Our flight was to leave at 1:00 pm today, but it seems mother nature had other plans. At first it was just a 45 minute delay, but now we are up to nearly two hours. The good news is the plane is here and the FAA is given it a good going over. Apparently a surprise inspection. Works for me!!The delays are annoying as it means we won't get to Hawaii until 6:00 pm local, 11 pm central on top of an 8 hour flight. If anything I'm a bit restless. Just ready to be in Hawaii. Not stressing, not a bit. We don't have a connecting flight and no plans for this evening. Does look like we will have a late dinner though. Ah! The sound of the announcement "we are ready to begin boarding" just sounded across the void. Next stop is Hawaii!
Ready For Hawaii
The Bags Are Packed!
The bags are packed and we are ready to go. Both Tracy and I are very excited about this trip. Tracy is looking forward to her first major event as president of the Dallas ALA chapter and I'm looking forward to my first trip to Hawaii. It's going to be a lot of fun I'm sure.
I've already made reservations to see the Arizona memorial on Monday along with the Missouri and all the other exhibits in Pearl Harbor. I also plan to see the Dole plantation as well as all the gorgeous sites Honolulu has to offer. I even picked up some contacts so I can go snorkeling unencumbered by my bad eye site. Glasses and snorkeling don't mix too well.
Both Tracy and I have loaded our iPads with entertainment of all sorts. I'm also taking along an old iPod so Incan take all my music and save a little battery life on my iPhone and iPad. I have it, might as well use it! The flight is long, over 8 hours. Tomorrow will be a very long day. Even so, due to the time difference, we will arrive just 3 hours or so after we leave. So the long day, will be even longer. I love flying though, so I'm sure I will enjoy the adventure.
Tomorrow I'm sure a flood of photos will hit my site allowing friends and Family to virtually join us on the adventure. Wish my daughter could come with us, but school is still in session and there is nothing more important than my daughter's education. Never-the-less I will miss her dearly. Will she miss me??
Time to get ready for bed. Today was a long last day at work, and tomorrow is a long first day of vacation.
Hawaiian Trip Starts Soon
On Friday Tracy and I leave for Hawaii. Tracy has a conference she is attending and I will be, well ON VACATION. While Tracy has been to Hawaii several times, this will be my first trip to the island paradise. For seven days we will be staying at the Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort.
While Tracy attends conference sessions and hob knobs with others from her profession, I will be checking out sites like Pearl Harbor, the Dole Plantation and the Iolani Palace.
I also plan on getting plenty of beach and surf time as well as plenty of sight seeing walking all over Waikiki and Honolulu. During the trip I will post photos and videos of my travels, and maybe even some underwater video if my new iPhone case works as advertised.
The best part about going to Hawaii, is that I know so little about it every day will be an adventure. Every corner, every sight, every meal will be something new. To me there is nothing as exciting as venturing through a brand new city. When it's one as gorgeous as Honolulu, it's even better.
Cruising to Vacation - Summer 2010
As many of you are probably aware a milestone birthday awaits me this summer. I won't say my age, but let's just say that Nixon was still in office when I entered this world. Come on, you can do the the math! Anyway, to celebrate this most momentous birthday the wife decided that we should celebrate by taking a cruise. Earlier this year we began to look into different cruising options. While we want to take a cruise, we didn't want to break the bank in the process. Let's face it, if taking a vacation is seldom an inexpensive event; then taking a cruise most definitely isn't. Luckily though since we live in Texas, we are only a few short hours away from Galveston. While not a busy sea port, two cruise lines do operate a total of three ships. We found one that we liked, even found a cabin that would offer us most of what we were looking for and BANG, we have a summer cruise vacation.
So what are the details? We are taking the Carnival Cruise Line's Conquest on a 7 day journey to the Western Caribbean. Our cruise will take us to Montego Bay in Jamaica, Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands and Cozumel Mexico. All of the ports look like they offer a good assortment of activities, either sponsored by the ship or planned totally by us. We both love to explore, so even if we don't do the typical excursions we will definitely find a way to keep ourselves occupied.
Best of all, several days at sea. That's what I'm really looking for in a cruise. For me, that's why you go on a cruise. The ship we are taking, Conquest, isn't a new ship but isn't exactly old and recently had a total makeover. She is only about 10 years old, so by ship standards she isn't old. When she was built she was one of the biggest in the world. Because we booked early, we were even able to get one of the coveted cabins with a wrap around balcony.
As we get closer to the trip, I will write more about what we plan to do. Until then, check out this video from CuriseNow.com. It's all about our ship, the vary same one that we will take us on our summer vacation.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa1mYddWqO8 (iPhone Friendly)
Honeymoon Photos
Tracy and I leave in a week for St. Thomas and we are very much looking forward to it. While we are there I hope to regularly post photos to EternalMagic for each day of the trip. You can find that section of the website located here. We are also taking our video camera and if I am lucky and my knowledge of iMovie allows me to, I will post some video of our Honeymoon local as well. See you on the web!
Vacation - Without a Leash
I'm now more than halfway into my vacation. A week from today I go back to work after two weeks of R&R. Well, the first week was filled with Christmas chores, but was fun none-the-less. Courtney and I did shopping together and went to see King Kong (3 hours and 30 minutes of fun and chills). I also did some solo shopping to find Tracy the "just right" gift, which I did. Now that Christmas is over I have been doing a bit more actual relaxing, watching a few movies, playing a few games and basically vegetating.
Not that my days are chore free, they aren't. Beyond helping Tracy to keep the house looking respectable, I have also had to run a few errands. For example today I had to go and pick up food for the dogs (truly an exciting experience) and I had to pick-up a special as well as expensive splitter so that I can actually operate two direcTV receivers at the same time. Then at the last minute had to drive out to McKinney to pick up some needed court documents from the county seat. None of this is actually the height of excitement, but necessary and actually not that boring. Besides, during it all I picked up a few DVDs that I will use to entertain myself some before the end of my vacation.
Hard to imagine that this is the first vacation I have actually taken since the summer before I was laid off. True, I didn't go anywhere; but a vacation of just staying home is still a welcome journey away from the constant demands of my current job. I also heard today that because of my vacation and someone else having to carry the long leash (pager) there is a better understanding of what goes into carrying the leash. Good news is that I will take another vacation in late 2006 when Tracy and I go on our honeymoon. Don't know where we are going, but we will be taking a trip and I don't plan on taking my leash with me.
Welcome to Toluca, Mexico
Yep, I am in Mexico again. Here in Toluca. The flight down was pretty good. The gentleman in the seat next to me was very interesting. He has been coming to Mexico for nearly 30 years. He married a Mexico woman, her name Adriana. The same as the young woman I am visiting here. Pretty weird eh? Anyway, the flight was good and pretty short at only 2 1/2 hours. The drive from the airport to Toluca though, that is a different story. Mexico City is a confusing place and we had a bit of trouble getting to Toluca. But we made it in the end. I ended the adventure having my favorite Mexican food, Tacos El Pastor. Can´t get them in Dallas, or any other place in the states that I know of. The meet of a pig, pork, is cooked over an open flame on a spic that is placed veritical, not horizontal. They then slice pieces of the meat off one little chunk at a time. That meat is then put on small tortillas and served up hot. Very good. I don´t do them justice. Did I mention how increadibly inexpensive Mexico is? I enjoyed a corona for all of $14 (Mex) pesos, that´s about $1.20(US) for you and I. Anyway, Adris has much planned for the day. So until later....