Road trip planning

I recently retired… and with retirement came stepping back… evaluating where I am and going… With retirement pending, trip planning seemed to be less important… and I did have a big trip coming up… to Greece and Turkey… a cruise of the Greek Islands…  

Road trips were now less necessary as escape…  But, suddenly road trips, and road trip planning has reemerged as a priority…  for trips not previously planned…   

A sister in law is turning 70 and there is a party planned… in Tuscon… a few days after Christmas.  A drive south is called for… and heading south, and returning north there are options beyond I-5 south to I-10… and back a few days later.

We are heading south on Hwy 101 to Paso Robles… to taste some wine… then off to Tuscon… crossing the coast range into the central valley…  beyond the route is not certain…

Heading back… the daughter will fly, as she has a trip of her own planned… so Tina and I will drive to Kingman… spending the night and heading off to Death Valley for two days, including New Year’s eve… I plan spend sunset New Year’s eve sitting on a sand dune, watching the landscape change as the sun goes down the moon rises…  The next morning we will drive home… over Tioga Pass if snow hasn’t yet closed it (and if snow hasn’t closed it drought will be a real threat) or around the bottom of the Sierras along the Kern if Tioga is closed… 

The second possible trip will be a cross country to Washington DC… the daughter is applying for an internship, and if successful will need her car…  time will likely be an issue… weather could be an issue…  It  will likely be a southern crossing… but I am thinking St Louis if the weather doesn’t interfere.  If it does I will stay south reaching the coast as at Charleston... then north on I-95

The third has exploded… from nothing to a full itinerary… What about Glacier National Park?  Now that I am gainfully unemployed, I can drive to the vicinity, while Tina flies…  explore the park, then drop Tina at a convenient airport and I will drive home solo…   We first discussed it Sunday… and today have reservations at several park hotels… 

The road is calling… again…

Last post from the road (or the sea)

A quick note... I tried to post this from the Airport in Athens... and assumed it had made it up... today I checked the blog and found it hadn't made it... so here it is, slightly out of sequence... it should be before the photo post, but that is the way of the internet when traveling....

Kusadasi - Back in Turkey, again

We were in Kusadasi a little over a week ago.  Kusadasi is the port from which one visits Ephesus, but we visited Ephesus a week ago, and had no need to visit Ephesus again (as least so soon after the first visit) so we had no tourist responsibilities…. We could browse and explore.   The was a fort nearby… Tina and I walked over, finding it closed, undergoing restoration… Nearby we found Erik and Mia who had also seen the fort and came to explore, but they too found it closed… 

We headed off into town, through the leather shops, tee shirt shops, souvenir shops and such.  We turned back after passing beyond the tourist zone... Eventually we found a café, we each had a beer, Tina had stuffed “vine leaves” and we signed on to the internet and checked email.

We wandered about a bit, went aboard ship, then back off to a different café, with more beer and more email…

Rhodes… 

Now the next morning…  we are at dock in Rhodes town.  This is the last port call on this cruise (beyond Athens where we will leave the ship)  I am at breakfast, the sisters and brothers and Mia and Toby… Tina is still in bed…  We will go ashore in a few minutes… eventually I will find a café and post this… 

Off a bit later than usual… 9:00. The entire group marched off in search of whatever one is supposed to see in Rhodes Town.  As we left the ship, we were confronted with the town’s wall, so worked our way along a few hundred yards until we found a gate, and entered the town… We found a small square, once a Christian Basilica, later bisected by a road. The road now closed, and a plaza in its place... without a road through the middle the site looks much like any other ruined building in  a part of the world with a surplus of ruined buildings...

Our small group quickly broke up as some forged forward, others headed for the former Jewish quarter, while others browsed shops…  We headed uphill up a side street… mostly headed which ever way the tourists were not… The walled city is not a big place, and there were a lot of tourist, so that stratagy didn’t work out well.  With or without tourist the town is wonderful… its architecture speaking of a time when it was the bastion of the Knights of St John.   It streets medieval... tiny, crooked, unmarked...  

Eventually we made it to the castle, then worked our way down hill, Avoiding leather shops and other shopping opportunities... stopping for lunch, beer and wine in a café with wifi, posting the previous post, trying to post some pictures (about half made it up (late note… now checking afterward, most didn’t make it…) then headed back to the ship… for the last time.

Now back aboard… we are trying to pack… we need to pack but we don’t want to…
We are sitting in the Crow’s nest… I am using the wifi from the Regent ship docked nearby… its signal being stronger than Ryndam’s, and as both ships use the same service, so I keep getting their log in instead of ours…  (I am only trying to read the New York Times… I have given up on using the ship’s internet for email or blogging a week ago) Tina is trying to finish a book before the deadline to return it to the library.

Now at sea, headed for Piraeus and Athens… It’s windy… a bit rough… (not very rough, just a bit rough) the ship is listing, blown sideways by the wind.  The Captain has just announced they are re-ballasting the ship to compensate…  The passengers, unused to any seas look to be drunk while wandering about… but it is not the wine, it is Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas having his way with us… we have probably visited too many temples to Athena or Zuse, and not enough dedicated to him.

We will eat our final supper aboard soon… I am packed… Tina isn’t yet… We are trading items… “can you pack the tiles, I can pack your suit in my case…”  The weight limit for checked bags is 50 lbs…  We are fine, but still trade back and forth making sure.  I stashed some chocolate in my backpack… emergency rations seem like a good thing as we contemplate leaving the ship and its abundant food.

Now, Late Saturday morning, Athens Airport

Early this morning Tina and I walked off the ship as soon as it cleared customs… We took early disembarkation… requiring we haul our own luggage off… it was a good decision…

We walked off, passing the lines of suitcases neatly disorganized by the color of their luggage tags, out of the terminal, then tried to get a taxi… this was an issue since we wanted a taxi to the nearby Metro station, not the far away airport, and the drivers lined up didn’t want the short haul… (the same thing happens at SFO... the SF taxi drivers want a fare to San Francisco, not San Mateo...) eventually we found one and we and another couple piled in and reached the metro a few minutes later… we purchased tickets, boarded and were at the airport in less than an hour for 21 Euros for the two of us… (By way of comparison, the Ship’s transfer would have been $54.00 each, a taxi directly to the airport about 50 Euros for both of us… and we beat the ship’s buses… )

We have survived the airline’s passport check, checking luggage, the official passport check, the security check, a second airline security check and having been vetted and inspected are sitting at the gate awaiting our call to board.  They have decent free wifi here, but I have used my free 60 minutes and my regular trick of clearing cookies hasn’t worked, so posting this may have to wait…  

Until home…

Now Home…

We got home late last night (Saturday)…  We had been traveling just over 24 hours… I got a little sleep on the first flight from Athens to JFK, then slept the 4 hours on the 5 hour flight to San Francisco.  Between the time change (10 hours there, 10 hours back) and the travel marathon, my internal clock is confused… generally I bounce back and reset quickly, but not this time… Its now a bit after midnight, Monday morning… I am up working on the computer, playing with photos and writing…

I take a lot of pictures… Particularly but not necessarily while traveling…  On this trip I averaged more than 100 photos per day… some days I shot as many as 250.   I generally delete about a third of them immediately… either because they have a technical flaw, or because I shot 5 or 6, and one was clearly the best.  Like most people some are “post card” pictures… the basic photo of a ruin or a harbor to say I was there…  Some include Tina…  some are just to remember the name of the place I was, maybe a picture of the interpretive panel or a restaurant sign.   More often I take pictures for me, of things that strike my fancy and hopefully speak to the places I have been.  Graffiti is a common theme… 

I occasionally play a game with my photos… submit an album of only 12, my favorite 12 from a place… sometimes there is a more specific theme.   Generally the post card photos don’t make it in the album…

Of course, on this trip internet issues played havoc with my attempts to post them while traveling… Now home with fast internet technology is no longer an issue.

This trip (so far) has resulted in 6 albums…  

The photos

12 photos of Athens, 1^st day…  Only a few of ancient monuments and such… an early morning trip to the Central Market provided some images.

12 photos of the Hagia Sophia Also a couple from a souvenir shop nearby

12 photos from our second visit to Athens – The museum of Archeology is prominent, particularly the modern art they show among the old things… the Central Market appears again, this time mid day…

Best photos of Istanbul (not 12… sorry) – this is as close to slide tray of family photos from a trip as I get…

12 photos from Delos &  Mykonos  The ruins of Delos with columns and statues of Lions contrasted with white buildings with blue trim and wind mills… If you visit Mykonos you are required to take pictures of wind mills (check the visa stamp in your pass port… the fine print… its there)

12 photos from Santorini  More white buildings with blue trim… 

There is likely to be one of two more albums… but it is late at night and the bed is calling…

Randy

Santorini

This is the most famous, the most beautiful, the most Greek of the Greek Islands…  

It is the remains of a volcano… a volcano that erupted spectacularly and fatally 3,600 years ago, leaving a half moon of an island, one wall of the crater, with misc smaller islands nearby.  Fria and Oia (pronounced as if the O was an I… there is no O should in Oia) sit high on the edge of the rim of the volcano, while our ship sits within the caldera, and we take tenders to the dock at the bottom of the cliff 1,100 feet below.

This begs the question of how one should get from the dock, up the hill to the town.  The options are ski lift style cable car or a steep switch back path.  The path offers its own options, walking, or riding a donkey, of which there are many available for only a few Euros…  There is much debate about the donkeys, and whether it there use is humane, about whether or not the ride or hike is scary, whether the donkey exhaust is disgusting.  

We at least initially avoided the issue by taking a “fast” boat from base of the cliff at Fria to the base of the cliff at Oia…  There was a shuttle bus to the top but we walked… (Tina is still mad about it...)  The town once we arrived has been well described as 40 jewelry shops perched on a cliff…  this is only slightly inaccurate, there being cafes and the occasional church with a blue dome as well.  There is also a book store (Atlantis Books) with cats, but it never opened while we were there… Initially it would open in a few minutes, then several hours later it would open in a half hour, but don’t hold them to it… Beyond the snark Oia was wonderful, and we had a wonderful time exploring before taking a bus back to Fria where we wandered a bit before dealing with the trip down… 

The cable car can accommodate about 800 guests an hour… today we were one of 4 cruise ships in port, with something close to 10,000 passengers…  Many of whom wanted to take the cable car down at about the same time, many more than the cable car can accommodate…  But as we decided it was time to go down, the cable car line was not long, so Tina took the cable car while I hiked down…   The trails difficulty was overrated… the donkeys were not particularly mistreated, and were not scary, and with the exception of one spot, the site of a natural spring the donkey leavings were not significant, and half way down I met a man sweeping the steps.

Even with the short line, I beat Tina down… we took the tender back, showered and changed and found a place to sit and relax.

Kusadasi - Back in Turkey, again

We were in Kusadasi a little over a week ago.  Kusadasi is the port from which one visits Ephesus, but we visited Ephesus a week ago, and had no need to visit Ephesus again (as least so soon after the first visit) so we had no tourist responsibilities…. We could browse and explore.   The was a fort nearby… Tina and I walked over, finding it closed, undergoing restoration… Nearby we found Erik and Mia who had also seen the fort and came to explore, but they too found it closed… 

We headed off into town, through the leather shops, tee shirt shops, souvenir shops and such.  Evenually we found a café, we each had a beer, Tina had stuffed “vine leaves” and we singed on to the internet and checked email.

We wandered about a bit, went aboard ship, then back off to a different café, with more beer and more email…

Now the next morning…  we are at dock in Rhodes town.  This is the last port call on this cruise (beyond Athens where we will leave the ship)  I am at breakfast, the sisters and brothers and Mia and Toby… Tina is still in bed…  We will go ashore in a few minutes… eventually I will find a café and post this… This is likely the the last blog post from the road... the next post to appear after we return

Randy