Category: Weather
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England, Day 7 (Tankfest)
Finally the single event that justified our entire trip to England arrived, the renowned Tankfest. It’s everything the name implies, a festival of military tanks, and it happens only once a year on the grounds of the Tank Museum in Bovington (map). This is what the younger kid wanted as a high school graduation present…
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England, Day 1 (Do-Over)
This was the trip we wanted to take last summer before our plans abruptly changed. Instead we went to Costa Rica for reasons I talked about before, and all of us had a wonderful time. Even so, I still felt bad that the younger kid lost out on the original destination. He wanted to go…
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Dayton, Ohio Part 7 (Hodgepodge)
The Dayton trip came to an end but I still had a bunch of stuff to talk about that didn’t fit into any of the earlier articles. Naturally I’ve collected them all together within this final compilation to serve as a wrap-up. Then we can call this one done and move onto the next travel…
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Southern Heat, Part 7 (Hill Country)
The extended road trip finally arrived at its western terminus in the Texas Hill Country. This also marked my first visit to Burnet County, a rural locale situated northwest of Austin. Locals pronounce it something like BURN-it, and that’s how it felt as the mercury hit 103° Fahrenheit (40° Celsius) each and every day. It…
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Southern Heat, Part 1 (Road Trip)
It feels like I just got back from Costa Rica and then I’m right back on the road again. True enough, we made it home for only a couple of weeks before we began an extended drive through the southeastern United States. However, those were the only dates that worked with everyone’s schedules this summer.…
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Costa Rica, Part 8 (Completing the Circuit)
Too soon the Costa Rica adventure approached its end and it was time to wrap things up with a final few activities. The route involved the usual complexities, driving down the mountain from Monteverde and heading towards the airport outside of San José. We also took a little divergence along the way for something rather…
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Costa Rica, Part 7 (On To Monteverde)
Next we began our trek to Monteverde, into Costa Rica’s famed Cloud Forest. This is one of the nation’s smallest microclimates and one of its most intriguing. High in the mountains, a thick blanket of fog frequently envelopes the landscape and creates a gentile moisture. A steady drip supports thick vegetation, lush mosses and more…
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Costa Rica, Part 5 (Relaxing in Tamarindo)
Rainy season doesn’t mean the same thing across the entirety of Costa Rica. Nor does it start suddenly or retain consistent intensity. So our drive to Guanacaste Province’s drier Pacific coast during the earlier part of the season promised plenty of sunshine. That was our plan anyway, and it actually worked. We could take a…
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Costa Rica, Part 3 (Exploring La Fortuna)
The second full day in La Fortuna promised abundant showers although not continuously. It was the rainy season after all and it rains, and people deal with it. Frankly, the bright sunshine of the previous day was a fluke. So we understood all of this ahead of time and we devised a plan. We’d stick…
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Costa Rica, Part 2 (In the Shadow of the Volcano)
We landed at Juan Santamaría airport in San José on a Friday afternoon, clearing Immigration and Customs nearly effortlessly. Then we got a taste of rush hour traffic riding on the shuttle to retrieve our rental car. Driving conditions became a lot more difficult later in the trip although I didn’t know it at the…