Right now, I'm leaning toward a cycling tour of Tuscany in either September or October, but that interferes with football season, so we'll see.

Today, a couple of my employees were asking if I had any grand vacation plans yet and I told them I didn't because I happen to know they're going to be laid off soon.  That's one less thing they'll despise me for. 

choadwarrior

Yeah I just got back from a year in Sydney and it kind of sucked.  I would say do Belize (I've been four times cause it's so awesome) but if you're all jungled AND beached out then that's not an option for you.

I did love Madrid and Granada, and I enjoyed two months in China last year but it is WORK just being there. 

I say do Spain.  Bus travel is fast, easy, and cheap, and if you make sure to include the north (which too many people don't) you'll see at least three other languages and cultures while you're there.   And you can jump over to France beaucoup easy.

Narrowed it down now--it's either a cycling tour in Provence, France or one in Tuscany.  They're a week apart; I want to do Provence more because it includes a classic Tour de France climb in the Alps, but the Tuscany tour fits in with my schedule a bit better.  On the other hand, I've never been to Italy.

Decisions, decisions. 

Decision made.  Trip booked: Cycling tour of Provence, France in October with a week in and around Paris afterwards.  I've been to Paris before, but the weather was shit and the museum workers were on strike, so this will be my chance to hit some attractions I haven't seen yet.  I'm also hoping to get to Normandy.

The cycling tour includes a climb of Mt. Ventoux, which has made several appearances in the Tour de France (three in the last ten years). 

choadwarrior wrote:

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Here's the question I always have for people who tell me I should go to Costa Rica...what do you do there?  The answer I always get is, "It's nice."  Well, that doesn't answer the question, and any attempts to elicit a response just get more iterations of what a wonderful place it is, but never any explanation of what you'd do once you get in that eden. 

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I had a friend who went to Costa Rica, and was telling me about a trip she took while she was there.  She was hiking through the jungle with a small group, and the guide pointed out a sloth hanging from a tree.  Since of course you can't appreciate a sloth just sitting there, the guide tried to make things more interesting by chucking sticks and rocks at it trying to make it move.  Being slothful, however, it just sat there.

Not about to be beaten by a sloth, the guide apparently got a sizeable stick and went all feral, climbing up and attempting to beat the sloth out of the tree with a stick.  As I recall, the sloth ultimately fell out of the tree and walked away.

So that, my friend, is the sort of shit you can see in Costa Rica. 

But I'm not sure what to do the rest of the time.  I hear it's nice.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.