I'm really excited for pt. 3 of this road trip.

I wasn't going to write a blog post until tomorrow (y'know, AFTER we actually see the Grand Canyon) but a lot happened today.

I got up at about 7 this morning, but my dad woke up at 6, so we were out on the road by 8am (after eating IHOP, of course)

Since it wasn't that long of a drive from ABQQ to where we're staying (Williams, AZ - about an hour away from the Grand Canyon), we had time for some detours. First we stopped on the side of the highway when we saw lava-rock fields so I could pick up a few of them (natural igneous rock? Yes please).  Then we stopped off at the Petrified Forest National Park, which also had the painted desert in it.  It was really pretty:

Now, I like to travel in comfort, so this morning I was still in my pajamas because I didn't know we were stopping anywhere, and of course my dad took a picture before I had changed:

I did eventually change though, and therefore had to take a super-girl picture:

(I love that pose)

So it turns out, petrified trees/wood is wood that has turned to stone by soaking up stuff and all that (you can read all about that process here) and you couldn't take any from the actual park, but they did have private sellers selling some, and I got a really colorful piece.  Before that though, I did take a picture on one of the big tree trunk/stone things:

I got a bunch of awesome stuff too:

(My wood/rock + info on it, 2 postcards, a National 

park passport,and 3 different maps)

Closer look at my wood/rock:

It's got blue/purple, orange/red/brown, white/clear (quartz)

and black in it, making it the most colorful piece I saw.

After the petrified forest, we stopped at the Meteor Crater, which was really pretty awesome:

They estimated the meteor to be about 150ft across, traveling at about 40,000mph, which created that hole, only 150 feet deeper (thanks, erosion). I even took a picture with the largest recovered piece of said meteor:

After that, we finally got to Williams, AZ (about an hour outside of the Grand Canyon) and our hotel, ate dinner (and pie, omnomnom) and then came back to the hotel.  On our walk back to the hotel, I got a cowgirl hat for hiking and playing in the Canyon tomorrow:

Not the best picture, but I'm sure there will be plenty tomorrow. I'm rather excited about this hat, because I've never owned anything western or cowboy style except for a costume, and now I have a cowgirl hat!! I'm actually wearing it as I write this post, which I'm sure is a little weird but still...I like this hat. A lot.

So tomorrow we go to the Grand Canyon bright and early, and I'm going to be dressed in my little hikers outfit with my cowgirl hat, and none of my clothing is going to match but it's okay because it'll all help me stay alive (we got cooling technology and sun protection clothing) and I get to wear my new hat! I'm far more excited than I should be about seeing a giant hole in the ground and getting a new hat, but that's okay.

Until tomorrow (probably), 

-Panda:)

7/4/12 - Road Trip pt. 2

Alright, so I last wrote before the bat flight.

The bat flight was cool, but totally underwhelming.  There weren't nearly as many bats as we had hoped for, and they were a lot smaller than we thought, so it was really hard to see them.  We blame the noisy crowd, as did the park ranger who was there.

The next day we drove through Roswell, NM to Albuquerque.  Roswell was actually a decently sized town, and had a lot of alien shops, but we didn't go see where whatever-it-was crashed, because we wanted to get to Albuquerque.  When we got to our hotel in ABQQ (it's too long to spell every time, so I shortened it) we settled in and then dad went to go get the oil changed at the local Toyota dealer while I stayed at the hotel and a) watched shows because I'm boring and b) looked for a place to eat dinner.  I chose a French restaurant, where I had this crepe:

(Basically, spinach with cheese and garlic. Omnomnom)

...and then we split this crepe:

(Crepe Suzette, an orange-y delight)

After dinner, I went swing dancing!! However, I have learned my lesson to do my own research on when and where there is swing dancing rather than just listening to my dad....he found the west coast scene....I don't know west coast very well....but the people were nice!! I did manage to find about 3 other people who knew lindy hop who weren't bad, and I danced through the west coast for a few hours before heading back to the hotel and passing out.

Today, we went up to Sandia Peak.  We took a tram up to an elevation of over 10,000 feet, and when we got up there we were going to hike around, but when we realized that due to living in Florida and rarely coming above sea level, the air was way too thin and neither of us was breathing well enough for any real exertion.  So we did this instead:

(Me, getting on a mountain bike)

Or, well, we tried to.  See, it had been so long since either of us had ridden a bike, that when we got on the super thin, super bumpy trail, I pretty much immediately fell down a small hill (got a nasty bruise on my inside thigh, it hurts to sit down now) and my dad went off the trail twice.  So we took the bikes back (not very far, mind you) and took the ski-lift down instead (we're very lazy people).  It was a half hour ride down and another half hour back up, but at least it was a scenic view.  Case and point:

(The bike trail we didn't take, yes, it was that small)

Yup, super pretty.  So after that, we went to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, where I found a shirt that says "Talk nerdy to me" with a picture of taped glasses.  I wanted that shirt so bad but they didn't have my size in anything but an obnoxious pink color (which we all know I don't like).  So I got a different shirt instead, that makes a reference to the periodic table of elements, which we all know I love (or you should, anyway).  Anyway, the museum had the history of the atomic bomb, and a bunch of information of WWII and radioactive elements.  They didn't have much of the science behind it, which disappointed me a little bit, but it was still really cool.  They even had replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy, and a couple of emptied missiles that had been damaged and never actually detonated.  Along with that, they also had retired bomber planes, including a B-52 (which was totally awesome)

After the museum, we were going to go look at the Petroglyph monuments, but we weren't aware that it was at least an hour and a half walk to any of them, and it looked like a storm was brewing so we didn't manage to go do that.  So we went to a Walgreens in search of a couple of things, and then came back to the hotel so I could eat the rest of my spinach crepe and dad could have (whatever he had) his dinner.  So now I'm sitting here, writing this, waiting for the rest of my laundry to dry and hoping maybe someone will set off fireworks so I can see them from my hotel window, and then packing my stuff so we can head to the Grand Canyon tomorrow (yay!!).

Happy 4th of July!!

-Panda:)

7/2/12 - Road Trip pt. 1

Hello!!

So after my hellacious trip back to Orlando, I had 3 days to unpack, do laundry, and re-pack before heading out on my month-long road trip.  So this past Friday, 6/29, I left with Eden for Texas in his car, and my dad went in his car.  We wound up somewhere in Louisiana the first night at a Holiday Inn Express and slept for a few hours before heading on to Austin.  We traveled for about 7 1/2 hours before we got to Eden's house, where my dad promptly dropped off my suitcase and proceeded to go do who know's what somewhere near Dallas.  So for the rest of the day, Eden showed me around his property and one of his best friends Casey came over and also spent the night there.  Sunday morning, (before my dad picked me up to take me to Carlsbad, NM) Eden, Casey and I went to a place in Austin called Barton Springs.  Beautiful place, and we went hiking and found this place a little ways off the main trail:

Super pretty, right? I thought so too.  We walked and splashed around in there for a while.  There was also a little mini pond-spring thing that we splashed around in and we found a place where a spring was actually bubbling up.  We spent a couple hours wandering around that area before we went back to where my dad was picking me up.

After he picked me up (and after all the good-byes), my dad an I continued on a very scenic route through hills and forests that gave way to desert-rock hills and low bushes and many cactus plants....and very little civilization.....for 8 hours, until we ended up in the little town of Carlsbad, NM, where the only real attraction is their caverns.  So today, my dad got me up at 7am Mountain time to get breakfast and all that and then go explore the Carlsbad caverns, which were really awesome and really cool and totally interesting.  On our way to the caverns we stopped a took a detour of climbing up a desert mountain because we finally found one that didn't have a fence around it...which definitely means we can climb it, right? That, and the caves, was totally awesome.  I really wanted to go explore the other caves, but the guardrails along the pathways were preventing me from doing so :( I could take pictures though!! Which I did a lot of...here's a few of them:

 The mountain opposite of the one we climbed.

 Apparently my dad took a picture of me on the top of the desert mountain =)

 See the car way down there? Yeah we actually went farther up than that. You just couldn't see the car from way up there.

 Mouth of the main cave....ooo scary

 Me in front of one of the first good photo-ops

 We couldn't decide if it looked like broccoli or elongated sea-shells

 Isn't it cool?!

 100 years ago, that wasn't touching :)

 It's a big hunk-a rock

Oh look! I'm in front of another part of a cave!

Tonight, we're going back to the caverns to watch the bat flight.  I can't get any pictures of that, but I'm sure it will be awesome nonetheless.

Until next time,
-Panda:)

6/26/12 - NY pt. 3

Hello again!!

So last Thursday after I posted that blog post, we went dancing. It was a lot of fun, I met a bunch of people, and saw a few that I hadn't seen in a while (since Focus).  We left a little early (11:30ish) because we were tired and falling over, but it was still really awesome.

Friday (I think) we walked around and had dinner with Ava, but I think that was one of our more lazy do-nothing days because we were tired from dancing (and oversleeping) the night before, so it was pretty uneventful.

Saturday, on the other hand, was pretty great.  We went to the Mermaid parade on Coney Island, and I swear some people there just wanted to scar me for life.  We saw tons of people dressed up, and in pretty revealing costumes too.  The parade was pretty cool, but we couldn't stay for long.  It was hot and humid and just drew the energy right out of us.  I wish I had known we were going to do that, I would've brought a bathing suit and we could've gone to the beach and relaxed for a while.

Sunday was even better, simply because it was the Gay Pride parade and I took a tap class with Michelle Dorrance.  I saw a lot of crazy and outrageous (but totally awesome) costumes at the gay pride parade, and a lot of motorcyles....which I totally wanted.  There was even this one guy with one of those fruit-headdress things, and he dressed up his poodle which he put on a stroller behind him.  It was so cute.
The tap class with Michelle Dorrance was so much fun.  We started off the class improv-ing both with and without music in a circle one at a time, and let me tell you, there were some awesome people in that class.  We worked on different restrictions, like one time we could only use our heels or we absolutely had to count what we were doing out-loud.  Surprisingly, that was the hardest one for almost everyone because everyone wanted a syncopated beat.  Then we worked on pull-backs, and I learned some new things having to do with them, but I don't really know how to describe it without showing it, so maybe I'll post a video when I get it down really well.  Then we worked on super fast shuffles and nerve-taps, and she gave us tips on both of those having to do with how to make your ankle more relaxed and how to keep it that way so you can actually do the really fast nerve-taps.  Then for the last half hour or so of class she taught us a combination that was pretty much all drags.  Surprisingly, no one fell.  I was impressed.  It was fun though, so I'm definitely not complaining.

Monday I left NYC....or tried to, anyway.  This is going to be an interesting story.

So.

I wake up at 2:30am in order to leave for the airport by 3.  I get there on time and all that, and I'm at my gate.  But I'm flying stand-by. So. They call my name, which means someone didn't show up for the flight and I was getting on.  I was the 5th name called out of 6, which was supposed to mean there were 6 free spots on the plane, right?

Nope.

The 6th name called was Georgia Brown. This woman decided that she wasn't going to go up until the last minute, when they rushed five people onto the plane.  I was supposed to be that 5th person, because my name was called 5th.  But Miss Georgia Brown apparently absolutely HAD to be on that plane, so she stepped in front of me as they started ushering people in.  I was seriously about to wreak havoc, but you know I thought they were putting 6 people on so I was okay with it.  Then I got to the threshold and they said there were only 5 seats open.  I tried to explain what just happened to them, and they said since she had already gotten on the walkway there was nothing they could do.

Needless to say, I was pissed.

So next they told me they would put me on the stand-by lists for both the next Milwaukee and the next Atlanta flights, and that I would be first since I was supposed to get on the first plane anyway.

Didn't happen. They only put me on the Milwaukee list, AND I was at the bottom of the list. By the time I realized that, it was too late.  So the moved me to the Atlanta stand-by list...at the bottom.  Very last one.  Wanna know what number in line I was? 51.  FIFTY. FREAKING. ONE. So I was like, no. That's not happening. They were over-booked on Atlanta flights until Friday, which means there was a good chance I wasn't going to make it out of the airport until AT LEAST Tuesday night. Owch. That just wasn't going to happen, no way was I staying in an airport over-night or more. Uh-uh. No way.

So I call up my parents. I'm flipping out, because I just don't want to be there. My respiratory system is shot (probably from the pollution, but we can't be sure.  It may just be me being a sick-y), and at this point I just want to go home. They try to get me on a flight, but can't find a ticket under $350 from LaGuardia, which is just not happening. So then we decide I'd take a bus down to D.C., and from there fly down from Ronald Reagan.  Well then my dad found a cheaper flight from the JFK airport down to Orlando at 8 Monday night.....needless to say, I took it.  So I spent 3 more hours at an airport instead of 30, which I was okay with in hindsight. Not only that, but since my boarding pass printed without a seat assignment, the lady at the counter by the gate upgraded me to first class for free (it might have been because I probably looked like I'd been through hell, but I'm not sure). It was awesome.  TV in the back of the seat in front of me, more leg room than I knew what to do with, and food. Lots of food. It was fabulous.

So I finally got home at about 12:30....and passed out. Because remember, I had been up since 2:30 that morning, and I couldn't sleep in the airport or on the plane, it just wasn't going to happen, AND it had been a super-stressful day.  So I passed out, woke up at 9ish, had lunch with my mom and then passed out again until about 4:45.

But I'm home now!! Going to go see Brave tonight with my mother and brother, shopping for the month-long trip I'm about to take with my dad tomorrow morning, lunch with Grandma, and then hanging out with those awesome dancer people I love so much tomorrow evening before I pick Eden up from the airport.  Then I leave Saturday (maybe Friday, it depends on how much those dancer people will kill me if I don't stay an extra night.....)

The next blog post will be while I'm on the road (probably), so it will probably be coming from my phone, so it'll be shorter...and not about New York, and not very detailed.  Hopefully I'll have internet somewhere so I can write an actual post, but until then...yeah, you get the idea.

-Panda:)

6/21/12 (NY...part 2)

Hi again!!

So we never actually went to the botanical gardens....because they're more expensive on weekends.  We were going to go Tuesday when they were free, but Eden was feeling sick, so we stayed in most of the day.

We did, however, go to Times Square.  We walked past Radio City Music Hall (<3) and into Rockefeller plaza, where we just kinda hung out and walked around a little bit.  It was actually really romantic and beautiful.  There are pictures, but I'm too lazy to actually upload them, so maybe later...when I'm not really lazy and being boring.

Sunday night (I think) we walked along the Hudson river and found some fireflies.  I totally didn't know those existed in New York City, I really thought they were just in the mountain areas, but that proved me wrong, obviously.  Eden had two on his finger by the time we got to this restaurant called "The Cowgirl Sea-Horse"...I was confused, but they made it work.  Let me tell you, they had the best mashed potatoes I have ever had, oh my goodness.  I'm kind of craving them just thinking about them now.  Om nom nom...

Anyway.  Monday I took a tap class with Ray Hesselink (www.rayhesselink.com) who is seriously awesome.  I haven't actually taken a tap class in over a year, and his class made me realize how much I miss it.  It was more rhythm tap, and really fast. I loved it.  It felt so good to be back in my tap shoes for more than a couple minutes, it was fabulous.  I'm taking another class on Sunday, but this time with Michelle Dorrance.

Tuesday, like I said, we just took it easy because Eden was starting to feel sick (he's feeling better now though).  Yesterday (Wednesday) was really awesome.  We went to this diner called Moonstruck Diner for breakfast, and it was seriously yummy.  I had blueberry pancakes.  Omnomnom, seriously.  After that we went and finished getting ready for a dancing photoshoot we booked ourselves with a photographer that Ava and Leon know.  So then we went to Central Park on the 2nd hottest day of the week (the first being today) and danced.  In dark, heavy clothing.  Outside. Oy.  It was tons of fun though, there will be pictures from said shoot in a few days =)

After the shoot, we came back to the apartment thoroughly tired and sweaty, and had only a few minutes to rest and clean up before going to dinner with Ava.  We went to this Asian place because Eden was dead set on trying sushi.  I definitely did not partake in the sushi part, but they said it was delicious.  I had chicken instead, because seafood makes me squeemish.  After dinner is my favorite part.  We went and saw the show STOMP, at the Orpheum theater.  I've seen it and the movie version before, but it was still amazing.  Thoroughly entertaining, and Eden said he thought it was amazing.  I would love to be in that show....and I got my playbill signed by two of the performers =D It was very comedic, especially the newspaper part...it kind of had me in tears I was laughing so hard.

So that's so far.....tonight we're going swing dancing, just like my first night here.  I'm really excited, since I should actually be awake enough and not jet-lagged so I can actually dance well and for a while! Yay!!

This may or may not be my last post actually in NYC, but it's definitely not the last you'll hear about it.

'Til next time,
-Panda:)

6/16/12 -- NYC (pt. 1)

So this is my official first post, and it's going to be all about what I've done in New York City so far!!

So.  I got here Thursday afternoon at about 3pm, because my first flight (at 6:40 in the morning -_-) was delayed because they overbooked it. So they stuck me on a plane to Milwaukee 3 hours later, and I had less than half an hour to get to my next flight from Milwaukee to NYC.  Woo. I made it though yay! Here are some pictures from my flight from Milwaukee to NYC:

                                       (About to go over Lake Michigan. Huge lake, holy crap)

                                               (Yay Manhattan! Future home I love you<3)

After Eden picked me up from the airport, the very first thing we did was go to the apartment we were staying at....and take a nap.  After 2 flights, both just over 2 hours each, I was dead freaking tired, but on the way to the apartment, I saw this:

Yes, to those of you who have seen the Avengers movie (if you haven't, go see it.  Seriously. It's amazing) that is indeed what is referenced periodically.  I found this rather amusing, and was rather excited about it. 

After our nap, we went to dinner with Eden's mom's friends Ava and Leon.  Those two are so cool, just saying.  We went to this Indian restaurant, and if I hadn't left both my phone and camera at the apartment like an idiot there would be pictures of this restaurant.  They had ridiculously colorful (with an emphasis on red) Christmas light hanging from the center of the ceiling and then down across to connect to the wall.  You couldn't see the ceiling it was so covered.  It was literally a tent of Christmas lights.  Also, if it's someone's birthday they turn off all the Christmas light and turn on one of those colorful disco ball things and this strange happy birthday song.  The food was really good too, it was awesome.  After that we went swing dancing, and it was so much fun.  There's a lot of really good dancers here, but no sense of unity like there is back in Orlando, at least not that I could see.

Yesterday (Friday), we woke up kinda late, and then went to Central Park.  I've been to New York so many times, but I've never seen Central Park.  So we walked through there a little bit, and then went to the Museum of Natural History.  They had a mineral room there, and I swear we spent over an hour in that room because it was absolutely fascinating (to me, anyway).  Instead of just listing what the mineral was, they organized them into groups like sulfides, phosphates and oxides, and gave the chemical formula for each one and some information on each group and it was just amazing.  It was like chemistry-fan-geek-overload in there for me.  I think Eden rather enjoyed watching me geek out all over the place.

For lunch we had NY pizza....yum. I'm pretty sure my favorite will always be legit white pizza.  So good. Yum. Then for dinner we went to "Hummus Place", which is really close to the apartment.  We had this tomato/cucumber/olive oil/lemon juice/cilantro/salt/purple-onion-things salad and hummus with tahini sauce on it.  So yummy, I'm going to start craving that salad, like for real.

After that is my favorite part so far.  We went to go get ice cream....but not just any ice cream, oh no.  We went to this place around the corner called "The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop"....I swear to you that's what it's called. Here's the website for proof that it exists: http://biggayicecream.com/

There was a huge line outside, so we figured it had to be amazing.  It was the best ice cream I have ever had.  We had the Monday Sundae, which is a cone lined with nutella, and then swirled chocolate/vanilla soft serve, topped with caramel, sea salt, and whipped cream.  Holy crap.  It was so good. I have a feeling I will now always be putting caramel, sea salt, and nutella on my ice cream.  Seriously, if you're ever in New York you absolutely have to try it. Also, inside they had a mural of a unicorn, which I of course took a picture with:

I thought that was pretty fantastic. 

So that's it so far, the agenda for today is Botanical Gardens and Times Square tonight, because Eden has been here for 6 days and still hasn't seen Times Square.  I'm pretty sure that's a crime.  Just saying.

See you next blog post,

-Panda:)

6/11/2012

So this summer I'm taking a bunch of trips.  Really it's just two rather major ones, but since I'm going so many places I like to consider it multiple trips.  This upcoming Thursday (6/14), I'll be flying up to New York City (YAY!) for 11 days.  That's going to be awesome, simply because NYC is pretty much my favorite place on the face of the planet and I fully intend on moving there later.


Of course the adventures don't end there, oh no.  After I get back from NY I leave almost immediately for my trip around the country....literally, around.  Through Texas over to Carlsbad, NM over to the Grand Canyon and Vegas, up the west coast of California, through San Fran., through Oregon, up to Seattle (where I get to kayak and maybe see some orcas!! Yay!), then across through Idaho and Montana (including Yellowstone of course) to the Dakota's and Michigan, seeing the Great Lakes, and coming back down to lil' ole' Florida through Chicago and Atlanta.  That will supposedly take 25 days, according to my dad.  Yeah, right. I think it'll take longer, but we'll see.  Here's a picture of our route for that trip:

Yeah, it's ridiculous.  Supposedly, that's exactly 129 hours and 2 minutes of driving.  Had to throw that 2 minutes in there.  I'll probably fail, but I'm going to keep a stop watch, and time from when we leave the outskirts of one location to when we reach the outskirts of the next.  I will probably screw it up at some point, but I want to see how accurate that is.  I think I can manage it somewhat.  


Anyway, next time you see this I will *probably* be in NYC with someone awesome =) So, I will submit a post at a later date. Thanks for adventuring with me!


-"Panda"