Happy Holidays!
Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and a wonderful new year!
-Yzerbear
Friday, December 14, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
"I think I'm going to Boston . . . " Trip Report
Well we made it to Massachusetts and back though the trip literally almost didn’t get off the ground. Our flight was suppose to leave Detroit Sunday morning at 9:40 am, but just as we were going to lift up, the pilot put on the brakes and we came to a stop on the runway, which we knew wasn't a good sign. The pilots aborted the takeoff due to a mechanical issue. We sat on the runway for a bit before getting the OK to come back to the gate. After conversing with the mechanics they decided to deboard us and get us a new plane. We finally took off about noon. It was a good flight after we made it into the air! And all of our luggage made it with us, which was something we were worried about when we had to get a new plane.
Once we landed in New Hampshire we got the rental car without any hassles and headed for Danvers, MA. We were exhausted and hungry. We stopped for lunch at a Crackle Barrel, not thinking that it was a Sunday and they would be busy. The wait wasn’t too bad. The food was OK. After that we hit the road once more. We were getting really drowsy from the Dramamine by this point. We made it to the hotel and checked it. We unpacked the car then took a nice long nap. We were suppose to go to Salem, but found that napping was better. We got dinner from Burger King before going back to relax some more.
On Monday we woke up refreshed and ready to go. We had breakfast at IHOP. We don’t have many of those where we live, so it was really good. I had Pumpkin Pancakes while my sister had Pigs in a Blanket. Everything was very good. Then we drove to Salem where are first stop was the Salem Wax Museum and Witch Village. Both of these were OK. They did allow photos, which was cool, but there needed to be more. After that we went to the House of Seven Gables, which inspired the Nathaniel Hawthorne book of the same name. It was fun and interesting. I don't like that you can't take any pictures inside of the building, but we did get lots of pictures of the outside. While we were waiting for our tour to start a pretty fluffy kitty wandered up to us. We were missing our kitties, so it was nice to play with him. After our tour of the house and getting lots of outdoor shots we got some candies from the candy story, Ye Olde Pepper Companie, across the street, which were really good. They claim to be the oldest candy company in the United States.
We also stopped by the Visitor Center that is run by the National Park Service. Our last stop in Salem for the day was the Salem Witch Musuem. This was really neat. They didn’t allow photography, but the “show” was really interesting and fun. Very nice gift shop. Overall we had accomplished everything we had planned for Sunday as well as Monday. So we were back on track.
On Tuesday we drove to Concord, MA. We went to the battleground there, Minute Man National Historical Park. The show at the visitor center was really cool. When we watched it, there was a tour bus full of British people, which made for some interesting jokes. They need to put in more monuments or something, because walking the trails was kind of boring after a while. We ended up skipping a few of the stops and just went to the North Bridge. We wanted to see Ralph Waldo Emerson's house, but it was closed. We did get some pictures of it from the outside though. We also stopped by Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where we saw Emerson's, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's graves. We told Thoreau what we really thought of Walden. We had lunch at the cafe at the North Bridge visitor center. It was OK. Strange set up though. I think this was the night we had dinner at Unos. I love Chicago style pizza. YUM! Though I like Gino's from Chicago better.
On Wednesday we went back to Salem and went to the Pirate Museum, Witch History Museum, and Witch Dungeon Museum. I enjoyed all three. Our tour guide for the Pirate one was really funny. I liked that I could take pictures inside. We ate at Boston Hot Dogs in Salem. They were good, but I think I like Koegels better. The buns were interesting. Ordering the hot dogs was a bit intimidating, with all the signs telling you how to order. I think we had Quiznos for dinner. We also did had pictures taken at the Salem Vintage photography store at the Museum Place Mall. They take your pictures dressed up as a witch or warlock. It was fun. There are some neat pictures.
On Thursday we drove up to York, ME. We went to a few of the historical buildings. Quite a few of them were closed or needed appointments, so we just skipped them. We did go to the Old Gaol where I thought for sure I was going to twist my ankle on those darn creepy stairs. After that we drove up Route 1A along the coast. We had lunch at a restaurant called the Lobster Cove. My sister got lobster tail. She said it was OK, but that shrimp is better. After that we continued driving along the coast. We finally found a spot where you could get down to the beach. We then went and frolicked in the ocean. That was fun. It was cold, but after a while I didn't even notice. We hadn't planned on playing in the ocean so we didn’t take a towel or anything with us. My sister had her Crocs on and I wished I had some instead of my tennis shoes and socks. It was awesome. We were surprised to find people surfing there. We drove along some more to the lighthouse, which is the hip place for all the elderly people to go. We got a bunch of pictures. I was hoping to get something there for our one brother who loves lighthouses, but the gift shop was closed. After that we headed back to MA. I forgot to get the directions back to MA. I remembered most of the steps, but missed the one fork. We ended up going a ways out of our way, but we eventually got back. Since I had gotten us "lost" I had to buy my sister an ice cream desert from Friendly's. We both got Friendzs, which are like Dairy Queen Blizzards. We then returned to the hotel. A little while later after freshening up and changing we went to Salem for the Happening Halloween parade. It was OK. We only stayed for a little while. We wanted to leave before traffic got too bad. We had dinner at Applebees, where our waitress didn't even give us silverware. She was gone most of the time. We heard her comment once about how she just wanted to hurry up and leave. It seemed she was more concerned with that than her customers. She didn't get a good tip!
On Friday we drove to Salem to use the Commuter rail to Boston. The parking lot was confusing. Then we couldn't figure out where you buy the tickets. We finally found someone who told us that you just get them on the train. Once on the train saw behind these two girls who talked like the people on the "The Hills" and spent the entire ride gossiping about people. It was quite irritating. After that we managed to find the Metro and took that to Park station to start the Freedom Trail. The Robert Shaw memorial for the 54th MA regiment was really cool. Though the sun was in a bad spot to get a good shot of it. It was really hot on Friday. The walk along the Freedom Trail was miserable in that heat. The sites were really cool, I just wish the temp had been cooler. We ate lunch at Cheers at Fanieul (sp?) Hall. We walked over to the bridge to see the USS Constitution, but didn't go see the Bunker Hill Memorial up close. We did a few shots of it from a distance. We took the water shuttle back. The ferry that came didn't look very sea worthy to me, I thought for sure we were going to sink. We made it though I don't know how. After that we made it back to the station to catch the commuter rail back to Salem. We were happy to find the rental car still in the parking lot. After that we did some last minute shopping before going back to Danvers. We had to pack so we ordered Dominos, which is never my favorite, but it was on our hotel keys. It was OK. It was something to eat while we packed.
On Saturday we got up at 8:00 and went to breakfast at IHOP again since we don't have many around where we live. The Pumpkin pancakes are so good. It was quite busy on Saturday. I used up all the change I had for the tip so I wouldn't have to worry about it at the airport. We then went back to the hotel and watched American Gladiators on ESPN Classic. I remember watching it as a child, and we don't have ESPN Classic at home, so we watched that until 11:00 when we had to check out. Since it was suppose to be an hour drive up to Manchester, we decided to go find the Witch Trial memorial in Danvers. After that we went to Best Buy to kill some more time. It was noon then so we decided to just start heading up to Manchester and maybe have enough time to grab lunch on the way. We had to be at the airport by 2:00. It took nearly 2 hours to get to Manchester. We were averaging 20 MPH on the highway. There was no construction, no accidents, nothing to warrant such a traffic jam. I've been in worse traffic on I-75 heading "Up North" during the summer that moved faster. It was very irriating. We ended up stopping at McDonalds and had to eat quickly so that we could get the rental car back on time. Getting through security was easy. We were the only two people. The one TSA officer was impressed how fast we went through. We're used to going through Detroit Metro where you have to be fast. After that we sat by the gate and waited for the plane to arrive. And we prayed we got a pilot who knew how to take off! There were no problems with take off out of Manchester other than we had to sit on the runway for about 10 minutes because of lots of traffic in Detroit. It was a good flight back. I love looking out the window and seeing the clouds below. There were some cool cloud mounds. Our brother was waiting at baggage claim for us. He then bought us dinner from KFC and had a bottle of Pepsi in his fridge waiting for us. He's such a nice brother.
On Sunday we drove home from our brother's house. We got stuck in traffic on I-75 just south of Grand Blanc. They had to close the entire northbound section due to an accident. We were routed onto Dixie Hwy, which sort of freaked my sister out because she thought we were lost, but I knew where we were. After that it was a smooth ride home. It was nice to sleep in our own beds again and to play with our kitties who seemed to have missed us. It was a fun trip. Glad to be home.
Once we landed in New Hampshire we got the rental car without any hassles and headed for Danvers, MA. We were exhausted and hungry. We stopped for lunch at a Crackle Barrel, not thinking that it was a Sunday and they would be busy. The wait wasn’t too bad. The food was OK. After that we hit the road once more. We were getting really drowsy from the Dramamine by this point. We made it to the hotel and checked it. We unpacked the car then took a nice long nap. We were suppose to go to Salem, but found that napping was better. We got dinner from Burger King before going back to relax some more.
On Monday we woke up refreshed and ready to go. We had breakfast at IHOP. We don’t have many of those where we live, so it was really good. I had Pumpkin Pancakes while my sister had Pigs in a Blanket. Everything was very good. Then we drove to Salem where are first stop was the Salem Wax Museum and Witch Village. Both of these were OK. They did allow photos, which was cool, but there needed to be more. After that we went to the House of Seven Gables, which inspired the Nathaniel Hawthorne book of the same name. It was fun and interesting. I don't like that you can't take any pictures inside of the building, but we did get lots of pictures of the outside. While we were waiting for our tour to start a pretty fluffy kitty wandered up to us. We were missing our kitties, so it was nice to play with him. After our tour of the house and getting lots of outdoor shots we got some candies from the candy story, Ye Olde Pepper Companie, across the street, which were really good. They claim to be the oldest candy company in the United States.
We also stopped by the Visitor Center that is run by the National Park Service. Our last stop in Salem for the day was the Salem Witch Musuem. This was really neat. They didn’t allow photography, but the “show” was really interesting and fun. Very nice gift shop. Overall we had accomplished everything we had planned for Sunday as well as Monday. So we were back on track.
On Tuesday we drove to Concord, MA. We went to the battleground there, Minute Man National Historical Park. The show at the visitor center was really cool. When we watched it, there was a tour bus full of British people, which made for some interesting jokes. They need to put in more monuments or something, because walking the trails was kind of boring after a while. We ended up skipping a few of the stops and just went to the North Bridge. We wanted to see Ralph Waldo Emerson's house, but it was closed. We did get some pictures of it from the outside though. We also stopped by Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where we saw Emerson's, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's graves. We told Thoreau what we really thought of Walden. We had lunch at the cafe at the North Bridge visitor center. It was OK. Strange set up though. I think this was the night we had dinner at Unos. I love Chicago style pizza. YUM! Though I like Gino's from Chicago better.
On Wednesday we went back to Salem and went to the Pirate Museum, Witch History Museum, and Witch Dungeon Museum. I enjoyed all three. Our tour guide for the Pirate one was really funny. I liked that I could take pictures inside. We ate at Boston Hot Dogs in Salem. They were good, but I think I like Koegels better. The buns were interesting. Ordering the hot dogs was a bit intimidating, with all the signs telling you how to order. I think we had Quiznos for dinner. We also did had pictures taken at the Salem Vintage photography store at the Museum Place Mall. They take your pictures dressed up as a witch or warlock. It was fun. There are some neat pictures.
On Thursday we drove up to York, ME. We went to a few of the historical buildings. Quite a few of them were closed or needed appointments, so we just skipped them. We did go to the Old Gaol where I thought for sure I was going to twist my ankle on those darn creepy stairs. After that we drove up Route 1A along the coast. We had lunch at a restaurant called the Lobster Cove. My sister got lobster tail. She said it was OK, but that shrimp is better. After that we continued driving along the coast. We finally found a spot where you could get down to the beach. We then went and frolicked in the ocean. That was fun. It was cold, but after a while I didn't even notice. We hadn't planned on playing in the ocean so we didn’t take a towel or anything with us. My sister had her Crocs on and I wished I had some instead of my tennis shoes and socks. It was awesome. We were surprised to find people surfing there. We drove along some more to the lighthouse, which is the hip place for all the elderly people to go. We got a bunch of pictures. I was hoping to get something there for our one brother who loves lighthouses, but the gift shop was closed. After that we headed back to MA. I forgot to get the directions back to MA. I remembered most of the steps, but missed the one fork. We ended up going a ways out of our way, but we eventually got back. Since I had gotten us "lost" I had to buy my sister an ice cream desert from Friendly's. We both got Friendzs, which are like Dairy Queen Blizzards. We then returned to the hotel. A little while later after freshening up and changing we went to Salem for the Happening Halloween parade. It was OK. We only stayed for a little while. We wanted to leave before traffic got too bad. We had dinner at Applebees, where our waitress didn't even give us silverware. She was gone most of the time. We heard her comment once about how she just wanted to hurry up and leave. It seemed she was more concerned with that than her customers. She didn't get a good tip!
On Friday we drove to Salem to use the Commuter rail to Boston. The parking lot was confusing. Then we couldn't figure out where you buy the tickets. We finally found someone who told us that you just get them on the train. Once on the train saw behind these two girls who talked like the people on the "The Hills" and spent the entire ride gossiping about people. It was quite irritating. After that we managed to find the Metro and took that to Park station to start the Freedom Trail. The Robert Shaw memorial for the 54th MA regiment was really cool. Though the sun was in a bad spot to get a good shot of it. It was really hot on Friday. The walk along the Freedom Trail was miserable in that heat. The sites were really cool, I just wish the temp had been cooler. We ate lunch at Cheers at Fanieul (sp?) Hall. We walked over to the bridge to see the USS Constitution, but didn't go see the Bunker Hill Memorial up close. We did a few shots of it from a distance. We took the water shuttle back. The ferry that came didn't look very sea worthy to me, I thought for sure we were going to sink. We made it though I don't know how. After that we made it back to the station to catch the commuter rail back to Salem. We were happy to find the rental car still in the parking lot. After that we did some last minute shopping before going back to Danvers. We had to pack so we ordered Dominos, which is never my favorite, but it was on our hotel keys. It was OK. It was something to eat while we packed.
On Saturday we got up at 8:00 and went to breakfast at IHOP again since we don't have many around where we live. The Pumpkin pancakes are so good. It was quite busy on Saturday. I used up all the change I had for the tip so I wouldn't have to worry about it at the airport. We then went back to the hotel and watched American Gladiators on ESPN Classic. I remember watching it as a child, and we don't have ESPN Classic at home, so we watched that until 11:00 when we had to check out. Since it was suppose to be an hour drive up to Manchester, we decided to go find the Witch Trial memorial in Danvers. After that we went to Best Buy to kill some more time. It was noon then so we decided to just start heading up to Manchester and maybe have enough time to grab lunch on the way. We had to be at the airport by 2:00. It took nearly 2 hours to get to Manchester. We were averaging 20 MPH on the highway. There was no construction, no accidents, nothing to warrant such a traffic jam. I've been in worse traffic on I-75 heading "Up North" during the summer that moved faster. It was very irriating. We ended up stopping at McDonalds and had to eat quickly so that we could get the rental car back on time. Getting through security was easy. We were the only two people. The one TSA officer was impressed how fast we went through. We're used to going through Detroit Metro where you have to be fast. After that we sat by the gate and waited for the plane to arrive. And we prayed we got a pilot who knew how to take off! There were no problems with take off out of Manchester other than we had to sit on the runway for about 10 minutes because of lots of traffic in Detroit. It was a good flight back. I love looking out the window and seeing the clouds below. There were some cool cloud mounds. Our brother was waiting at baggage claim for us. He then bought us dinner from KFC and had a bottle of Pepsi in his fridge waiting for us. He's such a nice brother.
On Sunday we drove home from our brother's house. We got stuck in traffic on I-75 just south of Grand Blanc. They had to close the entire northbound section due to an accident. We were routed onto Dixie Hwy, which sort of freaked my sister out because she thought we were lost, but I knew where we were. After that it was a smooth ride home. It was nice to sleep in our own beds again and to play with our kitties who seemed to have missed us. It was a fun trip. Glad to be home.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Disney World Scrapbook
I'm sure no one really will care, but I FINISHED my Walt Disney World scrapbook!!! YEAH!!! It is 202 pages long!!! It is currently in 3 different books. The Magic Kingdom gets its own book. LOL I'm so glad that its finally done. I was happy that I finished it before SB and I go on another trip. I've been working on creating a site to show my digital scrapbooking and will post a link once its done. Celebrate with me though on finishing my Disney book! :)
-Yzerbear
-Yzerbear
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
June 2007 Chicago Mini Trip Report
It occured to me yesterday, that I never posted my small trip report on our recent Chicago weekend trip.
My sister and I spent Father's day weekend visiting the Windy City!!! Woo-hoo!!! This has got to be one of our favorite places to go. We went to Navy Pier and had lunch at Bubba Gump's, which was excellent as always. After that we did some shopping stopping by Build A Bear and Ryba's Mackinac Island Fudge. Two places we always stop when we are in Chicago. After that we went and checked into our favorite hotel: Best Western River North. After some swimming and relaxing we went shopping!!! Another favorite destination is American Girl Place. After shopping we went back to relax for a bit before going to Gino's East Pizzeria for some Chicago-style deep dish pizza. YUM! We brought some of it home with us. On Saturday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The CSI: Experience was a lot of fun. I love seeing the U-505 submarine. My sister had fun gazing at the Fairy Tale Castle doll house which she wishes could be hers. After that we headed back to Michigan. On Sunday we went to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, MI. It was fun, but the website and brochures made it seem like it was bigger than it was. The balloon ride was my favorite part! My sister had fun in the simulator ride where you can actually go upside. After that we came home. Overall it was fun. The only really downside to the trip was that I lost my case of CDs that had probably 50-60 of my CDs. We have no idea where it fell out of the car at. We called our hotel and Navy Pier and no one turned in anything. Oh well. Some of them needed replaced anyways. And they can be replaced, but it still has me a bit bummed out.
I will try to upload some of the photos later.
My sister and I spent Father's day weekend visiting the Windy City!!! Woo-hoo!!! This has got to be one of our favorite places to go. We went to Navy Pier and had lunch at Bubba Gump's, which was excellent as always. After that we did some shopping stopping by Build A Bear and Ryba's Mackinac Island Fudge. Two places we always stop when we are in Chicago. After that we went and checked into our favorite hotel: Best Western River North. After some swimming and relaxing we went shopping!!! Another favorite destination is American Girl Place. After shopping we went back to relax for a bit before going to Gino's East Pizzeria for some Chicago-style deep dish pizza. YUM! We brought some of it home with us. On Saturday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. The CSI: Experience was a lot of fun. I love seeing the U-505 submarine. My sister had fun gazing at the Fairy Tale Castle doll house which she wishes could be hers. After that we headed back to Michigan. On Sunday we went to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, MI. It was fun, but the website and brochures made it seem like it was bigger than it was. The balloon ride was my favorite part! My sister had fun in the simulator ride where you can actually go upside. After that we came home. Overall it was fun. The only really downside to the trip was that I lost my case of CDs that had probably 50-60 of my CDs. We have no idea where it fell out of the car at. We called our hotel and Navy Pier and no one turned in anything. Oh well. Some of them needed replaced anyways. And they can be replaced, but it still has me a bit bummed out.
I will try to upload some of the photos later.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Grand Rapids Great American Scrapbook Convention Trip Report
My sister and I went to the Great American Scrapbook convention in Grand Rapids, MI on Friday and Saturday. This was our first convention and we were a little disappointed. We both expected that there would be more. We spent lots of money though! There were some interesting things, but overall it was kind of disappointing. We only spent an hour there the first day since it was just the two of us and we would go again on Saturday with our sister-in-law.
We did decide to go to the crop on Friday night. This was also a first time experience for us. We were shocked to see people bringing in 5 or 6 large totes with stuff. It seemed some brought everything but the kitchen sink. We felt very inadequate because I only brought what we would need to minimize the amount of luggage we were taking. We each has specific pages to work on and got done the pages we had brought to work on. There was one group of people who brought a ton of stuff, but I don't think we saw them work on a single page the entire 3 hours we were there. There were a few interesting items in the goodie bag they handed out so we both felt we got our money's worth.
Saturday was sort of chaotic since my oldest brother and his wife were going to meet us in the morning and we would go to the convention with her while he would wait at our hotel for our other brother who was driving from Detroit to go to a concert with us on Saturday night. My oldest brother and his wife left later then they said they were going to. We had got up early to go to breakfast, etc and be ready by the time they got there. We ended up going back to the hotel and napping after breakfast at Bob Evans. BTW, the Banana Pecan Caramel waffles at Bob Evans are AWESOME! So once they showed up the three of us left. Well my one brother decided since the other said he would be there about noon, that he would go get a bite to eat. So while at the convention brother #2 calls asking where #1 is. Well brother #2 is hungry so I gave him some directions to some food and shopping that we had found the day before that wasn't too far from the hotel. Brother #1 calls about 20 minutes later and asks if #2 has shown up. Oy. And neither of them has the other one's cell phone number, so I'm stuck in the middle. We finish up at the convention and go back to the hotel. Brother #1 is there and about 15 minutes later, #2 shows up. Brother #1 and his wife leave after chatting for about 20 minutes, so we chat with #2 for a while then go to lunch.
We ended up at Fazoli's and in the parking lot next to the restaurant was some sort of shady dealings. It was really strange and very odd and involved a car. Very weird.
We went back then to the hotel and went swimming. There were 5 kids in the pool with the oldest being no more than 13 or 14 and not one adult anywhere to be seen. The littlest one was probably 3 or 4 and no one was watching him. He was jumping in and out of the pool, nearly hitting his head on the side at least twice that I saw. The mother finally came down and had the kids get out. We had thought about going to tell someone at the front desk, but after they left it looked like they knew the person at the front desk. I was just shocked that someone would let their kids go swimming without any supervision. I felt especially bad for the little boy because no one cared what he was doing. He could have run out one of the open doors to the outside and into the parking lot and I don't think any of those kids would have noticed. We were happy once they left because we then had the pool to ourselves.
After swimming and the hot tub we went up to the room to change and get ready for the concert. :) It was Triple Play Concert: Collective Soul, LIVE, and the Counting Crows. I've seen LIVE 2 times before and the Counting Crows 6 or 7 times before, so I knew it was going to be good.
Collective Soul was OK. They only played for 45 minutes though, but they didn't play the ONE song I wanted to hear. The ones that they did play were good, but they left out my favorite one. Oh well.
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/CS1.jpg
LIVE totally rocked. The way the concert was set up was the stage was set up at Second base and they had part of the infield set up so that you could go down and watch the concert from there. It was all general admission so you could go down and watch for a bit then go find a seat or whatever. We went down to the "pit" for some of LIVE. The best was when the lead singer, Ed, took off his shirt for "Lakini's Juice."
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/LIVE7.jpg
The Counting Crows were amazing!!! We went down for "Mr. Jones" which is my FAVORITE song. Adam looked GREAT! He was a lot heavier last year when we seen them in Detroit. He messed up "Long December," which provided an amusing moment. Their new song they played was soooo awesome, I wish it was November!!! :)
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/Crows1.jpg
After it was over we were out of the stadium and back at our hotel in under 15 minutes. I got some decent photos and I fully intend to do some layouts. I think the "RockStar" Stack from DCWV would be perfect! :)
The rest of my concert pics can be found here:
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/
This morning my sister and I got up early and went swimming before breakfast, which was really nice because for part of the time we had it all to ourselves. We had breakfast at IHOP. Then brother #2 helped us load up the car and we checked out. He headed back for Detroit, but we headed for a mall in Grand Rapids to go to Build A Bear since i had $20 gift certificates to spend there. After that though we headed home.
It was fun. On Friday we did go and find Pages in Time in Jenison, MI. WOW! What an awesome store. My sister spent $50 pretty quickly on Disney stuff . They had one of the best selection of Disney stuff that I've seen, much more than any of the stores in our area. We were going to go to Scrap, Scribble 'n' Stick, but decided not to because we didn't want to be tempted with spending more. If we ever go back to Grand Rapids, we are definitely going to Pages in Time, though it was a bit confusing to find.
OK. That is my lovely little trip report, with probably way more information than you wanted to know! ;) Woud I go again to the Great American Scrapbook Convention - maybe, but probably only for one day and not both days. We didn't do any of the classes, but if we were go again we might do one or two of those.
It was a fun weekend overall. :thumbsup2 Scrapbooking and excellent music, who could ask for a better weekend!
We did decide to go to the crop on Friday night. This was also a first time experience for us. We were shocked to see people bringing in 5 or 6 large totes with stuff. It seemed some brought everything but the kitchen sink. We felt very inadequate because I only brought what we would need to minimize the amount of luggage we were taking. We each has specific pages to work on and got done the pages we had brought to work on. There was one group of people who brought a ton of stuff, but I don't think we saw them work on a single page the entire 3 hours we were there. There were a few interesting items in the goodie bag they handed out so we both felt we got our money's worth.
Saturday was sort of chaotic since my oldest brother and his wife were going to meet us in the morning and we would go to the convention with her while he would wait at our hotel for our other brother who was driving from Detroit to go to a concert with us on Saturday night. My oldest brother and his wife left later then they said they were going to. We had got up early to go to breakfast, etc and be ready by the time they got there. We ended up going back to the hotel and napping after breakfast at Bob Evans. BTW, the Banana Pecan Caramel waffles at Bob Evans are AWESOME! So once they showed up the three of us left. Well my one brother decided since the other said he would be there about noon, that he would go get a bite to eat. So while at the convention brother #2 calls asking where #1 is. Well brother #2 is hungry so I gave him some directions to some food and shopping that we had found the day before that wasn't too far from the hotel. Brother #1 calls about 20 minutes later and asks if #2 has shown up. Oy. And neither of them has the other one's cell phone number, so I'm stuck in the middle. We finish up at the convention and go back to the hotel. Brother #1 is there and about 15 minutes later, #2 shows up. Brother #1 and his wife leave after chatting for about 20 minutes, so we chat with #2 for a while then go to lunch.
We ended up at Fazoli's and in the parking lot next to the restaurant was some sort of shady dealings. It was really strange and very odd and involved a car. Very weird.
We went back then to the hotel and went swimming. There were 5 kids in the pool with the oldest being no more than 13 or 14 and not one adult anywhere to be seen. The littlest one was probably 3 or 4 and no one was watching him. He was jumping in and out of the pool, nearly hitting his head on the side at least twice that I saw. The mother finally came down and had the kids get out. We had thought about going to tell someone at the front desk, but after they left it looked like they knew the person at the front desk. I was just shocked that someone would let their kids go swimming without any supervision. I felt especially bad for the little boy because no one cared what he was doing. He could have run out one of the open doors to the outside and into the parking lot and I don't think any of those kids would have noticed. We were happy once they left because we then had the pool to ourselves.
After swimming and the hot tub we went up to the room to change and get ready for the concert. :) It was Triple Play Concert: Collective Soul, LIVE, and the Counting Crows. I've seen LIVE 2 times before and the Counting Crows 6 or 7 times before, so I knew it was going to be good.
Collective Soul was OK. They only played for 45 minutes though, but they didn't play the ONE song I wanted to hear. The ones that they did play were good, but they left out my favorite one. Oh well.
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/CS1.jpg
LIVE totally rocked. The way the concert was set up was the stage was set up at Second base and they had part of the infield set up so that you could go down and watch the concert from there. It was all general admission so you could go down and watch for a bit then go find a seat or whatever. We went down to the "pit" for some of LIVE. The best was when the lead singer, Ed, took off his shirt for "Lakini's Juice."
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/LIVE7.jpg
The Counting Crows were amazing!!! We went down for "Mr. Jones" which is my FAVORITE song. Adam looked GREAT! He was a lot heavier last year when we seen them in Detroit. He messed up "Long December," which provided an amusing moment. Their new song they played was soooo awesome, I wish it was November!!! :)
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/Crows1.jpg
After it was over we were out of the stadium and back at our hotel in under 15 minutes. I got some decent photos and I fully intend to do some layouts. I think the "RockStar" Stack from DCWV would be perfect! :)
The rest of my concert pics can be found here:
http://members.aol.com/Yzerbear19/Concert/
This morning my sister and I got up early and went swimming before breakfast, which was really nice because for part of the time we had it all to ourselves. We had breakfast at IHOP. Then brother #2 helped us load up the car and we checked out. He headed back for Detroit, but we headed for a mall in Grand Rapids to go to Build A Bear since i had $20 gift certificates to spend there. After that though we headed home.
It was fun. On Friday we did go and find Pages in Time in Jenison, MI. WOW! What an awesome store. My sister spent $50 pretty quickly on Disney stuff . They had one of the best selection of Disney stuff that I've seen, much more than any of the stores in our area. We were going to go to Scrap, Scribble 'n' Stick, but decided not to because we didn't want to be tempted with spending more. If we ever go back to Grand Rapids, we are definitely going to Pages in Time, though it was a bit confusing to find.
OK. That is my lovely little trip report, with probably way more information than you wanted to know! ;) Woud I go again to the Great American Scrapbook Convention - maybe, but probably only for one day and not both days. We didn't do any of the classes, but if we were go again we might do one or two of those.
It was a fun weekend overall. :thumbsup2 Scrapbooking and excellent music, who could ask for a better weekend!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Digital Scrapbooking
Since I never really use my blog for anything other than some random updates, I decided I'm going to include some of my digital scrapbooking pages that I've done, so look for updates on those to come in the near future. :)
Thursday, June 07, 2007
June Update
I sort of forgot that I even have a blog! LOL I haven't updated it in so long. We had a blast in Orlando at Disney World. We stayed at Disney's Pop Century Resort, which was a blast. The theme there is split up into the different decades from the 1950s - 1990s. Our room was in the 1980s. It was such a magical trip and ShannyBear had an amazing birthday.
In April we went to Gettysburg for my birthday. I posted my trip report with all the fun and exciting details so be sure to read it, even though its quite long.
Next we will be heading to the Windy City for a weekend getaway.
In April we went to Gettysburg for my birthday. I posted my trip report with all the fun and exciting details so be sure to read it, even though its quite long.
Next we will be heading to the Windy City for a weekend getaway.
Gettysburg Trip Report
For my birthday this year I decided I wanted to go back to Gettysburg, PA because I wasn’t happy that we only photographed 28% of the monuments and only 3 Michigan monuments when we went in June 2006. That just seemed unacceptable. So the plans were made. We decided to go Saturday – Tuesday, but would leave our house on Friday afternoon to go down to our brother’s house in Detroit so that we could leave from there on Saturday morning.
The Buick
On Friday morning we were to go pick up the rental car from our local airport. I got a really great deal from National. Since my sister is now 25 years old we were going to add her to the rental agreement. Before our Orlando trip I signed up for the Emerald Club with national that one of the benefits of being a member is that any immediate family member who resides within the same household can be added to the agreement for free. This is perfect since we live together and she is an immediate family member. I called national and emailed them before we got there to confirm this because I wanted to make sure I understood everything correctly. We get to the rental location and they say that only spouses are allowed. Though I have in writing from National that she can be added as per the rules of the Emerald Club. They continue to get us grief over this. We decide that we won’t add her and are thinking we can finally be on our way.
We go out to find the car they had given us and it’s some Suzuki small SUV. I have no idea what it is. Well that won’t work. First of all we’re going to Pennsylvania and through the mountains and second of all I have never, ever driven an SUV, small or large. I don’t like driving in the mountains to begin with and definitely not in something I’m completely unfamiliar with. So we go back inside to see if they have anything else since we had reserved an intermediate CAR. The person working the counter thinks she has a Malibu out there, but it will need to be cleaned. That’s fine by me; I can wait while they clean it. She comes back in 10 minutes. The person who turned the car in didn’t tell them that there was a dent and a small crack in the windshield. So it’s back to the Suzuki. At this point I’m pleading with her to see what else she has. I’ll wait for however long it takes because the last thing I want is that Suzuki. I know. I’m a picky customer. She looks around and says that they have a Buick LaSabre, but that is a “premium” which would cost extra, but she manages to give it to us at the same rate as the SUV. Yeah! We now have something that I’m familiar with and comfortable driving. Though it is a Buick. ;)
Heading to Detroit
So I finally get on the road and go to work until 2:00. My mom was nice enough to pick up my sister and drop her off where I work so that I wouldn’t have to run all the way home to get her. So we’re off in the Buick! Woo-hoo! We stop for lunch at A&W’s. My sister had corn dog nuggets. A very strange and unusual food if you ask me. I had just a cheeseburger. And sadly this trip we were really bad about taking pictures of our food. After that we were back on our way heading to Detroit. Surprisingly enough there wasn’t much traffic heading south.
The first place we stayed was Great Lakes Crossing. We wanted to take some small Michigan flags with us to put at the Michigan monuments and there was supposed to be an Alamo flag store in Great Lakes Crossing. Well there was a jewelry store where the flag store had been located the last time I was there, which had probably been a year or so. You don’t go somewhere for a while and they change it all around! So we are walking down the one wing looking for a map of the mall when my sister sees a store with Michigan products in it. Its called something like “Love from Michigan” or something. So we go in to see if maybe they have some small, Michigan flags. We found them at the back of the store, but they were $4 each! That’s a tad expensive IMO. We decided to buy just 3-one for a monument of her choice, one for my choice, and one we would agree together on and the rest would get USA flags.
So with our mission somewhat complete we head to Barnes and Nobles in Rochester Hills! This is probably my favorite B&N on the planet since they have a large selection of used books for reasonable prices, sometimes-even $1!!! We hadn’t been there in a while so we found lots of good stuff. I ended up with 8 paperback books for $23, but used a $10 gift card my brother gave me and only actually spent $13. Not a bad deal. I think my sister got 4 or 5. After that we went to a dollar store where we found some USA flags. There were 6 in a package for $1 so we got 2 packages to make sure we had enough flags for all the MI monuments.
After that we went to Wal-Mart to get some last minute supplies and a couple of the things that we had left at home. Once we were done shopping it was time to go to our brother’s house. The only traffic we encountered on our journey so far was getting to his house since it was now after 5:00 pm and people were out of work. We make it to our brother’s house without being too late and the three of us go to dinner. We told him to pick where he wanted to and we went to National Coney Island. I’ve never been there and was a bit concerned since I do not eat Coney dogs, but he said they have other things besides Coney dogs. He ordered chicken quesadillas, my sister had her usual chicken tenders, and I had a chicken pita like sandwich that was surprisingly quite good. Our brother who is known as “the good brother,” paid for our dinners. Then we went to Dairy Queen to get some desert since we don’t have a Dairy Queen where we live anymore. We each got a blizzard. I can’t remember what they each got but I got Oreo Cheesecake, which was strange. It was Oreo cookies with cheesecake bits. When we get back to our brother’s house we all relax and start watching Simpson DVDs until its time for bed since we have to be up early the next morning to leave for Gettysburg.
We’re On Our Way
We got up early the next morning and managed to repack the car quite quickly. Normally I tell my sister one time and she is ready about a half hour after that. We leave pretty much on time. We stop for gas, ice, and breakfast before getting on I-94. Normally for every other trip we’ve taken we get stuck in traffic on I-94 heading to Detroit, but by some miracle there was almost nobody on the highway! And it was Saturday! In fact we didn’t encounter much traffic anywhere along the way.
It’s a pretty uneventful trip. We stopped for lunch along the Pennsylvania turnpike. We ended up making it to Gettysburg in 8.5 hours. We kind of took a different route than the first time we went. We stayed on the turnpike longer and got off near Shippensburg then took a series of other roads to I-81 then to Chambersburg Road (30).
Arriving in Gettysburg
Once we reached Chambersburg Road we knew the way to our hotel, The Quality Inn at General Lee’s Headquarters, since we had stayed there before. We checked in without any problems. The person at the front desk was very friendly and helpful. She gave us quite a few brochures and maps. In our room all of towels in the bathroom were knocked over onto the sink! That was kind of odd. Everything else looked nice and to be in order. We unpacked the car and rested for a few minutes before we decided to go explore the town a little. One of the things that we wanted to do while in Gettysburg was a Ghost Tour. We had decided that we wanted to go with Mark Nesbit’s Ghosts of Gettysburg Tours since it was seen on Unsolved Mysteries, The History Channel, A&E, and many others, which means it has to be good, right? We wanted to go get our tickets then go get something to eat for dinner. Using one of the maps that we got from the front desk we are trying to navigate the streets of Gettysburg. We eventually come up to Lincoln Square, which involves a confusing circle. Luckily we didn’t end up going around and around. We found the street we needed, but I couldn’t remember the exact address for the building, so we drove up and down the road at least twice before finding it. I found it all quite funny for some reason. We go in and get our tickets for the Seminary Ridge tour since that is pretty much across the street from our hotel. On our way back to the hotel we stop at Pizza Hut for dinner since we knew how to get back to our hotel then. We had a medium cheese only pizza and breadsticks. It was OK. Probably should have stayed in the oven a minute or so longer. After that we went back to our hotel for a little while, made some phone calls to let everyone back home know we made it safely to our destination.
Ghosts of Gettysburg
About 8:00 pm we walked over to the point where our ghost tour was going to leave from. Our tour was suppose to leave at 8:15, but we see another group of people leave and are concerned that our group is leaving us behind, but it was just another group. We took a few pictures before the tour started. There is one that is very strange. There is a strange yellow orb by my feet that wasn’t there and isn’t in the other photos. We didn’t see this until we downloaded them when we got back. Very spooky! There were quite a few people in our group and we start our tour! Its pretty clear that our tour guide has a thing for General Reynolds. She kept referring to him as “tall, dark, and handsome.” Some of the stories are interesting, but I question a few of the “facts” she gave. I randomly snap some pictures at the one building, which was used, as a hospital. There again are some strange spots in the photos that aren’t in all of them and not always in the same place. Very weird. After the tour is over we head back over to our hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s battlefield tour.
A Three-Hour Tour
We Got up early on Sunday, ate breakfast in our hotel room, then headed out to begin our “Three Hour Tour” of the battlefield. And the singing/humming of the Gilligan’s Theme starts pretty much from the beginning. Our first stop was the Visitor center. We were a little worried at first when we saw several busses full of school kids. We go in to pick up a map and ask one of the Rangers if they can show us on the map where the Michigan monuments were. We had found 4 last time and I knew where to find 3 more, but there were 3 that we had no idea where they were. The Ranger pulls out this nifty little manual that has all the monuments with maps that shows where each one is positioned. He shows us where all the Michigan ones are and puts little marks on our map so that we can find them. The entire time he was looking at the book I was thinking that it would be a great tool to have and wondering how could I get one.
We then walk across the street to the National Cemetery. This is actual the last tour stop on the route, but I find it easiest to go first since it is directly across from the Visitor’s Center. So with our binder of information in tow we set out to photograph all the monuments at Gettysburg. We entire a problem with the list right away. I had put them in order of street names so it was a little confusing. I was going to put them back in order by state name, but forgot to do it. This was definitely the theme for the trip. I swear we would have forgot our heads if they weren’t attached. So I’m taking the pictures and my sister is walking behind me trying to mark in the book which ones I just took pictures of. I told her not to worry because I could look them up when we got home, again thinking that a book like the Ranger had would be so helpful in our quest. After getting the monuments on the perimeter I seek out to find the Michigan men who are buried there. I sort of remembered where they were, but wasn’t that close! :) We placed a USA flag at the stone for the Michigan men. One of the things that people do at the cemetery is laying pennies on the markers, especially the Kentucky marker which is to mark the spot of the Gettysburg Address. We finished photographing all the monuments in the cemetery. I made sure to get all the sides of the Soldier’s National Monument this time. I was disappointed because they were cleaning the New York monument so I couldn’t get that great of a shot.
We see some more monuments along the road by the cemetery and near the Visitor Center parking. So we photograph those. We then see some more on a hill by the Eisenhower building so we go and photograph those. We eventually make it back to the car. We climb in, roll down the windows, and crank up the Civil War music we had brought with us. We are off! We make our ways without being hit this time to the start of the tour and begin the slow tour of the field. We in our quest to photograph all monuments find ourselves stopping pretty much every 10 feet or so. Good thing we have perfected our drive-by photography. This is an important skill to have for battlefields. And something both driver and passenger should be familiar with! LOL
We finally make our way up to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, which is empty! Yeah! No one is really there. The last time we were there it was hard to get a photograph of it without anyone in the way. I was quite excited. We pose for pictures and walk around a bit just admiring the beauty of it. Shortly after this is the juncture where you can decide if you are doing the two-hour or three-hour tour. We decided we would do the two-hour parts this day and the three-hour parts the next day. Right before the turn for the three-hour part is a small observation tower. Its probably only 3 stories or so tall. Not very big. My sister climbed it last time no problem. Me. I didn’t even try last time. I’ve decided I’m going to be brave. I’m extremely scared of any stairs where I can see the ground, but I’ve decided I’m going to be brave. I made it up to the first landing before my fear of heights stopped me. My sister tried to get me to go up the last flight, but my feet wouldn’t move. So she climbed the rest of the way and I stood where I was. When she was done taking pictures from each side she handed me back the camera and I took a few from where I stood.
After the Observation Tower we continued with our tour. By the time we were done with the first part it was after noon! We had wanted to save lunch for the picnic area, but that was quite a ways off. So since the tour route would take us past our hotel, we decided to stop there go to the bathroom, freshen up a bit, eat lunch then head back. The Quality Inn at General Lee’s Headquarters is kind of cool because each room has windows that you can open. We opened the windows and sat at the table in front and enjoyed a nice lunch of PB&J sandwiches with the breeze drifting in the windows. Overall it was really nice. And the best part was . . . no bugs!!! That’s the worst part of a picnic lunch. So after we finished lunch we made sure we each went to the bathroom because we would be heading for Little Round Top where there really aren’t any bathrooms. And back we go. In case you haven’t figured out yet, our three-hour tour is taking longer than expected! LOL
We head out to see Seminary Ridge. Along south Confederate Avenue are the North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi monuments among others. In fact this is where you will find most of the Confederate monuments. Some interesting information: Gutzon Borglum created North Carolina’s monument in 1929. He is the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore. The Virginia monument was the first monument at Gettysburg from one of the former Confederate states. It was designed by F. William Sievers. At the top is General Lee on Traveler and the men at the bottom represent the various types of men who left behind civil occupations to join the Confederate army. There is a professional man, a mechanic, an artist, a boy, a businessman, a farmer, and a youth. This is one of the most beautiful monuments. It was from this area that Pickett’s now infamous charge was launched
The tour begins to wind its way towards the Round Tops. It is also getting to be mid-afternoon. We continue taking photos of all the monuments we see. I’m feeling pretty good at this point that we should get at least 50% of the monuments. Near Big Round top we stopped and hike up to get photos from two cavalry monuments and nearly fall in the mud while doing so. Further down the road we see some more on the slopes of Big Round top. This time just my sister gets out to hike up there. At the end of this road between the two round tops we see the 20th Maine monument. If you’ve seen the movie Gettysburg you will know who the 20th Maine is. It’s a beautiful monument. There are several ways to get to it. We hike up from this one road. After getting pictures of the front and one of the sides, my sister gets the idea to photograph all the sides, while standing precariously on the edge of Little Round Top. I thought for sure she was going to fall, but luckily she didn’t. We made our way back down the steep embankment.
We know that the 16th Michigan monument isn’t far away, sort of on a ledge on the one side of Little Round top. Last time we had no idea how to get up to it. While walking along the path back towards the 20th Maine after parking at Little Round top we were looking for the monument for Strong Vincent who was wounded at Gettysburg then later died. I spotted it and found a path through the woods to it. We were both very excited to find it. After that my sister thought to see if she could find a path to the 16th Michigan monument. Jackpot! We were able to get to the 16th Michigan and leave one of our USA flags. Yeah! After that we wound our way back to the main road and climbed the slight incline to the summit of Little Round Top. I will add here that it was VERY, VERY windy that day. It felt like you were going to be blown off the mountain. The wind kept blowing my hat off.
On top of Little Round top is this one New York monument that is really neat. Its called the Castle. You can climb up it and get an even better view of the land surrounding Little Round Top. My sister was the only one brave enough to climb it. Again – I’m too chicken! She said she felt that she was going to be blown away from up there. She said that the wind up there was super scary. We both made sure to rub O’Rourke’s nose for good luck. If you go to visit Gettysburg, it is said that rubbing his nose is good luck. It’s also the reason why his nose is shinier than the rest of the monument.
After climbing all over Little Round top and enjoying the views we start to head back to the car. While walking near one of the rock configurations a park Ranger was showing a group of kids a snake in the rocks! EWWW! I quickly walked the other direction. After Little Round Top is where the tour gets confusing. There are roads with monuments on them that aren’t considered part of the tour, lots of one-way roads and forks, and several forks that will take you in different directions. Using the map we had the Ranger mark on, we knew we had to leave the marked tour to find two of the Michigan monuments.
First though was Devil’s Den. We had fun climbing all over the rocks. Some people had climbed the huge rocks and were jumping down from them. That didn’t seem very safe to me.
Back on the road we were able to figure out the road we needed to find the 4th Michigan monument near the Wheatfield. We missed some in the Wheatfield, but I knew we had photographed them last time. After the 4th Michigan we found the 5th Michigan, which was the first one we had found last time. This one got a special Michigan flag. Right across from it is the Irish Brigade monument, which is such a unique and beautiful monument.
We eventually found our way to the Peach Orchard where we found the 3rd Michigan. We ended up finding a whole bunch on these roads that we had missed the first time. They are working to replant the Peach Orchard, so right now there are only baby Peach trees here.
After this we work our way towards the Pennsylvania State Monument, which is huge. Its gorgeous. You can see it from several spots around the battlefield it is so large. It’s a work of art. I was able to get some good photos, without too many people in them. You can climb up to top, which my sister did while I stayed on the ground reading about the monument. I am just amazed at it. Not far from it is 9th Battery-Light Artillery Michigan monument. And again a place where you have to decide if you are doing the two or three hour tour. Since it is getting to be late afternoon and there is still a lot to see we decide to continue with just the two-hour part.
One of the most interesting monuments at Gettysburg is called the High Water Mark monument. It is an open book supported by a stack of cannon balls. This is to mark the “high water mark” of the Confederacy war effort and is near the spot where the furthest point the Confederate army got with Pickett’s charge.
By this point it was getting close to 7:00 pm. The sun was starting to set. And the Amazing Race was on at 8:00. We finished up photographing all the monuments. Though some of the photographs aren’t that great since they were facing east and the sun was directly behind them. We did the best we could though. We have now come to the end of our two hour tour, which in reality was closer to 8.5 hours!!! I have no clue how you are suppose to do it in two hours.
We’re hungry by this point, but we have to be back to the hotel by 8:00 to watch the Amazing Race. This is one of the only shows that we HAVE to watch. We decided that it was only 7:00; we had time for a sit down meal. My brother had gone to a Friendly’s restaurant before and said it was good, so we decided to try it. We got seated right away, but couldn’t decide what we wanted. Our waitress was kind of slow. Didn’t she know that Phil was on!!!! It was very important that we not miss the Amazing Race. I ordered the Turkey Club SuperMelt, which is described as “The classic club taken to a whole new level. Sliced turkey breast, crisp bacon, melted American cheese, tomato and creamy Thousand Island dressing on grilled sourdough bread. “ It was very tasty! My sister ordered the Honey Mustard Chicken Sandwich, minus the cheese, which is described as “crispy strips of chicken breast, melted Cheddar cheese, tomato, shredded lettuce and honey mustard dressing.” She liked it. We both ate pretty quickly because we kept checking the time to make sure we would make it back in time for the Amazing Race. We both ordered a Reese Peanut Butter Cup FRIEND-Z, which is similar to a Dairy Queen Blizzard, though not as good as a Blizzard. We got our FRIEND-Z’s to go though since it was getting close to 8:00. I think we ended up getting back to the hotel by 7:50 pm. Phew! Just in time for the Amazing Race.
After the Amazing Race was over we both relaxed in the room. At some point the one channel was showing the movie A Knights Tale. This is the one movie on the planet that ALWAYS puts me to sleep. My friends and family like to joke about it. I’ve never seen the entire movie. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen the end. The record is 5 minutes in. My sister claims that I was asleep this time before the credits even started. I have no recollection of it even being on! :lol I guess it did the trick again! :)
Thus ends day 2 of our Gettysburg adventure.
Happy Birthday!
We wake up early on Monday, which is my birthday! And another year goes by where my sister has failed to wake me up at 3:00 am, which is the time I was born. She has been threatening to do for years, but always forgets to set the alarm. LOL We got up earlier on Monday that we had on Sunday because we had a ton of places we wanted to see and things to do. We walked over to the main building of the hotel for breakfast. As far as free continental breakfasts goes, this was nothing too special: bagels, English muffins, donuts, cereal, juice, milk, etc. Everything tasted really good though. After finishing breakfast we set out to finish our “three-hour” tour.
We have no trouble with the part by Barlow’s Knoll. Then we headed towards Culp’s Hill. In order to get all the monuments here we ended up going in circles and driving past some of them like 3 times because of all the forks in the roads and one ways. There was one road that went past the Indiana Monument near Spangler’s spring that we never did figure out how to get to since it was a one way and was the opposite direction from where we were. It was kind of fun driving in circles though! I think we got most of the monuments. We didn’t climb the very large observation tower there because it was kind of scary looking. I couldn’t even climb up the little one, there was no way I was going to make it to the top.
So after we are pretty sure that we got all the monuments we could find on Culp’s Hill, we finish the three-hour portion near the Pennsylvania Monument. This morning there is almost no body out touring the battlefield. I was so happy because I was able to get some photos of it without many people. I was also able to get some really nice pictures of the High Water Mark, because the day before there was a group of people with one of the park Rangers that just kept getting in my pictures.
Before we finish our tour we stop in the Visitor Center again to ask for the best way to get to the East Cavalry battlefield, which is about 3 miles east of the main battlefield. The Ranger gives us the direction and we decide to actually stop in the gift shop this time. The day before we didn’t want to spend valuable time in there. Its funny because the previous day I kept thinking that one of those books like the Ranger had would be so helpful in finding all the monuments. And what do you know? We go into the bookstore and there on the shelf is one of the books like the Ranger used to look up the Michigan monuments for us! AHHH. If only I would have gone in there the day before! So we both had a pretty good chuckle over that. We buy a few more items then go back to the car to head to the Cavalry battlefield.
We almost drove past the Cavalry battlefield, but luckily we didn’t. It seems that very few people go out to that part of the park. I think I know why. There is a strong smell of horse droppings out there from some horse farms in the area. And since there was no one else out there it was kind of strange to be the only people. Finding Michigan’s monument was easy. It’s the largest one. It is for the Michigan Cavalry that participated in the fight. Even though Custer is on the top, it’s a pretty cool monument. We took lots of pictures before we couldn’t take much more of the horse smell.
Thus concludes the tour of the battlefield, but not of our adventures.
Exploring Gettysburg
After we finished the battlefield tour we wanted to find the scrapbook store I had located on the Internet. The name of it is Forevermore Scrapbook (http://www.forevermorescrapbooks.com/) We had a vague idea of where it was. We knew it was somewhere on Baltimore Street! LOL We eventually found it and found a place to park along the street. What a neat store! They had so much cool stuff relating to Gettysburg and Washington DC. We spent probably 20 minutes in there looking at all the neat merchandise.
After our short little Scrapbooking shopping spree we had to go pick up the birthday cake my sister ordered from Dunlap’s Restaurant and Bakery. The place was packed with the lunch crowd, but my sister was able to cut to the front of the line and get out of there quickly. The cake was beautiful! It was at this point that we realized we had forgot to bring the candles we bought and the lighter thing to light the candles with. This happened last year too. I told you that forgetting things was the theme of this trip. We then took the cake back to the hotel since we didn’t want it to get ruined. After dropping off the cake we decided to go get lunch before going to the wax museum my sister wanted to go to.
So we decide since we still have a lot to do in not much time that we should stop by one of the fast food restaurants since that would be quicker than a sit down restaurant. We first try KFC. The line is out the door! There apparently is a bus tour group there. OK. We then go down to McDonalds. Again the line is out the door! Unbelievable. We were starting to get a bit discouraged and finally decide General Pickett’s All You Can Eat Buffet. We ate there the last time we were in Gettysburg. It was OK, nothing too great. But we had wanted to go somewhere else, but since all the other restaurants were lined up out the door and it was right there, we decided to give it another try. There was nobody there! Okay, maybe there were a few people, but it was practically empty. The food was OK. I think the salad bar was the best part. For the price it wasn’t bad. And it was quick. The cornbread and carrot cake were both really good.
So now that we have had lunch its time to go to the National Civil War Wax Museum. Its an interesting place. It has 30 different scenes, which help depict the war from the beginning to end. Once you are done with that part you go into this other room where it goes through the entire battle of Gettysburg. I think the most amusing part was at the end when President Abraham Lincoln appears from below and is able to give the Gettysburg Address without moving his mouth! Pretty impressive. :) I was surprised when they sad that photography was allowed since a lot of those kind of museums don’t allow photography at all. So I got pictures of the whole thing. The ones of Lincoln didn’t turn out that great though because of the lighting.
After we were finished here we still wanted to go visit the Boyd’s Bears store that is about 6 miles away because we both love bears! ;) Along the way we see more monuments! We manage to get pictures of a few of them, but will have to get the rest on our way back. The Boyd’s Bear store is HUGE! It’s a giant red barn that is 3 stories tall, plus there is a lower level! There weren’t many people there. The parking lot was kind of empty, but the store was so cute. I loved looking at all the little scenes they had set up with the bears. They are quite expensive though. My sister and I each got a pair of tiny animals from the Noah’s Ark set. I got pandas and she got kangaroos. These were only $5 for the pair. She bought a small Christmas bear and cute little bear ears to wear.
After we were done looking at all the cute little teddy bears and wishing we could bring them all home with us, we headed back to our hotel, stopping along the way to photograph the monuments we saw. I think we annoyed a couple people while doing this, but oh well.
Back at the hotel we decided to relax a little before going to dinner. I took a nice, relaxing bubble bath. Ahh, that was so relaxing and pleasant. After that we both changed for dinner. We ended up going to Dunlap’s Restaurant and Bakery where we got my cake from. We each ordered a steak, fries, and coleslaw. It was really good. The only bad part was halfway through our meal a tour bus stopped in and I don’t think we really saw our waitress after that. After dinner we walked down the street a little ways to photograph a monument we had been trying to get for the last two days because it is between two streets. After successfully photographing it, we saw a dollar store across the street thinking we could get candles there. We get there like 5 minutes before they are going to close. We split up in search of candles and something to light them with. We find both items right as they start turning off the lights. Its only 8:00 pm. Even the restaurant where we ate dinner was going to stop serving food at 8:00. That is so weird to us because where we live most stores and restaurants are open until at least 9:00 or 10:00 on Monday.
We walk back with our purchases to the restaurant where we had left the car. Instead of going right back to the hotel, I decide to drive past the hotel down to this little building along the tour near some monuments to get some pictures of them as the sun is starting to set. The sunsets were so pretty, but hard to photograph, though I did get some photos I was happy with.
After that we went back to the hotel to unwind from our busy day and to pack up everything to leave the next day. About 9:30 we finally decide to have cake. It was really good. It tasted a lot like my mom’s cakes, which were always my favorite growing up. The only downside to this plan is that we just had a ton of sugar right before bed! Needless to say I couldn’t sleep. Where was a Knight’s Tale when you needed it! ;) For some reason I kept thinking about ghosts in our room and kept expecting to see one by my bed. It was strange.
On the Road Again
We got up early again and loaded the car. We ate breakfast in our room. We ended up on the road towards home about 8:00 am. We decided to take the Chambersburg Road (30) all the way to the Turnpike. We were surprised to see so many rundown homes and business along the way. My sister got pictures of some of them. We had no problems getting to the turnpike. At one point we stopped at a toll plaza along the turnpike to use the restrooms. As we were going to leave to get back on there is a construction worker blocking traffic not letting anyone back on the turnpike because there is a slow moving paint crew going past. We ended up sitting there for 15 minutes while all paint crew drove past. It was very irritating. We had no other problems with the Pennsylvania turnpike. We stopped for lunch at a toll plaza in Ohio.
A little ways down the road, my sister looks for the toll ticket because she wants to see something on it. She opens this little drawer in the dash of the car, but the ticket isn’t there! She had put the Pennsylvania turnpike in there without any problems. There was a small gap between the drawer and the rest of the car that it somehow got sucked in. We are now a little panicked because there is no way to get the ticket out without really ripping the drawer off, which we can’t do because it’s a rental car. We stop at the next toll plaza to have a closer look at it to see if there is a way to get it out. I went inside and spoke to one of the employees who contacted one of the booth operators or something who said we would have to pay from the Pennsylvania border to where we got off, which is what we would be charged with the ticket anyways. So that sort of made me a little less nervous and upset. And even if they charged us for the entire length of the turnpike it would have only been $11.
So we get back on the road, feeling a little better, but still a bit worried about when we get off. About 20 miles from the I-75 exit it is pouring rain! It started out as sprinkles, but it got so bad I couldn’t see anything ahead of me. Luckily we were close to a service plaza, so I decided to exit and wait until it let up a little because I didn’t feel safe continuing on the turnpike. Pretty much as soon as we parked it started hailing!!! And its not small hail, its probably the size of a dime or bigger. Luckily this doesn’t last very long. Once the rain starts to let up we ran inside to use the restrooms since we had already stopped. It was still raining once got back on the turnpike, but no nearly as bad as it was. Surprisingly enough there was not one accident after the service plaza that we saw. There were a few cars stopped beneath an overpass.
I was a bit nervous as we approached the tollbooth at the exit for I-75, but we explained what happened to the lady and she was really nice. We only were charged from the PA border to that point, which is what it would have been with the ticket. So by this point we are both feeling a lot better.
It felt good to be back on I-75! Especially crossing the border back into Michigan! Woo-hoo!!! It didn’t take us too long to get to Detroit, though we encountered a lot of traffic near the I-94 interchange because it was about 5:30 now. It took a while to get onto I-94 with the traffic, but not too bad for that time of day. There were some huge puddles of water on the road at certain spots. We finally made it back to our brother’s house about 6:30ish I think. He had already had dinner, so after telling him all about our trip we decide to leave and head for our house.
For some reason my sister opens up the drawer were the turnpike ticket was and out falls a piece of paper that she had used to see if she could get the turnpike ticket. Amazed she closed and opened the drawer probably three more times. And wouldn’t you know that out comes the turnpike ticket! We both turned to each other and laughed hysterically. I had told her when we lost it that it would probably come out when we didn’t need it anymore. We had probably opened and closed it 100 times trying to get it to come out, but it wouldn’t.
We stopped for dinner at Cici’s Pizza, which is a pizza buffet restaurant with a lot of strange pizza combinations. They have lots of advertisements on the TV for it, but there aren’t any in our area. It was OK. The macaroni and cheese pizza was vile and disgusting. Yuck! My sister wanted to try it and for some reason I agreed. I wish I wouldn’t have. Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!
After dinner we finally started north towards home. We finally made it home to our house about 10:00 pm. We were both so happy to be home. Overall it was a fun trip, with plenty of memorable moments that still make us laugh.
The Buick
On Friday morning we were to go pick up the rental car from our local airport. I got a really great deal from National. Since my sister is now 25 years old we were going to add her to the rental agreement. Before our Orlando trip I signed up for the Emerald Club with national that one of the benefits of being a member is that any immediate family member who resides within the same household can be added to the agreement for free. This is perfect since we live together and she is an immediate family member. I called national and emailed them before we got there to confirm this because I wanted to make sure I understood everything correctly. We get to the rental location and they say that only spouses are allowed. Though I have in writing from National that she can be added as per the rules of the Emerald Club. They continue to get us grief over this. We decide that we won’t add her and are thinking we can finally be on our way.
We go out to find the car they had given us and it’s some Suzuki small SUV. I have no idea what it is. Well that won’t work. First of all we’re going to Pennsylvania and through the mountains and second of all I have never, ever driven an SUV, small or large. I don’t like driving in the mountains to begin with and definitely not in something I’m completely unfamiliar with. So we go back inside to see if they have anything else since we had reserved an intermediate CAR. The person working the counter thinks she has a Malibu out there, but it will need to be cleaned. That’s fine by me; I can wait while they clean it. She comes back in 10 minutes. The person who turned the car in didn’t tell them that there was a dent and a small crack in the windshield. So it’s back to the Suzuki. At this point I’m pleading with her to see what else she has. I’ll wait for however long it takes because the last thing I want is that Suzuki. I know. I’m a picky customer. She looks around and says that they have a Buick LaSabre, but that is a “premium” which would cost extra, but she manages to give it to us at the same rate as the SUV. Yeah! We now have something that I’m familiar with and comfortable driving. Though it is a Buick. ;)
Heading to Detroit
So I finally get on the road and go to work until 2:00. My mom was nice enough to pick up my sister and drop her off where I work so that I wouldn’t have to run all the way home to get her. So we’re off in the Buick! Woo-hoo! We stop for lunch at A&W’s. My sister had corn dog nuggets. A very strange and unusual food if you ask me. I had just a cheeseburger. And sadly this trip we were really bad about taking pictures of our food. After that we were back on our way heading to Detroit. Surprisingly enough there wasn’t much traffic heading south.
The first place we stayed was Great Lakes Crossing. We wanted to take some small Michigan flags with us to put at the Michigan monuments and there was supposed to be an Alamo flag store in Great Lakes Crossing. Well there was a jewelry store where the flag store had been located the last time I was there, which had probably been a year or so. You don’t go somewhere for a while and they change it all around! So we are walking down the one wing looking for a map of the mall when my sister sees a store with Michigan products in it. Its called something like “Love from Michigan” or something. So we go in to see if maybe they have some small, Michigan flags. We found them at the back of the store, but they were $4 each! That’s a tad expensive IMO. We decided to buy just 3-one for a monument of her choice, one for my choice, and one we would agree together on and the rest would get USA flags.
So with our mission somewhat complete we head to Barnes and Nobles in Rochester Hills! This is probably my favorite B&N on the planet since they have a large selection of used books for reasonable prices, sometimes-even $1!!! We hadn’t been there in a while so we found lots of good stuff. I ended up with 8 paperback books for $23, but used a $10 gift card my brother gave me and only actually spent $13. Not a bad deal. I think my sister got 4 or 5. After that we went to a dollar store where we found some USA flags. There were 6 in a package for $1 so we got 2 packages to make sure we had enough flags for all the MI monuments.
After that we went to Wal-Mart to get some last minute supplies and a couple of the things that we had left at home. Once we were done shopping it was time to go to our brother’s house. The only traffic we encountered on our journey so far was getting to his house since it was now after 5:00 pm and people were out of work. We make it to our brother’s house without being too late and the three of us go to dinner. We told him to pick where he wanted to and we went to National Coney Island. I’ve never been there and was a bit concerned since I do not eat Coney dogs, but he said they have other things besides Coney dogs. He ordered chicken quesadillas, my sister had her usual chicken tenders, and I had a chicken pita like sandwich that was surprisingly quite good. Our brother who is known as “the good brother,” paid for our dinners. Then we went to Dairy Queen to get some desert since we don’t have a Dairy Queen where we live anymore. We each got a blizzard. I can’t remember what they each got but I got Oreo Cheesecake, which was strange. It was Oreo cookies with cheesecake bits. When we get back to our brother’s house we all relax and start watching Simpson DVDs until its time for bed since we have to be up early the next morning to leave for Gettysburg.
We’re On Our Way
We got up early the next morning and managed to repack the car quite quickly. Normally I tell my sister one time and she is ready about a half hour after that. We leave pretty much on time. We stop for gas, ice, and breakfast before getting on I-94. Normally for every other trip we’ve taken we get stuck in traffic on I-94 heading to Detroit, but by some miracle there was almost nobody on the highway! And it was Saturday! In fact we didn’t encounter much traffic anywhere along the way.
It’s a pretty uneventful trip. We stopped for lunch along the Pennsylvania turnpike. We ended up making it to Gettysburg in 8.5 hours. We kind of took a different route than the first time we went. We stayed on the turnpike longer and got off near Shippensburg then took a series of other roads to I-81 then to Chambersburg Road (30).
Arriving in Gettysburg
Once we reached Chambersburg Road we knew the way to our hotel, The Quality Inn at General Lee’s Headquarters, since we had stayed there before. We checked in without any problems. The person at the front desk was very friendly and helpful. She gave us quite a few brochures and maps. In our room all of towels in the bathroom were knocked over onto the sink! That was kind of odd. Everything else looked nice and to be in order. We unpacked the car and rested for a few minutes before we decided to go explore the town a little. One of the things that we wanted to do while in Gettysburg was a Ghost Tour. We had decided that we wanted to go with Mark Nesbit’s Ghosts of Gettysburg Tours since it was seen on Unsolved Mysteries, The History Channel, A&E, and many others, which means it has to be good, right? We wanted to go get our tickets then go get something to eat for dinner. Using one of the maps that we got from the front desk we are trying to navigate the streets of Gettysburg. We eventually come up to Lincoln Square, which involves a confusing circle. Luckily we didn’t end up going around and around. We found the street we needed, but I couldn’t remember the exact address for the building, so we drove up and down the road at least twice before finding it. I found it all quite funny for some reason. We go in and get our tickets for the Seminary Ridge tour since that is pretty much across the street from our hotel. On our way back to the hotel we stop at Pizza Hut for dinner since we knew how to get back to our hotel then. We had a medium cheese only pizza and breadsticks. It was OK. Probably should have stayed in the oven a minute or so longer. After that we went back to our hotel for a little while, made some phone calls to let everyone back home know we made it safely to our destination.
Ghosts of Gettysburg
About 8:00 pm we walked over to the point where our ghost tour was going to leave from. Our tour was suppose to leave at 8:15, but we see another group of people leave and are concerned that our group is leaving us behind, but it was just another group. We took a few pictures before the tour started. There is one that is very strange. There is a strange yellow orb by my feet that wasn’t there and isn’t in the other photos. We didn’t see this until we downloaded them when we got back. Very spooky! There were quite a few people in our group and we start our tour! Its pretty clear that our tour guide has a thing for General Reynolds. She kept referring to him as “tall, dark, and handsome.” Some of the stories are interesting, but I question a few of the “facts” she gave. I randomly snap some pictures at the one building, which was used, as a hospital. There again are some strange spots in the photos that aren’t in all of them and not always in the same place. Very weird. After the tour is over we head back over to our hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s battlefield tour.
A Three-Hour Tour
We Got up early on Sunday, ate breakfast in our hotel room, then headed out to begin our “Three Hour Tour” of the battlefield. And the singing/humming of the Gilligan’s Theme starts pretty much from the beginning. Our first stop was the Visitor center. We were a little worried at first when we saw several busses full of school kids. We go in to pick up a map and ask one of the Rangers if they can show us on the map where the Michigan monuments were. We had found 4 last time and I knew where to find 3 more, but there were 3 that we had no idea where they were. The Ranger pulls out this nifty little manual that has all the monuments with maps that shows where each one is positioned. He shows us where all the Michigan ones are and puts little marks on our map so that we can find them. The entire time he was looking at the book I was thinking that it would be a great tool to have and wondering how could I get one.
We then walk across the street to the National Cemetery. This is actual the last tour stop on the route, but I find it easiest to go first since it is directly across from the Visitor’s Center. So with our binder of information in tow we set out to photograph all the monuments at Gettysburg. We entire a problem with the list right away. I had put them in order of street names so it was a little confusing. I was going to put them back in order by state name, but forgot to do it. This was definitely the theme for the trip. I swear we would have forgot our heads if they weren’t attached. So I’m taking the pictures and my sister is walking behind me trying to mark in the book which ones I just took pictures of. I told her not to worry because I could look them up when we got home, again thinking that a book like the Ranger had would be so helpful in our quest. After getting the monuments on the perimeter I seek out to find the Michigan men who are buried there. I sort of remembered where they were, but wasn’t that close! :) We placed a USA flag at the stone for the Michigan men. One of the things that people do at the cemetery is laying pennies on the markers, especially the Kentucky marker which is to mark the spot of the Gettysburg Address. We finished photographing all the monuments in the cemetery. I made sure to get all the sides of the Soldier’s National Monument this time. I was disappointed because they were cleaning the New York monument so I couldn’t get that great of a shot.
We see some more monuments along the road by the cemetery and near the Visitor Center parking. So we photograph those. We then see some more on a hill by the Eisenhower building so we go and photograph those. We eventually make it back to the car. We climb in, roll down the windows, and crank up the Civil War music we had brought with us. We are off! We make our ways without being hit this time to the start of the tour and begin the slow tour of the field. We in our quest to photograph all monuments find ourselves stopping pretty much every 10 feet or so. Good thing we have perfected our drive-by photography. This is an important skill to have for battlefields. And something both driver and passenger should be familiar with! LOL
We finally make our way up to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, which is empty! Yeah! No one is really there. The last time we were there it was hard to get a photograph of it without anyone in the way. I was quite excited. We pose for pictures and walk around a bit just admiring the beauty of it. Shortly after this is the juncture where you can decide if you are doing the two-hour or three-hour tour. We decided we would do the two-hour parts this day and the three-hour parts the next day. Right before the turn for the three-hour part is a small observation tower. Its probably only 3 stories or so tall. Not very big. My sister climbed it last time no problem. Me. I didn’t even try last time. I’ve decided I’m going to be brave. I’m extremely scared of any stairs where I can see the ground, but I’ve decided I’m going to be brave. I made it up to the first landing before my fear of heights stopped me. My sister tried to get me to go up the last flight, but my feet wouldn’t move. So she climbed the rest of the way and I stood where I was. When she was done taking pictures from each side she handed me back the camera and I took a few from where I stood.
After the Observation Tower we continued with our tour. By the time we were done with the first part it was after noon! We had wanted to save lunch for the picnic area, but that was quite a ways off. So since the tour route would take us past our hotel, we decided to stop there go to the bathroom, freshen up a bit, eat lunch then head back. The Quality Inn at General Lee’s Headquarters is kind of cool because each room has windows that you can open. We opened the windows and sat at the table in front and enjoyed a nice lunch of PB&J sandwiches with the breeze drifting in the windows. Overall it was really nice. And the best part was . . . no bugs!!! That’s the worst part of a picnic lunch. So after we finished lunch we made sure we each went to the bathroom because we would be heading for Little Round Top where there really aren’t any bathrooms. And back we go. In case you haven’t figured out yet, our three-hour tour is taking longer than expected! LOL
We head out to see Seminary Ridge. Along south Confederate Avenue are the North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi monuments among others. In fact this is where you will find most of the Confederate monuments. Some interesting information: Gutzon Borglum created North Carolina’s monument in 1929. He is the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore. The Virginia monument was the first monument at Gettysburg from one of the former Confederate states. It was designed by F. William Sievers. At the top is General Lee on Traveler and the men at the bottom represent the various types of men who left behind civil occupations to join the Confederate army. There is a professional man, a mechanic, an artist, a boy, a businessman, a farmer, and a youth. This is one of the most beautiful monuments. It was from this area that Pickett’s now infamous charge was launched
The tour begins to wind its way towards the Round Tops. It is also getting to be mid-afternoon. We continue taking photos of all the monuments we see. I’m feeling pretty good at this point that we should get at least 50% of the monuments. Near Big Round top we stopped and hike up to get photos from two cavalry monuments and nearly fall in the mud while doing so. Further down the road we see some more on the slopes of Big Round top. This time just my sister gets out to hike up there. At the end of this road between the two round tops we see the 20th Maine monument. If you’ve seen the movie Gettysburg you will know who the 20th Maine is. It’s a beautiful monument. There are several ways to get to it. We hike up from this one road. After getting pictures of the front and one of the sides, my sister gets the idea to photograph all the sides, while standing precariously on the edge of Little Round Top. I thought for sure she was going to fall, but luckily she didn’t. We made our way back down the steep embankment.
We know that the 16th Michigan monument isn’t far away, sort of on a ledge on the one side of Little Round top. Last time we had no idea how to get up to it. While walking along the path back towards the 20th Maine after parking at Little Round top we were looking for the monument for Strong Vincent who was wounded at Gettysburg then later died. I spotted it and found a path through the woods to it. We were both very excited to find it. After that my sister thought to see if she could find a path to the 16th Michigan monument. Jackpot! We were able to get to the 16th Michigan and leave one of our USA flags. Yeah! After that we wound our way back to the main road and climbed the slight incline to the summit of Little Round Top. I will add here that it was VERY, VERY windy that day. It felt like you were going to be blown off the mountain. The wind kept blowing my hat off.
On top of Little Round top is this one New York monument that is really neat. Its called the Castle. You can climb up it and get an even better view of the land surrounding Little Round Top. My sister was the only one brave enough to climb it. Again – I’m too chicken! She said she felt that she was going to be blown away from up there. She said that the wind up there was super scary. We both made sure to rub O’Rourke’s nose for good luck. If you go to visit Gettysburg, it is said that rubbing his nose is good luck. It’s also the reason why his nose is shinier than the rest of the monument.
After climbing all over Little Round top and enjoying the views we start to head back to the car. While walking near one of the rock configurations a park Ranger was showing a group of kids a snake in the rocks! EWWW! I quickly walked the other direction. After Little Round Top is where the tour gets confusing. There are roads with monuments on them that aren’t considered part of the tour, lots of one-way roads and forks, and several forks that will take you in different directions. Using the map we had the Ranger mark on, we knew we had to leave the marked tour to find two of the Michigan monuments.
First though was Devil’s Den. We had fun climbing all over the rocks. Some people had climbed the huge rocks and were jumping down from them. That didn’t seem very safe to me.
Back on the road we were able to figure out the road we needed to find the 4th Michigan monument near the Wheatfield. We missed some in the Wheatfield, but I knew we had photographed them last time. After the 4th Michigan we found the 5th Michigan, which was the first one we had found last time. This one got a special Michigan flag. Right across from it is the Irish Brigade monument, which is such a unique and beautiful monument.
We eventually found our way to the Peach Orchard where we found the 3rd Michigan. We ended up finding a whole bunch on these roads that we had missed the first time. They are working to replant the Peach Orchard, so right now there are only baby Peach trees here.
After this we work our way towards the Pennsylvania State Monument, which is huge. Its gorgeous. You can see it from several spots around the battlefield it is so large. It’s a work of art. I was able to get some good photos, without too many people in them. You can climb up to top, which my sister did while I stayed on the ground reading about the monument. I am just amazed at it. Not far from it is 9th Battery-Light Artillery Michigan monument. And again a place where you have to decide if you are doing the two or three hour tour. Since it is getting to be late afternoon and there is still a lot to see we decide to continue with just the two-hour part.
One of the most interesting monuments at Gettysburg is called the High Water Mark monument. It is an open book supported by a stack of cannon balls. This is to mark the “high water mark” of the Confederacy war effort and is near the spot where the furthest point the Confederate army got with Pickett’s charge.
By this point it was getting close to 7:00 pm. The sun was starting to set. And the Amazing Race was on at 8:00. We finished up photographing all the monuments. Though some of the photographs aren’t that great since they were facing east and the sun was directly behind them. We did the best we could though. We have now come to the end of our two hour tour, which in reality was closer to 8.5 hours!!! I have no clue how you are suppose to do it in two hours.
We’re hungry by this point, but we have to be back to the hotel by 8:00 to watch the Amazing Race. This is one of the only shows that we HAVE to watch. We decided that it was only 7:00; we had time for a sit down meal. My brother had gone to a Friendly’s restaurant before and said it was good, so we decided to try it. We got seated right away, but couldn’t decide what we wanted. Our waitress was kind of slow. Didn’t she know that Phil was on!!!! It was very important that we not miss the Amazing Race. I ordered the Turkey Club SuperMelt, which is described as “The classic club taken to a whole new level. Sliced turkey breast, crisp bacon, melted American cheese, tomato and creamy Thousand Island dressing on grilled sourdough bread. “ It was very tasty! My sister ordered the Honey Mustard Chicken Sandwich, minus the cheese, which is described as “crispy strips of chicken breast, melted Cheddar cheese, tomato, shredded lettuce and honey mustard dressing.” She liked it. We both ate pretty quickly because we kept checking the time to make sure we would make it back in time for the Amazing Race. We both ordered a Reese Peanut Butter Cup FRIEND-Z, which is similar to a Dairy Queen Blizzard, though not as good as a Blizzard. We got our FRIEND-Z’s to go though since it was getting close to 8:00. I think we ended up getting back to the hotel by 7:50 pm. Phew! Just in time for the Amazing Race.
After the Amazing Race was over we both relaxed in the room. At some point the one channel was showing the movie A Knights Tale. This is the one movie on the planet that ALWAYS puts me to sleep. My friends and family like to joke about it. I’ve never seen the entire movie. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen the end. The record is 5 minutes in. My sister claims that I was asleep this time before the credits even started. I have no recollection of it even being on! :lol I guess it did the trick again! :)
Thus ends day 2 of our Gettysburg adventure.
Happy Birthday!
We wake up early on Monday, which is my birthday! And another year goes by where my sister has failed to wake me up at 3:00 am, which is the time I was born. She has been threatening to do for years, but always forgets to set the alarm. LOL We got up earlier on Monday that we had on Sunday because we had a ton of places we wanted to see and things to do. We walked over to the main building of the hotel for breakfast. As far as free continental breakfasts goes, this was nothing too special: bagels, English muffins, donuts, cereal, juice, milk, etc. Everything tasted really good though. After finishing breakfast we set out to finish our “three-hour” tour.
We have no trouble with the part by Barlow’s Knoll. Then we headed towards Culp’s Hill. In order to get all the monuments here we ended up going in circles and driving past some of them like 3 times because of all the forks in the roads and one ways. There was one road that went past the Indiana Monument near Spangler’s spring that we never did figure out how to get to since it was a one way and was the opposite direction from where we were. It was kind of fun driving in circles though! I think we got most of the monuments. We didn’t climb the very large observation tower there because it was kind of scary looking. I couldn’t even climb up the little one, there was no way I was going to make it to the top.
So after we are pretty sure that we got all the monuments we could find on Culp’s Hill, we finish the three-hour portion near the Pennsylvania Monument. This morning there is almost no body out touring the battlefield. I was so happy because I was able to get some photos of it without many people. I was also able to get some really nice pictures of the High Water Mark, because the day before there was a group of people with one of the park Rangers that just kept getting in my pictures.
Before we finish our tour we stop in the Visitor Center again to ask for the best way to get to the East Cavalry battlefield, which is about 3 miles east of the main battlefield. The Ranger gives us the direction and we decide to actually stop in the gift shop this time. The day before we didn’t want to spend valuable time in there. Its funny because the previous day I kept thinking that one of those books like the Ranger had would be so helpful in finding all the monuments. And what do you know? We go into the bookstore and there on the shelf is one of the books like the Ranger used to look up the Michigan monuments for us! AHHH. If only I would have gone in there the day before! So we both had a pretty good chuckle over that. We buy a few more items then go back to the car to head to the Cavalry battlefield.
We almost drove past the Cavalry battlefield, but luckily we didn’t. It seems that very few people go out to that part of the park. I think I know why. There is a strong smell of horse droppings out there from some horse farms in the area. And since there was no one else out there it was kind of strange to be the only people. Finding Michigan’s monument was easy. It’s the largest one. It is for the Michigan Cavalry that participated in the fight. Even though Custer is on the top, it’s a pretty cool monument. We took lots of pictures before we couldn’t take much more of the horse smell.
Thus concludes the tour of the battlefield, but not of our adventures.
Exploring Gettysburg
After we finished the battlefield tour we wanted to find the scrapbook store I had located on the Internet. The name of it is Forevermore Scrapbook (http://www.forevermorescrapbooks.com/) We had a vague idea of where it was. We knew it was somewhere on Baltimore Street! LOL We eventually found it and found a place to park along the street. What a neat store! They had so much cool stuff relating to Gettysburg and Washington DC. We spent probably 20 minutes in there looking at all the neat merchandise.
After our short little Scrapbooking shopping spree we had to go pick up the birthday cake my sister ordered from Dunlap’s Restaurant and Bakery. The place was packed with the lunch crowd, but my sister was able to cut to the front of the line and get out of there quickly. The cake was beautiful! It was at this point that we realized we had forgot to bring the candles we bought and the lighter thing to light the candles with. This happened last year too. I told you that forgetting things was the theme of this trip. We then took the cake back to the hotel since we didn’t want it to get ruined. After dropping off the cake we decided to go get lunch before going to the wax museum my sister wanted to go to.
So we decide since we still have a lot to do in not much time that we should stop by one of the fast food restaurants since that would be quicker than a sit down restaurant. We first try KFC. The line is out the door! There apparently is a bus tour group there. OK. We then go down to McDonalds. Again the line is out the door! Unbelievable. We were starting to get a bit discouraged and finally decide General Pickett’s All You Can Eat Buffet. We ate there the last time we were in Gettysburg. It was OK, nothing too great. But we had wanted to go somewhere else, but since all the other restaurants were lined up out the door and it was right there, we decided to give it another try. There was nobody there! Okay, maybe there were a few people, but it was practically empty. The food was OK. I think the salad bar was the best part. For the price it wasn’t bad. And it was quick. The cornbread and carrot cake were both really good.
So now that we have had lunch its time to go to the National Civil War Wax Museum. Its an interesting place. It has 30 different scenes, which help depict the war from the beginning to end. Once you are done with that part you go into this other room where it goes through the entire battle of Gettysburg. I think the most amusing part was at the end when President Abraham Lincoln appears from below and is able to give the Gettysburg Address without moving his mouth! Pretty impressive. :) I was surprised when they sad that photography was allowed since a lot of those kind of museums don’t allow photography at all. So I got pictures of the whole thing. The ones of Lincoln didn’t turn out that great though because of the lighting.
After we were finished here we still wanted to go visit the Boyd’s Bears store that is about 6 miles away because we both love bears! ;) Along the way we see more monuments! We manage to get pictures of a few of them, but will have to get the rest on our way back. The Boyd’s Bear store is HUGE! It’s a giant red barn that is 3 stories tall, plus there is a lower level! There weren’t many people there. The parking lot was kind of empty, but the store was so cute. I loved looking at all the little scenes they had set up with the bears. They are quite expensive though. My sister and I each got a pair of tiny animals from the Noah’s Ark set. I got pandas and she got kangaroos. These were only $5 for the pair. She bought a small Christmas bear and cute little bear ears to wear.
After we were done looking at all the cute little teddy bears and wishing we could bring them all home with us, we headed back to our hotel, stopping along the way to photograph the monuments we saw. I think we annoyed a couple people while doing this, but oh well.
Back at the hotel we decided to relax a little before going to dinner. I took a nice, relaxing bubble bath. Ahh, that was so relaxing and pleasant. After that we both changed for dinner. We ended up going to Dunlap’s Restaurant and Bakery where we got my cake from. We each ordered a steak, fries, and coleslaw. It was really good. The only bad part was halfway through our meal a tour bus stopped in and I don’t think we really saw our waitress after that. After dinner we walked down the street a little ways to photograph a monument we had been trying to get for the last two days because it is between two streets. After successfully photographing it, we saw a dollar store across the street thinking we could get candles there. We get there like 5 minutes before they are going to close. We split up in search of candles and something to light them with. We find both items right as they start turning off the lights. Its only 8:00 pm. Even the restaurant where we ate dinner was going to stop serving food at 8:00. That is so weird to us because where we live most stores and restaurants are open until at least 9:00 or 10:00 on Monday.
We walk back with our purchases to the restaurant where we had left the car. Instead of going right back to the hotel, I decide to drive past the hotel down to this little building along the tour near some monuments to get some pictures of them as the sun is starting to set. The sunsets were so pretty, but hard to photograph, though I did get some photos I was happy with.
After that we went back to the hotel to unwind from our busy day and to pack up everything to leave the next day. About 9:30 we finally decide to have cake. It was really good. It tasted a lot like my mom’s cakes, which were always my favorite growing up. The only downside to this plan is that we just had a ton of sugar right before bed! Needless to say I couldn’t sleep. Where was a Knight’s Tale when you needed it! ;) For some reason I kept thinking about ghosts in our room and kept expecting to see one by my bed. It was strange.
On the Road Again
We got up early again and loaded the car. We ate breakfast in our room. We ended up on the road towards home about 8:00 am. We decided to take the Chambersburg Road (30) all the way to the Turnpike. We were surprised to see so many rundown homes and business along the way. My sister got pictures of some of them. We had no problems getting to the turnpike. At one point we stopped at a toll plaza along the turnpike to use the restrooms. As we were going to leave to get back on there is a construction worker blocking traffic not letting anyone back on the turnpike because there is a slow moving paint crew going past. We ended up sitting there for 15 minutes while all paint crew drove past. It was very irritating. We had no other problems with the Pennsylvania turnpike. We stopped for lunch at a toll plaza in Ohio.
A little ways down the road, my sister looks for the toll ticket because she wants to see something on it. She opens this little drawer in the dash of the car, but the ticket isn’t there! She had put the Pennsylvania turnpike in there without any problems. There was a small gap between the drawer and the rest of the car that it somehow got sucked in. We are now a little panicked because there is no way to get the ticket out without really ripping the drawer off, which we can’t do because it’s a rental car. We stop at the next toll plaza to have a closer look at it to see if there is a way to get it out. I went inside and spoke to one of the employees who contacted one of the booth operators or something who said we would have to pay from the Pennsylvania border to where we got off, which is what we would be charged with the ticket anyways. So that sort of made me a little less nervous and upset. And even if they charged us for the entire length of the turnpike it would have only been $11.
So we get back on the road, feeling a little better, but still a bit worried about when we get off. About 20 miles from the I-75 exit it is pouring rain! It started out as sprinkles, but it got so bad I couldn’t see anything ahead of me. Luckily we were close to a service plaza, so I decided to exit and wait until it let up a little because I didn’t feel safe continuing on the turnpike. Pretty much as soon as we parked it started hailing!!! And its not small hail, its probably the size of a dime or bigger. Luckily this doesn’t last very long. Once the rain starts to let up we ran inside to use the restrooms since we had already stopped. It was still raining once got back on the turnpike, but no nearly as bad as it was. Surprisingly enough there was not one accident after the service plaza that we saw. There were a few cars stopped beneath an overpass.
I was a bit nervous as we approached the tollbooth at the exit for I-75, but we explained what happened to the lady and she was really nice. We only were charged from the PA border to that point, which is what it would have been with the ticket. So by this point we are both feeling a lot better.
It felt good to be back on I-75! Especially crossing the border back into Michigan! Woo-hoo!!! It didn’t take us too long to get to Detroit, though we encountered a lot of traffic near the I-94 interchange because it was about 5:30 now. It took a while to get onto I-94 with the traffic, but not too bad for that time of day. There were some huge puddles of water on the road at certain spots. We finally made it back to our brother’s house about 6:30ish I think. He had already had dinner, so after telling him all about our trip we decide to leave and head for our house.
For some reason my sister opens up the drawer were the turnpike ticket was and out falls a piece of paper that she had used to see if she could get the turnpike ticket. Amazed she closed and opened the drawer probably three more times. And wouldn’t you know that out comes the turnpike ticket! We both turned to each other and laughed hysterically. I had told her when we lost it that it would probably come out when we didn’t need it anymore. We had probably opened and closed it 100 times trying to get it to come out, but it wouldn’t.
We stopped for dinner at Cici’s Pizza, which is a pizza buffet restaurant with a lot of strange pizza combinations. They have lots of advertisements on the TV for it, but there aren’t any in our area. It was OK. The macaroni and cheese pizza was vile and disgusting. Yuck! My sister wanted to try it and for some reason I agreed. I wish I wouldn’t have. Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!
After dinner we finally started north towards home. We finally made it home to our house about 10:00 pm. We were both so happy to be home. Overall it was a fun trip, with plenty of memorable moments that still make us laugh.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Disney World!
Ok, I'm starting to get a bit excited now! We leave for Disney World on early Wednesday morning. *happy dance!* There is still so much to do before we go, though I have my bags almost all the way packed. Look for updates on this page durign the course of the this week. :)
Monday, October 03, 2005
My Chicago Trip
My sister, brother, and I just spent almost a week in Chicago. We had a blast! What a cool city. We got to see so much and did quite a bit in the time we were there. We left on Monday from Detroit and found our hotel easy enough. Once we unpacked we headed for the city.
The first place we went was the Sears Tower. There was very little visibility, but it was still beautiful and you could see a lot of the city. It was neat how the city just kind of faded away in the distance. I'm super scared of heights and was really nervous about going up that high, but that was so awesome. I loved it up there. My sister was pretty scared, but I thought it was amazing.
After the Sears Tower we went to the Chicago Historical Society. This was free on Monday and I was kind of glad it was since it was probably the most disappointing place we went. They are in the midst of a major renovation and only had 3 exhibits open to the public. The one that I really wanted to see, the history of Chicago, was closed. The one exhibit they did have was called "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" and dealt with a very dark period in American history. It was very graphic and really emotional. There was also an exhibit of photography done by teenagers showing their life. There were some interesting photos. The other exhibit, "A Compassionate Eye: The Photographs of Declan Haun, 1961-69" was interesting. Overall it was hard to shake the images seen in the "Without Sanctuary" exhibit. After that we left the city and got some dinner and rested in the hotel room.
On Tuesday our first stop for the day was the Field Museum. What a cool place. It is so huge, with so many really cool exhibits. The architecture of the building alone was amazing. I loved the Native American exhibits. The Nature Walk was really cool too. The special exhibit of dinosaurs from China was really interesting. I loved seeing Sue. We didn't get to see everything there since we wanted to go to the aquarium also, but we went through most of the exhibits. We probably could have spent the whole day there.
After the Field Museum we went to the John G. Shedd Aquarium. It is a very nice aquarium. I loved the tank with the fishes found on the reef right at the beginning. The only part I didn't like was the tanks with the Great Lakes fish since I've seen most of them at home. My sister and I had fun picking out the fish from the movie "Finding Nemo" We didn't do any of the special exhibits or shows though. After the aquarium we walked along Lake Shore Dr to the Buckingham fountain. That was beautiful. We stopped often along the way to get pictures of the lake and skyline. It was so picturesque and beautiful that day.
On Wednesday we dedicated the entire day for the Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory. I think that the Lincoln Park Zoo is one of the best zoos I've ever been to. It is step up really nicely. There is a nice flow to it. The best part was the polar bears! They were so fun to watch and you can tell that they really like the people. The lions were beautiful also. The Conservatory was also beautiful. So many pretty flowers and plants. I took so many pictures in there! The only bad thing about the day was that it was probably the hottest day of the trip at almost 90 degrees. After the zoo and conservatory we ate at the Hard Rock Café. The food was good, but you definitely pay for the ambience of it.
On Thursday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is inside another gorgeous building. The best part was the U-505 display. That was awesome. The only complaint I had was that it was difficult to get a good picture of it, with the lighting in the room. What an awesome sight it was though. I liked that there was lots of hands on stuff to do also. We each had fun sending coded messages to our selves using the Enigma machine. We tried the games in the periscopes and tried our hand at making the sub dive (my sister and I got us sunk!). Just so much to see and do, which I really enjoyed. I also liked the exhibit "Yesterday's Main Street." My sister was in awe of Colleen Moore's fairy castle. It was beautiful. There was a lot to see here. I thought the third floor was a waste of time though. You can tell that they put a lot of time into creating the exhibits below and less on those on the third floor. Things up there didn't work, it was outdated and even kind of smelled old and musty. Wouldn't recommend going up to the balcony level to anyone. If I went again I would focus on the other two levels.
After the Museum of Science and Industry we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. That is one of the most confusing places I have ever been. The map was difficult to read and it was a challenge to find the things we wanted to see. I'm not a fan of modern art or abstract art. I like the older European and American paintings. It took us a while to find those. Once we found what we were looking for it was much more enjoyable. We didn’t get to see everything because we were getting tired. We stopped by Millennium Park on the way back to the car after the Art Institute. Interesting place.
On Friday we went to Navy Pier. I loved Navy Pier. My sister and I had fun buying some accessories and stuff for our Build-A-Bears from the Build-A-Bear store. The sights from the pier were great. The water was really choppy on Friday. It was very windy and cool on Friday. I loved sitting at the end of the pier and watching the lake. The stained glass museum inside Navy Pier was really cool. There were some interesting pieces and some that were just stunning.
After Navy Pier we went shopping on Magnificent Mile. My sister and I fulfilled a childhood dream when we went to the American Girls store. Both of us have always wanted an American Girls doll. We read the books when we were young, we got the catalog in the mail, even had a subscription to the magazine when it came out. But we never got a doll. I think we both felt like little kids again inside the store. My sister got the newest doll, Elizabeth, while I got my favorite from when I was younger, Kirsten.
After we were done shopping we went back to the hotel and begun packing up our stuff so we could leave the next day. Our hotel wasn't the greatest and you could tell that it was poorly maintained so we were happy to be checking out. We were also happy to leave all the traffic behind, along with the crazy cab drivers and semis. We were all very happy to get back to Michigan. Overall it was a fun trip and I would definitely go back.
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