"Live Life Like it's a Vacation"

2012 Kauai---Feb. 16-March 21 (Schneide trip)

2012-02-18T02:05:00.000-06:00

Finally, another year has flown by and we are in Kauai again! This makes Kauai trip # 11 for us.   For 1 of our 2+ weeks we are excited to have good friends Coni and John Schneiderjans join us. But for now, it's just Ken and me.

Yesterday was a long travel day. 16 hours of airports and planes. Finally got on Kauai about 10:15pm Kauai time.   With my Fastbreak reservations in hand, I was off to get our rental car. About 30 minutes later, I finally had my car! Fastbreak wasn't fast this time! But everyone without Fastbreak was flying out the door with their cars. Oh well, soon I had our Ultima and was trying to figure out all the controls. 10 minutes later we were at our Kauai home---Kauai Beach Villas. Of course the Wyndham office was closed already, so we were off to the Aqua resort who was suppose to have Wyndham late arrivals' keys. Now we had to wait for the locked box with our key to show up. Another half hour later, we were finally in our room for the 1st 2 nights of our stay---then our 2 timeshare weeks will start. All hyped up now, we headed off to Safeway. Surprising how many people are there at midnight! About 1:30am Kauai time (or 5:30 am STL time), we finally hit the sack.

Friday, Feb. 17:
You would think we stayed up late enough last night to sleep in----wrong! By 7 we were up again. After officially checking in with Wyndham, we headed off to breakfast at Olympic Cafe. Not only do we enjoy the food there, but we also enjoy the entertainment while we wait. We always sit by the open windows and look down from the 2nd story restaurant and watch life go by.
Clever surf board carrier!

We also marvel that there are semis on this little island!

Or how about this guy and his co-pilot:

Finally Ken's meal came----but not mine! I got to sit there and watch him eat. Finally my breakfast came. I guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought because I could only eat half of my banana mac nut pancakes.

Finally full, we took a ride up the coast and wandered around a bit. It was a beautiful day! High surf warnings, but in the upper 70's and sunny. Hope it stays like this!

Even rode up into some residencial streets. Loved the spiral stairs to the roof of this house!

On our way back to the condo, we checked out the area by Lydgate,

The pools actually looked pretty inviting, so we decided to head back to the condo and get our swimsuits on and go back to see if the snorkeling cleared up since they rebuilt the walls.

Unfortunately, the water was still quite murky, but there were lots of fish in there. And with alittle help from photoshop, they don't look too bad!

Even saw a lot of the same fish that have been there for years---like the stripey above and the big blue fish below.

Even saw a couple flounders.

Then it was time to head back to the condo, clean up, and head off to find a sunset. Looked like conditions would be great, but the lack of clouds at the horizon caused the sunset to fizzle out. Conditions looked perfect for the green flash, but that didn't even happen. At least not from our viewpoint at the Spouting Horn.

While we were waiting for sunset, we even saw that the wild chickens here do indeed have at least one enemy.

With the sun down, it was time to think of food again. Fish sounded good. We tried going to Keoki's Paradise but it was too crowded. So we had Poipu Tropical Burger instead. My mahi mahi was very good. So was Ken's tropical burger.
So ends our 1st real day on Kauai.

Sat. Feb. 18:
Today was the 1st of our "move" days. But since we spent the first 2 nights also here at Kauai Beach Villas, we were able to pack our stuff up, leave, and they moved everything for us when our new room was ready. So after packing everything back up (not that we have that much since we've learned to travel here with carry on only), but it always seems to expand when we "move" in.

First stop was to the farmers' market at the Community College.

Seems to me this market prices their goods higher then many of the other's we've been to. But we did get a few things---like apple bananas and some weird little round fruit that reminded me of rambutons in flavor.

And, of course, we had to get a piece of Right Slice pie! Usually I get the mango lilikoi one, but this time we shared a macadamia nut piece. It was very good, too.

A sign here really caught my attention---What the heck is tard hummus!?

When we left there, we headed to Kalapaki Bay to check out the waves and surfers. It was another beautiful day, but very windy. The wind howled so loud last night it sounded like our condo was being blown away. Between the wind and the rain, it was loud!

Another view of Kalapaki looking back at the Marriott.

Since we were in the area, we decided to stop at Kalapaki Joe's and get a late lunch---grilled fish salad for me and chicken caesar for Ken. Too bad it wasn't about an hour later, they have a pretty impressive looking happy hour menu. But the salads were good. Another 2nd floor restaurant, but not nearly as entertaining as Olympic Cafe.

Shortly after lunch, the condo people called us to tell us our condo was ready so we headed back and picked up our keys and anxiously headed to check out our ocean view 2 bedroom unit. It is on the ground level, but still has a pretty impressive view of the ocean and it's close to the pools at the hotel next door. It's nice that they let us use their pools again. Here's the view from our patio.

After settling in a bit, we decided snorkeling was in order again so headed south. Ended up at Lawai. There was a pretty good current running there this evening, but we still enjoyed a couple hours there. Saw lots of fish, especially at these many cleaning stations.

Shortly before sunset, we got out and were gazing at the water when this playful pup came over. He had a ball and went up and down the beach getting people to throw it for him. If noone would through it, he'd dig at it in the sand until it went flying behind him then he'd chase it. We spent at least a half hour playing with and watching him.

As the sun was setting, I wandered around the Beach House lawn taking pictures. It was a bit of a dud sunset, again. Here's as creative as I could get tonight.

On the way back to the east side, we stopped at Walmart for a few more supplies. Including our gourmet dinner---hotdogs (not Puka Dogs or Costco, plain 'ol package dogs from Walmart.) The dogs actually tasted pretty good for a change. Can't say when the last time was I made hotdogs for dinner!
And that ends full day 2 in Kauai!

2011 Nov. Eurodam cruise do-over Eastern Caribbean

2011-12-19T18:12:00.000-06:00

The "suite life"! Originally I booked the same category room that we had last year (a VD veranda), but when the lowest suite came available for about $60/person more, I jumped on it and booked a SZ guarantee. We had never had a suite before, so I was really looking forward to that.

Angie and Josh were going to Puerto Rico on vacation with some friends and were scheduled to fly home the day we ported there. After joking around with her about joining us when we got there instead of flying home, I managed to get approval for her to board in San Juan for the last 4 nights of our cruise for a special 3rd person add on fare of $49 + about $90 in taxes and fees. It took some doing, but persistence paid off. I had to call 5 or 6 times and work out everything from: does the Jone's Act apply here; to writing a letter to get approval for "late embarkation"; to getting a room assigned (went from the SZ guarantee to a complimentary upgrade to an SS cabin) before she was approved. So instead of flying home, Angie was able to join us for the remainder of the cruise.
Then about 2 weeks before our cruise, I got an email from HAL offering us an upsell to an SA suite (next down from the penthouse ) for another $398. I immediately called them and jumped on the offer. Not only did we have a suite, but the SA, SB, and SC suites had a lot of added benefits over the SS, SY, and SZ suites, like breakfast in the Pinnacle restaurant, a private lounge and concierge, larger pull out bed for Angie; much larger room and balcony, flowers for formal night, free laundry service, and a few other things. We very much enjoyed the SA cabin. It may be hard to go back to any other cabin now!

Our suite had a king-size bed, bathroom with dual sink vanity, full-size whirlpool bath, shower and additional shower stall, large sitting area, dressing/vanity room, large private verandah, sofa bed for 2, floor-to-ceiling windows. Approximately 506-590 sq. ft. including the verandah.

The private Neptune Lounge was for Penthouse - SC suite guests only. I was surprised how much we used it---from a quick drink or snack, to booking dinner reservations through the concierge stationed there, and even for checking Angie in when we arrived in San Juan.

Even though we had been on the Eurodam before, we spent the first day familiarizing ourselves with the ship again. Here's the main stage.

The culinary arts room

the main pool area

the adult pool (aft pool) area

the casino

They even have a screening room. Although we thought the daily movies all looked good, we only made it to "Source Code" and "Limitless". We even got free popcorn there.

Sunday night was the first formal night. We dressed up and had a great meal in the Rembrandt Restaurant.

The Canaletto was another of the free restaurants that we really enjoyed. It is in the corner of the Lido Restaurant, but still has a private feel to it. The waiters even took on Italian names. We tried to eat there again after Angie joined the cruise, but couldn't get reservations for the night we wanted to go.

In all my cruises, this was the first time I made it to the galley tour. It was an interesting, but fast moving, tour.

HAL is known for it's Culinary Arts Kitchen where they put on many different cooking demonstrations and even cooking classes. We managed to make it to a couple of the demos and weren't disappointed. They even served tasty samples.

Here one of the Canaletto Restaurant chefs is making Penne Alla Vodka.

Here is a Tamarind Restaurant chef making Penang Red Curry Coconut Chicken.

We also attended a champagne art auction for a little while

And the travel presentation on the ports we were going to. I was impressed with the travel guide. I asked a question she didn't know the answer to, so she researched it and sent the answer to our room.

Most afternoons they also had a special tea. This one was their Dutch Tea which was held in the Rembrandt Restaurant.

We did go to a couple of the nightly performances in the main theatre, but Ken didn't care for the HAL singers. He did really enjoy the illusionist, though. There were no other special performances, not even a comedien, so we only went to 2 main stage performances.

On the 3rd day of our cruise we were in Grand Turk. It is known for the "wall", a 7,000' drop off of the ocean floor, as close as 1/2 mile from the beach. The diving and snorkeling here is suppose to be first class. I've been wanting to snorkel here for years! We weren't able to port here last year due to Hurricane Tomas. That was one of the reasons why we took the same cruise this year. Unfortunately, our plans were foiled again due to an ocean storm surge from the north. We took a taxi to Pillory beach where the snorkeling was suppose to be the best, but the waves were too rough. We ended up back at the port and hung out at the beach there.

Surprisingly enough, the snorkeling by the ship wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. There was even a mini drop off at the edge of the roped off swimming area.

At least the weather was beautiful so we thoroughly enjoyed our time near the port---snorkeling, sunbathing, walking the beach,

And hanging out at the Margaritaville pool right by the Grand Turk port.

On the 4th morning, we took in a floral arranging demonstration. HAL is also known for all it's live floral arrangements. Turns out it's all done by these 2 young men.

I even participated in the "classic volleyball match". It wasn't the best volleyball by any means, but the team I was on won the match.

The sports director took the room numbers of everyone on our team and when I got back to the room I was pleasantly surprised to find a this as my winnings.

We sailed into San Juan on Tues., Nov. 8th at about 1pm. As we were coming into the bay, Ken and I went to the observation deck and listened to a commentary by the travel guide. She gave a 20 minute or so history of the city. Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico ("port of the riches" because of the abundant gold ore in the riverbed) in 1493. One of his lieutenants (Ponce de Leon) returned in 1508 and claimed the island---declared himself governor and established the city. Reminders of him are prominent throughout old town. It wasn't until the 19th century that the island was granted independence from Spain, at which time American troops landed on the island. Residents of the island were granted US citizenship in 1917 and in 1993 they voted to remain a US territory.

Here is El Morro Fort, 1 of 2 forts in Old Town. Construction on it started in 1539 and continued for 200 years. The City WAll dates from the 1630s and follows the shore. The old city is a masterpiece of antique architecture.

We were anxiously waiting for Angie to join us here. We weren't sure how her embarkation was going to go. Our first priority was to get her registered on the ship and then see what she wanted to do.

Turned out the procedure for her embarking here was pretty simple. She had to wait at the security gate, noodles in tow, until a ship manifest was brought out showing she was boarding here. Then she waited at the bottom of the gangway until we got there. We then fought our way against traffic to get back onto the ship. They checked her name, sent us to the Neptune Lounge to get her room card and that was it. We went and got lunch at the Lido, then headed off to explore San Juan.

Last year when Ken and I were here we discovered a free bus that traveled through Old Town. So we jumped on the bus and headed up towards the fort. We were going to just ride the bus all around Old Town, but up by the fort it met up with another bus coming the other direction and neither would back up for the other. After about a 20 minute stand off, we decided to get off and walk back through Old Town. At least it had quit raining by then and it was a nice easy walk.

First we went down one of the adoquine stone paved streets to an old cemetary. There's always interesting architecture in and around cemeteries.

As we walked back down to the ship, we passed an old church, quaint little shops, and even stopped in at a Don Q rum visitor's center to sample the goods---coconut run in pineapple juice and passion fruit rum in Sprite---yummm!

Wed., Nov. 9th, was St. Thomas day. I had rented a car so we could hit several beaches. Again our snorkeling plans were foiled, but we did get to snorkel a couple hours at Cowpet Bay between lightening storms. The sun never did really come out so I was disappointed I didn't get to see the gorgeous beaches as seen in pictures, but we still had a great time.

note the lobsters under the rock

here is a school of squid

During the lightening storm, we drove over to Sapphire Beach to check it out. Unfortunately lightening and water don't mix, so I just got to look at it longingly.

To wait out the storm awhile longer, we went to Duffy's Love Shack in Red Hook and had lunch. My teriyaki burger was phenomenal, as were the fru fru drinks Angie and I got that come in take home ceramic containers.

The lightening stopped while we were eating lunch, so we hurried up and ate and were then headed back to Cowpet for another hour of snorkeling before having to head back to the ship.

Thurs. the 11th was another sea day. So we headed to the acclaimed Tamerind Pan-Asian restaurant for lunch. Ordinarily Ken and I aren't big fans of Asian food, but we tried it and actually liked most of it.

We also took advantage of the opportunity to have "high tea" on our balcony. We even had a rainbow accompany us for the whole time.

We didn't feel like dressing up for the 2nd formal night, so we elected to have our fillets, lobsters, and other special dinner items delivered to our room. It was a nice change of pace. We also downed our complimentary bottle of wine then (for being in a SA suite).

With an almost full moon, we enjoyed lounging on our balcony until the wee hours of the morning.

We spent the 7th day at HAL's private island, Halfmoon Cay. It's a beautiful island with lots of white sandy beach and turquoise water. We did a little snorkeling right by the main beach and were surprised to find a huge barracuda out there. Actually I was surprised to find as many fish as we did. Last year there were hardly any. It was a gorgeous day and ended too soon.

Holland America served a very nice free bar b q buffet lunch on the island.

After lunch, we walked around the island a bit. There's a lagoon on the island where they have a stingray encounter---for a fee. It didn't look nearly as impressive as the one Angie and I did on Grand Cayman.

All too soon it was time to catch the tender back to the ship. Was a perfect day until the evening when Angie spent a couple hours throwing up. We had planned to take her to the Pinnacle Restaurant for a special dinner ($25/person extra), but we ended up staying with her and having room service in the room again. Fortunately she was feeling better in a few hours.

It was another fantastic vacation. Made even more special by Angie joining us. It definitely won't be our last cruise!

2002 Jan. first trip to Orlando with Dad

2011-12-08T18:59:00.001-06:00

When I found out that Lifetouch was having their 2002 winter meetings in Orlando, I decided it might be time to check and see if Prestige would let me go to these meetings! When they daid that I could go and they would even pay for part of it, I started making plans to go.

When I told Dad I was going, he mentioned that he had never been to Orlando and would like to come along. With that, I jumped on the oppurtunity to make it a vacation as well as a work trip. Work was going to take up most of the first 4 days and a couple nights, so we decided to extend our trip 3 more nights to make it a full week. I happened to have a Bonus Week certificate from RCI, so I called to see if I could use it for Orlando the first week in January. They had 2 Gold Crown resorts that I could choose from, so I arbitrarily chose Orange Lake Resort. Then I booked a midsize car (which Budget upgraded to a Ford Sport truck), booked my flights and was set to go.

Dad's flight arrived about the same time as mine and we were off to the resort. We were both pleasantly surprised with Orange Lake resort. It is made up of several sections and each one has it's own configuration of units. We were in the West Village and loved the singe story "golf villas". It had a very residential feel.

We were also very impressed with the inside of our 2 bedroom condo.

We spent every evening at the diningroom table playing cribbage, recounting the day and planning the next one.

Although we didn't use the kitchen much for cooking, it was handy to have for our snacks and hot drinks.

Even the views outside our condo were nice.

Our "village" even had an olympic sized (unheated) swimming pool, as well as a smaller heated pool and large jacuzzi (where we also spent a lot of free time).

Although we didn't use it, they even had a nice beach area and lots of water "toys" for rent.

I'm sure if it was summer instead of Jan., we would have used the beach.

My daily routine for the first 4 days was to get up about 6:30 and head off to the Marriott Grand for my meetings. I'd come back to the condo at lunch time and pick Dad up and take him back with me for the free lunch and for the afternoon meetings and classes. I suggested to Dad that he go to the Orange Lake timeshare presentation one morning while I was gone and get the freebie gift card or whatever. That day, when I came back to get him at lunch he said he bought into Orange Lake. I didn't believe him until he got out the paperwork and the bottle of champagne that they gave him.

We toasted his purchase and that was the beginning of our almost yearly trips to Orlando during the 5th week of every year in another West Village Golf Villa.

This particular Jan. week was a very cold one, at least at 6:30 in the morning. This is the view from my front car window every morning! I had to scrape ice off the windows with a credit card. Thought of trying to buy an ice scraper, but decided the chances of finding one for sale in Orlando were probably slim.

My drive to the Marriott took about 20 minutes. I didn't think that was too bad.

One evening Desmond (my territory manager) even took us all out to dinner at Pebbles. There were probably 20 or so Prestige employees from our territory at this meeting. They are a fun group of people and I decided I should attend more of their winter meetings. Dad even enjoyed visiting with them.

On the last day of meetings, there was an awards dinner for all 2000 or so Lifetouch employees attending. Dinner was great and our territory even won several awards---as was pretty typical, I found out.

After my meetings were over, Dad's Airforce buddy from Atlanta, Curt Carter, came down and vacationed with us the last 3 days. He he conned us into going out for sushi and other Japanese food. Dad actually got a kick out of having eel, something he use to catch out of the creek behind his house when he was little boy in New Jersey and hadn't eatten since then.

One day we went to Cypress Gardens.

I really enjoyed the gardens. I think they did, too. There was even a butterfly house there. Note the butterfly on Curt's cap.

Another building had a bunch of old radios. The old guys got a kick out of seeing old radios they use to have when they were younger.

The gardens were beautiful with lots of flowers and cypress trees. There was even a little animal area with monkeys in it and a small lake where water performances were done.

Another neat feature of the park was the people dressed up in old time clothing and wandering around the park posing for pictures.

Here the guys are posing with a new friend of theirs in the garden.

We were also there before they took down the Christmas decorations, so we were able to wander around the gardens in the evening enjoying the lights.

Of course we went to Epcot, too. Dad owned stock in Disney and wanted to check out his purchase. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Curt had the insight on a few places to go for snacks. Here we were trying out the desserts at the French bakery. We were not disappointed.

Here's Dad posing with one of the older gents who was working in the Amercan section of Epcot.

One of their favorite activities was the Holy Grail skit in the English section. It was hilarious.

They both love photography almost as much as I do so it was fun sharing our photos with each other and seeing our different perspectives.

The time really goes fast in Epcot. Before you know it it's getting dark.

Epcot ended the night with fireworks over the lagoon by the countries. Pretty spectacular display.

We even went back to Epcot for a 2nd day. Here was one of the really stupid rides there. But I don't remember the name of it.

Here we'er having a gourmet meal in Epcot. Dad was a big fan of hot dogs.

Just another picture in the countries area.

The monorail cutting through Epcot.

And another day comes to an end at Epcot.

After Curt left, we even visited the Holy Queen of the Universe Shrine and lit a candle for a friends mother.

Our first father/daughter Orlando trip quickly came to an end. We had a great time. And I was happy to know we would be able to do it again every 5th week of the year!

2009—Feb. solo trip to Waikiki

2011-04-03T00:36:00.003-05:00

Feb. 18, 2009 I flew off to Honolulu by myself. I hadn't planned to go off to Hawaii by myself, but an unfortunate circumstance resulted in this oppurtunity. I had picked up a week at the Wyndham Waikiki Beach Walk for a friend and her cancer stricken husband, but he ended up too sick to take the trip. So it was loose the whole week and the money I paid, or go by myself and "try" to enjoy myself. The decision wasn't too difficult to make. Ken and I were scheduled to go to Kauai on award travel the following Sunday, so I was able to change my flight to go out on the previous Wed. So I didn't get the whole week there, but did have 4 nights on Waikiki. I left St. Louis at 8:30 am and arrived in Honolulu about 11:30pm (Hawaiian time) with 2 long lay overs in LAX and LIH. Then there was the 1 1/2 hours getting from the airport to the Wyndham. But I finally made it!

The Wyndham is very nice. It is only about 2 blocks from the beach and right across from the new shopping center, Beach Walk. I was in a 1 bedroom unit with full kitchen. The views weren't the greatest, but the insides of the unit were very nice. I also liked that it was near the Fort Derussey end of town.

Day 1 alone on Waikiki

This was my 4th trip to Oahu, so I felt pretty comfortable wandering around Waikiki by myself. I liked that I could wander around the streets and beach without being accousted by poverty. Everything was clean and the people are helpful. It was a bit cool this time with temps only about 70 and the winds were pretty high. But it definately beat the 20s and 30s back home. There were spritzes of rain and lots of clouds, but the clouds were the type that made for fabulous sunsets. The first day I spent a lot of time just walking around Waikiki streets and the beach.

While wandering around the beach, a catamaran worker was drumming up customers for a sunset cruise. The concierge desk wanted $90 for a sunset cruise, so when this guy offered it for $20, I decided to treat myself. The weather got pretty threatening while we were out, but other than the cold wind and a little rain, it went ok.

It looked like the clouds were too thick to make for a great sunset, but by the time sunset rolled around, they were just right for a fabulous sunset. I thoroughly enjoyed walking down the beach back to my part of the beach and watching the sky change from yellow, to orange, to red, to bronze, ... .

By 7, I was back at the condo and pretty exhausted from the activities of the last 2 days.

Alone in Waikiki - Day 2

What to do?! Why not head to Foster Garden's? I love gardens and could never interest any of my other travel companions to go there with me. So I walked up to Kuhio St. and caught the #4 bus to the gardens. Upon boarding the bus, I asked for a transfer which was good for 4 hours from the time I stepped onto the bus. It was about an hour ride to the gardens, but it was interesting seeing the parts of Honolulu that the bus took me through. The garden's are beautiful and I easily spent about 2 1/2 hours wandering around them. It's not a huge garden, but for a photographer, it had a lot to offer. Most of the gardens were different types of green trees, but there was an orchid garden, too, and a small butterfly garden.

After running around the garden, I used my transfer ticket to hitch a ride back to Waikiki. But instead of getting off by the condo, I road to Kapiolani park and got off there. I walked through the park and to the Aquarium. I love sealife and, again, noone has been interested in going to the aquarium with me before. I thoroughly enjoyed the aquarium!

I have a special fondness for these cute little yellow tangs. I saw tons of them while snorkeling around the Big Island, but very few on Kauai or Waikiki beach.

I was even fortunate enough to be there at the time they feed the 2 monk seals they have there, so I got to watch that and listen to the trainers speak about them. Here they are anxiously awaiting the trainer.

From the aquarium, I walked back up to my condo and rested until near sunset. Then it was time to head to the beach again. To my surprise, there were tons of sailboats out. Made for some fun watching.

After the sun set, it was time to head back to the condo and rest the weary feet again. Dinner was take out from the pizza place below the resort. It was very good. I forget the name of the place, but they advertise their pizzas as Round Table, or something like that.

Alone on Waikiki-Day 3

Today was my last full day on Oahu. I had finally decided to take the bus to the "Swap meet" at the stadium, but after waiting over 30 minutes for a completely full bus, I decided to abandon that idea. I also thought about going to Hunauma Bay and snorkeling, but decided I didn't want to go there alone and I'd have plenty of time to snorkel for free on Kauai. So I walked around Waikiki some more. Ended up sitting with my feet in the water and making a few phone calls. It was also the day my daughter and her husband were arriving in Kauai, so I wanted to be around to hear how their flights went and make sure everything went ok with their car rental and condo check in. All went well for them. Here's my view from the pier I was sitting on dangling my tired feet in the water.

It was the clearest day so far and less wind. So when I was tired of sitting in the sun, I went to Fort Derussey Park and sat on the hill by the Army museum and gazed out at the ocean from there.

At sunset, I walked to the boat harbor and took pictures of reflections. The sunset wasn't that spectacular because of the clear sky, but the reflections were pretty awesome. Here's the pond by the Hilton on my way to the marina.

Lots of photo ops by the marina!

There was even color in the sky for a short while.

On the way back to my condo, I stopped into an ABC store and picked up a pre-made salad for dinner. The ABC stores in Waikiki are great. I was able to get all the groceries I wanted from them.

It was also the night to pack up again for tomorrow's flight to Kauai.

It was a short stay in Oahu, but it turned out to be a really nice one.

Alone in Waikiki--Day 4, time to leave

Today I had to be out of the Wyndham Waikiki Beach Resort by 10 am. I had an interisland flight with Hawaiian Airlines that was to leave Honolulu at 1:30. The airport shuttle said they needed 3 hours to get me to the airport, so I went to the shuttle stop right after checking out. The total time on the shuttle was only about 30 minutes, so I was at the airport way early. At check in, I asked if I could go on an earlier flight and was told I had to talk to customer service about that. Customer service wanted a fee just to talk to them, so I checked in and went straight to the gate and asked the gate agent for an earlier flight. Thankfully he put me on an earlier flight. The flight was quick and smooth. It was the first time I've flown into Kauai in the daylight and the views amazed me. All I could say was, "Wow!"

My daughter and son-in-law picked me up at the airport and we were on our way. It was too early to check into my resort (Pahio Kauai Beach Villas), so we went to lunch at Monico's Taqueria in Kapaa which was very good. Then we went back to the airport to pick up my luggage which didn't get the standby flight. With luggage in hand, we were off to their resort (Kauai Coast Resort at the Beachboy) to change into swimsuits and headed off to Lydgate park. With the winds being so high (non-stop about 20 mph since arriving in Hawaii), the waves crashing over the man made wall at Lydgate made the water a bit murky, but we still enjoyed playing around in the water. It was Josh's first attempt at snorkeling and he caught on quickly. My daughter and I have snorkeled a lot in the Caribbean, although this was her first trip to Kauai.

After snorkeling, we headed back to the Beachboy to hang out at the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Love the heated pool there. Wish Kauai Beach Villas had such a great swim area. We hung out there until early evening.

We had to pick up Ken from the airport about 8:30, so we used the early evening time to head to Safeway for some food staples and then checked into Ken's and my condo at KBV. So why did Angie and Josh have to keep running me around?---to save $200+, I reserved our car starting on Mon. Feb. 23rd. Ken's flight was about 30 minutes late due to the high winds. But we were out of there within minutes and Angie and Josh dropped us off at our place. By then it was after 10pm and we were ready to call it a day.

2004 Graduation Cruise to the Western Caribbean with Angie

2011-03-31T13:29:00.002-05:00

July 4, 2004:
This was another mother/daughter trip. The excuse for this trip was celebration of her graduation from K-state the month before.
We got an early start to the day. Our flight to Houston left at 6:30 am, so we were at the airport about 5:45. We arrived in Houston about 8:30 where we retrieved our luggage, then waited until 10:45 for our shuttle to Port Galveston to catch our cruise ship, Carnival's Elation.
I picked this particular cruise for a couple of reasons. I always heard about the great barrier reef by Belize and wanted to snorkel there. The other reason was because I found a travel agent selling that cruise on Ebay for $450@ + $150 onboard credit.
After waiting through the lines to get through check-in and security, we finally made it on board and went to explore the ship a bit.

Here is the Lido deck pool close to where the Lido buffet is. So we went to the buffet and had lunch. The buffet featured Italian food that day. Not ecceptionally good, but edible:eggplant rice casserole; sage chicken; some fish dish; bread; salad bar; desserts, beverage bar; and a pizza bar.

After lunch we explored a bit more.

Finally making it back to our room. We were in an inside cabin in the very front of the ship. We did feel considerable rocking, but since neither of us had any motion sickness, the rocking was actually rather soothing. It was also quite cold in the room and took us awhile to find the air conditioner controls--which were on the ceiling.

For a small space, I did like the way the beds were arranged. One day we didn't even leave the room until about 3pm---stayed in bed and watched movies on tv all afternoon. One afternoon we did have some maintenance workers in the room for an hour or so. Apparently a couple cabins down the hall had lost their electricity and they were going through our ceiling to fix it.

Throughout the trip, we enjoyed wandering around checking out what was going on around the ship. We especially enjoyed the art exhibits. They were more like art classes in that they talked extensively about the artists and artworks. I believe we went to 3 of the auctions. Angie even won 2 lithographs and purchased 2 more. Of all the cruises I've been on as of 2008, these auctions were the most interesting.

We also gave a little money to the slot machines.

The Vegas type shows on board each night were really quite good.

There were lots of costume and background changes.

They must get a lot of grads on board because they even did a salute to them.

We usually enjoyed the shows with a drink in hand.

Our cruise left on Sun., but our first port wasn't until Tues. I'm not sure this town, Progresso, is going to make it as a cruise ship port. There really isn't much here. That didn't bother us any, though, for we had an all day excursion to Chichen Itza booked. We arranged for a wake up call at 7am and had room service for breakfast shortly after that. Since our excursion was to leave at 8 am, room service for breakfast came in handy.

This was what we saw of Progresso from our buss window on our way out of town.

Our ride to Chichen Itza was about 2 hours each way. We had about 1 1/2 hour guided tour through Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization and is located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Yucatán state, present-day Mexico. The ruins are divided into two groups. One group belongs to the classic Maya Period and was built between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D., at which time the city became a prominent ceremonial center. The other group corresponds to the Maya-Toltec Period, from the later part of the 10th century to the beginning of the 13th century A.D. This area includes the Sacred Well and most of the outstanding ruins: porches, galleries, colonnades and carvings depicting serpents, birds and Mexican gods. The Toltec influenced the Itza in more ways than just architecture. They also imposed their religion on the Itza, which meant human sacrifice on a large scale. As the political base of Chichen-Itza expanded, the city added even more spectacular buildings: the Observatory, Kukulcan's Pyramid, the Temple of the Warriors, The Ball Court, and The Group of the Thousand Columns.

The best known construction on the site is Kukulcan's Pyramid, a square-based, stepped pyramid that is approximately 75 feet tall. This pyramid was built for astronomical purposes and during the vernal equinox (March 20) and the autumnal equinox (September 21) at about 3 P.M.. the sunlight bathes the western balustrade of the pyramid's main stairway, causing seven isosceles triangles forming the body of a 37 yard long serpent that creeps downwards until it joins the huge serpent's head carved in stone at the bottom of the stairway.

the Great Ball Court is the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 meters (545 by 232 feet). The walls are 12 meters high, and in the center, high up on each of the long walls, are rings carved with intertwining serpents. Each end has a raised "temple" area. A whisper from one end can be heard clearly at the other end 500 feet away and through the length and width of the court. To this day the aquostic principles here have not been explained.

Legends say that the the winning captain here would present his head to the losing capitan, who then decapitates him. The Mayans believed this to be the ultimate honor---the winning captian would get a direct ticket to heaven instead of going through the 13 steps that the Mayan's believed they had to go through in order to reach heaven..

At one end of the Great Ball Court is the North Temple, popularly called the Temple of the Bearded Man.

We even saw a rather interesting resident on the grounds.

The Mexican government excavated a tunnel from the base of the north staircase of the Temple of Kukulkan, up the earlier pyramid’s stairway to a hidden temple, and opened it to tourists. In 2006, INAH closed the throne room to the public.

The Temple of the Warriors complex consists of a large stepped pyramid fronted and flanked by rows of carved columns representing warriors. Today the columns are exposed, but when the city was inhabited these columns supported an extensive roof system. The square structure at the southern end of the Temple of Warriors complex is theorized to have been used as a marketplace, although archaeologists today believe that its purpose was more for ceremony than sales.

Chichen Itza, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the second-most visited of Mexico's archaeological sites. In 2007, Chichen Itza's El Castillo was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Over the past several years, INAH, which manages the site, has been closing monuments to public access. While visitors can walk around them, they can no longer climb them or go inside their chambers. The most recent was here, which was closed after a San Diego, Calif., woman fell to her death in 2006. Since we were there in 2004, we did go up and down the pyramid. It is extremely steep. I can see how someone could fall to their death! There was a section with a rope where lots of people sat and scooted down the side while holding onto the rope, but we also saw kids running down the steps.

After wandering around the ruins for about 3 hours, we boarded out bus and had a sack lunch of a sub sandwich and Bimbo (2 cake doughnuts), and bag of chips on our way back to Progresso. Back in Progresso, we hurried to the ship since it was scheduled to leave 1/2 hour after we got back. This was pretty much the part of Progresso right by the port.

Wed. July 7:

Again we were up early for our excursion. This one for a jeep/snorkel tour in Cozumel. When it came time to get our jeeps and head out, Angie and i were left driverless, so one of the guides (Pony), became our driver. That was really neat having our personal guide.

Our excursion took us about 30 minutes away to beautiful Chankanaab National Park.

The roads we travelled weren't always paved, but it was fun riding in the jeeps.

We continued on about 17 miles from Cozumel to Punta Sur. Entrance to the reserve also includes the historic lighthouse, where you can climb up, a small maritime museum and onto the beach.

Here in the reserve is a swampy area where you can even go see crocodiles.

Here's a view of the lighthouse and ocean from a lookout by the swamp.

On the ocean side of Punta Sur, we had time to snorkel and enjoy the beach. The snorkeling was a bit disappointing, but the beach was beautiful. We snorkeled in a group--they really kept an eye on everyone. They even had a boat ride along side which did have to take a couple people back to shore. We did see lots of purple fan coral.

The real highlight for Angie was that Pony let her drive back and actually taught her to drive a stick shift. Again, our guides were really great.

Back at the port we were docked next to the Disney Magic. Walking along side of them really gives you a better idea of just how big these ships really are!

Back on board the ship, we watched a Julia Roberts movie (Mona Lisa Smiles). Then we went on deck to watch as we left Cozumel.

Then it was on to dinner---tenderloin with goose liver on it (which I didn't eat), grilled veggies and apple pie for dinner. Soon after dinner we went to the Makado room to wait for the talent show. Our dinner mate, Nicole, was the star of the talent show.<>

After all the entertainment, we went up to the Lido deck to check out the midnight mexican buffet.

Thursday, July 8th:

This was my much anticipated stop in Belize. It looked like we might be totally washed out, but we did manage to tender off onto our snorkel excursion to Goff Island.

Goff Island is a tiny island off of Belize. The snorkeling off this little island was really pretty good. The water was crystal clear and there were lots of fish and coral. We had a ball snorkeling there.

We even wandered around the little island a bit. Then the rain moved in and we had to board our tender and head back to the ship.

Back on board the ship, it was time to rest up and enjoy the warm breezes.

Then on to dinner. We had a great time with our dinner mates----at least these 2 ladies. The other 4 single ladies at our table were rather strange as was the one single guy (who was also there as a graduation trip with his parents). The parents were pretty neat, though. And our servers, Carlos shown here, were really great.

It wasn't until the end of the trip that we discovered the piano bar. Too bad we didn't find it earlier, this guy, Damian, was fantastic. Thought he couldn't be beat, but may have to say I think he was topped on my Holland America cruise this past Oct. But we thoroughly enjoyed spending an hour or 2 there the last couple nights.

The last day was spent lounging around the ship. Watched another movie in our room (Paycheck). Ate a Greek lunch in the Lido buffet. Went to another art auction. Sent some email home for the first time this trip.

It was another formal night. Dinner was good---prime rib and baked alaska. The dinner entertainment was doing the macarina. The 10pm show was the Elation dancers and they put on a really hilarious skit. Late night was the adult comedy. Then we were off to Duke's piano bar again.

And that's it for another great mother/daughter trip.

2003-Aug., Oahu for Sean’s reenlistment

2011-03-30T13:10:00.003-05:00

While Sean was stationed in Oahu, he reenlisted for his 3rd (I believe) term. He asked my Dad (his Grandpa) to be his reenlisting officer. So Dad asked me to go along with him and make a vacation out of it. I eagerly accepted and flew out to PDX to meet up with him and fly out the next morning.

As it turned out, the Navy didn’t have enough money to give Sean his reenlistment bonus if he did it at the originally scheduled time, so Dad didn’t end up being the reenlistment officer, but we did spend a few days visiting with Sean and playing tourist on Oahu. Sean did later reenlist, but Dad wasn’t able to make it back out for that.

Back in those days, I didn’t have as many timeshare points as I do now, so I went online and found a reasonable rental for a 1 bedroom/2 bath condo about a block from the beach---Imperial of Waikiki Vacation Club. I believe I got the week for something like $450 for the week at short notice. I figured that was a great deal. After seeing our unit, it was a fantastic deal! Since it was only a one bedroom, I let Dad have the bedroom and I took the fold out couch. It was actually more comfortable then I expected. It was also really nice having our own bathrooms.

The kitchen was small but very functional.

I had called and requested an upper unit with ocean view and we got the request. We were both blown away by our view!

We wandered around Waikiki quite a bit. The beach is really beautiful.

It was always interesting people watching. Especially when they’re as talented as this painter.

One of Dad’s favorite things to do, we head to Baskin Robbins for an afternoon ice cream.

One of the days that Sean hung around with us he took us to one of his favorite restaurants, Dixie Kitchens. Great bar b q food.

He also took us through his Navy base and on to the north side to Waimea Park. We walked through the park.

Eventually ending up at a waterfall and pond.

Another day, Dad and I took an Atlantis Submarine ride. A boat shuttle picked us up from the pier by the Hilton.

Then it took us out to meet the sub.

It still amazes me that the ocean is so bright 100’ down.

A couple of nights, Dad and I wandered over to the Hale Koa Resort. This is a resort for military only. Since Dad is retired military, he was able to get us onto the property and we enjoyed dinner there a couple times. Very nice place.

Another day Dad and I went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. They do charge a fee to get in there now and try to enlighten people on the necessity of watching out for the coral, but I’m afraid the coral is being destroyed. The first time Ken and I snorkeled there, it was phenomenal, each trip after that has shown more wear and tear on the area.

Another day Sean hung around with us and we did the Diamond Head hike. Diamond Head State Monument encompasses over 475 acres, including the interior and outer slopes of the crater. The crater was formed about 300,000 years ago during a single explosive eruption. The trail to the summit of Le'ahi was built in 1908 as part of O'ahu's coastal defense system. The 0.8 mile hike from trailhead to the summit is steep, gaining 560 feet as it ascends from the crater floor.

A lighted 225-foot tunnel leads to the Fire Control Station completed in 1911. There are also lots of stairs along the way.

The view of the shoreline from Koko Head to Wai'anae is stunning.

We also walked along Waikiki beach with Sean.

Of course a visit to Oahu wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Arizona Memorial! It marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors killed on the USS Arizona during the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by Japanese imperial forces. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oahu was the action that led to United States involvement in World War II. The memorial was dedicated in 1962. It is accessible only by boat. The memorial crosses above the middle of the sunken hull of the battleship.

Historical information about the attack, shuttle boats to and from the memorial, and general visitor services are available at the associated USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, opened in 1980 and operated by the National Park Service. The sunken remains of the battleship were declared a National Historic Landmark on 5 May 1989.

Another view of the memorial as we were waiting on the dock to take the shuttle back to the visitor center.

The three of us also visited the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii in Ft. DeRussy Park in Waikiki. Fort DeRussy was one of a number of shore batterys on the island of Oahu designed to provide coastal defense. The Fourteen inch guns of Shore Battery Randolph were fired once in a practice shortly after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, shattering many of the windows in the Royal Hawaiian and Moana, and were never fired again. The museum's collection contains some World War II armor pieces, an AH-1 Cobra helicopter, and small arms indoors. It’s an interesting free exhibit right there on Waikiki beach.

Since Dad’s birthday also fell during the week we were there, we decided to do something special for his birthday. We elected to go on a limo tour of Oahu. In hindsight, it wasn’t as luxurious as we thought it would be. With 7 or 8 other people also in the limo, it really wasn’t that comfortable!

I also didn’t care that it stopped at a shrimp wagon for lunch, since I’m allergic to shrimp.

But we did enjoy the stop at Kualoa Ranch. There we were put on a comfortable open air shuttle bus and given a tour of the ranch.

Throughout the ranch were fields of tropical fruit plants. They encouraged visitors to try the fruit.

This place was sacred to ancient Oahuans from the 13th to the 18th century. It is best known as a film location for productions such as Jurassic Park, Mighty Joe Young, Pearl Harbor, Windtalkers, Godzilla, and Lost. It is open for tourist activities such as horseback riding and hiking. They also put on shows depicting the ancient Hawaiians celebrations, such as this fire dance.

All in all, we did enjoy our limo tour.

It was another great father/daughter trip. Again we got to play tourist as well as visit family. It was a fun week in Oahu.

2003 Europe - on to Paris

2011-03-29T00:17:00.001-05:00

July 6:
This was a full day of travel. We were up and at it early--about 7:30am. So early that we had about an hour to wait for the train. So we went to international reservations and reserved first class seats on the TGV out of Montpellier to Paris for an additional fee of 3 Euro @ for reservations on a premium train. Angie went hunting for our breakfast. She did good---chocolate doughnuts and pineapple juice. We boarded the train about 8:30 and again were in a different configured first class train car. It would have been nice if the air conditioner in it hadn't gone out as soon as we left. Our 4 1/2 hour trip got VERY uncomfortable by the time we reached Montpellier, but there were no other seats available on the train(good thing we had made reservations the day before).

We made our connection for the TGV about 30 minutes after arriving in Montpellier and were off for another 4 hour trip to Paris. The TGV was very nice. It had a fold out table with seats facing each other. Angie and I sat on the side of the train with one seat facing each other. As on most of the other trains, there was a snack car where we were able to get some lunch.

I was surprised at how smooth the train travelled even though we were supposedly going in excess of 200m/h. The countryside was again lush with lots of farmlands. Looking out at a distance, it was really hard to tell we were going so fast. The only hint we got that we were going that fast was that the electric poles next to the tracks were just a blur as we went speeding by them.

Sometimes it was hard to stay awake on the trains.

We finally arrived at the Paris's Lyon rail station about 8pm and looked for a way to get to the Paris Airport (CDG). We were sent to what we thought was a public bus stop, but it ended up being a shuttle stop. For 11 Euro @ they would take us to the airport. We decided to take the offer.
Once at the airport, we waited for a shuttle to the Comfort Inn---in the middle of nowhere. I had made reservations there thinking it would be convenient for getting to the airport on the 8th and convenient to getting to and from Paris. I also thought it was an American chain hotel and thought I knew what to expect! After waiting about 30 minutes for the shuttle, we finally got to the Comfort Inn. Then we waited what seemed like forever to check in. Once we got our key, we figured we'ld take our luggage to the room, then head back down to the hotel buffet for dinner. The room was hot, dirty, had mold in the bathroom, had no soap, had a very noisy ceiling fan, had no window screen, had birds nesting with chirping baby birds right outside our open window, and no apparent AC. I called the office and they promised to "fix" the AC problem as soon as they had a chance. We went to dinner---which happened to be terrible: meat not cooked (and I usually like rare meat), no leaf salad (on a buffet!), chicken in sauce, canned potatoes, lumpy pudding, smokey green beans, and watermelon (which was ok). By far the worst meal we had on our 2 week European trip! At 12.50Euro@, plus another 2.50 Euro for water, not a cheap meal either.
Back to the room, still noone to "show" us how to get AC. So we decide to go down to the bar for a drink and ask again. The bar was closed so we went straight to the reception desk. There was another hotel guest there who was complaining about the AC, too. So the receptionist came with us to solve the problem. First stop was the other guest's room. He was told those are the older rooms and that the ceiling fan is the air conditioning. He told us the same thing at our room, I threw a fit---birds flying in and noisy fan (Angie laughing). He said that's all they can do for now, so I said I wanted to cancel the next night's reservations and go somewhere nicer. I had made the reservations months in advance and was sure the internet had said there was AC. He asked if I wanted to speak to the manager---of course I said yes. We went down, he talked to the manager and offered us a different room. Although the room was small, it was in the newly remodeled, clean, and air conditioned wing of the hotel. It was good enough for 2 nights at about 50 Euro/night.
A stressful end to a long day. I was feeling the dispise of the French towards us Americans!
July 7:
We were up about 9 and ready for our day in Paris. I had tried to charge some batteries in our 1st room the night before while we were at dinner and blew a fuse or ruined my charger, so we didn't try to charge the video camera battery or laptop. So we got photos of Paris, but no videos.
We caught the hotel shuttle back to the airport train station. I had read that there was train service into Paris, so we showed our passes and were off to find the train. Ended up on a metro and didn't realize it until we got into Paris and needed a metro ticket to get out of the turnstile. We ended up hopping over the turnstile. We had gotten off by Notre Dame Cathedral , but decided to find some breakfast before starting our touring. We found a great little restaurant nearby called La Petit Pond.

We ordered a breakfast combo meal and were shocked by all the food that was brought out. It was a very good American-style breakfast!

With full bellies, we were off to Notre Dame--widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in the world. Construction on it began in 1163. During the French Revolution in the 1790s, it suffered desecration. During the 19th century, an extensive restoration project was completed. Then in 1991, a major program of maintenance and restoration was started, which was intended to last 10 years but was still in progress as of 2009

The intricate sculpting throughout the building are amazing. This is the part above the main door.

Under the 1905 French law on the separation of Church and State, Notre Dame is state property, like all cathedrals built by the Kingdom of France; but exclusive use is granted to the Roman Catholic Church. Masses are still held here. One just ended as we entered the cathedral.

Here is one of the plaques inside the cathedral.

Notre Dame is one of the first buildings in the world to use the flying butress--(an arched exterior support). The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses, but the high thin walls of the Gothic style developed stress fractures. Architects found they could build butresses around the outside walls to support them. It's hard to see them in this picture, but they're there.

After visiting the cathedral, we shopped the little stores nearby and waited for the city tour bus which was well worth the 20 Euro @.

Too bad we didn't have more time to get on and off the bus. There are so many sights to see in Paris that one day isn't enough time to see much of Paris.
Here we're riding past the Hotel de Ville--the building housing the City of Paris's administration since 1357.

Looking similar in style to the hotel de Ville is the Louvre--- a historic monument and national museum of France. It started out as a fortress in the 12th century, although much smaller then it is now. It was expanded into a Palace and finally into a museum.
Here's just a typical street view from the bus with an entrance to one of the many subway stations.

Another typical city street view.

The busses ran about every 30 minutes. It was another beautiful day so we found a spot on the upper level.

Here's a view along the famous Champs Elysees.

I can't imagine trying to drive along parts of Paris like here that lead into the round-about at the Arc de Triumph! People on scooters were cutting between lanes and in front of vehicles. A scooter went around our bus and ended up running right into the car in front of us.

There are 12 boulevards similar to the above one that come together at the Arc. de Triumph. The Arc was built to honor French soldiers. France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is under the Arc. When construction on the Arc begun in 1806, there weren't cars to be concerned about. A policeman is now stationed at each entrance to try and control the chaos. Just riding a bus in and around the round-about is a thrill ride!

After riding the whole 2 hour guided city tour, we rode it again as far as the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889 for the World's Fair and was the world's tallest tower at that time. It isn't anymore, but it is the most visited paid monument in the world --- which is very interesting since there was so much opposition to it when it was built. Eiffel only had a permit for it to stand for 20 years, then it was suppose to be dismantled. But by then the French found they could use it for communication purposes and as a tourist attraction.

After wandering around the base of the tower, we bought tickets and waited
nearly 3 hours to go up the structure.

Views from the "top" were awesome. Love all the white stone buildings of Paris.

Here we are---proof that we were here!
We were able to catch the last tour bus from the Eiffel tower back to the Notre Dame area. We walked around Notra Dame again and did some more shopping, then went looking for a place to eat dinner. When we saw this place, we decided to give it a try. Finally got a steak!--first one of the trip. Even got a beer since I was tired of iceless soda and expensive water. For 15.50 Euro, it was a very good meal.

After dinner, we headed to the metro to go back to the Eiffel tower to see it lit up at night. We got to the 2nd of the 4 stops when that metro car stopped and everyone was told to get off. I was worried the metro was done for the night, but we found a metro guard and he told us the last one back to the airport didn't leave until about 11. So we found another car still in service and continued on to the Eiffel tower to get our pictures by night. Then we hurried back into the metro and made our way back to the airport station where the shuttle to our hotel was.

When we got to the airport, we hurried out of the station to find we went out the wrong doors. We managed to find our way back in and to the right doors. By then it was about 11:35pm, so we had to wait 'til about midnight for our shuttle back to the hotel.
Although my initial impression of Paris from the Lyon train station wasn't good, downtown Paris was beautiful--clean, well maintained, big, and the people were friendly.
July 8:
We got to sleep in today---got up about 10:30.
We headed down to the shuttle about 11:30 and were off to the airport.
At the airport we waited in a HUGE line at the NW counter. After waiting an hour for an initial security check, we finally made it to the ticket counter. Then we were off to another huge line waiting another 2 hours to go through security and onto the plane. Once on the plane our departure was delayed another 40 minutes.
Finally on our way---lunch was a good meal of roast beef, green beans and mashed potatoes. We also saw 2 movies---Al Pacino in Recruits and Steve Martin's movie Bringing Down the House, as well as a couple tv shows like Trading Spaces and a special on Central Park--very interesting.
It was a great 2 week trip---tiring hauling luggage everywhere, but well worth it, not just because of the sights, but also for the undivided time with Angie. I would love to do another Eurail train trip---but with less luggage!

2003---Orlando, Feb., with Dad and Angie

2011-03-28T10:13:00.002-05:00

This was our first trip to Orlando using Dad’s timeshare at Orange Lake Resort for the 5th week of the year. Angie happened to be on winter break from UMKC, so she was able to go with us.

We spent a few days of our week at Disney. We made it back to Epcot---Dad’s favorite. Here they are waiting to go into the America’s theatre.

We spent all day in Epcot. Here’s the night parade they use to have.

We also finally made it to Animal Kingdom. Here we were waiting for the show, “it’s a bug’s life”.

AFter spending another day at Epcot, we decided to check out a couple of the other Disney parks. First we headed to the Magic Kingdom.

And finally, MGM Studios, now known as Hollywood Studios.

2 other days we managed to drive to Cape Canaveral to check out NASA.

It happened to be right after the shuttle Columbia disaster and there was a memorial set up for it.

Then we went to Cocoa Beach while we were out by NASA.

Another day we took off towards the Gulf coast to Florida National gardens. It had sculptures and various palms.

Surprisingly it didn't seem to have many visitors. But we enjoyed it.

Back in the condo, we had our nightly cribbage games. That was one of the traditions with Dad---nightly cribbage with snacks.

Thus ended another fantastic vacation to Orlando. Our first father/daughter/daughter trip.

2007 Alaska Cruise--Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas, Aug. 24-31

2011-03-26T14:58:00.001-05:00

For as long as I can remember, Dad had 2 dream vacations that he wanted to take---one was to go on an Alaska cruise and the other was to go to Ireland. Unfortunately, he never got to do the Ireland trip, but after his first set of chemo, I immediately booked him and me an Alaska cruise. By then he was fighting matatastic prostate cancer and recovered from colon cancer surgery and chemo for colan cancer. By the looks of him, he appeared to be doing well. If he wasn't, he never let on. But within a week of our return, he was in the hospital fighting for his life and on dialysis for blocked kidney tubes due to his prostate cancer. Stints were able to be put into his kidney tubes and he did recover from that, but the cancer treatments were beginning to stop working now. My best friend and great traveling buddy was on his last great vacation with me, but I didn't know it at the time. But this was a fantastic cruise---so much so, that I now have another Alaska cruise booked for my husband and me (his first cruise), as well as first cruise for my brother, his wife, aunt and uncle (my dad's brother) whom will also be joining us. I will cherish this dream vacation with my Dad always.
Here's my Dad dressed up for one of the formal dinners. He enjoyed having a chance to try weird stuff like escargo and foie Gras at these dinners.

Since Dad lived in Oregon and it was a fairly easy trip to Seattle from where he lived, I chose a RT out of Seattle for our cruise. I really had no idea what ports to look for or what we would see, but I ended up settling on Royal Caribbean for a couple reasons--the RT out of Seattle, the supposed grandeur of all the windows, and the advertising that there was an adult indoor pool and jacuzzi area. Unfortunately the pool area was not just for adults on Alaska cruises, as we found out when a bunch of noisy splashing kids showed up all the time and I inquired about it to some employees. I also didn't find the selection of food all that great, or the crew exceptionally friendly. The ship also became a ghost ship shortly after 11ish at night. Not sure if it's a Royal Caribbean thing or an Alaska cruise thing, but it was eerie wandering around the ship late at night. But the weather was outstanding and the scenery was gorgeous!

Our cabin was typically small. Nothing fancy, but adequate.

Although the weather was great for the most part, it did get somewhat chilly on deck. Not many people hung out on the lounge chairs!

The shows were ok. I would say they were aimed more to an older generation (my Dad's generation).

The public areas around the ship were tasteful.
We found many places to hang out and play cribbage.

There were also several informative talks of Alaska (glaciers, fiords, etc.) done by a naturalist. I don't remember the guy's name on this ship, but he was very interesting and funny. We attended as many of his lectures as we were around for. This is the lounge he gave his lectures and slide presentations in.

This is the main theatre where the nightly shows were. There were also a couple movies played here, although they weren't what I would consider good ones (Will Farrell was in one they showed a couple times--not exactly my type of humor). I don't remember the other movie we saw but neither was bad enough to walk out of. Just wish they had different movies all the time instead of replaying the same ones.

After 2 days at sea, we finally came to our first port---Juneau. It is the capital of Alaska and is only accessible by air or sea. The mountains around the town rise to about 4000 feet. It was a really neat city and is almost as large as Rhode Island and Delaware combined. This is a view of from atop Mt Roberts from where the tram lets you off.

We did a ship sponsored photo excursion in Juneau. It was expensive (something like $175@), but was really great. We had a small group of about 10 people (a couple people didn't even have cameras which I found pretty amusing! The tour guide did give them a disposable camera to use,though, which I thought was nice of her). Our first stop on the excursion was to Auke Bay where we boarded a relatively small boat and went out in search of wildlife. I was thrilled that we encountered a couple large pods of Orcas. There must have been at least 60 killer whales in the bay.

I even inadvertantly caught one breaching off in the distance. I was amazed at how tall some of their dorsal fins are. We were told that the male Orcas can have dorsal fins as tall as 6'. We were told some of the Orcas here are resident ones and others are transient ones.

We even saw some resident seals hanging out here.

Coming back into the harbor gave us these puzzle perfect views.

The next part of our excursion took us to the popular Mendenhall Glacier. I was surprised how blue the glacier really is! Apparently that from the ice being compacted so much that only the blue light rays are getting in. Our guide took us on a hike through the wooded area in the park, too. We had the opportunity to take pictures of lots of wild flora on our hike. This excursion was about 5 hours long and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Back by the cruise ship port, we did the Mt. Roberts tram on our own. I believe the cost was about $27@, but it was well worth it, too. At the top was a little restaurant where we had a very good fish and chips lunch and then we hiked a bit on some of the paths up there.

I was really impressed with Juneau and didn't think it could be beat. Then we got to Skagway the next day and I was even more impressed! The port of Skagway is a popular stop for cruise ships, and the tourist trade is a big part of the business of Skagway. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862. However, the population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 900,000 visitors. In 1896, the Klondike gold rush started and Skagway was a stepping stone into the Yukon Territory.
This is a view of the port at Skagway from the Lido deck of our cruise ship.

We did another expensive cruise ship sponsored tour in Skagway. This one was a 7 hour one that went up into the Yukon.

We rode past many lakes and rivers. The scenery was unbelievable beautiful!

The scenery from the bus was ever changing. As soon as we would pass one amazing view, we were treated to another.

Just another view of the Yukon Territory.

And another!

Until we finally reached Cariboo Crossing trading post where there was a bar b q lunch set up for us. The bar b q was ok, but the fried doughnuts were the best! Also in this trading post were activities such as dog sled rides (for a fee). I thought these were some pretty skinny looking sled dogs.

There was also a little museum there with lots of stuffed animals of the Yukon.

After lunch, our tour bus took us a little further into the Yukon to Emerald Lake. The colors of this lake were stunning. I sure wouldn't mind having that log house to the right of the picture (at least during the summer months!)

Another stop on our tour was Carcross. This was a short stop where we visited an icecream parlor and walked around the streets a bit.

Loved this view of this church in Carcross.

Coming back down the Alaskan highway to Skagway we stopped at the train station for the White Pass Railroad. This is from the parking lot there. We took the train back down to Skagway.

Built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush, this narrow gauge railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. From sea level it climbs nearly 3000 feet in just 20 miles and features steep grades of up to 3.9%. Again the views were unbelievable!

Back in Skagway, we still had time to check out the town a bit. We saw there was a brewery there and went and tried their beer and spiced nut snacks. Both were excellent. We were able to catch the local bus there. On the way back, we stopped in town and shopped some of the gift shops. I even bought myself a set of tlingit indians matryoshka dolls.

From town, we walked back to the ship. The mountains made the ships look small in comparison!

While in Skagway, some locals had mentioned that it was suppose to be a perfect night for catching the northern lights. I had read that we weren't going far enough north to see them, so was excited about having the chance to witness them. So about midnight, we wandered through the deserted ship to the lido deck and watched and waited. There was also a total eclipse of the moon going on that night. About 1 am, we and about 3 other people were on the deck and watching the northern lights dance accross the sky. It was definately a highlight of the trip. It only lasted about 20 all too short minutes. The next night I had asked some of the ship employees if they'ld ever seen them and they didn't even know what I was talking about.

The next morning we awoke to a cruise through the Tracy Arm Fjord. We were told that a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved out by a glacial.

At the end of Tracy Arm are 2 glaciers. We were able to get fairly close to one of the Sawyer Glaciers.

The icebergs in the water were colorful.

The water was a really milky colored blue green---from the melting of the icebergs.

Next port of call was Prince Rupert, Canada. I thought it odd that an Alaska cruise went to a Canada port, but later found out if a foreign owned cruise starts in the USA, it has to port in a foreign country. I don't think I would take another cruise that ports in Prince Rupert. It was struggling to make it as a cruise port, but really didn't have much to offer us. There were lots of excursions that offered fish bar b qs or lumber jack competitions, but we didn't want to go to either.

We did walk to the nearby Safeway (had a Frito craving) and toured a little museum (I think it was $5@ admitance fee). It was ok, but small. Did love the paintings in the back of the museum.

After checking out the museum, we headed back to the ship. This statue helped us find it.

The rest of the cruise back to Seattle was through the "inside passage". Lots of mystical views of the mountains along the way.

We were even treated to a brilliant sunset on our last night.

We woke up back in Seattle and joined the crowds waiting to debark. The parking garage across the street from the port was convenient. We were on the road within an hour and heading back to Oregon. It truely was a spectacular trip.

2001—Grand Cayman, June 2-9

2011-03-25T16:09:00.003-05:00

I had a week banked with RCI and it was about to expire. So I called and said i wanted a week in the Caribbean, on the beach, for the week of June 2-9, 2001. They had 2 choices---one in Tobago and the other at the Morritt's Tortuga Club in Grand Cayman. I chose the Morritt's. This was another trip with just Tim, Faith, Angie, and myself.
We flew USAirways to Charlotte, then on to Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We left St. Louis about 8:30am and arrived in the Caymans about 1:30pm---not bad. Again we cleared customs quickly and were on our way. I had rented a mid-sized car (a very used Tercel). I was a bit concerned when I first saw it, but it managed to make it through the week. I was also concerned about driving on the "wrong" side of the street. It really seemed weird having cars come at you on the right side of the road instead of the left, but we made it through that, too!
Our first stop was at the grocery store in Georgetown. Our resort was on the other side of the island (about 25 miles away) and I wasn't sure there would be a grocery store nearby. Other than the milk being $7/gallon, prices didn't seem too bad.
When we checked in, I asked if we had a beachfront room, he checked, made a change in his book, and said, "you do now". The location of our room was great! We were on the ground level, but our livingroom opened up onto a gorgeous beach. We were also near the club house and deck where all the entertainment took place.

It wasn't the fanciest place, but it was clean and sufficient. There was no dishwasher or washer/drier, but we didn't miss them too much.

We immediately changed into swimsuits and went out to explore the snorkeling there. It was pretty good. Even saw BIG fish under the dock---tarpin, I think , and some giant snook later. Dinner was chicken stir fry cooked up in the condo. Angie worked out in the excercise room there for awhile, then she and i went to the bar for the nightly activities. That night it was 70's disco party-name that year.

Sunday:
We spent much of Sunday exploring the other side of the island. We rode into Georgetown and on to Hell, stopping along the way to take lots of pictures.

We stopped and ohhhed and awed at 7-mile beach, too.

Hell was a cute little place with postcards and jagged black rocks and an old man dressed up like a devil. Shortly after that my digital camera quit working---I guess Hell got to it. Of course we had to send post cards from Hell!

Tim and Faith also signed up for a sunset tour for that evening, so we went back to the condo relatively early and sunbathed, snorkeled, and cooked dinner in the room again. About 5pm we headed out to find Kaibo to drop Tim and Faith off for their sunset cruise and Angie and I looked for a place to snorkel on the north end. We didn't have too much luck snorkeling that day.

It was also the time of the year when the crabs migrate onshore and they were everywhere! Some were quite large. It was tough driving and seeing a big crab looking at you and all you could do is run over it with a big thud!

Monday:

Angie and i went on a snorkel tour to Stingray Sandbar and Coral Gardens. It was great! Tim and Faith opted out of this excursion. The Stingray encounter was interesting. I fed one, but when i opened my hand so it could get the squid, it chomped down on my fingers. They may not have teeth, but they do have a strong chomp. After that i stuck to just watching them. It was fun just watching them and taking picture, though.

Coral Gardens was the best place i've snorkelled yet! It's only accessible by boat and is very close to Stingray City (or sandbar).

At one point, I saw a large eel way down there. I came upright to get Angie's attention to point it out to her and when I looked back in the water it was almost at my flippers! That was a bit of a shock, but i guess it was use to being fed. After a swift kick, it retreated back to the bottom.

Back at the Morritt's, we sampled Tortuga Rumcake, pretty good, and went to the little local store that we found near the resort (Hurleys). We snorkeled some more at the Morritt's. Tim and I went to the north side to snorkel another area since he and Faith had rented snorkel gear that day. Then it was potato stroganoff hamburger helper for dinner. That night was the welcome party on the deck from 5:30-9:30. There was a dance competition and Lammie played Cayman music. Angie and Faith had to dance with each other since Tim wouldn't dance. It was a beautiful evening sitting out on the deck where the activities took place.

Tuesday:

Girls day to go to town! We shopped, but weren't too impressed. We were impressed with the size of some of the cruise ships, though! I even found an internet station and got 6 minutes for $2. So I sent out a quick email saying something about "yesterday went to Hell, girls not impressed with shopping, Tim stayed at the condo, ... " I didn't mean it to sound so negative, but with that being the only communication for the week, Ken thought things were going really badly.

Back at the condo, we ate in the condo again (spaghetti this time) and watched tv. There was even a Cardinals baseball game on to watch! The activity that night was a comedy show, but we skipped it.

Wednesday:

I toured the new Morritt's Grand Resort next door. It just opned a week before and was VERY nice. Too bad we couldn't have exchanged into it! Anyway, I got a $50 gift certificate for dinner at the Morritt's restaurant. I gave it to Tim and Faith to use for a romantic dinner that night. For lunch we had spam and mac and cheese.

That afternoon Angie and i went on an East end snorkel excursion. It was great! We snorkeled Sunset Reef and "Angie's Reef"--the channel on East Eand. Even saw a large barracuda! We also saw a wrecked ship and sunken 2 man sub. Tim and Faith stayed back at the condo to enjoy the ice cream social.

From 5-7 Angie and I went to the "Island Slide Jammin' Party" in the bar, complete with raffle tickets, $1 off mudslide coupons, and movie tunes competition.

Tim and Faith joined us for a short while then went to their dinner. Angie did great on the tunes competition. They started with cartoons---she knew them all and won a rum cake. For our dinner, Angie and i went back to our room and dined on red beans and rice. Later she and I met Tim and Faith at the entertainment deck to enjoy the keyboard and singing of Peter Bacon.

Thursday:

We went off to the south side again to tour the turtle farm and snorkel the south side. The turtle farm was fun. Those were also the only turtles we saw on the trip.

From there we went to a highly recommended snorkel beach on 7 mile beach---cemetary reef. The fine sand made it impossible to see anything for quite a distance. The fish would follow very closely looking for handouts. We left there rather quickly and debated on even stopping at Eden Rock--another highly recommended place. But we did stop and were glad we did.It was very different snorkeling there and very deep with lots of caverns underwater, but really neat. Could have spent more time there, but wanted to get back fairly early to clean up for our 1 dinner out together (the taste of the Caribbean Buffet at the Morritt's). We got back with enough time for Tim and me to snorkel around the morritt's a little more. That's when we found 2 very large snook under the dock of the Reef Resort next door. The dinner buffet was expensive, but good---red beans and rice, jerk chicken, salad, conch chowder, other odd stuff and lots of desserts (key lime pie, pecan pie, flan, cake). Then Angie and i went to listen to Lammie again. There was also a fire and limbo show which was rather impressive. Another beautiful evening to be outdoors.

Friday:

Angie and i tried to go on another East end snorkel trip, but it was cancelled. They recommended Queen's monument on the East side, so Angie and i went there. It was great! Too bad we didn't find out about it sooner! It was quite a swim out to the reef, but we made it without any trouble even with our little "zoomers" flippers. It's not a "popular" place---never saw anyone else there, but the snorkeling way out was excellent.

We even saw squid and another very large eel while we were snorkeling. I'd say it was the 2nd best place I've snorkeled so far (that includes my 10+ trips to Hawaii by 2009).

After an afternoon of snorkeling, we went to the little gift shop at the Morritt's and got ice cream. The girls wanted to go back to Georgetown for a little more shopping, so we headed off to there in the late afternoon. We also wanted to hang out on 7-mile beach for a little while and catch a sunset. While waiting for sunset, the girls joked about being "tanned models".

Sunset was not a disappointment! The picture doesn't do it justice!

On the way back to the condo, we stopped at Burger King for dinner. Back at the condo, Angie and I again went to the deck to enjoy Peter Bacon on the keyboard. Angie even requested some Louie Prima music which he obliged us with. All the entertainers were very good all week and most of them had a great sense of humor. We really enjoyed joking with them. I guess it didn't hurt having a couple gorgeous young ladies with me---we got lots of attention.

Saturday:

I guess all good things have to come to an end! We finished off the food and packed. The girls did some final sunbathing to complete their tanned model process. i turned in the keys and towels and comment card on how much we enjoyed the visit. Then we were off to the airport and car rental return. Gassed up for the 2nd time and 450 miles for about $40 total on gas ($2.70 CI/gal---about $1.80 US at home at that time). Checked in the car, walked to the airport and waited and shopped in the duty free market of the airport. There seemed to be a better selection there then in Georgetown!

I've thoroughly enjoyed the trips with my "kids" (Faith--and now Josh, too-- included!). Even though Ken didn't want to go on these trips, I'm glad he gives us his blessings and sends us on our way.

Feb. 2004—Not your ordinary 1st Cruise!

2011-03-25T10:38:00.002-05:00

Feb. 2004 Disney Wonder 4 night cruise:
I guess Dad's and my Florida/Disney trip was doomed from the beginning! On the way to the PDX airport, Dad wrecked his car---which was ultimately totalled by the insurance company. But he had the car towed to a repair shop and continued on to the airport and I met him in Orlando for the beginning of a very different "vacation".
I will say the week at Orange lake Resort (his timeshare) was great. We didn't do the Disney thing this year, instead, we went to Universal Studios and a new favorite place of Dad's, The Holyland Experience. When our week there was up, we headed back to the Orlando airport and dropped off the car. Then spent the night in a hotel with a free shuttle to the airport.
Next morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport and caught our shuttle to the Disney cruise ship in Cape Canaveral. It was about an hour ride, but they had tv monitors throughout the bus with videos of the Disney ships and their cruises. When we got to the port, we made our way through the lines and onto the ship without much trouble.
We boarded the ship around 1:30 and we directed to the Lido deck for lunch. Rooms weren't ready yet, so everyone was sent to lunch. By the time we got to the restaurant the inside seating was full so we sat outside. A cold front had moved in the day before and it was COLD and WINDY. But the food on the Lido buffet was very good.

After the rooms were ready and our luggage was delivered, we hit the jacuzzi for a little while. Before shove off, the muster drill had to be done, so we cut our jacuzzi enjoyment short and headed back to our room to get ready for the drill. With that done, we headed to the Palo restaurant and registered for dinner there that night. Then we stood on deck and watched as we sailed away.

The cabins on the Disney ships are pretty nice for a cruise ship. I really liked that there was a curtain that pulled all the way across the area where the bed is. Another unique feature of the Disney ships are the fold down couches that make a twin bed. Dad elected to take that bed (closer to the bathroom). Also in the room was a small fridge, coffee table, desk, amble closet, safe, tv with satellite programming, and a bathroom with a shower/tub combination (something not many "cheap" cabins on other ships have). We were in an inside cabin, which I decided i don't care much for because of the lack of windows and light during the day.

At 7:30 we reported to Palo's (their special restaurant with an extra charge for dinner). The service and dinner were very very good. The waiter not only brought us what we ordered, but also samples of other items to try. The whole dining experience took about 3 1/2 hours.

After dinner, we waddled around the boat some more. Eventually came upon the ESPN bar, so we caught the 2nd half of the pro-bowl game. That was the year Bulger was their All-star player and doing well for the Rams.

Dad even made friends with Ariel as we wandered around the ship.

Day one was behind us and so far, so good.
Next morning we headed to Tritans restaurant instead of the buffet and had a sit down breakfast. The Disney ships have 3 regular restaurants and in the evening everyone rotates to different restaurants---rather a neat idea. Your table mates and servers remain the same, but the ambience is different. I forget the names of our servers, but here they are in the restaurant, Animations.

Back to breakfast---while we were eating, the ship docked in Nassau. Dad wanted to see Atlantis, so we did the ship's Atlantis excursion.

Our main interest were the eleven exhibit lagoons with over 200 species of beautiful tropical fish including a predator lagoon alive with sharks, barracudas, and stingrays. There was even a 100-foot long clear, underwater viewing tunnel passing through the predator lagoon. The aquariums were well worth seeing. The excursion ended at the casino, but we walked back through the aquariums, then back through town to the ship.

I expected more of a modern city, so was a bit disappointed in Nassau. It was a typical Bahama town--older, rustic, full of beggers. We didn't spend much time in the town itself before we were ready to head back to the ship.

Just another view of Atlantis from the dock by our cruise ship.

That evening was our dinner at Animations (after the jacuzzi, of course). Dinner was great, our dinner mates were great, the restaurant was great (the walls even change colors while you're eating).
After dinner we attended the play Hercules. It was a cute play. Then we shopped some of the stores on the ship.
That night (11pm), we went to the pre-view of the new Disney movie, Miracle (about the USA hockey team that took 1st in the Olympics). It was really good.
Another late night and good night for sleeping.
Next morning we had breakfast in the buffet restaurant and looked out over our next port---Castaway Cay (Disney's private island).

Our first stop at Castaway cay was the family snorkel trail. We spent about 1-2 hours snorkeling around there before quitting and getting lunch on the beach at Cookies Bar B Q. Again the food was outstanding.

Of course, where you have Disney property, you have Disney stores, so we did a little shopping while on the island, too.

By afternoon, the family beach had gotten quite full. But we had signed up for a snorkel excursion, so the crowds didn't bother us.

All started well with the excursion. They took us out to a reef and we had life preservers. With the shallow reef, life preservers, and the tour guides that were supposedly keeping an eye on everyone, I was over confident in Dad's safety. He had snorkeled many times before and although he wasn't a strong swimmer and didn't pay too much attention to his surroundings, he did seem to enjoy himself and do ok. So I started venturing off a bit and coming back to check on him every few minutes. On one of my ventures, the excursion boat's horn sounded and they were frantically waving everyone back on board. My first thought was that a shark was sighted and I was back to the boat in a flash. Unfortunately it wasn't sharks! Dad was on the deck of the boat---totally unresponsive and breathing very fast---even had his eyes open, but fixed. I was scared unimaginably. One of the passengers was a nurse and she did keep check of his vitals until a medic on a jet ski met us on our way back in. Dad did come to enough to talk with me a bit, but kept saying he was tired. I was constantly talking to him to keep him awake. The medic said he was tired because he wasn't getting enough oxygen to his brain---but also said he wasn't deprived enough to cause damage.
I was surprised to later learn that when he started taking in water, he actually was able to finish inflating his life preserver by blowing it up (he had it partially inflated originally). Then he swam on his back to the ship. There he had a "death grip" on the anchor rope. Passengers pulled him on board---leaving rope burn on his arm--and he collapsed on the deck. But none of the employees ever noticed him in distress.
Here's the before photo.

We were met at the excursion dock by a golf cart with a stretcher and were whisked off to the ship's infirmary. They went to pump his stomach which was very distended. The tube made him throw up---aspirating into his lungs first. The Drs weren't too concerned about that since it was salt water and he was being treated for that. Dad did manage to throw up about 2 gallons of salt water. Then they explained they were going to put him on a breathing machine to slow his breathing down and not tax his heart so much. They also said a helicopter would be coming for him in about 45 minutes and would be taking him to one of the Bahama Islands. While they intubated him, I was sent to my room to pack up and change. Shortly after getting back to the infirmary I was told no helicopter was coming---it would take too long, that that they would shove off as scheduled and dock in Freeport. I questioned them about the facilities there---having been to Freeport. Soon the nurse came back and said he would be going to Freeport, then flown to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Much relieved, I continued to sit with Dad. He had been drugged back into unconsciousness with tubes down his throat and nose and ivs everywhere. Finally they came and said a tug boat was meeting us (at sea) and taking us to Freeport where an ambulance would take us to a waiting lear jet ambulance. Also during all this time I was questioned several ltimes as to what happened and I was even called and told that I needed to charge his $4000 medical fees for treatment on board before we could leave the ship (they tried to charge it to his credit card, but he was using a new one with a $1000 limit). I was also allowed to make a couple frantic calls to Ken's answering phone at work. (the first time I called I was pretty hysterical, so they let me call back when I was a little calmer).
Finally they said a Dr. in Ft. Lauderdale accepted him as a patient and we waited for the tug to come. When the tug was there and we hopped from deck 1 to the tug---Dad in a bucket stretcher and totally out. It was about a 1/2 hour ride to Freeport. The jet was suppose to be waiting for us, but it wasn't there and they didn't know where it was. So we sat there waiting for word on the jet. Finally it arrived and we were loaded into an ambulance and transported to the airport. A respitory therapist and male nurse were there as well as 2 pilots. Apparently the delay was finding the 2 pilots and Dr. and nurse all required for medical air emergencies. They took over and were quick and skillful with their work---obviously having done this many times before. Of course we still had to clear customs, both in the Bahamas and back in Ft. Lauderdale, but I had the passp0rts and filled out the forms on the plane and tug. An ambulance was waiting for us at the airport and soon we were on our way to North Ridge Medical Center in Ft. Lauderdale. We got there shortly after midnight---about 9 hours after Dad's accident! While I filled out yet more paperwork, they took dad up to ICU. They also gave me a list of hotels to call--but all were filled up! It was Daytona 500 weekend. The head ICU nurse offered me an empty room in the ICU that night and I took it. But I couldn't sleep with all the beebs going off and wondering if it was from Dad's machine.
Morning finally came and they let me sit in his room. He was still coming off the drugs and looked terrible. He did wake from time to time, but they would come and put him back out (apparently it's uncomfortable being intubated so they liked to keep him out during that time). Disney travel called to see if they could help find me a hotel. They did find a Super 8 and I took it. After waiting an hour for my shuttle each way, I was glad when the hospital's customer relations person looked me up in dad's room and asked if she could assist me in finding a hotel room closer to the hospital. She found a room in the full nearby Hampton Inn for a hospital discount, so I jumped at taking it, but couldn't get in until the next day. Dad continued to come out of the drugs for short spell before they'd put him back to sleep. He took it all in really good stride---as he always did! By evening, he was awake more and trying to spell things in the air with his fingers---air writing. He had no idea where he was or how he got there, so was surprised to hear about the tug boat and lear jet.
That night I went to have dinner in the hospital cafe---the cusomer rep had given me about 8 $5 coupons. The cafe food was actually pretty good. The night in the Super 8 was noisy, but I was so tired it didn't matter. I was glad for the move the next morning, though. The hospital even provided a free taxi for me.
Next morning Dad looked a lot better---more alert. Probably could have come off the intibater, but the respitory Dr. wanted to leave him on it another day. He said with "near drownings" (or as Dad liked to call it "attempted drowning"), there's so much salt left in the lungs that it draws more water into the lungs. That evening, as Dad was air-writing, a new nurse handed me a paper with the alphabet on it. Sure made it easier! I wonder why none of the other nurses offered it!? Or why I didn't think of it!?
Curt (Dad's friend from Atlanta, Georgia), showed up that day. It was really nice having a familiar face around. He even treated me to dinner 2 nights and i treated him to the cafe. He also got a hospital discount room at the Hampton (told them Dad was his brother). He truelly made himself part of my family!
Next morning they took the tube out. Dad's heart then started having periods of rapid heartbeat waves (not A-fib, though). Hi didn't notice them, but it still worried me. They moved him to CCU and started giving him heart medicine. That night they changed the meds and it went back to normal. When Curt and I went to see him after breakfast, he was gone----off to a regular room. There's where he started referring to the hospital as North Ridge Medical Center and Resort. He was feeling good, but they wanted to keep an eye on him for awhile more. His "roomy" was also feeling pretty good. He had gone in for a physical, then they decided he needed a triply by-pass and wouldn't let him out before the surgery. So between Dad, Curt, and Don (the roomy), they had lots of war stories (all three retirees from the military) and life stories (all the same generation). His wife even ate dinner with Curt and me one night. Those 2 nights the 3 guys and I even played cribbage 'til 10 or so at night. The nurses seemed amused and kept reminding us that it was a hospital and there were sick people there---then they'd shut our door and let us stay. Don was even quite relieved to be able to ask Curt several questions about bi-pass surgery since he had it about 4 month previously.
Finally, on Sat., the Dr. asked if Dad would like to leave on Sun. So I spent several hours on my cell phone working out the arrangements for us to get home. Disney again tried, but could only come up with airfares over $1500. So I called AA directly and was able to pay the $100@ change fees and rebooked us. But the earliest they could book us was for the following Wed.. BEing our original tickets, we had to fly out of Orlando and be booked in the same fare code. I found a car rental and Curt took me to pick it up. Hampton was kicking him out that day, so he made me a deal that if I go to have sushi with him that night, he'd stay another night in a Best Western. How could I resist?! After dinner we went back to the hospital to visit and play more cribbage.

The next morning Dad was finally released. We went straight to the Hampton, where I'd secured another couple nights, and Dad wanted to hit the jacuzzi. We even went to Walmart where Dad picked up another cribbage set for Don and we went back and visited with him another 3 hours that night.
The next day, Dad and I took off to Key Largo and the Everglades. I was a bit disappointed in Key Largo. But we didn't have much time there. I was impressed with the Everglades. Lots of birds, fish and alligators. it was a nice day, no mosquitos, and nice wooden trails. We got back into town in time to visit with Don awhile more--until they brought him a new roommate.

Next morning---we were off to Orlando. We spent the night in the airport Hyatt so that we could be at the airport by 4:45 the next morning. I also had to make sure Dad's medical release had made it to the airlines so they wouldn't deny him boarding). We flew to Dallas, Texas, together, then parted ways.
It was a tough week! It wasn't my first medical emergency on a trip (Angie in England), and it wasn't to be my last! Never thought it would take 9 hours to go from cruise ship to hospital. Never thought about the hassles of getting hotels, car rentals, flights changed---not to mention customs, insurance matter, accident reports. Never considered trip insurance---although Dad's insurance covered him 100%, thanks to his military career. What a way to end a first cruise for either of us!

1999-Florida/Bahamas trip

2011-03-25T09:29:00.002-05:00

June 1999:
This was another "graduation" trip (the England one for Tim, this one for Angie). So shortly after she graduated, Angie, Tim, and Faith (Tim's girlfriend and now wife) took off on another week long adventure. The destination was to be a surprise to Angie, although my sister made the comment to her right before we left, "I can't wait to see your Bahamas pictures." so some of the trip wasn't a surprise.
Originally I booked the trip through a promotion on a post card we got in the mail, then decided I could book basically the same trip for less and i did.
Angie and I got to Orlando a little before Tim and Faith (got them a great deal on Delta and Angie and I flew on AA award travel). By the time I got the car, Tim and Faith had arrived, so we were on our way. First stop was to a 2 bedroom condo near SeaWorld. This was my first time using RCI for nightly stays and it worked out great. The condo was beautiful! The first night was just spent basically aclimating to the area. Angie, Faith and I drove down International Drive while Tim lounged around the condo. We also hit a grocery store for snacks for a few days. Had fast food for dinner and hit the pool and jacuzzi. That took care of the first day.
Day 2:
This day we went to Disney World's Magic Kingdom. We even met up with some Disney addict friends of ours from St. Louis and they gave us a great tour of the place---got us on more rides then we probably could have done ourselves.

It was a great day!

Even got to see the light parade finally.

We had dinner at a Bennigan's. I'm sure the waiter was annoyed at bringing us glass after glass of ice tea, but we were very thirsty after a day in the heat! We got back to the condo about 1am.
Day 3:
Time to check out and head on to our next part of the trip. First we headed down international drive to an outlet mall and shopped a bit, then we headed towards the coast. We drove straight to Cocoa Beach and got our first look at the ocean. We also shopped at the huge Ron Jon Surf Shop there. Then we wanted to get to our next destination (W. Palm Beach) as quickly as we could, so we jumped back on the highway and headed south. There I had reserved a 1 bedroom condo, also through RCI, and it was very nice, too. We immediately went to the beach and checked out the water. It was great. That night, Tim and Faith went off to find dinner by themselves and Angie and I went to a little Italian joint right by the resort. It was very good.

Day 4:
Angie and I went on a boat tour of the million dollar houses along the shore. It was a neat tour. Back by the condo we all played in the ocean for quite awhile. Then went to R J Gators and had another great dinner (even tried alligator).

Day 5:
Time to hit the road again. We turned in the car at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and waited for our flights to Grand Bahamas. Finally it was time. The plane really didn't look that small until we got into it-- 1 seat on each side (3 across the very back), and even I had to bend over to walk down the aisle. The flight was really pleasant. The water was unbelievably blue and green. Once in Grand Bahamas, we waited about an hour for our shuttle to pick us up and take us to Deadman's Reef. I had found this little place after lots of research for a place with great snorkeling right from the beach. There were 2 little villas there and 2 - 1 bedroom condos (2 larger villas were under construction when we were there). I rented us a little 2 bedroom villa for 3 nights. Turned out to be a really neat place. The accommodations weren't fancy, but comfortable for our purposes. The shuttle even stopped at a grocery store on the way to the place and let us pick up some groceries. The villas wasn't quite ready when we got there, so we wandered around the grounds a bit. They even had a pretty good bar b q grill open air restaurant there.

Finally we were able to check into our villa. It even came with board games and free movie videos (the tv didn't have much in the way of reception).

Soon we were out and into the water.

Day 6:
This day we rented snorkel gear and found out it's really easy and so much fun snorkeling with good equipment. So much fun that we all got burnt and couldn't get back in the water the next day! But i loved all the coral and fish. Even prettier then the coral in Hawaii, there I didn't see any fan coral or brain coral. Loved all the colorful fish, too. After 7 hours of snorkeling, I was extremely ill that night from severe sunburn (even though I did use sunscreen). Never got that sick from a burn before! Had me rather worried with the severe pain and chills. Finally I took 4 ibuprofen and laid down awhile. That helped. I managed to get up and make pancakes for dinner. We all got burnt, but we all would love to go back! After 5pm, the beach was ours. But sand mites where bad, so when darkness set in, we stayed in and watched videos.

Day 7:
Since we were all too burnt to enjoy the water again, we used the shuttle to head into Freeport. The owners of the place we stayed at ran a business where they brought people to the beach for the day and their shuttle ran back and forth to Freeport and the cruise ship port until about 5. The kids were excited about being old enough to go to the casino and gamble, so we each spent about $20 (except Angie who won about $10). We also shopped the mall and marketplace. Tim and Faith went back to the cove while Angie and I went to dinner then caught the last shuttle back to the cove.

Day 8:
It was time to get up and get to the airport, again. We flew back to Ft. Lauderdale and waited for our respective flights---Tim and Faith on Delta and Angie and me on AA. Much to our surprise, Tim and Faith ended up on our flight! Their connection was going to be missed in Atlanta, so they were sent to our flight and got there with about a minute to spare. Their luggage was even on our flight.
Another trip I will cherish with the kids. I had a great time! Hopefully they remember it fondly, too.

2010-Kauai trip #9, Feb. 19-March 5: Year of the Tsunami

2011-03-24T17:31:00.003-05:00

AA did away with the flight from STL that let us get to LAX 2 hours before the LAX-LIH flight, so we were rescheduled on a much earlier flight. We ended up with a 5 hour layover in LAX and arrived in Kauai about 9:10pm (Hawaiian time)---almost 15 hours after leaving home. We had carry on luggage only, so were off to catch the Avis shuttle in minutes. We've always used Budget in the past, but after a really bad experience with Avis in Skagway, Alaska, over the summer, we were given $50 in Avis certificates so I found a really good deal with them through discounthawaiicarrentals.com --- $350 for 2 weeks include all fees and taxes. I figured we'd give them a try. Check in was a breeze and we were in our Pontiac G6 on our way to Worldmark Kapaa Shores in less then 20 minutes from the time we got off the plane. As Worldmark owners, I was able to pick up the lone Friday night on bonus time for about $85. We flew out a day before our Wyndham KBV stay started in order to redeem air miles to fly free. That pretty much takes care of day one.
For most of our first week here, the weather was beautiful. It was sunny, in the 70’s, little wind and no vog, although the surf on the north shore was at advisory levels most of the 2 weeks we were there.
One Sat. morning we made it to the "new" farmers' market at the Community College in Lihue. One of the highlights there for me was the demonstration put on by some culinary school students from the college. Here they made and gave out samples of a ginger cookie with carmalized pineapple on top of it and a rum sauce and whipped cream garnish with piped crispy lattice cookie on top. It was very good and the students were interesting to chat with.

We also finally stopped and checked out the monument to the sugar plantation workers in Koloa. It is an interesting sculpture with lots of info about the sugar plantation days. Here's a close up of a couple of the figures within the monument.

We had heard there was a return of the Poipu beach tombula (sandy area leading to the island), so we were anxious to check that out, too.

I was also anxious to snorkel and try out my new Canon D10 underwater digital camera. I was very pleased with the results.

Both above and below water. Here are a few pictures with it at Lydgate.

We did our Wyndham owners' update (a.k.a. sales presentation). Incentive was a discount card for activities and restaurants and a $100 debit card. We were out of there in just at an hour. We had heard the new pool at the Wyndham Bali Hai was done, so after our presentation, we went to check out the pool. I thought it was rather impressive!

We finally hit the infamous Duane's Ono Char Burger restaurant we've heard so much about. In our 8 previous trips to Kauai, we never made it there. Today we did and were not disappointed. It doesn't look like much and there's no inside dining, but there’s an outside seating area with pic nic tables. Ken got the patty melt and I got fish and chips. Both were excellent! We will go there again, and again, and ... .

The weather created some really beautiful clouds formations throughout or visit. We often don’t stop at some of the overlooks anymore since we’ve been there so often, but this trip we did stop at more of them just to get pictures with the gorgeous clouds, such as here at the canyon overlook.

It's been 2 or 3 years since we've been able to snorkel at Salt Pond. The past few times we went the surf was high or the wind was blowing and making it cold, or sharks were sighted and the bay was closed, or ... . But this time we lucked into conditions good for snorkeling or just resting on the beach.

I've seen some really unusual things here in the past, but this time I found some really weird things, such as (?) growing under a rock.

But those weren't nearly as wierd looking as this creature! I've never seen anything like it and would love to check it out online if I had any idea of what to call it! It appeared to be eatting. The "arms" in the front kept shoving stuff into the top of it (mouth-?). I actually saw 2 of these critters there.

Over the years, I’ve been lurking on the TripAdvisor Kauai Forum. This year, a meet and greet was organized by Barbie and Salim at the Hyatt after Koloagirl’s lighting ceremony. There were only 8 of us there, but we enjoyed our 2+ hour visit. We had never made it to the lighting ceremony before, so it was nice to be able to check that out, too.

The east side surf is consistantly high when we’re there (Jan or Feb), so we don’t get to do much snorkeling at the east side beaches other than at Lydgate, but we lucked into a really calm 1-3' surf one day and decided to check out a beach we had looked at years ago when it was too rough to enjoy then. That beach was Moloa'a beach on the east side, north of Kapaa. I had heard that snorkeling on the far left side of the beach was pretty good. We watched the surf for awhile, then decided to give it a try. There was a Movies Location Tour group there when we got there and we heard someone say some of Gilligan's Island was filmed here. I'm not sure I'd want to be rescued if I was deserted here!

The water here was the clearest we've seen yet this trip. Reminded me of how clear it is on the Big Island. There weren't a ton of fish here, but good enough to keep me entertained. Here is one of the cute little critters we found today. There were actually 2 of these guys here. I had seen one of these guys one other time---in the shallows at Poipu beach a few years ago.

Our schedule of snorkeling in the day and catching a beautiful sunset worked pretty well this trip. Usually we headed south for sunset. Here was yet another gorgeous sunset at Poipu.

Another one at the little boat harbor near Spouting Horn.

Another from Salt Pond

The East side can also be nice at sunset. We took a long walk along the bike path one evening and were treated to this sunset.

On our 7th day there, we woke up eager to track Tim and Faith's flights to the Big Island. Seems they got to Dallas, Texas OK, then the problems started. First their flight was delayed 20 minutes, then 30. They finally left about an hour after their scheduled departure time. Therefore, they missed their Hawaiian flight from Oahu to Hilo. Talking to Hawaiian, they said they won't put them on the last flight because they won't be checking in 45 minutes before that flight, even though the plane is scheduled to get in there 40 minutes before that flight. So that pretty much ruined my day. We also had the return of the trade winds. I know the residents probably welcome the trade winds with the lower humidity, rain, clouds, and cooler temps, but I like the Kona winds (when it doesn't bring in a bunch of vog). We didn't really get much rain, but did get lots of wind (the 15-20 mile per hour type).
While hanging around tracking their flights, we check out Wailua Falls. We hadn't been there in awhile. I was surprised to see the "no vendor" signs up. Last time we were there we actually bought a painting from one of the vendors. They have done a lot of work to the viewing area since we were last there. Although you can see in this picture that some people think you need to get closer! I couldn't believe this young man was walking around so close to the top of the falls with his very young daughter. You can warn people of danger, but not everyone will heed it. They actually even got closer to the edge then this. At one point the man even picked his daughter up and was carrying her next to the edge. Then he would wave to the onlookers. On our drive from the falls, we even encountered a baby boar. Didn't have my zoom lens with me at that time.

Fortunately, all turned out well for the kids getting to the Big Island. As soon as the kids landed in Honolulu, they made a mad dash to the interisland gate and made it just in time to get on the last flight to Hilo tonight. What a relief!
With the trade winds back, we spent much of the last week south. While at Lawai beach, I wandered over to check out the Koloa Heritage site down the street.
This is a Prince Kuhio Birthplace and Park. He was a delegate to the US Congress for 19 years after Hawaii became a territory in 1900. I've always looked as it as we drove by, but this was the first time I walked around the park. It's a very nice memorial for Prince Kuhio.

We like to check out the Spouting Horn when we’re in the area. This particular time the waves were really coming in. I've never seen the spouting horn spout quite so high. It was a good day for watching it. Again there were lots of signs up warning not to go down there, but again they were ignored by some.

Sat. Feb. 27th started pretty early for us. At 6am workers at the ocean front resort we're in (Kauai Beach Villas), knocked on our door and basically told us to get out----now! With the 8.5 earthquake in Chile a couple days ago, we knew there was a chance of a tsunami reaching us, so this evacuation wasn't a surprise. Our first stop was Walmart. Not for water and food supplies like just about everybody else there, but for snacks---plus I'm looking for new snorkel fins. No luck with the fins, but did find snacks. We also checked out K-mart for the fins, but had no luck there, either. So we headed to breakfast at Dani's---along with half of Lihue! They were bussing tables like mad. Our wait for food was a bit lengthy, but they had a full house. We also noticed lines of people waiting for gas for their cars. That sort of surprised us. We wondered were people were going to drive with a full tank of gas if the island was hit hard. I guess we weren't expecting it to be as bad as many of the residents did--but what experience do we have with tsunamis out in the mid-west?! Fortunately, the tsunami pretty much fizzled out by the time it got to Hawaii.
Because of the tsunami, we decided to check out the train ride at Gaylord's. With roads being closed all over the place, we were somewhat limited in where we could go. Couldn't go towards Kapaa since the highway was closed at WAilua. Couldn't go to any beach since police were turning people away. So the train ride seemed a logical choice.
We hadn't planned to do this excursion, but I was happy we did it. Some may think it's kind of cornie---or good for kids, but I thought it was a nice photo op, too. We have a discount card, so we were able to get 24% off on our fare, so it only cost us $13@ for the 40 minute ride. This is the old train we were on.

The ride took us through their many fields of fruit crops. Here we are by the pineapple fields.

Then it took us to their animal pastures. Here we were at the wild pig pasture. They let you off the train here and let you feed the pigs (from the other side of the fence from them).

Another last look at the animal pasture.

AFter the train ride, we headed south. All the time the radio was covering the tsunami. By now it was past noon, so we were curious to hear what had happened in Hilo and Kauai. Although the ocean apparently receeded from the Napali a bit, there were only about 1 foot tsunami waves here on Kauai. Hilo had about 3 foot waves, I believe, but there was no damage to any of the islands. Tim and Faith called and said all was well there on the Big Island. Lots of roads were closed so they were hanging out on a lava field and in the jacuzzi in the jungle. They went into Hilo for dinner after the warning was lifted and said there was no sign of high surf.
We continued south. About 1pm we stopped for lunch at Brick Oven Pizza. I love their pizzas, although they are spendy at $19 for a medium 1 topping pizza. But it was good. Someone had even brought in a tv so we were able to watch the news about the tsunami.
About 2 we were heading back towards Lihue to hit the movie theatre when the radio said the warning was lifted and the roads were reopened. With that, we decided to forgo the movie and just head back to our condo.
The state parks are suppose to be closed for the rest of the day so snorkeling was out, so we decided to walk part of the new bike/walking trail along the east coast. We had walked the part from just north of Kapaa to Kealia Beach last year. So this time we started at Kealia Beach and headed north. It's a fantastic paved path!

The views were spectacular. We walked a little past Donkey Beach before turning around. Even saw a nude beach goer. But I decided not to add a picture of that to my blog.

On Monday, March 1st, Tim and FAith flew over from the Big Island. With the tsunami and vog, sounds like they weren't terribly impressed with the Big Island. But they did really like the B&B they stayed at in the town of Volcano.
After the kids arrived and settled in, we were ready to head for the sunshine and they were anxious to hit the beach (they didn't get to many on the Big Island). With the surf still above advisory levels on the north shore and the cloud cover on the east side, we decided to head south. Ended up at Poipu.
After some snorkeling and sunbathing, it was time to think about dinner. They'd heard alot about Puka Dog and wanted to try it. So off we went to the famous Puka Dog.

The dog (sausage) is stuck in a pouch of bread and filled with exotic relishes of your choice. Little too much bread for me, but the rest of it was good.

The wind advisory was here for awhile more. With gusts up around 40 m/h, it sounded really wicked at times. Surf stayed up on the north side; 3-5 feet on the east, but with the east wind it was too rough for snorkeling; 1-3 on the south shore. So----south we kept going.
Lawai seemed to be the best place to go with the winds blowing so hard. The beach is sloped so the wind was blocked more. It probably also helped having the bushes above us.

We even wandered around the little town of Koloa one afternoon. I love all the Monkey Pod trees around there. A few years ago we were here when a bunch of them were going to be cut down for expansion. There were protests and it was taken to court. Not sure what's going on with the proceedings now. There's still a large barackaded area with several monkey pod trees in it here in town. At least these ones aren't in that danger.

We've never really walked around the little town until today. There is a nifty little museum in the block. I found this old picture of Koloa Landing really interesting. A placque said it was the 3rd largest port in Hawaii back in about the early 1900's. Knowing how small that landing is, I was surprised.

Here's a view of Koloa Landing today from up by where the train tracks are going in the above picture.

On the 13th day of our vacation, the forecast actually said it was suppose to be warmer and a little less windy on the north side. Surf wasn't in the advisory levels north, but were still listed as somewhere around 12 '. Rain was in the forecast for all over the island. Surf on the east side was around 5' again and very windy. South was 1-3' and windy. Seeing as this was really our last chance to go north this trip, we decided to head north anyway. I had already resigned myself to the fact that there wouldn't be any snorkeling, but hoped to get a few pictures. We had planned to meet the "kids" at Hanalei Dolphin at 7. They, too, ended up going north, but left 2 or 3 hours before us. They pretty much ended up heading to the same spots we did, but with totally different results.
By the time we got to Tunnels, the sun was shining, the surf was calm and there was very little wind. The kids had been there a couple hours earlier and their pictures of the place were drastically different. I was surprised just a couple hours could make such a difference! Here's what it looked like when we were there.

AFter an hour or so, the skies clouded over and it started to rain, but since this was the first rain we've seen in 13 days, I'm not complaining. We packed up our stuff and moved up under the trees. Ken was ready to go and I was happy to have had the chance to snorkel Tunnels, so we left. First had to get one last picture of the Bali Hai mountains for this trip.

We made it to Hanalei Dolphin for dinner that night. Not a cheap place, but service was very good. My fish dinner was very good, but more spendy then I remembered. Faith had sushi which she said was only so so; the guys had fish and chips which they seemed to enjoy, but they didn't seem to think it was anything special considering the price. But the company was great! In fact, they treated us tonight. At about $40/person, that was quite a treat!

One morning we decided to give Olympic Cafe in Kapaa a try. We had never been there before. We were all very impressed. NOt only was the food very good and plentiful, but the ambience was really neat. We did have a brief rain shower while we were eatting, but that resulted in our 2nd rainbow of our trip. Loved sitting in the open 2nd floor cafe overlooking the main street through Kapaa. We even liked the mugs so much that we bought 3 of them. Sorry Kountry Kitchen and Dani's, we found a new favorite breakfast place.

One day Ken and I even wandered around 2 Frogs Hugging. The name of the store always had me curious to check out what they have, so we finally did. I decided if I ever get rich and get to refurnish my house, that's where I'm getting my stuff from. Loved their style!
We even went to Smith’s luau again. Ken and I have been to it 5 times now and I still love going to it. This was the kids' 3rd time and their idea to go. I love the gardens that it's on and the food is outstanding---not to mention the international performance.

The grounds are a great place for taking portraits.

A happy couple with their plates full of great food.

I loved the colorful outfits and the commentary about the different nationalities. Even thought the singer and band were fantastic.

We find it refreshing these youngsters want to follow their traditions and really seem to be enjoying what they're doing.

I forget what they call this swinging around of fire balls, but it really looks neat in the dark.

On our last day there, Tim and Faith had to leave early (for a 2:50pm flight). They were flying back from Honolulu. So we didn't do much before they left. Hung around the condo and walked the beach by KBV. Here are some pictures from our beach.

Eventually I came along the ocean side of the Wailua golf course. Looks like a pretty nice course from what I could see of it.

We got to enjoy another vacation in Kauai. Loved sharing it with family again. We’ve been there so often now that we really feel at home here. Can’t wait for our 10th trip!

2011 Kauai---trip #10 to Kauai! Feb. 10-25 Year of the Shark!

2011-03-11T14:40:00.064-06:00

On about our 5th trip to Kauai, we had read in one of the visitor booklets that if you vacation to Kauai 10 times, you'll have a good chance of eventually moving there. I wonder if that'll hold true for us, too!? Unfortunately, there's no plans for that move as of yet.

I imagine even if this had been our 1st trip to Kauai, I still would have been blown away by it's beauty, but since this was our 10th, the weather made this trip ever so slightly disappointing. We had Kona winds for the whole time, which I have mixed feelings about. I like the warmer more humid weather it brings, but dislike the vog it can also bring. This year the vog was really bad because the volcano on the Big Island was being especially active. Our crisp vibrant colors of the distant hills weren't there for the whole 2 weeks of our visit. The first several days we didn't even get to see the brilliant blue/green ocean colors due to constant cloud cover. We did have quite a bit of rain, too, but that in itself doesn't bother me that much. It's the constant cloud cover and vog that were disappointing this year. Our usual routine of snorkeling all day then finding a sunset didn't work out well this year. We still snorkeled quite a bit, but by sunset, the clouds were usually too heavy to produce a pretty sunset, so most evenings we ended up just going out for an early dinner instead.

The past 2 years I've booked our flights to arrive a day or 2 before our timeshare stay started and left a day before our stay ended in order to get AA award tickets. This works out pretty well especially since we've had ocean view rooms the last 2 years and it was nice checking in when we could enjoy the view, instead of after 9pm and a long day of flying. It's also nice having the condo all day on the last day until we had to catch our red eye flight.

This year we spent our first 2 nights in the Plantation Hale in Kapaa. For $80/night, it was quite a deal. For the most part, it was pretty nice. I liked that it had an air conditioner that had half the air directed into the bedroom and half into the livingroom. Both areas stayed nice and cool. The 1 bedroom condo was a decent size. The pool areas are nice and we actually used the jacuzzi the 2nd morning (in the rain). The big downfall was they supposedly only have 15 units with a king bed instead of 2 doubles. Even with a request in, we got the 2 beds. Unfortunately, we don't both fit in one double.

This was the typical voggy view for the first several days. It did let up somewhat nearer the end of our trip, but the vog didn't totally go away. I believe the normal tradewinds came back the day we left. At least there was lots of green and no snow or ice! Been a tough winter in the midwest.

FEb 12, Thursday---Day 1:

This was a day of travel. American Airlines have changed their award travel policies, so our trip was longer then usual. Now they don't allow a "stop over" of more then 4 hours at a time without charging for 2 award travel tickets. So instead of flying non-stop to LAX and having a 5 hour layover before our Kauai flight, we had to leave STL earlier and fly to DFW, then LAX for a combined layover of about 6 hours. So with 6 hours of layover, 2 hours to DFW, 4 hours to LAX, and another 6 hours to Kauai, it was a long day. At least all the flights were on time so we arrived in Kauai about 8:30 (actually a little early). In DFW, they were looking for volunteers to check their luggage for free, so we checked our carryon (all that we travel with anymore except when we fly on Southwest where luggage still goes free). Upon our arrival, I took off to get our Pontiac G6 rental car from Budget ($440 for the 15 days this year) while Ken waited for our luggage. He was at the curb when I got back with the car and we were off to Kapaa within about 15 minutes of landing. Checked into our condo, set up our internet to email our safe arrival to the kids back home, then headed off to Safeway. It's part of our routine to get us into the new time zone quicker. Dinner was a $9 sub sandwich from Safeway. I think we managed to stay up until about 11pm, then hit the sack.

Feb 11, friday---Day 2:

Still feeling the jet lag, we weren't in the mood to go snorkeling today. Or was it because of the clouds, vog and rain?! Anyway---we first headed to K-mart and got a few items, including malasadas from the little stand by the K-mart entrance. That's the first time we were there when the stand was open. I was a bit surprised with the taste of malasadas. We had them once before from another stand and they reminded me very much of funnel cake. These ones were much more chewy. Still good, but different from what we had before. Maybe the others were made with funnel cake mix and these were real malasadas?

We headed south from Lihue in hopes of finding sun. Instead, we found more rain. Not heavy, but it was totally overcast. So we wandered around the little free garden by the McBryde/Allerton main office. All these years we thought this tree was an Ironwood. We found out this trip that they are Rainbow Eucalyptus.

Found another of the colorful yellow spiders here.

Have no idea what these are. They remind me of tucan beaks.

Even visited the gift shop there. It really has some interesting items in it!

While we were in the area, we checked out the brand new Wyndham Grand resort. I was hoping it would be in the Wyndham timeshare system so I could use points to stay there, but it's not. But after touring it, we may be booking a night or 2 here some time. It truely is Grand!

Then we headed over to Poipu Point to see if there were any whales jumping about. There weren't---a few were spouting, though. But we did see this colorful bird. Hadn't seen one of these before.

Just another view from the path going to Poipu Point.

Just thought I'd add this. I thought it was a creative use of the moss, or whatever it is, that grows on some of the trees there.

We went to Merriman's Downstairs Cafe for happy hour. Got a happy hour beer and we shared a kalua pork and pineapple pizza---not bad.

Since it was Friday and we had never been to the Hanapepe gallery night, we decided it was time to check it out. I was impressed. It would have also been a good place to get a quick dinner from one of the food venders, but we had already eatten. Parking was pretty tough, we had to drive around twice before we found any parking.

There were performers here, too. One was a talented young gal (high school age?) singing in front of the library. There was also a very good group playing stringed instruments at the far end of town.

Feb. 12, Saturday---Day 3:

This was the day we checked in for our first week at Kauai Beach Villas, so we didn't do much but hang out and wait for our room to be ready. We did check out the new pool area. They took down the concrete retaining wall and very nicely renovated the restrooms. Taking down the rataining wall opened up the area, but also lets more wind in. I guess it's nice, but certainly not as nice as the ones at the other Wyndhams. At least the new management at the Aqua hotel next door is allowing KBV guests to use their much nicer pools and jacuzzis again.

We were finally able to check in about 3pm. Then maintenance had to come by and fix a couple things. This was our first time on the ground level at KBV. I was concerned that our ocean view wouldn't be very good from the ground level, but we still had a pretty nice view. It was a 1 bedroom/2bath condo in building G (1 or 2, I forget which one is the 1 bedroom/2 bath and which is the 1 bedroom /1 bath). We were scheduled to be in this room for the whole 2 weeks, but I was able to pull a little Wyndham VIP magic and find a 2 bedroom lagoon view unit for the 2nd week for half the amount of points normally needed because it came available within 60 days of our check in date. So I cancelled the 2nd week in the 1 bedroom/2 bath oceanview unit and hoped for an upgrade. That worked out really well, as they ended up giving us my requested 3rd floor and upgrading us to an oceanview room for our 2nd week and we have enough points left over to vacation another week just about anywhere on the mainland with the points we saved. (Actually ended up using some of the points to send Angie and Josh to St. Thomas for vacation in Sept. and used the rest of the points to trade into Trading Places for 2 weeks in 2 bedroom condos + 2 bonus weeks. Have one of those weeks booked in a 2 bedroom unit at Maui Hill for May 2012!) Here is the livingroom/diningroom area of our ground floor 1 bedroom unit. It was nice being able to walk right out our sliding glass doors and almost be on the beach.

While we were waiting for our room, we also made it over to Lihue to the farmer's market. There wasn't much left by the time we got there--no apple bananas, no flowers, just some mango pie which I forced myself to buy and eat. It wasn't the prettiest of days and by the time we got all settled into our new room, it was getting late, so we didn't venture south in search for a sunset that probably wasn't going to happen. Instead, we stuck around Lihue until dinner time, then went to BullShed for dinner---one of our regular haunts. Here's a picture of the Lihue farmers market and the thick cloud cover we had most of the day.

Feb. 13, Sunday---Day 4:

Finally, a little sun---at least for awhile. It was definately time to get in the water! With the weather still questionable, we headed south. First we went to probably our favorite snorkel area on the south side, Lawai.

One of our fishy friends---a rock mover.

We saw more bird wrasses this year then we normally do. This colorful one is a male.

A view back towards the beach from out by the outter reef. The water's much clearer out there then nearer to the beach. It's also very shallow out there.

After a couple hours in Lawai, we decided to go check out Poipu. We were welcomed by a local monk seal.

Snorkeling is great here, too. Here is one of the many unicorn fish around Kauai.

And a Chistmas Wrasse.

A view of the calm Poipu waters while I was waiting for Ken to join me.

We headed off to Brick Oven Pizza in Hanapepe for an early dinner. This is another favorite haunt of ours. We even hit the Brick Oven Pizza buffet in Kapaa for dinner twice this trip.

We headed back to Poipu Beach after dinner hoping to catch a pretty sunset.

Unfortunately we were foiled again. The clouds rolled in and by sunset they had pretty well taken over. As I recall, it even started raining on our way back home.

Feb. 14, Monday---Day 5:

The day started out promising. We were able to see some blue skies. I even took a walk down the beach by our KBV resort. We headed to the farmer's market in Koloa in the early afternoon. Got my $5 worth of tropical flowers and my only fixin' of apple bananas. It was another cloudy, voggy day. We elected not to go snorkeling. Instead, we headed up the canyon. In hindesight, not the best of ideas with all the vog in the air. The vog created such a haze that the canyon view wasn't the greatest. I felt sorry for those who were there seeing it for the first time. What a difference it makes when it's clear! At least it was a warm day, even at the top.

A picture of the canyon on a clear day from 2001.

Along one of the pull outs, I spotted this spotted plant. Never seen anything like it before. It's always neat to see new sights, whether they be fish, birds, or strange looking plants.

Also came across this waterfall along the side of the road. I don't remember seeing it before. Maybe we had never been up there after so much rain.

We drove all the way to the Kalalau Lookout and wandered around there for awhile. It's interesting watching the constantly moving clouds.

We were going to have dinner at the Waimea Brewery, but due to it being Valentine's Day, they only offered 2 dinners on their menu and charged $40@. So we skipped it and headed back. With the clouds building and knowing there would be no sunset, we continued on to the east side. Stopped at Costco and got a couple Caesar salads from their snack bar and went back to the condo where we had salad and leftovers from the BullShed.

Feb. 15, Tuesday---Day 6:

The weather had put a damper on our snorkeling, but it was time to kick it into gear. The surf report showed the north shore to be calmer then the south shore so we headed north and hoped for some sun. It turned out to be a beautiful day. First we stopped at Anini for a bit. Anini has become a favorite snorkel place of ours. Took a lot of persistance to become a favorite, but persistance has paid off. The first trip to Kauai we didn't even see Anini. The next few times we went there because the beach is so beautiful, even though we thought the snorkeling was really bad. Sometimes we didn't even find any fish. But eventually we found where you have to go and the snorkeling is really quite good. It's mostly juvenile fish, but they school together and there's usually a turtle there, too. We didn't spend a whole lot of time there this day since we wanted to take advantage of the unusually nice weather and low surf farther north. We knew we could always come back here with it's protected reef if the surf got too rough up north later in the trip.

From Anini we headed straight to Kee where we were met with pool like water. This is a look back on the Napali from down the beach a bit.

The north shore beaches were exceptionally calm for most of our 2 week trip. I only remember there being a surf advisory one day---quite a contrast from last year when we only could snorkel on the north shore one day. It was also interesting watching the normal big waves rolling in outside the reef. The snorkelers in the foreground sort of put a little perspective on the size of the waves.

One of the indigenous fish species of Hawaii---the Hawaiian Sergeant fish.

A view back towards Kee beach from the calm waters of Kee.

On our way back from Kee we lucked into a parking spot at Tunnels. I love the view of the BAli Hai mountains from this beach! Love the snorkeling there, too, even though the sudden drop off so close to the beach really spooks me.

I often see schools of larger fish at Tunnels. Here is a school of unicorn fish.

Sunset fizzled out again. We stopped at Wyndham Bali Hai on the way back and warmed up in the jacuzzi before changing into dry clothes. We're also owners there, although we've never stayed there.

Feb. 16, Wednesday----Day 7:

This was the morning our resort held it's Owner's Update meeting. We went to it and listened to future plans for the resort. Supposedly it'll be totally renovated in 6 years. It'll be interesting to see if that happens. We were originally suppose to get a totally renovated pool area several years ago, but over the last year they decided to just update the pool area that's already there. They had been doing condo renovations little by little throughout the years, but I was somewhat surprised when we checked into our 2nd week and it still had the old mattresses and bedding in them. I love the resort for it's location, cleanliness, layout, and size of accommodations, but they really can use a good make-over! Seems like most of our maintenance fees have been going towards the new construction at the Bali Hai Wyndham. Love the condos there, but not so much the location--at least not for winter.

Done with the meeting, we saw that the surf report (for snorkeling, not surfing) again recommended the north shore over the south, so off to the north shore we went again! This time we hit Kee first. The water was pool like again.

Here's another visitor enjoying watching the large outter waves.

We even saw a couple turtles at Kee this trip. Also saw one at Tunnels and one at Lawai. It was a good year for swimming with turtles.

Another view from down the beach at Kee.

Tunnels was also amazingly calm. We've discovered if you go around low tide, the surf really calm down. With low tide coming about an hour later every day, we were lucky to have low tide in the early afternoon-early evening for almost a week. High tide was about 6 hours later.

Some of the residents of Tunnels.

Another resident of Tunnels.

Feb. 18, Thursday---Day 8:

I'm a sucker for gardens. When I learned Na' Aina Kai was a reciprocol garden to our Missouri Botanical Gardens, I decided it was time to see what this garden is all about. In previous years we've been to McBryde and Limahuli and enjoyed their tropical natural gardens. Would love to go to Allerton some day, but may have to win the lottery first. Anyway, Na' Aina Kai botanical gardens are the estate gardens of a wealthy resident couple of Kauai. After showing their "yard" off to friends and friends of friends for many years, they finally moved off the estate and donated the grounds to Kauai. There are several different tours offered, but the free recipocol tour was their $35 1.5 hour walking tour. I even extended my Mo Botanical Garden membership before we left home so I could add Ken's name onto the membership and he could get in free, too. Here's the parking lot to the garden office.

Our tour actually lasted about 2 hours and we were invited to wander around some more by ourselves after the guided tour. I highly recommend this tour. It's more formal then the other gardens and just as beautiful, just in a more structured way. This garden deserves a slide show of some of their botanicals and sculptures. Even though we had a lot of sun during our tour, we were also rained on off and on throughout the tour.

After spending the afternoon at the garden, we headed back to the East side stopping by the bike path north of Kapaa and wandering along it for awhile.

With sunset out of the question again, we headed to Kapaa for the Brick Oven Pizza buffet night.

Feb. 18, Friday---Day 9:

Another great day to head north. The vog was even down quite a bit. The closer mountains were actually pretty clear today as seen in this picture. This was taken a little past Kapaa on our way to Anini.

I took pity of Ken and didn't make him drive all the way to Kee and Tunnels, although the weather and calm surf would have been good for that again. Instead, we spent 3 or 4 hours at Anini, mostly snorkeling.

We did head into Hanalei for a while later in the afternoon. Even made it to happy hour at Calypso's for a drink and cheap appetisers (dinner)--nachos and chicken wings. The sky opened up and it poured while we were eating. After dinner, we headed over to Hanalei pier to see if we could catch a sunset there. No luck, again, but I did enjoy wandering around taking more pictures.

The rain drenched spider lilies posed for a pretty picture.

Going down the beach, I walked under the pier and got this interesting perspective.

AFter another lack luster sunset, we headed back to our condo and packed for our move the next day.

FEb. 19, Saturday---Day 10:

We were suppose to be able to check into our new unit by 2, so we didn't venture far. Did go to Olympic cafe for another great breakfast. Then waited in our room until they called and told us we could transfer to our new room. They would have moved our stuff for us, but we decided to save them the trouble. The views from our 3rd floor unit were outstanding!

Weather was still good, so we headed south for a change, even though north was still good. We were beginning to miss the south side. With it getting late by the time we got there, we just went to one beach---Poipu. Again we shared it with a monk seal.

We did still get a couple hours of snorkeling in. Saw lots of interesting oceanlife, such as this juvenile orange stripe surgeon fish.

These are adult orange stripe surgeon fish.

Poipu does seem to have the most of these scary fish---needle fish. They like to hang around just under the surface. If you don't look up, it's easy to miss them.

This is the "tombula" between the really shallow area to the right where the life guard chair is and the more open area to the left. When we first started going to Kauai over 10 years ago, the tombula was there. Then it disappeared for several years. Last year it was back. I'm not sure if more sand was brought in or if it's natural, but it's nice having it back. There use to be quite a current running through where the tombula is. Most people only snorkel in the water on the left side of this picture thinking the right has poor snorkeling. I've actually seem more species and schools of fish on the right side. It's also better for taking pictures since the shallower water makes it easier to get closer to the fish.

We did get a bit of a sunset, although the clouds really did tone it down. I toned it back up with Photoshop.

After sunset, we headed back to the east side, stopping at Kalapaki Joes for dinner---fish and chips for me and rueben for Ken. Dinner was good.

Feb. 20, Sunday---Day 11:

Today was a real gully washer day most of the day. It started out just overcast, but rained all afternoon/evening. I had heard about a "Dinosaur" volleyball tournie, so we went to check it out at Kalapaki BAy in the morning. The ages of the men on the 2-man teams had to equal 80 years old or more and the women's 2 person teams' ages had to equal 70 years old or more. As an avid volleyball player, I enjoyed watching them, although they were far from being "dinosaurs!" I did take some pictures and put them on the Dinosaur facebook page. We even chatted with one of the players for quite awhile (Kalani Vierra). In the conversation, it came up that he is also a Kauai fireman, lifeguard, and world champion tandem surfer. We mentioned we watched and took pictures of a tandem surfing team a few years ago at Lawai. It turned out it was him and his partner practising.
Picture of Kalani and his partner practising in 2007:

Since sunset was out of the question, we stuck around the east side. Even went to another happy hour restuarant in the same shopping center as the Lihue Kalapaki Joe's. I forget the name of it now, but it advertised $.99 beers and happy hour dinner specials. The dinner special was fish and chips and it was very good, unfortunately Ken had to order something else since they ran out of fish with my meal. Good thing we got there early!

Back at the condo, we watched a spectacular lightening show until just after midnight.

FEb. 21st, Monday---Day 12:

Today we decided to head to Anini and spend a good part of the day there. We parked our stuff under what has become our favorite shade tree and took off to snorkel for about 3 hours.

I'm still amazed that we had such a hard time finding fish the first few years we came there. With the incredibly long sandy beach, it's easy to enter the water. With it's protected reef, it's usually not too rough. With it's shallowness, it's usually warmer then the other waters. Here's a slide show of some of the fish we saw there this time---

As the day progressed, the clouds and wind began to build. Off in the distance it was neat watching the high waves coming in below the lighthouse and the wind blowing mist from the top of the waves back.

It was a little chilly sitting in the wind, so we jumped in the car and headed up to Hanalei for a quick look-around. Stopped by the taro fields and took a picture of one of the many Nene ducks that lives there.

With the clouds continuing to build, we didn't wait for sunset. I was pleasantly surprised when we walked into our condo back on the east side just in time to see the most brilliant sunset of our trip so far. There was even a sunset colored rainbow off to the right of this picture.

We also arrived back in time for me to head over to the hotel next door and catch the special weekly music concert that are done there every Monday night until the middle of March. This time they were having a competition for a new Kauai themed hula song. I really enjoyed the concert. Ken elected to stay back at the room and rest.

Feb. 22nd, Tuesday---Day 13:

It was another cloudy morning on the east side. So we decided to head way south/west today. As we were driving down the road of our resort, Ken spotted these 2 wild boars. So I jumped out and went to take a picture of them. We've seen a few baby wild pigs in the past, but this was the first time we'd seen adult ones and was surprised to see them so close to the resort. As I was trying to get their picture, a women totally oblivious to the uniqueness of the sighting---or not caring---came walking up loudly talking and scared them away. I tried to point out the pigs to her, but all she wanted was for me to take a picture of her with her camera by the trees lining the resort entrance. So I did and we all went about our merry ways.

Although the snorkeling at Saltpond isn't that great, it's a beautiful beach and usually a good place to find sun when everywhere else is raining. So we drove the hour or so to get there and spent much of the day there. This year we weren't able to drive down the dirt road we normally do to get to the far side of the bay where I do find some interesting snorkeling. So we parked in the real parking lot and I swam to the other side.

This little snorkel area is usually churning up some sand, but it does have some interesting critters. Here is a trumpet fish. We see lots of coronet fish around the island, but this is the only place I've seen a trumpet fish around Kauai. I've seen one here on many trips. I wonder if this is the same one.

This invertibrate was about the size of my fist. I hadn't seen a "sea slug" that big before. I believe it's officially called a sea hare.

Just another view of Salt Pond from the far end of the parking lot.

When we got tired of playing around at Salt Pond, we changed and headed to Waimea Brewing company for another early dinner. Dinner and their freshly made lilikoi beer was very good.

With the sky still somewhat clear after dinner, we headed to a fishing pier in Waimea to wait for sunset.

The wait paid off. It was our prettiest of the mere 3 sunsets we witnessed this trip.

FEb. 23rd, Wednesday---Day 14:

Looked like it was going to be a gorgeous day. So we decided to head south again. We headed straight to Lawai beach and into the ocean.

Here's the usual managerie of fish greeting every new entry in hopes of a treat. We never feed them, but many people do, so they are not afraid of humans at all.

Lawai is noted for it's many "cleaning stations", as well as the best place to find turtles. At this particular cleaning station, an unusual goat fish showed up for a cleaning. I've never seen any of these blue goatfish before.

Also don't remember seeing these Black stripe Hawkfish before either, but saw a few of them at Lawai this year.

After a couple hours snorkeling, we started hearing thunder. Then came the lightening, so we got out. Everyone else in the water also got out. Then a tour group actually entered---lightening and all! They were probably a group from the cruise ship trying to enjoy their one day on Kauai.

The rain quickly followed. Hoping to wait out the rain, we decided to hang around the south shore awhile. So to kill time, I happily wandered through another garden---the free Moir orchid and cactus garden at Kiahuna Plantation resort while Ken waited in the car.

Then we went to Shipwreck Beach and walked up to the top of it to get a better vantage point for viewing whales. Saw some whales spouting in the distance, but not much breeching. The clouds continues to build and more rain started, so we headed back down the rock. At the bottom, we saw a few people gathered around a young lady laying motionless on the beach. That particular area is a very popular boggie boarding area because of it's rough surf. Don't know what happened, but a fire truck and ambulance were arriving as we left. There are always some accidents that happen while we're out there on vacation. One year 2 touring helicopters crashed within 3 or 4 days of each other. One time a surfer was attacked by a shark and died. One time a family vacationing there was knocked off Lumahai Rock(called lumadie by many) and the father and mother were killed, their son lived. Another time there was an ocean kayak that disappeared and the lifeless boaters were found in the ocean a few days later. There have been a few other drownings and many near drownings when we've been there, too. Then this year a glider plane crashed into the ocean and the dead instructor and student were found in the ocean a day or 2 later. It may be paradise, but it is a deadly paradise.

So when it rains, a trip to Na Hoku jewelers is a logical expedition to me! So we headed to Na Hoku. I'm getting quite the nice collection of jewelry from there. This time I liked the uniqueness of a reversable palm tree/rainbow sterling silver pendant and necklace. Ken was more infatuated with the inlaid koi pendant and sterling necklace---so he got me both!

We'd also heard rave reviews of Keoki's Paradise, so we decided to give it's happy hour a try. Can't believe we had never gone there before! It was very nice. The early bird dinner looked really great, too, but we settled for appetisers this time---fish and chips, and edamames, and a beer.

No sunset, just more rain.

Feb. 24, Thursday---Day 15:

It was a beautiful morning on the east side. But all the rain the day before washed lots of dirt into the ocean by the river mouths. There is a drainage ditch next to KBV, so lots of dirt was washed into the water by our condo.

The north shore was suppose to be the place to be still, so we decided to head north. On our way, we stopped by Lydgate to check out the red dirt washed into the ocean from the Wailua River. It was pretty awesome.

I was beginning to have doubts about our snorkeling on the north shore, but when we got to Kee, the ocean was calm and clear. We spent several hours here. First I walked down the beach marveling at the calm water and reflection of the clouds in it.

While snorkeling, we came across another eel we had never seen before. I believe it is a snake eel.

Also saw several more coronet fish, but this is the first one I've seen at Kauai with the intricate markings (had seen them in the Caymans before).

This is another new guy to me---a Hawaiian knife fish.

With the calmness of the water we were able to get way out by the opening in the reef. There is where I found this large school or Moi fish.

And another look of the Napali with it's reflection in the calm water.

We left Kee in hopes of getting a parking spot at Tunnels and catching a sunset there. We did get a parking spot.

Here's another new encounter! Fortunately I didn't see it coming or I probably would have flipped out. I was actually standing in the water taking the picture above of Bali Hai when it came up from behind me. When I went back into the water, this white tipped reef shark was about 10' off to the side of me and vearing away towards the deep water. Since it was going away, I took this picture, then I went the opposite direction and figured I'd had enough snorkeling for one day. Knowing things look a lot bigger under water, we figured it was probably only about 4 or 5 feet long even though it looked like it was Jaws at the time! I even tried to warn another couple about my shark sighting and their response was, "You're not from here, are you?" Then they took off to the exact spot where I saw it.

Still hoping for a nice sunset, I wandered around the beach for awhile.

Not the prettiest of sunsets, but not too bad.

When we were leaving the beach, I was looking for the hummingbird that I had seen the last time we were there. It showed up, along with a couple friends. As I was taking pictures of it, I realized it had antennae and therefore couldn't be a hummingbird, even though it was the same size and had the same hovering and darting motions. Someone later told me it's a hummingbird moth. Definately an interesting insect.

Feb. 25, Friday---Day 16 (last day):

Finally!---a beautiful sunrise! I had been up many mornings looking for a pretty sunrise and we didn't get it until the day we were leaving. So I took this picture from our lanai.

While we were sitting at our diningroom table eating breakfast, these 2 whales started frolicking. They were pretty far away, so the picture isn't the sharpest, but it was still neat to watch.

For our last day, we headed to Anini where we spent most of the daylight hours.

When it was time to get dinner, we headed to Olympic Cafe for another fish and chips dinner.

Back at the condo, we were able to dry our stuff and finish packing, then lounge around the condo until it was time to head to the airport.

About 8 we left the resort.

Flights home were long but uneventful. We were able to fly non-stop from LAX to STL so that cut several hours off our return flight. Arrived home about 1:30 pm from another wonderfull, but too short Kauai vacation.

London trip---April 16-24, 2002 with Carolyn

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This was a last minute trip for me. My sister was suppose to be going here with my brother-in-law to visit his Aunt and Uncle, but he died a couple months before they were suppose to go. Instead of cancelling the trip, she asked me if I would like to go with her. After thinking about it for a minute, I said YES! So she left from Portland, Oregon, and I left from St. Louis, and we met up at the Gatwick airport. There to meet us was her Uncle-in-law, Don Arnold.

One of the things that I found interesting right from the start were the variable speed limit signs on the highway. In England, they actually work! Here in St. Louis, they are ignored and traffic backs up like normal.

It was really nice having a home base in the house of relatives---maybe they weren't my relatives, but they treated me like I was. We spent much of the week "visiting"and getting to see how the Brits live. They even had the USA flag flying when we pulled up in their driveway in honor of their visitors.

One of our host, Barbara's, hobbies is floral arrangements. She was even in a floral club. The day we arrived was one of her meetings. Having been a florist for a couple years, I was excited to go with her to the meeting. She really excelled in her arrangements.

Our hosts, Don and Barbara, are old enough to be our parents, and they were very active and fun to be around. While Barbara prepared most of our dinners, Don took us out of her hair and off to see the sites in the area. They didn't actually live in London, but in a northern suburb.

ONe of the first places he took us to was Runnymede. It is where the Magna Carta was signed, and is also the site of a lot of memorials.

One of the memorials is even for our USA president, John F. Kennedy.

Our rides also took us by Anne Hathaway's cottage, the former childhood home of Anne Hathaway (the wife of William Shakespeare). Located in Shottery, Warwickshire, it is about a mile from Stratford-upon-Avon. This large farm house is a great example of Tudor style architecture. Another of it's memorable features is it's thick thatched roof. We weren't able to tour it, but even seeing it from the outside was pretty impressive.

Don also took us to Warwick Castle. This medieval castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 as a fort. In the 17th century it was converted to a country house.

In 1978, Warwick Castle was sold to Tussauds, a large visitor attraction operator. Tussauds performed extensive restorations to the castle and grounds in addition to opening its gates to the public. The State Rooms are enhanced with waxworks from Tussaud's and beautifully illustrate the spirit of a bygone age. The furniture is ornate and intricately detailed. In 2001, Warwick Castle was named one of Britain's "Top 10 historic houses and monuments" by the British Tourist Authority. Seasonal attractions include "Flight of the Eagles'" (a bird show, featuring bald eagles, vultures, and sea eagles), archery displays, Jousting,"The Trebuchet Show" and "The Sword In The Stone Show". This fellow doing the archery display was outstanding!

On another day we went to Hampton Court with one of Don and Barbara's daughters and granddaughter. It was every bit as impressive this time as it was when I went there in 1997 with Tim and Angie. Here I am in front of the castle with my sister.

Unfortunately photos aren't allowed inside the castle. But with their extensive gardens on every side of the castle, I was still able to take lots of pictures. This is looking out to the "back yard" from the 2nd level of the castle where King Henry VIII and the queen's bedrooms are.

The castle even has a little restaurant within it. Hear we are devouring a tasty lunch.

Back outside the castle, we wandered around the many gardens. This one was along one side of the castle.

Looking out at the side garden from the side of the castle.

On another day Carolyn and I took the train into London for a little shopping at Harrods and then on to Bath. This time we made sure we got into the bath houses.

The city was first established as a spa resort by the Romans in 43 AD. They built baths and a temple on the surrounding hills of Bath in the valley of the River Avon around hot springs, which are the only ones naturally occurring in the United Kingdom. The City of Bath was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Shown in the back of this picture is the gothic Bath Abbey. It is still used for religious services, civic ceremonies, concerts and lectures.

The temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years. After the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up. The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath.

All significant stages of the history of England are represented within the city. Several companies offer open-top bus tours around the city. We took one of those tours and were treated to many views like this.

Back north of London, while Barbara cooked another of her wonderful dinners, Don took us out for some more sight seeing. Here we walked around St Martin's Church in Bladon near Woodstock, Oxfordshire. It is best known for the grave of Sir Winston Churchill.

Another night they treated us to real english fish and chips. I forget the name of the place they got them from, but they were great. Here we were enjoying our fish and chips in their kitchen. We even got Don and Barbara to serenade us during dinner.

One of our last day there, Barbara cooked a huge Sunday afternoon meal and invited their 2 daughters and grandchildren over. It was a very traditional english meal with bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole, yorkshire pudding, and I forget what all else. It was by far the best meal I've had in England!

After dining, we retreated to the back yard where we visited for quite awhile.

Here's 2 of the grand daughters setting up the lawn tennis. (They do take their tennis seriously there! I even attempted playing against Don and Barbara's daughter, Karen, one day and Barbara came to watch. I hadn't played in quite awhile, but did quite well for as long as it's been. I think I gave Karen a run for her money. She did beat me, but not without a fight. I was surprised how mad she got when I did actually win a few games.) Back here at their house is the first place I've ever played lawn tennis. It was a fun way to close out our visit.

I would love to see them all again. We use to exchange emails, but I haven't heard from any of them in years now. Hope they're all doing well. But I'll always have very fond memories of my time with them.

London 1997

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Being a military (Airforce!! brat), I was actually born outside of London. But we moved by the time I was a year old and it took about 40 years for me to finally get back for a vacation. It was well worth the wait! London is an incredible city! So big, but so easy to get around in. And so much history!!

London is where we (Tim, Angie and their Aunt Carolyn) spent the first 3 nights of a whirlwind 8 night/9 day trip. It definately had it's trying moments, but was worth it in the end.

It's a great place to visit with family. So much to do. Although we had only 3 nights there so did hardly anything---this time. But we now know the lay out for next time!

Our nights in London were spent in Landward Apartments. We rented a 2 bedroom apartment there. In 1997 we paid $220/night american dollars. I don't think that was too bad for downtown London.Unique Qualities: It came with a little washer and dryer as well as 2 bathrooms, cable tv, full kitchen. Took us a couple days to realize that they have switches on the wall to turn the electricity on to the sockets! The location was great. It was a couple blocks up Edgeware Rd. from Hyde park and over a block on 1 Harrowby Rd . This is Marylebone----W1H5HB. It's also very close to a Safeway food store on Edgeware road---good prices there. Only draw back to the place was the bar accross the street. There was loud music late into the night on the weekend.

One thing we found out quickly---don't try to cross the streets of London! Drivers won't slow down for you. They will just give you dirty looks! After attempting this a couple of times, we found out that there are underground pedestrian crosswalks all over London! What a great idea! Although they can be rather elaborate! Gotta have a good sense of direction. This picture shows typical London traffic and why you don't want to try and cross the streets!

Within London, I highly recommend subway and bus passes. Their public mass transit system is VERY good! I wish we were as developed here in the USA! Here is a picture of the Underground subway routes. It looks like a big challenge for first timers, but it's color coded well and we managed to not get too lost. .

The double decker bus is another fun way to get around London. Their mass transit system is great! Just don't try to ride it all the way around it's route---you might think you could ride it until it got back to the place you got on it. Wrong!!! The route has an ending spot and you have to get off that bus and rebourd another one to continue on your way.

I also highly recommend getting a Brit-rail pass if you plan on leaving London and seeing any of the wonderful countryside. We used it to travel all over England and Scotland. With only 8 days there, we even took the sleeper train twice and it was really nice. It was somewhat confusing when we first arrived, but didn't take long to figure out. There are several train stations in London. King's Cross station is the one we got off at when we first arrived in London from the Gatwick airport (about a 25 minute ride by trian). The building with the tall spires in the picture is the King's Cross train station. There were 3 types of trains: the fast and fancy intercity trains; the sleeper trains; and the smaller commuter type trains. The intercity trains even had some benches facing each other with a table between them. The sleeper had a really nice lounge car and well as the double berth sleeper cabins. The smaller trains reminded me of a large monorail type of thing. Some even had someone come through selling refeshments from a cart similar to service on an airplane. With the pass, we didn't have to get boarding passes or anything. Just jump on the train and they checked our passes on board. I really enjoyed riding in the trains.

Just riding the busses we saw lots of fascinating things of London. The London Wall was one of them. Many parts of it still exist. It had been built around the city to protect it from invasion back in medieval times. Here's a picture of some of the wall ruins near the Tower of London. I found it interesting that these ancient structures were just there and new structures were built right up to them.

Although we didn't have time to go in and tour the Tower of London this trip, we did take a bus there and wonder around the outside of it. It is quite an impressive site! It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The White Tower was built by William the Conqueror in 1078, and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite. The castle was used as a prison since at least 1100. In 1988, the Tower of London was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. It's still the headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and houses a museum with the Crown Jewels.

Harrods is a high-end department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London.
At 5-acres and over one million square feet, it is the 2nd largest shop in the UK. With it's notariety, we had to check it out. One really memorable moment comes from there---to use the restroom there cost a pound!

While we were in Harrods, we found a little buffet-style tea and danish/sandwich bar. Not easy to find. Not downstairs by all the other food shops. But I've forgotten the name of it. But we enjoyed an afternoon snack there.

Obviously the theatre district of Soho is the place to be at night. Unfortunately, we were only there 3 nights and too exhausted to go to the theatre. But we did hit a couple of the restaurants there. I was surprised to see that all the stores in London close around 5:30! Except for one night, and I don't remember which night that was. So for nightlife, Soho was the place to be. It's theatres and restaurants and bars were open and lively all night.

But don't party too much or you may end up like this bloke!

Trafalgar square is a square in central London, England. With its position in the heart of London, it is a tourist attraction, and one of the most famous squares in the United Kingdom. We only saw it from the bus, but it was pretty grand.

I wish we had taken one of the tour bus rides through the city the first day we got there. Instead, we did it on our last day. We didn't realize you could actually get off and on the bus in the many fascinating places. But, alas, we were pressed for time and had to stay on for the whole tour. It was VERY MUCH worth the 12 pounds (or US dollars, I can't remember now) we paid for it. Our guide was very interesting and full of humor. The tour we took was with The Big Bus Company. The picture is of our guide. Sorry for the blur, but the bus ride was rather bumpy.

An impressive, and HUGE, cathedral is St. Paul's Cathedral in London. I understand the USA capital building is copied after it.

We didn't go here on this trip, either, but heard that the London Dungeon was an interesting place to find out about methods of torture way back in the day. Amazing to think people can be so brutal!

When walking around, you'll probably come across Piccadilly Circus. It's an interesting 'circus' with lots of color. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction. Located in London's West End in the City of Westminster, it was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly.

THis picture was taken in Hyde Park. That is my daughter trying to blend in with the statues. There are LOTS of statues in London. I read that if you could pay to have one put in, it was done---at least until they got so many that they changed that.There are also lots of parks in London. It's a very pretty city.

We were fascinated by the differences in McDonald's in England from the USA. Who would have thought you could get a beer with your Value Meal?! Or should it be called a Happy Meal!? Anyway, this McDonald's by the Tower of London was particularly interesting in that it sort of resembled a medieval building. Look closely, you'll see a low stone building just up from the walkway---it's a McDonald's.

We also enjoyed going to the original Hard Rock CAfe. It was themed with lots of Beatles memorabilia. I was surprised to see how small they were.

For an easy day trip from London, we took the train to Hampton Court. Not only was the palace spectacular, but so were the gardens around it.

The palace was originally built for Cardinal Wolsey, a favorite of King Henry VIII in 1529. As Wolsey fell from favour, the palace was passed to the King, who enlarged it. Today, the palace is open to the public, and is a major tourist attraction.

Here is one of the courtyards Wolsey built. The Base Court contained forty-four lodgings reserved for guests. The second court (today, Clock Court) contained the best rooms which were reserved for the King and his family.

Soon we were heading off to catch a sleeper train for our journey to Scotland. But we did make it back to London a few days later to change trains on our way from Scotland to Bath. Unfortunately, we had the misfortune of having the paramedics being called to the train station then for Angie (17 years old at the time). Going down the steps, her knee dislocated and she was in great pain. I was amazed at how quickly help was on the way! Guards had the steps closed off in a minute or 2. One must have been trained in relocating dislocated knees because he asked her permission to move her leg. Very gently and quickly he worked it into place. By then, the paramedics were there. I asked about insurance and was told I didn't need it---which really surprised me! I thought it was free for them, but I didn't think they'd treat foriegners for free (although I did have our insurance stuff with me). The paramedic assessed her knee and said the hospital couldn't do anymore for it but wrap it and she could get that done at the first aid station in the train station. So we took her there --- in a wheel chair that they had easily accessable. Unlike if this happened at home, no crowds gathered to see what happened. The guards kept everything moving. The medical care was efficient and quick. Everyone involved really seemed genuinely concerned. I was extremely impressed with how everything was handled----and it was Good Friday!

THus ended my first trip back to London since I was a child. We continued on to Bath and Dover for a couple days, then it was time for our long flight home on Easter morning.

Oregon---Willamette Valley

2011-01-20T14:33:00.015-06:00

Since we've been vacationing in Oregon for over 35 years, I decided to break up my Oregon blog into sections. Not only do we still vacation here (mostly to visit my family), but I lived here for about 7 years as a child. Most of our vacations, though, are during their fabulous July or August months. Can't beat those nearly 90 degree days with low humidity and almost constant sunshine. This blog is of the area I lived in---the Willamette Valley. Most of our vacations were based out of Dallas, Oregon, about 12 miles west of Salem.

First a little education about the area. The Willamette Valley is a fertile plain on either side of the Willamette River in the northwest area of Oregon. It is bound on the west by the Oregon Coast Range and on the east by the Cascade Range. The Missoula Floods some 13,000-15,000 years ago contributed to the agricultural richness of the valley. The majority of the state's population lives within the basin.

The climate in the Willamette Valley is usually cool wet winters and moderate dry summers. Most valley precipitation arrives as rain, about half of which falls between December and February. Growing seasons are long, averaging 150 to 180 days per year in the lowlands with an average of 40" of rain. Temperatures rarely get below 0 in the winter and only above 90 5-15 days per year in the summer.

A fantastic way to see the Willamette Valley is by Amtrak train on the Coast Starlight. It is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular of all train routes. It starts in LA and ends in Seattle. It goes through Oregon in the Willamette Valley. The scenery along the Coast Starlight route is beautiful. We boarded it a couple times here at the Amtrak station in Salem and rode it to Seattle.

We loved sitting in the 2nd level Sightseer Lounge car that has floor-to-ceiling windows for watching the passing scenery go by. There are other trains along this route, too, but none with this impressive viewing car of the Coast Starlight.

Located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River is the capital of Oregon, Salem. A 2009 estimate placed the metropolitan population at 396,103, the state's second largest metropolitan area, first being Portland by far.

This is the third and current Oregon State Capitol building which was completed in 1938 and is the fourth-newest capitol in the United States. It is adorned by a gold leaf Oregon Pioneer statue atop the capitol dome. The capitol grounds cover three city blocks and include Willson and Capitol parks. Although we've never been in the capital building we've driven by it hundreds of times.

Just blocks from the Oregon State Capitol, on the banks of the Willamette River, is the Salem Riverfront Carousel. The carousel operates inside a building which is opened up in the summer and enclosed in the winter. It is within walking distance of Salem Riverfront Park, A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village (a children's interactive museum), the Eco-Earth World Globe, Salem's sternwheeler "The Willamette Queen," and downtown Salem.

Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary is a community of Benedictine monks near the city of Mt. Angel, about a 30 minute drive north of Salem. The library at the abbey was designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Since Angie studied architecture in college, she wanted to go check it out. Along with the library, there is The Mount Angel Abbey Museum which holds a collection of assorted artifacts, including mounted animal dioramas, rocks and minerals, antique liturgical vestments and religious items, and American Civil War memorabilia.

The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is a museum which displays a number of military and civilian aircraft and spacecraft. The museum is located in McMinnville, about a 20 minute drive west of Salem. An IMAX theater opened in 2007, and a second exhibit hall focusing on the Titan II ICBM and space technology opened in 2008.

But it's most notably plane is the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose". It was capable of carrying 750 fully equipped troops or one M4 Sherman tank. The HK-1 contract was issued in 1942, but because of several reasons (restrictions placed for acquisitions like all the spruce wood that was needed to build it, Hughes' insistence on "perfection",... ) it was not completed until well after the war was over. The aircraft made its only flight on November 2, 1947. Although the project did not move beyond the initial prototype, the H-4 Hercules was a forerunner of the massive transport aircraft of the late 20th century .

Located in Monmouth, about 10 minutes west of Salem, is the Paul H. Jensen Arctic Museum. It is a free little museum focused on the culture and environment of the Arctic. It houses 5,000 artifacts and has exhibits on the wildlife of the Arctic along with displays about the Inuit and Eskimos of Alaska. Unfortunately, The Jensen Arctic Museum is scheduled to close after the 2010/2011 school year due to a loss of funding.

Among the many artifacts and stuffed animals in the museum is this Polar Bear. Wonder what will become of all the artifacts?

Built in 1899 and in continuous use, the Polk County Courthouse in Dallas, (about 20 minutes west of Salem) is a distinctive structure. The courtroom decor contains some original vintage furniture and related furnishings. This was the view from my brother's pizza parlor just across main street until he moved the business further down the road.

The Oregon Garden in Silverton (just northeast of Saloem) opened in 1999 and spans 80 acres. It includes 20 specialty gardens, as well as waterfalls, fountains, quiet ponds, a working tree farm, tram tours, a summer concert series and the Gordon House, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is open to the public.

One of the many views from the tram as we toured the Oregon Gardens.

Silver Falls State Park is also located near Silverton, about 20 miles away. It is the largest state park in Oregon with an area of more than 9,000 acres and has more than 24 miles of walking trails, 14 miles of horse trails, a 4-mile bike path, and 15 waterfalls.

South falls is one of the 4 of falls with a walkway that goes behind the waterfall. It is a 177-foot waterfall and the most visited one in the park.

The Elkhorn Valley Recreation Site offers overnight camping and day use recreation along the Little North Fork of the Santiam River in the Salem District. Elkhorn Valley is an excellent basecamp for trips along the Little North Fork including Opal Creek. As of 2010, new fees of $14 per campsite and a day-use fee of $5 per vehicle are now in effect. It's season is Memorial Day weekend-Labor DAy weekend. I forget the exact time we camped there but I thought I was going to freeze during the night! During the day, we were playing in the river and even rafting it in an inflatable raft---until we sunk it.

This was another of the thousands of crystal clear fresh water creeks in the Willamette Valley. Many of the creeks are stocked with trout during the summer. The wilderness of Oregon is a outdoors person's dream---not just for fishing and hunting, but for hiking, biking, photographing,... .

Another kind of fishing you don't hear too much about in the Pacific Northwest is slough fishing. This slough was just outside of Salem and my dad enjoyed fishing for catfish here.

Walking into the slough area, wildflowers were leading the way.

The wildflowers throughout Oregon are incredible. During the spring and summer months there's flowers everwhere.

One or more massive Ice Age floods left the valley floor thick with flood carried sediments making the valley extremely fertile — a massively productive agricultural area. When floodwaters met log-and-ice jams at Kalama, in southwest Washington, the water caused a backup that filled the entire Willamette Valley to a depth of 300 to 400 feet above current sea level. The lake gradually drained away, leaving layered sedimentary soils on the valley floor to a height of about 180 to 200 feet. The soil in the Willamette Valley is about 0.5 miles deep in some areas.

Oregon is the world’s number one producer of cool-season forage and turf grass seed. Grass seed is one of the state’s top commodities. The grass industry in Oregon employs approximately 10,000 people annually and generates about $1 billion annually. Around early July, you'll see many fields like this. The harvesting of the fields is a fun process to watch. But if you have asthma, it's not a good time to be in the Valley!

The major agricultural products of the valley include many varieties of berries and vegetables like these Queen Anne cherries. This crop, up the street from my parents house, was used to make maraschino cherries. Back when I was a kid, school was let out early when fruit and vegetable crops came in so we could go to work picking them. This farm now uses sophisticated equipment that lays a tarp on the ground then shakes the tree, then a convayer carries the cherries up to a holding area for transport.

Growing wild all over the Willamette Valley are blackberry plants. Although they are considered a nuisance to many, I love being there in late August when the fruit are ripe. Unlike the domestic farm grown ones of the midwest, these wild ones are huge (about the size of a walnut) and very sweet. They also are protected by some evil thorns, but the reward for fighting off the thorns is worth it!

Just another farm in Dallas. This was along my walking route--to the cherries and blackberries.

More along my walks---love the wild roses on the fence.

This happens to be the farm of some friends of ours in Dallas. Spent many hours there in my childhood.

Another random farmland photo.

Although wildflowers grow throughout the valley, the greenhouse and nursery stock have become the biggest agricultural commodity in the valley.

About 30 miles north of Salem by Woodburn is the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. In early spring, it holds their annual tulip fest. With over 40 acres of tulips and daffodils, it's quite a sight to see.

The Willamette Valley is home to several commercial flower fields, and most are open to the public. You can stroll through viewing fields at little to no cost. But the color for many of the blooms lasts only a month.

Another of the flower nurseries near Silverton.

Driving the back roads by the flower farms when they're in full bloom is an awesome ride.

Red Poppies in summer bloom.

The valley also produces most of the grass seed, Christmas trees, and hazelnuts sold in North America. Even hops for microbrews has become popular in the valley. Here is one of the many Christmas tree farms.

In recent decades, the valley has also become a major wine producer, with multiple American Viticultural Areas of its own. With a cooler climate than California, the gently rolling hills surrounding the Willamette are home to some of the best pinot noir in the world. This is just one of the many vinyards in the valley.

The vineyards make an excellent place for weddings---such as my niece's wedding in 2010.

Not just a Willamette Valley occurance, but Memorial Day services are a big thing here. "The Avenue of Flags Memorial Day Program" in Dallas is pretty impressive with all the flags lining the road and the individual flags placed by veterans graves.

That's just shows a little bit of why I love the Willamette Valley so much! Someday I wouldn't mind living there again. Until then, I'll continue to take vacations there.