We arrived via plan in Guayaquil, Ecuador and drove to Cuenca the next day.  It’s a 3 hour drive to Cuenca which takes you over the Andes Mountain range and thru El Cajas National Park which is breathtaking at over 12,000 ft above sea level.  We stayed at a bed and breakfast in down town Cuenca that has been in the same family for over 150 years called Casa de Ordenez. 

Our first brief outing took us to the village of Cojitambo including Cojitambo Mountain and Incan Ruins from 500b.c.  The view from the top of the village below is great and the ruins were very interesting. 

We also took the bowler to a small village nearby Cuenca where the "Panama" hat was first created.  Strangely, it’s only called a Panama hat because the first Europeans to get them were told they came from Panama because that’s where they were loaded onto their boats.  We watched ladies hand make these hats, bought several and even saw the worlds largest panama hat according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Ecuador is nearly 100% Catholic and there are plenty of beautiful Cathedrals to prove it.  However, there are also so weird pictures and statues of Christ.  Like the picture we took of Christ holding up a machete and the one of baby Jesus and Mary wearing Panama hats.

We really loved the area and the people, so much so that we plan to go back in the next month.

–Chad Quesenberry

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    “Wait, what?  You’re going where? …In October?”  Yes, yes… we heard that a lot.  Yes, we went to Iceland in October.  Why you might ask?  Well… a couple of reasons really.  My wife has been battling breast cancer for the last year and a half and we were finally done with everything in Sept; we needed a celebration trip.  We had talked about wanting to see Iceland and the northern lights, so we strung it all together… and found ourselves in Iceland… in October.   It turned out to be an excellent time to see the Aurora Borealis; we were lucky enough to catch them twice during our 8 day visit… and what a show they were.  This is definitely one of those things everyone should see at least once in their lifetime; I certainly hope to see them again one day.  Absolutely amazing (by the way, I made a time-lapse of the northern lights, which you can see here)!

    Surely there is more to Iceland than just the northern lights though, right? Definitely!  For those not in the know, Iceland has a very interesting and unique landscape… and some pretty interesting history as well (think Saga era Viking stories).  The landscape is largely volcanic and still has lots of geothermal activity going on… so there are hot springs (with funky blue colored water) and steam vents strewn all over the place.  Additionally, the country is littered with waterfalls.  There were more than a few days on our trip that my wife was reminding me that we’d never make it all the way around the island if I kept stopping every 100 yards or so and taking pictures of the various waterfalls!  It seemed that around every corner there was a unique rock formation or waterfall waiting to have its picture taken!  Phenomenal stuff!  Throw on top of that some pretty spectacular glaciers… and this is my kind of place!

    Like everyone, Holly and I started our adventure in the capital city of Iceland, Reykjavik.  I usually don’t expect just a whole lot out of capital cities, but Reykjavik is small enough to still be quant and has a very European feel to the architecture.  We stayed our first and last nights there in a little apartment that is rented out to short-term visitors.  From there we really weren’t sure what we were going to be able to see.  We had rented an AWD vehicle, but not really being familiar with the weather, we just didn’t know what to expect.  From Reykjavik, there is a highway that makes a lap around the island and is an excellent way to see all the sights of the country, so on day two we started out to see where we’d make it to… turns out we had time to drive the whole thing!

    Our favorite part of the island was definitely the south part of the country.  The most impressive waterfalls (in my opinion) were there, like the one pictured to the right called Skógafoss.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice because what you can’t really see is the fact that we were several hundred yards away from this 200ft tall monster!  Really really cool.  There were also these really neat black pebble beaches there, the glaciers and glacier lagoons were there… lots and lots of neat stuff.  We kind of got dealt a bad hand with regards to the weather (it is, after all, the slow season for a reason LOL) and so a lot of the north part of the island was seen through the car windows… peering through the fog, snow, and rain!  But hey… gives us an excuse to go back, right?  All in all, we had a great time and I’d highly recommend it!

–Dan Thompson

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If you’re interested in seeing more pictures (without the Albino Bowler), you can checkout my Flickr set here.

We started our journey in Hanoi.  Strange thing about Hanoi, they don’t believe in trash cans.  Seriously, we couldn’t find one anywhere.  Turns out they throw all their trash into the street and each night crews come thru and pick up everything and wash the street.  It’s spotless each morning and a total wreck by the end of each day.  It was the only city in Vietnam where we found this to be the case.

We visited many cities, villages and small towns between Hanoi in North Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City in the south.  Our favorite was definitely Sapa where we started our hike thru the mountains and villages of the ethnic people, primarily the Hmong tribe.  We lugged a huge 40 pound duffel bag full of supplies from home just to take to these people and the children in the schools we passed along the way.  It was so much fun for us as well as our guide to get to give all the that stuff away.  The villagers, children and teachers were more excited and thankful than we could have imagined.  Some of the women followed us for miles and miles holding Kimberly’s hand to ensure she didn’t fall off the mountain.  One of them literally held her from falling on several occasions.  After hiking all day we stopped in a village for a homestay and got up early the next morning for another full day of hiking.  That night was spent in Sapa.  The best way I can think of to explain Sapa, is like a Vietnamese Gatlinburg.  It’s where all the local Vietnamese go for vacation, rest and relaxation. 

Speaking of rest and relaxation, we were in Ha Long Bay for two days and enjoyed a great evening on one of the most beautiful boats I’ve ever seen.  We were able to see caves, take a small row boat into a lagoon as well as swim in the bay.

Hue was another amazing city full of beautiful Temples, city ruins and ancient palaces.  The most amazing thing we noticed about these sites was that we could never tell the difference between something that was 150 years old and something that was 1000 years old.  Not only did they generally seem to make things the same way for over 1000 years, but the harsh climate makes anything new look ancient instantly.

While in Ho Chi Minh City, which by the way, they call Saigon and don’t like it when you call it Ho Chi Minh.  The communist government renamed it after the war, but they don’t much care about that, except when writing because it would be illegal for them to refer to it by its previous name formally.   We found out early on, it was called Saigon when you are in Saigon and Ho Chi Minh when anywhere else.  While we were there we went to visit the Chu Chi Tunnels.  These were the famous tunnels in Vietnam that housed thousands and thousands of Vietnamese and stretched over 70 miles.   We were able to go down into the tunnels as far as we wanted, which wasn’t really that far.  I was very excited to find out they had a firing range setup and I was able to squeeze off a few dozen rounds on an M60.  We also looked at all the different forms of booby traps they had setup to snare Americans soldiers.  They were gruesome.

We ended our trip with a couple of days to ourselves back in Hanoi.  We had three domestic flights and two over night train rides in Vietnam during our 18 day excursion so we were ready for some time to ourselves in one city.  We visited a few key points in Hanoi like Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake and spent a whole day in the Old Quarter shopping.  That duffel bag full of supplies we brought was quickly filled with gifts and souvenirs to bring home.  In the end, once again we have a new favorite vacation.  I’ve told everyone that asked that I would move there in a hearbeat, maybe not forever but for a year or two would be wonderful.

–Chad Quesenberry

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     Holly and I have been wanting to make it out to Yellowstone National Park for a while now; I had actually been a couple times when I was younger, but Holly had never been… and quite frankly I was itching to go back.  A couple of months ago we decided to do it and headed out at the beginning of June.  As it turns out, June is an excellent time to go!  Lots of new born animals can easily be seen, the bugs aren’t out yet, and most importantly the crowds haven’t made it yet (oh, and there was still some snow, so that made it entertaining)!

    Speaking of newborns, Holly and I actually got to see an elk calf that had just been born (see my picture of the week post here)!  It was quite amazing.  We had been wondering around the Mammoth Springs area one evening and decided we were about ready to head back to the little bed and breakfast we were staying at when I noticed a small group of people standing at the end of the parking lot… all focused on the other side of the road with their cameras.  Now, if you’ve never been to Yellowstone, you might not know this… but any time you see a group of people with cameras out, it is usually worth your time to go see what it is they’re looking at.  They don’t refer to Yellowstone as the Serengeti of North America for nothing!  Well, when we got over there we could see a female elk tending to her newborn calf in some scrub bush.  While we were watching it took its first steps; definitely one of those neat moments in life!  The other onlookers had said it had been born some time within the past hour or so… some of them had been lucky enough to see it!   Absolutely incredible!

    Other than the elk and bison, I think we also saw just about every other animal you can hope to; otters, a beaver, osprey, coyotes, wolves, deer, moose, sheep, antelope… and probably others that I’m not thinking about.  In addition to the animals we of course checked out a lot of the thermal features and waterfalls as well.  Old Faithful and all the other geysers and thermal pools are always a ton of fun to check out.  If you’re never been, I would HIGHLY recommend it.  Plan on spending at least a week there if you can!

–Dan Thompson

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One day we drove over to Savannah to walk around for the day. Little did we know just how much walking we really would do that day. WOW! We drove by The Lady and Sons restaurant which is Paula Dean’s restaurant. It really was nothing to look at on the outside, but it is right in the downtown area of Savannah, about a block over from the river walk area. The weather sure was hot that day, I think it actually got up 93. Boy did we pick a hot day to be outside walking around town. We stopped for a quick, cold beverage after walking down by the river checking out all the stores and shops. We stopped in The Peanut Shop and really stumbled on to a great store. They had samples of all kinds of different things, so of course we all had some snacks. There were chocolate covered peanuts, wasabi flavored peanuts, peanut brittle, spicy peanut butter, cajun peanuts, salsa flavored and even buffalo sauce flavored peanuts. Pretty much anything you can think of, they had. The Albino Bowler hung out in the chocolate covered area for most of the time.

We enjoyed our night out at the sushi happy hour, taking some goodies out to the pool for a picnic dinner and to watch the sunset but the best part of the trip was…PARASAILING. It was our last full day there and my mother in law actually almost backed out of it, but she came around. I, along with my mother in law, conquered our fear of heights, and decided to go 800 feet in the air and to tackles something on our bucket list. Parasailing was awesome. I saw some cannonball jelly fish and a sting ray but no dolphins and luckily, no sharks either. The Albino Bowler even went up in the air with my husband, Todd. Thankfully we all made it back in the boat safe and sound. I think we all had a really good time that day. It was another really warm, sunny day and just perfect for a boat ride.

Overall it was a nice relaxing trip. I think we are all ready to go back but until then…HAPPY TRAVELS!

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–Courtney Gerringer

    Okay, I know what you’re thinking… what do zombies and wedding proposals have in common?  Well, not much… unless of course you’re Zac McKinney and Roslyn Ayers.  The background is this: Zac has been dating Roslyn for some time now and he finally decided he was ready to take the plunge and go for it (I’m quite positive that the constant harassment he’s been receiving at the office had nothing to do with it).  Now, I would like to take a second here and point out that I called this after date #1. Zac… told ya so!  Anyways, Zac and Roslyn like zombies and are firm believers in the impending zombie apocalypse.  Zac recently heard of a thing called ‘Survive Johnson City’ which was a giant game of tag… or zombie tag as was the case, and he thought to himself, “That would be an awesome place to propose!”.

    Here’s the setup; Survive Johnson City was a giant game of tag in the old downtown section of Johnson City, Tennessee.  Participants showed up wearing a white shirt under a black shirt (black shirt meaning you were a human, white shirt meaning you were a zombie) and when they had been tagged, they took off the black shirt and joined the ranks of the zombies.  It had a HUGE turnout (not sure exactly how many, but it was way in the 100s) and was quite entertaining to watch.  At one point we witnessed a sole “human” being chased by no less than 20 “zombies”.  Pretty funny stuff to witness.  Zac and the crew ended up getting there just a bit late and there were almost no humans left at that point… so you could only survive about 30 seconds before getting tagged… it was still fun to watch them try though.  After a bit of playing, Zac gave me the signal and I snuck him the ring, complete with a (fake) dead finger inside with the ring on it, and he proposed… she of course said yes, to cheers from a small crowd near by that saw the whole thing go down (this, by the way, was done in a safe zone so they wouldn’t get tagged).

    This is of course the first ever proposal for thealbinobowler.com!  Congratulations you guys!  May you have life lasting love… errr… I mean, eat brains together for the rest of your un-dead lives.  See below for a video of the evening as well as the proposal itself.  Till next time!

–Dan Thompson

    Christmas 2010 is the first year in quite a while that we’ve had a white Christmas, and much to our surprise when we woke up this morning it had snowed even more!  On this, the day after Christmas, we have about 3 inches of snow… and that’s totally awesome!  My wife and I decided to head out and play, since after some discussion we realized we had never made a snowman together!  Unfortunately the snow was too dry for snowman construction, but it worked great for making a snow-angel!  Of course no snow day would be complete without a snowball fight… and it is all fun and games until someone gets hit in the face.  That someone would have been me!  It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part though, my aim just wasn’t as good as hers it turns out.

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–Dan Thompson

    Well if you’ve been around Claris at all you know that our culture is a little different than most companies… and we pride ourselves in that.  One of our core values as a company is to “work smart and play hard”; and our Christmas Parties are usually a reflection of that.  Like most companies we view the Christmas party as a time for everyone to hang out and have a good time, and reflect on the past year… that just tends to look a bit different for us than most.

    If you recall from last year’s party, there was a ping-pong tournament involved and a whole lot of hang out time.  This year we decided to expand the ping-pong tournament just a bit… and a change of venue was in order as well.  The event was held at UT’s Down Under and featured, ping-pong, 9 ball, bowling, and foosball tournaments, with some major prizes on the line for the winners… and in the style of Fight Club, if you were there, you had to be in one of the tournaments! Awesomesauce!

    For the Albino Bowler, you may find this hard to believe, but this was actually his first time bowling (with us).  I took full advantage of the situation and got plenty of action photos!

    No good Christmas party would be missing an excellent spread of food, and this one was no different.  The Bonefish Grill on Bearden Hill came out and catered the shindig with lots of their famous dishes and a killer brownie and ice cream dessert.

    I can confidently say that all who came had an excellent time.  I’d personally go out on a limb and call it the best Christmas party… ever.  Fun was had by all, and people’s bellies were full.  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!

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–Dan Thompson

Tony Hawk is still ripping it at the age of 42. He currently runs his own skateboard company named Birdhouse, which he founded in 1992. Tonight he and his crew showed us how it’s done at the Knoxville Skatepark as a stop on his “Birdhouse World Tour” promotion. I was lucky enough to get to hang in some good spots as Tony and his team ripped it for the people. Maybe this will inspire me to grab my board out of the garage, dust it off, and drop in. It’s been a while and I’m not as young as I used to be, but Tony is ten years older than me and still tearing it up, so age is no excuse. Tonight brought back a lot of skating memories from when I was a teenager, a part of me that I had almost forgotten. It was good to go back to that place for a while.

Thanks for dropping in, Tony.

– Jay Norris

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Next we went to Denali National Park which encompasses 6.4 million acres.  We saw a wolf, grizzly bears, Dall Rams, a fox, Moose and Caribou there.  Oh, and we squeezed in a day of white water rafting as well.  Man, that water was cold.  Our final adventure was the perfect ending to our trip.  We took a small plane up to base camp for Mt. McKinley climbers.  At over 7,000 ft. the base camp was high enough, but we buzzed the mountain itself at 20,000 ft.  After the nearly 60 year old plane landed on the glacier at basecamp we got to spend quite a bit of time playing in the snow.   Nothing could have compared us for the vistas we would have in that location.  Overall the lack of amenities like showers and toilets, not to mention not being able to wear deodorant much of the time due to the fear of it attracting bears was not an issue at all.  Once you see the sites and experience all the nature, you quickly forget about “amenities”.  You can see some more photos at http://qberryfarms.com/alaska.

– Chad Quesenberry

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