loveliness.

Category: travel

• autumn in new york: part 1

  Posted at 8:37 am by jasminedesirees, on December 1, 2015

  I still have a couple more posts from Seattle to share (I may have mentioned how much I LOVED that city) but I’ve been traveling a lot lately, so I wanted to mix it up a bit.

  

  

  

  The week before Halloween I was lucky enough to get to fly to New York for a week to work out of the NY office for my job. A lot of the people I work with every day are there, so it was really nice to actually meet everyone in person after talking to them every day on the phone for months.

  

  

  

  I stayed at the Empire Hotel right near Central Park West, so every single morning (no matter how late I’d been out the night before) I forced myself to get up and go for a run. I was training for the triathlon at the time, but also it was just so beautiful there I felt like I could run for hours and never get tired.

  

  

  

  I was there the week before the New York Marathon, so every morning while I was running, there were groups of workers putting up bleachers and getting ready for the race, it kind of made me want to stay and run it. I probably would have died, but I did say after our last marathon a few years ago, the only way I would ever run another one would be if we did NY.

  

  

  

  

  

  I was so excited to go to NY in the fall, I’ve only been there once before, in March. The leaves were starting to change, but I was excited for some cold weather, and it was actually really nice out. At this point I should just get rid of all my winter clothes, it’s not in the cards for me, apparently.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I worked in the office Tuesday-Friday, but didn’t book my flight home until Sunday night, so I had a couple of days to creep around the city and explore, and one of my very best friends came out to spend the weekend with me. She lives in Indianapolis now, and I hadn’t seen her since her wedding, over a year and a half ago, so it was an amazing weekend for lots of reasons.

  

  

  

  

  

  I’ll be traveling to NY a lot more starting in January, so I’m excited to spend more time in the city and explore a lot more. If you have any suggestions for cool places to visit or restaurants to check out, please let me know!

  

  

  

  

  Posted in New York, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged autumn, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, travel

• seattle: discovery park

  Posted at 8:52 am by jasminedesirees, on November 23, 2015

  We only had 3 days in Seattle, but we definitely made the most of them. On the morning before we flew out, we set off from our hotel, swung by Pike Place for breakfast, and then kept walking north along the water.

  

  

  

  We wandered through the Sculpture Garden, and kept walking until we got to the end of the walkway, and into a strange labyrinth of warehouses and roads. We were trying to get to Discovery Park, but we ended up kind of getting lost and had to call an Uber to come take us the rest of the way, otherwise we would probably still be there.

  

  

  

  

  We got dropped off at Discovery Park, just north of the city, and picked a random hiking trail (there are tons) to try to find our way to the lighthouse at the end of the point.

  

  

  

  It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, and the views on our hike were incredible. Right near Discovery Park there is a military base, and we stumbled upon what must be the most adorable Base housing in the history of the world.

  

  

  

  

  As a former military spouse, I was violently jealous of anybody who got to be stationed there and live in such a picturesque location.

  

  

  

  

  Eventually we found our way to the lighthouse (I kind of have a thing for lighthouses). The beach near the lighthouse was quiet and peaceful and was covered in so much driftwood that I briefly considered taking up whittling or furniture making. There were baby seals playing in the water along the shore.

  

  

  

  

  By the end of that day, I had pretty much decided I was going to move to Seattle one day, and I called my husband to tell him so. It won’t be for a couple of years, but I can tell that the PNW and I would get along.

  

  

  

  I suppose the argument could be made that I was there on the most beautiful, sunny weekend of the year, and I might not like it there most of the time when it’s grey and rainy, but that sounds like two-years-from-now Jasmine’s problem.

  

  

  

  Posted in Seattle, travel, USA, Washington | 1 Comment | Tagged beach, discovery park, hiking, lighthouses, seattle, travel, washington

• lake havasu triathlon

  Posted at 9:59 am by jasminedesirees, on November 18, 2015

  

  Last weekend, I did my second triathlon, in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Our first triathlon was a couple of years ago, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

  This time my mom, my sister and I all did it together. I had been thinking it was time to start training for something all summer, I am a very goal-oriented person so I have to keep setting up new challenges for myself or I get bored and lazy.

  I started training in August, but gave myself until September to sign up, to make sure I had at least started training by then. Training was a lot easier this time, since we had a pool in our building complex in Arizona, I could swim almost every day. When I was training for the first one, I had to go down to the local community pool, and fight off 13 year old SPEED swimmers for lane time a couple times a week.

  I also biked and ran a few days a week, so I felt like I was pretty ready for it.

  The Thursday before the race, we drove up to Vegas, and spent Thursday night and Friday night creeping around there. I didn’t go to sleep until 5 am on Thursday, and woke up quite ill (it’s always the red wine) the next day, which maybe isn’t the mark of a serious athlete, but my family is really fun, and we don’t get to see each other all the time, so we tend to take full advantage when we do.

  On Saturday, we drove down to Havasu, picked up our bikes (we had rented them before hand) and then rode them to our hotel. Unfortunately, we all through our purses (with our phones) into the truck while we were riding, and we got left behind about 15 seconds after we left the parking lot. So we got to drive around for a bit, and finally ask a nice man at a gas station for directions.

  Once we finally found the hotel, we went to pick up our race packets, the race started and finished at London Bridge beach park, and then went to the store to load up on snacks. We did a cross country half marathon in San Francisco a few years ago, and the only thing that got me through it was an Oreo at the rest stops every few miles, so I made sure to have some of those on hand.

  Also when we did our Mt. Rinjani trek, I gave myself one Oreo for every mile I successfully climbed (it was SO hard). At least I have a sophisticated rewards system?

  The morning of the race was pretty chilly, we had packed up and put on all of our numbers the night before, so we just jumped on our bikes and rode down to the beach park. We had about 45 minutes to get set up, get our wet suits on, and chat with other racers, before we went down to the lake to start.

  We were doing the Olympic Tri, which is approximately 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride, and 6 mile run.

  The swim was fine, although it was definitely the worst part. It always is. This tri was a lot smaller than our first one, so we weren’t getting kicked and swam over, which I appreciated, but the wet suits we had rented were pretty thick, and made swimming a little harder, and breathing as well. It felt like we were in the water forever, but we actually finished in pretty good time.

  The bike ride went well, it was a pretty good course until the very end where we had to turn around to come back and there were 3 enormous hills that we had to go down, and then back up the other side. And I mean, enormous. I didn’t even feel comfortable going down the hill, let alone capable of riding back up the other side.

  The run is always my favourite part, we put on some tunes and got it done. A few other runners said we looked like we were having way too much fun.

  The whole experience was great, although I would definitely not do a triathlon alone. It’s way more fun when you have other people to commiserate with.

  After the race, we went for drinks, and then made the three hour drive back to Phoenix. I was worried I would be sore the next day, but we all felt good enough for a marathon shopping session, before we eventually passed out collectively at around 8 pm.

  Posted in Arizona, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged bike, lake havasu, Las Vegas, run, swim, triathlon

• always say yes

  Posted at 8:05 am by jasminedesirees, on November 16, 2015

  

  “Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes’, otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.” ~ Ian Fleming

  I’m writing this from a beach house in Waianae, Hawaii. I booked my ticket Friday night, and left Saturday morning.

  I struggled for a few minutes, over whether or not this was a practical thing that a normal, well-adjusted person would do, and then realized, I don’t care.

  Posted in exploring, Hawaii, loveliness, quotes, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged adventure, beach, Hawaii, ian fleming, quotes, travel

• seattle: pike place

  Posted at 7:50 am by jasminedesirees, on November 2, 2015

  During our trip to Seattle, one of the places I liked the best was the Pike Place Market. It’s obviously a must visit destination for anyone spending time there, but I expected to spend an hour or so browsing, and then get on with the rest of the trip.

  What actually happened was that we kept finding ourselves back there each day, finding new things each time. It helped that our hotel was just a few blocks away, but each morning when we set out for the day, we found ourselves first heading for Pike Place.

  

  

  

  The main thing that kept us coming back was the food. There were so many amazing places to eat in and around the market that we couldn’t have tried them all in 3 days, but we did our best.

  

  

  

  Our first morning we stopped at a little shop in a back alley near the market and ate the most amazing breakfast sandwiches. I don’t even like breakfast sandwiches, but I loved this place.

  I actually bought all of the ingredients this past weekend to try to re-create it at home (sharp cheddar, eggs, tomato, fresh basil, english muffin), and it tasted exactly the same. I may or may not have eaten one for every single meal for the last two days.

  

  

  

  One of the things I loved about Seattle was how they used their back alleys. Some of the best places we found were tucked away down cute little alleys, and it was such a good use of the space.

  We also tried chocolate hazelnut pastries from Piroshky Piroshky. This little bake shop is right across the street from Pike’s Place, and it’s one of a few places (including the original Starbucks) where there is always a line.

  

  

  

  As we were strolling by I remember thinking that there was no way anything they sold in there could be worth waiting that long, and then I think I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew, I was overcome by the aroma of fresh baking and found myself in line.

  

  

  

  If you do go to Piroshky, try to creep into the little shop before getting in line, so you can get a sense of what you might want to order. I was so fascinated watching them make all of the pastries through that window that once I got inside and it was my turn, I realized I had no idea what I wanted.

  The line moves quickly, and I didn’t want to be the person to hold it up, so I just panicked and blurted out that I wanted “the one with chocolate”.

  

  

  

  Just down the street, right on the corner is a cheese shop, where you can watch cheese being made through the window, and also sneak in for samples. In our case, we snuck in for samples a LOT.

  

  

  

  They also made amazing macaroni and cheese and other snacks, and we bought some and camped out on the curb, people watching and enjoying the deliciousness. There were street magicians, people in all kinds of different outfits, and a man playing dirty songs on piano on the street corner.

  

  

  

  In addition to the food (let’s be real, it was mostly about the food) the flowers they sold at the market were gorgeous. There were rows and rows of florists selling enormous, colourful bouquets for five dollars a piece.

  

  

  Every morning I almost bought one, but it seemed like a shame to buy it to have it sit in the hotel room, and then have to leave it behind.

  

  

  

  We also checked out the gum wall (it’s cool, but if you stop to think about it for any amount of time, it’s horrifying) and made friends with the fish vendor at the farmers market.

  

  

  

  Even with all the time we spent exploring the area, I’m sure there are lots of things we didn’t get a chance to try, but I’m pretty satisfied with our choices.

  

  

  

  

  Posted in Seattle, travel, USA, Washington | 1 Comment | Tagged food, marketplace, pike's place, seattle, travel, washington

• seattle: chuhily glass garden

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on October 19, 2015

  We wanted to see as many things as we possibly could in Seattle, which included the EMP and the Space Needle, so we ended up buying the City Pass because it was cheaper in the long run. We ended up getting tickets to the Chuhily Garden and Glass, which is right next door to the EMP Museum.

  

  

  

  There were a few sculptures outside in the park as we were walking by the building, and I thought they looked pretty cool, but we were mostly going because we had free tickets.

  

  

  

  But as soon as we walked through the door, I was blown away. There were a few smaller sculptures in the entrance way and lobby, but the first big sculpture was ocean themed, and it is absolutely breathtaking. I could have stood there all day and stared at it.

  

  

  

  But once we left that room, and went into the next, we were greeted by a light filled room with an entire ceiling filled with multi-coloured glass sculptures. And that’s the way it went. Every exhibit was my favourite, until I saw the one that came after it.

  

  

  

  By the time we had wandered around and looked at all of the different pieces, I was completely in love with Dale Chuhily (the artist), and I was convinced I was going to buy a small blown glass piece to take home with me, which is not something I normally do at museums.

  

  

  

  

  I was quickly relieved of that notion when we got to the shop and realized that for even a small sculpture the size of a bowl, it was thousands of dollars.

  

  

  

  I was creeping around on Groupon the other day looking for massages, when I found a glass blowing class. It sounds kind of dangerous, I’m assuming playing with molten liquid glass is not really a hobby for the un-coordinated, but maybe it is my secret talent.

  

  

  

  

  I’m coming for you Dale.

  

  

  

  Posted in Seattle, travel, USA, Washington | 0 Comments | Tagged art, dale chuhily, glass blowing, seattle, travel, washington

• seattle: emp

  Posted at 9:34 am by jasminedesirees, on October 6, 2015

  A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to spend a few days exploring Seattle. We had gorgeous weather, so we were able to spend a lot of each day outside, wandering around. We fit so many things into our time there, but it didn’t feel rushed.

  One of our first stops on the first day was the EMP, a music and cultural museum right beside the Space Needle. There were exhibits on Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Fantasy and Horror movies, and Star Wars costumes. It was really interesting, I loved the Nirvana exhibit, and seeing Jimi Hendrix’s passport was awesome.

  Also, they had Sirius Black’s coat from Harry Potter, and Jarrett’s entire outfit from the Labyrinth, probably the greatest movie ever made, and the cappuccino’s in the restaurant were amazing.

  They had an exhibit on Chuck Jones, a longtime animator for WB who was responsible for a lot of the Loony Tunes cartoons. He had a quote that I really liked, “All worthwhile endeavors are 90% work and 10% love, and only the love should show.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Posted in exploring, Seattle, travel, Washington | 0 Comments | Tagged emp, jimi hendrix, kurt cobain, music, nirvana, seattle, travel

• weekend in monterey

  Posted at 8:39 am by jasminedesirees, on September 29, 2015

  A couple of weeks ago I flew to Oakland and drove to Monterey for a weekend of beaching and wine tasting with some of my favourite ladies. We spent Saturday wine tasting in Carmel Valley (definitely recommend the wine trolley, as clearly nobody could drive) and then hung out on the beach for a bit.

  

  

  

  It was very strange there were thousands and thousands of little fish washed up on the beach flopping around, it was really sad.

  

  

  

  

  

  I’d never seen anything like that before, so a few of us spent about an hour racing around trying to throw as many as possible back into the ocean (alcohol may have been a factor) so they could live. It was a pretty fruitless endeavour, but we probably saved a few.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  We looked it up, and apparently if there are whales or pods of dolphins in the area it can push some of the fish closer to shore for safety, but then they can get beached.

  

  

  

  Monterey is such a cute town, there is so much history and the architecture is beautiful, but I’m pretty sure whoever designed the roads was drunk at the time, it is quite maddening to drive around, especially if you are driving a borrowed vehicle, that happens to be a stick, and also have no idea where you’re going (or so I’ve heard).

  

  

  

  We did dinner, drinks and dancing on Saturday night, and dragged ourselves to the pier in the morning to drown our sorrows in salt water taffy and clam chowder (or fettucine alfredo in my case) before the drive home.

  

  

  

  

  We spent more than an hour stuck in traffic, because that’s just what life is like, and we also didn’t find Clint Eastwood, which was the main goal of the trip, but it was a successful weekend either way.

  

  

  

  Posted in California, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, California, monterey, travel

• angel island

  Posted at 7:00 am by jasminedesirees, on September 21, 2015

  It’s funny how you move to a new place, and for awhile every day is an exciting discovery, but then eventually, that new place becomes just the place where you live. When we first moved to California, we were exploring new places all the time, but after awhile we settled down to regular life, and most of our travels were to SoCal, or out of state.

  

  

  Angel Island has been on my list since I first found out we were moving and started creeping for fun things to do, but somehow it never happened. The nice thing is that we still have friends and family in the area and we go back to the Bay pretty often, so just because we haven’t done something yet (I’m looking at you Alcatraz) doesn’t mean we won’t.

  We ended up going to Angel Island this summer, finally, with Derek’s brother, his girlfriend, and their daughter. We left from Sausalito (one of my favourite places) and took the ferry across on a beautiful sunny Sunday in July.

  

  

  The ferry ride was $15/person, plus $1 per bike. If you are thinking of visiting and you have a bike, definitely bring it. Rentals are pretty expensive, so $1 to bring your own bike on the ferry is a steal.

  

  

  When you land at Angel Island there is a little pier area with a couple little restaurants (some of them look really good, and the prices weren’t terrible either) and a place to rent bikes. They also sell wine, which is a useful tip for after the bike ride is over.

  

  

  When you first start riding up you are on a narrow little dirt path that is very steep, and you last about 15 seconds before you get off and start pushing your bike, and wondering when the next ferry back leaves.

  

  

  But once you get to the top of that little area, the path widens out, and is paved, and is generally not very steep. There were lots of families doing the bike ride together, so it’s not super difficult but there were definitely a couple of times when I was exhausted but had to peddle really hard to beat a little girl up a hill. Not today, Pigtails.

  

  

  The only part of the ride that is really hard is when you are around the opposite side, with the best view of San Francisco. In order to get to the magnificent view of the Golden Gate Bridge, you have to ride up the side of a hill that recently made a cameo in Everest. It feels impossible, but the view once you make it to the top is worth it.

  

  

  After the hill, it’s mostly flat or downhill. It’s really the last place where you need to put in any effort, so keep telling yourself that as you struggle for breath and turn the colour of a cherry tomato.

  

  

  Angel Island used to be an old military base, so there are some really neat old buildings to look at as you pedal, and we had a rare hot day in San Francisco, so we stopped and hung out on one of the beaches while we ate lunch.

  

  

  If you are planning on checking out Angel Island, especially in the summer, make sure you bring sunscreen, there isn’t a lot of shade, and lots of water. Once you leave the pier area, there isn’t anywhere to get more water, although there are some picnic tables at the top of the aforementioned mammoth hill.

  

  

  

  The BEST thing about our Angel Island trip is that my brother-in-law proposed to his girlfriend while we were there! So not only was it a beautiful fun day, but now I get a new sister, and I get to wear this dress to a wedding in the Spring. Wins all around.

  

  

  

  And speaking of things I haven’t gotten to do in California yet, we are still deciding whether or not to spend Christmas there (I’m 28 and I’ve never not been with my family. Yes, I’m a baby.) but if we do, I am slightly cheered at the prospect of spending a few days camping in Big Sur between Christmas and New Years. We may die of exposure in our tents, but live dangerously or not at all.

  

  

  

  Posted in California, exploring, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged angel island, bay area, California, San Francisco, travel

• glacier national park

  Posted at 9:44 am by jasminedesirees, on September 17, 2015

  We’ve been coming to Flathead Lake in Montana for almost as long as I can remember. We would load up in the motorhome when my dad got home from work, and he would drive through the night.

  We would wake up in the morning in Montana, at the campgrounds in Big Arm, and we would spend two weeks boating, having campfires, swimming and feeding the geese.

  

  

  

  About 8 years ago my parents bought a cabin in Lakeside, and we’ve been spending most of our summers and a lot of our Christmases here ever since.

  In all that time, I don’t think I’ve ever spent any actual time in Glacier National Park, although I do remember driving through it, and stopping to play in the waterfalls along the Road to the Sun.

  

  

  

  So this summer, on a day too cold to spend on the boat, my mom and I drove the hour and a half to the park to go hiking. The park is absolutely gorgeous, and there are so many hiking trails and gorgeous lakes to choose from. We ended up going up to the top, to the Logan’s Pass trail. It’s a long, winding drive to the top, but the view is spectacular.

  

  

  

  We were dressed in light layers, and we brought our bear bell and bear repellent, just in case, although if I ever had a bear come close enough to use it I would probably just lay down and wait for it to finish me off.

  

  

  

  We stopped at the gift shop at the top to see if they had any snacks (they had these AMAZING oatmeal chocolate chips the size of your face, and I ate it in about two bites) and then we set off. We kind of randomly picked a trail and started walking.

  The beginning of the trail was a wooden boardwalk through fields of multi-coloured wildflowers, but eventually it became a dirt trail with puddles everywhere from the runoff, and it got snowier and colder as we got closer.

  

  

  

  My feet got wet, which wasn’t a problem at first, but after we’d been outside for a few hours and it started getting windier and colder I thought it was going to be Alive all over again.

  The first animal we saw was a Marmot, it looks like an enormous fluffy gopher, but it was just chilling along the side of the trail so we left it alone.

  

  

  

  The end destination of our hike was Hidden Lake, but we didn’t really know how far it was, so we kept ambling along. We passed a few people having a snowball fight, tons of waterfalls and a few little lakes before we got to the viewpoint.

  When we were almost there we ran into one of the park rangers, and he told us he had seen a grizzly bear with her cubs down by the lake.

  

  

  

  We walked for about 10 more minutes, and then we started to see little white dots moving down the mountains across an open field. They were mountain goats, there were 4 of them, and they were coming straight towards us.

  We watched them for awhile and then went to continue on, when all of a sudden one of them popped up right in front of us on the trail, about 5 feet away. I’m not sure if mountain goats are dangerous, but he did have horns, so we tried to give him some space, but it was really cool to see him up so close.

  

  

  

  We made it to the Hidden Lake Viewpoint, the view was amazing, and we did get to see the bears, although they were so far away that it was like a brown dot with two smaller brown dots walking around by the lake, which is fine because that’s about as close as I want to be to a grizzly bear in the wild anyway.

  

  

  Eventually it started getting really cold and windy, so we made the trek back down, and headed for home, or more accurately, to the Moose for pizza. It was a really fun day, but there is so much to see in the park that I’d need at least a week to do all the hikes and see all the of the beautiful views.

  

  

  

  There are so many amazing places there, like St.Mary Lake and hundreds of hiking trails, but there’s always next summer.

  

  

  

  Posted in Montana, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged flathead lake, glacier national park, grizzly bear, hiking, hiking trails, Montana

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