A Glimpse into my Life.: Travel

Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Anniversary Travels

It's been a bit crazy in our lives lately. Now that we are finally home and (mostly) over jet lag, I am attempting to catch up on life and blogging. Most of the laundry is washed and put away, the house is *somewhat* cleaned, and dinner is cooking so I have a few moments. Back in January, my parents called to tell Hubby and I "Happy Anniversary." Now, there wasn't anything unusual about that, but then they told us that for our ten year anniversary they wanted to send us somewhere and watch the kidlets for a week while we left. Then they told us they wanted to send us to Italy! We were totally in shock and very happy. We had to figure out when would work with Hubby's and my Dad's work schedules, and then where in Italy we wanted to go. Hubby and I both had lists of places we wanted to go, and once those lists were down on paper and we started comparing, we realized we should just move there for a few years to put a dent in the lists! We then decided to each pick one or two places we really wanted to go and work around those. Luckily, our short lists were pretty similar. Rome and the Naples region. We then decided to stay in Sorrento and use that as a base for setting off to what was in the Napoli region.

This is a view of Mount Vesuvius from the road down into Sorrento. Our hotel was up the hill from Sorrento so we had about a mile walk into town every day. It was a great way to start the day. Walking past Olive Groves, and down orange tree lined streets was fabulous!

This is the harbor in Sorrento. It was gorgeous!

Walking under the orange trees! It was incredible to wander through the streets in the evening. Hubby and I tended towards wandering off the beaten path and found a very lovely little restaurant in the more non touristy part of town.

This is the entrance to Pompeii. The rings you see were where they would moor their ships. Pompeii was formerly a coastal city. When Vesuvius irrupted, it changed the coastline and ended up raining so much debris on the town that it was completely buried in volcanic rock, ash and mud. People literally choked to death on the air. Hubby estimates Vesuvius added almost a mile to the coast from where Pompeii was to where the present coastline is.

Pompeii was a large thriving city in it's time. It was set up so that the different neighborhoods had their shops, 'fast food' restaurants, and bakeries.

This is the body of a pregnant woman that they found in the ruins. As they excavated Pompeii, they found numerous bodies, and when they tried to move them, the excavators found out how fragile they were. The solution was to pour plaster around the bodies and basically cast them.

The stones in the middle of the road were so people could cross the streets without having to step into the muck. The stones were spaced evenly so that chariots could drive down the streets. At night, they would flood the streets and wash them out to control some of the mess and smell.

These are some of the grinding stones at the mills. They would put large beams in and use that to turn the stones. I can't remember exactly, but Pompeii had either 20 or 30 bakeries in it. They also had a surfeit of hotels. I find it hard to imagine the quantities of bread that was produced in the city.

More to follow, but it's time to get back to everyday life!

Monday, October 19, 2009

The Start of our London Adventures!

When we went through security here at home, Rynie was an incredible little helper. He helped to make sure Pink Princess was happy, her toys didn't get lost, and that our luggage was always in sight. I brought him some dry erase mats to doodle on and he loved it! We met Catherine at our gate, and it was nice to have another adult with us. Flying to JFK, we sat next to a Ukrainian woman who was originally from Kazakhstan. She was very interesting to sit by and fun to talk to, even if we didn't always know what the other person was talking about. The only downside was she made herself some sort of goulash/cake/something and it smelled like roasted dog. Blech. Other than that, it was great. She told me about her first grandbaby that she had gone to visit, was incredible with Pink Princess taking over her handbag and wearing it for over an hour, and Rynie asking her odd questions. When we got to JKF we ended up circling the airport for about 45 minutes waiting to land because they were backed up. They ended up landing us out in the boondocks and having this massive people mover help us disembark and get to the gate. We got to the British Airways terminal with minimal issues and got everything checked in there. Lindsay was extremely sweet to hold a mostly passed out Pink Princess while I was *thoroughly* frisked by security and Catherine took Rynie through. It was so nice to have help!

Once we got to our gate, Rynie and Pink Princess decided it was time to make friends with everyone. We had to do about fifteen zillion (okay really only 4) trips to the bathroom to get everyone taken care of but by the time I came back with Pink Princess the second time, Rynie had made a new friend in John. He is the son of Matt and Jennie who put our tour together. They were having fun chatting and looking at the planes getting fueled up. Pink Princess on the other hand, decided she could toddle between all the girls and get to know them! She had hardly been walking and was off mixing with all the big girls. She was making friends with my friend Lindsay, when she spotted Matt and he smiled at her. That was the beginning of a very fast friendship. She toddled over to him, pulled herself up on his lap, made herself at home, and smirked at anyone who would look at her. She knew she was cute.

When we were able to board, Matt and John were very nice and helped us get everything situated and put where it needed to be. On this flight, we sat next to a nice young man from Turkey who Pink Princess was enamored by. He was very kind and tolerant of two little kids. Rynie fell asleep during dinner so Pink Princess had no qualms about helping herself to Rynie's and my dinner. Rynie didn't wake up until the Flight Attendant came to check that he was seat belted in for landing! Pink Princess had a little bit of a harder time falling asleep. She is so long that she was sprawling all over the place.

We got through customs, got our luggage, then we went and found Bumpa and Floolie!!! The kids were so excited to see them. I am not really sure that Rynie knew they had another flight ahead of them, but they were great on that flight too! Pink Princess did have an accident all over herself, but they survived just fine.

We met up with the rest of our tour group at Heathrow and then boarded our private coach, not bus! ;) and went on a couple hour tour of London to get our bearings.

We went past many famous buildings, unfortunately, I really am horrendous at taking pictures from a moving vehicle, so they were too blurry to make out. I'm hoping to get some good ones from Catherine a little later in the week, so those will be added in with everything else at a later date. I do have to confess, even though Nigel our tour guide was a great guide, I was so tired I did have to catch 20 winks on the coach. No worries though, I caught Catherine getting 20 winks too! ;)

The Prince Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. Queen Victoria erected this when Prince Albert died.

This was for Honey and anyone else who plays the Organ.

Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not in residence that day. You can tell because the Union Jack was flying instead of her personal standard.

Anyone recognize this? I can't remember what building it was, but it's neat to look at!

We also went past the building they used for Gringott's Bank in the Harry Potter movies. Link here.

We went and checked into our hotel. Catherine and I had a sweet room! Although there was this little problem with it. We couldn't figure out how to turn on our lights!!! And there was this odd little box on the wall that had a little light in it. When we went down to the lobby, we asked the front desk how to turn on the lights, and they asked if we inserted our room key into the little lit up box! Presto! Lights worked from that point on!

We went and wandered around London a bit, then went to the Tower or London and toured that! It was incredible!!!! We got to see tons of rooms, the ravens were there. It is so amazing to walk through the places that I've read about. To experience the history and know that amazing things, both good and bad have happened there.

We'd just got back to our hotel, then we needed to take one of the girls to meet up with a few others in our group to the London Eye so she could do that. We turned around to go back to the Tube station to head towards our hotel and dinner when we found out in the Station that the District and Circle Lines were closed for the evening because someone fell on the tracks! We looked at a map, figured we could hit our stop from the Picadilly Line and proceeded from there. Well, the train slowed down at Gloucester Road, but it didn't stop. We got off on the Earl's Court Road Tube stop and decided since there were some different Ethnic restaurants to get dinner. We found a relatively clean looking Indian restaurant and went in and ordered. A little while into dinner, Cassie turned deathly pale and covered her plate with her napkin and was done. I asked her if she was alright, and she said she was fine. A few minutes later she was still pale so I asked again. She removed her napkin and showed me a massively huge cockroach in her food!!! Needless to say, we were all done quickly, paid and left.

We tried to find our way back from around Earl's Court Road and asked direction from a shopkeeper. We quickly realized that the shopkeeper had sent us in the wrong direction! We wandered the streets a little bit and eventually figured out how to get back to the hotel! Our little group was proud of ourselves for navigating the streets on our first night in London!

Friday, March 27, 2009

New Mexico Trip, Farrier Appointment

My brother, Jakie, and I took my kidlets to New Mexico last week. It was quite the experience taking the kids without Hubby, and I think it was an eye opener for Jakie on how to travel with kids. We had to stop in Wellington so Rynie could do #2. We had to stop in Green River so Pink Princess could eat. We had to stop in Moab so we could get dinner, do potty breaks, feed Pink Princess her baby food, and let her blow out a diaper. Lets just say that I think I now know how to feed her traveling. I left her belted into her car seat, swaddled her from chub to toes, kept her arms in it, and then topped her off with a bib. There was only minimal mess and it worked pretty well. Then we had to stop in Dove Creek because we had to do the kiddo bathroom, baby needs food and a new bummy thing. Boy howdy I thought we were never going to get to New Mexico. Little did I know...

We were both born down there and have visited frequently....you'd think that Jakie, aka Boy Wonder would know how to get there....right, you'd think. He wanted to go the La Plata way to get to Farmington. I said okay, sure, I don't care. Well, we turned off at the McPhee Reservoir and then at the spot where you can go to Delores or Aztec, we went to Delores. Then, instead of watching for the turn off to head towards Durango, Jake went through Delores. And we kept going and going. Not really sure where we were going but hey, we were going to get there fast. We found the quaint, picturesque (I'm sure, can't be certain as it was dark but on a senic) town of Rico, Colorado. We finally had cell reception and called Old Man Rivers. He told us to turn around and head back but for Jakie to not miss the turn like he did before. Our trip took over 9 hours by the time we got to Old Man Rivers (OMR) place. Boy was I glad for a bed by then.

Chatty Cathy (Rynie) didn't give it up until 10:30 that night. Then he woke up when we unloaded at OMR's house at midnight. I finally had to tell Rynie at 1:30 that morning to go to sleep or OMR would ride diggers without him. Boy he went to sleep fast. Would that work for Christmas, do you think?

Rynie got to ride the diggers with Jakie and OMR. It was the highlight of his trip, TWICE, the lucky Monkey! When we first showed up at OMR's house for the night Rynie kept telling me, "Thank you so much for bringing me to Ranny's house, am just love you so much. I'm am so happy we are at Ranny's house. Can we ride diggers now?"

We went to Grey Kitty's house the next morning and surprised her! She didn't see Jakie and Rynie walk past her window, but she saw me and Pink Princess. She stood there with her mouth gaping open and I haven't seen her hustle that fast to the door in a long time. We spent the time hanging out, and having a good time. We got to go to Brooklet's track meet and watch her take 1st in Triple Jump and a 4x4 Relay. It was a nice week all in all.

I learned a few things on this trip:

#1- Co-sleeping with a traveling (around the bed) infant is not the smartest option. Especially when they are sleep kickers.

#2- Both of my kids talk in their sleep. AND they talk to each other while sleeping. Go kidlets!

#3- Even if you are too cheap to buy a highchair for Great Grandma's house, you need at least one more outfit to change into, preferably a hazmat suit or else you do lots of laundry.

(gives you an idea why)

#4- Threatening to strap your cousin to the hood of your car for the duration of the ride home is an effective way to get him to finally put on his seat belt. Telling him you'll laugh if he eats bugs while he's at it makes him move faster.

•••• On to the Farrier appointment this past Tuesday. ••••
I had a Farrier appointment Tuesday and so about 30 minutes beforehand I was in the field trying to catch Pinto and Dolly. It was a nice, windy sort of day and the horses and cows were acting like 'wild' animals. After Steve (Farrier) and I tried for 30 minutes to catch the nags, I finally got a hold of Dolly. Normally if I grab her mane, she bobs her head then gives it up and I can put a halter on her. This time, she bobbed her head then threw it. I was holding on enough that it send me sailing through the air and rolling to a stop. I landed on my keys and it set the car alarm off. Both kids were in the car and it freaked Rynie out enough that he figured out how to get his car seat unbuckled, crawled into the front seat since he couldn't open the child locks, unlocked the car, and was trucking it screaming down the road. I had to catch him, shut off the car alarm and calm the kids down. After that I said to Heck with those two we were going to do Misty and Storm and who cares. Steve agreed, but said next time I wanted to Rodeo I needed to let him know so that he could watch me fly. Misty and Storm were great. They let Rynie mess around with them all he wanted and we were done in about 30 minutes with them.

Today was the make up appointment for Dolly and Pinto. Pinto was amicable to the grain I brought and Dolly decided her stunt last time worked well so she thought about it again. I wasn't going to hang on this time though. I ended up putting the rope on the ground in front of the grain bucket and then when she came to eat I caught her. Dang she's strong because she tried to drag me. Steve again told me I need to warn him of Rodeos. Hubby came and held Dolly which was good since she didn't want to mind.

Rynie wanted to ride his red horse today so I put him up on Pinto bareback and he had two fistfuls of mane but he stayed on. He was hunkered over to the point of laying down, but he had a blast!

Off to do something since Hubby is at school tonight and I am bored.