Heading Back to the US?

For Trenton's fall break we're headed back to the United States. well, at least a US territory, that is.  The beautiful and little known island of Saipan.  Saipan is one of the islands in the group called the Marianas, which includes Guam.  I'm sure you haven't heard too many travel websites luring you to visit Saipan, so you're probably wondering why.

Well, 75 years ago, June 14, 1944, Private First Class Paul R Thompson, Brian's father was part of the Battle of Saipan.  Papa, as we so lovingly call him, earned his Purple Heart storming the beach in Saipan.  This weekend, we're bringing his Purple Heart there.  We're returning to the island to experience the rich WWII history, explore the culture and dive the numerous wrecks.

This is the letter that was sent to his mother. We really take for granted how quickly news travels now.

New Zealand, South Island

I didn't know what to expect from New Zealand.  Basically, since we're in the middle of "The Year Down Under", we might as well hop over to New Zealand and check it out.  Seriously, sorry Kiwis, but NZ was never on my radar.  I heard it's also left out of a lot of maps, too.

Now that I've been there, I've finally seen the error in my ways.  There has never been a more perfect place for me to visit! Adventure, nature, beauty, amazing people and did I say adventure?  This was my husband's birthday trip so we made sure all the good stuff was on the itinerary.  This blog post is basically our itinerary for the week.  Following blogs will have more detail on the activities.

Day one was a travel day, so our first stop on Day two was Canyoning with Canyoning Queenstown.  I usually call it Canyoneering, but I think they like to shorten words here in NZ (pronounced en zed) like their Aussie mates.  This amazing day was topped off by a meal at the iconic and always busy Fergburger.  This was followed by a ride on the Shotover Jet boat to help us digest.

Day three was a bike through the Gibbston Valley wine country using the self guided option with Fork and Pedal.

Day four was rainy, so it was the perfect travel day.  We drove to Te Anau, the city on the way to Milford Sound.  We walked around the quaint little town and, enjoyed the ziplining in the park and a delicious pasta and pizza dinner.  We opted out of doing the Glow Worm cave.  I'm sure it's cool and all, but they don't allow cameras and I've seen the videos.  So, I'm good with that.

Day five was Milford Sound, which everyone told us is not really a sound, but a fjord.  It was beautiful and the waterfalls were plentiful thanks to the rain the day before.  We took a cruise and checked out the underwater observatory.  It was a very scenic ride back as well.  We drove back through Queenstown and headed up to the town of Wanaka.

Day six we wanted to hike.  There are many walking tracks around the area, but we narrowed it down to a choice of two,  the Roys Peak hike or the Rob Roy Glacier hike.  Roys Peak is a treeless hike up a mountain through pasture and a fire trail, but there is a spot where people queue to get the most instagrammed picture in NZ.  I didn't feel like being part of that crowd, so we opted for the Rob Roy Glacier hike.  We were so happy with that choice.

That evening Brian and I went out for a drink and played some pool.  On our last game we bet that if I won, I would get to go bungy jumping the following day.  Guess what! I won! I really need to be careful what I wish for.  So, the next day, day seven we drove back down to Queenstown and on our way there, we stopped at AJ Hackett's Bridge Bungy and I did it!!

After that, I needed to add to my dosage of adrenaline that day so took the Skyline Gondola up to Bob's Peak and raced a few times down the luge.  It was a perfect day.  The weather was warm and the sun was out, and of course the view was gorgeous.  We even stopped at the Stratosfare restaurant to drink in the brews and views.

Finally, that evening Brian wanted to get back to the pool table.  Luckily, our hotel was walking distance to Harry's Pool Bar.  We ended up sharing a table with a bunch of guys that taught us a new game that allowed all of us to play.  It was called Killer.  We had a blast playing the game and hanging out with the locals.

Day 8 was a travel day back home.  Thank you New Zealand for the most amazing time.  Time to head back to relax on the beach and give my adrenal glands a good rest.

Curl Curl Beach

Move in day is tomorrow!!

But this past week, we stayed at one more airbnb to check out another Northern beach called Curl Curl.  You would think it's named this because of the curls of the waves that make this one of the best surfing beaches, but it's actually derived from a variation of the original Aboriginal name.  Say that 5 times fast...original Aboriginal...

Two things I learned about surfing so far:

1.  Surfers will leave their keys in the wheel well of their car when they go surfing

2.  Other, smarter surfers will actually have a combination lock box attached to the door handle of their car.  Maybe he was a realtor and had extra lock boxes.  This is a great idea for runners/hikers that don't want to carry the extra weight of their car key on them.

The weather this past week hasn't been great.  It's been raining most days and I left our one umbrella on the ferry last night. Ugh!  But at least Monday cleared up enough so that I could do some exploring and yoga on a cliffside.

There's a loose leash dog area at the north end of Curl Curl beach where dogs can frolic in the lagoon.

North of Curl Curl beach is a nature walk trail that takes you into a headland which you can follow down to the ocean pool.  I didn't realize there were so many ocean pools in Australia.  I don't think this is a thing in the states.  I stopped on a landing overlooking the pool to get my Om on.  You can definitely feel one with everything here.

I hiked on up the headland and took a few more pictures and a video!

Of course I'm missing Arizona.  I get small reminders of it sometimes.  Like the lantana grows everywhere here and I see this bird that reminds me of the quail that run around my neighborhood.  It's actually called a crested pigeon.

What Kind of Traveler am I?

• I love trying new and different things, but things that are new and different to me.  For example, you might think that everyone rents a golf cart in Catalina Island! Well, guess what, I never have.  So *BOOM*, I'm going to do it!

• I don't care much for prepared/packaged tours, so if possible I steer away from them and make my own adventure.
• I'm not a foodie, but I love food.  So, I might mention a restaurant or recipe, but don't expect me to tell you if the arugula was locally sourced.
• I try to be frugal and I will do my best to provide any money saving tips and expensive mistakes to avoid for my readers.  For example, if you're renting a motorbike in Thailand (God be with you!), rent from the hotel where you're staying.  Many other rental places demand your passport and charge you more.  Our hotel already had a copy of our passport and only charged us 250 Thai Baht a day, which converts to about $8.

Virabhadrasana III - Warrior III on top of Camelback Mountain

• My husband and I are fitness oriented, so we love to stay active on our vacations.  Believe me, more often than not, I need a vacation after my vacation!

We SCUBA, snorkel, snowboard, hike, wake board, kayak, stand-up paddleboard, golf, run, mountain bike and yoga.  Yes, I am that person you see strike a yoga pose randomly for a picture.

• I have a background in biology, an interest in astronomy and grew up loving Jeopardy, so I might geek out on nature, stars and trivia.  Rarely do I talk about history, politics, religion or art unless it has something to do with nature, the universe or an interesting factoid that you might need to store away for your next Trivia Tuesday night.

If you are this kind of traveler, follow me, friend me, and subscribe to my blog.  I'm also open to suggestions for places to go and things to try.  Check out the poll at the bottom of this blog to vote where I should go in January.

The world is our oyster and YES, do we love oysters!!

* Insert Life Cliche Here *

There is nothing like a close brush with death to make you realize that life is short.  Live life to the fullest.  We've heard it said a million times, but there is nothing like a heart attack to make you actually listen and take it in.

It wasn't long before we realized that my husband was going to be okay.  He spent 24 hours in a medically induced coma so they could perform a therapeutic hypothermia protocol after cardiac arrest.  In English, research shows that lowering the body temperature of patients after a heart attack actually helps reduce any amount of brain damage that might be caused.

The doctors used Arctic Sun therapy, which kept his body at 32°C or 90°F for 24 hours.  It took about 16 hours to get him to that temperature and another 16 hours to slowly "defrost" him safely.  As soon as he was out of the coma, he could respond to commands (squeeze my hand) and recognize his friends that came to visit.  He even tried to shake his friends hand when he came to visit one morning, but couldn't do it since he was restrained to prevent him from pulling out his ventilator.

He was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, after being admitted after midnight Tuesday.  He was back to work after a week of recovery at home.  Christmas and New Years were a million times more meaningful knowing we had him with us.

It was December 31st when I thought of that cliche again - Life is Short.  We've always felt that we've lived life to the fullest, but there's even more meaning to it now.  2015 was going to be an amazing year.

I called up my friend and said "Hey, haven't you always wanted to go to the Sundance Film Festival?"  And within the hour, we had the cheapest tickets ever to Salt Lake City, UT for Sundance! Frontier Airlines had the most amazing fare. $20.15 one way in honor of the new year 2015.  Of course the return fare was more, but after taxes the total round-trip fare between Phoenix and Salt Lake City was $89.15.

The rest of 2015 was full of fun adventures that I plan to blog all about in the coming days/weeks/months:  San Diego, Catalina Island, houseboating on Lake Powell, whitewater rafting the Colorado River, Boston, Cape Cod, and most recently Tokyo and island hopping in Thailand.  There are even more exciting trips in the works for 2016 like snowboarding in Vail, Breckenridge and Park City this winter, as well as hiking the Grand Canyon down to Havasupai Falls in the Spring.

But it's not all about trips everywhere.  I'll also blog about my local trips and adventures.  Subscribe to my blog if you want to hitch a ride!

It's Just a Bad Dream

December 2nd 2015 will be my husbands 1 year anniversary since his heart attack.  One year since I crawled into bed at midnight, chatted with him before we dozed off and not 5 minutes later I woke to him gasping for air.

"It's okay," I told him as I rubbed his back "It's just a bad dream."

But the gasping wouldn't stop and our dog outside the door started barking.  I turned him on his back and tried to shake and wake him, but his blank stare told me that wasn't going to happen.  I yelled at him, "What do you want me to do?!" But without even waiting for an answer, I ran to the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

"My husband's not breathing!" I told them.  After getting our address, the operator assured me that an ambulance was coming then she transferred me to an EMT that coached me as I did chest compressions on my husband of 13 years and father to our 3 children.  I don't remember how long I did compressions, but finally hearing the howl of the sirens in the distant night was reassuring.  They were on their way.

The EMT told me that the ambulance was close and I needed to open the front door for them.  So, I had to leave my husband and run downstairs - as fast as I've ever run.  I grabbed the dogs collar and shoved her into the laundry room, closing that door, then opened the front door wide before running back upstairs.  I continued compressions until I heard the EMTs come in.

"We're up here!" I yelled down to them.  That's when the cavalry came in.  It seemed like 10 first responders - police and paramedics.  They picked my husband up off the bed and placed him on the floor for better leverage.  The 911 EMT had asked me to get him off the bed, but he was just too big for me to do by myself.  So, the EMT told me I would need to push even harder into the chest.  Within a minute the paramedics had the defibrillator on my husband.  Like out of a movie I hear one of them yell "Clear!" and just like that, they shocked him.  The lines on the AED's screen didn't resemble anything that looked like a normal heart beat at all.  I heard them say "Ventricular Fibrillation."  If you want to see a great animation of Ventricular Fibrillation compared to a normal heartbeat, here you go.

This can't be happening.  My husband is only 49 years old.  He just hiked Camelback Mountain with me last weekend.  He just played flag football with guys 20 years younger than him and scored a pick 6! He's supposed to go snowboarding with his buddies this Friday.  He can't be having a heart attack!

Picture taken 4 hours before a heart attack

But that is exactly what it was.  The cardiologist in the ER told me it was a Widowmaker heart attack.  Not exactly something any wife wants to hear.  I'm too young to be a widow!

Long story short, after a 2 hour surgery to insert a stent in his left anterior descending artery (LAD) and 48 hours in an induced coma at lowered body temperature to decrease brain damage, he came out of it.  He was a little bruised and battered from the chest compressions, but he was alive.

A year later and he's more alive than ever.  Living life to the fullest.  Now here I am along for the ride.  We never know when our time on this earth is over.  December 2nd could have been my husband's.

If today was your last day, would you be happy with what you've done with your life?  I ask myself that question and my answer is "I don't want it to be 'No'."

Which brings me to this blog.  I have my other blog, Jai on Life, where Jai is pronounced 'high', like my name Jaina. but today just before my husband's 1 year heart anniversary, I'm starting a new blog, "The Jai Road."  This new blog will be full of my travel adventures, tips, suggestions and musings.  Something I've always wanted to share - my love of travel and writing.  So hang on for the ride and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.