After our successful Jamaica trip, we decided we wanted one last hurrah before Ariel went back to work, so we booked a flight to Antigua to stay at the lovely Carlisle Bay. It… did not go as planned. Now to be clear – the place we stayed was beautiful and Antigua itself is very charming! But getting there… and back again… was truly a nightmare that we haven’t experienced in many an age. One of my earliest posts was about…
Unlike the first time we were in Jamaica, this time around we decided to do some exploring. I went off on my own on a long journey to the Bob Marley house. I recently read The Hobbit to Jacob (which he absolutely loved), and so when I found out there was a series of caves – with an underground lake no less) just a few minutes away from where we were staying, we just had to take him to the…
In my last post, I talked about the trip up to the Bob Marley House in Nine Mile, Jamaica. Read that if you’d like to learn about the journey, or read on for my experience at the house itself… After waiting for really just a few minutes, our tour guide arrived. My only regret of the entire experience was that I never got a picture of “Captain Crazy” as he introduced himself. What can I say about the Captain… he…
So… that happened… Hard for me to believe that I started this blog after Ariel and I decided we were ready to start a family, but wanted to have one last big adventure before we did. Now it is six years to the day later, and all the things that I was pondering as we finished planning our New Zealand trip are finally coming to fruition. I’ll never forget standing on top of Mount Sunday (the Lord of the Rings…
After several days of truly miserable rain, wind and generally awful weather, we lucked out into a truly incredible last day on the island. We packed up all of our stuff, started reloading our suitcases for the return journey, and hit the road. And what a road it was. Our last full day on Iceland was also our best weather day. One of my primary rules about road trips is to never backtrack unless absolutely necessary. After all, why see…
Believe it or not, 4 days into our trip to Iceland… we hadn’t really seen any ice! We tried to see some glaciers, but with all the rain and clouds, our visibility was less than a mile at best, and sometimes even less. Really miserable stuff. But finally the rain was over, and we were headed for the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. We had reservations on a boat but had some stops to make beforehand, so we had to be extremely…
So day 3 started with… more rain. Turns out the beautiful valley we roamed around in the last post wasn’t quite ready to give up on the rain after all. Rain which didn’t let up all day. Like a constant downpour from the minute we left our cabin, through 8+ hours in the car – our longest driving day of the entire trip. But we had no choice but to keep moving forward. Our destination for this day was Vik,…
After recovering from one of the more miserable travel experiences I’ve had, Ariel, Jacob and I wasted little time hitting the road on days 2 and 3 of our Iceland adventure. For the first time since our trip to Alaska (which perhaps not-so-coincidentally was the last time we were going away in advance of a baby), Ariel and I have been immersing ourselves in just totally epic landscapes all day every day. Sure Hawaii was beautiful and incredible, but this…
You’ll notice the title does not include the exclamation point I would normally include… Let’s just get right to it – we’re really excited and happy to be here, but man getting here was a classic “not a pony ride in May-sunshine” experience. Our saga started sitting in above-average Belt Parkway traffic on the way to JFK. After getting through security, which for some reason closed the TSA Pre check-in line at 7:30 pm (is this a thing at JFK???),…
When traveling, especially on a long journey, finding an inviting, comfortable, and safe place to get some rest is critical. During the pandemic, when we weren’t traveling as much, it was still important to search for places of refuge from the mundanity and quiet but omnipresent low level anxiety of virus-driven daily life. Regardless of the circumstance, finding an oasis of peace and rest amongst the chaos can go a long way towards restoring both mental and physical stamina. In…