Vacations Thread III: Return of the Vacations

BOOOO!  That's awful!

NYT just ran a big feature on Atlanta restaurants which made me hungry.

I had a fever dream about that Sean Brock Country Fried Steak last night.... oh god.

We've now booked our flights for June to and from Orlando, after realizing the prices were not likely to get much better. (We're used to taking trips in like, February or October when you can wait until six weeks out.)

Anyway, American down, Delta back; I'm not thrilled about flying Delta but enh. The good part about taking American down is Tortas Frontera at O'Hare, the Best Airport Food Known to Man.

Two days at Disney World, then a weeklong cruise. Whoo.

I just got my paycheck today and saw that I have 98.4 hours saved up of paid leave, so it's a good thing I'm taking 32 of them in two weeks' time! I'm overdue for a vacation. Last year I only went on one, and it was very short, so this year I'm forcing myself to stop saving up my time for special events and just take random days here and there for fun.

I'm taking American Airlines to and from Chicago for C2E2. Anything I should know that isn't on their website?

About American! 

Mmmm. I think I'll have to do that. You had me at Rick Bayless!  I'm going to probably just get a taxi to my friend's apartment rather than try to navigate the CTA immediately after getting off a plane and with a large suitcase, but as far as I know we're planning on using it to get from her place to McCormick Place for the convention. 

We're leaving for San Francisco Friday morning! Unfortunately our time their is sort of curtailed by spending most of one day standing in line for a concert. But we have Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, and Monday morning to see the sights. What should we look at? Our agenda so far includes Chinatown, the Coit Tower, the Sutro Baths, and Mission Dolores. Anything else that we should go gawk at/eat/drink/purchase?

Might be a long shot, but does anyone have any port activity ideas for St Thomas (Charlotte Amalie)?

We'll be there during our June cruise and I feel like it's so overdone. We don't want to go to the beach because we have two other beach days planned. We thought Blackbeard's Castle sounded really cool, but it's only open October - April. There's a cool-sounding nanobrewery in Frenchtown that's only open in the evening and we leave at like 4 p.m.

So. Any place cool to visit, fairly near the port and not too expensive? Restaurants, historical sites, tours, etc?

Booked an all inclusive week in mexico for next week. While I'm not always the hugest resort vacation fan this winter has been such a cluster fuck that I'm completely on board with spending a week drinking on the beach right now.

(I'll probably go diving one day and maybe do some other day trip stuff but overall going to be lazy as hell I think.)

Into the second day of my biannual "staycation." The last one I spent with Empress Peach, towards the end of August, and it was arguably the happiest week of my life. This time, it's all about chilling after the unexpected busy streak we had at work.

I didn't do much yesterday except work on sketches, but I hit both of my locals last night, one to watch my friends play (the lead singer was in a bad car accident last year, and has been understandably leisurely in returning to live performance) and the other to chat and shadow-flirt with Cute Bartender (nothing's happening even if she were actually interested, she's in a happy long-term relationship, even "house-married," but it's always a good time). Went to the gym yesterday and went swimming today, making caldo verde, and am planning on taking some nature photos tomorrow morning, hitting the gym again, and checking out a Salvadoran place I've never been for pupusas (which I've never eaten). There's a discussion on new historical research at my local bookstore that night and then our local film festival starts Wednesday. The weather's supposed to be gorgeous until this weekend. I timed this well, is what I'm saying.

Atlanta sure is awesome, you guys.

Where are you going? Have a great time!

San Francisco is cool! Even if you're like us and you get an apartment way the hell out in Sunset, because you want to be by the ocean, but then it pours rain the whole time you're there. We learned the hard way that that particular neighbourhood is a lil' low on food options when it's pissing rain on a Saturday night hard enough that you're afraid to drive. We ended up walking 15 minutes in the rain to get some Thai food. But we did go over and see the Sutro baths, which is one of the most interesting places I've ever been. All in all we'll have to go back on a weekend when it's NOT raining, and stay somewhere more central.

The most purely San Francisco part of our vacation was when I walked over to the beach in the rain and found it completely empty except for a guy about my age who was out in the breakers dancing (very well), completely naked.

Less than four weeks till Arizona. Should start to re-dealve into planning, and book the things I'd need to do in advance (Kartchner Caverns tour, Taliesan West tour, D-backs game).

Should also decide where to go for Early Sept (and/or Late Aug). Still leaning towards the Azores, but starting to really consider the Baltics (or maybe just one of Estonia or Lithuania with a little extra tacked on).