Category Archives: Travel

Bday Trip 2018 – The Tide Is High (and Low)

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High Tide Hopewell Rocks

I got to my hotel in Moncton – finally – and was told I had been given an upgrade at the front desk. I’m not exactly sure how that was an upgrade, but at least there was a clean room and king size bed. Unfortunately, there was also a loud AF French Canadian family that did not understand the concept… Read more »

Bday Trip 2018 – Island Driving

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Singing Sands Beach, PEI

After a long day of driving the Cabot Trail and then driving all the way to Charlottetown, PEI, I was delighted by my next accommodation – Sydney Boutique Inn and Suites. Once a convent, the hotel is well-located and incredibly stylish and comfortable. In fact, it was the nicest place I stayed on my entire trip (so naturally, it was… Read more »

Bday Trip 2018 – The Cabot Trail (or The Day I Spent Mostly Driving)

Lakies Head, Cabot Trail

I woke up in Ingonish surprisingly well-rested. I decided to get up and explore a bit more of the rocky beach down the path from the lodge I was staying. You see, I had to see if the beach was suitable for something very near and dear to my heart… When my dad lay dying a month or so ago,… Read more »

Bday Trip 2018 – Getting to Cape Breton

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Orange Mustang GT Convertible

I woke up in my hotel room in Toronto after the previous hellacious day, hopeful that I might actually make it to Halifax this time. After grabbing a shower and verifying that yes indeed the flight was listed as On Time (but knowing that this never reflected reality for Air Canada), I took the shuttle back to the airport. I… Read more »

Bday Trip 2018 – Why I Will Never Fly Air Canada Again (Part One)

The morning after Sunday’s concert, I had to get up far earlier than I wanted to. You see, I had a flight out of LaGuardia at 11am. But since it was considered an international flight (up to Canada), I was supposed to get to the airport by 9am. Ok, but I had to drop off Lance (yes, I name my… Read more »

Bday Trip 2018 – Concert Weekend

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Adam Ant in concert

I’m back home in Austin after my bday trip. But the trip was about much more than celebrating my annual trip around the sun. It was also a time for me to be by myself and come to grips with my dad’s passing. Everyone goes through grief differently it seems, and for me, I really needed to be completely alone… Read more »

Planning My 2018 Bday Trip

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Regular readers of this blog already know that I love to travel and explore new places. And that I made a promise to myself to travel as often as I could once I recovered from the shock of being diagnosed with a rare variant of melanoma, amelanotic nodular melanoma, and the excision to get it cut out. For my birthday… Read more »

Soggy Time in Florida

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I’m back in Austin (for a few days anyway) after spending a week or so in South Florida. As mentioned in my previous post, I was in Key West for a wedding of a good friend of mine and since we flew into and out of Fort Lauderdale, we spent some time with my college roommate and her husband. They… Read more »

My Euro Work Trip – Part Three, Budapest

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My sleeper compartment on the night train from Prague to Budapest ended up being single occupancy, since the person that was supposed to hang out with me in Prague decided to skip out on me. The compartment was in one of the newish Comfortline sleeper cars. While it was more modern than the Polish sleeping car, it actually was more… Read more »

My Euro Work Trip – Part Two, Prague

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Picking up from the previous post…My sleeper compartment in the Polish train from Krakow to Prague ended up being a single, which made me extraordinarily happy not to have to share with either a boisterous young backpacker or a grumpy older woman. The compartment was in an older train car, no doubt about it. But it was clean and relatively… Read more »