Amsterdam and Bruges 18 - 24 Aug 2019 before our Bike & Barge trip

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

It was drizzling or first day. Our hotel, the Banks Mansion, was very central to the things we wanted to see and do. On our arrival day we visited the Flower Market and took a canal boat cruise to stay awake and adjust to the 9 hour time difference.

View from our hotel, the Banks Mansion

Canal cruise views

The rest of our visit we:

Rembrandt House Museum - etching making demo

 According to our walking food tour guide, prostitution was made legal during French rule to clean up and regulate an existing trade that was out of control. Interesting that the French never made it legal in France. The Red Light District is principally restaurants. We toured the area after dinner and found it too early to see too many women displayed. Never found out if the area included male prostitutes.

The Van Gogh collection was very well done. Nearby was the Rijksmuseum which included art from around the world from middle ages to the present.

Lauve arranged for the hotel to decorate our room celebrating my 75th birthday

Old theater converted to multiplex showing current US features

It’s rare to find people who don’t speak English. We are told this is because Holland has a culture of being a world trading country that needs to speak principal world languages and it is a minor European language so they need to speak a more universal language or languages. The US movies are shown in English with Dutch subtitles.

Dutch architecture

A big tourist draw

Can't have enough cool canal pictures - and sunny too!

Bruges, Belgium

View from our room at Grand Hotel Casselbergh

Markt Hall

Restaurant scene on Markt Square 

Lunch with Bill & Frances - Tucson Friends

The afternoon of the 24th we started our Bike & Barge trip with friends from Tucson - Bill and Frances, Peter and Barbara.

Frisco, Colorado 27 July to 10 August

We drove from Basalt to Frisco on Saturday the 27th stopping to ride the Glenwood Canyon bike path - 30 miles round trip through a canyon barely wide enough to accommodate I 70, the Colorado River, a rail line and the bike path. It was beautiful, full of wild flowers.

We biked most days on the many bike paths around - always up hill to our destination and down hill back Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Vail Pass and Keystone. Weather was cool and sunny.

E-bikes were prominent for the first time here.

We hiked two days:

 

Lily Pad Pond hike

Rainbow Lake hike

Frisco sponsors a K-9 4k race

Bike park

We ran into some old friends from Houston and did a tandem ride to Keystone for lunch

Friend from Tucson, Peter Eisner, happy hour, our place by the Ten Mile Creek

We packed up in Frisco on Saturday the 10th, stopped by the Frisco Art Fair then headed to Albuquerque for the night on our way to Tucson.

Lauve arranged a nice early celebration in our Albuquerque hotel room

Our  usual stop at Sparky's in Hatch Sunday for the best burger in New Mexico

And Hatch chilies - bought our usual 1/2 bushel roasted as we waited.

Home to Tucson before dinner Sunday. Back for a week before Europe and the Middle-East trip!

20 - 22 July 2019 - Tucson to Basalt, CO with stops in Flagstaff and Santa Fe

Arcosanti, a sustainable community north of Phoenix

Old downtown Flagstaff, best Thai ever at Pato

Breakfast at La Posada, Winslow. Old Harvey Hotel

Harvey Hotel was a stop on Santa Fe transcon rail line

Our hotel in Santa Fe and along Canyon Rd art walk

23 - 26 July 2019 - Basalt-Willits, CO
On the Roaring Fork River between Glenwood Springs and Aspen with access to the Rio Grande Bile Path

Up the Frying Pan Creek from Basalt to the reservoir - a good climb!

Path to Aspen with friends from Tucson, Becky & Janelle

John Denver Memorial Park, Aspen - an emotionally moving spot