Vacation Update Part 2!

Ok so after our big road trip we headed off to Spokane, Coeur D' Alene and Missoula. We stopped and had a 3 hour layover in Vegas.  Now I was not going to sit in an airport in VEGAS for 3 hours so I made Dan venture out on the strip with me.  We decided to stop in Paris and have some breakfast then we walked over to the Venetian to get froyo.  Yes I love froyo that much I know where its located in different cities.

If you ever go to Vegas you must get some noms here in the Paris hotel.

 We arrived in Spokane and spent the day there wandering around and seeing the sights.  We actually had a really good meal at a restaurant in a hotel which is a surprise!  Then we took a walk along the river where we spotted these little guys

and walked passed Gonzaga. We walked up to the Don Kardong bridge where the sights were just beautiful.

 We then made our way over to the famous Spokane Falls..let me tell you it was so hot I really just wanted to jump in but knew if I did so death would be certain.

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running art for the famous bloomsday run!

 After all that excitement we made our way to our next stop...Coeur D' Alene, Idaho.  This was my favorite stop on our trip it was just GORGEOUS there. We saw some sights ate some great food, went to a winery (of course), and ran on an amazing trail.  The trail was just named the best trail in Idaho by the Army Times too.

view from the bridge at The Coeur D' Alene Resort

got our toes in the water

I have the attention span of a small child and thought it was neat to see a pine cone on a beach!

Ok here begins our pictures from Tubb's Trail this was my fave part..I just couldn't believe how beautiful the trail was.  It was definitely not an easy trail so I mostly slow jogged so I could see the sights and not break my ankles. Seriously fave place to run everrrr...

heaven

the resort

we became experts at the self photo on this trip

 On our last night there we ate at a floating restaurant which was pretty cool except it slipped my mind that I get sea sick..whoopsie.  I am always up for trying new things so when they had bone marrow on the menu I figured why not! I have heard it was a delicacy of sorts....it was interesting kind of a fatty consistency but different taste.  I don't think I'll ever crave but I'd probably eat it again.

our lovely view

Stay tuned for the Montana update next :)

Finally an Update!

   Ok now that I have finally caught up on all of your blogs I'll update my own ha.....
So I had 2 glorious weeks off work which started out by us going up to Erie, PA and NY state for wine beer and fun with 2 other of our couple friends.

    We got home on Monday and left on Wednesday very early morning to drive to Ft Campbell to visit Tom and his family. On the way from PA to KY we spotted the Jim Beam distillery and I was pumpppppped.  I cant belive it didnt occur to me to look up distilleries. Oh well I have Wild Turkey marked down on my list for the next time we go down there.  The distillery tour was pretty neat but you did not actually get to go inside where they make the whiskey so that was lame.  Overall I would say the tour was nicer than that Jack Daniels  tour (we went in 2008 when we were down in Nashville for the Country Music Marathon) but the Jack tour was more interesting as you got to go through where they made each stage of the whiskey.  The Jim tour had better samples though ha. They will be opening the distillery up for tours next year they said.

   

the barrel tells them all the info they need to know

there were whiskeys I didnt even know about- stupid PA liquor laws!

the worlds smallest working distillery- this was no bigger than a coffee table

    Dan and I were both really excited to see Tom, his wife and son and meet his daughter.  He is doing remarkably well.  Its sounding like his leg should be able to heal itself over time and he may not need any surgeries but he will have months of rehab ahead of him as he learns to walk again. I was also intrigued because I have never been to a real military post so I was excited to see what it was like.  We spent two days down there and Tom showed us around post and where different units train etc and I even braved the PX and commissary on payday haha. 

Tom and Dan

His wonderful family

From KY we drove up to Chicago to see Dans sister and our friend Kaity for dinner and then we continued on up to Michigan to spend a few days with Dans parents and our friend Ed.  On our way up to Michigan we got a call from my parents (the puppy sitters) that Max had gotten spooked by fireworks and escaped my parents neighbors fence and ran away.  I was A WRECK because Max isnt the sharpest tool in the shed. If he was a person he would look like this

and have an eldery husband with a trust fund waiting for him.  SO I basically cried the whole way up to Michigan and the whole night becasue I was sure he would try to make firends with a coyote or something and we would never see this face again

hes the white one

  Luckily someone spotted him the next morning and called me and dropped him off at my parents house. I was crying tears of joy...even my dad cried! Max was ok he just had raw paws and looked traumatized for the next few days.
  We spent the next few days in Michigan tubing in the Muskegon river and really just relaxing which felt great.

Stay tuned for our recap of our trip to Spokane, Coeur D'Alene, Missoula and the Missoula Half Marathon :)

Honey...I'm Home!

Its been a crazy two weeks of vacation but I've loved every second of it!  We went to every time zone in the CONUS and 11 states, drank wine and whiskey, and hiked and ran. I shall be updating piece by piece shortly here but I just wanted to say that I'm back and I missed you all...now to get caught up reading all your lovely blogs :)

Long Time No See!

Hey Everyone!
Its been  over a week since I blogged (bad blogger I know) work was crazy busy last week then we left for a mini vacay so here is the recap.....
First of all, every year in Pittsburgh, Anthrocon (furries) comes to town and provides great amusement for many people who work downtown.  I went furry hunting at lunch time on multiple days but this guy was my fave. If you want to know what a furry is go ahead and google it.

Ninja Fox- his black coat had dragons on it

Friday after work we left for Jamestown NY (Lake Erie/ Lake Chataqua area) and we arrived about 8:30pm.  We get there only to discover that Jamestown is pretty much a ghost town so yeahhhh we wont be staying there again.  The rest of our weekend was pretty great otherwise.  Two other couple we are friends with joined us for many wine tastings and an awesome beer and cheese pairing event at the Southern Tier Brewery.  We were able to sample 9 different beers which were paired with 9 different cheeses and then we went on a brewery tour afterward where we got to try 5 more beers!

one of the beer guys putting on a little show

nom nom

the beers we got to sample

Rachel, Me, Sarah

the fermenters

the bottling- all in the same big room

lovely tour guide filling up pitchers for us to try

someone got dared to eat a hop pellet

we got to try non carbonated beer straight from the tub- i almost like it better this way!

Sunday we went to some wineries and had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant on Lake Erie. We also stopped at a place called the Sugar Shack where a lady picks all the fruit and makes her own syrups and fruit butters.  She also showed up how grapes get picked from her 80 acres of vines.  Welch's was in the area and on our drives it was just grape vines as far as the eye could see!

Rachel and Spencer

Me and Dan

its not the Caribbean but it will do lol

Mike and Sarah

this is one of my fave pictures from this weekend

Red, white and blue wine!

vineyards with the lake in the backround

this was a waterfall on the lake...look closely through the trees and you can see someones house!

life is so much better without shoes

the damage

Anyway I'll be kinda off the radar once again for a bit....we are traveling down to Ft. Campbell to visit our friend Tom and then from there up to Michigan to visit Dan's family....Just in case I don't get a chance to blog I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!!!!