Shootin' Twice?!?!

I don't have much time now to write about it, but I went shootin' AGAIN today! Clay shooting... my second time ever holding a shot gun, and I hit 5 of the 30 attempts at hitting the clay 'birds'! Not bad, huh?

I've got some good photos, too. I probably won't be able to post them until Monday, though.

Oh, yeah, right... I'm in Montana for work. Hey - team building! Not what I would have picked as my first choice, but I suppose I should be flattered to be included in the boy's outing!

I've got to take some more photos of Flathead Lake, which is where we are staying. It's gorgeous. Not a bad sight to wake up to this morning!

(UPDATE! Just added the photos from shooting... as if you couldn't tell! I didn't end up with a black-and-blue shoulder, so even though these aren't the best images of it, I think I had pretty good form! I had great instructors! The rest of my body hurt on Friday, though. I think I tensed up so much before each shot anticipating the hit on my shoulder, that the rest of my muscles were sore!)

Jealous?

The scoop on Montana

Here's the scoop: I'm headed to Montana to my boss's house for a strategy meeting. Came up unexpectedly last Thursday, made the flight and am headed out tonight. I land in Kalsipell, Montana, at 11:15 p.m. local time (which I think is 1:15 a.m. Eastern time).

I'm super-excited for a number of reasons. I've never been to Montana. It's going to be beautiful (my boss has a house on a lake). The weather is going to be so much nicer. And the kicker... got invited on five days notice to go to the big wig's house for a strategy meeting, with just one other big wig.

Come on, that's pretty cool.

I'll try to post some photos while there, or when I get back. Not sure how the Internet connection will be up there!

An unexpected week!

I'll write more later, but this whole week has been full of unexpecteds! Today I'm off to Montana. I've been a down-right mid-western girl this summer... Michigan...Wyoming...and now Montana! Gotta go for work, but I can't wait for the cool weather!

More to come...

Mike's best drive ever?

Mike standing on the green of hole 2 on the Island course of Lowes Island Golf Club. He's standing next to his DRIVE-he hit the ball 295 yards, carried water for 280 and landed on the center of the green!

Unexpected golf - the best kind!

Monday was a surprisingly good day! Mike's company had sponsored a foursome at a charity golf outing for a client, and one guy ended up not being able to make it. So Mike called me at my desk at 7:59 a.m. yesterday morning and asked if I wanted to join them!

Most of you know that I am not the most spontaneous person, to say the least. I had planned to be at work all day Monday, and this was a huge deviation from the plan. I asked for two minutes to think it over, during which time I came to the conclusion that this was the entire point of the Anticipated Best Summer Ever. This summer came to be because we did out of the norm things for us like fly to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker, or commit fully to learning to play golf, or meeting friends for a fancy dinner... just because we can.

What would be the big deal if I wasn't at my desk yesterday? I knew I'd get home around 4 p.m. and spend several hours on e-mail. I did a quick check with colleagues to make sure they wouldn't need me for anything. Then I wrote notes to the girls in the DC office saying I got called away... and see you Tuesday!!

Drove home quickly, changed, and then out to Potomac Falls, Virginia. The outing was at the Lowes Island Club, and the course was beautiful. I arrived as the three guys (Mike, his boss, and a client) finished their first hole.

I walked with them to the second hole for our group (which was really the 10th tee) , watched the three of them tee off, took one practice swing and... bam! It was a scramble where we had to use at least three tee shots from each player, and we ended up using my tee shot on my first hole!

Mike and I ended up having a lot of fun, and both played pretty well. Of course, his playing well is vastly superior to my playing well, but it's only my second season!

Our scramble team did not win (far, far from it), but it was a gorgeous day. Posting right after this one from my phone with a beautiful tee shot of Mikes...

All in all, not a bad Monday.

And some cookies

Add making cookies to the list today! Mike's first time in an outdoor hockey league is rained out thanks to the huge thunderstorm that just came through!

I feel bad, so I think I'll make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, his favorite. (Or, his favorite cookies that I make... there are plenty of sugar cookies, apricot cookies and more that wonderful women in McKeesport can make, but which I refuse to attempt. I mean, why spend the time making a cookie that doesn't have chocolate in it??)

Okay, really I just don't want to vacuum and would rather make cookies, but it sounded like a really nice, not-selfish reason at first, didn't it??

A weekend at home

Gosh, I had forgotten what that was like! Goldie was completely spoiled on our first weekend home in a while! Dinner at Guapo's on Friday night in Shirlington, which means she gets to come along and have a bone along side our quesadilas and fajitas!

Saturday we golfed at Greendale. Mike was none too happy that we had a late tee time of 10:40 a.m., which guaranteed a 5-hour round. We played with these two guys who were good golfers, but took so LONG setting up each of their shots! Seriously, I didn't think anyone took longer than Mike to set up their putts. These guys walked out every single one, and had to look at the ball/hole from all sides. When hitting from the tee box or fairway, one of them did this "Hail Hitler" thing with his left arm - he'd set himself up, keep looking at the ball, and stick his left arm straight out. Then he'd look up at where it was pointing, to make sure he was lined up properly. Really, you had to just laugh. (and, yes, I realize that for my analogy to really work, he'd have to be sticking his arm out in front of him, and not to the side, but with speed with which he made the action, and holding it up there, really, it would have been your first thought, too!)

Came home, quick shower, and took Goldie to a new spot for us - Food Matters in Cameron Station. Fantastic casual food, including a "create your own salad" option. We sat outside with her, and discovered that even on weekends, Food Matters has happy hour specials of 1/2 price all glasses of wine and beer from 4:30-6:30 p.m. I'll give you one guess where you'll be able to find us for the rest of the summer from 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Saturdays!

Off to see Batman: The Dark Knight last night. I really liked it. Christian Bale was a little hokey, but all the actors get that way in their second and third turn as super heros. Heath Ledger, though, was out of this world. I'm a girl who likes action flicks, so I really enjoyed myself.

And today? Being a wife. Lots of laundry (How DO two people create so much laundry?? How'd my mom deal with SEVEN people's laundry?? No wonder she always yelled at us for putting something in the hamper that we'd only worn once!), grocery shopping, and such. My herbs are over growing since I've been gone and not cooking with them, so I think I'll make some pesto to freeze and take down to the beach next month! Dinner sometime between Mike's two hockey games (thinking shrimp kabobs with red peppers and onion, grilled corn on the cob and coconut rice).

Hey -when do I get to have a wife?

I need your help!

So I've got this crazy urge to enter the American Airlines Road Warrior Search. As most of you know (and if you haven't gotten the message through these blog postings, we need to check your IQ), I travel quite a bit, a lot of it for work. Because I go to the Dallas area a lot, I fly American Airlines.

Being a magazine person to begin with, I always read their in-flight magazine. Compared with any other airline's magazine, American Way kicks butt. It's published twice a month, and is published by airline employees, not a turn-key publishing house. It's full of humor and writers that don't take themselves too seriously.

Each year, I (geekily) look forward to their Road Warrior issue. The magazine runs a contest and selects their top five "road warriors" from all the people who have followed their wacky submission requirements. In the past this has included writing haiku's, answering questions similar to those you get in e-mail forwards (aisle or window? upgrade or earlier flight?), and essays where humor counts more than anything.

So this year, I'm going to throw my hat in. Complete long shot here - they get hundreds (probably thousands) of entries.

Two of the submission requirements I have down cold: the first is to follow a series of clues and take pictures of items in the airport. With some help (do YOU know what 4*4+5 [to the 2nd power] -12 is off the top of YOUR head?), I should have those photos next week.

The second is to impress the judges with one month's travel itinerary. How's this:

(home) Washington, DC: March 9
Atlanta, Ga.: March 10
Dallas, Tx: March 11
Phoenix, Ariz: March 12
Los Angeles, Calif: March 13
(home) Washington, DC: March 15 – 23
Boston, Mass.: March 24
Portland, Maine: March 25
Philadelphia, Penn.: March 27
(home) Washington, DC: March 28 – 29
Chicago, Ill.: March 30
Portland, Ore.: March 31

There are only two people reading this blog that can match that, and one's because he had the exact same itinerary with me, and the other's in such an exotic foreign country that if she DIDN'T travel that much, something would be wrong with her!

Now for the harder one, and the one that I need your help with.

I've got to write about the best and worst experiences I've had while traveling on business. I know I've shared these stories with you - which were your favorite? Could a worst be when I was still green in my career and a colleague dragged me into a Coyote Ugly bar, then got up on the bar and started dancing? Could my best be watching the sun come up while jogging near the Teton mountain range in brisk 48 degree weather while in Wyoming? Or is that just the best because it was the most recent?

And by best and worst experiences, I think I have to drop out the travel/ flight nightmares. Something tells me that they aren't going to publish the story about how, after delaying my flight to Chicago for 5 hours, American finally canceled it for the night, only to have us show back up at the airport at 6 a.m. the next day, and not have the flight scheduled for departure or landing, which meant sitting on the runway for another 2 hours, only to then finally arrive in Chicago 15 minutes before the conclusion of the seminar I was supposed to be running. I don't think that'll get me any points in the contest.

Here's taking a gamble that you all ARE actually paying attention. What has been your favorite travel story of mine? Getting assigned planting work on a farm when I was in $175 designer jeans? Getting the "honor" of high-fiving the Maverick players before a game, when all I wanted was to be up in the sky box with everyone else having a glass of wine? (and finally arriving in the sky box at half-time to find all the wine drunk and food eaten?) The mortification of walking down Bourbon Street with my 63 year old boss and having beads thrown at me?

Those, by the way, would fall under the "worst" category. (Hey, when you take out the flight delays, there aren't many bad things that happen to me on travel!)

Any of your suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You guys rock

I completely love the comments some of you are leaving on this blog! Thanks so much! I have the settings on the blog configured so I get an e-mail every time someone writes a comment... and I love when they come through! I'm thrilled you all seem to be enjoying reading it.

And to both Aunt Rita and Vi's comments... you're right! Totally unthoughtful of me not to consider those not in the DC area when I suggested dinner and drinks! Just think how a trip to Indonesia would blow the lid off "The Anticipated Best Summer Ever"! We'll have to work harder on Mike. I think the animal/ safari angle is the best, based on how he flipped over the animals at Yellowstone, and is STILL talking about how disappointed he is that he didn't see a moose while in Wyoming!

I've got to cut this one short - I'm swamped at work this morning. Hopefully I'll get a chance later this afternoon. Mike and I have a debate going on how to celebrate our impending birthdays (the big 3-0!), and I'd like your weigh-in!

Dinner, Part II: Blogging Advice

Who knew that Joe followed the blog so closely?!?

Makes me blush a little, actually - he was all full of questions, wanting to know who this person was, and how that turned out, and what was new with something else...! And here I was, not knowing anything about what was going on with him! But I guess that's why we still do things the old fashioned way, and get together for dinner!

Great to see the two of them, and get the update on the wedding plans. Also fascinating to learn of Jess's Yellowstone connection! She's practically a tour guide herself! (anyone think it ironic that our tour guide was Jesse... and she's... oh, forget it.)

Turns out Jess has been several times to Yellowstone, wrote a report (in college?) on the fires of 1988 (this coming out when Mike said that our tour guide spoke for no less than 2 straight hours about a fire, and Jess replied immediately with, "The fire of 1988? That was a big deal!"), and even has a fascinating story of her brother getting lost for two nights in the woods after setting out for a day hike!

The things you don't know about people! Incredible!

This blog was a big topic of conversation last night - particularly when it came to Joe's suggestions on post entries. He's evidently very concerned that Mike and I have about a three-week lull in our travels. Thus far, the blog has been all about travel, and Joe didn't want to see the posts to stop.

(Yes, yes, people, I'm clearly aware that in all likelihood, Joe was blowing smoke up my, ahem, but he made some good points!)

That got us talking about the weekly Sunday night dinners Joe, Sarah, Gregg, Mike and me had for the first several years after college. As Joe put it, there was always some crazy story of something small happening, that Mike and I could turn into a 30 minute play-by-play. He encouraged postings of the sort.

I'll try to take Joe's advice, although I do remember most of those stories being about work, and I'm just not comfortable with work venting on the World Wide Web.

So I'm keeping this blog clean, family-friendly and work-free. Which means, if you want the really juicy stories, you'll have to get them the old-fashioned way, and meet up for drinks and dinner!

Dinner with Joe & Jess

Dinner with Joe and Jess tonight at the Del Merei Grill on Mt. Vernon Ave. Good food and great company. More to follow when I'm not posting from my phone...!

It's new to me, too!

I am the first to admit that I don't have this blogging thing down. But based on a couple of comments from some of you, I want to make sure that you realize not all posts show on one page. You have to click "Older Posts" at the bottom to read past stories. This is especially true for the Dallas/Jackson Hole descriptions. I broke the trip up into a bunch of different posts so that I could attach photos to them. Don't miss out on the stories... or the pictures of me with a gun!... because you didn't read back far enough!

Here's something else that's new to me... a Calloway Big Bertha driver! I headed down to Dallas a few days before Mike two weeks ago, so I missed going to the local golf store's annual tent sale. Mike went with me in mind and came back with new shoes (pink!), a new bag (baby blue, to match my new clubs!) and a new driver!

I pulled it out for the first time last night at my golf lesson and found it harder to hit than I anticipated! I'm hoping that's just because by the time we got to the driver, I was exhausted... it was really hot and humid out last night, and I just didn't have the energy left! I'll cross my fingers and bring it out again this Saturday on the course...

And now back to reality

Back to reality now. A relatively easy trip home, with only a two hour delay at O’Hare! With my luck in Chicago, though, that IS a good trip! Played semi-hooky today. Worked about half the day from home, but needed the rest of the day to do laundry, grocery shop, go to the dry cleaners, the bank… it’s been 12 days since I was last home, and 8 for Mike!

Oh – and Goldie DID remember us, which is a good thing! I think she’s still a little miffed, but getting over our absence!

And if I did this correctly, here's a link to all our photos, including a few more I didn't post here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ifqc0mz.222890ff&x=0&y=k8lr7w&localeid=en_US

Here's your warning, though - there are a LOT of them!

Horseback riding

Mike and I went horseback riding on Saturday morning. Rides like these are usually pretty tame – no galloping, no going off the trail, staying at a slow pace right behind the horse in front of you.

The beginning of our ride started out this way. We went up about 1,000 feet along one of the mountains, then came back down. The planned ride was pretty boring: after the mountain, walk across a pasture, then back across it to where we started, and finish up (the ride was 2 hours total).

But then things got fun. The other riders on our group were two guides, two 7-year olds, and one of their mothers. One of the little girls was nervous, so a guide kept her horse on a lead, and held onto that rope the entire time.

The rope got caught under the guide’s horse’s tail, which startled the horse, who reared back, whined, and startled the little girl’s horse. Her horse started galloping around, with her screaming like a – well, like a 7 year old girl! That set all the other horses of, though not as much. Eventually they got the two horses settled, and I do have to hand it to the little girl for staying on the entire time!

Then we had to cross this irrigation ditch that was about 3.5 or 4 feet wide. The spooked horses refused to go across some wooden planks, so the guides decided to walk across it. One horse, then two horses, took one step in the water ditch, and one step out. The next horse… stops, looks, decides to jump it. All the other horses, including Mike and mine, follow suit!

Yes, it was a small ditch. But that totally counts as jumping across water on a horse!

And to make the ride even better, the pasture we went across had just been filled with 500 cattle the day before. The cattle started following our line of horses, all single file themselves. Then we went through the thick of them, and they stood so close, just watching us! It was incredible!

Work anyone?

Friday morning was work for me, and that’s no fun to write about. So instead I’ll tell you how much I was on the move this entire trip!

It’s too bad that Mike didn’t feel well. Or, maybe if you asked him, he would say he was happy for the excuse! Up every morning at 5:45 a.m. to jog, ride bikes, or hike, with three others on the trip. The motivation was great to keep me on track! I’m not much of a bike rider, but it was TOTALLY worth it when one in the group came up with the idea to finish the ride by going to the Four Seasons next door, valeting our bikes, and sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee. A deer sighting sealed the morning!

Mike did join us on Sunday for a short hike to Phelps Lake. We watched the sun rise over the mountains, which created this great mirror image of the mountains in the lake. Didn’t see any animals, though, unless you count the deer tracks!

Also golfed on Friday and Saturday afternoons with the whole group at Jackson Hole Golf and Tennis Club (Mike thinks it's important to note here that it's a Robert Trent-Jones II designed course). Not sure if the golf purists enjoyed themselves much since we did scrambles each afternoon – that’s when each person hits the ball, you choose the best ball, and then everyone moves to hit their balls from that spot. It’s a great game for beginners like me, though! Even if my teammate and I shot the highest score… and in golf, high isn’t good!

Waterfalls and sickness

Off to the waterfalls. These were more breathtaking to me than Old Faithful, just for the shear size and force of them. But in addition to the beautiful sights of the day, we were dogged by sickness. Mike was hit with something the night before – Wednesday, the day we arrived. We are all speculating altitude sickness, but he just was off the entire trip. I’ll spare you the details, but give kudos to Jesse, for when I stood up at one point and shouted, “Stop the bus!” he didn’t even hesitate. We were on the side of the road in about .5 seconds.

Old Faithful

Stopped at Old Faithful, and I’ve got to admit it… eeh. Certainly cool. But not the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe I was just cranky from the long day!

Also stopped at another geyser area, and this one was a bit neater for me. It had different “kinds” of geysers – not the right technical term, but I wasn’t listening THAT closely to tour-guide Jesse!

Lots of pools of hot water, and bubbling mud.

Too close to the bison

At one point during the day, we saw three bison in the middle of a pasture. Jessie stayed on the bus, but told the group to stay at least 25 yards away from the bison at all time.
Do you THINK everyone would listen to him? Of course not. Especially Mike, and one other from the group. Maybe they were 25 yards away, maybe they weren’t. Maybe it was just that they went to the side of the bison while the rest of us were in front of them – creating a sort of closed-in sense. In either case, a park trooper spotted us, whistled us all out of the pasture, and started in on lecturing.

We think we escaped a ticket (at least, none of us got one), but our bus driver may be getting one. The trooper wrote down the tour bus company and bus number. Poor guy was not very happy about it.

Yellowstone

Tuesday the group rented a bus and headed to Yellowstone National Park. It was a LONG day – about 11 hours total – but we saw incredible sights!

Let’s start with the animals. Our tour guide (I’m going to steal a phrase from Lauren, and you’ll all know what I mean… bless his heart) was Johnny on the Spot when it came to sighting animals, and pulled over each time to let us get off the bus and take photos. You KNOW this was Mike’s favorite part of the day!

I forget the order at this point, but there were bison, elk and more bison. Here are the elk …

Off to Jackson Hole

We met up with my work group and headed to Jackson Hole, WY, on Wednesday morning. This place is just breathtaking. We stayed at the Hotel Terra, just one mile from the entrance to Grand Teton National Park. The mountains were an incredible sight to behold every day.

Lunch, a nap for Mike and a jaunt up to the top of one of the ski slopes for me (on a gondola, of course), then dinner with the group.

These photos are of the Teton mountain range.

Let me start from the beginning…

So much happened in the past week, and I couldn’t blog about it! Very frustrating! I opened something I shouldn’t have on my computer, and was hit with a virus. So besides being incredibly busy in Dallas and Jackson Hole, I couldn’t even get on my computer or e-mail!

Here’s all the updates, in a series of posts. I can only upload several photos per post, so I’ll try to separate everything out. And if veteran bloggers have a better suggestion for me posting these photos, let me know!

You have the shootin’ update, below. That was Monday. On Tuesday, Mike and I golfed with Keith and another Mike, from work. We went to the Cowboy’s Golf Club, and had a really relaxed, fun time. It was HOT, but Mike was happy for the cute cart girls helping him keep hydrated.

Dinner at Nobo with Debbie and Keith that night. I know – Nobo AGAIN! I’ve got to admit, though – not nearly as good as the one in Vegas. We tried to order many of the same things again, but the Dallas chef had his/her own spin on the items. Still delicious, and great company!

More Shootin' Photos

And a few more - including some of Mike's "kills" and the toliet I declined to use!

Shootin' Photos

As promised, the photos from my first time ever shooting guns!