An exhilarating off-road quad bike expedition over one of New Zealand’s most rugged coastal environments.

 Best Excursion Ever

  This truly was a highlight of our many adventures in traveling the world. We had the opportunity to go on a six hour quad ride that started at the top of  a mountain which was about 3,000 ft. high and then we rode all the way down to sea level and then back to the top.  We rode along narrow tracks that lead us up to the peaks, we forded rivers, streams, and through a lush native forest. There had been some serious rains a few days before we got there, and parts of the trails had been washed out. In one such area, the rain had washed away the trail exposing a ravine strewn with boulders that we had to slowly drive the front of the quad down onto. then pop a wheelie and gun it and try to get back up to the trail. The company we went with was so good. They had one of the guides stand by this washed-out hole and had each of us, one at a time, cross the area with him instructing us at each step of the way. There was one hill that was steep and covered in loose rocks so a guide would have us go up this hill one quad at a time. Some of the cliff sides had really soft shoulders. We almost lost our daughter over one such cliff, I was behind her so when I realized she was going over the edge, so I ran my quad's front wheel in behind her front wheel and gunned it trying to stop her from going down the mountain. Two of the guides who saw what was happening jumped off their quads and ran to help. I cannot emphasize enough how professional these guides were. 

Our whole experience was both exhilarating and undeniably fun, yet brimming with a few dangerous moments making it a journey not for the faint of heart. But this company actually had a 4-wheel drive Jeep that was available for anyone who did want to continue on the quads. This was a thrilling quad adventure that tested both my skill and nerves.  When we finished the ride we all went into the office and they gave us the local beer to end our journey. I wish I had been able to take pictures of some of these thrilling moments, but the ride demanded all my concentration. I think this is also why our daughter didn't realize she had lost one of her lenses from her glasses. Of course no one got hurt on this trip. Fun  note here: we had a doctor and his wife who was a nurse in our group, which I think gave everyone peace of mind. It literally was the best! I would 100% suggest this expedition to anyone and we actually want to go back and do it again.

 

I just kept thinking through this forest, "I'm in New Zealand riding a quad in this amazing country!" It just seemed so unreal.

 

This is us with two of the best guides! Loved them, they were so professional, and helpful.

Our Daughter said that people kept saying “Like your glasses!” and she didn’t even notice that one of her lenses had fallen out on the rough trail. We all got a good laugh out of it.

This picture doesn't do justice to how steep it was coming off this peak.  We actually had someone just stop and got off their quad because they were too nervous to go down any  further. The company had a guide that came in a jeep and picked them up.

 

MAIDEN VOGAGE OF OUR NEW TRAVEL TRAILER ABOUT KILLED US

   We recently bought a new travel trailer and having owned two other trailers before, we never imagined what a learning curve we were about to have. Both of our previous trailers had been purchased while living in Washington State, so now living in the Southwest we had an unfortunate major lesson. Being the maiden voyage on a new trailer, we wanted to stay within three hours of where we purchased the trailer in case we needed to get back  if things went wrong. 

  Hoping to escape the 118° weather we were having, we headed North to a higher elevation only to experience a 105° heat wave in Cottonwood, AZ, where we booked our camp site. We arrived at the check-in time of 1:00PM, and while pulling into the campground, realized there were very few trees to shade our site. This, of course, meant we had to set up the the unit in the heat. My first priority (I thought)  was to get the refrigerator and the AC going  asap to cool things down. I turned on the AC unit, nothing. I tried again, nothing. I checked the circuit breaker box, went outside and checked the electrical cord connection, nothing. Inside the trailer, it must have been about 130° or more at this point. Darren and I had to keep getting into the cab of the truck to run the air conditioner on us. We spent over two hours in the heat trying to set up the trailer. Our hearts sank. We thought we were going to have to pack it all back up which would take another hour to do and come home. By this time, we had started to experience heat exhaustion and both of us were feeling nauseous. My face was magenta red and were were both extremely weak, and had to keep sitting down. My husband decided since we just bought the trailer, we should call the service department and ask for help. The service guy started through the check list of possible answers and it was everything I had already checked. Then he asked, "Did you flip the power switch at the box?" I walked over and NOPE, it had not been flipped on. Now remember, we have had TWO other trailers before this! Really!! We have never forgotten this once. 

   Another crazy thing that happened was that the motorhome next to us couldn't get their electric to work either so they too were suffering with the heat. It turned out the electrical box they plugged into was actually broken and a maintenance worker had to come and replace the box. The park people asked them if they wanted to move sites, but they declined, because they had done all the leveling and hook-ups and were suffering with heat exhaustion too.   

   The lesson we, and I'm sure the couple in the motorhome learned, is that as soon as you pull into a camping site, don't unhitch the trailer or perform any of the set up until you plug into the electrical box and turn on the water make sure everything works. Then once you know all is working, finish setting up your trailer.  

   

Unfortunately, once you have heat exhaustion, you don't just perk back up. We spent hours putting ice on our heads, faces and chests and drank tons more water, all while taking it very easy.

DINNER AND A GAME OF DND

Want to take your DND to the next level?

   My family is kind of a nerdy bunch, which includes a love for Dungeons and Dragons. But I have one daughter that absolutely goes over the top with her group. People would pay to get into her events. It's like being in an escape room or attending a mystery dinner. She just finished a two year campaign as the DM (Dungeon Master). Now, not all campaigns take this long, but her group didn't want it to end. Now that it is summer, maybe it would be a fun time to try out just a summer campaign using some of these ideas.

   For each game she decorates the play area with thematic decorations, as well as goody bags that have munchies, often including individual sized liquors. She uses a lap top that has computerized photos and sounds of scenes they were involved in, and to top it off, when  the lap top is not being used, she has back ground music playing to enhance the game.  Holiday's like Easter and Christmas are even designed and placed into the quest. She even enlisted her dad to record campaign summaries before each new adventure. In one event there was a mass combat scenario where we printed out, and cut over 120 images of magic casters, monsters, cavalry and foot soldiers. Then she wrote the stat of the military unit on the back of EACH ONE OF THEM. She purchased little individual  plastic stands from Amazon to stand each one up. The whole process was  a bit time consuming, but this is what makes the games more fun.

   Last week her group started a new campaign with one of the other players wanting to give it a try and DM. In order to help him out, she is going to provide dinner before the games which means new dishes and silverware  that  look and feel like the time period.  The menu for these nights will always be in character with the game. For example, for her first meal, she served a hearty stew with home made bread. 

 So how does one keep the same group for two years and always have them show up excited and ready to play? By taking it to the next level. 

 

 I'm Back!!

More travels, more fun, and more stories to tell.  In the last few years we have moved from the state of Washington to our native state of Arizona, with a 2 year period of temporary stay in Utah.  There have been a couple more cruises, road trips and coast to coast trips to see family.  Adding to the fun we just purchased our third travel trailer. So happy to have you all along to continue looking through the many different kinds of windows of my life, from home, cars, trains, planes, travel trailer and boats. 

NASSAU, BAHAMAS

The resort Atlantis from our balcony on the cruise ship.

HEY MON! NO PROBLEM

   After disembarking from the ship, you are bombarded with people trying to sell you tours, hair braiding and goods. We immediately were approached by a man named Hurry Murray, and yes that was his name. Hurry was offering a special for only  $35.00 each, he would give us a tour of Nassau, which actually was a good price. He had a three-ring binder that showed all the places he would show us, we agreed and  had the most fun with this man for two and a half hours. He drove an old mini van that had paint coming off, seats that were worn to the batting, and the ceiling had a hit and miss lining, yet he had one of the most expensive up to date stereo systems on the market. What was fun, was he would talk about the sites, tell stories, and at the end of each of these he would hit a song on his stereo that went  with the point of interest or story.  

    My favorite story goes that a boy went to his father to ask if he could marry his girlfriend, and his father says "No", the boy asks "Why", and his father replies, "now don't tell your mamma because she don't know, but your girl friend is your sister". When the boy sees his mamma he tells her, " I can't marry my girlfriend", she asks "Why", and he replies, "Daddy says I wasn't suppose to tell you, but my girlfriend is my sister", and his mamma says, "Go ahead and marry dat girl, cause she ain't your sister, cause your daddy ain't your daddy, and your daddy don't know."  Then our tour guide Hurry blasted out the song on the stereo "Don't worry, just be Happy".

   

WHAT THE HELL?!

   OK, so here is the scoop on Caribbean Cruises, DON’T expect to see the ports you have signed up for. I have a friend that told me she has been on 4 cruises to the Caribbean and Grand Cayman has been a destination on 3 of these, but only once has the ship been able to dock there. I used to tease and say, “How naughty can I be without going to hell”, well apparently it is harder than I thought, and I even paid to go, and still couldn’t get there.

   The only excursion that we signed up for on this Caribbean cruise, was at George Town, Grand Cayman. Our tour was supposed to go to a turtle farm, then take a boat out to Stingray Bay to swim, feed, and play with Stingrays, and go to a place called “Hell”. In Hell we would stop at a Post Office to send post cards to ourselves, family, and friends which would be post marked from “Hell”.  The morning we arrived at George Town, the Captain gave an announcement that due to rough seas we would not be able to dock or even use the Tenders to get into this port. My first words were “What the Hell”? We were so disappointed that we didn’t get to go. I bet not many people you know want to go to Hell as bad as we did.

   Because of this we had two days back to back of sailing, which is not something I enjoy. The sea was choppy and constantly rocking the ship back and forth and side to side, which only leaves me sea sick. While buying some Dramamine, I was given a tip by a crew member. She said that eating a green apple would help with sea sickness. I had later heard a group of women talking about the green apples to each other trying to help with their queasiness too.

   The Norwegian Escape had plenty to do to keep you busy on the two days of cruising. Most everyone we met on this cruise was from the Eastern part of Canada (where temperatures were subzero), the Midwest, or East Coast of the U.S.A. so even though the temperature was only in the 70’s, most of them donned swimsuits and laid around the pools, swimming, and getting tanned. This ship was so big, it had an outdoor water park, rope course, running track, and a miniature golf course.

This is the rope course on board, but we never got to do this either, because it was too windy to open.

My hole in one shot. Look at all the spikes it had to go around and it still dropped right into the hole!

Various outdoor attractions on our “Mega Ship”

Eight Hours Of Shopping In Falmouth, Jamaica

Norwegian Escape docked in Falmouth, Jamaica

   On our third day of our cruise we woke up in Falmouth, Jamaica, here we had eight hours to spend. I was a little surprised we even went into Jamaica considering they were under marshal law at the time, but later after talking to a sales clerk in one of the shops I understood. This little port is strictly a little triangle shaped shopping plaza, with a guarded gate,and was advised we probably shouldn't go past the guarded gate unless we were on an excursion.

  Hubby and I decided we should do the majority of our shopping here and get it done with, since that was all we could do. One of our "bucket list items" to purchase on this trip was Cuban cigars, since they have been illegal here in the United States for our whole life, and since they are supposed to be one of the smoothest cigars made, we wanted to see what all the hubbub was about on these and get a few. We purchased our cigars at a store that was nothing but Cuban's! You always hear how cheap things are in the Caribbean, but not always the case, our cigars were $20.00 a piece! I was hoping for half that price. We also knew Rum was another must to purchase here, but we choose to buy the Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cakes instead. We bought a six pack that cost $35.00. My favorite was the rum coffee cake, these are only the size of a large cupcake. When we got to the Miami airport they sold the exact same thing CHEAPER. Another item on our "bucket list" was the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. They gave out samples at the little store we bought it at. The coffee was 16 oz. and cost $45.00!  The funny highlight to this little store was we were checking out the cigars in their cases, and the lady pulled out this big ole cigar called a "Threesome", we started giggling, and then my hubby said, "Well we should have a Threesome, and go to Hell". We all just busted out laughing, because the next day on our excursion we were suppose to go to a place called Hell. 

   Apparently one of  the big things to buy in the Caribbean is jewelry, it seemed that about a third of this place was jewelry stores. One of the ladies we had meet on the ship showed me her $6,000 diamond necklace. It was beautiful. It had a crown of light diamond in the center with smaller diamonds surrounding the big center diamond.   

At the end of our eight hours in Falmouth, we had been there, done that, and completed our little "bucket list" of things to buy in the Caribbean.