Where history and culture collide - Tuesday Topics

Since I have been checking a couple things off our bucket list lately, check back tomorrow for a recap of our trip to Florida, it's kind of appropriate that this weeks Tuesday Topics deals with traveling. Specifically cities that you wish to visit in the ole U.S of A. I haven't been to that many places and I really hope to see all these beautiful places one day.

#1. New York City, New York - It's on almost everyone's list to visit once. The culture, the life, the statue....I want to immerse myself in it for a couple of days. Seems like a fun place to go!

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#2. Boston/Salem, Massachusetts - Specifically this trip must happen in the fall....I mean look at that photo. Who wouldn't want to visit there and see all that beauty. Also the rich history, nightlife and food sound to die for!

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#3. Nashville, Tennessee - The birthplace of almost all music happens here. This is where all musicians go to hone their craft and sometimes get their big break. I want to go to the Grand Ole Opry and just listen to the beauty that is music.

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#4. New Orleans, Louisiana - Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras should be experienced at least once in a person's lifetime. Also the history and culture just fascinate me.

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#5. Seattle, Washington - The north west is just beautiful I want to experience more of it. The space needle looks cool (despite the fact that I hate heights!)

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#6. San Antonio, Texas - The alamo, the food, the cowboy boots and hats, rodeos.....sounds like a good time to me!

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 #7. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming - Again, it's just something that you have to see at least once in your lifetime....like the Grand Canyon. Beautiful landscapes, foliage and wildlife. A photographers dream.

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9 Travel Essentials - Tuesday Topics

Hello Tuesday.....nice to meet you again. I swear to you, I am that woman that waits until the absolute last minute to pack and then I feel like I must pack my whole wardrobe, and then only wear a handful of items! I also tend to pack my husbands clothes as well because without fail halfway through our trip, even though I asked him if he brought enough, the man runs out of clean underwear and t-shirts. Sigh. So, what are my travel essentials?

9. My straight iron. I used to bring my hair dryer, a curling iron and a straight iron and thought to myself, girl you're crazy. I have learned that hotels have blow dryers (albeit crappy ones) and I can either curl or straighten my hair with one tool. Space saver.

8. Face moisturizer. It never fails, the time I forget it, my face looks like a shedding snake. So I always make sure my travel bag is stocked with moisturizer....even body lotion.

7. Flip flops. These are the easiest shoes to wear always. They go with most outfits and can easily come on and off for trying on new shoes, or dipping your feet in the sand or water if your in a tropical locale.

6. Extra underwear ::see above:: You just never know if you will need extra underwear! Just saying!

5. Medications. I am an asthmatic (although mostly under control) and the hubby is a diabetic. So we both make sure that we have enough medication to last our entire trip! Except for when we went to Catalina and the hubbs brought everything EXCEPT his insulin! DOH!

4. Comfy travel clothes that layer. I tend to either wear a maxi dress/skirt or comfy leggings. I ALWAYS bring a sweater or a light jacket because airports are always cold and so are planes.

3. Cell Phone/Music/Ipad. I lumped these together because the cell phone can carry all your music and be a source of entertainment while waiting around.....or in long car rides.

2. A book/trashy magazine. Again falls into the entertaining me when I am bored category. Although my Kindle is my best friend because she holds lots of words to read!

1. Our DSLR camera or camera phone. If we didn't bring these places, and look like complete tourists wherever we go....then we would never get shots like this one! It's been one of our best investments!

Catalina Island

Stay tuned for next week and some of the wonderful shots we have gotten while on vacation!

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Two Places I have Traveled - Tuesday Topics

Hey Guys, I'm back after my super relaxing/excitingish weekend.....I have the sunburn to prove it! Eek....Sometimes being fair skinned sucks! This weeks topic is two places you have traveled. I am going to remind you of my two most favorite vacations I have ever taken!

#1 most favorite vacation....our Honeymoon, particularly the island of Half Moon Cay. We had such a blast on this island, between the bike riding, laying out on the white sand beaches, and drinking cocktails. We were ever so relaxed and enjoyed one anothers company. You can read more about our honeymoon cruise here. It was the perfect end to a perfect wedding!

#2 most favorite vacation I just wrote about last week. If you missed my post on traveling to the U.K. you can get to it here. It was the most adventure I had ever had in my lifetime and it caused me to get the travel bug. Favorite area visited.....the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. I so want to go back!

Honorable mentions:

Catalina Island

Lake Don Pedro

 

Ever been hung off the side of a castle? I have! - Travel Diaries

Hey Guys! Are any of you the type of people that LOVE to travel? I totally am one of those people. I wish I had lots and lots of money so that I could just travel anywhere I wanted to go and just see the world. I blame my first ever trip outside of the U.S.A. to my infatuation with travel. Right after high school I went on a "school" trip to England, Wales and Ireland. It was a blast! 2 weeks in a foreign country!

Here's the thing, I thought I had lost all my photos! When I got married, my parents moved out of my childhood home. In the hustle and bustle of me moving, and them moving I lost the album with all the photos in it....people this was pre-digital cameras! I couldn't find the negatives either! I cried! Last year, my mom was going through boxes and FOUND THEM! I was so excited that I sent them off to Costco to be put on disc. I popped in the disc and was underwhelmed to say the least....my photography skills were lacking (18 years old with no idea what I was doing with a disposable camera!) I played with them enough to bring out the colors, and I think they look so much better.

So back to the story. We left LAX in the afternoon and took the 10+ hour flight "across the pond." We were all so excited that no one slept, and that 6 hour time difference dropped us in London mid morning. We were greeted by our tour guide, dumped our luggage at the hotel and made our way on the first day of touring. Over the next couple of days we did our performances, the reason we went was to perform for school kids and at elderly facilities...we did sketches, singing and dancing. We also toured all the areas of London....Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye....etc. Judging from the photos, I can't really tell what anything is, so if I have any London readers that could help me in determining what things are! If I remember correctly we toured Oxford as well....this was 12 years ago, so my brain and the memories have faded a bit!

Interesting outfit I have on! I wore the Shape Ups before they
were fashionable! Wait were they ever fashionable?!

Tower Bridge

The changing of the guard was really interesting! I also turned 18 while on this trip and we did it up right with fish and chips and lots of sightseeing.

Changing of the Guard

Gardens at Buckingham Palace

Our tour guide

After several days of playing in London, taking photos inside those large red phone booths (which have very interesting advertisements in them!) We made the trek into Wales to catch the ferry over to Ireland. We went to the train station in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Wales. This city has the longest name in the world and you can stamp your own passport with it! Of course we did! We hopped on the ferry and made our way over to the greenery that is Ireland!

We toured around the Ring of Kerry in Kilarney and just took in all the sights! Everything was just beautiful, however somewhere along the way I caught a cold, so I was asleep during much of the bus tours. I was also told that our bus driver like to spike his morning coffee with Baileys....so I was kind of glad that I wasn't awake for that roller coaster! We did our performances and went to a little fair/carnival and took in all the culture there. We also went to see a comedy show....although half of the show was in Gaelic so most of the jokes were lost on us Americans. We still had a great time!

My favorite memory was visiting Blarney Castle. It was just so cool to see a medieval castle and how people once lived. I was also very excited to kiss the Blarney Stone, that is until I realized what that entailed. You have to walk to the top of this 90 foot high castle, around the outer edge to the stone, lie on your back while two men hold your ankles and lean you backwards over the edge of the castle and kiss it upside down. I am terrified of heights! I had convinced myself that I wasn't going to do it, until it was my turn and I just said to myself....Diane just do it! They have since put in metal safety rails so your not hanging off the edge of the building by your ankles! It was seriously so exhilarating and I hope to take the hubby there someday! Watch the video below for a tour of Blarney Castle (not my video)

These pictures just don't do the beauty of this country justice! I hope that someday I can visit the world and see all the culture that it has to offer!

Love this little cottage!

Miles of greenery

Where have you traveled, or want to travel? What are the favorite memories of your travels?

The Isle of Catalina

Here it is....the post everyone has been waiting for. Well maybe not everyone, but I have put it off too long so here is a recap of our Catalina Trip! Sorry for the photo bomb in advance....we got some really cool shots! We awoke bright and early Sunday excited to have a mini vacation just the two of us. Made sure that everything was organized, threw our luggage in the car and made the trek to Long Beach for our ferry to the island. We met some cool people, as we always do, and boarded the ship buzzing with electric excitement. D heard that the bartenders make a killer Bloody Mary, so of course he had to partake. A quick hour ride and we were there, docked and made our quick walk over to the hotel. At this point the city of Avalon was hopping. We got to the hotel, checked in and were told to come back in 45 minutes because our room was still being cleaned. We ate a quick lunch, grabbed our things and went to our room. We tinkered around for about 10 minutes grabbed the camera and went down to explore the island. In the time we were up there the entire hustle and bustle just DIED! It was a ghost town! We took the opportunity anyway and wandered around, taking photos and whatnot. The gloomy weather made for some pretty cool photos though, I.M.O. We went back to the hotel and booked our zipline. I was super nervous! We went and had an early dinner and went to the local arcade. I schooled D at a little Ski Ball but he thoroughly walloped me at air hockey! It was like we were teenagers again. We walked into the sweets store and bought some jelly beans, not too many though because we realized as we were eating lunch earlier in the day that D had forgotten his insulin! Bad bad bad. At least he had plenty in his pump so we didn't worry too much, but did make sure to find a pharmacy just in case. After the arcade we wandered around and realized that there wasn't much more to do because the city had closed for the night. We went back to the hotel and watched the Grammy's and conked out.

The Harbor

The round building in the back is the old casino

I had set my alarm early the next day so I/we could get up to witness the sunrise. We were on the wrong side of the island for the sunset so we bombed ourselves out of bed and wandered over to the pier for some really great scenery. While over there we met a little seal pup who had fallen asleep on the pier. He was so cute! Also in the distance could be heard a very large and loud seal sitting on a buoy barking away. We moseyed back to the hotel, had some coffee and muffins and then proceeded to TRY and sleep some more before ziplining. This was NOT happening with me. I was terrified already. We had watched the YouTube video that shows the course and I was freaking out. D kept saying "you'll be fine" but I was having a panic attack!

Harbor and Pier Sunrise View

At 10:30 we walked over to the course. I was hyperventilating as we were filling out the paperwork and looking up at the platforms above my head. The girl managed to terrify me even more by saying "that's not even the highest one!" Great thanks! The guys that took us up the hill were really great, cracking jokes and telling stories about the island, but nothing eased my fear. We walked onto the first platform and BAM! Sheer panic, shaking and if I didn't have sunglasses on they would have seen the tears welling in my eyes. We were the last couple to go, that was by design! I kept backing away and D kept falling behind me not letting me run up the stairs and back down the hill. My turn.....he hooks me up to the wire and its time to JUMP! Yea, no. That wasn't happening. So he held my harness so I could feel how it would support my body. That eased my mind just enough that when he said anytime your ready, I bunny hopped off the platform tucked and screaming with terror! There may have been a few expletives exclaimed, but honestly they were completely warranted! D came soaring in behind me with a big smile on his face. The next line, the longest and highest, I wasn't even given the opportunity to panic because I had to be launched off the platform to guarantee I would get all the way across. I looked down about halfway across to see my teeny tiny shadow on the ground beneath me. It was an exhilarating and terrifying experience and I am so glad that I did it! I know D was proud too! One more check off the bucket list!  

Our last day we rented a golf cart and toured around the island. Of course it was the day that a cruise ship was in port and the island was once again hopping with tourists. We drove around, stopping every so often to take in the scenery and of course some photos. We saw the Wrigley mansion; you know Wrigley field and gum, he bought the island for 2 million dollars in the early 1900s. To put it into perspective, the zipline course cost 2 million dollars to install in 2010. We missed the botanical gardens and didn't get to hike or kayak, but that will be for our next trip there! On our drive we went past the zipline course again and were able to take a couple of photos of other people on the course.

View of Avalon from Wrigley Mansion

One of the Zipline Runs

The girl is really hard to see, about a third of the ways from the
left right above the power lines.

We had such a great time on our little weekend getaway! We both have memories for a lifetime and want to go back soon. Thanks again to my parents for one of the most memorable Christmas gifts!! And to D's folks for watching our fur baby! I can't wait for our next adventure!!!!