February 5th - Getting out of town

I have this pattern of anxiety whenever we pack for any sort of trip, but the longer the trip... the worse my anxiety. I perpetually feel as though I've forgotten something vital, and I spent the final half hour before leaving home going over bags, opening and double checking, and then re-checking all the doors and windows in the house, and then wait... did I remember to pack my sandals? My anxiety was eased a bit on the prep for this trip as I could remind myself that we were not leaving the country – as exotic as the plants and weather might be in Hawaii, it is another state. I told myself “it'll be more like Santa Cruz”, (where I used to live) “just the other side of the water.” Knowing that a Safeway and Longs Drugs were both within walking distance of the condo, I reminded myself that if we forgot anything, we would likely be able to find it easily enough at our destination.

To spite all this, I was still in scramble mode with the totally easy-going shuttle driver arrived to pick us up. (I believe they might be trained to deal with anxious passengers?) 20 minutes after our scheduled pick-up time, we were finally on the road with myself in the front seat trying to reassure myself that I really did lock everything. Twice. Though traffic, a new system of bag check-in, airport security (my first time through the fancy transporter looking machine!) and after re-checking my bags to reassure myself that I didn't forget my camera... I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The flight was interesting. D was able to upgrade us to first class with our saved-up credit card miles. D and G sat together and I sat in the aisle seat across from them. For the longest time I thought I'd have the seat next to me empty, but the airline bumped a couple up to first class and just before the plane took off a pleasant gentleman took the seat beside me. I figured this wouldn't be so bad, however he started the conversation with “I made myself sick, but I don't think I have anything that is contagious.”

I can't begin to describe the Niles Crane level of paranoia I've had regarding germs leading up to this trip. G had a cold start 10 days prior to our departure, and we spent a whole week shoving herbal teas down her throat, insisting on steamy showers to clear congestion that wasn't even there yet, and didn't touch doorknobs without Clorox wipes in hand. We killed off her cold without spreading it. Then the day before the trip the news warned us of another case of measles in our state, listing the airport as a possible point of contact, so I did not touch one surface with my bare hands through the entire airport. And now, in the midst of a measles outbreak, and when airplanes already make me feel like I have a sinus infection just from the air pressure... I'm seated in a flying tin can of recirculated air next to Sniffles who starts out by saying “I don't think I'm contagious”??

Apparently he was over on the mainland for a ski trip and he spent a day going from a hot spring to a freezing river... back and forth, back and forth, and he thinks that might have caused him to have cold-like symptoms. (ya think?) Thankfully he knocked himself out drinking wine and slept with his head leaned up against the window for almost all of the flight. I kept myself occupied leaning towards the aisle watching movies on the little digital players they gave us on the plane. After the 6.5 hour flight, my bad hip was a little sore from sitting for so long, but I exited the plane otherwise unscathed. I didn't even have very much sinus pain (probably because I skipped the wine and drank hot tea for the duration of the flight. Note to self: I don't care if the wine is free in first class, I'm better off no dehydrating myself with alcohol on flights)

The movies helped me keep my mind off of imagining the intro to the TV show “Lost” and the fact that our flight number was 815. Then Sniffles woke up, looked out the window, and said “Huh... normally the plane approaches from the other angle”. Dude. SHUT UP. But we landed safely nevertheless, and as I exited the plane I was immediately struck by the feel of the air – heavy and moist, but not oppressively warm. My head was grateful to be out of the dry airplane air.

After finding the rental car shuttles, we took the short drive up the road and pulled straight into the condo complex. We got a little turned around trying to find the right elevator, but after hauling our bags up and down a few unnecessary hallways we figured out the best route and finally, around midnight, stumbled into the condo.

I, of course, immediately double checked all my luggage to make sure I didn't somehow magically leave anything behind in any shuttles, airplanes, or rental car lobbies.

True to my nature, I packed more camera gear than clothing.

The three sealed pouches are my clothes... everything else is camera gear.  Priorities.

Looking ahead, looking behind...

As part of my preparation for the next great adventure, I thought I should sit down and knock the dust off of this blog.

It has always been my intention to do post-update trip reports complete with links to all of the properly sorted and edited photos from my latest trip.  This year I didn't forget, I just simply haven't gotten around to editing my trip photos as of yet. As a result, the last trip report just sort of ended abruptly with the final day synopsis.  Sorry about that!

Our flights home were relatively uneventful, customs went smoothly enough and we had plenty of time between flights.  All our luggage arrived with us and intact, and then we launched right into home responsibilities.  I spent a lot of the last year catching up on old project which had been put to the wayside due to uncontrollable circumstances, and considered the Jamaica photo editing to be my reward for a catch-up-job well done.  Since we didn't travel at all last summer or fall, I had time to work through my backlog of shots and am just a few images shy of being entirely caught up!

And now we are prepping for another trip!  So I have turned my focus (pun intended) to re-studying landscape photography.  My goal this trip is to finally capture those lovely, inspiring, blurred-water type waterfall images.  

We leave tomorrow night, so I'm crunched for time to get all our last-minute shopping and packing and work done today.  Stay tuned, much more to come!

Gearing up to head out

After more than five months of planning, plotting, researching and dreaming... we have suddenly found ourselves in the final days of counting down to our next great adventure.  There is always a lot of chaos in the last few days before travel - lots of last minute errands and sudden unforeseen roadblocks - but I think that we managed to mitigate a lot of it this time.  We set ourselves some deadlines for online purchases, allowing for shipping time so that we would not need to wait for last minute deliveries.  We pulled out the suitcases weeks ago and started organizing our trip supplies, going through things like sunblock and medications and checking to see what was good and what needed to be replaced.  I've stayed on top of laundry to ease our way into packing (and ensure we will arrive home to at least *some* clean clothing).

We have not taken a real vacation in about three years.  I am not only excited about this trip just for the trip itself, but also because we will be traveling with a good portion of my family from out-of-state, whom I see not more than about once a year, and only for a day or so at a time (my eldest sister, her husband, and three of her daughters)  We are traveling with a group of 8 on this vacation, which means that while we will visit some of the same excursions D, G, and I have seen in the past... this time some of the trips will be more along the lines of a private tour.  The boat ride up the Black River will be in a smaller boat with just our group, rather than the large pontoon we rode on back in 2010, and captained by a conservationist who might possibly be as enthralled with birds as I am. We will also be seeking out new adventures which weren't around on our last trip 3 years ago, spending time up in the mountains on a farm where we can explore the grounds where our food is grown before heading to the kitchen to witness the cooking techniques.  We have a few days with excursions planned, but most of the vacation will be simply relaxing, enjoying the company, and taking local adventures as they present themselves (perhaps a yoga class on the cliffs, or some paddle boarding out in the ocean off the beach)

I am looking forward with great anticipation to the photographic opportunities before me.  I feel that I have a firm grasp on the mechanics of my equipment, far more than I did in the past, and I have been taking some time to study new techniques to employ on this trip... (not only just the basics - like remembering to bring my polarizing filters - but funky techniques like HDR)  I have concentrated on my gear more than I've concentrated on my clothing for this trip - the bathing suits were folded up and ready a couple weeks ago... whereas my gear is still sitting out waiting for inspection as I debate between the weight of a fast lens vs. the portability of a smaller one.  I have always taken too much stuff in the past, with that little "just in case" voice in the back of my mind, so scaling back is my challenge.

That is where I stand tonight... multitasking between updating software on the travel notebook computer and making the hard cuts on my gear.  (or finding a way to make it all fit with creative packing)

Preparations

It seems as though no matter how far in advance I plan, how many lists I write, itineraries I print, or schedules I outline... something is going to come along to try to frack it all up for me.
In the last week we've had to take the truck into the shop twice (for two unrelated issues), had our fridge break, had a leaky toilet, and the frosting on the cake was when the guys working in our yard shattered the sliding glass door with a stray rock.  (It slowly spiderwebed, but by the time anyone noticed the impact, the entire door was imploding in slow motion.  It would have been cool to watch if I were not freaking out.)

However, I refuse to be deterred in my endeavors!

I am in the final stages of prepping for the trip... laundry is spinning happily away, piles of "must pack this" things are forming, I've set up a suitcase staging area in our spare bedroom.  Thanks to the broken fridge we have pre-disposed of all potential mold growing experiments, and the lack of cooking has kept the kitchen nice and clean.  My camera equipment is set aside, SD cards are cleared and ready, and my new Kindle is set up to keep me entertained for the long flights.

This year, one of my goals is to get through the flights without having the familiar adverse sinus issues crop up.  Almost every time I fly I get sinus headaches for days after (at best) or sinus infections (at worst), so I've been doing some research online to see if there are steps I can take to avoid these kinds of things.

One article I read, which made a lot of sense, talked about how dried out we get when we travel... not only from the recirculated air, but because we tend to not drink as much water when we travel in order to avoid frequent pit stops.  The suggestion is to stay hydrated, and deal with the multiple trips to the bathroom (which ends up being better for your circulation while flying anyway)  So I'll be taking that approach, along with some of the suggestions from these articles:

Allergy travel tips

Sinus Pressure While Flying

I'm armed with ibuprofin for sinus pressure, nasal gel to keep my sinuses from drying out, my netipot for post-flight flushing, sudafed for decongesting, and hand sanitizer for all the germy germs.

I haven't purchased sudafed in many, many years... by the way.  Not since they put it behind the pharmacy counter and required you to sign a waiver and hand over a dowry just to clear your nose.  When D came looking for me in the store he found me at the pharmacy counter and I explained what I was buying.  He said, in a very loud voice, "Oh... is that for your meth lab?"

Thankfully we were surrounded by people with a sense of humor.

I've also loaded up my iPod with meditations to help me relax on the overnight flight.  The podcasts are free through iTunes, or you can go to the Meditation Oasis website to see what else they have to offer.  I've actually used a number of their meditations to help me get to sleep at night when my mind is buzzing too quickly to settle down, and they are very effective.

So with this... I am officially within the 48 hour mark of my first flight off to the island.  We have some ideas for the trip, a few excursions we're hoping to explore... but as the last week as taught me, having too tight of a grip on your "plans" can make for a stressful time.  So... we leave them as ideas to keep in mind, and we'll see what happens.