One of my favorite things to do is to travel with friends and family, and seeing how I like to take pictures you can guess that I have photos of my trips. So in this section I will be posting photos from any notable vacations or trips that I've taken. If you were on the vacation with me and want any of these pictures just let me know. Enjoy!

Art Fair Photos
We travel around Michigan for Art Fairs, so here are some pictures of the various places we go for shows.

Birch Lake, Canada
The Somers (my aunt and cousins) own a cabin up at Birch Lake in Canada. I've been there a couple times and when we go we hang out, do work around the cabin, explore the old mines and quarries, drive around, go hiking and boating...but mostly we just hang around the cabin and relax. What more can you ask of a vacation?

Spring Break 2004 - Destin, Florida
My friend Shannon and I left my house on Saturday and down to Nashville where we spent the night at the Radisson there. We thought about going to the “Grand Ole Oprey” but eh, we decided to hang out at the Jacuzzi and sleep in instead. We got up and hit the road again in the morning and after a slight travel detour *cough* we made it to our destination, Destin, Florida. And thus the troubles begin!

We were supposed to stay at a place called “Club Destin” and after passing around three times we finally found it. The lights were dim. The driveway was block off with “Caution” tape and barriers. This didn’t look good. We parked nearby and walked over to have a closer look (wi r smrt), on the side entrance was a sign that said “Hazardous Construction Area! Entrance by Authorized Personnel Only” I started laughing. Shannon started panicking sort of. I called the phone numbers on our confirmation sheet and got an answering machine that said that because of Hurricane Ivan the property had sustained damage and wasn’t reopening until late Spring…apparently no one had told the reservation office that.

We called her dad (it was his timeshare that was letting us stay there) and went to Olive Garden to eat while things were figured out. About 50 minutes later we called back and got instructions to a new hotel we were going to stay at. Apparently they were supposed to call everyone who made reservations at Club Destin but our name got skipped (naturally). We ended up staying at Majestic Sun, basically the headquarters in the area for Fairfield resorts. And we didn’t get a hotel room, we got a friggin’ apartment! and it was gorgeous! It had a full kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, Jacuzzi bathtub, separate shower, three sinks, decorations and accessories everywhere and a Gulf view balcony. The heavenly choir of angels sang, and it was good. *love!* It was too late to go to the pool, so we just unpacked and chilled out for the night at the in-room Jacuzzi.

On Monday I woke up really early. When Hurricane Ivan hit it damaged a LOT of the area and construction was still going on. One construction site was right by our hotel so the noise woke me up every morning. I didn’t mind it though, because that meant I could take a shower and walk on the beach. We got some info on events at the concierge desk then went sun tanning for a few hours on the beach. I put on SPF 45 stuff but Shannon forgot to put sun block on her legs…the poor thing was as red as a lobster by the end of it! It looked really painful. We went out to a place called Fudpuckers for lunch (their slogan is “You ain’t been pucked, ‘til you’ve been Fudpucked”…how could we not go?) What was cool about that place is that you can get your picture taken with a live alligator. It’s just a baby 15 pound one, but still it was cool to hold one and we took pictures of each other with it. I signed my name on the railing with a little doodle picture and the date. Then we went to Walmart so I could buy some lower SPF suntan lotion and Shannon could get sunburn cream. We got back to the hotel just in time for a big thunderstorm to hit. That’s okay, I’d rather it rain at night than in the daytime. Besides, we had signed up for a one hour full body massage that night anyway. That massage was heavenly, Amen. By the time we both had our massages we were whipped, so we hit the sack after Adult Swim viewing.

On Tuesday I woke up again and walked the beach. It was really windy because of the storm the night before. Not to mention I woke up with a sore throat, I ignored it though. We went out tanning again but it was really windy so Shannon went in early and I only stayed out a couple hours. For lunch we went to “Eat at Joe’s Crabshack” and I had some Snow crab legs that were yummy. We went back to the hotel and I took some sunset pictures, then we went shopping for souvenir stuff. That night we just hung out at the pool and Jacuzzi downstairs.

On Wednesday we checked out of the hotel/apartments and went to Gulf World at Panama Beach. We watched the sea lion show, the dolphin show (got wet), and played with a $30,000 endangered parrot. Then we signed up for their Dolphin Encounter program and swam in the pool with the dolphins. Well, it was a really controlled swim though. We got to do the commands to make the dolphins do tricks and hand them tow us around the aquarium by holding on to their dorsal fins (I got to be the guinea pig with that one) and got our pictures taken with them. On our way back we stopped at the beach to collect shells and I took sunset pictures again. By the end of it we were both kind of tired and it was late so we decided to hang out in Destin one more night at the Motel 6. After we checked in we went and played miniature golf at the “Big Kahuna” and stopped at the Dippin’ Dots store and got some icecream (I -love- Dippin’ Dots) then we went to the motel to sleep…at least we would have had the neighbors not been partying until 4am -_- But because of all the noise Motel 6 gave us a free room for our next stay!

So, on Thursday I woke up kind of early for one last short tanning session at the beach then we packed it up and hit the road. By now my sore throat had turned to a stuffy nose and the head-cold I have right now was in full swing...what luck. I felt horrible after not sleeping, eating and having to choke down Dayquil so we stopped and ate. It was a pleasant drive up to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where we used our free Motel 6 coupon. The Nyquil made me uncomfortable though for some odd reason so I didn’t get much sleep again…just enough to keep me moving really. Damn colds…

On Friday we went to Mammoth Cave National Park on the Frozen Niagra tour for a couple hours, then went to Diamond Caverns on their tour. I love caves, the geology of it is just so cool! I’m a geek like that. That took up most of the day so we ate at Cracker Barrel while trying to decide if we were going to drive all the way back up to Michigan that night or not. In the end we decided since it was the last night of vacation we should enjoy it, so we checked into the Hampton Inn at Horse Cave and chilled at the pool and Jacuzzi and stayed in a really nice room (it was pricey though).

Then on Saturday we had a great breakfast provided by the hotel, and went to Hidden River Cave right down the road. While scenically speaking the other two took the cake, historically speaking Horse Cave was the neatest. It had a lot of history to it, especially environmental history which peaked my interest. It was neat. Then we piled in the car and headed back home, we got back around 9pm. I slept like a rock and my little kitties were glad to see me.

Shannon left this morning to go back up to the U.P., another full day of driving for her. (ick!) I’ve started the coughing and hacking phase of my cold so I just ran some errands and cleaned things up a bit and visited with my niece. Then we all went and saw that new “Robots” movie. It was really cool! I want to see it again since there were so many little random bits that I’m sure I missed details in or didn’t get. It was very clever. Anyway, fun trip!