2016 – 2019

Kuala Lumpur, Borneo, Chaing Mai (October 2016)

Jon and I were joined by Drew & Joanne Cahoon and Bill and Paula Glade for a Friendly Planet trip to southeast Asia. I had met Bill and Paula on my China trip in 2012. We first flew via Taiwan on Saturday, October 8th to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where we met my work friend Mark Nawaii for a wonderful dinner that he graciously hosted with his son. Then next day Jon and I met with his friend Chaina Volken from Vancouver and went up the famous tall twin tower buildings.

Next we flew to Kuching, Borneo where our destination was to go to an orangatan preserve at Bako National Park. We visited the Semengok Oranutan Rehabilitation Center near Batang Ai. There we stayed on a lake and also visited an interesting village of lake dwellers.

From Borneo we flew to Bangkok where we met Drew and Joanne’s former foreign exchange daughter, Nan who took us to the night market on the river. The Glade’s left us there while we continued with Nan to go to her home in Chaing Mai where we were taken around on a tour by her mom. There we went to an elephant preserve where I got my first elephant kiss! Our visit there concluded with a wonderful dinner prepared by Nan’s father.

We flew back to the States on October 23rd.

Cabo San Lucas (December 2016)

Leif Thompson invited me to join him at his timeshare at the tip of Cabo San Lucas. The resort was nice but the all inclusive plan forces you to eat too much. We went snorkling on a charter boat where the tourists are treated to guzzling of tacquila from a open bottle.

St. George with Adam (February & March 2017)

I took my trainer friend, Adam to St. George for a couple of trips in the winter of 2017. We tried bike riding in Zion’s but it got too cold, so we decided to make a return trip when it was warmer. I told Adam that he was in charge of entertainment. He took me seriously and had made up a musical play list, followed by comedy jokes, singing and story telling which made the drive go by very fast.

San Luis Obispo with Adam (March 2017)

I wanted to show Adam the campus of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. So Adam took the train up and joined Anne and I for a fun weekend. He and I attended the Salsa Club dance on campus on Friday night. Saturday we went on a long walk up Avila Canyon where Adam taught us how to sing Army marching songs!

Amsterdam - Norway Cruise (June 2017)

Mary and I joined Joanne Cahoon and her daughter, Ashley for a Holland America cruise on the Koningsdam ship with two of Joanne’s St. George neighbors. We spent a couple days in Amsterdam arriving on Friday, June 9th before departing for Norway. It was the first time for me to visit Amsterdam. We went through the Anne Frank home and museum.

We then we took off for Norway. We went first to Flam and did some bicycle riding. We then sailed up the Geirander fjord to Bergen. We continued up the coast to Trondheim all the way to above the Artic Circle stopping at Honningsvag.

On the way back we stopped in Alesund, Eidfjord and finally Stavanger. We flew back from Amsterdam going to Vancouver and me coming home to LAX on Monday, June 26th.

Italy, Croatia and Solevenia (September 2017)

Jery Minta and I signed up to join the Michelangelo Institute Senior Language Program in Florence Italy for two weeks in the fall of 2017. We rented an apartment on Vrbo just north of the Duomo. While there we saw our Badia friends Bobbie Baron, Debbie Stefen and Val Mamini. The course work at the Institute was super fun with cooking classes, excursions, and dining out with all of our 50+ year old friends from all over the world.

After the two weeks, Jerry and I travelled to Venice to join up with a Gate1 tour to Croatia on Monday, October 9th. Croatia is beautiful country with an amazing history. We first started in old Austrian resort town of Opatjia. We then traveled down the coast to Zadar, Split and finally Dubrovnik. Split is where Emperor Hadrian retired to as the only Roman emperor who retired not dying in office!

From Dubrovnik we headed north where we visited the capital city of Zagreb. Then we went to Slovenia seeing Ljublijana and finally to the beautiful town of Bled where there is a church built on a very small island in the middle of a lake. Slovenia is very different from Croatia in temperament and custom. Croatia is rocky, Solvenia is neat and tidy like Switzerland. The final drive back to Venice was through the Italian Dolomites. We flew home from Venice on Thursday, October 19th.

Aspen, Colorado (November 2017)

With an extra bonus timeshare week, I invited Alan and Linda Rich to go to the Ritz Carlton ski resort in Aspen, Colorado. November is definately the shoulder season. We were just about the only persons in the resort. Our unit was huge with three bedrooms. Aspen is beautiful in the fall and we had a nice hike up to a lake. But it is a long drive to Aspen from St. George!

Cuba Cruise (February 2018)

Mary, Jon and I joined a Friendly Planet dance cruise to Cuba in February, 2018. We were joined by Bill and Paula Glade (See China, Viet Nam and Borneo trips). First we we went to Miami and took a bus tour of the Miami Beach. We then took our rental car up the coast to Palm Beach. Our final day in Miami was spent going to the everglades where we saw one alligator!

We then flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica on Friday, January 26th to join Bill and Paula on our Celestyal Crystal Ship. The ship encircled the island of Cuba on our week long journey. Each day on the cruise focused on a different dance. The night time entertainment shows were spectacular! First port was Santiago de Cuba, then the Bay of Pigs. From there we went to Havana for a few days. After Havana we sailed to Cienfuegos and back to Montego Bay.

China, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangkok (April 2018)

One night Charlie Rose interviewed the Harvard educated prime minister of Bhutan. He said that this little known country in the Himilayas had a quality of life clause in its constitution which limited the amount of forestland that could be lost each year. Sounded interesting. So I found a trip with the Road Scholar association which included a visit to Tibet via Beijing, Nepal and Bhutan. I departed from LAX with a flight to Beijing on Sunday, April 8, 2018.

From Beijing we flew to the capital city of Lhasa in Tibet that has an amazing royal palace. We stayed in the Himalaya hotel. My six person group was small and so we got personalized service from our various guides. The group was older so when most went for a nap, due to the high altitude I would go on short walks with the guides. Tibet is interesting where people go to their temple twice a day to walk around it three times in prayer. We visited the Jokhang temple, Bokhor Bazaar, and the Potala Palace.

After Tibet we flew to Katmandu in Nepal – which is India “Light” on Saturday, April 14. We immediately went to Bhaktapur where they were having a music festival. Loved it! Shopping was amazing. We stayed at Dhulikhel in a mountain village area outside of the city. Michelle Edelman and I took an early morning flight to see Mt. Everest and the whole Himalayan range. Spectacular! We also visited Durbar Square and the Sqoyambhunath Stupa. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Kathamndu Soaltee hotel – which was a huge complex of its own in the middle of the city. We then visit Patan Square and had a home-hosted dinner and culture talk.

Then we took a short flight to Bhutan’s only airport in Paro on April 19th. From there we drove to the capital city of Thimpu and got to see this amazing mountain kingdom that is frozen time. There we listened to a lecture on Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness policy and visited the Thimpu Dzong. (Every town has a Dzong – or fortress). One our last day we hiked up to the 12,000 foot elevation location called Tiger’s Nest which is a Taktsang monastery.

Our return journey was through Bangkok where we visited the Grand Palace, Wat Pho. We then flew back to the USA on Thursday, April 26.

Portugal and Italy (September 2018)

Jerry Minta and I signed up for another go with the Michelangelo Institute with there 50+ program. This time Joe and Rose Digrado joined us. Jerry and I rented an apartment just around the corner from the Institute. But the trip started with a Gate1 tour of Portugal where we started in Porto arriving on Sunday, September 16th. Porto is located near the coast on a large river. After Porto we went east almost to the Spanish border visiting Coimbar, Fatima Tomar. Each town has a walled older city portion in the center. We then went to the Convent of Christ, Castel de Vide and Evora. We then headed south ending in Lisbon. The coastline outside of Lisbon is spectacular. We didn’t bond with too many folks on the tour as most of them were Polish Americans living in New Jersey.

Italy was fun again with Joe and Rose. Debbie Steffan joined us again. However, I slipped on the wooden stairway coming down from my bedroom loft hitting my head on the wall. To make matter’s worse I got a nasty cold that lingered on the whole time. So I generally would go to language class and then come back to the apartment to cough!

Uganda (November 2018)

Jon and I joined his cousin Craig Hale for a trip to Uganda to visit an orphanage run by one of his clients. Jon enticed me by paying for our business class tickets on Swiss Air to Africa. Who could say no! The flight over there was via Ethiopia with a stop over in Zurich. To do that you leave from LAX on Monday, November 19th and arrive in Zurich on Tuesday. Then fly from Zurich to Addis Adaba with a final flight from Ethiopia to Entebbe on Wednesday (November 21). Our hotel was a guest house on the university campus in Kampala, the capital city.

Jon and I visited the School of Dentistry where Drew Cahoon used to work. We then went to Masaka to visit an orphanage that Jon’s Lift the Children supports. The school has a permiculture garden set up by Jon’s nephew Aaron Elton who lives in Kampala. Aaron took us out to his farm on Friday where we got to see his tilapia farm, black fly production and moringa plantation. He is quite the guy. While there he showed us the 13 foot phyton skin that he killed to save one of his dogs. We also met the brother of another one of Jon’s friends that took us for a two hour drive to his home for dinner. They proudly had cooks a huge pot of grass hoppers for us. Jon ate one, and I managed to eat two!

We then met our driver. Joseph Mugerwa, and the rest of the party to go to the Bwindi National Gorilla Preserve nearby Mbarara which is very close to the Congo border. There we spent two days (only one for me) seeing the gorillas in the bush. And I mean heavy bush! I was exhausted with the first day so I spent the second day visiting a women’s craft organization learning how to basket weave. Later that afternoon we visited a pgymy village in the mountains. Earlier Joseph took Jon and I to his family home where his mother runs a women’s birthing center. It serves a local population of over 100,000!

From there we drove to the Queen Elizabeth National Park on safari sees lots of hippos, a lion or two, elephants, gazelles, and alligators. Took a boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel. We then spent an exotic night at a tent hotel in the bush which was crazy noisy at night with the crickets, frogs and hippos munching all around us. We also went white water rafting at the head waters of the Nile. It was super fun, especially because we convinced our driver Joseph to put on a life jacket and come along with us. {He didn’t know how to swim!)

Returning to Kampala we then headed out to Mbale to go to Craig’s orphanage which welcomed us with open arms. We were there to perform physical exams by Dr. Greg from Heber City, Utah. I acted as scribe. Our lone woman of the troupe, Page measured the kids for their height. Jon entertained the kids after their exam. Before the exam the kids sang a number of songs and danced for us. Their principle, Carolyn Bisikwa had us for lunch at her nearby home. She is starting a small dispensary and we help provide her with medical supplies. Page’s husband, Mark and Craig bought the medical supplies.

My return home started on Thursday, December 6th flying from Entebbe to Brussels and then on to LAX arriving in the afternoon.

Cuba Dance Trip (January 2019)

The Glades and I decided to go on another dance trip on the island of Cuba. On this organized tour us stayed with local families and took dance lessons at local salsa dance studios. I arrived in Cuba on Sunday January 13th via Atlanta. We stayed out near the neighborhood where the old U.S. Embassy is located in Havana. The dance studio was in the apartment building were Bill and Paula stayed. The dance classes were fun and then we departed on a bus tour of the remainder of the island with a group of about 14.

From Havana we traveled to the village, Vinales, where on Saturday night they put tables in the middle of the street and there is a big dance party. Then we continued further east going to Cienfugos. Then on to Trinidad where there was amazing dancing in every restaurant in the city. From there we came back through Santa Clara to pay homage to the Chez Rivera monument and museum.

Back in Havana we stayed in the old part of town and went to the Buena Vista Club performance. Amazing!! Our group was nice. Two fun girls from England. My roommate was Sam a medical resident from Melbourne, Australia. Our return home was delayed considerably due to a hurricane which required staying overnight for a few hours in a hotel in Atlanta, returning to LA Friday, January 24th.

Italy and Sicily (September 2019)

Jerry and I signed up for a third year at the Michelangelo Institute 50+ program. This time we convinced several of our Badia classmates to join us. Bob and Sue Liebling, Georgia Seid, Gail Stevens joined us at the Institute. Mike and Debbie Bruce, Ken Lerch and his wife Lyn, Bobbe Dworkis and Valli Green shared two apartments in the Antellesi Palace on the Piazza Santa Croce for our 50 year Badia Reunion! Others joining us was Debbie Steffen, Wendy Betts, Gini Krutulis, and Stan Katz.

I changed teachers this year and had Giovanni instead of Luca. I didn’t make much progress with my Italian this year. But I did meet a wonder new friend, Yoav Bruckner, a fellow from Tel Aviv who immediately became a part of our group. He and another Brazilian Israeli woman, Vanessa joined in many of our after school activities.

After two weeks, Jerry and I went on a Gate1 tour of Sicily starting on Sunday, October 13th. We started in Palermo staying the the Hotel Mecure Palermo Centro. Palermo is a big city with several big streets that are closed off for pedestrian travel. We visited an amazing hilltown of Erice which is a ancient walled city. We then went to Agrigento for a visit of the Greek temples staying at the coastal town of Giardini Naxos. From there we went to Mt. Etna seeing the Silvestri Craters and an afternoon in Taromina. We then went to Siracusa. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the huge Roman Villa del Casale which had amazing mosaic tile work.

Returning home we flew from Palermo back to Rome, with a departure on Monday, October 21 on an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin and then a connection to LAX.

Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka & Hiroshima (November 2019)

The decade ended with a trip to Japan with Adam. We flew out of LAX and stay in the Shinguku district of Tokyo. While there we took a tiado drum class and attended a sumo wrestling camp. We purchased bullet train passes so alternatively we took side trips to Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima.