Janet and Mark's Retirement Trips

  I had plenty of "Trailing Spouse" trips (I stopped counting at fifteen!) but I've only had one previous "Trailing Daughter" trip: this is my second, Janet's first.  Karen, living in Chicago at the time and working at UChicago, had a conference in Palm Springs, so we decided to meet her and Adam there, but first going to Sequoia National Park's Wuksachi Lodge then making our way down to Palm Springs.  Sequoia is kinda-sorta on the way to Palm Springs...Karen was staying in a nice resort, but she had scored an AirBnB in Joshua Tree for the bulk of our visit. The Wuksachi, pictured above behind Janet, is not one of the old Magnificent National Park Lodges a'la the Ahwahnee or the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone, instead built in 1999 after the original lodges were deemed "harmful to the Sequoia Groves" and moved quite a ways up the mountain away from the main giant redwood groves.  There was the main lodge building with a restaurant and ub...

  A Gallery to start the trip in Bordeaux Again, these photos here exclusively are from my iPhone SE (2nd generation), not any fancy schmancy digital camera. This post will be less of a day-to-day narrative of our trip versus a general recap of the three phases of the trip, namely our UniWorld Bordeaux river cruise, the road trip south from Bordeaux in to the Basque Country, and our stay in Paris, after all, it was nearly three years since we went and my notes aren't terribly extensive.  As I said about other trips, we're largely independent travelers when it comes to western Europe, at ease on trains and other public transport, and driving rental cars (and newly "European Purchased" BMWs and Mercedes).  This trip featured all three: we flew in to DeGaulle and took the TGV right out of the airport to Bordeaux, toured around Bordeaux for a day or so until we got on the river boat, then rented a car in Bordeaux after the cruise and drove south in to Spain, then returned...

  Again, I'll add the disclaimer that all these pictures were taken with my iPhone 2nd generaiion SE, with absolutely no Photoshopping...and there are some awesome shots here! And again, we have to call out how lucky we were with this trip, as with the quick trip we took to Crater Lake National Park and Lodge.  I'm just sayin' that there ain't nothing as beautiful as Yosemite with a fresh blanket of snow...but, I'm getting ahead of myself again... We decided to take things a bit differently this trip.  First of all, the genesis of the trip came when Janet's Magic Laptop scored a less-than-insane price for two nights' lodging at the Ahwahnee, definitely at the top of our National Park Lodge Bucket List.  Then, being Northern Californians, we always came in to Yosemite via CA120, so we decided to travel south along CA49 through the "Gold Country" which we had never done, then go in through the southern entrance via CA41.  We stopped at the interestin...

Lunch Stop on Day 2 on the Avenue of the Giants Again, I'll add the disclaimer that all these pictures were taken with my iPhone 2nd generaiion SE, with absolutely no Photoshopping...and there are some awesome shots here! Wouldn't you know it: the first time in my life I'm towing a trailer, we proceed to have a Biblical Downpour in late October, no less.  Janet's magic laptop scored us a 19' Airstream Bambi trailer on outdoorsy.com, and several campsites at private campgrounds as well as at the Redwood National and State Parks.  In the intervening years since we took family trips to state parks such as Patrick's Point, Humboldt Redwoods, and Prairie Creek as a kid, the Feds and State decided to pull all those state parks under the umbrella of the National Park Service.  And, Mr. Patrick did not treat the indigenous population very well way back when, so we now have Sue Meg State Park instead of He Who Shall Not Be Named Point SP. Sunday, October 24, 2021: We pic...