Roger & Lari’s Three Winter Trips
We took a trip to Vancouver in November, to Durham in February and to Denver in March. All were off-season with cheap fares to visit friends and family. Roger says why go on so many “little” trips? Why not go on one “big” one? My idea is to rack up miles on cheap fares so we can use our miles on long and expensive trips, like going to Europe and Africa in September, our next “big” trip.
It was rather relaxing to travel this way… no big plans, no “must sees” or touring around. We just go to visit friends and family to hang out, so I didn’t have to do much research. And even Roger claims that it was relaxing for him, not having to drive long distances or visit museums, cathedrals or other touristy things.
Autumn in Stanley Park
We’d been to Vancouver a few times before, and love the city. We stayed at Maple House B&B in Kitsilano, which was very conveniently located. We went to Encore! an improve theater show in Granville Island and to Science World, a fun museum. In Stanley Park, we enjoyed the fall colors and Vancouver Aquarium. We took the ferry to Victoria and enjoyed the Royal Museum and the Parliament, before driving north to Chemainus, a town filled with murals on many of their buildings. We ended up in Nanaimo, where we visited Bill & Diane and Bev & Jan, whom we had met on our Galapagos trip. Bev is the only one of the four who is not working, so she showed us around town and nearby sites.
In Durham, we stayed at Taki Scoville’s home. She has a huge collection of Japanese kimonos, dishes and artifacts. And her back yard has vegetable gardens, fruit trees and chickens. We visited Noaka’s school where he shared us and where I taught the hukilau hula to his classmates. Yvette took us to Nasher Art museum to see Alex Calder’s work, to NC Botanical Garden, to Duke Lemur Center, to the Durham Farmers’ Market and to the Roller Derby in Raleigh. We had so much fun hanging out with Noakai.
Then we drove to Laurel, Maryland to visit cousin Gary and Sally. They are both retired now, so we spent time just hanging out with them and got to see their daughter Kat& her hubby Billy.
After being home for a week, we flew off to Denver to visit my sister Christine in Boulder. We had to check out their new restaurant, Riffs, and it was divine. We ate there 3 times! Everything is delicious! Again, since we had no special plans or things to do we mostly hung out. We did check out the Boulder History Museum, shopped at thrift stores and went to Kirkland Museum in Denver. It was restaurant week in Denver and Boulder, so we got 2 three-course meals for $52.80.
We drove to Ft Collins to visit Tom&Tyke, whom we met on our Croatia tour. Again, we just hung out. But they did take us downtown for lunch and to the Art Museum to see Chihuly blown glass exhibit, which was exquisite. They also took us to Estes Park for an afternoon drive into the mountains.
Our last stop was to stay with Shirley Stokoe in Denver. We mostly stayed home and talked stories with her. We drove downtown one morning to meet Amy Ogawa for breakfast. She is a pharmacist for Walgreens in Denver. On our last night, we had dinner at Shirley’s son Rick & Jeanne’s lovely home in Northglenn. Sarah and Robbie are both in high school and all grown up from when I last saw them.
lariyasui 