Category Archives: Vacation

Vacation to Paris

Our trip to Europe included two cities, both London and Paris. The first four days of our trip were spent in London while the last two days were spent in Paris, with plans to visit Paris again. Of the two cities, we both enjoyed Paris a lot more than London, as the history shows in the architecture and general feel of the city. London is nice and has history, but to me, it seemed like just another big city. Paris was a place of its own. Not speaking French made travel on the Metro and reading maps a bit more of a challenge, but overall, we had a great two days there.

Our first day in Paris actually started us out in London, with a ride on the Eurostar train to Paris’s Gare du Nord train station. The whole trip only took a little over two hours and brought us safely through the Chunnel under the English Channel. The train slows for safety while in the tunnel to around 100 mph, but above ground, we were clipping along at almost 190 mph. The ride was quiet and smooth, and with the scenery zipping by so quickly, was exhilarating as well.

We bought a two day pass on the metro at the train station and headed out to our hotel. Once again, our hotel was close to a station: about a two minute walk, which made it nice for our travels to and from the hotel. We stayed in a nice, quaint little place that had two twin beds that we pushed together, had free wifi, and small balcony to take in the amazing views of the streets of Paris.
If you are going to Paris and want a nice and affordable place to stay, check out the Moderne St. Germain. With half the day already gone, we took it slow with a stroll through the Louvre. It is an absolutely monstrous place, even bigger than the British Museum we saw the day before in London. Of course, we saw the Mona Lisa, after fighting for a chance to get up close enough for a peek. The art was beautiful, but the descriptions were all in French, so an audio tour the next time might be in order. We then walked the couple of miles from the Louvre down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. The walk was long but beautiful and provides the classic view of the Arc by looking down the street to where it meets the large roundabout at the Arc. Eight streets come into that one roundabout that encircles the Arc so to get to the middle, an underground tunnel gets Arc visitors safely to it. The view there was spectacular and as night descended, it provided great views of the lighted Eiffel Tower. After the Arc de Triomphe, it was time for dinner and we found this great, tiny little Italian place named Pizzaria Pepone. Pricey, but great food, with pizza and French onion soup for Laura (of course French onion while in France, right?) and spaghetti pesto for me.
The following day was our only full day in Paris and because we were tired from our sightseeing in London and now Paris, we again took it slow with just three things we wanted to do that day. We started off with a tour of Notre Dame, just a few minutes walk from our hotel. It was a long wait and had lots of steps, but it was beautiful, like St. Paul’s in London. We could take pictures inside, and enjoyed great views from the top of the bell tower and within the cathedral. The French revolution did a lot of damage to a lot of Paris back in it’s day, and Notre Dame and the Louvre didn’t escape unscathed. It’s a shame that the peasants tore up so much history. For example, Notre Dame had statues of the kings of Israel and Judah, but the peasants thought these were French kings and destroyed them. No wonder the peasants acted stupidly — they were ignorant of a lot of what was around them. Oh well. The stained glass was tremendous and the view of the gargoyles was neat to see from atop the church as well.
From there we took a river tour up and back down the Seine. It was a good rest for our feet and we got to see a lot of the iconic images of Paris. It dropped us off near the Eiffel Tower and we were able to get lots of pictures of it as a backdrop. Going up the tower was expensive and crowded, but worth it. The line to get in was about 90 minutes and we stayed up there for about and hour. There are three levels to it and of course, we had to see the top level. The views of the city, especially at dusk, were amazing. The tower itself is amazing and is much larger than we had imagined from the pictures. The structure is so well designed that the weight of the tower at it’s base is no heavier than a person standing on his tippy-toe, or about 250 lb. per square inch. It was our last day in Paris, and the views were so beautiful, it was hard to leave to come back down, however the cold wind was a good motivator. Once back down, it was time for another nice dinner in a small cafe off the street.

The next morning came early as we were getting more and more tired each day. We took the train to Charles de Gualle airport but missed our first two opportunities to get a seat back to New York — as we flew standby. The third flight was a charm and we again, were able to sit next to each other for the seven hour flight back to the States. Once in New York, we caught a cab over to LaGuardia airport just in time to get us on a flight back home to Columbus, Ohio. That was nice because we didn’t have to wait around in New York and got home quickly.
Tired as we were, it was a great time, indeed. We definitely want to go back to Paris someday and see all the things we missed. This trip to London and Paris was more of a sightseeing adventure and not very relaxing. With the cruise we took in June, we’d like to alternate vacations between running around and seeing things, and doing nothing while relaxing somewhere like on a beach. It’s good to get out and see the world, especially while we’re young and have the energy. There is so much to see here in the U.S. but so much to see abroad as well; there just isn’t enough time and money to do it all.

You can read about our time in London here, and you can click on the photo at the top of this post to see more photos from our time in Paris.

TobyLaura.com

Texas State Fair

 

I was just six years old the last time my family and I visited the Texas State Fair.  That year, the Texas Star was brand new, and at 212 feet tall, is still the largest ferris wheel in North America.  It was great to ride it again this year, see the new cars for 2011, look at the new Ford diesel engines and trucks, enjoy corn dogs and cotton candy, and see things for sale like fried butter.  We didn’t try any, but I’ve been told that the guy who invented it, along with fried coke, and fried everything, makes enough money in the three weeks a year that the fair is open, that he doesn’t have to work at his regular job anymore.  Hey, you have to die from something, so it might as well be good food (if fried butter fits in that category).

Click on the picture of the ferris wheel for more photos of our time at the fair.

TobyLaura.com

Trip to Texas

Laura and I were both dreaming at 4:30 this morning when my alarm went off. With not much sleep, waking up at this hour is not a fun way to start a vacation. We have a little over a month of time off from work, so we are going to try and make the best of it by doing some traveling. We have a lot planned, but we’ll see how much of it we actually get to do. These next 33 days have plans for Texas, London, Paris, Washington DC, and oh yeah, a little relaxation at home too.

When we travel on vacation, we always travel on the cheap, using my travel benefits that get us standby travel for next to nothing: Two roundtrip tickets from JFK to Heathrow set us back about $250. It is standby, however, which means we only go if a seat is open. Opens seats are usually best found on flights in which paying passengers don’t want to go on. This is why our alarm went off at 4:30 — there were 67 open seats on the flight to DFW that left at 6:45 this morning. The flight that left at a respectable 10:00 am was full; imagine that. It stinks to get up so early, but the payoff by going standby is that we have more money to spend on things at our destinations, instead of the travel to get to those destinations.

The flight to DFW was nice with so many seats available as we were able to sit together and have plenty of space in the overhead bin for our stuff we refuse to check below. I’m always amazed at the amount of stuff (read: crap) that people are willing to lug around with them on vacation or just when traveling. Feel free to bring everything but the dog (a couple in front of us at the ticket counter had four dogs with them) but we enjoy our time better when we pack light. Not checking bags means no waiting at baggage claim, less weight to carry around the airport, more freedom at the destination, and no lost luggage. It takes some practice, but we’ve done three weeks in Europe with just one carry-on each, and an extra hand bag that goes under the seat. No sweat.

Once at DFW, we’re changing planes to go on to Tyler, TX, to see my parents. Instead of them having to drive five hours round trip to pick us up in the Metroplex, we’re going to give Pounds Field a chance. It’s the small, local county airport. I love these small airports. They try hard at customer satisfaction and usually excel: free wifi, clean facilities, quiet terminals, lots of tourists info, helpful people at the information kiosks, and short lines at the rental car desks, ticket counters, restrooms, and restaurants. Free wifi at JFK, LaGuardia, O’hare, or LAX? Forget it. Sometimes, the costs of flying into the postage stamp ports costs a lot more, but in most cases that I’ve seen, it isn’t much more to fly into Tyler, especially if time is money.

We left at home with about 600,000 newborn children of ours, and we’re hoping they do well on their own while we are away. Huh? No, not bed bugs. We planted a bunch of grass seed in our yard and are hoping this rainy, cool fall weather we are having will help it come up soon and then do well next spring. We’ve reclaimed some of our yard from past owner’s flower beds and groups of bushes. This has all become overgrown and ugly, so we just want to turn it into grassy yard. We’ll see how it all turns out. We bought about five times too much hay to cover over the seed, finding out that a small bail of hay goes much farther than I thought it would. We gave the rest of the hay away . . .

With my six month checks behind me and lots of vacation in front of me, I’m looking forward to this time off and glad to kick it off with a trip back to the homeland where the sun is warm, the dirt is red, and the family is close.

TobyLaura.com

New Pictures


This blog has been dreadfully quiet recently. That’s because I had an incredible five weeks away from work around our third anniversary. I promised Laura that since we were not able to properly celebrate our anniversary the first two times because I was busy with work, we’d do something fun to completely get away from the world this year. We spent several weeks seeing my family in Texas — the best state in the Union, and then spent a week in the Caribbean on a cruise.

Click on these pictures below to be taken to the newest photo albums on our website. They may load slowly, but they are there. You can also click here to see the main 2009 photo page. Now that we’re back home, it’s time to check back into reality.

The Stockyards

Six Flags over Texas

Lake Palo Pinto

The Cruise

One note about these pictures. Most of the over 2,000 that were taken in five weeks, were shot on the indomitable Nikon D40. If you don’t have one yet, you might still get one on e-Bay. It is over three years old — a lifetime in the digital age, which means it will be replaced by something most likely not as nice as the D40, and certainly not as great a price as $450 with lens included. Point-and-shoots are fun, but with just a little more effort, you can carry a small DSLR like the D40 and get vastly better results, more keepers, and preserve more memories. Read why you don’t need more megapixels than what the D40 has here. With 1/500th of a second flash sync, I popped on a small flash (the SB-400) and got much better results than the dinky pop-up flash. Sure, I have nicer cameras, but if I dumped the D40 rig in the ocean, at least I wouldn’t lose half a fortune. Do you have your D40 yet?

TobyLaura.com