Tag Archives: Traveling

Caye Caulker, Belize

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Caye Caulker Belize 13_feistyharriet_April 2017

Want to hear my version of paradise? You better belize that it involves a tiny little island in the Caribbean, one so small that there are literally only three named roads: Front Street, Middle Street, and Back Street. Those roads aren’t really “streets” at all, but white sand packed hard from years of bare feet and beach cruiser bicycles taking residents and visitors from beach to bar and back to the beach. There are fresh fish tacos and shrimp ceviche and whole white fish with fins and eyes and everything still attached for sale at every restaurant, most food has some kind of Mexican-Central American flavor, or maybe a Chinsee-Arab-Kriole infusion that is both familiar and completely out of this world. The pace of life in this paradise is much, much slower than anywhere you’ve been before; the island motto is, literally, Go Slow. Also, this particular paradise is located in a country with an advertising campaign focused on how many ways you can use Belize as a pun for believe. Frankly, it is unbelizeable how much this word-nerd (points at self with both thumbs) swooned over ridiculous puns in paradise.

Caye Caulker (pronounced Key Caw-ker) is a tiny island off the northern coast of Belize and located just inside the barrier reef that runs along the Yucatan south towards Panama, it’s the second longest barrier reef in the world (and not to be confused with the Australian Great Barrier Reef, capitalized because that is it’s proper name). Caye Caulker is famous for being perfect for backpackers, a little rough around the edges with an unpolished tourism scene, and overall ridiculously low-key. Honestly, it was a perfect place to start our trip and I would go back in a heartbeat.

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This? This is the busiest street on the island, Front Street, at 2:00 in the afternoon. This sleepy island did so much to help me chill out, relax, and just go with the very laid-back flow.

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On the days we weren’t diving along the reef, we spent a lot of time riding bicycles around the island, lounging in the shade, and trying to decide where I’d get my next burrito and pina colada. It was REAL rough, ya’ll.

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The only downside to Caye Caulker was the humidity, I mean, it’s a sub-tropical island in the Caribbean, OF COURSE it will have humidity. I actually didn’t mind it too much until it was time to go to sleep, despite an AC unit in our AirBnB it was always a little muggy and too warm for my taste. But hey, if that’s your only real complaint? Frankly, sounds like a lovely way to spend a week, right? (Answer: you better belize it!) (Sorry/NotSorry)

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I think our two favorite restaurants were the Rainbow Bar & Grill, and Habanero’s, which had the most amazing Caye Lime Pie of my entire life (see? More puns! I love Belize!)

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I’m still sorting through my pictures of our SCUBA diving adventures, which I’ll post soon! Caye Caulker was amazing, you should definitely go visit at the next possible chance!

Petroglyphs National Monument, New Mexico

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Petroglyphs National Monumnet_feistyharriet_2016

Over the summer Blue Eyes and I spent a long weekend exploring New Mexico, I did a lot of research on what adventures we could pursue while we were there and when I came across Petroglyphs National Monument I 100% knew we would be stopping by. This preserved area of volcanic rock has tens of thousands of glyphs scratched into the black stones. Literally, they are EVERYWHERE.

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We wandered around on a few short trails, gawking at the ancient art, trying to get some photos that would reflect how incredible these images were while battling a super hot sun and crazy reflections on the stone.

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It was a super hot day, with zero shade, and a lot of black rock soaking up (and radiating) extra heat, so we didn’t stay long or attempt some of the longer trails, but I am still baffled at how MANY pieces of art were just, you know, laying around on the ground.

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Of course, people tend to ruins stuff like this, and there were plenty of graffitied pieces, “So-and-So Was Here” crap and “Cory + Rhonda, 2014” stuff, which is ridiculously unfortunate, why do people have to do that!? Anyway, if you’re ever in Albuquerque, I highly recommend giving yourself 45 minutes (or, you know, 4 hours, if it’s not hella hot and sunny) to check out these ancient drawings.

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Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico

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Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks NM_feistyharriet_July 2016 (8)

It’s not really a huge surprise that I kind of love the weird: weird architecture, weird geology, weird non-fiction topics to obsess about. When I read about the Tent Rocks in New Mexico I knew we would be stopping to explore, and this was before I even knew what they looked like!

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Creamy, layered sandstone, slot canyons, pointy tents (or mirage-like ice cream cones, depending on how hot it is and how long you’ve been hiking), with a path through the whole thing and up to the top of the mesa for a better view.

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Mr. Blue Eyes and I lathered up in sunscreen (it was 90-something degrees…not the best day for hiking!), grabbed more water, and started hiking. At first, the trail was super flat and meandering, we passed old people and babies who had stopped to enjoy the shade or go exploring.

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We wandered through a couple of amazing slot canyons, I stood at one end, camera poised, waiting for all tourists to get out of my shot. I love slot canyons, these were fairly narrow, but completely dry. (However, had there been rain they certainly would have been dicey!)

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We kept wandering….and then we hit the “steep” part. There was very little shade and I was a sweaty mess, but–nerd that I am–there were MORE TENT ROCKS TO SEE! So we kept going, zig-zagging up the cliff, scrambling at places, to get to the top of the mesa and look down into the “campground” of tents we’d just wandered through.

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I would love to visit in the early morning or on a cool spring evening, I bet the sunrise/sunset on those rocks is just stunning. As it was, I was impressed by the sandstone formations, all the layers, and the slot canyons. Yay, nature!

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Arizona Meteor Crater

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If you are the kind of nerd that I am (and I like to think that you are; Hello, Nerd Friend), you will remember the week in elementary school that you learned about the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona. You know, the giant ball of iron that zoomed in from space, made a fantastic hole, and probably killed off the dinosaurs? Ok, that last part isn’t true, it wasn’t THE meteor (which was, by all accounts, one of many significantly larger ones), but the Arizona meteor was a pretty big one, and because the plains around it are still completely desolate, it’s easy to imagine mass extinction. A few weeks ago Mr. Blue Eyes and I decided to go on an adventure close-ish to home, and the crater was near the top of my list.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (3)The crater is massive, over a mile across, 2.5 miles in circumference, and 550 feet deep. You can see a bit of white in that photo up there, those are outbuildings from the mining operation that used to be at the base of this pit.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (7)This is a piece of the meteor that made the impact. Most of the 150 foot rock dissolved upon fiery impact, but from time to time the ranchers in the wide open spaces around this crater find pieces of this heavy nickle-iron space-debris on their land. The largest piece found so far is about the size of an infant car seat and weighs something like 1,400 pounds.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (4)Blue Eyes and I wandered around the museum, took the tour out to the edge of the crater, were curtailed on said tour due to a nasty-looking storm brewing to the north, but did check out several fixed telescopes to get a better look at the geology of the crater, some old leftover mining operations that were hauled down there by mule, and the debris from a small airplane that crashed in the crater, not taking into account the wind in there it was unable to get out and smashed into the rocky sides of the pit.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (2)The museum was small, but had a lot of interesting information on meteors, meteorites, and history of the area. Blue Eyes is a mining geek, and a dirt & rock geek, and I love space stuff…so we frankly had a blast at the museum. Man, science is awesome.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (1)As we were leaving the storm we’d been watching turned into a pretty intense summer thundercloud with speedy winds whipping it across the plateaus. Glad we weren’t on the rim of the crater for that, but am also kind of bummed we didn’t get to go exploring a little more.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (5)Uh, this is not at the crater, this was a wrong exit that I insisted was correct, only to be met with some weird tribal-alien ruins of what once was a money maker on historic Route 66.

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