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:
- Attacked of fresh pasta(cash), sepia and leeks
- Eggs in jumble with girgolas and you live(inhabit) tender and
- Loin Code to Ticken
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.
