Category: United States

When Sam and I went to Wendover, Nevada back in March 2020, we kept seeing signs that implored us to “Explore Elko.” As with many things, we started saying it ironically and then one day, it wasn’t ironic.

As fairly avid travelers pre-pandemic, we have often joked about being “somewhere, anywhere” even as we work at home and socialize at home and spend…. almost all our waking hours without even leaving this building. And so we planned a long weekend away to Elko.

Elko was charming! There are so many small towns in America that are struggling economically, and Elko felt like an exception to that rule. As it turns out, they’ve still got active gold mining, and as such, they’re doing pretty well. Every restaurant we ordered food from was locally owned and not a chain. We stopped by art galleries, too, and there were quite a few in the downtown area.

It is still Nevada, and it wouldn’t be a town in Nevada without several giant casinos! All of the ones we saw had a more old-school vibe, as opposed to Wendover that has more modern looking places. Or, of course, Vegas. Obviously. But the biggest shock was when we accidentally wandered into the “red light district” (really just a street with a couple legal brothels). I was sort of zoning out and looked up to see…. this.

I mean, I guess they really went for the alliteration.

If we’d been there in the summer, I would have loved to do some hiking on the Ruby Crest Trail! It looks stunning and seems, from all my research, to be a fairly undiscovered gem. But alas, it was rather cold and snowy, and we had a fairly chill weekend. We did wander along the trail next to the Humboldt River. We also saw a snow squall, which was a new experience for me. The phone alert system texted us both to tell us to stay inside, and sure enough, within 15-20 minutes it went from sunny to blizzard conditions.

Our Airbnb was absolutely amazing. We stayed up in this neighborhood with streets named after trees, and all of the houses were historic but well-kept. It was an easy walk into the city from there and our host was so great, giving us plenty of suggestions of places to go and giving us a quick tour of the new property she was working on.

Also, the drive out to Nevada is beautiful! The Bonneville Salt Flats are a great and easy day trip out from Salt Lake, and of course, we always love this view of the mountains over the lake.

It’s not exactly a hot take to say that the pandemic has changed travel. And I have desperately missed taking flights, and exploring new countries, and even the basic things like sitting in a restaurant or seeing the bottom half of a stranger’s face without worrying about whether they’re going to get me sick. But it has been a good push to spend time in places a little closer to home, places that I might not have considered as a travel destination when the whole world was open to me. Now that Sam and I are vaccinated, we’re exploring options for safe travel that are farther afield, but it’s nice to take the time to explore places like Elko every so often.

Interestingly, Delta, Colorado is almost directly in the middle of two extremely wealthy mountain towns. They’re about two hours from Telluride and two and a half hours from Aspen, and so we visited both during our trip. The other cute small town recommendation out here is Ouray, which, honestly, I’m still not quite sure how to pronounce.

Let’s start with Telluride! I’ve wanted to go here for ages, but it is so far out of the way from almost everything else in Colorado that I’d never gotten the chance. They had some fun with their COVID posters, as you can see below. Overall, beautiful scenery, a great town to walk around in, and we spotted some fun restaurants – I would have loved to be here in a non-pandemic time to eat in some of those restaurants, but alas. Takeout will have to do for now. If we’d had more time there, I also understand there are some scenic hikes nearby.

Moving on to Aspen, which is probably about 4.5 hours total in the opposite direction. I have been to Aspen before, when I was little. My family went to a wedding out here once. What I remember from that is that the aspen trees were all that bright yellow color, and my parents and I watched the original Charlie’s Angels TV show the night before the wedding and when we woke up we found traces of a bear nearby. Obviously our little day trip was a little different. Sam and I wandered around the city center, ate on the patio of a café, and then found a path through the trees that we walked along for a while. It’s even more gorgeous that I remember there.

Our third featured mountain town is Ouray! This one was a recommendation from our Airbnb host. It’s not quite as glitzy as the others, but it was charming. If we’d had more time, we might have gone beyond it, because apparently there is a very beautiful mountain road that leads to more cute and historic old mountain towns.

I think the night coming back from Ouray was the night of the deer. We saw so many. I don’t know if you’ve read The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, which is a deer-related horror novel, but it felt a little like that. Several passed in front of the car that we could see, and we were terrified we were going to hit one. The worst, though, was when we came up over a small hill and I found myself looking directly into the eyes of a deer that was contemplating whether it should cross the street. I stared straight into its soul, I think, and it was just me and the deer for a few seconds before I finally managed to say something to alert Sam to its presence. Luckily for both the deer and our car, it stayed on the side of the road.

On the subject of rural life, I’d like to take a minute to note the advantages of our farm stay. The place we were staying had a herd of cows, horses that regularly wore jackets for the cold, chickens, and goats of both the fainting and non fainting variety. Some days we would go out to wander around their various pens, and we even got the chance to feed some of the animals while we were there! I love being in a city most of the time, but it was really great to get away from it all and wake up to cows mooing in a field. We used to joke they had some sort of daily standup meeting because they would all congregate in one area and moo at a specific time each morning.

All in all, I cannot stress enough how underrated southwestern Colorado is. It was never really on my list, but when COVID shifted my travel plans to be closer to home and pushed me to look at places for outdoor-focused road trips, it created new options of places to visit. I’m so glad we took a chance on Delta and had the time to really explore the region.

I didn’t plan it out so that we were in the middle of nowhere during Election-Week-From-Hell, but I also wasn’t mad about it. It kept Sam and I from staring at the CNN predictions for 24 hours a day while we waited for all the states to finish counting ballots, which… let’s be real, we needed that distraction.

And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean the middle of nowhere. My coworker asked me where Delta, Colorado was, and when I said, “oh, it’s about an hour east of Grand Junction,” he said, “but there’s nothing there?” Which, again, wasn’t exactly my plan. These vacation days were originally earmarked for Ireland pre-COVID, and then we went through a couple of other ideas even after it was clear our Europe trip was off the table. Northern California and Oregon road trip? Nope, literally on fire. South Dakota? Nope, crazy high COVID rates. And so we ended up finding an Airbnb through a coworker of my mom, which was a farm stay in Delta.

And here’s the thing – it was great. It turns out that there are amazing destinations all around Delta, and it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere for a while. I’m separating the trip into two posts. This one will be focused on the landscapes and outdoorsy activities, and the next post will be the cute ski towns we visited around here!

On the way to Delta, we stopped at Arches National Park and hiked out to Delicate Arch. It’s one of Utah’s most famous landmarks! You may have seen it before on the Utah license plates. The hike out is gorgeous, and the arch itself doesn’t disappoint. At some point, we’ll have to do a full Utah parks trip because this was the first time Sam had been to any of them.

Our next day was Colorado National Monument, which is right by Grand Junction.

Fun fact, Grand Junction and nearby Fruita actually have a lot of wineries! We went to one that my parents recommended, Red Mesa. It had great wine, and more importantly, it had Daryl, this delightful dog who sat with us outside while we drank wine.

Another important note about Grand Junction is that they have an… unusual convention for street names. Sam and I were absolutely baffled as we came across the following:

It’s a similar concept to the grid system, but the fractions are wild. We came across one that had a 5/8 and just about lost it.

Our last big National Park Service outing was to Black Canyon of the Gunnison! It’s known for being extremely steep. Just look at those sheer rock faces in the third picture. When we got our stamp at a little table outside the visitor center, the ranger told us about all the lookouts and then said that we could hike a bit into the canyon until he took a look at my shoes. They were just normal sneakers and so he immediately walked that back. But we walked along the rim near the visitor center and then went to a number of the lookouts, and they were indeed spectacular. I think it’s one of the less popular national parks in Colorado, which is probably due to its remote nature. If you’re considering visiting this area, though, I would highly recommend it!

Since we’d visited Sam’s family, it was time to visit mine in Colorado! Cue another two weeks of hard quarantine. We went in early July, so it was hot (but not as hot as it would’ve been in Arizona, haha). There are two ways to go, through Wyoming or over the mountains, and Sam chose mountains. It was definitely the better choice. First it’s down from Salt Lake toward the red rock formations of Utah, and then you go through the canyon and past all the adorable little ski towns. It’s pretty incredible to have this out your window:

It was great to see my parents. I am so thankful that I could work from home and so could they, so that we could all fully quarantine before the visit. Their neighborhood was a good place to spend some time as the cases ramped up in the summer. They back up to a park, which connects out to a lot of walking trails, and we would go on long walks every morning before work.

At the beginning of COVID, when everything went quiet and there were less cars on the roads, it seems that the animals around my parents’ neighborhood took that as an opportunity to come outside! We saw so many deer while we were there, including one that we had to gently herd away from the road and this guy, below. We were sitting on the deck eating lunch when I looked up and saw him. Surprised, I made some sort of noise, which scared him away from our backyard. Instead, he went two doors down, where he proceeded to take a nap and then utterly decimate the lettuce they were carefully growing.

We were there during July 4th. Fun fact, they cancelled a bunch of the fireworks for July 4th, both because of COVID gathering restrictions and because of the danger of wildfires. Here’s the problem, though: they told everyone several days in advance. So everyone got in their cars and drove up to Wyoming and brought fireworks back. People went all out, too. I’ve spent a lot of summers in Colorado and I’ve never seen anything like it. It felt like professional-grade shows. And while I was mildly terrified that they would light the trees on fire, it was nice to have such a spectacle in such a dark year.

We did a few day trips while we were there, too! A couple of my friends masked up and went on walks with us, and we had the chance to go to Boulder, Denver, and that hotel that they based The Shining off of. Denver seemed to be preparing for an expansion of their outdoor dining, as you can see above.

One of the things that I was pleasantly surprised by was that we could get alcohol with our takeout, which is… not a thing Utah offers (shocking, I know). But it led to this delightful cup, which contained some sort of frozen sangria slushie:

Anyway. That’s all I got. It was weird not to be able to see all of my family, some of whom still had to work in person. But it was so nice to see my parents and get a chance to show Sam some of Colorado. It really is a beautiful state!

The only “travel” I did in the summer of 2020 was family visits after two weeks of hard quarantine. As we looked at the numbers across the country, both my parents and Sam’s parents agreed that this was likely to go on for a long time, and we decided to figure out how to see everyone safely.

Sam’s family lives near the border of Arizona and Nevada, out in Mohave County, Arizona. I’ve made it a personal rule to never go to to Arizona in July, because it’s just objectively too hot, so we went in May with the hopes it wouldn’t have warmed up too much. Which…. eh. It was still pretty hot. It got to 111 F while we were there. I now understand Sam’s fear of the sun and subsequent desire to make sure we always have 120 oz. of water when we go hiking.

Side note, the drive down was spectacular?! I don’t know if I’d ever been to that bit of Arizona that you can’t reach from the rest of Arizona before. If I had, it was a long time ago. Sheer cliff faces, canyons, and the sun setting as we went into the valley near his parents’ house…. absolutely incredible. Look at these rock striations!

Most of our trip was spent working from their house and taking long walks around the house. Because they’re out farther from big cities and light pollution, the view of the stars from their house was amazing. I also loved seeing all of the quails in the neighborhood. Sam and I heard two of them calling back and forth to each other in the mornings when we would talk past two particular rooftops, which was adorable!

We did visit Needles, California, which is apparently the home of Spike from Peanuts! It’s also a stop on Route 66. Because Sam’s parents live so close to the border, I actually was in four states over this trip – Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California.

This picture is from a casino/gas station/McDonald’s in Nevada. I find it fascinating how Nevada manages to incorporate gambling into even the most mundane activities. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I guess? Also, driving through Las Vegas is terrifying. It felt like we’d inadvertently signed up for a NASCAR race.

One of our outings was to Lake Havasu. Extra fun fact, the original London Bridge was taken apart and shipped to Lake Havasu in the late 60s/early 70s! No, really, it was. Apparently it was sinking under the weight of traffic and needed to be replaced, so London auctioned it off and the founder of Havasu decided to buy it for $2.4 million. And obviously, I had to go see it….

One of the other nearby attractions is the ghost town of Oatman, which is now full of burros. In better times, I would have loved to get out and explored all the museums, but we just drove through on our way to the Hualapai Mountains.

The Hualapais were a lovely outing. It was significantly cooler up at elevation, which was a welcome change after temperatures in the 110s with a UV index of 10. Also, the hike was beautiful and we saw a deer leap off the path right in front of us.

I only have one more picture to leave you with. It’s from a stretch of road between Las Vegas and Laughlin in Nevada. There’s a section where they honor the veterans of various wars. WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc. They cover quite an impressive array. Including….

Ahhh, yes. The Cold War. You know, the one that even Wikipedia defines as a geopolitical tension based on ideology, rather than an actual war fought with actual battles. I love the mental image of someone being told they need to make highway signs for all the wars and they just printed out a list of any conflict that had the word war in it regardless of what it actually was.

Anyway. My main takeaway is that there are plenty of interesting things to see in this region! Just go in the winter and bring lots of sunscreen.

It’s been a year since lockdown started. A year ago today, I had my last day in the office. The weekend before, I had gone to brunch, seen a theater performance, and gotten my hair cut. That Tuesday, I got off the train after work and went to a happy hour with some coworkers. It feels like a lifetime ago.

The bleakest thing about life under COVID is how much my world has narrowed. Before, I would commute over 40 miles each way to work. And listen, I know that sounds crazy, but reserve your judgment there for a moment. Because the point of this story is that I was traveling over 80 miles a day and now I can go days at a time without even leaving my house.

That said, one of the silver linings is that I live in an absolutely stunning state! Utah has its bizarre quirks, but it is without a doubt one of the most beautiful states in the country. Having these types of landscapes within a couple hours have made for some really nice outings. So far, here are the five best day trips I’ve taken since lockdown started.

1. Albion Basin

I recommend this one in the late summer when the wildflowers are blooming. It’s out by Alta, which is already gorgeous, and then you round the corner into the wildflower fields and it’s spectacular. We went early in the morning, when there was hardly anyone else around, and it was amazing.

2. Bridal Veil Falls

We went in the winter. It was early in the morning, right after a snowstorm, and no one else was out. Most of the path didn’t even have any footprints on it, and it felt like walking through a magical winter wonderland. By the time we got back to the parking lot, it seemed like the rest of the world had woken up and realized this place existed. The craziest part was that we saw people ice climbing on the falls, which did not seem safe at all! We’ve had a very warm winter. But to each their own.

3. Bonneville Salt Flats

This one was my first COVID day trip. These pictures were taken on March 22, 2020, back when we were going totally stir crazy and we were optimistic enough to think this might be wrapped up quickly. A few weeks, we told ourselves, as we snuck back into the office on a Sunday morning to pack up our desks and monitors.

The midpoint of this trip is Wendover. Wendover is one of those Nevada border towns that exists to keep gambling accessible to the rest of us. It features a few casinos, a liquor store, and apparently a dispensary now. Back in ~the before~, my book club had talked about going as a fun weekend jaunt to gamble away a few hundred dollars and drink lots of cocktails. When we were there in March 2020, it was during the period when Nevada had suspended all of the casino licenses, and so the doors to the casinos were shut and there was caution tape at every entrance.

4. Bear River, Wyoming

Sometimes you just want to see a buffalo without having to go all the way to Yellowstone, you know? Also, side note, the drive up is beautiful too. We made a stop at Echo Reservoir, pictured below, and were stunned at how blue the water was.

5. Sardine Peak

This one is up by Snowbasin. It was a bit of a spur of the moment trip. It was the day after New Years, and we wanted to just take a scenic drive, and then we realized we needed to be out of the house for a little bit. Some people were biking this and others were snowshoeing, but we just hiked it. I was pleasantly surprised by the views at the top!

One of Utah’s big claims to fame is Sundance. Both the original ski resort founded by Robert Redford, where I once broke my arm, and the film festival that happens annually at Park City! Pictured above, from a nice pre-COVID day trip with my parents. Because of COVID, the 2021 festival is being held mostly online, which has ended up being a positive. I didn’t usually get a pass and it was hard to find movies at good times and convenient locations, and life got in the way. But this year, I got an all access pass and really committed.

Movies Watched: 18.5

Short Films Watched: 23

Yes, I actually took a PTO day to sit around and watch movies. Yes, it was worth it. I’ve had a great time. Here are a few outstanding movies I watched, in no particular order.

CODA: This stands for Child of Deaf Adults. The basic gist is that Ruby is the only hearing member of a deaf family. After her choir teacher hears her sing, he encourages her to pursue music school, and she has to choose between that and her obligation to help her family and their fishing business. Reader, I bawled at this one. It was so good and so heartwarming, and I spent at least half the film wondering why we don’t teach all our children sign language starting in elementary school.

The Pink Cloud: Umm, can Iuli Gerbase predict the future? The film tells the story of a Brazilian town trapped under a pink cloud, which kills people within ten seconds of going outside. It arrives quickly, forcing some into awkward situations, like being stuck with a one-night stand or at a friend’s sleepover. What follows is a movie that is uncanny in its familiarity. Despite being filmed from 2017-2019, it feels beat for beat like the beginning of 2020, as people adjust to being trapped at home and then learn to live in their new reality. Also, aesthetically, the soft pink lighting coming in through every window is quietly gorgeous.

Strawberry Mansion: According to Sundance, it “transcends genre,” which is accurate. The director introduction said they wanted it to feel like being a video store, and each cover transporting you to a different world. And boy, does it ever deliver that. It felt like a strange fever dream. The oversaturated world. The concept of a dream tax that sometimes involves auditors, which, frankly, I want to know more about. A turtle eating a strawberry. This movie has it all, alongside an exploration of what it looks like when capitalism invades your dreams.

Passing: A black and white film set in the 1920s about two black women who can pass as white. Gorgeous cinematography, timely themes, and Tessa Thompson is always a delight.

One For The Road: This is a Thai film that follows a man dying of cancer and his somewhat-estranged friend who helps him meet up with his exes for closure. The three main actors are all stellar, and it explores some interesting emotional territory as Aood’s exes come to terms with the way their respective relationships ended and his impending death. Also, I’m always here to live vicariously through a road trip when I can’t go anywhere myself.

John and the Hole: A boy keeps his family in a bunker. This one is so compellingly odd. The closest thing I’ve ever watched was probably My Friend Dahmer. It’s hard to walk the line between a coming of age story and an examination of a sociopath, but I think this might have done it.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair: I haven’t seen many movies that successfully take on how much of our lives we live on the internet. Thus far it’s really only been Searching and Eighth Grade that I thought nailed it in that respect, in very different ways. I’d like to submit this one as well. It presents a girl who joins a Youtube challenge, the World’s Fair challenge, and we go down the rabbit hole with her as her videos get increasingly stranger and more concerning. It does a great job on the blurred line between fantasy and reality, and how we present ourselves on the internet.

It’s going to be a good year ahead for indie film!

Starting in 2019, my company decided that Veteran’s Day was an official holiday, and in an even more exciting turn of events, it was a Monday! I booked a flight and a hotel on the edge of Chinatown and made a weekend of it. It was also a bid to get to the next level in frequent flier miles, which I achieved only to have it be absolutely useless within six months. Alas.

I had been to San Francisco before with my parents, a long time ago, and we’d done a lot of the famous stuff. Walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, took a tour of Alcatraz, driven on Lombard Street. So there was no pressure to see anything specific.

I started at Golden Gate Park. After a lovely wander through the paths, I visited the de Young Museum and the Japanese Tea Garden. The museum was great, I went to the extra exhibition about Black history and explored the rest of their gallery. Interestingly, they actually had some Turkmen storage bags on display! I tried to test my knowledge of the regions where they were created. The Japanese Tea Garden was stunning as well, I loved exploring all the different pathways.

After lunch at a food truck, I headed back to the Ferry Building and spent some time walking along the piers. There’s nothing quite like the sound of the ocean beating against the shore.

The next day, I got up bright and early for a hike that I’d read about, Lands End Trail. It was a bit of a trek from my hotel on the bus, but it was totally worth it. It was the highlight of my trip!

I’m kind of obsessed with this maze made out of stones. There was even a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the eastern portion of the trail.

I had one other goal in mind for my last full day, which was the Palace of Fine Arts! It showed up in my research as another cool landmark and it didn’t disappoint. It felt almost out of place in such a modern city.

Anyway. That’s all I’ve got. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on San Francisco or anything, but it makes a great weekend trip for anyone who lives close enough. When travel is safe again, I’m looking forward to visiting again and exploring more of the city!

Despite having a childhood full of road trips to U.S. National Parks, I had never been to Yellowstone before.  Crazy, isn’t it?

On the way up, we stopped at Grand Teton and stayed in a cabin with stunning views of the mountains.  We mostly ate cheese and crackers, drank wine, and played Trivial Pursuit, which was a challenge because the game was from my mom’s first marriage and there were straight-up references to the Soviet Union.  I struggled hard on the pop culture category, since most of it was outdated for me.

The next day we headed up to Yellowstone.  I absolutely get the popularity, it was absolutely stunning.  We were there the weekend before Memorial Day, so a few things were closed and it was still pretty cold.  We considered this both a plus and a minus – the hot springs were often clouded with steam, which was disappointing when it came to the Grand Prismatic spring (see the picture below), but it also meant we could see more of the small geothermal features that we might have missed on the side of the road.

Grand Prismatic may have been a little disappointing, but the coolest part was seeing bison tracks all over the rocks near it.  In fact, based on the amount of bison scat we saw all over the park, it seems as though they manage to get right next to the geothermal features.  We would marvel at how they would have crossed through the walkways and directly adjacent to bubbling geysers.

Obviously Old Faithful and the other geysers were a particular highlight.  I even started to get used to the strong sulphur smell by our third or fourth stop.

The canyon and the Mammoth Hot Springs were also incredible, with these gorgeous colored rocks.  When we were up at Mammoth Hot Springs, we even saw a small herd of elk right next to cars and a few bison who ran through part of the town.

Speaking of animal encounters, there were a lot of amazing sightings.  We saw so many bison, including adorable babies.  At one point, we ended up in major traffic, and it turned out that five or so bison were walking along the road, which meant a whole line of cars had to slow down and drive behind them.  There were also two black bears, and most amazingly, a grizzly bear swimming across a river that got out and shook itself on the other side.  We also saw what I suspect was a wolf, although my parents and I are not quite sure.

On the way back, we cut through Idaho and saw the Valley of the Moon, which had incredible rock formations, along with the ruins of an old Japanese internment camp.  We also stopped by the wolf and bear sanctuary, where I took the picture with the statue and we got to see two fully grown grizzly bear brothers roughhouse and play.  All in all, a fantastic trip to one of the most beautiful regions of the United States!

My mom and I have been dreaming about going to Harry Potter World since the concept was announced, and for her birthday this year, we finally went as a family!  After a horribly early morning and two flights for me, we all arrived in Orlando and headed to our hotel.  We stayed on Universal property, at the Portofino hotel, and had an excellent dinner at one of the five Italian restaurants on site.  The hotel was seriously gorgeous.  It looked like an actual Italian city, pretty similar to Vernazza in Cinque Terre.

I don’t have many pictures of Harry Potter World, because a few hours after we arrived, it poured.  Torrential downpour, sheets of rain.  We literally dried out our shoes with the hair dryer that night.  Despite the weather, we had a lovely time.  All the Harry Potter rides are awesome.  I got to do magic with my interactive wand, ride the Hogwarts Express, and drink two different types of butterbeer, so it was a day well spent.  It fulfilled all of my Harry Potter dreams, and I almost think the coolest part of all was seeing people walk around casually holding wands.  Almost as if I was genuinely a part of the magical community.

I also tried out most of the rides that Universal has to offer and went to the Chocolate Emporium, which I wanted to try because I had seen their crazy milkshakes on a blog before.  It was an awesome day.After our day at Universal, we took a Lyft over to Animal Kingdom Lodge and settled in for a busy few days at Disney!  I was impressed with their Magic Bands and disappointed by their transportation.  Once again, I’d like to give a plug to the Disney Tourist Blog, who I read back when I went to DisneySea and I relied on heavily to plan this trip.  I may not be able to imagine going to Disney World for all my vacations, but I appreciate the detailed research from those who do.

Animal Kingdom – We headed there early the next morning to visit Pandora for the new and incredibly popular rides.  The advice to go an hour before opening worked like a charm, and we found ourselves around Disney regulars who were impressed.  Flight of Passage was awesome, and I would like to also give a shoutout to Kilimanjaro Safaris and the Festival of the Lion King.  Definite highlights.  We had dinner at the Yak and Yeti, which was delicious (although my parents weren’t impressed with the exterior when I first pointed it out!).  After dinner we headed to our Night Safari, an add on where you get a drive through the savannas around Animal Kingdom Lodge.  Our favorite moment was getting close to the giraffes, both to one drinking water close to us and to the baby who started running out of excitement.  Animal Kingdom Lodge also had a gorgeous tree in the lobby, as seen above.

Hollywood Studios – We had a morning and then a night here.  The morning was when we used all our fastpasses and did some Christmas shopping.  I think my favorite ride here was Toy Story Mania.  We came back for dinner at the Brown Derby, where the tables may have felt too close together but the food was delicious.  Mom and I stayed for Fantasmic, which was a great show with projections, live actors, and a moment when they literally lit the water on fire!

Epcot – We spent about a day and a half here.  As expected, I absolutely adored World Showcase.  We went to all of the movies and walked through all the pavilions, checking out each of the Christmas food stalls.  This was also where the most egregious moment of Disney raising costs showed itself, when I ordered ice wine in Canada and received a glass akin to a shot glass for $11.  We had dinner at Via Napoli, which was excellent pizza.  Soarin’ was a fantastic ride and I would have loved to go on it a few more times.  Dad and I stayed to watch Illuminations, which was amazing.  He’s said that it’s the best fireworks show he’s ever seen, and I must say I agree.  We also moved to Boardwalk for the second half of our time in Disney, which was so cool!  I loved the whole complex, and we had some great ice cream from the place next to our hotel.

Magic Kingdom – This park thrives on nostalgia, and I went on many rides that I remember from my childhood when we used to go to Disneyland.  Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Autopia, Pirates, the Carousel.  I’d also like to give a shoutout to Jungle Cruise, where our captain was hilarious.  We ate at Skipper Canteen and had another great meal.

From there, we headed out of the Disney bubble and back to the real world.  Our hotel was out on Cocoa Beach, so we got to spend a few nights near the seashore.  We tried to go to the Kennedy Space Center the next day but found that it was an absurd $57 per person (plus $10 for parking).  Instead, we went to the Cape Canaveral National Seashore and saw dolphins splashing through the water.

The next day was another thing I was very excited about, swimming with manatees!  There was a bit of a snafu where it was farther away than I thought, but we figured it out in enough time.  And so we headed out on a boat into the areas where manatees come in for the winter in search of warmer water.  I had never snorkeled before.  It was a little intimidating at first, especially when we got in the water and it was raining and choppy and we didn’t see anything in the first area besides scary-looking fish.  I thought at that point that I might have made a huge mistake in insisting we do this.  But in the second and third places we stopped, the water was calmer and we were able to see the manatees, and it was absolutely incredible.  They swam underneath us and right next to us, to the point where we were trying to back up so that we didn’t accidentally hit them while we swam.  It’s amazing to be that close to such beautiful creatures, and it’s something I will always remember.  It was a great way to close out our trip.