4 Days

Our vacation begins in 4 days.

4 days from now, Sunday, I'll be doing last minute things like giving the dogs belly rubs, ruffing up the kitties, making sure I have EVERYTHING I might possibly need on our trip. We catch the airport shuttle 5 miles down the road at 9:50am, arrive at airport at 11 and our flight leaves at 1:45pm.

We will arrive in London's Gatwick airport Monday morning at 7am and we'll be in London about 36 hours. 

Tuesday afternoon we fly out of Stanstead airport to Carcassonne, France, landing at 5:30pm. We have 2 nights prepaid in the south, then wherever we end up until we fly out again on the 15th.

On Wednesday the 16th, we fly from Heathrow airport north to Gateshead, where we will meet up with Michelle & Guy for a week.

On Tuesday 22nd, we fly once again, from Gateshead back to Heathrow. We'll have a 10 hour window to sightsee, then spending the night at BLOC hotel inside Gatwick airport.

Wednesday October 23 we fly back home and arrive in Seattle at 11:45am. We'll have a couple additional bags by then so will have to gather them, then catch the shuttle back to Purdy. That's going to be a LONG day.

SIR ELTON JOHN

SIR ELTON JOHN

He's been my one true teen heart throb my entire life 

and last night I was delighted to see him again, my third time, in concert.

Tacoma Dome, 

September 17, 2019

Seats 211 HH 5 & 6

(we were sitting straight across from the stage, a long way but it was perfect)

FAREWELL YELLOW BRICK ROAD TOUR

This street sign was outside, pretty cool.

Inside on the way to our seats

This one is pretty cool, Lan took it

Near the end

I absolutely LOVE the man

Counting Down

The days are flying by & I can't believe its only 26 days until we fly out of Seattle to London.

I went ahead and reserved the Renault Clio for France. It's totally gutless and slow and small. Its costing us $224.23 for the week.

Lan really wants to go see the Catacombs in Paris. Seems pretty morbid to me. 

I was reading online & people are all its so cool & I'm like 

THOSE ARE DEAD PEOPLE.

There is nothing cool about all the 6 million dead people being removed from their graves being cool.

Some woman has a traveling to France FB page & she highly suggests that people go see the Catacombs & have her friend be your guide. He charges $100 for the tour. Or you can stand in line for a bit & purchase tickets with an audio guide for $38.

Back i n April I injured my shoulder at work. Went to doctor & was told just let it heal on its own, if its not better in a month come back.  A month later I called to make another appointment but was told they didn't have an L&I doctor to see me so I had to wait. Finally got the appointment, she told me I'd need to see another doctor & they finally called to make the appointment but I was landing the boat & couldn't get it made. Then forogt to call back. Later that week I got a letter from there to call, then the next letter I opened was from L&I saying they had closed my case. PITA. I wrote, included letter from my doc that I needed another appointment. Low & behold, I got a call from L&I and they reopened my case. Today I've been able to set up an appointment for October 1st. I hope I can get help for the shoulder pain I've been experiencing while sleeping. It hurts no matter which side I lay on. I'm going to ask for an MRI.

Trippin'

In 27 days we'll be at the airport, 

waiting to catch our flight to England.

Trip Coming Soon

We're going to Colorado in 9 days for Lans birthday week.

I wanted to take him to Crested Butte to ski but he decided to go to Steamboat Springs instead. At S.S., he can visit and ski with his friend, Nelson. They will have an epic day on the slopes.

I will hang out and maybe do some shopping in town.

March 5 arrive in Denver. After we pick up our car we'll head north,

to Loveland, to visit my brother and his wife.

March 6th we'll head over to SS, where we will stay for 2 nights.

Lan will spend one day skiing and one day just hanging out. 

The Mountain Coaster looks like a TON of fun and I want to ride it.

March 8th, Lans 51st birthday,

we'll head to Gunnison and Crested Butte

& somewhere along the way meet up with my niece, Andrea and her son, Soren.

Soren is 5 and I've never met him.

In Gunnison we're spending the night at Wanderlust Hostel. We've stayed there before, in 2010 during our honeymoon. Fun time. 

March 9th we head back into Denver to spend time with my other niece, Audrey and then fly home in the evening.

Its going to be a busy week, lots of driving & sitting on our butts, COLD and fun.

That Was Different

When we decided to not take our bikes to Vegas, it opened up a whole new world for us. 

This trip wasn't about getting up at 4am, loading out backpacks and packing the bikes on the bike rack, it was about sleeping in, sitting around doing nothing, enjoying the sunshine. We went to the hot tub every day & jumped into the lazy river to chill and splash each other.

Went out to Lake Mead on the one day it was 86*, got lost in the desert, enjoyed an absolutely gorgeous sunset at the top of a mountain at the perfect time.

While in town we found other things to do, like meet up with friends from home and have a drink. Erik & Sharon were there for the Rock n Roll half marathon so we went out onto the strip to cheer for him as he ran past. 

We went to the 

I hadn't previously known about this museum so we decided to go and learn a little bit. Instead we learned a lot. We're going to the guided tour at Mercury and testing site next year and going through the museum before hand taught us  some of the things we will be seeing.

I felt kind of weird being there though. These bombs killed so many people.

The weather in Vegas was perfect, mid 70's most days, up to mid 80's. One day we went out to Blue Diamond area and hiked/rock scrambled up into a valley where a lot of rock climbers go. It was 54* at start but in the sunshine & dry 'heat' it felt warmer to me. I didn't take a jacket and within a couple minutes was warmed up perfectly. Once we were climbing the BIG rocks I was thankful I didn't have to carry around a jacket.

When we've previously visited Vegas we've only gone to the strip once, to enjoy the sights, eat at 1 buffet and see a show. This trip we went to the strip more, no shoes but a buffet every other day. Our reasoning was that once we got home, we would be going on a diet.

Now we are home and on that diet. I have lost 6 lbs already and my goal is a LOT more.

Disneyland

 

I'm getting pretty excited for our upcoming Southern California trip.

 

 

We leave here Tuesday morning, go to Disneyland Wednesday & Thursday, then have 2 open days for whatever. Lan wants to go to Santa Monica Pier.

 

The weather is supposed to be in mid 70's, PERFECT for us.

 

 

Found a new local park

Wauna is the home of a new park, named Park 360. Its right across the road from a house we used to live in and we spent a lot of time out in these woods with our dog, Picabu Street.

Picabu Street

So the park is the same size as Banner Forest but its only got a fraction of the trails, many are brand new, many still being built.

 nice dirt so Horses wont need shoes out here


This trail is under construction

 There is a main service road in a circle & trails mostly criss cross that circle and a few are on the outside. There are also a few dead ends that were a bugger to get back out of.

This was a dead end, pretty steep getting out of it. but I got myself started and rode out.

We figure we rode about 5 miles in the hour we were there. The trails are dirt with only a little rock. Of all the places where I have ridden bikes, this is the place most like sidewalks.

I love riding with Lan, he makes me work and he knows how much I can do & makes me do a bit more.

This is the HORSE ACCESS way from the parking area to the trails.

 and an up close photo. Horses can walk over it but cars, trucks, jeeps & motorcycles shouldn't be able to get over them. Yet. They will find a way.

I want to take Sunshower out there tomorrow if its not totally raining.

This park is now part of the BuDu Racing spring mtn bike race series, they will race here March 10th. Its going to be a fast race since there are no technical areas.

This would be a great place to take Wifi to learn about trails.

Cat Planks

Dave helping me with my backward plank. At this point I was at 3 minutes, my butt was sagging and I was about to die. I had aimed for a 2 minute plank.

Bucket List

When I was in high school back in the late 70's, King Tut came to Seattle. I think I was one of the only residents of the state who didn't get to go see it. Our Social Studies teacher was too busy with basketball to make arrangements for our class to go on a field trip. (I've held a grudge for 35 years)

I've always wanted to go.

This is Seattle's Pacific Science Center

Lan took me on a date here last Friday, it was to make up for us not running in the torchlight fun run the weekend before. This was one of the most awesome days of my life, in the top 100 days of my life, for sure. Not as high up there are feeding Seattle Slew a carrot or jumping out of a plane though.

We rode the Bremerton-Seattle ferry over Puget Sound in the early morning.

Parking in the city is hard to find and expensive but if you look around a little and are willing to walk an extra block or two it can be a lot cheaper. Across the street from the center it was $15 for the day. We paid $1 per hour for 4 hours since we knew we wouldn't be there all day. And walked an extra block. Ha.

Seattle Center is pretty big, colorful and loud; I've always enjoyed going there. There are a lot of things going on at all times and some of my best teen memories are of concerts in the now Key Arena, previously called the 'Coliseum'.

So we found our way to the King.

But first I had to get a photo of Lan with the dino's.

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These statues were the first things you saw as you walked into the exhibit. They were close to life size but I did notice they had extremely big feet; for a body about 5'6" tall there were size 14 feet.

At this point I wasn't thinking about taking photos with the info but its got his name right there on the side of his seat.

This was a female queen. Someone took the jewels out of her eyes.

Stela of Any in a Chariot

 This commemorative stela from his tomb shows Any, a scribe and steward, returning from an awards ceremony where he received from Akhenaten the "gold of honor" that he wears.

Colossal Statue of Amenhotep IV

This is about 8 feet tall and made of stone.

Wooden casket of a queen

This wood is 5000 years old and in magnificent condition. The paint is still bright in color and up close on the back of the casket you can see teeny carved feathers on her back, all up and down, like wings.

Golden Mask of Psusennes I

 This was amazing to look at.

Its life size and was fit over the head of this pharaoh. It goes around in back and obviously is hollow but you never see the back of it. So I took a photo for your viewing pleasure.

This is King Tuts bed. He wasn't very big, just about 5'6" tall and this is a short bed. Obviously he slept alone too. The bed still has its woven rattan or whatever it is and the legs of the bed have feline feet.

He didn't always sleep alone because they had a wooden box with two golden mini caskets that held the fetuses of his daughters.

This golden Canopic Coffinette is about 18" tall and gorgeous.

This is a replica of King Tutankhamen. The shape of his head is alien-ish, maybe due to the fact his parents were brother and sister and they were offspring of incest themselves. Royalty thought it would make them smarter if they married siblings, uncles and close cousins.

 This is a poster of the real mummy, on the bottom left is his father. 

Parenthood was verified in 2008 by DNA testing.

 Lan and I spent a good 2-3 hours in the exhibit. I read every plaque and spent a lot of time looking at every item.

I thought it weird that they included a toilet lid.





After we left King Tut we wandered into the rest of the Science Center and played around on the kiddy things.

Here we are with the Space Needle. It costs $20 each to go up in it now-a-days so we didn't go. Its cheaper to go into the Columbia Tower and that's way higher.

The goofy mirrors made up laugh.

Lan the Troll, with his 2 wives.

These round balls were a "Stoners Dream", according to Lan. There were about 20 balls that you could roll into the bowl, they would spiral around, around & down, then you do it all over again.

We did it, over and over again.

After 4 hours and a ton of fun we left the center and headed into Seattle to see bike shops & eventually rode my ferry home. This was one of the nicest days ever.