Author Archives : Chris French

Circumnavigating St. Kitts via a train


Our circumnavigation around St. Kitts was not exclusively by train, a shuttle carried us to the north side of the island. But I’m getting ahead of myself, with our last day we were debating how we should fill it. Lisa and Andy were keen on a beach day so that left the rest of us to figure it out. When…

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Hiking Gros Piton on St. Lucia


It is fairly well establish that if you travel with us at some point you are going to be pushing into extreme exercise. On this trip it was a climb up Gros Pitot on St. Lucia. Booking a guide I had not realized that it would require four hours (round trip) in a van, which made it tight on time…

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The birthday boy!


I heard some rustling at 4:00am and realized Jean wasn’t in bed. Huh. Well with my birthday that day I had some idea what was going on… Getting out of bed in the morning, I found our room was filled with streamers, balloons and other paraphernalia. And it brought a big smile to start my day! Shortly there was a…

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A Caribbean birthday adventure!


Early 2022 I tossed out the idea of a trip with friends for my 50th birthday. Much to my surprise everyone I asked was on board, even our friends Lisa and Andy who live is Sweden, woohoo! Tickets purchased it was time to wait, finally January rolled around and just the day before we were set to leave a group…

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Pollo Con Achiote De Rancho recipe


A cruising friend (Steve on Salish Dragon) posted his signature dish and it looked fabulous. He included a Youtube video of a Michoacán grandma preparing the dish. Since it was in Spanish I decided to translate and try the dish myself. Let’s just say you should totally try this dish. Pollo Con Achiote De Rancho recipe 1 Whole chicken cut…

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Project to help with night vision flying


Like many others I was extremely bummed to learn that Aveo stopped manufacturing their overhead light that had both white and red lights built-in. After unsuccessfully searching for surplus or used lights I gave up and settled on the EyeBeam Mini with white light only. I loved the touch sensitive On/Off and Intensity selection but needed a way to make…

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A bit of hiking, a bit of bouldering, and a bit of running


Anna wanted to get in a workout and with limited options around town in Las Vegas we headed for Calico Basin. While there were lots of cars and climbers around we found that once off the main trail it was pretty quiet. We had a nice time taking in the beautiful rock formations and watching rock climbers making us question…

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Heritage Turkey for Thanksgiving


Our friends Bruce and Kate have a two hundred acre farm where they raise some Frank Reese lineage heritage turkeys. When Bruce asked if I was interesting in helping process thirty birds I gave him an enthusiastic yes. I was expecting to be processing outdoors and dress appropriately but was thrilled to see that all work would be in his…

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Trailblazing through deep snow


A sunny Sunday made it seem ideal for some snowshoeing up Soda Ditch trail and onto Grouse trail. It started pretty well packed but progressively turned into breaking trail. We had a nice hike with lots of great valley views after struggling up the steep sections along the way.

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Trying my hand at fabricating carbon fiber parts


I’ve watched plenty of Mike Patey’s videos showing the fabrication of carbon fiber parts but watching and doing are very different things. I knew this would be a learning project and I definitely developed some new skills. Next time I will be much fast with better quality. That said, I am very happy with the results and improvements I have…

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