Browsed by
Category: Uncategorized

Part 19 – Nimes, France: Roman Ruins, the Millau Viaduct

Part 19 – Nimes, France: Roman Ruins, the Millau Viaduct

5/1/2017  Roman Arena, Roman Games, Mostly sunny.  46F/64F 5/2/2017  Pont du Gard Roman Viaduct. Rain, clearing mid-afternoon.  45F/64F 5/3/2017  The Millau Viaduct. Mostly sunny, becoming partly cloudy.  48F/68F From Geneva we caught a train to Lyon, France. You have to go through customs from Switzerland to France because Switzerland is not in the EU, but it required no more than a glance at our passports by French customs at the Geneva train station. The rail route follows the canyon of…

Read More Read More

Part 20 – Ahh … Paris and the Eiffel Tower

Part 20 – Ahh … Paris and the Eiffel Tower

Part 20, Ahh, Paris & the Eiffel Tower 5/4/2017.   Sun and showers in Paris, 63F When we left off on Part 19, we had just finished seing the sights of Nimes, France. On the morning of May 4th we caught the TGV (Tres Grande Vitesse, or Very High Speed) bullet train from Nimes to Paris. Man, that TGV flies! Of course it’s not as fast as a jet, but you can’t see the speed when you’re in a plane at…

Read More Read More

Part 21 – Versailles

Part 21 – Versailles

5/5/2017.   Mostly cloudy with some hazy sun.  63F At last, after all these years: Versailles, which we had never seen. We walked from our hotel down to the Seine to catch the RER “C” line train from the Pont de l’Alma subway station that we scoped out the night before. Had a heck of a time getting tickets out of the ticket machines … it took about 5 tries to get them. The only saving grace was that even the…

Read More Read More

Part 22 – Paris: Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre

Part 22 – Paris: Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre

Part 22, Paris: Notre Dame and the Louvre 5/6/2017   Drizzle tapering off mid-afternoon.   54F The day after Versailles was a wet one with drizzling rain, so we were not in a hurry to go anywhere after our usual mid-morning breakfast buffet. Boy we sure got lucky with the weather for Versailles yesterday! Yours truly got in a good 1½ hour nap after breakfast and I was ready to go not long after that. Cheryl decided not to go out in…

Read More Read More

Part 23 – The Channel Tunnel — Arriving in London

Part 23 – The Channel Tunnel — Arriving in London

Part 23, The Channel Tunnel; Arriving in London Date: 5/7/2017.  Drizzle in Paris, partly cloudy in London.   50F/65F The process of leaving France to go to the UK kind of blindsided us. Despite the Brexit vote, both France and the UK were still both members of the EU so there should have been minimal formalities for this border crossing, right? Wrong. After being subjected to a disorganized TSA-type security check at the Paris Gare du Nord, our train was cancelled…

Read More Read More

Part 24 – London Catch-Up Day

Part 24 – London Catch-Up Day

Monday, 5/8/2017. Cloudy, clearing late.   46F/55F We took a day for needed rest and catch-up the day after we arrived in London. Typically we had a day like this at about once a week to catch up on journals, back up and label photos, work on these postcards for home, make detailed plans for the coming days, and catch up on rest. The Premier Inn breakfast buffet was a bit bland after the absolutely fabulous buffets that we had elsewhere…

Read More Read More

Part 25 – Hampton Court and Henry VIII

Part 25 – Hampton Court and Henry VIII

Part 25, Hampton Court Tuesday, 5/9/2017 Weather: cloudy, becoming partly cloudy. 46F/56F Before leaving for Hampton Court, I worked on our Jerusalem postcard through most of the morning, and went through online bills from home to make sure they were covered. It was the story of our trip: there was never enough time! So it was around 1:45 pm by the time we got away from the hotel. The good part about the late start was that we didn’t have…

Read More Read More

Part 26 – Windsor Castle

Part 26 – Windsor Castle

Part 26, Windsor Castle 5/10/2017  Wednesday.   Sunny.   45F(London)/68F(Windsor) May 10th was “Windsor Day”. We had our usual hotel breakfast buffet … not bad for a production operation … followed by our post-breakfast routine of letting it settle while resting back in our room. Not time-efficient perhaps, but it suits our temperament. This experience is to be enjoyed, not endured! So finally around noon we were off. We caught the 12:53 train from the huge Waterloo Station next door out to…

Read More Read More

The Plan: Follow the Lewis & Clark Expedition, St Louis to Astoria

The Plan: Follow the Lewis & Clark Expedition, St Louis to Astoria

6/19/2018 To follow up last year’s trip around the world, this year we are going for the Great American Road Trip.  Tomorrow we leave from home in Edmonds, Washington for our trip to trace the westbound path of Lewis & Clark from St Louis, Missouri to Astoria, Oregon.  To get to St Louis, we will take the scenic route across the Cascades at Snoqualmie Pass, via Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Kansas to Kansas City where we are going to…

Read More Read More

6/20/2018: Edmonds, WA to Baker City, Oregon

6/20/2018: Edmonds, WA to Baker City, Oregon

6/20/2018 Edmonds, WA to Baker City, OR After the usual madhouse of last minute packing, we were on our way at 10:45.  We are headed off cross country with our longtime travel companions, Cheryl’s twin sister Carol and husband of some 48 years, Jim, with whom we have been enjoying great trips around the country for many years. Photo 4875.  Approaching Snoqualmie Pass on I-90.  Traveling in the Northwest in June is a joy — everything is still uber-green, there…

Read More Read More