Tag Archives: Vacation

Skywatch Friday – Vacation Skies

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We are on vacation right now. We left early on Thursday and made a long drive to Mobile, Alabama. It was a gut buster but worth it. Our plan was to leave early from Mobile and get through the tunnel going to the east side of the bay. Sometimes, if you wait until the afternoon, the traffic backs up for hours. The plan worked. We got to Mobile, we got up and zipped through the tunnel with no wait. It was like getting a bonus day of vacation.

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What did we do with our bonus day. We made a side trip to Fairhope, a little town on the east side of Mobile, Bay. I had never heard of it but Heather said lets go, so we went. What a great side trip that was. It has a very nice old town with lots and lots of interesting cafes, shops, and galleries. We checked out an independent bookstore, Page & Pallette. What a great, not so little store, and the people who work there are READERS!! They have a huge “Staff Recommends” section and they know about those books and most of the other books in the store also. They have lots of books by regional authors. So we spent a lot of money on books, and ever dime was well spent.

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We took the scenic route cross country from Fairhope to Gulf Shores to our traditional first meal spot, Lulu’s. Lulu’s sits right on the intercoastal canal. I love watching the boats of all kinds, and barges and kayaks and everything else going up and down the waterway but we had something special.

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A seaplane landed right in front of us. They pulled up to Lulu’s dock and went and had lunch. What a Jimmy Buffett thing to do (no, it wasn’t him). By the way Lulu is Jimmy Buffett’s sister.

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So we got to our condo, got unpacked and ran out to the beach. Logan loves the beach. He is a regular beach bum. Shoot, we all are. Sorry about the tilted shot. I’m writing this post out on the balcony and I am not doing much editing.

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To balance things out, here is a pic off the back side of the condo last night. It is tilted the other way, so on average, it all balances out.

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And here is the view this morning. More to come!

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch – Back at the Beach

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Back at the beach in Alabama from last month. That’s my wife Heather up there heading back to the condo after a family walk on the beach. She’s okay with me stopping to take photos, or stopping to look for geocaches, but she isn’t stopping. So for me its shoot and trot, shoot and trot. I don’t mind though.

We love the beach. We know we should be taking vacations that are good for us like going to New York City, or Washington D.C. but you know, there is nothing like the beach.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

We’re Back

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We are back from vacation. We had a fun packed week sandwiched in between two gust busting drives. It was all worth it though to get sand in between our toes in Orange Beach, Alabama. Home of very friendly people, crappy beer, never ending country rock music, smoking, great uncrowded beautiful beaches, and horrendous traffic jams.

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We found some Pokemon also. I amused at all the butthurt people who have such firm opinions on a subject they know nothing about. It’s fun. Well, its fun for a while and then it gets tough. Which will eventually be fun.

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We paddled up and down a beautiful slow moving river. I have to tell you that the GOP Convention, Munich, and who picked for the GOP ticket was pretty far from our mind. It has been years since we have looked at a newspaper, or watched television while on vacation and this was another trip where none of that happened. Plus after years of facebook, I just now learned about “hiding” posts. All the this GOP and Democratic crapola has just disappeared from my feed (both sides are equally guilty in my opinion). I have unliked the pages of Oklahoma’s congressional idiots and the anti-Idiot pages both. I’m watching lots of cat videos on fb now. DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME!!

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Heather and the kid went parasailing. I found a geocache, and cozied up at the marina’s tiki bar with a couple beers and my book. 

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Tell you what I realized on our trip. We have a big, beautiful, country and most of it is empty!! Miles and miles of tall trees, geometric crops, and beautiful pastures and prairie. There are more cows than people out there. I love it.

How are you doing?

Beach Blogging 2016 – Pokemon Go Edition

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We are still at the beach having a great time walking, running, sitting in the sun and reading, going out to eat and drink and all that good stuff.

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This year we have something new, Pokemon Go. The whole family is playing it including Heather. It is kind of fun. I’m getting a hoot on facebook and the news how some are deriding a game that haven’t even played and others talking about the great health benefits. Yadda yadda yadda I say. What matters is if it is fun. Of course some things need to be addressed such as removing the little pokemons from private property and other inappropriate places, but the game is fun.

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Here is one of the little critters just before I captured him. Don’t knock it before you try it folks. One thing that helps is having a youngster to explain things.

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Meanwhile I’m also geocaching. I can do both in my mind. Apparently there are a bunch of pokemon on Turkey Mountain. I have found almost all the full size regular caches up there and am looking forward to Pokemon Going. Make fun of me if you must. I’ll be feeling sorry for you.

Till next time folks

Vacation 2016 – First Report

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We started our vacation, kind of late. Tulsa and surrounding area had a huge storm come through on Thursday about noon. It was kind of scary. I was at a luncheon and the venue evacuated us to a stairwell because there was reports of a tornado on the ground close by. Good thing they lifted the alert because the stairwell had external doors with crash bars and it was so crowded the doors kept opening. Stupid design if you ask me. Anyway, our power was out and so we couldn’t run a lot of the errands we wanted to until the next morning and so instead of leaving first thing Friday morning, we left in the afternoon. Oh well.

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So we drove and drove

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And then we got to Mobile and we encountered the big jam before the tunnel.

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And we made it eventually!!

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So we have been taking it easy and hanging out on the beach.

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And staying well clear of the turtle eggs.

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The only excitement so far is outrunning a thunderstorm. You know it is slow moving when I outrun it.

Anyway, that is the first, and might be the only, vacation report.

Our World – Kauai Helicopter Adventure

_DSC0647A definite highlight of our Hawaiian cruise earlier this summer was out Helicopter tour of Kauai. It was a birthday gift to son Logan from his grandmother, Nana. Heather and I globbed onto it also. We were all thrilled. _DSC0651 We took off on a Safari Helicopters aircraft with Brian at the controls. I was glad that he didn’t let Logan fly the thing.

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We headed over the ship and and then back into the island giving us a running commentary on all that we saw. Sorry I wasn’t taking notes but he was very informative.

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We saw some very deep canyons. This may be Waimea Canyon, the so called Grand Canyon of the Pacific and now a state park.

_DSC0662We saw lots of beautiful land. Our pilot, Brian listed off some of the celebrity landowners who are buying up the old ranches of Kauai. Michael Case of AOL online for instance owns 39,000 acres via various entities. Facebook gazillionaire Mark Zuckerberg paid over $100 million for just 700 acres.  I think he got taken personally. $100 million for just over a square mile?  I’m glad for the landowner that he bought it from. _DSC0664

Oh well, back to the friendly skies. I’ve posted this rainbow before. Again a very beautiful flight.

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I was amazed at the up and down topograpy and all the water and how green everything is. Kauai is called the Garden Island for a reason I found out.

 

_DSC0701And then out over the north shore where we spotted this boat motoring along in some beautiful water.

_DSC0694And then along the beautiful Na Pali coast which is simply breathtaking. Brian talked about his plans to hike along the coast with some friends about about seven miles and camping. It sounded like a plan to me but he didn’t extend any invites.

_DSC0686I have no idea what this is. Sorry for the fuzzy photograph. It sure looks official.

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Another fuzzy pic of a view through a canyon to the Pacific Ocean.

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And then again into the interior. There have been lots of movies filmed on Kauai. Here is a list of close to fifty movies that were at least partially filmed on Kauai.a _DSC0727

It was all so beautiful but it came to an end.

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We bailed out and Sherrel the Safari Helicopter Rep took our pics. It was a great trip.

Linking with Our World Tuesday

Our World – Hilo’s Rainbow Falls

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While visiting Hilo on the “Big Island” of Hawaii our guide took us to Rainbow Falls just off downtown. The Wailuku River falls 80 feet. There is a natural cave behind the falls where an Hawaiian goddess, Hina lives. The Hawaiian name for the falls is  Waiānuenue, which means “Rainbow Water.” While we didn’t see a rainbow, the falls are beautiful, mysterious, and magical just like the rest of Hawaii. The state’s natural beauty just took my breath away. Fortunately they have preserved many of their treasures. Rainbow Falls for example is part of  the Wailuku State Park.

Linking with Our World Tuesday

Kaui Helicopter Rainbow

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A definite highlight of our vacation to Hawaii was helicopter tour that Logan’s Grandmother and my MIL gifted him for his birthday. It was great and I’m going to post about it in more depth in the future. For now, I’m posting this rainbow. I’m not sure exactly where we were on Kauai when this rainbow appeared but the island is home to Mount Waialeale which at an average rainfall of 452 inches per year is called the wettest place on earth. So it is probably a good place to see rainbows.

All I know is that the Kauai is beautiful and magical.

Skywatch Friday