Sunday, June 28, 2009

How Long 'Til It Dies??

This is what happens when I just can't relax. I decided it was time to put some plants in that nice pot we had in the basement. So, I went to Lowe's and this is the best I could come up with. But I really don't know why I bother, it'll be dead within two weeks.

I really need to learn to relax. This has been my day so far:

7:30: Got up, fed the dogs, made breakfast

8:30: Went to see if Mike was dead since he wasn't up yet. Nope, not dead, just lazy! Took the dogs on a walk.

9:00: Finished staining the deck (started on Saturday)

10:00: Started a load of laundry. Did the floors (my famous 5 step process).

11:15: Made the bed, took out last weeks newspapers, realized I was hungry

12:00: Had an early lunch

12:30: Was bored, decided to take the recycling, go to Lowe's, buy flowers.

1:15: Planted flowers

2:00: Now I think I'm ready to relax. At least until it's time to fold clothes, iron the clothes, feed the dogs, make dinner, clean up after dinner.

I'll be ready to go back to work on Monday so I can relax!!

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Proud Parent

Yana...she's special!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Last Day

Well, this is the last vacation post. It's back to coming up with some stuff to post from my boring life. Just a few more pictures.

That's one dirty bike!


Getting some clean boots after two weeks of riding!


Our tour guides, Christan on the left and Jens on the right. Thanks for making the trip so memorable.



We had a good group on the trip and really enjoyed everyone's company! Happy traveling everyone!
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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Volubilis

Today, we left Fez and were headed back to Chefchaouen, where it all began. This was pretty much our last riding day.

The highlight of day's ride was Volubilis. This was a Roman settlement, who knew?!?! Volubilis is the largest Roman excavation in Morocco. The city was inhabited by approx. 10,000 people. It was founded in the year 25 A.D. and was most prosperous during the government of the emperor Septimus Serverus (193-11).






Christan was our tour guide on the bike for the day. He was a mad man on the bike, especially on that day. He used to be a professional racer. He'd even raced at the Isle of Mann (to motorcycle people, that's pretty impressive). We could not keep up with him today. He was flying!! He was passing people while doing wheelies. It was pretty impressive.

Here are some more sites from the day's ride...



Saturday, June 6, 2009

Fez

This was the last of three rest days. Today we had a guide to take us through the medina. The medina in Fez was unlike any of the other medina's we'd visited. The movie, Jewel of the Nile, was filed here. There are no cars or scooters allowed inside the medina. The only mode of transportation was the donkey. This medina was a true city inside the walls. Over 400,000 people live there. There are mosques and schools and just about everything else you'd need. There were very twisty and narrow alleys. It was truly a unique experience!


All over Morocco there are stray animals. This little fellow was just too cute...


These are some images from the food market in the medina.

Snails anyone??




The locals like their food fresh. I witnessed this first hand. There was a stand with live chickens. I was walking by, minding my own business, checking out the chickens. A local picked one out they liked and before I knew what was happening, the vendor snatched the chicken up and snapped it's neck. Yew!!!

Probably the highlight of the medina was the leather tannery. Again, this was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing. We went up a few levels and could look down at the tanning pits from a balcony area. The area had a very strong, not so fresh, odor. The store handed out sprigs of mint for you to hold to your nose to help ward off the smell. This was a very memorable experience.





We enjoyed exploring the vastly different world of the medina. Here are a few more pictures.





I thought this was a pretty store. That is candy. I tried a sample. I guess you could say it's kind of like taffy. It was okay, but not really what I was expecting. It wasn't very sweet.


This is the famous Blue Gate. Famous for what, I don't know. They said this was the most famous entrance to the medina. We came back here at night and had dinner at a restaurant just inside the gate. Just getting there was a bit of an adventure itself. Both of our tour guides were sick to their stomachs so we were fending for ourselves. We walked a short distance from our hotel and found a taxi stand. After a few tries, we were able to find a taxi driver that spoke a little English and that knew what we meant when we said we wanted to go to the Blue Gate.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Monkey Business (Again)

We're off again. Again, more pictures of the palm trees. Our final destination is Fez. This was our longest riding day. Still not too far though, only 275 miles. We left the Saharan desert and climbed again into the High Atlas and then later the Middle Atlas Mountains.

Along the way we went through a cedar forest.


All of the ornate woodwork we saw in the mosque in Casablanca was cedar wood from these mountains. These trees were huge.


We got behind this truck right before our lunch stop. The road was pretty bumpy and at one point, I don't exaggerate, the right two wheels were not on the ground. I was worried it was going to fall over.

Jens said he knew of a good little roadside stand for lunch. It was good food with a good atmosphere. Along the way, the other lady on the trip and I started to rate the bathrooms. This restaurant's bathroom was rated a "one flusher". The good bathrooms were given "five flushes".



That sheep was literally our lunch...yummy.


We knew that not far from our lunch stop we may have an opportunity to see some wild monkeys. Some Berber monkeys still live in the area. Just in case, we took some bread from the restaurant.

We were in luck. The monkeys were right near the road. Mike's love affair with the monkeys would continue. These monkeys were pretty used to people and they'd take the bread right out of your hands. I had the most fun just watching how much Mike liked feeding the monkeys. He had a soft spot for the small monkeys because the bigger monkeys would try and run them off. We also got to see a very small baby monkey...too adorable. This was a lot of fun.





Sadly, we did eventually run out of bread. So we headed on to Fez. Below is one of the gates we rode through while entering the city.



That's Fez in the background. I don't know if you can make it out, but there is a lot of black smoke in the background. That is from the pottery kilns that are fired up every afternoon. We stayed in a hotel that over looked the city. The restaurant had a retractable roof. That was pretty neat!!