May 2015 Vacation Notes

Left Springdale on Thursday 5/21 and drove for about 6 hours to Clinton, OK. Jen fell asleep in the car and her head was hanging all funny. I am glad she didn't get a crick. We stayed at Econo-Lodge and it was fine. Clean rooms. However, the free breakfast was unappealing to say the least. The star of the show was what appeared to be a self-serve waffle bar but the waffles tasted like a slightly burnt marshmallow. I took one bite and trashed it.

Day 2. Jen took the wheel and we left Clinton and headed West at around 8. We stopped for lunch in Tucumcari, NM and ate at the Kix on 66 as recommended by Trip Advisor (hereafter known as TA.) I've yet to be let down by TA. Jen had a burrito and I had the tacos but everything looked damn tasty.
From Tucumcari we drove straight through to Chaco Canyon via Albuquerque the up 550 North. I took over driving in Cuba, NM when we stopped for gas and groceries.  Chaco is about 20 miles down dirt roads just which you access just South of Nagezzi. We finally got to Chaco about 530. A very long day on the road.

Day 3. We hiked Chaco in the morning then headed to Moab. We took the route through Durango then we took 184 West to 491. We arrived in Moab around 430.

Day 4. MOAB, UT. We explored the town and mingled around at the arts festival going on in the park for most of the day. We tried the Moab Brewery and then returned to Castle Valley Inn and went for a bike ride around Castle Valley. We then had dinner at Red Cliff Lodge overlooking the Colorado River.

Day 5. Moab. We hiked Negro Bill's Canyon in the morning which is about 4.5 miles roundtrip. Then we went to Arches National Park and toured through the park seeing several sights and making the hike up to Delicate Arch.

Moab, UT Travel Plans

Been doing a little planning for Moab.

Things to do/see:

1 night camp and next day explore in Chaco Canyon
Little Wild Horse Canyon - 2.5 hr drive + 3 hour or so trip up LWH and back down same path.
Lasalle Mtn Loop Drive
Fisher Towers
Dewey Suspension Bridge

1/2 Day Arches hike Devils Garden Trail to Landscape Arch. Also see Delicate Arch
1/2 Mtn biking in Dead Horse.

More TBD

Well, this little blogging project isn't going as smoothly as I thought it would. We went to Lafe this weekend for a visit. It was okay, same ole, same ole.

Did some fishing at the pond with Caden. We cleaned out the old 2 person fishing pontoon and paddled around a bit. It has a slow leak in the left pontoon so not too good for an extended float. We caught a 3ish pound catfish but struck out the rest of the day. I'm not interested in fishing for bream but there are a ton of those in the pond.

Caden and I also took the jeep out towards lake ashbaugh but chickened out when it started to sprinkle. It's been raining all weekend but supposed to clear out tomorrow just in time for work. Yay!

Mom, dad, Justin, and Mack are all down at the gulf. One of these days I'm going to get back to Orange Beach. Maggie sent a couple good pictures of them in Alexandria. She is very pregnant. I hope they have a boy because the girl name they have picked out is Winter. Hmmmm.

Also, going to drive a Miata tomorrow, might pick it up if I can get the right price.

Jen and I are getting excited about Moab. Looking forward to the trip.

Getting new posts going

So, I've decided I'm going to start doing some blogging again. I'm out of the social media game, frankly I can't stand it at all. However, I'd like to have something to catalogue my experience for posterity. Maybe some day someone will find what I have written here to be of interest.

Had a great weekend so far. Saturday, 3/14/15, I met Justin and Jon Mulligan bright and early at Kyle's to do some kayaking. The weather was grey and drizzly all day. We originally planned to put onto the river at Ponca around 10 but Justin somehow managed to get his truck stuck on the mountain. Dad also got his truck stuck trying to pull him out. As a result we didn't get on the water till closer to Noon.

What a great day for floating though. I borrowed Jon's 10 ft dagger, Justin had his Jackson, and Jon paddled his 6 ft white water boat. Ponca to Steel Creek was probably a 30 minute float, water was really moving.

We stopped after Jim's Bluff to hike up to Hemmed In Falls. It was absolutely rushing. The spray alone would soak you from 30 feet away. I got a bunch of pictures with a crappy little disposable camera that I'll need to upload.

Also ran into Jared Watts out on the river. Good guy. He was out messing around with some other folks.

I bought this new tent to take with me, I really wanted a 2 person technical tent because our big tent is  a hassle to set-up and break down just for a quick trip. I bought what I though was a No Limits 2 person tent but it turns out they put more than one kind of tent in the same box. I wound up with the smallest 1 person tent I've ever seen. My sleeping pad and sleeping bag exactly fit in the tent. Oh well, I going to keep it for me and get one of the Bear Grylls quick up dome tents for Jen and I to use on short trips. You can't ever have too much camping gear right. Right????

We played a few tunes on Sat night before getting shut down by the Rangers at 830. Getting ridiculous down there but it is what it is. As more and more people visit every year they have to enforce the rules very strictly and I would rather they keep it that way as opposed to letting a bunch of drunks win the day.

Got home just in time to watch Arkansas lose to Kentucky in the SEC Tournament Championship game.

Perfect Fall Day

Well today was the nicest fall day we have had yet. High 50's, sunny, and slightly breezy. Jen and I decided to take a trip to Prairie Grove and check out the Civil War battlefield there. Mostly, we just wanted to get out of the house and enjoy the sunshine. We circled back through Lake Wedington and walked around there a bit as well. Overall, it was lovely.

Pics:

Yours truly


Jen in front of a cool chimney that used to be part of a mill. It's 55 ft tall and weight 200,000 lbs.


View of the battlefield. The ridgeline in the background is typical of the Ozark landscape. The colors this year haven't reached their vibrant peak due to an over-abundance of rain.


One more of Jen:


Bye!

What the HAIL??

What the hell, hail, whatever?!? August 5, 2009, the day the craziest hail storm I have ever seen descended on our little neighborhood. That's $4700 in damage to the Honda E, $6600 in damage to the Mazda 6, and a new roof on the house. You might ask why the cars aren't in the garage. And that would be a reasonable question. We just had new flooring put in our house and our garage was full of furniture and other crap. Nice timing.




The glass-like material composing the table top is impervious to your puny munitions.













This is the closest of the bigger pieces I could reach. One of our neighbors tried to run out and cover his truck and took a couple icy shots to the head. It was amusing if nothing else.

Also, it should be noted that my hands are very large and manly, some might even say ape-like. Just to give some extra context to the size of the hailstone.









Seriously it looked like snow ---------->
I took a shot of my neighbor's yard but it didn't turn out too well.











Too bad this guy wasn't there. We could have just had a party.

Cancun, Life, et al

So, Jen and I just got back from a lovely week in Cancun. It was much needed, especially for Jen who has been working like a...well...really busy attorney I guess. Me,it seems that I have an uncanny knack to work a 40 hour week no matter how much crap gets piled on me. Either that or I'm going to get fired. Just kidding, I'm just that good.

Anyway, we got into Cancun on 8/22 after a very, very early 6AM flight out of XNA. Overall the trip down wasn't bad. Going through immigration and customs in Cancun is pure torture and takes forever, especially when you've been up since 3AM.

Once we arrived at the resort it was all worth it. We stayed at Secrets Silversands; which is fantastic. 24 hour room service, fantastic restaurants, and top-shelf liquors in all the bars. Needless to say, we barely ventured out of the resort and the most stressful part of the day was deciding which pool to post up at for the day; or, possibly, the mentally taxing exercise of deciding between "drink of the day" or ad hoc'in'it, <-I just made up a new word, I think. We did venture into Cancun for a shopping excursion which ended in sprawling mall. Yay! A mall! But I did pick up some really nice tequila for cheap. Enough gibberish, how bout some pics!!













This is a picture of a bed, with a loveseat in background, and also a sliding door leading out to the balcony.


This picture is from our room's balcony. This pool was pretty laid back and never had more than about 10 or 15 people in it. It wrapped all the way around the spa is a giant horseshoe shape.The little pool just above is the aqua therapy pool that is part of the spa.







Main inside bar area taken from the lobby. This was pretty early in the morning. Also, the other half of the room is on the right and it was too big to get it all in the picture.









Jen and I going out for dinner. I think we went to Portofino that night. 5 course Italian restaurant. Jen had a rack of lamb and I had osso buco.











Photo of the main pool area where my boy Daniel kept the mojitos coming. Even though gratuities are included in the resort price, a few extra bucks here and there really helps with the quick drink service. Also, he kept finding "extra" drinks at the bar. Surely just a coincidence.

Overall, the poolside staff was really good considering the amount of ground they covered and someone was around every 10-15 minutes to see if we needed anything.

The little cabana on the left is the main beach bar. You can't tell from the pic but there is a swim up bar on both sided of the pool. The structure above the pool houses two outdoor restaurants.

Also, I appreciate the complementary robes, but I wish they came in adult sizes. There may or may not have been some tape involved in this photograph.
















My Baby, looking cute. We went to Himitsu. Excellent Japanese food, definitely my favorite.


















We took a tour of a replica of a tequila factory. As the saying goes, when in Rome, act like a moron. So, we did. At least the plastic donkey got a brief reprieve from his lifetime as a simulacra representative of man's struggle against nature.

And also there were free samples. Many free samples.





Post samples. I have no idea what this gentleman's name was or what we talked about but he was really nice and knew a lot about tequila. And he was pretty funny too.

Too bad I had to squish his head!! <- Does anyone else remember Kids in the Hall?

I could think of at least 3 or 4 hilarious subtitles to this picture but I'll leave it to the peanut gallery...And seriously he's not very tall.









That's all for now. Can't wait to go back!!