Morning Tea

How do you like your tea? 

I like mine made with Yorkshire tea, from England, and what I've got now was brought to me FROM ENGLAND by my friend, Michelle.

It HAS to steep for 3-5 minutes and after that I add sugar and a dollop of milk.

I am drinking my cup of tea now.

I do not drink coffee, its icky.

 

Hollywood!

Flew into Las Vegas & headed south on Hwy 15 toward Los Angeles

Its true, hardly anyone in Las Vegas but this was a Sunday morning

Stopped to see these colored rocks

And the Aliens

Got a bit of rain.

Not too long after this photo was taken, I was driving and avoided a multi car pile up: 3 lanes, 70mph, slamming brakes, cars flying off road on both sides. I saw at least 4 cars go off, didn't see anyone hit another car but I wasn't sticking around. I was in right side lane & got the hell outta there.

Michelle & me, reunited again after 5 years, we originally met in 1996 when she worked at YMCA Camp Seymore in the kitchen with Amy & me.

Michelle is from UK, I've been over there to visit her 3 times & shes been back to the USA about 4 more times.

Friends for life.

Guy & Michelle. They got married last summer and get to travel the world together

In Hollywood we saw these little robot delivery things all over

famous signs we saw

While Michelle & Guy had a little 'lie in', Lan & I went up to the Griffith Observatory

Thats the Pacific Ocean out there

This was seen from the Observatory and we could see it from our room as well

Our room was on the 6th floor & we only had it for 1 night, I think it was the one below the christmas lights

End of the line.

On the way home we went on Zzyzx Road and stopped in to see the Desert Studies place. It used to be a high end resort for the rich & famous but now its just a lot of untended trees and filled fountains alongside the dry lake bed.

Then we flew home

 

We fly tomorrow

 We will leave home at about 5:00pm and arrive at the airport at about 6:00; we'll check in and go thru security and go wait for our plane, which pushes at 7:28pm. We will arrive in Las Vegas at 10:00pm and theres supposed to be a shuttle to pick us up to go to our hotel, which is a cheat ass one off the Strip.  I'm not going to overpay for a room there.

We pick up our car Sunday morning at 10:00am 

And instead of driving to Palm Springs, we will head into the heart of Los Angeles to spend about 36 hours with Michelle and Guy there, since she told me the dates they would be there incorrectly. Ugh. But we'll make it work.

It will just be so good to see them again.

They have reservations to stay in West Hollywood so I suppose we better get a place near them.

Booked Flights

 Back in October I purchased the Frontier Airlines 

Go Wild Pass

for Lan & I, at $300.00 each. I figure if we fly once it would already be saving us money & today I purchased round trip tickets from SeaTac - Las Vegas for $126 in total, saving $63 by using their promo code. YAY. If I had been thinking I'd have had us leaving a day earlier so we could go get the rental car and drive up to Pioche, spending that night and the next at our house.  I tried to change the flights but its a $100 fee, making the savings moot. So no Pioche this trip unless we get the car & drive straight 2 hours up there, sleep, do anything around the house we need to do quickly and leave again, on a 7 hour drive to Palm Springs. That's totally do able.

We're flying out January 3 and returning January 6. 

Michelle & Guy arrive January 4 and continue on to Hawaii on January 6. 

We will have about 36 hours to spend with them and it will be a great time. I'm so thankful they invited us to meet up with them and hope & pray its not the last time we will ever see them but that's what I thought when we left England in 2019.

Now I can look for a place to spend the night that's inexpensive...

When Is Our Next Vacation?

 Our next vacation is in January 2026, when we will drive down to middle California to meet up with Michelle & Guy, our England friends. They will be on their own vacation, in Cali for a few days after a week in Maui and before they return to Gateshead, England.

They go on a couple very extravagant vacations each year.

Guy is an engineer, and Michelle owns a pub; she's also an interior designer so everything she touches turns to gold. I'd LOVE to have her pick the finishing touches for our Pioche house.

This is their guest bathroom.

She's Moving!

I'm holding my breath & crossing my fingers, she said she's moving next week. I'll do whatever I can to help her on her way. I mean, I'm not co-signing or paying for anything, but I'll help her move her shit to her new residence.
Monday & Tuesday are the big days. yippee.
She's got 2 places, one is $800 for a bedroom in a shared home, the woman has a day care & kids are there all day and into the evening.
Second place is with a married couple and is a bit cheaper. She hasn't been to see it yet & isn't sure of the location.
I told her the handyman will be here February 3rd & she's got to be out before then.

My Heart Is Full

We had a GREAT time in England & France

In Annecy they had a parade for us

This castle ruins was really cool

Scotland didn't let us down one bit

London

Someday we'll go again & next time we'll know more about what we will do in advance. This was such an awesome trip and we saw so many amazing things.

Next time we go we will have a lot more things planned out in advance. 

We'll do a lot more research (we did tons!!) into the things we want to see and places we want to go. 

In the past I've always had a plan, with a map & predetermined points of interest. This time it wasn't always like that. We knew our phones wouldn't work perfectly but hadn't planned on NO phones unless we were getting free wifi. I hadn't planned on so many people, since last time I was there it was shitty weather and this time it was FABULOUS most of the time.

Next time we'll have a hotel room in a central location & take day trips from there. Not another trip where we're driving most of each day to get to our next destination.

We stayed at a hostel in London, the White Ferry House, above a pub;

they had 9 males & females in our room, there were 8 rooms all together with only 2 bathrooms w/5 stalls in each. That's 10 toilet/shower/sink tiny rooms for 72 people to use. You couldn't get dressed in your room because there were people of the opposite sex in all the rooms and the bathrooms had an hour long waiting line and there were no toilets that weren't in the tiny shower rooms.

Next night was in France at an Airbnb in Montpellier.

It was hell getting into the room because of no phone service but nice people spent an hour helping us. The room was small & had a fold out double size futon. Check out @ 10am and no time to enjoy the cute little outside garden.

The 2nd night in France was another Airbnb studio with another fold out bed. Much cuter than the first place, this one was in Cannet, the old town just above Cannes. So beautiful, with tiny streets that everyone whipped through in their cars. parking was scarce, motorcycles & scooters everywhere.

This window looked out over the tiny alley, into & through the neighbors yard. It took us about 2 hours to find this place & another hour to park.

This is the stuff I wanted Lan to see & he loved it.

Tourettes-sur-loop village. 

This place was AMAZING. People still live there & work in the small buildings & run shops. 

 On Saturday we were in Annecy, where they had a freaking parade for us!!!!

The Return From the Alpine Pastures.

First there was delicious food, sausages & scalloped potatoes cooked in HUGE flying pans.

Then the parade.

We went to the Museum of the French Revolution

Back I n the olden times, Lans ancestors were 'ROYALTY' in France but were on the wrong side of the people & suring the revolution they had to leave France for America in the dark of night.

This chateau used to be a castle so while visiting it I made up stories of what Lans great-g-g-g-g grandparents would have been doing while there.

On Sunday we went to Chamonix, rode the gondola up to the top.

We spent 3 hours up there, 12,602 feet in elevation. Can't say enough about this place, LOVED IT.

Glass floors with nothing below you for 1,000 feet

When we were leaving the Alpenglow on the French Alps was oh, so gorgeous.

Then we headed back south Monday; this is the Carcassonne Castle.

We got there too late in the day to go inside but the church was still open & it was beautiful

We also enjoyed a vry nice dinner in one of the squares, I had blackened escargot in a tomato sauce. YUM.

Tuesday we were flying back to London but not till 2:30 so we had several hours in the morning to explore. Decided on a castle ruins 2+ hours northwest of the airport.

Stopped for a pee break along the way and found this gem. An old swimming hole with this OLD bridge over it. You can see where the old bridge was added to to make it fit present day cars.

Château de Peyrepertuse

next post will be all about the UK portion of our trip.