After our walking tour of parts of San Francisco on our first day there, we rented bikes for our second day. We started off on the bikes around 9am in the Civic Center area and headed west through the Haight and toward Gold Gate Park. Before getting to the park we made a quick detour to Alamo Square Park to see the famed “Painted Ladies.” We then biked through most of Golden Gate Park before stopping in for a visit to the California Academy of Sciences. After spending a couple of great hours at the museum, we headed north toward the Golden Gate Bridge, crossed over it and then continued north to Sausalito for dinner. From there we loaded the bikes on the ferry and arrived back in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, where we rode the bikes back down to the Civic Center following the bay along the way. We put in over 20 miles on the bikes and spent the majority of the day out exploring San Francisco. I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Before leaving town the following day we found time to stop at the Cable Car Museum for a quick visit. It was really cool to see how the cable cars that we had ridden all weekend were operated and what powered them. This free museum is well worth a quick stop.

Sausalito on Dwellable

So after a few days in and around Palo Alto we took the train back north to San Francisco for a few more days of fun and exploring. On the first day we met up with Kim’s friend from college, Melissa, who has lived in San Francisco since graduating from college. She gave us a full day walking tour of the Fisherman’s Wharf and North Beach areas of town. My pictures of the day can be viewed below.

San Francisco on Dwellable

In case you’ve been wondering where we have been hiding, we have been bouncing around Northern California for the last week. We just got back to Cincinnati late last night, so I haven’t had much time to get through many photos yet. However here are a couple of photos from the wedding of my friend Joe and his wife Lindsey.

You may kiss the bride.

Family Shot at Thomas Fogarty Winery.

We met on the Internet.

…what should be on your to-do list? This time next week I’ll be on a plane to San Francisco for my first ever trip out that way. A friend of mine is getting married at a winery in Woodside over the weekend and we will be staying a few nights nearby in Palo Alto. Once the festivities are over, we are heading north to San Francisco for half of the week, basically giving us two full days to explore the city. Besides the obvious attractions, are there any other sights to see that I may have missed?

As soon as our vacation destination was switched from Virginia Beach to Myrtle Beach I was excited about the possibility of stopping in Asheville, NC. We had a caravan of four cars on the way down and drove throughout the night to get there, leaving the return trip as our chance to see it. Since we were checking out of our beach house rental on Saturday morning, we decided that we would spend Saturday night in Asheville.

Originally I thought that it would be an easy place to find a cheap hotel for the night. However what I found were inflated hotel prices, I think partly caused by the Bele Chere music and arts festival taking place in downtown Asheville. Even though rooms were more than I wanted to spend, we figured the festival would give us plenty to do for our afternoon and evening in town. I won the 3.5 star Crowne Plaza on priceline.com for $150. This resort was very nice and I would definitely stay here again, especially if offered at a cheaper price.

Bele Chere Stage

Our hotel offered a $5 per person round-trip shuttle bus to downtown, which we gladly paid for. We headed for the festival in the early afternoon and ended up staying until 8 or 9 that night. There were four stages of music, children’s areas, a Taste of Asheville, along with other standard festival style food offerings.

Mela Indian Restaurant’s Chicken Plate

Those of legal drinking age can buy a wristband for $2, which allows you to have an open alcoholic container. I’m not sure if this means that you can bring your own beer in, but we saw plenty of people doing just that. I stuck to the $4 cans of microbrew that were being sold throughout the festival grounds.

Boca Taco Plate

Besides the scheduled entertainment on the four festival stages, we also ran into a number of street performances. One guy had created his own percussion style using a guitar as his main drumming device. Attached to the guitar were various noise making artifacts, such as a fork and a pack of cigarettes.

Drumming Street Performer

As far as I could tell the festival was well attended. The crowds were pretty thick in the central area of the festival, but since there are so many streets involved, it was easy to find space to spread out. I especially enjoyed getting to see Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band perform. Trey also had a great time at the festival. Below are some pictures from Kim’s iPhone.

Asheville on Dwellable

While on vacation near Myrtle Beach, I had the opportunity to do a ropes challenge course for the first time. The first level of rope bridges, balance beams, etc. was not too intimidating for me, but once I climbed up to the second and third levels, the height started to freak me out a little more. Thankfully I remembered that I was in a protective sling, which actually came in handy when I completely fell off one of the obstacles.

Outside WonderWorks

Some of my in-laws had visited the WonderWorks in Orlando and suggested we all check out the Myrtle Beach location. The first thing you’ll notice upon entering the parking lot, is the very large upside down building. As the website says, “When you enter the building, everything will be upside-down, so in order to participate in the fun, you must be inverted. Step inside the inversion tunnel and be turned right side up to begin your journey.” This inversion tunnel simply used a swirling image on the walls of the tunnel, but the effect was really good. I honestly felt like I was flipping upside down.

Xtreme 360 Bikes

One of the first attractions we encountered inside were the Xtreme 360 Bikes where visitors pedal their way on tandem bikes as they try to generate enough power to complete a full loop over the top and back. Kim and I were not successful in getting the bikes to flip over, but were pretty close and still felt like we were upside down. The only people in our group who were successful in flipping the bike were my sister-in-law and her fiancée.

Astronaut Trey

There are over 100 different interactive exhibits throughout the three floors of the building. There is a space zone, lots of flight simulators, a bed of nails to lay on, a bubble lab, and so much more. It is pretty much a super interactive science museum. It’s obviously aimed to entertain kids, but it can be fun for parents too.

Ropes Challenge Course

Myrtle Beach on Dwellable

If you couldn’t already tell by the lack of posts, I was on vacation last week. We left around 9pm a couple of Fridays ago for the overnight caravan drive to Myrtle Beach, specifically the southern beach near Murrells Inlet and Garden City, SC. After originally planning to return to Virginia Beach again this summer, my father-in-law found a 5 bedroom house for us all that would be cheaper than going the hotel route in Virginia Beach again.

Sun soaked family shot.

Though the house says it accommodates 16, we managed to squeeze in 23 at one point (though that was just for one of the nights). If I counted correctly 13 of us stayed for the full week, while others came and went as their life commitments allowed. I was a little scared that the house was going to be too small, but even on the most crowded night, it seemed large enough for the group.

Group Shot

Besides even if some felt it was a little crowded at times (early morning with Trey can be noisy), the house was right on the beach and shared a private pool with 11 other similarly sized vacation homes (a fourth of which seemed empty). Plus the Garden City Pier was just over a mile away where plenty of bars, rides, and shops were ready for the young adult crowd. With so much around we only managed to drive to the Myrtle Beach boardwalk one night and to Broadway at the Beach a couple of other times for entertainment. Obviously we spent the most time playing in the waves or on the sand.

Bodyboarding

Trey in the Ocean

Trey in the Fridge

Dressing Like Dad

We had a great vacation last week, starting things off in Boston to watch my dad finally fulfill his dream of running in the Boston Marathon. The weather was super hot so he wasn’t able to run as fast as he normally would, but he still had a blast on the course and we all had a great time trying to find him among the large crowd.

Bib 16398

Plus the race was on his 56th birthday, so even more reason to celebrate.

Happy Birthday Dad

After a brief stay in Boston, we all packed up and headed south to Negril, Jamaica to celebrate my brothers 30th birthday.

Happy Birthday Tim

We stayed at the all-inclusive ClubHotel Riu Negril, where we were able to enjoy their pools as well as the beach and warm ocean waters, often with rum drinks in hand. The hardest decision to make each day was which of the restaurants to have our meals. While most of the trip was very relaxing, a few of us did take a kayak trip around Bloody Bay and I threw in a run on the beach one evening for good measure. Both stops of our trip were great celebrations.

Family Photo on the Beach

If you didn’t notice by the lack of posts last week, I was on vacation. Kim and I decided earlier this year to take a snowboarding trip back to Colorado. Since we wanted to bring Trey along with us, we realized that it would be more fun if we brought one of Kim’s siblings along with us to take turns hanging with Trey and hitting the slopes. Turns out that both of her college aged brothers wanted to join in on the fun, so we planned the trip for their spring break. It also turns out that her sister and fiancé wanted to join in too!

We flew out of the Dayton airport very early two Saturdays ago. Rather than driving up that night, I found a reasonably priced hotel near the hotel that we all stayed at Friday night to make the 6:30 flight a little more tolerable. We choose this flight so that we could be in Denver in time to catch the always entertaining St. Patrick’s Day Parade. While at the parade we got to see a bunch of old Denver friends. Sorry for those that we missed, but our stay in Denver was much too short.

Wash Park – near our old home in Denver

After breakfast and a quick stop at a nearby park for Trey to run around, we packed up the rented Suburban and headed for Steamboat. We realized that trying to drive up to the slopes and get a full day in would be impossible with our already limited sleep and having Trey with us, so we took our time getting to Steamboat. We did make it up in time to watch the UC Bearcat basketball team beat Florida State in the NCAA tournament from our rented condo in the Bronze Tree.

Trey enjoying the deepest snow we’ve seen all winter.

Trey really loved being pulled around in sleds.

The following three days were spent on the slopes of Steamboat. Since we had six adults on the trip, one of us would stay back for the morning shift with Trey and either take him out on a sled, take a dip in the pool, or just hang around the condo. We would then all regroup for lunch each day around 11:30 to enjoy macaroni and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then another person (or sometimes two) would hang back for the afternoon shift. This actually worked really well for all of us.

CAUTION: Deep Snow Conditions May Exist.

Ski Yesterday…Ski Today…Ski Tomorrow

We really lucked out with the snowfall. We arrived Sunday to find sunshine and cool temperatures, but before we headed to bed that night the snow really started to fall. When we woke up we had three fresh inches of snow to play in on Monday morning. Fortunately the snow continued to fall throughout parts of Monday, leaving another three inches fresh for Tuesday. I had the Tuesday morning shift with Trey, but I heard that some in our group found half a foot or more of untouched powder that morning. Wednesday was a warm day, complete with spring skiing conditions (slush). Hard to complain with what snow we did see though. It felt great to be back on the slopes.

Snow At Steamboat

Snow In Trees

Bronze Tree on Dwellable

Here is the list of cities I visited in 2011 with at least one night spent in each place. The list is a little lighter than years past but we did had a baby and a big cross-country move this year. I hope the list for this coming year will be longer, and maybe I will finally visit Oregon, my last remaining state to visit.

• Denver, CO *
• Lone Tree, CO
• Estes Park, CO
• Loveland, OH *
• Cincinnati, OH *
• Hays, KS
• Kansas City, MO
• Terre Haute, IN
• Chicago, IL
• Hagerstown, MD
• Seaford, DE
• Virginia Beach, VA
• Charleston, WV
• Independence, OH
• Westlake, OH
• Mount Sterling, OH

Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

See also: 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006