I'm baaaack!

Oh my.
Where to start.....

My vacation was absolutely incredible. A fun, fun time was had by all.
Here now is my attempt to actually capture a small amount of the fun and craziness in one consolidated write-up.

Thusday: I flew out of SFO and arrived in Chicago around 5:30 pm. My friend, Tammy met me at the airport. It should be noted here that Tammy had just returned very early that morning from a 6 day trip to Costa Rica. She arrived at 2:00am, managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, went to work early, left work, and drove directly to the airport to pick me up. Poor thing. She was exhausted. We drove to her Mom's house (where Tammy had slept the night before) to pick up Tammy's car, and had a nice dinner together. We got to Tammy's house around 9:00, and even though we were both wiped out, we managed to stay up past midnight catching up. (After all, I had to see her photos from Costa Rica!)

Note: Time change: I had to set my watch ahead 2 hours. Tammy had to remember to set all of her clocks ahead 1 hour since she hadn't been home since Daylight Savings started.

Friday: slept in a little bit, packed our weekend bags, and headed out for a big breakfast before the big road trip. We had a nice, leisurely drive from the suburbs of Chicago, through Indiana and eventually to Ohio. Along the way, we stopped off at some random truck stop in Indiana that had a Dairy Queen inside! We were drawn to this particular truck stop because of all of the billboards along the way announcing their Log Rolls, and their collection of souvenirs from all 50 states! What a hoot that was. One Dairy Queen Chocolate Covered Cherry Blizzard later, and we were back on the road. We usually stay in the Miamisburg/Dayton Mall area (where I lived in 1989/1990) but the hotels that I liked were sold out this year. Instead, we stayed at The Courtyard Marriott in Beavercreek. Tammy used to live in that area, but we were amazed to see how much it has changed in the last 15 years. (Imagine that) Turns out there's a NEW Mall in this area, and every chain restaurant you could possibly imagine. We check in to our hotel around 9:00pm then head out to a local Chili's for dinner.

Time change #2: set watches ahead another hour. this is getting confusing!

By this time, Tammy and I are remembering that of the best things we can remember about our years of living in Ohio is how nice everyone who lives there is. We had very nice service and help at our hotel, and all of the restaurants that we went to. Another thing I had to get used to was that smoking is still allowed in restaurants/bars. Sitting in the non-smoking section of a restaurant really doesn't do much good.

Saturday: Wake up at 9:00am to meet my friend Rob for breakfast. Rob is my friend from the UK that I've known through color guard since 1988. We've been fortunate enough to see each other almost once a year at WGI. Last September, Dick and I traveled to Spain and spent some good, quality time with Rob, and his (ex) Partner, Andrew. When we picked up Rob from his hotel in Miamisburg, I reminded him that the last time we saw each other was in Spain.... and now here we were in Dayton, OH. Go figure.

We were going to eat at the local Bob Evans, but poor Rob was needing a break from the whole color guard thing, and the restaurant was simply swarming with color guard people. Instead, we decide to get off the beaten track, and we found a lovely mom-and-pop diner in downtown Miamisburg called "Happy Days".

Side note: There's something in water in Miamisburg. It's BIG Hair central. When I lived there, I had the biggest hair ever.

After we eat breakfast, Rob mentions that he doesn't have any afternoon plans, so Tammy and I invite him along to our big Saturday afternoon event: Drive to Kentucky to the GAP Clearance Center!

The Gap Clearance Center was all we remembered it to be: jeans for $9.99 or less, shirts/skirts/sweaters for $7.99. It was great shopping! If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend it! :)

We drove the hour route back to Dayton, had a quick dinner at a TGI Fridays (I'm telling you, it's all about the chain restaurants in Ohio!) then we made our way to World Class Finals at the UD Arena.

Finals started at 6:00, but we got in a little late - 7:30. We made it in for top 4 of Scholastic World, and for all of Independent World. That's 19 guards in all, plus a couple of exhibitions, so it turned out to be PLENTY!

side note: what's in these days in the color guard world? Apparently, straight, long hair is in (and I thought perms were making a comeback!), variety in themes again (thank goodness! no more guard-after-guard of classical music!) crushed velvet is in again? who knew? Oh - really cool, intricate floor designs. Floors have come a long way, baby.

But really, it's no longer about the show for me. I enjoy watching still, but I don't really want to watch more than 20 guards at a time. This must mean that we're getting old, but it's really all about going to Headquarters after the show to socialize and have our annual reunion with friends.

True to form, we stayed at Headquarters until 4:00am this year. You gotta love that. I really love seeing everyone, and feel fortunate that we have a date and venue that we're all at each year.

Sunday: we set our alarm for 11:00am, since check-out is at Noon. One quick big breakfast at the local Bob Evans, and we're off again! We made very good time on the trip home, and made it back to the 'burbs of Chicago by 6:00. We had a wonderful dinner with Eileen and her family at their home. It was the perfect way to end the WGI weekend. (Thanks Eileen!)

Monday: We hooked up with my friend Jason, who had just moved back from 3 months in Australia. We also had dinner with Tammy's new friend who she met on the Costa Rica trip. Jason brought us to a fantastic little Italian restaurant in The Heart of Italy.

Tuesday: We spent the afternoon at one of the coolest museum exhibits I've ever seen:
Body Worlds.
It was fascinating. So well presented, and so educational.
I know that there's a simliar exhibit being presented in San Francisco, and I really can't recommend it enough.

So, that's the very long scoop. Can you tell that I put less and less detail in each day as I wrote? ;) Good to get it all out, though.

Longest. Blog. Post. Ever.
:)

Here are some photos from the trip!