Friday, December 20th, 2019 Day 1 So it all started with an episode of Expedition Unknown. Josh Gates introduced his viewers to a little book called The Secret-A Treasure hunt. The book was written by Byron Preiss and was a treasure map of sorts. He buried 12 casques, in 12 North American cities, each containing a key that could be traded in for a gem worth $1000. All these casques were buried almost 40 years ago and only 3 have ever been found. I was intrigued, so I joined the community of people who were searching for the treasures (most, like me, only just learned of them from EU.). There is a painting and a poem associated with each city that give clues to where the treasures are buried. I began pouring over the clues and ... read more

Saturday October 6 We left at 4:30 in the morning with the intent of eating at Waffle House and still getting to the airport an hour early. Unfortunately, it took longer at the Waffle House than I expected and when we got to the airport all the parking lots were full. We finally found a parking space and made it to the shuttle pick-up place, but the shuttle didn't come for another 10 minutes. By the time we made it to check in, we were late. They would not check in our bags and made us take them through security. Of course we had stuff in them that was prohibited to go through security and Rob ended up losing his Swiss Army knife. Even though we rushed as fast as we could we still missed our ... read more

Saturday July 22nd, 2017 Day 1 The trip down took us longer than expected due to traffic, but it was all worth it when we got our feet in the sand. We walked down to the beach from our condo and spent some time wading in the surf. We later took a turn in the pool in the evening. Not a bad first day. We set up in the condo, went grocery shopping and got ready for a week of fun. Sunday July 23rd, 2017 Day 2 We all slept in on Sunday and then got our stuff together and went down to the beach around ten. We spent most of the morning in the water or relaxing under our canopy just enjoying the view. We each got a little too much sun, but we didn't ... read more

Trip to Washington (June 24 to July 1, 2016) Day 1 We flew out of Nashville in the afternoon via Alaska Airlines. They had our seats mixed up initially, but the lady at the gate made it reasonably good for the flight. Otherwise the flight was uneventful. Boring is always good on a flight! We arrived at SeaTac on time and got our rental car. We drove over to our Airbnb apartment and found it alright, a nicely finished basement. It only had one bathroom though, which was quite a bummer since we were met there by Doug, Brook and Elizabeth and Abby. Along with Me, Rob, Laurel and Mom, there would always be someone waiting to go pee! Otherwise it was nice and we slept well that first night. Day 2 We all got up ... read more

Day 1 Aug 1st Saturday We drove down to Atlanta with Dan and Shawna who dropped us off for our flight. The flight was good. They had entertainment and I was able to sleep a little. It was a direct flight from Atlanta to Portland, and even though it was 5 hours it went by fast. I like flying Delta. Day 2 Aug 2nd Sunday We stayed the night in a Ramada Inn. It was subpar, but at least the bed was comfortable. We started the day at the Japanese Gardens. They were really nice with the greatest smell. We found "our" tree and I took lots of pictures. One highlight was a display of some debris that floated in from the Japanese tsunami. It was from a temple, it was very interesting. After that we ... read more