Paige and I just returned from what has become our annual vacation to the Southwest. This trip lasted a little over a week, we left Friday, Oct. 2nd, and returned yesterday, Saturday, Oct 10. During that time we squeezed in a lot.

We spent Friday evening thru Sunday afternoon in Albuquerque, NM, enjoying the annual International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. We had a blast. The weather was perfect for the two days we went to the event, although there were some strong winds in the evenings, which prevented some of the events from taking place.

Sunday afternoon we had some time to kill before heading north to Santa Fe, NM, so we swung by Petroglyph National Monument. There are a couple different hiking trails you can take, we opted for the easier one that would only take us around 2 hours. There are somewhere in the vicinity of 25,000 petroglyphs in the park, the path we took showed us around 100 - 200.

We spent Sunday evening thru Wednesday morning in Santa Fe, NM, one of our favorite haunting grounds in the Southwest. No matter how many times we go there, we thoroughly enjoy it. We happened to be there during events commemorating their 400th anniversary and also Hispanic Heritage Month.

While staying in Santa Fe, we took a day trip to the Taos Pueblos. This is located just north of Taos, NM. The Taos Pueblos allows you to view the Native Americans living in their traditional way. We enjoyed this visit a lot, and took lots of photos.

Wednesday morning we set out for Monument Valley, UT. This is quite a trek, it takes around 6 1/2 hours to drive there from Santa Fe, NM; but, it's truly worth it. This time we stayed at The View Hotel, which is located in the park itself. The view from our balcony was amazing. We could see both mittens and the other butte which are in pretty much all photos you will see of Monument Valley. We arrived just in time to see the sunset. We stayed there Wednesday thru Friday morning.

Friday morning we headed back to Santa Fe, NM, for one more night in our favorite city. We flew out of Albuquerque the next afternoon.

This was a great trip, and one I'm sure we repeat many times in the future.

Tags: vacation

Paige and I took a nice, quick, little vacation a few weeks back. We went to Key West, FL. We left on a Thursday and came back on a Sunday, thinking this would be the perfect amount of time to do all the exploring we needed to do. Looking back; we wish we would have had a couple more days. We had a spectacular time. You can view the photos here.

Tags: vacation

I have uploaded the photos I like from the vacation Paige and I took to the Southwest. I still have to go through my photos from Sedona, which is taking a while, because we were there for 4 days and went to a lot of different places.

You can find the latest photos over in the photo section of my site.

Tags: photos, vacation

Paige and I returned earlier this week from a nice southwest vacation. We’ve come to really enjoy traveling to the Southwest, and this trip did not disappoint.

We started our journey in Phoenix, Arizona, which is where we flew into. We took the rental car from there to Sedona, Arizona, for a stay at The Enchantment Resort. This is the place we had stayed on an earlier visit. This time we did a lot more exploring of ruins and trails. We were there from Saturday to Tuesday.

The next leg of our journey was The Grand Canyon. It’s a beautiful big hole in the ground. We got there to experience the sunset, and took photos the next morning too, before heading off to our next destination: Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, is amazing. This was another one evening stay, with lots of exploring.

The next leg of our journey was Albuquerque, New Mexico. We timed our trip perfectly to experience the first day of the International Balloon Fiesta! We lucked out with the weather, although it did get too windy the first evening to experience the balloon glow. The next day was too windy and rainy, so they canceled most all of the events.

We finished our journey in our favorite spot, Santa Fe, New Mexico. As always, it was a perfect experience.

We both got a lot of photos using our new cameras. It will take a while to go through all of them and get them up on Flickr, but I will post them when I get them up.

Tags: vacation

Paige and I spent the evening planning our next vacation, which we will be taking the end of September, and beginning of October. We are going on another trip to the South West, this time adding in a couple stops we haven’t done before.

We plan on starting off at The Enchantment Resort in Sedona, Arizona. This is the resort we stayed at on our previous trip. It’s a beautiful place to stay, so we are happy to be staying there again. We plan on doing a bit more exploring this time, and also would like to head out on a photography jeep tour, getting to use our new cameras (although we both plan on bringing our old point-and-shoot cameras too, can never be too careful).

We will be heading to The Grand Canyon once we are done in Sedona. We plan on staying 1 day there.

We will head to Monument Valley, Utah, after that. This will be another 1 day visit.

We will spend a couple days in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after that. We are coinciding our trip with the 2008 Hot Air Baloon Fiesta, which should be really cool, and a great photo experience.

We will end our trip with a couple day stay in our favorite place, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This vacation will be a little different than our others, due to the fact that we are traveling around and doing so much, but it should hopefully be lots of fun.

Tags: vacation

Paige and I took a couple quick vacations the past two weekends, we both needed some time away from work and Atlanta.

Our first vacation was spending July 4th weekend in Asheville, North Carolina. We headed up Friday morning, it’s not too bad a drive, around 3 1/2 hours. We stayed at the Renaissance hotel, which is located within walking distance of the town, which is nice. We spent the first day exploring the town and ended the night watching the fireworks display, which was a nice show. We woke the next morning, planning on heading to Biltmore House, which is 10 minutes away; unfortunately my car wouldn’t cooperate. It wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. I figured I must have left a light on over night, causing the battery to drain. I called roadside assistance, and they sent a tow truck to jump the car. The tow truck driver was the spitting image of Larry the Cable Guy, from the look to the accent. Once he jumped my car we decided to take a trip on the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. There weren’t many scenic views, but we made a couple stops, and saw a wild turkey, which was cool. When we got back to the hotel I turned off the car, and just for kicks decided to try and start it again, to see if all the traveling had charged up the battery. The car was dead again. We were both happy I never turned the car off while we stopped for the scenic views, we would have been stuck up in the mountains. We spent the evening walking around the town, it was very nice. The next morning I had my car jumped again, and we headed out to Auto Zone to get a new battery. Once that was done we headed over to Biltmore House. It was definitely the highlight of the trip. It’s a beautiful house, and the gardens are great too. We finished the day by stopping off at the winery, taking a tour of it, and attending a wine tasting. We both thought the wine wasn’t going to be all that great, but it ended up being surprisingly good. We sat down and had a cheese plate and some more wine before heading home. Our overall thoughts of the trip? We don’t think we will go to Asheville again. It’s not that great a town. We were expecting something more along the lines of Santa Fe, which is more of an artist community, there weren’t many galleries in Asheville. Also, there are a lot of dirty hippies there, which isn’t the nicest thing to see everywhere. We did enjoy Biltmore, and would gladly visit and stay there, but not Asheville.

This past weekend was a two part trip, and it wasn’t just Paige and I. We left Thursday morning for St. Augustine, Florida. Neither of us had been there, and we have both heard good things about the place. It is about a 5 1/2 hour drive from Atlanta. We met Paige’s Mom when we got there, she flew down from Pennsylvania. We stayed at The Hilton, which is very nice. Much like Santa Fe, where no building can be larger than the church steeple, St. Augustine does not allow any buildings to be larger than two stories. So, instead of your usual high rise hotel, the Hilton is spread out amongst 19 buildings, looking like a small village. The rooms are very nice, and it’s right across the street from the water, and in the heart of everything. We were there from Thursday to Saturday, and never had to use a car. St. Augustine is beautiful, about our only complaint is it was hot and very muggy, but that’s not the city’s fault, it’s ours for heading down to Florida in July : ) It was great to see Paige’s Mom again, she’s a very nice woman. We left Thursday to head over to Lake Panasoffkee, which is where Paige’s grandfather lives. We were visitng him for his 90th birthday. We met up with Paige’s sister there, and I also got a chance to meet other family members. We were there for the day, leaving the next day back to Atlanta. It was a great trip, maybe not the most relaxing vacation, but we still had a great time.

Tags: vacation

It's the day after Christmas, and I am back in Atlanta. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Columbus, GA, visiting with my family. My sisters were busy with their families Christmas Eve, so I didn't see them until Christmas Day, when we all met at Beth's house for our annual Christmas dinner.

This is the first Christmas that we didn't attend church on Christmas Eve. The past couple years we have gone to my sister Beth's church, as she is the only one in the family that actually goes to church more than once a year. This year my Mom wasn't interested in going there, so we spent Christmas Eve around the house. We were going to head out to catch a movie, but the more we thought about it, it just felt good to sit around in front of the fireplace, watch a little TV and talk.

My mother and I have a new tradition, we head out to Denny's for breakfast on Christmas morning. We've found if you get there early enough, around 8:30 or so, there isn't a wait. After that we both head home and nap for a little while before heading over to Beth's. Once we're at Beth's we eat then give the kids their presents.

It was a nice Christmas. I don't really expect much from the holiday any more. I am glad we don't do the whole gift exchange thing with the family and only concentrate on the kids. It relieves a lot of unneeded stress of trying to find a gift. The holiday has become way too commercial.

Paige and I exchanged gifts Sunday evening. She got me art supplies. I used to love to sit down and draw, and have really wanted to get back into it. I need to set aside time for doing it.

Paige and I are renting a villa at Callaway Gardens for New Years. We usually head to a restaurant and toast in the New Year there, but decided to try something different this year. We both enjoy staying away from annoying drunk party goers, which is why we aren't heading to a New Years party. Will be nice to toast in the New Year together.

Happy Holidays!!

Tags: holiday, vacation

Paige and I returned from our short little vacation in Santa Fe Sunday. We had a great time. There aren't many tourists in Santa Fe this time of year, so the city was even quieter than usual. We stayed at the same hotel as last time, The Inn of the Anasazi. We actually got the same room as last time too, room 218. Paige's Mom stayed next door. Paige's sister, her husband and their dog stayed at a hotel a couple blocks away. The weather was great, more wintery than the 70+ degree weather we are experiencing in Atlanta. We're both glad we had visited Santa Fe before, because we didn't really do much sight seeing this time. We mainly spent the days eating, drinking and hanging with her family.

Tags: vacation