I was originally going to title this blog as “The best laid plans of mice and men – Part 3” as the first two blogs of with that title, and , dealt with plans gone airy. However, those blogs dealt with making connections with family at our final destination who were arriving on different flights from different places. Furthermore, I cannot state that my plans for this trip were “best laid” as my itinerary involved multiple transfers from Colorado Springs to Dallas Fort Worth to Charlotte to London Heathrow with bus transfer to London Gatwick and finally to Dubrovnik. The return flights also involved five transfers. The more transfers the more probability of something going wrong; e.g., missed connections, missing luggage, etc. Such is the downside of using frequent flyer miles. The more apropos title would ... read more

One of the pleasures of being a Travelblogger is the opportunity to meet fellow members...we truly are a global family. We first met and his lovely wife Denise on our trip to Australia (see and ) in October 2012. We looked forward to returning their hospitality someday and showing them some of the beauty of the Southwest and Rocky Mountains. We learned in late 2013 that they would be visiting their son in Toronto for Christmas 2014 and hoped that we could be included in a North American itinerary as this would be their first visit to this continent. In November 2014 they confirmed they would be coming this way. We had hoped to be able to join them on a tour of Utah, but their arrival there just before New Years conflicted with our own ... read more

This blog is dedicated to the many Travelbloggers who are bikers (if that is the correct term for those who travel on bicycles as opposed to motorcycles). The US Pro Challenge comes second after the Tour de France in the bicycling touring world...at least according to their organizers (they also call it America's Race). This year the tiny town of Woodland Park, which just happens to be where I live, is the beginning of Stage 5 of this event which ends in Breckenridge. Understandably, we feel honored and are doing everything imaginable to be great hosts for this event. For our TB biker friends, here are some names of the participants (not being a biker, I don't know any of them): Tejay van Garderen (fifth place finisher in last month's Tour de France); Rafat Majka (KOM...or ... read more

Today my daughter Tamara married Ryan Miller. So the last week has been very full of activities and preparation. It started last Saturday in Denver where we went to pick up our other daughter, Rosanna, at the Denver International Airport. She was flying in from Virginia at 3 pm, but without our son-in-law Evan who couldn't get time off as they had just returned from two weeks in Italy and Greece...they learned about insane itineraries from me! He has used his time since then very productively by finishing the first draft of his doctoral dissertation. He is scheduled to defend his thesis in September and then receive a PhD in Bioinformatics. Also missing was our son Will who is going to law school at Bangor University in Wales. We called him at the last minute to ... read more

9 May 2014. What a way to wrap up a hectic schedule. This day started at 12:47 am. It was supposed to start at 12:30 am, but the front desk forgot to give us a wake up call and my standby travel alarm also failed us. Only Linda's internal clock woke us up in time to meet Juan, our guide, and driver at 1:30 am. One thing about going to airports at this time, and especially so in La Paz, is that there is no traffic. So we made it with plenty of time to catch our 4:40 am flight to Bogota, Columbia. Juan stood in line for us, calling us as he got to the check in desk. Great service! We made it through immigration, with the officers just as gruff as those we encountered ... read more