Dadcation
January 2024 started in Queenstown, New Zealand, with an awesome New Year’s Eve celebration I’ll never forget, and on New Year’s Day, we toured glaciers by helicopter and had a picnic atop a mountain next to said helicopter, and it was awesome. A few days later, it was time to fly back home and get back to work, but I visited my parents in Guntersville, Alabama, participated in my annual Hike Inn hike, and went to Nashville to see friends (and my coach) whom I wrestled with in…
We left Memorial Day weekend on a direct flight to Athens. We attended an AirBnB “experience” during which a man in a toga taught us that the penalty for adultery in ancient Greece was “radishes in the ass.” We learned more than that about the ancient Greeks, but that’s what scarred impressed us the most. We saw the changing of the guard in front of the palace and hiked up to the Parthenon (which is not nearly as well preserved as Nashville‘s version–get it together, Athens of the…
We hit 5 National Parks across 5 states, caught trout on fly rods, drove tanks on Father’s Day, and got the children open water SCUBA certified. I turned a year older with friends from all facets of my life: grade school, high school, undergrad, law school, the Air National Guard, the Air Force Reserves, church, our old neighborhood, our current neighborhood, the Atlanta Bar Association, and this blog! I got to enjoy time with the adult children of old friends, the parents of my oldest friend, and my…
This year, my annual workers’ compensation law conference was held at the Jekyll Island Convention Center instead of its usual location on Saint Simons Island, but since we’re more familiar with the latter location, we opted to stay there and just let me drive a bit farther to my conference each day. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I’d booked a place for us to stay on Jekyll, but then I got an email a few weeks ago saying that the state of Georgia was requiring closure of the…
I awoke the Monday after Fathers Day to this Facebook message from one of our Tokyo karate instructors: Did you feel the earthquake? Are you okay? My nightmare from our first night in Japan had come true. Luckily, we’d missed it by a day, as it occurred near Osaka, and we were in Miyajima. However, our trip’s longest Shinkansen ride–from Hiroshima to Tokyo–was supposed to occur that day and give us an early enough arrival time to see the Samurai Museum and have several hours to enjoy the…
Thursday, June 14, we rode a series of trains until we met Eric, a quad-lingual KKday tour guide originally from China who lives in Japan and was our guide for the “romantic” train taking us to a horse-drawn carriage taking us to a wooden boat taking us down the Hozu River, where 5th and 6th generation boatmen with wooden poles and oars guided us through whitewater rapids, and it was awesome. The level of skill these men had was incredible. I’ve canoed down the Chattahoochee and kayaked down the…
We landed Tuesday evening at Kahului airport, took the shuttle to Avis, and drove our Ford Explorer to Mama’s Fish House for dinner before sleeping at its inn. Our kids’ Christmas present was finally beginning. I had the “traditional Hawaiian” meal for dinner, and the smoked wild boar was the best pork I’ve ever eaten (and I eat a LOT of smoked pig). We learned of the restaurant and inn from the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book I consult before going anywhere new. Because we…