Santa Ynez Valley - Sept 2010

A weekend filled with wine tasting and scuba diving seemed like the perfect opportunity to visit Santa Barbara.  I grew up watching Santa Barbara soap opera.  I had an image of beautiful coast line and a peaceful place. 

Mammoth and Bluesapalooza - August 2010

Mammoth is a cool destination for skiing in California, but we usually ski once a year and go to either Colorado or Lake Tahoe.  I’d always heard stories of the traffic being a nightmare trying to go to ski resorts in CA.  Mike is a member of the website Meet Up and joined a group that likes to camp and hike.  A member made up an event to attend Mammoth’s Bluesapalooza.  Mike forwarded me the info and I said sure, let’s go.  If nothing else, it would be a good excuse to finally get up to Mammoth to check it out. 

Yosemite May 2010

Traveling during holiday weekends is usually not recommended, but we both had a 4 day weekend.  Why not go somewhere?  I had been looking into visiting Yosemite National Park for the past couple of years.  We had a trip planned for Labor Day weekend a couple years back, but cancelled it due to other plans and the fact that the waterfalls would have all been dried up.  Memorial Day weekend sounded like a good time to go as the waterfalls would be in full flow. 

Belize - April 2010

This trip was planned to attend a friend’s destination wedding.  They got married at a resort in Hopkins and we decided to go a few days early to go diving in the Cayes (keys).  We chose to stay on Caye Caulker instead of the popular tourist destination, Ambergis Caulker.  Caye Caulker is smaller and more laid back according to my travel guide.  I used Moon Handbooks Belize guide to help plan the trip along with the trusty TripAdvisor website. 

Next Trip: Belize

I'm in the stages of finalizing plans for our next trip, which is to Belize.  We have planned this trip in order to go to a friend's wedding being held at the Almond Beach Resort in Hopkins, a small place south of Belize City between Dangriga and Placencia.

We are flying into Belize City on Continental Airlines, our first time flying with them, a few days before the wedding.  We will be taking a water taxi over to Caye Caulker (CC) to stay a few nights and go scuba diving.  (I'm not about to get on one of them propellor planes if I don't have to.)  We will be staying at what looks like a fun place called Seaside Cabanas.  The more popular place to stay in The Cayes is San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, but CC supposedly has a more laid back feel and is not as touristy.

Belize has the second largest reef system after the Great Barrier Reef.  I'm hoping we can get a refresher course in before doing any major diving as it's been 2 and 1/2 years since we've gone diving.  We didn't make a dive trip on the GBR as the dive boat in the area was out of commission for repairs.

After a few nights in CC, we will take the water taxi back to Belize City and pick up a car rental to drive down to Hopkins.  Our friend's wedding is on a Sunday, so we are hoping to dive again or find some hiking to do on the Saturday before the wedding.

I'm using my usual online source, TripAdvisor to help plan my trip and also a Belize guide book by Moon.  We were actually looking into going here the summer of 2008, but it didn't work out.  It's amazing that we are going now...it was meant to be.

Anza Borrego March 2010

We went camping for a weekend in Anza Borrego State Park.  We decided to go in March to see some of the wildflowers.  Anza Borrego is known to be really pretty when a lot of flowers are in bloom.  We were able to see quite a few flowers during our hike on Saturday, but there were still a lot of buds.  I think we missed the full bloom by a week or two.

Sydney, Australia - January 2010

Day 1, Jan 10 – Arrival

As I mentioned before, flying domestic Qantas flights are great.  We flew them again from Cairns to Sydney and during our 3 hour flight enjoyed a pasta meal and an ice cream bar.  They also played a movie, but we chose not to watch it.

We arrived in Sydney in the early evening and were picked up by a friend of Mike’s.  We were staying with him, his wife, and their new baby girl during our stay.  Their apartment was located in Potts Point and had a fantastic view of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.