36 Hour Vacation to Portland (June 2012)

At the end of June, Margaret and I felt that we needed to get away for a day or two so we booked a room in the Regency Hotel in downtown Portland, Maine. It's about 2 blocks from Portland's picturesque waterfront, which is full of shops and seafood restaurants. We arrive in the early afternoon on Thusday and left for home in the late afternoon on Friday. That's about enough time to see downtown Portland, but not nearly enough for a fair sample of the restaurants. Photo gallery

Cruise to Bermuda (October 2011)

Margaret and I joined my brother, Bill, and his wife, Joyce, on a 5 day cruise (10/22 - 10/27) to Bermuda in the fall of 2011. This was the first time either Margaret or I had been on a cruise (at least not on a boat larger than 34 feet). It was a great trip, although we probably would have like to spend more than two days in Bermuda. The ship left at 5pm Saturday and arrived in Bermuda around 7am on Monday morning with two nights and one full day at sea. The seas were calm and the weather sunny on the trip over, but there was a 50+ knot gale blowing when we left Bermuda on Tuesday night with more than 20 foot seas. The cruise ship, though is very large with stablizers, so although the decks were closed because of the wind, you could hardly feel the seas inside the ship. View a short gallery of photos from the trip.

San Francisco (June 2007)

After Adam and Holly's wedding we drove from Oregon to San Francisco. We stopped in Eureka to visit Margaret's nephew, Dan at Humbolt State and Napa Valley, of course. We also saw Margaret's Aunt Bonnie and her sister Charlotte in San Jose. These photos are from San Francisco. The weather was beautiful and we definitely needed more than the 2 days we spent there.

View a short gallery of photos from the trip.

Guanajuato, Mexico (February 2003)

Guanajuato is the capital of the State of Quanajuato and is one of the oldest cities in Mexico. Founded in 1548 as Real de Minas de Guanajuato, it was for centuries a silver mining area. Just one of the mines, the La Valenciana mine, produced 2/3 of the worlds production of silver at its peak. The city is located in a narrow valley and most of the streets are so narrow that they are not passable by cars. Most are really just alleys (callejóns) and some are really stairways on the steep slopes of the mountain sides. Quite a few are underground tunnels, having been converted to streets from drainage tunnels originally built to provide flood control.

We visited in Februay 2003 with our friend, Janice, flying first to Mexico City to pick up another friend, Michael. After visiting Guanajuato, we returned to Mexico City and invited Genoveva, our house keeper when we lived in Mexico City, and her granddaughter, Mirella, for dinner at Michael’s. On the day we returned to Boston, there was a major snowstorm, so after spending the night in Cincinatti, we came home to find 2 feet of snow.

View a short gallery of photos from the trip.