Devall Travels

So here we are. Checked Skyscanner for flights and then RCI to look for a timeshare week.  Things were looking good. Firstly flights with British Airways comes out at £679 each. In another window I had the RCI site looking at the Sheraton resort at Scottsdale near Phoenix.  Booked the flight and shoot back to another window.... bloody internet messed up. Have to log back in and the entire site claims that there are no exchanges!! Being an IT professional (it's true!) I am used to bug-busting, so I logged back in and looked at another location, Spain, and guess what not a single resort has any exchanges.... and that is impossible. Unless I have been blackballed! Arizona and Grand Canyon I have logged a call with RCI as part of the trip depends on a bit of R&R and then some touring about. Next I'll have a look at car-hire. Anyone know where I can hire a RAM 150?

Looking ahead to 2016. Might as well see about getting some value out of my US Visa! So far have 8 years left! But where to go? Claire would like to look at the North East, New England.  Whilst I am not attracted to much of R66, I do like the idea of the big skies and red rocks of the western movies. So I had better get working on it.

From Glencoe, our next stop was going to be three nights at Loch Ness Glamping . The journey between the two sites was about seventy miles. But with an arrival time of 4pm, we had about 7 hours to do it. Even in Scotland in the pissing rain, we'd be hard pressed to find something to do. The first stop was in Glencoe Village to take some photos of the River Coe bubbling along, and then for breakfast at a small shop cum coffee house cum cafe - Crafts & Things. Reggie-free again. Not dog friendly inside and too wet to sit outside, so Reggie stayed in the car.  😔 We liked the look of some decorated mirrors in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh style and Claire bought a couple. Photo to follow, but mirrors are difficult to photograph without acting like a mirror! So maybe not. Once away we passed the Corran Ferry, and into Fort William on the A82, right through and on towards Spean Bridge.   Neill and I stopped here on the Ashes Tour in 2013, an...

The idea was originally to set off Friday morning and drive up to the Carlisle area for an overnight stop. Given the hassles and massive tailbacks that are associated with the Dartford Crossing, I added another overnight on Thursday to get part way along the road so that we would have a pretty easy day on Friday. I chose a Days Inn near Baldock in Hertfordshire as it was cheap and dog friendly.  We packed the car and when Claire came home there were a few bits to do and we set off. Luckily later in the evening the traffic wasn't too bad through the toll tunnel at Dartford. We made good time and were soon checking into the motel on the A1 service area at Baldock. Reggie was okay in the car and despite a bit of noise he wasn't too bad overnight.  The odd bark and growl when people made noise in the hallways. As we left in the morning we saw this car in the car park. Pity the van parked so close to it! Friday we set off on the A1 route up to Scotch Corne...

The 2015 trip is over. Read about it here: http://rocket3man.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/weekend-on-somme-day-1.html http://rocket3man.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/weekend-on-somme-day-2.html

The end of another holiday in the US. In the end the flight was only about 15 minutes late leaving Tampa and we made the usual headway over the Atlantic with strong tail winds and the estimated arrival time was about thirty minutes early and then before we got off the south of Ireland the turbulence increased and the plane bucked about quite a bit. For about two hours we had to sit through it and then we were ready to land. Unfortunately, a heavy storm had preceded us and when we landed we had nowhere to dock, and so we spent the best part of 45 minutes on the ground, waiting and crawling along. The tolerance for us was that the parking finished at 0916 and we'd have to pay another day.  By the time we got through passports, even with our chipped passports, time looked to be running out. We collected our bags and made it to the bus stop for the shuttle to the parking just about 0855.  The bus arrived a few minutes later and we made it in time not to get charged! ...

Had a little lie as we didn't have to check out until 11am and that would give us four hours at least to get 50 miles to Tampa International. In the end we were packed, had coffee and a yogurt and then loaded the car. Checking out in good time. The idea was go go north and find somewhere to sit and maybe read for a while then have lunch before filling the car and taking it back I dialled in St Pete's Beach. This took us over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The way we had come down a fortnight ago. Sunshine Skyway Bridge Sunshine Skyway Bridge Again we stopped at the North rest area to take in the view. It all went a bit pear shaped after that as St Pete's Beach seems lined with hotels and apartments and no public car parking or beach access. We wasted ages before setting the TomTom for Clearwater where we know there is a Perkins for lunch and places to sit and read! Should have done that first!! Perkins. "Three Little Piggies" - scrambled egg wi...