Movie Review: Take Me Home

Guys, I’m getting a little overwhelmed with my reading life right now. I have a full list of NetGalley books because I can’t seem to stop requesting them. I have the new Jim Butcher book that has limited time in my house and it’s long and I have no idea when I’m going to get to it. Pair that with limited reading time over the next few weeks and Nanowrimo in November, and I have some serious time management that needs to happen. But with all that, I still have time to watch the occasional romance movie, because sometimes, it has to be all about Netflix.

One-Sentence Synopsis
After a woman receives news that her father is in the hospital, she convinces a cabbie to take her from New York to California, not realizing that he’s not a real cabbie. For a full synopsis, see this movie’s IMDB page.

The Good Stuff
Considering how unlikable the main characters are, this movie was surprisingly entertaining, and is one of the few that actually pushed my emotional buttons the way most books do. Claire is already on the verge of a meltdown from finding her husband with another woman in their house (not actually doing anything, but leaving enough room for doubt), so when she finds out her estranged father had a heart attack, she kind of loses her mind. And it’s kind of riveting how crazy she goes, like she knows she’s losing her grip but she can’t help it.

Thom is a hot mess himself. He’s not a real cabbie, but a down on his luck photographer who pretends to be a cabbie when he needs extra money. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s not exactly honest either. So when Claire tells him to just drive, he does just that, figuring he’ll make a few extra bucks. $5,000 of them to be exact.

But then things take a turn of the unfortunate, and the road trip turns out be a comedy of errors. This is the perfect hate-to-love trope, starting with two people who literally have a physical fight in the front seat of the cab. It was a funny scene, but honestly, who can’t relate to being so drained and stressed that you just need to attack someone?

Things That Made Me Go Hmmm
There are two different times where the characters fall asleep at the wheel, which isn’t surprising since they never stop. They can’t get a hotel, for reasons, but seriously…hasn’t anyone ever heard of a rest stop? For all intents and purposes, Claire isn’t really on a timetable, and the money she offers at the beginning of the trip, while somewhat moot at one point, doesn’t really seem worth the possibility of an accident due to lack of sleep.

The Romance Factor
Here’s the funny thing about this romance: there are no blatant romantic scenes. By that I mean, there’s no sex, there’s very little kissing, and there is little dialog about how either one of them feels. But the dialog that does happen is effective, and the actors are really good at conveying things with their expressions and body language. At one point, Thom makes an apology to Claire and tells her a whole mass of truth about himself, sliding in a very subtle note about wanting to sleep in with her (it really was just sleeping though), and it caught me off guard and then kind of melted my little romantic heart. 5/5

The Steam Factor
If you’re talking the type of steam that comes from anger, then there was some of that here, but as for sexy times…nope. The movie was great without them, and I actually think a steamy scene would have ruined the simple romance of the film. 1/5

Final Thoughts
While some mainstream romance is good, I find the most gems in the indy romance genre. This was a great film with an interesting premise, some beautiful landscape, and two people who I found myself rooting for, not just to end up together, but to find some sense of happiness in the gloomy lives they were leading.

Movie Review: Leap Year

In general, I prefer to read romance and watch horror, but I can also be down with watching a good romantic comedy (though I often find romance to be better in my head). So I took a break from reading and watched the movie Leap Year, because it was on Netflix and because it looked interesting. Also…Ireland.

One-Sentence Synopsis
A house stager follows her boyfriend to Dublin in hopes of proposing to him on February 29, a tradition she learned about from her father that’s “guaranteed” to lead to an engagement. For a full synopsis, see this movie’s IMDB page.

The Good Stuff
I love movies set in Ireland. They have pretty scenery and I love the Irish accent.

This movie is pretty much a Murphy’s Law cautionary tale, as everything that can go wrong for Anna does go wrong, leading to some pretty funny moments, my favorite being a flying shoe incident at an Irish wedding reception.

There are also two Irish men in the first town she ends up at whose banter and arguing about Irish superstitions cracked me up.

Things That Made Me Go Hmmm
I generally like Amy Adams, so I don’t know if it was her or how the character was written, but Anna was a pretty horrible character. She’s uptight (she has reasons, but meh), she’s rude, and she’s kind of dumb. The woman tries to hike up a hill in high heels and “demands” to be flown to Dublin regardless of the fact that all flights are closed due to weather. So annoying.

I also wasn’t sold on the whole Leap Year proposal thing. It might be romantic to some people, but I thought it was dumb. It was a story her father told her, and in the course of the movie, we find that her father wasn’t really that smart or trustworthy. Plus, it bothered me that she didn’t think she could propose anywhere and that she seemed to have a one track mind about the whole engagement thing in the first place.

The Romance Factor
Because Anna was so annoying, I had a hard time feeling the chemistry between her and Declan. She had no redeeming qualities, so it felt weird that Declan started to have feelings for her. This is generally why I prefer books. I need some insight. Having said that, the end was sweet, even if it was expected, and Declan was adorably snarky. 3/5

The Steam Factor
Except for a scene where Declan walks in on Anna in her bra and underwear and an awkward “we can share this bed” scene, this was a tame movie. No sexy times to be had. 1/5

Final Thoughts
It’s hard to like a movie when the main character sucks, but even though I didn’t like her, I still enjoyed the film to an extent. I don’t know that I’d watch it again, but because the side characters and Declan were so entertaining, it definitely wasn’t a waste of an hour and a half.

Weekend with the Phantom

Last weekend was dubbed #phantomweekend by my friend Forsh and I, as I made the trek to St. Louis to see her and she treated me to one of the things I’ve always wanted to do: see Phantom of the Opera on stage. It’s currently touring the US, and I didn’t think I was going to get to see it, but she made it happen.

The weekend started on Friday morning with the drive to St. Louis. It had been a really long time since I’d made a substantial drive by myself, but I didn’t mind it. I had some podcasts downloaded, so I stayed entertained the whole way. FYI, Podcast Addict on Android has become one of my favorite apps.

I rolled in early in the afternoon and chilled for a bit with Forsh and Little Forsh. When Mr. Forsh got home, we went to one of the local restaurants, a pizza place called Deweys. The wait was a bit longish, but we drank beer and luckily I wasn’t having many pain issues, so it was all good. The pizza was great. I kept it simple since I’m picky and had their meatball pizza and a salad that completely rocked my world.

After dinner, we rolled back to their house and Forsh and I commenced watching the Phantom of the Opera movie, the one with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum. I did some knitting, though most of that knitting was spent fighting with some cabling, which I’ll talk about more in another blog post.

Saturday morning was another relaxing one while we waited for the babysitter to get there. The site had warned play goers to get there early, so we made sure we had plenty of time to find it, get parking, and find our seats. Things couldn’t have worked out better. The drive wasn’t long, and even though we sat in long lines of traffic downtown, we still found parking and got into the theater with about a half hour until showtime.

The Fabulous Fox Theatre is huge and gorgeous and the lighting was amazing and the seating was comfortable. We found the bathroom, which was this whole lounge area, then found our seats and settled in. I’ve mentioned my love of theater before, but the anticipation for this one kind of had me emotional, and when the play actually started (with that opening piece of Phantom that always does good things for me) I may have shed a few tears of happiness.

The view when you walk into the Fox theater. So awesome!

As expected, the show was wonderful and I enjoyed it thoroughly. At intermission, I went and bought one of their specialty drinks (appropriately named The Phantom), so I even got my drink on. The music was good, the actors were good, and the things they did with set and stage design blew my mind. The only thing I wasn’t expecting was the difference in how the guy playing Phantom sang his parts compared to every other version I’ve seen or heard: less angry, more manic. It was still good, though.

After the show, we had dinner at Sweetie Pie’s. I’m kind of out of the loop on anything having to do with the Food Network or endorsed by celebrities, so I hadn’t actually heard about this gem, but Forsh had and was super excited about trying it out.

Sweetie Pies is a home cooking, cafeteria style type restaurant with cozy booths and friendly staff. I was feeling a little adventurous, so I tried the ribs. They were so good! The corn was also fantastic. Pretty much everything was delicious and the portions were huge, so much so that in not planning to take any with me, I ate too much and then was in a great deal of discomfort at our next stop, which was Trader Joe’s. Still worth it.

We finished the evening with Tangled and knitting and then I decided to start my second reading of Unmasqued since I was already in the Phantom zone. After a quick smoothie breakfast with Forsh the next morning, I headed home, finishing off some podcasts and feeling very happy, if not a little sad that the weekend had to end.

The weekend was awesome and I owe Forsh big time for helping me check something off my bucket list.

A.

Gen Con Wrap Up

I wasn’t as ambitious this year as I was last year and didn’t do a daily post for Gen Con. A lot of that was because things were a bit different for Jon and I this year. Not bad, but different, and we wanted to try to minimize things, which meant not taking a computer with us.

Other differences: minimal bag carrying, working part time for AEG, no digi-cam or cosplay photos, different hotel room and travel routes, and no food truck experiments. While generally these could be seen as minor differences, they did give us a slightly different Gen Con experience than in the past.

I’ve decided to break this post down into our Gen Con highlights and lowlights, complete with a few random pictures I was able to take with my phone.

Highlights:

1. Working for AEG – Fellow gamers might be familiar with AEG or Alderac Entertainment Group. They have a bunch of fun games, including Legend of the Five Rings, Trains, and Doomtown: Reloaded. This year, we had the opportunity to work part time for them. They are a great bunch of people, and it’s hard to go wrong when “work” means “teaching people to play new games.”

2. Playtesting – We made it a point to get in three playtests in the First Exposure Playtest Hall, one of our annual favorites. Basically, you pick a game that’s not yet out on the market, play it, and give the creators feedback. We did a board game, an RPG, and a miniatures game and had a blast trying out all of them. Jon and I could probably take one full day to do nothing more than playtest. Seriously.

Dream Heist was a blast…hope to buy this one when it comes on the market!

3. Swag – Volunteering has its perks, and we ended up bringing home a ton of games. On our last day there, we splurged a bit and bought a few things as well. It’s safe to say we have enough games to last us the rest of the year and beyond, including a new horror RPG for me to scare people with. Mwahahaha.

Game on!

4. Culinary finds – For various reasons, we didn’t end up trying any food trucks this year. After our initial annual splurge at The Ram, it was mostly Steak ‘N’ Shake for us, with two tasty exceptions. For breakfast one morning, we discovered a great restaurant called First Watch that served amazing food. We also found the part of the mall that houses Haagen-Dazs. So that was a thing that happened one evening.

5. Walking – We walked everywhere! We even took walks when we didn’t need to, and breaks were minimal. Instead of making Jon go back to the car if we needed something, I went with him. I’ve come a long way in five conventions, and considering how much better it makes the whole experience, it’s a good reminder to keep up the “training.”

Lowlights:

1. Hotel – Our regular hotel doubled their prices last year, so we booked another one that was more within what we were used to paying. Normally we get lucky with the cheap hotels, but the one we got this year was awful. It smelled funny, had a sad breakfast,  no soundproofing, and even though the staff was friendly, they weren’t super efficient or knowledgeable.

2. Traffic – Gen Con wasn’t the only thing going on last week and weekend. The Indiana State Fair was happening and Saturday brought a Colts pre-season game. Even though we got to the ICC early on Thursday, we stayed gridlocked for about a half hour and then had trouble finding parking, something we’ve never had an issue with before. Leaving the convention center on Saturday brought more gridlocked traffic among the sea of gamers and Colts fans.

3. Con crud – For the first time ever, I got sick after Gen Con. I started feeling it on the drive home on Sunday, and on Monday it was full blown grossness. It’s about four days later and I’m still feeling the effects of it, but I’m recuperating. Washing your hands religiously is a good thing, but sometimes the crud will find a way.

4. The drive – I normally love road trips and I love to drive, but this year the drive felt super long and uncomfortable. Our trip started with a few annoyances, like the gas station not being opened early enough for us to get a drink and Dunkin’ Donuts not having the mix needed for the drink I wanted. Later it got worse with stalled vehicles on the highway and rush hour traffic. I realize none of these are huge and most of them are to be expected, but they seemed more dramatic this year than they should have been.

However, we did stop and see the world’s largest wind chime again, and that was pretty awesome!

All in all, our fifth year at Gen Con was a success and we’re already looking forward to 2015.

A.

Kansas City and Tori Amos

This weekend, my friend Janet and I went to Kansas City, MO to see Tori Amos in concert on her Unrepentant Geraldines tour. This was my fifth Tori concert and Janet’s second. We kicked our adventure off Saturday morning around noon with the drive to KC and a quick stop for lunch at the travel plaza where we saw fellow MHKers who were going to to an event in Lawrence.

The drive was quick and easy, and after touring the one way streets in KC’s Power and Light District to find the theater, we pulled up to our hotel to check in. The Aladdin is an old but updated boutique hotel with valet parking and a spa in the basement. Janet’s husband hooked us up with points for the room, free breakfast, and free valet parking. We didn’t know about the free breakfast or parking, so that was a nice surprise, as was the complimentary glasses of champagne they gave us at check-in.

Kicking off the fun with some bubbly.

The room was kind of cool and funky. We got a king sized bed because that was all that was available. The woman who checked us in seemed a little confused at first, but we assured her we were just kicking it high school style.

How does one get one of these chairs? Because I loved it.

In lieu of exploring the area in the heat, we chilled in the hotel room with some drinks and “Mean Girls” on cable. After showers, we decided to walk around the corner to have dinner at the Kobe Japanese Steakhouse. It was a little bit of a splurge, but not horrible, and hibachi makes for a fun dinner experience.

From there, we went ahead and lined up outside the theater. We were there early enough to get close to the doors, and we got the chance to visit with other Tori fans during the wait. That’s one of my favorite parts of the concerts…fellow fans are super friendly.

Once the doors opened, we went to the merch station where I bought a tote bag and met Tori’s daughter, Tash. She was genuinely sweet and gave us hugs and chatted with us for awhile.

The theater was comfortable and kind of cozy. Since we were there early, we waited about an hour for the opening act, then another half hour for Tori to start. I had heard that The Midland didn’t have bad seats, and while technically that was true, that doesn’t take into account what happens when a bunch of tall people sit in front of a short person. Because the seating is not tiered, there were some challenges seeing through the tall gentlemen in front of me, the woman who kept dipping her head right into my line of sight in front of them, and the guy in the hat in front of her.

Luckily, being in the back row meant we could stand without blocking anyone, so I stood part of the time and sat at just the right angle the rest of the time, a feat made easier when the woman with the dippy head left early.

The show was just as good as we’d hoped. Tori looked and sounded amazing. Hearing some of her songs done live triggers all the feels. I teared up at some of the songs that I don’t usually cry to. For Lizard Lounge, she covered “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Over the Rainbow” (relevant to Kansas, even though the concert was in Missouri). I was especially stoked to hear “Take to the Sky” in the encore, as that song hits me on a personal level.

While Tori was great, I did take issue with some of my fellow concert goers. While I’m all for showing your enthusiasm and love, doing it every thirty seconds, including when she’s trying to talk to the audience, is just obnoxious. Also, if you’re going to spend money on the concert, think about the fact that other people have done the same thing and don’t make the concert your social hour. We had people behind us who rudely carried on a conversation the whole time. Not cool, and I think some of the people down from us were ready to start a fight afterwards over it.

We walked back to the hotel room and debriefed over Doritos and Chex Mix, then crashed out. This morning was breakfast and the drive home, with a stop for some Baskin Robbins on the way. Because sometimes ice cream just sounds better than an actual lunch.

For a weekend away, it was actually very relaxed, but I’m still taking today just to reset, clean, and get ready for the work week. Now the planning begins for the next tour and another girls’ weekend. It’s likely two years away, and I’m already excited for it.

A.

 

Road Trip To Texas

This blog will take a little more of a personal turn than the last one did. Since Dallas Comic Con is a huge thing, I wanted to give that recap its own space. However, there were other parts of the trip that happened, and I wanted to give them a little bit of air time too.

We left after work on Thursday with the plan to stop halfway and stay the night somewhere. The drive was nice. We listened to Welcome to Nightvale, which is weird and random enough to be enjoyable for both of us. We also got to use our fancy new K-Tag through the tolls. Up until recently, you had to buy the K-Tag and then buy the tolls as well, but since we didn’t travel enough to actually warrant a tag, we never got one. At the Kansas Sampler Fest, they had a booth. As it so happens, K-Tags are now free! When you sign up, they take your debit information and take a monthly payment based on how many tolls you use. If you don’t use at least $10 in a month, it rolls over to the next month. Since that was definitely more our speed, we signed up.

We stopped in Oklahoma for some Braum’s (because I love Braum’s and we don’t have one here), then kept on until we found a hotel. We had no luck in Guthrie and then we almost had no luck in Edmond. I’d wanted to use some of my Wyndham points for a free night, but it didn’t happen because there were no Wyndham hotels where we stopped. Yes, I know I failed to plan, but I wasn’t entirely sure when we’d be ready to get off the road. We stopped later than I wanted to anyway, and most hotels were booked. We found one empty room at a Hampton Inn and paid way more money than we wanted for it. But now we’re Hilton rewards members, so we might be able to use that to our advantage at some point in the future.

The room was comfortable and we were back on the road earlier than we’d anticipated. In fact, the second part of our drive was a lot shorter than we’d planned for. Besides the fact that road construction wasn’t horrible, we were also driving during a low traffic time. There was only one place in Fort Worth where traffic slowed to a crawl and it didn’t last long.

Our first day was spent visiting with family, eating at local restaurants, and grabbing a couple geocaches in the area (which meant we scored our Texas souvenir…whoo!). Our second day was Dallas Comic Con and a trip to Whataburger.

We left early Sunday morning and made the long trek back to Kansas. However, we got in a couple roadside stops. In Davis, Oklahoma, we stopped at a place that makes fried pies. Think hostess snack pies, but better. I got a cherry pie and Jon got pecan. We passed another one up near Tonkawa. In hindsight, I kind of wished we’d stopped again. They were so good! We also stopped at a local diner in Blackwell, OK to have lunch. The regular fast food joints get old after awhile, and we usually find great food at good prices at the local places.

We actually made good time getting back home, but I was tired and sore for a few days after from walking around the convention and from sitting for so many hours driving. It was a blast though, and I’m glad we made it down. Road trip season has started, and this was a great way to kick things off.

A.

Home from Vacation

We made the trek home today from St. Louis, and though I always get a case of the post-vacation blues, I’m also glad to be getting back into a routine again.

We took our time on the drive back. We wanted to be home in time to get things ready for the week, but we also wanted to make sure we stopped regularly to stretch our legs. Keeping watch of the time, we made it a point to find a geocache every half hour to forty five minutes, but we made sure to keep them short and simple, and we pretty much got off the road and then right back on. This also allowed us to take bathroom breaks, which was needed because today was a major hydrating day for me.

Our plans changed a bit when we saw on FB that a friend was stranded at the KC airport. Due to so many people traveling for the holidays, the shuttle bus from KC to MHK was full, so he would have possibly had to wait several hours to get a ride home. Since we were coming through that way anyway, Jon got ahold of him via FB and text and told him we’d give him a ride. We couldn’t have planned it better. This gave us some extra time to geocache, and just as we were getting there, he was grabbing his luggage and heading out the doors.

On the way back to MHK, we stopped at Lawrence and had dinner at The Burger Stand. I tried a bacon cheeseburger that had gouda and a chipotle-cocoa ketchup. It was definitely different, but it was pretty tasty.

We made decent time back to MHK to drop our friend off, then we headed home with just one stop to get gas so we can make it back to town tomorrow for work. I’m pretty sleepy tonight, but I managed to get everything unpacked and my clothes laid out for tomorrow. Going to finish the day off with a shower and some sleep in my own bed, which is always nice to come home to.

Now, just need to hope my brain is well rested and ready to go for work tomorrow.

A.

Day 5: St. Louis Vacation – Pink Elephants and Geocaching

When today started, we figured it would be our least active day of the week, considering we were taking a side road trip to Peoria. We ended up being really wrong about that. We got up, ate breakfast, and started our trip a couple hours past what I’d originally planned. The first time I woke up, I had a horrible headache. Had that headache stuck around, we would have stayed in the hotel room all day, but a couple ibuprofen and some more sleep got rid of it, so we were Illinois-bound.

We did some geocaching along the way, and one of our first stops was at the Pink Elephant Antique Store. Several months ago when I was planning our Michigan trip, I’d seen this roadside attraction on the Roadtrippers site, but we never ended up stopping there. We made it today to grab the cache and take some pictures of the fun statues on the lawn.

Well, hello there…

 

I loved the pink elephant. There was one in my hometown, so I think it’s kind of cool to find another one in another part of the country.

When we finally got to the exit we were looking for, we wanted to grab something to eat. I love eating at little roadside diners, but the one that was there didn’t take credit cards. I know it’s a silly thing to be annoyed by, but come on…it’s almost 2014…how can you not take credit cards?? We ended up going across the street to the Subway, which was kind of dirty and super slow.  My sandwich tasted okay, despite the fact that the kid adding the ingredients didn’t change his nasty plastic gloves after handling Jon’s sandwich, so I got a wrapper covered in Sriracha sauce. I don’t like Sriracha.

At that point, I was in a bit of a crabby mood anyway, but food helped, and I was ready to tackle the geocache we’d gone to look for.

A little background on this geocache: we read about it shortly after we started geocaching and thought it was pretty cool. It’s a difficulty of five (the highest difficulty there is), and it’s only had one logged find. The other two hundred eighty something logs have been DNFs (did not finds). We knew we wanted to give it a shot, and since we were relatively close (way closer than we are in Kansas), we wanted to give it a try.

When traveling or geocaching, we often rely a little too heavily on our auto GPS, but in most cases, we question it and double check where it takes us. I don’t know why we didn’t do that today, but we didn’t. When he got to where the GPS took us, there were gates up, so we couldn’t drive into the park. It didn’t even occur to us that there might be a different entrance. We were just miffed that we’d made the drive and now couldn’t even get into the park.

At the same time we were there, there were two other groups of people going on. Both groups parked in the same area and started walking down the hill, past the closed gate. I almost think that’s why we did it…monkey see, monkey do…even though our phone GPS showed were still a mile away from the geocache. Normally, a mile doesn’t scare me (not anymore). When we walk the rec center, a mile is pretty standard. This mile, though, wasn’t the rec center. It was paved, which was good. It was up and down steep hills. That wasn’t so good. On the way down the first hill, we knew it was going to be a beast coming back up.  At first we thought maybe we’d go down and have flat walking until we got back, but just a short way into the walk, we were confronted with a hill.

Jon kept trying to find the silver lining in the walk, but I was feeling highly annoyed. I knew the silver linings were there. The first was that we were getting our exercise for the day, even though we hadn’t planned for it. The second was that as tough as it was, we were able to take that walk and scale those hills. I eventually got over my mood and tried to enjoy the walk.

After trying two false alarm areas, we finally found the shelter. It was around that time we saw vehicles parked there and realized that there had to in fact be another way in. Duh…it’s a state park. Of course there was. We felt like doofuses, but by then we were just rolling with it. We finally found the search area and spent about two hours poking around, trying to find that darn geocache. As expected, we never did, and so added our names to the almost three hundred other cachers who had no luck.

We were a little nervous on the return walk that we wouldn’t make it back to the car before dark. We also kept hearing noises in the woods. Sometimes they sounded like hunters. Other times they sounded like animals. For awhile, we talked about our game plan if we got attacked by a puma. Luckily, that didn’t happen (our game plane wasn’t great). As expected, that last hill was a challenge. I had to stop a few times, but I didn’t sit down. I just stood to catch my breath and let my legs rest a second from fighting gravity.

The funny thing is, I can see why people run marathons. Once you achieve something you didn’t think you could do, you get a rush and a sense of satisfaction that you want to recreate. I’m not comparing our hike to a marathon, but as a personal achievement, it was pretty huge. We talked about how that walk would have gone three months ago (not as well), six months ago (a lot of crying on my part), and a year ago (it wouldn’t have even happened). The fact that we did the whole hike with minimal rest stops and very quick breathing recovery (I had my breath back within about ten seconds of being on flat ground) was awesome.

Our biggest mistake may have been to follow up that walk with a long drive back without any rest stops. It was late and we wanted to get back to the hotel, but we both knew it was going to catch up with us. Sure enough, when we got out to grab something to eat (just down the road from our hotel), our muscles were stiff and sore, and some of them seized up, making walking tough for a short while.

After dinner, I told Jon I wanted to do some active recovery, and we walked across the street to get some Gatorade and a banana. Part of my whole active recovery thing was that I wanted to hit 15,000 steps for the day on my Fitbit. Though I’ve had one for several years, I’ve never gotten that badge, so I decided that with just over 13,000 steps for the day, I was closer to that goal than I normally get. When we got back to the hotel room, I was about 700 steps shy, so I went for a walk around the hotel parking lot.

I got my badge!

In hindsight, the hike was worth it. I’ll be taking a warm shower, and tomorrow we’ll have to make a few stops on the way back to Kansas so my muscles can stay loose.  Tomorrow will likely be a legitimate rest day, but Monday we’ll be back in the gym and at the rec center, because if this past week has taught us anything, it’s that the almost daily exercise has paid off big time!

On that note, I’d better start getting ready for the shower. I’m really sleepy. I didn’t work on my Nanowrimo any further. I ended up finishing my second story, but only clocked in with that one at about 40,000 words. I was trying to make a go of winning Marissa Meyer’s contest, but I don’t think I did. I didn’t even make 100,000 words. Oh well….I can’t be too upset. I won Nanowrimo and finished two novels. That’s a pretty huge accomplishment.

It’s back to Kansas tomorrow and then back to work on Monday! I’m going to miss vacation, but I’m also really looking forward to getting back into my routine.

A.

 

Day 4: St. Louis Vacation – Art and The Loop

We were up early, ready to tackle our itinerary, but the day ended up being quite a bit different than planned, which ended up being mostly a good thing.

Our first stop was unplanned until this morning when I did a Google search of things we could do while we waited for the museums to open. In my searching, I found Bellefontaine Cemetery. Though they offer tours, we just drove through it and looked at the pretty structures and scenery. It was huge, and we got a little bit lost in there, but we managed to find our way out after finding a geocache that had been hidden at one of the trees on the property.

Once we were done there, we headed towards St. Louis Art Museum near the zoo. We weren’t prepared for how huge it was.

The view from outside the museum.

After we’d only covered about two big sections, I started feeling hungry, which was kind of a bummer since I’d made sure to eat a big breakfast to fuel up. It was making me tired and cranky, and even though they had a cafe on site, I wasn’t feeling the menu or the prices. We ended up leaving to go find some food, figuring if we felt up to it, we’d go back. It didn’t happen that way. We didn’t finish out the art museum, nor did we go back to the zoo as planned, so I was a little bit unhappy about that.

As a side note, we found a cache near the museum, and Jon was able to drop his zombie travel bug off. Now his is in the wild. I’m hoping I can find a good place to drop mine off tomorrow.

Even though I was a little bummed about leaving the museum, the detour made for a good time because we found The Loop, a cool artsy area that had been recommended to me. Our first stop was for food, and we ate at a small bar called the Market Pub House.  They made an awesome burger, and the re-fuel gave us the energy to do some more walking.

We walked down the street and browsed the shops and art along the way. We made two stops, one at a game store and one at Ben & Jerry’s. I’ve never actually eaten at a Ben & Jerry’s shop, but it’s one of my fave ice creams. I opted for a small bowl of half peanut butter and banana frozen greek yogurt and half chocolate peanut butter swirl. So good!

We picked up a geocache in the area and then headed back to the hotel for some rest time.  My legs are a little sore tonight from all the walking, but I’m kind of loving the feeling. The fact that I can now do all this walking is reminding me that staying in motion and getting daily exercise has been completely worth it.

Tomorrow is our geocache day! We have our route mapped out and will be getting up super early to head to Peoria, grabbing some geocaches along the way and attempting to find a tough one that only one other person has ever found. We’d love to be the second to find on this, but I think it’ll be fun just to add our name to the list of people who couldn’t.  Hoping to find some cool scenery and places to visit along the way as well.

A.

Day 1: St. Louis Vacation – Driving and Marbles

The first day of our vacation was pretty darn good.

We were on the road by 8:05 this morning, which is only five minutes later than we’d planned.  Our first stop was, of course, Dunkin’ Donuts, though I was a little disappointed with them this morning. The coffee was delicious, but I tried one of their Big ‘N’ Toasty sandwiches and was not impressed. Live and learn. On the bright side, it was a good amount of protein to get me through the morning.

We stopped in Bonner Springs to visit the Moon Marble Company. At first glance, it’s a toy and marble store with a lot of kitschy games and toys. In the back of the store, however, are display cases filled with beautiful handmade marbles and blown glass ornaments, some imported, some made by local artists.

 

The best part was the demonstration. We watched one of the artists make a marble and show us the process of how it’s done.

It was such a cool thing to see. The stop was well worth it. Before we left, we bought a tube of marbles to leave at geocaches. Speaking of geocaches, right before we left, I checked to see if there were any nearby, and there was one right there near the building. We grabbed it and got back on the road.

We found another geocache later, a quick park and grab off the highway. At one of our bathroom stops, we found a truck stop diner called Ma’z Kettle, so we decided to have lunch there. I love finding those small diners that aren’t part of a chain. Many times, the food is better than it is at a franchise restaurant. This one was no exception. I had a burger and fries, and it was delicious. Jon ordered a steak sandwich. Not only was it literally a steak on a bun, but it was huge, and the steak was cooked perfectly for him (he likes it rare). The service was also really friendly. The place was getting ready to close (they were only open until 2pm), but they were still very welcoming and didn’t rush us, though we made sure we were done by closing.

We made one more geocache stop later and finally made it into St. Louis. Our hotel was a pleasant surprise! When I booked our room, I chose one of the cheaper ones in the area under the Wyndham name (I do Wyndham points, so we always stay at hotels under that heading). We’ve had pretty low quality experiences at other Days Inns , so I figured this one wouldn’t be anything great, just a place to rest our head.

However, the hotel is really nice. The lobby and dining room is large and has a fireplace. The room is huge, and has a big bed, a couch, and a huge closet. They have free wi-fi and warm food on the breakfast line. I haven’t taken a shower yet, but Jon says it’s great. My only disappointment is the workout room. There’s only three machines, a low recumbent bike, an elliptical machine, and a treadmill. The elliptical machine didn’t seem to be too sturdy and the treadmill is out of order.  Still, the hotel is large enough that I could take a walk around it if I want. I think I’ll consider today a rest day, then make sure I get plenty of walking in over the next few days. That should be easy…we have a ton of stuff planned for this vacation.

Before settling in, we shopped the Circle K down the road for dinner sandwiches. I managed to upload pictures, check email, and even kicked out about 2000 words on my second novel before tackling this blog post. Tonight will be a shower and then relaxation. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow (our first full day in St. Louis) brings.

A.