Not Oprahs Favorite Things!

Clearly Oprah and I don't run in the same crowd. I will not be celebrating sequined UGG boots, iPads, ridiculously expensive mac+cheese mix, or Josh Grobin's new CD. I will however, be sharing my top 10 favorite things I have managed to find this past year that are practical and you don't have to sell your body to get them. Drum roll please! And in no particular order....Enjoy!

10) Mychelle Deep Repair Cream

If your looking for a stellar, organic face cream, then hot damn, this is it. I love this product. It's not harsh on my skin, the smell is not potent, and it makes my skin feel great. Highly Recommend. You can get this on their website www.mychelle.com or Whole Foods from $28-$30

9.) Aztec Secret Healing Clay

This stuff is AH-mazing for facials. Best thing I have ever bought for my face. Here's the breakdown: Pure bentonite clay derived from ancient riverbed volcanic ash. Historically used by American Indians for purification and healing. Great for facials and skin rejuvenation for the total body. Use externally.AZTEC SECRET INDIAN HEALING CLAY is bentonite clay from Death Valley, California, where it is sun- dried for up to six months in temperatures that sometimes reach 134 degrees.

It's pretty awesome. The clay hardens on your face and you can actually feel your skin pulsate. There is redness that does occur after wards, for about 30-40 minutes or so. (think looking sun burnt) It's so worth it! Then use a little of the Mychelle Deep Skin Repair after wards and your skin has really never felt better. It's one of my favorite things to do, well once a week. You can also pick this up at Whole Foods for about $8.

8) CrossRoads Sauvignon Blanc 2008

This New Zealand find, was actually found in New York while dining out on my birthday. I happen to like sweet, and usually partake in either a dessert wine like a Moscato or a nice German Riesling. This night, when asking the waitress about the Riesling, she told me that it's more on the dry side. Not my idea of a party, so I told her my pallet prefers sweet and she told me she thinks she knows what I might like, and did she ever hit the head on the nail! The label that I put up actually shows the year 2007, but I actually had the '08. I suggest that one, since I have not tasted the 2007 and I couldn't find a stock photo for the 2008! You can visit their website at www.crossroadswinery.co.nz/ You can get a bottle between $15-$30, depending if you order through them or visit your local wine shoppe.

7.) Flo + The Machine

I had a very frustrating cat and mouse game for 2 years trying to search for her and her band after hearing, what I didn't know then the was 'Dog Days Are Over' at the Forever 21 at 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica. I drove myself loony trying to figure out who sang that song, until I finally heard her played on KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic on my way to work. I freaked! I got to work, jumped onto their website and low and behold Florence and The Machine was the band I was head over heels obsessed with. Later on that night, I jumped on iTunes and bought both albums, Lungs and the deluxe version and have been non stop ever since. If you have never heard of her (it's hard not too now, she's bursting onto the fore front) try the jams : Drumming Song and and Blinding. Brilliant. iTunes sells it for $9.99.

6.) Are You There Vodka, it's me, Chelsea

I know this isn't new, but I LOVE it. I would like to be her one day! It's just so wrong, it's right. Try Amazon.com it's sells from $7-$16

5.) Amazon Kindle

This was a huge surprise for Christmas and I love it! How perfectly lazy and convenient to be watching the View, when they have some celebrity on promoting their new book and you can just pick up that Kindle and boom! Loves. You can also subscribe to magazines and newspapers as well. Genius.

Check it out at www.amazon.com sells for $139

4.) Dry Soda

This popped up at a bar I used to work for in Hollywood and it was love at first sip. My personal favorite, Lemongrass. It may not sound great, but if your into sparkling water with a hint of lime, this is your drink. They also have rhubarb, lavender,juniper berry,vanilla bean, cucumber and blood orange. I like to infuse with vodka and fresh fruit! Delish! Visit Whole Foods, 4pks $5.99

3.) Aromatherapy Vanilla Jasmine Body Lotion

I have been wearing this stuff for years and I refuse to give it up. I am all about relaxing scents and you really can't get any more relaxing then Jasmine. It happens to be my favorite flower and I can't get enough of this stuff. This makes my list every year of fav's. You can find it at Bath & Body Works for $14

2.) Tomato Vine Candle

www.daylesfordorganic.com

This is the most amazing summertime candle. I am a huge fan of gardening. Veggies, flowers, herbs, I love it. You wouldn't think that a candle that smells of tomato vine would smell good, but you are oh so wrong. These come from Daylesfod Organic in London, England. I myself have not gone here but believe that if I ever come up with the money, I will be camping out at this farm. My old boss visited London and came back with a few of these and I quickly became obsessed. After conversion your looking at around $27 for the medium size. And don't forget shipping. Don't want the hassle of shopping over seas? If you want something comparable, try TOCCA SOFIA candles. www.candlesoffmain.com You are looking at about $36 for 10.6 ounces and 60 hrs. of burn time.

1.) David Austin English Roses

I have been working with flowers, on and off for about 13 years. Until my very last job working for a floral and event company based out of Los Angeles, called Hoot & Heart Co. did I actually find my true love for roses. I'm not talking about your hot house, grocery store kind rose. I'm talking about beautiful,voluptuous, heavily scented garden roses. We had our own rose farm, but we would also get them flown in from South America as well. One of my favorites, Yves Piaget, is the most sweetly scented, gorgeous rose I have ever seen in person. They are not available on the David Austin website, but if you research a bit you could probably find a nursery that sells them. The DA roses are amazing. I suggest ordering a free copy of their catalog so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. They also make great gifts for a fellow rose/garden lover. I sent my mom a DA bare root rose 2 two years ago for Mother's day and she loves it. Pair that with an old antique bud vase for the first bloom picked for the season and you have a full fledged botanical affair at your hands. Once you go English, you won't go back.

YVES PIAGET BOUQUET
Photo credit: Black Bachman for Hoot & Heart Co.
www.davidaustinroses.com
www.hootandheart.com

80 mph winds Vs. Shingles

Just picture me sitting Indian style on my living room floor, a blanket draped around my neck like a cape with a baseball bat in my hand, rocking back and forth anxiously. Boston has been railed with a blizzard and we are getting the ass end of the deal with hurricane force winds on the cape. Every time a huge gust of wind starts to whip up, it sounds like a Mack truck and I feel like it's going t drive itself right through a window or worse, rip off the roof. You can hear every single shingle,shutter,and window pane every time Old Man Winter decides to blow his horn.

Cut to: Me in my living room, looking like some ridiculous superhero. Some superhero I would be. How many hero's do you know that can battle wind? Wind with a baseball bat at that. I don't even know why I got the baseball bat anyways. I'm not fighting off burglars or wolves. Strange defense mechanism maybe? Who knows. I had left earlier in the day to run some errands and got a small taste of what exactly is going on out there today and all those reasons should have kept me in the house at that. There were so many trees down everywhere. Most main streets where clear, but a lot of debris from the tree's. The cape is a heavily wooded area, so there where many old trees through out the woods that have just come down, snapped right in the middle. Yikes! I bought a new car right before we moved out here and like I have stated before, luck is NOT on my side. I am hoping that one of those tree's don't snap and end up on top of my car.

To give you another example of the high winds, and my irresponsibility, when I came back home realized walking into the house that A) It was freezing cold and B) There were no cats in sight. First thought: This isn't right. Upon walking into the bedroom area, I see that the side door was wide open! I most not have locked it the other night (we set off the smoke detector when we were making dinner and needed a quick vent. This is what happens when you live in a small space and the kitchen does not come with a hood/fan. This is probably illegal) and the wind blew it right open. The poor cats were probably freezing. We were gone for at least an hour and found them all in little cubbies around the house. Oppsie.

So far, no broken glass and no tree's landing in or on the house. Shingles are still in tact,I think. These winds are insane. This is worse then Earl back in September, which was a bit of a disappointment. Back to my lame superhero outfit and bat back on the floor. At least I'm prepared, but prepared for what exactly?

See, this is what I don't want on the roof, or my car

Kitchen Yoga is born

December 26, 2010


It's the day after Christmas, and a merry belated Christmas to anyone reading this. I'm sitting on my couch, with the t.v on, in my pajamas, hair wet and a can of lemonade at my side. This, has become my life, my job. Day after day, I pretty much do the exact same thing. When we first moved here, I knew I was taking on a job at a seasonal hotel. I didn't really imagine that I would have to do the whole unemployment thing. I thought maybe there would be a very slight chance, but put more faith in the fact I would find something. Turns out, practically everyone of the cape works seasonal jobs and almost everyone is on unemployment now. I probably should have started to freak out during the summer months when hotel guests would spark up conversation with me and when I told him that I moved here recently, almost 9 times out of 10, they would reply, "just wait till the winter" and give me that 'Yikes' look.

I'm trying to make the best of the situation as best as I can. You can only do so much on unemployment. I still don't have any friends here, which is ridiculously sad, considering we have been here about seven months now. I also didn't realize that most of the cape is all older folk. I guess if I wanted to join some sort of a group to meet people, I can hit up the nearest senior center for bridge night, but I don't think I'm quit there yet. I'd rather hang out with my cats all day. Hmm, maybe I am.

So what's to do when you can't find a job and are sitting in the midst of a snow storm? Kitchen Yoga! That's right. Not quit sure what I'm talking about? Well, me either, but I'm starting my own revolution. I may have failed to mention in any of the other blogs that the place we moved into is super small. It's not even an apartment, I'd finally realized its more of a studio. We couldn't even fit our sectional couch into the "living room" upon our move in, so we had to make the bedroom area our living room and the living room the bedroom. You with me? Most of our stuff is in storage and we still can walk past each other in the hallways without falling into a wall. We had to do some major re-arranging when we got our Christmas tree too! The congestion and frustration of the size of our place has depressed me for awhile now and I was talking with one of my best friends the other day and she had suggested that I read the Secret and do yoga. Well, after I told her to fuck off for the millionth time, I had given some slight thought to the yoga thing. She has been talking about that damn Secret book since Oprah debuted it on her book club. I am not willing to subject myself to that book, but the yoga thing, ...that might take my mind off of stuff. Then, I realized that my place is so small you can't even lie down on the ground to do yoga. I went back to being depressed and cried a little.

Upon trying to make Christmas cookies the other night, I realized after I burnt them, that the only place large enough to lie down or stretch out is the kitchen. Go figure. I have been wanting to work out, but on an unemployment budget, that's not really in the cards. So, I realized that if I set my laptop up on the kitchen counter and grab a blanket for my floor mat and search Youtube for Yoga exercises, then I can have a full fledged spiritual awakening in my very own kitchen! How many people can say they got their bikini ready body by doing downward dog while watching your Christmas cookies burn? I'm willing to bet not many.

This is the living room, that we had to turn into the bedroom because the couch couldn't fit

The kitchen during move in...largest room in the place

Snowballs Vs. Satellite

December 20, 2010

Today was the first snowfall on the cape. How about that?! The news has only been talking about this whirlwind for the past week and a half, and it's finally here. I actually should be out shoveling snow but, instead I would like to give Direct TV a big F-you shout out for a second. I realize that you give 800 amazing channels, High Def, On Demand, the whole nine. Your great. You can take back the other 780 channels I don't watch, but that's not what I'm here to complain about. I think you should include a ladder in your dish package along with a ice scrapper/brush/snow blower type of thingy. You can call it the New England Winter package. This makes sense, since we never got a warning about what could happen when you have two feet of snow sitting on your dish. This way, I can shimmy up the side of the 2 story house, on that fabulous ladder you have included, and then I can use the scrapper/brush/blower thingy to get all the snow off my dish and maybe watch some TV again. Do you not realize I'm missing the 16 and Pregnant marathon right now?

Instead, I sat in a foot of snow on the side of my house, throwing snowballs at the dish, hoping to knock down some of the snow that has accumulated there since 8pm yesterday. Guess what? Didn't work. What would have worked is, if I was trying to put snow on the dish, then my plan would have been a successful one, because I put A LOT of snow on top of the snow that was already there. But I was trying to do the opposite of that. So, thanks to you, I have no TV and a sore arm. Oh, and my UGGS would like to throw up the middle finger too. Apparently they are not water resistant.

My next plan is to back my SUV up to the side of the house, climb onto the roof and brush the dish off myself...I'll have the doctor forward the bill to Direct TV.



The Cape's first snowfall 2010

2 Dollar Bill Ya'll

July 29, 2010

I actually had a $2.00 bill in my wallet, and I spent it folks. Why? Because I was going to run out of gas. This kind of sums up what life has been like here on the good old Cape. About two and a half years ago, my boyfriend gave me a $2.00 bill. He told me they were supposed to bring good luck. I don't know about luck, but it did give me .97 gallons of gas today. So maybe it was lucky.

Lately, things have been less then stellar here in Massachusetts. It truly has been one disappointment to the next. On the upside, my job has been going fairly well. Maybe a career in hospitality is my calling. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself of that so I don't sound like a 28 year old loser who skipped out on college with the hopes she would get lucky. Anyone that knows me, knows that luck, is surely not my best friend. Luck would like to bend me over and have it's way with me every night of the week if it could.

Back to today's sob story. It actually started a couple days ago. I have been having 'financial' issues and Chris' lent me a couple hundred dollars so I didn't end up going negative in my account. Awesome boyfriend shoutout. Anyways, so I really didn't have much after the fact and I if I have done this once, I have done it a bazillion times. I knew my gas tank would be thirsty soon enough and payday was only two days away...and I was hungry for a Spicy Chicken Fillet at my ole pal Wendy's joint and the hunger just wouldn't go away. I saw the $5.00 bill poking out of my purse and I knew I had to have that chicken! I pulled into the Wendy's drive through lane and looked over the menu. Then I looked at the gas needle, looking like it was far enough away from empty, I could get away with another 56 more miles before having to worry. WRONG-0. As usually, I got myself in a pickle. I knew, in the back of my head, when I was eating that delectable culinary creation, that this may happen. But, I took a risk, and once again, lost.

Today after work, I got into my car and saw that the needle was pointing to the E. It should stand for 'excellent amount of gas left to drive on' in my book. I knew that my car would not make it back 27 miles to my house. I would be on the phone with AAA, and that was not going to happen. I could just see myself standing on the side of Route 6, in the dark, with all the crazy MASSHOLES on the road and all the wildlife creatures looming in the dark shadows of the trees behind me. Nope. Not ever gonna happen. So, I pulled into Cumberland Farms and grabbed my wallet. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed real quick that on the 1oth time of opening my wallet that day, a bill bigger then a one would magically appear. No dice. Damn. I did, however have a two dollar bill that Chris gave me when we first started dating. It was considered lucky he said. I also had two quarters jiggling in my pocket. I just sat there with this sad bit of money in my hand and didn't know if I should laugh or cry. This is so my luck, my life, at it's best. If it's going to be anyone it's going to be me.

I got out of the car and sheepishly walked into the gas station. I couldn't even make eye contact with the lady cashier, because I was too afraid of what her reaction may be when I present her with my currency from Tiny Tim. I mumbled, "two-fifty on eight please." And just so that didn't seem real weird, I followed it up with, "I'm sorry it's weird." And then to make sure THAT didn't sound even weirder, I added, " I just need to make it home." It got weird. Well, for me anyways. The lady just smiled and said, "sure, we take everything, even two-fifty" and gave me a smile and for a split second I though I saw her feel bad for me. Like, "oh this girl is poor" bad. Or maybe not. I jerkishly walked out of the store, feeling sorry for myself, pumped my gas and hoped that I would make it home. And I was only poor for another 4 hours after that, because as of midnight, my direct deposit for work went through. Gotta love that.

We've got Mail

June 5, 2010

Who would have thought getting bills would be so exciting! I found 2 pieces of mail in the mailbox today ( which I had to ask the landlord to put up because he took it down years ago. After not getting or seeing any mail for almost a month, it feels good to finally get the post card I sent to myself from work yesterday. I wanted to see if the zip code the post office gave us, would in fact, route the mail to us. Its a VERY long and grueling story. It gives me a headache thinking about it. Anyways, so yay for mail.

DIY-Self Made Dolly

May 30, 2010

Today we moved all our stuff into our place,...and moved a lot of stuff into storage as well. Here is a taste of what we had to deal with when we realized we had to move everything off and out of the moving truck (which had been harboring our whole life in it for two weeks) because we had to turn it Monday morning. Translation: Refrigerator had to be put somewhere, and it's not the apt. it was going to. Oh, and by the way...we had to leave the dolly in LA. I didn't find this out until we were in Erie at breakfast. Rumor had it, it wouldn't fit. After what I saw Roxi did in Vegas looking for some medication I had left in a box in the truck, and all her reconfiguring that happened in the casino parking lot....I don't buy it. Here is Chris and I making do with what we had at the storage unit. self made pallet dolly!!! I had to get proof!


Move in day.




I helped with this, by the way, I just needed to run around and take pics for proof!

Somewhere in Provincetown

May 25, 2010

Im sitting outside Spiritus on Commercial street trying to forward our mail online. We are currently staying in Ptown up the street from my new job(convenient for 3 days)and just got word we can move our stuff into our new place on Sunday. Thank you!!!!! Chris's boss/owner's partner of the restaurant he's working at,graciously let us set up camp, cats included at her studio till we can fully move in. In all honesty...best thing that has happened to us since we moved here. Thank you Trisha and Raina!!!!


Our little studio on Mechanic St.


Quaint is the word :)

Me Vs. Cape People

May 22, 2010

Well, we still have not moved into our new place yet. It's been almost a week and the guy has been so delayed on everything and just lags all together. I'm learning there is no sense of urgency out here. So laxed. Blows my mind. If this were Los Angeles, we would have been in our place for close to 4 days now. The guy that lived there before us, paid up until the end of the month and still had some of his stuff in the place. The renter also told me that he said if he needed it to be moved before the end of the month, no problem. What a problem it's become. I got phone call yesterday, after many phone calls, saying that the guy will be fully moved out Wednesday. That's five more days of hotel stays!! More money. And that is becoming the issue. Now we are running low and I'm scared we won't have enough to move into. We have been starting to pay everything with Chris' Amex card and the hotel bill is going to have to be put on that too. He doesn't know it yet, but the car payment will have to go on there too. I had to go and get a storage unit too, because all of our stuff will not fit into the apartment, which will be another 100.00 a month. More expensive then LA, we only paid 80.00.

To make matters worse, we are being kicked out of the Travelodge tomorrow. After almost a week of 'living' here, I got an angry call from the hotel owner today saying the housekeeper saw a cat in the window. Busted. We must leave at checkout tomorrow. Damn Superfly. I know it was him, he's been the only one trying to get to the window the whole time. Goodbye Travelodge, it's been real....tricky. Oh and thanks for making us homeless...again.


On the upside...this beach, Nauset Beach, is a mile from our soon to be new place. If he ever let's us move in.

Welcome to the Travelodge

May 16, 2010

It's Tuesday and we have been staying at the Travelodge. Everyday we have too keep extending our stay because we have been having no luck finding a place. It's been basement apartment units on the crack smoking side of town, or attic units in people's houses in the crack smoking side of town. All located in a town called Dennis. We have been warned to stay away from there. Now I know why. When you think of Cape Cod, you don't think of druggies and scary white trash and stabbings occurring at nightclubs, but I guess they have it too. Says the locals, anyways. Only witnessed the a few of the following.

Random act of kindness.
So I had spend half the night emailing every Realtor and rental company I could find around this place and was having no luck. Because the Cape is so seasonal, everyone hones in on the summer time, makes a bunch of money and leaves, and all the rentals are bought out this time of year. So oddly enough, I got a response back saying that there was two apartments in Orleans that were nice and they gave the owner's phone number. Orleans was a really pretty little town that we found randomly and just fell in love with. Its a nicer town and not a lot of openings at all, so this seemed like some real luck. We called the guy and made an appointment to see it the next day. It was so cute. LOVED it. The only problem was that a couple had came and saw it the day before us and he had given first dibs to them. Boo. Then he asked how did we even know the place was for rent, he hadn't posted it on any site yet and had just put the for rent sign out that day. I explained about the email from the person who I thought might have been his assistant of some kind. Turned out, it was the guy that had saw the place before us the following day. Weird. he worked for a housing company that I has emailed, but was not linked to or working for the renter at all. So strange, but worked out for us. Later on that night I had called and asked a few questions and expressed my love for the place and he said if we really wanted it, it could be ours. Yay!

Is this what the Pilgrims felt like?

May 15, 2010

We touched down to the Cape at about 11pm. Staying in West Yarmouth. Does not seem to be the nicest of places on the Cape, but one of the cheaper areas. We are now staying at the Travelodge on Rt.28. I initially phoned in a reservation at a different hotel, but Chris' family got there before us and apparently there was some soliciting going on in the parking lot, and I don't mean a couple of Mormon boys in ties trying to recruit you. More like skank in mini and man peeing in a bush. A little bit of weird introduction to Cape Cod. I hope this isn't a preview of what's in store over the summer.

Anyways, I am beyond tired, delirious, and hungry. Noting that there are no fast food places around here. How do people find food around here late night? No Jack in the Box?? This could be a problem.

Cleveland to Erie and one missing cat

May 14, 2010

Picked up my parents in Cleveland. Now we had a full on motorcade going. We drove all the way through to Erie that night. Not to bad of a drive, but the parents were beat. I have not explained though all of this, our cat routine, and how we sneak our three cats in and out of the hotels, set up the litter box and food and water, along with bring all of our luggage in. It's a 40 minute ordeal. Morning and night. It's totally stressful and I hope to never do it again.

Well, the morning we were leaving Erie, Chris and I noticed all the cats were in the room. He had seen Willow (the largest cat) eating her food. I had left the room for a quick second to go see my parents in their room next to us. I had left the door slightly ajar, resting the door on that heavy silver latch lock thing that you use at night. I thought I was pretty safe. The door was heavy and I was only gone for less then a minute. I came back in and shut the door. Rounded up all the luggage and the litter box and the whole nine, ready to call everyone in to help us. There was seven of us now, so we should have been able to make it all down, cats and all, in one trip. One problem. The fat cat was m.i.a. Willow was nowhere to be found. We looked in the bathroom, under the foldout couch, in the bed, on the bed, under the bed, the dresser drawers, behind the t.v., behind the mini fridge. We even lifted up each mattress of the bed, to look under the hollow bed frame they were laying on. Nothing. No cat anywhere. Joey and Superfly were just lounging around the entire time this was going on. My Dad, Mom, Roxi, and Chris' mom started searching hallways of the hotel. My Mom had informed the front desk clerk that there was a missing cat on the second floor and there started the Hotel Staff Search Party in full swing. Organized as ever, like they had done it a million times. Armed with walkie talkies, they each spread out one by one taking each wing of each floor. ( For the record, it was a two floor hotel, not the biggest,but for a cat, might as well have been Trump Tower.)

As we frantically searched for Willow, Joey was starting to zip around the room, and slipped right underneath the bed closer to the headboard and base and disappeared. Then, Roxi said, that were ever Joey went, is where Willow was, and sure enough, she yanked the mattress away from the headboard and there were the two cats. Huddling together, looking really annoyed that we found their hiding spot. That was probably the worst morning I have had in a REALLY long time. Damn Cats.



The troublemaker herself.

Muncie, Indiana

May 13, 2010

Had to stop off at Grandma Bradway's house in Muncie. Ate some pizza with grandma and cousins. Went over to the neighbors barn across the street and played with the barn cats and saw the goats and horses. The goats have multiplied since 2 Christmas' ago. It was nice to stop and visit. It was a humid day in the 70's and I was CRAVING that kind of weather. 70 degrees in L.A is still too cold. Dry air sucks.



The neighbors farm across the way

Somewhere in Iowa

May 12, 2010


I didn't find this out until after the torrential downpour we had gone through was actually a Tornado warning through the whole state! I knew it was dangerous when I lost all vision of the bright red tail lights of the truck that was 20 feet in front of me. In hindsight, we probably should have all pulled over, but because we we were on a time crunch now, and were behind almost 2 days, we were racing the clock. Because of the truck breaking down, Colorado had put us back almost 2 days. Roxi was due in Boston on Saturday the 15th and his parents in Providence at 6am on Sunday. Iowa sucked the whole way. Super gloomy and didn't stop raining the entire time. One fun thing that happened, we stopped at a gas station for a gas/bathroom break and right there as I was handing the cashier my money for my tootsie rolls, the hole place went black. I guess it was the second power outage of the night. Talk about awkward. Just us five, and this lady. The bad part was his dad was in the middle of a 200.00 cash transaction with the ATM and the machine went out and when it finally rebooted, no money. Boo. The lights were back on at this point, I paid for my tootsies and we got an 800 number to call the bank about the ATM snafu and we were Illinois bound.

Open road+corn fields+banging head against dashboard=Nebraska

I have nothing to say about Nebraska except I'm glad I am no longer in it anymore.

My Colorado Lovefest

May 10, 2010

I have never been through Utah so I was pretty excited today. We didn't get to go through any cool cities, like Salt Lake, but one day, right? St. George was nice. Pretty red rock mountains. Very cool. I was real close to buying a Mormon cook book but then remembered I am not Mormon and I don't like to cook. So I saved 12 bucks.

Colorado.
My favorite although, may have been a curse. It started out towards the end of Utah. Our truck hit a piece of metal or steel in the middle of the freeway. Chris' parents were driving, and we were leading the way. We managed to dodge it, but they were unsuccessful. I watched the tire hit the debris and shoot out like a rocket onto the shoulder of the road. Since we didn't get a phone call I assumed everything was OK. Wrong. Once we got to Grand Junction Co., we stopped for gas. His Dad then told us that we had a flat tire. We called Budget and within 30 minutes, the guy was there fixing the tire and we were on our way. It was actually amazing to see that happen that quick. Then we drove another 100 miles and stayed the night in a beautiful little town I fell in love with called Glenwood Springs. If Massachusetts doesn't work out...that's my next move :)We were warned not to drive the Rockies at night. Enough said. Well the next morning, we were supposed to leave at 6am, and Chris' Mom informed us they heard a strange noise coming from the truck, so we had to wait to get it checked out. Turned out that the whatever that piece of metal was somehow broke the carrier barring. I'm not going to act like I know what that is, he told us it's a very important piece to the truck and in more ways then one holds the truck together. Enough said. It looked like we were staying another night in my new favorite town. Yay for me! Then, the parents volunteered to drive back 100 miles to Grand Junction, pick up the part from Chevy (it was going to be shipped to us the next day if we didn't go get it) and drive it back to the Best Western parking lot where the mechanic would work on it on site. Well, we were about a day off schedule. So off they went.

While the truck issue was being worked on...we decided we would hit a local trail. Wyatt Earps buddy Doc Holiday was supposedly buried in a cemetery high up in this trail head and there was a memorial for him, so Chris, Roxi and I hung out with the deceased for a bit. Very beautiful cemetery. Eroded for sure, but I found a grave there from 1820! We also found unmarked grave stakes and old headstones of confederate soldiers. Pretty Neat! Then Chris and I drove ahead and had lunch in Veil and he showed me Breckenridge, where he's been skiing a few times.

The Rockies were cool. I saw snow for the first time in about 6 years I think. Denver...I have no thought on that. Onto Nebraska...


Natural Hot Spring...didn't get to go in, but I will be back


Path leading to trail head...


Cemetery where Doc is buried somewhere.


Doc Holiday's Mermorial


Veil, CO


The Rockies

Goodbye L.A

May 9, 2010

Chris' parents flew in from Montana and his sister from Boca Raton. So happy they came out. Such a huge help. We had about 80% of our stuff packed. The other 20 was little things. Its amazing how many 'little things' you accumulate over time. Anyways, long story short is that I intended to be on the road in the a.m Sunday morning. That is not what happened. We ended up getting the truck at 7pm on Sat. night due to miscommunication on the Budget rental guy which had Chris and I, not to mention my brother, loading the truck till 4am in the morning. That said, and on only 2 hours of sleep, we finally pulled away from Los Angeles. Only to reach Las Vegas, or as I like to call it: L.A. 2.0. Only four hours of drive time that night. Ended up at a hotel/casino. I won 136.00 on a penny slot. Yay me. Sneaking the cats in and out of the hotel was a challenge but a challenge met.