It's Like We Know What We Are Doing

November 10th, 2013 At this point, I'm like a broken little china doll.  The Demon Cold is pretty much gone, but I have the back issue and have had intermittent headaches and...you really don't care one lick about this.  Do you??  You're here for one thing. A story about flying in a hot air balloon. A few days before we left for Napa, I was showing Mom the itinerary.  We had one day free to do whatever we wanted.  But I had gotten the itinerary pretty late in the game, so I didn't even research what we wanted to do.  As I showed Mom the hotel online, there was a link to a hot air balloon company.  "Haha!!"  We both pretty much laughed it off.  "It sure would be cool to do one day..."  We looked at the pricing.  Just cause.  It was in the low $200's.  Which...expensive.  No doubt.  But we kept it in mind.  Just in case.  Cause...it was something. We were going to talk to the concierge...

November 9th, 2013 What I tend to forget is that most of what makes up Napa is just agriculture.  It's farming.  In the drunken stupor that follows the wine tastings (for some folks...I'm doing better than I thought I might.  Then again, there is the Mom Factor.  I don't need to be hammered around Mom), you tend to forget that when all is said and done, without the farming, we wouldn't be drinking this glorious nectar. I decided against taking NyQuil last night.  The Demon Cold seems to have broken, so now I'm really just dealing with my pulled back situation.  The problem though is without the NyQuil, I'm waking up at my normal time.  Chicago time.  Which man...this is not helpful on West Coast time.  So I'm up at 5a just twiddling my thumbs.  Or playing Candy Crush.  Or writing a blog.  No matter what, being up at 5a blows when you could sleep in. We started with waffles for breakfast.  And they were good.  No champ...

November 8th, 2013 God Bless you, NyQuil and all that you stand for. The Demon Cold is mostly at bay.  I slept like a log last night.  And that is everything I wanted from the night.  This is my Achilles heel when I travel.  If I don't get enough sleep, I suffer from migraines.  When the Demon Cold is also added to the mix, I'm even worse.  I'm beyond impressed I was able to survive as much as I did yesterday.  Thank god we didn't have many tastings yesterday.  I wouldn't have survived the day.  Today, I had to be on my game.  We were visiting three wineries.  It's what I've been training my whole life for.  And here I am...basically injured.  Not how I wanted to deal with Napa. Before we started drinking, we needed to eat first.  Now we could have started with some champagne, but I didn't think it would be wise.  I'd rather make my bad decisions later in the day.  The breakfast spread here was impressive. ...

November 7th, 2013 There are so many reasons this trip may implode.  And they're all to do with me. It doesn't help that I've been blessed with the Demon Cold.  This little bastard showed up on Sunday afternoon and has been killing me slowly all week.  I mean, I stayed home for work on Monday.  DayQuil and NyQuil have been my constant companions over the past few days and nights.  And I've had no appetite to speak of.  So, yeah.  Let's go to Napa. I also seem to have thrown my back out this morning.  Or I think that's the case as I'm dealing with some sciatica pains shooting up my butt cheek(s). It also doesn't help that one week from today, I'll be on a flight somewhere else.  Kind of a big deal trip. I'm an idiot. But, Napa.  And Mom needs time away.  So...let's do this. The troubles didn't entirely stop with my Demon Cold.  Our flight left O'Hare at 6am.  Which means we leave the house by 330a.  Which means I wake ...

Sigh.   I really don't have any excuse. Two months have come and gone.  No fewer than three trips have been had.  And I have posted nothing. It's not like I haven't tried.  I have various posts saved in various places.  But nothing seemed to stick.    I've found that if I don't write while I am on the road, I don't write.  So...lesson learned. But I have been here and there in the last few months.  So...what better to do than share a few pictures. Florida - September I tend to hit the Orlando area once a year.  There are always reasons.  Mostly, just cause I want to be in Orlando.  It is my most favoriteist place in the whole world.  And while I haven't been everywhere , I've been to enough places to know I love the theme park mecca of Orlando.  When an opportunity came about for me to travel to Central Florida for work, I knew I would go.  And I knew I'd stop at Orlando for a few days first...