TravelStream™ news feed for member rainydaygirl13 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/rainydaygirl13 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 28 May 2009 15:49:16 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1242935008/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1242935008/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1242935008/tpod.html Thu, 28 May 2009 15:49:16 -0400 Las Vegas

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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

After arriving at the airport we grabbed a cab and headed to the
Flamingo hotel where we were staying for the week. (side note, I love
the city of Las Vegas' cab companies for offering a handicap van, it
made transportation so much easier) As for the Flamingo, it's one of
the older hotels, but still very well kept. The room was your standard
accomidations with a decent view of the courtyard in the middle of the
hotel grounds.

We arrived in early afternoon so we grabbed some
lunch at the Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville restaurant. The food was
pretty good. I had the tuna appetizer, a California chicken rollup, and
a Bahama Mama to drink. After lunch we decided to go back to the room
and rest up before our show that night.

Later
that night, we went to go see the show "The Rat Pack is back" a
impersonation show at the Plaza. While the show featured decent
impersanations and enjoyable comedy and music, I probably wouldn't
spend the 80 dollars it costs to add dinner to your ticket. I went with
the steak option and so my meal consisted of some generic ice berg
lettuce with Italian dressing on it for starters. Followed by an okay
piece of meet, some instant mashed potatoes, and some more generic
salad. The cheesecake was bland, I've made better myself. One thing
that did disturb me though was realizing there was lipstick on my glass
of water half way through it, an odd thing to find considering I don't
wear any myself....hmm.

After the show we went to Fremont
street, a beautiful and free thing to see. The street is covered with a
canopy of lights and every hour from 6pm-midnight the lights of the
casino go down and a show begins on the ceiling above. They feature
different music and light shows, I saw one with 80s music and another
featuring Queen's "We Will Rock You." Its a good area to go to people
watch and view all the bright lights of the city.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1243539896/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1243539896/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/6/1243539896/tpod.html Thu, 28 May 2009 15:48:47 -0400 Las Vegas

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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Our second day in the city wasn't quite as productive. We woke up a
little late, got some brunch at the buffet in our hotel, gambled a
little.

After which I spent sometime wandering a couple blocks
around our hotel. I walked down to the Paris hotel, which is a pretty
amazing place. The feature replicas of all the main sites in Paris: The
Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and other various well knowns. We
also caught an afternoon show of the water fountains outside the
Bellagio.

For the night we went to the Palms hotel. Definitely
aimed towards younger people, it features a movie theater, night clubs,
and a Playboy tower. We went there to see Dane Cook and two other
performers. They were okay, a little too raunchy at some points. I'm
90% sure I was sitting 3 seats down from comedian/game show Louis
Anderson.

Got a ride to the Palms and back with a sassy cab
driver named Horacio. He has some excellent criticisms of the people we
passed on the sidewalks as well as some great stories of previous
customers. At the end of the night he jokingly tried to kidnap me. Ah
great times.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218201660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218201660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218201660/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:26:41 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Mackinaw City, Michigan, United States

We spent the morning driving only stopping at Bob Evan's for breakfast and one quick gas station stop. We got to the city in the early afternoon and looked for something to do. We realized we were running out of activities since we had been up to the UP already a couple of years ago. But we found the Colonial Michilimackinac. It is a fort that was rebuilt after the findings of the old fort there. It was originally built by the French as a trading post, then taken over by the British. After the British started changing policies with the Indians, they took it over during part of Pontaic's uprising. Eventually the British returned to it and changed things back. Eventually though the settlement was slowly moved over a 2 year span due to the American Revolution and threats made to the fort. It was moved to the nearby Mackinac Island, which was more defensible, and what remained was burned to prevent it from being of use to the Americans. After the fort, we decided to eat lunch and head home. Early end to the trip, but it was still fun. Next time we will pick a new location though.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218146400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218146400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218146400/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:17:15 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Grand Blanc, Michigan, United States

Dinner and the hotel in Grand Blanc. We ate at an amazing restaurant called Luca's Chophouse. The food was better then even last nights. I got the Mushroom Bisque soup which was better then any other I've ever had. For the main meal I had the Chicken Angelina, which was chicken topped with ham, red pepper, parmesan and asiago cheese. It was paired with these mashed potatoes that had a bit of pepper and other spices in them, really well done. Desert was a decent piece of cheesecake.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218115800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218115800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218115800/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:09:56 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Dearborn, Michigan, United States

After enjoying some some delicious Banana Foster pancakes at the IHOP next to our hotel, we ventured towards Dearborn for Day 2 and the Henry Ford. The Museum itself had tons to see, we spent about 3 hours looking at all the exhibits. There were trains from all era, cars and planes owned by famous people, inventors, and everyday civilians. Some of the steam engines they had there towered over everything else in the museum. They even had an old Oscar Meyer wiener mobile in there. We skipped the special exhibit about chocolate though, after being to Hersey, Pennsylvania several years ago, I'm set on chocolate for life.

After the museum we decided to do the factory tour. It started out with 2 movies first one about the history of the company and automobiles. Then we moved into another theater with rotating chairs. The video was about becoming a truck and so the temperature changed and the floor vibrated as we were shown all the parts of the assembly.
The observation deck showed how the factory is a "green factory" the roof is a live roof covered with grass. All the water that the grass doesn't need is drained off and recycled in the factory. Also the parking lot is made with porous asphalt which drains the water off into the reserves as well. There are solar panels that provide about 12% of the company's heat. It was very interesting to learn about all of this.
Finally we went into the factory itself, the one we saw was used to make the Ford F-150, unfortunately there wasn't any production going on. There is usually a 2 week break, around the 4th of July, between the production of the 08s and 09s but with the slower economy they're not producing anything till around late September. It was still interesting to see all the areas of assembly and scout out the factory itself. They have you on a walkway that circles around the production area showing you all the different parts of the line. Overall it was a whole day experience and was a good time.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218052800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218052800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218052800/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:29:25 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Howell, Michigan, United States

Before heading to a hotel for the evening we had dinner at an awesome restaurant called T.W. & Friends. I had a cup of potato cheese chowder and a plate of 4 cheese tortellini with peas and ham in a bleu cheese dressing. The bread was soaked in olive oil and garlic...really good! We saw The Dark Knight and then headed back to our hotel. Good end to Day 1.

The hotel was really nice, I'd stay there again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218003300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218003300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218003300/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:22:06 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States

The same day, we headed out of Muskegon after eating at the local Pizza Hut and we traveled to Grand Rapids, MI. There we visited the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. Indoors there was a special exhibit of the sculptures made by Degas. Also the indoor gardens were rather impressive with the amount of labor and care-taking that must take place. Outdoors was an extensive amount of paths leading to various sculptures, a lot of them were modern works and brought about a lot of thought as to what art has become. The landscaping all around was amazing. The plants were so beautiful and well taken care of. The place was amazing and I would definitely recommend it, it made up for the first museum's disappointments.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218015000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218015000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1218015000/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:13:51 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Muskegon, Michigan, United States

My dad and I left the house at 4 AM this morning and headed down to Milwaukee's Lakefront. There we got the 6 AM Lake Express from to Muskegon, MI. We spent the 2 1/2 hour journey eating breakfast and talking about life. Once we arrived in Muskegon at about 9:30 AM (1 hour time change) we headed to the Maritime Museum. There wasn't that much there on the inside, but we took the tour of the submarine the U.S.S. Silversides, which was a little more impressive. It had some good stories, which made up for the lack of effort in the rest of the museum. There was also a Coast Guard vessel, which didn't have much on it either, and the guide didn't exactly show us most of it. Overall it was decent, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it to anyone.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217638140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217638140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217638140/tpod.html Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:56:48 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States

So the day started with me planning to stay home in the morning and do all my summer class homework. And then the phone rang...next thing I know I had been coaxed into my first Vans Warped Tour...not that it took that much to get me to go. It was a hardcore day of concerts that ended in sunburn and pure rock nirvana. Here's the list of the bands that I personally enjoyed that wonderful day at the Summerfest grounds...

1) We The Kings
2) Against Me
3) Ludo
4) The Academy Is...
5) Angels & Airwaves
6) Motion City Soundtrack
7) Cobra Starship
8) Norma Jean
9) Reel Big Fish
10) Say Anything
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217119980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217119980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/rainydaygirl13/5/1217119980/tpod.html Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:06:06 -0400 Summer Adventures of 2008 - All the small and large journies as they happen this summer.

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Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, United States

Went to Madison first to join up with the slightly smaller then planned birthday party. We played Frisbee Golf for a while at a park, and then made our way up to the Dells. We had a condo for our use at the Glacier Canyon Lodge. The room was crazy we had...3 bathrooms, 2 fridges, 2 microwaves, stove, 6 beds (2 bunked,1 pulled out of the wall), 2 balconies, 4 tv's, 2 dvd players, 2 couches, 2 tables, 4 end tables, fireplace, and excessive amount of alcohol. The place had 6 waterpark areas...3 outdoors and 3 indoors. There was this crazy ride called the hurricane, an indoor wave pool, and many other interesting things I'm never seen before. There were originally only 3 of us, but we were later joined by another 3 who live nearby in Reedsburg. Got some tasty pizza from Moosejaw, and spent the night playing Wii and hanging out. It was a good birthday party. We got a short hour of swimming in this morning and then headed home.
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