Parrottrek Journal 2012

April 26th - Cruising to the Bahamas -
It's crazy how fast 15 years can go by. A couple weeks back we were having lunch at Rusty's overlooking the cruise ships lined up, thinking how fun it would be to board one and head out to sea, so we decided we'd do just that to celebrate this year's anniversary and to take advantage of our close proximity to the Bahamas. Once aboard the ship the fun began. We carried on our luggage so we could unpack quickly and begin exploring. We started out with a lap around the exterior decks, checked out the pool, the Lido Deck and then headed inside to the piano bar, where we ordered an umbrella drink and listened to some music. Next stop, the party deck...

April 27th - Nassau, Bahamas -
Watching this huge ship pulling into port as though it was a small sailboat was amazing. Once we were safely tied up, the mass exodus began and Nassau was invaded with all of us cruisers. Luckily this island is big enough for the two of us, and many others. We started our day with a bit of shopping and exploring the Straw Market along with some little shops with local art and clothing. Having worked up an appetite walking all over the island, we stopped off at Senor Frog's for a bite to eat and a cocktail to drink. After lunch we hopped in a taxi, which was driven from the wrong side of the car in the wrong lane, according to us mainlanders so it made for a wild ride.

A wild ride to Atlantis, a beautiful hotel right on the beach with comfy lounge chairs, retractable umbrellas included, white sandy beaches, crystal clear water and lots of sunshine. We stayed and read for a couple hours, me on Frank's Kindle, which may never be returned and he with an old fashioned paperback book, poor guy. We dozed a little and listened to waves crashing at our feet before heading back to the city for more Bahamian exploration.

Mickey and Minnie at the Epcot gates

We went from China

To Tanzania, Africa all in a day

Up Mt. Kilimanjaro we go

April 9th - Epcot -
How else can you get from Mexico to Japan to The Netherlands within a few hours? Today we walked all through the countries of Epcot. We watched sleeping vampire bats awaken, which was quite cute actually to see them yawn and stretch. We saw pacing tigers and napping ones, did a little shopping in the quaint stores around Holland and took a ride through the Himalayan Mountains where we were chased by Big-foot and barely got out alive.

Shopping in Holland

Siesta time for vampire bats... ...

... ... and bengal tigers

The bats start to awaken

Rusty's Beach Shack

Rusty's huge open deck, where we had lunch

The weather was perfect!

Cruise ships all around us, and fun birds

April 1st - April Foolin' Around at the Cape -
Live music, perfect weather and views to die for. Just what I needed. You want to know one of the best things about Sundays? Nothing financial is open. No calls need to be made to the lawyer or the insurance adjuster or the credit card or mortgage companies because they are all closed, Thank You Jesus! My huge "settling Rob's estate" to do list is put on hold on Sundays and all I have on my "enjoying life"to do list is spend this beautiful day outside with my husband and let someone else to the cooking. We had lunch at Rusty's Beach Shack and Tiki Bar this afternoon where we sat outside, watched dolphins swim, manatees play and cruise ships leave port. After lunch we drove out to Jetty Park for a walk down the beach and a long swim in the warm ocean. Ahhhh!! Batteries are officially recharged, bring on the to do list... ... tomorrow, that is.

A space shuttle painted up in ocean decor. You'll find these themed shuttles all throughout the Cape

WHAT?!? Don't let Cody see this sign

Playful dolphins swim past

Walking down Jetty Park Beach

On board with great friends

Headed out to sea

Seals brought a smile to our faces

A great view of the islands

March 24th - Scattering Ashes - Santa Barbara
There is something so tranquil about the sea. Floating on the open water on a sunny morning, admiring the views of land and the soft sounds of lapping water around the hull of a sailboat. Even though our excursion was for a sad reason, I felt completely at peace on this morning's outing. My poor dad is feeling sick to his stomach again today and therefore stayed home in bed. Figuring most of my friends would have Saturday plans already, I took a chance and called a couple to see if they'd join me. Not a single one of them let me finish my question before responding "we're on our way" I love these ladies.

Yellow rose petals in memory of Rob

Red petals for my mama, I miss you!

March 21 - The Call No One Wants to Get -
It was Friday night and Frank and I were headed to a party, just a soon as I got off work. Lucky for me I got out a bit early and headed straight to Gary and Carie's, our hosts for the evening, thinking Frank and the rest of our friends would already have the festivities under way. The house was empty except for Carie who was still prepping for our arrival, so I decided to head home real quick and change out of my work clothes and drive back with Frank so we only had one vehicle. Half way home my phone started to make a funny noise and since I'd only had it a couple of days I was still learning all its bells and whistles. I figured it would be Frank calling to see where I was, so I hit the send button to receive what I thought was a phone call. It turned out to be a voicemail. Not so lucky for me, the message began to play. It was a man from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff Department wanting to talk to me about a Robert Newsom, my mind began to race thinking "Please let my dad be okay, please let my dad by okay" was all that went through my mind. After what seemed like a half hour pause from this nameless voice on the other end, he added Jr. to the name. "What? My Brother? Oh that's right, they do have the same name" Lucky for me I was only driving a golf cart, so when I veered off the road half into a driveway and half into a nature area trying to catch my breath and make my head stop spinning, the damage was minimal. Trying my darndest to call the phone number back and screaming at my new supposed Smartphone, which did its job of making me fell like a complete moron, I finally got it to ring back the number that had left the voicemail. A recorded message on the other end said "You've reached the Coroner's office and we're sorry but there is no one here to take your call, please leave a message and" ... ... ...That's all I remember of that night, in sequence. The rest of the night happened like snapshots. A snapshot of me walking in the door at home, listening to that same voice again, only live this time confirming our suspicions. Him going on to tell me he couldn't get ahold of my dad, Frank driving me back to work to tell them I had to get on a plane the next morning so I could tell my dad in person and not have a policeman show up on his doorstep telling him the last thing any parent ever wants to hear. A snapshot of us driving back to Carie's and having all our friends offer help in any way they could, all I could think to ask was to borrow a suitcase, and wondering just how one packs for a trip like this, especially when you're used to having a 40 foot by 8 1/2 foot suitcase with you on most of your travels. The next thing I remember was my sister-in-law picking me up at the airport in Santa Barbara and wondering how the heck I just managed to get across the country in what felt like 15 minutes with all my belongings and arriving in the right spot somewhat sane. Love that guardian angel of mine and my sister-in-law, who drove me to my dad's and stayed with me through breaking the news to him and the next few hours of tears that followed. Today is now Wednesday and it feels like I've been here a month, not necessarily in a bad way, I'm glad to be here with my dad, but in an exhausting way. It's amazing how many little details there are in dealing with death, and after the last two years Frank and I have had, I pray this is the last group of these kinds of details we have to deal with for many many years to come. Fortunately we've gotten good at dealing with death details, unfortunately we're starting this whole nightmare over again, from the beginning.

Volunteering in Nashville, TN

Disney World with good friends

Canoeing in the Gulf of Mexico

Watching the Rose Parade on Colorado Blvd in the front seat of our motorhome

February 18th - Better Than Fiction -
Over the last day and a half, in which I purposely cleared my calendar of any activities that made me leave the confines of my cozy home in order to study for the up and coming national exam I am attempting to pass, I noticed something. I noticed that not only am I turning into a procrastinator, but that we've done a few fun things out here on our travels, since flipping through the scenes of our Webpage is what I've filled my non-productive hours with. Wonderful and appreciative non-productive hours, mind you, since over the past 3 months days off have been rare. Something I am slowly adjusting to and at the same time loving, in a slightly masochistic way. In our "sitting still" phase of life, I've noticed that the most common question we get about our travels is "What's your favorite place to visit in the whole country?" (for some reason people always seem to emphasize whole in this question) My first response, after pondering the question for awhile is usually the same "That's a really hard question to answer... ... we really like Nashville, TN, the amazing beaches of Florida, Pennsylvania is gorgeous, San Antonio is one of the most fun cities, we love historical places, Florida has the most beautiful lush nature you can imagine... .... and so on. The only parallel I can think of in regards to this question is asking a teacher of 20 or so "who's your favorite kid?" All of her children are going to have their good traits and bad, some are going to be beautiful but perhaps not so bright, others will be brilliant but lacking in social skills while one or two of them are probably boring as heck, or incredible brats. Since she's their teacher and loves her job, she most likely doesn't see all of their bad traits. There are places that we have been to that need no revisiting, just as there are students she may never want to see again and there are states as a whole we'd be happy to never step back into but there are hundreds of places that we seen and experienced and thoroughly enjoyed. So, since I have given myself just a few more minutes to dink around on the computer before hitting the books, I have included a few pictures of our favorite places... ... so far.

Niagara Falls, Canada

The monuments of Washington DC

The amazing Mount Rushmore

Sweet babies in Boise, Idaho

Feeding tigers in Missouri

Enjoying the Grand Canyon with friends

Bike rides around Chicago

Posing with our race team, car and a Thunderbird jet

Floating down the Colorado River

Standing atop the Empire State Building

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Dinner at Woody's in St. Pete's

Good times with great friends

Our view of the Gulf at dinner

The 6 of us enjoy a walk down the beach

A Walk on the Beach - St. Petersburg, Florida -
The best part of being a traveler is that you meet all sorts of other travelers on your adventures, whether it be through work, vacation or play. And the best part of having traveling friends is that every so often they are traveling in the same part of the country that you are. It doesn't sound like a hard thing to do, getting together with good friends, but when you realize that the contiguous United States is 3,119,884.69 square miles and of this 3,119,884.69 square miles, 2,959,064.44 square miles is land it brings things a little more into perspective of how often your paths will cross, especially when you're no longer driving the same roads as they are.

The view from Mark and Evie's hotel that they run. Beautiful!!

Anyone need a natural luffa sponge

So needless to say when your home states are literally all over the map and 6-8 of you end up within the same 200 mile radius it's kinda cool and a cause for a celebration. I'm sure you're all familiar with Kurt and Philly, some our best friends, greatest traveling buds and partners in crime, that we do whatever we can to see a few times a year, but also in our dinning bunch tonight was Mark and Evie, who we met on the NHRA circuit, but have since moved on to different ventures. Currently they are running a beautiful beachfront hotel on the coast in St. Petersburg, so Frank, Kurt, Philly and I packed up the Jeep and drove across the state to meet them for the day. We spent the afternoon at Mark and Evie's house, walked along the beach of the Gulf of Mexico, caught up on each other's past couple year experiences over dinner and even did a little shell hunting when we came across all sorts of ocean sponges. We almost took a couple home since a few months ago we saw these same sponges for sale in Key West for 10-18 dollars, but decided to forego and leave them for the sponge hunters that actually know how to get them from their sandy selves to soft sponges. It was another great day here in the Sunshine State where all you need is a light jacket for an evening stroll under the stars.

The Walt Disney World Highway

We stopped off at the Grand Floridian to tour the majestic hotel

Can you find Space Mountain on the opposite shore?

Let the memories begin!

January 25th - A Magical Day - Walt Disney World
Ahhhhh, sunny Florida, a day off together and annual passes to Disney World, it doesn't get much better than that. Especially since the Magical World of Disney is only 45 minutes away and with all sorts of insider tips from lots of friends, neighbors and fellow pass holders we learned how to park for free, get to each and every park on the Disney train/boat/monorail system and found out the best locations to eat and what to pass by. Our first stop was at the Grand Floridian, which is a palatial hotel on the banks of Lake Disney. We walked all through the grounds and the interior and then jumped on the Monorail and headed to the Magic Kingdom.
We both grew up in California and spent quite a bit of our childhood, and adulthood vacationing at Disneyland. So much time in fact that we both could probably get around Disneyland blindfolded. As soon as we stepped into the gates of the Magic Kingdom today and walked down Main Street we felt right at home. Almost too at home, thinking that we had somehow stepped into a time machine that took us to Disneyland in California since there were so many similarities, but as soon as we hit the end of Main Street we realized yes we are in Florida because there in front of us stood the considerably taller Cinderella's Castle instead of Sleeping Beauty's which marks the center of California's Disneyland. All through the Magic Kingdom we noticed other differences as well, for instance the entrance to The Haunted Mansion is a bit more fun since you walk through a graveyard and an interactive decorative crypt. Animal Kingdom's version of the Matterhorn is called Everest and has a few more surprises than the California attraction. However, we did notice a few things missing from Florida's map, such as Indiana Jones, which I must admit, after Pirates of the Caribbean, which thankfully is on this coast as well, is my favorite ride in the west. But heck, there are a few more parks we didn't hit this time around, so who knows what other adventures we'll discover on our next trip, which should only be a couple weeks away. Heading out of Disney World we took a boat ride, watched the sunset and were dropped us off within walking distance of our car. A perfect finale to a fun and magical day.

All aboard the Disney Train for a ride around the Magic Kingdom

One of the many creative tombs outside the Haunted Mansion

The lowering of the flag at the end of the day

The scenic boat ride back to the car