The Chill

A couple of days after we moved in, Dillon and I decided that after over a month without working, we should probably rejoin the rest of the world in real life. That day, we did what any bartender or server would do when looking for a job in a new city. We went bar hopping.

We went to pretty much every restaurant and bar within 20 miles of our place, but as soon as we walked into this one, we both knew it was where we wanted to work.

The place is called Jimmy Johnson's Big Chill (the famous football coach down here) and it is freakin huge. There's a sports bar, a martini bar, two outside tiki bars and a pool. It's pretty sweet.

I was fortunate enough to walk in with a resume at the exact right time and met with the GM on the spot. After I was hired, Dillon and I launched plan "infiltrate the Big Chill."

I don't mean to toot my own horn--in fact I don't even have a horn, nor would I know how to toot one if I did--but when we want something, we get it. Now, a month later, I close the dining room and Dillon bar tends. Seriously, we should be secret agents. I need to talk to him about that...

Perks of the Job: Absolutely breath taking sunsets, the potential for Dillon to make A LOT of money off of cougars, 18% gratuity on parties of 6 or more, awesome staff and management, over 20 TVs in the sportsbar for Dillon to watch the Broncos on, ladies nights on Tuesdays and employee discounts on food AND booze.

Downfalls: Holy mosquitoes. Seriously, I look like I have a skin disease. And lots and lots of children. Ahhhh, tourists. (Although I must say, I do enjoy the fact we make non-alc. smoothies for kids; it's a great opportunity for me to up my check total, piss off parents when I even mention the fact that we have them, and not have to constantly refill free kids drinks. Yes, this job makes me bitter.)

Dude, We Did It. We Moved to the Keys.

After sideshow Bob and many others showed us around town, Dillon and I finally decided on our apartment. We moved in the next day. It's this cute little place right on the canal about 6 houses down from the ocean.

Here in the Keys, everyone refers to mile markers and "bay side" versus "ocean side." The beginning of the keys when you first get into Key Largo is Mile Marker 100. Key West, the very most southern point of the U.S., is Mile Marker 0. We live at Mile Marker 95 on the Ocean side right behind a bright green Key Lime Shop.

Yes, culture shock. We decided not to move down to Key West yet, because it was too much like Boulder--crowded and drunk as hell. It's also very, very dirty and touristy. Key Largo was where we ended up which is awesome because it's pretty much right in between Miami and Key West, both which take about an hour and a half to get to from our place.

The best part of our place, by far, is our beach. I think it was the third or fourth day we moved in that we were walking Avery and we stumbled upon this awesome little nugget.

Literally a five minute walk away, there's a beautiful little local's beach tucked back in this neighborhood that literally no one knows about. We go there almost every day, and it's freakin awesome.

Oh. my. God. Avery loves the water. If I can figure out how to post a video of her swimming dear god I will.

Sideshow Bob, Welcome to the Keys (The Bob Blog)

HELLLLLOOOOOO FLORIDA!
After a few much needed relaxed days visiting my mom in Orlando, one of which we used to visit Universal Studios (side note to all: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EVER TAKE ANY MOMENT OF TIME OUT OF YOUR LIFE TO GO ON THE TWISTER RIDE AT UNIVERSAL. IT CAUSES PERMANENT DISSATISFACTION AND AN UNYIELDING SENSE OF BLAH.), we finally drove the last 6 hours out of over three thousand miles to the Keys. In the first day or two we set up meetings with people to look at the apartments available to us. And the story begins...

His name was Bob. No last name, just Bob. Now, we had been warned by several people already to be weary of everyone we met trying to lease us a place. This was because apparently in the Keys, because tourism is such a huge market, and every tourist is apparently a dumbass, scamming for rentals is hugely taken advantage of. For example, there are a ton of vacation homes down here that are only occupied half of the year. So, scammers break into the homes, pretend to be licensed realtors, convince people to rent from them and take cash or check for the thousand or so dollar deposit and then disappear. Two months later, when you're living in this house, the actual owners come home and freak out because there's people living in their house. I know, totally weird. But believe me, down here this actually makes sense.

One of our visits was to an absolutely too good to be true little apartment in this beautiful neighborhood right on the canal. (First clue: too good to be true= it probably actually is.) We pull into this place and this shifty-eyed humpty dumpty lookin dude comes out in the driveway to greet us. He says his name is Bob and hands us these awkward Office Depot standard "pamphlets" he'd printed out about the place. Dillon and I right away noticed the beautiful tree in the front yard that was shedding some kind of fruit. Bob got really excited about the tree, telling us he'd been there for 6 years, and every year at the same time the "starfruit" tree would produce beautiful fruits that would fall all over the front yard. Dillon asked the guy what time of year that was. He had no idea. (Second clue: if you've been living somewhere for 6 years, wouldn't you kind of know when the tree in the front yard produced its fruit?)

We walked inside to this cute little apartment. Shifty Bob was being, shifty. I was falling in love with the place, but I noticed there was random shit lying around like utencils in the kitchen, soap in the shower, and clothing still hanging in the closet. I asked Bob where all of the leftover stuff came from and he explained, "Oh, the people that lived here before just left it and I hadn't had a chance to clean it up yet." There was also a dog barking from the upstairs, which he claimed he lived in. We asked if he would bring his dog out to meet Avery so we could make sure they go along. He wouldn't go up and get the dog. When Dillon and I started sounding interested, he was very adamant that we give him at least half of the deposit in cash. So much that when I told him I could probably write him a check for it, he asked if I could go to an ATM and pull out half of the security deposit so it could be in cash. We told him we would think about it and get right back to him that night.

Now, I am incredibly naive and oblivious a lot of the time. And when we pulled away, I was super excited and loved the place. But Dillon looked at me, wide eyed and freaked out. "Crystal, I think that guy was scamming us." Boom. It all made sense. As soon as we started piecing it all together, I was incredibly creeped out. Not to mention the fact Bob had invited us on a sunset cruise with him that night. AWWWWKWAARRRD. Anywho, I don't know if I was able to convey the creepiness that was Bob through this post, but take it from me, it was damn creepy. Not to mention, this was our second day in the keys. Ahhh, welcome home.

I guess the moral of this blog is this: the starfruit tree will always bloom at the same time of year. And if a creepy guy named Bob tells you that, don't rent from him.

Nashville, Country Music Is Just Not That Cool.

When we woke up the next morning in Cave In Rock, our main objective was to get out. The one thing this town had going for it? We got to take a ferry across the Ohio River to Kentucky. We had waaaay too much fun with this. The little 10 minute ferry ride across the river was pretty fun though, we parked our car and got out and talked to the ferry boat guy who was redneck as hell and loved us. We got dropped off on the other side of the river, Kentucky bound.

Our next stop was Nashville. Now, if you've never been to Nashville you are probably like us and picture it as this hip and bustling musical city that would be cool to visit, yes? Well, you're right, Nashville is a cool city. But god damn you better live and breathe and poop the country music culture. Walking around the city was really overwhelming with the dog because we couldn't play along with everyone else who kept ducking into bars shitfaced at noon. We were swarmed by blonde little bitches everywhere that looked like the devil spawn of Carrie and Reba. Country music twanged loudly out of every single bar and restaurant and we were the only ones without cowboy boots or a cowboy hat on. Now if you know us, you know we can take a lot. But not this. It was country overload.

Oh by the way, something very weird about Nashville- I don't think anyone that lives there has ever seen a dog. Every single person we walked by could not believe that Avery was real. We finally got so sick of people asking us what kind of dog she was, we started making up shit. Dillon decided she was a "chow-ridge-space-bernard." I just told people, "it's not a dog," and walked away creepily. Haha, people are so dumb.

Anywho, we did manage to see the one thing I wanted to while we were there which was the Music Walk of Fame. I thought it was going to be kind of like the walk of fame in Hollywood with the hands and shit but needless to say, it was a pretty big let down. None the less, the sky did put on a pretty impressive sunset. :)

In the end, I can now say that I have been to Nashville. I can also say that I probably won't be going back. Yee haw.

Cave In Rock, Illinois- Our First Experience In A Dry Town

Our next camping spot was in this town called Cave in Rock, literally in the middle of no where in Illinois. The only reason this town is even on a map is just as the name suggests...there's a cave. In a rock. And I guess people...come to...see it? I still don't really understand the whole thing. Anyways, there were open campsites so we went. The campground itself was actually pretty cool. It was tucked far back in the woods so it actually felt like real camping not RV park camping. (Which I now know, there is a difference.) The camp host was this hot mess of a woman in some gross leopard print nightgown at 3 in the afternoon. Our meeting was awkward, but she did tell us one very important bit of information--Cave in Rock was a dry town. At that point, the fourteen million Jesus signs and churches we had to wade through on the way in made a lot more sense. Dillon and I almost panicked when she assured us there was a town about 10 miles away where we could get booze.

I remember the drive down to the town for two reasons. First was the sunset. I have never seen anything like it. The sun was at least three times larger in the sky than I have ever seen it before in my life, and bright orange/red. It reminded me of those murals of African safaris you see where the sun is just this hot boiling orange thing that takes over the sky. At this point, I can probably apologize for continuously telling you about this cool shit when I have no pictures of it. I'm sorry, I did not take a picture. You'll just have to rely on my picturesque word choice and your creativity. But trust me, that shit was cool.

The second reason was that this was our first encounter with humid fog. This shit on the other hand, not so cool. At first it kind of was because being from Colorado, you never see it get so humid that your windshield fogs up and you can't really do anything about it. But after driving for a while, it gets kind of annoying and you start to look like an idiot as you struggle to wipe of quasi-fog with no luck. We're still struggling with this even now down in the Keys...I'll let you know how that goes.

Wow, sorry that was a super long tangent about absolutely nothing. ANYWAYS, we finally got some liquor and drove our butts back to the campsite, and that's when it happened. The frogs. They come out at night. With a force like you've never seen!!!! Haha, no but really, the frogs were nuts. There were so many of them and they were so loud that we were almost yelling at each other. It was right then and there that I decided the only way I was going to stand a chance in hell at falling asleep that night was to drink myself into oblivion. Sorry mom.

See that pot of spaghetti? Yep. It came right back up later that night. It was the second most disturbing puke I've ever taken right behind the one in front of the church the day after my birthday. (Brandon and Kelsi will attest to that.) After puking my guts out, Dillon says that I proceeded to lay in the tent, whining and crying in my sleeping bag that I couldn't fall asleep because I was spinning. Dillon said it was the only time he's ever seen someone spin when they were already laying on the floor. Needless to say, when I finally did fall asleep at whatever hour and woke up the next morning staring at a pile of completely undigested spaghetti noodles all over the ground, a few things became undeniably apparent to me:
1) I cannot, no matter how much I believe I can in the moment, drink as much as Dillon.
2) Frogs are some loud mothers, a problem I now feel is better resolved with earplugs, not alcohol.
3) I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to eat spaghetti again.

Everything else aside, I can now cross one very important thing off of the bucketlist: "Get so drunk in a dry country that you puke right back in it's sheltered little face."

No Avery! Not Under the St. Louis Arch! (Missouri Travels)

After our departure from the Dead Flying Squirrel, I was really excited to hit up St. Louis. Neither of us had ever been to the arch, so we decided it was something worth adding to the list. Just outside of the city, I barely caught a sign for "microbrewery" so naturally, we pulled off at the next exit. We found ourselves in the quaint little town of St. Charles, Missouri. The only person I think would love this town more then me is Ashley. It was a mix between Boulder's fun college atmosphere and Estes Park's fresh and cozy mountain feel.

When we pulled in it was raining, but not too hard, my favorite weather. "Trailhead Brewery," where we stopped in for a beer, was really cool and much needed after the drive. After a nourishing break, we weren't quite ready to get back in the car so we grabbed the dog and decided to do some exploring.

Halfway through our walk, it starting raining again, but we didn't care it was awesome. The town was so cozy and beautiful with this gigantic raging river running right through the middle. We stumbled upon this beautiful open park that turned out to be an old abandoned railroad station. I thought this was way cool so we went snooping around the old train station and tracks. I wish I would have had the camera with me because this was probably one of my favorite moments of the entire trip.




We stayed in a hotel in St. Charles that night, and the next day we went into St. Louis. Much too city for Dillon, so of course I loved it. It reminded me a lot of Denver, but the pretty parts of Denver not the scuzzy ones. The arch was really impressive. It was right on the river, which was overflowing into the city. Yes, you read correctly, St. Louis was kind of flooding. It was weird, the river was so high that the ramps usually leading down the the river were completely flooded and the water level was about even with the street we were walking on next to it. In fact, when we went to leave we turned the corner to get back onto the highway and the street was completely overflowing with water! Dillon and I were pretty confused as to why their were no cops or any signs closing the road off, but we didn't want to take our chances so we turned around to go a different way.

The thing I will most remember about the arch, however, was our damn dog. The expression, "when you gotta go you gotta go" became a reality for us when right in the middle of this historic landmark--and I mean actually directly in the middle, dead center under the arch where families are gathered taking photographs, people are waiting in line to go up to the top of the arch, small children are playing--Avery decides it's the perfect opportunity to embarrass the shit out of us. This wasn't even a poop people. Our dog DESTROYED that arch. There wasn't even anything we could pick up. People were staring in disgust. I was mortified. So we did the only thing there was to do...we lost it laughing. Two stupid kids, watching their dog crap all over this landmark, laughing our asses off and doing absolutely nothing to stop it. It was only when a rent-a-cop started heading our way that we decided it was probably time to leave. Oh, Avery.

Dead Flying Squirrel Campground, Iowa

After an amazing few days in Minnesota with Jessy and Nick and all of their friends, we decided it was time to trade in our sweet ass hotel room for some rough-it-in-the-woods camping. We agreed that we wouldn't drive too far the first day so we could spend most of the day with Jessy, so we decided on a campsite near Cedar Rapids, Iowa called "Flying Squirrel Campground." I mean, come on. We had stopped at the grocery store and picked up hotdogs and such to make for a late dinner when we got to our site. We showed up at 9:27. The firewood stand closed at 9:00. Of course.

Out in the middle of no where in Iowa, we were stuck in the dark, with no tent set up and no firewood, which meant no dinner. We were on a mission. Unfortunately, there was no where in 50 miles that sold firewood. We found this out when we stopped at the one gas station anywhere around and the kid told me to check the county fair down the street, and when we asked some old man at the county fair for wood, he pretty much laughed in our faces and told us we were S.O.L. Fun times. We started to drive around like idiots looking for random wood and sticks lying around and I tried to convince Dillon that we should tear up the wooden entryway to this abandoned campground. He didn't really go for that. A little frog did land on the hood of our car at one point though and scared the shit out of us, leaving Dillon shouting, "What do I do?! What do I do?! I don't want to take him out of his natural habitat!" Yah, we're really good at camping.

I decided to carry out option "Last Resort"--finding anyone still awake in our campground and bartering for firewood with them. We came upon one site that was still up with a fire, and I hopped out of the car to ask for a favor. A gigantic 300lb. woman camp romping up to me and took me over to the next door trailer telling me, "Our neighbor's a little crazy, but he has a lot of firewood." We rapped on the door and out came this crazy ass mother. He looked like a skeleton with some dark skin stretched across it, covered up with cut-off Daisy Duke shorts and a tiny little tank top. He was screaming and cussing at his yappy dogs pretty much unaware that I was taking firewood from his pile while he started chasing them around his trailer like an insane person. Dillon started whispering, "Just grab the wood and GO!!!" My only regret was that I did not get a picture of the whole fiasco. I would have put it up on the "people who shop at Walmart" website. But what we did end up with was fire and dinner. Yay. (Side note, if you ever want to see Dillon squirm extremely uncomfortably, take him into a Walmart. He won't take his hands out of his pockets. I think it's cuz he's afraid he's going to get some disease. It's awesome.)

That night we kept smelling something freakin' awful but we just thought it was the lake next to us. We got drunk enough to forget about it and fell asleep, but the next morning...oh. my. god. First of all, if you've ever woken up hungover and smelled the remnants of liquor and beer and such from your night before and almost threw up right then and there, you have a fraction of an idea of what the next morning was like for me. I awoke out of a drunken coma to the most foul, rotting smell I have ever dealt with. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. Something was definitely dead somewhere really really close to our tent, and was definitely rotting like hell. I made Dillon wake up when I had gag reflexed upwards of ten times and we packed up our shit as quickly as we could without throwing up on each other. Needless to say, that campground will always be remembered in my mind as the Dead Flying Squirrel Campground.

Fourth of July in Minnesota

We left our campsite the next day to start out on the lovely 10 hour drive to Minnesota. Because regardless of what you say, it IS on the way to Florida. But more importantly, Jessy lives there. Yay Jessy! We got into Minneapolis the night of the 3rd and our hotel room was looking pretty good after sleeping in muddy rain water the night before. Jessy and Nick came and met up with us for a couple drinks, and T.G.I. Fridays is now my new happy spot. Maybe it was because I could literally fall out of my hotel room onto the patio of the restaurant, maybe it was the $4 shots of Jack, maybe it was because Nick was so hammered the first time we went there he couldn't speak. Whatever the reason, we would continue to utilize their happy hour the remainder of our trip. Jessy, Dillon and I proceeded to rack up an $80 tab there the next day, which consisted purely of booze. At happy hour prices. Our waitress was impressed. Needless to say, after that the staff loved us, we loved the staff, and Dillon got a pretty impressive pity laugh from the server at one point which became the highlight of our day.

Jessy's friends are awesome because they love to party. On the Fourth, we celebrated our nation with good BBQ and cherry bombs. We ran through the sprinklers like idiots and I got to eat corn which made me super happy. Speaking of corn, this country has a shit ton of it. Anywho, the Fourth ended up being a fantastically drunken blast and Dillon and I went home early. We watched fireworks across the city skyline from our 16th floor hotel room, and apparently I blacked out a shower later that night. Good times.

Although the drive was long, it was waaaaay worth it to get to spend the holiday with good friends. But one thing is for sure--- Wyoming and South Dakota pretty much suck to drive through.

PS. Never, EVER, under any circumstances go to Sioux Falls, SD.