Honeymoon ideas

I'll be taking the first week of August off from work to go volunteer on an organic farm in Princeton through World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms-US (http://www.wwoofusa.org/) with my friend Amy. The deal is you pay for a membership to access a directory of organic farms that you can then contact and sort out the times to visit them and work for around 5-6 hours/day in return for food and lodging. Here's the description of the farm we'll be visiting in Princeton:

Farm consists of 61 acres total, vegetable and fruit production in raised beds on approximately 5 acres (biointensive planting) woods, streams and pasture lands. We have three flocks of chickens which move over land in "mobile homes", two goats now and cows are planned for. We have a CSA and market at the farm, deliver produce to area health food store and restaurants during growing season June through October. Our egg co-op goes through the year, as does animal care. Interns and volunteers participate in all aspects of work, sowing in greenhouse from February, transplanting, weeding, trellising, harvesting, etc. Marketing, compost making throughout year.

We did it once before on a trip to Europe the summer after sophomore year, when I was having my mid-college crisis and was determined to collect up interesting activities not for the purpose of resume-building. It was a wonderful time, it was around 5 weeks total.

The first half was at a vineyard in the south of France with the most adorable British-Canadian-Indian family ever, and the food was a revelation. I still think about them often, even though Amy's the one who's actually kept in touch with them. The kids must be all grown up by now.

Then, for the second half, we went to this poultry farm in southern England, which was more of a hobby for a doctor couple, but that was pretty great too. We worked with their recalcitrant donkeys, mucked out the chicken and turkey coops, fed the ducks/geese, collected eggs, etc. We also went on a day trip to Brighton beach (of Pride & Prejudice fame to us) with the very cute French boy who was also staying with the family at that time. I would really like to make a photobook of that whole trip from Amy's photos. Mine were mostly ruined by the X-ray machines at the airport, tear.

Anyway, I think that that would be an easy and cheap way to have an unusual honeymoon if you're both into that sort of thing. Dan would be disaster, what with basically being allergic to nature and all, so currently we've been talking about...Alaska! This started from my mom wanting to go on an Alaskan cruise but I'm undecided on whether I want our honeymoon to be a family trip. Leaning toward 'no' right now, though it could be awesome.

Then Dan mentioned that the Tuesday after the wedding is the annual Midnight Sun Baseball Game, which is around 6/21 each year in Fairbanks, Alaska, and starts at 10:30pm, through midnight and ending around 2am.

With Fairbanks a mere 160 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the sun is just beginning to set in the north as the game gets under way and, at its conclusion some three hours later, the sun begins to rise again - also in the north. 

It sounds pretty awesome even to a non-sports person such as myself. So, what I'm thinking right now is flying out to Fairbanks on Monday or Tuesday (flights are cheaper in the week and we'll have Sunday to recover from the wedding festivities), catching this ball game, then renting a car and driving to or taking the train to Denali National Park & Preserve, going on the bus tours, maybe doing some biking, then proceeding on toward Anchorage and getting on a 7-day cruise that ends in Vancouver. These cruises seem to usually depart on Saturday, so then once that's over, we could spend the weekend in Vancouver and fly back on Monday or Tuesday (we'll have Monday off for July 4th).

It'd be a pretty big vacation, overall, but each component is a little cheaper than I thought it would be, so maybe I can talk Dan into it. We'll see. It's not just the money but the using of vacation days as well. I just did some calculations of how much vacation I've got now plus how much I'll accrue by mid-June of next year, minus the 5 days for the week with Amy in Princeton (where I also hope to do some scouting of local vendors for flowers and such...fingers crossed!), minus ~15 days for one week before the wedding and two weeks of honeymoon after, and I think I've got about 5 days left after all that. My mom is thinking about a Caribbean cruise in December with her and my dad, I have to think about whether I can squeeze that in as well. Vacation is the best! :)

Some other relevant links:

• I'd love to go on a hot air balloon ride some time in life
• renting a house seems like it'd be a great way to get homey in a new location. I'm all about the homey.
• Oyster hotel reviews with real photos (meaning non-hotel hired stylist and pro photographer) from notmartha. 

Funny she mentions a MetaFilter thread in that same post about sleeping in the airport, Amy and I slept in the airport on our way back to Paris and she's got at least one good photo of me sprawled out on a sleeping bag next to our luggage cart. Also, her flight in to Paris was delayed so we missed our original train and had to take an overnight one that then dropped us off at a remote bus stop at 5am where we had to wait for an hour before the next connection came by. Filed under, things it's better for my mother not to know too many details about :)