Posts filed under “travel”
NASA Social: Antares
This is Antares, a commercial rocket assembled by Orbital Sciences to deliver the unmanned cargo capsule Cygnus to the International Space Station for NASA: Powered by two liquid fueled Soviet NK-33 engines refurbished by Aerojet and mounted into a Ukrainian-built first stage topped by a US ATK solid-fuel second stage booster, Antares A-ONE, the first [...]
Thanksgiving 2012
We drove up to New Jersey for Thanksgiving this year. Our last experience on Amtrak had been a crowded mess, and I wanted to see if the drive up I-95 was any better. It was not. We left at 5AM and even that early the beltway was stressful. The New Jersey Turnpike was a monotonous [...]
Norfolk, VA
We were in Norfolk for a few days while Amy attended a VAEA conference, where she gave a presentation on “Artful Adventures.” Meanwhile, I ventured out around Norfolk’s Downtown and Waterside areas to see things. We stayed at the Sheraton Waterside, just a short walk from a bunch of downtown landmarks, and right across the [...]
NYC Art Walk
Did an art walk with Amy and her classmates around New York last weekend, mostly in Chelsea. Her class took an early “Art Bus” up from school but we skipped that and took a train up to NJ and stayed with Amy’s family a night earlier, then took an NJ Transit train into the city [...]
Luray Caverns
A couple of weekends ago, we visited Luray Caverns, the largest and most popular of Virginia’s many commercial show caves. Luray is about 90 miles west of DC, just off the junction of Routes US340 and US211. The drive there took about an hour and a half.
Saturday in NYC
Saturday. We’re halfway to New York City on an NJ Transit bus. To our left is Newark, to our right the brown marshes and post-industrial blight of the Meadowlands, and beyond, the gleaming Manhattan skyline peeks out over a hill, and over it all, the new WTC Tower, still unfinished, its cranes raised like the [...]
Fourth of July at Mount Vernon
We visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon on the Fourth of July to see the Independence Day festivities. I hadn’t been to Mount Vernon since a Christmas visit in 2005 when the visitor center was still under construction, so I was interested in seeing the finished estate.
Mediterranean Trip Roundup (Summer 2012)
Travel Log Entries IAD-AMS Amsterdam Layover Venice: Arrival Venice: Art Venice: Touristy Stuff Venice: Departure Cruise: Welcome Aboard Cruise: Dubrovnik Cruise: At Sea Cruise: Athens Cruise: Ephesus Cruise: At Sea Cruise: Split Cruise: Disembarkation VCE-CDG-IAD Photos My photos Amy’s photos Videos Venice Grand Canal Venice cruise departure timelapse NCL Jade balcony stateroom Dubrovnik Cable Car [...]
VCE-CDG-IAD
Two things I never want to do again: go through Venice Marco Polo Airport on a Saturday, and fly Air France. With thick crowds and long lines in the terminal, plus crashy Air France check-in machines (without ground staff at a desk for backup), by noon I wish we’d stayed an extra day or two [...]
Norwegian Jade Cruise, Day 8: Disembarkation
The night before arrival, we fetch colored tags from the atrium to indicate our disembarkation time: light blue for 9:20 AM. These go on our bags left out in the hallway after 10PM, for claiming in the terminal after getting off the ship at port the next day. (NCL cruises out of Venice don’t offer [...]