We did not have a full day in Barcelona since we needed to be on the cruise ship before 6 pm.   After checking out of the hotel, we waited to meet everyone for a whirl wind tour of the second largest city in Spain.

Before we left the US we had purchased tickets on the hop-on hop-off bus so we could take it around the city, getting off where we wanted to.  The bus stop was right near the train station, which was also right by our hotel.

We made one stop to take a tram to Teleferic de Montjuic, an old fort and a high point over looking the city.

Ann climbed up to shoot one of the cannons.

So we decided to do the same.

It was then back down on the tram to the bus stop.

We made a stop by the famous Christopher Columbus statue.

From there we were able to walk through a large open air market, The Rambia, which filled the center section of the street.

It was a good place to buy some postcards.  The Rambia showcases lots of vendors and street entertainers

Then Mark found his store.

Are we lost yet?

We were tempted to hop on those free rental bikes.  Franz was going through biking withdrawal.

We visited some of the Gaudi buildings.

Then back on the bus to Sagrada Familia, an enormous church that has been under construction for more than a hundred years.

Back on the bus again and headed to Guadi’s dream.

From there we walked nearly 1 km to the train station.  That was good start for all the walking we would be doing on this vacation.  It was then a subway back to the Stant station where we retrieved our bags we had left with the hotel and then a taxi ride over to the cruise ship.

Soon after boarding we had the traditional drill to put on our life jackets and go to our staging area.

That finished just in time for the 6:30 pm dinner. The six of us had our own table for the entire cruise.  After dinner we all went to the see the welcome show.  It had a very funny magic show but Franz was falling asleep due to the effects of the motion sickness patch he had put on so this is the end of the story.

[More picture of Barcelona Trip]

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The time has finally arrived for us to leave for our Mediterranean cruise. Last night I went to the camera store in San Jose and bought a new super wide angle lens to take, hoping it will come in handy in Europe. We had a lousy route to get to Barcelona Spain, the port where we will board the cruise ship. We got up early and left the house by 7 am, to catch our 11 am flight. This photo is at the SFO airport where we flew Alaskan Airlines to Portland Oregon.

At the Portland airport we had to wait over 4 hours for our international flight.  It is a great airport with free WiFi.  We had only brought one computer but we put it to good use during the long wait parking ourselves outside a Wendy Hamburger place.  I checked the flight on the computer and noticed that there were some empty seats in the middle that had a computer power outlet.  So I went to the gate and had them change our seat assignments.

After 3 pm, we boarded a Northwest flight to Amsterdam.   We were lucky that I had changed the seats because we had the four center seats to ourselves.  That was great because we could take turns taking a nap.

We had a short connection in Amsterdam, just enough time to go through customs and get to our gate where we boarded a KLM flight to Barcelona.  We arrived after 2.5 hours, on schedule.  It was now 22 hours since our flight left SFO and even longer since we had left our home.

We had searched out how to take the train to town so we made our way to the tracks.  I had used an ATM at the Amsterdam airport to get some Euros but they had ony given me 50 Euro bills.  The ticket machine would not take that large of a bill so we had to find some place to buy something to get change.  We then bought two tickets to the Stant Station in Barcelona.

The hotel was near the train station so we could walk there.  We were waiting to check in when we met Fawn and Darrell, who had come the prior day.  We gave a call to Mark and Karen, who had arrived earlier that day and decided to meet in 15 minutes to head out.  The six of us then went exploring Barcelona.

It was now getting dark and a lot of hours had passed since we had had a full night sleep so we were glad when we found a place to enjoy a nice meal.  I am not sure what we ate, but it tasted good.

That bed sure felt good when we finally went to sleep.  It all seemed like a dream since we left California.

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While visiting Sara’s house we all went up to Seattle on the Saturday.  After finding a parking place, we headed over to Pike’s Place.  Our first stop was the fish market.

It was then over to bike some donuts.

We explored down the long narrow building through the closely packed shops, which reminded us of Tokyo.

After going back outside, Sara stopped to take some photos before heading back to the car.

Next stop was lunch at Ivar’s Fish Bar.

The kids then went out on the pier to feed the birds.

They were having the air show that day.  I just happend to be looking up at the planes when I caught this shot of one plane leaving a circular path behind it.

See all the pictures.

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On the way home from visiting Sara and family we took a couple days to make a stop in Medford Oregon.  Sometimes we stay one night there to breakup the 13 hour drive into two sections but this time we spent two nights so we could spend a day at Crater Lake National Park.  Crater Lake was formed by a volcano and  is the deepest lake in the United States.  It has not water inflow or outflow so the water in the lake is only from the local snow fall.  It is one of the clearest water bodies anywhere and the deep blue from the depth of the water.  The picture above is a merge of 3 photos.  Click on it to see it enlarged.

This was our first time to visit this National Park.  It was less than a two hour drive from Medford.  We arrived in the morning and tooks some pictures from the area near the Crater Lake Lodge.  Ann was shooting with her Nikon D70 and Franz with his Nikon D300.

We then got on our bikes and started to bike around the lake.  Franz carried the Nikon D70 on a backpack so we could take some photos from different locations.

Ann told Franz to go jump in the lake!

But this was as close as Ann would get to the ledge.

We ended up going half way around the lake but had to turn back because the rim drive road was closed at some point due to snow.  Can you believe, snow in July!

On the drive back to Medford we stopped at the Rouge gorge to take a few more pictures.  It is hard to capture water falls.

We had a great time and hope to visit Crater Lake National Park again.  You can see all our pictures at our SmugMug Gallery by clicking here .

Categories: Photography, Vacation
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Franz and Ann decided to take a vacation to Zion National Park, spending three days there. They came upon a house in the woods and went inside. They saw three bowls of porridge. The first one too hot. The second one was too cold but the third one was just right. Read about our three days in Zion.

Day 1 – Too Hot

Day 2 – Too Cold (and wet)

Day 3 – Just Right

Also see the the entry in our photography blog with details about the picture taking experience, or the gallery and  slide show of all the pictures were took. With both of us packing cameras with such great views, there are a lot of pictures.

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After spending too many miles yesterday biking in the cold and the rain, when we got up this morning we were very excited to see the sun shining as we looked out from the baloney of our room.

We had to check out by noon so we felt the best thing would be to go on a nice bike ride in the morning and then a hike in Zion later. We road our tandem up to the famous tunnel. It is a windy road, with switch backs all the way up. People who had stopped along the way to take pictures seemed surprised we could bike up the hill, but it was not nearly as steep as the Kolob Canyon road yesterday. We made one stop to get a picture and asked someone to take it of us together.

It was a beautiful day to bike, not too hot, not too cold, just right.

We then headed up the Zion Canyon road to the lodge. We just had enough time to make it back, get a shower and pack up to check out before noon. We were hungry by now and decided to eat at the cafe up by the lodge. You can’t drive your car in Zion now days and need to take a shuttle. We drove over to the visitor center to park but there was not a single parking spot. We knew the museum was on the shuttle stop route so we drove over to it and found a spot there to park. We caught the next shuttle up to Zion’s Lodge and enjoyed a hamburger on the patio. Can you beat this view for lunch?

After eating we caught the next shuttle to go further up the canyon to start a hike. We decided to do the Hidden Canyon hike, which was suppose to take 2 hours. It was a step and windy path, with chains needed on some sections.

The trail for Hidden Canyon and Observaton Point were the same for about one mile. We took a right turn to head up to Hidden Canyon.

We came upon a neat staircase that had been built up along the cliff wall.

With the need to hold onto chains, I took this picture with my back against the cliff so there was little room. See how the cliff drops off. When people were coming the other way they were concerned how to pass, but we just walked around them, no fear at all!

After reaching the end, we headed back down and asked someone to take our picture on the junction for Hidden Canyon.

We wanted to do more hiking so decided to head up the trail to Observation Point. We had not done that hike in the first place because it said it was a 6 hour hike, but had now learned those times are over stated.

We came upon a slotted canyon that the trail went right through. There were steep cliffs on each side and a small stream of water down the middle. You had to use stones to cross back and forth across the water.

As the trail wound its way up toward the top we were able to see the beautiful valley below.

Ann was smarter than Franz by using her flash for this picture.

We had learned that the sandstone in Zion absorbs water, allowing plants to grow right out of the rock.

It was a fun hike but the descent seemed almost more difficult than the climb. We wanted to also see the Weeping Rock. That trail started from the bottom. Since we figured we would not have enough time, we took a picture using a telephoto lens from our trail.

We finally made it back to the shuttle stop.

We took the shuttle back to the musuem.

It was a very fun vacation. The last of the three days had the best weather but we enjoyed all three days, except maybe the ride in the rain.

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After doing the hike yesterday up Angel’s Landing, we were anxious to get on the bike. There was a forecast of scattered rain, but the day seemed fine enough. It was much cooler than yesterday, but still warm enough that when we started at 8:30 am, we didn’t need any arm warmers or jacket.

We decided to leave from the hotel and head to Virgin Utah (about 13 miles) and then take the road up Kolob Canyon. That climb from the highway is 20 miles and gains 4,700 vertical feet. With all the climbing we were glad it was not hot like yesterday. The sun started to come out from behind the clouds and we were thinking this would be a nice day after all.

The road winds in and out of Zion National Park. After riding about 10 miles up the canyon, it started to get rather windy. I mean very windy and a strong head wind. Biking up a hill into a head wind is not a lot of fun, but were determined to finish the route. The sun was no longer to be seen and as we looked off to the side we could see darker clouds forming.

When the road turned we started to climb again and the wind was not quite as strong, but after about 15 miles up from the highway, the road leveled out and the wind was real strong, so strong that I had to get off the bike because I thought I was going to fall over. We decided that was enough so we turned around and headed back down the hill. The temperature had now dropped from the mid 50′s to the mid 40′s.

We made a stop at a parking lot, about 10 miles up from the highway and chatted with a ranger. He said it was hailing down on the highway. Oh dear we thought. Could we beat the storm? Soon it started to rain and the wet and the cold combined made it a miserable descent. Even though we were going down hill it seemed to take forever to reach the highway.

Oh, if we had only driven the car over to the base of the canyon instead of bike there, but we did not. There is nothing around there and the town of Virgin is not really a town and even then was in the opposite direction from our hotel. With a tailwind now, we decided to just tough it out and make our way back to Springdale.

We were totally soaked (although Ann was smart enough to bring a rain jacket). Even though we were pedalling as hard as we could, we felt very cold. Finally we made it to the hotel, and parked the tandem next to the building. We were not about to take the time to put it back in the car right then. Instead we rushed into the room to get the wet clothes off, even that seemed to be a major task when our fingers were not working very well. I guess this is a ride we will always remember.

Categories: Cycling, Vacation
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We left on Monday evening for our vacation with the plan to drive most of the way that evening. We could not not leave until close to 7 pm so we figured that it would take until 1:30 am to get to our destination. About 45 miles to go the traffic on Interstate 15 came to a complete stop and it took an hour before we were able to make our way through the accident. So it was 3 am before we got to sleep.

That late night driving paid off by allowing us to get to Zion before noon. We had booked a room at the Desert Pearl, a wonderful motel. The room was European style and can you beat this view from our own balcony?

On Tuesday afternoon we went into the National Park. It was warm, in the high 90′s but there was plenty of wind to keep it from getting to hot.

We decided to do the popular Angles Landing hike. We were amazed how the trail had been carved right into the side of the steep cliffs. Franz was taking pictures with his new Nikon D300 camera and Ann was using the Nikon D70.

After doing part of the climb we looked down to see how much we had ascended.

I wondered what Ann was taking a picture of.

Then I could see.

The climb got steep where we had to start using chains.

We came to a level spot where we could take a group shot. Since there was no one to take the picture, we took two separate photos and later merged them into one.

It was getting windy so Franz had to take his hat off. We came upon a photographer who was taking pictures of Angles Landing and we asked him to take our picture. You can see the final climb up Angles Landing behind us.

We proceeded to climb for awhile.

It got rather scary with a narrow ridge with steep cliffs on each side. With the wind and trying to carry cameras, we decided to head back before reaching the peak. It was nice to get back to the easy trail.

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We used the sale at REI to buy a new tent for us to use on the upcoming Sierra to the Sea. Franz had used a two man tent the last two years but it would be rather crowded so we bought a three man tent. Actually it is only big enough for two people unless you wanted to be real cozy. But it is a great tent and can be used backpacking since it weighs only 4.5 lbs.  We bought the REI Quarter Dome T3 Tent, which was Backpacker Magazine 2008 Editors’ Choice Award Winner.

We put it up in the backyard to test it out. It went up very quickly. A great tent!

Categories: Cycling, Vacation
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We are on our way to Dupont to visit Sara and her family. Sara and Mike will be taking a trip to Hawaii and we will be watching those adorable grandchildren. Hum, we left 70 degree California weather to the head to the more fridge north?

We stopped for the night in a cute town called Mt. Shasta, which is at the base of Mt. Shasta.  We just finished a nice dinner at a local restaurant called Lilly’s.  This was kind of our valentine celebration since on Valentine’s day we will be watching those three super active kids.

You can still see signs of snow on the side of the roads, sometimes several feet high where it had been cleared from the street but not yet melted.  The temperature this evening is in the 30′s.  Should be nice and crisp in the morning.  Maybe we will go on a brisk bike ride.  Or maybe we will not.

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