Travelin’ Trio in Scandinavia 2024

 On May 30, 2024, the Travelin’ Trio went on a Rick Steves Tour of Scandinavia. The tour finished June 15, 2024. In late October, we gathered in San Antonio to create the photo book.

Travelin’ Trio Tours Central Europe

With airfare being so expensive and with two of the three Trio members being retired and having spare time on their hands, the Trio decided to make the most of their time in Europe and did back-to-back Rick Steves tours. The Scandinavia tour ended the morning of June 15 and a tour of Central Europe didn’t start until June 16, so we flew from Amsterdam to Prague and had some amazing adventures in Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia. Wow. What a trip. I think this is the most pages in a photo book yet.

We waited a bit longer than usual to make our photo book and then we couldn’t decide whether to make one book or two. We met in October 2024 in San Antonio, but only got the Scandinavia book done. We met in January 2025 in San Diego, but our hosts (and fellow Rick Steves travelers) Bill and Diane joined us and we enjoyed their company and their city instead of working on the book. So eleven months after the trip, we finally found a weekend that fit all of our schedules, rented an AirBnB in Denver, reserved the best Uber driver in town (Rodney), and got most of the book done. But again, we got distracted as we also spent time planning our next Rick Steves tour with another set of fellow Rick Steves travelers, Stan and Lisa. With only a few days before the one-year anniversary of this amazing 2024 Central Europe trip, we finally got ‘er done!

 

Amtrak Adventures (and more) with the Travelin’ Trio

 In September 2023, the Travelin’ Trio took a train trip from Spokane to Milwaukee. Then we added a weekend in October in Ridgway Colorado. We then got together in December in Orlando to make our photo book. All the adventures are captured in our latest photo book.

Alpine Adventures with the Travelin' Trio

The Travelin' Trio had reservations for the Rick Steves' "Best of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland" tour trip in summer 2020 and you know what happened to that. We finally got to take the trip in June 2022. Of course, we added a little on to that trip and went to the every-ten-year Floriade event in the Netherlands. In October 2022, we gathered in San Antonio to make a photo book.

Alaska July 2021

 The Travelin' Trio braved COVID (pre-Delta variant) and journeyed to Alaska in July. We utilized the Gold Star Services of the Alaska Railroad and had five days and nights of first class transportation (oh, the train was sooo fun and sooo nice), lodging and adventures. Then we rented a car and created our own adventures for five days. In January 2022, we gathered in Phoenix to make a photo book.

 

Portugal and Spain 2019

 The Travelin' Trio paired up with Rick Steves and did the tour of Portugal. Then we added a few days in Spain on our own. We had an amazing guide in Portugal and a wonderful time in both countries. The trip was in June and we gathered in St. Louis, MO in October to create a photo book.

A New Year Down Under

Karen, Rodney, and I traveled to Sydney Australia for New Year's Eve 2017 and then went on a 2-week driving trip on the South Island of New Zealand to kick of the new year of 2018. In August, we gathered in Atlanta and hunkered down in an AirBnB to make a photo book.

Europe Our Way 2016

Rodney and I took a dream 16-day trip through Europe. We took Celebration Tours up a notch with this one! We joined a Rick Steves "MyWay Europe" tour and made it our own. 16 full days and nights in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy (and a stop in Lichtenstein).

Instead of blogging every detail, I posted on Facebook...on a pretty constant basis. That text combined with both of our photos (mostly Rodney's gorgeous photos) became the heart of the content of this photo book. We finished our trip in August. In January, we got together in Denver, hunkered down in a hotel room, and spent three days and nights putting together this photo book.

change in tag

Howdy!
If you're reading this, you probably have an old URL for my trip to the Canadian Rockies. I changed the tag from RocKyMountains15 to RocKyMounTains2015. I just couldn't resist capitalizing the T as well as the R, K, and M to represent all 4 of us on that awesome trip. But that means that the old link you have won't show you any blog entries about that trip because I changed all the tags. Click the link below and you'll be able to follow the antics and amazing views of our trip in the Canadian Rockies, Summer 2015.

http://texastheresa.blogspot.com/search/label/RocKyMounTains2015

Reader's Digest Version of the Trip

Well I haven't had time to go back and finish my blog entries about the incredible trip but Karen has been doing a lot of compiling, so here are two things she created that you can look at to get the synopsis version (both verbally and visually) of the trip.

This is the link to the web page where Karen compiled all of her notes with all of my Facebook postings about the big Glacier/Banff/Jasper (GBJ) trip (same trip/different nickname):
https://www.overall.org/15-06-03-glacier-TLO/

This is a new thing called “sway.” She wanted to mess around with it and try it out so she compiled all of her artsy photos about the trip on this website:
https://sway.com/AXp6B2US9HRLWZUB 

A side trip to Calgary

We drove 90 minutes to Calgary to see the Canada Olympic Village and drop off Rodney  at the airport since the shuttle (like the one Mary took) didn't work out. Now it's down to Karen and me to return the rent car to Kalispell...the long way. More adventures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Day with Rodney

We found one more hike on the Bow Valley Parkway for Rodney and then drove back to Banff. We had lunch at the Spaghetti Factory (Rodney’s favorite). We went shopping for 20 minutes on Banff Ave for shirts, etc. so Rodney could find last-minute souvenirs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bow Valley Parkway, Take Two

After Mari left, we headed back to Bow Valley Parkway, which was closed last night when we tried to see animals at dusk. Mari's shuttle was late and we decided to wait with her, but now we've missed seeing animals at dawn. But there were still plenty of photo opps and fun times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A photo of Lambie's ancester. . . a true bighorn sheep.

 

 

 

 

Last Selfies/Goodbyes

Well, we tried to take a selfie that showed how exhausted we all are but we got this photo instead?

 

 So then we took a real last selfie.

 

 And then we put Mari on the shuttle to Calgary Airport.

 

 

Back to Moraine Lake

We stopped at Moraine Lake one more time. It's just beautiful to see it at any time of day. It's not very far out of the way, plus Dr. Mari missed it at sunrise. Check out the "rock pile" (as described by a photography blogger whose directions we followed for photographing sunrise here) that we hiked up to get the really good sunrise photos. It's so picturesque we just kept taking selfies...more sky, more focus on the water, different angles...always a beautiful backdrop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banff Hotel

Another nice place to stay, this one with great balconies and a yummy hot free breakfast. Thanks Dungarees Expeditions for all the great travel arrangements! (weird name, though: Best Western Plus Siding 29 Lodge)

 

 

 

 

Weeping Wall

Weeping Wall? Where did that come from? How did we miss this yesterday?! We are thoroughly enjoying the beauty and the surprises of Icefield Parkway!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Banff

We figured today would be a much shorter drive time-wise since we'd seen it all coming up the Icefield Parkway. But somehow you can't take it all in in just one trip, so there was still plenty to see. Plus it looks different coming the other direction. Plus, there are always fun surprises like a herd of mountain goats along the side of the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Dinner Drive Around Banff

As described earlier, when we were in one of the art galleries admiring beautiful photographry of the area, Rodney asked about the mountain in one of them. The employee not only told us the name of it but said the best place to photograph it was at Vermillion Lakes and then she told us how to get there. And so we went!

 

 And then we drove some more around town, not sure where we were going, just exploring. And we got up close and personal with the classic Banff Springs Hotel (now a Fairmont Luxury Hotel). 

 

 

Though the place was closed, we were able to see the base of the Banff Gondola. I'm not sure what this big bus was doing there...it should be out at the Columbia Icefield out on the Icefields Parkway that we just go off of. Pretty cool to see it up close. It is really BIG!

 

 

We drove back to Vermillion Lakes and took sunset photos. Imagine that. :-)

 

 

Bye Bye Jasper

Well we didn't get to stay long here! All the more reason to come back. And there's a certain photo of a certain island that Rodney wants to get, so we'll come back for that, too.

We had breakfast in the dining room of the Crimson Jasper Hotel. It wasn't included with the price of the hotel, but it was nice. The rest of the gang went down Maine Street to look for souvenirs and t-shirts. I stayed behind to use the free wi-fi and get caught up on Facebook postings.