Travel Bug

Over the last month or so, Daniel and I watched The Long Way Round on Netflix. This show follows Scottish actor Ewan McGreggor of Star Wars fame, and his friend Charley Boorman, as they spend 115 days riding BMW touring bikes 20,000-miles around the world, crossing 12 countries and 19 time zones. Starting in England, they make their way through Europe, Russia, Mongolia and Siberia through extremely harsh terrain before catching a plane to Alaska (with motor bikes in tow) and riding through Canada and the USA to New York City where they meet up with their families.

The show is their personal travel diary as they share their experiences camping on the road, meeting people in each country, and traveling over extremely difficult terrain with little support. In Siberia they were literally having to fell trees, use winches, and ride in the backs of huge lorries to make their way across crazy rivers. It was an amazing, and as I kept remarking to Daniel, "very manly," experience. Ewan McGreggor even echoed that sentiment a couple of times. We both enjoyed watching the show and seeing the world through their eyes.

We are currently finishing up watching their second trip, The Long Way Down, where they ride from the northern tip of Ireland to Capetown, South Africa. The trip is fascinating and everything you would expect of Africa. I especially liked it because it gave me a glimpse of what my dad probably did in his younger years – as a young missionary in Zambia traveling around on a motorcycle. Also I really liked that Ewan's wife, Eve, joined Ewan and Charley for a portion of their trip from Malawi into Zambia, ending at Victoria Falls.

Daniel loves riding his motorcycle and over the years has hinted (more than once) that he would like to do some motorcycle touring together at some point. The Long Way Down was the first time I really felt like that might be a reality some day. Not that I want to travel across Africa on motorbike, but that seeing Ewan's wife try something new, and then get up repeatedly as she fell on the difficult terrain, was inspiring. Also, there is no way I would want Daniel to do a trip of this magnitude without me! Both Ewan and Charley's wives were very supportive of both endeavors – though Ewan's wife would have liked to participate for a bigger portion of the 3-month trip that covered 15,000 miles and 18 countries.

We would recommend both The Long Way Round and The Long Way Down, but be aware that Ewan and Charley use pretty strong language. In The Long Way Down I joked that the guys seemed to have cleaned up their language, and shortly after Ewan actually alludes to his effort not to say the "F" word as much.

Another travel-related thing that Daniel and I have been following is the round-the-world trip of some friends of ours from when we lived in Cookeville, TN when we were first married. Chris and Allison Hicks have been an inspiration to us for more than a decade as we watched them become new parents and transfer their love of the outdoors and traveling to their now teenage children. We knew them when their kids were infants so it is amazing, through Facebook, to see how they continue to raise their kids. They recently embarked on a round-the-world trip and we are enjoying living vicariously through them as we follow their adventures on their blog The Well Worn Backpack. It gives me hope that we can will do a similar trip one day. So far they have traveled through Thailand and Cambodia, and we can't wait to see the rest of their trip unfold!

Throwback Thursday: Hawaii 2004/2005

*Photos from this trip are at the bottom of this post.
 
We have a bookcase in our bonus room that houses old albums and journals. In the past five years, I have relied more on my blog and Facebook to track our adventures, but the old albums are still there.

Jack loves to pull these things off the shelf. Occasionally we will look at the pictures but I typically put them back on the shelf because I don't want them to get messed up. The other day he brought me my journal that was from our New Year's Eve trip to Oahu in 2004/2005. I read through the account of our trip and it brought back a lot of great memories.

It was our first overseas travel experience together – the entire trip was actually 5 weeks long with a week in Hawaii and then a month in Papua New Guinea. The trip would mark a big transition for us. Upon our return home, we would pack up all of our stuff and move from Cookeville, TN to Charlotte, NC.

I am so glad that we took that time to make memories before we settled fully into a more grown-up lifestyle. One where we both worked and we lived far away from anyone that we knew.

For the Hawaii part of the trip, we went with a basic plan: We had a hiking/camping guide book and our backpacking gear. We would rent a car and travel the island of Oahu, camping and enjoying the beautiful state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The only problem was: we didn't take into account that it might rain.

We found ourselves scrambling to find a hotel in Honolulu on New Year's Eve. It took MANY calls, but we finally found a place that had a vacant room that wouldn't kill our budget.

We hiked. We camped. We snorkeled. We climbed an extinct volcano. We kayaked. We visted the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was a great adventure.

Here are a few excerpts from my journal:
December 28, 2004
Once we arrived in Hawaii, we decided it would be best to go ahead and get a hotel and sleep. The original plan was to sleep for 2 hours and then go eat supper and walk around Waikiki (this was about 5:00pm). I woke up at midnight and realized we had overslept our alarm clock! So we just slept on through the night.

December 29, 2004 
(Our first hike on the island, after getting camping permits in Honolulu.) We ended up hiking a total of 4 miles in the Waianae Mountain Range. We set up camp after watching a beautiful sunset on Pearl City and the other cities below. We quickly realized that the following items were left in the car: camera, Daniel's glasses, cooking and eating utensils...The lights of the city are nice, the stars overhead are awesome.The silence (besides the wind) is much better than the roaring buses and people in Waikiki.

All of this beauty and where is the camera? Forgot it, it was left in the car to keep the forgotten silverware company. -- Daniel 

December 30, 2004
We woke up around 5:00am. The wind was howling across the mountains and the rain drizzled some. We decided to go head and get up and try to hike out at first light (we forgot too many things in the car to continue the hike). 

We then drove out to Kailua Bay. We decided to swim in the ocean and then take a quick outdoor shower. I know this isn't a real "clean" but it felt pretty good. 

Most of the day was overcast with the everpresent threat of rain. We drove to the North Shore and saw some beautiful, rugged scenery. We found a place to camp, right on the beach and were about to pay our fee and set up camp when the campground manager informed us that the ocean swells were to get to 5-feet high with wind gusts of 50mph. 

So we decided to go get a hotel. We must have called 10 hotels before we found one with a room available.
 
December 31, 2004
I feel as though we are participating in the TV show, "The Amazing Race," where everyday the contestants are traveling all over the world and participating in different activities... We got up at 7:00am this morning and headed to Haunama Bay to do some snorkeling on the reef.

After snorkeling, we headed back to our hotel to clean up, repack and check out. We also had to search for somewhere to stay this evening. The threat of thunderstorms is still eminent and trying to find a hotel room last minute on New Year's Eve seemed almost impossible!  

During this time we also booked a visit to the Polynesian Cultural Center for the afternoon. After the luau and show at the PCC, we headed back to Honolulu. The annoying thing is that we have stayed in hotels the last 2 nights (unplanned because of the threat of rain) and it still has no really stormed...

Once in Waikiki, we checked in, got settled and then headed down to Waikiki Beach to ring in the new year. 

12:25am January 1, 2005 
We saw a cool fireworks display at the beach – it was packed! Afterward I watched a guy get naked and run into the water... Daniel and I waded some and then headed back to our rooms. We are definitely not ones to enjoy crowds. I hope it rains tonight, to make our hotel room worth it! We have decided to ignore the weather predictions here for the rest of the week and bite the bullet and camp like we had originally planned.

We came to Hawaii to camp and instead we got the promise of rain and the knack for not being able to obtain camping permits due to time running away from us or offices being closed for the weekend and holiday. 

Some would say that diligent planing would be key, but I think that the hint of adventure can be quite fun and we will forever remember the things we did not plan as opposed to the things we did.

It rained all day, but we managed to find a room at the Backpacker's Hostel on the North Shore. Bunk beds for us, but at least it is dry and we didn't have to sleep in our car rental.

January 2, 2005
Today we went to hike Koko Crater. It is one of two extinct volcanic cones. Basically it is a 2-mile round trip with a 1,200 foot elevation gain! 

As we head up the cone, we quickly realize that there is a near vertical section that we will have to climb as well as an arch... as we ascended I had a panic attack and it started to rain. I somehow pull it together and we finish the climb. 

The 360º view at the top was definitely worth the fear I went thgough. We can see Honolulu/Waikiki, Diamond Head, Hauanama Bay, the Ko'ola Mountain Range and Kailua Bay. Totally awesome.

 
Afterward we head to Hoomaliua Botanical Gardens to camp for the night. We are nestled in under the mountains and it is gorgeous. The only downside is that there seems to be a phantom person using one of the bath houses – we are supposed to be the only people in the park tonight... 

January 3, 2005
We left the beautiful setting of the botanical gardens and headed for Kailua Sailboards and Kayaks where we rented an ocean kayak for two for the day. There were some clouds and lots of wind and when the sun came out it felt great. The water was beautiful blues and greens. We paddled out to an island called Flat Island that is a bird sanctuary. 

Then we paddled on around to Lanakai Beach where we ate lunch, enjoyed the sunshine and tried snorkeling. Even though the water looked pristine, the winds were making the water cloudy with sand so we really didn't see anything. After that we headed back to Kailua Beach. At this point we were against the wind and Daniel was happy that I got some cadence...

 
After dropping off our kayak, we headed to Honolulu to get permits for camping. The permit was for the Wainamo Trail. This means "many waters." We got to the trailhead – which was at a guard shack and the guard was amazed that we knew about the place – we told him we had read about it in a book. Then he said he didn't think you could camp on the trail, but we said we had permits from the National Forestry Office. So he said, "Good luck and watch out because earlier today someone said there was a landslide at mile 4." This was not an encouraging thing to hear! At least he offered to keep an eye on our rental car... We had just about 2 hours to cover just over 3 miles of unknown territory. This made me a little nervous as I did not want to be hiking in the dark! Also we were in a hunting reserve (they hunt pigs and goats here) and it didn't seem ideal to be out at dusk! 

We hurried as much as possible, but at times the trail dropped off on one side. Also it was muddy with lots of tree roots. I was very happy when we reached our camping site at dusk. Our site has a good view but we agreed that the trail doesn't really merit finishing and we will hike out first thing in the morning. We finished the night eating Hawaiian chocolate. The stars are awesome! I am so glad the clouds have cleared – I was afraid of more rain!

January 4, 2005
We packed up camp and headed out of the jungle of Waimano. The trail was very muddy due to 3 hours of rain during the night. The bugs are pretty bad. We are hiking out because the views aren't that great. As usual we are always thankful to get back to the car and find everything intact and not stolen. We are very muddy, so we bag our boots and do the best to get the mud off of us. We agree that since the car wreaks, it would probably be a good idea to find a laundry mat and wash all of our clothes.

After lunch we headed for our campsite on the North Shore... This evening we are camping on the beach... our last night in Hawaii.

And We're Driving

En route north, we made a quick detour to Richmond, VA to have dinner with college friends, Julie and Luke, and to meet their newest addition: Halle. Halle is a tiny little bundle of sweetness who placidly let us hold her and road comfortably in her stroller when we walked to eat dinner at a Carytown Burger and Fries – Daniel and I split onion rings and a California Burger, which were excellent. Halle slept through the entire meal. It was so great to see old friends. Sadly I didn't take any pics :(

Since we had already driven 10 hours, we contemplated the merits of pushing on through Washington DC. The pros were that we wouldn't have to fight with traffic the next morning. The cons were we had already been on the go for more than 14 hours. We agreed to push on.

What we hadn't expected was road construction that would reduce driving lanes down to one single lane (multiple times). At one point, we were pretty much stopped and Daniel was getting tired so he convinced me to participate in a "chinese fire drill" so that we could swap drivers. I agreed, and we quickly discussed the importance of shutting the car doors so that Sophie wouldn't decide to jump out. Traffic came to a stop and we both hopped out and Daniel proceeded to leave his door open! Thankfully Sophie didn't decide to jump out after us – I can't imagine trying to chase her across multiple lanes of traffic in DC!!!

{via}

After several hours of driving, we made it through DC and into Maryland. We consulted TripAdvisor and found a dog-friendly hotel in Baltimore. I have to take a moment to recommend the LaQuinta Inn at Edgewood. It is a new hotel and dogs stay for FREE. On top of that, our total cost was only $85 for a room with a king bed. The only negative was that the complimentary breakfast ended at 9AM since we were there during the week. Overall we would definitely recommend this hotel if you are passing through Baltimore.

Our Mower...

Daniel and I are no strangers to traveling long distances to save a buck. We do it partly for the adventure, but also for the sake of being frugal.

Most notable is the time we drove to Durango, Durango Mexico for our friend’s wedding. We travelled 35 hours EACH WAY to get to the wedding location and we were only in Durango for two days.

 

And then there was the time we drove to NYC to purchase a Pathfinder via eBay. Did I mention we did this on a Fourth of July weekend? Or that we managed to get lost in downtown NYC? This was also happened to be my first {and only} "visit" to DC.

Of lesser note are the many 12-hour {one-way} weekend trips to visit my family in Arkansas or the 12-hour {one-way} weekend trips to Canada to see my extended family {one of which was to celebrate my Grandparents 50^th anniversary}.

We normally make these trips and then swear off ever doing them again.

Yesterday we managed to make a similar trip {though on a smaller scale – I suppose this means we are getting wiser with age?}. We drove 4-hours each way to the mountains of Northern Georgia to purchase a pull-behind mower that Daniel found on Craigslist. We got a smoking deal, but eight hours of driving later, we were questioning our rational.

To use the mower, we now need to buy a four-wheeler to pull the mower with. At least we have some time until our grass starts growing. Our goal is to limit our driving distance on the four-wheeler purchase… perhaps we can keep our driving distance to under two hours each way???

Next up: we have to figure out how to get the 500-lb mower OFF of our utility trailer {it took three guys to lift the mower onto the trailer – I’m afraid I won’t be much help lifting it off}.

Thanksgiving Mayhem

6:30 AM Up and at 'em.

6:50 AM Left my brother's to drive to Daniel's Grandmother's

7:05 AM We were late for Thanksgiving breakfast... this was OK because we weren't the last ones to arrive and we didn't start eating until...

7:30 AM We enjoyed ham, bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy an oatmeal bar and COFFEE. Sophie especially liked people sneaking her food.

10:00 AM Left for my Aunt's house in Joelton.

10:45 AM Arrived in Joelton. Daniel and Sophie hung out with Jesse to watch the fried turkey get cooked. I visited inside - games and visiting.

1:00 PM Headed outside to play Ultimate Frisbee - where Sophie attempted to tackle me every time I started running. She was an honorary member of the other team.

2:00-ish PM Other family started to arrive and we circle together to pray for Thanksgiving dinner. We proceeded to enjoy my favorite holiday dishes: turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with mom's gravy, stuffing, 5-cup salad and 7 different pies.

3:00-ish PM More visiting and playing with my niece Isabella.

3:30 PM Played the game of Things.

4:30 PM Headed outside to play basketball (I still win at speed) and a good game of 4-on-4 until it was too dark to see.

6:00 PM Played a game of pinnocle with Grandpa, Mom and Becky. (Izzy got in on the action too - we are teaching them early these days.)

7:00-ish PM I looked up to see Angela, Sophie and Dad all asleep in the living room. Sophie got some serious playing in today. Running with Shadow. Chasing Daniel. Chasing me. Trying to chase us while we tried to play basketball.

8:00-ish PM Heated up leftovers for dinner.

8:30 PM Daniel left to give Sophie a break - she was worn out from lots of endless playing and eating lots of turkey that everyone kept sneaking to her.

9:00 PM Another game of Things.

10:30 PM Mark and I headed back to his apartment.

11:15 Arrived home to find Sophie zonked out on her bed. She wouldn't even lift her head to see who was coming or going. She had a blast, but was completely worn out.

Midnight-ish Dropped into bed exhausted, but thankful for time spent with family.

Christmas Trip

We are back home after five long days of traveling and intense visiting. So glad that we were able to squeeze in all that we did.

We headed out Tuesday after work and were able to meet up with some of Daniel's family for dinner. It was actually his mom's birthday so we were glad that we were able to celebrate with her.

Then we drove on to Bellevue to crash at one of my friend's houses. It was so nice to be on the other side of Nashville and not to have to worry about driving in traffic Wednesday morning. Thanks to Kristalynne for letting us crash... sorry we missed getting to visit with you.

Wednesday we got up and headed on to Searcy. We had rain and heavy winds the entire way - not exactly an enjoyable drive, but we made it home in time for lunch. Wednesday afternoon and evening we enjoyed visiting with family and playing games. Grandma and Keith came over that evening for dinner.

Christmas morning Mom made us pancakes before we exchanged our gifts. This year we decided to draw names and only buy for one person. We are all working at getting out of debt and have discovered that as we have gotten older we buy the things we need or want and the whole gift exchange seems somewhat unnecessary. Anyways, it was nice to draw names and exchange gifts without feeling obligated to spend so much money.

The one funny story about our gift exchange was that Angela drew Mark's name. Angela is the one in the family that LOVES to buy gifts for people and when she tried to ask Mark what he wanted, he said just to give him money. Angela was not very excited about this prospect so she wrapped up one dollar bills into several small packages. Mark kept unwrapping presents but it was all individuals bills... we had a good laugh about that.

Christmas dinner was what I was hoping for: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, pecan and pumpkin pie.

Christmas afternoon Angela and Robert had to head back to Memphis so Angela could work the night shift... wish they didn't have to leave early but thankful for time together.

Friday Daniel and Dad went deer hunting - or should I say they went for a walk in the woods... They saw one deer, but didn't get to shoot anything. Mark, Mom and I hung out. Mark is officially getting his own apartment in Nashville so that afternoon he and Mom went through the house trying to find odds and ends like dishes and towels and apartment-type things he needed. Then we went to see a movie that night.

Saturday morning Mark left for Nashville (he had to work that night). That left Mom, Dad, Daniel and me to go to Bobby's for breakfast. Then over to Grandma's for one last quick visit.

We decided to drive to Memphis that afternoon to spend some more time with Angela and Robert (and to give us a 2-hour head start on our long drive back to Charlotte). Glad we got the extra time in Memphis. Angela is really showing and it seems a little surreal that she is expecting.

We are now home after a really long day of driving. I look forward to the day when we will all live closer together.

Nomads for Christmas

We left Charlotte on Saturday and arrived in Nashville around 4 p.m. We were blessed to be able to visit with old friends and spend the night with Mark and Carolina.

Sunday we were up early for church and lunch in Hermitage with Marshall and his daughter, Brooklyn. Hillary was missing because her mother is in the hospital and things are not looking so good - she will be in the hospital for Christmas. I feel sick for my good friend and all that she must be experiencing this Christmas season.

Sunday afternoon was off to Murfreesboro to see Daniel's dad and a brief nap since we were up late visiting the night before. Then on to celebrate Daniel's mom's birthday and then back to spend the night with Daniel's dad and grandma.

Today was full of more visiting - breakfast at Cracker Barrel... lunch with extended family... errands and then to LaVergne for Christmas Eve. When in TN, we always have Christmas Eve at Daniel's grandmother's where we enjoy a meal with family, open presents and then Daniel and I spend the night.

So we will be in our third bed in three days. Visiting is always a treat, but there is a weariness that comes with it as well. I want to wish all of my family and friends who I will not see this year, a very Merry Christmas.

Rough Air

I have never heard this phrase before, but on all of the flights I was one, the flight attendants kept saying to keep you seat belt fastened in case of "rough air." What happened to using the word "turbulence?"

My travels yesterday were mostly uneventful. I was somewhat annoyed to find that the Dallas/Ft Worth and the Atlanta airport do not have free Wi-Fi...

Anyways things were great until we landed in Atlanta. By the time we pulled in to the terminal, I only had 40 minutes to get to my connecting flight. This would have been fine had the connecting flight been in the same concourse!

But that was not the case. I flew into Concourse B and my connecting flight was in Concourse E. This meant a really long (fast) walk to the train (which I almost missed) to ride to the very last concourse. By the time I arrived at my gate, sweating and out of breath from almost running, they were calling for the final boarding of all passengers! Talk about a close call.

I was concerned about my luggage making it since I barely made it, but it did. Me and my luggage arrived in Charlotte late last night to a very happy Daniel.

Nomads

This weekend I felt like a nomad. On four consecutive nights we slept in four different beds. It was good to go home and to see family and so many friends but it is nice to be back in my own bed.

I am so jealous...

I am jealous of the following people:

Julie & Luke - going to France in March
My father-in-law, Wesley - going to Israel in March
Angela & Robert - going to Zambia in June
Mark - going to New Zealand for 6 weeks this summer
Brianna - going to Africa this summer
Andrew & Malvin - going to Honduras this summer

If you are taking a trip out of North America in the next 5 months I am very jealous of you. I am also very excited that you are getting to embark on these opportunities and I pray that your trips will be a blessing to you.