Anyway, my most recent posts talk about my time in Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.  I haven’t gotten to my last stop in Italy yet but I hope to get that posted soon.  You can use the blog index to jump directly to any of the information I have posted.

I hope everyone had a terrific summer!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying this as much as I am…

Well it has been three years since I returned from my travels and I decided that I needed to do something with all of the pictures and stories that I accumulated while traveling.  So, the result is a new and improved website that has been transformed from a “journal” to a “history” of my trip.  I am planning on loading most of my pictures and writing about my experiences (those that I remember anyway) before I completely forget all of the details.  I will date my posts as close to the times of the original events in order to keep things chronological.

I have loaded my pictures for Maine, Portugal, Spain, and France.  I have also gone back and cleaned up some of the original postings so they make a little more sense.  I will try and put a notice in the “Journal” part of the site when I complete a new section (period of time) from the trip.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and  information.  It has been great fun putting this stuff together and I hope you will enjoy it.

Regards,

Ron

Four years have passed now and I have been getting pretty nostalgic about my “once in a lifetime” adventure.  So I decided to resurrect the project and make it into more of a documentary of my journeys. This site, and all of the content which it contains, are for my own enjoyment.  If you find it interesting, terrific, if not.. there are many other places to visit on the web.  No one is forcing you to be here.

At some point in my life I hope to have the opportunity to do more traveling.  If that ever happens, I’m sure that there will be a new chapter added to this site.  In the time being, please feel free to wander through the site.  I enjoy sharing my experiences with everyone.  If you are planning a similar journey, feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions about what went “right” and what went “wrong” during my travels.  I’d be happy to hear from you.

One last note; my only regret is that I didn’t do this trip earlier in my life.  I was 46 when I finally pulled up roots and headed off into the unknown.  My advise, for what it is worth, is “don’t wait until it is too late, traveling abroad is easy with modern technology and less expensive than most people think“.  Go now and enjoy all of the incredible things that are out there waiting for you!!

Anyway, while I'm killing time I'm going to take another shot at updating my web site. Maybe I'll have better luck now that I'm done with moving (at least until I buy a house or something). Take care all and check back for new postings later.

CaptRon

RTW With Google Earth – provides a custom placemark file that can be used with Google Earth
And the story continues… – Instructions for searching through old postings
Where East Meets West – Istanbul Turkey, 2006 September 14 – 16
Ancient Roman Ruins – Ephesus Turkey, 2006 September 18

After a summer long hiatus I am once again working on organizing and posting photos and stories about my trip. It took me a while to get motivated but now I'm wanting to get things finished so you should start to see regular postings. One of the first things that I did was to map out my trip in Google Earth.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Google Earth you have really been missing out. The Google Earth application provides satellite imagery for the entire planet and lets you zoom in so close in most places that you can see individual people. Well you can see the tops of their heads anyway since they are satellite photos. It also provides overlays showing roads and placemarks that identify buildings, monuments, and all kinds of interesting places. It even has a search feature so you can enter something like "London Tower" or "1600 Pennsylvania Ave" and it will zoom in on that exact place. Pretty cool stuff. The only serious drawback is that streaming the images from the Google server to the application on your computer uses a LOT of bandwidth. You absolutely must have a high speed Internet connection (Cable, DSL, or better) to use this application. You can go to the Google Earth home page at http://earth.google.com for more information or to download the free application.

One of the other neat features of the application is the ability for users to enter their own placemarks. These placemarks can either be posted to the Google Community where everyone can access them or they can be stored in a file that you can share with your friends. I've created a file that contains all of the places I visited during my trip. All you have to do to view this information (assuming that you have Google Earth installed on your computer) is click on the link at the bottom of this message. The information should automatically launch the application and display the information. If it doesn't you can probably download the file (right-click the file name and do a "Save As" to your computer) and then open it with the application.

Once my custom placemark file is loaded and the application is running you should see a folder called "CaptRon-RTW-2006" under the "Places" tab on the left side of the screen. By expanding this file you will have access to all of my placemarks. They are organized into country folders and are roughly in the order that I visited places. Double-clicking on a placemark in the folder will cause the application to zoom to that location. Clicking on the underlined name will pop-up whatever text there is associated with that placemark. I used colored lines to indicate my plane, train, bus, taxi, car, and motorcycle journeys between the placemarks.

I hope you enjoy this little tour. I think it is pretty cool and I hope you like it. I hope to eventually add photos and additional information but I want to get my blog entries finished first. Let me know what you think by giving me a call or sending an email to Criswell@CaptRon.org.

Google Earth Placemark File

So here is how you can catch up with my old posts…

1) Start by clicking the "Archive" tab at the top of the screen.

2) Select either the "Month" or the "Category" for the posts you would like to see.

You may also select a specific date in the small calendar on the right side of the screen.  This will display all of the posts for a given date.  You can change the calendar month by click on the month name.  Only the dates which are highlighted have posts.

As I add new posts they will display in the main blog window (the one that appears when you first visit the site) even though they are back-dated to the date when they actually occured.

I hope everyone enjoys the posts…

Ron

Since I sold my house before leaving on my journey I am currently hanging out on my boat.  When I moved off of the boat in California all those years ago I never would have believed that I would ever again be living on a boat.  But here I am.  Life takes funny turns sometimes.  Its very different living on the lake full time.  When you visit on the weekends there are always lots of people around.  During the week its very quiet and peaceful.  I have fallen into a pretty regular daily routine.  In the morning I wander over to the floating marina store, grab a cup of coffee (free .. yippee), and spend a little time sitting on the back deck enjoying the view while working on my Spanish. 

After meeting so many people around the world that speak multiple languages I am determined to learn at least a little bit of a language other than English.  Its actually a lot of fun.  I have a beginning Spanish course book that teaches basic Spanish grammar and I am slowly (about one paragraph a day) working my way through the first "Harry Potter" book (en español).  I picked up the book in Los Angeles while I was visiting my sister Karen on my way home.  I figured it would be just a little bit easier to get through a book when I know the story.  At least that way I have some idea of what is supposed to be going on.  Unfortunately the book is really way too advanced for my meager skills so I have to stop and look up about every third word.  I hope that it will get better as I go along and my vocabulary improves.

Afternoons I've been spending doing chores like scrubbing and waxing the boat from one end to the other.  I figured that it deserved it after being abandoned for an entire year.  Plus I have no idea where I will eventually end up when I rejoin the work force.  Its possible that I may not be able to keep the boat when I relocate.  I heard that it costs about $3/mile to have it moved.  If I sell the boat I'll need to do all of the repairs and maintenance anyway so I decided I might as well do the work now and enjoy it while I am here.  I've also been running all over town dealing with bank accounts, post office boxes, storage fees, insurance, and all of the trappings of life in modern America.

I must admit that evenings are a little boring except for the weekends when I have friends visiting or my new marina compadres are at the lake.  I've been watching DVDs on my laptop, reading, and playing my guitar to keep myself occupied.  I'm working on getting a decent Internet connection so that I can start job hunting and do some work on Karen's web sites for her.  I'm also planning on filling in all of the gaps on my blog site.  As I look through my pictures I realize that I have already begun to forget much of what I did on my trip.  I want to write things down before all of my memories have settled into long term storage. 

I hope everyone is doing well and I would love to hear from you.  Either shoot me an email or stop by the lake for a visit.  I love sharing tales of my adventures and I promise that I can keep you entertained as long as you can stay awake. 

More to come soon…

I can't wait to tie my friends down and make them watch all 10,000 pictures I've taken during my travels.  They will love me for it… <laughing>

Actually, after spending no more than a few days in any one place for the last year, I can't wait to just sit on my boat for a few weeks doing nothing.  No planning, no travel, no reservations, nada …

It will be great seeing everyone and sharing my experiences.

Love to everyone and see you soon!!!