100 and Done! (Countries that is...)

-
Image
We are back! This last trip brought the total countries visited to 100! It is a crazy milestone. It is difficult, time-consuming and can be (IS) expensive. After I got back from Antarctica in 2007, I started thinking about it. After 2010 I was thinking about it more (as I moved from NY to Georgia) and in 2014 it had become a real goal. Between Angie and I we have been to 109 Countries. We are tied at 100 countries each. We have 9 countries different in our lists. For example, I have been to San Marino. She has not. She has been to Israel. I have not, yet. There has been some fun competition in this area. That's why we had to establish rules. 1.) Must be listed (as a country) with the US State Department 2.) Being in an airport doesn't count. You have to get through immigration somehow and not in a DMZ or a no-mans-land 3.) A passport stamp is not required. I have been to Canada, Paraguay, and Uruguay without getting my passport stamped. There are friendly borders in many places...
Post a Comment

The Chandelier Restoration - Take Two and Grace the Cat

-

I refinished the chandelier. I first refinished and rewired this chandelier when I was 14 or 15 years old. It was originally a gas chandelier, perhaps 100 years old. This time I left more patina and I didn't lacquer it this time.

Grace the cat is growing fast and being a kitten. She is well behaved for a kitten, although not as well behaved as I would like.

We have travel plans for New Orleans and Hawaii. I figured out if I want to get to all the US states I have to go to Hawaii. It is time for that one to come off the list. I have a plane already booked for rental in Hawaii. Flying between the islands has been a dream for quite some time.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. We cooked a traditional bird. We used a roaster pan from the 1950s (I think). It occurred to me that the 11 pound turkey was just right for the pan. Turkeys have gotten a lot larger in the last 50 years! Most of what was sold in the store today wouldn't come close to fitting in that roaster.

You can probably tell which of this pics were taken with Angie's new fancy camera.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caribbean Trip Christmas 2025

-
Image
Before this trip I couldn't spell caribbean... It's a weird one. We didn't have a lot of time for this trip as usual. Other things in life besides travel to get done, like work. We planned Punta Cana Dominican Republic, Domenica, and Antigua and Barbuda. Our visit to DR was shortened by a cancelled flight on Liat Airlines. Our first flight on Liat we were at the ticket counter for 3 hours. There were only 3 other passengers on an Embraer 145 which holds 50. We learned in Dominica that Liat is short for "Leave Island Another Time". Or as I used my very limited Russian swearing vocaulary "Blyat" or "блядь". You can hear this word many times watching car crashes in Russia on Youtube. It is normally compounded with many other intensifiers. Of the three countries we liked Domenica best. It reminds me of Maui without all the tourism and people. Parts of the island might be the densest jungle I've seen. This pic is a improptu ...
Read more

Summer's End - Hopefully.

-
Image
My sister took a picture of an iceburg near Greenland that looks a little like a cat, our white cat, Jewel. I been using the M998 without doors and the back curtain rolled up. Much better in summer. Redneck A/C. The Moon, Jupiter and Venus in the early Morning, using nothing but my cell phone to take the pic.
Read more

Expidite the expidited

-
Image
I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...
Read more
-
Google News I will be moving my server host soon. The place I am using now could screw up anything. That is the reason I have not posted anything (seemingly) for quite some time. The name of the crapper server hosting company is IQuest Hosting. They just plain stink. They bought out the service I was using. Now because of their screw ups I am moving. Avoid "http://www.iquesthosting.com/"
Read more