I guess I need to follow up on the end of our Chiang Mai trip before I move on to the visit by my in laws.

You may ask yourself, how does one top running your friend's mother off the road in Thailand? The answer is "you don't." I came down with a virus that kept me tied to the grounds of the lovely Secret Garden. I slept, read, and pooped a lot.



Shannon took the opportunity to take the kids on yet another tandem vehicle to the village up the road.




The kids wandered the grounds.....


and hung out a lot at the bar....


As a lovely parting gift, the owner bought a couple dozen floating lanterns to launch for the Western new year. If you've never seen these before, many parents may recognize them from the movie Tangled, which is a great movie I have now watched at least 4, 324 times.

It was a great end to our trip.


I told Shannon I was a little disappointed in general. The food was better at our favorite place in Korea. Also, after so many years of wanting to go, maybe there was no way it could meet expectations. Maybe I've been enough places now that I'm just jaded. I don't care about seeing temples because after a while they all look the same and I don't care how big the gold Buddha is that's inside. If I lived in Europe, it would be the same. After you see St Peter's or Kolon cathedral, do you need to see every local church?

As a follow up, Mary is in physical therapy now for her leg. Next up, the Newells come to Korea and (STILL) compare everything to Okinawa 40 years ago.