2010 – 2015

Winter Olympics - Vancouver (February 2010)

Another Olympics – this time in Vancouver. This time I was lucky enough to go to the USA/Norway Men’s Hocky game, the Men’s Speed Skating races – those crazy Dutchmen! Mary and I also went to one of the ice skating events. Great fun, super warm weather. Byron wore shorts the whole time!

Rexburg - Yellowstone (June 2010)

I took advantage of another long weekend and super cheap Allegiant Airlines flight to visit Byron in college at BYU Rexburg, Idaho. Byron was kind enough to take me to a guitar concert where we got to sit on a cold concrete floor and listen to a great Hawaiian guitarist. After the concert, Byron had to help me get off the floor!! We then rented a car and went up to 1000 Islands to see some friends of his from his mission days in Arizona. Then we drove through Yellowstone Park seeing all sorts of nature. Like a bear stalking a little bison calf and an overly friendly elk – I think it was attracted to my suede jacket! Then down to Jackson Hole to stay at the Teton Village before returning to Rexburg.

Paris/London (April 2011)

In April of 2011 I decided to treat myself to a short trip to Europe on points to see the marriage of Prince William and Kate! I arrived in Paris on April 24 to see the sights. I stayed in one of the out lying zones in a Marriott Courtyard hotel. So it took some time to take the subway into downtown to see the Louvre. Actually I didn’t see much of it, just ate in the cafeteria! For some time prior my right heel had been bruised so it meant the walking was super painful. So I spent a lot of time riding buses just to see the various areas of the city. I went all the way out to Fountainbleu only to discover it was closed.

Then I took the Eurostar train in the Chunnel to London. There I stayed at a Marriott Renaissance hotel out near Heathrow Airport. I passed on the $35 breakfast brunches by going to the McDonald’s across the street for a $10 meal! April 29th was the wedding day. It was so festive. Everyone was in a party mood. The closest I could get was in a park on the side of Buckingham Palace. But they had huge big screens up in the park so you could see all the action at the cathedral. The crowd went wild for the newly weds, but especially for Prince Harry! I returned home on May 2.

Alaska (July 2012)

Anne Hall and I decided to go on an Alaska cruise with our college friends, Bob Liebling and his wife Sue, Joe Digrado and his wife Rose. Anne, Jose, Rose and I flew up to Vancouver and stayed with Jon and Mary before taking off on our cruise on the Coral Princess ship leaving Vancouver on Monday, July 23. The first stop was Ketichan, followed by Juneau. From there we went to Skagway and Glacier Bay, College Fjord and ending in Whittier, Alaska. In Whittier we went into Anchorage to rent a car to drive down to see Vickie Valdez-Green and her husband Bob at their place on the Kenai Peninsula in a little town of Ninilchik.

I loved going to Alaska. Everything is huge. Anne and I did a dog sled ride on one of our excursions.

China (November 2012)

I finally decided to go see China by myself with a Friendly Planet tour group. What a great experience with a great group of people, some of whom I am still in contact with today. Bill and Paula Glade and I have taken several more trips together. I left LAX on Thursday, November 8 for Beijing via Taipai, Taiwan. In Beijing visited and froze at the Great Wall. It was so cold and slippery that they had to close the top of the wall for the tourists. We then flew to Shanghai and stayed in the European quarter in a hotel that was the former embassy of Great Britain.

We then took a bullet train to the historic city of ***. Then flew to Chengdu to see the amazing pandas. This followed with another flight to Xian to see the terra cota soldiers. Wonderful accommodations. Tons of food. Good time of year to travel, not hot, no smog. I arrived back in LAX on Sunday, November 18th.

Norway, Iceland and Boston (June 2013)

I decided it was time to revisit Norway again. So I arranged to meet my college friend, Leif Thompson in Oslo on his way back home after spending the winter in Europe after retiring. On Thursday, June 13 I met up with Bjorn at the Oslo train station and took a train to his home is Asker a few miles south of Oslo. He took a few days off so we drove to Kragero to visit the Bjerva family down there. We stayed at his parents old home in Lonne. Bjorn loaned me the family car and I drove it up to Hadeland to see the birth place of Grandma Running and her family. I met with Ole Gamme, the genealogist of the Hadeland Lag club that I am a member. Ole is a retired dairy farmer and spent all day taking me around to see the Eggebroten farm.

I then went up to visit Ingunn’s family in Eleverum on their beautiful black berry farm. Then I met up with Leif and we spent a couple more days in Oslo. One of which was an architectural tour given by Bjron’s daughter’s father-in-law, Pal Emil.

Leif and I then took the train to the small town of Flam where we went on a speed boat ride up the fjord. We trained it back to Oslo we flew to Iceland where we stayed in a hostel and went to the famous Blue Lagoon Spa and Mud baths. We also took a day tour of the nearby sites.

Our trip finished by flying to Boston, spending one night there before heading home to CA.

Cambodia/Viet Nam (November 2013)

In November I went on another Friendly Planet tour to Cambodia and Viet Nam with Bill and Paula Glade. This has been one of my most favorite trips of all time! I arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on November 16th. We toured the Killing Fields monument and the famous prison in town along with a temple complex. We then flew to Siem Reap to visit the temples in Angkor Wat. Amazing place with hundreds of temples hidden in the jungle. All sorts of Buddist monks around making everything very colorful.

We then flew to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Viet Nam. The streets are teaming with motorcycles 10-15 abreast. It is very intimidating to try to cross the street! We went to see the Cu Chi Tunnels where people lived for years. They have a shooting range nearby so you can really get a sense of how it might have been during the Viet Nam War (they refer to it as the American War.) After the city tour we went on a boat trip down the Mekong Delta.

Then we flew up to old capital of Hue and Hoi An and then stayed at a resort in Da Nang that has a great shopping village area where I bought some shirts and custom fitted tennis shoes. From Da Nang we flew to Hanoi and visited the prison where John McCain was held for five years. They have a monument to his crash in a lake in the downtown area. In Hanoi we took rickshaw ride around old Hanoi and visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum.

We then traveled by bus to Halong Bay and took the Emeraude Cruise in the beautiful bay. The boat is a replica of the classic steamships of the colonial era of French Indochina. We also visited a huge cave on one of the islands. The Viet Namese are so friendly. I felt like a rock star as many of them wanted to take their picture with me. One girl even videotaped an interview with me of what my impressions of Viet Nam were. I returned on November 29th.

Kalispell/Raymond (July 2014)

I flew to Kalispell, Montana to visit Drew and Joanne Cahoon at their cabin in Polson on Flathead Lake. We then drove up to their home in Raymond, Alberta, Canada to spend Canada Day (July 1) there. Of course the stay in Polson included boating, skadooing, and quading up the local hills.

The Galapagos Islands and Peru (November 2014)

Chad and Treva Colton had a trip planned to Peru to visit a client of Chad’s and to go to Machu Picchu. Jon asked me to go along so that he could join them. I decided that it was too long of a trip to just go for one week to Peru, so I booked a package deal to go to the Galapagos Islands the prior week. I arranged my flight with American Airlines points so that meant that I had to go via Philadelphia-Miami-Guayaguil. The problem started in Philadelphia with a mechanical problem forcing our plane back to the terminal to change planes. That made us late to Miami where we had a 24 hour delay with another mechanical problem. At midnight American finally decided to let us get a hotel room 20 miles away so that we could wake up at 4 a.m. for the return to the airport in the morning! Finally a day late I made it to Ecuador, spending a night there before flying to Santa Cruz Island.

On Santa Crus I stayed at the Twin Eco Suites organic farm hotel and I was the only guest at the 30+ room hotel. I had my own butler, cook, and tour guide for each day. For breakfast and dinner I would order want I wanted and all three of them would stand and watch me eat! My personal guide was a great kid, Luis Daniel from Venezuela. Luis Daniel spoke excellent English which he learned from playing video games. Everyday I got to determine what part of the island that I wanted to see. We when kayaking, road bicycles, and saw lots of exotic animals.

From there I flew to Arequipa, Peru where I met up with Chad and where I got to go to a alpaca fair and fashion show. {Chad’s client is an American Alpaca grower.) We then went to Cusco where we stayed at an amazing Marriott Hotel that was an ancient convent. I had a fun day going to a local market in the small town of Pisac a few hours from Cusco. Then together we all took the train to the Sacred Valley to see Machu Picchu on Wednesday, November 19th. We all hiked around that amazing place with Treva being pregnant and Jon being sick! How did they build all that!! Such precision. And there are similar ruins all over the place.

I was proud that I was able to do all the hiking thanks to a workout regime I had started back home at my local LA Fitness Gym with my trainer, Adam Dittemore.

Norway (April 2015)

In the Spring of 2015, Mary and I headed back to Norway with the families of her sons, Matthew and David. The eleven of us left from Oakland, California and flew on Norwegian Air direct to Oslo arriving on Wednesday, April 21. We stayed in a trendy check-in-yourself City box hotel within walking distance from the central train station. Our rooms had bunk beds. Jet lag set in so often we would communicate throughout the night via texting and Facebook messaging!

Our cousin, Bjorn Vessia took us around Oslo and we were invited to dinner with his family is the nearby town of Asker. We also visited with some Bjerva cousins (Per Henning and his sister and Ole Jakob Tveitdal and his family in As. . After a few days we all traveled to Kragero to see the old Ronningen farm and more relatives there. In Kragero we visited our Bjerva family relatives (Asa, Ronald and Ellen Bjerva) who hosted us to a wonderful dinner in Kil and another one in Kragero. In Kragero we stayed at a bed and breakfast place along with Bjorn’s son, Oyvind and his family.

We had a tour of the Sannidal church and then went to see the Ronningen farm and the Vessia home. A distant cousin, Jorn Paus joined took us on a trip up in Telemark to a town that has a historic church where one of our ancestors was the pastor. Again our Bjerva cousins treated us well catering everything all the way!

Next on our agenda was to drive up to Eleverum to visit our cousin Ingunn Oxseth and her husband Gunnar on their berry farm. The farm is historic with several older homes. We also visited Gunnar’s sister Randi and her husband on their very large family in the valley. Another dinner was had at Trina Bjerva’s home with her husband and their two boys.

The trip was amazing especially with kids ranging in age from two to 16!

Italy (October 2015)

In October I made a trip to Italy with my friend, Alex London. This was Alex’s first time in Italy and he wanted to see it all. We flew to Rome on Thursday, October 15th where we stayed at the Marriott Courtyard hotel with a view of St. Peter’s. We stayed there for a couple days touring the Vatican, and the Colosseum.

We then took a train up to Florence where I introduced him to the David, gellato and the wonders of Florence. We also made a pilgrimage to the Prada Factory Outlet mall outside of Florence! From there we took a train up to Venice where we stayed at the marvellous Marriott resort hotel on its own private island the Isola delle Rose. There Alex got to ride on a boat without getting sea sick!

We then went to Milan to attend the World’s Fair. The fair was so so and crowded. But in the evening we went to the Galleria and Piazza del Doumo and caught a bunch of musicians practicing for an outdoor concert being held the following night. After going to the Georgio Armani museum, we headed back to the Doumo and saw the concert with Duran Duran!

We stayed at the bargain Moxy Marriott hotel near the Milan airport which had not phone in the room that you could call when you couldn’t get the lights or television in the room to turn off! We departed Milan on Sunday, October 25th and made it back to LAX.