Author: mochatruffalo
Architecture in Sevilla is interesting. Unlike in Rome, where beautiful ancient Roman architecture is the uniform, Sevilla is full of surprises. Take the Sevilla Cathedral, for example, where else in the world do you see a gothic cathedral attached to a minaret. Today, we were treated to another visually bizarre combination of two architectural styles. … Continue reading Royal Alcazar & Flamenco
Old Town Sevilla is a pedestrian haven. There are one way streets for cars, but the roads are so narrow that drivers are forced to slow down. Amazingly, I have yet to hear anyone lay on the horn. If this were NYC, you’d be assaulted by the sound of honking left and right. This Old … Continue reading Sevilla Cathedral & Plaza de España
Traveling through time zones is never easy. For me it’s always been harder traveling eastbound. Landing in the mornings make it tougher because you have the whole day ahead of you, but I don’t like arriving in a foreign country at night for safety reasons. So our first days in Europe end up being “throw … Continue reading A Slow Start
The last time I flew on a near empty plane was almost a year ago when I flew to Taiwan. On our most recent trip to Morocco in April, we found ourselves on jammed packed flights. Today, our Air France flight experience is more aligned with traveling during the earlier days of the pandemic. The … Continue reading Post Vaccine Pandemic Travel – Europe Edition
We scheduled the Beehive Trail for our afternoon hike on the last day of our trip. As we were making our way back to the hotel after lunch to regroup, I saw an interesting trail on Google maps. There’s a little hiker icon in the middle of the water! Intrigued, we made a quick detour … Continue reading Beehive Trail
Two of the most popular and challenging trails in Acadia National Park are the Precipice and Beehive trails. I decided to save the best for last, and did both trails on our last day in Acadia. First, the Precipice trail, a vertical climb of 0.9 miles to Champlain Summit at 1,058 ft, involves a lot … Continue reading Precipice Trail
With toddlers in tow, we opted for an easy family friendly hike in the morning. The Ocean Path is a 2-mile stretch along the northeast coastline of Acadia National Park. We probably only covered a third of the length in an hour and a half. Varied terrain made the path interesting A brave little 4-year … Continue reading Ocean Path & Dorr Ladder Trail
The Boston Marathon is traditionally held on Patriot’s Day in April, but due to Covid and repeated postponements, this year’s race was held in October. The week of the race coincided with peak fall foliage in the Northeast, which gave us the chance to go leaf peeping up in Acadia National Park in Maine. Having … Continue reading Jordan Pond Trail
This race will go down in history as the “running injured” race. I had no business starting the race given my Achilles pain that began the day before. This is an old injury that I had failed to take care of during training. Tight calf muscles led to Achilles pain. Sometimes the heart takes over … Continue reading Boston Marathon 2021
The EU removes the US from their safe travel list, airfares drop, and we snatch up a couple of tickets to Southern Spain. The East Coast is the perfect springboard to Europe, and it’s hard to just turn around and fly back to the West Coast while there. The original plan was to go to … Continue reading Dos Boletos a Andalucía
Phoenix is an urban sprawl much like LA, albeit cheaper. One wouldn’t expect to find any nature paths or scenic hiking trails in such a mega city, but there is one — the popular Echo Canyon Trail on Camelback Mountain, which reaches up to 2706 ft in elevation. Not a very imposing height for those … Continue reading Echo Canyon Trail @ Camelback Mountain
Since we had covered the Western district of the Saguaro National Park yesterday, I decided that we’d revisit the Eastern district today. We would later find out that the use of the word “revisit” was completely wrong, because when we pulled into the park we realized that we had literally never even been to the … Continue reading Saguaro National Park
It’s astonishing that there are places we had never been to in Tucson despite having lived here for 5 years. We didn’t even know that the Saguaro National Park is split into East and West, with the town of Tucson sitting in the middle of it. We’d been to the park on the East side … Continue reading Trip Down Memory Lane
Three days of rest and rehab with eccentric calf strengthening and foam rolling did wonders for my achilles. Managed to tuck in my 18-miles this morning before hitting the road for Phoenix at 10AM. The 5.5-hour drive went by quickly with minimal congestion. That is until we got closer to Phoenix, when we encountered the … Continue reading Phoenix
Airfare prices are cracking again. With uncertainty associated with the Delta variant, businesses are grounding their sales force this fall. Business travelers are canceling their flights, and fares for the rest of us are dropping like a ton of bricks. We managed to rebook our October one-way NYC to LAX flight for a fraction of … Continue reading Delta Uncertainty
The dreaded old injury is back. Woke up with soreness in the left Achilles this morning. I suspect the culprits were the fartlek I did 2 days ago, and the lack of foam rolling over time. Tried to run this morning, but within a minute I knew I had to stop. My younger self would … Continue reading Setback
I’ve reluctantly let go of my CSR. Just couldn’t justify having 2 premium travel cards. I managed to downgrade it to a no-fee Freedom Flex card during the grace period to get the full CSR annual fee back. What I didn’t realize was that the $300 travel credit is yours once used. Meaning the 2021/2022 … Continue reading Unexpected Windfall
Caught a scene that warmed and brought joy to my heart this morning as I was on my way out for a run. It was as beautiful as the colors of the Grand Prismatic Springs, As breathtaking as the sunrise at the Mesa Arch, And as exhilarating as hiking in the cold waters of the … Continue reading Change of Season
Kaua’i has to be my favorite Hawaiian island. Oahu is too commercialized, Maui too crowded, and the big island of Hawai’i a bit bland. Kaua’i is simply beautiful with its lush greenery, stunning coastline, and less crowds. Alas, our time on the island has come to an end. We were due to fly out at … Continue reading Last Day In Kaua’i
There are several trails in the Koke’e State Park that bring you out onto ridges to view the NāPali Coastline. The 2 most popular are the Awa’awapuhi and the Nu’alolo trails. There is the option to do both by hiking the connecting Nu’alolo Cliff trail between the 2 to form a 12-mile loop, which is … Continue reading Nu’alolo Trail
Owing to yesterday’s Hanakapi’ai Falls hike, waking up this morning was incredibly hard. Is this another sign of aging, where we can’t do back to back 8-mile hikes anymore? Since we only have 2 more days of hiking on the island, I decided to push the agenda. I have 5 trails on my hike list. … Continue reading Pihea Trail
Anyone who’s watched the movie Jurassic Park will be familiar with the famed NāPali Coast. To view the NāPali coast, one would have to be on a helicopter, catamaran, or kayak. Since none of those options appealed to us, we decided on the second best option - hiking it. The Kalalau trail is the 11-mile … Continue reading Hanakapi’ai Falls Trail
We don’t have a car booked for the first 3 days of our trip. This is mainly because I had wanted to pare down the expenses by just having a car for 4 of the 7 days that we’re here. When I had booked the car back in early April, the rates were around $100 … Continue reading Kaua’i Sans Car
The last time we set foot in the airport was 4 months ago back when domestic traveling was just picking up. Today, domestic traveling has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Images of long lines in the airport, packed flights, and stories of flight delays/cancellations and crowds in HI had me reconsidering whether to make our way … Continue reading Post Vaccine Pandemic Travel – Domestic Edition
Having had the Amex platinum card for the past 3 months, I’ve finally come to the conclusion of what this card really is. There are currently 2 premium travel credit cards here in the US - Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum (Citi Prestige has been discontinued, but it was never truly a contender). I … Continue reading Amex Platinum Thoughts
FIRE'd @ 47 