rocky mountain high

although i referenced back to our ten greatest adventures during our first year as mr. and mrs., let us not believe that our traveling is complete. we, the ricks family, have many more adventures to come.

most recently, we decided to take a trip out west to see some of the lovely things that live in colorado. with the denver-based band the lumineers playing in the background, i will try to summon up enough memories to compose a blog post for you. disclaimer: i drank a lot during this trip, because microbrews are the shit and the elevation difference really does affect your ability to maintain your cool after several beers.

as the early settlers of the 1800s did, we left early thursday morning to head for denver international airport. the grueling, two hour flight from chicago to denver was PRETTY much oregon trail-worthy. we lost a few to dysentery, but as a group i think we learned a lot about each other. (that started as a joke, but the guy in front of me farted SO MUCH during the flight that he probably honestly had some sort of digestive disorder that was slowly taking over his intestines...) we landed in denver to my daddy waiting on me with a bouquet of some of my favorite flowers. seeing that face after a stint away is good for the soul, if i do say so myself. we grabbed our bags (and dad was impressed that i had only packed so little, which is the first time that has ever happened to me so brag) and headed to ft. collins to see dad's new hometown.

we drove straight to one of dad's favorite restaurants in town, the rustic oven, to enjoy lunch on the patio. when we left little rock, it was rainy and about 40 degrees. it was sunny and 65 degrees in fort collins that day, so that was our first indication that we had basically been doing life wrong up to this point. just kidding, but seriously. we sat down and ordered two 1554s and a rolle bolle.

a rolle bolle for the lady..

...and 1554s for the gents.

that might mean nothing to some of you, but to my favorites, you know that means a new belgium draft in the TOWN OF NEW BELIGUM BREWERY. some of you still don't know what that means, so you should call me up and i'll take you to the flying saucer and show you the meaning of life. i'll go ahead and say it (as it seems to be a recurring theme of the trip): the beer tastes better in colorado. for those of you that don't know me or my husband, we adore beer. i'm not talking a keg of natty ice (though i'd probably drink that if it came to it, don't judge me). i am talking beer. it is not about getting drunk, but that certainly doesn't hurt. if you stopped reading this post to pray for my soul because i said i love beer, you also should call me and i will take YOU to the flying saucer so i can begin to change your life (and we will talk about things other than beer, you weirdo). okay, back to lunch. we nom-ed on some delicious eats and got a chance to sit down and catch up on the way things are. there is nothing cooler than catching up with someone you haven't seen in some amount of time, let alone that someone being your dad. the rustic oven seemed to give us a good taste of colorado so far: good weather (patio duh), good beer, amazing food, and just a laid back, cheery atmosphere.

after a yummy lunch, we headed toward our next destination: the aforementioned new belgium brewery. this was my favorite part of the entire trip (which gets even more impressive as you read on throughout this post). first of all, there was a waffle food truck in the parking lot. i just don't know if you can even start out on a better foot than that. we did not partake in said waffle experience (see above paragraph on delicious eats at the rustic oven), but it just felt right to see a trailer full of waffles. we checked into our tour and bolted inside for some beer tasting before the tour. jett got a rampant imperial ipa and dad and i went with his favorite, the biere de mars. not surprisingly, they were all delicious (it's okay, you can share beer because alcohol kills germs. trust me, i went to dental hygiene school).

fresh from the brewhouse. bottoms up!

at the beginning of the tour, dad won a free pint by participating in a hula hooping competition. it was a participation prize, we'll just leave it at that. (sorry to blow your cover, dad!) as badly as i want to walk you through the entire tour and tell you everything we did and saw, i will not allow myself to do that. i don't want to rob you, nor do i want to make you stop reading this blog post. i will sum it up with the five beers we tasted:

1) abbey ale

2) sunshine wheat

3) a 2009 la folie (my first sour beer...)

4) rampant ipa (FRESH from the production line... not even a label on the bottle yet)

5) fat tire

there's the rampant ipa on the line

bonus: we tried a cascara quad and a dig (which was the spring seasonal) at the bar after the tour.

...and two of the most interesting things i learned:

1) warm beer = better beer

2) foam is your friend

...as well as these pictures of my dad and jett shooting down the employee slide at the end of the tour:

after the tour, we headed over to see dad's bakery: babette's feast (shameless plug) and to eat a bunch of chocolate out of the kitchen and to steal some quiches out of the freezer. in retrospect, dad probably didn't love having two hungry hippos in his kitchen... we had dinner in old town at a brewpub called coopersmith's. they, not shockingly, brewed their own beer. we tried some delicious food there and tried three different beers: punjabi pale ale, sigda's green chile, and a not brown ale (which is of course a brown ale). one of the best parts about visiting someone in a new city is experiencing their favorite things. a) that's a nice thing to do for other people so quit being selfish and branch out. b) that's the best way to experience a place: listen to the people that live there! they know it better than you. c) it prevented me from doing hours of research and planning. see? win win win.

hanging out in old town square in ft. collins

unfortunately, our time in ft. collins was short lived. dad and angi were on their way to a conference in florida, but we were ever-so-grateful to see their home and their faces. we dropped them off at the airport and borrowed the pilot to explore the mountains. we drove straight to boulder to experience the pearl street mall and to just enjoy the beautiful day we were having. boulder is ranked #1 in a list of the happiest places to live, brainiest cities to live, "foodiest" town, and cities to live well; it is a place to which i must return. we only stopped through, but from the taste we got it seems like a really neat place. we will just add that to the list of places we want to explore (i think there's roughly one million places already on the list).

pearl street mall

our journey continued up through nederland for lunch at the pioneer inn, which in its heyday was supposedly a venue for some big names including john lennon, elton john, and joe walsh. it is a bit dilapidated now, but the idea of having my butt in a booth where john lennon might have possibly had his butt in a booth is exciting enough for me to stop and enjoy a buffalo burger. this is also where some of jett's favorite bluegrass bands originated, so he enjoyed at least saying we were there. our goal was mainly to drive to see some scenery that day, so this was just another quick stop in our day. we kept driving all the way to estes park, stopped and took a picture outside the rocky mountain national forest sign, then turned around and headed back to denver. probably not what some people would consider the ideal way to see the cities, but when you are driving around listening to bluegrass with your best friend all day, it leads to perfection in any circumstance. plus we stopped for pictures like this.

isn't he cute?

we got into denver that night and stayed with our cousins (second? third? eighth?) eric and allison. they make their way to little rock for thanksgiving every couple of years, so it seemed only fair to finally visit them in their hometown. we went downtown for dinner at vesta's dipping grill that night and i had a rack of lamb from colorado that would have BLOWN YOUR MIND had i stopped eating long enough to share. but you know what? i didn't. so ha! i made a point to not over-photograph this trip, but i failed to get any pictures that night. we decided to call it early that night and head home for some tea and zombie dice because that's how we roll... EH???? (i am so so so sorry that i just did that)

the next morning led to a walk through of capitol hill and consisted of walking around the capitol, standing at the mile high spot, rummaging through the denver art museum gift shop, stopping by the largest rei i have ever seen, visiting a delightfully pungent spice shop (jett got ghost pepper salt that would later try to kill me), and ending up at denver beer co. imagine... ANOTHER BREWERY.

with our lovely hosts at denver beer co.

heaven, i tell you. i'm not kidding when i say i think we tried every beer they had on tap, including (but not limited to) the keffir lime wheat (weird), the dubbel trubbel, the incredible pedal ipa, and my favorite: the confluence pale ale. eric and allison taught us how to play cribbage because board games are our jam and we just sat and enjoyed some very fantastic company for a few hours in perfect patio weather. we stopped by my brother's bar for dinner, which is where jack kerouac spent a lot of time during his "on the road" stint in denver. just the coolest thing ever. nbd. the best part about it is that you probably would never find the place on your own. there's no name outside the bar or anything - just a graffiti-style kerouac on the side of the building. so, thanks to our tour guides and hosts for a day or two! this is the perfect reason to let other people show you around their city.

exhibit a at my brother's bar

after our long day in denver, the inspiration for our trip had finally arrived: a concert. shocking! we love finding concerts that are in cities we have never visited for obvious reasons, but the best part is that you can't cancel your trip or try to push it back. sometimes you get so busy that you convince yourself you don't have time to relax or to spend a little extra on something you want to do. when you pick a concert that's out of town, there's a lot of planning and you just don't back out. so there's that.

a little background: sigur ros is one of those bands that you dream about seeing. they have played an enormous role in my life for several years and have soundtracked a lot of my greatest adventures. if you're not familiar with this band, please go check them out with an open mind. if you're not into it after giving it a good listen, at least go search for that music video they did with shia lebeouf's penis (100% serious). anyway, they are special enough to jett and me that we chose one of their songs as the bridal processional at the wedding. for my one year anniversary in march, i even got a sigur ros inspired tattoo as a reminder of that moment. so i mean, they were obviously on the bucket list. and let's just say: see sigur ros in concert is now COMPLETE. for what may seem ridiculous to the three of you that have actually made it this far into my blog post, i don't want to share a video because it was a really private moment for us (clearly, since i am writing about it on my blog and posting it on the internet). just know that we were there.

see? here we are. crappy red-eye reduction and all.

don't you want to go listen to them now and see what all the fuss about? go ahead. just open a new tab though so you can keep reading the rest of this crap.

that night after the concert, we drove to our final destination: the home of some of our little rock friends. lance and ben (and tower, though we didn't ask his permission) were kind enough to let hurricane ricks take over their living room and crash on their couches. we visited a little that night before passing out and getting a good night's sleep.

onward to our final day: sunday. we woke up and putzed (i swear that's a word, spell check) around until it was time for a quick record store stop followed by brunch at denver biscuit co. james and ea joined us (as well as some other lovely folks) and let's just stop for a second to talk about these biscuits. southern food is, for obvious reasons, not popular in colorado. some brilliant man decided that denver needed a little southern, and the best solution to that problem was to create a brunch spot that served enormous biscuits decked in gravy, fried chicken, etc. honestly. example: jett ordered "the franklin" (which came highly recommended) and it consisted of fried chicken, bacon, cheese, gravy, and an added over-easy egg... i cannot figure out why i gained weight on this trip.

get in my life and stay there, franklin

because i was feeling like i hadn't had quite enough calories that weekend, we decided to stop buy the liquor store and pick up some beer so we could go home and play in the sunshine all day. you haven't seen selection until you've seen the beer case in a well-stocked denver liquor store. ben finally helped us choose a 6-pack (or two... okay, four) and we headed home for some porch-sittin' and story-swappin' and bocce-ballin' and beer-drinkin'. it's amazing i ever left colorado, honestly. i will say it a hundred times: there is nothing like catching up with friends. after running around the three days previous, it was a nice change of pace to just sit around and relax for a bit (apparently that's what other people do on vacations?). we met up with jett's buddy daniel for dinner that night and headed back home for a little extra r&r before the trip back to little rock. several hours of conversation and ryan adams records later, it was about time to go home.

i realize that was a long one, but this was such a refreshing and packed-full trip. love to my colorado kiddos and another thanks for sharing your homes with us. also, i would like to report that we tried 37 different types of beer that we had not tried before while we were there. 37. be impressed or horrified. i see where you're coming from.

oh, and i PROMISE japan: part two is next up on the blog.

day ten

i just realized i never posted my final memory leading up to the anniversary. it is a few days past, but better late than never? without further ado: our trip to seattle.

one lovely day in the fall, i was scrolling through my twitter feed aimlessly, likely avoiding something much more meaningful and rewarding. i ran across a tweet from asthmatic kitty (record label) announcing a limited christmas tour for sufjan stevens. seeing as sufjan is like MY FAVORITE EVER, i decided i should probably do what i could to get to a show. zomg! he will be in dallas on november 30! wait a sec... why does that look familiar? damn. mom's wedding. what else is on a weekend? ...seattle? hmmm.

*takatakataka* (that's the sound of sending a text)

"hey honey. want to go see sufjan stevens?"
"that sounds amazing! where?"
"it's in december."
"okay. do we have anything going on? where is it?"
"you love sufjan as much as i do, right?"
"yeah, but where is the concert mal?"
"k we got tickets!" (actually seth ordered tickets for me while i was at work... thanks, man!)

i have always been drawn to the west coast, and seattle is right on the top of my list of places i'd rather be. i had never had a chance to visit, so this really seemed like the perfect opportunity. i know you're thinking "wow. what a waste of money to fly to a city like that for a concert," but we have a southwest credit card (responsibly) and had earned quite a few miles. so, i found us some flights and voila! off to seattle we go!

as i have stated time and time again, our places of employment will really only allow us so many days off work. since they had been so graceful and flexible up to this point, we really didn't want to push it. the concert was on a saturday night so we left little rock early that morning and made our way west!

pre-take off breakfast at LIT

whoever scheduled our flight route has obviously never seen a map because we flew to albuquerque, new mexico, before we headed up. we had one of those weird layovers where you never actually get to  leave the plane, but you're stuck on the tarmac for an hour and a half. we gathered up our belongings and meticulously chose our seat for the next flight while the flight attendants cleaned up and made their rounds. if you have ever met my jett, you know that he was quickly engaged in conversation with everyone. the new pilots boarded the plane, so we decided we should probably bombard them and ask a bunch of dumb questions you've always wanted to ask a pilot. we got one poor guy to answer everything (is it hard to fly? do you get leg cramps? is it fun? do you ever fall asleep? can you do a barrel roll?). he then preceded to offer for us to sit in the cockpit and push some buttons. we had our asses in the seats before he finished asking. i asked if i could potentially crash the plane by pushing the amount of buttons i was pushing, and he just laughed nervously so i stopped. he offered to take our picture and seemed like he'd done it before. i asked him if he let a lot of people in the cockpit and he said "...well, i've never been asked by an adult..." and that, my friends, is why i love being a ricks.

isn't that a scary sight?

the plane eventually made its way to seattle and we flew over mt. ranier into the city. man! that was a sight! a picture wouldn't do it justice, so i'll just have to recommend that you visit it yourself one day. our dear sweet friend lilli picked us up at the airport and drove us to her place in west (i think?) seattle. jett and lilli went to high school together and we just absolutely adored seeing her! she was so kind as to let us into her home during her finals week AND to take us to dinner that night AAAAND to let us borrow her car when our taxi didn't show up after an hour. lilli walker: savior of the seattle shenanigans. we went to dinner at a terrible beauty, which is a local irish pub, where we had irish food and local beer and got to catch up with lil.

outside a terrible beauty

and then (after some taxi driver stood us up, the jerk!) we headed downtown to the neptune to go see sufjan play. i have often been referred to as a "hipster" by my sweet arkansan friends, to which i would say, hahahahaha. ahahha. ha. you have never been to seattle. you don't even know what a hipster is until you have been to see sufjan stevens play a christmas show in seattle. i have never seen more ugly christmas sweaters (nor will i ever) in all my days.

swoon

the venue itself was pretty small, which we have learned is something i adore. i love actually feeling like i am in the same room as the artist i am seeing. it looked like an old theater stage with a cathedral-style ceiling, only it had been completely decked out in tacky christmas paraphernalia. the name of the tour was "surfjohn stevens christmas sing-a-long: seasonal affective disorder yuletide disaster pageant on ice" and the show was about as bizarre and ridiculous as the name. i hope you know i mean that in the best way possible. there was a large "wheel of christmas!" on the back of the stage that determined which songs would be played next in the setlist while everyone had their own "hymnal" with the lyrics of the choices. they would spin the wheel, start singing, and we were fully expected to sing along. at first everyone seemed a little apprehensive, but as the night wore on (and the bar stayed busy), we were all a bit more comfortable with belting out our favorite christmas tunes. there was a guy behind us who was particularly proud of his vibrato (not an earned pride, just sayin').

wheel! of! christmas!

the set ranged from crazy, wacky, borderline obnoxious sufjan original christmas songs to peaceful hymns that we all know and love performed beautifully by sufjan, rosie, and the band. if you have never listened to sufjan stevens, please do so right meow. you are really missing out on one of the most talented musicians. his voice is nothing short of enchanting. he has the ability to completely silence a room full of loud, drunk hipsters yelling pretentious things at each other just by clearing his throat backstage. the man sings liquid gold. just throwing that out there. i would love to post a ton of amazing videos but a) you are not interested in that and b) my phone died mid-concert so jett has most of the videos on his computer. also youtube won't let me upload the one i keep trying to upload.

there were plenty of wacky songs as well as several traditional songs, as mentioned above. the best (and most silent) parts of the show where when he would declare a "break from christmas," pick up his banjo, and bring peace to the universe (aka sing) by singing "vito's ordination song" and "for the widows in paradise..." i didn't get any pictures from those moments because i stood there watching him play, with my phone and camera both probably on the ground because i had dropped them and not realized it. hell i'll be lucky if i find out i wasn't drooling.

the show was a delight. and it ended with a magical production of "christmas unicorn," the twelve-minute shitshow featuring one of sufjan's newest christmas originals. jett has a really cool video of this one so if you want to see it you'll have to hunt him down and remind him that he even went to seattle in december and then explain to him who sufjan stevens is again and THEN maybe he'll show you. just close your eyes and imagine lasers, glitter, silly string, balloon hats, streamers, christmas-themed inflatables, etc and voila! there you have it.

sufjan the magnificent

we spent the night at lilli's apartment then woke up and took a taxi to pike place to do a little bit of exploring before we had to go to the airport. it really was the shortest trip of all time. seeing the market was so cool! it was chilly and drizzly out that morning, rather perfect for seattle.

seattle at its finest

we wandered around the market for an hour or so, stopping at fruit and vegetable stands, fresh fish stands (they yell a lot at those), and through a bunch of hand-crafted well... crap. we picked up an ornament with the needle on it from an old hippie that couldn't make change (it was $7 and we gave him a $10...) and then stopped at the FIRST STARBUCKS EVER WHICH IS JUST SO APPROPRIATE AND FANTASTIC. i was obviously much more enthusiastic here than jett was, but that just makes him sound normal. i ordered my regular and felt like a n00b (even though i used all the correct technical terms taught to me by my best friend/ex-barista hannah). it was a dream.

first starbucks store ever at pike place

a souvenir coffee mug and several dollars later, we hailed a taxi and headed to the airport to make our way back home. we made it through security (which is a challenge with carry-on only bags if you ask me...) and had ivan's fish & chips in the airport before we boarded the plane to head home. i realize that's not the best place to get the iconic fish & chips, but we were limited on time, people.

that wraps up our final adventure! sorry it's a week late. even more sorry that none of you noticed.

xo.

day nine

alright, i had to post this one in a few parts because it is just SO FANTASTIC and it's going to take me all of eternity to author.

neither me nor jett had ever had the opportunity to travel overseas before, so we started getting the bug. imagine us getting a travel bug. we looked at several different places before something really spoke to us: japan. our bestie for the restie cooper (sorry i said that just then, you guys) has been living over there for a few years now while teaching engrish. he was the best man for our wedding and flew all the way home just to be a part of it. plus, it's japan. so duh. we looked up the flights, did about 100+ hours of math problems and budgeting, cried a little bit, and bought the tickets.

because i work in a dental office, it is easiest for me to plan things out way in advance so that i can just not schedule appointments while i'm gone instead of having to reschedule eight days' worth of toof cleanin's. so we planned this one about seven months out so i would have time to convince my bosses to let me off and enough time to block it off before i schedule appointments. this means that we had seven months to plan the trip, which is great/terrible for me. i did a ton of research and booked a few of our hotels while looking for places to go and things to do. i mean, we had an entire country to choose from.

after several months of planning and dozens of packing lists (i have never been more serious), the time finally arrived for us to pack up and leave home for eleven days. since we were going to be doing quite a bit of train travel, we had to narrow it down to one suitcase a piece. that is really difficult for me, seeing as i probably pack more for a weekend getaway than i did for this whole trip. that probably doesn't mean much, though. the only unfortunate thing was that i was picked up an ugly cold the day before we left, but my doctor sent me with antibiotics and steroids to fight it.

we flew from little rock to dallas to lax before boarding our plane to tokyo. i was extremely disappointed that i did not see any celebrities in lax. i think i'll be okay eventually, but if you all could remember me during this difficult time, i would really appreciate it. we got on our plane to fly twelve hours to narita (tokyo) and got all settled in. i reached down to plug my phone in (we read online somewhere that there were phone chargers on the plane) and... it was a dc outlet that needed a car charger and i had an ac charger and 30% battery life on my phone. so jett told the flight attendants that his wife was ill and he HAD to go buy me medicine so they had to let him off the plane. before you think "oh my god! that is so sweet!" i want you all to consider the fact that jett bought me this phone charger because he knew that i would be pestering him for twelve solid hours if i did not have alternative entertainment. just kidding, it was the most heroic move of all time. ten points to gryffindor.

eight hours into the flight

we left little rock at 6:00am on thursday morning and we arrived in tokyo at 4:00pm on friday, which was about 2:00am at home. we worked our way through customs and finally found cooper patiently awaiting our arrival. let me tell you, if you've ever needed to see a friend before, it's after twenty hours of travel into a foreign land. he led us to currency exchange and to a booth we found online that let us rent a wi-fi hotspot for the week we would be in the country (which was the most amazing and life-saving discovery of all time now and forevermore). then we hopped on what was probably two trains but felt like twelve and dragged our jet-lagged asses to our hostel for the weekend. cooper booked us a private room, which was awesome because i didn't have to worry about some techno-blasting swede watch me sleep. it was a traditional japanese-style room, meaning there were bamboo floors and we slept on mats. they were shockingly comfortable, which may have been related to the fact that i hadn't slept in thirty hours.

but before we went to sleep that night (because we got to the hostel at like 6:00pm), we met cooper's friend mai that lives in the city for dinner. we had originally planned to go to a sushi place, but they were too crowded and i am so glad we ended up here instead! i am also really grateful that we had cooper and mai to translate and order for us. could have been ugly. we decided to go all out and let them order whatever for us. and they went to town. i tried to journal quite a bit throughout the trip, and i wrote down the entire menu for the evening and feel like sharing (and you're reading my blog so you have to read it. HA!):

   -carrot + radish relish
   -dried potatoes
   -edamame (sounds normal so far, right?)
   -kimchi, which is a spicy korean cabbage
   -bacon (the best ever) with a salad
   -cabbage leaves with miso mayo for dipping
   -horse... served with a raw egg (the most serious i have ever been)
   -sashimi (salmon, squid, mackerel, and tuna)
   -bone-in chicken, which was a shocking discovery
   -tofu with sea salt + green onion
   -dried fish that you ate from the bone (looked like a tim burton movie)
   -yebisu, a japanese malt beer

i know a lot of you are probably over a toilet now, but it was all really delicious. there were a few things that i didn't care for, but food is such a huge part of immersing yourself into another culture and why in the hell would you not do that in japan?

so the next day, we started with breakfast in the hostel. side note: they apparently don't eat breakfast in japan. i mean, they eat a morning meal, but it's not breakfast. the hostel had bread so fresh you forgot who you were for a second and hard-boiled eggs, and that was the closest we got to breakfast all week. anyway, we took some trains to asakusa from the hostel, which is a temple in downtown tokyo. there was a festival going on the day we visited, so we got to see a cool parade and take some photos.

senso-ji in asakusa

we wandered through the main road/street vendors and over to the main temple. the smoke you see in the picture above is from the "healing incense" that you are supposed to breathe in for... well healing, obviously. c'mon guys. i mouth-breathed because i was dying of a cold and i'm PREEEEETTY sure that (plus steroids and antibiotics) totally healed me so it's cool; then we drew our fortunes. i drew a "good fortune" and jett drew the "best fortune" from the wall o' fortunes. we were supposed to tie them onto something but we both just pocketed ours, which is sounding like really bad luck as i look back.

the boys and their fortunes

we wandered around a large park in the middle of tokyo and around cooper's favorite lake before stopping for our first real sushi meal. for such tiny people, they really eat a lot in one sitting. it took me some time to get used to eating so much. we then traveled to akihibara "electric town" so jett and cooper could do some gaming while i awkwardly stood by. it was easily the most overwhelming place that anyone has ever been. imagine the loudest, most obnoxious arcade game you can think of. multiply that by fifty and add five stories of it plus indoor smoking and voila! you are in akihibara. the boys could probably each write eight pages on that, but i will move right along. after that, we took a train to harajuku and spent some time looking around the shops and stores and searching for gwen stefani (get it? harajuku girls? oh, nevermind).

shibuya crossing

we stopped at a coffee shop for some espresso and people-watching. the sun was down by 5:00pm over there. it was strange! mai met us again and we all traveled into shibuya (downtown tokyo) for dinner. we crossed through shibuya crossing, which i can't find my video of because my computer lost quite a few of my files. it's an intersection that thousands of people cross through every day and it was cray. see above photo. then we stopped and had dinner at a ramen restaurant. the ramen here is NOT like the ramen back home. it is crazy delicious, though still relatively cheap (especially for tokyo). you pick what you want and buy a ticket before you go in the restaurant and then walk in and hand your ticket over and they bring you your food asap. again, giant portions and very quick eating. plus lots and lots of slurping. then we went back to the hostel for the night and had some strong zero... ask cooper about it.

downtown tokyo

day two (yes, we are just now to day two) consisted of my waking up way too early because jet lag took me like it's own personal bitch, eating eggs and bread at the hostel, then taking a trip to an outer town called kamakura to see daibutsu, the "great buddha" statue. it was about an hour outside of tokyo. we had a delicious lunch at a local restaurant. all of the lunches consisted of something like this: fresh sashimi, soup, salad, pickled something, rice, and a "dessert" like red bean paste. i really enjoyed eating such different food!

daibutsu

we headed back to tokyo after that to meet up with mai to visit the meiji shrine in the heart of tokyo. that's one of the strangest things about tokyo - it is this enormous urban metropolis with thirty billion people that is filled with the tallest buildings and the craziest train system of all time, but there is still a place for the serene, traditional tremples and shrines. it was really wonderful having both cooper and mai for all these situations because they taught us what NOT to do. another of cooper and mai's friends met us as we went to dinner a yakatori restaurant. this is a place where they bring you trays upon trays of raw meat and vegetables plus a little basin of fire for cookin'. i ate more than i'd like to admit at this time.

our final stop for the day was the tokyo sky tree. cooper got tickets for us several months before so we were able to take a trip to the very top of the 350m tower. it's the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure if i'm not mistaken (and i probably am so don't fact check me). talk about a view. you could literally see the curvature of the earth in the distance. afterward, we hopped on the last shinkansen (bullet train) and headed toward cooper's hometown of kani.

...and this concludes the first of the japan posts. i have a life, y'all.

i will continue this saga in the next few weeks. sorry to disappoint!

day eight

a few weeks after our memphis trip, jett and i had another weekend getaway waiting for us.

edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros are a very special band to us. when we walked back down the aisle as man and wife for the first time, "home" was playing in the background. the lyrics are just perfect for us and can be found throughout our home. this is an example of such. my sister had a plate handcrafted with these lyrics on it so that i could hang it in our home and always tie together our happiest memories.

i cried like someone had killed my puppy when i opened this

we got our first opportunity to see edward sharpe at wakarusa eariler in the summer. we had such a special time as a couple at that show that we felt even more bonded to the band. so, of all the bands on my list, i decided we had to hunt them down and see them again. we found a show on a saturday night in kansas city, mo. that's about a seven hour drive from where we live and is 100% doable. so we purchased our tickets and had our next concert on the tour list.

the seven hour drive was long, but we always have so much fun on our road trips. it was just the two of us and an open, unfamiliar road to a city we'd never been. we cranked up the speakers in the ol' jeepster and took turns choosing our favorite music. driver plays DJ in my book, unless i'm the passenger. then passenger plays DJ because we don't want to be unsafe now, do we? just kidding. i shared(ish) and we listened to a mix of bluegrass, dubstep, roots rock, and lots of indie bullshit, as it is so affectionately named around here.

i am excited for the open road! jett is undecided.

we arrived into town just a few hours before the concert. it gave us just enough time to find our hotel room and get directions to where we were headed. this is the troubling part of booking a trip in a city you're not familiar with. i looked for a nice hotel within walking distance of the venue. it was only a one mile walk, which was FANTASTIC! what i didn't know was that it was a mile where homeless people both lived and picketed/shouted about nonsense. so that was cool.

once we got past the homeless community, we could see kansas city a little bit better. now HERE is a city i can't wait to explore again. i feel like we just barely dipped our toes in the city. i can't wait to go back and get a better feel for it. we walked through the crossroads art district to our location: crossroads kc. what is cool about this venue is that it is somehow connected to pipeline ticketing, wakarusa, harvestfest, etc. that have been responsible for quite a bit of my musical entertainment. i knew i was in good hands in this place.

crossroads is an open air venue that is directly in the middle of the crossroads district. it looked like a building was missing so they decided to fence it and through a stage in it and bam! you've got your venue. it was also lined with port-a-potties so i was having some wakarusa flashbacks. we had some beer and pizza from grinders, which is a pizza restaurant that is accessible from the venue. they were full inside, but they had a cool outdoor window so we could get our pizza and chaw on it at a picnic table.

fun fact: record low temperatures of forty degrees were reached that night in kansas city, missouri.

so we made our way into the crowd to warm up and listen to the opening band: clap your hands say yeah. i was pretty excited to see them because i loved them in my early college days. THEY SUCKED. seriously, they were so bad. so so bad. all of their songs were just whiny and they literally had the stage lights off because they were trying to be all mysterious and hipster. they failed.

between acts, there was about an hour (too long). so we decided to stay in our spot because we were pretty close to the stage. we started chatting with the people around us, because that what a ricks would do, and making some friends. then, we met the teeny girl in stripes. the teeny girl in stripes was about four feet eleven inches tall, so we stood directly behind her. that was a mistake. teeny girl in stripes was quite drunk and was getting progressively drunker. teeny girl in stripes had a lot of beer. teeny girl in stripes has a teeny little bladder. she moaned and groaned for about thirty minutes about how far away the port-a-potties were (25 feet) and stated that they were just "too gross" for her to use. then, teeny girl in stripes DUG A HOLE IN THE DIRT AND SQUATTED DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OPEN AIR VENUE AND PEED ON THE GROUND. and then she kicked dirt back over it, much like our cat but with a little less grace. we were completely stunned. i was at a music festival with 100,000 hippies on drugs and saw no one pee in the dirt. we quickly shifted far right to avoid standing in teeny girl's pee, but i saw her squat down no fewer than three times that night. too far, teeny girl. too far.

the concert itself was way more amazing than expected. we saw them just a few months before, so we were expecting not to be quite as blown away in the middle of an unknown city on a freezing october night. jade was wearing just about every piece of clothing she had on tour so she could stay warm. took her about forty five minutes to start moving. we were fortunate enough to get them on the last show of that particular us tour, so they were on fire. those wonderful dozen or so hippies sang and danced and played their hearts out for us. and they absolutely killed it. they played an hour and a half later than they were supposed to because they just couldn't stop playing. i won't go on because you had to be there. here's a video that shows how precious jade and alex are together. i die.

the next day we decided to explore the city a little bit before we headed back home. we got up and walked over to legoland (which was too expensive to enjoy... so we hit the gift shop) and around a little shopping mall in the area. then we jumped in the jeepster and headed to check out the boulevard brewery, who makes some of our favorite beers (sippin' on a single-wide IPA as i type). we, unfortunately, were unable to tour the brewery because they apparently book up like seven weeks in advance. who knew? but again, we hit the gift shop and got the coolest coozies of all time so the universe remains at peace.

here i am being excited about being in the presence of such marvelous beer

i can't wait to return to the city someday and a) actually see the inside of the brewery and b) explore the rest of the city. the downtown (i keep wanting to type downton instead...) area seemed really neat and there were a couple of monuments and other things that we wanted to visit. but alas, we took on the seven hour drive back to real life. i guess that's what happens when you travel nonstop and can't take any more vacation time...

get geared up for the longest post of all time tomorrow. xo.

day seven

...i sincerely hope you guys aren't getting tired of these posts. i am a little bit, but they're almost over. we have made it too far to give up now!

day seven remembers our short little road trip to memphis back in september. we had (surprise!) a concert to attend with (surprise!) kelley and her friend alex. since the show was on beale, we decided we might as well make it an overnight stay and have some fun in memphis. since it's so close, i don't think i have really explored the city much. there is a very large portion of the city better left alone, but there are still a few things i'd like to go back and do.

we drove up (over?) on friday afternoon, pleasantly surprised by the traffic we did not encounter. kelley and alex met us at silky o' sullivans where we ate fried seafood and drank a "world famous" diver bucket outside on the patio amongst the diving goats (yes, actual goats). what's a diver bucket, you ask? no one really knows the exact ingredients - which really doesn't seem safe now that i think about it - but it is assumed to contain lots o' liquor and beer and juice and maybe sherbet? god, i love the south. it will also kick your ass just a little bit, so bring a crew for back up if you want to try it out.

notice the large bucket of alcohol as our centerpiece

fast forward to us walking (stumbling a bit) over to the new daisy theater to see the alabama shakes play. y'all, i don't play for that team, but if i did, it would be for brittany howard (or emma watson. or jennifer lawrence. or natalie portman. or rachel bilson. okay, let's not do this.) that girl is going to rip her vocal chords apart one of these days and it is going to be SO TOTALLY WORTH IT. the venue was pretty tiny (which i love) and really sweaty (which is okay) and a bit smelly (not as cool), so we got to stand pretty close to the stage to see her jam.

do you think she'll like me back?

aaaaand here's a video of her singing my favorite song of theirs right now. we just straight up fell in love with the band. remember the festival i mentioned that we are attending late this summer with kelley? guess who's headlining.

so we said farewell to the girls that night and jett and i toughed it out in memphis (didn't get stabbed! yay!) for the night. we woke up the next day and decided to hit up rendezvous for lunch since it is so popular. i didn't love it the first time i went, but my taste buds are more refined now. or something like that. we were one of the few people there when we went because we went so early, and our waiter was so great! he suggested that we try the dry rub ribs and some of the local beer. think it was called ghost river? both were quite delicious and he brought us some red beans and rice for free, which makes for the best tasting food. we so enjoyed our trip and i am thinking i know what the fuss is about!

here i am with all my memphis goodies

we said farewell and met up with my friend bobby for a quick beer and to watch the hogs lose at his favorite local gastropub called... local gastropub. then we decided we would hit the zoo before we headed home. we ended up basically moving into the zoo because we had SO MUCH FUN and we are children so it's exactly our speed. we saw the penguins and the polar bears and the snakes and zomg the pandas.

zomg, panda

we realized that maybe we weren't acting our age when we asked a mother of three to turn her attention from her own children, who were waiting to see the polar bear observation bubble, to take our photograph instead.

but it turned out so cute so there

so we said, hey. maybe it's time for us to go. so we rounded up our hopes and dreams and kicked rocks all the way to the front of the park. BUT HOLD UP. is that a camel? that's a camel. does that say camel rides? that says camel rides. honey, get your wallet. it's only $500 a ride (okay, not quite, but comparable). we then had to convince not one but three consecutive employees that yes, we were serious. we want to ride the camel.

here we are on a camel, duh

some poor, pimply-faced* high school boy had to lead us around a little dirt track while the most overworked and likely underpaid camel had to tote us along. it was really a beautiful moment. we stepped back onto the platform, the camel breathed a sigh of relief, and then we got to pet him and another pimply-faced* kid took pictures.

jett insists the camel was named carl

we finally made it back out of the zoo and to our car. alas! the tire was flat. we put on the spare tire without fighting and, without fighting, decided that we would try to find a new tire before we left memphis. we did all of this without fighting.** we ended up finding a firestone that stayed open late for us so we could get back home safely without having to stay another night. also, it was in the ghetto and we were very scared.

another day, another adventure!

*i had more pimples than either of the aforementioned high school boys.

**we were fighting.

day six

almost running behind here on day six!

today i shall write about our adventure to the beach. jett's family took a vacation down to florida this past summer and invited us to join them. we, of course, had no time off work left. so we decided hey! we will just take that thursday (and friday for jett since he's non-dental/non-awesome) and drive down for the weekend! we decided to leave on wednesday night and drive through the night, spend thursday, friday and saturday there, and return home on sunday.

remember how easy it was taking a road trip overnight when you were a kid? you'd all pile in the car and dad would drive you to your destination in what seemed like no time at all. way cooler than having to wake up early and hit the road! you know why it was so easy? because you, little one, were asleep.

this was one of the first moments that i came to terms with the fact that i'm not quite as invincible as i once was (rather, once believed i was). twenty year old mallory would have been able to drive from 8:00pm to 7:00am with no real problem. maybe a one hour catnap and back to normal! twenty four year old mallory needs more sleep than that, friends.

here we are, taking off for the beach! oh my! so exciting! it doesn't even matter that i am halfway through a long workweek and i woke up at six this morning. beach time, baby!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand eleven hours later, after several hours of blaring electronica music to stay awake and  of asking "where the f**k is florida and why is it so far away?" (sorry for the implied language, just trying to be realistic).

we were fortunate enough to stay at the most BEAUTIFUL beach house in watercolor. whatever turmoil we went through to actually get to florida was completely worth it. the house was the closest that you can legally be to the beach... and i am alright with that. plus we are married now so we got our own room instead of having to sleep on separate couches or something lame.

view from the balcony

day one consisted entirely of laying on the beach under an umbrella for me. jett insisted on spending the entire day "snorkeling" by the sand bar. as a girl, i don't get it. my job is to be on the beach, MAYBE to get a tan, and definitely to read a book (abraham lincoln: vampire hunter to be exact). not for snorting salt water up your nose. but whatevs, he brought me treasures from the deep.

hard at work

day two was spent riding bikes to and around seaside (which, oddly enough, is a huge fear of mine). we spent a good chunk of the day reading and overbuying books at sun dog and listening to records upstairs at central square records. we had overpriced hotdogs and delicious snowcones out of airstream trailers in the square. we were wildly out of place, but we had a blast nonetheless.

one of the best parts about the beach in my eyes is the lack of adventure. we spend so much time playing as hard as humanly possible that it was really nice to lay back and have a lazy (albeit 640 miles away from home) weekend. we spent our third day doing just that: sunning and reading. snorkeling and sunburning. snacking and napping. blissful.

the happiest

beautiful sunset

we ate some delicious food, we rested, we laughed with the family (i have the best in-laws ever), we watched pride and prejudice. we dominated you, beach. alas, the time to drive home arrived and we reluctantly left the family and headed back to real life. it was a fun little getaway and we are hoping to get back this summer.

bye, beach!

laid back post for a laid back adventure. building up for a big adventure in the next few days...

day five

day five: coldplay

it has come to my attention that by "memories" i obviously meant "trips" because we are quite mobile as a couple. we both have a strong desire to travel and are trying our hardest to take as many fun trips and weekend getaways as we can afford (and some we can't quite afford...) also, most of those trips involve concerts because it's an easy way to make a plan and not try to put the trip off when it comes around. making time for each other is important!

okay, this really will be a short post this time.

a few weeks after we returned from wakarusa, we took a trip to dallas to see coldplay. earlier that year, when the tickets went on sale, my dear friend kelley invited me to see coldplay with her. we decided that we would just get the most expensive tickets available (we were newly employed graduates) and see where that got us. we also decided that we would bring jett since he was my new husband and whatnot. so, when the day arrived that the tickets went on sale, we scrambled online and ended up with mediocre seats, but hey! seats nonetheless!

kelley, jett, and i drove to dallas on one saturday morning, so excited to see such a large production. i had seen coldplay once before but it was a bit of a drab experience, so i was ready to see them in all their glory. it was quite the stark difference from dancing in a field with a bunch of hippies just a few weeks before. poor jett followed kelley and i around urban outfitters that afternoon before we settled into our hotel room and got all ready to go. (disclaimer: photos are crappy because i took them with my iphone. sorry not sorry.)

isn't he seriously the cutest?

we took a taxi to the american airlines center, watched robyn open the show (WHICH WAS AMAZING), and patiently waited for coldplay to come on stage.

good ol' robyn just dancin' on her own

for those of you that didn't get a chance to see coldplay on this tour, they handed out these wristbands when you walked in the door and didn't tell you anything about them. they had a twitter hashtag on them so i just assumed it was some promo deal.

see? wristbands.

right as the lights when down, letting us know the time was nigh, they instructed us to make sure our wristbands were on. then, as coldplay took to the stage and started playing, everyone's wristband lit up in different colors all the way around the stadium and flashed to the beat of the music. it was the coolest. thing. i. have. ever. seen. needless to say, there was a lot of screaming and subsequent dancing involved. this video is really nauseating because i can't ever stop dancing long enough to get a decent video, but here's a little idea of how the wristbands worked if you're interested.

if you have never been to a big concert before, i seriously encourage you to save up and find a band that's worth it for you. the production value of these concerts is just unparalleled and there is no way you can get a taste of it without being in the middle of it. here is another video (i know this is boring) of "lovers in japan" and the fun effects that went along with that one. 

like i said, there's just no way to explain this one to you, but it still stands as one of my favorite memories. plus, it started the concert trio that is kelley + the ricks family and we will strike again late this summer (gentlemen of the road, anyone?).

post-concert sweatiness

worn out, y'all

sorry for the boring post. if you don't like it, quit reading my blog!

another one tomorrow, of course.