Tallinn to begin Year 2

We have just entered Year 2 of our adventure and we did so in Tallinn, Estonia. It's so close, just 1.5 hours by fast ferry across the Gulf of Finland. We stayed one night so we saw a good amount but are looking forward to returning since it's such an awe-inspiring town. It has been very well preserved for centuries, and just out of Russian rule since 1991, under which it was somewhat ignored for years, hence not modernized nor bombed as other European cities have been. Here are a few pictures of the city walls and towers which you can climb into, for a real taste of the past. We highly recommend a trip to Tallinn.


This trip brings our mileage to the following totals for this past year:
Laurie - 41,620 miles (66,966 kilometers) and Gerald 59,864 miles (96,330 kilometers).
Whew!

Sights of Tallinn

Here are the newer orthodox church, buildings in the main square, and a xylophone concert we happened upon - they played the Flintstones theme song, and Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys - you just never know what you'll hear!

My roots are showing!

Gerald's coworker, Mikko, kindly invited us down to the Central Market Friday evening for a once-a-month (in summer) car show. He's full of details about any vintage vehicle and was the perfect guide. People cruise around the market area and park where the market vendors are usually found, and it was packed. Being from Detroit, I felt it my duty to share with you the coolest rides, and that turned out to be several pages (small picture format, so click on them for better detail). There were odd Russian cars, the 3-wheeled Messerschmitts, a rare Opal, so many cool vintage American cars, including one with the air-conditioner still entact, a Buick like Chris K. and I used to cruise around in, and a Challenger just like the one in which I learned to drive, and a truck BBQ for the requisite Finnish sausages. We couldn't believe we were all the way over here in Finland. Enjoy the show...

A Helsinki Car Show

Pihlajasaari Island

We noticed a nice old wooden ferry boat traveling up and down our canal the last few months and we discovered it went to an island nearby with beaches and a restaurant.

We hopped on the ferry for a ride last Sunday and had lunch on a shady terrace among the trees, and then walked along the paths and rocks. The ferries to Tallin pass so close you can feel the engines humming before you see them pass above the treetops. The Finns appear to love stretching out on the rocks as much as the sand, and so we did the same, though without any padding not for too long. Just fifteen minutes from home and such a different world - you can see Helsinki in the bottom picture and our neighborhood is just beyond that port. A perfect summer outing.

Midnight sun eclipse

We were in the path of today's total solar eclipse but only partially. This is a picture I got with my camera of the reflection in water in my frying pan in our yard, and the cloud cover provided just enough filtering. You can see the small moon bite out of the left side of the sun. The full eclipse is available from NASA at their Exploratorium site and I just watched it live - they also had cloud cover that cleared just in time there in Mongolia. It was wonderful.

I'll catch up on postings now, with a few more to follow shortly. Sorry for the delay - more travel to blame, happily!