Clunky Travel Love

Clunky. Clunky. Clunky. Clunky. I have just spent the last little while trying to understand slide show software. Something that a few years ago I would have struggled with as well; however, eventually it would all make sense. Today. I am not so sure. The Internet seems to move at the speed of quadruple dog years, with technology itself moving even faster.

Ok so here is the deal. In the past four years, a majority of my time — our family’s time –has been spent traveling. I have finally been to Europe. I survived the year of the Disneyland Season Pass. We made it to California Five different times that year. I saw beautiful Maine for the first time. I bought super strength Antibiotic Ointment in Mexico and I have gone home to Minneapolis more than once. In these years I have traveled for death and traveled because we had an unexpected Swine Flu School Holiday.

We have always traveled — a lot. CrazyUS began as a travel-log. In 2002 we took a year to travel with our then one and three year old boys. As the years pass, my love for travel has exploded and my Wanderlust is nearly impossible to contain. Today I was all excited to start talking about travel and how travel is the journey I hope my life always takes. Damn it! I love to travel! Dave’s new job is in the travel industry. I am trying to work in the same industry. I get home from a trip and before my suitcases make it up to my room, I have already begun scheming our next trip.

Of course that would lean one to think the following and yes, it is true: I love escape. I am so grateful I have a life and a husband who helps me make our traveling dreams possible.

Here I was going to talk travel (I kind of have) and I was so excited to put together a little slide show and now I am stuck. I think of the days where my grandfather, who also loved to travel, by the way, would take snapshot after snapshot of his trips. Once home, as a family, we would gather around his giant old canister slide projector and look at grainy vacation photos. I never quite understood why it was such a big deal. It was an event to go to my grandparents’ house and view these slides. To a little girl, those grainy photos were boring and the slideshow long.

My guess is that my travel photos are not much more enthralling to the average viewer. It’s super cliché for me to even say it. I will. Those photos bring us back. Bring us back to the smells, the moods, the fights, the stinky feet, the new discoveries, the little snail we happen to capture crawling across a leaf, something we would not have seen had we not left our house.

Cross your fingers that I can figure this out.

About Crazyus (Our first About Page)

Us 2005

We are the Adams Family. I, Beth, am the prominent author of this web site. Don’t be surprised if on occasion Dave posts. I love it when he posts. We have two beautiful sons, Kyle and Eli, whose escapades consume many of the words on these web pages.

Of course this site fits into the whole Mommy Blog Genre. Why wouldn’t it? I am a Mommy. I would like to think that I am hilariously funny and totally clever. The truth; I am often overly-dramatic and PMS-driven. Remember that these are only glimpses into our life. I have kept a journal of sorts since I was a young girl. My Mom used to sit on the couch and write in her diary, and I think because I wanted to hang out with her, I started keeping one as well. (There were six kids in our Brady-Bunch/children-of-divorce, style family. One-on-one time with my mom was hard-to-come-by.) That said, I am glad for this record-keeping habit (Obsessive Behavior) she has instilled in me.

After leaving Northern Virginia, taking a year-off to travel in our VW Eurovan Camper (the initial reason we began Crazy Us, we landed back in Salt Lake City just a few blocks from where we lived before, a house that every time we drive by, Dave, me or one of the boys points out, “That is the house where Kyle was made.”

Our first web site (1998)(which we had no idea was a web log because I don’t think there was such a phrase at the time) was the now defunct, davyandbeth.com. I know, how cute is that–choke–cough–gag. We set the web site up for our wedding, and because we were planning a big move to Boston at the time, we wanted a central way of keeping in touch with everyone.

Dave and I are both Internet geeks and have worked for various startups, and we also worked for other companies in an Internet related capacities. In 1997 Dave (and, I guess you could say, me too) began Os News (a technology blog, if you will), which is his current primary occupation. You can read more about OS News and his career path, here.

Dave grew up in Rockville and Gaithersburg, Maryland. I grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota. If you know anything about the Minneapolis area, specifically the western suburbs, more specifically, Lake Minnetonka, no, I did not live on Lake Minnetonka. I came from the other side of town.

I suffer from a huge chronic case of The Grass is Always Greener Syndrome, which has lead me to deep dissatisfaction with almost everywhere we have lived, only to leave these places and mourn them like a lost loved one, dreaming about the day I will return. Seriously, ask Dave. It can get really bad, especially during P.M.S. and pregnancy. (Consequently, I can’t stand Utah right now.)

I hope you enjoy this web site. If you don’t, well, the Internet is a big place.