A Year Ago Today

Well, now that I think about it, a year ago today I wasn't posting a lot on my life, because I had a lot going on.  But a year ago today I was in the City of Sin, Las Vegas, enjoying Red Rock Rendezvous with my then boyfriend where afterwards we stayed in the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino and walked the strip and went sight seeing all of the crazy sites of Vegas.  It was a fun time, and definitely blog worthy, but life was just really crazy and blogging really wasn't a priority for me.

I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what really happened, as though guys don't really put much sentiment into dates, apparently girls do, and March 22, 2010 was an important date for me. 

It was kind of funny actually, we had been planning on going to this Climbing Conference for a couple of months (we were hoping to go back this year) and had an absolute blast.  We had only been officially dating for a little over a month, but had been hanging out for longer then that.  So anyway, we decided to head to Vegas for the weekend plus a few extra days, enjoy the sites and each others company, and let me tell you, Vegas is the same damn thing over and over again.  We did the roller coasters, and the casinos, and the slots, and the casinos, and the more casinos, and what, this one has a Mideivel theme?  That one over there is french?  Wait, they all have the same freakin' slots and games! 

That got old after a while, in truth, I liked the old strip better, it has more character.

Visiting the old strip, the new strip, and the wedding strip, well, we're in Vegas, what else would a couple who people back home would speculate might elope do but pose in front of the Little White Wedding Chapel?

Reactions back home when we posted this gem on facebook?  Hilarity abounded, but my mother was skeptical.  Her reply 'Yah, right.'  I think at the ripe old age of 29 and avoidance of the dating issue had most people believing that, me?  Getting married?  Ain't going to happen, way to stubborn, independent, and stuck in my ways to give my life to another person.  Right?  RIGHT???

Well, I had to do homework holed up in our hotel room and he left to do whatever it was he wanted to do, and afterwards we decided to have dinner.  He made reservations for dinner at the top of the Stratosphere.  That should have been a clue, but I was all thinking, 'ok, guess you live once.  Are you sure we can afford dinner where you pay by the portion?  Ouch!'

Could somebody knock some sense into my head that we might have been setting a mood?  And for dinner at a nice restaraunt, we probably could have dressed a little nicer for the occasion, but being the people we are, what you see is what you get with us both.  Before desert, he looked at me with that twinkle in his eye.  "well, now for the reason why I brought you all the way up here."

My first thought was 'duh, why didn't I figure this out sooner?  Am I really that oblivious?'  My words were, of course, 'You're proposing, aren't you?'

He just smiled at me and then brought out the ring, which was a little heart felt nicknack he had made while I was doing homework.  I had told him before, don't get me a ring unless it means something special (ie, he got the diamond himself, it's a family heirloom, etc), and going to DeBeres and buying a ring for three months worth of pay is to me a serious waste of money, especially since I will likely never wear a diamond due to the fact that I'm a chronic loser of Jewelry.  The ring he gave me had a little heart etched out between a G and a K, and I loved it.  it's sweet, simple, practical and totally fits our relationship. 

"So, will you marry me?"

The next question out of my mouth was, "you know what you're getting yourself into, right?"

Apparently he knew, well, I hope he knew what he was getting himself into, because I said yes.

So a year ago today, Gus transitioned from being my boyfriend to being my fiance.  In a whirlwind rush of things, barely a month later we tied the knot.  I kind of knew if I got married, things would go quickly.  I'm not a girly girl, and planning a wedding is not my forte.  Good thing I have the family I do, because I don't think I would have survived if I hadn't, and I don't know if Gus would have stuck around if we took any longer. 



Visited States Updated

visited 45 states (90%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Yep, I've got my map pretty much red. One little section in the south left, and of course, Hawaii and Alaska.

So five states to go. I think I can do it in three seperate trips.

How do I rate the states? The last chunk I saw (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota) were likely seen in the wrong time of year. But hey, now I know what the Northern Mid West states are like in the dead of winter. Down right chilly!

Hocking Hills

I went out to the Hocking Hills yesterday, which is a four hour drive and somewhat of a spur of the moment thing for me.

Mostly, I went because I wanted to go on the Zipline Tour. I had never heard of Hocking Hills really before this, but overall I'm glad I went, because Hocking Hills overall is a pretty cool place to visit.

Um, I don't know why I look somewhat psychotic in this picture, but I was having a good time!

The canopy tours has 10 ziplines and like five skybridges that has you zipping around in the trees about 30-80 feet high. The adrenaline is rushing and its a LOT of fun!

On a sky bridge, testing the restraints. Should have tested them a little farther.

The people there were awesome and they are really laid back, telling us the only rule was to have them hook us up and that we were to have a good time. That was easy, overall the trip took about two and a half hours from start to finish.

Yes, I look a little crazed from the adrenaline, but its only because I always make this crazed face when I'm goofing around

Riding on a zipline is a lot of fun. I want to do more research on other zipline tours but I was told this is one of the best ones in the Continental US. The longest zipline is about 600 feet long, riding up to 35 mph on the line. I don't think I ever got that fast thought.

Ok, fine, actually I am crazy. . . tour guides were awesome guys though!

This is the zipline tour from the line itself. You don't get the same affect as the actual tour from the video but it is a bit of a rush!



I have noticed it takes a lot for me to get a thrill anymore, I've gotten used to heights so I didn't really feel scared the entire time I was out there. Felt totally safe and just had a blast! If you are ever in the Hocking Hills, really recommend checking this place out.

And of course, there is more in the Hocking Hills then Zipline Tours.


This is a rockbridge that is a natural formation, the picture doesn't do it justice but you have to walk about a mile or so to get to it. There are a lot of cool natural formations like this in the Hocking Hills.


This is Old Man's Cave, which is in the middle of this huge gorge that is cut through the area, you wouldn't know it was there until you practically walked up on it, and there wasn't people all over the place.


Old Man's Cave has a couple of waterfalls, this is the upper falls, though I'm guessing it's a little more spectacular when you catch it in season. And I am advertising the fact that I went Zip Lining, yes.


Not every picture has to have me in it
Cedar Falls is down the road a couple miles, I hear this is another cool waterfall when you get it in season, but as you can see, this time of year it's a bit of a trickle.


The trails to the falls are just really cool, this area is awesome for hiking in. This is coming up the gorge out of Cedar Falls. I wanted to see more, but alas, it gets dark in November. There is plenty to see here that you can spend a couple days exploring. I only had one, and I had to be back in time to get some sleep, seeing as I worked today. And this was a four hour drive.


The last place I got to visit was Ash Cave. Playing with the lighting, I took some pictures with the low light setting, taking advantage of the affects. It was a beautiful day to explore the hills considering it is the middle of November.

There are a couple of other places that I didn't get around too, Cantwell Cliffs, the Rock House and Conkles Hollow were the ones I wanted to see that I didn't get too. Rock climbing, ATV rentals, Horse back riding, apparently this is a pretty big tourist destination.

Never knew this was here. As I've toured it, I have come to discover I really like the State of Ohio. Probably one of my top ten favorite states.

great, now I'll have to do a list.

I'm Doomed to Disappoint

I made it to the machine gun shoot at Knob Creek. And learned my first lesson when dealing with the nation's largest machine gun shoot.

Arrive early.

Knob Creek is located in the sticks just south of Louisville Kentucky, on this little two lane highway. It's not really set up for a large quantity of traffic. As I drove up at about 9:30, I got stuck in the traffic leading about a quarter mile from the entrance.

It was stopped. Hmm. . .

I should have left earlier, but me being a procrastinator, I got my truck packed with the intent of only coming back home in case I bought a gun (I won't take a new gun on the road with me) so my truck loaded up for my roadtrip, I just kept trying to walk around the house and make sure I got everything (I didn't, I left my tripod)

so finally I got to knob creek and got a little disgruntled by one of my pet peeves. Traffic. I'm an impatient person in traffic, and decided I could walk it, so I parked my truck along the side of the road with all of the other impatient people, right next to a water point without actually blocking the water point. And then I walked it.

It turned out to be quicker to walk then to wait in the traffic, but as I got there, I was warned that if my truck wasn't parked within the white line, it would get towed. No problem there, except i was further warned about the very real possibility that my truck would get towed for being so close to the county water point.

Damn me and my impatience, but I was told I should be ok if I moved my truck before noon. I was half tempted to go back and get my truck at that point so I could park it and not worry about it until I was ready to leave, but I was really not looking forward to walking back.

I went into Knob Creek with my camera in hand (and didn't get any pictures of the arsenal of any type of fully automatic machine gun you can think of) and walked around looking for the gun, and I knew I would know my gun if I saw it (I didn't see it) and listened to the machine gun fire. I knew I could spend all day here, on top of that, renting a flame thrower or any available machine guns, and probably come back completely devoid of cash as well. However, I had a small problem.

My mind was on my stupid truck. I was walking around thinking "my truck is going to get towed, my truck is going to get towed" and decided that I needed to just go and get it, after I bought a 50 Cal Dummy Round and a holster for my Judge. There was some other things that caught my eye and all the guns I could take pictures of. Plus the burning cars and boats that they were firing machine guns at.

So I went to get my truck, to discover the line of vehicles trying to get IN had grown, and it appeared to not be moving. I walked, and walked, and walked, and the cars didn't move.

My truck, thankfully, had not been towed, however the line had extended quite a ways, and staring at that line, knowing I would be in line for an hour trying to get a place to park, well, killed all of my motivation.

I considered going back for a few minutes, and said screw it and drove off, heading toward Cincinatti.

Fortunately for me, if I ever want to fire a 50 Cal Machine Gun (the M2) I work in the right field, and it doesn't cost my $250 for a drum. In fact, I can shoot all of the machine guns I could want during US weapons week on the taxpayer's dime. Don't you like that?

But that means that I didn't get any pictures of the $45,000 machine guns that I saw. And I even laid eyes on a $999 M203 attached to a AR15 that I briefly considered, until I realized that I would have only bought it for the collector's benefit, seeing as I couldn't actually SHOOT the damn thing. And even if I did get some grenades for it, I can only imagine how much those things would run for.

So, I did the Machine Gun Shoot for about an hour, and I walked away with this lesson.

Arrive Early.

Yes, I was planning on going this year, and actually shooting some stuff. But alas, I am doomed to disappoint this time.

However, I was recognized by somebody who had seen my website. It came as a bit of a surprise when it happened and I had a goofy grin on my face for the next thirty minutes. But that goofy grin maybe because I was surrounded by machine guns that I could have mortgaged my brother's house to get.

Hmm, maybe the traffic has died down. Perhaps i should head back?

*sighs*

Exhaustive Roadtrip Much?

Machine Gun Shoot got rained out. Well, actually it didn't, but I delayed going there by a day. Instead, I spent the day getting things ready for the rest of my trip.

Which included getting my tickets for Orlando. I think I'll definitely be doing this trip, seeing as I've got Five Days at Disney World and Seven Days at Universal Studios. Plus I got a ticket to Kennedy Space Station.

For Free.

The hotel and food is what will cost me, and i'll likely spend the most money of my entire trip in Orlando (and nearby places) but whatever the case, looks like I'll be using all thirty days of my leave. I've got to be back by November 7.

So the trip is up into Ohio, through New York, Vermont and New Hampshire to Maine, go back down through Massachusetts into Rhode Island and Connecticut, through New York City, Philidelphia and DC, and then high tail it down to Florida from there.

I'm going to exhaust myself on this vacation, but damn am I not looking forward to it!