Trippin'

I travel a lot for both business and pleasure. I enjoy seeing different places and different things and I love to meet new people. I have many stories to tell from my travels, so this page has a few of those stories and links to some of the places I have been.

I think I can trace this desire back to the mid and late 80's when I took a couple of trips to see some concerts. The first trip was to see Van Halen play one of their first shows with Sammy Hagar as their (then) new singer. It was a spur of the moment trip: my buddy and I were talking about it one night and the next morning we were on a flight to Florida. Then about a year or two after that trip, some friends and I rented a mini-van and drove to Florida and followed Aerosmith around.

Much of the idea behind this web page started one night when my co-worker Eryk and I were at the bar of a Holiday Inn in Washington, DC and we were comparing notes about where we've been in our travels. We used bar napkins to scribble down the states and countries to which we've been. The list has grown from there. 

Highlights from my travels:

  • I've been to more than 68 different Hooters. I keep track of them here.

  • I have ridden rollercoasters in 14 different states. Some of them include: Busch Gardens & SeaWorld in Florida and Virginia; Six Flags in New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, and Houston; King's Dominion; Adventure World; Canobie Lake Park; Disney and all their fun parks in California & Florida; Universal Studios in Florida & California; and Cedar Point.
     

  • I have been to more than 37 states and in various countries in North America, Central America, and South America. I have also been all over southern Italy and Sicily.

    • In Canada, I have been to Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City a few times each. 

    • In Mexico, I've been to Tijuana three times and to Cozumel and Cabo San Lucas.

    • Elsewhere in Central and South America, I've been to Cartegena, Columbia; Costa Rica (where I took a boat trip thru a rain forest and ate bananas and raw cocoa fresh from the trees); and Panama (where I sailed about 1/3 of the way into the Panama Canal). 

    • In the Caribbean, I've been to the Bahamas, Jamaica and to the Cayman Islands (where there is a town called Hell...use the Post Office there to mail stuff postmarked from Hell!).
       

  • I have been to many Hard Rock Cafés. I don't really remember where or when it started, but it has become a bit of a quest because I now collect glasses from each one I go to. My collection includes Nassau, Cabo San Lucas, Rome, Montreal, Cozumel, Tijuana, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Key West, La Jolla, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Washington DC. 
     

  • Some other tourist traps I've been to while traveling include Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in Key West and New Orleans; House Of Blues locations on the Sunset Strip, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Orlando, and Cambridge; Planet Hollywood locations in Las Vegas, at the Mall Of America, New York City, Orlando, Washington DC, and I am sure there are others that I am forgetting about.
     

  • I go to Daytona Beach just about every year around Bike Week and Spring Break. My mom lives there in the winter so I kinda have no choice...I have to go to Florida every winter. :) 
     

  • In 1995 in Florida, I saw Van Halen again, went on a private behind-the-scenes tour of Cape Canaveral and the area around the Kennedy Space Center, and I went on a Carnival Cruise (in the pic over to the right, Kathie Lee was on the ship docked next to mine...she's in the one on the left).

  • I spent almost the entire first six months of 1997 on the road in Philadelphia and in Washington, DC. I was home for Easter and Father's Day but away the rest of the time. 

  • During the calendar year 1997-1998, there was only one month that I was not either on a plane or a train somewhere.
     

  • In November 1997, I went to Las Vegas and among other things, went on an airplane tour that buzzed the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. I felt like I was still flying on the Manhattan Express at New York, New York and on the Big Shot at the Stratosphere...a ride that shoots you up 160-feet on a tower that's already over 1000-feet above ground-level, and you do it in only a few seconds at 4-G's! Had a very magical dining experience (literally) at Caesar's Magical Empire. 
     

  • Went back to Vegas in 1998 for the opening of the Star Trek Experience, which is soooo cool...one second you're standing in a small square room, and the next second you find that you've been beamed into the Transporter Room of the Enterprise...truly amazing! I've been back there several times since then and still cannot figure how the hell they do that!
     

  • In Dallas in 1999, I saw the place where JFK was shot and I went to the Southfork Ranch which was made famous in the TV show "Dallas" (the place where JR and the Ewings lived).
     

  • In June of 1999, went to Cleveland, rode some rollercoasters, went to Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe, and saw the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I scheduled my return flight with a four-hour layover in Baltimore so I could go to the Hooters and Hard Rock there.
     

  • me on letterman2.jpg (35835 bytes)In various trips to Hollywood during the 90's, I was in the audience for Married With Children, Herman's Head, and the very short-lived Chevy Chase Show (remember that? it was a late-night talk-show). And in New York City, I've been to the David Letterman show twice (you can see me in the audience in the pic to the right and I am also in a few pics on another website).
     

  • I spent most of the first five months of 2000 on the road, mostly in the Minneapolis and Denver areas. There was also a week in San Francisco and some time in Daytona and Orlando.

    In Minneapolis...

    • The steak at Manny's melted in my mouth. Dessert there was a brownie sundae thing that cost $14. The waiter described how big it was so I asked him if it was enough for me and my date to share. He said it would be enough for six people to share. When it came to the table I quickly saw that he was not exaggerating too much. This thing was HUGE. It was dessert that night, as well as breakfast the next day, and lunch, and a midday snack. 

    • Also in Minneapolis is my favorite place for Sunday Brunch: the Pickled Parrot. They have all the typical breakfast and lunch stuff with carving stations and omelet stations, but the coolest thing about this place is the make-your-own-Bloody-Mary-bar! They give you the vodka and you do the rest. They have all kinds of mixers and ingredients and since you make it yourself, you can be as adventurous as you want.

    • No trip to the Twin Cities area would be complete without a visit to the Mall Of America, the largest mall in the USA. This place is enormous! If you spent 10 minutes in each of the shops, it would take more than four days to do everything. 

    In the Denver area...

    • I tried Rocky Mountain Oysters for the first (and last!) time. I had NO idea what they were!! (no, they are NOT seafood and no, they do NOT taste like chicken, and I have no desire to eat them again). I was told that they are a local delicacy, but my friend would not tell me exactly what they were until it was too late. 

    • I went on several road trips while based in the Denver area. We drove up to Nebraska and Wyoming, went out to the real neighborhood of South Park, and in a 19 hour day I drove out to Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. There is a monument where Arizona and New Mexico and Utah all meet with Colorado, so you can literally be in all four states at one time. This whole drive was very pretty and scenic.

    • I went to the world's largest hot spring water pool in Colorado's Rockies. Millions of gallons of this spring water comes out of the ground at 122°F and they chill it down to 90-something for use in the pool. On the way back home from there, we stopped off and had a pizza at Beau-Jo's. Bring your appetite when you go there because their specialties include a five-pound pizza. But that pales in comparison to their "Challenge", which is 12-to-14 pounds! If two people order the "Challenge" and eat it in one hour, they get the pizza for free, $100, and a T-shirt. 

  • In July 2000, I took my mom to New York to be in the audience for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Live With Image14.jpg (138768 bytes)Regis & Kathie Lee. Regis is one of the coolest guys in the world. While at the taping of the Millionaire show, I told him that Mom & I wanted to see him in the morning with Kathie Lee, but we were unable to get in because it was Kathie Lee's last week and there was just too much demand. But Regis later came back to me and asked for my name and said he'd try to get us in the next day, even though it would be difficult. But it all worked out and Mom & I got in the next morning (as you can see in the pic on the right, Kathie Lee does not like getting her pic taken when she has no makeup on and her hair isn't done). We also met Dianne Sawyer and Joe Thiesmann on this trip, both of whom are very nice people.
     

  • In October of 2000, went on a mini family vacation to Las Vegas.
     

  • All together in 2000, a total of 19 different states (some for the first time, some not for the first time).
     

  • Went to New Orleans in January/February 2001:

    • Stayed in the French Quarter.

    • Partied on Bourbon Street, where many happy-hours stretch from 11am until like midnight or so...and you can take your beer around with you from bar to bar in a to-go cup. Hadda have Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's.

    • Lunched at Emeril's restaurant, went to the Camellia Grill for breakfast, and had one of the best burgers in town at the Clover Grill. 

    • No trip to New Orleans would be worth it without a stop at the Central Grocery and one of their Muffalettas...a sandwich that's almost as wide as a Frisbee and four times fatter, with three types of imported cheese, lots of Italian cold cuts, and a special olive salad spread...mmm... 
       

  • Later in 2001, I spent considerable amounts of time both in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. One of the coolest things to do in Lauderdale is the Water Taxi which will take you around town and drop you off wherever you want to go eat or drink or shop or whatever...all by boat. Very cool. In Miami Beach, I stayed a few blocks north of South Beach, where it's models galore and the parties and the night-clubbing do not end until 5am every day (after three weeks of that, I am almost surprised that I made it home alive).
     

  • In October 2001, it was back to Cleveland for more roller-coaster riding and two more Hooters.

I am too busy -- um, ok, too lazy to keep updating this page so I started a new page that's easier for me to access when I am on the road.