I’ve had a running list for a long time of things I want to do I call “local to me” before I move to another place.  One that has been lingering for almost 10 years of living here was finally accomplished last week when Patricia and I took off for the Florida Keys.

We needed the trip. I needed a reboot. It’s been a tough, crazy, stressful bit of time lately and we just needed to get away. So we found a cheap hotel in the Keys and went for it (we booked it on Hotwire so didn’t know the reviews were so bad – it was about as reviewed!).

The “Upper Keys” start with Key Largo and they are about 300 miles from our house. The “Lower Keys” end with Key West and it’s about 400 miles from here. So even though they are close, they aren’t a day trip there and back. We decided to stay in the “Upper Keys” in Islamorada for 2 nights so our drive there wasn’t too bad and that gave us a full day trip to Key West and back.

I have some observations and highlights for you.

OBSERVATIONS

The Florida Keys are awesome, but it depends on what you want to do. If you’re big into fishing and diving, it may be the best in the country. But it’s a long way to go for beautiful beaches and drives. Central Florida offers great alternatives: the causeways and bridges in Tampa are just as beautiful, the beaches in the Sarasota area (like Siesta Key) are perhaps even better than the Keys, and the Cape Canaveral National Seashore offers similar and closer land and marsh.

The Keys offer isolation and that can be good or bad depending on what you’re looking for.

Going down we took I-95 all the way to the end then merged onto US-1 the rest of the way. Although it’s not that far from the end of 95 to the Keys (about 40 miles), there are A LOT of stop lights! Coming home we bypassed it on the Florida Turnpike! But I wouldn’t have it any other way for it makes getting to Mile 0 that much more fulfilling.

I know Key West is known for Jimmy Buffet stuff, but I barley noticed any Parrotheading.

I don’t care what the books and reviews say, the Keys are hot.

The end of US 1 at Mile 0 was kind of anti-climatic. It just ended at a regular intersection. Cool nonetheless.

HIGHLIGHTS

I had 4 goals to accomplish:

1. Make it to Mile 0 – the end of US 1 that runs along the entire East Coast
   
2. Have great Key Lime Pie in Key West
   
3. Have good Conch Fritters
   
4. See some Key Deer
   

Other highlights included driving over the 7-mile Bridge, miles and miles of scenery, actually petting a wild deer, and going to the southern-most point in the US (barring Hawaii).

There’s more photos with a few stories from our short trip on my photo blog.

But the best highlight of all was experiencing all of this with my beautiful wife by my side.

On my last couple of flights, I was able to keep everything packed in one carry-on bag.  No checking!  I like that.  But here’s the problem: now that most airlines are charging for checked bags, everyone is bringing carry-on bags!

And the trouble is that if you are one of the people boarding after many have gotten on the plane, you may have to check your carry-on anyway.  I don’t think they’ll charge, but it just stinks.  Thankfully I haven’t had to give up a carry-on to be checked.  One reason I don’t like that is because I often have things in there I want with me: books, computer, snacks, etc.

Well here’s a couple tips for you if you are flying and trying to get it all in your carry-on:

1. Katherine Lee, aka the “Delta-safety-video girl” or “Deltalina” gives some tips on how to pack a small carry-on.
2. Book a good seat.
3. Put your bag wheels-first in the overhead. Not sideways.  I had to turn a couple other people’s bags so mine would fit.
4. Plan to put something small under your seat. On a full flight, the overhead is for the big carry-ons.
5. Put your coat somewhere else.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel Internationally. Sadly, it’s been about a year since I’ve been to another continent.

One of the first cities I was fortunate enough to travel to was Barcelona, Spain (photos). I’ve been twice and by far my favorite place in the city is this street, La Ramblas. Now, thanks to Google Maps street view, you can virtually stroll La Rambla.

Many places in Spain are now available in Google Map’s street view.

Finally got the photo set done for our trip to Puerto Rico.  You can view the entire set here.  A few more photos have been added since the last update (including more shots of the wild red-masked parakeets who came back close on our last day).

Puerto Rican Parrots

These beautiful Puerto Rican Parrots are endangered but have been making a comeback (it is possible the birds we’re seeing aren’t exactly the PR Parrots but they could be a variation) CORRECTION: These are Red-masked Parakeets. They only live in Puerto Rico. Every now and then when we visit we’ll see a flock flying around. Today a group of about 7 landed close. I hate that the photos a bit blurry, but I maxed out my zoom and still had to crop tight. A couple more…

2 Puerto Rican Parrots

And there are, believe it or not, 5 parrots in this one. You may need to see the large version to find them. Can you spot the 5?

Can You Find All 5?

Also got to see a huge iguana sunning himself.

Iguana Sunning Himself

Sometimes there is a reward for getting up early in Puerto Rico.

Sunrise over El Yunque

Moonset in the Morning

Sorry it’s taken so long, but I finally got about a fourth of the shots I took online. Below is a sampling, however you can go ahead and skip to the set or the slide show.

The place I grew up made #4.
Many places I would move to made the list, including #10.
The place I currently live didn’t make the list.  Longing much?

Real Estate and Home Buying Site- Relocate-America’s™ 2008 Top 100 Places to Live

Throughout the year, we accept nominations for cities & towns throughout the country to be considered as a “great place to live”. The nominating parties must include their own reasons why they feel their city should make the list. The nominations, along with key data regarding education, environmental greenworthiness, economic opportunity, parks & recreation choices and real estate & home ownership options are reviewed, rated & judged by our editorial team. We list the TOP 100 places to live and rank the TOP 10 on consistency and number of nominations received.

Stopping in Downtown Anchorage, originally uploaded by orangejack.

I’m getting some of our Alaska photos up on Flickr. So far they are mostly from various times we went to downtown Anchorage.

I have a lot of animal pics to get up here soon too so stay tuned.

I’m still working on getting about 100 photos ready to put online with the stories to tell. Keep watching for them.

In the mean time, here are a few graphics I found to be very interesting and put the great state of Alaska into perspective.

Our weather was great while we were there. It was a nice, cool temperature. A few times I was cold, but mostly it was a comfortable 40s during the day. Not sure it ever got below freezing though it did snow (non-sticking) the first morning we were there.

But the thing that was most difficult to get used to which I thought was just crazy was how light it was in the evenings! The sun wasn’t setting until about 11:30 pm. It was so strange and it threw me off a bit. It looked like 5 pm outside when it was 9:30 at night!

We had a great time though and I think I’d go back to Anchorage any time of the year again — as long as I’ve got the warm clothes to endure!

I will get stories and photos up but for now just wanted to update my map.

You might remember we were supposed to go to Alaska on vacation back in February but at the last minute we had to reschedule.

So this afternoon we’re trying again! We plan to fly out of MCO (Orlando) around 5:30 pm. Connecting through Salt Lake City, we arrive in Anchorage some hours later. The time change is confusing me as to when we actually get there.

Anyway, I hope to take a lot of photos and I’ll share them as I’m able. I don’t plan to be online a lot but we both know I will. We fly home May 7 on the red-eye.

We’ve cashed in frequent flier miles for both of us and we’re staying and hanging out with friends. Since our costs to get and stay there are very low, we’re going to try and take advantage of a few things:

• We’re going to participate with our friends in a charity walk in downtown Anchorage
• Drive from Anchorage to Seward
• Take a 6-hour wildlife and glacier cruise at Kenai Fjords National Park
• Spend one night at Box Canyon Cabins in Seward
• Visit the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center
• Relax

We’re really excited about it! So we’ll catch up later…

sigh

Whew! Now that we got the orangejack stuff worked out, I’m going to Alaska.

Yep. Patricia and I are flying today to Atlanta and spend the night there to catch an early flight to Anchorage (via a few other cities).

We’re cashing in some frequent flier miles and hotel points to go visit Patricia’s BFF living in Alaska. They will move this summer so this was our best time to go.

I think they still have internets there so I’ll be checking in from time to time. Besides, we’re probably not going outside much! It won’t be THAT bad though, I hope.

Shot this on my Treo this morning as we were coming into the Atlanta airport from Orlando. It was such a nice, clear morning with the fall colors. And following the shadow of our approach was kinda cool.

I was probably supposed to have my electronics turned off. I won’t tell if you won’t.

YouTube – Shadow Landing

In September of 2007, Patricia and I were really fortunate to be able to go on a family cruise vacation on board the Princess Emerald in the Mediterranean Sea. I finally have photos and blog posts about each city we went to online. I’m writing this post to pull it all together (an index if you will).

So here is the list of cities we went to on our entire vacation with links to the blog post summary and photo set for each:

• Florence, Italy (summary, photos)
• Venice, Italy (summary, photos)
• Athens, Greece (summary, photos)
• Ephesus, Turkey (summary, photos)
• Istanbul, Turkey (summary, photos)
• Mykonos, Greece (summary, photos)
• Naples, Italy (summary, photos)
• Rome, Italy (summary, photos)
• Pisa, Italy (summary, photos)
• Marseille, France (summary, photos)
• Barcelona, Spain (summary, photos)
• Aboard The Princess Emerald (summary, photos)
• Some bonus photos recently uploaded

Enjoy! I know we did.

One last stop on the cruise after Marseille. The cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. Patricia and I like this city a lot. We’ve been there before (photo set) and it was the first city I traveled across the ocean to. Previously I’d been to a city or two in Canada and Mexico, but never outside of North America.

It’s a great city. We stayed one night off of Las Ramblas and we showed the family around a bit. We had some incredible Spanish food at 4 Gats and Patricia and I went back to our favorite cafe in Barcelona: Forns del Pi. One of the interesting things we found this time that we didn’t know before is on the 4 Gats restaurant corner outside is a statue of the Baby Jesus being held by his father, Joseph. It’s rare to see the Baby Jesus being held by anyone other than his mother, Mary.

Less than 24 hours in Barcelona and we were back on a plane, heading back to Orlando and reality.

I don’t have a lot of photos of Barcelona, but you can view the set or the slideshow.

Pisa was our last stop in Italy. Seems this cruise was centered around just about everything in Italy with a few stops in a few other places. Our first stop after leaving Italy was Marseille, France. I had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be a pretty place, but didn’t have many expectations. It turned out to be a very nice day.

We took a bus to the harbor area and were dropped off by a fish market. They sold just about anything and everything that came out of the water! I was walking by checking it all out and saw a patron pick up an octopus off the ground and hand it to the vendor. Apparently the octopus had attempted a daring escape. When he was put back into his bowl to be sold, I got this little video of him.

YouTube – octopus spitter

Most of the rest of the day was a quiet walk in perfect weather up some streets to an old palace. In the middle atop the hill was a huge water fountain. On either side were large buildings that are now museums. It was very beautiful up there and the view was incredible.

Afterwards we wandered back down the hill to the boat. Not a lot that we did there, but that was good. It was peaceful, calm, and all together a good day.

I have a sampling of our photos from our day in Marseille. You can view the set or slideshow.

After our fast and incomplete day in Rome, we made a stop in Pisa, Italy. We didn’t take a tour so it took a little creative traveling to get there (walk, bus, and train). Really Pisa didn’t offer a lot so we spent our time at the Square of Miracles. It’s where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is (if you didn’t already know — I didn’t).

It turned out to be a nice, relaxing time there. The Tower was enormous — much bigger than I ever expected. And it was beautiful. Some say that if it weren’t leaning, it’d be nothing special. I beg to differ. That tower was pretty magnificent in it’s own right. But of course the lean is what makes it so interesting to stare at.

So we did. We walked along, took those dumb photos like everyone else, and had a coffee and snack outside a cafe with a great view of the Tower and the Cathedral there. After some shopping and wandering around, we headed back to the ship. It was a good day.

I have a sampling of our photos from our day in Pisa. You can view the set or slideshow.