Radiomom's VirtualTourist Home Page

Our 2008 Trip was nearly 3 weeks long, covering 3000+ miles in our rental car, and took us to most of the extraordinary National Parks in the Four Corners area of the Western United States. We flew in and out of Phoenix, AZ and visited Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, Boulder UT, Mesa Verde, took the "Million Dollar Skyway" which runs from Cortez to Durango, CO and spent the night in Silverton, CO; we also visited Capitol Reef National Park, Taos NM, Chaco Canyon National Park, Bandelier, Los Alamos NM and Santa Fe.

The scenery was stunning. We met tons of tourists from all over the world, including a couple of roving bands of middle-aged French couples on Harleys, a number of Brits in campers, a family from Tibet, groups of teens on outward-bound type programs from all over the world, and several busloads of Italians! It was fun to share our exquisite national parks with these folk.

The NC GTG in Durham last year was a total BLAST! We had a super time at Federal and enjoyed a terrific lunch. (I kept telling people, this place looks like -- well ok, it IS kind of a "dive bar" but the food is fantastic!)

BREAKING NEWS: We're headed back to Africa! October 10, 2009 we are taking an OAT "Ultimate Africa" trip which we hope to extend with a breakaway at the end so we can visit friends in Cape Town! The OAT trip had everything we were looking for - maximum time on safari - 6 nights in tented camps, 6 nights in other cool small lodges, and little flights between them. Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls! Yippee!

This is where I plan our trips. Very convenient!

We took a marvelous tour of China in 2007. May was an excellent time to go. China is growing faster and faster and changing quickly. Instead of our usual independent trips, we opted to go with a tour -- China Spree (www.chinaspree.com) as the deals are simply too good to pass up. It was a leap of faith, as independent travellers we'd always shied away from organized tours, but this turned out wonderfully. I'll be building China pages, so keep tuned!

...spanning September and October 2006. Well, actually we only had the car for a month, but we took the opportunity to visit some places we'd yet to see in France as well as our first foray into Spain. I also discovered the Curse of the 1Gig Sandisk, as I came back with over 3000 photos. It has taken a long time to winnow them down for various sharing purposes, and I've only got pages on some of them....when I've now started to plan for a NEW trip!

Where we went:
The Loire Valley
Dordogne and the Lot
St Jean de Luz (FR)

(on to Spain) Pamplona, San Sebastian, Vitoria, Laguardia, Leiketio, Bermeo and Bilbao

Tarragona and Zaragosa

Barcelona!

Collioure (back in FR)
Cathar Castles
Provence
Le-Puy-en-Velay
And a return to Paris (fourth time!)

One of the joys of being retired and living in the Research Triangle is the opportunity to be involved in fabulous groups like this one. This Spring I'm involved with the most professional (although it is a non-profit volunteer community theater group) and extraordinary musical theater experience

I had a link to YouTube here, but it was only one show -- if you want to see more, search on YouTube for Durham Savoyards and you should get peeks at recent productions of Pinafore and Yeoman of the Guards. Do not expect a reserved Gilbert & Sullivan performance, recreating turn of the century manners, be they somewhat satirical. Our Director goes for the unique and for wooing audiences who might never consider anything remotely connected with the term "Opera" or "Operetta."

This picture is from the scene in Pinafore where Ralph (pronounced Rafe BTW) threatens to do himself in...
If you'll view the video clip, you'll note that this show is staged in sort of a circus/cirque theme. (Not your usual Gilbert & Sullivan, for sure!)