Taking a look back at 2019, here are some new experiences for me...
New Places Visited Mount Rushmore / South Dakota - It was on the bucket list. Mt. Rushmore was not the highlight of the trip, though. I really enjoyed visiting Custer State Park in the Black Hills.
New Activities Topgolf - Last year I tried this for the first time, but this year I signed up for a league. This was a log of fun and my golf swing is improving. Pickleball - Similar to tennis, but easier to learn and enjoy without finding somebody with similar skill level. GoApe - A treetop ropes adventure that had a wide range of increasingly difficult challenges. I was exhausted by the end of the experience.
New Foods
The grasshopper tacos at Cocinas were surprisingly good. They also make a decent jalapeno infused cocktail.
Taking a look back at 2018, here are some new experiences for me...
New Places Visited
Downtown Denver, CO - while I have been to the Denver area many times, I don't think that I've ever spent any significant time downtown. Morgantown WV - While camping in West Virginia, I stopped by Morgantown. Home to West Virginia University, it was a nice oasis in the wilderness.
New Activities Topgolf - Been meaning to try this. It was fun.
I put the following snack options out for the household to enjoy, a nice healthy pear and some HoHos. Can you guess what happened next? Click on the picture to see.
Taking a look back at 2017, here are some new experiences for me...
New Places Visited
Hawaii (Big Island) - Kona, Hilo, Volcano National Park - visited pretty much the entire island.
Doylestown, PA - nice quaint little town where my sister lives
Local Parks - Leesylvania State Park, Elanore C. Lawrence Park
New Activities
Indoor Skydiving (iFly)
Whitewater Kayaking
Paint Night
New Foods
Hawaiin foods - poke (yum!), lau lau (yum!), poi (blech)
Fruits - Rambutan (yum), Longan (yum), Cherimoya (yum-yum)
Meats - tongue (meh)
Thanks to MikeB for recommend this idea for a post.
I recently visited Hawaii (Big Island) on a vacation. Normally, when I travel, I get great pictures that capture the experience. This trip was different, because some of the best experiences were underwater. After reading a bit about how difficult it is to capture good underwater pictures, I decided not to even try.
One of the most enjoyable things I did was take the Night Manta Ray Experience trip with an outfitter called Sea Quest at Keauhou Bay near Kona. The way it works is that you take a short boat trip out to the spot, which was ultimately not that far, say ~100 meters, from a rocky shoreline adjacent to the Sheraton Kona Resort that we stayed at. The guides jump out of the boat and set up a floating platform with huge bright lights illuminating the dark sea below. The guests then hold onto the platform and float on the surface of the ocean using snorkel gear to view below. The manta rays come to feed on plankton that are attracted to the light.
Our first sighting of a manta ray was exhilarating. The beautiful monstrous creature swam straight up out of the darkness of the depths with mouth wide open to catch all the plankton it could. If not foretold that manta rays are harmless, my first instinct would have been to swim away from an approaching sea creature with a greater than 10 foot wingspan weighing more than 1000 pounds. At the last second, the manta ray turned flat and upside-down and glided inches from our faces to skim up the plankton near the surface. The rays have specialized nerve cells on their skin giving them
the ability to sense electrical fields and they seemed to use that to glide close, but not touch us as we watched them. We were also given strict instructions not to touch them as to not disrupt the protective slime coating on their skin.
According to the guides, the manta rays learn the behavior of swimming in loops near the tour lights to feed on the plankton. They observe that young rays don't quite grasp the approach at first. It is not a natural behavior since they can normally feed on plankton on the surface continuously during the day.
Since I didn't have a camera with me, I can't share video of my experience, here is a video from YouTube:
I own a Nerf football. I do crossword puzzles with a pen. I want to see the Aurora (Northern Lights). I recycle. I believe people need to accept more personal responsibility for the things that happen in their lives.
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