Day one –

We packed the Corvette last night – yes everything fit into the trunk and we didn’t have to leave any of Barb’s shoes at home.

We started out at 8:oo am with the top down and it was only 61 degrees out. During the day, we were sprinkled on four times but we never put the top up. It was 84 and beautiful when we arrived at 3:00 pm in Kansas City after driving 400 miles.

We ate with Jeff and Kris and just relaxed for the evening.

No pictures today as there wasn’t anything to take pictures of!!

We will take the next two days to get to Flagstaff.

Night for now.

Bloomington Gold Tours

5-Day National Park Tour:

September 23-28, 2008
Northern Arizona & Southern Utah

The pictures are of Barb in her surprise Chrismas present - a 2003 50th Anniversary Edition Corvette.

As you view our blog, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.

We leave Saturday, September 20 in Barb's Corvette to travel to Kansas City to visit Jeff and Kris and our grandkids, Eathan and Molly. It has been long time since we have been there and we are looking forward to stopping.

Sunday morning we will leave Kansas City and make our way to Flagstaff.

Hopefully the top will be down the entire trip!!

We plan to arrive in Flagstaff, AZ by Monday evening.

We will meet our friends, Dale and Judy from the Chicago area and a new couple Lynn and Tom from Ohio for lunch in Sodna on Tuesday.

The link to Bloomington Gold Tours is:
http://www.corvette-n-america.com/park_tour/default.htm

The Tour begins:
Day 1, Tuesday, September 23 starts in Flagstaff
Day 2, Wednesday, September 24, we drive to North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, AZ – 206 miles
Day 3, Thursday, September 25, we drive to Zion National Park, UT – 123 miles
Day 4, Friday, September 26, we drive to Bryce Canyon National Park, UT – 89 miles
Day 5, Saturday, September 27, we drive to Capitol Reef National Park, UT – 118 miles
Day 6, Sunday, September 28, we leave Capitol Reef National Park, UT and drive home

The Tour Package Includes:
5 Nights Lodging in 1st Class Accommodations
Preferred Corvette Parking at Hotels
85% of Meals (some meals not with group & are open for your choosing)
All Breakfasts (full, hot)
3 Lunches
3 Dinners (including Finale Dinner Banquet)
Activities Including a 1 Hour Mule Ride (Grand Canyon) & Giant Screen Movie Viewing (Zion)
Merchandise
Group Photo
Commemorative Tour Guide with Maps, Tour Route & Day-by-Day Schedule
Bloomington Gold Tour Award

The Tour Highlights are:
“Start Your Engines” breakfast
Grand Canyon (North Rim) National Park
Lodging at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
1 hour mule ride on the rim of the Grand Canyon
Sunset dinner at Grand Canyon Lodge – “It doesn’t get better than this!”
Spectacular cruise through Zion National Park
Giant screen (Zion National Park) 45-minute film
Lunch at the Buffalo Grille & Ranch
Bryce Canyon National Park
124-mile cruise on Utah’s Highway 12, labeled an All American Road and “the most scenic drive in America” according to Car & Driver Magazine
First rate hotel accommodations including a stay at “1 of the 25 best American lodges” according to Travel & Leisure Magazine
Capitol Reef National Park
4 National Parks in 5 days
Finale dinner banquet with views of beautiful Capitol Reef National Park
The most spectacular scenery in the world
Great Corvette camaraderie

Home - At Last

Traveling Home

We’re going home!!! Up at 6:00am and this is the picture of sunrise over the Port of Dover as we arrived.

Ed had breakfast on the Lido deck and then we met Bob and Sheila for the van ride from the Port of Dover to London’s Heathrow Airport.

The ride took 2 hours and we relived memories before arriving at the airport. Bob and Sheila were then staying overnight and flying out tomorrow.

Our plane left on time and arrived at 5:00pm Chicago after an 8 hour flight. Thank goodness Stacey at Suzie Davis was able to get us exit row seating.

It was 77 when we arrived in Chicago and that was warmer than any place we had been on the entire trip.

After a short wait, we took the flight to Bloomington and everything would have been perfect except we were over an hour late taking off. We have been up for 23 hours.

But the big thing is:

We are home and have some wonderful memories!!

Bye for this trip.

Barb & Ed

Amsterdam

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The pictures are:
Arriving down the canal at daybreak
The palace of the Queen
We took a petal cab again
One of many canals in the city
Fireboat salute upon leaving

For the first time on the trip, we awoke to sunshine. That’s true; we have not had a morning with sunshine all trip. As a matter of fact, we probably have only had a few hours of total sunshine all trip, up until today.

But, we have not had any rain and it has not been cold so we are very thankful for a great trip with good weather.

The ship passed into the city through the locks before 7:00am so we were not up to see it. It took until 9:30am before the ship finally made it to the city docks and we were allowed off the ship.

Our first impression was not very good, but as we traveled the streets we liked the city more and more we came to enjoy the city. We spent 3 ½ hours on a walking trip seeing the sights of the city. “Grass” and prostitution are legal and so it was a rather strange walk through the city especially seeing the red light district and the “coffee houses” which were places where you could buy drugs – and they were everywhere.

We then walked around on our own until it was time to walk back to the ship. After getting on the ship at 5:00pm, we ate pizza on our deck as we watched the rest of the passenger’s board. At 6:00pm we sailed away to a fireboat with its water cannons blazing!

Tonight is our last night so it will be sad leaving new friends but we will have great memories.

It took us until dinner time to pack and set the bags outside the door for pickup later in the evening.

We went to the casino and played for awhile and then said our goodbyes to the staff.

Setting the clock back for the last time – a perfect time to pick up an hour of sleep.



Tomorrow is a travel day and we are ready to be home. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and the next report will be in person.

Night, night.

Love - Barb and Ed

Our last day at sea

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

As we cruised towards Amsterdam, we did almost what we did yesterday.

The pictures are:

One small part of the prep kitchen

Barb and Sheila

Barb being paid for her jackpot

Barb slept in to try and get rid of the “flu” like symptoms that she has and then we met our friends from Florida, Bob and Sheila for a tour of the kitchen. We had seen it before but they had not.

Then we changed our bag tags so that we could leave together and get our van fast when we land at Dover. It is hard to believe that we only have two days and nights left as the last few have really gone fast. But we are both ready to get back to friends, family and work.

After lunch, we all played in the slot tournament and Ed lost out as someone in the very last qualifying group beat him out.

Then it was on to a session in the casino where Ed hit again twice out of four times on black 20 on roulette and as he went to tell Barb, she hit for a great jackpot in slots.

We then went on to bingo, where Barb won one of the bingo games.

Ed played again in the casino while Barb rested before getting ready for the evening.

What a wonderful day to just relax at sea. The weather was a typical day here, 65 degrees but cold because the sun was not out. I do not think we have seen more than 30 minutes of sun on the entire trip – but at least we have not had bad weather – we just brought too many bathing suits and shorts!

A great dinner, followed by a comedian that most walked out on - he was not really funny so we went to the casino and played for just a little while.

Time for bed because tomorrow is Amersterdam - our last port and everyone is looking forward to it.

Bye for now

Somewhere at sea

Monday, September 8, 2008


The pictures are:
Inside the dome overlooking one of the pools
One of the several buffet stations
Barb and our casino host, Clauidia

We are sailing on to Amsterdam. The ship is really traveling because the Captain wants to get to Amsterdam in time for a major lock to be available for the ship to pass into the harbor. Apparently we go through a series of locks before we get to our port at Amsterdam.

Well Barb enjoyed the morning by sleeping late and she deserved it. She woke up with a little chest congestion so we have her on cough drops and Vicks liquid (which she really loves)! It appears that a lot of people on the ship have caught something.

The day was peaceful. We all played in the blackjack tournament but only our friend Bob qualified for the finals and he didn’t place. We then went to play bingo and Bob won $150 and the rest of us had fun.

While Barb rested and tried to get rid of what she caught, Ed played blackjack and won.

In the early evening, while waiting for Barb, Ed played roulette and hit on black 20 for $100 net. Roulette is a boring game, but a fun way to kill a little time.

Tonight was formal night and Barb looked stunning as the picture shows. Tonight the show was a huge singing and dancing production of rock and roll music and it was really fun.

After dinner we went to the casino and did great – missed the grand midnight buffet but the casino was fun and we really were not hungry. Today was a restful, lucky day.

Tomorrow is another day a sea - see you tomorrow.

September 7

If it is Sunday, it must be Helsinki, Finland


The pictures are:

Lunch stand at the market

Reindeer Lunch

Steps up to the Lutheran Cathedral

Inside the Rock Church

We set our clocks back so we woke up with finally enough sleep and looked out our deck at the port of Helsinki. Ed’s heritage is Finnish so going to Helsinki was something he was looking forward to.

We slept in a little and left the ship at 9:00am and took the ship’s shuttle to the center of the city. From there we walked down to the main market square where all the easy-ups were being set up by the vendors and the food stands were already selling their food.

We decided to take the ferry to Suomenlinna Fortress, which is an island fortress guarding the port. The fortress was built in the 1700’s when Finland was part of Sweden. It is also an island home now to 900 residents; however, we only saw a couple of people – it was a little eerie. The military only stopped using it 30 years ago.

Then it was back to the market where we had a wonderful lunch of reindeer sausage, reindeer "meatloaf", potatoes and salad.

We then took a walking tour through the central city, including the Lutheran Cathedral and then the Rock Church, a beautiful church carved right out of rock. It was very spiritual inside.

Back to the shuttle bus to the ship and it was time to relax before looking at pictures and on to dinner.

Dinner of course was fine and then it was off to the show. Tonight it was amateur night and there were four acts and three out of four were really bad. The cruise director had the exact same bad jokes that he had on our last cruise. Sometimes amateur night is good sometimes bad – this was the bad night.

Then it was on to the casino where Ed had his biggest loss (he is still ahead) and Barb was another winner.

The good news is that we set the clocks back for the second time on the cruise tonight and tomorrow is a day at sea – so good night for now.