We have had a lovely couple of weeks in Utah. We’ve been able to rest and recover from five months of travel, help Nathan’s mom at her house, and spend time with family.
One of the big projects we had to tackle was what to do with cars. Margaret had an older Toyota Camry that was a good car, but didn’t have some of the modern safety features that make driving safer. We left our Kia Sportage with her while we were in Europe and she was driving it while we were gone. She discovered that she really likes it, so even though we just bought it last summer, we decided to sell it to her. We’ve wanted a plug-in hybrid or another electric vehicle for a few years. We had a Nissan Leaf that we really liked, but it was definitely just a little commuter car. But EVs have come so far, so we wanted to revisit the subject. We did our research and our test drives and ended up buying a Kia EV6 and trading in the Camry. It all worked out beautifully! We took it for a spin this weekend and did the Alpine Loop to see the GORGEOUS autumn colors.
Nathan’s been busy taking care of things in the house and yard here, including the redecoration of one of the basement rooms. He’s always likes doing projects, and since he can’t do them at our house, he does them at other people’s houses. He’s also been back at the piano and loving some extra practice time.
I’ve been helping with projects, doing the grocery shopping and a lot of cooking. Since Alex’s family was visiting his in-laws for a wedding, it was a great opportunity to get our extended family together a couple of times to eat, talk, and play games. I’ve also really loved having more time with my sister.
We also did a couple of outings with the kiddos. We went to the Clark Planetarium one day and had a great time with the boys as they explored the exhibits and played. We spent a very warm afternoon at the Wild West Jordan playground and the West Jordan library. The boys had a blast swinging and climbing everywhere. Our big outing was up to the Golden Spike National Historic Park to check out the beautiful steam engines, Jupiter and No. 119, with our little train fanatics. All of it was so fun!
On Wednesday we are going to switch things up. We are headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to stay in a condo at Solitude for October. We absolutely love that canyon and have talked about spending more time there for a long time, so this is a fun opportunity to hike and enjoy the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. We’re looking forward to it! We hope you have a wonderful week!
Mainly Main and the Rambling Rhein
We spent this week further exploring our new corner of Germany. We spent a day in Frankfurt, explored more of Mainz, and took a cruise on the Rhein. We are also back to being without, so we have returned to buses, trains, trams, and lots of walking.
Back to Deutschland
Our time in Italy came to an end and we took a few days to see some new places and move to our new homebase. We visited the lakes of Italy, the Black Forest, and took a trip up Germany’s Romantic Road. We have landed in the city of Mainz, just west of Frankfurt and on the mighty Rhine River. We will be here for six more weeks.
Museums, Palaces, and Jazz
We spent this week as full-time tourists in Torino. We visited museums and palaces as well as a few events at the Torino Jazz Festival. This was our last full week here in Italy and we wanted to enjoy what we could.