The wife and I took a four day-three night cruise on Carnival recently to celebrate our first anniversary. We sailed from the Port of Miami, spent a day in the Bahamas, and then took a circular route back. I’ll post more pictures from the trip later, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of the towel animals that were left for us each night.

First Night – Pig

Second Night – Cat

Third Night – Monkey

A few miles north of San Antonio you’ll find Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, a drive-through wildlife preserve of herbivores. The Wife and I drove out there last weekend to try out my new Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens. As it turned out, the animals were way too close for such a long lens.

Part of the entrance fee gets you a bag of feed for the critters, which draws the hungry ones right up to your vehicle. In fact, we even had an ostrich stick its head a foot or two into the Chevy. That’s something that doesn’t happen every day.

Just south of New Braunfels on Interstate 35 is a reptile park that has been both fascinating people and creeping them out for more than four decades. Opened in 1967, Snake Farm was purchased by Eric Trager in December 2007, Snake Farm has been renamed Animal World and Snake Farm, although the reptiles are still the star attractions.

During our trip to New York City in 2006, Shea and I took a side excursion to Punxsutawney, PA for the Groundhog Day celebration. What can I say? It was on Shea’s bucket list.

Let’s set one thing straight: it’s nothing like the movie. It’s not even in the middle of town. In fact, it’s on the top of a mountain about twenty minutes outside of town. You have to get up at about 3am to make it there, as much of route is closed down to everything but shuttle buses.

After our visits to Half Moon Bay and the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, Shea and I headed into the City itself for a couple of days.

Unfortunately, the Bay Area was in the midst of a heat waves. Highs during the day were 95-100 degrees Fahrenheit. While our hotel had air conditioning, almost nowhere else in the City did. Because it was so hot, we gravitated towards the Fisherman’s Wharf area. The cold waters of the Bay act like a natural cooling system. We took a 45 Bay cruise, and then took the ferry over to Alcatraz Island.

After our visit to Half Moon Bay, Shea and I headed up the peninsula to San Francisco. We stopped at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay for some more pictures before heading into the City.

A few years back, my uncle (who live in San Carlos, California) introduced me to this little stretch of beach on PCH just south of Half Moon Bay (which is between San Francisco and Santa Cruz). The first time Shea and I went to the Bay Area, we paid that spot a visit and left with these pictures.

The sky was a bit boring that day, but the view is such that I still came away with nice, but…

Last March, I spent several days in Santa Clara, California for SMX West. My then fiance (now wife) joined me and we drove up the peninsula to spend the weekend in San Francisco.

We burned some Hilton Honors points and stayed at the Hilton Financial District. Our room had a huge picture window with a fantastic view of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. I was a bit burned out from the three day show, so we spent a couple of hour relaxing in the room as the sun went down, watching the light change on Coit Tower.

As I posted previously, we were on the second row of the upper deck, so we had a great view.

Unfortunately, much of the view was taken up by the four, um, “ladies” in front of us. I’m fairly confident that they were all ex-strippers, and I suspect that they might have looked good at some point in the 1980′s. Let’s just say they were past their prime.

They were all very drunk (with perhaps some other chemicals…

This past weekend, I attended my first NFL game, and more importantly, my first Dallas Cowboys game. The wife bought me a pair of tickets for my birthday a few months back, and I was nice enough to bring her with me.

To say it was a different environment from a Longhorn game is a huge understatement. While there is certainly drinking going on before (and during) a college game, the number of truly smashed fans is relatively small.…