Hi Everybody! The TransSiberian is the journey of a lifetime and an epic trip into some of the world’s most remote landscapes, through spruce and birch forests, traditional villages, and endless steppes. The trip across Russia is one of the longest railway journeys in the world – starting in Moscow and ending in Vladivostok. Walt and I are not going the entire 6000 miles to Vladivostok, the Pacific port. Instead, we are taking the Trans-Mongolian option from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator, and then, on to Beijing, China. The train company does not allow you to buy hop-on hop-off tickets-----only point to point tickets. We will be spending 3 nights in Irkutsk and on Lake Baikal and 3 nights in Ulan Bator. The route crosses two continents and 7 time zones. On board, the poor mingle with ... read more

Hi Everybody! St. Petersburg is an icredibly beautiful city with its amazing architecture! It reminds me of Prague with the many pastel colored buildings. It has given us a great first impression of Russia and has definitely won our hearts. In some of our past travels to Eastern Europe, we have seen hundreds of gray Soviet apartment buildings and administration buildings. In St. Petersburg, we have seen not seen any ugly buildings. St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great but was actually named for the Apostle Peter. It served as the capital of Russia from 1713 until 1918. It is Russia's second largest city and has a population of 5 million people. The locals call it, Piter. It was built on 42 islands and has 90 rivers and canals. I believe that we ... read more

Hi Everybody! On Sunday afternoon, we took a taxi to Bur Dubai, an older section of Dubai. To get over to the Old Arab Souk(shops), we had to pay about 30 cents to cross Dubai Creek in an long boat called a dhow. ( This so called creek is more like a river and is filled with saltwater.) There were many small shops with Pashimas, brass items, gold jewelry, long silk dresses, stuffed camels, t-shirts, etc. The shop keepers were very polite and not very pushy. I am amazed at how neat and clean everything is in Dubai. From the white robes of the men to floors of shops, there is not a speck of dirt anywhere. I have only seen a couple of people smoking. You can only order alcoholic beverages in a hotel bar. ... read more

Hi Everybody! Walt and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Israel. If you enjoy traveling, you should consider visiting the Holy Land. It truly makes the Bible come alive! Most of you know that we prefer to travel on our own and mix with the locals, but on this trip we were very glad that we had a knowledgeable guide. We spent time in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jerusalem, following in the steps of Jesus. We saw a baptism at the River Jordan, dipped in the cool waters of the Dead Sea, ate fish from the Sea of Galilee, and walked on the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan at the Amman Citadel Archaeological Museum and at the Israel Museum (Shrine of the ... read more

Hi Everybody! Friday Walt and I have ventured out of our La Candelaria neighborhood. The owner of the hostel negotiated with a taxi driver to take us to several areas of Bogota. We went to the train station to purchase tickets for the Sunday tourist train. The station was quite large and vacant except for one ticket counter. The station property was not well kept. I wanted to take some photos but a policemen stopped me. Trains no longer run in Colombia except for this one tourist train. It goes to two neighboring towns, Usaquen and Nemocon. Passengers are given an opportunity to get off of the train in Nemocon for a few hours before the train returns to Bogota. Next, we went to the Harley-Davidson Dealership in the northern part of Bogota. Walt was interested ... read more