Thai food is incredible in it's flavors and diversity. Street vendors are everywhere in Bangkok. Depending where you are in this city, you can eat at most any hour of the day or night. Most of these food vendors setup shop on a street sidewalk - they have a small glass container for displaying the food, maybe a few plastic chairs/tables and they will have a small stall for cooking the actual food - which is done by using a stove hooked into a … [Read more...]
Bangkok, Thailand – Restaurants
In Bangkok, some of the street food can be as good as any of the sit down restaurants and certainly much cheaper. In addition, Thai's pride themselves on cleanliness. Compared to our street food experiences in other countries where we have often gotten sick, we do not get sick from street food in Bangkok. In many parts of Bangkok street food vendors are seemingly everywhere and in certain districts they stay open very late. For example if you … [Read more...]
Catalina, CA – Attractions
Airport in the Sky One has to be creative when there is a not a lot of flat space on the island. Such was the case when building the runway for the Airport in the Sky - two mountaintops were flattened and then the resulting debris was pushed together to create a flat 3,000+ foot runway. Not open to commercial aircraft, the airport services private planes and handles the mail delivery for the island. Sometimes an old DC-3 World War II vintage … [Read more...]
Bishop, CA – Bristlecone Forest
Bristlecone pine trees are the oldest continuously standing living trees on the planet. With that said, clonal systems of trees date back further but are not the original specimen like with the Bristlecone pines. Other ancient clonal systems include 80,000-year-old Quaking Aspen grove in Utah, 11,000 plus year old Creosote Bush stands in California's Mojave Desert and a root system of a Norway Spruce tree in Sweden found to to be almost 10,000 … [Read more...]
Bishop, CA – Restaurants
Aaron Schat's Roadhouse is located at 871 N Main St in downtown Bishop. Another one of a surprisingly number of restaurants in this part of the Eastern Sierra carrying the last name of Schat. Just up the street from the famous Erick Schat's Bakkery. Offers a variety of high quality dishes including gourmet burgers, rotisserie chicken, and slow-smoked ribs. A woodsy interior offers plenty of indoor seating overlooking Main Street. For … [Read more...]
Reno, NV
Long billed as the "biggest little city in the world" - today's population is over 250,000 and the city is somewhat spread out now but for a city of this size, it still perhaps feels bigger then the actual population. Reno is located in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains north and slightly east of the great Lake Tahoe. Reno offers numerous non stop gambling opportunities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The city boasts a … [Read more...]
Reno, NV – Attractions
For a town of this size there are a fair number of attractions that are worth seeing. BaseCamp Reno is extremely unique; it is the world's tallest climbing wall (either indoor or outdoor) - in this case it is located outside on the east wall of the Whitney Peak Hotel (tall is a theme here - this hotel is appropriately named for the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states, Mt. Whitney - located in neighboring California). The climbing … [Read more...]
Palm Springs, CA
The city of Palm Springs quickly conjures up images of swaying palms, amorphous pools, golf courses, the strip, and heat. This is all true; there are many native and non native palm trees, a large plethora of golf courses, good shopping downtown and Palm Springs in the wintertime is often among the warmest areas to visit in the state of California. You can be hiking in the desert canyons nearby and the temperatures can be pushing 80 degrees while … [Read more...]
Palm Springs, CA – Tram Hike
We have visited Palm Springs a number of times in January for the warm wintertime weather. The weather was what we had expected during the day each trip with temperatures in the high 70's and low 80's. In fact the town of Coachella (south of Palm Springs) recorded the nation's high temperature during one of our trips. We were staying with a group of 15 people in a time share condo. The condo was built against the base of a hill, and at night the … [Read more...]
Palm Springs, CA – Hikes
Indian Canyons are a must visit during any trip to Palm Springs. These canyons are located just south of downtown Palm Springs. From the 111 (called Palm Canyon Drive) take South Palm Canyon drive past Moorten Botanical Garden and Cactarium, past a number of apartment like complexes until you come to the toll both (marking the entrance to Indian Canyons). If you drive south on Palm Canyon drive, South Palm Canyon drive will simply veer off to … [Read more...]