BrandonoBrien.com

Brandon O'Brien

Travel and Adventure Journal

I wanted a place to journal all my travels and adventures around the world. I always enjoy going back and reflecting on my past travels and getting to relive them through my words and photos.

You're reading posts I wrote on September 6 throughout the years. Return home.
Hanging out in Nice

Hanging out in Nice

Tuesday, September 6, 2022 @ 10:00 PM in 2022 Germany and France

Day 13

Today was a nice day spent in Nice. For breakfast we met up with our friend Kat who moved out here about a year and a half ago. We had breakfast at a nice cafe where I had another brioche french toast and Sam had some eggs benedict. We hung out and talked in the cafe for a while before grabbing some groceries and walking back to the Airbnb. On the way back, Kat picked up her son Rowan from a nanny and we got to meet him. He's about 6 weeks older than Dakotah but they actually look pretty similar. Sam and I refer to them as "generic white babies". We were hoping to get diapers at the little grocery shop but they only had size 3 packages which would be way too big for Dakotah.

We walked down to the beach so Sam could dip her toes in the Mediterranean then found another supermarket to buy diapers as well as some snacks. Kat signed us up for a wine tasting at 5:30pm and we wanted to make sure we had some food in our stomachs before doing that. Kat said to come by her place any time after 1:30 so we walked to her place (it's only a few blocks from the Airbnb, basically between us and the ocean). We got to see Juniper again for the first time in a year and a half (she's the dog we fostered for a couple months before Kat adopted her). We hung out at Kat's place chatting and snacking until it was time to head to the wine tasting.

We got on an extremely packed tram and took it two stops which popped us out right in front of the wine tasting shop. We were a couple minutes late but no big deal. In total there were eight different wines we sampled with a small group of eight people total. The wines were all really good but my favorite was a Chateau Labadie Medoc from 2012. It was very full bodied and oaky with a lot of caramel, vanilla and cinnamon flavors.

Feeling pretty tipsy and in desperate need of food, we walked around for a little while before finding a restaurant that had some food that looked appetizing. They had a mussles dish for one of their specials which sounded good but unfortunately they were out of it. I ended up getting pasta with meat sauce while Sam got some pizza with meat, mushrooms and olives.

The food definitely helped with the buzz but I could tell I should have eaten a lot more before we had gone to the wine tasting originally. Back at the Airbnb we got Dakotah fed and then got ready for bed ourselves.

Teaser photos:

The beach in Nice
The beach in Nice
Dakotah at the beach
Dakotah at the beach
Dakotah meeting Rowan (and Juniper)
Dakotah meeting Rowan (and Juniper)
Dinner after wine tasting
Dinner after wine tasting

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Tags: france, nice, europe

Posted from: France

Rain and Cold

Friday, September 6, 2013 @ 8:49 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 72

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I had breakfast then started working on some major updates to ClearCheckbook. The codebase that the site's currently using hasn't really been updated since the end of 2008 when I launched V3 of the site. What I'm working on now is upgrading all of the javascript libraries from Prototype to jQuery and I'm also working to make the site responsive (so it loads and looks better across a wide range of devices).

After lunch the rain finally stopped and the sun came out, but it was a full 20 degrees colder today than it was yesterday. I still had to walk around in jeans and a long sleeve shirt when I went out to pick up a few items for dinner.

I had some tomato and lentil soup (very good), bread and some steamed veggies for dinner. After dinner I worked on CCB some more until just a little while ago when huge groups started checking in and everyone started getting into Friday night party mode in the lobby.

I'll probably find time to do some much needed laundry tomorrow. There are a few laundromats I found near here so I'll head to one of them. I want to have a clean set of clothes before heading to Belgium!

Tags: daily journal, england, brighton

Posted from: England

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 4 - Great Sand Dunes and Back Home

2010 Labor Day Motorcycle Ride - Day 4 - Great Sand Dunes and Back Home

Monday, September 6, 2010 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

On our last day out, we decided we had enough freeze dried backpacking meals for breakfast and I had some poptarts I brought. We headed out after that and started riding to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

About 20 miles outside Pagosa Springs we had to climb a few thousand feet in elevation (the shots from Day 2 when we were overlooking the big valley). The temps dropped dramatically and we started to freeze. Fortunately it warmed up pretty quick after that.

The ride to the Sand Dunes area was nice and scenic. There are a few towns along the way where it goes from 65mph to 25mph in about a half mile, so you really need to watch out.

We got to the sand dunes at around 11am and walked around there. It was like being in the middle of a huge desert. Sand everywhere and the dunes were probably 1,000 feet high off the ground at some spots. We saw people sledding and sandboarding.

Since we still had a long day ahead of us, we didn't climb all the way to the top, but we did get to walk around on them for a bit.

After leaving there, we got stuck in a long line of cars heading back to the interstate. When we hit Walsenburg we split up and Ryan headed back to Denver and I went south to Albuquerque.

I stopped in a little town called Wagon Mound to fuel up, stretch and get a 5 hour energy when all of a sudden some ambulances flew by and a medi-copter landed on the interstate. Apparently there was some huge accident just before I got off the interstate that I wasn't aware of (it was the direction opposite the way I was going).

They had the interstate blocked both directions about 1 mile out each way. Luckily they hadn't closed the onramp and I was able to get on the interstate just fine. The road was my own for about 20 miles before I started coming across any cars again. It was a very strange feeling.

All in all the trip was a blast. My ass hurt beyond belief the last day from riding so much, but I guess that's all part of the experience.

Total miles today: 487

Teaser photos:

Our bikes in front of the Great Sand Dunes
Our bikes in front of the Great Sand Dunes
Cool textures in the sand
Cool textures in the sand

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Tags: motorcycle, labor day 2010

Posted from: United States