All vacations must come to an end, time for this one. The trip home was the smoothest one yet, moved thru all airports quickly, took off from BCN and before I knew it we were doing the port turn over Stanford beginning the approach to SFO. Some return trip pictures then some other information you may find interesting.
An unusual cloud formation in the Mediterranean Sea. The land barely visible in the upper right is Corsica.
Northern Italy approaching the Alps.
Crossing the Alps.
Alas this was our only view of Iceland due to clouds.
Eastern Greenland.
A welcome addition to this trips blog was the addition of 360 degree pictures that provide a richer view of places we visited. These images were captured with a Ricoh Theta S that has two lenses facing in opposite directions. The camera has a wifi connection and your smart phone (iPhone and Android) can contol the camera and captured images are easily accessed. The Ricoh can also take movies in 360, I tried one and it is rather interesting to manipulate a 360 degree moving picture but I tended to avoid the movie function due the movies being memory hogs and harder to share (only on Facebook). Overall a great product for those who travel, small and easy to use. Recommended.
Ricoh Theta S
The Theta has two lenses facing in opposite directions.
We have one more piece of technology to use, the Mobile Passport App. I noticed signs for this when we were outbound at SFO. After downloading the app you enter your passport information (more than one can be entered) and within 24 hours of your return to the U.S. you can fill out the forms in the app. Upon landing in the U.S. you can transmit the form and you will receive a receipt for each of the passports covered by your declaration. By doing this you can skip the passport kiosks in US Immigration plus there is a special queue for app users. When we got to US Immigration control in SFO we walked to the front of the line and the overall return process took 20-25 minutes, mostly waiting for our luggage. The app has a few minor flaws, it claims you can scan your passport to enter the information but I could not get it to work so I entered it manually. Also you can set a reminder for you to send in the declaration but in order to get the timing correct you have to change your smart device to think it is in your destination time zone first in order to get the timing right. That is not easy for the more inexperienced user so I skipped it. However overall having your own mobile Passport kiosk is nice so you can zip thru immigration. Its not available at all US airports so I would check their web site to see if it is available at yours and if it is I recommend it. FYI you will still have to fill out the U.S. Customs Declarations Form and I cannot wait for them to link these two operations to make the return process even easier.
OK that is it for this trip! I want to thank Nancy, Maggie and Les at Ladera Travel in Menlo Park for their patience, knowledge and support. If you are planning a trip give them a call. They have been taking care of us since 2008 and their help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Ok, lets wrap this blog. Until next time.