2012 Travel Plans so far...

I'd like to say that this early in the year, I've got all my traveling figured out for that year, but I do not.  I begin thinking about and even make some plans this early, but nothing is ever set in stone.  I just never know what is going to happen in life that changes things.  Remember my post here about the different trips that I would like to take, well that is what I begin to plan and then I just take it from there and see how everything goes.  All that to say that these are my plans thus far and they will be likely to change haha.

Trip 1 

 California

First up is my trip in May to California.  I will heading out there on a plane (gulp) with my son (double gulp) by myself to visit my dad.  I hope to spend a few days in San Diego, walking around Balboa Park and hitting the zoo.  I also hope to visit either Joshua Tree National Park or King's Canyon/Sequoia National Park, not sure yet which one.  Both parks have beautiful, yet distinctly different scenery.  Probably the thing that will tell me which one is 1. weather and 2. gas prices.  I will be renting a car and gas is supposed to be astronomical at that point like $4-$5 a gallon or some crazy price like that.  Insane!!  This trip will probably take the place of my couple trip since it will be somewhat pricey and I only have so much money allocated to my travel fund :).

Trip 2 Family Vacation

 Philadelphia/ Gettysburg/ Valley Forge OR South Dakota

This summer our family trip will be one of two places with pretty different things to do.  If we go to Philly, it will be a trip chalk full of historical sites.  I'm an avid lover of history so this would be a lot of fun for me and I think my son is old enough to enjoy the sites as well.  We would stay in Philly for a few days and then make our way out to Valley Forge and spend a few days there.  The 150 year celebration of the battle is forthcoming.  The battle site has tons of things going on to celebrate that.  It will be a fun time for sure.

If we decide to go the South Dakota route, it will be more of a natural history kind of vacation.  I am leaving some of the decision up to my family, see who wants to go where.  In South Dakota we would hit the Badlands and the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore.  I would enjoy seeing the fossilized remains of a wholly mammoth and my son can participate in a fossil digging site.  We would also be able to see some of the Native American Indian history.

Trip 3 Solo Trip

Wichita, Kansas/Michigan Along the Lake/????

If all my plans go right I will be making my first solo trip this summer as well to brush up on my photography, see some of the beauty of God's creation, and have some intensive study time as well.  This trip is pretty wide open.  All I know is that it will probably be closer to home, within a day's drive for me and will last probably 3-5 days depending upon where and how comfortable I feel.  I am looking forward to it, as I have been wanting to do this for quite some time now.  I will be praying for God's wisdom in this and how I can best use it to serve Him.

Miscellaneous Longer Weekend Trips 

I have a few of these planned for as well.  Not sure yet where.  I hope to do a Fall Colors Trip like I did a couple of years ago.  I might spend a few days in Omaha, NE at the zoo.  Lake Michigan shoreline to hang out with a friend and her kids if she is able to.  Also wherever my husband and I would like to go together if that pans out.  But that is the extent of my plans for the moment.  Will fill you in later as I get everything more planned out.

So there you have it.  My list of trips for the year.  What about you, do you have any plans for the year?  Ideas on where to go?  Let me know about them.

Wanderlust Wednesday

If you know me at all, you know that I love taking pictures and as such go a little overboard with my camera.  Thank you God for digital cameras, haha.  So I am going to try every Wednesday to just give you a little bit of information, with a picture if possible, on a different travel destination, restaurant, interesting place to visit, etc.  Whatever comes to my mind in the week that I think you might be interested in learning more about.

Today's destination is going to be a place called Wolf Park, in Battle Ground, Indiana.  Wolf Park is a behavioral research and education facility, dedicated to well you guessed it, wolves!!

Ruedi from Wolf Park







It is a facility that is open to the public during certain times of the year and they have a captive wolf pack that they study to learn more about these beautiful animals.  The really neat thing about this place is that you can sign up for a photography seminar where you can actually go into the enclosure with these animals and spend a few hours photographing them.  I mean it was really, really neat.  The wolves will come and say hi to you, but mostly it is just for you to take your camera out and use it.  I think I took close to like 500 pictures in the time that I was there.  So much fun!  I will probably feature this in another post, but for right now I encourage you to check them out if you are a wolf lover at all.  These are just a sampling of the multitudes of pictures that I took and I hope to go back again to take more.

Woatan looking down at something of interest

Ruedi taking a quick dip

The Ways I Like to Travel

So far 2012 has started off on a good note and I am excited to be making my travel plans for the year.  I'm not one to just start making plans at the beginning of the year, I'm constantly researching different places to travel.  Travel research fascinates me.  You can probably ask me a question about just about anywhere in the U.S and I can give you travel tips for it.  It's just the way I'm built.

Ideally in my travel life I would have three more major vacations, with various long weekends throw in for good measure.  Now does this always happen?  Of course not, in fact rarely does it, but ideally this is what I would LOVE to be able to do.  I would have a solo trip, family vacation, and couple's vacation.

My solo trip would be one of getting into the Word and concentrating on my photography.  It would be a time of reflection, prayer, and quietness.  Just me, God and my camera.  Haven't done this yet, but hope to this year.  Family vacation is what it implies, the fam and I take off and do all those fun family things together.  My couple's vacation would be for my husband and I, alone, to reconnect with each other and enjoy each others company, rekindle the spiciness of being newly married again :).  My husband farms so getting him "away from the office" is a literal thing we have to do, as in he needs to get away from the land, which would include our house.  He enjoys doing this, but takes a little convincing sometimes.  The long weekends would be random places I visit that are quick and easy to get to, fun, and usually include a zoo, aquarium, or museum, and/or a park of some kind.  We live in a very rural area so those kinds of things are not very close to us and require some extra planning to be able to visit them.

So there you have it, the types of trips that I like to take.  More details of this year's travel plans will be coming soon.

Flower garden butterfly

Photo of the Month

On my photography website there is a place where I can check and see the stats of my galleries and photos.  it's really neat because I get to see how many "hits" each gallery gets and even as specific as which photograph gets the most hits.  Without a doubt my most popular pictures are those of my adorable huskies, which is awesome, because I really enjoy taking pictures of the puppies.

This months' most visited travel picture is an interesting one to me.  It is from my Hawaii album which doesn't surprise me.  I mean who doesn't LOVE Hawaii right haha?  The interesting thing to me is that it is not a very scenic picture, but something different.  Check it out.

Bird at the Dolphin Quest Aquarium

This picture was taken at the Dolphin Quest Aquarium on the Big Island of Hawaii.  We mainly went to this aquarium because I really, really, really, really wanted to swim with the dolphins.  My options were an open sea experience with no guarantee of a dolphin sighting of Dolphin Quest.  I chose Dolphin Quest because I didn't want to take the chance of not being able to swim with a dolphin.  Looking back on it now, I would probably do the open sea adventure if I had to do it over again.  The dolphin adventure was great, but how much cooler would it have been to have been in the open ocean and had wild dolphins swim and play with you! 

When I took this picture I was looking out to see and checking out the new island that was coming up out of the ocean, which happens in Hawaii because of the active volcanoes on the island.  This bird happened to land on that neat looking branch and I just snapped the picture.  It wasn't even a bird that was from the aquarium, but a wild bird outside of the park.  Thank you for checking out my travel photos! 

Travel Plans 2012 Forthcoming....

Updated travel list for 2012 will be forthcoming soon!!!  I have been lax in blogging, but I am hoping to get back into the swing of things here shortly.  Until then enjoy this picture of springtime!!

Spring is Almost Here!!!

I LOVE all the buds on the trees that are starting to show up.  They are just so pretty.  It has been sunny and beautiful here the last couple of days, just giving us a hint of what is to come still.  I was out driving around the area the other, actually I was on my way to the store, when I drove through the tiny little town of Elvaston.  This is a blink and you miss it town, but they had this beautiful tree with these red buds at their town park and of course the American flag.  I couldn't help it, I had to take some pictures.  I probably looked like a dork standing out in the park trying to take pictures from different angles to see what I could get.  But it was fun.  And I love that small towns have flags throughout their towns normally with lights on the American flag as there is supposed to be to show respect for the flag.  I don't think the flag or what America stands for gets a whole lot of respect anymore.  Even with all of our problems I still love the United States of America and would not want to live anywhere else.  Enjoy!

The New Beginning of Something.... Maybe?

I'm stuck at home for the second day this week with a sick child.  Who seems to be fine in everyway except for the fact that he vomited, twice last night.  He did the same thing on Monday morning of this week and then was fine the rest of the day.  Not sure what is going on, but if it happens again then I will be forced to take him to the doctor.  I HATE doctors!  I think that kids and people go to the doctor WAY to often.  Oh my nose is running, I need antibiotics, I can't sleep for a few nights, I need some sleeping pills.  It's crazy to me.  Now I understand that some things need a doctor's care, but really people, the common cold and common stomach flu do not most of the time.  So much can be cured just by resting at home and eating right, which got me thinking about our meals here at home.

 My husband had also just mentioned to me this news story that talked about kids who are slightly more hyperactive and artificial dye and how that can be a trigger.  Well I started to do some research and read stories, joined a few blogs and all that.  We eat fairly healthy most of the time but as far as artificial dyes and preservatives I hadn't really ever paid attention to that.  It seemed that quite a few of the stories seemed to be pretty valid, so I thought.  What the heck!  Why not try it and see what happens.  Anything that can help my child at school, and at home to concentrate better, behave better and eat healthier is a good thing.  Obesity is such a scary problem in our society right now, especially obesity in children that teaching my child to eat healthy early is so important.  So today I have cooking homemade chicken noodle soup, for my son's touchy tummy and homemade bread.  I will be giving some details about that later.