Suntrek Trip #3 - Highlights of the East

Lafayette, CO - Ok, so I'm a little slow to get this next set of photos out. Turns out I got a particularly nasty virus on my computer over the weekend. I am very, very thankful for the extremely proficient in-house tech support. Thanks Suwei! Thanks to her, everything is back up and running smoother than ever. So, it's time for another post.

For this set of photos we go back to August 9th and the start of my third Suntrek tour. This was another Suntrek standard called, "Highlights of the East". It was a one-week long, lodging tour hitting many of the major cities of the Northeast. On our schedule we had Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, and New York City. Total miles for this tour was 1130 miles (1819 km). The big difference this time is that we stayed in hostels and hotels instead of camping.

Here is a map of the route:

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For this trip we had yet another full van with 13 passengers. Nationalities included: Australians, Germans, Swiss, Dutch, British, South Korean, and a guy from North Carolina. Can you guess who is in the photo below?

Group Photo in New York City. From left: Karl, Siam, Louise, Christine, Rok, Stephan, Leanne, Natalie, Megan, Trinh, Anina, Alex, Sven, & Tayseer. Thanks go out to Alex for letting me steal the photo.

Here are a few more photos from the trip:

Philadephia


Clockwise from the top: Independence Hall, JFK Plaza (LOVE Park), Broad Street, Dinner at Bucca De Beppo, City Hall, & the LOVE Statue.

Red Sox/Tigers Game, Fenway Park, Boston

Again, there would have been a lot more photos here if I was actually on tour and not working. Unfortunately, because of parking restriction and other difficulties arising from moving a large van and trailer through big cities, I did not have the chance to hang out with these guys as much as I would have liked. For a few more of the photos that I did manage to snap, check out the slide show below:

Suntrek Trip #3 - Highlights of the East

Sorry guys, I couldn't come up with a trip song for this leg. Any suggestions from the group?

Suntrek Trip #2 - East Coast Adventure

Lafayette, CO - It's been about a week and a half since my last post, and in that time Suwei ran her third marathon here in Denver, we spent a weekend climbing with friends at Indian Creek in Utah, and I turned 41 (not necessarily in that order). I also managed to go through a few more photos.

This set comes from my second Suntrek tour, the East Coast Adventure. This time I was doing a standard Suntrek Tour. It was two weeks long and took us through the Northeast including Canada and New England. I had 13 passengers again, but this time they were from England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Austria (a much better mix). The trip also had a good mix of cities (Washington DC, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Boston, New York) and parks (Algonquin Provincial Park, Acadia National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore), with a little rain, fog, and mosquitoes mixed in here and there. According to my logs we traveled 4171 miles (6712 km). Here is a map of our route:

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And here are some of the photos:

Pennsylvania: Abandoned Trailers in Gaines, Amish Buggy Ride in Lancaster, Camping in Gaines


Niagara Falls



Acadia National Park



The Old State House, Boston, MA

The Mayflower in Plymouth, MA and Kids Playing at Racepoint Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore.


Racepoint Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore


Whale Watching off of Cape Cod



Provincetown at Sunset

Thanks go out to Sietske, Laura, Florian, Karine, Els, Elena, Inmaculada, Martin, Susanne, Nils, Kate, Katie and Kate for making this another great trip. Of course, I want to acknowledge the mad skills of our master DJ, the whore of the front seat, Florian, who gave us our trip song (click the link below).

Also, while we are on the subject of music, I wanted to add a few songs from the Swedish Tour. There were a few songs that kept popping up that just cracked me up. Turns out they were all from the same guy, Swedish pop sensation, Gunther. I would have included this in the last post, but I had forgotten the name and lost my notes. Thanks go out to Henrik, who was able to re-educate me. Without further ado, I present Gunther!!!!

What make this even better is the Album Cover....



Here is another classic from Pleasureman that got a lot of play in the Swedish van:

And finally... here is the slide show with more pics:

Suntrek Trip #2 - East Coast Adventure

Suntrek Trip #1 - STS Coast to Coast

Lafayette, CO - So, I've been home for a week now. Settling very well, thank you, into my usual patten of waking up, hitting the gym, smoothie, coffee, working on chores, avoiding chores, feeling guilty for not doing my leg exercises, doing a few leg exercises to excise the guilt, fixing Suwei a bit of lunch before she starves to death, working on photos, eating dinner, watching the Daily Show, and heading to bed. The result...more photos ready!

This set of photos are from my first tour. It was a 3-week, charter tour from Los Angeles to New York via a southern route. A good portion of Suntrek's business comes from charters, which are a little different than the standard brochure tours. Basically a charter is a custom made trip for a specific group. The group, in this case, was from STS, a company that organizes tours for European high school students looking to improve their language skills. So on July 6th, Ben Larson (another Suntrek leader) and I, headed out to LAX to find 23 Swedish students between the ages of 15 and 19, plus two chaperons... "Asian, Asian, Asian, Blond! Is that them? Nope. Asian, not sure, Blond! Nope." This went on for a while.

Although it took them awhile to make it through customs, we did manage to locate the entire group, get them back to the hotel, and get the pile of Suntrek release forms filled out before midnight. From there the trip was simple...put them in a van, drive them around the country, and make sure they have fun...easy! Here is what our route looked like:



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According to the commercial driver's log I kept in the van, we covered 5064 miles (8149 km) of the USA. Here are some of the photos:

The group just starting out in Santa Monica, CA.


Limo Ride in Vegas. For the limo Soundtrack, click the link below about 60 times. Which one of you guys was running the CD player?

A night out in Monument Valley, AZ

Anasazi ruins at Mesa Verde National Park, CO

Durango CO, Sante Fe NM, Roswell NM, Honey Island Swamp LA, Carlsbad NM, Wytheville VA, & Washington D.C.

There are more photos and stories in the slide show. Just click the link below. In the meantime here's a song from my collection, that reminds me of this trip. Music appreciation hour students!

Suntrek Trip #1 - STS Coast to Coast