Category Archives: Travel

California, Nature, Travel

Coastal Drive and Palm Springs Visit January 2022

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Our drive down to Palm Springs via the scenic route whenever possible (especially during the daytime) with a stop in rural, coastal Santa Barbara County.

My parents lived in the Lompoc area before I was born, and my dad is from Monterey originally, so it’s always particularly nostalgic to stop in Central California, where I still have a ton of relatives on my dad’s side. Pebble Beach has this amazing Monarch Butterfly Grove. We were there when most of them were still asleep, but it was still a nice place to pause on our trip down.

Santa Barbara County is magical. I forgot to take pictures of us having tea with Oprah, Harry and Meghan, but you can imagine they were delighted to receive us again. It was great seeing the kids too.

While I was working Shando took a hike in Palm Springs:

Had dinner with good friends Richard Kraft and James from BC.

I also ran into the identical twin brother of my friend Rob from Princeton, New Jersey (they both live in San Diego now). He happened to be in town at the same time as me. I had never met his brother in person. Unfortunately the picture is out of focus, but what a small world!

Crow on a palm tree in downtown Palm Springs

Art, California, Travel

SoCal Trip October

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This was our second vacation/road trip since the beginning of the Covid Era. We spent a long weekend in Palm Springs and drove back and forth so we could bring our own kitchen, not have to mask up on a plane, etc.

We did get to see our good friends from the Bay Area Ken, Kevin, and Rich who now live in Palm Springs. Of course, they tried to convince us to move down, but we don’t see that happening. We want to keep visiting often though!

On our way back we stopped for milkshakes in Valencia, a very cute town. However, that was not a good idea for my tummy I soon found out. We made a pit stop in Santa Barbara as we took the scenic route home, but sadly sunset happened so quickly it wasn’t all that scenic for much of it. I still think on a Sunday evening it’s faster to travel that route than being backed up on the 5, but it was a good nine hours.

Daughter, Pets, Travel

Alex First Post-Covid Visit

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Alexandra and her boyfriend Davy visited us for the first time since the start of the Covid era. We drove around to the Bolinas area and stopped in a very cool wooded park downtown nearby, then went on to Mount Tam’s lookout. Eventually, we went to the beach and enjoyed a beautiful evening with our two younger dogs and our guest dog Fluffly. We stopped for a snack in town as well. It was a lovely day with sightseeing in some of the corners of California many rarely venture to.

Photos, Travel, Video

Iceland Golden Circle

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I went to Iceland in 2013, but this was Shando’s first time, so we decided to do the Bears on Ice event with a bunch of bears, almost all of whom turned out to be Americans. This was also my first time at the Blue Lagoon.

Airport Layover

Downtown sites of interest include a church that looks like an upright airplane…

Star Wars theme bathroom in a small cafe…

Seemingly permanent rainbow sidewalk…

Iconic opera house and nearby symbolic Viking ship…

and random murals and art.

Beginning our Golden Circle journey at City Hall.

Continental Divide

Geyser

Waterfall

The countryside we were kind of forced to see when our tour bus broke down!

Blue Lagoon

Travel

Easyjet Mishap

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Part of our Easyjet wing came off while in flight yesterday! The orange cover and the piece of metal that presumably holds the mechanics in place went arrivederci.

I noticed there was an orange cover MISSING while we were flying into Naples from Venice!
As shown clearly in the video when we landed, there are mechanics that are missing, including what appears to be something connecting the upper and lower part of the underwing part, all of which should be covered by the orange cover, which fell off during flight.
As we walked away from the plane, I took a picture of the other wing. You can clearly see that there should be orange covers on the wing supports (a total of three per wing, including the one furthest out, although one closer to the fuselage is not visible here), presumably to guide the plane down to a safe landing. Fortunately, we made it without incident.

The video footage is of the wing that lost the part after we landed. I was holding my breath that everything would go well.