Come with us as we travel the world! See where you can go!

Northern Lights Tour Day 03

Day 03 Jan 30, 2025, Helsinki, Finland

We get up and pack up. A leisurely breakfast consists of more bananas and toast. My stomach is better, but not good enough yet.

We check out of the hotel and join the tour bus at 10 AM. Fun sights and monuments entertain our cameras as we travel through the Finnish countryside.

We visit the “Rock Church”, dug into the rock. The acoustics are amazing! With a pipe organ and a choir section also. After that, we visit the Sibelius Monument, made from 600 stainless steel pipes, representing the music of Helsinki.

Today’s bus tour finishes at the Oodi Library. It is a very modern museum with book robots, 3D printing, free Meeting rooms and gaming rooms. They even make some windows look as if it is raining! I snack on more bananas and tea. We find a supermarket and get bananas, rice cakes and applesauce, etc.

We walk back to the hotel and nap and relax for 2 hours. Then we walk our luggage to the train station. We will ride a sleeper train tonight. It is probably our best sleeper train yet. We have a bathroom and shower in the room! Albeit an airline size bathroom, it has a panel that folds over the toilet to reveal a shower! We even get some sleep. Elee lets me have the lower bunk to placate my upset stomach. A photo of some of our fellow travelers shows how narrow the aisle in the train is!

We walk through several train cars and find the bar car. Yes, it seems that every train in the world with sleeper cars has a bar car! I smuggle a banana and a bottle of water in as I am keeping to my strict BRAT diet. Elee and others in our group order food and drinks from the bar. The conductor walks through and I hide my banana and water under the table. The conductor inquires about our tickets. Luckily, he accepts our story of being in a group and seems to recognize the validity of the group.

We continue to get to know the members of our group and all chat amicably together. The Aussies are a very friendly group! I take my leave and make it back to our car and sleeper unit for the night.

Northern Lights Tour Day 02

Day 02, Jan 29, 2025 Tallinn, Estonia

This morning it’s on the bus at 6:15 AM. Everyone is on time! We drive to the port where a Ferry is docked. We board the ferry that is larger than CMV Columbus or Ambassador Ambiance that took us around the world in 2020 and 2024!

The Ferry is a 2 hour ride to Tallinn in the dark. Breakfast on the ferry is really good. I blame my upset stomach on food poisoning from a burger I got in LAX. But I feel good now. So I enjoy a hearty breakfast. Once docked in Tallinn, we board a bus in the sunrise light around 9:30 AM.

The bus tour of Tallinn is interesting. There are some really interesting old Russian buildings. An interesting term is used several times. Russification. Russification is a policy of cultural assimilation that promotes Russian culture and language over other ethnicities.  It can be imposed by a state or adopted voluntarily. It seems in Estonia, it happens voluntarily. During the walking tour, it starts raining. We stop in a colonial restaurant and order soup to warm up. The rain stops at about 1:30 PM. We resume walking around the old city. We spot a small cafe and have glass of wine.

Here, as in many parts of the world, graffiti is no stranger. In the cities, it is just there. Like a plague. There are people in the world that do not know respect for people or property. It is sad.

We meet up with group at 3 PM and get back on the bus. The tour continues at an old park. We board the Ferry at 4:00 PM. It seems my stomach is doing flip flops again. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that big breakfast. The Ferry leaves at 4:30 and I’m feeling sick again. I find some airline type seats that recline and I try to relax and sleep. The Ferry ride lasts 2 hours.

We board a bus and travel back to the hotel. My dinner consists of bananas and crackers. I will put myself on the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast) diet for a couple days. This is not a good start to vacation! I turn in early, vowing to beat this stomach bug, whatever it is.

Northern Lights Tour Day 01

Day 01 Jan 28, 2025 Travel to get there!

Our good friends Rick and Marilyn give us a ride to the airport. We board Scandinavian Airlines in LAX for a 5:40 PM flight to Kobenhavn (Copenhagen). The flight is an uneventful 11 hour flight. The notable thing is the temperature. It is quite chilly in Danmark (Denmark).

We change planes and the flight to Helsinki, Finland. It is also an uneventful flight lasting about 2 hours. We land at 5:40 PM. It is interesting that we land at the same clock time that we took off in LAX, only one day later). It is even colder in Finland. We have worn our Arctic Coats and Boots as these items do not fit in our already overstuffed suitcases. Winter cold weather clothing takes up a lot of space!

We have a ride scheduled to our hotel. Sure enough, there is a driver with our name on a placard waiting for us. I tell the driver that I need to get a sim card for my phone before we leave the airport. He helps me do that and all is good.

It is 6:15 PM and the ride to the hotel is 40 minutes. So we walk into the lobby at 7 PM and check in. We bring our bags up to our room. I head back down to meet our Guide and Group for the Introduction Meeting and Dinner that is scheduled to start at 7 PM. Yes, we are late. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Our Guide is looking for us. He sits us at the same table as he is sitting so he can bring us up to date. The other table mates introduce themselves and are very friendly. The light above the bed in our room elicits conversation among the group!

It turns out that the Group of 24 is from Australia and we are the only 2 from the USA. But everyone is friendly and we get along with everyone also. The important news is that we need to be on the bus at 6:15 AM. The Guide, Mikael, is very laid back. He has only one rule to adhere to, “Be on time, All the time.” It will turn out that everyone will pay attention to that very simple rule.

These next two photos are of the decor above the front desk in the hotel! I wonder how many other people photograph them?

Up to our room and settle in for our 2 night stay here. Goodnight! We have traveled for over 18 hours and it is 28 clock hours later. Jet Lag. Get over it, you’ll need to.

Formula 1 Weekend Las Vegas

Thursday, Nov 21, 2024

The drive to Vegas was a basically uneventful 5 hours. Skies were exciting!

Pulled into Vegas to see some famous sites. It’s been over a decade since we have been here if you don’t count the overnight trip in a motorhome 3 years ago.

Got a room in the Strat for $50 so it seemed like the way to go! Then it was off to explore the city for the first time in well over a decade!

We explored the Neom Museum, a collection of a lot of the retired neon signs from the past!

Wouldn’t be a night in the Stratosphere Hotel without a trip up to the Top of the World! Views of the strip and the “Sphere” kept our cameras happy!

Then we called it a night. The next morning we were up in time for breakfast before the real reason we came this weekend…

We meet up with my nephew for lunch. Haven’t seen him for many years. It was fun to reconnect and catch up on how he’s doing. We find out he is a dealer in one of the large casinos on the strip. He is happy with what he is doing. We are happy for him and the people he has in his life.

We then check in to our next hotel. we will stay here for the rest of the weekend, the Hilton Grand Vacations Resort. Around sunset we cross the street to ride the Monorail to visit the Strip. The ride takes us right next to the Sphere. Who knew the pixels on the Sphere were the size of hockey pucks? We also get a view close up of the Flamingo (That I stayed in decades ago). The Flamingo is on the short list to be demolished to make way for a new baseball stadium!

Views of the Strip renovated into a Formula 1 Race Track are eye opening! Getting a view of the occasional race car practicing and qualifying are fun. Security is such that getting photos of it are virtually impossible. Guards keep you moving and views are blocked by walls. We come across Homeland Security Officers and they are conversational and fun to chat with.

We head back to the hotel and call it a night. The next day, Saturday, we get breakfast at The Omelet House. Back to the Hotel, we attend a Timeshare Presentation which is the real reason we came up to Vegas. We have been attending these presentations for over 40 years. Then we say ‘No’ and collect our gift. This time the gift is 25,000 Hilton Honors Points, LOL. This will get us 5-6 nights stay at different Hilton Hotels. We have received many sets of luggage, tv’s, rental cars, and hotel stays over the years!

Then it is off to the Monorail and another trip to the Strip to see more sights and glimpses of the race track again.

Tonight, we visit the Paradox Museum, a collection of optical illusions.

Then we boarded the Monorail to go back to the hotel. We are just in time for the F1 Race! We watch the Race live in our room. Formula 1 is an exciting 90 minutes! Then we call it a night! We woke on Sunday to beautiful skies and a view from our room.

We kick back today and when evening comes, we head for Downtown (different than the Strip). We check out the “Fremont Experience” and boy has this place changed! The last time we were on Fremont Street we drove it in a car. Now it is totally a pedestrian street. Even the sky is now a roof, illuminated with LED screens and images galore! Live music from many venues cover the area. You can ride a Zip line down the street for a mere $150 each. To rich for our blood for a 90 second ride.

We hear about a “Speakeasy” and we go in search of it. Finding it online, it even gives us the code word to enter. Locating it is easy, especially if you are outgoing and talk to people on the street. We step down the darkened steps and ring the bell. A small sliding window opens in the door and dark eyes greet us. I speak the code word and the window slams shut with a bang. Did I get it wrong?

Then the door opens are we are welcomed inside! We are told there is a wait for a table but seats at the bar are available. So to the bar it is! Jazz, Blues, Ragtime and Swing music is playing by a Ragtime Band. All the employees (and several customers) are decked out in period costumes. The atmosphere is lively. Our Bartender is tossing drink cups around with obvious talent and we visit with other patrons. All are having a great time!

We ‘stumble’ out and pass through the Fremont Experience. We get to our car and we are done for the night!

We wake on Monday and have breakfast and then casually head out for the trip home. The traffic is light and we tool along at 75 mph until we get to the Cajon Pass. Traffic snarls. Eventually we come across a complete semi tractor trailer that has driven strait off the side of a cliff. We never find out the fate of the rig or driver. So the trip home takes us 7 hours.