One of the nicest places to visit in the Netherlands is the Keukenhof, which is all tulips all the time. Well, at least for the time that they are open, which is about mid-to-late-March to mid-May. I've visited a couple times before (here and here), and always have a good time walking around photographing the flowers and taking in the smells that only a billion flowers can provide.

For this trip, I took my Sony 90mm Macro FE lens, which was purchased specifically for situations like this. Even though I didn't really do much "deep macro" with it, I was able to get some beautiful shots that only a lens of this quality can provide. Perhaps next time I will take a tripod and do some "real" macro, which would be an interesting way to make the journey feel new again...

To be continued...

I haven't been to Antwerp for decades, but decided to make the trip so I could see the Hard Rock Cafe which was added there. I don't know that it was worth the trip, but it did allow for time to visit with The Woman Formerly Known as DutchBitch, and we decided to make a lunch of it.

An hour and forty-five minutes later, and we were deposited at Antwerp's lovely Central Station...

   
The cafe is small, but has a decent collection of memorabilia going on...

   
With n hour to kill until our return train, we walked through the city a bit. This was a creative approach to public art I don't recall seeing before...

   
Not that it was the only public work on display...

   
And for anybody worried that McDonalds, Starbucks, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was the end of American exports abroad, you'll be happy to know that Five Guys has gone global...

   
And with that, we said adieu to Antwerp.

Traveling with one blogger friend to meet up with another blogger friend has to be one of the better things to come out of the internet.

That so few bloggers are out there now is more than a little depressing to me.

Time to Amsterdam is just under ten hours, which means I can burn through five movies to pass the time.

Fortunately, there were plenty of films available on my flight that I was interested in seeing, so I didn't have to resort to binge-watching West Wing episodes on my iPhone...

• Disaster Artist I was really looking forward to seeing a film documenting the making of one of the world's worst movies... The Room. It was everything I could have hoped for.
• Shape of Water A beautiful film with fantastic effects, sets, and acting which was somewhat hampered by being entirely predictable right up until the last frame. Still, very glad I saw it, though I wish I had managed to see it in a theater.
• Darkest Hour Easily Gary Oldman's best performance, it was everything you'd expect from such a heavily lauded and award-nominated film.
• Downsizing Not at all what I expected. The ads implied it was a comedy, but completely left out the darker nature of the movie. Enjoyed it quite a bit once I got into it.
• Dealt A documentary about one of the foremost card magicians in the world... who happens to be blind. The film runs in two tracks, one devoted to Richard Turner's magical talents, the other to his blindness, and both are fascinating. Highly recommended.

And... next stop, Schiphol...

I sent postcards on my Antarctica vacation knowing full well they may never show up. Just so I would know one way or the other if they arrived, I sent cards to myself as well. The first postcard was sent from Ushuaia and never made it. The second card was given to the crew of our ship to mail from Antarctica (since our landing to the post office station had to be canceled). That one finally arrived 10 weeks later...

Ironically, the postcard that got here cost me $1 to mail. The one that didn't get here cost over $4. Not that it matters. $4 is a tiny drop in a very large bucket.

As soon as my tax refund gets here, I plan on paying off the last remnants of vacation that have been lingering. Go me. Closure at last!

This past week a guy from Berkeley died while snorkeling off the Southern coast of Maui. The ninth such tragedy in two weeks. It happened off Maluaka Beach, which is in front of the (former) Maui Prince Hotel, which became the (former) Makena Beach Hotel, and is now condos or something. Back when I was traveling to Hawaii for work, I stayed at the Maui Prince many times. I've snorkeled off Maluaka Beach many, many times. In fact, it was off Maluaka Beach where I learned to SCUBA dive.

It's one of my favorite beaches on earth...

   
Needless to say, hearing about people dying someplace you've been to many times gets you thinking.

        The Boston Marathon bombing was on a street I've walked down many times.

        9/11 happened in a building I've been up many times.

        The Vegas shooting was in an area I've been through many times.

The list goes on and on. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, terrorism... it's all happening somewhere, and sometimes it happens in places you know. Having to reconcile happy memories with tragic events is a struggle.

As is life, I suppose.

For those who only read one of my posts each year... or anybody wanting a recap of the past year here at Blogography... this post is for you! As customary, I've jettisoned loads of the usual junk so this entry is "mostly crap" instead of the "total crap" they usually are.

2017 was far from ideal. And yet... compared to the bucket of never-ending suck that was 2016, it was a vast improvement. So I can't really complain.

JANUARY

• Said goodbye to President Obama, a president that I never learned to truly appreciate until the total disaster that's now occupying The White House moved in...

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

   
FEBRUARY

• Took my cats to the vet for the first time, something I am definitely not looking forward to doing again in the New Year...

   
MARCH

• Went to Disneyland for work, then ranked my all-time favorite Disney attractions.

   
• Yesterday I listed my favorite albums of 2017. Last March I listed my all-time most hated songs that everybody else seems to love.

   
• Flew to San Francisco to see one of my favorite new musical artists, Wrabel, with my (literal) rockstar friend Aaron.

   
• Headed to Las Vegas, where I finally ziplined down Fremont Street, among other things.

   
APRIL

• Said goodbye to Lil' Spicey...

   
• Built a built-in desk... for my cats, apparently.

   
MAY

• Flew to Denver to celebrate my good friend Howard's 50th birthday with the Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2!

   
JUNE

• Built new built-ins for my bedroom closet, which turned out amazing...

   
• Had one of the biggest scares of my life during The Great Jake Escape...

   
• Back to Vegas again (for work this time).

   
JULY

• Said goodbye to my long-time blogging friend, Anissa.

   
• Welcomed Carl the RoboVac to my family...

   
• Flew to Maine for blueberries (and for work).

   
AUGUST

• Said a painful goodbye to my good friend and long-time blogging buddy, Howard.

   
• Lived through Raccoonageddon.

   
• Live-blogged my photographing the eclipse (with my cats).

   
• Read The Nashville Statement so you don’t have to.

   
SEPTEMBER

• Lived through another round of wildfires in my neck of the woods.

   
• Built a tunnel for a bird to escape my home before my cats could murder it...

   
OCTOBER

• Wrote "Second Amendments and Horse Shit" which surprised some people, I'm sure.

   
• Had some extra money that came my way and wrote about what I did with it... which included getting some old negatives scanned...

   
• Added Joy the Mopping Robot to Carl the RoboVac and my growing family.

   
• Got my cats into the Halloween spirit...

   
NOVEMBER

• Had a colonoscopy... and posted photos of my beautiful colon (you're welcome!).

   
• Flew to Maine and finally visited Acadia National Park...

   
• Visited the Eastern-Most Point in the USA at West Quoddy Head Light on a bad weather day...

   
• Was first in the USA to see the sun rise at Cadillac Mountain...

   
DECEMBER

• Flew to Buenos Aires and visited Evita at Recoleta Cemetery...

   
• Took in the view at The End of the World...

   
• Headed out across The Drake Passage in some of the roughest seas on earth...

   
• Fulfilled a life-long dream when I finally set foot on Antarctica for the first time...

   
• Photographed Antarctica icebergs at "night"...

   
• Explored the lives of penguins...

   
• Had one of the most amazing days of my life when I stepped foot on the seventh continent...

   
• Got up-close-and-personal with some whales...

   
• More penguin photography at Half Moon Island in Antarctica...

   
• Used Apple's new "iPhone Update Plan" so I could buy an iPhone X and post my thoughts on the astoundingly expensive thing.

   
And there you have it, the year that was the major events in my 2017.

Well, the ones I shared on my blog, anyway.

Thanks once again to my cats, family, and friends for making life bearable through the not-so-great times. Though, I have to say, closing out the year with my bucket-list trip to Antarctica certainly had it ending on a high note.

Here's to a good 2018, everybody.

And so... I'm heading over the mountains for a short holiday vacation.

All week I was a little apprehensive because the weather forecast kept changing, but it ended up being a beautiful day with bare roads and pretty scenery. A piece of cake drive to be sure...

Alas, my visor-clip broke apart half-way through, so I missed recording some of the glorious snow-filled wonder.

Catch you after Christmas!

While unpacking from my vacation, I found a strip of pills given to me by the doctor onboard the Ushuaia for motion sickness. When crossing The Drake Passage I took one the night before hitting rough waters, but didn't find I needed them for the two days of trauma that followed, so I never used them. I thought I gave them all away, but apparently I did not.

I had no luck using the Pill Identifier at Drugs.com (my go-to site for identifying mystery pills), so I typed in what information I could find from the partial package I had... "Janssen" and "ugero" and "75"... which resulted in Stugeron 75 MG Tablet...

Stugeron is a medicine that belongs to the category of antihistaminic medications. It is used to treat problems associated with the inner ear and the brain. This medicine is used to treat dizziness and sickness associated with motion sickness.

Apparently this is a better drug for motion sickness than the Promethazine I had requested from my personal doctor. When the ship's doctor had us bring any medications we were going to use to dinner to show her, she just kind of chuckled and shook her head "no" while handing me the Stugeron. Needless to say, I took her word for it, because I'm guessing somebody serving on a ship would know what works best.

Ah the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals!

Which is a strange thing for me to say given my raging hatred for "Big Pharma" and the way they manipulate doctors into over-prescribing their over-priced crap.

And yet...

Gabapentin, which I like to refer to as "The Miracle Drug," has been life-changing for me. After being plagued with ever-worsening "restless leg syndrome" for years, I finally got relief (and a good night's sleep) once I consulted Dr. Google and found that people were getting good results with Gabapentin. I begged my doctor to let me try it and, 600mg a night later, my quality of life has improved so profoundly over the last couple months that I am almost moved to tears just thinking about it.

And so...

Not all drugs are all bad all the time. Sometimes they are a necessary part of life that you just have to accept and be grateful for.

And I am.

Even though I still wish drugs were cheaper, doctors wouldn't be so quick to throw a bunch of drugs at every problem that walks through the door, and Big Pharma would be forbidden from influencing doctors and politicians with their endless supply of money.

Time for Gabapentin and bed now.

And so I updated my Travel Map last night.

I've now step foot on all seven continents, which is pretty cool bragging rights...

   
I've also come one step closer to finishing off my travel bucket list. Two down. Eight to go...

1. Africa. Who doesn't want to experience an African safari? Who doesn't want to see elephants, gorillas, lions, rhinos, giraffes, and the dozens of other amazing creatures that can be found there? This is another one of those trips that requires a massive stack of cash to do right.
2. Antarctica. The reason I haven't been to Antarctica yet is solely a matter of money. I don't just want to float by on a cruise ship... I want an actual expedition, and that costs an absurd amount of bank. I'm hopeful I can get it figured out one day soon, because I don't know how much longer I'll remain healthy enough for such an adventure.
3. India. It seems insane that one of the destinations I most want to visit on earth is still on my to-do list. I think the problem is one of time and logistics. There are simply so many places in the country I want to visit that I can't decide on an itinerary that would fit in a two-week period. I'll get it sorted eventually, I suppose, but every time I've tried in the past I get mired down with the fact that I need five weeks to do what I want to do, and no way to take that much time off.
4. New Zealand When I visited Australia two years ago, I drew a line through Sydney and created a trip north (including Fiji), and a trip south (including New Zealand). I ended up going north because the southern trip would take a week longer and an additional $1600... both of which I didn't have. But that southern itinerary is still there. I still want to do it. I just need the money and the time. Again.
5. Peru & Galápagos Islands. Machu Picchu is a bucket-list item that I've been dreaming of for decades. The Galápagos Islands is also on my list, and seems like an easy pairing for one trip.
6. Jordan & Israel. There are many reasons I want to visit Jordan but, naturally, seeing Petra before I die is probably the biggest. And since it would be insane to go all that way and not visit Israel, another place I've longed to see, this is a dream trip.
7. Brazil. Visiting Rio de Janeiro, Fernando de Noronha, The Amazon Rainforest, Ouro Preto, and dozens of other places in Brazil is kind of a no-brainer. But I want to see Iguazu Falls. Badly. It's just such an amazing spectacle on movies and television that I cannot fathom how amazing it would be to see in person.
8. Moscow & St. Petersburg. This is a pretty simple trip to plan... just call up a company who does river cruises (like Viking) and sail from Moscow to St. Petersburg while enjoying all the amazing stuff in-between. Easy! At least it's easy if you've got lots and lots of money.
9. Norwegian Fjords. A cruise along the coast of Norway through all the beautiful little fishing towns and jaw-dropping scenery seems like one of the most relaxing vacations ever. And I blame my obsession with experiencing it on Disney's Epcot. They show a movie after you go on the "Maelstrom" ride in "Norway" that shows just how amazing such a trip would be, and I've been dreaming of it ever since.
10. Nepal. Always wanted to go. Still want to go. Need to find a way to go. Have never put enough time into figuring out how to go. Really must go.

I used to be pretty obsessed with making it to everyplace on this list. Now? Not so much. Sure, I'd still like to visit all of them... but I'm not going to feel a failure at life if I don't make every destination. Except India. I really, really want to make it to India before I die.