Arrived in Athens, Greece in mid-morning. What a long and exhausting flight of over 6,800 miles or 11,000 Kilometers. Yes, that is something we are going to have to do for a while: covert to and from Imperial measurements. So we left Amarillo just at sunrise on Monday morning and arrived in Athens at noon on Tuesday. Off the plane and to baggage to get our luggage. All our bags made it without issue. Yay! Customs was a breeze. Actually the custom officer seemed more annoyed to deal with us than concerned about our reasons to visit Greece. No questions, just a stamp on each of our passports and we are waved out of the airport. A few minutes of waiting and we meet our driver. He was great and took us right to the hotel. After experiencing the drive in, I know I will not be renting a car here. All traffic signs are suggestions including the lane separators. As we got into the city, the streets became very narrow. The Acropolis View Hotel is very nice. Very helpful staff, with nice rooms, and free breakfast. Amazingly close to the Acropolis and for about $150 per night. We even had a room with a balcony. The view from our balcony was a park. We slept as much as we could to recover from jet-lag. The 5th floor rooftop patio is fantastic with a view of the Acropolis and Parthenon. We asked the owner of the hotel where we might eat in the area. He had some great suggestions and marked a map for us noting the suggestions. A short walk away, we found a nice cafe. We stopped by the hotel bar for something to drink on the roof patio. Wow! What a beautiful night view. The weather was perfect with light breezes and 72 degrees.
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The ticket counter opened just after 5am. Security was easy but for some reason Shawna did not get Pre-TSA. Weird? And she was not happy. We had a little plane, only 3 seats across. We had two seats on one side and Betty on the other side across from us on the same row. Next Houston. After a long walk, then skyway tram, then another long walk we got to the gate. This would be our first Air-Canada flight and they were very nice confirming our bags would go all the way to Athens and that we did not have to go through security in Canada just on to the next gate. They offered to gate check any bags, we did not need in exchange for priority boarding. We checked two. They were gone and not to be seen until Athens. Hopefully! We sat together and though the plane was supposed to be completely full I noticed at least 9 empty seats. Four hours later and we were in Toronto. Another long walk but this time Betty had a wheel chair and help from the airline. We were taken right to our next gate. It made navigating the airport much better than we would have done on our own. The next and last plane was enormous. The biggest I had ever been on. I know there are planes with more seats per row but this thing was big to me. There were two jetway bridges for loading. One for First and Business class and the other for Premium and Economy. Lots and lots of rows. The picture below is just from our seat to the back of the plane. It was a really long flight. I got very little sleep being next to the aisle where people would bump me every time they walked past. 8.5 hours later we will land in Athens.
We drove to Amarillo to do some last minute shopping before our trip. There is almost always something that was forgotten or missed in packing. Oh well.
Tonight, we stay overnight with James and C.J. We had a nice visit and dinner then off to bed early. We had a great visit as always. James drove us to the airport. We had to wake by 4am to make it to the ticket counter at 5am. The flight was not till 6:30 but with security and checking bags we needed as much time as we could. Logan has some very big spiders. This tarantula was walking across Gramma's yard. He or She had a 1 inch long abdomen and 3 inch legs. And a few snakes. This one was warming up on the concrete walkway this morning. It was a cold night. We have also seen Mule Deer and Quail in the yard. Of course, we have seen many birds flying south for the winter.
I may have "Granddaddy'ed" this but it is finished. Our first test was a 45 degree night and the thermometer under the RV never got below 63. Our floor should be much warmer in the mornings.
After all the decades of coming through Amarillo, we have finally gone to The Big Texan for lunch. Home of the "Free" 72 oz steak. Ok, it's a tourist trap but lots of fun. If you want a good steak there are far better places in Amarillo. We had lunch with Betty, and our friends Bill and Kelly Norrish.
The weather has been surprising for Logan. More rain and clouds than we expected.
This mornings sunrise was wild but no storm. We have been planning to put some sort of skirt around the RV to help with staying warm during the winter in Logan. Our plan was to use foam board but James (Jr. to most of you) said he had something that would be much better. What he had was OSB on both sides of huge Styrofoam "boards". They are about 9 feet long, 4 feet wide, 1/2 inch OSB, and 5 inches of Styrofoam. My best estimate is that this would be about R30 or more. As a result of skirting with this the area under our RV will be better insulated than the RV itself. Wild! Thanks again James. I did not think to take a picture when we first unloaded the panels. Here is the result after many were already cut and covered with plastic. Painting the OSB was an option but is almost impossible to completely seal plus the Styrofoam would have been exposed. We decided to go with thick plastic instead. This project will be a huge amount of work but will, hopefully, make something we can use for several years whenever we are here in winter.
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January 2024
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