Just Chillin.....Literally

I arrived into Anchorage, Alaska around 2am this morning. I was exhausted but feeling pretty good because I was able to get a First Class upgrade on my flight. I got to see how the other have lives even if it was for only six hours! : )
As I exited the gate I was greeted by this cute fuzzy little creature! Nice huh?? He just killed an otter! PETA must love this place! NOT!!!
I was originally planning to just hang out at the airport until 8am when I could then check into the hostel I was going to stay at but I couldn't hang. I was too tired. So I decided to find a taxi and just go to yet another cheap motel. I was just hoping it would be nicer then Memphis....
I stepped outside and then ran back inside. It was FREEZING!!! I was not prepared at all! I quickly added a few more layers and then I ventured back outside. It had to be like 20 degrees and there was snow all over the ground! It was crazy! I quickly found a taxi and asked him to take me to a "cheap but not scary hotel." He laughed and said "okay, cheap and not scary, got it!" He took me to this little Inn that was cheap and not scary. Luckily for me there was room at the Inn (I was going to make a joke around Mary and Jesus but I decided against it) so I quickly checked in and hurried to my room. Now, this place was 100 times cleaner then my last motel experience. However, it was about the size of a prison cell (based strictly on what I have heard I have never seen it first hand!) but whatever I didn't care.
See it's cute right???

After a good 5 hours of sleep I was up and showered and ready to head over to the hostel. I decided to just walk around to take in the city. I mean I wasn't in a hurry so why not just stroll the streets of Anchorage. It was BEAUTIFUL!! It really is hard to describe just how amazing everything is in Alaska (minus the Sarah Palin crap!). It was getting close to lunch so I figured I should check into the hostel and drop off my bags. I called to verify where I needed to go and I found out that the front desk at the hostel is closed from 12pm-4pm (it was 12:05pm). Nice, that means I get to walk around for another 4 hours with my bags! Good times! I get to look like a runaway for a few more hours!
After the call I decided to grab a bite to eat at Phyllis's Seafood Cafe in downtown Anchorage. I figured I could hangout there to kill some time and eat. It was a cute little place. They even served all their drinks in mason jars....very little house on the prairie(ish). For those interested in my food choices at restaurants I had a cup of Clam Chowder soup and Crab Cakes (made with Alaskan crab). It was all really good! To kill the rest of my time I just wondered into every gift shop in Anchorage.
Once it was finally time to head over to the hostel I was exhausted. I arrived at the hostel and I have to say I was quite impressed. It was very clean and the people there were very nice! I ended up getting a double room which really ended up being a private room since there was no one else in the room with me. Here are a few pictures.

I always wanted bunk beds when I was kid and now I got to have them!! I had the bottom bunk! One weird thing is that the mattress was covered in this like plastic cover. I thought you had to be potty trained to stay here??? It was like high school all over again with my own locker! Meet you at my locker after 6th period!
They even decorate each room with something cool painted on the floor. I had a cool purple butterfly!
After my morning/afternoon of walking around I was exhausted so I grabbed a quick bite to eat and I was off to bed (well and to read of course) because I knew I had a busy day tomorrow....

More to come

xoxo

I'm off again....

Yep, it's that time. I have been home for almost two days so it's time to get outta here!
My last attempt at a destination clue was kind of a joke. I mean it's hard to come up with clues but whatever here is another attempt. Oh, and Alyssa you can't play!!

Destination Clues:
The state motto is North to the Future
17 of the 20 highest peaks are located here
It became the 49th state on January 3, 1959

Where am I going??? It's easy I know but still kind of fun! : )

A day fit for KINGS!

As you may have guessed or read I was in Memphis, Tennessee today. It was kind of a day trip considering I arrived at 12am this morning! Since I was going to Graceland at 8:30am I figured I would just get a cheap room to stay in for a few hours sleep before heading out. Well......I guess when I say cheap......I meant REAL CHEAP!!!! Now this place I picked had to be one of the worst MOTELS (yes I said motel) EVER!! Well, with the exception of the Bates Motel but it was a close comparison!

I arrive like I said around 12am. As the taxi pulls up to my MOTEL I notice all the neighborhood hookers chillin in front of the Motel Lounge! Apparently, that is the place to hang out and meet folks/Johns. If I would have know I would have dressed nicer! Anyways, that was my first clue of the situation I just got myself into. I get out of the taxi and have to ring a bell to get the desk guy to let me in...gosh...I feel safe already! He lets me and and assigns me a room. Now there are like three buildings of rooms (Four if you count the hooker lounge/club) that he could assign me too. What does he do?? Gives me a room on the whole other side of the front office! Meaning I have to walk there...alone...at night! Now, I don't freak out that easily but I felt very uneasy about this place. Not sure why I didn't just take my crap and run then but like an ASS I didn't. After walking past the hooker lounge and the dirty gross pool with all the guys drinking their Mad Dog I get to my room. I immediately chain my door and shut my curtains. Then the smell hit me. It was a combination of funk and cigarette smoke!! SO GROSS!! I felt dirty already! I walk through the room to check for bugs and any other critter that might be in there with me. Thank God I found nothing. I called Steph in a panic and to complain! After her sisterly advice of "just sleep in your clothes" and "you will be fine it's only for a few hours" and let me not forget this one "consider it an adventure" I relaxed a little. Not really. I guess getting assaulted would be an adventure.....right????

Well, needless to say it was the longest 8 hours of my life. I was afraid to sleep so I instead just finished reading Eclipse (the third Twilight series book). I shut my eyes around 5am and was happy to be up at 7am and out the door by 8am. I said a prayer and thanked God (and of course Bella and Edward-people in my book for you non-Twilight people) for helping me through the night.

With my happy thoughts of Graceland I went to the front desk to have them call me a taxi. While I waited they showed me the way to their Continental breakfast set-up. I was excited. A free donut! Nope, it was a cheap looking danish and some crap that tasted like Tang (which I thought was OJ). I should have know! Looks good huh?? NOT!!! Check out the nice table cloth! First class all the way baby!
Well after my cup of Tang I was off to Graceland which was the reason I was even here. I got to the ticket office early and stood in line with all the other people. I think I was the only one under 50! I felt so out of place. I caught the first bus across the street and the audio tour began. Now, I don't know much about Elvis nor was I ever a huge fan. I mean he did die when I was only two years old but I became fascinated with his house and the stories. It was very cool. Here are some of the pictures below. BTW...I have many more if you want to see them let me know and I can send them to you.
Here of course is the famous Graceland front entrance.
Me with an Elvis sign to prove I was there....the guy I asked to take the photo could have zoomed in a bit...whatever
This is just a small part of what the WHOLE outside wall in front of Graceland says on it. People go up and write their comments and thoughts and declare their love for Elvis. Not sure it's legal so I skipped doing this....plus I didn't bring my white-out. Elvis's Living Room. He met most visitors in this room and hung out quite a bit here.

Dining Room
Kitchen
One of the many walls of gold records Elvis earned.
His headstone in the garden at Graceland
After the tour of Graceland I went back to see the other exhibits such as his two jets and his car collection. Here a few pictures.

The famous pink Cadillac

Elvis's room on his jet "Lisa Marie"
The "Lisa Marie" jet
The bathroom sink of the "Lisa Maria" jet had gold flakes in it. The seat belt buckles on the plane were the same way. This must be where Donald Trump got the idea!
Once I felt like I had seen all I could at Graceland I decided to headed off to the National Civil Rights Museum. It was about 10 miles away and it was only 11:30am so I knew I had time to check it out before I had to leave to catch my flight. I caught a taxi from "Old Man River" who drove about 30 mph on the road and highway and finally got me to the Museum thirty minutes later when it should have been a 15 minute drive! Why did I have to tell this guy to go the actual speed limit?? It was KILLING me how slow he was driving! WHATEVER!

Now the Museum is closed on Tuesdays which I knew already but I wanted to be able to see the balcony where Martin Luther King was shot and killed. The balcony area is open to the public to take photos (I mean you can't go up the stairs to it) but I figured I could at least see it and pay my respects. With the Museum being closed there was maybe one or two other people there taking photos and after they left it was just me. It was very quiet. I just kind of stood there thinking and reflecting upon what took place at this very spot. I know it may sound morbid but to be able to see this historic site was quite amazing and sad all at the same time. It was a weird mixture of emotions.

This is right outside and below the balcony.

The balcony

Not sure why people take pictures of themselves at places that famous people died but they do so I did too. I tried not to smile....if that helps. I also went black and white to make it more serious. Now with all my emotions mixed-up I figured it was a perfect time to EAT! : )

I walked up to Main Street and found this cute little place called Onix. I walk in and there are all this nice looking black man in business suits eating lunch. I almost turned around to leave considering I looked like some random girl backing packing through Memphis but I didn't because the food smelled good! I ordered the catfish and fries. Now, this was the BEST catfish I have EVER had! I was so full but I kept eating because I loved it so much!! I know I have food issues!!

Here is a photo of Main Street looking into Downtown Memphis.

After lunch I called a taxi (Not Old Man River) and I was off to the airport by 1:00pm. I caught my flight home at 2:30pm and I happily arrived back to AZ by 4:30pm. It was a fun little get away. I got to visit two historically site all in one day. I have also now seen the two most famous houses in America! I do think next time I might spend a few more bucks on a safe HOTEL and not get a ghetto MOTEL but hey it was like Steph said it was part of the adventure!

More to come!

xoxo

Where am I going????

My next destination clue:

I’m leaving tonight to a place
with some style and “grace”
and where the blues never get you down.

Post your guess to the blog!

Your Never Too Old!!

Tonight Devyn and I attended the Kristi Yamaguchi Friends and Family staring......The Jonas Brothers! Yep, that is right the Jonas Brothers! I know you are jealous!!!! : )
Here is Devyn awaiting the start of the show!
The show was a combination of ice skating with a live concert. The concert featured the Jonas Brothers (JB), Jordan Pruitt and Demi Lovato (booo...I'm not a fan....Go Team Miley!). There were several skaters that performed such as Kristi, Nancy Kerrigan, and Viktor Petrenko just to name a few. The show was all about family so each skater would come out and perform with their kids. It was pretty cute!

While some of the skaters performed to recorded songs. Most skaters performed to the live music of JB, Demi, and Jordan. Below is a picture of JB rocking it out after the intermission.

Not sure what this girl's 8x11 piece of paper said but I'm pretty sure the Jonas Brothers couldn't read it either! FYI.....make all signs on POSTER BOARD if you want them to see it!

Now, the sad part is that even with the famous skaters that appeared all the people in the audience were ONLY there to see the Jonas Brothers! I mean they clapped for the other singers and skaters to be kind but once there was any break they would chant "JONAS, JONAS" over and over again. I felt like I was at a New Kids On The Block Concert! It was crazy but Devyn and I sang like all the other screaming fans!!
Each singer performed about three to four songs each and then it was over. However, here is the best part! They were taping this performance to air on TV November 8th at 1pm pst. You just might see Devyn and me dancing and signing in the audience so make sure to tune in! I am the one in the "I Love The Jonas Brothers" shirt holding up my sign asking Nick to marry me!!

More to come!

xoxo

Mr. President....shouldn't you be packing???

**Blog Disclaimer-This blog reflects some personal political beliefs of Lindsay Brown and is not intended to offend anyone so if it does lighten up! : ) **

Well, this week I was off to Washington D.C. for a tour of the White House. I went with my friend Jasper who was looking for an excuse to take a vacation and had a U.S. Airways Buddy Pass to use. This meant we would both be flying stand-by, which is not always a good thing......

We left Wednesday morning for D.C. and we had no issues with our flights. We took the bus to the metro station and then caught the metro to downtown D.C. It was pretty cool to walk out of the metro station and look down the street and just see the White House right there! It was kind of surreal. We walked the few blocks to our hotel (which was quite nice and cheap thanks to Priceline.com!) and got all checked in. It had been a long day already so we went out for a quick dinner and then it was off to bed. We had a big day on Thursday!!!

Our scheduled White House tour was at 9:30am so we were up and out around 7:30am so we could stop for Jasper's daily Starbucks fix and stop by the White House Visitor Center before heading over for our tour. Now you can't have ANYTHING with you in the White House so there are no photos inside. Sorry. They are kind of protective.

As we are walking to check in we see a line of about 200 high school students walking up to check in as well. I was like great....how did we get stuck on the high school tour??!! So we did our best to blend in with the kids. I started gossiping about the other girls just to start drama and Jasper began flirting with the boys. It was like being in high school all over again! : )
I'm just kidding. We left the kids alone.

Here is a view from the front of the White House. Notice the sharp shooters on the roof just waiting to fire!!

The tour begins at the Visitor Entrance with some photos on exhibit as you walk through. You are able to looking into the White House Library and Vermeil Room but you can't walk in them. The Vermeil Room has portraits of the recent first ladies including a famous Jackie O portrait. It was pretty cool. Then it was upstairs to the East Room, Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room, and then finally the State Dining Room. The tour was completely self-guided and it took us about 40 minutes. It was really cool to have seen everything you hear about ( I mean you always hear them talk about the Blue Room) and have seen in pictures but at the same time it was weird. I kind of felt like it was fake even though I knew it wasn't. It's hard to explain but I did love it and would enjoy doing it again! I highly recommend doing the White House Tour if you get the chance. It's awesome!

This is me and Jasper in front of the White House together. I of course had to represent and show my support for Obama! I was just happy to find a pink Obama shirt!! Thanks D.C. street vendor! : ) BTW....It's so funny how almost everywhere you go there are squirrels. I mean they are EVERYWHERE! It's just the funniest thing. I tried to feed this one some of my Chex Mix but he was cool.

Once the tour was over we ran back to the hotel to get our stuff and we were off to hit the town. We decided to do a Double Decker bus tour so that we could get around easier. The bus took us to places like Georgetown, Arlington Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol.

Here is a view of the Capitol. Not sure what they were doing to it that day but it was fenced off so this was the closest I could get.

This is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. There is a solider that keeps watch over the tomb 24 hours a day. Each time he paces 21 steps from one end to the next, he waits 21 seconds and then he turns around and does it again. He does this for one hour straight (during the summer it's only 30 minutes) and they they change guards. It's quite a cool ceremony to watch and very official. It was very impressive how it's all done. This tomb is guarded 365 days a year no matter the weather.

This is just a shot of a few of the graves at Arlington Cemetery. It's quite a site to actually see all these headstones in person. There are so many that it's overwhelming at times. We were at Arlington Cemetery for about 1 hour and we saw/heard four different funerals. It was very sad. Sorry to be so sappy but it is a cemetery....

Here is John F. Kennedy's grave. He is buried with his wife Jackie and two of their children that passed away before them. Robert Kennedy is buried around the other side of the hill from his brother. He is the only grave with a wooden cross as a headstone and was the only evening burial that ever took place at Arlington.

This is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The black granite "V" wall lists nearly 60,000 names of those who were killed, missing in action, or held as prisoners of war. It was an quite a site to see so many names.

Here is the Washington Monument with the reflection pond in front of it. Now, let me tell you a little something about this reflection pond.....it's GROSS!! I think the water at Kiwanis Park is cleaner! Not sure this is reflecting much of anything anymore but that is the name of it so I guess I will go with it.

This is the World War II Memorial. It's very big so I could only get so much into my photo but it was a very cool design. Now this water was clean! : )
While I was there I said a little prayer to Grandpa Brown thanking him for his service.

This is the Lincoln Memorial. I just have one question for all the designers of these Memorials. Why all the stairs??? Gosh, with the sun and all the stairs to climb that gross reflection pond was looking very appealing!!!

This is one of the oldest houses in Georgetown. This was really my only photo of Georgetown. I mean it's a cute little town with nice expenses houses but it's really just a place to shop so nothing major to see from what I could tell.

By the end of the day we were exhausted, sweaty, and gross! After a fancy dinner at the local McDonald's we went back to the hotel to shower and go to sleep. After all we had another day in D.C. before our flight Friday night or did we????

Friday morning I got up early to check us in for our flight and I notice that most of the seats were booked now with over twenty stand-by passengers listed on most outbound flights to Phoenix! I'm thinking "what the heck is going on? It didn't look this bad last night." I decide that we needed to just get to the airport to see if we can get on any flight. So much for day two in DC!! : (

However, before I left DC there was one more thing I HAD to do!!! Yep, that is right, I wanted to demonstrate my First Amendment Right to everyone and show them who will be living in the White House after this upcoming election! You guessed it.....OBAMA!! Now I know the paper is small but I was kind of scared with all the the security so it is what it is! : )

After the quick stop by the White House it was off to the airport. After missing three possible flights to Arizona we were able to get the last two seats on a flight to Columbus, Ohio that would then take us to Phoenix. We hoped. After touring the Columbus Airport for four hours (which I must say is much nicer then the Regan Airport) we finally got confirmation that we could get on the flight and we were on our way home!

It was a great quick trip to Washington and I would love to go back because there is so much to do and see. Anyone planning a trip I recommend at least five days to be able to really see everything. However, I got to do what I went there for so I was happy. I will go back for sure when my guy Obama is living there!!

More to come!

xoxo

It's raining.....

Today Cameron and I ventured off for our first day trip together alone without Steph. I know this was tough on her so thanks Steph for trusting me with your son. I brought him back in one piece like you asked! : )

We decided we would do a fun day trip to Seattle to check out the Space Needle and the Pike Fish Market. Cameron had never been to Seattle so this was a first for him. I have been there before and I love it so I was excited to go back.

We arrived in Seattle around 10:30am and we decided to try out the public transit system to get to the Space Needle so we hopped on a bus! It was fun but I know we looked like total tourist with me and Cameron trying to figure out where to go on this little map of Seattle that we got at the airport for free. We finally arrived at the Space Needle and Cameron was very excited. He did hesitate a little when he looked up and asked me how we get to the top. He said "Nina we don't have to take the stairs do we? Cuz my legs are tired already!" Funny how a nine year old that can run around a playground for hours can tire in 10 minutes of walking in a city......kids!! I assured him that we take an elevator to the top and he perked back up. I mean does he think I would go if we had to climb stairs to the top??? Yeah, right! : )

Here is Cameron and me taking our own pictures at the top of the Space Needle. That is downtown Seattle behind us.

Cameron was ready for some hot chocolate at this point! Don't worry he was working on his acting skills it was not that cold!

Cameron was searching for Dr. McDreamy's house for me......but no luck! : (

One more picture of us together at the top of the Needle! Then it was off to the hot chocolate. I had to warm that little boy up!

After we had our hot chocolate we headed over to the Pike Fish Market. I knew Cameron would not like the walk so we grabbed a quick taxi. Once we got to the Market you could smell the fish. Yummy!! : (

We explored the entire Market and made sure to visit the famous booth that chants and throws fish to each other. Cameron got a big kick out of that! He even held a crab (dead of course) which was hard for him because as he put it so clearly "I'm like Auntie and I don't like fish." Nice influence Courtney!

After lunch we decided to walk around a bit more before heading to the airport. During lunch Cameron made a comment that I brought two umbrellas and we never used them. Geeh, Cameron...thanks for the jinx....because no more then ten minutes later did it start to rain! He loved it! He got to use his own umbrella and walk around swinging it. Cute huh? yeah, well then the down pour began. He didn't like that so much. He quickly requested a cab and even tried to hail one himself! Quite cute to see this little boy trying to flag down a a cab with his umbrella! We finally got one (I had to help flag one down) and it was off to the airport.

We got to the airport earlier then we planned but we were dry so that is all that matter. It also gave Cameron a hour to charge his Nintendo DS.

All in all it was a great "true" Seattle day! We had clouds, fog, fish and rain. What more could you ask for!

More to come!
xoxo