vacation

Vacation, part two…

2010 08 24_1025 Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone, (Canary Springs?)

2010 08 24_1180- Timmy and I on Beartooth Pass.

2010 08 24_1274 Yep, REAL wildlife this time. Bison, Yellowstone.

2010 08 22_0605 I rented a 200-500 zoom lens before leaving. This is Crazy Horse, up close and personal….(and what an inspirational project…)

2010 08 22_1089 President Lincoln, Mt Rushmore (For scale comparison, all of Mt Rushmore can fit in the space behind Crazy Horses head …)

2010 08 23_0787 Devils Tower.

I have too many images, by the way! I have to do some serious culling and editing before I post to my website, but figured I would continue to offer a taste….we are having a BLAST!

Florida…10 days, 1000 photos?

Florida…10 days, 1000 photos…does that seem excessive? No? Good!

Now, the hard part. For ME, uploading, eliminating, and post-processing.

For YOU? Waiting to see all my fun vacation shots (and guess what, we are even IN some of them this year!!  PHOTOS )

We had 10 days of fun in the sun. We went to…

Wait, no. How about I post about the kind of things we did, by photo folder? I was able, for instance, to pre-edit down to ONLY 49 sunrise/sunset pictures. Those are the ones I am going to run through Photoshop Elements and process. (That means I DUMPED an equal amount. I need you to understand how many I have sacrificed in order to keep my computer from crashing, and to keep me from going blind sitting here, or getting fired for forgetting to go to work while I play with my pictures, lol!)

Nah, maybe not. it would be a very inefficient process, considering I am not nearly that organized. I barely feel capable of saying I have a routine for processing (that I actually STICK to).

This is what we did, where we went, and what we saw. I will link photos as I get them finished, (for the moment, by folder) which means you will need to keep coming back to see things. It also means you need to encourage me to keep posting by commenting!!! (SUBTLE harrassement may get the photos up sooner, you never know)

We left Virginia on Friday afternoon.

Saturday, April 25th Jacksonsville—quilt shopping at The Olde Green Cupboard (getting the important things out of the way first), lunch with Timmy’s online friends at Mojo’s, then GUANA RIVER STATE PARK BEACH.

St. Augustine, roaming through the streets of America’s oldest city, then Daytona Beach by dinner time. Ate at Buca Di Beppo’s, which turns out not to be an overgrown crazy Guido Italian family thing but a wildly outrageous, gaudy Italian delight…

Then The Daytona 500 Speedway, then DAYTONA BEACH , where we took the PT Cruiser out onto the sand for a photo-shoot (his shoot, not mine, I only modeled).

By now, it’s Sunday night. Drove to Cocoa Beach and had a lovely romantic anniversary-eve dinner at The Mango Tree, and then enjoyed a dip in the pool and spa. Up early Monday for sunrise on COCOA BEACH photos.

We spent our anniversary at the Kennedy Space Center, (my camera set on JPEG this one day only PHOTOS )…. It was an amazing place, I will admit!

Monday night, since we were running late, we delayed plans for dinner with an online friend of mine and headed to Homestead, so we would be at the beginning of the Keys Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, lunch at 7-Mile Grill on Marathon Key, and managed a mid-afternoon arrival at Key West. This means we only stopped occasionally for photo ops. We found our wonderful accommodations at the West Wind on Eaton St. We picked up our trikes and meandered our way down to Mallory Square to get an overview of the place before sunset.

We misunderstood the depth of fervor over watching the sun set, as we had scoped out a few choice locations for viewing at 4 pm, and then abandoned them to ride around town before sunset, at 8pm. We witnessed a possibly career ending injury, one of the hands on the docks where the cruise ships leave, got his fingers caught between the ropes and a pole as they were leaving….he was incredibly stoic and quiet while stuck, and walked away, but the next night, our sailing crew said it sounded as if it may be an unfixable injury… gives you pause, to think how things can change in an instant, as we had sat there, watching them casually wait out the cruise ship, enjoying the sun and the weather along with everyone else. (don’t think I’ll share THOSE photos)

Sunset in Key West is viewed as something between a carnival and a religious experience, with an equal number of people simply mesmerized by the setting sun as those who were partying and enjoying the joie de vivre that is Mallory Square. I was conscious of this fact before arriving, but it is truly an experience not to be missed. To think, the sun does this EVERY day, everywhere, and how few of us stop to consider it….A perfect sunset Tuesday, applauded at it’s conclusion, so that all could find their way to Duval Street for further festivities and celebration!

But still, amazing sunset pictures.

Wednesday, more of the same, (which, while reading a simple line, may come off as ho-hum, but don’t believe it….we had more of the SAME….sun, fun, water, people –and rooster– watching) and despite a low cloud that cut short the display of the golden orb as it touched the horizon’s edge late that afternoon, we were out on a sunset cruise on a Sailing Catamaran. You can’t beat that! Timmy reveled in the experience.

Thursday found us saying goodbye to the Keys, (after Key Lime Pie on a Stick for breakfast and a quick stop into The Seam Shoppe ) and heading to Miami. We had dinner at Scorch with an online friend of mine…. A delicious dinner, wonderful high energy atmosphere, and fabulous company!

Friday we drove out to SOUTH BEACH for a bit, (the beach-y bits, it was 11am) took in the skyline of Miami, and then along the northern edges of the Everglades, got some wonderful photos, and even caught an alligator trying to cross the road. Sanibel Island for sunset this day, and again, it didn’t disappoint….

Saturday, we had plans to take in Caladesi State Park, in Clearwater, but decided to take a brief detour. We found ourselves spending the entire day in Tarpon Springs, and out on a cruise to the Gulf of Mexico, where we watched dolphins enjoy the wake of our boat.

Sunday Honeymoon Island was the final beach destination, instead of Caladesi (so close of course, but time…..) and the de facto end of our 7th annual honeymoon vacation to somewhere. We swung back across the state that night in time to get into the world’s largest Harley-Davidson shop so Timmy could gawk.

Monday was a travel back home day, trying to avoid the rain (which we did surprisingly well, considering the number of times we looked overhead during the week to see our little black rain cloud, which we take on vacation with us EVERYWHERE, hovering, waiting to rain on us…)

Monday, home.

Tuesday? Rain.

Wednesday? Rain.

Today? Rain.

Thank goodness I have all these sunny beach day photos (and some peeling skin) to prove I ever left!

(—-WHERE, you ask, are the photos??? A THOUSAND, I said… it’s gonna take time… look back on occasion for the word—PHOTO—to be hyperlinked….I’ll get them up, I promise [not all 1000…who would want to look at 1000 vacation pictures that belong to someone ELSE?? Didn’t that all go out when Slide projectors died??]—)

BEACH bound…

BEACH bound…

We are beach bound….which is a totally different animal than SNOWBOUND….off tomorrow on our 7th annual ‘honeymoon’…this time to Florida… My first time! …And not a minute of it will be spent inside a Disney edifice, thank you very much. We will meander along the Atlantic coast, taking in Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Cape Canaveral, Miami, a few days at Key West, and then back up the Gulf coast to Sanibel Island, Clearwater, Tampa, and St. Petersburg. (or there about….our itinerary is fluid with the exception of needing to be in Key West Tuesday)

It’s all about the BEACH. Did you know the beach may provide health benefits? Negative Ions are in abundance at the water’s edge apparently, and they make you feel better. Now that’s the kind of prescription I’m all about!

My feeling about the ocean are well described below, in a fan fiction story I wrote. My main character just had an argument with her boyfriend, and she ran down to the water’s edge. (other than the argument and the not being a big picture, philosophical, sappy person, it’s a pretty auto-biographical snippet)

The ocean has always had a calming effect on me. I don’t know exactly what it was that did it, but I loved the water. I loved the exhilaration of the beach in the deep winter, when the only other life out there with you was the birds; and I simply adored the beach in summer. I slipped back to my childhood as I hit the sand, holding my flip-flops and wiggling my toes in the hot, rough texture, feeling it ooze between my toes.


I ran as best as I could to the waters edge, and stood, with the water lapping around my ankles. I watched my feet with the same awe that I had as a child as they disappeared, wave after wave, until I couldn’t balance any longer. Oh, for childhood again, when the only problem in the world was who was going to be my best friend that week.

The roar of the ocean was stupendous. I had reached that magic part of the beach, where the sounds of civilization disappeared and all you knew was the earth, the sounds of the waves blocking out all other things. My mind emptied then, as it always did. The waves were hypnotic, and my heart began to keep pace with their ebb and flow. The sun was hot, and the water was cool. The breeze was a perfect blend of warm sunshine and moist, briny coolness.

I stood, and absorbed the power that was emanating from the pounding surf. I looked towards London, or would it be Spain? Italy? I’m not good with geography, but I looked far, at the curving horizon, broken by one looming dark orange freighter. Otherwise it was a pristine swath of blue on blue-green, with wispy clouds. All is right in the world, or it should be, when standing here, facing the hugeness of earth, the un-ending pulse. The water that caressed my foot had traveled the earth probably. And someday, in a hundred years, that very drop might reach the other side of the world, without my assistance or knowledge. Or approval. I began to walk, the sun to my back, the water dancing along trying to catch me. My flip-flops hung in my hand, my toes curled in the moist sand, and the breeze blew in my face, keeping me cool and creating that odd feeling of walking in place that occurs only on the edge of the ocean.

The feeling of being one with the world– the somewhat thoughtful, introspective Stephanie appeared when I was at the beach. I wasn’t normally a big picture person, and I wasn’t sappy or philosophical on a good day. But at the beach…. I lost track of the time, and of why I was here, alone, as I bent randomly to collect a shell, or to watch a child race against time to build a moat to hold back impending doom. I nodded to the old couples sitting under their beach umbrellas, and I skirted the teens with their surf boards, trying desperately to impress on waves that weren’t up to the task.

With the promise of oodles of photos in a few weeks, I am signing off for the time being…..take care!