In January of 2018, we were in New Orleans and saw the beginning of Mardi Gras. I was so excited and happy to share our visit to New Orleans and especially our experiences on Bourbon Street. It is a place that you can’t really explain unless you have been there. It’s extremely LOUD (volume and color), but nobody seems to mind and everyone has a good time. Before I share my thoughts, I wanted to share a little history of how Bourbon Street became the icon it is today. Continue reading “Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana – Our Visit to this Iconic Street”
Month: November 2020
Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock – The Natural State
For my birthday in October of 2020, we had to change plans (for the third time, 🙁 ) and did a road trip to Arkansas. The main reason was to see the Arkansas State Capitol, which was actually open, and it was the only state we hadn’t been to this is west of the Mississippi River. Not sure how that happened during all of our travels in the south, but we hadn’t been yet. Thus we were very happy to be able to explore this state and the capitol building.
Continue reading “Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock – The Natural State”
Buffalo Bill Grave and Museum – Lookout Mountain, CO
Since we moved here in 2014 I have had a few nieces and nephews come out to visit from California. While they were here, I had a great time getting to play tour guide. We had fun going to such places as the Garden of the Gods, Hammonds Candies, and Celestial Seasonings. However, I took two of them to a local attraction that actually was quite close to home for them. We visited the grave of Buffalo Bill who was their great or great-great uncle on their mother’s side. Since I am into genealogy, I thought this was so cool. They both seemed interested and enjoyed visiting his gravesite and museum.
Continue reading “Buffalo Bill Grave and Museum – Lookout Mountain, CO”
Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens – Florida
As I wrote this in June 2017 we were in Daytona but were getting ready to head south to Orlando. We had a great time exploring the area and doing some of the local activities, including the beach. 🙂 One of the places we visited was the Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens. We had been at The Casements and The Rockefeller Gardens earlier, and it was just a short walk from there. I am so glad we decided to visit. They were absolutely amazing, even if it was incredibly hot and muggy (it is a rainforest after all, lol). The highlights were all the amazing plants and animals we saw while walking around. Continue reading “Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens – Florida”
Amarillo by Morning – AKA as The Yellow Rose of Texas
For Valentine’s Day 2015 we decided to check out the little town of Amarillo, TX. and drove throughout the night to get there on Valentines Day morning. Hence, the title, Amarillo by Morning 🙂 Couldn’t resist. Anyway, it was a whirlwind two-night trip, but we had a wonderful time exploring a new city together. The first thing I noticed was the wind. It was crazy and it didn’t stop the whole time we were there. Other than that, it seemed like a nice little town. Much slower pace than here in Denver, but still has all the amenities anyone could need. I did notice a lot of banks for some reason, lol. Continue reading “Amarillo by Morning – AKA as The Yellow Rose of Texas”
Hawaii – Oahu Photos and Video from our Amazing Trip
With 2020 being so bad for travel this year, I have been trying to relive some of my favorite trips. One of these was our trip to Oahu, Hawaii in Dec/Jan of 2016-2017. It is one trip I will never forget. I had wanted to turn a few pictures/photo slideshows into a video from our trip to Hawaii, but never seem to get around to doing it. Since things were slow travel-wise this year, I figured this was a great year to work on this project.
As I said earlier we were in Hawaii over Christmas and New Year’s and I was not happy about coming back, lol. It was so beautiful and peaceful, and I really wanted to share our happy memories. I loved how such a small island had so many different flavors and feelings. Waikiki was definitely different from the North Shore, even though they weren’t very far apart. I loved seeing all the different vegetation, the types of beaches, and the uniqueness of the houses.
I could have probably done a post on that by itself, and who knows, maybe I will one day. In the meantime, please enjoy a little history of the beautiful island of Oahu. It is also known as “The Gathering Place”, is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—about two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island lies within Honolulu County and the state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu’s southeast coast.
Oahu is 44 miles (71 km) long and 30 miles (48 km) across. Its shoreline is 227 miles (365 km) long. The island is composed of two separate shield volcanoes: the Waiʻanae and Koʻolau Ranges, with a broad valley or saddle (the central Oahu Plain) between them. The highest point is Kaʻala in the Waiʻanae Range, rising to 4,003 feet (1,220 m) above sea level.
Being roughly diamond-shaped, surrounded by ocean, and divided by mountain ranges, directions on Oahu are not generally described with the compass directions found throughout the world. Locals instead use directions originally using Honolulu as the central point. To go ʻewa means traveling toward the western tip of the island, “Diamond Head” is toward the eastern tip, mauka is inland (toward the central Koʻolau Mountain range, north of Honolulu), and makai toward the sea. When these directions became common, Diamond Head was the eastern edge of the primary populated area. Today, with a much larger populace and extensive development, the mountain itself is often not actually to the east when directions are given, and is not to be used as a literal point of reference—to go “Diamond Head” is to go to the east from anywhere on the island.
With that said, above is the video with some of the pictures on my YouTube Channel. If you like it, please subscribe. I don’t have many videos on there yet, but I am working on it. Hope you enjoy this video. Mahalo for watching. Since I did a video with many pictures, I decided to share only 8 of my favorite beach pictures on this post. I picked 8 in honor of the 8 Hawaiian Islands. We were all over the island, so these are random shots from all over the place.
Enjoy and please share if you happen to know where any of these pictures were taken. If you don’t know, please share my post via Facebook or Twitter so someone else who may know can share. Like I said we were all over Oahu and I can’t remember where many of these were taken. A few from the North Shore and Waikiki or course, but some of the others are a blur. I don’t mean that in a bad way. There were so many wonderful and amazing places that they mingled together. I do know that I wished we had spent more time on the North Short. It was beautiful.
Every corner we turned was more amazing than the one we saw a few minutes before. There were so many pull-out and amazing places to see. I am sure the locals don’t appreciate that, but I guess they are probably used to it. Sorry to any drivers we may have inadvertently annoyed. Either way, here are a few beach pictures from our trip to Oahu. Thanks and I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them. Mahalo
Below are some of the attractions/events that we experienced on our trip.
Hawaii State Capitol in Oahu – The Beautiful Aloha State
Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii Brought up Many Emotions
Ala Moana Center – Largest Open Air Center in the World – Waikiki, Hawaii
Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada – Magnificent Green Oasis
One of the top few things I wanted to do in Vancouver was visit Stanley Park. I can happily say we visited the park a couple of times and it is quite beautiful. It’s hard to believe that it opened on September 27, 1888. It’s still so beautiful after all these years. We were there in May of 2016, but I could imagine how nice it would be in the fall. I couldn’t help but compare it to Central Park in New York the year before. Hopefully, we will be able to visit Stanley Park sometime for my birthday in October. Continue reading “Stanley Park in Vancouver, Canada – Magnificent Green Oasis”
Safeco Field and Home to The Seattle Mariners – Seattle, Washington
While in Seattle to see the Microsoft Visitor Center, Boeing, Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and a few other attractions, we also visiteded Safeco Field to watch my Anaheim Angels take on the Settle Mariners. We had a great time and the Seattle Mariners employees and fans were great hosts. As a side note, I was very happy to visit the stadium as it represented my 18th ballpark and it was the last one I hadn’t seen west of the Mississippi. Getting closer to my goal of visiting all 30 parks! Anyway, below is a little information about Safeco Field and the Seattle Mariners. On a side note, our trip was in May of 2016 and it was called Safeco Field. Since then the stadium has been changed names to T-Mobile Park. However, for the sake of this post, I am going to continue calling it Safeco Field since that was the name when we visited. Continue reading “Safeco Field and Home to The Seattle Mariners – Seattle, Washington”
Beautiful Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois
On our first evening in Chicago in June of 2016, we decided to spend some time checking out the Buckingham Fountain and Grant Park area. It was very beautiful when it was all lit up at night. For those of you that don’t know, it is one of the largest fountains in the world. The fountain is built in a rococo wedding cake style and inspired by the Latona Fountain at the Palace of Versailles, it is meant to allegorically represent Lake Michigan. It operates from April to October, with regular water shows and evening color-light shows. During the winter, the fountain is decorated with festival lights. Continue reading “Beautiful Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois”
Ellen Clark Sculpture Dog Park and St Louis University Fountain – Missouri
Ellen Clark Sculpture Dog Park
Late summer we were able to spend a week in St. Louis with our puppies and had a great time. While in the area we were able to visit a small section of the Saint Louis University, as well as the Ellen Clark Sculpture Dog Park. It was nowhere as large as Laumeier Sculpture Park, but it was still interesting. Continue reading “Ellen Clark Sculpture Dog Park and St Louis University Fountain – Missouri”