San Francisco/Wine Country: Day 1

After so many visits from my boyfriend to see me in New York, it was definitely time for me to reciprocate by heading out to his coast.  This would be my second trip to San Francisco, the first being when I met him, so was definitely looking forward to seeing a new part of the city!  As I did with my last trip (to Las Vegas), I had Carmel waiting outside my office building to take me to JFK, and I was at the airport by 6:30pm for my 7:30pm flight.  I was on an American Airlines flight this time - not earning any mileage on this one, but I also wasn't paying for it, so no complaints here.  :)  I landed in San Francisco at 11:00pm, where Sean was waiting.

He pulled up his Uber app on his phone and within a couple minutes the car arrived and we were on our way.  The Uber app has really taken off in San Francisco, and I know it exists in New York as well, but I am not really the target demographic for it (it's more for the techie-what-shall-I-do-with-all-my-money types).  It's somewhere between the cost of a taxi and a private car, and is essentially an app that shows you where these Uber drivers are on a map and then allows you to select one and have it come pick you up immediately.  We were pulling up to his apartment in an area of the city known as Cole Valley within half an hour, driving past where his new office building was located and up and down some massive hills shrouded in fog (that's San Francisco for you!). 

The next morning, we slept late and then went to brunch at Zazie, a cute French bistro right around the corner from his apartment.  The place was packed (packed for a Friday morning, at least, when all these people should be working....?!?!?)!  It was a beautiful, sunny day so we opted to sit out on the back patio.  I had the French toast stuffed with caramelized bananas and walnuts - delicious!  After eating, he wanted to show me around his neighborhood, so we first took a hike up to Tank Hill.  And when I say "hike," this was no stroll in the park - I was huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top of the street that leads to the entrance of Tank Hill.  Parking on streets like this definitely requires a special skill set!  We then made our way to the top of Tank Hill and had the most phenomenal view of San Francisco - Sean said this is a popular place to watch fireworks from on the 4th of July.  It was nice to take a little break from that crazy walk up to the hill and just enjoy the scenery; he was able to point out important buildings and areas around the city to me from our bird's eye view.

San Francisco below us and the bay in the distance:

We then continued walking around his neighborhood, this time back down the hill through the Haight.  This was the first time I had actually gotten to see the famous Haight/Ashbury corner, so I was pretty happy to be able to tick off one more "to do" from my San Francisco list!  Being that this was April 20 (4/20), the Haight was crawling with what can best be described as a "counter culture" roaming the streets with weed and clearly skipping school and work.  Exactly what I'd expect from the Haight!

After a little more walking around, we were hot and tired so headed back home for a nap before getting ready for our dinner.  We had a 6:00pm reservation at Bix, an elegant restaurant with a live jazz band performing nightly described as a good spot for "anniversary couples and first-impression daters."  After being dropped off by an Uber driver onto the cobblestone back alley where the restaurant's front door is, we were lead up a staircase to the balconied second floor and seated in a booth.  The restaurant was relatively empty this early, but by the time we started eating it had completely filled up.  I ordered the BIX rickey cocktail to start, and after a cocktail we switched over to red wine (Tierra Roja I believe) with our dinner.  We had Pacific oysters on the half shell and steak tartare for appetizers, and I had tuna while Sean had a steak for our main course.  Dinner was fantastic, the restaurant had a very romantic, sophisticated feel to it and the live jazz starting up as we sipped on our cocktails made for a fun mood all around.

Bix:

After dinner, we met up with Sean's friend Marcus to grab drinks, first at Rye and then on to Orbit Room Cafe.  I would describe both as "nothing special," but I had good cocktails at each bar, so no complaints.  We were both tired after a long day (even though we did nap!), so called it a night by midnight so we'd be fresh for our wine country adventure the next day! 

Miles Traveled Today: 2,906

Total Miles Traveled: 39,415

Charleston: Days 1-3

When one of my good girlfriends decided to have her wedding in Charleston, SC, not only was I excited for her, but I was also excited because Charleston is a city I've never had any reason to visit, but one I've always wanted to see! I started checking flights a couple months before the wedding and soon discovered direct flights from New York to Charleston are no joke - nearly all of them were over $500. After some conferring with a friend in Atlanta who was also attending the wedding, I decided my best option would be the much cheaper flight to Atlanta, and then making the drive with her back up to Charleston.

I took the first flight out of LaGuardia on Friday morning, a 6:00am AirTran flight. And please let the record show that booking a flight on AirTran was frustrating because to select your seat, they actually charge additional fees. So I opted to not have an assigned seat and just hope for the best when I arrived at the airport. I was also a little annoyed because I have been trying to fly exclusively on Delta to build up my SkyMiles, but the Delta flight to Atlanta was significantly more expensive than the AirTran, so I was backed into a little bit of a corner with that.  All's well that ends well, though, and I wasn't at the very back of the plane, so that's good news!  I landed in Atlanta a little before 8:00am, grabbed some much-needed Chick Fil A and waited for my friend to come scoop me up.  By 9:30am we were on our way!  The ride was long and uneventful, and approximately six hours later we were pulling in to the Courtyard Charleston Waterfront, the official wedding hotel, which we had reserved back at the end of December for the somewhat pricey rate of $189/night. The room was beautiful with its scenic view of the pool and the inlet from the Atlantic Ocean.  I was disappointed we had to quickly get ready and head off to the rehearsal and dinner, as the sun was hot in the sky and the pool looked oh so inviting!

The view from our hotel room:

After calling a cab, we were off to the First Baptist Church of Charleston, which was built in 1682 and the oldest Southern Baptist church in the country.  While I am not in the wedding party, my friend is, so I got to (had to) tag along.  The church was very pretty - everything was white and wooden.  There were some interesting artifacts at the back of the church, a "museum" of sorts for this 330 year old building, that kept me busy while the rehearsal was in progress.

After the rehearsal, we piled into cars and were on our way to the rehearsal dinner being held at 39 Rue de Jean, a French brasserie with a large area upstairs for private parties.  All the standard uncomfortably long and awkward speeches, slideshows no one really cares to see and drunk wedding party were out in full force.  By the end I was exhausted - it had already been a long day for me, I didn't know anyone there and I was just ready to get some sleep.  Everyone else had a different idea, of course, so around 11:30pm we were on our way to a post-dinner bar, O-Ku.  The main memory I have from this place, which was a Japanese sushi/fusion restaurant, was just being TIRED.  We had a drink and chatted with some of our new wedding friends, and then I had to get out of there before I passed out.  

On Saturday, we were up early (at my request) because I wanted to get to see some of Charleston.  We went to a brunch spot my friend had found and heard great things about (and made a 10 am reservation for) called Virginia's on King.

It was delicious!  I had the country fried steak and eggs (steak and eggs have become my new go-to on brunch menus for some reason...consistent perhaps?).  You know you're in the South when you can get out of Sunday brunch for under $20!  After brunch we walked around for a while...being early on a Sunday, most shops were closed, but this was definitely a vibrant downtown area with lots of boutiques.  Walking around I was also struck by the amount of tourists...this is not a town I ever thought of as being touristy, but it definitely is.  It has more the feel of a beach town than just a regular Southern town (which is how I always had pictured it) - palm trees on every corner!  We did finally call a cab and get dropped off back at the hotel so we could get ready for the 2pm wedding.

The wedding was beautiful and when we walked out of the church, we could tell it was going to start pouring at any moment (there had been rain forecast the entire day...yuck), so we quickly made a decision about where to go grab some lunch.  Of course every single place in town was overflowing with people, so it took a while before we could actually find a spot where we could sit down, eat and have a drink.  Not to mention, running along the cobblestone sidewalks and roads in heels was most unpleasant.  Charleston + Heels = NO!  We finally settled on the Blind Tiger Pub, and just in the nick of time because the bottom fell out and it continued to monsoon for the next two hours - just in time for us to head to the reception.  Which reminds me, what's the deal with splitting up the wedding and the reception?  Made for an unnecessarily long day in my opinion.  Anyways.

We arrived just after 5pm at the Thomas Bennett House, a beautiful antebellum home with an expansive garden that had been set up with a large tent for the reception.  The stairs Laura came down in her dress was a "free-flying staircase," which made for a really stunning entrance: 

Had the rain held off, this would have been a beautiful evening at a gorgeous home with delicious food and a fun band.  As it was, the humidity was suffocating and my heels sunk into the muddy grass all night long and I couldn't get into the shower fast enough... oh well!  It was still fun, of course.  :)

After hours of eating and drinking and dancing (after a while, we went down to bare feet so you can imagine how disgusting I was), we called it a night and headed back to the hotel, where I took one of the best showers of my life.  On Sunday morning, we were up early again and met up with my other friend Nicole who just happened to also be in town.  We parked at a garage directly across from Husk, our brunch location for the morning.  This restaurant was AMAZING!  It was all Southern cuisine and locally-sourced; a chalkboard at the front of the restaurant indicated which farms certain menu items came from.  So for my meal, I had the South Carolina shrimp and grits, tomato braised peppers and onions, poached green grocer egg and Surry sausage.  Yum!  After brunch, we headed outside onto the front porch, where there was an interest bench I had never seen before.  After a little Googling, we were able to determine what it was and how it worked.  This was an authentic joggling board!  It was a moving swing-like bench that sort of looks like a very long sawhorse, and we learned they have been around since the early 1800s and are a part of early Lowcountry life; many still exist on the porches of old homes (which is what Husk was located in).  We probably played on the joggling board for 15 minutes...so fun!

The joggling board:

Girls on the joggling board:

After saying bye to Nicole, we got back into the car and before heading out of town, my friend (who had been to Charleston many times, by the way), drove us through Rainbow Row, a block of historic, pastel-colored homes and the most photographed buildings in Charleston.  The buildings had been around for a while but were renovated in the early 1900s.  A couple myths to explain the colorful painting job include helping intoxicated sailors coming in from port remember which houses they were to bunk in, or even dating back to when the buildings were used as stores so that owners could tell illiterate slaves which building to go to for shopping.  We continued driving along that street as it rounded a bend and the Atlantic Ocean was laying out in front of us with beautiful homes opposite the water.  This was definitely my favorite part of Charleston I saw over the course of the weekend - it was colorful and beachy and elegant all at once.

Rainbow Row:

At this point, it was time to make the drive back to Atlanta for my 7pm flight back to New York.  Once again, not much to report on the drive.  Just a lot of expensive gas!  Definitely one thing I am not missing being without a car here in New York.  I was back home a little after 10pm and crashed hard!  

To wrap up, I think Charleston is a place I'd enjoy visiting again in the future.  Next time, I'd carve out a day for the beach and another day for a little more sightseeing.  I didn't really do any research on "things to do" in town because I knew I'd be busy, but I did notice a few things that looked like they'd be fun - the Palmetto Carriage Tours, for one (they have historic residence tours, ghost tours, etc. all on the palmetto carriage...so cute!).  

And that's another trip in the books for me!

My trip:

"In my mind I'm going to Carolina,

Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?

Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind." - Carolina in My Mind, James Taylor

Miles Traveled Today: 2,400

Total Miles Traveled: 36,509

Vegas Vacation: Days 3-4

As disappointed as I was for the Grand Canyon trip to get cancelled, sleeping until we woke up was a welcome luxury after waking up so early to be at the Hoover Dam the day before. We did eventually decide we could go without food no longer, so made our way toward the back of the Wynn resort near where the golf course, cabanas and pool are located and were seated at the Terrace Pointe Cafe. Had it been a little warmer and not so breezy, it would have been a beautiful day to be seated out on the restaurant's back patio overlooking the pool. The restaurant was open and bright with tons of sunlight streaming in. It almost felt like summertime! We ordered a pitcher of peach sangria which was a little too sweet to have more than one glass (pitcher = mistake). We each ordered the tomato bisque, and while Sean had the pulled pork sliders, I opted for an Oriental salad (sans mandarin oranges, of course). My meal was light and delicious and I was ready to get out and enjoy the day!

We decided while it was so nice outside, we'd go for a walk down the Strip and see some of the casinos I had not had the opportunity to go inside on my previous work trips to Vegas - in particular, Paris and New York, New York. I thought Paris was SO cute inside, and although I've never been to Paris, I'd like to think the quaint, old-world sort of feel happening in the casino is at least comparable to what the real Paris looks like. One thing I liked about the casino is that all the different clusters of table games were under canopies that had been named - it would be tough for someone to get lost in the casino with each area labeled so clearly. We sat down at the circular bar on the casino floor and had a few drinks before deciding to move along. Next up was New York, New York. This casino was much further down the Strip than I anticipated, and truth be told, now that I've seen the inside of it (nothing special if you ask this semi-New Yorker), it wasn't worth the long hike. The only real thing to do in the casino as far as I could tell was ride the roller coaster, but at this point we were running a little short on time and headed back to the Encore.

The circular bar and cute street scene where we spent a couple hours in Paris:

When the trip to Arizona had to be called off, I was able to make a quick call and set up a couple passes to the sold out Motley Crue show at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. This was the last night of the band's 12-night, month-long residency at the casino, making them the first rock band to ever do a residency in Las Vegas. The cab ride from the Encore to the Hard Rock was much further than I remembered it being from my first trip to Vegas, and the traffic was intense. When we finally arrived at the casino, it was swarming with Motley Crue fans! Working with the band, this was pretty exciting to see (and being a normal human being, this was borderline terrifying). We made our way across the casino floor to Pink Taco, where we wanted to grab a quick dinner. There was a 20-30 minute wait for a table, but we were doing okay with time (and Mexican food comes out quickly, so we decided to wait it out). We were seated in 20 or 25 minutes, ordered some margaritas and food and were in and out in less than an hour. When we exited the restaurant, the hallway outside was wall-to-wall people, lined up waiting to get into the show. Yikes! We made our way to the will-call window to pick up our passes, and then headed backstage to say hi to the tour and production managers. With the show about to start, we filled up our cups backstage with complimentary beer and took up our position at the sound board. The show has had a few changes since the last time I saw the band, and although I'm not particularly a fan of the music, there is no denying it is a well-produced, high-energy show.

Motley takes a bow:

When the show ended, we wandered out into the casino to grab a couple drinks and chatted with a few Motley Crue fans who sat down next to us. It had been another long day, so after a while it was time to head back to the Encore and get some sleep. On Monday, we were able to once again sleep until we woke up, checked out, grabbed a quick lunch off the Strip and then did the one final thing I had been wanting to do in Las Vegas - see the Welcome to Las Vegas sign!

Mission accomplished:


It was now time to head to the airport, drop off the rental car and catch my flight back to New York. My trip back was sadly in coach, so it felt much longer. I didn't arrive back at JFK until after midnight on Tuesday morning, but fortunately there was no shortage of cabs at this hour and I was home and sound asleep in my bed within an hour.

This was definitely the most fun I've had in Vegas - obviously getting to do only fun things as opposed to work things seriously changes my perspective. I still don't think I ever need to go back, but I'm glad I got to have such a fun, relaxing time to at least make me feel a little more love towards Sin City.

My trip:


"Viva Las Vegas with your neon flashin'
And your one armbandits crashin'
All those hopes down the drain
Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into nighttime
Turnin' night into daytime
If you see it once
You'll never be the same again." - Viva Las Vegas, Elvis Presley

Miles Traveled Today: 2,526
Total Miles Traveled: 34,109

Vegas Vacation: Day 2

On Saturday morning, we were up early to get to the Hoover Dam. We ordered breakfast via room service and were then on our way! After reading Yelp reviews online, I had made the executive decision that we would do the pricier "Hoover Dam Tour" (with a price tag of $30/person) rather than just the Powerplant Tour ($8/person). The descriptions provided on the Hoover Dam's website along with the multitude of Yelp reviews convinced me the extras added to the Hoover Dam Tour would be worth it - after all, this is probably a place one only visits once, so why not just do it right the first time?

We were originally thinking we'd just hit the Hoover Dam on the way to the Grand Canyon on Sunday morning (you literally have to drive over it to get to the Grand Canyon), but we wanted to have lots of time at the Grand Canyon (and the 4-5 hour drive would obviously slow us down), so we decided since the Hoover Dam is only about an hour outside of Vegas in Boulder City, it would be best to just do it on its own, since neither of us are gamblers and we'd be looking for something to do on Saturday anyways! Sean had rented a car (a Mustang!) for the weekend at the airport, so we had the flexibility to change up the itinerary a little bit.

While the Powerplant Tour tickets can be purchased online, the full dam tour can only be purchased at the visitor center and are first come, first serve beginning at 9:00am (the first Dam Tour is at 9:30am). The website indicated several hours will be sold out at a time, and reviews all indicated the later in the day you arrived, the longer you'd end up waiting for available tour times, so our goal was to get there right when they opened. Apparently driving an hour the wrong direction upon leaving Vegas is not the best way to make this happen - we were nearly at the California state line before determining we were definitely going the wrong way (ultimately, we blamed the valet at the Encore for not giving us very detailed directions on how to get to the correct highway). The drive out the "wrong" direction of Vegas really accentuated how barren that land is...we joked several times about how many people must be buried out there.

Once we turned around, we were there in no time and were making the loop around Lake Mead (such a scenic view!) and pulling into the parking deck at the Hoover Dam ($7 for parking, a popular complaint in the Yelp reviews) by 10:30am. We went straight to the visitor's center, where there is airport-type security to get in, to buy our tickets - the next available time was 12:45pm - so we had a couple hours to kill before we'd be able to begin the tour. There were some exhibits inside the visitor's center (a la carte admission to the visitor's center is $8) which we looked at quickly, but most of it was very technical about the inner-workings of the generators and pumps, and these exhibits didn't hold my interest for very long. There should be a sign warning "Engineers Only" in that area! We watched the 10-minute film about the history of the dam, which I enjoyed. I must admit, for an official U.S. National Historic Landmark, I didn't really know any of the history about the dam, and it was interesting to learn how many people had been put to work building it during such a depressed time in the country. After the film ended, we headed outside and walked around the dam to take some photos; it was a sunny, warm day and a perfect day to be outside! One of the most striking things about the grounds is the art-deco style all the buildings were designed in.

View of the dam:

There is a cafe just outside the gates of the visitor's center (which meant we'd have to go through security again), so we exited, had a quick lunch and got some souvenirs, and then headed back toward the visitor's center to make sure we had enough time to get through the security line again (which had lengthened considerably since we first arrived two hours ago) and went to the tour meeting point.

We had a small group of perhaps 12 people, and after a few 'dam jokes' by our tour guide, we were piling into the elevator and heading down into the dam for our 1-hour tour. We first met up with a larger group (who had only paid for the Powerplant Tour) and were led down a tunnel originally drilled in the 1930s for construction and taken into the penstock viewing area, where we got to see the giant, 30-diameter pipes carrying as much as 90,000 gallons every second from Lake Mead to the dam's hydroelectric generators, which are creating electricity that is being sent to not only Las Vegas, but also southern California and Arizona. An interesting fact we learned is that the dam has not only paid for itself thanks to selling the electricity, but that it is the only government project that is actually turning a profit. Another interesting point that was made was that this huge dam not only came in under budget and time (it took only 5 years to construct), but that the more modern (and simple) bypass bridge across the way took seven years to complete and was over budget. My how government projects have changed! After a quick stop at the penstock viewing, we were taken back up in an elevator to a balcony overlooking a large room filled with 17 huge generators and people actually working at the powerplant.

The bypass bridge over the Colorado River:

At this point, the "full dam tour" group was separated from the "powerplant only" tour and taken through a back door and down several long, winding corridors dating back to the 1930s. These are rarely seen areas of the dam (due in no small part to the high price tag, I'm sure!) We clambered into a much smaller elevator and were taken much further into the dam - at this point I think we were near the base - and started walking down more long corridors. One of the interesting things our guide pointed out to us were the screws and bars that had been placed every 50 feet or so in the corridors. They were placed right next to each other so that if the structural integrity of the dam began to fail, you'd be able to see the screws were no longer aligned with each other and the walls were shifting. Our guide did note that while this would be a very bad sign, he has no idea what the plan is to fix it...ha! Some other cool markings that were pointed out to us were where black chalk had traced over cracks and then dated (60-70 years old!), so that workers could monitor cracks and know if they were getting bigger.

Probably the highlight of being in the Hoover Dam was being taken into a small tunnel that serves as a vent. We were allowed to walk all the way to the vent and look out - we could see the river, Black Canyon and the Dam Bypass Bridge straight ahead. We were literally inside the downstream face of the dam!

The photo I took when I stuck my camera out of the vent and turned it up - the steep wall of the dam towering over us:


The last stop on the tour was down a dark corridor where we were shown a set of stairs that went down as far as the eye could see, and then turning around and seeing stairs that literally looked like they had no end. Definitely made me glad I don't work in this part of the dam...that would be a stairmaster exercise like none other!

The never-ending stairs:


At this point, we were lead back up to the visitor's center, and the tour was over. We got back in the car and drove approximately a mile to the entrance of the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, also known as the Hoover Dam Bypass. The bridge was completed in 2010 to alleviate the bottle-necking into the Hoover Dam and give non-tourists a way to get around the dam quickly. Sean had been to the Hoover Dam prior to the bypass being built, and was amazed at what a difference it made. It was much windier on the bridge so we didn't stay long, but we were provided an awesome view of the Hoover Dam:

At this point our Hoover Dam adventure was over, so we hopped in the car and headed back to Vegas. We went straight to the Mirage Resort & Casino to pick up our tickets for the Beatles LOVE show later that night so we wouldn't have to deal with the will-call line at showtime (which did turn out to be monstrous...this was a smart decision!). After fetching the tickets and making a quick stop in the Beatles souvenir store (so much Beatles merchandise...I had to pull myself out of there!), we sat down at Rhumbar across from the hotel's check-in area, which was a cool Caribbean-inspired lounge, and had a few fruity drinks before going back to the Encore to get ready for dinner.

We left our hotel at 6:00pm to head over to the Palazzo for dinner at Mario Batali's Carnevino restaurant, where we had a 6:30pm reservation. We allowed extra time because we decided we were in walking distance, and with it being a little chilly now that the sun had gone down, it was pretty easy to stay indoors almost the entire way, walking through the Venetian along the cute indoor canal where people were taking gondola rides.

Indoor gondola ride at the Venetian:

We were seated immediately and ordered a bottle of red wine that was one of my favorites I've ever tasted - I'm still trying to remember what it was so will hopefully be able to fill that in at some point! The restaurant was large and the tables were far apart so that you felt like you were the only one in the restaurant. The service was exquisite and our waiter was extremely knowledgeable about the menu and able to make good recommendations, which we did take. We began with the chopped salad that was fresh and delicious with beans, parmesan, peppers and a light vinaigrette; the bowl they brought out was for the table to share and we couldn't even finish it between the two of us. For our entree, we had the dry aged bone-in ribeye for two, which was perhaps the largest cut of meat I'd ever seen at 32 oz. It was brought out to our table on a tray and carved in front of us. The bone was then sat on the table as some sort of monument to the feat we were about to undertake. We also ordered some of the sauteed shiitake mushrooms and asparagus, which proved to just be too much food. SO. MUCH. STEAK. I think the ribeye for 2 could also pass as a ribeye for 3 or 4! By the time dinner was over, I think we both needed to be rolled out of there.

Carnevino:

We then made the short walk over to the Mirage and got in the massive line waiting to get into the theatre for the Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil show. We had been advised that the theatre was a very odd shape so trying to get seats as close to the stage as possible might not be the most advantageous strategy. Our seats were a little further back and upon sitting down didn't seem like they were in a great spot - there were huge nets up splitting the stage into four pieces and one of them seemed to be blocking our view pretty substantially. However, as soon as the show began, the nets dropped and we had a clear view of the entire stage. I don't think getting seats closer to the stage would have been a bad thing, but our seats were a little less expensive and still fantastic. There was a lot of stuff going on way up in the air, so had we been down lower near the stage, our necks may have been a little sore from looking up the whole show. This being my first Cirque show, I wasn't totally sure what to expect but was very excited! The entire show was so beautifully put together - I was already familiar with the soundtrack so knew I would enjoy all the music, and each Beatles song had it's own performance to go along with it. While I am a bit dubious about the over-arching plot of the show as a whole, if you just look at each song as it's own little performance and not worry about trying to piece together the entire story, I think you'll find it much more enjoyable (as I did). There were some really crazy stunts and there was so much going on at all times (just like a circus), that it was so difficult to decide what to watch the entire show! Probably my favorite single moment in the whole show was when they performed "Something." A man was doing some really 'bendy' interpretative dance on the floor, while several women with drapey dresses on would swoop in on trapezes around him. It was gorgeous!

When the show ended, we made our way back out and headed back to the Encore. By this point, we had been checking the weather at the Grand Canyon for Sunday all day and had determined tomorrow was just not going to be a good time to go. It was going to be cold, possibly heavy snowstorms (definitely rain) and extremely gusty winds (40-50 mph). Nothing about that sounded like the Grand Canyon out in the middle of the desert I had pictured, and even if the canyon looked beautiful in the snow, it would be too uncomfortable to stay out and hike around the way I had really envisioned it. There was also some concern the access road to the canyon would be closed because of the weather...it was just too far of a drive to make to not even be able to get in. And despite having hotel reservations in Flagstaff, we decided there wasn't enough to do in Flagstaff to warrant leaving Las Vegas. So that was that...when we got back to the Encore, Sean was able to convince them to let us book our suite for an extra night, and off to bed we went.

Miles Traveled Today: 57
Total Miles Traveled: 31,583

Vegas Vacation: Day 1

With a 3-day weekend for President's Day, this seemed like the perfect weekend to go to Las Vegas for the first time as vacation, as opposed to the two previous times when I had to be there for work. Despite having sworn off Vegas forever after my trip last July, when Sean offered to fly me out for a fun-filled weekend with a show and trips to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon, I couldn't resist - a trip to Vegas with almost no Vegas sounded perfect!

Sean was generous enough to not only get my flight, but he also got me a first-class ticket on Delta...I was pretty excited considering flying first-class is something I have not yet experienced in my 28 years! The price difference is significant, but after doing it once, especially on a cross-country flight like this one, it's hard to imagine ever going back...I've been spoiled! I ordered a car service to take me out to JFK Airport on Friday afternoon; the last time I tried getting a cab outside my office on a Friday afternoon was a total disaster, so I learned my lesson. We hit almost no traffic, and I was heading into the airport less than an hour after I left my office. Jumping to the front of the security line and being the first person to board the plane were only the beginning of the perks I've been missing out on by flying coach all this time. My seat was huge, and there was so much space between me and the guy sitting next to me...it made me wonder how I've lived without this for so long! As soon as we were seated, I was already being hit up with complimentary drinks, which I gladly accepted. I really wanted to nap, but I think I was so excited about the whole first-class 'thing,' or missing the flight attendant come around with another drink, or just looking so forward to actually getting to Vegas, that I never did manage to doze off. I did get plenty of vodka sodas, though. :)

A couple hours into the flight, a tablecloth was put down on my foldout table, and it was set with salt and pepper shakers and real silverware. My drink was also brought out in a glass this time around. So posh! There were a couple options for dinner, and I went with the vegetarian lasagna. It came out with a salad, several rolls of bread and some sort of chocolate pie. I couldn't believe all this has been going on right under my nose all these years! The food was delicious, the way I remember airplane food used to be. This was already an amazing start to the trip.

When I landed in Vegas, Sean was there to fetch me, and we headed back to the Encore at the Wynn, where through his connections he'd been able to upgrade to a beautiful suite in this more upscale wing of the Wynn. We had a beautiful view of Las Vegas from the room, and everything from the curtains to the "Do Not Disturb" light could be controlled from the bed, so it was a pretty amazing suite all around. After getting settled in to the room, we headed downstairs and walked through the Encore and then on to the Wynn. This is such a beautiful hotel! There is a butterfly theme throughout, and all the decorations are so colorful and fun. We went to a small bar that overlooked a terrace where a light show was happening once an hour, so we ended up timing it just right to grab a drink and see the short show before heading to dinner.

One of the pretty walkways in the Wynn on our way to dinner:

We went with a casual option for our first night, the Society Cafe, which turned out to be quite a nice restaurant, and a step above what I would classify as "casual." We ordered the mac 'n cheese bites (amazing - could have gotten four orders of this and just made a meal out of them!) and a shrimp cocktail with some of the biggest shrimp I've ever seen, and then I had the filet sliders as my entree, which were delicious! So it was somewhat "casual fare," but the restaurant was ornate and could have just as easily gotten away with serving a much fancier style of food. By the time we were finished with dinner, the time zones were throwing me off kilter and I was exhausted, so went off to bed - we had plans to be up early Saturday morning to head to the Hoover Dam!

Miles Traveled Today: 2,526
Total Miles Traveled: 31,526

Catching Up

I've done some traveling since my last update, but my trips were to places I've already written about, so I'm going to just do one post to quickly re-cap this most recent mileage!

November 2-6, 2011 | Birmingham and Auburn, AL
On November 2, I flew home to Birmingham to spend a couple days with my family before heading to Auburn for a friend's wedding. On November 3, my mom and I went to the BJCC (Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center) for the annual Christmas Village Festival. Admission to the festival is $10, and there are literally hundreds of booths set up with everything from clothing to candles to Christmas wreaths and anything you can possibly imagine in between. It's pretty overwhelming, but in just a couple hours we were able to check out nearly all the booths. Most of the booths are filled with homemade trinkets, and while some of it can border on a little junky, there were some really great booths with delicious samples of teas and snacks, and I actually did purchase a wonderful scented candle and picked out a pretty handmade scarf that was later gifted to me at Christmas. If you are going in with plans to buy lots of things, this would definitely be an all day event, but we took the more casual approach of just wandering around and looking at the booths without actually purchasing that much. There was also a food court set up on the lower level of the village, so we ate lunch and then headed home.

On November 4, I drove down to Auburn with my friend Mark for a good friend's wedding. It had been two years since I'd been to Auburn, so just wandering around Toomer's Corner, grabbing a drink at Bodega and showing my New York friends around campus was a breath of fresh air! And of course we got giant margaritas at Acapulco's, where so many of my Auburn nights began, before the wedding and went to the War Eagle Supper Club (rated one of the Top 50 CollegeBars by Playboy) after the wedding and reception...there are some things that just can't be missed when I'm in the Loveliest Village! The weather was warm and breezy in Auburn, so everything from the pre-wedding brunch out on the patio of the Johnston's home to the outdoor wedding reception at the Jule Smith Collins Museum was lovely.

The Jule Smith Collins Museum at sunset:


Miles Traveled Today: 2,140 (in black on the map)

December 21, 2011 - January 2,2012 | Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA
On Wednesday, December 21, I flew home to be with my family for the Christmas holiday. While we had a few things planned for our time at home, this was primarily a trip for relaxation and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather down south! On December 22, my mom and I had a fun girl's day that began with a lunchtime tea at the Townhouse Tea Shoppe in Mt. Laurel. It was actually so unseasonably warm on this day that there were tornado warnings all over town - crazy! The restaurant requires reservations, but as we discovered when we arrived, this is not due to overwhelming demand or a lack of seating, but rather so they know how many scones they are making for the day. Although Mt. Laurel is still several miles away even after turning off Highway 280, I thought the tea shoppe was quaint, quiet and exactly the kind of experience you are looking for when you sign up for a traditional English tea and would certainly recommend it for someone looking for an afternoon tea in the Birmingham area. While there were people who arrived after us just ordering a proper lunch (all light fare: salads, soups and sandwiches), we were there for the tea, scones, little sandwiches and sweets!

With our three-tiered tea service:


On December 23, my best friend Tiffany came down from Huntsville for our annual reunion which always consists of Mexican food (this year we went with Superior Grill) and then decided to try out a relatively new (at least to us) "girl's night out" activity called Sips 'n' Strokes. Because we had to be at S&S at 7pm, dinner was an early affair this year, and we just happened to luck into 2-for-1 margarita happy hour...just what we needed! When we arrived at Sips 'n' Strokes, we chose the painting each of us would be doing, were instructed on how many 'squirts' of each color of paint to put on our cardboard, got an apron and some tips on how to start and then got to work! The uncorking of the bottle of wine we brought was in there somewhere. :) There are these sort of painting classes all over the country (none in New York of course), but I would recommend it to anyone! I don't consider myself even remotely artistic, and I was thrilled with how well my angel turned out...getting to down a bottle of red with my friend while painting made it all the more enjoyable:


On December 26, I decided to make a quick drive over to Atlanta to see some friends who would not be in town when I came back for New Year's Eve. I stayed with my best friend Nicole, who recently moved into a house right next to Piedmont Park in midtown (read: close to everything!). We first made the short drive to Decatur for dinner at the Iberian Pig, which was a delicious Spanish tapas restaurant. I had never been to Decatur before, but it is such a cute little town! It is very young and reminds me a lot of Hoboken with the music venues and trendy restaurants and bars on quiet sidewalks. We ordered pitchers of sangria and tons of food for the table to share - it was a delicious meal in a beautiful restaurant...perfect for girls' night out! We then walked a couple doors down to the Square Pub for a few drinks, where one of Nicole's friends was having a beer tapping for Free Spirit, a beer created in honor of his sister who was murdered this past summer. Bars close at 2am in Atlanta (never thought I'd miss that!), so it was a relatively early night.

The girls at Iberian Pig:

The next morning, I took my time getting ready and then met Sean at the Varsity for lunch. The Varsity is a must-see if it's your first time in Atlanta, as it is the world's largest drive-in restaurant. I've been here a few times, and while it's really just a dirty Atlanta diner, it's a fun spot with a lot of energy, especially during the fall, as it's situated right on Georgia Tech's campus. Inside, it's much a sea of total chaos, and you'll want to know what you are ordering before you get up to bat (think Soup Nazi with hot dogs and burgers). My personal favorite is the orange slush drink they serve! Finding seating is no easy task, but if you keep walking all the way to the back of the restaurant, something will usually open up. After lunch, I headed back to Birmingham, which is really more of a 3-hour drive than the 2-hour drive I've long considered it to be now thanks to all the construction on I-20.

On New Year's Eve, I returned to Atlanta once again, this time with my family to watch my Auburn Tigers take on the Virginia Cavaliers in the Chick-fil-A Bowl at the Georgia Dome. After grabbing a quick bite to eat at the Varsity (of course), walking around the fan area outside the Georgia Dome for a while and discovering there were no TVs for my dad to watch the Georgia Tech bowl game (major error on the part of the Chick-fil-A Bowl, we all agreed), we headed to a nearby Taco Mac at the CNN Center where we could get some drinks and watch the other games on TV.

The game was lots of fun, and Auburn came away with a dominating win just before midnight: 43-24. As soon as the game was over, we raced back over to Nicole's house where we'd left the car (knowing parking at the stadium would not only be insanity, but also expensive) on the Marta and got back just in time to countdown to midnight and grab a glass of champagne! I also bid my parents adieu, as they had decided to just make the trip back to Birmingham that night with the complete scarcity of hotels in the area. After a little while, the party began to wind down, so I went back with Sean to the Four Seasons Hotel, which is a truly luxurious hotel situated in midtown Atlanta. The New Year's Eve party was winding down in the hotel bar, so we were able to go in and get a few drinks before heading up to the room and crashing.

Four Seasons lobby:

The next morning, we ordered some room service (I had the Belgian waffle with peaches...delish!), and a few hours later met up with my brother who had stayed with some friends across town. We grabbed a quick lunch with them, and then made the drive back to Birmingham. And the next afternoon, I flew back to the frozen tundra that is New York in January!

Miles Traveled Today: 2,506 (in grey on the map)

January 13-16, 2012 | Atlantic City, NJ
Just like last year, my MLK holiday weekend was once again spent at the Borgata in Atlantic City. And like last year, the bus out of New York on Friday after work was the mode of transportation. We arrived at the hotel a little before 10pm and after our quick VIP check-in to our suite (upgrade from last year!), immediately went on a hunt for dinner. After a quick loop around the casino floor, we settled on Izakaya, which was a delicious Japanese restaurant with dark lighting and a very modern feel. We ordered several rolls for the table as well as some tasty cocktails. The next night we had a sold out shows at the Event Center, so although most of the afternoon was spent getting organized and set up for the show, we did find time to escape away from the Borgata so I could show Sean the boardwalk and grab some drinks at Caesar's Palace. We also tried our luck with the slot machines, but I think at best we came out with net winnings and losses of $0. We also hung around the casino in their sports bar for a bit watching the New York Giants beat up on the Green Bay Packers...and then it was time to head back to the Borgata for the show.

Sunday was a lazy day of sleeping and eating with another sold out show. After the show, the promoter and some of the comics, 'friends of the show' and I went over to the more luxurious hotel on the other side of the Borgata, the Water Club, to the Sunroom lounge right off the lobby. This was actually my favorite part of the Borgata that I've seen. While it is indoors, it gives the illusion of being outside in a lush tropical forest with waterfalls. It was also a welcome reprieve from all the smoking and the loud music in the main casino room, so we had a few drinks here before heading off to bed. We were up very early on Monday morning to take advantage of my boss' offer to drive us to the train station that we could take back to New York. It should come as no surprise that most of that train ride was spent dozing off, and the rest of that day is a little bit of a sleepy-eyed blur.

Sunroom at the Water Club (in the light of day):


Miles Traveled Today: 254 (in red on the map)

My trip(s):


Total Miles Traveled: 29,000

State College (PA): Days 1-3

Living in the North has it's fair share of drawbacks, but perhaps one of the most significant ones is the complete and utter lack of college football! There are absolutely no "football schools" to be found, which is a very difficult adjustment coming from Alabama where football is king. In fact, the closest school where football is actually considered relevant is probably Penn State in State College, PA. So it was pretty nice luck that the team I despise more than anything else in the world, the Alabama Crimson Tide, would be making the trip to State College to play the Penn State Nittany Lions this year - and I just so happened to have two friends who went to Penn State who could find me and the rest of my Auburn friends a free place to stay so that we could make this a fun football weekend!

In total, it would be six of us making the drive from New York to Penn State. We let the two Penn Staters handle all the logistics of renting a car (rented from Hertz at the Newark Airport to avoid having to drive in and out of the city on 9/11 Weekend), lodging (provided by a friend of a friend...of a friend, I think) and tailgating/entertainment. I always think it is fun to see other college campuses, so I was definitely looking forward to a weekend out of the city living like I'm 21 again.

We all dipped out of work early on Friday afternoon with high hopes of getting on the road by 6pm; approximating the drive at 4 hours and having to drop our bags off, we wanted to maximize our going-out time - and with the bars closing at 2:00am, this would be no easy feat. We all met at Penn Station, which was teeming with soldiers and machine guns in preparation for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, to take the NJ Transit to Newark Airport. Once we arrived at the Newark Airport stop, we were then able to make a free transfer to the AirTrain, which then stopped at every terminal before getting us to the rental car area. This is the first time I'd used public transportation to get to Newark Airport, but as with my AirTrain experience at JFK, I discovered that while it is perhaps not the most time-effective way to travel, it is certainly the cheapest (only $12.50 one way) and makes the most sense for someone who travels on a budget like myself. We picked up the SUV and were on our way by 6:45pm. Even though we had wanted to leave sooner, I think everyone was still impressed that we were all able to meet up and leave within an hour of when we wanted to, so we considered this part of the trip a success. Somewhere in the vicinity of Stroudsburg, PA, we stopped at a McDonald's for the first of many nutritious meals we would share together, and by 11:00pm we were pulling into State College.

I never really got my bearings while we were in town, but when we first drove in, we went through a long street of back-to-back bars - it reminded me a little of Auburn's College Street, except there were a lot more bars and a lot more people! Penn State has an enrollment of over 40,000, and with thousands more Alabama fans in town for the big game, there were lines streaming out of every bar as far as the eye could see. I think this would drive me crazy if this is a normal thing, but I got the impression this had more to do with it just being the Friday before a big home game. On the opposite side of the street were residence halls and the actual campus. It was dark and lightly raining at this point, so I decided I'd just have to see this all a little better in the light of Saturday. The weather actually wasn't looking very promising for the entire weekend; in the past day, the chance of rain for Saturday (gameday!) had gone from 30% to 60%.

After dropping by the friend's apartment where we would be staying (I had my own couch so no complaining from my end!), we made our way via the CATA transit system, which only cost $1.50/ride, to the downtown bar area. It's very fortunate we were with people who lived in State College because I never did grasp the transit system or where we were at any given moment. We headed to South Pugh Street to the All-American Rathskeller, a favorite bar of one of the guys we were with. The line only took about 10 minutes to get through, which made us all happy. The Rathskeller was opened in 1933 and is the fourth oldest bar in the state of Pennsylvania. I don't think any renovations have been done on the bar since the '30s to be honest - this was definitely a grungy, beer-all-over-the-floor and cover-band-playing-in-the-corner kind of college bar. We got a big booth and quickly learned we could get pitchers of beer for cheaper than a single beer in New York. Ah, to be back in college! Originally we thought we might bounce around to different spots, but after seeing the lines all over town, decided it was probably a safer bet to just stay put. A fun cover band, Mr. Hand, kept us drinking and dancing all the way until the 2:00am curfew. We hopped back on the CATA and headed back home - our goal was to be out tailgating by 10:00am the next morning, and it was time to get to bed! At the Rathskeller:


On Saturday morning, we woke up around 8:30am - the forecast was still a gloomy one, so most of us chose not to go to too much trouble to get fixed up for the day. I showered to wash off the beer from the night before, and we were out the door a little after 10:00am. I chose not to bring my umbrella so I wouldn't have to hang onto it...but what I definitely didn't consider bringing and very much regretted in retrospect were my sunglasses! The sun was out, it was warm and there wasn't a raincloud in sight. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled that the day was turning out to be a beautiful one, but anyone who knows me knows that not having my sunglasses on a sunny day is very painful for my eyes. Once again, we took the CATA, this time all the way to the stadium and the RV parking lot next to it. This was a nice drive through campus, and we got to see the "Lion's Den," as well as a bunch of classroom buildings. It took us a while to find Matt's cousin, who had recently purchased an RV and invited us to his tailgate for the day. The tailgate area was muddy from the night before, so I was definitely glad I had just worn some old flip flops instead of the cute boots I had thought about bringing. We started drinking and eating immediately, which made what hangovers we had fade away in no time. Hair of the dog in action!

We wandered to a few other tailgates and eventually found some nice Alabama fans (with an Auburn fan no less!) who were getting ready to turn on the Auburn/Mississippi State game. We had definitely found our spot for the next few hours! In addition to the food we had gotten at our own tailgate, our new friends also offered us drinks and food. Oh, the joys of college football and how I have missed this! At halftime of our game, we made our way back over to the Penn State tailgate and decided those of us who didn't have tickets to the Alabama/Penn State game yet would try to find some to buy off a scalper around the stadium. The walk out of the RV parking area to the stadium was approximately a mile, but in that time we did actually find someone selling tickets for just a little over face value, so we scooped them up and headed into the stadium. The Penn State fans were pretty amused at the Auburn fans in town cheering for them, and the Alabama fans were unimpressed. Mission accomplished.


Beaver Stadium is a massive stadium with a capacity of nearly 108,000 - almost 20,000 more than Jordan-Hare on Auburn's campus holds. And it was LOUD! Penn State had designated this as one of their "white out" games, where everyone in the stadium wears white. It makes for a pretty impressive shot on TV - and on my camera:


We had great seats near the 20-yard line, and even though Penn State choked and let Alabama roll over them with a big win, just being at a college football game was lots of fun! After the game, cell phone service was sporadic at best, so we had just decided to meet everyone back at the tailgate, where we refilled on cheeseburgers, sausage and beer. If everyone was half as tired as I was, we would have all be totally fine to go straight home and to bed, but this was the only night we had left in State College, so we were not going to nap it away! We made a rather long trek from the RV parking, past the stadium and the Joe Paterno statue all the way to the downtown bar area.


This time, we went to the Phyrst, which normally has an amazing band called Phyrst Family playing on Saturday nights according to our friends. The line at the door was monstrous, but within 20-30 minutes we were in. For some reason, this Saturday a random band was playing, but they were still a lot of fun. There were long wooden tables that we could hardly walk between - it had a definite beer hall vibe, with lots of dark German lagers on tap. We spent the next several hours drinking and dancing the night away!

Miraculously, the rain managed to hold off the entire weekend until right as we were leaving Phyrst - not bad timing...but if it had only held off for another 15 minutes! We were drenched by the time we got onto the CATA and headed home. I took a quick shower to get the tailgate mud off my feet, and hit the sack in complete exhaustion. I definitely enjoyed the gameday experience at Penn State, but I still don't think Auburn's gameday atmosphere can be touched. Perhaps I am biased, but I just think the layout of Auburn's campus (admittedly much smaller than Penn State's of course) and the many special traditions we have absolutely make it the best! Penn State felt more like an NFL game - there were really no cheers or callbacks provided from the band, and most of the stadium stayed seated for the entire game. Auburn is the total opposite, and I much prefer our gameday to Penn State's. But we still had tons of fun. :)

We had decided to get an early start the next morning and be back on the road by 9:00am, and somehow we were all up and somewhat-ready to go at 9 on the dot! We were all dragging - hungover and still desperate for sleep - but it was good to go ahead and be getting back into the city early. We stopped at a Subway for breakfast and were back at Newark Airport shortly before 1:30pm - another uneventful drive that took just over four hours once again. We returned the rental car and then hopped on the AirTrain (apparently the AirTrain is free going from the airport back to the NJ Transit), and approximately an hour later I was back home on my couch watching some recorded football games from the day before and drifting in and out of consciousness. Now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

My trip:

"WE ARE! PENN STATE!" - Penn State cheer, heard ad nauseum this weekend!

Miles Traveled Today: 474
Total Miles Traveled: 24, 100