Saturday, November 26, 2005

Relaxing in the Florida Sun

I am hanging out in Florida, enjoying what sun and warmth I can get before I venture north into the cold and snow. Not that I mind the cold, or the snow. Many people can tell you how excited I get at the thought of snow. It's so beautiful and white and makes the world seem quieter and calmer. Everything slows down a bit with the snow.

So, I am officially a dork... I went on to check out one of the sites I read quite frequently and found that my friend Todd had mentioned me on his site. I was thrilled. I'm a total geek about getting linked to on other people's websites. :)

Todd has been giving me great suggestions for places to visit and other modes of transportation once I get sick of Amtrak and ViaRail. This has led to some very interesting discoveries. He suggested Green Tortoise. Their 28-day Alaska tour sounds really cool. However I did find some websites with people complaining about them, particularly stories of women feeling pressured and harrassed about nudity and promiscuity. So, that's something I'll have to investigate more. There were a lot of stories of people really enjoying Green Tortoise trips too, so I'll have to find my own balance there. In looking around for Green Tortoise info, I found GoNomad, which has info on all sorts of traveling and alternative traveling. One thing they mentioned was traveling via freightliner. That sounds INCREDIBLY cool. There is a part of me that is definately thinking, "forget traveling the U.S. and get on a freightliner to India this INSTANT!" 84 days traveling from New York, through the Panama Canal, over to places like Japan, China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia (although you can't get off the boat there) and other amazing places just sounds so completely wonderful to me. But, that would also eat up most if not all of my money in one fell swoop, so that's probably not going to happen. And I'm still a firm believer that I need to spend some time exploring my own continent before I go off doing some extreme adventuring on other continents.

Thanksgiving was great. Fried turkey is very tasty. The frying went off without incident. There was an array of wonderful side dishes, including a tasty spinach dish that Theresa's sister made. It was a nice family event.

Today we went out for a ride on the motorcycles. Jake had a little trouble with shifting due to his damaged left foot/ankle. (For those of you that don't know, Jake is my younger brother and about 2 months ago was involved in a motorcycle accident where a woman just completely didn't see him and his left foot/ankle got smushed and severely dislocated between her car and the bike.) I rode on the back of the V-Rod with Turk. It wasn't a long ride, due to Jake's difficulties, but it was fun. The new seat on the V-Rod is much more comfortable than the one that was on there last Christmas. Tonight Turk and I went out for dinner and I got to try lobster for the first time ever. Yes, I'm serious, I've never had lobster before. It was decent. Not something I'd go out of my way to pay $30 for, but decent. Then we got home and Turk concocted me some sort of cappuccino/espresso thing, so now I'll be awake for the next 12-14 hours. hahaha

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't give up on the idea of the long trip, either. A coworker of mine travelled throughout Asia, including India and Nepal. What he found was that many backpackers picked up jobs along the way to top up their accounts before moving on. Apparently backpackers pass jobs on to their friends as well. Worst job he ever had he said was where he had to wear a rubber apron and face shield and take a sledgehammer to old car batteries to smash them so that they could recycle the lead from them.

I figure once you get to the first hostel you are likely to hook up with folks who know the ropes.

And wow - I hadn't heard those bad things about Green Tortoise - but then I didn't know much about it. I seem to recall a reader many years ago sending me the link.

Anonymous said...

I'm adding a link to my site as soon as I finish writing this (like I can send sooo many readers your way, hah). You should get a Flickr account and post your pictures there.

You are going to have such an epic adventure this year and I'm totally jealous!

Anonymous said...

Wow, Danielle, this is really an education for me!!! I have heard of blogging but I think I am getting old and this is my first experience reading one. Anyway, I will check in from time to time to see that you are well. I wish you my very best. Enjoy your new found freedom!
Susan(Paulina's mommy)

Anonymous said...

p.s. I think it just took me 5 attempts to publish my message to you! I am soooo old!
Susan