Travel
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The Normandy Invasion, during World War II involved the Allied invasion of western Europe. It was launched on June 6, 1944 (the most celebrated D-Day of the war), with the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beachheads in Normandy, France. By the end of August 1944 all of northern France was liberated, and the invading forces reorganized for the drive into Germany, where… Read more
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We made our way to Saint Malo from Trieste. Saint Malo was one of the French towns designated as a fortress under the German Atlantic Wall program, and its prewar defenses were expanded considerably before the Allied landings in Normandy during June 1944. As part of their invasion plans, the Allies intended to capture the town so that its… Read more
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Our next stop on our European trip late this year was Trieste in very northern Italy near the Slovenia border. You might wonder why we stopped here…we were originally routed through Trieste to get to the start of our biking trip (yes, the one we didn’t get to take after Andrew’s header off his bike).… Read more
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The final few days of our time in Australia were filled with lots of memorable experiences. I’ll do what I can to sum them up here. While I am less of an opera fan than Andrew, I felt it would be a grave injustice to pass up a night at the Sydney Opera House with… Read more
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The next day Andrew and I took off on our own as did Kathy. Kathy had a special interest learning about the indigenous people of Australia and some of the affiliated horticulture of the area, and we wanted to do some hiking and exploring some of the less touristy areas around central Sydney. Our plan… Read more
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When Andrew and I visited New Zealand in 2019 we jumped over to Melbourne AU for just a few days on our way home – to get a “taste” of Australia. Admittedly that’s akin to saying, “We visited St Louis, MO and got a taste of the United States”! In any case, this time we… Read more
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Noah and Dalia headed off to explore the North Island and we were very excited for them. Many of our fondest memories of our time in NZ in 2019 were at some of the places they planned to travel to, so we are glad they could do a similar exploration and we hope to hear… Read more
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This was our last day together with Noah and Dalia, as they were headed to the north island as we were headed to our biking adventure still on the South Island. We wanted them to see more of Queenstown attractions so we went to the upper part of Queenstown that is basically where the extreme… Read more
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This day we decided to explore a couple of the recommended nearby towns with some interesting history and character – Wanaka and Arrowtown. Each had it’s own unique aspects and this made for a lovely, relaxed day of exploration. Wanaka reminded me of Lake Chelan in Washington State. A large meandering lake for boating and… Read more
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New Year’s Eve in New Zealand! It’s pretty cool that we got to celebrate the coming of the new year a day ahead of most of the rest of the world….but as busy as Queenstown is I think most of the rest of the world is here! We decided that instead of following the crowds… Read more
Living La Vida Loca 