August 2014

A wonderful motorcycle tour of Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland with Edelweiss Bike Tours.

The Alps slideshow

The Alps gallery

Video's
Up Stelvio Pass
Down Stelvio Pass
Timmelsjoch and Jaufenpass

August 2013

Kenya

For those not bandwidth challenged, a slide show...
Kenya

April 2013

Maldives

For those not bandwidth challenged, a slide show...
Maldives

June/July 2012

Truk Lagoon

For those not bandwidth challenged, a slide show...
Truk Lagoon


Philippines

For those not bandwidth challenged, a slide show...
Philippines

March 11 News

We have been blessed once again to travel with friends to Indonesia. We visited someplace new, Cocotinos, and revisited heaven, Kasawari. The highlights of Cocotinos were turtles and a tsunami evacuation. While Kasawari was almost every ugly creature under the sea (and that's a good thing).
Kasawari

Cocotinos

For those not bandwidth challenged, a couple slide shows...
Kasawari
Cocotinos

March 10 News

The Egypt 2010 Trip was awesome.

April 07 News

We're back, it was great, you're jealous...yadda yadda...Pics

I finally uploaded pictures from the Costa Rica trip in November 06. You can find the pictures in General, Zip Line, Whitewater Rafting and some stock Nature shots by the Whitewater Rafting photographer

This trip was a real mixed bag of diving on rocks combined with horseback riding, whitewater rafting, and zip-lining through the rain forest.

I also uploaded some new kitty pictures in Jake, Joliet, and Togetherness

The Elections

We need to elect Carlos Mencia President. The hell with the religious right and the politically correct left.
Dee Dee Dee Song

April 06 News

The Bikini 2006 Trip was wonderful and even better than the 1st trip. In order to see some pics you'll need to learn a little history. Bikini 2006

Sunday, March 19 2006
The intrepid travelers got out of bed at 2:30am and boarded a school bus (a little one) at 3:30am to PHL International Airport.
Kath sat next to Marcel on the way to Houston (a 3-hour flight), which in and of itself is always an adventure
After a brief stop in Houston, it was onto Honolulu (an 8-hour flight). We hardly slept a wink, and decided to watch the movie "Walk the Line", which was not so bad afterall. Kath started and finished a book called "Hoot" (thanks to MB for the loan), and she met a nice lady from KY who was knitting something really pretty. When Kath asked her what it was, she said "dishrags"! No lie. Kath commented that it was far to nice to be a dishrag. It turns out that she was on her way to visit her daughter & family in HI, where her son-in-law is a diver in the navy. John started his book "Rise to Rebellion" about the American Revolution.

We arrived in Honolulu at 2pm local time (7pm EST), and returned to the oh-so-fab Best Westin airport hotel. We were nearing delirium from lack of sleep, and took a nap before almost not arising for dinner. Had an early dinner, took a nice walk (Hawaii is lovely in March), and went to bed at 7pm local time (now Midnight EST, approximately 21.5 hours after arising to begin this journey).

Monday, March 20 2006
The intrepid travelers were able to sleep in (!?) until 4:30am before riding back to the airport for yet another day of travel onto Majuro. There was a large fiasco at the airport with the carry-on bags due to "size" limitations. Beth had to check her carry-on (more on this later).

We were finally settled on the plane and on our way, which turned into...
Tuesday, March 21 2006 due to crossing the International Date Line. Don't think for a second that this doesn't throw your internal clock out of whack! Crossing the date line put us 17 hours ahead of EST.

On the plane, there was a group effort to replace the battery in Kath's dive computer, which involved first finding one that fit (thanks Steve for trying), and then trying to open the pack (thanks Paul for your shark-like teeth that did the job).

Kathy enjoyed the conversation of another traveler from D.C., who works in logistics for the US postal service and was on his way to converse with the local governments in the South Pacific to improve the lag time of mail delivery to/from the continental U.S. Apparently, the current delivery time is anywhere from 18 to 23 days!

After this 5-hour flight, we landed in Majuro and Beth (remember Beth?) was minus her "carry-on which turned out NOT to be a carry on". We learned it was left behind in Honolulu. Thankfully, this bag was almost all clothes (which you hardly even need in Bikini), and Beth fortunately remembered to pull out her dive mask and camera before handing her bag over.

Our arrival at the hotel brought a power outage (somehow, we always seem to make quite the impact) and Paul thoughtfully volunteered Kathy, who loves to spend other people's money, to help Beth find some clothes in Majuro. Beth was given an allowance by the airline, to spend at a local clothes shop. So with the help of Kathy, Mary Beth, Jen, and even Marcel (what a gal!), Beth succeeded in finding nifty Hawaiian shorts and lots of t-shirts.

Lunch was good and necessary after yet another rigorous morning for the intrepid travelers...
Back at the ranch (in our rooms, which were really cute little huts overlooking the Pacific), John noticed that the TSA left a love note in our camera bag, stating that it was "carefully chosen" among so many to be searched. And then a shuffle persued to get some weight out of our checked bags and into our carry-ons for the jaunt to Bikini, as every pound of checked luggage over 30 pounds (allowance per traveler), costs $1.50!! Needless to say, we had a big bill. Ah, the pains of getting to a place like Bikini...

Wednesday, March 22 2006 (Wasn't it just Monday??)
You guessed it - up at 3:20am and back to the airport for the last leg to Bikini. A quick intermediate stop at Kwajalein on-route (and the sniffing by the dogs), and we were finally almost there.

We land in Eneu - the only island of Bikini Atoll with an airstrip. (That was an airstrip!? So much for the trees we took down while landing...) A hello from Jim who remembered us from 2 years ago, and onto the boat! 20 minutes later and our destination is finally reached

Paul later surprised John and Kathy with 4 bottles of red wine that he (with the help of MB who had it on her back for 3 days) brought all the way from PA! Bikini is a dry island with the minor exception of a few beers. The wine was very much appreciated, so that we could not only stare out at the ocean, but enjoy our red while doing it. Thanks to Paul for this very special gift.

Kathy and MB quickly sized up the kitty population, and recognized a few of them from 2 years ago! They also proceeded to name all of the rest, and left the list with Jim and crew so that future dive groups could enjoy them by their given names John and Steve both wanted to bring Punkin home (a little orange & white tabby), Kathy was really smitten with Alabama (Alley) and Scooter (sibling kitties who had eye problems), and Mary Beth found a new boyfriend with Timmy. The twin little kittens, Click and Clack, often provided much pre and post-dinner entertainment. All 20 of them were a really nice bunch of kitties and everyone figured that by the time we left, they had all gained a few pounds from all the leftovers and kitty treats that we happily bestowed on them. So nice to have kitties to pet while away from our own at home...

Enjoy the site and the ships of Bikini 2006...We sure did!

Other Trip News

Scuba

All Galleries
Africa
Asia
North America
South America

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Scuba Gear
Photo Equipment
Trip Chronology

Kitties

Elwood
Jake
Joliet

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Togetherness
XMas 2001

Miscellaneous

Transportation
Recipes
Site History
Technical Documents

Dilbert

Purpose of the site

This site serves many simultaneous purposes.

• It's a technology platform for me to play with.
• It's a means of communicating with friends.
• It's a way to express my feelings on the wrongs of the world or just focus on the misdeeds of the Evil Empire or spout loads of drivel.

And if you take any of this too seriously, you shouldn't return.