Mick Lerlop Photography » Personal

Hoover Dam, Los Angeles and San Francisco

Mick — Tue, 31 May 2011 11:00:48 +0000

Continuing from the previous post, we rented a car fromÂ Fox Rent A Car before heading East to Hoover Dam. Fox Rent A Car generally has pretty bad reviews all over the Internet. However, I thought I’d give them a shot. The pick up process was not ideal because the price on the reservation in their system didn’t match what I was quoted during the booking process through American Express Travel. Luckily, I was able to convince them to honor mine since I had a printed copy of my reservation with him. The car they gave me was a DodgeÂ Caliber, which was alright throughout the trip. The worst part was the post-rental experience. I had to deal with their claims management company because the end of the trip got rough in downtown San Francisco, the car was broken into, and the thief took stuff from it. Luckily, I had American Express Premium Car Rental Protection. They were able to cover the damage repair cost as well as part of the cost of the stolen laptop. I was very pleased with AMEX customer service. On the other hand, FOX Rent A Car or their claims management company, Khoury Alternative, wasn’t very helpful during the claim process as they weren’t willing to provide fleet utilization logs and administrative fee receipts to AMEX. That basically resulted in an $85.00 unpaid balance that AMEX wasn’t able to cover. To be clear, AMEX would cover if FOX provided the requested info. Anyway, I had to settle with them out of pocket because they threatened to call a collection agency on me. Not cool. I guess the average review 2 starts out of 5 is fair for this rental company.

Now that I’ve finished my rant, I need to finish with the trip info. The rain started coming down as we left Vegas. We walked in drizzling rain at Hoover Dam. Spent like an hour there and didn’t go on the bridge because we had a person in a wheel chair. I took about 5 hours to get to the suburb of LA and then probably another two hours to get to North Hollywood for some dinner in Thai Town. We ate atÂ Sanamluang Cafe. It wasn’t as good as the last time I came but probably because back then I compared it to food in State College instead of DC metro. After dinner, probably 9PM-ish, it still took another 90 minutes to get to the hotel in Pasadena. The next day was just awful in terms of weather. We drove around a ton but never got out of the car other than eating lunch at Hard Rock in Hollywood. It rained heavily non-stop and we left LA just after sunset. Stayed overnight in Ventura. Didn’t stop in Santa Barbara because it was still raining hard. When we got to about midpoint on Highway 1, the rain would stopÂ intermittently giving us short windows to get out of the car for some fresh air, photos and enjoy the view even though the visibility was probably less than a mile.

The rain finally stopped when we got to San Francisco. Had dim sum for dinner :p. The weather was fine for the rest of the trip. I have to say that the car incident was really eye-opening. After that trip, I never again leave stuff visibly in the car. I either lock it away in the trunk or take it with him. Camera gear is with me at all times.

Las Vegas

Mick — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:00:17 +0000

Here are some photos from my trip to Las Vegas from last December. I actually went on to San Francisco but those photos are coming in the next post. I stayed at ARIA Resort & Casino at CityCenter. It was my first time there and I had a mind blow experience. The hotel is relatively new, built within the last few years, so everything is pretty much clean and pristine. Lots of restaurants just like any other prime hotels on the strip. Attached to the hotel is a shopping mall with stuff I can’t afford. The good news is that CVS is just around the corner.

One negative thing about ARIA is that it’s mega huge. It’d take me literally 10 mins to walk from my room to the conference area in the same hotel. That becomes really tiring when you have do a few round trips a day (e.g. get a phone charger, do conference call, etc.).

View of CityCenter from my room at ARIA

My room at ARIA has a touch screen remote at the bedside table thatÂ practicallyÂ controls everything in the room.

Morning view from the room

Couldn’t have asked for a better week in Vegas. 70F and low humidity. Downside – no poolside actions.

Outer Banks Camping

Mick — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:00:55 +0000

Before this trip, we beach-camped once at Assateague island and it was pretty awesome. So we had really high hopes for OBX camping since it was going to be at the KOA Cape Hatteras campground, which is private (i.e. not part of a state or national) and should be less crowded generally speaking. Being the July 4th weekend, we knew traffic was going to be mad crazy so we left at 6AM. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic at all until we hit the Wright Memorial bridge crossing over to Outer Banks. Didn’t want to miss a World Cup quarterfinals match so we stopped at Hooters, lunched and watched Germany ass-whip Argentina *facepalm*.

Anyway, after the match we went food shopping and headed to the campground. About 30 minutes south of Kitty Hawk Hooters, we got there and my jaw dropped. It looked at a zoo + circus + playland combined. There were so many people that every available piece of land was occupied by either a tent or an RV. Dream shattered … not really, but it was kind of disappointing since I kinda expected to be at least as cool as Assateague. Anyhow, we were assigned this corner lot surrounded by RVs and popup tent trailers. Setting up was easy. When we finished, we just hung out and everybody was probably hoping for the sun to go soon because it was stupid hot.

Despite the crowd and heat, we spent three nights and had a blast everyday. The beach was surprisingly not crowded at all. One thing that was a really annoying though. Everyday, except July 4th, a garbage truck would come around 7AM and practically make you up whether Â you want to or not. Anyway, another great trip this year but will definitely rent a house next time.

Virginia Tech

Mick — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:37:11 +0000

Visited the Virginia Tech main campus in Blacksburg, VA during the last spring break. The drive is about four hours from the DC metro area.

Just finished digging out

Mick — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:28:05 +0000

Sorry, haven’t made a post for a while. I have been busy with my new role at work as a Solutions Engineer. What’s more is that I just came back from a 2 week trip to Thailand. It was great and I’ll surely be posting some photos from trip soon.

By the way, I’m glad I wasn’t here when the big snow storm hit the DC area. Luckily, two very good friends came and helped shoveling the drive way. So massive big up for them.

Stowe, Vermont

Stowe, Vermont

Mick — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:26:31 +0000

We spent our Christmas skiing/snowboarding at Stowe Mountain Resort, Vermont. Having already been to Killington, we wanted to try out a new place. Heard a lot of good things about Stowe and thought we would give it a shot. It really didn’t disappoint us at all, partly because we luckily picked the best two days. A week before Christmas, the temperature was constantly below 0Â°F. At one point I was -14Â°F on SkiReport.com. The day before we arrived, it never made it out of the single digits. However, our first day was amazing. It was partly sunny all day and the temperature hit the high 20sÂ°F at the top. The second day was pretty much as good.

The surface was primarily packed powder and loose/frozen granular. Although there were so some really icy spots on double-diamond and mogul trails, the snow condition was pretty good overall considering that it was still early in the season. Also we thought the slopes were going to crowded because of the Christmas holiday. We were wrong. There were practically no lines at all. We never spent more than a minute waiting at the lifts.

Food wise, almost every review on Yelp and Trip Advisor says that food at Stowe was expensive but very good. I completely agree with the first part but not so much with the latter. One night we had dinner at The Shed. The service was a little slow and the food was just alright. I found that the food at the Octagon Cafe at one of the peaks was much tastier even though a bowl of chili, chicken wrap and drinks cost almost $30. The restaurant offered a stunning view of sea of clouds. We could spot Killing and Pico from our spot.

Driving up there from Virginia during the Christmas week was complete madness. We took I-95 all the way to New Haven, CT so we got stuck in NYC traffic about three hours. Crossing the George Washington bridge alone took over 45 minutes. Instead of going through NYC, we should have gone upstate New York and cut across to I-91. Anyway lesson learned.

Honestly we didn’t shop around a lot before making a reservation at Stowe Motel because we started planning this trip in less than a week. Stowe Motel offered good rates, was close to the base, and got fairly good reviews on a few travel sites.

Even that 10PM when we arrived, the gentleman (named Kirkland, I think) was extremely friendly and welcoming. He even upgraded our room to the next level (whatever that was called). Anyway, although this motel is kind of old, the rooms are extremely well kept. Our room was clean including the bathroom. The mattress is, however, like one of those college dorm ones. Also, they have a game room with ping pong, pool, and foosball tables.

Camping in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Mick — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:58 +0000

Went camping with some friends in Shenandoah Valley on a weekend last month. During the day it was in the 60s if I remember correctly. The temperature dropped pretty quickly after sunset. It had to be in the 30s when we went to sleep. However, the coldest moments were early in the morning. I kept waking up every 10 minutes or so because of sleeping in a fairly thin sleeping bag. The next day we went hiking in Shenandoah National Park. Great weekend, great weather, lots of fun!

Campsite at KOA Shenandoah Valley

Lots of tiny spiders near tenting area

Steak for breakfast

Fall Colors in Shenandoah National Park

Mick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:08:03 +0000

Who doesn’t love fall? Here are some photos from Big Meadows at Shenandoah National Park. It’s about an hour drive west of DC. The weekend we went was pretty crowded. I originally planned on visitingÂ Luray Caverns but the line was long…about an hour wait. So we changed the plan and hit up Big Meadows instead. It was our first time there and the first thing that came in mind was that it would make a pretty cool golf course. Anyway it’s pretty much a big open field and what was cool about it was the colors of different kinds of little plants.

Fruit Picking in Maryland

Mick — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:02:46 +0000

Went to Homestead Farm in Maryland a few weeks ago. We got there at around 13:00 and the heat index was probably slight above 100 Â°F. Insane… There weren’t a lot of peaches but there were tons of sour blackberries. My wife neither eats peaches nor berries (the only berry she likes is strawberry) so we didn’t buy any and we thought of that fruit picking as an exercise.

Birthday Boy

Mick — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:35:07 +0000

The other day I went a friend’s place for birthday dinner. Shinny just turned 30…

Ella’s 2nd Birthday