Kopor, Slovenia

An amazing day in Venice.  The Doge's Palace is over the top. Walls and ceilings all paintings with 24 karat gold leaf trim. Then we walked and walked.  There are lots of bridges everywhere. Don't know how you could survive if handicapped. Had wonderful pizza for lunch. It's all about the cheese. Then I really blew the diet on a cherry gelato.
Another great dinner on board. There are very few tables for 2 so we sat with a couple from London and another from Chester England. This morning ate breakfast with a couple from Fairfax VA. We keep running in to 4 guys from Toronto. Today we are in Slovenia and will be taking the hop on hop off bus to Piran. The cruise is very different than the ones we have been on before.  I joke that it's like going to church in Sequim.  We are usually the youngest people for miles! No kids at all and no annoying photographers. The cruise director is not Dan Dan the Party Man either.
Probably should wrap this up and get on the bus.

Venice September 1

 And so the trip begins

 Visiting with Bruce and JoAnn at Dulles

 Checking out the wines at Vino Volo Dulles Airport

Dulles Airport

 Always easy to pick out Washington's flag

And New Mexico's

NJ not so much

Munich Airport

Crappy cookies on Dolomiti Airlines

Flying into Venice

Venice

The pool on board at night

The view of Venice from our balcony

We made it!  Travel was mostly uneventful,  In fact, remarkably so.  Even our luggage got here,  We flew out of SEATAC to Dulles in DC where we had a 6 1/2 hour layover, We got to meet with Bruce and JoAnn who only live a mile away.  Then it was on to our night flight on Lufthanza to Munich.  We had bulkhead seats, but even so, very little sleep.  The food was awful:  canned green beans, nondescript chicken, and some kind of cornbread dressing.  In any event, it was over soon enough.  Munich airport is like a high end shopping mall!.  After cappuccino and a pretzel, it was off on Air Dolomitti for the 40 minute flight to Venice.  They served those awful cookies we got in Sunday school.  Check into the boat was easy and seamless.  Our cabin is beautiful.  The food last night was lovely.   They have a spa menu that should keep me from gaining the obligatory 10 lbs.  We were seated with a couple from Bistol who were delightful.  Weird thing was they got three things wrong on out dinner order.  Oh well.  This morning took the water taxi to San Marco and are headed to the Doges Palace for a tour in 45 minutes.

Testing 1-2-3

This is just a test of the blog.  I will be posting starting tomorrow or Wednesday as we embark on our adventure from Venice to Athens.

Twin Falls

Yesterday at Yellowstone we drove down the east side and saw the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Lake Yellowstone.  There are amazing vistas and waterfalls. The rocks are such great shades of yellow and pink.  There isn't much geothermal activity over on that side.  We also stopped and walked around Monmouth Terraces.  I still don't understand how nature can make such abrupt stair steps.  We also saw some more bison (some running down the road), elk, antelope and goats.  I figure we hit the Home on the Range trifecta:  Buffalo, deer and antelope.  The only discouraging words were -"Hey, don't stop in the middle of the road to look at wildlife" and "Don't you think you have taken enough selfies?"  It really was scary at how people will come to a dead stop to look at wildlife on the side of the road.  There were even little kids wandering in the road.  This is in spite of signs everywhere that say not to get close to the wild animals and to only use pullouts.  The endless photos by (mostly) Asians got pretty annoying after awhile too. I decided to photobomb their pictures.
Dinner was at the Cowboy Cafe - stew and fried green tomatoes for me and barbecued ribs and brisket for Dean.  Darned good.  No singing vegetables.
Today we drove through the Park one last time, but the weather had turned crummy with spitting rain, so we didn't stop anywhere.  Did get to hear a male elk bugle.  Across southern Idaho - lots of farmland.  Twin Falls is a good sized town with lots of box stores and an anemic downtown that is trying, but mostly failing.  I did get my nails done at a nice salon near the hotel.  Well worth it.
On to Walla Walla tomorrow, then home.

Yellowstone

September 30, 2015
Yesterday was our first full day in Yellowstone.  What a magical place! We started with a short walk through Norris Geyser Basin, full of steam vents and geysers.  The boardwalk takes you right into the  mddle of it.  Then to Lower Geyser Basin, then on to Old Faithful.   No matter how many times you have seen photos and videos, it is still impressive in person.  There was a bison grazing in front of it.  A light lunch at the Old Faithful Inn, then on to Midway Geyser Basin with amazing colors in the hot pots.  Final stop was Gibbon Falls.  A great gorgeously sunny blue sky day!
We have decided that the 2 worst things in the National Parks are selfie sticks and therapy dogs.
Dinner last night was OK.  Sadly, the beef at the restaurant is just so-so.  It could have used some seasoning. Almost snorted my dinner out my nose when the waitress told the couple at the next table that the steak came with a "vegetable melody".  Wonder what they are singing?

September 2015 continued

For some reason, the last post quit,  Anyway, this morning at Glacier I was served cold gloppy oatmeal.  Ugh.  Leaving Glacier behind, we drove through western Montana. Lots of ranches and wide open spaces.  As we approached Gardiner, there were elk along side the road.  We checked into our hotel in Gardiner.  In the book for the hotel services there was an ad for a Pizza place that someone had amended "VERY BAD PIZZA 9/11/15".  The food at the restaurant here is fine: salmon, veggies and a sweet potato with a great vegetable beef soup for starters.  Beef is king here though.
We walked through town this afternoon and there was an eld herd in someon's front yerd right on the sidewalk - a bull and 6 females.  I have never seen them so close except at the game farm. Of course, camera and phone were in the hotel!

September 2015

So, we are on our driving vacation to take advantage of our Senior Park Pass and visitng Glacier and Yellowstone.
We left town Friday at 1 PM and made it to RIchland in time to have dinner with Matt at Bookwalter Winery  They do not disappoint.  I had the salmon salad which was a perfectly cooked piece of wild salmon under a mountain of arugula.  The maple roasted carrots are good too.  Their red wine blends, especially the Protagonist are very much like Craig's.
The next morning we ate breakfast at my favorite biker bar in the tri-cities, the Sage Port Inn.  Once again, I couldn't pass up the chile relleno omlette.  Then it was in the car for the 7 hour drive to Glacier.  We traveled through some pretty empty country in the Palouse in Eastern Washington a well as norther Idaho and then northwestern Montana.  We drove past Flathead Lake which is huge and a lot less wooded than I had imagined it.
Tne in to Glacier.  We stayed at the Lake McDonald Lodge, a 101 year old National Park Lodge.  The bathroom sink had no shelf to speak of, but the bathroom was so large, we could set up the ironing board to put our toilteries on. The shower was pretty small.   Can't imagine how someone like Bob Palmer could turn around in there.
The bar was nice and we watched college football and ate Montana Charcuterie with buffalo pastrami, smoked duck and elk sausage.  The bison meatloaf for dinner was tepid and the broccoli was flat out cold.  This turned out to be a serious problem with our food at the Lodge.
The next day, we drove the Going to The Sun Highway which bisects the park west to east.  It is amazing and the aspen were in high golden color.  The road is twisty with a shear drop on the south side until you get to Logan Pass, about 1/2 way.  It is on the Continental Divide.  The easern section (St Mary's) has been hit hard by forest fires this year, so the little day hikes off the road were not available.  We then drove up to Many Glaciers, took a nice walk around the lake there and saw elk, a black bear (at a distance) and a herd of goats (up close). Back to the Lodge and watched the second half of the Seahawks game.  The guy sitting next to me in the bar had lived in Sequim 6 years ago and had been the winemaker for Wente Vinyards in California.
Last night we caught the tail end of the eclipse as the moonrise was behind a huge mountain, we missed the first part.