Most random thing I will have learned on JFC this month.
World travel
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Begs the question tho, what did they do while hiking together?
That place I've pretty consistently caught fish. I haven't been down there in a long time though.
Back in the day it seems lots of jazzfanz members used to hang out. I think I've met about 30 people from the board. I liked most of them... I do have a few wild stories about some of them that aren't for the message board. One Australian in particular that doesn't post anymore got wild. Some of our best posters are gone.
We know you were watching creep.
fishonjazz
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Me too. Not a ton of fish and rarely very big fish but I always catch some.
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fishonjazz
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Ya I think I meet like 30 or so as well and also have some stories. Good times
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Every orgy needs needs a witness.
(reminds me I need to watch me some more Big Mouth)
This is somewhat of a silly question. At some point, my wife and I will hit Antarctica. We don't anticipate this will be for quite some time, however, because of the amount of time it would take and having kids at home and such. By extension of that, we'd only need to see Australia for all 7 continents, which is more of a novelty, I'll admit. We'll hit New Zealand at some point for sure. It's harder to make a compelling reason to have Australia higher up on the list. No offense to the Aussies, and part of posting this to maybe get a bit more info. I'd actually love to visit Australia. But with its distance and cost, there are so many places that would be high on our list, so it's no specific slight to down under. Looking at it, though, the only continent that my wife and I have been to that our kids haven't is Africa, and between places like Egypt, Morocco or Tanzania that are definitely on our "opportunistic" list, where we'd jump on it if we found a good deal. My oldest is 16 and a half and our youngest turns 7 in two weeks. Antarctica would be a huge PITA to take a family (or even to not take a family) but hypothetically, it would seem cool to me when I'm on my death bed to be able to look back and know we'd been together as a family on all continents. That last one would obviously be something we'd have to wait until a number of them are probably well into adulthood (which if they have families of their own may make it more complicated). Anyhow, this very hypothetical idea would require us to get our kids to Australia without a huge compelling reason. Fiji Airways often runs pretty decent deals periodically on flights, and they have a similar "stop-over" program like Iceland Air does. Fiji with AirBnb and food prices overall is quite cheap, much cheaper than many other alternatives in terms of a tropical vacation. So the question becomes, if one goes to Fiji, and you're already that close to Australia, would it be stupid to tack on a very short stay (2-3 days) where you're likely in Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne, or is that just trying to be too cute and just be more relaxed and save the money in Fiji. My brain definitely tells me the latter but my heart is looking for justification of the former.
A mate of mine just got back from Fiji, its not that cheap is you're staying in resorts, which I would recommend, they've got some significant social issues in the countryside at the moment.
The flight from Fiji is not long 4 or 5 hours. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are all fun for a weekend, three very different vibes, Melbourne is culture and food, Sydney is the harbour and beaches, Brisbane is the weather and nightlife. (I have the inside news that Melbourne may soon have its own Disneyland, Disney has recently bought a significant site in the docklands region and is buying apartments in the area, they are either building an amusement park or a studio, my word is its a park.) and the flights shouldn't be too taxing, I think Qantas and United fly direct to LA from Sydney.
I would do Australasia in 6 weeks, 2 weeks in NZ driving North to South, 4 weeks in Australia, start in Melbourne, do 3 or 4 days of sight seeing in Melbourne, get your timing right and you can take in an AFL game at the G, visit the goldfields, then drive the great ocean road to Adelaide, visit Hahndorf and the Barossa Valley, then either fly or drive to to Alice Springs (Alice Springs can be pretty dodgy at night) check out Uluru. From there fly to Sydney, again 3 or 4 days to take in the sights. From there fly to Byron Bay, rent a car and drive to Brisbane via the Gold Coast, somewhere along that drive you will find somewhere to take in a great barrier reef tour. And maybe finish off with a few days rest in the Whitsundays before you head home. Also if you have the time squeeze in a visit to Tasmania, Hobart is a cool little city.
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I definitely don't have weeks to be there. Because of the nature of my work, like 10 days is pushing it on how long I can be gone. This fall I'll be gone for over two weeks which will be interesting, but yeah it's typically 7-10 days. A Fiji/Australia would have to come in at under 14 days... maybe right on it depending on weekends. Who knows.
I don't think I'd be prepared to spend two days sitting on a plane for two weeks here, cause at the end of the day its not enough and you'll end up killing yourself trying to squeeze as much in as possible to make it worthwhile. I got the travel bug off my folks and we would do short holidays when i was young locally, you know everyone in the van and we'd drive to Adelaide or Sydney or would holiday in our state. As i got older and we had a bit more money our first big OS holiday was to the US and Canada in 91. I was 8 years old and it is still is one of the best holidays I've been on. Seeing Topol on Broadway do Fiddler on the Roof for my parents 10th wedding anniversary, Niagara falls, Disneyland and Disneyworld, the first time seeing the Smithsonian, the national parks on the west coast, the lights of Vegas. I can still remember it now.
That basically became the model for our family holidays, every 2 or 3 years we'd take generally 3 months and go to Europe or the US and see as much as we could. We'd also see and stay with family in Europe (and they'd stay with us when they'd come here) my parents attitude was if you're going all that way you might as well stay for a while. We'd also do short trips in the off years to Malaysia or Thailand or New Zealand for a week or two, later in life my parents loved going on cruises. (I hate them I feel like its a floating prison.) Their template has basically become mine, I tend to like long holidays 2 to 3 months, I suppose the difference is where I go and why. I tend to combine my tourism with watching sport and taking in somewhat different sights to my folks, (I don't do churches) but i do museums, galleries, battlefields historical sights, I also don't do organised tours, I prefer to do it at my own at my own speed, if I like a place I can stay there for an extra couple of hours or days and explore. As a family we used to do bus tours and they were great the guides were great and knowledgeable and you'd take an awful lot in in a short time but you're attached to their schedule and I always kinda hated that.
I've seen adds here for the Antarctic cruises, they're about 15k which seems reasonable. I really want to do the Canada and Alaska cruise, mostly because my folks always wanted to do it and weren't able to because of ill health.
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Catching up a little bit here... going back to last fall, took a couple weekend trips. We had never been to the Grand Canyon before so we spent a night in a "tiny home" that's south of the entrance. On the way down, we passed through Zion really quick, as it had been like 17 years since we had last been there. We'll have to go back but I'm not sure on the timing because all we ever hear about are all the crowds. We went there in the evening and went in from the east side so it wasn't as packed as it normally would be.
We spent the night in Page and the next morning caught X Canyon, which is part of Antelope Canyon but is not as often visited. We had bought tickets in the afternoon for one of the Antelope Canyons (upper, maybe?) but there was going to be a storm so they cancelled all the afternoon ones.
Spent a day in Grand Canyon National Park. Did a little bit of trail walking and rode the bus along the way. Had fun and saw the sights. When we passed by the lodge, in the back of my mind I had thought it was from Vacation, which it was.
Returned back through Page again and had bought tickets to, I believe, Lower Antelope Canyon, which was awesome.
It was shortly after this that my son had had his motorcycle accident and we were in limbo for quite a while. The next month over Thanksgiving we ended up doing another short trip. My wife and I went to Cabo for our honeymoon and since forever I've been trying to get her to go to Tijuana. She was agreeable to go but it just never worked out. We drove down and spent the night, before heading up to Disneyland for a day. It was interesting crossing the border without any kind of passport check. We rented a place that was up on the hill south of town and had a great view of the city. The next morning we drove by the temple.
We were originally going to the main area to do some shopping or sight-seeing but then realized how absolutely massive the traffic line was to get back in to the US and so we scratched that. They had the taco carts out in the traffic while we waited and the best tacos we had while we were there came from that. On the way back, we stopped at the beach at Coronado and my youngest son (8 at the time) told me, "Dad, how come we didn't eat Mexican food while we were in Mexico?!" I informed that we had for dinner the night before, we ate a bunch of tacos and other things. He then said, "no, not like that... like Mi Ranchito!" I got a good laugh out of that.
It had been about 6 years or so since we'd been to Disneyland so our youngest two definitely didn't remember it and it was fairly iffy on if our third kid had remembered anything. We hadn't been since they did the Star Wars land and my youngest son is obsessed with Star Wars. I also had been waiting because Splash Mountain has forever been synonymous with Disneyland for me and going while that would be closed would not be appropriate, so we were able to time it when they had just re-opened as Tiana's Bayou Adventure. What we didn't know, though, is that the tickets were on some kind of lottery and you'd have to log in to the app in the morning at a specific time and you may or may not get tickets, and there was no stand-by line. We had everyone with a phone do the same thing and initially we thought we missed out and I was going to be pissed if we had planned this whole trip around making sure we could ride that and come away not being able to. Anyhow, somehow I saw the reservation in my app so we were able to get those. The crowd was quite manageable as we went on a low-time after Thanksgiving. It was ridiculous seeing them under-fill the ride and having many logs going down with 2-3 people on it. I wonder how many people could have actually ridden that that wanted to but because of how dumb they were doing it (it opened to stand-by I think like 2 weeks later). Anyway, we rode the two new Star Wars rides which were fun. It's also funny because my wife hasn't been a huge fan of Disneyland, I think mostly because of the crowds and also because she's been pregnant a couple times we've gone, but she absolutely loved it this time and I think she was surprised by that. This was the first time we had all of our kids tall enough to ride all the rides, so we got to do everything together.
I also thought it’d be cool since the logs hold 7 people and since this was the only time we’d ever been on the ride all together since everyone was tall enough, that the picture would be great, but you can’t see my oldest son behind me and my wife and daughter are scrunched together in the back barely pictured. Oh well.
On the way back, we stopped in Vegas at Lindo Michoacan, which we had discovered a month earlier when my two older sons and my dad drove down for a concert. That place is unbelievable.
We spent the night in Page and the next morning caught X Canyon, which is part of Antelope Canyon but is not as often visited. We had bought tickets in the afternoon for one of the Antelope Canyons (upper, maybe?) but there was going to be a storm so they cancelled all the afternoon ones.
Spent a day in Grand Canyon National Park. Did a little bit of trail walking and rode the bus along the way. Had fun and saw the sights. When we passed by the lodge, in the back of my mind I had thought it was from Vacation, which it was.
Returned back through Page again and had bought tickets to, I believe, Lower Antelope Canyon, which was awesome.
It was shortly after this that my son had had his motorcycle accident and we were in limbo for quite a while. The next month over Thanksgiving we ended up doing another short trip. My wife and I went to Cabo for our honeymoon and since forever I've been trying to get her to go to Tijuana. She was agreeable to go but it just never worked out. We drove down and spent the night, before heading up to Disneyland for a day. It was interesting crossing the border without any kind of passport check. We rented a place that was up on the hill south of town and had a great view of the city. The next morning we drove by the temple.
We were originally going to the main area to do some shopping or sight-seeing but then realized how absolutely massive the traffic line was to get back in to the US and so we scratched that. They had the taco carts out in the traffic while we waited and the best tacos we had while we were there came from that. On the way back, we stopped at the beach at Coronado and my youngest son (8 at the time) told me, "Dad, how come we didn't eat Mexican food while we were in Mexico?!" I informed that we had for dinner the night before, we ate a bunch of tacos and other things. He then said, "no, not like that... like Mi Ranchito!" I got a good laugh out of that.
It had been about 6 years or so since we'd been to Disneyland so our youngest two definitely didn't remember it and it was fairly iffy on if our third kid had remembered anything. We hadn't been since they did the Star Wars land and my youngest son is obsessed with Star Wars. I also had been waiting because Splash Mountain has forever been synonymous with Disneyland for me and going while that would be closed would not be appropriate, so we were able to time it when they had just re-opened as Tiana's Bayou Adventure. What we didn't know, though, is that the tickets were on some kind of lottery and you'd have to log in to the app in the morning at a specific time and you may or may not get tickets, and there was no stand-by line. We had everyone with a phone do the same thing and initially we thought we missed out and I was going to be pissed if we had planned this whole trip around making sure we could ride that and come away not being able to. Anyhow, somehow I saw the reservation in my app so we were able to get those. The crowd was quite manageable as we went on a low-time after Thanksgiving. It was ridiculous seeing them under-fill the ride and having many logs going down with 2-3 people on it. I wonder how many people could have actually ridden that that wanted to but because of how dumb they were doing it (it opened to stand-by I think like 2 weeks later). Anyway, we rode the two new Star Wars rides which were fun. It's also funny because my wife hasn't been a huge fan of Disneyland, I think mostly because of the crowds and also because she's been pregnant a couple times we've gone, but she absolutely loved it this time and I think she was surprised by that. This was the first time we had all of our kids tall enough to ride all the rides, so we got to do everything together.
I also thought it’d be cool since the logs hold 7 people and since this was the only time we’d ever been on the ride all together since everyone was tall enough, that the picture would be great, but you can’t see my oldest son behind me and my wife and daughter are scrunched together in the back barely pictured. Oh well.
On the way back, we stopped in Vegas at Lindo Michoacan, which we had discovered a month earlier when my two older sons and my dad drove down for a concert. That place is unbelievable.