no soup, no clouds
Last year we went to southern Spain – I’d only been up north previously, around Barcelona, Pamplona and Bilbao and I was a little unsure about flying down too close the the Costas but it turned out to be a very interesting holiday. Here’s a map of our trip, with a few photos.
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This year we’ve decided to return to the United States, this time flying in to Denver. We’ll be out of the place shortly before the Democrat National Convention, thank goodness.
A while back I visited the Lorraine motel, Memphis, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.
The Lorraine Motel, Memphis
The motel was bought in 1982 by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation to house the excellent National Civil Rights Museum. Inside the motel/museum, most of the rooms have been knocked through for exhibition space but up on the first floor, the bedroom King used has been reconstructed and on the balcony outside is a wreath next to the spot where he was shot.
Summer hols booked. Or anyway, flight to Washington (DC) and car hire for road trip to Memphis. We’re looking at running down the Alleghenies for some white water rafting, something Helen first persuaded me to do in 2001 (shortly before 9/11), on the Ocoee River, part of the the Atlanta Olympics course, in Tennessee. We rafted again in Spain in 2002, when we stayed in the Parador de Vielha; I bounced out of the dinghy that time. The Vielha Parador, by the way, had a very good restaurant and an even more fantastic menu which in English included:
What else? On the way south and west from Washington, black bears and civil war landmarks I think. Need to do more research and planning.
Only an 8-hour flight this time (11 hours two years ago to San Francisco) but I’ve crashed a jumbo on Flight Sim going into Dulles twice now. Low cloud at the moment and ILS landing’s a bit rusty. First thing I do when I’m flying somewhere, to reduce more than vestigial fears, is to Flight Sim it. Flew into Venice, Cologne, Talinn, SFO, Heathrow, Atlanta, Barcelona etc all before flying in for real. My best tip for calming nerves is to stare at the faces of the flight attendents and only get twitchy if they’re looking unnerved. If they look disinterested, I’m happy.
