Jen's Lake House Trip Including Visits to Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee

Sunnyvale, CA - The end of October is quickly approaching and I'm just now starting to post pictures from last summer.  Not good.  Maybe I need to take less photos, or maybe do less stuff.  But to be honest, with the baby coming in about 6 weeks, there will no shortage of photos to work on.  My goal however, is to get somewhat caught up before the little nugget show up.  We'll see how that works out.

In any case, lets get going on this post.  For this set of photos, we go back to Memorial Day Weekend and the kick off of our summer.  The story that goes along with the photos, however, goes way back to the late 90's I think.  Sometime around there I was invited on a trip to Pismo Beach, CA for some beach camping and  a little 4x4 fun in the sand dunes.  It was there that my friend Natalie introduced me to her friend from grad school, Jennifer.  I think Natalie's idea was to get two like souls in the same place at the same time and see if any sparks were made.  I'm not sure about the sparks, but after that weekend it was fairly clear to me that if our paths continued to cross, Jen would certainly become a friend for life.

10 years and many a crossed path later, I now consider Jen one of my closest friends.  However, Jen is not the only grad school friend Natalie has introduced me to.  Add to that list Michael (which of course includes Christy) & Stacy, all of whom I also consider essential pieces of my inner sanctum.  And lets not forget Moffat (who unfortunately we only see once every other blue moon) and Sandra (who we just met this year, but will certainly see more of). 

Anyway, to get to the point... Ever since this group of grad school friends went their separate ways, they have been at least attempting to meet up once a year.  The venue has traditionally been Jen's family lake house in Alabama.  Suwei and I have been invited to attend for a number of years, and although we kept hearing great things about the trip, we never seemed to make it out for the party.  That is.. until this year!

Jen's Lake House Trip

Maybe it was due to all the running around we did in the spring or maybe it's the pregnancy that had mellowed us, but a nice relaxing weekend on the lake sounded absolutely perfect this year. Then again it might have been that a good deal of our friends were going to be out there and we hadn't yet booked up our Memorial Day Weekend. In any case the trip seem to be just what the doctor ordered.  So, we booked two tickets to Atlanta.

We still consider Alabama a good distance away.  So, in order to maximize our trip and see as much as possible, we decided to stay for a week.  So, besides visiting the gang at the lake house (which by the way was super perfect.. good friends, great food, beautiful house, incredibly inviting lake.  What more could you ask for?) we were also able to visit Peace Corps friends Deb, Rand and their son Ben in Atlanta, where we learned about geocaching, hiked up Stone Mountain, and celebrated National Doughnut Day.  .  We also visited Jen's home up in Southern Tennessee where we rafted the Ocoee River (same trip I did with the Swedes in '09) and tried to learn to roll a kayak (definitely not as easy as Jen makes it look.)  Add to that a day trip out to Tallulah Gorge State Park and you have a fairly fun filled week.

Playing with Jen and Brian in Southern Tennessee

Tallulah Gorge State Park, Georgia

Hanging out in Atlanta with Deb, Rand and Ben

Celebrating National Doughnut Day


Hiking with Ben on Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain Laser Light Extravaganza

Thank you Jen for the invite I'm sure we'll make it out there again real soon. And thank you to Deb, Rand and Ben for hosting us in Atlanta. Wish we got to see you folks more often.

Here is link to the slide show with lots more photos:

Lake House Trip Including Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee

Suntrek Trip #4 - Florida Sunshine "B"

Lafayette, CO - Wow, I am really getting behind in my posts now. Suwei and I just spent a week making our way down to Las Vegas for a bit of climbing out at Red Rock Canyon over Thanksgiving. I brought along a new (at least new for me) camera and tripod and shot another bunch of new photos that I may or may not get around to processing this year. And here I am just getting around to working on photos from August.

Speaking of August... Here are some photos from way back than.

On August 16th, I left New York City and headed south to Miami, FL to start my 4th tour with Suntrek. I had one week to get there So, I decided to make a few stops on the way down.

My first stop was in Arlington, Virgina where I stayed with our friends Tommy and Jessica. Suwei and I met Tommy and Jessica while hiking the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. Since then Suwei has run a half marathon with them in California, we've gone ice climbing with them in Colorado, and they came to our wedding in Utah. You might say, they are a couple after our own hearts. Anyway, they are living just outside of Washington DC now and since I'd managed to pass through the area three times during the course of the summer and had not managed to see them once, I thought I'd pop by and say, "Hi". On top of that, the three previous times I passed though DC, I was so busy that I didn't get to see much more than the campsite in Maryland, the local Jiffy Lube, and the laundromat. DC just seemed to be an ideal place to get chores done and catch up on planning my tours. This time, however, I vowed to be a bit of a tourist myself. So, I spent a day museum hopping down at the National Mall.

Washington DC (Clockwise): Space Helmet at The National Air and Space Museum, Tyrannosaurus at the National Museum of Natural History, The Washington Monument, The Capitol Building, Smithsonian Sign, The National Museum of the American Indian, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Kermit the Frog in the National Museum of American History, & one from the lobby of the National Museum of Natural History.

From Washington DC I continued south stopping for the night at Hunting Island State Park in South Carlonia, had coffee in Savannah, Georgia, passed a drug test in Jacksonville, Florida, saw a movie in Daytona Beach and still had time left over to sleep a day on the beach in Hollywood, Florida.

Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina


Savannah, Georgia

Hollywood, Florida

On August 22nd I met my fourth group at the Ocean Surf Hotel in Miami Beach. We got a little bit of a slow and worrisome start when one of the girls didn't show up at the prescribed meeting time. The desk clerk at the hotel informed me that she had not checked in the night before and that they had no record of her staying at the hotel. That kicked off calls to the Suntrek office and a frantic search for our lost passenger. Turns out she was up in her room the whole time and just didn't hear her alarm clock. She got up two hours late, found my note at the front desk and gave us a call. I was much more angry at the hotel staff for telling me she wasn't there. After a few quick stops at Best Buy, Target, subway, and a Publix, we were on our way to Key West.

This trip was called, "Florida Sunshine B." The "B" just denotes that we were going the opposite direction of trip "A". The Florida Sunshine trip is a one week camping tour from Miami to Orlando with stops in Key West, Everglades National Park, Naples, Sanibel Island, Fort Meyers, St. Petersburg, and Tampa. There were only 7 passengers, so we had plenty of room in the van. Nationalities included 2 Australians, 3 Germans, and 2 from Great Britain. Here are some of the photos:

Group Shot (from left): Christine, Richelle, Danielle, Nick, Sharielle, Olga, and Jule.

Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys

Sunset view from our campsite in Key West.


Key West (Clockwise): The Southern Most Point in the Continental US, Geared up and ready for Snorkeling, Sharielle working through her fish phobia, and finally group nap time.

Air Boating in The Everglades, Bowman Beach on Sanibel Island, Nick lost in the Everglades, Karl in Naples (thanks Christine for the photo), Gator Spotting in the Everglades, Bowman Beach on Sanibel Island.

Thanks again to another great group. Hope you all enjoy the pics. If you'd like to see a few more click on the slide show link below. Don't forget to hit full screen to watch the slide show.

Suntrek Trip #4 - Florida Sunshine "B"