Vacation FUN!

Hello, I am back after a much needed rest from the real world! Our anniversary vacation was wonderful, yet we didn't really have a moment to relax. We wanted to do and see as much as possible. Here's how the week went.............

FRIDAY

I rushed home from work so we could get on the road. However, we still had a ton to do to get ready. I came home and found a dozen red roses and two big gifts for me on the table! Yay! Our anniversary week was beginning. :) Adam and I decided to exchange gifts before we left so we wouldn't have to lug them on our trip. I got him a Reds' leash to walk Brutus, an AM Radio (he's been wanting one), Family Guy Season 5, and a Puzzle Book. He got me the greatest gifts ever! The roses, a vintage sign that says "Happy memories made here," and a dog agility kit! It has a tunnel, jump, pause box, and weave poles. The best part is that it comes with a stop watch and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons!!! It's so cute. Unfortunately, the dogs were already at the kennel, so I didn't get to try it out.

We ended up leaving around 8pm, and got to Pittsburgh after midnight. We were so tired we decided to go to bed. The hotel was really nice, it had a different set-up than I've seen before. (See below). The bed faced the big window. By the way, my roses made the whole trip with us, and survived!!

SATURDAY

Saturday morning we ate a buffet breakfast at our hotel. Then we drove to the Pittsburgh Zoo (and got extremely lost!). It was on 7 miles from the hotel, but probably took us an hour. I never knew the streets in Pittsburgh were so hilly and winding. We got to the zoo and took some great pictures (See below). It was smaller, but better organized than our zoo here. I did get to see some animals that Columbus doesn't have.

After the zoo, we went to change at the hotel, then went to Kayak Pittsburgh. Again, we got lost! We found our way though, and spent an hour and a half kayaking on the rivers through downtown. It was fun and a neat way to see the town.


Then we headed back to our hotel on the Waterfront. Again, we showered and changed. We got ready for dinner and a night on the little town. We ate dinner (and drinks) at Bar Louie's - woohoo! We walked around a bit and went to Dave and Buster's for a few games. Then we went to the piano bar Sing Sing for live entertainment and more drinks! It was quite entertaining. They had dueling pianists who played requests all night, and then their live band. Then we hung out by the outdoor fire pit at our hotel. Whew! What a busy day!



SUNDAY (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US)

Sunday we woke up really early (and a little hung over) and headed to Laurel Caverns for our caving expedition. Us and another couple were the only ones on the tour. We went 3 1/2 miles underground on a 4 hour trip. It was quite fun in total darkness with our headlamps and crawling in tight, wet spaces. We found our camera worked really well if you shined your headlamp on the subject and snapped away (See below).

At Keyhole Pass

3 1/2 miles underground...

After our caving trip, we headed to Ohiopyle State Park where we were going to camp out for two nights. We pitched our mansion-tent (which took over an hour) and by that time we were starving, so we headed to "town" (population 42) and bought materials for hot dogs and s'mores. The raging Ohiopyle Falls were right in "town" so we stopped to see those. We ate an early dinner over our campfire and celebrated our anniversary with our anniverary wedding cake that we had been carting around. We even re-entacted our wedding cake feeding/smashing and tried to imitate Tracy's cake pictures - haha! The sun set early and so did we! We had no idea we'd almost sleep through rafting the next day!

MONDAY

Who said you can't sleep in when you're camping?? We barely woke up by 9:30am - our rafting adventure was at 10am! Our phones were dead since we had no way to charge them, our clock on the car dash was broken, and we didn't bring watches. The rafting was AWESOME! Probably my favorite part! Fortunately we ended up with a guide in our raft and four other people our age from the U.K. We were in the "safety raft," meaning we had to dislodge any stuck rafts and save people who went overboard. We are happy to say that we lost no one in the raft and never flipped. Our guide actually intentionally flipped another raft going through the rapids. He could tell they wanted to be flipped. We did get to jump off a rock and "swim" through some of the rapids. It was a cool experience (in the icy cold water). I did it twice, in fact. Adam also got to jump off a 15-foot rock. I have pictures of all this, but they were taken with a non-digital, underwater camera. Our raft trip was 5 hours long!

After rafting we changed into dry clothes and went on a 3 1/2 hour hike to Cucumber Falls and the Natural Waterslides. By the time we started heading back it was pitch black outside. Fortunately we were prepared and had brought our trusty headlamps to make our way back.

Once we were back, it was only about 8:15pm, we headed to "town" again to find dinner. However, everything but ONE place was deserted. And this little Falls City Tavern was hopping with 3 patrons (one being our rafting tour's guide!). The waitress said yes, they were serving food, but only things that were deep fried! Oh gosh darn!!! :) AND they had Woodchuck! So I enjoyed some Woodchuck with Fried Cheesesticks, Onion Rings, and the best Chicken Fingers ever! It was the most delicious meal! Then we got back and tried in vain to start a campfire. It took quite a while, but we did. Then we went to bed.

TUESDAY

Tuesday we relaxed, got up and took down the tent and cleaned up our camp gear. We drove around Ohiopyle a bit more to see what we could see and went on a short hike in search of the remains of the Ferncliff Hotel. Finally we found no remains, but a sign marking where the Hotel used to be!

Then, we headed out to Oglebay, West Virginia. When we arrived, we checked into the lodge and showered quickly (it had been a few days) :) and headed down for our massages. Those were much needed on our sore bodies, but were challenging to relax since our masseuse couldn't stop talking about her dysfunctional family, ex who tried to murder her, and her drunken night the evening before - haha! It was an experience. Then we had tickets to a fancy dinner with champagne and dessert in the lodge. We both had items we can't pronounce - Adam's consisted of salmon, mine of chicken and pasta. We watched the sun set from our table through the big picture windows. Then we took a brief walk around the lodge after dinner. It was dark and everything was closed for the evening. We ended up staying in to relax and got to see the season premiers of House and Boston Legal - Yay!! Thank goodness for electricity again!

WEDNESDAY

Wow... is our vacation almost over already?? We woke up to go to our breakfast buffet this morning. Then we packed up and checked out to go play golf at the top of the mountain on the Par 3 course (with my new pink golf glove!). After golf we drove around to see the pond, gardens, and a few gift shops. After that, we decided we'd seen all we needed to see and it was time to head home to pick up the woofins before the kennel closed. We made it back in time to be greeted with clouds, glum, and rain, and piss-covered doggies. Blech! The dogs got baths immediately while I unpacked. We made dinner last night and watched the season premier of Ghost Hunters - woohoo! Then we watched an episode of Family Guy and I feel asleep early. I was whooped!

BACK TO REALITY

Today I am back at work... thank goodness it's almost lunch time and it's slow. Tonight, my goal is to upload my vacation pics (which you should see above since this post was written early in the day). I also want to put up all our fall decorations - I love this season!

In other news, I am now a published photographer! Three of my photos appeared in this week's Cougar News at CSCC. Yay! I'm so excited. :) That's about it, I have a busy weekend planned. Adam wants to go to a Reds game and I have to go to training for my Diversity Consultant job so they can send me to Long Beach, CA this month! Whoopee!!! :) And, of course, it's back to PetSmart on Sunday! Fun times back in the real world!