Luggage and Literature

Friday Five 8-25-2017

08.25.2017 by Tana Henry //

Kaaboo Del Mar Passes — My Kaaboo Del Mar passes arrived this week! So excited to go!

This is the thirtieth installment in my weekly series, called the Friday Five. In this series, I’ll tell you about five random things that I love, whether they be books, travel, music, movies…or whatever. So without further ado, 8-25-2017’s Friday Five!

1–Stuff You Missed in History Class–Jane Austen. I really enjoy this podcast, but this episode in particular was a good one. Maybe it’s because I have read pretty much everything Austen has written, but I really liked this episode.

2–Guadeloupe. This article in Scuba Diver magazine takes me back to our wonderful trip to Guadeloupe (which you can read more about here–Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4).

3–Cherry Cheesecake Chocolate Bundt Cake. Oooh! I really, really want to make this.

4–Boston. Our Escape Clause wrote about 39 things to do in Boston. I definitely want to go back, and this will be a great guide when we do. But if you want to see how I spent Twelve Hours in Boston, you can check it out here.

5–New Harry Potter books! Two new books will drop this fall, Harry Potter: A History of Magic – The Book of The Exhibition and Harry Potter – A Journey Through A History of Magic (check out the details here). So excited!!

Roatan Part 3: Scuba Diving

08.24.2017 by Tana Henry //

I visited Roatan twice, in 2014 and 2017. In 2014 I wasn’t yet a certified scuba diver, and instead snorkeled. But I caught the diving bug and got certified as an open water scuba diver in 2015. In 2017, I was excited to return to the island and check out what there was to see below the water. Here’s a bit about my experience in Roatan scuba diving.

We dove with Subway Watersports at Turquoise Bay Dive and Beach Resort. They were great to deal with. Our boat captain was Kevin, who is hilarious and I’ve kept in touch with since leaving Roatan. Our divemasters were Maynor and Duven, who were really nice and knowledgeable about the dive sites.

They have several boats, and all appeared to be in really good condition. A locker room was available to store gear (although you can’t lock up your individual gear, so we didn’t leave our dive computers there). The store had the types of items that you’d expect to see in a Caribbean dive shop, as well as a fish identification guide. I’d recommend picking it up, as it has been a tremendous help in identifying nearly every type of fish that I’ve come into contact with in the Caribbean. A locker room was available to store gear (although nothing was locked up, so we didn’t leave our dive computers there).

But I’m sure what most people really want to know about is whether the diving was any good. The diving in Roatan was fanstatic. So without further ado, here are some photos of what I saw.

Green Moray Eel (it’s unusual to see them out swimming, rather than tucked up in the coral)

Puff Fish — Spiny Boxfish (Honeycomb) or Web Burrfish

Female Parrotfish — Female Stoplight Parrotfish

Male Parrotfish — Male Redband Parrotfish

If you’d like to read more about Roatan, check out the other portions of the series, where we are breaking Roatan down as follows:
Part 1: Travel and General Information
Part 2: Accommodations
Part 3: Scuba Diving
Part 4: Wreck Diving
Part 5: Things to Do

Cleveland Ohio Reading List

08.14.2017 by Tana Henry //

When I travel, I always find time to get a bit of reading time in. Car trips, flights, and relaxing by a pool or on a beach afford ample time to read fantastic books. Here is my Cleveland, Ohio Reading List, which covers the two books that I read during my week in Cleveland and Norwalk, Ohio.

Books Finished:

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

This book is written in a journalistic style focusing on the women of World War I into the 1930s who were dial painters and were exposed to Radium. Radium paint was used to make luminous watches, clocks and gauges during World War I and even into World War II. But the women who painted them, used brushes which they would put into their mouths in order to make a sharp enough point to paint with. Not surprisingly to modern folks, they became extremely ill from the radiation from the Radium. They suffered horrifically from radiation poisoning, and then suffered further when the Radium companies fought compensation of them for the poisoning. Making the book especially compelling is the inclusion of the women’s thoughts, feelings, and stories in their own words, which still exist due to their testimony in court and administrative proceedings and interviews with journalists.

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

I read and enjoyed immensely The Handmaid’s Tale. In fact I really want to renew my Hulu subscription for a month to see their adaptation of the story (Have you seen it? What did you think?). So I was looking forward to reading more by Margaret Atwood. I didn’t know anything about this book prior to reading it, which perhaps made it an even more exciting and disturbing ride through the story. I don’t want to say anything about the plot, because I really do think that it’s best that way. But if you liked The Handmaid’s Tale, I’m confident that you’ll like this one as well. And if you’ve not heard of or read either, check them both out!

Books Abandoned:

None.

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