A Little Catch Up and Update on Virtual Friends

Well I didn't realize until I mentioned this blog to someone else that I hadn't posted anything in quite awhile. For one thing we went on a pretty long vacation this past year with our traveling buddies. The trip was long, educational, fun and sometimes a little stressful. We visited so many different places and saw so much that when I go back over our trip with friends and others I feel a little guilty that we were able to do what we did. In some ways it was good being overseas for a couple of months because I didn't have to listen to all the talking heads whether they were negative and/or positive on our Presidential election. Additionally, I didn't have to read or get into discussions with friends because we were defintley on opposite sides of the polictical spectrum. For the record, I am over joyed that President Obama was re-elected. It was very interesting to listen and hear how the Europeans thought of our election candidates as well. Enough of policts for the moment. I see that my last post was about "Virtual Friends". As I mentioned in the last post, we had 2 guest stop by and visit with us before they headed back home to the UK. Elaine and Robert have been traveling all over the US in an RV for the last 4 years. They come over here for about 4-5 months then go home and come back. They shared with us that the last couple of times they came back into the US, they were really starting to get more questioned as to if they were staying more over here in the US vs the UK. ELaine and Robert stopped by and visited us with the initial intention of first only staying with us a weekend. Since we had never met "as in person", they were not sure if they would like us and we as well were not sure we would like them. Surprise, we all clicked like we had been long time friends. Elaine and Robert ended up staying with us for a week and we had so much friend. Robert and my hubby Ron are both mechanical engineers by trade and they got along quite well. Elaine and I shared a love of knitting, however, she introduced me to spinning and I was like a little kid spping it all up. Her and I also visited a couple of knitting shops and I introduced to her some of my knitting friends as we went around to different shops. When we left, Elaine and I both got very emotional as I knew it would be a long before they would be coming by our home to see us again. They were on there last leg of their US travels in their motorhome. They were putty HaRVey up for sale and going home, as they have grandchildren now and want to spend some time with their family. However, don't be sad, we got a chance to visit with Robert and Elaine when we were over visiting the UK. They live in Newcastle and we spent 4 days with them. It was so much fun to visit their city and have them take us around. They were also a good resource for us on suggestions for us as to how we would figure out our driving itinerary around the UK. I guess I would end this by saying,just because you have grown up with someone, met people through your career and adult life doesn't mean that someone you meet over the internet doesn't come out successfully. When it is good and you have this connection makes you start to realize what a small world our planet Earth really is.

New Travels and Planning for Summer 2012

Well we are going to visit Northern Europe this year.

So we are in the midst of planning our trip. Ever have 4 Type A personalities all talking and yaking at the same time. Each of us afraid we won't get our wants, desires and dislikes out on the table!!! But we are muddling through our desires,likes and dislikes. We get there, we just sometimes wonder how we get from A to Z.

What we know for sure, is we have a flight out date, a return flight back and our cruise booked. Yes, we will mix in a cruise along with our land travel.

What we have so far is a 17 Day Scandinavian-Baltic Cruise booked, 8 days in France and 2 days in Stockholm.

More too follow as we move through from planning to implementation.....

VIRTURAL VS PHYSICAL FRIENDS?

With this new age of social networking and social groups you sometimes come across individuals whom you become aquainted with on a "virtual" basis. Over the last couple of years I have become a pretty active participant in "Ravelry". This is a group of knitters and/or crocheter's from all over not only the US but other countries. On this web site, there are differnt groups that I have joined and have struck up what I call "virtual friends". However, something has happened with these virtual friends, they have actually become what I call "physical friends". Through our friendship there are many things we have shared with each other. Can it be that because we may be located apart from each other that we share some of our most inner thoughts and/or opinions or is it something else? I used to think this but it is not true. It is like a physical friendship, there are those persons you like and those you don't like. I have also found that for myself instead of sometimes holding back when someone hurts my feelings and/or I do not agree with them, in a virtual environment I am more apt to not hold back how I feel. So I often wonder if others have virtual friends and if they have met them and how it went. I just met one of mine and will be posting about our encounter with my next post.......

On The Road Again

Well, we are getting ready to head out of town again. Our son is getting married in about 3 weeks so we are going to combine an RV trip with going up for the wedding. And our travel buddies, Dennis and Cathy will be in their RV as well. Last year we did parts of Europe and the Mediterrean this year the uS.

New this year for us, we will be taking Princess #1 (our 42 yr old step-daughter) and Princess #2 (our 4 1/2 yr old Granddaughter). They are only going to be with us for the 1st portion of the trip, that is going up for the wedding. I'm looking forward to the trip and hope all goes well for that 1st week. As always, there will be wine, beer or Mr. Jack to help settle my mind if it is needed, LOL.

Our plan is to visit a little bit of Northern CA and then do somethings up in Oregon before we get to Portland.

The good news this year, we won't be lugging around a bunch of suitcases, YEA!!!!

Well I am packing up the RV and will post once we are on the road.

Rome and Coming Home

After spending 3 great days down in Southern Italy, we then headed back up to Rome for our last 4 days. As we had visited the Vatican when we on the cruise ship, we decided to visit the other sites around Rome. Have to tell you, Rome is great and we had a lot of fun. We saw the Forum, Collesium, Paletine Hill, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps, etc, etc. We were staying outside of downtown Rome and took the bus from our Hotel (good idea). Did a lot of walking and we just enjoyed ourselves.

On our last night in Rome, we found a Chinese (spelled Cinese in Rome) that was fantastic and a nice change for us.

So we piled all of our luggage back into the rental car and headed out to the Rome airport. Had a great ride home back to the states and said good-bye to Dennis and Cathy when we got to Dulles airport.

We had a wondeful trip and saw and did so much. After being gone for 2 months, it has been a little hard to get used to dealing in US Dollars, not seeing KM on the road signs and hearing English. We are glad to be back home and now I need to start working on those pictures we took.

We heard from Cathy and Dennis the other day and it looks like we are going to see them in January down in Monterey for a couple of days. So we will be doing an RV trip.

The Island of Capri, Italy and Sorrento

After an afternoon in Sorrento we headed over to the Island of Capri for the day. Found this video and it sure helps explain the island and the fun we had.

No, I did not do the chairlift......

Amalfi Coast, Italy

Well I drove the Amalfi Coast in Southern Italy, so beautiful. Found this video and it gives a pretty good description of the area.