Chris and Debbi's Adventure

We’ve had a series of happy accidents while traveling the last few months. One of them is our recent discovery of the “English Riviera”.  We had a gap to fill between scheduled stops and found an opportunity to spend a few days in Torquay, a seaside town in southwest England. It’s one of a series of towns along the four-mile-wide Tor Bay that faces the English Channel. Our first impression was that Torquay is a cross between Doc Martin’s Portwenn and a slightly depressed Florida beach town. Charming, family friendly and full of fun and conveniences, just a little bedraggled. Still, a place we would definitely recommend for a visit. The area is considered warm and sunny – by English standards. The average July high is 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the coldest months are January and February with an average low of 40. We were instructed to never trust the weather forecast, and we found that to be good advice. Look outside and across the bay, then bring your umbrella or rain jacket an...

World War I ended 107 years ago. No one who experienced that war is still alive. No one who is the child of someone who experienced it is still alive. Yet the continued commitment to honor the men and women who served during the war in an area called the Ypres Salient in western Belgium is amazing. And the reminders of the intense and repeated battles that took place in a 54 square mile area there are abundant. Depending on how you count, up to one million people died in the area in a four-year stalemate that included trench warfare, one of the first uses of poison gas and one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions that has ever occurred. It also produced the poem “In Flanders Field”, written by a Canadian doctor who worked in a damp bunker just behind the front line and had presided over the funeral of a friend the day before writing the poem. That poem's reference to red poppies is the reason that remembrance poppies are the symbol of those who have died in conflict. Initially...

We sold our cars before we left Omaha and have relied solely on our feet or public transportation for the past 7,000 miles. Of course we’ve ridden buses, metros and trains. But we’ve also been transported by ferries, bicycles, a funicular, a barge and a cruise ship during the past three months. We have found traveling by bus between cities can be a good option when we don't have far to go. They are inexpensive, comfortable and convenient for luggage. But they can be much slower than trains and a more inconvenient schedule when traveling a log distance . Almost daily, we crossed rivers using ferries on our week long bike and barge trip in the Netherlands. We were told ferries for the vehicles and pedestrians are more feasible than bridges because the river is just narrow enough that bridges would have to be too steep to accommodate all the boats and barges that would pass underneath. We traveled from Belgium to London on the Eurostar train that uses the 35 mile undersea tunnel below...

I do not like mountains. I don’t like traveling around hairpin curves, being in vehicles close to the edge of a precipice or even being able to see the bottom of a valley if I am in motion. In the USA, Chris and I have added hours to some road trips so we could avoid crossing the Rocky Mountains. I have an intense reaction to heights. So, it’s not just mountains I dislike. I don’t like going over long bridges, I will not climb to the top of any lighthouse, church tower or rock formation to admire the view, and I lose my sense of uprightness on especially long or open escalators. This Washington DC Metro escalator at Wheaton station is the longest single span escalator in the Western Hemisphere. It is 237 feet long, has a vertical rise of 115 feet and takes almost 3 minutes to ride. Riding it is like taking a single escalator up 11 stories. Chris and I had to ride that escalator in April BECAUSE THE ELEVATOR AT THE STATION WAS OUT OF ORDER!! I probably spent close to 15 minutes verify...