Ramada Inn Plant City

The rough plan of our trip is as follows...

Thursday morning, we drive to Orlando and fly to Baltimore. Hopefully, we will get a military flight right out of BWI. There may be one Late PM on Thursday. If we can't get on that one, we will stay the night in Baltimore and head to McGuire AFB, NJ on Friday. It looks like there may be three flights from McGuire to ...

... to do another run-through of my gear. It's always hard to judge how cold it will be. We travel to different places and the elevation can vary the temperature so much that it's best to just pack in layers.

One major point we are still deciding on is whether to rent a car for the entire time or to rely mostly on trains and taxis as we have in the past. The jury is still out.

... is like. It has very sociable outdoor areas. I love the fountain and Conrad likes the outdoor shower (does this surprise anyone!?). We will be headed to the airport shortly. Fly from Tampa to Miami. Wait in Miami for 2 hours, then fly 9 hours to Madrid. It will be 7 am on October 4th by the time we get there.

... like my Dad said, "if you don't have a plan, you can't change it", still I long for the footloose and fancy free days of traveling with no schedule.

Bruce's 'lady friend', a hot chick from Amsterdam, has offered us her place to stay in the heart of Amsterdam (on the Leidsplein!!!) for a couple of days - how cool is that???

I sooooo much look forward to this trip and I thank my wonderful staff for making it possible!!! yeah, you know who you are....

... sort of agrees, but it will require more dog proofing b/c he's so small he can get under stuff.
We finally made it to Gram's Place at 1030 pm. I was tired. We stayed in the Blues Room. We met a lovely couple from Sweden currently living in Jacksonville. Conrad stayed up with them and drank beers while I went to bed.

Hello Class!

Welcome to our travel blog where we will be writing about our fun travels! Each of you will write one entry that is at least 2 paragraphs long (4-5 sentences each). You will need to include how many miles we will travel in all, how much your airline tickets cost ...

... were ever to go back, I'd spend several days there to tour the wineries, rather than just duck into town. But we did several winery tours in Napa Valley, so we figured the winery tours were expendable.

- I've now seen the highlights of Paris (except for the Louvre). If we went back, I'd probably just cab it and/or mass transit.

- Nice was less than I thought it would be. The beach was rock. The water was pretty, but cold. That coupled with ...

... wrong emphaasis on the wrong syllaable.”

My favorite part of the flight was obviously snack time. The flight attendants take drink orders similar to a waiter or waitress at a restaurant with a pen and paper and deliver drinks personally to the customer. I may still have been overjoyed with excitement about the chocolate chip TVs, but I’m pretty sure the flight attendants didn’t act P.O.’d that they were giving the customers drinks ...

... squirrels just can't match up to the meal potential of a kangaroo or emu.

Here's some random stuff we learned:
- Australia has the US to thank for its becoming a country. Originally Britian had intended to establish its penal colony in Atlanta, GA, however after the American Revolution, that plan was squashed and they sent the outlaws to Australia instead.
- A kid's slide is referred to as a "slippery dip".
- In Australia voting is ...

... it, he is crazy. He asks if we got videos and I said yes. When Tony brings it over, he suggests we go and watch it. I'm not sure that I want to watch it with people. Not after that landing! We head over to "Town Hall" and pop it into the DVD player. I like the music, but am pretty embarrassed overall. I wasn't planning on showing anyone until I could view it. I can't watch the landing, but I hear Shaun respond to it and that's not good. We head ...