Days 13, 14 and 15 - A Driving Tour of (part of) Kent When planning our summer, everyone had some ideas of what they wanted to do. One area that appealed to everyone was the Southeast area of England. Tony put together a general list of places to visit and we set off by train on Saturday to Ashford to rent a car. Much easier than renting in London and trying to drive out. Our first stop was the sound mirrors near New Romney. They were used during WWI to track aircraft flying over the channel from France. They were the preceding technology to RADAR and were pretty successful while they were being used. The access to the site is only open two days a year and we happened to be able to catch one. The ... read more

Days 8 and 9 - Disneyland and Paris, the office and Football Anne and Michelle had an early train so Tony arranged an Uber to the station and went along to see them off before heading into the office. The train ride was only 2.5 hours to Paris and then another 1 hour out to Disneyland. Everything went pretty smoothly on the way there and they were in the park about an hour after opening. There are two parks at Disneyland Paris; Disneyland and Disney Studios. Disney Studios is similar to California Adventure in that it has shorter hours and seems to focus on the newer Disney franchises. Some of the rides are duplicates of other parks (Rockin Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Flying Carpets) but they have some unique rides including Crush’s Coaster and Ratatouille: ... read more

Day 5 - An Animal Zoo and a People Zoo Last night was Anne’s turn for a sleepless night. So, while Tony got up and headed into work “early”, Michelle and Anne had a later start. It’s worth pointing out that “early” today meant leaving the flat at 0930. Tony has decided that he will leave the flat at 0700 from now on. This morning, he was sitting in stopped traffic for 20 minutes out of his 50 minute bus commute. Michelle and Anne decided today was a great day to visit the zoo. The London Zoo has a long history and it was interesting to see the layers in the different exhibits and enclosures. It can be found in Regent's Park and is bordered by Regent’s Canal. It is the Home of the reptile house ... read more

Day 3 - Visiting a favorite Tony’s “avoid jet lag” plan is a success, so far. We all went to sleep at a normal London time (10 pm or so), and woke up by ourselves between 8 and 9 am, having slept comfortably throughout the night. This has not always been the case on international trips. We ate a light breakfast in the flat and headed out to Waterloo Station to catch a train to Windsor (singing Abba in our heads, and out loud). Having just been in Waterloo the night before, we are, of course, experts into how to enter and exit… so of course, we got lost again, and found a new entrance, which we realized had already gone to years ago. After an hour ride on a mostly empty train, we arrived at ... read more

Day 33 (and a bit) Santa Fe to HOME! Since there was minimal set-up last night we were able to pack up and get on the road early this morning. It was roughly 1000 miles between Santa Fe and Atascadero. We planned to go as far as Needles today and split the trip into two days. Our first stop was Albuquerque for breakfast. We found a nice cafe off of I-40 and had a great breakfast. After breakfast we were racing the thunderstorms again. We flew down I-40 through Gallup and into Arizona. once we reached Flagstaff we were back on the route we started on over a month ago. We were making pretty good time and expected to hit Needles in the early afternoon. At this point we noticed two things. I-40 was closed just ... read more