We kicked off our 20th anniversary trip by driving up to Montreal ahead of our flight to St. Johns. We figured it was just as easy to fly out of Montreal as it was to fly from Boston and then have a layover in Detroit or Toronto. The drive up was not too bad and we were able to check in to the hotel, Château de L’Argoat. It was a very hot day and we spent most of the afternoon wandering the streets of the city. We had crepes at Cafe Et Crepe and later in the afternoon had coffee at Le Petit Dep. It was the jazz festival weekend so we were able to catch a little live music outside. After resting a little back at the hotel we had a lovely dinner at Omnivore Grill. Despite not having done much planning ahead of time we managed to have an enjoyable afternoon and evening in Montreal.

After a busy Austin Trip 2025: Day Three our last full day in Austin didn’t have quite as much planned. As always we started the day with coffee and tried out Fleet Coffee despite it being about a 20 minute walk from the hotel. Breakfast was the hotel buffet again, which was really a homerun for costs and the food selection was great compared to your usual continental breakfast.

The original plan for the day was to go to UMLAUF Sculpture Garden, but we called an audible and went to Zilker Botanical Garden instead. It was the perfect size place to fill out morning and had some really interesting sections, my favorite was definitely the Oriental gardens and its cool stone paths over the water. It also had a neat dinosaur section with some great water features.

Our final excursion was to Inner Space Cavern just north of Austin. Texas used to be a shallow ocean and so there are a ton of caves throughout the state. The Inner Space Cavern was only about thirty minutes outside of the city so after a quick stop for lunch we signed up for a tour. We were hoping to do the “Hidden Passages” tour, but due to some staffing issues they weren’t able to run the tour while we were there. Instead we were able to go on the “Adventure” tour which is a mile long guided tour through a cave on walkways. It was really great and we saw some beautiful caverns with stalagtites and stalagmites. After returning to the surface we drove back to the hotel, which concluded our venturing out with the rental car.

The kids were toast, but Jen wanted to go look for souvenirs so we walked back to SoCo. We found a really cool local store Paper Work and picked up an ornament. We stopped by Allen’s Boots to check out the amazing selection of boots. They have so many amazing designs and styles with all different shapes and sizes. It is a little out of our price range, but it was worth checking out. We visited a couple more shops before returning to the hotel room.

For our last dinner the kids requested sushi so we went to Maiko Sushi Lounge. I had a great bowl of fried rice and the rest of the family loved their sushi. After dinner we walked a few blocks for dessert at Voodoo Doughnuts and I had the “Old Dirty Bastard” - Raised ring with chocolate frosting, chocolate cream-filled cookies, and peanut butter drizzle. It was a great way to end the last evening of our trip.

Following a relatively relaxed Austin Trip 2025: Day Two the third full day of our trip was the most action packed day we had planned so far. We started a little earlier at [Desnudo Coffee](desnudocoffee.com] and then woke the kids up for a quick breakfast.

The big event for the trip was an ATV tour about an hour outside of Austin with Texas Adventours. The waiver process and instructions are pretty detailed, so being the anxious rule followers we are this mean leaving extra early and double checking every thing. We arrived pretty early at the front gate and made our way up to the barn. We completed all the necessary training procedures and took a few picture before getting in the UTV. Kaleb was the driver and I was the copilot of sorts.

Our guide led us through several different trails around the Lighthouse Hill Ranch. It involved all different types of terrain and obstacles for us to navigate. I had my Insta360 camera and did a bunch of recording of both video and photos. Kaleb did a great job driving and knew how to approach each of the different technical terrain features. The tour was an hour long, but flew by. The country out there is really beautiful and we lucked out with the weather being warm, but there still being a nice breeze to keep us cool.

Lunch was up next and we drove down to Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood. The location is huge and must be packed during summer weekends, but on this Tuesday there were only a few dozen people dining. For my drink I tried a Big Red soda and it was great with a flavor like bubble gum. My meal was a giant pulled pork sandwich with beans, coleslaw and potato salad. The sandwich was phenomenal even if it was a bit messy, and the beans were the best I have ever had. We got some desserts to go and continued on our big Texas adventure.

The final stop was at the Hamilton Pool Preserve. The small nature preserve has limited availability and we had to reserve a spot a few weeks in advance. We booked the afternoon time slot which goes from 2pm to 5:30pm. I was a little nervous at first when the park ranger mentioned how there were Cottonmouth snakes around and to be snake aware. The trail to the pool was pretty short and we saw a baby armadillo digging through the leaves along the path. The pool itself was amazing and the water was crystal clear and had a bunch of big catfish swimming in it. They have some of the pool roped off because of rocks falling in, but you can go out to a very deep spot. We hung out there for a couple hours and enjoyed the nice weather. Before hopping in the car we ate our desserts from Salt Lick and drove back to the hotel.

While we were resting in the hotel thunderstorms rolled in and we thought we would be stuck in for the night, but right around sunset the rain stopped. I asked my wife if she wanted to go check out the bats again and we quickly made our way outside. The bats had started flying out before we got there, but we were still able to watch them for about twenty minutes before it was too dark to see them. The river was so still and the reflection of the skyline looked amazing from the bridge. Now we needed to find some dinner before calling it a day. Initially we hoped to go to the mexican restaurant at the edge of the river, but it was closed due to a maintenance issue. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we ventured up to 6th street for Velvet Taco. They have some really unique flavors of tacos and they were so good. I went with the Spicy tikka chicken taco - crisp tenders, spicy tikka sauce, buttered cilantro basmati rice, raita crema, Thai basil, flour tortilla. It was delicious and was the perfect way to end our busiest day.

After exploring the city during Austin Trip 2025: Day One, we decided to venture a bit further from the center. Jen and I crossed the bridge to grab a coffee at Desnudo Coffee. The coffee is served from a cozy camping trailer right next to the bridge, so we didn’t have to travel far. Back at the hotel, we woke up the kids and had a delicious breakfast together before hitting the road. Our next stop was the Austin Nature & Science Center. It’s a small place designed for younger kids, but it had some cool animals and beautiful grounds, including a pond filled with lily pads.

Next up was a quick lunch at Modern Market. I had a yummy banh mi sandwich, which was a lighter lunch compared to our burger bar adventure the previous day. Once we were all fueled up, we headed to Barton Springs Pool. One of the parking lots was under construction, so it took a while to find a spot, but we were lucky enough to get one close to the entrance. Inside the park, I was amazed by the size of the pool. It’s about 1000 feet long and up to 150 feet wide! Due to construction, we had to walk around the pool to change into our swimsuits, but we eventually made our way onto the hillside under the trees. The water is always around 70 degrees because it’s a spring-fed pool. We spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing under the big trees. We also had a few fun moments watching a family of ducks with about eight ducklings swimming around and wandering on the sidewalk next to the pool.

A few hours later, we headed back to the hotel, changed, and then strolled to the SoCo shopping district. The day before, we had already had burgers and Mexican food, so we were trying to decide what to have for dinner. As we climbed the hill, the enticing aroma of pizza filled the air, and I knew exactly what we were in for. Home Slice Pizza was buzzing with activity, and we had heard great things about it. We ordered a few slices and enjoyed them on the patio. After dinner, we explored the area a bit more before indulging in some delicious dessert at Jeni’s Ice Cream. Jennifer and I had tried it in Chicago a few years back, and it was even better than I remembered. They offer such unique flavors that are simply mouthwatering.

Ten years after my first visit to Austin for ApacheCon, we decided to return for a school vacation trip. We flew out of Boston early Saturday afternoon, with a quick layover in Atlanta. We landed in Austin around 9pm and checked into the Embassy Suites hotel on Congress Street.

On Sunday morning, we woke up and enjoyed the hotel’s free breakfast buffet before heading out to explore downtown Austin. Our first stop was Houndstooth Coffee, and it was delicious! We continued up Congress Street and checked out the grounds of the state capitol. There are several different areas and monuments to visit. Next, we went to an outdoor park at the northern end of a greenway with lots of cool walkways and an interesting river running through it. We meandered back towards the hotel and stopped at the Museum of the Weird. It was a small museum, but it had some strange and interesting items on display, like shrunken heads, wax sculptures, and even the Iceman!

The kids were starting to grumble about food, so we headed back to Congress street and grabbed some burgers at Burger Bar. The burgers were great and gave us the energy boost we needed for the next part of our adventure. Jennifer had found a book store she wanted to check out in the West End of the city, so we went to the riverfront and followed the trails along the water. It was a long and hot walk, but we finally made it to Book People - the biggest bookstore in Texas! It was nice and cool inside with all sorts of cool sections to explore. Across the street was a shop that makes rolled ice cream, Frozen Rolls Creamery. We had never tried rolled ice cream before, and it was so much fun to watch them make it. It was getting late in the afternoon and we were all beat, so we walked back to the hotel through the pedestrian bridge. The weather was sunny all day, and we managed to cover a lot of downtown Austin.

After resting in the hotel for a couple of hours, we decided it was the perfect night to watch the bats emerge from under the Congress street bridge. We ordered burritos from Free Birds World Burritos, picked them up, and then sat in the park next to the bridge to wait for the emergence. We arrived about an hour before sunset, and the park quickly filled up with people. A few minutes after sunset, the bats started flying out from under the bridge over the park. They kept flying for at least another half an hour before it was too dark to see them easily. We did go up onto the bridge and looked down, which made it a bit easier to see them. It was still a bit early, so we wandered downtown in search of some sweets and found Yummi Joy for some candy.

Last weekend, my wife and I went on a weekend getaway to Chicago and had a fantastic time. I think it was the first time we went on a flight somewhere without the kids since our trip to Iceland back in 2014. We flew Southwest out of Manchester, NH on Friday night and landed at Chicago Midway around 8:30. On the ride to the hotel, I ordered my first pizza of the weekend from Giordano’s. It took about an hour for it to get delivered to the hotel, but it was really good.

In the morning we woke up and went out for breakfast at Goddess and the baker. I had a cinnamon roll cruffin and had a hard time figuring out whether to use a fork and knife or just use my hands.

We checked out Cloud Gate sculpture, aka the Bean

I had another slice of pizza from the The Art of Pizza

Next we went to the Field Museum

Wandered by the waterfront before dinner.

Had an amazing tapas dinner at Mercat

The capstone of the visit was checking out the famous Pizza Pot Pie from Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Company

Another highlight was seeing riding bikes along the lakefront using Divvy rental bikes.

Fantastic day in Chicago! Pizza, museums, tapas, lots of walking and ice cream.

Weekend getaway to Chicago. I am very excited to finally have the deep dish pizza.

Another Memorable Trip to Lost River

One more from the Mt Moosilaukee hike

Irving Nature Park just south of Saint John, New Brunswick

Lake sunset

Here are a few points of interest I love to visit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

There are a few general areas to visit.

The Mount Washington area

There are a few different attractions right around Mount Washington. There are also a few spots to eat in Gorham, just north of the area.

Growing up my dad would ensure that we took at least one trip up the Mount Washington Auto Road.

The Glen Ellis Falls are amazing and only a short walk from the main road.

Storyland is an amusement park in the area.

North Conway

The hub of the White Mountains always has tons of activities and food opportunities.

Take a ride on the Conway Scenic Railway

I love driving the Kancamagus highway and always make a point of stopping at Rocky Gorge to wander along the river.

Check out the rock climbers as they ascend Cathedral Ledge

Interstate 93 Corridor

You can make a whole day of activities on the Interstate 93 corridor. There are several activities and some great spots to eat in the Lincoln/Woodstock area.

Explore the caves at the Lost River Gorge

Loon Mountain has lots of activities at the top and bottom of the mountain.

Take a leisurely walk through the woods and visit the Flume Gorge

Check out the Lonesome Lake Hike if you are looking for a good introduction to hiking in the White Mountains.

Pirates Cove Mini Golf Lincoln NH

Newport, Rhode Island trip

One more from the weekend in Boothbay Harbor

Sunset over Boothbay Harbor

We recently rented a house on Pearly Pond in Rindge, NH and I walked around the nearby Franklin Pierce University campus. They recently set up a disc golf course and after two trips to the campus I was able to put together this map of the course showing all nine tees and holes. I couldn’t find any information about it online so I thought I would share it here.

Vacation is over and now I have 691 photos and over 11GB of video to sift through. I think I need a vacation just to take care of it.

Drove over 12 hours only to find out that the beach in North Carolina is virtually the same as the one 15 minutes from home. Maybe it is a little warmer. #vacationmode

Another family vacation in the books. Who would have thought vacation would be so exhausting? #contradictingtween #drivedrivedrive #siblingrivalry #waspstings #letsjustgohome #meandad #wearenotperfecteither #familytime

Finally reached our vacation destination. #capebretonisland #timeforsleep #drivedrivedrive

Vacation!

If you find yourself in Iceland for a couple of days here are my recommendations based on my trip there in 2014.

Blue Lagoon

If your time is very limited the closest attraction to Keflavik airport is Blue Lagoon It is a little pricey, but is an amazing and unqiue experience.

Downtown Reykjavik

The next closest attraction is downtown Reykjavik main shopping area, Laugavegur street. It is about a 40 minute drive from the airport and has lots of shops and a few different attractions. I highly recommend a little bakery called Sandholt. The food was great and it ended up being our go to place for starting our day.

The other stop we made each day was for coffee, of course, and the best place we found was Reykjavik Roasters. The espresso was fantastic and their croissants were very tasty.

While wandering downtown you should walk out to the harbor and check out the modern looking Harpa Concert Hall

Up the hill from the harbor is a statue of Leif Eriksson next to the Church of Hallgrímur

Finally, if you happen to be downtown in the evening or late night you should check out the amazing hot dogs at Bæjarins beztu pylsur.

Golden Circle

Besides the Blue Lagoon the second thing you are most likely to hear about Iceland is the Golden Circle. It is a tourist loop that starts near Reykjavik and takes people to several different geologically significant features.

One of the attractions on the northern end of the loop is Gullfoss. It is a huge waterfall with a great visitor center and a nice lunch spot.

Heading back towards Reykjavik on the loop you will come to Geysir. It is a pretty small area with several different hot spring related features include a couple different geysers and multiple boiling mud pits. Here is an image of one of the larger geysers.

One of my favorite stops on the Golden Circle was Althing in Thingvellir National Park. It is the boundary of the North American and European tectonic plates and makes for some dramatic terrain.

Southern Iceland

If you choose to skip the Golden Circle, but want to check out something slightly less touristy head a couple hours east of Reykjavik towards Skogar. The road there will let you experience many different types of terrain you will find in Iceland. After driving across a long flat plain you will see your first big waterfall, Seljalandsfoss. It is a great place to stop and take some photos before continuing along the shore in front of one of the large glaciers on the island.

A little further east of there is the waterfall you have probably seen in every video about Iceland, Skogafoss It is huge and has a long staircase you can climb to get to the top of it. However, if you have some extra time once you are at the top of the big waterfall you can climb over a little barrier and follow a hiking trail that follows the river uphill with some amazing views of some smaller waterfalls.
Finally you will arrive at the Skogar Museum, where you can learn about Iceland and explore some classic Icelandic structures.

Assorted travel tips:

• The exchange rate at the time of this post is about 108 Krona to 1 dollar, so just drop the last two numbers of the krona price to get a comparable dollar value. 500 krona pastry would be 5 dollars.
• We rented a car so we could “choose our own adventure”, but there are many tour groups that can take you to all of the above attractions.
• Most people speak English, but as always it helps to learn some words, Icelandic Phrasebook

Vacation in Florida means it is time for iced coffees again.

Foxy loxy #pei #canada #vacation

Crab #summervacation #canada #pei

Time for vacation! Of course we went to see a waterfall.

Last full day of vacation. Trying to get in as much pool time as possible. #curlyfish

My wife and I recently decided to go on our first parents only vacation to Puerto Rico. Now like any true geek dad, near the top of the required list for any vacation is the camera and the laptop (anything else can easily be replaced). Over the years each of these items has improved to bring us to the killer pair of a Canon Rebel T1i and a late 2006 MacBook, today.  Since we were trying to pack extra light I thought it would be the perfect time to try to go laptop free for a vacation. Note I said laptop free, but not tablet or smartphone free.  The iPad 2 and iPhone 4 rarely leave my sight and this trip would be no exception.  The iPhone would help us navigate the island and also let me tweet all about our vacation.  The iPad 2 would be my all purpose media source (books, movies and games) and more importantly using FaceTime we could video chat with the boys back at home.

So the first problem of video chatting was solved, by the iPad 2.  However, I still had two other problems to overcome before I would truly be able to enjoy my vacation.

Problem 1: No WiFi
It may be hard to believe, but after calling the hotel we found out that each room had free wired internet access, but WiFi was only available in common areas.  As much as I would love to do all my video chatting from the lobby of the hotel and all my web browsing on my phone over 3G; I had to get WiFi in the room.  I quickly ruled out lugging my Airport Extreme on vacation, so I quickly searched for travel modems and found the Zoom 4506 3G Travel WiFi Router.
It is a small WiFi router with an internal battery and also relatively native support for 3G data modems.  Most of the reviews were good plus it was only like $75 so I took a chance.  Once I got it home I set it up and began testing.  It was pretty easy to set up and after all my testing I was ready to go.

Problem 2: Downloading Photos from the Camera
The one thing I like to do on vacation is to upload photos while we are on vacation, to show friends and family what we are up to and also to take care of the work of doing while I have spare time.  Again the iPad 2 doesn’t have native support for uploading photos from a camera.  Of course there is the Apple Photo Connector from Apple for $40, but I make it a point to avoid buying Apple brand adapters if possible (too expensive).  Lucky for me the Eye-Fi company had just announced a new version of their iOS application that would allow “Direct Mode” transfers from certain Eye-Fi cards.  Basically what this means is if you were out in the middle of the woods the Eye-Fi card can set itself up as a WiFi base station and the iOS device can connect to the network for transferring photos.  The previous version of the app supported transfer of photos, but it would only work if both devices were on the same wireless network. Since I also needed more storage space for my camera this seemed to be the best route.  For only a little more than a standard 8GB SD card I picked up the Eye-Fi Pro
Once the Eye-Fi card arrived I also did some dry runs with it at home.  The setup on this was a little more complex and took me quite a bit longer than the wireless router.  The one thing I found most frustrating was the apparent limitation of linking the card up to only one iOS device in direct mode at a time.  I was able to get both the iPhone and iPad configured to connect in Direct Mode with the card, but once I shut down the wireless network only one of the iOS devices would receive photos.  I don’t exactly know why it works this way, but I have to assume there was some good reason for it.  In the end I had it working as I wanted prior to leaving.

In The Field
I packed all my essentials, made it through the stressful process of security at the airport and made it to our hotel in Puerto Rico. In practice the Eye-Fi worked flawlessly, the iPad quickly found it and the photos whizzed over the 802.11n connection.  When we were in the airport I actually turned on the camera, fired up the app and let the iPad download the photos while it was in my bag.  I think it took about an hour and a half to download 300 photos in RAW format (~15-20MB each).  I was very impressed with it and found it to be a great investment.

I didn’t have the same luck with the Zoom modem. Initially when I plugged it into the ethernet port in our room it was connected, the iPad could get on the network, but couldn’t reach the network.  I played around with the IP settings and eventually got it to work.  However, the next morning it didn’t work again.  Let me disclaimer here that I think the problem was not with the router but instead with the network settings in the hotel.  In the end we were able to pick up WiFi in our room from the lobby so it worked out okay.

In the end I did drop the ball by not uploading any photos (sorry friends and family), but that was mostly because I was too busy relaxing.  I never really laid out a plan for how I would have done it, but I think Alex(@alexredsox) would say something about people having figured out how to do that and it would probably involve Picasa and email.

Oh yeah and we did have a great vacation, although sitting here two weeks later and it seems like we never went.

Our vacation continues and things have been great. The weather has been a mixed bag and Kaleb also got sick tonight which is crappy, but I think he is going to wake up like his old self

Jersey Shore Part Two

Jersey Shore Part Three

In preparation for vacations I always try to make sure and sync/backup all of our iOS devices and also get all the photos off of the camera. It is a bit tedious, but once complete I back up our MacBook just in case something should happen to it while we are on vacation. I am a bit paranoid when it comes to backing up now that I have the family archives of 20,000+ photos and movies stored on our MacBook.

Without further discussion here are some photos I imported this morning:

Maudsley with Camden

Fourth of July 2010

Merrimac Fire Department Visit