Trips, trips, trips

Got a lot of travel coming up:

• Golf weekend with my buddies in Vegas. THIS should be fun. Short, but fun.
• Few days in Phoenix with the family for spring break.
• Two weeks in Australia with my friend John Michaelenko (who lives there) and Mike T. We're going prospecting for opals in the outback. Not something you get a chance to do every day.

Pictures from Jamaica

As promised, here are some pix from our trip...

Us at the water slide:
Juliet coming down the water slide:
































Candice on the beach. Us with some new friends we met; Juliet's best buddy, Ashley.

Santa Barbara

Candice, Juliet, Lucy, and I went down to Santa Barbara weekend before last for a brief visit. I hadn't been down there since Juliet was born (over five years!) and I still have quite a few friends down there, so it was high time for a visit.

We rented a little vacation house (duplex, actually) near east beach. It was a cozy two bedroom place with a nice little kitchen, a small back yard, just a few steps from the beach. It was really perfect for our stay. Kudos to Candice for finding it on http://vrbo.com.

The trip down was a bit disconcerting, because we saw two serious accidents. The first, we actually witnessed, near Pismo Beach, when an SUV about 4 cars ahead of us careened off the road and ran directly into the guardrail. The second we drove by minutes after it happened, near Buellton. It was even more serious, and we saw the victims on the roadside, obviously injured. To make it even stranger, Jennifer told us that it was actually a friend of hers, and she visited her in the hospital the next day!

Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in SB. We ordered dinner in from a nice Italian place called Ca' Dario. Then, Jim and Linda came over and we visited with them for a bit. On Saturday, we went to the home of my old friend Jon Southard, whom I hadn't seen in a number of years. I had not even met his wife and two sons, and Candice had not met any of them. Jon made us a nice lunch and the kids had fun playing in their large back yard with all kinds of animals (chickens, rabbit, dog, etc.) Even Lucy came along!

That night we had dinner with Jennifer and John at a swooshy new place called Cafe Luck. Michael Keaton and his wife were sitting near us, and on the way out we saw Dennis Miller. A true Santa Barbara moment.

Sunday we went to the charming Santa Barbara zoo. In the evening, Rod came over and we grilled steaks and watched the Oscars.

All in all, an enjoyable, if somewhat rushed visit. I still have fond place in my heart for Santa Barbara.

Travels

This will be the main post with links to all the places I have been. My travels have been fairly extensive in North America, Europe, and Australasia, but I have not even been to Africa or South America. However, some of the favorite places that I have visited outside the continental US are:

• The Caribbean: Jamaica, Haiti, Nassau, Cayman Islands, Florida, Roatan
  
• Alaska, Yukon Territory, Canadian Rockies (Banff, etc.)
  
• Vancouver, Victoria, BC; Gulf Islands
  
• Mexico - Pacific: Baja, Puerto Vallarta, San Pancho; Caribbean: Isla Mujeres, Cozumel, etc.
• Hawaii
  
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Singapore; Hong Kong
  
• Bali, Java, Sumatra
• Nepal
  
• Australia
• Fiji
• French Polynesia (Tahiti)
  
• New Zealand
• Japan
• Siberia
• Russia and Ukraine
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Western Europe: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the low countries, etc.
  
• Switzerland, Lichtenstein, The Alps
• Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  
• Paris
• London, England, Scotland, Wales

And within the US, it's easier to list the states that I HAVEN'T been to:

• Maine
• Rhode Island
• North Dakota
• Kentucky
• West Virginia
  

I'm not counting places that I've only driven through, and of which I have no memory.

Lonsome Dove Western Bistro

While in Ft. Worth, Candice made sure that we dined at the Lonesome Dove Bistro, and boy am I glad she did.  I addition to some amazingly creative food, we tasted their jalapeno-cucumber margaritas which were fantastic.

Texas

Heading to Texas week after next for the Texas Jack Association Round-Up got me to thinking about the great state of Texas and the role it has played in my life. My family moved to Ft. Worth when I was about four, for my dad's job as Dean of Tarrant County Junior College (he later became president and had that post for twenty years). So, I spent my childhood and formative years in Ft. Worth, until 1978, when my mom and I moved to Santa Barbara. I've been back many times, and it still has a special place in my heart.

It is an incredibly diverse state that defies that stereotype that many people have of cowboys and oilmen. In addition to deserts and plains (which it has in abundance), it also has hundreds of miles of beaches, beautiful hill country, swamps and piney woods, and several of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Like the state tourism board's slogan: "It's a whole 'nother country."