Tag: city vacation

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Keep Kalahari Weird

Last Thanksgiving, we met my parents in Gatlinburg and had the pleasure of exploring the city and Smokies over the holiday. Generally speaking, we spend Thanksgiving with one side of our family and Christmas with the other. After last year’s trip, we decided to not-so-subtly suggest that instead of spending Thanksgiving sitting in one of our parents’ houses for four days, we spend the time doing something new and fun.

Alyson’s mom/family were agreeable to this, so instead of another late November stay in San Antonio, Alyson’s mom booked a suite at a resort called Kalahari, just northeast of Austin. If you are not familiar with Kalahari, it is very similar to a Great Wolf Lodge. If you are not familiar with a Great Wolf Lodge, it is kind of like a stationary cruise ship.

Kalarahi has multiple restaurants, shops, an arcade, indoor rides and an indoor water park. It also has several outdoor pools and bars, none of which were open at this time of year. The kids were really excited to go, although Alyson and I were a bit more hesitant. It didn’t seem like the type of trip that would offer a whole lot of traditional Thanksgiving options, but we agreed that anything would be better than spending another four days sitting around doing nothing.

Our check-in was early afternoon on Wednesday, so we left New Orleans late on Tuesday night, picked up a rental car (not from Budget) and stayed at a near-by Hampton Inn. Since we got there early, we decided to use the time explore some of the sites in the greater Austin area.

Our first stop was at a waterhole called Hamilton Pool. This natural wonder was created when the dome of an underwater river collapsed thousands of years ago. Reservations are required, and from the parking lot, it is about a quarter of a mile trek down to the pool. During warmer months, people lay out, picnic and swim, but at this time of year, it was a bit too cold. It is also possible to traverse the inner rim of the pool underneath the overhang, but since the deep freeze in Texas in 2020, the area has been somewhat geologically unstable, so has been roped off.

That said, even without being able to swim or explore the entire area, I still highly recommend this impressive site. There are a lot of natural watering holes in Texas, but this one is pretty unique, quite secluded and absolutely beautiful. If you have the time, it is a can’t miss.

Afterwards, we also tried to visit Jacob’s Well, a similar natural feature not too far away, but much to our chagrin, it was closed for the entire duration of our visit, due to the holiday. It is not clear to me how a watering hole celebrates Thanksgiving, but for whatever reason, we were unable to visit.

We met Alyson’s mom in the early afternoon at the Salt Lick. If you’ve ever been to this barbecue heaven, no more need be said, but since this a blog, I will elaborate. Aside from the live music, the rustic atmosphere and the great service, the BBQ at the Salt Lick is legendary. This is a must-visit spot for anyone from Texas, anyone visiting Texas or anyone who has ever heard of Texas. The food is great, affordable, and extraordinarily representative of the barbecue culture in Texas.

At this point, we had killed enough time that we could check into our hotel, so we made our way to the resort in Round Rock. Giving credit where credit is due, check-in and unloading were extremely easy, and we found no need to valet park for, at this time of year at least, there were plenty of available, nearby self-park spots.

Every member of the party received wrist bands, which were used to activate a lot of the rides, and could be used to charge just about anything to our room. In a lot of ways, this was super convenient, but conversely, it required all of us to wear a plastic wrist band for four days.

Added to our package was what Kalahari calls Tom Foolery. The Tom Foolery area is a set of indoor activities that includes a roller coast, ropes coarse, miniature golf, a mirror maze and multiple climbing walls. It was worth adding this for about $30/person for the whole trip, as the rest of the arcade games are not included in the standard package. That evening, we ate at the internal pizza restaurant, which was perfectly acceptable, and the kids sampled all of the rides and games.

The one negative we experienced in the Tom Foolery area is that Clara, at only two, was too young to ride any of the included rides. Having taken her to several amusement parks before, there was no clear reason for this, as none of the kiddie rides would have posed her any kind of threat. Having to regularly steer her away from these areas was a pain and kind of pointless.

We woke the next morning, Thanksgiving, and headed for the water park, which is included in everyone’s package. The water park was pretty great with over a dozen slides for the big kids, a pretty impressive tree house/splash pad area for younger kids and two toddler areas for Clara. It also has its own restaurant, bar and a surfing simulator.

We spent about three hours in this area, mostly with the kids riding on their own and Alyson and I corralling Clara. She wore herself out around noon, and since we had ‘Thanksgiving dinner’ schedule for 2 pm, it felt like the right time to put her to bed.

Once Clara was down for her nap, I took JR and Eileen back down to the arcade and bought them game cards. The arcade is pretty similar to a Dave & Busters, and has multiple games that award the kids points which they can use to buy crap in the gift store. The kids loved this part, and it is a lot of fun, but $140 worth of gaming cards doesn’t last very long.

Our Thanksgiving meal was served buffet-style in one of the convention rooms. I understand that hearing this might make some of you cringe, but it was actually pretty decent. The spread was quite vast, so while some of the food was less impressive than others, a bit of searching delivered several great options.

The turkey and potatoes were great, and the kids loved the mac ‘n cheese. I found the stuffing to be a bit lacking, which is disappointing since you really only eat it once a year, but in general, this was a meal that I enjoyed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the hotel suite, watching football and letting the kids mellow out. Once the Cowboys had won, and Clara had been put to bed, I took the older two back to the water park, which at this time of night, was much less crowded.

It gave Eileen and I the opportunity to ride some of the bigger, multi-person slides without having to wait half-an-hour, and they both got the chance to try the surfing simulator.

The next day, we did pretty much the same thing, minus the Thanksgiving smorgasbord, and herein lies my biggest issue with Kalahari. In the morning, we went to the water park, then got lunch at one of the resort’s restaurants. The kids went back to the arcade while Clara slept (spending another 100 bucks), and we all ate together at a different burger place. We took the kids back to the water park, and that was about it.

In terms of pure enjoyment, the kids were ecstatic on day one but by the end of day two, it had all become a bit monotonous. Water slides are fun, but once you’ve done each one five or six times, the novelty wears off. Same goes for the indoor rides and games, to the point that we actually ended up giving most of this kids’ earned points away.

The experience was great, and we all had a lot of fun, but I think one night, two tops is really the sweet spot. Beyond that, it felt like we started to run out of ways to spend our time..

With that in mind, we did try to add a few things in on the Saturday morning before we left. The resort has two escape rooms and a bowling alley. We hadn’t really thought about the escape rooms until the night before, and by the time we did, they were already booked up, but were able to get in two rounds of 10 pin before we left for the airport. Perhaps had we planned better, we might have more successfully optimized our time, but I am still convinced that one less day would have been better.

One our way to the airport, we stopped at an wonderful restaurant that offers all three sittings each day, called Walton’s Fancy & Staple. This gem on 6th street had something for everyone, and was just what we needed before flying home. We learned later that it is actually owned by Oscar winner and occasional New Orleanian, Sandra Bullock.

Our Thanksgiving trip was a lot of fun, and while as with every trip, it was not perfect, it was a lot better than sitting in a house doing very little for 72 hours. Christmas is a bit different, as a location is needed for Santa, presents, church, etc., but I feel like as a family, we are at the point where we want to maximize the value of our limited time off.

Next up, we are heading to St. Louis to meet my family for Christmas, and I doubt we will post on it. Following that, we’ve got a Mardi Gras trip in the works for the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas, so we’ve got a lot coming up for which to look forward.

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A Day and a Half in the Big Apple

This year, we made plans to spend a week with my family in upstate New York, in the Cooperstown area. Since the house my mom booked wasn’t available until Monday, July 4th, we decided to head up early on Saturday and spend a 36 (or so) hours in the city that never sleeps.

Please keep in mind that since our time was quite brief, we tried to cram as much in as we could, so if this all sounds overly touristy, that is because it was. We landed in LaGuardia, which has just been remodeled but is still very poorly labeled, and took a rental car to our hotel, a DoubleTree in Chelsea.

We had actually hoped to make it Hamilton Grange that first afternoon, but it took us so long to get the rental car, mostly due to LGA not being labeled, that our time ran out. Our main activity for the day was to watch the Mets lose to the Rangers, and we did not want to be late.

Once we were settled in the hotel, we spent about half an hour trying to figure out the subway, and after going the wrong direction once, made our way back to Queens. Alyson and I watched a game at Shea Stadium during our honeymoon in 2006, and while I’ll grant that Shea was an iconic field, our seats didn’t offer views of about 40% of the field. The new Citi Field Stadium isn’t any more impressive than most of the new era ballparks, Atlanta, Milwaukee Colorado, but it is clean, has plenty of amenities and there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

The Mets lost, which always makes me happy, and the game featured half a dozen home runs, so it was a fun day. This is the 8th different home stadium in which I’ve seen a game, and the 7th for my son. We have unintentionally set ourselves down the path of trying to see a home game for all 30 teams, so I guess we are on our way.

We took the subway back into Manhattan and spent the next hour wandering around Times Square. The experience was very similar to when Alyson and I were there 15 years ago. Lots of people, lights of sights and sounds and smells, and not a place where I have interest in spending much time. The kids enjoyed it though, and it is certainly an experience worth having.

The next morning, we ate breakfast in the hotel and headed back to the underground and to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. What a spectacular church, very reminiscent of the cathedral in DC. Not only is the church beautiful, but it has a dozen or so side chapels that are just as inspiring. If you like grand, classic church architecture, you should visit St. Patrick’s.

After church, we walked a few blocks to 30 Rock, where we took an elevator up the Top of the Rock to take in the panoramic views of the city. The observation decks offer amazing perspectives of Manhattan, and if you don’t live in a city with lots of over-large buildings, it is really a sight to behold.

That said, I do take issue with these types of tours. It is required that timed tickets are purchased in advance, but it has little to do with when one is actually allowed to enter. We arrived right at 9, when it opened, the time printed on our tickets, and still had to wait in a line that wrapped all the way around the block. The views from the top were totally worth it, but be prepared to wait.

We next took the subway up to Central Park, where we rented bikes for two hours and made our way around the entire park, both the lower and upper loops. This was such a fun ride and such a fun park but you should keep in mind that the north end of the park, in particular, has some very steep uphills that actually required us to hop off and walk at certain times.

All the toil was made worthwhile when arrived to find no line at the Levain Bakery, and had one of the largest, tastiest chocolate chip cookies that I have yet to experience. We returned the bikes, hopped back on public transportation and made our way towards Pier 83.

Why Pier 83 specifically, you ask? That is where we were to meet the boat that would take us on a scenic tour along the river. Prior to that, we grabbed lunch at a local deli. Keep in mind, a lot of the top rated deli’s in this area, Hell’s Kitchen, do not actually have any seating, so we stopped at this first place where we could sit and relax for a bit, at Cafe Aroma.

This was really more of a breakfast place than a deli, but they had several great sandwiches that we all enjoyed. From there, we walked down to the pier and boarded a boat for our tour with Circle Line Cruises.

Our initial intention with this was to take a boat to visit the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, at this point in time, a tourist can go up into the pedestal but not to the crown. Because of this, we decided to take a tour that passes by the Statue and Ellis Island, but also goes to other areas of New York.

This tour was great, very similar to one that we took in Chicago; it had snacks, drinks and was very informative. This kind of tour is a great way to see a lot of the city at once and learn a lot about its history.

At this point, we took a bus (our first of this trip) to a subway, which got us underwater all the way to Brooklyn. Why did we go to Brooklyn, you ask? We let me tell you. You may or may not be aware that one can actually walk across the Brooklyn bridge, and one of the entrances is on the Brooklyn side.

With a slight bit of down-playing the difficultly of the walk, the kids were convinced to climb the stairs and make the one-mile trek across the iconic span. The hike is about a mile, and the first half, unsurprisingly, is uphill. This might have been my favorite part of our New York trip. The bridge is packed with tourists and vendors and provides really cool views of the amazing city skyline.

The reason we went from the Brooklyn side was that the exit into Manhattan is very close to Ground Zero. Eileen had been asking a lot of questions about September 11th recently, so we thought this was a good time to visit. The area is very well-done and very inspiring. We only spent about an hour there, and didn’t get to go into the museum, as it was closed, but coming to New York and not seeing it didn’t feel quite right.

That night, we grabbed pizza at a nearby spot called Rosella’s. Similar to the deli’s in Hell’s Kitchen, it actually took us a bit of time to find a pizza place where we could sit and eat. They didn’t serve alcohol, which was a bummer, but the pizza was classic New York-style, exactly for what we were looking.

We made it back to the hotel and bedded down for the night, planning to squeeze in just a few more city hours before we headed upstate. The next morning, we skipped hotel breakfast and ate at a nearby shop called the Bagel Pub. I think this was my favorite meal eaten in New York. They have classic bagels with all sorts of toppings and fillings for all ages and taste profiles. I could have eaten every meal in the Bagel Pub, gotten something different each time, and been quite happy.

We jumped on a train again and headed uptown to a place called the Museum of Ice Cream. This was Eileen’s idea, and was actually a little different than what you might expect, based upon the name. There was a lot of ice cream, but there were also several activities and museum features that were fun and interesting.

There is a hallway that chronicles the history of ice cream, as well as New York’s longest indoor slide and a ball pit filled with ice cream sprinkles. These types of museums have started popping up in larger cities, places that are experiences more than museums themselves, like the Hopscotch Museum in San Antonio or the City Museum in St. Louis. These experiences are really not city-specific, but they are good ways to fill your time and keep the kids engaged.

The last stop we made before checking out heads north was a Katz Deli. This New York icon can actually be a little overwhelming (and a little expensive), but if you take your time and figure out what it is you want, it is totally worth the effort. The kids got burgers off the kids menu, which were nothing special, but the pastrami sandwich that Alyson and I split was enormous and delicious.

This trip was a bit of a whirlwind, and there are still things in the city that I would like to do, but I feel like we did as much as we could to maximize our time in the Big Apple. I do not think that New York is a place that I could ever live, but when it comes to visiting, it certainly has a lot to offer.

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Rocky Mountain High

This summer, we followed suit and joined the crowds at one of our country’s most visited National Parks, Rocky Mountain. I could make the argument that crowds are following us, as we’ve been going hard on the NPs for the past three years, but what’s the point in that?

My wife’s mom planned a trip for the family to Colorado, but due to a work commitment, I was unable to join, and our eldest daughter, Eileen, was in camp in Alabama, so was also absent. For the first four days, my wife, son and younger daughter stayed with Alyson’s family in Vail. At some point, she may add a post about that, but I will pick up the story where that trip ended.

On Friday, I left work in Atlanta and was picked up by Alyson, JR and Clara at the Denver airport. From there, we headed north to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountains. We initially got a bit lost, and ended up at a little used entrance to the National Park called Wild Basin.

We spoke with a few locals on the trails, who mentioned that this area was a favorite of theirs because it was generally free of tourists (aside from us). There were some great sites and trials, including a cool waterfall. It does not offer the classic, breathtaking views of the greater park, but if you have the time, it is worth trying to find.

From there, we drove up to the main east entrance of the park and started across on the Trail Ridge Road. This road is the highest continuously paved road in the country, and offers spectacular panoramics at every turn.

Our first trek from east to west took place in the evening, so we didn’t stop as much as we might otherwise have. Even so, we did run across several deer, two large herds of elk and one fearless moose.

We made our way through the park and checked into the Gateway Inn, a great lodge on the west side of the park in Grand Lake. We had a quaint room with a balcony and a beautiful view of a storm rolling in over the mountains. It also houses the O-a Bistro, which caters to bother locals and hotel guests. The bistro is nothing spectacular, but it has a nice menu and a full bar, and the staff at this hotel and restaurant are about as nice a group of people as I have ever come across.

The next morning, we got up with the baby and headed out for a quick hike to Adams Falls. This trail, like Wild Basin, is off the main road of the National Park, but is just an amazing experience. It is less than a mile round trip and the payoff is spectacular. The falls are easily accessible and incredibly beautiful. The area is minimally trafficked to the point that we basically had the falls to ourselves.

We got back to the car and headed back across the Rockies, again on the Trail Ridge Road. We made a quick stop for a picture, and for JR to record a video for his YouTube channel, at the Continental Divide, and then headed for the Alpine Visitors’ Center.

We stamped our books, got our Junior Ranger booklets and headed up the mountain. The Alpine Ridge Trail does not look all that daunting, but it goes straight to 12,000+ feet. The air thins and the legs tire, but the payoff at the top is worth the effort. The 360 degree view of these monstrous is incomparable.

Our last stop before we left the park was Bear Lake. This area is heavily trafficked, and it took us several times through the parking lot to find a spot, but it was worth the effort. From the lot, we did a two mile out-and-back hike to Alberta Falls. This is a much more heavily visited fall than Adams, but perhaps even more breathtaking. The water thunders down hundreds of feet and offers countless amazing views and photo ops of something that you just can’t find in a place like Louisiana.

I wish we had more time in Rocky Mountain, but I think we made the best of the opportunity. We plan to go back, with Eileen, at some point in the next few years, hopefully taking an RV trip all over Colorado.

We drove into Denver and checked into a Holiday Inn Express near Coors Field. We met up with a friend from St. Louis and watched the Rockies lose a 9th inning lead to the Brewers. This is the fourth baseball stadium that I have visited this summer, and while it certainly does not compare to Wrigley, I enjoyed it more than Milwaukee and about the same as Atlanta. Overall, I have nothing legitimately bad to say about our baseball experience (except that the Brewers won), and always recommend supplementing a hiking trip like this with something a little cosmopolitan.

The last day of our visit, Sunday, was Father’s Day, and we grabbed a quick breakfast at Citizen Rail at Union Station. The restaurant has a bit of limited menu, but the food was good, and I would certainly eat there again.

The last thing we did prior to leaving was visit Red Rocks. This was almost an afterthought, as we were just trying to kill time before our flight, and thank the Good Dude that we did. If you thought Red Rocks was just a great concert venue, well, you’d be correct, but you’d be missing out on some of the most amazing hiking and scenery within a short drive of Denver. We took the Trading Post trail, about a two mile, pretty rigorous loop, and what a fantastic experience.

The topography of this area is different than anything I have ever seen, including the Rockies. If you have the chance, this is a can’t-miss part of one of the most amazing states in this country.

We had such a great time in less than three full days that we are already planning a trip back. Most people visit Colorado over the winter to ski, and while that makes a lot of sense, there is so much to do year round that you cannot limit yourself to just one season. If you have any questions or want suggestions, please reach out, otherwise, we’ll see you the next time we go a-traveling.