travel

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 4

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Another college visit today. This morning after breakfast we drove down to Oberlin to visit Oberlin College (my daughter’s first choice currently) for a tour. It was a lot colder here than in Dayton yesterday and there was a lot of snow on the ground. It was good for my Florida girl to see what she’d be getting into, picking a school in northern Ohio 🙂 . It was another informational (and brisk!) tour and afterwards we had Mediterranean for lunch at Aladdin’s before the information session later that afternoon at the Admissions office.

In the late afternoon we went over to my brother’s house to visit with my sister-in-law, niece, and 6-month old nephew. Then it was a late-night dinner at Strip where we were joined by my sister who had had a long day. So it was nice to finally see family on this trip.

Today also happened to be Dick Goddard’s last broadcast on Channel 8 after 55 years. I grew up watching Dick do the weather and hosting his Woollybear Festival every year. Wow.

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 3

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Today was our first official college visit at the University of Dayton. We woke up early and were on the road at 7:30am. We crossed the Ohio River into Cincinnati an hour later and at 10:00am were pulling into the visitor parking lot at UD, on-time for our 10:30 tour and information session.

I thought it would be a little weird going on a tour of the college where I had gone to school (met my wife, and even got married!) with my daughter, but it wasn’t that odd. It was cool to see all the changes around campus, and what had stayed the same since I had graduated. It was another beautiful brisk fall day and walking around the campus to see the dorms, library, and buildings was very pleasant.

After the tour we hit all our old haunts which included lunch at Marion’s Piazza and dessert at Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs (where we also briefly drove past Antioch College just to see a really small school). Then it was back to driving … I-675 to I-70 East over to Columbus, and then I-71 North to Cleveland.

By 6:00pm were were in the vicinity of our hotel for the rest of the week on the west side. We stopped at Crocker Park to do some grocery shopping and pick up dinner. Then we checked into the hotel and ate before unloading everything out of the car and getting settled.

Tomorrow is another college visit and then we’ll actually see family.

Driving stats: 7 hours; 350mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 2

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Today was a full travel day.

We were back on I-75 North at 9:30am after having breakfast at the hotel. At 11:30am we passed through Macon and decided to make our first unplanned detour of the trip. In addition to going to see family up north on this road trip, we’re doing a few college visits (on Monday and Tuesday) with our daughter. Since we going through Atlanta, we decided to make a quick stop at Emory University just to quickly check it out. We spent about an hour or so wandering around campus checking out the Quad, some of the classroom buildings, the DUC, etc. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect for a nice self-guided walk around campus.

After lunch at Mellow Mushroom (where I got to watch a little of the Browns game), it was back onto I-75 North. 5:00pm saw us passing through Dalton, GA and 45 minutes later we were over the border into Tennessee as the sun was setting. We saw warning signs about heavy smoke in northern Tennessee and at 8:00pm starting driving through it. 15 minutes later we were out of the smoke and over the border into Kentucky.

We tried to make a late stop for dessert at Greater’s in Lexington, but we had misread the hours on the web site and arrived 15 minutes past closing. Oops! So instead we pushed on to our hotel north of Lexington and were checked in by 10:20pm.

Driving stats: 10 hours; 636mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 1

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Time for another family road trip! It’s back to Cleveland for Thanksgiving.

We were using today just as a jump-start day for the drive, planning only to go as far as southern Georgia. This allowed us to spend most of the day decorating the inside of the house for Christmas (so it would be done when we get back from the trip), finish the packing, load up the Highlander, etc. At 4:45pm we finally hit the road.

We stopped for dinner around 7:30pm at the Ruby Tuesday in Lake City. Then it was just another hour’s drive north over the Georgia border to our first hotel in Valdosta at 9:45pm.

Driving stats: 4 hours; 254mi (probably our easiest day of the trip)

Disney Very MerryTime cruise

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Three years ago we went on our first cruise (on the Disney Dream) right before Thanksgiving. This year for Christmas, we decided to go on an eastern Caribbean Very MerryTime holiday cruise. After months of planning and preparations, we just got back from a week of relaxation and recreation on the Disney Fantasy, and we had an incredible time.

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West Coast Road Trip: Day 10

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Our West Coast vacation is over.

This morning my sister drove us to Sea-Tac on her way to work so we could catch our flight back to Tampa. It was a little weird tagging our own luggage for Alaska Airlines but again our TSA PreCheck status made the overall process of getting to our gate relatively smooth. The flight was fine too … until we were waiting for our luggage. One of our suitcases came out right away, but there was no sign of the second. And of course, that one had our wine in it that we got four days ago. There were a lot of people also missing their bags but for some reason Alaska Airlines knew our bag was missing. Why they couldn’t have had someone at bag claim to tell us this I don’t know and the baggage agent was unfriendly and unhelpful. All he could tell us was our bag would be delivered to our house and gave us a $20 voucher. Ouch. And as of tonight, our bag hasn’t arrived.

At any rate, other than that slight downer at the end, our West Coast road trip vacation was a success! We had a great time, saw family and friends, did a ton of stuff, saw amazing sights, and visited 5 states (Nevada, Arizona (crossed the border at the Hoover Dam), California, Oregon, and Washington) over the past 10 days. Even so, it’s good to be home (even if I have to go back to work tomorrow).

West Coast Road Trip: Day 7

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We made it to Seattle! The rental car has been returned after 7 days and over 1,940 miles driven. Our vacation isn’t quite over yet though.

We left Roseburg this morning and passed through Portland around lunchtime. “Lunch” turned out to be standing in line for Voodoo Doughnuts then it was back onto I-5. We made another off-highway side trip to the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument where the visitor’s center offered a great view of the volcano that tragically erupted 35 years ago (I was 8).

Arriving in Seattle, we returned the rental car that had served us so well for the past week and transferred to my sister’s car that she had left at the aiport when she flew to meet us in San Francisco four days ago. We dropped off all of our luggage at her apartment and then drove downtown to have dinner at Veggie Grill (my vegetarian daughter’s new favorite eatery). We walked around the South Lake Union area a bit but a lot of the waterfront was fenced off in preparations for tomorrow’s fireworks show. So we drove up to Kerry Park instead to get some sunset views of downtown and Mount Rainier instead.

West Coast Road Trip: Day 6

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Today was our longest driving day: from American Canyon, CA to Roseburg, OR (almost 500 miles).

It started out with a beautiful scenic drive through wine country (and Petaluma, home of the TWiT podcasts I listen to) back to US-101. We also made a quick stop at the Benovia Winery for my sister and picked up some of their wines. We grabbed breakfast a bit further north at the Downtown Bakery in Healdsburg and then it was back onto US-101 for the long trek north.

But wow, what a trek! Cell service may have been spotty (like, non-existent!), but the views were 100% incredible. Our first redwood experience was at the Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree (and yes, the CX5 barely fit, but it made it through). A few more miles north we diverted from “current” US-101 to take the Avenue of the Giants. Driving through those huge trees was an amazing experience and we had a picnic lunch in a quiet area in the Williams Grove area.

We continued on US-101 up to Crescent City and eventually hit the Pacific Ocean, cold, foggy, and windy. That didn’t stop my daughter from getting her feet wet in the ocean, though! We crossed the border into Oregon around 8:30pm (our first border crossing since Saturday) and spotted the somewhat confusing Sweet Cron signs. It was later than we expected but after a brief stop for a fast-food dinner we made it to our hotel in Roseburg.

Tomorrow is our last day of major driving! Seattle here we come!