Trip to Patagonia

Our hiking jackets were getting a bit ratty, so we decided to head over to Patagonia in St. Paul. Naturally, we both ended up choosing the same style. We’ll be modeling the jackets in a couple weeks when we go hiking through England’s border (with Scotland) country.

Apportioning Expenses of a 5-Day Hike

Worked on a spreadsheet to apportion hotel and rail expenses for a five-day hike we’ll do with two friends in the North East of England in September. If we take turns paying for hotels, everything almost balances. I don’t entirely trust my numbers, so I’ll return to this another day.

“The World is Going Our Way”

Reminisced with a friend while we explored the Northwest Airlines History Center. Resisted bashing the gong while improvising the “Northwest Orient (insert the sound of a gong) Airlines” jingle. Got the inside scoop from a retired pilot who flew one of my favorites, the 747-200. Click through to hear the jingle.

Passport Covers

Posted Passport Covers. Travel influencers urge us to buy unnecessary gear, such as a document organizer, a hotel room blacklight, or an in-flight clip-on cup holder. I add passport covers to that list.

Passport Covers

Travel influencers urge us to buy unnecessary gear, such as a document organizer, a hotel room blacklight, or an in-flight clip-on cup holder. I add passport covers to that list.

Coffee in Bed While Traveling

Hotel rooms in Japan typically provide prefilled coffee filters like these in sealed packets. Today, received empty filters from Amazon we’ll use on future travels to hotels that don’t provide coffee in the room. We’ll simply spoon in ground coffee before pouring the hot water.

A Final Tokyo Walk

Stowed our backpacks in lockers while we walked around Tokyo’s Ueno Park before we headed to Tokyo HND for our journey home. Lockers are ubiquitous.

Introducing B-List Kyoto

We introduced our nephew and his dad to Kyoto’s over-loved bucket list favorite, Kiyomizu-dera Temple, in order to build the case for exploring B-list Kyoto. After that initiation, we walked towards quieter places.