Almost Home

We are on our second to last flight which is from Frankfurt to Atlanta. Once we get in our last airport lounge, we will get our last updates posted. Our adventure is about over with just one more flight and we will be home. It has been quite the adventure and will take some time to digest. All it took was 19 flights and about 85 hours in flight. Additional travel in trains, boats, subways, busses, cars, bikes, cable cars and our feet – a lot of time on our feet. Add in 15 hotels. Touch 13 countries, 4 continents, and 4 hemispheres (Tyler insists on east and west plus north and south). Spend time in winter and summer.  Swim in tropical waters, feel glacial streams, walk through a glacier and through rain forests. Go from under water to the tops of peaks, from crypts to the tops of towers. See history from more than a 1000 years BC, to the time of Christ, medieval times, baroque periods, the renaissance and recent. See the scars of wars from all these times and the transitions from royalty to democracy with some other strategies in between. See some of the greatest art collections in the world and make friends with old masters and newer one’s as well, not forgetting musical arts. Visit so many designated World Heritage Sites that you start to think everywhere is a World Heritage Site. Eat some really good food and some not so great stuff, but try a lot. Leave 135 flavors of gelato un-tasted. Keep a very unusual schedule, but always be at least one step or day ahead in planning. Use eight different currencies, but mostly use a credit card and keep pressing OK. Drive on both sides of the road, at some unusual speeds and on roads that vary from one lane switch backs to no holds barred. Always underestimate how long it takes to drive places because there is too much to see along the way. Walk the streets of the smallest villages to the largest of cities. See humble homes to the most extravagant palaces. Hear lots of languages, but get along OK with only English. Take more than 6,000 photos and post a few. Barely think about work. Step into the world’s churches – lots and lots of them. Attend church in small branches and see the truth roll forward. Wish Candy were along for the ride instead of from a distance. Be ready to come home. You get the idea. Thanks for coming along.