Anchors Away! Next Stop - Everywhere!
Only 9 days until we depart on our 2023 "Lands" Epic Adventure. This trip starts off with a flight to London, England with a bus ride to Southampton to catch a 16-day cruise. On this cruise, we'll be visiting Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. When we return to Southampton, it's another bus ride to London to pick up our 6-meter rental camper van. From there, it's a 6-week driving trip around E...
Even before last year's "Epic" adventure was finished, we started discussing what we would do for 2023. After listing the different places and countries we wanted to visit, we settled on visiting Iceland. Earlier in the year, we mentioned maybe visiting Iceland to Leslie, our oldest daughter. She and her boyfriend decided to "beat us to the punch", as they made a summer trip an...
While we were in Hawaii, I took the opportunity to visit five different U.S. Military Recreation Areas. We took photos, some videos, and gathered current information on these four locations to update my U.S. Military Campgrounds and RV Parks website. During our trip to the island of Hawaii, and over a couple days in Oahu, we visited: Kilauea Military Camp Recreation Area: Located o...
We've been enjoying our short Hawaiian stay, playing tourist most of the time. A couple days after we arrived, Connie and I caught another short flight to the "Big Island" (Hawaii). We were here to visit Connie's cousin, Jack Lane and his wife Sandy. They moved here a few years ago and have a beautiful home overlooking the ocean. They're living the paradise life many people dream about. We sp...
While staying in Queenstown, Connie, Bob and Joyce took another wine and beer tasting tour. They visited 3 wineries and sampled over 12+ wines (and some beer). They again enjoyed their tour event. It was another beautiful drive to the West Coast to visit the Franz Josef Glacier. During the drive, we saw a different look for New Zealand. There were more farming and heavy fores...
When we arrived in Dunedin and got settled in, we took a walk around the city center for dinner. Along the walk, Connie took several photos of the unique architecture and monuments. We also visited the "steepest street" in the world, according to the Guiness Book of World Records. Baldwin Street is 529-feet-long top section climbs 155 feet vertically, an average gradient of 1:3.41. ...
The ferry ride from the North Island of New Zealand to the South Island went very smoothly. The 3-hour trip was enjoyable, even with rainy weather and some rough seas. We arrived in Picton on the South Island a little after noon. We explored some of the nearby viewpoints before checking into our cute motel room. The rooms at the Jasmon Court Hotel were nice. We wished we were s...
We've been pretty busy these last couple of days, so I thought I'd update the blog while I could. When we arrived in Napier, we checked into the Masonic Art Deco Hotel. The town of Napier was pretty much destroyed in 1931 by a 7.8 earthquake. Before then, the town was actually a small island. But the earthquake made the land around the island to raise over 9 feet, turning the island into a pe...
We can't get over how beautiful the rolling green hills are here. We're told it's not like this all year, we just happen to be here at the right time. The weather has been fantastic, with just a couple days of rain at the beginning of our driving. Since then, it's been sunny and warm. We arrived in the small coastal town of Hahei and enjoyed a picnic lunch along the Coromandel Peninsula. We ...
We hadn't made any definite plans on what to do in Tahiti. Originally, we tried to get a daytrip to visit the nearby island of Moorea, but that didn't pan out. They were already fully booked for the trip we wanted to take. We arrived in Papeete, Tahiti in the afternoon, with the ship staying in port for a couple nights. Bob and Joyce took a few short walks off ship. We tried to rent a car for...
