Following our trip to Europe with Barb and Leon where we saw a lot of great sights, Anne and I have decided that we should spend more time seeing the wonderful places which are available in our own backyard. Today we visited the Nixon library and museum in Yorba Linda, a mere 35 minute ride on the bike. It is a beautiful and tranquil place, where history truly does come alive. Nixon, was, in my opinion one of the most erudite and statesmanlike presidents of modern times. He was an educated and urbane man with the ability to switch from international policy to baseball without missing a beat.
Of the many keys to cities with which he was presented, one was the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, just for you Jeff.

Friends

This is a little aside from the normal stuff about what we did and where we went.
This is a thank you for all of the friends and family who went out of their way to make this trip so special.
So to all of you a great big thank you from the tour group, Leon, Barb, Anne, and Norm.
In no special order:
Elizabeth and Jimmy Cairns.
Janet and Michael Docherty.
Marianne Smet and Erik De Wilde.
Marjorie and Michael Nightingale.
Rainer and Trixi Dango.
Eileen and Neil Matthews.
John and Liv Charlton.
Michael and Mary Irwin.
Maria and Tim Kelly.
Susan and Barry McCall.
Jackie and Jon Dolby.
Diane and Jose Garcia Miralles.
Ralph and Betty Sanderson.
Frank and Claire Allison (hope everything goes well for Claire)
Jamie and Jenn Orton.
Girvan and Fiona.

If I have missed out anyone, it is not an insult, it's just that I am suffering from CRS.


And last but not least Orville and Wilbur Wright without whom none of this would have been possible.

Due to very slow or no connections at all the blog has not been updated as I had hoped would it would be. So, here are pictures from our visit to Beamish museum, the Lumley Castle banquet and the trip to Amsterdam. At the banquet in Lumley Castle, The Baron and Baroness were Sir Leon Baldhog and his good lady wife Barbara. We also were honored to meet the Archduke of Siegen Westphalen with his good lady wife Trixi.
In Amsterdam Anne and Leon visited the Anne Frank house whilst Barbara and I sat by the canal having a beer and watching the world go by.

Scotland

Yesterday we went up to the Scottish border region through Hawick and Langholm. We returned past Hadrians wall at Vindolanda.
Whilst in Scotland, Leon thought that he should have a wee dram. There is a picture of him enjoying it with his lunch.

We have crammed a lot in to the last few days, we visited Bamburgh Castle and Holy Island yesterday followed by a trip to Anne's brother Mikes house for a barbecue.
We have visited the north eastern artist Robert Olley, Barb and Leon were presented with one of his prints which Marjorie Nightingale, another friend of ours had bought for them. There are also a couple of pictures from the Marsden Grotto which is a pub built into a cliff.

Getting there.

The flights were right on time and had no problems with turbulence or any other kind of disturbance. There was a kid travelling alone who had a severe nut allergy and consequently frequent reminders were made asking passengers not to open nut products. Can you imagine a 10 hour flight with no airline peanuts to sustain you?
We had the complete irony of not being able to get bottles of Bud in LAX and having to drink Heineken; whereas in Amsterdam we were able to get bottles of Bud.
We were met at the airport by our friends Marjorie and Michael who had roses for Anne and Barb. When we checked in at the hotel, we found a bottle of very good champagne and bottles of Bud on ice waiting for us from my cousin Elizabeth and her husband Jim. A big thank you to all.

Here we are ready to get on the plane. We need a couple of brewskis to get us in the mood. As you can see we are having Heineken to get us ready for Amsterdam. The flight leaves pretty soon, so we only have time for a couple.
Jeff, you and Kelly have a great time in Milwaukee, and remember hang on to the winnings.

Here I am prepping for the trip to England, I am going to try this bottle of DOG even though it is just a small one. For you Non-Geordies DOG is Newcastle Brown Ale.
We leave on Thursday afternoon from LAX and arrive in Amsterdam on Friday morning. We leave Amsterdam on Friday around 3:00 PM and arrive in Newcastle around 3:15 PM with a one hour time difference; Amsterdam is one hour ahead of the UK.
Look out for updates as the trip progresses; starting with when we meet up with Barb and Leon tomorrow around noon time.

The weather forecast for the next few days from the north east of England.

Thu
Day weather Light Rain Shower
10°C 50°F 2°C 36°F Southerly12mph 19km/h 56%
1012mb
Good More info for Thursday's weather
Fri
Day weather Light Rain Shower
12°C 54°F 3°C 37°F South Easterly8mph 13km/h 57%
1011mb
Good More info for Friday's weather
Sat
Day weather Heavy Rain Shower
12°C 54°F 5°C 41°F North North Easterly6mph 10km/h 47%
1016mb
Poor More info for Saturday's weather
Sun
Day weather Heavy Rain Shower
15°C 59°F

At least the temperatures are going up which means that the rain will be warmer! The temperatures are highs and lows with the wind speed and direction, the atmospheric pressure is shown in millibars; when I get the chance to figure it out I will give you a conversion from millibars to inches of mercury. (Just in case someone out there really gives a shit)
Where it says GOOD or POOR refers to the visibility, and as Bobby Thompson said, on a clear day you can see the sideboard!

OK Here is the conversion, best of luck....
1013.25 millibars is equal to 29.92 inches of mercury. These values are the average sea level pressure in each unit. To convert between the two units cross multiplication algebra can be used.

This is a picture from our last trip to the Grille before the trip to Europe.

Best wishes from Barb, Leon, Anne and Norm.

We hope that you will enjoy following our trip.

5/6/10
It is now only one week to go for the departure flight for the European trip with Barb, Leon, Anne and of course, yours truly. We fly from LAX to Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam to Newcastle. I am including some links on this post so that you can take a look at some of the places we will visit.
Tan Hill Inn

http://www.tanhillinn.co.uk/

Ramside Hall Hotel

http://www.ramsidehallhotel.co.uk/

Lumley Castle

http://www.lumleycastle.com/



Here are a few to start, more will follow before and during the trip. Please look at the hotel videos, and on the Lumley Castle video click the Banquet tab, imagine "Baron Leon of South Gate" leading the show.

San Diego

The ride down was good but a bit cooler than we had thought it would be. We stopped at the Harley store in the suburbs of San Diego, the girls in the store all went GAGA over Anne's helmet with the ears. They had a band playing and free food.
After checking in to the hotel, we went to the Midway; this was an absolutely amazing piece of engineering. The scale of an aircraft carrier has to be seen to be believed. We toured the hangar deck and the flight deck, Of course I had to go to the engine room, there is a picture of the throttle board from which the ships direction and speed were controlled. Mightily impressive, the lady giving the description of how it all worked had sailed on the Midway in an engineering capacity and was very knowledgeable.

Today Anne and I are headed for San Diego on the bike. We are visiting the USS Midway
http://www.midway.org/ and are spending the night downtown in the gaslight district.