Girl Trip to New York

I have mentioned Wanderful before. It’s a women’s travel community, but it’s more than that. Wanderful supports women who love to travel, with webinars, chat, and virtual meetings. They also offer global meetups that allow women to get together in various locations around the world to meet other travel minded women. Wanderful offers support to women who are in the travel business, including creators and small business owners. Wanderful supports women owned businesses around the world. They have local hubs in many cities that provide an opportunity for women in the area to spend time together.

Wanderful is the parent company of Women in Travel Summit (WITS).

This is a conference focused on women who are in the travel business. There are workshops and presentations by women who are successful in the travel business.

There are opportunities to build collaborations with businesses. They have an awards ceremony called the Bessie Awards, during which they recognize women who have had significant impact on women working in the travel industry.

I have really been enjoying writing this blog. But, let’s face it. I really don’t know what I’m doing. So I decided to attend WITS this year, hoping to get some tips about this whole blogging thing. The conference was in New York this year. They have a Beginners Bootcamp that I thought would be perfect for me. I signed up for the conference and booked a hotel room. I booked a room in one of the hotels where they had reserved a block of rooms. The hotel was near the conference venue, and, although I could have probably found a cheaper room, I wanted a hotel near the venue since I might be going to New York by myself. I was determined to go, and I knew I was going to have to be brave about traveling by myself in case no one was available to go with me. Thankfully, Sarah was able to go, so it became a girls’ trip!

Sarah was not planning to attend the conference, but she would be there to hang out with me when I was not at the conference.

I have to admit. I was very nervous about this conference. I definitely felt like I did not have enough experience and I was not good enough at blog writing to even associate with these women. I started fretting about this conference from the minute I registered. I read the information multiple times and tried to do everything they suggested. I attempted to memorize the directions to the venue, and the inside of the venue, since I get lost so easily. The instructions included bringing business cards. Business cards?! Is writing this blog really a business? The conference was going to have representatives from businesses with whom attendees could schedule a ten minute meeting to try to get them to hire them or partner with them to advance their business. I knew I was not ready for this step in any way, so I did not schedule any meetings. I did get business cards made, though. I am a rule follower.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but I thought maybe I would be brave enough to talk to another attendee and maybe they would ask for my card. Who knew? I also had some stickers that advertised my blog, so I took those too.

I was trying to get into the spirit of things. So, armed with business cards, stickers, and my anxiety, Sarah and I left for New York.

Very funny, Sarah.

The first day was the bootcamp. As I was getting ready that morning, Sarah looked at me and said, “Calm down. You got this, Mom.” Was it that obvious? I took a deep breath, put on my brave face, and set out with my Google Maps to walk to the venue. I arrived at the conference a few minutes later, checked in, and took a seat in the room for the bootcamp. Since a big part of this conference is networking, I should have initiated conversation with some of the women around me. Instead, I sat nervously in my chair and just waited for the presentations to start. I watched as other women sat next to each other and talked, but I couldn’t bring myself to join in any conversations. I enjoyed the presentations and I learned some things, so the day was not a total loss. The next two days, I attended some of the other workshops and I wandered through some of the vendors. I saw the representatives having meetings with the attendees, but I quickly skittered past those. I kind of thought they would be able to tell how inexperienced I was just by looking at me.

Although WITS was a good experience, I should have made more of an effort to meet other women “in the business” and maybe network a little. I am planning to attend next year and hopefully I will feel more confident and make an effort to make the most of the conference.

Sarah and I had a great time in New York. We both love Broadway shows, and I had bought tickets to see Redwood with Idina Menzel.

It was a great show. Then, I saw that Moulin Rouge was playing, and Boy George was playing the part of Harold Zidler!

For those of you who know me, you might be surprised to find out that I was a big Boy George fan when I was younger. I snagged some last minute tickets and Sarah and I were going to Moulin Rouge! I told her I wanted to get there early so we could find where the stage door was. I wanted to get to the stage door after the show to try to get Boy George’s autograph! We located the stage door, and then we went in to watch the show. It was so good! After the show, we hurried to the stage door area. They had it roped off, so we could only get so close. We managed to get right up to the ropes. As we were standing there, a guy came and squeezed himself up in front of us, saying, “I’m here!” I don’t care where he was, as long as he was not standing in front of me, who was already “here.” I think I said something super aggressive, like, “really?!” Sarah, on the other hand, had much more to say. I pleaded with her to not get us arrested, since I really wanted to see Boy George, so she backed off. Then Boy George came out. I was so excited, but I couldn’t really see him very well because of the “I’m here!” dude that was in front of me. “I’m here” got his autograph, and then Sarah said to him, “Hey, my mom has been a Boy George fan for over 40 years. Could you move now so she can get his autograph?” To his credit, “I’m here” moved aside and let me get up to the rope. I had my playbill ready, and I was going to try to get a picture with him, since I saw that he was letting people take selfies with him. I snapped a few pictures of him as he was making his way around.

Just when he got near enough that I could hand him my playbill, this very tall, very excited lady behind me started screaming and jumping up and down. She was hitting me in the head with her IPAD when she jumped. I heard Sarah say, “Hey! You’re crushing my mom!” By this time, I was using my hands to cover my head rather than handing my playbill to Boy George. Sarah plucked my playbill out of my hand and gave it to Boy George, so I did get his autograph.

Boy George said, in his awesome British accent, “Someone needs to help her.” I don’t know if he was talking about my physical safety or this lady’s mental health, but either one applied. I started to leave and Sarah asked me if I was going to try to get a picture with Boy George. I had given up on that idea. I just wanted to make it out without a concussion.

Sarah and I did some other New York things while we were in town. We visited Chinatown.

Neither Sarah or I have any sense of direction, so this little trip into Chinatown was a bit of a challenge.

As we were standing on the sidewalk trying to figure out the GPS directions on our phone, a man drove by and said, “The roads are like spaghetti, aren’t they?” That was a good description. But I’m a little concerned that he noticed how confused we were. We did manage to do a little shopping,

and we had some delicious fruit that was covered in some sugary syrup.

The Wanderful women were having a meetup at a restaurant that night before the Bessie Awards. We attended the meetup and enjoyed visiting with the women for a little while.

The next day, we took the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We enjoyed visiting these famous sites.

This is Sarah’s reaction to crowds.

We had some really good food while we were in New York. Sarah told me that I should always take pictures of my food first. Good luck with that. I don’t really get that excited about pictures of food in blogs, although it seems to be a thing with bloggers. I actually have a hard time remembering to take pictures of people. I’m trying to get better about the picture taking, but hopefully anyone who is with me will be willing to share their pictures with me. Sarah regularly reminded me to take pictures of my food, so I did get a few. This was from a really good breakfast/brunch place that Sarah found. It was called Hole in the Wall. We both had a smoothie, Sarah had coffee and mushroom toast, and I had hot chocolate and avocado toast.

There. I posted pictures of food. I think that makes me an official blog writer.

I really enjoyed my trip to New York with Sarah. I had been to New York a few years before with my husband (stay tuned for a story about that trip), but that’s one of the great things about traveling. Each trip is different and wonderful in its own way. We had a great time and, like most trips, I can’t wait to go back!

Tips:

  1. We booked our tickets for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island through Statue City Cruises. Go to http://www.cityexperiences.com.
  2. There are a number of ways to book Broadway tickets. A lot of times, if I know the name of the show I want to see, I just google the name of the show, adding “New York” and some options to buy tickets will pop up. Other options include newyorktheaterguide.com, or http://www.broadway.com. Also, if you know the name of the theater, you can google the name of the theater and buy tickets there. Example, for the Al Hirschfeld theater, you can find tickets at http://www.alhirschfeldbroadway.com.
  3. I recommend the Hole in the Wall restaurant for breakfast or brunch. It is an Australian cafe. The food was good and the service was very friendly. Their address 15 Cliff Street in Manhattan. There are a few more locations in New York.
  4. Be sure to have your GPS if you visit Chinatown.
  5. Apparently, the workers for the train that goes from New Jersey to New York were on strike while we were there. This information does not seem like it would have affected us. But it did. Not having the train as an option meant that there was much more car traffic in New York, which meant that an Uber ride took much longer than usual. This caused me to have some anxiety about getting to the shows on time. You might want to check on things like that before your visit, so you can plan accordingly. I wish I had.
  6. If you are in the travel business, from blogging to entrepreneurs to business owners, you should consider attending WITS. It is a great way to meet other women in the business (although you do have to be brave enough to initiate conversations), and they have workshops and presentations that are full of great information.

Mission Trips to Haiti

In July, 2015, Greg and I went on a mission trip to Haiti.  Our church was working with Gordon Montgomery who had started a mission called Farming God’s Way.  He had been led to go to Haiti and teach them to farm their land. He was working with a village called Hati Coton.  Gordon improves the soil using natural ingredients without chemicals.  I know nothing about farming-I can’t even keep flowers alive-but the mission trip was not just about farming. We were going to do a vacation bible school for the children of the village. Greg was not really interested in going at first, but he decided to go with me on this trip.  And after one trip, he was hooked.  We absolutely fell in love with the people in Hati Coton. We ended up going to Haiti five times.

We arrived at the airport in Port-au-Prince.  That was an experience in itself.  As soon as we walked out of the secure area, we were approached by many men offering to carry our luggage.  Gordon had already told us to say “no” and to keep moving.  The men attempted to take our luggage out of our hands, so it took some determination to keep hold of our luggage.  We made it out of the airport and to our ride.  Our ride was in a vehicle they called a “tap tap.”  This was their “taxi” service, but Gordon had hired one man to drive us while we were there.  A tap tap is a small pick up truck that has benches installed on both sides of the truck bed. Most of them have a cover over the top with some metal coverings on the sides and some of the back. 

People just jump on these trucks, often hanging off the side if all the seats are taken.  Somehow, the driver gets paid by the passengers, but we aren’t sure how, exactly.  Keep in mind, it is HOT in Haiti, especially in Port-au-Prince where there are a ton of people, lots of dust, and the streets are in really poor condition. There is a lot of bumping around in the tap tap where we are riding sideways.  Perfect conditions for motion sickness. 

We drove through Port-au-Prince, then through another smaller town called Ganthier, and we finally turned off the main road onto a dirt road that took us to the village of Hati Coton.  We had to drive through another village before we reached Hati Coton.  When we reached Hati Coton, the children started running after the tap tap, shouting “Blan! Blan!” 

“Blan” means “white” in Creole, which is the language spoken in Haiti. The kids in Haiti are so happy. They frequently sing and dance, and they love to have fun. They would hang out with us all day.

Many of the homes in the village had thatch roofs, but some of the roofs were metal. Many of the homes were made of mud, so after a rain, the villagers have to reinforce the walls of their homes. The wealthier homes were made of concrete blocks.

Gordon and previous mission teams had built a mission house on the edge of the village, and our group was the first mission team to stay in the house.  There was a small kitchen with a table, a shower/toilet room, and a bunk room.

Our water was well water, so we drank the safe water that had been purchased in town.  We did not have air conditioning, of course.  But once you got used to the temperature, I didn’t think it was too bad.  It got cooler at night.  I was the only one who had brought a blanket, and I was glad I did.  One of the very hot natured ladies, who had the bunk next to mine, looked at me as she was lying in her bed with three fans blowing on her and said, “I can’t even look at you with that blanket.” It was actually kind of cozy at night, lying in our bunks inside our mosquito nets, and listening to the sounds of the village.  Outside the walls of the mission house area was land that was being farmed by Gordon and the villagers.  This is how the land looked the fourth year we were there.

We have so many wonderful memories of our trips to Haiti. The first two years, we did a three day vacation bible school for the children in the village.  We had a great turn out both times. 

The children were lining up early in the morning while we were getting things ready. 

Greg did his best to keep the children entertained while we finished getting everything ready.

When the gate was opened, the children excitedly poured into the area.  Women were handing toddlers over the fence to us.  I’m thinking they saw this as an opportunity for a much needed break.  This is the little guy that was handed to me. 

I asked some of the older children what his name was.  I was told his name was Bosh.  I called this little guy Bosh for five years, and he answered to the name for five years.  During our fifth visit to Haiti, an older child told me that Bosh’s name was actually Patrick.  I wasn’t sure he was serious, because sometimes the older kids like to tease and kid around with us.  I asked “Bosh” what his name was, and he said “Patrick.”  So….this little kid had been answering to “Bosh” for five years when his name was actually “Patrick?”  Oh well, my name is “Jill” and I had been answering to “Blan” for five years, so there’s that.  During the vacation bible school, we taught the kids a bible verse.  At the end of each day, we chose some of the kids to say the verse.

We gave a stick of gum to any child who could say the verse.  I’ll never forget the first little girl who got a stick of gum.  Rather than immediately putting the entire stick of gum in her mouth, she tore the stick of gum into seven little pieces and shared them with the children around her.  Wow. 

The third year we went to Haiti, we did not plan a big, organized vacation bible school.  The focus was more on some construction projects, including building benches for the schools, painting, and digging a well.  Our daughter, Sarah, went on this trip with us.  She was the first one on this trip to throw up on the tap tap ride to the village from the airport.  Congratulations, Sarah. 

Another project we had planned for this trip was to spend a few of the mornings doing bible stories with the children. We thought it would be fun to have the kids act out the stories. One of the stories we chose was Daniel and the Lion’s Den. If you’re not familiar with the story, it involves Daniel, who was a man of God, being thrown into a lion’s den to perish because he continued to pray to God even though a law had been passed that forbid it.  However, God sent an angel to keep the lions from killing Daniel.  We asked for a few volunteers to be lions and one volunteer to be Daniel.  We started the story, but when it came time to throw Daniel into the den, the story took an unexpected turn.  Let’s just say, in the Haiti version, Daniel did not survive the lion’s den. 

We finally dug through the lions, rescued Daniel, and made sure he was still in one piece. 

The first two years we went to Haiti, there was no rain when we were there.  However, this year, we had some rain.  The soil in Haiti gets very slick when it rains.  The roads in the village….well, they are not really roads.  We had gone into town and we were on our way back when it started raining.  Our tap tap driver was driving way too fast through the huge ruts in the “road.”  As we were going through the village that was between the town and Hati Coton, the tap tap went into an exceptionally deep rut and we tipped all of the way over to one side!

Remember that a tap tap has benches along both sides of the back of the truck.  I happened to be sitting across from one of our interpreters, who was pregnant, and I fell on top of her! I was so worried that I had hurt her!  She assured me she was ok, and we all crawled out of the tap tap.  In the rain…and the mud.  The very slick mud.  The people from the village quickly appeared and offered to help get the truck out of the rut.  It ended up taking a really long time.  Gordon sent most of our group off to walk the rest of the way to Hati Coton.  In the rain….and the mud.  The very slick mud. Sarah and Greg fell several times, and they were pretty much covered in mud by the time we got to the village, but they laughed it off.  Oh my gosh. Greg. The hat. Thankfully, after this trip, he purchased a hat like Gordon’s and looked much more fashionable.

I had managed to stay on my feet until we were walking through Hati Coton.  I slipped in the mud, my feet went out from under me, and I landed on my back in the mud.  The only thing that kept me from slamming my head on the ground was the backpack on my back.  As I was getting up, I saw some kids from the village pointing their fingers at me and laughing loudly.  I was wet, muddy, my pride and my butt hurt, and I was not in the mood to be laughed at.  I turned around angrily and said, “IT’S NOT FUNNY!” Emmanuel, Gordon’s right hand man in Haiti, turned and said something to the boys in Creole.  I didn’t understand what he said, but since the boys quickly scurried off, I’m assuming it was something like, “She’s a crazy lady.  You better run away before she attacks.” 

This was also the year that there were chickens at the mission house when we arrived.  Sarah named them all.  Sadly, these chickens are no longer among the living.

One day, Pierre, one of the villagers, and his wife, came to the mission house and took the chickens.  Even though they were very stinky, I felt sorry for the chickens, because I knew what was going to happen to them.  The next night, the ladies that fixed our meals served chicken. 

As we were eating, one of the guys mentioned that they saw Pierre bringing the chickens back to the mission house.  Wait.  I had met these chickens?! I couldn’t eat something I had met! I was done eating chicken on that trip. I almost got to experience a cow being butchered on that trip as well, but thankfully, I was advised to turn my head as we approached the area, so I didn’t have to see it.  It was a party in the village that I was glad I had not been invited to.  There were other celebrations that happened in the village.  The entire village attended a soccer game, and the entire village turned out for a trash pick up that Gordon organized. 

Since there was a focus on building a well on this trip, I wanted to participate in this activity as well.  The men in our group and men from the village had been working on the well while we were doing bible stories with the children.  The Haitian men were incredibly strong and incredibly hard workers, so they had made a lot of progress.  I finally convinced one of the men to let me use a shovel. He stood there rocking from foot to foot while I dug up little bitty chunks of dirt and tried to toss them out of a ditch. 

I only lasted a few minutes.  Not only was this REALLY hard, but I couldn’t take the waves of frustration oozing out of this man.  I gave him back his shovel, hung my head, and slunk back to the mission house to find something that I could actually do. 

The fourth year we went to Haiti, we worked on some construction projects and the women focused on women’s ministry.  I was really excited about the women’s ministry.  Some of the women who had been on previous mission trips had very close relationships with some of the women in the village.  I really wanted that.  It didn’t happen for me that trip, but I still enjoyed meeting the women in the village and participating in our bible studies we had with them. 

I love Haiti, but one thing I do not love is the bugs. They have both scorpions and tarantulas. We had to shake out our shoes every morning before putting them on to make sure there were no scorpions hiding in them. I came out of the shower one night to find a huge tarantula chilling on the wall outside the shower.

There may have been some screaming. Our interpreter, Wendell, had convinced me that if I had been bitten, I could have died. Then he did this.

I was shocked until he admitted that he had lied to me about dying, and although tarantulas were poisonous, they did not have enough poison to actually kill someone. Very funny, Wendell. I still kept my distance.

All of the other trips to Haiti took place in the summer. This fourth year, we went at the beginning of November. Voodoo worship continues to be prevalent in Haiti, and there was a group of people in Hati Coton who participated in voodoo. There is a big voodoo celebration at this time of year. We did not feel threatened during the day, but it was a little unsettling to hear the voodoo drums when we were lying in our beds at night. To get to the bathrooms from the bunkroom in the mission house, we had to go outside to the porch, down the stairs, around the corner and into the bathroom. Since there is no electricity when the generator is turned off, it is very dark at night. I have to admit-I was always pretty jumpy if I needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Not only did I have to worry about stepping on tarantulas, scorpions and lizards, my middle of the night trips to the bathroom this year were accompanied by the beating of voodoo drums. I bet Stephen King could write a great novel with this information.

The fifth year was a medical mission.  We had two physicians on our team, and there were three nurses/nursing students.  The rest of us filled in where we were needed.  Most of people on the mission team were going to stay for four days and then they were heading back to the United States. Gordon, two of the young ladies, and I were staying for another week. The medical mission went very well. We spent the first day preparing and organizing supplies.

It seemed like the whole village turned out when we opened the clinic. They couldn’t all be sick, could they? But we were giving out little bags that had soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. so once that word got out, everyone found an excuse to show up.

Greg was designated as the bouncer to try to maintain some order to the process. Notice the more fashionable hat he is wearing this year.

I was in charge of giving out reading glasses. We were giving out free reading glasses, and everyone came in for glasses, whether they needed them or not.

There were some people who actually needed medical treatment, and the physicians and nurses took good care of them.

Gordon provided some entertainment for the children who were waiting.

We did the medical clinic for two days, and then most of the team had to get ready to go home. Gordon was not comfortable leaving me and the two young ladies at the mission house while he took the group to the airport, so we all went to the airport in Port-au-Prince. We said our goodbyes, and then Gordon, Wendell (our interpreter/driver), the two young ladies and I headed back to Hati Coton. This year, the political unrest in Haiti was starting to heat up. On our way back, while we were still in Port-au-Prince, some men blocked the street, stopped our car and demanded that Gordon pay them a few dollars to get through. Gordon told Wendell that he was not going to pay the money and to just keep driving. Wendell hit the gas pedal, and the men in the street scattered. Thankfully, we didn’t run over them. We managed to get to Ganthier without any more incidents. We stopped in Ganthier to get more water. Gordon told Wendell to get out of the car, get the water, and get back to the car as quickly as he could. I had never seen Gordon nervous before, so I was a little freaked out. We got the water, and once we got back to Hati Coton, Gordon visibly relaxed.

For five years, I had seen these mountains, and for five years, I had tried to get Gordon to take us up in the mountains.

I love mountains. I decided that since there were only three of us that had stayed this time, maybe my chances of convincing Gordon to take us were improved. I mentioned it to Gordon in my most strategic way. I got a “maybe,” which is more than I had achieved in the past, so I was hopeful.

We had quite a few supplies left, so one day, we went into another village and did a little mini clinic with the people there.

Since the physicians had already gone back to the US, we were limited with what we could do. One of the ladies who stayed was a nurse, so she was able to do some wound care and we were able to hand out more soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc.

We enjoyed serving lunch to the children at school in Hati Coton. Some ladies in the village prepared lunch every day for the school children. They were having fish and rice. They made sure there was a little piece of fish in each serving.

We were able to spend some time in the classrooms. It was fun seeing the instruction and participating in some of the activities. We loved spending time with the kids.

Later that week, Gordon took us into the mountains! Finally, I got to go into those mountains! They were beautiful!

We saw some random horses wandering around, which was a little confusing because we didn’t see any human or homes around.

We did see some farms in the distance, so the horses must have been wandering far from home.

Unfortunately, this was our last trip to Haiti. The next year was 2020 and COVID prevented us from going. The political unrest intensified, and it has not been safe to go into Haiti since then. I really miss the people of Hati Coton and I miss spending time in the village. Life happens at a much slower pace. Coming back to the village every year, I can remember the first evening of each trip, sitting on the porch at the mission house, and just feeling so glad to be back in Haiti.

It was always so hard to say goodbye.

I believe that one of the most valuable things about travel is meeting and getting to know the people that live in the place we are visiting. We start understanding that they are people who love their families and friends, laugh, cry, hurt, go to work and go to school, just like we do. The people in Haiti are really suffering right now. The country is being run by gangs who are stealing, hurting, killing and raping innocent people. While I recognize the need for rules and regulations about immigration into our country, I am hoping and praying that we can all remember to show compassion for all people. I hope that we can remember that the United States was founded by immigrants who came for an opportunity for a chance at a better life. We need to remember that the United States has been a refuge for people who are coming from countries where they are living in horrible conditions, including extreme poverty, starvation, rape, human trafficking, and murder. When we send some of these people back to their countries, we are sending them back to these horrible conditions. I want the United States to be a country that welcomes people of all colors, cultures, religions, and beliefs. There has to be a better way.

Visiting Alaska, Again (and hopefully, again and again and again…..)

In my story about an Alaskan vacation that I posted a few weeks ago, I mentioned that Ally loved Alaska so much that, the next year, she quit her job in Virginia, packed her bags, and went to Seward, Alaska to work for Kenai-Fjord Tours (KFT).  This was the tour company we used for our day whale watching cruise when we took our family vacation in Alaska.

Since my kids have grown up and have moved out of the home, I can’t go more than three months without being able to put my arms around them.  There have been times that each child has lived in a different time zone, so this has resulted in quite a bit of traveling for me and often for my husband, Greg, as well.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as far as I am concerned.  I’m not sure Greg necessarily agrees.

So naturally, while Ally was living in Alaska, I had to go visit her.  Greg was not able to go, so I was traveling by myself.  In July, 2019, I made plans to fly into Anchorage. Ally was driving the two hours from Seward to pick me up.  My flight went from St. Louis to Dallas to Anchorage.  The flight from St. Louis to Dallas was uneventful.  I boarded the plane in Dallas, took my assigned aisle seat and settled in. A few minutes later, the man sitting next to me asked me if I would mind changing seats with his lady friend. He said she was flying for the first time and she was nervous, and it would make her feel better if she could sit by him.  I agreed, before I realized that she was sitting in a middle seat.  Oh well.  I didn’t mind helping them out.  I moved into her seat.  The flight attendant walked by and noticed that I had changed seats and asked me about it.  I explained the situation to her.  She seemed more concerned than I was that I had traded an aisle seat for a middle seat.  I settled into my seat, and a few minutes later, the flight attendant approached me and said she had an aisle seat available and she would like for me to have an aisle seat. I gathered my things, again, and moved into the aisle seat.  That was very nice of her, and I appreciated it.  I settled into my new seat.  A few minutes later, another passenger approached me and asked me if I would trade seats with her friend.  Was this a joke?  Was I on video? What was happening? This time I was smart enough to make sure I was trading my aisle seat for another aisle seat.  I gathered my things, again, and moved to the new seat a few rows up.  The flight attendant walked by and expressed her surprise that I had moved seats again.  I explained the situation to her and assured her I was not moving again.  I settled into my new seat and a few minutes later, the plane took off.  When the flight attendants began serving drinks and snacks, I asked for my Coke.  I don’t know what it is about flying, but I always want a Coke.  When the flight attendant served my Coke, she handed me a snack box.  This was not the usual bag of peanuts-this was a snack box that costs extra, something I never do.  I assumed the passengers sitting next to me ordered it, so I tried to give it to them.  They said that they did not order it.  The flight attendant told me it was a gift to me from the flight attendants because I had been so nice and willing to trade my seats to other passengers.  How about that?

Several hours later, I arrived in Anchorage and was picked up by Ally and some of her friends.  I had booked a room at the Breeze Inn.  The Breeze Inn is near the harbor and cruises, so it was close to where Ally was staying.  Ally had been provided lodging by KFT, which was kind of a dorm room situation that she shared with three other girls, so staying with her was not an option.  This is a picture of the place where Ally was living.

Ally had to work the first day, so I was on my own.  Now, anyone who knows me will assume that I stayed in the hotel room, reading a book, because I was scared to go out on my own.  But you would be wrong.  I went down to the front desk at the hotel and asked them to suggest something for me to do.  They suggested the aquarium in town.  This was a bit of a walk, but I was able to walk along by the water for a big part of it, and I was able to explore the little town of Seward. 

Am I a solo traveler, or what? I went to their little aquarium

and then I walked back to the hotel.  I wanted to get some snacks and drinks to have in my room, so I asked the hotel staff where I could find a grocery store.  It was at the other end of town in the other direction.  I set out on another walk and bought my snacks.  I had now explored the entire town of Seward.  On my own! 

One of the first things Ally and I did together was take an evening dinner cruise with KFT.  Ally was not working this cruise, so she was able to just sit back and enjoy the cruise. We saw whales, eagles and puffins.  It was beautiful. 

The next day, Ally had to work the day cruise, so I went on the cruise with her.  I was a little nervous about this because she would be working all day, so I was going to be mostly without her company while on the ship.  Is this also considered solo traveling?  The seating on the ships is mostly tables with booths, so I was likely going to have to sit with people I didn’t know. I quickly found a booth and burrowed myself in, hoping that no one else would sit with me. But as the boat filled up, it quickly became apparent that I would not get to keep this booth to myself. I saw a family looking for a booth, so I got up and gave them mine. I sort of wandered around the ship, hoping to find a single seat somewhere. Ally noticed me wandering around and she found a place at a table with two couples-one older couple and one young couple. Ugh. Would I be expected to make conversation? Would they be rude? Nice? Annoying? But it was fine.  It was fun seeing Ally at work.  She got on the speaker to give instructions to the passengers, regarding life jackets, safety procedures, food, etc.  She started out with, “Hi! This is Ally from the galley!” The older lady at my table said, “Oh, she’s so cute! I wonder if her name is really Ally.” And I had the privilege of saying, “Yes. That is really her name.  That is my daughter.”  They were all impressed and I was now the cool one at the table.  I became even cooler when, later that day, Ally brought me some cups of warm cookie pieces left over from when they baked the cookies, and I shared them with my table mates. I am never the cool one in a group, so this was a new experience for me.

Ally also took me to meet the captain.  She had warned me that he could be a little gruff and that I should not be offended.  But he ended up being very nice.  He showed me around the wheelhouse.  We didn’t stay more than a few minutes though.  Ally had to get back to work, but I also think she was concerned about how long the captain could maintain his niceness. 

It was really cold that day.  We did see some whales, but I did not spend a lot of time outside looking at them.  I have my limits where cold is concerned.  The return trip was very rough.  A storm was rolling in, and the waves were huge.  They hand out barf bags to all of the passengers at the beginning of the cruise, but I had given mine to another passenger who needed it.  After all, this was my third KFT cruise.  I was seasoned and I was way beyond getting sick because of a few waves.  Right? Ummm, no.  It soon became apparent that I may have made a mistake in giving my bag away.  I made my way to the front of the ship where the cruise workers were standing.  The ship was being tossed so much that I was walking like I had been drinking at the bar for a few hours. I didn’t even have to say a word. The staff member looked at me and handed me a bag.  The green coloring on face was likely his best clue.  At least I was in good company.  I would not have wanted to be on the cleaning crew of the ship that day.

The next day Ally was off work, so we planned on hiking the trail to Lost Lake. 

This was one of her favorite hikes in the area.

This is a very scenic hike with beautiful views of mountains and high alpine terrain.  It was a long hike, 13.7 miles round trip, so we got up early that morning to get started.  No one else was on the trail for quite a while.  The clouds were very low-in fact, we were walking in them.  We could feel the mist on our faces.  We couldn’t see the mountains very well, but it was kind of cool walking in the clouds. 

Ally seemed tense and a little grumpy.  It was early morning, and I figured maybe the coffee had not kicked in, so I just walked along quietly.  Being quiet is my best defense when it comes to Ally and her coffee.  Later she told me that she had been worried about running into bears, since we were the only ones on the trail.  She relaxed when we started seeing more hikers.  I’m glad we didn’t see any bears.  We could have tried to make ourselves big to scare the bear, but between the two of us, we barely make one tall person, so I think a grizzly might have just laughed at us.  And then he would have eaten us.  We reached the lake at the top of the mountain.  It was beautiful! It was so quiet and peaceful.  We could hear birds, bees, the water running over the rocks. 

We stayed at the lake for quite a while, rested, had a snack, and just enjoyed the peacefulness and beauty of the area. 

Then we began hiking back down. 

This was a great day!  My hands were numb when we got to the car, which I don’t think is supposed to happen. I probably didn’t drink enough water, which seems to be a consistent theme for me when I hike.  I guzzled the rest of the water from my water bottle, pretty soon my fingers started to tingle, and I had full use of my hands again. We went to the restaurant at the Breeze Inn and had dinner with some of Ally’s co-workers/friends that night.

The next day, Ally and I took another hike.  We went on a trail called the Tonsina Trail.  The trail goes through a thick spruce forest.  The trees have moss on them and the whole area looks like a page from a Dr. Seuss book. 

The trail took us to Resurrection Bay.  We spent some time hanging out by the water and then we headed back. 

This trail was a lot shorter than Lost Lake.  It was three miles, in and out.  

I had to go home the next day.  Ally and her friends took me to Anchorage, where I stayed at a hotel near the airport and flew out early the next morning.  It was hard to leave her, knowing she would be so far away, but she was loving her time in Alaska. 

A few weeks later, Ally called and said she was going to leave just a few days earlier than she had originally planned, which meant the people she had planned to caravan with would not be traveling with her.  She asked if I could fly out to Alaska and drive home with her.  Of course!  In September, 2019, I flew back to Anchorage.  Ally picked me up and we started our very long drive back to Illinois. The first day, we drove out of Anchorage with plans to stop that night in White Horse in Yukon, Canada.  We had not booked any hotels ahead of time because we could not be sure how far we were going to get each day.  But we had some loose plans.  Ally was sick with a respiratory thing, so she wasn’t feeling very travel ready, but here we were. I tried to video our trip.  I’m not much of a videographer, but I made an attempt. Here is one sample of my skill. After watching this, you will understand why I did not put anymore of them in this story.

The scenery was so beautiful for most of the trip. Here are some pictures from our first day of travel.

As we approached Yukon, Canada that first day, we started searching for hotels when we were able to get cell service. We booked a room at the Days Inn in the town of Whitehorse in Yukon, Canada. When we arrived, at about 9:00 pm, we could not figure out where we were supposed to park. Ally let me out of the car, and I went into the hotel and asked the lady at the desk where we were supposed to park our car. She said there was parking in the back of the hotel, where we could park and then enter at the doors back there. I asked her if the back of the hotel was a secure area. She responded by saying, “Yes. We have video cameras back there.” We drove around to back of the hotel where there was a very dark, scary looking parking lot next to a very sketchy looking building with a bunch of trash scattered around it. We reluctantly got out of the car and went to the door. The door had no handle. It was not designed that way-the handle had been removed. Not a good sign. We tried another door, hoping it belonged to the hotel and not to a brothel or something even scarier. It turned out that it didn’t really matter what was behind that door, because we couldn’t open it anyway. It was locked and we didn’t have a key. We drove back to the front of the hotel and told the lady at the front desk that we were unable to get into the doors in the back, and that we did not feel safe back there. She said, “Oh yes. You can get in. And it is safe-we have video cameras back there.” Somehow, just knowing that my murder will be recorded does not really offer me a lot of comfort. Ally drove back around to the scary parking lot and I went through the hotel to the back door with the front desk lady. She opened the door, we both stepped out, and she let the door shut behind her. She turned around to open the door to show me that we could get in and she said, “Oh. Someone stole our handle.” She went to the other door and said, “You can get in this door.” I told her we couldn’t get in because it was locked. She took out a key, unlocked the door, turned to me and said, “No. It is not locked.” I looked at her, paused for a second, blinked a couple of times, and said, “Well, it’s not now. You just unlocked it.” She left the door unlocked and went back into the hotel. So this door, that was locked for the guests’ safety and protection from the very sketchy area at the back of the hotel, was now unlocked so that the murderers could get into the hotel. I went back to the car and told Ally that I did not feel safe staying in this hotel. We got in the car and drove around the town and found another hotel. The guy at the front desk said they had one room left, but it was very small. We said that was fine. He wasn’t kidding. It was a very tiny room. But at least we didn’t feel like we were going to be murdered in our sleep. To be honest, I don’t think the murderer would have been able to fit in this tiny room with us.

We got up the next morning to continue our trip. We stopped at Watson Lake, at the Sign Post Forest, before we left the province of Yukon. The Sign Post Forest is a collection of over 85,000 signs left by travelers and highway workers. Kind of weird, but interesting.

We managed to find a plate from Illinois.

We entered British Columbia, Canada that day.

The views were beautiful here as well, although it did not seem quite as mountainous as the day before.

We stopped to take some pictures by the Liard River. The Liard River is a significant river in northwestern Canada. It runs through British Columbia, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. It is named for the “liards” which are the poplar trees that grow along its course.

We stayed at Fort Nelson, British Columbia that night. To be honest, I don’t really remember much about where we stayed, so everything must have gone pretty smoothly.

The next day, we were planning to drive through Banff in Alberta, Canada. I had heard about how beautiful Banff was, and I was very excited to be going there. Everyone was right-it was beautiful.

We were not able to find a place to stay in Banff, so we drove on to Jasper and found a place to stay there. Jasper surprised me. It was a cute little area, and the hotel we stayed in was very nice. And expensive. The dinner we had was expensive. Everything was expensive in this area. But I am determined to go back to the gorgeous Banff/Jasper area to hike and backpack. That is a trip that is very high on my very long list of things I want to do.

The next day, we crossed the border into the US in Montana. We arrived at a hotel late that night somewhere in the US. I don’t remember where. The next day, we planned to drive the rest of the way back home. However, we ended up stopping at my friend Robin’s house in Kansas City, MO. We had been driving for over 12 hours and we simply could not drive another six hours that day. As usual, Robin and her husband, Brad, welcomed us into their home, where we stayed the night and woke up more refreshed to drive the last six hours home. (This was not the first time Robin had unexpectedly become my hostess for the night-that might be another story to tell later). We arrived home, very tired of driving, but feeling proud that we had accomplished such a long road trip.

Tips:

  1. I highly recommend the Breeze Inn in Seward.  The staff was really nice, the price was reasonable, and the rooms are clean.  You can find them at www.breezeinn.com.  Their phone number is 907-224-5237.  There is a restaurant attached to the Inn.
  2. The Lost Lake Trail is about five miles outside of Seward.  It is also called the Primrose Trail at the north end. It is a popular hike for backpacking as well.  I think this trail would make a great overnight backpacking trip.
  3. The Tonsina trail is one of Seward’s most popular trails.  There is a $5.00 parking fee at the trail head on Lowell Point road.  In late summer, you may see salmon swimming up Tonsina Creek. The trail is open year round to hikers.
  4. The name of the aquarium in Seward is Alaska Sealife Center. You can find more information about it at http://www.alaskasealife.org.
  5. It is a LONG drive from Anchorage, Alaska to Southern Illinois. But the scenery is beautiful, and you can get lots of ideas of places you want to come back to and spend more time.
  6. Jasper National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies. It is known for its beauty, wildlife, and unique attractions.
  7. Banff National Park is Canada’s first national park. It is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a great area to camp, hike and backpack. It is also known for its beauty and wildlife.

Packing Tips  

I am going to change direction just a little for this story.  I have had someone ask me for packing tips, so I thought I would share some of my packing experiences and tips.  I have been researching and practicing minimalist packing for the last couple of years.  I still don’t have it completely mastered, but I am getting better with each trip I take.  These are some things I have learned so far.

Tip #1: 

Decide what kind of suitcase you want to take.

These tips are about minimalist packing.  If you want to check a big bag, you can probably take whatever you want.  If that is the way you travel, then you probably don’t need these tips. Or if you’re going on a trip that you will need extra gear, like a camping/hiking trip, you will have to check a bag. But if you want to avoid checking a bag, and you want to travel light, then you may get some ideas from my mistakes and what I have found helpful.  My goal in packing light is to take only a backpack that is light enough, that even if I can’t check into my lodging right away, I can carry it comfortably while I am exploring. I have not accomplished this yet, but I get closer every time I travel. 

I have traveled with a small, rolling, carry on suitcase.

The advantage to this is you have a little more room. There are disadvantages, though.  If you buy the cheap seats on the plane, which I do most of the time, then you are often the last to board.  This means no room left in the overhead bins and they make you check your bag.  If you have a connecting flight, they will check it through to your final destination, meaning you still run the risk of your luggage not making it there when you do.  Then there is the time it takes you to go to baggage claim to get it, which cuts into your vacation time. But I do sometimes take a rolling bag if I know I’m going to be able to check into my lodging right away, or if arrangements have been made for pick up at the airport and someone else will be worrying about my luggage.

Another advantage of a rolling suitcase is that you can carry a small backpack as well. 

It’s hard to carry both a big pack with all of your things, and a smaller backpack.  I find this particularly useful if I need to work during the trip. Working on a vacation is not advised, but if I’m traveling for a conference or if I have a long plane trip and want to use the time to get work done, I will bring my computer and some files, so bringing a smaller backpack to keep with me on the plane is useful. I can also use the backpack to carry other things that I want to be easily accessible on the plane-a book, snacks, ear buds, etc.

I have traveled with a travel pack.  Mine is from Cotopaxi.  I really like it. 

I still had to check mine one time when the flight attendants would not make the passengers get their coats and small backpacks out of the overhead bins so that there was more room for larger luggage.  My daughter was carrying the same bag.  She refused to check her bag, stuffing it under the seat in front of her as far as it would go, and then propping her feet on it. Her body posture and the look on her face deterred the flight attendants from repeating their directive to check her bag.  I wish I would have done that, because my backpack ended up being burned and torn up in the cargo hold. 

The first time I used the travel pack was not very successful, however.  I managed to get everything in it, but I packed it too full.  It was so heavy, if I stood up straight, I ran the risk of falling backward.  I had to walk stooped over the entire trip. I looked like a turtle. I have taken it on more trips after this one, and I have managed to pack it lighter so that it is more manageable. 

Packing cubes are sometimes helpful. They work really well, but I only use them in my rolling suitcase. I tend to use them if I’m going some place where I need more clothes, such as a conference. I don’t use them with my travel bag because they make it too heavy. They can be used to pack down clothes so you can fit more in your suitcase. They are also good to organize things in your suitcase.

Tip #2:

Pack clothes that you can wear more than once.  I have really struggled with this, so I understand how this can be a stretch for a lot of people. Let me explain. I have worked with children during my entire career.  Now, children are great, but they do weird, and sometimes gross, stuff.  For example, they will pick their nose. And if you’re not fast enough, whatever treasure they find will become a part of your outfit.  Then there are the biters, spitters, pukers, and occasional lickers.  I am not wearing those clothes a second time without washing them. 

If you typically throw all your clothes in the laundry at the end of the day, wearing your clothes a second time without washing them could be difficult for you.  But on vacation, hopefully no one should be spitting on you, wiping boogers on you, or licking you.  If these things have happened on your vacations, you may want to get some help planning your next trip. Here are some ideas for making it more possible to pack fewer clothes.

Think about pants that you can wear to explore or hike, that will also look appropriate to wear to a nicer restaurant if paired with a dressier shirt. 

Consider clothes made of merino wool.  You can wear this fabric multiple times without washing and it does not smell bad.  I know wool sounds like a winter thing, but you can wear merino wool in the summer.  It is lightweight, moisture wicking, odor resistant, and quick drying.  It has natural UV protection, and it can adapt to your body temperature, keeping you cool when it is warm and warm when it is cold. 

Pack one dressy shirt/dress to wear anytime you need to dress up a little.  No one will know that you have worn that shirt to multiple events.  And if anyone notices, who cares? 

Limit the number of pairs of shoes you pack.  For most types of vacations, you can take one pair of comfortable shoes for when you’re exploring, and one pair of dressier shoes, if needed. Wear your biggest pair of shoes on the plane. You may not be the most fashionable person on the plane, but it’s easier to wear them than it is to carry them.  Of course, depending on the type of vacation, you may need specific shoes, so you may need more than just the two pair. But still try to wear the biggest shoes on the plane. For example, my daughters and I wore our hiking boots on the plane when we were going on a big hiking trip.  Not the best look, but they would have taken up a lot of room in our carry on suitcases.

I will also try to wear some of my bulkiest clothes on the plane.  For example, if I’m taking a pair of jeans, I will usually wear the jeans on the plane to save room in my suitcase.

I tend to wear a lot of leggings and/or athletic pants on trips.  They pack really small, and they can be worn with a variety of styles of shirts, sweaters or dresses.

If you are traveling someplace warm, pack one sweater/jacket/sweatshirt that you can use anytime you get cold. Actually, this item rarely makes it in my suitcase/backpack.  I freeze in the airports, on planes, or pretty much anywhere, so I am usually wearing this item of clothing.

Packing for a cold weather trip is a little trickier, but try to pack as few bulky items as possible.  Pack some lighter shirts that you can wear under a bulkier sweater, so you can wear the sweater multiple times.

I learned a lot from reading the book Wander Woman by Beth Santos. I like many of her recommendations. One recommendation she gives is taking a maxi dress. I will probably not take this recommendation. A maxi dress is not a friend of a four foot, ten and a half inch woman. It’s more of a tripping hazard. However, if you are an average sized woman, I think this is a good recommendation. The dress is comfortable and appropriate to wear for most places and events. This is her book if you want to check it out. There is a lot of useful information in this book.

The laundromat is your friend.  If I am not staying in a place with a washer and dryer, I always find the closest laundromat.  Even if you are staying in a hotel with laundry service, they charge by the piece and it is usually very expensive, so you still may want to find a laundromat. If you use a laundromat, you can pack half of the clothes you need, wash them halfway through your trip, and wear them again the second half of your trip. Besides, finding and using a laundromat can be an adventure in itself.

An alternative to the laundromat is a bar of laundry soap, so you can wash out clothes in your hotel room.  I almost always bring one with me (actually, I bring half of one because the one I ordered was really big).  One bar, or half bar, of laundry soap will last several trips.

Tip #3:

Consider minimizing the health and beauty products you bring.

Can you use the shampoo/conditioner at the hotel? 

Will the hotel have body moisturizer and soap you can use?

If you’re staying in a hostel rather than a hotel, you may have to pack more of your own things.  However, I would check out the hostel’s website to see what they offer.  Sometimes they have a body soap dispenser/shampoo and conditioner dispensers available in the shower.  You can often rent a towel from the hostel, which is well worth the couple of dollars you spend rather than having to pack your own and then trying to figure out what to do with the wet towel when you pack up to move or go home. 

Can you reduce the number of facial care products you use, just while you’re on vacation? For example, if you use a different moisturizer for day and night, is there one that would work for both for a week or so?

Do your products come in a sample size that you can use rather than packing the larger size?

If you have to bring your own shampoo or other products, buy some small travel bottles and fill those.  That should be enough for your trip, and you will be able to put them in a carry on and get through security.

If you are flying within the US, consider putting your medications in a daily pill container rather than carrying the individual prescription bottles. TSA does not require the prescription bottles. However, if you are traveling internationally, it is generally recommended to have the medication in the original prescription bottles.

Tip #4:

Bring as little jewelry as possible.  I have brought necklaces, multiple pairs of earrings, and bracelets, and they never make it out of my suitcase.  Now I only bring the jewelry I’m wearing on my body when I board the plane.

Tip #5:

Be sure to leave some room in your suitcase for souvenirs.  There’s nothing worse than buying some great souvenirs and then having difficulty figuring out how you’re going to get them home. 

Choose your souvenirs carefully.  When you go to a place you’ve never been before, I know it is tempting to buy a lot of souvenirs.  But I have learned to really cut down on the number of souvenirs I buy.  I try to buy things that are very meaningful to that area-what that area is known for.  For example, I bought lace in Bruges, Belgium,

and a small tile in Lisbon, Portugal.

Both of these were small and fit easily in my suitcase. A lot of times, if nothing else really impresses me, I will buy a sticker or a magnet that represents the area I’m in. 

If you know there is one type of souvenir you always buy, be sure to plan for that in your packing.  For example, I know I almost always buy a sweatshirt or a t-shirt on a trip, so I leave room in my bag and plan to add the new shirt to my wardrobe for the trip.  Here are a few of the shirts I have collected. 

I wear these all the time.  My husband calls me a walking atlas. 

My family makes fun of me because I tend to pack a lot of books when I travel.  I should really start using a Kindle, but I have always had a very strong attachment to actual books. But if you like to read your books on a Kindle, it saves a ton of room. If you have something that you feel is very important to bring, just make sure you plan for that and cut back in other areas so that you have room.  I love to visit a bookstore wherever we go, so I will bring fewer books from home and I will read my new books during the trip.  But I have to remember to save room in my bag to bring those new books home.  I also like to pack my sketch pad and pencils, so I have to leave room for those as well. As you can see, packing is very much different for each person, so you have to decide what is important for you to bring and then make room for it.

Tip #6:

Keeping your things safe. 

I pack a very small travel purse in my suitcase.  I’ve had this little purse for years.  It has a long strap, so I can wear it across my body, carry it in front, and keep my hand on it when I am out exploring.  It would be very difficult for someone to take this from me or for a pickpocket to get into it. 

You may want to find a small purse that is more fashionable than this one. I’ve had it for over 30 years. I guess I may want to find a small purse that is more fashionable too. A positive to carrying this purse is that no one is going to try to steal it because they want the purse itself.

Having a small purse forces me to carry only a few things with me while out exploring.  If the worst happens and my purse is stolen, I have additional money in the safe at the hotel. 

When the purse is packed in my suitcase, I keep my wallet, passport, driver’s license, etc. in my carry on backpack.  

I have also carried a little bigger travel bag while exploring. It has room for my wallet and a few other things.  It also has a strap that goes across my body and rests in front.  Having a strap that goes across my body and being able to carry your bag on the front of your body is very important when you are in an unfamiliar area.  

Make a copy of your passport and/or license before you leave home.  Put the copy in a different bag than where you are keeping your passport and/or license.  You can also take a picture of your passport and/or license to have on your phone. I do both. I like having that paper copy somewhere other than with me.

If you are bringing cash, consider separating the cash and packing it in different bags.  However, if I am checking a bag, I’m not going to put cash in my checked bag, in case it gets lost or opened by security. Once you get to the hotel, you can put some of your cash in the safe. Same thing goes for credit cards.  If you are going to take more than one, you should consider keeping one in the hotel safe in case your primary one gets stolen. 

I know this blog was not that exciting, but I hope these tips help someone with their packing. I am envious of those who can travel with just a little backpack, and I’m going to continue working on it myself. I may have more tips to share as I learn.

Happy traveling!

Alaska

In 2018, we decided to vacation in Alaska.  Actually, my daughter, Ally, suggested it.  Between our family vacations and a job that had given her the opportunity to travel through many of the US states, Alaska was one of two US states she had not yet visited.  Hawaii was the other state, and the majority opinion of the family was to go to Alaska.  This trip included myself, my husband Greg, our three adult children-Ally, Sarah and Ryan- and Ryan’s girlfriend, Kelly.  Ryan and Kelly had been dating for quite a while, but Kelly did not really know our family that well. I think she was very brave to go on this trip. She had met me and Greg, and Kelly and Sarah had known each other even before Kelly and Ryan had started to date.  But she had never met Ally.  Ryan, being the typical younger brother, had told Kelly stories about Ally, and now Kelly was a little scared of her.  I’m sure the stories were exaggerated.  The stories consisted of the a.m. Ally, pre-coffee.  Just to be clear, Ally is a sweet, kind person….

……except in the morning before coffee. 

Everyone knows-don’t talk to her, don’t be too cheerful, avoid eye contact, and don’t get between Ally and the coffee pot.  Just stay out of the way and no one gets hurt.  Kelly is a wise girl-she followed Ryan’s advice, and she and Ally got along just fine. 

We arrived at the airport in St. Louis to catch our flight to Alaska.  Ally was living in Annandale, Virginia, so she was taking a different flight and meeting us in Anchorage.

We were rolling our large pieces of luggage through the airport (minimalist packing was not a thing for us in 2018), and Sarah suddenly flipped over her bag and landed flat on the floor. An airport employee happened to be standing nearby.  She gasped and asked if Sarah was alright.  She gave the rest of us a look of reproach because we were all bent over laughing.  Obviously, this lady had never traveled with the Halls. 

These were some of the views from the window of the plane as we were approaching Alaska.

We arrived in Anchorage, met up with Ally, and got ready to start our Alaska vacation. Our first stop was Denali National Park.  These were some of the views we had on the drive to Denali. It seemed like each time we thought we had seen the most beautiful view, we would round a curve and there would be a more beautiful view.

We stopped along the way to take pictures of some moose.

I had booked a cabin, called Aspen Haus. These cabins are in a secluded area near the town of Healy.  The cabins were in a wooded area and were very nice.  They had little kitchenettes and the owners let us use a grill on the property.  We grilled pizzas one night.  I left Ryan in charge of the grill.  The toppings tasted good. Maybe turn the heat down a little to protect the crusts next time. There were paths in the woods and we enjoyed walking around and exploring the area. 

Ryan and Kelly took a walk one night and came upon a junior moose.  There was a playground near the cabins. The playground area was run down and a little creepy.  As we were walking around the playground, the swings started moving by themselves.  It was probably just a breeze, but I had a lot of fun making up a story to scare Ally.  She hates being scared, which made it more fun. 

We checked out some easy hiking trails on the first day. The scenery was beautiful and we took some great pictures.

Later that day, we went on an ATV tour.  I had never driven an ATV, but how hard could it be?  Turns out, it was terrifying.  The look on Ryan’s face in this picture makes me think he was probably watching me practicing on the ATV. He was right to be concerned.

The guide put me right behind him, and I tried really hard to keep up.  I didn’t see any of the scenery because I was holding onto the handles for dear life, looking at the guide’s tires, trying to stay right behind him so I didn’t drive off the side of the mountain.  When we stopped for a break, the guide turned to me and said, “I don’t think you’re having a good time.” Was it that obvious? Was it the look of terror on my face?  Or maybe it was my white knuckles as I gripped the handlebars on this death machine on wheels. I got off the ATV, painfully attempting to straighten my fingers. The guide offered to let me ride in a side by side with another guide.  When they took my ATV away, Greg came over to see what was going on.  I told him that I was going to ride with the guide because I was scared.  He then admitted that he was scared as well, and he would like to ride in the side by side too.  They ended up letting Greg drive the side by side.  We felt much safer and we were able to enjoy the rest of tour. The kids really enjoyed the ATVs. 

Sarah ran hers into a bush, but she was unharmed.  She soon untangled herself and she was able to continue on the tour. 

It was a fun day!

We went to a dog sled demonstration.  There was no snow, since it was summer.  We were able to see the dogs, and we were able to pet some of them.

They took a guy in a sled on a ride on a dirt path, but it wasn’t the same as seeing the dogs pulling the sled in the snow.  I’m trying to convince my family that it would be fun to go to Nome, Alaska during the Iditarod and volunteer to help with the race.  Volunteering to help with the race is really a thing.  Since the race goes from Anchorage to Nome, we could volunteer in Nome, Anchorage, or at trail checkpoints along the way.  So far, I have not been able to convince anyone that this would be a fun vacation.  The comments have included, “I don’t want to work on vacation” and “it would be really cold.” I will keep working on them.  I think it would be a great experience. 

I did a little research, and I found a hike I really wanted to do.  I wanted to hike Mount Healy.

Greg opted out of this activity.  The next day, the kids and I set out for the hike. Mount Healy reaches elevations of 6000 feet, so this was going to be a good hike.  We started out at the Denali Visitor Center, on the Taiga Trail. 

The trail was steep and rocky.  After a few hours, Sarah began complaining and she was really starting to struggle.  She was falling behind and she started talking about going back.  I did not want her going back by herself. There are grizzly bears in Alaska, and I figured two of us would be a better match for a grizzly than Sarah by herself. 

Sarah sat on a rock, burst into tears, and proceeded to have a meltdown.  I sent Ally, Ryan and Kelly on up the mountain and I sat with Sarah for a few minutes.  I offered to go down with her, but she refused because she said she knew how much I wanted to hike this mountain.  She finally calmed down and decided she would continue on.  The trail was a switchback trail.  Sarah decided she would take a shortcut.  Now.  I know all of you avid hikers will be judging us for this next move.  But remember, this was in 2018, and we have learned a lot about hiking etiquette since then.  We now know that climbing between the switchbacks is a big no-no, and we would never do it again.  But that day, it seemed like a good idea….at first.  Sarah changed her mind by the time she had accomplished the task. The hat says it all.

We finally made it to the top of Mount Healy.  Ryan rewarded Sarah with an Oreo. 

We all made it!

It was beautiful at the top.

While we were hiking, Greg followed a tour bus around the park in our rented van.  That was actually a clever idea.  He found some beautiful places and we visited them the next day.  We went on the Savage River Loop Trail.

It was an easy, approximately two mile hike along the Savage River. 

Is that a Sasquatch footprint?

As far as Ryan is concerned, it is. We enjoyed the day.  

Ryan-always living on the edge. That was going to be cold if he slipped and fell in. 

The next day we left for Anchorage.  I had booked an Airbnb.  It was very close to the coastal trail.  The coastal trail leads to downtown Anchorage. The Airbnb had bikes we could use, and we spent some time riding bikes, walking on the trail, and souvenir shopping in Anchorage.  Ryan had been looking for signs of a Sasquatch the whole time we were in Denali.  He’s a believer. He did not have any luck in Denali, but he did find a Sasquatch in Anchorage.  Not exactly in the wild, but he was willing to pose for the picture anyway. 

One day, we took the train from Anchorage to Seward.  Seward is located just outside the Kenai Fjords National Park.  The train had huge windows and the train staff would announce on the speakers when they saw wildlife.  The train would slow down so that everyone could see. We arrived in Seward, where we had reservations for a whale watching boat tour with Kenai Fjords Tours.  We were going on the Glacier Cruise. The Glacier Cruise was one of everyone’s favorite days.  We saw several whales on that day. 

We saw puffins,

and some sea lions.

We were served a light lunch and some delicious cookies.  The boat got really close to a huge glacier. Hence…the name of the tour, Glacier Cruise. I think all the guests would have been disappointed if we had not seen a glacier.

Pieces of ice were floating in the water.  The crew lifted some ice out of the water so we could get our pictures taken with the pieces of the glacier. 

It was a beautiful day, and we all had so much fun. In fact, Ally had so much fun that, a few months later, she quit her job in Virginia and went back to Alaska to work on a boat with Kenai Fjords Tours. But that’s a story for another time. I need to be careful about where I take my family on vacation.  Kelly and Ryan occasionally make noises about moving to Scotland.  Maybe I should make the next vacation in our home town.  Then they can all move back here and I can have them all close all of the time.    

We all had a wonderful time on this trip.  One word of warning…if you travel to Alaska in the summer, it does not get dark at night.  We tended to lose track of time.  We would be grouchy and snapping at each other and then we would realize that it was 11:00 pm and we had not had dinner yet.  So you may want to set an alarm or something so that you can remember to eat and rest.  It’s a very weird feeling-we were wearing sunglasses at 9:00 or 10:00 at night.   

Tips:

  1. The Aspen Haus cabins can now be booked using Airbnb.
  2. If you are interested in volunteering for the Iditarod, check out the website Iditarod.com/volunteers/.  And if you are serious about going, let me know.  As it stands with my family right now, I will probably need to find someone to go with me. 
  3. If interested in the Glacier Cruise, visit https://www.alaska.org>details>kenai-fjords-tours.
  4. Set your alarms to remember to eat and rest if you travel to Alaska in the summer. 
  5. It is considered bad hiking etiquette to climb between the switchbacks on a trail. It damages vegetation, loosens soil, and leads to erosion. Don’t do it.
  6. Tickets for the scenic train from Anchorage to Seward can be found at https://www.alaskarailroad.com
  7. ATV tours can be found at https:/www.denaliatv.com. If driving an ATV terrifies you, they will let you ride in a side by side. And if your husband is willing to admit he is terrified too, he can ride with you in the side by side.

Friend trip to Amsterdam, Bruges and Achen

Most of my stories are about trips with family.  Occasionally, I take a trip with friends. My friend, Vicki, wanted to plan a trip that included Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Bruges in Belgium, and Aachen in Germany.  So Vicki, our friend Mary, and I started planning the trip.  Mary’s husband, Ken, and my husband, Greg, decided they wanted to go as well.  The trip was planned for the end of March/beginning of April, 2023.  It was during tulip season in Amsterdam, and Mary, who is a gardener and a florist, was very excited about seeing the tulips. 

We booked our flights and then we started to book hotels and activities.  We were flying into Amsterdam to start our trip. 

I think I should explain something about my friend, Mary.  Let’s just say…she is not very adventurous when it comes to hotels.  Vicki and I pretty much have the attitude that if the hotel is clean and safe, we don’t have to have luxury, but Mary prefers the luxury. Vicki and I also like to stay in unique places.  Mary? Not so much. I suggested that we stay in this hotel that looked like suspended boxes.  Mary nixed that idea right away.  I found this interesting hotel in Amsterdam called Hotel Not Hotel. 

Mary was not super excited about this hotel, but I managed to convince her to try it when I told her one of the rooms was plant themed. Each room had a name.  Our room was called Mrs. De With.  Mary and Ken’s room was called Poison Ivy.  Vicki stayed in one of the Secret Bookcase rooms.  Vicki’s room was literally behind a bookcase.  You couldn’t even tell it was a room unless the door was opened.  It just looked like a bookcase.  The names of some of the other rooms included Sin City, Invisible Room, Blue House, Casa No Casa, the Sun Room, Crisis Free Zone, Amsterdam Tram Cart (really a tram cart) and Volkswagon (really a Volkswagon Van).  The hotel had kind of a hostel feel to it.  The lobby was full of couches, chairs and tables, and the rooms were very small, so most people hung out in the lobby.  Some of the rooms had private bathrooms, but most of the rooms had no bathroom and the guests used a shared bathroom/shower room.  There was a very small restaurant attached to the hotel.  You ordered your food in the restaurant and they would bring the food to you in the lobby.  I thought the hotel was very cool.  I’m not sure Mary was convinced. 

One of the first things we decided to do was to take a canal cruise. We were tired from the flight and it was cold and raining, so the idea of sitting in a covered, heated boat did not sound like a bad idea. Ken and Greg found a bench to wait while the women figured out how to secure the tickets for the tour.

The cruise was enjoyable. We were able to see some of the sights of Amsterdam, while a guide gave us a lot of interesting information about the city.  After the cruise, we stopped at a restaurant to try the Dutch Apple Pie. 

Mary really wanted to visit a tulip farm.  We had scheduled the Kukenhof tour, but Mary had mentioned that she wanted to be able to ask the tulip farmers all about how to grow tulips. Since the Kukenhof tour was very large, I did not think she would have that opportunity on that tour.  I found a private tour on a family owned tulip farm. It was called Tulpenexcursie.  The farm was located outside of Amsterdam in a town called Slootdorf. 

We left the next day to go on this tour. We had to take a train, then a bus, and then the owner was going to pick us up and take us to the farm.  We managed the train, but we missed the bus.  There was not another bus going to Slootdorf in time for us to make the tour.  We ended up taking a very long, very expensive Uber ride to Slootdorf.  We found the owner (the farmer’s wife) and she gave us a ride to the farm.  We were the only guests on that day, so we got a very private tour.  We were served coffee/tea and some delicious desserts.

Then we went on the tour.  Mary had a wonderful day.  The private tour allowed her to ask all questions she wanted.

I am not a gardener-in fact, plants come to my house to die-but we all had a great time. It was very interesting.  We learned how the tulips were grown, harvested, and prepared for selling. 

We learned how the family farm works and enjoyed learning about a family owned business in Amsterdam.  This business hires young people who live and work on the farm during tulip season. 

The next day, we all went on the Keukenhof tour.  We booked the Windmills and Countryside tour in the morning, and the Keukenhof Excursion in the afternoon.  The tour bus took us to both tours.  The Windmills and Countryside tour included visiting the fishing village Volendam, where we visited a cheesemaker and we bought some very good cheese. Mary, Vicki and I learned how to make stroopwafels. Greg and Ken found a bench. 

We visited Marken, a small seaside village,

where we watched a traditional clog maker making shoes.

We saw the windmills in Zaanse Schans.

It was very cold and very windy, but we still had a wonderful time. 

In the afternoon, we were taken to the Keukenhof gardens.  Flowers, flowers and more flowers. 

I thought Mary might just start to skip through the flowers.  Wait.  I’m pretty sure I did see her skip a time or two. 

The men found a bench.  Vicki and I stuck it out with Mary looking at the flowers. I looked at a LOT of flowers for being a non-gardener. 

The trip had been going very well so far. However, I had started to develop a cough and body aches.  But that didn’t slow me down.  I was not going to miss anything on this trip.

We visited Anne Frank’s House. This was high on my list of things I wanted to do.  I had been fascinated by Anne Frank’s story since junior high school.  We visited the Rijksmuseum to see the Vermeer exhibit and other art. 

I have a confession-I knew nothing about Vermeer’s art.  I did my usual museum routine-I walked around for a while, trying to look like I was cultured, and then I saw that Greg had found a bench, and I joined him. We also visited the Van Gogh Museum.  I really enjoyed this museum.  I am familiar with some of Van Gogh’s art, so I didn’t have to fake it as much. 

I had read about this bike path outside of Amsterdam near a town called Eindhoven, which was Van Gogh’s hometown.  The artist Dan Roosegaarde created a bike path based on Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. The path contains thousands of twinkling colored lights that are charged by daylight and then at night, the stones display parts of the Starry Night painting. We would have to take the train to get to Eindhoven, and we were not able to work this in before we left Amsterdam. We were coming back to Amsterdam at the end of the trip, so I still had hope that we would be able to visit this path.

Before we left Amsterdam, we needed to do some laundry.  I have really been working on minimalist packing. One of the tips I regularly see is to pack half of the clothes you need, do laundry about midway through the trip, and wear those clothes again.  I did not manage good minimalist packing this trip.  I took my Cotopaxi backpack.  It has a large zippered section on one side, and three smaller zippered sections on the other side.  I used packing cubes and stuffed a lot into this backpack.  It was SO heavy. I looked like a turtle, walking through the airport, hunched over, with this overstuffed backpack on my back. Greg, who is much better at minimalist packing, had gone through most of his clothes and needed the laundromat.  Mary and I set out on our last morning in Amsterdam to find a laundromat, lugging our bags of dirty clothes.  Mary was very unsure about this adventure.  I had googled laundromats and I found one that was not too far from our hotel.  Mary wanted to Uber.  Mary, Mary, Mary.  You should know me better than that by now.  Why Uber when we can walk and experience the neighborhood?  Mary expressed her reservations most of the way to laundromat.  It didn’t seem like the best neighborhood.  But we found the laundromat, managed to figure out the machines and the correct money, and ended up with clean clothes. And we were not mugged, which was a concern of Mary’s. I’m sure there were a lot of people on the streets of Amsterdam waiting to mug two American ladies and steal all of our dirty clothes.  

We lugged our bags of clean clothes back to the hotel and prepared to take the train to Bruges, Belgium.

We had booked rooms in Bruges at Hotel Dukes Palace. Mary picked this place. 

She thought she needed some luxury after she had tolerated staying in a room called Poison Ivy.  The hotel was very nice and it was very close to the center of the city.  We arrived at night, had a nice dinner, and got some rest.  I coughed my way through the night, and by the next morning, I knew I was going to have to get some medicine if I was going to make it through this trip. I asked a person at the hotel desk for a recommendation for a doctor.  I called the number they gave me and made an appointment. After breakfast, Greg and I set out on foot to find this doctor.  Turns out, looking for a doctor’s office is a good way to see part of a city you might not otherwise see.  We finally found the office.  It was in a residential area and looked like a house, so it was a little hard to find. There was no receptionist, so we just sat in the waiting room and hoped someone would see us before long.  After waiting for about 20-30 minutes, a man came to the entry and called my name.  He took us into a room that had a desk, but no examining table or anything that really looked medical.  I thought maybe it was bookkeeping and they were going to take care of the billing first.  Nope.  The man was the doctor.  He sat behind the desk, asked me some questions about my symptoms, then asked me to stand up.  I thought maybe we were going to go into an examination room. Nope again. The doctor walked over, he listened to my chest, and he looked in my throat, nose and ears. I’m not sure I’ve ever been examined while standing up before.  Then he went back around to his desk, wrote three prescriptions and took my money.  That was an interesting doctor’s visit. We found the pharmacy, left the prescriptions, and went to find Mary, Ken and Vicki. 

We all took a bus tour of Bruges, called City Bus Tours.  It was a good way to see the city in the one day we had.  The buses arrive every 30 minutes in the Market Square and tour around the city. 

After the bus tour, we walked around the Market Square, shopping for souvenirs and buying chocolate, of course. 

Then Greg and I headed back to the pharmacy to get my medicine.  The doctor had prescribed an inhaler, an antibiotic and some medicine to help with the cough.  Luckily, the doctor had written the dosage instructions for each medicine, because the names of the medicines and the instructions on the bottles/boxes were in Dutch. One of the boxes had Braille on it, but since my Braille is about as good as my Dutch, that was not helpful at all. Oh well.  I guess I didn’t need to know exactly what I was taking.  As long as it made me feel better, I didn’t really care what it was.  I have to say-the cough medicine was very effective.  The instructions were to take the cough medicine only at night. I should have known that there was something very strong in those pills.  About 15 minutes after taking the pills, my arms started tingling and I felt like I was sinking into the bed.  Vicki translated the ingredients on the bottle label the next day.  The medicine had codeine in it.  That explains a lot.  But I slept very well and hardly coughed all night.

The next morning, we took the train to Aachen, Germany.  We checked into our hotel, Hotel 3 Konige, which translates to Three Kings. The hotel was very close to the sights of Aachen.  We dropped off our luggage in our rooms, and we went to see the sights.  We went to Katschhof Square.  Katschhof Square is known for being the inner courtyard of Charlemagne’s palace.  It is the connection point City Hall and the Aachen Cathedral. 

We watched some street performers, Mary and Ken danced to one of the songs, and we visited several of the most popular sites. 

Later that day, we went to Drielandenpunt, which translates to “Three Country Point.”  It is also the highest point in the Netherlands. There is a monolith at the point where the borders of Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium meet.  If you stand in a particular spot, you can stand in all three countries at the same time.

There is a playground and a restaurant. There are hiking trails. I couldn’t resist getting on a trail for at least a little while.

There was an observation tower.  Mary and I climbed the tower.  We are the first two-you can see my white hat.

No one else was willing to try it.  There were a LOT of stairs. But the climb was worth it.  Greg and Ken waited on a bench.

You can see the three countries from different sides of the tower.  I wish I could identify which country is which, but I don’t remember.

There was also a labyrinth. 

I didn’t think the labyrinth was a great activity for someone with no sense of direction, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. There were clues to help to find the correct paths to take.  The labyrinth had spontaneous spouting water walls.  You had to time it just right to get through the walls without getting wet.  It was cold that day (actually it was cold the whole time we were on this trip), so the last thing I wanted was to have wet feet or wet clothes.  Sometimes one or two of us could get through, but if another person tried to get through, they would get soaking wet.  Mary and I went through one of these water walls, with Vicki behind us.  I turned around and told Vicki to go ahead and go through.  I swear I thought it was safe for her to go through.  There was no ill intention at all on my part.  But Vicki got soaked….  The fact that I was laughing so hard I could hardly stand did not help my case, but I really did not intend for Vicki to get soaked by the water.  Her reaction, which included angrily screaming my name, indicated that she definitely blamed me for the soaking.  I think maybe she has forgiven me by now, but I can’t be sure.

The next morning, we had to leave Germany and take the train back to Amsterdam so we could catch our flight the next day.  I still really wanted to go to Eindhoven to see the Starry Night bike path.  The rest of the group tried to convince me that we did not have time, but I became kind of stubborn.  I really wanted to go, and the group finally gave in.  We took the train to Eindhoven and found the bike path.  We arrived before dark, so we walked around on the path until it started getting dark. Greg and Ken were really excited to be there, in the cold, waiting for it to get dark. They couldn’t think of anywhere else they would rather be.

Then the path started to sparkle.  It was pretty cool.  

We spent some time with the sparkling rocks, and then caught the train back to Amsterdam. 

We had booked rooms at a hotel near the airport.  We arrived at the hotel around 11:00 pm. Vicki checked in, Greg and I checked in, and then Ken and Mary tried to check in.  They were told there were no more rooms.  We were confused.  They had reservations.  How could they not have a room?  The hotel staff said they had overbooked, so they had given Ken and Mary’s room away.  It was late, we were tired, and Greg…let’s just say, the staff had no problem understanding how he felt about the situation.  While Greg was making his feelings known, I called another hotel and found rooms for us.  The rooms were over twice the price, but at least everyone now had a bed to get a few hours of sleep.  We could walk to the airport from this hotel.  When I told the first hotel that I wanted to cancel our reservation, they told me I couldn’t. Completely frustrated, we left the first hotel and went to the other hotel to get some sleep.  I wasn’t giving up easily though.  I contacted the corporate office of the first hotel, and after a few weeks, they refunded my money.  The next morning, we took our very early morning flight home. 

Tips:

  1. We booked the tour to Keukenhoff through www.tours-tickets.com.
  2. If you’re interested in the tour with the family owned tulip farm, go to www.tulipexcursion.com.
  3. Book a canal cruise by going to amsterdamcanalcruisesnl.  There are many activities that can be booked on this website.  We choose the City Canal Cruise.
  4. Luckily, there are usually plenty of benches in tourist areas. I think Greg and Ken found them all.
  5. Tickets for the Van Gogh museum can be found at www.vangoghmuseum.nl.
  6. Tickets for the Rijksmuseum can be found at www.rijksmuseum.nl.
  7. Tickets for the Anne Frank House can be found at www.annefrank.org.
  8. These are the hotels where we stayed: Hotel Not Hotel at www.hotelnothotelamsterdam.com, Hotel Dukes Palace at hoteldukespalace.com, and Hotel 3 Konige at www.h3k-aachen.de.
  9. It is free to walk the grounds at Three Country Point, but there is a fee for the labyrinth. There is also a small fee to climb the observation tower. Tickets can be purchased on site.
  10. If you have more tech skills than I do, I suggest labeling your pictures of the three countries that are seen from the tower at Three Country Point. It would be really nice to know which country is which.
  11. I recommend the bike path in Eindhoven. The rest of the group was not as invested in seeing this as I was, and I kind of threw a little tantrum to get my way, but everyone admitted it was worth it. They may have had second thoughts when we found out the hotel had given one of our rooms away because we arrived so late. So far, no one has directly said they blame me, but I may have sensed a little something…..I still say seeing the sparkling bike path was way more fun than sitting in an airport hotel for the entire evening.

The Halls Fall in Love with Scotland

I belong to this great group called Wanderful.  This is a women’s travel community that supports women travelers, creators, and business owners.  One of the things they offer is what they call “global meet ups.” They pick a place somewhere in the world, book a block of rooms at a hotel or a hostel, and plan one group activity a day. The rest of the time, the women are free to plan their own activities.  The meetups are typically Thursday-Sunday.  I have had the opportunity to attend several of these meetups.    

In September, 2023, the global meetup was in Edinburgh, Scotland.  We decided to plan our family vacation around the meetup.  My daughter, Sarah, my daughter-in-law, Kelly, and I attended the meetup.  The rest of my family was coming in on Sunday, after the meetup, and we were planning to spend another week in Scotland for our family vacation. 

Sarah, Kelly and I left on Wednesday to travel to Edinburgh.  When we boarded the plane, we were informed that all the overhead luggage space was taken, and we would have to check our bags.  Several hours later, we arrived in Edinburgh and went to baggage claim to get our bags.  I saw a backpack that was the same color as mine, but I didn’t think it was mine because it was torn up.  I waited for my bag to show up.  It never did.  The torn up backpack continued to go around and around the carousel.  I finally realized the backpack was mine.  There were burn marks on the bag,

the zipper was frayed, a hole had been ‘”chewed” in the bag, and two of the straps had been shredded so that I could not even put the bag on my back to carry it. 

What was going on in that cargo hold?  I googled cargo holds.  The internet said cargo holds were fireproof and temperature controlled (apparently not), and they can hold animals. There must have been a huge, slobbering, growling, fire breathing dog, chewing on my bag and tossing it around, like a giant dog toy. 

The first few days went fairly smoothly.  Probably because the Halls were not in charge of this part of the vacation, since it was the Wanderful global meetup.  We stayed in a hostel near the Edinburgh castle. We visited the Edinburgh castle, which was very near the hostel.

We went to the market, and we made backpacks/purses at a bagmaking class. 

We went to a whiskey tasting. Other than an occasional glass of wine, I’m not a big drinker, so I tried to hide the involuntary shudder that happened with each tasting.  I did enjoy the chocolate though. There were some other little snacks provided after the tasting.  Which is a good thing, because apparently, I was starving my pregnant daughter-in-law.  As I have mentioned in previous stories, food is not really my focus when I travel.  I tend to get caught up in the activities and kind of forget about meals.  My son, Ryan, sent me a text from the US, telling me to please feed his wife.  She was hungry, but she didn’t want to say anything.  I made sure she had plenty of opportunities to eat after that. 

We went on a tour of Mary Kings close.  We took the tour called the The Real Mary Kings Close Women’s History Tour.  This is a tour that celebrates the women of the closes and how they shaped the history of the city of Edinburgh.  Mary Kings Close was a “haven for independent women.”  Forty five percent of the properties on the street were owned or run by women, which was unusual for the 17th century.  To be honest, I just went because it was a scheduled event. I didn’t even know what a “close” was.  But I’m glad I went.  I really enjoyed it.  Here is a picture of the group of Wanderful women, plus our tour guides.

We hiked to Arthur’s Seat.  Arthur’s Seat is an ancient, extinct volcano.  It is the main peak of a group of hills that form Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. At the top, there is a great panoramic view of the city.

We went on a tour of the city. This tour was unique.  This tour company, called Invisible Cities, trains people who have been homeless to become walking tour guides.  The tour was called Real Women of Edinburgh tour.  There were several women from the meetup who went on this tour.  We walked through the streets of Edinburgh, with our guide leading us and telling us stories about significant women in Edinburgh’s history. At an intersection, we heard a firetruck siren.  Part of the group had already crossed the street, but the rest of us had to wait for the firetruck to pass.  I stepped out into the street, forgetting that in the UK, they DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD!! I heard the firetruck horn blaring and I was looking for the truck to show up on the other side of the road.  Turns out, the horn was blaring at me! I was standing right in the path of the firetruck, because the firetruck was DRIVING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD! After I got over the shock of almost being run over by a firetruck, I felt completely humiliated.  Here I was, with this group of well traveled, confident, solo women travelers, and I had almost been run down by a firetruck because of my own stupidity. I hung my head, crossed the street, and was promptly reprimanded by our tour guide.  I wanted to crawl into the gutter. It didn’t help that Sarah and Kelly were laughing so hard, they could hardly walk.  So glad to have been able to provide a little comedic entertainment. 

The drawing below was done by one of the employees of Invisible Cities.

The rest of my family-Greg, Ryan, and Ally- arrived on Sunday, and we started our family vacation.  I had planned a very busy schedule, as usual.  We were planning to spend a few more days in Edinburgh before leaving to see some other parts of the country. I had booked an Airbnb in Edinburgh.  The owner of the apartment was an author and had left copies of the book in the apartment to purchase.  We thought that was pretty cool, so, of course we bought a few copies of the book.  We really enjoyed exploring the Royal Mile, and walking up and down Victoria Street. Victoria Street is said to be the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter.

We found some great restaurants, and we did some shopping.  This is what Greg would look like in a kilt.  He did not buy the kilt.  I think that was best. 

We rented a van and left Edinburgh.  Kelly had bought Ryan a 5ft. x 5ft. plot of land in Scotland for Christmas, making him a Lord in Scotland. 

We were on a mission to find Lord Ryan’s land.  We put the coordinates in the GPS and set out to find the land.  Greg started out driving.  Did I mention they drive on the other side of the road in Scotland?  Maybe at our age, our brains are less flexible, but Greg had a hard time remembering this fact as well.  The trip to find the land was a little scary.  I’m not sure we were even on a road the whole time.  We finally found the place where we thought the land was.  Kelly had bought Lord Ryan a little rock, and we all signed our names on the rock.  Lord Ryan placed it under a little tree on his land. Hopefully, it’s still there.

Ryan took over the driving.  This is not intended to be an insult to Greg, but since Ryan is younger, I’m thinking his brain was more flexible.  He adjusted very quickly to driving on the other side of the road, and the ride became much less scary. 

Our next stop was Peebles.  I had booked rooms at the Barony Castle.  It is a 16th century castle that has been turned into a hotel, conference and wedding venue. It’s on the southern border of Scotland, in the town of Peebles. Peebles is on the River Tweed.

It was Ally’s birthday and I wanted to make the day special.  The Barony Castle advertised a delicious dinner and a spa. What a great birthday surprise!  A nice dinner and a massage.  When we arrived, they told us the spa was closed.  Of course it was.  We settled for walking the grounds of the castle and posing for some pictures. 

We discovered some sheep on the property next to the hotel. I wanted to get up closer to the sheep to get a better picture.  I seriously considered climbing the fence, but I was afraid there might be a sheep dog that would not appreciate my intrusion. 

Plus, Lord Ryan discouraged the idea.  I don’t think he wanted to have to jump the fence to rescue his mom.  He probably thought that would be undignified behavior for a Lord.  We did have a really nice birthday dinner for Ally in the hotel restaurant. 

We left the next day to continue our adventure. We were very close to the border of England, and Kelly had never been to England, so we crossed the border and went to a little town in England called Berwick-upon-Tweed. Berwick-upon-Tweed is a historic town in Northumberland, England, located just south of the Scottish border. The River Tweed enters the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed.  They were having some sort of a little festival, so we walked around the town, visited a lighthouse, and grabbed a little lunch.  It was a nice little spontaneous stop.  

We continued on to reach the Airbnb in Nairns.  The house was near the beach.  Nairns is located on the Moray Firth, a large sea inlet of the North Sea.  Since we had made our spontaneous stop, we were running a lot later than we had planned.  The kids had tucked me and Greg in the back seat, turned up the music, and taken control of the van. 

As we were driving in the dark, a large hare started running in the road ahead of the van.  Ryan tried honking and trying to scare the hare out of the road.  The hare was certainly scared, but it just kept running in front of the van, rather than getting off the road.  Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands.  She told Ryan to stop the van.  I was protesting from the back of the van.  Somehow, I didn’t think running after a hare on the road in the dark was a good idea.  But what did I know. Sarah did manage to scare the hare out of the road, but I’m afraid that hare may never be the same again.

We finally made it to our Airbnb in Nairns, without running over any hares or any other Scottish critter.

We got up the next morning to take a walk on the beach. 

Then we set out to go to Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye.  We stopped at a gas station in Nairns, and Greg and Ryan got out to put some gas in the van.  They loaded back up and off we went.  We had been driving for several minutes when we heard a clunking sound.  That didn’t seem right.  Then the van wouldn’t accelerate.  That was not good.  Ryan pulled over and Greg called the rental company.  He told the guy on the phone about the clunking sound and the stalling of the van.  Somehow, the man immediately knew to ask what kind of fuel we put in the van.  When Greg told him they had put regular fuel in the van, the man, sighing very loudly, informed Greg that the van took diesel fuel.  Oops. The man told Greg that he would come pick him up, tow the van, and take Greg to the rental agency to get a new van.  However, he only had room for one person.  So the rest of us got out of the van and began to walk the rest of the way to Inverness. 

Ryan was not happy about the situation.  He was mad at himself for putting the wrong kind of gas in the van, even though we had tried to convince him that it was not his fault.  It was a while before he got over it. 

We finally made it to Inverness. Inverness is the capital of the Scottish Highlands and is the closest city to Loch Ness. The area on the way to Loch Ness had several restaurants and shops, so it wasn’t a bad place to walk around. We set on the path to Loch Ness.  Ryan was hoping to see the Loch Ness Monster….  We didn’t get to see the monster.  We couldn’t even figure out how to get down to the lake.  We considered running through the grass to the edge of the lake, maybe spinning around with our arms out, like we were in the Sound of Music, but it looked like we would drop right into the lake if we went past the line of trees.

We decided we better stay on the path.  It looked like maybe there was access to the lake on the other side, but by that time we had been walking for several hours, and no one wanted to walk all the way around the lake, knowing we would have to walk all the way back.  Besides, what if Ryan’s wish of seeing the monster came true and one of us was snatched off the side of the lake and eaten by the Loch Ness monster?! We were able to see some Highland cows up close, so that was fun.

At that point, we really weren’t sure where Greg was.  We had left him on the side of the road, by himself, in a foreign country, hoping some stranger from a rental agency would pick him up.  In hindsight, that doesn’t sound very caring or responsible, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea. We walked back to town.  Good news.  The rental agency guy did pick up Greg and he gave Greg a new van.  We found him walking toward us as we came back from Loch Ness. We bought some ice cream, go in the new van that was filled with diesel fuel, and continued on our way to Isle of Skye. 

Driving to the Isle of Skye took a little longer than we had planned.  The Isle of Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides. We finally made it.  Greg decided he would stay with the van rather than take the hike to the Fairy Pools.  The rest of us hiked down to see the Fairy Pools.  It was so much fun and it was so beautiful! 

After the hike, we were all starving. I’m not naming names, but some of us were hangry. 

We loaded back up in the van and went in search of a restaurant.  Unfortunately, most of the restaurants on Isle of Skye were closed for the evening.  We did find a pizza restaurant that was still open.  We excitedly went to the door, only to be turned away because their kitchen was closing.  We ended up eating really bad gas station food for dinner.  Yuck.  But it was better than dealing with the unnamed hangry people in the van.

We got up the next morning and drove back to Edinburgh, where we stayed the night at a hotel near the airport so we could catch our flights the next day.  We all had a wonderful time, and most of us decided Scotland was one of our favorite trips.

Tips:

  1. I had never considered staying in a hostel.  I always had the impression that they were only for young travelers. I thought by staying in a hostel, you would have to sleep on dirty pillows and cots, running the risk of bed bugs and lice.  But since attending the Wanderful meetups, I have a whole new outlook on hostels.  If you do your research, you can find some very nice hostels.  The hostels where we have stayed for the meetups have been very clean and have very nice accommodations.  They have a friendly atmosphere, with places for groups to gather, or where you can work or make travel plans.  The cost is very reasonable. I would definitely consider a hostel stay if traveling alone or with other adults. 
  2. For those of you who do not know what a “close” is, here is a definition.  The closes are narrow, steep streets or pathways that branch off the main streets off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The closes had homes, shops and other businesses.  If interested in booking a tour, you can go to bookings.realmarykingsclose.com/book to find their complete list of bookings. 
  3. THEY DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD IN THE SCOTLAND!!!
  4. One thing I did not get to do is a multiday hike in the highlands.  I really wanted to do this, but I could not find a guiding service when I was planning the trip.  This year, I worked with WHOA travel adventure group to plan a hiking trip in Scotland in 2026.  WHOA has many adventure trips available for women.  However, I knew there was no way I could go on a hiking adventure in Scotland without Ryan.  I contacted WHOA, and found out that they plan private trips as well.  So in September of 2026, my kids (including my grandson, Remy, who will be almost three at that time) and I are going to do a multiday hike in the Scotland highlands!  If you are interested in joining a group of women for an awesome adventure, check out the choices at whoatravel.com.  There is contact information on their website if you are more interested in a private trip. 
  5. If you are going to eat on the Isle of Skye, plan to eat early.  The restaurants close early there. 
  6. Check out sheswanderful.com if you are interested in joining an amazing community of women who love to travel.  They have so many things to offer, whether you are a creator, business owner, or just love to travel. 
  7. Be sure to check the little sticker where you put the gas nozzle on a vehicle when you are in a foreign country.  It will save a lot of time and money.
  8. The airline did reimburse me for my bag. It took some effort and persistence, but they reimbursed me in full for the cost of my bag.
  9. Watch out for hares when you’re driving at night in Scotland. Apparently, they would rather race a vehicle than jump off to the side of the road. That is, until Sarah gets out to chase them.

Going West-with a teen, pre-teens, and a budget

In 2004, Greg and I decided we wanted to take our family on a vacation out west.  Greg’s brother, Mark, lives in Missoula, Montana, so we planned to add a visit with his family to our itinerary.  We didn’t have a lot of money in our travel budget-well, let’s be honest, we didn’t have much money in any area of our budget. I actually had a lot of fun planning this trip.  It was a challenge figuring out how we could do the things we wanted to do with the money we had, and I enjoyed the challenge. Places on our agenda included Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Mount Rushmore National Park, and Glacier National Park.  Looking back, that sounds like a rigorous schedule with three kids.  Ally was a teenager (14 years old, and very good at it),

Sarah was 12 years old and Ryan was 10 years old.

We opted to drive.  We had a lot of places we wanted to go, so driving our own van would be much less expensive than flying out there and renting a car.  We thought it would be very educational for the kids to drive across the country and see all the sights.  Greg planned the route.  Which was a good thing.  I can get lost in my own house.

I booked rooms in lower cost hotels.  I wanted clean, but low cost. I also had to make sure the hotels had rollaway beds available, because after spending all day in a minivan together, we wanted to make sure we continued the close, family togetherness by stuffing all five of us in a single room with two double beds, one rollaway, and one bathroom.

I started my research on entry fees into the parks and any other costs that might come up.  We talked to Mark and scheduled our visit with him and his family.  We booked a rafting trip in Glacier National Park. 

I started collecting things for the kids to do on the trip.  I started buying new books to read, movies to watch, crossword puzzles and word searches.  We had a DVD player in the van.  The kids took turns picking the movie to watch.  Ryan almost always picked the Bigfoot documentary. Although he really liked Bigfoot (he still does), I think he repeatedly chose that movie mostly to aggravate the girls.

One of the biggest expenses on a family trip is food.  To cut the cost of food, we brought along a cooler packed with our own food rather than eating at restaurants for every meal. I packed juice, milk, muffins, poptarts and cereal for breakfast when breakfast was not provided at the motel.  I packed bread, peanut butter & jelly, lunch meat, cheese, chips and fruit for lunches.  We ate a lot of lunches at rest stops, so the kids could get out and run around a little.  About a week before we left for the trip, I cooked taco meat, fried chicken and Italian beef and froze them in containers.  I took the crock pot and all of the condiments and sides.  We ate the chicken one night on the road.  One morning, I put the taco meat in the crockpot at the hotel, and when we got back in the evening, we had tacos for dinner.  We did the same thing with the Italian beef.  I thought this was a great idea, and it mostly was, except the night of the Italian beef. The entire hallway smelled like Italian beef when we arrived back at our hotel.  We had leftovers on a couple of nights, and the rest of the time, we ate out for dinner. 

We packed a lot into our days.  Our first stops were in South Dakota.  We went to Wall Drugs.  Wall Drugs is known for 5 cent coffee and free ice water.  It has restaurants that are known for hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy and for homemade doughnuts, rolls, and pies. It has several gift shops. It has an area called “The Big Backyard,” where kids can play, with a splash pad, and a place to pan for gold and dig for treasure. Wall Drugs is a very popular spot to stop in South Dakota.  We happened to be at Wall Drug during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  There were motorcycles everywhere-on the road and at Wall Drugs.  It was fun, but it was very crowded. Sarah really got into the spirit of things.

The kids all bought a cowboy hat so they could feel like true Westerners. 

We stopped in the Badlands National Park.  The Badlands were beautiful.  The Badlands landscape includes buttes, canyons, pinnacles and spires.  There are fossils of several species. Wildlife includes antelope, bighorn sheep and deer.  The winters in the Badlands are cold and windy, and the summers are hot and dry.  The landscape often looks striped.  This is due to fossilized soil layers called paleosols.  The paleosols are red due to the high iron content. 

Ally actually smiled for this picture! 

We visited Mount Rushmore National Park. The faces of four presidents, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt, are carved into the mountain.  Each face is approximately 60 feet tall. The construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1941. Over 400 workers were involved and cost $989,922.32. Gutzon Borglum designed the carving and oversaw the project, and his son, Lincoln Borglum, assisted. The park was named after Charles E. Rushmore a New York lawyer, in 1885. The park includes a half-mile walking trail, a museum, a gift shop, and a dining room. The park is open year round. 

The kids were all thrilled to be at Mount Rushmore. 

Ryan is risking his life by touching Ally with his foot.  He was willing to take the risk to get the reaction. 

We continued on to the Teton National Park.  The Teton range is the youngest mountain range in the Rockies. The range was named by French-Canadian trappers. As they approached the range from the west, they saw three towering mountains and named them “Trois Tetons” which means “Three Breasts.” The Tetons have over 200 miles of hiking trails, several bodies of water for fishing, and backcountry camping areas. The Snake River is good for white water rafting, and the scenery is beautiful. Wildlife includes grizzly bears, black bears, bison, moose, elk, and pronghorn.

For those who know me, you will not be surprised that I still wear this sweatshirt. It is now over 20 years old.  

We rode the cable car to the top of the mountain.

I think we actually wore the kids out that day. 

For those of you of a more sensitive nature, I will apologize for the part of the story that follows. As mentioned in previous stories, we do not consider a trip an official family adventure until somebody throws up. And this trip was no exception.

I believe all moms have their own superpowers. One of my particular superpowers is the ability to immediately wake from a dead sleep to the sound of a child getting ready to puke. I would like to thank my three sensitive stomached children for giving me plenty of opportunities to refine this skill almost to perfection. It even works for the sound of a retching cat. Anyway…One night in the hotel, I suddenly woke up and knew Sarah was getting ready to throw up. I yelled, “Ally! Get out of the bed!” I knew that if anything coming out of Sarah got anywhere near Ally, we would have a real puke fest on our hands. Ally dove off the side of the bed and lay on the floor with her head covered, like a soldier in a foxhole. I leaped off my bed and flew over Ally with the speed and agility of Wonder Woman, grabbed the now puking Sarah, and rushed her to the bathroom, leaving a trail of vomit all the way to the bathroom. We called the front desk and got new bedding, a bucket and some bleach. We spent the next hour or so changing bedding, cleaning up vomit, and bleaching the bathroom. But we have never let a little vomit stop us. If we did, we would never get to do anything. By the next morning, everyone was up and ready to continue with the adventure.

The next day, we went to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Crow Agency, Montana. The monument is located within the Crow reservation and honors the Battle of Little Bighorn, which took place in 1876. The Battle of Little Bighorn is also know as Custer’s Last Stand. Custer’s Last Stand was a decisive Native American victory in the Great Sioux War on June 25-26, 1876. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong and all of his men were killed by Lakota and Cheyanne warriors.  

For the entire trip, Ryan had been hoping to see a mountain lion or a bear.  He looked for them everywhere-when we were driving, walking trails, visiting monuments.  We saw elk and buffalo, but no bears or mountain lions.  He finally settled for trying to sneak up on a rabbit. 

The rabbit was on to him. 

We visited Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the U.S. It sits on top of a dormant volcano. It has more geysers and hot springs than any other place on earth. One of the most popular geysers is Old Faithful. It erupts more frequently than any of the other large geysers. It has erupted every 44 minutes to two hours since 2000. It makes a sulfur smell that is unpleasant, but that does not stop millions of people, including us, from visiting it.

Yellowstone National Park is home to America’s largest buffalo herd, grizzly bears, elk, and wolves.

The scenery was beautiful.

We finally made it to Missoula, Montana to visit Greg’s brother, Mark.

We relaxed at the hotel pool, and we had a nice visit with Mark and his family.   

We took a day and drove to Glacier National Park, where we went white water rafting. 

As usual, Ally looks thrilled to be there.

Ryan was excited to be there.  He looks like he is plotting his strategy for aggravating his sisters on the raft.  Give a ten year old boy an oar and put him in some water near his sisters….the opportunities are endless. I don’t remember specifically, but I’m sure there was unwanted splashing, at the very least. 

I managed to get her to smile a little, but it definitely looks forced. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

Once we left Montana, we were headed home.  We drove from Missoula, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska in one day.  That was a LONG trip.  Sarah had the right idea. 

This was probably when Ryan was watching the Bigfoot documentary…again. 

When we arrived at our hotel at about midnight, they did not have our room ready.  I had booked this room prior to leaving on vacation, so it wasn’t as if we had just dropped in to see if they had a room available.  There were several young adults goofing around at the front desk and no one was getting our room ready.  Greg let them know how unacceptable this was, and they ended up getting us a room at another, nicer hotel.  I think they were scared. Greg can be a little intimidating when he is angry, especially late at night when he has been traveling for about 15 hours. We got up the next morning and drove the rest of the way home. It was a long road trip, but we visited a lot of places and were able to spend time with some family. I would call it a successful adventure.

Tips:

  1. This road trip was a good way to visit several US national parks. It gave us a good idea of some the places we would like to visit again for a longer period of time.
  2. At the time we took this trip, it was easy to enter national parks. You just paid the entrance fee and entered the park. It’s not currently quite as easy. Some parks require a pass or timed entry reservation. It is important to check before you go. You can find this information at recreation.gov.
  3. It is possible to travel with a family, even on a small budget. Cutting lodging costs and food costs will give you more money to spend on experiences. It’s very helpful to have a pretty solid plan before you go, but be flexible enough to enjoy spontaneous adventures.
  4. We gave each child their own souvenir money at the beginning of the trip. They were able to make their own decisions about what they wanted to buy, but we made it clear that this was a set amount. They did really well with making decisions about what they were going to buy.
  5. A ten year old boy never runs out of ways to aggravate his sisters, and he will use most of them on a long road trip.
  6. You can get 14 year old girls to smile for pictures. You just have to work at it a little harder.

Mt. LeConte…..With My Sister

We love Mt. LeConte in the Smoky Mountains.  We have hiked the mountain every fall since 2021.  If you have read all my stories, you may remember the first story was about our first hike on Mt. LeConte, and how I almost killed my husband.  This is another story about hiking Mt. LeConte, in 2024.  My sister, Shelly, joined us for this hike. 

I’m beginning to think that maybe I am not the one to take non-hikers on a hike.  There were some concerning similarities in the hike with my husband and the hike with my sister. 

Shelly is very active.  She likes to ride her bike, and she participates in several exercise classes every week.  But she doesn’t hike much.  When she said she would like to join us on the hike this time, I told her it might not be the best idea to start with this hike. The Alum Cave trail, which is the one we take, is a 2763 foot gain in elevation in 5.5 miles. But she wanted to go.  She had a few questions about the hike.  One question was “How long does the hike take?”  When I told her that the hike, up and back, would take about 5-7 hours, her next question was, “What do I do if I need to go to the bathroom?”  I told her there was a bathroom at the lodge at the top of the mountain, but if she needed to go while we were hiking, then she would need to squat behind a tree or a rock. She got a disgusted look on her face and said, “I’m not doing that.”  A few weeks later, she told me she had purchased a portable toilet to take on the hike. 

I told her she better get a backpack to carry the toilet, because it was not going in my backpack.  I bought her a Kula cloth (a reusable, antimicrobial pee cloth) for her birthday.  She found that disgusting too. 

We typically camp at the KOA in Pigeon Forge the night before and the night after our hike.  Kelly and Ryan have made the hike with me every year.  We all gathered at the KOA.  Remy, my grandson, who was nine months old at the time, was joining us on the hike this year too.

My husband, Greg, and Shelly’s husband, Aaron, were camping with us, but they were not going on the hike the next day.  Shelly called me over to their campsite and proudly held up her backpack she had bought to take on the hike.  It was camouflage and it was huge.  It was a hunter’s backpack, designed to hold guns, bows and arrows, but in this case it was going to hold a portable toilet.  This toilet…  It collapsed, but it was still big and it was heavy. 

There is not a rock or a tree big enough for me to be caught sitting bare butt on that thing.  It would be hard to be discreet while using that toilet. But she insisted on taking it, so there we were. 

We started out the next morning very early, before sunrise.  It is difficult to find parking at the Alum Cave trailhead, so you have to get there very early to get a space.  Plus, since we were hiking at the end of October, the days were getting shorter and we wanted to be back down the mountain and at the campsite before dark.  It was still dark when we started out on the hike, but it wasn’t too long before it started to get light.

As usual, the hike was beautiful and I was enjoying it very much. 

Shelly wasn’t too fond of the bridges, which looked like logs that had been cut in half lengthwise with a rail on one side, and she expressed her feelings at each bridge. 

The similarities between the hike with my husband and the hike with my sister were starting to emerge.  After a while, we began to hear comments, such as “Oh my gosh! How long is this hike?” and “There are more stairs?!” and “It’s so steep!”  These comments were very familiar.  We all decided it would be a good time to take a break.  As we were resting, I asked Shelly if she wanted something to eat.  She reported that it was not time for her to eat yet.  Shelly had been on a diet.  The diet required that she fast until a certain time in the morning.  I had told her she should not follow the diet that day, because she needed the calories for the hike. Apparently, she did not think that was good advice.  She had started out on this hike without eating anything. But I did finally convince her to eat a granola bar.  We continued the hike.  Shelly’s back was beginning to hurt because she was carrying this heavy toilet in her huge backpack. She finally decided the toilet was not worth the trouble.  She took the toilet out of her backpack and we hid it under some leaves, with the intention of picking it up on our way back down the mountain.  Kelly dropped a pin for the location so we would know where it was.  As Shelly was taking the toilet out of her backpack, we discovered she had also packed two glass bottles of tea, a few bottles of water, some protein bars, and a roll of toilet paper.  And by this time, she had also stuffed her coat, her sweatshirt, and her hat in the backpack. That was a lot of weight in that backpack.

We made it to Alum Cave.  We rested a while, and then continued the hike.  Shelly was getting very tired.  She was worried that she was not going to be able to make it. 

I offered to go back down the mountain with her, telling Kelly and Ryan that we would wait for them at the bottom.  (Greg had also told me that he did not think he was going to make it when he was doing the hike, but I did not offer to go back with him because we had reservations for the lodge. Priorities, you know).  Shelly very firmly told me that she was going to finish the hike because she had told people she was doing this hike.  Stubborn runs really strong in our family.

Other comparisons between the the hike with my husband and the hike with my sister: 

Greg                                                                Shelly

Stopped talking altogether                            Regularly commented on the conditions….

Experienced shoulder pain                            Had back pain due to the gigantic backpack

Significantly slowed pace as he tired            Significantly slowed pace as she tired

Vomited                                                         Cried

Reached destination after dark                     Reached destination after dark

Much happier going down the mountain    Much happier going down the mountain

We finally made it to the top of the mountain.  There were bathrooms… well… outhouses, for hikers to use.  I have to admit, the bathrooms were stinky.  Shelly expressed her opinion about the stinky outhouses.  But I think using a stinky outhouse with a door was still better than sitting on a portable toilet on the side of the trail. 

We went to the lodge to buy snacks and souvenirs.  We took some pictures to commemorate making it to the top. 

We rested for a while before heading back down the mountain.  Shelly seemed happier about the idea of going downhill.  She was convinced that would be easier.  But she still had the gigantic backpack. 

We started down the trail.  Shelly was moving pretty slowly.  I told Ryan and Kelly to go ahead and go to the parking lot.  Remy had been in the carrier most of the day, and I thought he needed to get out and move around.  They took off and Shelly and I continued down the trail.  Shelly was complaining that the backpack was hurting her back.  She took off the backpack and started carrying it in the front of her.  Then it was on one shoulder.  Then it was on the other shoulder.  Then it was around her neck. Then it was on her head. 

I offered to carry the backpack so we could move a little faster, but she refused to let me carry it. We looked for the toilet, but we could not find it.  We later found out that Ryan and Kelly had picked it up. People on the trail kept asking Shelly if she was ok as they passed us by.  I guess they weren’t used to seeing people carrying their backpack on their heads.  Pretty soon, we stopped seeing other people and it felt like we were the only ones on the trail.  I finally insisted on taking her backpack.  She was able to move faster without the backpack.  It started getting dark.  I told Shelly to start making some noise.  She asked me why.  I told her it was because I did not want to surprise a bear.  Her response was, “A bear?! There are bears?!”  Now, while my statement was mostly true, my reason for saying it was mostly to get Shelly moving a little faster.  And it worked.  We finally made it to the parking lot, found Kelly and Ryan, and headed back to the campground.  I called Greg once we had cell service and told him I thought we should order pizzas rather than try to cook at the campground in the dark. He insisted that we should cook the food we brought.  That was not what I wanted.  It had just taken us 12 hours to do a hike that usually takes about 5-7 hours.  But when we got to the campground, Greg had everything ready for us to eat.  We all had dinner, cleaned up, and went to bed.  I was very proud of Shelly for successfully completing the hike!

Tips:

  1. You may want to think twice about going with me on a hike if you’re not really a hiker.  It appears that I am not the person to show you a good time.
  2. Don’t fast before a hike.
  3. A portable toilet is not a good idea on a hike.
  4.  Nobody will steal a portable toilet hidden in the leaves on the Alum Cave trail at Mt. LeConte. And who would have really cared if they had?
  5. The Alum Cave Trail to Mt. LeConte is a great hike.  The views are beautiful, and the trail is very well maintained.  I highly recommend it. You can hike Mt. LeConte as a day hike, or you can stay the night at the lodge at the top.
  6. There are six trails that lead to the top of Mt. LeConte.  We have only hiked the Alum Cave Trail every year, but we plan to start hiking the other trails next year.  Alum Cave Trail is the shortest, but it is the steepest.  The other trails are Rainbow Falls Trail, Boulevard Trail, Trillium Gap Trail, Bullhead Trail, Brushy Mountain Trail.
  7. If you want to score a night at Mt. LeConte Lodge, visit their webpage, lecontelodge.com, and follow the directions.  Be sure to submit your email request during the submission period.  The reservation requests are for the following year.
  8. If you are considering a Kula cloth, you can buy them at REI stores. You can also go to their website at http://www.kulacloth.com. They sell more than just Kula cloths. They support Leave No Trace practices and sustainable adventures. They are actually a really cool company. If you subscribe, they offer webinars and all sorts of information about hiking, backpacking, and other outdoor adventures.

Italy-Our Family Vacation-Cinque Terre

I was so excited about spending time in Cinque Terre.  Cinque Terre is a group of five villages along the Italian Riviera coastline.  The villages are Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

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My friend, Amy, had been there before and she highly recommended it.  I was looking forward to a hotel on the beach, kayaking, and relaxing in a lounge chair after the last several days of frantic sightseeing. 

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Months in advance, I attempted to book a hotel room or an Airbnb in one of the villages of Cinque Terre.  There were none available for a group our size.  Cinque Terre is a very popular vacation spot for many people. 

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I finally found an Airbnb in La Spezia. La Spezia is a short train ride from Cinque Terre. The Airbnb was a boat! How cool would that be? The owner advertised that he would take his guests to Cinque Terre for an additional fee.  That sounded nice.  We could take the boat rather than the train, and what could be more fun than spending a few days living on a boat?  Spoiler alert. Lots of things could be more fun than spending time on THAT boat.  

We left Pisa and took the train to La Spezia.  I messaged the owner of the boat to make arrangements to meet him at the pier to start our adventure on the boat.  The boat was supposed to be available at 3:00 that afternoon, and it was close to 3:00 when I messaged him.  He messaged me back and told me he had taken some people out on his boat, and he would not be available until 6:00.  A little irritating, but we could handle that. We agreed to meet him at 6:00 at the marina.

We needed to do laundry, so we walked through the streets of La Spezia, pulling our luggage, and found a laundromat. We started several machines.  About an hour later, at approximately 4:00, the boat owner messaged me and said he was ready to meet us.  I told him we were in the middle of doing laundry and reminded him that he had told me to meet him at 6:00.  I told him we would try to hurry up and finish the laundry and I would message him when we were ready.  He called me about a half an hour later and rudely told me he could not wait for us much longer.  Let me get this straight….I booked the Airbnb, paid for it in full, arrived on the agreed upon time of 3:00, just to be told we could not have access to boat until 6:00 because he decided to make some extra money taking people out on his boat. Now, at 4:30, the owner is telling me that he cannot wait any longer for us to get to the boat because he decided that he is ready earlier than the agreed upon time of 6:00. Did I have this correct? I reminded him again that he had told us 6:00. I’m pretty sure I was gritting my teeth when I said it. 

We hurriedly tried to finish the laundry.  We could not seem to find a taxi, so we hurried through the town of La Spezia, on their cobblestone streets, with all of our luggage, to get to the marina. We finally arrived at the marina and met the boat owner and his wife. I introduced myself, but he chose to talk to my husband, Greg, rather than me. I had booked the boat, made all of the arrangements, and paid the bill, but he did not address me at all.  Then before we knew what was happening, he had put my husband Greg, and my son Ryan, and their luggage, in his air-conditioned car, while the rest of us, all female, were expected to continue walking to the pier, behind the car, pulling our luggage. It was very hot, and we were very tired, so by the time we arrived at the boat, I was beyond angry. In his defense, I can sort of understand why the owner did not want me seated behind him in the car, with access to the back of his head. 

We finally reached the boat. We gathered in the seats at the front of the boat to get our instructions from the owner. 

They served us some fruit and then gave us information/instructions:

  1. Do not use the bathroom on the boat. 

Who books an Airbnb and does not expect to use the bathroom on the premises? We were told we were expected to walk down to the bathrooms at the end of the pier to go to the bathroom and shower.  The public bathrooms were clean, but there were no curtains or doors on the showers, resulting in very fast, very uncomfortable showers.

2. It will cost 100 euros per person to take the boat to Cinque Terre.

By the way, we couldn’t actually get off the boat to explore the villages of Cinque Terre. We could just wave at them as we boated by.  When I declined, he acted insulted.

3. He would bring breakfast to us in the mornings.

We had to agree on a small window of time to have breakfast the next day.  When we told him that we would be leaving very early on the second morning, he informed us that he would not be providing breakfast that early.  Even though that was included in the price I paid for the Airbnb. 

As he was giving us these instructions, he did not look at me one time.  Maybe he was unsettled by the daggers shooting out of my eyes.  The owner finally left the boat. We began to inspect the boat, what there was of it.  From the front of the boat, there were a few steep stairs to the kitchen/dining area. There was a tiny bathroom, which of course, we could not use.  The kitchen/dining area was so small, our suitcases barely fit.  The sleeping areas were four tiny spaces in the wall, maybe the size of a twin bed. These spaces were supposed to hold two people. There was barely enough room for one full sized person. The boat had no air conditioning, at least none that the owner told us about. If there had been air conditioning, the owner probably would have told us we could not use it.  The looks on everyone’s faces were….well, let’s just say, the looks were not saying, “We are so excited that you found this boat, Mom!” We were hungry, so we went to the marina to have dinner at one of the restaurants.  We went back to the boat, shuffled sideways around our luggage, wedged ourselves in our little bunks, and proceeded to sweat through the night.  The good thing was, we were so dehydrated from sweating that no one had to get up during the night and walk down the pier in the dark to go to the bathroom. 

The next day, we walked to the train station and took the train from La Spezia into Cinque Terre.  I wanted to hike between the five villages, but since the temperature was going to be close to 100 degrees that day, no one volunteered to join me.  We took the train from village to village instead.

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We all wanted to start at different villages, so the girls went one direction, Ryan and Kelly went another direction, and Greg and I went to another village, with plans to meet in one of the villages for dinner later that day. We did meet up with Ryan and Kelly in one village, had lunch, and spent some time on the beach. It was very hot and crowded, but we all had a really good time exploring the villages. 

There were shops, lots of gelato, beautiful views of the rugged coastline and Mediterranean Sea, and colorful houses stacked on cliffs.  It was a really fun day.

We met for dinner and then took the train back to La Spezia.  We were really tired and did not feel like walking, so I called for a taxi, requesting a van, to get back to the marina.  Our van arrived, but before we could get into the taxi, another family-it appeared to be a dad, mom, and two teenage kids- started to get in the taxi. Or I should say started getting in OUR taxi.  We told them that we had called for this taxi, but the man just told his family to get in the van.  The teenage daughter told her dad that this was our van, but he would not listen and kept telling his family to get in the van. What we wanted to do was reach in there and pull that jerk out of the van by his ear.  What we did was stand there with dumbfounded looks on our faces, watching the taxi drive away with the other family in it.  I tried calling for another taxi, but the taxi company did not answer.  We were hot, sweaty, tired, and now we had to walk, again, to the marina.  I don’t think anyone said a word.  We made it to the pier, went to the boat, got our things and walked down the pier to take very quick, very uncomfortable showers. In the girls’ shower rooms, we took turns being lookouts for the person in the shower.  I’m not sure what we would have done if someone had come in. We hadn’t come up with a secret code work or anything.  I guess we would have just yelled something like, “cover up!” or “grab your towel!” Anyway, we managed to clean up, wedge ourselves in our bunks, and attempt to sleep one more night on this incredible Airbnb find. 

We had to get up before dawn the next morning to get to the train station and go back to Rome.  Ryan and Kelly were leaving to go home that day, so we had to get them to the airport.  I tried to call a taxi to take us from the marina to the train station.  No luck.  So we walked (again) to the train station instead. We got on the train and started back to Rome. I was checking and double checking the time, and we had plenty of time to make it to the airport.  Okay.  Everything was going to be okay.  Then, the train stopped.  An announcement was made that there was a breakdown on the train and we had to change trains.  We gathered our luggage, got off the train, waited for another train, and boarded that train.  We sat there for a while.  Shouldn’t we be moving? Toward Rome? Toward the airport? After a long wait, there was another announcement.  The first train had been repaired and we needed to get back on the original train.  We gathered our luggage, got off the new train, and got back on the first train.  We finally started moving and were again on our way to the airport. We no longer had plenty of time to get to the airport.  We were barely going to make it to the airport on time for Ryan and Kelly to make their flight. I was on the edge of my seat the entire train ride.  We finally arrived at the airport.  I told the girls we were going to leave our luggage with them and I was going to go with Ryan and Kelly to find the security line for their flight.  Greg said he was going to go with us.  I told him we were planning to run, so he might want to stay with the girls.  Greg doesn’t like to run.  He insisted on going with us. Okey dokey.  We all grabbed some luggage, and we took off running.  I saw the American flag on a security line sign, threw the luggage at Kelly and Ryan, gave them a hug, and told them to get into that line.  Greg had kept up enough to be there in time to give them a quick hug before they got in the line.  I was very impressed.  They sent us a text a little later saying they had made it to their gate and were getting ready to board their plane.  I can’t believe they made it. 

Greg, the girls, and I spent one more night in Rome together.  We ate at a nice restaurant, and then the girls took an Uber to the airport early the next morning.  I had scheduled our flights so that Greg and I had one night together in Rome, just the two of us.  We spent time walking to a nice little restaurant near the Vatican, having some pasta, and just enjoying each other’s company.  It was a nice way to end the vacation.  

Tips:

  1. Cinque Terre is very crowded in the summer. You will want to book accommodations far in advance, especially if you are traveling in a larger group.
  2. When booking accommodations for Cinque Terre, avoid booking a “luxury boat” on Airbnb. It was not luxurious, and it was barely a boat.
  3. You will be amazed at how fast you can shower when you’re using a public shower with no doors or curtains on the shower.
  4. I have been accused of expecting my family to walk too much on vacations.  I have been told the same thing by co-workers when we go to conferences.  What is wrong with walking?  It gets you where you want to go, and it is a good way to see the area rather than whizzing by in a taxi or Uber. Not everyone agrees.
  5. Walking is a great way to see new places, despite what my family and co-workers say.
  6. Sometimes there are circumstances that cause people to have to walk rather than taking a taxi on vacations or conferences. Having to walk is not always my fault.
  7. When you call a taxi in La Spezia, be ready to jump in right away when it arrives. Otherwise, another family may steal your taxi.