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Sneaks, Shows, and Shopping

Jason is a sneaky fellow. He’s come up with a crafty method for making each minute of his time off really count. How does he maximize his days off?

Jason’s new strategy regarding PTO involves utilizing multi-functionality. By getting sick right when we are about to leave on vacation he turns what would just be vacation days into all-purpose vacation/sick days, which saves him a lot of sick time. Maybe this habit is great for preserving his PTO but I find it trying. Sigh.

Jason’s only illnesses in the last year have been synchronized with our vacations. When we went to NYC in December he was fighting off a bug and when we traveled to Mississippi in February he was battling an illness that he generously shared with me so I could be sick on our trip too.

Last week I had to travel to Las Vegas for an SCC seminar and Jason tagged along. Considering Jason’s recent sickness patterns I was more exasperated than surprised when he informed me the night before we were leaving that he felt like he was coming down with something. Geeze boy! Ill or not, Vegas couldn’t be delayed so we did our best not to let his cold keep us from having a good time. Admittedly, this was probably an easier task for me than him considering I felt fine but I think we both fared pretty well in the fun department.

When Jason and I go to Vegas it’s pretty much a guarantee that we are going to catch a show. This time, however, we ended up seeing two. First, we went to Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian. Although I have seen Phantom of the Opera live before I’ve had a hankering to see it again and thus I’ve been “suggesting” that we go see it the last few times we’ve been in Vegas. Jason finally caught on that my suggestions weren’t actually suggestions so he agreed to patronize Sir Weber with me. Phantom was delightful and even Jason was intrigued by its special effects. The second show we watched was Cirque du Soleil’s O playing at the Bellagio. We weren’t planning on checking out O this trip but, since we were staying at the Bellagio, we were too tempted by the ease of attending this spectacle that we have long wanted to see. It was a captivating program but it left me and Jason with a pesky urge to play in some water.

The pools at Bellagio are reportedly some of the best on the strip. That rumor is true.

Even with our two shows there was plenty of spare time to go blow some bills. A lot of people go to Vegas to spend money and I do too, just not at the casinos. I can’t go to Vegas without doing some shopping and by “some” I mean many more hours than the average person could tolerate. The Vegas shops and I were obviously placed in each other’s lives for a reason. I’m pretty sure finding cute new clothes was that reason but I bought some jewelry too just in case I misinterpreted the will of the universe. Better safe than sorry.

The stores we perused were plentiful but the demands of fashion weren’t the only ones diminishing our pocketbooks. My stomach seems to think that when good food is present it needs to eat it and the Bellagio houses plenty of world class restaurants so you can guess the outcome of that scenario. The nearness of scrumptious food and my fondness for the stuff led to a chain of conspiring events that ultimately resulted in mass deliciousness consumption. We caught up with a coworker of Jason’s that happened to also be in Vegas at Todd English’s Olives for a nice casual lunch. The fig and prosciutto flatbread I ordered was a yummy combination of sweet, salty, and pungent. Mmmm! Additionally, we practically ate our weight in pastries, crepes, and desserts at the Jean Philippe Patisserie. We couldn’t help it; this award winning pastry chef’s shop also houses the world’s largest chocolate fountain and those 27 feet of molten chocolate kept calling us back. (It really is a Guinness world record; you can look it up.) We also stuffed our gullets with classy Cantonese dishes at Jasmine and while we filled our stomachs the manmade splendor of the Bellagio fountains filled our eyes.

Jasmine, a Catonese restaurant, is located over Bellagio's lake so we had a front row view of the fountain show while we gobbled our delicious meals.

Although we had barely unpacked our bags from Maui when it was time to pack them again for Vegas, and Jason insisted on getting sick just as we were leaving, it was still a good trip. Jason’s cold turned out to be pretty mild fortunately so it didn’t interfere with my shopping marathon much. With a little assistance from our friend Sudafed he seemed to feel almost normal and he didn’t sneeze on me enough to get me sick. Lady luck and the shopping gods must be with me!

I left a lot of money in Vegas but my butt and scarf selection grew substantially so I’d call the trip a success.

Rachel June 8, 2011 1 Comment

U2 in Utah

I have been a passionate supporter of Bono and the boys since I was a teenager. I’ve seen them perform live a few times but when I heard that they were touring again I was still just as eager as always to go to their show.

U2’s concert in Salt Lake City was originally scheduled for last summer but it got delayed a year due to Bono’s emergency back surgery. The new show date, which seemed infinitely far away, finally came last week and Rice Eccles Stadium was packed with nearly 50,000 expectant fans. It was wonderfully chaotic.

Jason isn't wild about U2 but, being an electronics geek, he was wowed by their stage gadgetry.

Although I was patient with the crowds, even when they blocked the traffic on the concourse by packing excessively around a t-shirt booth, one attendee pushed my tolerance for social gracelessness. After Jason and I found our seats he left for a few minutes to get us a bottle of water. Literally 30 seconds later a random guy sat down next to me, put his arm around me, and asked if I was there by myself. Awkward. Surprisingly, after I told him that I was with my husband he didn’t hang his head and quickly depart with what was left of his dignity. It was as though he thought that by lingering he could somehow change my marital status or his appeal. Even more awkward. Fortunately, an apparently desperate woman sitting nearby caught our conversation and started talking to this weirdo so his focus was redirected away from me. Thank goodness! He’s all yours lady!

U2's stage had a huge circular screen. It was monstrous but the bigger the Bono the better!

Except for those few uncomfortable moments the concert was incredible. Bono, as always, was a terrific performer and the band played flawlessly but it was the unique stage setup that escalated this concert from fantastic to unbelievable. The 360 stage was specifically designed to provide an excellent view of the band from anywhere in a stadium; it definitely did that. We got plenty of close-ups of Bono’s beautiful face. The stage’s enormous screen wasn’t just for Bono ogling though; it descended and extended like a net at times creating a sophisticated electronic funnel. The four legs that supported this screen were about 150 feet high and formed a huge crabbish arch. The top of the arch was covered in all sorts of lighting including enormous searchlights that blasted the sky during “City of Blinding Lights.”

When the screen lowered it formed a masterful electronic webbing. Very cool!

The Dublin fellows rocked and their stage was super awesome! They played for about 2 hours with song selection heavy on the favorites. Great concert!

And just for the record, while I didn’t appreciate the advances of that creepy guy, Bono, I welcome your arms around me anytime.

Rachel May 31, 2011 No Comments

Maui Wowie

Jason and I just hit our tenth anniversary. What a fantastic decade! We traveled to Oahu to commemorate our 5th anniversary so we thought it was only fitting that we should travel to another Hawaiian island, Maui, to celebrate our tenth. Okay, okay, so we were just looking for an excuse to go to Hawaii again but who isn’t looking for an excuse to go to Hawaii?
Our week on the island was packed! Maui is a bigger less-navigable island than Oahu so fitting in all that we wanted to do required a few too many early morning rises for my vacation tastes but we had some truly memorable experiences so I can’t complain too much.

The first day we were on Maui I eagerly gorged myself on delicious sunshine and fresh ocean air. What an oinker I am!
This spot in Ka’anapali, called Black Rock, is where the ancient Hawaiians believed souls of the departed jumped off of Maui to meet their ancestors. Everyday at sunset a diver ceremoniously leaps from these cliffs and we got a great shot of it.

Compacting the details of an adventurous week into a little post won’t be easy but here’s my best attempt:
1. We snorkeled in the Molokini crater in the clearest water I have seen this side of a swimming pool. Visibility was well over 100 feet and the fish weren’t even slightly shy. It was like swimming in a monstrous aquarium. Amazing! We saw at least a dozen types of fish including triggerfish, yellow tangs, and raccoon butterflyfish. Jason is pretty sure a reef shark also cruised by him.

These triggerfish are just one of the many species we saw in the crater. To see our You Tube clip of this school click on the link provided in the comment section.
The very essence of hotness: a foggy snorkeling mask, lumps of messy wet hair, and an awkwardly placed breathing tube. Oh baby!

2. We watched the sunrise over the Haleakala Crater. This is a very popular tourist activity but it lived up to much of the hype. In order to make it to the crater by 5:50 AM though, an ungodly time in of itself, we had to get up at about 2:30 AM and travel a winding road that gains 10,023 feet in 37 miles, one of the greatest elevation changes in that distance in the world. Although the hour was painful and the ride was slow, witnessing the day dawning in these heavens was sublime. The thick layer of turbulent clouds driving up the sides of Haleakala gilded by the rising sun gave the setting an ethereal characteristic. I felt like a god of Olympus watching the beauty of the world unfold beneath me. Lovely! After the sun was up we hiked down the Sliding Sands trail into the crater itself. Talk about otherworldly! The endless veins of eroding green, red, brown, black, blue, and yellow volcanic gravel creeping across the desolate landscape toward the crater’s floor in complete silence made me question the reality of my surroundings more than a few times.

A striking sunrise: painted clouds blanketing austere peaks.
The Haleakala crater was punctured by cinder cones, etched with the jagged remains of ancient lava flows, and streaked with vivid but barren sands. Its utter silence seemed completely at odds with its violent past. No picture could adequately portray its bizarreness.

3. We boogie boarded on Polo Beach near our hotel, the Fairmont Kea Lani. It was a blast! Neither of us had boogied before but I rode a wave all the way to the shore on my first attempt, which got me some envious “How’d she do that?” looks from a group of tourists that had been trying unsuccessfully to do that very thing for over an hour. It was all beginner’s luck-not every wave was that easy-but I did inspire confidence in a number of other beach goers. My easy ride convinced a bunch of cowardly observers that it really couldn’t be that hard so the assemblage of boarders in the water almost instantly doubled. I got some pretty painful burns on my stomach and elbows from being dragged along the shore by wave after wave and, a week later, I am still picking sand out of my hair but it was all worth it! I loved boogieing! By the way, boogie boarding is much easier and less tiring than surfing so if surfing intimidates you, you might want to give boogie boarding a try.

Those legs smack in the middle of that tidal upheaval belong to me. This was just one of the many times I got gobbled by a wave while I was boogie boarding.
That is the smile of a woman who just caught a fantastic wave and now has enough sand in her hair to create her own personal head beach.
Jason must be a lard because he broke that wave’s back. 🙂

4. We drove through the lush waterfall-filled tropics on Maui’s east side, commonly referred to as the highway to Hana, with our Mustang convertible’s top down. Absolutely gorgeous! We made a lot of waterfall stops along the way and found plenty of other diversions like the Seven Sacred Pools, a couple of black sand beaches, and an enormous ancient Hawaiian temple called the Pi’olanihale Heiau. Fantastic!

This beautiful black sand beach is near Hana in Wai’anapanapa State Park. Do beaches get any prettier than this?
Just one of the many amazing falls on Maui’s east side.
This is only part of the massive temple known as Pi’ilanihale Heiau. Its giant structure was built in stages between 1200 and 1570 AD and spans 3 acres.
Signs at the Kahanu Garden instructed patrons not to walk under the coconut trees because of falling coconuts. So naturally Jason had to simulate a coconut conking.
This view of the Seven Sacred Pools, more correctly called the ‘Ohe’o Gulch, was taken from the bridge above. It doesn’t show the idyllic waterfalls that cascade from pool to pool as this stream journeys to the ocean but you get the pretty picture.
This flowing trio called Waikani Falls, or the Three Bears, was my favorite of the the many gorgeous falls we encountered on the way to Hana. This baby was the stuff that tropical paradise legends are made of.

5. We ziplined 2,800 feet across a gulch near Makawao with 700 feet of air between our dangling bodies and the ground. Awesome!

This zipline company had twin lines at each zip so Jason and I got to scream in sync.
Heights are not my friend but I actually wasn’t nervous zipping across this forest.
700 feet up and 2800 feet across: one cherry of a ride.

6. We rode horses through the eucalyptus forests and windy pastures of the Pi’iholo Ranch. It was quite relaxing and gave Jason a chance to improve his shabby riding skills.

Jason was given the gentlest horse on the ranch, Boomer, due to his poor ponying capabilities. I, on the other hand, rode Cheese, a steed that occasionally bit the butt of the horse in front of him or the legs of the riders at his side.

We spent the rest of our time, which honestly wasn’t much, wandering along the coastline, shopping in Lahaina, eating some truly fantastic fish, making little hiking excursions to the ‘Iao Needle and Dragon’s Teeth, being wowed by the magic of Warren and Annabelle’s, and dipping our feet in Maui’s impossibly blue waters.

We walked along Polo Beach one night and heard whale song coming from migrating humpbacks. I was almost as excited as Captain Kirk.
Sun? Check. Sand? Double check. Smile? Absolutely.
This was the view from our private lanai. Go ahead and be jealous.
Jason was practically begging for a salt soaking by hanging out at those rocks…and boy did he get it.
These strange protrusions, known as the Dragon’s Teeth, formed as this lava rock was eaten away by saltwater from the churning spitting sea below.
This stream runs through the lush ‘Iao Valley. The ancient Hawaiians believed this valley was sacred so many of their chiefs are buried within its walls.

What a lovely vacation! Good thing our 15th anniversary isn’t too far away or we might have to think of some other excuse to return to the charming islands of Hawaii.

Rachel May 25, 2011 4 Comments
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