Top 15: Recent travel posts from the past year

Gearing up for tomorrow's double-header climbs of Mount St Helens and Mount Hood have prevented me from finishing the travel blog I was intending to post today.  So... I've quickly thrown together a list of my most popular travel posts from the past 12 months.   Links to these previous posts look like this.  I didn't even summarize them like I did for my much more eventful Top 10: Most popular travel posts of the year compilation that I posted last month during one of the Asia trips.  Just a link and a photo from each post-- nothing fancy.


Since I barely covered any 2014-2015 trips on Garth's Blog, some of these are merely brief intros to stories that I hope to finish later.  Many of them were just quick day-visits to our overseas friends anyway.


And some previously unshared travel stories are yet to come!

Honorable mention (because this year I've been selected to run in the upcoming 2015 Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon, and this time we'll be representing the entire Delta west coast!):

Is the Flying Pig Marathon ready for us?

The top 15:

15.

Touching Down in Amsterdam

14.

Update from Ireland

13.

South Korea:  The bumpy road to Seoul

12.

Hong Kong hiking awaits

11.

More Eason time in Bend (Feat. Kathy)

10.

Southern Oregon road trip, Pt. 2:  Wildlife Safari

9.

A quick trip to the Hong Kong protests

8.

Seaside Surfing: Baby Levi, meet the Pacific Ocean

7.

Southern Oregon road trip, Pt. 1:  Visits and hikes

6.

Top 10:  Most popular travel posts of the year (Unpublished #3 from Hong Kong)

5.

Lima, Peru:  The buddy pass has landed

4.

Butchering the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon

3.

From Rome:  Traveling to Africa, Nicaragua, South Korea, or ANYWHERE?

2.

From Mexico this week:  A look back at our 2103 missions trip

1.

Seattle:  A warm-up for Daddy-daughter travel season

I'll start posting new family, travel, and outdoor adventure blogs here again next week.  Cross my heart!

Mama's got a brand new blog

En route to Ireland last weekend:  My beautiful wife Kathy is a good sport.  She lets me drag her anywhere!  Wanna hear her point of view?

Pardon the funky James Brown sacrilege of my title. This is an oh, so important announcement about something that broke loose during last week's trip to Ireland (link):

Kathy started her own blog! 

She's calling it The Hamilton 4.


Click on the link directly above, or type in this URL: www.thehamilton4.blogspot.com.

Here are the Top 5 reasons to keep up with Kathy's new blog:

5. Quality-  This one's obviously not a concern for this main site, Garth's Blog. Anyone could maintain a better blog than this one, right? Seriously, though, Kathy's got what it takes to be an excellent writer.

4. Family emphasis-  There's a reason why I only sparingly upload photos of our beloved Lena and Levi to Facebook that lack any adult context:  Kathy does such a thorough job of posting those photos herself! I highlight the milestones here on "Garth's Blog" (and feature pics of Lena and Levi in almost every post) but my focus is often more on the adventure-type stories that I would personally want to read. For almost everyone else we know, Kathy is the one who is more likely to let readers in on our everyday family life.

3. Spirituality-  The mainstream channel of "Garth's Blog" shoots mainly for lighthearted adventure and entertainment value, though I contribute more spiritually oriented (and sometimes controversial) content to my other blogs and around the web. In contrast, Kathy's inspiring faith in Christ is front and center in all of her writings.

2. The personal touch-  Kathy doesn't censor or tone down her emotions and convictions like I typically do on my main site. She tells it just like it is, with her heart on her sleeve.


And the #1 reason to follow Kathy at www.thehamilton4.blogspot.com is...

1. The amazing author-  Two words: Kathy Hamilton. Need I say more?


My Ireland travelogue from last week will be coming soon to Garth's Blog.  But today is St. Patrick's Day, and live Irish music is calling our names tonight.

No matter how many Irish bands we barge in on around town tonight, we'll try our best to not let THIS happen:

The Onion: Irish-Americans Gear Up For 'The Reinforcin' O' The Stereotypes'

From The Onion

Happy Saint Paddy's Day!!

Update from Ireland

Dublin, Ireland:  St. Patrick's Day celebrations spill out into the streets every night, even the week before.  Watch your step!

The past few days here in Dublin have been refreshing and festive for Kathy and I, but it's time for us to move on.  Kathy just boarded her flight back to New York an hour or so ago.  As a reward for her braveness to fly standby, Kathy will be flying home to the U.S. with a very cushy seat in the front of the plane!


As for myself, I'll soon be right behind her.  Lena and Levi are tugging at my heart!  But I have a quick stop or two to make on this side of the pond before I head home.  I'm over here anyway, right?  Nobody get your hopes up-- those of you in Europe whom I've cancelled visits with this week (circumstances were completely out of our control) will have to hold out a while longer.  As always, it will be worth the wait to see each of you again in your home countries!

Visits were planned for Belgium, Germany, Croatia, Italy, and Switzerland.  We even had some non-refundable bookings.  Being forced to change plans mid-journey isn't always cheap, and we owe some of our overseas friends BIG TIME for their understanding.


So how did we end up here in the U.K. instead?  Not to worry, I've been blogging via my phone about this current trip as we move through it.  I hope to start uploading those Ireland travelogues here as soon as I sort out the pics.

Stay tuned... this adventure ain't over yet!