InvictaMoto's Family Travels

With a limited number of tickets for the main Thiepval commemoration we were going to be lucky to get any. So when our group was successful twice, winning four tickets, it was amazing. Now there needs to be some working out who will go with Cal and Trevor. I have begun looking at other commemorations in the area for those of us not lucky enough to get to Thiepval. More to follow.

We already have Ian and Paul joining the group and now Trevor Rice has signed up.

Over a period of weeks I have been in email communications with the hotel in Amiens booking the rooms, directly instead of using booking.com. The hotel is fully booked and we have most of the rooms currently: Central Anzac currently: David Robinson - single Ken Fulton - single Calvert Price, Neil Dalton, Ian Gardner - triple Elaine Constable   & Ken Sole - twin Paul Devall & Claire Devall - double Ian Jenkinson and another - twin Trevor Rice - double Thirteen of us going. The largest turnout ever.

The last hotel booking fell into place when my brother, Neill, booked us into the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook whilst he was staying there on his R66 trip. Coincidentally, before I emailed him, he had posted this card to us. According to Google maps, Scottsdale to Holbrook is 174 miles, but we will plan things to see en route. Such as the petrified forest and I'll be scouring the Rough Guide as well.

With quite a few blogs covering travels that Claire and I have done over the years it was getting too much to manage and so using the Blogger export and import tool, I have merged them here. Now almost only in one place. One blog won't export/import from its home location as apparently I have exceeded the number that can be imported.....  "Come back later" it says....

Looking at 2016. The chance to go to Norway fell through and so we have booked another trip to the US for earlier in the year, The way the timeshare "trading value" works means that after booking the US week, it leaves (hopefully) enough in the bank for another week. So I am looking at Spain later in the year , 2016. We like the Malaga area. It's where we have been before in October. It's warm, sunny and it's easy to chill. Let's see what RCI can offer. At the moment there a very few resorts showing their availability for October 2016. I will keep checking back over the next few weeks and months.

The Meldrews squad from the last two years have saddled up again for the trip in 2016. Added to the group for 2016 are Ian and Paul, both Laguna Ashford RAT members. This year is the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme and across the battlefield there are commemorations to mark the occasion. So far only the main event at Thiepval has published details and a ballot to attend the ceremony. We have all entered  and wait now until late November before we know if any of us has been successful. As the others come online we need to apply for those as well. I emailed the hotel with a list of members and asked for the same rooms again. Hopefully this year Claire will accompany me.

The problem with planning a trip some seven months before you go is that you start to build in more and more, make changes and discard some things.... My plan is to spend the second week "On the Road" with two night stops in Williams AZ for the Grand Canyon Railway and again at Lake Havasu to chill out before flying home are sealed in concrete. But that leaves a couple of other nights. Photo by Neill DeVall ( http://dmd66.blogspot.co.uk/ ) My brother recently stayed in the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook AZ and although he sait it was quite noisy due to the trains that pass in the night, I decided the experience isn't to be missed. He booked us in for the first night after we leave the timeshare in Scottsdale, so that's one overnight ticked off. We'll take earplugs! A bit of re-jigging and I have created another night to allow us to drive north of I40/R66 to the Navajo lands to Monument Valley. The loop from Holbrook via Kayenta to Flagstaf

Another day another bargain. I hope I don't peak too early with a bit of planning! I really only want the Arizona section but you get the lot. Not a bad little read. There are many places on it that might be worth a visit, but in true Lonely Planet (and Rough Guide for that matter!) it does tell it like it is.  

Links to Devall Trips. http://invictamoto.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/France%20September

Once we hit the apartment in Scottsdale for some R&R,  I have been looking at a few excursions or trips. I thought Tucson and Tombstone seemed like a good idea but the Rough Guide has put me off from bothering. Neither place gets a glowing write-up. I have booked a hotel on the "pay later free cancellation" idea from booking.com. So at least I have until June 3rd to scrub it. One day trip, that depending on the above we well do is to the Red Rock State Park near Sedona. It's about 100 miles from Scottsdale, and  easily do-able in a day. I expect the "day" is quite long at that time of the year. It could morph into an overnight stop to gives us time to do the "vortexes". Another trip I mapped for the TomTom is the Apache Trail to the east of Phoenix. The RG makes it sound an adventure of unpaved but graded roads. We'll see.  And then once the week in Scottsdale is over we head north east to check out the P

Like Tripadvisor,  I always take what I read in a Rough Guide with a little pinch of salt. I have quite a few copies from different areas around the world.  You can't argue with facts but sometimes the bias and language is easy to detect.  Although "getting there" to Arizona, RG reckons flying into Las Vegas is cheapest. Maybe from within the US but for next year it was £125 per person more than Phoenix. Enough saved to cover the car hire... I bought this used copy of the Rough Guide for £1.99 recently. It's a couple of years old but the Grand Canyon might be the same now..... 2009 Edition! What I like about these guides is the additional information provided, what RG calls "context", the history of an area.  

Things are coming together for the anti clockwise loop from Phoenix and back again. The Wigwam Motel at Holbrook is not available online and with the 7 hour time difference it is hard to call to make a reservation. I'll leave it a while and see if they come online soon.   I have emailed to see if they have started taking bookings. My brother is there in a week or so on his and Cath's Route 66 trip , so I dropped him an email to see how he managed to book. If he can book me whilst he is there it will make things a bit more certain. The next overnight will be Williams and the Grand Canyon Railway and then we get onto the section of R66 ourselves and a stop in Kingman, currently the hotel of choice is a traditional old fashioned one El Trovotore. That might change yet. Then Claire wanted a few days R&R and somewhere to swim so we'll head down to Lake Havasu and stay there the last two nights before heading to Phoenix and fly home. Arizona Loop T

Although it was a nice day at home and after the decking had been jet washed it was too late to get the Rocket out. Autumn has started to arrive and it seems we bypassed summer. Some people may think that planning too much too soon spoils the spontaneity of the trip.  But I like to get a few plans under my belt in good time. It saves missing out on the things you want to see and do.  Been there and done that but was too late to get the t-shirt! Today's research was concerning the six nights after the timeshare. We want to go to the Grand Canyon. Anyone going to Arizona and not looking into the abyss has to be a bit strange.   Then I saw on my brother's blog that he has booked into the Wigwam Motel #6 on R66 in Holbrook. So that fired a bit of imagination. I read up about it on the web inc Tripadvisor. Currently it looks as though the diary for early June 2016 not yet open. What is open and booking up fast is the Grand Canyon Railway. This runs from Williams

Heading south . We didn't exactly hurry. We didn't have far to go as we were going to overnight in Selkirk, still in the border region of Scotland. Packing the car and cleaning up a little took a while.  We had opted for small bags rather than cases and had loads to cram into the car. Reggie went in early and was asleep when we eventually returned the key and set off.  Once again we had to navigate through Inverness, but the traffic wasn't too bad this time.  The A9 was also relatively heavy and we headed southwards past Aviemore stopping at the Ralia Cafe for a break. Then again southwards towards Edinburgh. Another stop for Reggie to have his breakfast, anther day it had gone uneaten, and us to have lunch at a Subway near Perth. Another surprise was that the Forth Road Bridge was free..... Rail bridge in the background From Edinburgh we stuck on the A7 all the way arriving in Selkirk just as the weather looked up.... yes it had been raining aga

And next,  my attention to car hire.  The Fusion we had in Tampa was okay, but hardly sets the pulse going. The year before the Mustang was great but impractical.  So what this year? 2015 Chrysler 200 I went back on the National site and, with free cancellation,  I booked a Chrysler 200 or similar. Yessiree, another air conditioned box. I found that this year National were the best value as they include all the insurances in the rental price rather than suddenly add them all at the end.  I keep clearing cookies as I have this strange idea that the more you visit a rental site the higher the price. The 200 is little over £307 all in for the fortnight. It's not too bad but the reality always works out different. Today the rental for the same car is £328.... So I deleted the cache and went back to the site and it was £307.04 again. Maybe for Arizona we'll need something more off road capable? A Jeep or maybe a Dodge Ram 1500? 

Our last full day in the Highlands started off pretty much like many of the other days. Breakfast and then we set off for a day of sightseeing, with no great plans. Just after leaving the glamping we took the left turn on to the A833 heading towards Beauly. Beauly is a small town to the north of Inverness. I found a parking place in the centre and we took Reggie across to a small cafe - The Corner on the Square. Most of our tourist trips involve starting with a coffee whilst we think of where we are going next. Of course we sat outside in what was a rarity on this trip - the sun. In Beauly just along the high street is the ruins of an old Priory . We had a walk over there and then down to the river, or as close as we could get to it. It was mostly fenced, so once again no paddling for Reggie. Once we had exhausted the high spots of the town we set off towards Inverness.  Whilst we were here I thought it a good idea to visit my Mum rather than leave it to the

This morning I logged into the laptop and had another look on RCI. Still the same as last night.  The mobile site is still clunkier to use than the desktop version, the date range is not very easy to use, but in the end neither of them showed any availability. It's hard to believe that there are 58000 resorts in the world and none are free at all. So I logged into the webchat and "spoke" to someone. Explained the problem. Ten minutes later my account was sorted and the exchange symbol came up on the website. After a bit of searching and reading reviews we have opted for the Sheraton Desert Oasis in Scottsdale AZ. It scored highly on Tripadvisor as well as RCI themselves. I had toyed with Vegas for that neon fix.... But the resorts there are twice as much as we have to spend in credits.  I have 28 to spend this year and Sheraton is 14. So might have a look elsewhere to use the rest. The flight will drop us into Phoenix at about 1700 on the Thur

We had breakfast and then had to decide where to go. Getting down to the loch didn't seem possible as there are few parking places and even fewer places where the road isn't way above the shore. Matching these two requirements is frankly nil. In the end we decided to go to the Culloden Battlefield to the south-east of Inverness. Inverness itself proved pretty traffic heavy with all the A82 traffic from the west having to go right through the centre. I took the opportunity to fill the tank at an Esso station. Maybe test the theory that branded fuel is better than supermarket fuel. After several fills of both over the last ten thousand miles the jury is out! Once clear of the city and onto the A9 south it wasn't far before we saw the signs. TomTom had tried to take us on a different route near the airport but the radio reported that there were holdups after an accident. As you approach the site, you can see the flags marking the front lines of the rival armies