Summer Vacations

[Ron Thorne]

Share your summer vacation plans, photos & stories with us, whether large or small. Sometimes a weekend vacation is the best, in fact. Sometimes you don't even have to leave town to enjoy a vacation.

Patti & I are staying in Anchorage for the most part, with short* excursions north and south of us. We plan to be at our sons lakeside log cabin for a couple of days within the next few weeks.

*Short by Alaskan standards is anything under 100 miles.

[moldyfigg]

Not summer, but September we're going to New Orleans. We'll stay in the Quarter and eat our brains out.

We have been there in about 10 years and you know what it means to miss New Orleans.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Haven't been to Nawlins in years but there's no doubt in my mind that, try as hard as you might, it's impossible to get a bad meal there. And the people couldn't be nicer. Gotta get back there if only to suck crawfish heads and scarf down a muffaletta or two.

[Ron Thorne]

Can't deny it, Scott.

Jimmy, you have such a way with words.

It may not qualify for a "vacation", but I'm about to take my portable O2 concentrator outside and get in our hammock. I'll bring along a magazine and our iPod. It's about 75° and sunny here today, with a gentle breeze. Perfect.

[LennyH]

Fresh off a week at the beach in Sea Isle City, NJ. This is the view from my brother-in-law's back deck. The sunsets look so amazing and different every night. Also watched a sea turtle digging a hole and laying eggs right in the front yard.

[BeBop]

I'll be living vicariously in this thread. I love travel, but miss having time for non-work travel. (Work travel is 365 days for me.) My last full day off was 2008.

[A. Kingstone]

I rode my motorcycle to the beautiful Province of Newfoundland. Stunning island ride with lots of great food and experiences. Did the Cabot Trail also. Sixteen hour overnight trip from Argentia NL to North Sydney NS. A total of 7000km in 14 days.


One day I'll figure out how to post photos.

[sozamora]

This is the beginning of vertical vacation season for me. Instead of taking log vacations, I'll take one or two Mondays off every month. Mondays sucks and three day weekends are awesome.

I don't do much, though. Wake up late, have a nice leisurely breakfast/lunch, I might go to a movie or just hang out and play video games. It's great.

[steve(thelil)]

I'm I'm in the middle of taking a vacation from my otherwise grueling schedule in Narragansett RI for 4 weeks in a big house with an ever changing assortment of family member, a 5 minute walk from a beautiful beach.

[moldyfigg]

Being that I am on vacation all the time. I don't take vacations, I take trips. In August my son, Casey, and his family are coming out and the trip we have planned is to take Amtrak from Irvine to San Diego and see the Padres/Orioles day game..

[Blue Train]

The condensed version of my FB posts.

The general between terms vacation. Any work I need to do I can do through the net, or video conferencing.

So far, it's been NYC, Texas, Los Angeles, San Francisco/Nappa, and now Chicago. Next up Hawai'i for a few weeks and then back to the mainland until the birth of our first born. Hopefully, before the start of the next term in Oct. Cutting it close!...but who knows...he/she might want to run for President! haha

Visiting family/friends, Food, checking out shows (Pearl Jam in Wrigley was crazy!**) in multiple genres, plays, surfing (can't leave out the surfing! As in, my passion for the what is your passion thread. Hawai'i, baby!), driving my car (another passion having rebuilt it myself.) with the top down and the tunes, baby! (actually got a fix-it ticket 20 feet from the entrance (I had been driving around for a week without putting on the new registration decal)...checking record stores (a nice hall so far. Will convert everything to flac and put it on a external hard drive (I roll around with a 3T) to take back to the UK.), a couple museums, shopping with wife for every Brotzmann and whatnot. By the way, Brotzman with Hamid Drake. Joe Mcphee with Survival II this week. Assorted amount of wine and beer...depending on the food.



** Beside the almost an 3 hour delay because of the rain....there was the major lighting....some of whom came real close to hitting inside of Wrigley....which is appropriate since the next album is called Lightning Bolt. Those on the field had to go into the concession area/tunnels. It was 95-100 in there between the heat and all the people. It was still 90 when the show started at 9 pm. They did lift the 12 am curfew. It ended up ending @ a little past 2 am.

To give you an idea of the lightning.

[sozamora]

I've taken the last two Fridays off. I'm into the mini vacations as well.

Mondays is where it's at, though. At least where I work, Fridays are usually more relaxed and less stressful, so the time off return on investment is significantly less than Monday.

[Ron Thorne]

Man, it sounds as if you and Kelly had a terrific weekend, Scott. Good for you. Even though we love our children dearly, it was always good to get away as a married couple now and then and get our "batteries" re-charged. Extended weekends are enormously beneficial, too.

[moldyfigg]

We're booked at the Windsor in N.O. in Sept. Our travel agent got us a great deal.


Also, we've decided to get back to travel so we're cruising the Panama Canal in May and probably the East Coast in the Fall.

[Blue Train]

That's a nice hotel Clint. Pops would take us every year for a couple weeks before Katrina. My wife and I have gone back the last two years.

I know Steve T goes yearly...so, if you need some 411....


P.S. You can't go and not experience a Friday lunch @ Galatoire's.

[moldyfigg]

I'm planning on four meals a day.

[Ron Thorne]

As I said the other day, I wasn't characterizing it as a "vacation", per se, but hanging out in our yard in the glorious weather we've had this summer is almost as special as a vacation. As with Clint, my wife and I are on a perennial vacation, interrupted by health problems and the schedules of others.

Here is a view from our hammock of two beautiful Paper Birch trees in our front yard which are probably close to 100 years old. They are at least 40 ft. tall. The 2nd shot includes our old friend, a 60+ft. Spruce of unknown variety which is only 8-10 ft. from our house.

The bottom shot is me sitting on our park bench with R2O2 and a book I'm reading, Write Hard, Die Free by Howard Weaver.

[moldyfigg]

Is that a dashing, well-aged gentleman or what?

[moldyfigg]

Our hearts are broken, our favorite dive in the Quarter, Donna's Bar and Grill is no more.

[Ron Thorne]

Does that mean "old goat" in English?

Probably.

[Blue Train]

Our hearts are broken, our favorite dive in the Quarter, Donna's Bar and Grill is no more.

Yeah, that happened in 2010. No more live music on N. Rampart St.

Here is where the Treme Brass Band now plays every Wed.

http://candlelightlounge.net/

[walto]

Block Island this weekend. Eastham (on Cape Cod) for a few days at the end of August. Then, mid-Sept. we take D1 to NU in Evanston.

[steve(thelil)]

Block Island this weekend. Eastham (on Cape Cod) for a few days at the end of August. Then, mid-Sept. we take D1 to NU in Evanston.

Great use of smilies.

[walto]

D1 = First Daughter

NU = Northwestern Univ.

[sozamora]

Ah.

Well having spent our first weekend alone in 13 years this past weekend, I don't get the crying smilie.

Maybe it's in reference to D2 still at home