The tour - take 1

On Wednesday we took a tour of the Island... but since I took sooo many pictures I'll have to break this down a bit.

We took a tour with ABC Jeep Tour. It was a good tour, interestingly, Harland got to drive one of these old Land ROvers. I'm pretty sure these wouldn't fly in the US. For one reason having a member of the the tour drive around 7 other tour members around just wouldn't work.

Anyway, Here is a picture of us in the Jeep.

One of the Shipwreck.


One of the California Lighthouse.

Of the Alto Vista Chapel.


Of some rocks.


We took a stop at the Gold Mines... But we didn't see any gold.




And we also stopped at the natural Bridge. The old one, which was the biggest in the Carribean collapsed in 2005, but there is another one next to it.





It was also nice to see what the "wild side" beach looked like.

Aruba - beach

When people ask about your vacation, they always want to know about your hotel and the Beach. As for the Bucuti, it was awesome and the people were great, the staff was the friendliest I have ever seen, and they were extremely environmentally friendly. And they happen to be on the best area of the Eagle Beach. No one could ask for any more than that.




We had pretty much the same view from our room.





Here is a pic of the restaurant and also of an Iguana. There were 3 or 4 around the area of the hotel, and this green guy was rather large, at least 2 feet long! He made me nervous one day when we were cozying up to the "Sandbar" taking advantage of happy hour. All the sudden there he was at our feet!




I'm afraid I won't have time to blog tomorrow, but on Friday or over the weekend, I'll have pictures for you from our tour of the Island... don't miss it!

Aruba - days 1 and 2

Okay so day one was really just us schlepping from the airport to the hotel (Bucuti) and chilling out, then eating at the hotel restaurant (the Pirate's Nest). I had the Keshi Yena which is a traditional Aruba dish, and the version at the Pirate's Nest was vegetarian. It was really delicious. Of course now that I'm at home I realize I should have begged for that recipe, since usually it is cooked with chicken or fish and the recipes don't really sound like what I ate at all. I have a few recipes that kinda seem similar, I think when H. is gone I'll work on trying to get a good veggie recipe created.

I mean you're not surprised I'll likely go back to being vegetarian once he's outta the house, right?! And this will keep me busy. Hahaha.

Anyway, so I took some pictures of the hotel but because it was overcast, they're not the best ones of the group. I'll show you more of the hotel later.

We did catch a wee bit of a sunset that poked through.


The next day was a little nicer. Here is the view from our room and also a shot of some of the dragonflies. Every morning there were hundreds outside of our door then by mid morning they disappeared. Very fun to watch.

We then checked out the Butterfly Farm. Here are some pictures from there.








These ugly, 5 inch caterpillars are Owl Butterfly caterpillars. They're so impressively huge and ugly. Apparently they'll just crawl away and cocoon! Did you know that when they cocoon, all their organs turn to liquid and everything re-forms into a butterfly! How crazy is that?

Also Aruba is known for the fact that it rarely rains! So there are a lot of cacti.
We're special in the fact that we went there when they had rain! Lucky Us!


Then that night we went to a pretty decent Cuban restaurant called Cuba's Cookin. They had a free mojito coupon, which I highly recommend taking with you! And also - it is best to take some one with you who doesn't like them - then you can drink theirs too! I highly recommend doing that. And ordering the Ropa Vieja.

Shenandoah

Okay so I'm starting to think I hadn't blogged because I was busy, hahaha.
Anyway we went walking in Shenandoah last weekend...
Here are some lovely fall-esque pictures.

First we hiked Compton Peak (skyline drive mile 10.4)




Then after a nice long (and very late) lunch at the skyline lodge, we didn't have much time so we decided to take a walk to Millers Head (mile 42.5). There apparently is a place where hang gliders go, although we didn't see any.

Bob and Tricia!

A few weeks back my dear cousin Bob got married!! yay! Not only that but he married a lovely, wonderful person. It took me a while to blog because I have been running around a lot and haven't been online as much as usual.

Anyway, here are some of the better pictures that I took!

First here they are, very very newly married!


And here is all of us being Crazy at the Reception!!

Running Questions

Wow it was a nice run today, I think this was because I slacked on Tuesday and mostly walked because my legs were tired from the race. Not that I was running fast or even really pushing myself at the race, but just because there were more hills than I was used to.

It's pretty cool these mornings (today it was 50ish), and this morning was also windy, so it was a little worse than it has been, I wore long sleeves.

So I have a question for you cold weather runners (I'm looking to you - people from Vermont and Connecticut!) when do you pull out winter gear?

And what does your winter arsenal look like? And how do you know what to put on and when? Is it all trial and error?

You see the last time I took up running I lived in Florida. If it was chilly, I'd just wait until the afternoon to run.

And also - it is dark out there when I go running now (I run where there is little traffic so I don't have to worry about that)... but does anyone switch their running to lunch time? I'm concerned once my human alarm clock (aka Harland) leaves that I'll not want to get up in the dark anymore.

Race Update

I posted my race info below (if you haven't gotten there yet) and click here for the article from the Washington Running Report.

I forgot to tell you that we had a new type of time measuring device. Rather than those heavy chips that you have to return, they have a new ChronoTrack(click here for image) which is a light paper loop, kinda like a hospital bracelet. It starts off as a paper strip on your bib, you peel it off and put it in your shoe laces. It makes a "D" shape with the round loop facing up. There is a small chip in it, but you can't feel the weight of it on your shoe at all, and it doesn't flop around.

I hope more races go to this kind of system. It's worry-free! You don't have to worry about taking it off your shoe and remembering to return it to the bin, or worrying about what if yours gets lost somehow because you'll have to pay to replace it.