asked Susan what she wants to do for her 70th birthday. This first idea was a cruise through the Panama Canal from end to end, not into the middle and back out. When we couldn’t find one that operated during the birthday, the next idea was to see the Northern Lights. After all, if I have a winter birthday, why not just go from cold to colder?
We found one on Hurtigruten, the Norwegian company that Per and Lise told us about. We booked a cruise leaving from Amsterdam to Bergen and up the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle and back again. It was on the MS Maud. I even signed up for the various Facebook pages for Hurtigruten trips. This becomes important about December 22!
We start preparing for the trip – plane flights, hotels, etc. We found an excellent price on a Singapore Air flight from JFK-FRA Business Class which we booked, adding a weekend in NY and tickets to see “Book of Mormon” on Broadway. Mark bought us some North Face coats so we are all ready to be cold in Norway and see the Northern Lights!
The drama begins as Christmas approaches. A serious storm hits the North Sea on December 22. The MS Maud sees this coming and changes a port stop so they can beat the storm across the North Sea to get back to Tilbury, UK in time for their Christmas cruise. The ship doesn’t make it! The MS Maud is hit by a rogue wave, breaking the bridge windows. The ship cannot navigate; calls for help. The passengers put on their water rescue suits and spend 8 hours at the muster stations in wild weather. Finally, 3 ships arrive from Norway and Denmark, the Maud gets some power back, and everyone heads to Bremerhaven, Germany. You can Google to read the whole story.
I know all of this thanks to Facebook! At this point, Mark and I start betting our cruise will be a no-go. However, Hurtigruten trades out the Maud for the Spitsbergen. Once again, we learn about this from Facebook. We finally get an email from Hurtigruten about the trade off and the Spitsbergen being a smaller ship – no room for us! We’re offered a refund, rebooking, or a voucher. We chose the refund and actually received it in just a few days. Since we have flights and NYC and hotels, Plan B is the next option.
That’s where the trip starts – Plan B!

We flew to NYC for a long weekend.

We did a tour of the hospital on Ellis Island. It’s very interesting. This is the view the immigrants had from the hospital beds.

We visited the Museum of Modern Art. Once in a while, we need some culture.

The “Book of Mormon” is one of the best musicals we’ve ever seen. We laughed our way through the entire production.

After NYC, we flew to Frankfurt and on to Amsterdam. Mark didn’t want to take Deutsche Bahn to Amsterdam which was a good decision since DB had a strike the day we flew to Amsterdam. The original trip had us spending a few days in Amsterdam before we took the tram and bus to Ijmuiden, where the ship sailed from. Jutta, a German friend, was meeting us there for the day. Rather than undo all of that, we went to Ijmuiden for the night.

Fun brewery on a chilly Sunday afternoon in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam wants to make sure everyone understands the rules.

Ristafel dinner – Indonesian food. It’s yummy! The waitress asked if we had any food allergy. We said “no” and she told us “Boomers never have allergies”. Guess it pays be older.

Ijmuiden, Netherlands has spectacular beaches along the North Sea. In January, the wind howls, making it a hot spot for wind surfing and kiteboarding.

The MS Spitsbergen – the ship we were supposed to be on.

2/2024 – Brussels

We took the Eurostar to Brussels – only 2 hours. We’ve been to Brussels several times; just spent the day walking around the city. Stopped at Mannekin Pis, 2 churches, renovated Bourse that houses the Beer World Museum (We skipped that.).

The obligatory visit to the Mannekin Pis. If you get to Brussels, find the city museum where all of his costumes are displayed. He wears various clothes to celebrate different holidays.

Waffles that look like frites decorated with candy. We did NOT try them.

The Corne beer was pretty good even if Susan wasn’t too sure how to drink from the glass.

La Villette has yummy food and beer to go with each one. They are beer experts rather than wine sommeliers.

There’s a proper glass to accompany every Belgian beer. This was the recommended beer for my filet.

We woke up to rain and more wind. After breakfast, we took an Uber to the Centraal Station to catch the train to Bruges.

2/2024 – Birthday in Bruges

February is a great time to visit Bruges without crowds but the weather is a bit iffy. Rain was the theme of our 6 days in Bruges. All activities occurred between rain showers! We wandered in and out of the streets and along the canals, stopping at various breweries (Half Moon, Bourgogne de Flandres, Le Garre) to get out of the rain. Mark has a favorite chocolate shop from our first visit to Bruges in 1990. It was not where we thought it was, resulting in a multi-day hunt. It moved but is still owned by the same family. The granddaughter runs it.
We continued the art theme and visited the St. Jan Hospital Museum where they have a Hans Memling exhibit of paintings owned by the convent. They clearly were not poor nuns!

A lonely street in the evening. Bruges is pretty much deserted in February after the work day is finished. Very few tourists wandering around.

Men have it so easy. These urinals are at the Saturday market. Women have to search for a bathroom!

We had the laundromat to ourselves until 3 American teenage guys came in. They were in Bruges with a group of soccer players and needed to wash their sweaty clothes. They had no idea how to use a Belgian laundry. We came to their rescue after watching them for a few minutes – sent them to the store up the street to get change, showed them which detergent to buy from the machine and even gave them a 10 cent piece since the laundry detergent machine only took exact change. We left them waiting for the washing machine to finish and figured they could figure out the dryer on their own!

Yes, this is a chocolate purse dyed to look green.

Le Garre brewery. This place is TINY. We’ve tried 3 times to have a beer here – one time it was closed, another time it was SO smoky we didn’t even go in. Third time’s a charm – open, 2 chairs and it’s non-smoking now.

One day we spent on a WWI tour with a great tour guide – Lucas. He picked us up at 9 AM and we visited Passendale, Hill60, Tynecot Commonwealth Cemetery, Dr. John McRae memorial, Ypres Salient, a farm with ammunition collection, Yorkshire Bunker in the middle of an industrial park, and a German Cemetery.

Ypres was demolished by WWI and completely rebuilt in the medieval style.

Tynecote Commonwealth Cemetery. British bodies weren’t repatriated but buried in Belgium or France where they died.

2/2024 – Ghent

We camped in Ghent on our first Europe trip in 1990. Since it’s close to Bruges, we spent 3 days here to see what we missed. 80,000 college students and the Ghent Altar Piece make Ghent a fun city – lots of places to eat, beer to drink, canals, art history. It’s been added to our Favorite Place list, despite the rain.

The castle is the only thing we remember seeing 30 years ago!

The Nazis hid the Ghent Altarpiece in a salt mine with other looted works, and it was saved from destruction by the Monuments Men and others. It’s now in St. Bavos Cathedral in Ghent, being restored. This art made the whole visit to Ghent worthwhile. We highly recommend a visit; winter is perfect! We were the only people in the room with it and walked all around it – no crowds and no tour groups.

The Ghent Altar Piece in St. Bavos Cathedral. The bottom panels have been completely restored. The top ones are place holders while the originals are being restored in the museum. We visited that, too, to watch the restoration.

In St. Bavos – the Bishop’s confessional. You started in the Priest’s Confessional. If your sins were too serious, you were sent to the Bishop for Confession.

2/2024 – Haarlem, Netherlands

The French rail conductors went on strike but our Eurostar train wasn’t affected, thank heavens. The rain theme continued in Haarlem. We had a lovely time with Michelle and a few of her colleagues – a brewery visit, walk through red light district, checked out the market.

An ex-jail De Koepel in Haarlem. It houses offices, a small uni, a theater, coffee shop, student dorms. Very innovative way to repurpose a building.

Flowers in the market – very inexpensive!

The urinal has a TV on it. Wouldn’t want to miss any of the match when you need to use the toilet!

After we dinner, we had our first trip disruption from a strike! Sunday night, Lufthansa texted to tell us our flight on Tuesday to Frankfurt from Amsterdam was cancelled because of a Lufthansa ground staff strike. We both immediately got on our phones and computers to talk to their chatbot to get a rebooking. Mark finally got thru first and we were put on a KLM flight. The reservation showed up on the KLM site so we felt pretty good.

2/2024 – FRA, NYC and home!

KLM did have our reservation and flew us to Frankfurt. Thank heavens, we planned to spend the night in Frankfurt anyway; the strike ended the next day at 7:15 AM.

Frankfurt airport when the ground crew is on strike. It’s like a ghost town.

We spent a day in New York City before flying back to Denver.

QR codes for everything at St. Patrick’s in NYC

All types of credit cards accepted at St. Patrick’s

10/2023 Last stop in Nepal – Bandipur

Driving Day from Hell #2! The roads are explained on the next post so hold your breath.

Bandipur is a historic, restored town (Think Williamsburg, Virginia) and no cars are allowed in the center. After winding up the mountain past the National Goat Research Center, we were dropped off and hotel staff came to get the luggage while we walked to the hotel. The hotel is a historical building with tons of steps, no shower curtain in the bathroom and questionable hot water. Great view of the mountains from here.

Morning view of the mountains and fog in the valley

View from our room window in the morning

Mark and Jutta left at 7 AM for a hike with Bhaskar to Ramcot village. Mark and Jutta walked up to Thani Mai – lots of steps. Off they went to Ramcot – beautiful scenery, lunch at a local woman’s house of hot soup. Mark got a 200 rps. discount for keeping the chickens out of the house while she cooked.

Mark after surviving the 7 hour hike to Ramcot and back.

Having Bhaskar as our tour guide for 2 weeks was great since we let him order food during dinner/lunch that we never would have tried. Spicy peanut salad and chili paneer were 2 of our favorites. He even hunted down some local beer for us to try.

Spicy peanut salad. The exact taste varied by who the chef was.

11/2023 Rome and Home

Nepal is exactly halfway around the world from CO (12 time zones) so we could go east or west to get home. We found a repositioning cruise from Rome to NYC for cheap; that made the decision. We finished the Nepal tour and headed to Rome for 5 days before boarding the cruise and setting sail for NYC with planned stops in Naples, Livorno, Cannes, Barcelona, Cadiz, Lisbon, the Azores, Bermuda before finally disembarking in NYC.

We awoke to news of an earthquake in western Nepal around midnight. Mark and Susan slept thru it but Jutta felt it, heard the building creaking, and couldn’t go back to sleep. We headed out at 7 AM to beat the early morning Kathmandu traffic. Kathmandu International Terminal might win for the most chaotic airport we’ve been in.

The airport – where to begin?? Bhaskar dropped the three of us off and we couldn’t even figure out where the lines were to get thru security to get into the terminal building to check-in. We finally found the screen to tell us we needed the B line but Jutta needed to go to the A line. The line was huge! We figured it would take forever but only took 15 minutes. The one long B line broke into 2 security lines just to get into the terminal. After we showed our tickets to prove we were flying, we went through security. The mass chaos is partly caused by people seeing their friends off at the terminal.

After #1 security line, we were in the terminal and had to find the correct Qatar line – flight 649 or flight 653? Thank heavens Mark is tall enough to see signs over everyone’s head! We found the correct Business class line, checked in, got boarding passes, wound our way through the other lines and gaggles of people following the “Immigration” signs and rode our first escalator in 2 weeks after showing our boarding pass at the bottom of the escalator. The disorganized Immigration line at the top of the escalator took 13 minutes.

No gate yet but we went to security #2 which took 16 minutes in a very illogical set up. This one was belts and shoes off, computers, etc. After we cleared security #2 and put our shoes back on, we had our boarding pass stamped to prove we’d been through security #2 and then showed it to some guy 10 feet away in order to get into the gate area. Full employment! 4 people in front of us missed the stamp and had to return to the stamp guy.

Still no gate. We hung out by the TV monitor and met an American woman who was also looking for the gate. She’s from Fort Collins – Police department in Homeless Intervention. She’d done a trek to Everest base camp for 14 days.

We finally had a gate right where we were standing. When the boarding process began (no microphones, just loud voices that were not loud enough), no busses showed up to take us to the plane. We finally got to the plane and even that wasn’t organized. Told us all to line up at the steps at the back door but when we got to the bottom of the steps, that guy saw our Business Class seat and sent us to the front door. Then the flight left about an hour late because of heavy traffic. Huh?? Only one runway at this airport made for a short taxi to takeoff.

The flight landed at Doha about 45 minutes late. We went through security again to move from the A gates to the C gates but only belts taken off. They didn’t care about computers or phones. BTW … there is no one in Doha airport at 2 PM in the afternoon. Rome … here we come in search of a laundromat!

Not everyone can do their laundry with Italian columns along the wall.

What did we do in Rome? Visited 8 different churches, ate gelato at least 5 times, bought Mark new tennis shoes after he tore the soles on the Nepal hike (Finding large sizes is hard.), did the laundry, bought toothpaste and visited the Italian version of the dollar store. John O and Sue from FC joined us in Rome before we all set sail on the Norwegian Cruise Line Breakaway.

We had perfect weather for the port visits until we got to the Azores. The wind was too bad for the ship to dock. This resulted in 6 sea days in a row from Lisbon to Bermuda.

Cafe lattes are a great way to use a cafe toilet and get a caffeine fix at the same time.

Cadiz, Spain waterfront. I was enjoying the sun on our walk.

Monkfish! I have no idea how to cook one.

On our stop in Lisbon we took the city bus to Belem just to buy Pasteis de Belem – custard tarts. The cafe has redecorated and gotten way more organized since 2002.

La Sagrada Familia might be completed by 2030.

Watching the port activity was almost as much fun as seeing the cities. This crane pulled up containers about every 3 minutes.

Port tasting in Lisbon. We didn’t know we enjoyed good port until we lived in Potugal for 3 months.

Our port of disembarkation was New York City. We crawled out of bed at 3:50 AM after the captain said we’d sail past the Statue of Liberty about 4 and joined other passengers whose cabins were also on the wrong side of the ship. It was COLD and WINDY!

First, the ship passed under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York harbor at 4:30 AM.

Lady Liberty at 4:45 AM. We can only imagine what immigrants felt when they finally saw her after a long, uncomfortable trip.

Everyone asks – How was the cruise? Our answer: This was the first large ship we’ve sailed on (4000 passengers) and it is the last large ship we’ll sail on, voluntarily. Too many people, not enough space to find a quiet place. This particular sailing for NCL was understaffed, food was average at best, the buffet coffee was undrinkable, but it was cheap for 16 days at sea with unlimited drinks (part of the package through Costco). The port stop in Barcelona was long enough to figure out we want to return for a week or so, we tasted port in Lisbon, and we arrived back in the U.S. safely. One of the day tours reminded us that we really don’t enjoy touring with groups of people.

Summary – great 2.5 month trip with only 1 severely delayed flight, good friends, fun places, and a few stories to tell.

10/2023 Nepal – Chitwan NP and the “bumpy jumpy” roads

After we left Lumbini, we had good roads for a bit before we got to the Mahendra Highway over the mountains with the abysmal conditions. (More on the roads later.)

The tiny bar owned by owner of the chicken that the snake wanted for a meal.

Bhaskar got us to go see a python! He was attacking a chicken at the Little House; lady yelled and they got a sack to scoop him into; brought him over to the NP buffer zone to release him. He wanted to go in the direction of our rooms.

One of the elephants needed a snack during our walk.

We walked with the elephants in the afternoon to the river for drinks at sunset.

Happy elephant after a walk and a bath before we had a gin and tonic along the river at sunset

Mark and Susan with the elephants after our walk.

The highlight of the Chitwan NP safari was seeing rhinos up close and personal.

Now about the roads … abysmal is an inadequate description for them. The government goal is to widen and improve the Mahendra Highway, major east/west highway connecting India with Kathmandu. Great idea BUT their execution leaves a lot to be desired. It appears that they cut a new lane on each side of the entire highway, building retaining walls along the way, have put in some of the concrete supports for the needed bridges along the entire way or are working on it. BUT as they did this, the existing road has been destroyed – holes, no pavement, dust, dirt, it’s a disaster and no section is complete, The construction has been going on for 5 years with nothing complete. Even the village roads are damaged. Some of the bridge pieces that are “stored” in the towns next to the roads have trees growing out of them. We average maybe 20 miles an hour.

We don’t know who is managing or paying for this but I’m sure I’ll be dead before any of this road is done. Given the amount of traffic, I’m not sure why they even need to widen the road.

We started keeping track of who uses the highway. Here’s the list.

• People walking
• Cows, goats, dogs in the road
• Monkeys on occasion
• Bicycles with and without loads and carts
• Tuk-tuks
• Children in street
• Motorcycles with and without passengers and loads (passenger carrying bicycle with training wheels)
• Scooters
• Ox carts
• Busses that stop wherever
• Trucks
• Overcrowded tourist vans
• Private cars
• Farm equipment
• Calming devices and police checkpoints for licenses, taxes, registration

10/2023 Try #4 for Nepal was a charm

This was Try #4 for a visit to Nepal with a German friend, Jutta. She suggested this trip back in 2019, we think. We agreed, it was booked, COVID came along to cancel the trip in 2020 and 2021. Then chemo reeked havoc with the 2022 plans. 2023 it is! We flew from Bangkok to Kathmandu.

Everest from plane window. We were on the wrong side of the plane to see Everest so a nice guy from Arkansas used our phone and took the pictures for us.

The immigration hall in Kathmandu is chaos for figuring out where to go – DO you have a visa? Yes, we did (printed out) but we had to go pay for it. We had US dollar cash as stated on the website so we were pretty fast but the guy next to us tried to use a credit card. We finished before we ever found out how he paid.

We took the stamped sheets of pages to the immigration booth; he put a shiny visa stamp in our passports. Then we had to go thru security to get into the country before we could pick up our bags. Yes, they sent our backpack through xray. We probably should write down all the different security rules we’ve run into – take of/out -or not – belts, shoes, phones, Kindles, computers, liquids. Who knows what the rules are?? We just look for signs and follow what the person in front of us does.

We found a toilet before we headed to the luggage carousel. Took forever for Mark’s bag to show up. Walked thru Customs with our bags but they were too busy opening locals’ luggage to care what we brought.

The hotel didn’t have shampoo so we went for a walk to buy shampoo at Best Store.

Need Nepalese rupees? Just go to a money changer. They all have the same rate. Make sure you have unwrinkled dollar bills; the larger the bill, the better the rate. ATM’s worked, too.

Dashain was in full swing. It’s biggest festival in Nepal – 11 days of no work, pretty much. Anytime something doesn‘t happen “It’s Festival”.
400,000 people left Kathmandu Valley for the festival for their homes. Very little traffic, most shops and restaurants closed except for a few tourist shops. We even crossed the street with no traffic.
Jutta showed up the next day but missing her suitcase. It’s too long of a story for here but she did get it back the next day, no thanks to Air India.

The three of us had a tour guide and a driver for the next 12 days. Bhaskar and Gaya took great care of us and we saw lots! The trip spent 3 days in Kathmandu, flew to Nepalgunji and drove to Bardia NP, Lumbini, Chitwan NP, Bandipur and back to Kathmandu.

The food shops were open because eating is a big part of the holiday.

We flew from Kathmandu to Nepalgunji in the south. This is where the driving fun began! Bardia National Park was the first destination.

A few water buffalo crossing the river. These are domesticated.

Mark enjoyed a gin and topic along the river for sunset while we looked for “wild” animals.

Tea time during one of our safaris in Bardia National Park

Lumbini, birthplace of Budha and a center of Buddhism, was our next stop. Just a hint about the roads here. It took 6.5 hours to drive about 180 miles on the main east/west highway in the country. A little arithmetic and you realize we averaged less than 30 mph.

Countries are all building temples in the Lumbini Development Area – Germany, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand. The whole complex looks like Epcot! Then we walked to the canal, along the canal , over the bridge, past Cambodia temple to Myanmar temple where they had lovely western toilets in one row and hole in the ground in the other row. Even had soap!

10/23 Back to Thailand

We flew from Siem Reap to Bangkok, spent 15 hours in the Novotel at the airport, and flew to Ao Nang the next morning. 8:30 AM flights always sound like a good idea until the alarm sounds at 4:45AM for a quick shower, breakfast, check-in, security and a bus to the plane, of course! I’m trying to figure out if airlines pay less for their gates if they don’t get a jetway and just park the plane on the runway.

Now that we know how the Bangkok Airways bag drop works, it didn’t take long to drop our bags, print out a boarding pass and head to the gate at the domestic terminal. We showed our boarding pass to get to the gate area (no security) and THEN we showed our ID and boarding pass and went through security to actually get to the gate. Our gate was across the aisle from the Coral Lounge (Priority Pass). They have a lovely massage lady who walked around and offered neck and shoulder massages to waiting passengers. I took her up on her offer.

Ao Nang beach bar. Expensive beer at $2 each since they had a great location for watching sunset

FAQ for us – What do we do at the beach? Not much but here’s a rundown of the week:

Eat breakfast and wonder why Thai restaurants never have big napkins
Catch up on the diary, photos, and the website IF the wifi is good enough
Drop off and pick up laundry
Hang out at the pool or more often in the pool to escape the heat.
Watch people at the pool. British guy by us had a bad sunburn, complete with blisters.
Get massages – about $30 for one hour
Check out the 7-11 and Watson stores. They are everywhere and have interesting snacks
With the time difference, we watched college football games on the phone by the pool. Watched Stanford beat CU in 2 OT
Watch the rain downpour some days
Had to scoop up a little gecko climbing on my suitcase and deposit him by the pool.

Our flight to Nepal was booked from Bangkok and we flew from Ao Nang to Bangkok, spending 5 days catching up on activities that a major city made easier. We used hotel points to stay at the Westin in the middle of Bangkok and spent a bit of time talking to the general manager and interns and restaurant manager. When you’re American and staying more than a night, we stand out. We learned a lot about the hotel and liviing in Bangkok as an ex-pat.

Some tasks we accomplished in Bangkok (other than trying potato chips):

Did a little shoe shopping for Nikes for Susan. Found a HUGE Adidas store, Skechers store and Nike store. A very nice guy helped me at Nike. I finally found a pair that fits. Size 8 is pretty popular! This took 12000 steps to accomplish!
KFC has green curry chicken rice bowls using fried chicken.
Cheesecake Factory is opening in December; Krispy Kreme, Tim Horton already in Bangkok along with dozens of Starbucks.
Applied for Visa on Arrival paperwork for Nepal and printed it out in the Business Center. One page says you’ll get a QR code – but it wasn’t on the page they tell us to bring in hard or soft copy. They need to hire me to work on their website!
Susan had a massage by the Robinsons grocery store – best one of the trip.
Changed our address so we can vote overseas for the November election. Colorado makes it so easy to vote wherever you happen to be.
Had our laundry done. I’m not going to want to go back to washing my own clothes.
Went shopping for necessities – Qtips, alcohol wipes, and wandered around the department store. I have never seen that many bras in one store. Of course, the biggest size is about 38 equivalent.

Finding a laundry is high on the list of things to do. This one was in an alley in Bangkok. Prices are by the kilo. Washed in cold water and hung in the alley to dry.

10/2023 A visit to Angkor Wat, Cambodia

We finished up in Europe and headed to Cambodia by way of Doha and Bangkok. The stop in Doha at midnight was to change planes with a 2 AM departure. The Doha airport is hopping at midnight! We checked out the Qatar Air lounge – nice! Then we flew to Bangkok to spend the day and night, not wanting to worry about making the connection to Siem Reap when we arrived or having to hang out for 6 hours in the airport after an overnight flight.

This bear is in the center of the Doha airport.

The next day we flew to Siem Reap’s very nice, clean, small, organized airport to start the Angkor Wat sightseeing. We got our Cambodian visa ahead of time online so no line at immigration.

Siem Reap is the hub for visiting Angkor Wat. We’ve been here before where we used a tour guide for 2 days of hearing about many kings and rulers and wars. This time we just hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to various temples we wanted to see again. We started every day at 7 AM to TRY to hit the coolest part of the day. It was still REALLY hot and humid and we gave up on the temples by noon every day, retreating to our Temple Hotel in the middle of Siem Reap for A/C and a cool pool. Beer was only $1 so that helped, too.
Angkor Wat temple complex is HUGE with dozens of ruined temples. The main temple of Angkor Wat was the only temple that was crowded. We wandered around the others almost on our own. Quite clearly, tourism has not returned to pre-COVID levels here although it’s the tail end of the rainy season and should have been busier.

This guide was waiting for his group. This was an example of how unbusy the temples were.

Another temple to wander around at 7:30 AM alone.

We think this was the tree that is featured in the Angelina Jolie movie.

These carvings all tell a story of some battle or another.

They’ve added a “Visit” route for the temple but not much info about where you are going when you get to a “Opportunities for Visit” sign with arrows pointing 2 different ways. We didn’t see any pamphlets or even QR codes to guide the visit.

How hot was it? At one point the temperatures were in the high 80’s with 80 per cent humidity. My glasses fogged up in the air (not even the A/C) and we both had sweat rolling down our face, neck, head and a few other unmentionable places.

We saved Angkor Wat for the last day not knowing this was a Buddhist worship day for the ½ moon. The temple area was the most crowded of any temple so far with Asian tour groups and Cambodians coming to worship. Many were dressed in special clothing and carrying flowers. The top level of the temple was closed to everyone. We read that they use timed tickets to access that level now but even that was not going on today. The Korean tour groups were out in mass! The Japanese tour groups were so polite when they blocked the way – the others, not so much!
Drivers drop off people at foot of long walk up to the pools, turn right for ticket check, and then cross the pontoon bridge to get to Angkor Wat – all in the direct sun, of course! Mark walked up a few flights of steps that Susan passed on – too hot and no rails! We saw a NZ couple and he said “welcome to the sun” as we came out of the temple.

The long approach to Angkor Wat and this was after a walk along a sunny road.

These women were cleaning plants out of the lake surrounding the temple.

He looked very grouchy and hissed at anyone who walked by.

10/2023 – On to Salzburg and Stuttgart

I love Salzburg and wanted to spend some time there. We took the train from Munich and hung out for 4 days. We first visited 32 years ago on our European camping trip – not much has changed. By dumb luck we hit the St. Rupert festival for their patron saint and founder. Surprise! It involves beer. At a nice market, I found some handcrafted jewlery to buy.

Hohensalzburg with the Mirabell Gardens, famous from the Sound of Music.

This little guy was in The Sound of Music, too. We did NOT do the tour.

My favorite place for a beer – Steigl – overlooking the rooftops of Salzburg.

The last time we visited Helbrun Palace was 32 years ago. The tours are now self-guided. We could spend as much time as we wanted looking at the water powered creatures built by one of the many Archbishop Princes of Salzburg.

The water holds up the little hat and changes its height.

From Salzburg we took the train to Stuttgart, home to the 2nd largest “Oktoberfest” in Germany. It is officially called a Volksfestival – we assume that “Oktoberfest” is copyrighted. Deutchesbahn was actually on time!

The official name of the Stuttgart festival

The grounds open at noon during the week. Much less crowded than the counterpart in Munich first thing in the day.

We had 1/2 chicken and a beer for lunch in a very empty tent.

City Library in Stuttgart. It’s a tourist stop for architecture. Since it was right by our hotel, we had to wander in.

10/2023 Time for a new adventure

We’re off on another adventure and are hoping that try #4 will be successful for our trip to Nepal. The first three attempts were called off due to COVID and chemo but this attempt is looking better.
We’re not going on a trek or attempt to climb Everest or anything silly like that. This trip is to see Kathmandu and head south to the jungles to visit two national parks and look for animals. We’re meeting a German friend since this was all her idea 4 years ago!
Nepal is halfway around the world and we decided to come via Europe making stops in Munich, Salzburg, and Stuttgart AFTER we made a stop in Iowa City for a football game.

First stop was in Iowa City for a pretty dull football game although the weather was a perfect Fall day and we visited with some friends and the Hawkeyes won!

We flew to DC via Chicago from Cedar Rapids and were delayed about 5 hours. We were sitting on the fully boarded plane in Chicago when the pilot came on the speaker to tell us that a red indicator light wouldn’t go off so he was going to reboot the plane – no lie! This was a 777 so we guessed United needed it in DC, probably for a European flight that night. The reboot didn’t work. Next step – replace the motherboard and reinstall the software! Fortunately, we were in Chicago so a motherboard was at hand. We all got off the plane and hung out for 4 hours while the board was installed. The SW was corrupt so they had to install the SW one piece at a time – takes longer!

Best comment of the day – “Should I be worried that we have a United captain explaining motherboards and software to us?”. The captain did a great job keeping us updated.

I found 2 Business class seats to Munich for not many miles BUT it involved a 15 hour layover in London Heathrow which always sounds like a good idea until the actual day. We got a day room at an aiport hotel, had breakfast, napped and showered and back we went through immigration, security and on to Munich. Given how much of a mess Heathrow can be, it all went amazingly well.

Only glitch was luggage. When we checked in at Dulles with United we expected our bags to be checked all the way through to Munich. United said “no go”. The connection to Lufthansa was too long and we’d have to pick up our bags and recheck them. There’s not much arguing with an airline but we did check with Lufthansa at Dulles and they agreed.

When we had our bags in Heathrow at 5 AM, we immediately went to Lufthansa to recheck them. Nope! Can only be checked in 3 hours before the flight. We asked a superrvisor and she agreed – Lufthansa doesn’t have a room anymore in which to store the bags for 15 hours!

We finally made it to Munich, ready to start the Oktoberfest fun after some sleep.

Marstall tent at Oktoberfest in the afternoon. It wasn’t crowded at all.

We spent 2 afternoons with Josh and Sam Crowe, U. of Iowa friends.

One day it rained. This made the tents more crowded since the outside seating wasn’t very desirable.

The Munich firemen had to get a sick person down from the top of St. Peter’s Kirche. The stairway is too narrow for a stretched so they took him down the outside of the church using ropes.

Summer 2023 – Iowa and Las Vegas

A good friend retired as an airline pilot this summer and invited us along on his last flight. It was Las Vegas – Seattle – Las Vegas. Great time was had by all on the flight and in LV for the weekend. The only downside was the flight left LV at 6:00 AM. First time I’ve been in an airport before the Starbucks opened! We were back in Vegas before noon.

A water cannon greeted the plane when we arrived back in Las Vegas.

A few weeks later we headed to Iowa for the 4th of July and a visit with Mark’s family. Lila was celebrating her birthday, too. We did a little sightseeing in the area while we were there, checking out covered bridges, cornfields, and small towns.

This is the famous bridge in “Bridges of Madison County” in – you guessed it – Madison County, Iowa.

Another bridge. We drove all over the county hunting down four covered bridges.

Yes, this is John Wayne’s birthplace in Winterset, Iowa

Sunday lunch was in Masena, IA for the 5th best pork tenderloin sandwich in Iowa last year. It’s an Iowa thing.

4/2023 Egypt – Cairo and the Nile

From Amman we flew as a group to Cairo where UniWorld again met us, handled the passport control, led us thru customs, and on to the bus. The tour started the next day with a total of 36 people on the UniWorld cruise. After a day of visiting the Muhammed Ali Mosque and the Old Egyptian Museum (The NEW one is still under construction and several years late.), we flew to Luxor to start the cruise.

Doesn’t he look like he’s sitting on a toilet? He’s in the Egyptian Museum.

All public toilets in Egypt had an attendant handing out toilet paper in return for some change. However, the airport paid their toilet attendants so this sign was in those toilets. Our translation was “Don’t pay to pee.”

Our description of a Nile cruise is that it’s just like a bus tour – sail to a location, get off the boat, see a temple or two, get back on the boat, and sail to the next location – without having to pack and unpack every day. All the temples except Abu Simbel are very close to the Nile but driving between them is less comfortable than sailing between them.

The cruise was uneventful except for one good Norm story. Norm hit his head getting on the little boat for the bird watching trip AND he lost his wallet someplace that same day. No one found it on the bird watching boat so Norm cancelled his credit cards. A day later or so, one of the cabin boys on the cruise boat found Norm’s wallet in Cabin 1; Norm and wife had switched cabins and the wallet fell somewhere in the old cabin.

Now for the pictures with just a little explanation.

Scenes from the bus

Outside of the Cairo airport Arrivals area

Abu Simbel

Ramses shows up all over Egypt

He’s at the Temple of Luxor. BTW … we gave up trying to keep all the dynasties and kings and pharoahs straight. I need a cheat sheet for that.

All the styles of columns were Susan’s favorites.

Inside Hathor Temple. Trajan and the Romans were involved with this one.

No trip to Egypt is complete without visiting the Valley of the Kings where King Tut was buried. We’d already visited his mummified body and the gems buried with him when we saw the OLD Egyptian Museum. Valley of the Kings just has the empty burial site along with a few dozen other tombs. One admission lets you choose 3 tombs to visit (Don’t lose your ticket!) but you need a separate ticket for Tut.

Valley of the Kings is very desolate and dry.

We finally headed back to Cairo via plane. In Egypt, as in India, men and women use separate security lines in the airport. All of the airports also had one security line at the entrance to the terminal for passengers and luggage. After passing this test, we could head to check-in, get our boarding passes, drop our bags, and head to the second security. The gates were not very good at using a microphone to board the bus to the plane. It was a “watch the gate and go when every one else does” kind of boarding.

We finally got to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. We had no idea that the Sphinx is pretty small and is right down the hill from the pyramids.

The pryamids are right outside of Cairo with a KFC and McDonald’s close by.

One side has orchards and a Marriott hotel at the entrance.

In front of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx

Pyramids! They’re actually on a small hill so the big crowds are on the other side down the hill.

Riding a camel was a popular activity. We passed and just took pictures.

Sakara beer, an Egyptian beer that was pretty good, especially on a hot afternoon.

Every temple had a vendor area. They were quite persistent at trying to sell and would negotiate in dollars, euros, or Egyptian pounds. This guy didn’t have a stall but walked from group to group selling.

The Colorado foursome flew home via Frankfurt, spent the night in Frankfurt to avoid a 2 AM departure in Cairo. Mark and Susan headed to DC and Cumberland for the last stop on the trip – see Susan’s Mom.

3/2023 – Jordan

In 4^th grade, Susan studied Egypt. Ever since that, the pyramids have been on the trip list and in January we booked a last minute trip on the Nile. Since we would be in the neighborhood, we added the Uniworld pre-trip to Jordan. How much planning went into this? Not much! Mark had never been on a group tour but he agreed to give it a try.

United made this whole trip easier by adding a direct flight to Amman from DC. After we arrived in Amman, Uniworld took care of the details and we just followed directions. They even met us before passport control and took care of the Visa on Arrival.

After arriving 3 days before the tour officially started, we booked our own day tour of Amman. The city was pretty quiet during the day (relatively) because Ramadan started the day before we flew in. The Arab food at the Iftar buffet (meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan) in the hotel was yummy and the staff pointed out the special iftar desserts we had to try!

Olives for sale in one of the Amman markets

Citadel. We had a retired Jordanian military officer as a guide. He asked if we are British before telling us how the Brits screwed up the Middle East after WWI.

View of Amman and the Roman Theater from the Citadel

Mark and Susan at the Roman Theater in Amman

John O. and Sue H. , friends from Fort Collins, joined us in Amman the day before the Jordan trip started. To give you some perspective, the tour itinerary went like this (and not the order we would have done it):

Amman – Jerash – Dead Sea – back to Amman
Amman – Petra (THE highlight of Jordan) – Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum – Aqaba
Aqaba – Madaba – Amman

Hadrian’s Gate at Jerash. Every time Hadrian visited a town, it seems they built him a gate.

The Dead Sea is at the bottom of these steps. If you look really hard, you can see Mark and John on the sand before they got in it and floated around. Sue and Susan retreated from the sun!

The Jordan tour group only had 12 people in it and we were 4 of them. Another 2 couples were fun and easy to deal with. Another 4 came from Nebraska. Let’s just say we didn’t want to have beers with 2 of them in the evening. Every group trip has “one of those” and our’s was Norm from Nebraska. The day we left Amman for 2 nights, Norm left his passport in the bathroom of his hotel room. WHY do you even have your passport in the bathroom? Who knows! Fortunately, the hotel found it and held it until we returned to the hotel 2 days later. Off to Petra!

We spent 4 hours there and 4 DAYS would be better. The site is huge – the Treasury, a monastery after you climb 800 steps (no time for that), Royal Tombs (only saw them from a distance), an amphitheater, camels, other ruins. This is definitely on our list to come back to.

After a 1.3 km walk to the bottom of the Siq, the Treasury appears at Petra.

Mark, along with the camels, vendors, and other tourists, in front of the Treasury. Yes, you saw the Treasury in an Indiana Jones movie.

Camels are everywhere! These 2 were along one of the roads we took to Wadi Rum.

Glamping in the desert. The tents came with flush toilets and showers.

Starry, starry night! The stars would be better with a smaller moon. It was too bright to see many stars.

Our last day was a drive from Aqaba to Madaba to Mt. Nebo to Amman. The highlight was lunch in Madaba where we FINALLY had upside down chicken … chicken and rice and veggies and lots of spices cooked in a big pan (wok size) and flipped upside down to serve it. It was the best food of the whole trip!

Mosaic floor at the Franciscan Church on Mt. Nebo. And before anyone asks, we had NO idea what Mt. Nebo is famous for. We had to Google it to discover that this is where Moses stood to see the Promised Land before he died. If this is wrong, talk to Google.

We were exhausted by the time we arrived back to the hotel in Amman and checked in again. Norm got his passport back! The four of us headed to the bar for a beer and a sandwich for dinner.

It’s a small craft beer world. The only craft beer made in Jordan is from a brewery started by a Jordanian guy who went to grad school at U of Colorado in Boulder. He learned about craft beer there and decided to start a brewery in Jordan. Pretty good beer.

Jordanian Craft beer with a Colorado connction

That finished the Jordan trip. Mark and Susan loved Jordan … nice people, great food, safe country and cities. We walked to find the laundromat one day in Amman and several people pointed us in the correct direction. When one dryer didn’t work after we inserted our coins and we used another one, the owner dropped off the equivalent of $4 for us back at the hotel after he finished work.

We brushed up on geography lessons in Jordan, too. Aqaba, Jordan, is on the Red Sea – about 1km. from Israel, 10 km. from Saudi, shares other borders with Syria and Iraq. They describe themselves as “a nice country in a bad neighborhood.”

Author Archive: Susan