Back from Key West and a very different vacation than I was expecting. I was thinking that we would have plenty of down time based on how long we were going to be there and that we'd never hung out as a group. Wrong... Basically non-stop activity from Thursday morning till Monday night. Highlights...
- Snorkeling on Friday at the second reef we went to I happened to run into a Bull Shark. We were taking pictures of some Nurse sharks at the first spot, but I wasn't expecting that. Swam over a reef and then the shark (about 5' long) came right at me. At about 6-8' away it turned away. I backed off and then went back to the boat. :)
- On Sunday we did our bar crawl on scooters. What wasn't a good choice was to race through the sand with them. My brother decides to skid the rear wheel and stop his scooter sideways while he was leading. Well, I couldn't stop fast enough and couldn't turn in the sand so I low sided. No harm to the scooter and only a bruise on myself so I guess no harm no foul.
- Saw lots of other really cool things while snorkeling. 12" Queen Angel, Emperor Angels, the nurse sharks (adults and babies), a pipe fish (a type of seahorse), etc... We got some pictures, I'll try to post later.
And I didn't get on a bike... I know... this is going to hurt. Anyway, I'm in Montreal now, hopefully this weekend will be good riding weather.
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Week in the Poconos
Took a vacation for a week with four other families in the Poconos. 10 adults and 10 children, how the chaos remained confined I will never know.
One of the first things to do was to look for trails in the state park across the street. Most of the "bike" paths were either old paved roads or gravel trails that were as good as paved. I was disappointed until we took the hiker trail back since we were late. Now I think the hiker trail is not to restrict bikes, but more of a bikes can't do this path. Needless to say it was a wonderful 5 mile rocky trail that make the watershed boring. About 80-90% was ridable and was about as challenging as it gets. Interesting thing about it was there was no real elevation change to talk about. I went back and the entire trail back and forth two days later. Boy I wish I had something like this close by.
Our first big group thing we did was to go to was to go to Bushkill Falls which has 7 or 8 waterfalls and plenty of hiking. We did most of the trails even with the little ones who did great. It was nice, but a little too civilized with steps and bridges almost everywhere. Felt more like an Ewok city than hiking in the wild.
After the hike and lunch the kids went to the playground before heading back and Nick split his head wide open... too much excitement for the little guy. I was worried at first that we were off to the emergency room for stitches but it stopped bleeding and we used some butterfly bandages to put him back together. He's a tough guy and didn't even cry that much after the first minute or two.
The next day we went on a hike at the park across the street with just the family. We needed the kids to have a day off and a good nap day. What was interesting is about 100 yards from the parking lot a black bear crosses the trail, stops and looks at us and continues on. I thought it was really cool, I like seeing animals like that in the "wild". Had to convince the wife that the bear was not waiting at the top of the hill to take Nick off as lunch... :)
The last big thing we did was the Leigh Valley bike trail. Its billed as a one-way downhill easy path which it was. I screwed up and couldn't get the trailer hooked to my bike but luckily one of the other couples wheeled our children down the trail. Wife was sick so she didn't have the energy to do it herself. It was a fun ride even if a little boring. Ended up doing the 13 miles in 2 1/2 hours which isn't bad considering that 3 of the kids were riding their bikes. Saw a rattle snake on the trail also... One of the other guys and myself biked back to get the car instead of driving around again. The gearing on the SS really wasn't ideal and 14mph is about all I could muster. Took an hour to get back.
All in all a pretty good vacation...
One of the first things to do was to look for trails in the state park across the street. Most of the "bike" paths were either old paved roads or gravel trails that were as good as paved. I was disappointed until we took the hiker trail back since we were late. Now I think the hiker trail is not to restrict bikes, but more of a bikes can't do this path. Needless to say it was a wonderful 5 mile rocky trail that make the watershed boring. About 80-90% was ridable and was about as challenging as it gets. Interesting thing about it was there was no real elevation change to talk about. I went back and the entire trail back and forth two days later. Boy I wish I had something like this close by.
Our first big group thing we did was to go to was to go to Bushkill Falls which has 7 or 8 waterfalls and plenty of hiking. We did most of the trails even with the little ones who did great. It was nice, but a little too civilized with steps and bridges almost everywhere. Felt more like an Ewok city than hiking in the wild. 
After the hike and lunch the kids went to the playground before heading back and Nick split his head wide open... too much excitement for the little guy. I was worried at first that we were off to the emergency room for stitches but it stopped bleeding and we used some butterfly bandages to put him back together. He's a tough guy and didn't even cry that much after the first minute or two.
The next day we went on a hike at the park across the street with just the family. We needed the kids to have a day off and a good nap day. What was interesting is about 100 yards from the parking lot a black bear crosses the trail, stops and looks at us and continues on. I thought it was really cool, I like seeing animals like that in the "wild". Had to convince the wife that the bear was not waiting at the top of the hill to take Nick off as lunch... :)
The last big thing we did was the Leigh Valley bike trail. Its billed as a one-way downhill easy path which it was. I screwed up and couldn't get the trailer hooked to my bike but luckily one of the other couples wheeled our children down the trail. Wife was sick so she didn't have the energy to do it herself. It was a fun ride even if a little boring. Ended up doing the 13 miles in 2 1/2 hours which isn't bad considering that 3 of the kids were riding their bikes. Saw a rattle snake on the trail also... One of the other guys and myself biked back to get the car instead of driving around again. The gearing on the SS really wasn't ideal and 14mph is about all I could muster. Took an hour to get back.
All in all a pretty good vacation...
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