Category: Traveling

I was in Bemidji, Minnesota recently for a work conference. I know, I know, travelling again… at least, that’s what my cats seem to glare at me about. Look, they have an airport (with a single gate), a Paul Bunyan statue, and some absolutely amazing restaurants. And if you have a car – which fortunately, we did – a nearby state park where you can walk across the headwaters of the Mississippi River in a handful of steps.

While a picture paints a thousand words, sorting through a thousand (or more) pictures takes time. Some of our activities involved water – not surprising for a Caribbean cruise – which means combining photos from across cell phones and the waterproof camera I bought back in 2017 for our Galápagos trip.

As is evident in the photos, we had fairly nice weather… I think there was a drizzle one day when we were already getting wet (“champagne snorkeling” – snorkeling above geothermal vents), and a downpour on another day when we were already in our bathing suits (for a helmet dive). The upside to a cruise is you get to see a lot without having to repack; the downside is that you may find an area you’d like more time in, but the ship is only there for a single day. There are definitely places we want to return to after this adventure, with extended time to explore those areas.

Mid-November found us back in Portland, this time joined by my sister, with the primary goal of the trip to visit with my aging grandmother, scheduled in short visits on alternating days so as to not overstay her energy levels. To those family and friends we did not manage to connect with on this trip or back in June, I offer my sincerest apologies.

As part of our effort to not overstay our welcome with Grandma, we once again stayed in downtown Portland with an amazing view of the riverfront and a couple blocks away from the Portland Saturday Market. What we somehow missed in June, possibly because of the later sunset, was the number of murders that appear at sunset by the river; Portland is apparently known for its crow population (among other things).

Portland is also a prime location for quirky art, or in the case of this blog post, quirky immersive art. We revisited the Portland Aquarium, vaguely justifying the repeat visit because my sister hadn’t been there yet, and a few days later, explored Mike Bennett’s other immersive art experience, the Wonderwood Restaurant & Indoor Mini Golf. While I have absolutely no golfing experience, I have played a few rounds of mini golf over the years, and this was by far the craziest set of holes I’ve played. (Please note that I’m not particularly good at mini golf. Par is something that exists for other players.)

In addition to Mike Bennett’s delightful art, I could tell we were in for something different when we noticed the plethora of extraneous holes at the first hole, with writing inside like “Nope”, “Wrong”, and “X” (which did not, in fact, mark the correct spot). In addition to odd patches of mismatched carpet texture, deliberate bumps in otherwise flat surfaces, one of the holes has you teeing off at chest level (depending on your height, of course), with the choice of standing on a wobbly log or a nearby step to hit the ball onto a narrow, unevenly cut, carpeted (with multiple textures) bridge above a plinko-style structure that drops your ball back out to ground level. While we had the option of playing again – your admission covers unlimited plays in the same day – we opted to escape (this time) across the street to a lovely yarn & book store.

A couple days later, we explored another nearby immersive art exhibit: Hopscotch. We weren’t sure what to expect from this one, I had picked up a brochure at the airport in the 20-minute gap between our flight arrival and my sister’s, so we were working from a single page description and photos, including “23,000 sq. ft. of total immersion in the unexpected” and “15 vibrant installations from 40+ local, national, and international artists.” This turned out to be another delightful experience, with some exhibits being harder to leave than others, like the colorfully lit trampoline room (not much bounce, but the wall lights are reactive to nearby activity) and a ball pit. Tickets do need to be purchased online, and if you’re visiting on a Saturday, ahead of time. Don’t show up like we did and be disappointed that it’s sold out, though that did offer us the opportunity to visit the nearby Hippo Hardware store and walk across the Burnside Bridge; we then pre-purchased tickets for Sunday.

If you know of other immersive art exhibits – anywhere! – I’d love to hear about them.

As luck would have it, we scheduled our day of wandering around downtown Portland, Oregon to coincide with opening day of the Portland Aquarium. To be clear, this is actually an art-quarium rather than live animals, all drawn by the delightfully talented Mike Bennett.

As part of your admission, you receive a compendium that documents the five biomes you’ll explore and some of the over a hundred cartoon species you’ll encounter in those rooms. Each species includes both a photo and a drawing, along with information about the species and their geography. Some species include side comments, like the Giant Pacific Octopus (pictured below) has a note that reads “My favorite animal without a backbone!” And, conveniently, there’s a checkbox by each one so you can track which creatures you’ve found. (Yes, my compendium is unmarked; our group collaborated on one checklist.)

The inside cover of the compendium includes instructions for exploring Bennett’s Bay – among other things, don’t go backwards! This is a one-way trip through the various biomes, with the compendium organized in the order you’ll encounter them. And while most animals get a sixth or eighth of a page, sea otters and the effort to bring them back to Oregon have a full page spread.

Presumably because it was opening day, we were offered free star(fish)-shaped doughnuts as we moved from the aquarium into the gift shop. While I was tempted by various animals – such as a snail or turtle – holding a “slow down” message, the yard sign that came home with us was a rainbow, which seems appropriate during Pride Month. I’m delighted that stickers have made a comeback, especially since the fit shop had stickers from both this exhibit and some previous ones.

Two minor things to take into account when you visit the Portland Aquarium: keep an eye out for a missing goldfish named Gilly (she makes appearance in several places) and definitely use the bathroom while you’re in the gift shop.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Puerto de la Cruz, there’s a plethora of activities in walking distance of the Apartamentos Casablanca. We arrived on a Thursday, exhausted after a sleepless night on an overnight flight to Madrid with a nap on the shorter flight to Tenerife North, grabbed a takeout pizza at the on-site restaurant, and settled in for more napping. When it became clear that Cassandra was taking a longer nap, I wandered the nearby area, discovering some touristy shops, restaurants, and a small grocery store, all within a couple blocks of the hotel. We did a similar wander later, picking one of the nearby restaurants as our dinner spot, and scoping out potential breakfast items at the grocery store.

While there were a number of items on our potential plans, we only booked one ahead of time: a Teide by Night tour that involved driving to the nearby national park – named for its prominent (dormant!) volcano, Teide, including dinner and stargazing. The overcast day had me a bit concerned until I realized we were driving through and then above the clouds.

Before that late afternoon and evening excursion, scheduled for our first full day to preempt my inevitable shift back to being a morning person, we wandered up the nearby Agatha Christie stairs, peeking into some tourist shops and a scenic view of the coastline before finding lunch. We enjoyed an amazing sunset and an even more amazing view of the stars – above the cloud cover – in an area with minimal light pollution.

The next day involved walking to the nearby botanical gardens, lingering there for an extended period in lovely weather, then wandering back a slightly different route, which allowed us to discover a larger grocery store. Our plan for Sunday was to seek out a craft market that was advertised in the lobby, and while it turned out to be quite small, our return wanderings took us through the Taoro Garden, a public park with a several distinct areas including a sunken garden, playgrounds, dog park, and ponds… and, luckily for us, a restaurant.

Having taken the time to adjust to the time zone, Monday was an all-day adventure at Loro Parque, starting by catching their free train (tram, really) in Puerto de la Cruz and arriving just after opening. We stayed the entire day, catching the last train back after seeing almost every part of the zoo. The following day, we caught a bus to nearby Icod to visit the “Drago de Icod” – a tree that’s estimated to be between 800 and 1000 years old, a nearby butterfly house, and a banana museum that details the introduction of bananas to the Canary Islands and the resulting industry. That was the only day we really used our raincoats.

Wednesday turned into our big walking day – over 7 miles – starting a couple blocks away at the Orchid Garden, then wandering down towards the coastline for the Fishing Museum (which was primarily about fishing and other seaworthy vessels), the Archaeological Museum, and generally admiring the coastline and variety of shops. The next day, our last full day on the island, we headed up the Agatha Christie stairs again and kept going along a scenic path that gave us some great views of the city and the ocean. As with other areas in town, we found public gardens and a delightful restaurant before returning to pack and rest before a long travel day home.

Continuing our adventures from sitting through a timeshare talk in January, we explored the available locations from the RCI resort directory for an 8-day/7-night stay and decided to visit Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. And by “we,” I mean that Cassandra did all of the research and I booked the flights. Yay for a live-in travel planner! (The Margaritaville cruise we took in March was also a reward for attending the talk. If you’re counting, that’s 3 nights in Virginia, a 2-night cruise, and 7 nights in Tenerife in exchange for our attendance.)

Having selected the Canary Islands as our destination, and narrowed it down to Tenerife (the largest of the Canary Islands), selecting which of the available resorts to stay at was probably the easy part – Club Casablanca (as named on the RCI website) or Apartamentos Casablanca (as noted on local signage) is in easy walking or transit distance of many attractions on the north end of the island, including Loro Parque, a world-famous zoo.

We had an amazing time at the Apartamentos Casablanca, from the smooth check-in process through our departure a week later. No, I take that back, it began when I e-mailed about extending our stay by arriving one day earlier, asking for pricing. We received a reply within a day, and the cost of the extra night was less than the airfare savings that prompted the request. Every staff member was friendly, and everyone whose responsibilities included regular interactions with guests was at least bilingual – probably more, given that signage around town was usually in English, Spanish, and German, with some restaurants featuring additional (usually European) languages.

The resort buildings essentially filled a city block, enclosing the restaurant, patio, and pool area. (The outside-facing ground floor had businesses around half the block.) The pool photo I shared above was the only one I could take in nice weather without people; there were almost always people at the pool when it was open, even if the weather was a bit chilly by my standards on several days. (Yes, low 60s is chilly for the pool. Yes, I checked my temperature blanket spreadsheet to see what the highs were while we were there.) There’s a game room (pool, air hockey, ping pong, an arcade game, and a play area for younger kids) and laundry room (coin-operated – the front desk will make change) open through late evening hours.

Our apartment had a balcony facing the street, which meant we could see the ocean and hear the nightly live music from the hotel across the street. The restaurant at our hotel also featured nightly live music, which we mostly heard in passing as we headed to our room, though we made a point of attending a flamenco performance one evening. We had a small kitchen, so ate breakfast in the apartment most days, usually eating lunch and dinner elsewhere – there were plenty of good options in walking distance. (That’s a later post!)

We would be delighted to stay at the Apartamentos Casablanca if we’re in Puerto de la Cruz again. That said, there are areas to explore in the northeast and south sides of the islands as well, and points of interest on the other islands. Hopefully we’ll have future opportunities for adventures in the Canary Islands.

We recently flew to Florida for a short vacation, spending a couple nights in Palm Beach and a couple more on a cruise ship, Margaritaville at Sea’s Paradise. It was refreshing to step away from the early spring weather in Illinois weather for a few days, digging out shorts and sandals that sit unused for half the year in our climate.

The layout and size of the Paradise was similar to the Alaska cruise from last summer, which made orienting ourselves on the ship fairly simple. We had an inside cabin again, and as luck would have it, it was at the end of a hall and the three cabins around it were being renovated… no neighbors!

Given the name of the cruise line, there was no real surprise at the extensive Jimmy Buffett music, vibe, and decorations to the ship and its events. One of the drink packages (not sure which one, as I didn’t buy into it) had blender-shaped cups! There were parrots outlined on our sheets, painted on some of the ship’s walls, and a parrot on a directional sign near one of the pools, among many others.

The theme just about made up for the terrible website interface, lack of an app, and what felt like imperfect communication efforts – largely due to the poor website and no app. (The contrast was stark given last summer’s Alaska cruise.) The shore excursion information in particular was barren, including enough information to entice a purchase (with a 10% discount for booking ahead), but missing key details such as the departure time – we had to stop at the Shore Excursions desk after boarding to get that. Alternately, it would presumably have been on the tickets delivered to our room’s mailbox with the daily newsletter around bedtime… except our guided sea kayaking excursion (and a couple other options) were cancelled due to high winds. More annoying, from my perspective, was the lack of disembarkation information on the website; it made selecting our return flight difficult since we didn’t know what time we’d be getting off the ship. In fact, we didn’t receive that information until around bedtime on the second night. (Yes, we probably could have asked at the Information Desk. But we shouldn’t have to, it’s as important as the embarkation details.)

That said, the overall experience was good. The food and entertainment were top notch, particularly the live show we attended on the second night, which was a non-stop 45-minute musical tour of the Carribean. While my nighttime photos weren’t great, the clear sky and visible constellations were a lovely experience. And our alternate to the cancelled kayaking turned out to be a relaxing day at a delightful location. If we land on another Margaritaville cruise in the future, I would lean towards their longer cruises (4 or 10 nights) instead of hopping down to Florida for the two-night cruise.