Category: travels

We hit the road around 8 AM and our plan is to get to Idaho Falls around lunchtime, have lunch, visit one of our must-sees and check into the hotel. Of course it doesn’t work out quite like that. As we are nearing the Idaho border we spy a billboard advertising the Museum of Clean in Pocatello. What do you know? On the way to Idaho Falls we are passing right through Pocatello. The Clean Museum is too much to pass up!

Luckily John thought to bring along our Roadside Geology of Idaho and as I am driving he regales me with information about Lake Bonneville and the strangely missing Mesozoic rock in the area. All this is super interesting except I got very little sleep last night and know  that I cannot keep driving. We switch drivers and, I never do this, I fall asleep until we reach Pocatello.

As we pull off the highway I wake up and we make our way to the Museum of Clean, the brainchild of Don Aslett. Don Aslett made his fortune by starting a cleaning company when he was attending the nearby Idaho State University. It expanded across the United States.

He has housed his museum in a refurbished 1915 architectural gem. Only the front facade is new.

We are greeted at the door by two robots made out of various cleaning paraphernalia and a lovely older lady who is really into the whole concept of the museum. She explains about various tours but we beg off. First, though she must show us the inside of an overly-stuffed garage. If we can name five things that we have in our garage we will pass the test and receive our choice of a book about cleaning. We win!

We walk around the museum seeing early vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers. There are old toilets and old toilet paper. Washing machines and early irons and manglers are all on display. We take a short break.

An hour is about enough and we head into Pocatello for some lunch. We find a place, Efresh, that sounds promising but is meh.

We have one more stop before getting into Idaho Falls. It is called Hell’s Half-Acre and is appended to a rest stop. It explains about a lava flow that seeped out of the earth about 2000 years ago. This was just an ooze not an explosive volcano. It spread out over the surrounding countryside often to a depth of hundreds of feet. The site we are looking out is 17 miles away from the main source. We take a short trail which is dotted with informational placards. It is very hot.

Finally we make the rest of the trip to Idaho Falls. After another short nap (Oh, I am so exhausted today) we make our scouting, shopping, and dinner plans. First we find tennis courts so we can play tomorrow morning. Next we find the Idaho Brewing Company where John would like to try their beers, third we buy a bottle of wine for our dinner at Chef Shane’s Perspective. Then we have a glass of wine at the Blackrock Fine Wines and Craft Beers in downtown Idaho Falls. We have misjudged our timing and need to kill about a half an hour until our reservation.

Finally we arrive at Chef Shane’s where we have a scallop appetizer and some pork entrees. Mine is super salty and kind of dry. John likes his although I think the pork belly could have been seared and caramelized like we had in China.

 

Well, here it is our 45th anniversary. Wow. We are fortunate to have such a long and happy marriage but I think we are well suited to each other and have worked hard over the years to keep our marriage a happy one. Now as oldsters we get as much pleasure in each other’s company as we ever did, maybe more so. We are both so interested in the world around us and now that we have the internet at our fingertips, our conversation never lags.

For instance, today we pass a truck loaded with sacks full of rice hulls. What are those used for I ask. John always has an answer and tells me that they are used for cleaning industrial parts. I google it up and tell him the myriad uses that rice hulls have. Now we are ready the next time rice hulls come up in conversation! This is the kind of fun with have.

Today we are in Sonoma Valley for a little wine tasting, a dinner at a favorite place, and an overnight.  Our first stop is at Jacuzzi Winery. They are quite busy for a Monday. We taste and buy a few bottles. We also stop in at their olive oil outlet and taste some olive oils and have our bottles refilled.

Then it is on to Ledson Winery where I am looking for an old-style peppery Zinfandel. We enter their Addams family building and are met by a concierge. She leads us to a tasting area. I wonder if they do that to separate the wheat from the chaff. Having made the grade we sample some wine and buy a case. Annoyingly they do not give us the member discount that they promised as a lifetime perk of joining the club.

There are not many places to have lunch around here. We used to go to The Kenwood but as we pass it we notice that it is no longer in business. We settle for Cafe Citti and are pleasantly surprised with a tasty sandwich and a delicious chickpea side. We should have only ordered one since the portions are enormous and neither of us finish.

Lastly we go to Imagery Winery but I am not so much into it. I am tired and a bit sleepy from the big late lunch and the wine tasting. But John soldiers on and we buy a few bottles from them.

We are staying the night at the Best Western Sonoma Inn which is not great but has a wonderful location right off Sonoma Square. After a nap (for me) and showers we head over to Tasca Tasca for dinner. It is so nice that it is within walking distance. Here we have their tapas menu. It is great to be able to pick out a bunch of small plates and have a little dessert afterwards.

We have had a lovely anniversary and I am looking forward to many more.

We take a boat ride and then a bus ride to Heathrow for our afternoon flight home. Since we are flying Virgin Atlantic we get to try their London lounge. It is very nice with even a menu and table service. It is a good thing that we decide to have lunch at the lounge in the airport because their food on the flight is inedible. We each have a vegetable korma.

Our flight is somewhat delayed taking off but makes most of the delay up during the flight. The seats are somewhat lacking in shoulder space.

After an interminable 10+ hours we land at SFO. We get through Customs and Immigration in the fastest time ever, quickly receive our luggage, and Sarah is ready to pick us up. We arrive home before 7 PM, try to stay up for a while and crash around 9 PM.

We have had a good time on our trip but realize once again that touring with a bunch of people is not our favorite way of traveling.

 

We pull into London early Saturday morning after a day at sea where our major activities were going to a lecture about the architecture of London and getting John’s cold better. It is a very noisy docking and if I had known how noisy our third deck suite was going to be I might have considered postponing the trip until a suite on a different deck was available. The anchor and lines mechanisms were right below us.

The itinerary for the day is different from what was scheduled due to a large Pride parade which is causing street closures. The new itinerary is the Viking will get us into London by boat and then the rest is up to us. We are fine with that and decide to visit the National Gallery which is right on Trafalgar Square and within walking distance of the Thames Clipper stop at Westminster Pier.

On our trip from the Viking Sea down the Thames we see many of the iconic buildings mentioned in yesterday’s lecture. Londoners have fanciful names for them.

There are a lot of people in London this morning and the numbers only increase as the day wears on. We take a less populated route to Trafalgar Square and pass by other iconic London spots.

We make our way past the throngs who are looking forward to a concert later and into the calm of the National Gallery. Knowing our museum stamina we decide to concentrate on an exhibition by Giovanni da Rimini and their collection of 13th to16th century art.

After looking at the Exhibition and a century or two of other art, we stop for lunch.The service is very slow but our table overlooks Trafalgar Square and we watch the goings-on below. The lunch is worth the wait and is quite tasty.

After some more browsing we head back to the Clipper through the crowds which have now become quite bevved up and are leaving their glass bottles everywhere. We are jostled quite a bit in our attempt to get through the parade attendees and I am happy to return to our ride back to the ship.

On the way back we see buildings on the other bank of the Thames.

Later we have dinner for the last time at the Chef’s Table. The menu (which we tried last night as well) is inspired by China’s Cantonese and Hualwang cuisines. It is really not very authentic but the chef has promised us a spicy dipping sauce tonight. (In addition to the pictures below there was also a coconut granita and a chilled mango cream.)

The staff at the restaurant has been wonderful to us and the dishes have been mostly delicious. Everyone has been so welcoming that they would have been happy to see us every night. As is we had dinner there probably nine times. Vikesh, the manager, always had a table waiting for us next to a window.

 

 

‘Tis a wee bit misty as the Viking Sea plies its way toward our berth in Rosyth near Edinburgh. We are treated to passage under three bridges spanning the river, Forth. The first called the Forth Bridge was built in 1882-1890. Interestingly the steel Forth Bridge is contemporaneous with the Eiffel Tower which was built of iron. The Forth Bridge is still in use carrying rail traffic across the river.

The next bridge which is for car traffic was built in the 1950’s and opened in 1960. The final bridge is just finishing construction and its cables look like sails. It is due to open in September. It will be the new bridge for car traffic since it has baffles to cut down on the wind’s influence and the 1950’s bridge will be for trucks.

Since this is Scotland, we are piped off the boat and onto the bus.

As we head into Edinburgh we get a little history about the place. Edinburgh is the capital and has around 500,000 people while Glasgow is the bigger city and has 600,000. The difference is due to the fact that Glasgow is on the Atlantic Ocean and Edinburgh is on the North Sea. Back in the day when they were deciding where the capital should be Edinburgh was more populated and prosperous because trading could be done all over the North Sea area while Glasgow fronted the unknown and more treacherous ocean.

On our drive we see a number of small, one-story houses called bungalows. It seems that people really liked the style of homes that they lived in India back when the sun was never setting on the British Empire. So they named the houses after the place where they lived. “Bangala” in Hindi merely means “of Bengal.”

 

We enter the section of Edinburgh called New Town because it was built outside the city walls. The houses are mostly stone of a yellow-ish hue. It has been found that cleaning the stone in the city makes it deteriorate even more quickly so much of Edinburgh is kind of dingy looking.

We pass by Holyrood Palace on our way up to an overlook. I cannot get a good picture though because Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip are visiting and security is blocking all the nearby streets.

At the overlook Edinburgh sprawls out in front of us and behind us are the remnants of an ancient volcano.

We enter the Old Town which is somewhat more crowded together with a mishmash of architectural styles. They still have parks here that are for residents only and the key to the park can cost up to 15,000 Pounds!

We now get dropped off for an hour and a half. We are not dropped anywhere historic but at the top of the Royal Mile which appears mostly to be a mile of schlock. I believe that once again the major function is to buy stuff. The place is overrun with tourists of every type.

Our major objective is to find a place to buy cold medicine for John, acquire more money from an ATM, and hopefully have a pint in a pub. I report success on all three objectives.

We find out that if  you want actual cold medicine going into the local chemist or Boots is not going to do it. We know from previous experiences that we want Day and Night Nurse. That is only available from a pharmacy. These shops tend to be smaller and have a green cross outside.

On the way to finding our cold medicine we pass the memorial to David Hume. John touches his toe and now we are promised . . .what? That our knowledge will only be founded  in experience and that our knowledge is either directly traceable to objects perceived in experience or resulting from abstract reasoning about relations between ideas which are already derived from experience? Well, duh, we already hold those views. Maybe we can pass the toe rubbing on to less empirical folk.

Next we see a memorial statue to Sir Walter Scott.

Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish playwright, poet, and historical novelist.

The edifice behind Sir Walter Scott is the Cathedral of St. Giles. St. Giles was a hermit and his only friend was a deer. St. Giles protected the deer from an arrow shot by some royal hunters. It wounded the deer but mostly St.Giles protected the deer by taking the brunt of the arrow in his hand. He has become the patron saint of disabled people. He is one of the  Fourteen Holy Helpers.

After the detour to the cathedral we continue the hunt for cold medicine. While John is looking in Boots (fruitlessly), I find some interesting foods to look at in the self-service case.

We finally find the pharmacy, get directions to the ATM, and now the only thing to do is to toast ourselves at a pub in the Scottish capital. We finally find one with twenty minutes left and guzzle down a quick half-pint before heading to the bus and back to the boat.

The remainder of the afternoon is just rest time and we decide on room service for dinner. Our electronic connection explodes and we are without a lot of power in the room. We have a lot of workmen in the room for the next hour but it is finally corrected. We finish watching Roger’s match at Wimbledon, order dinner, and go to sleep.

 

The first thing we notice is that the topography of the Orkney Islands looks different from the Shetlands. It is green with rolling hills and there is a lot of farming going on and cows grazing in the fields. We are told that these cows only live outside for half the year due to the harsh winters. They are housed in the big barns we see.

We are really fortunate to have this great weather again today. It is only in the mid-50’s but the sun is shining brightly. Our first stop is at the Stand Stones of Stenness. There is a lot of interesting archeology going on in the Orkney Islands which is covered with stone rings and grass covered burial mounds from pre-historic times.

We hop off the bus to take a look at the Stones being careful to watch where we step since the field is also used for sheep grazing. The stones are from the Neolithic period dating to around 3000 B.C. The circle of stones and its encircling ditch or “henge” are incomplete partly due to the fact that the landowner in the 19th century started smashing and toppling them in order to keep sightseers away. The site is now under protection by the Scottish government and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Next we drive by the Ring of Brodgar. This site is still being actively excavated. It has been dated as being from around 2600-2000 B.C. and originally had 60 stones of which 27 still exist. It was also encircled by a henge or ditch. The stones are smaller than the ones at Stenness averaging in height from 7 to 15 feet.

After seeing these sites we are dropped off in the picturesque town of Stromness. I think we are supposed to wander around buying things but it doesn’t seem like many on the bus are cooperating with the whole buying stuff scheme. We walk down several streets and take pictures. The architecture is similar to Lerwick with stone houses and businesses.

John is getting a cold so we spend the rest of the afternoon quietly in hopes that he will get better fast. Later we go to dinner at the Italian restaurant, Manfredi’s. Our meal is very good and we are tucked away in a corner where it is a little less noisy which is nice.