2015: What a Year!
This year was busy, very busy. I did however find plenty of time to laze around on the couch with my dogs and complain to my wife that I was bored and wanted to go out. This might have been my busiest year on record, who counts school, school does not count.
Our first trip from the home put us in California to see family, it was a good time, plus I got to see my great friend Julie and her girlfriend. We drove to Auburn to see my Aunt in addition to going to Alcatraz and walking the Golden Gate, neither of which my wife had done. Alcatraz was a real treat because Ai Weiwei was having an exhibit there.
The walk across the Golden Gate was decent, if you remove the fact that only one sidewalk was open and all the bikers were real jackasses about riding on both sides getting all sorts of in the way.
After a boring month of February we hopped off to Japan and China, but to be fair, Japan was just the airport, but we were there long enough to get flavored kit kats and fall asleep on the floor. China was pretty close to amazing, so exotic but so similar to the US. We went to Shanghai, Xi'an, Mt Huashan, and Beijing. The trip was amazing, and we are going back to Beijing this year. You can view my gallery for China here and my blog post will be up at some point.
The Plank Walkway was the whole reason for going to Huashan and it was awesome.
After China it was off to Ukraine, with layovers in Belgium on the way out and Austria on the way back. Ukraine was super cool, I even got to go to Chernobyl, which was surreal. I went with some friends, not the wife this time, so it was a trip that was different than normal. Austria was fun, I met a new friend, and he took me out and we got food, then he dropped me back off at the airport, which I opted to sleep at because hostels were too much. I really enjoyed this trip. You can see the gallery for that trip here and when I get around to blogging about it, you can see that.
Next it was time for a vacation, a beach perhaps, luckily we had a lil weekend jam to Turks and Caicos. We flew down, rented a car and went to the beach. Their main beach was rated as the best beach in the world last year, and it was pretty amazing. We had a nice apartment sized hotel for the few nights we were there, they had a pool even! I have not finished editing all the photos from this yet, or putting up a full blog post, so no links yet.
Our little yellow cruiser, power nothing, not even a radio, but it got us around.
After Turks and Caicos, I changed jobs and decided, as I usually do, to enjoy my transition period and spent time doing a weird little trip that I have been wanting to do. When leaving Baltimore on Interstate 70, there is a sign with four city mile markers, the last is Cove Fort-2200 which always seemed like an odd city/location to put on a map. When one looks it up, it is the very end of I-70, the beginning being Baltimore. We rented a car, hopped on I-70 and drove to Cove Fort. We also stopped in Colorado and saw a few friends I have not seen since high school, which was great. We also went to some national parks in Utah.
This is the end, Cove Fort!
On our road trip, my wife almost died from an allergic reaction, which prompted us to finally get married, so we did, right at the courthouse. It was wonderful, most likely the highlight of the entire year. As a quickie honeymoon we jetted up to Acadia National Park with the dogs in tow. We spent a few hours there then headed home. It was beautiful.
Then we went ahead and had a real honeymoon and went to South Africa and Namibia with a 12 hour layover in London. I got to see my buddy Wes in London as he was there on his first international trip, then fly all the way down to South Africa. A day in Cape Town and onto Namibia, which quickly jumped to one of my favorite places. Then back to South Africa for a road trip on the Garden Route which was also amazing.
Back from Africa for a few weeks, then onto a weekend in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, which was pretty close to awful. The city is run down and dirty, one cannot win them all. We saw a park with some caves in it and weren't able to go to a single beach, as the city has none.
The people were the best part of this trip. The people were friendly and smiled. No complaints here.
Working in retail, I cannot take time off during the last two months of the year, which is bummersauce, but I was given a three day weekend which included Christmas, so as a last little trip of the year, we drove up to Niagara Falls. I have never been before, another quick trip took care of that. It is a six hour drive up and six hours back, with a stay in a La Quinta in Buffalo. The falls were neat, we had a great time, and the drive was easy.
2015 was amazing, and 2016 is shaping up to be better, so keep your eyes peeled to my site or my wife's blog to see what we are up to.
