Tag: Relationships

LA LA Time

On By StevenIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I spent a long weekend in LA, visiting my most favorite of daughters, Abi.  To be clear, she is my only daughter, so there isn’t much competition, but still, I want her to know that she is my favorite of the female children. 😉

I arrived Friday around lunch time and Abi & I quickly established the rules for the weekend.  Our primary tasks were…think about eating, plan to eat, eat, discuss what we ate and then start again. We managed to cover most of the important food groups – deli in Beverly Hills, Mexican at a place that had only outdoor seating (not a real option in Chicago), Thai at a place where the food came out in what I would charitably call random order (some main courses, then appetizers, then rice, then the rest of the main courses),  a posy breakfast place where the food was great, but I needed my secret decoder ring in order to understand what I ordered, popcorn at the movies rather than dinner …and of course In-N-Out Burger.

We did some other non-eating stuff.

The weather was “unusual” for Southern California–50s and cloudy and some rain. I had to wear long pants and a COAT! Well, really a light windbreaker, but it was far from what I was hoping for (80s and sunny). Oh well.

20190216_132728We went to Topanga Canyon and hiked up to Eagle Rock. It is a pretty easy hike, wide and smooth “trail.” It was a bit crowded, but not too bad. If you look at the photos in the hyperlink, you will notice that there is lot of brown. Due to all the rain, the trail was beautifully green. Abi was amazed and stopped multiple times to explain that she was unused to seeing that color. For those of you from So. Cal, the white things in the photo covering up some of the blue sky are called clouds.

On Saturday night, we went to the Improv in Hollywood to see a bunch of comedians.  The headliner was Brent Weinbach, who was hilarious.  We were seated in the front row so we expected that someone would make fun of us, but no such luck. Abi had to read a couple of things for Brent, but that was about it. It was a great night.

20190228_174227
Does anything say “I miss you” like Hot Cheetos socks?

On Sunday we went to a flea market right in West Hollywood.  Only in California would a flea market have mandatory valet parking.  Nothing too exciting, but I did manage to find three pairs of socks for Sue.  One each of In-N-Out Burger (great for her vegetarian status–I know, I am hoping I don’t get defrocked), Hot Cheetos and Tabasco.

We also went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), which I have so say was a bit disappointing. There was a long wait to get tickets, then the Japanese building was closed. There were two interesting exhibitions. One on the 100th year of the Bauhaus school, including about half a dozen Kandinsky’s that I really liked. The second was the Art of Sri Lanka, once again, very interesting, but both were relatively small.  They did do a very nice job of explaining the exhibits, which I really appreciated.

20190216_102128
Now this is my kind of place….

It is Getting Kind of Late

On By StevenIn Travel, Uncategorized3 Comments

We seem to be off to a slow start with our Costa Rica plans and I am not sure why. Sure, we have our flights and hotels. We have generally planned where we want to be and when, but no real firm plans. Perhaps this week we will get down to brass tacks and figure it out.

Day 1. We know it is all about getting there. It seems like we will be travelling all day. Our flight is from Chicago to San Jose, with a stop in Fort Lauderdale. I think we arrive early evening. We are renting a car and driving to a coffee plantation.

full-manuel-antonio-park-sign(1)Day 2. An early (9 a.m. I think –maybe a bit later) tour of the coffee plantation then a drive for a few hours (3? 4? more? who knows) to our hotel in the west coast town of Quepos that is right near the Manuel Antonio National Park (I always think that I am missing one of the names for the park….I feel like there should be a middle name in there–but perhaps that is just me).  No, I keep calling Manuel San Antonio. I expect we will just look around, settle in –maybe take a quick trip to the beach to see the Pacific Ocean (Yup…that’s the Pacific.  Yup…it is wet.  Yup…it has waves) and unwind a bit.

Days 3 & 4 & 5. We know we are going to go rafting one day. I have done some inquiries and found a 1/2 day trip on the Upper Naranjo river, I will probably book that this weekend. The other days will likely be hiking in the park (the one that is missing one name), visiting the beach, maybe a kayaking trip and seeing what other types of trouble we can get into. But we have no set plans –yet.

 

full-arenal-volcano-blowing-smoke
Notice at Trailhead (Translated from Spanish):   It is forbidden to throw your hiking partner in the volcano

 

Day 6. We are going to drive up to the Arenal Volanco. (By the way did you know that Costa Rica has 200 volcano formations, 100 that show some signs of activity and 5 that are classified as active?) Once again, I have no real idea how long the drive is, but I assume it can’t be more than 2-3 hours. That should leave us with 1/2 a day or so to visit places on the way or find something to do once we are there.

Days 7 & 8. We have not made any plans. There seems to be a bunch of places to hike with hanging bridges (you all know how much I love heights), I found a link to a route that goes to a waterfall (only 16,000 steps & up both ways!), and who knows what else. Apparently tossing your hiking partner into the volcano is frowned upon (perhaps less so if they are a virgin?) so I guess I am pretty safe from that. Anyway, you can assume that Sue will run me ragged climbing up and down things for both days.

Day 9. We fly home.

spreadsheetI know! I know!  We are way far behind in the planning process and I must admit–it is all my fault–I haven’t created the spreadsheet… and as we all know…nothing ever gets done in this world without a good spreadsheet. I am not a spreadsheet convert, yet, but I know Steven can’t live without them.

 

 

Who needs to plan ahead?

On By StevenIn Relationships, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I know, this posting is two days late.  I am sorry, I’ve been otherwise occupied and simply haven’t had the time to get this one done.

When we last left off our  intrepid travelers, they had just returned home from a two-week, all-fun vacation to the outer reaches of Utah.  Exhausted and elated, they set down their bags (and hiking gear) and thought “home sweet home.”  However, lurking in the back of Steven’s sun and heat soaked brain was the realization that he promised to go to the MLB All-Star Game with his son, who lives in Baltimore.  Turns out that the game is July 17th in Washington D.C.

Since this trip was Steven’s to plan alone….nothing got organized.  We checked on the flight and decided that $900 for two people was just too much to spend (Per Sue:  We could go to Paris for that price!! I know right! Paris or Baltimore…hmmmm.).  You know what that means–ROAD TRIP!!!

It is a pretty short drive, only  11 hours and 713 miles door-to-door.  We leave tomorrow (Saturday morning) real early (6 a.m.) and should be there around 6 p.m. Saturday night.  Sunday we may (likely?) go to the futures game.  Monday we will relax and then Tuesday night is the big game.  Wednesday morning it is back on the road home.  Whew.  Good thing we like being in the car!

Moral of the story….If you want to fly, don’t leave Steven to organize the trip.

The Booking Elves

On By StevenIn Relationships, TravelLeave a comment

Well, the booking elves have been busy (read Sue, as she is our official booker).   (I found this out accidentally, when Steven said, “Did you book that? You’re the booker.”) We broke down the trip by day and then started to work through our list of possible adventures.  Some of them we don’t need to book–hiking, visiting Haiku/Paia, driving the road to Hana, etc., but for others, it was time to pull out the iPad and laptop and start to make reservations.

There are a few things we had to be aware of when we started planning.

  1. We have only 2 full free days on Maui, 2 days we have work events (one dinner & one breakfast).
  2. We can’t go up Haleakala and scuba dive on consecutive days as it isn’t safe.
  3. We can’t fly for 18 hours after a scuba dive.
  4. Most trips on Maui seem to start early (7-7:30 am)–especially the ones on the water. (I don’t like the morning, especially on vacation.)

This is our schedule before we started booking things. (Get used to spreadsheets; Steven LOVES them. This hardly counts.):

Day
1 Arrive on Maui at about 5 pm
2 Work dinner at 7 pm
3 Work meeting (Steven only) 9 am
4
5
6 Flight to Oahu 1 pm
7
8
9 Flight home 1 pm

 

Sunrise on Haleakala and then a 23-mile bike ride down the mountain

WOW!  This starts really really really early–can’t they reschedule sunrise for a more reasonable time?  We are on vacation!  We need to be at the departure point at 3:30 am.  UGH!  After a little discussion, we realized that Maui is 5 hours behind our home time zone and figured that if we did this trip the first morning (Day 2), our bodies would think it was 8:30 am.  So we booked it–I will let you know on the day if we are fooling ourselves on this one. (Steven neglects to mention that he then told a friend/work colleague that we would have drinks and dinner with him and his wife after we arrive in Maui. So, late night, early morning given that we won’t get to the hotel until 7ish.)

Kayak to Molokini

I emailed one of the places to understand how hard a 3.5-mile (each way) kayak trip would be.  The reply came back: “It is really good for triathletes.”  I am more of a “try athlete”–you know I try to be an athlete, but not really hard, because then I sweat and might spill my drink.  We pass.

Sunset kayak tour

We could only find one place that did this and not on the days that we were available…strike 2 for kayaking.

Scuba

After poking around for a while, we found a dive shop on Oahu that looks good.  Only 6 reef piratespeople per dive, two-tank discover diving trip, they have their own boat, and they have lots of good reviews on TripAdvisor.  But more importantly, they have a great name & logo – Reef Pirates – which any real diver will tell you is the right way to pick a dive shop.   We booked this for the afternoon of Day 7.

Kayak trip to Gilligan’s Island

This is a four-hour tour (of course, it would be more apropos if it were a 3-hour tour)…plus travimagesel time to and from the north side of the island.  Officially, it is Coconut Island–but it is where some (all?)(at least the pilot) of Gilligan’s Island was shot.  If you are too young to remember the show….Boy did you miss one of the truly great quality high art television events.  A true tour de force with nuanced and carefully planned plot lines and characters (Ginger or Mary Ann? The Professor or ???)….you absolutely should find some reruns of it.

Anyway, we decided to book this on Day 8, our last full day in Hawaii, so if we are shipwrecked and can’t get off the island for three seasons, we won’t have missed any of our vacation.

paul ryan

(Total aside: I Googled fair use Gilligan’s Island images and this appeared.   No comment.) Perhaps more of a comment on Google’s search process rather than a political comment.

 

 

Aloha

On By StevenIn Relationships, Travel1 Comment

indexWe leave on an April 26 flight to LA and then to Maui; we arrive at 5 pm.  We are staying on Maui until noon on Tuesday, May 1, when we fly to Oahu.  We are in Honolulu until noon on Friday, May 4; then a stop in LA and finally to Chicago at 6 am on Saturday.

Since the airfare and hotel are paid for by my company we have to do a little bit of “work stuff.”  We have a meet & greet dinner on the first night. (I am not looking forward to this. I will have to be on my best behavior. Boo!) and then I have a breakfast meeting the next morning for 90 minutes.  (Read: Sue sleeps late.) Other than that, we are on our own.  I am very excited about this trip–especially since it is snowing this morning (April 9; Cubs home opener postponed).  We have created a short list of potential activities and will need to figure out which ones we have time/energy/inclination to do:

  1. Watch the sun rise on Haleakala and then a 23-mile bike ride down the mountain
  2. Scuba (try dive for Sue)
  3. zip lining–yes, Steven, who is petrified of heights, thinks this would be fun.
  4. Hiking on Haleakala
  5. Hiking on the Acid War Zone Trail
  6. Drive the road to Hana and hike along the way
  7. Visit Haiku and Paia
  8. Kayak to Molokini
  9. Sunset kayak tour
  10. Some other kayak tour
  11. Surfing!
  12. Kayak trip to Gilligan’s Island! – wonder if it will be more than a three hour tour (a three hour tour)
  13. Hiking on Diamondhead
  14. Visiting with Sue’s niece (actually my second cousin’s kid) who lives in Honolulu
  15. Relax? – probably not, but figured I would put it in anyway
  16. Avoid Steven’s colleagues

A couple of interesting points.  Seems like everything starts early in the morning especially the kayaking.  Haleakala is about 11,000 feet high and the sunrise tour starts at 3 am, so it will be cold.  The kayak trip to Molokini is 3.5 miles each way and since neither Sue nor I are real kayakers, we have no idea how hard that would be. (How hard could it be???)  Sue is not interested in surfing (I have trouble balancing on firm ground.), but I don’t think that will stop me.  I am a certified Scuba diver, but Sue has never done it, so maybe we will try and fit that in to see if she likes it.

When we decided to start up this blog, I did the only thing reasonable –I went out and bought a new toy–a GoPro camera.  (I helped the purchase along when he was dithering by suggesting the blog.) Now I am trying learn how to use it and will hopefully master it before we go. (Hmmm, I noticed this is I and not we. Where’s my GoPro?)   I’ll post some videos before we go so you can see the learning curve (which hopefully isn’t too long) on my new favorite toy.