We ended up camping at Tobyhanna State Park in the Poconos. I got 2 sites for $35. It was an easy drive west on Rt 80 to get there and the park is very nice with a pretty lake. Of course it poured all day Sunday but the radar looked to be clearing for the afternoon so we headed out. Just as we got there it started pouring again but the Ranger told us after this it should be done.

After we setup we went on a pre-dinner walk over to the swimming beach.

Spotted a frog

Back at the site Jon was grilling up some Kebabs.

My Dad and Kyle played an intense chess match while the rest of us made s’mores.

The next day we had pancakes for breakfast and headed over to the boat launch to rent some canoes. Vanessa and I had a nice paddle around the lake. Natalie and Kyle took Echo on his first boat ride.

I would definitely go back. Even though it was packed for the holiday Tobyhanna still had a very laid back feel. The Ranger stopped by to talk to us for awhile and said that when it’s not a holiday weekend they are never even half full.

So as long as I have a wifi or 3g connection I’ll be able to grab one of my photos and send it out to my Mom! This definitely beats trying to track down stamps when you’re in a foreign country. I’ll definitely be giving this a whirl!

The day after Christmas I left for Japan from Newark airport. Weather reports had been threatening a blizzard to hit on Sunday so I was quite nervous about making my flight. When I got up at 7am on sunday there was no snow. If you know me you’ll understand how weird it is for me to be happy about a lack of snow. The previous night continental had already announced they were suspending operations at 3pm but I had hopes my 11am flight would get out before the storm really hit.

Getting to the airport and checking in for my flight went smoothly. We boarded on time and I settled into my awesome business class flat bed seat just as some flurries were starting to fall.

On my 14 hour flight I read, knit, repaired a sweater, and ate. Oh yes I ate. I decided not to turn down any food offered for the purposes of this blog. We were served a multi course lunch, snacks, and breakfast. Two hours into my flight I had also had 3 big glasses of champagne…..just to help me sleep, of course.

So here is a visual rundown of my flight and meals.

It took forever to taxi to the gate but once I deplaned I got through immigration and customs with no problems. Lisa and Amanda’s flights didn’t arrive for another hour so I tracked down the Black Cat Yamato baggage delivery service and had my board bag delivered to Tabi Tabi Lodge for about $20. After running around Tokyo station this proved money well spent.

I settled down in the Meeting Place to wait for Lisa and Amanda. Checking out the arrivals board I saw that a flight that was supposed to arrive from NYC less than an hour after mine was canceled – so I was very lucky to have made it!

People watching in Japan is amazing! Japanese people are so adorable and I want to take them all home with me.

I had to wait about 30 minutes for Lisa to arrive and Amanda got there a few minutes later. We took care of getting their bags delivered and headed down to the train station. Now we just needed to make it to our hotel in Tokyo!

#1 Watch the Brewers lose

#2 See some bronze people

#3 Go to Red Dot Schlitz trivia night

Well, I’ll be damned if he didn’t make it happen. However, the man has a 200 room mansion and I still had to sleep in the living room on an air mattress.

Saturday night we went to the Brewers vs Cubs game. I’ve heard tailgating in Wisconsin is legendary – so we had to do it. Pizza and beers on the trunk in the parking lot.

I saw people playing corn hole. Playing that will get you shot in NY.

They must have heard me whining about the roof being closed, because right as we finished off our last beer they opened up the roof. I grabbed a quick photo with the Bronze Bud before we headed inside.

We had great seats except for all the Cubs fans. They guy in front of us was especially awesome. He proudly showed off his University of Phoenix class ring. Awesome! Not much action in the game and the Brewers lost 1-0. However in exciting news the Chorizo won and the scoreboard counts CUTS.

We finished off the night at Kopp’s where I got my first taste of custard. Rumorator and I both got Smile Sundaes and brought them home. Roommate von Rumorstein helped me eat mine but I still couldn’t finish it.

Sunday was even better as we had a nice brunch (after we went inside to avoid the bees). Then we headed North to Two Rivers. The final destination was the Hamilton Wood Type Museum. It was awesome! The museum director, Jim, gave us a fantastic tour. I mentioned to him that I was trying to show Claire how letterpress works and he offered to show us around the print room. Then we were allowed free reign to explore and take photos.

For some reason on the way up we didn’t see any cows (lots of silos though), but on the way back I saw lots. Including horses that RvR declared cows.

Sunday night we were supposed to have gone on a Mariachi Recon Mission, but it got canceled due to lack of Messicans. So the three of us headed to Chez Jacques for a romantic French dinner.

We enjoyed our dinners and RvR brought home a lot of pork. He may have a career in politics.

Monday we grabbed lunch at Palomino’s and headed downtown to visit the Bronze Fonz. He’s short.

We putzed around Alterra by the Lake for awhile. No free wifi after noon. Bullshit.

We were supposed to go visit Moda but they were closed this week. Don’t they know who I am? Bullshit.

Soon the big event was upon us! Trivia night.

There were a lot of expectations going into trivia night. Larsma kicked off one of her teammates to make room for me. After the ritual spilling of 2 Schlitzes, trivia got under way. I dubbed our team Mariachi Recon Mission in honor of our failed mission.

Frankly, we kicked ass at the first scoring round getting 99 points and having 5 perfect rounds. The second round was rough, but we picked it back up in the 3rd to win by 3 points. I got the 4 & 5 point questions right in Quantum Mechanics (see I really am an engineer!) We took home a lifesize Schlitz cutout, $25 bar tab and a Schlitz cooler. Now personally I would have taken the neon light but the group wanted the cooler.

Tuesday I was on my own. I ate my leftover sundae for breakfast. I am that badass. Then I walked along the lakefront to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Quadracci Pavilion is totally rad. I wish I had my SLR instead of a point and shoot.

The art was ok. I’m used to the MET & MOMA so it was a little small and lacking the biggest artists but they did have a diverse collection. The Bradley collection was pretty good. I thought it was lame that it was called the Mrs. Harry Bradley collection instead of the Peg Bradley collection.

I walked back to Castle von Rumorstein and realized I was starting to know my way around a bit. That’s good since I’ll be back in about a year for a big event!

Thanks all the MKE folks for making my trip super-awesome! Come visit me in NYC!

You can check out more photos over on flickr.

Also, the weekend recap from Rumorator.

Here is the making of:

I was almost 10hrs late for my flight. Thanks to Greg for pointing this out.

Now I probably would have noticed this when I sent my mom my flight info..but at least now I know I have to pack friday night.

I took a 4:30pm flight that was very nice. I had an exit row window seat with extra legroom and no one sitting in the middle seat. Landed then took a cab over to the Wynn. At the checkin I mentioned my birthday was the day after and I got my room upgraded! Seems like everyone at the conference was in the (VIP) Tower Suites but they were all on single digit floors while I was on the 34th and had an awesome view. On a side note the Wynn claims to have 60 floors but no floors start with 4. (click photos to enlarge)

My room was awesome. It was big but not a suite. The bathroom was bigger than my bedroom at home. It had a glass shower and a huge tub with a waterfall faucet. They had every toiletry you could think of: bath salts, loofah, toothbrush, razor, lotions, etc. Oh and there was a tv too.

The first night I took a long bath and watched Privileged. I went to bed a bit before midnight. Next day I woke up a 5:30am. Killed a lot of time doing my nails and such. They had a great breakfast at the conference. Fake Tina Turner at the keynote. We had a 3 course lunch and I met other people from my company.

For dinner that night we went to Capital Grille. It was pretty good. I got a huge slice of cake with candles. Then we went over to Pure Nightclub. Turned 30 on the dance floor to a Lady Gaga song. I realized as we were leaving that it was in Caesar’s Palace. I spent my 21st birthday at Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City. Kinda cool.

Thursday was my birthday! I decided to skip the morning session and take a walk. Then off to more sessions/lunch/etc. We spend some time after lunch by the pool. I texted some friends back home in the 20°F weather to rub it in. I had made friends with a couple of my coworkers and we decided to go out to celebrate my birthday.

We spent a few hours at Social House eating sushi and drinking Asahi. We saw the Treasure Island (pussycat dolls) Pirate Show several times. Our waiter decided to get us some interesting sushi including: shrimp heads, baby (raw) shrimp, sea urchin. Some was weird, some was good.

Then we went walking down the strip. One of the girls hadn’t seen the Bellagio water show so we did that. More walking, etc, before returning to the Wynn and doing some gambling. I came out $8 up. I was totally beat at this point and went to bed.

Friday I got breakfast, took a nap, and checked out of my hotel. Flight home was on time and Natalie picked me up. We got some Indian food and headed home. Vegas trip over.

Vanessa remembered reading about some art exhibit she wanted to see in one of the Smithsonian museums, so we decided to go. We left around 6:30 am on Saturday morning and drove over to Natalie’s friend’s apartment. From there we took the Metro to the museums. There was a really cool exhibit on hip-hop art, plus the one Vanessa wanted to see on color fields. Then finally we found Stephen Colbert.

Stephen was hanging out over a water fountain in the bathroom alcove near a presidential portrait exhibit. We at lunch at Chipotle, went to the National Art Museum. Then we hit up a bar for some afternoon drinking…it started hailing when we were 50 ft from the door.

You can see my photos on flickr.

Then it was back to the condo to rest. We had thai for dinner and then we came back and drank wine and played Rock Band. It was my first time…and I had to play drums since no one else could do it. I am also awesome (and modest) at guitar from playing lots of GH2/3.

Sunday morning we went to The Diner for brunch. Yay for mimosas and Eggs Chesapeake. Then we did a little shopping before heading home.

We ended up stopping in Cherry Hill so that Natalie could check out a bike she saw on craigslist. And since we were there we got early dinner at a sushi place down there that Vanessa loves. It’s called Oh Yoko and it was fabulous. If you like sushi definitely check it out.

I arrived in Chicago around 10:30pm and Alexis’s boyfriend picked me up. He sounds uncannily like my friend from Wisconsin, Greg. We took a bunch of backroads to avoid traffic. Aaron owns a pretty cool condo in a greystone. When we got there Alexis was asleep on the couch, but she got up and made me fondue! I never knew there was such a thing as fondue-cheese-in-a-bag but it was pretty good.

Saturday I was up early and showered, so when Alexis got up to walk her dog I went with her. She gave me the local tour. We came back and made pancakes. Then we got on the bus and headed downtown with the idea of going to the Museum of Contemporary Art. That never happened. Instead we did a lot of window shopping and hunting for a pizza place to get some deep dish where the wait wasn’t an hour. Damn tourists! (oops) Michigan Avenue is crazy.

We ended up getting some yummy pizza before heading home. One the way we stopped and I bought us some fancy cupcakes for later. Alexis loves cupcakes. By the time we got home we were all beat and so we vegged out on the couch for most of the evening. We ordered up some sushi and watched SNL, Rob & Big, The Usual Suspects etc.

Sunday Alexis and I headed Evanston to check out the Armenian Church. When we got there for mass it was entirely empty other then the priest and altar boys. Neither of speak Armenian and so we had no idea when we were supposed to stand or sit. I honestly know Catholic mass way better. We were trying to follow along in the liturgy book but we were never sure what page we were on. Most bigger churches have a deli counter thing that tells you the page number. As the mass went on more people showed up.

Afterwards lots of people came up and introduced themselves. They all thought we were students from Northwestern. We also got dragged into the brunch. That’s one of the nice things about orthodox churches – food after mass! The deacon that Alexis had spoken to made us introduce ourselves to everyone. They were very nice but there were maybe 8 people under the age of 50 and that’s counting children.

Then we drove to see the Baha’i Temple. It was really cool. We could have gone into it but they were doing their services and we didn’t want to get stuck in there for the whole time. Then we headed back downtown and dropped Lex’s car off in the garage. We did some walking in Millennium Park and saw the Giant Chrome Bean and the Spitting Video Faces. I’m sure these have other more proper names.

Afterwards we walked back down Michigan Ave and stopped at Nordstrom. I bought a bunch of socks. Then we were off to the Drake Hotel to meet Alexis’s friend for high tea. We had a table at the fountain. I got Earl Grey tea and a mimosa. We were served finger sandwiches, scones, and banana bread followed by some pastries. It was fun and after 2 pots of tea I was stuffed.

Alexis whisked me back to the airport for my 7:15pm flight. I almost finished my knitting project on the flight back and my we arrived 45 min EARLY! Amazing.

Good weekend. Feel free to check out my slideshow on flickr. Not many pics as my camera battery was dying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/business/worldbusiness/20cnd-dollar.html?hp