Down the Rabbit Hole!

Yesterday Benworth and my friends Becca, Clint, Derek, and I went to Peppersauce Cave in Oracle, AZ. Before embarking on this trip, I had never even heard of Oracle, (let alone Peppersauce Cave), but both Benworth and Clint said they had been there multiple times, so we camped out near the cave Friday night, and headed in at about 9:30 Saturday morning.

I had never been in a cave before, so I was pretty excited! There's about a mile of passages you can go through, but only half is shown on the official map outside the entrance. There's one big room that has a few passages leading off it (including one that leads to a lake), but the one we followed (after taking a slippery, muddy ladder down) was called the Rabbit Hole, named because of the size and the necessity to go through head first. It was pretty dusty for the most part, which was nicer than a ton of mud, which Clint said is how the cave usually is. About two-thirds of the way through, I started feeling a little dizzy and kind of shaky, and I sat down for a little bit while the rest went through a particularly tight tunnel to explore a little more. The passage eventually looped back to where I was, so we continued down another path until I started having trouble breathing (I'm guessing a combination of heat + dust), and I had to pause again.

We eventually made it to the Signing Room, which is pretty much the endpoint of the passage, and signed one of the many little notebooks in the room. We took a longer break here to eat some snacks and talk, including to turn off all our lights to try and scare each other with stories.

What was weirdest about being inside the caves was when we turned off all the lights and let it just be pitch-black...even with absolutely no light source, my eyes still had these kind of gray images of where I thought the walls had been, and where different rocks were, but the shapes were only there when I had my eyes open. I think my brain was just completely weirded out by the fact that I couldn't see anything...usually in the dark your eyes adjust and you can see some things, right, but in this instance it was just so completely dark my brain was trying to create images anyway. Or maybe that was just the heat exhaustion talking.

Anyway, we made it back out (roughly five hours later), had a quick lunch, and headed home.

I'm super sore today, and despite getting a little sick in the middle of it, I had an awesome time!

Water You Doing?!

  For some reason, I've been doing more outdoors-y stuff in the last two months than I've probably ever done in my life. It started when our ward had a weekend campout near Payson, and Saturday morning a few of us decided to drive out to a place called Water Wheel (Waterwheel? I don't even know) for some hiking and...cliff jumping. I am a little bit terrified of heights, but I was game to try jumping anyway....that is, until we actually got in the water and it was freezing. Like,  'it's hard to breathe and everything gets numb and you struggle to swim just five feet' cold.  I have never felt so cold in my life. I quickly decided against cliff jumping and just sat with my friend Michelle on the sidelines to cheer on those brave/dumb enough to jump in and climb back out repeatedly.

Becca, Clint, and Michelle (They'll probably be featured on my blog a lot. Clint hadn't slept well in his tent so I offered to let him nap in the truck while we had breakfast, but then we stayed to bug him anyway)

Later, we hiked a little farther to a shallower pool with a mini waterfall that wasn't quite so cold, and hung around there for a while before a storm started moving in and we all drove back home.

That next week for Labor Day weekend, Becca, Clint, Benworth and I went to Canyon Lake to cliff jump again, and this time the water was far less cold and I actually cliff jumped this time! Unfortunately, no pictures, as the cliff we jumped from was really just a tall rock in the middle of the lake, and we had to swim out there to reach it. Not really ideal for bringing a camera....

Anyway, the 'cliff' was just about twenty feet tall, and it was pretty fun to jump off of, except for when I unexpectedly touched the bottom with my feet and it was incredibly squishy. We went again on Monday, this time with Benworth's younger brother Brandon and their sailboat!

Clint, Brandon, my disembodied legs, Benworth

Benworth and Becca! Everybody was stylin' bandannas that day

We did a little cliff jumping again, but, more importantly, I learned how to sail! It was kind of intimidating and difficult to do with very little wind (and I accidentally tipped the boat over at one point) but it was fun! Jury's still out on whether I'll ever do it again, though. After thoroughly exhausting ourselves, we decided it would be a great idea to go tubing on the Salt River. Becca had borrowed a huge raft for us all, since we had been debating about going, but by the time we got going it was nearly six and we quickly decided we had better get out before it got too dark. So Benworth and Brandon hitched a ride back to the parking lot, while Becca, Clint, and I waited by the side of the road, trying to deflate the raft. Luckily, we didn't run into any trouble, and we got back into our car just as it was getting too dark.

The four of us (plus Michelle and our other friend Bryce) are planning to go camping at some property Becca's family has near the White Mountains next weekend, so I'm pretty excited for that! :)

New York Minute

Last month, during the first week of August, I traveled again to Ohio to meet up with Jordan Myszka, and from there, the two of us drove to my other roommate Jorden's dad's wedding in new York. I flew up on the first, and stayed in the house Jordan was babysitting a dog at that night.

Lily, the dog being babysat. Couldn't close her mouth all the way and snored worse than anyone I've ever met!

The next day we started our nine hour drive to Watertown, New York, early in the morning. Our trip was fairly uneventful; we made good time, at least until about two in the afternoon, when there was a steady, seemingly unending downpour of rain for the next two hours and traffic slowed to about forty miles an hour (if we were lucky). About forty minutes from the campsite where the wedding and reception were being held (right next to Lake Ontario!), the sky suddenly cleared and Jordan and I were treated to some lovely views of the countryside of upstate New York

Anyway, once we got there we went to the rehearsal dinner and enjoyed hanging out with Jorden and her boyfriend playing games.The next day was the wedding, which was held outdoors, and then of course, the reception! It was pretty nice.

Jordan told me to make a "dramatic" pose...I am a little ashamed that this is all I came up with.

The next day, we drove to Jorden and her boyfriend's apartment, and mostly did a lot of hanging out and watching movies, with Jorden promising that the next day would be way more exciting.

On the fifth of August, we drove to Alexandria Bay and the 1000 Islands. There we did a little window shopping, but the main attraction was the 'Two Nations Boat Tour' that took us around the 1000 Islands and talked about the mansions there. 

As the name suggested, this boat tour did take us to another nation...Canada!

Looks a lot like America.

After briefly boating through Canadian waters, we returned to one of the larger islands. Heart Island is home to Boldt Castle, and the three of us disembarked there to tour the rooms. 

According to our tour guide, Boldt was a wealthy hotel entrepreneur who bought this island and began building this mansion for his beloved wife. She died unexpectedly, a few weeks before he was to give her the castle, and Boldt immediately ordered all production efforts to be stopped immediately. To this day, the castle remains unfinished in tribute to Boldt's wife.

When we heard that story, I imagined that maybe just a couple of the rooms would be unfinished, but it most of the rooms were not even close to being completed. I think maybe a total of 5 of the 120 rooms were furnished/finished. There was even a half-filled pool in the basement, surrounded by bare brick columns and half-plastered walls. It was pretty cool to see, but kind of depressing as well, as every single one of the unfinished rooms were covered in graffiti. There were many signs throughout the castle prohibiting graffiti, but years of tourists had clearly ignored the warning. A few of the writings were spray-painted, but mostly the walls (and even ceiling in some places) were clumsily scribbled on with any writing tool tourists happened to have; some had even painstakingly carved pairs of initials with a heart between them in the concrete. Jorden expressed that she thought those who wrote romantic things or expressions of love to their significant other were cute, considering the story of the castle. I sort of agree, but I have to wonder what the person who scrawled 'Lady Gaga' repeatedly on one wall was thinking.  What was the point?

Afterwards, we headed back to Jorden's apartment and had dinner with her mom. On our last day in New York, the three of us (plus Jorden's mom) decided to hike Salmon River Falls.

Don't worry...I was definitely sitting down when I took this picture. I'm not THAT brave.

Pretty cool! I had never been to the top of a waterfall like that...there wasn't a lot of water, but it was still awesome to see. A little scary as well, as the bottom was so shallow we could see the rocks underneath the water. After that, Jordan and I parted ways from Jorden and her mom, and started to drive back to Buffalo (where we would be staying for the night with Jordan's grandmother).

The weather was beautiful up there, and although I didn't get to visit Palmyra (though we passed signs on the way up) like Dad kept bugging me to (;P), I had an awesome time! I'm definitely blessed to fly free so I can see my roommates so often!

Hello Ohio!

    So, last week, before I officially started my new job at Guthrie, I decided to take a trip to visit one of my old Disney roommates, Jordan! Jordan lives in Dayton, Ohio, about fifteen minutes from the border of Kentucky. I had never been to Ohio before, so I figured, why not?

You may recognize Jordan from my Disney pics...she worked at Wilderness Lodge!

I flew out on 13th at 5:25 in the morning (ugh), and, after a brief stop in North Carolina, arrived in Dayton around 3:35. Jordan picked me up and she gave me a brief tour of the town before we got to her house. The first night we just hung around her house, which I was perfectly fine with around running around (sometimes literally) a couple airports all day.

The next day we decided to go to the Columbus shopping center (about an hour away) and to a giant indoor trampoline park called SkyZone (identical to Jump Street here in AZ). The shopping center was pretty cool; it had the fanciest AMC theatre entrance I've ever seen in my life

Very art deco

 And I found the best pair of glasses ever...

 

If I could grow a mustache like that I totally would

We hung around there for a while, then headed off to SkyZone, which was pretty fun, but we agreed it probably would have been more fun if we had had a larger group and had been able to play dodgeball. We drove back to Jordan's house and I insisted we ate dinner outside because it was so pretty!

How is that grass real?!?

Seriously, the weather was so nice while I was there; 70s-low 80s all week. Perfect! But later on I got a little chilly, so I had to put on a couple of Jordan's scarves..

Or, y'know, all of them....

The next day, we drove to an amusement park called Kings Island, home to the world's longest wooden rollercoaster (it also used to be home to the world's tallest and fastest wooden rollercoaster, but it was recently torn down).

This is the scariest thing I have ever ridden. You load in it normally, but then it lays you on your back and you ride up the first lift on your back, only to have it flip you over so you're facing the ground for the whole rollercoaster. I thought I was going to die.

Before the terror.

Again, going to a theme park after working for Disney is pretty weird. Obviously, Kings Island is much smaller, so it can't be held to the same kind of standard, but I really noticed a lot of details I know I would have never cared about had I not worked in Florida. At one point, Jordan and I were waiting to board the next train on a rollercoaster, and there was a worker just being generally friendly and chatting everyone up. He asked if Jordan and I went to theme parks a lot, and we just kind of looked at each other and laughed, and had to explain to the dude that we had just worked at one last year. He kinda stopped talking to us after that...


We got there pretty much right as the park opened, so we got done at around one in the afternoon. Jordan didn't particularly feel like going home just yet, so we stopped for some lunch, and then she asked if I wanted to go to Kentucky! Living just fifteen minutes or so from an entirely new state is definitely a weird concept to me, so we decided to go for it.

Proof!

There wasn't much to do in Kentucky...we debated about going to a popular aquarium that was about half an hour away, but we both agreed we had had enough of walking that day.

So we decided to go to Indiana instead.

How could I say no?

We spent even less time in Indiana (really, we just went so we could say I visited three different states in one day); I took the picture and we made a U-turn straight back to Dayton. Pretty fun, though!

On my last day in Ohio we went to see The Great Gatsby and eat some really good frozen yogurt.

 

Afterwards, Jordan, her three sisters, and I went to a graduation party for a couple girls they knew. Jordan had informed me earlier that graduation parties were a pretty big deal in Dayton, but I definitely was not prepared for the sheer amount of people/food this graduation party had. It looked more like a family reunion than a graduation party.

Granted, there were about four girls celebrating together, but even still....the event was held on this farm/park thing (I would just call it a park, but there were like...two story barns you could rent out and there were gazebos and balloon arches....it was nuts), and it seemed like half the crowd was adults, and half the crowd teenagers. Weird stuff.

Anyway, the next day we had to get up super early again so Jordan could get me to the airport, and once again I got incredibly lucky and was able to get on both the flights I needed to get straight back to Arizona. I'm really glad I was able to visit Jordan before my job starts (starts today, actually!); not sure how much traveling I'll be doing now that I'm working/starting a class in July.

Work, Play, Working on a Play

        I realized in my last post that I forgot to mention the day after I got back from Disneyland, I started my new job at Starbucks! So far it's been a little stressful, but definitely getting better every day. I would have never thought that making drinks for people could get so absurdly complicated. There seems to be at least four variations of every drink we have, and sometimes customers insists on calling them bizarre names that we don't call them a and therefore require a lot of patience when trying to figure out exactly what they mean. For example, a mocha with both white and regular mocha sauce can also apparently be called a black & white mocha, a zebra mocha, penguin mocha, Oreo mocha....you get the idea. And just today I learned what this lady meant when she ordered an 'Arnold Palmer' (which is just an iced black tea lemonade, although I also learned that those aren't really called 'Arnold Palmers'), and when this one dude ordered a caramel macchiato he really means a triple shot vanilla cappuccino affogato style dry with caramel on top (do you see what I mean?!?).

    It also happens to be the lowest paying job I've ever had, and since I'm trying to move to Utah next winter, it's been a struggle to save money, and ok, I'll admit it; it's also because I really don't enjoy working at Starbucks. Obviously this isn't reason enough to leave immediately, but it certainly has motivated me into looking for other jobs. And yes, I know I don't have to necessarily have fun at every place that I work, but I've never dreaded going to work like I often do at Starbucks. However, it does get easier every day, so I may just end up keeping the Starbucks job as well (if I ever DO get a second job).

Good. Now that I feel like I've validated that I can make adult decisions (shock!), I have more cheerful things to talk about; I've been cast in a play! This also happened early in March...I'm already a part of the costume/makeup/wigs design/construction team, but one of the professors asked me to audition, and I was given a role!

It's for the play The Cripple of Inishmaan, set on a tiny Irish island in the 1930s. I play a sixty-something year old woman (one of two). There's only nine characters, so everyone has a fairly good role.  It's both hilarious and fairly tragic; I really like it! It's been pretty intense having rehearsals every night and work every morning (plus class in between, obviously) and there are days where I just wish I had enough time to take a nap or five, but it's worth it.

Anyway, I'm still trying to see if I can become a seasonal Cast Member at Disneyland instead of World...trying to figure out transportation even if I stayed in a hotel in Florida is super tricky...I'd need to go to both Disney University (behind Magic Kingdom) and Animal Kingdom Costuming while I'm there, and the resort buses definitely don't go there. Ah well. Guess we'll see.

This is a pretty boring blog update, I'm afraid, but life right now is literally just Work->Class->Rehearsal->Sleep lately, with maybe two hours in between at the most.  On the days I don't have rehearsal I'm doing homework or trying to catch up on sleep, which I may soon have even less of; I have a second job interview with a company called Guthrie Mainstream Services. It provides learning programs and care/activities for all people of all ages with disabilities. Their children's center is just down the road from us, so I'm hoping I can get a job over there in time for their summer program.  Depending on the hours (During weekdays, Guthrie's only open until 6, so hopefully I wouldn't have too many late nights), I'm going to try and have two jobs for a while.

This blog post is kinda all over the place, but in my defense, I have been awake for an absurdly long time.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures next time....our play opens in two weeks!

A Disneyland adventure!

    I know, I know....little more than a month after leaving Disney, I go again?? What can I say? You can take the girl out of Disney....(but she'll remember that she can get in free to any Disney park around the world and will find some way to go again ;]).


Anyway, right at the end of my college program, my friend Andrew and I became seasonal Cast Members, which means we can also get into Disneyland for free. Since  he doesn't live too far away (he goes to school at the University of Reno), and I have a relative that lives very very close to Disneyland (thanks, Aunt Judy!!), we decided a Disneyland trip together was definitely a necessity.

 

Andrew and Eric. I told them to look excited; you be the judge of how well they accomplished that

 

Fast forward to last weekend, when we actually made that trip! We had debated going over the holiday weekend, but we decided it would probably be a lot more crowded, and we figured a not-so-crowded day and a half was better than a jam-packed two and a half days. I don't have classes on Fridays, and since I fly free (gotta take advantage of that whenever possible), we decided I would fly in to Reno, and then we would make the 8 hour journey to California. Along the way, Andrew's friend Eric was added to our plans to help with the driving (because Andrew hates driving and also so I wouldn't murder Andrew) sidenote: Eric didn't do the college program; he and Andrew are engineering majors together. Andrew also made him pick me up from the airport since Andrew had class, even though we had never met. Awkward.

 Luckily, Eric is a super nice dude, so he picked me up from the airport at about noon and we went and got sandwiches while we waited for Andrew to get out of class. From there, we made a quick stop at Andrew's parents' house to get an umbrella and see his new puppy, and then we were off!

Eric drove for the first few hours while Andrew controlled the music and we did Disney trivia for about 45 minutes before getting bored with it.   The drive down was pretty uneventful, minus the HUGE AMOUNTS OF SNOW  we first encountered while in northern California. It was pretty ridiculous, but we never had to put chains on and it cleared up after about an hour. We stopped for lunch (where I offered about six times to take over), and then Andrew took over to drive the rest of the way. 


We arrived at Aunt Judy's at about 11, then took a quick tour of the house before immediately falling asleep because we wanted to get up at 6 so we could be there for the 8 AM park opening. We started off the next morning a little late, but got to the parks fine.Chip, Dale, and Cruella de Ville (strangest combination) were hanging around Main Street, so we took pictures with them before Andrew ran off with our tickets to grab Space Mountain Fastpasses and I wandered around Main Street dragging Eric behind me and saying how short  everything looked. Seriously. After seeing majestic Cinderella's Castle practically every day, Sleeping Beauty's abode is tiny. It just kinda looked like a really large, absurdly fancy house.

See what I mean??

 Eric and I ran over to Indiana Jones first (because that's the BEST RIDE and one they don't have at Disney World :[ ) to wait for Andrew. In the meantime, we ran up Tarzan's Treehouse because it was literally right next to Indiana Jones, and by the time we were done Andrew was back and we were able to finally go in to Indy....only to reach the loading area and hear that the ride has already broken down. So much for that!

We headed for Pirates of the Caribbean, since it was also close, and I will freely admit their Pirates is WAY BETTER than WDW's (minus the fact that they don't have the new mermaids, which are actually super rad in my opinion. And their queue isn't as cool, but I digress...). We hit up all the rides that aren't in Disney World (Matterhorn, I've missed you!), and enjoyed Disneyland's far superior Space Mountain, and then we decided to head over to California Adventure.


It's been about three and a half years since I've been to Disneyland/CA Adventure, and a LOT has changed over in CA. The entire front half of the park has been redone to resemble 1920's California, as Walt Disney would have seen it when he first moved there to start a film studio. It reminds me a lot of Hollywood Studios in WDW, but obviously much newer and it's super pretty! And, of course, they've added an entirely new area; Cars Land!

I had to deal with two tall dudes trying to get into every other picture I took

 I

This ride uses magnets to whip poor unsuspecting riders violently about. We managed to fit all three of us in one of those seats. It was probably not the best idea.

It was amazing  how much detail was put into this area; it really was like walking into the movie....it was pretty incredible at night with all the neon and I thought I took a picture, but apparently not. So I found one online.

Oooh...aaaaah

This was also around the time we ran into Jared! He was in Disneyland with a few of his friends, but he hung out with me and the two weirdos for a couple of rides. We went on Tower of Tower, and the main ride in Cars Land, Radiator Springs Racers! It had been a really long time since I'd seen Jared (way before my college program), so it was really nice to catch up and talk about past Disneyland trips with the family.

As you may have seen on Facebook, we also spent quite a bit of time hunting for characters, which I had never done before, even in WDW! For some reason, it became Andrew's main goal to meet as many obscure characters as we possibly could for the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday (I don't even want to talk about how long we wasted hunting down Pinocchio only to never find him!). I don't mind taking pictures with characters, especially when you just sort of stumble on them (we ran into Sulley on a random corner after riding Tower of Terror), but rides are definitely a priority of mine.

We spent quite a lot of time talking to Merida, and her brothers! The bears behind us actually moved and growled; so cute!

A visit with the boss is always necessary. Look at his cute little 1920s outfit!

One of the few times I get to feel short

 

We were also joined by Kevin and Kelina (both of them worked at Pirates during my DCP)

I think this is the moment where Andrew was telling Merida that he was considering becoming an archer, but then decided it had too many 'drawbacks'... Merida is making the same face I make when he starts into his Jungle Cruise jokes.

Our posing was all over the place in this one. Oh well.

Ok, it is really fun meeting characters, but not when it takes away from Indiana Jones time!

We spent most of the evening in California Adventure, where we watched World of Color (aka the BEST SHOW EVER); I didn't take any pictures during this one because I was too busy gasping in awe every three seconds.

Like the fountains at the Bellagio...but with Disney MAGIC.

 It was amazing and we ran around for a little while afterwords until the park closed at 11, then returned to Aunt Judy's and immediately fell asleep again, since we'd be doing the exact same thing the next day, except then having to drive back to Reno at four.

So we got up bright and early to spend a few hours in the park; re-riding our favorites and  hunting down more characters. We left promptly at about four, and started back towards Reno. Andrew needed to do some homework, so we decided Eric and I would drive back while Andrew worked (what really happened was Andrew decided to sleep instead, so he could stay up and work once we got to Reno while Eric and I slept). The drive back was pretty uneventful....Eric and I talked about our majors until we woke Andrew up to take a dinner break about 3 hours in. I took over from there, and Andrew stayed awake to talk with us while I drove. It started snowing about an hour and a half from Andrew's parents' house (where we decided to sleep since it was closer than Andrew's apartment), and Eric took over from there, since I have never driven in snow and I didn't want to kill us.
We didn't run into any trouble, and arrived in Minden, NV at about 1:30 in the morning, where Eric and I promptly crashed on some air mattresses and Andrew stayed awake to do engineer things. We all woke up bright and early at seven to make sure I could get to my flight on time and say goodbye.

We're planning to go again, of course, in April (gotta take advantage of free entrance!). Overall, it was a little bit exhausting but lots of fun and it was super fun to experience that Disney magic again. Obviously Andrew and I spent a lot of time talking about how different everything was, how easy it was to experience pretty much all of Disneyland and California Adventure in just two days, which would be impossible in WDW. Characters seemed to have a lot more freedom as well; when we first saw Chip and Dale in Main Street on our first day, they didn't have any sort of character attendant, which would be unheard of in WDW. I've heard a lot that Disneyland usually gets returning visitors (Annual Passholders and whatever), while Disney World gets a lot of first-timers, and I think that difference really shows. Disneyland always has to look for new ways to entertain the returning visitors, while Disney World tries to maintain the classics so they'll always be there for the new guests. At the same time, I think guests are way less frustrating in Disneyland, because everyone knows how a Fastpass works there ;)