| Vancouver |
[Sep. 21st, 2008|12:11 pm] |
Hello wide world of family and friends...
We're in Vancouver! we're alive! and we have pictures...or we will have at least. these things are hard to get together...maybe I can be better about it later on... |
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| Pictures from day 4! |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|08:20 pm] |
OK, finally, here are some pictures...these are fromthe day that started in Grants, New Mexico and ended in Las Vegas, NV.
The adorable dog that belonged to the chinese man who owned the motel...there was another one too...it was not cute, and kinda mean and tried to bite Holly.
( Lot and lots of pictures i you click here! ) |
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| San Diego Zoo |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|12:52 am] |
This morning I was awakened bright and early by Holly forcibly removing me from bed and towards the San Diego Zoo. I was not wasily disturbed from my slumber, but relented and speedily prepared for our zoo outting.
We managed top navigate San Diego traffic and arrived at the zoo shortly after 10am. It was some what overcast, which made it nice and even (for me) a little too cool outside...but anything is better than really hot.
So basically we wandered around looking at animals for several hours (hopefully there are pictures below, but if there aren't...know that there will be).
Then we ate lunch at the "Treehouse Cafe"...and wandered aroundl ooking at animals some more. The prices, of course, were exorbitant...but what can you do...it's zoo food.
After several hours of looking at animals sleep and eat, as well as dodging the HUGE zoo double decker tour buses (for the lazy and/or old) and me complaining about walking up hill (I'm lazy...I woulda paid to ride the huge tour bus and run over the plebians), we finally left the zoo. Surprisingly we made it back to Dweeb's without getting lost. There, we waited for her to return from work...kinda locked out of the apartment.
Then it was dinner time. We piled in to Holly's car and let Dannelly drive us to Old Town (because Dweebie knows the area and can ACTUALLY drive a stick shift). Holly was craving Mexican, or Italian (which seem to be here avorite food groups...except mexican and italian that don't have meat or onions) so we found a fun place called Fred's and had a good time. Holly was happy to discover another restaurant that would give her a side of JUST avocado (no guacamole, because it has onions...and onions are bad). However, since avocado is the amazing fruit/vegetable/whatever it is, I can't make fun of her....it's delicious.
We headed to La Jolla (pronounced la hoya) the beach to walk around for a while. Holly, Rachel and I touched the Pacific....then it touched us back and got our pants wet. We walked around and wandered into art galleries and boutiques and mainly watching from outside at the interesting goings on inside.
We found the car again and set off for ice cream...since both Dweeb and Holly hadn't had a fix in over a week. We went to this cool yogurt place that has about 10 different flavors of soft serve...you mix and match as much as you want and then add as many topings as you want. It was pretty delicious.
Then, since it was 9pm and we're old ladies, we pooped out, came back to the apartment, and everyone but me is snoozing away. |
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| San Diego |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|12:50 am] |
So eventually I woke up (Holly and Rachel were already enjoying the morning and Holly had recovered rom her budy's rebellion the night before).
We decided to go to Paris, across the street from our hotel, because Holly hadn't gotten to go out the night before. It was, of course, decadent and over the top and really hilarious, but what do you expect? Skimpily dressed "french" cocktail waitresses handed out drinks to people pouring their money into the slots. Rachel and I signed up for the players club so we could get lunch coupons and free T-shirts...unless I give you a tshirt from las vegas...in which case it was very expensive...I thought specifically of you when I was...umm...buying it.
Holly investigated restaurants while rachel and I wandered around trying to ind the poker room (which had no poker players in it...sad). finally we found a slightly less overpriced place in the Bally's casino, which was connected to the Paris casino. We ate and were surprised to discover that they even had table side gambling with this game called Keno. I guess we shouldn't have been too surprised though...
All the old women were playing it and having a great time, so we investigated how to pick the number and play this game which seemed so simple yet so complex. We split a ticket among us just for fun but ended upnot being able to play anyway as we didn't have enough time.
We wandered around Bally's for a few minutes, threw a dollar into the giant slot machine that was about 10 feet tall and 15 feet side. We wished we'd have enough time to stay and play "The Price is right" live gameshow they had going on...but we needed to hit the road.
I mostly slept in the back on the way from Las Vegas to San Diego...waking up long enough to take a pictures of the California sign as best I could. Shockingly, we were running late and didn't get there until 9 or 10 where we promprtly greeted Dannelly and crashed.
The iPhone died and we had to be landed manually...calling Danelly to get directions. There was also excitement on the road with a broken down car going 10 mph on the interstate which almost caused an accident as Holly couldn't speed up to go around and cars were slamming on their brakes not to hit us....unpleasant. Luckily we made it in and finally found a place to park on the streets near Dweebs apartment.
We raided her fridge for food and a lte night dinner was had before bed. |
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| Viva Las Vegas part deux |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|12:49 am] |
Then we went back up to the room and finally got cleaned up enough to go out and look around in the casinos. Holly stayed in trying to recover and Rachel and I wandered down to the Bellagio. Since we'd watched Oceans 11 way too mmany times, we knew we had to go there. We wandered in and decided to try our luck at the poker tables...cause we like poker. The buy in was $40, which seemed expensive, but we had our small gambling stakes set aside and decided we'd try it.
You give the guy your name and when a seat opens up at a table the dealer yells out and then you get to go sit down. I went to sit down first, beore Rachel...and tried my best against the pros. unfortunately there was a drunken moron at my table driving EVERYONE crazy. He would bet and raise every hand, no matter what he had, and ended up getting way lucky on the river too many times. Over an hour or so I just got wiped out by three bad hands. I was really sad that I'd lost my money, but chalked it up to a learning experience (don't play poker in vegas)...and wandered away to let Rachel have my seat.
Rachel played a lot better than I did when I first sat down. i watched her play for a little while, then wandered around to penny slots. I lost my money to the penny slots and after losing my money wandered back over to wehre Rachel was winning money, to the amazement of all at the table..."You sure you never played this before?"
Finally i took the last of my gambling stake and bought back in at the poker tables...figuring...I bought it to gamble...why not? Slowly I grew my little stake and won all of my money back and made a nice little $80 profit...of course, the next day I lost some of it showing Holly how table games and slots work...butI didn't LOSE money in Vegas and I made a ltitle money in vegas soI felt successful.
In fact, at one point one of the old men at the table asked me if I had ever played before. I said that I hadn't ina casino...but that I played online a lot...to which he responded: "We had sharks in the water all this time and didn't even know it." heh.
finally as it crept into the wee hour of the morning nad the waitress kept bringing rachel the coffee I realized i was not playing well and needed the sleeps. So I cashed out and walked happily back to the Monte Carlo. Rachel and I basically collapsed into bed and dreams of winning millions in vegas....if only. |
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| Viva Las Vegas |
[Sep. 13th, 2008|11:51 am] |
So these may not have pictures yet, but I'll add them at some point. This is also a half entry...
Quote of the day (times infinity): Hey Look at those kwiff dwewings...I mean Cliff Dwellings....ARGGHH I am NOT Elmer Fudd.
So I'm behind on the typing and trying to catch up.
We woke up yesterday morning in Grants, NM and sent Holly to fetch the car from the tire place while the rest of us slowly got organzed. Repacking the car with the new spare was like working a jigsaw pussle where you've been given too many pieces...but eventually we got everything to fit. Though the added bonus of our Chinese (and not quite English speaking) motel owner's tiny dogs running around us and barking didn't really make it easier...and one of them kinda bit Holly, but she said she was fine.
We were on the road and could once again enjoy the splendor of nature. I've never really understood why people are always talking about how beautiful the Southwest is...I mean it's in the middle of the desert and it's all scrubby and ther are big brown rocks....but no, itsone of those things youahve to see to get. I'm posting a ton of pictures anyways., but I know they won't do it justice. So suffice to say we spent about all 7 hours we were driving going "oh wow....it's just so beautiful! Look at the layers in that rock...no man, look at that one...oh wow that mountain how far away do you think it is? It's huge!"
I was riding shot gun yesterday so I hung out the window taking way too many pictures (which I'm really going to try and pare down).
Our firrst stop right outside Flagstaff was the GRAND walnut CANYON...okmaybe it's not THE grand canyon, but that owul dhave added two or three hours to our trip and put us arriving at about 11pm or even 12 am. So we went to Walnut canyon instead. It was really gorgeous and it was sad that the main trail was closed due to rock slides. We did get distant pictures of Kwif Dwewings (I cold not for the life of me say cliff dwellings yesterday and then it started to rub off on everyone else).
It was here that I saw my first Scottish thing for papa...a little Westie whose name I didn't quite catch, hopefully by the time I post this there will be a picture underneath here.
After examining the canyon it was back on the road to Flagstaff to get some new tires....just in case. The tires took our Grand Canyon side trip, but at least we're not dead! We wandered around the mall where the Sears was and I finally got a cheap bel so that my pants would stop falling down (thats what I get for losing 10 pounds).
Finally, we were on the road AGAIN. This time it was just us and the scenery, and occassional stops for gas and Indian pottery or jewelry. So then it was back to "wow that's so pretty!" for about the next 4 or 5 hours.
Around dusk we arrived at the Hoover Dam...they were selling those Dam shirts anda few Dam shotglasses, but I only got some Dam postcards (and, you know, a cheesy joke that would make an 8 year old and myself giggle for hours). Once again,something beautiful and awe inspiring. The really freaky thing was the bridge they were building BESIDE the Hoover damn, which wasmuch higher over nothing and hadmuch less support over nothing and looked like something I would never ever ever want to drive on...I mean a stiff breeze in that canyon could blow you over the side!
We kept driving and could see the glow in the distance of Las Vegas long long vefore we got close by...when we crested the mountains and saw the lights spread out it was breath taking...but taking pictures was very dificult.
We got a little lost in Las Vegas because they're doing construction on the stripand building this GIGANTIC living complex. However, with the iPhone for help we made it to the fabulous Monte Carlo, "next door" to the Bellagio. However, next door in las vegas is blocks away in the real world. we settled in but Holly wasn't feeling too great after all the excitment of the day before. We wandered down to the $20 buffet and ate and ate and ate and ate. They had so many different options that it was easy to get three our four plates worth. We all tried a little bit of everything (yes I have an abundance of food pictures for you Papa).
More later... |
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| Flagstaff...didn't happen... ok, Grants, NM |
[Sep. 13th, 2008|11:50 am] |
Quote of the day:
Holly, while brushing teeth: I have a hobo in my bag
me: What?
Holly: I said I'm sure I did it to mine too
Me: oh...
Day THREE
So it's morning and we're in Grants, NM instead of Flagstaff arizona (pardon if I use Arizona and New Mexico interchangeable from here on out, but as horrible as it may sound I've always gotten them confused).
( Driving to New Mexico )
( Santa Rosa )
( Pueblo of Acoma )
( Flat Tire ) |
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| Long story short |
[Sep. 12th, 2008|12:25 pm] |
It's 9:30 am here in San Diego. We made it safely...we're not dead...and we're staying with Dannelly and are on our way to the Sandiego Zoo.
Long serious updates with pictures to follow, but Holly won't give me time to make them. She wants to see animals... |
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anne_in_england's journal
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