Business Trip to the South

I've never been to the South before (not including Florida), so I was excited. The trip spanned 5 days and covered 4 cities: Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Hilton Head, and Savannah. Here's a recap of my trip in pictures, with a few sentences to string the story together.

Day 1 and 2: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

I arrived in Myrtle Beach and went straight to the store. Day 1 was rainy and cold, so all I did was work and eat. Here's day 2:

The store is in a complex called Broadway at the Beach. It's not quite on the beach, but there is water there. And sea gulls.

Most of my time on these trips is spent in the stores. The second store I visited in Myrtle Beach is in Barefoot Landing. It has a lot of mosquitoes.

All those specks in the sky are mosquitoes.

I don't leave the store until it closes, so it's almost always dark.

Day 3: Still Myrtle Beach

I woke up early (a la 5:30am) to catch the sunrise on the beach.

The moon was still up, but the sun wasn't yet.

Not bad for a point and shoot, huh? (Using the Canon G7X):

I ran through the pier over to hang out with some sea gulls.

The sun peeked out from behind the horizon and rose much faster than I had anticipated.

I ran over to the pier to try to get an artsy shot between the pillars.

I ran back along the beach.

Hey look! My footprints!

I went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours, then spent the entire day in the stores. At night, I drove down to Charleston. Before entering the city, you cross this bridge.

That's all I saw of Charleston because the next morning, I woke up early to drive down to Hilton Head.

Day 4: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. Pretty. And uneventful.

The store is old but the manager and staff are fantastic! They suggested we grab lunch at Chow Daddy's - and now I recommend it too. It was so good!

I had the pulled chicken over mashed potatoes and it was ridiculously good.

Unlike Myrtle Beach, this store closed at 6, just before sunset. So we headed to the beach.

After dinner, I worked from the hotel for a little bit and then headed back out to the beach at midnight. I've never taken pictures of stars before. Here's my first attempt:

Pretty cool, huh?

Can you see the big dipper in this one?

Day 5: Savannah, Georgia

Morning came way too fast, but I got up and drove to Savannah. On the way, we (I was traveling with Janelle at this point, the Regional Sales Director for the area) stopped at a French bakery owned by the Hilton Head manager's father. It was a treat! 

We got a warm welcome at the Savannah store too.

Did you know that Savannah has one of the largest St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the world? Right? Well Del Sol has a pirate cut out that they repurpose as a leprechaun for the celebration. Needless to say, it attracts a lot of photos.

I spent the whole day in the store, with the exception of eating shrimp and grits (yum!) for lunch. We shut down around 7pm and passed through this square on the way back to the car.

From here I drove halfway back to Myrtle Beach and then the other half the next morning to catch an early afternoon flight back home to New York.

Here's the video of the whole trip:

North Meadow Central Park #EveryPath

I started out in the 90's and ran around the Tennis Courts for a while. Oddly enough, I don't have a single picture of the tennis courts though. Some other time. Here's a path to the north of the Tennis Center though:

These are some of the least frequently used paths, as it's really just a cut-through from East Drive to West Drive just below the 97th Street Transverse. And most people would rather take the more scenic path along the reservoir just below here or the more popular path above 97th. Or just bus it across 97th.


It's paths like the one below that make running every path kinda humorous to anybody paying attention. To get them all, I have to run down one path, up the next, and down the third. Fortunately, nobody really pays attention in New York.

There's another section down between the zoo and the pond and there are 5 or 6 paths side by side. That's fun.

The North Meadow is home to a dozen softball fields (literally, 12). I play soccer on these fields in the Fall.

It also has a rec center with basketball and handball courts in the center. And bathrooms, if you need them while you're up here.

Off to the north side of the meadow is a small trail that ducks down to a little arch.

The arch is one of the smallest and least known in the Park, mostly because it's almost entirely hidden from the North Meadow, and on the other side is the much less-travelled Loch.

The Loch is one of those places in the Park that very few tourists wander because you can't see the City and they get scared because they don't know where they are or if it's safe.

It's safe. At least in the day time. There are no lights in here at night. And although I've never felt scared running through here at night, I wouldn't recommend it.

There are two main paved trails paralleling the Loch...

...and then the side trails are all wood chips.

The Loch begins at the Pool (the body of water - not a swimming pool, although confusingly enough the Loch ends at Lasker Pool - the swimming pool on the north side of the Park). So that paved path I mentioned before runs alongside the Loch through Glen Span Arch. I'm standing next to a waterfall fed by the Pool to take this picture.

The sun was setting, and don't tell Central Park but I cheated on her and ran over to Riverside Park to watch the sunset over there. Sometimes I just want to check in on the Hudson River and see how she's doing.

She's good.

It's amazing how many people run and bike along Riverside Park. You can go for miles.

It was a good day. Which I'm glad because my left achilles feels like it's strained so I'm gonna have to lay off the running for a few days and let it rest back to normal.

Vegas with the Family Part 2

We had a full day of fun on Saturday. Jason took the kids to Home Depot for a kid's building class. They made mailboxes to hold all their Valentines. While they were gone, Isa and Christy went to the gym and I went for a run. Not even a quarter mile from the house, I found an open gate.

So I went in to explore.

Not sure of just how illegal it would be to run in the flood channel, I opted to run along the street instead. Also because all the other gates were locked so I figured I wouldn't be able to get out as easily as I was able to get in.


I saw the park on the map and thought that'd be nice to jog through. A little green respite in the middle of the desert of Las Vegas.

I was wrong.

It's not quite Central Park.

I really think Google Maps oughta show desert parks as brown instead of green.

It did have a fake lake though.

After a quick lunch, we all went out for a hike in Red Rock Canyon.

There was a lot of exploring.

A little off-trailing...

Lots of climbing on rocks.

And surveying and finding the tallest trees.

We also got a family pic, which is probably our first in about 10 years.

The Lost Creek trail that we took ended at a waterfall. As crazy as this sounds, the whole area around the waterfall was frozen. Ice in the Las Vegas desert?! Shocking, right?!

Everyone got pics around the frozen tree.

And I took lots of pics of the tree because I thought it was soo cool. Look at how much ice is around these little twigs!

And one from behind the waterfall, which I didn't like how it turned out but I rested in some dirt and got my jacket dirty for this pic so I'll be darned if I don't post it.

We hiked back out to the car and drove over to another spot - Calico Basin. The drive between the two parks was definitely scenic.

This one started with a boardwalk and then ended on an overlook.

This whole area, from Red Rock Canyon to Calico Basin, is a rock climber's paradise. There are climbers everywhere. And they're amazing.

Our reward for hiking was shaved ice at Bahama Bucks. There are too many flavors and I didn't want to keep asking for samples, so I caved and just ordered Dreamsicle. And it wasn't good. So I asked them to add a bunch of pineapple and it made it better. If you ask MJ if she liked her sour raspberry shaved ice though, she loved it.

Then we went over to the Silverton Hotel and Casino. They have a giant aquarium right in the main lobby as soon as you walk in.  The tank has tons of tropical fish...

...a few sharks...

...and a bunch of stingrays.

At 4:30, a diver came and fed the fish and the stingrays.

And then a mermaid came to say hello.

She did a lot of back flips and played with bubbles.

We dropped the kids off at home (with their parents) and then Chris, Maryellen, Isa, and I went out to Fremont Street.

Chris and Maryellen were going to do the Slotzilla zipline but all the time slots were sold out until 1:40am. Which is about 4 hours past our bedtime.

So we wandered around the street and checked out the neon signs and the street performers for a bit.

Then we headed over to the Strip again. We parked at the Bellagio and walked through the hotel. The gardens were decorated beautifully for Chinese New Year.

If you can't tell, 2016 is the year of the monkey.

The lobby is still amazing. 2000 hand blown glass flowers. And a horse now.

As we walked out, we found a patio that I'd never been on. This is between the hotel and the water.

We walked around to the Boulevard side to watch the next water show. All that Jazz. Soo good.

After a quick stop in Hexx for some peanut butter cookies, we walked over to the Venetian, which was much further than we had anticipated. But so worth it.

We caught the tail end of one more water show (Uptown Funk) before heading back home around midnight, which was WAY past our bedtime.

Such a fun, full day in Las Vegas!

Keep reading about tomorrow! Las Vegas Neon Boneyard Experience