Settling In

My new home!
I had a place originally picked out to rent here in Jasper, the outside was all cute and nice...

Yeah...not so much. My choice drastically changed when I went inside and discovered I couldn't live with the dark oak trimming, doors, and cabinets as well as the brass hardware. It felt like I took a journey back to the 80's ha ha! the living area was also not thought out so well. The living room was the size of a small dining room...eek! well enough of the complaining about the place, my furniture was just not going to work in it and neither was my taste so....luckily there was a different unit that I went with instead. Outside, it was an older duplex much like a little brick ranch, not exactly what I wanted but the layout worked better and the trimming was more up to date. PLUS! it was less expensive :o) OH SNAP!!! he he

Think twice about judging a book by its cover!

Since moving in and unpacking most of my things, I have killed two bugs that are so ugly they would give you nightmares, the same type of bug thus far. Its brownish/red about an inch long with lots of legs! I'm scared to see what more Ill come across! The pipes in this place are also making some crazy noise when you turn the water on, but apparently they don't know what it is and decided to let it go on and not try to figure it out. Not sure if that's so smart on their end!

My best friend has moved to Charleston, I started work on Jan. 10th, and have spent much time inside watching movies with my Cliffy Cakes. We try to get out on the weekends, we have been to Evansville twice. The last visit to Evansville led to a purchase of Oscar...the one on the left. Mr. Hankie needed a playmate!

Hank and Oscar seem o get along just fine! I admit i was a bit scared they wouldn't. I never heard Hankie purr so much so I have to give props for Cliffy knowing he needed a friend! 

The next trip we went on was to Indianapolis over the weekend of 1/21/2011. First impressions: "Um....not sure we fit in here" ha ha. All the houses around the city seemed old and run down as we were driving in and when we got to our hotel at the La Quinta, the desk clerk literally looked as though he just got fisted in the eyeball, it was all bloodshot and bruised. Speaking with him he seemed nice, he recommended a lounge to visit called the "Cadillac Ranch" to get something to eat. The hotel was incredibly cold, I'm sure the temperature was not much different then the outside weather. We definitely turned the heat up when we got to the room. We did visit the "Cadillac Ranch" and it was dead of course, it was only 4 in the afternoon, but were hungry!! it seemed like a nice atmosphere and lively at night I'm sure. The food however, we were not that impressed with. We walked the mall after wards, big WHOOP! ha ha. I haven't been much for shopping lately so we ended up playing glow in the dark miniature golf. I suck at miniature golf by the way and Cliffy kept cheating ha ha!

We didn't want to go outside cause it was sooo cold, but we did leave the warmth of the mall in which we were surrounded by thug shopping idiots anyway....YUP, just a tad uncomfortable! walking the streets we ran into a homeless guy...he was singing. It was actually pretty funny it went something along these lines " I don't want eat pigeons cause they don't taste like chicken..." quite entertaining, but no we did not give any money. We actually were wondering how many of these homeless guys were going to make it through the night with how cold it was. We went to a couple bars, one of them had a live blues band. We just hung out and had a few drinks. We didn't really meet anyone, only had small talk with the bartender at the "Slippery Noodle" where the band was playing. Cliffy was hungry so we were wondering at 11:00 at night what was open worth going to. Not many choices come to find out.

We wound up at "Steak and Shake" we had never been before, and outside the the little joint the news was there doing a report. I happen to over hear " No one really knows the identity of the two shooters"...then Cliffy proceeds to yell "NEWS!" as we walk passed to go inside. Wow! what a great place ha ha! We had Hot Dogs and Fries and shared a shake. I guess it served the purpose of quenching the hunger and for a late night snack, it wasn't too bad.

I think the desk clerk thought it was hilarious to put us in a room between two rooms that had children. Thanks JackA$$! we were woken up the next morning to screaming and crying. No offense to anyone with kids, but this is just annoying to us non-kid travelers. I was half tempted to take the NyQuil we had in the suitcase and stuff it in some sour patch kids and go over there, knock on their door and give it to them. Needless to say we just woke up and got ready. Our plans were to go see The Medical Museum and a haunted fire house. Unfortunately our plans were shot down...both were closed.

Believe it or not the #1 thing to do in Indianapolis, part of our research, was to go visit the "Children's Museum". So guess what we did? we proceeded to go and check this place out. Kids normally aren't crying and screaming there so we were certain we could make it through. We definitely made the most of it.

Will we ever want to visit Indianapolis in the near future????? No, not so much. It was good to at least see what it was all about, but not a city I can add to my "Thumbs up" list.

Needless to say, the adventure is starting. I am liking work and I enjoy going on little trips with Cliffy. Though Jasper is a small town, it has the necessities we need and we have many cities within 3 hours of us in every direction:

St. Louis
Indianapolis
Cincinnati
Louisville Kentucky
Nashville

Our next stop...NASHVILLE!

Yippadee do da

On a good note...I made it to Indiana!!!  And here has been the experience...

The movers came to my apartment to take all my stuff including my precious bed on Dec. 29th. It was one lonely lonely apartment after that and I will admit, I frowned a bit. It was my first apartment on my own with my roomie Ashley and we had a great year in it.  We celebrated the New Year in Denver, which was one freezing night so we stayed in mostly playing apples to apples. First time ever playing that game and it is FUN!! Ultimately, It was a good night being able to see some great people before I left entirely for Indiana. Saying goodbye seemed to be harder for those closest to me then it was for myself.

The Big Road Trip began on Jan. 2nd. I had spent the last few days living out of a suit case and hauling Mr. Hank my guinea pig around everywhere. Poor guy. It wouldn't end there for him either, we had a 17 hour driving trip he had to get through in the back seat :o) Luckily I had my Starbucks that morning to prepare me for the first part of the drive to Kansas City! My roommate Ashley was going to drive out there with me as well as my Cliffy Cakes (John) driving his own car. I had known from previous experience that the drive through Kansas is the WORST! ...confirmed!! Not only is it flat and boring, but when you get into Kansas City...the highway system is a whole other story in itself! I think I-70 was running in 10 different directions, if you weren't paying attention you would wind up in a dark scary place (like we did). This was when we were trying to find a hotel to stay at and we saw a sign for a Comfort Inn so we went to turn off, little did we know that immediately if you were not in the right lane you were turning onto another street in the opposite direction..wooops! we were headed in toward this scary industrial part of town and our mission was to turn around quickly! The very first place I could find to turn around we did and got back onto I-70 and headed a little further out of the city to find a hotel, it was getting late so we checked in at a Drury Inn across from the Chief's Stadium. Ashley was joking around about wearing her Broncos shirt and trotting over there to take a picture! eh...we waited till morning after eating our complimentary breakfast and to avoid pissing anyone off, we decided to x-nay the Bronco attire. Our cars with Colorado License plates should be good enough.

Starbucks run and then it was bye bye Kansas City!

Next stop...St. Louis :o) this is where I decided to splurge a smidge and get a nice hotel...Hotel Lumier across from the Four Seasons just a walk from the arch. We arrived there in the afternoon so we could spend the day exploring. We got settled in...quickly :o)

The view from the hotel was great, the beds AMAZING, and it didn't take much for us to enjoy ourselves. It was off to see the arch next!

Night time in St. Louis, we did not experience much other then eating at a place called Jake's Steaks which was a small hole in the wall little bar that had good BBQ that was recommended. My personal thought, fun atmosphere even though it was completely dead considering it was a Monday evening and the food was nothing to rave about, but it was good. Walking along the streets of St. Louis I would describe as a mix  between feeling on edge watching your surroundings and also being mesmerized by the cobblestone streets and old buildings.

Later that night we got to enjoy the casino and eat some amazing dessert at the restaurant in the hotel. It was a fun little date for Cliffy and I, even though he was trying to sneak into one of the ballrooms afterward and dance with me (great way for us to get escorted off the premises). Adorable :o) We also took our own tour of the Four Seasons Hotel and explored the roof top deck that had a fire pit, too bad I had no marshmellows! It was cold so I couldn't stay out there too long, but the view was fantastic. We were getting pretty tired at this point so we headed back to our hotel for the night when Cliffy decided he was hungry and wanted a sandwhich, pit stop at the buffet downstairs was in order. Barely did we make it back without falling asleep. Just to add, Mr. Hank was still alive hanging out at the hotel with us, may have been a little nerved and confused but he had no choice plus I had the carrots!

Here is the night view I took outside our hotel window:

I actually slept a little finally considering I hadnt slept hardly at all the previous couple days, no starbucks run this time...it was off to Jasper our final destination!

We passed through Illinois...saw some moo moo's and rolling hills. Weather was treating us good this whole trip...sunny and/or party cloudy, but still cold. we only had about a 4 hour drive from St. Louis to Jasper. The drive seemed to go by super SLOW though!! and then there it was...the small town of Jasper :o)