Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The Rest of the Vacation

Well, I'm gong to try and wrap up everything else that we did in one post. It took us a couple of days to get out of England and into Germany. We met up with some friends of ours and spent a couple of days with them. While we were there, we toured Trier, which claims to be the oldest city in Germany. It was amazing to view the ruins from the Roman empire when Constantine wanted to make this his capital. Germany is a beautiful country but the most striking thing that we noticed was that most Germans are much taller than the rest of Europe and America. We definitely felt our short stature.

After the days spent with our friends, we went back to Ramstein and managed to catch the first flight out to Dover. We had gotten used to riding on military transports so this was becoming routine and we made the crossing in about 8 hours. It was around noon at Dover so we packed up and hit the road. We drove until we were too exhausted to go any further which ended up being the first town in Ohio. We crashed for the night and awoke refreshed and ready for the marathon trip across the country.

The plan was to drive straight through in shifts. All in all, it only took a little over 36 hours to get to Pinole, CA. We were tired but we felt at home and able to relax and recoup for a couple of days. My in-laws took us to their health club and the kids spent the afternoon in the pool. I fell asleep and got a really bad sunburn. TRAVEL TIP: If you are going to Hawaii, don't get sunburned right before you go. I got to wear a sunscreen swim shirt the whole time we were there. I may be one of the few people in history to came back from Hawaii less tan than when I went there.

We had a great time in Hawaii. We swam with the turtles, snorkeled at Hanama Bay, ate shave ice at Matsumoto's, and just lazed around on Waikiki Beach. It was the first time that I really relaxed since we left New Mexico. We ended up staying there 10 days because we couldn't get a hop out. I've traveled through Hawaii for years and never had any problems. Oh well, there are worst places in the world to get stranded for a few days. We checked back into our hotel, got a new rental car and hit the beaches again. Moneyspender and the boys liked Hawaii the best but my daughter and I still prefer Scotland. We finally caught a plane out and made it back to California.

Our original plan was to catch another hop to Alaska and spend two weeks fishing and camping. My goal was to send 200 lbs. of salmon back home. Unfortunately, my father-in-law had to have by-pass surgery and we had to cancel this portion of the trip. He made it through the surgery fine and he now owes me 200 lbs of salmon. Maybe we can go to Alaska next year and get it.

We made it back to New Mexico fine and immediately began football, cheerleading, church, and a multitude of other activities. I finally feel like I've closed out what I intended to do 8 months ago and I can begin to get back to regular blogging on things near and dear to my heart.

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