A Little Poem by Jessica Gillett...my childhood friend:)

Lizards are green.
They have teeth.
They don't brush them.
That's why they stink.

Chicago February 2010---1000...986 to go!

On Christmas, I receive a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I didn’t have any idea why I would be getting them from my friend’s husband!!! It turns out that he had the most thoughtful idea to purchase me a plane ticket to Chicago for Stacie’s Christmas gift.  As soon as I got them, I was supposed to let Stacie know…I hope she wasn’t too disappointed when she got her gift news.  I decided that since I live in burning hot Florida I was going to visit as soon as possible so I could take advantage of the freezing cold Chicago weather.  I went in February to visit.

I checked into the Jacksonville airport, got through security, and hung out a little looking around in the shops.  I went to my gate to wait to board.  I wanted to get organized by putting my driver’s license away, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I started looking for it everywhere. I looked in the bathrooms, in the shops, where I bought coffee.  I went to security and they looked through every single little bin.  No one had turned it in to lost and found.   At this point I had to call Kent to overnight my passport to Stacie’s house. Someone must have stolen it.  I had every intention of hitting the bar scene in Chicago and this was definitely going to put a damper on those plans.  Oh well!

Stacie picked me up at the airport and we stayed in downtown Chicago at a hotel.  Stacie was using her little technology device to help her navigate us to the hotel, but somehow we ended up on an underground road and the device was not recognizing where we were so we ended up going in a few circles. At this point we were running very late to our first 1000 places stop, The Second City. Our stupid key was not working to the hotel room and Stacie had to keep running downstairs to get the key remade.  Finally, after realizing that our hotel room had two doors and the key only worked on the one that we were not at, we got in, changed, hit the concierge bar and caught a cab. 

The great thing about going to Second City with Stace is that we grew up LOVING Chris Farley….”Brothers don’t shake hands, brothers gotta hug!!!”  I still say shnykies all the time.  Tommy Boy was our favorite.  It was really cool being able to share this experience with Stace.  Stacie and I did laugh and loved the comedy show.   It wasn’t Chris Farley but still funny. 

After the show, we went to the strip of bars, but I could only get into one without my i.d.  It was a cool place and it had food so I was happy.  Stace and I got to catch up on everything and we met some really drunk Scottish guy that had really bad breath.  It was fun. 

The next day we did most of our Chicago site seeing. We walked around Millennium Park for awhile.  We went to the Art Institute of Chicago.  There is so much to see there...it would take four entire days to actually get though all the art there.  We went to the Magnificent Mile. Then we went to her house to meet up with Ken and pick up the girls, Madeline and Bridget.  Even though Woodland, Illinois is not on the 1000 places to see, I think it should be.  Groundhog Day is my favorite movie of all time and this is where it was filmed.  This was my favorite part of the whole trip besides taco night!

This is where Bill Murray and Andie Macdowell danced!



Uh Hello?! One of the places Phil (Bill Murray) committed suicide!!



At Ken and Stacie's house after we picked up the girls, I had my first Chicago Style Pizza and it was deee-licious!!

Unfortunately, I was there such a short time that I didn't get to do all of the Chicago 1000 Places.  So watch out Stace...I will be coming again.  It looks like June is the best time to come with all the Chicago festivities.

10.  Chicago Comedy Scene  (The Second City)


11.  Millennium Park



12.  Magnificent Mile


13.  The Art Institute of Chicago

God this jacket makes me look pregnant and my head looks REALLY small!  Time for a new one!

14.  Chicago Style Pizza

Maybe it's really the pizza that makes me look pregnant!!

How do I approach this?

So my waitress' zipper is down. What do I do? Kent says to just tell her...but how do I discretely do this. Should I whisper, come right out and say it out loud, pull her aside, or tell her at my table?

I mean, the zipper is at my eye level. I can't stop staring at it!

I've been forgetting to pull my zipper up lately too. I got a pedicure the other day and my zipper was down the whole time. So I feel for her.

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Enhanced Photo!

Back to the orb picture...


I couldn't deny that there was maybe some paranormal activity going on here. Some "top notch forensic work with some of the most advanced enhancement software on the market" was done on this photo and they discovered there was a little more evidence of paranormal energy.  Here is what they found...

Can you believe it?  Thank you David and Kent for helping take a glimpse into the other side!
Next time, can you please fix up my hair a little bit, it's looking very flat!!  And maybe add some lipstick:)

South Dakota or Bust *** on the Slopes!! 1000...991 to go!

 So I’m gonna be skipping around on my trips a little bit.  I just posted my Florida January 2010 trip and now I’m jumping to my South Dakota March 2011 ski trip.  (There are a few that I’ll catch you up on later.) 

            I will start by saying that we somehow managed to coordinate four couple’s schedules to meet in Rapid City, South Dakota.  We rented a log cabin outside a little town called Lead, South Dakota.  The cabin was awesome…heated floors, beautiful kitchen, hot tub, and one little tiny tv with no cable. 

We arrived Thursday afternoon into Rapid City, SD and as soon as I heard there was an On the Border, I knew that I had to fight for the right to eat there.  It was totally worth it.  The rita’s hit the spot and normal tex-mex food was awesome, but I have to admit…thanks to Brandon, this OTB stop was the beginning of a very smelly week.

The next morning we hit Terry Peak for our first day of skiing/snowboarding.  We all took lessons…it would have been disastrous if we hadn’t. By the end of day we were all getting the hang of it, except Brandon.  Maybe it was his stomach problems that were hindering his snowboarding abilities.  So anyways, we all had a good, fun first day of being on the slopes.  Too bad we didn’t get a good group picture at the beautiful Terry Peak. 

(By the way, I was so totally cool snowboarding!!) (Oh, and pretend there isn't a trash can in the background!)

The next day was site seeing…even though a few of us weren’t near as thrilled about this as I was.  We hit Crazy Horse first, then I begged the group to go to Custer State Park. There was a tad bit of tension because some of the group didn’t want to participate in my 1000 Place adventure of getting pictures.  After Crazy Horse, I begged the group to go the mere 5 miles to Custer State Park.  After getting my pic in front of the Custer State Park sign, somehow we ended up taking the scenic way to Mount Rushmore.  It was gonna take longer but there was a good chance of seeing bison.  After an hour and half (even though it could have taken just 30 min), two people getting car sick, and A LOT of griping, not seeing ANY bison, sour cream and onion potato chips fragrance…we hit a road closed sign just 7 miles from being at Mount Rushmore.  I had minor panic attack.  I thought we were going to have to drive all the way back on the same….long….windy road.  In the end, we took the risk of taking a county road that wasn’t maintained so it had a lot of snow and ice all over it.  Thanks Adam for driving through that mess!!!  We finally made it to Mount Rushmore!

Check out our “group” picture!

That night we went the Mardi Gras celebration in Deadwood.  We decided to draw straws to see who was designated driver...I'm always the lucky one...of course I picked the short one.  So I drove...in the scary snowy, iced roads.  I was so nervous about driving, but it ended up being fine.  That night there were a lot of beads, gambling, and partying going on.

We went to Mystic Miner (Deer Mountain) the next day for our second day on skiing. This day wasn't so great.  Kent dislocated his shoulder. It sucked...for Kent.  We had to go to the hospital.  There was a tiny fracture too.  He's fine though.  This is when cable...or internet would have come in real handy.  There wasn't much for Kent to do after the injury. 

About an hour before the injury!

The last day in South Dakota we all grouped up and went our separate ways.  Some went skiing again, some went to the casinos, some went to see the Wild Bill and Calamity Jane's gravesites,and the girls went to Sturgis and a few other fun spots. 

6.  Crazy Horse/Mount Rushmore

7.  Custer State Park

8.  Deadwood

9.  Sturgis

I'm Ready!

So I'm finally ready to share my pink hair...this was my real hair...not extensions...

Btw, I purposely picked the matching ponytail holder. 

Overall, it wasn't quite the look I was going for.  My friend, Kristin, asked me what I really wanted from doing this and my answer was I just wanted to feel young and carefree again.  It didn't work.  The pink honestly wasn't all that bad, I just felt like it wasn't me...I'm not punk...not yet at least. 

Maybe I need to start a little smaller...

Maybe with a piercing...

We'll see.

Eyebrow??

Nose??

Armpit??

1000 Places...Orlando---5 Down...995 to go!!

Orlando January 13-15 2010

So Bridge and I decided to meet in Orlando.  I was getting off work late Wednesday night on the 13th of January 2010.  I drove until about 2:30am to meet Bridge at the hotel.  I decided that we were not going to waste the next day by sleeping in.  All I needed in the morning was good coffee and I’d be fine.

                Let me start by saying that I had been asking Bridge for the hotel info for a week for the purpose of printing out good maps so we knew where we were going, but she didn’t ever give me the info. So, we started early the next morning to head out to Cape Canaveral.  We knew we needed coffee before we could do anything.  Bridgett talks me out of getting directions from the hotel and instead we will just get directions off her Iphone.  This was my first mistake.  Forty five minutes later and about 11 u-turns (literally) we still had no Starbucks…I was panicking.  She kept telling me to turn left and I would start getting in the left lane, then she would start telling me...no, I mean right, so I would do the 3 lane change or pass the turn....then do a u-turn.  This whole thing went on for what felt like forever.  It finally dawned on me that homey (Bridgett) doesn't know her right from left. I’m serious!!!  This was the big problem when she is the one navigating the party van(I use to drive a Honda Odyssey).  She kept telling me to take a left...but she really meant right.

Once I got food and coffee and I gave Bridge a little left/right lesson we finally reached Cape Canaveral.  The Kennedy Space Center was okay…we got to see the Endeavor on the launch pad which was pretty cool. Toured the facility and learned crap I didn’t know, blah blah blah.  It was definitely worth seeing.

On the 2^nd day, January 14^th, we went to see the manatees at in Florida's Natural Springs (Blue Springs).  It was so awesome!  We went on this tour of the river where we learned all about manatees.  We saw two bald eagles, one of which was swooping down in the river to catch it's prey.  Our tour guide was so cool and he mentioned that it was nice having people our age on the tour (everyone else on the tour was at least 40 years older than us).  Bridge and I loved it. In the spring there were about 150 manatees trying to stay warm.  They head to the springs when the river is too cold for them.  I have to say it was my favorite part of the trip.

After Blue Springs, we went to Mount Dora for lunch.  It was a cute little shopping town. Then we went to get a psychic reading at the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp.  Man those people are weird.  My psychic told me that Kent was going to cheat on me!!  What a weirdo?!  Who tells people that?  Bridge’s psychic gave her about 15 names of people that she was going to meet in the future. Gimmee a break!!  I really wish I had gone and written down everything that mine told me, but it was all pretty bogus.  The only thing that was kind of funny is that in one of the pics that bridge and I took in front of the camp I swear there is a huge orb. Maybe we would have had better luck if we went to mediums instead of psychics.

At the end of the day, Bridge and I met up with Jeff (her bf) and went and had a few drinks and dinner at hard rock.  We discussed our plans for going and driving cars at Daytona in the morning and then heading to Universal.  Well, needless to say the Hard Rock “hit” at about 2:30 in the morning and lasted until about 5am. I canceled on going to Daytona but met up with them for lunch and Universal where I made the mistake of going on the Superman ride and sent my stomach back into fits again.

I have probably been to Orlando between 10-15 times.  I end up doing Disney every single time because I love it but I had no idea there were so many other really cool things to see.  I still have to go back and do the Daytona cars, but I’m sure that Kent would love doing that with me.

Orlando Area 1000 Places Checklist

1.  Kennedy Space Center-- Cape Canaveral

2.  Florida Natural Springs--Blue Springs Manatees

3.  Mount Dora (Check out the orb on the porch to the right of Bridge's head!!)

4.  Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp (Check out the orb on the porch to the right of Bridge's head!!)



5.  Disneyworld Universal Studios/Treasure Island

5 Down...995 to go!!