Here we go again!

Well it is that time of year again and we are about to head out on our third annual summer trip around the country. This time we will head north to Lancaster Pa. and then on to Niagara Falls. After that we will travel east through Canada meeting friends and relatives along the way. Then we will meander back along the east coast of the good ole USA and head home. We will travel over 3000 miles and see everything from big cities to national forest. We will be camping again with the occasional stop at friends houses and few stops at Air BnB locations. We have been looking forward to this trip for the entire year and are very glad that it is finally here. Feel free to follow along we will enjoy the company!

Home Sweet Home!

Finally today is the day we head home. While we still have colds they seem to be getting a little better as of this morning. We set the alarm for 4AM and were already down in the lobby by 4:30 to grab a take away breakfast and grab a cab to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 4:55 and as I should have guessed the lines were already out the door. We were able to make it inside and then Lyn had to pay a travel tax to be able to leave the country and we both had to pay a terminal fee. These were small amounts for sure but it does seem like they always have to get you for something. Once we were done with that we got in the Delta line and made it through in about 20 minutes. Then we had to go through Immigration and then finally through security. We made it to our gate with time to spare so overall it was a good experience. Our first flight was to Tokyo and would be just under 4 hours. As luck would have it Lyn got to sit next to an older lady that spoke Ilokano. (Her native language.) It was nice for them to be able to chat she found out that she would be sitting with us again on the long NYC flight. I noticed that Lyn was helping her with everything. Showing her how to use the video controls making sure she had everything she needed and just talking with her in general. She later told me it felt like her Mom was with her on the flight. God works in mysterious ways, many we may not understand but we will always appreciate them. We arrived in Tokyo on time and had about a 45-minute layover. I enjoy walking in the stores here, as everything is different from home. Our next flight to JFK would be just under 12 hours. This is the one we both dreaded. It is hard to sit in those seats for that long but we were able to get up occasionally and walk around. If money was no object those 1^st class beds sure look good up front. But wait we did get to ride in 1^st class on the bus I guess that will have to do. After watching several movies and having several meals we finally landed at JFK. (One movie was especially good. It was called The Lunchbox. You can check it out here. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2350496/ )

We got off the plane and went through immigration. We both realized that this would be the last time that Lyn would have to do this using a Green Card. The next time we do this she will be a full on U.S. Citizen! The immigration officer was very nice which is not always the case. After we collected our luggage we had to recheck it to our final destination Raleigh, NC. My daughter Chelsea and son-in-law Justin were going to meet us their with our car and Jasper so we could drive straight from there.  We had about a 3 hour wait for our plane but finally we boarded the final flight. Surprisingly one of our stewardesses was Filipino. She talked to Lyn in Tagalog and asked me if I knew any. Of course I used my handy dandy phrase “Hindi ko alam!” which means “I do not know.” Ha Ha. I did manage to say “Salamat Po” on my way off the plane, a very fitting way to end the trip. Justin and Chelsea greeted us and after getting our luggage we were actually driving our car on I-40 heading home. It seemed like we were flying going 70 miles per hour. After about an hour and 15 minutes we were home! It felt so good that we just sat there enjoying the moment. We went to bed about 1AM with the windows open and enjoyed the cool 68-degree temperature. It seems like a lifetime ago that we started our summer vacation with my Dad and Joanne. I would never have predicted when we were standing on the snowfields at Glacier Park that a week later I would be riding a trike in Solano Nueva Vizcaya. Life can sure throw you curves and difficult situations but as long as you have friends and family you can make it through just about anything. We were blessed in so many ways on this month long odyssey. So many people went out of their way to help us, gave us encouraging words or put us in their prayers. (Way too many to name here.) But from the bottom of our hearts we thank you all!!!!! Next years vacation?!?!!? Not sure yet but as long as I have Lyn by my side it is guaranteed to be an adventure! See you in the Bye and Bye!

In Tokyo.

Frog pocket books.

Crazy sign!

Manila airport at 4:55AM.

Tokyo sign.

Great snack.

Tokyo trash can.

Heading home!

On the way to Manila

We woke up about 5 am with the same colds hat we went to bed with. Uggghhh! Our bus to Manila was scheduled to leave at 11:20. We decided to have breakfast and then walk back to the market to visit the coffee shop one more time. We wanted to get a little more before we headed back home and really any excuse to walk through Burnham Park is a valid one. We went down stairs to breakfast about 6:30. The guy that greeted us in the lobby said that breakfast would start at 7. We decided to sit in the lobby and enjoy the wifi that is much quicker than the wifi in our room. After about 5 minutes the man came back and said they would open the kitchen for us early and we could now have breakfast. I had bacon and eggs and Lyn had hot dogs sliced with eggs and rice. (Hot dogs are served all the time over here and are a part of many dishes.) This meal was not only delicious it also was presented nicely as well. After breakfast we walked to the market. We cut through Burnham Park and saw that it was alive with families already enjoying the bikes, playgrounds and boats. It was a school holiday and so everyone was free to enjoy the park. We went to the Market and bought more coffee at the same store that we had purchased it at the day before. That market really has a life of its own and could walk around it all day. Since we had a bus to catch we caught a cab back to the hotel and packed up our things. Today’s bus ride was going to be about 5 hours long. Once we arrived at the Victory Liner station we were greeted by three guards that helped us get our luggage in. We already had our tickets so it was really just a matter of waiting on our bus to arrive. We had splurged and paid for a luxury bus, which was only about $17 per person. This was about $8 a person more than the regular bus. For this price we were treated with bigger seats that reclined more, a bathroom, wifi with charger and a stewardess that handed out light snacks and water. The bathroom would enable us to arrive in Manila about two hours faster than the regular bus because we could go non-stop. And once again we had seriously strong air conditioning. The ride out was really curvy at first as we left Baguio. Our bus was passing everything in sight and seemed to have no problem doing that on blind curves as well. After about an hour it flattened out and we just sat back and watched the countryside and enjoyed the wifi. The plan was to go to the Pasay terminal, which would be near our hotel and very near the airport. Eric’s Mom met us there and rode with us in the cab to make sure that we got in a good cab and did not have any hassle. She actually offered to let us stay with her again but we were just too sick to be around anyone. (Thank you Eric and Russelle for making our time in Manila hassle free. It really took the pressure off our travel there!) We look forward to going back there when we have more time. Once we checked in we basically crashed on the bed and fell asleep until dinnertime. Our colds were getting the best of us and tomorrow would be about 36 hours of travel. Yikes. Hoping for better health, as this trip is not easy on the best of conditions. Tomorrow we have the alarm set at for so we can leave the hotel at 4:30. This should get us to the airport at 5AM, which will give us enough time to get through all of the craziness. Hoping for a smooth day tomorrow.

Breakfast at the park View Hotel!

Guard at the Manila bus station.

Luxury bus.

Snack

Bathroom on the bus.

Stewardess

The bus.

Along the way.

Snack

Baguio Day 2

Ok so we woke up and our colds have decided to get worse. We decided to load up with aspirin and Sudafed and see if we can’t see at least a few of the beautiful sights that this city has to offer. We decided to walk from our hotel to the City Market. This would take us through Burnham Park and then to Session road. We would check out the shops there and then head to the market to see what it has to offer. Since it was a school day we had the park mainly to ourselves. It is a beautiful park that has everything from playgrounds to a lake that you can rent cool boats and paddle around in. There were a lot of people exercising and we really enjoyed our walk through the park and also enjoyed the cool air. When we were in the park I had a young man approach me and ask if he could interview me. He had a friend with him and my first instinct was that something bad might be getting ready to go down. Anyway I quickly found out that he was a college student and his assignment was to find a native English speaker and have a conversation with them in the form of an interview. He ended up interviewing me while his friend videotaped it. He was super nice and glad that he had found me and really glad when the interview was over. He was very nervous but did a great job. He said I would be part of his presentation in his class. Ha Ha I ended up in a classroom half way around the world. Too cool!!! After that we went to a few stores on session road and then headed to the Market. For some reason I thought I would see a few westerners here but as usual I was the only one. I guess it is still off the beaten path…well that is their loss for sure. On the way to the market Lyn bought some cassava cake and bibingka. It cost 17 peso’s (39 cents US.) and was enough for both of us for breakfast. Masarap! Finally we made it to the market. We were both on sensory overload from the colors to the smells to the hustle bustle of it all. They had everything from touristy type stuff to produce, meat, fish, poultry and all kids of dry goods. Actually I am sure they had more selection than your local Wal-Mart. It appeared to be randomly spread out but that just made it more fun to walk through. You never knew what was around the corner and believe me there were a lot of corners. We found a really cool coffee store and had a bag ground up for us. We are looking forward to trying it when we get home. After that we went to the grocery store and bought a lot of items that you can only get in the Philippines. We will be bringing it all back in the same suitcase that we brought all of the American products over in. I guess you could call us importer exporters! J We bought so much stuff that we decided to get a cab back out to the hotel and take a nap. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the bus terminal to get the tickets to Manila for the next day. We decided to get 1^st class tickets on the Victory Liner luxury bus. It was about $17 US per person and well worth it as it has wifi a bathroom and gets to Manila two hours faster than the regular buses. What a splurge! (So far most all of the cab rides have been less than 3 dollars US.)  After our nap we decide to go to Wright Park. It has over 500 horses their as well as “The Mansion” and a few other various shops. We toured everything and even had our pictures taken in native apparel. After that we went back to Burnham and had an early dinner at kamayan restaurant. They had a special shake called  Puto Bumbong. It had ube in it and actual pieces of puto in it as well. It tasted great and felt really good on our throats as both of us now had some pretty sore throats. The meal came out and it was equally as good. All of this for about $7 US. We decided to walk home and call it an early night. We could only pretend for so long that we were not sick. We watched a movie on TV and called it a night by about 9:30. Tomorrow we will be leaving on a bus headed for Manila. 

Coffee Shop at the Market

Always a smile even when sick.

The Market

Wright Park

Lunch

Puto Shakes!

Dinner

Going to Baguio

Last night was our last night in Solano. While we are looking forward to seeing Baguio City and starting to head in the direction of home it is still hard to leave our family here. I am so glad we were able to stay with Dominga and her family instead of a hotel. It was great being a part of the household for the last week. I will miss so many things here cold showers, coffee, food, trikes but most of all the people. They really have a great sense of family and community and I am already missing it as I write this. Thanks to everyone for making room for us and being so helpful in every way. We got up about 5:30 and showered we did our final packing for our trip. After that we had breakfast. It was yellow noodles with meat and pandesal. They called it “miki”! It was masarap for sure. After that Joseph loaded up our luggage and we were off to the terminal to get a seat on the van that was headed to Baguio. This van held 14 passengers and was first come first serve. So we got there about an hour early and secured two seats in the front next to the driver.  We would have more room and be able to see the route clearly. (Lyn sat in the middle, which we found out later that was right over the engine. It was the hottest seat in the van.) After we secured our seats we sat with family members that had come to see us off. I asked the driver when we would leave and he said once we had the bus full of passengers we would be on our way. After about an hour we were full so we said our final good-byes and we were on our way. After riding on trikes for the last week I felt like we were going really fast. Probably only about 45 MPH but it seemed crazy with all of the traffic going much slower. Anyway about 5 minutes one passenger said she had left her cell phone at home. The driver said no problem and we proceeded to her house. She ran inside and after a few minutes we heard this ringing coming from her bag. She had not left it after all. Anyway no complaints from anyone and we were off. Once we turned on to the zig zag road it was obvious we were in for a crazy ride. It would only be about 75 miles long but would take about 4 hours. It was crazy and beautiful at the same time. Most of our time was spent making hairpin turns right on the edge of sheer cliffs. We made several stops at very small rest areas and occasionally dropped off and picked up people along the way. If you have ever watched the Tour De France this route would be perfect for one of its mountain stages. Finally we started coming into Baguio. Baguio is also known as the summer capital. The government use to move there in the summer as it is much cooler on average here. I was one of the only ones wearing short pants and some people were actually wearing coats and stocking caps! Sweet!!! We caught a cab to our hotel for less than $5 dollars US. There are no trikes here as it is too busy and a little too fast. We needed a hotel that was near some of the places that we wanted to see but we are still on a budget so we wanted something cheap as well. After a lot of help from Facebook friends we decided to stay in the Pine View hotel. Not too fancy but just what we needed. A room with wifi and a balcony for about 47 US dollars a night. Seemed like a good balance to me. Even though it was only noon Lyn and I decided to get some lunch and then take a nap. We are both coming down with something and are tying to fight it off. We have been going non=stop since june 28th and I think our bodies have just had enough. We had dinner in the hotel and called it a night. We went to sleep hoping that we would feel better and would have enough energy to tour at least part of this beautiful city.

Video 
The Zig Zag road

Family

Snack on the Zig Zag road

Family

Family

Out and about in Solano

Lyn and I woke up early as usual and decide to go to McDonalds for breakfast since we had seen that they had wifi and were trying to upload pictures off f our phones. We were hoping that it would be faster as well. After ordering some food we were giving the password and told which corner to sit in to pick up the signal. It was a very weak signal and we could not upload anything. After breakfast we walked around town a little bit and then headed back to the house. The plan was to leave after lunch and go visit some relatives. After a refreshing cold shower and lunch we headed out. We stopped by Lyn’s Mom’s house and hung out there awhile and then decided to go visit some relatives that lived further into the mountains. One of these relatives was named Sally and I had talked to her during the funeral services. She spoke great English and I found out that she was in education as well. She is actually a Principal of an Elementary public school. We were going to visit her and Lyn’s Aunt and Uncle. After a long drive on the trike we arrived at their house and all poured into a 4 wheel drive van to go up the mountain to visit Lyn’s Aunt and Uncle that do farming up there. Once we got there they were already out picking fruit and invited us to pick as much as we wanted to. The fruit they were picking was called rambutan. It looks kind of funky but once you peel off the outside skin you are rewarded with a very sweet fruit inside. We also picked a fruit called lansones and one called santol. They were all delicious or masarap as we say in Tagalog! After that we went back down to the main house and had great fellowship over a pepsi and a few snacks. After talking awhile it was time to go back to Lyn’s Mom’s house to watch a video of the funeral. When we got there they had already started the video and had were eating freshly boiled peanuts. As we watched it fresh corn from Lyn’s Mom’s farm was cooked and brought out in large bowls for everyone to enjoy. This was a big hit and several more bowls were brought out to meet demand. A little bit later some boiled kamoteng-kahoy (Yucca) was brought out with bowls of brown sugar to dip it in. It seems in the Philippines that brown sugar makes good things even a little bit better! We left around 6PM and went to visit one more relative and then it was on our way home for dinner. We stopped at a small restaurant and got several take always to eat at home. It was about 8PM and almost time to go to sleep. Finally we went to bed. We would need to be at the terminal by 6:30AM to reserve a good seat in the van as we are heading for Baguio in the morning. It is about 5 hours away on the zig zag road. Lyn and I are both so thankful for our days here we truly want for nothing. Ok Ok maybe a cool breeze now and then! :)

What a day!

Lyn and I are still experiencing Jet lag so we usually take a nap in the afternoon and we usually wake up early around 4:30 am. This morning we heard an unusual sound on the roof. It was a scrapping sound followed by a sliding sound. Turns out it was chicken climbing around and having some early morning fun. After waiting around for about an hour and half we decided to go into town early and buy some baked goods for breakfast and just enjoy walking around the town. This town has a really cool vibe. Not too big not too small. It was nice to see the town waking up and everyone starting to get busy to greet the day. After having a nice walk in relatively cool air we stopped in a bakery and bought a large sampling of their goods. Everything from pandesal to things I had never seen before. When we got back everyone was up and we had breakfast. Today we would be going to swim in the river. It was a ritual that they usually did the day after a burial. It would involve having special water/minerals poured on your head and then after turning around three times you went for a swim in the river. After you got done you were supposed to change your cloths and everyone’s old clothes were collected and put in bags. Then those bags are thrown in the river and away they go. We all put on our oldest clothes and packed fresh ones for the trip. We left about 8AM to go to Lyn’s Mom’s house to meet up with everyone before heading to the river. Of course we arrived by trike! The river was about 2 or 3 miles away and we would all get there by riding scooters, motorcycles, trikes and one van. It was decided that Lyn and I would ride on the back of Charles motorcycle to the river. Yep three up on a motorcycle……. gotta love it. Charles asked me if I knew how to drive and offered to let me drive back. Wait what I would be allowed to drive on the roads of the Philippines?!?!?! This is a dream come true for me!!! We all headed out caravan style. We arrived at what looked a little like a rock quarry and proceeded to the riverbank. We all went through the ceremony and then enjoyed the cool water of the river. The current was strong but it was shallow where we were so we just enjoyed the cool water and the fellowship. After changing and throwing our old clothes in the river and we were on our way. I drove Charles motorbike with Lyn on the back. We drove in the outskirts of town across bridges with beautiful scenery and through neighborhood road. I could not have been happier!! When we got back we had lunch and a few red horses (beer) and just had a good time over all. After that we went home and took our usual afternoon nap. We went back to Lyn’s Mom’s house and had a prayer service for Lyn’s Dad who had died just one year ago. After the service I sat on the front porch as more and more kids got braver and decided to try out their English on me. It was great usually with everyone’s help we could all figure out what we were saying to each other. If we got too far off the beaten path I would call Lyn over to straighten us out. Grace Lyn’s niece lived with Lyn’s Mom in her house and she was telling me about the farm that they worked on together. We decided to go take a look and see the crops and the general area. It was about 3 miles away and of course we would go by trike. Rommel was going to drive and Lyn, Grace and myself would ride along. After going on about every road surface you can imagine we arrived at the farm. We walked through some trees and then the scenery opened up to one of the most beautiful scenes I have seen here. We walked about a quarter of a mile more and just enjoyed each others company. Grace is a 1^st year Agriculture major so she plans on being a farmer when she gets out. For the trip back they offered to let me drive the trike back. Awesome! Lets roll! As soon as I started driving it felt like the trike had a mind f its own. It seemed to pull me in every direction except straight. Some of the road was paved and was not too bad but you had to remember two things. Number one you were much wider than a motorcycle and you did not lean to steer you just turned the handle bars. After growing up riding motorcycles it was very hard to steer in ths fashion. While I was only going about 25 mph it felt a little out of control as I manuervered around dogs, chickens, kids playing and oncoming traffic. When we hit the unpaved roads it only got worse. Here you had to watch out for puddles and ruts in the ground. This meant you had to line the bike up to miss the holes with the bike wheels as well as the sidecar wheel as well. Some times you had to go through ruts and your steering would go away completely for a few seconds only to be regained when you came out of the rut. This was a challenge to say the least. Finally we had to cross a muddy rutted road that went between two rice paddy fields. If I messed up we would be over the edge and down in a rice paddy. I got about ¾ across and I hit a big rut and instantly the entire trike started going to the left and straight for the rice paddy! I could just see me flipping this thing. I naturally put my foot down to help stop and balance as the brakes did not seem to be doing anything. All of this was happening while we were probably only going about 15 mph. Thank goodness we stopped about a foot from the edge. After thanking everyone that was riding with me for not screaming we were on our way and I managed to get us all there safely. I have a much greater respect for all of the trike drivers and will need much more practice before I will be taking one on the main roads anytime soon.