Our Ramblings

On September 21, 2013 my best friend and I along with a bunch of her co-workers signed up to do this event. We all had our purple shirts on which said Mac’s Dirty Dames. The weather was decent when we got started it did eventually start to rain; we were down with that you know it’s Oregon in all. lol

The first obstacle was tires and some ropes that were zigged zagged and you had to climb through. I don’t believe any of us fell on our faces YEAH!!! Another obstacle was climb through a culvert and into a mud pit.

And this is what you look like when you get out of it.

I may get the obstacles a bit mixed up bear with me. Then there was one where you over logs and under culverts plus some “push ups”

Then there was another mud pit where you crawled under flags

There was a teeter totter obstacle and one where you had to slide down a pole like a fireman that was fun. My loving Dear Hubby wasn’t able to get over there to take those pics. Then there was the slide which was a lot of fun too.

There was a wall one which we had to climb over too. Then the huge cargo net to climb up and over. Some of us have height issues. I did manage to go up and over without falling.

Then a huge dumpster Full of mud and oh so much goodness

This is what you look like after the “dumpster dive”

Then at the finish we had foam like bubbles

The way we celebrate our 40th Birthday and it was fun. Thanks to the Husbands who were out there with us taking pictures, video and holding our things. I appreciate all of your support.

Over a year ago I signed up with my god-daughter for a trip of a life time with a group called Education First Tours, EF Tours. It was pretty affordable way to see lots of things at a fairly decent price. I found that I really do not fly very well at all. Besides the flights I had a great time. I’m not so sure I’d fly international again though. We’ll see, perhaps if there is just one direct flight or something I may reconsider.

We went to London, Paris and Barcelona. We had a great time even when it rained which was only in London. The group was large approximately 60 or so people. Basically two coaches to get us through town. I wouldn’t want to be the coach driver because the lanes seemed extremely small to me and I don’t think the coaches “fit” in the lane at all. I was shocked we never hit anything. We had two really awesome tour guides that gave a ton of information about the history of each place we visited.

You should have seen us trying to get on the Metro’s. It was a site. I’m not so sure the locals were all that excited when they saw how big the group was. The food was great. There was one person wearing a pedometer and I think the average steps for a day were around 12,000 – 15,000 for him and I’d say he was around 6’0″ or so. For us short peeps there’s a few more steps involved.

I don’t necessarily blog and figured this was the easiest way to let everyone in on my trip. As you will see I’m definitely not really a writer so please bear with me. Thank you very much. Here it goes my friends.

Landed in London on June 21st and hit the ground running, okay walking. We did a quick walk around in London. It was to keep us all awake from flying. We pretty much got soaked because once it started to rain it poured. My raincoat got soaked pretty good. Fortunately it was on the warmish side so it wasn’t too bad. We got to see a lot of cute little shops like Sherlock Holmes store, the Beattles store and of course souvenir shops. I was definitely fascinated by the really cool architecture of all the buildings. We saw a lot of things, oh dear to remember the actual names. I’ll list what the “tour details” says. I have pictures of so many things it’s all blending together. Some were taken while we were on the bus and while just walking around. We saw Trafalgar Square, Convent Garden, The Strand, and Leicester Square.

On June 22nd the plan is to see St. Paul’s Cathederal, Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus and Tower of London.

Westminster Abbey

Shakespears Globe Theater

Tower of London

House of Parliament

On June 23rd for those of us who didn’t go to Stonehenge and Bath we went to Hampton Court Palace. There’s so much to see I don’t think the few hours we had were near enough.

There is a ton of history in this also. I was glad the weather turned out pretty good. There may have been a few sprinkles that day.

Got to see a swan hanging out in the pond.

The garden’s were just beautiful to see.

A bit of history, they have the original Grape Vine that is still producing grapes from when it was planted in 1769. I thought that was interesting.

On June 24th we headed on the Eurostar to head over to Paris. I’ll just say it now, it wasn’t my favorite place. I know some people will be utterly shocked by this. Perhaps the language barrier. The Eiffel Tower was neat to actually see. We were there for a couple of days.

Bad pic of myself oh well.

Some of us decided to go ahead do the River Cruise that was neat to do. The work on the bridges over the river was something to see.

There is one place that I really did love it was Palace of Versailles. The flowers were all in bloom and absolutely gorgeous. And I got pretty well sunburned. That’s okay I managed to find a Pharmacy to buy sunscreen that had some english on it so I knew what I was buying.

We did see Notre Dame Cathedral and well there are no words good enough to express it. It’s just W O W!!!! It’s overwhelming knowing how it was made all by hand and just Amazing. The stained glass is just beautiful.

The Louvre is a great place to also visit. There definitely wasn’t near enough time to get through there. We also went to the building where you can see Paris in a panoramic view.

By now it’s around June 26th or so and we are taking the train over to Barcelona for a couple of days. The Barcelona Cathedral was also cool to see. The weather was great and the Meditranean Sea was nice to see and put my feet in it.