Traveling

One of my favorite "hobbies" with hubby is traveling. Before marrying him, I had not really been outside CA, except for a family vacation to Alaska and a couple of brief jaunts into Mexico. In the last ten years, we have traveled a lot. Let's see if I can remember all the out of CA trips: Seattle (twice), Vancouver, Victoria, Hawaii (6 times to Maui, once to the Big Island), Colorado Springs, Las Vegas (a bunch of times), Washington D.C., London (3 times), Paris (twice), Rome, Pompeii, Cabo San Lucas....hmmm...I think that is it. Of course, we've also been all over CA. Since hubby works in the SF bay area, trips up there hardly even "count" for me, though I do love it up there. (And I'm not counting the trip I took with dear daughter to see MIT and Harvard in Boston last June.)

One thing about going back to school that I didn't really look forward to was having restrictions put on our traveling abilities. I can't just go places "whenever" anymore. Of course, I'm hardly letting going to school stop me. We made it to Hawaii over Thanksgiving break, are taking the kids to Disneyland over the Easter break (for daughter's 18th birthday--her request!), and just now booked a trip to Vegas for hubby's birthday next month. I guess 3 trips during the school year, even though small ones, isn't so bad.

I noticed on the school's web site today that the calendar for the entire year is finally up. They were wrestling with summer school and not sure if they should change it. It used to start up in May right after finals. The problem was, grades for the finals took several weeks, so some students who didn't make the minimum 65 average had started school, paid for books and classes, went to classes for several weeks, and THEN found out they couldn't be there. They have decided to change it so that summer school starts about 3 weeks after finals end. The bad part is that the 3 year plan used to call for 6 units to be done over summer. Now, they changed it, so only 4 units are done in the summer, and they added another 2 units of electives to the regular school year for the second year. The schedule during the regular year for the 3 year program was loaded as it was, so I'm hoping this won't be an issue to me finishing in 3 years.

The good news is, since summer school doesn't start until June 1, we have 3 weeks of freedom in May, and about another 6 weeks from July 12 to August 21. Of course, if I end up doing an internship, who knows what that will do to my schedule. But I can't help but think about getting a trip to somewhere good squeezed in there somewhere.

Let me consider the possibilities, via pictures from previous trips:

How about going back to Rome, to spend more time in the forum and Colliseum (background, to left)? And seeing other places I loved, such at the Pantheon? TOOO COOOL!











Or how about going to the beach somewhere, back in Cabo:
or even back in Hawaii again:













Sometimes, it comes down to deciding if we want a relaxing trip (ie., beach and tropical drinks) or want to explore and see new places. I'd probably be up for either this summer.

So, the next trip on the agenda is Vegas, less than a month from now. We're just going over for the weekend. Neither of us gamble, but there are always great shows, great shops and great food there. This time we're going to see Brad Garrett. We saw him opening for Ray Romano last time we were there. He is extremely politically incorrect and SOOOOO funny! I'm sure that will be fun.

I just need to figure out where I should go this summer. Bahamas might be a possibility. Any suggestions??? :)