Tri-ing Life and More

My time in Switzerland was going by way too fast. I woke up on my last day in Interlaken with another full day. I had three things left on my must do list: hiking, boat ride, and chocolate! Since I had a busy day, I was up early to get to Harder Klum to hike. This is the mountain in Interlaken and the viewpoint at the top is known as the "Top of Interlaken" (https://www.jungfrau.ch/en-gb/harder-kulm/). There is a funicular to the top, but I wanted to hike up.  I couldn't go to Switzerland and not get a hike in. It was a dreary morning, but at least it wasn't raining. I started in multiple layers, but ended up in a tank top as I started to go up. As the wind picked up and the rain came closer, I ended up putting my layers back on. The hike to Harder Klum was (surprise) beautiful. As you took switchbacks up the mountain, you saw both lakes and the city in the middle. Halfway up the mountain, there was a small fountain for hikers to get a drink. It was perfect and s...

Day 3 in Switzerland provided even more adventures and was probably my favorite day in Switzerland (although each day was pretty amazing).

Day 1 in Interlaken was meant to learn and explore the city and get over jet lag. The rest of the days in Interlaken were jam packed with adventures. Day 2 started by walking to Outdoor Interlaken to figure out my new plan since I couldn't go on my original combo trip. I met a very nice lady at Outdoor Interlaken who gave me my options: get my money back or join Canyoning Chli Schliere.

This is a really late post. I have been keeping busy or being lazy lately, but this trip was too amazing to forget to document it. I have been following Kristin from "Be My Travel Muse" (www.bemytravelmuse.com) and I have found it to be very inspiring. She writes about traveling the world as a solo female. She provides tips and advice, but mostly I have just found it inspiring. I haven't traveled alone often because I like being with people. I am not sure I was afraid of it, but I didn't embrace it. As my friends are getting married and having kids, I realize my list of travel buddies is getting smaller. So instead of waiting for others to join me for a vacation, I decided to go on my own.

My friend and I have been enjoying learning how to take better pictures so I was thrilled when she hit me up about acres of sunflower fields in Poolesville, Maryland. The McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area has 30 acres of sunflowers in 9 fields and it is incredible.

This was my second favorite safari day (the crater takes the cake for me). Tarangire is a beautiful park that was on the way back to the hotel. Our guides said we would leave around lunch, but Holly talked our guides into staying longer since our flight was so late that night. We wanted every last minute we could get to watch the animal. This park was full of elephants, giraffes, zebras, and impalas. It was our first good view of the giraffes. We were also more active in asking questions to the guides this day. We wanted to know more about the animals and their way of life. It was nice having the guides provide that type of information. We just had to ask questions to get them to that point.

This is pretty much the only day during my whole trip to Tanzania that I didn't care for. We had spent the last two days exploring incredible areas and seeing beautiful animals. This day lacked animals and structure. Zara definitely over sold this day in their review and it didn't work out as they had stated. In hindsight, we really should have added a day to the safari which would have allowed us to get to the Serengeti, but hindsight always makes those decisions easier.

Day 2 was incredible. It started a little slow when we had issues getting our permit to get into the park, but that time provided us a chance to watch the monkeys get into different vehicles and get their lunch boxes. Thankfully, our vehicles were closed and we all kept our lunches. Finally, we got our permits and we were off. The first stop was a viewpoint area for the crater. It was a beautiful view, but we were still too high to see the animals. We saw our first giraffes at a distance on the hillside, hiding in the trees. It was our only giraffe sighting of the trip so far.

I adored the experience of climbing Kilimanjaro. It was a great sense of accomplishment and the views were incredible. I must admit though that I am not sure if I enjoyed the climb or the safari more. I loved seeing the incredible views from the safari and the animals. I cannot say enough about seeing these majestic animals in their environment. The way they protect their young, play, find dinner, and so much more. Some were active while others seemed lazy. We saw hundreds of animals, but I never tired of them. Even on day 4, I wasn't tired of seeing more zebras or elephants.

I have lived in Northern Virginia for almost 8 years and I finally visited Luray Caverns. I have seen the commercials for years and even visited Luray several times for triathlons, but never had the time to stop. One of my closest friends got married in Luray in April and I took the opportunity to use my Saturday morning before her amazing wedding to visit Luray Caverns.

A year ago I got my DSLR camera and I have been trying to learn how to use it since. My friend, Hilary, and I both got Nikon D3300 before our trip to Italy last year, but neither of us really knew what we were doing. We tried figuring things out in Italy, but mostly I kept my camera on auto.

I have been interested in running the wine country half marathon for years. Every year since its beginning, I have had something in conflict to prevent me from racing it. This year at the Rock n' Roll expo, Melissa and I came upon their booth and we were intrigued. Neither of us had anything planned for that date, so we decided to sign up. We registered as the Wino Women and had to convince 4 others to join our team for $10 off. Luckily we were able to convince Jen, Sherri, and Hilary to join the team. Melissa's friend was also planning on racing and happily joined our team.

Sunday: There is no way to prepare your body for two 3am wakeup calls in a row. I trained for running two races in a row, but the mornings hurt more than anything. Luckily we all went to bed earlier so we had a little more sleep. We were up and on the shuttle around 3:30 to get to the race. It really is amazing how you start smiling once you get off the bus though. The MC is showing Star Wars clips and people are surprisingly happy at 4am. We decided to get in line for pictures with Jabba since it was the shortest. We finished in time to hit the bathroom and head to the corrals. We all split into different corrals again. Waiting in the corrals is when I actually start to get tired again. You are waiting for the start with nothing to do.

Saturday started way too early. I love Disney races, but they start at 5:30am and Disney wants you on the shuttle from the hotels no later than 4am. So that means you wake up around 3:15/3:30 to catch the shuttle in time. It also means a lot of time standing around before the race. At least Disney does the pre-race entertainment well. There are 6 different photos ops with different Star Wars villains and an MC playing Star Wars clips and doing Star Wars trivia. We jumped in one of the shorter lines, which happened to be for Kylo Ren. While waiting, we all determined that Hiram was the only person that could answer any of the trivia and the rest of us were clueless. The pictures with Kylo Ren were incredibly awkward. These villains don't really interact well with us, so Hiram and I just semi stood next to him and you can tell we have no idea what to do. We all learned it is way easier to take pictures when you can put your arms around the character.

Our Star Wars fun continued into April where the whole group went to Disney World to take on the Dark Side Challenge. Hiram was super excited about returning to Disney and all the fun we would have and the rest of us happily went with him. We were excited to enjoy different parts of Disney and have Hiram and Karen run their first half marathon. We again packed the weekend with parks and races. Friday: Friday morning we caught the earliest flight to Orlando and took the Magical Express to our hotel. I was so excited to see Art of Animation. I have been to Disney so often that I love being able to enjoy something new. Since there were 5 of us, we decided to stay in a family suite with a Cars theme. It was a little smaller than we expected, but we survived. One of the beds pulled down from the wall and my bed was a sofa couch, but at least their were two bathrooms. The resort was incredible. The theming was done so well and we all loved it. The themed areas included Cars, Lion Kin...

Those who know me know that I love Disney. There is just something magical about that place and it keeps bringing me back. So when my friend said that he would like to run a half marathon, I instantly thought of the Star Wars race since he is a Star Wars fan. What better way to run your first half marathon than surrounded by Star Wars characters and music. It actually didn't take any convincing since he said yes almost instantly. Once he was in, we had to convince the rest of the crew to run it too. Jenny was in and she dragged Corey along without giving him a chance to say no. Karen was game for giving it a try despite never seeing a Star Wars movie. We sadly couldn't convince Jo to run with us again. I think we scared her away at the Princess half two years ago and she will probably never run a half again (sorry Jo!). The next decision was if we wanted to complete the Kessel Challenge. Disney has several cross country challenges to compete in the themed half marathons in D...