Richmond Reflections

Sitting outside, on a beautiful (for me) warm, humid day. Just fed the birds (lots of dirty looks) so they are chirping away. Yesterday was our travel day and that’s all we did. I would include pictures (and may put a couple before I'm done), but most are just of big airplanes, which it seems only males like.

Thursday October 4, 2007 10:20 am Studley Va. 83°

We had an OK 3 hour flight to the (it seems) perpetually cold and rainy Reykjavik airport, where we got Rick some Fire and Ice vodka, checked in and waited.

My only concern was the scheduleded 2 hour window in Boston where customs had to be cleared, and a terminal change made. As it turned out our 5 hour flight to Boston left on time and in fact arrived ½ hour early, so that was good news.

Customs was easy, very easy in fact. (I had the "Midgnight Express" fear that they would be able to tell that we had stopped in Amsterdam so I was trying to look the customs agent in the eye and hide flop sweat and pounding heart, even though at this point I was 24 hours clean).

An easy walk to our Jet Blue connection, we checked in and … waited. It was only 6:45and we had an 8:45 flight. The weather was beautiful in Boston, about 70° so we killed an hour outside the terminal chatting about the trip, the pluses and minuses, what we learned (navette for example), our favorites, where we would return, etc.

We agreed that the Netherlands was a pleasant surprise, well ordered, charming, with warm and friendly people.

Upon returning to the terminal we saw on the monitor that our flight was delayed until 11:10 pm, or 5:10 am if you go by our body clocks. There were (we were told) major air traffic control delays in the New York area affecting incoming and outgoing flights to Newark, JFK and LGA. Great. We sat and snoozed and read until a Tampa flight came in at 10:30 which they turned around very quickly and actually got us out of BOS at 10:45. Impressive.

We landed at RIC at 12:04 a.m. Thursday, (that's what made it 16 days I mentioned in the beginning for you purists out there) and took the Groome shuttle (not taxi) to Studley, arriving at 1:00, a warm foggy night ending to our trip. I was asleep by 2:00 and awoke at 7:00 pretty refreshed, Kat is still sleeping bless her heart, a wonderful, wonderful, woman. A real joy.

The laundry is about done, the house is fine, but apparently we had very little rain for the past three weeks, and the basil has withered and died. The cilantro, hibiscus and begonias did fine, and the grass needs mowing. I checked the email and no correspondence from SIXT yet, so I don’t know if that is good or bad. I’ll be anxious to settle that.

So, good trip and we’re ready to go again.

May 13, 2008 - Reflections

I typed most of this from early February - 12th of May 2008. While most of it came right from the journal I’ve added some thoughts along the way usually in italics.

For a while I had lost track of what happened to the middle third of my Rookies special, so maybe there is something to the part about it killing brain cells. All I know is that it was worth it.

We definitely have to get back to Florence. In all the times we've been to that city, we still have not made it inside the Uffizi (lines are too long). Plus we have 2 new grandchildren since the last time we were there and we had planned to get leather boxes for each (with their initials embossed in gold on the top) in Santa Croce. All the other grandkids have one.

Spending time with my son and his new wife was priceless.

Now this is a heck of an idea. Although I imagine if all four slots were full the faces would be very close to each other, and hopefully no one had a Henkies Hoekie for breakfast.

I note there is little reference in the journal of our dinner at Aux Armes de Champagne (a gourmet's meal that I should have at least itemized). I don’t know why, and can’t remember much about it or our dinner there. I think we were all still absorbing the accident and the effect it had on us and all the feeling surrounding it. I think it would be fair to say that it subdued our good feelings about what we were seeing and experiencing. We like to talk about what went right, went wrong, what we would do differently, etc. each day, and of course it was impossible to have that kind of discussion. It will probably take some time before the four of us can reflect objectively.

I have nothing good to say about Iceland in my journal and I am not apologetic.

The guidebook said that this is the most picturesque spot in Delft. I agree.

The SIXT saga appears to have stagnated, and my only real complaint is their lack of communications. VISA contacted them (since I had opened a claim with them) and SIXT said that they were attempting to collect from the insurance company of the motorcyclist. That (and perhaps a very slight limp) would be justice in my opinion. They will let us know in the future if there is any claim against VISA. We appear to be in the clear, whatever that outcome. I would rent from SIXT in the future.

The last piece of unfinished business was cleared up this past week. Remember the broken handle on our luggage when Edward failed to negotiate the metro turnstile? Travelpro (excellent, strong, lightweight suticases) sent me a replacement telescoping handle this past week (May 2008 - $15.00 - and they didn't even charge me the $9.50 postage cost) and I installed it in about 10 minutes.


In other words, we are ready to ride again.