Traveling Fool

 I like lists, lists of books, countries, counties and geographical markers, like 0 degrees longitude (Greenwich), Land's End and the freshly crossed off the list - The Arctic Circle. Apparently, I am not the only person with that idea based on the throngs of people visiting at the same time as me. It wasn't as hard to get to as one might imagine, in fact, once there, I was kicking myself for not trying to work out the details and avoid traveling with an annoying tour group. But let's not dwell on that.  We arrived at Santa's Christmas Village around 9 or 10 in the morning and were given an orientation and then left to our own devices. I went to Santa's Post Office which seemed like pure chaos to me, but I was determined to send a Santa postcard to my friend in Australia who has worked as a Santa for over twenty years, and then get out of there. I really just meandered around, looking for some good photo ops, maybe a souvenir or two, although my suitcase was too sma

After almost 24 hours of traveling, I finally landed at my destination of Oulu, Finland. Yes, that would be Finland in December. You know me, when other people plan a Florida or Caribbean vacation, I look for the coldest place I can find, but with a unique twist. The main driver was going above the Arctic Circle, via a country I have never visited, with the vague promise of see Aurora Borealis. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. I’m taking an organized tour for the five days and then going back to my anti-social ways for a few more days in Helsinki and Tallinn. We’ll save my thoughts on the organized tour for later. We’ll get through the first three full days of touring and sightseeing first. On day one, the big highlight was going to Hailuoto, and island in the Bothnian Bay; relatively new in geological terms. We took a ferry out and one of the neatest things was watching the ice break and get churned up as we pushed through. We had a little tour of the island and learned about the his

  On the way to Friday Harbour, sadly, no frequent flyer miles. I will admit that this trip was not planned out as well as it could have been, so I kind of crammed my whale watching tour into a one day frenzy. I could have taken my chances with a tour closer to Seattle, but I wanted to increase my odds, so I booked a tour with San Juan Excursions who also helped me coordinate the flight to Friday Harbour on Kenmore Air . The flight provided an aerial view of Seattle and was really nice, although very loud. Once I landed and checked in for the tour, I had a couple of hours to walk around town, get some breakfast and just relax. from the plane We boarded the boat and the crew talked us through the game plan for the day, explaining some of the expectations and guidelines for watching the whales. The boats have to stay a certain distance from the whales, and if the whales get closer, the engines are cut, there is also a flag that gets put on the boat to let other boats know there are whal

I spent my Sunday in Seattle going to the Chihuly Garden and Glass  and the Space Needle. I booked a joint ticket; it was timed for entrance into the Space Needle, but open-ended for Chihuly. I didn't have any idea what to expect at Chihuly, I thought, meh, glass, okay I'll check it out. Well, shut the front door, I was blown away, jaw-dropping. The colors, the shapes and complexity and variety, it was all just crazy. The hushed silences were not required, but I think everyone was overwhelmed with the scope of what we were seeing. You kind of flow from room to room, taking in the colors, and then you move out of the dark rooms into a greenhouse type of structure and then into gardens.  The Chihuly is very near the Space Needle and a park with treats and vendors, which is a good place to hang out and people watch and wait for your turn to join the queue to go up to the top. There are some reviews that are dismissive of going to the top of the Space Needle, it's cheesy, tack

 In August I headed to Seattle, originally it was to go to a Seattle Mariners' game, but in the end, the trip was so much more than that. There was something magical about flying over Mt. Rainier, pinkish blue fromt he sunset and sadly, forest fires. I only had four days, and I tried to cram as much in as possible. I used my first day to try and get oriented, learning how to take the bus outside my motel to downtown and to the waterfront. We'll just say it was an experience. I do like that it was pretty easy to get around and there are a lot of options for getting around the Seattle area buses, trams, trains and ferries. It was unseasonably hot, even in the great Northwest; ridiculous heat. I booked a harbor tour, about 2 hours or so getting a view of the Seattle port, skyline, etc. It's not a whale watching tour, although it could happen. I did see two little jellyfish before we even left the dock.   After the tour and a nice lunch, I headed back to the motel for a little

  A visit to the Judy Garland Museum  in Grand Rapids, MN, has been on my wish list for a long time, and we finally made it up there. My friend and I took one of our road trips, and she planned a few diversions on the way there and back, including the Dala horse in Mora, the Hull Rust Mine View in Hibbing on the way home, as well as the mass grave in Moose Lake for victms of the 1918 fires that swept  through Moose Lake, Cloquet and many other towns in the north. It was one of those beautiful summer days that makes you forget about winter in Minnesota. We arrived at the museum around 11, and immediately we were smiling and laughing at all the cutouts that greet you, where you can stick your head through and be the Tin Man, the Lion, a witch or Dorothy. The museum is adjacent to the Children's Discovery Museum, so if you come with kids, you could spend a couple of hours. Even though the big attraction for most of us was probably the Wizard of Oz connection, Judy Garland had an exte