Having lived most of my life in the Midwest I always find it surprising how many new and interesting places I can find. The past weekend I was lucky enough to visit another new place, the beautiful Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. Although some would contest Kentucky is part of the south it was still within easy driving distance for us. It was only a 4 hour drive from Indianapolis with only the last hour on some windy country roads.

My girlfriend’s uncle was nice of us to have us down along with some other family at their lake house. It is always great to be invited by family or friends to their getaways. As for the lake, it was significantly different than your typical lake. But, different wasn’t a bad thing, it was beautiful with all the side shoots and lack of houses.

While we’re still in the midst of summer I have just booked my yearly ski trip and this time I am heading to Banff and Lake Louise up in Canada! The best part is that I was able get my myself and my dad to Calgary (YYC) for nearly free thanks to Delta award miles. While Delta runs a great airline I am not too keen on their frequent flyer program which means I limit my flying on them. For example, Delta has been trimming away their value of their miles for years and now they don’t even publish an award chart anymore… with more devaluation on the way for 2016 it was time to burn the miles I had left with them. In general it is really hard to find saver award space on Delta flights but we lucked out and both roundtrips were only 25k miles for MLK weekend with nearly perfect times (I only had 27k so it worked!). We also ended up on the same flights for both of the legs between Minneapolis (MSP) and Calgary (YYC). Flights to Calgary are usually in the $500 range so this ends being a great redemption of 1.74 cpm after backing out the $65 in taxes, so there can be some value to Delta miles!

Overview

This is the second post about my family reunion trip to Estes Park, Colorado which will focus on all the hiking we did in Rocky Mountain National Park. Find the first part here detailing out the YMCA of the Rockies and our adventures up the Old Fall River Road that just opened up. All the hiking we did I really enjoyed but the weather was terrible. Typically for this time of year there are afternoon showers in the mountains but we were presented with nonstop rain and low clouds pretty much the whole time. It didn’t stop us and we were able to find a couple hikes that broke through the cloud cover with some spots of sunshine.

 Overview

My extended family on my Mom’s side does a large family reunion every two years and this year it happened to be at the YMCA of the Rockies, Estes Park which is literally next to Rocky Mountain National Park. I was extremely excited for this reunion for the location but also to see my immediate family, cousins, second cousins, and random other somewhat related people! Usually our family reunions are set out West or in the Midwest, some of the most recent reunions have been at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, near the Wisconsin Dells, and the Black Hills in South Dakota. In general, my extended family loves to travel and to outdoorsy type places which is awesome for me!!

For my second post about all the hiking check it out here

Inbound

For this year’s Memorial Weekend I ventured down to Clearwater Beach, Florida to enjoy the beautiful beach with my girlfriend and a couple of friends. Our Southwest direct flight from Indianapolis to Tampa Bay left early Saturday morning. Now I am not big on spending money so I used my Southwest points to fly three of us and only paid $33.60. The best part is I just earned my Southwest Companion pass so my girlfriend flies free when I fly whether I pay cash or with points. I earned most of my points through my Southwest Credit card. The flight itself went without any problems and we landed at 8:30 AM at Tampa Bay International Airport and that is where I made a rare travel blunder….

After taking Uber all the way from Tampa Bay to our hotel in Clearwater Beach I realized I had left my bag on the curb… So I took the same Uber driver all the way back to the airport and the bag was already gone but my water bottle was still sitting there. I contacted lost and found, talked with all the airline baggage attendants, and even talked with traffic officers and the bag was gone. Luckily it was one of my smaller bags and I didn’t have any of my valuables in it. I didn’t have to take an Uber back as my friend was driving in at the same time so that was fortunate as well. On the way back we stopped by a grocery store to pick clothes for myself, lunch, drinks, and food for the weekend. Despite landing at 8:30 AM I didn’t really get to Clearwater Beach until noon but my girlfriend was able to enjoy the hotel.