Friday, October 30, 2009

Flyin', Cruisin' and Drivin'

As most of you know, Alison and I got back a while ago from a fantastic trip. Lucky for us, Rachelle works for JetBlue and gave us each a buddy pass about a year ago. They expired at the end of October, so we had to use them now or never. We looked at just going to any of the fantastic places that JetBlue flies, including Jamaica, Aruba, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. We found that a cruise (which essentially includes lodging, transportation and food) was going to be quite a bit cheaper than any other option. We booked a 5-night Western Carribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida with Royal Carribbean and couldn't have had a better time (more on this later). Half the excitement was in getting to and from Fort Lauderdale.

I was nervous using buddy passes to get to our cruise, because there is always a chance that you con't make it. We were willing to take this risk and we made sure to leave a few days before our cruise departed to give ourselves plenty of time. The day that we had planned on leaving, we found out that the flights to Long Beach were pretty well booked. We went with our backup option and flew to San Diego, rented a car and drove to Long Beach where we had planned on catching a direct flight from Long Beach to Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately, my brain was not working properly that day and I delivered us to the airport late for our flight and we missed it (I thought the flight left an hour later than it actually did (i.e. MTN time). We spent the night in Long Beach and caught an early morning flight to New York City where we were able to make our connecting flight to Fort Lauderdale. We had been planning on arriving in Fort Lauderdale at 5:30 AM on Saturday morning and instead we arrived after 9:30 PM.

The next day we took a one day cruise to the Bahamas that was simply fantastic (travelogues, coming soon!). We spent Monday morning in the Everglades before boarding our cruise ship. Our cruise took us to Key West, Florida then Cozumel, Mexico then Belize City, Belize before returning to Fort Lauderdale.

We went directly to the airport and were able to get on a flight to New York City less than 1 hour after arriving back in Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately, there was just no way that we would be able to get from New York City to Salt Lake City in the next few days because all of the flights were booked solid. Our only other option was to fly into Las Vegas and find our own way home from there. Luckily for us, my parents were in Vegas for the Utah vs. UNLV football game. They picked us up from the airport about an hour before kickoff and we all went and watched the Utes beat Rebels. We returned to La Verkin, Utah late that night before finally making our way home Sunday morning.

In total we drove over 900 miles (blue line on map - click on it to make it larger), cruised over 1,920 miles (green line on map) and flew 7,466 miles (red line on map) for a total of more than 10, 294 miles!

Flag Friday - Houston Space Center

When I was in High School, my Mom and I flew to Houston to visit my Aunt and Uncle who lived there. I remember that I was amazed by how big Houston. It seemed that you could drive for an hour and still be in Houston. While there, we made a little trip to the Houston Space Center (Houston, we have a problem...).

Friday, October 23, 2009

Flag Friday - Mt. Rushmore


Oops. I already gave away that we were at Mt. Rushmore for its 50th anniversary when I posted the South Dakota pennant. Now there's nothing left to say...

Friday, October 16, 2009

Flag Friday - Knott's Berry Farm


I went to Knott's Berry Farm a few times in my younger days. One of those times I was 16 and picked up on a 15-year-old and went on the Love Canal ride with her. Good times those were.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Flag Friday - Zion National Park

If you haven't ever been to Zion National Park, then you really should go. It's nice.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Small World or Big Neighborhood?

Alison and I received this card in the mail a few days ago (I include myself because it was addressed to "The Squire Family"). A few questions immediately came to mind:

1. How on earth did we get on this mailing list? We've never lived together outside of Utah nor have we ever even been to New Jersey while married, much less Southern New Jersey.

2. How much money is this physician's office spending on mailings that are going to people far from their potential clientele? Can't they run a quick filter and remove everybody that doesn't live in New Jersey or within 100 miles of their office? As far as I can tell, junk mail like this is probably the biggest reason that health care costs are spiraling out of control. I'm forwarding this onto Obama.

(While we did briefly consider driving to New Jersey to check out the conditions, we decided that a 32 hour, 2,154 mile one-way commute to a doctor's appointment probably didn't make sense.)

Friday, October 02, 2009

Flag Friday - Utah Utes

Yeah, the Utes basketball team had a few pretty good seasons in the 1990's. In the 1998 Final Four, they were up by double digits on Kentucky at halftime (having beaten North Carolina the round before). Unfortunately, the Utes couldn't hold off the Wildcats and had to settle for 2nd place. Maybe this year they can redeem themselves...