Our European Cruise

This was my second cruise in three weeks!

If you read my previous post, five of us guys went down the Arkansas River to Greenville, Mississippi.  We had been home for a week when Louise and I went on a cruise on the Seine River from Paris to Le Havre and back.

About a year ago, some friends from South Texas started talking about this trip.  Louise and I decided to join them and we bought our tickets.  As usual, I didn't do any trip planning until the day before (one of my traits which doesn't serve me well)!

We left Tulsa on October 10 and had an uneventful (read that "boring") trip to De Gaulle  Airport in Paris.  After the trip was over, Louise and I both told each other we would never fly across the pond again without at least Business Class seats!  Steerage is so cramped and uncomfortable that it's almost unbearable.

When we got to Paris, we discovered a somewhat major problem - our luggage hadn't made the flight.  We filled out the necessary paperwork and left for our ship.  For four days, Louise and I wore the same clothes we had flown in to Paris.  In fact, it got to be a standing joke on the ship that Edd and Louise were wearing their same clothes again!  I did manage to buy some underwear and socks a couple of days out.  By the way, French mens' underwear don't have flys but that's another story.  Finally, after four days our luggage caught up with us and we were happy campers!

The cruise line we were on, Vantage Travel, did all they could to make our trip enjoyable, as did Sandy and Gregg who were our group organizers.

Our ship, the River Venture, was a typical European river ship and held 138 passengers and the crew.  I think the crew numbered about 30.  One of the neatest things about a cruise like this is that you get to know a lot of people, most of the people on the ship, in fact.  There were 19 people in our group, only four of which Louise and I knew before the trip started.  By the end of the cruise, we were all good friends.

Our ship sailed from Paris to Le Havre and back.  As the crow flies, that's only a distance of about 120 miles.  As the Seine River meanders, and taking time for adventures, it took us 12 days for the round trip.

The list of things we got to see and do is too long to include in this blog but I'll hit just a couple of the highlights.  First, and most importantly, was the tour of Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery there.  It really is hard to imagine what happened there on June 6, 1944.  I would compare it to visiting the National Park at Gettysburg.

One thing that always stands out when we travel in Europe is how much older their culture is than ours.  We spent quite a bit of time touring cathedrals and other buildings which were built before Columbus discovered America.  It's hard to imagine!  We ate lunch one day at a Michelin rated restaurant in Rouen which was established in 1345!

We returned to Paris on October 20 and spent two days there at a dock within sight of the Eiffel Tower.  Paris was okay but we really enjoyed all the smaller villages we had seen along the river.  I did get a good picture of the Eiffel Tower, though.

Louise and I had a great time but, as we get older, we begin to worry about what might happen if we had health issues while traveling like this.  We aren't sure we will ever go to Europe again but, if we don't, this was a heck of a way to end our continental travels!

The Evolution of Our Camping

Having just spent three months in South Texas in our motor home, I began to think back on our camping and RV experiences.

As a child, I don't remember our family ever "going camping".  We went on quite a few vacations but we always stayed in a motel or rented a cabin.  After I grew up and left home, Dad and Mom did get a travel trailer and spent a great deal of time traveling.

When I married Louise, our first vacation together was a camping trip.  We had moved to the Detroit area because of my job and decided to go camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  We rented a tent, bought a lantern and portable cook stove, and took off.  It was one of the most memorable trips of our life!

Later, after we had returned to the Tulsa area and started having children, we did quite a bit of camping, starting with tents and camping with our friends, Richie and Leann and Grover and Barbara.  We soon graduated to an old Ford van which we used for a while, then an overhead camper in the pickup truck.

Eventually, we acquired an old 22' bumper pull travel trailer and pulled it all over the United States, including a trip to Virginia to see our old friends, Jerry and Marlene.  In 1986, we were part of the group which purchased Tulsa Winch and sold the travel trailer for two reasons: first, we needed the money, and second, we weren't going to have any time to go camping.

At this point, I was reasonably sure that our camping or RVing days were over.  In fact, my standard comment on camping and RV's was that I would do all my future camping at a Holiday Inn.  After my retirement in 1998, however, that changed.

Some friends who were RV'ers said something about us going on some trips with them.  I thought it might be wise to rent an RV to see what it was all about.  After I checked some prices for rentals, however, I decided I didn't want to do that.  We wound up buying a used Sprinter fifth wheel trailer from a couple who were giving it up.

The Sprinter was a good trailer but you couldn't stand up in the bedroom.  To exit the bed, the person closest to the front of the trailer had to crawl over the other person.  We also decided that we needed more room.  This was about the time we started going to South Texas in the winter and, when you spend three months in an RV, you appreciated all the space you can get.  We traded the Sprinter for a brand new Everest fifth wheel.

We pulled the Everest all over the U.S. for several years and had a great time in it.  I was towing it with a 1999 International and it was a good looking combination.  Eventually, the International grew tired and I was faced with the prospect of replacing it.

In about 2010, Louise and I decided to try a motorhome instead of a trailer.  We traded the fifth wheel off on a used Holiday Rambler bus and used it for about five years.  Last year, we traded the Holiday Rambler off on a Tiffin Open Road with four slides.  It has more room than any RV we've ever had and we are really enjoying it.  In fact, we just returned from Roaring River in Missouri where we spend a week.

I don't know how long we'll be able to continue to RV but, for now, we are gonna go every chance we get!

South Texas Revisited

Every once in a while, my friend, Larry, reminds me that I need to post something on my blog.  He just did that again so I suppose I should write something.

Louise and I came to South Texas again this year.  We arrived here on January 6 and will be here till March 6.  The weather was absolutely atrocious the first week we were here, making us wonder whether we had made a good choice.  It has since corrected itself, however, and has been beautiful for weeks.

There are too many things to do here to get them all done - many of the activities center around eating.  No wonder I can't lose any weight!  For example, we had the Oklahoma luncheon the other day.  Everyone in the Valley who is from Oklahoma is welcome to attend.  There were about 300 attendees at the luncheon and it was a lot of fun to meet and talk to some of them.

The woman seated next to me won the prize for being the oldest attendee.  She will turn 101 in June and lives in Bearden, Oklahoma, near where my mother grew up.  In the course of the conversation, I found out that she knew my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my mother quite well.  As the old saying goes, it's a small World!

Another man seated at our table heard us say that we were from Mannford and asked if we had, by chance, known a fellow by the name of Bill Heller.  Of course, I had known Bill and Mary Heller from when I was a kid.  It turns out that he was their ex-  son-in-law.

Speaking of eating, today is half price day on oysters out on South Padre Island.  Guess where we are going this afternoon!  Last week, I ate 2 1/2 dozen of them, I think I can repeat that this week

After we leave here, we are going to go to Louisiana for a few days before returning home.  We have some serious eating to do (crawfish!) over there.  I'll keep you posted on our food adventures.

Changing My Address

Because Louise and I travel quite a bit, sometimes for extended periods, we have had problems with getting our mail forwarded.  We either had to get the Post Office to do it (which they don't like to do) or we had to beg someone to go get our mail, put it in an envelope, and send it to us.

Just before our last major outing to South Texas in December, our box rent became due at the Post Office and we decided to use that as a reason to make a change.  Our son, Dan, had owned a UPS Store in Sapulpa several years ago and we knew that they rented out private mailboxes.  We went down to the local UPS Store in Sand Springs, paid them a little money, and had a new address!

Part of our logic was that they would forward our mail to us on demand and, in fact, they did this very well.  While we were in South Texas, all I had to do was send them an email and they would gather up all our mail, put it in an envelope, and forward it to us, all for a very nominal charge.  Another part of our decision was that Louise would be in Prattville (Sand Springs) frequently to see the grand kids so it wouldn't be an inconvenience to pick up the mail when we were in town.  This part of the deal is also working quite well.

What I didn't consider was the work required to notify all the people who exchange mail with us that we have a new address!  I have spent a considerable amount of time in this effort since December and I believe that I'm about through with it.  And its not just the initial change; several of the companies we have dealings with (insurance companies, doctors, etc) haven't been able to get the address right on the first try so we have to do it over.

The other day, I sat down to get caught up on QSL cards and realized that I had about 500 cards with the wrong address on them.  For you non-hams, a QSL card is used to confirm a radio contact between two amateur radio operators.  Recently, there have become many ways to confirm a radio contact electronically but a lot of people still prefer the cards.

At any rate, I used a few of my old cards by printing stickers with our new address information, but this was a pain in the rear!  So, yesterday I decided to have some new cards printed.  The first task was to find a picture for the front of the card.  Because of copyright laws, I decided that I wanted a picture which I had taken so I wouldn't have to worry about someone challenging my right to use it.

When Louise and I were in Louisiana in March, I had taken a picture of an owl which turned out pretty fair so I decided to use it.  In case you are wondering where I'm going with this,  its all an excuse to show you my new QSL card!

South Texas

We are getting ready for our annual trek to South Texas, aka "The Valley", aka the Rio Grande Valley. We will stay there as long as it it cold in Oklahoma!

The Valley is an interesting place. It has absolutely no scenery, only mild temperatures. Typically, the temps in the Valley are about 30° warmer than in the Tulsa area. If its 30° here, it will be 60° there, enough reason to travel that way.

Some observations: the place is full of OLD PEOPLE! When you go into a restaurant or bar, everyone in there except the wait staff is over 65. Since old people are notoriously bad tippers, I would hate to have a job like that in South Texas.

In the Valley, you are very close to Mexico, usually 10 miles or less. Louise and I used to make frequent trips across the border to shop and watch the other old people shopping. In the past couple of years, however, we have decided that Mexico might be a bit more hazardous than we like. When you cross the border in Progreso (near Harlingen), the first thing you see is a soldier with a machine gun in an armored personnel carrier. It doesn't give you warm, fuzzy feeling.

You are, however, close to the beach. South Padre Island is only about 30 miles away and we do make several trips to the Island every year to sight see and eat at the restaurants there.

We are going to be staying in our new (to us) motorhome this year. It will be a bit different but should be a lot of fun. We'll let you know in future posts.