Travel Archives - Page 2 of 3

enoteca OTTO pizzeria. New York.

Published on June 7, 2017June 7, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

Todays lunch/supper – lupper? – was a huge success. We ate at enoteca OTTO pizzeria, one of Mario Batali’s restaurants on 5th Avenue. It. Was. Awesome.

Denton ordered one of the days specials. Orecchiette with pancetta and spigarello. Heaven. Absolute heaven on a plate.

Hayden chose Quattro Formaggio. It’s a pizza with four separate cheeses. Mozerella, tallagio, cacio, and ricotta.

Liv ordered the Cacio e Pepe. It’s a pizza with Mozerella, pecorino, cacio, Parmesano and black pepper.

I chose the Quattro Stagioni. It has peppers, mushrooms, Swiss chard, Mozerella and Cotto. It was delicious. My favorite of all the choices on my pizza was the mushrooms. Divine.

After we ate everyone wanted to get a gelato. I was completely stuffed, and I knew that Liv and Hayden would never finish theirs so I didn’t choose one.

Denton got Lime/Basil. Let me tell you, I couldn’t have eaten that one. It was so tart I thought my jaws would lock up. But it was good, just too much for my taste buds.

Hayden got Mango/Coffee. If you like mangoes this is your choice. It was mango heaven for Hayden. The coffee was my favorite, it was lovely.

Liv chose Dark Chocolate/Cherry. They were both excellent. She loved her choice and our waiter laughed and said that she was the only one who made a logical pairing.

I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone. It was one of my favorites!

Tonight’s supper was a bust.

Published on June 7, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

Every single night (and day too,) we have tried something new to us for lunch and supper. New York is a wonderful place to do this. I mean think of the possibilities!

All four of us got something different so that we could mix and match our meals to be able to try the most dishes.

Tonight was a complete failure. We tried Haitian food.

Liv ordered the Mixed Vegetable sandwich with kale, sweet plantains, avacado, tomatoes and chickpea spread with fries. It was sooooo sweet!

Hayden chose the cod fish sandwich which had tomatoes and avacado on brioche. Uhmmmm, the best thing we all had to say about that was, nope. It was so, so fishy.

I ordered the burger with red onion chutney, roasted peppers and spiced herbed mayonnaise. One of the main reasons that I didn’t enjoy my meal was the excess mayo that was on it and they also MADE you choose between cheddar and swiss cheese. I don’t like cheese on my burger thanks. I also chose for my side, Akra. They are shredded vegetables fried into fritters. These were just okay, but had was too much batter instead of veggies.

Denton ordered the Griot pan fried pork shoulder with piklis and sos, fried plantains and a side of rice and beans. I think that this was the best dish we got. I loved the roasted red peppers and onions that came with the pork, but the pork was very, very dry.

So, all and all, we just didn’t enjoy our Haitian dinner. The next time we try it will be with one of Denton’s cousins who lived in Haiti for two years. I think this was just too different for us to go it alone on. Maybe next time will be better!

We won’t stop trying new things. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Flatiron building in New York.

Published on June 6, 2017June 6, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

Our adventure continues! Denton said that this photo would be a lot better if Spiderman was hanging off of the building.

Philadelphia is a beautiful city.

Published on June 5, 2017June 6, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

We are on vacation right now. I’ll post a proper post about it all soon.

Have YOU ever had a crapola vacation?

Published on August 16, 2016August 16, 2016 by TracieLeave a comment

Lovely, lovely place.

This morning when I was out and about, I was listening to Danny and Zack on the radio and their topic today was, “Have you ever had a crapola vacation?”. Uhmmmm, yeah.

A few years ago, we spent two amazing, solid weeks in Daytona Shores Beach, FL. It was a magical fortnight in our lives, because we had never taken a solid two weeks straight for vacation. It was heaven.

The beach was amazing. There was almost no one around. I loved it. It was perfect.

We had cloudy, rainy days that were perfect for my rain loving soul.

And perfect, sunny beach days that everyone else loved. And I cowered under my umbrella on the beach.

We had a great pool and sauna that I spent an inordinate amount of time in. (And lost 3 pounds those two weeks from all the swimming! Woo-hoo!)

I found multiple thrift stores to haunt for two weeks.

They were awesome!

We spent a marvelous afternoon in Orlando at the Eye. Check it out here.

We ate amazing food.

We browsed numerous bookstores, new and used.

This one was very weird. Interesting, but weird never-the-less.

Every thing about this vacation was perfect.

Except for the fact that the condo we were staying in for our splendid vacation was remodeling the unit above us. And we didn’t find out about it until we had been there for 3 days.

I’m not talking about some hammering. Nooooo. Full on jackhammers, steel cutting, grinding, explosion type sounds from 8:00 AM until 5:30 PM, every. single.weekday. (If I can find the video we made one morning I will upload it here.)

When I called downstairs to complain about the noise, they pretended ignorance. What!?! They informed me that Seychelles was not doing any work on any of their units. Seriously!

Oh, but guess what. Can you guess? Some of the units are owned PRIVATELY, and those owners can do anything they want to their units at any time, so long as it’s between the hours of 8:00 am and 5:00 PM during the workweek.

When I contacted the man who rented us the condo for the two weeks, he insisted it wasn’t his place to inform me that there COULD be construction work going on during our stay. When we talked to the owners in the elevators each day, they all, every single one of them, laughed and laughed.

One man actually told me that he had lived in the building for four years and he said that not a week had gone by that someone, somewhere in the building was doing some type of demo, construction work.

So beware sweet vacationer of where you intend to spend your well deserved vacation next summer.

And if it’s at Seychelle’s Condo’s in Daytona Beach Shores, FL, you might want to rethink it.

Yorktown 2016

Published on July 12, 2016 by TracieLeave a comment

We love the Williamsburg, Virginia area and part of that love is Yorktown. When the kids were little we did the tour of the Battlefields, which is a must see. But, this time we spent one whole day in Yorktown. It is a sweet little town that you must go and see! Here are the awesome photos!

Standing on the shore.

I don’t know these people…. they just walked into my pirate ship photo!

My daughter’s favorite place.

It was a sweet little book shop with great prices.

George Washington conversing with the French Admiral François Joseph Paul.I don’t remember what this thing is called, but the sign post said it is for tying up the ship’s with. Cool! Doesn’t it look like a giant pacifier!?!Standing on the pier, looking at the bridge on Hwy 17.Ahoy Matey! Sorry, I have to. My kids are so embarrassed by me.

It was a great day trip!! You should definitely go!

Helpful Hints for Water Country USA

Published on July 8, 2016July 12, 2016 by TracieLeave a comment

We’ve been in Williamsburg for the past week, and spent every single day at Busch Gardens, until yesterday that is.

Yesterday we went to Water Country USA. It was included in the tickets that we purchased for seven days.

First, I have to say, it was H.O.T.! 94 degrees hot with 150% humidity. OK, my family informed me that it wasn’t that bad, but people, there is a lot of humidity in this part of Virginia.

My very first tip to you if you are visiting and to me when we return here (because we always do) is to bring snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. When you go into Busch Gardens they check all of your bags thoroughly. When we went into Water Country USA people were bringing in stroller’s loaded down!

We brought lots of water with us but no snacks, and standing in the hot sun waiting to ride a water ride makes you seriously hungry. And hungry, hot people are not happy people. They have food courts everywhere but no one in my family is really partial to theme park food.

The weather made me want to lay down and cry like the sweet little Viking baby that was strapped to his Mama. He was so miserable, hot and sweaty, with his white blond hair sticking up in tufts. He and I both just wanted a cool hotel room and a nice soft bed to take a nap on.

Second, be prepared to stand in very long lines (think an hour) to slide down for 28 seconds. Seriously, we stood in line for the Colossal Curl for right at an hour, granted it was awesome, I just don’t know if it’s worth an hour for the slide.

II. Quick Queue. My family said we should have spent the $25.00 for EACH PERSON! for the quick queue. I don’t know…. $100.00 EXTRA….. Seriously, we should have spent the extra money. Flat-out that is the only way to spend your day at this water park. We spent waaaay more time standing in lines than we ever could have sliding down the water park ride goodness. Spend the money!

3rd. Water shoes. You need these in your life. Bare feet on blistering hot concrete is not fun. You can purchase these at the park but if you’re smart you’ll get them out of your closet at home because you paid $26.00 for them at the beach three years ago. Ahem.

If you have really small kids see the top tip above about the stroller’s. You definitely will want to bring one. This water park is just like Busch Gardens when it comes to getting from place to place. Everything is spaced pretty far apart and there are hills, lots and lots of hills. With lots of tired, crying children. You’ll thank me later. Plus, storage for all of your snacks!

We enjoyed our time here, but the biggest bang for our buck is at Busch Gardens and the roller coasters, so that is where we are headed today.

Have fun and enjoy your stay!

Randomness on a Thursday.

Published on July 7, 2016July 26, 2016 by TracieLeave a comment

We have been vacationing for the past week in Williamsburg, Yorktown, and the Newport News part if Virginia. Here are some random bits you might be interested in.

We took a drive over to Virginia Beach yesterday, because a vacation isn’t complete for me unless I force my family to let me put my feet in the ocean.

We saw this on the way over. As my hubs said ” That’s some big a$$ed cranes”.

This is the hotel that Denton was staying at in January of 19 and 94 (you know in the olden days) when he saw snow for the very first time.

We saw two osprey’s fly over the beach. Cool!

I don’t have a photo, but a homeless man followed us for almost twelve blocks yesterday and went through every single garbage can on each block. He carried a little shopping bag and his cigarette in one hand and went through the garbage with the other.

Found a parking meter that you can pay with a card. It only took us about 15 minutes to figure out how to use it. Remember tiny town people.

Ahhh, the sand and the ocean. Love, love, love it!

What cool and random things have you done this week?