To do list

Here's my list of things I still need to I do:

Order insulin case from Magellans

Talk to at&t Find luggage lock Write Bath YMCA Write Susan Buy train tickets Reserve Hairy Coo tour Put info in calendar Waterproof things Have zipper replaced Stock up wet food Clear out TiVo Cancel some season passes Make playlists Buy SD cards Practice Italian Buy cliff bars Sort drugs Call insurance company Copy passports Talk to bank Email Emma New collar for Daisy Schedule dog sitters Put photos on devices Email Hiberia Finish guides Put guides on devices Try camera charger Try new camera battery Practice pack Make Hannah practice pack Walk with Hannah Dang. That's a lot.

One month from today.

31 days from now Hannah and I will have just boarded a plane in Atlanta headed for Dublin, Ireland.
This month is going to fly by.

Previously...

Galway

So I just picked a place to stay in Galway.

I’m not sure it’s the best choice, and I’m pretty sure I could have waited a lot longer to book, but now it’s done and I know where I’m sleeping every night we’re away and that just feels good.

Previously... 69 days

69 days

Here are some updates.

This morning, I booked our tour with Viatour for the “Wild Wicklow and Glendalough” day trip from Dublin. I think it sounds fantastic and beyond beautiful. At the website they have photos tour goers have taken and they are stunning and breathtaking. We do that the first full day of our grand adventure.

Last week I bought a tablet to take on the trip - the Acer Iconia a500. It’s a 10 inch tablet running Android. I didn’t want to take my MacBook because it’s too big and heavy, but I didn’t want to just use the phone because it’s too small. I’ve been making a set of webpages to serve as our guide. I’ll keep all our important documents on it just in case. There are lots of travel apps, maps, audio guides on it as well as my Rick Steves travel guides and books to read for fun. And movies to watch on planes and trains. And a way to stay in touch with people back home.

The one thing that doesn’t work is Tumblr. !! Which is very unfortunate because I started this tumblr to document our trip. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I liked this because it’s so easy to update, but now I’m wondering if I need to start a blog somewhere else, either at a blog spot like wordpress or at a blog site made especially for travel blogs. I need to decide pretty soon, but as of now I have no idea.

So now I have all our plane tickets, almost all of our lodgings (still need a place in Galway!), our Mad Max day trip and now this Wild Wicklow trip. The Hairy Coo tour we want to take from Edinburgh isn’t taking resevations for September yet but I’ll do that soon. I guess my next step is to get on to that Galway lodging bit.

69 days. A little more than 2 months. Crazy. I am equally Can’t Wait! and Oh my goodness, that’s so soon!! If I move this I’ll keep you updated.

Previously...

80 days till we fly to Dublin

and start our Big Adventure.

!!!!!

“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.”

—	Alan Keightly

Previously...

believe it or not

i have been obsessing over the itinerary even more. i think i am going to cut the 3 day lake district and roman wall tour. i think i might cut out one day in rome. i’m trying to add in some more down time so the girl doesn’t get too overwhelmed at being away from home for so long in such a foreign place. i don’t want to make her hate traveling when she’s just starting. i think i have the trip down to 26 days instead of 30. only 4 less days, but at a slightly slower pace. maybe this will be it. but probably not.

“The rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbor.
— unknown”

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
—Martin Buber”

Previously...

Current Itinerary

1. Leave
2. Arrive Dublin
3. Dublin
4. Glendalough Tour
5. Galway
6. The Burren, Cliffs of Moher
7. Aran Island sleep over
8. Aran Island, travel to Dublin
9. Fly to Edinburgh
10. Edinburgh
11. 3 day Wall & Lake District Tour
12. Tour
13. Tour, travel to London
14. London
15. London
16. London
17. London
18. London
19. travel to Chichester
20. Chichester
21. Chichester, travel to Bath
22. Bath
23. Mad Max Tour
24. travel to London
25. fly to Rome
26. Rome
27. Rome
28. Rome
29. Rome
30. Home

It’s getting closer to being finalized. What do you think about this plan?

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land, it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
—GK Chesterton”

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Previously...

Questions

Why is it so hard to figure out what day to leave.

Is it better to arrive in Dublin on a Sunday morning or a Monday morning,

Is 2 days and 2 nights in Edinburgh enough or do I need one more?

“I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in Irish bog to see the moon when it is full.
— Lord Dunsany”

Previously...

Can Not Wait.

One reason I made this tumblr is to say stuff like what I’m about to say. Stuff that would seriously annoy my regular life people who don’t care about travel, and somewhat annoy the ones who do but are tired of hearing me talk about it.

I Can Not Believe I Am Going to the Magical British Isles in 4 Months. Something Like 160 days. !!! I love them so much.

I haven’t been to all of them, but I’ve always known I’d love them. Since my trip to Europe 4 years ago I’ve known for sure that I love my beloved England. Right now I’m so thrilled about Ireland I know I will love it. I was in grade school when I started fantasizing about Ireland and obsessively reading Irish folk tales. I shopped at the Irish import store and had a subscription to Ireland of the Welcomes magazine. I know the least about Scotland but it looks so beautiful and the people sound so fun I can’t imagine not loving it as well.

So yeah. I am Excited. Excited! I tell you.
I am going to see coastlines and maybe a waterfall and streams and hills and mountains and cliffs and ancient things that people built thousands of years ago. And I am going to spend the night on an Aran Island and listen to the same wind that people listened to as they slept on the island thousands of years ago.
I’m also going to see Castles and beautiful buildings that are hundreds of years old. I’m going to see where history went down. I am going to feel the vibe.
And I’m going to the big city of London. So much to love there. More of history and beautiful old architecture. Plus the vibe of a big city. Walking along the lake. Free museums. Soaking up the … London.
That’s not even mentioning going to Bath, and taking the Mad Max tour to Stonehenge and Avebury. Or going to visit Jen’s friends and family in Chichester. Or if Hannah really does decide she can stand going to Rome (and if we can afford it).

I am just swoony with excitement. I want to go, right now. I am ready. Well, I’m not ready practically, but in my head and in my heart I can barely wait another minute.

“Travel is an emotional experience. It is a privilege that transcends our humanity, expands our horizons and in the process, transforms us.”

—	Javier Carrete

Previously...

Wild Wicklow and Glendalough Tour

I think we’ll take this day trip out of Dublin.

Previously...

The Latest

So here’s my new quandary about The Trip.

You know I want to take that 3 day tour out of Edinburgh. It would take us to Hadrian’s Wall, to see marvels of ancient Roman Britons. Then we’d sleep in a B&B in the Lake District. Dig on the Lake District all the next day. Sleep in the same B&B again. Morning = more of the Lake District and then we’d catch a train from there in to London. Dreamy.

The drag part is they only give the tour on two days in September. The 7th and the 21st. That isn’t when we were planning to be there, but since I now know there’s not that much of a penalty if I take my money out of the CD early, we have much more freedom about when we want to go.

So, do I shift the trip back enough that we’ll be leaving Edinburgh on the 7th? That’s moving it back almost 2 weeks. But so what? Is there any reason not to? I wish I had someone’s to ask who could give me some good advice. Otherwise I just have to decide on my own, which is hard.

I’ll have to keep thinking about it.

Previously... 3.17.11

03/17/2011 I’m going to Ireland.

I am so excited about my upcoming trip I can barely stand it sometimes. Especially today when everyone is thinking about Ireland. I’m going to Ireland! I can’t wait to look at it.
In about 174 days now. I say about because I’m still not sure when we’re leaving exactly, but sometime in the first week of September. Or maybe the end of August if I can work it.

I mentioned we’re leaving out Glastonbury. Kinda sad, because it was certainly the most holy and spiritual place I’ve ever been. And as a big hippy town, it’s a lot like home which is nice after being gone for so long. That gave us a few extra days to do other things. I had thought we’d ride a bus from Galway to Dingle and hang out there for a while, but instead now I think we’ll add a couple day trip/tours.

There’s one from Dublin called the Wild Wicklow tour. It goes through Glendalough. The pictures people have posted from it are unbelieveable. Mountains and waterfalls and stony creeks. Ruins of ancient monasteries. Lunch in a little pub (full of tourists). I think Hannah and I will both love it. I’m very excited to have found it and that we’ll get to check out that part of Ireland.

The second tour I found is more for me than Hannah, but I think she’ll love it too. Plus it helps move us along from Edinburgh to London. It’s a 3 day trip with 2 nights in B&Bs. It covers Hadrian’s wall and the Lake district, the main two places I wanted to add to the trip but wasn’t sure how! Perfect. H will be bored at the wall maybe, but how can she resist the beauty of the Lake District? I hope I’ll have a chance to visit the Wordsworth cottage, but even if we don’t I will love setting my own two eyes on the Lake District. My man Wordsworth called it “the loveliest spot that man hath found”.

I say my man Wordsworth, but it’s really his sister Dorothy that I’m really a fan of. Her journals have been published and they are so very good. I wish I could make Hannah read them before we go, but I can barely get her to clean her spot at the dinner table. I hope I can make myself read it actually. Sometimes I can barely get myself to put my clean laundry away.

Oh wait. That tour is only given twice a month. I might be able to plan our trip so we’re there on the right day, but I also have made plans with a friend to meet up in Galway. I’ll have to check to see if he could change. Drag. I guess that’s a wait and see. It doesn’t really change my overall level of excitement. There’s also the thought that we make a stop in the Lake District on our own.

Whatever happens, and I know it won’t all go smoothly, I am so excited. I can’t believe I get to go. Again. It is going to be so much fun seeing things that are so beautiful and so old and so of historical import. And I hope Hannah will have a great time and it will be the funnest thing we’ve ever done together.

Previously... 3.8.11

03/08/2011 List of Questions

In honor of List it Tuesday, here’s my list of qustions wandering around my head. It’s not hand written, which I think was the original idea, but you can’t have everything.

They’re mostly about my trip. Some things are changed now and a new list of questions have popped up. For example…

Hannah wants to leave Glastonbury off our itinerary. I’m fine with that, surprisingly. The question is should we add in Dingle, Ireland (or somewhere else) instead?

Am I wrong to revisit British cities I loved before? Should I be trying all new places? New countries? (We are going to Ireland and Scotland which are both new for me.)

Should I buy a new suitcase with wheels or stick to the one I have that has back pack straps?

Should I take Ali Edwards’ new Scrapbook on the Road? It’s only $14.

Should I make and take a journal on my trip, like Mary Ann Moss and Ali and Monika Wright - and my Disney book? Or should I just take a little journal for my thoughs and put together a book after I get home?

Where is my beloved brown sweater? It zips up the front. It has a hood. It goes with everything. I really wanted to take it on the trip.

I wonder what kind of tablet I’m going to get. Not an iPad. An android tablet for sure, but what kind, and what size? I thought I wanted a 10 inch but now I’m thinking the 7 inch looks super easy to carry around.

How many weeks till this trip anyway?

Am I ever going to start practice walking?

When should I cash out my CD? I want to use the money for some things, like clothes and supplies and before long deposits and plane tickets, but I’m afraid once I take it out I’ll start dwindling it away on things I don’t really need.

Should I buy Hannah her own camera? She doesn’t really want one. She doesn’t beg or anything. And by them she’ll have a new phone with a decent phone camera. On one hand I think the more pictures the better, on the other, just because she has a camera doesn’t mean she’ll actually use it.

Fell free to leave answers/suggestions in the comments. I could use some help.
(except i can’t figure out how to have this post have the reply option)

Previously... 3.4.11

3.4.11 The Grandpa Trip

The Grandpa Trip

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d catch you all up on our trip plans.
We had a mini crisis for a while when Hannah decided she just wasn’t interested in Europe and didn’t want to go. It’s true she’s not really not so interested in Europe or European history. She pointed out that I dreamed of going to Europe since I was a girl but she never really did. She dreams of going to Japan. And one thing I’ve always strived for as a mom is to not push my dreams on her. So I said ok.

I still wanted to take her on a trip though, as a graduation present. We talked about going back to “our” resort on the beach in Mexico. We half planned a fantastic trip to NYC, around Philly, PA and Washington DC, seeing fantastic things and many friends along the way. I was getting kind of excited about both of them.

But then Hannah had a talk with my best friend Debra. And Hannah remembered how uninterested she was in NYC before we got there and how much she was wildly in love with it after we were there. And she remembered how sick she was of me talking about Disney World before we went. She didn’t want to even hear the word Disney ever again. And then she had such a great fun time there. And so she decided, this time for real and permanent, that we’re going to Europe. The Magic Islands to be more precise.

We are taking a look at the itinerary though. We’re thinking of adding Dingle, Ireland and cutting out Glastonbury, England (even though is the most holy, sacred place I’ve ever been to).

I’m glad things have resolved pleasantly, but it was a stressful couple weeks. I’m still excited to go. Plus I got good financing news so I’m a lot less stressed about the whole thing. However it puts more stuff in the air because we no longer have to wait till September to go. Should we change our dates? Who can say. H and I still have talking to do about where, for sure, we’re going to go. I also have some shopping to do. I need a cardigan, and travel skirt, a bag and a nice waterproof jacket. Oh, and a nice android tablet, but that will wait till around my birthday. I don’t even know what all Hannah needs but it’s more than I do.

So there’s my story about our upcoming trip. It’s getting wildly close. !!!

Previously... 1.13.11

01/13/2011 Travel Thursday

I’ve been looking forward to this day, even though it’s taken me till almost bedtime to get around to it. Today is Travel Thursday. In theory I’ll write about trips from the past as well as what’s coming up, but right now I’m all about the Grandpa trip to Europe with Hannah this fall. Today I’m going to talk about or plans for our first week there.

Day 1 will be all about the flying. We’ll probably leave Kansas City mid morning and get to somewhere on the east coast a few hours later. Then we’ll get on a big plane and fly across the ocean to Dublin, Ireland.

Day 2 is when we’ll get there, probably early in the morning. We’ll take a bus into the city and find our hostel (we’re leaning towards Barnacles Temple Bar or Avalon House). It’ll be too early to check in so we’ll just drop off our bags and take off for the city. We might be sleep deprived, although through the miracle of modern medicine we might actually be able to sleep on the plane. We’ll definitely be jet lagged but we’ll follow Rick Steve’s advice for dealing with jet lag. We’ll stay awake, we’ll get exercise by walking around the city center, and hopefully we’ll get lots of sunshine (although it is Ireland). For dinner we’ll eat at a pub and share a pint (or a half pint) before we head back to fall asleep early.

Day 3 we’ll catch the hop on hop off bus. We’ll hop on and off where it seems good. For sure we’ll check out the hundreds of years old jail. We may or may not take a tour of the Guiness factory. That night we’ll take a pub tour, either the literary or music one before we go to bed.

Day 4 we’ll check out of the hostel and catch a bus across the country to Galway. I think it’s about a 3 hour bus ride. Galway is a much smaller town and I’m excited to see the country side around it. I have no idea where we’ll stay in Galway - a hostel or a B & B, I don’t know yet. But wherever it is we’ll check in there as soon as we arrive and again leave our bags there. That’s the day we’ll walk around and check out the town.

Day 5 we catch a bus for a tour of many things, mainly the Cliffs of Moher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffs_of_Moher), known ad the Ciffs of Insanity to Princess Bride fans. I have been in love with pictures of this place for years and can not wait to visit them myself.

Day 6 we catch a bus and then a ferry to the biggest of the Aran Island, Inis Mor. We’ll wander about and check out very ancient ruins (my favorite kind). There’s a chance we will spend the night on the island, but we’ll probably head back to Galway on the last ferry of the day (at 5:30).

Day 7 we head back to Dublin. I’m not sure what we’ll do but our flight to Edinburgh will leave at 6am on day 8 so we’ll want to be in town so we can make it on time. We’ll stay in the same place we stayed at the beginning of the week.

And there’s week one. Sounds exciting. It’s hard to believe I’m really going to do it, but I guess I am. I guess we are, me and Hannah. In like 8 months. Crazy.

Hooray for Travel Thursday.

Previously... 1.5.11

01/05/2011 The Trip

So. Did you know that I’m going to Europe this year? You probably did. But you probably didn’t know how nervous I am about the whole thing! Which is stopping me from from thinking and planning the trip. It’s crazy, and yet it’s true.

I’m nervous because every time I think of it I hear the voices of my youth asking me who I think I am to be traipsing off to Europe anyway! And do I even realize how much I travel already? It’s ridiculous Travel is for rich people. Smart people. Interesting people. But not you Shelly, don’t even imagine you can go.

That voice is mean and usually just a little bit of it makes me nervous and scared, so I stop thinking about the trip, just like it says. But I realized yesterday it is not very far away! I need to start getting serious about it.

Another thing that makes me nervous is the money part. So many people think I’m wasting my money, and maybe they’re right. I can’t really know till time passes and I take a look back. But it doesn’t seem like a waste. I hear a lot that I should be using that money on a car, but that sounds like a big drag thing to spend money on. I mean I understand it’s necessary but I am just not a car lover at all.

The only thing I could spend around the same amount of money on and think is even kind of worth the same amount of money is some kind of home remodel improvement action. I want the carpets gone and fake wood floors everywhere. And my kitchen is so half broken and old I would love a new kitchen just about every single day.

Now that I’m thinking of it, I really really love the idea of a brand new kichen and wood floors.

But no! I have been planning this trip to take Hannah to Europe for I don’t know how many years. I have told everyone, and I have told Hannah. And yes I know you get nothing tangible out of it (like beautiful floors and a new fridge), but the tangible is not what I care most about. For some reason the tangible seems like the kind of thing you save up for, but when you get a big gift (like this money was to me) it is meant to be spent on things more magic than a kitchen floor.

So I have to blow off all that ‘don’t go’ thinking and just know I am supposed to go. And supposed to take Hannah even though she seems like she’d rather stay home instead. It’s the right thing to do, and so I’m going to do it.

And so i need to get busy doing it.

Oh, and one thing I got busy and did was make an executive decision that we are at least going to Rome on our trip, and maybe even Florence and/or Venice. Hannah may feel homesick some, and I’m sure she’ll miss her boyfriend, but neither enough to blot out the amazement that is Rome.

I know our itinerary. I’ve made up a little set of webpages, with pages for each city we’re staying in and pages for some things we want to visit. But I still need to read more about the cities and have better knowledge about what there is. I have some ideas for where we might stay in most cities, but not all and not for sure.

So I have a lot of reading, and a lot of planning to do. Very soon I’ll be keeping track of reservations and putting down deposits. Exciting. Expect too much talk about it soon.

Previously... 8.2.10

08/02/2010

As you may remember, Hannah isn’t comfortable with being away from home as long as we had planned for the Grandpa trip. She’s mostly fine with a 3 week trip, so today I first drafted a new 3 weeks in Great Britain with Hannah. The city named is where we’ll sleep.

1. arrive in Dublin. check it out. [Dublin]
2. day trip to New Grange. travel. check it. [Galway]
3. Aran Islands [Galway]
4. Cliffs of Moher. ? [Galway]
5. travel to Edinburgh. check it. [Edinburgh]
6. walk the Royal Mile. ? [Edinburgh]
7. day trip north [Edinburgh]
8. travel to London. walk the river. the Eye [London]
9. Tower of London, ? [London}
10. British Museum. Trafalgar. Whitehall. [London]
11. Harry Potter tour. ? [London]
12. travel to Bath. night walk. [Bath]
13. Baths, the town [Bath]
14. Mad Max Tour [Bath]
15. travel to Glastonbury. climb Tor [Glastonbury]
16. Chalice Gardens, town, Abbey [Glastonbury]
17. travel to Chichester. check it. [Chichester]
18. Weald and Downe. ? [Chichester]
19. Fishborne Roman. town. ? [Chichester]
20. Arundel Castle. travel to London [London]
21. Redo or what we missed [London]
22. Hannah goes Home :(

• the city in [] is where we’ll spend the night
• “check it” or “walk around” usually just means I’m not sure what we’ll do
• we might spend the night on the Aran Islands instead of Galway
• what we’ll do each day is flex, I’m just trying to get an idea. some days are empty.
• I’ll stay in London a couple days after she leaves, missing her and visiting Hampton Court and Hever Castle. Then I’ll fly to Venice, where I hope my friend Debra will join me in visiting Venice, Florence and Rome.

Previously... 3.22.10

03/22/2010 Slight change in plans

Hannah and I spent most of spring break at my mom’s house.

We were sitting around one day, talking. I think my mom was asking Hannah about the Grandpa Trip and Hannah surprised me by saying she was afraid of the Grandpa Trip and didn’t know if she wanted to go.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised. Here I am planning this big trip that seems like a big deal to me and I haven’t even thought of how it might seem to a not quite 17 year old who has hardly ever been away from home. And whose biggest city visited so far is Kansas City, MO.

She thinks she’ll be too homesick. It’s true she gets homesick after just a couple days (but she’s held up against it for a week of camp several times), and our trip was adding up to several weeks.

I let her know I didn’t expect her to do anything she didn’t want to, and that maybe we could cut things short and just see the places she’s really excited about. She said she didn’t know, she didn’t want to not go but she didn’t want to be there and be miserable.

Later, she told me she had thought it over and was really up for the whole thing, but I’m not so sure now. As selfish and travel hungry as I am, I don’t want Hannah’s first trip abroad to turn into a nightmare for her so she’ll never want to travel again. So I’ve been thinking about places we can leave out.

It’s not really hard to think of the first few places to cut. There are plenty of places I put on the list that Hannah really couldn’t care less about. The entire country of Wales for example. The Lake District and the home of Dorothy and William Wordsworth. That would bore her as much as it thrilled me. We can leave off New York, especially since I’ll be going next month. Hannah wasn’t really interested in anything except seeing ‘The Daily Show’ taping anyway.

After that there’s still things that we could leave out - Paris, Florence, even Venice. Or Hannah could leave from London to go back home and I could travel to Paris and Italy on my own. There are plenty of possibilities and plenty of time to adjust the plans and make up our minds. Hannah will get at least two more lovely trips before we go - this June to DC to see Joel, and Disneyworld right after Thanksgiving. Chances are we’ll go back to Mexico before the Grandpa Trip as well. And she’ll be older. It’s a year and half till we’d go and that’s a lot of time for a teenager.

So. Old plan, out. New plan, being formed. But no worries - it’s kind of like getting to plan a whole new trip. Planning a trip is the next best thing to taking a trip.

Previously... 2.18.10

On the old blog I have made a few posts that I'm going to move over here, starting with this one...

02/18/2010 The Grandpa Trip

I want to talk about the Grandpa Trip, but before I do, I need to sum up what the Grandpa Trip is. So here goes:

I started dreaming about going to Europe when I was in grade school. It took me around 30 years to get there but eventually I did, in 2007. I spent 3 weeks, mostly on my own, in England, Paris and Italy. Best Time Ever.

But I always wanted to go. I knew that travel like that would change me and I wanted to experience that change. And since I’m her mother, I wanted Hannah to experience that, as well. And soon. What if those changes could happen while she was still in her teens. When my dad passed away I knew that some part of my inheritance was to go for that trip, as a graduation gift to Hannah from her Grandpa, that he wasn’t able to give her himself. Why do I get to go along? Well because I’m her momma. And I’m matching the funds so we can stay away so long.

It’s Hannah’s graduation present, but it’s also her grown up present. For all the many things she’s learned since she got here. How to talk, walk, hold a fork, ski down a mountain, manage blood sugars - all that she’s done. I’m proud of her and want some kind of grand gesture to say good job and keep on because look how amazing the world can be.

She graduates in May of 2011. Since she has such a bad time with the heat, we’re going to hold off and go at the end of summer, also avoiding peak season in some places. Hannah will skip her first semester of college, but I think that will be ok. I skipped my first semester and still got my degree. My brother skipped his first semester and has an MBA. So she’ll still go back to school and stick with it. Besides, after she’s 19 she’ll need to be a student to get health care and live, so I’m not worried that she won’t start if she doesn’t start on time. Better late than never. I subscribe to that.

So here’s the plan.
Before I drag the girl to other countries, I thought it would be good to show her New York, NY first. That way her first giant city is still in America, and she can see some of the wonders of her own country. We’re planning to see all the sites, be at a taping of the Daily Show, and visit a lot of very good old friends.
From there we fly to Dublin and make a loop around the west and south. On to Scotland. Edinburgh and the highlands. Across Hadrians’s Wall to the Lake District and on to Wales. Then England’s Salisbury Plane. Followed by Chichester, the official town of Miss Jen and then London.

Now that, just that on it’s own is an incredible trip, right? Of course right. But we’re not stopping there. Next we’re taking the chunnel to Paris for just two or three nights. To see the hilights. To visit Versailles. And to take the Henry Miller walk. We want to eat a sandwich between Notre Dame and the Seine. And I’ve wanted to check out Versailles for a long time. I don’t even care if I go in, I don’t think, I just want to tour the gardens and the petite trianon and the little town. so crazy. I can’t wait to see it. I’ll make Hannah visit the Orsay and the Louvre and then she’ll ace Art History when she comes back.

From Paris we fly to Italy, but I don’t know in what order. Florence. Venice. Rome. It depends on if we’re going home from Italy, or going on to Greece. This is the tricky bit. We want to go to Greece but a. don’t know if we’ll have the money and b. don’t know how long we can enjoy being away from home and stuck together. It’s possible our friend Joel will meet us in Greece and let us stay in his swanky but good deal resorts. That could really rock in Greece. I want to go to Athens, Delphi, Crete and Santorinni. Right now we’re in wait and see mode about that last link of the journey.

And that’s it. It might already be too much, but it’s just a plan at this point. changes are easy to make. I am so excited. I want to talk about it all the time. I like talking about what I’m going to see, choosing hotels, what I’m going to take and what I’m going to pack it in how we’re going to get from place to place… Planning a trip is the second best thing to going on a trip. Only about 17 more months. that’s really not so long when you’re 43.

So this is the Grandpa Trip. Maybe a dorky thing to call it, but I wanted to call it something and since he’s basically making it happen, it seemed fitting. I like it. I hope you’ll like me talking about it too much!

I figured it out!

Watch "Bircham Park has flodded." on YouTube

you know not all of google's products are as well integrated as they should be

I just posted something to the wrong blog.

48 days

there are now only 48 days until H and i take off on our big adventure.

after dealinf with the unreliability of tumblr im more and more thinking this is where ill keep our travel blog. in fact im thinking to just go all google and upload my photos to picassa instead of flickr. that seems kinda crazy but it might just be so much simpler. using google+ also seems way easier than using facebook but i dont really expect a lot of people will be on google+ by then.

one thing about tumblr though is it automagically fixed my capitalization and punctuation. maybe i need a better keyboard.