Up and at ’em at 6 am. Luis woke us up and porters had warm bowls of water for washing at our tent and a choice of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Those guys work their butts off. You can see in the pictures the size of the packs they carry. We cleaned up, had a great breakfast, and off we went. The guide wasn’t kidding about a tough hike. We hiked from 7 am till 5 pm. Remember the…
After breakfast we met Luis at 9 am for our trek to the Inca trail. It was about a 45 min drive to the starting point. There’s a check point everyone has to pass through and show tickets and passports as they only allow a certain number to pass through per day. It took us about 15 min to get through and as you can see from the pictures we jumped right into it. You cross a bridge and up…
We met our guide at about 10 am and it was off to Ollantaytambo, our next overnight stop a couple hours away. It’s the oldest continuously inhabited town of the Inca. On the way we stopped at a town called Pisac to see the ruins there. After that we stopped for lunch then on to Ollantaytambo for a tour of the Ollantaytambo fortress. After the tour we headed to the hotel and checked into our rooms. Then we went to…
After lunch we met up with Luis to begin our tours. First was the ruins of Tambomachay. They don’t really know what this site was originally used for but here’s a website if you want to read about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambomachay. Up and down some hills and stairs and poor Jamie was done. The guide actually told us later he was concerned about her making the hike to Macho Picchu. But she was just jet lagged and maybe a little affected…
After a weekend visiting our friends Bubba and Kim in Houston we set off for Lima, Peru with our friends Tiff and Lori. We got there about 11 pm and headed to the hotel for a couple night caps then off to bed for an early wake up. We boarded an 8:30 flight for Cusco and were greeted at the airport by a costumed welcoming party who sang and danced and offered tea with coca leaves which are supposed to…
Jamie left for Houston this morning for a day of training for work. I wasn’t so fortunate as to have such a day scheduled so I suffered with a day of golf at Chambers Bay golf course, home of the 2015 US open. It was a beautifully laid out and scenic course but I was a little disappointed in the condition. It was designed to mimic the old links courses of Scotland so part of the conditions were intentional but…
We drove into Seattle today. First on our list was lunch at one of the places on our best sandwiches of America list. Since it’s been a while that we’ve been to one of those I’ll explain this one again. There was a show back in 2012 on the travel channel called Adam Richman’s best sandwich of America. He took recommendations from all over America on people’s favorite sandwiches, then broke the country down into regions, then went to each…
Our tour ended around 3 so from there we drove to the two main peaks in Whidbey island, Mt. Erie and Mt. Washington. Mt. Washington was first and wasn’t that spectacular. We hiked around for about a mile which was nice but otherwise were unimpressed. Mt. Erie is the tallest peak with a steep drive up some very winding roads and the views from up there were great. We climbed around on some rocks and really enjoyed useless up there….
We had a pretty full day today so I’m breaking it into two parts due to the number of pictures I took. The morning was spent going on a whale watching tour. Neither of us had been on one before so we weren’t sure what to expect but we weren’t disappointed. We saw over a dozen orcas, many porpoises and seals and one grey whale, which the crew said was a rare sighting this time of year. They probably say…
Sunday we had a down day. Really made down as I watched my dolphins lose a very winnable game against a very good team. Monday we slept in then went for a hike around deception pass. Named by some sailor years ago because he thought it was a waterway that lead out to the sea but wasn’t. Something like that. The hike was nice and the bridge was cool, very high and narrow. After that we went out and had…
Last night I wasn’t feeling that great and I woke up today feeling the same. So we headed home but on the way made a couple of stops. First was at a lavender farm. I guess that’s popular here. Jamie got some soaps and air fresheners and oil for our diffuser. All of which I have to admit I liked too. Next stop was in the town of Port Townsend where we catch the ferry home. We walked around for…
Today Jamie booked us a tee time at a semi private club that looked like it would be pretty nice. Well we got there and it looked pretty dry and disappointing. We tried calling another place that was recommended to us but they had a tournament going on. So we made the best of it and actually had a great time. There was no one ahead of us and no one behind and the course wasn’t in that bad a…
Woke up for breakfast today which was served at 9:00. A little early for Jamie but she made it, lol. It was superb. I had some kind of butternut squash pancakes that were some of the best pancakes I ever had and Jamie had eggs with spinach and hollandaise sauce that were also superb. After breakfast we checked out and headed for Cape Flattery, the furthest northwest point in the 48 states. Another mile hike out to the tip on…
Yesterday was a planning and admin day. I handeled some of our administrative stuff and handed over the planning of our week to Jamie. So the next day we put Jamie’s plan to action. We headed over to Olympic peninsula via the ferry. We weren’t aware if this but apparently you can take your motor home on it. We even met another couple pulling their 2016 pace arrow so we swapped some stories and advice. After passing through port Townsend…
We capped off our work week on Saturday by meeting my sister, brother-in-law and mother at Foxwoods casino in Connecticut for my mom’s birthday. We had a great time with them and everyone went home with money except yours truly. Lucky me. We got back to Washington and spent one more night at McChord before leaving for a campground at Whidbey Island naval air station. Finally, some good luck in Washington! We read great reviews of the place and it…
On to Seattle. So I have to say that Washington hasn’t been very kind to us so far. Starting with Spokane where we arrived at Fairchild Afb with no host around, but a sign saying take any empty spot. So we got all settled into the only empty spot when the host finally returned and approached us to say sorry but that one is reserved for an active duty person but a spot would be opening tomorrow and we could…
We spent the next week working. Jamie ended up doing two trips in a row so after I finished my trip I flew out to San Francisco to hang out with her in between her trips since I had to two flights to get to Spokane anyway. It took her two days to get a trip so we hung out in San Fran for a couple days. She got a trip Wednesday so I headed back to Spokane. I picked…