Natural Gas Vehicles

Are you sick and tired of paying eighty dollars a fill up?

Are you fed up with having to change your oil every three thousand miles?

Have you seen the ice caps lately?

Well-we haven't either but we did hit our hippie phase of life with our new car.

This is what our new gas station pumps look like...a little rickety and like they might blow up when you use it.

The nozzle may look a bit different but so did the price...

The cost of our last fill up was $4.36, which is about a gallon of premium gas!

This is how the actual pump works instead of holding down a lever to fill your car you turn a valve from vent to fill. Then you hear a series of pressure releases which sound as if the car might combust. But, with prices like this we can say goodbye to our starving student days.

Kauai

Derek has childhood memory upon childhood memory about his summer adventures in Kauai. So, for me this was the beginning of experiencing a place that felt like a piece of Derek's imagination.

One of the first things we did while there was an eleven mile hike along the Napoli coast. We had a boat drive us as close to shore as we could get. Then we had to jump off and swim to shore before beginning the hike out. A camper had started a fire along the trail and we hiked through sections where it was charred on both sides of us.

Our other activities uncluded...

Me getting Scuba certified and Derek catching waves

my canoeing style

...and Derek's

On one of our hikes we happened upon this baby pig who was unsuccessfully trying to conceal himself along the side of the trail in a pile of leaves.

Last but not least all of the waterfalls

Our first blog:
The Honeymoon!

This is my first blogging experience so it might take me a few tries to get into the rhythm of things… Bare with me as I try to reproduce what my new “blogging-sisters” have made into an art. Derek and I were married on Saturday the19th of July and flew out the following morning on our twenty day Honey Moon! OK, we know it was a bit long but the cruise left a week after we were married so we had to ask ourselves… would we rather spend the first week of our lives together in SLC or on a Spanish adventure! Our first stop was Malaga, Spain.

Derek taking a shopping break

Malaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso and this is a painting of his that they made into a beach sculpture at sunrise outside of our hotel. Yes we did see a sunrise while on our honeymoon...

OK from here we did a day trip to Tangier, Morocco (Africa).

This is a picture of some of the other commuters that were on our ferry ride over.

This is the cityscape of Tangier where Derek is living his Jason Bourne dream (Tangier is where they filmed the part of the last Bourne movie). Note my finger in the bottom right.

Now everyone knows the woes of traveling of out of the country and trying to find a restroom. After all day there this was all we found and Derek had to go jump some roof tops to find me some napkins.

Look how close they build the buildings!

The ferry ride home was a bit late…five hours late. So we managed to roll into Granada, Spain at three in the morning.

The plus to arriving so late into Granada was being able to drive the wrong way down one way roads for a couple miles to find our hotel.

Us leaving in our faithful stead to catch a flight to Barcelona!

In Barcelona we found some great architecture. We decided we are big Gaudi fans.

From here we board our long awaited cruise ship!
Our first stop on the cruise was Niece, France

One of the locals preparing to take the plunge.

After taking the first plunge and on the climb back up for another a handful of police showed up. He was almost to the top and the police said that he could not climb up any higher or climb down. So Derek explained to them that jumping was the safest way down and they told him to “proceed to where the rock ends and jump.” So of course he does a back flip off the ledge.

Next Stop Florence, Italy

I was excited to see Point Vecchio. Derek was more excited about his gelato.

Next stop Rome, Italy

Us at Vatican City in St. Peters basilica. We also went into the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted his six year ceiling.

Next stop Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey

In Turkey we met with Sueda and Murat, the future of Nuskin Turkey! They were kind enough to spent the whole day showing us the sights, the best food, and shopping deals in town.

Me trying out the public restrooms!

Next Stop Santorini

In Santorini we rented a Vespa for the day to see the whole island on. Because of the constant wind we both did not notice that we were extremely sunburned at the end of the day.

Now Santorini is located at the top of the island and in order to get there you can either take a gondola ride up, walk, or donkey your way there.

Next stop Athens, Greece

In Athens all we did was go straight to the Acropolis and bought some olives before returning to the ship.

Next and last stop Naples, Italy (Pompeii)

The city of Pompeii was covered by volcanic ash which buried the city along with some of its inhabitants.

This concludes the travels however there is still one highlight of the trip that we have saved for last and that was the Cruickshanks. This was the lovely couple from Scotland that we had dinner with every night. Unfortunately the day we brought our cameras Linda was sick but we managed to get a picture of Brian.