Why I love waterfalls

When I visited Yosemite National Park I remember thinking everyone was crazy for wanting to hike up it. It was a vacation after all. I finally resigned myself to hiking to the top of the lower falls, it seemed a reasonable feat. We actually made it up to that point, and while the views to the valley were amazing, I felt like something was missing. I was a bit over this whole hiking thing but everyone wanted to keep going so I continued. Not too long after, we came to the bottom of the Upper Falls. It's one of those times when you turn a corner and BAM! You've seen what you came to see. It was magnificanet to be so close to the bottom of this massive water fall. Of course a long session of photos ensued. We continues to climb after, but the view and the falls were never as great as they were when we first found the falls.

New Yorks Jewish Delis

NYC is known for a couple really good jewish delis - Katz and 2nd Avenue deli are the most popular. I'm a fan of the lesser known Ben's too. I'm a fan of potato pancakes, hotdogs and motza ball soup.

The 2nd Avenue Deli got some press in 1996 when they were robbber (follow the link for more info on that)and is well known today. I've eaten at the old location on 10th Street and 2nd Ave as well as the new location at East 33rd Street. I'm a fan and a friend of mine swears they have the best Pastrami sandwhiches of the Jewish Deli's. It's a modern restaurant with good food.

I've been to Katz's a couple times and there can be quite a line there at times. When you enter you are given a ticket, DO NOT lose the ticket. When you go to the counters they will right your price on it, when you leave you pay at the register. If you don't have your ticket I think you pay $5o. Katz's is best know from When Harry Met Sally - the orgasm scene. The decor is vintage.

My favorite place for motza ball soup is Ben's Deli. It's a modern restaurant with good food.

Which is the best? Depends who you ask and what you're getting. You can't go wrong with any of the deli's. If you want a calmer dining type experience the Ben's or the 2nd Ave Deli are a better choice. They're all a bit pricey, but the food quality is good and you'll get a good meal.

Locked Out

For my 2002 trip to Disney with my family we stayed in a time share resort.
The time share was a large building with key access to the building to
get to the doors to the units. One night I decided to go for a walk and
didn't take a key, when I got back to the building I couldn't get
inside. I waited a few minutes, but no one came around. I thought I would try
going to the windows since we were staying on the first floor. The
patio and windows were protected by a row of bushes making me hard to
see and impossible to knock on a window. What's a girl to do? I
started throwing wood chips at the windows, which wasn't the best plan -
wood chips are light and don't make much noise so it took a while.
After a good 10 minutes my sister finally saw me and let me in. To this
day I laugh whenever I think of how I got locked out of the building and
how ridiculous I would have looked if anyone saw me throwing wood chips
at the building.

Knoxville Restaurant reviews

My final post about my trip to Knoxville....

Calhouns: located at Volunteer landing and apparently the place to be. I thought it was just ok. They're known for their BBQ ribs, but with my braces didn't want to eat them. I opted instead for the pulled pork (a theme for my stay in Knoxville). I wasn't overly impressed, it wasn't even the best I had in Knoxville. If you like a spicier BBQ sauce you might like it, I prefer a sweeter sauce and this wasn't it. It's hard to tell how the atmosphere is since I had an early dinner, but I suspect the place is packed on weekend nights, and it does have a nice view of the river.


The Tomato Head: Located in Market Square. I was a little confused when I walked in for lunch, but asked for help, ordered my food and got a table. I had pizza and a salad. The pizza was good for non-nyc pizza, it was tasty. The salad was also good. This was a nice place for my lunch and I would go back again if I was there.

Market Square Kitchen: Located in Market Square. It's a breakfast and lunch place, the food was good, quick and well priced.

Cafe 4: Located in Market Square. I had good pulled pork here, there was outside seating and a nice atmosphere. The prices were reasonable and the service was good.

Woodruff Brewery: A block East of Market Square. I did not eat here, but it was the liveliest place I saw in Knoxville my whole time there.

In search of a Body Farm

When in Knoxville I visited the University of Tennessee. Having gone to Penn State, another large Football school in a University town I thought it would be intersting to see.

The campus was very hilly, which I didn't expect. It was built on a Civil War battle site, it's a shame that the area couldn't have been preserved - Bad Tennessee!!! Neyland Stadium is in the Southeast Corner of the campus, but was right next to other buildings. The stadium at Boston College was similar to that, dorms surrounding it. It's strange to me since Beaver Stadium at Penn State is on its own with other large sporting venues around it. The dorms were all in one spot in a corner of campus. The campus didn't seem well cared for like I have seen at other Universities. At one point I was walking on a side walk by what I named the "graveyard of buildings." There were small sets up steps that used to lead to buildings. The buildings have since been torn down and there are vacant lots with little sets of steps.

I did get an opportunity to go to the museum on campus. It was a nice little museum, it had a Egyptian display and a display about Knoxville during the Civil War. I even made the guard go get the video about Knoxville during the Civil War. My favorite part was when I asked the info desk woman a question and she thought I was still in college. Ummm, no, but I'll take that as a compliment.

Before I went I had heard that the University of Tennessee has a body farm, since it was raining and I didn't have too much to do I thought I would go find it. All I knew was that it was near the Medical Center, so I took a drive around there. I found luxury student houseing, close but not quite what I was looking for. Then I found a back country area with cars on blocks and No Trespassing signs. I decided it was time to head back to civilization without finding the body farm. Other then saying I was at a body farm do I really need to visit one?

Reality vs Expectations

I appologize for the lack of posts, I've been having log-in issues that I'm trying to sort out with Google, so on with the post...


Whenever you go on a trip you have certain expectations about what to expect and what will be the highlights. Often though things go differently then planned.

Sometimes it's simple things - when I went to Scandinavia and Russia I was excited to see the hermatige, go bobsledding and seeing the midnight sun, among other things. The hermatige was cool, but not a thrill, nearly feel asleep walking around. Bobsledding was fun, equivalent to a tame rollercoaster. The midnight sun was really at 11:45 and it was cold and windy. The biggest highlight? Berlin at world cup hanging out in the fan mile. I'll write about that another day. In Egypt I couldn't wait to see the great pyramid, but it was a bit disappointing, for a great pyramid. The Valley of the Kings were really cool, so was Abu Simbel and the hot air baloon ride at dawn. I'm still disappointed by the Great Pyarmid, but seeing these other things more then made up for it.

You can plan every aspect of your trip, but things will happen and force you to change plans. Getting lost, museums being closed, plane problems, lost luggage - the list goes on and on. But you need to embrace these things and adjust to the challenges they create. Often a good story will come out of it. What fun is it to come home and tell everyone about how your trip was perfect, exactly as planned?

Wanderlust and Lipstick - Book Review

I just finished reading Wanderlust and Lipstick by Beth Whitman. It's a book/guide for women traveling alone. The book is pretty good and an easy read. Beth gives encouragement to women to travel outside the normal spots and to fight the excuses not to travel. The book simply covers just about every aspect of travel, guiding women to and through travel.

The most informative chapter, in my opinion, is the one about staying healthy. Everyone worries about pick pockets, how to get to the hotel, but unless people have medical problems they usually assume they will be healthy on vacation, which isn't always the case. This book makes you realize that things can happen and makes some suggestions to help yourself in case you do get sick.

What I didn't like about the book? It was basic at times.

An experienced traveler could skip this book, but its a great resource for more novice travelers.

Knoxville and the free trolly

Knoxville is a nice little city, though very quiet. The city center is only about 5 blocks by 8 blocks (rough estimate), so it's quite walkable. It's also clean and there aren't a lot of vagrants around. Aside from Market Square there doesn't seem to be much signs of life. Maybe this was because of the poor weather, or maybe it's because I'm used to NYC. I did end up at a movie on Tuesday night, I was the only person in the theater, I almost felt bad about it.

One of the most interesting thing I did there was ride the free trolley. I did it for 2 reasons. One, it got me around the city for free, two - I would be able to see some different ares of the city without walking. I found so much more then just a free mode of transportation, I found a social experiment. The trolley takes you from a couple different areas outside the city center to the city center. Basically on the West side of the city is World's Fair Park and after that is the U. of Tennessee and the suburbs, the park kind of separates the city from the rest. Being free, the shuttle doesn't attract high society. Actually, as a "Northerner" it seemed to have Southern goobers... The people seemed to be one step above being homeless. I expected to see more students and tourists on the trolley, I saw very little of either. After taking the trolley the first day, I decided to drive the following day. But I did get to see quite a bit of the city. I should have known there wouldn't be many tourists on it since there were very few signs showing where the trolley stopped even though it stopped quite often. But the trolley is a good deal if you're visiting the city and can figure out where it stops.

When I packed for my trip I forget the wire to charge my ipod and ended up going to Best Buy, this took me through the suburbs of Knoxville. They're like the suburbs in most other places. Residential areas and then sections of strip malls with all sorts of shopping along the major roads. All the same types of stores you'll find in other areas of the nation.

One of the nicer spots in Knoxville is Volunteer Landing. When I had heard about it before I thought it was going to be a 2 mile stretch of waterfront with fun and cool activities. It's really just a 2 mile stretch of walkway along the water with 3 restaurants and a fun activity or two. Half of the walkway has a view of the docked river boats. If you're looking for a spot to walk and see the water, it's great, if you're looking for a good time, you might have to go somewhere else.

I visited the Woman's Basketball Hall of Fame. I'm not a huge fan of Basketball, but it seemed interesting and admission was only a few dollars. I was the only person there, but the museum was nice. It was fun to look at all the funny uniforms woman wore over the years. I also liked that I got to see real Olympic medals. The museum has a downstairs section where kids or adults can practice different types of basketball drills. I would rate the museum as a good place to take children. It will only take an hour or 2 (maybe 3 if you're really into it) to go through the museum.

Dollywood

As a fan of Disney, I wasn't overly impressed with Dollywood. But, for the location and price I thought it was a good park. It's a cross between a Renaissance Faire and an amusement park. There are sections with the "good" (faster and more daring) rides, then a section with more traditional fair types of rides. There is also a section with renaissance faire types of shops and attractions - leather making, hat making.

The good: It is a nice theme and felt homey and countryish. It also had a good selection of food throughout the park, though when I was there several places were not open due to smaller crowds. I ate at a buffet place with BBQ types of foods, the food was good though I hadn't intended to spend quite so much on lunch. The lines were very short, I never waited more then a couple minutes for any ride.

The bad: You "may" get wet on almost every ride, not a great selling point when it's not hot out. It's a long walk (unless you know the back way up the steep hill) to get to the better rides at the back of the park. The park layout wasn't very good. I don't like going to an amusement park, paying admission and then being asked to pay the regular rate to play a carnival game that I can play at any street carnival. I'm also not a fan of carnival rides at amusement parks, I prefer a better themed ride that's more complex and that I can't find in other places.

Overall it's a good park and a nice place to spend a day if you're in the area. If you're used to a Disney Park then you'll be a bit disappointed at the atmosphere. If you're used to Great Adventure parks you'll probably be disappointed with the rides.

Zorbing

The thing that attracted me to Knoxville was the idea of going zorbing. I figured Tennessee was a lot closer then New Zealand so I would go there, and I Knoxville is a city so I could spend time there, done!

Zorbing is a fun activity created by the Kiwi's, like many other fun activities. They put you in a giant plastic ball and roll you down a hill. There are 2 ways to do this, wet or dry. For the dry version you get harnessed into the ball and your body does whatever the ball is doing, upside down, sideways, etc. When doing it wet, which is what I did, you are put inside the ball with a bucket of water and when you are rolled down the hill so you slide around in the ball, primarily laying down on the bottom of the ball. I found that your head tends to point downhill most of the time. The website says it takes about a minute to roll down the hill, and it was plenty of time for the thrill. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is that it is like going down one of those giant water slides, for a minute. It's a lot of fun. The wet version has two different tracks, a straight hill and a zig zaggy hill. I did both, the zig zaggy hill does send the ball back and forth a lot more so your body shifts around a lot more as you're going down the hill. I have tight muscles in my neck and shoulders, mom didn't want me to do this convinced I was going to get hurt. However, I had no problems. If you have a similar minor problem you should probably stick with the straight hill wet zorb at least the first time, the zig zag does put a little more stress on the body. If you have more serious neck or back problems you should probably avoid this activity. You can also try and run in the ball as it goes down hill, but you'll need socks for that.

Getting into the ball was interesting. The first time I did it the guy put the hole to the ball in front of me, shoulder height. He told me to take a step back and do a superman jump into. I thought he was joking, but that's actually a good way to get in. To get out they point the hole towards the ground and you go out feet first, it's not graceful, but it gets the job done. Then you have a photo session with the ball. It's clean old good fun and safer then trying to do this on your own...

Zorbing is pricey though. Each roll down the hill is about $40 with tax, there are discounts if you buy packages of rolls though. You can also buy an outfit to wear, the outfit wasn't as nice as I thought it would be, but I have a Zorb t-shirt now. Whether you buy the outfit or not, it's not a bad idea to wear a bathing suit as you will get wet! They also take photos as you go down the hill and after with the ball, the disc for each roll is $20, a rip off, but since I was by myself I didn't have much other choice. $20 seemed particularly harsh when on my first roll the camera wasn't working when I was coming down the hill, I only got pictures of me with the hill and the ball.