Ben and Janet's Travel Blog

Saturday, March 1, 2025

20250228 Friday, February 28, 2025 to Saturday March 1, 2025. Heading to Egypt

After we had to cancel our Viking Mekong Delta cruise last year because we wouldn’t have had time to get the very expensive tourist visa, we booked the Viking Nile Pharaohs and Pyramids cruise. They had just launched the first of two new Nile River cruise ships, the Osiris, but had just opened bookings for the second ship, the Hathor. Much to our surprise, there was only a single stateroom left on the ship that hadn’t been booked. Sailings were already selling out leading into 2026, so we booked that last stateroom because it was during the ideal time for sailing when the temperatures are moderate and dry. This will be a waterline stateroom without a veranda, but it will have a window and there are plenty of comfortable public spaces above to hang out in.

It seems like a lot of people we know have recently been to Egypt. Janet’s brother and his wife were there just last year, and one of Ben’s brothers also went last year. We actually have some framed papyrus art that Janet’s father had purchased when he had been to Egypt many decades ago. So it’s time we checked it out for ourselves.

Just 2 days before departure, we got a panic stricken call from our travel agent who had Norma from Viking Air on the line. Our flights had originally been scheduled from SEA to Washington DC, Munich, and then Cairo. Unfortunately, a labor strike in Munich cancelled our flight. Lufthansa had defaulted to place us on a different flight the following day, which would have meant missing out on our first day in Cairo. Norma was able to find an alternative that would get us to Cairo on time, but it would require a two connection flight- Seattle, Denver, Frankfurt, Cairo. Not wanting to miss out on the Cairo tour, we said YES. However, that also meant that our departure out of SEA would be at 8:50am instead of 2:30pm. Out shuttle service to the airport unfortunately doesn’t run hourly, so in order to catch an 8:50am flight, we have to catch a 2am shuttle, which arrives at 4:30am. The next shuttle which leaves at 4am would get us in 7:15am, which is cutting it a bit too close for getting through security during the morning rush hour.

Fortunately, since we are flying business class, we have access to the United lounge, so we had a relaxing early breakfast instead of slumping on the seats at the gate for several hours. Although their rules officially say no laying on or putting your feet on the furniture, the lounge was not very crowded and we found a quiet spot near the back where Janet could stretch out on a bench and catch a few zzz’s. The lounge has a full complement of beverages including apple, pink grapefruit and orange juices, automatic espresso drink machines, teas and soft drinks. The bar was closed until 10am so really hard core alcoholics will have to toughen up a bit. The breakfast service was pretty decent, offering toast, Danish, cinnamon buns, croissant and English muffin breakfast sandwiches, cereal, oat meal, fruit and berry salads, yogurt and granola. Since we had been on the road since 2am, we did appreciate having some early breakfast.

United Continental SEA lounge

The flight from Seattle to Denver was only 2-1/2hrs. Business class domestic on the A320neo featured seats that recline by rocking the back and bottom forward as a unit. This causes the video display on the seat backs to also drop dramatically, but they do pivot out at the bottom so you can still see the screen after the seat in front of you reclines.

The Denver airport seems thoroughly modernized, but the gates are laid out in very long linear rows that stretch out a great distance. There are moving walkways to help cover the distances, and people mover trains that move people between the terminals. There is a United lounge in the A terminal and main terminal. We arrived at the main terminal and had to take the people mover over to the A terminal, but since we had a 3-1/2hr layover, there was no problem once we figured out the layout. We had lunch at the United lounge in the A terminal and then boarded our Denver to Frankfurt flight later in the afternoon.

The Denver to Frankfurt flight was a 787 Dreamliner, and the business class seats are individual fully reclining pods. These allow for more restful sleep, although with all the noise and other distractions, it’s still hard to get a decent night’s rest. Ben ended up watching Gladiator 2, and then sleeping for several hours before the breakfast service stirred things up in the cabin.

We got into Frankfurt airport on time, which was comforting because we only had a 90 minute layover there. We also did not have to clear customs or security since our bags were checked all the way through to Cairo, and United Airlines had issued us boarding passes for the Lufthansa flight to Cairo. Stepping off the plane in Frankfurt was also like stepping back in time to the 1970’s because the jetways don’t align properly with the thresholds of the planes. This resulted in an 8” step down that Janet nearly tripped over. Then the jet ways lead to a series of stairs. It would have been extremely difficult to get someone who was wheelchair dependent onto and back off planes there. Our boarding gate was also just a bus stop where we boarded a bus which then took us out onto the tarmac amongst taxing jets, luggage handling equipment, fuel trucks and all sorts of other traffic. It seemed so potentially hazardous. Ben wondered how often an inadvertent jet blast might send a piece of equipment or personnel tumbling across the tarmac.

Sharing the road with jets

Ben was quite surprised that the flight got off to a late start. So much for German efficiency. Apparently, someone decided not to board the plane, even though their luggage had been loaded onto the plane. This meant they had to take all the luggage out of the plane’s cargo hold, find that person’s bags, pull them out and then reload all the bags.

Hmm, where is that bag?

Business class on this Lufthansa was simply not booking a third passenger in the middle of each of the first 10 rows of the plane. We did have nice meal and beverage services though. Ben got introduced to a unique liquor called Ziegler Avionic, something made specifically for Lufthansa. It is a sweet, fruity and herbal digestif which when mixed with bitter lemon makes a very refreshing and interesting cocktail.

We arrived just a little late in Cairo. As we approached Cairo, it was astounding how green and lush the Nile Delta looks like from the air. Ben had imagined nothing but desert. As we got closer to Cairo, we got a glimpse of the Great Pyramids of Giza from about 3000’ as the plane made its final approach turn for the airport.

First glimpse of the Pyramids from 3000'

Closer to the airport, things do look like a desert. There is also a remarkable degree of urban sprawl in Cairo.

Downtown Cairo

We were met coming off the plane headed towards immigration by a Viking representative, who helped passengers obtain their Egyptian visas if they didn’t do the e-Visa online like we had. Those who got their visas at the airport got fancy looking sticky stamps which got pasted into their passports. We just got an ugly rubber stamp.

The Viking passengers are pretty easy to pick out of a crowd by their demographics (well to do American recent retirees) and their red Viking luggage tags. There were about 27 or so on our flight, and about half or more had been flying business class as we had. There was one Chinese American couple from New Jersey. Everyone else, myself excluded, was typical white American tourists.

We got loaded up into a nice new Viking tour coach, identical to the ones used n their European River cruise operations. We were informed that Ramadan had just begun, so traffic could either be decent or terrible as people rushed home to celebrate with families. The first Arabic phrase she taught us was “Ramadan Karim”, which literally translates to Ramadan generous, but means Happy Ramadan.

It ended up taking just a half hour to get from the airport to the Sofitel Cairo Downtown Nile hotel where we would be staying. Our program director (Egyptologist) introduced herself as Fatma AbdAlla, and she will be with us for the duration of the cruise. There are 3 bus loads that will be on the Viking Hathor, and we were bus B. The total number of passengers on this cruise will be 82 or 83. The other two program directors were Manal Fathy and Randa Riad. We will be getting the Vox box devices tomorrow to use on our tours so we will be able to hear her in crowded areas.

The sun was rapidly setting as we arrived at the hotel. Our first night is on our own, although most people were pretty worn out from the flights and just looking forward to showers and a decent night’s sleep in a bed. That’s certainly all we did. Fatima said there were many others that will be arriving after midnight tonight. We imagine they will not be able to enjoy tomorrow’s tours nearly as much as us.

The hotel is very nice and the rooms are up to our high expectations for Viking accommodations. We have a nice view of the Nile from a small balcony, and a very spacious room. We unfortunately discovered later that the bedsheets have a faint odor of tobacco. Someone in the Laundry must be sneaking smoke breaks in the sheet storage room.

We will set our alarm clocks to get us up for breakfast tomorrow which starts at 6:30am. Our tour begins at 7:55am with a morning briefing before we board the buses and head out.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Monday, January 27, 2025 Heading Home

Monday, January 27, 2025 Heading home

It was nice to have no drama in the morning as the sun rose and our batteries were still reporting over 50% and the furnace had been maintaining a comfortable comfortable sleeping temperature and the refrigerator operated normally overnight. It appears that as long as the batteries can start the night at least 70% charged we shouldn’t have repeat troubles.

We did get on the road after hitching the Bronco back up by 9:30am so we could avoid the worst of the city traffic. There were icy patches in the shade but the roads had been sanded where there might have been black ice. Traffic fortunately remained fairly light. The RV was on reserve fuel when we arrived at the Lacey Costco, but reserve means somewhere between 50 and 100 miles to empty. We put in 12gal to get us to the Angel of the Winds Casino where the diesel was 15 cents per gallon less expensive. We did go in and pick up a few things at Costco before getting back on the road.

The only place where the traffic slowed to below 50mph was just heading into downtown Seattle, which was pretty unheard of. We topped off both the RV and Bronco at the Angel of the Winds Casino and managed to arrive back home by 4:30pm. We unloaded the RV at home and then put it away in the barn. Driving in the full daylight had charged the batteries to 99%, and when the sun was shining fully on the solar panels, the charge controller showed 4A of charging current, so there may not be a problem with the solar panels other than lack of sunlight at the campground. We did managed to run the propane down to below 1/4 by running the generator and furnace over 4 nights.

This did turn out to be a pleasant little RV excursion to the coast and we were treated to blue skies and sunny days in a part of the state most known for grey skies and rain. We did learn to keep an eye out on the charge state of our batteries on cloudy days and in campsites where our solar panels may be shaded by trees to avoid future problems with the battery management system shutting down again.

Sunday, January 26, 2025 Cape Disappointment North Head and Razor Clamming

We did an energy austerity exercise last night to maximize our chances of not having to go through jump starting the house batteries. We ran the generator until we were done with dinner, had the portable jump starter fully recharged, and the house batteries up to at least 75% charged. Then it was lights out at 8pm. We usually keep our iOS devices plugged in charging overnight, but we took the additional precaution of not charging anything off the house battery overnight. Ben has an app that monitors the battery status and with the everything off, it was reading zero amps.

When the furnace was running, it reported about 54W of energy discharge. The refrigerator also runs on the house battery, but runs intermittently so we can’t force it to run to test the power draw. We set the thermostat at 59 degrees, and did manage to make it to the morning with the batteries still online.

The solar panel charging display came on at 8am and wasn’t blinking the no battery error like it had yesterday. The battery monitor app showed the batteries at 52 and 61%. All this suggests the batteries are OK, and that we probably have some solar panel diagnostics to do. These solar panels supposedly don’t have that long of a lifespan despite having no moving parts because they are exposed to a lot of vibrations and thermal stress. These are now 3-4 years old so we may be looking at replacing them before attempting any really long RV trips, say to Alaska or the Canadian Maritimes.

Another oddity we have noticed is when we start up the generator, the GFCI in the bathroom trips. This cuts off power to the outlet over the kitchen counter (coffee maker etc), so that has to be reset by pushing the button on the GFCI. This is most likely just the GFCI showing its age as well. We started up the generator at 8:45am. The campground rules say we can run generators from 8am to 9pm, but we waited until plenty of people were milling about the campground and the sun was fully out.

After brewing coffee, we headed out in the Bronco to explore the trails of this part of the state park while the generator recharged the house batteries. McKenzie Head trail is just a quarter mile long but it is to the top of McKenzie Head where there is an old gun battery, and where Lewis and Clark surveyed the mouth of the Columbia from it’s elevated view point.

It is also a designated tsunami evacuation site for the campground. While much of the vegetation is similar to Whidbey Island’s, the huge Sitka Spruce are a more unique characteristic of Cape Disappointment.

There is a small cover near the park entrance named Waikiki Beach, and while it is beautiful, it bears no resemblance to its Hawaiian namesake. We also drove along the north jetty and found people fishing with sturdy fishing poles for Dungeness crab using small bait cages with heavy monofilament snares.

We returned to the RV and shut down the generator before heading out of the park to the North Head Lighthouse. There is a very nicely kept light keeper’s and assistant light keeper’s houses that the State Parks use as rental properties. The light house is now automated but is one of the best maintained light houses along the west coast. The two light houses at North Head and Cape Disappointment are the only two lighthouses on the West Coast within 2 miles of each other. There is a short spur trail to Bell’s View just north of the North Head Lighthouse which also gives a grand view of the coastline.

There is an 8 mile long “Discovery Trail” that runs between Ilwaco, Cape Disappointment State Park and Beard’s Hollow on the Long Beach Peninsula. We walked a short distance along this but it ends up pretty much running along side the roadway.

We returned to the Corral in Long Beach to return the food pager and ended up ordering bacon burgers, tater tots and milk shakes, this time taking advantage of their Senior discount of 10%. These were nice burgers, much like a Whopper, and the serving of tater tots was generous. The milk shakes are made with vanilla soft serve doused with flavor shots- nothing extraordinary, but who can complain about milk shakes?

We returned to the Long Beach beach access arch to replicate the photo that Ben’s family took back in the 1970’s, and then ate our lunches on the beach watching kites, surf fishermen and dog walkers.

We were able to take advantage of the cellular service in Long Beach to do our daily DuoLingo language lessons before heading back to the campground to get ready for razor clam digging. The RV’s batteries had recharged to about 60% in the morning, so we ran the generator again to try to get the batteries up to 75%. Using the heat pump running on the generator also heats up the RV quicker than the LP furnace does.

The low tide was at 5pm at 0.0’, but we headed out to the beach at 3pm since the weather was so nice. It was only in the 40’s but it was sunny and calm. We walked out toward where we found the clam shows yesterday, but Janet had found half her clams enroute by walking down to the waterline and then cutting across, while Ben did a beeline on the diagonal. It didn’t take too long to get our 15 clams each. There were classic clam shows above the wash zone, and the lack of wind seemed to help eliminate pesky sneaker waves that would normally chase you up the beach. We were all done by 3:30 and were back in the RV before 4pm.

We ran the generator while we cleaned the clams and had dinner, which was spaghetti with canned Hunts spaghetti sauce and Costco meat balls. And we like the toasted Costco Ciabatta rolls on the side.

While the campground bathroom has free showers, and Ben had used it on the first night, Janet discovered the women’s side did not have any hot water. We both took nice hot but brief showers in the RV, in part to drain out the freshwater holding tank since we are leaving tomorrow. We shut down the generator at 6:30pm. The battery monitor showed them to be at 71.7% and 80.4%. We’ll hope for no battery drama overnight. Ben will be doing some homework studying on how to troubleshoot RV solar panels and charging systems in the near future.

Saturday, January 24, 2025 Cape Disappointment and Long Beach

It got cold last night. Ben was concerned our batteries were at below 50% when we got back to the RV late last night. Our solar panels don’t seem to be charging the batteries adequately, either because of shade or because of a problem with the solar panels. At any rate, the furnace quit working sometime in the early am hours. Ben had to make a late night run to the bathroom at 3am because of a touch of GI trouble and saw that the electrical panel was de-energized and the Lithium Batteries were not reporting their status. This would most likely be caused by them draining below about 10.8V, at which point the battery management systems built in the batteries would shut them down to protect against over discharge that might be damaging.

We threw on extra blankets and managed to sleep in until 9am. The outside temperatures were below freezing. At that time, Ben started up the RV motor and used the RV’s cabin heater to warm up the RV while he got out the tools to troubleshoot the system. In the past, he was able to simply use a portable jump starter to start the generator, but the generator control panel was completely dead. It wasn’t until he physically disconnected the batteries from the coach and then applied the jump starter to the batteries that the batteries came back online, reporting a voltage of 11.5V. Once we were able to get that reading of 11.5V on the batteries, Ben was able to reconnect the coach, and this lit up the generator control panel. This then allowed us to start up the generator using the jump starter on the house battery banks.

We were then able to shut down the RV coach motor and let the RV furnace heat up the RV to shirt sleeves temperature. Ben also noticed that the inside rear dual tire was reading a bit low, and while the RV motor was running, the TPMS sounded an alert to that effect. The one tire was reading 54psi while the others were reading 60psi. They should be at 61psi. Fortunately, Ben has a heavy duty compressor for airing the Bronco tires up and down, and he was able to use that to bring all the RV tires up to 61psi.

We ran the generator for an hour, which brought the batteries up to 50%. By then, the sun was rising, and the solar controller was showing 0.4A charging current, which isn’t much, but it was positive. We shut down the generator and started off to explore the Cape Disappointment and Long Beach areas.

We drove across the park and saw the boat launch facility, which was quite nice.

There was parking for 10 trucks with trailers plus 2 designated handicap spaces. There was a gravel overflow area a few hundred feet away. There are two nice floats and launching lanes on either side of each float. There is also a fish cleaning table and a nice bathroom serving the parking area.

At one corner of the overflow gravel parking area is the trailhead for a 1.5 mile forest loop trail. This highlighted some huge sitka spruce trees over 12’ in diameter. These trees were present when Lewis and Clark explored the area originally. There was a bit of elevation (~100ft) in the loop trail, so we got a decent work out.

From there, we drove to the Cape Disappointment light house trail, where we hiked up a pretty steep pathway to the coast guard light house (194’ elevation). Ben took a side spur to check out Dead Man’s Cove, which was a very scenic little beach area tucked between two adjacent headlands. Then we took the trail to the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center, which puzzling enough had a separate $10 admission fee, but the upstairs of the building had a free gift shop, bathrooms and Fort Canby exhibits. The weather was beautify and sunny, although it was only in the 30’s temperature wise.

We drove into Long Beach to have lunch at a place called the Corral Drive In. It was well past the main tourist center of Long Beach, so we got to see all that. The Corral did not have any inside dining, and although the sun was shining, it was too cold outside to eat, so we got our food (two orders of “Hot Mess”- pulled pork sandwiches on brioche buns with jalapeños and BBQ sauce, fries and a drink), and drove back into Central Long Beach.

We found the main beach access and the “World’s Longest Beach” arch, where Ben’s family had taken a photo back in 1970.

We drove onto the sand and ate our lunches. Ben took a quick stroll down to check for clam shows, but saw none. The tide was heading out, so we made a beeline back our campsite so we could do reconnaissance of the beach for clams.

The RV was back in the shade and the solar panels weren’t charging any more than 0.2A, and the batteries were still just about 50%, so we started up the generator again and hoped to get them up to at least 75% before shutting the generator down for the night so we can count on the furnace all night and not have to jump start things again in the morning.

We changed our shoes and headed onto the beach. We did find some clam shows and were surprised they were about 150’ up the beach from where the surf was wetting the sand. We walked toward the North Lighthouse, and found a patch of beach with quite a few nice clam shows, so we know were to head for tomorrow with our clam guns.

Classic clam show

We made dinner (Mac and Cheese with meatballs, toasted artisan bread) while the generator was running, using the induction cooktop, microwave and toaster, in sequence. This would preserve propane for the generator and furnace.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we make it through to the morning without the batteries cutting out and have heat all night. Tomorrow we plan on checking out trails at the North Head Lighthouse in the morning, and clamming in the late afternoon.

Friday, January 24, 2025 Portland Costco and Apple Store

Even though we were camped out in the southwestern corner of Washington State, we were still about 2-1/2hrs to the nearest Oregonian Apple Store. It was a scenic drive through Ilwaco, Astoria and Seaside before we headed in towards Portland. We made a Costco stop to top off the Bronco and pick up a Pizza for dinner and a few other items. We had asked Siri to give us directions to the nearest Apple Store, but much to our chagrin, she lead us into downtown to a store with no parking, which was a bit of a wild goose chase. Fortunately, there was another more suburban Mall location only about 15 minutes drive away. We had previously bought Apple gear there, so we probably should have asked Siri for directions to that specific store.
Ben wanted to have good backups of all of the devices on his laptop before we traded all our old gear in. This took quite a bit longer than anticipated, so Ben sat in the passenger seat doing this while Janet drove the Bronco into Portland. We did manage to get everything backed up just as we were arriving in the parking lot at the Washington Square shopping mall in suburban Portland, Oregon.

We traded in both of iPhone 13Pro models in exchange for the newer iPhone 16Pro models which now feature Apple Intelligence (whatever that is) and more importantly, a new 5x zoom lens on the camera and better batteries. Janet’s phone was on Mint Mobile, and transferring her number from the old phone to the new was a snap.

Ben’s phone was on Xfinity Mobile, and transferring his number proved to be a long drawn out and frustrating process that took several hours because he couldn’t activate it until the Xfinity ap was fully restored from the iCloud backup, and even then, there was a glitch on Xfinity’s end requiring a phone call to finally sort out. Janet got her old iPad upgraded to a new iPad Air which has an Apple silicon M2 processor, which is 4 times faster, and Ben got his old iPad Pro upgraded to a new M4 iPad Pro, which is about 6 times faster. He may be able to leave the MacBook Pro at home for most trips with the new iPad Pro’s capabilities.

Washington Square Mall also has all the major department stores so we stopped in at Macy’s and Nordstroms to shop for clothes and shoes that might be suitable for Ciara’s wedding. We’ll most likely have to order specific items online for sizing, but it was good to actually have some shoe people measure foot sizes and have some shoes to try on in person.

That made for a long day. We drove back to Cape Disappointment in the dark, but there was very little traffic and the roads were bare and dry. When we got back to our campsite, we were surprised to find we had a whole lot of new neighbors. We had the entire loop to ourselves last night, but now we have someone in the Yurt and 5 other campers in the sites all on the beach side. It’s a safe bet they will be digging for razor clams on Sunday.

Thursday, January 23, 2025 Exploring Cape Disappointment with the RV and Bronco

Thursday, January 23, 2025 RV Trip to Cape Disappointment and Portland Shopping

There is a daylight razor clam opening starting Sunday, January 26th on the Pacific Coast. We have trips to Egypt and China coming up this year. Ben’s iPhone is in need of upgrade due to a failing battery and Janet’s iPad is running intolerably slow. Ben’s iPad is also too old to receive the latest security updates. So we have plenty of excuses to head down to Portland to do some sales tax free shopping and do some razor clam digging in Long Beach while we’re at it.

During a prior RV trip down the coast, we failed to find the Cape Disappointment State Park Campground because we weren’t familiar with the roads and didn’t want to get trapped somewhere we couldn’t turn around. Now that we have the Washington State Parks Senior Off Season pass, we can camp for free during the winter months, so we want to get our money’s worth out of the pass.

We were out late last night playing trivia at the Bastion Brewery in Anacortes. We managed a clean win this time- no sharing the first place prize. We won a nice boxed Scattergories game, along with some Play Doh, busy slippery toy and candies. The Play Doh and busy slippery toy will go towards entertaining children at Ciara’s August wedding. Normally, Ben would have gotten the RV all set up the day before leaving on a trip, but Janet had a medical appointment yesterday afternoon, which is how we ended up playing trivia.

So Ben headed over to the barn to pull out the RV, hitch up the Bronco to it, and load up the razor clamming gear. It took an hour to end up back in front of the house where we then spent a half hour loading clothes and provisions for the trip to the coast and Portland. We have dental appointments on Tuesday, so we’ll have to head back on Monday.

Our first stop was to refuel both the RV and Bronco at the Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington. Since we ended up arriving in the U District at noon, we stopped at Chiang’s Gourmet for lunch. It was fortunate that their parking lot was pretty empty, so we could park along the back wall of the dry cleaners. In addition to lunch specials, we ordered extra to go for dinner, instead of our usual Costco Pizza.

The next stop was another fuel stop at the Lacey Costco for diesel. From there we made a bee line for Cape Disappointment State Park, arriving at 4:30pm. This gave us just enough time to be able to set up camp in daylight.

This state park requires reservations year round but a list on the ranger’s booth at the unmanned entry showed only 6 sites with reservations who had not yet checked in.

Any others should be available for drop ins. Instead of the usual paper envelopes, this particular park has a yellow telephone mounted on the unmanned ranger registration booth with an express line to the park’s reservations.

We were able to find a nice basic site very near the beach trail, site B100, which was also very close to the bathroom. We were able to stay in the site for the full 4 nights, and the Senior Off Season pass made it free. Without the pass, it would have been $30 per night.

We were just able to check out the bathroom and beach access before night began to fall. There were several boats visible on the water fishing for squid. You can tell this because they were lit up with huge floodlights.

We ran the generator for 10 minutes to exercise it and used the microwave to reheat our take out Chinese food dinner.

Tomorrow, we’ll head to Portland in the Bronco to hit the Apple Store and Costco.