Traveling Archives - Page 7 of 11

Why I haven’t written: Part One–Summer of Balderramas

August 2, 2014August 23, 2017Jeromey Balderrama

As a justification to you (but mainly to myself) as to why I haven’t posted all summer, I wanted to share of some of the cool stuff that kept me away from blogging. Up first is our SOB trip – Summer of Balderramas.

Our family is trying to get on the pattern of setting up a reunion vacation every 3-4 years. We did the first one in Breckenridge, CO back in 2011. This year we put one together in Daytona Florida for a week in June. We had a bit of a smaller turnout compared to the last one, but we actually had different family members come out to this trip and had an awesome time. At one point, there were 18 of us all together. As with all vacations as of late, we once again booked a VRBO house that sat right on the beach. The shot below was taken from our back yard on a wooden walkway. This house was amongst of group of five others that were right on the beach. Neighboring them were groups of hi-rise buildings with condos, hotels, restaurants and shops. It was really neat to think that we were occupying the same footprint as a hi-rise with hundreds of people. During the day folks would drive their cars onto the beach, which then became pretty funny when they got stuck in the sand – similar to folks getting stuck in the slush out here. For the most part though we had the area right in front of the house to ourselves. Every day I had Zac Brown Band’s “Toes” playing in my head.

We couldn’t fathom going to Florida and not going to Disney World, so we had that in our agenda. Given that we were traveling children that were 1 and 2, we didn’t think the lines and 48”+ height requirements of Magic Kingdom would have been best for two little ones that were likely going to skip naps, so we opted for Epcot. There was plenty for them to see and interact with, as well as letting the grown ups do the “Beers Around the World” crawl by drinking in each country of the lagoon. The girls spent the morning doing a breakfast with the Disney Princesses, and Clara got lipstick on her cheek with a kiss from Snow White. We did a couple of low-key rides which were on par with “It’s A Small World”. Clara also loved seeing all of the musical features as well, as the Taiko Drumming.

Epcot definitely wore her out though. She took a mini-nap in the USA part of the lagoon, but she stayed up through the fireworks show, easily making this her longest day ever.

Later in the week we drove across the state to visit Clara’s Great Grandparents, enjoying a great lunch with them. Clara loved exploring all of the cool things they had.

The rest of our trip was spent hanging out at the beach house, drinking a lot of beer, eating raw oysters and clams, playing games and staying low key. Clara was a champ during her first plane ride, staying sane through most of the 4 hour flights. The trip home turned out to be pretty rough, as weather shut down DIA and forced us to stop in Amarillo for a refuel, making our trip home interesting. All-in-all: this was a fantastic vacation.

Alaska Adventures: A quick stop in Victoria

August 12, 2012August 23, 2017Jeromey Balderrama

Our last day on the cruise ship started off as another Sea Day, making our way back down towards Seattle – for the most part. At 7pm we made an evening stop in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. We actually only had less than 5 hours to spend on land, and because our time was so brief, we decided to do the cruise-sanctioned excursion to guarantee we’d get back in time. The trip we took was to Butchart Gardens (pronounced “Butch-art”), which was a botanical garden that featured fireworks. This 100-year-old gardens used to be a limestone quarry that was running dry, when the owner’s wife started planting flowers to make it look better. The gardens came about from this.

There were a lot of beautiful flowers on display, and while these can be seen in other places, there were a few of note that caught my eye.

While the flowers were all really beautiful, the special attraction was the fireworks that they feature on Saturday nights. From what we were told, the pyro-technicians at Disney consulted on the design of this fireworks show. These fireworks were not only impressive, but arguably bests any that I’ve ever seen – including those at Disney World. Have you ever seen the fountains at Bellagio in Las Vegas? Imagine that water show, but instead of water, they used fireworks – this is what was featured at Butchart Gardens. The opening scene hit a little close to home for those of us in Colorado:

While the photos depict this show as a normal fireworks exhibition, check out these videos below to see how they used pyro-technics to accomplish what Bellagio does with the fountains.

My personal favorite was during “Begin the Beguine” (a song I play in jazz band, which I didn’t realize had words), and how they used fireworks to depict a waterfall.

After a the fireworks, we were taken on a brief tour of downtown Victoria, before heading back to our cruise ship. We stood on this balcony to watch the ship leave port at midnight.

From the brief time we spent in Victoria, I loved our time there – so much that I wish we would have spent the day there and done a four-hour stop in Skagway. I’m sure this wouldn’t be practical, being only 80 miles from Seattle. However, I’d definitely like to spend a long weekend in Victoria sometime in the future.

We went to bed right after the ship left port, awakening to our arrival in Seattle. I’m currently writing this last post from our trip as we wait to board our plane to Denver. After being on the road for three weeks, along with the tragic news regarding Bethany’s brother, we are definitely ready to be home.

Alaska Adventure: Day At Sea

August 12, 2012August 23, 2017Jeromey Balderrama

After our three stops in Alaska, we set sail for our voyage home. We are now spending the next 1 & 1/2 days at sea, stopping in Victoria, B.C. before we arrive back in Seattle on Sunday. Most of our day on Friday was spent relaxing, but there were a few highlights to share: the first of which being the Galley tour. The show started in the theater with the Executive Chef and the Maître d’, who hosted a cooking show where they prepared four different dishes. Normally I’m not a big fan of cooking shows, but these guys had a great chemistry and kept us entertained. I now have some culinary tricks that I’ll be trying at home.

After the show we were taken on a tour of one of the ship’s seven Galleys. With food being such a paramount part of the cruise experience, it was impressive to see how vast these kitchens are, and just how much work goes onto cook all of our meals. There were some interesting figures that we were given on the tour:

Each Day:

1,700 amount of fish are cooked
1,400lbs. of chicken are used
1,600 salads are made
13 gallons of mayonnaise are used
1,500lbs of flour are used in the bakery
470 gallons of coffee are consumed
70,000 dishes are washed

It’s crazy to see just how much effort goes behind feeding everybody on the ship – then to think how much of that is wasted when people send stuff back.

Afterward they took us through one of their seven Galleys for a walk through tour. It was amazing seeing the vastness of the kitchen and all of the prep stations. I found the stove range most intriguing.

Throughout the Galley tour they had various fruit carvings and ice an ice sculpture that we going to be on display during dinner, which also made for some interesting pictures.

The rest of the day was spent resting and relaxing, which included eating more meals, working out, and some time in the hot tub. We also managed to catch an impressive “British Invasion” show, a musical act paying tribute to all of the British artists over the last 60 years. We ended the night with a New Years-style balloon drop in the atrium.

While these days at sea don’t make for interesting blogging material, we definitely have appreciated the forced relaxation that these days offer. Sometimes it’s nice to not have things to go explore, having nothing better to do than take a nap!

Next Up: A brief stop in Victoria, B.C.

Alaska Adventures: Skagway

August 10, 2012August 23, 2017Jeromey Balderrama

Our third stop and last Alaskan stop on this cruise is Skagway: an old mining town that was prevalent during the Gold Rush days. Today it’s a very quant small town with a year-round population of less than 1,000. It’s an interesting place that tries to balance trying to preserve it’s history but also trying to make money on the travelers that pass by during the summer months. The town itself has been well-preserved, with most of the wood buildings and sidewalks still standing today and are protected by the National Parks Service. The main drag, Broadway, is filled with various shops that feature historical artifacts, Alaskan heritage goods, as well as the common tourist gifts we’ve found in the other port cities.

We managed to cover the shops in about two hours and got a few things along the way. There were a few buildings of interest, including the Red Onion Saloon, which used to be – you guessed it – a brothel. Today it’s part museum, part bar and part mock-brothel with the waitresses all wearing outfits from that area. We took a shuttle to the Gold Rush Brewery, which featured Alaskan beer and these awesome Salmon Sliders. Like the Red Dog, you could break out a Sharpie and leave your mark on the restaurant, which we did to honor Bethany’s brother Rocky.

I’m going to be honest here: as quant and historical as this town was, it’s really no different than the historical mountain towns that are near us in Colorado. We may be taking history for granted, and if I had a bigger appreciation for historical architecture I may say differently, but I’m not sure if we appreciated Skagway as much as people who don’t live in Colorado. We really only snapped a dozen pictures or so, and two of them were of the Disney cruise boat that sailed in next to us.

One thing that was really cool: the area where the cruise ship docks. Over the years, each one of the different ships that docked in Skagway left their mark on the nearby rocks, painting the rocks with their ships name, logo, the year they first arrived, as well as who their captain was at the time. This extended hundreds of feet down the pier and was fascinating to see. You have the wonder how the different artists made it to those points on the rocks to make their mark – some of those paintings were pretty high up.

We set sail from Skagway at 5pm and enjoyed a very good dinner before turning in early. I think we were still recovering a bit from our early morning watching Tracy Arm. We are scheduled to spend the next two days at sea before reaching Victoria, BC on Saturday night.

Alaska Adventure: Capitals & Glaciers, oh my!

August 10, 2012August 23, 2017Jeromey Balderrama

Our Wednesday started extremely early when our alarm went off at 5:45am to go see Tracy Arm. Tracy Arm is a passage located about 50 miles south of Juneau, and our ship was scheduled to go in and out of it at 6am. This passage was extremely thin and featured some rather striking views of coastal mountains, waterfalls, floating ice and the biggest treat at the end: Sawyer’s Glacier.

It was crazy seeing the chunks of ice that sailed by the ship, and just how close some of these came.

We finally got in sight of Sawyer’s Glacier, but due to the level of ice that blocked the passage, our ship was forced to stop with the glacier still a ways away. To give everyone a view, the ship did a full spin, then made it’s way back out of the passage.

Once we turned around at the glacier it was about 8:30am, so we headed back to bed for a few hours before we would arrive in Juneau at noon.

We were the fourth ship to pull into Juneau at noon. The year-round population of the capital is at about 35,000, so with 4 cruise ships in that day, we increased the population by at least 25%. Juneau is also the only state capital that cannot be reached by car. Apparently every road in Juneau eventually has an end, and as a result virtually every good that has reached the city has been barged in.

After arriving, Bethany and I took the walk into town and boarded the shuttle to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is the most-visited glacier in the world. The glacier observatory had a trail that brought us within a 1/2 mile of the glacier, right next to a beautiful waterfall pouring into Mendenhall Lake.

This was definitely worth the trip. The hike to the falls was only a mile and pretty easy, with the visual payoff being huge. It’s crazy to think that the Glacier is still so far away, as you can see in the picture, the magnitude of the glacier made it feel a lot closer.

After the bus ride back into town, we stopped back into the Red Dog Saloon, an intricate watering hole that has sawdust all over the floor and one of Wyatt Earp’s guns on the wall.

There was live music, even on a Wednesday afternoon. Our first singer was a 74-year-old piano player who played a trumpet solo with his right hand while his left hand stayed on the keyboards. He also was dishing up crude jokes and sharp-witted insults. Somehow the guitar player following him up also kept up and offered a very entertaining atmosphere. After knocking back a few drinks at Red Dog, we worked up the courage to try a “Dark Fart”, an incredibly awesome shot that is one part Crown, one part Bailey’s, one part Kailua.

You could spend hours just looking at all the stuff they had on the walls and ceilings, along with an awesome sign that reads: “If our food, drinks and service aren’t up to your standards, please lower your standards!”

Our short time in Juneau came to an end as we walked back to our ship and departed later that evening. Despite only having time to do two things, Juneau definitely showed us a great time!

As we previously mentioned, the death of Bethany’s brother Rocky has been weighing heavily on our hearts. During our travels we have been looking for opportunities to honor him and reflect on his life. Our two stops in Juneau gave us two opportunities to do so.

Next Up: Skagway.