Books, wonderful books!

Hey Everyone!
I've been putting up some of the books that have helped us find these wonderful fun places! Check out an example on the Carpinteria Beach and Tar Pits page. I also put up our favorite rock climbing book on the Playgrounds page! A children's book about Arizona that has become a beloved favorite of ours is up on the Montezuma's Castle page. An amazing book that shows you every fantastic place that the locals know in Hawaii is up on the Kaneohe Bay page and the Mauna Kea Resort Beach page. Check them out!
Also, have you checked the merchandise link on the main map page? We had so much fun making the multi-colored logo, and then Ron scaled it so it fit right onthe mugs and t-shirts. I'm going to order a bumper sticker and put it on my car, and a t-shirt and cap! Then I will spread the word about LotsaFunMaps everywhere I go! Hee hee!
Going to visit a friend now- bye!

The Screen Saver is up on Softpedia

Softpedia has included our screen saver in their index! Whoohooo! I've noticed on the editors computer that once in a blue moon we get an error dialog. I've been pulling out my hair to find what is causing that. I've added some diagnostics to release 1.0.1.4 if you run that and see an error dialog come up please send the bug report!! So I can fix this asap.

Thanks,
Ron

Had a great birthday!

Hi there! Yesterday I had the most wonderful birthday! We went to Ventura to my friend Monica's house and had so much fun!
Today I spend the day doing the Arizona map! It was great fun reliving those days last year that we spent exploring our new environment of Arizona. It was a little spooky too going back to some of the weirder places! Most of all, I loved Sedona and Carefree. You have to check them out! The photos of Sedona are beautiful, but unfortunately I didn't have any of the boulders you see on the drive to Carefree. That's a shame- and a good excuse to go back sometime.
Hope you like the Arizona page!
Thanks for visiting our site! We love to see how many people visit each day!

Vampires in Arizona!!

Guys, this is hilarious. Our editor wrote a great piece about Vampires in Tuscon, AZ. I've been to Oro Valley myself, it's all true!

Birthday

Today is your lead-editor's birthday! She'll be starting the day with pancakes in bed and some gifts. Not sure how much work will be done on lotsafunmaps today! Have a great weekend!

Tough Job

Part of our job is of course to check out everything we put on this map. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. Yesterday we visited west beach and the harbor, not for the first time obviously. However we did go to the endless summer bar for the first time and we were quite pleasantly surprised. It's a great atmosphere with friendly people. We sat at the bar and sipped some drinks. Boy, they pour a stiff margarita :-)

Next to us sat a fisher man by the name of Jim. Jim is a long time local who fishes around the channel islands for Sea Urchins (apparently their reproductive organs are a delicacy,.. eewww). Anyway as a long time sailor he had a lot of great stories. Including one where he apparently caught a 17 foot shark. He said it was a couple of years after Jaws and they tugged it into Santa Barbara harbor, lotsa media present. I spent 30 minutes this morning scouring the internet but was unable to find any reference to this event, sadly.

It's been very hot in Santa Barbara (and all of CA for that matter) lately and at the bar some electric circuits started to fry! The fire department even came out in full gear. Though the bar was never evacuated we did smell smoldering plastic. It was a great night and we'll be back for some more of those margaritas.

- Ron

History of LotsaFunMaps.com

Hey Everyone!
Here's a little about the history of LotsaFunMaps:
In March this year I was writing in my journal excitedly about all the new places we'd found in Santa Barbara. We'd just returned 6 months earlier from spending 10 months in Arizona. We were part of the California exodus to AZ that arose from ridiculous home prices. And we were part of the mass migration back out of Arizona after the hot, dusty, smelly (yes, neighborhood garbage starts to stink when the weather is 115 degrees both day and night) summer!!!! Well, that's a long, long story...
But, we returned to Santa Barbara with a new devotion for our wonderful town. We loved it more than ever! And we set out to find new fun places to go to on the weekend. We found some really good ones. In my enthusiasm I sketched a map in my journal showing all my favorite places to go in Santa Barbara, the new ones, and the old ones I'd found since moving here in 2001.
Gotta go- dinner's ready- I'll be back!
So, as I was saying, I made a map of all the most wonderful spots in Santa Barbara, and then, having enjoyed making the Santa Barbara map so much, I made a map of my favorite places on Oahu since we were going there to visit family later in the year.
For a few months, I forgot about my maps. Then my sister made plans to visit us with her family and to stay in our house while my family was in Hawaii. I wanted her to have a really good time here while we were away, and I thought of making a list of the best places to go. Then it occurred to me! I could make a map which would give descriptions of the places and directions on how to get there. I went to the Educational Materials store near our house and bought a big pink poster board. Then I cut it in half lengthwise and taped the pieces together so that I had a long map to cover from Goleta all the way to Carpinteria. It took a day to make the map!
When my sister arrived I showed her the map, tacked to the wall in the kitchen, and she felt so cared for that she was near tears! While we were away, she visited almost all the places on the map and after the vacation she said she had the most wonderful time!
Meanwhile, my husband, the genius programmer, made a program so that I could put the map up on the web! I didn't have time to enter any places in before we left, so I started it in Hawaii. During the day we took photos of all my favorite places from when I lived in Hawaii for 13 years. Then at night, I wrote the entries and uploaded the photos. Meanwhile, my husband, who was on vacation from his job and had plenty of creative energy to spare, started creating the design for the pages. We had a blast creating the logo, which I was so proud of in the end. And we even created a logo for merchandise at Press Cafe! That was exciting!
Now we're back in Santa Barbara, and every day I'm taking photos of our favorite places here and adding entries. My husband, in his spare time, is thinking up new great additions, like the screen saver! Making LotsaFunMaps is so much fun! And I can't wait to see how it grows and grows as we discover more great places to go!
There! End of our story! Thanks for listening- drop us a line.

Hey Everyone!
I've only 12 more entries to edit and then Oahu will be done! Yeeha! It's been fun reliving all the great times I've spent at the various places while editing them.
We've been back from Oahu for five days now but I still have the horrible cold I picked up on the plane. I can guess it was the guy next to me who was sharing his gurgly sounds with the whole flight.
Hope you enjoy the polished edited entries!
Cheers.

Off to the beach!

Hi Everyone!
I've been adding new location entries wildly all week! Boy is it hot out here, so now, expect no new entries today because I'm going to the beach!
I hope you like the new entries and photos! Soon, Oahu will be fully edited, and I'm going to start on Santa Barbara. I've already taken quite a few photos, but I'm looking forward to taking more.
Glad you visited our blog,
Cheers!

Great New Screen Saver

Hi Guys,

We released our brand new screen saver! It retrieves all those beautiful images from our website and shows them to you! Imagine watching gorgeous places go by as you dream you're there! The best part about the screen saver is that if you like a place you see you can hit the space bar to actually see the details about that spot! Try it!!

Anyway :-) lotsa fun maps screen saver free scenic photos on your computer.


Let us know what you think.

Lotsa Fun Maps - Pre Launch

Hi there,

Glad you dropped by, we are working hard to make LotsaFunMaps.com a very exciting place to find new and fun places to visit. We welcome any comments from you! Most of the available locations are in the Oahu and Big Island regions, so be sure to check them out!