Ryan and Debi & Toren

Category: travel

  • Myakka River State Park

    After two days of checking out Sarasota, we decided we’d spend all of this day in the State Park. We went for an early ride to the canopy walk, which is basically two towers with a suspended wood walkway between them: (here’s Debi on the walkway) The best part about the canopy walk is that…

  • MOTE Aquarium and Ringling Estate

    I forgot to mention one fun thing that happened the previous night. We had just finished setting up camp and it was getting dark when I heard a loud rustling in the brush near our camp. It was loud enough that I though someone was walking through the brush. When it finally stopped, I thought…

  • Coquina Beach and Longboat Key

    We decided we needed a little get away to relax before classes start again (on the 22nd). The problem with taking a vacation when you live on the coast in Florida is that where you live is basically a vacation spot. I know that’s an pathetic quandary, “Oh, poor me, I can’t decide where I…

  • Portland trip

    We spent the weekend in Portland, OR, attending a conference called: Challenging Assumptions: Religious Faith, Genetic Science, and Human Dignity. It was an intriguing conference. There were probably 50 to 75 people who attended at some point. This was both nice and awkward. It was nice because we couldn’t help but get a chance to…

  • LA Trip D7 – Stan Winston studio tour; dinner with Scott, Shalynn, and Anderson

    My Uncle, Stan Winston, offered to let my extended family take a tour of his studio while we were out there. I’m always hesitant to ask, as I know Stan is extremely busy. But most of my family was interested, so we took him up on his offer. What’s more, my cousin, Matt, offered to…

  • LA Trip D6 – lunch with Scott; the La Brea tar pits

    We thought we might be touring my Uncle’s studio today, so we got kind of a late start. Also, Ethan seemed to be coming down with something – he had a temperature and was crying for much of the night. We ended up scheduling the tour for Tuesday, but with everything else going on we…

  • LA Trip D5 – hiking Humphrey’s Peak and driving back to LA; blessing Anderson

    Mark and I woke up around 5:45 to get ready for the hike. Tom, well, Tom had been up all night anyway and was semi-awake when we got up. For those who don’t know the intimate details of our trio, Tom may not do the most hiking of the bunch (Mark and I probably hike…

  • LA Trip D4 – driving to Flagstaff and the Barringer Meteor Crater

    I got up very early, around 5:30, to hit the road for Flagstaff, where I was to meet up with Tom and Mark, my hiking buddies, in preparation for our hike of Humphrey’s Peak the next day. I left around 7:00 and managed to avoid the worst of the LA traffic, which, by this point,…

  • LA Trip D3 – the Getty Villa and Javan

    We spent most of the morning picking up Debi’s sister, Suzy, and her husband and baby, Brent and Ethan, respectively, along with picking up cars and arranging transportation. Debi’s parents rented a mini-van, which I drove most of the time. But with Suzy et al. there, we didn’t have enough room in the mini-van. And…

  • LA Trip D2 – the Griffith Observatory and dinner with the Winstons

    This was our second full day in LA. We stayed in a nice two bedroom, two bath condo in downtown Santa Monica that could sleep 8 (though a little awkwardly). At this point it was still only Debi’s parents, Gary and Rosemary, Steve, Debi, and me. We had tickets to the Griffith Observatory in the…