Traveling Toi

01/02/2025

Traded our Christmas tree🎄 for palm trees 🌴 on a beautiful beach in Barbados🇧🇧. Who needs snow ❄️ ☃️ when you have sun☀️, sand, and turquoise waves 🌊?

As we continued our Christmas tradition of dinner and gift exchanging, along with a fun game night, I am reminded that joy, peace, and love can be found wherever we celebrate Christmas. ❤️

01/01/2025

Hello, Antigua! 🇦🇬✨ The second port of call on our Southern Caribbean Christmas Cruise was giving gorgeous beaches, crystal-clear waters, and endless island charm. We relished every moment of this idyllic Caribbean island!🌴

01/01/2025

First stop on our Southern Caribbean Christmas cruise — Tortola, British Virgin Islands. 🇻🇬

Fun times on an island tour which included views from the highest point and exploring the flavors of paradise with a rum tasting adventure! 🥃🌴 Cheers to discovering the spirit of the island—literally!

11/14/2024

Cycle Jamaica 🇯🇲- Ride 3

The last day of cycling took us to the Craft Market in Ocho Rios for souvenir shopping.

When we returned from the 35 mile ride, we all received finisher medals.🏅 Then we had an awards ceremony based on the results of from the Ride 2 challenges. To my surprise, I received the 4th place trophy 🏆 for the Women’s 17-22 mph group Duncans Challenge. 🎉

BUT…I wasn’t the only one in shock!! After the ceremony, the entire island started swaying from an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5. OMG!😱

11/13/2024

Cycle Jamaica 🇯🇲 - Ride 2 (One Love Jersey)

On your marks, get set, GO!!! 🏁

Today’s 32 mile ride included 2 hill climbing Strava Segment challenges. The first was the Braco Challenge — 4.6% grade, 1.10 miles, 256 ft of elevation. The second was the Duncans Challenge — 3.8% grade, 0.75 miles, 154 ft of elevation.

You’re probably wondering 🤔 what are the benefits of winning a Strava Segment challenge. Well when you are first on the Strava Segment leaderboard, you earn a crown 👑 and are pretty much a legend in the local cycling area. Doors automatically open for you as you approach, traffic comes to a complete stop as you cycle by, and drinks are complimentary when you go to the bar!! 🤥🤥🤥
(Just kidding….Cycle Jamaica awarded a trophy to the first 5 men and first 5 women on that day’s leaderboard). And…of course since we stayed at an all-inclusive resort, the winners received complimentary drinks.🍹 😉

After the ride, I was tired!!🥱 So, I spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool and eating yummy jerk chicken! Because who can go to Jamaica 🇯🇲 and not eat jerk chicken and beef patties???

11/12/2024

11/11/2024

Where will cycling take us this year???

Just got back from an unforgettable trip to Jamaica! 🇯🇲

Monte and I, along with several of our Major Taylor Memphis friends and other cyclists, rode with Cycle Jamaica! 🚴🏽‍♀️🚴🏻🚴🏾‍♂️

The cycling, the food, the culture – everything was incredible!

10/17/2023

I am not a wine 🍷 drinker….
But I couldn’t go to Tuscany, Italy 🇮🇹 and not do a wine tasting!!

10/17/2023

Taking our cycling international!!

Monte and I love cycling in the US so much that we decided to try out a bike tour in Tuscany, Italy🇮🇹 with a couple of friends from our !!

After spending time exploring Florence’s museums, shops, and cafes, we met our group and headed to Collemezzano, Italy. Our stay was at a family-run agriturismo hotel that produces much of its own wine, olive oil, fruit and vegetables.

We met our Trip Leaders and officially began our Tuscan coast bike tour with a safety and bike-fitting session before a short warm-up ride 🚴🏾‍♂️🚴🏽‍♀️ over gentle hills, past old farmhouses shaded by cypress trees.

Later that evening, our host and hotel owner, Luigi Brunetti, provided us with a wine tasting 🍷of the wines his family produces and took us on a guided tour of his wine cellar.

After a delicious dinner, we turned in for the night excited about our first day of riding! Well one of us may have been really nervous about the next day’s ride, but I won’t mention any names because it may have been me. 🫣

01/10/2023

What a nice surprise!!

So it turns out that while we were in Jamaica 🇯🇲 back in May, Monte secretly bought us shirts to wear during our Christmas cruise port of call in Jamaica 🇯🇲! He surprised us with them the night before we docked in Jamaica! All of the staff at our favorite breakfast spot on the ship cheered 👏🏽 for us when they saw us come in for breakfast wearing our shirts. So of course all the other cruisers all turn around looking at us as we walk in. It was so funny!! 🤭

01/07/2023

Magical Christmas 🎄 at Sea

What could be better than spending Christmas with family? Spending it with your family on a cruise!! No cooking, no dishes…but still having all the fun!!

And just as we have done year after year, both land & sea, we still had our Family Night, complete with gift exchange 🎁, smack-talking games 🎲, and lots of laughs on Christmas Eve!

This year, the ship offered The Price is Right Live on the evening of Christmas Day. My parents were so excited! This is one of their favorite games. My mom couldn’t wait for the game! So we were all so surprised and literally in shock when Pop Bill was called up to be one of the contestants! Unfortunately they didn’t allow us to take pictures or video because after he got over the shock of his name being called, he jumped up throwing his hands in the air and did his little dance down the aisle to the front! 😂🤣😂.

Definitely a Christmas to remember!!

01/07/2023

The Journey Was Long…But The Memories Will Last Forever!! 💕

Wow!! As a result of the all to common flight ✈️ delays, it took Monte and I an entire day to get to Orlando, FL from Memphis, TN! Everything was great as we left Memphis bright and early and arrived in Atlanta. But then Atlanta happened!! Our flight was delayed for several hours. Prior to boarding our flight from Atlanta to Orlando, Monte just could not understand why I had to have a backpack full of snacks and drink for a 1 hour flight. Well, he would come to appreciate that I did later on when we winded up sitting on the airplane for several hours due to a mechanical issue. Although they did serve us bottled water and snacks after a couple of hours, we didn’t have to wait, because I was prepared with my own “good” snacks 😋, drink, and books 📚. It almost felt like a mini-vacation right there on the plane. (Monte didn’t think so!) 😂

That night we finally made it to Orlando. We were sad that we got there too late to go visit my uncle with the rest of the family. But boy were we thankful that we had not only made the decision to fly-in the day before our cruise, but that we didn’t have to leave the airport because our hotel was right there!

The next morning made it all worth it when we met up with our family and headed over to Port Canaveral for our Christmas 🎄 Cruise on the brand new NCL Prima!! We haven’t seen some of our family members in years! So it was wonderful for all of us to be together again! ❤️ I didn’t get a lot of pictures of the ship but believe me when I tell you it is absolutely gorgeous!! 🤩

10/29/2022

Camels 🐪 in Mexico 🇲🇽??

Yes, there are! Turns out, there is a camel breeding farm in the good ole USA 🇺🇸- deep in the heart of Texas. Several camels were purchased by Mexican Tour Operators. This little guy was born in Mexico 🇲🇽. He’s 1 year old. So now you can ride a camel 🐪 on your next visit to Mexico 🇲🇽.

10/27/2022

⚡️Ride or Die⚡️

I consider myself a pretty adventurous person. Monte reluctantly goes along with me even when he doesn’t want to because I don’t want to do crazy stuff alone. 🤣 Well today it was my turn to go along even though I didn’t want to. I was scared!! 🥺 I don’t know why I was afraid 🤷🏽‍♀️. I like dune buggies and I like speed but I guess I don’t like those things when I’m not the driver. Monte, who never requests to do any excursions, decided he wanted to do the Can Am X3 Turbo Side by Side 🏎💨 since we are in the desert 🏜. Of course I couldn’t let him do it alone 😩.

Well, I did it and I didn’t die!!! 😳. I even took a turn at driving — scaring myself going uphill because you’re going so fast and can’t see what’s on the other side! Could be a drop or curve🫣. I probably should have slowed down — but nah!! What fun would that be??? So there was lots of screaming 😱 involved (I’m pretty sure it was all from me, but it could have been from… nevermind🤣) and lots of fun too!!

09/04/2022

Is it really road tripping if it doesn’t include a stop at ??? 🤔

07/03/2022

Reminiscing today about Good Times Growing Up on the Jersey Shore ☀️

Today Monte and I had fun playing pinball at a cool bar/restaurant here in Memphis. It brought back so many wonderful memories of our childhood in New Jersey.

My cousins and I would walk to Long Branch beach to hangout on the boardwalk with our friends and play pinball and other games at the arcade. On our return back home, there was a spot where we would run across the jetty jumping from rock to rock trying to avoid being splashed by the waves. For some reason we always managed to get splashed 💦. Then we had to wait around until our clothes dried before we could go back home because, of course, risking your life by running on the wet jetty was a big No, No…no matter how fun we thought it was.

As a teenager, Monte was lucky enough to work at one of the arcades on Asbury’s boardwalk. Today he found a pinball machine that was one of his favorites! Unfortunately, after playing it one time, he broke it…I mean it broke just when we were going to compete against each other. 🤔. He probably knew I would win. 😂

We had a great time and plan to go back soon! Turns out, it was a great way to beat the Memphis heat!

05/28/2022

He’s Jamaican Me Crazy and I Like It!!
💕Happy 34th Anniversary to Us!💕

04/15/2022

Ahhhh….Miami!!!

Turns out that Miami can be a great place to relax and just live in the moment. That’s exactly what we did and it felt amazing!!

To top it off— Monte and I were so happy to have our daughter join us!! Even though she wasn’t interested in a bike ride, we managed to get a fun ride in after she left.