Back From Vacationland

So we are home from a 6 week stay in Europe plus a long weekend in Tahoe. Wow, lawns are dry and dying in spots, garden isn’t overrun but plants are not thriving.

We had a housekeeper for part of the time we were gone but then she was just charging too much so we let her go. Fortunately, my granddaughter was here and did some basic cleaning. She lives here so it is reasonable to ask her to pick up the slack. She was good about having the house decent when we arrived home.

Probably the most difficult part of returning home after being gone on a vacation so long is no different than returning from a storm. We have no idea where we were in life when we left. So we have had to reassess what needed to be done.

One huge project is still the RV. The flooring has never been replaced from our water loss, the wallpaper trim has turned green from the reds it was originally, cushions are flat, couch is broken, and upholstery is dated and looks like something for old people.

Sorting thru photos is horribly time consuming. I have hundreds of photos on my phone and over 2,000 on my big camera. I came to the conclusion before this trip that no one would want to ever go thru all of my photos. Photos need to be gone thru and most deleted then print up the best.

Maybe I’ll get called for work and then can put off these chores.

3 Days and Counting Down

So 3 days and counting!

We have rented our cars. Since a car may only be rented for 28 days max, we have rented a 9 passenger van for 3 days. We will be able to fit all of us, including Belgium friends while we travel around Brussels. This van we prepaid so we even saved a little money.

We have rented a Peugeot SUV for 28 days, which is what we will drive to Germany, Austria, Denmark, and on. This is a 6 passenger, diesel. We hope that we can sleep in it if it is too cold or rainy.

We have plans to camp when possible. We will take sleeping bags, a tent, a cooking pot, utensils, all the things we can think of that we will need for camping.

We have a friend in Germany, Dieter, who has generously offered the use of his flat while we are in the area.

We have rented an apartment in Salzburg that sleeps about 8. It is the same price as a hotel but we took it because it will sleep all of us when our daughter-in-law arrives.

In Prague we rented the same hotel we stayed at before. It is right on the square and walking distance to the castle and most everything. We can’t drive our car into the Czech but our friend has offered to drive us. We will all go to the Estates Theater to see the Best of Mozart’s arias.

We even thought we would camp in Vienna but read horrible reviews on the campgrounds there. Instead in Vienna we rented a flat via airbnb.com. It is a small flat but right near the cathedrals where we will see the concerts Vivaldi’s 4 Season’s and Mozart’s Requiem.

Starting to gather

I’ll not be able to take much to Italy, just my clothes, camera, tablet and tripod. Dale, Elias and Bel will each bring a check-in larger bag. We have 2 of them out and gathering all of our stuff. Tomorrow I’ll start the serious gathering.

And It Really Is Always Something

Well it really is always something!

We were only home 2 days last week, Sat & Sun. We had inspections on Monday, babysat on Tues-Thurs, and drove to Eureka to inspect on Friday and then drove home arriving that night. We had to leave again on Monday for inspections that evening and Tues a.m. This has left little time to do much more planning. But it has given us some windshield time, I got lots of work done but then we had time to think thru some of what we need to take, starting lists of things to pack.

Our German friend, Dieter, couldn’t reach me thru email. He had to copy his email onto my facebook page with info which included where we will meet and when. I’ve had to rethink how I respond as Facebook responses are very tedious.

We had a last minute claim in Burney then had to drive all the way up to the Northern CA border. It was late we were tired, restaurants were closed and then our granddaughter called. She’d tripped on her flowing pants, bent her foot back and now couldn’t put weight on her foot.  Of course, we were in and out of service so trying to determine care was difficult.

Once we arrived in Yreka we spoke with our granddaughter by phone. She was settled on the couch with ice on her foot, elevated, and had taken some Ibuprofen.

By morning the foot was no better so I called Kaiser and obtained information on what she should do. Our granddaughter made the call, set an appointment and found a friend to give her a ride. Turns out the foot had a broken bone. She will see the foot specialist tomorrow and we will find out if the foot will be cast or have a boot.

We are leaving 1 week from today so we are hoping that we can have a wheelchair in Italy in order for our granddaughter to keep up with the group. Also I’ll call United to find out how to get from one terminal to the other.

I told her that she will now get to sit while traipsing around Rome while eating gelato and chocolates, while I push the wheelchair working off my gelato and chocolates. Something is wrong with this picture!

What a week and it isn’t even ½ over.       

A Route thru Europe

Well we do love our maps, although I tease Dale about being in love with his maps.

We have now obtained maps for driving throughout Europe, free with our AAA Plus. I do find that it is easier to see the big picture before narrowing it down to the details. We find the places we want to go to then Google map them for mileage. Google maps will show the distance in miles or km and I find it easier to plan using miles.

So after Google mapping the places we want to go and finding the miles we really had planned to drive, we found that several days would mostly be spent driving. Lots of driving is not a good plan for a vacation, especially with a teenager along.

Dale is wondering where we will drive

We took another look at the maps and loped off the northern most parts of Sweden and Finland. This would save a few hours but not a significant amount. I think we will wait until we actually start that portion and then decide the route.

For now it looks like we will drive from the Munich area to Hamburg then up thru Denmark to Bergen to see the Grieg House. From Bergen we will go to Oslo then into Sweden. At that point we do not have a set plan.

Paying It Forward in Nor Cal

We’ve been driving up to the very northern part of California for claims again; driving up and inspecting on one side of I-5 one day and the other side the next day. This has been going on since returning from Canada. Since we have been doing this for awhile we’ve found some favorite restaurants, one being the Hi-Lo which is associated with the hotel of that name.

Most trips have been fun but nothing really remarkable, and with working so much there really hasn’t been anything to blog about.

So we went up and this time stayed at the Hi-Lo hotel so we could just walk to our room after dinner. 

1^st a little about the restaurant; it is a real local place, everyone knows each other. It is really a fun place for a meal and the BBQ is really good.

So this time we went to the back and found a place by the large rear windows with a view of Mt. Shasta. 2 families were seated at the next table, each with a couple of kids. At the table on the other side of the families was a single woman, eating alone.

Now I’m not real big on kids so don’t see them most of the time, even when they are right in front of me. But these kids were really well behaved and as the parents left I told them so. The 2 families left and we spoke with the woman by herself. 

We just talked about how nice the people are that that restaurant. 

As we spoke the waitress came up to the woman and asked if she’d like desert. The woman said no, and then the waitress said well you must get dessert. The waitress went on to say that the 2 families had paid for her entire meal plus dessert. Needless to say, the woman was so moved by this she started to cry. She explained that she’d had an appointment that was very difficult and the families were so kind. She’d talked to their children while they were waiting for dinners to arrive. By then all of us were in tears.

What a nice way to end our meal. But it also reminds us to make sure we do some random act of kindness once in awhile.

New and Improved Europe Plans

Just when I started planning our Europe trip, again, I was called away but fortunately for claims nearby. Finally I’m done and back to our lives as they were months ago, at least for today.

We’ve been planning a trip to Europe for this summer, specifically to Poland and South Russia to visit the lands of Dale’s great-grandparents.  We were planning to meet up with some friends in both Poland and South Russia during this trip. Alas, as life goes, our friends’ plans changed and they will not be in Europe during our dates.

I went back to our plans and we found that we’d lost interest in Poland, it doesn’t seem to be an easy country to visit and transportation isn’t easy. As for Russia, we are not thrilled with the government, visas are expensive and we must have guides. I have not had any time to research the family connections further. It has all gotten to be more effort than either of us wants to put out for a vacation so we have dumped that plan.

Back in October our granddaughter asked if I might consider going to Italy with her on a school trip thru EF. I’ve wanted to go to Italy and thought that this might be a great opportunity for the 2 of us so we signed up. I called EF and asked if we could change the dates of our travel and they said yes so our summer plans will start with Italy.

Dale and I talked and we agreed that he would join us after Italy and that we should stay in Europe until the end of July. We’d wanted to live in Europe for 4 months so this would be a good start. 2 other grandkids want to join us as well.

I had the brilliant idea that we could go to Finland and Iceland from Italy; our oldest grandson really wants to go to Finland and it was a trip we had to put off from a couple of years ago. All great plans until this week when I looked at a map. Iceland is only over 1,000 miles from Finland and a $500+ airplane ticket each. So much for Iceland!

It is time to revamp our trip.