by Jim Bellomo | Jul 3, 2021 | Uncategorized
If this post comes off as a little loopy it's because we had to leave Mike and Cathy's house this morning at 2:15 am to get to the airport for our flight to Quito. So please forgive any omissions or mistakes. Plus I am writing it in our Quito hotel room where the altitude is 9,000 plus feet.
I finished the last post before we left for dinner and a concert on Thursday so I wanted to drop a little bit in here to finish up our visit with Mike and Cathy. On Thursday night we went to a free community concert that Mike and Cathy go to all the time. And then on Friday we did a super relaxing "yacht tour" of the intercostal waterway from Delray Beach south for a few miles. Saw lots of cool boats and houses and drawbridges. Then it was back to Cathy's house for an awesome pot roast farewell dinner. The next morning Mike actually got up at 1:45 to take us to the airport. That's a true friend. And you would think it could be sad to take our leave of these friends but we aren't that distraught as we are staying another night with them on our way home.
Make new friends and keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold.
Joseph Perry
by Jim Bellomo | Jul 1, 2021 | Food Experiences
Day 1
Our first day of travel started with a pickup by Century Car Service out of Seattle. We have used a variety of car services to get to the airport in the past but our neighbor and best buddy Lisa recommended these guys as people that she had used personally and when making arrangements for her team at Microsoft so we decided to give them a try. We are glad we did. Not only did our driver arrive on time but he called us the night before to verify the pickup time and advise us that our day to fly was going to be VERY busy so maybe we would want to get picked up 15 minutes earlier. That's service. We said yes and when I went to open the garage door to watch for his 5:30 arrival at 5:15, he was already parked in front of the house.
At SEA in plenty of time, got through TSA pre-check in minutes and were sitting in the Concourse C First Class lounge in no time. Had a nice (if pre-packaged) breakfast before our flight and then off we went on Alaska Air to Fort Lauderdale. A totally full but thoroughly enjoyable flight. Great service, not too bumpy until landing and even then the Captain set her down beautifully.
Got our bags and called for our car service to pick us up. We were using Mike & Cathy Limos out of Wellington, Florida ?. Seriously, we were picked up by Mike Priesman, one of our oldest friends and his new lady love, Cathy, one of our newest. We headed north with a dinner stop at what is probably my favorite traditional Greek restaurant outside of Greece, Chris' Taverna. They serve my favorite food in the best way possible—incredibly fresh and it's incredibly good. A bare minimum of sauce—my octopus was perfect, my trip complete—NOT. But it was really good.
After dinner we headed back to Cathy's gorgeous house where I slept so darned well you would have thought I was on vacation ?. If you are looking for a place to stay in South Florida, we highly recommend it. Great bed, super water pressure, lots of hot water, the owner/manager is a sweetheart but you have to watch out for the bellhop. He's a little strange.
Day 2
After a wonderful nights sleep and a superb breakfast we were picked up by the Cathy & Mike Tour Company who took us to see the Jupiter Lighthouse. It's a really pretty and very historical lighthouse in Jupiter (former home of Burt Reynolds and current home of Tiger Woods) just north of where we are staying. The still-functioning lighthouse is a great subject for photography and you can climb the 100+ step spiral staircase and step out onto the deck that runs all the way around the outside.
Only problem we ran into was...thunder and lightning. As soon as I got to the top and stepped out onto the platform, I heard the attendant tell the people behind me (Mike and Cathy) that, "Sorry, we have to send everyone back down because of the weather." Of course I was already outside so I continued around the platform taking photos and that's what you see above.
While I was shooting I could see the lightening not that far away and when the first huge clap of thunder hit I got myself off that platform in a big hurry. We were down and gone to the Visitor's Center where they were kind enough to refund our admission even though I told them I had gotten up there for a few minutes. They said I should have been able to stay longer and it was very nice of them insisting on the refund. The lighthouse (on a non-stormy day) is a cool experience and I highly recommend stopping by if you are in the area.
Next up was lunch at Square Grouper, a fun hole-in-the-wall, right-on-the-water spot just across the waterway from the lighthouse. I got to try what I was told by Mike and Cathy is a Florida delicacy—Mahi Mahi sandwich. A big blackened Mahi Mahi fillet sandwich with cheese and grilled onions. It came with some of the best fries have had in years.
This about covered our day so far. Tonight we are going to a free concert in a nearby park and tomorrow doing a scenic boat tour on the Intercoastal Waterway. This tour company is awesome!
Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse. —Charles Dickens
by Jim Bellomo | Jun 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
Yesterday I started this post to detail a huge problem we ran into with our flights on Sunday/Monday. But it all got figured out and we are ready to go…to the Galapagos. So let’s concentrate on the positive because we are all packed and ready to go!
To be honest, first we are going to South Florida to visit with our good buddy Mike and to meet his new girlfriend, Cathy. We will spend three nights with them and then Mike (who is an INCREDIBLE friend) will drive us to the airport at horrible-o’clock in the morning so we can catch our new flight to Quito via Panama City, Panama on Copa Air. (I promise to come back and detail the problems we have had with the cruise line about our air in a future post).
I am just doing this post so you can remember to come back here on a regular basis from July 3 through July 11. I will be doing my best to post a report everyday with photos so that those of you who have never been to the Galapagos can follow along with us.
I am also going to try something new—video. So that’s why you can see my face above this post. Not sure if it will work, but I am going to do my best. Kathleen gave me a GoPro for Christmas 2019 when we thought we would be doing this trip last summer and I will be taking it with me for lots of short video clips. I am especially hoping to capture some great underwater stuff while we are snorkeling.
Lastly, if you have friends who can’t travel right now that you might think would be interested, drop them our URL (www.redmondtravel.com) and tell them to sign up so they get notifications when I post. In the meantime, wish us luck!
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  —Saint Augustine
by Jim Bellomo | Jun 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
Do you train for travel?
I do. The older I get, the more I feel the need to train before we take a trip. It’s something I highly recommend if you travel extensively like we do. It can really make your trip a whole bunch better, especially if your trip will involve more physical activity than you are used to.
I started thinking about this post today while I was out hiking/walking. Many of you know that I do a lot of walking. (More about that later that you can choose to ignore.) But today I switched into travel training mode. I bet you are thinking, “what’s the difference and why did you switch?”
The first difference is the shoes. Here at home when I walk every day I wear New Balance shoes designed for walking and running. They are a great shoe that I love and they look like typical athletic shoes. But on our upcoming Galapagos trip I won’t even bring those shoes. They are for walking city sidewalks, bike paths and maintained trails in parks. The Galapagos are all about hiking up hillsides, hiking on hardened lava and walking on beaches. So today I shifted from my regular walking shoes to hiking boots. I will try to wear them at least three times a week until we go later this month. I will also start wearing my Teva sandals just around town to get ready to wear those as well.
Which brings to my first point—if you are going to be doing more walking than you usually do, start walking a month or so before and get yourself up to the distances you will be walking on your trip on as close to the terrain type as you can get. Wear the shoes/boots/sandals you plan on walking in. Nothing ruins a trip involving walking like a blister on the first day or finding out you left the shoes you should have taken at home.
You need to do this even if you aren’t going to be climbing all over lava rocks. If you never walk on cobblestones and then you go on a cruise/trip that involves a day of walking on very hard surfaces, you will have problems if your feet, legs and back aren’t ready for those.
As I mentioned above, today I shifted to hiking boots and that also meant that I changed my route as well. Since the start of the pandemic, I have been avoiding a lot of the trails around here like the plague ? because there are far too many people. We have an excellent bunch of walking trails but they are just too crowded and many of the people walking on them these last few months have been maskless. So sometime in April of 2020 I switched my walking to mostly streets. With all the good trails, the sidewalks here get very little use.
But today I switched to a hiking trail with some actual elevation. It is also unpaved with some nice rocks and dirt to practice on. It won’t be like the lava and high hills I will see in the Galapagos but it will get me started training for those. I did this in 2019 when we went to Europe. I had set a goal of climbing Arthur’s Seat, the hill/mountain/crag that overlooks Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s a pretty long uphill for me since I am  used to walking on primarily flat streets and trails. So about a month before we left, I put on my hiking boots and started doing this same trail on a regular basis. It really helped as I was able to climb Arthur’s Seat at dawn and take some incredible pics…even with my knee in a brace.
We have also tried to do sleep training in the past. Notice I said tried. I have read about people who will stay up late or get up early to adjust their sleep schedule to their destination. That way they don’t lose one or two days at the start of a trip to just trying to stay awake. We tried to do this on the first few trips we took but since we have been able to fly business or first class we haven’t worried about it as much. When we fly to Europe now we love to take off in the early evening (like most non-stops do from Seattle), have dinner and then go to sleep. But that only works for me if I have a lie-flat seat like you get in international business or first class. (Ah, the joys of having a lot of miles.)
Of course part of our training for a big trip is to diet. I hate dieting but I know there is good chance I will gain weight on any kind of trip, so we try to cut back in the weeks before knowing we need to do that to even it off. But the physical training can help with that as well. Let me know in the comments if you do anything like this to get your body ready for the rigors of travel.
Bragging begins here so ignore it if you want to
Just a few quick words about something that I have been doing the last four years and an app recommendation to go with it. You all know (just by reading this post) that I have been walking…A LOTÂ since this (the pandemic) all started. I was actually doing some long walks before it started but just once or twice a week. Since last March I have been walking pretty much six days a week alternating between four and six miles every other day.
How do I know how far I am going? Because I found this awesome FREE app from Under Armour (the fitness clothing company) called Map My…Walk (or Run, Bike Ride or anything else you want it to keep track of distance-wise). Everyday when I go out to walk, the app comes along with me on my phone or Apple Watch. I start it up when I leave the house and it tracks me as I walk. One of the things I love is that it measures how far I go by GPS tracking as opposed to steps. Since I am tall, I take longer steps than most people so if it measures steps (like most apps), I have to go further (for ME) to do the same distance. Here’s today’s walk at right.
The app also announces my miles to me as I am going. At the end of each mile the app says into my AirPods, “Distance—two miles, time—31 minutes, average pace—15. something minutes per mile (I do my best to stay under 16 minutes per mile), split pace (my last mile) 16 minutes per mile (went up a hill or stopped to take a pic). It is a great way for me to keep track of my pace and my distance.
One other thing that I love about the app is that it not only keeps track of how far I have walked today but once I am home, I can save my walk and it uploads to the Map My Walk website where I can access it whenever I want. That means I can go back and find out how many miles I have walked over a particular time. Here are my May walks.
Since the website shows me my distance and workouts/walks by month I decided to add up those months and see how far I had walked over two different measures of time. I wanted to know how far I had walked since I found the app in 2017 and how far I have walked since the pandemic started when I really started increasing my distance and the number of days I am walking. I have to say—it really surprised me. As of today, since March 3 (the day we came home from our Mardi Gras cruise that we mark as the start of Covid for us) I have walked 2,817 miles (that’s 4,533 kilometers for those of you in Canada ?).
I started using the app in August of 2017. Since then I have walked 4,168 miles (again, that’s 6708 in Canadian). Did I mention that the app and all this tracking are FREE! Yup, it’s a free app available on the App Store but one I would gladly pay for. They do have an upgraded version you can pay for but I am very happy with the one I have.
The funny part about all this walking is that my dad used to walk like this. He did about 5 miles a day since he retired in his early 70s and we used to kid him that he just did it to get out of the house and away from our Mom for a few hours a day. And here I am doing the same thing…except I am doing it to keep myself sane and to eat like I want to. I tell Kathleen it gives her a chance to have her boyfriend come by ?.
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
Muhammad Ali
by Jim Bellomo | May 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
If you may recall from my last installment we found out that we are going to be able to take our July 4 Galapagos Island cruise on Celebrity's Flora. We had heard about all this on a TA-only Celebrity webinar that we watched three weeks ago tomorrow.
Of course the very first morning after the announcement we wanted to get all our plans set up. We had originally planned on flying from Seattle to Los Angeles on Alaska Air (our hometown airline) about three days before we were flying to Quito, Ecuador. While in the area we would see my brother and sister-in-law and spend a couple of days doing LA fun stuff. Then we would board our flight to Quito on Friday July second, spend a full day on Saturday touring Quito with Celebrity before heading to the Galapagos themselves on Sunday. We were also scheduled to spend an extra day in Quito after we visited the islands.
But Celebrity has wisely decided that even though most people on the islands are vaccinated, the COVID situation in mainland Ecuador is not a good one. So they have shortened our trip from 11 days to nine. That was OK with us as this trip is all about the Galapagos.
But now we had to redo all our flights because we would be leaving out of LA a day later than we thought and coming back a day earlier. So I got on the phone with Celebrity (they had booked our Quito flights as part of our package) to find out when the new times would be so I could change our other arrangements that would get us to and from LAX.
Besides the fact that they told me they couldn't be sure of anything for a least a week, when they finally sent me the itinerary, it had changed a WHOLE BUNCH! We had originally been scheduled to fly on Copa Air (the national airline of Panama) from LAX leaving at 11:30 AM and arriving in Quito at 9:30 pm our time. We had about a 2 hour layover in Panama City which was OK for us.
The new schedule had us leaving LAX at 2:30 AM!!! And then we had an almost nine hour layover in Panama City, still taking the same Panama to Quito flight we had been on originally that got us in at 11:30 pm. Now I fully realize that some people like flying red-eye flights but we are not two of those people. That would mean missing a night of sleep as we would have to stay up to get on the plane and then even if we were in Business class and had lay-down seats, by the time we got to sleep, we would be landing not to mention the really long layover in an airport we don't know in a country that still has major COVID problems. At our age (seems like I say that a lot ?) we would be wiped out for about two days of the cruise. So this flight was out for us.
I jumped online and started looking for flights either from LAX or SEA but no dice. Either we left really early in the morning (like 2:30) or the previous afternoon and would have to spend the night in an airport, there was basically nothing. We were just not sure how this was going to work out so I decided to take my daily walk and see if just getting out would give me an idea. Walking often does that.
Sure enough, I came up with an idea that Kathleen actually liked ?. My idea was, let's find a non-stop flight to Quito from someplace in the United States, fly to that city the night before and then fly to Quito the next morning. Now we had to pick a city to fly to that had a non-stop to Quito. The airlines made that easy because you can really only fly to Quito on a non-stop from very few airports. We were kind of limited to Houston, Atlanta or Miami.
When I said Miami we both looked at each other and said, "YES!" We decided right then and there that this was the way we wanted to go. One of our best friends in the world, the god of shore excursions, Mike Preisman lives just north of Fort Lauderdale and we will pretty much take any reason to go and visit him. Plus, since the last time we saw him (March 2020) he has met and fallen head over heels for his new lady friend, Cathy. And even though we have met her on FaceTime we really want to meet her in person...and now we will. So we will spend three days with them and have fun in sunny, hot and humid Florida. Not only that, Mike is such a great guy he volunteered to pick us up in Fort Lauderdale and drop us off three days later at MIA.
Our flight from MIA to Quito is only four hours. I always forget that Quito, Ecuador is just about directly south of Miami, Florida and it's in our Central time zone. This makes for a nice medium length flight. And because we had been cancelled on this cruise last year and chose to rebook it, we had some bonus dollars to spend which we used to upgrade to Business Class on American Airlines. The other thing we love is that this flight leaves and gets in at a "normal" time. We fly out at 8:30 am and get in at about 12:30 pm. Our sleep cycle should stay intact and we should have an awesome cruise.
One of the things I love about the flight (Kathleen seems kind of unimpressed) is that on our way down we are flying on a Boeing 787. We have never flown on a Dreamliner before and I am really looking forward to the experience. On the way home we just get a 737...boring. But by then we will be so thrilled about the trip to the islands we have just completed (or so exhausted) that we won't care what plane we fly home on.
Once in Quito, we will be spending the night at the EB Hotel (at least as of now that is Celebrity's plan) which is near the airport. Then the next morning (Sunday the 4th) while you are prepping your fireworks and barbecues, we will fly from Quito to Baltra (the main air gateway to the Galapagos) via chartered air. We are then on the ship/boat/yacht for seven nights before flying back to Quito, spending the night and then flying back to Miami, spending another night with Mike and Cathy and then home on the 13th.
We are pretty much all set now. We do have to find a place near Mike and Cathy's to get a COVID test within 96 hours of flying to Quito. Once we have that we will be given another test before we board the ship and another when we get off the ship. The 96 hour one has to be the nose swab but the two on the ship are the spit-in-a-tube type.
The entire crew as well as all passengers are required to provide proof of vaccination. We have also been told that 98% of the people living on the islands (there are only about 25,000 people living there) have been vaccinated as well. Besides, once we get on the ship/boat/yacht we won't see another human that isn't part of our cruise until the next to last day when we stop in the only town on the trip. The rest of the time all the stops are just to see flora and fauna.
Speaking of flora, our ship/boat/yacht is named Flora and we have found out that she NEVER docks. We take a zodiac-type tender out to board her and we do the same when leaving or doing any shore excursion. Plus Flora is built to never drop anchor. To not disturb the sea floor she was designed with a system that uses the propulsion system to stay in one place in the water. Pretty cool.
You can be sure that we will be sending you updates and photos from the islands so watch this space for a complete virtual tour of your own. All of that dependent on the quality of their internet connections and the amount of time I have to write and process photos. If you would like to see some amazing shots from a crew member of Flora check out Marvi Cordova on Instagram. She is not only a crew member but an incredible photographer. I plan on asking her lots and lots of questions. I stole the photo of Flora at the top of this post from her.
The only thing I like about air travel is it gives me time to read.
Jane Lindskold
