It's Like We Know What We Are Doing

May 29th, 2017 Adele and I were the only overnight guests during the second night of our stay at the Jungle Land Lodge.   While it might seem creepy, it ended up being pretty fantastic to be there solo.   We could do what we wanted when we wanted.   And the excursions were set to our level of fun.   Even if our level of fun was to nap in a hammock with a glass of wine in hand. On our first night we were taken on a night safari after dinner.   We didn't know what to expect on a night safari.   Adele and I piled into an open-air boat and drove out into the night.   Captain Carl found a few baby crocodiles and the sky opened.   I donned my Walt Disney World poncho and was a bit miserable, because poncho (I hate ponchos).   I was still ready to go out a second time.   But I not so secretly hoped I wouldn't need the poncho again. Luiz was our guide for our second night.   Where Captain Carl was snarky and lackadaisical (which ...

Early June, 2016 When our Travel Agent met the family at Uluru , she said she was "in town" for Vivid Sydney.  I wasn't entirely sure what she meant at the time.  I thought I had read something about Vivid as we moved around the country.  But I didn't really understand what it was.  She was very excited and said she would report back when she arrived in Sydney. When we were in Hobart, I got an e-mail from our agent.  "Vivid Sydney is amazing!!  You're going to have a great time!!"  By this point, I had read a bit more about Vivid, but didn't entirely understand what we would be seeing. This.  We'd be seeing this. The Vivid Sydney website calls the festival a place where "art, technology and commerce intersect."  It began in 2009 and has grown since then.  In 2016, it was a 23 day festival, with art installations, live music and speakers scattered around the city.  Basically, you couldn't swing a dead cat without ru...

September 1st, 2015 Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a religious person.  I'm not going to crap all over anyone's religion, because to each their own.  It's just something that for me is not a thing.  But there was something in Madrid that caught my eye from the beginning. Nun Cookies. So picture this, cloistered Nuns bake cookies and people buy them.  But you don't actually see the Nuns.  You hit a button on a random door and hope they let you in.  Then, you buy the cookies by saying which one you want (or getting the ones you are given) and pay by way of a Lazy Susan. Something about this whole thing intrigued me from the start.  We knew this was on our list. We tried in the morning to find the cookies.  Directions are a bit sketchy, but the actual address is Calle del Codo 3.  Once you find the Mercado de San Miguel (that is a story for another day...when I get the time to write it up), walk on the street running parallel to the rig...