Travel Preparation

We have been preparing for our trip to London, begining in mid-July. In fact, we have been preparing for 3 months, so far. We will be spending 2 months traveling around England, staying in 6 hotels in 5 cities London twice) as well as 6 National Trust Cottages. All of those stays are reserved. We also have car rentals reserved in 2 different locations. We were not able to rent a car through Expedia for more than 30 days, thus two rentals.

John is trying to get his head around driving in the wrong direction again. He did that before. I have to prepare myself for that, as well. We decided to have both of us registered as drivers. We never know when something will happen and the main driver won't be able to take the wheel. This week we visited AAA in Centennial to get our International Driving Licenses. They are the main agency across the country that provides those licenses.

We have purchased two suitcases, one to be checked and one to carry on with us. We have been traveling by RV for years and we got rid of all but one small, carry-on size bag. We won't be using it this trip, however.

We have researched cell phone SIM cards so we can use our cell phones in England without paying really big bucks on a Verizon international plan. We are reading travel books, studying the map of England, and researching where our ancestors lived in that country before coming to America. Learning more about those ancestors is a major focus of the trip.

Above I said we would be staying in National Trust Cottages. Those are historic buildings around England that have been converted into what are called holiday cottages. On our last fairly long trip to England we stayed in the Coast Guard Cottage on the Isle of Wight, in the lighthouse keepers cottage at the White Cliffs of Dover, and in an Arts and Crafts home outside London. We can shop in the local grocery stores and cook our own meals when we are lodging in these cottages. We're looking forward to it.

I hope to blog as we travel through England. We will have to wait and see what kind of internet we have. Also, we are each taking an iPad but leaving our laptop computers at home. Blogging is much easier on the computer.

This trip is how John and I are celebrating our 75th birthdays. We don't know how many more years we will be able to do this kind of independent travel so we wanted to do it while we are still healthy enough to enjoy it.

What a Trip!

Normally, we drive about 200 miles a day and only travel every 2nd or 3rd day so we can relax and enjoy each location.  Earlier this trip we stayed 5 days in Tulsa and 5 days near St. Louis.  But in the last week we have driven 4 days in a row, covering 797 miles.  We parked in 4 states and crossed part of another.  Whew! 

There wasn't anything on our route through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio we wanted to see.  We will be back in Pennsylvania and Ohio as we return west next month.  We have checked off one item on our bucket list: we spent 2 nights in Hagerstown, Maryland .  We have now slept in 45 of the 49 continental states.  Only 4 more to go--Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Our home is in Colorado and the Continental Divide runs through the middle of the state.  To cross it, you often have to go over a 11,000 foot or higher mountain pass.  We didn't realize there is an Eastern Continental Divide until Wednesday when we crossed the 2,670 foot divide.

When was the last time you saw an operating drive-in theater?  It has been a long time for us.  We spotted this one on our trip across Ohio.

Trail Ridge Road between Grand Lake and Estes Park, Colorado, crosses the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park.  From the top you can see into 4 states.  There are other places you feel you can see forever, like the Youghiogheny Overlook in a Pennsylvania highway rest stop.  (Does anyone have any idea how to pronounce that word?)

This is another view from the same area.

I think this view was in West Virginia.  Obviously it is early spring here.  Many of the trees hadn't leafed out.

The limestone (?) hills in West Virginia are also great.

We haven't seen dogwood trees for years.  We found this one in our Hagerstown RV park.

Where we spend our winters in Arizona people refer to it as summer camp for geezers. Maybe we now have regressed to childhood. The best option we could find to park in Hagerstown was the Jellystone Park. It really was nice--since school is still in session and we were there mid-week. It must be wonderful for families with children. They had everything from a zip line to laser tag to water parks and mini golf. 

A Quick Trip to Colorado

Sunday, right after church, we headed to Colorado. In 77 1/2 hours, we were back at our RV in Mesa--after driving nearly 1700 miles. Sunday, we made it to Albuquerque. In the morning it was on to Colorado. This is a great view of one of the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg.



We took a short walk in through our old Willow Creek neighborhood.



There was time for a good visit with our grandchildren.





And dinner with the family. Thanks for fitting us in on a busy evening.



Tuesday, we saw Kylie and John off to school



loaded the "stuff" we had in storage in Littleton into a U Haul truck



And drove south in a snow storm! Yuk, Yuk, Yuk.



I drove our truck and followed John in the U Haul.



There was a lot of wind and dust in northern New Mexico.



Finally, the sun came out and the rest of the drive into Albuquerque went smoothly.



By 2:30 this afternoon, we were back here in our RV home in Mesa. We have never covered that many miles in such a short time without getting on an airplane. It went well, but I don't want to do it again any time soon.

Hopefully, next winter we can sort through all these boxes and files and pare down even more. That was our goal in making the move.