Assateague Overnighter

It was one of the few precious sunny days we've had in a month yesterday so I was grateful that we had reservations for a beach-side camp site at Assateague Island National Seashore.

We finally got to use our new tent for the first time too!

I bought Hans a small backpacking kite for his birthday.  It's pretty neatly designed.  It doesn't have a cross spar or spine so you can fold it up and tote it around easily.  We let it go and Hans buried the spool in the sand so we had a neat little aerial marker at our beach site.  The temperatures are still a bit chilly so we mostly did some beach walking and enjoyed a large bonfire in the evening.

 The kite had two modes: Way-Up-High and Ready-to-Strike

In the morning we found many freshly-dug holes in the sand and ghost crab tracks leading up to and around the tent.  We've encountered them here before and they seem to be mostly curious although last spring one charged the fire pit and whacked it with its claw!

Using Proxy Switching Web Apps to Save on Travel

Update 5/14/2016:

I just used the same trick to save over $200 on two New Zealand inter-island plane tickets.

NZ Air with normal USA internet connection: $336

NZ Air with web app set to NZ local internet: $123

Labor Day Weekend in Chicago

September 4th:

Hans and I had a very early direct flight from Baltimore to Chicago.  We arrived at our hotel in the Theater District by around 10:30 am and thankfully the staff allowed us to check in early.  After a little rest and map studying Hans and I walked south on Clark Street until I arrived at the Chicago outpost of my job.  Hans took off to wander the lakefront area and I met up with some folks for lunch.  We ate at Saucy Porka, a fusion restaurant, where I had their carnitas and kimchi sandwich.  I nabbed some chorizo egg rolls for takeout.