At Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ

At Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ

Quote from Into the Wild

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is our first destination.  Wow! I believe over 9 million people live here.  For all you worried, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to find toilet paper and razors and something to eat here :)
We plan on spending about 3-5 days here.  It's obviously way too big to explore everything, but we definitely plan on hitting some of the highlights.  We'll be staying in a hotel around Soi Rambuttri called the Rambutri Village Inn,  which is basically near "backpacker central".  To help give you a better concept of what the place can look like, here's a picture (I know many of you have this eerie image of dormitory style rows of bunkbeds and low lighting and danger) This place has a great rooftop pool that we hope is as good as it looks as well, price- whopping $28 per night for queen bed and private bath (yes it has hot water and wi-fi as well).  This was actually about as much as we'll pay for a place we anticipate, which was astonishing.


Bangkok will be our first big dose of culture shock.  We anticipate a full day or two worth of jet lag adjusting after the 22 hour flight.  Our hotel is very near a lot of the sites, to make for easy touring the temples, etc.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Angkor Wat

Short Video on one of the first larger historical places we're planning on visiting in first couple months.

Uncle Claudie's BullShit and Music Barn

Before departure, Christina and I had a chance to run up to my family's "roots" in Knottsville, KY for a good ol family gathering and lunch at my Uncle's custom antique barn.  I love it there, the pace is slow, the family is friendly, quirky and funny and the food is always great.  Every seat is pretty much a rocking chair, the place is heated by this great wood burning stove, and every wall is covered with antique farm equipment, collectibles and everything old and unique.  This place would make Cracker Barrel very jealous.  Most of the items were a part of my family's heritage as they used a lot of the items farming or living with.  There's old washing machines, telephones, lanterns, a really cool old timey working cash register, piano, jukebox and much more.  My Uncle has friends and family up during the warmer months for music and dancing every Tuesday and although I haven't made it to a jam session, I bet its a blast.  We got a chance to catch up with a few of my aunts and uncles (I say a few as a my dad is 1 of 13 children so getting everybody together at once is almost impossible).  I'd estimate I have some 400 first and second cousins in this area.  We'd fill a every pew in a good sized church by ourselves if everyone showed up at once.  Some of my favorite aunts were there, Rosie, Stella, Agnes, Becky, Irma, and then Uncles, Buck, Hubert and Bullshit Barn Owner himself-Claudie.  We had a chance to even get Claudie some custom made hats this past year for the place, it's funny to see the older guys wearing them. They all say "Claudie's Bullshit and Music Barn, Knottsville, KY".  If that's not classic, I don't know what is. It was nice to see them again, and just sit in the rocking chairs with the wood-fired stove going, pigging out, rocking and then watching the first good snow-fall.  Amazing. I must say, It's good to have roots and better to remember that you have them.