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Are you taking any trips in 2023?

Ill just list overseas stuff to keep it short. For work Tokyo, Bahrain, Germany, Italy and London. For time off going to Curacao, Sicily and a trip to Portugal and Morocco.
Do you work for an airline? You must really know how to pack a suitcase! At any rate,
happy trails, bro.
 
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That is why you lose. There actually is strategy with Roulette. Always bet with the house on the Crap table. The casinos were not built by the patrons winning.

I did win $125 my first time playing roulette on a cruise.

I sat next to a very nice geriatric lady from Boca. She told me to always bet on 0. That helped.

Black 17 also hit 7 times in a row. I think the wheel was broken. It was awesome.

The last time I played was 10 years ago.
 
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I love them. There is nothing like the first time you hear AND feel the cars going by at 200 mph. It is VERY LOUD. Headsets or earplugs are a must.

Be sure to listen to the MRN guys during the commercials. They are hysterical!
First time should be a short track.
The speedways are cool, but if I was going to take someone to their first race and travel wasn’t an issue, then it’s Bristol, fer sure.
 
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The big trips this year are to Scotland and Vietnam. We are also doing a drive up to Lassen Volcanic national park and our usual Coast Starlight rail trip from Los Angeles to Vancouver.

Book your campground reservation early. Try to get a spot at Manzanita Lake. It's big and can get loud on the weekends but the lake is beautiful and the store has ice cream.
Hike to Bumpass Hell is great. Climb up to Lassen Peak is work but the views are great. Some good hikes on the eastern side but there's no thru road so you have to leave the park and drive around to get to them.
 
I sincerely appreciate your belief in my ability as an outdoorsman. :)

The current plan is to rent a cabin in Shingletown and to drive into the park for the day, but I will definitely take the hike recommendations. We are going to venture up to Mt. Baldy this weekend, but we are going to stay very conservative with the hiking due to the conditions.
I get LATimes headlines in my inbox daily and just today there’s an article about Mt. Baldy for accident and injury situations being extremely commonplace.
Be very careful!
When we lived in Orange County as Florida ex-pats we were fascinated by the idea of growing a garden and looking off in the distance to see a snow covered Mt, Baldy.
 
I sincerely appreciate your belief in my ability as an outdoorsman. :)

The current plan is to rent a cabin in Shingletown and to drive into the park for the day, but I will definitely take the hike recommendations. We are going to venture up to Mt. Baldy this weekend, but we are going to stay very conservative with the hiking due to the conditions.
From what I've seen of campgrounds lately you don't need to be an outdoorsman - just have access to a local walmart. They sell lots of products that are guaranteed to not keep you dry and to be broken after one use.

We nearly bought our first home in Shingletown. We had just moved up from LA and our coworkers tried to warn us off because of the "long commute" to Redding. It was almost 30 minutes. Deal actually fell thru due to the assessor's value. He thought $110k was too much!

I think you can rent kayaks on manzanita these days. Great spot for photos.
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And be sure to drive up the road a bit and see Burney Falls and subway caves.
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Just booked our first trip of the year, a long weekend to Vegas shortly after end of tax season. Staying at the Mirage one last time - it was bought by Hard Rock & late this year they're going to begin a major renovation to turn it into a Hard Rock Casino, with the big guitar design.
Did you know the Seminole Indians on every Hard Rock casino in the world but for two? That's why they have so much money now. They were impoverished as late as the 1980s and '90s. I only learned about that ownership about 6 months ago
 
Did you know the Seminole Indians on every Hard Rock casino in the world but for two? That's why they have so much money now. They were impoverished as late as the 1980s and '90s. I only learned about that ownership about 6 months ago

I did know that the Tribe had bought up the Hard Rock chain. Gambling money has been very good to the Seminole Tribe
 
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I saw that article, as well. Every time that I have been up to Mt. Baldy, I have seen somebody being brought down on a stretcher by ski patrol. For so many people, it's their only exposure to hiking in the snow and mountainous terrain. The drive up is just chaotic with people trying and failing to install chains.

We don't do the big hikes (that lack of outdoorsmanship strikes again). I ride the snowlift and walk very carefully and spend most of my time in the lodge with a hot beverage. :)
That sounds like a plan - enjoy.
 
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I did know that the Tribe had bought up the Hard Rock chain. Gambling money has been very good to the Seminole Tribe

Yep they are incredibly rich as a Tribe. They’re already disbursing just shy of $125,000 tax free dollars to every tribe member including babies for them doing absolutely nothing and they could be doing substantially more. The tribe’s on the books profit is about $2 billion a year and that doesn’t count off the book projects and “costs” that are really payments to Tribe members, shell companies owned by Tribe members. Considering there’s just around 2,000 Tribe members if they actually disbursed just their on paper profits each Tribe member would get $1 million dollars to do nothing.
 
Enjoy. Post pics.

I heard New Zealand is amazing.

Here’s the thing about New Zealand. The US has just as many amazing spots as New Zealand does but it’s spread out over an entire continent plus islands while everything in New Zealand is in roughly the size of Florida. So it would be like if Pensacola had black sand volcanic beaches and tropical jungles of Hawaii; if Tallahassee had the low rolling mountains and high hills of the Great Smoky Mountains; if Lake City had the Carlsbad Caverns; if Live Oak had the sheep covered small hills and badlands of Western South Dakota; if Jacksonville had the gorgeous wide white beaches of….Panama City and Destin; if St Augustine had the intricate rocky cliff and beach formations of Big Sur and Carmel California; if Ocala had the painted lakes and giant geysers of Yellowstone; if Daytona had the rich sealife of whales, seals, sea lions, dolphins, giant squid and amazing giant Kelp covered coastline of Monterey CA; if Gainesville wasn’t a giant %*%^hole but was giant volcano like you find in Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii; if Orlando had towering highest mountains of Alaska’s Mt McKinley; if Tampa had Washington’s Puget Sound; if Vero Beach had the fertile lobster beds and stunning ocean cliffs of Maine; if Palm Beach had the interesting rock formations of Arches National Park; if Boca Raton had the stunning Caverns of Bryce; if Okeechobee had Niagara Falls; if Sarasota had the fjords of Alaska; if Naples had the towering sequoias and mountains of Yosemite; if Miami was covered in penguins instead of puffins and antarctic glaciers rather than arctic….so on and so forth. It’s like hitting the best of American scenery in just one condensed spot.
 
Uganda, Mentawai islands, New Zealand. Never been to any or any of those continents.
New Zealand is stunning and very different scenery compared to the US. Not saying its better or worse but different. Africa as a whole is a really neat place to see very contrasting scenery and cultures as you travel. Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt and all strikingly different. The people there are as friendly as I've seen anywhere in the world.
 
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Yep they are incredibly rich as a Tribe. They’re already disbursing just shy of $125,000 tax free dollars to every tribe member including babies for them doing absolutely nothing and they could be doing substantially more. The tribe’s on the books profit is about $2 billion a year and that doesn’t count off the book projects and “costs” that are really payments to Tribe members, shell companies owned by Tribe members. Considering there’s just around 2,000 Tribe members if they actually disbursed just their on paper profits each Tribe member would get $1 million dollars to do nothing.
I just remembered that I wrestled alligators as a youngster in the Glades.
 
Anyone take any trips yet??

I'm going to Curacao in 8 weeks.
I did the Danube on a Viking River Cruise in March and it was AMAZING! I am the cruise queen, it was my 43rd cruise, and it was absolutely the BEST VACATION EVER! Not at all like a cruise on the ocean. Only 190 people on board, they knew our names before we even got out the car and personalized 5 star service. Not to mention heated floors in the bathroom, which I am certainly doing next time I remodel!

I did not think this nice Jewish girl would enjoy Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. Other than everyone telling us that were not Nazis ( I am 100% serious. Every city tour from the ship the first thing they all said was we are not Nazis), it was the fabulous. The food?? INCREDIBLE. The people, the vibe--everyone was happy, unlike here. No complaining, smiles, happy to help. And each city was cleaner than the next.

Toured lots of WWII history. Vienna, Dachau, a torture house in Budapest. Actually surprised that the torture hose got to me more than a concentration camp. I think when I make it Auschwitz I will feel much differently.

Can't wait for Italy in 3 weeks and to book another Viking Cruise! Thinking of Paris to Zermatt next year.
 
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I did the Danube on a Viking River Cruise in March and it was AMAZING! I am the cruise queen, it was my 43rd cruise, and it was absolutely the BEST VACATION EVER! Not at all like a cruise on the ocean. Only 190 people on board, they knew our names before we even got out the car and personalized 5 star service. Not to mention heated floors in the bathroom, which I am certainly doing next time I remodel!

I did not think this nice Jewish girl would enjoy Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. Other than everyone telling us that were not Nazis ( I am 100% serious. Every city tour from the ship the first thing they all said was we are not Nazis), it was the fabulous. The food?? INCREDIBLE. The people, the vibe--everyone was happy, unlike here. No complaining, smiles, happy to help. And each city was cleaner than the next.

Toured lots of WWII history. Vienna, Dachau, a torture house in Budapest. Actually surprised that the torture hose got to me more than a concentration camp. I think when I make it Auschwitz I will feel much differently.

Can't wait for Italy in 3 weeks and to book another Viking Cruise! Thinking of Paris to Zermatt next year.
Are you tight with Julie McCoy?
 
Recently did a 30-day around the world trip. New Zealand. Singapore for one day. Indonesia Sumatra. Surfed in both Indonesia and New Zealand.

Flew Emirates home from Jakarta. Only one stop in Dubai. And we flew right over Iran and Russia. Now that was strange staring out my plane window looking at Iran
 
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Recently did a 30-day around the world trip. New Zealand. Singapore for one day. Indonesia Sumatra. Surfed in both Indonesia and New Zealand.

Flew Emirates home from Jakarta. Only one stop in Dubai. And we flew right over Iran and Russia. Now that was strange staring out my plane window looking at Iran

What were the highlights/low lights?
 
I get LATimes headlines in my inbox daily and just today there’s an article about Mt. Baldy for accident and injury situations being extremely commonplace.
Be very careful!
When we lived in Orange County as Florida ex-pats we were fascinated by the idea of growing a garden and looking off in the distance to see a snow covered Mt, Baldy.
Mt. Baldy? Never mind.
 
I did the Danube on a Viking River Cruise in March and it was AMAZING! I am the cruise queen, it was my 43rd cruise, and it was absolutely the BEST VACATION EVER! Not at all like a cruise on the ocean. Only 190 people on board, they knew our names before we even got out the car and personalized 5 star service. Not to mention heated floors in the bathroom, which I am certainly doing next time I remodel!

I did not think this nice Jewish girl would enjoy Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. Other than everyone telling us that were not Nazis ( I am 100% serious. Every city tour from the ship the first thing they all said was we are not Nazis), it was the fabulous. The food?? INCREDIBLE. The people, the vibe--everyone was happy, unlike here. No complaining, smiles, happy to help. And each city was cleaner than the next.

Toured lots of WWII history. Vienna, Dachau, a torture house in Budapest. Actually surprised that the torture hose got to me more than a concentration camp. I think when I make it Auschwitz I will feel much differently.

Can't wait for Italy in 3 weeks and to book another Viking Cruise! Thinking of Paris to Zermatt next year.
Wife and I did the Viking Rhine river cruise from Amsterdam to Basel Switzerland. Totally agree. By far the best cruise we have been on. Saw bunches of castles.
 
I did the Danube on a Viking River Cruise in March and it was AMAZING! I am the cruise queen, it was my 43rd cruise, and it was absolutely the BEST VACATION EVER! Not at all like a cruise on the ocean. Only 190 people on board, they knew our names before we even got out the car and personalized 5 star service. Not to mention heated floors in the bathroom, which I am certainly doing next time I remodel!

I did not think this nice Jewish girl would enjoy Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. Other than everyone telling us that were not Nazis ( I am 100% serious. Every city tour from the ship the first thing they all said was we are not Nazis), it was the fabulous. The food?? INCREDIBLE. The people, the vibe--everyone was happy, unlike here. No complaining, smiles, happy to help. And each city was cleaner than the next.

Toured lots of WWII history. Vienna, Dachau, a torture house in Budapest. Actually surprised that the torture hose got to me more than a concentration camp. I think when I make it Auschwitz I will feel much differently.

Can't wait for Italy in 3 weeks and to book another Viking Cruise! Thinking of Paris to Zermatt next year.


Pics??
 
Do you have to walk the monkey every day?

Love the pictures!
The monkey is native to just two of the Mentawai Islands. The owner of the camp found her abandoned on the beach as an infant.

He turned her over to an agency to try to reintroduce her to her population but she was abandoned again and would not eat. He took her in for good.

She was like a petulant adolescent teenager. MMH wrestling with the Chihuahua. And they did let her loose at times but she would crawl into guest cabins and tear them apart throwing things around. Wanted to be the dominant female.

She was very sweet actually. Just had to watch out for her. Pound for pound they are probably 6 times stronger than a human being.

Another not funny but interesting story. One of the ladies Jessica in her mid-30s originally from California and lives in Dubai. Waves were small, but she had her leash wrapped up around her hand and dislocated her finger.

The surf guides had some experience but they were researching YouTube on how to reset a finger. In Padang she went to a medical clinic to diagnose the injury and try to get some travel insurance. They took an x-ray and told her it was broken and wanted to do surgery right then. Smartly she neglected and went back to Dubai where they confirmed the break but said no surgery was needed
 
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