March 28, 2024

Dublin, Ireland (29 Nov-7 Dec 2022)

This year, for my birthday and Christmas, Pat asked where I’d like to go. Dublin, Ireland, was my immediate response. We had planned a trip to Ireland, with one night in Dublin, before Covid-19 played havoc with everyone’s plans. That trip was to be with David, Michelle and Claire, with everyone flying into Dublin, but immediately heading to the West Coast. Only Pat and I were to stay one night in Dublin. As usual, we flew Delta, through Boston. When we arrived at the Dublin Airport (DUB), we stopped at a SPAR (convenient store) and purchased two 7-day Leap Visitor …

Dublin, Ireland (29 Nov-7 Dec 2022) Read More

Hops around Park City (2022)

The Summit Land Conservancy and Park City’s Wasatch Brew Pub teamed up to harvest wild hops around Park City, Utah, in August, culminating with a party in October to sample the beer made from these wild hops. On August 18, a group met to look for hops between Park City and the Judge mine to the south. This particular hike was a recon hike to check for hop, which would be harvested in a couple of weeks. Along the way, starting at the top of Prospect Avenue (which was one steep road!), on the Prospect Trail, we passed several old …

Hops around Park City (2022) Read More

Europe (July 2022)

We left Oslo, Norway, on 2 July heading to Copenhagen and then on to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Brussels and London. This is the first time we have done a European trip without renting a car – we are using trains between cities. During planning, we picked Eurail as the supplier of our various tickets. Unfortunately, they were swamped with pent-up demand from all the people who were getting back to travel after Covid. We were part of that demand. However, Eurail was not prepared and didn’t have sufficient support staff available to answer questions and fix problems. It didn’t …

Europe (July 2022) Read More

Sweden-Norway (June 2022)

Finally travel has opened back up after 2 years of Covid. Planning for this trip began in February, 2020, when I saw information about Sweden’s Inlandsbanan and Hurtigruten Classic Voyage South, on one of my many travel feeds. I then contacted Fifty Degrees North, the travel company I had read about, and we began planning the trip. That year, I received an email asking when we might want to schedule the trip, I responded that September might be a good time. Turns out Covid got in the way. In the 2 years since that initial contact, our travel group (Etarae …

Sweden-Norway (June 2022) Read More