Travel

I've been on a number of vacations and trips over the years, and thought it might be interesting to create a record of my various journeys.

Location	Details	Date	Comments
New Jersey	Ocean City Cape May	1975-1982	Summer vacation to the Jersey shore. How original!
Quebec, Canada	Holiday Inn Montreal	April 1981	This was my first trip somewhere by plane. I remember my Dad showed me the cockpit and I got a little airline pin. I do remember that it was bitterly cold -- the guide for a tour of some old fortress exclaimed "geez, it's cold!" first in French and then later in the English version.
Wellsboro, Pennsylvania	camping	July 1983	A trip to Pennsylvania?? What??? That's crazy! A visit to the "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania."
Zihuatenejo, Mexico	Hotel Irma	February 1984	My first trip to a tropical resort. Life would never be the same. Mostly I remember driving past really poor people, beach guards with machine guns, really warm water, and buying a lot of stuff.
Maryland	Elk Neck State Park	June 1984	Simple camping trip to test a new tent.
Maine	Hermit Island Acadia National Park	July 1984	First major camping trip with my parents. It was a long time ago, we were camping, and it rained.
Sanibel & Captiva, Florida	some condo	November 1984	A trip with my parents and a family friend -- the weather wasn't great, but I do remember getting up early on my own and collecting clams during really low tide. Then we ate them.
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina	camping	June 1985	This trip had quite the excitement: a park ranger drove through one night telling everyone to get out of their tents because severe thunderstorms were on the way. He was right.
Mauai and Kauai, Hawaii	Kihei, Maui Waialeale, Kauai	December 1985	My family's first trip to Hawaii was over Christmas, which was strange -- we had a small tropical evergreen as a Christmas tree in our condo.
Antigua	Hawksbill Beach Hotel	May 1986	Another tropical beach resort - again quite nice. The paddleboats were fun; passing a rock outcropping along the shore I imagined that there were giant snails hiding there just out of view. Pretty unlikely, though.
Assateague, Maryland	camping	July 1986	Another interesting camping trip, this one with sex-crazed wild horses frolicking past and very nearly through our tent.
Williamsburg, Virginia	some hotel	December 1986	The traditional colonial America experience.
Kauai and Hawaii, Hawaii	Waialeale, Kauai Hilo, Hawaii	July 1987	Second trip to Hawaii, Kauai again and also the big island.
Sicily, Italy	private home, Fondaco Nuovo	July 1988	A trip with parents AND grandparents. Trust me, don't do it.
Zihuatenejo, Mexico	Hotel Irma	March 1989	Second trip to Mexico - the hotel had more than doubled in size and it wasn't anything close to the same.
Belize	San Pedro Holiday Hotel, Ambergris Caye Chaa Creek	June 1990	A real adventure trip, including a stay at a jungle lodge near the border with Guatemala.
Cape Canaveral, Florida	Holiday Inn Cape Canaveral	May 1991	Before he retired, my Dad worked as a quality assurance manager at the place known as [RCA Astro Space - then Martin Marietta - then Lockheed Martin]. He took me down to the Cape for a satellite launch once.
Milan, Rome, and Sicily, Italy	private home, Milan some hotel, Rome private home, Santa Domenica, Sicily	July 1991	Second trip to Italy, much better than the first. This time we demanded a car with air conditioning, and got a BMW 5-something.
Costa Rica	Rancho Naturalista Drake's Bay	July 1992	Our most adventurous trip - to a jungle ranch where I collected no end of exotic beetles, including the wonderful bottle-brush weevil Rhinostomus barbirostris, and a so-called "beach" resort where the electricity only ran for part of the day and the shower water was sun-heated. Good hiking and barracuda fishing, though.
Cape Canaveral, Florida	Cape Winds Condo	August 1992	My parents and I made another trip down to Cape Canaveral, part business, part pleasure. I spent part of one night collecting insects at a battery-driven light the marshes, only to be interrupted by a police officer who probably thought he had found drug dealers rather than some kid from Pennsylvania who was into bugs.
Anguilla	La Sirena Resort, Mead's Bay	July 1993	Tropical beach resort - actually quite nice.
Tonga	Fafa Islet Resort, Tongatapu Sandy Beach Resort, Foa Island, Ha'apai Group	March 1996	Interesting but way too long. Don't take 3 week vacations with your parents. Lasted me five years.
Bahamas	Breezes Bahamas, Nassau	August 2001	All inclusive but not recommended! My first solo vacation.
Turks & Caicos	Club Med Turqoise, Providenciales	November 2003	Like college, but with only the parties and on a tropical island.
Grenada	Coyaba Beach Resort	March 2004	Magnificent. Very nice people, beautiful, deserted beaches with cinnamon in the air, and lush mountainous jungles. Perfect. Then Hurricane Ivan.
Golden Princess	Southern Caribbean Explorer cruise: Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. John, St. Kitts, Grenada, Isla Margarita (Venezuela)	April 2005	A very nice tour of some less common destinations, although I'm not that big a cruise person. It was very depressing to visit Grenada and see all the damage done by Hurricane Ivan.
Tortola, BVI	Long Bay Beach Resort	March 2006	BVI is British Virgin Islands for you cretins out there who don't hang out at the yacht club. I pictured a tropical paradise with lush mountains leading right down to palm-fringed tropical beaches. Then I visited Tortola and realized it existed. Unfortunately Kim and I both got some awful flu on the way down, but we did stay an extra two days to make up for it.
Chicago, IL	Hotel Allegro	August 2006	Just a business trip. I spent a few days working with Morningstar on their then-secret acquisition of our database business.
Northern California	Occidental Inn, Occidental, Sonoma County Wine Country Inn, St. Helena, Napa County	August 2006	Kim and I got married on this trip to the wine country. We stayed at very nice places and got very spoiled! Kudos to the redwoods for being so tall, quiet, and mystic.
St. Lucia	Discovery at Marigot Bay	February 2007	We decided that St. Lucia would be a nice place to visit, given its reputation for stunning scenery, beaches, snorkeling, etc. We also happened to find that the Discovery at Marigot Bay resort had just opened. Marigot Bay is a wonderful little bay, barely 100 yards wide in places, full of sailboats, very good restaurants, and enormously expensive yachts. We had a good time!
Atlantic City, NJ	Harrah's, Caesar's	April 2007	Although a memorable trip in certain ways, especially for the brunch at Caesar's, this trip in no way changed my mind about the gambling or casinos in general (waste of time, and rather unpleasant).
Smokey Mountain National Park, Tennessee	The Lodge at Buckberry Creek	May 2007	After much secrecy, Kim finally revealed to me in May that my birthday present was a trip to the national park, one of the top destinations for nature photographers. We were only there for a few days, over Memorial Day weekend, but it was a great experience, and the truffle butter at our lodge was incredible.
Avalon, NJ	239 West 23rd Street!	August 2007	After a string of more exotic destinations, a week at the shore was in order for some much-needed rest and relaxation. I did take some bird pictures at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, but it just doesn't really compare.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	February 2008	After two day trips to St. John, one on our cruise and one from Tortola, we decided it was time to stay there for real. Awesome decision! I'll say that St. John sucks just to try to keep other people from going there. The margaritas at Margarita Phil's are mammoth and they give you your money's worth with the tequila.
Avalon, NJ	239 West 23rd Street	August 2008	After a crazy summer that culminated in moving into a newly purchased house, we went to the shore for a week two days later.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	April 2009	Yet another trip to the best place I've yet encountered. They might as well put a permanent reservation for us on the table for two out front at Margarita Phil's.
London, UK	Hotel Russell	June 2009	I spent a week in London on business in 2009. My hotel room was most notable for its tiny balcony and the large collection of cigarette butts to be found on it. Yes, the London buses are really red double-deckers, and the taxis really the quaint little ones that look 50 years old. I was astonished at how much of the Parthenon was sitting in the British Museum, and found out later that it's a point of contention between Greece and the UK.
Utah and Colorado	Hilton Garden Inn, Sandy, Utah Best Western Canyonlands, Moab, Utah Lumiere Hotel, Telluride, Colorado	August 2009	Isn't August the best time to visit the deserts of Utah? Actually, part of the trip was in Salt Lake City, where it was unseasonably cool. This great trip covered some family visits in SLC, lots of hiking in Arches and Canyonlands national parks near Moab, and the Telluride Food and Arts Festival in Colorado, where we even met "Top Chef" Hosea Rosenberg one morning, since he was staying at our hotel.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	April 2010	Seeing a pattern here? Actually the weather was only so-so, but we did rent a real Jeep and got to Coral Bay, Saltpond Bay, and Anneberg Plantation.
Amsterdam, Netherlands and London, UK	The Grange City Hotel, London	September 2010	This was just a business trip. I didn't even stay at a hotel in Amsterdam, I only took a shower in the "Yotel" in the airport after a red-eye flight and ahead of a meeting. That sucked. I did get to stay near the Tower of London and eat some decent food. Trivia: did you know that English sounds like Dutch when you're waking up and only semi-conscious?
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	December 2010	Two trips to St. John in one year? Well, due to various issues with work schedules, we decided our best option for a winter break was to go the week between Christmas and New Year's. We made it out just in time before a big snowstorm, and the weather on the trip wasn't great -- quite cloudy and very windy, rougher than I'd ever seen it before.
Alaska	Philadelphia Airport Marriot Pan Pacific Hotel, Vancouver Coral Princess (Vancouver to Whittier) McKinley Creekside Cabins, Denali Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge Embassy Suites, Anchorage	July 2011	For our 5th wedding anniversary, Kim and I gave ourselves a two-week trip to Alaska. It was awesome. The first week was a cruise from Vancouver up to Whittier, with stops in Ketchikan (lumberjacks), Juneau (whale watching and amazing scenery from Mount Roberts), and Skagway (helicoptering into the wilderness to hike!), and tours of Glacier Bay National Park and College Fjord. Once off the ship in Whittier we rented a car and drove up to Denali National Park, and did the bus ride and a few hikes (including our very own close encounter with freaking big Grizzly bears). From Denali it was down to "quaint" (read: hippie and a bit weird) Talkeetna, and finally to Anchorage for more hiking before the long flight home. I came back with more than 2,000 pictures.
Chicago, IL	Hotel Allegro	September 2011	Just a business trip. Not very exciting.
Las Vegas, NV	Bellagio	October 2011	I'd never been to Vegas, and I was fine with that, but my wife wanted to go for her big birthday. My view: Vegas is a great place, except for the people, gambling, and smoking. We had some very expensive food and took in a Jimmy Buffet concert and Cirque de Soleil's "O." Apparently people have a love/hate relationship with Cirque de Soleil. My wife loves it, but me -- not so much. We did take a tour of Zappos, which was cool.
Maine	Courtyard Marriot, Portland Beachmere Inn, Ogunquit Lindenwood Inn, Southwest Harbor Hartstone Inn, Camden	July 2012	It had been many years -- perhaps 30 -- since I visited coastal Maine, so my wife and I decided to make this our next adventure. We got a mix of New England beach town in Ogunquit (with utterly, astoundingly, incredibly crowded beaches at high tide), lots of solid hiking time in Acadia, ungodly amounts of lobster, and even up close time with Puffins. I also got lots of quality time with my new D800E :).
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	February 2013	I know, boring St. John again -- but we really needed a vacation. The weather was just about perfect. This time we had a Jeep Commander, a big truck of an SUV, and made it out to our usual favorite spots (including Honeymoon Beach, Margarita Phil's, Saltpond Bay, the Tourist Trap, and DaLivio's), plus a couple new ones like the Ram Head hike. I also got to play with some new gear, including a Nikon V1 kit and an underwater Panasonic TS20.
New Mexico	Inn of the Governors, Santa Fe Sheraton Albuquerque Airport	May 2014	For my big 40th birthday trip my wife and I went to New Mexico, an idea I'd had ever since getting back from Utah. There was some interesting stuff in New Mexico, including Bandolier National Monument, but unfortunately I had a really rotten cold during the whole trip (a bad cold plus travel plus altitude is not good). I found out that miles and miles of wide open desert can be pretty boring and that there were better places for Mexican food in Pennsylvania.
Virgin Goda, BVI and St. John, USVI	Rosewood Little Dix Bay Gallows Point Resort	February 2014	Winter 2013-2014 was rough, the coldest in many years with lots of snow and ice. We knew ahead of time we would need a break from it, and this was it! In addition to a week in our usual stomping ground in St. John, we spent a few days on Virgin Gorda at absolutely gorgeous Little Dix Bay (including a 12-hour power outage one night). My wife even ran the Virgin Gorda 5k while we were there. In addition to our usual stops on Jost Van Dyke and at places like the Tourist Trap, Dalivio's, and Honeymoon Beach, I got to snorkel Waterlemon Cay and hike to Brown Bay.
Stone Harbor, NJ	The Reeds at Shelterhaven	June 2014	Just a short stay at the beach.
Virgin Goda, BVI and St. John, USVI	Rosewood Little Dix Bay Gallows Point Resort	February 2015	Sound familiar? Yeah, pretty much the same as the previous year. We realized that there isn't a heck of a lot to do on Virgin Gorda, and the surf was so rough at the Baths that you couldn't even go in the water!
Avalon, NJ	239 West 23rd Street	July 2015	Yup, another week at the shore at our favorite rental house. This week involved a lot of laziness and sleeping.
Gettysburg, PA	Gettysburg Hotel	August 2015	A cousin of mine who moved to Chambersburg was getting married, so we spent a weekend in Gettysburg for the wedding. The battlefield tour on horseback was probably the highlight.
St. John, USVI	Caneel Bay Resort Gallows Point Resort	February 2016	Yes, another winter, another trip to the islands -- but this time we spent a few days staying at the fabulous, historic, very expensive Caneel Bay Resort, in a very nice beach-front little bungalow. It was nice. I especially liked the way the wild donkeys paid us a visit every morning as they took their daily stroll along the beach.
Hawaii	Hilton Waikoloa Village Honu Kai Bed & Breakfast Volcano Village Lodge Island Goodes Bed & Breakfast Mauna Lani Bay Hotel	June-July 2016	Hmm... where to go to celebrate a 10-year wedding anniversary? How about Hawaii? Sounds good! An amazing trip full of beaches, snorkeling, hiking, waterfalls, volcanoes, and such, all on the big island and at a number of very different and unique places to stay. Oh, also geckos. Lots of geckos. The volcano was going while we were there, and driving/hiking to the lava fields became somewhat of an obsession for us. We stayed at the Hilton mainly so my wife could participate in the Kona Marathon 5k, but unfortunately the hotel also had one of those dolphin experience places where they keep the dolphins in tiny little pens. That was sad and I will never support that kind of thing again.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	February 2017	It's winter, so time to get out of dodge and get down to the islands. Ironically it was unseasonably warm at home while we were away - but still not warm enough. Lots of hiking, snorkeling, food, and spicy tequila drinks. Also bushwackers. I had not had bushwackers before. I definitely need more bushwackers in my life.
Stone Harbor, NJ	The Reeds at Shelterhaven	July 2017	Just a short stay at the beach.
Lackawaxen, PA	Sylvania Tree Farm	August 2017	I mentioned to my wife that I missed the woods, and she found this great, secluded set of cabins upstate. Particularly memorable for the unseasonably cool and damp weather, and after more than 40 years of trekking around in forests and swamps, my first ever sighting of a Timber Rattlesnake. The route up also took us past my parents' old cabin in the Poconos, which we visited and also found that the lake by it had been drained for dredging, and to say the least was not quite the way I remembered it.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	February 2018	I watched the weather radar helplessly in September 2017 as catastrophic category 5 hurricane Irma made a direct hit on our annual winter escape, followed by another hit from Maria (which finished the job of devastating U.S. territories in the Caribbean). Luckily the one resort that escaped complete destruction was the one we always use, and we stuck with our plans to visit. It's quite a different place now, but also very much the same, and the spirit of the people there is amazing. I felt incredibly lucky to go back.
Bermuda	Elbow Beach Resort	June 2018	After a few years of potentially going to Bermuda, we finally did -- and it's really quite gorgeous. The sand is really light pink and the waters a beautiful blue, full of quite large fish compared to the schools of small reef fish one sees in the Caribbean. We also somehow got an upgrade to what seemed like the best room on the whole property, an ocean front suite with enough outdoor seating for a two families. Oddly, the main building of the resort was almost completely deserted. I heard a rumor about termite issues, but have no idea whether it was accurate.
Stone Harbor, NJ	The Reeds at Shelterhaven	July 2018	Just another long weekend at the beach, albeit one marred by a lot of rain and excessive remote work on an upcoming corporate transaction.
Lackawaxen, PA	Sylvania tree Farm	August 2018	Another relaxing long weekend in the Poconos; no big snakes this time, but instead we wound up with a porcupine chewing our front steps one night, which sounds a bit like a distant train.
Star Pride St. John, USVI	Antilles Island Hopping cruise: Bridgetown, Barbados Bequia, St. Vincent Castries, St. Lucia Les Saintes, Gaudeloupe Gustavia, St. Barts Basseterre, St. Kitts Virgin Gorda San Juan, Puerto Rico Gallows Point Resort	February 2019	Our 2019 winter Caribbean getaway was a bit of an extravaganza (well deserved if do say so, after a crazy 2018 with the InvestorForce divestment). The first half was a Windstar cruise on a small cruise ship (200 passengers) visiting a variety of stops skipped by all the big cruise lines, followed by a healthy week in St. John to rest and recuperate from the rest and recuperation. Highlights included a crazy lobster and filet mignon "lunch" on the beach in Virgin Gorda, which we won in a drawing, our discoveries of Hansen Bay on St. John and Corsairs bar on Jost van Dyke, and the continued recovery of the islands from 2017 hurricanes.
Atlanta, Georgia	Four Seasons	April 2019	The new owners of InvestorForce and Investment Metrics pushed for a big client conference to introduce the combined company to the combined client base; remarkably, we wound up in the home city of the investors. IM had never done a conference, whereas IF had been doing them for ten years, and I ran a panel discussion that turned out to be the highest-rated session of the whole event. The real highlight for me was dinner at the Georgia Aquarium, but impressive as it was to see Beluga whales and whale sharks, it was also very sad to see them in tanks instead of the open ocean where they belong.
Utah	Hyatt House Salt Lake City, Sandy Holiday Inn Express Dinosaurland, Vernal Hilton Garden Inn Salt Lake City Airport	August 2019	On the 10th anniversary of our last trip to Utah, for my uncle's 60th birthday, we visited him again for his 70th birthday. Funny how that works... anyway, this trip we stayed in northern Utah, specifically the area around Dinosaur National Monument, which is pretty spectacular and a lot more than just one dinosaur quarry. I also learned that the southwest has a monsoon season, courtesy of a couple torrential downpours we experienced along the way.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	February 2020	For our 2020 winter vacation, we decided to spend two weeks on St. John just to kick back and relax, because we needed it. Highlights included visiting the (now closed) ZoZo's at Lovango Beach Resort for lunch by boat and barely escaping before it started pouring rain, some very friendly young green iguanas, hiking the Caneel Hill Trail, and again the ongoing recovery from the 2017 hurricanes. A couple weeks after we got home the world went into pandemic lockdown, and that was it for travelling in 2020.
St. John, USVI	Gallows Point Resort	July 2021	In the midst of the pandemic craziness and post vaccinations, we found a window of calm to take a couple trips, the first to our old standby of St. John - but in July! Not that much different from February, except the water was definitely warmer and full of comb jellies and moon jellies, and there were seagulls, none of which we see in the winter (and of course covid tests to get through the airport). Highlight of the trip was a big octopus at Honeymoon beach, and my usual time hanging out with the many iguanas. Also finally snorkeled with a shark at South Haulover.
Key West, FL	Almond Tree Inn	July 2021	Two trips in one month?! Like I said, we found a window to get away, this time less than a week in a destination my wife had wanted to visit for a while. Key West in July: mother****ing hot and humid ("feels like" regularly above 100), water temperature like a warm bath. Good snorkeling at Sand Key on the barrier reef, okay snorkeling at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, pretty terrible beaches. Crowded and smelly, but some nice restaurants, and of course all the touristy "Key West stuff."
Flushing, NY	Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel	September 2021	We took a trip to New York with a friend for a couple days in week 1 of the U.S. Open - open at half capacity due to pandemic restrictions. Some wild weather passed through during our visit, including crazy winds and tremendous rain that closed Louis Armstrong, prompted a string of warning announcements in Arthur Ashe about conditions, and left more than two feet of water in parts of the parking lot by the time we left at about 1:30 am!
Stone Harbor, NJ	South Winds Motel, Cape May The Reeds at Shelterhaven	September 2021	Another long weekend at the shore for some late-summer beach time, but with a short stay in Cape May also. Having just returned from the US Open, we were anxious to watch the men's final of Djokovic vs. Medvedev - and actually managed to do so, on my iPad sitting on a tiny kitchen table, with xFinity's online DVR capability.
St. John, USVI	Lovango Resort & Beach Club Cruz Bay Boutique Hotel	January 2022	A change of pace for our winter getaway - again to St. John, but this time at two new hotels: first at the newly opened Lovango resort in one of their "glamping" tents, and then in a room at the very reasonably priced Cruz Bay Boutique Hotel. Lovango was... interesting. A nicely appointed safari tent with bed air conditioning, not much light, an oddly tall shower tub, really expensive food, and a number of operational glitches - but also an absolutely amazing, near-transcendant experience of Lovango's north shore and Congo Cay at night, in the jungle, under a full moon. Cruz Bay Boutique was a nice little hotel right in town with very friendly owners and tiny showers.
St. John, USVI	Cruz Bay Boutique Hotel Gallows Point Resort	April 2022	Another trip to St. John for early spring! This time staying in the suite at the Cruz Bay Boutique hotel (much nicer than the regular rooms) and a lower unit at Gallows Point (actually two lower units, due to a failed air conditioning unit). A slight problem was the road construction closures happening in front of the Boutique hotel, which led us to become unofficial members of the team managing the signs and traffic flow, at least for our Jeep.
Princeton, NJ	Courtyard Princeton Hotel	May 2022	Reunions are a big deal at Princeton, and 25th reunions are the biggest deal of them all. My 25th reunion was in 2020, but reunions were cancelled completely that year due to the pandemic, and the postponement to 2021 was also cancelled. Finally in 2022 there was something like a 3-class 25th reunion, and we attended. Supposedly the upcoming 30th will be a big blowout party to make up for the missing 25th. Notable on this trip was being kicked out of our original hotel at about midnight, due to some water leak issue!
Stone Harbor, NJ	The Reeds at Shelterhaven	June 2022	Another weekend trip to the shore - but this time with a stop at Lincoln Financial Field on the way for tailgating and a Kenny Chesney concert, an experience memorable for me mostly because of the drunk people standing in front of us and the frigid temperatures.
Flushing, NY	Hyatt Place Flushing/LaGuardia Hotel	August 2022	Second year in a row we did a trip to the U.S. Open with a friend of ours, this time with much nicer weather and full attendance. Full attendance meant a butt-busting three-hour waiting line for parking, and the practice courts in particular were crazy busy in a this-is-not-good-during-a-pandemic kind of way. We did see Serena Williams' final professional win in person.
Puerto Rico Star Pride St. John, USVI	Sheraton San Juan Hotel & Casino San Juan & the Virgin Islands cruise: San Juan, Puerto Rico Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Philipsburg, St. Maarten Little Bay, Montserrat Basseterre, St. Kitts Gustavia, St. Barts Jost Van Dyke, BVI Prickly Pear Island, BVI San Juan, Puerto Rico Gallows Point Resort	January 2022	A sort-of post-pandemic big trip like the pre-pandemic days, complete with a few days in Puerto Rico, a Windstar cruise on the (newly extended) Star Pride, and a week in St. John. Too many highlights to list all of them, although we never made it to Montserrat - the ship arrived the right morning, whereupon the captain announced that there was too much swell for the tenders to operate, and we went to St. Kitts instead (where we saw the awesome Brimstone Hill Fortress up close). Visited the amazing forts in Old San Juan; rented a car in St. Barts and confirmed that we do not like that island; toured St. Maarten/St. Martin and decided it was too developed; hiked the L'Esperance trail for the first time on St. John, and snorkeled with a nurse shark and spotted eagle ray right off Gallows Point, among many other things.
Miami, FL Grenada	The Confidante Miami Beach Coyaba Beach Resort	March 2023	I visited Grenada in spring 2004 as my third solo vacation destination; although it was devastated by Hurricane Ivan later that year, the island was fantastic, and I've always wanted to go back. Almost twenty years later we did, and even stayed at the same resort. Although it was still very nice, a lot can change after twenty years and a major hurricane. The "wild and green" northern end of Grand Anse beach is now full of resorts, much of it smothered by lounge chairs, umbrellas, and people, on days when cruise ships are in town. Fortunately the southern end remains fairly quiet, and a great place for reading, walking, and taking in the green flash at sunset. I also specifically remember all the crabs living in the roadside drainage ditches. On the way there we stopped in Miami for a couple days and did a food tour. Not for the full two days. The food tour, I mean - did not take the full two days.
Barcelona, Spain Star Legend Santorini, Greece Athens, Greece	Gallery Hotel A Piece of Greece, a Slice of Silicy, and the Corinth Canal cruise: Barcelona, Spain Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy Trapani, Sicily, Italy Messina, Sicily, Italy Argostoli, Kephalonia, Greece Kerkyra, Corfu, Greece Itea & Delphi, Greece Corinth Canal Athens, Greece St. George Lycabettus Hotel Esperas Santorini Hotel NJV Athens Hotel	September 2023	My wife has wanted to visit Greece for a long time, and especially Santorini. What could have been our big milestone anniversary trip to Australia/New Zealand, delayed multiple times by the pandemic, evolved instead into what we called the BIG trip: Barcelona, Italy, and Greece, in a tour of the Mediterranean. It's tough to compress such a wide-ranging trip into a paragraph, but I'll give it a shot. Barcelona: interesting and artsy, but still a city; Antonin Gaudi designed some amazing buildings (Sagrada Familia) and also some really ugly houses; Montjuic was the highlight for me, with its fort and cable car (we even stopped at Cognativ's office to say hi). Sardinia was not all that interesting. Sicily was somewhat as expected, as I'd been there twice before (but this time with even more tourists). Kephalonia was very nice, Corfu was a crazy crowded mess, Delphi was pretty amazing but we had a tour guide with time management problems, and the Corinth Canal was definitely worth doing. Athens was another big city, the Acropolis is unique but overall doesn't compare to Rome. Santorini is also unique and in places quite beautiful, but also tremendously crowded and a huge tourist trap. A Santorini highlight: both Wind Star and Star Legend (Windstar sailing ship and yacht respectively) happened to be in Santorini at the same time, and we happened to be outside eating dinner when they both sailed away, in darkness, all lit up and with a flurry of horn blasts. Pretty amazing! Oh, and Greek ferries: some good parts, some bad parts, and a viciously cutthroat free-for-all to collect your luggage.
Aruba Star Pride Grenada Miami, FL	Renaissance Wind Creek Resort Windward Ways and Tobago Cays cruise: Oranjestad, Aruba Kralendijk, Bonaire Willemstad, Curacao Soufriere, St. Lucia Mayreau, St. Vincent Charlotteville, Tobago Bridgetown, Barbados Coyaba Beach Resort The Confidante Miami Beach	March 2024	Our annual winter respite to warmer climates began life as a Windstar cruise to several new-to-us islands, got bookended by a few days in Aruba and a week in Grenada, because, hey, Barbados is very close to Grenada, so why not, and then finished with an unexpected but serendipitous extension in Miami that included a visit to the Miami Open tennis tournament, thanks to a cancelled connecting flight. How to summarize all that in a few sentences? How about James Joyce style? Windy Aruba very flat nice water friendly flamingos so elegant buttheyalsobite!, best octopus entree that Olivia place so nice. Bonaire super clear water Curacao blue liquor dumb 1950s guide St. Lucia beentheredonethat but wait, snorkeling actually good and wow Pitons impressive at sunset upclose. Mayreau heh tiny island Mopion must mope on being so small, lucky dainty dingy dint capsize. Tobago pronounce ToBAYgo hmm, didn't know that great rainforest trail wind rustles birds sing not muddy. Barbados meh but woman power it seems, Rihanna yeah [money drops from sky in buckets]. Flight to Grenada, wait what?? Checkin only opens two hours ahead? Umm ok worked out. Grenada awesome again no bad swells but no green flash either, too hazy. Hike around Grand Etang Lake holy shit that is alotofmudtrail and not even wet season unlike...! Flying gurnard, odd fish but quite interesting, walks around has finsforhands, remarkable, all over Grand Anse (oh and found the offshore reef). Time to go home, all going well but... wait, flight to PHL cancelled? Great gray clouds, tornado perhaps. Hey let's stay, go to Miami Open... ok... Andy Murray still a crowd pleaser, too bad on Tiafoe lost early. Finally flight home but will we make it in time? Can't check in bags what??? Phew made it to gate with 6 minutes to spare. Good trip.
Blacksburg, VA	Hampton Inn Salem	May 2024	My niece was graduating from Virginia Tech with a degree in Construction Engineering and Management, and we were invited to the party. We opted to drive down, mostly on I-81, which I learned is more an extension of surburbia than a long trek through wilderness. The Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge mountains are indeed very scenic.