shopping!!

today i slept in and then went shopping. it was fantastic. I bought so many lovely things, I can't wait to get back and enjoy wearing them. I had to buy a new suitcase so that it will all fit! My finds:

 my new shoes & my new boots! bargain!

After I was shopping all day I drove to Junction City, Kansas. There was a lovely sunset on the way here.

kansas city

i havent written in ages because i have been so busy with work, and not much has happened! i have been in Kansas city for the week. I did some shopping yesterday which was great, and am off to do some more today. Giving my credit card a workout- the exchange rate is awesome at the moment. This is a pic of my giant car which I am driving at the moment- its huge!

Yesterday afternoon I went to Union Station (I went there on my last visit) and I really like it there. They had an exhibition called Diana. It is a celebration of her life and it was interesting, but really sad. This is the photo at the start of the exhibit. They don't let you take photos when you're inside. They had her wedding dress (with the 25ft train) on display, it was really pretty, but so sad.

I haven't been eating very much lately, but I was really  hungry when I got back to my room as I hadn't eaten all day, so I ordered room service. I got a chocolate brownie sunday and a strawberry milkshake. YUM! I couldn't finish either, but they tasted really nice.

wow what a day!

today was a fantastic day in colorado!! i woke up in my hotel- not to maryln like i was expecting, but to hannibal lecter! they must have selected the wrong option for me, so when i woke from my slumber, good old hannibal said "its time to wake up dear, i have breakfast ready for you with a side of faba beans and a nice chianti, (and then that weird noise he makes). so not so nice to wake up to after all! anyways, the day improved from there on out.

i left at about 10am to drive to boulder. i decided not to stay around denver, i am going to do that tomorrow. boulder is a cool little town near the uni, lots of students, its about 40 minutes from denver. there are lots of bicycles! it is a fitness crazy town, lots of outdoor fanatics live here. i felt very lazy! mark- you would have hated it! even on the massive freeway (80mph) there is a bike lane, there must have been 100 cyclists that i passed- insane. it was a bit foggy driving there so couldn't see any mountains.i had read in my guidebook about the pearl street mall. its a lovely paved mall with lots of little shops, buskers and lots of flowers. i browsed around there for an hour, had some breakfast and then left to drive further into the mountains to the  ranch. here are some pics:

this is the mall in boulder where i was shopping. there were lots of boutique jewelry stores, art galleries and antique stores- i resisted temptation, could have bought lots of things!

 when i left boulder the fog had cleared and i drove through the mountains. it was a very windy road, with some clearings. as i got further out of boulder i started to get glimpses of that view that simply takes your breath away!

 this is a pic of me with the horse i rode. he had a long unusual name that i cant remember! he was very slow and plodded along. there were a few people in our group that had never ridden before so it was a nose to tail affair. but the scenery was magnificent so cant complain!

 all ready to go! Mom you would have been pleased with me, i was the only person in the whole group wearing a helmet! there were young kids riding and people who had never ridden before and no one was wearing hats, its optional. mostly the horses were ok but a few typical trail ride squabbles when they try to pass eachother, luckily no one fell off because the ground is 95% covered with rocks! crazy stuff.

 This is the view as we were leaving the ranch to head up the trail. you can see the horses in their pen and the mountains in the background.

 the view from the trail

me on the trail!

this is our cowboy guide showing us the different areas we could see. he used to be a professional bullrider before he fell off and shattered part of his spine, he was in a wheelchair for awhile and they told him he wouldnt walk again, but he is better now and doesnt ride bulls anymore but he rides horses instead!

 more views...

 if you look behind the cowboy guide you can see three deer. we saw a few on the ride. they don't run away, the guide said they can't distinguish between the smell of horses and us, so they just think the horses are strolling past. they were really cute deer, with little white tails and massive ears!

 these are some other deer we saw in the trees, they were a bit more skittish. i think they may be elk? they were a lot bigger than the deer.

so that was my horseride, im very glad that i went. it would be more fun if the ride was a bit more exciting, but i still enjoyed it, it was nice to be on horseback again! i started driving back to boulder, to look at a few more shops on the way home.

this is the view behind me on the way back towards boulder

 on the way i couldnt help but stop at this little farm stall on the side of the road the colorado cherry company. they have about ten different types of fruit ciders, apple, blackberry, cherry etc etc... i didnt try too many because i was driving. i did buy a bottle of cherry juice though. they had lots of jams, sauces and honey varieties. they also have homemade cherry pie so i stopped and had a slice, that was my dinner. it was incredible, easily the best pie i have ever eaten.

 this is what their graffiti looks like in colorado, pretty cool !

 i stopped in boulder for an hour but then i was pretty tired so i drove back to my hotel in denver. it was still light outside so i went for a walk, there is another pedestrian mall a few blocks away. i had a browse around but most of the shops were already closed. i did find a cool shop with some cowboy boots, might have found a pair for Eoin :) aren't they cool? they are all handmade and the detail is incredible.

i got a little bit lost but hopped on a free shuttle bus and found my way back to my hotel. this is the street outside my hotel (it is a really nice area, lots of expensive restaurants and designer stores). The whole street is lined with fairy lights and it is very romantic. As I was taking a photo of the street view, a horse and carriage arrived and stopped right in front of me - what a perfect picture! A beautiful end to a beautiful day.

i like sleeping on the floor of champions

just to be different this post is going backwards, from current time to my morning in springfield, mo.

at the moment im relaxing in my awesome eclectic hotel room at The Curtis hotel in Denver: http://www.thecurtis.com/our-hotel/fun-facts-at-the-curtis/ . This fantastic botique hotel is really weird, but in a good way. Each floor has a theme, 'big hair' floor (with a giant pic of marge from the simpsons), 'horror' floor (13th of course-giant portrait of jack from the shining), I am on the 'champion' floor. there are framed pics of sports stars,all of this awesome memoribilia. my themed wake up call is going to be by marilyn monroe (choice of austin powers, darth vader, yoda etc...). Colorado is amazing, it has such a nice feel to the city. I had a very crazy flight here, lots of turbulence, the weather is crazy at the moment! this is a pic of all the storm clouds that we were avoiding... id hate to know how bumpy it would have been if we went through them.

 my bed in my hotel room

 the figurine in the bathroom

 some of the artwork in my room

this morning after work i had a few hours in springfield , missouri. i decided to go and see some caves, or the 'fantastic caverns' as they were called. it was very interesting, i enjoyed the drive to the cave place, it was through the countryside. here are some pics from my drive to the caverns:

as it is spring, all the trees are in blossom, it is really pretty.

i kept waiting for a tornado to appear at the end of the road.

 horses grazing - lots of horses around in missouri!

 a little red barn in the woods :)

This is our tour (all four of us!) getting ready to leave the visitor centre in the jeep (it is a drive through cave, you sit on the back of a jeep and the guide takes you through the cave)

the pic below is of one of the oldest formations. they showed us an example of one stalactite that has been there for seventy years, it was the diameter of a pencil and about 2cm long. They know its exact age because it was formed when a farmer drilled a pipe for his well through the bottom of the cave. the water started to leak and little formations started to form around the site. they estimate these formations below to be thousands of years old.

 some of the first explorers of the cave were a group of women who lived in the town! they wrote their names on the rock wall.

 some more formations, it was hard to take pictures with the low light and the vehicle moving all the time.

after the caves i drove to the airport, i had to fill up the rental car with fuel, i saw this awesome car and couldnt resist taking a pic!

my last day in texas

after the day at seaworld i rushed back to my hotel and got ready for my ghost tour. the tour started 9pm so I had time to grab some dinner from this cool restaurant called fuddruckers.i know, its a weird name, but they make the best burgers. i had an awesome burger and strawberry milkshake. the ghost tour was pretty cool, we walked for about 2 hours all around the city. the guide was a paranormal investigator guy named JR. He was a character, very into his ghosts, very authentic. He is also a historian and told us all this information about the battlefields, churches and old hotels that we visited. This is a pic of JR (in the straw hat) pointing out some of the tombs in the wall:

this is one of the cathedrals we visited

 this is the branch of a 300 year old tree that used to be a hanging tree outside the town hall. apparently you can sometimes see ghosts when you take photographs of this branch. if you look closely there is a shadow above the knot in the branch- is it casper? who knows?!

 this wall below is a wall of the oldest building near the alamo area. there are people entombed in the walls and it is an old church that has been there forever (1700's). Apparently you can see faces in the buildings when you take a photograph. i zoomed in on my most 'face-like' area in the picture (pictured right).

 i found the whole tour really interesting. it wasn't cheesy and it was a historical tour about the region and of the buildings. there is lots of reported paranormal activity and they think the ghost sightings occur because the land surrounding the Alamo has been a battlefield numerous times over the years, and many buildings are still intact. San Antonio is reported to be one of the most haunted areas in America- very cool!

The next day I woke up early and went on my day tour of San Antonio. First we went on the outskirts of the city to some Japanese Gardens, which weren't Japanese at all. The site used to be a quarry that was abandonded, and then taken over by a family who looked after the area. At some point in the history there was an influx of migrant workers when the Chinese workers who worked on the railroad came down to Texas in the 1800s, they made the old quarry into a garden. All the plants died in the cold snap two months ago, so they have replanted everything- Mom it was a bit of a botanist's nightmare, just every odd plant all planted together. It was quite funny looking at the mish-mash of plants, it made me smile, the koi in the pond were huge though and the rocks were pretty! Here are some photos:

Next we went to the Saloon and Buckhorn Museum, and also the Texas Rangers Museum. The Texas Rangers (not the baseball team, but Chuck Norris) was pretty cool.They had pictures and collectables from all the Rangers in Texas in the last two centuries. Lots of saddles, spurs, guns and ranger badges!

 this was my favorite: a leather carved saddle. you can see the ranger in the photo of the right hand corner of the picture. there are also old newspaper clippings from events that happened while he was a texas ranger.

after the museum there was a section of the museum above the saloon. the saloon has been there since the 1800s and apparently the cowboys and local people could trade artifacts for whiskey. Hunting was very big in the area so they started to hunt and source weird artifacts of animals from across the world. This place is a taxidermists heaven, my nightmare! You know that scene in Ace Ventura when he is in the hunter's room- this was it! Its like they filmed it in this "museum". This should have been on the ghost tour- it freaked me out!!! I tried to take photos, but it was so cramped that you couldn't get all the animals in the picture. I took a few and then while I was trying to take one I backed into a leopard that was on a shelf near my head and I turned to see this leopard glaring at me! Scared the hell out of me, and I got out of there quick smart!

After that I decided I was too scared to go into any more museums. I looked at the Alamo museum from the outside and then walked down to the river to get some fresh air. I found a lovely place and had some lunch at the Mexican place (see post below). Here are some photos from the river boat ride that I took on the group tour earlier in the day.

After lunch by the river I felt much better, and decided to walk back up to the Alamo which is the monument to honour the settlers/soldiers who fought for Texas from the Mexican army (and all subsequently died).

The Alamo

  An few awesome cactus plants inside the compound

 Outside the Alamo they have all of these horse drawn carriages. You can catch them and take them down by the side of the river, at night they are all lit up with fairy lights. The people really look after the horses, all their tack is engraved and decorated, they plait their tails and put ribbons in their manes, lovely to see.

After the Alamo we went to see some of the Missions. These used to be the walled communities with the church in the center. There were a few missions all scattered along the river, but not too far apart as they were in the middle of Apache Indian country (who didn't appreciate being told who to worship).

 This pic below is one of the coolest things I saw at the first Mission. It's a map dated in the early 1500's. It has the names of places that the explorers had found, Africa, Europe and India were mapped out well. Antarctica was labelelled 'terra incognita' along with most of northern america. There are drawings of exotic animals, mermaids and creatures of the deep. In the Terra Incognita places there are mystical creatures like dragons, unicorns and strange beasts. There is no Australia on the map, just a picture of a gremlin. I liked that!

 After the missions we went to a courtyard which is a Mexican village where they have lots of stalls, restaurants with Mexican food. I bought some pecan fudge from one of the stalls, it was really nice.

After that I was so tired from walking all day, I got on my plane to Houston, then through to St. Louis Missouri where I am now. Our plane ride was a bit hairy, to say the least! There were gale force winds and they were about to close the airport, I think we were one of the last planes to land. There is a massive storm system going across the mid-west and there were tornado warnings across Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky today. Luckily we had a great pilot, it was a woman pilot which was unusual, (I think some of the men were worried!) but she did an awesome job. On approach the plane was being thrown around like a toy, just blown all over the place. She brought it in perfectly, we hovered back and forth over the approach to the runway and as soon as we were over it, like a helicopter she just touched it down. There were fire engines on the runway so obviously the control tower were concerned about the weather. Everyone clapped, it was pretty cool. I was deleriously tired which was good because I didn't get too scared, hopefully the storms calm down as I am driving to Springfield tomorrow and I dont feel like turning into Dorothy thank you very much!