In 1989, I traveled to California on a business trip. Arriving a day early, I took the opportunity to visit Universal Studios. I've always been fascinated with movies and movie-making and this was an opportunity to see the inner workings of a real life movie studio. While in California I had the opportunity to see Tom Selleck at a taping of The Tonight Show, get my picture taken with Eddie Albert and have a drink with Telly Savalas. After my business was concluded, I took a week for myself and toured around the Los Angeles area. Some of the highlights included a trip to San Diego, shopping on Rodeo Drive and a tour of the "star" attractions.
Later in 1989, I had the opportunity to spend three weeks in Ireland with my mother. Since most of my ancestors were Irish-born it was a chance to revisit my roots. From the second I set foot on Irish soil, I felt like I'd come home. The countryside, the people and the music were more than I expected and I would go back in a heartbeat. I did learn one important thing while I was there that I'll pass on to you, if you visit there and they tell you something is "just up the road", take a cab!! ;)
One place I never really had the urge to visit was the Caribbean. Being fair-skinned, sitting on the beach burning was not my idea of an ideal vacation. In 1998, a friend I work with asked if I was interested in taking a cruise of the southern Caribbean with her. For the life of me, I have no idea why I said yes, but I did and I ended up having one of the most relaxing vacations ever. We visited the Barbados, St. Lucia, Granada, Margarita Island, Cura�ao and Aruba aboard the MS Carousel. When we saw our ship for the first time we were astounded at how big it was, that is until we arrived in Barbados and were docked next to one of the Princess cruise line ships. I tell you it made ours look like a rowboat!!! But the fact that our ship was a small one was nice in that we got to know both crew and passengers. If you're looking for a vacation without TV's or telephones, where you can do as much as you want or nothing at all and where the food never seems to end then a cruise is the thing for you!
One of my other loves is anything animal. Though I've never been able to afford to do the one thing I'd love more than anything, (visit Kenya on a safari), I did have the opportunity to visit the San Diego Zoo in California and the African Lion Safari, near Cambridge, Ontario and managed to take what I consider fairly decent, "up close and personal" shots of some of my more favoured creatures. I hope you enjoy viewing them as I did taking them.