This post began with and is adapted from http://www.maryo.co/giving-thanks-day-7-october-24-2017/

Today I’m thankful for Travel.

We’ve been fortunate to be able to travel to several interesting places.

Like everyone else, Covid has messed with our plans. Immediately after our cruise to the Baltics in 2019, we set up a cruise to the Norwegian Fjords on Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas for August 16, 2020. Along about March of 2020 everything started being canceled due to COVID-19, including our cruise.

Royal Caribbean did a thing called Lift and Shift, so we could chose another cruise for 2021 and we decided on Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas Alaska Southbound from Seward with Cruisetour in September 2021.

Then, it looked like September 2021 was a no-go because Canada didn’t want cruise ships sailing past their country, let alone doing Cruisetours through it. <sigh>  That trip ended up going out of Seattle but in August.

Our Edinburgh Tattoo for August 2021 was cancelled, of course. I had expected that but bought tickets “just in case”. I was surprised when they let me exchange those for 2022. I had assumed it would be a donation to the cause.

We ended up with second row seats in August 2022!  That trip was also weird – we were scheduled to fly British Airways.  They canceled our return flight, then our arrival flight, so I canceled out hotel.  Somehow, they knew in May that they wouldn’t be flying in August.  Psychic!

So, I tried Icelandic Air and rescheduled the hotel.

We had a cruise scheduled out of Vancouver to Hawaii which I canceled because I got Covid 🙁  We will have a cruise (maybe!) in January on the Wonder of the Seas.  Got my fingers crossed.

Older stuff:

In the Fall of 2018, we were able to go to Copenhagen to embark on a Baltic Cruise.  This was the best cruise ever, although a little tiring!  I’m still catching up on these blog posts but I have done posts for Copenhagen, embarkation, Warnemunde, the first sea day, Tallinn and the first day of St. Petersburg so far.  Hopefully, I’ll get the rest done before next year!

In the Fall of 2018, we did a cruise to Canada.  It looks like I still need to write those posts, too.

Some trips, like Iceland, we just lucked in to. We’d wanted to go to Ireland but the travel agent couldn’t get us in at any time over that summer. She did get us a deal where, if we flew Iceland Air, they’d give us a free week in a hotel in Iceland before flying us to London. Duh! Wonderful trip.

A couple years ago we were in Costa Rica and took a day trip to Nicaragua where we stood at the rim of Masaya, a live volcano.

Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

And a neat train in Alaska (more about this trip here: http://www.cushingsonline.com/Alaska/alaska.htm)

Our bus driver was a very good driver who told us all about the history of Skagway and the surrounding areas. Our first stop was Liarsville (http://www.klondiketours.com/goldcampshow.html), a tent village for gold miners. It was called Liarsville because many newspaper reporters were there publishing tales of how “easy” it was to find gold and become rich. No Way! The locals did a show for us and let us pan for gold. Of course, most everyone found some little gold flakes. A very hard way to make a living!

We made our way up the White Pass on the Klondike Highway to a 3,000 ft waterfall, Dead Horse Gulch (a lot of packhorses couldn’t make it the whole way), the Moore Bridge, Yukon Suspension Bridge at Tutshi Canyon and up over the West White Pass into Fraser British Columbia Canda, the same way that the miners had to walk or go with pack animal and 2,000 pounds of supplies. Much easier by heated bus! It was very scenic and we took lots of pictures. 

At the summit of that, in Fraser, British Columbia, we got on the White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) Railroad train.

The WP&YR was originally built to help those miners who were hauling the ton of supplies up the pass but they finished building the railroad a year after the gold rush had ended. There’s more info about this railroad at http://www.wpyr.com We went over trestle bridges, through tunnels, over glaciers. Definitely a worthwhile trip.

WP&YR webcam: http://www.whitepassrailroad.com/multimedia/webcam.html

Here’s a bit of our train trip. Tom took this from the platform between the cars:

A very scary road between Stirling and Kinlochard, Scotland:

A helicopter around Barbados (more about this trip at http://beautiful-barbados.blogspot.com/2008/08/wednesday-week-one-helicopter-day.html)

Edinburgh Tattoo – twice! (Hoping for a third in 2020)

Panama Canal.  In the volcano image above, I’m wearing the t-shirt for the Panama Canal Railway that runs through the jungle.

Costa Rica and the Oh My God bridge.  They took this down while we were there – thank goodness!

And the not so good: Fire ants in Hilton Head, Thunderstorm while walking on a very slippery wooden walkway through the Everglades, Africanized Killer Bee in Costa Rica, …

This post began with and is adapted from http://www.maryo.co/giving-thanks-day-7-october-24-2017/

Today I’m thankful for Travel.

We’ve been fortunate to be able to travel to several interesting places.

Last fall, we were able to go to Copenhagen to embark on a Baltic Cruise.  This was the best cruise ever, although a little tiring!  I’m still catching up on these blog posts but I have done posts for Copenhagen, embarkation, Warnemunde, the first sea day, Tallinn and the first day of St. Petersburg so far.  Hopefully, I’ll get the rest done before next year!

In the Fall of 2018, we did a cruise to Canada.  It looks like I still need to write those posts, too.

Some trips, like Iceland, we just lucked in to. We’d wanted to go to Ireland but the travel agent couldn’t get us in at any time over that summer. She did get us a deal where, if we flew Iceland Air, they’d give us a free week in a hotel in Iceland before flying us to London. Duh! Wonderful trip.

A couple years ago we were in Costa Rica and took a day trip to Nicaragua where we stood at the rim of Masaya, a live volcano.

Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

And a neat train in Alaska (more about this trip here: http://www.cushingsonline.com/Alaska/alaska.htm)

Our bus driver was a very good driver who told us all about the history of Skagway and the surrounding areas. Our first stop was Liarsville (http://www.klondiketours.com/goldcampshow.html), a tent village for gold miners. It was called Liarsville because many newspaper reporters were there publishing tales of how “easy” it was to find gold and become rich. No Way! The locals did a show for us and let us pan for gold. Of course, most everyone found some little gold flakes. A very hard way to make a living!

We made our way up the White Pass on the Klondike Highway to a 3,000 ft waterfall, Dead Horse Gulch (a lot of packhorses couldn’t make it the whole way), the Moore Bridge, Yukon Suspension Bridge at Tutshi Canyon and up over the West White Pass into Fraser British Columbia Canda, the same way that the miners had to walk or go with pack animal and 2,000 pounds of supplies. Much easier by heated bus! It was very scenic and we took lots of pictures. 

At the summit of that, in Fraser, British Columbia, we got on the White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) Railroad train.

The WP&YR was originally built to help those miners who were hauling the ton of supplies up the pass but they finished building the railroad a year after the gold rush had ended. There’s more info about this railroad at http://www.wpyr.com We went over trestle bridges, through tunnels, over glaciers. Definitely a worthwhile trip.

WP&YR webcam: http://www.whitepassrailroad.com/multimedia/webcam.html

Here’s a bit of our train trip. Tom took this from the platform between the cars:

A very scary road between Stirling and Kinlochard, Scotland:

A helicopter around Barbados (more about this trip at http://beautiful-barbados.blogspot.com/2008/08/wednesday-week-one-helicopter-day.html)

Edinburgh Tattoo – twice! (Hoping for a third in 2020)

Panama Canal.  In the volcano image above, I’m wearing the t-shirt for the Panama Canal Railway that runs through the jungle.

Costa Rica and the Oh My God bridge.  They took this down while we were there – thank goodness!

And the not so good: Fire ants in Hilton Head, Thunderstorm while walking on a very slippery wooden walkway through the Everglades, Africanized Killer Bee in Costa Rica, …