Initially, this long weekend trip to Zion was supposed to be with a group of friends. Since none of them were able to make it, I changed it to a family camping weekend. My mom, sister, and her boyfriend all came along. For my mom, this would be her first camping experience. It will be quite interesting to see how well she deals with it. I picked up our rental car for the weekend; a Chevy HHD, on Friday after work. After packing up all our camping supplies, food, and personal belongings, there was barely enough room for the 4 of us! The trunk was packed all the way up to the roof of the car blocking my view out the rear-view mirror. The plan was to drive through the night in order to arrive in ... read more

These days, my getaways have been relegated to day trips to nearby destinations close enough for a day trip. The economic realities of the day have all but put an end to the usual 2 week European trips that I have been used to since 2000. For the past few weeks, I've had a burning need to get away but when my pocketbook was consulted, any possible ideas were quickly dashed. So at the very last minute I decided that a day trip to a nearby national park was in order. Along with Kevin, we both chose to go for an extreme day trip to Death Valley, nearly 6 hours away. The idea was conjured up about 8pm on a Friday night and by midnight we were on the road. We picked up Michelle who set ... read more

Thanks to the old fart in the next campsite abruptly putting an end to our night, I was able to get a full night's rest in my tent. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Kevin. Unable to sleep, he apparently got out of his tent in the middle of the night and was spinning around. That morning when we went to the bathroom, he went into a stall and proceeded to vomit the contents of his entire stomach. I had never in my life, heard so much vomit hit the toilet water! The effects of too much tequila rears it's ugly head again. I tried to control my laughter as much as possible knowing that he would start to feel better once all of that was out of his system. That morning, we ... read more

Call me crazy but who gets up at 1:30am and drives 5 hours just to hike around and drive back? Only I would do something as spontaneous as that. At 10:00pm Saturday night, I was just lounging around telling myself that I should go on a mini road trip. Since it was already pretty late, I doubt anybody would have wanted to tag along on such short notice. I decided that I would drive up to Mammoth Lakes and visit the Devil's Postpile National Monument. So I went to bed hoping to get a few hours sleep before I ventured off. Leaving at around 2am, I hit the road loaded up on coffee for the 5 hour drive. It seemed as if the only people on the road at this early hour were people driving ... read more

Our final port of call and southern-most stop was in Bridgetown, Barbados. An independent Caribbean island nation, Barbados gained it's independence from Britain but still retains much of it's British charm. This island is best known for it's white sandy beaches, rums, and for being a playground for the wealthy especially along it's western coast. Our excursion that we chose for the day was a coastal cruise in a five-star catamaran with the opportunity to swim and snorkel with sea turtles. Since our excursion didn't begin until 9:30, we took full advantage of the chance to sleep in this morning. Once we exited the ship and met with our group, we all packed into a bus for the short 5 minute ride to our catamaran. When we arrived at our catamaran, everybody took off their ... read more