Reno to San Francisco to Nadi to Korotoga, Fiji

It’s been a long 48 hours and, we have covered a lot of ground, but it is really fun to be on the road again. This post covers the really long time between when we last slept in our own bed in Reno, Tuesday night to our next bed Friday night in Korotoga, Fiji.

Wednesday we drove to Walnut Creek, left our car there, took BART to San Francisco Airport, and left for Fiji at 11:30 pm.

On our Fiji Air flight

The flight was about eleven hours. I don’t like overnight flights very much, but I slept a bit and felt ok when we landed in Fiji at 5:30 am Friday (we crossed the international date line).

Our view of the moon as we got off the plane.

We retrieved our bags, went though customs, and picked up our rental car. It was quite a challenge for Duke to fit in the car. The seat doesn’t go back nearly far enough. But eventually we were on our way.

Picking up the rental car.
The car is definitely too small for Duke!

They drive on the left in Fiji, which meant that for the first couple hours, every time Duke wanted to signal a turn, he turned on the wind shield wipers instead of a turn signal.

Once we got out of the airport, we looked for a place for breakfast. We found Bulaccino Cafe which opened soon after we got there, a bit before 7 am. We knew we couldn’t check into our hotel before noon so we took our time and enjoyed our breakfast.

I had a pain au raisin and Duke had a chicken curry pie. We both had coffee. Savory pies are definitely a thing here!

We headed south along the coast and eventually turned off the pavement to visit the Momi Battery Historical Monument. During World War II the Japanese had plans to invade Fiji. First the New Zealanders then the Americans manned a battery here. Visiting the little museum and seeing where the guns were really impressed me that this trip is to a completely different part of the world than we have ever visited. This is our first time in the Japanese theater of operations.

Momi WWII gun site
The Momi Battery

The rough dirt roads to and from the battery delayed us enough that we arrived at our resort, Kala Na Via right at noon. The villa we are staying in is right across from the ocean.

Our villa in Korotogo
The beach across from our Villa.

We walked down to the Beach Bar and Grill and had a wonderful lunch. We were both exhausted after 24 hours with not much sleep so back at our room we took fantastic naps.

My cold fish soup with coconut milk and pineapple. That’s fried casaba on the side.

For dinner we went to a resort just down the road.

The weather here is perfect. All day the temps were between 68 and 78. It reminds me a lot of the big island of Hawaii away from the resorts or maybe the north coast of Queensland many years ago.

We were evacuated because of the Hawk Fire in Reno

Many of you know that Saturday we had to evacuate our house because of the big fire in Reno that was burning close to our house. I posted a video to YouTube about our experience. If you are interested you can watch the video here

Right now Duke and I are at the airport in San Francisco waiting for our flight to Fiji. You can expect to see regular blog posts over the next two months.

Summer Road Trip -June 2026 – Reno to Grand Teton National Park and Home

On Sunday, June 14 Duke and I and my daughter and her family set off on a grand adventure to Grand Teton National Park. On Sunday, our first day, we drove on interstate 80 across Nevada to the California Trail Interpretive Center. We had a picnic lunch and explored the exhibits. It is an excellent museum.

Inside the California Trail Interpretive Center

That night we spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Tremonton, Utah. Monday morning our first stop was the nearby Golden Spike National Historic Park. It’s at the location where the last spike was driven to complete the first Transcontinental Railroad across the U.S.

At the Golden Spike National Historic Park

From there we drove into Wyoming to our campsite at Lizard Creek Campground at the north end of Grand Teton National Park. We spent five nights camping there. It is a beautiful park and we had an exceptional campsite right on Jackson Lake.

Our campsite at Lizard Creek Campground

We saw lots of wildlife; grizzly bear, bison, moose, elk, marmot, sandhill crane, pronghorn and wolf. One day we drove into Yellowstone National Park and saw Old Faithful.

Moose

One day we took the ferry across Jenny Lake and hiked back around the end of the lake.

On the ferry on Jenny Lake.

Duke and I took three days coming home the first night we stayed at the Blue Heron B&B on the Snake River near Rigby, Idaho. We had a great dinner at the SnakeBite Restaurant in Idaho Falls to celebrate our 23 wedding anniversary. The second day of driving home we drove to Boise, Along the way we stopped at EBR-1 the world’s first nuclear reactor to produce electricity. It’s a fascinating site.

In Boise we stayed at Hotel 43, which was great. We had dinner at Chandlers steakhouse next door. The restaurant was one of the best I have ever eaten at. Boise is a beautiful city!

Monday we drove the rest of the way home. It was a fantastic family adventure.

The camping crew!

Copenhagen to Home

On Monday we walked across the street from our Copenhagen hotel and took an SAS flight to San Francisco. The flight was almost eleven hours long. It was a good flight. I much prefer day time flights to overnight flights. In San Francisco we took BART to my daughter’s house where we spent the night.

On Tuesday morning we drove over the Sierras to Reno and home. It was a great and memorable trip. I’ll be posting some more YouTube videos from the trip soon.

We have had a couple warm and sunny days since we got home but today is cold and windy.

Thanks for following along.

Copenhagen Day 2

This morning we took the metro into central Copenhagen. Coincidentally the Copenhagen marathon was going on. We’ve been here before for the marathon and we always have fun people watching.

Getting breakfast across from the metro station.
The marathon
In the Royal Gardend
Rosenborg Castle
The tongue in this lion’s mouth moves!

Then we went on a scavenger hunt to find some specific food and books we had requests for.

The lady on the left helped us find the books we wanted. Duke is paying.
We were quite successful at three different grocery stores for the food we were looking for.
On the metro back to the airport and our hotel.
Picnic dinner in our room.