jackson hole vacation :::: part 3

tuesday morning i got up early for yoga, what a great way to start the day! afterwards i came back to get brad and enjoy the tea that was delivered to our cabin. tuesday was the only morning that yoga was offered so on the other days we got into a great routine of waking up when the tea was delivered, stoking up the fire and having quiet time and reading our Bibles before breakfast. loved it.

the three main things we did were hiking, horseback riding, and fly fishing. i guess it's probably easiest to just post the pics and go from there!

while we were riding shelby taught me a lot about the wildflowers that were all over the place. aaaand i don't remember the name of this one :)

where we stopped to eat lunch on our first ride

my horse for the rides, devish

ready to go fishing!

brook trout!

we fished near those willows on the left and you can see our cabin a little further up

getting ready for our second ride to disappearing lake

grizzly scratches

disappearing lake (it is filled by snow melt, then evaporates by about july)

riding back to the ranch (our new friend faye up front)

we rode into the gross ventre wilderness --- no wheels or machines allowed!

the creek (i saw the moose here when i was running, by myself, with no camera... so everyone acts like they don't believe me)

south ridge

i guess that's pretty much it as far as the ranch went. i completely recommend the ranch if you're into that kind of thing. i hope we'll be able to go back, we both really enjoyed it! 

jackson hole vacation ::: part 1

on sunday brad and i packed our bags and our friend lauren dropped us off at the airport to head to jackson hole, wyoming. asheville's airport is pretty small so we made it through security pretty quickly and had a fair amount of time to kill before our flight. the beauty of living in beer city is that they have all the good local beers on draft at the airport bar [however, it's easy to forget you're at the airport and they will charge you an arm and a a leg].

 

anyways, we had a beer to cheers to a great vacation then boarded our plane. then the captain came in and told us we had to deplane, that they'd found a problem with the plane during their walk around inspection. they had to contact maintenance to see if it was fixable [and if it was fixable it would take at least 2 hours]. 

we quickly got into line at the counter because we knew either way we'd miss our connecting flight from chicago to jackson. long story short they said the earliest we could get to jackson would be the next day (monday) at 230p. a little disappointing but still okay. thankfully we got in contact with our hotel for sunday night (wyoming inn) and they were nice enough to refund our money for the night. that's pretty much unheard of in my experience, so a big THANK YOU to them. we'll definitely stay there if we're ever back in jackson. 

they actually ended up fixing our plane so we were able to get into chicago around 9ish. we had to go to customer service to get a voucher for a hotel and all that jazz. the line was CRAZY long. a really nice guy helped us, gave us a hotel voucher, meal vouchers, and told us where to catch the shuttle. unfortunately they couldn't get us our checked bag [i definitely know better than to put important stuff in there, but i failed miserably]. i hunted down some contact lens solution then we caught the shuttle to the intercontinental hotel. 

we were both pleasantly surprised with the hotel. it was very nice, clean, and modern and the staff was great. when we gave the clerk our voucher he asked if we needed any toiletries or anything, and even gave us free wifi for the night. 

we had a late dinner [and multiple margaritas] and the hotel restaurant, fresco 21. once again, we were pleasantly surprised and i'm pretty sure those were some of the best french fries we ever had [they were only serving their late night menu so everything came with fries].

monday morning we had breakfast at fresco 21 then caught he shuttle back to o'hare.

i really wish i'd had my running stuff because i would have loved to jump on the el and ran down by the shore. oh well, lesson learned. 

our flight to jackson was uneventful but check out the view as we were coming in:

and that's where i'll end for now!

vacation part 2::: NYC day 2

thursday morning i got up and did 5 solid miles in central park [love].

we got ready and then went to lunch at the shake shack.

the burger and shake were amazing. my favorite burger ever. the fries were just ehhh. brad even said he liked it better than in and out [but he made me add that the 'animal style' on a shake shack burger would be the best ever].

we spent the rest of the afternoon in macy's, bloomingdale's, and some other stores. i loved seeing all the Christmas decor!

we went back and got ready to go see wicked! i was so excited that i finally talked brad into seeing this! last time we were in NYC we went to see the lion king because it was one of the shows brad thought he'd actually be interested in. i'd seen wicked on tour with my mom and LOVED it but brad has always had this aversion to it for many reasons, one of which being, WAIT FOR IT... he's never seen the wizard of oz!! but since this trip was kind of for my big birthday, he let me pick.

it was every bit as wonderful as i remembered and brad even said he liked it better than the lion king! i'm so happy he liked it! after the show we were walking to dinner and i got to meet the actress who played Glinda. she was really nice and signed my playbill! we had dinner at joe allen's then we headed to a bar we found near our hotel that we loved. i could not even tell you the name of it, but we ended up there almost every night we were there. they had tons of beers on tap and brad enjoys trying different ones.

so that was the end of day two! one more day of vacation round up to go!

have you seen the wizard of oz?

Vacation Part Two:::: NYC day 1

Tuesday morning we packed up and left Vegas bright and early.

brad was taking full advantage of the the strip's open container policy as long as he could! we arrived in NYC around 7pm. it sucked to lose a day of vacation to travel, but we were together and we weren't working, still a win in my book.

we stayed at the metro apartments, which mostly worked well for us. the studio apartment was tiny, but it had a kitchenette so we were able to make our breakfasts. the biggest problem was more of a problem with travelocity than the hotel. long story short, i made a point to call travelocity to confirm that there was a fitness center on site. we get there and there wasn't a fitness center. i call travelocity and am on the phone for over an hour, without a resolution. greaaaaat.

the first night i honestly can't remember where we grabbed food, but then we caught a late showing of Lincoln.

the next morning we got up and went for a run in central park. i cannot even tell you how much this is my favorite part of visiting NYC. i don't know if it would wear off if you ran there every day, but i can't get over just being in awe of the amazing beauty and tranquility in the middle of such commotion. i also love seeing all the sights that you see in the movies and tv shows. wednesday i ran 3 miles with brad and thursday i did 5 miles on my own.

on wednesday we visited grand central station, rockefeller center and the nyc public library. grand central seemed other worldly to me. i loved it and could have sat in there for a long time. they were having a holiday market too, and a man was playing Christmas carols on his violin. we enjoyed listening to him for a while.

next we ended up and rockefeller center and i spotted magnolia bakery. the line wasn't out the door as usual so i ran inside to get a cupcake. i chose the rockette red velvet. the cake part was delicious but i didn't love the frosting [more marshmallow-y than cream cheesey). rockefeller center looked great all dressed up for Christmas.

the nyc public library was really cool to see in person, and it was decorated inside also.

we had to get back to the room pretty quickly because we had a big date planned. we had tickets to the NYC ballet's performance of the nutcracker at lincoln center.

the dancing portions were amazing, but i had honestly forgotten how boring the first act is. i was pretty bored during the first act, and brad was pretty much asleep! but the second act was a lot better, with more dancing. afterwards we went to dinner at rosa mexicana, which was our favorite restaurant when we visited NYC last year. [quick side note, brad found the biggest lululemon i've ever seen on the way to dinner, SO much product! i found a jacket that i loved and i think i MIGHT be getting it for Christmas... fingers crossed!]
dinner was great, if you're in NYC you should definitely try rosa's. they have chains now, but we ate at the one in atlanta and it just wasn't as good. so we went back to the original one that we had tried before.

more to come on the rest of the week later!!