this is Bonneville Speed Week, what was supposed to be the week my Dad breaks his old record and sets a new one. the year we make it into the 200 MPH club.
Mother Nature had other ideas. Mother Nature 1.
Bonneville participants 0.
Maybe they will move the meet to October and we’ll get another shot. We shall see.
photo courtesy of dragzine.com
well i did it. i managed to put all of the Argentina pictures into the blog posts where they belong. it really took all of my control not to rewrite things and make corrections, but i thought i should preserve what was there, what was written back in September 2011.
i look back fondly on the trip, and can only hope that at some point i will be able to take another month long trip. i still have Peru on my mind, and feel that after three years if i’m still feeling strongly about going back that it is something i need to do.
i have some time off in October but not enough to go on a long trip, so i decided for cost and time sake to go to Hawaii and visit some friends there. although i’ve been a number of times, it will be nice to get away and sit on a beach for a few days.
well, it appears i’m going to have to reattach all of the photos from my series posts from September 2011. although it’s going to be a giant pain, it will also be nice to revisit the Argentina adventure.
i’m really longing for a trip, a big trip, a long trip. but now that i’ve started my vacation rental empire, my vacation time will be limited. but i love to vacation and plan, so i have faith i can make something happen in 2015.
but for now, let the photo uploading begin!
it’s worse than usual isn’t it? here it is four months into the new year and not one post. i could chalk that up to the fact that i haven’t been anywhere since January 1, but really that hasn’t stopped me in the past from writing a little something about nothing.
the real issue is that i sold my house and bought a new one and i’ve been in the process of getting it all fixed up. you might think that doesn’t have anything to do with travel, ah… but it does.
you see, my new property is in beautiful Sonoma County in the town of Sebastopol and there are two homes on one lot, and i’ve been fixing up the larger one to use as a vacation rental.
it’s walking distance into town, which means good food, wine tasting, galleries, live music and movies, all within 5 minutes from my doorstep. a short drive away you can visit wineries, the beach and a slew of little coastal towns.
i love it there and look forward to having more free time to poke around, as weekends have been filled with trips to Home Depot and a lot of housework. i think this is going to be a fun summer.
i love the way i actually believe i will keep this blog up to date……. again, not that it really matters, i’m pretty sure that nobody reads it any longer.
it was originally started so people could check in on what i was doing while i was in Argentina a couple of years ago. now i just post things here and there when i’ve done a little travel.
Argentina was a fun trip, i wish i could do that again. maybe not for a month, but three weeks would be fun. i was considering going back to Cuzco, Peru with a work-study organization. i found a one that has a two week education program and then you work for two weeks at a local hospital, school or orphanage. that sounded like a cool thing to do, but i haven’t been able to figure out the timing of it all.
i haven’t done much travel since my trip to Florida, but once you’ve hung out with manatees do you really need to do anything else? ok, silly question, of course you do!
i did go to NY, which was fun but cold. that was a work trip so i don’t have too much to report, as there wasn’t a lot of extra time. although i did stay at a pretty decent little hotel in Midtown called the GEM. super convenient and comfortable if you need/want to be in that area. i had a tasty veggie burger and salad at Burgers & Cupcakes and saw a really clever play called Mr. Burns A Post-Electric Play.
i also went to London for work. the shortest UK trip ever. i arrived on a Wednesday and flew out on Saturday. it was a whirlwind, but it’s always fun to go to London, so i’m not complaining. i stayed at the Radisson Blu on Bloomsbury. it’s a hotel, like many others but has this cool reindeer in the lobby. it’s there year round, not just holiday time.
no plays this trip, just a a couple of wanders around the city, in the cold, taking in all of the holiday decorations. check it out, they created a giant snow globe around a statue.
sorry to say, that’s it for that month or so. i don’t think i’m going to have any travel for the remainder of the year, but if i do, i will be sure to jot down some notes here.
happy holidays!
snow globe image courtesy of marthafied.com (which by the way is a very cool website)
ever since i was a little kid i’ve been fascinated with manatees. my mom and i used to go to the
aquarium in SF and i’d make a dash to that large corner tank in the back that had one lone manatee swimming around. occasionally it would be feeding time and some really lucky employee got to get in the tank and feed the manatee a head of lettuce. i used to think that was the coolest thing ever, feeding a head of lettuce to a manatee. i was five.
my love for the manatee stayed with me throughout my life and whenever i went to a aquarium or sea life park i’d always look for one. not a popular attraction the manatee. it’s not like they do anything except roll over and wave their little flipper at you.
someone once gave me a gift of a manatee adoption through the Save the Manatee Club. i am the adoptive parent of a manatee named Brutus and he lives in Florida at Blue Spring State Park. i thought that was an awesome gift and i in turn adopted a couple of manatees for friends of mine as a wedding gift. yes, they were fond of manatees as well, it wasn’t just some random gift.
last week i went to visit Florida for the first time and the #1 item on my sightseeing list, see a manatee. although it would be great to swim with one, i decided i would be happy just to see one in the wild. my goal was met during a kayak trip to Manatee Cove on Merritt Island.
there were five of us on the trip and there were about a dozen manatees in this little cove, just hanging out. from a distance they look like rocks in the water, until they move. they were super curious and playful and wanted to get close to the kayaks. although they are big, they aren’t scary at all, and really you just want to reach out and scratch their bellies which they constantly put on display for you.
manatees, still one of my all time favorite creatures, and i’m so happy that i was able to see so many of them. maybe one day i will get to Blue Spring Park and meet Brutus in person.
i hadn’t planned to travel until my Florida/NY in October, but then i was given the chance to visit Team Colorado and couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
one of my friends was working in the Vail area so i flew into the Vail/Eagle airport for a change of pace. since it wasn’t ski season the airport wasn’t crowded at all. it was really kind of eerie. i walked inside and everything was closed, i mean everything….the cafe, the news stand the airline counter and it was only 2 PM. there were three security officers by the entrance and that was it. rumor has it the place is packed in the winter, which makes sense, but still i felt a little bit like there had been an evacuation and i was going to be guided to safety.
my friend picked me up and we cruised around the little town to see what there was to see. the highlights included the most amazing drug store, the Eagle Pharmacy (aka the Nearly Everything Store) and $2 beer at a local saloon.
after $2 beers and nachos (the perfect snack) we made our way to Summit County, home of Team Colorado. once there it was a whirlwind of activity including dinner at the Dillon Dam Brewery (one of my favs), a NFL Sunday BBQ, and volunteering at the Breckenridge Oktoberfest.
a spontaneous weekend away doesn’t get much better than that.
image courtesy of gobreck.com
my poor blog. it really is neglected so often, and it’s not until i’m printing out an itinerary do i realize that i haven’t written anything in a long time. a very, very, long time.
although i haven’t traveled much in the last few months, i have been a couple of places, one being my home away from home, Seattle.
i was there over Labor Day weekend for a work event, but i managed to get out a bit with friends, and as usual good times were had.
it had been quite awhile since i had been to the Pink Door, so i thought i’d go for dinner with a work colleague and as usual it didn’t disappoint. we enjoyed a rain-free evening on the outside deck and the meal was wonderful, from the cocktails to dessert, everything was scrumptious. and the service, awesome. i really do appreciate good customer service, it makes all the difference. i also had the opportunity to eat at Matt’s in the Market and Dahlia, both were good, but not as good as the Pink Door.
normally i’d be going back to Seattle for Thanksgiving, but not this year. i’m going to be out of the country the week before for work and i didn’t want to have two back to back trips, even if one would be for fun.
next on the horizon, visiting some friends in Melbourne, FL and then to NY. stay tuned for more on that trip.
yes, yesterday started like the previous three days, but the difference being i knew i’d have to leave the races and head home.
my theory is that by Tuesday we will have broken something. either the car or the record, and if it hasn’t happened by then it won’t. my theory has held correct thus far, sad but true.
so yesterday i spent most of the day in the pits and they finally made it out to the line as i was heading back to the main road to get my car and make my way to Salt Lake City. of course the run they made as i was cruising down hwy 80 was the best so far, 213 mph. but with the good comes the bad, we went off the course the wrong way and got another yellow sticker. we are now up to three.
the inspector came by and signed off (again) and we were good to go.
now i’m sitting at work listening to the live stream from the salt. it’s just like being there, except i’m in a cube, surrounded by people who don’t know what Bonneville is, and i don’t need a second coat of sunscreen at 10 AM. i wish i could have stayed an extra day, but at least this year i can listen in.
the text comes in saying we’re two back in line. i put my headphones on and wait. and wait. and wait. there isn’t anyone in line so the team was taking it’s time getting ready, warming the oil and such. it’s all good, i’m just working and listening. and then i hear, “next up car 554”. i heard it through the walkie-talkie behind the radio announcers, and my heart started racing. ok, you guys, lets make this happen.
what happened was a slow acceleration, nothing close to 213, and then…………….a spin. is there a record for the most spins?
the driver is a-ok (which is the most important thing) and the car… well, from the report i received via text, something broke and we have to take the car through tech inspection again.
hopefully there will be another run this afternoon, and if there is, i will be listening.
can you guess how my day started? yes, you guessed it, up and out by 7 AM, set-up the pits, watched record runs, and got the car ready for the first run. how did you know? lather, rinse, repeat.
run one – we made it as far as the 3rd mile and then turned out. we were gaining speed, but not enough to get us to the record. the determination was more weight was needed in the car. i suggested the driver have an extra burger at lunch…..i thought it was funny. so, more weight added, and out for round two.
run two – we were on course two, which is to the right of course one, and seemingly in good shape. we started strong and made it to 199 mph right before…..we spun out. sigh. the spin out is a common occurrence this year; today it happened to at least four other cars we know of…..
the inspector made it by around 5 PM and gave us a clean bill of health so we can run tomorrow. we borrowed some weights from another team (they broke a piston and are headed home) and we’re going to add them to the car. unfortunately that means taking things apart, and that could be time consuming. meaning, i may not see them run before i have to head out to catch my flight.
frustrating. it’s all very frustrating. the races go until Thursday, so there is still plenty of time for the team to break the record, i just wish i could be here to see it.
oh, that new thing i thought we were getting in the pit, it didn’t happen. all i’m going to say is next year it will happen for sure, and it’s going to be great.
more tomorrow.