2015 Denise's States Trip- Chicago

Today was fun and stressful. We started out at a wonderful little cafe for breakfast. It was rated very high and we weren't disappointed. It was close by our hotel in Racine. We then headed down to the big city of Chicago. The toll roads are expensive and Tim is tired of paying them. My gps said it was going to take a long time to go a few miles and we soon saw why. Chicago has a real traffic problem. It was the worst we have ever been stuck in and that is saying a lot considering that we have driven in the Bay area in California often. At one point the gps rerouted us because of traffic and it was still bad. 

This is the beautiful countryside we passed through. 

This is said to be the original McDonald's.  

My view from the car.

It started raining about the time we found Navy Pier. As we were looking for parking it really started to downpour. Parking was a flat $25 and with the rain we decided to go find the Sears Tower as it would be inside. Parking by it was $25 also. We drove around the block and found a place on the street that said it was only $4 an hour. What a steal. The only problem was that no one was parked there and that made us nervous, so we drove on. We discovered why no one was parked there. On Fridays it was street cleaning day on that side of the street. We would have been towed! We ended up finding a lot that only cost $8 for 2 hours. It was about 1/4 mile walk from the tower and it was so wet that my feet were slipping and sliding in my sandals. We wanted to go fast as we were worried about the $25 fine if we went over the 2 hours we had paid for. Such a lot of work to have a car in a big city. Next time we'll park somewhere and take a train in. Luckily it wasn't crowded at the tower. It was amazing.

This is the Chicago river. 

The Sears Tower is the tallest building in the world. It is 109 stories tall. The elevator only takes 60 seconds to get you to the top. Our ears were popping big time. They have a see through ledge that you can go out on. It was freaky to look down through your feet and see cars that looked like matchbook cars. Really cool. Tim was so nervous to step out there but he did it twice for me. What a stud. You could go look out on all 4 sides and see forever. Because of the rain it wasn't that crowded and we got to take our time. I bought a souvenir replica of the tower.

After we left there we walked around the city a bit. We came upon Union Station. What a wonderful building. So fun to photograph.  

A beautiful church we passed by.

We decided to hit the road to find our hotel in a suburb of Chicago called Hoffman Estates. Seriously the most frustrating drive. It was before rush hour yet it was bumper to bumper barely moving congestion.  I thought Tim was going to go crazy. We need to get him out of big cities!  We got to the hotel and saw a movie theater close by. Some brainless down time sounded good so we ran to the movie San Andreas. It was not the best movie, especially to Tim, but the funniest thing happened while we were there. Alarms started going off and we thought it was part of the movie. Soon a voice said to vacate the theater. It was a huge theater with 30 screens so there were a lot of us leaving. They made us all move away from the building. The police came and then the fire department. The firemen all went in fully uniformed. After about 30 minutes they called us all together and the theater manager said we could go back in and they gave us a free movie coupon. Our movie started up right where it left off. We never found out why we had to vacate.

This is us outside the theater.

We ended up going out for Indian food. It was pretty good. 

Our hotel room is nice. We are tired again. How many more days are we doing this?? Our flight we hoped to get on to Atlanta in the morning is now oversold. It had 8 seats this morning. We will have to figure out another one. Then we will find what we want to do in Atlanta and Montgomery. 

2015 Denise's States Trip- Wisconsin

Well, we did get on that last flight to North Dakota. Fargo was awesome. The people were very friendly. It was a bummer that it was rainy but we got to see what we could. Fargo has a growing economy. They said they had 3 new hotels built there last year. Microsoft has 4 campuses there. It is green and pretty. I learned that it sits right on the Minnesota border. Part of the city is on the Minnesota side but it is called Moorehead. A river divides the 2 states. Pretty great to finally get here. Oh, no oil drilling in this part of the state. 

We caught a flight back to Chicago at 11ish. Small plane and full flight. Standby travel is an interesting thing. You have anxiety if you'll get on the whole time. No relaxing until you get that ticket, which is usually after everyone has already loaded. More than half the time you don't get to sit by each other. I really wish I was thinner whenever I get put in a middle seat by 2 strangers. I forget this feeling immediately after the flight and then want a cookie:-). It is amazing too though. I've been able to go to so many places that I wouldn't have without it. Tim is awesome to do this with as he is always researching hotels and places to stay because you can't book anything until you get that ticket. He booked our hotel for tonight as we were walking on the plane. He realized right after he finalized with Hotwire that he had done the wrong night. He called them and talked them in to letting him change nights. So stressful. I'm so glad he is amazing at doing this. 

We got to Chicago and went and got the rental car that Tim had reserved. I was so nervous about navigating us out of the big city. It went very smoothly. We are staying in a town about 1 hour away from Chicago. It is called Racine, wisconsin and it is right by Lake Michigan. We checked in and then went exploring. The lake is so huge that you feel like it is an ocean. We walked along it for awhile. The weather is perfect today. We had looked up restaurants for tonight and had found one that was featured on Restaurant Impossible. I love that show and told Tim that was where we were going. It was  about 20 minutes north of where we were staying. It was called Mike La Susas. It was really good. The special tonight was that all the appetizers were $5. We got calamari and something they called Italian nachos. Both were incredible. The baked pasta wasn't as good as Neza's but it was still good. We decided that we would go on to Milwaukee as we were only about 10 miles away and find dessert. I googled "best desserts in Milwaukee" and they said Babe's Ice Cream. I put it in my gps but goofed up somehow and navigated Tim very successfully to some other restaurant. Tim thinks I try to multitask too much. I think I'm terrible at technology. Who knows? Probably a little bit of both:-). We shrugged our shoulders and put in the right address. So glad we did. The ice cream was phenomenal. The tour of Milwaukee was good too. There are tons of great buildings in Wisconsin. Love the architecture. We came back to the hotel and went swimming and hot tubbing. A really good day today. Off to tour Chicago tomorrow. I've never been there. Tim is researching hotels right now. Good man. I'm tired. A good kind of tired.  

Our rental car. It is brand new. 

You have no idea how hard it was to get this picture but I knew they wanted to welcome me!!

Beautiful Lake Michigan. 

The drive to milwaukee. 

Milwaukee 

Italian nachos

Our hotel room. 

2015 Denise's States Trip- North Dakota

Lucas and I in the backseat. 

We had a wonderful few days with Cassidy, Mike and Lucas. It rained every day, but we also had sun most days too. Lucas is such a joy and so much fun.. We really enjoyed their new house. I think they'll be very happy there. Some highlights of Oklahoma were: Lucas, Alfredo's, playing games, the awesome theater room and watching movies, the incredible storms... It was really was a great visit there. Very humid, but still great! I love spending time with my beautiful daughter. 

We are trying to get on a flight, any flight, out of Oklahoma city now.  It's not happening very smoothly though. The loads were terrible and we almost decided we were going to wait until tomorrow when we noticed a flight that was delayed 5+ hours to Chicago. When a flight is delayed that long it is great for standby travelers as people have to jump ship to find a flight to get them to their connecting flights. We rushed (like throw our stuff in- laundry from the dryer, bathroom stuff, electronics- and run. We get to the airport and run to the gate (literally) and wait and wait. We waited for over 3 hours and then finally got to load the plane only to have them shut off the engines because Chicago is having a flow problem. Too many planes all coming in at once. So here we sit:-). After only 15 minutes we are on our way.  Can't wait to see if we can get on the last flight of the day to fargo, north Dakota. 

The Lundberg's in from of their beautiful, new house. 

Tim decided to take a meeting while we were waiting for the delayed flight to go. An enterprising fellow I married. 

They have the most amazing toilets in the OKC and Chicago airports. You wiggle your hand over the sensor and it gives you a new seat cover.  For someone always desperate to go fast, this is awesome. 

The Chicago airport is huge and has some really pretty things to look at as you walk.

Dinner for the starving travelers.

Our hotel room in Fargo was freezing when we got in there. Like 50 degrees cold! 

We went to the drugstore across the street. I wanted this sweatshirt but changed my mind.

It started to rain and Tim had this great suggestion to stay dry:-)

2015 Denise's States Trip- Oklahoma

I have decided to hijack Tim's blog and document this trip we are on.  Some say I am crazy, but I am so excited. I set a goal forever ago to visit all 50 states before I die. It has been a long and slow process, but incredibly fun and enjoyable. I have rules for this of course. I must eat or sleep in the state. I can't count airports. I must confess that I have been to lots of corners of states. If I see that it's only a few miles to go the other direction and get a new state I am all for it! I have been very lucky that Tim humors me on this. Well, I was complaining to Tim that this was taking too long and he said that we should just plan a trip and get the remaining states I have left (except Alaska. We have an Alaskan cruise planned for July 2016 with my parents and siblings). The states I have left are north Dakota, Wisconsin, Alabama, west Virginia, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Pretty spread out right? We are starting the trip at the Lundbergs in Oklahoma and ending it at the Hunters in New York. We will be in 15 states with all the airport stops we will have. I hope we can survive this! Our flight into Oklahoma city was crazy. They were having a big storm and it made for the rockiest flight I have ever been on. It was intense. We are loving our time here and getting to be in their new house is awesome. 

I'm totally new at blogging and not very good at typing so this might be a mess. I'm not sure if I am even going to tell anyone about this. We'll see.....

This is us after we got upgraded to first class from Houston to oklahoma City. Happy people. 

Tim and Lucas in his new bedroom. Cassidy and Mike did a great job painting it. 

Enjoying their theater room upstairs. Pretty awesome. 

2015 Western Caribbean Cruise - Day 9 (Go Home)

The goal of the day was to get off the ship fast, grab a cab and catch the 8:40 flight from Miami to Houston.  They said we could leave the boat at 6:45 AM.  So naturally I was up at 5:15 AM almost ready to go.  I was also excited to finally get logged back since in port we could connect through AT&T back to the internet.  So at about 5:45 AM I headed up to the top deck (deck 14...we slept on deck 9) to check things out.  It was still dark but the boat never sleeps.  LIghts on, buffet going already and people meandering around.  I immediately sat down and connecte to the web and logged into the United App to check flight statuses and to checkin.  The 8:40 flight still had seats open...looked good. Everything else looked not so good. So we had to get on that one.  At about 6:15 I headed back to the room, stopping by to let Kim and Ilene know that I was grabbing my bags and heading to deck 5 to get into the line to get off the boat.  I then retrieved Denise and the bags.  We were about 10th in line.  Soon, Kim and Ilene joined us.  At about 6:55 we were off the boat heading to customs.  That went really fast (no lines) and out we were to the street.  I thought that we might use UBER for our ride to the airport.  But since taxis were $25 one way, we thought we'd try to get all 4 of us in one and share the costs.  It worked out great.  As a matter of fact, there was a van that had two people in it...but the line attendant asked them to take a car and we got the van.  We paid $30 with a tip.  We were on our way to the airport by about 7:15 AM.  We arrived in plenty of time and got our bags checked in.  But TSA was really, really slow.  Only one line.  But it didn't matter because we were plenty early.  When the Wayment's checked in, they were asked if they wanted $150 credit to take another flight.  They were on the 11:40 flight.  They said no.  But when we got to the gate for the 8:40 flight, they asked if they could get on that one since they were looking for people to jump off the 11:40.  The gate agent granted their wish and we all flew to Houston on the same flight.  Go figure...everything working out so far!

At Houston, our next flight was a Regional Jet (about 70+ Passengers) scheduled to go at 2:30.  We arrived at 10:30.  Kim and Ilene were scheduled to go at 5:30 on a larger plane.  That meant we were in opposite terminal ends.  Since their flight was not leaving for so long, they followed us to our B terminal gate.  We ate lunch together, found a table and played cards for awhile.  Pretty fun.  When it came time to board, we were the next to get seats....but none available.  So the 5:30 flight was our last hope today.  So off we all went together to the E terminal.  Even though they have a tram...the walk is still pretty long.  But we had time as we walked and visited all along the way.  We eventually found our gate and found seats by it.  Again, sat down and played a round of cards.  Before we played 5 Crowns.  This time it was Mormon Bridge.  I stink at all of them!  But it was fun.  Kim started to get the itch to eat in the middle of the game.  We said that we were playing cards.  So he gave us 30 minutes and set his clock.  With each hands of cards, we were reminded of his need to eat and time remaining.   We all laughed each time he called out the time and his excitement to get some food.  Heck...it had been a couple of hours since we had eaten anything!  We're on cruise mode...you know!?  Anyway, at 415 sharp we were off to get food.  Denise and I had  Pand Express.  Kim and Ilene found a deli like place that chicken and stuff.  Anyway, we got our food consumed and then headed back to the gate to board..  It did not look good, as usual, for us.  We wished Kim and Ilene bon voyage and thought we'd be staying thenight.  The plane boarded and a few stand by's got on ahead of us.  We thought that would be it.  But the Gate Agent said to hold tight.  She thought she had a couple more seats.  Sure enough, Denise and I were the last to board.  Another minor miracle flying stand by.

To  conclude this blog about our trip, I want to say how much I appreciated being with Kim and Ilene.  It has been too many years since we've done things together.  We've lived in different states.  We've raised all our crazy kids.  Our hair is getting gray (what is left of it)...but we still feel like it was yesterday when we lived next door to each other, played basketball and softball every night and really enjoyed life.  They have not changed a bit.  And I consider Kim one of my very best friends.  And I hope to not let the rest of the world get in the way of us getting together more than in the past.  Thank you Wayment's for letting the Tiner's tag along on Kim's 60th birthday cruise.  May you have 60 more enjoyable years Kim!!!!

2015 Western Caribbean Cruise - Day 7 (Labadee, Haiti)

Well, day 7 is our last play in a port day!  Hard to believe.  Time goes by quite quickly when you are busy doing things.  The boat arrived at Labadee at 9:00 AM.  Labadee is a penniinsula that Royal Caribbean has leased until 2050.  It is their own private area where they have lots of things to do.  It is quite beautiful here.  The beaches seem nice.  The weather is awesome.

We  had a lazy morning.  At 9:00 AM, we met Kim and Ilene to go to breakfast.  Always a ton of good food to consume.  I had poached eggs on english muffins with a hollandaise sauce.  Pretty good.  We all eat way to much for every meal.  Pretty sad...but pretty fun.  :-)

At about 10 AM, we got off the boat and headed to a beach area.  Everything is provided for you here...beach loungers, beach covers (you'll see in the pictures), food, drinks and even floaty devices.  I naturally wanted to try and snorkel here.  So once Denise was settled, off I went looking for reef or rocks where fish might hang out.  I did find a man made breaker and snorkeled along it a couple of times.  Unfortunately, this area is sandy by design for easy swimming.  That causes the water to be quite mirky and not clear.  Nonetheless, it is fun to watch sea creature lurking in rocks or in the sea grass at the bottom.  I could do this all day long!  It is so fun.  

For lunch, they had BBQ's set up in certain areas where they cooked fish, chicken, ribs, hamburger, hot dogs, salad, and of coursed stuff for dessert!  Hard to take...as much as you want any time you want while you were there.

At about 3:00 PM or a little after, we headed back to the boat to get ready for formal night.  It is lobster night.  Can't wait.  More to report in a few hours!

Lobster night it was.  Huge Lobsters!  Yes!  We also had Beef Wellington with great appetizers, a cold pea soup (which I did not care for) and a Kale Salad.  Kim and Ilene ordered an extra Lobster but were too full to eat it all...so I helped them out.  My pleasure.  After dinner, we once again attended their theater.  Tonight was their premier show.  It was rock music with a set of dancers and acrobats trying to create a Cirque Solei atmosphere.  I really enjoyed it.  After the show, we came back to our staterooms to change our clothes.  We then went up to the highest deck to lay around, talk and see the stars.  We also went to check out the fitness room.  It was really nice....at the front of the boat so  you can watch the boat sail while you work out.  But I made a dcecision early on that I was taking a break from working out while on the boat.  Anyway, we were back in our cabing around midnight.  We then decided to order room service for breeakfast tomorrow.  We have never had room service.  So since it is a free thing...we're dong it! 

Well, last day tomorrow and then we head home.  We are both thrilled and grateful for our trip.  But we are also excited to get home.

A Royal Caribbean boat parked next to ours.  Ours is on the right.  Approxametly 5k people came off the two boats and turned this Haiiti penninsula into a very busy place!

One of the many maps on the penninsula....

A beach view.  If you look closely out over the water you will see cables for the zip line.  This is where it concluded.....

This is looking in the opposite direction down the beach.  Up on the hill, you can see a small tower.  That is where the zip liners would take off from and zoom down and across the water.  All for a cool $95 for one run!

Ilene and Denise enjoying the shade in their own 'tent' like thing....

Me and my GoPro.  As you approach your ship, they give you water or punch and hand you a towel that has been frozen in ice.  Feels so nice after a hot day!

A group of Haitians singing and dancing as we approached the ship on our way back.....

Denise enjoying a nice day on the beach......