Travel Plans

Hello again, after an absence of three years.  William and I will be leaving Portland in about three days for a trip to celebrate his retirement from Land Rover last November.  He has wanted for a long time to visit the DDay beaches in Normandy, and I wanted to do another bike/barge trip, so we decided to compromise  by doing both.  We will be joining a Rick Steve's tour of Northern France for the first half of our trip and then will begin the bike/barge trip from Paris to Bruges on June first, ending up with four free days in Brussels before returning home on June eighteenth.

For those who can't believe that we can travel for a month with all our belongings in a backpack, here's photographic evidence. (Disregard the date on the photo. It was made today. We need to adjust the autodate on our camera. and I need to adjust the straps on my pack.)The large backpacks serve as our suitcases and contain five changes of clothes, an extra pair of shoes, a jacket and our toiletries. The smaller day packs contain gifts for our tour guides ( hand blown Christmas tree ornaments made from Mt. st. Helen's ash) and the iPad, camera and other things we'll want on the plane. This way we can be more mobile and won't have to wait at baggage claim and customs. 

Stay tuned for photos and summaries of our activities. We can't wait!