Lisa and I continue to plan our trip to Winnipeg for Pemmi-Con. Our outline plan had been to drive to Winnipeg, attend the convention, join several of our friends to take the train from Winnipeg to Churchill and back, and then for Lisa and I to drive home, taking a different route home and (we hoped) staying at the Isaak Walton Inn in Essex, ( Read more... )

We got pretty much the maximum use out of that suite in Fallon. We were able to check in early yesterday afternoon, and we checked out just before noon (and could have stayed another hour if we wanted to do so). Because I woke up at 5:30 (which is still sleeping in by my standards) and went to the breakfast bar right after it opened, I essentially ( Read more... )

Thanks to it being pointed out to us, we now know a place that we think we'd like to stay for a day or three as part of a train-travel vacation.

A caboose is nice, but how about a converted locomotive overlooking the railroad? This amazing converted locomotive is one of the lodging options at the Izaak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana, which is easily ( Read more... )

Because the pandemic scuppered all of our travel plans for Westercon and Worldcon, especially the three weeks we planned to go to New Zealand, I find myself in the position of having too many vacation days. The limit for someone with my seniority used to be 360 hours (45 days), but XPO "for competitive reasons" reduced that to 300 hours (37.5 days ( Read more... )

After lunch today, I walked over to the sheriff's substation and dropped off the Vacation Notice Form asking them to do additional checks on the house for the time we're away in Europe ( Read more... )

Today was our really big tourism day in Iceland: We booked a relatively comprehensive "Golden Circle" tour of some of the top scenic highlights of southwestern Iceland accessible in a single (long) day.

( To the Geysir! )

We had an 8:45 AM flight out of Helsinki this morning, so after much too little sleep we lurched out of bed, completed our packing, checked out of the hotel, and got a train to the airport. We are very grateful to the extremely frequent airport trains, because we missed the first one we planned to catch, but there was another one coming along in ( Read more... )

Today was our final full day in Helsinki. We had no big tourist attractions left to visit. Lisa wanted to do some shopping, and she also was looking for us to track down a transportation oddity that she wanted to see.

( Riding the Paternoster )

Yesterday evening after dinner, I took a walk on the beach; the first time I've been down there since we got here despite it being just outside our front lawn here.

( Seaside Sunset )

One reason I'm still getting up fairly early while on "vacation" is so that I can accomplish enough on my Day Jobbe to be able to have the late afternoon to myself. Yesterday, Lisa and I strolled down to the Seaside Aquarium, which we've seen for years on our past visits but never found the the time to visit.

( Feeding the Seals at Seaside )