Accidental Vacation Day 5

This morning we left Wells Maine started our trek south. We decided to take the ferry from New London Connecticut onto Long Island instead of driving all the way around through the city. The ferry was a really nice hour and a half ride.

Some pictures from the ferry ride…

Turns out Long Island is pretty rural and really beautiful. Lots of vineyards and farms and such.

We got to the hotel early enough to go to the gym before dinner which was great but then took a wrong turn on the way to dinner and ended up out in the boondocks. On the plus side, we found the “Eagles Nest” restaurant at a golf course. We would have eaten there but golf courses seem to close when it gets dark. FYI, this is funny because we have some friends who named their blog the Eagles Nest.

Accidental Vacation Day 4

This morning we left Peabody, MA and did a quick drive over to Salem to see the witch museum. Turns out the museum was sold out so we had to wait an hour and a half to get in. We made our way to the 2nd oldest cemetery in the US (according to the witch museum people) where there was a memorial to the 20 people who died during the witch trials. 19 were hanged, but one guy refused to admit that he was a witch so he was pressed to death. Not a good way to go. Had he admitted he was a witch (after being convicted of it of course) he would have been hanged and all his property forfeited to the state. Refusing to admit it meant an agonizing death, but his family got to keep their property.

The witch museum was pretty interesting, but sad as well. On a happy note, we had a really good hot pastrami sandwich for lunch.

We saw this house on the way into town and really liked it so we stopped for a picture on our way out.

New Hampshire! Do you think Bruce Willis had to license the slogan?

So it’s hard to tell in this picture, but it’s a freeway traffic circle. Crazy.

Maine. The way life should be apparently.

We drove along the coast partly to avoid the toll roads and partly to see the water. There’s a whole vacation community that looked pretty neat except that 30% of the houses were for sale.

Incidentally the fire station was also for sale.

Eventually we checked into our hotel and got a recommendation for a good place to get some lobster, this being Maine and all. Mnn, the famous lobster stuffed lobster. It was gooooood.

They also gave us an upgrade at the hotel that included a jet tub which was cool.

Accidental Vacation Day 3.5

So change of plans.  This trip was looking like too much driving so we decided to drop the roundtrip idea.  We’re now going to drop the car off in Orlando so we just have the drive south to do.  That will cut our daily driving from over 300 miles a day to about 160 if we only go to Orlando.  If we decide to make it down to the Florida keys, that’ll add some time but we’ll play it by ear.  We still get back to SFO at noon on Sunday the 26th.

Accidental Vacation day 3

This morning we saw the purported location of the first battle between the pilgrims and the Indians shortly after we left Connecticut and got into Rhode Island.  It’s over Val’s left shoulder.

Rhode island was beautiful but hardly counts as a State it’s so tiny.  It does have the barking crab restaurant though which is cool.

Oh and they have corn in Rhode Island too.  :)

We then went to Newport and did the cliff walk and saw a bunch of the mansions on the water.

After the walk and some clam chowder and pizza for lunch we headed up to Boston for state number 3 of the day.  We followed the red line around the city for the historic walk which seemed to have an excessive number of cemeteries.  Here’s John Hancock’s burial plot which is in the same lot as several other signers of the declaration of independence and such.

Not much to say about these…

oh and we saw Paul Revere’s house (and jetta?).

We’re now in Peabody, MA and will head through New Hampshire and up to Maine tomorrow.  We’ll probably start back south too, but we’ll see.

Accidental Vacation Day 2

States in play….

Virginia

~DC~

Maryland

Delaware

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

New York

Connecticut

We got a late start today so we spent about 8 hours on the road driving ~325 miles. To be fair we took the long way around New York City in order to avoid some of the tolls (~$25 we’re told). We still ended up paying $16 in tolls though.

TastyKakes!

Val wasn’t as excited as i was about TastyKakes, but she got some Nutty Bars (the big box) and was quite happy about that.

Accidental Vacation Day 1

So you may have heard that you can’t go to Peru without a passport. In that vein, Val and I are on a driving adventure up and down the eastern seaboard.

Our flight into DC was a half hour ahead of schedule and then we met up with Nick and Holly and had dinner at Rays Hell Burger which we’re told was Obama’s first outing when entered office. The burger was really good as advertized, despite the name pun.

500 days

It seems like I've traveled more for work this year than in the past so I consulted my spreadsheet. When I get home on friday I will have been gone 110 days this year (51%). In all of 2009 I was gone 107 days and in 2008 it was 112 days.

Then I checked the sum total of all my travel since my first trip back in April of 06 and found that this trip marks an even 500 days of business travel for Lam.

-Steve

iPhone spell checker

So I typed "Newegg" into my phone to reference the website and it automatically corrected it to Breech. Weird.

-Steve

Lizzard

So the lizard I found in my hotel room a couple days ago was still in my room when I got back that night. He was cute and I felt bad for him so I brought him downstairs and put him in the garden outside the hotel.

Only in Singapore

-SteveYep, it's a giant ship on top of 3 skyscrapers.

Lizzard in my hotel room.

I found this little guy in my room this morning. He’s only about 1 ½ inches long and seemed pretty scared. I doubt he climbed into my 18^th floor room with no windows (that open) so he must have hitched a ride with me or one of the maids I guess.

unhappy with ice cream

I think this is the most unhappy I’ve ever seen a child with ice cream that’s still on the cone.

I have no idea who the kid is, but it's a picture from Ellie's 1st birthday party.

camping with the fam at Big Trees State Park

I was one point away from skunking Val at cribbage.  She pegged over the line though and was (is) very proud of herself.  Geigy would be impressed.

Turns out Carl is the most consistent at roasting the perfect marshmallow.

We had a bear visit us the first night.  Turns out they’re smart enough to open the doors to the lockers but haven’t realized they can break the extra chain (yet).

So the bear that opened up our locker didn’t get in but made a big racket.  When Val and Gary woke up and made some noise (i got there eventually) it meandered off but not before checking the back of my truck for anything good.

A big tree (hence the name of the park).

Amanda and Emily, our tour guides.

Val and me between some big trees.

We went rappelling and spelunking at Moaning Caverns.  This is at the end of the 165ft rappel.  Val went first, but unfortunately got stuck dangling for a while at the end.

I got stuck in a hole spelunking.  After I failed to get through, the guide told us that the biggest person she’s seen go through that hole was 105lbs.  I’m pretty sure this was the 1st time my butt was too big for something.

The classic goofy grin self portrait.

Robby going through ‘the pancake press’.

Jarrett’s second trip through ‘the birth canal’.

Unfortunately we don’t have a before shot to go with this after shot, but we didn’t actually get too dirty.

Robbie’s coveralls had a hole….

Val cooking under a tree (in the rain) on the last day.  Well, it was supposed to be the penultimate day, but we decided to make it the last day due to the soggy conditions.

Open window

-SteveThe window in my hotel room opens! (albeit in an odd way)

San Diego Trip

Val and I made a quick trip to San Diego to see Michelle, Chad and Olivia (teo cousins) as well as my buddy Nate over Memorial Day weekend.

With Mich, Chad and Olivia on or near the USS Midway.



Snorkeling with Nate in La Jolla Shores.