Vacations Blog

This is where the wild things are.

Tomorrow may be Halloween, but if your town is anything like mine the festivities will be in full swing tonight as well. There are neighborhood parties and pumpkins to carve and apples to bob. And there are costumed children everywhere.

What does that mean to you? It means that whichever way your travels may take you this weekend you need to play it smart. Cabs, buses, subways – these are good ideas. In fact, the best costume in the room just might be the designated driver.

But you knew that. Just keep your eye(s) on the other guy, yes, the one dressed as a keg.

Photos by Whit Honea

For more family-friendly travel photos visit DeliciousBaby’s Photo Fridays.

Until a few years back, a vacation meant piling the kids into the back and hitting the road. But times change, and now you have a whole new bunch of requirements to fulfill before you can even think about the beach, a cold beer and some peace and quiet.

Beach Vacation

If you don’t want your neighbors and colleagues to look down on you, follow this list of ’friendly’ things that your vacation has to be.

1. Environment-friendly:- It’s bad enough that your vacation destroys your entire year’s savings. Don’t let your vacation be blamed for the destruction of the earth. Find a destination which cares about their surroundings, get a green hotel, try to avoid trips by air and don’t do stuff which will be harmful to the environment – like wasting water, and leaving trash and beer cans in the outdoors or on the road. Read More »

There really is nothing to do in the towns of Santa Paula and Ojai – and that’s exactly why we went. We could have driven 3 hours to Joshua Tree, sure, or gone down to Tijuana simply so we could write ‘…is in Mexico!’ on our Facebook profile and then hightail it back to San Diego – there’s enough to do outside of Los Angeles, but it all seemed so – goal orientated.

If you go to a National Park, you feel the need to hike and that’s just silly and in no way relaxing. If we went to a museum, I’d have to act like I know what my girlfriend was talking about all the while wondering if the café would give me a beer.

See – too many road trips out of town come with immense amounts of pressure. So when I asked ‘what’s there to do there?’ when she suggested it, she came back with ‘not a lot – there are some shops in Santa Paula and a cool little Mexican restaurant’, I was sold. Shops meant she had something to do and tequila meant I did as well. Read More »

The first time I was offered a ticket to San Juan Capistrano’s Mission, it was by my Mother. Who was with her Sister. It was a nice gesture, but being single and broke, I chose to go ahead and let them go, less that be the final straw in the crumbling fortress that was originally my self-confidence.

7 years later, I found myself slightly better and decided to take the trip down from Los Angeles as a statement of my healing.

I was 33, making ridiculous money from blogging articles like these and was ready. Read More »

My regular readers reader knows that I’ve written once or twice about my home town of Clayton.  Well, I would be dreadfully remiss in my “representin” duties if I did not blog about our annual Oktoberfest.

This year’s Oktoberfest was held on the weekend of September 26-27. Yea, I know. Don’t ask me. I guess all the weekends in October were spoken for. Whatever. In fairness though, that other Oktoberfest actually begins mid-late September, and ends in early October, so I guess we Claytonites just decided to jump right into the middle of the whole brew-ha-ha.  Get it??

*crickets*

Read More »

They have fall in England, too.

School is in session, football is on TV and leaves are starting to fall.  It would appear that autumn is upon us, and all that it entails.

Fall is one of my four favorite seasons.  In fact, it may be my overall favorite.  The days are cooler and the nights are crisp.  Outside every window is a canvas of color.

There are darker beers in the fridge and heartier meals on the table.  Ballparks are filled with dreams of pennants.

Get out and see it! This land is your land, and it is beautiful this time of year.

Ah, school in session fall.

For more family-friendly travel photos visit DeliciousBaby’s Photo Fridays.

Photo by KJHughes

For all the cheap Plastic crap you'll only use for a week....

The sign at the Onslow County beach access #4 said that ‘if one should be caught in a Riptide, one should not struggle against its current.  One should stay calm.  Panic-free.  Enjoy the ride, until the ride is over.  Until the icy-cold hand of the Atlantic pulls one out into the ink black, shark-infested waters.  Or, or, one could swim perpendicular to said Riptide and break free the current.’

Okay.  It really didn’t say all of that stuff about “ink black, shark-infested waters”.  But all the other stuff is well paraphrased.  And I thought it good to know.  Because we were at the Beach. Read More »

Tim helps prepare me for Hawaii in the only way he knows how.

You’re looking at how much I know about Hawaii.

They make decent beer at cheap prices.

I mean, I’ve heard all sorts of things about it, but have no opinion – reason being is that I was brought up poor, still am, and even if I wasn’t, it’s an expensive place…

And if I’m going to shell out, I might as well go back to Thailand.

But Hawaii got word of this and is set to prove me wrong – something that has proven easily done ever since I proclaimed the Counting Crows to be ‘the next Dylan’ – and have sent for me.

So tomorrow I’m off. Actually, in less than 4 hours I’m off and I’m just now packing.

I’m not bringing much – a carry-on bag and a small backpack, as these luggage fees ad up when you have to fly out of Bend, OR (if this makes no sense to you, just know that there are no direct flights from here to Honolulu…or, well, most places). But I also want to enjoy myself as much as anyone else, so there will be the obligatory cocktail-with-a-tiny-umbrella, some surfing, local music and cheap trinkets to pass off as archeological finds to my family at Christmas. I want a flowery shirt and to go on a boat. Hell, I’ll get my hair put into beads if I can find it cheap enough.

Why? ‘Cause when I come back, I want to look like I just did Hawaii.

I’m just not going to give it my money…which works out nice as I don’t have any.

More tomorrow – can someone call me at 4am?

You know what happened…

Aric Q. is traveling to Hawaii and he’s trying to do it on the cheap.  We will be following his adventures here on UpTake and we will be wishing him well, but we will NOT be wiring him money.