Pacific Coast Party! Hwy 1

Salmon Creek Falls

First off, I will apologize for the long blog! So Hayley and I had a few days off in a row, so we decided to go on one final road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. We started Monday morning (too early!). We drove to Santa Barbara and ate lunch and walked around. I had an amazing breaded Ahi Tuna, rice pilaf and cole slaw. Hayley had some shrimp scampi, french fries and cole slaw. We ate at the Santa Barbara Harbor outside on the patio at Brophy Brothers Restaurant. A great recommendation from our friend Nicki! If anyone is every in Santa Barbara looking for a place to eat, I highly recommend it! So off we went up the coast.

About and hour after lunch, we became super tired! I think they put something in our food! Or, maybe it was bc we only slept about 5 hours the night before. We stopped at the Hearst Castle, but decided not to do a tour, bc it would take to long and cost too much money. So instead we looked at it from afar. There was a starbucks in the visitor Center, so we bought ourselves coffee (my first time!) I asked for something that didn't taste like coffee, a hazelnut latte or something. Pretty disgusting, but it did wake me up! On the road again! Along the way we found a random waterfall on the side of the road (not sure the name of it). it was about a 1/2 mile walk to it. We have mastered hiking (in shorts and flip flops!) We took a few pics and then hit the road again. The Pacific Coast is beautiful with all the cliffs and rocks. It was picturesque! We stopped a few more times to take pictures on the side of the road and then finally made it to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and found the only waterfall on the West Coast that falls directly into the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful. The water was turquoise and the waves were crashing on the coast. It was a very peaceful place to be! Next stop Monterey (our place of rest for the night).

McWay Falls

We (well I, I will take full responsibility) booked our Monday night at a Bed and Breakfast called the Inn on Del Monte. Once we finally found it, we walked in to check in and the owners wife was high as a kite! She couldn't speak clearly, hair look a hot wreck and was in a complete daze. What did we get ourselves into?? So we got settled into our room, changed clothes and then we headed downtown to eat dinner! We went to Monterey Harbor, and was hoping for a good chicken sandwich or hamburger, but pretty much all we had to choose from was seafood. I guess that's what you get when you eat at a fishing harbor! So we ate at an Italian seafood place. After dinner we walked through a few shops and then headed back home. We had to wake up early for our whale watching tour!

At Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

So began our sleepless night. When we walked back in the front door, the owners wife was asleep on the couch and jumped up when she heard us. So creepy. I mean, go to your bed woman! There were cameras all over this Inn. I swear we were being watched all night! Even the rooftop had cameras! As we were trying to sleep, we kept hearing noises, so Hayley dared me to go downstairs and see if the creepy woman was still on the couch. She wasn't but as I was walking back up the stairs, someone came busting in the front door. It was probably her outside getting high, thinking she was about to get caught. Anyway, as the night went on, Hayley had the bright idea to read reviews on YELP. Bad move. Almost no good reviews with many of them stated hearing creepy noises such as footsteps up and down the hall and chains. Then we got to the terrible breakfast part! AHH i need breakfast! Anyway, we finally calmed down, and headed into dreamland.

Humpback Whale Tail!

The next morning we headed down for our mystery breakfast. It was a small piece of banana nut bread (pretty good), some weird meat, 2 strawberries, and a tiny slice of some kind of potato egg casserole. Oh yeah and two champagne glasses of orange juice. Needless to say on our way to the Whale watching tour, we hit up McDonald's. So on to our whale watching tour. We went out on the Princess Monterey Whale Watching Tours, and we did exactly what the name says: watched some whales, along with some other sea life. On our way out of the harbor into the Monterey Bay we found hundreds and hundreds of sea lions! Once we got out to the open water, out came the whales. Humpback whales to be exact! It was soo incredibly neat! Lots of amazing pictures!!!  Lastly we saw hundreds of dolphins, swimming right up next to our boat! We had an awesome time! Check one more thing off our bucket list (not sure if it was on there, but now it is). Once back to the shore, we headed back to get the car and get back on the road!

Golden Gate on a clear day

We headed up the coast saw some more beautiful cliffs, light houses and such, and finally made it to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge (for the 4th time). This time, it was clear blue sky, sun shining and no fog! We finally saw the top of the Bridge! We continued on to hit up the Muir Redwood Forest before dark. It was getting late and and we were super tired (from being up all night waiting for something to get us) so we just briefly walked around the entrance, took some quick pics, and then headed back to our hotel (which we book an hour before).


We rested up in the hotel, ordered some pizza, got cleaned up and then headed to our friend Kevin's bar a few blocks away to hang out!  We had a blast as usual. Right before we closed up, Hayley and I played a game of pool (not sure who won, probably her). Then Kevin decided to play a game against us, and we of course cheated so we could win :) We left from there and headed for some early morning breakfast (I was starving as usual). One of Kevin's friends me us there and she got the most amazing chocolate shakes! Hayley got a patty melt and fries (I think), and I got an omelet (my favorite breakfast item) with some potatoes. Of course this place didn't have grits :(  We headed back to the hotel and crashed for the night! Such and awesome way to end our assignment here in California! We've had such a great time here, but we are sooooo ready for our assignment in paradise :) Next blog from the Caribbean!!!!!

Till Then

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

We're Seeing Stars, and more Stars!

So last week, Hayley and I decided to have a "hollywood" day. We did the Hollywood Walk of Fame, passed by Grauman's Chinese Theater, Madame Toussads Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It or Not, The Guiness Book of World Records museum, and the Hollywood Wax Museum. We were super exhausted after it all, but man was it fun!

On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, we found so many stars! Winnie the Pooh, Rugrats, Christina Aguilera, Alan Jackson, Kiefer Sutherland, the Beatles, Julie Andrews, etc. So many, I can't even name them all. Of course I had to take my picture and be a real tourist! We searched and searched for George Strait (Hayley's lover) but never could find it and later on found out he doesn't even have a star!! What in the world?? Anyway, we ended up not even walking the full thing b/c it is 18 blocks, we probably only walked about 12 of those blocks (our feet were hurting by the end of this day).

Next it was time for Madame Toussads. While there we danced with Beyonce, googled at George Clooney (okay maybe that was just me), judged with Simon Cowell, Yelled "Action" with Steven Spielburg, joked with Jim Carey, Chilled with Will Smith, interviewed with Ryan Seacrest, thought really hard with the Godfather, Shoot some people with Clint Eastwood, etc. We saw soo many celebraties it was unreal :) We also skate boarded with Tony Hawk, golfed with Tiger Woods, Cheered with Sue Silvester, Box with Roxy, and Moonwalk with MJ ! Whew, what craziness and how tiring that was! Next up, Ripley's museum.

The Ripleys museum was just like many of the others we've been to. It had some crazy stuff you wouldn't think was real, and also had some fun puzzles to solve. Also there were pictures on the walls made out of crazy things like junk mail, candy and some other things. We didn't take many pictures here, but definitely tried to solve the puzzles and read up on the craziest stuff! We also saw a statue of the fattest man in the world. At his heaviest he weighed in at about 1400 Ibs! That's like 13 of me! Geez! Well, it off to the Guiness book of world records now!

Here at the world record museum, it began with music records. Most albums sold, Most downloaded song, most singles sold, concert sell outs etc. Kinda boring stuff. Then we got to a part of stuff that wasn't important and kinda of stupid. Person who walked on his hands the longest difference, woman with the longest hair, person who ate the most hotdogs in a minute, person with had the longest horizontal jump, guy who drank the most ketchup bottles in a minute, etc. I mean does anyone really care? Next was Food :) Now that's what I'm talking about! Biggest vegetables, biggest ice cream sandwhich, largest pizza ever made, Beer with the most alcohol content, etc. That was fun to read about, and it made me a tad hungry! The last part was movie information, kind of like the music part. So we learned a lot of uselss stuff pretty much :) Last but certainly not least, we were off to the more celebraties at the Hollywood Wax Museum.

This wax museum had some different Characters in it. We got to stand on the Titanic with Leo (Ill never let go Jack), Blink with I Dream of Genie, show our muscles with Hulk Hogan, Sing with Elvis, Chill with Hue Heffner, Hang-10 with TMNT, and kick some booty with Charlie's Angels!. Oh how could I forget, did a Vita-veta-vegimen commercial with Lucy Recardo too! Haha. I mean, I don't think we could have met any more celebreties in one day than we did that day! It was awesome :)

To end the day, we decided to have some Sushi! It was delightful! We sat at the bar and watched him make it for us! Spicy Tuna Roll is one of our favs, and we enjoyed watching it be made. He also made one that looked super yummy, so we asked him what is was. Albacore something? Anyway, I then saw hime making something really small and I told Hayley someone was getting jipped, little did we know, he made us a sample of the one we said was yummy! Wasn't that sweet :) So we ate our yummy sushi and headed on our way home. Great end to a great day! Till Next Time

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

Could Only Happen to Us!

We had last night all planned out: 1. Dinner 2. Car Wash 3. Workout with Jillian Michaels, 4. Wash clothes, 5. Movie/Scrapbooking, and 6. Clean our disaster of an apartment. Okay, you know our "plans", so this is what actually took place..............

Just hanging out in
Alberton's Parking lot

It started out just another regular night for us. Steak dinner at Black Angus (we sure do love the $39 campfire meal for two) and then to Target, to buy another Jillian Michaels workout dvd. On the way to Target we stopped at a car wash to give Cammy (my car) her shower we have been promising her for weeks!! We splurged and got her the $11 wash, look out Tundras, this Camry is looking sharp and sparkly. So anyway, on to Target.  While there we bought us two workout dvds (Jillian Michaels and Zumba) and some "weights" (water bottles, real weights cost to much!). So far so good right? Once we got home, we added more money to our laundry card (yes we have to use a laundry facility just like we are back in college), and headed down to throw our clothes in the washer. All seemed to be going good so far. So while our clothes were washing we walked to Albertson's to return a Redbox and rent a new one to watch while scrapbooking. Hayley had sent me a code for a free rental so we were excited (love free stuff). Only problem is we didn't think to bring a credit card to use in case we kept it longer than one night. So of course, no movie for us. We didn't want this to be a completely wasted trip (her redbox was already charged another night since it was 1030), so we used this opportunity to have some fun  (see above). Once we got home we realized we had no dryer sheets, so of course we then walked up to Von's to grab some. Once getting back from the store the clothes had about 8 more minutes, so we went upstairs and put in both workout dvds to decide which on we wanted to do. After watching both, Jillian it was. So we grabbed our laundry card and headed back to the laundry room to dry the clothes. Halfway done putting clothes in dryer, "Holy Crap Hayley, I forgot to grab the keys. We are locked out!" Yes we got locked out of our apartment and it was around midnight!!!!!! NO phone, no keys, no nothing (except our trusty laundry card). What to do? We walked to the front to see if there was an emergency number posted anywhere, of course not. We memorized the main desk, grabbed some pooper scooper plastic bags from the mail room, propped open a few gates (you have to have a key to even enter the complex), and walked BACK to Von's. Hayley called the main number to see if there was a maintenance emergency number. She left a message "The is Hayley Harrison. I live in apt 307 and got locked out while doing my laundry. If someone could let us back in that would be great. I don't have my phone, so I had to walk up to Von's to use theirs. If you get this message We will be the two girls just roaming around the apt, and hanging out in the cabanas."  So how do you think this worked out?  No one ever came. We folded our laundry and brought it with us to the cabanas. Luckily we washed sheets and towels, b/c boy was it cold last night. Good thing we had both used the bathroom prior to this fiasco b/c the bathroom by the pool are locked. We only saw a few people during the night, and of course no one was willing to help until around 6am when we saw a lady we had met our first weekend here. She offered for us to come to her apt, but we politely declined (not wanting to impose). I'm not sure either of us slept at all! It was freezing, the benches were short, and my whole body hurt! Finally around 730 a maintenance guy came to unlock the cabana (yeah we climbed the gate) and was able to go get the master key and let us in! Well there's our fun filled night of being locked out in the freezing cold with no phones! What did people do without phone? Now we know, wait around for someone to finally come along and help. Anyway, I had some cheese grits and steak for breakfast and then it was off to relax for us (not before watching The Voice from last week and talking to Hope-Happy Birthday again!!!) Hope everyone elses Monday night was a little less adventurous than ours :) Well we are off to the LA Kings Hockey Game!  Till Next time!

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

Out and about in LA

Freezing at the beach

Well, we have now been in LA for 3 weeks, and it's been an awesome few weeks so far! I'll begin with our trip out here. We left early the morning of January 25, stopping in Texas Wednesday night, and staying with my friend Charlie and his wife in Arizona on Thursday night. Thanks so much Charlie! We decided to split this California trip into 3 days instead of just 2, haha.We arrived to our Burbank apt on Friday January 27. We absolutely love it! So many things are within walking distance: Grocery store, drug store, red box, restaurants, and a karaoke bar. We haven't yet sung, but hopefully by the end of this assignment we will build up the courage to sing our hearts out (doubtful, I know). We started our hospital/floor orientation the following Monday, and were finally on our own the next week. We aren't big fans of this hospital, actually we hate it (won't get into that here, since blog is supposed to be about all of our fun adventures!), which has us enjoying our days off even more than usual!!!

Girl's Night Out with Carly

Chad and Ian playing in cold water

So I will now continue on to tell you about some cool people we've met. Our hospital doesn't have many nurses our age, so we were pumped to meet Carly, another traveler that works on Hayley's floor and she's from Alabama! She came to watch the American's Got Talent LA auditions with us. That was pretty neat, however, Carly and I were completely exhausted since we worked the night before. Well worth it though :) We were also excited to meet some non-LAish people, Chad and Ian. They are roommates from a small town in Oregon and went to the University of Oregon (we won't hold that against them). They are pretty cool, so we decided to keep them around, haha. We took a trip to Manhattan Beach with them (will never go to that beach again during traffic!), which ended up being terrible b/c the football they brought was completely flat, and it was cloudy and cold outside. Good thing for blankets to wrap up in and snacks to eat (to keep our energy up). Hopefully next time we head to the beach, it will be nice and toasty!

In line at the Price Is Right

Our roomie V-day Dinner

A few other things we have done while here: A taping of Price is Right. No, we didn't actually get on the show, but I'm pretty sure we had our 5 seconds of fame and we got a free Grammy CD, so we won something right?! :) That same day we also went to a taping of "Whitney". Has to be one of the funniest shows, and I loved seeing them shoot the entire show in front of us. Pretty cool! For Valentine's we decided to be each other's valentine, and go out for a steak dinner! Stupid we know, but hey, that's us. Plus it was a dang good steak! Well I think that's about all. This past weekend we headed to Laguna Beach and Disneyland as an early B-day present to me, but that will just have to wait for another blog. So sorry to leave y'all in suspense like that, it's cruel I know! :)
Till next time,

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

We're back!!!!

Atlantic City Board Walk

Wow, where to begin? It has almost been 2 months since our last blog, so I will do just a quick recap. For New Years, Hayley and I decided to head to Atlantic City, NJ! We figured we should do something cool, that we normally don't do, and AC was perfect! We found a pretty cheap hotel, with a free shuttle, and booked it! Next was finding the perfect NYE dress! And that we did! Mine, black and sparkly, and Helly's black and purple sequins. Next to find a cool party to go to. Yet again, that we did! We we decided on Harrah's pool party! It was soo neat, with a DJ, open bar, and millions (at least it seemed that way) of people. We watched the clock turn midnight, screamed "Happy New Year," played a few slots, ate a cheeseburger and then headed back to the hotel. The following day, we toured a few casinos, ate at a buffet (our fav), and called it an early night. This was an awesome New Years and so glad to spend it with my roomie and one of my besties.

9/11 memorial

Empire State Building

Statue of Liberty

On to our last week in Connecticut. Hayley's parents came to visit, and we went to New York, and then Niagara Falls! In NYC, we went to the 9/11 memorial, Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State building! 3 things we had not yet done! The Statue of Liberty isn't nearly as big as I thought it would be, but still pretty neat! The view from the Empire State Building was pretty amazing, especially at sunset. Much better than the view from Top of the Rock (mainly bc there was no plexi glass). And then the Tree at Rockefeller Center was still up, so of course we had to go see that one more time. I thought her parents were going to kill us, b/c we walked sooooo much! There are so many cool pics, that I'm going to have to just have a slide show :)

Niagara Falls

The next day we began our freakishly long 7 hour drive to Niagara Falls, but it was sooo worth it! The falls were absolutely gorgeous! Hayley and I even went to Canada! It was soo very cold, but we just pushed through it so we could see as many amazing views as possible. The first day/night we went to the Americas Falls to take pictures with OC and Bobbie, and then Hayley and I went into Canada to take pictures facing the front of the falls. Btw, the Canadian side is WAY cooler, than the American side! What's up with that??  Anyway, for dinner, we of course had another buffet ;) and then headed back to the falls for some night shots (or better yet ice cold pictures). The next day, we decided to head to the Horseshoe Falls. Along the way, we saw a couple of rainbows. I was excited to catch them on film (im becoming an amateur photographer haha). More picture time! After 30 minutes of pictures, we were all thoroughly frozen and ready for the 7 hour trip back to Connecticut.

Our final trip for this blog is our trip to New Orleans. Hayley and I woke up at the crack of dawn and OC took us to the airport to catch our plane to NEW ORLEANS! Of course we had to fly from Detroit to NO with a bunch of LSU fans, ugh lol.  So Hayley's friend Jason, picked us up and we headed out on the town! First stopping for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and meeting up with Christy! Next was walking to the Rusty Nail and meeting up with Leah. Of course Leah was able to work her magic and get us in without standing in line! Next was to hang out with a bunch of Bama fans (not my fav part). Then the weather started to act like it was going to storm, so off to the hotel we went to watch the game. And so ends our last 2 weeks in Connecticut. Next blog, LA here we come!!!!!!!!

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Part 2

On the Subway

On the roof of Steph's apt

So, to continue our adventures of the month of December, our fourth trip was to visit my cousin Stephanie in New York for a few days! We had sooo much fun! We packed our bags, jumped on the train, and ended up in the Big Apple! It was kind of neat to be a "resident" of New York for a few days. Or at least it felt that way :) My cousin lives in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River and NYC/New Jersey, Beautiful at night! We decided this trip was not going to be our typical "see everything we can" kind of trip. We wanted to relax, since we did the touristy thing with our friend Nicki last time.

Rockefeller tree at night

So the day we got there, we did the whole Times Square and surrounding areas, mainly to see the Christmas decorations. We went to eat at a sushi bar near my cousins apt, and ended the night hanging out The Underground meeting some new friends. The Tree at Rockefeller Center was Crazy big, with I think 30,000 lights on it (Hayley looked up that fact). Our second day in NYC, we did our Christmas shopping. We went to China town! That was a cluster, but fun to haggle with the men and women of China town. We tried to buy some fake handbags, but they were asking too much. I mean come on, they were fake! That night we ate Chinese with my cousin Stephanie, and then walked around Midtown to see all the decoration lit up at night! Very pretty. Then it was off to bed :)

Coney Island

Nathan's Hotdog

Our last day, we decided to head to Coney Island. Stupid me did even think about the fact that it was not even season for an amusement park. Oh well, we had a fun little adventure anyway. We ate at Nathan's Hotdog, walked around the boardwalk, and of course took the hour long subway ride out there and back.Our cell phones were working in overdrive on that subway ride, lol. It looked like it would be a fun place to be during the summer, but I bet it is crazy crowded. After Coney Island we decided to go to the biggest department store in the country, MACY'S. Seriously the biggest store I've every been in! 8 stories with restaurants on each floor! That place gave us major anxiety, so we left after about 15 minutes (but not before getting a milkshake from Ben&Jerry's :) Then it was time to say good-bye to the big city and head back to Wethersfield! What a fun trip we had!

My mom came up the Sunday before Christmas to spend a week with us. It was great having her here! We went back to Newport one day and did a tour of 3 of the Mansions open during the winter season. They were all decorated beautifully for Christmas! It was a fun mother-daughter day trip! The next day Mom, Hayley, and I went on a tour of Yale. I really enjoyed the tour, except for the fact that it rained! Of course, just our luck that it rained right! Ugh, still a very pretty and impressive campus.

Quechee Gorge

Me and Mom at Gorge

Powell came up the Thursday before Christmas, but we still had no plans for that Friday and Saturday. He had been looking at the weather for snow all week, and on Friday morning we decided to head to Killington VT to do some skiing! We got a hotel for the night and were on our way. First stop was the Quechee Gorge http://www.vtstateparks.com/htm/quechee.htm. Next stop, Woodstock VT. This was the cutest little town with wonderful Christmas decorations. We walked along the streets as it snowed, it was awesome!!!  We ate dinner and then headed to our Inn. After dropping mom off, the three kids (I'm including Hayley) headed to rent our ski's. Then Hayley and I had to find something to wear while skiing, since we didn't have any ski pants to bring. We found a Walmart, ski pants, and a coat for Hayley! We made our way back, and then it was off to get some snooze for our day of skiing tomorrow!

Skiing

Powell and me at the top

Breakfast at this Inn was awesome! Pancakes, bacon, eggs, french toast. Man, so much for "continental breakfast" :) After stuffing our faces, we went to get our ski's and headed up to Killington Mountain to do some skiing http://www.killington.com/winter/index.html. I won't bore you with too many details of our skiing adventure. Basically Powell is good, I'm okay, and sorry Hayley but you are bad (jk, just need some practice). I did, however, make it to the top with Powell, although I skied the green and blue trails, while he skied the blue and black diamond. Oh well, it was fun non-the-less with me hitting the snow (aka:busting my butt) only twice. Hayley on the other hand hit the snow a few more times :) Powell of course I don't think fell at all. After our long day of skiing we were ready for some grub. So after returning our ski's to the rental place and my feet thawing out, we went in search for food! We finally settled on a pizza place and had an AMAZING Chicken Ranch pizza! Delish! Last stop before hitting the road back to CT was a souvenir shop to pick a few things.

Hayley and me 

Christmas day Hayley and I had to work, but leave it to my amazing mother and brother to cook a yummy lunch and bring it to us! I was happy that some people at work got to meet my mom and Powell though. We set up lunch in the family room, so it was like our own little Christmas dinner, much different from every other year, but just as special! Powell left to go back to GA Christmas afternoon so I had to say my goodbye at the hospital! Mom didn't leave till the next morning, at 6am! So, at least I had one more night with her!

Our December has been crazy busy, but we've enjoyed every moment! Christmas was different this year, but I must say, as an adult I think this one has been the most memorable! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and also a Happy New Year! Till Next Time

~Hayley and Elizabeth~