Adjusted Reality

Tag: vacation Page 8 of 12

…not really, but I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind.

Saturday:

…was just a really, really long travel day. Up at 6am, got from door to gate in 40 minutes, and had a really chill day. We had a 3 hour layover in Houston, which was nice because we got a chance to sit down and have lunch, but by the time we got there, it was 7pm – dark and late.

That evening, Bonaire consisted only of our stickshift truck that got a little lost on the way from the airport, our condo where the living room AC didn’t work but felt nice once we opened up the windows, one little trip to stick our feet in the ocean, and the Italian place (Sofia House) across the street which was the only thing in near walking distance open. It was fancy and served us glasses of red wine and lasagna the size of our heads, and salad the size of our fingernails. After refueling, we crashed into our comfy bed and read and decided to roll sans alarm in the morning.

Sunday:

While really motivated scuba divers would have been up and at ’em to be at the shop when they opened in the morning at 8, that was not us. We slept ’til 9:30, headed down to orientation around 10:30, and then had a delicious lunch on the water at Breezes and Bites before even THINKING about packing up our gear and heading for our checkout dive.

We got there in the afternoon and I was awkward setting up all my gear since normally someone swoops in and does it for me, but after some dithering and help I was suited up and we jumped in the ocean to do our buoyancy checks. We sank just fine, so they sent us on our way.

This was actually the first time we had gone diving with just us. We’ve either had an instructor, a dive master, a group, or at least a boat waiting for us. I mean, we’re certified to do this and more, but it felt like being allowed to walk to school by yourself for the first time.

I got to spend all the time I wanted looking at fishies and trying to get good pictures. If we felt like turning around or going deeper or shallower or just being done, we could. It was awesome, albeit a little scary because if something happened, we were indeed on our own.

We liked our dive at Something Special, just offshore from the Yellow Submarine Dive Friend’s shop location, we grabbed a second tank and went back. I remembered vaguely our dives and experience in Bonaire two years ago on the short morning and early afternoon we were visiting from the cruise ship. I knew we had to go back for longer, and that afternoon reminded me why.

First, the dives are BREATHTAKING. Even on a rough or not-so-clear day, every dive is probably the best dive anywhere else of your life. So many fish, so much to see, and 85 degree crystal clear turquoise water.

Second, the people. At first, while I was transitioning from not-being-on-vacation Quix who was like, “hurry, hurry, efficiency, why haven’t you served me my food I ordered it 2 seconds ago, hurrrrrr”, it was a little annoying, but once I calmed my shit… I loved the relaxed attitude. Everyone was pretty friendly, but it wasn’t that fake, customer service type friendly. They seemed to just genuinely be happy to be doing what they were doing, living in paradise.

After two tanks, we called it for the day because we had one more errand to run before really sinking into vacation mode – hitting the grocery store. This was an experience in and of itself.

Unlike the US, where there is a mega mart on every corner, there is ONE large supermarket, and it is primarily Dutch. This is the place you go if you want to get what you want, rather than roll with whatever happens to be there. The carts are locked together, and we actually couldn’t figure out how to deal, so we just grabbed a few carry baskets and looked ridiculous.

We picked up the essentials – breakfast (decaf coffee, cereal, milk, fruit, and yogurt for me, nutella on toast and stuff to make cheese quesidillas for Zliten), lunches (sandwich stuff, salad stuff, a weird chinese soup to try), snacks (chips, crackers, etc), beer and wine, and some european sweets that looked amazing. If it sounds like we were shopping for teenage kids (minus the booze) – each hour down burns me almost 600 calories, and that’s not counting the setup and takedown. We needed the fuel. 🙂

However, since it was our anniversary, we decided to leave the groceries at home and walk down to get food at Rum Runner’s, and got sat at a lovely table right on the ocean. While we drank our margaritas (my margarita came with a turtle on it, which meant they knew me because they’re my favorites) and waited for our food, giant tarpin played in the water below us. I ordered the fish fajitas and Zliten ordered the shrimp in this magic anise honey chili magic love sauce, and we split both. It was perfect.

We sat on the couch and went through dive pictures and photos, and split a bottle of wine and floated off to bed soon after.

Monday:

Set the alarm for 10 but didn’t need it. We woke up and brewed some coffee and lazed about that morning. Our goal was to hit up all the 5 dive shops and dive from those locations over the trip (since it was the most convenient) and today’s targets were Dive Inn, and our house reef, Bari. Let me tell you – I miss having a “house reef” where I could walk out my door, gear up, grab a tank 10 feet from the water, and go. But, I digress.

First we hit up Town Pier and dove there. There was rumor of a turtle, but I got a little confused underwater, and I told Zliten to turn us around before we got there. Here’s the weird part about diving and communication – it’s a game of charades where you can’t cheat even if you want to. You have to communicate to your partner what is going on or what your intentions are (or what the problem is) without the use of voice.

You find ways to get by. Fish get their specific hand signals. Tapping on the tank to make noise means attention. At first, you want to give the thumbs up when you want to say that you’re ok, but since that means go to the surface, you learn to use THIS instead. There’s a symbol for squeezes (when you have trouble equalizing). There’s a symbol for “how much air do you have left” but I usually just grab Zliten’s if I’m curious or tell him mine first. Pointing in certain directions or at certain things seems obvious.

But when the weird stuff comes up, you definitely feel awkward and trying to communicate “hey, I think that we’re not supposed to go past the pier and I think this is past the pier” and he’s trying to say “but wait, I think this is where they saw the turtle up ahead” without using the turtle symbol as to make me unnecessarily excited is advanced level charades shit. Diving dictates that you always go conservative, so if one person says turn back, you turn back.

Needless to say, we didn’t see a turtle, and I was kicking myself, but hey, we had many days left and we didn’t get run over by boats.

After some lunch from our fridge (a turkey sandwich and a salad and some chips and probably a sweet or two was like HEAVEN), we headed out our door to Bari. People had said good things, and I think we would have gone even if it wasn’t home base, but I’m so glad it was.

It was magical. The reef starts at about 20 feet down (so, almost snorkeling depth), and just the sheer AMOUNT of fish around the area was… amazing. We took one tank and went one way, and took a second tank and went the other. The highlight of the day was seeing a great barracuda as long as me just hang out with us. It was a little scary at first, but as I said earlier, it was more interested in friends, not food.

After cleaning up, we decided to try a place up the road… it was a sketchy looking bar but said it also had food so we moseyed in and found that it was actually a chinese restaurant with an extensive menu, so we ordered eggrolls, egg soup, and I got chicken chow mein. The eggrolls were amazing (or I was just hungry), the egg drop soup was WAY better than the traditional, and my chicken chow mein was great. The only bummer was the use of dark meat chicken in everything, which I don’t love, but I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority there.

Even though it was a bar, we saved the drinks until we got home and drank these little tiny Polar beers (Venezulan beer that’s made in Miami?) and headed to bed early.

Tuesday:

We had to catch a boat at 8:30, so I was up early enough to eat cereal, fruit, and yogurt and use the potty (sounds a lot like race morning?), and then we were off to board the Carlotta and head out to Klein Bonaire.

Pre-boat dive.

Post boat dive (oh the hair-manity!)

We dove Sampler and Country Garden. They were beautiful dives, but at this point in my memory, everything is running together. The only real memory that stood out was being cranky with my gear. My wetsuit was causing me STRIFE. Being that I’m a little heavy right now, it takes a little effort to get on and off. Pairing that with all the gear hauling, I had so much abrasion and chafing going on I just hated the above water parts of diving so much right then.

For lunch, we hit up a local sandwich shop called Between Two Buns, and when we both noticed a burger and fries, that was it. And honestly… it was the shit. The meat was so flavorful and it was super huge and filling and all I wanted and needed out of life right then. We took a walk around the property and chased around the leezards and soaked up a little sun.

And then… we went back to the condo and I crashed for a 90 minute nap. I kinda hated wasting precious diving hours, but diving is SERIOUS BUSINESS, y’all. You do this incredibly peaceful thing, but then you come out of the water and all of a sudden you realize that a) your body is WORKED and b) you either need to eat or sleep or both. I guess I needed both that day.

As soon as I got up, we did a dive that ended at sunset at Bari and decided to ditch the wetsuit. I was a little nervous because of all the ouchy coral around, but it made me be more careful and that’s probably a good thing. At the end of the dive, in just a few feet of water, we finally spotted our first TURTLE! I was cursing myself so hard because my camera was dead and I didn’t get a great shot of him, but hey… TURTLE!

I’m cheating and subbing in a turtle picture from another day, so, *spoilers*, it was not the last sighting.

We were tempted to try doing a night dive, but my ears were giving me trouble, and I wanted to make sure I was good for the boat in the morning. We ate food in the condo (I enjoyed a grilled cheese and tomato chinese soup, and some other random snacks), and just melted into the couch and then the bed.

…and on that note, we’ll call it here. Part 2 ~~coming shortly~~ HERE!, including equipment malfunctions, giant eels, a long swim under a (not-so) short pier, road donkeys, and much much more.

Cruise Highlights: Turtles, Rays, and Drunk Grannies, Oh My!

By Quix

On April 7, 2015

In Uncategorized

I usually type out these long winded “what I did every day on vacation” recaps, which get almost exactly 0 comments because, well, who cares what I ate at the buffet for lunch on Thursday or that I spent Tuesday afternoon reading. So, let’s try the high points instead.

Post marathon and cruising:

Saturday after the marathon I set pretty good expectations with my parents about my potential mental and physical state. So, when I was able to only deal with about 20 mins of hanging out in the afternoon, going to dinner and eating an embarrassing portion, and then one game of cards after, they were pleasantly surprised instead of upset about it.

The next day, embarkation day was kind of rough. Let me tell you the tale of pain of having to stand for 30 minutes for a boat drill the day after a marathon. It’s probably about as painful as the last 10k of the race, but you don’t get a medal at the end. Though, there is beer. So, sort of the same? By the afternoon, I felt like this…

…cranky, tired, and not really wanting to play reindeer games with anyone but having to accommodate my parents by actually going to fancy dinner and with a little bit of QT when all I wanted to do was to be horizontal somewhere.

However, after a lengthy sleep and the next day of mainly laying on deck and reading my book, I felt better.

Actually taking the time to get to the gym Wednesday to spin out my legs and stretch and roll made me feel like a whole new person. I didn’t plan on doing any structured workouts, but next time, I would try to do that sooner if just to improve my mood and stiffness.

Food highlights:

The buffalo chicken strips, fries, and salad I had in The Woodlands for dinner after the race at Willie’s Icehouse were tip top. I will definitely consider returning there for post-race festivities if I’m in the area.
Waffles with nutella, butter, and syrup for the day after m-day at Springhill Suites breakfast bar. Game changer. All the carbs.
All the indian food at the buffet was EXCELLENT. Masala fish, butter chicken…
They had weird pizzas every day, some were good, some were… interesting. I tried thai chicken (awesome), beef teriyaki (pretty good), and shrimp (ehhh).
The jerk chicken I got in Jamaica. So spicy and delicious.
They brought fully cooked meals to your room for breakfast (most cruises just do continental breakfast). So, most mornings, I woke up with two strips of bacon or sausage, a bite of hashed browns, some fruit, and tea.
The dining room food was certainly just fine, but not a lot stood out as awesome. The list that rocked my socks off: garlic soup, tandoori chicken salad, flourless chocolate cake, chicken cordon bleu, and key lime pie.
The most EXPENSIVE for-the-value thing we did was one margarita, 2 beers, and chips and salsa in Grand Cayman cost us about 50 bucks US.

We clean up OK:

One reason I love cruises is that we actually get a chance to wear clothes that are not a) spandex b) pajamas or c) tees and jeans. I have to record these moments.

Night 1:

Night 2 (formal night):

Night 4:

Night 6 (formal night 2):

Adult Bevvie Action:

I had some post race beers on Saturday, but it was more of a “caaaaaalories” thing and relaxing a little than a “get drunk” thing.

My parents have been on a million cruises, and one of their perks was free drinks from 4:30-8 every day. They let us in on it some of the time. Considering the prices, it was very nice (drinks were generally 7 bucks or more). So, we saw this a lot…

One of my favorite drinks on cruise ships is Crown on the rocks. Generally, its reasonably priced, and bartenders are usually pretty impressed with a girl ordering it, so I get hefty pours.

I always try to get a local beer if I can (even if it’s the equivalent of Budweiser, because most countries make MUCH BETTER mass market beer). In Jamaica, you get a Red Stripe. In Grand Cayman, you get a White Tip Lager. In Cozumel, when you are at an all-inclusive… you get whatever they’re pouring you (I think Dos Equis).

I enjoyed my bevvies responsibly until the second to last day (with the all-inclusive package). I started the fun by forgetting to eat lunch. Priorities were 1. snorkeling 2. booze… and then everything else fell off. Then, we had more beers with our new friends Mary and Chris, and then somehow I ended up in my red formal dress at fancy dinner… and then the night gets a little hazy. I crashed out early and didn’t injure anything this time so life is good.

Birthday Shenanigans:

I spent most of my birthday in a bathing suit, reading, napping, and swimming. No complaints. Happy Quix is happy. However, the night before was… interesting.

We headed up to the lounge/dance area and spent an interesting and exciting night people watching. We got a seat in the back, which made it a little hard to see the people on the dance floor, but easy to see out the window to the pool.

At the pool, a drunk, greyhaired lady with one of those swimsuit coverup with an airbrushed bikini on it, was trying to get into the water. It was closed, and security was there escorting her out. She was NOT having it, and threw her sandal in the water. They fished it out and she threw the other one in. As they fished that one out, they had to lift the net up, and she went for a dive to get in… and she fell. She was ok, but she was a little subdued after that and decided to leave.

Shortly after that, a party of drunk girls showed up to the table next to us. The tables had some ambient lighting on them, and the one next to us was broken. It didn’t have a lampshade or bulb in it, which is actually why we didn’t sit there, even though it was a better seat. One of the girls decided to stick her finger in the socket, and… as you would guess, it had electricity going to it. She was yelling and shaking until someone pulled her away… and it sounded like her finger got cracked pretty good. It smelled all to burned flesh and they had to bring the lights up to take care of her for a few minutes, but I was pretty amazed how “the show went on” rather quickly. The people up front probably didn’t know what happened.

I toasted my birthday at midnight being that perfect age where I don’t go sticking my fingers in light sockets OR harassing security guards at pools while drinking. The sweet spot.

Falmouth, Jamaica:

Apparently, the thing to do in Jamaica is to see the falls. However, with Zliten just recovering from his bear fight and subsequent broken leg, and the travel time necessary, we decided to find the closest beach the cruise would take us to and just do that. This beach was Red Stripe beach.

When we got there around noon, it was truly just that – a little beach with a snack stand and waiters, a lifeguard, and massage services. The water was rough, it was cloudy and a little stormy, the swimming area roped off was very small, and there was ZIP to see in the water. We gave open water swimming a go and ended up spending 30 seconds to get 500m down and spent another 15 minutes getting back to where we started. I gave up and walked some of it.

However, you’re in Jamaica, on a beach. You enjoy being in/around the ocean, drink a red stripe, eat jerked chicken, and realize that your life is not so bad at all.

Grand Cayman:

We had an early, early 6am wakeup call so we could eat breakfast and be ready for an 8am dive excursion. We chose Grand Cayman instead of Cozumel for diving this time because it offered a one tank shore dive, which we’ve never done in the ocean before. It was really cheap, considering, and after researching, we figured we could get a second tank and go off on our own after.

Getting equalized sometime is a huge noob moment for me because it can take me a while, and diving from shore means plenty of time to get adjusted and chillin’ while everyone else gets acclimated.

And…. happy birthday to meeeee (well, a few days late, but), I finally got to see a turtle. He played with us for a while. I think we all would have continued to chase him down and play paparazzi, but the divemaster kept us on course.

We also got to see a trumpet fishie and play with some angel fish but… turtle!

Zliten didn’t want to risk injuring his leg again (dive gear is like 60-70 extra lbs, and it was a decent walk from loading it up to shore), and our day was already made, so we called it. We bought shirts, and headed to tourist trap central (Margaritaville) to get a drink and a snack.

It was a blast, but definitely a one-time thing. Grand Cayman had dollar amounts on the menu, which looked like pricey but typical… until they mentioned the fact that they also had to be translated to GC dollars. As I mentioned before, two local beers, 1 margarita, and chips and salsa cost 50 bucks.

However, they had a waterslide, and it was early enough not to be clogged up with drunk people, so I made liberal use of it before we left.

Cozumel:

While I had no idea how I could top seeing a turtle in GC, I think the best day of vacation was here in Cozumel.

We went to an all-inclusive resort called Playa Mia. All you can eat, drink, lounge, snorkel (well, with your own gear or rent it), play on the inflatable water slides… we were most looking forward to this day.

Of all these things, for us, snorkeling is priority number one, so we got there, got geared and sunscreened up, and headed into the water for the vaaaaast majority of the day.

First, we found this pot that were protected by the blue fishies. The seargent majors wanted to party but the other ones kept nipping them away. We saw a purple spot, which meant breeding area, Zliten said, so it made sense.

We found these awesome red starfish all over. After a while, someone yelled at us for picking them up, but I promise we were careful. We made sure to hold them delicately, and swim them back down instead of dropping them.

The biggest spotted eagle ray we’ve ever seen visited us in less than 20 feet of water! He probably had a bigger wingspan than I do, and was 10 feet tip to tail. I’m really glad I do sprints in the pool because otherwise I would have never been able to catch this guy, and calm down enough to get pictures that actually were focused. We followed him around like that for about 5 minutes, and then had to take a rest. They swim fast!

I found the most chill yellow spotted stingray in very shallow water. Zliten and our buddy Chris were still gearing up and getting in. I kept tabs on him for about 10 mins waiting for them. He was either very mellow, or was scared of me and didn’t want to move too much.

Also in very shallow water, I found a brown spotted eel. Usually these guys hide well, and you can only see them poke out of nooks and crannies, but he was just hanging out for everyone to see. I’m pretty sure the people hanging out and having drinks in the ocean around here probably would have freaked out about seeing an eel right below them, but I was excited!

Sergent majors are my favorite, and I think they know it too, because this school led me around when I went back in by myself after Zliten and Chris had enough. They got right up next to my camera. It was super fun!

The rest of the day was for priority 2: drinks. Since we only had about 1 hour left, and ship drinks were expensive, I put back quite a few dos equis! We had a great time drying out and chatting with Chris and Mary, and all of a sudden, it was last call for the bus, I forgot to eat, and we had to leave paradise. Sad.

We prolonged it a little by having some more beers by the boat, and I got some chips and guac. We took a little dip into the ocean right off the pier (it may or may not have been the most convenient place to pee), got fed lots of free shots, danced, and enjoyed our last minutes of our last day in port.

Fun things we did on the ship:

If we weren’t doing anything else, we were up on the Lido deck with our kindles, in swimsuits, reading and taking dips in the pool. That is the core of vacation relaxation for me.

Somehow this cruise, on the sea days, became all about the art. We went to the art auction, drank some champagne, and then “let’s not buy any more art” turned into “wow what a deal for 3 more Krasnyansky pictures” and we just got them in a tube yesterday ;D. Ah well. Obtaining stuff for our wall of Kras is now pretty complete, we just need to get it framed and put up.

The shows were pretty fun, but the Ice Show was actually pretty spectacular (yeah, the ship had an ice skating rink). Lots of ambitious choreography for a rocky ship and there was even a gal who hula hooped and did tricks while skating.

We went to the Majority Rules game show and paired up with some other random people. The point of the game is to guess what the majority of the groups are going to say to something – for example – What do you tell your boss when you can’t come to work? The majority said “I’m Sick” (and we got that one), but there were some people that said weird stuff like “I quit” or “I’m dead” or something like that. They did NOT get a point. We did well, but didn’t win. Oh well.

Lots of games with my parents. I won all but one! Birthday luck!

In Summary…

All in all, it was a great trip with much excitement, but I definitely didn’t come back feeling rested and refreshed. The silver lining there is it made us take March a little easier than normal, which seemed to be a GOOD THING in the grand scheme.

Question: What cruise port would you be most excited to visit for a day?

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

By Quix

On March 17, 2015

In Uncategorized

…just barely. But alive, yes.

Since we last chatted…

I ran a marathon.

I have this big long post written up but I just can’t bring myself to edit it for some reason.

The high points: I made a huge breakthrough and ran the whole fucking thing start to finish.

The low points: Even with a perfect weather day and running the whole thing, I clocked my second slowest time with a 5:04:29.

There’s a lot I’m still untangling emotionally that I’m not sure what it means, but at some point I need to just get it out and move forward. I’m just not there yet. And I don’t want to post 2000+ words of just drivel. So, I need to sort that out. I’m still not sure if I’m thrilled or disappointed and I really like to figure that one out before I immortalize it to look back on.

We went on vacation.

So many fun times, and several hundreds of pictures to comb through and edit. However, I got back on Sunday afternoon fucking exhausted, went back to work on Monday morning (big mistake), and haven’t had any downtime yet besides being sick in bed, so I haven’t edited those. So the vacation blog is also coming soon ™.

We celebrated my birthday (on vacation).

The drama involved security getting called on some feisty sandal-throwing granny in a bikini t-shirt and some drunk girl getting electrocuted 5 feet away from me, but luckily, I am in one piece, as 36 is old enough to know better than to touch live wires but too young to not give a fuck and be get-off-my-lawn cranky.

I’ll definitely elaborate in my vacation post. Fun stuff.

We celebrated Zliten’s birthday.

The day involved getting up to get him flowers and a PlayStation4 (which of course I didn’t get a picture of, like a good wife, instead I took a sweaty sunny selfie… priorities?). We frolicked together on a long run outside in the glorious sunshine, ate BBQ salads, played video games for a bit, and had some beers and sweet and savory pies for PI day with friends.

Then, my excuse for being unproductive…

I caught a really raunchy stomach bug. (no pictures, you’ll be thankful for that)

Sunday evening, I started feeling icky, and then late that night, started feeling awwwwful, like I had a knot in my stomach that was twisting like a knife. For me, barfing is a traumatic event, so I was pretty pitiful for a short while when I was down with the sickness. I took my first sick day in probably 2 years yesterday because I couldn’t get out of bed for more than 15 mins without feeling woozy. I feel like I’m on the mend but the house is a mess, there are a lot of things undone, and I’m way behind on errrrrrrything. Such is life. Recovery first. If you need to spend the day napping like a cat, nap like a cat.

My role model this month…

I had some February goals.

Training/racing: A-. I tapered like a champ. I felt ready going in. I actually executed pretty darn well on race day, but I wasn’t able to pull it into 4 hours-something. Besides the time goal, really, everything went as planned.

Eating/scale: eh…. C. I tracked some but not all of it. I definitely could do better. Working on it this month after vacation. The nice thing is my husband is actually on board because the scale is pissing HIM off, so that helps.

Work goals: B. I largely ignored one task because I was scared of it, but then once I got going, it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t feel as overwhelmed as I expected, so there’s that. I actually got quite a few levels in one game so I’ll focus on the other game this month.

Life stuff: A. I got the stuff I wanted to get in my kitchen stashed. I didn’t do the extra credit stuff but that’s ok. Another month.

I have very few March goals but let’s document them here:

Training:

Priority one: recover. Back off any session that feels bad. This month is for undertraining if I need to do so.
Run speed work. Shorter runs, but adding more pops of speed and tempo sessions over lots of volume.
Slight bike and swim ramp up as appropriate. Focus on speed over distance.

Racing:

Go for a 10 mile PR at Austin 10/20 (sub-1:37). This may be a little reaching right now, but I’ll go in trying to run about 9:30s and stick with it as long as I can. I’ve not gone into this race so soon after a goal race, so we’ll see how this one unfolds.

Food/Scale:

Survive. Also, track everything that’s not on this list:

Meat
Veggies/Fruits
Healthy plant fats (nuts/olives)

This will give me a good idea of how many additional carbs I’m eating (potatoes, corn products, etc), how much additional fats I’m using (dressing, sauces, etc), and how much junk food I’m eating. Also, since I seem to be annoyed tracking my food, it may make me make better choices.

Unfortunately, this all went to hell on Zliten’s birthday (planned) and then since I got the stomach bug I’ve been living on junk food because it’s all I can digest (unplanned), but once I can ingest real healthy stuff again, I’m back to it.

Work:

Get at least one level in game 2. There’s a lot going on. Make sure it all stays on the rails. Survive is also a good goal here.

Life:

Priority one: recover (from the marathon and stomach bug and life). Don’t get swept up into March having to be too crazy. Say no to things that are too much even if you don’t get to do all the cool things or you have to not be as productive as you want to be. Recovery is key.

Priority two: total baby steps here – I want to clean off the butcher block in the kitchen. Zliten wants to clean off his desk in the office. Do this small thing and we’ll get back to slightly bigger goals in April.

And with that, I’ll get back to keepin’ on keepin’ on and hopefully there will be some less “sorry for abandoning the blog” posts soon.

Vacation Recap: Florida and the Bahamas

By Quix

On December 17, 2014

In Uncategorized

Here’s the rest of the Florida/Bahamas fun. Please excuse the words as they’re just there to justify the giant picture dump.

Friday: The Day Before the Day Before

Last year, I forgot to eat and found myself eating my first meal at 6:30pm and it involved a giant burger, fries, potato skins, and a beer. This year, I planned ahead and we had a breakfast of leftover turkey corn tacos and we headed to the airport full, not starving.

Traveling with Zliten on crutches was both wonderful and terrible at points. I had to lug all the suitcases, which was not great, but the minute we got to the gate, Southwest folks got us a wheelchair, we got priority check in and through the priority security line, and then we got to board first and got to sit in the first row with all the leg room. Hopefully we never have to do it again, but it has it’s perks.

When we got to Orlando, we took a shuttle to pick up our steed at Sixt, and while I’ve never gone with this company before since they’re not at the airport, I regret that and will never rent with anyone else again if I can help it. The service was great, we got no pressure to upgrade, do extra insurance (my amex + regular insurance covers everything needed), and we ended up with a small SUV for a really reasonable rate. Score!

We made it to Melbourne before the packet pickup closed, and it was a breeze. I was really hoping to skip the expo since it would have been a nightmare for Zliten. Also, the shirt was pretty awesome this year, so I decided to skip any extra merchandise.

The night before the night before is about two things for me: eating and sleeping a lot. I took care of the first with some Ruby Tuesday’s – I got the seafood trio and ate an INSANE amount of salad bar.

Then, I had a nice hot bath and climbed into bed and I crashed. For 12 hours.

Saturday: The Day Before

I woke up feeling very refreshed and calm. I headed to the free breakfast but kept it in check – I had a bunch of bacon and an apple with PB and some nuts from my snack stash. I read for a bit, but then the pool outside was calling so I enjoyed that for a bit. I weighed the merits of a shakeout run vs more swimming and swimming won.

Generally, we do a movie the day before races and this was no exception, we had a 2pm appointment with the Mockingjay. I realized on the way there that I was getting hungry, so I needed some sort of snack before the movie. I hit up the mall food court for something and the only safe-ish food I saw was a subway veggie salad. This marathon was full of salad power. It hit the spot and I didn’t eat any moviegoers or chairs in the theatre. The movie was pretty good too!

For dinner, we went to Florida’s version of a Texas steakhouse, Backwoods, and it was pretty spot on. I very reluctantly skipped the fried pickles, and had a small filet with mashed potatoes and baked potato soup. I decided I had enough “salad power” mojo and needed some carby carbs.

Again with the bath and settled into bed and was almost asleep and then my brain realized “OMG WE HAVEN’T THOUGHT ABOUT THE RACE ALL DAY SO LETS THINK ALL THE THINGS”. Lesson learned. Even if Zliten isn’t racing, I still have to annoy him a LITTLE BIT with race talk or I’ll suffer later. I got maybe 3 hours of toss-y turn-y sleep.

Sunday: Publix Sandwich Day (I mean, Marathon Day)

I discussed the race in length here, so I’ll skip that for now.

On the way back from the race, I headed into Publix and got two footlong sandwiches clad in full race gear, medal, number, sweat, and all. I got some stares, and cheers, and probably some jeers due to my funk, but it was worth it. Those sandwiches are magical.

I downed that, some beer, and some chips and sat out on the balcony reading… and then I started to fade. In a weird way. Like, the amount of caffeine I had should NOT have had me fading at 3pm. Once I got inside, I felt great. The heat really did a number on me that day.

We waited until the sun wasn’t right on it, and went down to the pool. Let me tell you, if you get a chance, get in a pool as quickly as you can after a long hard race. I really think how quickly my legs bounced back was a product of how much water time I had the week after.

After the pool, there was a lot of laying in bed and reading, and then I slept pretty solidly for 9 hours. I like this post race trend. I used to sleep really fitfully but the last two long races? Like a log.

Monday: In Transit

After being good with my food choices, I was excited to take advantage of the breakfast offerings and had some fresh made waffles with syrup, bacon, and cereal. We got repacked fairly quickly and got on the road a little late, but well within the acceptable time to make it to Miami before the boat left.

I did something I haven’t done in forever – we had lunch at a fast food chain. And, I actually didn’t regret it. Hardees actually makes a pretty solid burger. Zliten said it was WAY better than the burger he got at Ruby Tuesday’s and they’re, like, an upscale burger restaurant.

The drive was fairly uneventful, we made it to the Sixt drop off around two and they already had a cab waiting for us to get to the ship by the time we had paid. Love them.

Once we got to the cruise terminal, Zliten was whisked into a wheelchair, through priority lines, through the back of the terminal, and onto the boat in a jiffy. Again, hope we never have to do this again, but it was pretty nice.

Because I had marathon metabolism going strong, I needed some second lunch. We hit the buffet and as would be the norm for the next few days, I’d grab a few plates of stuff and Zliten and I would nibble on it. Crutches + buffet line = nothing happening, so I was on food duty. I had some delicious shrimp chowder and curry and salad, and I would meet my best friend for the trip (and the reason my pants shrunk) – pretzel bread. So, so good.

We brought our kindles and read until the boat drill happened, then I stowed our clothes once we got our suitcases. I told myself I’d wait and ended up missing the first bit of sailing away, but I was just compelled to have to do it then.

After chores were done, we had a sailaway drink or two on deck. I had a margarita (I had been craving one for months), Zliten got a mai tai, we tried a rebellious fish, and then got sold on the bottle service when we priced out the options. It took us three days to finish it, so I’m going to say it was worth it.

After having our fill of rum, we headed down to dinner after I changed. I brought nice things to wear to dinner I was wearing them, damnit! We had the most fantastic waitstaff for dinner (Irish and Cloria) and we requested them every night. They were so fun and Irish kept bringing us little snacks from the Philipines from her personal stash.

This particular meal was loaded corn on the cobb, cheese tortellini soup, salad with blue cheese (their blue dressing was to die for, so I had that pretty much every day), Moroccan veggie cous cous, and half the bread basket. And, I had to have dessert, because it was chocolate melting cake with cookie ice cream and strawberry sauce.

All you can do after a meal like that is read and sleep, so we did just that.

Tuesday: Freeport Snorkel

7:20am is usually an ungodly hour on a cruise but since we slept so early it was fine. We hit the buffet for breakfast, and I tried to avoid crappy crashy carbs since we had a full day of activity planned, so I had plenty of corn beef hash (they made it totally the WRONG way, it wasn’t good), home fries, bacon, fruit, and cheese.

I wasn’t a huge fan of their breakfast, to be honest. On other ships, there is more variety for people like me who really don’t love breakfast food, but I ate that same plate of food pretty much every morning because there wasn’t much for people who didn’t do eggs and didn’t want carb overload.

After we digested a bit, we got off the ship and headed into Freeport to meet up with our tour. We wandered around a bit and then got told to sit in a spot, and we waited, and waited, and then finally they told us we were at the wrong place. Grrr. No harm, no foul, as the other group had not left yet, and we got into the van and headed out for adventure!

Our guides Shammie and Michael were fantastic and Shammie spent all the driving time giving us ecology info about the island. He was very smart and well educated.

Our first stop was a blue hole, which is essentially an ocean sink hole. I’ve seen pictures of some epic blue holes in Belize, so I was excited. This one was CONSIDERABLY smaller, but still neat.

Our second stop was Paradise Cove. This included two of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had snorkeling.

One – they feed the fish regularly here so they swam with us like we were in their school. This was so fun!

Two, we got to get up close and personal with a golden spotted eel. He was chilling in 2 feet of water and we didn’t get a lot of spectacular pictures but it was definitely a highlight.

So instead, here’s one of my FAVORITE fish.

Our guide did a lot of diving down and picking up cool stuff for us to look at and while at first I was pretty “meh” on the idea of having a guide, it was totally worth it. We got to shore and realized that it had been 90 minutes out in the water. Holy crap! Time passes so fast for me in the water.

The time past was not lost on my stomach, and I was thankful they had us put in our order before we set out – fish sticks and fries were waiting for me and they were DELICIOUS (in the sense that I was soooo hungry). Our tour group probably thought I inhaled my food wayyy too fast but I told them I did a marathon 2 days ago so WHATEVS.

After we had lunch, we got back in our chariot and headed to a mangrove marsh and brought out the kayaks. By this point I had been wet and cold all day and was a little upset about having to be in front but I found out that both of us got just as wet and I ended up having a lot of fun anyway, so there’s that. We found out about the cycles of mangroves, and how if you are in a young area, you sink in the mud, but if it’s more mature, you can get out and stand. Crazy! We kayaked almost 2 miles before we packed up and headed back.

After we got back to the port, we got ourselves a Sands beer. It’s their local Bahamian one, and we actually passed the brewery on the way back, and just like most beers of the Carribean, it was light and refreshing. Finally, I got my wet, cold, and shivery butt back on board and took a very long hot shower.

We brought our rum bucket up to the pool deck and watched the boat sail away and the sun start to set. We wanted to do the art auction (kind of), and we collect the prints they give out (mostly why we wanted to go), but Zliten was very settled and didn’t want to have to crutch down, so I checked in on it about an hour in. And then it kept going. And going. Finally after another hour, I asked if I could get my print because I had to go to dinner. I may have spent a karma point or two there but dang. Looooong auction was long.

Once I got back I required a drink and Zliten required sustinence, so he poured me on while I trolled the buffet for a snack. I grabbed us some random munchies, including my beloved pretzel bread, some malai kofta which I love, and some really yummy cold salads.

Zliten makes me laugh.

Finally around 8:30 we decided to hit the real dinner. We split a fried brie (which is as wonderful as you would imagine), too much bread, shrimp minestrone, salad w/blue cheese, a potato and cauliflower curry, and a chocolate raspberry cake.

Apparently I slipped Zliten roofies (he later remembered he took a benedryl), because he was falling asleep during dinner, and I think we both conked out before 10.

Wednesday: Diving at Nassau

Unlike most diving adventures, we didn’t have to be up at the crack of dawn. The excursion wasn’t until 11:30. However, Zliten was so excited he was up by 6:30, and I even couldn’t sleep past 8:45. So, breakfast it was. Same as the day before.

I read and Zliten got our dive bags together, and we got off the boat VERY early. He went sans crutch (we feared the dive company wouldn’t be happy about taking someone with a fractured leg on board even though the doctor cleared him to do so) so we took it very slow. Even so, we had a wait, but hanging out in the beautiful Bahamian sunshine was only so much of a burden. 🙂

The company picked us up and we spent 45 mins bussing to the other side of the island. We saw lots of cool buildings, a new Chinese gambling resort going up, and Sean Connery’s house. I wouldn’t be in any hurry to go back to Freeport, but I’d come visit Nassau itself for a vacation. We ended up at a big marina on a big dive boat with just a few people. Nice!

My ears were feeling a little off since Sunday, so I warned them I might take a while getting down to depth. I also tweaked a quad muscle getting my gear and weights on. Annoying. The worst part of diving is the gear, it’s quite heavy and cumbersome.

I did have trouble with ear squeezes (when the pressure doesn’t equalize properly, it feels like someone is pinching your ear drums) both times, but I made it eventually. With that stuff, you just have to be patient or you can rupture your ear drums. No dive is worth that.

The first dive was an 80-100 foot wall dive called Sand Chute, and it’s the first time since my certification I’ve been down that deep. It was really cool to see the wall go from the 60 feet it started at just off into nothingness of 6k feet of ocean floor. A little terrifying, but a lot awesome. We saw a baracuda, but there wasn’t a lot of notable ocean life out, and that was fine, because I had a bunch of noob moments with my buoyancy and trying to wrangle the camera. Oh well.

When we got back to the boat, I headed straight for the bathroom (turning over a new leaf of not peeing in my wetsuit, I guess). When I got out, there were a bunch of people I didn’t recognize and I was scared I got on the wrong boat, but they had ferried out the Discover Scuba (aka – we want to dive but we have no official license) crew. Makes sense why we had such an empty boat for the first one!

The second dive was better. Zliten and I got to go explore the James Bond wreck (a boat wrecked for a 70s Bond movie, I forget which one) on our own.

We got to play with some Angel fishies. It looked like a mama, daddy, and fairly big baby fish. Even if not, it was more fun to think of it that way.

These looked like something out of an anime to me, but they are actually places where sick coral is nursed back to health. I didn’t get too close because I didn’t want to hurt it.

Zliten found this guy and grabbed him to show to me. Once we put him back on the ocean floor, he came out of his shell and flicked his antenae angrily at me, standing his ground.

And of course, there was much gorgeous flora and fauna. Any day when you can blow bubbles is a good day.

Once Zliten was out of air (he uses about twice what I do – he was actually below 10% of the tank and I was at 50%), we did our safety stop and surfaced and were actually the last ones on the boat. We rode back to the marina, found a sweet t-shirt to buy, and got on the bus back to the boat and snacked on a kind bar and some gatorade.

Once again, I enjoyed a nice long hot shower and then we got “lunch snacks” (aka dinner buffet) around 6 – including split pea soup, lentil salad, my homie pretzel bread, and some salad. We got the rum bucket and finished it up while we watched the diving videos and shuffled through the pictures on the tablet.

I was onto my two nicer dresses so it took a little motivation but I dressed for dinner. I finally got Zliten to do so as well. I had a goat cheese puff (didn’t eat half of it, it wasn’t that great), but I did have some of Zliten’s lamb kofta, another salad, coconut shrimp curry, a few bites of carbonara pasta, and this nutella in a mug pudding desert that ruled my world.

Apparently, I drugged Zliten again, because it was reading and sleepy time after dinner. We stayed up almost until midnight, we are party animals.

Thurs: Sea Day Out of Nowhere

I slept sort of fitfully because my ears hadn’t drained from the diving, and I was hoping I’d be fine to snorkel. We woke up to the announcement that the port was cancelled because of high winds. The tender wouldn’t be very safe, and even if we got there, conditions would be crappy. I was about half bummed because, well, you don’t get to snorkel on a private island every day, and half happy because I could use a relaxing day on land.

We went to the dining room for breakfast since we were up already and were in no hurry. It wasn’t much different than upstairs. I did indulge in some pancakes, and they did actually have hashbrown cakes instead of home fries, but I had the same bacon and fruit as upstairs.

We spent most of the day on deck reading. I think by that point I had made it through 3 or 4 books. Love vacations and getting lost in a book. I spent the day in jeans – it was nice and sunny but a little windy and in the 70s. While some folks from the north were playing in the pool and sunbathing, that’s fall weather for us here in Austin.

We hit the dining room for lunch as well. I went incredibly unhealthy with a popcorn shrimp appetizer with jalapeno tartar sauce which was spectacular, and a shrimp burger (burger made of shrimps) on a pretzel bun. I couldn’t help myself.

Did some meandering about the ship. We checked out the shops and the photos and didn’t find anything. I checked out the wine tasting but decided to open the bottles we brought on board instead. We listened to some live bands by the pool and watch the Mrs. Bicep competition (I decided against trying to compete, lol).

We hit up the art auction and had some champagne and actually bought some art! When the auction for three Krasnyanskys went up, Zliten and I both could picture where to put them in the house so we bid and won! I also guessed closest to the actual price of the Picasso and ended up getting two more free prints. They’re being shipped to the house now. I’m so excited for new art! Wheee!

I couldn’t even bring myself to change for dinner so we went casual. We had our last dinner with Irish and Cloria. As normal, all the bread and butter, a pork spring roll, tomato soup, salad with blue cheese, and a crab and fish cake. For desert, I got a Mexican brownie with dulce de leche topping and vanilla ice cream. I had some great food on this cruise but I think this may have been the top.

After dinner we sat by the pool and drank our last bottle of wine. I think both of us were kind of ready to sleep after that dinner but we had paid the corkage fee, so we were going to drink it, darn it! We got our luggage packed and put outside the room right at the midnight deadline, and then, you guessed it, read and slept.

Friday: My Own Couch!

Since this is already epic in length, I’ll keep this short.

Got up and ate the same breakfast. We spent 4 hours at the airport and had some pretty epic mahi tacos for lunch. Read a lot of my book. Had drink tickets for the flight that had to be used this year and it’s kinda crazy how quickly you get tipsy on a plane. It was a little bumpy but beautiful.

We got home and spent the weekend relaxing.

The end!

Pajaro Dunes/Monterey Bay

By Quix

On September 1, 2014

In Uncategorized

When last we spoke, I was boarding an airplane from Portland to San Jose.

The flight was entirely uneventful. We emerged on the other side, hugged Zliten’s parents, who had been at the airport for, like, 4 hours. They expected traffic and hit NONE so they just spent the afternoon reading and drinking coffee. We loaded up our suitcases into their truck, and drove down to our condo on the beach.

We passed a lot of farmland and a lot of middle-of-nowhere and I was a little skeptical until we rolled into the condo and saw the sunset over the beach from our balcony and all was legit with the world.

They had taken it upon themselves to bring food in a giant cooler for all the meals and a bunch of snacks. It was 80% super duper thoughtful and 20% tricky for us because of food allergies/preferences/I need some goddamn veggies or I go crazy. We had super yummy burritos the first night (regular white flour tortilla – such a splurge…) and chips and salsa and guac. I also probably ate my weight in peanut m and ms and chex mix and trail mix over the three days we were there because they were just there. Sigh. Between that and the all the previous beer, the scale and I STILL are not friends.

We played hand and foot – Zliten’s dad and I sort of dominated both games, and then we crawled into the highest bed ever. I’m not kidding, it had a step stool to get into.

The next morning, we made sure to take time to get a short beach run in. I made up songs about the bird collectives that were hanging out on the beach (which made me think of Oiselle) and then on the way back Zliten stomped through their territory and made them all scatter. I was worried, but not an ounce of bird shit soiled his clothes. I think we may have spent a few karma points there.

I found a bunch of really in tact sand dollars and ran with one for a few miles to bring it home with me. Also, we found a dead guitar shark (it has another name but come on… looks like a guitar shark) on the beach. After a half hour of awesomely slow beach running in beautiful cloudy and 60s temps, I took off my shoes and got in for a Pacific ice bath for a few minutes. So, so, so good. I wish I could do that every morning after my summer runs instead of jumping into a not-cold shower all the way turned cold. *insert wistful sigh here*

We ate some breakfast after – I made myself a big bowl of veggies and dip and had some trail mix and some fruit. We played some more games (more winning) and then took a walk on the beach with the ‘rents. We ended up going really far down and back, and took about an hour and a half – in the middle of the day – which meant a really wicked sunburn. Oops. It was a really nice walk though, it was this weird dance of Zliten’s mom not wanting to get her feet wet and I pretty much wanted to be in the ocean the entire time, so lots of zig zagging to the water and back.

The whole vacation we had been craving pizza and holding out, and they had Round Table in the area (one of the pizza chains I’m assuming is only on the west coast), so we indulged. I got a small supreme and Zliten and the family got a hawaiian and we snacked on it all vacation. Ah, pizza. Love it. The rest of the night was games and family time, after a quick break to watch the sunset.

Friday was our last full day of vacay, but it was to be one of the best… we were going to Monterey Bay aquarium! First, another beach run. Gorgeous. Then we took the hour drive down and spent the afternoon at the aquarium. Picture ‘splosion below. I took soooo many, running multiple cameras out of juice, but here’s my fave few.

Lionfish and starfish.

Jellyfish.

Jellies, jellies, and more jellies.

Loooong jellies are long.

California sheephead fish. Took FOREVER to get a decent picture, they swim fast!

Assorted tropical fishies – the kind which we see when snorkeling in the Caribbean (which made us wish we were snorkeling).

After a much needed fish taco stop and loooooong drive home in traffic we made it back to our dunes. The night held more games, chicken cheesesteaks (on white rolls – again, super splurge), and another break to try to watch the sunset from the deck. It was cloudy, so not quite as impressive, but watching the sun go down over the ocean is never a disappointment.

Saturday morning we took one more quick run – we needed detergent to finish some wash, so we ran through the national park to get to the condo office, and then the beach on the way back. I took one more dip in the ocean in my run clothes, and then went and spent some time on the deck – apparently there were some dolphins playing right near where we were splashing. Awesome!

We got packed up and said goodbye to our home in the dunes and headed to the airport through a mountain so we could see something different, and then (after a long day of travel ending about midnight), we were home.

I really enjoyed spending time with so many people in so many locations, but it was hard to really settle into vacation mode packing up and changing home bases so often. Still, lots of fun and it was exciting to run and swim and explore three new places in a week!

(…and yes, now that I’ve been back 5 weeks, I’ve finally wrapped it up, never say I’m not timely!)

Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: vacation Page 8 of 12

Why I’m Leaving Austin and Moving to Bonaire… – Part 1

Cruise Highlights: Turtles, Rays, and Drunk Grannies, Oh My!

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Vacation Recap: Florida and the Bahamas

Pajaro Dunes/Monterey Bay

About Me

Search

Pages

Archives

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login