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Next Stop: Florida

Recent (and upcoming) Travels...

Making a new friend

2010
A nice mix of the tropics and the south means a pina colada with your BBQ ~ Welcome to Tampa! We settled here in fall of 2009 and pretty quickly struck out to explore Florida: New Years in Miami and Key West, drives through Cypress National Park and Ocala State Park and a weekend in St. Augustine. Florida has much more to offer than we had originally thought. Tampa alone has beautiful beaches nearby (which remained pristine despite the oil spill) and an eclectic blend of old and new.

2009
Summer and Fall We pressed on once again. From the chilly north to the tropical south. Tampa, Florida is our newest home. We had a nice taste of DC and Virginia, but now on to the land of hurricanes, manatees, gators and Gasparilla!

Being passed by the Union Pacific on our trip West

Spring Woohoo! It's finally spring on the east coast and the cherry blossoms are in bloom (as is my little garden). My travels in the next few months will consist of exploring my new home now that it's warm enough to wander. Wandering the streets of Old Town Alexandria should keep me busy.

Winter Welcome to Washington, DC! Much colder than I'm used to but got here just in time to take in all the Inauguration Festivities!

2008

Fall This fall marked the end of my time in California. Work beckons and my boyfriend and I found ourselves traveling another 3,000 miles back east to Washington, DC in December. I'll knew I"d miss Monterey so I spent my final weeks wine tasting in Carmel Valley, runs on the beach in Carmel and walks through town enjoying the farmers markets and all that Monterey has to offer.

Summer The summer was busy, full of work and foggy Montereydays. Spent the weekends exploring the town and enjoyed some day trips to San Jose, San Francisco, San Juan Bautista and Oakland.

Spring So far this year has been full of work and relaxing at home...ahhhh! But I'll be headed for Oahu,Hawaii for a week in May. Looking forward to delicious fruits and living on pina coladas for a few days.

Winter Happy 2008! Headed home for the holidays and grabbed some Dunkin Donuts for myself :) I'm a happy girl. the weather held out for the trip east but we came home right in time for the crazy storm that hit California in January.

2007

Fall Since I've relocated, I've been spending a lot of time exploring my new digs. Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz, the Missions, San Jose, San Francisco, Carmel, Big Sur...and so on. The only downfall is the lack of Dunkin Donuts out here (I'm an east-coast gal at heart).

Summer...
July Road Trip #2...I do love my little car. We headed north this time and visited Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. It was a blast...the Oregon coast, Redwoods, Mt Saint Helens, Crater Lake, Seattle, Vancouver, and some REALLY windy and crooked roads.

June Can we say ROAD TRIPPING!!! I drove from Allentown, PA to Monterey, CA via Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. I survived my 3,000 miles move and am now safely in Monterey, CA.

Spring Monterey, CA to San Francisco, CA (to finalize moving details), a gorgeous trip up the Pacific Coast Highway on a sunny day and my first time traveling with pets (I think I was more traumatized than the cats were).

Winter...
March Unfortunately my St. Patrick's Day trip to Amherst, MA was foiled by snow, but I spent time in Philadelphia instead. Back to Allentown for a long weekend and planning another trip out west soon.

February Another trip to Monterey, CA and nearby Carmel-by-the-Sea. Other than that, there's too much work to do so I gotta stay in Newark, DE for most of the winter...hopefully we'll get more snow!

A month in Tuscany...

View of Florence from the hills

In the summer of 2006, I lived in Florence, Italy for a month. The city is very busy so we escaped to Assisi, Cinque Terre and Venice for a few days.

While Florence is a great place to visit, I must admit I enjoyed the smaller towns a lot more. This being my second trip to central Italy, my favorite places are those with a little more character like Lucca, Assisi, Montacatini and the Venetian island of Burano.

My first trip to Italy was Veniceas a child, but in 2005 my mom and I toured the country for a couple weeks in the summer. Despite being a bit warm, we had a great time. The highlight being a week in Rome.

Backpacking Europe

Prague

Probably the BEST vacation I have ever taken and I can't wait to backpack again someplace else. It was a very chilly January 2006, but Joe and I headed for Eastern Europe with nothing but a couple packs.

Spent time visiting Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and Frankfurt... not to mention a few lil places along the way. Great time, but when we got home we discovered it was the coldest winter Europe has seen in a decade.

World Cuisine

So meeting people and seeing historic sights are wonderful aspects to traveling. But the food I've tried in different places has been the icing on the cake. So between Brats in Prague, Crab sandwiches in San Francisco and Jerk Chicken in Jamaica...I'm a well-fed and happy girl. Along with my love of food is a love of cooking and cooking exotic and fun foods in my own little kitchen. It's a fun souvenir to come home and try to recreate the dishes you loved so much all over the world.

Been there...

Delaware canal

Gotta love when family members move to cool places. You have an excuse to visit and a free place to stay. Courtesy of family, I've spent time in Boston, Southern Tennessee, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Now I just need to find a cousin or uncle in Alaska*smile*.

Aside from traveling, in the past few years we've moved quite a bit...

1999-2000 Washington, D.C.
2000-2003 Long Island, NY
Summer 2002 Norwood, MA
2003-2005 Dover, DE
2005-2007 Newark, DE
2007-2009 Monterey, CA
2009 Old Town Alexandria, VA
2009-Now Tampa
Time to unpack for a few years...

Road-Tripping

"Are we there yet?" en route to Florida

Since 2007, time constraints have made long, faraway trips a bit difficult. Enter the road trip! These have become some of my favorite trips. It's amazing how much you can see from your own car's window. No set schedule, no trains to catch...just relax and enjoy the ride.

Summer 2007
Philadelphia to Los Angeles
Monterey, CA to Vancouver

Winter 2008
Los Angeles to Tennessee

Summer 2009
Virginia to Tampa, Florida

Winter 2010
Miami and the Florida Keys

Complete with stops in Memphis, Mt. Saint Helens, Savannah, Seattle, the Everglades, and little towns along the way.

Intro Updated Aug 26, 2010
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Comments (67)

sazaliy Apr 23, 2012 at 6:15 AM Report Abuse

Happy belated birthday!
loisl Apr 23, 2012 at 12:54 AM Report Abuse

Happy Birthday, Laura! Cheers, Peter
Bokhari76 Apr 21, 2012 at 5:30 PM Report Abuse

Happy Birthday Laura
sdq Apr 21, 2012 at 11:27 AM Report Abuse

!!!!! Happy Birthday !!!!!
TrendsetterME Apr 20, 2012 at 10:01 PM Report Abuse

Hey Laura, "Happy Birthday", with all my best wishes ... :)
DaHongHua Apr 20, 2012 at 9:05 PM Report Abuse

Birthday greetings from Malaysia.
bal_gopal30 Apr 13, 2012 at 10:07 PM Report Abuse

happy birthday to u....love u....
Nemorino Apr 20, 2011 at 11:21 PM Report Abuse

Happy Birthday and greetings from Frankfurt am Main. I'm off this morning for a few days in Lyon, France.
JLBG Apr 13, 2011 at 9:57 PM Report Abuse

Happy birthday Laura from the Alps. I am in advance as I will be offline.
hopang Jun 10, 2010 at 10:59 AM Report Abuse

Hi Laura, Thanks for visiting our largest page Italy and thanks for your comments. Yes, Autogrill seems to be a great shopping concept along busy motorway between large cities! ~ho & pang