Today's post is a simple photo update from Iceland and a HUGE Happy Birthday greeting to my granddaughter. Hailey turns 3 years old today--Boomdiada Boomdiada. HAPPY BIRTHDAY We will post another update tomorrow prior to our departure to London. Enjoy the photos. [View Full Entry]

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We have lived the dream in Iceland and completed the first chapter of our epic journey around the world. Iceland is a land of distinct geological regions offering a wide variety of sights. The entire country is clean—very clean. The people are very resourceful, hardy and sincere people. Although Icelanders may appear to be distant or rude, it is there nature to be weary of strangers until they get to know you. We have completely enjoyed our time in this island nation of the north. Our entire experience in Iceland has been much better than either of us could have asked [View Full Entry]

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Iceland is now our favorite location on the face of this earth. Let me give you just a brief glimpse of this incredible country: 24 hours of sunlight, glaciers, waterfalls, volcanoes, calderas, mountains, rivers, fjords, geysers, icebergs, swimming pools, hot springs, light houses, gravel roads, single lane bridges, reindeer, sheep (yes Ray—Sheep), Icelandic horses, humpback whales, seals, puffins, etc… Lynne and I are presently sitting in a hostel in a small town in northwest Iceland. Grundarfjorour—situated in a fjord on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. We decided to st [View Full Entry]

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Hallo from Iceland This is just a quick update to let everyone know we have arived in Iceland. We were projected to depart fro New York's JFK Airport at 8:25 PM on Friday, but we were delayed by an excessive backup on the cue to take off. We finally took off at 10:00 PM. The flight was uneventful. We sat in an exit row, so we had a little extra leg room on the flight. Marco got busy with meeting people and had a great time on the flight. Before we knew it, he was flirting with one of the flight [View Full Entry]

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Well Folks, We are in the final countdown of launching on our world tour. Lynne has been busy in the sweatshop making all kinds of cool stuff for the trip. She has now designed and sewn stuff sacks for our backpacks. Let me explain how these work. Backpacks do not travel well through airports. All of the straps tend to get caught in the conveyor belts and to be honest with you, I think the gorillas in the back love to gnaw on them as well. She made these oversized stuff sacks out of lightweight, rip-stop nylon. She even made draw [View Full Entry]

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Special thanks to my daughter Katrina for finding this Awesome video for me. This is the best video I have ever seen--it just sums it all up--I LOVE THE WHOLE WORLD. This is a Discovery Channel Commercial. If you can't see the video, check it out here: Sign along if you dare. "Never gets old huh?" "NOPE" "It kinda makes you want to..." "break into song?" "YEP" I love the mountains, I love the clear blue skies, I love big bridges, I love when great whites fly, I love the whole world, And al [View Full Entry]

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For those of you who know the deal. HEY! [View Full Entry]

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Memorial Day Weekend in the Great Smoky Mountains—What were we thinking? This is actually my second attempt at writing this update. My first attempt was far too lengthy. I have made a commitment to myself to keep my post limited to no more than 2,000 words each. We awoke Saturday morning, packed the backpacks, loaded the Pathfinder and hit the road. Our final destination was unknown (imagine that) but we were on a mission—to conduct a final function check on gear and finalize our packing list. We took some back roads and headed up to check out Hiawassee Dam. On the [View Full Entry]

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As promised in my previous post, I am following up with Volume 2 of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Many questions have focused on how we could plan a trip of this magnitude. We have fielded questions such as: “I wouldn’t even know where to begin, how do you start planning something like this?”; “How did you determine where to go and what to visit?”; “How did you determine how long it would take you?”; “What will you pack with you?”; “Where will you sleep?”; How will you get from one destination to another?” [View Full Entry]

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This is the first post to answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) . Due to the detailed nature of my responses, I have elected to break the FAQs down into a series of volumes. This will keep you from the agony of reading an extensively long update. Stay tuned for future volumes. I will answer as many of your questions before we depart on 6 June 2008. In the last 3 months since Lynne and I announced our plans to travel the world, we have fielded many questions about this great adventure. Some of these questions were of genuine concern for [View Full Entry]

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