Sacramento Travel Meeting - Saturday February 21 @ 10:00 a.m.

Save chairs for both of us! (Bringing an out-of-state friend in March, though. ) See you "tennish".
Lauri and Ed

See y'all 'tennish', too ;-)

Maybe even ten... 8^O

I understand what you mean David. Some of our regular members are rarely on the forum. Like you they stumbled across a meeting announcement under General Europe. Now they show up because they know we will be there. I will PM people if I see they are in our area. Unfortunately most new people don't have a location on their profile.

Absolutely agree with you David. And I second your motion to drop RS from the group name. For our Bay Area Group, which is tiny, it is a disaster I fear.

Anyway, I plan to come up for the meeting!... ihopeihopeihope.

Susan, you know that if your Bay Area group fizzles out you always have us. I hope we see you this month. I'm going to try to make it down there next month.

My family will be traveling on our first RS Tour (14d 'Best of Europe' itinerary) this summer, and it'd be great to listen and learn from local community's travel experience factors. Thanks for putting venue together, look forward to meeting everyone!

Welcome Matt. We have a group of very experienced travelers, include some who have taken Rick Steves tours. We will be at the large table in the middle. Look for the blue book!

Thanks Andrea. It's always good to see you, here or there!

Susan, I hope we can see you this month! Oh, that subject we were talking about...we did it. Yikes!

Thought I would reply that we are not letting Darcy travel to Sacramento this month we are keeping her in Idaho. No visa needed.

David, I will find you ......and don't get me started on the (at last count) 67 freakin' topic headings. Makes my head hurt and my blood pressure do bad things.

Susan, it looks like you'll have a good turnout today (fingers crossed)! Don't you love this weather?!?

Matt, I hope you can make it! How exciting for you to be on that tour. Even though I've 'been there, done that' as far as your itinerary, I'd take that tour in a heartbeat. They sound like so much fun!

Pam, we're gonna need to see proof that Darcy is OK - maybe a photo of her holding today's newspaper ;-)

Have you noticed how many Travel Groups are listed? All of those baby chicks, incubating! You Go, Travel Groups! 8^D

I thought the travel group had disbanded......took me 3 days to find the new thread. So now we check in with the Webmaster to locate our meetings? Huh?
I agree with David. Bad idea to separate the travel groups from General Europe. The webmaster needs to lay down her hammer and quit tinkering.
Still grumbling that the perfectly descriptive "Helpline" is now called the obtuse "forum".
Clearly, I need yet more instruction from Eileen, who has a penchant for deciphering circuitous 'logic'.
If it ain't broke.......

Andrea, that's great!!

Eileen, you're right, we did have a good turn out... maybe there's hope yet. Weather was amazing. Warm, sunny, blue skies. Is it really February? I wonder.

kat, You won't need to check in with the WebMaster, just go to Tips & Trips, and then at the very bottom, "Travel Group Meetings".
Andrea, if you like I'll send Doug down to dance on the tables.....with his Romanian dance boots, of course.

Don't toy with me Darcy. You're on. We will be expecting Doug. If he entertains us, his lunch is on me.

My husband Mark and I hoping to make this meeting to get some travel suggestions. We have 7 weeks to travel starting mid-May and have the first 3-4 weeks or so planned, but are still unsure about the end of the trip. We are making our first visit to Paris, traveling on to Amsterdam for a river cruise, then spending time in Switzerland. We had an early interest in Croatia but would like to talk to people that have traveled there already. At this point we might put off Eastern Europe for a different trip. We're considering Portugal and Spain, maybe Sardinia. We were lucky enough to have an extended trip in '09 and saw a lot of Italy, Greece, Slovenia, and Austria.
Alice

Alice, I hope to see you and Mark tomorrow! If you arrive a little later than 10:00 that's fine; we're usually there for several hours ;-) Some of us 'regulars' have been to the places you're asking about, so hopefully we can be of assistance.

I am planning to come up from Berkeley for the meeting this week. My favorite cousins are planning a trip to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and maybe Czechoslovakia soon and I am trying to help them a bit. So I'll be trolling for suggestions ... Looking forward to seeing you all.

As is my habit, I went on to the HELPLINE, nee "Forum" to double check that all was well with February for meeting at Panera as usual, only there was no sign of Sacramento. I was beginning to think that perhaps when I was in Paris back in November I had actually been hauled off in a yellow taxi at midnight and that Gertrude Stein was showing me that there is no Sacramento there. Alas, a little surfing through the various portals, or pigeon holes, of the new punch card form, I mean Forum, and I found Travel Group meetings. Here I thought this was a sight for people interested in European travel and it turns out to be for beach bums keeping the surfing going. C'est la vie, the new heading for meetings is a good idea, but burying it in "Tip and Trips" is not a natural place to look. Destinations Q & A makes sense, Tips and Trips makes sense if that is what is there (Gertrude again?), and Hotel and Restaurant reviews, yea duh, I wonder what you would find in that section. The solution is to have a section for Discussions and Opinions, or Gabbing and Gathering, or something else to indicate it is where travel junkies can go for discourse and debate.

I will see all of you in the morning, bring your opinions for my trip this summer.

Kevin

Whatever. Baked brownies (NO controlled substances, sorry ;-) Hope we can eat them discreetly at Panera) so first arrivers get first dibs.

It looks like a big group tomorrow. Jim's finally going to make it to a meeting, but we can only stay until noon. It's good to know that we will be conforming to the new time limits.

Waving hello to Jim! He should come to the N Idaho meetup but he might find it boring. No purse snatchers running from the cops while he eats his lunch!!

Will be with you all in spirit. Just channel me if you need information about Germany.

Andrea, aren't you worried that the group will stay and talk about you before you even get out the door?
Hi to Jim from me too!

Darcy & Pam, Jim says hello to both of you. Let's pretend that we are in Paris today having lunch. Reliving the exciting lunch we had in Paris last September. You never know what you'll see!

Maybe we could try different subject matter for our thread to fool the Webmaster like : How to catch the Panera Express
Then we could stay in General Europe and not be relegated to the catacombs of the website.

Hi guys

hope today is spendoriferous for you all.

i just thought.... they want all the announcements, and all the discussions after the initial post here in the abyss of Travel Group Meetings, right? Is there anything saying that there can't be a pointer message, maybe with an occasional refresher, on the main General board?

After all, my question about where people meet to discuss was never taken down. I haven't woken it this week but it is still there....

Enjoy the sunshine.

We are in darkness, frost and either sleet or snow, so my spies tell me...

Nigel, sorry to hear your weather is unpleasant. You should come here to bask in our above average temperature weather. Of course we are in desperate need of rain and would love to get some.

Jim and I had to leave early (for us) today to take care of some business. We came back 3 hours later so our daughter could pick up her car. I went into Panera to see if anyone was still there, and sure enough the meeting was still going strong.

There was confusion about whether there would be a meeting since the announcement wasn't posted under General Europe. There was a good turnout with some new folks, so we will see how this goes.

Kevin: Gertrude Stein did make it to our meeting today. She hitched a ride from Oakland w/ the Bay Area group. There, there. She found the meeting under the heading Fanny Packs Are In Again.

Yes, Gertrude knows that the "theres" are in Sacramento and Larkspur Landing ...

Just a quick note of appreciation for everyone's hospitality on Saturday. This newbie certainly felt welcome. Enjoyed getting to know the group and hearing the insights 'round the table. Looking forward to future gatherings.

Matt, thank you! And thanks to Alice and Mark! I didn't get to talk to either of you for as long as I would have liked, so I hope to see all of you before your European trips...

Fabulous brownies, Laurie 8^D