Grand Canyon Stay - El Tovar!

I've been to the Grand Canyon many times over the last 30 years, but i've never stayed at El Tovar any any number of reasons.  However, for this trip was just for one night and i figured I'd spring for this classic resort.  I AM SO GLAD I DID!

Location Location Location.  Who could argue with the ease of stepping out of your room and within 30 seconds being able to overlook the magnificent sunset or sunrise over the canyon?  I couldn't do that during my stays in Tusyan.

Want to sit on a rocking chair and feel the cool breeze in the evening?  El Tovar is so relaxing.

Ease of reservations.  Nothing was available online, so i called the resort directly.  I got Robert and he was one of the most thoughtful team members I could have gotten in touch with.  He was friendly, efficient and was thorough in giving me options on my stay.  Class Act!

The rooms?  for as old as this resort is, the rooms were great.  Fabulous beds.  Great layout (for the small foot print). and Very well kept.

Aura.  completely comfortable and rustic.

Fabulous restaurant on site.  Close to everything you come to the canyon for.

My next trip to the Grand Canyon will be at El Tovar.

Carlsbad, CA Fires as seen from Calavera 5/14/2014

As long as I can remember in the 16 years I’ve lived in North county, this is the hottest it has been.  Temperatures in this ball park are normally in Sept / Oct.  The winds are blowing in from the East (the desert) and are called Santa Ana Winds.  These are the drier and warmer winds.  Humidity is about 5%.  Everything is hot and brittle.  One spark and everything goes up.

Many families have lost homes today.  Lots of brave souls fighting these fires.

Carlsbad Unified School District has done an excellent job keeping the kids from evacuated schools safe and keeping the parents informed.

Traffic on the 78 east was packed at about 2pm.

7 Cardinal Rules for Life

1) Make peace with your past

2) What other people think of you is none of your busienss

3) Time heals almost everything

4) No one is in charge

5) Don't compare your life to others

6) Stop thinking too much

7) Smile

ARTFINDER: Fisherman in Prague - Fine Art Black and White Photography

ARTFINDER: Fisherman in Prague - Fine Art Black and White Photography

We just sold this image to someone in Colorado!  We hope they enjoy it as much as we do!

See other images from Prague on AbeytaPhotography.com

PREVIEW URLS BEFORE YOU CLICK THE LINK

Running multiple blogs, I am always nervous about people who leave links to their websites.  I am ESPECIALLY nervous when those links are the abbreviated URLs.  There is a way to “preview” this non-descript links before actually clicking on them, though.  Although this still does not guarantee safety, it is at least a road bump.

Bitly - after the link http://bit.ly/1dB7AsR just add a “+” so the preview is at http://bit.ly/1dB7AsR+

goo.gl – after the link http://goo.gl/anEIeU just add a “+” so the preview is at http://goo.gl/anEIeU+

TinyCC - after the link http://tiny.cc/gkiebx just add a “~” so the preview is at http://tiny.cc/gkiebx~

TInyURL - in front of the link http://tinyurl.com/mebwphj you can add preview – ie http://preview.tinyurl.com/mebwphj

A safety feature TinyURL has is that you can always default a preview by enabling the preview directly from their site at http://tinyurl.com/preview.php.

Twitter – http://t.co – a product that is strictly for tweets!  They check all URLs against potential unsafe links.

Ow.ly  - http://ow.ly/tGslQ is the shortened link, but having problems finding out out to preview without one of the consolidaters listed below.  However, one of the nice features about Ow.ly is that it goes through a verification step before creating your URL just to make sure it is not a bot doing the dirty work.

If you want a one stop check for short URLs, you can check out this website . . . it should detect and preview most of the popular oneshttp://checkshorturl.com/ which uses http://pagekeeper.com to check sites.

I am sure there are a dozen more url shortners . . . I will search more and consolidate here.

Archery at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista

Not long ago, I had the chance to do something I've wanted to do for a long time.  I am not sure why i never did it . . . I am sure I cane make up plenty of excuses, but, I finally got off my ass and did it.

Take Archery Lessons!

I found this deal on Travelzoo . . . two people can shoot for an hour and a half for some ridiculously low price.  The only catch was the archery center was at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California.  Not that its a bad thing, its just it was an hour away from my home.

Despite the drive, the day was well worth it.  It was a beautiful day, the instructor was very helpful, the equipment was in good shape, and I had my buddy with me . . . oh, and probably the best thing, I didn't shoot my eye out!!

The class was about 16 people but considering we shot in groups of 8, everything went smoothly.  What i didn't anticipate, however, was how tender my fingers would be after the shooting.  I have rather thick fingers to begin with, but after pulling on the bowstring for an hour and a half, the tips of my fingers were quite fat!  Sorry, no picture of that!

After the lesson, we got the chance to walk around the facility for a bit.  The Olympic Training Center was actually quite cool.  It had fields for Field Hockey, a track for running and hurdles, an open field for javelin and discus, multiple BMX trails, and a set of housing.  While there we ran into two teams of field hockey players from New Zealand.  It was actually quite cool to see them compete.

One of the most interesting things about being at the Olympic Training Center on this particular day was that the Winter Olympics in Sochi had their opening ceremony the night before. So to be here while the Olympics were actually taking place made it feel like we were sort of connected.

Minus the Crowd 

and Minus the Snow!