Introduction: This trip had as its main purpose a visit to the Henri-Chapelle American Memorial Cemetery in Belgium. Anne's father was killed in WWII, on November 29th, 1944, and is buried there. We timed the visit so that we could attend the Memorial Day ceremony on Saturday, May 28th of this year. Since we were probably only going to do this trip to Europe once, we decided to start in the UK, mainly the Cotswolds since we love to hike, and that area offered some pretty good hikes/walks. There is a UK National Trail called the Cotswold Way that is a 102-mile (164 km) long-distance footpath, running along the Cotswold Edge escarpment of the Cotswold Hills in England. We planned to spend some time in that area and hike/walk a bit of that trail. A couple ... read more

Geo: 25.4533, -80.3386On our third day of this trip, we visited Biscayne NP. We only spent one day in the park so not nearly as many pictures on this page. After our canoe tour in Biscayne Bay, we walked along a bayfront boardwalk and out a short jetty and back and that was it for us in the park. The park does have one long hiking trail, but it is on Elliot key and is only accessible by boat, and it was too far to paddle to. The hiking trail is actually a highway that was built before the park was established as a National Monument in 1968 (it became a national park in 1980). The highway, nicknamed 'spite highway', was built by a group of landowners who hoped to prevent the park from being established ... read more

Geo: 25.4479, -80.4792For our Florida trip, we flew into Ft. Lauderdale and rented a car. Our flight from GSP to Atlanta was delayed so that we missed our connection in Atlanta and were later getting in than scheduled which put us in rush hour traffic driving to Florida City and our motel. Rush hour traffic in the Miami area is really bad – akin to Southern California. But we made it and spent four nights in the Fl City area while visiting Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. The first day at Everglades, we took the Anhinga trail, a boardwalk into a wetlands area with huge amounts of birds and alligators. We then drove to Flamingo, rented a canoe, and paddled down and back along a canal to Coots Bay, then out to Florida Bay. Interesting and ... read more

Geo: 63.2237, -151.002 Wednesday, 8/4/10 – Up a bit later than usual and drove to the park to hike one of the entrance trails. There are a good many officially maintained trails around the entrance area, and one is a pretty strenuous one up to the Mt. Healy overlook. It is 2.25 miles to the overlook with a 1,700 foot elevation gain, so pretty steep most of the way. It is possible to continue on past the overlook along a ridge line, and we did so for another couple of miles and another 700 feet in elevation gain. Stopped there around noon and ate lunch. Elevation at our lunch spot was about 4,100 feet. A young man joined us at our lunch spot, and we had a nice conversation with him. He was a graduate student ... read more

Geo: 63.2237, -151.002 Monday, 8/2/10 – Up fairly early for our longest drive of the trip, from Seward to Healy and Denali NP. Passed through very scenic country from Seward to Anchorage and then through the mostly flat Susitna valley to Cantwell and the Southern edge of the Alaska Range. Arrived at Denali NP around 4:00 PM and stopped at the Wilderness Access Center to pick up our bus tickets for the next day (and get our refund of the entrance fee which is automatically added to the price of the bus tickets when you reserve seats on the bus on-line). We then did a short 4-mile hike/walk from the Visitor Center to Horseshoe Lake and back. Drove on to Healy and checked into the Denali Park Hotel, a pleasant change from the previous two accommodations. ... read more