20 Weeks RTW

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Trip Summary & Highlights

Morgan Family Trip 2017 Summary

It's super fun to look back on the trip & review where we went & what we did. To start, here are some numbers:

Trip Stats

Approx. distance flown around the world: 28,955 miles airport codes

longest single flight: LAX to AKL 6,510 miles (12 hours, 30 minutes) SJO = San Jose, Costa Rica

longest travel day: 32hrs - hotel to SJO, to LAX (9hrs!), to AKL, rental van, to house LAX = Los Angeles, CA
AKL = Auckland, NZ

van mileage (9 weeks in Europe): 9,401 km = 5,400 miles country nights / diff. places

most borders crossed in 1 day: 4 (Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Italy; tied with: Costa Rica 31 7 pass-through-only countries
Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland) New Zealand 18 6 Andorra: small church group

number of countries visited: 20 (20 countries in 20 weeks!) Thailand 15 6 Monaco: exotic gardens

longest time in 1 country: 31 nights - Costa Rica (2^nd place: Italy) Cambodia 2 1 Vatican City: museum tour

Spain 9 2 San Marino: hike & McD’s

Nights away from home: 139 (20 weeks = 4.5 months) France 13 6 Slovenia: shopping, Lake Bled

# of different accommodations: 45 Italy 23 8 Liechtenstein: post office closed!

longest time at 1 house: 20 nights (Casa Nirvana in CR) Croatia 2 1 Luxemburg: burgers & fries

Austria 4 1

# of wards/branches attended: 14 Germany 12 4

longest trek to church: 2.5hrs 1-way (Weisel to Frankfurt) Switzerland 4 1

Belgium 1 1

Iceland 2 1

Trip Highlights

Now let's look at the top highlights & lowlights! There are so many, but I'll keep it to just a handful per country.

Costa Rica Highlights Lowlights

Casa Nirvana: cool beach house with outdoor living & kitchen 1st night at Casa Nirvana: Avery suffers an attack from a beetle with huge pincers

Santa Cruz Ward: Young Women overnighter at the Thelin's house! No Running Water: washing hands & dishes with bottled water; Paul cleans the toilets

Monteverde Cloud Forest: tree-top walking, zip-lining & Tarzan swing Playa Avellanas: Avery, Kyra & Cannon struggle in the strong current of the Pacific

Kyra's Birthday Olympics: family competition on the soccer field Leaving Casa Nirvana: Jesus saves the day! Chuz hauls our flat tire on his moped to

Playa Biezans: monkeys along the path down to the white sand beach the local garage for a $5 fix (a fun save for what could have been a major disaster!)

Mediterranean Map: jogging into LA to a Christian bookstore

New Zealand

Davidson Dairy Farm: a friendly welcome, a real home, steak dinners Longest travel day: Stuck outside our house in Auckland after 32 hours of travel

North Is. Adventure: zorbing, luging, mountain biking on forest paths Geothermal Wonderland: a hot, stinky walk through steam vents & bubbling lakes

Te Anau House: “best house ever,” most normal, toys galore, on park Frankton Motor Camp: no reservation booked after walking a mile from the airport

South Is. Adventure: Milford Sound Cruise, hiking to glaciers, kayaking, Movie Bust in Wanaka: Princess Cut, a Christian film that won no

canyoning, speed boating, rock crawling & bungy jumping for Carley awards for acting

Thailand/Cambodia

Street food: pad thai to mango smoothies, cheap & readily available! Chinese Bottleneck: Mob tourist push into the Grand Palace in Bangkok

Chatuchuk market: souvenirs galore, family massage with upgrades High-rise Fright: apartment on the 17^th floor with balcony of death

Krabi beaches: long-tail boat rides to remote islands, picnic, snorkeling Chang Mai House: spacious but cockroach city, especially in the kitchen

Elephant Tour: feeding, riding & playing with elephants in Chiang Mai Angkor Wat: neat, but not so serene like the pictures; too many tourists

Spain/Andorra/ Southern France

The corner bakery: the kids running down for fresh bread & pastries Barcelona Arrival: getting train tickets, trekking at midnight looking for the apartment

Barcelona plaza: dancing to the cellist in front of the cathedral Barcelona Street Noise: garbage collection at 3:00 every morning

FC Barcelona game: the fun of watching Messi, Suarez & Neymar live Metro Police Checkpoint: Paul's metro ticket lost in the machine, jumped the turnstile

Fower’s Farmhouse: fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies & milk Big Van Scratch: within an hour of leasing the van, the narrow parking garage won

Libby’s Farmhouse: idyllic bread & breakfast country commune Nothing Open: unable to find anything open for lunch; cold ravioli never tasted so good

Italy/Vatican City

Dolceaqua: cool medieval house, castle & town; gelato on the plaza Narrow streets: driving through unbelievably narrow streets, passages & sharp turns

Siena: Tuscan villa with cupola master bedroom, backyard dinner/games Genoa Traffic: a 3-hour drive became 6 hours of stop & go traffic after Easter weekend

Rome Night Tour: ghostly stories of medieval Rome at midnight Parking Problem: circling for a spot, wondering if we’re legal, paying for free parking

Tres Lasagnas: 17century restored stone house, backyard kickball Vatican Tour: crowded, rushed, indecipherable guide; finding Cannon in the museum

Budoia B&B: the best homemade bread, pastries, yogurt, fruit, granola Coliseum Collapse: Cannon takes a spill off the curb onto the cobblestones, exhausted

A Day in Venice: an informative tour guide, cool boats & waterways Locked Out: our key was left in the keyhole on the inside, saved by the dental x-ray

The Dolomites: a short hike to the mountain pasture with majestic view

Austria/Bavaria

The Sound of Music Bike Tour: sun, fun sites & an enthusiastic guide The Eales Nest: Hitler’s mountaintop retreat with a panoramic view (when not cloudy)

Top of Germany: train & tram up the Zugspitze for a beautiful view Dachau: a sobering visit to a concentration camp, learning more about the Holocaust

Castles: Hohenwerfern, Neuschwanstein & Linderhoff extravagance Munich 4th Ward: Mother’s Day downer, pouring rain, no invites so we could leave

Legoland Germany: 7 hours of fun & rides for Kyra & Cannon

Switzerland/Germany/Belgium

Grindelwald Valley: cliff walk with Eiger view, go-karts, trotter bikes Post Office Closed: unable to mail postcards in Liechtenstein, lunch in the parking lot

Paragliding: floating down 3,000ft from Murren to the valley floor Traveling Blues: tired of traveling; we can’t change it so make the best of it

Rothenberg: medieval castle town, night watchman tour, vending machine Beer Truck Spill: stopped for 2 hours on the freeway waiting for the cleanup

Bastogne War Memorial: a fantastic audio tour through WWII survivors Rafting the Rhine: Sven was nice, but we just drifted & avoided cruise ships;

Paris/Normandy/Iceland

Bodo Apartment: cool loft beds with large great room with huge windows Paris Metro: Kyra gets caught in the automatic doors as we rush onto the metro

The Eiffel Tower: waiting for 10pm when the lights sparkle for 5 minutes Peddlers: the constant approach of men trying to sell junk, such as fidget spinners

D-Day Anniversary: Omaha Beach & the National American Cemetery Paris Bike Tour: a lackluster guide, difficult traffic maneuvers,

Costco Lunch: pricy hot dogs, pizza, donuts & almost some cake Canceled Events: parachute jump & beach landings that didn’t happen do to weather

The Blue Lagoon: a huge natural hot tub, face masks, before heading home Toaster Pizza: the kids used the toaster to warm their frozen pizza (oven breaker tripped)

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Satuday, June 10 (week 20 / day 139) Meridian, ID

The last day of our trip!

It's hard to believe that we'll be in Iceland, floating in the Blue Lagoon in the morning & by the end of the day, we'll be back in Meridian, Idaho in our own beds! What a great trip it's been & what a wonderful feeling it is coming home to friends & family. Little did we know there was a welcoming committee gathering the swarm for our arrival!

The Blue Lagoon

This was a warm finale to the 20 weeks away from home. The Blue Lagoon is a giant hot tub fed by the hot springs nearby amid the lava rock landscape. Since it's the most popular stop in Iceland for visitors, we had booked our tickets back in February while still in Costa Rica so we wouldn't miss out! It was definitely worth it.
As we got to the parking lot, we realized we didn't have Cannon's swim suit so he just wore his long khaki shorts. At the front counter, they told us that anyone under 8 years old had to wear arm floaties... Cannon lost it. How embarrassing! Despite our efforts to convince them that he's a great swimmer & turns 8 in just 3 more months, he was issued his neon orange floaties & we made our way to the locker room as he wiped his tears away.

We finally made it to the Blue Lagoon!

a giant hot tub in the lava rocks of Iceland

face masks for free

a not-so-happy Cannon with his orange floaties

relaxing on the surface

Sydney & Carley headed into the sauna

Airport-bound for our Last Travel Day!

We are now at the airport in Iceland waiting for our flight to Seattle. Things went pretty smoothly getting the rental van returned, checking in & getting through security, a piece of cake compared to the anxiety of returning the leased van on mainland Europe!

our last jam-packed ride in a rental van back to an airport

our last shuttle ride from the car rental place to the airport terminal

KEF International Airport

Kyra & Icelandic art: a baby dinosaur hatching?

Travel Experts

The kids have become so familiar with the airport process that we followed them through the airport as they figured out which gate was ours & how to get their. It's been fun watching them get used to hauling their luggage, waiting in lines, breezing through security & beating us to the gate monitors! The lady at check-in did get that puzzled look on her face for a couple of minutes as if there was going to be a problem. It ended up being nothing & we are excited that our bags are checked all the way to Boise!

the check-in lady with that puzzled look

"Everything's OK, you're going to make it home."

the experts taking the lead at the gate monitor

We made it! We did it! We're home. What a crazy trip. Super fun & hard at times, but all worth it! From the month in Costa Rica to down under & the heat of Thailand to the blast through Europe & finale in Iceland, the adventure is over. We are so glad we did it & have tons of memories to look back on together.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Friday, June 9 (week 20 / day 138) Gulfoss, Iceland

End of Trip, Almost

Wow. What an adventure. This whole thing. Around the world. Crazy but almost done. Did we really do all this? These are days we will & already have talked about as we look back on them. Crazy, hard, long but super fun & memories to fill our lives...

The Golden Circle

Today was Iceland at its finest. The Golden Circle. I'd describe the experience as modern industrial architecture set against raw, rugged, barren tundra landscape. IKEA set in Middle Earth.

Our first main stop on the circle was Kerid Crater...

The explosive Strokkur Geysir spouting every 4-5 minutes to the roar of the crowd...

The powerful Gulfoss waterfull could supply enough energy to run the country...

continental rift

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Thursday, June 8 (week 20 / day 137) Reykjavik, Iceland

Orly Airport

It was super nice of our host, Sophie, to make two trips to the airport because she only has a 4-seater. She also moved a meeting she had so she could take us. We are grateful for her kindness & generosity...

at Orly Airport, 4 hours before scheduled departure

waiting near the Icelandic Air front desks

the French bakery, Paul

Kyra was sneaky & bought me the giant Toblerone I was eyeing for myself

Birthday Burgers

We got settled into our last Airbnb house, made a quick market run for the kids' dinner & headed to Reykavik for dinner to celebrate Jon's birthday (my twin brother)...

It'll be interesting how we sleep with the sunlight issue. It only sets for about 3 hours...

I got the Lamburger

11pm & lights out... except for the sun

the sun sets at 11:47pm (& rises at 3:07am)

Wednesday, June 7 (week 20 / day 136) Wissous, France

Back to Paris

Wissous is the name of the village-suburb just north of Orly Airport south of Paris. Sophie is the name of our host. She is Asian but has lived in Paris for 25 years off & on. She is very nice & helped us with transportations while here. She followed us to the TTcar transit Center to return the beast, technically, to sell her back. What a relief a relief! I wanted to scream for joy.

She also suggested a nearby restaurant in the old village center & drove us there! It's a restored barn built in the 13th century called the "Tithe Barn" because it was the storage place for 1/10th of the harvest. Some of the funds raised were supposedly used to help finish Notre Dame Cathedral. We haven't eaten out much as a couple but this seemed like a perfect ending to celebrate near completion of our trip.

The waiter wore a suit & the menu was only 2 pages with a couple salad choices, a cheese platter, 6 entrees (3 fish & 3 beef options) & a handful of desserts. Stacia got the veal cutlet & I got the beef tenderloin which were both excellent. For dessert Stacia ordered the only on the menu with chocolate in the name & when it showed up it was nothing like we pictured but it was delicious. I simply ordered sorbet since that seemed pretty safe; it was just ok, kind of like fancy popsicle with whipped cream on top.