Category: travel

Our First Cruise: Alaska Inside Passage

A 7-day cruise departing and returning from Vancouver, BC.

Booking our first cruise in 2014 proved to be more than a little intimidating. Alaska was about the only simple decision in the whole process! From there it became a swirl of choices and options– large or small ship, ports of call, cruise/tour… the list goes on. We decided on a round-trip Princess cruise from Vancouver, BC since we had wanted to visit the city anyway. It also made air travel easier than arriving in one city, and returning home from another.

Cruise 2014
Click to view our vacation slideshow. Yippee!

Continue reading Our First Cruise: Alaska Inside Passage

Next Stop: Forgotten Highways

Forgotten Highways:

I’m working on a new project called Forgotten Highways.

The idea is a series of documentaries about “the old roads” of America.

You know- those bumpy strips of concrete you see veering off your current route. Call them scenic roads, the business route, historic bypass, whatever. Every interstate owes its double-yellow stripes to a winding two-lane nearby that most people have forgotten. They’re everywhere and all it takes to find one is a tank of gas and a Sunday afternoon.

But it takes more than that to really discover these gems. You have to get off the Superslab® and meet people. In my opinion exploring the history of an old road can make for great video. Of course, maybe I’m biased.

This project is a natural evolution of Two Wheel Oklahoma. In fact, it will essentially follow the same format of that show. You’ll see a little more history, a little more Ken Burns-esque camera work, but the vibe will be the same. A couple of guys on motorcycles discovering treasure that’s hiding in plain sight. Continue reading Next Stop: Forgotten Highways

Still Your Buddy?

The popular website and mobile app GasBuddy has been acquired by Oil Price Information Service (OPIS).

GasBuddyThis is probably good in the near term, as it means better access to a database of wholesale gasoline prices. Most of the current pricing information provided by Gas Buddy comes from volunteer price spotters. But consumers should probably prepare for more ads as the integration with OPIS matures. They plan to accelerate development of OpenStore, a system for c-store owners to promote their car wash and burritos through social media.

Gaithersburg, Md.-based OPIS, a subsidiary of UCG, is a leading source for worldwide petroleum pricing and information It publishes daily spot prices for all refined products, more than 30,000 wholesale gasoline and diesel rack prices and more than 110,000 retail fuel prices Through its subsidiary, Axxis Software, OPIS also provides software for petroleum marketers to automate price collection, data storage and repricing of dealer and commercial accounts.

Source: CSP Daily News

Insects on the March

The Sam Noble Museum in Norman has been infested with bugs. Giant bugs!

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Jackie ponders the giant insects.

Two exhibits opened February 2nd that feature larger than life insects. Either one is definitely worth a visit- the two together make for an entomology overload!

Bugs: Outside the Box features giant, highly detailed replicas of butterflies, beetles and a cool dragonfly. Each one is a handmade work of art- accurate in every detail. The display showing how Lorenzo Possenti creates these gigantic creatures was almost as interesting as the final product!

Beautiful Beasts: The Unseen life of Oklahoma Spiders and Insects is an exhibition of macro photography by Thomas Shahan. His surreal images of spiders and insects look staged or enhanced but he actually shoots them without trickery- or even a very fancy camera! Most of the photos were taken in Norman and Tulsa, although they look like something from another world.

beastsOutside the Box exhibit is on display through May 12, 2013 and Beautiful Beasts can be enjoyed until September 8, 2013. For more information visit www.snomnh.ou.edu.