Trips Galore!

Today I felt a whole lot like the official travel agent of the Blankenheim household. First thing this morning, I booked our trip to San Diego for the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll marathon. Hotel - check, flight - check, rental car - check. We had talked about the pros and cons of driving versus flying and decided that it was well worth the extra money to take the flight so that I don't have to endure the 9+ hour road trip.

Speaking of running, I did pretty darned well this week. My total mileage for the week was 17 miles - 10 during the week at the gym and 7 yesterday outside on a trail near our house. I'm sore and tired, but a good sore and tired.

I decided that today would be a cross train day, so I headed to the pool for the first time since our wedding. It felt so good to get back in the water and I can't think of anything that feels better to stretch out those sore joints and muscles than a good swim.

Mike and I did a ton of researching and narrowing down of what we want to do while we're in Europe for sabbatical. I think the two of us could spend decades over there exploring! We've settled on a few key things that we want to do.

We've basically decided to do a great big clockwise circle through France. We're flying into Berne, Switzerland to go visit Interlaken. Specifically, we're there to see Jungfrau, one of the highest points in Europe. The whole valley is supposed to be absolutely amazing and they have a cool little train that takes you up to the top where they have this great observatory with amazing views:

We'll spend a few days exploring the valley area before we head into France... ready to tackle the Alpe d'Huez. This is one of the most fabled climbs in the Tour de France and is something we want to tackle while we're there. I might die, so it's a good thing we're going to see something pretty before we get there.

From there we plan to head down to Southern France to watch the Col du Tourmalet stage of the Tour de France. This is one of the big mountain stages and if we can battle past the motor homes that will probably be camped out for weeks before, we might get a good spot.

After a couple days in the South, we're going to head North to Normandy. This is one of the places that Kati and I did not make during our trip a couple years ago and I'm so super excited to go see it.

Finally, we're going to end our trip in Paris - we'll spend 4 or 5 days there and are hoping to camp out to get a good spot to see the finish of the Tour.

I can't wait!!!