Tag Archives: travel

Remember when I was a girl and I used to take notes and lots of photos and write stories about things that happened on trips?

I don’t do that anymore. I feel like getting out my phone interrupts things.

I just spent 15 minutes trying to embed this video of the BART train coming into the station but it was giving me fits and I took a screenshot instead. I’m sure you feel a loss of life enrichment.

We stayed with friends in San Bruno and took BART to the festival.

I texted colleague from under the Bay with a screenshot showing where my phone said I was to give him anxiety. It worked.

It was really fast and didn’t bother me.

There was a small child who was unnerved by the train underground. His parents handled it really well — they didn’t tell him to stop crying they just played with him and distracted him and by the time he figured out what was going on there was daylight again.

This is from a different day. This is Fort Point historical site located under the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a tremendous historical exhibit plus an amazing location. We had a gorgeous day — bright blue sky, deep blue water, wind surfers and sail boats out on the water.

I said if I was tourist who dreamed my whole life of visiting San Francisco and I was there that day: it would have exceeded all my expectations. It was a picture perfect day.

I have one more days worth of San Francisco trip photos. I’ll try to get those up next weekend.

We had one full day in New Orleans to have fun together.

We planned to take the street car to the New Orleans City Park and as we walked out of our hotel we saw the street car coming and you know how you panic when you haven’t done something before and we ran to catch it.

Once we were on it I pointed out that I hadn’t had any hot drink to start my day.

Bob felt kinda bad and when we got off the street car we walked around where there was nothing except a mini-mart. Bob offered to go to the mini-mart and I said: I’M NOT GOING TO A MINI-MART FOR MY TEA. I’D RATHER HAVE NOTHING.

So we walked into the park and there was a Cafe Du Monde! I even had a cafe au lait which is probably my first cup of coffee in at least ten years. It was okay. I’m just not a coffee person. The beignet was delicious.

We went to the New Orleans Museum of Art and stopped for a snack afterward and then went to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden which was fantastic.

Such a variety of sculptures and a lovely place for a walk.

Do you spot the travelers in this photo?

After this we went back to the French Quarter and we went to something but I can’t remember what. I don’t take notes on trips anymore. But Jazz Fest was going on so we walked near the venue and wandered around a cemetery while listening to some of the music.

It was a fun scene and I was glad I wasn’t going to a huge music festival.

That night’s dinner was a bust. We walked around and couldn’t get far enough out of the touristy area and ended up with expensive and super generic food. The server was nice so when he asked me how my food was, I didn’t say: boring.

I have a few more photos. We’ll see if I get them up with any final stories.

MISSISSIPPI!

I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans for a work conference and I took Bob with me.

We went a day early so we could have some adventures.

We arrived on a Saturday around dinner time. I don’t know how the lines are drawn. Our hotel was either adjacent to the French Quarter or part of it.

We managed to find an amazing dinner and then we wandered around. There is terrific music or art or something cool to look at in every corner. It was a bummer I was so tired from traveling because I pooped out early. But we still heard a lot of fun stuff.

While I enjoyed the French Quarter, it was like of like visiting Las Vegas. It’s easy to have enough. Bourbon Street is loud and smells like weed and sour beer. The food leans heavily to fried. You need to watch what you do in the heaviest tourist spots. But we had fun.

This was an epic salad with blackened red fish that was delicious.

More photos to come from the Sunday adventure.

Monday the conference started. I don’t remember ever being at conference with such a stuffed agenda. I went downstairs at 7:30 to eat and business started around 8, there was activity during the lunch meal and we didn’t stop the last session until 5:30pm.

There were breaks but they were long enough to get out of your meeting room, find something to drink and use the bathroom and then make your way to the next meeting room.

It was a great conference and I’m still sorting through my notes to figure out what’s useful for us.

If you’re wondering whether we talked about AI — we did. A lot.

Waikiki Beach through the trees. We were on a trolley so most of my scenic photos are worthless.

We didn’t have a lot of big plans. Mostly we wanted to enjoy relaxing in the island breeze.

One day we went to the Honolulu Art Museum which is beautiful.

Mom touched the art. Twice!! At one point I turned around and she was opening the drawer on an ancient bedazzled bureau. I told her not to touch the art or we would get kicked out of there. She said she wanted to see if it was made well.

Little peek of Hanauma Bay State Park

In the afternoon I went swimming at a place called Magic Island Beach in Ala Moana Park. I did not bring my phone because it was hot and sunny and I didn’t want to leave it when I jumped in the water otherwise I would have taken a photo of the megayacht.

Swimming was amazing. I can’t even remember the last time I swam in the ocean. Maybe it was in 2011 when I went to San Diego — I remember sitting on the beach but I don’t remember getting in the water. But if not then, honestly, I might have been the last time I was in Hawaii which was 1986.

(It was an epic trip that couldn’t happen these days. I went with my high school friends, most of them still minors. HAHA! I rented a car at 18. I could buy alcohol at 18. We were perfectly behaved angels.)

I sure hope another 40 years don’t go by before I swim in the ocean again because I will be extremely old.

I found an app so I could check on some of the port traffic out in the distance. There were a couple of cruise lines. The fishing boats went out in the wee early hours. Sometimes a sail boat would show up as “pleasure craft.”

There was a megayacht at the yacht club in the marina out of view from our condo. There were juicy rumors about who might own it in an online forum. Also spotted: tugs, barges, tankers, and military ships.

Also spotted but not on the app: surfers, outriggers, sailboards, kayaks, catamarans and probably others I am forgetting. On land: bikes, scooters, people running, people with suitcases and people with dogs.

After the first night we gave up trying to adapt to the time. We just went to bed at 7:30 or 8 and then woke up at 5am.

As soon as I woke up I went to sit on the balcony in my summer pajamas to watch the ocean wake up. It was glorious!

In the early hours, before light, there would be all these cars coming in. Between our condo car instructions and this post, I figured out that people were moving their cars over here for free parking during the day. All the slots would be full by 7am. There was a cheap pay lot across the street from this spot. The car instructions encouraged parking there and every evening I would watch cars circle and circle and circle. We did not get a car and I’m glad because we would have either had to deal with this or pay $$ to park in a lot.

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Here is my NaNo progress meter. I need less than 10k to make my goal which is in the realm of possibility but we’ll see how the holiday weekend goes.

15684 / 25000 words. 63% done!

The point of this picture is the giant dragon above Bob.

We went to Los Angeles for a wedding.

It’s the first time I’ve been back in 20 years. I was kinda dreading it but it ended up AMAZING!

Our hotel had a free trolley to Universal. We thought we’d mosey onto the 8am trolley and it was completely full.

The park was sold out at 8:15am. People were out in force to celebrate Halloween. Lots of costumes and family themed outfits.

We didn’t plan to go to the park. We just had our morning beverage and baked treat and watched the people. Bob started a conversation with a guy in the coffee line and turned out he had dropped his wife off for work. She worked in costuming for the cast in the park.

Here is our entire Harry Potter experience from City Walk.

We went to Tacoma in September. I posted about it in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. This is the last Tacoma post.

It’s been so long, I don’t remember what else I wanted to say about the trip.

This is a view at the Museum of Glass.

I asked about the sculpture in the fountain: what’s it made of?

Glass.

Really? What about weather or vandalism?

Sometimes there are issues but it is actual glass in the fountain.

This is the Chihuly Bridge of Glass outside the Museum of Glass and there are glass sculptures in the display.

There are a few sections with vandalism but whatever they made the case out of, it’s really strong. No one had successfully broken into it.

Finally, this is what the basement would look like if my husband didn’t have me around.

This is the Freighthouse Station by the Amtrak station and it is the land that time forgot. A funny old place with lots of fun restaurants and little shops with various snacks and doodads.

These computers were piled up in the back with no security! Can you imagine?

Here is a weekly update on my NaNo. It looks like I’m in great shape but the next two weeks are going to be mostly a wash setting me up for a major Thanksgiving weekend write-marathon.

11432 / 25000 words. 46% done!

I feel like it’s optimistic that I will get back here and finish up the Tacoma trip — but I will try. I want to keep this short because I only have another couple hours to get out in the yard and I know I won’t want to get on the computer after I’m done.

This is the train station in Vancouver. While you wait you get to watch the metal recycler work. On our day a guy was playing the banjo as accompaniment. I was sorry we left before they ripped apart the school buses.

Bob and I did a quick trip to Tacoma for our anniversary.

Telling people you are going to Tacoma is like telling people you are going to Belgium.

They say, why?

People, Tacoma and Belgium are both awesome. (Here’s a post from Belgium, 2014)

There are lots of museums, fun restaurants, and a lovely waterfront. It’s easy to get around and nothing is crowded.

I was afraid Bob would wake up dying for a coffee and we would end up at some sad toasted bagel counter drinking hot drinks out of little paper cups.

I did the homework and found Hob Nob — a neighborhood favorite — and for good reason. It was a nice walk, adjacent to Wright Park, a place we planned to visit anyway.

It rained but just enough to be refreshing.

Delicious.

Hopefully more to come.

Let’s wrap this up before summer is over.

We took a bus to Independence to visit the Harry Truman Presidential Library which was phenomenal. I think I’ve confessed before that my U.S. history is weak mostly because I took history in summer school so I could do a special program my senior year where I only went to school half day and I had a job in the afternoon. Summer school history is remedial history. Safe to say I had no trouble passing. I think I was the only student who didn’t go smoke behind the autoshop at the break.

This means my knowledge of presidents is vague and when Bob signed me up for this adventure I didn’t understand what an incredible time period that Truman served in. WWII ending, post WWII and Korean War. This isn’t going to be a history lesson but the library covered Truman from a political and historical perspective as well as his biography. A lot to think about to look back at that time now.

Remember I mentioned we walked around Thomas Hart Benton’s house while we were waiting to get seated at BBQ? He painted the mural at the library. Sorry that’s not the greatest photo.

Bob made sure to point out the replica of the liberty bell at the library. I said: I saw the real liberty bell last year and I wasn’t impressed.

We also went to the Harry Truman historical courtroom. To be honest, we went in there to use the bathroom but then we went into the visitor center and they asked if we were there for the tour and we said yes. The regular tour guide wasn’t there so this other guy took us through and he was great. He had gotten married there and he had some good stories. There was a little art museum in there and I would love to tell you more because the featured artist had an interesting story but Internet Search Tool is failing me and I don’t have all day to write this.

Now that I’m trying to get links, I guess we went to two courthouses? We went to this one, which is called the historical courthouse.

This is what you get when you don’t take notes on vacation, kids.

If you are a history nerd and find yourself in a position to visit Independence, I recommend.

I also recommend taking the bus if you want an authentic experience. Bob and I don’t mind public transportation and this journey kept it real. For the trip home we were waiting to board the bus and the driver helped a clearly intoxicated man in a wheelchair deboard. The man insisted he hadn’t been anywhere near alcohol and the bus driver exits the bus carrying a half empty 40 that he sets down on the sidewalk. I guess I should say half full 40 because a kid that was waiting to board the bus picked it up and put it in his backpack.

The last place we visited before we went to the airport was the American Jazz Museum (of course, if you know Bob) and it was also super interesting. They have so much historical footage of early jazz acts plus lots of information on performers and jazz clubs.

I’ll take notes next time so I have better stories to tell.