May 15 - After a 10-hour flight from LAX and a couple hour layover in Heathrow, we finally stepped "into Finn Air" and boarded our flight to Helsinki – apparently without our luggage. Around midnight we staggered off our plane, discovered our missing luggage, filled out the proper forms and got our 'survival kit' containing some basic toiletries, a tee-shirt and part of socks – what no pants? We then cabbed it to our hotel. Arriving, we found a proble...

Moving on from Utah, we rewarded ourselves with a one-night stopover at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas before heading through the Mojave Desert back to California.  It was 105 degrees when we passed the world's largest thermometer in Baker... and it was still getting hotter.  When we hit Santa Monica, we unpacked the car and immediately walked down to the beach to stick our toes in the Pacific Ocean, take a deep breath, and let it sink in ...

Pin entry... See next post.

Pin entry... see next post.

If you took a giant volcano and deflated it like a fallen soufflé, you would have Yellowstone National Park. The site of an ancient volcano, it is now an enormous valley where the Earth's insides literally ooze, sputter, and explode to the surface. We toured the mud pots, sulfurous steam vents and geysers of the park. Most of the pools have an unbelievably clear blue center as the water is too hot for any organisms to grow and taint the aqua hue. We then en...