Geo: 49.2605, -123.114Today was a beautiful day in Vancouver. We spent all day on Granville Island. We were there early and just like Seattle, nothing really opens in Vancouver until around 10am. Actually, at 10:15am the dock, the market, everything was still very quiet.. just a few tourists and people taking their dogs for "early morning" walks. We had a scheduled Grandville Island Market and Foodie Tour at 10:30am. It was 2 hours long and we had a great group of people with us today. There were four ladies from the Seattle area that were on a weekend girls trip. They were true foodies ~ one of them owned a restaurant and they all really enjoyed the various foods and purchased mountains of items after the tour at various shops (we kept running into them). They ... read more

Geo: 49.2605, -123.114Hello! We are off on another adventure. Our stressful jobs demand at least a yearly getaway. Today we were unable to kiss Simon goodbye - he refused despite mommy returning to the house three times to see if he might have forgiven us enough for a kiss goodbye. It was a no-go. Simon pouted and the cat gave us the evil eye and away we did go. Kamie decided he wanted Steak 'n Shake so we stopped in Rolla. We decided to split a shake. Kamie chose Salted Carmel Pretzel. The waitress said it was heaven. It was cold, creamy, salty, sweet, goodness. We arrived at the St Louis Airport and for the first time that I can ever remember the long term parking lot was completely full. We had to wait 20 minutes ... read more

Geo: 36.9544, -94.7878Hubby & I decided we deserved a weekend getaway (at least) because for the first time since 2007, we were not leaving the country.  We both left the country in 2007 but we didn't know each other then.  We started dating January 2008 and we flew to Quebec August 2008.  We've traveled to another country (or several) every year we've been together. This year, we did a major overall on our finances (it's already June and we are patting ourselves on the back) and we've spent over $2200 on our home... it needs another $5,000 to $30,000, depending on who you ask.  Regardless, we agreed on a Sun-"day" that if hubby got any four-day weekends this summer, we'd go somewhere.  Well, that same night he called me from work and he was off the ... read more

Geo: 31.23, 121.47Good Morning! It is almost 9am here in Shanghai China! We've been up since before 6am. Showered and ate good, big western-style breakfast today. Here in a bit we are off to see the bizarre and spend the rest of our Yuan ~ use it or lose it!! Nothing like a little bit of last minute bargaining.Today is Saturday for us and today will be the longest day of my life. (Kamie's too) This afternoon we will check-out of our hotel at 2pm and our tour guide will say goodbye to us at the Shanghai airport. From there we will fly to Beijing at 5pm. We will have a 2 hour layover and we will leave Beijing International Airport at 9pm China time. We will fly 12 hours to Los Angeles and actually arrive ... read more

Geo: 29.5591, 106.518Today was another great day... well, until about 10pm but we'll get to that later. This morning I was awake SUPER EARLY so I took a shower and got our bags packed to leave the cruise while Kamie snored. He still has a fairly bad cold but he's trooping along. We finally arrived in the massive city of Chongquing around 3am but the sites just getting there were amazing. Chongquing is one of the largest cities in China and in the world. The entire city consists of skycraper apartment buildings and manufacturing plants. It is good to do business along the river because then you can easily ship the items away. Most Suzuki parts are made here. Chongquing is famous for several political and other reasons but the Chinese people call it the "HOT" ... read more