No news is BIG news.

So, I haven't written since our AWESOME vacation to Key West - sorry for the long absence!  We have BIG news coming your way soon...but I have to wait until Saturday to tell you.  I can leave you in suspense with this - it involves an amazing souvenir!

Finally back in Key West!

So here we are after a long day yesterday of traveling.  At 8am we took a train to a bus to a plane, to another plane to a taxi...and finally at 6pm we arrived.  We dropped our bags and headed out to Margaritaville for some Conch fritters and...margaritas!  So yummy, and boy were we hungry!  Today John is exhausted to say the least.  He's been working on average 65 hours a week since just after our honeymoon - 1 year ago.  We've come full circle today, back where we started on our 1 year anniversary.  He's past out in our adorable French Caribbean style room with the AC blasted.  I'm planning on letting him sleep the year off as long as he can.  We have all week to celebrate our anniversary.  Sitting in this beautiful shaded secret-garden courtyard, the warm air penetrates down to my bones and the smell of chlorine infiltrates my nose.  There is only a slight breeze here once in a while making the palms wave hello.
When John does awake, we'll make plans to visit one of the National Historic sites we didn't get cancellation stamps at last year.  Having been to Hemingway's home many times before, I just don't know how I didn't realize that it's on the National Historic Register.  We'll also be taking a tour of Fort Zachary Taylor, a civil war era fort on the southern tip of Key West.  The fort has been used by both the US Army and Navy and
used to have a submarine base. Lastly, we also plan on taking a tour of the US Coast Guard Cutter Ingham which is also a maritime museum.                
This time around, I think our outlook on this trip is to see a specific set of places that we didn't have time for last year.  We also want to just relax!  Our B&B has happy hour included every night around the pool - our plan is to schedule our day around it!  We just had a fantastic breakfast as well.  We really love this place!  If only I could convince John to move down here :)

Government Shutdown

It's more than a little frightening to think that our government could shut down tonight at midnight.  This means parks will be officially closed.  People will have 24 hours to leave and then the gates will be locked.  Important research and protection will cease.  Here is a FAQ sent to me by the National Parks Conservation Association.

It's important to note that National Park Week is coming up, April 16-24th which includes free admission to the parks, something so many families on a budget plan their vacations around.  Unfortunately if the government does shut down, the parks will not be open even then.   There will be massive loss of revenue, many vacations and school field trips ruined and the livelihood of those who depend on tourist revenue and their salaries put on the line.

In 1995 and 1996 the parks were closed for a total of 27 days, in today's economy this could mean a loss of an estimated $32 million a day.  How can we let this happen?  To me, this is devastating that we just let the gates close.  If you'd like to read more about this here is another great article:

Remember if you care about your parks and their funding any donation is always appreciated and the NPCA makes it easy!

Our next vacation!

So, our next vacation is actually going to be a repeat because we loved it so much!  Key West, here we come...in about 1 month that is.  John said, "don't you want to go somewhere new? How are you ever going to see every park if you're repeating places?"  The fact of the matter is that we didn't have enough time to explore all that Key West has to offer.  There are just so many places (museums, gardens, pub crawls and parades!) that we didn't get to do.  I guess that tends to happen when you're on your honeymoon.  YES, I want to see every park but when somewhere draws you in like Key West happens to do to me, I just give in.  It's not to say I won't be able to get a "cancellation" this time.  We actually missed getting one at Hemingway's home, despite being there twice.  We also never made it to Fort Zachary Taylor which we heard is one of the best beaches and also happens to be on the NPS register of historical places.  So, I'll be bringing along my passport to National Parks booklet and all though they won't be "National Parks" I will still be excited when I get those stamps in my book!  More to come on this topic...of all the things on our "to do" list.  For now, John is calling me to dinner...

Quiz: Think You Know the National Parks? by Budget Travel

This quiz is fantastic!  Lots of fun information included within each answer!  Have fun!
http://www.budgettravel.com/feature/quiz-think-you-know-the-national-parks,7057/

Dry Tortugas National Park

On our honeymoon we went to three national parks, Biscayne, Everglades and Dry Tortugas.  Ponce de Leon named the island because of its complete lack of fresh water and its abundance of sea turtles (Tortugas means turtles). Ponce de Leon landed here looking for the fountain of youth, in 1513.  Dry Tortugas consists of seven islands 70 miles west of Key West.  It is closer to Cuba than to the American mainlands.  The only way to get there is by boat or by sea plane.  It's a popular snorkeling location surrounded by protected coral reef home to large sea turtles and rare birds' nesting grounds.  Sooty terns call these islands home, the only place in America where they nest.  They were thought to be in much danger during the BP oil spill, oil came very close to destroying these islands.

In 1846 construction on Fort Jefferson began.  It was meant to protect the United States during the civil war and also to deter pirates.  Hundreds of ships became stranded because they couldn't tell how shallow the water was due to the reefs.  The fort was later used as a prison and most famously imprisoned Dr. Mudd, the doctor that set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he shot President Lincoln.  During a yellow fever outbreak Dr. Mudd helped many prisoners and guards and was eventually pardoned by President Andrew Johnson.  Dr. Mudd didn't go far, he lived out the rest of his life in Key West.

In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the fort as Fort Jefferson National Monument.  In 1992 the fort and all the Tortugas islands were renamed Dry Tortugas National Park and added to the registry.  Anyone can camp at the first come first serve campground for $3 per person and a $5 park pass.  There is no fresh or running water on the island so you must bring your own and you must carry out all of your waste.

Fort Jefferson remains as the Western Hemisphere's largest masonry structure and is comprised of over 16 million bricks.  Some of these bricks came from as far as Maine.  The history behind the fort and the islands is almost never ending!

Here are some of my favorite photographs:

The highlights are definitely the architecture and the Caribbean blue waters!

Planning a trip to Utah's National Parks

One of our favorite things to do is to plan out trips we could take that include stopping at multiple parks in the span of a week or two.  One of these trips we could possibly take is a trip to Utah.  Utah has Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and of course, Zion.  Starting from the east and driving west there is about 11 hours of driving between the first and the last park.  We could possibly go to all the parks in Utah allowing plenty of time inside of two weeks.

Here is a great picture of Arches.  I would also love to go to Natural Bridges National Monument which is just south of Canyonlands NP.

Would anyone recommend doing this trip?  Is two weeks enough to see all the parks?  I can imagine that of all the parks we should save more time at Zion than any other.  What is the best time of year to visit these parks?  We would appreciate the input!

Leaving Port Angeles

The last day consisted of packing up, saying bye to "Mama Cat" and her babies and making the drive to the airport.  To make the trip shorter we took the ferry again to Seattle, the drive there would have been significantly longer without the ferry.  From the ferry for the first time we finally saw Mount Rainier, it occurred to me that I probably thought it was a cloud before:

Can you see Rainier?

When we hit mainland we realized we had some time to spare before check-in.  We decided to make the drive to Redmond to check out Microsoft!  It's a huge campus with their own shuttle buses and tons of apartment buildings across the street.  

On our drive back towards Seattle to get to the airport on time for our red eye back to Boston, we laughed the whole way because Rainier was right there!  

Also on the drive we saw the REI headquarters and...lots of traffic.  We probably shouldn't have pushed our drive to rush hour!  We still made it to the airport on time and saw the most beautiful sunset while they were preparing our flight.  

We had a fabulous trip and I hope you enjoyed this tour of Olympic National Park and its surrounding areas! Thanks for reading!

Touching the Pacific

Being my first time on the Pacific Coast, of course I had it on my agenda to "touch" the Pacific ocean.  From Port Angeles we made the drive up the coast to Forks, WA - no I'm not a Twilight fan.  I actually never knew the novels took place there until I was there.  Locals kept asking us, "are you here for the vampire book?"  What? I thought to myself.  We happened to be there on the weekend of the "Twilight high school dance" - a dance for fans at the actual high school.  We saw shuttle bus after shuttle bus and tons of sign-age, including one that said "Vampires Welcome."  I still haven't read any of the books or watched the movies.

One of my favorite things about Washington state was all their little coffee "huts."  They don't have Dunkin Donuts every few miles like we do, in fact they just have little coffee shacks with private owners and cute drive thrus.  I loved Tully's coffee and had the best bagels I've ever had - they were monster sized.  Enough for breakfast and lunch.  Oh - and their cups are totally compost able.

Here is a picture of Crescent Lake again on the way to Forks:

Forks, WA not only is the home of Twilight but is also the logging capital of the WORLD.  Really, the world.  

So finally, here is the Pacific ocean!

Scary thought!

So on our last night in Washington we went out to eat and try...dungeness crab!  I had an Alaskan Amber beer with my dinner, I love trying brews from different places.  At another restaurant I had tried a local porter that was delicious.  I wish I could remember what kind it was!  When we were at dinner we listened to the radio for the first time and found out that both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett passed away.  Crazy things happen when you don't listen to the news for days!

Our last day there we spent time in our campground saying bye to Mama Cat and her kittens.  She had made a home for them underneath our cabin and we became friends.

She was really cute and her babies were too!  There were three little black kittens but 

they were very camera shy.  No kitties like flash very much!

In town we went to the Port Angeles Aquarium.  The girl working there was very knowledgeable, especially on the differences of species in the Pacific versus the Atlantic.  Here are some awesome sea stars there:

Olympic Game Farm

If you ever get the opportunity to go to Washington, you should check out the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, WA.  Here is their site: http://www.olygamefarm.com/ .  For 28 years they had a contact with Walt Disney studios filming the animals on their farm.  They have every kind of lion, tiger and bear you could imagine!  They even have Zebra, elk, bison, cougars, prairie dogs, etc.  The animals are all tame having worked in movies.  You can drive through the "safari" trail all around the farm and feed the animals bread.  Just don't get out of your car!  With the windows down you're free to take pictures and hand feed most of the animals.  Just don't stop near the bison!  We did and ended up with its head completely in the car!!

 I think he's smiling at me?!

 The elk were still shedding their winter fur in June!

 This is a European Fallow Deer, they were very cute and very friendly!

So much drool!  

I hope the pictures show what an amazing and fun place this was to visit!

Seattle

Once again we took a ferry, this time to explore Seattle for the day.  There were three major points we wanted to see.

1. The Public Market

2. The Space Needle

3. The First Starbucks 

The ferry ride was amazing.  These have to be some of the largest ferries, after all they are mostly for commuters.  Many people live in the Port Angeles area or on islands and commute to Seattle for work.  The restrooms themselves were impressive, full of changing rooms so worker bees could get dressed during their commute!  They had huge seats, like first class seats on a plane, and wireless internet.  Their cafe was like a full restaurant.  

Here are some views of Seattle from the ferry!

It was a quick walk from the ferry to the public market and Starbucks.  The market was just what I always imagined.  All my senses were on overload from the sights of fish being thrown and vibrant colors of fresh flowers, fruits and vegetables.  The smell of fresh herbs and foods and the sounds of men yelling in every language.

   

All around the city are pig statues pointing to the market! How adorable I thought!  I found a room though with pigs that weren't being used at the time.  Poor piggies!:

We found the first Starbucks across the street from the market! 

It was one of the smallest stores I have ever been in, super crowded too!

Lastly we ventured to the Space Needle.  The construction and architectural aspects interested me the most about it.  It was built for the 1962 World's Fair and is 605 feet tall.  It was built to withstand strong winds and earthquakes of 9.1 magnitude.  It also has 25 lightning rods to product it from damage during storms.  From the top not only can you see all of Seattle and its outer suburbs, but you can see all of the Olympic Mountain range, the Cascade Mountains, Mount Ranier and Mount Baker and Elliott Bay.  Below the needle is an adorable amusement park for children and many sculptures.

Helen at the top!

 The amusement park from above!

Overall we had a successful trip to Seattle, even though it was only for a day!  Also, we had blue bird skies there while it was raining back home!   

San Juan Island National Historic Park

We decided to go sea kayaking for the day out of Anacortes.  To get there we took a ferry from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island.  We drove through Ebey's Landing National Historic Preserver and through Deception  Pass State Park, both beautiful places.  Once there we kayaked around the San Juan islands and saw lots of seals.  They like to pop up and take a peek at people but didn't like us looking at them...they are very camera shy!  

Here is the ferry with Olympic NP in the background!

Party deck much?  

Apparently this is Tom Selleck's home.  He will forever be Richard from Friends to me.