Brandon O'Brien

Monday, September 12, 2022 @ 11:00 PM in 2022 Germany and France

We woke up around 5:30am in Nice this morning, got all of our bags packed and ate some yogurt and leftover pizza for dinner. We were aiming to catch the 6:50am tram to the airport so left with time to get down to the station. We got to the Alsace Lorraine station with plenty of time to buy our tram tickets and get to the platform before the tram came.

There were about 12 stops before we got to the airport but it went by pretty quick. When we got to our terminal, around 7:15am, we had to check in with Lufthansa since they were our first leg of the trip from Nice to Munich. There wasn't any line to check in which was great. Our flight was set to board at 8:25 with a departure at 8:55 so we figured we'd have time to grab a coffee before jumping on the flight.

Wrong! When I had originally booked our flights back in February, Dakotah wasn't born yet and we didn't have any clue what his birthday, name or even gender would be. In order to get the ticket, I just put an estimated birth date and the name Baby OBrien. When he was born, I called United and got his information updated but apparently this change didn't propagate down to Lufthansa.

When we tried checking in, they told us they wouldn't be able to since Dakotah's name didn't match what they have on their system. They said since the ticket was booked through United, there wasn't anything they could do and I should call United to try and get this fixed. Damn, now the stress factor had kicked up. We had about 45 minutes to try and rectify this situation before we needed to board.

I made a call to United and after trying to explain the problem, they said it should be fixed. We went back to the counter and they said it still hadn't been updated. Ugh. Another call to United, speaking to a different person, and they did something else and said now it should really be fixed. Ok, back to the counter and they said it still wasn't updated. When I was on the phone with a 3rd United representative, the Lufthansa attendant came over and said we should try going to the actual Lufthansa service desk to see if maybe they could help.

While walking over there, I was trying to explain to the 3rd United rep the situation and to convey the urgency but she told me that since the ticket was partially used (the flight over counts), they were unable to change anything. I'm not sure why it took three people to tell me that. I asked to speak to the supervisor while Sam was talking to the Lufthansa service desk. The Lufthansa people repeated that they weren't able to do anything so I asked what would happen if we booked a new ticket for Dakotah and at least get to Munich. From there, everything should be fine since his name was right in their system.

Sam started that process while I was talking to the United supervisor. She did some more digging and confirmed that it was still showing the wrong information on Lufthansa's side. At this time they had finished buying Dakotah a new ticket so I told the United supervisor we should have everything fixed now. She said they'd refund the ticket if we filled out feedback once we got home.

By now it was around 8:15 and we ran back over to the check in counter. The rep ran into some problem and had to go talk to someone else. Minutes passed, then more minutes passed, and finally she came back and said that since Dakotah was still attached to my ticket, they were running into a problem since they wouldn't be able to check me in without him (and they wouldn't be able to since he was listed as Baby OBrien). She told us to go down to the other rep and that they were working on it.

More waiting and by now it was getting to the point where even if they got us checked in we were afraid we'd miss our flights anyway. The rep did a little more talking on the phone and finally told us she got it figured out. Apparently she was able to get his info updated on our original ticket and they refunded the new ticket Sam just bought. With our tickets in hand we ran over to security which fortunately wasn't too crowded. We were the last ones to our gate, got checked in, then boarded a bus that took us from the gate to the plane.

I was really convinced we'd lose our bags since we checked in so soon to departure but when we got to the plane I saw them re-opening the luggage hatch to put our bags on. Crisis averted!

From here on out the flights were pretty uneventful. Flying from Nice to Munich was beautiful. It started out with nice views of Nice and Monaco then we started heading over the Italian and German Alps before getting to Munich. While flying over Munich, you could see the Oktoberfest grounds and the main city center.

We were able to get a little sleep on the big flight between Munich and Houston. Customs in Houston went pretty fast and we grabbed some Panda Express for a light dinner before getting on the final flight to Albuquerque. We chatted with some people sitting near us, one of which has a three month old and is planning on traveling to Germany with her daughter to visit family in October.

Once in Albuquerque we got our bags and started the drive to Santa Fe. Knowing we weren't going to have anything in the fridge to eat, we grabbed another quick bite at Wendy's. We got home around 10pm, got settled and then got ready for bed. All in all we were up for about 24 hours from the time we woke up in Nice to the time we got home and were ready for bed.

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Tags: nice, france, munich, santa fe, travel

Posted from: United States

Monday, August 22, 2022 @ 2:03 PM in 2022 Germany and France

With the trip actually happening (thankfully Dakotah got his passport in time), it's time to share our itinerary. The main point of the trip is to join Mike and Anne at their wedding in Miesbach, Germany (a small town south of Munich).

We'll fly into Munich, go down to Miesbach, then have another day in Munich before heading to Strasbourg, France for a week and then ending in Nice, France for a week. While in Strasbourg and Nice, we'll be doing some day trips outside of those towns to see some other towns and sights.

Full Itinerary

Date	Location	Notes
Thursday, August 25	Munich, DE	Arrive at 10:05am
Friday, August 26	Munich > Miesbach, DE	Spend the day in Munich then go to Miesbach for rehearsal dinner
Saturday, August 27	Miesbach, DE	Wedding day
Sunday, August 28	Miesbach > Munich, DE	Recover and head to Munich
Monday, August 29	Munich, DE > Strasbourg, FR	Catch our train at 11:30am, arrive in Strasbourg at 4:00pm
Tuesday, August 30	Strasbourg, FR	Explore Strasbourg?
Wednesday, August 31	Strasbourg, FR	Go to Colmar?
Thursday, September 1	Strasbourg, FR	Go to Freiburg?
Friday, September 2	Strasbourg, FR	Relax in Strasbourg?
Saturday, September 3	Strasbourg, FR	Go to Riquewihr?
Sunday, September 4	Strasbourg, FR	Relax in Strasbourg?
Monday, September 5	Strasbourg > Nice, FR	Catch our train at 9:05am, arrive in Nice at 6:30pm
Tuesday, September 6	Nice, FR	Relax in Nice?
Wednesday, September 7	Nice, FR	Go to Menton and hit Italy?
Thursday, September 8	Nice, FR	Relax in Nice?
Friday, September 9	Nice, FR	Go to Antibes?
Saturday, September 10	Nice, FR	Go to Villefranche-sur-Mer?
Sunday, September 11	Nice, FR	Relax in Nice?
Monday, September 12	Nice, FR	Depart at 8:55am to head back to the States

We're just finishing up our packing now and tying up loose ends around the house. We're still a little unsure how Dakotah will do on the flights, but we'll keep our fingers crossed he does a good job!

Tags: itinerary

Posted from: United States

Friday, August 19, 2022 @ 9:03 PM in 2022 Germany and France

Who knew that getting a passport for a five week old baby would be so tough! The process seems pretty straightforward, and it should have been, if not for the hospital putting the wrong date on the birth certificate notification they sent to the state of New Mexico.

First off, what's actually needed and how do you get a rush passport? Well, you just need to have proof of international travel, have the physical and copies of mom and dad's passports and drivers licenses, fill out a DS-11 form, and have a physical and printed copy of the birth certificate. When you have all that, you can make an appointment for an Urgent Travel passport at one of the many passport facilities around the country. We chose El Paso because it was the closest and they had availability. They only allow you to make the appointment within 14 days of your international travel (hint: not that you can schedule it a few months out for within 14 days of travel, you can't actually make the call and schedule the appointment until two weeks before your travel). Our international flight is scheduled for August 24th and our appointment was for August 19th. The urgent travel passport cost us $195 to the government, plus travel and hotel costs. We got the passport 3 hours after showing up.

Let me get back to the mess though... When Dakotah was born, the hospital didn't immediately file his paperwork and had the date and time incorrect on the file they sent to the New Mexico Department of Health (the department that handles birth certificates). The DoH sent us a form with all of the information they received and said to make a note if anything was incorrect. I did so and we got the form notarized and sent back off to the State.

That paperwork was sent back to the state before Dakotah was two weeks old. I figured they'd make their changes and get his birth certificate processed and on its way to us. Well, we waited and waited (and saw our check was cashed which paid for the certificate) but nothing arrived. Getting desperate, we found out we could go to the Office of Vital Records here in Santa Fe and have them print one for us right then and there. We did this on Monday the 15th. Great! Well, not really. Unfortunately since we had made a correction to the data the State had, they couldn't print us a certificate until they got confirmation of the changes from the hospital.

Since we wouldn't be able to get Dakotah his passport without having his birth certificate (otherwise, there aren't any legal documents proving Sam and I are the parents), we were really starting to get nervous. We didn't hear anything on the 16th so we started calling consistently on the 17th until Sam finally got a hold of someone near the end of the day who said they would try to escalate the issue to their supervisor. We tried stressing the importance of getting this on the 18th since we had to head to El Paso for our 9am appointment on the 19th.

On the 18th, we called almost every hour to the various phone numbers we had been calling and new ones we hoped might get us somewhere. By noon we still hadn't talked to anyone and it was getting to be time we needed to head to El Paso for our appointment. We thought we'd try one last ditch effort and go to the actual vital records office again and see if they had heard anything. Unfortunately they weren't able to do anything because their system still showed the case was pending confirmation from the hospital.

Not knowing what else to do, we set off towards El Paso. We had printed off all of Dakotah's post natal documents, Sam's hospital record from the birth and an additional form, DS-10, hoping that maybe all of this stuff would help prove we're Dakotah's parents. I was giving us only a 5% chance of all that working but we didn't have any other option but to head south.

We got stuck in quite a bit of traffic due to construction leaving Santa Fe. Sitting in stop and go traffic only added to my stress level. Sam tried making a few more phone calls and about an hour later, right before hitting Albuquerque, I got a call saying the birth certificates were ready! Great! Except we had to go back to Santa Fe to pick them up. UGH. We'd already been in the car for an hour and needed to turn around, sit in the worse side of the construction traffic and head back to Santa Fe to pick up the certificate.

While sitting in construction traffic, a FedEx truck in front of us let off the brake and was slowly creeping backwards and ended up hitting our bumper. Fortunately they didn't keep going and the damage was superficial. It was still one more added piece of unnecessary stress. Since we were in stop and go traffic, we couldn't jump out and go try to flag the guy down or anything.

After another 30 minutes sitting in stop and go traffic, we finally made it back to the vital records office, got the birth certificate and then started the journey back down to El Paso that we initially began 3 hours prior. By now it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, we've already been in the car for about 3 hours, we still had a 5+ hour drive with an infant and a dog and there was still a 30 minute backup in that same construction zone we had to contend with.

The construction zone had even more traffic than the first time we went through, probably due to end of day commuters going back to Albuquerque from Santa Fe. To add to the time issues, we also hit rain and rush hour in Albuquerque. On the bright side, the traffic cleared and the roads were almost empty from Los Lunas all the way through Las Cruces. We did a quick pit-stop in Socorro for dinner (got some Blakes Lotaburger).

Dakotah had been a trooper but just outside of Las Cruces (and about 8 hours in the car), he finally started having a pretty epic meltdown. We actually pulled over and had to bounce him around for a little while. Since we were stopped, we found a hotel in El Paso that was dog friendly, cheap and pretty close to downtown so we went ahead and booked it. There was still about an hour of driving to get there so we buckled up and set off again.

Getting to the hotel was pretty uneventful aside from some more construction in El Paso. We checked in some time around 9pm, well past when we wanted to get in (we were hoping for 5:00pm or so). One nice thing to happen on an otherwise crazy day was the woman who checked us into the hotel was a dog lover and waived the $50 pet fee.

We got situated in the room, set Dakotah's travel bassinet on the bed and tried to wind him down to sleep. It actually wasn't horrible having him next to us in the bassinet all night (which we were relieved about since we're about to spend 3 weeks in Europe doing just that). Max actually tolerated the whole situation pretty well too. He didn't try to jump into the bassinet and didn't freak out when Dakotah started getting hungry.

We ended up waking up around 6am and decided not to bother sleeping in until 7 like I had set my alarm for. We figured having a little extra time would be good in the morning. I'd estimate Sam and I probably got about 5-6 hours of sleep, which wasn't horrible. The same couldn't be said for the hotel's breakfast offering though. The coffee was on the cold side of lukewarm and watered down to the point you could almost see to the bottom of the coffee cup. They had some eggs and potatoes as the hot offering, of which the eggs were fine but the potatoes were pretty undercooked. Fortunately a quick zap in the microwave fixed that.

By now it was around 7:30 and we had the car loaded up and set off to find some real coffee and get to the passport office. We actually found a bakery/cafe pretty close to the hotel that had some great coffee and muffins. The drive from there to downtown El Paso was actually a breeze and we arrived at the parking garage around 8:15. Having some time to kill and seeing a nice park across the street from the parking garage, we took Max out to stretch his legs.

Fortunately between the overcast/rainy skies, early time of day and being in a parking garage, we didn't feel bad having Max in the car while we went into the appointment. The process at the passport office was super smooth (thank goodness for having the birth certificate!). We overheard several other people trying to explain how they didn't have this piece of info or that specific document and I could only imagine us in that situation trying to beg and plead that our random docs were enough.

After the application process, they told us it shouldn't take more than 4 hours for the passport to be ready. Rather than leave max in the parking garage, we got back in the car and set off for a big outlet mall we had passed by earlier. Sam was looking to get some specific clothes she's been having trouble finding in Santa Fe so we figured it would be a good way to waste some time.

We walked around the outlets and Sam did find some stuff which was great. I got a call on my phone around 11:30 saying the passport was ready and we could come pick it up. That was super fast! We finished up and ate lunch at a place called TacoTote which was really good. Sam got a couple tacos and I got a "street plate" which was a huge pile of carnitas with some corn tortillas and a roasted onion. They have a huge salsa bar with tons of other veggies to add to your tacos.

When we were sufficiently stuffed, we got back in the car and headed back to the passport office where I ran in and got Dakotah's passport. By now it was around 1:30 so we started our trip back to Santa Fe. While on the road, we decided to stop at Elephant Butte, a big lake near Truth or Consequences, and let Max run around and to give us a break from the car.

The rest of the trip back was pretty uneventful. Sam got a few naps and we stopped for some subpar Chinese takeaway in Albuquerque. Fortunately it was late enough in the day so there wasn't any slowdown in that construction zone that had screwed things up so much yesterday.

Now that we all have passports, this trip just became extremely real. We have four days to pack and get any other miscellaneous things we need for the trip. Check back for another post with our itinerary as well as daily posts while we're on the trip!

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Tags: passport, dakotah, road trip, el paso

Posted from: United States

Sunday, June 19, 2022 @ 6:00 PM in General Travel

Even though Sam is eight month's pregnant, we still wanted to get out for one last adventure weekend while we could. Greg, Mattie and Aaron were all planning on going up to Salida for the FibARK festival (First in Boating on the Arkansas) so we joined up with them for the trip. The festival takes place on the Arkansas river in Salida where there are activities all weekend. The one even we were really excited for was the Hooligan race which is where people build their own rafts and try to float down the river without their craft falling apart.

Sam took Friday off from work so we packed the truck up with all our camping gear and a ridiculous amount of food and then left Santa Fe around 9:30 in the morning. Greg, Mattie and Aaron had gone up there on Thursday to secure a camping spot, so we weren't in a rush to try and take care of that. We rolled into Salida a little before 1 in the afternoon and decided to get lunch there. We had pizza at Amicas, where Aaron and his buddy Steve met up with us.

After lunch, we met up with Greg and Mattie by the river and watched some of the activities taking place. There were a lot of kayakers practicing for the freestyle event which would take place on Saturday. It was pretty neat watching them do flips and rolls in the big rapid right in town. We had some beer by the river and watched Greg take his inflatable kayak out so he could try and ride a smaller rapid. The boat ended up getting filled with water and flipping. Fortunately there weren't really that many people around to witness it, lol.

It started to thunder and lightning so me, Sam, Aaron and Steve decided to bail and head back up to the campsite so we could get our setup put together. We somehow fit Aaron and Steve's bikes on the truck and got them in the cab as well. On the drive up to the campsite, it started raining really hard. Steve remembered he left a window open in his camper (directly above his bed), so we booked it up there so he could get it closed. Fortunately his stuff wasn't too soaked.

We set up our camp and then had dinner while waiting for Greg and Mattie to come back from town. It got pretty cold and windy so we hung out in Aaron's truck for a little while. When Greg and Mattie showed up, they started a fire in their Solo stove and we hung out there until we were ready for bed. It got really windy and rained a few times that night which meant I didn't get great sleep. I still woke up around 6:15 in the morning so I got started with coffee. We brought stuff to make breakfast burritos which was really nice on a chilly and damp morning.

There wasn't a real plan aside from Sam and I trying to squeeze a hike in. We decided it would be easiest to head into town and hike around there. That way, we could park the vehicles somewhere near town so we wouldn't be too far from the festival. Aaron and Greg rode to town on their mountain bikes while we drove down. We parked right next to the river and set out to do a hike up and down S Mountain. The hike was only about 3.5 miles but got you some really nice views of the town. While up hiking, it sprinkled on us a little bit but nothing too bad yet.

We had lunch at the cars by the river when Aaron text me and told me to come to the Boathouse Cantina for a birthday shot (my birthday was going to be in two days). I went over there and had a shot of Mezcal and a beer. While there, it started to down pour again so we hung out there for a few while Sam and Max were in the truck. When the rain let up slightly, I ran out to the truck where we waited until it was sprinkling enough to feel OK about going and hanging out by the river again.

Greg had a spot he really wanted to watch the Hooligan race at, so we got situated there around 3pm (the hooligan race didn't start until 5:30). We left a few times to drop Max off, get some ice cream and more booze. The last time we returned with some booze, it had really filled up and people started giving us the stink eye even though we'd been there for a few hours already.

We watched the freestyle kayak competition which was taking place before the Hooligan race. Before the Hooligan race started, they brought out a gigantic bike ramp so BMXers could do tricks off of it into the water. Some of the people were able to pull off some extremely cool tricks. The Hooligan race had several heats of four rafts each. Most of them fell apart long before they hit the rapid we were waiting by. It was still really funny to watch what was left of the rafts try to navigate the rapids. I took an obscene amount of pics during the hooligan race, so be sure to check out the full photo gallery for all the action.

After the race ended, we met up with Maggie and decided to go back to the campsite for dinner instead of having it in town. Steve has a really cool camper which actually has a microwave in it, so he was able to warm up our lasagna for dinner which was very cool. It started raining again so we went back into Aaron's van and hung out for a while before finally calling it an early night. We had a lot more wind come through overnight (fortunately no real rain), but the wind was really blowing our canopy around and kept me up for most of the night.

In the morning, we had more coffee and breakfast burritos before slowly starting to tear down camp. Greg and I decided we'd ride down to town and meet up with everyone else before heading home. Our campsite was right next to a really nice trail system that went right into town. We rode Beasway, Rumba, Cottonwood and Chicken Dinner. It took me a little while to shake the lack of sleep and hangover, but the trail was really fun.

Sam and I had lunch at the Boathouse Cantina before driving home. Greg and Aaron had left a little bit before us in his van and we joked that Greg was bad luck and Aaron should be careful with his van. Greg has had a lot of issues getting stranded in his camper van in the past. Unfortunately, we got a call from Greg when we were about 20 minutes outside of Alamosa. Aaron's van shut down when they got to town and it wouldn't start back up. Greg had work travel on Monday so couldn't afford to miss it. We picked up Greg and loaded up the truck with all his stuff while Aaron was waiting on a mechanic to get back with him.

He was pretty sure the alternator had given out which was causing the battery not to charge. This meant there was a cascade of errors and problems. Aaron was ready to spend the night there while waiting for mechanics to show up, but fortunately found an alternator in town and was able to install it himself. This probably saved him a day of wasted time and several hundred dollars!

We got back to Santa Fe in the midst of a huge monsoon storm. We had to wait to unpack a little while, but were definitely not going to complain about any rain. The trip as a whole was a lot of fun. It was a lot of things rolled into one (almost Father's day for me, my birthday weekend and our last outing for a while due to a baby almost here). If we do FibARK again, we'll probably aim to camp in town so we don't have to drive back and forth so much.

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Tags: colorado, camping

Posted from: United States

Sunday, June 5, 2022 @ 4:00 PM in General Travel

On Friday, Sam had the urge to get out of town for the weekend. Unfortunately, most of the National Forest in NM is currently closed due to fire danger so we had to widen our radius slightly. We were looking for somewhere that was within about a 3 hour drive from home, had water nearby and wouldn't be slammed with people. After talking with some friends, we landed on the Conejos River between Antonito and Chama. One of our friends mentioned she had some friends who were planning on camping up in this area so we figured we'd try it too. We actually did a several night backpacking trip up in this area several years ago and remembered it being really beautiful.

We packed up the car and were out the door by about 9:30am on Saturday. Rather than try to prep any food, we just went to Market Street and bought some premade meals for food. We bought a salmon salad with pasta salad for lunch #1, some fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner and some more fried chicken for lunch #2. The drive up to the campground was pretty uneventful and surprisingly lacking any real traffic aside from one area near San Antonio Mountain where the road was under construction and down to one lane.

We got to the campground a little before 12:30 and found a nice spot directly across from the river. We pulled out our coolers and camping gear and had lunch before heading out for a walk down to Spectacle Lake and the campground there. There were several people fishing for trout in the lake and we actually saw a few people catch some fish. The lake definitely looked stocked since you could see a ton of fish just swimming around.

After getting back to the campsite, we relaxed in some shade and read books for a few hours before it was time for dinner. Some motorcyclists pulled up to hang out by the creek and snap some pics. I went over to talk to them and snapped some shots for them. Turns out they weren't staying the night but just making a little detour while they were on their way back to Taos for the night. We shared some quick stories of our various trips before they took off. To reheat dinner, we just used our camp stove and a frying pan with some foil, which worked surprisingly well. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing before we finally called it an early night and went to bed in the back of the truck.

Due to some combination of white noise from the river, the temperatures being on the cooler side and having tall cliffs all around us, we actually slept in until about 7:30 which is "late" for us. We ended up with about 10 hours of sleep which felt amazing. Breakfast was some coffee, a muffin for me and some overnight oats for Sam. We packed up camp after drinking our coffee and drove up the road about 10 minutes to the South Fork trailhead.

There was a little debate about whether this was the same trailhead we started our big backpacking trip from, and it turns out it was. We hiked about four miles and enjoyed being in some greenery again. Near the trailhead were a few stream crossings. On the way out, we tried picking our steps carefully to avoid getting wet. On the way back, we just sloshed right through the water since we could put sandels on when we got to the car. When we had just crossed the river, we saw some people from Santa Fe (the friends of friends who were staying in this area which spurred our idea to camp here). We chatted with them for a bit before getting back to the truck and having lunch.

The drive back home was equally uneventful aside from the one section where the road was down to one lane.

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Tags: camping, colorado

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Sunday, December 1, 2019 @ 10:00 PM in 2019 New Zealand

Day 8/9

We needed to be at the airport a little before noon today so we could get checked in and ready for our flight back to LA. Rather than try to make food at the hotel, we went to a coffee house where we had some coffee and pastries. After that, we did a final grocery run to buy some snacks to bring back to family and friends. I bought some Tim Tams which my mom ended up loving when we brought them to Christmas.

The flight was uneventful and we made it back to LA in the morning. Sam and I opted to stay an extra day in LA to unwind from the international trip. We ended up taking the metro up to Pasadena where we had some Himalayan food for lunch. After that, we went pretty close to where she grew up and walked around for a while before taking the metro back to the hotel and passing out a little early. We did walk around the hotel area and got dinner at a hole in the wall asian place. Our flight back to New Mexico was bright and early the next morning. Fortunately we were a stone's throw from the airport and didn't need to worry about getting there on time.

All in all, the trip was extremely fast but we were able to see and do a lot. New Zealand was a beautiful place and definitely one I want to go back to. The culture and landscape are both extremely impressive and it's worth a visit if you get a chance!

Tags: new zealand, los angeles, honeymoon

Posted from: United States

Friday, November 22, 2019 @ 11:50 PM in 2019 New Zealand

Since Sam and I booked a separate flight to LA from the one leaving LA to New Zealand, we wanted to make sure we landed in LA with plenty of time in case of any delays or issues. Our flight landed first thing in the morning (6:20am) in LA, so after getting out of the airport we set off toward Manhattan beach where we ate a huge breakfast at Uncle Bill's Pancake House. After that, we set out to walk along the beachfront for most of the morning. Unfortunately it we weren't able to drop our bags off at the airport so we had to carry our luggage with us while on the beach.

We made it all the way down to the Redondo Beach Pier where we had a snack at the Shrimp Lover before starting our walk back north. We aimlessly walked around until Mike and Anne were done with working and met up with them at the Hermosa Creek Brewing company for some beer before dinner. For dinner, we ate at Palmilla Cocina y Tequila where we had some nice Mexican food.

Our flight didn't leave until almost midnight, but we figured we'd go ahead and hang out at the airport since we had no where else to be. We finally boarded our flight and got settled in for the long haul direct into Auckland!

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Tags: new zeland, los angeles

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Sunday, July 27, 2014 @ 1:00 PM in General Travel

Brandon and Erin asked if I wanted to join them on a camping trip this weekend out into the Jemez. The area they were planning on camping is somewhere I'd never been before. The road out there is awesome. It passes through some tunnels and follows a river for quite a while.

We found a campsite that was a little hike off the road. It took a while and a decent effort to carry all our stuff from the car down to the campsite. It was pretty steep getting down to the area where the camping was. We got everything set up and got a fire going and then started dinner. I made some green chile cheese burgers with some roasted corn on the cob for dinner Friday night.

On Saturday we had breakfast and waited for the sun to come up a little bit more then started hiking up and through the river while drinking some beers. I was pretty amazed at how well Canyon and Wicket (Brandon and Erin's dog) did in the water. I was expecting Canyon to avoid it like the plague but after a while she was pretty happy to splash through the water following us.

We stopped a couple times to have a drink and just after the 2nd stop, Brandon went to put Wicket on some rocks since he was getting pretty cold and tired from the water. There was a huge rattle snake chilling there and Brandon didn't see it until he had almost set Wicket on top of it. He flew himself and the dog backwards into the water, fortunately avoiding any kind of bite. Erin and I could hear it going crazy with its rattle after that. The crazy part was that Canyon had just ran through there which is why we assumed it would be fine.

After that little shake-up we decided to turn around and head back to camp. Once back at camp we made some sandwiches and snacked. Dark clouds were rolling in and it started raining so we just hunkered up under the canopy and played a dice game called Farkel while we waited out the rain.

The rain eventually stopped and we started collecting some firewood for the evening fire and dinner. For dinner tonight, Brandon made some lemon chicken, beans caesar salad and some sausage. We were all pretty tired from being in the sun most of the day so we were all passed out around 10pm.

It stormed a few times through the night but it wasn't anything too extreme. We got up, ate a quick breakfast with eggs and some of the leftover hamburger meat and started packing up the campground. The hard part was carrying everything back up to the cars. Even though we had drank most of the water and ate a lot of the food, the coolers were still heavy and awkward to carry back up.

On the way out we stopped at one of the cliff tunnels and took some photos before heading back to Albuquerque. Back at home, Canyon is passed out and is in desperate need of a good wash and grooming. I'll be looking for a place this week to take her to.

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Tags: jemez, camping, canyon, new mexico, river

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Monday, July 7, 2014 @ 4:18 PM in General Travel

I'm writing this post a little late since I just uploaded all the photos from the trip. Scott called a few weeks ago to see if I was doing anything the weekend of June 28. I didn't have any plans yet so we decided we'd head up to Vail, Colorado and try some downhill mountain biking.

Scott booked a flight on Southwest to Denver which arrived on Saturday night. I drove up and picked him up from the airport and then we drove out to Vail. We didn't get into our hotel until around midnight since Scott's flight was delayed about an hour. One nice thing about driving that late was the complete lack of traffic on I-70 through the mountains.

We woke up pretty early on Sunday morning and headed into Vail to purchase our lift tickets and mountain bike rentals. We found out that we could buy a full day lift ticket that came with a half day mountain bike rental included for $73. The guys at the bike shop said they didn't really follow the half/full day rental schedule so as long as we returned the bikes before 6:00pm then we'd be fine.

We were given two Trek Fuel Ex 5 29ers to take up the mountain. The bikes are full suspension and seemingly ran over just about anything without a problem. We did a couple runs including some pretty steep blacks then went back to the car to make some sandwiches for lunch. Scott had a little trouble with his rear brake not working too well so he had to take it in a couple times to get it tightened up.

Our favorite run of the day was Radio Flyer. It had some really nice smooth curves, jumps and dips. It's basically what both of us were imagining when we booked the trip. Several of the other runs were a little too rocky or just plain too steep to feel comfortable on.

After a full day (9:30am-5:45pm) we decided to turn the bikes in and head back to the hotel to shower and find some food. All the riding really wore out my wrists... I think due to the vibration of flying down the hill. My right knee was a little banged up because it kept hitting the top bar of the bike and I think I smacked my left ankle on the pedal once. Other than that, it was an incident free experience!

For dinner we went to a place called Yellowbelly that did a modern take on soul food. I had some roasted chicken, citrus quinoa salad and "smashed potato fries". They also had some natural cane sugar sodas that were all pretty good. There wasn't much to do in town so we tried the hot tub and sauna but both seemed to be broken. The hot tub was cold and the sauna never started steaming. We were both pretty wiped out so we ended up just heading to bed.

I think both of us slept really well considering we didn't even wake up until our alarm went off around 8:30am. Our plan for the day was to check out of the hotel, head to Copper Mountain and take advantage of a lift ticket deal and do some hiking at the top of the ski area before dropping Scott back off at the airport.

We had a quick breakfast and then drove to Copper Mountain. The deal was if we showed up with a receipt that showed we spent $10 in the Copper village then we'd get a free lift ticket for the day. Rather than buying any unnecessary junk, we sorta scammed the system and each bought $10 worth of gas for my car. They didn't seem to have any issue with it so we got our free lift tickets and jumped on the lift.

We only had about an hour to spend up there before we needed to start our journey back to Denver. The hiking was nice and the air was thin. We were up over 11,000 feet and there was still plenty of snow around from the ski runs.

We hit a bunch of traffic on the way back to Denver since they're doing some major construction on one of the tunnels near Idaho Springs. It slowed us down by about a half hour but we still got Scott to the airport with plenty of time to catch his flight. After dropping him off I had the long 7 hour journey home. I stopped in Colorado Springs along the way to check out a liquor store called Coltrains. I always like to pick up some beers I can't find in New Mexico when I'm up in Colorado. Coltrains was right off I-25 which made it really convenient. I bought a bunch of stuff I'd never had and then drove home.

It was a lot of driving for such a short trip but I definitely want to do some more downhill mountain biking. Scott and I definitely made the most of our time on the bike but we both agreed that it would be nice to do a couple days and take our time and not ride all day. It was just too draining.

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Tags: vail, colorado, mountain biking, downhill, copper

Posted from: United States

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 @ 3:15 PM in Miscellaneous

The garden in my front yard has been hit or miss the last few years due to the amount of sun I get (hint: it's a lot). Rather than have another year of poor return from my garden I decided to build a sun shade out of 3/4" PVC pipe and some screen.

The cost of the materials was pretty cheap and it only took about a half hour to get it all put together. I also put some chicken wire around the garden to keep small animals out. This year rather than planting a big mix of vegetables I stuck with 6 Big Jim Green Chile plants. I'm really hoping that this fall I can roast a batch of my own green chile.

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Tags: garden, green chile

Posted from: United States