First Few Days of Fall

The first day of fall has come and gone quicker than the blink of an eye.  Thursday was the beginning of fall and surprisingly the weather cooperated and we had some great mid 70's weather with a slight breeze.  It was glorious absolutely glorious, a much needed respite from the 100+ heat that he have had this last month.  Every time I think of fall  I envision leaves changing brilliant colors while the cool temperature slowly take over.  I get very excited about what fall weather should be like, unfortunately I live in Texas so I only get to experience two seasons, hot or cold.  Or in El Paso its hot, hot, cold (for two weeks) and windy.  Yes, in El Paso I consider windy a season...and a really awful season at that.  Sadly the wonderful fall temperatures only lasted a day, so I enjoyed it as much as I could.  I also love fall because it means the holidays are right around the corner.  There is nothing better than chilly weather, warm houses, home cooking, and family gatherings.  Even though I despise cold weather, I love Christmas because it means I get to come home and see the family!!  Here are a few images to get you in the fall mood...even if live where fall does not exist.

     Friday after work I head up to College Station to watch my Ags play against OSU.  I told a coworker I would drop her off at the airport on my way out.  Well this diverted me from my original route and I ended up taking the long way to College Station, normally I wouldn't be a happy camper, but this turned out to be a fun new adventure.  I took a lot of small back roads through towns I have never been though, it was a nice change of scenery.  Once I got to College Station, I ran to the grocery store to pick up some items to make Chicken Soup and homemade biscuits.  Christy has been feeling under the weather so I figured this would be a good thing to make for dinner.   After dinner I met up with my college friends for a night on the town.  We headed out to Northgate for a fun night of bar hopping and lots of dancing.   I somehow always end up being the designated driver, so I didn't get home until 3:30 a.m.  This is the first time in a very long time that I have seen 3:30 going to sleep.  The next morning I was up at 6:30, but not rearing to go.  I was exhausted and fighting a killer headache.  Thankfully the game wasn't until 2:30 so I relaxed and hung out with the family until game time.  I decided to head to the stadium a little early to catch up with my friends that were tailgating.  I love tailgating, nothing better on a Saturday afternoon than BBQ, hanging out with friends and watching football.

Before I knew it, it was game time.  I am not going to discuss the outcome of the game, because it was just to difficult of a game to watch.  The first half the Ags played better than I have ever seen them play in my lifetime.  I am going to leave it at that, or you will have a 35 page dissertation on Aggie football. That evening was round two of going out.  I was designated driver again even though we had a great time I was completely exhausted by the time I got to bed.

Sunday morning I got up and made everyone cinnamon roll pancakes.  YUMMMY they are pancakes with the cinnamon roll filing inside and frosting on top.  Its pretty much the best of both worlds. Just in case your wondering, this is not an item you can find in grocery stores, I made them from scratch.  If you would like the recipe just let me know. 

Until next time!!

Heres to the Weekend Warrior

I meant to get on and post this on Monday....as you can see life and work had other plans for my week.  Last weekend was Aggies vs Idaho in Aggieland, I am sure you all know where I was...in the Motherland!!  There is a great saying about being a Texas Aggie, "From the outside looking in you cant understand it, from the inside looking out you cant explain it."  This is so true people try to understand, but there is just something special and completely indescribable about being an Aggie.  Some call it a cult, some call it heavy doses of brainwashing.  I call it an outstanding University, with incredible comradery, tradition, and excellence.  I could go on for hours about this, so I am going to leave it at that.  I drove in Saturday morning and spent the day with Christy and Tommy, around four we hopped on the bus and head to Kyle Field for some tailgating and Texas Aggie Football. 

Just for the record, I love football...well I love college football, especially my Ags.  There is such a wonderful vibe on game day.  Everyone is buzzing around, cooking amazing BBQ, catching up with friends, and enjoying some good ol football.  OK back to my original topic Aggie football last weekend.  Once we got to the field I caught up with some college friends at their tailgate and then headed in to BTHO out of Idaho.  The game was awesome, the Ags were looking really good, now I say this a little tentatively because we were playing Idaho.  We ended up blowing them out of the water 36-7 whoop!

Sunday was a lazy day, after Church I ran a few errands and then relaxed and watched movies the rest of the day.  Chris' work had him go to Cyprus to check out their equipment and manufacturing plant, since he will be gone for two weeks I offered to take care of his dogs.  So his little angels have been keeping me company while he is gone. 

Its getting late and I need to pack tomorrow I head for...yes you guessed it the Motherland!! This week we are playing Oklahoma State University.  It should be a great game, so tune in.  I hope my Ags can back up all the trash talking I have done this week.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  Remember don't work to hard, life is short enjoy it while you can! 

Hawaii II

 So begins the second half of our trip.

 


Day 5
Wednesday morning we were up bright and early to catch a 6:30 flight to Maui.  Since Maui is right next door the flight is only 30 minutes long.  By the time you reach the proper cruising altitude you are headed back down for a landing.  Upon arrival in Maui we grabbed our luggage and headed to the rental car.  Once we were all set up we were on our adventure of exploring Maui, first stop was breakfast before we drove the road to Hana.

One of the many waterfalls on the Road to Hana

Waterfalls

Waterfalls with a swimming hole

The road to Hana is a notorious drive in Maui, everyone I spoke to said it was a must do.  It’s a long winding road that follows the coast around Maui to a one horse town - Hana.  A friend of mine had traveled to Maui and told us to rent a room in Hana because it was too dangerous to drive at night.  Now I completely agree with her this is not a road you to want to drive at night, it is mostly a one lane road, very curvy, with dangerous drop offs. Now I completely disagree with her, whatever you do...DON'T STAY IN HANA.  Now this is just a personal opinion, so if you’re feeling adventurous check it out.  The minute we pulled into town I felt like we had step into the movie Deliverance.  It was an eerie, creepy little town with one general store.  The locals stared at you like a fresh piece of meat.  There are two places to eat and they have questionable food and hours. Since we left so early that morning we arrived in Hana around lunch, we drove around the town, ate some lunch and checked into the place we were staying.  There were not a lot of options when booking a room in Hana.  You can either stay at the 300 dollar a night place or rent a bedroom at Joe's Place for 50 dollars.  Being the money savvy travelers we picked Joe's Place it had mixed reviews online so we figured we would give it a try.  Well it was sketchy not awful, but pretty bad.

After we unloaded our stuff we decided to go to the beach. (mind you there is NOTHING to do in Hana) As we came outside we realized that our car had a flat tire (typical Skipper vacation always some type of car trouble in one horse towns) somewhere along the way we picked up a nail.  I called the rental car place and they informed us we were SOL because we did not buy their insurance.  Since we had to drive back we didn't want to put the spare on because it was a doughnut.  We bought some fix a flat and prayed it would get us through the rest of the drive. 

That evening we meet the rest of our roommates, they were an interesting. There was a young couple from Germany, and older couple from Australia, two women and some other random stragglers.  The Australians were very interesting and funny so we talked to them until I was too tired to stay awake.  It was a rough long night; there was no air conditioner so the room was steaming and there is nothing harder than trying to fall asleep when you’re sweating.  I am guessing the bed was a cheap mattress that was at least 40 years old with sheets that might not have been washed in the last ten years.  Somehow I survived the night and was up at five ready to get the heck out of dodge.  We left as early as we could because the town gave us the creeps.

Day 6
Our tire looked like it was holding air so we were off to the next leg of our adventure. Most everyone goes back the way they came because the rest of the road is for four wheel vehicles, it’s a dirt road with splotches of paving, rocks and gravel.  Being the adventures (or maybe stupid) type we decided to give it a try.  Well that turned into 48 miles of sheer terror.  Maybe not for Chris, but the whole time we were diving I was thinking of the worst case scenario.  The nail would come out, we would have to put the spare on, we could easily be killed doing that because of how narrow and curvy the roads are, the doughnut wouldn't get us out, we would be stuck forever because there is no cell phone reception and no one dives out there, whooo paranoid much?  It ended up being an incredibly beautiful drive with insane scenery and we made it out alive.  The minute we got into town the nail popped out and we had a flat tire.  Pretty sure the big Man upstairs had that one under control. 

Scenery on the way out of Hana

Black Sand Beach

Lava Tube

More waterfalls

Awesome tree

The seven secret pools(its a set of seven waterfalls with pools)

The scary second half of the drive most of it looked like baren wasteland

A paved section of the road, this did not last long

Why did we drive this??

Chris put the spare on and we took it to Goodyear to have them patch the tire.  While they were working on it we walked into the town and ate some breakfast.  By the time we finished it was ready to go and we were on our way.  After we picked up the car we headed to our hotel and checked in.  After a quick nap we rented some snorkel gear and headed to the best snorkel beach in town.  Little did we know that the best snorkel beach also happened to be the best boogie board and only NUDE beach in town!  Well that was interesting to say the least, there a quite a few people that are very comfortable with their bodies.  I am not that comfortable so I did not partake in these activities.  The snorkeling turned out to be the best we had seen.  There were tons of fish and sea turtles swimming around and having a good time. 

The non-nude half of the beach

Day 7
We had a charter snorkel trip to a small island off of Maui called Molokini Crater.  The trip consisted of breakfast and lunch with two separate snorkeling spots.  It was fun trip, although the nude beach still had the best snorkeling.  After our trip we drove to another part of Maui and checked into the hotel we would be staying at until we left.  For some reason they upgraded our room to a suite with a full kitchen and a great view of the ocean.  That evening we went to Barefoot Grill and enjoyed an incredible chef prepared meal.

Day 8 
We decided to check out the surfing in Maui, the tide was out so it was supposed to be a great time to surf.  We rented some boards and headed out.  Well it had been a while since Maui had some good waves so everyone was out surfing.  Since I am still a beginner I like surfing the smaller waves with easy breaks, unfortunately these waves were reaching about the ten foot area and breaking incredibly fast and hard.  After about 30 minutes of getting destroyed by the Ocean I headed out, Chris came in a little after me.  We grabbed some breakfast and watched a surf competition.  We strolled around the little town for a while and then headed back to the hotel.  That evening we went to the Old Lahaina Luau for dinner and a show.  We thoroughly enjoyed our last evening in Maui. 

Luau

Me

Hula dancers

Day 9
As they say all good things have to come to an end, we packed all our stuff up and check out of the hotel.  Since our flight didn't leave until that evening we decided to kill a few hours and drive up to the volcano.  It was an interesting drive and the volcano was neat. That evening we headed back to the airport for our long flight home.  After 13 hours, three plane changes, and going through three different time zones we arrived back home with all of our luggage.  It was a great trip, but it was good to get back home and settle into a routine again. 

The Volcano

Until next time....you all enjoy your weekend

Hawaii 1

I suppose the best way to delve into blogging is to get started with my most recent adventure...Hawaii!  I went to Hawaii last year, although I enjoyed it, I didn't have any plans on returning anytime soon.  One of my goals is travel around the world one destination at a time, therefore when I travel I plan on going somewhere I haven’t been.  It just so happened that as I was planning my vacation flights to Hawaii were ridiculously cheap, since I wanted to surf and relax I figured I would go back one more time.  Another wonderful coincidence was that a good friend from college (Chris T.) would be there upon his return from Iraq. 

After many months of counting down the days, September 3rd finally rolled around and I was beyond ready.  Mind you, the drawback to cheap flights is they are usually terrible.  We (Chris B and I) left Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Hawaii at 8:30 p.m.  That might not seem bad, but Hawaii is five hours behind therefore we had three different flights and flew for a total of 13 hours (a direct flight is 6 hours). It was quite the journey, but definitely worth it.  The weather was absolutely perfect, mid 70's with a cool breeze, it beat the 100+ days we have been having in Houston.  Once we arrived, we checked into our hotel on Waikiki beach and met up with Chris for dinner and drinks.  A couple of Chris' army friends joined us and we had fun evening of bar hopping.   Our hotel pleasantly surprised us by upgrading us to a larger room with a view. 



View from the hotel room



Day 1

The next morning we were up early exploring the sights and sound of Oahu.  First on the agenda was snorkeling in Hannamu bay.  We hopped on the local bus outside of our hotel and headed to the bay.

  

After snorkeling we ate some lunch and watched the Aggies BTHO SMU.  We finished off the afternoon with some surfing right outside our hotel.  Unfortunately the surf wasn’t the best, but it was still good enough to give Chris a feel for what it’s like to surf.  Even though it was his first time surfing he picked it up quickly.     

Day 2

We were up again ridiculously early so we decided to catch the sunrise while surfing.  The surfing was a little slow, but there is nothing more calming and peaceful as sitting on a surfboard out in the ocean watching the sunrise.  After a delicious breakfast we headed up to Chris' house to spend some time with him and explore the north shore.  We had some local grilled garlic shrimp for lunch and then hit a couple of beaches. 

North Shore

 Since Chris had some work to do we left him alone and head for Pearl Harbor.  I enjoy visiting various war memorials because it reminds us what sacrifices have been made to give us the freedoms we have today. 



Pearl Harbor



Day 3

Tuesday was our last day on Oahu so we got up early for some more surfing.  It was a little slow, but still quite enjoyable.  I could easily get used to surfing every morning.  After breakfast we decided to drive to the North shore and go Skydiving, and what a better place to do it than beautiful Hawaii.  Even though I have jumped before it took a little while to work up the nerve.  Chris has never been so he was excited.  After we signed up I got pretty excited as well.  I met my tandem partner and it turned out he used to work at the place I took my first jump.  Since I had jumped before he asked me if I wanted to have some fun with it.  Sure why not...how bad could it be, I am already jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.  He explained to me that instead of going face first we would be exiting the plane backwards and would do a series of back flips.  My brain was screaming noooooooooooooooooooooo, but my mouth said yes.  Before I had a chance to second guess myself or say no I found myself tumbling backwards out of an airplane 14,000 ft in the air falling at 124 mph straight for the earth.  What in the world was I thinking!!!  After the back flips we had a minute of freefall, that entire time I was falling I was praying that the chute would open.  Final after what felt like days I heard that glorious sound of the chute opening and all the noise of the wind had stopped.  There I was floating peacefully down to the earth, strapped to a complete stranger that I entrusted my life to, talk about a rush.  Chris liked his first jump and even said he would be ok with doing another.  Hum what other places in the world would be great for jumping...(just kidding Mom)



View when you jump out of the plane



After skydiving we drove around the island and headed back to the hotel to pack our stuff for our flight to Maui the next day.  For dinner we met up with Chris to see him before we left. 

Stay tuned my next post will tell you about our four day adventure in Maui and our survival of the Road to Hana. 

First Post

I have been debating starting a blog for a while, although I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that everyone could read about the idiosyncrasies of my daily life.  After much thought and trepidation I decided it would be the easiest way for family and friends to stay abreast of my various adventures.  So please enjoy.