"Water, water, every where..."

Went to Inner Space Cavern in Georgetown, Texas today with the family and came away with this nugget of advice from our tour guide:

"The water in this 3-foot hole is filtered through the limestone above and is 98% pure which is cleaner than the water you drink at home but don't drink this water because a raccoon gets down here and messes in it."

Universal Orlando 2017 - Halloween Horror Nights, Day 2

Universal is split up into two theme parks, a water park, and a shopping/dining district.  The theme parks are Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  The Hogwarts Express links the parks if you have a park-to-park ticket allowing you to visit both parks on the same day.

On this day Jackie, our friend from Florida, met us at Islands of Adventure at 9am.  Whenever we visit the area she's always gracious enough to spend a day at the parks with us, and we always have a great time hanging out with her.  This day was no exception, and she even got soaked with us on the river raft ride: Popeye & Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges.

I'll spare you the play-by-play description and just share some highlights.

The start of a fun day

Universal Orlando 2017 - Halloween Horror Nights, Day 1

Hello again!  Hope you're doing well.

We had decided after our last trip to Universal Orlando in 2016 that we would go back in 2017 to experience Halloween Horror Nights, and we're really glad we did.

Hurricane Irma was a concern heading into this trip since it stormed through the area just days before our scheduled arrival, but it ended up not impacting our travel.  Hurricane Hermine blew through while we were at Universal the year before, so I guess this was just par for the course.

We landed in Orlando at 4:30, checked in at the Universal desk at the airport, then 5 minutes later we were on the shuttle van to our on-site hotel.  Our shuttle driver was great (didn't get his name), and the check in clerk Nadine-Marie at the hotel was terrific; a great experience overall.

Always have to take a cloud pic

Arriving at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort - one of the on-site hotels available at Universal

Pea Soup

I'm not a big fan of peas.  They're fine in small doses like in fried rice or Mexican rice, or occasionally a spoonful of really fresh peas is ok, but that's about it.  So I surprised myself a couple of weeks ago when I bought a can of Campbell's Green Pea soup.  Let's just say I was (insert The Exorcist pea soup reference here) temporarily possessed in the Kroger soup aisle.

So here's how it went today:

Oh god, is it supposed to be solid?

I looked online and apparently this is "normal" and will dissolve once the water's added and it's stirred and heated, but I mean, come on...

Ok, so it did eventually turn into soup.  Unfortunately it turned into pea soup which I now know is disgusting.  To say it tasted as good as it looked would be a kind assessment.  After two spoonfuls I chucked the lot down the drain and started lunch over with baked tilapia.

Grand Canyon 2017 - Day 5

It's a pre-Christmas miracle - I'm back at my blog after a 3-month hiatus for no reason other than I couldn't get motivated to write/caption/post.  Now to pick up where we left off at the Grand Canyon...

For the 5th day of our Grand Canyon road trip, Todd and I decided to hike down Bright Angel Trail.  We caught the shuttle into the park and once there took another shuttle, the blue line, to the trailhead. We started the hike around 9am, which in hindsight was way too late, but we did it anyway.

Our original destination was "1 1/2 Mile Resthouse" which is exactly that - a rest house 1 1/2 miles down the canyon.  Beyond that, the next point on the trail is the 3 Mile Resthouse.  Todd really wanted to do the 3 mile one, which means 3 miles down, then a 3-mile continuous climb back up for a total of 6 miles.  I thought this would be way too much, but we did it anyway.

The physical exertion and heat was extremely rough even though we had food and plenty of water.  Looking back, the one note I made while on the trail was "Dying."

Looking back up the trail while just starting out on the way down.  Think of this and worse, in the sun, for 3 miles.

A very good place to start