One of the coolest things happened to me on the way to work this morning. I spotted Gary Cantrell a.k.a Lazarus Lake a.k.a LAZ, the creator of one of the most interesting races in running (The Barkley Marathons), making his way down US-20 in Charlton, MA! He embarked on a cross-country journey on foot last week (He's calling it LazCon) and while I knew he was in MA, I never would have thought I would see him. I noticed two walkers on the road as I was trudging my way through my commute and had this succession of thoughts:
1. Huh. I don't normally see people walking on this road.
2. Oh, that kinda looks like Laz. No way that could be him though?
3. Wait... I am on US-20.... and he's making his journey on US-20...
4. Omg is that Laz?
5. *passes by and gets a good look at his face* OMG IT'S LAZ!
I knew I had to turn around and snap a couple of pics for the people in my life that are also big fans of the Barkley. Laz and his walking partner looked like they were in great spirits and it was so neat to see them out there tackling an incredible goal!
I've been wanting to gush about this sighting all day, but really only my parents and Brett are the only people in my personal life that would have any idea what I was talking about, so I'm glad I was able to record this cool experience here on the blog! Honestly, this was so cool and inspiring to me and I'm so lucky to have been in same place at the same time as Laz. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!
Anyway, for some context, I highly recommend checking out Laz's blog where he has been giving daily #LazCon updates. Also, if you want to find out a *little bit* of why Laz is such a legend, check out The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young and hopefully that will give you some background as to why this is so cool!
The final two days of our trip were spent in Costa Maya, Mexico and at sea. First stop was Costa Maya, which I was very excited about because that was the day we were going to see the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins! There were many opportunities throughout this trip to go see the ruins in the various locations we stopped at, but because this port had "Maya" right in the name, we thought it would be the best location to see them. The port itself was pretty cool. It was decorated in Mayan fashion, and there were performers all decked out in tribal clothing. One was even dressed up as an owl!
Our excursion took us about an hour away from the port to see the ruins, but our tour guide, Daniel (aka "Jaguar") was awesome and taught us all about Mayan culture and history on the way there. He was actually Mayan himself which was really interesting to discover, as I figured that the Maya were an ancient culture that did not exist today. It turns out there are still many people in Central America who speak the Mayan language and incorporate much of the Mayan culture into their daily lives!
It was SO COOL to see the Mayan ruins in person! It's always so interesting to see landmarks in person that you've only seen in books, and this was no exception. We only had about an hour at Chacchoben before the second part of our excursion, but it was really cool to learn more about the Mayans and the way they lived in ancient times.
(My camera died after this photo, so the rest of the Costa Maya photos are c/o my parents' camera!)
"We touched it!"
(Don't let my outfit fool you - it was HOT that day! I got fried on our excursion in Roatán and
was just trying to hide my poor sunburned arms from the sun.)
Our next stop was at a private beach club which was the perfect conclusion to the day! We had chairs to lounge on, an open bar, and an all you can eat buffet for lunch packed with Mexican and Mayan foods. Mexican food is my favorite so I was basically a walking heart-eyes Emoji the whole time. Of course, I had to grab a margarita and about 40 pounds of guacamole. Ah. May. Zing.
1. Check out dat sunburn. 2. Check out dat PLATE.
That is the face of one happy gal. #takemeback
Chillin' at the beach was the *perfect* ending to a long week of adventuring. Our tour guide Daniel taught us a phrase - "la hache" (unsure if it's the correct spelling...) - which basically means "one more for the road", and he encouraged us all to fully embrace the meaning of it. When we were called back to the bus to head back to the ship, we all grabbed a drink called a Costa Maya (obviously) and hopped on the bus as soon as the clouds opened up and it started pouring. Great timing! Costa Maya was wonderful, and I would love to return!
The next day was our last day on the ship and our last day of our trip before travelling home. It was also Lindsey's birthday! We kicked off the day by participating in a virtual 5K (actually 3.14 miles because the date was 3/14 - Pi Day!) called the Wild Rumpus Run that Mom had signed us all up for. We decided to don our family vacation tees that Dad designed (and everyone was super jealous of) and completed our run on the lower deck. (We even ran into someone who saw our shirts and told us that he knew someone in Maine with our last name!)
I spent most of the day just relaxing and reading my book. (I wanted to really savor the time off before hopping back into the madness that is March-May in Student Affairs) I did make some time to go to a towel folding demonstration that they had on ship, though (I mean I really could not get enough of the towel animals that were left in our cabins, so why not?). The day was a true ~vacation~ and really allowed us all to squeeze every last drop out of our trip.
That night we celebrated Lindsey's birthday with dinner at the French restaurant on board which was AWESOME. (I had escargot! YAS.) We all had yummy desserts and gave Lindsey gifts to celebrate the big 2-7!
This trip was so much fun, and I'm so happy my parents decided to bring my sister and I along for the experience! I can't wait for my next opportunity to travel with my family in the future. We always have so much fun! :) Be sure to watch my last vacation vlog below, and check out the other posts from this series as well!
We arrived in Roatán, Honduras on Thursday morning and were greeted with some bad news from back home. Our poor pup Mikey had been rushed to the Animal Hospital the night before and was in need of an emergency splenectomy. Grief of this news and the struggle to make outgoing calls in a foreign country made for an extremely stressful start to the day, but Mikey wound up getting through the surgery just fine and making a full recovery. Unfortunately my dad had to stay back from our excursion on this day so he could deal with the whole situation, but we were (and still are!) very happy that Mikey wound up being okay.
Roatán was probably the most beautiful port that we stopped in (in my opinion). I took so many pictures of the water and the landscape around us! I took the opportunity to take in the scenery and went on a short run on the top-deck running track to get a 360 degree view. After running and yoga-ing, I ate some breakfast and we ventured into the port to do a bit of shopping before our excursion.
Our excursion on this day was a catamaran trip to a local reef where we snorkeled for about an hour. We saw so many awesome fish and sea creatures, and we even saw a sea turtle! One of the guides said that he also saw a reef shark, but he didn't call it to anyone's attention until after it swam away. Probably for the best - I'm sure a lot of people would have panicked! It was a beautiful day (I got fried by the sun), and they fed us an awesome lunch after we got back in from snorkeling. Make sure to check out the vlog for all of the snorkeling footage. It really doesn't do the reef justice, but you'll at least get a small idea of what it was like!
We returned to the ship fairly early and decided to take advantage of our unscheduled time before dinner to relax and read on the pool deck (which, of course, is the best part of any vacation!). We closed out the evening attending Norwegian's White Hot Party, which is the signature dance party every Norwegian cruise throws. Everyone is decked out in all white, there's signature white drinks, and even the Cruise Director was walking around with angel wings on! It was really a cool sight and a wonderful way to end an awesome day.
Don't forget to check out the vlog of our day below, and stay tuned for the next post where I talk about our stay in Costa Maya, Mexico! (We're coming to the end of these posts... yikes!)
We pulled into Belize early Wednesday morning. Belize City does not have a port large enough to accommodate a cruise ship, so you have to take an additional boat (called a tender boat) from the ship to the port. It was so crazy to be switching boats in the middle of the ocean - I made sure to clutch extra tight to my things so I didn't drop them into the water! We all crammed into the tender boat (it was literally packed to the brim!) and made our way into port. My dad and I decided to entertain ourselves by sticking the GoPro out the window with the selfie stick which made a few people around us chuckle.
Pretty much as soon as we got into port we were shuffled onto our bus for our excursion. We had an awesome tour guide - Elvis - who taught us all about Belize culture and history on our hour journey into the jungle. He showed us tons of photos and even passed around a pile of Belize currency! He kept us entertained the entire way and I managed to capture some of his awesome tour-guiding in the vlog so make sure you check it out!
Our excursion in Belize was venturing into the rain forest to go zip-lining and cave tubing! I love to do adventurous outdoorsy stuff like that so needless to say, I was pumped. Before we arrived at the park, Elvis had everyone in our group come up with a call-and-return for when he needed to assemble the group (Something that instantly brought me back to my Girl Scout camp days. I guess some camp things are universal, haha!). Whenever he called "Elvis' #1 Fun Team!" (our decided group name :D) we all yelled back "Hell yeah!" because, according to him, the noisy people are always the ones that have the most fun! ;)
We arrived just in time for some lunch before taking on the zip-line. I'd only been zip-lining once before at a ski resort, but I've always wanted to do a tree-top zip-line. I was so stoked! Unfortunately there weren't a TON of lines to fly down and it was over in about 15 minutes, but it was fun none the less! I took some awesome GoPro footage as well (as you can see from it being strapped to my head in the photos below XD) which you can find in the vlog.
Up next was cave tubing in the Crystal Cave. SO. COOL. We were floating down a small river in the cave (the water was described as "shockingly refreshing" haha) for a while while our guide told us all about the different rock formations we were seeing and some of the history behind the Mayan uses of caves. We capped off the adventure with a swim in a lagoon at the end of the cave which was so awesome! I did take some footage of the cave as well, but unfortunately it was so dark in there that not too much of it came through on video, but we did get a couple cool photos and videos of us entering and exiting the cave, so at least there's that! :)
As we were getting ready to leace the park we saw a huge family of these raccoon-looking animals called Coatimundis. They were so cute, especially the little babies! Apparently, like raccoons, they're not too friendly, but it was cool to see them up close! We had such a blast on this excursion, and it's a pretty good contender for being my favorite one of the trip. I know I'll want to do more things like this on any future trips I might take! :)
The company that hosted the excursion was named Chukka, which means "play time"! :)
On our long journey back to the city, Elvis quizzed us on our new Belize knowledge and gave out souvenirs for everyone! I got a fun illustrated Belize map that I'll probably end up framing and hanging somewhere cool, like my future apartment or office. We got back to the city without much time to spare to get back to the ship, so we hopped on a tender boat and headed back.
We had a pretty relaxing evening when we got back. We all got smoothies and watched the sun set over dinner, hot-tubbed for a bit, and my parents and I checked out some of the night life on the boat which included a game show and some Latin dancing lessons! There was always so much to do on the ship and we really embraced it on this night. So much fun!
Remember to check out the vlog below. This day was so much fun and I really enjoyed reliving it through writing this post and editing this vlog! I'll definitely be back at some point next week to fill you in about our next stop - Roatan! :)
